Battlefield 2 and Battlefield 1942 are two of the most influential PC games ever made.
Back in 2002, Battlefield 1942 revolutionized team warfare games while Battlefield 2 perfected the genre with popular maps like Strike at Karkand, Mashtuur City, Dalian Plant, and many more.
That era may soon be over. GameSpy is shutting down and that means many games that used the GameSpy online matchmaking service will no longer support multiplayer.
Among those games are Battlefield 1942, Battlefield 2, and Battlefield 2142.
On May 31, GameSpy is officially shutting down and dropping online functionality for all games. Fortunately, the Battlefield player community is still strong and has rallied behind the cause of creating an alternative matchmaking/server browsing service.
One of the largest bastions for Battlefield 1942 support is found at the BF1942.sk forums. Members of those forums are working on a replacement master server list which is currently in beta testing.
It’s an open beta and everyone is encouraged to follow these instructions to test the server software.
BF1942.sk is working purely on a Battlefield 1942 server replacement and is not focused on other games at this time.
Battlefield 2, on the other hand, is being salvaged by Blue Entertainment, which is developing its own ranking system, login server, and hosting solution. You can find reports of their progress at ReviveBF2.com.
ReviveBF2.com hopes to be up and running by the time the Battlefield 2 servers go down. Instead of just creating a server ranking system that salvages the old system, ReviveBF2.com aims to totally replicate the original system and even improve on it in many respects.
Two years ago, EA released Battlefield 1942 for free as part of the ten year anniversary of the game. When I jumped back into play it, I joined thousands of other free players connecting over maps I knew like the back of my hand. It was the most nostalgic gaming experience I’ve had and, since then, I still jump into Battlefield 1942 from time to time.
The free ride is over: if we want to play multiplayer Battlefield 1942 at some point in the future, then we need to rally together today. Because EA is certainly not doing it for us.
Oh, and fans of Star Wars Battlefront II and Halo Combat Evolved will be pleased to note that GameRanger is saving both popular games.
