Remember back in 2011 when Activision’s ambitious online service dedicated to the Call of Duty franchise and its players was going to be the best thing ever? It’s shutting down forever on 28 February 2014. That’s skull logo has never been more appropriate.
Clans and stat-tracking and advanced matchmaking and original comedy programming! All of these were things that would make Call of Duty: Elite the most successful social networking platform since Facebook. But the comedy fell flat, the service launched broken and incomplete, and the excitement faded away.
Meant as a platform to carry the Call of Duty franchise into the future, the Elite service lasted through three games. It launched with Modern Warfare 3, went completely free with Black Ops II, and then things sort of fizzled out. Activision took the best of Elite, packed it into the new Call of Duty app app along with some fresh new features, and began turning off the lights.
On 28 February, at around 1pm Eastern (29 February, 5am ADST), Elite will close. Clans and clan rewards created with the service will disappear. Modern Warfare 3 and Black Ops II stats will still be available in-game, but without Elite what is the point?
Check out Activision’s Elite Shutdown FAQ for more info on the closure.
Good night, little skull logo.
Comments
13 responses to “Call Of Duty: Elite Shuts Down On Friday. It’s OK To Cry.”
29th of February?
lol.
Shouldn’t it say 1st March, 5am ADST?
2014 isn’t a leap year.
Did anybody actually use it?
I have MW3, Blops 2 and follow Kotaku avidly and have done for years and I honestly just heard about this service. Clearly their marketing department leaves much to be desired.
It came with my whatever it was called edition of MW3, I signed up for it and that was it. I completely forgot about it. Doesn’t help the fact that I couldn’t last longer then 3 hours in multiplayer before getting bored.
I was constantly reminded in Black Ops 2 (a game I did play) and I just kept ignoring it.
Yeah I got MW3 for 66% off on Steam and the same for Black Ops 2, still my most regretted purchases.
Black Ops 2 is worth it. Especially after MW3.
Can I laugh instead?
Explains why I had no gold clan tags and no access to Elite after having to download an update for Black Ops II last night. Oh well.
Wait, this was a thing for REAL????
As one of those horrible people who love stats in any game be it rpg or fps I do sort of feel bad. Then I think of all those destitute Cod fanboys and all I can do is smile
Haha! Destitute is a great word. Never thought of it but it’s strangely fitting.
So this was CoD’s version of Halo Waypoint and I guess Battlefield Premium (I don’t know much about that either), right? I wonder why they abandoned it when they obviously have so many titles in the works. Couldn’t get cross-platform stuff to work?