2K Sports is delisting a WWE game and an NBA game later this month, then shutting both down in July

2K Sports has announced that it will be delisting two of its games later this month, then shutting their servers down in the summer.

As spotted by Delisted Games, 2K has quietly updated the digital store pages of WWE 2K Battlegrounds and NBA 2K Playgrounds 2, informing players that they will soon be removed from the store.

According to the statement both games will be delisted from digital storefronts on February 26.

After this date, players who own them will be able to continue playing and redownloading them, but 2K says their online servers will then shut down on July 9.

“After that time, all game functions requiring online servers will no longer function,” the statement reads.

While both games do have offline single-player modes, 2K often ties unlockables to its online servers, because players usually get the option to buy extra content with real money, or grind in-game coins to get them.

It’s likely, then, that while WWE 2K Battlegrounds will still allow players to continue playing offline, it may no longer allow them to unlock new characters with the coins they collect in-game, because it uses the online servers to make this transaction.

Similarly, NBA 2K Playgrounds 2 has players unlocking new characters by buying packs with either real money or in-game currency, meaning it’s also unlikely this will be possible after July 9.

WWE 2K Battlegrounds was released in 2020 and offered a more arcade-like wrestling game than the main simulation-focused WWE 2K series. The game’s roster was portrayed as action figure versions of their real-life counterparts, allowing for over-the-top moves.

NBA 2K Playgrounds 2 was released earlier in 2018, and was an arcade-style two-on-two basketball game similar to the NBA Jam series, allowing players to unlock licensed NBA players from the past and present.