The game not the actual Army lol.
After 20 years of operation, the servers for America’s Army are shutting down. The news comes straight from a post made by the US army on the game’s forum that all support for the current iteration of the game, America’s Army: Proving Grounds, will end on May 5th, and the official servers will shut down.
On May 5th, 2022, support and official servers for America’s Army: Proving Grounds will be shut down. All online services for America’s Army: Proving Grounds on the PlayStation™Network will discontinue.
America’s Army first launched in 2002, as a promotional tool for the US Army. The free-to-play game was a tactical shooter — the twist was, it also featured a lot of the more mundane aspects of military life; medical training, weapons system management, driving vehicles. It also, regardless of what team you’re on, displayed the player’s side as the US Army, while opponents were always a generic faction.
It got a number of sequels over the years, and also its fair share of criticism. Including an entire song written in protest by Canadian punk band Propagandhi from 2005, still hosted on an accessible website to this day.
Regardless, the game was successful in its aim. Per a 2008 MIT study:
30 percent of all Americans age 16 to 24 had a more positive impression of the Army because of the game and, even more amazingly, the game had more impact on recruits than all other forms of Army advertising combined.
That said, its popularity has been on the wane. America’s Army: Proving Grounds launched in 2013, and a new sequel was since considered. But it seems avenues such as streaming and eSports have eclipsed the game.
That said, America’s Army: Proving Grounds is still being played. Per Steam Charts, the game still gets somewhere between 200~350 players on average. And while the servers will be going down less than halfway through the year, private servers as well as any offline content will still be available.
Source: PC Gamer
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