The original America's Army released all the way back in 2002 as a recruitment tool for, unsurprisingly, the U.S. Army. What did come as quite a surprise is that the game itself was actually really good, so much so that even I ended up taking a break from my then-beloved Team Fortress 2 in order to focus on it for a few months!

After the success of the original, the developers then continued to expand the series with new spin-offs and sequels, the last of which launched in 2015. A fifth mainline game was also supposedly in development, but judging by the recent announcement it looks like the future of that one might not be so bright.

According to a brief update on the America's Army forums, the official servers for the latest game in the series, America’s Army: Proving Grounds, will be shutting down on May 5, 2022. It's not all bad news, however, as privately owned servers, the mission editor and offline features will continue working as normal.

"The free-to-play America’s Army PC Game represented the first large-scale use of game technology by the U.S. government as a platform for strategic communication and recruitment, and the first use of game technology in support of U.S. Army recruiting," reads the announcement. "Three mainline titles and more than 20 million AA players later, the series’ original purpose continued."

"There have been over 30 million objectives completed, 180 million successful missions accomplished, 250 million teammates assisted, and many more in-game achievements attained in AA:PG alone. As time has passed and AA has fulfilled its mission, it is time to shift our focus to other new and innovative ways to assist the Army with comms and recruitment."

You can learn more about the America's Army series, as well as the details behind the shutdown, over at the official website. And if you're planning to give America’s Army: Proving Grounds a try, this would probably be the best time to do so as the servers will likely have a fair few new players running around.

Have fun, and I'll leave you with one of the gameplay trailers: