Another blow to Nintendo 3DS players will be experienced before the start of 2017. Nintendo has just announced that the multiplayer feature for the game Metroid Prime will be discontinued before the New Year begins. Metroid Prime: Federation Force is an exclusive title for Nintendo 3DS.

In an announcement that saddened the Nintendo 3DS player community, Nintendo said that the Blast Ball demo, the multiplayer feature of Nintendo's Metroid Prime: Federation Force will be discontinued this December 31, 2016 just before the clock strikes midnight Pacific Standard Time (PST). The company also, in the same announcement, thanked all the Nintendo 3DS players for their continued support for the Metroid Prime Nintendo game.

With the recent announcement from Nintendo, looks like Nintendo 3DS players who are avid players of the Blast Ball free demo game will be greeting the coming New Year with a heavy heart. Although the announcement of the discontinuance of the Blast Ball free demo was sudden, it did not come as a surprise for players of the Nintendo 3DS game.

When the Blast Ball demo of the Metroid Prime: Federation Force Nintendo 3DS game was released, Nintendo has already set its shutdown date to September 2016. However, the September shutdown date was postponed. When the game was made available on July 2016 at the Nintendo 3DS eShop, the Blast Ball free demo was only released to allow Nintendo 3DS players experience the multiplayer game online for free and for a limited time.

The Blast Ball demo allowed Nintendo 3DS players to play the multiplayer mode of the Metroid Prime: Federation Force Nintendo 3DS game online. The shutting down of the servers of the Blast Ball demo would mean the multiplayer game mode may no longer be played. However, the shutting down of the Blast Ball demo online servers will not affect the local multiplayer and offline features of the game.