EA's Access service is losing its first game, for undisclosed reasons

This week EA Access, Electronic Arts' game library subscription service, is losing its first game: FIFA 14.

It's an interesting development because when EA launched Access on Xbox One in 2014 with a library of games for subscribers to download and play, a producer on the project told Kotaku that once games were added to the Access "Vault", they would never be removed -- barring unforeseen complications.

Such a complication seems to have cropped up, but EA has been less than forthcoming with the details. Back in July the company announced plans to shut down online services for FIFA 14 (which was released four years ago) and remove it from the Vault, but gave no reason why.

More recently, an EA representative told Polygon that "FIFA 14 is being removed from the Vault due to a unique circumstance specific to the title."

In the years since it debuted EA Access (and its sibling, the PC game service Origin Access) has become a key piece of EA's live services business, which has in turn helped lift the company's fortunes.