Electronic Arts was battling against network downtime late on Thursday night, with many of its games' online services failing to connect.

Writing on the EA Support Twitter page, the publisher said that EA games and services had returned, though internal tests at GameSpot's UK office suggest that connections are still patchy.

Meanwhile, due to the abundance of support requests following the blackout, EA's help network has become overwhelmed, resulting in longer waiting times.

The explanation for the blackout was not made clear.