It’s the harsh truth – going digital is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, digital game stores have risen to take over the industry with sales, availability, and ease of access. On the other, it also means that when studios shut down, they take their servers with them.
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ForXbox Oneplayers who invested time and money into said games, this translates to being stripped of the opportunity to play them in any capacity, despite having the license to do so. TheXbox Onelibrary has grown massively in recent years but the list of games that have succumbed to obscurity has also grown.
8Evolve
Published by2K Games,Evolveput players in a feral world of man versus nature. Thisasymmetrical multiplayer gamewas primed to be the next big thing. The game pitted players and three friends in a fight against a fearsome monster who kept growing stronger the longer it took to kill it.
The devs even supported the game for quite a while, but amidst controversies and mediocre reviews,Evolvecould never develop or retain much of a player base. The game shut down its servers for good in September 2018, laying to rest all the monsters and humans in peace.
7Forza Motorsport 7
Turn 10 StudiosandMicrosoftcame out withForza Motorsport 7in October 2017. Poised as the most beautiful, authentic, and comprehensive racing game ever,Forza Motorsport 7was met with rave reviews upon launch. With DLC that expanded upon the brilliant base game,Forza Motorsport 7enjoyed love from both critics and gamers, until itreached its End of Life statusfour years later in September 2021. Unavailable on the Xbox Game Pass or the Microsoft Store, the game remains playable only for those who downloaded it once before.
6Hand Of The Gods: SMITE Tactics
Popular studioHi-Rezcame out withHand of the Godsin September 2017. This was their attempt to expand from their MOBA niche to the world of card-battlers, and it did not prove to be a successful move. With little to no marketing, nor any reviews to flood the internet,Hand of the Godsstruggled – and ultimately failed – to carve out a place for itself in the genre, rarely ever having more than hundred-odd concurrent players.
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Delisted in August 2019 and then subsequently having its servers shut down five months later,Hand of the Godsremains a one-off attempt by Hi-Rez to leave their comfort zone.
5Ben-Hur: The Game
Ben-Hur: The Gamewas a free-to-play Xbox One title that was supposed to be atie-in gameto the remake of the popular movie with the same name. However, for some reason, developers Float Hybrid and Krome Studios decided to make the game all about the chariot race.
The game, much like the movie, did not fare well. Within two years of release, as the licensing deal perished, so did the game. Delisted in March 2018,Ben-Hurwas taken off the store to no one’s notice.
4Stranger Things 3: The Game
Stranger Things 3: The Gamewas theofficial companion gameto the third season of the massively popular Netflix show. The game offered playable in-show events, with additions of off-script incidents and arcs, scoring decently in reviews. It was in September 2021 that Netflix and BonusXP shut down the game and delisted it from the stores, two years after its release. Of course, as is the case with most media tie-ins, the licensing deal lapsed, and so did the game’s availability in stores. It is still playable, however, for those who downloaded it before the end of August 2021.
3Project Spark
Skybox Labs, Team Dakota, and Microsoft came out withProject Sparkin October 2014 as the ultimate digital sandbox. The game-slash-creation-tool allowed players to make their own games across a variety of genres. Never having got the reception or the acclaim that subsequent creation-based games got,Project Sparkultimately met its demisea few years later in August 2016, having all of its servers shut down for good.
The massive multiplayer-only game held promise, no doubt, but wasn’t nearly as polished or rewarding as it needed to be in order to stay relevant, sadly.
2Sherlock Holmes: The Devil’s Daughter
Sherlock Holmes: The Devil’s Daughterwas met with acclaim by players, much like other games from developerFrogwares. However, it was published byNacon, and therein lies the problem. Thefalling out between Frogwares and Naconmade headlines the world over. Delisted from all digital stores in June 2021, the game was relisted on thePlaystationdigital store soon after, with Frogwares having become the publisher after their legal battle with Nacon.
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However, the game has not been listed on the Xbox Store ever since, and it remains unclear if it ever would. Go figure, Watson.
1Illusion: A Tale Of The Mind
Illusion: A Tale of the Mindcame out in June 2018, and put players in the shoes of Emma, a little girl trapped inside the psyche of a demented killer. Apuzzle exploration gamethat bit off more than it could chew,Illusion: A Tale of the Mindfailed to deliver and was met with lukewarm reviews at best. Tied to publisher Ravenscourt, the game was delisted from all stores in August the subsequent year, before being relisted with new publisher Groupe PVP an entire year and a half later in December 2020.
The game remains available only on Steam but unavailable for console players. You’re not missing out on anything, though.
