[HN Gopher] All Delisted Steam Games
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All Delisted Steam Games
Author : Bondi_Blue
Score : 143 points
Date : 2025-12-29 19:16 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (delistedgames.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (delistedgames.com)
| Y_Y wrote:
| See also Stop Skeletons From Fighting's _Delisted_ series:
| https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL-ak-oNNRK_vBhwW22i0h73AR...
| AnotherGoodName wrote:
| It's funny that 3 different Space Hulk games are here.
|
| I actually thought Space Hulk (2013) was amazing but it's hard
| for a developer to keep up the yearly license payments on any
| Warhammer franchise. So it's not available for purchase anymore.
| It got ~75% on reviews on release but i like the board game and
| it was true to the board game so i personally loved it. Link on
| the steam store (the site should have these)
| https://store.steampowered.com/app/242570/Space_Hulk/
|
| Fwiw if you have one of these games they are still in your Steam
| library. I still get to play the above game. I just can't easily
| play with others anymore nor can i suggest they purchase that
| game. I'm a little surprised it still runs fine given no updates
| but yay for backwards compatibility.
|
| In general a theme for lists like these are licensing. If a
| developer has to pay a franchise licensing fee it's going to stop
| being worthwhile at some point. Take note if you're a developer.
| It's hard to get visibility without being tied to a franchise
| (Eg. Larian had to do it with Baldurs Gate 3) but it'll cut into
| profits massively. Even Larian are never doing it again.
| NooneAtAll3 wrote:
| I've had negative opinion on company behind Warhammer ever
| since Emperor TTS debacle
|
| everything I've heard since only confirms that that universe
| would be better dead and never be talked about
| reactordev wrote:
| Henry Cavill would have words with you. There are some
| extremely die-hard fans in the U.K. just like there are die
| hard fans of Star Wars here in the US.
| jandrese wrote:
| Lots of people love the Warhammer universe. Far fewer
| people love Games Workshop as a company.
| reactordev wrote:
| Just like there's lots of people that love Star Wars and
| far fewer that love Disney?
| jandrese wrote:
| Or even George Lucas.
| the_af wrote:
| What was the debacle?
|
| I doubt the 40K universe will die any time soon, it has many
| fans and they are _hardcore_ about it. And it 's becoming
| more and more mainstream (relatively).
| gegtik wrote:
| DiRT games hit hard
| jandrese wrote:
| Mostly seems to be games where the licensing deal expired or the
| company folded. I was expecting to see a few more from the adult
| category that got delisted because someone noticed TOS violating
| material and reported it.
|
| There was a recent video about Horses, which admittedly was a
| pre-release, but was technically available for download and is
| now gone. It is not on this list.
| duskwuff wrote:
| Yeah, brand licensing seems to be by far the most common reason
| for games to be delisted. A couple of other common ones seem to
| be:
|
| 1) Server shutdowns for multiplayer or live service games
|
| 2) Breakdowns of developer/publisher relations
|
| 3) A remastered version of the game was released
| TechSquidTV wrote:
| Idk how common it is anymore, but one game (which seems to be
| missing from this list) I know was removed from Steam after the
| early access launch from a Kickstarter campaign. The developers
| essentially quickly ghosted the game after the EA, considering
| the Kickstarter complete and taking their money. It was seen as
| a pretty big scandal in the early days when we had some
| standards.
| agentifysh wrote:
| interesting i bought bloodrayne a long time ago
|
| if i delete it i lose the game right?
| AnotherGoodName wrote:
| No these games still install and run via steam just fine.
| grumbel wrote:
| No, the games just disappear from the shop and can no longer be
| bought via Steam. When you are already own them, you keep them.
| Third party seller might sometimes also still sell remaining
| Steam Key inventory and thus offer a way to activate a delisted
| game on Steam.
|
| One area where content can disappear is music licenses, those
| often don't result in a complete delisting of the game, but
| just the music getting patched out of the game. In those cases,
| the music would be gone for everybody, as Steam game updates
| are mandatory and you can't downgrade the game to a previous
| version either. Unofficial mods will sometimes address this
| issue and add the music back in.
| duskwuff wrote:
| > Steam game updates are mandatory and you can't downgrade
| the game to a previous version either.
|
| You can usually download old versions from the CDN using
| tools like steamcmd. Developers _can_ remove the old depots,
| but usually don 't.
| kgwxd wrote:
| I bought my 2 yo a copy of Rocket League when they announced it
| would only be available through Epic (no Linux support) once it
| went F2P, just in case he was going to get into it. Best game in
| the world, but I'm not subjecting myself, or my kid, to Windows
| and the Epic store just to get at it.
|
| I'm quite surprised Epic hasn't done something to kill off the
| Steam version yet, but I expect the recent bot problem is going
| to give them the "justification" they need to put EAC in it. Even
| if it "works" on Linux after that, I'll be in constant fear that
| my account, with hundreds of dollars into the game, will get
| banned without recourse.
| b40d-48b2-979e wrote:
| subjecting myself, or my kid, to Windows and the Epic store
| just to get at it.
|
| _Subjecting_ is a weird word choice here considering most of us
| rely on using Windows in some fashion in our education or work.
| Which OS or store you use is not your identity and EGS takes a
| significantly smaller cut from developers, so I prefer to buy
| there when I can as I don 't care for social features from
| Steam aside from the workshop on some games.
| fao_ wrote:
| > Best game in the world, but I'm not subjecting myself, or my
| kid, to Windows and the Epic store just to get at it.
|
| Quite right! I really don't blame you, given the direction that
| Windows has taken in the last decade, and especially the last
| few years. The LLM integration is bad enough (Kids and LLMs
| should not mix, IMHO), but he adverts in the start menu could
| be _anything_. I 've had some _very explicit_ 18+ adverts on a
| social media platform twice this week, despite not engaging
| with that kind of thing at all, and the best I could do was
| report them.
|
| > I'm quite surprised Epic hasn't done something to kill off
| the Steam version yet, but I expect the recent bot problem is
| going to give them the "justification" they need to put EAC in
| it. Even if it "works" on Linux after that, I'll be in constant
| fear that my account, with hundreds of dollars into the game,
| will get banned without recourse.
|
| For what it's worth, Easy Anti-Cheat is supported and doesn't
| ban you for using Linux.
| user3939382 wrote:
| We should just setup a review portal at the Dept of State, Visa,
| MasterCard, maybe moms against drunk driving, a few others, and
| devs can sanity check their game idea before submitting to steam
| markx2 wrote:
| If you want to follow and get notice :
| https://steamcommunity.com/groups/RemGC
|
| "This is a place for those who have a moderately large collection
| of removed games (games no longer available for purchase on
| steam) to gather. For most, this group will just be about the
| name, showing off that you own what others no longer can. For
| others, it can be a resource to find what you once believed could
| no longer be found."
| jokoon wrote:
| death stranding is in there
|
| I remember that many games I had in my wishlist became "blank" or
| removed, and I was unable to know what games were those
| haunter wrote:
| It was superseded by the Director's Cut edition. So you can buy
| DS but not the original launch edition
|
| That's actually a case with a lot of games on the list that got
| a remake, director's cut, upgraded edition etc.
| jandrese wrote:
| This site has a tag for games that get relisted, but it
| really needs one for games that got remastered as well. It's
| a bit misleading to say a game is gone when you can still buy
| the GOTY version.
|
| Really, it would be nice if every listing had a 1 or 2 word
| tag that summarized the reason for the de-listing.
|
| Publisher Closed
|
| Servers Shut Down
|
| Remastered
|
| License Expired
|
| TOS Violation
|
| That sort of thing.
| 0xC0ncord wrote:
| About one of my favorite racing games of all time: "The game
| could have been removed for a number of reasons, including the
| closure of developer Bizarre Creations in early 2011, but the
| most likely cause was expired licensing of the real-world cars
| featured in the game."[1]
|
| To me this is one of the most egregious examples of how licensing
| massively hurts consumers. The game is fully playable offline
| (and online with a patch) but cannot legally be sold because of
| an arbitrary restriction limiting the use of likeness of virtual
| cars in the game.
|
| [1] https://delistedgames.com/blur/
| dom96 wrote:
| oh yeah, I'm a fan of this game too. To my surprise, even
| though it's delisted I can still install it. That's certainly
| better than the alternative.
| reddalo wrote:
| I think you can install games that you bought (when they were
| available), even if they're delisted.
| reddalo wrote:
| +1 for Blur, great game, it's like Super Mario Kart for grown-
| ups.
|
| Too bad the only way to get it is by pirating it. But in these
| situations, doesn't piracy become morally acceptable?
| vunderba wrote:
| I initially assumed this was related to the delisting of NSFW
| related games on Steam due to payment processor pressure as a
| result of the Australian group Collective Shout.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_Shout#2025_Steam_an...
| ivolimmen wrote:
| I loved Blacklight Retribution. It's been so long delisted that
| my most unique achievements from it disappeared from my profile.
| One was 0.01% of all players.
| Zambyte wrote:
| It's surprising that it doesn't seem like the X-ray mechanic
| (which is the main thing I remember from that game) was really
| picked up by any other game. There were way fewer cheating
| accusations than in other games, because what would normally be
| a "cheat" was a core game mechanic, and IMO that made it really
| enjoyable. It's a shame that game died.
| TechSquidTV wrote:
| It's missing The Stomping Land
| smcl wrote:
| Jesus I thought it'd be obscure games but I randomly scrolled
| down and saw Duke Nukem games, a bunch of the F1 series, Jet Set
| Radio, Lumines, Mafia III, MultiVersus (don't care about this I
| just remember _so many_ people being paid to stream this, there
| was a lot of money behind it) and Wolfenstein (2009). I had no
| idea this was so prevalent
| kgeist wrote:
| >Mafia III was delisted from Steam on May 19th, 2020 when it
| was replaced with Mafia III: Definitive Edition
|
| >Lumines was delisted from Steam on June 22nd, 2018. The
| delisting coincides with the release of Lumines Remastered just
| a few days later
|
| So there's a tactic of delisting a game to promote a remastered
| version.
| smcl wrote:
| Fair enough
| Rzor wrote:
| Transformers: Fall/War of Cybertron went away and never came
| back. I'm still waiting...
| shantara wrote:
| Prey (2006) https://delistedgames.com/prey/
|
| Great game, with some innovative level design involving portals
| and gravity manipulation. Delisted back in 2009 and impossible to
| acquire legally to this day on PC.
| Apes wrote:
| I've got this game in my steam library, and I wondered why no
| one ever talks about it. I never realized it was delisted and
| made impossible to buy so long ago.
| ganoushoreilly wrote:
| The original story was definitely unique and a fun play on
| 360.
| jordand wrote:
| There's a set of licensed music in the game that's likely
| another reason too sadly. Pretty unique game for the time and
| I'd redeemed it on Steam from the cd key in a used physical
| copy I bought dirt cheap.
| Shorel wrote:
| Great resource. I have a fair number of them purchased.
|
| -- Back to the Future: The Game
|
| -- Blur
|
| -- Crysis
|
| -- Dark Souls
|
| -- Dirt 2
|
| -- Dirt 3
|
| -- Dirt Showdown
|
| -- F1 2010 - 2015
|
| -- F1 Race Stars
|
| -- Grand Theft Auto 1, 2, 3, San Andreas, Vice City
|
| -- Grid (2019)
|
| -- Metro 2033
|
| -- Prey (2006)
|
| -- Project CARS
|
| -- ToCA Race Driver 3
|
| -- Transformers: War for Cybertron
|
| -- Transformers: Fall of Cybertron
|
| In most cases the games were delisted because of expiring
| licenses for cars, tracks, music, or studios being purchased by
| another studio.
|
| It's a bit sad as I consider Crysis and GTA to be an important
| part of gaming history.
| benoau wrote:
| It's all gaming history and a sadly-overlooked part of "Stop
| Killing Games".
|
| The worst part is the licenses that _do_ exist are non-
| transferrable, so by the end of this century there will be zero
| licenses left for these games. They 'll just be expunged until
| they become public domain perhaps in the middle of the next
| century - if any copies survive.
|
| And what's sad about that is we know for a fact games can
| survive and be enjoyed for decades, because we have seen this
| occur for the entire lineage of game-playing machines.
| TitaRusell wrote:
| Same reason why Ace combat will never get a remake.
|
| If you use real brands in your videogame you as a developer
| need to know that it's on a death clock.
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| Or just sign a licensing deal that doesn't expire?
| Uvix wrote:
| No licensor is going to do that.
| zomiaen wrote:
| That presumes you can find someone to agree to those terms
| (which you won't), and if they do, that it isn't a
| prohibitively expensive fee (which it would be).
| jaapz wrote:
| At least the GTA games and metro 2033 are still available for
| purchase on steam, just the remastered versions. When they
| released those, the older versions were delisted
| RobRivera wrote:
| I just want Poker Night, and Poker Night 2 :(
| FloorEgg wrote:
| I was surprised to see that StarForge wasn't on this list, and
| after looking into it I think it's because after it was delisted
| someone else published another game named StarForge. I wonder how
| common that is.
| bananaboy wrote:
| This can't be all of them. My business partner and I delisted our
| tiny (unsuccessful) indie game after we wound up our company and
| our game doesn't show up here.
| cwmoore wrote:
| Look at the pretty lights! Seriously. Who cares.
| Skyy93 wrote:
| When you bought a game and it becomes unavailable, due to
| delisting, you care.
|
| It shows a general problem we have with online license's for
| movies, series and games. You buy the product and at some point
| later in time you loose access because something changed
| outside of your control. This is different from
| VHS/CD/DVD/BluRays where I can use the product even years after
| purchasing, despite a company loosing the license or simply not
| existing anymore.
| bananaboy wrote:
| Ahh, there seems to be a distinction between "delisted" and
| "purchase disabled". This is a list of all games which are no
| longer available on steam along with the reason: https://steam-
| tracker.com/
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(page generated 2025-12-29 23:00 UTC)