Digital games don’t suffer the same fate as physical ones. They don’t get scratched into an unplayable mess because someone didn’t put the disc back in their box. Nor can they get swiped and sold off. Not without someone taking the whole console or PC they’re downloaded to. So long as the hardware is kept in good nick, digital games could last forever, right?
Not unless its developer or publisher loses the distribution rights to it anyway. Physical games can at least still be found in the second-hand market. But not every entry on this list got lucky enough to be printed on the disc too. These are just a few PS4 games that got delisted from the PS Store in 2022.
10 Jump Force
Here’s a big one. Bandai-Namco and Spike Chunsoft’s fighter was meant to be the next step from J-Stars Victory VS. It was bigger, flashier, and had more classic characters from the long-running manga. But the game got critically panned, and it didn’t catch on as well as either company hoped.
The game still has a page on the PS Store, but it doesn’t have any purchase links or DLC. Browsers can add it to their wish list though. The game was removed from sale in February, and in-game purchases and online services shut down in August.
9 F1 2015-2019
The reason Jump Force got delisted so soon, aside from its reception, was likely because of licensing. The characters are all from Shonen Jump, but they’re licensed to their creators. That's a lot of individual people to negotiate with. The same goes for all four of these Formula 1 racing sims.
Electronic Arts acquired their developer, Codemasters, back in 2021, and were seemingly unable or unwilling to come to an agreement with F1’s governing body the FIA. Thus, all four of these older games got delisted from the PS Store and Xbox Store in March, then from Steam in April.
8 Troll and I
This less-than-stellar game about a hairy monster and his boy fighting through the Scandinavian wilderness allegedly got rushed, so it could be released on the then-new Nintendo Switch in 2017. Not that it would’ve helped it as it ended up on the PS4, Xbox One, and Steam too.
Five years later, the game ran its course. Publisher Maximum Games and developer Spiral House ended their publishing terms with each other, leading to the game being delisted from all its digital storefronts in April. There are still physical versions out there in case anyone wants to prank their friends with this game instead of God of War: Ragnarök.
7 Fast & Furious Crossroads
Slightly Mad Studios had a fitting name, as their game left critics and fans alike feeling somewhat upset. Released for the PS4, Xbox One, and PC, the game was going to be a rip-roaring racing game based on the crazy car and crime film series.
Most of the film’s cast came back for it, but the gameplay wasn’t enough to keep players hooked. Publishers Bandai-Namco and Slightly Mad Studios lost the Universal license and probably weren’t in a hurry to get it back. So, the game was delisted from all digital storefronts in April.
6 America’s Army: Proving Grounds
Published and developed by the US Army, this game was meant to be their official game-ification of what fighting in their recon units is like. After all, war as a videogame — what better way to raise the ultimate soldier? Not that it was that effective as a recruitment tool.
The game was delisted in May following dwindling popularity and user counts, though it’s still available in some capacity on Steam thanks to private servers. Though whether it’s on PS4, Steam, and elsewhere, FPS fans can probably find better options than this one.
5 Forgotton Anne
That’s not a typo, that’s exactly how the game spelled it. ThroughLine Games’ adventure platformer saw its lead, Anne, and her master Bonku stuck in the Forgotten Lands, a realm where missing items come to life and roam about. The game saw Anne helping to put down a rebellion within the realm to help find a way back home.
Unfortunately, Forgotton Anne’s publishing rights also went home to its IP owner, leading to Square Enix Collective delisting it from the PS Store in May. The only digital versions left on sale are all on the Japanese versions of Steam, GOG.com, and console storefronts.
4 Swords of Gargantua
Swords of Gargantua was a VR slice ‘em up from Thirdverse where players could explore the Tesseract Abyss in search of the giant Gargantua. They could use a wide variety of weapons to hack their way toward the Abyss’ deepest floor either on their own or with 3 other players. They still can too, on PC. The PS4 version was delisted in June, then shut down for good in September.
Each aspect of the game required an online connection, so the PS4 version is now completely unplayable. Why was it shut down? No one really knows. The best guess is either that, as Thirdverse’s sole console game, it was easy to cut ties with, or that the hardware wouldn’t support their future plans for the game.
3 Mistover
KRAFTON’s RPG saw players form their own ‘corps’ as they explored the Pillars of Despair. They had to guess their next moves wisely as they could make the difference between life and death. It got a fair reception at best, though its reliance on random mechanics meant it paled next to similar games like Darkest Dungeon. But hey, it had Guilty Gear DLC via publishers ArcSystem Works!
Which might be why the game got delisted from all storefronts back in July. Their license with ArcSystem Works ran out, leaving the game in limbo. KRAFTON also shut down their MMO game TERA, so some suspect the company is scaling back its operations. Either way, the only way to play the game now is to track down its Asian physical releases.
2 Sparc
Like Swords of Gargantua, Sparc was a VR game. Only it was for sports instead of swords. Players would throw their ball, then bat it against their opponent in a combination of tennis and that frisbee game from Tron.
After 5 years in service, CCP removed the game from sale in July, then shut its service down on August 5th. Like Gargantua, the game was rendered unplayable without its servers. Unlike Gargantua, this also applied to its PC versions. It’s said CCP shut it down because they wanted to focus time and resources on the next EVE game.
1 EVE: Valkyrie, EVE: Valkyrie- Warzone, and Gunjack
The same reason applied to their shutdown of these previous EVE games in the same month. Ranging from console shooters to VR shooters, these games had been available on the PS Store for PS4 since 2016 at the earliest. Warzone was itself a replacement for the standalone EVE: Valkyrie release.
Now all 3 will be replaced with the next EVE game. It’s standard practice, as older things give way to their successors. Still, in the past, the older games still remained playable in some way. Some have been re-released over and over again. But others, whether good, bad, or average at best, will disappear into the ether. It's something that digital storefronts make as easy as the game’s release.