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For Xbox One players 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. The Xbox One library has grown massively in recent years but the list of games that have succumbed to obscurity has also grown.
8 Evolve
Published by 2K Games, Evolve put players in a feral world of man versus nature. This asymmetrical multiplayer game was 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, Evolve could 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.
7 Forza Motorsport 7
Turn 10 Studios and Microsoft came out with Forza Motorsport 7 in October 2017. Poised as the most beautiful, authentic, and comprehensive racing game ever, Forza Motorsport 7 was met with rave reviews upon launch. With DLC that expanded upon the brilliant base game, Forza Motorsport 7 enjoyed love from both critics and gamers, until it reached its End of Life status four 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.
6 Hand Of The Gods: SMITE Tactics
Popular studio Hi-Rez came out with Hand of the Gods in 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 Gods struggled – 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 Gods remains a one-off attempt by Hi-Rez to leave their comfort zone.
5 Ben-Hur: The Game
Ben-Hur: The Game was a free-to-play Xbox One title that was supposed to be a tie-in game to 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-Hur was taken off the store to no one’s notice.
4 Stranger Things 3: The Game
Stranger Things 3: The Game was the official companion game to 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.
3 Project Spark
Skybox Labs, Team Dakota, and Microsoft came out with Project Spark in 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 Spark ultimately met its demise a 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.
2 Sherlock Holmes: The Devil’s Daughter
Sherlock Holmes: The Devil’s Daughter was met with acclaim by players, much like other games from developer Frogwares. However, it was published by Nacon, and therein lies the problem. The falling out between Frogwares and Nacon made headlines the world over. Delisted from all digital stores in June 2021, the game was relisted on the Playstation digital 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.
1 Illusion: A Tale Of The Mind
Illusion: A Tale of the Mind came out in June 2018, and put players in the shoes of Emma, a little girl trapped inside the psyche of a demented killer. A puzzle exploration game that bit off more than it could chew, Illusion: A Tale of the Mind failed 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.
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