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Gone, but never forgotten.
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00:00I'm Jess from WarCulture and here are 10 popular video games you can't play anymore.
00:04Number 10. Friday the 13th The Game
00:072017 asymmetrical survival horror Friday the 13th The Game established itself as a cult favorite,
00:15even with its bugs, limited maps, and jankiness. Many were willing to forgive the game given its
00:20beloved IP, the joy of its asymmetrical horror format that capitalized very effectively on the
00:25classic trope of big bad villain versus camp counselors and the built-in replayability of
00:31trying to outsmart or massacre all your friends depending on your character. Unfortunately if
00:36you're gonna make a game featuring the one and only Jason Voorhees you're gonna want to make sure
00:40you've got those IP licensing ducks in a row, which publisher Gun Media absolutely did not.
00:46In what came as an especially brutal announcement for the 30,000 plus Kickstarter backers who funded
00:52the game. Just one year after its release, Gun Media cancelled all of Friday's future DLC
00:57and content updates due to a rights and ownership dispute between the movie's screenwriter Victor
01:03Miller and its director Sean S. Cunningham. The film lawsuit threw an immovable wrench in the works
01:08for the video game, which made it impossible for them to move forward, and although it received a
01:12new development partner in September of 2018 after the lawsuit was put to bed, it was already the
01:18beginning of the end. A Switch version of the game called Friday the 13th Ultimate Slasher Switch
01:23Edition, yes that is the full official title, did arrive in August of 2019, but a year later Gun Media
01:29revealed they weren't making any money off the game. As a result, servers were switched to peer-to-peer
01:34only and the game was delisted in December of 2023 due to the license expiring. Technically if you own
01:41it you can still play it, but the servers are due to be turned off at the end of 2024.
01:45In a really nice last minute move though, Gun Media, who is now Gun Interactive, boosted all
01:51players who still own the game to the level cap and gave them all the legendary perks, challenge
01:55skulls and stuff like that, so at least they've got a little something for the rest of the time
01:59they have the game. Number 9, PT. I think legally I can't make a list about popular games that are
02:05no longer playable without including PT, so I'll throw it up at the top here and then get to some
02:10other great games you might not know about. Great games that is, which you can't play,
02:15because that's what the list is about. Man, this is a bummer. Anyway, on to PT.
02:19A gift from iconic video game creator Hideo Kojima, PT was a free playable teaser that was intended to
02:25set up his upcoming game, the now cancelled Silent Hills. The game, which was skewered by the fractured
02:31relationship between Kojima and publisher Konami, would have been directed by both Kojima and themed film
02:37director Guillermo del Toro. But enough about that game you'll never be able to play, let's talk
02:42about the game preceding it that you'll never be able to play. Unless it's already on your console,
02:46then lucky you. PT was something of a unique revelation in the horror gaming genre when it
02:51was released. It was an absolutely terrifying yet narratively dense compact horror experience
02:57that called upon players to execute some genuinely challenging puzzling and endure some of the greatest
03:02jump scares the medium has ever produced. The teaser wrapped up with a trailer for the upcoming
03:07full game Silent Hills, which was officially cancelled in 2015 to the dismay of fans. Despite
03:13being downloaded over a hundred times, the teaser was pulled from the PlayStation Store alongside the
03:19cancellation. Number 8. Warhawk. Developed by Incognito Entertainment and assisted in development
03:25by a little studio you may have heard of called Santa Monica, Warhawk was a multiplayer shooter that came
03:32out for the PS3 in 2007. As these things go, server issues dampened the critical and player response
03:38during its initial launch window. But eventually, once those were ironed out, a clever multiplayer
03:43experience with expert, balancing, exciting flight mechanics and frenetic involved combat scenarios
03:49emerged. The game received almost universally positive reviews and drew in an unsurprisingly large
03:55number of players. Despite its dedicated fan base, it was decided that the servers would be shut
04:00down in January of 2019. While that's an entirely respectable innings for a multiplayer game,
04:06understandably hardcore fans were still super disappointed. Since then, some have opted to
04:11meddle with emulators and programs that convert land support into online support to crack back into
04:17Warhawk. And according to the game's subreddit, a little community of diehards are still dropping into
04:22matches today. Number 7. Nosgoth. A cult favorite in no small part due to its reveal as the first entry in the
04:29iconic Legacy of Kain series in just about 10 years, Nosgoth borrowed from the Legacy of Kain
04:35universe and used it as a foundation for a free-to-play multiplayer game that pitted humans against
04:41vampires. While vamps would use brute force and melee finesse, human fighters would use ranged weaponry
04:47and projectiles. Featuring two modes, a spin on domination and deathmatch, players would battle it out
04:53against each other and the clock. If we're being super technical about it, this game didn't actually
04:58come out. Given it was being created by Square Enix and Psyonix, you'd expect an absolute slam dunk,
05:04but things got rocky quickly. The closed alpha kicked off in 2013 and its open beta began in early 2015,
05:12but just over a year later in 2016, Square Enix shut it down for good, claiming the audience they
05:17expected wasn't there. Its fanbase was understandably devastated and reportedly gathered
05:23in the game's main city on the day of the server shutdown. That is equally so heartening and so sad,
05:29but if there's anything we know about the internet, it's that if a bunch of people want something
05:34enough, they're gonna find a way to get it. In 2022, fans of the game posted online with instructions
05:39helping people modify the game files in order to let them play on private servers. The game currently has
05:45an active, formerly private, and now public Discord, so that people who still want to play matches even
05:51this long after the game's official cancellation can continue to do so. 6. Affordable Space Adventures
05:58Indie puzzler Affordable Space Adventures was made by Swedish game developer Niflas for the Wii U in 2015.
06:04When Nintendo revealed that the Wii U eShop was set to close very early last year, a bunch of clever
06:10fans picked up everything they could before it was gone. On many a list was Wii U
06:15eShop-exclusive affordable space adventures, especially because, and let's be clear,
06:20this wasn't exclusive to this particular Nintendo platform, but the Wii U was the only platform it
06:26was made for, period. The game cleverly incorporated the Wii U gamepad, which you would use to control
06:31your spaceship, and it even featured a popular cooperative multiplayer mode that drew in plenty
06:36of fans. It was pretty universally celebrated across the board for its fun and engaging mechanics,
06:42clever puzzles, and stylish, vibrant visuals. So in short, it's a really great game. A really great
06:48game that you can't play anymore. I'll say again, this is a bomber of a list. 5. Blur
06:54Vehicular combat racer Blur was released by British studio Bizarre Creations in 2010 and published by
07:01Activision, who by the end of this video you're going to have some beef with because this isn't the only
07:06game they shut down. Integrating arcade-style handling mechanics with real-world vehicles
07:11and locations, players would collect both offensive and defensive power-ups with the intention of
07:16taking out their racing competitors and heading to the front of the pack. Blur featured both a career
07:21mode and a multiplayer mode that supported split-screen for up to four players, or online for up to 20
07:27players. Despite picking up plenty of highly positive reviews praising Blur's exhilarating multiplayer
07:32component in particular, Activision shut the game down alongside studio Bizarre Creations
07:38than a year after it came out in February of 2011. The publisher claimed Blur didn't find a
07:43commercial audience and couldn't crack the current state of the racing genre. Unfortunately for fans,
07:48it's probably the combination of its commercial disappointment to Acti and also the cost of the
07:53IP for licensing all those real-world cars that put the final nails in its coffin.
07:584. Knockout City In another case of the official servers are dead,
08:03long-lived fan servers, Knockout City might have been technically shut down in the middle of last
08:08year due to dated systems requiring expensive reworking as well as low player retention, but
08:14it's not all bad news. The 2021 dodgeball-themed multiplayer experience from Valen Studios lived a
08:20pretty short life before it was shut down in mid-2023. That's even given the fact that it went free to
08:26play in 2022. The self-described Dodge Brawl game was available for free on EA Play and Xbox Game Pass.
08:33It attracted 2 million players in its launch week and won fans for its uniqueness, style,
08:38balance between embracing newcomers and rewarding mastery, and consistent content updates. Upon its
08:44shutdown, the devs kindly released software that let players host their own servers, so the game is
08:49still alive, though the updates and range of skill levels among players are certainly missed.
08:543. Transformers War for Cybertron Third-person shooter Transformers War for Cybertron was developed
09:01by High Moon Studios and published by Activision. It's not the only fan-favorite Transformers game to
09:09drop off shelves and digital storefronts, but it's a representation of the ones that have been loved
09:13and lost. The game was announced in late 2009 and came out a year later. Impressively, its multiplayer
09:19servers did run all the way up until 2020. Featured in a long list of legacy Activision games for which
09:25the publisher opted to discontinue support, this one came as an especially tough blow due to its rabid
09:32fanbase who adored the game's varied and engaging multiplayer in particular. It was in January of 2018
09:37that Activision's license with Hasbro expired, leading to both Transformers games being pulled from
09:43storefronts. A Change.org petition was launched to save the original and its sequel and gained almost
09:4815,000 signatures, but Activision and Hasbro haven't announced any more information on the game's future.
09:542. Minecraft Story Mode The combo of Telltale's unfortunate shutdown in 2018,
10:00as well as the grim reality of trying to keep games alive when they require IP licensing,
10:06was always going to make things tricky for Telltale games. As we've well and truly learned this far down the
10:11list, it's a needle to thread between capitalizing off a popular IP to pull in an existing audience for
10:17a game and needing to actually purchase a license to said IP for all the years you intend to support
10:23and sell said game. In the case of both seasons of Minecraft Story Mode, the game was one of the many
10:28victims of the aforementioned studio closure due to bankruptcy, and in mid-2019 it disappeared from
10:34storefronts. Though the studio has since been revived, many of the licenses to the various Telltale
10:39games' IPs were not renewed. If you've got it downloaded already, you're good to go, otherwise
10:45you're out of luck. The game was available between the end of 2018 and 2022 on Netflix,
10:50but is no longer on the platform. Because it's 2024. This entry is not riddled with the
10:55hottest or most useful of takes. 1. City of Heroes
10:59This list has made it pretty clear that two things will almost always foreshadow the end of
11:03the line for a game, licensed IP and dedicated servers. This goes doubly for massively multiplayer
11:09online games. Unless, of course, your World of Warcraft, which will almost certainly outlast the
11:14inevitable heat death of the Earth. It'll just be cockroaches and World of Warcraft. Not only will
11:19WoW probably persevere long after all of us are gone, it's gone some way to stamping out almost all
11:24of its competitors, and fan-favorite superhero-themed MMO City of Heroes was no exception. The 2004 online
11:31RPG by Cryptic Studios and NCSoft lets you build a character with one of five different origins,
11:37customizable powers, and unique archetypes. A suite of free updates expanded upon the game
11:42in various ways between 2004 and 2012, and an expansion called City of Villains in 2005 ushered
11:49in villain archetypes, as well as new PvP zones among other changes. Despite its critical and commercial
11:55success, not to mention a consumer-friendly practice of not deleting player characters even if
12:00their subscription was inactive or completely abandoned, Paragon Studios, who became the new
12:06developer, was disbanded in 2012. The game was no longer supported by the end of that year and
12:11players were less than happy, doing everything in their power to keep the game alive. In 2019,
12:16it was publicly learned that a private server for City of Heroes had been running since the game was
12:21shut down. That server was then shut down, but the source code it was built on was distributed,
12:26so now there's lots of little baby public servers running. Unfortunately, NCSoft has not sought to
12:31stamp them out.
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