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Between PlayStation confirming that it's moving towards an all-digital future, and Rockstar Games admitting GTA 6 will never be released on disc, it's a pretty concerning time to be a gamer. I probably don't need to remind you, but just in case: we technically don't own digital games. What you purchase when you buy a digital game is a license to access the software, and that access can be revoked.
So, since we live in an age where some games can apparently just vanish off the face of the Earth one day, I thought now would be as good a time as any to look at five Square Enix games that are impossible (or near-enough impossible) to access and play in 2026. Because if this can happen with a company like Square Enix, it can happen with any publisher.
Babylon's Fall (2022)
An action-RPG from Square Enix and developed by PlatinumGames should have been a big hit on paper. Unfortunately, for whatever reason, Babylon's Fall failed to capture the attention of players. Maybe the reason is that Square Enix attempted to sell us what was effectively a live-service game for the price of a AAA single-player RPG. We'll never know for sure.
To say the launch was a disaster would be an understatement. Square Enix pulled Babylon's Fall from sale in 2022, and then wiped server access and gameplay data in February 2023. Yikes. It is now fully inaccessible, though I'm not sure the world weeps for this one.
NieR Re[in]carnation (2021)
While NieR Reincarnation isn't really a patch on the main games in the series, this free-to-play mobile RPG still had the legendary Yoko Taro at the helm, and offered a rich world to explore and plenty of deep lore to uncover. Unfortunately, as is so often the way with live-service gacha games, it stopped making enough money to justify the cost of running servers or continuing development. The game was terminated in 2024, and there's no offline version available. At least, there's no official offline version, but you didn't hear that from us.
Marvel's Avengers (2020)
Marvel's Avengers wanted to be the kind of game you could play for years, and as such, a promising single-player action game was stretched into an ugly and repetitive series of missions. New stories featuring the likes of Black Panther and Spider-Man ultimately couldn't save this game, and it quickly became clear it could not, to borrow a phrase from Captain America, do this all day.
Servers were shut down on September 30, 2023, and the game was delisted from digital storefronts. You can still track down physical copies, however, and play through the game's single-player campaign. Honestly, it's worth picking up just for this.
Final Fantasy VII: Ever Crisis (2023)
Okay, so support for this ends on October 6, 2026, so it's technically still playable at the moment. But once it's gone later this year, that's your lot... consider this one a warning. Final Fantasy VII: Ever Crisis is basically a retelling of the entire Final Fantasy VII saga for mobile devices.
Over the course of multiple updates over the years, it's gone over the events of the original Final Fantasy VII, multiple spinoff games, and movies. If this game proves anything, it's that maybe there's such a thing as too much Final Fantasy VII. As for why it's shutting down? Same as any of the others: it stopped making enough money.
Final Fantasy: All the Bravest (2013)
Of all the games listed here, this one had the best run by far. Final Fantasy: All The Bravest was released in 2013, and finally shut down on iOS in July 2023 and Android in November 2022. If you've never heard of it, All The Bravest was a touch-screen action-RPG for mobile devices with a pixel art-style and characters from across Final Fantasy history. It is, I am afraid, largely considered to be a stinker of a game due to fact it was incredibly boring to play. That it struggled on for as long as it did is kind of amazing, but it was ultimately taken offline due to intense backlash to the game's monetization features and dwindling player numbers.
