How to Know When Apple Arcade Is Phasing Out Games
Apple Arcade is Apple’s solution to removing the biggest stumbling block in mobile gaming: no one wants to pay for individual games, but constant microtransactions are equally painful. Five dollars a month for a large library of ad-free games that aren’t paid seems much more attractive. That is, until your favorite Apple Arcade games are removed from the service.
There are more than 200 games available on Apple Arcade, according to Apple, giving you plenty of choices for five dollars. Unfortunately, 15 of these games are already gone . All of the games that were removed were Apple Arcade veterans that arrived on the platform very early, meaning that the contracts for each of them had expired.
15 games have disappeared from Apple Arcade
Here are 15 games that are no longer part of Apple Arcade:
- Redemption: Elderberry Heart
- BattleSky Crew: Harpooner
- cardocalypse
- dead end job
- Do not lie to me!
- Terrible marine
- EarthNight
- exploit
- life slide
- Over the Alps
- Projection: First light
- caster
- spiderosaurs
- Towaga: Among the Shadows
- Different daily life
If you try to download these games today, you will fail. However, any games that were already downloaded to your device before they were removed will still be available to play for two weeks. This means you can enjoy Dead End Job , Over the Alps and Dread Nautical until Tuesday, August 16th.
How to know when games are leaving Apple Arcade
If you were taken aback by this news, you are not alone. Apple has told subscribers that these 15 games are on the cutting board, but the company could be more outspoken. Rather than display a warning when you first open Apple Arcade, or send a notification to let you know, Apple has simply chosen to add a new “Leaving Arcade Soon” section in the Arcade tab in the App Store.
It’s not necessarily a bad way to let people know about titles leaving the service, but here’s the kicker: it’s at the bottom of the Arcade tab. To know when Apple Arcade is playing games (or know that Apple Arcade is playing games at all), you need to regularly scroll to the bottom of the Arcade tab.
There is currently no word on what the next batch of games parting with Apple Arcade will be, or when that will happen. These will presumably be games released shortly before the service’s debut, but we won’t know until we see what ends up on the Leaving Apple Arcade list.
So it’s a good idea to check this section often, and if you see a game on the list that you think you’d like to play, download it immediately. You don’t have to play it right away, but once Apple removes it from Arcade, you won’t be able to download it at all, and you don’t want to miss the chance to experience it during these last, fleeting two weeks.