3 years after its release, Apple Arcade has lost 15 games

Several games that were previously available as part of the Apple Arcade subscription service have been removed.

Fifteen titles were dropped, all games introduced in the service’s early days. Since mid-July, these games have appeared in the “Leaving Arcade Soon” section of the Apple Arcade tab in the App Store. This section is now over, indicating that these are the only games that will be removed in the near future.

Apple revealed that these games will be leaving Arcade within this section, so subscribers received a notice just two weeks ago. But there is more time for those currently playing games.

a support document An Apple release says the games will remain playable for an additional two weeks for users who have already downloaded the games. Once the games become unplayable, users will be presented with a popup showing that they are unavailable.

The games are leaving the service because agreements between the developers and Apple are in place, but these agreements do not prevent the developers from making these games available as direct purchases or downloads through the App Store outside of an Arcade subscription now.

In some cases, the games on the open App Store may be nearly identical to their Arcade counterparts, but in others, there may be differences. And sometimes, developers may choose not to resubmit their games in the App Store.

Apple provides the infrastructure for players to import their saved progression from the Arcade versions into the App Store versions, but developers must choose to support that, so that may not always be a possibility.

As with subscription TV services like Netflix, the deals developers have signed with subscription services aren’t always permanent, so expect your Arcade library to change over time, just as we’ve seen with Xbox Game Pass.

There is no clear path to the long-term preservation of games removed from the service, but Apple and app developers may extend expired agreements in some cases.

Here is a complete list of the unreleased games:

• Atonement: The Heart of the Greater Tree
• BattleSky Brigade: Harpooner
• Cardpocalypse
• dead end mission
• do not bother me!
• nautical dread
• EarthNight
• explain
• Liveslid
• over the Alps
• Projection: first light
• Spelldrifter
• spiders
• Facing: Among the shadows
• different daily life