Summary
Mobile gamesare an entertaining medium, expertly designed to make people even more addicted to their phones. The mixture of simple “grab and go” gameplay (which the intricacies of certain apps may limit) alongside their continually expanding nature, makes them a fun endeavor to sink a few hours of time into at sporadic intervals. Even discounting this design element, mobile games boast their fair share of issues.
The chief issue among them is that many continually-updating games have a limited run, after which they are promptly deleted. Beyond the natural sadness one might feel when something they invest time (and possibly even money) into suddenly stops, it also becomes upsetting when a fun game is no longer available for regular play.Here are some truly entertaining mobile games that are no longer available for regular play, for one reason or another.
Infinity Bladewas once one of the fastest-growing action RPGs,raking in over a million dollars less than a week after its release. The game involved the player character fighting a number of gigantic enemies, taking them out by swiping their fingers across the phone to trigger the player’s sword. The game has a cyclical narrative structure revolving around the nameless player character and their bloodline in continual conflict with the immortal god-king.
Infinity Bladelater received a pair of sequels and even a pair of tie-in novels, which were set in between its various games. Unfortunately, the entire trilogy was removed from the App Store in 2018, with the developers citing difficulty updating the game to function on modern hardware. Due toEpic Games' developer account on Apple being terminated, it is now even unavailable for download through purchase history, making it truly inaccessible.
Farmvillewas, for better or for worse, seminal in the development and progression of mobile games. This game has the player completing various tasks that come with farm management.Farmvillehelped popularize a kind of gameplay echoed by many mobile and flash games today, which also consist of the player managing and developing businesses. It even received a pair of sequels, which are still available for the time being.
Farmvillewas shut down at the tail end of 2020 due to Facebook discontinuing its support for flash games. This was influenced by a decision Adobe made to stop updating and distributing Flash Player.Farmvillewas far from the only casualty of this decision, as it sparked a shockwave of flash games that became unplayable due to the sudden discontinuation, unless they were backed up to a point where the now dead browser extension was no longer needed. Fortunately, for those interested,Farmville 2and3, the latter of whichwas released after the shutdown of the original, are still available.
This puzzle game, released in 2020, was shut down nearly two years after its release. It was a matching game, in the vein of other App Store releases such asCandy CrushandRoyal Match, but withOne Piececharacters and a few gacha elements. The player could swap bonbons, little chibi-like icons of characters' heads, in order to clear a grid, in ways connected to the greater narrative ofOne Piece. Characters ranging from the Straw Hat Pirates to all of their enemies, as well as a number of characters less represented in the games, such as Boodle and Chou Chou, were all playable in this minimal capacity.
Individual characters could level up and gain stronger skills as a result, often facing off against larger foes who would make matching more difficult. The series managed to progress up to the first half ofthe Dressrosa Sagain terms of its levels, but was shut down shortly afterward. As of the time of writing, there are still two games based on the series being supported and updated:Bounty RushandTreasure Cruise.
Dragalia Lostwas developed by Cygamesand published by Nintendo, making it the latter company’s first IP to launch first on mobile. It takes place in a kingdom where humans and dragons co-exist, often forming pacts with one another for the sake of sharing their power.
Using touchscreen controls, the game relied on rapid-fire action and had a robust cast of characters, also achieving crossovers with various other series such asFire Emblem Heroes,Mega Man, andPersona 5 Strikers. Unfortunately, even after grossing millions, the game was shut down shortly after its main campaign was completed. It was available for only five years. Despite this, it managed to acquire a loyal (if not substantial) fanbase, with many hoping Nintendo will somehow revive the series in the coming years.
Metal Slug Attack
This tower defense game was a sequel to a previous game,Metal Slug Defense. While that game focused near-exclusively on the main series characters, with little in terms of deviation,Metal Slug Attackinstead veered wholly in another direction. It instead produced alot of fascinating, albeit occasionally jarring, powerful new characters to expand the lore of the series.
These characters tended to divert from the original artstyle, for a more anime-esque feel than theMetal Sluggames of old, and were introduced alongside a number of modified versions of weapons from the games. However, it was not without its problems. A notable issue was the power creep introduced alongside many updates, with the newest character effectively overshadowing the majority of the other characters.
Despite the app ceasing operations in 2023, a re-release was made available on most modern consoles in 2024 asMetal Slug Attack: Reloadedfor the relatively low price of $10. However, due to an effort to balance out certain characters, large amounts of the original roster were not translated to the game, despite assets representing them (such as potential player icons) making an appearance in various bits of the game, leaving certain fans wishing for some form of update that would make the game playable in its complete form.
