Lower than six years after its debut, the wonderful tactical puzzler John Wick Hex is being faraway from sale. Writer Large Fan Video games says homeowners will proceed to have entry to it, however “new purchases of John Wick Hex is not going to be potential, no matter platform or storefront.”
A purpose for the forthcoming takedown, introduced on Steam, wasn’t supplied however the assumption, most likely protected, is that expiring license rights are the perpetrator. It is an sadly widespread downside for videogames that tie themselves to different media: Typically the impact is minimal—a number of tunes from the soundtrack go lacking, for instance—and typically, as is the case right here, video games are simply straight-up disappeared.
John Wick Hex initially launched as an Epic Video games Retailer unique in October 2019, earlier than making its approach to Steam on December 4, 2020. It did not put up enormous participant numbers there, little question at the very least partly due to that prior time on Epic, however we preferred it fairly a bit regardless of its sudden departures from the supply materials, together with a cel-shared artwork fashion and the give attention to ways over motion.
“What may simply have been a generic real-time motion recreation works splendidly on this kind—changing the tempo of the film motion into a really elegant phantasm of it,” reviewer Robert Zak wrote. “It really works admirably regardless of the considerably sparse presentation, and appears like an concept that the developer may evolve into one thing actually particular sooner or later—with or with out the John Wick license.”
The irony amidst all of that is that the takedown notification comes lower than per week after Mike Bithell, founding father of John Wick Hex developer Bithell Video games, praised the best way licensed videogames have improved over the previous 20 years, saying mental property homeowners are extra demanding of high quality videogame tie-ins as a result of “the individuals who performed licensed video games are actually bosses within the firms which can be licensing IP.”
“It positively appears like we’re not a lunchbox tie in anymore,” Bithell stated. “We’re not simply, ‘I am going to put one thing on a shelf so the gran should buy it for the child who likes the film.’ I feel IP homeowners see this as a method of increasing and exploring the worlds that they create.”
Licensed videogames could now not be the nigh-inevitable field of crapola they appeared to be method again when, it is true, though I would attribute that extra to the truth that videogames are way more mainstream now than they had been in these days, and embarrassing shovelware tie-ins are now not ‘adequate.’ However IP protectionism appears stronger than ever, and “increasing and exploring” these worlds takes a fairly apparent again seat to maximal dollar-squeeze—not terribly shocking, no, but it surely nonetheless sucks.
John Wick Hex can be faraway from sale on July 17, based on the announcement, which does not offer you a lot time so as to add it to your library if you’d like it. If you happen to do, it stays at full worth on Steam and Epic, however as famous by the ever-resourceful Wario64, you possibly can decide up a Steam key for simply $4 on the Humble Retailer—that is 80% off the common worth.