For the first time since the service launched in 2019, games that were previously available as part of the Apple Arcade subscription service have been removed.
Fifteen titles have been removed, all of which are games introduced in the early days of the service. Since mid-July, these games have appeared in the Arcade Coming Soon section of the Apple Arcade tab in the App Store. This section no longer exists, which suggests that these are the only games that will be removed in the near future.
Apple said those games would be leaving Arcade in this section, so players had just over two weeks’ notice. But those who play games now have a little more time.
Games are leaving the platform because agreements have been made between developers and Apple, but these agreements do not prevent developers from making these games available for direct purchase or download through the App Store outside of an Arcade subscription.
In some cases, games on the open App Store may be almost identical to their arcade counterparts, but in others there may be differences. And in some cases, developers may choose not to resubmit their games to the App Store.
Apple provides a framework for players to import saved progress from Arcade versions to the App Store version, but developers must support this, so this is not always possible.
As with TV subscription services like Netflix, the agreements developers make with subscription services aren’t usually permanent, so expect the Arcade library to shuffle over time, as we saw with Xbox Game Pass.
There is no clear path to the long-term retention of games removed from the service, but Apple and app developers may, in some cases, renew expiring agreements.
Here is the full list of games that have not been updated: