It was once fairly uncommon for a game to be released only to be delisted from storefronts completely. Rarer still were games that became unplayable after a certain amount of time. Unfortunately, nowadays, in an era of the staggeringly oversaturated live service genre, a dependency on exorbitant and rising server costs, and major studio closures and layoffs, games being delisted or, worse still, pulled offline altogether are a rather common occurrence. We’ve seen the PlayStation-backed Concord with its allegedly huge budget pulled after a mere two weeks on shelves, MMOs that have remained online for less time than an indie movie’s run in cinemas, and popular multiplayer games slowly lose their playerbase until, one day, they disappear into the ether.
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Unfortunately, this fate is now happening to one of the biggest live service games available. While its circumstances are a little different, its closure means the loss of a beloved experience for a rather large audience, and further exposes the future in which no one owns the games they invest hundreds, if not thousands of dollars into, that we’re rapidly spiralling towards. Genshin Impact’s impending closure signals the start of something truly harrowing that has me extremely worried, and I believe it will quickly affect us all, especially those who actually enjoy live service titles.
Genshin Impact Is Being Shut Down On PlayStation 4
In 2025, miHoYo announced that Genshin Impact would be delisted on PlayStation 4 and later rendered entirely unplayable on the console. True to its word, the game was indeed removed on September 10, 2025, with in-game purchases no longer available as of February 25, 2026. The entire game, one of the most popular gacha games of all time, will be taken offline on PS4 on April 8, 2026. That means everyone on that platform will lose access to the game unless they decide to pay hundreds of dollars to upgrade to the PS5 or switch to an entirely different platform altogether.
That isn’t an insubstantial number of players either. As of 2024, 49 million people were still actively using their PlayStation 4’s, a number that tied with PS5’s active users. It was only in 2025 that Sony reported in its FY25 Business Segment Presentation that the PlayStation 5’s active user base exceeded that of the PS4’s, although it didn’t specify by exactly how much. Despite the PS5’s inevitable surmounting of its predecessor’s user base, there are still a considerable number of people using the PlayStation 4, perhaps even exclusively.
That’s because, in 2020, there was little reason for those who predominantly used the PS4 for live service games to upgrade, as they remained free and supported on their console of choice. Sony did a poor job of offering meaningful reasons to make the leap to next-gen, so many elected to simply avoid spending $499.99 for a console that would do, more or less, what their current console was more than capable of achieving. All of this is necessary context to understand that not only will a significant portion of Genshin Impact’s player base suddenly lose access to the game, but those same players have no means to continue playing it without spending a prohibitively large amount of money.
Let’s not forget, either, that these same players will have likely invested a not insignificant sum of money into Genshin Impact, an investment they won’t be able to reap the rewards from any more unless they spend even more money. Sure, Genshin Impact is available on mobile devices for free, but it requires more modern phones to run at a stable framerate, and I’d argue a lot of people likely don’t have those, as they also cost a lot. I’m not even particularly angry at Genshin Impact shutting down on PS4, as it was always a distinct and, let’s be honest, inevitable conclusion. Rather, it merely shines a blindingly bright spotlight on the reality we’ve always known would come true, that being the impermanence of modern video games.
Genshin Impact Shutting Down On PlayStation Is A Sign Of Things To Come
Most 2025 live service games have lost 90% of their players; high-profile live service titles like XDefiant, MultiVersus, and Anthem have been completely taken offline; numerous games were shuttered on last-gen consoles; several games lost support from their developers, including Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League; the MMO Ashes of Creation came and went in the blink of an eye; Amazon’s New World was delisted in early 2026. All of this is without mentioning the disasterous $400 million failure of Concord, PlayStation’s cancellation of several live service projects, and closure of beloved Bluepoint Studios, EA, Ubisoft, Xbox, and other AAA studios laying off staff, entire studios, and axing projects well into development.
We live in an era of utter imperenance, an era in which games can have allegedly $400 million poured into them only to survive a mere two weeks before being pulled completely, never to be played again. Concord isn’t even the first live service game to fail almost instantaneously; this has been a growing trend for quite some time, with the likes of Babylon’s Fall paving the way for the inevitable downfall of the live service genre. Realistically, this oversaturated market was always going to implode upon itself eventually; the sheer influx of games, regardless of quality, was incapable of being sustained by a time and money-strapped player base. We only have so much time in the day, in our lives, to dedicate to video games, so the hundreds of new live service titles vying for our attention were never going to make the cut.
However, the problem, and Genshin Impact’s PS4 closure exemplifies this, is that this imperenance is being fueled by our very real wallets. We’re now quite literally gambling with our money on whether the majority of these new games will last long enough for in-game purchases to feel worthwhile and fulfilling. You could invest thousands of dollars into the next waifu-filled gacha game, but that will mean nothing when the servers are inevitably pulled, and you lose everything. And those servers will be pulled. They always are. Whether it’s ending support for last-gen consoles, due to a lack of funds, or because the developer has moved on, these live service games are not built to last. They’re not supported with offline modes to encourage longevity; they’re designed to die.
The Real Cost Of Live Service Games Is Hurting Players
Even if Genshin Impact remains the success that it is for the rest of time, it’ll continue pulling support from each console generation whenever the next is introduced. That means on top of the microtransactions you’re paying for, to continue enjoying Genshin Impact, you’ll also need to buy the latest console. Genshin Impact isn’t free at that point; it becomes a $500 game every few years. To be clear, this is not the same as general last-gen games becoming defunct as a result of the next generation lacking backwards compatibility. Sure, if the PS6 were to no longer support PS4 games, it would be a blow to those with a considerable library of games for that console.
However, at least they could continue using that console and those games until disc rot eventually sets in, and even then, they’d likely be able to source a usable copy long afterwards. Digital preservation, ROMs, and emulators also ensure that these experiences are long preserved after our physical versions fail us. Genshin Impact being pulled from a last-gen console means it’s completely unplayable. You can’t just play an outdated version on older hardware; you have to buy the next piece of technology to log in, let alone enjoy it.
I’m certain that live service games will continue to preside over a large portion of the gaming industry and that cloud streaming and the many other ways technology is robbing us of material possessions will eventually become the norm. It is easy to identify exactly how we’ll get to that point, the numbed response to Genshin Impact, The Finals, and many more removing last-gen versions, proving to developers that there are few meaningful repercussions to their actions. However, that assurance in the future doesn’t make it any less terrifying.Honestly, it’s all a little sad, both that PS4 players will lose access to a game they potentially loved, and that we’re so resolutely committed to this medium that it feels as if we must put up with whatever terrible decisions, monetization practices, and regressive innovations befall it.
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images courtesy of Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures
