Spec Ops: The Line Director Speaks Out on Delisting: “This Is Not the End”

Spec Ops: The Line‘s director has suggested there may be a future for the now-delisted game. We live in a very digital age now and despite that, it is actually proving to mean things are less tangible and less permanent. Movies and TV shows can vanish in an instant and video games can be removed from sale with no legal means of ever being able to play them again. In the case of games, many titles have been completely removed from digital storefronts, typically due to licensing issues with certain franchises or content within the game such as music. Thankfully, those who already own the games are usually safe and can download the game whenever they want, but it hurts the possibility of new people being able to experience classics years later. Of course, physical copies do exist as well, but their values usually skyrocket after they’re delisted.

Spec Ops: The Line, arguably one of the best narrative-driven military shooters out there, was unfortunately removed from storefronts this past week due to licensing issues. It’s a game that is widely regarded as having one of the most rich and nuanced stories revolving around war and the fact that we may completely lose it from digital storefronts is truly saddening. Thankfully, there may be some hope. Spec Ops: The Line director Cory Davis took to Twitter to express his sadness and frustration over the delisting, but promised that this is “not the end” for the game. It’s possible there are some behind the scenes moves being made to resolve any licensing issues or maybe whatever is causing the licensing issue will just be outright removed, but it’s unclear. There are some songs such as Hush by Deep Purple that may be the issue, but it’s unclear.

Nevertheless, perhaps Spec Ops: The Line will reappear on digital storefronts in the future. It would be great if the game made a return and this sudden erasure of the game sparked more interest in the game, therefore leading to more sales of a truly underrated single-player shooter. Only time will tell, but hopefully this all has a happy ending.