There are a ton of video games released on Steam daily. From small indie developers to large AAA blockbuster titles from beloved developers, Steam generally has almost everything available for the PC platform. Now that’s not always the case, there have been a few games missing before they released to even titles removed completely from the Steam storefront. In this article, we are going to go over a few video game titles that were removed from Steam and just why the decision was made to take them down.
#7 Metro Exodus
Metro Exodus was at once advertised for the Steam launcher. The game did release across multiple platforms but it failed to see a release on Steam during launch simply due to the Epic Games Store. We’re sure you all are very familiar with the Steam vs Epic Games Store fiasco. Epic Games Store attempted, and were successful, in grabbing a number of video games to be exclusive to the Epic Games Store launcher. As a result, Metro Exodus was one of the video game titles that got swept up with an offer made by Epic Games, likely to secure more of the revenue made from the game in comparison to what Valve offers on Steam. This resulted in the game being pulled from being available on Steam upon its official launch date.
#6 The Walking Dead: The Final Season
The Walking Dead: The Final Season has quite the story with its own development. Telltale Games has been prepping gamers with the final chapter of Clementine, the main protagonist we have been watching grow up in the zombie apocalypse. As you may have known, Telltale Games closed down during the production of the game which resulted in the game being in limbo after the release of its second episode. Of course, that’s old news as the game did finish up and have fully released under Skybound Games.
However, this was another case of Epic Games swooping in and securing the game’s final two episodes and full video game launch as an exclusive. For fans who pre-ordered the game originally on the Steam platform in preparation for the final two episodes releasing, they managed to keep the game on the Steam platform otherwise the newcomers were forced to move over to the Epic Games Store.
#5 Devotion
Devotion is a horror title made by Red Candle Games. This is a first-person psychological horror title that was set in Taiwan. Overall, the narrative mixed in folk religion and Taiwanese culture while presenting the game with an aesthetically beautiful environment. So all-in-all, this game is rather standard and nothing that would jump out from the ordinary in terms of being unsuitable to the guidelines Valve established on Steam. However, the reason it got pulled from Steam was due to a bit of controversy to Xi Jinping, the president of China. Apparently, there was some artwork within the game that referred to Xi as Winnie-the-Pooh, which has become a meme of itself. As a result, the development team got some flack and they pulled the game. Perhaps it will release once again on the Steam platform when they manage to clear up the game from these references.
