Playground Games has announced that Forza Horizon 4’s scheduled delisting.
As was the case with prior Forza games, and with other racing games, the delisting is happening because their licenses for cars and music are about to run out. As announced on the official site, Forza Horizon 4 is getting delisted from Steam and the Xbox Store on December 15, 2024.
As of the date of the announcement, Forza Horizon 4 DLC has already been delisted. The Standard, Deluxe, and Ultimate versions are still available for purchase from now until December, and Microsoft will offer sales in between so that gamers who were interested can claim and secure their copy. There’s a dirt cheap sale on Steam now, and one is upcoming for Xbox store on July 14, 2024.
If you are a Game Pass subscriber, and you paid for that subscription with no discounts, you are eligible to get a game token, meaning you will get to keep the game in your Game Pass account. Microsoft will be rolling out tokens for every eligible Game Pass subscriber, but they also warn it may take some time before they get it for everyone.
This goes without saying, but if you have Forza Horizon 4 on disc, of course you will still be able to play it. Everyone who secures a copy physically or digitally will play everything they purchased after the delisting. Finally, if you actually play this game, the license expirations is also ending Festival Playlists. Series 77 starts on July 25 and ends on August 22, and it will have the last Festival Playlist.
After August 22, players will no longer be able to access the playlist screen. Booting up the game will take you to the Festival Site screen, and you can still see the Festival Playlist history, but that’s it.
There will still be daily and weekly challenges available on the Forza Events screen. Completing those challenges will still give you Forzathon Points, and you can exchange those points for Backstage Passes. The Festival Playlists exclusive cars will be added to the Backstage Pass Cars list.
But if you care about achievements, this last Festival Playlist will be players’ last opportunity to earn some Playlist specific achievements, so if there was a reason to boot the game up now, this would be it.
While it’s always bad news when a game is removed from purchase, Microsoft has turned up to do the right thing here. We can’t disregard how important it is that games remain playable after delisting after what Ubisoft did to the original The Crew. While gamers understand when it’s time for a live service title to move on, Microsoft is demonstrating that financial incentive doesn’t have to mean game companies have to be anti-game preservation.
