For a while there, Square Enix Montreal (It was later rebranded as Onoma) were making some of the best mobile puzzle games ever. Hitman ReturnsAnd the Lara Croft Joe And the Deus Ex Go They were three of the smartest and most challenging games you can play on your phone, and all of them became classics of the genre. Unfortunately, one of them is about to disappear forever.
Onoma- from It suddenly closed earlier this monthannounced earlier today that a number of their games will be “discontinued” in early 2023. Among them Assassin Sniper: Shadowswhich was only released last year, and Deus Ex Go. The studio’s full statement reads:
Arena Battle Heroes, Deus Ex GO, Hitman Sniper: The Shadows and Space Invaders: Hidden Heroes will be closing on January 4th.
The games will be removed from the App Store / Google Play Store on December 1st, and existing players will not be able to access the games after January 4th.
Effective immediately, in-game purchases are discontinued. We encourage the use of previous in-game purchases before January 4th, as they will not be refunded.
On behalf of the development team, we would like to thank you for playing our games.
Note that these don’t simply disappear from these two stores, they are disappear, with games no longer accessible after January 4th, even if you’ve already downloaded them. From a personal perspective – as someone who dusts off he goes Games are shut down as time-killers every year or two – which is annoying, but also a tragedy from a game preservation standpoint.
People made this game, people bought this game, people enjoyed this game, for years, and with the studio shutting down and some rights changing, it will now officially cease to exist?
Lockdowns do not affect Lara Croft Joe And the Hitman ReturnsAt least, both are also available on PC (Deus Ex Go It was available on the Windows Store, but it has been removed from there as well).
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