Disney has unceremoniously pulled 14 of its licensed games off of Steam with no explanation, leaving us unable to purchase games like Disney’s Hercules Action Game and Finding Nemo.
This was spotted by HappyCatEW over Steamgifts and Wario64 on Twitter/X, and shared by Polygon. The games are largely older ones from the 90s and 00s, and while they can still be played if you already owned them, they are no longer available for purchase. The newest game in the group is Disney Fairies: Tinker Bell’s Adventure (2014), while the oldest, Stunt Island, is from all the way back in 1992.
Most of these games had fairly mediocre reviews, but whether or not any of them were good is beside the point. For a number of games on this list, Steam was the only place to play them on modern platforms. It’s worth noting that some of these games, like Afterlife and Stunt Island, were also available on GOG, and appear to have been removed simultaneously with the Steam removal, meaning they’re just not on PC anymore at all if you didn’t already own them. So unless you own physical copies for ancient consoles instead, many of these games will be inaccessible.
The games removed are as follows:
- Afterlife
- Armed and Dangerous
- Disney’s Chicken Little: Ace in Action
- Disney Fairies: Tinker Bell’s Adventure
- Disney’s Hercules Action Game
- Disney Planes
- Disney The Princess and the Frog
- Disney Winnie the Pooh
- Disney•Pixar Cars: Radiator Springs Adventures
- Disney•Pixar Finding Nemo
- Disney•Pixar Toy Story Mania!
- Lucidity
- Phineas and Ferb: New Inventions
- Stunt Island
Why is Disney doing this? We have no idea. We’ve reached out to Disney for comment on the situation, and will update if we get a response.
Disney’s commitment to having a games business has been wishy washy over the years. After a boom of licensed games in the 90s and 00s (including many of the games listed above), Disney eventually slowed its output in the 10s and seemingly vanished from games entirely for several years. It more recently reentered the space with its classic characters in games like Disney Dreamlight Valley and Disney Illusion Island. However, it seems like it may be slowing down once again, at least for properties that aren’t Marvel and Star Wars (whose history in video games is a bit more complicated and robust). Its most recent non-Marvel/Star Wars games came out in 2023 (Tron: Identity, Gargoyles Remastered, Disney Speedstorm), and there don’t seem to be any plans for more anytime soon.
Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. Got a story tip? Send it to [email protected].
