Nick Fernandez / Android Authority
TL;DR
- 9 retro SEGA video games ported to cell are actually free with out advertisements, however will lose assist quickly.
- You possibly can nonetheless obtain them, and they’re going to seemingly stay in your account without end.
- Free video games embrace Loopy Taxi Basic, Shining Power Classics, Streets of Rage 2 Basic, and extra.
SEGA has a protracted historical past of supporting its retro titles, with many ported on to Android and iOS as a part of the SEGA Endlessly program. Nevertheless, the corporate will quickly pull assist for practically its total remaining catalog of cell ports, together with traditional Sonic, Loopy Taxi, and Shining Power video games.
There’s no telling how lengthy they are going to stay on the Google Play Retailer, however the excellent news is that they’ve all been made free. Beforehand, most had been paid titles costing roughly $2, or had been playable free of charge with IAP to take away advertisements.
The announcement got here not through any official channels, however reasonably through an in-game popup within the affected titles. It reads: “Help for this recreation will likely be discontinued, however you possibly can proceed enjoying offline! In the event you’d prefer to study extra about nice SEGA video games to play, please click on the hyperlink under.” The hyperlink results in the SEGA homepage.
This message implies that the sport will nonetheless be playable after it’s faraway from the Play Retailer, supplied you might have claimed it in your account. This was the case for earlier SEGA Endlessly titles that had been pulled just a few years in the past, which included video games like Phantasy Star Classics and Vectorman Basic.
Sadly, it was solely a matter of time earlier than the remainder of these video games misplaced assist. The SEGA Endlessly program was discontinued in late 2023, and the final port was added to Android manner again in 2019. Whereas the ports didn’t all the time dwell as much as emulation, they did have full controller assist, with many getting tens of thousands and thousands of downloads.
Right here is the complete checklist of video games dropping assist, with hyperlinks to obtain them when you nonetheless can on Android and iOS:
- Loopy Taxi Basic
- Golden Axe Classics (Golden Axe I, II, and III)
- Shining Power Classics (Shining Power I, II, and Shining within the Darkness)
- Sonic CD Basic
- Sonic the Hedgehog 4 Ep. II
- Streets of Rage Basic
- Streets of Rage 2 Basic
- Tremendous Monkey Ball: Sakura Ed.
- Virtua Tennis Problem
