Spec Ops: The Line removed from Digital Stores

There has been a lot of sad news recently, Shadow is returning to a Sonic game making My Chemical Romance fans a bunch of furries once again. A woman calling her something close to Nintendo’s property is leaving Twitch, I wonder if the anti-Palworld crew decided “Poki” and “mane” are too close to Pokémon too. While sadly Kojima is plowing ahead with Death Stranding 2, and isn’t calling it Electric Boogaloo. Jokes aside, licenses are to blame for a lot of games disappearing from storefronts, and as of yesterday Taylor Swift and Gaga’s music off of Tiktok. This time without warning.

I bang the drum while trying not to make eye contact over Spec Ops: The Line all the time. The Line is 2K’s 2012 title that on the surface is just another military shooter. The Steam description is as generic as can be: “A Third-Person modern military Shooter designed to challenge players’ morality by putting them in the middle of unspeakable situations.” The only thing more generic is the look of Creative Dn8’s Grey Lines.

However, hidden underneath this generic look about Spec Ops: The Line lays a beautifully dark story that is very rarely attempted. Rarer still is the execution. However, unannounced and only noticed by Wario64 over on Twitter, Spec Ops: The Line has been removed from several storefronts. At the time of writing, Yager’s 2012 shooter has been removed from Steam, GOG, Xbox, and PlayStation stores, as well as third-party sites. At the time of the removal, there was no wonder as to why this was the case.

It took PC Gamer‘s Andy Chalk to contact the publisher after one of the creative leads on the title, Cory Davis, took to Twitter to say, “Makes no sense – especially because the themes portrayed in @SpecOpsTheLine are more relevant now than ever. Why has this happened @2K [&] @Steam?” Well, as it turns out the Taylor Swift and Lady Gaga news is relevant. In short, Universal has pulled music from its artists in an attempt to get better a royalties share “for the artists.”

The statement that 2K Games provided reads, “Spec Ops: The Line will no longer be available on online storefronts, as several partnership licenses related to the game are expiring. Players who have purchased the game can still download and play the game uninterrupted. 2K would like to thank our community of players who have supported the game, and we look forward to bringing you more offerings from our label throughout this year and beyond.” With the soundtrack featuring Martha and the Vandellas, Deep Purple, and Björk, as well as Jimi Hendrix’s version of “Star Spangled Banner,” music is the reason.

There may be some storefronts where Spec Ops: The Line is still available to purchase for a very short time. As 2K told PC Gamer, this is a result of some storefronts having a Lengthier process of delisting. I get it, it is easier to delist than update the game and replace these sections with relevant music that works for scenes, I honestly get that. However, a warning would have been nice before losing one of the greatest stories in gaming to licensing issues.