Yager Developments’ Spec Ops: The Line has long enjoyed its status as a cult classic ever since its release in 2012. A somber story about an American soldier and his squad stranded in Dubai, the game is often held up as a standard of storytelling through gameplay, commenting on the main character’s actions as well as the player’s. This method of narrative has been criticized by people both for and against it, but regardless the game is still a presence in any discussion about stories in videogames and how they interact with the player. So it was shocking to learn that just yesterday this cult classic was delisted from Steam as well as from the Xbox Store.
Some on the internet, including Spec Ops’ own director Cory Davis, speculate that it might be because of the game’s rather graphic and uncomfortable depictions of war crimes.
Though Steam has hardly shied away from games that depict violent acts of war before. Rather, the actual reason the game has been made unavailable for purchase would be its soundtrack, as reported by 2K representatives to PC Gamer. Spec Ops’ soundtrack is a fantastic medley of somber tones and remixes of patriotic songs, filtered through the lens of a broken man, but some of said songs were licensed. This isn’t the first time this has happened, for example a similar tale happened to the innovative Obsidian RPG Alpha Protocol, which was delisted from Steam over music licensing issues. Likely, these licenses finally caused issues legally for Spec Ops and Steam and Xbox were forced to remove the game, and with the recent development that Spec Ops: The Line is to be removed from all digital storefronts, this is likely to be true.
But whatever the reason, it’s tragic that Spec Ops: The Line has been removed from a storefront. Whether you like or dislike the game, it is a unique experience especially for its time, and that it’s been made even harder to come across says nothing good about the future of video games and game preservation, and Steam should probably make a policy to announce when these licensing issues are bound to come up, so those that who haven’t purchased the game yet can do so. It’ll join a bevy of other innovative games that have been delisted from Steam, like Alpha Protocol. But unlike Alpha Protocol, Spec Ops: The Line is still available on other storefronts, and you can purchase it right now on GOG for $5.99, though how long that will last is depressingly uncertain.