Nick Fernandez / Android Authority
TL;DR
- 9 retro SEGA video games ported to cellular at the moment are free with out adverts, however will lose help quickly.
- You’ll be able to nonetheless obtain them, and they’ll seemingly stay in your account endlessly.
- Free video games embrace Loopy Taxi Basic, Shining Drive 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 Ceaselessly program. Nevertheless, the corporate will quickly pull help for practically its complete remaining catalog of cellular ports, together with traditional Sonic, Loopy Taxi, and Shining Drive 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 have been paid titles costing roughly $2, or have been playable without cost with IAP to take away adverts.
The announcement got here not by way of any official channels, however relatively by way of an in-game popup within the affected titles. It reads: “Assist for this sport shall be discontinued, however you possibly can proceed taking part in offline! If you happen to’d wish to study extra about nice SEGA video games to play, please click on the hyperlink beneath.” 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, offered you could have claimed it in your account. This was the case for earlier SEGA Ceaselessly titles that have 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 help. The SEGA Ceaselessly program was discontinued in late 2023, and the final port was added to Android method again in 2019. Whereas the ports didn’t all the time dwell as much as emulation, they did have full controller support, with many getting tens of tens of millions of downloads.
Right here is the complete checklist of video games shedding help, 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 Drive Classics (Shining Drive 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
