Retro PS5 Game is Being Delisted and we Don't Know Why, Steam Survives

A very well-received retro-style game that released earlier this year is already being delisted from the PlayStation Store in December, and nobody can seem to figure out why.

There are a lot of reasons why a game may be delisted from a storefront. The most common one is that certain intellectual property rights expire, so, rather than pay to extend said rights, publishers take them off of storefronts to save a buck or two.

Sometimes a publisher simply goes out of business, online servers are permanently shut down, or (more recently) certain security vulnerabilities are found in games that necessitate temporarily removing them. That being said, sometimes there’s no reason - or, at least, not a reason we can discern.

Case in point, the console versions of the retro-style platformer titled Basureroes: Invasion are about to be pulled from storefronts on December 5, and there’s been absolutely no explanation offered as to why.

Basureroes Invasion official Steam store image, property of JanduSoft (or maybe not?)

As spotted by PlayStation LifeStyle’s Zarmena Khan, publisher JanduSoft just put out a statement revealing that the PlayStation 5, Xbox Series S and Xbox Series X, and Nintendo Switch versions of the game will be delisted in roughly a month’s time… but chose not to give a specific reason behind said delisting.

Here’s the statement from their official website: “Dear followers, Basureroes: Invasion will no longer be available on the digital stores of PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo starting December 5th. Those who already own the game will still be able to play it, but it will no longer be available for purchase on those platforms after that date.”

Oddly enough, this delisting only affects the console versions of Basureroes: Invasion, but it seems that the Steam version of the game will be unaffected.

However, after taking a look at the Steam page for the game, I think I may have (partially) figured out the reason behind the delisting.

If you check the SteamDB update history for Basureroes: Invasion, you can see that the publisher JanduSoft was removed from its listing on 30 October; two days before JanduSoft made an official statement.

Oddly, that means that the Steam page for Basureroes: Invasion only currently lists a developer, and no publisher. Can’t say I’ve ever seen that before.

So, I guess this means that, for whatever reason, the game currently doesn’t actually have a publisher. Perhaps there was some kind of falling out or rights-related issue between developer Javs Game Studios and JanduSoft, but that’s merely speculation at this point in time.

Shame, honestly, because by all accounts the game is pretty good. Hopefully, the game is either relisted for consoles in the future or, at the very least, the Steam version of the game continues to be unaffected.