Summary
SixEAand Codemasters games have been quietly pulled from Steam without any prior notice, expectedly leaving several players confused. All of these games were originally developed and/or published by Codemasters, but were folded into theEAlabel a few years ago.
As one of the oldest British game studios, Codemasters made its name with racing franchises likeGridandDirt, as well as licensed titles liketheF1games. In 2021, EA acquired Codemasters and gained control over the developer’s extensive back-catalog. Unfortunately, the publisher seems to be behind the recent removal of some old Codemasters games from prominent PC gaming storefront Steam.
Withseveral EA games already having been shut downand made unavailable for purchase in recent months, it appears six Codemasters titles have also joined the list, namelyOperation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising,Toybox Turbos,Rise of the Argonauts,Maelstrom: The Battle for Earth Begins,Damnation, andHospital Tycoon. According to SteamDB, each of these games was marked with an “app_retired_publisher_request” update on Friday, March 14, suggesting thatEA itself requested the removals. Notably, whileOperation FlashpointandToybox Turboswere developed by Codemasters, the remaining four were only published by the studio.
Every EA Codemasters Game Delisted from Steam in March 2025
Since all six games were released beforeEA’s acquisition of Codemasters, their removal from Steam has raised some concerns about how the publisher is handling older game licenses under its control. At the time of writing, neither EA nor Codemasters have provided an official statement explaining why these games were taken down, or whether they might return to Steam in the future. Adding to the uncertainty, these titles are currently listed on GOG’s Dreamlist, a community-driven wishlist where players can vote for older games they’d like to see preserved on PC.
While their inclusion on the Dreamlist doesn’t guarantee that the games will make their way to GOG, it does indicate that there’s at least some demand for them to remain accessible. Digital storefront removals have become increasingly common in recent years, even across major gaming platforms like Xbox and PlayStation, often as a result of expired licensing agreements, low sales, or corporate decisions to focus on newer releases. Thankfully,GOG has been picking up the game preservation slackon PC by providing DRM-free executables for over 100 games, which essentially grant full ownership to buyers, instead of just a license.
