Publisher Bandai Namco announced in a blog post this week that Jump Force, the first true meta-universe in the video game industry, was delisted only three years after its release. More importantly, online services for games, including multiplayer matchmaking, will be shut down in a few months.

Jump Force was first released in 2019. It is a cross-border fighting game with a large number of characters appearing in the popular weekly Shonen Jump comic series. Shows like Bleach, Naruto, Black Clover, Hunter x Hunter, One Piece, Dragon Ball, Yuyu Hakusho and Rurouni Kenshin. With downloadable content, you can get extra characters from each classic, including some ridiculously powerful fighters (Hi, Uchiha Madara from Naruto). The gimmick is that you are always fighting with a trio team and you can exchange your fighters at any time, so every game has a rock-paper-scissors mentality-trying to choose a specific character that is better than your opponent's choice, and vice versa.

If you have wanted to buy it for the past few years, you must buy it before February 7, 2022, after which it will no longer be sold through digital storefronts. (Jump Force is available on Steam, PlayStation, and Xbox, but Nintendo eShop only offers a more expensive deluxe version.) But you can only access the full game for a few months, because the online service will be on August 24, 2022 . You will no longer be able to view the leaderboard, or jump into the matching lobby, or participate in online events. (The full list of discontinued features is here.) Although you will not be able to purchase any downloadable characters from then on, you can continue to use any characters you have already purchased.

The strange thing is that despite the large-scale closure of online services, Bandai Namco officially announced that "online battles" can still be played "after the online services are over." It is not clear what this means, and whether this type of battle can only be carried out through direct invitation pairing with friends or other means. The publisher’s representative did not respond to Kotaku’s request for comment in time.

The upcoming closure of Jump Force is the latest example of how games are purchased in the age of digital storefronts. In this case, only three years have passed. In other words, the delivery time here is longer than most.

The Xbox controller that is not your father uses a controller used by professionals to improve your driving skills in Forza Horizon 5.

In June, EA withdrew the game from the Syndicate and Ultima Underworld franchises a few days in advance. Before tomorrow's Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy-Definitive Edition launches bundles of GTA III, Vice City and San Andreas, as well as improved visual effects and other changes, Rockstar will delist the original. Just this weekend, Konami was only a few hours early when it announced the delisting of "Metal Gear 2" and "Metal Gear 3". Konami said the move was temporary, but did not provide a timetable for when the game will return.

People think it's stupid that I still buy physical games. This is a perfect example of why