Forza Horizon 4 will be delisted from Microsoft stores and Steam in December

The “delisting” ax is swinging once again, and this time, Forza Horizon 4 is the latest major video game to be cleaved from digital storefronts. Developer Playground Games announced on its site that sales of the 2018 open-world racer are ending due to licensing and partner agreements, and the game will be removed from Microsoft stores and Steam on December 15th, 2024.

While the days are numbered for people to still be able to buy the game, the final in-game event will run from July 25th to August 22nd — after which, some achievements linked to the seasonal Festival Playlists will no longer be unlockable.

To add a little further confusion, Forza Horizon 4’s DLC is being delisted beginning today. And if you played the game via Xbox Game Pass and already bought some DLC, you qualify for a token to download the full game and continue playing it after the delisting date. That game code will be sent to qualifying players who have a fully paid Xbox Game Pass subscription in the coming days and must be redeemed by June 25th, 2026.

Somewhat surprisingly, Playground says in its FAQ that the servers are staying on post-delisting, so both offline and online modes will remain playable. Between this and qualifying Game Pass subscribers getting a code to keep the game, it feels like Playground is trying to make the best of an unfortunate situation — one that often hits games like these with real-life car and music licenses — but, like with most delistings, it still remains a bit messy and convoluted.

Forza Horizon 4 will be just over six years old when it’s pulled from digital stores, leaving only what’s left out there of physical Xbox copies in circulation for latecomers or preservationists to explore. Sure, Forza Horizon 5 was a worthy successor, and the franchise is likely to continue as the more bombastic counterpart to Forza Motorsport, but I don’t think it will ever feel normal or, frankly, good for digital games to feel so short-lived.