LEGO Lord of the Rings delisted from Steam, along with LEGO The Hobbit? That what it certainly looks like, as both of TT Games' Middle-Earth LEGO titles have been pulled with no explanation - and fans are wondering if Activision's Ghostbusters game will be gone next.
It's certainly not the only recent Steam casualty of licenses changing hands, but the weird thing about these is - the Middle-Earth license, like TT Games, is still owned by Warner Bros. So why have these games been delisted?
It's true - LEGO Lord of the Rings and LEGO The Hobbit have been delisted from Steam, as spotted by SuperMoonky on Reddit. No explanation has been given for their removal - especially as they were on sale in the Steam Winter Sale until today, and that's not finished yet. LEGO developer TT Games' parent company is Warner Bros, and they still own the movie and game rights for Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit - they only a year ago released Middle-Earth: Shadow of War for example.
If we're going to guess, it's most likely due to either the music or voice acting - which were taken directly from the movies, and neither of which were used in the two Middle-Earth games by Monolith. Certainly we can't be sure, but that seems the most logical explanation to us.
As for Ghostbusters, the previous games in the franchise (including the best one that included all the actors from the movies) have already been delisted, and the only one left is the Activision-published tie-in for the Ghostbusters 2016 movie. It's currently dirt-cheap, and if it's not being pulled soon it certainly will at some point. If you're a Ghostbusters fan, for that price it's actually worth it - it's certainly much more playable than Sanctum of Slime, especially in co-op.
We've had a few games get delisted from Steam recently, including the Marvel Ultimate Alliance games and various Telltale titles. The reason is usually the same - licensed games go away, so buy them while you can.
