Update (4/19/2023): We have received communication from Boosteroid. Based on an initial conversation, we moved Like a Dragon: Ishin out of the list of games that have been removed entirely from the service and into the list of games that were moved from “Library” to “Install and Play.” In addition, the team at Boosteroid wanted to communicate that the reason why some titles are missing from the service entirely is due to temporary storage constraints as they onboard new games, and that “all these games (the 20 or so missing entirely from the service at the moment) will be back very soon” in the “Library” catalog.
Here at Cloud Dosage, we maintain a Cloud Games Catalog and regularly add new game additions as they go live in the cloud. We also monitor changes to games’ status on cloud gaming services. As part of those checks, we noticed that at least 45 games have been removed from Boosteroid‘s “Library.” Unfortunately, this set includes some of the most popular games on the service.
For those not familiar with Boosteroid, the service has two different catalogs of games. First is a “Library” catalog of titles which are hosted on shared storage as well as managed and updated by Boosteroid. This model is similar to how GeForce NOW operates.
Second is an “Install and Play” set of titles which require user-installation of games in a user-specific cloud drive. In our opinion, this is model more similar to how Shadow PC operates than GeForce NOW.
In the “Install and Play” category, Boosteroid is also careful not to use any game graphics or other media for the titles available. This suggests that they may not have an agreement with all the publishers to officially use such resources.
In our cloud games catalog (linked above), we are careful to only list games from Boosteroid’s “Library” collection. Listing games from the “Install and Play” collection would essentially require us to list every PC game available on a modern Windows desktop via services like Shadow or airgpu. We think such “remote desktop” type offerings are very powerful and useful solutions for some users, but outside of what most cloud gamers expect from a cloud gaming solution.
What we’ve noticed about the Boosteroid Library is that 21 games that were previously in the “Library” category have been moved over to the “Install and Play” category. These include some of the service’s biggest titles – including many titles from PlayStation and Warner Brothers. Perhaps even more worrying, 24 games appear to have disappeared entirely! This means a total of 45 games appear to have been removed from Boosteroid’s “Library” category.
Games Moved from “Library” to “Install and Play”
- Batman Arkham Knight
- Batman Arkham Asylum
- Days Gone
- Destiny 2
- God of War
- Gotham Knights
- Horizon Zero Dawn
- Injustice 2
- Like a Dragon: Ishin!
- Lost Light
- Marvel’s Spider-Man Miles Morales
- Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered
- Mortal Kombat X
- Mortal Kombat 11
- Multiversus
- Naraka: Bladepoint
- Predator: Hunting Grounds
- Sonic Frontiers
- Steep
- Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection
While the games on the above list can still be played on the service (in principle), the move is a pretty significant change to the user-experience. It feels to us a bit like a bait and switch.
Games Which Have Disappeared from Boosteroid Entirely
- Air Missions: HIND
- CRSED: F.O.A.D.
- Darksiders II
- Darksiders III
- Desperados III
- Game Tycoon II
- Gangsters 1920
- Generation Zero
- Gold Rush
- Gold Rush 2
- Gold Rush Classic
- Loverowind
- Lucid Cycle
- PAYDAY 2
- S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat
- S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky
- S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl
- The Cycle: Frontier
- The Dead Tree of Ranchiuna
- Trine
- Trine 2
- Trine 3
- Workers & Resources: Soviet Republic
- Wreckfest
A number of these titles are from THQ Nordic. It is possible that these games have been removed for a temporary maintenance and could return to either catalog type, but game pages typically remain with a maintenance note when work on the title is ongoing.
Unlike the case with Xbox Game Pass or Amazon Luna+, which are rotating game subscriptions, games leaving a service like Boosteroid, where you are paying for access to the cloud hardware not the games themselves, is not expected. However, we did warn that “there appears to be a real risk of games being removed from Boosteroid” when we reviewed the service last fall.
We were able to find a comment from Boosteroid in a Reddit thread on some of the removed titles (the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series):
Thank you for the suggestion. Unfortunately, there are some technical errors with these games, thus we can’t add them soon. Nonetheless, once a solution to the problems is found, we’ll consider their addition.
So, it doesn’t look like these titles, at least, will not be returning imminently.
As is, this represents one of people’s worst fears about cloud gaming – that their games could disappear from underneath them! It’s something that Boosteroid will need to address in order to maintain faith in their service. In the mean time, users should take solace in the fact that they still own their games on underlying platforms (Steam and Epic).
Boosteroid did recently announce a partnership with Microsoft to officially bring Xbox PC titles to its service. So, if the above departures are related to licensing issues, it is good to know that more games are on the horizon, at least.
We hope more publishers reach similar official agreements with Boosteroid and other services like GeForce NOW to bring their games to the cloud. Astute Cloud Gamers will remember that NVIDIA went through its own period of time where games left GFN do to a lack of publisher commitment.
We have reached out to Boosteroid for comment and will keep you updated as we learn more about these missing and changed titles in the Boosteroid library.
