It seems that Remedy’s time travel action sci-fi epic, Quantum Break, will be leaving Game Pass sometime in April. It’s been a part of the service since practically the very beginning, so this normally wouldn’t be all that surprising. After all, most games spend much less time available as part of Xbox’s subscription service. However, it seems that this is something of a special case.

According to True Achievements.com, Remedy Entertainment has confirmed that Microsoft does indeed own the Quantum Break IP, also the game was published by Xbox Game Studios. This should effectively make Quantum Break an Xbox first-party IP, and those are supposed to be permanently available as part of Xbox Game Pass. No explanation has yet been given as to why this game in particular is being taken off the service, but given its ownership status, one could hazard a guess that something beyond IP rights is at play here. Perhaps something to do with the actors featured in it?

With Quantum Break, Xbox and Remedy set out to make something extremely ambitious. They wanted to make a game with all the production value and compelling drama of a first-rate TV sci-fi miniseries. The game is filled with live-action cutscenes to tell the story, and it even accounts for choices made along the way. If I remember correctly, there was even a weekly episodic component to it that ran for about a month both before and after the game’s initial release (don’t quote me on that though, it’s been a long time). It wasn’t new content for the game exactly, but rather more story to help fill fans in as to what exactly was going on. Point is, Quantum Break was meant to be an event just as much as it was supposed to be a game release.

Having played the game when it first launch, I remember being interested in everything going on, and I remember that the game itself played competently enough. The powers were interesting and the time-travel hook was cool, but I feel like the story itself fell flat. This was at least in part due to a lot of that story existing outside the game for one, and for the “cutscenes” feeling rather long in the tooth. It’s one thing for a TV show episode to run for 30 minutes or so, it’s another for a “cutscene” do the same. The hybrid nature of the game made it difficult to enjoy either aspect of it, and made the whole experience kind of fall flat for me. (Which is why I was very happy with Control focusing much more on gameplay and indirect storytelling.)

The point is that Quantum Break is an old, fairly average game that’s unlikely to see much in the way of sales these days. Nobody is going to make money off of it outside of Game Pass, so there has to be something else going on behind the scenes to motivate this odd move.

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What’s your take on this? Why would they take it off the service now? What did you think of the game when it was still new?

Image from the Steam store page