Sony has quietly revealed that Dishonored 2 is being removed from its PlayStation Now service by updating the game's page with a removal date.
Investigated by PushSquare, a quick visit to Dishonored 2 on PS Now reveals that the game will be leaving the service on June 1st, just five days from when it was updated. Games leave the service all the time, but what makes this removal especially strange is that Dishonored 2 has been included on PlayStation Now for well over a year with no indication that its inclusion on the service was ever timed.
Even the original blog post from PlayStation has no record of the game potentially being removed from the service. All that can be seen is the removal date of Metro Exodus, another game that was released on the service at the same time. Quite why Sony is removing the game so quietly and swiftly is anybody's best guess, but odds are it has something to do with Microsoft's acquisition of Bethesda.
The developer of Dishonored 2 is Arkane Studios, a company that was previously owned by Bethesda. Microsoft's acquisition of Bethesda means that both Arkane and the Dishonored franchise now belong to Microsoft, making future releases besides Deathloop Xbox exclusives. Dishonored 2's removal from PlayStation Now could be Microsoft attempting to make the game easier to play on Xbox consoles.
It'll be interesting to see if it's just Dishonored 2 that is being removed or if more Bethesda-owned properties will start to drop from PlayStation services. Currently, both Doom and Rage 2 are also included on PlayStation Now and Fallout 4 is included in the PlayStation Plus Collection that is available for PS5 users. Whether these titles will also be removed from these services is a question only time will answer.
PlayStation Now may be struggling to keep up with Xbox Game Pass, but that doesn't mean that it isn't a great way to play some amazing games for cheap. The service recently added a number of excellent titles in May, including Nioh, Jump Force, and the recently released Streets of Rage 4.