Lego racing game 2K Drive will be delisted next week, but online mult…

Out with the old, in with the new—Forza Horizon 6 has hit the scene, but a different open world online racer is getting scrubbed from digital storefronts just three years after its initial release. Lego 2K Drive, an open-world kart racer where you can build your own vehicles, announced on its Steam page (via IGN) that the game will no longer be available for purchase starting May 19.

If you already own the game or snag it before its exit, you can still use its multiplayer features until May 31 of next year. "After that time, all game functions requiring online servers will no longer function," the update reads. Given that a major feature of the game is sharing your custom Lego creations with other players, it seems like this coming year is your chance to experience the game as intended. chickenroadslot.pro

That's if you're so inclined, anyway. PC Gamer's Lewis Parker wasn't exactly head over heels for the game in his 59% review, where he called it "a solid kart racer" blemished by "greedy microtransactions." Indeed, a $50 digital currency bundle in a racing game aimed at children isn't a great look—though I'll admit the in-game kart creator using real-life Lego brick specifications is a nice touch.

Still, it seems like a relatively competent kart racer outside of that, so it's a shame that it's disappearing so soon after its release. It's a big year for sudden delistings so far—nearly 30 Disney games have vanished from digital storefronts since January and Stark Trek: Resurgence just announced its license ran out last month.

It's unclear what specifically prompted 2K Drive's exit, but the game did feature vehicles like the real-world McLaren Solus GT, so it seems likely that a licensing issue is at play.

Ever since a study theorized that around 87 percent of videogames are not playable without finding a physical copy or nabbing a digital one via piracy or an archive, I stopped feigning shock when a game gets delisted. Games with licensed characters or music have an especially rough time staying on digital storefronts: Star Trek: Resurgence and 29 Disney games have been vaporized since the year began.

If you've been worried that Mixtape, the narrative adventure game which launched earlier this month and has become the target of every possible opinion, will suffer a similar fate due to all the licensed songs in its soundtrack—they thought of that. In an interview with Kotaku, the game's creative director Johnny Galvatron said developer Beethoven and Dinosaur paid extra "to keep Mixtape's licenses up in perpetuity."

Publisher Annapurna reiterated the point on X, saying in a post: "We heard some people say Mixtape would be delisted due to music licenses expiring. That was a lie. Have a great weekend, everyone."

Granted, games get delisted for all sorts of reasons—this doesn't protect the game from all of those reasons forever—but at the very least, it shouldn't be down to Stan Bush's legal team refusing to renew rights for The Touch. It's an impressive feat considering that Mixtape has over two dozen licensed songs, some of which are big hits like Iggy Pop's "Candy" and DEVO's "That's Good."

Regardless of what you think of the game (PC Gamer staff writer Harvey Randall scored it a respectable 74% in his review, calling it "lovely, beautiful, [and] heartwarming," but also noting it was "unable to convince me it needed my input as a player at all"), confidence in long-term preservation seems like a win for everyone.

Steam Controllers are the new hotness in hardware, but actually getting your hands on one is easier said than done. Before it launched, Valve said it had "knobs" at the ready to get pads in hands as soon as possible, but the controllers sold out in barely a day, leaving plenty of folks waiting in line for a restock. I think we are finally seeing the fruit of Valve's knobs, though: according to players on social media, reservation emails are coming through.

"ITS HAPPENING EVERYONE, STAY CALM!" reads a Reddit thread from SideOfBurgers, who shared a screenshot of an email from Valve that gives them until May 18 to buy the controller, or forfeit their reservation.

If you made a reservation, check your email to see if your number has come up. If you haven't made a reservation yet, you'll have to get in line.

It's apparently first come, first serve, but players are reporting all sorts of things on social media. User SideOfBurgers wrote the aforementioned thread, "I reserved my controller as soon as the clock went from 9:58 to 9:59. The reservation email says 9:59. Not sure how they are sending the order emails out and what order. Some people who ordered within seconds before me haven’t gotten any emails."

"I reserved right at May 8, 9:59 a.m. PST and did not get the email," replied Reddit user Shindigira. In another thread, user Alone-Horse2857 wrote, "Literally 40 seconds BEFORE the first seconds as stated by Valve and WHERE IS MY GODDAMN EMAIL GABEN!?"

"See you next year, we are cooked," wrote user CaptainHppo. Naturally, there are all sorts of kinks that could be responsible for a particular user's problem—inbox filters, shipping problems, problems on Valve's end, and so on.

In short, I can't promise you that you'll have an exciting email waiting for you even if you reserved a controller the moment it became possible. But I'd check if I were you, because when you are selected, you'll only have a few days to act.