Jump Force has officially been delisted from stores across all platforms

Jump Force, the 2019 fighting game starring fighters from iconic shonen anime/manga franchises like Naruto, Dragon Ball and One Piece was announced back in 2021 to be taken off from online stores.

As of writing, the game can no longer be purchased digitally on Steam, the PlayStation Store, Nintendo eShop, and Xbox Store.

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Jump Force no longer available for purchase on digital platforms

The main reason for being delisted boils down to the expiration of licensing for some of the manga characters. For a game that's representing over a dozen franchises, it doesn't come as a surprise. However, other elements could have played a role towards the game coming to an end only over three years since launch.

For starters, the game was criticized at launch for being shallow with regards to both gameplay and narrative. The PC version of Jump Force has a 60 on Metacritic and a painful 4.1/10 User Score.

Additionally, it was a technically incompetent product that seemed rushed, and this hackjob could be seen in the subpar cutscenes with poor animation and bad writing. Shaky performance on consoles, including bad online play, did it no favors. To top it off, the roster has been called the most disappointing so far in a Jump game with only 16 franchises. Following this, publisher Bandai Namco has also been accused of cutting content from the base game to be sold as DLC.

That's a lot of controversy for one game, so it might not seem surprising that developer Spike Chunsoft chose not to renew the license.

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Ending on a sad note

Existing owners of the game need not worry. They will retain the game in their library, including purchased DLC content. However, some servers will be shutting down on August 24, 2022. This means that online play as well as leaderboards, the in-game store and ranked matches will be gone. However, online play outside of ranked (like PvP) will be available despite server shutdown.

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Jump Force overview

Jump Force is a 1v1 tag fighter in-line with others of its genre, like the Naruto Shippuden Ultimate Ninja Storm games. Players compete against AI or other players in arenas and engage in high intensity fights with flashy combos and visuals. The narrative follows a custom player-created character partnering up with other Jump characters to save humanity from a threat called the Venoms.

With all that being said, Jump Force's journey was tragic for something meant to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Shonen Jump. Here's hoping things turn out better for future installments, if any.