Two More Games Have Been 'Hard Delisted' And Removed Off The Xbox Store Entirely

There's been a lot of talk about curation and how Microsoft seems to allow anything on the Xbox Store these days, but apparently there's a lot going on in the background that we're never privy to, as evidenced by a few games that have quietly been hard delisted on the Xbox Store.

The term "hard delisted" refers to games that not only are unavailable to purchase, but don't even have an Xbox Store page anymore, meaning you technically can't download them even if you own them (although there are workarounds).

As spotted by True Achievements, two games that have recently been affected by this are Schedule 1: Dope Empire and Cairn. We covered the former when it released earlier this month - a clone of the ultra-popular PC title Schedule 1.

And, in the process of putting this article together, we discovered that another Schedule 1 clone from early November called Schedule 1: Drug Dealer has also been hard delisted on Xbox, as it has on the PlayStation Store as well.

Now that they're gone, you just get the following message for all three games on the Xbox Store:

Two More Games Have Been 'Hard Delisted' And Removed Off The Xbox Store Entirely 2

Cairn is a weird one - it's apparently a 2D platformer that launched in October with a broken achievement list, but there's no obvious reason why it's been hard delisted. Perhaps it's to do with the upcoming climbing survival game of the same name, which is being published by The Game Bakers and releasing in early 2026.

Anyway, these are far from the only games that have been hard delisted on Xbox over the years, and one Xbox fan actually highlighted 13 more examples recently such as Marvel Puzzle Quest: Dark Reign and Kid Tripp. We've also seen clones of other popular games such as WipeOut being removed in the past:

There's an argument to say that games should never be hard delisted on any store if people have purchased them, but we're assuming Xbox will have refunded anyone who picked up the likes of Schedule 1: Dope Empire or WipeOut when they were available.

And of course, perhaps one or more of these could actually return... we'll have to wait and see what happens.

What are your thoughts on games getting "hard delisted" on Xbox? Tell us in the comments down below.

[source trueachievements.com]