Fortnite developer Epic pulls Infinity Blade trilogy from App Store
It wants to focus on the J.J. Abrams collaboration Spyjinx.
The Infinity Blade trilogy is no longer available.
Epic Games removed its Infinity Blade trilogy from the App Store Wednesday, as it focuses resources on megahit Fortnite and its collaboration with J.J. Abrams.
The first Infinity Blade game hit Apple's digital store in 2010, having "amazed" the late Steve Jobs , and it made more than $1.6 million in its first four days.
The game led to a pair of sequels, in 2011 and 2013, but that was an era before Fortnite, and now they're gone from the App Store for good. If you already own the games, you can still play them and redownload them from the account through which you bought them, but in-app purchase options are no longer available.
Epic was struggling to maintain the games as it worked on Spyjinx -- the collaboration with Star Wars: Episode IX director Abrams originally scheduled for a 2016 release -- so it opted to pull the trilogy, it said in a release.
"The Infinity Blade series will always hold a special place for me personally and for Epic as a whole," Donald Mustard, the company's global creative director, said. "It's always bittersweet to say goodbye, but we are excited for Spyjinx and what the future holds!"
The company will continue to support Infinity Blade III with "updated Clash Mobs and other surprises" for the next month, in addition to special items. The titular sword was also added to Fortnite, but it's apparently pretty tough to get.
The games' removal says something about the ephemeral nature of digital games -- companies can simply yank anything that's no longer profitable as they move onto the next big thing. Perhaps that's why people are selling physical copies of Fortnite for hundreds of dollars?
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