Or has the drama surrounding the owner of the studio that developed the game suddenly made it harder to get hold of?

Condemned: Criminal Origins is probably the best game in which you can beat someone to death with a large piece of wood. We would recommend it, but there’s a catch: it’s harder to find than before. As Warip64 reported, Condemned: Criminal Origins has disappeared from Steam, GOG, and the Xbox Store.

It used to be available on Steam (see SteamDB), but it’s no longer there. For now, you can still get a working code on Fanatical, but even there, we are seeing redirects. Why did it suddenly disappear from stores? There is currently no answer, but many on social media hope it means a remaster is in the works. The timing certainly fuels this speculation, as Condemned is a Halloween-esque game. It may be a coincidence, but, since we’re speculating, let’s add a conspiracy theory.

A week ago, Jace Hall of Nightdive was interviewed. Nightdive is famous for its remakes and remasters of classic games. But who is Jace Hall? He was the co-founder of Monolith. The studio, previously known for Blood, brought us Condemned: Criminal Origins, so it’s easy to connect the two.

However, its removal from stores may be linked to Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD). The publisher, which may be acquired by Netflix (!!!), is connected to Monolith because Warner owned the now-closed studio. WBD may want to distance itself from the past and old, outdated games. After all, it’s been almost twenty years since the game was released. Or maybe there was some kind of licensing issue. Who knows?

Hopefully, if a remaster is in the works, Condemned 2: Bloodshot will follow. It was only released on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.

Source: PCGamer, SteamDB, Bsky