These retro SEGA games are now free on Android until they disappear forever
Nick Fernandez / Android Authority
TL;DR Nine retro SEGA games ported to mobile are now free without ads, but will lose support soon.
You can still download them, and they will likely remain in your account forever.
Free games include Crazy Taxi Classic, Shining Force Classics, Streets of Rage 2 Classic, and more.
SEGA has a long history of supporting its retro titles, with many ported directly to Android and iOS as part of the SEGA Forever program. However, the company will soon pull support for nearly its entire remaining catalog of mobile ports, including classic Sonic, Crazy Taxi, and Shining Force games.
There's no telling how long they will remain on the Google Play Store, but the good news is that they've all been made free. Previously, most were paid titles costing roughly $2, or were playable for free with IAP to remove ads.
The announcement came not via any official channels, but rather via an in-game popup in the affected titles. It reads: 'Support for this game will be discontinued, but you can continue playing offline! If you'd like to learn more about great SEGA games to play, please click the link below.' The link leads to the SEGA homepage.
This message implies that the game will still be playable after it's removed from the Play Store, provided you have claimed it on your account. This was the case for previous SEGA Forever titles that were pulled a few years ago, which included games like Phantasy Star Classics and Vectorman Classic.
Unfortunately, it was only a matter of time before the rest of these games lost support. The SEGA Forever program was discontinued in late 2023, and the last port was added to Android way back in 2019. While the ports didn't always live up to emulation, they did have full controller support, with many getting tens of millions of downloads.
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