While Cold Iron Studios is getting ready to release its co-op shooter Aliens: Fireteam Elite 2 later this month, as caught by VGC, Nintendo Switch users can no longer play the original Aliens: Fireteam Elite. Originally released on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S in 2021, the title got a cloud version on Nintendo Switch in 2023, and was sold for $29.99 for the standard edition and $59.99 for the Ultimate Edition.
The cloud version’s shutdown comes after Aliens: Fireteam Elite got delisted from the Nintendo Switch eShop. At the time, players were provided a warning that the cloud servers for the game through which it was streamed would be shut down in August.
Since the Nintendo Switch is known for having considerably weaker hardware than its contemporaries, the only way to play Aliens: Fireteam Elite on the platform was going to be through cloud streaming. However, with the game now locking Switch users that had paid money to buy it, there have been concerns about the future of game streaming, especially when it comes to the preservation of games.
Aliens: Fireteam Elite is far from the only game to make its way to the Nintendo Switch in the form of a cloud version; many AAA games were released in this way on the console, including Hitman 3 (before it would be renamed to Hitman World of Assassination), A Plague Tale: Requiem, Resident Evil 7, 2 Remake, 3 Remake, and Village, and Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy.
It is worth noting that many services still exist that offer players a way to play games through cloud streaming, including Amazon’s Luna, Xbox Game Pass, and PlayStation Plus. While there are noteworthy benefits to this approach, such as not needing to download and install larger games before being able to play them, there have also been many drawbacks.
One of the biggest such drawbacks was seen with the rise and fall of Google’s Stadia service, which was shut down back in January 2023. While the service was noted as being a high-quality one, with many AAA games available through it, the lack of general interest eventually caused Google to close it down. Users who had purchased games to play on Stadia were offered refunds, while companies like Ubisoft gave players the choice to transfer their game ownership to its own Ubisoft Connect platform.
Interestingly, Xbox has started testing its ability to expand on its cloud streaming service by offering an ad-supported free tier. It is worth noting, however, that the service can only be used in the free tier to play games that have already been purchased. To get access to a larger library, a user needs to subscribe to Game Pass. The tier displays an ad before the start of a play session, and the sessions themselves are limited to only a single hour.
Meanwhile, Take-Two Interactive CEO Strauss Zelnick has also recently spoken about cloud streaming and how it could eventually lead to “machines that weren’t game machines before” eventually also becoming capable of playing games.
