'Jump Force' Officially Pulled From All Online Stores

More than three years after its launch, publisher Bandai Namco has officially delisted “Jump Force” from all digital stores following their prior announcement in November 2020.

As of Feb. 7, 2022, “Jump Force” will no longer be sold on any digital storefront, and almost all of the game’s online functionalities will be shut down by August, per VGC. “Jump Force” will still be playable for anyone who owns the game, and online play between friends will still be possible through peer-to-peer connections. Other online features like ranked matches, the Rewards Counter, in-game events and the clan function will no longer be available to players.

Physical copies of the game will still be available for purchase, assuming that storefronts still have them in stock. However, physical copies are still subject to the same online restrictions.

Bandai Namco did not specify why they pulled “Jump Force” from online stores, but fans have surmised that the game’s lackluster performance despite an otherwise-solid launch could have been the cause.

While the actual sales figure remains obscured in a range between 77,000 and 500,000 copies sold worldwide, “Jump Force’s” record on Steam Charts showed that the game reached a concurrent player peak of 9,858 back when it launched in February 2019. Unfortunately, the player population steadily declined after that.

“Jump Force” is a tag-team fighting game that features a large cast of popular shonen anime and manga characters from titles such as “Naruto,” “Bleach,” “One Piece” and “Hunter x Hunter,” among many others. The game adopted a third-person, over-the-shoulder camera perspective, set in large and open arenas.

Over time, the developers added DLC characters like All Might, Majin Buu, Trafalgar Law and Giorno Giovanna, but they failed to grab the attention of new players or retain those who were already playing.

“Jump Force” received lukewarm reviews from various online outlets. IGN criticized the game’s story as “half-baked” and described the combat system as “shallow” and “repetitive” but praised the developers’ attempt at creating a balanced fighting system and the game’s overall roster of popular characters. The same sentiments were shared by many users on the game’s Steam page.