Update: Great news! Onrush is not being delisted, says the studio behind the game. It's merely absent from the Xbox store for a few weeks while a security server update is pushed through. This has not affected the PlayStation version, nor will it.
"ONRUSH on Xbox is currently in need of a security server update, meaning multiplayer will shortly be unavailable until December. Players can continue their progress in the single-player game modes. We sincerely apologise for the inconvenience, and we will compensate all players with free in-game virtual currency. This only affects players on the Xbox family of devices.During this time, ONRUSH has temporarily been removed from the Xbox Store."
Long live Onrush.
Original Story: Onrush, the competitive racing game from Codemasters, has quietly vanished from Xbox stores and it seems PlayStation may not be far behind. The game was first labeled as missing a week ago on the game's subreddit when a would-be buyer couldn't find the game for sale, but only this week did it come light when Twitter account DelistedGames called attention to its absence as well.
DelistedGames is not an insider, just a curious gamer, but they rightfully suggest the game is probably coming offline soon. First released in 2018, Onrush presented a very non-traditional racing game setup. Instead of trying to be first to the finish line, players would select racers from a garage of various car classes. Personally, I always gave others the elevator pitch to think of it as "Overwatch Racing League." It wasn't a racing game. It was a hero racer.
The game's novel ideas apparently failed to capture either the hero shooter community or the racing community, resulting in a lackluster launch. The team behind the game was disbanded by Codemasters just a few months after Onrush came out. Many of the team members have moved onto new projects in the meantime. Even the game's director, Paul Rustchynsky, was unaware of the delisting on Xbox and similarly surmised that the game's sudden disappearance may signal the servers coming down soon.
"Ugh, that's depressing to hear (if true). Guessing the servers are getting shutdown in the near future to save costs. Goodbye #ONRUSH you were a tragically misunderstood game."
It would seem to align with my own experience with the game. I was a big fan at launch and have regularly gone back to it every so often, but last time I did so earlier this summer, I repeatedly got matched with the same players over and over.
The game has not yet been delisted on PlayStation 4 and is in fact on sale on that platform until October 28. There's no word from Codemasters whether the Xbox delisting is a harbinger of a server shutdown or perhaps even a mistake, but given that it's been absent for over a week now, it would be a strange and lengthy mistake to make. Onrush was given as a PlayStation Plus game in 2019, so one could suppose it will stay on PS4 for longer, but a server shutdown would likely affect all platforms eventually.
To its credit, the game at least did well critically, garnering a 79 average from 92 critics at launch. If this is the end of Onrush, it's another reminder of the problems modern games face in the realm of preservation. History may be forced to forget it, and that's a shame, because it's excellent.
