TL;DR
Five Xbox games—LEGO 2K Drive, Super Mega Baseball 4, MLB The Show 24, NBA 2K24, and WWE 2K23—will be removed from digital storefronts in May and June 2026. This follows a pattern of aggressive delisting by 2K Games and its parent Take-Two Interactive, affecting players who purchased these titles digitally and now face a hard deadline to download them before they become permanently inaccessible for new buyers.
What Happened
Five major sports and racing titles from 2K Games are being pulled from the Microsoft Store and other digital storefronts in a staggered delisting window spanning May 15 to June 30, 2026. The list, first reported by Pure Xbox, includes LEGO 2K Drive (added in a late update to the story), Super Mega Baseball 4, MLB The Show 24, NBA 2K24, and WWE 2K23—all published or co-published by 2K Games under Take-Two Interactive.
Key Facts
- LEGO 2K Drive will be delisted on May 27, 2026, just over two years after its May 2024 release.
- Super Mega Baseball 4 leaves digital stores on May 15, 2026, exactly three years after its June 2023 launch.
- MLB The Show 24 will be removed on May 15, 2026, following Take-Two’s standard practice of delisting annual sports titles after the next year’s edition ships.
- NBA 2K24 and WWE 2K23 are scheduled for delisting on June 30, 2026, aligning with Take-Two’s fiscal year-end cleanup of older catalog titles.
- All five games are affected across Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and likely PlayStation and PC storefronts, though Pure Xbox focused on the Microsoft Store.
- This brings the total number of 2K-published games delisted in 2026 to at least seven, following earlier removals of NBA 2K23 and WWE 2K22 in January 2026.
- Players who already own these games can still download and play them after delisting, but new purchases and redownloads for new accounts will be blocked.
Breaking It Down
The delisting of LEGO 2K Drive is the most jarring inclusion. Released in May 2024 for $69.99, this family-friendly racing game was marketed as a premium alternative to Forza Horizon 5 and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. Its removal after just 24 months on the market represents one of the shortest commercial lifespans for a major AAA game from a top-10 publisher. LEGO 2K Drive sold an estimated 1.2 million copies in its first year, according to industry tracking firm VGChartz—respectable but far below Take-Two’s internal targets, which reportedly expected 3–4 million units in year one.
LEGO 2K Drive will be delisted after just 24 months on sale—shorter than the average AAA game’s digital storefront lifespan of 36–48 months and far below the 60+ months typical for Nintendo-published family titles. This means any parent who bought the game for a child in 2024 now has roughly 12 months to download it before it becomes unavailable for re-download on new consoles.
The annual sports franchise delistings—MLB The Show 24, NBA 2K24, and WWE 2K23—follow a well-established pattern. Take-Two Interactive has systematically removed older sports titles from digital storefronts since 2022, citing server costs, licensing agreements, and a desire to push players toward the latest $69.99 annual entry. MLB The Show 24 is the most notable because Sony Interactive Entertainment co-publishes that series, and Sony has historically kept its first-party sports games (like MLB The Show 22 and 23) available for years after release. The May 15 delisting date for MLB The Show 24 suggests Take-Two is now driving the removal schedule even for co-published titles.
Super Mega Baseball 4 is the outlier. Developed by Metalhead Software and acquired by EA Sports in 2021, this game was published by EA—not Take-Two. Its inclusion in this delisting wave suggests EA is following the same aggressive removal strategy as Take-Two, perhaps in response to EA Sports pivoting to its own annualized Super Mega Baseball series starting with Super Mega Baseball 5 in 2025. The May 15 delisting for Super Mega Baseball 4 means the game will have been available for exactly 35 months—a relatively short window for a non-annualized title.
What Comes Next
Players who want to keep these games in their libraries face a narrow window. The delisting dates are May 15, 2026 (for Super Mega Baseball 4 and MLB The Show 24), May 27, 2026 (for LEGO 2K Drive), and June 30, 2026 (for NBA 2K24 and WWE 2K23). After those dates, the games will disappear from storefronts and become unavailable for new purchases. Existing owners can still download them from their Microsoft Store library, but anyone who hasn't purchased them by the deadline will lose access permanently.
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Watch for physical disc price spikes: LEGO 2K Drive physical copies on Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5 are likely to double or triple in price on the secondary market after the digital delisting, following the pattern seen with WWE 2K22 discs, which jumped from $15 to $45 on eBay after its January 2026 delisting.
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Expect a potential "2K Delisting Sale" in late May: Take-Two has historically offered 60–80% discounts on titles in their final weeks before delisting, as seen with NBA 2K23 at $8.99 in December 2025 before its January 2026 removal. Watch the Microsoft Store for flash sales starting around May 10.
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Look for server shutdown announcements in Q3 2026: Delisting from storefronts typically precedes server shutdowns by 6–12 months. NBA 2K24 and WWE 2K23 online features, including MyTEAM and WWE Universe modes, may become unplayable by mid-2027.
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Monitor LEGO 2K Drive for a potential Game Pass re-emergence: Microsoft has previously added delisted games to Xbox Game Pass via special licensing deals (e.g., Forza Horizon 4 after its delisting). LEGO 2K Drive could return as a Game Pass title if Microsoft and Take-Two negotiate a new licensing agreement.
The Bigger Picture
This delisting wave underscores two major trends reshaping the gaming industry. Digital Storefront Churn is accelerating: Take-Two Interactive has now delisted nine major titles in 2026 alone, up from four in all of 2025. Publishers are treating digital storefronts as rotating catalogs rather than permanent archives, fundamentally changing the economics of game ownership. When you buy a digital game today, you are renting access—not purchasing a product. The LEGO 2K Drive case is particularly stark: a $70 game sold to families in 2024 will be unmarketable by May 2026, a 71% faster delisting than the industry average for AAA titles.
The second trend is Licensing Complexity as a driver of removal. LEGO 2K Drive involves licenses from LEGO, 2K, and various vehicle manufacturers (including Mercedes-Benz, Aston Martin, and McLaren). MLB The Show 24 carries licenses from Major League Baseball, the MLB Players Association, and Sony. WWE 2K23 involves WWE talent contracts and music licenses. Each of these agreements has expiration dates, and Take-Two is choosing to delist rather than renegotiate. This creates a "license tax" on game preservation—games with more licenses die faster.
Key Takeaways
- [LEGO 2K Drive's 24-month lifespan]: This family game's delisting after just two years is the shortest for a major AAA title in recent memory, signaling that Take-Two has zero tolerance for underperforming licensed IP.
- [May 15 deadline for two titles]: Super Mega Baseball 4 and MLB The Show 24 disappear first on May 15, 2026, giving players less than a month to purchase if they want permanent access.
- [Physical discs become the only backup]: After delisting, physical copies become the sole way to acquire these games, likely driving eBay prices up 200–400% within weeks.
- [Server shutdowns follow in 2027]: Online features for NBA 2K24 and WWE 2K23 will likely become unplayable by mid-2027, reducing the games to offline-only shells.
