Arkane Studios and Bethesda’s Dishonored 2 will be leaving PlayStation Now on the 1st of June. This move may be in part due to Bethesda having been bought out by Microsoft, since Arkane Studios did fall under the business arrangement. The removal of Bethesda’s IPs from the Sony marketplace isn't too surprising.
Dishonored 2 is the sequel to Arkane Studio’s 2012 action-adventure game, which was published by Bethesda Softworks. The story continues where Dishonored finishes, jumping forward in time and allowing players to pick between the main character of the first game Corvo Attano and his now-adult daughter, Empress Emily Kaldwin. Both are skilled assassins with supernatural abilities, but each has a different set of skills and powers than the other. Using these skills, players must assassinate a number of targets across a selection of levels, and players are free to choose their own methods to complete the task. Just like in the first game, going with a non-lethal approach will heavily influence the story, as will using violence to kill and maim targets and civilians.
Just under a year ago, Sony had announced that Metro Exodus, Dishonored 2 and NASCAR HEAT 4 were joining the PlayStation Now library, the subscription package from Sony that allows players access to a broad library of games from the PS4, PS3 and PS2 on PS5, PS4 and PC. There are over 800 titles in the game library, with 300 of them available on PS4 and PS5. Now it seems that Sony will be removing Dishonored 2 from the service. Rumors of the Arkane Studios title being removed first popped up on Reddit; user sexyqwertykeyboard (via PushSquare) posted the news on the PlayStation Now subreddit. This information now seems to match the updated page for Dishonored 2 on PlayStation Now, which announces that the game will expire on June 1.
There are still a few Bethesda titles on the PlayStation Now subscription service, including the DOOM remake and RAGE 2. Neither of these titles' PlayStation Now pages has been updated with an end date for the service at the time of this article being posted. Dishonored 2 is also not the first to be removed from the library; various titles across the board have limited time releases for one reason or another. These can be seen on the PlayStation Now game page.
Whether or not the removal of Dishonored 2 is due to the acquisition of Bethesda and all its subsidiaries by Microsoft is still yet to be confirmed. The fact that Deathloop, which is being made by Arkane Studios, is still a PS5 and PC exclusive release is a good sign that Microsoft is not using this as an opportunity to cut PlayStation users off from Bethesda titles completely, but only time will tell how far the company will go.
Source: sexyqwertykeyboard (via PushSquare)