2005 survival horror shooter ups and vanishes from Steam suspiciously soon after entering Nightdive's orbit

Bad news for the presumable legions of you that were just about to pick up 2005 survival horror shooter Cold Fear on Steam. You can't. It's gone. Vanished. Disappeared and absconded without so much as a how'd-you-do.

As of November 11 (per SteamDB), Cold Fear has been yoinked from Steam. The timing here is notable: back in August, the game slipped out of Ubisoft's hands and into Atari's, along with four other titles—I Am Alive, Child of Eden, Grow Home, and Grow Up. "We're excited to reintroduce these titles while also exploring ways to expand and evolve these franchises," Atari head honcho Wade Rosen said at the time.

Those other games are still available (save Child of Eden, which was never on PC). An obvious question arises: with Nightdive in Atari's embrace, has the studio been put to work on some kind of gussied-up version of the two-decade-old shooter?

It'd be an odd choice. Or, well, I think so anyway. Cold Fear's Very Positive reviews on Steam will inform you that the game has its dedicated shooters even today, but the game's critical reception at launch was pretty lukewarm—a strange addition to Nightdive's line-up of polished classics.

Then again, this is the studio that remastered PO'ed. I think sometimes someone just gets a bee in their bonnet over there for something incredibly niche and weird, and god bless them for that.

Anyway, the Nightdive link is pure speculation on my part. It could simply be the case that some bit of licensing happened to expire and forced Cold Fear (temporarily, one must hope) off sale. But the timing of it and the Atari acquisition is very conspicuous to your humble writer. If Atari isn't something with Cold Fear, let this be the sign from on high that it probably should.