Witchaven and Witchaven 2 are being delisted on June 15

Witchaven and Witchaven 2 are being removed from sale on June 15, giving retro FPS fans only a short window to buy them before they disappear from digital stores. Revival publisher SNEG has confirmed the delisting, though it has not said whether the reason is an expiring license or a possible replacement by remastered versions.

Both games are currently discounted before removal. The pair can be bought as a bundle for 89 percent off on Steam or 90 percent off on GOG. The GOG version is cheaper because the starting price is lower.

Witchaven matters because it was the first legally released Build Engine game

Witchaven may not be remembered as one of the best first person games of the 1990s, but it has a real place in PC gaming history. Released in September 1995, it was the first game to legally use the Build Engine, which later became famous through Duke Nukem 3D, Blood, PowerSlave, and Shadow Warrior.

That history is the main reason the delisting matters. Witchaven was developed by Capstone and loosely based on a set of Dungeons and Dragons dungeon maps from Wyrm Works. Instead of being a pure shooter, it focused heavily on first person melee combat. You play as a knight fighting through a volcano filled with goblins, witches, and other enemies.

The combat used swords, axes, morning stars, bows, and a few spells. Weapons could break, forcing players to switch during fights. That idea was unusual at the time, but the actual feel of combat was rough. Like many early first person melee games, it could be hard to judge distance between your character and enemies.

Witchaven 2 received a mixed response when PC Gamer reviewed it in 1996. The review criticized the controls and movement, saying the character could feel like he was floating or sliding instead of stopping cleanly. It still praised some enemy behavior, such as characters acting naturally before noticing the player, but the final score was only 58 percent.

Even with those problems, Witchaven remains interesting because it shows the early shape of a famous engine before its most successful games arrived. It tried to turn the Build Engine into a fantasy melee adventure before Duke Nukem 3D made the technology a shooter landmark.

There is also a strange footnote in Build Engine history. A Taiwanese studio used an early version of the engine without a completed agreement for Rock ’n’ Shaolin: Legend of the Seven Paladins 3D in 1994. But Witchaven was the first official, legally released Build Engine game.

The delisting leaves two possibilities. The simple answer is that rights or licensing issues may be forcing the games off sale. The more hopeful answer is that SNEG could be preparing remasters or updated releases to replace them. Nothing has been confirmed yet.

For players who care about old PC games, the safest move is to buy Witchaven and Witchaven 2 before June 15 if they want them in their library. They may not be classics in the usual sense, but they are part of the Build Engine story, and that makes their removal worth noting.