The official Sackboy/LittleBigPlanet Twitter account has posted a pre-warning of the immanent removal of LittleBigPlanet 3 from the PS3, PS4 and PS5 digital stores, plus the additional removal of every DLC pack remaining from the whole series – this will cover differing items availability wise across LBP 1,2,3,PSP,Vita and Karting on all 4 PSN stores. (3,4,5 and Vita.)
A full quotation of the post as follows:
An important update on LittleBigPlanet 3 (PS4) and LittleBigPlanet DLC on the PlayStation Store:
Sackboy/LittleBigPlanet Twitter news announcement – October 08th, 2024.
Last Chance to Purchase LittleBigPlanet 3 (PS4) and LittleBigPlanet DLC from the PlayStation Store.
After 10 years of playing, creating and sharing content in LittleBigPlanet 3, the game and our entire range of LittleBigPlanet DLC will be removed from the PlayStation Store on October 31st 2024.
Anyone that currently owns or purchases LittleBigPlanet 3 or any LittleBigPlanet DLC before it is delisted for sale, will still be able to access their purchased games and content after its removal.
This is a friendly heads-up that if anyone in the community or any newcomers still wish to own a digital copy of LittleBigPlanet 3 or any LittleBigPlanet DLC currently available for purchase – This is your last chance to do so!
Thank you for your continued support and understanding.
This has followed multiple online service shutdowns from older games in the series in 2021 where only the 3rd entry on PS4 was restored, this was then repeated in 2024 bringing all the LBP games offline, with the 3 mainline entries taken down at the hands of 3rd party attacks.
Delistings are no stranger to this franchise, as with many of the Costumes and level packs from Licensed IP’s have also been exorcised from the ginormous list of content over the series lifetime – but as to quite why the entire library is being erased in one fell swoop when it also consisted of many original and wholly owned items by PlayStation, has not been elaborated on.
Of course all content bought, games or DLC otherwise will still be accessible to the PSN account they were purchased through to download for the foreseeable future – as clarified by the LBP Twitter account.
If you have downloaded LittleBigPlanet 3 via PlayStation Plus, you will still be able to play the game after October 31st. This is also true of any LittleBigPlanet DLC purchases from the PlayStation Store.
https://x.com/LittleBigPlanet/status/1843656096814338523
Now LittleBigPlanet Vita remains the only mainline LBP game available digitally, although as of a recent checkup (08/10/24) on the EU PSN Vita store it can only be found via the search bar – this game of course like every other entry into the series contains Licensed music tracks, so will remain on a unannounced timeline right now until it meets the same fate.
Thanks to the multiple users who made us aware of the news as quickly as it was announced.