List of recalled video games
This is a list of video games that have been recalled for various reasons after their initial release and then rereleased on a later date.
List
| Title | Scale | Reason | Reported Date |
| Atelier Lise ~The Alchemist of Orde~ | Japan | Contained several major bugs, which often leads to the game crashing. | 2008 |
| Atelier Marie: The Alchemist of Salburg | Japan | The initial print run of the Dreamcast version was infected by the Kriz computer virus which affected Microsoft Windows systems. The screensaver virus that came with the bonus content partition in the GD-ROM erased CMOS and BIOS settings, and attempted to overwrite files located on hard drives and the local network. | 2001 |
| Batman: Arkham Knight | Worldwide | Massive issues with performance on PC, regardless of the quality of the system being used. | 2015 |
| Biz Nouryoku DS Series: Wagokoro no Moto | Japan | One day before release, one of the people who worked in the game was arrested for groping a woman. Some copies were sold, since the recall happened on launch. | 2007 |
| Cyberpunk 2077 | Worldwide | Widespread complaints about technical issues and bugs; poor performance on Xbox One and PlayStation 4 consoles. | 2020 |
| Disney's Animated Storybook: The Lion King | North America | Due to a highly-publicised incident involving initial copies of the game crashing on Compaq Presario computers with certain video drivers, defective copies of the game were recalled in exchange for a newer edition of the game with wider hardware support. The Lion King controversy eventually led to the development of the more popular DirectX multimedia API. | 1994 |
| Fantasia | Worldwide | Sega was granted the licensing against the wishes of Walt Disney. | 1992 |
| Final Lap | North America | Atari and Namco were sued by Phillip Morris over its use of Marlboro and other cigarette logos in the game. An upgraded ROM for arcades was issued removing the cigarette logos. | 1990 |
| Formula 1 97 | Worldwide | While no content was edited from the game, a legal issue regarding the inclusion of the FIA logo in the game's box art prompted the game to be recalled and re-released with a new box art without the FIA logo. | 1997 |
| Fruits Mura no Doubutsutachi 2: Osora no Fruits Land | Japan | A bug was discovered, which can corrupt saved data. | 2006 |
| Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas | Worldwide | The "Hot Coffee" mod which unlocks a minigame in which the main character has sex with his girlfriend. See Hot Coffee minigame controversy. | 2005 |
| The Guy Game | North America | One of the girls featured in the game sued the developers, claiming the footage was released without her consent and that she was a minor at the time of filming. | 2005 |
| Wii ports of Humongous Entertainment games | North America | The Wii ports of Freddi Fish and the Case of the Missing Kelp Seeds, Pajama Sam: No Need to Hide When It's Dark Outside, and Spy Fox: Dry Cereal, published by Majesco Entertainment and ported by Mistic Software, were recalled in 2009 due to GNU GPL violations pertaining to ScummVM engine; all three games were recalled as a part of the port developer's settlement with ScummVM developers. | 2008 |
| Kakuto Chojin | United States, Japan | Use of a verse from the Qur'an. | 2003 |
| The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time | United States | Use of quotes from the Qur'an and the use of the Islamic Symbol. | 1998 |
| Limbo of the Lost | Europe, North America | Immediately after its US release, this game developed by Majestic Studios was recalled due to allegations of plagiarizing many well-known games and movies. | 2007 2008 |
| LittleBigPlanet | Worldwide | Quotes from the Qur'an mixed with music. | 2008 |
| Mario Party | United States | Sued by the New York Attorney General over joystick movements that can cause injury. Nintendo was ordered to issue gloves to help reduce arm injuries. | 2000 |
| Mario Party 8 | United Kingdom | Use of the word "spastic," which is considered highly offensive in the UK. | 2007 |
| Metroid: Other M | Japan | The game has a serious game breaking software bug where it is possible for Samus Aran to accidentally get stuck in sector 3 by having a door lock up permanently. | 2010 |
| Mind Quiz | United Kingdom | Use of the word "spastic," which is considered highly offensive in the UK. | 2006 |
| Myth II: Soulblighter | Worldwide | Contained a bug where, if the game was installed to the root of the user's hard drive and subsequently uninstalled, it would remove all data from the hard drive. | 1998 |
| Quiz Magic Academy DS | Japan | Contained several major bugs, which often leads to the game crashing. | 2008 |
| The Race Against Time | United Kingdom | The original print of the game was recalled due to its unauthorised use of the likeness of American track and field athlete Jesse Owens. Subsequent pressings used a picture of Carl Lewis; Lewis offered his likeness for free to benefit the Sport Aid charity. ACE later placed it as one of the biggest marketing disasters of 1988. | 1988 |
| Samurai Shodown V Special | Worldwide | An attempt to censor some of the finishing moves created several bugs, such as with the game's training mode. | 2004 |
| Segagaga | Japan | The original release featured a character been called "Adult Child", which was considered offensive by the Japan Adult Children's Association. | 2001 |
| SNK vs. Capcom: Card Fighters DS | United States | A bug exists where the game could crash after talking to an opponent that must be defeated to progress in the second play through. | 2007 |
| Sonic Blast Man | North America, Japan | Young players fractured or injured wrists and arms as a result of hitting the Blastman's punching pad without using the gloves. | 1995 |
| Spider-Man 2: Enter Electro | Worldwide | Several stage names and dialogues were changed and a building in the final stage was modified to remove resemblance with the World Trade Center due to sensitivity issues, since the game was released after the September 11 attacks. | 2001 |
| Super Monaco GP | North America | Sega sued by Phillip Morris over its use of Marlboro logos in the game. An upgraded ROM for arcades was issued removing the cigarette logos. | 1991 |
| Super Paper Mario | Europe, Australia | A bug in level 2-2 caused the game to crash when a certain optional line of dialogue was triggered due to code that prompted the player to select a response, even though it had no options for responses. This was triggered if the game's language was set to English, German, or Spanish. A revision was released shortly after that fixed the bug. | - |
| Taiko no Tatsujin: Touch de Dokodon! | Japan | The game contained a bug that made it unplayable if all save files featured Don-chan wearing costumes. | 2007 |
| Tales of Graces | Japan | The game contained many bugs, especially when playing a new game on "New Game+" mode. | 2010 |
| Tetris: The Soviet Mind Game | North America | Tengen Console Versions recalled due to licensing issues. Tetris was licensed to Andromeda software by ELORG for use only on personal computers. Andromeda Software then sub-licensed the game to Mirrorsoft. Mirrorsoft then illegally sold Console Rights to Atari Games and their subsidiary Tengen. Tengen then released their own version of Tetris for Nintendo and Sega in North America and then sub-licensed these rights to Bullet Proof Software for the Japanese market. However when Bullet Proof Software and Nintendo tried to the license the handheld rights from ELORG, Bullet Proof Software was told that ELORG never licensed the console rights to anyone! Nintendo and BPS would eventually license the console and handheld Tetris rights from ELORG. Atari and Tengen sued Nintendo over this and lost as Mirrorsoft did not have these rights. Atari and Tengen had to recall their version of Tetris as the result. | |
| Tiger Woods 99 | Worldwide | The dummy file in the game was revealed to be The Spirit of Christmas a.k.a. Jesus vs. Santa, created by the creators of South Park, which EA viewed as "offensive to consumers". No such file existed in the PC version. | 1999 |
| Too Human and X-Men: Destiny | Worldwide | Due to legal issues regarding the use of Unreal Engine 3 between Silicon Knights and Epic Games, these two games were recalled, with all unsold copies destroyed. | 2012 |
| Wrestle Kingdom | Japan | Issues with saving to Xbox 360's hard drive prompted a recall of the game. | 2005 |
| WWF No Mercy | Worldwide | The game's internal memory would occasionally erase saved game progress. | 2000 |