PS1-inspired game Old School Rally removed from sale following DMCA takedown

A DMCA takedown notice has been issued to Old School Rally, according to the developer, Sakis, resulting in the game being removed from sale on Steam.

Following a demo last year, the retro rally title was released on PC through the early access programme – effectively a work-in-progress build.

Its deliberately low-resolution car and stage depictions are especially reminiscent of the early Colin McRae Rally games – although based on initial impressions of the first demo, the vehicle handling was not befitting of Codemasters’ icons.

However, since then, a spate of updates have been implemented, and earlier this month, it was announced it would leave early access later this year and even be released on PlayStation and Nintendo Switch.

Now, Sakis, aka Frozen Lake Games and working with Chinese publisher Astrolabe Games, is hoping to relist the early access version on Steam soon, with select car models locked. Exactly which vehicles are being disputed is not yet clear, but the next build will have the offending items labelled as “This car will be available again in an update soon.”

The game does not feature any licenced content. Instead, it uses car models similar to known classic rally cars, tweaked in both styling and name.

“During the early stages of development, Sakis legally sourced certain car models under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0) license from Sketchfab, a trusted and reputable online model database. Sakis even proactively reached out to the original uploader to verify the ownership and received explicit approval for their use in our game, ensuring that proper credits were provided,” claims the statement.

“However, last Friday, we received an unexpected claim from another individual alleging ownership of some of these car models. Upon receipt of this claim, we immediately reached back out to the original uploader, who maintains their position regarding their rights to these models. Concurrently, we initiated respectful communication with the claimant to explore potential solutions and maintain open dialogue because we absolutely want to respect the rightful ownership of any assets we used.

“Regrettably, rather than a continuation of discussions, on Monday, Old School Rally was abruptly issued with a DMCA takedown notice, prompting Steam to temporarily remove the game from the store as per their policies (which is standard practice).”

It was originally stated that the final version of Old School Rally would feature over 30 cars and 22 stages across ten countries. A free demo for PlayStation 5 remains on the PlayStation Store at the time of publication.