Disney Is Shutting Down the Play Disney Parks App on September 16, and the Star Wars: Datapad Goes With It

Disney is switching off the Play Disney Parks app. Not updating it, not replacing it with anything Disney has named, switching it off. September 16 is the date, and after that the app is gone at both Walt Disney World and Disneyland, along with the in-queue games, the trivia, the digital achievements and the Star Wars: Datapad that turned your phone into a working piece of Batuu.

Blog Mickey published first among the outlets we are citing, on Monday afternoon, followed within the hour by WDW News Today and WDWMagic. Blog Mickey and WDW News Today both credit reporter Scott Gustin. As of Monday night there is nothing about it on the Disney Parks Blog, no press release, and no named Disney spokesperson attached to any of it.

The app's illustrated in-park map art. In this stretch of the frame you can pick out a Winnie the Pooh marquee at the top left, a log flume, a wooden water tower on the rise beside it, a grey haunted mansion behind an iron fence and a small cemetery, and a masted sailing ship out on the river. Art: Disney, via WDW News Today

What actually happens on September 16

The accounts differ a little in detail, so here is who said what. Blog Mickey reports the app will be sunset starting September 16, and that guests lose access to it that day. WDW News Today adds two specifics: the listing comes down from the app stores, and logins stop working. WDWMagic puts the practical loss plainly: once the app is gone, in its words, "you'll lose access to your login and saved progress."

So the achievements are not being migrated anywhere that anyone has announced. Eight years of digital achievements, plus whatever quests and Fab 50 statues you have checked off along the way, live inside a login that stops working.

The Star Wars: Datapad is the big loss

WDWMagic calls the Datapad the app's biggest feature, and it is being retired outright. Inside Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge it turned your phone into an in-world device that, in WDWMagic's description, let you "hack door panels, scan cargo crates, translate the in-universe language, and interact with screens and props throughout the land." WDWMagic notes there is no word yet on a replacement.

WDWMagic dates the Datapad's arrival to Galaxy's Edge in August 2019, and says that when Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance opened that December, Disney added two further Datapad experiences built around that ride's storyline.

Batuu Bounty Hunters lives, but only on a MagicBand+

A phone running Batuu Bounty Hunters in Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge, held beside a black Imperial crest MagicBand+ with its ring lit purple and red. The screen shows a target picked out in a thermal style scan against a weathered wall, with the prompts "TAP TO REPORT LOCATION TO THE GUILD" and, at the bottom, "VISIT THE GUILDMASTER. Well done! Now return to complete your mission and collect your credits." Photo: Blog Mickey

This is the one piece of good news. Blog Mickey posted an update reporting that Disney says Batuu Bounty Hunters will remain playable with a MagicBand+. WDW News Today and WDWMagic both report the same thing with the important caveat attached: the game continues through the MagicBand+ and the screens already installed around the land, and it is the app portion that stops working.

If you play Batuu Bounty Hunters on your phone today, in other words, that specific way of playing it ends. The band-and-screens version carries on.

DuckTales World Showcase Adventure is the open question

The EPCOT interactive experience has been closed for refurbishment these past few weeks, and it ran through the app. On its future, Disney gave the outlets nothing firm. WDW News Today and WDWMagic both report the same Disney line: "there is no information to share at this time." Blog Mickey's update puts it slightly differently, reporting that Disney says the experience is currently unavailable and that it will have more to share about DuckTales at a later date.

Neither version is a commitment to bring it back, and neither is an announcement that it is dead. It is a genuinely unresolved attraction, and the app it depends on has a shutdown date on it.

Everything else that goes quiet

Blog Mickey published a list of the games and experiences currently in the app. Taking the Walt Disney World side first, at Magic Kingdom: Disney Fab 50 Quest, Off to Neverland at Peter Pan's Flight, Rocket Race at Space Mountain, and Jungle Cruise Trivia: Survival of the Wittiest. At EPCOT: Disney Fab 50 Quest and DuckTales World Showcase Adventure. At Animal Kingdom: Disney Fab 50 Quest, The ACE Guide to Pandora at Avatar Flight of Passage, and Animal Expeditions. At Art of Animation Resort: Stories of the Enchanted Gallery.

Hollywood Studios has the longest entry on that list of any Walt Disney World park, with Disney Fab 50 Quest, Andy's Boardgame Blast at Slinky Dog Dash, Playset Party at Toy Story Mania!, Batuu Bounty Hunters, the Star Wars: Datapad, Resistance Encampment at Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance, Flight Crews Wanted at Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run, and Mickey & Minnie's Trivia Time.

The Disney Fab 50 Quest is the one that runs across all four Walt Disney World parks. WDW News Today describes it as checking off all the gold statues you interacted with.

Blog Mickey's list runs west too, and counting the entries, Disneyland loses more of them than any single Florida park: Off to Neverland at Peter Pan's Flight, Rocket Race at Space Mountain, Batuu Bounty Hunters, the Star Wars: Datapad, Resistance Encampment at Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance, Flight Crews Wanted at Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run, Jungle Cruise Trivia: Survival of the Wittiest, The Gifts of Mara at Indiana Jones Adventure, The Tales of Fortune Red in New Orleans Square, and Esmeralda the Fortune Teller on Main Street, U.S.A. Disney California Adventure loses Playset Party at Toy Story Midway Mania! and nothing else. A separate "Anytime Play" section covers Disney Parks Trivia, Andy's Boardgame Blast, Playset Party, Mickey & Minnie's Trivia Time, Rocket Race, Off to Neverland and The SOUL of Jazz.

A little over eight years, start to finish

Promotional art for the app, showing its illustrated in-park map on a phone screen with Sleeping Beauty Castle at Disneyland blurred behind it and the blue "play" app icon at the top right. The shutdown covers both resorts, not just Walt Disney World. Image: Disney, via WDWMagic

WDWMagic laid out the history. Disney unveiled Play Disney Parks in April 2018, pitching it as something to do while standing in line, and shipped it on June 28, 2018, timed to the opening of Toy Story Land at Hollywood Studios. The launch build covered four queues, Toy Story Mania!, Peter Pan's Flight, Space Mountain and Slinky Dog Dash, and added trivia and digital achievements on top. Blog Mickey described the original pitch as designed to "turn wait time into play time."

Then, per WDWMagic, updates slowed after 2020 as Disney moved its digital attention to Genie and Lightning Lane inside My Disney Experience. Which is roughly the shape of the thing: a burst of attention in 2018 and 2019, one standout Star Wars feature, and then, on WDWMagic's account, a long stretch of slow updates.

No reason, no replacement

The part worth sitting with is how little Disney has said. Blog Mickey notes that as of its publication Disney had offered neither a successor app nor any stated rationale for the shutdown. None of the three reports names a successor product, none says whether any of the queue games move into My Disney Experience, and the only word on the achievements is that they go away with the login.

What Disney has told reporters is narrow and specific: the MagicBand+ interactions continue. Everything past that is a date on a calendar and a lot of unanswered questions, with about a month to go.

Sources

• Blog Mickey, "BREAKING: Play Disney Parks App Being Discontinued"
• WDW News Today, "Play Disney Parks Permanently Shutting Down Next Month"
• WDWMagic, "Disney Pulling Play Disney Parks App on September 16"

Image credits: Play Disney Parks logo by Disney, via Blog Mickey. In-app map art by Disney, via WDW News Today. App promotional art by Disney, via WDWMagic. Batuu Bounty Hunters photograph by Blog Mickey.