Redfall Physical Release Will Contain A Disc After All, Bethesda Updates FAQ Page

See this kinda thing is a complete waste of time, in a world that's trying to be more environmentally friendly by having a smaller carbon footprint why bother printing up the artwork & code and shipping it to shops?

For all you that like physical copies of games I hear your sobs….

@Kaloudz The big issue is exactly that, it’s an always online game which means there’s no point in buying it in any way since it has already an expiry date when they decide to close the servers, not to mention you won’t be able to play it when their servers crash or you don’t have an internet connection for whatever reason.

This feels like a game that is made for Game Pass and nothing else, and I really hope it’s an isolated case and not all Xbox releases start to follow this trend…

@Kaloudz assuming said buyer does not have games pass. Mayb once they finish Redfall they could have got some of their $70 back. Lent to family etc. Cant now.

That will surely be a popular decision..
Ignoring resell value of physical edition is just ignorant (there are old Nintendo games that are genuinely worth 4-5 times more than they were day 1)

Sooo, it’s for the box collectors??

There is a disc. The description is describing the code on the disc. Most Series X discs are just codes that unlock the game for download. This was confirmed by Gamefly on twitter because it is being rented out by them.

I’m about 95% digital but releases like this are indeed stupid. Wasting all plastic, etc. If you really want to sell it at physical retailers, just sell a card for it as some other games already do.

Gamepass it is.

They're crazy if they think I'm paying a premium for a paper weight.

Were essentially going back to the 90s with CD keys the way this is set up. No thanks.

@Kaloudz the only reason the file sizes match is because of lazy developers that just would rather you redownload the entire game instead of only patching what is necessary.

Please don't use developers that are a waste of the space they occupy as justification for this.

@GhanaViking how would an Xbox disc unlock a 'code' to use on PC? That makes no sense either because then you could sell the disc and keep a PC version?
Either way I'll take Bethesdas wording over gamefly for now and await any further update.

Would not impact me because I buy games digital on xbox nearly exclusively, but not a good look.

The pc version, sure, it is common for boxes to just have a code.

Selling one of this cute mini-Xbox boxes that include a digital code in them is also ok in my book, but selling a big box just to fill space on shelves, it’s kinda gross imo.

I opened with “would not impact me” because I still don’t care about online-only games. I’ll never waste time playing a single player game that requires me to be online. Hell, biggest reason I play on Xbox is quick resume, something that does not even work on games that require online connections.

My excitement for this game drops with every passing day.

@Chaotic_Goat it’s for the store shelves, a big chunk of sales still occur at retail so having a physical box is still important.

I've been gaming all my life. I'm 5something I've always bought physical up until I decided to buy series S.
I was worried at the time, however been digital all the way since then.
I missed the boxes mainly for the art work I think. On the plus side I am contributing a tiny something towards saving our planet plus saving space. I have nearly an entire storage unit full of games , dvd and video tape.

So welcome to the future, the future is now.

Not gonna lie im pretty disappointed. Went from a sure fire purchase from me to not a chance. If Starfield follows this trend might as well ditch my favorite gaming box 😭

wow, just wow. feel like including a disc drive on the console was just a way to sucker me in for a purchase tbh.

well so far i think i am winning, if they sold the console to me at a loss of 100-200 dollars they haven't made any profit from me in software sales yet.

@old-dad the next step is for Chat-GPT integration into Xbox so your console can talk you into buying you more product…

Part of me thinks that the only reason they haven't completely done away with the case is contracts and deals with retail stores.
And that's probably not going to last much longer, either.
My only issue is that these giant companies are total hypocrites with stuff like environmental concern.
If you're serious about it, why not incentivize people to go digital by offering better prices that way?

@AlwaysPlaying I wouldn't be surprised if that is not included in next mandatory update.

Really concerned that Starfield is going to follow this always online BS as that seems to be a thing from Bethesda/MS. What does that mean for Forza ? To be continued ???

So this means game will NOT cost $70, right?

It will be $30, right.

@GhanaViking Gamefly is INCREDIBLY SUPERIOR to game pass hundred times over.

Shame more people not know about or have access to Gamefly. It's amazing.

I'm glad that I'm zero interested in that game.
But what is that nonsense???!!!?
I don't like that direction, why should anyone get that game instead of playing it through Gamepass?
No one will buy that code in a box crap, they can keep this.

@IOI No, you just log into Bethesda servers when you start it up. Just like Deathloop, Halo, Ghost Recon, UFC...Tons of games from various publishers do this.

The game won't stop working if and when the coop portion is taken offline. If MS ever bothers to do so. They own Azure and can just scale down, but who knows.

@GhanaViking bingo. Some rando on Resetera getting everyone all stirred up for nothing and VGC runs with it. Game journalism is starting to have zero integrity without actually looking into things.

@theduckofdeath Not true, the game requires permanent connection to their servers even when playing in single-player, it’s not a login as you said in all those other games you have to be ALWAYS online just to be able to play even a couple of minutes.

And yes, since the game is always online that means that once the servers are gone the game will be unplayable, worse, it will basically cease to exist.

https://help.bethesda.net/#en/answer/58470 Looks like it does have a disc. People just going wild over a rumor

Another reason for you to just get gamepass. No physical so go digital.. oh wait, why do I need a box and code when I can subscribe. Such a con.

Edit. Scrap the comment, clearly confirmed that it's just fake news.

Jez corden says they just confirmed there is a disc

Xbox is trying to drop it's carbon footprint with their new update, so it's inevitable that there will be no more physical copies of games in the coming years.

@IOI The Redfall FAQ states the following:

"Will playing Redfall require an online connection for single player as well as co-op?"
"A persistent online connection is required for single player and co-op."

1. That response was written by marketing people.
2. The game is not out yet.

For the game to require a constant online connection in single player, that would imply the servers are actively computing/rendering portions of the game. No Arkane game has ever been that complex. I have my doubts that pulling the ethernet cable would dump a player to the start screen in SP mode. The game won't release for another 10 weeks, so let's wait for some concrete info.

That’s fantastic news, we need to get rid of physical games all together, everyone knows they’re outdated and a relic of the past. Who wants a nice box and disk to own when you can just have a digital line of code. It’s never your game. It’s great because you can never lend your game to your friends, trade or sell it like we did when we were kids. You just lease it for one off payment of £70 or an ongoing £10 per month. When the servers go down the game is gone forever and you can find the next one to play, never ever going back to replay the old game. What an exciting future ahead for our hobby. Ive no doubt it will make it easier for kids and new players to get into gaming and will certainly help our past time flourish for many more years to come…

Even if there is a disk in that box, sadly I think an all digital future is only a few years off.

They’ll do it as soon as they can get away with it, it’s only because of the past community pushback it’s not already happened.

@Kaloudz I've made an update to this post now - Bethesda has certainly made the wording SUPER clear this time after the earlier confusion 😄
The way it was all worded before was odd... and confusing!

@theduckofdeath How much clearer do you want the information to be?

It literally says “a PERSISTENT online connection is REQUIRED FOR SINGLE-PLAYER and coop”, how could you distort that statement into saying “you only need to login and you’re good”?

Of course the game isn’t out but that statement is crystal clear, and we’ve known that for several weeks and not once an Arkane representative has come out to say it isn’t true as they did with this disc situation in just a couple of hours.

Why are you trying to defend it so hard? Every game with a campaign that requires a persistent online connection is a huge setback, even more so coming from Arkane as their single-player games are amazing and unique in the whole industry, the fact that their latest and greatest game has already an expiry date is beyond disappointing for me.

@theduckofdeath A number of people are playing it already as testers but can’t comment other than they have their hunches why it is persistent…

I’d hate to be the people who commented about this that have to go back and edit their statements. LOL yeah right.

Welp, that was much to do about nothing

Wont be editing my comments lol. What I spoke is still true, not a GP subscriber, data caps and zero land line internet to be had in my area. That is supposed to be fixed by 2027. Maybe get to play it on the next xbox series x/s 720 ver.3.720 🤣

@IOI Well, I mentioned taking the FAQ with a grain of salt as it is likely written by marketing. Maybe...10 minutes after I posted there was an update to clarify the report of "no physical disc in the physical release."

The line about "Persistent online connection needed for SP mode" seems definitive if not incredible terse. The statement begs the question, "why?" And once again, see the paragraph above.

I am not defending this game in particular. Just that the "complain about everything everywhere all at once" internet routine grows tiresome. Can we at least wait for release or definitive clarification?

Admittedly, a persistent connection, while not entirely ideal, has little to no impact on my plans for this game. I've had solid broadband service since '99 (while having lived in a number of states since then) and currently lose power more often than I've ever lost internet service. It's not like I would ever have noticed such I requirement if I wasn't explicitly told about it.

@IOI lot’s of games and media is online only, i can’t use my Netflix account when my online is off. I can use my Apple Music subscription cause i download my songs and not stream. But that’s the only one. We live in an online world and thankfully for most people we have internet 99% of our waking days. It’s not really an issue for most people and only the “hardcore” gamers pretend to care, cause somehow it’s not 2002 again when full games shipped on a disc. Tech changes and many games did and will in the future require an internet connection. This game getting flak for always online makes no sense to me. I agree GP will be a great way to play and enjoy it and many gamers will choose that, but 7 out of 10 gamers aren’t worried about always online.

@Green-Bandit That’s no excuse, what if the servers crash or you don’t have an online connection right when you have the time to play? Even if you spent $70 you just won’t be able to play it.

And for me the big issue is game preservation, for which Phil Spencer has been a big advocate, just look at all the live-service games that announced closure in the last few weeks, the exact same thing will happen to Redfall eventually, but this will be even worse as all those other games were multiplayer only, for Redfall there’s a fully-sized campaign that will be eventually lost forever with no way to play it (unless the modding community comes to the rescue), I understand if that’s not an issue for you but for me it is a I have loved every Arkane game so far and this one already has an expiry date, in 30 years I might still be able to play Dishonored but not Redfall because of this BS.

@Kaloudz Yeah I really don't understand the physical-only dinosaurs these days, in a era when 99% of games are reliant upon online updates in order to work properly, with live services and DLC being a big thing, why would you still be concerned with having a disc? It's not like you can play games off discs anymore anyways, they are just glorified extensions to DRM these days, just some DRM where you need to have a disc in a drive in order to play a game.

@Sebatrox I know, the Switch has a lot of code in a box games. Well, I will never buy a game like this. What's the box use, if there is no game inside.

@IOI well first off i don’t want to dismiss or throw lack of concern for the way you game and prefer to play and collect a game for later play. But that’s just how some games are and the internet is involved in all types of media, i don’t find that it ever bothers me, but i can see the issue if your internet is unstable. But that is pretty rare these days. If the game is popular there is a good chance it will be online for play for a long long time. Or it could in 30 years be remastered and not need online, but for the near term this will be a fun game that 99.8% of the time you go to play your internet will be working and i think that works. Technology gives us more and more benefit with less and less concerns these days than 15-20 years ago and that will continue. I will digitally buy Redfall as i only use GP as a way to discover new games or try things before i buy, but for many this will be a GP game and thats ok, thats what the service needs to grow and sustain numbers.

@JayJ no offense to the physical media players, but disk is dumb and I haven’t bought one since year 3 or 4 of the 360. For any platforms, Nintendo, PlayStation and Xbox collections are fully digital, and it’s treated and served me well. For instance right now me and my wife’s house is on the market and i have strangers coming in to view the house with our relator. I only take the dogs, guns and jewelry with us when we leave for a showing, no games around to be stolen god forbid someone had bad intentions which i assume 99% don’t, secondly once it sells and we move, i back my consoles up and all 100’s of games come with me, no boxing, denting of cases or unloading needed. Tho i am nervous about my audio setup and 65 inch oled in the move to be honest, that i will hold with care of course. But digital has been so good to me and buying a disk with the license on it only is just odd to me. But to each his own.

Elon Musk has a billion dollar company supplying internet connections to those of us with the "rare" lack of unavailable internet connections lol

@JayJ i dont think the online or update aspect is what physical people care about. You can sell physical copies or borrow them to/from friends. You can buy them used for really cheap or when retailers are trying to dump stock. Digital is convenient but not for everyone.

Personally I enjoy having a wall of games from all generations displayed in my gameroom. And it's kind of reassuring to know I can sell them if I ever hit hard times, xbox arent that valuable yet but there are a few 360 games worth about $200. The gamecube collection is looking like a retirement account right now.

update: oh good, the world hasn't gone totally mad just yet then.
still online at all times though?
was that given any more clarity?

@Green-Bandit and of each of those games you've 'bought' you own absolutely none if them. Digital content you pay for access to a license. You do NOT own that content in any way whatsoever. Physical media its yours there's noone taking it back with no warning. Physical media isn't suddenly delisted.

@Bricktop33 all my digital games from 360 and One are still there and enhanced even, so i am more than happy with my “ownership” of my purchases. I own the same game as a physical copy without the ability to resale which i don’t do. You mean to tell me the person that bought COD MW2 on disc owns something, sure they own around 200MB of licensing rights and the rest of the game is digitally downloaded to the console, and more and more games are not owned on a disk, i mean don’t get me wrong if this was the old school physical media days, sure i would see the need and desire to collect it and own it that way. But in its current state it’s on life support and fading to have a real reason to exist, other than for fans of saying they ‘own” the game forever , when they bought the access to a license on a piece of plastic on a console that probably in years time will have a failed disk drive anyways.

@JayJ 1. You can sell it when you're done with it and you're not stuck with it in your library for eternity. I buy most of my games used.

2. Why buy something new and create more waste when I can buy something that someone else has already played and I can use it in the exact same way.

3. It's way cheaper. I get used games sometimes for $5 to $7 when they're still going for $60 new in the store online or physical. Disc prices are determined by individual sellers not one central location that always keeps prices high.

4. You can lend it to someone or do anything else you want with it without some dictator company telling you yes or no. You can take it out back, throw it in the air and shoot it with a shotgun if you want to.

5. You won't lose access to it when the company decides to shut down the servers.

I could go on all day but it's pointless because everyone already knows all of this.

@Green-Bandit
Is it me or am I just a digital nut case.
I don’t have physical for anything.
Games
Movies
Music

It makes life so simply especially if you are digital with all 3. From home to work to the car to popping to friends or family.
I love the digital age.

I enjoy this site but like too many other sites and even " news" stations instead of journalistic investigation they want to be the first to report something. Don't be the first the the first with correct researched information.

@Green-Bandit

i bought loads of digital games and dlc for the 360 but didn't like the look of xboxone and switch to ps4.
years later i turned on my 360 again and they had changed the way you logged in and i no longer had the email with that account either.
i tried everything multiple times and couldn't get back into my account for years.
just before i got my series x i tried again and after trying everything multiple times one time it somehow worked and i got it back.

this experience re-enforced all my worries and doubts about 'owning' digital content and has really put me off.

@Kezelpaso the way it was worded before it was definitely a code in a box. The uproar meant they quickly changed their stance. The new wording mentions no code, no way do they give a disc and a code. So what we have here is a U turn.

Which is fine. The disk itself is pointless if it’s an online needed to play solo anyway. As when servers are Turned off if dies.

Like the crew.

I’d like to see no games with solo player elements contain this nonsense

@Dezzy70 100%, i have all my media digital and it’s just so much better for me. But for those that want to collect physical media or just like it better, thats great and i am glad it’s there for them. It’s when they try and act like physical is superior and tell me what i bought is somehow lesser, that makes me mad.

@MrList yeah i can understand that. I write all my login’s and passwords down in my phone and luckily i have never had any issues with my games, music and movies. Digital works perfect for me and my style, but i am happy physical is still kicking around for those that enjoy it, i just don’t like the gamer that thinks somehow physical is superior and us digital buyers are idiots and tell us why physical is somehow better, at the end of the day at their core, they are licenses. Now if sony or MS came up with some super slim and durable cases, with rock solid in case artwork and made them really special to me, i might snag a few of my favorite games just to have the art. But outside of Switch cases they are a little to bulky, XB does no art inside the case. PS5 cases are bulky but some do have nice art. But hey i am glad you got back into your account and glad physical is still around to collect and have for you and others.

@Green-Bandit - very true, physical is not superior or better. In the ideal world both would coexist. Like physical media, digital media is also important and has its place. Digital is brilliant for access of games, like when all the physical copies are sold out or go up in price, for reissue retro games, personally I always prefer the ease of a digital download onto the more modern system.

I think the problem with it that rubs gamers up the wrong way is they are removing the choice of physical or digital and making it digital by default.

Removal of the freedom of choice is always bad

@Green-Bandit
Well I guess like anything physical, there is a resale value, that’s a big thing in the UK as we have a chain of shops that just only specialise in that called CEX.

@Dezzy70 I’ve been to a CEX before. But i don’t trade or sell games, but i get why to someone else that’s important. Which is great and i am glad it’s there for them, but when they hit you with the physical is king bull crap, i am just not listening to that. They both have pro’s and con’s and that shouldn’t need explaining.

@LordFunkalot physical will be around for a while longer, it still puts up big numbers.

@Green-Bandit - Hope so mate, whatever form the games come in I’ll keep playing but I like owning some games for the shelf. Or the ones I’m not sure about that could be a quick trade in lol, discovered many a hidden gem over the years that way.

@Kaloudz Well it's just all founded on either false beliefs or a childish approach towards buying video games. Like whenever I see some physical-only dinosaur telling me why they think physical the only way to go, they come off as people who have no clue what they are talking about.

I mean I used to buy and sell physical games all the time... when I was a kid and only had allowance money to spend at my local Funcoland. As soon as I got older and had enough money to just buy whatever game I want, I stopped selling them because you would hardly get anything for used games until they become classics, if that ever happens that is.

Basically the amount of money I save by buying digital games on sale (which usually have far deeper discounts than physical and go on sale far more often) far exceeds anything I would get by buying new games at full price +tax and selling them. That and I can actually keep these games in my digital library forever.

Plus, the main reason I really prefer digital these days is because it's just so much more convenient. I don't have to be trying to store a bunch of games anywhere, they're just all installed on my console, and I don't have to do any disc swapping or worry about my disc drive breaking.

Just wait until "insert digital game store here" decides to take away all of your purchases, close your account, goes out of business, or any of the other possibilities why/how you will be denied access to your digital library. It happened to me with PlayStation. I got permanently banned from playing online because a group of people claimed that I was using inappropriate language toward them, which was impossible because I did not have a headset at all at the time and did not write any messages. With a snap of a finger Sony permanently banned my PlayStation from ever being able to play online again, closed my PlayStation account and caused me to lose probably around $1,000 worth of digital games. There was no way for me to defend myself or argue anything. They just told me tough luck, go away. I sued them and won $25,000 for me on top of attorney fees they had to pay. Lesson is, do not trust digital libraries. They can go away at any time, you will lose everything and there's nothing you can do about it. Except for sue them like I did, but I know most people cant or won't do that.

With all of that being said, I have absolutely nothing against digital distribution of media. It is the way that it is presented and managed that I have a problem with. The other problem I have with it is, if it becomes the only choice. If it becomes the only choice then the companies running the stores basically have a monopoly and can dictate prices as they see fit as well as what I described previously. Choice and freedom are always the most important things, so I never support any of those things being taken away no matter what the subject is.

My Xbox collection is almost split 50/50 digital and disc. That's not necessarily by my choice. Games with Gold is mostly why it's 50/50. If you remove games with Gold it's probably 80 disc/20 digital. I only buy digital games when they are dirt cheap and they are ones that I really want, because that's all the trust I have for the platforms. I know that the discs these days are pretty much licenses and they will probably suffer the same fate when a server goes offline, but they cannot take that license from me by shutting down my account and they cannot prevent me from trading or selling that license to someone else. Like I said, choice and freedom are good things.

@LordFunkalot yeah that makes sense, having a few around in a media room looks kinda cool still. Like the steel book case’s and what not. Physical will be around in my guess for another 10 years or so. But it appears physical has a shelf life now. At least for the non big titles. Maybe that rumor of Sony selling a console that is digital at the base and you can buy a disk drive add on will be the way moving forward.

@Green-Bandit I think your disk drive idea is a really good solution. For one, people can decide if they want digital only or both and they don't have to make that decision at the time of purchase of the console. Two, if a disc drive fails it's easily replaced without requiring disassembly of the console.

@ZYDIO thank you, seems to be the right combination to please everyone and give lots of options while keeping manufacturing costs down and more streamlined for the platform makers. Let’s see if Sony really does this on the PS5 Slim.

I think Microsoft should do that for the Series S. Also, it could serve as an external replacement drive if one fails in a Series X.

@Green-Bandit
CEX is ok, not as good as value as they used to be, sometimes they are not good at all.
I’m all digital
Is the USA population more physical than digital now a days?

@Dezzy70 Here in the states i would say it is starting to flip in favor of digital. But america is also the land of the consume. So loads of stores here carry physical, in both new and used. I have been digital only since mid way of the 360 life. Never bought a disk for the One or Series X. My PS4-PS5 collection is 100% digital as i bought the Digital PS5. Gamers that are growing up learning to use and play mobile will never turn into physical buyers for consoles. They will see it as odd when everything on their computers and mobile devices are digital. It’s just the last of a generation and a few others that are still keeping physical sales alive, and again i don’t want physical to die off. I want it there for the gamers that use it to its benefits. I just don’t need it for my use and don’t like it when others tell me i am buying an inferior product and all the worries i will have to have or overcome. I don’t feel that way nor need someone to tell me how to spend my money.

@Green-Bandit
Totally agree I don’t bad mouth physical but I’m totally digital.
Not sure why people bash digital.
I guess they don’t want an all digital future,
That’s the issue with them.

@Dezzy70 yeah i think thats the issue as well. But it seems to be inevitable at some point. But if they keep sales high enough on disk and retailers find it worth the space in the store for what it makes in profit, i could see physical around for 8-10 more years. Who knows maybe even longer. But the moment it does not make enough money, it will be dropped for digital only.