Just because a game is on disc doesn’t mean it will work in the future

A Cyberpunk NPC is shown talking before his textures have fully loaded on the console version of the game.

Often, the games that fail these tests are ones that were released on disc in an incomplete, bug-filled state that require downloadable patches to fix. Itsel cites the infamously bad initial console releases of Cyberpunk 2077 as a prototypical example of a game where the unpatched physical disc will one day be virtually unplayable, even if “one of our testers beat the game regardless of its abysmal state at the time.”

For some games, though, the game-breaking failures of the disc version can be much more subtle. Itsel recalls how, when testing the physical release of survival-action game Atomfall, “upon returning to the main hub village everyone suddenly went hostile, which broke numerous side quests and wouldn’t let me continue my peaceful playthrough. You can still beat the game, but you have to shoot your way out of it, which is near-impossible given the nature of the combat.”

Bugs aside, DoesItPlay also documents numerous physical releases where the disc only contains a pitifully small portion of the full game, requiring a massive download to play the rest. Recent releases like Doom: The Dark Ages, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, and The Outer Worlds 2 are just a few prominent examples where the disc version is just a small stub that barely represents the full downloadable game.

Good luck playing that disc copy of 007 First Light without access to Sony’s update servers.

And even when a game disc does contain a full, playable game (or a significant portion thereof), Itsel said he has also noticed a new “blood boiling” trend of publishers inserting early mandatory download prompts that halt all progress if you don’t have an Internet connection. Games like Hogwarts Legacy, Jedi Survivor, The Elder Scroll IV Oblivion Remaster, 007 First Light, Crimson Desert, Gothic Remake, and almost every modern AAA Ubisoft game hamper their physical releases in this manner, Itsel said, a move that he considers “a spit in the face of game preservation.”