LEGO City Undercover on Switch has entire game on cart, no internet or download needed
Earlier this week concerns were raised about the Switch version of LEGO City Undercover after the game’s packaging was found with some peculiar information on it. The cover states that up to 13GB of storage would be required for a ‘game download’, also the game would require an internet connection.
Theories about the game having a small cartridge and a download component to run the game ran wild, it was all very confusing.
Luckily for us it appears to all be an error, Warner Bros. has told IGN in a statement that the cover is just a simple mistake and says that if you buy LEGO City Undercover in stores you’ll be “getting the complete game, and do not need to download additional content to enjoy the full experience”.
Here’s the entire statement;
The information is listed incorrectly on the packaging of LEGO City Undercover for Nintendo Switch. Players who purchase a physical copy of LEGO City Undercover on Nintendo Switch at retail are getting the complete game, and do not need to download additional content to enjoy the full experience. An internet connection is not required to play the game. The only internet connection suggested is to download the typical content update patch.
The only thing you will have to download is a small patch, like most games have at launch. It won’t stop you from playing the game as we all feared. The download size of the game on the eShop is listed at 8.2GB.
Unfortunately we still having to wait a week for the game here in Australia, be sure to check out our bargain guide to get the cheapest price.
I see this as a wet blanket for all those many, many, many hot takes.
MORE HOT TAKES.
I hope that this was all just a colossal misunderstanding, but it’s still *very* suspicious. The Wii U version was around 20GB and yet the Switch version is only 8GB (that’s got to be one hell of an optimisation if that is the case!). Uproar about a potential 13GB download made sense because it would have matched the ~20GB file size of every other version of the game in existence (including PS4/Bone). If the 13GB download is for an optional “texture pack” or something of the sort (lol @ high-res textures in a LEGO game =P), then that is still a despicable practice, as WB should have coughed up the goods for either a 16GB or a 32GB cartridge for the sake of parity between platforms (Dragon Quest Heroes I+II in Japan is currently the only retail game to utilise a 32GB cartridge).
Incidentally, Japan has higher pricing thresholds for games, as games such as Dragon Quest Heroes I+II, Nobunaga’s Ambition and Romance of the Three Kingdoms carry a hefty price tag of around 10,500 yen each (~AU$123). Other games (including Mario Kart 8 Deluxe and Puyo Puyo Tetris) are more or less the same price internationally.
I still don’t trust WB on this, and this poses a dangerous precedent if third parties are allowed to get away with releasing cartridges that are unusable without a mandatory download, or if they remove content to cut costs on cartridges and boost their bottom line at the expense of the consumer.
Add to that if they fail to support JoyCons for two players, too, which is what the Switch is about. Lazy practice, and smells of a ‘cash-in’ to me.
It technically supports Joy-Cons for multiplayer, but each player will need a full set of Joy-Cons or a Pro Controller. Single Joy-Con multiplayer is no longer supported due to the more complex controls that the game demands.
Any news on loading speed as the Wii U original off disc was quite possibly the slowest loading game i can think of on any platform. (since cassette loads on the c64 days)