Reloaded PS5 Physical Copy Requires Full Game Download

The upcoming PlayStation 5 release of Gears of War: Reloaded is a significant milestone for a series that used to be exclusive to Xbox consoles, but there are notable frustrations related to its physical copies. Reloaded is essentially a remaster of a remaster, bringing higher resolutions, better performance, and a variety of other technical enhancements to Gears of War: Ultimate Edition, the 2015 remaster of the original game.

Ahead of Gears of War: Reloaded‘s release on August 26, it has been discovered that its physical PS5 version contains no game files on the disc, requiring players to download all 64 gigabytes, according to Polish outlet PPE. The claim appears to be validated by photos of a sealed Gears of War: Reloaded box, which says, “Requires content download” on the front, and indicates that 64 GB – Reloaded‘s previously announced file size on PS5 – of storage space. It’s unclear if physical copies of the Xbox version are the same.

Gears Of War: Reloaded Physical Copy Requires Full Game Download On PS5

The Disc Only Contains A Download License

Gears of War Reloaded General Raam stabbing a character during the game's story — Gears of War Reloaded General Raam stabbing a character during the game’s story

Purchasing a physical copy of Gears Reloaded on PS5 will effectively have very little difference from its digital counterpart. It comes with a box, which may still be appealing to collectors, but you will still have to download the full game, plus insert the disc anytime you wish to play it. If it works like other games that have similarly vapid physical copies, there will only be a small amount of data actually printed on the disc: a license to download and play the game.

Gears of War coming to PlayStation is quite a big deal, as the series has been an Xbox staple for nearly two decades, but Reloaded has already hit some roadblocks ahead of launch. In addition to this unfortunate faux-physical release, Reloaded‘s beta was derided by fans who were frustrated by not only technical issues, but a lack of significant upgrades to a game that first released in 2006.

Physical Games Continue Their Unfortunate Decline

Digital Has Taken Over

Marcus, Dom, Baird, and Cole standing next to each other with guns in Gears of War: Reloaded.

The practice of putting no game data on the disc is unfortunately common in the modern gaming industry. Physical sales are still significant, but with the ubiquity of the internet, having to download a game regardless has become largely negligible. There are convincing arguments for more traditional physical media, such as having access to a product in locations where internet connections are unreliable, and saving internal storage space by actually having the data stored on the disc, but the proliferaiton of Nintendo’s controversial Switch 2 Game-Key Cards shows that publishers are willing to cut corners to save on overhead.

CD Projekt Red even made it a point of pride that Cyberpunk 2077‘s Switch 2 edition is entirely on the cartridge. Standard PlayStation 5 Blu-ray discs can hold 100 GB of data, so there’s no limiting factor in the medium itself regarding Gears of War: Reloaded. Such circumstances have unfortunately become very common as digital libraries and games on demand become increasingly prevalent, and Gears of War: Reloaded is just the latest example.