UPDATE: This report was updated with a more recent announcement from Warner Bros Interactive Entertainment. You may read this update right here.
LEGO City Undercover is scheduled to debut next month and is the next major third-party port slated on the Nintendo Switch. While many of us have pre-ordered the game for various gaming platforms and consoles, Nintendo Switch owners may have to think twice and hold on to that game trigger before making a purchase.
Apparently, several retail stores have stocked up on the physical carts already ahead of LEGO City Undercover’s April 4 release, as Eurogamer reports. This led to some store employees to anonymously post images of the game’s final box art over at Reddit and this is what we discovered.
It is clear from these images that playing LEGO City Undercover in the Nintendo Switch will require an internet connection and more than half of the console’s internal storage space at 13GB. This might prove as a bane for most Switch owners since the handheld console itself only carries a total of 32 gigs of space, 25 after doing the required core software install. This means that playing the game in Nintendo Switch will eat up most of its storage. This led most Switch owners to be turned-off and speculate on the reasons behind such moves from WB Games. Eurogamer, on a separate report, discusses the relatively high cost of manufacturing game cartridges on the Nintendo Switch as compared to other gaming consoles. As it goes, Switch game carts come in varying storage sizes: GB, 2GB, 4GB, 8GB, 16GB and 32GB. The bigger the cart, the more expensive it is expected to be. Obviously, game developers have to be mindful of their game’s size since it will have a direct effect on the cost of the game cart’s production, hence the final cost of the game as offered to the market. In contrast, owners of other gaming consoles such as the PS4, Wii U, and Xbox One that uses the Blu-ray disc format can purchase the same game for a lower price, and can also play it immediately out of the box. Additional storage space will only be required for DLCs or patches if the game will offer so later on.
In the case of LEGO City Undercover for the Nintendo Switch, it seems that customers will only be getting half of the game on retail, while they are left with the burden of downloading the rest of it. This seems to be the suggestion, since Nintendo ‘s eShop lists LEGO City Undercover at 7.1GB, and the images of the final box art shows that an internet connection is required, and that 13GB of storage space is needed. This is quite odd given the fact that most Switch games in their physical cart forms do not require an installation to play.
IGN eventually reached out to one of WB Games’ representatives and this is the response that they received.
“Players who purchase LEGO City: Undercover on Nintendo Switch at retail do not need to download the game to play. All players who purchase the game can download the small content update patch with an internet connection.”
Though we are thankful that WB Games took the time to answer this unrest, still, it is kind of vague. Granted that an internet connection is not required to play the game, then why specifically mention the need for a huge 13GB download? Is it for the ‘small’ content update patch that they refer to? Does it suggest that at least some of the game is still playable without downloading, and ‘unlocking’ certain features will require a massive amount of download?
Only time can tell once we have our try of LEGO City Undercover for the Nintendo Switch. So what do you think brick fans? What is the real deal behind these requirements for LCU? Share us what you think in the comments below or join in the discussion over on our Facebook page.