In one of the most baffling decisions I’ve seen in a long time, Limited Run Games’ upcoming collector’s edition release of Raidou Remastered: The Mystery of the Soulless Army for Switch 2 will include a game-key card instead of the entire game on a cartridge. While some of that is likely down to a decision by Sega not to produce a true physical edition of the game, it also clashes with Limited Run’s entire purpose as a boutique manufacturer of video games.
Yesterday, the landing page for this massive collector’s edition bundle went live on LRG’s website to the tune of $249.99. While that’s a bit absurd, I can understand longtime fans who want a bunch of collectible trinkets being okay with the price. What isn’t okay is how the Switch 2 version of this bundle will contain a game-key card for the title instead of a genuine physical edition. For anyone not understanding the issue, it has to do with the principles of LRG’s existence.
Limited Run Games was founded in 2015 by Josh Fairhurst and Douglas Bogart as a way to preserve digital-only games with physical media. After releasing the PlayStation Vita title Breach & Clear and selling out of copies in a few hours, the company set off to continue producing physical versions of games that were either exceptionally rare or had only seen a release on a digital storefront. Whether or not you ever liked the company’s suped-up collector’s edition packages isn’t the point: LRG exists to give customers a way to have physical editions of games.
Releasing Raidou’s Switch 2 port without the game on a cartridge flies in the face of what LRG is supposed to stand for. We’ve seen digital-only titles get cartridges or discs before, including fairly recently Doom + Doom 2 across Switch, PlayStation 5, and Xbox One. While it is somewhat understandable for PC versions to contain digital codes (Steam has basically supplanted physical media on PC), consoles still provide a reliable way to get physical editions of games. There’s also the fact that the Switch and Switch 2 feature cartridge-based media to avoid install times.
It’s very unlikely that this stipulation for Raidou will change before production begins, so all of the complaining in the world isn’t going to make much difference. It’s just shocking that LRG believes this is what its customer base would want, especially when a decade ago the company began with a very different mission.
Raidou Remastered Trailer
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Written by Peter Glagowski
Peter has been a freelance gaming and film critic for over seven years. His passion for Nintendo is only matched by the size of his collection.
