Buying games digitally may be the future, but for a lot of people it's the present. Soon, the days when people travel to a physical store or order a boxed copy of a game online will be gone because, hey, downloading a game is far more convenient. And who wants to pay for shipping anymore?
PC players have more or less made this shift already, due in part to Steam, but that isn't to say that owning physical copies of games will go away. It'll become more and more rare, most likely, but never go away permanently. If anything, certain big, AAA releases may forgo physical releases entirely, especially when the time comes to move away from the Xbox 360 and PS3 and fully embrace the Xbox One and PS4.
Batman: Arkham Knight appears to be one of the upcoming games that will follow this route, at least, according to online store ShopTo. Earlier today, the retailer revealed on Twitter that they'd been informed by their suppliers that the Rocksteady title would be digital-only on PC, with no retail release planned. At first, the information went unconfirmed, but was later stated to be "correct, apparently."
For many eager to play Arkham Knight at some point this year, today's news comes as yet another blow following the game's second delay announced yesterday, which moved it back from its June 2 release date after it was already pushed out of 2014. It's almost like release dates don't mean much when they're still months and months away.
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It's still unknown if Arkham Knight's PC situation will carry over to North America, or if it's something unique to the UK. It'd be unusual if it didn't apply to every region, but until Rocksteady or Warner Bros. Interactive provide a statement, consider this to be slightly above a rumor.
On the upside, the second delay of the game now gives players more time to replay the previous two Batman: Arkham games, which may be receiving the remaster treatment. What better way to prepare oneself for the end of the Arkham trilogy, than to revisit the two games that kicked everything off (and increased in scale every time)?
Batman: Arkham Knight is now set to release on June 23, 2015 for PC, PS4 and Xbox One. Hopefully the console versions don't suddenly go digital only as well, because someone has to buy those pricey Collector's and Limited Editions.