Yacht Club Games announces that the Xbox One retail version of Shovel Knight has been cancelled, while the other retail versions have been delayed and raised in price.

Unfortunately for fans of Yacht Club Games and their award-winning indie game Shovel Knight, there's some bad news to share regarding the game's retail release. First and foremost, Xbox One owners hoping to pick up the physical retail version are out of luck, as it's been cancelled for Xbox One.

The reason why the retail Xbox One version of Shovel Knight is being cancelled comes down to Xbox One specific publishing policies that, for one reason or another, are preventing the game from having a retail release on the system. Yacht Club Games didn't go into details as to what those policies are, but they did admit that the pre-orders for the retail Xbox One version were "good", so they wouldn't just abandon the platform for no reason.

Retail versions of the game are still on the way for 3DS, PC, PS4, and Wii U at least, but they won't be arriving on time. In fact, the retail versions of Shovel Knight across those platforms have been delayed until November 3rd. However, just as is the case with the Xbox One issue, Yacht Club Games has a good reason for the delay, which is that it allows them to include the Plague of Shadows expansion on the disc itself instead of forcing players to download it separately.

And finally, there's one last piece of bad news to share for those planning on picking up the physical release of Shovel Knight. Originally it was going to cost $20, but the price has now been raised to $25 in order to dissuade retailers from immediately throwing the game into their bargain bins. To appease fans that may be irritated by the price increase, Yacht Club Games is including the digital version of the game's soundtrack with every retail copy of Shovel Knight. Additionally, anyone that has already pre-ordered the game should still be able to pick up their copy for $20.

Usually fans would be outraged by issues like these, but Yacht Club Games is handling the matter in a very classy way, by doing things like throwing in the digital soundtrack to make up for the slight increase in price. Moreover, their insistence that the Plague of Shadows expansion be included on the disc is actually rather admirable, as many other developers would be more than willing to force players to have to download the additional content separately, which can be inconvenient. This is definitely good news for gamers with poor or unreliable Internet, as one can imagine they are probably sick of paying the same price as everyone else for a fraction of the experience.

Of course, for Xbox One owners, it's still a bummer that the retail Xbox One version is no longer being released, but maybe that can change in the future. After all, Yacht Club Games seems to have a fairly healthy relationship with Microsoft, considering that the Battletoads were allowed to appear in the digital Xbox One version of the game. Taking into account their past business relationship, perhaps the companies can work together again to bypass whatever publishing policies are keeping the physical retail release from seeing the light of day on Xbox One.

Shovel Knight will have a retail release 3DS, PC, PS4, and Wii U on November 3rd. The game is also available digitally on all those platforms in addition to PS3, PS Vita, and Xbox One.