Earthrealm still has physical media champions.
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Another unlikely title is coming in as a complete Switch 2 game in the Game Card.
Digital Eclipse just released a new trailer advertising Mortal Kombat Legacy Collection‘s physical versions. They went out of their way to show the Switch 2 box in front to prove that it’s not a Game-Key Card.
Earlier, the NintendoSwitch subreddit shared VGP’s pre-order listing for Mortal Kombat Legacy Collection on the Switch 2. The listing indicates with its box art that this is not a Game-Key Card release, so it will be complete in Game Card.
Wait, What Mortal Kombat Legacy Collection?
We did miss the chance to report on this upcoming fighting game collection when it was first announced last month, to our regrets.
Mortal Kombat Legacy Collection is the latest video game anthology from Digital Eclipse. This game brings together Digital Eclipse and Atari with NetherRealm Studios and their publisher, WB Games.
This is a collection of the first four Mortal Kombat games in the franchise, and several handheld games. Digital Eclipse provides the arcade and console versions of these games, and even promises different versions.
But Digital Eclipse goes above and beyond other developers. So these games come with rollback netcode for online play. But beyond that, they have also made an interactive documentary around these games.
They already revealed Kerri Hoskins, Jon Tobias, and Ed Boon in the trailer, so that documentary is definitely going to be a lot of fun for the old fans. It isn’t quite part of their Gold Master Series, but that may be because there’s a lot more game to offer.
Another Advocate For Physical Games
Maybe this should not be a surprise to us at all. Atari and especially Digital Eclipse are known to be champions of video game preservation in principle.
While some doubted Atari’s plans to revive the Atari game platform, they have proven they were serious in bringing back those older games and providing a modern way to play them. We just reported on their upcoming Pac-Man Edition Atari 2600+. That’s coming with a new Atari 7800 version of Pac-Man.
Digital Eclipse’s raison d’être is video game preservation. They understand that preservation is compromised if you don’t offer a way to keep a copy of the game that won’t go away. Even if physical media formats degrade in time, they are a more reliable way of keeping a game than a digital download, which could go away if the digital store is taken down. And unlike some publishers, they aren’t making limited print runs of their games to provide real accessibility.
Who Else Will Defend Video Game Preservation?
So far, it has really been only a small number of third parties that have resolved to keep games complete on Game Card. Nintendo has made it clear Game-Key Cards are for third parties, and they haven’t published a single Game-Key Card game themselves. It has only been a few months so it may be too early for those third parties to drop Game-Key Cards.
For that reason, we will easily see which publishers really find physical games and video game preservation to be really important. Game-Key Cards may end up becoming popular in the market after all. But whether that happens or not, we’ll remember who held on to these convictions about owning games.
You can watch the original Mortal Kombat Legacy Collection trailer here and the physical edition trailer below.
