Physical copies of Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora will reportedly be unplayable without an internet connection, as a fan who received their copy early says it doesn’t work without its unreleased day-one patch. The box art also warns that the game needs an internet connection to install, suggesting that the disc doesn’t contain the entire game.
The buyer says they have found no success in either changing the date on their consoles or turning it offline. This has fans fearful that, even on release day, the game won’t work without downloading the day one patch. The storepage for the game seems to confirm this too, saying that an internet connection is “required to download patches and launch the game”.
This development was spotted by ResetEra user RedbullCola, who noted that anyone sharing their early copies on social media has been unable to play the game. One such buyer, Reddit user Interesting-Squash81, has tried to get the game running by changing settings on their console, but to no avail.
If true, it would confirm the fears that many had when the box art was revealed. On the box, there’s a warning that reads: “Internet required to install the game”. Now, if it’s true that even those who have the game now are unable to play with an internet connection, it strongly suggests that it’s the day one patch that’s a requirement here.
While day-one patches are nothing new, making the game completely inaccessible without them is much rarer. Even if they don’t perform particularly well, most games are perfectly playable without a day-one patch, letting anyone without a strong enough internet connection for a huge download play the game as soon as they pick it up.
Ubisoft’s apparent decision to reacquire all players to have an internet connection is not going down well with the community. That said, we don’t know why this would be a requirement, and if it means that sections of the game aren’t actually on the disc. We’ve seen this fairly recently, with Cyberpunk 2077: Ultimate Edition – which launches today – only having the base game on the disc, not the Phantom Liberty expansion. This means that anyone who wants to complete everything in the game will have to download the DLC separately, although the most recent patch will be on the disc, at least.
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