In context: Sony's decision to abandon physical releases for the next PlayStation console is encouraging a heated debate within the game industry. Some think optical discs have no place in the market anymore, while others - including this writer - vow to cling to their internal Blu-ray burners until the End Times. A few notable releases should still come on disc, including the new Tomb Raider remake that Amazon will publish next year, which will also receive a physical PC release.
Amazon Game Studios is apparently going to do something rather unusual with Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis. The upcoming modern remake of the original Tomb Raider game will feature a "full physical" release on PC. Preorders on Amazon are clearly promoting the on-disc option, although there are no specific details about which optical format will be used.
Full physical releases are extremely rare nowadays. This is especially true on PC, where Steam dominates the digital delivery market, leading competitors such as GOG.com or Epic Games Store. One of the most notable on-disc releases for the platform in recent years was Flight Simulator 2020, which came on ten dual-layer DVDs.
The "full physical" definition used by Amazon should mean that a complete copy of the game will be available on disc. However, we expect that a day-one patch will be required to significantly improve the experience with some last-minute bug fixes. A recent survey showed that many disc-based console games need day-one downloads to work properly.
According to the hardware requirements listed on the game's Steam page, Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis will need 80 GB of storage space on PC. Even considering data compression algorithms and texture optimizations, such a requirement would have significant consequences for Amazon's on-disc release.
A typical dual-layer DVD-ROM can theoretically store up to 9.4 GB, while standard Blu-ray BD-ROM discs come in single-layer (25 GB) or dual-layer (50 GB) variants. The newer BDXL format offers capacities similar to the triple-layer discs used for Ultra HD Blu-ray releases, which means it can store up to 100 GB on an individual translucent disc.
At any rate, Amazon's upcoming PC release is causing quite a stir among optical media enthusiasts. Sony recently reiterated the idea that digitalization is progressing and users prefer discless games anyway, while Microsoft is allegedly working on a mechanism designed to ease the "upgrade" from discs to digital-only gaming, which comes with its own reliability issues when networks go down.