Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced launch outshines GTA 6: 'Now that's how you do physical'

Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced has proven why we need physical media, especially for games like Grand Theft Auto VI.

Last week, PlayStation announced plans to cease digital game production from 2028 onwards, and the company is still facing down the backlash today.

The timing of its announcement couldn’t have been any worse as it was GTA VI that threw the first stone. Rockstar Games confirmed the week prior that physical copies of the game won’t include a disc in the box.

After all of this, gamers have been screaming for the future of physical games media, only to be met by the newly released Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced, which has come sailing in with the goods.

Ubisoft unexpectedly understands physical media better than Rockstar Games

Launch-day physical editions of Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced come with much more than just the disc.

In the beefy box you get you’ll also get your hands on an artbook, and your very own pirate map. This is all included in the bog-standard version of the game by the way, not an ‘ultimate’ or collectors edition.

Before they eventually got theirs, fans got a sneak-peek of these collector’s items through a Reddit post by machete777, who received their order a day early.

“Now that's how you do physical” said a_gud_name in reply to the post, with many others praising just how much extra stuff you get in addition to the disc.

Both_Anything_4192 said: “Man, this reminds me of old games that used to come with a lot of stuff inside the physical game box.”

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The Grand Theft Auto series took a few shots here, as physical copies of GTA V came with a map of Los Santos. Back when the game came out in 2013 that very same map was on my wall for a couple of years.

Physical copies of GTA VI, however, likely won’t include any such freebies. It’s expected that all you’ll see when you open the case is the piece of paper with your download code on it. You might as well just buy it digitally and make your own box.

One last comment came from Guitar-String, who said: “Physical merch?? With the base game?? In 2026?? At least one thing Ubisoft is doing right.”

With PlayStation seemingly steadfast in its decision to kill physical media production, it’s expected that Xbox will follow suit. Nintendo might do the same, but it’s hard to predict what the company will do next, as it’s always tended to blaze its own trail.

For the most part, though, it’s looking like the writing is on the wall for physical game collectors. Most of the AAA games that have been released in recent years have launched as codes-in-boxes anyway, so really we should have seen this coming.

The incentive to buy physical over digital just isn’t there anymore, but at least Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced will be fondly remembered as a game that got physical right.

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