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Fans have noticed something odd about Lego City Undercover on Switch

UPDATE: "The information is listed incorrectly on the packaging."

UPDATE 29/3/17 10.15am: Warner Bros. has now provided another statement on the Lego City Undercover situation - which states you will be able to play the full game without downloading anything.

An internet connection is only required for updates to the game.

"The information is listed incorrectly on the packaging of Lego City Undercover for Nintendo Switch. Players who purchase a physical copy of LEGO City Undercover on Nintendo Switch at retail are getting the complete game, and do not need to download additional content to enjoy the full experience.

"An internet connection is not required to play the game. The only internet connection suggested is to download the typical content update patch."

And, hopefully, that's that.


UPDATE 28/3/17 2.30pm: Lego City Undercover publisher Warner Bros. has provided us with this short statement on the game's cartridge version, which suggests you will be able to play without downloading anything.

"Players who purchase Lego City Undercover on Nintendo Switch at retail do not need to download the game to play," a company spokesperson told us.

We're still no clearer why the game's box states it requires an internet connection, or 13GB of storage, but the suggestion here perhaps is that at least some of the game is playable without downloading.

We've contacted Warner Bros. again for further clarification.


ORIGINAL STORY 28/3/17 10.05am: Lego City Undercover will soon launch on Switch, but the game's box is causing some fans to pause on a purchase.

Lego City Undercover's box warns of needing up to 13GB of storage space.

Final boxart from the physical version posted to reddit warns that an internet connection is "required".

Another warning states: "up to 13GB storage required for game download".

Physical Switch cartridges do not traditionally need to be installed. You put them in your Switch and they work, just like Game Boy carts do. The only data saved to your Switch itself is your game save, and any future DLC or patches.

So, what's going on here? An answer may lie in the game's digital version, which is listed on the Nintendo Switch eShop as weighing in at just 7.1GB. That's far less than the Wii U version of the game, which is 20GB.

This suggests the 13GB download warned of on Lego City Undercover's box is actually the rest of the game - and that only 7.1GB (the same as its digital download) is actually on the cart.

But why would more than half of a game be missed off of its cartridge?

Zelda has no such warning on its box.

Eurogamer recently investigated the high price of cross-platform games on Switch. The fact Nintendo's console uses a proprietary cartridge size was revealed to drive up the cost - and the larger the cartridge size needed, the more expensive the game is to manufacture.

It is possible that Lego publisher Warner Bros. decided to ship more than half of the game's physical version as a digital download in order to sell it on a smaller (and therefore cheaper) cartridge size.

Fans certainly suspect as much - and are upset at the 13GB of digital download they will now need for the game. It's a significant chunk of the Switch's onboard 32GB of flash memory.

We've asked Warner Bros. to share more.

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