Shovel Knight's Brand New Puzzle Game Launches On The Switch eShop Next Month

"Yacht Club Games has also revealed it has plans to release an expansive slate of downloadable content over the next year or so."

I really miss the days when games were released in a complete state.

@CharlieGirl It’s been in development for ages now, I think they’d rather just get it out at all.

So is this gonna be like with the original Shovel Knight where it takes them about five years to complete the promised DLC due to massive feature creep?

I own too many ports of the original game and I'm sure to download this day one. Can't wait.

At first it looks like a basic puzzler but by the end of trailer I had no idea what was happening. Looks awesome

@CharlieGirl I agree with the sentiment, but you couldn't have picked a worse developer to try to make your point with. Shovel Knight was amazing at launch and had some of the best free post-launch content in recent memory. I'll Yacht Club the benefit of the doubt until they give me a reason not to.

What ever happened to that other game, Shovel Knight Dig?

@roadrunner343 I stand by my point.
Shovel Knight was an outlier, because it existed as a crowdfunded project. All the expansions were stretch goals that fans paid for. And they were just that: expansions. And all were patched in at no additional cost.

This is different. This feels like a game is being pushed out in an unfinished state, with a plan to finish it later.

Like I said, I stand by your point - it's just seems completely irrelevant here. 99% of the people that purchased Shovel Knight don't care about how the game was funded - they purchased the game and got what was one of the best games of its kind at initial release, followed by a plethora of free content updates. And that's effectively all we have to go off of so far. I've not seen anything to make me doubt their upcoming releases.

Then again, after the Witcher 3, I had full faith in CDPR too, and we know how that turned out Still, I think we just need to wait for the game to release before accusing them of releasing an unfinished game.

@HeroOfCybertron
Delayed to 2022

Looks weird, I’ll buy it

@CharlieGirl

That's not how that works. DLC, at least from reasonable and decent companies, is content that in the era before DLC would be in an expansion pack or in a full on re-release or would just be permanently cut. Because fair or not, there are deadlines that at some point, have to be met and thus content will almost always be cut from games. So instead of any of those previous options, they instead decide to release that content later as DLC. Nearly every game that any reasonable person thinks of as a complete game has content that has fit into one of those categories.

And quite frankly, there are plenty of games that felt complete without me having to buy the DLC that they had sold for it.

@CharlieGirl extended playable content is not the same thing as releasing a complete game, the game is complete. These guys wrote the book on incredible free DLC.

@kkslider5552000 Yep, I just commented the same.

@CharlieGirl based on what? How does it feel like it's unfinished? You just read a quote which is clearly regarding DLC.

Yacht club are great, Shovel Knight is fantastic. You don't need to know anything else.

I'm still not sure about this one. I have no idea what's going on, or is it just me? Perhaps you just need to play it to understand it

@CharlieGirl The game is complete. Only DLC will add more to the game.

Which is absolutely nothing new, since "expansion packs" have been part of the gaming industry since the 80s. (or maybe even before)

@CharlieGirl Tbf we haven't played the game so we can't really say if the game feels like it's being released in an unfinished state.

Im interested but I kinda wishing for a mobile port.
Its the kinda title Id play in bite sized chunks through out the days little breaks. (when Im unlikely to have the switch on me)

@CharlieGirl At least Shovel Knight felt like a completed game even before all of the DLC...at least it did to me.

Nowadays, devs want you to fork over money to play things in "early access" and push things out in a late alpha or beta state at full price. It's a problem that mostly started with AAA games but it's definitely crept over to the indie scene. It's very disappointing.

@RetroOutcast Shovel Knight was a very complete game at launch! The original at release offered easily 20+ hours for completionists, and the entire game was wonderful from front to back.
The free expansions were a bonus, and while they were promised in advance, they weren't planned in advance.
Contrary to that, this new game feels like what you said: a $20 early access.

@CharlieGirl It's weird to think about how much has changed even in just the span of 7 years. If the original Shovel Knight was in development or releasing just now...it would have probably been half of the final game's campaign with the rest "coming soon". (1-2 years later)