Recently, the gaming community discussed the large size of Starfield’s installation files for PlayStation. Now, these concerns have been confirmed: the complete version of the game did not fit onto the physical disc.
This is becoming an increasingly common complaint among players: physical disc editions are ceasing to be complete products, often requiring additional downloads. The latest example is Starfield on PlayStation 5. It has been confirmed that approximately 81 GB of data is present on the disc, which is insufficient to launch the game. Since the total size of the PS5 version is around 123 GB, the remaining portion must be downloaded via the PlayStation Network. Attempting to start the game without an internet connection prompts a message requiring a network connection and an update download.
This situation differs from simple “code-in-a-box” scenarios, as the Blu-ray disc indeed contains a significant portion of the data. However, without internet access, this disc is practically useless. The publisher likely considered releasing the game on two discs to be too costly, shifting the burden onto end-users. Consequently, a physical copy of Starfield without an active internet connection is essentially just a useless piece of plastic.