ProChristus

All y’all complaining about this, but it really is as simple as a derisking issue. Games are being modified so much up to Date 1 that publishers simply have no incentive to make the physical disc anything more than a game key. This frees publishers and devs up to modify as MUCH content, even immediately before/during release or after as desired. Since most people have at least some kind of internet, they will be able to download the rest of the content.

It also allows publishers to render your physical disc totally inert very easily, because they haven’t entrusted you with any real content. This would be necessary in the case of something like Concord. It grants significant content freedom to devs, clearly.

Like it or not, this is an inevitable industry transition and I cannot imagine AAA games going any other direction with their size and financial investment being equivalent to movies. Publishers have every incentive to avoid their game bombing (Starfield costed $400 million). Content control is a way to help prevent.