14 DAY TRIAL // L.A. Noire will ship for the Xbox 360 on not one, not two, but three discs, as Rockstar's brand new title clocks in at around 20GB of data, at least according to the company.
L.A. Noire is going to be one of the most important games of the month, as Team Bondi, its developer, and Rockstar Games, its publisher, are working hard to finally deliver this extremely ambitious detective simulator.
We've been hearing quite a lot of things over the last few weeks, and the most shocking has now appeared, via Kotaku, which says that the game's Xbox 360 version will ship three DVDs, because of the massive world and the many cases that need to be solved by protagonist Cole Phelps.
"L.A. Noire was always going to be a massive game, from the size and detail of the world to the length of the cases, and of course, the sheer amount of MotionScan data required for the faces of over 400 actors in-game," said Rockstar's Jeronimo Barrera.
"To tell the story and make the game we wanted to make, we knew that it was going to take an entire single layer Blu-ray disc and three Xbox discs. This gave us a powerful main story, and left us with quality extra content that we wanted to put out as DLC."
Special cases have already been revealed as pre-order incentives, alongside things like unique suits for Phelps to wear in the game, all of which are set to be launched after the release of L.A. Noire as downloadable content.
The three-disc requirement is largely due to the game's use of the special MotionScan technology, in order to render the most realistic faces in gaming, which are essential during the investigation process.
Xbox 360 gamers shouldn't worry about having to swap out discs in the middle of the action, as Rockstar emphasizes that the game's special nature, with players progressing through each case, won't result in such situations.
"Since the game is built around the concept of progressing through individual cases from desk to desk, players on Xbox will find disc-swapping is hassle-free. In fact, players will only need to swap discs twice at natural breaks between cases without interrupting the flow of the game."
L.A. Noire arrives on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 on May 17, in North America, and May 20, in Europe.