Over the years, the Australian Ratings Board has leaked a number of video games ahead of an official announcement, and it seems that’s happened once again. This time around, ratings for Hi-Fi Rush have been discovered for PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, and Xbox One. The game was released as an Xbox Series X|S exclusive in January 2022, and rumors about a Switch version started to circulate earlier this month. The rating was listed as “Project2022A” and was discovered by the website FinalWeapon.net.
While this rating is the best evidence yet that Hi-Fi Rush is getting a wider release, readers should take this with a grain of salt pending an official announcement. A multi-platform release would make a lot of sense; Hi-Fi Rush has received strong critical praise over the last year, and even won Best Audio Design at The Game Awards last month. Despite this, Jeff Grubb of Giant Bomb reported last year that Hi-Fi Rush “didn’t make the money it needed to make.” Bringing the game to additional platforms would give more players a chance to experience everything Hi-Fi Rush has to offer, while also helping Microsoft recoup the game’s development costs.
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Hi-Fi Rush on Xbox Series X|S
Hi-Fi Rush was a surprise announcement during an Xbox Developer Direct last January. The game was shadow dropped that same day on both the Microsoft Store and Xbox Game Pass. At this time, Hi-Fi Rush has not been released on Xbox One, but the game is playable on the system through Xbox Cloud Gaming. If the new listing from the Australian Ratings Board is to be trusted, this will mark the first time the game is made available on Xbox One without paying for a Game Pass subscription.
Hi-Fi Rush was developed by Tango Gameworks, the studio responsible for Ghostwire: Tokyo and both games in The Evil Within franchise. For that reason alone, the announcement was a surprising one; Hi-Fi Rush seemed like a very unusual game for a studio known for making games in the horror genre.
Changing Xbox Exclusivity
Rumors about Hi-Fi Rush going multi-platform have sparked debate online about the nature of Xbox exclusive games. This is hardly the first Microsoft game to release on PlayStation and Nintendo systems, but some Xbox users are worried about the impact it could have on the long term appeal of the platform. According to a recent report from Windows Central, Microsoft has plans to keep some of its biggest games exclusive to Xbox, though it seems they’ll be bringing smaller games to other platforms when it makes sense to do so. Considering how much success some Microsoft games have found by going multi-platform, it makes a lot of sense from a financial standpoint!
Are you hoping to see Hi-Fi Rush on Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4? Did you play the game on Xbox Series X|S? Share your thoughts with me directly on Twitter at @Marcdachamp or on Instagram at @Dachampgaming!
