‘Red Dead Redemption 2’ Physical Release Two-Disc Format Confirmed

When you pick up Red Dead Redemption 2 tonight to add to your game library, if you’re going for [...]

Red Dead

When you pick up Red Dead Redemption 2 tonight to add to your game library, if you're going for the physical version, you may want to know what you're getting in for. That's not to say you won't enjoy the game -- obviously, you will -- but the format is slightly different from what you'd expect.

As previously reported, Red Dead Redemption 2's retail versions for Xbox One and PlayStation 4 will be spread across two Blu-Ray discs. Considering the game is a whopping 90+GB in size on both systems (a little larger on PS4), this makes sense. And also, it's way more convenient than just having one disc and requiring the rest of the data to be downloaded from the Internet.

Red Dead 4

As you can see from the picture above, the discs are very well formatted, featuring characters from the game. And they're also clearly labeled, giving you an idea of which discs serve which purpose.

Red Dead 2

For instance, this is the "data disc." More than likely, this is the disc that you'll need to insert first so that information can be installed onto your system. Once that's done, you'll likely need to put in the second disc, also known as the "play disc," which can be seen below.

Red Dead 3

This will likely be the disc that you need to keep in your system as you play through the game, as a majority of the game's data will be here. No word yet on how that will affect performance, but in our review build, the game loaded up rather smoothly -- a real surprise considering its immense size. (That said, keep in mind we did review a digital copy of the game, not physical.)

And it looks like the case for the physical set looks pretty sharp, though keep in mind this is from the Ultimate Edition of Red Dead. The standard release will likely come in a case with the two discs stacked atop of each other. It still works, and continues to look good in a game collection.

Of course, none of this matters if you opt to go for the digital version, since the entirety of the game downloads in one shot. Considering you have a lot of data there, however, we advise pre-ordering and pre-downloading the game now so you have everything set when you go to play it later tonight.

Red Dead Redemption 2 will be available later this evening for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. Check out our review here!