The legend of Shovel Knight will live on … as a physical disc that you can keep on a shelf.
Developer Yacht Club Games has confirmed that its beloved 2D throwback platformer Shovel Knight is coming to retail. You can buy it for Wii U, 3DS, PlayStation 4, or Xbox One on Oct. 13 for $20. Retailers Best Buy, Walmart, Target, Gamestop, and Amazon will all carry the game. This leap from digital-only release to the world of physical games is perhaps the best evidence that an indie such as Shovel Knight has succeeded. Yacht Club Games has pointed out that it has sold 700,000 copies of the tough 8-bit-inspired game, and it says something about how much the audience loves a game if it finally gets a disc version a year after its initial release.
In addition to getting you the full Shovel Knight game, the disc also includes the extra features that Yacht Club has added since. This includes alternate campaigns for Specter Knight and King Knight as well as gender-swap mode. The developer is also planning to include the new Battle Mode, which is an unreleased multiplayer battle game. And Yacht Club Games is promising a colorful instruction manual.
Above: Battle Mode will finally let you beat up your friends in Shovel Knight.
Finally, the boxed copy comes with Shovel Knight: Plague of Shadows, which is the first content expansion for the game. This is a new version of Shovel Knight that enables you to play as Plague Knight. The Plague of Shadows DLC also goes live for the digital version in the next month or two.
Shovel Knight is probably one of the best examples of a crowdfunded game done right. Yacht Club turned to Kickstarter in 2013 with a goal of $75,000. It ended up raising $311,502. The game hit PC, Wii U, and 3DS in June of 2014. And the studio has spent the time since updating it and porting it to other platforms like Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PlayStation Vita. That support — along with the high-quality of the game itself — has obviously put Shovel Knight in a position where it can exist as a physical product.