Sony’s Disc Shift, Stranger Than Heaven and Dragon’s Dogma 2: Three Gaming Stories to Watch

September is bringing plenty of new developments for console players. Sony’s plans for physical PlayStation games are drawing criticism from parts of the industry, RGG Studio is preparing its most ambitious historical adventure yet with Stranger Than Heaven, and Dragon’s Dogma 2: Dark Arisen is trying to balance very different opinions about what players actually want from the series.

Here are three stories worth keeping an eye on.

Sony’s Disc Shift Is Causing Concern Among Publishers

Sony’s plan to stop producing physical PlayStation game discs from 2028 has reportedly left many developers and publishers unhappy, particularly those that still rely heavily on boxed games.

The issue was discussed by Digital Foundry editor John Linneman after his conversations with industry figures during Gamescom. According to Linneman, many of the developers and publishers he spoke with were strongly opposed to Sony’s direction because physical sales remain an important source of revenue for some companies.

The impact is unlikely to be the same across the entire industry.

Large AAA publishers have increasingly shifted toward digital distribution and live-service models, meaning they may have less to lose if physical PlayStation releases become harder to produce. Smaller publishers, however, can have a very different business model.

For some of them, physical editions are still an important part of a game's launch. Limited editions, collector's editions and retail copies can generate additional revenue while also giving niche games visibility outside digital storefronts.

That is why the potential shift toward Nintendo Switch 2 is particularly interesting.

Linneman said he got the impression that some companies were looking at Switch 2 as a way to keep physical games alive. If that trend develops, Nintendo could become an increasingly important platform for publishers that want to continue selling boxed copies.

This does not mean PlayStation is suddenly losing support.

The PS5 remains one of the largest gaming platforms in the world, and major publishers are unlikely to walk away from it simply because Sony wants to reduce physical media production. Digital sales are already a major part of the console business.

The potential problem is what happens to smaller releases.

If a publisher has limited resources and has to decide where to manufacture a physical version, a platform that continues to support physical distribution could become a more attractive option.

For players, there is also a practical difference between buying a digital license and owning a physical copy. A disc can be resold, traded, lent to another player or kept as part of a collection.

Sony's plan is still years away from taking full effect, and the company's strategy could change before 2028. But the reaction from developers and publishers suggests that this is becoming a wider industry issue rather than simply another change to the PlayStation business model.

Stranger Than Heaven Spans Five Eras in RGG Studio’s Biggest Adventure Yet

RGG Studio is taking its usual focus on detailed cities and side activities into a much larger historical setting with Stranger Than Heaven.

The action-adventure game is scheduled to release on January 15, 2027, for PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X|S, with Xbox Game Pass availability from launch.

The game's central idea is its five-era structure. Players follow protagonist Makoto Daito through five different periods, with each city representing a distinct stage in the story.

That gives RGG Studio plenty of room to experiment with its familiar formula.

According to producer Hiroyuki Sakamoto, the density of each location is the highest the team has ever created. More buildings and shops will be accessible, while the environments are being designed around the specific period in which each story takes place.

For players who enjoy wandering around RGG Studio's cities, that could be one of the game's most interesting features.

The developers are not simply making one giant map. Director Masayoshi Yokoyama previously explained that each city is roughly comparable in size to a traditional Like a Dragon map.

That means the overall game can cover a huge amount of history without forcing players to spend hours crossing an oversized open world.

The five eras should also give the optional content a different flavor.

Stranger Than Heaven will reportedly have fewer minigames than a traditional Like a Dragon game because activities need to make sense within their historical settings. Even so, players can expect plenty of content outside the main storyline, including side quests and activities built around the different cities.

The project has already spent around six to seven years in development. It was originally planned as a trilogy before the developers eventually decided to combine the idea into a single game.

That history makes the game's scale easier to understand.

Five cities across different periods require more than five sets of buildings. The characters, stores, streets, activities and visual details all need to change with the era.

For players, the important question will be whether those differences actually make each section feel like its own adventure.

If they do, Stranger Than Heaven could offer something that RGG Studio's existing games cannot: a single story where moving forward in time fundamentally changes the world around the player.

Dragon’s Dogma 2: Dark Arisen Finds a Major Divide in Player Feedback

Dragon’s Dogma 2: Dark Arisen is adding a new region and more than 25 hours of content, but one of the most interesting parts of its development has nothing to do with the size of the expansion.

Capcom says players from different regions often have very different opinions about the mechanics that define Dragon’s Dogma 2.

In an interview with Famitsu, director Kento Kinoshita and producers Naoto Oyama and Yoshiaki Hirabayashi discussed the feedback collected during development.

According to Hirabayashi, Japanese and Asian players sometimes had almost completely opposite reactions to players in Europe and North America.

Traveling on foot was one example.

Some Asian players reportedly considered the long journeys an unnecessary inconvenience. Western players were more likely to view the same friction as part of the adventure, where getting from one location to another is supposed to feel like a journey rather than simply a way of moving between objectives.

Dragonplague created a similar divide.

For some players, the system adds tension and makes the world feel less predictable. For others, it can feel like an additional problem that interrupts the adventure.

That puts Capcom in a difficult position. Removing those mechanics would upset players who enjoy them, while making them unavoidable would continue frustrating the people who disliked them in the first place.

Dark Arisen appears to be addressing that problem by giving players more control.

The expansion will introduce equipment transmog, allowing players to change the appearance of their gear. Players who do not want to use the system can simply leave it alone.

Hard Mode will also be available from launch after strong demand from the community.

The expansion has been in development for nearly two years and will introduce a new area alongside its additional story and gameplay content.

For returning players, however, the changes to the existing systems could end up being just as important as the new content.

Dragon’s Dogma 2 has always had a particular identity. Its long journeys, unpredictable encounters and occasionally inconvenient mechanics are part of what makes it different from more streamlined open-world RPGs.

Dark Arisen does not appear to be abandoning that identity. Instead, Capcom is trying to give players more options without removing the systems that some fans consider essential to the experience.

Dragon’s Dogma 2: Dark Arisen launches on October 9 for PC via Steam, PS5, Xbox Series X|S and Nintendo Switch 2.

With Sony reconsidering the role of physical games, RGG Studio expanding its formula across five eras, and Capcom responding to radically different player feedback, all three stories offer a glimpse at how the console gaming landscape is changing from very different directions.