Bloober Team backs physical games for as long as possible

Bloober Team says it wants to keep making physical versions of its games for as long as possible, even as the wider console industry leans harder towards downloads and streaming. CEO Piotr Babieno made the comments in a GamesRadar+ interview alongside Tymon Smektala, the former Dying Light franchise director who now leads the company’s Broken Mirror Games publishing label.

The discussion centred on Onyx: The Dark Grip, the upcoming horror adventure from Bloober Team and Broken Mirror Games. Babieno said a physical retail release remains important whenever the company can make one work. Smektala described collecting games as part of the emotional connection between players and the studios that make them.

That position lands at a telling moment. Sony has said it plans to stop producing discs for new PlayStation games in 2028, while digital distribution is generally cheaper and simpler for publishers. Babieno acknowledged that commercial reality, but argued that physical editions provide a tangible link between a game and its audience that a download cannot fully replace.

Why Onyx is part of the conversation

Onyx: The Dark Grip is being built exclusively for Nintendo Switch 2 handheld play. The official Broken Mirror Games site describes it as a 2.5D dark adventure in which players guide an ordinary man while taking the role of a mysterious godlike presence. The game is scheduled for 2027.

Babieno also questioned whether chasing ever-higher resolution and lighting automatically makes games more engaging. He pointed to the number of players still using hardware several years old and suggested that developers should think about other senses, including touch, rather than treating visual fidelity as the only measure of progress.

For Onyx, that argument is tied directly to the handheld format. Bloober says the console is part of the experience, with the game designed around the feeling of holding and influencing the world rather than simply viewing it on a larger screen.

Our opinion

The interesting part of Babieno’s comments is not the predictable claim that physical games are emotionally meaningful. It is the acknowledgement that the format now has to justify itself against a much more efficient digital pipeline. A box on a shelf is valuable to collectors, but a publisher still needs a release plan that can reach enough players to make the extra manufacturing and distribution worthwhile.

That makes Onyx a useful test case. A Switch 2 game designed around handheld interaction has a natural reason to be owned as a physical object, especially if its cartridge or packaging becomes part of the appeal. Whether that turns into a real retail release remains to be seen, but Bloober’s stated preference is clear: if the numbers allow it, the company does not want physical games to disappear.