The first physical PC game I remember playing shows what Sony is thoughtlessly destroying
The first physical PC game I remember playing shows what Sony is thoughtlessly destroying is the focus of a new gaming update, and the useful part is understanding what has actually changed or been announced. Games FPS The first physical PC game I remember playing shows what Sony is thoughtlessly destroying Features By Joshua Wolens Published 22 August 2026 Me and a bunch of big-box PC games are going to go full boomer or prove a very important point.
What Happened
Pop back every weekend to find out what Jeremy, Josh and Rick have become obsessed with this time, whether it's the canon height of Thief's Garrett or that time someone in the Vatican pirated Football Manager.You might have caught it in the news: Sony infuriated absolutely everyone recently with a single blog post (usually it's me who does that) announcing that, come the big year 2028, PlayStation owners can wave goodbye to physical media. It's an odd thing—despite its year of release, it feels like a transitional fossil between dime-guzzling arcade shooters and something more modern, more narrative, more id-inflected. What to read next Clair Obscur developers see Sony's no-disk announcement as 'a sad decision', because they 'like to go outside, buy a game, and come back home with it' 'The mid-2000s was the golden era of first-person shooters': David Szymanski, creator of Dusk and Iron Lung, discusses the games on his PC The Quake shareware CD-ROM contained encrypted copies of every id Software game—and yes, it was cracked 39 days after release I am focusing so much on the tactile and aesthetic experience of ol' B1 because my memory of actually playing it is, well, hazy. I played a lot of games as a kid, many of them bad, and all of them except Tunnel B1 appeared on our family computer courtesy of a family friend who knew how to do piracy in the mid-to-late '90s: digital distribution in an early skunkworks form. Joshua WolensSocial Links NavigationNews WriterOne of Josh's first memories is of playing Quake 2 on the family computer when he was much too young to be doing that, and he's been irreparably game-brained ever since.
What Players Need to Know
Games FPS The first physical PC game I remember playing shows what Sony is thoughtlessly destroying Features By Joshua Wolens Published 22 August 2026 Me and a bunch of big-box PC games are going to go full boomer or prove a very important point. It's an odd thing—despite its year of release, it feels like a transitional fossil between dime-guzzling arcade shooters and something more modern, more narrative, more id-inflected. Your hovercraft has two modes: stationary and practically out of control. His writing has been featured in Vice, Fanbyte, and the Financial Times. 2 very different shooters: It's Wardogs & Modern Warfare weekend FPS The most profound objective in any Halo series was 'spiritually inspired' by the nuke sequence in Modern Warfare 2 Call of Duty Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 beta dates: How to sign up for both MW4 beta weekends FPS Overwatch's newest Emerald rank is like a live grenade wedged between plat and diamond FPS Stop waiting to play Stalker 2: The 2.0 update makes it the game it's wanted to be for 2 years Latest in Features Grand Theft Auto Rockstar employees frustrated by GTA 6 leaks,
Additional Context
When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. It's the information superhighway or the, ah, highway from here on out—your games will be digital or they will be nothing at all.The tide of anger at Sony was such that it was only temporarily diverted when Xbox CEO Asha Sharma spent a Monday marching from studio to studio with a chainsaw and a can-do attitude.I suppose Sony's antics are old-hat to you and me.
We are PC people; we have been de facto digital-only for over a decade at this point (almost two for me, to be honest: I made my Steam account in 2009). The last time I built a PC with a disc drive was back in 2015, and I didn't use it for anything but moving around photos.Latest Videos FromPC GamerWatch full video here: Nevertheless, Sony's war on the physical realm got me thinking: what was the first big-box PC game I remember handling, back when I was a speck of a boy at a hulking Fujitsu desktop?
It was Tunnel B1, a 1996 first-person shooter that asks 'What if a hovercraft had machine guns?' and which no one but me remembers.
Why This Matters
For players, the key question is whether this development changes availability, gameplay, platform support or the timing of a release. The source facts above are the basis for the report; AllStarGamer does not treat unconfirmed speculation as established information.
What to Watch Next
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Frequently Asked Questions
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Games FPS The first physical PC game I remember playing shows what Sony is thoughtlessly destroying Features By Joshua Wolens Published 22 August 2026 Me and a bunch of big-box PC games are going to go full boomer or prove a very important point. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn…
Is every detail final?
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The factual basis is the original publication credited at the end of this article.