Elden Ring priced at $80
Elden Ring: Tarnished Edition is up for preorder on Nintendo Switch 2 at a surprising $80 — and players are already annoyed because the physical release appears to be a game-key card, not a full cartridge. (ign.com) The package is listed as including the base game plus Shadow of the Erdtree and new armor sets and starting classes, but there’s still no firm Switch 2 release date and the port has been pushed to sometime in 2026. (ign.com) (gonintendo.com) (nintendolife.com)
Nintendo Switch 2 owners can now preorder Elden Ring: Tarnished Edition for $79.99, and the surprise is not just the price. The physical box appears to use Nintendo’s new game-key card format, which means the card does not hold the full game data. (ign.com) (en-americas-support.nintendo.com) Nintendo says a game-key card is different from a regular game card because it works more like a license on plastic than a full cartridge. You still insert the card to play, but you have to download the game data to the console before it runs. (en-americas-support.nintendo.com) (pcmag.com) That is why collectors are irritated. A boxed copy usually promises the old cartridge bargain of “buy it, own it, play it,” but a game-key card keeps the plastic object while moving the actual game onto Nintendo’s download system. (en-americas-support.nintendo.com) (nintendolife.com) Nintendo has tried to soften that by saying game-key cards are not locked to one Nintendo account or one machine. The company says they can still be shared, loaned, and resold, as long as the card is inserted in the Nintendo Switch 2 system when you play. (en-americas-support.nintendo.com) (gamespot.com) The $80 sticker is landing badly because Elden Ring is not a brand-new 2026 game. FromSoftware first released Elden Ring in February 2022, and this Switch 2 package is a port of that game plus the Shadow of the Erdtree expansion and some extra content made for Tarnished Edition. (bandainamcoent.com) (en.bandainamcoent.eu) Bandai Namco’s official page says Tarnished Edition includes the base game, Shadow of the Erdtree, new armor, and customization features for Torrent, the spectral horse players ride across the map. Nintendo’s Australian store listing goes further and mentions new weapons, armor, and Torrent skins. (en.bandainamcoent.eu) (nintendo.com) The other catch is timing. Preorders are live now, but neither Amazon’s listing nor recent coverage includes a firm release date, and Bandai Namco’s official site still says only “2026.” (amazon.com) (en.bandainamcoent.eu) (ign.com) So the current offer is unusually specific in one way and unusually vague in another. Players know the exact price, they know the box likely contains a download-trigger card, and they still do not know what day in 2026 the game actually arrives. (ign.com) (nintendolife.com) That combination is what turned a routine preorder into a backlash story. If this had been a full cartridge at a lower price, fans would mostly be talking about finally getting one of the biggest action role-playing games of the decade on Nintendo hardware; instead they are arguing over whether $80 is too much for a box that still needs a big download. (ign.com) (gonintendo.com)
