You can play Blacksad: Under The Skin a week before it’s official release date thanks to a technical glitch. But you really shouldn’t.
In the new digital world we find ourselves in, technical glitches are not uncommon. What is slightly uncommon is when those technical glitches release a game a week before its street date.
Whereas brick and mortar stores would get in a heap of trouble for breaking the release date of a new video game, digital stores don’t really catch the same flak when it’s just a technical glitch that slips through. Which is why you can now download Blacksad on Xbox One and PS4 before November 14th.
However, a note of caution directly from the publisher, Microids. They released a statement saying that while Blacksad is technically a game, it’s not exactly a finished game. As with most new releases, Blacksad requires a big day one patch to make it anywhere near playable. Music files are missing, ambient sound files are missing, the character models' lips don't line up with the voice lines, there are huge texture optimizations still left to perform, and some major bugs left to squash.
Responses to the statement on Twitter confirm that yes, Blacksad can be downloaded, but it’s missing a lot of stuff. Multi-language support, subtitles, and tooltips are still completely absent. Microids just keeps responding with apologies and to expect a big patch on November 14th that will actually complete the game.
If you've never heard of Blacksad, it's a noir-style detective adventure game where you play as a 6-foot talking cat. Yes, the whole cast is full of anthropomorphic animals just as in the comic book of the same name. You'll be tasked with tracking down a missing boxer who is connected to the mysterious death of a gym owner in 1950s New York City. Only if that city was full of literal animals and not figurative ones.
The PC release of Blacksad is still scheduled for November 14th, and the Nintendo Switch version will be out on November 28th. Everyone else, hold off until the 14th, otherwise you’ll be playing an unfinished product.
Source: Microids