Special Reserve Games has announced that the Ruiner physical release on PS4 has been canceled. This is due to new ESRB mandates for physical releases across all consoles, and this new mandate “puts the production costs for new releases like Ruiner out of the acceptable range” for Special Reserve Games. They will, however, produce collectibles that’ll be announced this week.
Some fans asked Limited Run Games if they would consider publishing the game, but they had this to say on Twitter:
Nope, cost of an ESRB rating is not going to go down with us versus them. The cost is based on a game's budget. 🙁
— Limited Run Games (@LimitedRunGames) October 31, 2017
Here’s the full statement from Special Reserve Games:
Special Reserve Games regretfully announces that a physical version of Ruiner for PS4 will not be made.
In late August, the ESRB announced a new mandate for all physical releases across all consoles would soon be required, and shortly after we announced our intention to produce Ruiner, we received word that this mandate would be applied to it and future new game releases. The process of obtaining this rating comes with a fee that puts the production costs for new releases like Ruiner out of the acceptable range for us to produce physical discs for PS4. This decision was agonizing, and we have tried multiple ways to reach a compromise, but sadly, we have had to change our plans to produce our intended collector edition PS4 discs for Ruiner.
The good news is, we will be issuing more than one Reserve for Ruiner in the coming weeks, and we know you will be excited to see what’s in store. We are proud of Reikon Games and their visually stunning creation, and we’re going to announced the first of two collectible Reserves this week. We don’t intend to give up on future PS4 releases, and these adjusted ESRB guidelines should still allow us to produce discs for legacy digital titles already on the market at a reasonable cost, so PS4 fans should stay tuned to SRG.
Special Reserve Games started with the focus to support independent game developers from around the world, and we thank all of our loyal customers and fans for your awesome support. Just like in gameplay, every challenge must be overcome to win, and we will continue our work to overcome anything that stands in the way of promoting our friends in the international game community to bring you the games you deserve.
For even more on the violent top-down action game, check out my Ruiner review. Here’s what I had to say about the recent PS4 release:
While the violence never failed to entertain, certain kills were more memorable than the rest. I often found myself going against other mass-murderers and hired hands that forced me to be on edge more than usual. These battles often tested abilities beyond my reflexes, such as when I had to trick the Trafficking into traps to disable a force-field that was protecting him. A few of these faces grew a bit too familiar, as I grew tired of facing off against the same Mother machines near the end of my journey.
Ultimately, I never had much of a choice in Ruiner. I was simply a tool that awaited command, one that only could express myself during combat. I killed because I was told to do so, but even if I had free reign I doubt I would’ve ever had disobeyed. After all, sometimes it’s too much fun to be used.
Ruiner is available now for PlayStation 4 and PC.
[Source: Twitter]
