As a gamer, few things, if any, are better than hearing the words, “It’s available right now,” AKA the mythical shadowdrop. We’ve seen it happen throughout gaming’s history, including multiple times this year, perhaps most famously with The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered, which dropped in April and quickly took over our collective lives.
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It turns out, there’s a reason why “shadowdrops” have become so prevalent in recent years. Sure, video game developers and publishers love the instant popularity bump, but more than anything, it has a lot to do with our inability to focus on things.
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In an interview with GamesRadar, Bethesda Game Studios director Tom Mustaine explained the two-fold approach that his studio has taken when it comes to releasing things on the same day they’re announced.
“Todd Howard, the boss man, he’s wanted to shadowdrop things for a long time because it’s so great to be able to say, ‘Here’s the thing, get it today.’ It’s very valuable,” Mustaine said.
However, that’s only part of the decision. Because the other half has to do with how bad we all are at focusing.
“We all have short attention spans now,” Mustaine said. “There’s Grand Theft Auto, for example. I want that today, right? So it is an interesting strategy… I don’t have any ideas of what would be next, but I hope it’s not the last. Personally, I think it was great to own the internet for that day and, you know, give people exactly what they want the moment we talk about it. I’m a fan of that personally, but I’d love to see more people do it.”
If brain rot is to blame for getting games immediately after they’re announced, then don’t count me among the complainers. I love a good shadowdrop, though my wallet hates it.
Grand Theft Auto is almost certainly the only game that can shadowdrop and probably still make the same amount of money it was destined for. Things get a lot more dicey when games rely on months-long marketing beats and have other obligations to fulfill. Fallout 4 is probably the best example of a happy medium as it was revealed then made available a few months later. Not exactly a shadowdrop, but also not something that’s years away.
As for what’s next, well, Tomb Raider Definitive Edition did manage to shadowdrop for the Nintendo Switch a few days ago, though I doubt anyone’s counting a game from 2013 as part of the whole phenomenon.
- Released
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April 22, 2025
- ESRB
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Mature 17+ // Blood and Gore, Sexual Themes, Violence
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