The Resident Evil 4 Remake is scheduled to release in a couple of weeks, and while most players will buy the game digitally, the most devoted fans have been saving up for the $250 collector’s editions that Gamestop had promised.
As first highlighted by Twitter user Wario64, GameStop employees reportedly received a memo informing them that RE4 Collector's Editions won't arrive in stores and that all in-store orders will not be fulfilled. They were advised to offer moving the customers' reservations to another game, use the deposit as credit to complete another purchase, or give a refund.
According to an updated memo from GameStop, cancelled RE4 CEs includes "all Store reservations as well as a portion of fully paid online reservations"
Customers with an affected CE reservation can roll their reservation to standard edition with a $10 discount https://t.co/QsmHMZdObU
— Wario64 (@Wario64) March 8, 2023
With an update to the original memo stating that a portion of fully paid online reservations will also be canceled, players can only hope they aren't a part of the masses being affected. The news was confirmed by enraged GameStop employees on the official subreddit who claim that the latest fiasco is hurting the company’s already struggling credibility and that they are the ones left to deal with the mess.
With no clear explanation given by the company for the cancellation of all in-store pre-orders, fans can only guess if there are insufficient stock or if software issues on the backend caused the breakdown that resulted in them not receiving the hard-to-find collector's editions they paid for so handsomely.
If you are based in the US, GameStop was the only exclusive option to get your hands on these pieces of memorabilia. The product was sold in the UK via retailer Game, where it sold out extremely quickly. The Resident Evil 4 collector’s edition includes a physical copy of the game, a steel book, a statue of Leon Kennedy holding a shotgun while looking exhausted., an art book, a poster, and a digital soundtrack.
GameStop is currently battling rapidly declining revenue numbers and employee shortages. Apart from user data being leaked and several other security breaches, the company has been struggling to function properly in its operations.
The Resident Evil 4 Remake was announced last year and was initially thought to be exclusive to the PS5. In addition to releasing on most modern platforms, a VR Mode is coming to the PSVR 2 at a later date.
