Disgaea 5 Complete launches with missing network functionality

Publisher NIS America has issued a 'clarification' for those picking up Disgaea 5 Complete on Steam, admitting that the game's network functionality is entirely absent - something it knew would be the case early on in development, but which it apparently decided not to communicate to fans.

Disgaea, known in its native Japan as 魔界戦記ディスガイア or Makai Senki Disugaia, launched in 2003 with Disgaea: Hour of Darkness and cemented its position as one of the most popular tactical role-playing games and developer Nippon Ichi's best-known franchise. The sixth game in the franchise's main series, following PlayStation 3 exclusive Disgaea D2: A Brighter Darkness, Disgaea 5: Alliance of Vengeance launched on the PlayStation 4 in 2015 and was ported to the Nintendo Switch in 2018. Windows gamers, meanwhile, had to wait until this week to get their hands on the title, with NIS America publishing the game via Steam - but in doing so leaving out some major functionality.

Dubbed Disgaea 5 Complete, the Windows port of the game comes without any of the network functionality present on other platforms - something NIS America admits it knew would be the case early on in the game's development. 'Due to irreconcilable platform differences, it was decided in the beginning of development for Disgaea 5 Complete that the network functions from the original game could not be implemented into the Steam version,' claims NIS America in a blog post on the matter. 'We deeply apologise that these differences were not communicated in advance, and we appreciate your patience and understanding in this matter.'

While the bulk of the game is present, NIS America has published a list of missing content, which includes selected shops, user-contributed news systems, the ability to trade items with friends, and the game's map editing system. The company is also advising those who are displeased that their copy of Disgaea 5 Complete is not as complete as billed that they can request a refund on their purchase so long as the total playtime has not exceeded two hours, in line with Valve's standard Steam refund policy - a policy which can allow for refunds in excess of the two-hour limit after manual checks take place.