L.A. Noire – Content Fills Three Xbox 360 Discs

In a recent conversation with Kotaku, Rockstar claims L.A. Noire to be so large it fills one PS3 Blu-ray disc and three Xbox 360 DVDs.

Evidently, the massive size of L.A. Noire is due in part to the extensive MotionScan Data (a new technique for rendering realistic facial expressions).

“L.A. Noire was always going to be a massive game, from the size and detail of the world to the length of the cases, and of course, the sheer amount of MotionScan data required for the faces of over 400 actors in-game,” said RockStar’s Jeronimo Barrera. “To tell the story and make the game we wanted to make, we knew that it was going to take an entire single layer Blu-ray disc and three Xbox discs.”

Rockstar promises disc swapping on the Xbox 360 version to be hassle-free.

“Since the game is built around the concept of progressing through individual cases from desk to desk, players on Xbox will find disc-swapping is hassle-free,” said Barrera. “In fact, players will only need to swap discs twice at natural breaks between cases without interrupting the flow of the game.  Throughout development, we created lots of great cases, the bulk of which were central to the main story of Cole Phelps and his rise through the ranks of the LAPD, alongside other cases that felt more like strong stand-alone episodes. This gave us a powerful main story, and left us with quality extra content that we wanted to put out as DLC, that would slot seamlessly into the existing game.”

Will this be a big hassle for Xbox 360 owners? I tend to think not. After all, several of the systems finest games have involved more than one disc (Mass Effect 2, Lost Odyssey). Although this probably gives PS3 fanboys something to crow about.