One to watch until it releases proper, thanks Play2Chill, Toplitz & GoG.

This one looks really nice, but are you sure that selling the game manual as an expansion really is a good move?

it's not the manual, it's the official guide. totally reasonable considering we used to have to spring $20 or so back in the day.

Been waiting on this one and I'll definitely grab it on Friday!

Nice! It comes along with it´s own cookbook.

Hopefully, with dishes full of meat and not with flesh! :P

As mentioned above, it’s a handbook or guidebook, not a manual. It’s pretty common for handbooks like this to be published for games, both official and unofficial. I did a quick google and found a for examples:

Pokémon Scarlet & Violet Handbook – £6.43
Halo 2 Official Strategy Guide – £10
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Anniversary Edition Complete Game Guide – £15
Cyberpunk 2077: The Complete Official Guide – £31
Borderlands 4: The Ultimate Vault Hunter’s Survival Guide – £12

So you can see examples ranging from older games to one released just a couple of weeks ago."

Hard to say, based solely on the scant information given on the DLC page. But looking at the topics that the product page lists it as containing, I'd say that at least the first five topics would be the sort of thing I would've expected any halfway-decent manual to contain back in the day. A lot of the rest of it? Sure, sold-separately strategy guide fodder, all the way.

On the other hand, even most low-to-mid-budget games didn't launch at $20 -- much less with a 20% launch discount! -- back in the days of physical copies (with paper manuals) sold in physical retail shops, so...

How long ago? Let’s say year 2000? $20 today would be worth about $11 in 2000 money, based on the average inflation rate of 2.55% per year.