Two days ago on 12th of August No Man’s Sky, developed by Hello Ganes, released officially on PC, with the PS4 version only a couple of days earlier. Both versions of the game come with a massive “Day Zero” patch. It’s this patch that I want to talk about today, and why I believe that the practice of mandatory Day 1 patches shouldn’t be done.

A few weeks prior to the release of NMS, someone managed to obtain a version of the game, supposedly the “gold” version, for a large sum of money ($1300 US) off ebay and streamed his experience in playing the game. This caused quiet the uproar within the community,  in part because the hype leading up to the game has been phenomenally large.

The result of this was that the director of Hello Games, Sean Murray, asked on twitter that viewers don’t spoil themselves before the release, insisting that it wasn’t the final version of the game.

The main point in this narrative that I have issue with was the tweet Sean posted shortly after this, stating that no review copies of the game would be released as the game wasn’t done, and the embargo would lift on launch day.

There’s a few things to talk about within this specific area, and we’ll go through them now. So what is the main benefit of a Day 1 patch and why is it commonly practiced?

The stage in development of “going gold” harkens back to when games physically shipped on CD’s, and when the game was done it would be copied onto a disk to be delivered to the publisher for mass production. This indicated the final version of the game before internet patching was commonplace. Nowadays it’s more common to have digital submission, however, studios still have to go through a certification process for their game. This blog post covers most of what I’m going to talk about (specifically in relation to NMS), so I’ll do a TL;DR version. Certification requires:

1. To meet  standards of quality (doesn’t crash, uses correct controller, etc)
2. Meets console specific standards
3. Meets all other standards (age appropriate rating etc)

It’s basically so the game doesn’t brick consoles and follows regulations.

This process can take months depending on the studio you’re working with and if things wrong or not. Once the submission is finally accepted, the studio has had that chunk time to keep working on the game in one form or another, because they can’t just twiddle their thumbs. Most (if not all) studios will use this time to iron out bugs and balance the gameplay experience, delivering these changes on launch day, or soon after.

Now this practice I have no issue with. This time period should be spent doing anything but twiddling your thumbs. However let’s look at the launch for Assassin’s Creed Unity.

On launch day, AC:U was a mess. A mass of bugs, crashes, and downright hilarious glitches.

There was a day 1 patch that, for the most part, fixes these glitches, and even then there was issues. All good right? Problem fixed and the game is playable? However this relies on one thing: Reliable internet.

Many people buy physical copies of games because their internet service is subpar. Many people in rural areas or developing countries don’t have the freedom of internet the same way most countries do. Hell, even in Brisbane, Australia, the internet speed plummets on a rainy day in my suburb. This means that for people without easy access to internet, the unpatched game is the only version they can play, and Assassin’s Creed: Unity goes onto the “unplayable” pile.

This means that Sean’s plea to not review the unpatched game is going to ring hollow for some people. The details of the day 1 patch are not significant in terms of how gameplay is effected. These range from changing the “paths” you can take throughout the game (I’m assuming these are significant story paths), changing the universe generation algorithm (so nothing big then), and changing how the ship combat works.

These all seem like very large changes that should have been in the base game to begin with.

Philip Kollar broke embargo review date, writing a post before the game was released and patched. He fully acknowledges the game will be in a different state after launch, intending to write another review after. He was barraged by comments from people defending NMS, largely stating wasn’t experiencing the “true game” and that the review shouldn’t have been posted. His response was that not everyone has easy access to internet, and that his review would be a guide for people who only have the physical disks.

I’m going to iterate again I don’t disagree with working on your game while certification is happening. However if your game needs a massive patch to be playable or have the “true experience”, then perhaps you shouldn’t have “gone gold” so soon.