God of War: Ragnarok releases on the 9th of November, and already, the game has a day one patch that the developer ‘strongly encourages’ to download. Santa Monica Studio released the detailed day one patch ahead of the game’s highly-anticipated launch, and the update is quite extensive. Included in the update are almost 200 fixes to the unreleased game.
These fixes extend to gameplay, cinematics, performance, dialogue, UI, and many more. The dialogue adjustments are the most compelling as the developers say they ‘make conversations sound more natural.’ The game has also gained a much more stable frame rate, and the instances of crashing have been drastically reduced. The team also issued a fix aimed at PS5 players, which adds ‘additional tuning and coverage for DualSense controller haptics.’ Having extra support for peripherals is never a bad thing.
Day one patches sometimes create the impression that a game isn’t as good as it could be upon launch. In reality, day-one patches have come to represent a method that developers use to ensure the quality of their product. In the case of God of War: Ragnarok, there doesn’t seem to have been anything game-breaking about the title. These are primarily fixes that ultimately make the game more realistic and result in a more natural and organic type of gameplay.
You’ll likely have heard the term zero-day patch as well. This is something completely different, and we usually use this terminology when we talk about software giants like Microsoft or Alphabet. Zero-day patches are fixes issued to combat the situation that arises when vulnerabilities are leaked or exploited before the vendor in charge has been able to issue a patch that repairs the flaw.
Zero-day patches often cost companies millions, while day-one patches are issued before a piece of software even hits the shelf, thereby offsetting the likelihood that the flaw will be exploited or even be present when the software launches.
We’ve written quite a good deal about this game at this point. Earlier this week, we even wrote a piece about what the critics have said about God of War: Ragnarok. Once you’ve read the comments, why not read our dynamite tactics to survive?
