10 Video Game Patches That Actually Broke Games
Red Dead Online's recent patch stopped players from being able to shoot their guns. WTF?
Patches are one of the many great things about modern video games - no longer do players have to simply endure whatever mistakes the developers failed to notice before a game was sent to print.
In the age of digital gaming, devs can push patches to players which rectify nagging issues and provide requested quality-of-life fixes.
But not all patches are created equal, and sometimes a lack of due diligence can result in a patch going to players before it's been sufficiently tested.
In a bout of painful irony, these 10 video game patches intended to fix performance issues, resolve stability problems, and just generally make the game better ended up actually breaking it.
Whether making the game literally unplayable, ruining beloved features, or otherwise contradicting the game's design philosophy, these ill-advised patches made all of these games demonstrably worse to the point that, in extreme cases, players ended up bailing out en masse.
Thankfully in some instances the developers were quick to respond and speedily roll the patch back, but in others these game-ruining patches still endure to this very day...
10. The 1.8.0. Patch Displayed Players' IP Addresses - Marvel's Avengers
Crystal Dynamics recently released the 1.8.0. patch for Marvel's Avengers, which was intended to add a few minor features to the game and also iron out some pressing bugs.
But within minutes of the patch being released, PS5 players began to report that the patch had a most bizarre side effect - it would place a string of text on the screen revealing the player's own IP address.
This was obviously extremely distressing for streamers, given that it allowed trolls to easily disrupt the stream with DDoS attacks directed at their IP, or even use the IP to dox the streamer and determine their physical location.
Reports quickly emerged of streamers being doxed, and Crystal Dynamics responded by advising players not to stream until the issue was resolved. The next day a revised patch, 1.8b, was released which mercifully rectified the problem.
Even so, an update that enables trolls to dox streamers is a special kind of screw-up. How did this make it through testing and certification?