Posted October 21, 2014
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2014-the-prepatch-evil-within-we-hope-you-will-never-play?utm_source=eurogamer&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=net-daily
TL:DR
More importantly, this highlights an issue that has been building since patches were introduced on consoles; the notion that the 'gold master' is no longer the final code, and that games are shipping as unfinished products. Sure, multiplayer games are never going to be just right out of the gate and patches are inevitable in that space, but The Evil Within is a single-player experience through and through. There are people whose entire gameplay experience with The Evil Within could be completely compromised by this issue if they don't take the time to install the patch - but, more to the point, there are users who simply don't have their PS4s connected to the internet at all. They may be a minority at this point in time, but they don't deserve to play the game in this state. We can't help but wonder how this version of the game made it through Sony's QA department.
One day in the distant future, those servers delivering the patch updates may not be there any more. Version 1.0 of The Evil Within may be the only PS4 code available - and that's certainly not the way we would like to revisit the game.
TL:DR
More importantly, this highlights an issue that has been building since patches were introduced on consoles; the notion that the 'gold master' is no longer the final code, and that games are shipping as unfinished products. Sure, multiplayer games are never going to be just right out of the gate and patches are inevitable in that space, but The Evil Within is a single-player experience through and through. There are people whose entire gameplay experience with The Evil Within could be completely compromised by this issue if they don't take the time to install the patch - but, more to the point, there are users who simply don't have their PS4s connected to the internet at all. They may be a minority at this point in time, but they don't deserve to play the game in this state. We can't help but wonder how this version of the game made it through Sony's QA department.
One day in the distant future, those servers delivering the patch updates may not be there any more. Version 1.0 of The Evil Within may be the only PS4 code available - and that's certainly not the way we would like to revisit the game.