Gears of War 4 Needs Massive Day One Patch on Disc

The Coalition studio head Rod Fergusson announces on Twitter that fans will have to download a massive 11GB day one patch if they buy Gears of War 4 on disc.

While patches and content updates allow developers to improve on games after they hit store shelves, they can sometimes be inconvenient. This is especially true when it comes to larger patches, which may delay someone’s game playing experience by hours if they have slow Internet. Well, anyone planning on picking up the physical disc version of Gears of War 4 on October 11th should prepare for such a delay, as they will be required to download a massive day one update before they can get to slaughtering any Swarm creatures.

This is according to Coalition studio head Rod Fergusson, who confirmed as much on Twitter. The patch in question will be 11GB, bringing the total install size for Gears of War 4 up to 54.6GB on launch day. While this may be frustrating for fans, there is an alternative option for those that would like to jump in and play Gears of War 4 as soon as the game goes live on the 11th.

As previously announced, the digital version of the game already includes the day one patch. Gears of War 4 digital pre-loading opened a few days ago, so anyone buying the game digitally can have everything ready to go come launch day if they pre-order and download it ahead of time. This may frustrate gamers that prefer physical media over digital downloads, but it wasn’t possible for The Coalition to have the patch included on the disc version of Gears of War 4.

Xbox One game discs are dual-layer Blu-Rays that can hold up to 50GB of data. Gears of War 4‘s file size after the day one patch brings it to 54.6GB, just above the Blu-Ray disc storage capacity. So it’s not as though The Coalition is purposefully looking to annoy fans that are buying the disc version of the game; it’s simply impossible for the studio to include the day one patch on an Xbox One disc.

It’s still a mystery what the 11GB day one patch for Gears of War 4 even includes. It’s possible that it is general bug fixes and other tweaks, but it could also be significant content in some form. Perhaps some features like the game’s multiplayer mode or Horde 3.0 won’t function without the day one patch. Of course, that’s just speculation, but until The Coalition releases official patch notes, speculating is all fans can do at this time.

Whatever the 11GB day one patch is for, the fact remains that it will be required before gamers are allowed to play Gears of War 4 online in any capacity. Fans should be able to play the 2-player co-op campaign offline while they wait for the large patch to install, but it’s still an unfortunate inconvenience, and it will be interesting to see if more gamers opt for the digital version of the game instead of the disc because of it.

Gears of War 4 will be available on PC and Xbox One on October 11th.

Source: Rod Fergusson