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Games as a service aren’t exactly my cup of tea, but their growing presence in the video game industry has brought with it a previously unthinkable phenomenon: the possibility of immediate redemption after a disappointing launch.
Before, when a video game underperformed for one reason or another, the studio’s only saving grace lay in improving its future releases. Now, the gaming community is accustomed to the idea that a title can improve over time, so each game can become a long-term investment.
I admit I don’t like this model at all, as it seems to me it promotes harmful work and consumption practices, but even so, it has given us specific magical instances where the fact that studios could update their titles ended up being a turning point for their careers.
Therefore, to give recognition to those instances where companies have been able to absolve themselves of their sins or exponentially elevate their games to a new level, I invite you to read this list of seven games that were forever changed after one update.
7 Warframe — Fortuna
A Totally New Experience
Игра Warframe at launch and comparing it to its current state are essentially two different experiences, especially since the schism known as Fortuna occurred in 2018 and changed everything.
I’d venture to say that, before this update, Digital Extremes’ title was just another run-of-the-mill multiplayer game that stood out for its great art direction and little else, though the remarkable overhaul it received five years after its original release gave it the longevity it so desperately needed.
It expanded its narrative, added factions, included a brand-new open world, and incorporated more activities, ways to get around, and progression paths. Basically, Fortuna made Warframe feel like a more spontaneous and natural experience, something I never felt in any of its previous updates.
It was never a bad game, yet this update propelled it to a level previously unattainable. What used to be only a constant accumulation of tedious objectives became an open space in which to get lost and be fascinated by what could be discovered and learned, shaping future updates and giving it a second life I’m grateful for.
6 Diablo 3 — Loot 2.0
Saving the Game’s Life
После появления Diablo 3 was released, everything was wrong. The Auction House controversy, the noticeable shift towards action instead of role-playing compared to Diablo 2, the hellish grind you had to endure to get decent items… It was a horrendous launch, at least until Жнец душ прибывший.
Not only is it one of the best expansions in history, but Blizzard prepared for its release with a pre-patch that included an overhaul of the game’s drop system, colloquially known as Лут 2.0, and it changed the game so much that it went from being a sequel I hated to one of the titles I’ve dedicated the most hours to.
After the update, the Smart Drop System’s inclusion reduced excessive farming by half, incentivizing the appearance of more effective items with a real impact on builds and a higher probability of not being duplicates, which was more than enough to give the game a complete facelift.
В конечном счете, Diablo 3 is a game whose core gameplay depends entirely on loot and everything that entails: fighting enemies to obtain it, upgrading our equipment to make the most of it, and progressing to acquire even better versions, but this chain of essential mechanics was broken before the patch.
Those were unfortunate months I prefer not to dwell on so as not to lose my affection for the game, but believe me when I say that, were it not for Loot 2.0, we would be talking about one of the most unsuccessful and least respected releases by its player community that I can remember.
5 World of Warcraft — Patch 1.9.0
World Events Shaped the Genre
Many years before games as a service were even a concept, much less the idea of titles that were mechanically and narratively updated over time instead of being static products, World of Warcraft was already setting a precedent for how to revolutionize the video game industry.
I have several reasons for making this assertion, but my favorite compels us to remember Патч 1.9.0 от 2006, which introduced The Gates of Ahn’Qiraj and formally established the world events mechanic, a series of special, specific, and limited instances that gave the developer the power to make Azeroth a genuinely living and changing world.
That particular event foreshadowed the start of the Ruins of Ahn’Qiraj and Temple of Ahn’Qiraj raids, and I remember my young self completely excited, gathering war supplies and completing quest chains to prepare for the grand finale, feeling euphoric that I was part of something more than just another dungeon.
Perhaps it’s nostalgia and the passage of time, but for me, world events are, both in concept and execution, the most brilliant idea World of Warcraft когда-либо имел. It would be an exaggeration to say the multiplayer landscape wouldn’t be the same without them, but perhaps that’s not so far from the truth.
4 Final Fantasy XIV — A Realm Reborn
A Literal Renaissance
Imagining having to release such a massive patch to fix your failed game that you ended up renaming it doesn’t sound like a pleasant situation, but that’s precisely what Square Enix had to do with Final Fantasy XIV через Область возрождается.
The original state of the title was so, so bad that the developer basically had to remake it to make it a decent product, though they achieved an even better result by laying the foundation for what is now one of the most fertile and beloved online experiences in the video game industry.
The event was so drastic that they changed its engine, modified the gameplay, created a campaign worthy of a single-player game, built an impressive audiovisual composition, and injected such high production values to create a gigantic world, full of NPCs, playable Jobs, and things to do, that I thought they were laundering money.
Most people may not remember because so much time has passed, and the disaster isn’t talked about as much as it used to be, so it’s always worth remembering that, instead of being the titan it is today, Final Fantasy XIV was to being one of the biggest failures in video game history.
3 Cyberpunk 2077 — Update 2.0
How Things Initially Should Have Been
Speaking of disasters that could have engulfed an entire company, it’s undeniable that Cyberpunk 2077‘s launch was the most problematic in recorded history for AAA game releases, because the game’s original state was so awful that it’s almost painful to admit.
Hundreds of bugs, terrible performance, a dead world, zero playable customization, no impact on the player’s environment… Everything that characterizes RPGs in general, and CD Projekt RED in particular, was completely absent until Обновление 2.0, which finally steered the game in the right direction.
With improved graphics and technical aspects, and finally, functional gameplay, access to genuinely different builds, and the ability to influence the surrounding life, Night City finally felt like that vibrant, never-sleeping location that always offered something interesting to do.
Over time, they improved even further, culminating in the release of a DLC that sealed its wonderful resurrection. However, Cyberpunk 2077‘s turning point will always be Update 2.0, which ended up being the first aid defibrillator that allowed this once-dead man to reach the hospital to finally be saved.
2 No Man’s Sky — NEXT
The Biggest Redemption
Nobody on the planet has lived enough to make absolute statements, but I’ll be bold enough to set aside my disdain for being pretentious and say that we’ve never seen such a drastic and memorable transformation as No Man’s Sky underwent with NEXT.
The gaming community went from demanding the heads of Hello Games’ employees and threatening to sue Sony for false advertising to becoming one of the most grateful and well-cared-for fan bases in the entire industry, if only for finally delivering on what they had originally promised.
NEXT brought the long-awaited multiplayer mode with many features and systems related to online play, but it also significantly deepened avatar customization, added a third-person camera, expanded base building, increased the satisfaction of crafting, better differentiated planets, and improved audiovisual quality…
I have to stop this paragraph because otherwise I’ll never finish, but what the studio did with NEXT for No Man’s Sky беспрецедентно. Never before had any developer gone to such lengths post-launch to rectify their mistakes and apologize by overcompensating the players who trusted them, so much so that seven years have passed since then, and they are still adding free content.
1 Fortnite — Patch 1.6
The Battle Royale Mode Changed the Industry
Unlike all the other entries on this list, Fortnite isn’t here because it fixed problems or fulfilled broken promises, but simply because it introduced a game mode that would ultimately shape the interactive entertainment industry as we know it: Королевская битва.
Через Патч 1.6, Fortnite presented this variant, popularized by PUBG but enhanced by its iconic building mechanics, creating a phenomenon that redefined the multiplayer scene through its seasonal content, collaborations, battle passes, and the fastest and most frequent updates ever seen.
We all know the behemoth it is today, but few remember its humble beginnings, which, among other things, sparked a wave of content creation that breathed new life into streaming platforms like Twitch and laid the groundwork for the contemporary games-as-a-service model that is so popular today.
Unlike all the other cases cited, Fortnite is the only title whose patch not only gave the game itself a new direction but also changed the course of the genre and the industry as a whole. Its Patch 1.6 is the most influential in the history of updates, even though it wasn’t the biggest, most innovative, or even the most “necessary.”
Nevertheless, the inclusion of Battle Royale mode was enough to turn the game into a mass phenomenon deeply embedded in popular culture, particularly among young people who seem prepared to play it forever, so there wasn’t a single timeline in which this article didn’t end with a mention of it.
