The world of online games is so interesting because the game never stands still. Thanks to patches, not only does its quality improve, because patches are primarily created to remove bugs, but new content is also added.
Of course, patches are different, depending on their purpose or even the development company. If you are a fan of online gaming, you need to know how the patches can affect your favorite game.
Patch: What Is It and How Does It Work?
A patch is basically a piece of software made by the game developers. They are created either to fix some bugs in the game or to improve the gameplay with new content and additions. Every time you see an Update button instead of your Play in Steam or Epic Games, it means the new patch is here and you need to download it.
What Should Players Do with Patches for Online Games?
If you want the game to remain relevant for you, with fewer bugs and more new content, you just need to install patches on time. Depending on the game, patches can come out three or more times a year. For example, Rainbow Six Siege is getting Major updates approximately once per quarter. Minor patches and hotfixes occur several times within each season to adjust balance, fix emerging bugs, and improve stability.
Players can expect updates approximately every 4‑6 weeks. As soon as you upload the update, you can start playing or enjoying the available offers of this site if you’re an R6 bettor and understand how the patch affects your knowledge of team chances.
How Are Patches Developed and Released?
Of course, patches are released for those games that have been actively available online for some time. To create a patch, the development company goes through several stages:
- Gathering information or receiving a signal. The team must first know that a patch is needed. If it is a bug and a hotfix is needed, reports from players start coming in. As for balance patches or new content, such signals usually come from marketing teams.
- Testing. The company’s testers check for the presence of a bug themselves, recreating the situation that led to its discovery.
- Coding and testing again. Devs write a fix or an update, and the QA team tests it.
- Deploying the patch. Depending on the game and its developer, the new patch is presented to players through game launchers, Steam/Epic updates, or over-the-air updates.
Of course, the team’s work does not end here, but the stage of monitoring the work of the patch and the entire game begins. Developers commonly offer several types of patches.
| Type of patches | Description |
| Hotfix | Quick, small update to fix a critical bug or crash |
| Minor Patch | Bug fixes, balance tweaks, and small features |
| Major Patch | New content, features, seasonal changes |
| Security Patch | Closes security loopholes or vulnerabilities |
| Balance Patch | Adjusts gameplay numbers to ensure fair competition |
Why Are Patches Needed?
There are many reasons why a patch is needed for your online game. For example:
- To fix bugs. If players experience game crashes, item duplication, or other issues while being in the game, it means that there are coding errors or glitches – bugs in the game. Commonly, they are revealed by testing or after players report them to support.
- To balance out gameplay. In competitive games, no character or item must be overpowered. Which is why, depending on the feedback and monitoring, developers can change with a new patch game elements like damage numbers, cooldowns, item effects, etc. Games like Dots 2 have these patches frequently.
- To make the game more interesting. As more and more players start playing the game, the more the community grows, and its thirst for more content increases. Patches can add new maps, characters, skins, events, seasonal offers, etc. For example, Valve commonly saves the biggest patch till the International, introducing the new hero with it.
- To eliminate technical problems. For example, to optimize CPU/GPU usage, or if there is a problem with loading times or network lag.
- For security reasons. A clear example here would be patches that remove the ability to use cheat codes or holes in the code that allow players to cheat.
The fact that a game requires a patch does not mean that the developer is bad and has not worked hard enough on their project. There can be a huge number of reasons for bugs. Moreover, there is often not enough testing team to identify many bugs: many of them appear much later.
Even such trifles as hardware differences can affect the presence of problems with gameplay for different players. Not to mention that an online game is a whole complex. A fix in one place can easily disrupt something in another.