Craig Robinson is an experienced gaming and esports writer with nearly a decade of coverage experience since 2015. With a background in software engineering, he combines his journalistic expertise with a strong understanding of technical SEO and web development fundamentals. He’s passionate about covering MMO games, competitive esports, and crafting guides that help players get the most out of their favorite titles. He's been writing about gaming and esports for over 10 years, which started as for fun project during university. He has since developed his skill set, contributing to newsrooms coverage of key games and event, and blending evergreen content strategy and a solid grasp of content marketing fundamentals. His work has appeared in Esports News UK, Gamer Guides, The Escapist, and VideoGamer, and he now contributes to Gamehub's team. When he’s not writing, Craig can usually be found running, at the gym, or tinkering with coding projects to keep his GitHub active.
007 First Light physical copies require Day One patch before you can play offline
IO Interactive’s 007 First Light is weeks away from launch, but the latest developer Q&A has left a bitter taste for physical media purists. During a recent technical deep dive, developers confirmed a mandatory Day One patch for physical editions. Without installing the patch, the disc is unplayable, spurring pre-order cancellations and complaints in the stream’s comment section.
Around the 37 minute mark in the stream, linked below, the devs started talking about technical requirements. This includes the Day One patch that is required, even if you own the physical edition copy.
The devs didn’t elaborate on why that is the case. Often it’s because of game sizes on discs, or some DRM thing with games needing to be online for a moment to validate. Just like the drama over Sony’s recent DRM rumors. We’ve reached out to IO Interactive to enquire about the policy on why 007 needs to be online before physical players can play it in offline mode.
It’s a pretty big blow to old school gamers, who want to get a disc and own the game. Needing to update day 1, or not having internet can affect the quality of the sale. It also stems into game preservation. Physical game preservation is important for many, hence the Stop Killing Games movement and people want to own something physical they bought. It’s a major issue in the consumer space. It’s part of the reason why there’s so much negative feedback in the comments section on the dev stream video. Many are angry, to outright cancelling physical pre-orders.
The dev stream also had some interesting news too, with the devs talking about no New Game+, and gadgets and builds being your progression points. It also clarified a bit more about the License to Kill mechanic shown off in the gameplay trailer last year, which affects scripted story moments, making it a more dynamic thing depending on how players approach the levels, puzzles, and combat.
