Introduction
Patches and updates are an annoying fact of life when you're playing modern video games, but sometimes those patches and stuff really make a difference. Here are the video games that changed so much since release they feel like completely different games now. Let's start off with one of the best examples from the last few years at number 10 with Cyberpunk 2077.
Cyberpunk 2077: The Redemption Arc
Cyberpunk 2077 is a video game success story. It released as a pretty buggy, oddly unfinished game that just didn't feel great to play depending on the platform you were on, but it ended up becoming one of the best games of the year. The 2.0 patch, released about three years later, completely overhauled combat, progression, how skills work, how guns feel, and basically turned a pretty good but messy game into just a solid, great one. The developers made the right call dropping the patch before the Phantom Liberty expansion, releasing a product that felt like it matched the really good quality of their previous game, The Witcher 3.
The 2.0 patch was like the big nail in the coffin, really finishing things off over the course of months and years before that, incremental updates and improvements were made, but the 2.0 patch really kind of put a bow on it all. It was big, it was substantial, and the developers are still dropping updates. The 2.2 patch adds new character customization options, ways to paint your car, and photo mode updates. The best new feature is that sometimes Johnny Silverhand will appear in your car beside you and start talking in his Keanu Reeves way. Cyberpunk 2077 and the developers at CD Projekt Red just really kept plugging away to make Cyberpunk 2077 a little closer to the game we all wanted it to be and the game they pitched us on.
While it isn't 100% the dark sci-fi adventure maybe some of us wanted it to be, it's still been a really good game. As much as CD Projekt Red was rightfully raked over the coals for the state of how the game originally released, it wasn't the biggest surprise that they kept working on it. They took the original The Witcher 1 game and kept updating, enhancing, and fixing issues until that game became playable. If they’re that dedicated to fixing a janky game like the first Witcher, then it's logical they definitely would have tried to improve the big first-person shooter RPG IP that everyone really wanted. Again, it was painful getting there, but we think it's a net positive.
Death Stranding Director's Cut: Balancing and Enhancing
Next, over at number nine, Death Stranding Director's Cut. Death Stranding is a game that needed to change, not because it was bad or unfinished—I really liked it. Hideo Kojima, the creator, coined the term strand game for its weird genre of single-player game with cooperative social elements. Players could essentially help each other and had kind of an effect on each other's game world even if they didn't actively participate.
You wouldn't see other players running around, but you would see all the cool ramps and bridges and stuff they built for all your needs. The Director's Cut is the patch this game technically needed. After the initial explosion of players, it only makes sense that there would be fewer people adding less construction to each area. So the Director's Cut adjusts the balance and makes some traversal methods more effective, giving you new vehicles that make transporting cargo a little easier, like a reverse trike that has floating cargo containers or a giant cannon that fires cargo that could actually land safely.
Just updating the best methods of travel like the zipline, before the ziplines wouldn't work with floating cargo carriers, but that's actually finally been fixed. The graphics also got a big overhaul, and the game gained a bunch of new story missions that flesh out the plot and set up new threads for the sequel, including a very Metal Gear Solid sneaking mission in this big warehouse. The new Mazer weapon also makes encounters with human enemies a lot less frustrating, and there's new melee takedowns so you can really feel that CQC training kind of come in handy. While all the updates don't totally change the game, they do make it feel like that game we were always meant to get. Also, a couple of new music tracks helped too.
Need for Speed Unbound: A Feature-Packed Expansion
Next at number eight, Need for Speed was really on a hot streak with Need for Speed Heat. The game and then the sequel or follow-up to that, Unbound, kept the good times rolling. Like other games in the series, you're in a car in an open-world environment taking part in a bunch of street races and challenging the cops to big races. But Unbound went the extra mile with a whole lot of updates that made the game a lot bigger than before. One of the changes that really made a difference for this series was the inclusion of motorcycles. The BMW S1000RR is oddly the first motorcycle to appear, and there's a reason why it's here.
The big Volume 9 update added the Lockdown mode, which is basically this crazy, almost Fortnite extraction shooter with cars and dozens of angry players that are just trying to chase you down. It sounds crazy and, on-screen, it looks insane, but it's actually a really cool mode. The motorcycle is really nimble, so it lets you get into these lockups to get stuff without paying first and gives players essentially an easier method to get new cars fast without buying them with DLC cash. That’s a nice touch and an important one for endgame updates.
If you're not going to keep updating the game, at least give players an easier way to permanently add cars to your personal garage, and it's noticeable. The Lockdown mode and Volume 9 stuff isn't the only big feature. Volume 6 added dedicated PVP mode that quickly gets you into races with other players, a feature that should have probably been in the game right from the start, but hey, we're not complaining. We're glad they added it. Then there’s Gauntlet, the drift modes, the leagues you can join, and finally the reintroduction of hot pursuit in Volume 8. That's a lot more than just adding a couple of DLC cars here and there.
Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines: A Fan-Driven Evolution
Next, over at number seven, not all games are meant to be patched. Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines is a first-person vampire RPG that, to be honest, never really got the mainstream attention it deserved. It kind of released in a messy and kind of weird state thanks to the publisher, but there’s a light at the end of this tunnel or, tunnel story—I don’t know, whatever. Unlike a lot of other games on our list, the changes didn't come from the publisher but actually from the fans and the community. Instead of modding the game with new features that the developers didn’t intend, the fan patches for Bloodlines restored lost content, fixed bugs, and improved gameplay. The fan patch adds content like some quests, weapons, enemies, maps, music, and everything else that would make a final full game.
There was so much unfortunately ripped out of Bloodlines, restoring it all became a full-time project for a team of dedicated superfans, and we’re really thankful for them. This fan patch has as many major updates as a full game. There are so many updates the patch had to be split between a base version and a plus version, with the plus version adding more features that probably were never intended. If you want to play the best possible version of Bloodlines, then you can thank the fans in the community. It’s because of them that we got something closer to the developer’s original vision.
No Man’s Sky: From Failure to Phenomenon
Next, over at number six, No Man’s Sky is really the poster child, right up there with Cyberpunk 2077. We’ve talked this one to death. It’s the perfect example of a studio just putting out something not worth it, unfortunately just leaving a lot of players or customers very unhappy. But taking that money, taking those sales, and not running away to the bank, but putting your money where your mouth is and really fulfilling that original vision. No Man’s Sky at this point compared to when it first released is almost an entirely different game. It’s got more multiplayer features, more varied worlds, way more things to do in gameplay, a full-on story, different types of vehicles, enemies, graphical overhauls—I could go on and on. The amount of updates have been staggering. The amount of full-fledged expansions is really unheard of.
It almost took a very simple space exploration game and almost turned it into like an active, ongoing live service-style game but without all the crap that people don’t like that comes with a live-service game. Like, we’re not highlighting things like Fortnite or anything on this video, you know, we’re mostly sticking to games that fall into that traditional style category. But No Man’s Sky has kind of evolved consistently and seemingly endlessly, like a big multiplayer free-to-play shooter or like an MMO. It’s absolutely crazy, and the developers, Hello Games, really deserve some praise for that.
Dead Cells: A Roguelike Renaissance
Next, at number five, roguelikes are bound to change constantly. It’s in their design, but Dead Cells took the assignment and really ran with it. This Metroidvania-inspired action game sends you into these randomly generated castles and stuff and gives you the tools to fight, and it just keeps changing with new areas to explore, new bosses to discover, and loads of weapons. Over the course of five years, the developers tweaked and improved the game, but the biggest changes came with a very unexpected expansion pack. The Return to Castlevania expansion added a whole new world to explore, Dracula's castle, like from Castlevania.
The new section of the map adds four new locations, a host of these new classic Castlevania enemies and outfits, so you can match your favorite heroes from the series. This expansion turns Dead Cells into a mini Castlevania roguelike with kick-ass combat where you have to retry again and again as you climb to the top to face Dracula's final form. The previous expansions added a lot to the base game, but this offshoot feels like the biggest change, literally transforming Dead Cells into its own offshoot kind of sequel. We love it for that.
Ghost Recon Breakpoint: Struggling to Cohesion
Now at number four, sometimes all the patches in the world can't fix a game that's fundamentally broken. Ghost Recon Breakpoint is a game that changed wildly since its first initial awful release. I did not like this game at launch at all, but all those changes never really added up to a cohesive whole. This is a game that got a complete overhaul, like Cyberpunk 2077, but every change made the game still feel kind of different and weird. The divisive gear score system from the original game got updated, allowing players to simply turn it all off. The gear score system is what the entire game was kind of built around, so turning it off only makes the game feel a little stranger.
Then there are other changes, like the ability to finally bring a squad of AI soldiers with you into combat. The AI soldiers were one of the best features of the previous game, Ghost Recon Wildlands, another game that had a long lifespan, but they're oddly compromised in Breakpoint. You can order them to perform sync shots, and that's really about it. You can tell them where to sit while you run off somewhere else, but it feels like kind of sticking a square peg in a round hole here. Breakpoint got more fixes and features, but instead of improving the game, they just kind of changed it.
They made it feel a little less cohesive and a little messier. It's a different game and definitely better, but sometimes this isn't good enough either way. Ghost Recon Breakpoint did find an audience; some people really like going in, tweaking these options, turning off the UI, cranking up the difficulty, and just going nuts. Like Wildlands before it, it found an audience. I just think the audience was smaller this time around. Still, I think it's absolutely one worth mentioning.
Fallout 76: A Casual Community Adventure
Next to number three, Fallout 76. Look, the most hated game on our list really had a slow and steady turnaround from a buggy mess to an open-world game with a real fan following. Fallout 76 and its weird brand of open-world survival wasn't really our cup of tea, but there’s no denying that it has changed a lot since that disastrous launch. Fallout 76 is now on its 20th major update, adding so much more to do and fixing so many of the problems that we and a lot of people had at launch.
The game has changed focus completely from a hardcore survival experience, where you have to watch out for AI enemies and other players, into a much more casual Fallout wasteland simulator, kind of giving you the reign to build your own mini-settlement from scratch and just help out. Really, that’s the theme of these updates—sanding off edges and making Fallout 76 into a bit more of a fun, cozy ride. Even the player base is way less hardcore and murderous, and more welcoming, preferring to help players instead of just killing everything. The biggest changes came in the One Wasteland for All update, totally rebalancing the entire game and removing level requirements. A bold change, so instead, all content in the game would balance to your level, allowing players of various levels to work together, team up, and tackle the biggest challenges in this big-ass map.
More recently, the free Skyline Valley added a massive section to the whole main map, and an upcoming future update will finally add playable ghouls to Fallout. Look, I know Fallout 76 will always be the laughingstock to some, and I get it. I was totally with you; I played it and ripped it to shreds when it launched. But there’s no denying that they have updated it and changed it quite a bit, and it found an audience. There’s a lot of people out there who are obsessed with Fallout 76. I know someone personally—they tried to get me back into it. I thought they were completely crazy until I actually jumped back in and checked it out for myself.
The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth and Reinvention
Now at number two, The Binding of Isaac is a game that needed to change for a simple reason—the original engine just wasn’t good enough anymore. The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth actually rebuilt the original game from scratch, allowing bigger rooms, more enemies, and a much better frame rate for the action. The original game was actually built on Adobe Flash and discontinued way back in 2020, which was bad news for a game that still wanted to expand.
But the new engine was all for the best, taking this very old roguelike and making it modern in ways we didn’t even know we needed yet. It looks the same and different at the same time, and it just kept updating over all these years. The patches never stopped; just a few weeks ago, the latest edition of Binding of Isaac, called Repentance Plus, dropped and added more endings, cut content, and fixed even more balance issues.
The item changes have been insane since release, and in a game where you never know what each item does, that really does make it feel like a totally different game. And while there are lots of new bosses, levels, monsters, and weapons in this weird, gross roguelike, the biggest change is that keys are no longer required to enter the first store in a run, and that’s huge for some of us.
Stardew Valley: A Passion Project Masterpiece
Now, down to number one, one of the big champions of games that never stop updating has to be Stardew Valley. We can say that definitively because the most recent updates are probably meant to finally put a bow on this infinitely replayable little farming sim. The game has added new crops, new items to craft, new farm plots, new buildings to buy, and so many new interactions that we can't list them all. There are tons of quality-of-life changes and updates, like the ability to divorce or change your profession and entire multiplayer features so you can play farming with your friends.
The town, the dialogue, even the graphics have changed so much that an early-access player would definitely struggle to understand or comprehend it all. All these changes were made totally free by the original developer out of love. Just looking at the changelog on the Stardew Valley Wiki is dizzying—there are thousands of added features and bug fixes. There’s a new island to explore, new facilities in the main town, new secrets—literally new everything.
The developer even finally updated that really funny bed from the opening intro. Watching a game like Stardew Valley start off as this personal passion project from a developer and slowly evolve into what it is today really can be inspiring. It can make people feel like they can make a video game too. You’ll never start with perfection, but maybe you’ll get there with enough updates and patches.
Conclusion
So those are 10 games that changed a whole lot after release. Look, I know there are so many more to talk about too, like I mentioned live-service MMOs and stuff like that, but we wanted to keep it simple today. Still, let us know your picks—we'll definitely make a follow-up to this blog. As always, thanks for reading, and we'll see you guys next time.
0 Comments