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Patch Notes

Official documentation released by a game's developers listing the changes in an update: bug fixes, balance adjustments, new or removed content, performance work, and changes to systems and mechanics. Patch notes are the main way developers tell players what changed, and for competitive games they matter a lot, because a balance change can shift which strategies are viable. League of Legends is the classic example: in 2014 Riot standardised its patch cadence to roughly every two or three weeks, and each patch changes the effectiveness of strategies in the game, so keeping pace with the changes became part of playing it. For Early Access and indie games, patch notes are also the closest thing to ground truth for how a system currently works, which is why guides on this site check claims against the developer's own notes rather than secondhand summaries. Many developers now pair the notes with dev blogs, videos or preview streams that explain the reasoning behind a change, which helps players predict where the game is heading.

Industry

Roguelike

A style of role-playing game traditionally defined by four traits: a dungeon crawl through procedurally generated levels, turn-based play, grid-based movement, and permanent death of the player character. The name comes from Rogue, a dungeon crawler by Michael Toy and Glenn Wichman, with later contributions by Ken Arnold, developed around 1980 for Unix-based minicomputer systems. Rogue became popular with college students and programmers in the 1980s and 1990s and led to hundreds of variants; better-known ones include Hack, NetHack, Angband, Ancient Domains of Mystery and Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup. Because the label kept stretching, players and developers at the International Roguelike Development Conference 2008 in Berlin drafted the 'Berlin Interpretation', a list of high- and low-value factors based on five canon games: ADOM, Angband, Linley's Dungeon Crawl, NetHack and Rogue. Many newer games keep the procedural runs and permadeath but drop turn-based, grid-based play; Spelunky, FTL: Faster Than Light, The Binding of Isaac, Slay the Spire and Hades are common examples. These are sometimes called roguelites or roguelike-likes to separate them from the traditional style, although they are still often described as roguelikes and use the roguelike tag on stores such as Steam. Since no two runs share a layout, the genre rewards learning systems and item synergies rather than memorising a fixed route.

Genre

Action RPG

A video game genre that combines core elements of action games and role-playing games. Action RPGs emphasise real-time combat that tests the player's coordination or reaction time, as opposed to turn-based or menu-based combat, while keeping RPG progression such as levels, stats, skills and better equipment. MMORPGs with real-time combat also count as action RPGs. Blizzard North's Diablo (1997), a click-to-move, real-time dungeon crawl, set the template for the loot-focused isometric branch, which continued with Titan Quest (2006), Torchlight (2009) and Path of Exile (2013). Another branch puts the camera behind the character in larger worlds: The Witcher series, which began in 2007 and concluded with 2015's The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, and FromSoftware's games from Demon's Souls (2009), built around hard enemies and limited checkpoints, to Elden Ring (2022), which mixed open-world exploration with Soulslike combat. Because your character build and your own execution both matter, the same encounter can play out very differently for two players.

Genre

Meta-Progression

A layer of persistent progression that exists above the run-level systems in a roguelite: upgrades, unlocks, and permanent bonuses that carry over between attempts and accumulate over a player's entire history with the game, rather than resetting on death. Meta-progression fundamentally changes the roguelite experience compared to pure roguelikes: no run is ever fully wasted, because every attempt earns something toward the wider progression arc. In Dead Cells, the cells you collect from enemies buy permanent upgrades such as healing potions and new weapons, but you can only spend them at the end of a section, so dying first loses them; blueprints found in the levels add new upgrade options. In Hades, Zagreus returns to the House of Hades between escape attempts, where items recovered from runs unlock and upgrade abilities, order new features for the underworld, unlock and upgrade weapons, and improve his standing with the other characters. In Slay the Spire, completed or failed runs earn points that unlock new characters, relics and cards, and each win opens one more of the 20 Ascension difficulty levels. The design challenge for meta-progression is calibration: too weak and it feels meaningless; too strong and it trivialises the run-level challenge by making the player overpowered. Many roguelites deliberately slow meta-progression to keep individual runs tense for longer. 'Catch-up' meta-progression, where struggling players gain accelerated upgrades, is a common accessibility design choice in mobile roguelites.

Mechanics

Day-One Patch

A software update released on a game's launch day to repair issues that could not be addressed in time for the game's distribution. Wikipedia's glossary of video game terms notes that release day is often accompanied by one. A well-known example is Halo: The Master Chief Collection: a 15-gigabyte patch went live on 6 November 2014 for players who had digitally preordered, and at launch many players still had problems with online matchmaking, which led to a public apology from 343 Industries. A patch is not a guarantee of a working launch: Cyberpunk 2077 was widely criticised for bugs and glitches, particularly on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, during its launch period. The same glossary entry covers the related term 'day-one DLC', content offered for a price on release day, which is often associated with content already on the disc. For digital-only games, a day-one patch works like any early update: the build you download already includes it.

Industry

Crossplay

Cross-platform play, the ability of players on different video game hardware, such as a console and a PC, or two different consoles, to play with each other at the same time. It was held back for years by business decisions as much as technology, because console online services are closed networks that need the platform holders' cooperation. Up through September 2018, Sony restricted PlayStation 4 cross-platform play with other consoles, splitting players of games like Rocket League and Fortnite. In September 2018 Sony changed its stance and opened a beta for Fortnite cross-platform play, and in October 2019 it said any developer could support it. Nintendo had already announced cross-platform play for Rocket League and Minecraft on Switch at E3 2017, and Minecraft's Bedrock edition unifies play across several platforms. A shared player pool makes matchmaking easier and lets friends play together without buying the same hardware. Because mouse-and-keyboard and controller players aim differently, some games match by input instead: Halo: The Master Chief Collection added Xbox and PC crossplay with input-based matchmaking in November 2020. Cross-save, where your progress carries over between platforms, is a related but separate feature.

Platform