Brink update aims to combat lag

By Wesley Yin-Poole Published 14 May, 2011

Splash Damage makes June DLC free.

Brink developer Splash Damage has released an update which it hopes will combat the lag some players have reported.

A configuration change to the Xbox 360 version (to be made to the PlayStation 3 version once Sony turns the PlayStation Network back on) alters the number of human players when matchmaking for campaign and most freeplay modes to eight total human players.

This new configuration allows those connecting to and hosting matches (particularly those with lower upstream bandwidth) to more reliably find and connect to quality hosts via the match-making process – resulting in less lag and more fun, Splash Damage said.

This change is being rolled out today and will be available worldwide.

Brink still supports eight versus eight on all maps via a new Big Teams configuration in freeplay and through custom settings in private matches.

Splash Damage is releasing an incremental update for PC players via Steam that addresses AI, GPU and server issues. The full Brink release notes are on Steam now. The developer said today many of these fixes are being included in the full update for the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions.

Brink's first downloadable content will be offered free as a "thank you for supporting Brink and for your continued feedback".

This DLC launches in June and offers additional maps and new content.

Brink has suffered a troubled launch, with many players complaining about lag. With PSN still down, the PS3 version of the multiplayer-focused shooter remains bots only. The game disappeared entirely from Steam yesterday for UK gamers, preventing people from buying it. At the time of writing, it is still mysteriously absent from Steam. Splash Damage and Bethesda said yesterday they were looking into the problem.

Eurogamer's Brink review turned up an 8/10.

Picture of Wesley.

About Wesley Yin-Poole

Wesley is Eurogamer's news editor. He likes news, interviews, and more news. He also likes Street Fighter more than anyone can get him to shut up about it.

Read more articles from Wesley by visiting the Wesley Yin-Poole archive page.

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Comments (45) Latest comment 1 year ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • asphaltcowboy #1 1 year ago

    Glad to see they're trying to squash issues as soon as possibly. It's a shame that there are some issues 'cause as I've said previously, when it works, it's absolutely phenomenal good!

    Also, awesome that we'll be getting a least one new map for free!
    Edited by asphaltcowboy at 14/05/11 @ 10:07

  • Haloboy #2 1 year ago

    I hear they are working on a very large update that fixes most of the issues in the game. It's called Brink 2.

  • des #3 1 year ago

    Amazing update,I really wonder what they did all these years.Easy way to fix the lag,cut the player count and if that doesn't work just scrap the MP...no MP no lag

  • CptSupermarket #4 1 year ago

    lag is still the same on pc and the ati performance is still shite

  • Arsecake_Baker #5 1 year ago

    If your gonna make a game on console that's emphasis is on the muliplayer, don't be a cheap bastard, use a DEDICATED SERVER!

  • Progguitarist #6 1 year ago

    lol...What was that they said about public betas again?

  • djed #7 1 year ago

    As a "thank you"? Surely as an apology?!

  • slickster #8 1 year ago

    Brink £32 at ASDA not bad at all. :o)

  • Freek #9 1 year ago

    For a multiplayer foccsed game it's almost impossible to recover from a bad launch. You need a big player base in order to keep the game fun. If people start leaving or never even buy the game to begin with, you're doomed.
    Do not ever launch with major technical issues unresolved.

  • LetsGo #10 1 year ago

    Aren't these the guys who made Quake Wars?

  • NeverWinter78 #11 1 year ago

    I hope Crytec is read this !

  • BloodSaint #12 1 year ago

    They better fix the lag problems, bcuz my friends jst convinced me to buy this game >.

  • Haunted_Tree #13 1 year ago

    Only 8 maps, poor AI bots, no real singleplayer campaign, lag issues - well it's good to see that development time wasn't wasted.

  • timewarp87 #14 1 year ago

    Got this on PS3. Yeah the SP is abit dire, but it was always billed as a MP game anyway - its just good to learn the maps and the style whilst PSN is off. Lag shouldnt be too bad on Virgin 50 meg ;)

  • timewarp87 #15 1 year ago

    Its a poor mans KZ3 Operations game though!

  • Haloboy #16 1 year ago

    Brink was originally planned to release in spring 2010, but then got delayed until Autumn and then later Spring 2011. I'm nothing short of bemused as to how SD still managed to mess up the release so badly on all platforms.

    I for one am glad I listened to my gut and cancelled my long term preorder. It's not like they didn't have enough time to make it ship shape before eventual release. Seems the game was always on the brink of disaster no matter how much extra time they spent on it.

  • multiVitamin #17 1 year ago

    great! now I get free DLC for a game that I can't even play... yay... :(

  • slickster #18 1 year ago

    Do anyone know if the game just go's to rank 20 because i'm rank 16 and i've all most unlocked every item in the game.

  • metalangel #19 1 year ago

    @slickster: I think I read elsewhere that yes, it is only level 20 and you will have everything by then. Apparently the achievement for getting to level 20 is called "time to start a new character" or similar.

  • KDR_11k #20 1 year ago

    At full retail price I won't risk it even with patches.

  • zide #21 1 year ago

    Hopefully the PSN will be back up by then

  • TheLittlestHobo #22 1 year ago

    For me now any fast paced fps game on consoles MUST have dedicated servers, so sick of inconsistent lag and host migrations. Thank god for BC2 and Section 8: P!!

  • SlippedDiscs_of_Tron #23 1 year ago

    Played a handful of lag-free games this morning and, I have to say, it feels like a completely different game. I admit I nearly choked on my cereal when EG claimed this was a better MP game than TF2, but when it works it's hugely entertaining.

  • monkfishjoe #24 1 year ago

    Anyone else find the running very slow? The game is ok, I can see why the reviews were mixed though, but I find the SMART system lacking...shame.

  • McShifty #25 1 year ago

    When everything is working as it should then it's really fun. Still plenty of issues for SP to sort out but as long as they do it sooner rather than later then i can't see any reason why i won't be enjoying Brink for a while to come.

  • Murton #26 1 year ago

    So rather than improve the netcode the solution is to reduce the player cap so that a standard match is a minimum of 50% AI, not exactly a fix there guys. Also, not a good idea to force people to play with AI in the standard online multiplayer unless you actually have good AI, which you don't. It's an objective based game and the AI don't even challenge the objectives half of the time, not going to go down very well with regular players.

    Of course, it would be fine if the AI could be ordered, but as yet I'm unable to find an option/control to allow this, another thing sorely lacking in this game. It's funny, UT3 seems like years ago, but it's still arguably the best game in this particular class of FPS.

  • Ziggy_badMonkey #27 1 year ago

    The AI issue is being rolled out on PC at the moment but it will take longer to roll out to the consoles as all patches have to go through MSoft & Sony submission.
    ASFAIK it makes the bots actually complete main objectives.
    Thing is from what I've seen previously the bots are very good they just had their nuts cut off for release to allow for more player "hero " moments
    Big mistake !
    The net code is something that will take time to work out exactly where things have gone wrong.
    Extensive testing is done by all publishers during development but nothing prepares a title for "out in the wild" testing !
    As previous posts have said when it works its really really good and one of the best Team based shooters I've ever played.

  • TheGuvernor #28 1 year ago

    "UT3 seems like years ago, but it's still arguably the best game in this particular class of FPS. "
    Totally agree.
    But why was it so under appreciated?
    UT3 came with a staggering amount of content too - & the best bots in the business!
    Might just have to reinstall! They should do another UT3 weekend on Steam.

  • UsernamePending #29 1 year ago

    Halving the player count does not fix the netcode - its knobbles it.

    There's little enough content as it is.

    How EG gave this an 8 is beyond me.

  • yoomazir #30 1 year ago

    @Guvernor "But why was it so under appreciated? "

    Oooh, let's see, among other things:
    -showing new game modes in video previews to only remove them forever before the release.
    -offering less content than the previous UT2003/2004 games.
    -ugly charcter design inspired from Gears of War, didn't bond well with the UT community and neither with me.

    Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed UT3 single & multiplayer, it's just Epic kinda failed to promote it well and give proper content & updates.
    Edited by yoomazir at 14/05/11 @ 18:05

  • Murton #31 1 year ago

    @ziggy - as a former QA tester I'd agree that things get noticed "in the wild" that publishers could not have foreseen, but we're seeing issues here that are patently obvious and as a former QA tester I can say with absolute certainty that the netcode issues would have been noticed even in small scale testing, the issue is that the test versions of XBL and PSN aren't close enough to their real life counterparts and no publisher tests enough with real world net connections for security reasons, as the only way to do so is to have staffers take dev kits home and play using their home connections, which means either small scale testing or risk the game being leaked.

    "the best bots in the business!" - that's been Epics strong suit since the first UT, they really should make their bot AI available to other developers, people wouldn't mind the over-use of UE3 so much if it meant the game had decent AI opponents.

  • superfurry #32 1 year ago

    [link url=http://www.splashdamage.com/content/first-wave-brink-reviews-spawned
    ]http://www.splashdamage.com/content/firs...[/link]

    Splash Damage have posted a list of their most positive reviews here. I think it's interesting that most of the good reviews are from the UK, where, coincidently Splash Damage are based.......

  • BBIAJ #33 1 year ago

    I'd say it's more to do with the fact that the day one patch was available in time for those reviews.

    Or so I've read...
    Edited by BBIAJ at 14/05/11 @ 20:50

  • kingmunchkin #34 1 year ago

    Lag is killing me! It needs to be fixed asap on xbox360 the game is basically unplayable 60% of the time for me!

    how can a game that sells it self on redefining multiplayer and online experience be so screwed at launch!

    Very Angry!

  • TheGuvernor #35 1 year ago

    @Yoomazir,
    don't know anything about promised content not being released.
    I played UT2004 till my fingers tips bled. Agreed that Assault mode was a tragic omission in UT3.
    But if you compare it with the anorexic content most devs are doling out these days it was still juicy.
    UT3 was one of the first to use Unreal 3 engine & I think, at the time, it took a while to adjust to its style.
    And they patched it for years after.
    Bit of a thread hijack here. Sorry.

  • PixelPirate #36 1 year ago

    multiplayer game (psn down + problematic multiplayer) =no sale.

  • Murton #37 1 year ago

    If Brink wasn't already facing a troublesome enough launch weekend, the single player seems to be suffering issues on PS3 now. Every few minutes the game is pausing itself and giving a message saying you've been disconnected from the PSN. This could be a sign that the network is coming back up, but an outright annoyance during an offline single player mission.

    Beginning to wonder just what compliance testing was actually done at Splash Damage and why Sony (and MS judging by the 360 issues) saw fit to pass this through cert.

  • Spekingur #38 1 year ago

    Those with ATI cards should take a look at the very new ATI drivers and see if those help.

  • cowell #39 1 year ago

    Frankly this game looks doomed to me now. Just reading some of the comments here, if I was on the fence about the game I wouldn't be buying it. You need a massive groundswell of players on day one, paying full price and singing its praises. An essentially MP-only game needs a big community on side and if it did it would grow and grow.

    Anyone thinking they'll pick it up on the cheap later is missing the point. It'll be too late by then. Proof again that you need a rock solid game and a serious marketing budget to make MP-only games a success.

    The first Section 8 was a reasonable game but really couldn't drive a large community. I'm sure Bethesda's marketing budget will be significantly more, but it doesnt look too promising. Will be interesting to see the Chart Track sales on Monday. I'm guessing 360 will boss it massively.

  • SleepyDeathFred #40 1 year ago

    I've been playing it on PC and really enjoying it - haven't had any problems except occasional text artifacting, but that's really not breaking it.

  • Fightclubber #41 1 year ago

    It normally takes me a while to hate a game, but i think brinks taken me about 20 seconds. Some of the worst lag and graphics ive ever seen. I have utterly no idea whos a human in the game, the complete lack of lobby or a proper score board is insane.
    Why am i playing with bots on every public online game i go into?
    Is there a way to say " piss off bots"? I just wanna play with actual humans

    Game seems like a complete mess from the first hour ive given it

  • Phishfood #42 1 year ago

    know what you shoulda had? dedicated servers

  • Mister-Wario #43 1 year ago

    "Only 8 maps, poor AI bots, no real singleplayer campaign, lag issues - well it's good to see that development time wasn't wasted".

    To be fair, how many maps did TF2 ship with?

  • ruslan74 #44 1 year ago

    Amazed at how this game got a 8/10 from EG after the online mess. Patch or no patch why do games get highly rated whilst not delivering on their primary gaming objective? I am picking the game up this weekend because in far away South Africa our retailers can only get it in by Friday, but my grievance with EG's rating system still stands.

  • Cronan #45 1 year ago

    When it all hangs together this is a great game, but there's not enough content, the bots are awful, the lag is worse than TF2 on Xbox 360. It can also be the most frustrating game I've played for a long time, when trying challenges and the campaign and your bots behave like r**ards.