Brink lag patch launches this week

By Wesley Yin-Poole Published 23 May, 2011

Improvements for PC, PS3 and Xbox 360.

Multiplayer-focused first-person shooter Brink will be patched this week.

The update is expected to combat the online lag many players have experienced since launch.

The Xbox 360 update is currently working its way through Microsoft's approval process and is expected this week. The PlayStation 3 update does everything the Xbox 360 update does, and is also expected out this week.

"We've been hard at work investigating the lag issues some players of the Xbox 360 version of Brink have reported," said developer Splash Damage in an update on the Bethblog dated 20th May.

"We've now completed modifications to improve network performance and will be rolling these out in a title update for the game.

"With PSN back online, we're able to resume multiplayer testing on the PlayStation 3. We're preparing to bring the changes in the upcoming Xbox 360 title update to the PlayStation 3 version of Brink quickly and we expect to have it out next week. Stay tuned!"

The PC update, due early this week, combats lag as well as sound and graphics issues, and improves server browsing.

You will no longer suffer sound dropping out on certain maps when playing networked games for a prolonged amount of time. "We've worked closely with both AMD and Nvidia, and you should see performance and stability improvements in future driver revisions from both parties," said the team.

And there's a new filter for browsing that allows you to display only servers with a certain number of players on them. Full servers will no longer be filtered out completely.

These updates follow a week-and-a-half old update that also targeted lag.

Splash Damage made a configuration change to the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions that altered the number of human players when matchmaking for campaign and most freeplay modes to eight total human players.

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.

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 (18) Latest comment 1 year ago

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  • Murton #1 1 year ago

    This is good news as I think I've learned all I can from fighting AI and am ready to take the fight online.

    There is however one question that needs answering, does this new anti-lag patch mean full 16 man multiplayer is back on or are we still looking at 4vs4 with AI when playing public games?

  • Mnia786 #2 1 year ago

    Pity they compiled the last update for the PS3 version with v3.50 SDK letting all them pirate fucks play the game.
    Same with LA Noire and a few other games - either devs best stop releasing patches compiled on v3.50 or Sony hurry the hell up and get out the v3.60 SDKs.
    "Backup" my nuts.

  • BadBoyBonner #3 1 year ago

    Surely the title should be "Brink anti-lag patch launches this week "

    Do not think anyone is wanting to add lag to Brink multiplayer ;-)

  • makariel #4 1 year ago

    Good news, the sound issues get really annoying.

  • coolbritannia #5 1 year ago

    Very interested to see how this pans out. I think the lag is unpatchable if they want fully human 8 v 8 games.

    We shall see.

  • Spong #6 1 year ago

    What is this "Brink" you speak of?

  • cnlfailure #7 1 year ago

    Not sure what an "anti-lag" patch can accomplish really, unless it switches to a client-server model.

    While video games comments always tend towards exaggeration so you can take this with a pinch of salt if you wish, Brink (360 version) has in my experience the worst lag of any game I've ever played, going back to dial-up. Rarely does a bit of lag render a game unplayable, but in this case it really is with freezes every second, warping and worse, it is frankly awful.

    With Splash Damage's experience at making multiplayer shooters you'd really have thought they'd have figured out that peer-peer really isn't a good way to run these things.

  • mashk #8 1 year ago

    In the words of forgotten songstress Jo-Jo;

    'It's just too little, too late
    A little too wrong,
    And I couldn't wait,
    So I traded it in for LA Noire'

  • LetsGo #9 1 year ago

    Too little.......

    Why on earth didn't they delay it a few weeks? Fix the lag and stay clear of LA Noire.

  • DefendoCroc #10 1 year ago

    So with the new patch will the game be back to 8 v 8 humans (lag-free), or is that resriction now set in stone ? .... because last week 5 v 5 lagged as much for me ..... hence why i no longer own the game. Such a shame , when it worked it was cool but spending 15 mins trying to find a lag free host is a fail =/

  • asphaltcowboy #11 1 year ago

    Good news! \o/

  • Poontash #12 1 year ago

    What happened to it in Steam? Still isn't available to me.

  • Murton #13 1 year ago

    "What happened to it in Steam? Still isn't available to me."

    Bethesda said on release day that they were "looking into it" and would "update you as soon as possible" though of course they said this about a European PSN release for Shimmering Isles and we're still waiting three years later, so don't hold your breath waiting for that response. Bethesda's community management is possibly the worst I've seen of any of the big name publishers and that's saying something.

  • Retro_ #14 1 year ago

    The game needs to be patched so we can issue commands to the AI as in UT3, currently, the AI is too driven towards their own objectives, this is especially true of the offensive tasks, defensive seems far better.

    Still, any updates are welcome :)

  • banjo21 #15 1 year ago

    I don't get how after 15 from quakeworld with 100x fatter pipes 100x lower latency we have lag worse now than then. These guys played then so wtf is going on?

  • TheLittlestHobo #16 1 year ago

    In other words "Thank you for participating in the public beta test. We have finally hit v1.0!"

  • GamesProgrammer Verified Games Team Programmer, Eutechnyx Ltd. #17 1 year ago

    Still confused why people were surprised, buggy mess is a bethesda trademark, other publishers understand the concept of testing sadly this means I will also not be getting sky rim day one.

  • TheLittlestHobo #18 1 year ago

    banjo: Dedicated servers.