B&W2 gets first patch

By Ellie Gibson Published 10 October, 2005

Bad news for saved games.

Lionhead Studios has released the first patch for recently-released PC god sim Black & White 2. It's now available for download via the Lionhead website.

The good news is that the v1.1 patch fixes a long list of crashes, hangs and graphical issues and adds a couple of new options. The bad news is that any save games you've already created won't work with the new patch - so if you've been playing the game for a few days now, you'll have to start all over again from scratch.

Lionhead says we can expect a v1.2 patch "at some point in the (near) future" - and that hopefully it'll be compatible with v1.1 save games.

Black & White 2 is in the shops now. If you still haven't decided whether or not to invest in a copy, be sure to check out our review.

Picture of Ellie.

About Ellie Gibson

Since joining Eurogamer in the mid 2000s, Ellie has written about subjects as diverse as the fall of Gizmondo, the rise of Hollyoaks actresses in Red Alert games and the noise a bear makes under NSFW circumstances.

Read more articles from Ellie by visiting the Ellie Gibson archive page.

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Comments (33) Latest comment 6 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Tyronne #1 6 years ago

    Did not the first one have a series of patches come out for it,that it got to the stage where it was not worth playing as every patch wiped your saved games?

  • Ciaran #2 6 years ago

    Oh dear...

  • Teeth #3 6 years ago

    They can't even patch the game to preserve saved games?? Jebus wept...

  • Huntcjna #4 6 years ago

    HA HA HA

  • djchump #5 6 years ago

    hmmm.... that'll be me not buying B&W2 for a few months then - by that time it should be patched, mostly working and hopefully about £15 ;-)

  • Darren #6 6 years ago

    I must admit I find it incredible that developers cannot make a patch without preserving a player's save game!!! It defies belief somewhat.

    Still the patch came out within a day or so of me buying the game so I didn't mind restarting it. It's a good game just a bit samey and ever-so every-so slightly disappointing.

    Still The Movies is out next month! :D

  • kangarootoo #7 6 years ago

    An uncompatable patch within a few days of release is one thing. But this is the bit that worries me more.

    "Lionhead says we can expect a v1.2 patch "at some point in the (near) future" - and that hopefully it'll be compatible with v1.1 save games."

    If the next patch isn't compatable people will have had plenty of time to get through the game by then.

    In other more positive news, I played Far Cry Instincts this weekend, and its GREAT!! Much more developed than the PC build. Anyway, B&W2...

  • Lacero #8 6 years ago

    The worst thing about replaying the first one was the unskippable, long, tedious, and uninformative "tutorial"

    Is the B&W2 one the same?

  • Machiavel #9 6 years ago

    It's £20 now at Cd-Wow. (Sounds like an advertising jingle, sorry!)

  • smelly #10 6 years ago

    Well after the first games bore/bug fest, i wont be bothering with this, sounds like it's got the same problems bug wise.

    I'm not about to play thru a game again to find the last level crashes, then waiting for a patch to find out that said patch kills my save files - only to replay to the last level again for the SAME crash to happen!

    Cant be arsed with all that again.. Which looking at this, is the EXACT same route they're going down.

    I'll wait for the movies.. if the reviews are good, i'll wait for a few months for it to be patched up, then buy it on budget.

  • Furbs #11 6 years ago

    Now now, dont go upsetting people. Alot of Dev's worked very hard on this. For that we should be grateful and consider it the best game ever.

  • frod. #12 6 years ago

    The patch is a 56k destroying 109mb as well in case you were wondering. Yowzer!

  • smelly #13 6 years ago

    "Now now, dont go upsetting people. Alot of Dev's worked very hard on this. For that we should be grateful and consider it the best game ever."


    on that logic, every game is the best game ever?

  • Destria #14 6 years ago

    Does someone else want to point it out or shall I?

    Or maybe it was a double-bluff.... double-irony kind of thing

  • stoopidgreg #15 6 years ago

    "we should be grateful and consider it the best game ever."

    i do hope that was intended as sarcasm. the reviews i've seen so far do not say it's anything near "the best game ever".

    anyway, didn't they release a patch for the first B&W which didn't work with the saved games as well? man, you'd think they would have worked that out. i really don't see how the saves wouldn't transfer over, since the bulk of the fixes is crashes and graphics issues.

  • djchump #16 6 years ago

    [sarcasm]
    Perhaps it would be less confusing for people if we all used BBcode "sarcasm" tags
    [/sarcasm]

  • Mho7276501 #17 6 years ago

    this is completey fucking annoying, i am one of the 3 people in the world who are actually enjoying playing through this game and there is no way i want to restart the bleedin' thing!!!!

    is the patch really that essential??!?

  • smelly #18 6 years ago

    " am one of the 3 people in the world who are actually enjoying playing"

    That many?

    Besides, if yer enjoying it, you wont mind restarting? :-)

  • Mho7276501 #19 6 years ago

    perhaps 3 was a bit of an over estimation on my part.......

  • Artemus #20 6 years ago

    I recommend people wait off a bit especially if you have a Geforce 6 series card. There's all sorts of problems going on. The worst a stutter bug along with poor FPS (on 6800's!). Lowering the shaders helps but then you get a weird lava texture bug that spreads across the map.

  • RandyBuffalo #21 6 years ago

    I got B&W2 on Thursday and have been playing it pretty much constantly ever since - I'm really enjoying it, and find it a hell of a lot better than the original. It's not perfect, but I really don't see why there's so much negativity about it.

    Rant over, I really wish they could have made a 'cleaner' patch that doesn't touch save games - it suggests that the way they've developed the game is really messy, and they've not thought about the players... Come on Lionhead - by doing this, you're just going to alienate the people who still enjoy your games, and give extra ammo to those who don't.

    Then again, my monkey was starting to piss me off :)

  • Artemus #22 6 years ago

    The levels are taking me about four to five hours to do the 'good' way. I'd be really pissed off if I lost my saves now.

  • Mho7276501 #23 6 years ago

    i also think its better than the first game, the fact you can see what your animal is thinking helps the game no end!! There seems to be a general effort on the part of some critics to do the game down way beyond any sort of reason, a lot of the EG comments and complaints were just plain wrong and could possibly be down to the players lack of ability :p

    Glad someone else is enjoying it too!!

    the save game / patch thing is still completely annoying though

  • Furbs #24 6 years ago

    Sheesh, you know the IQ level has dropped when a comment like I made is taken seriously. djchump, I think you have the answer mate.

  • Stickman #25 6 years ago

    < laughatFurbs >lol! < /laughatFurbs >

    < genuinequery >Seems these days it's the norm to release a game with a patch soon afterwards. Can't they just finish the bloody things properly in the first place? < /genuinequery >
    Edited by 2 at 10/10/05 @ 15:42

  • Furbs #26 6 years ago

    What are you trying to say?

  • Teeth #27 6 years ago

    It is finished, just not completely finished. Deadlines. Market. EA.

  • stoopidgreg #28 6 years ago

    well you said a lot of devs worked hard on the game - and i don't see how that could be taken as sarcasm. it just happened to have bad game design from the beginning - i don't think the artists and programmers can be blamed for the poor playability.

  • Mho7276501 #29 6 years ago

    there is nothing wrong with the playability of this game!!!

  • penhalion #30 6 years ago

    Working in software and sometimes with games companies. I am constantly amazed at the BS that circulates regarding the mega hard work and the crunch times.

    Let me just say that I've seen many a slack work day go by and then two months before going gold, the entire team crunches. Introducing a long list of bugs due to the work force being knackered and almost litteraly asleep on the job.

    I know there are a few game devs who visit here (and some are real P**cks in real life, though not all). It always frightens me that dispite a dozen studies proving that crunch time (for any job) causes lack of concentration and accidents or errors to quadruple. Programmers are the only group that still proclaim proudly that they "Had to do a two month crunch to get the game out on time". News flash zippo! bugged to hell isn't classed as finished!

  • Genji #31 6 years ago

    I'm thinking it may be a combination of the developers, and the publishers who are pushing them to release on a certain date. It's that whole "release first, patch later" mentality and, as Whitey said, not everyone has enough connection speed to be able to download them. I think it's one of the things that are turning people off PC games.

  • stoopidgreg #32 6 years ago

    lionhead/molyneux games are never pushed hard for premature release. they're not quite as slack as 3drealms, say, but molyneux is always going on about how he likes to get a game just how he wants it before it's released. in fact in an E3 video on gamespot i distinctly remember him saying "this is the game black and white should have been. unlike some other games we've done, this has everything i wanted in it and more".

  • Stickman #33 6 years ago

    "this is the game black and white should have been. unlike some other games we've done, this has everything i wanted in it and more"

    "...now, here's a patch less than a week after launch."

    Taxi for Molyneux!

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