Patch Notes

A permanent, dated record of every build change observed on disk. Newest first.

How this file is maintained. Run Reference\tools\check_patch.ps1 after any update. It writes a dated report to Reference\baselines\CHANGES_.md and appends a summary entry here. Fill in the Assessment* line by hand — the script reports facts, not meaning.

What counts as evidence. Every entry separates three tiers, because they answer different questions and have different reliability:

A path diff alone will make a patch look emptier than it is. Balance changes keep the same path and the same string and alter only bytes — that is what the size baseline is for. Baselines only exist from 2026-08-11 onward, so patches before that date have no content-level diff and never will; the pak files were overwritten.

2026-08-11 — Package 1.0.1627.0

Landed: 10:07–10:08 local. Shader cache rebuilt 13:04. Download: ~1.3 GB. Install after: 67.5 GB (61 GB Paks, 100 .utoc containers). Baseline compared against: 2026-08-04 datamine snapshot (paths only — no size baseline existed yet).

Confirmed changes

Localisation strip — the big one. Every per-language voice-over container was removed. Gone:

english_us_ (16,464) · spanish_mexico_ (15,858) · mandarin_china_ (15,858) · mandarin_taiwan_ (15,858) · korean (15,858) · japanese (15,858) · portuguese_brazil_ (14,326)

Roughly 110,080 external-source entries removed. Only the shared tcwwise set (16,336) remains, and it holds the base VO — line IDs like aidrone_combat_loud_forhorde_02 are intact, and 31,784 paths still match character VO patterns. Zero language-suffixed pak/utoc files remain on disk.

This is a localisation strip, not a voice-line removal. The same dialogue is in the game; one language's audio is on disk instead of eight. Install size did not drop, which means far less was physically deleted than the path count implies.

Consequence: the 54,933 WAVs in VoiceLines\ can no longer be regenerated from a live install. That folder is now the only copy in existence.

Config changes — three values, complete list.

125 of 128 comparable configs identical. DefaultGame.ini and DefaultGameplayTags.ini unchanged — no gameplay tuning in the config layer.

Text: zero changes. All 13,869 English strings byte-identical, same keys, same values. No new modes, renamed mods, reworded rules or new missions.

Game content: unchanged at path level. Identical counts for Halloween (134), Thanksgibbing (99), Gearsmas (5), Pumpkin (120), Cluckpuncher (64), and every mode directory — Warpath, Guardian, Attrition, Payload, Bunker, DFA, Proto_KOTH, Proto_Wingman, PostLaunch, ChampionsSiege, LiveModePrototypes.

No new maps. Zero map directories added; every Versus map's asset count identical.

Added: ~22,500 assets, overwhelmingly Unreal engine content (4,233) and plugins (1,003) plus Wwise media — an engine/plugin refresh.

Assessment

A stability, performance and packaging patch. Nothing balance-related that is visible at the layers checkable after the fact.

Known unknowns

Weapon damage and balance tuning could not be verified. No pre-patch byte baseline existed, and the pak files were overwritten. Tuning lives in binary data assets (BBDA_Wpn_, FireModeTuning) that keep the same path, same string and same config while changing bytes — invisible to every check available. A 1.3 GB download on an install that did not shrink is entirely consistent with tuning edits.

Fixed going forward: asset_sizes_2026-08-11_post-patch_1.0.1627.0.tsv captures byte sizes for all 638,543 assets, including 841 weapon-tuning assets. From the next patch on, content-level changes are detectable.

Caveats on this entry

• Baseline is the 4 August snapshot, so the diff spans 4–11 August, not strictly this patch
• Large parts of the raw path diff were case changes (Vehicles/cog → Vehicles/COG);

all figures here are case-insensitive

• Early in analysis some Cluckpuncher audio appeared "removed" — it had been relocated.

Halloween content was never cut

2026-08-06 — Early Access Open Beta opens

Pre-order early access begins (public announcement, not a disk observation). No build snapshot taken.

2026-08-03/04 — Beta round 2 build

Observed: full ~63 GiB (67.5 GB) UE5 install, re-downloaded 2026-08-03. Engine changelist seen in benchmark artifacts: CL4782211 (runs dated 08-07, 08-09).

The build this archive's original datamine was taken from. Recovered: 633,158 asset paths, 13,869 English strings, 54,933 voice lines across 7 languages, 1,940 UI textures.

Nothing is encrypted — IoStore .utoc is TOC v8 with an all-zero encryption key GUID, .pak is v11 with an unencrypted index. GoWEDay.exe is DRM-locked and unreadable.

No size baseline exists for this build. Content-level comparison against it is permanently impossible.

2026-07-22/24 — Beta round 1 build

Engine changelist seen in benchmark artifacts: CL4752364 (run dated 07-22). No datamine snapshot taken; on 2026-07-31 the install was an empty stub.

Baseline coverage

Everything from 2026-08-11 onward is fully diffable.