The Mass Effect: Legendary Edition collection is one of the most anticipated releases of 2021, arriving on May 14. Once release day comes, however, players will reportedly have to download a substantial day one patch alongside Mass Effect: Legendary Edition's installation. Some might think BioWare pushing such a big day one patch must mean there are some important additions, however a leak showing what's including in the patch makes it out to be surprisingly mundane.

This is not so much a leak as it is Electronic Arts having issued the day one patch for Mass Effect: Legendary Edition early and not keeping it private. Since it's public, the patch details were able to be scraped by online tracking websites. That's how the day one patch's size of 11.8GB on PlayStation was first determined, and it's also how the patch notes was discovered.

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The patch notes for Mass Effect: Legendary Edition's day one patch include just five items: "Improves performance," "Improves stability and fixes crashes," "Improvements to Ambient Occlusion (AO)," "Lighting improvements--both visual and performance-related," and "Miscellaneous content fixes." It's a list of very generalized improvements, the specifics of which players may never become aware of or have to acknowledge.

While the specific nature of the changes that BioWare has made for Mass Effect: Legendary Edition's launch isn't clear, the necessity of those changes can be all but guaranteed. These are all the improvements that BioWare was able to make to the game between Mass Effect: Legendary Edition going gold and the day of release. It contains not only all of the improvements that could have cropped up during Q&A in recent weeks, but likely also larger fixes that BioWare knew would only be able to get finished closer to launch. As such, this patch is likely invaluable.

Any patch notes after launch should be more specific than what's been provided for the day one update. Once players have their hands on Mass Effect: Legendary Edition, they'll know about specific bugs or problems with the game that need to be addressed. BioWare can then provide details about which of those issues are fixed and which aren't, which isn't something that needs to be addressed yet.

Regardless of the improvements, it's still a frustration to have a new game that requires a day one update. That's especially true considering the update is almost 12GB, at least on PlayStation. Still, that's a small price to pay for all three Mass Effect games coming in one bundle.

Mass Effect: Legendary Edition releases May 14 on PC, PS4, and Xbox One.

MORE: Everything You Need to Know Before Mass Effect: Legendary Edition Releases

Source: Twisted Voxel