Epic has released a patch for Gears of War 2 to fix the long wait many users have been experiencing during matchmaking. A post on the Epic Games forums from senior producer Rod Fergusson outlines the changes provided by the patch, which he says only focused on "immediate infrastructure issues" for expediency. Top billing for the updates went to speeding up the public matchmaking, particularly for the single and four player parties, and to increasing the number of available matches to join. He does caution, though, that it will take a few days to get fully up to speed as players download the update.
Other tweaks include better data gathering for Epic's side, and a fix to allow players to access the story campaign offline, but clearly the matchmaking is the star. Fergusson thanks players for their patience and comments that Epic is "hopeful that the matchmaking issues we've seen up till now are a thing of the past." The patch will be updated the first time you start up Gears of War 2 while connected to Xbox Live.
Gears 2 has been suffering from these issues since launch, and the company worked feverishly to develop a fix. Fergusson did say that they've left "potential gameplay issues for a future update," implying that the company might already have some balance or performance tweaks in mind. For now, though, Thanksgiving is likely to bring thankful Gears 2 players the ability to enjoy it over the long weekend.
