sales and that kind of stuff but also like how the game is downloaded steam and epic uses delta encoding when patching games this is how they've done it since the dawn of time essentially so it's not that they've suddenly changed the system or anything like that uh and it's like it's not because of that change you're seeing bigger patches like it's it's nothing like that it's always been like that uh it's probably just circumstantial if you notice that the patches are bigger like that

Anyways, the way Delta encoding works is that each platform encodes and manages like how the build is distributed over the internet.

And it attempts to look at what version you have installed and what version is to be downloaded.

And they only send you the Delta or the difference between your local version and the latest version.

And then locally, it will sort of recreate the build using the data from the Delta.

This system isn't always perfect, as it sometimes gets messed up when it recreates the build locally.

This is why it's so important to verify your game files if you run into any weird issues with the game.

So using delta encoding reduces the download bandwidth, but it also means that it might take longer to unpack and recreate the build locally if it's not installed on an SSD, for instance.