Titanfall Launch Didn't Break the Internet (or Titanfall)

Grand Theft Auto Online‘s launch was a minor mess. So was Final Fantasy XIV‘s when it relaunched on the PlayStation 3 last year. SimCity‘s debut was both a DRM debacle and connectivity catastrophe. Diablo III loosed a parade of “Error 3006” server connection face-slaps. The list of botched game launches is as long as the list of MMOs released since forever. It’s like that children’s book, Everyone Poops, only for online games.

But Titanfall, Microsoft’s goliath-sized mech combat game that launched for Xbox One and Windows last night? It did pretty well, and continues to do well by most accounts, which, given the hype machine plus the Xbox One’s bumper sales, makes the launch’s relative smoothness something of a minor miracle.

Maybe it’s an audience size thing. The Xbox One’s just getting rolling with an install base a fraction of the Xbox 360’s. (Who said being an early adopter had to be all bad?) Wait for Titanfall‘s Xbox 360 launch in exactly two weeks time. That’ll be the crucible.

That’s not to say everything’s ham and jam: poke around and you’ll find people complaining of connection issues. The folks running the game’s official Twitter account reacted in the wee morning hours:

And Microsoft, whose “Azure” cloud servers are the power behind the throne (and thus in the hot seat here), announced a patch to remedy some of those issues in a note early this morning, writing:

We’re aware that some users may have experienced early issues on PC and Xbox One. We’ve just pushed a patch that’s now recovering servers quickly. Players will load into Private Lobbies much faster and we’re continuing to monitor.

EA confirms this on its official support page for the game, writing, “Things are starting to recover quickly now – you should get onto that Private Lobby server much faster now.”

MORE: The History of Video Game Consoles – Full

Write to Matt Peckham at matt.peckham@time.com.