The Outfit receives multiplayer tweaks

The Outfit, the destruction-heavy World War II game for the Xbox 360 that mashes together elements from both action and strategy games, was updated today via Xbox Live. Although the game's single-player was met with a lukewarm critical response, the multiplayer portion was the bright light at the end of The Outfit's tunnel--and it is what today's required autoupdate most heavily enhances.

Improvements to the game's matchmaking system include tweaks to reduce lag when playing online. Outfit developer Relic Entertainment added color-coded symbols to identify players' connection speeds; green equals good, yellow is OK, while red means a slow, laggy connection. Also, players who now join a quick match will connect to the user with the fastest connection speed, not simply the first available user.

Changes to the multiplayer itself include, perhaps most prominently, the decrease in rotation rate and health of the game's antiaircraft guns. Vehicles in multiplayer now handle similarly to how they do in single-player, and vehicles can no longer be stolen when they are moving at top speed--a way to reduce "hijack spam," according to the change log.

For the full list of changes, check out Major Nelson, the blog of Microsoft Xbox Live director of programming Larry Hryb.