Papers Please Promises Longevity in Surprising New Patch

It has been ten years since Papers Please, was originally released on digital storefronts. As part of the early indie game boom, it catapulted to instant stardom, winning several awards and captivating gamers with its deeply evocative narrative. It even inspired a fan-made short film. Even now, an entire decade later, it continues to receive game-changing support from its sole developer, Lucas Pope.

Papers, Please Patch 1.4 is Live

Pope explains that the brand new 1.4 patch—out now on Steam—serves as a total conversion to the Unity engine. It aims to “fix a number of systemic issues that have been building up over the years on modern OSes and hardware”. In theory, it should ensure functionality for years to come. The conversion to Unity began with Pope’s work on the mobile ports of the game back in 2022, after work on Return of the Obra Dinn inspired the switch from OpenFL. An extensive and insightful document detailing the process can be viewed here.

The extended patch notes describe numerous bug fixes, including capping the framerate at 60fps to prevent broken animations. The update also includes three new localization options—Korean, Turkish, and Czech. Pope firmly states that this update contains no new game content, so don’t expect any new faces in the line-up. He continues to remark that the update should roll out on both the GOG and Humble versions of the game in the near future, with the Android version to follow.

Such a severe internal shift can result in some downsides. So it’s encouraged to back up your save data before switching to the preview branch just in case.

Papers Please is out now on Windows, Linux, iOS, Android, and Steam.

If you’re interested in sole developer games, check out LOGNET’s exclusive interview with Matthias Linda, developer of Chained Echoes.