So "installed" dying light on my PS4 this morning o the fullest extent that the system level installation would but I still got the same immersion breaking message that Vinny did.

I understand that playing a partially installed game was touted as a huge feature at the launch of the current generation but I'm finding that it gets in the way more times than it helps. I was having a pretty good time with Dying light this morning; getting a feel for it, understanding the world and the mechanics and this brings me to a dead stop. Times like these make me wish there was a way to opt out of partial installation and just get the whole thing. I would wait for it if it meant that I could keep playing straight through. Other games have done this too Battlefield 4 being the most egregious one that I can remember. I think this needs to stop or publishers need to at least give us the option to download and unpack the whole game at once if we want to instead of having to launch and play the game and then wait in game for everything to finish. Has anyone else gotten this? Where does everyone stand on the partial installation issue?

When it works, it's great! When it doesn't, it sucks. I mean, it isn't something I feel too bothered by, when last Gen we just waited for it to download anyway. Now we occasionally get to play the game before it finishes downloading. So no matter what it's cool to me, just that sometimes it won't work.

Also it's kind of fun seeing the man behind the curtain, when weird shit happens, like with Alien and all of the geometry is missing.

Given my poor internet speed, pretty much every digital game I've bought so far on the PS4 has allowed me to play the first 10 minutes or so of a game before it locks me out, usually right after the prologue or tutorial. I don't mind it so much, I get to try it out, see how it plays before turning it off and wait a day before the full game is finished downloading.

It's still better than having to wait for it to complete, and if one doesn't feel that way one can pretend the feature doesn't exist, so it doesn't bother me. But one would think that since Blizzard has managed to make this work for years it wouldn't be such a struggle for everyone else.

So guess it's a matter of perspective for me. I've only recently started using consoles again after playing everything exclusively on PC for the last 3 years or so and just got used to waiting for a hefty install to finish and then tearing through the game. You all raise great points and have convinced me that even though partial installs are frustrating at times they have their place and are usually beneficial. The process itself will probably get better as time goes on.

Makes me miss cartridges. You buy the game, you take it out of the box, insert in console and BANG. You actually get to play the game. This loading & patches is bullshit.

To be fair, you can still do that with a retail disc version of the game anyway.

Games now have gotten to the point that its gotten so much faster to make with so many complex systems being streamlined (via middleware and such) yet the drawback is that there is always going to be significant bugs that it necessitates the use of patches.

People who think they have to actually run the partially downloaded application are WRONG. It downloads all the data if you just let it sit. This is poor messaging on Sony's part. I heard some people let run GTAV for hours just to download it but they in fact could have had the console in sleep mode or even played something else! In the "dashboard" highlight the game, press options and select information, it shows the proper download status there. I agree this function is not used as well as it should.

Didn't Vinny have this issue too? Haven't run across it yet on XB1 btw.

EDIT: Sorry, just saw mention of it in op, doh.

@lkpower: this happened to me, and it's frozen at 40%. Nothing I do changes it. So I can't even play the game. Just stuck right after first seizure.