bsdiff is pretty similar to RTPatch, which is what the game industry used in the past. I'm unaware of what you're describing ever being used in practice, especi

bsdiff is pretty similar to RTPatch, which is what the game industry used in the past. I'm unaware of what you're describing ever being used in practice, especially among large game houses. That said, patches aren't really downloaded as standalone patches anymore because of Steam distribution. The way Steam handles it is documented, and if you're interested, it's available here: https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/sdk/uploading#Building_Efficient_Depots https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/sdk/uploading#Building_Ef... But as an overview, Steam splits files into 1MB chunks and only downloads the 1MB chunks that have changed. The 1MB chunks are compressed in transit. Steam also dedups the 1MB chunks. I would assume that this works fine to manage the tradeoffs between size and efficiency.