Question about Johan's speech on first update

[Johan]

Game development works kinda like this.

XXX weeks before release you lock all features, and don't revise them, to make sure localisation, AI, UI etc works fine.
XX weeks before release you lock everything that is not an crash or a feature not working at all.
X weeks before release your version is frozen, nothing changes, as that version has to be tested for different platforms etc to make sure its all working fine.

Depending on whether you are working on an expansion, patch or new game release, each X may be anything from 2-3 days to 2-3 weeks each.

A normal expansion for a game like EU4 has the XXX at about 7 weeks before release, and the XX about 2 weeks later, and X is at latest 2 weeks before release.

 

[Johan]

Thanks for the explanation. But could you answer the original question? Did you mean this "first update" will be released alongside with the game on release day or later?

Later on.