Image: The Pokemon Company / 343 Industries / Kotaku
Halo has a long tradition of community-made maps and game modes that range everywhere from serious to silly. Recently, one map and mode combo that’s more on the playful and fun side of things caught the attention of 343 Industries as an opportunity to fix long-standing shooting issues. Named after a certain Pokémon notorious for digging and jumping out of holes, this community creation is now being used to pinpoint and fix aiming and shot registration woes, as they’ve plagued Halo Infinite since it launched just over a year ago.
Halo Infinite, the latest entry in the long-running and often critically acclaimed first person shooter series, only recently received an update that included a beta version of its in-game map creator: Forge. First premiering in Halo 3, Forge has been a staple of the series ever since 2007, allowing anyone to create a map of their own design with the tools necessary to create custom games for it, be those party and minigames or more traditional takes on the franchise’s well-known modes, like Slayer or Capture the Flag. One such community-created game, that takes its name from the Diglett Pokémon, seems to have caught 343’s eye as an opportunity to test drive fixes to the game’s core mechanics.
With community Forge maps popping up on a regular basis these days, 343 Industries’ senior community manager John Junyszek put out a tweet asking for the community’s favorite Forge minigames so far. When competitive Halo player Linz shouted out Digletts, a game where players pop out of holes to take sniper shots at one another, Junyszek followed up with an interesting bit of behind-the-scenes trivia:
Kotaku has reached out to 343 Industries for more information.
As many Halo fans have known, while Infinite’s core mechanics are solid and work well, there have been issues around aiming, with many players suspecting that the game seems particularly off when trying to line up precision shots with a sniper rifle, either descoped or while aiming down sights. Whether this is due to the game’s auto-aim function that eases controller aim (and exists on most modern shooters that take controller inputs), bullet magnetism, or the notorious desync issues many players have had with Infinite isn’t totally certain. Since Diglet is a game that only features aiming and shooting, it’s a pretty perfect test environment for studying aiming behavior. Junyszek said that the “minigame has recently helped our team further test and investigate various shot registration situations, especially in regards to latency and networking. Since it’s a curated environment without many variables, it’s helped us investigate specific scenarios.”
Check out the the Diglett game mode in action here:
343 Industries / iSpiteful
Who knew RPing as a Diglet armed with a legendary anti-materiel rifle could be so productive?
Destiny 2 is fixing a bunch of stuff for the month and change ahead of February’s massive Lightfall expansion. Players won’t have to grind so much to get into Grandmaster Nightfall missions. Iron Banner will be much more generous with armor drops in the weeks ahead. And armor mods, one of the most fun but esoteric parts of Bungie’s loot shooter, are finally getting unlocked for everyone.
Destiny 2sucks for new players. You can have plenty of fun, but some of the most interesting parts of the game are locked behind dozens of hours or more of grinding, unlocks, and luck. One of the things that new players have difficulty accessing is armor mods, which drastically change the ways you can play the game, but which are only sold on a rotating basis by a single in-game vendor named ADA-1 who is hidden in the far corner of the main social hub. While longtime players have access to all of them, new players can get stuck with huge holes in their arsenal when it comes to crafting fun builds. No longer.
Yesterday, Bungie unlocked all standard armor mods for all players. While raid mods and artifact mods will still need to be earned, Warmind, Well, and Charged with Light and other powerful mods no longer need to be found. Even if you just started playing Destiny 2, you can start experimenting with different synergies or, more likely, copy the best builds making the rounds online.
Screenshot: Bungie
“With big changes coming to buildcrafting in Lightfall, we want to give everyone a chance to enjoy all of the standard mods in their current state for the rest of the Season,” Bungie wrote in Thursday’s This Week At Bungie (TWAB) blog post. The studio will outline how mods will work differently in next week’s preview. In the meantime, however, players can enjoy some other quality of life improvements.
Reserve the next gen Samsung device All you need to do is sign up with your email and boom: credit for your preorder on a new Samsung device.
Grandmaster Nightfalls now unlock at 1580 power and only require you to hit 1595 to reach the difficulty ceiling. Focusing costs for Trials of Osiris, Crucible, and Gambit weapons and armor have also all been reduced to 25 Legendary Shards. And most importantly, the remaining Iron Banner events this season will make it almost twice as easy to hit the rank reset and earn a full set of the hot new vintage Iron Banner armor.
Things have been extremely touch-and-go in Destiny 2 recently. While Season 19 has been applauded as one of the more fun and less grindy updates in some time, there have also been plenty of technical bugs and multiplayer complaints getting in the way. Last week’s Iron Banner session had all sorts of issues, not the least of which was players grinding tons of matches without managing to complete a set of armor. The upcoming changes should help earn some good will back ahead of Lightfall when Destiny 2 will likely once again start to feel like a completely new game again.
With so many great titles available on the Steam Deck, 2022 was an explosive introduction to Valve’s handheld.Image: Valve / CD Projekt Red / Microsoft / rose-engine / Kotaku
Steam Deck, Valve’s mega-powerful mini-PC, only arrived this year, and while there are many reasons to check out one of the most exciting pieces of gaming hardware available today, the amount of great, hassle-free games available on the device is proof enough of its success.
But Steam is a big marketplace, and not every game works well on the Deck. While many hit games do run well on the device, some won’t launch, while others will have you chasing through various settings and scrolling forums and Reddit posts for solutions. Fun for the tech enthusiast, but not ideal when you just want a great gaming experience. Valve has made the process easier by labeling certain games “Verified” on the device, but sometimes that’s not always a guarantee that a game will run without issue.
Worry not, this list will guide you to the best experiences you can have in year one of the Steam Deck’s life. All but one of these games are Deck-verified. They work great on the first boot. That said, adjusting a few settings here and there might make a given game experience even better for you, so I’ll call that out where relevant. Tweaking the visual settings…can’t do that on a Switch!
As you may know, there are relatively simple ways to get non-Steam games running on the Deck, but those we’ll handle another time. This list is focused on great games you’re guaranteed to have access to right out of the box.
Update 12/27/2022: Wrapping up 2022, we’ve now bumped this list up to 20 amazing games you can play on the Steam Deck now. To hit this number we had to bend a rule: We now have two games that are technically not “Deck Verified,” but are still totally playable.
Update 10/21/2022: The Steam Deck’s library keeps growing, and so too does this list! I’ve added five new games to the main list and one new honorable mention. Nearly all of these games are Deck-verified, but I’ve made an exception for one particular title.
Note that I don’t make that statement as a criticism. Battlefield 2042 was released in the middle of the pandemic, with almost two whole years of its development affected, and as a long-time series fan—but also a video game journalist familiar with how this stuff works—I’ve made peace with the fact the game was clearly rushed out the door by executives to meet a short-term financial goal, regardless of the damage it has done to the brand’s long-term standing.
Well, we’re now at that “months of updates” point, which in previous Battlefields would have been the stage where the game had been added to substantially, but in 2042’s case is just where it’s within touching distance of par.
This week saw the release of Season 3, which adds a huge new map (set in Sweden around two boxy robot arms factories), a new anti-tank vehicle, a railgun and a new specialist, whose unique weapon is a miniature air-bursting explosive rifle.
Battlefield 2042 | Season 3: Escalation Gameplay Trailer
It’s all good! The map, Spearhead, is a big one, and like Stranded before it is cleanly differentiated by having two big indoor playgrounds for close-quarters combat, surrounded by wide-open spaces for snipers and vehicles. I’ve been having a great time with it, as its long design and rocky terrain between the two buildings means games often turn into meatgrinders over the central control points, leading to huge, explosive battles.
The new Specialist, Rasheed Zain, is also something the game has needed; his air-bursting rifle is able to kill enemy forces bunkered down in cover or around corners, giving infantry the kind of space-clearing ability that was previously only available to vehicles or the rare few who can actually use grenades properly.
I’m not quite as sold on the other two main additions, the railgun and anti-armour tank. The latter, the EMKV90-TOR, plays like StarCraft’s Siege Tank; you can drive it around for a bit with limited firepower but when you really want to mess stuff up, you can lower its suspension and snipe enemy tanks from across the map.
The railgun, meanwhile, is all about timing; it’s useful as both a medium and long-range weapon, but only if you can master the way it charges itself then discharges automatically when ready. Nearly all of the game’s current roster of weapons and vehicles feel somewhat contemporary, with gentle concessions made to the fact this game is set 20 years in the future; these two additions look, sound and feel more like Halo weapons.
Image: EA
When you look back at all the work and updates the game has received since launch—not just new stuff but revisions of old maps and tweaks to things like Specialist appearance and their soundbytes, giving the game a more cohesive tone—it’s clearly a much-improved experience!
I think when the unpopular Specialist system is reworked next month to revert to traditional Battlefield classes, that year-long effort to make this the game it should have been will be done. Which, given how disastrous the game’s launch was, will be one hell of an achievement.
And yet, it also can’t have us help but wonder: what could this game have been if the last 12 months had been free to add to the game, rather than just perform emergency repairs? I really like the setting of 2042, one of the few blockbusters to ever take the threat of climate change seriously, and its near-future arsenal has been so much more fun to use than the historical gear available in the last few games.
We’ll never know! A pandemic and the investor class conspired to curse this game, and so if all we can look forward to is one last Season 4 update before the whole thing gets binned and everyone moves onto the next Battlefield, then that’s what I’ll be looking forward to. Me and the other people who have been enjoying the game since launch. There are dozens of us! Dozens!
A group of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II players have been breaking the game’s movement system and their latest creation is something they’re calling the “G Walk.” The trick looks very frustrating to play against, leading to some controversy among the game’s community over the new exploit.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II was released last month across nearly all platforms and quickly became one of the biggest games of the year. And just this month, the game’s highly anticipated Warzone 2.0 spin-off mode launched to similar praise and player hype. Sure, the campaign seems bad and filled with some terrible moments—like a section where players point their rifle at an unarmed person to “deescalate” the situation—but the online portion of this year’s edition of the annual Activision shooter seems to be a hit with fans. And one group of players is using Modern Warfare II’s movement controls to create impressive, scary, and very fast techniques to up the competitive ante.
As spotted by Jake Lucky on Twitter, Modern Warfare II clan “Euphoria” are breaking the game right now. Their latest creation, which they’re calling “G Walking,” turns the normally human soldiers in Call of Duty into wild, speedy goblins that hop and crawl around maps like kids who have had way too much sugar on Halloween night. As you might expect, moving around this fast at such a weird posture makes it challenging for other players to land a shot on these out-of-control monsters. (As of now, the group has yet to share publicly how to pull off this new move.)
And just as quickly as the goblins themselves, players have begun responding to the videos of Euphoria members G Walking. Some find it funny, others find it scary. But many are annoyed by what Euphoria is doing, claiming that it ruins matches and makes it harder for casual players to just hop on for a few hours and play. Members of Euphoria have mostly laughed at the complaints–and in their defense, they are just using controls and mechanics that exist in the game to do this wild shit. If anything, developers Infinity Ward need to patch these exploits out of the game if the studio doesn’t want this to become the new meta.
I personally remember playing the original MW2 back in 2009 and running around doing the annoying Javelin suicide glitch that would kill everyone around you when you died. It was very annoying and was quickly patched out of the game. And before all that nonsense, I remember getting into weird spots on Crash in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 using janky-level geometry and tricky jumps. If anything, stuff like G Walking and the groups’ other movement exploit— Superman Hopping— is just tradition at this point.
Hi, this is Kotaku’s Luke Plunkett, one of the 17 people on the planet regularly enjoying the game, reporting live from Battlefield 2042.
If you haven’t played the game during its first 12 months—and really, it has had problems, who can blame you!—EA has decided that now is the time to try to convince you by offering Battlefield 2042 for free (during the first few days of December, across all platforms), or at least as part of the subscription fee you’re already paying for Game Pass.
They’re doing this for two reasons, of course. The first one is that nowhere near enough people bought this game in the first place, so the playerbase has been at times tragically low. Here in Australia, for example, only a single multiplayer mode is ever populated enough to get regular games. The second, and this is related, is that Battlefield 2042 has cosmetic microtransactions, so the more people EA can get playing the game, the more they’re hoping to make off weapon, vehicle and player skins.
Now, 12 months later, after a ton of work and (remaining) fan feedback, developers DICE have the game…at the point it should have been at launch. Which is a low bar to clear, I know, but this game was developed right through a pandemic, it’s going to free (or basically free on Game Pass), and clearing low bars is exactly what those kind of services and weekends are for.
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It’s also gotten pretty good! The original maps are being reworked, the new maps are great, and a lot of the stuff older fans were missing at launch—from scoreboards to the class system—have either been reintroduced or are about to be.
Battlefield 2042 | Development Update – Maps & Specialists Reworks, Vault Weapons, and More
In announcing the free/Game Pass availability, DICE also dropped a video and blog today, outlining new weapons, map changes and specialist tweaks coming as part of Season 3. There was also a very brief hint at something else coming beyond that, which they’re pitching as something more substantial. That something else is discussed over a cinematic of soldiers looking at ominous weather, so given the game is set in a near-future climate apocalypse (and already features in-game storms that can wreck your shit), it’ll be interesting to see if this something else makes dramatic changes to the way weather shapes and affects the maps.
Battlefield 2042 will be hitting Game Pass when Season 3 launches soon, while the free weekend/week will run from December 1-4 on Xbox, Dec 1-5 on Steam, and Dec 16-23 on PlayStation.
If you’ve an appetite for destruction, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II is happy to provide a near-infinite supply of guns which you can customize to an absurdly delightful degree. Seriously, this is almost as fun as sorting my nail polish colors.
But it’s not about making all the other soldier guys, gals, and non-binary pals envious of your brutal styles; there are a ton of stats you’ll want to wrap your head around too. For every attachment you slap on a gun, there are clear pros and cons. And once you hit max level with any given firearm, you unlock weapon tuning, allowing you to tweak how guns feel and perform even further.
Modern Warfare II gives you a lot of room for freedom, style, and min/maxing, so while time will tell what the god-tier meta ends up being, don’t be afraid to jump in and experiment with a setup that helps you climb the scoreboard while looking cool and fitting your style of play.
This guide solely focuses on firearms you point and shoot, meaning your primary and secondary weapons. Let’s dig in.
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Screenshot: Activision / Kotaku
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II Guns 101
As soon as you load into the game you’ll see a set of tabs at the top: Play, Weapons, Operators, Battle Pass, and Store.
Selecting Weapons will take you to where you can sort your Loadouts, Killstreaks, and Vehicle Customization. In Loadouts, you’ll notice you can have up to 10 custom configurations, so don’t worry about needing to commit to a narrow selection. A loadout is made up of six items: You’ve a choice of a Primary and Secondary weapon, as well as your Tactical and Lethal Equipment, your Perks, and a Field Upgrade.
Your loadout is laid out in a horizontal bar on the “Edit Loadouts” screen. Selecting a specific loadout will let you configure each of the six types. Some of your available weapons are dictated by what Perks you have active for that loadout. Primary weapons have the following types:
Primary Weapon Types
Assault Rifles
Battle Rifles
SMGs
Shotguns
LMGs
Marksman Rifles
Sniper Rifles
Melee
There are only three types of Secondary weapons.
Secondary Weapon Types
Weapons further break down into Platforms, which lay out much like a skill tree in an RPG, indicating attachments you can unlock for any given weapon. When looking at a weapon in either the loadout or weapon menu screen, you can view the Platform progression by pressing V on keyboard (touchpad on PlayStation, view button on Xbox).
The M4 Platform, for example, is a family of weapons that consists of the M4 assault rifle, 556 Icarus LMG, FTAC Recon battle rifle, M16 assault rifle, and the FSS Hurricane SMG.
You level up each gun by getting out there and scoring kills. Some guns from a specific Platform are locked behind a weapon level. For example, to get the Bryson 890 shotgun, you need to build your Bryson 800 to level 16. You can also level up each individual weapon for even more attachment customization.
Screenshot: Activision / Kotaku
Customizing weapons and attachments with the Gunsmith
When viewing a specific loadout in the menus some guns will have a “Gunsmith” option. Here you can change up how your gun is built.
In Gunsmith’s “Build Weapon” tab you can install numerous different “Modifications” to the weapon’s optics, muzzles, magazines, stocks, and ammunition types. You can select up to five modifications at any time and can also swap out the gun’s receiver—essentially its core that everything else attaches to—for others in the weapon’s Platform family. (Note that not all weapon modifications within the same platform are intercompatible.)
After making Gunsmith changes, you can jump directly into the Firing Range to test out the look and feel of the new modifications. It loads in pretty quick too, so while you can’t directly A/B compare certain mods, you can still get a nice feel for each selection without spending forever trapped behind a loading screen.
Each modification affects stats in unique ways, and there are specific pros and cons to each. The 419MM EXF Barrel, for example, will boost your Damage Range, Hip Fire Accuracy, and Bullet Velocity (Pros), but at the cost of Aim Down Sight Speed and Hip Recoil Control (Cons).
The second tab in the Gunsmith interface is “Customize.” This is where you can apply different weapon charms, skins, stickers, and more such things. Each camo skin will have different requirements, but it’s very similar to unlocking attachments: Just earn weapon XP by scoring kills and completing specific challenges noted under each camo skin. There are also Weapon Mastery challenges for you to complete once you’ve unlocked Gold, Platinum, Polyatomic, and Orion skins.
The higher you level up a specific weapon, the more attachments you’ll gain access to. Once you hit max level with a specific weapon, you can start tuning those attachments to take even greater control over its performance.
Screenshot: Activision / Kotaku
Weapon tuning in Modern Warfare II
Weapon tuning lets you further tweak the pros and cons of each attachment. Remember, you need to hit level 20 with a specific weapon in order to tune the modifications.
You can’t tune every attachment, but ones you can will offer two sets of sliders that let you go all in on a weapon’s strengths, or walk back the cons a bit. Keep in mind that these are all fine-tuning adjustments. If you want to max out your Aim Down Sights Speed, for example, you’re better off going with modifications that prioritize that as opposed to trying to make up for slower ADS speeds via Weapon Tuning. That said, the high TTK rate of Modern Warfare II means that even the finest adjustments can make a difference in the heat of the moment.
The image on the right side uses weapon tuning to compensate for a slower aim-down-sights speed.Gif: Activision / Kotaku
Weapon tuning is really best taken advantage of once you’ve gotten a good sense of the guns and modifications you like. This stage of weapon customization is more an art than a science, so expect to take your time figuring out what works best for you.
Weapon leveling in Modern Warfare II
Maxing out your weapons is one of the game’s major goals, and you’ll make the most progress on guns you actively use. Keeping a gun holstered or slung over your shoulder won’t cut it; to level up a gun you need to be out there using it to put lead into your enemies.
With so many weapon choices, it’s not a bad idea to stick to a couple of guns, two or three at most, when starting out. Playing with the Overkill Perk equipped (available with the Assault preset package) is a good way to see how it feels to wield two primary guns at once.
Screenshot: Activision / Kotaku
Don’t forget to take advantage of Weapon XP boosts as well. You can select these in the multiplayer matchmaking screen. Be careful though, as your XP boosts count down in real-time outside of matches. That in mind, it’s best to save XP boosts for use in playlists which aren’t as heavy in wait times.
Quick Play and Ground War typically have quicker queues. However, keep in mind that the 32v32 modes such as Ground War might have you engaging in gunfights less frequently as you’ll often spend time moving between objectives. On the other hand, that can be a good opportunity to level up a sniper or marksman rifle as you’ll have more distance to work with. If you’re looking to level up close-range weapons like shotguns, smaller 6v6 games might be your best bet, but your mileage may vary.
One thing I like to do is set aside a loadout specifically for weapon leveling. Label it “Leveling” and just use that to swap in whatever guns you want to progress, leaving your main loadouts untouched and free to select when you wish to change up your playing style in a match.
If you swap out a gun in a loadout you plan to use regularly, all modifications will reset, which isn’t ideal. A dedicated “Leveling” loadout will let you prioritize your remaining nine loadout selections with the guns, modifications, and tunings you prefer. You may also wish to prioritize certain Perks that can make leveling a bit easier. Overkill, for example, will let you have two Primary weapons on the field, so you can make progress with two at once (though again, you need to be actively using a given gun to earn Weapon XP on it.) I also like to have Fast Hands equipped for a leveling loadout, as it allows for quicker swaps between guns, helpful when you’re trying to give both a workout. Scavenger is another good Perk to have for leveling guns, since you’ll be able to source more ammo during a game.
Modern Warfare II did not disappoint when it comes to delivering a ton of fun weaponry to shoot and blow shit up. Spend a bit of time kitting out your guns, and you’ll likely play better and look cooler while out there on the field. And once you have a feel for the weapons and modifications you prefer, don’t forget to give weapon tuning a shot to further tweak how the game feels for you.
