Microsoft has officially rolled out Game Pass Standard, the Netflix-like subscription service’s new middle tier, and with it revealed which games will and won’t be included at the start. Among those missing are Call of Duty:Modern Warfare 3, Diablo IV, and some other notable blockbusters like Starfield.
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Announced earlier this summer, Game Pass Standard is $15 a month and includes access to online multiplayer as well as a library of hundreds of games that can be downloaded and played on-demand. The big difference between Game Pass Standard and Game Pass Ultimate, the now $20 a month version, is that the former won’t include certain day-one additions to the library until up to 12 months later or even longer in some cases. The most notable example is Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, which will only be part of Game Pass Ultimate and Game Pass PC when it launches on October 25.
But a list of the existing libraries for each tier also reveals other discrepancies for games that already came to the service. Modern Warfare 3, added last month, is notably absent. As is Diablo IV, added in the spring with a new expansion, Vessel of Hatred, coming October 8. Valorant, Riot Games’ hero shooter that recently came to console, is free-to-play but locks certain characters behind a paywall. The Game Pass version that unlocks them all for free is part of Ultimate but not Standard.
There are some smaller day-and-date games missing as well. Flintlock, the colonial-era Soulslike, came to Game Pass in July but isn’t included in Standard’s library. Neither is Another Crab’s Treasure, the cartoony Soulslike that joined in April. Still Wakes The Deep, the horror walking sim that arrived in June, is also absent. It seems like a lot of recent day-one Game Pass releases, including Microsoft’s own Age of Mythology Retold, won’t be hitting Standard anytime soon, despite arriving on the service before the split was official. Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II isn’t there either, nor Starfield which came out over a year ago.
When will we see these games and others make it to the middle tier? That’s the most confusing part of all. For now there doesn’t seem to be one standard approach, with all releases being staggered by the same number of months. Even for Microsoft’s own first-party releases, it seems like their arrival on Standard will happens when it happens. Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, for example, might not hit Game Pass Standard until it first arrives on PS5 in the spring.
Microsoft did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Officially, Valve—the company behind Steam, Half-Life, and more—has yet to announce its next big game. However, thousands of people are currently playing and posting about Deadlock, Valve’s next big game, literally right now. So uh, what’s going on?
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Thanks to leakers and dataminers, we’ve known about a Valve-developed multiplayer game for a few years now. Before it was Deadlock, it was likely codenamed Neon Prime. At one point since it reportedly started development in 2018, the MOBA/character shooter hybrid was possibly going to be set in the Half-Life/Portal universe, but that has seemingly changed based on gameplay leaks that occurred in May. Now, it seems a rumored playtest for Deadlock is currently underway, with the game developing a community of players on Reddit.
As spotted by IGN, over on SteamDB—a third-party website that tracks various stats about Steam games and players—Deadlock’s player count has been steadily increasing over the last few months. In the last few days, the game cracked 18,000 concurrent players. That means it’s one of the top 65 most played games on Steam, and Valve has yet to even tweet about it or release a trailer.
IGN reports that Deadlock’s current early access period is using an invite system, letting players on Steam grant access to other players. It’s understood that Valve is allowing players with early access to talk about the game online with other players, but videos and screenshots still seem to be under a strict NDA. Many are posting about the game and how much they like it on the Deadlockthegame subreddit.
That means we are in a really weird and somewhat unprecedented situation. A new Valve video game is gaining thousands of players on Steam, it’s got an active subreddit, and we’ve even seen videos of the game in action. Deadlock is real. It’s a thing. It’s Valve’s next game. Yet, officially, Valve has yet to announce it or even tease it.
Many players assume that a full-on reveal for Deadlock and an open-access beta are coming sooner rather than later, with many suggesting September. But for now, we have to wait and see when Valve will decide to announce a game that thousands of people are playing and which already has guides and tier rankings. Strange times. Meanwhile, Valve might be working on Half-Life 3based on some recent leaks. Strange times indeed, folks.
Microsoft shutdown the Xbox 360’s marketplace this week and nearly two decades after the console first launched it feels like the final nail in the coffin for a particular era of gaming we’ll probably never see again.
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The Xbox 360 came out a year earlier than the competition and $100 cheaper than the base PlayStation 3. It seemed to make all the right moves, using Halo, Gears of War, and Call of Duty to jump start online multiplayer into the soon-to-be dominant form of gaming, while investing it all back into indie curation, big exclusives, and marketing deal that made the console feel like the place everyone had to be.
In some ways it felt like the best of all worlds, and by the end of the generation you could pick up an Xbox 360 for just $100 and play dozens of the best games ever made. The culture was far from healthy, and some of the places making everything were a mess to work for. But it was also a fun time, and a weird one. Here’s what we’ll miss about it and why the Xbox 360 still feels so special to us.
Carolyn Petit: The first E3 I ever attended was in 2005, with the Xbox 360’s launch still some months out and I have to say, the games I saw on the show floor looked amazing. It’s hilarious to me now considering I haven’t even thought about this game in probably 15 years, but at that time, the game that blew me away the most was probably GRAW. Interestingly, though, despite my initial excitement about the console being rooted in its graphical power and my lust for next-gen spectacle, now, when I think back on what made the console so special to me, it’s not really about that aspect of it at all. What about you Alyssa?
Alyssa Mercante: I’ve told mine on Kotaku.com more than once, but I had borrowed my high school sweetheart’s original Xbox to play Halo 2 when he went away to college, but not long after that Halo 3 came out, which wasn’t backwards compat. So I went out during my free period in high school (we had an open campus for seniors, you could take your car and leave if you didn’t have class), and drove to a Target where I spent my summer job savings on a 360, Halo 3, and Xbox Live.
Ethan: I have zero recollection of the Xbox 360’s launch. What was I even doing at the time? 2005. Hmm. I was going into my senior year in high school, barely playing anything except for the occasional late-stage PS2 game—Shadow of the Colossus and Dragon Ball Z: Budokai, followed eventually by Okami and Final Fantasy XII. My only real memory of the beginning of that console cycle is my brother getting a PS3 and me having almost no interest in it. It wasn’t until my girlfriend’s roommate’s boyfriend in college got me hooked on Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 that I finally picked up a super cheap used Xbox 360 arcade edition for like $150. That four years after the console launched but still somehow only the mid-way point.
Carolyn: Yeah, I don’t remember exactly when I finally got one myself—I certainly couldn’t afford one at launch, and my memories of the time around release have a lot to do with playing Peter Jackson’s King Kong: The Official Game of the Movie (lol) at GameStop kiosks.
Moises Taveras: The first time I ever played an Xbox 360 also had to do with Call of Duty: MW2. It was all the rage with the kids in my middle school, but I was largely looking from the outside in as a) a PlayStation kid since my youth and b) someone who came from a family too poor to afford more than one console. But eventually, I made friends who had 360s and I remember us all cramming onto a couch in the smallest bedroom imaginable at our friend Howard’s house and playing local multiplayer matches till we lost our voices from shouting. I learned really quickly then that the 360 was synonymous with multiplayer and socializing with folks and it made me want one so bad. Little did I know I wouldn’t get a 360 till the very end of the console generation!
Carolyn: I think part of the Xbox 360’s dominance in that era can be attributed to the fact that it offered the best online experience for folks wanting to play Call of Duty, but it also did something incredible that totally won over people like me. I’m not saying I didn’t have an amazing time playing Gears of War co-op, I absolutely did, and huge credit to Microsoft for putting out a steady stream of banger exclusives that really made Xbox Live feel essential. But for me, when I think about the Xbox 360, what still gets me excited most is Xbox Live Arcade, and particularly amazing games like Pac-Man Championship Edition. Games like this took the arcade leaderboard competition of my childhood and absolutely exploded it. Suddenly I was staying up nights pouring everything I had into beating my friends’ high scores on online leaderboards for all the world to see. Man, it was incredible.
Moises: Supergiant Games’ Bastion absolutely blew my mind as far as what I thought games could be. It being a console exclusive to the 360 through XBLA broke my heart and kept me from the portfolio of what’d become my favorite studio, and then Xbox just kept pumping out indie titles like it. Honestly, my working definition of an indie game was largely informed by this era of XBLA games.
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Kenneth Shepard: The Xbox 360 was the first console launch I was really tuned into the industry for. I was full-blown sicko mode for that thing as a kid, and was counting down the days. I was a huge Rare fan at the time and Kameo and Perfect Dark Zero were a huge deal to me. But broadly, I think I fell off video games for a bit because the system just didn’t speak to my tendencies. As Moises said, the 360 became the multiplayer system and I preferred gaming in solitude, and eventually pivoted to the PS3 in the final years of that generation. But I played the Mass Effect trilogy on the 360, so I ended up keeping an old 360 in my home longer than any other system. I had to replace the household 360 more times than probably any other system my family owned.
We got a launch window system that died by the time Halo 3 came out, so we had to replace it swiftly. Then I got my own 360 for Christmas 2009, just before the launch of Mass Effect 2. That sucker lasted over a decade. It gathered dust for large swaths of the time, but since I didn’t own an Xbox One, it was the only way for me to go back to my old Mass Effect trilogy saves until the Legendary Edition came out in 2021. So while I had mostly abandoned the system by the end of the generation, the 360 is still a defining system in my life because it gave me one of the most important video game experiences of my life. I’ll always be grateful for it, even if I think the Microsoft was a trailblazer for some of the industry’s worst modern tendencies with it.
Ethan: That was the other thing that I think tipped me in the direction of the Xbox 360 besides the price and walled multiplayer gardens. As someone coming from the PS1 and PS2, it just had more of the RPGs I was craving earlier or in better condition. I came to the original Mass Effect late but it blew my mind. I got to catch up on Star Wars: The Old Republic. It was synonymous with retro and couch-coop indie games for me like Castle Crashers and Super Meat Boy. It really did just nail a lot of the same things that the PS4 did a generation later and which ultimately helped Sony to reverse the tide.
Moises: it’s so weird to think about now given Xbox’s current situation and catalog, but the 360 was where all the games were!
Carolyn: Another thing that was a big factor for me, I have to admit, is that I was totally cheevo-pilled. The Xbox 360 brought about the advent of achievements and I got extremely excited about pulling off absurd things like beating Call of Duty campaigns on Veteran to get all the achievements. I no longer put much stock in achievements or trophies, but to this day I greatly prefer the at-a-glance number that reflects your achievements compared to all the trophies of PlayStation’s system. And on top of that, the whole interface on Xbox just felt so much more inviting to me than that on Sony. I think avatars were really smart of them to introduce in that era. I loved signing on and seeing little cartoon versions of all my good friends online, playing games of their own. In comparison to that, the whole interface of the PS3 just felt cold and impersonal to me, and that console would end up gathering dust in my entertainment center.
Ethan: The Xbox 360 home screen definitely felt a lot more inviting and hit that sweet spot of clutter to chill. The controller was also very solid. Have any of you gone back and tried to hold a PS3 DualShock? It feels like you’re being pranked. I take it none of you ever had an issue with red-ringing or other hardware failures?
Photo: Mark Davis (Getty Images)
Moises: Nope! Correct me if I’m wrong but those issues got ironed out with later iterations of the console, so by the time one of my best friends let me indefinitely borrow his 360, it was smooth sailing for me.
Carolyn: I did have to send mine back for repairs once, and for a while there at least, it felt like everyone I knew who owned one was hitting the red ring. There was a period there, at least in my circle of friends, where there was real disbelief and anger that Microsoft had sold us all a product that was so prone to failure. I think it speaks to just how fond people were overall of the console—its library, its interface, its online features—that today, when you bring it up, you’re far more likely to get fond recollections than bitter complaints. It was so good that even the considerable irritations so many of us experienced with it are now just a footnote in our memories.
Ethan: My console ended up red-ringing in like, 2012? But then I read that you can just put it in the oven and bake it at a low temperature to loosen up the glue. Has worked like a charm ever since.
Carolyn: Wow, I never knew that!
Ethan: I think one of the reasons people look back so fondly on the Xbox 360 is that, in retrospect, it felt like the last time you could contain the entirety of what was going on, coming out, and being talked about in your head at any given time. It was still very intimate and physical, with midnight launches and stacks of controllers in the split-screen coop session. There was spectacle with E3 but also the feeling you alone were discovering these incredible hidden treasures on Xbox Live Arcade, which was like a return to finding the internet for the first time again.
Carolyn: I agree. And they just had so many games that became sensations for a time, from Braid to Geometry Wars. The curation was exceptional, and it was an era in which it still felt like the whole culture, or much of it at least, could still come together for a few weeks around some exciting new downloadable game.
Moises: Yeah. By comparison, when the PS4 really started to pivot to those smaller more intimate games early in its lifetime, it wasn’t that those games were lesser, but it did feel like they were being more haphazardly thrown on the platform to fill gaps between big exclusives. Meanwhile XBLA had these clearly thought out rollouts and events that made a big deal of Arcade titles. Also everything was less shitty. Xbox Live Gold was the original multiplayer subscription, and the only one for quite some time, but it at least seemed to provide value with great deals and a platform that produced rock solid multiplayer hits. It also wasn’t as expensive as anything is nowadays.
Carolyn: Before we wrap things up here, I think we can’t talk about what an amazing console the 360 was without saying a little more about its games. Are there any games y’all want to shout out as particular favorites that really helped make that library great or were emblematic of what the console was doing? When I think about the 360, I think about how the grittiness of Gears of War coexisted harmoniously alongside the whimsy of Viva Pinata, and I’ll never forget the dozens of hours my friends and I spent driving around doing challenges together in Burnout Paradise. It really did feel, more than a lot of other consoles, like it offered something for everyone, and like the people behind it thought deeply about how to bring people together to share in the experiences it offered.
And even though some of its games were also on PlayStation, at least everyone in my friend group, won over by the cheevos and online features of Xbox, always bought multiplatform games there, which perpetuated the console’s dominance in that generation. It’s a little wild to think how this generation it feels somewhat the opposite for me, like most people I know play most multiplatform games on PlayStation. Wild how the tables have turned. But yeah, any other 360 shoutouts?
Moises: I cannot separate the 360 from the stunning role it did in promoting so many smaller studios to the mainstream. I already invoked Bastion from Supergiant Games, but I can’t not shoutout Limbo and Playdead, which has now delivered two absolutely singular game experiences in a row. Oh and Shadow Complex does still own.
Ethan: Limbo was incredible. While the indie darling backlash was fair and warranted, it was really an incredible run of curation there for several years. The Dishwasher games were great, and really spoke to that sense of Newgrounds 2.0 animating the grungy vibe of XBLA. It’s also wild how much Microsoft tried to court Japanese RPG fans with Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey. For me personally, Dungeon Defenders is still an all-time great. One of the last times I was able to rope friends into playing something for hours with me on a couch.
I was trying to think of my top five favorite 360 games, exclusive or no, and couldn’t stop listing stuff. The end of that console generation was so strong, on both 360 and PS3, maybe there’s hope that the Series X/S and PS5 pick up in their final years. But with massive budgets, long development times, and so much risk-averse consolidation, I’m not hopeful.
Carolyn: Whether it picks up to some degree or not, I think it’s safe to say that there will never be an era quite like that exemplified by the 360 again. The console was just perfectly poised to take advantage of a given moment in gaming culture and technology, employing exciting new ideas like achievements to build a sense of both community and friendly competition around games in ways that its library and online service leveraged brilliantly. Also, Sneak King was great.
Ethan: Any parting thoughts since you vanished, Alyssa?
Alyssa: LMAO. The time my 360 red ringed right before I went up for senior year of college. The day before. And I went out and bought another because not having one wasn’t an option. That or the time my mother heard me cursing out misogynists in Italian?
Ethan: Was it on the $3 phone bank operator Xbox 360 headset?
Image: Kotaku / Ubisoft / Sony / Rocksteady / Nosyrevy (Getty Images), Digital Sun, Vicky Leta / Blizzard, Nintendo, Ryu Ga Gotoku Studios / Sega, Cyan Worlds Inc
This week, Ubisoft released a statement addressing what might generously be called a “controversy” about the upcoming Assassin’s Creed game, Shadows. Let’s be real, though. It’s just the latest salvo from a reactionary hate movement. You can read our thoughts on that, the terrific texture of Yakuza 0, the missteps of Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition, the amazing sound design of the Riven remake, and more, in the pages ahead.
For years now, Bloodbornefans have wanted the popular PS4-exclusive RPGported to PC, hopefully with performance improvements and graphical options. And while FromSoftware’s president Hidetaka Miyazaki didn’t confirm that such a port is happening, he did say he’s not opposed to it and suggested that many people at the studio want a PC port to happen.
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Released nearly a decade ago in 2017 exclusively for PlayStation 4, Bloodborne is one of FromSoftware’s (Dark Souls, Elden Ring) most popular and beloved games. Like many of its other games, Bloodborne is a tough-as-nails action RPG featuring intense boss battles and many secrets. However, unlike many of FromSoftware’s RPGs, Bloodborne has never been ported to other platforms. It remains stuck on PS4. That’s led to people asking over and over again for the Sony-owned Bloodborne to get a PC port. And it sounds like, while Miyazaki doesn’t have anything to announce, he seems into the idea of this fan-favorite RPG finally being playable on something other than a PS4.
In an interview with Miyazaki, PC Gamer asked the president if he would personally like to see Bloodborneported to PC one day.
“I know for a fact these guys want a Bloodborne PC port,” said Miyazaki in reference to FromSoftware staff sitting with him during the interview. However, he quickly added that if he says he wants a port he’ll “get in trouble” but that he’s not “opposed” to a PC version.
“Obviously, as one of the creators of Bloodborne, my personal, pure honest opinion is I’d love more players to be able to enjoy it,” said Miyazaki. “Especially as a game that is now coming of age, one of those games of the past that gets lost on older hardware—I think any game like that, it’d be nice to have an opportunity for more players to be able to experience that and relive this relic of the past. So as far as I’m concerned, that’s definitely not something I’d be opposed to.”
Of course, while it’s nice to hear that the president of FromSoftware wants a Bloodborne PC port, it doesn’t mean one is happening. Remember, FromSoftware doesn’t own the Bloodborne IP, Sony does. And until Sony decides to fund a port, remaster, or remake, all FromSoftware can do is vaguely go “Yeah, we want one, too!” and that’s it.
Hopefully, as we near the game’s 10th anniversary next year, Sony will realize that they have a literal goldmine on their hands and all the company has to do is post a teaser for Bloodborne on Steam and it will be flooded with pre-orders before it even shares a trailer. At the very least, we know everyone at FromSoftware is down for a port. Now we wait to see what Sony wants…
Gearbox’s Borderlandsgames are known for quite a few things, but the biggest among those is arguably its sense of humor. It was Borderlands 2 where the franchise’s sense of comedy really took shape, and the series has since been littered with humor largely in the vein of crass or internet humor. No surprise then that carries over to the live-action film, whose first clip is…well, it is what it is.
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Lionsgate came to IGN Fan Fest with a new clip for the film, which features series mascot Claptrap (as voiced by Jack Black) shitting out a lot of bullets. Thankfully it doesn’t go on too long, but it’s still a bit of weirdness that probably lands more if you groove with the games’ general sense of humor.(Which can be legit funny sometimes, even outside the more-regarded Tales from the Borderlands spinoff!) If not…well, that visual’s in your head now, so sorry about that.
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On the bright side, the rest of the clip has decent-looking action featuring the Vault Hunters—Roland (Kevin Hart), Tannis (Jamie Lee Curtis), Tina (Ariana Greenblatt), Krieg (Florian Munteau), and Lilith (Cate Blanchett) going up against a group of raiders. This part is the most Borderlands-ass part of the entire clip, minus how no one’s using of their class skills to make this fight significantly shorter. If you need something in this movie to latch onto, it looks like Blanchett will be your lifeline. She looks to be doing an alright impression of a sci-fi gunslinger, something the movie seems to recognize since she gets to be the most involved in this fight.
The bigger issue here might be that the clip is too sterile for its own good. Borderlands games aren’t bloody to the degree of a Mortal Kombat or Gears of War, but their approach to violence is delightfully cartoonish because the guns are goofy as all hell. There needs to be more flavor here; one of these guys needs a gun that melts these raiders or electrocutes or lights them on fire. (Maybe a combination of all three, since the later games have guns with two element types?)
Borderlands comes to theaters on August 9, and hopefully between now and then, the movie looks more like the games in the way that matters: endearingly stupid violence and humor that feels like there was intent behind it.
After years of marketing, delays, betas, and name changes, XDefiantfrom Ubisoft is finally here and…things aren’t going very well. Players are currently unable to find matches as the game’s servers can’t seem to cope with the large influx of people.
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XDefiant—out now on PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC—is Ubisoft’s big-budget free-to-play Call of Duty-like first-person online shooter. The FPS has had a long road to release. It was first announced back in July 2021 as Tom Clancy’sXDefiant, but in March 2022 the game dropped the “Tom Clancy” bit and expanded to include characters and locations from various Ubisoft-owned franchises, like Far Cry and Watch Dogs. In 2023, it got its first big open-beta playtest and I enjoyed its fast-paced, Black Ops II-like gameplay. Later that year, it wasdelayed twice. But now, after all that, XDefiant is out. Good luck playing it, though.
Poking around online, XDefiant isn’t completely broken. I’ve found streams online of people playing it. However, in my testing on Xbox, I was unable to join a match and was stuck in a lobby waiting for something to happen. And even players who do get into matches have reported long waits to get into another.
At 1:30 pm EST, the official XDefiant Twitter account posted that it was aware that “some players are unable to join a game” and asked folks to wait as the devs looked into the situation.
At 2:55 pm EST, the account offered an update, saying that things were improving but that it was continuing to work on making sure everyone could get in and play the FPS.
Then at 3:50 pm EST, in response to players complaining about the lack of updates and continued matchmaking issues, Ubisoft posted on Twitter:
Update: We are all focused on the matchmaking issue and are continuously investigating. We will continue to provide updates as possible.
As of about an hour later, that’s the last update from the main XDefiant account on Twitter. Players are frustrated, as you might expect. But, really, in the year of our lord 2024, I’m not sure how anyone could be surprised that a large-scale online multiplatformvideo game is having issues at launch. Still, hopefully, Ubisoft is able to get the game up and running without resorting to making developers and engineers stay late into the night.
This week, one of the biggest stories in gaming involved updates to an eight-year-old game. Yes, Stardew Valley developer ConcernedApe trickled out a series of details about the game’s latest patch that had fans hanging on every word in anticipation. We’ve got all the facts for you about this game-changing update, as well as a report on Overwatch 2‘s once-vaunted story missions, a story on the motivations behind an Apex Legends hack, and more.
First introduced in 2022’s Modern Warfare II, Call of Duty currently features a nonlinear battle pass themed like a geographic map. While this allows players to choose what they want to unlock from the pass instead of going through a scripted path, it can be a little confusing to newcomers used to more traditional, linear sets of unlockables. What’s more, the “token” system that CoD uses to unlock stuff from the battle pass can be a little confusing as well, especially if you’re not sure whether you should just let the pass automatically unlock itself by spending tokens for you.
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This guide will demystify Call of Duty’s battle pass and help you decide whether or not you should turn on auto-unlock.
Call of Duty’s battle pass explained
The battle pass is made up of several “Sectors,” each of which contains five rewards. Claim all five and you’ll finish that Sector, letting you move on to an adjoining Sector from there.
As you play Call of Duty, you’ll gain XP for finishing challenges and performing well. As you finish matches, you’ll slowly gain tokens for the battle pass from XP (you can also spend real money on Call of Duty Points to skip the grind).
Screenshot: Microsoft / Kotaku
You can then spend tokens on each “Sector” of the battle pass, with each Sector requiring five tokens to complete and granting one reward per token spent (some, like the HRM-9 Sector added during Season 1 Reloaded, might unlock via challenges instead of tokens).
Once you’ve cleared a Sector by spending five tokens on all of its rewards, you can unlock a neighboring sector of your choice and start spending more tokens there.
You’ll notice that the battle pass allows you to either spend tokens manually or leave it on automatic, with the game unlocking Sector rewards in the background as you play. You can toggle this option on the lower right side of the battle pass menu.
Should you unlock Sector rewards manually or automatically?
While auto is a simple way to let your rewards from the battle pass unlock on their own, it’s really only a benefit if you play Call of Duty regularly—like every day regularly. But if you’re strapped for time, it makes more sense to manually unlock the Sectors, prioritizing the ones with XP bonuses and Call of Duty Points as rewards.
Screenshot: Microsoft / Kotaku
Each battle pass contains Call of Duty Points (CP) which can be used to purchase premium battle passes for future seasons. If you secure all of these points, you can sort of get away with only paying for one battle pass, using the points you’ll earn from one to purchase the next.
By manually charting your path through the battle pass sectors, you can prioritize unlocking Call of Duty Points (as well as XP boosts to gain Tokens faster) to spend on future seasons.
Call of Duty’s seasons can fly by if you’re not on top of the game every day. Making the most of your time by spending your battle pass tokens on CoD Points is the best way to prioritize your time.
According to new data, it appears that Valve likely made about $1 billion from digitalCounter-Strike 2 (previously Global Offensive) cases and keys in 2023. Yes, that’s billion with a “B.”
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In Valve’s immensely popular free-to-play tactical FPS Counter-Strike 2, players can get cases by playing and earning them through level drops, or purchase cases from Steam’s community market. These cases come in different variants and can contain extremely rare and valuable cosmetic items like weapon skins. But once you have a case, you don’t just open it. You also need a key, which must be purchased either directly from Steam or from other players on the community market. And because CS2 is very popular, this lootbox system is making Valve a lot of money.
As spotted by Dexerto, third-party website CS2 Case Tracker recently released its 2023 year in review for cases. And the biggest stat is the estimated $980,000,000 that Valve earned from players buying keys to open cases. Because keys are just digital items that unlock cases, it’s not like it costs Valve all that much to make them or maintain them so the company likely absorbed almost all of that staggering figure as profit.
But wait, that massive $980 million stat is only how much money Valve likely made from the sale of keys. It doesn’t factor in the 15% cut they get from every case sold on the community market. When you factor that in, it becomes very likely that Valve made well over $1 billion on cases and keys in 2023 alone.
That probably is one of the reasons Valve isn’t in a rush to make new video games. They don’t really need to. Instead, they can sit back and let Steam and Counter-Strike fund all their virtual reality experiments and other hardware projects. Honestly, it’s a miracle we ever got Half-Life: Alyx.
One last stat for the road: According to CS2 Case Tracker’s data the most popular day to open cases was Wednesday. Why? I don’t know. But there you go. You can now likely win a bar bet with this weird bit of trivia.
Play it on:Windows Current goal: Dive into the second chapter
Having written up a bunch of fantastic boomer shooters for the site, I was reminded that the team behind the as-yet-unfinished Project Warlock II had added an awful lot of content to its Early Access build since I’d last played. In fact, previously it had only been a single, fantastic level. It’s now two full chapters, each made up of a pile of enormous, sprawling, open levels to tear around.
I’m so glad I’ve gone back to it. This is a screamingly fast FPS game, where you move like an ice cube skidding across a kitchen floor, facing down dozens of enemies at a time. What makes it feel different from the many other retro-FPS games is the sheer scale of the levels, which are far more open than the genre normally offers. Think of those times you got to go outside in the original Unreal, but far more densely packed with enemies, secrets, and loot.
Those secrets are a blast to find, and worth pursuing too, since they offer tokens for upgrades in the betwixt level zone. There are three different areas you can upgrade, with each weapon possible to adjust in two different ways (one shutting down access to the other), and then this upgrade boosted. Then there are affinities to improve, such as whether you want to improve your melee talent, firepower, or indeed your power with fire—you gain spells that let you do things like blast torrents of fire from your palms. And finally you can then specialize even further with—er—VHS tapes you can buy when you’ve increased your ability in a specific attack style, that enhance them in specific ways.
This is all then taken back to the next level, where enemies that were previously boss-like can now appear in gangs and be quickly taken care of. In this, it reminds me of the excellent enemy handling in the original Serious Sam. My plan this weekend is to get stuck into the second chapter, that has a whole other player character, with their own set of skills, perks, spells and weapons. — John Walker
Try out Project Warlock 2’s free demo on Steam
Neo-retro vibes of the “boomer shooter” variety got your interest? Good news: You can download a free demo of Project Warlock 2 to get shootin’ like it’s the mid ‘90s all over again
This upcoming weekend, January 12-14, embattled hero shooter Overwatch 2will replace its popular Quick Play mode with Quick Play: Hacked, a lightning-fast version of the main game inspired by hacker character Sombra. Arcade and Competitive mode will not be affected by this change.
This Modern Warfare 3 Gameplay Feature Spices Up A Weak Campaign
According to Blizzard’s blog post announcing the new mode, this is the first in a planned series of Quick Play: Hacked events going forward. “We want to explore new and fun ways to change core Quick Play gameplay. Changes will happen periodically and only for a limited time,” the blog post reads.
Respawning times are now 75 percent of their original time
Payloads in Escort and Hybrid maps will move 60 percent faster
Taking control of the Objective Point in Hybrid is 40 percent faster than normal
Taking control of the objective point in Control is 40 percent faster than normal, and scoring the capture progress percentage is 80 percent faster
Taking control of the objective point in Flashpoint is 20 percent faster than normal, and scoring the capture progress percentage is 40 percent faster
When you play an Escort, Hybrid, or Push map, the initial match time has been reduced to 70 percent of the original time, and any time extensions are also reduced to 70 percent of the total time added
These changes only apply to all players who play in Role Queue and Open Queue Quick Play modes during the duration of the event and will return to normal after January 14. Competitive Play and Arcade modes are not affected by these changes
Blizzard’s choice to replace Quick Play entirely has been met with some intense feedback from fans, as it’s a go-to mode for so many Overwatch 2 players. Quick Play is where they go to try out new strategies, practice new heroes, and hone their skills without the pressures of Competitive mode. Personally, I never play it, because I’m a masochist and like to try (and fail) to juice my rank every time I boot up the game. But removing Quick Play entirely means robbing a core chunk of your playerbase of the only way they play a game. Blizzard seems to have anticipated some blowback, as the blog post asks and answers a question about not including Quick Play: Hacked in the Arcade mode.
The Arcade is meant for game modes that typically only play one specific map type (like Assault) or completely different ways to play Overwatch. The Quick Play: Hacked changes affect the core gameplay of our main mode, while still aiming to bring a more balanced play experience that is unique from the traditional ruleset.
The newest Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III and Warzone bundle includes an SMG that features a silly animation that references the annoying “Update Requires Restart” message players commonly encounter when trying to boot up either game. Just be prepared to spend $20 to get this new gun.
This Modern Warfare 3 Gameplay Feature Spices Up A Weak Campaign
Call of Duty games released in the last few years have frustrated fans with a prompt asking them to restart the game due to an update. This message often appears before jumping into the main menu. While on console this restart might only take a few seconds, PC players might have to wait a minute or more before they can start playing. It’s been a problem since at least 2020 and is still a thing in MWIIIand battle royale spin-off Warzone. The message has become so ubiquitous over the years that it has become a meme within the CoD community. And Activision is ready to laugh at itself while taking some money from you, too.
On January 5, the “Insert Coin Mastercraft” cosmetic bundle appeared in MW III and Warzone’s in-game stores. While the bundle includes a bevy of cosmetics—including a new ‘80s-themed outfit, loading screen, and player emblem—The Arcade Rhythm submachine gun is the coolest part of the pricey pack.
That’s because if you inspect the weapon, you’ll be treated to your soldier bringing the SMG up to their face, trying to log into Call of Duty by mashing a button, and then being greeted with the annoying update prompt. This leads to the soldier bashing the gun in frustration, which likely mimics how many CoD players have reacted to the prompt.
I’m not a Call of Duty player anymore these days, but I’ll admit that it’s nice to see this franchise, which is usually so damn serious, make fun of itself. Plus, the Arcade Rhythm SMG comes with a neat pixel-death effect that basically de-rezzes everyone you kill, Tron style. And it even features pixelated muzzle smoke, which is a nice touch.
Once again Call of Duty keeps tempting me with cool retro video game skins and weapons, like that Doom shotgun from last year. And once again I have to hold strong. I’m already spending too much money on Fortnite. I can’t afford another battle royale in my life.
Some of you may be surprised that a gay Call of Duty ship is in the top ten of fanfiction site Archive Of Our Own’s annual, unofficial roundup, but I’m not. Not long after the 2022 release of Modern Warfare II, a bevy of TikToks bimbofied Call of Duty character Simon “Ghost” Riley, who is only ever shown in-game wearing a full face mask with a skull emblazoned on it. The baby girl-ification of the decidedly masculine character led to a massive increase in Archive Of Our Own (AO3) stories shipping Ghost with fellow hard-boiled military man, John “Soap” MacTavish.
This Modern Warfare 3 Gameplay Feature Spices Up A Weak Campaign
According to the roundup, which ranks the pairing tags with the “greatest gain in total fanworks” posted to AO3, the two potential lovebirds are the sixth-most popular ship on the site, and the second-most popular from the world of gaming, falling behind only Genshin Impact’s Kaveh and Alhaitham. The next gaming ship on the list? Baldur’s Gate 3’s vampire hottie Astarion and the player-character Tav. Check out the entire list below.
As you can see, Good Omens’ angel and devil duo Aziraphale and Crowley top the list, likely thanks to the performances from Michael Sheen and David Tennant in the Amazon Prime series based off of the Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett book of the same name (they were 30th last year). In second place, we’ve got a tried-and-true ship: Harry Potter’s Sirius Black and Remus Lupin, followed by Dazai Osamu and Nakahara Chuuya from the BungouStray Dogs manga. In fourth place, the holdovers of 2022 stand strong: Stranger Things’ Eddie Munson and Steve Harrington, though they’re down from their first-place ranking in 2022. The newest addition to the AO3 rankings is Genshin’s fifth-place spot, which is rather impressive, and then there’s our Call of Duty Task Force 141 boys, who jumped up a whopping 75 spots this year—and I think I know why.
Call of Duty’s Ghost and Soap, in love
Late last year, Ghost became such an iconic character for shippers and ThirstTok fans that even wildly popular influencer Brittany Broski (you may know her as Kombucha Girl, though she has long since grown beyond that moniker for me and millions of others) was openly pining for him on the social media platform. In September of this year, Broski bought herself a Cameo (a personalized celebrity video you can purchase for yourself or a really funny birthday present) from former Ghost voice actor Jeff Leach, who offers videos of himself wearing full Ghost cosplay for $99. The subsequent clip of her watching her personalized Cameo almost sent me into orbit.
Though it may initially seem like there’s several degrees of separation between the inherently masculine and bombastically bro-y Call of Duty series and very graphic, gay fanfic, AO3’s 2023 roundup is here to dispel your disbelief. I did a cursory glance to see what kind of content was on offer and found comics depicting Ghost as an actual ghost who provides emotional support for a very-much-alive Soap, a story where you’re a new recruit to Task Force 141 and the masked man piques your sexual interest, and one where Soap’s aunt brings home a new SAS boyfriend for Christmas who turns his attentions to her nephew instead. The Ghost content is either deliciously raunch or adorably sweet, but almost all of it is very, very gay.
The layered, complicated connections between the military and LGBTQIA+ people has a long and messy history, but clearly something about Ghost and Soap is clicking with fanfic writers across the world. Are there any other additions to this year’s list that surprise you?
Correction 01/02/2024 at 4:00 p.m. EST: It’s Michael Sheen in Good Omens, not Martin.
Overwatch 2’s New Story Missions: Worth The Money?
It’s the end of the year, which means companies and websites around the internet are releasing tons of data on what people played, read, listened to, and more. These yearly wrap-ups have become one of my favorite parts of December as I love looking through all the data they reveal. And perhaps there’s no data more interesting than what human beings around the world are getting off on. According to at least one popular porn site, a lot of you were into Chun-Li—but not the version from Street Fighter.
Earlier this month, Pornhub released its annual (and very detailed) round-up of what kind of content was the most popular and most sought after on its massively successful site. In all this data, as has been the case for the last few years, is a large section dedicated to video games. Like last year, Fortnite was at the top of the list with Overwatch in second. This time around though, Genshin Impact slipped out of the top three and was replaced by Minecraft.
Image: Pornhub
Further data provided by Pornhub revealed which specific video game characters people were searching for the most in 2023. Chun-Li topped the list, overtaking names like Tifa from Final Fantasy and Lara Croft from Tomb Raider. But weirdly, according to Pornhub’s data, most people were looking for Chun-Li from Fortnite, not Street Fighter, the series she first appeared in. Though Ryu and Chun-Li were added to Epic’s popular battle royale in 2021, it’s still kind of weird.
To get this data, Pornhub says it collected searches that included a character name and a video game title. This was done “to avoid counting searches for pornstars who may have similar names.”
Anyway, here’s the top ten list of most searched characters on Pornhub.
Chun-Li (Fortnite)
Tifa (Final Fantasy)
Dva (Overwatch)
Lara Croft (Tomb Raider)
Lady Dimitrescu (Resident Evil)
Sonic (Sonic the Hedgehog)
Ada Wong (Resident Evil)
Mario (Super Mario Bros.)
Widomaker (Overwatch)
Mercy (Overwatch)
Try not to think too much about Sonic ranking so high or slip into a daydream where you’re in a room of Nintendo execs when they see that Mario cracked the top of the list.
Amouranth bought an orchard for a cool $17 mill, Bethesda’s attempting to win the hearts and minds of disaffected Starfield players on Steam, and Dan Houser is back! In podcast form!
Diablo IV – Bear Bender Build
Here’s your cheat sheet for the week’s most important stories in gaming.
In a newly released preview of Amazon Prime’s upcoming Fallout TV show, we learned a lot of new details about the world, characters, and story of the highly anticipated live-action adaptation of Bethesda’s popular post-apocalyptic RPG franchise. For example, the show is considered canon with the games. And Walter Goggins still looks good, even as an undead ghoul. Read More
An intense debate ignited November 13, when The Game Awards host Geoff Keighley announced the nominees for this year’s trophy ceremony. While some folks were surprised Pikachu face byStarfield’s absence, most people were shook by one particular title offered up for the “Best Independent Game” category. Now, after a couple weeks of silence, Keighley has tossed his two cents into the discourse. Read More
Reader, if you don’t mind a quick look into my personal neurosis, let me tell you that when I’m really looking forward to something, I get a great deal of anxiety about possibly dying before I get to experience it. I’ve felt this about video games, movies, albums, concerts, and pretty much anything else worth being excited about. Right now, the third live-action Sonic the Hedgehog movie is near the top of my list of Things I Must Survive Long Enough To Experience. This isn’t because I think the movie will be great, or even good, it’s because Shadow the Hedgehog, the best character in the franchise, is set to appear as a main character. All those feelings of excitement and existential dread have been roused today, as Paramount has released a picture of the angsty, broody, gun-toting king on set…well, his feet, at least. Read More
The meta-narrative around Starfield just took a very weird turn. Steam reviews for the sprawling sci-fi RPG recently fell to “mixed” on Valve’s storefront, and now Bethesda employees are arguing with players in the comments about why the game isn’t as boring and soulless as some of them claim. Read More
The hardest thing about Destiny 2 is getting any of your friends to play it. Fans of Bungie’s ambitious and imaginative sci-fi shooter have long hoped for a simple on-ramp that would make it easier to get lapsed players and newcomers back into its universe. Destiny 2’s new “Starter Pack” might sound like exactly that. Instead, it’s a pricey bundle of random items that fans can’t stop dunking on. Read More
When Overwatch 2 shifted the hero shooter’s economy away from loot boxes and into a seasonal battle pass, the customizable Mythic Skins unlocked at the end of that pass were framed as the light at the end of the grindy tunnel. Unlike any other Overwatch skin, these would be somewhat customizable, offering a few style and color options for players to make them their own. In the game’s first year, seven of its iconic heroes have gotten one of these Mythic skins, which mostly been well-received. But after Blizzard revealed season eight’s skin for tank character Orisa, players are noticing a downward trend in Mythic Skin quality. Read More
Photo: Absurd Ventures / Kotaku / Patrick McMullan (Getty Images)
Dan Houser, who co-founded Rockstar Games and was the lead writer on multiple Grand Theft Autoand Red Dead Redemption games, has finally revealed what his new studio is working on. If you were expecting a video game…well, you’ll have to keep waiting. Read More
Dragon’s Dogma 2 looks awesome, right? The much anticipated action role-playing game about dragons and pawns came out swinging with a hefty new gameplay showcase on November 28, showing off the impressive character creator and some spectacular combat and officially revealing a March 24, 2024 release date. One thing that isn’t so awesome, however, is the game’s relatively high price tag of $70, which marks the first game from Capcom at this price. Read More
The November 10 launch of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III reignited the seemingly endless debate about multiplayer matchmaking, with players demanding Activision and Infinity Ward provide details, or even abolish it entirely. This conversation has perpetuated across multiple Call of Duty releases, but the team behind the popular first-person shooter has yet to properly acknowledge it—until now. On November 30, an official statement was shared by popular CoD website CharlieIntel on X (formerly Twitter). Read More
A new update for Valve’s first game, 1998’s beloved first-person shooter Half-Life, has fixed an old, small, and annoying animation glitch found in one of the game’s most memorable levels. And fans, myself included, are very excited about it.
Stray Almost Feels Like A Modern Valve Game
The original Half-Life has plenty of memorable moments throughout its campaign. But one of the most famous has to be chapter six, “Blast Pit.” In this level, players are introduced to a big alien tentacle in a still-impressive set piece in which it crashes through a window in a missile silo and drags away a helpless researcher. However, for a very long time now, an animation glitch has made this moment look wonky and broken.
VideoGameCinema / Valve
Last week, Valve released a large 25th-anniversary patch for Half-Life that added in old cut content and new maps, fixed numerous glitches, and even made the game verified on Steam Deck. It was a great patch! However, even after that big update, the Blast Pit animation bug remained. Even after two smaller patches were put out by Valve to fix some minor issues created by the 25th-anniversary update, the Blast Pit bug was still in the game. It taunted players, myself included, who went back to replay the game for the 100th time. A developer who worked on Half-Life even recently commented on the broken animation and joked that it needed to be fixed. And now it finally has after many, many years.
On November 22, Valve released another small patch for Half-Life designed mostly to fix a few more problems the big update introduced. And in the patch notes, I spotted a note that caught my attention:
Fixed timing for the sequence where a tentacle grabs a scientist in Blast Pit.
Could it be? Had Valve finally fixed this tiny error that had lingered for decades at this point? I quickly hopped into Half-Life, loaded up Blast Pit, and watched that helpless scientist get grabbed and pulled away. But this time, he was actually connected to the tentacle and not floating multiple feet in front of it. I might have whispered, “Wow.”
Over on the Half-Life subreddit, players are also celebrating the fixed animation. “Those crazy bastards did it,” one user replied. “That little bug annoyed me so much for some reason, so I unironically consider Half-Life a better game now that it’s finally fixed lol,” posted someone else.
While I’m happy Half-Life is getting so much love from Valve right now in the form of all these updates and fixes, I’m also curious as to why. Sure, it’s the game’s 25th anniversary, so it makes sense to update it.
But things like this make it feel as if a group of devs, or maybe even just one Half-Life superfan within Valve, are on a mission right now, just digging into the game and fixing long-standing bugs. And Valve seems to be okay with it. And you know what, I’m okay with it, too! I salute whoever is responsible for improving Half-Life all these years later.
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As pointed out by VGC, Modern Warfare III is sitting at a middling 50 out of 100 on review aggregate site Metacritic, putting it a whopping 23 points below the average review score of 2021’s Call of Duty: Vanguard, which previously held the worst-reviewed title with a 73. Metacritic is based on average critic scores, and MWIII has 33 reviews as of this writing—given that the game is just a few days old , more reviews are likely. But the user score is an abysmal 1.5 on a scale from 1 to 10—some of which may be from review-bombing, as player reviews are likely dropping a 0 or 1 score to voice their grievances, but overall, the sentiment around Modern Warfare III is an all-time low for the series.
Kotaku doesn’t score games in our reviews, but we do have Modern Warfare III campaign impressions, in which Claire Jackson called it “at best a net neutral experience that feels rushed, and a boring waste of charismatic characters at worst.” All of this comes after reports that Modern Warfare III’s development was rushed to get the game out in 2023 after alleged mixed messaging from management about the scope of the project.
If you’re at all confused about what’s going on with Call of Duty’s Modern Warfare subseries because you thought Modern Warfare 3 came out a decade ago, check out this handy explainer.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III is out November 10 and almost everything about it is unnecessarily confusing to figure out, from when it goes live to what it includes. Even the name is a labyrinth to untangle. Here’s when you can get started unraveling its violent mess of content and file installations for yourself.
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When do Modern Warfare 3 multiplayer and Zombies go live?
Image: Activision
Modern Wafare 3‘s multiplayer releases on Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, PlayStation 5, and PlayStation 4 beginning on November 9 at 6:00 a.m. ET for those who live in New Zealand. If you’re on Xbox, you can set your region to that in the settings menu and begin playing. According to the Activision blog, everyone else will have to wait until the game is officially live in their region:
On PC, the game will go live everywhere at the same time. That’s midnight on the East Coast or 9:00 p.m. PST on the West Coast, whether you’re playing on Steam or Battle.net.
What does Modern Warfare 3 include?
Believe it or not, Modern Warfare 3 includes the brief single-player campaign, multiplayer mode, Zombies, and seasonal content.Everything is now downloaded through the Call of Duty HQ launcher and Modern Warfare 2 items carry over to it and into Modern Warfare 3‘s multiplayer.
Multiplayer will include the following modes: Domination, Ground War, Hardpoint, Kill Confirmed, Team Deathmatch. It will also bring back 16 Modern Warfare 2 maps from the original 2009 game. Zombies, meanwhile, won’t be round-based. Instead, it will be a PvEopen-world mode with up to eight teams of three players each.
At launch, Modern Warfare 3 will have a pre-season pass that lets you earn unlocks up through military rank level 55. The game’s full first season 1 won’t go live until sometime in December. When it does, the game will get three additional maps and cross over with Warzone 2.
If you fired up your Xbox today, you might’ve seen something you didn’t expect: A darn full-screen advertisement for the latest Call of Duty game, Modern Warfare III. Though Microsoft has done this before with exclusives like Starfield, it’s already rubbing some gamers the wrong way.
Why The Hot New Redfall Gameplay Trailer Left Us Feeling Cold
Though 2023’s Modern Warfare III isn’t technically coming out in full form until November 10, those who want to get in on the campaign can do so right now by pre-ordering any edition of the game. So while that early access period might be enticing for those eager to follow the story of Task Force 141, it’s far from a universal desire, making the full-screen Call of Duty ad on Xbox’s start screen feel intrusive. The Modern Warfare III marketing blitz comes just weeks after Microsoft wrapped its acquisition of CoD’s publisher, Activision Blizzard.
Screenshot: Activision / Kotaku
“Fight against the ultimate threat. Play the Campaign now,” the ad starts. Players are then given three options: “Buy Now,” “Get the Vault Edition Upgrade,” and “Exit.” While it’s not uncommon to see ads on consoles, a full-screen one that greets you the second you fire up your box is unusually aggressive.
“Don’t hit me with ads that take my whole screen when I paid $500 [for] your machine,” reads one post on X (formerly Twitter).
“This really is my push factor in building a proper PC,” reads one Reddit comment in reference to the ad. Though, as many were quick to respond, Windows (also owned by Microsoft) is far, far, far from an ad-free experience. Even after configuring much of the OS’s tendency to harass you with ads for Game Pass or Microsoft 365, it’s not uncommon to see other ads or unwanted pop-ups appear. The year of the Linux desktop can’t come soon enough.
It’s frustrating when a machine you spend hundreds of dollars on doesn’t feel like it’s totally under your control. But who knows, maybe a decade from now, people will get nostalgic over the CoD ad from 2023 that greeted them upon starting up their Xbox.
