Call of Duty: Black Ops 6is a game about shadowy organizations causing geopolitical turmoil and well-timed headshots. It’s also an RPG about making the progress meters fill up. When it comes to the latter, Black Ops 6‘s first patch is already increasing XP rewards for certain modes to keep the level-ups flowing.
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An October 26 update for the game listed a handful of changes and bug fixes, including a series of map exploits, a problem with matches quickly replacing players that leave, and various glitches in Black Ops 6‘s well-received Zombies mode. The changes that are most noteworthy were to XP, though. Four modes will now get boosted rewards.
Increased XP and Weapon XP rates for modes that were awarding less XP than expected
Team Deathmatch
Control
Search & Destroy
Gunfight
“Our team is closely monitoring XP rates for all modes to ensure players are progressing as expected wherever they play,” the development team wrote. XP earned and other rewards often start out a little stingier at launch since it’s always easier to increase them later once the data from millions of people playing comes back, rather than the reverse.
There are already lots of different strategies for optimizing XP gain in multiplayer. Obviously, playing better—landing headshots, chasing objectives, and unloading killstreaks—all accrue rank-ups faster. Some players also recommend playing Hardpoint instead of Domination because players in that mode are more likely to actually play objectives. Others suggest grinding out all of those camo challenges. And, of course, no new Call of Duty launch is complete without sickos crushing cases of Monster Energy for double XP.
Black Ops 6 players had latched onto one easy trick for getting bonus XP by exploiting the decoy grenades for guaranteed kill assists. Treyarch nerfed that one in the above patch as well, though.
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.
Prison Architect 2, set to launch in September, has been indefinitely delayed, with the studio behind the game also announcing that it will refund customers who pre-ordered the prison building sim. It’s yet another road bump for publisher Paradox Interactive following the cancellation of a Sims-like game in June.
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Originally released in 2012 on PC, Prison Architect lets players build and maintain large prisons filled with criminals and guards. The original game received updates for years and was even ported to consoles and mobile devices. In 2019, Paradox Interactive purchased the franchise from original developers Introversion Software, and in 2024 announced a full, 3D sequel. However, the game was delayed earlier this year. And now, it’s been delayed again with no new release date.
On August 2, Paradox and developer Kokku announced that Prison Architect 2 was no longer arriving on September 3. In a post on the official Paradox forums, the devs explained they “need more time to improve both the game’s performance and its content.”
Paradox Interactive
The studio and publisher also added that they “can’t commit” to a new release date or window as they are re-assessing the “scope of work needed to be done before the game is release-ready.” It also warned that communication between the team and fans will be limited until they feel more “comfortable” showing the game and talking about a release timeline.
As a result of this indefinite delay, Paradox Interactive is refunding all pre-orders on all platforms and has pledged to include all previously promised pre-order digital items in the base game.
In a Q&A included with the announcement, the studio and Paradox stressed that Prison Architect 2 isn’t canceled.
It also doesn’t help that Paradox has had a string of failures and misfires over the last year or so. Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2, first announced in 2019, was nearly canceled after multiple delays and a developer swap in 2023. The Lamplighter’s League was an expensive flop. And Cities: Skylines 2 launched in such a poor state that Paradox was forced to stop all DLC plans so the devs could focus on fixing the city builder.
Even Prison Architect 2 had some issues before this delay, with the original studio—Double Eleven—leaving the project over a financial disagreement with Paradox, leading to the publisher swapping the team out for Kokku in 2024.
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.
It’s hard to believe that the most famous franchise in fighting game history has never had a guest character before. God of War’s Kratos has been in Mortal Kombat. Yoda was in Soul Calibur. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate’s roster is now home to more characters from outside the series than from within it. But Fatal Fury’s upbeat denim-clad, city-slicker Terry Bogard (who is also in Smash) will mark the first time someone from another franchise has been playable inside Street Fighter.
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The news was announced at the Summer Game Fest showcase as part of Street Fighter VI’s season 2 reveal. In addition to the return of Street Fighter III’s Elena and series villain M. Bison, the game’s second year will also see Terry Bogart and the ninja Mai Shiranui join as well, the result of a collaboration with SNK that first got underway at back at Evo 2022, the fighting game event’s in-person return following the covid-19 pandemic. Fighting game illustrators Toshiaki “ Shinkiro” Mori and Eisuke Ogura created a crossover “welcome back” sign made up of characters from both Street Fighter and Fatal Fury.
“It was a big hit and it was really exciting,” Street Fighter 6 director, Takayuki Nakayama, and producer, Shuhei Matsumoto, who are now the faces of the franchise, told me in an interview at Summer Game Fest conducted via a translator. Teams from both companies kept talking in the years that followed and it eventually culminated in the decision to bring Terry, essentially SNK’s Ken, to the rival franchise. What’s it like remaking an outside character inside the Street Fighter universe?
“When incorporating non-Capcom or non-Street Fighter guest characters into this game, obviously [we] have to respect the IP and the characters and make sure that fans of those characters will appreciate it,” they said. While Terry and Mai will follow the same rules as the existing roster, the whole point of the collaboration in the first place is to also bring along their unique personalities and fighting game flair.
Screenshot: Capcom / Kotaku
Nakayama and Matsumoto demurred when I asked for specifics of what that might mean for their styles and move-sets, but stressed the team has some ideas it’s excited about. “Fatal Fury is a long running series for SNK. Characters like Terry also appeared in other games like King of Fighters, which is also a very long running series. The team who work on Street Fighter 6 are all big fans of fighting games in general, including games like Fatal Fury and King of Fighters. They have a lot of things that they want to incorporate, that people, that they think, that fans of Terry and Mai will like, and that’s something that they’re really putting a lot of energy into.”
But before Terry and Mai arrive later in the year, players will get their hands on M. Bison, the crime syndicate boss who’s been a fan-favorite since Street Fighter II. Ryu killed him at the end of Street Fighter V, but as everyone suspected he’s back and looking weirder than ever. His new grizzled, tattered alt costume, a striking contrast with his traditional imperial uniform, has earned him the nickname “homeless Bison” from some, and a revamped arsenal of moves looks borderline broken.
“In terms of his story and why he looks this way, this is something that you’ll get to learn more [about] when you play arcade mode and see him in World Tour when he’s out,” Nakayama and Matsumoto said. While it’s his comeback to the series, M. Bison’s new kit also marks the return of some old abilities in new forms. One of those is his ultra combo from Street Fighter IV which is now a super art in Street Fighter 6. Other moves play off the story and the crime boss’ new level of deviousness. That includes a back fist combo which plants a psycho mine on the opponent that explodes if M. Bison doesn’t get hit for a while.
“It kind of adds this mind game-type aspect to his gameplay, and kind of forces the opponent to play in a certain way when that happens,” they said. The psycho mine also changes some of the effects and combos of M. Bison’s attacks while it’s active, changing the rhythm of the match as well. He’s also a hybrid charge and command input fighter, meaning some of his abilities require holding inputs while others are just simple sequences. His iconic Double Knee Press attack will now just be a “fireball motion” attack, for example, potentially making him a lot more appealing to more players.
It’s poised to be another neat addition to a game that still feels like it’s in a honeymoon phase with fans. Following the disappointing launch of Street Fighter V, which was marred by numerous complaints and incomplete modes, Street Fighter 6 was a return to form for both the fundamentals and positive mood among fans. Despite being a fighting game rooted in a rich history of arcades and in-person competition, modern Street Fighter is as much a live-service platform as anything else. In May, Akuma arrived in the game by way of an event that was part Twitch Plays Pokémon and part MMO boss fight.
Nakayama and Matsumoto pointed to all of the data they collect from players and the new ways they’re experimenting with online events to help the game evolve. ”We released this infographic that shows something like 20 billion matches that have happened over this past year, which is very surprising,” they said. “When we did the raid boss event with Akuma in the battle hub that was a big hit. That just made [us] realize there should be more opportunities to get people excited about events like that, that’s something [we] want to explore in the near future.”
When they told me it’s easier than ever to see what players do and don’t like, I asked them if it ever felt like there was too much data and they wished they could go back to days when developers were more walled off from community feedback and behavior. “Honestly, not really,” they said laughing. “It’s really exciting to see everyone really have fun and play the game and seeing what what people are interested in.”
One thing at least some players still aren’t always having fun with is Street Fighter’s aggressive microtransaction model. Every once in a while outrage bubbles up when Capcom asks players to pay for something they feel is particularly egregious, like color variants for costumes. There’s also no way to pay exact amounts for lots of the in-game purchases since players first have to buy arbitrary amounts of Fighter Coins that often leave them with left-over premium currency. Is the team happy with the current monetization?
Screenshot: Capcom / Kotaku
“I mean people seem to be very interested in purchasable content especially that associates with the actual characters in the Fighting Ground Mode,” they said. “And we see a lot of interest towards that so it’s something that we will continue looking into and seeing if there’s any new stuff that we can just…but in terms of the system it’s probably going to be as is.”
Reading between the lines, it certainly seems like a version of what you hear from a lot of companies,which is that while lots of people complain about microtransactions, just as many if not more, grudgingly or even happily pony up the money for them. Perhaps the sea of player data the Street Fighter 6 devs have access to was also helpful in bearing that out.
Despite containing just four new characters, the season 2 fighter pass is $30, half the price of the full game. But to sweeten the deal, the full game is currently 50 percent off to celebrate its one-year anniversary. M. Bison, meanwhile, arrives over the summer. But the most important part of Street Fighter 6’s legacy, and its potential future, may lie in more community experiments like the Akuma online event.
“Street Fighter 6 gave [us] an opportunity to try out a lot of new things that [we’d] never done before in any other fighting game,” Nakayama and Matsumoto said. “With Street Fighter 6 [we] feel like [we] were able to see a resurgence of younger audiences who became interested in the game through alternate areas outside of just the fighting.” Hopefully that means more live events are planned for year two. The social experience of arcades was central to how many people fell in love with fighting games to begin with. Finding more ways to recreate that online could be the key to maintaining them.
Sonic the Hedgehog 3 is still seven months away, as the third live-action movie starring the blue blur and his angsty rival Shadow will premiere on December 20. And fans are eagerly anticipating the first trailer for the upcoming movie. Though some lucky ones were able to get a first look at a private event in April, the general public has been waiting to see even a single frame of the film. So much so that we are reaching a peak state of madness not seen since Dr. Gerald Robotnik sent the Space Colony Ark falling to Earth in Sonic Adventure 2.
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I, like several others, had been theorizing Paramount might release the Sonic 3 trailer today, May 16, to pair it with its new (apparently bad) imaginary friend movie If, which is in theaters tonight. In preparation for this, I turned on X (formerly Twitter) notifications for the official Sonic movie account so I would see it right when it went up. After most of the day went by, I’d given up hope. Then, I got a notification for a post from the account, got excited, and was immediately disappointed to see the post was just a retweet of the Paramount+ account breaking down Easter eggs from the Knuckles show now streaming on the service.
Several responses to the post are fans begging for the Sonic 3 trailer and mentioning they also fell victim to the same notification I did. Paramount is definitely aware that fans would like to see a glimpse of the film, as the company’s official YouTube randomly uploaded a clip from Sonic the Hedgehog 2 on May 10, then responded to fans who called out the bait and switch.
“Whoever decided to drop this when everyone’s talking about the [Sonic 3] trailer was a genius,” wrote one fan. The Paramount account responded saying, “Yeah, whoever decided to do that is diabolical.” Another user commented that this was a “test” for how ready fans were for the trailer, to which Paramount said “Oh trust me, we know y’all are ready.”
All we know right now is that Paramount Mexico’s TikTok account deleted a comment that said the trailer would be coming “very soon” on May 7. But since it doesn’t seem like it will premiere in time for If, fans are now waiting for any clues. I just want to see my live-action son, Paramount. I watched all of the Knuckles show and he was barely in it. Show me signs of life for Shadow. It’s his year, dammit.
I love destroying things. The physical destruction of objects can be funny and cathartic. Thankfully, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth lets me indulge my desires for destruction in a limited but fun way. While in Costa del Sol, you can hop on a “wheelie,” the game’s in-world equivalent of a Segway vehicle, and smash it into restaurant tables, seats, barrels, and other property. Fun! Better still, you can earn some neat items for riding around on a wheelie, and finding ways to weave some destruction into your travels can liven up the otherwise pretty boring process of gliding around on your own personal transporter device. – Claire Jackson Read More
Well, this is weird. Pinups of Lara Croft appear to have gone missing inTomb Raider I-III Remastered following a patch earlier this month to fix a bunch of bugs. Whether intentional or not, some fans are now calling it out as heavy-handed censorship of retro classics.
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Publisher Aspyr released the game’s second update on April 11 and mentioned a litany of changes, but nothing about up-scaled posters of Lara Croft being removed from the locker room in the Sleeping with the Fishes level for Tomb Raider III: The Lost Artefact. Though they still appear when playing with the original graphics settings on, where they look like pixelated postcards, the walls they’re on are now blank when players switch to the remastered graphics settings.
Their removal was first noticed on the Tomb Raider subreddit, before the discovery began trickling out to other corners of the internet last week. “I thought it was bullshit, but nope, Crystal Dynamics played the OG fans. They censored out the pictures in the update,” tweeted one person. “Updates should never be used to retroactively censor games, it’s a form of theft. Any company that engages in this bait & switch behavior should go bankrupt,” tweeted another. To be clear, the original versions of the posters are still available in the games when played in the 1990s mode.
A warning at the start of the remastered collection informs players that Crystal Dynamics, the studio behind the original games, chose to retain offensive stereotypes and imagery to “acknowledge its harmful impact” rather than erase those parts of the series’ legacy. Neither Crystal Dynamics nor Aspyr seemed to have a problem with the pinups previously. In fact, they were promoted as one of “ten remastered details you might have missed” a week after the collection’s launch.
Shortly after the latest patch removed the posters, NexusMods user Dario108 uploaded a mod to restore them in the PC version of the game. Timur Gagiev, the maker of popular open-source port OpenLara, who ended up working for Aspyr on the remasters, retweeted Dario’s link to the mod without saying anything further. Some took this as a sign that the change was intentional despite some potential disagreement behind the scenes.
Aspyr and Gagiev did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The feeling of being somewhere overwhelmingly positive is unusual. In 2024, it seems ever-more likely that even the most upbeat of events would be coated in a veneer of cynicism, if not outright skepticism. But at the Pokémon Europe International Championships (EUIC), every person I spoke to was bubbling with unadulterated happiness just to be there. And for all of them, without exception, it was a love for Pokémon that was driving this preternatural positivity.
April’s EUIC was, according to some who have been attending the championships for years, the largest ever. Official figures suggest over 10,000 people attended the three-day event in London’s ExCel Center, 4,500 of them competitors in the various fields, from the card game to the video games. And yet, despite such huge numbers of people, it all felt undeniably lovely. There were no reports of incidents, no flipped tables, and a pervading feeling of calm throughout. As a world-leading misanthrope, sporting a heavy cold, I was fascinated to feel this way. I was determined to find out why.
Photo: Kotaku
Cultivating an atmosphere
“I just love Pokémon!” says one splendid lady I meet, dressed as Gothorita, accompanied by her daughter (cosplaying Gothita), and a childhood friend dressed up, appropriately, as trainer Caitlin. The three of them are here spectating, despite often playing the trading card game (TCG) at their local Geek Retreat. “It’s like my childhood,” Gothorita adds.
This is the central sentiment among so many people I spoke to. So many people citing Pokémon as the special factor, the colorful exuberance of a child-focused franchise overriding the more aggressive cultures associated with video games and TCGs. Magic: The Gathering meet-ups, say, are unquestionably fantastic spaces, but the nature of the base game doesn’t exude a sense of family-first. Here, everyone has to at least tacitly acknowledge they’re gathering because of a shared passion for the cartoon electric mouse and his magical friends.
I plopped myself down next to two guys who’d just finished a day-one round of what the locals call “VGC,” meaning battling teams in Pokémon Scarlet and Violet. The winner of the match was Simon Van der Borght, known in Pokémon circles as Shmon, a sometimes-commentator and judge for the events. The Belgian player, dressed in a spectacularly garish Pokémon-emblazoned jacket, bubbled with excitement about the event. Shmon enthused about the EUIC, talking about how it’s grown in scale over the years, and about how many friends he’s made through attending and competing. “It really makes me happy!” he declared. I asked him about his first time playing competitively, and he used a term that I’d hear again and again over the event. “Immediately I fell in love with the atmosphere.”
“The atmosphere” was almost everyone’s first answer when I asked why they were enjoying their time here. It’s an intangible thing, hard to qualify or pin down, but I think it captures senses of safety, comfort, and positivity. There’s an idea that things aren’t wrong here, that no matter what waits outside the enormous convention center, in here we’re good. We’re good people, doing a fun thing, with no judgment. “It makes my heart flutter to see these people!” Shmon declares, “and even when they’re not doing well, still enjoy their time with Pokémon! This community is so strong and so nice to each other that I really love coming back time and time again.”
Photo: Kotaku
The community is lovely!
Speaking of people who’ve come back time and again, I grabbed a chance to chat with the man behind legendary Pokémon site Serebii—Joe Merrick—as well as long-time Pokémon commentator and YouTuber Ross Gilbert, better known as PTCGRadio. Both have been attending the EUIC since it started, since they were in “the event room of a theme park” as Gilbert puts it. “You’re talking 150 people total in the room, and it’s very much a school trip kind of atmosphere. Yeah, everyone’s having fun, but it’s very quiet. Whereas here, it’s a celebration. You walk around the room, there’s people trading, people drawing, there’s people playing side events…”
Merrick and Gilbert are no strangers to controversy, and to the far more toxic nature of online communities. Serebii receives an inconceivable amount of negativity and vitriol, with new Twitter storms brewing every other day. But both say that here, in person, there’s none of that. “It’s indicative of the Pokémon community in general,” says Merrick. “Yeah, I mean, it gets a lot of hate online, because—you know—people are negative online, and [so] people say, ‘Oh this community is terrible.’ But when you’re actually in a room with the actual community, the community is lovely!”
Both are overwhelmed by the growth of the event. 2023’s EUIC had approximately 1,500 playing in the TCG Masters event (there are also Junior and Senior divisions), whereas this year that number was closer to 2,700. We speculate over whether the spike in interest in the cards in 2021, caused by the imperfect storm of global covid lockdowns and Jake Paul paying $5 million for a Pokémon card, has now led to this growth in interest in playing the game itself. Ross adds, “[So] there’s more people every year that are like, ‘I fancy going to a regional… Oh look, EUIC’s in London this year…”
Merrick points out that there are also many reasons to come along to the event if you’re not competing. “You’ve got the Activity Zone, you’ve got the festival stalls, they’ve even got a challenge on how fast you can beat Red in Pokémon Red and Blue. It’s stuff like that that’s going to bring people in. It’s going to make people realize, you know what, Pokémon is cool!”
“They’ve got a bunch of random consoles where you can go and play all the games, even Pokkén Tournament,” interjects Gilbert. “They’ve got a quiet room for people who are having a bit of a stressful day, to go chill out in. They’re constantly thinking and acting on how they can make this better for every different type of Pokémon fan.”
Photo: Kotaku
Making friends and influencer people
One of the many extra events put on was the Battle Labs, where Pokémon Professors helped people new to either the video game or the card game learn how to play. Standing in line for the TCG lab, I spoke to Aoife, who’d traveled over from the West of Ireland to accompany her partner who was competing. Through Pokémon, her partner had formed a group of 12 friends who would all play together, sometimes booking giant Airbnbs for them and their partners to holiday together. Her partner, Sean, had wanted to try competing at a larger event, so they’d traveled over for the EUIC, leaving Aoife to entertain herself. “I’m here on my own,” she told me, “but I don’t feel nervous at all. Everyone here is just so nice, and the atmosphere is lovely, because everyone’s into the same thing.”
I spoke to Aoife on day two of the event, and she compared—with a laugh—leaving Sean to compete in the Swiss rounds (where players are paired up against others with the same win/loss ratio) with dropping him off at daycare. “I am able to go around and do my own thing, I’ve done lots of activities. This event is amazing.”
That sense of feeling safe was echoed when I spoke to Instagram influencer Poke Girl Rach. We mused on the family-first nature of the place, and how the shared fondness for Pokémon breaks down so many social barriers. “It’s my favorite thing to come to events. You just know you’re surrounded by like-minded people,” she explained. “It’s a really good atmosphere, a super-warm atmosphere.” Rachel Gunn got started on Instagram during the covid lockdowns, describing herself at the time as “a bit lonely.” Driven by a desire to connect with people, she began sharing her lifelong passion for Pokémon, including a sizable plush collection, and grew a community while continuing with her career in finance. Those communities have become such a pivotal part of her life that friends made within them came to her wedding. As we chatted, she was planning for the community meet-ups that were arranged for this event. “I’ve a massive friend group now,” she tells me, before we get distracted talking about the merch we picked up in the pop-up Pokémon Center.
Photo: Kotaku
Pokémon is for everyone
Wandering the floor, I bumped into YouTuber PokeDean. “Crazy,” he said when I asked if he was having a good time. “Every time I come to EUIC it seems to be getting bigger and bigger. The atmosphere today is absolutely incredible.” Not competing this year (“I took part last year and I got humiliated.”), Dean had come along just as a spectator for 2024. Given the YouTuber is about to launch a physical store with his business partner PokiChloe, I wondered how he could possibly have the time. “It’s only because I really love the atmosphere here. I love getting to meet a lot of like-minded people, seeing some amazing players take part.”
Given just how much animosity I see whenever I read Pokémon discourse online, the sheer scale of derision as every new announcement is greeted by fury from long-time fans, I’m so struck by these repeated refrains of how differently this community expresses itself in real life. I wonder if a large part of the online animosity comes from those who have forgotten that Pokémon is…well, it’s primarily for children. On purpose. As in, it’s deliberately, by careful planning and design, for children, and then also accessible to adults.
Serebii’s Joe Merrick agrees. “Pokémon, in times past, people would age out of it. But a lot of people, they’ve grown up, they like it, but they have wanted it to grow up with them. So, if they want this edgy, dark reboot, set in a dystopian Kalos—that’s not gonna happen. Let’s face it: Pokémon is a kids’ game. That’s how they continue getting people in, because you’re not having people age out any more. People just need to understand, it’s for everyone. Not just for them.”
I mention Aoife, taking part in the Pokémon Labs to learn to play the TCG, because she wanted to better understand her partner’s passion. “Something like that is absolutely brilliant,” says YouTuber Ross Gilbert. “You can come here with no interest in competitive TCG, VG, GO, or Unite, and you’ll find stuff to do all weekend.
So where do these two old hats (a term they were less than enamored with) see the tournaments heading? “Bigger,” they both say at the same time. Between them they begin speculating whether the event will eventually take over both halves of the enormous ExCel arena, or if it will entirely outgrow the building, perhaps have to look at spaces the size of London’s O2 arena.
Even this black heart…
Over the weekend, I spoke to families where at least one member was being dragged along by others, but seemed to be having a great time despite it. I spoke to female competitors who were there on their own, but didn’t feel intimidated or concerned at all. I saw extraordinary diversity—by age, race, gender identity. I saw huge groups of friends gathering in corridors to celebrate victories, impromptu card trading groups breaking out in dining areas, and kids freaking out to see Pikachu come dancing by.
Sick as a dog, there on my own without anyone else I already knew, and a life-long misanthrope, the event weaved its magic on me too. I spent ages chatting with delightful strangers, added new friends on socials, and almost missed my three-hour coach ride home because of how comfortable I felt in this crowd of ten-thousand people. It’s always a pleasure to remember that online misery rarely translates to the real world, but even better when that real world is so utterly delightful.
Assassin’s Creed, Ubisoft’s long-running open-world RPG series, and Vanderpump Rules, Bravo’s long-running reality TV series, are connected—kind of. It’s rare that two of my biggest, most disparate interests collide so spectacularly as this, but here we are, and it’s all thanks to a man named Jax Taylor.
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Taylor, one of the former stars of VPR (he left/was fired after season eight, depending upon who you ask) has been claiming for nearly 15 years that the face on the Assassin’s Creed I box art(or II, depending upon who and when you ask) is based on his visage. Taylor, who was previously a model, even lists it as one of his (unverified) credits on his old Model Mayhem page.
Before we go any further, it’s important to note that Taylor has, historically, been considered to be, well, um, a liar. As any VPR fan knows, and as a 2019 Vulture article pointed out, Taylor was accused of infidelity in back-to-back seasons and “both times [he] convinced both the show’s behind-the-camera staff and his friends that he was wrongfully accused; both times, he was caught red-handed as the season ended.” Taylor was also tied up in a lie in season six, after he was caught cheating on his future wife (then-girlfriend) with another co-star. There are other lies you’ll find deep in the Bravo subreddits: that he was roommates with Channing Tatum, that he almost got a job working for the NHL, that he loved the tea set Lisa Vanderpump gave him as a wedding gift.
But the reality TV star doggedly insists that he is, indeed, the face on the cover art of an Assassin’s Creed game. He recently doubled down on this claim at Lexington Comic Con, which took place in the Kentucky city over the March 7-10 weekend. Taylor and several of his former and current castmates (he’s starring in a new Vanderpump Rules spinoff called The Valley alongside his maybe-future-ex-wife, Brittany Cartwright) had their own tables at the convention, which were decorated with images of their professional appearances. On Taylor’s table: A picture of the Assassin’s Creed I cover art.
Is Jax Taylor the face of the Assassin’s Creed box cover art?
Screenshot: Jax Taylor on X / Ubisoft
Now, here’s where things get confusing. Taylor first claimed this video game connection back in 2012, when he posted “Me on the cover of assassins [sic] creed II” on X (formerly Twitter). The picture accompanying the text certainly looks like cover art for an Xbox 360 game, but there are some notable discrepancies. First, the image depicts Assassin’s Creed I, not II, and second, that picture doesn’t appear to have ever been used for a physical release of the Ubisoft game. An intrepid reporter asked about this alleged cover art back in 2022, and the replies only unearthed more questions: It appears that the image Taylor posted is from a website called Customaniacs, which, back in the Xbox 360 era, would share hi-res, downloadable, custom pieces of box cover art for people to print out and slip into the plastic shells.
On March 12, I reached out to Taylor’s PR via email, who initially confirmed that Taylor was “on the first season” of Assassin’s Creed. When pressed for clarification, the representative confirmed that he was the model for “the very first game” and “just the box art.” I thanked them for the clarification.
An hour later, unprompted, Taylor’s representative emailed me an image that only made things more baffling: a picture of the cover of PlayStation: The Official Magazine’s Holiday 2009 issue, which featured the publication’s review of Assassin’s Creed II. Yes, a review of the sequel, not the first game like his representative initially confirmed. To add more layers to this confusion cake, the PlayStation mag cover does not depict the box art for any Assassin’s Creed game, but bespoke art. (Unrelated, but hilarious: the image is clearly just the cover torn off the magazine, the rest of which Taylor ostensibly threw out.)
Screenshot: Jax Taylor Instagram / PlayStation: The Official Magazine
Not long after my conversation with his PR person, Taylor posted a picture of the PlayStation: The Official Magazine cover that had been emailed to me to his Instagram story, with the caption “Flashback to when I did the cover art/box art for #assassinscreed 2009.” He tagged the Instagram accounts for Lexington Comic Con and PlayStation.
The thing is, a French-Canadian model named Francisco Randez has been widely credited as the face of series protagonists Desmond, Altair, and Ezio. Randez has done interviews about his role in the series and has an IMDb credit for it. In a 2011 interview, Assassin’s Creed devs discuss creating the digital likenesses of the character, referring to the “handsome model” as a “neighbor” of the game’s producer in Montréal…though they have trouble remembering his name and call him “Rafael.” (It’s around the 8:50 mark.) Is there more than one “Assassin’s Creed guy”? Is Jax Taylor one of them? Is he none of them?
I reached out to both Ubisoft and Francisco Randez. Ubisoft declined to comment, and Randez has yet to respond.
So, it’s still unclear if Jax Taylor is, indeed, the face on the cover for either Assassin’s Creed I or Assassin’s Creed II. As a VPR fan, I’m inclined to believe he’s not, but what do you think?
Sony is currently running a pretty awesome sale for a number of its first-party games, particularly those in the action genre. Whether you’re looking to check out Nathan Drake’s swan song in Uncharted 4, Sam Porter Bridges’ strange trip through the apocalypse in Death Stranding, or Kratos’ dramatic shift into sad dad mode in 2018’s God of War, there’s a ton here to check out.
Most of these deals are for PS4 versions, many of which you can upgrade to the PS5 version either for free or at a small cost. All of these deals run from now until April 1, 2024.
We also threw in a list of action-adjacent games you may wish to check out as well.
The team behind the polarizing Halo TV series on Paramount+ really wants to change your mind in season two. In the lead up to the latest season’s debut, everyone from producer Kiki Wolfkill to new showrunner David Wiener and even Master Chief himself (Pablo Schreiber) have told us this is a new angle, not necessarily a “reset” but certainly a reevaluation. The team’s attempts to rejig the series based on the iconic first-person shooter franchise are obvious just moments into “Sanctuary,” the first episode in season two.
Take A Tour Through Halo Infinite’s Newest Arena Maps
Is it a good episode? I’d say yes. It’s even a good Halo adaptation, though a few of the first season’s problems linger. But overall, “Sanctuary” is exactly what it needs to be—a reintroduction to Master Chief and his team of Spartans, a reminder of the stakes, and a readjustment that looks to set the series on a stronger course. Let’s get into it.
Sangheili in the mist
The episode begins where it should: with the core four that is the Spartan Silver Team—consisting of Schreiber’s John-117, Kai-125 (Kate Kennedy), Riz-028 (Natasha Culzac), and Vannak-134—embedded in a “babysitting” mission on the planet Sanctuary, which is mid-evacuation. They’re pissy, because this is a mission for a team of lesser caliber than them, but they’re clearly being sidelined for a reason.
From the outset, it’s obvious that season two got a visual upgrade—an early shot of the Spartans camped on top of a mountain looks beautiful, from the striations in the sedimentary rock to the subtle sheen of their Mjolnir armor. It’s like the rework Halo Infinite’s visuals got after the first look at the campaign was met with middling reactions and the memeification of one especially Playdoh-looking brute fans nicknamed Craig.
As John and Riz run off to help the Marines diplomatically remove the planet’s citizens, we get a chance to see more of Vannak’s personality—he’s removed the emotional inhibitor chip implanted in the Spartans, which Kai and John did last season. Though he remains stoic, and acts affronted when Kai asks him how he feels, he admits that lately, he’s been enjoying watching nature documentaries in his spare time. Just a few moments later, as the team gets word of a missing Marine unit and John rushes off to investigate, Vannak compares Chief’s hesitancy to scale the rock face to the ease with which an ibex could pull off the same thing. If this season just featured Silver Team bantering while coming to terms with their personalities as full-grown adult supersoldiers, I’d give it five stars.
Image: Paramount+ / 343 Industries
Unlike the video-gamey action we saw in the first episode of season one (which featured first-person views and a HUD almost identical to the one in the Halo games), “Sanctuary” gives us straight-up, no chaser action from the jump—and it’s good. Chief, after scaling the cliff face with his grappling hook (he’s not an ibex), finds himself surrounded by soupy, dense fog. It’s blocking his comms, too, and the team is eager to extract everyone because some Covenant ships have been spotted in orbit.
John finds the Marines, and what follows is a horror-tinged, action-packed scene that hits all the right notes for live-action Halo. Some of the Marines are yanked into the dense fog by invisible attackers, who are revealed to be cloaked Elites. Kinetic, hand-to-hand combat between John and several of the big baddies ends with him victorious (of course), until we see several energy swords ignite on the horizon, followed by several more. It’s scary, and serves as a reminder that Halo is about humanity fighting against a previously unknown and terrifying alien force. It helps that the scene is set in fog, as the CGI reads much better than in the first season.
Chief gets back to the evac ship just in time for the team to leave before the Covenant glasses the planet, but he’s clearly shaken up by the ordeal. Not just because the Covenant attack was massive in scope, but because he maybe probably definitely saw Makee (the human-turned-Covenant-sympathizer and his former lover) in the mist before the alien soldiers retreated into it.
Master Chief unmasked, but not unbothered
Back on Reach, Silver Team is decompressing from the mission, which resulted in the deaths of all the Marines, save for the one John helped to the evac ship. During their debriefing, Captain Jacob Keyes (Danny Sapani) tells them that these kinds of attacks have been happening across the outer colonies, but he doesn’t seem interested in John’s questions and concerns. As his frustration grows, we get a mid-scene introduction to this season’s new bureaucratic bastard, James Ackerson (Joseph Morgan), who saunters in and takes a seat with the kind of dickish swagger Morgan has perfected (have you seen The Vampire Diaries, c’mon now). He’s here to replace Dr. Catherine Halsey (Natascha McElhone), who faked her own death last season to disappear after causing a bit of a coup.
Morgan is excellent casting here, an absolute scene-stealer, and a son-of-a-bitch to boot—any scene with him in it is better than half the ones from last season, and I’m sure that’ll be the same going forward. He grounds Silver Team, refusing to deploy them into battle until he can sign off on John’s mental status.
But then Halo starts to stumble again. Though I adore Bokeem Woodbine and love his portrayal of Spartan-turned-pirate Soren-066, his B-plot feels even more flimsy than last season. It’s hard to shift from the Spartans’ plight against the Covenant and Chief’s grappling with his emotions to really care about a man trying to maintain a hold on his pirate empire—even with all the beautiful things Woodbine does with Soren, from the brilliant way he plays guarded and hyper-aware, like a big cat on the open plains, to the softness clearly hiding behind that modded Mjolnir armor. I find my attention wandering whenever the episode swaps to Soren’s story, though it does seem that he is on a fast-track to getting wrapped up in the main plot—as he goes looking for Halsey to get the bounty on her head (and for a personal vendetta he won’t admit to) but is betrayed and kidnapped by unknown attackers.
Image: Paramount+ / 343 Industries
When Halo snaps back to John, I snap back to attention, whether it’s his back-and-forth with Ackerson about what happened on Sanctuary (Ackerson gaslights him) or the desperate moment in which he goes to, basically, a VR escort that he makes take the shape of Cortana (Jen Taylor). The nerds can continue arguing amongst themselves about whether or not John should take his mask off, because Schrieber is so good in this role, and a huge part of that is being able to see emotions play across his face.
The episode ends with John envisioning Makee (who did appear to die in the last episode of season one) warning him that he “should have stayed with [her]” while a flashback shows Kwan-Ha (Yerin Ha) telling a scary story to Soren’s son, Kessler (Tylan Bailey) in a shadowy cave. “It’s very old, the monster. Older than the light. Older than this rock. Older than your God,” she says. “It knows us. Inside and out. Smells our fear. Sees our secrets. It’s been here. All that time. Waiting.”
Covenant ships rise from the clouds of an unknown planet. Reach is coming.
The second episode of Halo season two is available now on Paramount+, review to come soon.
Tekken 8 has been out since January 26 for PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X/S. While you might be tempted to jump straight into its online matches, which you’re not prepared for—trust me—you should check out the game’s story mode first. Not only does it introduce you to many ofTekken 8‘s characters and themes, but it also sets up a bombastic, relentlessly over-the-top narrative about breaking the chains that hold us back. And it’s a great way to acclimate yourself to some of the game’s new mechanics. This is a story mode you shouldn’t miss. – Levi Winslow Read More
In September 2011, I was a college junior very willing to waste away the early days of her fall semester playing Epic Games’ new third-person shooter, Gears of War 3. I pre-ordered the highly anticipated title so I could guarantee I got the gold Retro Lancer skin for my multiplayer battles, and threw myself into the beta earlier that year with more energy than I put into my entire undergraduate coursework combined.
Firefight’s Back In Halo! What Is Firefight?
The following year, my fondness of Gears 3 grew and absorbed the place once reserved in my heart by the Halo franchise after the disappointment of Halo 4.
But, like all multiplayer games with finite resources trying to keep the attention of a fickle fanbase, Gears 3 eventually faded away. I focused more on Call of Duty releases, then eventually on Overwatch 2 and the battle royales that began popping up like lanternflies on New York City vegetation in the early fall.
Occasionally, my mind would wander to Gears of War 3 and its unique, somewhat disorienting camera angle, the satisfying crunchiness and weight of its gameplay, and all those gleefully gross executions. Nothing ever felt remotely like Gears 3, not even the sequels (which came after long-time game lead Cliff Bleszinksi left Epic Games) that followed in its wake. Recently, those occasional daydreams of Epic’s third-person shooter became more frequent and, finally, I downloaded it via Xbox Game Pass and booted it up again.
Screenshot: Microsoft / Kotaku
Gears of War 3 online is a 2011 time capsule
Several things shock me in the seconds after I start up Gears of War 3. First, the Xbox 360 online interface greets me, like I applied a retro theme to my Xbox Series S in a fugue state. When the old pop-up appears to let me know that I am, indeed, online, I do the Leonardo DiCaprio pointing meme alone in my living room. My old profile picture is there (my Xbox avatar wearing an Optimus Prime helmet), and so is all the information about the 360-era games I played. It’s a lovely little detail that threatens to derail my Gears gameplay, as I get lost in the old menu for far too long.
Then, as Gears 3 loads up and the familiar horns of the opening theme fade in, I’m shocked by the memory that the score stirs in me. Suddenly, I am 21 years old and very stoned, likely wearing a pair of leggings and a t-shirt I’ve cut the sleeves off of to make a muscle tank—maybe I’m even wearing my Gears 3 one—and I’m waiting for my friends to meet me online so we can run a five-stack in Team Deathmatch. Time flattens into a circle, just like the one Rust Cohle warned us of, and I am briefly, blissfully unaware of how my rent will be going up in my Brooklyn apartment, because I’m in upstate New York, living off my student loan.
The final thing that shocks me is that I can actually play Gears 3 online. The menu says “0 players online worldwide,” but it’s lying—I load into a Team Deathmatch game in seconds, filling in for a bot Locust (the beefy, scaly bad guys of the Gears universe) upon its death. As I step into the huge shoes of this subterranean (and for some reason bipedal) beast, I realize I’m gonna need a second to get my sea legs.
Gears of War doesn’t feel anything like the games I play now—aside from when I choose one of the heavier, tankier Overwatch 2 characters, most of the time I’m playing as someone who’s lithe and lightning-fast. When compared to modern games like Apex Legends or Modern Warfare III, Gears 3 is gluey and clumsy, like someone mixed a shooter with Ambien and a glass of wine until everything got a little wavy. It takes several gory, squishy deaths (Gears of War 3 is probably best-known for its violent multiplayer executions which include swinging your gun like a golf club and taking off someone’s head in a spray of brain matter) before I remember how the controls work.
Once I get my active reload down (a mechanic by which your weapon damage or fire rate increases if you time your reload correctly), I really hit my stride. I split a snub-nosed grenadier in half with a Gnasher Shotgun, I pop the head off of a peeking Carmine brother with a Boltok Pistol from halfway across the map, I impale Marcus Fenix on the end of a Retro Lancer. I remember that the cover-based shooter has tons of movement tricks and hacks, and soon I’m gliding around the map like my character isn’t wearing a ton of heavy armor and boots that sound like they’re made of steel.
Gears 3 multiplayer’s visceral audio brings back the same intense wave of nostalgia as the starting menu’s soft horns. There are the gushy, mushy sounds of shotgun shells embedding themselves into flesh, the nerve-wracking rev of the Torque Bow winding up its shot, followed by the high-pitched, heart-stopping audio cue you hear when one of its arrows sinks into your leg. The horrid, wet gurgling that bursts forth from Locust characters stomping about the map and the metallic clangs of menu sounds whisk me away to a simpler era. For the entire time I’m playing Gears of War 3, I am in 2011.
But it is, alas, 2024, and the other people still playing Gears of War 3 are either newcomers who can’t tell their incendiary grenades from their Boomshots or seasoned veterans who are a nightmare to play against. Matches end fast, and there’s little room for the weak in them. Despite quickly remembering how to make the most of the game’s movement mechanics and gunplay, I am still repeatedly owned by players who have no problem picking up my downed body and miming humping me against a wall.
In that way, and in many others, Gears of War 3 is a perfect 2011 time capsule, full of blood and guts and badly behaved boys, and, of course, Cole Train expressions.
Halo Infinite is killing its seasonal model in 2024. Three years after its initial launch, the live-service multiplayer shooter is shifting toward more bite-sized, 20-level battle passes arriving every four to six weeks. Developer 343 industries announced the content change in its January update stream on January 19, along with several other major features, cosmetics, and more that are set to arrive on the FPS this year
Take A Tour Through Halo Infinite’s Newest Arena Maps
This guide will take you through everything you need to know about Halo Infinite in 2024—and it’s all looking rather exciting.
Halo Infinite in 2024: Goodbye Seasons, hello Operations
343 Industries didn’t mince words regarding the future of Halo Infinite’s content releases. As community director Brian Jarrard said during the stream, “we’re shifting away from seasons.” Seasons would arrive every few months, usually with some kind of theme and 100-tiers of unlockables through the battle pass. Instead, you can now look forward to regular “Operations,” starting with “Spirit of Fire” on January 30. Each Operation will have 20 levels of rewards to chew through, so while they’re not called “seasons” any more, things should still feel somewhat similar.
Operation Spirit of Fire isn’t the only thing arriving on January 30, however. You can look forward to the following additions once this update arrives:
Mark IV armor core (free for all players)
The ability to swap shoulders across different armor cores
A new 4v4 arena map named “Illusion”
Get hyped for Halo Infinite’s new map, “Illusion”
The new map, “Illusion” will have a symmetrical layout, making it great for competitive play as it ensures more even starts for each team. There’s even a super-narrow corridor running straight through the center with an uninterrupted sightline between opposing enemy bases, which will likely be a magnet for some serious carnage. If you’ve ever played Husky Raid, which has teams of Spartans face off against one another in a simple corridor, you know how deadly hallways can get in Halo. There’s also a lot of variable elevation from what we saw in the stream.
This new map is looking really promising and should be an excellent addition to the map rotation across various playlists.
Gif: 343 Industries / Kotaku
But that’s not all! Remember that corridor running straight through the map? Well, if you step in there, you go invisible. Objective based games like capture the flag or even king of the hill ought to see some interesting plays with a stealthy option like that so readily available.
The possibility that future maps might contain interesting augmentations like readily accessible invisibility or unique power weapons sounds like a welcome change from the usual rollout of standard arena maps that recycle the same guns and traversal methods.
Halo Infinite is leaning into nostalgia
Though there have been a few variations on Halo’s iconic assault rifle in Infinite, the stock assault rifle is reminiscent of the one that appeared in 2010’s Halo Reach. Joining this will be a new skin for the assault rifle that makes it look just like the assault rifle from Halo Combat Evolved, the game that started it all. As it’s just a skin, it won’t come with any change in stats (sorry, no 60-round magazine). The skin will be a part of the paid version of the January 30 operation.
Screenshot: 343 Industries / Kotaku
And the new Mark IV armor core, which is from the 2009 RTS spinoff Halo Wars, will also drop as a free cosmetic for all players.
Finally, in what seems like a cosmetic element pulled from the new “Illusion” map, there’s a square-shaped overshield that looks straight out of Halo Combat Evolved. It’s little things like this which help sell Halo as a cohesive world—and given the amount of stylistic changes the series has gone through, these unifying features are more than welcome.
Forge and playlist updates are on the way
If you’re into Forge creations, there’s some other fun headed your way on January 30, including Covenant-themed items in a nod to the series’ main antagonists and lovers of all things purple. Extra color customization options will also be available on January 30, which will add even more color options to choose from across the wide variety of in-game objects in Forge. Finally, “script brains,” which is a fancy term for code that lets complex objects t behave in unique ways, can be saved to game modes and used on multiple maps—previously script brains were inherently tied to a specific map.
Screenshot: 343 Industries / Kotaku
There’re also Flood-themed items coming to Forge, as well. Based on Halo’s undead enemy faction, these assets look particularly gnarly. Brian Jarrard referred to them as “moist” on stream. You’re welcome.
Finally, Big Team Battle will get three community maps added into the rotation in February, as well as refreshes to Husky Raid, Squad Battle, and Firefight. But most importantly, a new way of selecting matches is expected to arrive sometime in 2024 that is similar to Halo: The Master Chief Collection’s “Match Composer,” which lets you search across broad categories like player count, game type, and more (instead of mode-specific playlists).If you’re sick of playlists locking you into the same game modes over and over again, this should be a great way to customize what games you want to play. It works wonderfully in The Master Chief Collection.
If you’re looking to get some more time in with Halo Infinite, 2024 is shaping up to be a very good year for the iconic shooter franchise.
It’s time for a second trip to Seattle in The Last of Us Part IIRemastered. Originally shipped in 2020, Part II amps up the scope of the series, as well as the violence. The result is a dynamic, stealthy survival horror romp that takes place decades after a world-ending pandemic. It can be a tough game to play, and Remastered also includes a new roguelike mode for those who want an even greater challenge. – Ari Notis Read More
In 2019, Capcom blew our minds with a brutal remake of 1998’s Resident Evil 2, this time with a new camera perspective, modern graphics, and the return of two classic horror protagonists: Leon S. Kennedy and Claire Redfield. Starting on January 16, you’ll be able to download this incredible remake as a part of your PlayStation Plus Premium and Extra subscriptions. – Claire Jackson Read More
In a new press release from audio electronics company Altec Lansing, it was revealed that GameShark is returning, sort of via an artificial intelligence-powered successor called “AI Shark” You don’t care about that. Instead, the big news out of this press release is that it might have leaked the release date for the Nintendo Switch 2. – Zack Zwiezen Read More
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
Think the first week of January is a slow one for news? Think again. A 13-year-old Tetris phenom has boldly gone where no one has gone before, beating the NES version of the classic puzzler by reaching a “kill screen” on level 157. Steam announced the occasionally baffling results of its annual players’ choice awards, and The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall got a free-to-play, fan-made remaster.
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Before Starfield, before Skyrim, before Fallout 3 and Oblivion, before your parents even knew how to make you, there was The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall. It was, and remains, Bethesda’s biggest-ever game, and now a fan-made rebuilding of the entire vast world in Unity has reached its 1.0 release. Oh, and it’s entirely free, and won’t be destroyed by lawyers! This new Daggerfall is an almighty achievement, and exactly the excuse you needed to return to Tamriel. – John Walker Read More
The results of 2023’s Steam Awards are in. Each year, Steam turns to the community to vote on the year’s best games across a wide variety of categories. This year saw Larian Studios’ RPG Baldur’s Gate 3 grab game of the year, while Lethal Company, a first-person cooperative horror game,got the “Better With Friends Award” for its co-op gameplay. The Last of Us Part I snagged Best Soundtrack, which seems odd because it came out in 2013, but it technically wasn’t added to Steam until 2023. – Claire Jackson Read More
Just two months after the third-person action-horror game Stray Souls came out, developer Jukai Studio abruptly shuttered its doors, citing myriad issues including poor game sales and multiple cyberattacks from an unknown perpetrator.The developer took to X/Twitter on December 22 to announce the sudden closure. Part of the problem, Jukai Studio said, was Stray Souls’ abysmal reception and sales, which made the team “completely unable to sustain the company.” – Levi Winslow Read More
Classic puzzle game Tetris has been around for over three decades, and in that time, plenty of people have reached its various endings, usually by clearing four rows of bricks at once like a digital demolitioner. That’s a challenge in and of itself, but now, someone has taken the concept of “beating Tetris” to the extreme by playing the NES game so hard it straight-up crashed, a phenomenon also known as the “kill screen.” – Levi Winslow Read More
Forever-in-development space sim Star Citizenmight not be finished after over a decade of dev work and announcements, but it does already contain a lot of expensive ships you can buy and fly around in. And if you want all of those ships in one big DLC pack, Star Citizen has an option for you. Just be prepared to spend over $48,000. – Zack Zwiezen Read More
Here’s something unironically wonderful. Via a post by Larian Studios writer Rachel Quirke, we’ve just learned of a deeply moving tribute to a player’s father that appears in the studios’ award-winning RPG Baldur’s Gate 3. In October 2020, a member of the Larian forums posted to thank the developer for releasing the first act of the game in Early Access, because it allowed them to enjoy one last adventure with their father, who had recently been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. – John Walker Read More
Screenshot: Ubisoft Massive Entertainment / Kotaku
Star Wars Outlaws, Ubisoft’s upcoming action-adventure game that follows scoundrel Kay Vess between The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, previously had no release date beyond a very broad “2024” window. Today, however, a Disney Parks blog post quietly announced that it would launch in “late 2024.” This didn’t last long, as Ubisoft promptly swooped in to correct the record and re-assert the general 2024 timeframe. – Levi Winslow Read More
City of Heroes was a beloved MMORPG that launched in April 2004 and lasted just over eight years. In that time it won a dedicated community of players who, even after the game died, kept playing the MMO via private servers that existed in a weird legal gray area. But now, the developers behind City of Heroes have given one private server the official thumbs-up to keep on keeping on. – Zack Zwiezen Read More
