The next batch of cross-over operators was just announced for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II and Warzone, and it includes none other than Diablo IV’s Succubi queen Lilith and fallen archangel Inarius. Plus a bunch of other horror stars like Spawn and Evil Dead’s Ash Williams. No doubt it will be another bloodbath.
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Activision revealed the season 6 operators on Thursday alongside teases for other horror-themed content, including the return of The Haunting event in October. The seasonal update goes live on Septmebr 27 and will even include a Doom-themed bundle complete with a chainsaw. Al Simmons will be one of the new operators alongside a host of Spawn-related skins, including a couple for the superhero himself as well as Creepy Clown and Violator.
Lilith, Diablo IV’s main antagonist, and Inarius, the hooded asshole, will be separate purchases added to the shop, joined by Skeletor (He-Man), Ash Williams (Evil Dead 2), and Alucard (Hellsing). I can’t wait to see how they play in the Call of Duty sandbox alongside rapper Nicki Minaj, NBA star Kevin Durant, and the Burger King guy. The upcoming event should make the time go a little faster until Modern Warfare 3drops on November 10.
For those who might not be aware, Call of Duty has been going fullblown Fortnite for quite a while now, mixing things up with wild cross-overs from across the pop culture landscape. In July it was characters from Amazon Prime superhero dramedy, The Boys, with Temp V abilities like Homelander’s red eye lasers torching every player in sight.
Some have bemoaned the silliness of it all for undermining the “very-serious” war shooter. Others enjoy the changing party costumes, if not always the seasonal grinds and prices that come with them. The weapons at least, like the Doom bundle, will carry over into Modern Warfare 3.
A giant batch of new Final Fantasy VII Rebirth interviews and previews just dropped to kickoff Tokyo Game Show 2023 and the sequel is sounding more promising than ever. Here’s everything we’re learning from Square Enix’s latest marketing bonanza around the upcoming timed PlayStation 5 exclusive.
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The new round of hands-on impressions come from two demos, one taking place during the Nibelheim incident flashback that sees Cloud fighting alongside Sephiroth, and another showing off open-world exploration around the outskirts of Junon, the sea-side military city with a giant gun mounted on it. Writers at IGN, Polygon, GameSpot, andmore came away impressed by how the sequel expands on Final Fantasy VII Remake’s world and mechanics, though many are still eager to find out more about how Rebirth will deviate from the original 1997 PlayStation game’s story.
“As with the previous game, we have strived for the right balance between old and new scenes in Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, but we also tried to take on more new challenges than we did in Final Fantasy VII Remake with some of the new scenes,” producer Yoshinori Kitase told the PlayStation Blog last week. “I am confident these new scenes will be wildly enjoyable for fans and newcomers alike.” Time will tell. For now, here are a bunch of interesting new details going around in today’s previews.
At 150GB, Rebirth is huge, but you won’t be swapping between two discs
Image: Square Enix
Director Naoki Hamaguchi confirmed to Game Informer that the total size of the game on PS5 is 150GB, with 100GB on the first disc and 50GB on the second. Unlike the PS1 version, however, players won’t be swapping discs midway through. Instead, they’ll download the whole thing at once and then be able to play the entire game with either disc inserted.
The game ends after the Forgotten City
Image: Square Enix
Creative director Tetsuya Nomura also confirmed to Game Informer that Rebirth will go up to and include the end of the Forgotten Capital, known as the City of Ancients in the original game. That’s where Aerith dies in the 1997 version, but given how the remake trilogy is messing with the canon, anything could happen this time around.
You can go on monster hunts
Image: Square Enix
Like Final Fantasy XII, XV, and XVI, Rebirth will have special enemy hunts out in the sequel’s much more expansive, semi-open world. According to Polygon, players will encounter extra difficult monster variants while exploring that can be defeated in specific ways to earn extra rewards. Hopefully the game uses this to showcase some deep cuts from Final Fantasy VII’s bestiary.
Synergy Skills and Abilities are like combo techniques from Chrono Trigger
Image: Square Enix
Revealed in the most recent State of Play trailer, party members this time around will have an extra slate of attacks called Synergy Skills. These open up while blocking and allow multiple characters to work together, like Cloud knocking Barrett’s gun fire into nearby enemies. Synergy Abilities are even stronger, andGameSpot likens them to Chrono Trigger’s combo techniques. They basically combine multiple characters’ limit breaks into an extra powerful finisher.
There’s crafting
Image: Square Enix
Fortunately, it doesn’t look too menacing. Players can pick up random materials while out in the world and use them to make phoenix downs and other recovery items. It’s not clear how extensive the system will be, but it probably beats running back to town when you run out of potions.
Sephiroth is playable
Image: Square Enix
Players could command Sephiroth for a short bit during the original game’s Nibelheim flashback, and the new demos confirm that’s the case in Rebirth as well. There’s apparently even an extended sequence where he and Cloud team up to fight through enemy hordes, with players able to control the super SOLDIER as he unleashes hell with his giant Masamune blade.
Vincent is not, but he’ll still fight with you
Image: Square Enix
Teased during the latest trailer, IGN confirms the former Turk turned shapeshifting gunslinger can’t be controlled but he’ll still accompany players in the late part of the game as Red XIII did near the end of Remake. Nomura hinted to Game Informer that Vincent may join the player’s party for real by the final game in the trilogy.
Nobody’s seen Cid yet
Image: Square Enix
The cigarette-smoking, curse-spewing pilot was absent from the latest round of demos. That doesn’t mean he won’t be in the game at all. In the 1997 version’s timeline, Cid joins the crew long before they make it to the City of Ancients. Rebirth has a ton of ground to cover, however. Either Cid is being held back for a later reveal or his content has been moved to a later part of the trilogy’s story.
Cloud can swim
Players can get some laps in around Junon if they want, the demos confirmed. Whether there will be anything to discover or fight in the water remains to be seen. Will the spikey-haired punk get an alternate speedo costume? He’d better.
The Junon dolphin is back
Swimming will also be crucial for one of the most memorable scenes from the early part of Final Fantasy VII: riding a dolphin to the upper layer of the Junon military base. Simply called Mr. Dolphin in the original, he looks great in 4K and his return shows Square Enix isn’t shying away from the 1997 version’s absurd mini-games.
Here’s Red XIII riding a chocobo
I can’t believe this is real.
You can pet the baby chocobo chicks
Chocobo breeding returns in Rebirth, complete with blue, green, and golden chocobos. But there are also chocobo chicks, they are adorable, and Cloud can pet them. It’s a beautiful Kodak moment before he hauls them off to the Gold Saucer racetrack.
Zack will get an entire episode to himself
Image: Square Enix
Cloud’s First Class SOLDIER friend had a very minor role in the 1997 game but it expanded significantly in subsequent adaptations and spin-offs, most notably Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core. Kitase told IGN that the black-haired swordsman will be getting a lot more facetime in Rebirth. “There will be a new episode with Zack, that will contain even more of him than the Remake,” he said. “I’m not able to say much more than this as I would like for players to play and experience this with it in their own hands.”
Fans have long wanted Rockstar Games to release a next-gen patch or updated version of Red Dead Redemption 2 that would let the large game take advantage of the more powerful PS5 and Xbox Series X/S consoles. That’s not happened yet, even though many have speculated about it. And new documents reveal that even Microsoft was expecting a next-gen RDR 2 to be out by now.
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Released in 2018, Red Dead Redemption 2 is a massive open-world western and a prequel to the original, critically acclaimed Red Dead Redemption. When RDR 2 was first launched, there weren’t any next-gen machines out yet, so the game only came out on Xbox One, PS4, and PC. However, after Grand Theft Auto V and GTA Online received fancy next-gen upgrades in 2022, many assumed RDR 2 would get similarly improved ports. Five years after its initial launch, it still hasn’t happened, leaving many fans disappointed and frustrated.
In newly leaked documents and emails, it turns out the folks at Xbox were, like so many Rockstar fans, also expecting a next-gen update. In a document showing Summer 2022 emails between Xbox boss Phil Spencer and other execs about acquiring more games for the company’s subscription service, Game Pass, we see a chart that is basically a wishlist of potential games to add. And listed in that chart is an entry for RDR 2’s “gen 9” release.
Screenshot: Kotaku
According to Microsoft, the company expected Rockstar Games to launch this “gen 9” version of RDR2 in FY23Q2 aka between October and November of 2022. In the doc, Microsoft suggests that Rockstar and parent company Take-Two Interactive will want around $5 million a month to bring the next-gen version of RDR2 to Game Pass on day one. Further, it estimated around 10 million hours of the game would be played each month.
Based on the chart, Microsoft considered its chances to secure RDR2’s next-gen port as a day one Game Pass launch “very low” and listed its “Wow Factor” at medium. It also wasn’t sure if it would be able to get RDR2’s 2 PC port as part of the deal.
Of course, all of this planning and preparation was for nothing, as Red Dead Redemption 2 still doesn’t have a next-gen update or port. It’s a shame, as the game would look wonderful on the more powerful machines and would likely be able to run at 60fps, a big upgrade over the 30fps the game is currently locked to. Alas, it seems Rockstar is focused on the future and is busy developing the next entry in the Grand Theft Auto franchise, which we know quite a bit about thanks to a separate, different leak from last year.
Elder Scrolls VI won’t be coming to PS5 whenever it finally debuts. Though you might’ve already filed this news under “well, duh,” it’s now clear as day courtesy of official documentation from Microsoft.
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Originally announced at E3 2018 (which Bethesda’s own Todd Howard thinks was perhaps a tad too early), The Elder Scrolls VI will mark the first single-player entry in the fabled Elder Scrolls series of big-ass open-world RPG romps since the undying colossal success that was 2011’s Skyrim. News on the TES6 front has otherwise been very quiet, and Bethesda only just released its other epic, long-in-development RPG, the space-themed Starfield. New reporting from Axios’ Stephen Totilo, however, makes it clear that TES6 will be an Xbox and PC exclusive.
The Elder Scrolls VI targets a 2026 release
PlayStation-owning fans of Bethesda jams have been holding out hope that despite Microsoft’s purchase of Bethesda in 2020, Elder Scrolls VI might still come to a Sony machine. CEO of Microsoft gaming Phil Spencer has said as recently as September 6 that the company considers exclusives on a “case-by-case basis” and that it “wants to make sure that [its] games are available in so many different places.”
As per a post on X (formerly Twitter) from Stephen Totilo of Axios, Microsoft’s communications during the FTC case concerning its controversial Activision merger spelled out that The Elder Scrolls VI is coming to Xbox and PC only. In a Microsoft-confidential chart that saw release due to the legal proceedings, The Elder Scrolls VI clearly has a big ol’ red X in the “Released on PlayStation?” column.
The same chart indicates that The Elder Scrolls VI is aiming for a 2026 or later release date. Given the size and scope of Bethesda games, they do take a long time to make. After The Elder Scrolls VI, Bethesda is expected to release Fallout 5.
So, sorry PlayStation Skyrim fans. But, hey, at least you got a head start on Baldur’s Gate 3. And given TES6’s likely release window, at least you’ll have enough time to save up for an Xbox or gaming-worthy PC? Hey, don’t look at me. I’m just the messenger.
Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 is just about a month away, as the PlayStation 5 sequel is set to launch on October 20. While both the original 2018 game and its 2020 spin-off sequel Miles Morales were also on PlayStation 4, Spider-Man 2 is being made exclusively for the PS5’s beefier tech. As such, developer Insomniac claims it’s been able to leverage the system to achieve ray tracing across the board regardless of what graphical performance setting you play on.
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In an interview with IGN, Insomniac Director of Core Technology Mike Fitzgerald and Project Director Jeannette Lee talked about the tech behind the upcoming open-world game. When the topic of ray tracing (realistic rendering of reflections, lighting, and shadows) came up, Fitzgerald explained that Spider-Man 2 will offer multiple framerate options (30, 40, and 60 frames per second). The 30fps mode will have better graphical fidelity, but if you trade some of that prettier image quality you’ll get a smoother framerate at 60. The 40fps option is for those of us with a 120Hz TV.
Regardless of which you pick, Fitzgerald says ray tracing will be on by default for each mode, and says this is thanks to the studio working with the PlayStation 5 long enough to understand the tech, having released three games on the system already between both prior Spider-Man games and Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart.
“For this game we’re really able to deliver [ray tracing] as a baseline performance mode,” Fitzgerald told IGN. “There’s no mode of this game that has the ray tracing turned off, no need for it. We’ve really figured out how to deliver what we feel like is the right Spider-Man visuals and we want to make sure every player is seeing that.”
That all sounds impressive, and if Insomniac is this good with the tech by now, I’m curious to see what its Wolverine game will look like whenever it comes out. But even before this, Insomniac’s games have been a pretty strong technical showcase for the PlayStation 5. Rift Apart’s portal tech was really wild to see, and supposedly needed the PS5’s solid-state drive to accomplish.
Fighting game reboot Mortal Kombat 1, which got a paid Early Access release September 14, introduces a completely new, single-player board game mode called Invasion. According to a PlayStation blog explaining the mode, the expansive Invasion mode serves as a kind of pinnacle to the 31-year-old series’ history of varied single-player formats. Well, maybe it could have, if only some reviewers didn’t find it so boring.
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What is Mortal Kombat 1’s Invasion mode?
Invasion, which becomes accessible after you roll credits on the game’s single-player story mode, is “an evolution,” PlayStation says, of preexisting features like the storefront Krypt from 2002 game Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance and single-player battle Towers. In it, you protect your reality from invaders by battling them “on board game-like world maps,” PlayStation says, in exchange for rewards like in-game money and cosmetics.
“Anyone can enjoy Invasion,” PlayStation writes, “but longtime fighting game fans […] will probably find a second home here. While the main incentive is scoring unlockables to personalize your favorite fighters, there’s much to enjoy.”
A single-player mode that takes inspiration from board games sounds like it could be quite novel, bringing something fresh and exciting to MK1’s single-player offerings. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to be working out that way. IGN’s Mitchell Saltzman found it overwhelming, saying:
It’s a mishmash of ideas that sound good on paper but, unfortunately, tries to be a few too many things all at once. Almost every invasion “board” is made up of a series of spaces that each have a themed fight assigned to them […]. You move around the board conducting an exhausting grind of clearing repetitive battles against enemies that—at least for the first several hours—don’t put up much of a fight, collecting a slower-than-usual drip of worthwhile rewards, finding keys to unlock gates, and completing challenges like [classic fight interlude] Test Your Might or survival minigames, until you reach the end.
VG247 staff writer Connor Makar agreed in his review, calling the mode “largely unexciting.”
“It has its moments with secret missions and good ‘ol Test Your Might challenges spread around,” he said, “but these perks were countered by modifiers that did more to frustrate than exhilarate. A missile from off-screen may be funny on occasion, but a super-armored katana running at you, over and over again, begins to grate.”
Is there any benefit to MK1 Invasion mode?
Those categorizations might not inspire much confidence in Invasion, but cosmetics fiends should familiarize themselves with it anyway—it’s where MK1’s future seasonal content, which will not involve any microtransactions or a battle pass, can be found.
So you can keep your money; you’ll pay up by enduring potentially sleepy gameplay. But, who knows, you might find Invasions not-so-sleepy. In its review, Bloody Disgusting said Invasions “is a massive improvement over the previous game’s Krypt, feeling less random and cryptic in how to overcome obstacles.”
“With Netherrealm promising to seasonally update the Invasions mode, I can’t wait to see what surprises and themes are in store for us,” said writer Reyna Cervantes.
In any case, Invasions makes sense living in Mortal Kombat 1, a game that wants to strike a clean balance between the decades-old and new. Test it out yourself when the game comes out globally on September 19.
Today Sony held another State of Play event, showing off upcoming titles for PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 4. Today’s event featured expansions for Resident Evil 4 and Tales of Arise, another look at a very funny walking simulator, and one epic, mega huge trailer for Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, which will launch on two (count ‘em) discs on February 29 of next year.
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Let’s get into it.
Baby Steps
Devolver Digital / GameSpot Trailers
You know, sometimes you just wake up in a mud puddle in the forest and need to figure out how to walk. Well if you’re lucky or something and haven’t experienced that in reality, then Baby Steps looks like a solid simulation of such an experience. Try to walk, fall down, talk to yourself, rinse and repeat.
Ghostbusters: Rise of the Ghost Lord
Sony Pictures Virtual Reality / PlayStation
PS VR2 will be seeing some cooperative ghost-capturing action soon with Ghostbusters: Rise of the Ghost Lord.
Resident Evil 4 Remake VR mode
Capcom / PlayStation
Ready to play Resident Evil 4 yet again? PS VR2 will soon be home to a VR mode for Resident Evil 4, featuring the reimagined gory violence of this classic, undying entry in the legendary horror series.
Resident Evil 4: Separate Ways
Capcom
Starring Ada Wong, Resident Evil 4 will see an expansion by way of Separate Ways, which will tell a parallel story to the main events of RE4. It releases on September 21, 2023.
Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora
Ubisoft / PlayStation
James Cameron’s brightly colored fantasy world is coming to the land of video games by way of a first-person adventure adaptation (though you’ll get to ride some flying creatures in third-person, it seems). Like in the movies, those pesky humans are out to destroy the serene and lush environments of Pandora. It’s up to you to stop ‘em.
Ghostrunner 2
One More Level / IGN
Ghostrunner 2 will be arriving on PS5 on October 26. You can download a free demo of this fast-paced run-and-slash game today.
Deep Earth Collection PS5 plates and controller colors
PlayStation
If you’ve been looking for some new colors for your PS5, there are some on the way with Volcanic Red, Cobalt Blue, and Sterling Silver.
Helldivers II
Arrowhead Game Studios / IGN
In a close look at Helldivers II gameplay, today’s State of Play showed off the cooperative nature of this third-person shooter. With four players taking on some beastly lookin’ aliens, this looks like a pretty good excuse to round up some friends to devastate some alien wildlife.
Marvel’s Spider-Man 2
Insomniac / PlayStation
Today we got a closer look at the open-world environment of Spider-Man2. Not only will you have Manhattan Island, but also Brooklyn, and Queens—also known as the best borough.
Tales of Arise: Beyond the Dawn
Bandai Namco / PlayStation
Tales of Arise will see a new DLC expansion hit PS5 on November 9, 2023.
Honkai Star Rail
miHoYo / PlayStation
Featuring eye-pleasing combat and some slick anime style, Honkai Star Rail launches for PS5 on October 11, 2023.
Foamstars
Square Enix / PlayStation
This Splatoon-like trades ink for foam and features specific characters similar to that of a hero shooter. The open beta launches in late September.
Final Fantasy VII Rebirth
Square Enix / PlaySttaion
Anticipation is at a fever pitch for the continuation of Final Fantasy VII’s remake project. Today’s trailer showed off some classic environments and scenarios from the original game, as well as some wildly unexpected twists (what’s with Zack carrying Cloud into Midgar?). We also saw some vehicular travel including an, uh, Segway? There’s a ton of stuff packed into this trailer, so you can bet we’ll be watching it several times over. And then some more.
Final Fantasy VII Rebirth launches on February 29, 2024.
And that was it for today’s brief but very cool State of Play event. Now, I’m gonna go daydream some more about Final Fantasy VII.
Stig Asmussen, the director behind Respawn Entertainment’s Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order and its recent sequel has left publisher Electronic Arts for unspecified reasons.
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2019’s Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order was a huge hit, selling millions of copies and garnering rave reviews from critics and fans. Earlier this year, the game’s sequel, Jedi: Survivor, debuted to equally positive reviews and sales. Both games were seen by many as a huge improvement over EA’s previous Star Wars output, which included multiplayer shooters and canceled projects. And now, the man who helped lead development on the Jedi games is no longer with Respawn or the studio’s parent company EA.
When asked about the departure, EA provided Kotaku with this statement:
After careful thought and consideration, Stig Asmussen has decided to leave Respawn to pursue other adventures, and we wish him the best of luck. Veteran Respawn leaders will be stepping up to guide the team as they continue their work on Star WarsJedi: Survivor.
The specific reason for Asmussen’s departure is not yet known. His exit from Respawn, at least from the outside, does seem surprising, as the Jedi games have been considered huge successes for EA and its stewardship of Star Wars. His sudden exit seems even more surprising when you consider that, according to Asmussen, the Jedi series of games was always meant to be a trilogy, implying a third game is coming in the future.
In March, a month before the launch of Jedi: Survivor,Asmussen told IGNthat he “always wanted to see [the Jedi saga] as a trilogy.” He explained further that the team had “ideas of what we could do beyond [Jedi: Survivor].”
While it’s very likely EA and Respawn will develop a third game in the popular franchise, completing the presumably planned trilogy, it will seemingly be without the director who helped make the first two chapters memorable.
The fall season is fast approaching and with it comes a new lineup of games for PlayStation Plus subscribers. Keeping in line with last month’s diverse catalog of PS Plus offerings, September’s list features role-playing games, first-person shooters, and gorgeous story-driven games coming to the service on September 19.
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First up is Nier: Replicant ver.1.22474487139, the 2021 remaster of Square Enix’s cult-classic 2010 action-RPG, Nier: Gestalt. Summarizing this predecessor to creator Yoko Taro’s later mega-hit Nier: Automata is a bit of a tall task considering its many twists, turns, and multiple endings. All you need to know is you play as a nameless protagonist as he and his party of outcasts battle against hordes of otherworldly monsters to save his kidnapped sister. The game is chock full of anime-esque weapons and even more (slightly clunky) anime-inspired combat and its soundtrack unequivocably fucks.
13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim – 13 Stories Trailer | PS4
Another big get in September will be the sci-fi time-traveling with mechs (!) saga 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim. Developed by Vanillaware, 13 Sentinels follows a group of high school students who summon giant mechs to defend their city from invading kaiju. 13 Sentinels plays like a mix between a tactical tower defense game and a 2D side-scrolling adventure game with lovely background art. If that’s a sufficient elevator pitch for you, I would advise keeping a notepad on hand because the game has a bunch of mind-blowing twists that’ll make your brain whirl.
PS Plus Line-Up For September 2023
Here’s everything else coming to PS Plus in September:
Sid Meier’s Civilization VI
Star Ocean The Divine Force
Sniper Ghost Warrior Contracts 2
Odin Sphere Leifthrasir
Unpacking
Planet Coaster: Console Edition
This War of Mine: Final Cut
Cloudpunk
Contra: Rogue Corps
Tails Noir
Call of the Sea
West of Dead
Star Ocean: Integrity and Faithlessness
PAW Patrol The Movie: Adventure City Calls
And here are the additional games coming for PlayStation Premium members (it’s mostly more Star Ocean):
Ubisoft’s upcoming Call of Duty-like first-person online shooter, XDefiant, doesn’t have a release date yet, and now we know why. According to Ubisoft, the free-to-play arena FPS failed an important first-party certification test in August, delaying the entire launch process.
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First announced in 2021 as Tom Clancy’s XDefiant, it mixes various Ubisoft franchises like Ghost Recon, Watch Dogs, and Far Cry into a single, shared-universe online shooter. Earlier this year, I played a few hours of the game’s beta and walked away excited to play more thanks to fast, responsive combat that felt similar to the gunplay found in the Xbox 360 era of Call of Duty. However, after that test, XDefiant failed an important regulatory step in the process of bringing a game to consoles, and now Ubisoft can’t say when players will get a chance to play the online FPS.
On September 11, Ubisoft’s Executive Game Director Mark Rubin announced the failed test in a surprisingly open and transparent blog post. As explained by Rubin, games aren’t just released onto consoles and platforms without any checks. Companies like Sony and Microsoft test every game released for their machines to make sure they function properly and don’t break anything. To be clear, these certification and compliance checks aren’t looking at how well a game performs or if it has buggy cutscenes or audio. It’s just meant to make sure the game follows the platform’s rules, doesn’t brick your machine, and works with each vendor’s various built-in features, like friend lists and trophies.
According to Rubin, Ubisoft began the certification process at the end of July and got its first results back in August. XDefiant didn’t pass.
Ubisoft
“We realized then that we had more work related to compliance than we had anticipated,” said Rubin. “If it had passed, then we would have been able to ship at the end of [August]. But it didn’t and so we have spent the last 3-4 weeks fixing those issues and getting ready to do another submission.”
Rubin says the game is currently in the part of the process that involves the devs finalizing their submission build and expects it to be sent back for certification “in a little less than two weeks.” If that build passes certification with no issues, then Rubin suggests XDefiant could be released in September. However, he was clear that this might not happen, and the shooter could partially fail this new round of testing and get a “conditional pass.” In that scenario, which Rubin says is likely, the game would need a day-one patch to reach final compliance with the console makers. That would take extra work and time, pushing the game’s final release date into October.
Why Ubisoft is telling fans about the failed test
So why are Ubisoft and Rubin being so open and transparent about what is often kept behind closed doors? To be clear, XDefiant isn’t some weird outlier. Plenty of games fail “cert” and have to get resubmitted, we just don’t hear about it as delays like that are built into their timeframes for release.
According to Rubin, being open like this is by design, as he and the team have avoided the “typical route” most games follow during development, citing how they have let players hop online and play the shooter long before it was finished, calling the betas “real tests” and not marketing events.
“So, when it comes to when we will release, the real answer is ‘as soon as we can,’” wrote Rubin. “And we will continue to update you with more info when we have it.”
To conclude, we set out since the concept of this game to be more transparent with our community and to listen to our players and act on their feedback. We’ve even shown that we will add features in the middle of development based on player requests. Map Voting which is in now and an S&D-like mode that is coming later are two examples of this. We want this to be your game!
In the months (nay, years) leading up to Starfield’s September 6 release, the hype for the Bethesda RPG grew and grew until it was a heretofore unseen beast, a giant Kaiju of expectation that threatened to take down Sony, upend 2023’s GOTY race, and suck up all of gamers’ precious free time.
Head of Xbox Creator Experience Sarah Bond joined in on the fun, calling Starfield “one of the most important RPGs ever made.” Bethesda head Pete Hines said it took him well over 100 hours to properly start Starfield. All of the hype whipped Xbox fans into a frenzy, and indirectly fueled the flickering flames of the console wars. Starfield’s scope, its potential, even made the then-unreleased game a talking point in the FTC trial regarding Microsoft’s purchase of Activision-Blizzard.
Then, after a few days in what Bethesda dubbed “early access,” available to deep-pocketed players who shelled out big bucks for one of several premium editions, Starfield launched. It is surprisingly not buggy, and jam-packed with side-quests that offer a steady drip of serotonin. But it’s woefully inaccessible, its UI is daunting, and it is, ultimately, just a new Bethesda game. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it’s a stark reminder that hype trains are just marketing tools in a different font. Starfield is a good game, but it is not a groundbreaking one.
Before I got a chance to dive into Starfield, I wondered aloud (and on social media) if the game would occupy a similar space in my life that Skyrim has held on more than one occasion. Skyrim never floored me and never lingered after I powered off my console, unlike Marvel’s Spider-Man’s version of Manhattan, or story beats in Mass Effect 2. But every time I dropped back into Skyrim, I fell into the same satisfying loop, emerging from a lengthy play session a little dazed, uncertain of the time, blinking to reaccustom my eyes to the real world outside of its pixels.
Every time I jumped into Skyrim I’d go off searching for some tucked-away relic or NPC in need of help and end up climbing to the top of a peak I saw in the distance, or scurrying through caves like a little gamer Gollum, furiously lining my pockets with shiny objects. I’d “just one more side-quest” myself into the wee hours of the morning, surreptitiously pulling tokes from a pre-roll resting on the table in front of me. No matter what I did, whether it was becoming a vampire or participating in a drinking competition, I was never blown away or taken aback by what Skyrim unfurled before me—I was, however, hooked.
I’m about 20 hours into Starfield and can safely say it is exactly like Skyrim in space. The steady serotonin drip of overhearing a conversation, marking the quest associated with that conversation on my map, completing it, then going back to the list and selecting the next thing is unparalleled. It is the kind of game that completionists salivate over, the kind that I find myself longing to return to and get lost in during my workday, on the train home, while finishing off a workout.
After progressing the main campaign a bit, I violently veered into side-quest territory, spending nearly four hours straight on the Blade Runner-esque planet Neon. I joined a gang, I helped Starfield’s version of Björk recover her music, I tried to console a grief-stricken widow in the shadow of a fish corpse. I paid for VIP lounge access at a bar, helped squash a squabble over a robot that had been vandalized, and rented a room in a hotel just to say I did. Starfield has hooked me in a way that only Bethesda games can, because it is so thoroughly a Bethesda game with a shinier coat of paint.
Image: Bethesda
Expectation versus reality
There is nothing wrong with Starfield feeling familiar—Bethesda’s formula works, and has for over two decades, so I’m not crucifying Todd Howard for refusing to reinvent the wheel. I am, however, noting that there’s a clear disconnect between calling a game “one of the most important RPGs ever made” and that game then reusing long-existing RPG gameplay mechanics and storytelling techniques throughout.
As Kotaku’s Zack Zweizen points out, Starfield is “still a Bethesda RPG. You can almost feel the ancient bones of Morrowind and Fallout 3 poking through bits of the scenery and menus as you play.” Companions still linger behind NPCs chatting you up, players are still almost always overencumbered, enemies still fall over like action figures when you send a gust of gravity their way that feels almost exactly like Skyrim’s Dragon Shouts.
There’s nothing groundbreaking about Starfield, save for maybe its scope, which is possible largely because of the technological advances that have taken place within the last several years, and are now readily available in consumer-facing products like the Xbox Series X/S and modern PCs.
But as for Starfield bringing new ideas to the genre, or adding anything new to its well-worn formula…it doesn’t. Bethesda has been quietly moving its own role-playing goalposts closer to the more shallow end ever since The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, narrowing the scope of what the player can actually influence, placing you in a world that feels perfectly carved out for you to slot into, its problems cleanly laid out for you to solve. Cian Maher’s quote from an Oblivion piece for TheGamercomes to mind: “I also don’t reckon Skyrim ever managed to carve out a portion of its world and imbue [it] with the necessary narrative significance for a conclusion to not seem like deus ex machina.”
Aside from extensive ship-building mechanics, there aren’t any shiny new gameplay additions in Starfield. Building an outpost is just Fallout base-building, leveling your lockpicking or melee abilities follows similar logic to Skyrim, and there are many eerie similarities to Obsidian’s The Outer Worlds. The most noted difference comes not in an updated role-playing system or deeper NPC interactions, but in gunplay—Starfield improves upon Bethesda’s infamous combat clunkiness, and it’s welcome.
But Starfield feels the same way Fallout 4 did, which felt the same way Skyrim did, and that does not make it “one of the most important RPGs” ever made. It just makes it a good Bethesda game, a game made by a studio that Microsoft spent $7.5 billion to acquire. We’d do well to remember that, both as consumers and critics, going forward.
Starfield, Bethesda’s newest RPG, is, well…a big game. It’s filled with quests to complete and aliens to shoot. It’s also jam-packed with items to grab, sell, and manipulate. And it’s very easy to pick up too much junk and suddenly find yourself overencumbered, unable to fast-travel or sprint as much as usual. That’s no fun! But you can avoid this annoying situation.
Diablo IV – Bear Bender Build
I’ve played about 55 hours of Starfield so far, and for most of that time, I’ve not been overencumbered. In fact, I’m usually carrying under 100kg of weight at any given time. What’s my secret? Well, after years of playing Bethesda games, I’ve gotten pretty good at managing all the weapons, health items, and junk you collect as you adventure through the studio’s massive open-world RPGs. So let me help you stop being overencumbered with these tips and tricks!
Stop grabbing everything
Look, okay, I know this is very obvious and all that, but…yeah, stop grabbing everything! I get it. This is a Bethesda game and one of the joys of these RPGs is how everything can be grabbed, manipulated, stored, and sold. Every plastic cup and dart and sandwich. But you don’t need to grab it all.
You might be thinking “I’ll sell this all for credits!” Well, sure, but you won’t get that much for that junk. And there are better ways to make credits in this game, like doing quests and selling high-value items like rare suits, guns, and very lightweight objects that are worth hundreds of credits. So yeah, stop. Put that cup down. Walk away. Leave it. Leave it! I’m watching.
Level up your carrying capacity
Certain stats are always useful in a Bethesda open-world RPG. Having extra health and the ability to lockpick anything, for example, are as handy in Starfield as they were in Skyrim.
Similarly, leveling up the skill that lets you carry more stuff without becoming overencumbered is very useful. I also recommend grabbing this early so you can start grinding away at its requirements to unlock higher levels. Trust me, this will save you time in the long run.
Make a habit out of checking for heavy items
You can sort your entire inventory by weight and you should do this regularly, as you’ll often find some random spacesuit or other item taking up a large chunk of your carrying capacity. Take care of these items and don’t let them clutter up your character. While looking at your heaviest bits of junk, you might also find one of the most likely culprits for why you are overencumbered: ship parts.
Screenshot: Bethesda / Kotaku
Don’t hold on to ship parts
Ship parts! These items are very useful, letting you repair your ship during combat. However, they are also very heavy, weighing 10kg each. It’s very easy to collect a stack of these and not realize it until you pick up a gun and become overencumbered.
Making matters worse, these heavy items are found not in your resources or misc. tab, but instead buried with your aid items, like food and health kits. This makes them easy to miss when dropping off resources to your ship. I’d love a future update to move these to resources by default. Until then, double-check whenever you feel too heavy to make sure you aren’t carrying around a bunch of these bulky items. And, one last thing: You can store these on your ship and still use them, no need to carry them around!
Pick a few weapons and sell the rest
There are a lot of weapons in Starfield, from laser rifles to old Earth shotguns and more. It’s a smorgasbord of killing options. But while I recommend you try everything at least once early on in Starfield, after the opening hours you should settle on three or four weapons and sell or store the rest.
This has a lot of benefits. You can focus your skills more, carry less ammo, and not have to manage an armory everywhere you go. But also, it means you’ll not be bogged down by 12 weapons all using up your precious carrying capacity! And that’s—hey, I told you to put down that plastic cup! Stop! Just because we’re on a new tip doesn’t mean I stopped watching!
Use your ship’s cargo bay to store resources/valuables
After you’ve been out on a planet exploring, mining, or completing quests, you should take a moment to drop off excess items in your ship’s cargo hold. Thankfully, Bethesda added a hotkey that lets you send all your resources—like minerals, metals, etc.—right to your ship with one button press.
But don’t just store resources in your ship’s cargo containers. You can store rare suits or guns you want to sell later in there too, as well as other items that are taking up space. And if your ship starts to run out of space, well, first, maybe stop grabbing everything. But also, invest in adding some more storage to your ship, which you can do at any spaceport with an NPC starship technician. Oh, and don’t forget: You can upgrade your ship’s storage capacity via the Payloads perk.
Screenshot: Bethesda / Kotaku
Look for spacesuits that have extra storage
During my third night of playing Starfield, I stumbled upon a legendary suit that let me carry 40 extra kilograms on my character. While you might not find one as good as this, keep an eye out for spacesuits that provide extra storage.
Spread the weight around to companions
If you travel with a companion, don’t forget to use them like a pack mule. They can carry quite a bit, which can help out a lot in big space dungeons filled with good loot. Just talk to your companion and ask to trade, then shove all the plastic cups and crappy guns into their inventory so you can sell it all later.
And, if all else fails, use chems or booze to temporarily boost your capacity
Perhaps you’ve done everything above and yet still find yourself carrying too much junk. Well, that’s why I recommend keeping some whiskey or other chems on hand, as using them can increase your carrying capacity.
Keep in mind that these are just temporary solutions and won’t last forever. But they can, in a pinch, help you stop being overencumbered just long enough to fast-travel and sell all your junk.
As is all-too-often the case, Bethesda releases its games with half-baked UIs, dodgy animations, and painfully slow menus, knowing that its community will clean it all up for them via mods. So as expected, over the weekend all manner of essential mods for Starfield have appeared that will clear up the game’s most immediate problems. Also there are these ones.
Diablo IV – Bear Bender Build
Starfield launched without DLSS support: modded. It has a clumsy, oversized inventory presentation, like all their games: modded. It doesn’t let you adjust your FOV, ffs: modded. But forget all that. We’re here to talk about what happens when you order the mods from lowest to highest popularity. These are the people who see a brand new game, and immediately learn how to modify it for the stupidest possible reasons. This is to celebrate the people who make the flashlight show Nicolas Cage’s face.
Ryan Gosling Character Preset
We understand the situation you’re in. You’re a busy person, and with work and family you don’t have the time to play Starfield AND sculpt your character as Ryan Gosling. But cacon5 has you covered with the Ryan Gosling Character Preset. As this video shows, this modder dedicated their time and energy into crafting someone who…is also a human being.
NTD Modder RPG
Celebrity Flashlights
If that’s not enough Ryan Gosling content, then you’d better bloody believe we’ve got more for you. Because why not also have Dollar Tree Ryan Reynolds as a beaming point of light? That’s yours via the Ryan Gosling Blade Runner Flashlight from MozzyFX.
But it doesn’t stop there. In fact, we get the feeling this is something that’s only just getting started. Because there’s also the Nicolas Cage Flashlight Mod, which presents the actor like some sort of horrendous moon-face.
Or perhaps you’d like to show your eternal loyalty to our lord and savior, Todd Howard himself, via the Todd Howard Flashlight Replacer.
If your affections lay with even more senior deities, then you might want to opt for the Phil Spencer Flashlight.
Maquinaremos
Umbreon Ground Crew Helmet
This one perhaps doesn’t quite meet the remit of the article, because it’s honestly astonishing that Bethesda released the game without this already implemented. It’s the Umbreon Ground Crew Helmet, which replaces the ground crew helmet with one showing a picture of the Pokémon Umbreon.
“Truly the best mod ever created,” says fellow modder jetray1000, despite the mod inexplicably sitting in second-from-last place in Nexus Mods’ Trending list. (Last place is a widescreen mod that is flagged as containing “suspicious files.”)
A Massive Effect
How much would you like to see a crossover between Mass Effect and Starfield? Yeah, us too! Meanwhile, the John Shepard mod promises to add a player character who kind of looks like the lead character from Mass Effect—you know, the game which also has a character creator, that lets you make him (or preferably her) look like anyone you want. Well, we say “looks like,” but modder ctxrlsec hedges their bets, adding “probably notperfect because the character creation is kinda limited but it looks close enough.”
Hello Killy
Right now, at this early point in Starfield’s life, it’s not yet possible to apply skins to your weapons at will. For the while, it requires entirely replacing the game’s default skin, which is perhaps more cumbersome. Although we would argue, entirely worth it when it’s the Hello Kitty Laser mod.
Image: realadry / Nexus Mods / Kotaku
Entirely Ruin Starfield On Purpose
Sick of the game working properly? Frustrated by the way it won’t let you introduce narrative-breaking situations? Finally, there’s a solution for you. It’s the Kill Essential NPC mod, that prevents plot-vital characters from getting back up once you’ve knocked them down. (Yes, Starfield relies on that old Beth-gem!)
Rather excellently, in case installing this mod weren’t already obviously a spectacularly bad idea, it seems it also allows enemies to perma-kill essential characters, meaning ruining your entire game doesn’t even have to be by your own hand.
HowDragonborn
There. We hope this has proved completely useless for you, and we look forward to seeing even more ridiculous and unhelpful mods once the game is officially released on September 6.
Sorry, it turns out it wasn’t that there was just something irresistible about you. Instead it seems that Baldur’s Gate 3 shipped with a bug that meant all the companions were way hornier than intended.
The Week In Games: What’s Releasing Beyond Baldur’s Gate 3
I thought something felt odd. Having played enough BioWare games over the years to know that all my companions would inevitably find me impossibly alluring at some point, I kind of shrugged when they began throwing themselves at me almost from the off. I figured Baldur’s Gate 3 developers Larian just wanted to get it out of the way, have Gale and Karlach and try to get in my pants sooner rather than later, but it certainly seemed hasty.
It turns out, as discovered by TheGamer, that this wasn’t meant to be the case. A bug slipped through that meant the requirements for companions to be unable to resist your illithid charms were set way too low.
Speaking to the game’s director and Larian boss-guy, Swen Vincke, TheGamer learned that “approval thresholds” were set too low, meaning the buddies you gather into your gang were ready to have special cuddles far sooner than planned. “That’s why they were so horny in the beginning,” explained Vincke.
This has already been fixed for a bunch of the game’s companions, but some still have their libido set to 11, awaiting cold showers in forthcoming patches. Gale was the most affected, as you probably noticed if you played the game, the thirsty wizard ready to make magic happen from the moment he meets you. Vincke told the site that he “wasn’t supposed to be, like, instantly there.”
It’s interesting that Larian has stuck to this being a bug, not a feature, given that being ready to go isn’t exactly abnormal human/tiefling/drow behavior. “It was supposed to simulate how real relationships are,” Vincke told TheGamer, adding that behaving like this would be “problematic” in real life. Well…to some, certainly. But, you know.
It also seems less immediately untoward given Baldur’s Gate 3‘s laudable conversation options to make it clear to your NPC chums that sex isn’t something you’re interested in, even if you do want to roleplay being in love with them.
Even to my old fuddy-duddy British ways, it seems rather quaint, seeing sexual relationships as something only feasible after enough time and approval, as if an instant attraction is so unlikely or impossible. Of course, that’d be kind of weird if it were every companion, as was the case at launch. But this more conservative approach is already going to be in place for many companions for those starting the game today. Sorry, PS5 players.
Starfield is finally here and it is big, complex, and often overwhelming. There are tons of menus to navigate, cities to get acquainted with, and skill trees to invest in, not to mention resource mining, base building, and ship customization. Before you get into any of that, however, let’s go over some basic tips and advice to get you started.
Diablo IV – Bear Bender Build
Currently live for fans who purchased the Deluxe Edition or Game Pass upgrade, Starfield is a sprawling sci-fi RPG where one minute you’re haggling with a bar keep for information and the next you’re shooting a bunch of space pirates and stealing all of their credits. But there’s a lot of minutia to get lost in, from confusing menus to maps that don’t tell you where anything is. What follows is a quick guide with some tricks and shortcuts for surviving Starfield’s opening hours and beginning your journey into the outer reaches of the galaxy.
Don’t worry about how your character looks
You can change it anytime by visiting an Enhance! shop and paying 500 credits. The nearest one at the start is in the commercial district in New Atlantis.
Make hard saves all the time
You never know when things might go wrong in Starfield. You might fail a persuasion roll or get jumped by giant aliens, or even accidentally crash your ship into the space station you’re trying to dock on. The game auto-saves but it’s not foll-proof. It’s a Bethesda game, after all.
Lower music volume and raise voice volume
Starfield comes out of the gate with very loud and intense music. And that’s fine. But after about 20 minutes, I struggled to hear what people were saying. Looking at the default settings, voice volume isn’t as high as it probably should be, so knock that up a bit and turn music down a little, too. Trust me, you’ll still be able to hear it fine.
Loot the pirates after the first fight for an assault rifle
The first big fight in Starfield isn’t very hard and the game quickly pushes you to leave. But first, go grab at least one assault rifle (and some other goodies) off those pirates you just wasted.
Loot everything and give it to Vasco
Speaking of looting stuff, feel free to grab everything and just dump it on the robot who partners up with you in the early hours of Starfield. Like in previous Bethesda games, your companions are pack mules with dialogue trees. Use ‘em! To do so, just chat with the bot (or other companions) and ask to trade items.
Use cover like a modern shooter
Aiming near cover will have you pop out in a way that feels unlike any previous Bethesda RPG. Sure, dynamic cover like this has been around since 2012-ish, but hey, I’m not going to complain about Starfield having good combat compared to Fallout 4 and Skyrim.
Use the laser mining tool for killing
The Cutter you get at the very beginning is deceptively great in battle. It works on a cooldown with unlimited ammo, and can stun-lock enemies at close range. Pull it out every now and again to save precious bullets early on.
Set your helmet and space suit to disappear when not needed
Early on in the game, Starfield tells you to go into your menus to put on your helmet. You might be mistaken and think you have to do that every time you want to take it off or put it on. (And you need it out in space to live.) But nope! Just leave it and your suit on, then go into the inventory section for each. You’ll find an option at the bottom of the screen letting them disappear automatically when not needed, like in towns or stations. No more running around cities looking like a giant dork!
Pump up your persuasion trait ASAP!
If you don’t want to waste all your resources fighting through every encounter, make sure to put some points into persuasion. It will increase the odds that you can talk people down from fights and generally make it much easier to manipulate people, which is why you’re playing this game, right?
Careful you don’t sell your equipped gear
The game won’t check you while you’re pawning off all your loot so spam that sell button with caution.
Save time by fast-traveling directly through the quest menu
You don’t always have to navigate through your cumbersome star chart to get to a new planet. If you want to go to the next location for a mission and you’ve already been there before, simply use the “select course” option from the pause menu to automatically head to the destination.
Scan everything all the time
Starfield basically gives you detective vision. In addition to scanning planets, your helmet sensor will also scan everything right in front of you, highlighting nearby enemies and valuable loot. This is also how you survey fauna for extra XP. Plus, you can use it to find your ship’s location on the horizon and instantly fast travel to it.
Don’t forget to take a nap
Sleeping will fully heal you and also give you a “well-rested” bonus that increases the rate at which you earn XP.
Use the research station on your ship to get access to more craftable stuff
You can upgrade guns, suits, and helmets as well as cook food in this game. But you’ll need to do some research first. You’ll need some materials, like iron and fiber, but once you have some you can unlock new mods and things to craft, letting you improve guns and make good suits even better.
Hitting undo while lockpicking still spends a digipick
So be careful, they’re hard to come by!
Use your ship inventory
You don’t just have to give all of your extra items to companions or throw them on the floor, you can also store them in the ship’s cargo hold by selecting it from the ship part of the menu (bottom left). It’s not unlimited but it has more than enough room in the beginning.
Designate weapons and healing items as favorites to save time
As far as I can tell, in the first few hours of the game at least, Starfield doesn’t say anything about favoriting weapons. But you should totally do that! Like in past Bethesda games, you can map guns, medkits, knives, and more to your d-pad and then quickly switch weapons during combat without needing to open the game’s (not great) menus. Simply replace an item with something else to change up your favorites.
Cyberpunk 2077 has certainly had a long, strange journey from being totally busted at launch to reasonably playable today. Debates rage on as to whether it can ever deliver on all the pre-launch hype CD Projekt Red generated, but soon the game will get another chance to impress with the one-two punch of a sweeping version 2.0 update and the September 26 launch of its only paid expansion, Phantom Liberty. But which upcoming features are free, and which will require you to shell out for the DLC? We can finally shed some light on that.
Phantom Liberty Is Undoing One Key Thing That Cyberpunk Got Right
That’s because today the game’s official Twitter tweeted a graphic that lays out, in no uncertain terms, which changes will be available as part of the game’s 2.0 update, and which will require buying the Phantom Liberty expansion. As of this writing, the 2.0 update doesn’t have a release date, but it will launch before the $30 Phantom Liberty does on September 26. Generally, the patch looks to be mostly systemic and quality-of-life changes, whereas the expansion is bringing new content on top of those sweeping fixes and tweaks.
So, which new features will you get for free, and which are only in the paid DLC? Read on.
Features in the free Cyberpunk 2077 2.0 update
All PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X/S Cyberpunk 2077 players will enjoy the following new features for free, whenever the 2.0 update hits. (Unfortunately the PS4 and Xbox One received their last major patch with last year’s version 1.6 “Edgerunners” update.)
Redesigned skill trees and perks
When we played Phantom Liberty during Summer Game Fest, CD Projekt Red spent time extolling the many coming quality-of-life changes, like a cleaner, more readable UI. But more systemic gameplay changes, including redesigned skill trees and a complete overhaul of the cyberware system, seem like they’ll change the game up in more significant ways.
The redesigned skill trees, based on my time with them in that demo, feel like they’ll help to craft a more defined playstyle for your V. The character I played in the demo was melee-based, with powerful hand-to-hand finishers and the ability to deflect bullets. That’s only one of the planned new skill trees, and it’s unlike anything in the base game right now. Needless to say, you’ll want to respec when the 2.0 update launches.
Just one caveat to note: The new “Relic” skill tree, about which more below, will only be included in the paid expansion.
Revamped cyberware and new capacity system
Now only is your basic character build evolving, but also how you augment it. The revamped Cyberware system allows you to basically put your tech augments into overdrive to make them more powerful, but that will come with drawbacks if you’re not careful. While it won’t quite reach the Cyberpunk: Edgerunners anime’s portrayal of cyberpsychosis, you can expect some more risk and reward in how you augment V after patch 2.0.
Vehicle combat and car chases
In Cyberpunk 2077 you spend a lot of time driving around Night City, but the base game doesn’t let you do much else with all the cars and bikes you collect. The 2.0 update is adding combat sequences—V can fire a sidearm out the window, or operate a turret built into the car—as well as more car chases in the open world. The game already had a few chases, but only in pre-scripted sequences. This new system seems to make them a naturally occurring event within the world.
Combat AI improvements
Cyberpunk 2077 was pretty much a straightforward shooting gallery most of the time, but the 2.0 update aims to make its combat more dynamic by overhauling enemy AI and tactics. This will include things like making enemies better at taking cover and giving them new melee attacks that make them more lethal up close.
New police system
The 2.0 update claims it will make the punishment for your crimes more severe than a simple firefight and a possible car chase, with the threat scaling depending on the severity of your crimes. This includes giving cops heavier artiliery to deal with you depending on how bad you’ve been. If you keep racking up violations and reach the maximum “Heat” level (think GTA), you’ll have to face a MaxTac miniboss encounter. If you’ve seen Edgerunners, who already know why that’s very bad news.
UI and UX improvements
Cyberpunk 2077’s original UI is a bit hard to read. It’s stylized to look like a HUD a cybernetic-enhanced mercenary might have, but that’s not exactly easy on our real-life human eyes. The 2.0 update is revamping it to be a bit more sleek, clear, and not as disruptive.
Loot, items, and crafting changes
The 2.0 update is also bringing new loot and equipment, as well as changes to the crafting system which lets you make new weapons, clothes, and other items for you to carry around Night City.
New radio stations (including Community Radio Station Growl FM)
While you’re engaging in all that car combat, Cyberpunk 2077 is also getting new radio stations to listen to, which will also include one made up of songs from the community chosen as part of a contest earlier this year.
CD Projekt Red
Features only in the paid Phantom Liberty DLC
All that 2.0 update stuff sounds pretty good, but that won’t get you all the new content and features. You’ll have to shell out 30 bucks if you want to enjoy the following new additions to Night City.
Dogtown – a dangerous new district
The bulk of Phantom Liberty takes place in Dogtown, a new area near Night City’s Pacifica district. You won’t be able to access the new space without buying the expansion, and you also won’t be able to reach it until you reach the Pacifica section of the main game. So be sure to get that out of the way before September 26.
Brand-new storyline and characters
All those systemic changes are fine and well, but the big draw of Phantom Liberty is the spy thriller storyline featuring Luther and Sonic the Hedgehog 2 actor Idris Elba as new character Solomon Reed. Naturally, this will only be available if you buy the expansion.
New quests, gigs, boss fights, and more
Alongside the main quest, Dogtown will be home to other quests, fights, and other antics for V to get up to in Phantom Liberty.
Vehicles missions and airdrops – ‘endless dynamic events’
With the 2.0 patch’s overhaul to vehicles, naturally Phantom Liberty will be looking to highlight those changes. This will include new missions, including airdrops, which are meant to be endlessly replayable, according to the devs we spoke to at Summer Game Fest. We’ll see about that.
All-new Relic skill tree and abilities
Part of the story in Phantom Liberty centers around a character named Songbird, who claims that she can save V from the Relic in their head that is slowly killing them. Part of this includes unlocking the Relic’s potential, thus opening up a new skill tree that is only upgradable using Relic Points found in Dogtown.
100+ new items – weapons, cyberware, cars, and fashion
If you weren’t already overwhelmed by all the loot and such you can collect in the base game, Phantom Liberty is giving you more loot to put in your pack. This includes new fashion, so I will be serving lewks throughout Dogtown while doing spy shit.
Vehicle missile launchers
No car chase or vehicle combat overhaul is complete without mounting an explosive onto the front of your car.
Level cap increased to 60
Cyberpunk 2077’s level cap right now is 50, so on top of respeccing your V with the new skill trees, you’ll be able to gain another 10 levels while you fight your way through Phantom Liberty’s new story and quests.
It seems like CD Projekt Red is going all out for Phantom Liberty, which makes sense considering that it’s the game’s only planned expansion for Cyberpunk 2077. The studio is working on a sequel as well, but that game is likely a very, very long way away.
Call of Duty fans’ passions run hot when it comes to the series’ multiplayer maps, which have been the topic of discussion and controversy since United Offensive, the 2004 expansion pack that added multiplayer to the original Call of Duty. Maps are so integral to the Call of Duty experience, so important to each new game’s success, that favorites often get spruced-up and re-released—the upcoming Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III, for instance, is bringing back every single map from 2009 smash Modern Warfare 2.
Some maps in Call of Duty’s extensive multiplayer offerings are thoroughly mid (Quarry) or downright awful (Piccadilly, honey, I’m sorry), but many CoD maps represent the absolute best in video game level design, with distinct movement lanes, great sightlines, and beautiful visuals. These maps are the GOATs, the standouts, the reminders that the franchise is so popular for a reason, and today I’ve tried to pick the 10 best of the bunch.
A lot of the maps on my list are on the smaller end, as smaller maps tend to highlight the best features of CoD’s multiplayer mechanics and gunplay. And many of them are also “three-lane” maps, which describe setups that offer three different directions for players to take from their spawn points, which are often divided by buildings or obstacles that nearly cut them off from one another, but don’t completely isolate them.
You’ll also find that these maps are all from older Call of Duty games—that’s because I believe more recent titles (like Modern Warfare 2019 and Vanguard) have larger, more visually complicated maps that don’t play to the series’ strengths. CoD is at its best when it’s a little frenetic, a little chaotic, and a ton of fun—and running through maps that have myriad sightlines and far too many directions to get attacked from is only fun in Warzone, not multiplayer.
Ready? Here are the 10 best Call of Duty maps of all time, in no particular order.
Though you still can’t play it, Bethesda’s massive spacefarer role-playing game Starfield recently beat out one of 2023’s biggest games, D&D RPG Baldur’s Gate 3,as a Steam top seller, GamesRadar first noticed.
The Week In Games: What’s Releasing Beyond Baldur’s Gate 3
Starfield, out in Early Access on August 31 and globally on September 6, has successfully dragged its 1,000 explorable planets and eager players’ mounting expectations to the number-one spot on the U.S. Top Sellers chart. It’s also the number one seller for a huge number of additional countries, including Australia, Switzerland, Norway, and Germany.
Most other counties, though, are concerned with neither Bethesda’s big space game nor Larian Studios’ big Dungeons & Dragons game. China, Denmark, Spain, Poland, and many others are still downloading free-to-play multiplayer first-person shooter Counter Strike: Global Offensive, which was initially released in 2012, more than anything else, making it the current worldwide top seller. CS:GO has been assuming different rankings on the Top Sellers chart for 577 weeks, or the full 11 years of its existence. How is there still anyone left who hasn’t picked it up already?
We’ll have to wait a bit longer to find out if Starfield has that kind of longevity, too. Director Todd Howard certainly hopes so, telling GQ in a recent interview, “[Starfield] takes [Bethesda’s oeuvre] all to a level that we weren’t sure even that we could do. This type of game is still unique. When it clicked, and we could play it, we realized we had missed it. No one still does this.”
“We don’t get many of these in our careers—we don’t get many shots,” he said.
Starfield is a big game with hundreds of planets to explore and many sandwiches to collect. But while all the NPCs you’ll meet in Starfield have voices, the game’s main character doesn’t. Bethesda already confirmed this was the case last year, but has now shared more details about why it made this choice, revealing that originally Starfield had a talking protag and that ultimately cutting the main character’s voice helped the game grow in size.
Diablo IV – Bear Bender Build
Starfield was officially revealed back at E3 2018. Half a decade later, the game is finally close to coming out. (Depending on where you live, it might be out in August, technically.) Hype is off the charts for this open-world RPG set in a vast galaxy as it is Bethesda’s first big single-player game since 2015’s Fallout 4 and the first new IP from the studio in over two decades. And as I already mentioned, it’s a very big game. Bethesda’s own Pete Hines says it might take you over 50 hours to get through the main quest. According to Bethesda, the reason it was able to make such a big game is because it ultimately decided against having a voiced protagonist, a change from Fallout 4’s talkative main hero.
In an August 28 interview with Polygon, Starfield lead designer Emil Pagliarulo explained that early in the space RPG’s development, the studio actually had planned on your main character having a voice. Pagliarulo said that Bethesda even hired an actor and had them start recording dialogue before the team realized it wasn’t working, adding that the voice sounded “too specific.”
“So then what are the options? Do we have—like some RPGs do—four voices? Do we have one voice, but hire someone else who’s more convenient?” asked Pagliarulo. “But [in Starfield] you can make every different type of person. We realized that the only way to really do it and let the player be the person they want to be was to have an unvoiced protagonist.”
Interestingly, when asked if fan reaction to Fallout 4’s informed Bethesda’s decision to go the opposite direction in Starfield, Pagliarulo admitted that it partially did, suggesting that negative reactions to Fallout 4’s talking main hero didn’t “directly” lead to Starfield’s silent main character, but that it “certainly played into it.”
Starfield got bigger once it cut the main character’s voice
According to Pagliarulo, there was a time in AAA game development when every main character had to be voiced.
But he says that Bethesda has realized, over the last few years, that maybe that isn’t accurate. He suggested that fans might enjoy the game more if the protagonist doesn’t have a voice actor. The designer further added that there’s a “big argument” in RPGs about having voiced lines that mimic the text or if the text should just summarize the line.
“So then we just arrived at, ‘What if we just go text?’ and it was just really freeing,” said Pagliarulo, explaining that this choice helped the game actually grow even bigger.
“We have over 200,000 lines of spoken dialogue in Starfield with no voiced protagonists. And it was not having a voiced protagonist that allowed us to create such a big world.”
