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As an expansive survival game, Palworld has a variety of stats you can increase as you level up, leading to different strengths and weaknesses over the course of your character’s life. As is customary for many games like this, you can usually alter, or “respec,” these stats later on. Palworld lets you do this by way of “Memory Wiping Medicine,” which you can craft with the right items. – Claire Jackson Read More
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Kotaku Staff
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Video game publisher Activision Blizzard has been embroiled in controversy within the last few years, from allegations that a culture of sexual harassment was allowed to thrive to reports of union-busting by management. But in January 2024, when a new lawsuit was filed against the Call of Duty and Overwatch publisher, many were shocked to read what it was in reference to: A 57-year-old former ActiBlizz exec alleged that he left the company because of ageism. According to the lawsuit, then-CEO Bobby Kotick said that the company’s problem was that there were “too many old white guys” working there.
Though race and gender traditionally get more attention in calls for a more diverse game industry—one where whiteness and maleness remain the norm—age discrimination is a hot-button issue as well. According to a 2019 survey from the International Game Developers Association, only 9% of game developers are 50 years old or older. As the people behind iconic, genre-defining games approach and surpass middle age, how do their peers treat them? Have they noticed a shift in the way developers work, or how games are made?
I sat down with Gears of War designer Cliff Bleszinksi on one call and Ultima Underworld creator Warren Spector, Apogee Software founder Scott Miller, and Nightdive Studios head of business development Larry Kuperman on another, to chat about navigating the game world after spending decades in it.
“I’m gonna go on record saying I think I’m the oldest person who isn’t running stuff or on the business side,” Spector, who is 68, proclaims early on in the conversation. He’s referencing the phenomenon by which former developers transition to the business side of game dev, which many chalk up to the intense demands of video game development cycles.
Spector started in the board game world before moving to digital games in 1989, Miller (who pioneered gaming’s episodic release format) shipped his first in ‘85, Kuperman has been involved in games since 2001, and Bleszinski joined Epic Games in ‘92. Of the four, Spector is the only one solely working on the development side, while the rest are now mostly focused on the business end or, in Bleszinski’s case, out of games almost entirely.
I ask if the volatility and demands of the industry, which has seen more than 6,000 layoffs in the first month of 2024 alone, are why companies can’t or won’t retain older talent. “Some people find an ever-changing environment invigorating,” Spector suggests. “That’s one of the reasons I’ve lasted this long…things change so rapidly that you’re constantly acquiring not only new knowledge but new skills.”
But he acknowledges how competitive and tough the games industry can be. “The difficulty of the work, the low pay, drives even young developers away,” he points out while suggesting that, in his experience, the average “lifespan” of a programmer is about five to seven years due to the intense nature of their work.
“There’s a certain type of developer that’s a kind of self-flagellating monk that lives for that [intense] work ethic,” Bleszinski says during our conversation. “And then there’s a certain amount of peer pressure where you have deadlines and then someone goes home at six o’clock at night to their family, and then the other people are still at their desks—they don’t say it, but deep down they’re thinking, ‘I’m gonna be here until midnight, fuck that guy.’ A lot of that comes from the top…my producer on Gears, Rod Ferguson, I believe is one of the best in the business, but he lives for the work. He’s just an absolute workaholic.”
With crunch becoming an increasingly popular issue within the industry, and workers campaigning for union protections and a better work/life balance, can studios expect their developers to work the way they once did?
“The industry thrives on hungry game developers that are just happy to get an okay salary and free Mountain Dew and Doritos,” Bleszinski says. “If crunch is enforced, they’ll do it, but they’re gonna be very resentful towards the company…plus you get to a certain age where you hit the point where you’re like, ‘fuck you, pay me’.”
Though Spector, Miller, and Kuperman don’t hesitate to disagree on the topics we cover (they playfully throw barbs about the validity of the games-as-a-service business model), they wholeheartedly agree on one thing: The nuts and bolts of game development have dramatically shifted since they started their careers, and much of that shift can be attributed to the availability and approachability of today’s game engines.
“We used to have to create engines from scratch, and that limited access,” Spector points out. “Now, youngsters right out of school, in their garage, can actually make games without learning Assembly, like Richard Garriot [the creator of the Ultima series] had to. So I think that’s a large reason why you don’t see as many older developers, because the youngsters are using those available tools.”
Miller, who is still “deeply involved” in making games, concurs: “We’re in the era now where two people can do what 20 people did back in the ‘90s.” He brings up last year’s action game, Turbo Overkill, which Apogee published. “95% of that game was made by one guy. We helped him up with the music and voiceover, but this is a game that would’ve taken 25 to 30 people back in the ‘90s. It’s just a remarkable piece of work.”
And for them, in today’s game economy, innovation like that can only be found at indie studios. “I like being at the indie level,” Miller says. “I think we can all agree on that,” Kuperman chimes in. “There’s just so much innovation going on at the indie level that you’re not seeing at the big boy level because it’s too costly to take a risk,” Miller suggests.
What about those “big boy” studios, and the thousands of layoffs they’ve doled out in the last month alone? How do industry mainstays feel about the layoffs, and the future of the industry? For Spector, there’s no fear in gaming’s future, just apprehension towards those leading it: “It sounds like [companies] just over-hired during the early days of the pandemic, and it’s bad management that’s resulting in overstaffing. That doesn’t mean there’s a fundamental flaw. It means we have some bad managers at the top of companies.”
Kuperman steps in, pointing out that “Scott [Miller] has been kinda leading the way in hiring back up people from kindred companies.” Miller reiterated Spector’s talking points, suggesting that “games suddenly were selling 30 to 50% better than normal” during covid, and studios went on a hiring spree.
The conversation circles back around, once again, to the promise and allure of indie studios in the modern financial climate. “I don’t have 150 or 200 employees to lay off…but the layoffs are coming at Mega Corp,” Kuperman says. “And in the meantime, there are lots of indie developers that are not only thriving, but are looking to scale up.”
Though we laugh a bit about how we all came together—thanks to Bobby Kotick (himself a 61-year-old man) allegedly partaking in ageism—the tone does get somewhat serious when discussing the issue of age discrimination. Miller and Spector deny facing any sort of ageism during their decades in the industry, but Kuperman has a personal anecdote that’s stayed with him for years.
After working remotely for GameStop for two years as a business development manager, he was let go at 57 years old. “There I was, with a great resume, you know, successful in games, I had worked with every major company, my client list went from Activision to Zenimax…I sent out my resume, my applications to all of these companies that I had worked with—they all knew what I could do and my capabilities. And they all turned me down,” Kuperman recalls. “And the one that was the most offensive—I won’t say who it was—but they took the time to explain to me that I was not a ‘cultural fit.’ I got this explanation that I was not a cultural fit while I was working from home wearing a Ramones T-shirt. I knew what they meant, right? That I was not gonna fit in with their twenty- and thirty-somethings.”
Bleszinski believes older members of the industry are still in it either because they didn’t get “fuck you” money or because they genuinely love what they do—from our convo, it’s clear that his time churning out AAA games left him somewhat jaded. “Talking about ageism—once a person gets married and has kids and whatnot, you know, they’re going to put in their eight hours and they’re gonna go the fuck home,” Bleszinski says. “I tell people, get ‘fuck you’ money, and then get the fuck out.”
Spector, Miller, and Kuperman are all now indie darlings, so their experience is vastly different from Bleszinski’s, who had to be the face of a massive AAA franchise while still actively working on it. But all of them still agree that game development can often feel like a young person’s, well, game. Part of that has to do with the demands of the work, sure, but there’s an accessibility problem, as well.
“My twitch skills are not what they used to be,” Spector points out. “People don’t believe me that there are physical changes in your body as you get older. But there are, and I am physically not able to work the kinds of hours I used to. I am physically not able to keep up with 12-year-olds, 34-year-olds [referencing my age] playing games anymore. So I need to find a somewhat different role in development, and I’m lucky enough that I’ve been able to carve out a different role. But a lot of people might just say, ‘I don’t want to do that anymore’ and self-select out.”
“The thing is, for me, my vision,” Kuperman says. He struggles with contrast in games, and can get frustrated when he can’t see important features like doors. “But I’m lucky because [my studio] NightDive is now part of Atari, so I now have support mechanisms that I didn’t have before.”
But how does the industry, as a whole, do when it comes to accessibility and diversity?
“It’s not just age and it’s not just physical—divergent thinking is not very well-supported,” Spector says. “Every way you can think about diversity, we do a bad job…we don’t get a lot of resumes from older developers or people who think differently or people of color…that’s an area where I think younger developers are going to have to lead the charge.”
He continues. “I’m only speaking for myself but, I like the past when I was able to work until three in the morning and sleep under my desk and drive home and have no idea how I got home. I kind of miss those days of comradery in the foxhole. Younger developers don’t wanna do that, and it’s a good thing ‘cause I can’t do it anymore. So it’s good that they’re thinking that way…the world has changed for the better.”
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Alyssa Mercante
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Omnipresent brothers, Travis and Jason Kelce (who are NFL players, commercial stars, SNL hosts, podcasters, and members of Taylor Swift’s inner circle) are looking to add a game development feather to their caps—specifically, they want to reboot ‘90s classics Backyard Football and Backyard Baseball. Whether or not you’re a member of the Kansas City Chiefs Kingdom, a birds (Philadelphia Eagles) loyalist, or a Swiftie, you can’t deny that this is a great idea.
On the January 31 episode of their New Heights podcast, Travis asked his brother Jason if he remembered Backyard Football, which debuted two years after the first game in the Humongous Entertainment-developed (and Atari published) franchise, Backyard Baseball. The premise is simple: neighborhood kids get together and create teams to play pick-up versions of baseball, football, and soccer. Players take on the role of manager, selecting the teams and making in-game decisions in either quick play matches or an entire season’s worth of games. For many of us, it was a seminal part of our childhood gaming experiences—for me specifically, I still spout off some of the sayings squawked by the in-game baseball announcer, Vinnie the Gooch.
Jason Kelce also fondly remembers Backyard Football—so much so he wants to reboot the damn thing. “I don’t even know if I want to mention this, I’ve secretly been looking into seeing if anybody holds the rights to Backyard Football and Backyard Baseball, ‘cause I want to buy it and get this going again—that was the best game ever.” Kelce then suggests that the game would be perfect on mobile, and he’s not wrong—it certainly didn’t require all that much processing power.
The Kelce brothers are certified geniuses if they reboot the Backyard franchise—and it’s not just because those games are awesome and tons of people would be on-board for the nostalgia alone. Specifically, the genius behind rebooting the franchise lies in later versions of the games: both Backyard Baseball 2011 and Backyard Football 2002 (and Backyard Soccer: MLS Edition, which I loved), added professional athletes to the neighborhood kid mix, animated to fit the art style of the games. That meant you got to play alongside a big-headed Derek Jeter or Brett Favre, who rubbed elbows with schoolyard icons like Pablo Sanchez and the Weber twins.
Imagine a modern version of that, with a little cartoon Travis Kelce doing the swag surf? I’m so down. As spotted by IGN and corroborated by Kotaku, American legal information site Justia states that the Backyard Sports trademark is owned by Day 6 Sports Group, who developed the last games in the franchise back in 2015. The Day 6 Sports Group website link is a dead-end, and its Twitter account hasn’t been active since May 4, 2015.
Kelce bros, get to work.
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Alyssa Mercante
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Were you bummed Final Fantasy VII Rebirth didn’t make an appearance? Well you’re not alone. Good news, though! On February 6, 2024, we’ll be treated to yet another State of Play showing, this time with a closer look at the upcoming second chapter of the Final Fantasy VII remake project.
And that wraps everything we saw at tonight’s State of Play. Which games are you most excited about?
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Claire Jackson
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Earlier today, players noticed that Spec Ops: The Line was no longer available to purchase on Steam, leading many to fear that the acclaimed third-person shooter had been quietly delisted without warning. Sadly, 2K has since confirmed that is the case, and the publisher has also explained why it pulled the landmark shooter.
Developed by Yager and released back in 2012, Spec Ops: The Line was a reboot of the lesser-known Spec Ops franchise. Like those past games, The Line was a third-person military shooter. However, the 2012 reboot garnered critical acclaim at launch thanks to its narrative which depicted a solider in the deserts of Dubai slowly losing his grip on reality, offering a meta-critical take on the way some military shooters glorify the horrors of war. While it didn’t sell as many copies as 2K would have liked, the game has gone on to become a cult favorite among shooter fans. And now, it’s no longer on Steam.
On January 29, folks began to notice that Spec Ops: The Line had been removed from Steam and other storefronts, like Fanatical. People wondered if 2K had delisted the game, possibly due to expiring licensing rights on some music featured in it. And that seems to be the case, according to a 2K spokesperson.
“Spec Ops: The Line will no longer be available on online storefronts, as several partnership licenses related to the game are expiring,” explained 2K in a statement sent over to Kotaku. No specific licenses were named, but among the noteworthy music tracks included in the game are Jimi Hendrix’s performance of “The Star-Spangled Banner” and “Rooster” by Alice in Chains.
The publisher assured players that owners of the game will still be able to download and replay Spec Ops: The Line “uninterrupted” but it will no longer be easy to buy a digital copy moving forward. Currently, the game is still for sale on GoG, but the above statement seems to indicate that will change soon.
“2K would like to thank our community of players who have supported the game, and we look forward to bringing you more offerings from our label throughout this year and beyond,” said 2K in its statement.
While there had been talks of a sequel for years, it seems 2K isn’t even willing to tease that and instead is just letting Spec Ops: The Line fade away like a mirage in the desert. It’s just one more game—on an ever-growing list—that will be harder to play as the years go by.
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Zack Zwiezen
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Last year, we saw the rise of video game publishers offering a few days of early access to big AAA games for a price. This year, it’s only going to get worse as it seems every large game publisher is holding games hostage and charging players a ransom fee to play a few days early. But what happens when you pay $80, $90, $100, or even more for a game and early access to it and don’t actually get to play the game? Well, we’re seeing that play out with WB Games and Rocksteady’s Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League.
After numerous delays, Rocksteady—the developer behind the Arkham games—finally (sort of) launched its next big title, Suicide Squad. But unlike the Batman games it previously developed, this new game is a live-service (yes it is) co-op looter shooter starring iconic villains like Harley Quinn. As a result, a lot of Batman fans were disappointed by the game’s reveal and things have only gotten worse with each delay, leak, gameplay trailer, and preview. And now, the game is out for folks who paid $100 (plus tax) on the game’s special edition, a version of the game that comes with some extra goodies and one significant “perk”: three-day early access. Yet, for most of January 29, players have been unable to play the game they spent all that money on.
Technically, players in some time zones who purchased the game’s $100 deluxe edition were supposed to be able to start playing Suicide Squad today. That hasn’t been the case, though, because of a bug that meant some players booted up the game and discovered the entire campaign was already completed. Oops! In response, Rocksteady yanked the servers down and, because the game doesn’t have an offline mode (yet), that made it unplayable.
Sure, the deluxe edition comes with some extra cosmetics and a free one-time-use token that lets you upgrade a battle pass to its premium version. But checking Twitter and elsewhere, it’s clear that most players bought the fancy version because they wanted to play the game early. And now they can’t.
Normally, I’d say: Hey, games are hard to make and servers are complicated things to run, so let’s cut everyone some slack while they figure things out. Not this time though.
Sorry, but if you treat early access to a video game as a premium marketing point—something you will advertise endlessly and hype up for weeks—you have to deliver that experience. Yes, I know there’s a blurb at the bottom of the store listing that says they can’t guarantee you’ll get to play 72 hours of early access. I know. But that doesn’t change the fact that WB happily took all of these players’ $100 pre-orders and won’t be able to provide them with what they wanted: early access.
And there’s no way to fix that. If the servers are still down for most of tomorrow, players might—at best—get 24 hours of early access. WB isn’t going to delay the game for everyone else by two days to make sure the folks who paid more get to play “early.” They just get screwed and maybe learn a lesson: Don’t pay these publisher ransom fees to play something early.
Remember that these games, like Starfield and Mortal Kombat 1, aren’t actually being launched early for folks who pay extra. The game went through all the certifications, testing, checks and other hoops needed to launch a game on consoles. That’s the only way WB can sell you Suicide Squad on the Xbox Store or PSN. So all of these games are (assuming the servers are up) ready to launch for everyone. All the publisher is doing is delaying the game for a few days for the folks who aren’t willing to pay an extra fee on top of the standard $70 asking price.
I know the argument that some people make is that this is a choice. If some people are willing to pay the money, why not let them? Because we shouldn’t let companies get away with being evil, greedy assholes just because someone out there is willing to go “Okay, sure, I’ll pay.” You think the world is a bad place now? Imagine if corporations could do whatever they want as long as someone, anyone, was willing to pay.
So yeah, I get it. The market supports this. People will pay. Blah blah blah. But hopefully, what today has shown is that paying for early access is for suckers, especially for online-only titles. You pay more for a possibly less stable and more broken version of a game and the publisher can’t even guarantee you that you’ll actually get to play whatever you paid for early at all.
Hopefully you can. And if not well, tough luck and enjoy your extra digital hats or whatever, I guess. Is that worth $100? I’m not so sure.
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Zack Zwiezen
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First introduced in 2022’s Modern Warfare II, Call of Duty currently features a nonlinear battle pass themed like a geographic map. While this allows players to choose what they want to unlock from the pass instead of going through a scripted path, it can be a little confusing to newcomers used to more traditional, linear sets of unlockables. What’s more, the “token” system that CoD uses to unlock stuff from the battle pass can be a little confusing as well, especially if you’re not sure whether you should just let the pass automatically unlock itself by spending tokens for you. – Claire Jackson Read More
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Kotaku Staff
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Rocksteady developers behind the upcoming Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League—a DC villain-themed open-world co-op looter shooter—revealed some new details and thoughts behind the game’s battle pass, seasons, and endgame content. And while it’s still a live-service game that will likely have its own issues come launch, I’m feeling optimistic about it based on these recent answers that, at least on paper, sound good.
First revealed back in 2020, Suicide Squad is the next game from Rocksteady, the devs behind the earlier Batman: Arkham games. And while this new shooter is set in that same universe, since its reveal, fans haven’t been terribly excited about the game. Whenever we see more of it—via trailers or leaks—it looks a lot like a live-service shooter, even if Rocksteady is unwilling to admit that. Mixed previews earlier this month didn’t help win over folks, either. However, in a recent Discord Q&A, the devs laid out their plans for Suicide Squad’s endgame and seasons, suggesting that this game is fully playable solo and won’t make you grind for weeks to play limited-time content.
On January 26, over in the official Suicide Squad Discord server, the devs held a second Q&A after the previous one was so well received. This time around, many of the chosen community questions and developer answers seemed focused on convincing folks that this game won’t demand you treat it like a second job.
“We all love playing games, but we also have lives,” said Axel Rydby, Game Director on Suicide Squad.
“That’s been a big part of our design philosophy making this game. We don’t want the game to feel like a life commitment or be a game where you have to sacrifice a lot to see all the content on offer, or feel like you’re not making good progress in the game if you can’t play hundreds of hours,” explained Rybdy.
A good example of this is that seasonal battle passes—which Rocksteady reminded folks multiple times in Discord only contain cosmetics—and all the content that is added to the game with each new season, can be done at any time. All that stuff, like battle-pass-exclusive outfits, new locations, missions, and the game’s first new playable character, The Joker, will not leave the game once the season is over. According to Rocksteady, you can always go back and make progress in a battle pass from a previous season or even buy the premium version well after its release.
“We believe that our team has created some of the best-looking cosmetic items ever,” added Darius Sadeghian, studio director at Rocksteady. “We want those to be available for our players to enjoy without fear that they’ll miss out on anything.”
As someone who plays a lot of Fortnite, a game that is built on battle pass FOMO and limited-time items in its ever-rotating store, this sounds very nice.
Another example of Rocksteady claiming the game will respect your time and not demand you spend every day playing it is that every mission and activity in the game, even the toughest endgame content, can be completed solo. This, Rydby pointed out, is part of the studio’s philosophy when developing the co-op game.
“We want this game to be generous, both with your time and with all the features we have to offer,” said Rybdy.
Adding to this, Rocksteady confirmed in today’s Discord Q&A that you will be able to go back and replay any and all missions from the game’s story. And if you play with friends, and move past your current point in your own game, the devs say you’ll be able to skip those sections when you hop back into your solo world. Another example of the team trying to respect players’ time, which I appreciate.
Of course, just because a game has great endgame and season pass plans, doesn’t mean it will be good. If Suicide Squad’s combat is bad, its traversal gameplay clunky, and/or its narrative boring, it won’t matter how nice the season’s cosmetics are or how generous the battle pass might be; people will stop playing.
We don’t have to wait long to see if the game will be fun enough to invest any time into future seasons, characters, or more, since Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League launches on Xbox Series X/S, PS5, and PC on February 2, 2024. If you pay the publisher-created ransom fee and pre-order the deluxe edition, you can play three days earlier.
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Zack Zwiezen
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According to new data, it appears that Valve likely made about $1 billion from digital Counter-Strike 2 (previously Global Offensive) cases and keys in 2023. Yes, that’s billion with a “B.”
In Valve’s immensely popular free-to-play tactical FPS Counter-Strike 2, players can get cases by playing and earning them through level drops, or purchase cases from Steam’s community market. These cases come in different variants and can contain extremely rare and valuable cosmetic items like weapon skins. But once you have a case, you don’t just open it. You also need a key, which must be purchased either directly from Steam or from other players on the community market. And because CS2 is very popular, this lootbox system is making Valve a lot of money.
As spotted by Dexerto, third-party website CS2 Case Tracker recently released its 2023 year in review for cases. And the biggest stat is the estimated $980,000,000 that Valve earned from players buying keys to open cases. Because keys are just digital items that unlock cases, it’s not like it costs Valve all that much to make them or maintain them so the company likely absorbed almost all of that staggering figure as profit.
But wait, that massive $980 million stat is only how much money Valve likely made from the sale of keys. It doesn’t factor in the 15% cut they get from every case sold on the community market. When you factor that in, it becomes very likely that Valve made well over $1 billion on cases and keys in 2023 alone.
That probably is one of the reasons Valve isn’t in a rush to make new video games. They don’t really need to. Instead, they can sit back and let Steam and Counter-Strike fund all their virtual reality experiments and other hardware projects. Honestly, it’s a miracle we ever got Half-Life: Alyx.
One last stat for the road: According to CS2 Case Tracker’s data the most popular day to open cases was Wednesday. Why? I don’t know. But there you go. You can now likely win a bar bet with this weird bit of trivia.
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Zack Zwiezen
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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.
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.
Read More: A PS3 Version Of Gears Of War 3 Is Now Available
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.
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.
Read More: Gears of War Creator Thinks Series Needs ‘A Bit Of A Reboot’
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.
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Alyssa Mercante
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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
This guide will take you through everything you need to know about Halo Infinite in 2024—and it’s all looking rather exciting.
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:
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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Claire Jackson
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Ubisoft Montpellier’s 2.5D side-scrolling Metroidvania Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown is finally out on Nintendo Switch, PC, PlayStation 4/5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S. It’s a long, challenging action-platforming game with lots of tough bosses and intricate puzzles. Here are a handful of essential tips to make your journey a bit easier.
Read More: Prince Of Persia: The Lost Crown: The Kotaku Review
The Lost Crown follows the young Sargon, the newest member of the warrior clan known as The Immortals. He’s tasked with tracking down the kidnapped Prince Ghassan, who’s been dragged off to the cursed city of Mount Qaf. The game has plenty of paths to unblock, collectibles to find, and equipment to unlock. It’s easy to get lost or stuck, but I’ve got you covered.
About an hour or two into the game, you’ll unlock a new weapon: a bow. This weapon doubles as a throwable chakram that serves several functions, including calling down platforms and opening gates. The double-edged weapon can also be used in combat as a projectile that gets faster and stronger every time you parry it. More than that, though, you can use the chakram to reach those elusive resource caches without having to pull off a complex platforming feat. Be sure to use that chakram often, as it’ll make collecting stuff a little less frustrating.
The fiery blacksmith—and absolute goddess—Kaheva opens up her forge to you not long after you reach the hub area of The Haven. But she’s not the only shopkeeper who can improve your equipment. While Kaheva can buff the damage of your bow and swords, The Mage, an elderly woman who operates an equipment shop in The Haven, can increase the number of health flasks you can hold and improve the potency of their healing. On top of that, both shopkeepers can power up the status effects of your Amulets, equippable pieces of gear that provide benefits such as increasing your melee damage at low health or reducing the damage of environmental hazards. It’s worth coming back to The Haven to upgrade your gear as often as possible. These bosses don’t play around, so you’ll need all the buffs you can get. Trust me.
Speaking of The Haven, another person you should visit regularly is the swordmaster Artaban. Artaban is Sargon’s trainer throughout the story, teaching you effective ways to dispatch your foes in fights. You should also do his combat challenges to get Time Crystals, one of the currencies used for buying wares and upgrading gear. The challenges themselves are simple, and with enough practice and patience, will help you become more comfortable using all of Sargon’s abilities to kick serious ass.
With The Eye of the Wanderer, a true innovation within the Metroidvania genre, you can take screenshots that show up as icons on the mini-map, which helps make backtracking easier. Instead of trying to memorize where something is, you can use the upgradable resource known as Memory Shards to snap a quick photo to remember the spot. And when you’re finished with the image, you can delete the screenshot to free up space for more photos. Just hold down on the D-pad and snap away. Your brain will thank you for it.
As you explore Mount Qaf, you’ll come across characters in need of help. It might be deciphering an ancient text or finding an old woman’s children. Either way, these side quests reward you with some good stuff, from currencies to use at the various shopkeepers to resources to upgrade your gear. Depending on the complexity and length of the objective, you might even get a Soma Petal, which increases your max health when you’ve collected four of them. Be a good Immortal and help some people out. It’ll be worth your while.
You’re presented with two game modes when you start: Exploration and Guided. Exploration mode is the default setting, giving you little direction for story quests and side errands on the mini-map. With Guided mode, you get much more assistance as the mini-map populates icons for mission objectives, doors and paths, and the upgrades you’ve unlocked. guessing game. You’ll still get lost, so don’t worry about that. Guided mode will just make it so you don’t stay lost. You can toggle this setting at any time—you’re not locked into what you chose at the beginning of your playthrough.
The Lost Crown is a masterful example of accessibility in video games. In the extensive settings menu, you can make parries easier, extend the invulnerability you receive while dodging, skip challenging platforming sections, show markers for interactive elements in the world, and so much more. This game really lets you customize the experience to your liking, so you should do that. There’s bound to be a setting here that will give you the kind of Metroidvania experience you’re looking for.
Fariba has extensive knowledge of the cursed city, and she’ll often have maps on her for sale. These maps reveal everything you need to know about that given area, including potential secrets and unexplored spots. Her location varies, and she’s usually a bit of a pain to find, often holed up in some room gated behind a complex platforming section. But picking up the area map from her will save you time in the long run. The best part? Unlike some of the other shopkeepers whose wares can be a bit more expensive, Fariba sells her services for just 50 Time Crystals. That’s a bargain in my book.
The Lost Crown is predicated on returning to areas you’ve previously visited with new powers, so it’s tempting to backtrack once you’ve acquired a new time-bending ability. But take it from me, you should wait until you’ve gotten the very last power, the Fabric of Time. You don’t get it until about three-fourths of the way through the story, but waiting to get this grappling hook of sorts will save you time and frustration. Before this point, a majority of your backtracking will be blocked by floating hooks that require the Fabric of Time to reach. There’s no clever way to get around these sections without it, so you might as well wait. Besides, by the time you unlock it, you’ll be so OP not even the toughest boss could stop you.
Read More: New Prince Of Persia Game Has A Wild NPC Oopsie
And there you go, nine tips to help you bend time and survive death in Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown. Although I’ve beaten the story, I’ve still got plenty of collectibles to find and side quests to finish. So, good luck in Mount Qaf. Prince Ghassan needs us both.
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Levi Winslow
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Thursday’s Xbox showcase included some big games that I can’t wait to play. But if you tuned it right when the action started you might have missed the best part of the show: a series of fun pop-up facts and trivia about various Xbox-owned studios.
On January 18, Xbox posted its latest Developer Direct, showing off gameplay from a few big titles coming to Xbox and PC later this year and letting the people making these games talk about them in detail. (Hey, Geoff, take note.) It was a solid showcase and that new Indiana Jones game looks wonderful. But perhaps my favorite part of the event happened before all the trailers and gameplay. During a countdown before the Developer Direct started, Xbox flashed numerous fun facts about studios like MachineGames, Oxide, and Obsidian Entertainment.
I didn’t see a lot of people talking about these neat little pieces of trivia, so I wanted to take a moment and highlight some of them so we can all enjoy them after the fact. I love stuff like this. I also loved Pop-Up Video on VH1 back in the day. Anyway, to the facts!
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Zack Zwiezen
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Call of Duty: Warzone and Modern Warfare III’s Season 1 Reloaded update launched midday on January 17—and almost immediately broke both FPS titles. The Reloaded update promised anti-cheat improvements, adjustments to the Zombies mode, new cosmetics, new multiplayer maps, and more, but the launch was plagued by server issues and visual glitches. In the time since launch, the dev team has deployed multiple fixes to right the ship, even appearing to work overnight into the wee hours of the morning on Thursday, January 18.
Historically, ‘Reloaded’ updates come in the middle of Call of Duty seasons as a way to keep the game fresh between massive seasonal changes and adjustments. Notably, this is the first Reloaded update for Modern Warfare III, which launched back in November of last year (confusingly, every time a new Call of Duty title drops, the season count starts all over again, though the updates have remained tied to the free-to-play Warzone battle royale since Modern Warfare II). The update promised a massive new anti-cheat measure that automatically shut downs the Call of Duty PC application if aim assist is detected, MWIII ranked play, a new Rio-based map, an Operator based on The Boys TV series, new game modes, and much more.
Unfortunately, from the moment the Season 1 Reloaded update launched, players began reporting serious issues across both Warzone and MWIII. Streamer fifakill shared a clip on X/Twitter of the game glitching just under half an hour after the Reloaded launch, writing “If you try to go to ‘create a class’ in the menu your game will bug and you’ll have to restart. If you try to hit loadout in game this happens.” He also shared a clip showing a strange dent in the topography of the Urzikstan map, which was definitely not intentional. MWIII Ranked was delayed, some weapon attachments were broken, challenge progress was bugged, interacting with in-game loot crates was freezing the game, and more. Call of Duty site CharlieIntel called it “the worst Call of Duty update of all time” on X/Twitter.
In the face of the litany of issues, the dev teams (Raven Software, which works on Warzone, and Sledgehammer Games, which works on MWIII) have been rolling out fixes as soon as they’re ready to go rather than in one massive patch, so that nearly 24 hours after launch, many of the major problems have been fixed. Unfortunately, it also seems like the dev teams had to work overnight to ensure this, as some of the updates were shared as early/late as 3:40 a.m. ET. “I don’t think I can recall seeing updates going out in the middle of the night. Ggs,” wrote one commenter. While it’s great to see the dev teams responding swiftly to issues, I don’t think overnight work is ever worth a “gg.” Work/life balance is much more important than bugged loot crates, IMO.
Kotaku reached out to Activision for details on how/when the dev teams were working on fixes, but did not receive a comment in time for publication.
Updating live-service games like Warzone involves a ton of moving parts, and sometimes one little change can render the entire car undriveable. Luckily, if you’re a Call of Duty player, it seems that Reloaded is in a much better state just 24 hours after launch.
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Alyssa Mercante
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Harmonix, the Epic Games-owned studio behind the popular rhythm game franchise Rock Band, has officially announced that it is wrapping up its weekly DLC releases for 2015’s Rock Band 4. It will now focus on supporting Fortnite Festival, instead.
Rock Band 4 was released nearly a decade ago in October 2015, and was a return for the franchise five years after the release of Rock Band 3 and the crash of plastic instrument games like Guitar Hero and DJ Hero. While Rock Band 4 wasn’t able to rebuild the once large plastic instrument genre of rhythm games, it ended up with a dedicated community of players who kept enjoying the game and buying DLC songs for it even as it became harder and harder to track down replacement instrument controllers. Now, eight years and nearly 3,000 DLC songs later, Harmonix is moving on.
In a January 17 post on the official Harmonix blog from Rock Band 4‘s product manager Daniel Sussman, the studio revealed that the DLC music released on January 25 will be the last ever for Rock Band 4. Sussman’s post did clarify that all other live services, including Rivals seasons and online play, will continue as normal. But there will be no new tracks coming to RB4 after this month.
Sussman also made it clear that all the songs players own in Rock Band 4 will not be going anywhere, adding that you’ll be able to keep rocking out to your previously purchased songs “for as long as you like.”
As for what Harmonix is working on now, well, that’s clear if you’ve been paying attention to Fortnite lately. Epic’s popular battle royale juggernaut expanded in December with the addition of three new games built inside Fortnite. One of those is Fortnite Festival, a controller-based rhythm game featuring popular songs from different genres. Harmonix is the team behind that game and it’s what the studio will be focusing on post-Rock Band 4.
“Looking ahead, the Harmonix team has been hard at work over the last two years to develop Fortnite Festival,” said Sussman. “[It] brings rhythm action gaming (and more) to the Fortnite ecosystem. It’s free to play, we have a rotating selection of songs that you can play (for free) anytime. If you are a fan of the rhythm game category, Fortnite Festival is the place to be.”
And Sussman once again confirmed that support for RB4 instruments is coming soon to Festival, so you don’t need to “hang up your guitars just yet.”
“Working in support of the Rock Band community has been a high point in my professional life,” Sussman explained.
“We deliberated long and hard about how to frame the last blast of RB4 DLC of this era. The last two weeks will feature some tear-jerkers that sum up our feelings about this moment. We thank you for your commitment to and passion for this wonderful game. Long Live Rock and Roll.”
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Zack Zwiezen
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Over the January 13-15 holiday weekend, a rumor spread about the cancellation of an untitled and unannounced Halo battle royale, codenamed Project Tatanka. It all started with a few off-hand comments on a January 13 stream of the XboxEra podcast, in which the three hosts (Jon Clarke, Nick Baker, and Jesse Norris) discussed speculation that the project was canceled. The story spread like wildfire, with multiple outlets pointing to Baker as a source, prompting XboxEra to publish an article clarifying the situation and reiterating that this is little more than a rumor.
So what’s actually going on? Is a Halo battle royale in development? Is it canceled? Do we even need such a thing? Let’s get into it.
The existence and development of this mysterious Halo battle royale is itself a rumor—back in April 2022, Halo support studio Certain Affinity (which has built maps for both the Call of Duty and Halo franchises, among other things) announced it was “deepening” its relationship with Halo Infinite developer 343 Industries. Certain Affinity did not announce exactly what that “deepening” entailed, but did say that the studio was “entrusted with further evolving Halo Infinite in some new and exciting ways.”
In a September 2022 interview with VentureBeat, Certain Affinity’s chief operating officer Paul Sams doubled down on the tease, saying “The biggest thing we’re doing that’s public right now, for more than two years now we’ve been working on Halo Infinite doing something that—they’re very prescriptive about what we can say. But we’re doing something unannounced, and we’re doing lead development on that unannounced thing, from conception and design.”
In January of last year, Bloomberg reported that the unknown project was code-named Tatanka and “started off as a battle royale but may evolve in different directions.”
Despite all of this, there has not been an official announcement regarding what Certain Affinity is working on, and no confirmation that Tatanka is a Halo battle royale. Xbox Era’s Clarke told Kotaku via email that the publication was “stunned it’s a story at all really. Kotaku reached out to Certain Affinity for a comment; they declined to supply one.
Some may wonder: Can you cancel a game that was never announced? But I’m wondering: Does anyone want a Halo battle royale?
There are already two Halo Infinite game modes that are reminiscent of a traditional battle royale: the now-defunct Last Spartan Standing, a free-for-all elimination mode featuring 12 players battling it out on Big Team Battle maps; and the latest game’s version of Big Team Battle, which ups the player count from 8v8 to 12v12. Last Spartan Standing gave players five lives before permanently eliminating them from the game, but it always felt too small for the larger Big Team maps, and the playlist was replaced with Team Doubles four months after its debut. It hasn’t been back since. And the Big Team Battle mode isn’t anything like a battle royale save for its size.
The features that make Halo games special are exactly what make them the anti-BR: incredibly strong weapons and subsequently strong player-characters, an impressive, bombastic sandbox with limitless potential, and absurd vehicles that can make or break a match. None of that is poised to translate well into a battle royale mode, which drops a hundred or so players into a massive map (far bigger than anything we’ve ever seen in Halo Infinite), with either their bare hands or a shitty pistol, and demands they scurry about like rats until they find any weapon to sustain them in the warzone. Imagine you drop into a Halo battle royale and immediately find the rocket launcher? It’s game over for everyone else.
So no, I don’t think a Halo battle royale is a good idea. Iterating on what makes Halo so special and consistently updating Halo Infinite is what will keep this franchise alive—not aping whatever is the hot commodity in gaming at the moment. But who am I, anyway? I’m just an adult woman who got hardcore into online gaming with Halo 3 and who spends her spare time playing battle royales—how much does my opinion matter, right?
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Alyssa Mercante
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With the pre-release of Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown started, Ubisoft has chosen this week to rebrand its Ubisoft+ subscription services, and introduce a PC version of the “Classics” tier at a lower price. And a big part of this, says the publisher’s director of subscriptions, Philippe Tremblay, is getting players “comfortable” with not owning their games.
It’s hard to keep up with how often Ubisoft has rebranded its online portals for its games, with Uplay, Ubisoft Game Launcher, Ubisoft Connect, Uplay+, Uplay Passport, Ubisoft Club, and now Ubisoft+ Premium and Ubisoft+ Classics, all names used over the last decade or so. It’s also seemed faintly bewildering why there’s a demand for any of them, given Ubisoft released only five non-mobile games last year.
However, a demand there apparently is, says Tremblay in an interview with GI.biz. He claims the company’s subscription service had its biggest ever month October 2023, and that the service has had “millions” of subscribers, and “over half a billion hours” played. Of course, a lot of this could be a result of Ubisoft’s various moments of refusing to release games to Steam, forcing PC players to use its services, and likely opting for a month’s subscription rather than the full price of the game they were looking to buy. But still, clearly people are opting to use it.
But it remains strange why enough people would want to subscribe—and at $17.99 a month it’s not cheap—to a single publisher’s output. That’s not a diss of Ubisoft’s games—although you might want to apply your own—but something that would be as true were it Activision Blizzard or EA.
You can subscribe to Game Pass, or PlayStation Plus, and get a broad range of hundreds of games from dozens of publishers, or you can pay significantly more to only get the games made by one single publisher, and indeed a publisher with a very distinct style of game. TV networks and movie companies tried this, and those numbers are thinning out fast, with many already compromising by returning their shows to the larger streamers.
What’s more chilling about all this, however, is when Tremblay moves on to how Ubisoft wishes to see a “consumer shift,” similar to that of the market for CDs and DVDs, where people have moved over to Spotify and Netflix, instead of buying physical media to keep on their own shelves. Given that most people, while being a part of the problem (hello), also think of this as a problem, it’s so weird to see it phrased as if some faulty thinking in the company’s audience.
One of the things we saw is that gamers are used to, a little bit like DVD, having and owning their games. That’s the consumer shift that needs to happen. They got comfortable not owning their CD collection or DVD collection. That’s a transformation that’s been a bit slower to happen [in games]. As gamers grow comfortable in that aspect… you don’t lose your progress. If you resume your game at another time, your progress file is still there. That’s not been deleted. You don’t lose what you’ve built in the game or your engagement with the game. So it’s about feeling comfortable with not owning your game.
Tremblay goes on to say to GI.biz, “But as people embrace that model, they will see that these games will exist, the service will continue, and you’ll be able to access them when you feel like.” But…we know that isn’t true! We know how often services don’t continue, how many games are no longer available.
One of my all-time favorite games was published by Ubisoft in 2003, called In Memorium (Missing: Since January in the U.S.), and that’s certainly not on its Classics range, I’m sure because the company long ago lost any rights to it. Luckily for me, I own a physical copy of it. But any number of other Ubisoft games from the early ‘00s I stick in its Classics site have no results. There’s no reason on Earth to think the same won’t be true of Ubisoft’s current games in 20 years.
There are still plans for Ubisoft to add streaming access to Activision Blizzard’s games to Ubisoft+, as bizarre as that may seem given the publisher’s recent acquisition by Microsoft. It’ll also seem fairly redundant, given all the games will come to the far more ubiquitous Game Pass, where they won’t be behind the technical hurdle of streaming. And indeed Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown is already available to play via the Epic Games Store if you pre-ordered it there.
If, for whatever reason, you just adore Ubisoft’s output, then yes—for $17.99 a month you can play Skull & Bones, Avatar, Assassin’s Creed Mirage, Anno 1800, and The Crew: Motorfest right now, which is a lot cheaper than buying them all individually. But you won’t own any of them, and you’ll need to keep paying that 18 bucks a month in perpetuity if you want to keep them, right up until you can’t any more.
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John Walker
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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
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Kotaku Staff
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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
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
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Claire Jackson
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