Embark is doing some monumental spring cleaning in the lead up to its major Arc Raiders' update Frozen Trail. There's been an overhaul to its anticheat approach, the news of a potential PvE test, and a change to loot hotspots. But amid all of this, we're also getting a rework to one of Speranza's most important residents: Celeste.

Diana Gardner has been the voice of Celeste, Speranza's de facto leader, since the beginning, but Stefan Strandberg, the chief creative officer at Embark, explained in a blog post how Celeste has "never fully represented the depth of Diana’s performance." As her "limited expressive capabilities" held the character back and broke immersion for players, failing to communicate "the stakes and stories we want to tell."

"Sometimes high fidelity, dynamic facial expressions are important to anchor the gravity of the story, and this is something that has constrained us up to this point," Strandberg adds.

So, with this in mind, Embark has set about reworking Celeste, with Gardner becoming her new face. "This is the first time we have used full motion capture, including a more detailed and accurate face, that allows us to map expressions and emotion in more detail. This means that more of Diana’s performance and identity comes through the screen."

This does mean Celeste will look different on October 6 when Frozen Trail releases, but rest assured all "you’re watching is the authentic performance of an incredibly talented actor, the real Celeste on screen for the first time."

It won't just end here though, as this is the start of a new wave of visual reworks for Arc Raiders as the team also intends to take a look at other characters. "In future updates, we plan to bring more characters in line with their real-world actors," Strandberg explains. "Not only will this mean more faithful representations of actors, it’ll be felt by players themselves."

Arc Raiders has always had one of the most exceptional worlds to explore, but it has unfortunately fallen short when it comes to characters. They are by and large just quite dull, sure the designs kind of look cool, but they've have always just been quest giving machines rather than convincing citizens of a game. This is not helped by its use of AI when it comes to beefing up voicelines.

So it comes as no surprise that Embark is seeking to remedy this, by "finding more ways to integrate real human performances into every interaction". Because that is the only way to tell a successful and convincing story.

What's the most stunning revelation in this Gears of War prequel? Marcus Fenix used to have a jump button. Yes, the king of cover-based shooting, a man more rooted to the ground than a scarecrow, spent his youth jumping to some bits of cover. So E-Day contains at least one literal leap forward for the franchise. Shame it's trapped in a slog of a campaign that's otherwise anything but.

But before I moan about that, plenty of good news first. Gears has never felt better to play. These third-person cover shooters have always been a blast when they're working, and a miserable swearing fit when you dodge roll into certain death instead of snapping into cover like you wanted to. Again.

That nonsense has finally been excised, mostly, thanks to slightly more acrobatic characters and some wise button remapping. It's amazing what a difference sticking run on L3 and giving climb its own designated button makes.

Gears of War's biggest haters are liable to characterise its cover-shooting as a dull game of whack-a-mole. Perhaps on Normal difficulty, but Hardcore is where the experience sings. Here, staying in the same spot of cover is rightfully punished. You've got to keep gaining better ground, constantly weighing up the risks of lining up a sniper shot, a chainsaw insta-kill, or making a desperate dash for cover. It's a turn-based tactics shooter with a missing pause button. There's a reason that it translated so smoothly to a tactics spin-off.

E-Day introduces new weaponry that makes cowering in cover harder than ever. It loves a blast of acid, this game, either delivered from a massive evil frog or a new gun that shotguns it at you. Devastating, but a loving kiss on the cheek compared to the Goreshot, a grappling hook only interested in grappling your torso from your body. So gloriously over-the-top, it almost makes up for the insta-kill tedium from the elite enemy who wields it.

That stuff's good, but it's the renovations to the old guard that stand out. The spike trap now opens with a hugely satisfying thunk-thunk-thunk as its horrible insides prepare themselves for a good gouging. The explosive arrow-firing torque bow gets a great glow up—the sound design as it finds its target is wonderful, practically a doomsday drum roll, so good I still enjoy it even when a locust is aiming it at me. And if I'm ever called upon to assassinate God, this game's sublime sniper rifle is what I'm reaching for.

So if the gunplay's a treat and the core combat never better, what's the problem? Well, almost everything else, unfortunately.

Dis-may

E-Day is a prequel, referring to the fateful day when the locust got bored of living underground and burst free from the surface to say a very messy hello. This is covered in the opening cutscene of the original Gears of War. And if you're wondering what insights E-Day has that weren't covered in said cutscene, same here.

The game opens with Marcus Fenix and Dom 'boy isn't it great that my wife and kids are alive' Santiago. Instead of the cynical, traumatised, seen-it-all-before combat veteran of the original Gears, here Marcus is… a cynical, traumatised, seen-it-all-before combat veteran. Oh.

Discovering Marcus was once a flamboyant drag queen who was changed forever by E-Day into the man we know today was probably too much to hope for. But the fact he's essentially exactly the frikkin' same is the first alarm bell that this prequel is struggling to justify its own existence.

Once the locust arrive, E-Day tries cosplaying as Resident Evil for a bit, complete with a trip through the panicking city to the police station. Some of these horror moments work. The drone gets an excellent introduction, though not so much for the poor sap stuck in the interrogation room with it. Other attempts at horror atmosphere are hilariously clumsy. I find the blood-soaked helmet of a transit worker, and the game immediately shatters any sense of foreboding with text popping up saying 'Bloody Transit Worker's Helmet Found!' Er, hooray?

The game then has some dumb fun giving little origin stories to its iconography—chainsaws being attached to machine guns! Grenades being tossed in emergence holes! Problem is, by the start of Act 2, you have the weaponry, armor, and the squad. At which point E-Day just becomes standard Gears of War again. You explore the ruined city (not open-world, more wide-ish linear) with goals never more complicated than 'shoot those locusts' or 'survive this wave of locusts' or 'why haven't you shot those locusts yet?'

Gears 5 understood the value of variety. It had sections where you had to stealth around a mad scientist's factory to stealth kill infected robots. Or ride a skiff down an icy mountain. Or fight an enemy on the stage of a Hamilton-inspired musical which starts rotating at the worst moment possible (play Gears 5—it's one of the best 7/10s ever).

True, not all of Gears 5's ideas worked. But I wanted a sequel that improved upon them, not a regression that believes the only thing you should ever be doing in one of these games is endlessly pulling the trigger. It's just slightly remixed combat encounters all the way down. Battle a giant frog and several snipers! OK, now two frogs, one sniper, and several shotgunners! OK, OK, now three giant spiders that fire insta-kill rockets, and loads of grunts, and the last checkpoint was seven minutes back! …Hey, why are you suddenly aiming at me?

Is the shooting strong enough to sustain this? Yeah, just, though it does get exhausting. It's an action movie with everything ripped out that isn't bullets going into bastards. The 20+ hour campaign is also waaaaay too long considering how one-note it is (well, aside from two crap shooting-from-a-turret-inside-a-helicopter bits, but I was planning on being nice and not bringing those up).

Moderate improvements

New for E-Day are mod slots for your weapons and armour. Mods include less recoil, better scopes, faster chainsaw revving, etc. Not as useless and incremental as the crap you get in [insert whichever live service shooter you currently have the most beef with here], but it's borderline and hard to get excited about. Far better is the gizmo that can send out rippling shockwaves that stun enemies, perfect for a chainsawin'. I found a mod for it that also sets enemies on fire. Lovely.

You get these mods for completing sidequests or finding them in cases. But E-Day is so terrified of you missing anything that tiresome all-caps text saying HARD CASE NEARBY blazes across the screen. And the location of the case is immediately added to your map. Oh and if you activate whatever this game's version of Eagle Vision is called, we'll show you exactly where the case is. Ugh.

Gears 5—which I promise to stop swooning over soon—did all this so much more elegantly. You had a robot companion with abilities that were upgraded with currency you found through exploring. No map markers, screaming text, or other BS that belongs in the Ubisoft dark ages. You were actually incentivised to explore properly, with any world-building or character moments you encountered along the way a nice bonus.

E-Day's a less interesting place to explore regardless. A city in ruin is one of gaming's most overdone settings, so you really have to pull out the stops to make it interesting, like in The Last of Us 2, or the opening Leon section of Resident Evil Requiem. Otherwise, seen one ruined city block, seen 'em all, like in the second half of Resident Evil Requiem (at least E-Day is less grey and brown, shockingly).

Other frustrations just feel like they shouldn't be happening in the seventh game of a series. There's a special place in hell for games that put checkpoints before long dialogue exchanges that you can't skip through. Normal difficulty still isn't challenging enough. Opt for hardcore and you get the compelling challenge, but also have to swallow the occasional ocean of stale piss, with boss health bars so overlong I'm amazed they fit on the screen.

And how can a game with such outstanding skull-popping, blood-geysering headshots still have such pitiful damage feedback against elite enemies? There's no satisfaction in emptying clip after clip into a monster, not feeling like you're having any impact whatsoever until it finally falls over. Do I actually love E-Day's sniper rifle, or is it the only gunshot against the more bullet-spongy cretins that feels like it has any kick?

A new enemy at least has the decency to have a nice big eye that it doesn't like being shot in, which means I actually feel the impact of my gunfire. This thing is called… actually, to try and describe it myself when I can let the game do that in the following screenshot would be like snatching the pen from Shakespeare. My apologies. Take it away, E-Day:

Thank you, Lucas. God this game is infuriating. Great shooting trapped in a horribly overstretched campaign, telling a story that clearly didn't long to be told. It feels more like Microsoft taking a page out of the Jack Donaghy playbook and tapping a sign saying 'make it 2007 again'. Here's hoping multiplayer's a triumph. Otherwise Marcus is gonna have to open Gears 6 with one Hell of a drag show to make up for this.

We'll publish the final, scored version of this review once I've had time to try out the multiplayer, which wasn't available pre-release.

Embark is bringing forth a monumental effort ahead of Arc Raiders' anticipated major Frozen Trail update scheduled for next week . The devs have teased a bunch of new features like a temporary PvE mode, loot hotspots that change places, and a chance to build a base Topside, among a huge bevy of new items and arcs. And while I've been suitably hyped for all of this the issue of rampant cheating has still been in the forefront of my mind, Embark has now addressed this too.

"Cheating undermines what makes Arc Raiders challenging and fun, and disrupts the experience for everyone playing fairly," executive producer, Aleksander Grøndal says in a blog post. "At Embark, we take it incredibly seriously, and spend a lot of time and money in the ongoing fight against unfair play.

"The market for cheats is constantly evolving. Cheat makers profit from selling to players, often bundling malware with their software, and every time we improve our defenses, they adapt and find new ways around them. We adapt too. Our growing anti-cheat team is continually working to detect and block new cheats, close the pathways they exploit, and add obstacles that make cheating harder and less worthwhile. It's work we're committed to for as long as our games are live."

But Embark has shared its journey of combatting cheating in Arc Raiders for a long, long time now. Periodically peeping its head above the parapet to let players know that the anticheat does, in fact, exist and it's doing stuff. This hasn't, however, made a dent so far and certainly has fallen short of quelling the incessant rage of players. Grøndal admits that "simply saying we’re working on it isn’t enough", so he's trying something different this time around:

"In recent months, we’ve improved our ability to identify and sanction accounts that use cheat software, as well as accounts involved in economy exploits. We’ve also continued working to make it harder for repeat offenders to simply create a new account and return to the game.

"Permanent bans are now standard for all known cheat programs and, as a matter of policy, any account caught using cheats is permanently banned. No warnings, no second chances."

Accounts linked to those which have been banned for cheating will also now receive a permanent ban and Embark is set on more freely using hardware bans when "we have enough evidence that a single machine is being used for cheating".

Long term, Embark is growing its in-house cheat detection models which are "built around machine-learning" and other data. Alongside its Denuvo anticheat and Anybrain, Embark is also preparing to include Elytra, an anticheat which is being used at a "small scale" in The Finals but apparently shows "promise".

I'm not prepared to get too excited for any immediate change as we'll actually have to see what difference, if any, this makes to Arc Raiders rampant cheating. But it's certainly a very good sign that Embark is willing to take drastic measures to revamp the game, especially ahead of Frozen Trail.

"Video game cheating is a multi-billion dollar industry, and it will never fully go away," Grøndal adds. "What we can do is make cheating as difficult, costly, and short-lived as possible.

"We built Arc Raiders with love and dedication to the craft, and seeing it exploited by cheaters makes us as angry as it makes you. We are making progress, and we’re continuing to work to identify cheating more effectively, act on it more quickly, make it harder for repeat offenders to return, and improve the experience for Raiders who are playing fairly."

The final expedition skin—at least for now, as Embark works out what it wants to do with the system—looks decent enough. It even has a cape, though I wouldn't say no to a couple more colour schemes. We won't see the new character prestige system until 2027, but even as someone who's taken part in every expedition, I'm glad it's getting some much-needed changes.

Why do all five expeditions? I genuinely enjoy the process. Using your in-game smarts and knowledge of item locations to prep optimally is a fun puzzle, especially if you're also starting from scratch (due to having done the previous expedition) so you have minimal resources to work with.

A part of me thinks that a mandatory character reset might be best for the health of the game at this point, but players aren't going to be happy if they're forced to part with the item hoards they've spent over a year accumulating. I'll be curious to see how Embark handles it, but for now at least, this is the last expedition outfit. Here's to more exciting stuff arriving with the Frozen Trail update next week.

I have a lot of fond memories about Arc Raiders' release. The world was beautiful, terrifying, and expansive. It provided some of the best community interactions I've had in a game to date, and it was just a refreshingly good time to share with friends. But that didn't last as long as I and many others would have hoped, with executive producer Aleksander Grøndal admitting that Embark overestimated its capacity for work.

"Transitioning to live service is going to be fucking hard. Everyone said that to me. I've even said that to other people. I was mentally prepared for it to be hard—but I wasn't completely prepared for how hard it was," Grøndal says in an interview with Game Developer. "When you build a game up until launch, you build and you test and you build and you test and you fix things and measure results. So the way that we've been building video games was based on that idea—but now the demands of the players are really high, we feel like we really can't go much faster."

Arc Raiders is sadly a very good example of suffering from success. Sure, the devs had an inkling of how big this game could get, but I don't think anyone could've predicted the heights Arc Raiders would reach. Embark also made no secret of the fact that it simply wasn't as big or well-equipped as other live-service competitors like Activision Blizzard or Riot, but the team still tried to keep up the pace that was expected of them.

This is a recipe for disaster, with Grøndal explaining how "the team [was] super tired" but that they still tried to put "out content as fast as we can but it's not enough, and perhaps it wasn't necessarily interesting enough as well." Trying to keep pace with players that were completing events, sussing out arcs, and exploring maps faster than Embark could add them led to a very long and very stale period, which then saw a huge drop-off in players.

"I'm proud of what we achieved during the first four months of this year," Grøndal adds. "But at the same time, I think we have to be honest at looking at some of the impacts of that. We didn't have the time. You also have a lot of the cost of just maintaining the game—implementing bug fixes, exploits, and other constraints. We were constantly overshooting our capacity and so it was hard to plan when there's so much to do. There's a lot of maintenance and cleanup [that takes up so much of your time]."

It didn't just have a negative impact on the game, as the devs also began to feel the pains of overextending. "The team were super unhappy. To be fair, they were running really hard milestones and that wasn't fun and challenging, so we had to do something. The players were also complaining and I don't think the consistency was high enough."

The cycle only stopped when the team asked themselves "why are we doing this?" and re-evaluated their long-term plan for Arc Raiders. "Everything pointed towards the fact that we were doing it better before shipping, so we need to play to our strengths [...] and what we produce will be better, more interesting, and higher-quality across the board. It also gives us time to work things out instead of just shipping, shipping, shipping. We can actually iterate."

Grøndal also stresses that they needed to put an end to the ongoing burnout. "It's super important [to protect people]," he says. "I can tell you a personal story. I was burned out. We'd just shipped a Battlefield game [when I was at EA] and I kept pushing so hard that I had to take a break for five months and go on sick leave because I was completely broken. We talk about burnout and it's obviously bad, but being burned out feels super shitty to be honest. It's terrible. I don't recommend it to anyone. Also, it means we lose good people who might be out [of work] for a very long time."

There's always going to be more to do in a live service game like Arc Raiders. And while there are some very serious reworks needed and problems to address—like its anticheat—I'd never want anyone to prioritise content over their health. It's just a game, after all, and more often than not well-rested and happy people create better things. It may take longer to get new content, but a more relaxed and committed approach to Arc Raiders will make for a better game in the longrun—we're already seeing the fruits of that tack with Frozen Trail.

"It's very important for us to create a framework that allows us to be creative while having a good work-life balance," Grøndal adds. "If we think long-term about this product—not just in small increments but big-picture stuff—we need all of these great people. Those are the people who built Arc Raiders in the first place." I couldn't agree more.

I am very excited at the prospect of an Arc Raiders PvE-only mode. I have been ever since I got a tiny taste of what it could be like in Shared Watch, and even before that while playing in friendly lobbies. I know some aren't happy at the prospect of a mode with no PvP, but the only thing I can't believe is that Embark hasn't made this change sooner.

I've always thought that Arc Raiders was at its best in its early stages when players had to work together to take down high-value arcs. This kind of cooperation led to some genuinely hilarious scenarios or just nice encounters with strangers; something I hadn't experienced in an online multiplayer game for quite some time.

At one point I remember being huddled in a bunker with another trio while trying to take down a Rocketeer on Spaceport. While we did manage to kill it, we were then caught out when a second Rocketeer turned up and we had almost no ammo left. It was a slightly bizarre situation to be found in with strangers. But it led to some very impressive strategy and coordination, and certainly a memorable experience, as we broke off into duos and ran in opposite directions, taking it in turns to distract the Rocketeer so we could all make a successful break for the extraction point.

I think this novelty is what brought a lot of players into Arc Raiders; it's certainly what kept me around for so long even after I'd completed expeditions and all the quests. But as more people left the number of fun encounters dropped and soon most of my interactions in Arc Raiders were just with liars, assholes, or cheaters. And that's not a great way to spend your free time.

If there had been a PvE mode this is when I would've transferred over to that. I probably would have even played Arc Raiders relatively frequently in said mode from there on, as I'm sure others who enjoy the simplicity of fun social interactions and taking down arcs would have as well. But with no other option than increasingly sour PvP lobbies I decided to retire my raider for the time being.

That's not to say PvP is absolutely no fun. Again, early on I had an absolute blast playing in trio PvP lobbies. The tension and strategic play was fantastic and felt really unique to Arc Raiders' ecosystem. Having to be cautious of both arcs and fellow players made games more hectic but that meant there was a better payoff when you all managed to extract in one piece with some hefty loot.

It could also lead to equally hilarious scenarios. I still remember when my trio spotted another team from a mile off in Dam Battlegrounds who were clearly trying to flank us and just acting really suspicious. The only problem was they had absolutely no cover but also didn't seem to realise that if they could see us it meant we could also see them. Their surprise attack was quickly felled and then we had to explain to them how line of sight worked as we guided them to extract so they could go home to Speranza.

The weird and funny social moments that Arc Raiders did so well isn't exclusive to PvE or PvP lobbies. But PvE offers a guarantee that PvP can't: your games won't get ruined by assholes who lie or extract camp. And with no sign of the huge anticheat overhaul PvP would need to get fixed I can't see things changing anytime soon, so with that in mind I'd prefer something rather than nothing, because the world of Arc Raiders is simply too cool to watch waste away.

Embark has even admitted that a large chunk of Arc Raiders playerbase is PvE orientated, so I'd hardly be surprised if fair chunk of players came back just out of curiosity about what PvE lobbies could look like.

Unfortunately, there's no guarantee that this PvE test will even lead to a permanent addition. But I'll still be checking in to get a taste of what it could be like because a low-intensity Arc Raiders interlude sounds like great fun right about now.

Gears of War: E-Day is almost here, but that doesn't mean its developers have been spared in Microsoft's latest wave of layoffs as part of the Xbox "reset." While The Coalition, the studio currently working on the Gears of War series, was not mentioned by name in Matt Booty's "Continuing Our Reset" blog post, story director Juan Vaca announced on LinkedIn that he is now looking for work.

"I am part of this round of Microsoft layoffs and am open to new opportunities in games/film/tv," he wrote. "If your team needs a director/storyteller please reach out." It is perhaps especially galling given that Gears of War: E-Day went gold just days before the layoffs were announced, with a full release planned for Oct. 6.

It has felt increasingly like there is simply no amount of success, sales, acclaim, or back-breaking work you can demonstrate in the games industry to avoid some pencil pusher's job cut scythe. It's not just Microsoft's massive rounds of layoffs—take a studio like Star Wars Zero Company developer Bit Reactor, which furloughed most of its staff despite glowing reviews and over a million copies sold. This situation with Vaca echoes when, last year, a writer on Apex Legends was laid off just one day after a character she spent a year writing was unveiled.

For a primer on all the most reliable ways you can get laid off in the games industry, check out our guide on that very phenomenon. It is a sobering time to wish you could cheer on the medium's every step forward, given that the reward for doing the work seems to be a kick out the door.

Arc Raiders players are gearing up for what is set to be one hell of an update in Frozen Trails. It has already been promised as the answer to a lot of Arc Raiders' current issues, but now we also know it's way bigger than any of us expected it to be, with new weapons, gadgets, and arcs. But I'm less concerned with all of those and more interested in its update to raider outposts.

"Celeste is offering Raiders who heed her call to explore Pendola Pass a home away from home: the Outpost," an official blog post explains. "Nestled between the Rust Belt and the perilous mountain range, the Outpost is the first step to reclaiming parts of the surface."

Players will now have the chance to expand their base of operations with the outpost. Until now, we've only had one room to call our own, which is very small and has very limited customisable options—sadly, you can only fit so many ducks inside. But the outpost provides way more space.

Here we'll be able to customise this new base with different modules, furniture, and other changes to the interior. These new modules will also come in handy for the new weapon amplification which gives gear unique abilities like flammable ammo or rapid-fire in preparation for the new map Pendola Pass, which is set to be the most punishing area to date:

But honestly I'm less bothered about the outpost's end game benefits as these'll be modules that you'll also be able to build down in Speranza. I'm just hyped to have more space and an actual chance to customise a base, and it's a feature Embark'll expand in future patches: "The Outpost is the start of a feature we hope to develop much further, eventually giving players a deeply personal space that allows them to become the Raider they want to be." That's certainly a good incentive to get me to start playing again.

Here are some reasons to try the Gravhounds open playtest on Steam:

• It's free for the next few days and seems well put-together for a playtest of an unreleased early access game
• It's a co-op wave shooter and those are basically always fun to muck around in with friends, at least for a bit
• The movement feels good, especially gliding across networks of buildable cables
• There's a light resource mining and tower defense element that has potential
• You collect resources by hucking them across the map with a gravity gun, which is satisfying (just don't do it with explosive materials, I learned)
• It doesn't really play like Helldivers 2, it just replicates the home base spaceship setup, but it's a good format, and the shooting is fun

Also, you may have noticed that the characters are dogs with people bodies.

Is that also a reason to try it? It did catch my attention, mainly because I find these particular dog people a bit unsettling. I felt the same way about Fox in the Star Fox remake.

But you've got to stand out, right? Would I have tried Gravhouds if the characters looked like Helldivers 2 soldiers? I'm not sure. And I do like that when you respawn, you come back wearing a cone of shame.

Maybe a worn-down, dissociating blue collar dog guy is just what you need to get people in the door.

Do you think he has regular human hands under those gloves, or are they like paws that have morphed into hand shapes?

The open Gravhounds playtest runs through Monday. All you have to do is click the 'join playtest' button on its Steam page and you, too, can be a dog who thinks he's people and also is people.

Despite hesitation, Embark is finally giving a purely PvE version of Arc Raiders a try. It's interesting how they're approaching it as a toggle: Essentially all else about the match will be the same, except that players can't damage each other. Loot will be slightly less valuable than PvPvE sessions to account for the lower risk taken.

Embark has been open about its belief that Arc Raiders' PvP is integral to the experience, but this PvE test exists to "respect that our players have different needs than what we first envisioned." There is no guarantee that anything permanent will come of the test, or that future PvE modes will resemble this toggle.

"We have to respect that some players want to enjoy the game in their own way, and we can’t ignore what the data is telling us," the blog says.

The data Embark is referring to is pretty fascinating if you've followed Arc Raiders' unique community split between friendly and hostile players.

The Arc Raiders population split, according to Embark:

• 37% Friendly co-op players (this player group has grown consistently since launch).
• 27% Mixed players.
• 34% Pure PvP players (this player group has remained stable since launch).
• Over 70% of Friendly players and even 40% of PvP players express a desire for fewer hostile encounters and 51% of the surveyed playerbase has expressed an interest in a dedicated PvE option.
• There are clear friction points, with friendly players often attempting to avoid PvP entirely, and we hear frustration from certain groups of players around ratting and camping.

Here's the big stuff

• Pendola Pass: A snowy mountain region north of the Rust Belt flanked on all sides by a gigantic Emperor corpse. Embark says Pendola is its "most ambitious map to date" and has a unique "Flash Freeze" condition that punishes those who stay outside too long.
• New ARC types: The Frigate is a "massive airborne carrier" that apparently can't be totally destroyed. Embark framed this as a "high-stakes challenge for experienced Raiders." The Bully is a cousin of the Leaper—a four-legged belligerent that uses "hit-and-run tactics" to whittle away at raiders. The Skulker is a small, ground-level pest that keeps its distance and "takes pot shots" at players. The Hydra is a stationary turret that can target three players simultaneously.
• Outposts: Personal spaces outside of Speranza that players can build up and expand with decor, furniture, trinkets, and upgrade benches. You can't walk around your outpost, at least for now. "That is something we're thinking about as we look to evolve this feature," added executive producer Aleksander Grøndal in a press Q&A.
• Weapon Amplification: Using the new research bench, guns can be upgraded to a new "amplifaction" tier that grants them unique abilities, like flammable ammo or rapid-fire. Fifteen guns will have amplifications at first.
• Guns: The Stiletto is a light ammo battle rifle designed as an "early game alternative to the Renegade," and the Bantum is a quickfire revolver meant to compete with the Anvil.
• Reworked skill tree: Embark says it has reworked skills to be more impactful and force players to make choices about their playstyle. Not every skill can be acquired on a single raider, apparently.
• Gun skins: Raiders can now find "stencils" that serve as multi-use skins you can apply to guns. If you lose that gun, you'll need to reapply the stencil. Blueprints for stencils can also be found or unlocked through the new research station.
• Gadgets: A grapple hook, banjo, and camera tool will bring nonviolent flair to an Arc Raiders lobby near you.

Let 'em cook

Embark said "let us cook" back in May and has reappeared with a three course meal. Frozen Trail is the first fruits of Arc Raiders' new six-month gap between major updates. The 2.0 patch gives a comprehensive pass on nearly every facet of the extraction shooter, reworking skills, introducing customizable homes, and delivering core add-ons like a new map, guns, and ARC enemies.

Having not played much Arc Raiders in 2026, this is getting me jazzed to get back to paramedic duty. As a casual raider with zero expeditions or accolades, I found it hard to keep up with all of Arc Raiders' happenings back when things were changing every month. This new schedule, where major updates are rarer but allowed to be larger, is already more my speed.

It wasn't the flashiest announcement of the day, but I'm really eager to try out that grapple hook. Judging by the reveal video, that's a proper mobility tool—the kind that can anchor to a point and swing you in any direction! You can even hook Arc bots with it and go for a ride. Sounds like a beautiful disaster waiting to happen.

Frozen Trail is out October 8 as a free update. Grøndal also went into more detail about the reworked skill tree during a press Q&A.

Marvel Rivals' massive hero roster and regular character additions are some of its defining features. So it comes as a huge surprise that NetEase has decided to forgo tradition for the sake of focusing on improving its foundations.

For the first time in eight seasons—that's 17 months—Marvel Rivals will just be getting one hero, Gorr the God Butcher, in a season. "We're locking our crosshairs on just Gorr the God Butcher," creative designer Guangyun Chen says in a dev diary. "In the first half of the season we'll be rolling out one new hero and one new map. In the second half our focus will shift to phase 3 and phase 4 of the Path to Doomsday events. These will feature two brand-new game modes, with specific details dropping closer to the start of season 10.5."

Marvel Rivals doesn't have a creative block when it comes to inventign new heroes—it's got a huge backlog of characters at its disposal. But two new heroes per season does put considerable strain on the game's balance. Traditionally, new heroes are completely busted when they're first added to Marvel Rivals. This is due to NetEase's "fun first" approach, but also because of the serious backlog of fixes that preoccupies the devs.

Only adding one new hero in season 10 will hopefully ease this strain a bit so the team can focus on polishing existing heroes, without worrying about anyone new for at least half a season. It also gives the devs a chance to focus on improving other areas of the game like adding more game modes for variation's sake.

It's a good move from NetEase, but Chen stresses that this isn't a permanent change: "We want to reassure the community that a single-hero season isn't the new normal." In fact, they've already decided what two new heroes will be coming to Marvel Rivals in season 11.

The devs are not waiting until the second half of season 10 to get stuck into the balance, however. Marvel Rival's lead combat director, Zhiyong, runs through the list of hero changes for this season, which is so vast it involves "about 70% of the roster". The current changes aren't groundbreaking, with Strategists still getting their ults faster than everyone else, and many heroes only getting minor tweaks, but it's a start.

There's also a significant change coming to Marvel Rivals' competitive ban system. "The opposing teams will now take turns banning and revealing heroes in the following order," Zhiyong explains. Bans in competitive Gold 3 lobbies and above will now take the following structure:

The first team bans a hero, it is revealed. The second team bans two heroes which are revealed. The first team bans two heroes which are revealed. The second team bans one hero which is revealed.

Double banning heroes will also no longer come into play as "regardless of which team bans them, that hero will become unplayable for both sides for the rest of the match." This means players will get six hero bans for each game. "We hope this adjustment adds more strategic depth to the banning phase," Zhiyong adds.

Hopefully, this small pause on new heroes will give the devs a little bit of breathing room to get stuck into some of the more complicated pain points like power creep and the Strategist's massive healing output. If Marvel Rivals could get its balance under control, then it could actually stop what has been a muddled few seasons.

We're just a month away from Arc Raiders' major update Frozen Trails which promises new arcs, maps, and a movement overhaul. It sounds pretty impressive, and I'm excited to have a new reason to head Topside. But before we can enjoy the tundra Embark has one more small update for players, and it's live right now.

"Update 1.45.0 is going live right now and with it a number of fixes, a new Raider Project, the start of the fifth Expedition, the Hornet Hunter Set and changes coming to Cred," a blog post reads. "This will be our last Live Update before October 8, but we won't be going quiet in the meantime, a smaller update is still planned before then."

The new Raider Project sees players help Apollo continue work on an experiment which will let us follow the mystery phantom arc signals over the mountain range and beyond the perimeter for the tube system. Completing the required tasks will allow Apollo to finish his work.

This slots into the following Frozen Trails update as the new map is actually located over the mountains just beyond any raiders' current reach. When players get there they'll be able to track down the exact location of the arc signals and find out if Shani's concern was warranted or not. It's probably going to be warranted.

Other than a new project players will also be able to enjoy all the new community-made rubber ducks. There's a colourful confetti duck, one dressed as a very smart penguin with a bowtie, and an X-ray duck. You can grab these in the usual places in Bird City and display them in your den.

The most important part of this update, however, isn't the new project or ducks (debatable), it's actually the heads up about Arc Raiders' changing Cred system.

"We are retiring Cred as a currency, as we’ll be introducing a more expansive reward system launching with the Frozen Trail Update," the post explains. "All existing Raider Deck rewards will also be available in the new system. You will keep any rewards you have already claimed at the time of the update."

Cred will remain usable up until October 8, though, so if you have any spare lying around Embark encourages you to "use any remaining Cred before then". Come October 8 any remaining Cred on your account will expire and will become unusable. So the message is: use it or lose it.

Everyone has a price. Maybe it's $100, maybe it's $1,000, maybe it's for someone to see your innate value as a human being, or maybe it's $1,000,000. Popular streamer TimTheTatman recently revealed what it would take to get him to go back to Arc Raiders, and spoilers, it's not the third option.

There was apparently an ad deal floating around for the Arc Raiders and Subway collab, which TimTheTatman was approached for, but did not entertain. "I did say no to six-figures with Arc Raiders, I did," he revealed in a stream earlier this week. "I said 'No thank you'. And it was the Subway Arc Raiders ad. I said I just can't do it, I'm sorry."

This was met with the exact response you'd expect with people being baffled that he'd ever think of turning down such a lucrative offer. "That's kind of the funny part of being in a streamer position," TimTheTatman continued. "People say 'you're a fucking sellout' but then in the same breath I said I passed on six-figures from Arc Raiders and people are like 'you're fucking stupid'."

He revealed that he does actually have a price to play Arc Raiders again: they'd just have had to add another zero onto the offer. "If that Arc Raiders deal was seven-figures—hey boys welcome back to Arc Raiders and Subway, right, you see what I'm saying? 100% we're going back. But it's just for me, the game frustrated me so much—I got frustrated so much with that game, I just don't want to play it ever again. Even to a point where six-figures isn't going to get me back on it."

I can't say I'm surprised. Arc Raiders is in a bit of a rough spot right now, especially for streamers, what with all the cheating and stream sniping. Embark Studios' executive producer Aleksander Grøndal recently admitted the shortcomings of Arc Raiders and promised that its upcoming major update Frozen Trails will reset the game and provide enough incentive to get players to come back, though—even if they don't get a six-figure deal to do it.

If there's one thing you should never underestimate, it's a gamer's love for completing little tasks. Whether it's battle passes, meaningless fetch quests, or in Arc Raiders' case, its expeditions. There's just the right amount of dopamine involved for a neuron activation, so you best bet that they'll rip through them at an unthinkable speed.

I'll concede that Embark Studios probably couldn't have foreseen the full extent of this love prior to Arc Raiders release, but still, the outcome is the same: gamers out-growing their once-beloved game because they managed to complete all their tasks way too fast.

"We didn’t really expect that amount of players to show up and play ARC Raiders," executive producer Aleksander Grøndal explains in an interview with GamesBeat. "That surprised us. We were a bit unprepared. That’s one of the hard lessons we had to learn. When January came and some of the problems started with the game."

January saw the first crack in Arc Raiders' armour, as the novelty began to wear off and players became more keenly aware of how limited its content was alongside growing concerns about cheating and stream sniping. Unfortunately, despite some hard work from the team, the latter two points still remain contentious.

"We have very dedicated people playing the game," Grøndal adds. "We had some challenges around how much content there is in the game, how much progression there is in the game. We had some, but the players wanted more.

"We bet on trying to update it fast and giving players more things to do over time. That was our strategy, to try to meet those demands from players. The issue with that was the team just couldn’t keep pace with the players. The players grew frustrated, because some of the things we shipped were perhaps not as good or as meaningful as they were hoping. That was another awakening for us."

Embark has been very upfront about how its dev team errs on the smaller side for a live service game, which means it just couldn't keep pace with competitors like Call of Duty, Overwatch, or even Valorant, all of which have enough employees to keep the content mills constantly churning.

As live service games have become more common, each one is competing with others for the industry's gold dust: player attention. But Grøndal concedes that "this is the challenge with running a live service" and that Embark can't "beat anyone on quantity". Instead, the goal has always been to provide players with higher quality stuff that "has the Embark finesse to it."

The issue with quality over quantity is that players actually really like quantity. Many will say that they prefer for stuff to look good, but that's not really a live service game's draw, instead its draw is to provide something for players to do whenever they want. Players were promised a 10-year plan, and they haven't seen that manifest in Arc Raiders yet.

So what's the solution? A better anti-cheat would be a good start, but really, Arc Raiders just needs to find its footing and get back to a good live service cadence if it wants to bring players back. As for when this could happen, it seems like Embark is gearing up for something of a comeback in October with its upcoming Frozen Trails major update.

Grøndal has said it will bring a rank redesign, more arcs, updates to storage, and a new map as it tries "to answer a lot of those questions that have been posed to us from a mechanical and content perspective."

But until then, all players can do is wait and have some hope that better things are to come.

We're getting dribs and drabs of news about Arc Raiders' upcoming major update which is scheduled for October. A new "high-level" challenge has been promised to returning players, alongside a frozen map full of new arcs, plus there'll also be the small addition of a photo mode.

"Time to remember your raids, cameras are coming to the Rust Belt in October," a new social media post reads. By the looks of things this will let players record all the weird, wonderful, and downright stupid antics they get up to during Arc Raiders sessions. The only problem is, well, that the games just aren't as enjoyable as they used to be.

Arc Raiders has had its issues with cheaters for almost as long as it's been out. While PvE lobbies are still ok, PvP is a swamp of bad actors right now, and it's only been getting worse the more decent people leave, meaning cheaters take up a bigger portion of the playerbase. Some are even throwing themselves in front of friendly fire just so they can trigger a self-defense clause and murder without consequence, you just can't win against these guys.

So with all things considered, players aren't exactly overjoyed about photo mode when the house is on fire. "Using number keys as a heal bind [has] been bugged since near launch," one player says, detailing how borked their hotkeys are. "But sure, let's add a fucking camera!"

"We finally need proof that we can believe what we have been promised, not just some gimmick to string us along," another player adds.

The frustration with Arc Raiders is clear, but I have to say I don't think it's fair to completely write the October update off before we've been able to play it for ourselves. I think it actually makes sense that Embark hasn't given too much away far in advance, hype would peter out quickly otherwise. I'm actually really excited to see the October update for myself, I'd love for it to spur on another stretch of raiding.

That isn't to say, however, that the October update doesn't have a lot to prove. On release Embark promised a grand 10-year plan for Arc Raiders. It hasn't even been a year since then, and that promise seems to be teetering on the brink. October might be the developer's final chance to convince players that this game really does have enough to take it further, because I fear patience is running thin.

"Oh yea, that's the good stuff," I said as a hipfired a gnasher and atomized a locust drone, raining monster bits all over Marcus Fenix's stoic mug. We're in the midst of a singleplayer shooter drought and I'm happy that Gears of War: E-Day is here to replenish the well.

I recently got access to a two-mission Campaign demo set near the beginning of the game. The vertical slice seemed tactically considered: the first chunk showed off the linear spectacles that Gears of War has always been great at. The second chunk showed off The Coalition's aspirations to do more with its meatheads—letting Bravo Squad loose in an open chunk of Kolona City, complete with a map and optional objectives. Both were fun, but I'm now approaching E-Day with the impression that its traditional bits will be its best.

The demo picked up right as Bravo Squad armors up, so presumably after that intro we've seen in marketing where Marcus and Dom are attacked by Locust in a bar. The crew is tasked with aiding in the evacuation of Kolona by lowering a bridge leading out of the city.

You can probably guess how it goes down in your head: Bravo squad rolls up to the controls and tries to lower the bridge, but it only half works, so they have to cross a hive of locust to access controls on the other side.

A gigantic bridge is the perfect canvas for a Gears level: waves of drones and those guys with big boomshots advance down a sea of abandoned cars, blowing up potential cover spots. It's a claustrophobic sequence that you can tackle from a raised platform, where The Coalition has placed a pile of long-range Breechshots, or immediately jump down to get in the shit with lancers and shotguns.

The Breechshot, by the way, is a work of art. The gun first appeared in Gears of War Judgement, but I never played it, so E-Day is where our love affair begins: a bolt-action, hard hitting rifle that's versatile enough to consider over a Lancer, but is checked by lacking the scope and headshot potential of a Longshot sniper rifle. It's also got an axe head attached to the stock—hat tip to Locust R&D.

A later section has Marcus and Dom crossing a raised section that overlooks the other lanes of the bridge. The pair shimmy along the inside of train subway cars, flanking locusts advancing on their squadmates from above. The Coalition stuffs a lot of cool, intentional encounter design into a compact space—I dug it.

Then came something less impressive: Gears of War, but open world.

City planning

After reaching the other side of the bridge, Marcus and buds are given a waypoint, a map, and a somewhat large open chunk of Kolona to explore. It was initially neat to stretch my legs and appreciate the density of culture that The Coalition packed into the city streets, but similar to when Gears 5 spent half of its campaign making me drive a dull sled from waypoint to waypoint, I don't think Gears excels at quiet stretches.

It's like a regular, linear mission has been spaced out for no clear reason—encounters on the streets are "optional" in the sense that you can technically walk past them, but there's no reason to ignore them, because it's not like there's anything else to do besides beeline toward the end of the level.

These beats were their own fun, contained setpieces—defending a gas station, saving trapped civilians—but they're separated by a lot of jogging down streets, picking up collectibles with text I'm unlikely to read, and chatter between squadmates I wasn't particularly invested in. It was a little like playing E-Day's new Horde Siege mode with a story.

So my big question as I wait to play the full campaign in October: How much of E-Day is this open-world stuff? We know the entire campaign takes place in Kalona, so perhaps the city serves as a persistent hub between more linear missions (Halo Infinite-style). I hope it's a rarer occurrence, because Gears is at its best when it's on a track.

Arc Raiders' upcoming fifth Expedition will be its last for a good while, as developer Embark Studios is going to "pause" them until early 2027 so it can rework the whole thing.

Expeditions in Arc Raiders are a pretty big deal. Functionally, they're similar to prestiging in Call of Duty, giving high-level players a way to reset much of their character's progress in exchange for unique benefits. It's no small undertaking, and the Arc Raiders community hasn't been entirely happy with how it all works, particularly with regard to the grind.

Embark's been fiddling with Expeditions systems pretty much since they began, and following changes to the fourth Expedition announced in June, PC Gamer's Morgan Park predicted that a bigger overhaul was on the way. As usual, he was right on the money,

"We have been carefully reviewing your feedback on Expeditions," Embark wrote in today's update, "and while we've made ongoing improvements along the way, we've come to realize that some of the issues you've raised, like the tight departure windows, the reward structure, and accessibility for new players, need more than incremental fixes. They call for bigger changes.

"In order to address those concerns, we need to pause the Expeditions for a while. The fifth Expedition will be the last one until early 2027, when Expeditions will return with major improvements, tackling some of the biggest player pain points. So, if you’ve been on the fence about departing—now is the time! We will share more details on what those changes will look like in September."

Any consecutive buffs already earned will persist through the pause period so no progress is lost, while any partially completed Caravans will be replaced with Ermal Vouchers of equal value.

Reaction to the pause seems mixed: It's a bit more hostile on X than in the Arc Raiders subreddit, but nowhere is there what I would call a widespread sense of relief that big changes are coming. Instead, many players are taking a wait-and-see approach, acknowledging that Expeditions needs work while still harboring reservations about Embark's ability to actually get it right—a challenge complicated by the fact that some players are quite happy with the system as it is, and don't want it changed. Such is the way of things, alas.

Today's update also lays out the details on the fifth Expedition, including when the window opens (4 am PT/7 am ET on September 8), how to get in, and what you'll get for your troubles.

Stealth has changed.

It's no longer about avoidance, visibility, or tension. It's an endless series of "stealth action" games trivializing the uncertainty of sneaking and pushing players into open conflict. The age of camouflage has become the age of tall grass: stealth is no longer treated as a genre worthy of big budgets, but an optional feature of conventional action games. [Takes a long drag from a cigarette] Stealth has changed. And when the player's visibility is under total control… espionage becomes routine.

Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots was at the vanguard of the stealth action shift in 2008—but playing it today, the particular way it mixes mercurial stealth and heavy weaponry is anything but routine. Snake is outfitted with a tranq pistol, non-lethal CQC training, and the latest OctoCamo sneaking suit, an ingenious invention of espionage that automatically camouflages the user to their surroundings. In his other pocket are enough guns to arm a strike force—SMGs, shotguns, ARs, RPGs, a rail gun—customizable with Create-a-Class attachments.

OId Snake skulks through active battlefields, bewildered by the growing mundanity of war, as Kojima grapples with the undeniable appeal of getting in the shit. This is a stealth game that doesn't mind if you try to play it like Call of Duty, but going loud comes at the cost of stressing Snake the fuck out.

This Master Collection port, sold alone or alongside Peace Walker, is a genuinely thrilling object: proof that MGS4 wasn't a mass hallucination we all had in 2008, but a uniquely strange meditation on existential anxiety—of warmongering doomerism, automation, desensitized violence, and back pain—trapped for 18 years on a PlayStation 3. Konami has done good work here, though at times the bare minimum: you can now play MGS4 at 4K (yay!), but at a locked 60 fps (less yay).

Still, that's a lot better than the extremely unreliable 30 fps it once struggled to maintain, and the Master Collection launcher is less cumbersome now than when Volume 1 arrived on PC in 2023. Guns of the Patriots has gone so ignored for so long that it's hard to split hairs here—this is the new best way to play one of my favorites.

Naked sun

Man does it feel great to see Guns of the Patriots cleaned up. It's a special one for me: MGS4 landed just as I reached the age to enjoy games on a deeper level. It was also my first Metal Gear, which is a little hilarious in hindsight, given how obsessed the story is with its own past.

In 2026 I'm seriously charmed by the 2008-ness of this world: from the fully functional iPod (still intact here, but lacking Konami's official Metal Gear hype podcasts) to Kojima's infatuation with the XM8 and P90 (objectively the coolest guns ever made). Hindsight hasn't done wonders for its meandering plot and sometimes dull cutscenes, but Kojima's vision for a world consumed by greed and accelerated by decision-making AIs is uncomfortably spot-on. More than anything else though, MGS4's long exile has given me a new appreciation for its extremely balanced stealth.

Acts 1 and 2—where MGS4 really flexes its sneaking muscles—are the sort of triumphant stealth sandboxes that are quite rare these days. Maps are focused and linear, but brimming with options. Guards are reactive, consistent, emotive, and learnable. The years have gifted me patience for stillness, and MGS4 is most fun at a snail's pace. Slithering between guards six inches away from their boots camouflaged as a patch of dirt is a bigger thrill than crouching through tall grass in Horizon, Ghost of Tsushima, or any modern Assassin's Creed.

I love that Kojima can't help but hand players a box of toys with hidden functions. I'm always picking up three times more gear than I'll ever use, which I've learned is a blessing, because every replay is an opportunity to get fixated on a tool. This time, I finally learned how useful Playboy magazines can be when you're trying to ghost an area. This is also the playthrough in which I remembered that the Mark 2 robot, a drivable drone with a cloak and stun prod, is very useful for covertly retrieving items in risky locations.

Tactical espionage action

Replaying Guns of the Patriots and Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory in the same year is highlighting just how bland open worlds have made level design. I love MGS5, but its small Far Cry villages that have to be approachable from all angles are trounced by MGS4's busy battlefields. My favorite is the Act 2 raid on Liquid's mansion, where Snake has to bypass several active warzones either by choosing a side or concealing himself in the chaos.

In my first run through the forest, I crawled up the middle until I found a perfectly Snake-sized crevice in a berm that wrapped around the riskiest sightlines. After that I got caught, shot to death, and tried again, this time finding an alternate route by diving under a shallow river. These areas pack a lot of intentional, almost invisible routes in relatively small spaces, and they're patrolled by nuanced guards that inspire experimentation.

PMC troops can hear you but not see you, or see you but not clearly enough to investigate, or be prompted to investigate, but not be in a hurry about it. Their physical and verbal reactions communicate their alertness without today's explicit "detection meters," and Kojima's lack of restraint means there are like 12 different ways to knock one out. It's hard not to think Snake is the coolest spy in the world once you've gone the extra mile to understand MGS4's extra CQC moves—body slams, chokeholds, stun knife zap, disarms, and of course, holding a guy up at gunpoint, searching him for valuables, then squeezing his nuts until he passes out.

This is true of every Metal Gear, but it's so smart to have an "evasion" phase between "caution" and "alert" where guards frantically search the area expecting to find you. It makes stealth far less binary, and the unpredictability of search patterns in this state is a solid punishment for recklessness.

Movie mode

MGS4's enduring flaw is its second half, where it all-but abandons what it does best. Act 3 is a boring follow mission capped off by the greatest "turret sequence" ever conceived. Act 4 is a walk down memory lane that's more button pressing than sneaking, and Act 5 gets brilliant again, but ends too soon.

This sequel is famous for its long cutscenes, exposition dumps, and inscrutable proper nouns, but honestly, I love all that garbage. I'm the guy who finished MGS4 then returned to the launcher to read the MGS4 Database, a contained wikipedia for all things nanomachine. I have a high tolerance and admiration for Kojima's tastes and always find a lot to like about his characters and dramas, cringe be damned. Like how Meryl hates her dad Roy Campbell because she thought he was her uncle her entire life—forgot that bit until a database deep dive. And that weird hairless monkey that drinks cola and smokes cigs? Betcha didn't know his name is Little Gray, and that he only smokes because Snake made it look cool.

For the first half, MGS4 has a damn-near perfect balance of game and spectacle. Then the game parts get shorter and boring. From then on it only occasionally recovers its pulse with a cool boss fight, "holy shit" cinematic trick that other videogames just never even try, and a memorable finale. There is, weirdly, not enough filler. It's enough to make me wonder if MGS4 was squeezed for time and heavily cut in the same way that Phantom Pain would eventually release without a real ending.

I want more video settings in this PC port, that's for sure, but I appreciate the goodies that this Master Collection could've gotten away with skipping, like a digital art book, manual scan, and that sweet database app.

I also clocked some small touches that confirm Konami didn't just boost the resolution and call it a day: There's a late-game moment where you need to shake the PS3 controller that could've been replaced by a generic controller glyph, but instead it recognized I was on a Steam Deck and showed custom art for the machine. And the Codec call where Otacon jokes about putting in "disc two?" He now has new lines about being on the "PC platform, a digital title!" Nice one, Konami.

This game rocks. It's not a bulletproof recommendation given the slog of a back half, but in exchange you get some of the strongest stealth encounters in videogames and Kojima's signature goofy, genuine storytelling with all the glitz that a PS3 could muster (and, blessedly, none of the slowdown). There's still nothing like it 18 years later, and now I can easily revisit it whenever I want.

I love a good Arc Raiders map condition. Whether it be hunting for rubber ducks in Bird City, or trying to survive frozen temperatures in Cold Snap, each one offers up a much-needed revamp on what can sometimes be a stale selection of maps. The only problem is that some conditions can be pretty inaccessible.

Initially map conditions followed the same global release for everyone. This wasn't much of an issue when the game released t as there were only a handful of conditions to tack onto maps, but as more appeared it's become increasingly difficult to play some of them. Take Bird City for example—I love it, but when it first released it was almost impossible to play because it was only live when I was at work (boo) or sleeping (yay).

Embark tried to fix this by upping the frequency of said map conditions but this only worked so well, with there still being regions which would see less of certain conditions compared to others. Luckily, it seems like this is all behind us now as Embark has pushed out a solution in its latest update which means fairer map condition distributions for all.

"We have been working to make sure that the way we schedule map conditions is aligned with your playing habits," Embark says in the new update blog post. "To that end, we’re introducing Regional Map Condition Scheduling. Starting with 1.42.0, map conditions will have their schedule offset based on regions, instead of a single, global schedule.

"This means that the schedule will shift to fit specific regions' peak hours to better match your experience. This way, it’ll be less likely to miss out on a map condition regardless of where you are."

You can check out the new schedule for yourself using the map conditions tracker. And as you'll be able to see, there's masses of conditions ticking away every hour during peak times for you to pick from now, so you won't have to stay up way past your bedtime to collect matriarch reactors or limited edition rubber ducks.

The devil works hard but cheaters in Marvel Rivals work harder, as always. Some have chosen to go to extreme lengths to avoid getting an icky loss tacked to their precious match history, using their config files to help them do so.

"People are intentionally abusing the cheating detection system to cancel games with no consequence when they are losing," streamer LytePk says in a social media post. "Fix this ASAP, this has happened to me five times on stream today."

The trick seems to involve players leaving a match temporarily, dropping config files into the game file mid match, and then loading back into the game. This causes the match to cancel. Why, you ask? Well NetEase doesn't like players messing with the config files.

At first players began tinkering with their config files to try and fix the game's poor optimisation, messing around with it so they could get better framerates or just so it would run better on their PC. Now this isn't malicious in and of itself so NetEase by and large left it alone. But it didn't stay that way.

Some players realised that by messing with the settings they could strip Marvel Rivals maps of all their complicated flourishes, visually downgrading it to just its barebones. This gave a competitive advantage as enemy heroes stood out more and there was less visual 'mess' clogging up team fights.

NetEase responded to this trend with a warning: anyone caught with modded configs which would boost performance or optimisation would be met with penalties like temporary suspension. But because some players were still using it for less nefarious reasons penalties have more or less remained benign, like just auto cancelling a game with no de-rank punishment.

Here's a clip of the config files hack in action:

Unfortunately for those who just want Marvel Rivals to run a little better, the next logical step seems to be NetEase dishing out substantial punishments for those caught using modded config files, because this loss work-around is way too easy to get away with. There may also be a more nuanced solution that NetEase could enact, but I wouldn't put money on it.

Embark has finally released some solid information on Arc Raiders' next major update, Frozen Trails. We've got details on all the big and small features players can expect to see, including a snowy map, new arcs, new weapons, and more ways in which Embark wishes to improve "the core Arc Raiders experience".

The biggest feature which Frozen Trails brings with it is the map itself which is unsurprisingly frozen. It'll take players beyond the mountains as they're tasked with investigating a strange signal emanating from the tundra. There's abandoned homes, villages, research facilities, and an observatory to explore and strip for loot. But, just as it is with any other Arc Raiders map, players will have to fight for the good stuff: "You’ll encounter threats above and below ground, and navigate environments that no Raiders have seen before."

Some of these threats will likely come in the form of the new arcs which have been teased for a while now. "Our team has been hard at work developing new ARC threats that will arrive alongside the new map, each designed to challenge the ways you’ve learned to move, fight, and adapt," executive producer Aleksander Grøndal explains in a blog post.

All we know about these arcs so far is that they'll range from "small and nifty problem-makers" (which means they'll probably be similar to the likes of Pops or Ticks), to "an enormous machine that will halt you in your tracks."

It's all relative but when I hear enormous in Arc Raiders I think of the Matriarch, which could mean we'll be getting another map-uniting threat to go up against. Perhaps we'll finally see a glimpse of the rumoured Baron or Duke. But enormous could also just mean a Bastion or Vaporizer-sized arc which would still be a lot of fun to fight and likely just as terrifying.

"Creating new ARC is one of the more involved parts of development," Grøndal continues. "From early concepts and animation to behaviour and machine learning systems that give them their distinctive 'spark of life', every enemy goes through months of iteration to get right. We think it’ll be worth the wait, and we can’t wait to see what you think."

But these new arcs aren't just here to terrify players, it's all about creating another "new high-level challenge" for long time players to sink their teeth into. As more time passes and the regulars get better and better, it's crucial that Embark ups the ante, so in enters "an enormous new Arc Operation designed for experienced raiders looking to push themselves even further."

"Without giving too much away, this new activity is built around many of the ideas that have become increasingly important to us throughout development: meaningful decisions, dynamic encounters, and moments that demand cooperation and careful judgment," Grøndal says.

"Success won’t come easily. You’ll need to balance combat, teamwork, risk, and survival in what we believe will be one of the most intense experiences ARC Raiders has offered to date – one that rewards those willing to rise to the challenge." More on this will be revealed later, closer to its release in October.

Without getting to see Frozen Trails first-hand, all players can go by right now are promises and vibes. But without getting ahead of myself, it seems like Embark is hitting the mark of what players need from this next major update. It's not enough to offer up new maps, arcs, and weapons on their own, players need variety and making small tweaks which will force players to expand upon their habitual playstyle sounds like the refresh Arc Raiders needs.

Today's Helldivers 2 update is bittersweet for the hardcore fans: The teased arrival of new Illuminate enemies did not include the anticipated Cultist unit, but it did add two other monstrosities that just kicked my teeth in for half an hour.

Everyone say hello to the crusher and the wretch, a pair of melee bruisers rounding out the Illuminate faction with some much-needed variety. They're the headliners of today's Devoid of Liberty update, which charges Super Earth's bravest soldiers with counteracting an imposing void that's opened up in Illuminate space.

It's at this point that I wonder if you're seeing the same resemblance making the rounds online: The wretch are dead ringers for Dead Space necromorphs, and the crushers seem directly inspired by Silent Hill's Pyramid Head (except they carry big clubs, not a big sword). If you're going to borrow, it better be from the greats.

And man, these things do feel at home in Helldivers 2. The wretches serve as a new frontline enemy alongside the basic "voteless" zombies. Similar to the mid-sized Terminid units, wretches are faster than helldivers at a full sprint unless you shoot off some of their creepy-crawly legs. Unlike the Terminids, these jerks are pretty smart: they will pivot on a dime to avoid your line of sight, preferring to attack from the rear after making you waste ammo.

They're simple to kill if you can hone in on their tiny heads or shoot off their limbs, but they overwhelm easily in groups. Unless you're extremely confident in your aim, shotguns might be the play for these guys.

Crushers are kind of the opposite: Giant, meandering brutes wielding long clubs. They have no ranged attack and only a prominent helmet for armor—so far, knocking off the helmet to reveal the head is the quickest way to put one down. These guys seemed a little underwhelming at first, but they're sneakily lethal. Keeping away isn't hard, but their health pool is huge, so they're a problem you have to deal with eventually. Watch out for the club's surprisingly far reach: if it connects, that's the ballgame.

While it's great to see the Illuminate faction get some much-needed love, this is a smaller update than I anticipated. There's no new biome (unless stormy cities with twisters count) or major piece of tech like the tank introduced earlier in the year. I do like how Super Earth has begun summoning SEAF troops of varying classes to reinforce players—could this be a test run to eventually give us direct control over troops?

Looks like this one won't match up to the memorable raid on Cyberstan, and that's fine. New weapons that aren't tied to a warbond are quite rare these days, which is a shame, but 240 hours later I'm still happy to buy the occasional $10 warbond for some new toys. The armor sets in the new Warhammer warbond look cool, but none of the weapons seem interesting enough to justify the $5 crossover upcharge.

Indeed, Helldivers 2 is in an age of refinements. Today's patch made some great quality-of-life changes to short magazines and backpack reloads (you don't need to have the backpack on to assist anymore), and after a months-long break, this was also my first time seeing the campaigns terminal on my ship. The level cap has also increased to 300 for Super Earth's truest sickos.

Ever since they were introduced back in Helldivers 2's Heart of Democracy update when the Illuminate invaded Super Earth, the SEAF troopers have held a place in the heart of every Helldiver. These NPC soldiers stand basically no chance against the hordes of bugs, bots, and space aliens who besiege Super Earth's worlds, bristling with ever-more exotic implements of murder, but they do their best and that's what counts.

Well, with the new Devoid of Liberty update, which sees us battling against a tide of void-mutated enemies the Illuminate have unleashed, the SEAF have also been buffed to better face the battle. To quote the official blog post:

"We have commissioned SEAF platoons to aid in completing operations. They’ll arrive on dropships to fight alongside you and your squad, offering medical support via stims, but also give a boost to your morale when you salute, shake hands, and–of course–hug them."

Yes, that's right, you can now hug the little troopers in blue. I hopped into the game to try it out, and, as you'll see below, SEAF troopers will pause mid shot and accept your offer of a little morale-boosting cuddle. It's only fair to show your appreciation, they do have a tough job after all.

Though, as you can also see at the end of the clip, I'd advise against hugging troopers when you're in the thick of combat, unless you want to share a casket because they couldn't untangle your remains. I've played a few missions in the new update and the SEAF actually amount to a somewhat fearsome fighting force now, with support weapons and increased numbers, and they'll periodically drop in on shuttles to help in the fight.

We'll definitely need the help, too. Those new Crusher enemies don't go down easy and they're weirdly hard to hear coming. The Necromorph-esque Wretch enemies, too, add a fast-moving component that the Illuminate didn't have before, and can really close you down quickly if you're not paying attention.

We've got a tough fight ahead of us, but don't forget to take a moment to stop every now and then to show your SEAF contingent their work is appreciated.

The new Helldivers 2 Devoid of Liberty update has arrived, alongside the Warhammer 40k warbond, but there are also a bunch of new titles you can unlock as you level up. Since the level cap has gotten a big boost, and you earn a new title every 10 levels, Arrowhead has added a bunch to fill in the gaps.

Any XP you earned above Level 150 was also banked this whole time, so you might have already unlocked a bunch of these with the new update.

All Helldivers 2 new titles

There are 15 new titles in Helldivers 2 coinciding with the level cap bump from 150 to 300. As before, you'll get a new title every 10 levels. The new ones are:

If you've been playing at Level 150 for a while, chances are you will have unlocked quite a few of these titles already thanks to our XP being banked this whole time.

The new Arc Raiders Phantom Targets project is all about helping Shani track and trace some mysterious arc that seem to be popping up across topside. During the first phase, she asks you to "upgrade antennas found on top of any Cargo Elevator," and you'll have to find three and tinker with them to complete the objective.

In case you don't recall what a Cargo Elevator is in Arc Raiders, I'll explain where to find them below so you can complete this stage.

How to upgrade the Cargo Elevator antennas in Arc Raiders

What this objective calls Cargo Elevators refers to the extraction points you can find on Dam Battlegrounds, Spaceport, or Riven Tides—the ones that look like a little bunker with four doors that lower to let you inside.

What you need to do is climb onto the roof of one of these and fix the antenna (the scaffolding with the radar dishes on), then proceed to do it at two other extraction points. This does seem slightly bugged at the moment in that the icon you interact with on top of the elevator doesn't go away after you activate it.

However, if you open your map and check the quest progress, you'll see that it still counts towards the total of three elevators that you need to upgrade. You also don't have to do all three elevators in a single run, or on the same map, so you can break it up across any of the regions mentioned above. Once that's done, complete the first step in the project to get:

• Combat Mk.3 (Aggressive)
• Heavy Shield
• Vita Spray

Not too shabby a haul for such a quick and easy quest.

Incredible news, folks: Marvel Rivals has completely repackaged its assets. No, not those assets. Last Friday, the internet's most erogenous shooter announced that it was slimming down. As part of an "Optimized texture resource compression strategy across all platforms," Marvel Rivals now comes in about 40 GB lighter on PC than it did before.

This is part of the game's bevy of season 9.5 tweaks and updates. In a chat with a stationary camera, Marvel Rivals creative director Guangyun Chen said that "our tech wizards have been hard at work forging solutions. In season 9.5, we are implementing a massive texture compression overhaul, without sacrificing a single pixel of visual fidelity."

The downside is that, because NetEase is rejigging everything, the actual season 9.5 update itself is meatier than usual. "The initial season 9.5 update will be larger than usual, but the final install size will be much lighter," says Chen.

It's always nice when this happens. Last year, Helldivers 2 pulled a similar trick, chopping itself down from "~154GB to ~23GB". How? Magic. Plus, the devs at Arrowhead went and de-duped a load of data across the game's installed files.

Previously, all sorts of things were in there numerous times to make them easier for people's rusty spinning hard drives, but the devs found a way around it. NetEase hasn't said if it's pulled a similar trick—but I'm in favour of anything that frees up space on my SSD in our current computer-price hellscape.

As an outside observer, I get the impression people are relatively happy with Marvel Rivals' direction. Though, again, I might be mixing up the general sentiment with the specific sentiment people have about Captain America's speedos. For a more expert take, I recommend you check out our Elie Gould on why Marvel Rivals needs to pick a lane.

Tom Clancy's The Division Resurgence originally launched on mobile before coming to PC via Ubisoft Connect (the artist formerly known as Uplay) in April. Earlier this month it arrived on Steam, where it hasn't received the warmest welcome.

Overall its review rating is currently sitting at "mixed" with just 46% of reviews leaning to the positive. Players are frustrated by login issues, mouse bugs, and the looter-shooter's combination of underwhelming rewards and overwhelming microtransactions.

"Calling it slop disrespects actual slop", says one user review. "I've seen Korean gacha games with less microtransaction than this. This is scummy even for a F2P. It has [t]he most distracting, convoluted, overcomplicated on purpose and bad thought UI and Menus design I've ever seen in a video-game. You spend more time micro-managing than playing missions!"

"Complete ass game", begins another review. "Balancing is the main issue, as well as loot progression. All the loot is locked behind daily completions, and you only get to do those maybe 4-5 times a day. Then the game scales the xp and rewards down hard! This isn't a looter-shooter, its a daily log-in simulator with Division like systems. Like what everyone else is saying, just play Division 1 or 2, this game isn't worth the time."

As with the mainline Division games, it's a third-person shooter where you play a member of the Strategic Homeland Division trying to restore order after the "Green Flu" epidemic reduces the USA to chaos. Like the first game it's set in New York, and lets you fight your way across locations like Liberty Island and the New York Stock Exchange, for which you're rewarded with loot like a selection of slightly different tactical beanies and baseball caps.

Ghost Recon WildlandsNovember 13 will mark the 25^th anniversary of Ubisoft's Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon, but Ubisoft is getting the celebration ball rolling a little early with a major update to Ghost Recon Wildlands featuring major visual and gameplay enhancements, and an all-new mission "set in a darker, more oppressive Bolivia."

Bolivia, you may recall, is where Ghost Recon Wildlands takes place, in a fictional future where the country has been taken over by a powerful drug cartel. That leads the US to send in the Ghosts, and then it's peace through superior firepower time, baby! This didn't go over very well with the actual Bolivian government, which filed a format complaint about the whole thing with the French government.

The game itself is pretty good though, if also pretty ridiculous. I put probably a couple hundred hours into it with a pair of gamer pals, and even though we never liberated Bolivia we did have a good time, mainly because Wildlands is above all else a five-alarm chaos simulator. Yes, we're an elite squad of deadly operators, but we're also launching ourselves off of dirt bikes and over cliffs at roughly 300 MPH because we forgot which button the brake is.

Speaking of forgetting, never forget the incomparable skills of PC Gamer's own tier one strike squad:

Anyway, with the 25^th anniversary more or less upon us, Wildlands is being updated on both PC and current-gen consoles for "smoother combat, improved distance rendering, enhanced lighting and shadows, and a sharper image targeting 4K resolution."

The new standalone missions, dubbed Last Rites, see the gang hunt down La Llorona, the leader of a fanatical, violent cult called Los Pentitentes, who's hiding in a region filled with "dangerous swamps and dense forests where visibility is low and danger is lurking."

Notably, the followup to Wildlands, Ghost Recon Breakpoint, is not getting a similar facelift. It's a bit newer, although probably not enough newer to make that much of a difference, but it also came out in pretty rough shape and was quite poorly received. It's been improved dramatically since then, but maybe Ubisoft had to pick one and decided to go with the winner. Breakpoint players will get a new 25th anniversary bundle for free in September, though.

In any event, this isn't the only Ghost Recon freebie in the pipe. Wildlands and Breakpoint are both free to play for the weekend on Ubisoft Connect, and on sale for 95% off on Steam—that's $2.49 for Wildlands and $3 for Breakpoint, which are both really good deals. You can also snag the classic Ghost Recon: Future Soldier for free until August 13.

And finally, Ubisoft also rolled out the new Ghost Recon Insiders Program today, giving fans "a chance to help build the next Ghost Recon." You can sign up for that at ghostrecon.com/insider.

"Face the unknown," reads the lone message of a new Helldivers 2 trailer published today.

Helldivers 2's next major update is coming August 12. The teaser is light on details, but it's certainly illustrative of what Super Earth will be up against. We see a helldiving teddy bear being consumed by the void—a tear in space that's currently eating up big chunks of the galaxy. The bear is ripped apart limb by limb by some psychic presence before the teddy reappears on a jungle planet. In the reflection of its eye, we see a tall, rounded biped alien reach to pick it up, then cut to release date.

All signs point to a new Illuminate threat. The third Helldivers 2 faction, colloquially known as the squids, have been quiet throughout 2026. Not since last year's invasion of Super Earth have the squids been a legitimate threat to democracy. While we were busy exterminating bugs in caves and taking the fight to Cyberstan, the Illuminate were shoring up their forces. Now, they're back with a new vanguard.

It's been a few months since I clocked in for helldiving duty, so I was surprised to find the lower quadrant of the galactic war map—the area where Illuminate fighting tends to go down—currently looks all kinds of messed up:

Several entire planets have been swallowed up by the void, and next, they're coming for our teddy bears. Some believe the teaser is suggesting Super Earth itself will once again be a battleground, though the bear could symbolize the human colonies of outer rim planets.

If you don't mind the possible spoiler for next week's update, many are convinced the figure in the teaser is one of the Cultists, a new faction of Illuminate with powerful magic abilities.

Anything new for the squids is exciting, because despite how far the faction has come since their surprise introduction in 2024, they've always been the army with the least variety. The addition of Leviathan ships, Stingray jets, and Fleshmobs has helped a lot, but they could really use some enemies that send a chill down a diver's spine.

Not so coincidentally, August 12 also marks the arrival of the Warhammer 40,000 crossover warbond, which includes three weapons and two armor sets from the Warhammer universe. No price announced on that one yet, but expect it to be more expensive than a standard $10 warbond.

Marvel Rivals' season 9.5 launches today, and it will be bringing with it magical supervillain and hooded cloak aficionado, The Hood, who'll be appearing on August 7. Ahead of that, let's dig into the patch notes.

The gist of the season 9.5 adjustments is that most Vanguards have been buffed. Devil Dinosaur, Doctor Strange, Magneto, and Rogue have all got some small adjustments which are as follows:

• Devil Dinosaur: Minor buff to Frenzied Feast and his Team-Up ability with Jeff now lasts longer with more healing for allies.
• Doctor Strange: Daggers of Denak do more single-hit damage and Gamma Maelstrom cooldown (Team-Up with Hulk) has been decreased.
• Magneto: His Metallic Chaos projectile (Team-Up with Scarlet Witch) now adds a minor launch up effect to enemies.
• Rogue: Her damage reduction multiplier has been upped while in Defensive Stance and her Regen Shield capacity has been increased.

Unfortunately, at least if you play them, two Vanguards have been given the opposite treatment. The first being Venom, who has had his bonus health reduced and swing cooldown increased "to ensure he has to swing with a bit more strategy". Basically: NetEase needed to stop Venom players diving the backline with almost no consequences.

The second is Peni Parker: "We are slightly weakening Peni's control and survivability," a dev note reads. "In particular, the Immobilize effect applied by her Cyber-Web Snare was too frequent and oppressive, leading to a poor counter-experience for her enemies. We've decided to increase the cost of applying this control, but in return, we will also increase the freedom of her secondary fire." There are more adjustments including some Duelist buffs and a rare couple of Strategist nerfs which you can check out also.

But the main draw of season 9.5 isn't the balance changes, it's the new villain joining the Vanguard crew, The Hood. His design looks cool, some have even noted similarities between his ultimate form to none other than the Gun Devil from Chainsaw Man. But his kit looks very familiar to other Marvel Rivals heroes like Hela's ultimate, Deadpool's primary fire, and CnD's blind. There's even some similarities with Overwatch's latest addition Shion. Hopefully his kit will be more interesting to play than it is to look at.

Cinder City, the upcoming "open-world cinematic third-person shooter set in a fallen near-future Seoul," popped some eyes earlier this year when it came to Steam recommending 64GB of RAM. That turned out to be a mistake, but the minimum requirement is still 32GB, which is a lot—more than the majority of respondents to the most recent Steam Hardware and Software Survey have, anyway—and as PC Gamer's Nick Evanson noted at the time, either the remaining specs contain other, still-uncorrected mistakes, "or the game is an unholy mess of non-optimization."

That complicates the usefulness of those system requirements somewhat, so here's a more practical way of determining whether your rig is up to snuff: A pre-alpha playtest set to run August 14-16, and you can sign up for a shot at access right now.

A few things to note: The playtest is open only to people in the US, you have to be at least 16 to take part, and it's all under NDA: "Recording gameplay, taking screenshots, streaming, publishing posts, or uploading any content related to the playtest is strictly prohibited."

But if you fit within that demographic and don't mind keeping your secrets, the playtest presents an opportunity to see Cinder City in a live environment and get a sense of how it's going to handle on your PC. Naturally it won't be the final word on the topic: It's a "pre-alpha" version, and publisher NC said when it corrected that wild RAM recommendation that "as optimization work continues, the final system requirements at launch may be lower than those currently listed."

Still, if the playtest runs reasonably well on your PC, you can pretty safely expect the final release version will too—and if it's a train wreck, hey, at least it was free, right? There's also the possibility that Cinder City will be a good game, which is always a nice bonus when it comes to this sort of thing.

And yes, there will be further opportunities to see how that optimization work is going, if you don't get into this round or find it kind of iffy: More playtests, which will seemingly be open to more regions, will follow this one.

The Coalition is finally talking about the multiplayer half of Gears of War: E-Day, and its pitch is a bit different from other big-budget multiplayer shooters of the moment.

As I talked about in my hands-on preview that went up today, E-Day multiplayer is split between Horde Siege (PvE) and Versus (PvP). Both formats were fun, and I was pleasantly surprised by how 2007 everything feels—classic arena modes, mirrored loadouts, and light customization.

I speculated that The Coalition might be making an 'anti-live-service' game, and now that I'm reading the studio's own words about multiplayer, the stated vibe of E-Day is literally "return to old school." The Coalition is not holding back regarding its progression and cosmetics plans, especially.

"Remember the good ol’ days when you bought a game and you could unlock all the customization items just by playing because you already bought the game? Us too! So, when it comes to growing your own collection of customization items in E-Day, we’ve taken a more old-school inspired approach," a multiplayer deep dive blog reads.

"Nearly every single item in Gears of War: E-Day can be earned by simply playing the game. That means no battle pass, no tour of duty, no gimmicks, no bullshit."

E-Day will launch with 60 unlockable characters across the two main factions, nearly all of which are either unlocked through challenges or in-game currency. Free maps, modes, and cosmetics will arrive throughout five planned seasons (which sounds like a year of support). There will be the occasional "partnered item" sold for cold hard cash, but The Coalition says these will be "thoughtfully" considered within the world of Gears.

"Cosmetic items in E-Day are designed to feel gritty, grounded or inspired by the spirit and vibe of our brand. We love this universe and wanted to expand on it in exciting ways, so we skipped promotional cross-overs and IP partnerships for skins to focus on our own characters, world elements, and design," the blog reads.

"In the rare cases where we have partnered with another brand or artist, we’ve tried to be thoughtful and consider what would be the coolest way to experience that brand in-game. While our multiplayer cosmetics are not always considered canon, a lot of our character skins are inspired by the lore, themes, and events of the Gears universe. Our Legendary tier of skins can be a bit more over-the-top and imaginative, occasionally pushing into designs that build on the imagery and symbolism surrounding the Gears franchise."

The studio also feels strongly about not making E-Day too grindy. Some items can be unlocked with Coins, a free-to-earn currency gained by playing, leveling up, and earning medals. There is a weekly cap on Coins earned through grinding matches, but The Coalition is open to adjusting it through feedback.

"Earning Coins shouldn’t be an arduous grind. Chasing your favorite skin and unlocking new items should be fun. As such, we’ve carefully tuned the rate you earn Coins with this principle in mind and we’ll pay close attention to player feedback to adjust as necessary in post-launch."

This all sounds very classic and reasonable, until you get to the bit about E-Day's paid stuff—because yes, there will be plenty of paid stuff, too. Iron is the premium currency that can shortcut your way to cosmetics you don't feel like grinding Coins for. I guess "return to old school" is more of a suggestion than a rule.

About two months back, during Warhammer Skulls 10th anniversary showcase, Helldivers 2 revealed that its next Warbond was going to be a crossover with Warhammer 40k.

It was exciting news, especially considering the similarity of the settings, both beset on all sides by endless tides of terrifying aliens and robot men, though at least Super Earth doesn't have to contend with Chaos… yet.

However, all we got to see of the Warbond was some clips of folks painting minis with the info that the full reveal would come later. Well, as of today, Arrowhead Studios has shown off the contents of the Warbond and given us a release date of August 12.

You can find full details about what's contained in the Warbond in the following Steam blog post , but the broad strokes are:

• R/40-K Hot-Shot (a hot-shot las marksman rifle)
• P/40-K Bolt Pistol (your standard bolt sidearm)
• 40-K Meltagun Stratagem (a beam-firing anti-armour weapon)

And for grenades and armour:

• TG-8 Sharpshooter (Cadian-style Astra Militarum armour)
• TG-122 Demo Trooper (Kasrkin-style Astra Militarum armour)
• G/40-K Meltamine (a throwable anti-armour proximity mine)

There was also a load of new vehicle patterns, though these looked a little drab and lackluster to me.

As expected, though, the 40k Warbond is styled around the Imperial Guard instead of the Space Marines, which makes sense since the Astra Militarum are the closest comparable force to the Helldivers, being thrown, as they are, into impossible and frequently suicidal battles

We got a Lasgun with the R/40-K Hot-Shot and a bolt weapon with the P/40-K Bolt Pistol, but I am a little surprised we didn't get a Bolter or a Heavy bolter. The lack of any Chainsword is also a little disappointing, though melee weapons aren't exactly common picks in Helldivers 2.

Still, the Warbond is looking decent enough, especially the two iconic armour sets, though it would've been nice if it had included a few more weapons or Stratagems.

Getting older means you might wake up one day and realize you've missed Gears of War. I never counted the cover shooter that birthed a thousand copycats among my favorites, but the seven year break between Gears 5 and E-Day has reminded me how rarely a grungy, uncomplicated third-person shooter comes along these days, and just how good The Coalition has gotten at making them.

Last week, I played a few hours of Gears of War: E-Day multiplayer split between Horde Siege—this game's expanded take on its long-running PvE co-op—and standard Versus PvP. Both modes were unexpected, but not because Gears is venturing into uncharted territory. It's actually the opposite: There is no surprise battle royale, no extraction elements, not even Call of Duty loadouts.

E-Day is The Coalition saying loudly, and proudly, that multiplayer as it was 20 years ago was good for its own reasons, and I'm inclined to agree.

Versus

Take the sampling of E-Day Versus I had access to, which could've been plucked out of 2007: We've got 4v4, classic modes, and Locust v. COGs. My first round of team deathmatch couldn't have had a more perfect beginning: four meaty grunts sprinting toward the center of the map, immediately equipping the gnasher shotgun, and hipfiring wildly for an instagib. E-Day is appropriately gorey, though I noticed sustained damage doesn't produce the volume of blood it used to—perhaps an allowance to readability, or a consequence of hitmarkers now serving as the primary damage feedback.

Speaking of sprint, yes, the iconic roadie run is gone. The thick combatants of prequel Gears now run upright like normal people, which makes sense for E-Day's new emphasis on mobility, but is sad nonetheless.

Instead of pulling the camera in, sprinting now zooms out so you can survey surroundings and improvise where to go next. It's pretty much the inverse of the roadie run—which scrunched you down so you wouldn't get shot running in a straight line to the next piece of cover.

The Y button (on controller) is a dedicated jump (more of a heavy hop) that will also vault up or over cover, and you can also slide out of a sprint. It speaks to the consistency of Gears that the ability to hop on top of a waist-high planter is a newsworthy change. I'm not sure that's a big deal for combat, as cover is still the place to be in Gears, but it will let you easily take shortcuts across maps.

Movement struck me as the single biggest mechanical shift of E-Day, and it'll take more time than I had to fully judge it, but first impressions? Gears feels a little faster now, but still hefty. I like it.

I also like Gears' classic modes: Scatter power weapons with learnable locations around a map in 2026 and I will howl at the moon. Finding the torque bow or longshot was like leaping to the top of the food chain, and the predictability of starter weapons (lancers, gnashers, pistols) means 1v1s are decided by the little things like headshots, positioning, and map control. I can't speak to these changes myself as a lifelong casual, but it's also encouraging that The Coalition wants to clamp down on annoying "wall bouncing" techniques that turned past iterations of Gears Versus into inscrutable bumper cars with shotguns.

Horde Siege

It should be no surprise to report that the co-op PvE that helped popularize "horde" modes in general is still good, though E-Day's take on it is pretty different. Horde Siege is an 12-player variant that divides two squads up between missions on a large map.

The format almost seems inspired by Helldivers 2, or recent Black Ops Zombies: you drop in, complete objectives, and maybe hit up side missions along the way before extracting. There wasn't much to do or see on the city streets between mission zones—I spent a surprising amount of time sprinting down empty roads to where the action was, but the missions themselves are great little instances of wave-based survival. The preview build included a shorter beginner playlist with just one survival mission—took about 10 minutes total—but the full format is more like 30 to 45 minutes, depending on how many times your squad wipes.

I mostly played with randoms, but was able to squad up with US editor-in-chief Tyler Wilde for a full length match. I'm no Horde expert, so forgive me if this is old news for The Coalition's run of games, but I love how enemy aggression and health ramps up throughout the match.

Our first two defense missions were chill enough that we could comfortably banter about non-Gears things while sawing Locust in half, but that eventually changed when three-story mantis monsters and flying eyeball wraiths started showing up in numbers. The last mission—a king of the hill thing that had us "calibrating" zones in a park—gave us a lot of trouble. We wiped three times before wising up enough to prioritize targets and conserve power weapons. This was all on the lowest overall difficulty, mind you. I can't imagine the higher tiers will be feasible without a particularly lucky set of randoms or some mic'ed up friends who are decent at Gears.

Horde Siege also has permanent progression. You level up its four classes independently—Assault, Medic, Sniper, and Breacher—and each has a class ability. I mostly played Medic, whose area-of-effect heal bot that also revives downed allies seems essential. Guns can take attachments that upgrade core stats or add new functionality, like the bayonet I affixed to my gnasher for a gnarly one-two-punch. There's also armor mods and squad perks purchased mid-round with the same energy currency you use to build turret stations or resupply ammo.

Not a "forever" game

All fairly simple stuff for those who've kept up with co-op shooters since the advent of Horde—I don't foresee these customizations rising to the rank of "build crafting"—but maybe approachability is the point. The Coalition clearly doesn't want gear score or random chance to upstage good coordination, resource management, or finding the perfect camping spot where you can mow down Locust in relative safety. It's not mindless work, especially if you pick your difficulty accordingly, but it is more about endurance than grinding.

I wonder, though, if Horde Siege will be the only version of Horde in E-Day. There is a 10-wave version of the mode I didn't have time to try, so there's that box checked, but I wrapped up the playtest wanting a more focused, classic option with less empty space. Maybe that'll be a thing in the full version, or an eventual milestone on a yet-to-be-seen roadmap.

But I also suspect The Coalition isn't approaching this Gears like a live service forever game. It sounds like cosmetics will be a thing and seasons are in the works, but with those classic Versus modes especially, E-Day multiplayer is taking the shape of something meant to be enjoyed for dozens of hours, not thousands.

That's a good thing, in my book: it shows an awareness on The Coalition's part that Gears wouldn't really be Gears anymore if it padded everything out with Call of Duty-level loadouts or roguelike deckbuilding. It's those older qualities that make E-Day refreshing in 2026, and could help it stand out come October.

Embark has been on a bit of a matchmaking kick recently. It announced some weeks ago that Arc Raiders would be getting a more thorough system which takes into account specific player behaviour across solo, duo, and trio lobbies as well as a more nuanced look at self-defence. Both are solid updates to the game in theory, but in practice it's become clear that you just can't balance for assholes.

Update 1.36 added a more stringent matchmaking system which takes into account every player action across various lobbies. But because this new system was so reactive, it also meant that all it took was downing one aggressive raider to throw players from the comfort of PvE lobbies into the hellscape of PvP. Now, I actually enjoy PvP lobbies, but they aren't for the faint of heart, so before long Embark was backed up with complaints from players who were mistakenly hurled into these death matches.

To try and help, Embark decided to add a self-defence clause to the matchmaking system which meant that players would stay in nice PvE lobbies even if they shot and killed another raider if they weren't the primary aggressor. I don't actually know how the system figures this out—I guess it takes into account whether a player is damaged before shooting or not—but regardless this update fixed one issue and started another.

Before long, Arc Raiders rats realised that this self-defence patch basically gave them a free pass to run rampant in PvE lobbies, killing and looting everyone they could find, as long as they didn't shoot first.

But how do you convince a pacifist player to put a bullet in your head? Maybe you say mean things about their mum, perhaps a little jab at their unstylish last-season skin? Or you could just jump in front of their gun while they're shooting at something else—that last one works the best.

"It was bound to happen, we had two free kits with hairpins healing everyone and picking them up. I realised one kept trying to jump in front of my Equalizer and I decided to use what I thought was a Queen beam to make a break given I 'shot first'." Player craybe managed to capture the exact moment a rat jumped in front of his gunfire. "I then get hit by the quick wheel bug when going for a snap to make distance. So, beware these dickheads on Queen and Matriarch as they will surely multiply to mess with your ABMM."

The rat then proceeds to pretend as if they're the victim, telling the rest of the lobby that they'd been shot and pointing some naive do-gooders towards craybe. They kill him before he can plead his case or get away.

"I had three queen cores up my butt (he means in his safe pocket) so no huge loss and I was more amused to see them use the strategy after calling out that we had a sniper north of us, and all the false friendly crap. All they got was a busted Equalizer and a Bettina I barely use. I'm more annoyed the snap turned into a smoke at the end of the clip."

I'm glad that nothing too valuable was lost, but it's still a sucky situation. It could very well just be rose-tinted glasses, but I do feel as if Arc Raiders' matchmaking was better when the game first released and players knew very little about how it actually worked—cheesing the system was harder and assholes were easier to identify and kill back then.

Now, you don't know who you can trust and who's out to stab you in the back, so keep your eyes peeled for any suspicious behaviour raiders—the rats walk among us.

With Destiny 2 now fully embalmed, I find myself wondering—as do a great many others—'how did this happen?' A new Game Business interview with Sheldon Carter, president of Warframe developer Digital Extremes, has me pondering that question even harder: It turns out that while Destiny 2 was floundering, its foremost rival was enjoying "a few years of straight massive growth."

Sheldon said that the original Destiny "really hit us" when it launched in 2014, well over a year after Warframe's 2013 release, and his initial instinct was to "aggressively" compete with Bungie. But that changed over the years, and like others at Digital Extremes, Carter doesn't see the end of Destiny 2 development as a welcome development.

"Over time, what happens is developers from their team come on to your team. New people who you started, they learned what looter shooters are and how that works because they put thousands of hours into Destiny," Carter said. "And so, at our studio, it was kind of a bit of mourning when they released that news. The mood in our studio was pretty dour because of all the connections that you end up having."

But while Destiny 2's player numbers were in significant decline before Sony pulled the plug, Warframe has apparently been headed in the opposite direction. Carter said that "four or five years ago," Digital Extremes began to worry that Warframe had peaked, and it was time to start thinking about what's next. That kicked off development of Soulframe, the studio's second project—but at the same time it also brought about some changes on how the studio handlined Warframe.

"We changed our focus on how we were developing the game, how we were promoting the game," Carter said. "And now we've had a few years of straight, just massive growth ... Now we're in this happy position where Warframe's really thriving, and that gives us the ability to give Soulframe a ton of rope [and] time to really try stuff out and connect."

That's something else Digital Extremes seems to be doing differently: Where Bungie poured valuable time and resources into numerous "incubation projects" that went nowhere, Digital Extremes is moving very deliberately on a single project—Soulframe—which, four years after it was announced, is still in pre-release and not available on Steam.

"I think one of the things you learn as you do a second game that you're trying for the same scope as something like Warframe is that expertise doesn't necessarily mean you don't make the same mistakes as you did before," Carter said. "It just means you can recover from them a little bit faster.

"So that's been the journey of Soulframe—relearning a few of the things that we forgot after so many years, but at the same time using that core [audience], which is just establishing communication, building trust with the audience, and taking our time to get it to a point where we feel like there's enough content, enough story, enough gameplay that when we release it to a wider audience, um it's going to have its core."

Proof that Warframe has the juice: Werner Herzog explaining the game in the most inexplicable yet cool way possible.

But while Soulframe may be the future, there's no interest in stepping back from Warframe—in fact, Carter said skyrocketing prices driven by the rampocalypse could actually help keep Warframe relevant for years to come.

"You can play Warframe on your PS5 Pro and it looks sweet, cutting edge. And you can also play it on a four-generations-ago Android phone," Carter said. "And so for me, I hope that if console demands aren't able to be kept up with, or people need to look at older hardware because the new stuff is so expensive, they're still going to have Warframe to play, because it's a forever game that's always being updated."

Capcom just released its Q1 2026 financial report, and to absolutely no one's surprise, the company is doing well, really well. But to my surprise, so is Pragmata. As part of the report Capcom shared sales figures for its recent releases, and Pragmata sold more than 2.5 million copies since it was released earlier this year.

Now, to be clear this isn't because I think Pragmata is a bad game—I liked its old-timey shooter vibes and QTE hacking when I played its preview way back when. And Justin Wagner really loved its puzzles, main duo, and "poignant" narrative moments in our Pragmata review. But even still it's a completely new story from Capcom with no existing fanbase to go to bat for it.

I also felt that its release fell a little flat as hype seemingly petered out rather quickly—I certainly didn't feel the need to tell the world about my adventures around the collapsing moonbase. Nevertheless, I'm happy that Pragmata was successful and that it translated into healthy sales numbers. Hopefully this gives Capcom renewed confidence when it comes to pursuing new worlds and ideas.

Capcom also touts the Devil May Cry animated series and the latest Resident Evil game as facets that "helped to drive sales", with Resident Evil Requiem selling over 8 million copies since its release—a sizeable jump from its 6 million units sold back in March.

All of this success means that Capcom is "on track to achieve its full-year earnings forecast" as net sales increase 54.7% year-on-year, alongside a 66.9% year-on-year increase in operating profits. It's certainly a massive improvement on last year's report which was hampered by cratering Monster Hunter Wilds sales, falling more than 95% from its launch quarter. It ended up selling fewer copies in Q1 2025 than Devil May Cry 5, Resident Evil 4 remake, and Resident Evil Village—so yeah, it's only up from there.

Over the past few months, Embark has been pulling some levers behind the scenes to improve Arc Raiders' matchmaking. Despite the devs previously saying matchmaking wasn't "binary," it didn't feel like that in practice. My solo lobbies were peaceful walks in the park, while trio lobbies were much more violent.

From these experiments, "one change has stood out with the community," Embark explains in a new blog outlining changes. That being, "defending yourself is no longer treated the same as starting a fight."

At launch, fighting back against aggressors would, for some reason, contribute to your playstyle profile, so to speak. In a mythbusting update at the end of May, defending yourself was finally changed so that it mattered less than initiating the fight, but it was still considered aggression.

In today's update, 1.39.0, defensive PvP no longer has any impact on your matchmaking tendencies: "Only the fights you choose to start will influence your playstyle estimate, and defending yourself won't affect it at all."

To avoid any confusion, Embark has explained how this new system works:

• You and your entire squad will be considered 'defending' if an enemy player damages, downs, or knocks out any of your crew.
• The more drawn-out the fight, the more weight is given to the aggressors. A sustained shootout with high damage and downs is more impactful than a brief exchange with one side fleeing.
• Third-partying, meaning entering a fight between other squads, counts as starting a fight.

In the same blog, Embark has also confirmed that the separate squad-size matchmaking changes from 1.36.0, and the matchmaking optimisations in 1.38.0, are still active.

The changes so far have been well-received by the community, and hopefully set the massive Frozen Trail update in October on course to be a resurgence. Arc Raiders has been in a bit of a slump since the announcement that major updates would now come every six months instead of the, frankly absurd, one month.

The biggest thing to happen in Arc Raiders recently (if you don't count the Expedition near miss) was Embark's decision to rework the matchmaking to be more attuned to players' actions in solo, duo, and trio queues. The only problem with having better matchmaking is having to wait a bit longer in queue for the game to actually fulfil this promise.

"Starting today, we'll be testing adjustments to our matchmaking algorithm aimed at improving the quality of your matches," a dev explains in an official blog post. "One thing to note: the algorithm may take a little longer to find a match, since it's now working harder to find you a better one."

Hopefully, after waiting a bit longer than usual, you'll run into raiders with a similar mindset to yours when you head Topside, those that match your playstyle and squad size "making for more fair and enjoyable raids". This is thanks to the matchmaking taking into account an individual's behaviour while in different squad sizes, meaning you can be a bloodthirsty murderer in solos and a happy-go-lucky team player in squads.

So far it seems as if the biggest issue players have isn't with the matchmaking, but what it takes to get there. As always "there is room for improvement—especially during low-population hours, in certain regions, or in specific map conditions."

Ever since matchmaking was first discussed for Arc Raiders, there were those that asked why all of this was necessary when Embark could just manually split PvE and PvP via different gamemodes. If only it were that easy. But it's clear that all this effort is going into matchmaking because Embark wants players to be comfortable in their games up to a point.

Even in predominantly PvE lobbies there is still a chance of you coming across a PvPer in disguise, or just someone having a bad day—that's what keeps the suspense high and players on edge.

Regardless of intent, though, Embark clearly has its work cut out when it comes to perfecting matchmaking, and with the promises that "we're working to improve those cases" let's just hope the next stage will be speeding up the queuing process.

Less than a week after Ubisoft promised that a new Ghost Recon game is coming but probably not anytime soon, the company says it will mark the series' 25^th anniversary in August with some proper news on what's coming next.

"It’s been a while Ghosts!" the announcement excitedly states. "We know some of you saw some updates, we’ll have more to say on the 6th of August when we celebrate the 25th Anniversary of Ghost Recon. Intel coming soon."

My initial impression was that this is basically a scaled-down version of last week's big Bethesda blowout: A blast of the hype machine intended, at least in part, to help you forget about all the bad stuff going on, specifically the sweeping layoffs at Xbox that are putting thousands of people out of work.

Obviously an update on the Ghost Recon franchise, whose most recent game is now seven years old and was decidedly not great (although it has gotten better in the years since), doesn't have the hype heft of Fallout 5. But Ubisoft's condition is dire, and sometimes the best gun is the one you can reach.

My second and more lasting impression, however, is one of annoyance, and I'll tell you why. After a few seconds of pondering this Ghost Recon update, I thought to myself, perhaps there will also be news on Splinter Cell! After all, Tom Clancy is Tom Clancy, right? Hard men doing unpleasant things for freedom and stuff. The Ghosts, the Rainbows, the Echelons—it's all Clancyverse underneath, right? And if anyone in that gang is overdue for some attention, it's Team Splinter Cell.

Ah, but they are not all the same, at least not in the way that matters at the moment. I popped around to the Splinter Cell X account and found a Ubisoft 40^th anniversary retweet from earlier in July, a half-dozen 2025 posts (mostly about the Splinter Cell animated series on Netflix), one retweet from 2023, and a relative flurry activity from 2022. I thought for a second that would correspond to the announcement of the Splinter Cell remake, but no: That was actually announced in 2021, believe it or not. (Hint: Believe it.)

The 2022 activity marked the 20^th anniversary of the first Splinter Cell game; it was also the year that remake director David Grivel left Ubisoft for "a new adventure." He's had enough time since then to work on Battlefield 6, then return to Ubisoft and resume directorship on the Splinter Cell remake.

In that same stretch we've also seen Netflix make its Splinter Cell cartoon without Michael Ironside, the Splinter Cell movie starring Tom Hardy get cancelled, and Ubisoft making everyone mad by posting the wrong picture of Sam Fisher, which I genuinely think was intentional because at this point it's clear that Ubisoft just gets off on screwing with us.

Of course, this isn't a problem unique to Splinter Cell. Consider the Sands of Time remake, which was cancelled after six years of futility, or Skull and Bones, which came out six years late, or Beyond Good and Evil 2, which will soon celebrate 20 years of non-existence. Timeliness just isn't Ubisoft's strong suit, which is how we got here—"here" being the recent announcement of a "quieter year" in Ubisoft releases before things start happening in 2027-28—in the first place.

One possible spot of good news, relatively anyway: The 25^th anniversary of the first Splinter Cell game lands on November 18, 2027, about a year and a half from now. Maybe Ubisoft just really digs big anniversaries and has decided that at this point it might as well hold out for a good one before it drops any more Splinter Cell news. So there's something to look forward to. In the meantime, we'll let you know what's cooking in the world of Ghost Recon when it happens.

Gears of War 2 featured a campaign you could blast through over the course of a weekend. The perfect length for the kind of story that strings together a bunch of setpiece spectacles that won't tax your thinking muscles. At one point you end up inside a giant worm and have to fight your way out. It's great.

But it's one of a couple of Gears of Wars that never made it to PC. Maybe because Cliff Bleszinski was going through a "down with piracy phase" at the time, saying things like, "the person who is savvy enough to want to have a good PC to upgrade their video card, is a person who is savvy enough to know bit torrent to know all the elements so they can pirate software."

Whatever the reason, we didn't get Gears of War 2 or 3 on PC. There was a leaked build with Windows binaries back in early 2008, however, and that's what xHeliosx has used to make Gears of War 2: Hollow, an unofficial port of the Xbox 360's greatest celebration of gleeful meatheadedness, which you can download and play today.

This port contains the Road to Ruin DLC and saves your progress at the completion of each chapter, and while you can try the multiplayer it's not guaranteed to work. "It just wasn’t tested honestly as my focus was pure single player", xHeliosx said.

The launcher's available on ModDB, and while the other files you need to run it were available on xHeliosx's Discord server, that's now been rammed with so many requests to join that it's gone down and you'll have to source those files from elsewhere.

The upcoming Gears of War: E-Day is coming to PC, as a Microsoft representative confirmed when we asked, so that's something at least.

Clearing your raider for Expedition is a pretty big deal in Arc Raiders. It involves tons of prep and a dedication that you're willing to start the next season with a fresh character and stash (alongside some perks that the Expedition offers your new avatar). It's not something that everyone is willing or able to do, which is why this latest bug left players in such disarray.

The bug in question impacts those who manage to finish the 100K damage challenge: Once completed, players would be automatically signed up for the upcoming fourth Expedition, whether they wanted to be shoved out into the wasteland or not.

Thankfully Embark is intervening now, before anyone's exiled Topside. "We want to err on the side of caution," Embark explains in a message to players via social media. "We will revert the Departure sign-up for players whose sign-up behaviour appears representative of this issue. This may be done in several waves, starting tomorrow, Friday, July 17, 2026 5:00 PM."

But even with the intervention scheduled for the weekend the devs still advise players to "check the in-game Expedition tab and verify that it shows the correct information for your case," just in case your raider is still ready to be sent off.

"If you had previously been signed up for departure automatically and this does not revert by the end of day tomorrow, please reach out to our support team as soon as possible. If you have changed your mind and want to depart, you can still opt in to do so. Additionally, Last Call will be available as usual for those of you who aren’t able to sign up for Departure before the deadline."

It seems like Embark are on top of the situation, but there are still some players who are deciding to take extra precautions: "I'm taking a screenshot of my intentional signup, damage completion and Expedition vault contents so I can open a ticket when they fuck this up," one declared on Reddit. I guess it is better to be safe than sorry.

I do not possess the required amount of brain cells to digest and discern whatever happens in a Marvel Rivals team fight. I've tried, but anytime I get caught up in the middle while waves of crowd control abilities, ultimates, and everything in between are thrown at me, my brain just turns off. Which is why I'm happy to hear NetEase is trying to dial it all down.

As part of its latest patch NetEase has included some fixes and optimisations which include softening the blinding glow of its hero abilities: "We've dialled back the visual effects for a lineup of heroes to cut down on battlefield chaos and keep your superhero clashes crisp and clear."

All of Jubilee's base abilities have been tuned down alongside most of the new Team-Up abilities: "The list is extensive, so we won't detail every single one here; just know the battlefield is looking clean! We'll keep the scanner running and make ongoing optimizations."

After hearing the news that my eyes will no longer burn mid-game, I decided to check the changes out. While I can't say I noticed any huge changes for hero abilities—there were still frequent moments of blackout when every hero popped their ult at the same time—having a Jubilee on my team didn't actually give me a headache this time—so that's something.

Marvel Rivals' visual creep is a hard aspect to manage, especially considering how many characters NetEase has added over such a short period of time. With so many heroes, abilities, and now Team-Up abilities, things are bound to look messy. Especially considering many luxury skins add even more visual confusion into the mix with unique VFX which change how some abilities look.

It's also not helped by the fact that Marvel Rivals has always had a pretty bad UI and that the maps add yet another layer of clutter onto everything else. Seriously, some are so bad I find it hard to distinguish what's part of the map and what's a hero ability.

Starting off from such a poor place means it'll be increasingly difficult for NetEase to manage the visual aspect of Marvel Rivals. I don't think we'll ever achieve a 'clean' looking game—part of the appeal is also apparently the chaos—but hopefully it'll be managed just a little bit with frequent checks and balances such as this latest patch.

It took all of one day for Marvel Rivals to enrage players after the release of season 9 with a new, unasked for, and slightly confusing patch. It buffed tons of heroes some of which in no way needed a helping hand.

"Our temporal scanners have been working overtime, analyzing battlefield telemetry and listening to chatter from you, the community," a blog post explains. "We've seen the meta shifting, and to ensure the combat arena remains as dynamic and competitive as possible, we are deploying this emergency hotfix. Rest assured, our Watchers will remain vigilant, and further recalibrations will be made as new threats emerge."

My guess is that by 'temporal scanners' NetEase means 'hero pick rate list' and a decision has been made to try and get each and every hero's pick rate up, or at least above 1% (looking at you Storm). Unfortunately, the way in which NetEase has gone about this isn't exactly slick.

LIke buffing Cyclops and Gambit—yes you heard that right—I've played against both Gambit and Cyclops since this patch, and it sucks just as much as you'd expect. It's also improved Black Widows kit while also making her completely homogenous with other hitscan heroes. But the most frustrating part of the latest patch is all the general buffs to Strategists.

Other than Gambit getting more self-regen and Bridge Boost healing, we now have Invisible Woman, Jubilee, Rocket Raccoon, and Ultron buffs alongside a class buff that gives Strategists more ult charge for healing. Now the healing to energy conversion efficiency is at 70%—a mere decrease of just 5% of what it was pre season 9 compared to the 15% decrease Vanguards and Duelists got.

Strategists that were somewhat nerfed include Ultron and Mantis, as her healing provided by Healing Flower has gone down from 15+3% of max health to 12+3% of max health. Even this is just a small change.

"The front lines of season 9 have been intense," the patch notes explain. "We've seen our Strategists absorbing more pressure than ever, which has suppressed their efficiency in gaining ultimate ability energy. Therefore, we will be partially reverting the efficiency of ultimate ability energy gained from healing actions for Strategists."

And, in completely forseen circumstances the change hasn't left people happy. "What are we doing with this one," streamer Flats says in a social media post. "EVEN IF they had data showing the character is weak. No exaggeration Gambit is a PERMA BAN in ranked and has been for four seasons. I know they likely want every character to be 'broken' this season but this guy isn't seeing the light of day."

It's become predictable that whenever NetEase decides to dial up the fun and dial down the balance players begin to yearn for said balance: "Revert this change please, I want more neutral gameplay that takes skill." The complicated part is that players will also yearn for the fun when NetEase decides to prioritise balance. Personally, I think NetEase needs to pick a lane for Marvel Rivals and commit to one or the other before everyone gets estranged.

After NetEase's best attempt at competitive balance in Marvel Rivals season 8.5, this latest season has done a complete 180, with flamethrowing sharks, lethal dive comps, and ridiculous CC counters. I'm certainly not a fan of chaos comp, but my wishes for NetEase to pick a lane are starting to supersede any desire for actual balance.

The new Team-Up system is as extensive as it is busted. With every character getting to pick between two base abilities and then having a further couple of enhanced effects that they can utilise when the other character is on their team. One of the most ridiculous I've encountered so far was Invisible Woman's team-up with Human Torch, which enlarges her shield and covers it in flame, so that anyone who shoots through it adds flame damage to their shot.

This is busted in and of itself, but add Jeff the Land Shark into the mix and you get a special kind of terror, as his primary-fire water gun essentially turns into a flamethrower. I actually came across this comp earlier today, and let me tell you that little monster was having a great time flambée-ing my team to a crisp.

There's also Iron Man's new gamma shield, which adds another layer of protection to the billionaire in a killer tech suit with a terrifyingly short ult-time. What can I say? The rich get richer. Plus there's Luna's White Fox ability: it's lethal down chokepoints as she sends a huge fox racing forward which heals allies and pulls enemies in together, so they're like fish in a barrel for your dear teammates to kill.

NetEase has clearly gone for the mantra of 'more is more' in this latest season, which is cool on paper when you have mountains of new abilities to sift through, but in practice it's a right pain.

I can't help but feel that so much of what's been added, like the shield regen or CC counters, is just there to patch over issues that are a result of existing abilities or unbalanced hero behaviour. You wouldn't need so many CC counters if there weren't so many bloody stuns in this godforsaken game.

But this is where I think NetEase finds itself in a tricky predicament. It seems like the devs have been trying to cater to absolutely everyone, and just adding whatever players scream about loudest. In many cases, players don't know what they want, and the loudest group usually doesn't offer the best advice.

Players that say they want wacky abilities for creative kills really just want the space to pull off cool plays, which you can't actually do when you have a billion different abilities being hurled, usually randomly, your way. Likewise, players who claim to want balanced comps usually want tough games with the small caveat that they'll always win them. They also don't tend to like it when their main gets nerfed according to that balance.

Which is why the devs need to make a tough decision. Instead of flopping around from 'sort of balanced' to 'no balance at all', NetEase should draw a line in the sand and decide whether it wants Marvel Rivals to be fun, creative, and casual or tough, balanced, and competitive.

If it's going to be casual and creative, great, have at it and balance for fun, but know that it'll mean there's even less of a competitive scene than there already is. For competitive games to thrive it needs a fair and slightly punishing ranked system that doesn't just reward time played over skill, and consistent comps.

If it's going to be competitive then that's also great, but that'll mean forsaking some of the wackiness that Rivals has at its disposal. Either way you lose out on players and will piss people off, but clarity is kindness and at the very least it won't mean everyone's alienated for different reasons—a game for everyone is a game for no one.

The first hotfix since Arc Raiders' 1.36 update has rocked up, and while it may be small it does tackle some important issues, namely a new duplication exploit which has popped up recently and saw mountains of explosives spawn even faster than the throwables glitch.

"We have just pushed a hotfix on all platforms to mitigate a duplication issue, an official blog post explains. "As we stated before regarding the use of exploits, we will continue issuing bans on accounts that have been gaining significant advantage."

All's well that ends well, right? If only it could be so easy. Like most things that happen on the internet, this hasn't satiated all players, as some question why Embark can fix this glitch but not one that is seen to be considerably worse.

"This hotfix proves embark can respond overnight, so why is weapon duping still here?" player Loose_Fish5725 asks. "A dupe that literally anyone could abuse gets discovered, spreads like wildfire, and gets patched in less than 24 hours. Meanwhile, we've had duplicated Bobcats and weapons circulating for weeks. Entire kits are being duplicated, sold, and recycled, destroying the economy, yet that's somehow a lower priority?"

The weapon dupe glitch in question is like many others but the issue is with it flooding Arc Raiders lobbies with 'fake' weapons and ruining the economy as rare weapons become pretty common. If you've seen players with hordes of Bobcats on your travels that'd be why.

"The speed of this fix proves the developers can react quickly when they choose to," the player continues. "That's why it's frustrating watching the in-game economy continue to suffer while the most impactful exploit remains unresolved."

The reality of the situation, though, is likely quite simple. Embark was probably able to fix the new duplication glitch because it was new and came from the most recent patch. Older duplication glitches are harder to deal with simply because it's been around for longer and is relentless in how it just keeps popping up.

It's also easy to ban accounts with ridiculous stack value, but it's harder to correct the internal economy when much of the duplicated gear has been spread across accounts that found items fair and square during matches and not by duplicating them. That's all to say that Embark will likely be fighting duplication glitches for the rest of the game's lifecycle, the important thing is to try and stay on top of it.

Marvel Rivals will open the doors to the "most massive overhaul to the combat system since launch" that affects roughly 80% of its hero roster when Season 9 kicks off in a couple of days. There's hero reworks, a massive change to Team-Ups, and a substantial ultimate charge nerf.

The state of Marvel Rivals has been slightly contentious and some may say even stale over the last few seasons. Among frustrations with misdirected balance patches, suffocating Strategist strength, and barrages of ultimate contests, players didn't have a lot of love to give for the game's state of affairs. But it seems like NetEase went into Season 9 with the intention of taking a hammer to everything. For better or worse? It's debatable.

I'm certainly happy to see another huge nerf to ultimate charge as Vanguard and Duelists get a decreased conversion rate of 70% down to 55%, while Strategists get a conversion rate for damage of 75% to 55% and for healing 75% to 60%. This will hopefully tone down the frequency of ultimates and stop team fights ending with whatever team has the best ults coming out on top.

There's also been a huge change to the Team-Up system. "As the sheer number of abilities grew, our dev team gradually started feeling the strain," lead combat designer, Zhiyong, explains in a dev diary. "Some of the newer Team-Ups started feeling a bit uninspired. Existing just for the sake of ticking an update box. Once we realised this we decided it was time to absolutely revolutionise the Team-Up system."

NetEase has scrapped the Team-Up Anchor bonus and replaced it with each hero getting two separate Team-Ups with a base effect and an enhanced effect. The base effect will be active regardless of whether the other hero is in their team.

For example, Hulk now has a Team-Up with Captain America and Wolverine. His base perk with Captain America deals AoE and reduces cooldowns regardless of whether Cap is on his team, while the enhanced version sees him deal increased damage when Cap is on his team. Oh—and Hulk gets CC immunity as his base effect with Wolverine.

I've always thought that Marvel Rivals' Team-Up abilities were one of the more creative, interesting and impressive parts of the game, so I'm glad to see it given an overhaul. Even if that does mean a slew of new and old busted abilities will come creeping out the woodwork.

It seems that Season 9 rejects previous attempts to bring heroes in line with "perfect" balance, opting to balance for fun instead. That's great in theory, but unfortunately in practice it's simply too chaotic to be any good.

You can see this if you look at the balance notes on each hero. Sure there have been some good, much-needed nerfs like Cyclops, who's had his damage output dialled back, but there's also been some weird changes like Magik being able to chain hook people together, Luna Snow being able to combo kill tanks, and whatever the hell this is.

Dive certainly seems strong with some monster one-hit combos. It's not helped by the fact that NetEase has also added regenerating shields—which it is for some reason discussing as if regen shields aren't already a thing and common in most shooters. It lets heroes regenerate a chunk of shield health if they don't get hit for five seconds, perfect for sneaky flankers in the backlines.

The main problem I foresee with these changes is that, in trying to make everyone's life easier and more fun, it'll just make things miserable. The whole idea of 'if everyone's busted, no one is' doesn't actually work, because it just means everyone's a nightmare to play against.

Another good example of the current state of Marvel Rivals is Black Widow and her new changes. The team have tried to make her more accessible by tuning down her one shot and upping her overall damage capability. But that removes the whole point of specialising as a sniper. High risk, high reward means a high skill ceiling which most players shouldn't be able to master. Not everyone is good at sniping, and that's ok. It may seem like having high-skill characters would be boring because most people can't play them, but actually lowering the bar and homogenising heroes just makes the game boring by removing any need for skill.

But I hope I'm wrong. I hope Season 9 kicks off a resurgence for Marvel Rivals. Maybe throwing mountains of new characters, busted abilities, and cosmetics at the problem will actually work this time.