The GTA 6 pre-orders are going live soon, letting you pre-purchase your chosen edition of the game for when it launches in November. You might be wondering why there's so much fuss around a pre-order, but since GTA 5, a GTA release has become a once-in-a-decade global phenomenon, even if it isn't confirmed when we'll be getting it on our personal computers.

Rockstar has officially released info explaining when pre-orders go live for each region, so I'll explain that down below, plus a few other things we've learned today.

GTA 6 pre-order release times

You can pre-order Grand Theft Auto 6 on June 25 at midnight local time. Yes, that means no simultaneous release across the globe, but it'll actually vary based on where you live. The info was shared on Rockstar Games official instagram, so you can believe the validity of the source. Sadly, there's no word of a PC release date yet, but it'll most likely come later on as with the previous game.

Rockstar has released info about each edition of the game and their bonuses on its official site. It does look like GTA 6 will also cost $79.99 and $99.99 according to info that's emerged, which is a little more expensive than many were expecting.

We might also get to see a new trailer when pre-orders drop as an added incentive, though I guess with where the hype's currently at it might not even be necessary. Hopefully those pre-ordering will get to see more of the game before they do anyway.

Arc Raiders has had its fair share of cheaters and game-breaking exploits, so much so that some players and big-name streamers have sworn it off. There are your usual wallhacks and whatnot, as well as exploits to spawn endless rubber duckies and equipment. Just recently, TheGamingMerchant put the duping exploits to the test, discovering just how bad it can be in high-end PvP.

But the time has finally come when we might start seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. Towards the end of May, Embark added Denuvo Anti-Cheat to "initially to a limited player pool" after finding success in The Finals. In the new update 1.33 patch notes, which brought the surprise Forgotten Relics event and Converging Paths project, Embark has confirmed it's ready to kick things up a notch.

"As part of our ongoing efforts against unfair play, we’re continuing to expand Denuvo Anti-Cheat to more players," the developers explain. "We’re pleased with the progress so far, and expect further improvement as we scale up." For what it's worth, I had to accept it when I downloaded the update today.

"Our commitment to anti-cheat initiatives remains a top priority, and we will keep you informed as we work to maintain a fair environment. We appreciate your ongoing feedback and reports, and we thank you for being a part of the incredible journey through Topside."

Embark is also specifically honing in on the duplication exploits that have been undermining the item economy, noting that it's "taking strict measures against those involved." This includes detecting issues and addressing them directly, but also "building safeguards to prevent them from happening in the future." It's a little vague, sure, but it's good to know that it's a priority for Embark, given how disruptive it's been for many players. It's an extraction shooter after all, it's literally all about the loot you find and risk.

On the flip side, if you've faced off against a cheater, there are a few improvements you'll be glad about. There's now a messaging system to let you know when a player you've reported has been banned, and/or when any loot you lost thanks to a cheater is returned to you. You don't necessarily need to report the player to get your lost loot back, so long as Embark has taken action against them it'll happen automatically.

Literally since launch, free loadouts have been a source of contention in Arc Raiders. They're great if you just want to chill, shoot some things, and not have to worry about losing loot. But on the flip side, their prevalence undermines the loot economy and incentivises everyone to avoid risk. Why use your best gear when your opponent has nothing on the line, and you've got nothing to pilfer?

Well, alongside the surprise Forgotten Relics event and Converging Paths project, update 1.33 finally looks to address this issue with an experiment. Free loadouts have been outlawed specifically on Night Raid and Close Scrutiny—two of the hardest map conditions.

"We are disabling free loadouts for Night Raid and Close Scrutiny to increase the barrier of entry," the patch notes read, "so that players commit to appropriate risk and reward in these scenarios that have better loot."

However, this is only for the next three weeks, ending on (presumably) July 7. Judging by how this experiment goes, "We may add this limitation to more map conditions in the future after we’ve observed its impact," the devs explain.

I'm surprised it took this long to run a test like this—maybe I'm just too used to Bungie's willingness to experiment with every Marathon update—but I'm glad it's here. Night Raid and Close Scrutiny are among the hardest activities in Arc Raiders, and it was always a bit silly that you could face off against players with free kits. Even if you beat them, you'd have nothing to gain. It undermined the difficult and risk-reward balance that these modes were aiming for. Now you'll at least have to pony up something of value.

On the topic of free loadouts, Embark has also made a number of quality-of-life improvements. Firstly, your current loadout is no longer cleared when you choose to use a free loadout until you're loading into a match, in case you need to make a last-minute change. And when you are ready, your inventory will now display the free loadout's equipment, rather than an empty inventory. Small but neat changes for those who love running with the basics.

Arc Raiders gave us a surprise player project in the latest update to keep us busy for a few weeks while Embark is cracking on with Frozen Trail coming in October. The Converging Paths project works in tandem with the Forgotten Relics event, asking you to donate your new trinkets to build a display stand for them.

I'll outline everything you need to do below, but I'll warn you now that it's a limited-time event, running from June 16 through to July 27. I do wish we could customise our den and show off our achievements long term, though. You're teasing us, Embark.

How to complete the Arc Raiders Converging Paths project

The Converging Paths project has six stages to complete, but unlike most projects, it actually starts and ends with a simple quest objective—I recommend you save the mine and trap rewards for the final stage. You'll also need to find a bunch of the new trinket items, which you'll also need for the Forgotten Relics event.

The best place to find these new relic trinkets is in Residential or Commercial areas, since they commonly spawn on shelves, and inside cupboards, drawers, and other containers. I recommend searching Grandioso Apartments, Santa Maria Houses, and the Plazas in Buried City, and inside the chimneys during the Bird City event.

• Train Model (common - 10 Merits)
• Sextant (uncommon - 15 Merits)
• Vintage Steering Wheel (uncommon - 15 Merits)
• Equatorial Sundial (rare - 25 Merits)
• Colorful Shoes (rare - 25 Merits)
• Tellurion (epic - 50 Merits)
• Colorful Shoes (epic - 50 Merits)
• Colorful Shoes (legendary - 150 Merits)
• Elephant Obelisk (legendary - 150 Merits)

Here's everything you need to do, and what you'll earn:

Secure safe passage (1/6)

You need to deal 1,200 damage to Arc enemies in the Swamp, which is on the west side of Dam Battlegrounds. You can complete this task anywhere between South Swamp Outpost and presumably Hydroponic Dome Complex, and there's no shortage of machines roaming this area, including Rocketeers.

A great way to complete this step quickly would be to take advantage of the Close Scrutiny map condition when it's active on Dam Battlegrounds, as the Arc Assessor's spawn waves of bots to kill.

• Rewards: 3x Pulse Mine, 3x Lure Grenade Trap, 25x Raider Tokens

Collect supplies (2/6)

From here on out (until the final step), it's back to the usual 'collect items and donate them' objectives that we're used to from projects.

• Reward: 3x Smoke Grenade Trap, 3x Explosive Mine, 25x Raider Coins

Procure relics (3/6)

• Reward: 3x Blaze Grenade Trap, 3x Jolt Mine, 1x Rascal II, 50x Raider Coins

Create emergency caches (4/6)

• Reward: 3x Surge Coil, 3x Blaze Grenade Trap, 3x Explosive Mine, 50x Raider Coins

Finish the cabinet of curiosities (5/6)

• Reward: 1x Combat MK.3 (Flanking) augment, 1x Photoelectric Cloak, 1x Bobcat II, 50x Raider Coins

Use nomad tactics to fight Arc (6/6)

The final task is to deal damage to Arc using mines or traps, including Blaze Grenade Traps, Pulse Mines, Jolt Mines, Explosive Mines, and Surge Coils. You'll have earned a bunch from completing the stages so far, so now it's time to put them to use. You can do this on any map and mode, so pick your poison.

• Reward: Sextant backpack charm, Red Black Saltwalker outfit colour, 100x Raider Coins, Surge Coil blueprint

Arc Raiders' latest update has given us the Forgotten Relics event and the Converging Paths project, both of which intertwine slightly. It's not super complicated, but they're intended to be a snack to tide us over until the big Frozen Trail update in October.

Below, I'll explain how to earn Merits to complete the Forgotten Relics event, as well as the rewards you'll get for being such a diligent treasure hunter.

Like Converging Paths, this is a limited-time affair (June 16 through to July 27), so get in while you can.

How to complete the Forgotten Relics event in Arc Raiders

To progress the Forgotten Relics event, you need to earn Merits, which is done by:

• Earning XP during a match—Looting, killing bots and players, and time spent increase how much you'll earn.
• Looting and extracting new trinket items.

There are nine new trinkets you can find, which give an increasing number of Merits based on their rarity. You can also donate these relics to the Converging Paths projects once you've returned to Speranza with them, so it's two birds with one stone.

The best place to find these new trinkets is in Residential or Commercial areas, on shelves, or inside cupboards, drawers, and the like. I recommend searching Grandioso Apartments, Santa Maria Houses, and the Plazas in Buried City, and inside the chimneys during the Bird City event. Here's what each is worth Merit-wise:

• Train Model (common - 10 Merits)
• Sextant (uncommon - 15 Merits)
• Vintage Steering Wheel (uncommon - 15 Merits)
• Equatorial Sundial (rare - 25 Merits)
• Colorful Shoes (rare - 25 Merits)
• Tellurion (epic - 50 Merits)
• Colorful Shoes (epic - 50 Merits)
• Colorful Shoes (legendary - 150 Merits)
• Elephant Obelisk (legendary - 150 Merits)

Since XP is the main source of progression in the Forgotten Relics event though, you'll want to maximise your earnings. Map events like Night Raids are a great opportunity to rack up high scores, and you can do this while looting for valuable trinkets, too.

Merits are automatically converted and redeemed in the events page, so head there to track your progress.

All Arc Raiders Forgotten Relics rewards

There are 21 rewards available, including an exclusive outfit and 100 Raider Tokens, requiring you to earn 3,150 Merits to unlock them all:

Arc Raiders has had a big problem with various duplication exploits since its release. In a genre all about looting—finding it and fighting to keep it—that's a pretty nasty issue to have. While these bugs have generally been patched pretty quickly, and often related to specific items (like endless rubber duckies), the spoils of free-flowing loot spread like wildfire among players. A weapon's locker full of Bobcats? Who's gonna say no to that?

YouTuber 'The Gaming Merchant' decided to investigate how these glitches have impacted the game. First, they began by infiltrating PvP servers. While Embark has said matchmaking isn't that binary, the gist is that the more violent you are, the more violent your lobbies tend to be. The Gaming Merchant started encountering very geared-up players consistently—equipped with Bobcats, gold-quality weapon mods like the Kinetic Converter, and even more. That's not an immediate red flag as you'd expect PvP players to be armed to the teeth.

Then they encountered a player who murdered them and dropped a mountain of Bobcats on the ground, touting via voice chat that they had even more stockpiled in their stash. Hard to argue they're all legitimately acquired, if you ask me.

Venturing into Facebook and Discord groups, it's clear that there are even some people buying and selling various in-game weapons and equipment for real money for some reason. How's this all acquired? More than likely from item duping or other dubious methods like third-party tools. I doubt these services do too well, but they do exist, despite breaking Embark's terms of service.

From The Gaming Merchant's research, it seems as though a good deal of this item duping and trading is handled on Asian servers—you can tweak this in the settings menu at any time. My guess is that it's quieter over on the Asian servers, so easier to arrange dealings with other players. Some of the players they encountered had inventories full of duped gear, and even admitted to trading the items, which can then be taken into other server regions.

Even though the latest duping glitch might be patched, history has shown that it's more or less a matter of time until a new one is discovered, or a new tool comes along for cheaters to abuse. And the effects of these exploits are apparent, especially for those playing in PvP inclined lobbies. Just a quick glance at Reddit, and you're bound to come across someone (rightfully) moaning about such exploits.

Since Arc Raiders' Expedition wipe system is optional, there's little to counteract economy-breaking issues like this outside of weapon degradation and, ideally, banning these accounts and patching the holes. Even those who do leave on Expeditions will frequently use friends to 'mule' for them and hold onto gear.

With how the in-game item economy has been manipulated by numerous exploits since launch, mandatory wipes sure sound pretty good to me now.

Gears of War: E-Day had its big coming out party today at the Xbox Games Showcase, with an extended look at gameplay and confirmation that it will be an "Xbox console exclusive"—still coming to PC, but not PlayStation 5. It was a decidedly nostalgic presentation, particularly for a game positioned as leading the way into the future of Microsoft's console biz: "It's only fitting that as we return to Xbox, we return to Gears," Xbox CEO Asha Sharma said during today's showcase.

And despite what sounded like some early consternation, the new game has been given the official seal of approval from original Gears of War creator Cliff Bleszinski—although he was clearly a little nervous about the whole thing.

Bleszinski's first major success in the games industry came in the form of Jazz Jackrabbit, a long-ago hit for Epic Games, and his work on Unreal Tournament made him one of PC Gamer's "Game Gods" of the year 2000, alongside American McGee, Stevie Case, and Alex Garden. But it was his work as the lead designer of the first three Gears of War games that really cemented his legacy.

Bleszinski left Epic in 2012, and while he's not fully retired—he said so in another post today—he hasn't been up to much on the game front in the years since aside from the ill-fated LawBreakers (which I will once again remind you was quite good). But he's still a man of many opinions, about videogames as much as anything else, and he's not afraid to put 'em out there.

"Those Locust are dying mighty easy, just sayin'," Bleszinski posted on X during the first part of the showcase. After noting that Gearbox boss Randy Pitchford called the first Gears of War "a grinder" when he played it, Bleszinski continued, "Locust should have thick skin and armor and the game feedback loop should evolve to show that—damage on 'em/animation feedback, etc..."

Later on though, as the full-on Gears of War: E-Day Direct kicked into gear, his opinion shifted—not that he was being bluntly negative about it in the first place, but his tone on E-Day clearly lifted as the more detailed showcase got rolling.

"Yes, there's that sweet destruction I was hoping for. The longer glimpse of what the Coalition has been up to is exciting. Super low cover is a nice touch too," Bleszinski posted. He also enthused about the updated look of the Reavers and Seeders, and the increased fatness of the Boomers.

When all was said and done, Bleszinski liked what he saw. "So yeah, E-day looks great, amazing feature set, great tech improvements—and, most importantly—looks like it has heart. On top of all sorts of insane violence and destruction. Now get off my fucking lawn already!"

Gears of War: E-Day is set to launch on October 6, and is up for preordering now on Steam—but not, somewhat ironically, on the Epic Games Store.

El Paso, Elsewhere is an acclaimed indie gem—dropping in 2023, PC Gamer contributor Dominic Tarason called it "one of the boldest, freshest games of the year"—it followed the harrowing adventures of one James Savage as he slow-mo shot his way through a reality-warped 46-story subterranean motel filled with vampires, werewolves, and other nasties.

Well, now it's getting a sequel—as announced at the PC Gaming Show, El Paso, Elsewhere 2 will be coming to Steam next year. There's no specific release date, but there is a trailer. Rather than being stuck working over hospitality with his arsenal of weapons, Savage will be travelling along the United States this time in a journey that'll eventually see him pulled into the void itself, all to save the person who betrayed him.

The sequel promises over 20 levels with a bigger remit of scenery than the prior game—libraries, nightclubs, the lairs of eldritch horrors, and perhaps the most horrifying place of all: American suburbia (God help us all, these cities aren't even walkable).

Like the first game, Elsewhere 2 will have an original hip-hop soundtrack, produced again by RJ Lake, alongside fully-voiced cutscenes. It plays very similar to the original Max Payne games—third-person shooting with plenty of slow-mo thanks to Savage's vampiric powers.

"Strange Scaffold nearly closed in the process of making the first El Paso, Elsewhere. It's a game I never thought we'd have a chance to build a sequel for," studio head Xalavier Nelson Jr. tells PCGS.

"We're going to build on the things that worked in the original game, including our existing pieces of art, to create exciting gameplay we never could have even imagined before. I can't wait for folks to see how far James Savage can go."

You can expect high-octane shooting, biblically accurate angels, werewolves, vampires, and plenty of sick backflips along with a hefty dose of interpersonal existential dread. El Paso, Elsewhere 2 will release sometime next year, though you can wishlist the game now.

Check out everything revealed at the PC Gaming Show.

New Xbox CEO Asha Sharma announced during today's Xbox Games Showcase that Gears of War: E-Day is an "Xbox console exclusive."

I don't recall E-Day having been announced for PlayStation in the first place, so I momentarily wondered if the emphasis was on console there—no PC?

Nah, a Microsoft rep has confirmed to PC Gamer that Gears of War: E-Day is still coming to PC. (It has a Steam page and everything, after all.) Microsoft also announced a launch date: October 6, 2026.

The term "console exclusive" is often used in this way—to say that the console version is exclusive to one console, not that it's skipping PC—but we've got to be on our toes these days. The console wars are back on, and Sony has pulled away from PC releases for its big first-party games. Meanwhile, Xbox has new leadership, and we're still not sure how its strategy is going to evolve.

You can see the gameplay reveal in the video above; there's more to come, as E-Day is getting a deep dive after the main Xbox Games Showcase.

There's a good chance you haven't heard of That's No Moon. The Los Angeles-based studio is one of many that cropped up amidst the Covid-fueled videogames gold rush of the early 2020s, and up until now it's been working in total silence. The South Korean publisher backing the startup, Smilegate, is known for free-to-play shooters and MMOs, but much of the top brass at That's No Moon cut their teeth at Naughty Dog making Uncharted and The Last of Us.

It's an odd pairing, but it has produced a genuinely intriguing debut game. What if I told you:

1. It's called Crossfire, the same name as Smilegate's long-running FPS colloquially known as "Korean Counter-Strike"
2. But it's not an FPS, or competitive, or even multiplayer at all. This Crossfire is a singleplayer, third-person, "stealth-forward" tactical shooter
3. The main character is voiced and performed by Claudia Doumit, known for her roles in The Boys TV show and the Modern Warfare 2019 reboot
4. It's mashing the cinematic stylings of a prestige console game with the systemic friction of a milsim—high lethality, limited healing, manual magazine reloading, etc.

Weird! But also: Cool!

That's No Moon is drawing from the world of the competitive FPS—particularly its factions—but this is an original story with new characters. CCO Taylor Kurosaki is well aware that most of the West doesn't know the first thing about Crossfire, let alone its fiction, and you don't have to. During a visit to the That's No Moon studio in Los Angeles, Kurosaki called Crossfire a canvas.

The world had lore, but not much in the way of stories, until now.

This Crossfire takes place in a militaristic theatre, but its story won't take the shape of a Call of Duty-style global conflict. The game centers on the relationship between protagonist Layla Qassem, an idealistic gun-for-hire, and Delroy Cross, a mercenary who "fights for institutions." Kurosaki danced around the specifics of their meeting and the conflict that brings them together, but in an interview with PC Gamer he compared Layla and Delroy's relationship to classic "unlikely duo" cinema like Midnight Run.

As I watched Crossfire played live by game director Jacob Minkoff, my eyes widened with surprise. The behind-the-back camera angle, cinematic cutscenes, and believable exchanges between Layla and Delroy had all the markings of The Last of Us (on which Minkoff was lead designer), but when action broke out, we quickly left PlayStation prestige behind.

Firefights were loud, scrappy, and brief. Minkoff fired in controlled bursts, as full-auto recoil seemed difficult to control at distance. Tanking just a few shots would tear through Layla's ceramic plates, triggering a bleed that he had to mend within seconds or pass out. There was no first-person view as far as I saw, but in its place was one of the coolest on-screen reticles I've ever seen: a projection of what your current gun's sights would look like in first-person, instead of a traditional cross or dot. What a neat way to convey an experiential difference in FPS guns (preferring one gun's iron sights over another's) that third-person shooters are usually left out of.

That's just one of the ways Crossfire is pulling from milsims like Escape From Tarkov, Arma, Squad, or what have you. After stealth-killing a soldier, Minkoff looted the body and revealed an elaborate, Tarkov-style modular inventory with slots for backpacks, vests, and ammo belts. At one point he replaced Layla's busted helmet with a fresh one, then looted ammo from a pack, which required the extra steps of loading bullets individually into magazines.

Covered

None of these mechanics are wholly unique on their own, but it's the context they exist within that excites me. This isn't a battle royale, an extraction shooter, or an Arma scenario—it's a linear, authored campaign. We just don't get singleplayer shooters with characters and stories that you (ideally) care about and this level of simulation. The closest analog is Ubisoft's recent run of Ghost Recon, though to call those sims is a long stretch.

Minkoff's vision for Crossfire is to bridge the gap between a milsim and an accessible action game. The third-person camera certainly helps in that way, but so does one feature that Kurosaki and Minkoff were endlessly excited to show off: adaptive cover.

Essentially, Crossfire's cover system isn't a binary state of standing or crouching. Cover comes in all shapes and sizes (not just waist-high boxes), and so Crossfire's cover system automatically adjusts Layla's stance to obscure her behind whatever cover is available. Minkoff said the system is based on how real-life soldiers use cover—ducking and lurking behind shallow rock croppings at whatever height and stance is necessary to break line-of-sight.

"I love milsim, but I recognize that the experience is somewhat niche," Minkoff told PC Gamer. "When I play those games for my own enjoyment, I'm always thinking about how I can make this more accessible to a wider audience, so that was the vision for adaptive cover from the start."

Stance management is, again, not a new concept for the Arma crowd, but it will be for most people, and the way Crossfire automates a stance through the blending of hundreds of animations is impressive. That doesn't mean the game will always automatically hide you—it's still up to the player to survey the area for adequate cover and avoid patrols. After watching Minkoff fail twice in an encounter he's likely played a hundred times, I was reminded of how I like to play stealth action games: taking risks in the pursuit of doing something cool, getting curbstomped, then trying a new route the next time. Crossfire will be hard by default, but the full game will have a range of difficulty settings.

"If I can give somebody an experience where they can learn the controls in just a few minutes, but they have all the challenge and tactical freedom that would get from a lighter milsim, then they get to unlock this flavor of game that I love so much," said Minkoff.

Minkoff also talked about how this one-of-a-kind system allowed the team to make more fluid and organic levels that were "completely illegal" in this type of game 20 years ago, sharing screenshots of his own "rectilinear cover" in Uncharted 4 with the same grimace of someone looking back at their questionable hairstyle from high school. Minkoff seemed genuinely giddy to leave behind rooms full of waist-high walls and boxes that prompted players to snidely ask "I wonder if a fight is about to break out in here?"

Throughout my day at That's No Moon touring its pleasant West Hollywood studio and visiting its on-site performance capture volume, I kept looking for a catch. It's rare enough these days to get a narrative-focused action game with a significant budget at all, let alone one that isn't pressured to have a live-service plan to extract money for years to come. Why the heck is Smilegate placing a bet like this?

To hear Kurosaki recount how the studio formed back in 2021, it's pretty simple.

"When we met the folks from Smilegate, they were very clear. They said 'Smilegate wants to be associated with high-quality games, so the only goal for you guys is to make the game of your careers.' That's it." Kurosaki told PC Gamer. "They did not micromanage us."

I had assumed that part of the offer included working within the Crossfire franchise, but Kurosaki says there was no such mandate. It was actually That's No Moon that pushed to use the name.

"We did a deep dive into the Crossfire lore and said hey, we can actually tell the story that we want to tell in the Crossfire IP. We asked them if that'd be OK. I actually loved that name, Crossfire, because it's what Delroy and Layla are going through."

Nothing but surprises from these guys. Crossfire was the first of a dozen-plus new games I'll see in Los Angeles throughout June, but even on the other side of that gauntlet I expect it'll be the one I can't stop thinking about. As a fan of both extremes that Crossfire is harnessing, That's No Moon has identified a bullseye I didn't know I had.

The free-to-play shooter The Division Resurgence has taken another step on its strange journey, as Ubisoft announced today that it's set to launch on Steam later this year.

The Division Resurgence was announced in 2022, with a release target of 2024, but in typical Ubisoft fashion there were delays, and it didn't actually go live until March 2026. Just a month later, with pretty much zero warning, it quietly dropped onto PC as well, in early access, to enable "technical testing ahead of its official launch in August."

It was something of a surprise: As PC Gamer's Shaun Prescott noted at the time, there was no hint that Ubisoft had any plans for it beyond mobile platforms, and had in fact emphasized its mobile-focused nature: "Our objective in bringing the Division universe to mobile, is to enable more people worldwide to enjoy this open world experience whenever and wherever they want. We feel very lucky that the mobile market has evolved to the point where we can develop such an ambitious game."

But just as Blizzard opted to bring Diablo Immortal to PC, Ubisoft decided to broaden The Division Resurgence's base as well. And after a little over a month of being available on Ubisoft's own storefront, it's now up for wishlisting on Steam.

"Over the next few weeks we will be hard at work polishing the last elements of the game for a truly seamless experience, whatever your preferred platform may be," The Division dev team wrote. "The game is fully cross-platform and cross-play, meaning you can continue your journey in The Division at any time."

The announcement doesn't get into why Ubisoft decided to make the move to Steam just a month after dropping it on its own storefront, but we can make a pretty good guess: Despite everyone's best effort, Steam is where it's at. Just like everyone else, Ubisoft came crawlin' back in 2024, and whether it wanted to take one last kick at the flying solo can with Resurgence, or just needed a little more time to get its ducks in order, it's not really surprising that if it wants the game on PC, it wants to do it on Steam.

Last month, a game called Shrimp Game: Krill Confirmed launched on Steam. It's a self-contained demo for the upcoming shrimp game, Shrimp Game, and as a game about shrimp it has all the features you'd expect: You can pilot one of 11 weaponized combat shrimp-forms, imbue them with a cocktail of violent elemental powers, and equip them with dozens of armaments like shotguns, sniper rifles, and explosive cannon rounds.

I'll admit I'm not a marine biologist, so there's a chance that isn't all standard shrimp behavior. But there's zero chance that it doesn't make for a surprisingly rad third-person shooter that we, as a culture, collectively failed to properly acknowledge for an entire month. It only has 126 Steam reviews, for God's sake. We call ourselves a society?

Thankfully, nothing is stopping us from correcting this oversight except the brief amount of time it takes to download its less than 2 GB install size. I confirmed some krills of my own earlier today, and I was glad I did so.

After starting a game in Shrimp Game, I was tasked by a terrifying eldritch being to revivify a decaying seascape by purging a series of biomes of villainous sea life. To complete this horror-given duty, I had to choose between a selection of shrimp classes and sets of elemental abilities.

I could be a quick-dashing shrimp assassin who could fire shadow blades, or a sturdier shrimp frontliner who could produce eruptions of solar energy. Ultimately, I chose to become an ice krillemental: a shrimp with high mobility stats, a charge-up long-distance ice ray, and the ability to launch myself backwards while leaving a damaging cloud of frost. Again, I assume shrimp are doing this kind of thing all the time.

My inaugural mission proceeded smoothly: I tumbled my shrimp-shape through a den of undersea spires, hammering sea scorpions and squids with bubble shots and comparing the weapons they dropped in the carnage. I quickly grew attached to a loadout of a sniper pellet and a quick-firing spray gun, offering all-range solutions for my crustacean shootouts. It was enjoyable work, if a little straightforward; even as a novice shrimp pilot, dodging the incoming fire from other sea life didn't demand much of my talents.

That changed once I crossed a critical threshold of sea-murder, which called a massive enemy eurypterid to the battlefield: one of the Late Silurian mixopterids, by the looks of it—a nightmare of spined claws and exoskeleton plating, its meter-long bulk dwarfing my shrimpish dimensions.

Where other enemy sea life fired lazy bullets, the eurypterid launched walls of projectiles at once, forcing me to be more mindful with my dodges. And when the walls of projectiles stopped, it sent inverted meteors erupting from across the sea floor, driving me to jockey for safe firing positions. (The real eurypterids may have possessed these abilities. But only their fossils remember, and they are reticent to share.)

Anyway, I learned how to fuse my ice magic with an enchanted rock and that let me summon a giant rectangular glacier that bisected that eurypterid freak for like two thousand damage. In return I earned a few hundred SP, which until I'm corrected I will continue to believe stands for "shrimp points." I spent my winnings to turn my shrimp yellow. Victory is sweet.

Shrimp Game: Krill Confirmed is available on Steam now.

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James Bond: Blood Stone review - PC Gamer issue #210 (US, February 2011)

From the archives: The review below appears as originally written, with only minor changes in formatting and newly taken screenshots. By Tyler Wilde

Out of respect for you, the Bond franchise and the English language in general, I had planned to avoid using hackneyed puns in this review. Plan aborted. Blood Stone doesn't deserve bad wordplay immunity, and I refuse to give it a single quantum of solace. Well, maybe that's too harsh—it can have one quantum. Blood Stone isn't entirely un-fun, but it's no more fun than, say, watching Quantum of Solace. (Double zing!)

This licensed shooting-and-driving game was built by Blur developer Bizarre Creations, which is why I expected more going in. Most of the shooting follows a "find cover, shoot wave of dudes, move to new cover, shoot next wave" pattern. When enemies get close, you can drop them by triggering a motion-captured "Takedown" kill, and performing these earns "Focus Aims." Those really aren't worth going into. The best of the fighting is the few stealthy segments, which actually require a smidgen of care.

It doesn't break the game, but the camera is a constant annoyance. It seems to be attached to Bond's back via a limp bungee cord. Walking around is like steering a boat with half a rudder, and it's as awkward as describing something with three different metaphors.

Driving is better, but inconsistent. Some sections feel truly Bond-like—time slowed down as I sped under tumbling big rigs (without pausing to consider how many bystander deaths just happened). Other parts, however, contain multiple hairpin turns that'll end the chase if mishandled. Checkpoints are plentiful, but some took more tries to reach than was good for the enamel on my clenched teeth.

Shaky, not stirring

The action is justified by an original story by Bruce Feirstein, whose words have been uttered in three Bond films and two games. So it's a passable spy yarn about bioterrorists with names like Bernin and Pomerov. It's not bad, but it's not interesting, either. The voices of Daniel Craig (as James Bond), Judi Dench (as M) and singer Joss Stone (as the Bond Girl) advance the story in frequent, soporific cutscenes and phone conversations.

They're dull, but they offer a short, welcome break from the mediocre shooting, which is in turn broken up by hands-off moments meant to ensure that Bond's nick-of-time escapes look properly cinematic. All of that is better than the inane scanning and "hacking" of stuff with Bond's magic smartphone.

Blood Stone's five-hour campaign, like the world, is not enough. It also comes with three generic multiplayer modes, all of which leave out the best part (the driving)—but trust me: you don't care.

I am nothing if not a coward and a rat. Not in the sense that I'd be lurking around any extracts in Arc Raiders waiting to jump someone—I could never do something so evil—but in the way that I like to scuttle around in the shadows, staying out of fights, and attacking arcs from odd angles so they can't hurt me back. Like I said: a coward and a rat.

But some people don't have to stoop to such levels, as you can see with one Arc Raiders player, rI1975, who recently took us through a masterclass on how to destroy a Bastion with no Deadline mine in just 16 seconds.

How to kill a bastion in 16 seconds (without deadline). from r/ArcRaiders

"Too often I see people with hullcrackers or anvils just spending multiple minutes fighting Bastions, wasting ammo and time," rI1975 adds. "It's much easier than you think."

I see your surgical take down of a Bastion and raise you my inherent fear of getting too close, missing a shot, and then getting squished? As other players pointed out in the comments this video makes it look way too easy.

One player manages to summarise my amazement: "You need to be wearing the doctor's outfit with this kind of surgical skin". While others just seem in awe of the accuracy and fearlessness of this player.

All it took to take the Bastion down in the end was three shots to its knee with a hullcracker, knocking it down, three shots to its core at the back to blow it open, and one brutal kill-shot into the internals of the Bastion itself. While it was a close call, from when the first shot hit it did indeed all only take 16 seconds to take it down.

Since Embark recently added the Nomadic Envoy, who only trades for big arc parts, learning how to quickly flatline Bastions is a useful skill, especially as they drop a tonne of cores, and so are one of the most efficient ways to grind valuable big arc parts.

I have certainly relied on Deadlines to take down bigger arcs since they were introduced, but the hullcracker is also a fantastic weapon that shouldn't be taken lightly, as the video above demonstrates. It was actually my favourite weapon from all the way back in the preview and has continued to be a stalwart in my stash ever since.

Being surprised at seeing cheating in online competitive multiplayer games is like being surprised at seeing a fish in the ocean, you're going to encounter some every now and then, that's just how it goes. But Marvel Rivals has had a particularly rough time with cheaters as of late. To stretch out the above analogy as far as it'll go, it feels like the salmon rush right now.

It got so bad even, with cheaters boasting about exploits, streaming and posting their crimes, alongside bad mouthing high elo players for their lack of skill that NetEase stepped in with a ban wave and confirmation that its anti-cheat system will be getting a hefty update. But some didn't think that was enough, and to be fair, it didn't massively address the issue many players are having in-game right now.

So to help ease things just a bit, NetEase announced a new anti-cheat rank compensation system that will rollout later this week: "We're sending the TVA to prune the cheaters! Our new Anti-Cheat Rank Compensation System will begin its trial run this week. If you encounter a cheater in your match, successfully report them, and the system verifies the cheat, you will be fully refunded ALL Ranked Points lost during that match. (Note: Placement Matches do not award points and are therefore excluded from this compensation)."

We've seen something similar just a few months ago with the "Victim Compenstation Protocol" system which NetEase greenlighted after a 'throwing' epidemic meant that players were becoming collateral for those purposely throwing comp games. Systems like this are also commonplace in other online multiplayer games such as Overwatch or Valorant.

It's certainly a good temporary measure, but it doesn't address the root of the problem: how to dissuade cheaters. There just aren't enough meaningful punishments to deter the vast majority of cheaters. Unfortunately, with Marvel Rivals being a free-to-play game account bans aren't enough as new ones are so easy to make; instead, harsher restrictions are needed like hardware or IP bans. NetEase is dishing a few of these out as we speak, but it's such a small proportion of the ban waves that I doubt it's making that much of a difference.

It's been a bad weekend for Marvel Rivals after a small update opened the floodgates for more cheaters to scurry inside, wreaking havoc in games all the way from Bronze to One Above All. How bad is it you ask? A slew of cheaters actually took to streaming their crimes over the weekend to a sizeable audience, promoting their software, and dunking on high elo players. So yeah, pretty bad.

In response to this NetEase has now issued a warning to cheaters alongside a new ban wave and even took the time to post receipts.

"Recently, our telemetry detected that following the weekend update, a faction of rogue players began promoting and deploying unauthorized third-party enhancements," NetEase says in a blog post. "This blatant disruption of our fair battlefield has sparked widespread concern across the Chronoverse. In response, our security teams have initiated an immediate, targeted purge.

"Maintaining a fair and honorable arena is our primary directive. We continuously combat cheats, scripts, and illicit tech through multi-layered anti-cheat monitoring, abnormal behavior detection, historical data reviews, and manual verification. This recent enforcement wave is a targeted crackdown addressing newly updated cheats, building upon our foundational security frameworks."

Alongside this notice there's also a behemoth account ban list including 485 names, their UID and Rank all shared. However, there's just three accounts in this wave that have been found guilty of "severe violations" resulting in permanent hardware bans.

Seeing the entire ban list of cheaters is insane from r/marvelrivals

While some players are just happy to see NetEase doing something, citing it as a "step in the right direction" others are surprised about how few accounts have been banned compared to the total player population and just how bad cheating is in Rivals.

NetEase goes on to assure players that any new cheating hardware has been "logged by our security team" and "integrated into our automated penalty system". So moving forward any account which gets flagged for using these cheats or software will be "permanently banned".

There in lies the problem. Account bans in a free to play game are like putting a bandaid over a gaping wound. It's so easy to create a new account for Rivals that there's an argument that NetEase needs to start handing out more severe repercussions aka hardware bans, and three accounts out of 488 just isn't enough.

Players have been begging NetEase to take cheating more seriously and bring down the hammer for as long as I can remember now. And while NetEase is clearly trying to stay on top of the issue it doesn't seem as if any great strides have been taken recently, at least not ones that could match the sheer number of cheaters in the game right now.

To end the post NetEase once again reminds players to not download cheat software (that'll do it), to report anything malicious in-game, and sets the record straight concerning "completely false" rumours about its anti-cheat system being bypassed: "Our anti-cheat launches concurrently with the game client and cannot be disabled independently. The parameter in question merely hides the pop-up window; it does not deactivate the anti-cheat software in any capacity." That's something I guess.

To PvP or to PvE? This is a question that's plagued Arc Raiders ever since its launch, with players split between their love for banding together and killing arcs, as opposed to their love for tearing each other limb from limb and taking the scrap to trade for more scrap—it's a tough choice.

Embark has hinted at Arc Raiders being a more friendly extraction shooter, with CEO Patrick Söderlund explaining that it's not about "shooting other players", even if they didn't expect such a passionate PvE crowd to emerge. Since then there's been a PvE-forward event which saw players band together against the machines, plus more information shared about the matchmaking that supposedly splits off the more aggressive players.

But one player has had enough. Forward_Problem_7550 took to Reddit with an idea for a 'Rival Gangs' PvP mode, and honestly, I like the sound of that: "Sick of hearing about PvE. Give the PvP players what we actually want."

Sick of hearing about PvE, Give the PvP players what we actually want… from r/ArcRaiders

The Rival Gangs idea would see players jump into a high difficulty map modifier which would provide them with increased loot value and less active return points and hatches. But the catch is raiders would need to be equipped with at least 30,000 raider coins worth of weapons: "Hostilles have been spotted in the area. Only well-equipped Raiders are getting clearance to head Topside."

The concept of turning PvP into a map modifier is a very appealing option to have, especially if you could go in, wreak havoc, and not have any of it damage your matchmaking standing. The idea that you'd need a minimum amount of gear would also be a sound idea, not just to give players more of an incentive to take out other raiders, but to ensure there's somewhat of a level playing field and that everyone has something to lose. Having a minimum loadout value entry requirement is something that Marathon has also toyed with for its Ranked mode and Cryo Archive map.

But this is all just the hopes and dreams of a fan. Even with all the good will, we likely won't be seeing the Rival Gangs map modifier in Arc Raiders. Although that's not to say something similar couldn't make an appearance later down the line—it's certainly within the realms of possibility.

Are PvE-only lobbies a thing in Arc Raiders? Will one measly kill mark me as a hostile player in future matches? These are questions Embark tackles head-on in a new matchmaking-focused blog post. This is by far the most the developer has spoken in detail about its unique aggression-based matchmaking system since we first learned about it, and it's a genuinely interesting read.

"We take multiple factors into account when forming a lobby. One of the strongest is your playstyle across previous rounds, especially as it relates to how you engage with other Raiders," the post reads. "It's important to understand that playstyles aren't binary. This isn't 'friendly' vs. 'shoot on sight.' It's a continuous scale."

Embark says that while some players are always friendly and others are bloodthirsty maniacs, "most raiders fall somewhere in between—maybe friendly until threatened, maybe opportunistic, maybe cautious, maybe unpredictable on a bad day."

What Embark wants to make exceedingly clear is that Arc Raiders' matchmaking does not exclusively match you with those who play exactly the same. "Our system tries to place you with players who sit closer to you on that scale, while still keeping Topside from becoming completely predictable."

To communicate that point, Embark included an illustration of the range of playstyles you're likely to encounter based on your behavior. The graph, which does not represent "real matchmaking telemetry," shows that you're most likely to play with players in adjacent ranges of aggression—as in those who are slightly less or slightly more PvP-hungry than you are. With my extremely small kill count, that explains why the majority of my matches have no PvP at all. But if you're in that middle majority, spicy lobbies are a lot more common.

Embark has recently made two changes to its behavioural judgments based on feedback:

1. Defending yourself is no longer treated the same as starting a fight. Previously, your playstyle didn't capture whether you started a PvP encounter or merely defended yourself. This meant cautious Raiders could be treated as more PvP-focused than they actually are. Now, the two are treated differently.
2. Low-activity rounds carry less weight in your playstyle history. Rounds with little Topside interaction—like spawning and surrendering—used to impact player's estimated playstyle more than expected. Reducing their weight helps the system reflect how you genuinely play when you're out there making choices.

The studio also took this opportunity to clear up common misconceptions about how matchmaking works in Arc Raiders:

• There are not only two kinds of lobbies—friendly and aggressive. It's a scale, not two buckets. Most players land somewhere between the extremes, and matchmaking is more likely to pair you with Raiders whose playstyle is similar to yours on that scale—without guaranteeing a specific outcome every round.
• One shot or kill does not immediately put you in "PvP-focused" lobbies. Matchmaking isn't meant to overreact to single moments - it looks at patterns over time, and changes tend to be gradual rather than instant.
• There are no "PvE-only" lobbies/servers where other Raiders will never attack you. Topside always carries risk. You may trend toward meeting Raiders with similar preferences, but there's no guarantee you'll never be attacked by another Raider.
• Your end-of-round feedback does not affect matchmaking. The survey is valuable for us when we look at trends and make design decisions, but it isn't used as a "next lobby" lever.
• Your loadout does not affect matchmaking. Matchmaking isn't driven by your kit, and we don't scale lobby difficulty based on how much your loadout costs.
• Patches and updates don't reset your matchmaking profile. Your playstyle history carries over across patches. You may notice slightly rougher matches in the first few minutes after an update—that's just because the pool is small while players are still updating - but it recovers quickly as more Raiders come online.
• Looting knocked-out players doesn't affect your matchmaking. Matchmaking looks at how you engage with other Raiders, not what you do with their gear afterward.
• We don't matchmake based only on the squad leader. Each member influences the squad profile - the leader has no special weight compared to their squadmates.
• Turning crossplay on or off does not impact the level of cooperation/PvP in the round. Changing crossplay changes who's in the matchmaking pool (and thanks to that, the matchmaking time), but it doesn't guarantee the tone of your encounters.

Good to know, though I doubt this reassurance will totally squash the superstition around Arc Raiders' invisible social machinations. Guides lead Sean Martin singled out the "One shot or kill does not immediately put you in a 'PvP-focused' lobby" claim in our work chat:

"I don't believe them lol. I literally killed like two people defending myself over the weekend and my next match was hell."

I think we've all had days like that.

Arc Raiders' has had somewhat of a long struggle with cheaters. It's plagued the extraction shooter pretty much from day one, with the few players who are guilty of it ruining the game for the masses as they'd use wallhacks or extra-sensory perception to ruthlessly hunt down other players.

Over the months since Arc Raiders' launch, Embark have attempted to combat cheaters by targeting Steam family sharing, dishing out strict consequences for those caught in the act, and systematically dolling out ban waves. Embark even recently published a short blog post on the subject, announcing that the studio is still taking the fight to cheaters with their kernel-level anticheat and are looking at more ways to eliminate this behaviour from the game. Which leads us to Denuvo.

Part of the latest Arc Raiders patch notes which introduced the new weapon, durability buffs, and a trader from Topside, also included a segment about Denuvo anti-cheat: "As mentioned in our Ensuring Fair Play article, we want to continue improving our anti-cheat solutions and more accurately detect foul play across the Rust Belt. Following a positive rollout in The Finals, Denuvo anti-cheat will also come to Arc Raiders starting May 19th, initially to a limited player pool, with plans to expand after close monitoring."

It's not uncommon for the mention of Denuvo to ruffle feathers. This anti-cheat is renowned for claims of it plaguing games with performance nerfs and stutters alongside it having ample access to your PC as it's a kernel-level anti-cheat. Embark has addressed some of these concerns, however, as it promises: "We will not be using Denuvo's Digital Rights Management (DRM) service, and are working to ensure minimal impact on performance."

It doesn't seem to be much of an issue anyway though, as most Arc Raiders players seem more concerned about riding their lobbies of cheaters and who will be the first hit with this new anti-cheat rather than concerns about the anti-cheat itself: "If this actually nukes ESP/ wallhack users the game might genuinely recover."

Theories of who exactly the "limited player pool" will encapsulate are floating around with some debating whether it could be distributed by region or PvP lobbies. The consensus so far seems to be that PvP lobbies are where anti-cheat is needed the most, because players using cheats against other players is far worse than using cheats to kill Arcs quicker.

"PvP lobbies are where the majority of cheaters will end up anyways," one player says. "There are still cheaters in PvE lobbies, but none of us PvE players care if they have aimbot or can see our inventory or position anyways, as long as they don't kill us."

Hopefully, this next step in Embark's journey towards fairer play will deliver visible results for players who are tired of being hunted for sport by cheaters. But it doesn't sound as if Embark is dusting its hands of the situation, more so that this is just another step on the road to recovery: "With Denuvo anti-cheat and Anybrain, we are working to strengthen Arc Raiders' systems even further. Keep sending us reports of any information that you believe might help us to do so, it's highly appreciated."

The first Arc Raiders patch since Embark shook up its update schedule has arrived. Major updates are only coming twice a year, but regular balancing changes continue unabated. That's what we have in patch 1.29.0: Embark is targeting a handful of bugbears while also introducing a new anti-ARC grenade launcher.

Perhaps the biggest change for active players is a partial reversion of weapon durability. Speranza weaponry isn't holding up like it used to. The idea was to force players to use more resources to keep their gear true, but the overwhelming response is that's actually annoying. Embark acknowledged in the patch notes that the lowered durability of some guns was "too much," and so it's toughening up some of the most common guns in the game.

Specifically, the Ferro, Anvil, Canto, Osprey, Renegade, Torrente, Bettina, and Jupiter can be shot more before they break. The percentage increase is different for each gun, ranging from 18% to 54%. The biggest durability boost by far goes to the Renegade, going from 175 to 269 shots. All of the numbers below assume a tier 1 weapon.

Embark classified these as the "worst offenders," but also said it will "monitor for any pain points that come up around durability in the coming weeks, and continue to adjust accordingly."

Then there's the Rascal, a new pocket-sized grenade launcher that functions as a lower-tier option for anti-Arc offense. Embark's official description:

"Lightweight, compact, and easy to carry, this unconventional launcher packs a punch despite its… quirks. While it’s slower to reload, and a bit unpredictable on the aim, the Rascal shines as a reliable side-arm for those who want anti-ARC firepower without the risk of lugging around a Hullcracker."

Patch 1.29.0 is also packing quality-of-life stuff, like the ability to view your teammates' info after an unsuccessful match, as well as the Nomadic Envoy, a new trader with Elie covered in detail today.

Last week Embark explained to players that it would be scaling down the frequency of major updates in Arc Raiders, citing the need to slow down to provide concise and "more impactful" changes. But now, just one week later, we've got another patch with quite a few highlights: a new weapon, durability adjustments, and a new trader from Topside.

The trader is the standout addition in my book. Part of a group of nomadic envoys who roam Topside, his name's Ermal, and he'll turn up in Speranza every week with a bunch of new items and perks for raiders that are level 25 and over to get their hands on. This is what will be on offer on a weekly rotation:

• Cosmetics
• Blueprints
• Raider Tokens (the premium currency)
• Progression items such as items needed for current Raider projects
• Expanded Stash space (although this resets post-expedition)
• Expedition Vault access which allows raiders to store up to five items for retrieval post-Expedition

Players will be able to trade "high-value Arc materials and stockpiled rare weapons" in exchange for all of these items and perks. But all of this trading isn't cheap. One cosmetic costs a total item value of 500,000 coins, I'm talking Queen Reactors, Matriarch Reactors, and Rocketeer Drivers just to name a few.

I've been waiting for some real trading to arrive in Arc Raiders for quite some time. Although I was hoping for an official trading route to open up between players, instead of using third party sites, this is still a hugely welcome addition. And I'm not the only one who thinks this.

"Has anyone realised how good this new trader is," Head-Chance3425 says in a social media post. "This will completely turn the game in favour of killing Arc because rewards are madness. To be able to earn coins and skins just by killing big Arc is amazing. Not to mention stash, blueprint carryover, and other cool stuff. I think this is one of the best updates so far in favour of gameplay and I love it."

Arc Raiders has always been at its best when Arcs have been the primary target. It encourages raiders to work together to take down bots three times their size and I think it provides a more compelling reason to go Topside rather than to just hunt down fellow raiders.

The Rascal is a new gun randomly dropped in Arc Raiders' 1.29.0, alongside the Nomadic Envoy rotating trader. This little pocket-sized rocket launcher (it's adorable) is designed to be a cheaper, easier-to-maintain alternative to the Hullcracker. It's a reliable anti-Arc sidearm, and we certainly need it with how dangerous the Riven Tides map is.

So, how do you get the Rascal? While the patch notes suggest Tian Wen sells it, that's unfortunately not the case—apparently she just crafted a bunch and stowed them in containers throughout Topside, laughing maniacally as she did. You'll need to put in some work to get this grenade launcher and its blueprint, plus a little luck.

How to get the Rascal in Arc Raiders

The Rascal is a rare (blue) quality weapon, so it can spawn in basically all the usual hot loot spots—there's no set location, as was the case with the Dolabra and Canto. I recommend looting inside locked key rooms, opening Security Breach cabinets (you need the skill of the same name), and doing Beachcombing on the Riven Tides map. The long gun cases will also be a pretty good option, since these regularly spawn blue weapons.

These activities have a higher chance of giving you rare items like the new Rascal, especially after the recent buff to key rooms. Likewise, the Night Raid or Hurricane modifiers, which offer increased loot value, will also have a higher drop chance.

In fact, while Riven Tides has the fewest number of Security Breach lockers with just nine, you can combine it with Beachcombing if the match is quiet enough. With a bit of luck, you'll get the Rascal blueprint in just a few attempts. YouTuber 'TooFumed' has a playlist of all the Security Breach locations that I recommend you watch.

If you're looking for the blueprint, it's also worth keeping an eye on the new Nomadic Envoy Trader, as he sells blueprints, which rotate over time, and he might well get one for this gun.

If you find the Rascal blueprint, you'll need the following materials to craft it:

• 2x Advanced Mechanical Components
• 3x Heavy Gun Parts
• 5x Canister

Given that the Rascal is intended to be a more affordable Hullcracker, don't expect the same performance. It's got only one shot in the chamber and a painfully slow reload, though upgrading it speeds this up. It's also pretty inaccurate, so I recommend using it against larger Arcs like Bastions or Bombardiers that are harder to miss. It'll kill a Shredder, my archnemesis, in three shots, which is worth it to me.

Marvel Rivals season 8 has begun and with it comes a new battle pass, patch notes, and a massive T.rex known as Devil Dinosaur. This dino is complete with seven passives, a shield, and a massive red laser beam, just as the cherry on top. But do you know what's better than a huge red T.rex? A bunch of Strategist nerfs.

Well, they're not massive nerfs, but we'll take what we can get right now. Multiple Strategist characters have had their offense capabilities dialled down: Invisible Woman, Loki, Mantis, Rocket Raccoon, and White Fox have all been tweaked in this patch.

Loki, Mantis, and Invisible Woman are getting damage nerfs: Loki's illusions will now "heal more reliably" and deal less damage while Mantis will provide a speed boost instead of a damage boost to allies, and Invis' knockback damage has also been dialled down. Loki's ultimate cost has also increased from 4300 to 4500, meaning it'll take a little more time for him to get his ult up and working for a team fight.

This seems like a pretty decent move for both of these Strategists, and while I don't think either of these are among the most problematic cases, I'm always a fan of supports doing less damage output and focusing on healing their team instead. Sure, the backline needs to be able to defend itself from flankers, but in no world should a Strategist be able to do as much damage as a Duelist or even a Vanguard.

Some higher elos can also get away with being more aggressive. But by and large most Strategist players often get distracted with damage output when the most valuable thing they can do for their team is keep the frontline alive.

Unfortunately, the nerf didn't go as far as to involve the rest of the support roster, as Rocket Raccoon and White Fox both got buffs. Rocket will output more healing and damage, and get his ultimate faster, while White Fox's change will "provide a more consistent healing" while in and out of combat.

Other adjustments include Deadpool (Vanguard) getting slightly nerfed, while Emma Frost survivability has been buffed and The Thing's base health has increased from 700 to 750. Duelist buffs include:

• Iron Fist: Dragon's Defense cooldown reduced and Kick strike damage increased from 35 to 40.
• Moon Knight: Moonlight Hook cooldown reduced from 15 seconds to 12 seconds.
• Spider-Man: Increase ultimate damage from 13.6 to 15.
• Squirrel Girl: Mammal Bond cooldown reduced from 15 seconds to 12 seconds.
• Star-Lord: Increased ammo capacity from 40 to 50.
• Wolverine: Cooldown for Regenerative Healing Factor reduced from 105 seconds to 90 seconds.

Mister Fantastic has been rebalanced by swapping out some slow effects in favour of a boost in "direct damage", alongside Phoenix who's explosive AoE attack has been reduced to make it more precise and "feel far more lethal." But her ultimate has been nerfed slightly: "Without damage buffs, Phoenix can no longer one-shot a 250 Health hero with a single mark + direct hit from her Endsong Inferno. However, the increase to her primary attack damage makes her far more threatening in baseline combat."

Control Resonant is going to be an RPG—that much we knew, with PCG's very own Robin Valentine being actively surprised by just how much of a Diablo-like it was when he saw it back in March. But did you know the Control series was always meant to be an RPG? Me either.

Per creative director Mikael Kasurinen, who spoke with our friends over at GamesRadar+ during Gamescom Latam this year, it was always destined to become an RPG series. No, more than that—Control was actively the first step towards making it so.

"When I was thinking about Control, and it wasn't called Control or anything like that, but I had this kind of thinking in my head that I wanted to create an RPG franchise," says Kasurinen, "The question was, 'What would it be? What's the Remedy version of that?' The way to learn is to start by doing, and that's how Control was born."

Hearing Kasurinen talk on it, though, it seems like the plan wasn't to jump headfirst into RPG territory—but instead to figure out how to make the structure of an RPG without any of the usual elements: "There was a main story, but there's also these other stories as well. You had side quests. We'd never done that before. We'd never done dialog choices before, where you talk to a character [and] you can choose what to say. All that stuff was new."

I'd hesitate to call Control an RPG—during our morning meeting, we settled on it being more like a metroidvania—but hey, that makes sense to me. Why completely reinvent your process when you can just Ship of Theseus it—replacing little planks and design intents until you've got a full-on RPG series?

Control Resonant, Kasurinen adds, is the next step towards that eventuality: "I wanted to stop calling it action adventure. Instead, like, no, it's an action RPG. This is Remedy's RPG franchise, and we're gonna kind of embrace that, fully commit to it, and so on, and go even further into that direction."

As Robin noted in his preview, Resonant has stat screens, talent trees, and customisable weapons—looking more like Diablo than Alan Wake, so that's absolutely mission accomplished, there. And while the shift might seem somewhat strange, the way I figure it, Remedy's always done something a little weird with each of its titles. Even if it doesn't always work out (cough, Firebreak, cough).

Anyway, I fully expect the next Control game to be a full-on Disco Elysium text-based adventure, where all of the voices in your heads are SCP-style cognito-hazards, and… wait, hold on. That started as a joke but I'm talking myself into it. Get Kim Kitsuragi in there, too.

Embark is slowing down the live service treadmill for Arc Raiders. The hit extraction shooter will now receive major updates twice a year. That's in contrast to its current run of monthly updates, which have been hit or miss in the seven months since launch.

Arc Raiders' bi-annual updates will be "larger in scale, more impactful, with the goal to genuinely change how you play the game," according to a blog post penned by executive producer Aleksander Grøndal.

"When Arc Raiders launched, we planned to offer monthly updates. The intention was to keep you all engaged, to ensure the game always felt fresh, and to give you reasons to keep braving topside. But once the game was in players' hands, we saw that the kind of long-term experience we want to create for Arc Raiders requires more transformative updates."

Arc Raiders will not go dark in the months between milestone additions: a dedicated "live service team" will continue to deliver "regular live updates," cosmetics, balance changes, bug fixes, and in-game events. In the post, Grøndal says its current schedule makes it impossible to pursue larger changes the game needs.

"Some of the progression improvements we want to implement simply need more development time that we haven't been able to address properly while running on a monthly cycle. Moving to larger updates allows us to spend more time refining the systems players engage with the most," Grøndal wrote.

The first test of Arc Raiders' new cadence will be Frozen Trail, a major update planned for October that Embark says is its biggest yet:

• A Sprawling New Frontier: Explore a new landscape in the Rust Belt with layered design and new mysteries to uncover in the largest map in the game.
• Our Most Ambitious ARC Operation So Far: Including new ARC enemies with fresh designs, and unique behaviors that will challenge Raiders in new ways.
• New Systems of Progression: Many players have maxed out their Raider Den and hit the Skill Point ceiling. Frozen Trail will introduce new goals and more ways to shape your Raider’s progression.
• Exploring the origin of Arc: What are Arc and where do they come from? Frozen Trail gives Raiders the opportunity to begin uncovering that mystery.
• Improved Skill Tree
• Alongside new weapons, items, instruments, cosmetics and more

That's exciting stuff, but it's also five months away.

In the short term, Embark is also introducing a new nomadic trader that offers unique rewards and cosmetics in exchange for high-value items. The trader is a targeted response to "a few common problems" that Embark is monitoring:

• You’re holding a lot of high-value items with no way to offload them in rewarding ways.
• Your Stash is filling up with the game’s new items and we haven’t increased the capacity.
• Very few of you are going on the Expedition, either because it is not rewarding enough, or because it is too painful to part with your favorite items and Blueprints.

While larger changes to the Expeditions system are in the works, the nomadic trader will offer a perk that allows players to carry five items over with them into the next Expedition (including blueprints).

I've been away from Arc Raiders for months now, but we have several PC Gamer staffers still playing daily. I solicited editorial director Tim Clark's reaction to the news:

"I can tell you that with my many thousands of hours in Destiny 2 I could see this coming a mile off. Some players genuinely don't understand how hard the process of producing new high-fidelity assets and animation are, let alone complex systems that require testing. The monthly cadence never looked sustainable, and the thinness of those updates was seen in the increasingly grumpy playerbase.

"But October now looks an awful long way off, and Frozen Trails will have to blow people's minds if Arc is to avoid falling into the same trap as so many live service games that have struggled to keep their audiences sated with new stuff to do."

The trajectory of Arc Raiders mirrors the ways people are playing it. Embark began with a roadmap that fit the blueprint of PvP-focused shooters, but many players have glommed onto its MMO qualities as a highlight: social collaboration, grinding, and completionism. As Tim says, it has a lot more in common with Destiny than Call of Duty. Arc Raiders does not call for updates—it demands expansions.

Brigador Killers' demo has one of my new favorite videogame tutorials: You control a giant rolling pinball of a mech as it rolls down a long corridor, a ghostly computer voice urging you on. "YOUR PEOPLE KILLED FOR PROFIT," it declares. "TAKE WHAT THEY TOOK FROM YOU."

You're then let loose in a bustling city center to level buildings like a reverse Katamari. This cathartic act of sci-fi political violence then zooms out to another terrorist cell watching it go down on the news. Their (your) timetable just moved up.

I've been Brigador-curious for a long time, but playing its sequel's demo has accelerated my own timetable for checking out the 2016 isometric mech shooter. I know the gist of it: You play as immoral mercenaries intervening in a future war on behalf of what are probably the bad guys.

Playing through the demo's assassination story missions, I had to look it up, and yep: Your targets are several playable pilots and the mission control from Brigador 1. I don't need the hours of investment in the story and world I'll soon have to already know that's hard as fuck.

Brigador Killers is brash, transgressive, and stylish. It shares the first game's pre-rendered, Command & Conquer-but-more-cyberpunk art and boasts a follow up to its Makeup & Vanity Set soundtrack to seal the deal. The demo consists of an appetizer assortment of story missions, plus a shockingly generous slice of a sandbox mode⁠—both hold a lot of promise.

After the playable intro, most of the story missions with the main crew are on foot. They felt like bite-size Hitman missions, sort of like how the opening beach level in World of Assassination or the carnival in Blood Money were a little on-rails, a little wearing kid gloves to ease you into things. The presentation, audacity, and escalation really sells it, though.

I love the story mission where you call your target on a payphone to open him up for a sniper shot. A mission where you drive a van full of explosives into a mansion is followed by another where you wait for your target in a turret emplacement, introducing vehicles into the mix. The final mission: A classico mech assault, this time with a gun-toting bipedal walker.

Having on-foot and mech gameplay in the same package⁠—and doing both well⁠—is one of my most rarely-fulfilled gaming wishes, because it really sells the scale and destructive capability of a mech to contrast it with a squishy, puny human.

That bit of story campaign is a fleeting amuse-bouche, but there's a ton of game hidden elsewhere in the demo. "The Garage," in contrast with the story-heavy, relatively gameplay-light campaign, is all action and resource management. It's a sandbox where you deploy to maps extraction-style, looking for ammo, vehicles, parts, everything a budding partisan or mercenary warlord could need.

The first mission you get in The Garage feels like a proof of concept for Brigador Killers' gameplay, a style of open-ended, immersive sim-adjacent mission design that reminds me of Metal Gear Solid 5 or Armored Core 6.

You start at one end of a junkyard, on-foot and armed with a shotgun and SMG. At the other end, a little jalopy that doesn't even have the horsepower to run dudes over waits next to a crate with your 'Lil Mercenary's Starter Kit.

You don't have enough ammo to kill all of the guards in the scrapyard, so you have to determine the best combo of stealth, gunplay, scavenged weaponry, and just legging it to win the day. Unlike the seasoned fighters of the campaign missions, your Garage guy is kinda squishy, and the high-stakes, quick time-to-kill gunplay is tense and rewarding.

Blowing up a whole squad of dudes with one grenade was a moment of triumph made all the sweeter by the preceding attempt where my grenade ricocheted back and killed me⁠—a blunder so funny, I couldn't even get mad.

Brigador Killers seriously whips, it's already sending me back to check out the first game, and this demo offers a shockingly generous amount of mech action: You could wring a dozen hours of gameplay out of the Garage's 17 maps, were you so inclined. But I've already got a whole game to catch up on before Brigador Killers' TBD release.

Until then, you can check out the demo for yourself and wishlist Brigador Killers on Steam. The original game, meanwhile, is on sale for $6.50 on Steam until May 11.

Though I have clocked up several dozen hours in Ghost Recon Wildlands, 2017’s open-world military shooter, it’s taken till now to notice that I hadn’t finished its first mission. Instead, I’ve fought the cartel sponging off Bolivia haphazardly, daisy-chaining disconnected missions together with the odd opportunity to kidnap a henchman and raid a hacienda, inviting mishap en route.

Chaos spirals quickly in the Wildlands. I only wanted to commandeer a convoy when my helicopter was shot down. Next, the minibus I hijacked was made undriveable by a road accident. The town I then entered to pump a random guy for secrets became a battleground when he pulled a gun on me, inspiring me to call in rebel reinforcements (and a mortar bombardment, why not?). Our helicopter escape crossed paths with another convoy, whose leader I kidnapped, drove away and interrogated. This unexpectedly fulfilled a task, leading to the location of a commander whose death marked the completion of a main mission I have no memory of ever instigating. A true deniable op.

Wildlands is a sequel in the tactical, squad-based Ghost Recon series which began in 2001. Typically, you issue movement and engagement commands to your team and use fancy gadgets. Wildlands is a bit different. Its creators identified the fun thing about the series—using your wits and gadgetry to navigate a hostile environment, to better attack the enemies therein—and built a sprawling world around it.

Bad company

The first missions Wildlands assigns you, which I originally absent-mindedly walked away from, don’t just offer a taste of the game. They are the game. They have us stealthily approaching targets, rescuing a man, stealing a car, hacking computers and finally bearing down on the local bigwigs at their hunting lodge. You’re equipped with a small armoury, night-vision, a drone and binoculars, and a Sync Shot ability to simultaneously shoot targets with your AI squadmates. In the course of these tasks, you’ll be reconnoitring, quietly dispatching, loudly raiding, and making helicopter getaways. Listen: my patience for wordy tutorials and massive skill trees are stretched thin. What joy, then, when the fruits of a game are offered to you in the first 15 minutes.

What makes Wildlands dazzle in regular diversions can, however, make it tough company over a longer duration. Its missions and targets lack variety. Its stealth is not particularly involved. Wildlands’ novel structure, letting you take on region bosses in the order you see fit, has little bearing on the game’s progression. More fatally, as an inheritor of Far Cry 3’s obsession with clearing outposts and marking enemies, and of Assassin’s Creed’s fondness for surveillance birds and a minimap chockablock with icons, Wildlands’ playbook of tech and tactics quickly slot into familiar routines.

And yet the chimeric Wildlands proves better than the sum of its parts. Having seen its tricks, I haven’t moved on. One idea of Wildland’s worth keeping around is the idea of extracting ‘intel’ from lieutenants. These are miscellaneous NPCs who drive around innocuously until they are T-boned from a mountain hairpin, pulled from the wreckage and interrogated. In gratitude for the adventure, they mark a set of collectibles in the locality on your map.

Going out and acquiring these collectibles—side-missions, weapon cases, or skill points—generally improves your situation in the game, bringing forth new weapons and providing the resources to improve your abilities. Abilities like thermal vision (cool but inessential), enhanced damage to vehicles (handy), and a skill that makes your AI squad-mates less embarrassing (vital). The contents of weapon cases are not disguised on the map, making some (folded buttstocks, anyone?) easy to ignore. This refreshingly diminishes the sense of FOMO that other games intensify. Moreover, you are kitted out, more or less, from the get-go.

Tom Clancy's HAWX

Hard to ignore is the hawkish Tom Clancy-ness of it all. You are Nomad, leader of an American special forces team fighting to effect regime change in a Latin American country. Have you heard this one before? In the helicopter ride in at the game’s outset, CIA spy Karen Bowman sets out the game’s unconvincing revenge arc. The Ghosts are in Bolivia for cartel boss El Sueño, and to help local rebels wedged between his Santa Blanca faction and the corrupt state forces La Unidad. You see, El Sueño killed an undercover American embroiled in foreign affairs, and that’s ruffled our feathers. This isn’t WWIII we’re trying to avert here. It’s a side-plot in the war on drugs.

If this doesn’t push your buttons, they work for your uncomplicated protagonist, whose naff patriotic rejoinders are delivered with bland solemnity. “Sometimes I think about the bad things we do for the good of our country,” Nomad soliloquises, uninvited, at some point. “I’d do it all again. In a heartbeat.” Great! But I do wish you’d stop saying this out of my avatar’s mouth.

Wildlands’ version of Bolivia is a fabulously inviting depiction of a landscape, whose physical environments are enchanting enough to keep you exploring. Atmospheric effects shepherd changes in mood and the chirps of biome-specific creatures help plant your feet in the virtual soil. It is also a bombastic caricature of a country more at home in the Just Cause games, which have the grace to fictionalise their settings.

Ubisoft abstracts real places into games all the time, usually with the tactful application of historical distance. But there’s something odd about how Wildlands thugs outnumber its non-combatants. Where regular people appear, they are quaking or fleeing or otherwise lingering in a town, unbothered by the presence of American soldiers. The decorating of interchangeable settlements with gruesome corpse displays is also worryingly unremarked upon, not least by locals taking the air. Any residual sincerity is undercut by the armed helicopters all over the place, flashing notifications of “UNIDAD PATROL NEARBY” and the suspicion that your explosive conduct must surely be more a hindrance to local people than a help. The game Ubisoft made, between the caricature and the self-serious chauvinism, is confusingly cartoonish.

Mission fail

On a tactical level, there is enough to keep you busy. Just enough thinking around a problem is required to accomplish your goals. Can’t enter a gate? Parachute in. Anti-aircraft nearby? Blow it up first. Compound is alarmed? Shoot its power box. Your surveillance gadgets mean it’s normally easy to evade guards. But they’ll investigate a gunshot, and an alert will ring out on a discovered body. When you’re spotted, it’s time to embrace the mayhem.

When Wildlands forces stealth rules, it’s a mission fail. A mission released as an update links you up with Tom Clancy franchise stablemate Sam Fisher, alias Mr. Splinter Cell. You must rendezvous inside an enemy base between 9pm and 4am, without being spotted or killing anybody.

My first attempt is foiled while trying to crawl under a trailer. On my second attempt I’m casing the joint when my squadmate cries, “We got a man down!” He walked into a speeding train. The third attempt fails because I leave the mission area, which I dispute, and the fourth fails after I’m spotted by a guard before I can grab him. Finally on my fifth attempt I go through a gap in a fence, obviously a prescribed route, and find Sam as he triggers a massive armed response by hacking a laptop. I hold off the attack until an escape is possible through the jungle towards a hijacked car. Devastatingly, I turn to see a helicopter shooting rockets not at me, but at Sam, still plodding through the base to my getaway point.

This is no meticulous espionage simulation. It doesn’t have much resemblance to reality, nor a story worth sticking around for. I’m here for the moment plans slide into chaos, and I know Wildlands has that in abundance.

Capcom's got a huge collection of big-name franchises, amassing them like Infinity Stones in a way that would make any game publisher jealous, and the latest addition to that roster is Pragmata. Sure, it was never going to top the likes of Resident Evil—which just revealed a trailer for its new (potentially good) movie—or Monster Hunter, but selling over one million copies in two days is an undeniable success story. Especially after three delays dragged development out by an extra four years.

The videogame giant sees this early success as a starting point for a potential franchise, according to Rob Dyer, COO of Capcom USA, speaking at the Interactive Innovation Conference in Las Vegas this week. Shared by Game File via GamesRadar, Dyer said the following: "We’re to a point now where we’ve got another IP that Capcom—and god bless them, has an arsenal—that we can continue to go down."

It's by no means confirmation of a sequel yet, but it's certainly cause for hope that Pragmata's not just a flash in the pan. As much as I enjoyed Pragmata, it felt like the kind of game where a sequel would really perfect the lofty ambitions. As to where a potential follow-up would go, though, that's a tricky question given the rather cut-and-dry ending. Perhaps Pragmata is more about the unique hack n' shoot gameplay than it is specifically a story about Hugh and Diana.

Speaking of the rocky development Pragmata endured—originally announced in 2020 for a 2022 launch, but multiple delays pushing it back to 2026—Dyer reckons that "it was worth the effort" in the end.

Capcom's been on a streak as of late (I mean, it's had 12 straight years of growth, in part thanks to PC), with Resident Evil Requiem selling seven million copies in two months and Monster Hunter Wilds pushing 10 million in a month. Of course, it's also got Street Fighter and Dragon's Dogma in its arsenal, as well as the upcoming Onimusha: Way of the Sword.

Last week I drove down to a fancy studio lot in Los Angeles to play Fortnite. "Play Fortnite" isn't a very descriptive phrase these days, as the battle royale has long since evolved into a platform with numerous games under the official Epic banner, plus thousands more community-made modes.

What I was there to see fell somewhere between official and community: a collection of Star Wars games made with UEFN (Unreal Engine for Fortnite), but by studios that make Fortnite stuff for a living. They were commissioned by Epic, in cooperation with Disney, to showcase what's possible with the new Star Wars UEFN toolkit (which includes a bunch of official assets and sounds from the movies) while also promoting the Mandalorian film that's out soon.

Alongside a mix of press and content creators, I played hours of:

• Galactic Siege: A riff on classic Battlefront
• Droid Tycoon: An idle game where you hold left click and buy droids to farm money
• Escape Vader: A co-op horror game where you avoid Darth Vader… very easily

Some of Fortnite's Star Wars offerings unfortunately reminded me of the inglorious days of licensed tie-ins. The difference these days is that these are snackable experiences that exist in an always-on platform, rather than standalone 4-hour games stamped on a disc. These UGC games were made by smaller outfits that specialize in turning formats popular with children (like tycoon or bed wars) into games themed around whichever brand is writing the check.

Today that brand is Disney. These games ranged from terrible to blandly inoffensive. We might as well start with the best.

Galactic Siege

What I like about Galactic Siege is that it understands how singularly awesome Star Wars: Battlefront was back in the day. Two teams (Rebels vs Empire) recreate the battle of Hoth while fighting over three control points—the format is a callback to the Galactic Conquest mode from Battlefront. You pick between a handful of classes, can respawn on teammates, and cash in points to play as Rey, Vader, or pilot an X-Wing.

Developer Jogo Games, whose other Fortnite work includes "Only Up Time Travel" and "Toy Bed Wars," followed the Pandemic Studios (R.I.P.) playbook to the letter. Its only twist on the formula is a layer of persistent progression. A pre-game lobby gives players time to customize their own lightsaber and jedi who becomes a playable hero, and that's a neat idea all around. I do wish the grindable upgrades for force users didn't include balance-oblivious boosts to speed, health, and damage—even the most casual of shooters value competitive integrity enough to not hand out straight damage advantages to the grindiest players.

My gripes with Galactic Siege come down to combat. The gunplay is less than excellent, the battlefield is padded with incompetent bots (though maybe the stormtroopers' poor accuracy is an easter egg), and the screen is packed with UI elements that serve no contextual purpose. At one point I ran to the back of the battlefield and witnessed bots spawn as default Fortnite battle royale dudes before suddenly popping into stormtrooper mode. It's strange for Epic and Disney to go so far in providing tools, assets, and lore-accurate blasters for Star Wars games, just for the limitations of UEFN to still be this apparent. I walked away with plans to fire up the real Battlefront at home.

Droid Tycoon

If you've ever glanced over the shoulder of a 9-year-old with unlimited access to Roblox, there's a good chance they were playing some riff on a tycoon: a format popular on Fortnite and Roblox that can adapt any setting (such as a Star Wars droid factory) into an idle clicker. Droid Tycoon was the most stable and overall functional thing I played all day, but it's the sort of game that makes you feel stupid for spending time with it.

Activities in Droid Tycoon include: holding left click on a regenerating pile of scrap to get money, assigning droids to stations where they stand still and accrue money, and sometimes shooting other players to steal their droids.

I'm not above idle clickers—I was a sentient being during the Cookie Clicker craze of 2014, after all—I just don't believe these UGC engines produce good ones. The best idle games embrace their disposability or relish in being the fourth-most interesting thing happening on your desktop. Droid Tycoon, being a game within Fortnite, demands your full attention. It believes that I can be bothered to manually run around an empty droid factory dropping robots on various stations—actions that could just be buttons if they're not going to be engaging on their own. And for what? The prize of unlocking a shooting range that serves no purpose?

That's hardly a design flaw unique to Droid Tycoon alone, though I consider it a bad look for Fortnite that Epic sized up which genres deserve the Star Wars treatment in its vast creation engine and decided this was one of them.

Escape Vader

Last, and definitely least. Escape Vader is a co-op horror survival affair where four players wander around the wreckage of the Death Star collecting energy coil thingamajigs. All the while you're avoiding an AI-controlled Darth Vader, an invincible monster who skulks down hallways.

Escape Vader has a cinematic trailer that would have you believe it's got the full might of Lucasfilm and Epic behind it, but in reality, it's about as polished and interesting as a $2 Steam horror game you took a chance on with some buds. It's janky, confusing, and worst of all it's not the least bit scary.

Developer Beyond Creative is going for an Alien: Isolation-type thing with ventilation shafts and steam pipes that can slow Vader's advance, but navigating around the slow bastard is so trivial from the jump that there's little point. The atmosphere is OK for a UEFN game (the official Vader sound effects are a big lift) but that's setting the bar quite low. Our group escaped Vader on our first try, and when Epic informed us that we'd be playing the mode again on its singular map, my heart sank.

Integration

I'll readily acknowledge that I'm not the target audience for Fortnite anything, let alone these insubstantial modes, but if this is what to expect from movie tie-ins from now on, they've certainly lost the charm of the ones I grew up with.

But times have changed, and so have the scale and goals of these projects. Studios like Jogo, FOAD, and Beyond Creative are set up more like marketing agencies whose output is Fortnite maps—Jogo's website says it has "a marketing reach unrivaled in the Fortnite Creative space," and Beyond Creative works exclusively on branded games. When they do make their own games, their success is weighed by engagement hours and front page placement at the moment.

It's a strange environment in which to fit a Star Wars "integration." A "Fortnite game" could theoretically be anything, yet Epic's trusted partners have delivered a shallow Battlefront rehash, a bad horror game, and a clicker. They didn't click with me, but I've seen UEFN produce some really impressive stuff in the right hands, so perhaps we really need to see what talented super fans do with the tools.

Fortnite's big Star Wars takeover is happening all throughout May. These three games are out tomorrow, May 1.

Water Filters are yet another item that you need to grab for the Avian Alarm project in Arc Raiders and have basically no purpose normally. Sure, you could recycle them or sell them, but it's really not worth the hassle. Now, however, you need to donate three of them to your bird sanctuary, and you're likely scratching your head, wondering where you've seen them before.

The good news is that it's incredibly easy to grab the Water Filters you need once you know where to look. And it's close to an extraction lift, so you can get in and get out almost immediately.

How to get Water Filters in Arc Raiders

You can get Water Filters as a loose item or inside containers in Industrial areas. However, the best place to look is inside breachable metal crates in the Power Generation Complex in the north of Dam Battlegrounds.

In the Generator Hall (the area with the exposed ceiling next to the extraction lift), you'll find tons of metal boxes that you can breach. There's a crate by the door, two at the top of the stairs, and another one at the back of the hall. There are more of these crates in the hallways throughout the Power Generation Complex, too. You can also find a bunch in the Hydroponic Dome Complex, often on shelves.

Breach and search each one, and you're likely to find a Water Filter or two. In fact, I found all three in just a single run. Done and dusted.

Of course, you've no doubt seen these boxes elsewhere on the Dam Battlegrounds (and the other maps for that matter). It's always worth breaking into them, whether they're in an Industrial area or not.

If you're having no luck on Dam Battlegrounds because everyone's beaten you to the punch, you could try the Shipping Warehouse on Spaceport. This area also has multiple metal boxes you can check for Water Filters.

Everyone knows where to go to find lemons, apricots, and olives in Arc Raiders by now. That would be Blue Gate's Olive Grove. But what about Agave? Like Prickly Pears, this plant feels much harder to pinpoint and find consistently.

That's annoying because you need eight of these prickly plants to donate to the new Avian Alarm project. Oh, and of course, that means tons of other players are also vying for the same spawn locations, just to make matters worse.

How to get Agave in Arc Raiders

The best place I've found to get Agave is on spikey plants on the hills bordering the Dried Riverbed in Riven Tides. This leads from the far south of the map, almost down to the Port Authority Building in the north. However, while there are lots of these unique plants here, you can only tell which ones are harvestable for Agave by approaching them.

Conveniently, this is also the best place to get Moss, so you might know the lay of the land already or have grabbed a few earlier. I managed to find three Agave (and 13 Moss) on a single run through here, so that's nearly half the way there in a single stint. Chances are you'll be done with this step in just two or three matches.

Another location that's worth searching is around the Pale Apartments and Ruby Residence in the north of Dam Battlegrounds, particularly along the roads there.

There are also three map conditions that can increase your odds of getting Agave. It's a possible spawn inside the wicker basket containers you find dotted around the maps during the Lush Blooms modifier. It's relatively common in chimneys during the Bird City event, which also contains valuable trinkets like the Red Coral Jewelry. Lastly, you can find it while Beachcombing on Riven Tides, though this one's quite time-consuming.

Unlike most of the random items the Avian Alarm project asks for, Agave is actually one worth continuing to pick up. That's because you can feed it to your pet rooster Scrappy, which can cause him to passively gather items for you, including Mechanical Components and a bunch of great weapon attachments.

It's always a pain finding trinket items for new projects and events in Arc Raiders, as they're less predictable to find than standard resources. That strikes again with Riven Tides' new Avian Alarm project, which asks you to find three Red Coral Jewelry.

Don't worry though, once you know where to look, it's not actually that annoying to find them for your project. Well, until everyone starts going to the sources I'll cover below. Sorry.

How to get Red Coral Jewelry in Arc Raiders

You can find Red Coral Jewelry in Residential, Old World, and Commercial areas. Because of this, the best place to look is in drawers, cabinets, and shelves inside houses and shops in Buried City, such as Grandioso Apartments, Santa Maria Houses, Plaza Rosa, and Piazza Arbusto. Search every store shelf and container you find, and you'll find three in no time, despite them being marked as blue, rare-quality trinkets.

Another great source of Red Coral Jewelry is in chimneys during the Bird City map condition. This event makes it so that the chimneys all over the map (seriously, there are tons of them) are packed with valuable trinkets. The loot pool is quite large, but you'll have no trouble finding what you need. And hey, if you get other trinkets along the way, at least you can sell them for a pretty penny.

While I don't recommend it for the sole purpose of finding the jewelry, you can also get them while Beachcombing on the new Riven Tides map. Beachcombing takes ages and has a very large loot pool, but you could hit two birds with one stone, as you'll have a chance of finding Ship Models while you're at it, which gives you merits for the Last Resort event.

Alongside the Red Coral Jewelry, you also need two Turbine Compressors, four Roots, and a Sirena Dorata Ship Model to tick off the fifth and final stage of the project. That's quite a lot of items to gather, though you'll be pleased to learn that you don't actually need to kill Arc Turbines to get Turbine Compressors, so that you can save yourself some hassle.

Arc Raiders' new Turbines are legit terrifying. I'm not sure if it's peel of thunder that rolls across the map as they drop from the sky like a vengeful robot angel, or how tricky they can be to approach due to all the mines and lightning they throw at you—either way, they're not the easiest foe to defeat with a few players, let alone solo.

Well, the good news is that you don't necessarily need to. As is usual for each new enemy, the Arc Turbine drops the Turbine Compressor material you'll have to use in the current project, Avian Alarm, but you'll also need it to craft the new Powered Descender item (though I'm not sure why you'd want to, considering its effectiveness).

Besides trying to kill Arc Turbines, it turns out that you can get Turbine Compressors from Arc Couriers as well. Similar to Vaporizer Regulators, these are somewhat rare drops considering they're epic materials, but if you hit every Arc Courier you spot, you'll likely get one or two, which is all you need for the project.

Arc Couriers are rarely contested, so this might make things a lot easier if you're struggling to take down the Turbine. If you're looking for an area with lots of couriers, try the swamp on Dam Battlegrounds or the Electromagnetic Storm map condition which spawns Couriers more.

Otherwise, if you're looking for the fastest way to destroy an Arc Turbine, you'll want to wait until it lands and either stick Deadlines to it before ducking in cover, or plink away at it from range with a Hullcracker, both of which you can buy daily from the Speranza traders. The Turbine's weak spots are the spinning yellow cylinders at its core, so that's what you're aiming for.

Just be careful not to shoot it while it's in the air, as it's heavily armored, and will simply rain down more lightning on you. Bide your time and wait for it to land before you strike.

Let's be real for a second: repairing weapons in games is not a fun activity. In fact, the only time I remember ever enjoying upkeeping my shooters was in Red Dead Redemption 2, when I got to lather them with gun oil and make them all nice and shiny. Is repairing weapons in Arc Raiders enjoyable? No, of course not—it's effectively admin.

It's ultimately just a number that goes up and down, but as our very own Evan Lahti argued to me, a necessary part of expending the resources we accumulate in a loot-centric game.

Well, Embark obviously felt that we weren't expending enough, because in the most recent Riven Tides update, it massively nerfed weapon durability with the following statement:

"The weapon economy has increasingly started looking more and more unbalanced, where players engaging in heavy PVP have to make a lot of difficult decisions around their weapons while the most friendly players have ended up in a chronic state of weapon accumulation. We want to balance this out so that all players are challenged by weapon attrition, as well as introducing new ways to combat it."

The key changes from the patch notes are:

• Common, Uncommon, and Rare weapons have increased durability loss per shot
• Durability on weapons you find outside locked rooms is reduced

There are positives, too, such as the fact that we now regain 25% weapon durability on upgrading one (something I've long wanted), and durability loss on weapons acquired from downed raiders is reduced.

It's not a bad idea in principle. Arc Raiders is a game about scrappy daredevils cobbling together guns from trash they find out in the world—it makes sense they would break quickly, but for me, the problem with these changes is threefold.

First off, is a "chronic state of weapon accumulation" really an issue? At this stage people have hundreds and hundreds of hours in the game (200 for me), but I feel like Embark abdicated any right to worry about what people hoard in their stashes when it made resets optional. Usually in a game like this, a forced reset would level the playing field, emptying those vaults, but it's way too late in the day to suddenly decide you want to make a half-hearted attempt to clear out said vaults.

If someone wants to keep 100 Bobcats in their stash, more power to them. Weren't we all just arguing last year about white weapons being way too powerful and people with great gear constantly getting ratted by Kettle and Stitcher-wielding PvPers? Rarer weapons have rarely felt worth it in the past, and it'll definitely put a damper on getting lucky and finding one when its durability on spawn is likely decreased now.

I'm also not really sure what the patch notes mean when they say "introducing new ways to combat it". What new ways? Upgrading a gun to repair it isn't any less resource-intensive than just repairing it. As far as I can see, we've been given no tools to mitigate durability loss.

If the concept is "crappy guns break faster", why not reduce durability loss on upgraded guns but make those upgrades cost a little more? That would be a sensible balance of investment and risk, and would incentivise players to upgrade their weapons versus using the basics. This would also lead to more valuable loot in the PvP pool. Why not add attachments that reduce durability burn rate as well, seeing as we have attachments that increase it and these will be a no-go for most players after these changes.

Why not make weapon durability provide interesting consequences, too? When you're on low durability, say, maybe your weapon can potentially jam, Far Cry 2 style? I genuinely think Embark has gone about these tweaks in such a confusing way that seems to incentivise PvP more than anything else. But ultimately, when I'm repairing my Anvil after every single outing, I'm not thinking "Yay, this is so much fun," I'm thinking, "Okay, so I have to pay a toll every run now".

I don't know about you, but I've always ignored Fertilizer in Arc Raiders. Until now, it's had no purpose besides recycling into Assorted Seeds or selling it for a measly 1,000 coins. But with the Riven Tides update, we all suddenly need to get a handful of Fertilizer for the Avian Alarm project.

More specifically, you'll need ten Fertilizer, which doesn't sound like a lot at first, but now that everyone and their dog wants it, it's going to take a few matches. But if that's what your birds want, then that's what they'll get.

How to get Fertilizer in Arc Raiders

The best place to find Fertilizer is in plant beds in the Hydroponic Dome Complex on Dam Battlegrounds or Village on Blue Gate. Both of these locations have multiple planters, which look like bathtubs with a bunch of dirt packed in. On top of that dirt, there's a chance a pile of Fertilizer can spawn—it blends in quite well, though.

Fertilizer is also a possible spawn inside the wicker basket containers you find dotted around the maps during the Lush Blooms modifier, though this map condition only appears every few hours.

Likewise, you can also find it while Beachcombing on Riven Tides. This is a good option since you'll be able to find the Model Ships you need to donate to the project as well.

Would you believe it, Moss has been in Arc Raiders since launch? It's easy to overlook this rootless plant; after all, its only use until now has been to provide a minuscule amount of healing and as a material used to craft Defibrillators. But the Riven Tides update has given Moss a new purpose in the form of the Avian Alarm project.

Suddenly we're all topside gazing at the ground to find some Moss to donate to our bird sanctuary. As for what the birds do with it? Hell if I know, but that's what the project demands.

How to get Moss in Arc Raiders

The best place to find Moss is on the branches along the Dried Riverbed leading from the far south of the Riven Tides map, almost down to the Port Authority Building in the north. This long stretch of sand has tons of dried logs that can have one or two balls of Moss spawn on them.

There are so many potential spawns in this area that I actually managed to get 13 Moss in a single run, which is one more than you need for the Avian Alarm project. You can also find Agave here, which you'll need for the fourth stage of the project.

Another good location is inside the tall cylindrical planters in the Hydroponic Dome Complex in the north of Dam Battlegrounds, where it regularly spawns alongside other Nature items. However, I tried looking here after the latest update and it's been pilfered every time, since it's a well-known location for finding Moss. The Riven Tides location I mentioned, though, was free pickings because it's new and secret (or at least it was, tehe).

It's also a possible spawn inside the wicker basket containers you find dotted around the maps during the Lush Blooms modifier, though this map condition only appears every few hours.

You can actually also buy five Moss per day from Celeste, costing ten Assorted Seeds each. Given you need to donate 12 Moss to the Avian Alarm project, relying on this source alone would take you three days. I'd buy as many as you can, then grab some extra from the Dried Riverbed or Hydroponic Dome Complex, and you'll get it done in no time.

Arc Raiders' latest update, Riven Tides, brought a ton of new arcs, patches, and gadgets to the extraction shooter, and while most of the changes have gone over well with players there is one part that's proving a little difficult to get a handle on: the powered descender.

This is a new epic gadget which basically works as a parachute for players jumping from heights. Equipped with two thrusters, it'll soften the blow of falling when used, meaning players can be a bit more daring with their jumps. On paper it sounds simple enough, but there are a couple of asterisks to it which have sent some players falling to their doom.

I am extremely disappointed from r/ArcRaiders

"I am extremely disappointed," player lologugus says in a social media post. It's accompanied by an 11-second video clip of them jumping off the dam in Dam Battlegrounds, only to accidentally set themselves on fire when trying to use the powered descender and then downing themself once they hit the ground. Not the smoothest landing.

But the thing is, it's not necessarily the gadgets issue. There are other clips of players using it just fine, it seems like there is just a limit to how high you can use it to parachute from. You see, the powered descender just reduces fall speed, it doesn't negate it. So if you drop from the top of the dam or Spaceport's tower it won't be able to reduce the speed enough to ensure you get out unhurt.

There's also a charge time before the powered descender will work at full strength, and players need to be wary of the fact that it won't run infinitely—it uses fuel and it will run out. So don't go jumping off every building worry-free without checking up on the gadget first.

But before you can give the powered descender a go you gotta find it first. Its blueprint can be found in valuable lockers across the Riven Tides map. You'll have to be quick, because all the lockers seem to be picked clean almost as soon as a game starts, but maybe you'll get lucky.

Arc Raiders' big Riven Tides update has added another four new blueprints to find and collect. Predictably, everyone's rushing to track them down so they can complete the collection (for now) and get to crafting new tools, especially for those embarking on an Expedition, who'll have to say goodbye to their newfound knowledge in a couple of weeks.

I'll warn you now that the four blueprints added in the latest update aren't nearly as exciting as those that arrived in the previous Flashpoint update. There are no cool weapons like the Canto and Dolabra this time around, just some unique but rather weak tools.

Still, it's worth nabbing them, even if it's just for completionists' sake.

How to get the new Riven Tides blueprints in Arc Raiders

The Riven Tides update has added four new blueprints:

• White Flag: It's just a white flag, which you could use to show other players you're friendly.
• Powered Descender: A glider used to mitigate fall damage if you deploy it while falling.
• Crash Mat: An airbag used to decrease fall damage.
• Tactical MK.3 (Smoke) augment: Deploys a smoke grenade when your shield breaks.

You can find the White Flag, Powered Descender, and Crash Mat blueprints in containers on the new Riven Tides map. I recommend looting every crate, drawer, and cabinet you come across, though I had the best luck searching the boxes in the exposed shipping crates in Stacking Yard. There are tons (seriously) of shipping containers here, many with broken sides revealing lootable, green containers. I found both the White Flag blueprint and the Powered Descender blueprint in a single match searching here. Otherwise, Panorama Azzurro Hotel and the Port Authority Building are also worth searching.

As for the Tactical MK.3 (Smoke) augment blueprint, you can get this just about anywhere you'd potentially find epic loot. As is usually the case with blueprints, I recommend going to Stella Montis and doing a loop around Medical Research, the workshops in Assembly, and the Security office in the Lobby, since there are heaps of boxes, cabinets, lockers, and drawers for you to search through.

Map conditions like Night Raid (which is available on the Riven Tides map, too) also offer increased loot quality, including odds at blueprints, though they are obviously tougher matches. If you're up for the challenge, try farming for blueprints here.

The new Arc Turbine enemy in Arc Raiders' Riven Tide update is a bit of a terror. Not only does it spawn quite late into a round, meaning you have to kill it fast or risk not exfilling, but its projectiles create lightning strikes, which it'll try to zap you with. Unfortunately, you'll need to kill it to get the new Turbine Compressor material for the Avian Alarm project.

You can also use this material to craft some of the new items, like the Powered Descender fall mitigation tool. This is a tough enemy, so make sure you bring plenty of shield rechargers and healing, but otherwise, I'll explain how to find Arc Turbines below plus your best bet for killing one.

Where to find the Arc Turbine in Arc Raiders

The Arc Turbine is a late-spawning enemy that usually appears on Riven Tides at the 16-13 minutes remaining mark, though I have also encountered them on Dam Battlegrounds and Buried City. It's easy to tell if one is spawning because you'll hear a giant thunderclap and will be able to spot it descending in the sky from a distance. They don't spawn consistently, so if one doesn't appear by the 13-minute mark, you may as well extract.

Sometimes, though, two Arc Turbines will spawn instead of just one. The spawn locations are in the northern part of the map along the shore, either:

• In the northeast by the Tidebreaker seawall
• In the northwest near the Azzurro Beach and the hotel
• In the north near the Port Authority Building
• Further south, just to the west of the Customs House

The only time I've seen the one spawn near the Customs House is alongside the one that drops by the Port Authority Building, so this might be the only combination in which two Arc Turbines appear at once. When one arrives it'll land and open up for a while, before taking off and moving to a new location.

How to kill an Arc Turbine in Arc Raiders

The Arc Turbine is a tricky enemy to defeat—far more challenging than a Rocketeer, Vaporizer, or Bombardier. As you might have guessed, the Arc Turbine's weak spot, a bunch of spinning yellow cylinders at its core, is only revealed when it lands and opens up, giving you two options in terms of killing it:

• Bring Deadlines to plant on the inside of the Arc Turbine: It should only take a couple of Deadlines to kill an Arc Turbine if you plant them on its inside. The problem is that when it lands it drops a bunch of mines in the area, which makes approaching it quite tough. It also won't stay in position for long, so it's a race against time trying to reach it and plant your mine before it takes off. Theoretically, Trigger 'Nades might also work, but you won't have much time to place and detonate them before the Turbine takes off. Remember that you can buy a Deadline daily from Apollo.
• Use a Hullcracker or a sniper rifle to hit its cores from a distance: If you find the right angle, you can plink away at the Arc Turbines' innards from range when it's landed, but remember that if you're close enough, it will start firing out lightning projectiles at you. Still, if you have a full squad of three fighting it, this might be a more viable approach depending on what gear you have available to you. In case you forgot, you can buy a Hullcracker daily from Apollo.

After a little while, the Arc Turbine will take off. Don't try and shoot it while it's flying: it's heavily armoured and will just rain lightning down on you. Instead, think of it like damage phases for a boss. Wait until it lands again and then approach to set up your second Deadline, or continue plinking. The real issue with the Arc Turbine is that it spawns so late in the round, and relatively far away from an elevator depending on your luck.

With that in mind, I definitely think the Deadline strategy is the best and fastest method, provided you can deal with the mines on approach. Hell, you could even plant two Deadlines at once if you have a teammate and you both approach via the same route. The Arc Turbine doesn't seem to have any defensive capabilities at close range, though it will take off shortly after you get close. In many ways, you can sneak up or surprise attack it with the first Deadline and then just hide in cover until it lands again.

As mentioned, killing one and looting it will net you the new Turbine Compressor material, which is used to craft some of the new gear, like the Powered Descender, and you'll need two to complete the Avian Alarm project.

The Safe Harbor quest continues the story about the research data and tech created in Stella Montis, which has seemingly made its way to Arc Raiders' new Riven Tides map. You need to follow clues left by the hotel's restaurant kitchen staff to dig up a buried Exodus part.

Finding the chefs' clue is hard enough, so if you're not down for piecing together the information, then figuring out where the next part is buried will be a pain. I've saved you the trouble.

Find the clue left by the restaurant kitchen staff

Firstly, you need to head to the top floor of the Hotel Panorama Azzurro in the southwest of the Riven Tide map. I recommend accessing the roof using the staircase on the east side of the building. Be careful since a Shredder can spawn up here, and a Bombardier or Turbine can spawn outside, too.

Once you're on the roof, head past the open bar and into the restaurant area where you'll find the small kitchen in the southwest corner. Between the countertop and the cupboards on the west wall, you'll see the restaurant kitchen staff's clue: a tennis racket, a sign, and a bench. Interact with the prompt here to take a photo of the clue and progress to the next step.

Find the area portrayed in the sketch

Now all you need to do is go to the northwest side of the Tennis Court area, just a short walk southwest of Hotel Panorama Azzurro—there's a convenient zipline behind the hotel kitchen that'll take you to the ground floor.

Against the western fence of the Tennis Court, behind a billboard and a bench, you'll find a small shovel in the ground. Interact with the shovel to dig up the Precision Gimbal trinket item.

You then need to extract with this item, so I recommend placing it in a safe pocket if you have one, since it's a bit of a trek to an extraction lift—the closest is the Customs House, though there's no guarantee it will be open, and there's often a Rocketeer and a Vaporizer patrolling nearby.

A Wrench in the Works is one of the handful of new quests in Arc Raiders' Riven Tides update, but it's far removed from the seaside paradise. This quest takes you back to Spaceport, where Celeste is investigating signs of a mutiny.

While it's only a short quest, it's not obvious where you need to head first—the western gate isn't a marked location on your map. Below, I'll show you where you need to go to complete both quest steps.

Search the buses near the western gate

The first location you need to visit is at the western gate, which is actually the main road on the west side of the map, starting between the Departure Building and the Arrival Building and leading towards Water Towers. The bus in question is at the junction at the east end of the road, where it connects to the Departure Building. There's a red and blue shipping container nearby, up against a rock, so it's not hard to find once you know where to look.

Enter the bus and interact with the notes stuck on the wall behind the driver's seat to progress.

Locate the stash of sabotage supplies at the Water Towers

Next, head northwest to the corner of the Spaceport map where you'll find the Water Towers area—it's remote, so I wouldn't be surprised if you've never been here before. Enter the northernmost water tower and climb up scrap metal to search a narrow ledge, where you'll find the box of sabotage supplies behind you. Interact with it to transmit its location back to Celeste in Speranza and complete the quest. And you're only a short distance away from an extraction lift, happy days!

The Division Resurgence is a free-to-play mobile take on more-ish third-person shooter The Division. Announced in 2022, it finally hit iOS and Android on March 31. Now, with very little fanfare or prior warning, The Division Resurgence has launched for PC.

The quiet release could have something to do with it being in early access: according to Ubisoft the present PC release is "for technical testing ahead of its official launch in August". That's good for people who don't want to play the game on mobile, but it's surprising that the PC release is coming out at all: there's been no hint that it would, prior to its sudden appearance today.

Indeed, Ubisoft writes repeatedly in the game's "manifesto" about its mobile-only nature: "Our objective in bringing the Division universe to mobile, is to enable more people worldwide to enjoy this open world experience whenever and wherever they want," reads part of the spiel.

There's the possibility that Resurgence hasn't attracted enough players on mobile, hence the sudden pivot. Reviews haven't been super positive but nor are they damning: The Sixth Axis admired Resurgence's "well-rounded set of modes" and noted that "the tactical looter shooter grind is still pretty fun", but disliked its menus, "clunky" gamepad controls and bugs.

By dint of it being a mobile port, the recommended PC specs for the Division Resurgence aren't too steep:

At present, The Division Resurgence is only available on Ubisoft Connect.

PC Gamer Editor-in-Chief Phil Savage is a man of impeccable taste, but I still hold a tiny grudge against him for not breaking the seal on PC Gamer's 98% review threshold to award Vanquish, the Xbox 360-era PlatinumGames shooter brought to PC in 2017, an unprecedented perfect score. "Beyond the laser-focused core loop, there isn't much to Vanquish. You start with knee-sliding acrobatics, and end the same way—around six or so hours later," Phil wrote in his 80% review when Vanquish arrived on PC.

True enough, past Phil. But also: the Vanquish knee slide is the sickest move ever programmed into a videogame, followed closely by the second sickest move ever programmed into a videogame, in which at the press of a button Vanquish hero Sam Gideon pops off the helmet of his super suit, blasts a cig, and then flicks it away. There's an achievement for distracting robots with a cigarette before you shoot them. Only the Pope could do it better.

I'm afraid the math is clearly on my side here: that's a 100/100 right there.

On a superficial level, I've seen some chatter in the last couple weeks that Capcom's excellent Pragmata has a bit of a Vanquish vibe to it. I get the comparison, in that it's a pretty straightforward third-person shooter made by a Japanese developer, also starring a guy in a white astronaut-style space suit. You can do little jet-powered dashes in Pragmata, though nothing as prolonged or flashy as Sam's rocket knee slides in Vanquish.

Having finished Pragmata, I don't think the two games are particularly similar in tone or pacing or even how the action feels in the hand—but I understand the comparisons anyway. Because what Pragmata reminds the Vanquish faithful of is the sensibility of all-killer-no-filler action games circa 2010. "We didn't know how good we had it," and that sort of thing. By recognizing Pragmata in 2026 for its earnest and unpretentious focus on shooting robots with one neat trick up its sleeve, we can right the wrongs of Vanquish and games like it not selling as well as it deserved way back when.

(Let's be real: It's mostly the suits, though.)

Whatever the reason, I'm excited to report Vanquish's numbers on Steam in the wake of Pragmata's release are up. Way up. If, uh, you go by percentages and only look at the last couple months of activity. According to Vanquish's SteamDB page, it's up an impressive 34.8% in peak players over the last 30 days, for a gain of 16 whole people knee sliding in simultaneous bliss. Meanwhile, the average player count is up even more, at a 52.9% increase—that's 26 more people playing Vanquish every day on Steam, on average! Twenty six people whose lives are for certain better this month than they were in March.

Is this MONUMENTAL increase in active Vanquish players actually due to Pragmata's release? Is it, in fact, even noteworthy? Rude of you to ask for a reality check, frankly. I'm not a "data guy" or even what they call "good at math," but I'm also not a liar, so I have to admit that this spike is pretty much in line with Vanquish's history over the last few years, and it saw even more players jumping back in in September 2024, September 2025 and even this February.

You could maybe attribute each of those bursts of interest to recent Steam sales, though they don't seem to happen during the sales themselves. Vanquish is, coincidentally, on sale right now, for 70% off, a discount Sega has been throwing at it every couple months for most of the last decade. But the shape of the player chart for the past few weeks is noticeably a touch spikier, and exhibits slightly higher troughs, than its past lows. Given the fondness Pragmata has stirred up for Xbox 360-style shooters, I think the correlation just barely holds water.

But even if it doesn't, you could make it so by replaying Vanquish right now, or buying it for $6. Despite now seeming quintessentially of its era, it was almost a send-up of other third-person shooters in its day, with over-the-top gruff hoo-ra American heroes battling against evil space Russians, as written by Japanese developers. It has QTEs that were becoming overdone and garnering a player backlash, but you can't hate the QTEs in Vanquish because they're so damn cool. It's a cover shooter that actively discourages you from spending time in cover. I don't think I will ever play the first couple Gears of Wars again as long as I live, but I hope to slide my ass around in Vanquish many more times before I die.

It may be an 80% game, but it's the most 100/100 80% game of them all.

Many Helldivers 2 fans weren't thrilled to learn last week that Arrowhead is locking two new mechs behind the $10 Exo Experts warbond. It's the first time the vehicle has seen any evolution in two years, and the decision to sell its flamethrowing and grenade-lobbing variants furthers a trend of all (not just some) new Helldivers 2 equipment coming with a price tag.

To help ease the tension, and make the premium mechs more enticing, Arrowhead is introducing sweeping buffs to all mechs (including the ones you can unlock for free) in patch 6.2.2, which dropped at the same time as Exo Experts today:

We agree with the community that the exosuits can take too little damage and break too easily, especially against the Automaton faction. Therefore we have made a bigger balance pass to increase its durability.

• Increased main health pool from 850 to 1600
• The exosuit will only die if the main healthpool is depleted. Before it could die if specific healthzones were depleted.
• Increased vulnerability to acid attacks by 50%
• Fixed so parts of the cockpit healthzones are not blocked by the ragdoll actor. Now the cockpit zones will be damageable in the right way.
• Increased Exo suit arms health from 350 to 600
• Exo suit arms now also have a 50% explosion resistance (just like the main body)
• Removed constitution and bleedout on the Exo suit arms.
• Exosuits no longer lose all mobility when both legs are broken.
• Can now be staggered, have stagger strength 45. Stagger does not affect the ability to shoot.
• Removed most health zones that do not affect the main health and are mainly visual effects. The reason is to improve performance. For example tow cables and similar items can not be damaged or destroyed anymore.

That's a major upgrade to exosuit viability no matter how you slice it, though Arrowhead has also increased the damage that Terminids deal to vehicles because they have "fallen behind" the other two factions. While past updates have addressed mech durability in smaller ways, I have high hopes for them now—the fantasy of calling down a mech is to go from fragile meat sack to unstoppable metal monster, and that's never fully clicked with its meager health pool.

Exosuit updates are just one of the highlights of patch 6.2.2. The full list, which you can also watch Arrowhead talk through in video form, also touches on buffs for a few black sheep stratagems like the FAF-14 Spear, TX-41 Sterilizer, and a huge durability boost for the Ballistic Shield Backpack.

Two new spring-themed map biomes have entered the mix as well—the fields of blooming tulips should contrast nicely with the neon yellow glow of bug blood.

Riven Tides is Arc Raiders' biggest update yet, and it brings yet another player project for you to work through. This time, it's the Avian Alarm project, which sees you employing a bunch of birds to monitor seismic activity and atmospheric changes in Speranza.

Like previous player projects, you'll need to scrounge up a bunch of different items to donate to the cause. And it's a five-stage endeavour, unlike the shorter High-Gain Antenna, so don't expect it to be a stroll by the sea. It's also unique in that the first step is actually its own miniature quest.

All Arc Raiders Avian Alarm steps

Avian Alarm is a five-stage project which you'll progress by donating various resources and items. Some of the materials you'll need are quite rare or require you to search for them, so I recommend you start gathering materials for later stages and store them in your stash until you need them.

I'll point out now that you need a bunch of the new Ship Model trinkets for stages two to five, where you'll have the best luck doing Beachcombing using the Dockmaster's Detector to dig up buried treasure. These stashes have a high chance of containing the Ship Models you need. There are five different types of model ships, though you don't need the basic Windsprite one for this project.

Here are all five stages, how to get their required materials, and the rewards:

Initial Flock Intake (1/5)

The first stage of the Avian Alarm project breaks the trend, since it's actually a unique quest step—no materials required. All you need to do is lay a bird trap next to the buoys buried in the sand in the Seabed area of Riven Tides, northeast of the Port Authority Building.

Reward: 1x Dockmaster's Detector, 25x Raider Tokens

Preliminary Signal Birds (2/5)

Reward: 1x Heavy Gun Parts Blueprint, 3x Surge Coils, 25x Raider Coins

Secondary Validation Birds (3/5)

Reward: 1x Anvil, 1x Anvil Splitter, 50x Raider Tokens

Heightened Alert Birds (4/5)

Reward: Gel Patches cosmetic, 1x Riven Tides Hotel Keycard No. 311, 50x Raider Coins

Critical Warning Birds (5/5)

Reward: Bird House Backpack attachment, Fist In Air emote, 1x Acoustic Guitar, 100x Raider Tokens.

There's no grand prize for completing the entire Avian Alarm project like we've seen in the past. Thankfully the rewards at each stage are actually pretty good considering the effort it takes, including 250 Raider Tokens and some unique cosmetic items.

Arc Raiders' new Riven Tides update features a new limited-time event called Last Resort. This event runs from April 28 through May 25 (so almost an entire month), and you can earn some exclusive rewards for your hard work. If 250 Raider Tokens, a new outfit, and a backpack sound interesting to you, then you'll need to get your grind on.

Speaking of grind, you'll also want to whizz through the Avian Alarm project. This is home to a bunch of rewards, including a Dockmaster's Detector, the metal detector that you'll need for Beachcombing, another new pastime in Riven Tide.

How to get Merits for the Last Resort event in Arc Raiders

Like previous events, any XP you earn from playing matches is automatically converted into Merits. Since the number of Merits you earn per match is based on your XP earnings, I recommend killing as many robots and players as you can, looting containers, and extracting to progress as fast as possible.

However, you can also get Merits by finding miniature Ship Models. These are new trinket items of little wooden sailboats, and they're worth grabbing for some bonus Merits and event progress. There are five different types of model ships to keep an eye out for:

• Wind Sprite (common)
• Twilight Compass (uncommon)
• Velocity (rare)
• Sirena Dorata (epic)
• Leviathan's Crown (legendary)

Note that you can play on any map to progress this event, not just the new Riven Tides beach resort, though that's the only place you'll find the Ship Models for bonus points. So, I recommend playing as much Riven Tides as you can, completing the new quests, hunting for buried treasure, and killing the Arc Turbines.

All Arc Raiders Last Resort rewards

The Last Resort event has three pages of rewards to earn, so it'll take you some time to complete it. These goodies include a new outfit and backpack, as well as 250 Raider Tokens that you can put towards a shop bundle. You need to progress through the reward track one by one, so there's no rushing to your favourite rewards. In other words, don't leave it till the last minute.

Line in the Sand is a new quest in Arc Raiders' Riven Tides update, though it's got nothing to do with the new seaside paradise. This actually continues the story of Stella Montis and Buried City, where Exodus materials were being transported.

You'll need to find four locations across Buried City to complete Line in the Sand, and they're not the easiest to pin down. I'll show you where you need to go below for the mission so it won't take you quite as long as it did for me.

Find out why the train never reached Marano Station

Your first stop is the blue derailed train cars between Warehouse and Piazza Roma near the centre of Buried City. They are also south of Marano Station following the tracks. Walk over to the train cars sticking out of the sand, and the quest will automatically update—you don't need to directly interact with anything.

Find out who orchestrated the robbery

Turn east from the derailed trains, and you'll see a small square tower up the hill, next to the wall perpendicular to Warehouse and Piazza Roma. Climb over the railing and interact with the detonator hidden by the bush in the southwest corner. This will spawn the Marano Market Business Card quest item, which is a clue for the next location.

Find out where the thruster valves were stashed

From the previous location, continue north past Library and Hospital to reach the Market Ruins area in the northeast corner of the map. Here you'll find a ruined building, which will progress the quest step—once again, you don't actually need to interact with anything here.

Search the basement of the merchant’s nearby apartment

From Market Ruins, head up the hill to the east, between two more buildings, to reach Dune's End. Enter the building and go through the door ahead of you, taking the zipline down to the basement. Inside you'll find a pile of cardboard boxes that you can photograph to complete the Line in the Sand quest.

Finding Ship Models is a big part of the new Riven Tides update in Arc Raiders, since you need these trinkets for the Avian Alarm project. It makes sense that a sandy coastal map would introduce a bunch of boat-based trinkets—god knows what function they perform in a bird-based alarm system, but honestly, who knows how anything works in Arc Raiders?

There are also a few new quests, such as Battening Down, Shoring Up Defenses, and Collision Course. Otherwise, though, here's the best way to get Ship Models in Arc Raiders.

Where to find Ship Models in Arc Raiders

First off, it's important to note that Ship Models only seem to be available as trinkets on the new Riven Tide map. I tried a Bird City event just to check this and I didn't find a single one, so either I'm very unlucky, or as new items they're exclusive to the new map, which would make sense.

As is generally the case for trinkets, you can find Ship Models in Residential areas, such as the Hotel Panorama Azzurro, but you can also find them as loose items around the map. I found one in a small building in the Weighing Checkpoint, which is Industrial/Mechanical, so they are dotted all over. The best way to get Ship Models, however, is the Beachcoming map condition for Riven Tide. Similar to Bird City, this map condition takes over the area, so it's just a part of the regular matchmaking pool.

In this event, you have to use the Dockmaster's Detector to find caches on the beach north of the Port Authority Building and dig them up. However, most caches seem to contain a Ship Model of varying rarity. In every cache I opened, I got a ship, including the purple rarity "Sirena Dorata," so you should be able to quickly find them. Here are all of the Ship Models available:

• Wind Sprite (common)
• Twilight Compass (uncommon)
• Velocity (rare)
• Sirena Dorata (epic)
• Leviathan's Crown (legendary)

Unfortunately, Dockmaster's Detectors do wear down after a while, similar to Snap Hooks, but you can get more via the first stage of the Avian Alarm project, find them on the map, and you might even be able to craft them (though I haven't located a blueprint yet).

The Riven Tides update adds a new beach resort map to Arc Raiders, so why not kick back and play in the sand? That's what the Beachcombing map condition is all about, letting you search for buried treasure on the shore. However, you'll need the Dockmaster's Detector first.

Beachcombing is unlike any other map condition currently in the game, in that you actually need to bring a specific item into the match to really get the most out of it. That's the Dockmaster's metal detector, and you'll need to equip it like a gadget.

How to get the Dockmaster's Detector in Arc Raiders

Before you can start scanning for treasure, you need to obtain a Dockmaster's Detector. This is a new gadget that's effectively a metal detector. You can get a Dockmaster's Detector from:

• Looting containers and other players (including during the Beachcombing condition)
• Accepting the Shoring Up Defenses quest
• Completing the first step of the Avian Alarm project by placing the bird trap

It's possible that you can even find a Dockmaster's Detector blueprint to craft these gadgets for yourself. That would be nice, as the only consistent method of getting them otherwise is hoping you get lucky while looting.

Once you've got a Dockmaster's Detector, you'll need to equip it as a quick slot item in your loadout, as you would a grenade or healing item, before entering a Beachcombing-enabled match on Riven Tide.

If you haven't unlocked the Dockmaster's Detector, it's still worth heading to the shoreline. Why? Because there's a chance you'll find a player who has unlocked the Dockmaster's Detector. I'm not endorsing PvP, but you could kill them and take their metal detector. Or maybe you can convince them to share.

How Beachcombing works in Arc Raiders

Beachcombing is a minor map condition exclusive to the Riven Tide map, meaning it'll activate periodically as a normal matchmaking option for this location, similar to Bird City on Buried City—it's not a separate option like Night Raids. Beachcombing has the following unique effects active:

• Buried valuables
• Lootable Dockmaster's Detectors
• Increased amount of birds

The most important detail is that buried treasure spawns exclusively in the dried-up Seabed area in the north of Riven Tide. Mosey on over and equip your Dockmaster's Detector to track it down.

As demonstrated in the video above, here's how beachcombing works:

1. Hold the Dockmaster's Detector in your hand and hold the button to activate it, draining your stamina.
2. If there's treasure nearby, it will beep and flash with an orange (or green) light. If this doesn't happen, there's no treasure close to you, so walk further along the beach.
3. Triangulate the treasure's location by following the Dockmaster's Detector—it will beep and flash faster as you get closer to the dig site.
4. The Dockmaster's Detector will start flashing green when you're very close.
5. When you're directly above the treasure, Dockmaster's Detector will hold a steady green light, and you'll get the prompt to dig in the sand.

Dig up the marked location and you can find any number of surprises, such as a bomb you need to disarm in time, Ticks that'll hug your face, and, occasionally, actual treasure. I found several suitcases containing crafting materials, an Il Toro shotgun, and even the new toy boat trinkets you need for the Avian Alarm project and Last Resort event.

Finding a Comet Igniter for Tian Wen in Arc Raiders' Collision Course quest is simple if you know the trick to getting them. If you don't, or you haven't encountered this Arc enemy much, then it's much more of a bother.

These exploding balls always seem to catch me at the most inopportune moment and send me running for the hills so as not to get vaporised by their huge shockwave. That said, here's how to get this item and destroy a Comet for Tian Wen.

Destroy a Comet and deliver a Comet Igniter to Tian Wen

While you can find Comets on just about every map, there are loads patrolling the beach on the new Riven Tides map. These Arc look a little like Fireballs or Pops, except they're larger, more similar to a Surveyor—essentially, they're a big metal ball with a blue light on the front that will turn yellow if they spot you.

When they decide to murder you, they'll roll in your direction before blowing up. The thing is: you have to kill a Comet before it blows up to get its Comet Igniter. Doing so will spawn a separate loot container that looks a little like a core as opposed to the usual ring. Loot this and you'll find a Comet Igniter inside. The best and cheapest way I've found to quickly kill a Comet before it blows up is using Seeker Grenades and Snap Blasts.

It only takes a few of these grenades and you can buy them from Apollo daily. I especially like the Seekers as they track to enemies. As long as the Comet hasn't spotted you, you'll have plenty of time to keep tossing them till it's dead. Then, just loot the container, stow the Igniter in a safe pocket, and deliver it back to Tian Wen to complete this one.