I've developed a bit of a reputation among my coworkers for loving niche, lo-fi indie games that make you feel bad and gross and weird on the inside. I'm flattered to stand out in such a way, but I also don't ever want to be typecast. Anyway, Brno Transit is a game about being trapped underground with your nasty, weirdly sexual boss and neurotic coworkers as reality disintegrates around you.

I loved developer Spytihněv's previous game, the Soviet boomer shooter Hrot, so I've been eagerly awaiting his next project. Much like fellow FPS designer David Szymanski (Dusk, Iron Lung), Spytihněv zigged rather than zagging, following up Hrot with a short narrative horror game rather than another shooter.

You're a novice train conductor learning the ropes under Brno, the second city of the Czech Republic. It's "the dampest subway east of anything that matters," according to Spytihněv, and I think it helps set the tone out of the gate to know that Brno does not have a subway system in real life.

What follows is a surreal, scatological (a Spytihněv signature), and homoerotic (that's new!) delve into guys being dudes on the job. For me, it called to mind Szymanski's Iron Lung (but more fleshy, sexual, and human) or 2024's breakout Mouthwashing (but not as character driven, and somehow even less life-affirming). The controversial Horses also sprang to mind, but with less explicitly harrowing subject matter⁠—and more explicit full-frontal nudity, let's go boys.

Even more than Mouthwashing, which portrays one of the most evil fictional workplaces I've ever seen, Brno Transit captured the feeling of starting a job where you matter so little as to want to die, while the apathy and neglect of your coworkers is somehow even worse than if they actively hated you.

This game runs on surprise, so I'll try to talk around the real zinger moments, but it's one long sequence of "Go here, do this. Why did you do that? Now you have to fix it. Embarrassing." If you've ever talked to a coworker at a shit job and felt like they were a space alien playing a prank on you with how they think and view the world, Brno Transit will speak to you on some level.

Your first day ends with you eating a tainted hot dog that gives you the runs and the voms, sending you scrambling for a bathroom as gurgles and whines fill your headphones. The doorless, exposed toilet in the employee area is indefinitely occupied when you reach it, while the bathroom in the station above is out of order. I don't know if there's another way of finishing this bit, but I had to take the train to another station to find an open commode. I haven't shared this exact stress dream or level of gastrointestinal distress, but it was still incredibly gnarly and relatable in the moment.

You black out and wake up on a dirty floor mattress in the conductors' area, with splotches of feces and a trail of brown footprints trailing backwards from your resting place. Out in the depot, an entire train is covered in crap, and the first order of the day is to hose it off, Powerwash Simulator-style. How could this have all been you?

Events only get stranger and grosser from there, and I was hooked. Brno Transit shares a brown, desolate, hopeless world with the preceding Hrot, despite being set closer to the modern day. It's a new standout of the mundane or on the job horror subgenre. I want these awful subway stations to get love like the Backrooms or Exit 8.

Model trains

Brno Transit is a medley of nastiness punctuated with surreal hilarity, and while much of the humor is front-and-center in the scripted story, one of my favorite moments was emergent: I had to do a double take out of the corner of my eye to notice a passenger randomly hanging off the end of a train as it left the station. The simulated little world of Brno Transit, which exists whether you're paying attention to it or not, is what really takes it to the next level.

Undergirding the scripted story stuff is a continuous simulation of a small subway system with two lines, one counter- and the other clockwise. It feels like zooming into someone's model train set, and does a superb job of evoking a much larger world than what's just in front of you.

A diverse array of NPCs mill about the stations or wander on and off the trains. They have this sense of anonymity and guarded hostility that really nailed the feeling of making eye contact with strangers on the subway⁠. You don't matter to them, don't bother them.

This effect, plus the the shifting and jostling of the train cars, the way the lighting changes as you pass through tunnels, as well as Spytihněv's excellent sound, music, and foley work add up to this uncanny feel of actually riding the subway. I was reminded of how no one's done nighttime better than Thief or Thief 2, even with their aged graphics. These three games are punching well above their weight in art and atmosphere.

You have to ride the train to start, but you quickly take control of your own engine, carefully adjusting your acceleration to avoid hitting stops too late or too early, doing your best to slot seamlessly into the pre-existing schedule of trains constantly running on this loop. It's a simplified approximation of a whole-hog train sim like Densha de Go!

A free ride mode unlocks after completing the story, and I feel like there's all kinds of weirdness left to discover under Brno. At one point in the story, I stumbled into a skull-filled catacomb attached to one of the stations, with unnerving music, a confusing, switchback layout, and a bumbling tourist snapping photos. I thought for sure this was part of the critical path, but it was just there. What other odd shit is waiting for me at all the stops I never explored on the critical path?

Brno Transit would have been an easy recommendation for me at $9 if it was just the standout surreal horror narrative adventure, but the fact that it's built on top of this little model train world truly sets it apart. I love this freaky little game, I love a Spytihněv joint, and I can't wait to see what he does next.

The latest EA Sports College Football game has finally arrived, which is tantalizing news if you were excited for the series' hotly anticipated comeback a couple years ago. Less tantalizing is the game's reception, which so far has been marred by widespread backlash to its egregious microtransactions. Complaining works: in a post on X yesterday, the official CFB account said those microtransactions are out.

"Your feedback on Road to Glory and Dynasty is that we've missed the mark with the introduction of paid progression options," the statement reads. Notably, Road to Glory is a single-player mode (in a game that already costs $70)—a prominent point of contention amid the negative feedback.

"This was added independent of deeper mode progression with the aim to give players more choice … tomorrow morning, we will remove all paid progression options from Road to Glory and Online Dynasty." That's today, so if you were planning to dump some change into those modes, you may have missed your chance.

The backlash was led in part by YouTuber Bordeaux, who got the hashtag "#CFBPlayDontPay" trending on social media. In response to the statement from EA, he posted "we did it" with a clip from Breaking Bad: Walter White saying "I won." Fans are generally elated—"Never let anyone tell you that organizing against giant corporations doesn't do anything," said Reddit user UnrealAce on a thread approaching 5,000 upvotes. "They tell you it doesn't work so you don't try because they KNOW that it works."

"Organizing" might be a strong word given that EA folded in a matter of days and it's not like anyone marched on the developer's offices, but it's hard to argue with the results. That said, it doesn't necessarily seem like the beast is dead.

A line in EA's post notes, "Our goal for live service plans in CFB28 and beyond will be to deliver valuable features and content with greater transparency and communication." Given that and the lines stating EA "missed the mark with the introduction of paid progression options … they're not adding the value we intended," the statement suggests the problem here was merely the rollout and not the notion of paid progression itself.

I'm somewhat prone to pessimism in this column, though that's not without cause. MMOs aren't exactly a dying breed, per se—we've got Guild Wars 3 to look forward to, and most of the old guard, while a little grey in the beard, have respectable playerbases and are thrumming with things to do.

But it's hard not to feel my blood pressure notch up a few numbers at this week's Xbox layoff news for… well, a number of reasons, really. I'm irate in particular, however, at the current state of Zenimax Online Studios (ZOS), developers of The Elder Scrolls Online, who seem to have become Microsoft's punching bag.

Left hook

I'm hard-pressed to think of a more depressing set of facts than Zenimax's past couple of years—back in July of 2025, Microsoft put thousands of people out of work, including those at ZOS and, more to the point, the cancelled Project Blackbird.

Blackbird was Zenimax's next major project, and while I can't say for certain it would've revitalised the MMO market or anything, we sure as hell need more new MMOs. It was in development for over half a decade, something the then-founder Matt Firor had described as, admittedly, a bit of a "large bet."

Still, the odds weren't bad. The then-CEO of Microsoft Gaming Phil Spencer reportedly had to be torn away from it, and it was slated for a tentative 2028 release. And listen, even if you've got a cynical heart—five years of work from a development team of around 300 people getting flushed right down the toilet, along with 62 jobs (per a WARN notice), is a damn shame.

It was something that shook Zenimax to its core—but the studio did manage to pull through. I actually spoke to some of them back in January, speaking with executive producer Susan Kath who said that "the team has very much rallied … I see a lot of enthusiasm from the team as we're going forward. Folks are excited about their work. I'm excited for them to be doing this. We're looking forward."

Game director Nick Giacomini also echoed: "We are excited by what we're doing. We're excited by this transformation, this change, this evolution. It's like a second wind, and we've definitely got our eyes on the future, because this is our home. We are determined to make it continue to be so for us, for our players, for as long as we possibly can."

Indeed, things were looking up for ESO. It had found itself in a bit of a rut, as most MMOs do from time to time—but a new commitment to a seasonal model and a whole heap of reworks seemed dedicated to addressing long-held quality-of-life complaints and shaking things up.

The air, to me, felt like a smaller-scale version of the turnaround that World of Warcraft had after the disasters of Shadowlands, commitment to roadmaps and all.

Right hook

Fast-forward less than half a year later—an unconscionable amount of time in shareholder land, I have to imagine—and Zenimax Online Studios has been all but gutted. As PC Gamer's own Ted Litchfield figured out earlier in the week, an estimated 60% of the studio has been laid off between 2025 and 2026, with 213 of those layoffs happening this week.

That's a reduction of 275 developers at the studio in a year and a half, and, look—I don't want to cry that the sky is falling for ESO. Quite the opposite, I am hoping against hope that it'll manage to find a second wind somewhere down the line—but you simply cannot lose the contributions of 275 people without a massive dip in quality.

It's a response echoed by employees at the studio itself. Andrew Young, who left it in 2024, wrote: "There’s really no one left and no changing it now". Other employees were sent reeling, stunned at the absence of teams they'd been working with for years and forced to pick up the pieces.

I want to point out that Xbox saw fit to lay these people off literally as its first season launched—with layoffs occurring on Monday July 6, and the season launching on July 8.

Just imagine it—you work on ESO, the layoffs from last year hit you hard, but you're determined to turn things around. You're using words like "rallied" in interviews, you're finally getting to sort out complaints players have been having for years, you're trying new things. And after a year of work, your first season of the new era of your game is coming out. Two days before it arrives, Microsoft lays off 213 of your team. That, or you're shown the door yourself.

This is despite the fact that your game has brought in over $2 billion in revenue over its lifetime. That figure, posited in 2024, was touted 10 years after the game's launch. That means that ESO was raking in an average of $166 million a year.

Now obviously, that figure's going to have dips and peaks, that's just the nature of doing business—but the sheer boneheaded, next-quarter blinders you have to have on to believe that a game that historically brings you in $166 million annually somehow isn't profitable seems absolutely absurd to me.

And sure, maybe this reaction holds water if the fanbase wasn't liking your new changes—except they did! Here's just a few quotes from the Elder Scrolls Online subreddit:

• "What the fuck man. ESO was really getting a second wind," says u/PompeiiSketches.
• "The game seemed to be on the up and up, what happened?" says u/Crimsonmaddog44.
• "Absolute insane behavior to make cuts to the team that has gotten tons of players (myself included!) back into engaging with the game" says u/Ion_bound.

In a post on the game's forums, understandably stating that Zenimax'll have to be shifting its schedule around a bit, support is present, too:

"I just came back because of your roadmap for the future, and knowing now the people working on it are getting cut by a company that's billions in the green is really heartbreaking," writes one user, "know we haven’t always been happy with you all but those affected, whether they remain or not, did not deserve this. Especially in an era where things were finally looking up again. I am horrified," writes another.

This really does paint a picture of an MMO that was finally getting its sea legs back, just for Xbox to sweep in and knock it right off its feet again.

Holding shares

I will state it plainly: I think the way that Zenimax Online Studios has been treated is cruel, senseless, and short-sighted. There's no capitalist argument to be made about shareholders or prices or changing industries that's going to reach my ears on this one—it's downright unconscionable.

This is a studio that was making a profitable MMO with big dreams for the future, one that had somehow, miraculously, recovered from having a massive project that'd been in development for half a decade shuttered overnight. One that was just about to release the first proper season of its new imagined identity for the game that earned Microsoft over $160 million a year for the past decade.

It has been sacrificed almost wholesale on the altar of growth, by a company that spent over $68 billion on Blizzard, with Microsoft itself spending over $80 billion in 2025 on AI pipedreams. Its developers have been laid off to support a fantasy of getting 1 billion daily players, somehow, in a portfolio that's down 1,600 working roles and will be down 1,600 more by 2027.

More than that, this is an MMO we're talking about. If ESO takes a nosedive from here on out (and god, I am hoping it doesn't), that'll be one less game in an already-dwindling genre that's struggling to put up a fight amongst the unhealthy ambitions of the current industry's gluttony. ZOS deserved better.

Star Citizen received a major update back in May, one which implemented a "full reset" of its sci-fi universe while also adding a bunch of new features. Unfortunately, Alpha 4.8 also added a lot of bugs to CIG's space MMO. So many, in fact, that the studio has been forced to change course on its next update, postponing plans for several new features and turning it into a gigantic bug-squashing exercise.

CIG announced the new plans in its latest roadmap roundup (via MassivelyOP), stating that the studio has "reassessed our bug prioritization process following the release on Alpha 4.8.0" and that "based on reports from the Issue Council, Spectrum, Reddit, direct player feedback and other sources, we have identified nearly 100 issues that significantly impact core gameplay systems and quality of life."

Alongside this, CIG is also looking at fixing "broader quality of life issues reported by new players" as "while many veteran players have learned workarounds for common problems, they shouldn't have to." This includes addressing "many of the issues that commonly affect the first hour of gameplay." I'm sorry, the first hour? I feel obliged to point out here that Star Citizen recently surpassed $1 billion in player funding.

CIG says that "roughly 20%" of these issues have already been addressed so far. But the task ahead remains substantial, requiring CIG to pull developers away from building new stuff to address the issues. "As a result, we've temporarily paused work on a small number of features while we focus on improving the stability of these foundational systems."

The main casualty is Siege of Orison, a dynamic event that originally appeared in Star Citizen several years back. But it is seemingly returning with newly introduced instancing for FPS play, giving players more control over these mission spaces. However, players will now have to wait a few more weeks to play it. "We're moving all Siege of Orison and all instance-related content out of alpha 4.9.0 and into a new 4.10 scheduled for mid-August."

This doesn't mean alpha 4.9 will be wholly devoid of new features. The patch will introduce a series of repeatable "support the miners" missions, some new combat clothing, improvements to ship combat UI, a new gun, and two new hairstyles. Alpha 4.10.0 meanwhile, will add a new mission giver, a heavy machinegun, a rebalance to fuel consumption alongside the instancing system and Siege of Orison.

Since hitting the big $1 billion milestone in May, Star Citizen has raised a further $26 million from its spaceship-loving player-base. While development rumbles on, the full release of the MMO remains years away. Its single-player component, Squadron 42, is scheduled to release in 2026, though with less than half of the year remaining, a specific release date is yet to be confirmed.

Mortal Shell 2 finally has a release date, and it's arriving sooner than you might think. Like so many other games releasing this year, Cold Symmetry is getting ahead of Grand Theft Auto 6's attention tidal wave blocking out November's horizon, and will launch at the tail end of August.

That makes the August-October release schedule even more stuffed than it already was, with games like Star Wars: Zero Company, Gears of War: E-Day, The Blood of Dawnwalker and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 all releasing in that window. Yet despite the vast amount of competition, I don't think Mortal Shell 2 has much to worry about, for two reasons.

First, Mortal Shell 2 is releasing right at the start of that crush, so it won't be jostling for space in a way that a lot of those late August, mid-September games will be (I'm concerned for that new A Plague Tale game, for example). Mainly though, it's because Mortal Shell 2 looks absolutely rad.

The basic premise appears to be "What if Dark Souls was metal as fuck?" and that comes through like a power chord on a 400-watt amp in the release-date trailer. There's a real emphasis on absolutely bodying enemies in the sequel, with combat that's several factors more brutal than the original. By the looks of it, you'll be constantly tossing enemies around, battering them with massive weapons, and performing utterly gnarly finishers on them. It reminds me of id Software's modern Doom games in a lot of ways, with as much emphasis on kinesis and aggression as being bludgeoned to death by a big boss.

I was a fan of the original Mortal Shell, which did an impressive job of replicating the challenge and satisfaction of Dark Souls despite being made by a tiny team on a fraction of the budget. But stylistically it did little to separate itself from FromSoftware's work. As such, I'm pleased that Cold Symmetry has found a way to give the sequel a stronger identity. Combined with the fact that it's ranking fairly high on Steam's most wishlisted page, I think it could prove to be one of the year's bigger hits.

Mortal Shell 2 releases on August 20. It isn't the only big hack 'n' slash releasing in the coming months, either. Onimusha: Way of the Sword arrives just a couple of weeks after Mortal Shell 2 launches, and that was one of the best games we saw at this year's Summer Games Fest.

It's a miserable time in the upper echelons of game development right now, but in the midst of all the layoffs, cancelled games, and legendary studios being horribly and inexplicably gutted, one company at least is riding high—Saber Interactive.

Previously known for vehicle simulators and middling action games like World War Z, Saber found itself with a monster hit on its hands two years ago, courtesy of Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2. Saber saw colossal success with the license, and according to Chief Creative Officer Tim Willits, the sequel put the studio on the map for other licenses seeking the videogame treatment.

In an interview with The Game Business (via RPS), Willits said that Space Marine 2 "literally changed everything" for Saber's fortunes. "It not only changed the way that the team looks at making games, it changed how people look at us," he explained.

Willits said that Space Marine 2's success has been a huge boost to Saber's confidence and their ambitions. "I've seen this in my career. When you have a huge hit, when you go to make the next game, everything has to be awesome. It's like, 'This has got to be the most awesome toaster ever.' And it fuels success."

The studio's confidence has been further bolstered by other potential partners now approaching them to collaborate, with Willits stating that numerous "major license" holders have been in touch with potential deals. "We are in a very fortunate position to turn down more than we can accept. I can't say the name, but … you know you're successful when you've turned down those guys."

Following Space Marine 2's success, Willits said that Saber's plan is to continue adapting other licenses, in games like Clive Barker's Hellraiser: Revival, simply because having that pre-existing fanbase generally makes those games a safer bet: "Let's talk about Hellraiser. If we wanted to make a survival horror game and it was our own IP, it would be more of an uphill battle. But people have heard of Hellraiser. People have heard of Space Marine, and Space Marine 2 was a huge success. World War Z, a great book, okay movie, and a super good video game."

Grand Theft Auto 3's Ghost City was my first proper experience of community discovery.

I was too young to fully appreciate game-breaking in the likes of Super Mario and Alex Kidd, so the idea of flying the clipped-wing Dodo aircraft from the runway of Frances International Airport at a very specific angle in order to break the 3D map and wind up in an otherwise inaccessible area—the section which housed the game's opening bank robbery cutscene, floating well beyond the playable map—blew my teenage mind.

In 2004, modder Eliano86 built a bridge that allowed players to more formally access the area with less of the faff, however the project's original hosting platform (gta-downloads.com) has long since disappeared from the interwebs. Now, hobbyist creator Mod_Saver has resurrected that project well over two decades down the line. Enter Ghost City Available.

"For over a decade, this specific alternative bridge mod was considered 'Lost Media'," says Mod_Saver. "The original hosting platform went completely offline, and the original link was dead forever. Even the Wayback Machine couldn't recover the downloadable files. This mod was gone.

"Instead of letting it fade into history, I decided to fully recreate and resurrect it from scratch based on an old 2012 video (GTA 3 - Tips & Tricks - How to Reach Ghost Town by GTA Series Videos) footage. But I didn't just clone it: I fixed its biggest flaw. The original 2004 mod was strictly visual (you would fall straight through the Ghost Town floor). 22 years later, I have finally built the missing collision files (.col) to make the entire island solid and fully playable for the very first time."

Which is pretty beautiful, truth be told. I'm a sucker for game preservation, for unearthing secrets and for the passion that drives each and every hobbyist endeavour—in this case in relation to a game now 25 years old and an OG mod just a few years younger.

Amongst all the news of brutal layoffs, studio divestments, and ironic task force appointments at Microsoft this week, over in the Call of Duty corner of the megacorp, something kinda cool happened. Activision released updated ports of Call of Duty: Black Ops (2010) and Black Ops 2 (2012).

They come with caveats, of course: At $40 a pop, the Call of Duty tax is firmly affixed to these elderly shooters. They're also PlayStation only, sadly, so the millions of fans who originally played them on PC are cut off from the reinvigorated scene. But they are nearly complete updates of those original games, now upscaled to 1080p, with few exceptions. Players were especially surprised to learn that even the emblem editor—a beloved and somewhat controversial feature of Treyarch's early games—made the cut.

Because, well, people are making swastika emblems with it. And depictions of 9/11. And Charlie Kirk's assassination. And a KKK member. And that's just all that fit into this tweet from influencer JakeSucky.

As you can see, the emblem editor is surprisingly powerful—its stock of primitive shapes, symbols, colors, and layers let dedicated thumbstickers depict just about anything. Most often, custom emblems ended up looking like the trash bin of an early South Park animator, but it was a regular occurrence to glance at a profile and be treated to a remarkably convincing Mona Lisa, cartoon character, or yes, something naughty.

I'm also quite surprised the feature made the cut. Even with player moderation, there's no policing photoshop, so a tool that allows for high expression assumes that sometimes your killer will flash you with cartoon racism. There are normal, cool, creative emblems being made as well, but in keeping with the Call of Duty community, terrible behavior is more the norm.

As others have pointed out, they should've done the work to let people turn off custom emblems entirely—there wasn't an option back in 2010 and there isn't one now.

Weirdly, the only major change to the ports is the omission of some modes. Wager matches are gone from Black Ops 1, so clearly developer Iron Galaxy did some surgery here, but you won't find modern options like FOV sliders or high refresh rates. Pretty barebones ports, all told.

For the first time ever, seasonal content is here for The Elder Scrolls Online. Return of the Thieves Guild, its inaugural season, has launched for the long-running MMO, something you'd expect fans would be all abuzz for—if not for the fact that ZeniMax Online Studios has been gutted as part of the mass layoffs at Xbox this week.

Yeah, the timing on this one ain't great. The developer of the MMO, which has reportedly generated over $2 billion in its lifetime, has been hit especially hard. We learned this week that ZeniMax Online lost 213 employees this week, which when combined with more layoffs over the past 12 months, means the studio has lost more than half of the development team of TESO.

So, it's not surprising that this massive content drop has been met with little discussion of the season itself. Instead, players have mostly been sending well-wishes to the affected development team members—occasionally with a bit of ire for Microsoft.

"Surprised there was anyone left to post this," one commenter said in response to the Steam announcement of the season's launch. "So sorry for you guys. Hope you can keep the game going. Or better yet, find independence from MS."

"Heartbroken for all the developers who were laid off," said another. "Wishing the best for everyone. ♥️Hopefully this vicious cycle will end one day"

"ESO has wonderful, passionate developers behind it and to lose them breaks my heart!" another commenter wrote.

"To all those who got laid off, thanks for all the content you gave us, 5000 hours and counting," said another.

Not everyone was quite as polite. "May whoever fires talented people like you BURN IN HELL along with all of Microsoft," one commenter said. "I hope those who lost their jobs find companies more worthy of your talent."

The Return of the Thieves Guild trailer on YouTube got a similar reaction: not many people talking about the trailer itself, but mostly expressing warm sentiments to the developers.

"Like everyone else at Bethesda, you guys don't deserve what has happened to you, and I am very sorry," one commenter said. "Stay strong and keep up the good work."

Even non-fans were sympathetic: "I'm sorry, even though I wasn't that into ESO you guys deserved better," said another commenter. "I hope everyone affected by the layoffs lands on their feet."

And yes, there was a bit of chatter about the new season and how it looks—yet even those sentiments were still typically focused on the people who make the game.

"This game and all the work you've put into creating such engaging and beautiful art, content, and stories has brought my friends and I a lot of joy over the years," a YouTube commenter said. "I always look forward to hopping on and seeing what's new—there is literally something for everyone in this game. Can't wait to see what you all come up with next, I'm happy to keep supporting and I hope everyone that was cruelly and needlessly laid off finds great opportunities in their future."

And of course, a few in the YouTube comments were a little snarkier about the mass-layoffs from Microsoft, particularly in regard to the poorly-timed launch of Return of the Thieves Guild.

"Media guy must have scheduled this before he was banished to the shadow realm," the top comment reads.

"You can tell there's meant to be a voice-over here," a commenter said, "but bro got fired before he had the chance."

"I would say Microsoft is out there being the real thieves guild," another said, "but the thieves guild still values people's lives over profit."

I gotta hand this one to the suits: I thought gamers might find a $60 price tag on a rehash of a 13-year-old Assassin's Creed game to be a bit much, and apparently I was wrong. Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced sold more than two million copies in just one day, and has handily surpassed Steam player counts of newer games in the series, including Assassin's Creed Shadows.

"Dash my Buttons... Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced has already passed 2 million copies sold!" Ubisoft wrote on X the day after the overhauled Black Flag launched. "Whether you're sailing with us again, or stepping aboard the Jackdaw for the first time: THANK YOU from the bottom of ARR hearts."

It's notable here that Ubisoft refers specifically to two million copies sold, as opposed to the "one million players" it used to characterize the success of Assassin's Creed Shadows in its first day of release. As Joshua Wolens noted at the time, it left us uncertain as to how Shadows was really doing compared to Valhalla, although Ubisoft later said Shadows had put up the "second-highest day one sales revenues in Assassin's Creed franchise history."

A more straightforward comparison can be found in the concurrent player numbers on Steam, where Black Flag Resynced stands head and shoulders above the rest. Here too, some differences need to be accounted for: Ubisoft had a years-long no Steam dalliance so Valhalla didn't arrive on that storefront until a couple years after its debut on the Epic Games Store, and Shadows was weighed down by coordinated culture war nonsense over the presence of the Black samurai Yasuke. Shadows also costs $10 more than Black Flag Resynced.

Still, it's about as close to apples-to-apples as we're going to get, and the numbers make it clear: Nostalgia is a hell of a drug.

(These are ordered by their all-time peak concurrent player count.)

"Black Flag has always held a special place in the heart of the community, and ours." Assassin's Creed brand boss Martin Schelling said. "Bringing it back with Resynced was a promise to that passion for Edward’s adventures, and to the unique sense of freedom players experienced back then. Seeing two million players set sail on day one, along with the great reviews from critics, is the greatest reward we could have hoped for."

The Palworld 1.0 update sure is a big one, and with all of the new pals, weapons, and zones to track it's easy to miss the little things—like new resources for crafting. As I climbed the revamped tech tree again, I breezed through most recipes until I ran into hardwood. It's a new tier of the basic building block you'll see pop up in later level recipes (around 40 to 50), after planks.

After deforesting a few islands, I finally realized I'd missed some spots to farm hardwood that were right in front of me. To save you the same headache, here's how to get hardwood in Palworld.

Palworld hardwood location

Make sure you gather a hefty stack and unlock a few of the surrounding fast travel statues, or just make a nearby base for easy access. You'll need 10 hardwood per High Quality Wooden Board when you unlock the craft at level 43 in the tech tree.

Today, Palworld left early access with a massive 1.0 patch that brought an avalanche of changes and has drawn hundreds of thousands of new and returning players with the seductive allure of making creatures work in conditions that OSHA would object to if they were people.

Unmentioned in its massive 1.0 changelog, however, are a series of visual reworks the patch made to a handful of Pals that previously bore the most blatant resemblance to preexisting Pokémon designs.

I think this is all redesigns from r/Palworld

At launch, Palworld attracted derision with its inclusion of Pals that tested the definition of creative inspiration. These weren't just conceptual similarities: These were Pals constructed in Frankenstein fashion from recognizable Pokémon silhouettes, limbs, details, and design elements—often without even changing the color palette.

Now, even Pocketpair seems to agree that some of those Pals were in particularly poor taste. Players have identified a number of Pals who've been reimagined to add some plausible deniability when they're compared with their Pokémon counterparts.

Verdash, one of the Pals more commonly cited as proof of Palworld's creative indecency for being a Cinderace lookalike, has been given less-humanoid proportions and is no longer aping the legwear of its inspiration. Robinquill and Fenglope are no longer using the color palettes of Decidueye and Cobalion, respectively, and both Pals have received a detail rework to further distinguish them from their doppelgangers.

Don't worry, though. Cremis is still Cremis—and definitely nothing else.

To be absolutely clear: Palworld's character designs were never the basis of Nintendo's still-ongoing lawsuit with Pocketpair, which is instead centered around a series of patents that Nintendo holds on specific creature-capturing and riding mechanics. We could speculate that the 1.0 patch's redesigns might have been part of an as-yet undisclosed settlement agreement—but there's no immediate reason to do so. Especially considering the amount of doubt that has been cast on the validity of the Nintendo patents in question since the lawsuit was initiated.

Still, the Pal reworks are a quiet acknowledgment from Pocketpair that its creature designs weren't a sterling example of creative integrity. Now that it's made its millions, however, that's evidently a fixable problem.

But hey: At least it wasn't as blatant as Pickmos, the game formerly known as Pickmon.

I don't blame you for loading up Moonlight Peaks and saying: "Wait, how are you supposed to date Samael?" The broody bartender is easily the most conventionally attractive guy in town. If you peeked at the datable candidates list for Moonlight Peaks, you'll have seen Samael featured alongside all the other eligible townies. When you start playing, though, you notice pretty quickly that Samael only has four friendship hearts in his relationship panel unlike the other bachelors, so what gives?

Unlocking Samael's romance involves some main quest story spoilers about characters who you won't meet for several seasons, so scroll down with caution. If you just need reassurance: Samael is datable. Just keep plugging away at the main story improving the town and you'll likely see his relationship progress in the first autumn or winter depending on how fast you're progressing.

How to date Samael

Once you've got Samael's expanded relationship hearts unlocked (scroll down for spoilers on that below), you can approach going on dates with him just like other locals:

• Reach four friendship hearts
• See Samael's four heart cutscene
• Talk to Samael and "invite" then "ask on date"

Here's what you need to know to woo Samael fast:

• Samael loves red wine, so make sure you're keeping your kegs stocked with grapes and talking to him each day
• You can prepare to romance Samael by going ahead and reaching four friendship hearts with him before his romance is available
• Samael will take you on a stargazing date where you'll identify constellations he points out, how romantic!

How to unlock Samael's romance (spoilers!)

• Complete the quest "Bride's attendant duty"
• Wait one week for Orlock to visit your house
• Complete "Unfinished business"
• Earn four hearts with Samael to ask him on a date

To unlock Samael's romance, you need to progress through the main story quest until you unlock Luna Bay and meet the Hosu family. The quests "A Curious Passage" and "The Mysterious Bay" are the precursor to Samael's story. You'll need to lift a fallen tree, repair a bridge with Ludo, and help Samael prepare for a really big day.

Don't panic when it becomes clear that the guy you've been pining after is carrying a torch for your new mermaid neighbor. Samael's freakishly fast marriage to Kim doesn't actually go through. After you help them prepare for the ceremony, Kim's brand new feet get cold at the altar and she runs away. Samael will still be un-datable for one week after being ditched. One week later, Orlock will display some uncharacteristically perceptive behaviour by arriving at your house and enlisting your help to shake his nephew out of his sad funk.

You'll help arrange a meeting for closure between Samael and Kim and then, finally, you'll be able to open your relationship panel and see that Samael now has extra hearts for you to unlock past the first four hearts of friendship just like other datable characters. If you've already reached four hearts with Samael, you can go ahead and invite him on a date immediately. No shame.

During the quest The Mysterious Bay you're going to need to lift a fallen tree in Moonlight Peaks to help your newly-discovered mermaid neighbors rejoin the town proper. After you get the rundown, you might wind up scratching your head over where that tree you're supposed to clear was. It certainly isn't nearby in the Howling Marshes where you'd assume.

How to lift a tree

If you've perused the spells at Webb of Wonders, you'll have already noticed there's a spell for lifting a tree that you can buy from Sabrina You'll need three mana to cast the Arborascend spell, so hold off watering your magic crops for the day (or cook yourself a mana food to supplement) so you can go lift the fallen log.

In case you've forgotten, you can refresh your memory on casting each spell in the first tab of your almanac in the game menu. The pattern for Arborascend looks like a tree after you finish casting it: down, up, right, left, up.

Fallen tree location

The fallen tree is in Moonlit Pines near Luna's seed cart. If you forgot exactly what Rei and Kim told you, you may mistakenly think there's a tree in the Howling Marshes that you need to lift since that's the area adjacent to their home in Luna Bay. But nope, you're actually looking for a fallen log over in the forest where the witches hang out.

You can spot the fallen log blocking a small waterfall just west of the set of stairs that leads to Luna's seed cart and cottage. Cast your Arborascend spell to trigger a cutscene that removes the tree. Kim will rush down to thank you, excited to be reunited with her "Sammy" again.

Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced is here and violently colon-less, despite my deep-rooted ancestral urge to fill every gap between those words with dots and dashes, as our forefathers did in the days of Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines.

But it's not Ubisoft's crimes against grammar that prompted the game to hit Mixed Steam reviews at launch (it's picked up since, and at time of writing is at Mostly Positive). It was the fact that, in typical Ubisoft fashion, the game's store page ripples with microtransactions for outfits, weapons, and the obligatory 'Pay $5 to play less of the $60 game you just bought' map-reveal pack.

The reviews were home to a lot of people who felt nickel-and-dimed. "What's the point of getting the deluxe version when, immediately in game, there's $84.91-worth [of] 'DLC' that you don't own" asked one. "I want a single player experience I can enjoy WITHOUT microtransactions," wrote another.

Ubi, perhaps inadvisably, is actually responding to some of these reviews, though. The studio's boilerplate response to a bunch of complaints about the game's microtransactions reads as follows:

We've seen your feedback since launch, and we're reading all of it. Thank you for caring this much about Black Flag Resynced. We want to be clear on one point: the standard edition is the full, complete experience. Every mission, every island, the full story and the complete world are all there, with nothing held back. The additional packs are entirely optional extras for players who want them, never a requirement to enjoy or complete the game.

We'll keep listening as you play!

At least one positive review that mentioned the microtransactions got a differently-worded but similar "We hear you" response. "The frustration around day-one DLC is something we take seriously," Ubi said in that one, while reiterating that the game's DLC isn't a 100% necessary purchase.

Which certainly strikes me as a little odd! I can think of two possible explanations here. Either Ubi genuinely thinks people are going to experience some sort of Damascene conversion upon being confronted with the corporation's unassailable logic—which would be very silly—or it's just coating a fairly catty 'You control the buttons you press' response in anodyne marketing speak. Which would also be silly, but at least in a kind of amusing way.

I've not touched the remake myself, but our Rory wasn't happy with how Ubisoft had tried to relentlessly monetise the Black Flag remake when he was playing it. Somehow, I doubt a copy-paste assurance that the DLC isn't necessary to beat the game will make him feel any better about it.

Our reviewer Morgan actually agrees with Ubi that the DLC is entirely ignorable outfits and weapons, but therein lies the tackiness of the whole affair. What's actually annoying, he reckons, is how easy it is to accidentally end up on the store page during normal play—when you press Start to pause, pressing Start again to unpause will actually take you to the store tab. To leave the pause menu, you actually need to hit B/Circle. Diabolical stuff.

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

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

Jeff can become a flamethrower with Invis’ new teamup from r/marvelrivals

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Plenty of Warhammer 40,000 novels have been written from the perspective of humans and space marines, but it took a while before Games Workshop really got into publishing books from the perspective of 40K's many alien species. If you're into orks I recommend Ghazghkull Thraka: Prophet of the Waaagh, and for swashbuckling aeldari pirates there's Voidscarred, but the peak remains The Infinite and the Divine by Robert Rath.

It's the story of a long-term feud between two necrons, Orikan the Diviner and Trazyn the Infinite, immortal robots who were once flesh-and-blood and went a bit loopy in the uploading process. An argument over who owns a particular artifact becomes a heated rivalry (not in the sexy way, though now that you mention it…) that encompasses, as Games Workshop's own summary puts it, "clashing with Exodite armies, xenos uprisings, and a spell in Necron small claims court."

As the part about small claims court suggests, The Infinite and the Divine has a sense of humor. While it's not all comedy all the time, it's the 40K book that's closest in tone to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, with a perfect sense of the absurdity of these bitter old robots turning their petty grudge into the entire universe's problem.

While it was a self-contained story, I'm delighted to hear it's getting a sequel by the same author. As announced on Warhammer Community, Orikan and Trazyn will be back in The Wicked and the Warped, in which the two rivals have to work together to find out what happened to an expedition lost on a planet corrupted by Chaos. As Dawn of War showed, if you want to force an unlikely alliance in 40K, throw Chaos at some enemies and they'll have to work together. I look forward to Orikan and Trazyn bickering their way through a few hundred more pages while trying not to get eaten by daemons.

The Wicked and the Warped doesn't have a release date yet, but The Infinite and the Divine is being reprinted in hardback in the meantime. I've heard good things about the audiobook narrated by Richard Reed too.

It's not just you: Steam is down right now. If this were a Tuesday around this time that'd be no big deal (Valve does maintenance every week), but on a Thursday, you have good reason to be looking for an explanation for the error that currently displays when you try to load Steampowered.com:

"You've made too many requests recently. Please wait and try your request again later."

No, you're not being blocked from Steam for reloading the store too many times. Something's wrong: SteamStat.us reports "too many requests" errors for both the Steam store and Steam community. Maybe something to do with the Summer Sale ending today?

Many of Steam's services are still showing a green light, and we're able to see friends online. Steam's matchmaking services are likewise still in operation, according to the status page. It's specifically the Steam website that's out of commission. We'll update this post as the situation develops.

While I wait for Diablo 4 to figure out its messy new season, the only game that has managed to tear me away from playing more Path of Exile 2 is Hell Clock.

I should've known it would: Hell Clock's new Cursed War expansion was delayed to give PoE 2's season some time to breathe. The developers at Rogue Snail know their audience because they're part of it too: Action RPGs players cycle through games on a seasonal basis, and Hell Clock is perfect for filling in the gaps.

It's a run-based roguelike with an action RPG engine under the hood. There's loot, but you don't need a degree to understand how it all works. You stack on everything that promises more damage after clearing each room and watch screens of monsters explode. There's depth in its buildcrafting of course, but I suspect min-maxing your items is more important in higher difficulties. On normal, I never hit a wall during the original three-act campaign by simply tossing stuff together on the fly.

Hell Clock has had some major updates since I played it the first time, so my trip through the campaign almost felt like playing a new game. Movement is smoother now (you can go full WASD or click-to-move) and bosses are much meaner than before. Rogue Snail also implemented an entire set of crafting items that borrow basic ideas from Path of Exile's crafting system. It took a few nail-biting boss fights for me to realize how important they are for creating items that beef up your defenses so you can survive more than a hit or two.

The Cursed War expansion adds a fourth act that tells the origin story of main character Pajeu, and it's just as bloody as the others. One of the reasons Hell Clock works at all is that it's not an action RPG where you kill demons for the thrill of it—it's a fictionalized revenge story for a real-life massacre that happened in Brazil. Pajeu watched the First Brazilian Republic slaughter an entire town during the War of Canudos. The game takes place years later as Pajeu revisits the town in its hellish, tormented form, armed to the teeth to face the undead soldiers that haunt still it.

Cursed War rewinds the story back to when he was recruited into the Brazilian army during the Paraguayan War as a slave. This is where the fury Pajeu carries in the base game was born, and it makes the sting of the third act—which shows how the atrocities have bled into the present day—last longer than it already did the first time I played through it. Hell Clock feels like a grown up's version of Diablo's Sanctuary, where the demons have names and uniforms.

I felt no remorse for picking up one of the new skills, Tupã's Wrath, and frying every last one of them. Rogue Snail basically put my favorite PoE 2 skill into the game, letting me unleash a flood of lightning bolts in every direction. Each run I stumbled into new ways to scale its damage up, like a relic that causes it to empower your skeletal minions. I found an unstoppable combination on my first run of the new act, that builds a defensive layer over my health as I spam thousands of lightning bolts. Nothing but bosses can touch me now.

At least they couldn't in the normal difficulty mode. Hell Clock also has two harder modes to climb through if you're interested in finding some of the game's most powerful items. There's enough roguelike randomness to challenge even a build like mine in there, especially as monsters gain elemental resistances and other threatening bonuses. And, just like in Hades, there are plenty of mid-run boons I've not even tried yet, let alone the other skills that came with the expansion.

Hell Clock is so good that I don't want to squeeze it dry in a week of non-stop blasting. I want to savour it between all the other things I'm playing. A run here or there while I think of another new combination of relics or skills to try. As much as I am still in love with PoE 2 at the moment, I'm always excited to close it and see how a quick 20-minute rampage through Hell Clock will go, and the $10 expansion has just given me a whole new box of toys to play with.

Destiny 2 is done: The final patch is out, Bungie is decimated, and the game will remain playable but the story of one of the biggest, best and most influential online shooters ever is over. To memorialize the moment, Bungie has rolled out one last gift for players: A new emblem, free for everyone, called Gloriabundus.

The emblem, shared on X (via Eurogamer), is a simple one, but elegant: The Destiny logo, and a distant city skyline, bathed in light. It's a small thing overall, but the restrained styling is, I think, appropriate for the moment.

Bungie communications lead Dylan Gafner, known to the community as dmg04, also reassured players that while the end has come, Destiny 2 won't be completely abandoned and left to rot. "There may be moments where we break glass for highest priority issues (game crashes)," Gafner wrote in a separate message.

"There will indeed still be downtimes for general server maintenance/upkeep. If we have the opportunity, a small fix could sneak in here or there."

Some Destiny 2 fans have held out hope that Sony will reverse course on the game's end, particularly given the resurgence in players on Steam that followed the end-of-development announcement. But that seems extremely unlikely: Bungie's been on thin ice with Sony for at least the last couple years, and in June it laid off "most of the Destiny team" at the studio.

Update: It turns out that the Gloriabundus emblem wasn't the final final farewell after all. In the noble spirit of "we gettin' fired anyway," the Destiny 2 Team followed up the next with a whole bunch more freebies. Gloriabundus indeed—get 'em all below.

No hit or no damage playthroughs have become an increasingly common badge of honor online, especially in precise, timing-driven action games like the Souls series. But what about in a dice rolling, stats and RNG-heavy CRPG? Davey Gunface on YouTube not only proved it's possible, he did so in perhaps the most tedious circumstances: Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous' Unfair difficulty.

WotR and its predecessor, Kingmaker, are two all-timer CRPGs for me. But even die-hard fans recommend them with caveats. Wrath, especially, is kinda bullshit. Once every two to five hours or so across its marathon runtime, a guy who by all rights should be a miniboss is just out of nowhere the strongest guy who ever lived. It's like when Battle Beast first shows up as some guy's goon in Invincible and he solos all the strongest heroes of earth.

Crazy difficulty spikes, Armor Classes through the stratosphere, save-or-die spells, level drain, damage immunities, literal minutes-long hard crowd control, Wrath embraces these and more. Its normal difficulty will make a Baldur's Gate 3 Honour Mode veteran sweat a bit, while completing the "Core" difficulty is a real CRPG achievement in my book⁠—you should get your picture on a wall at Owlcat HQ like you finished a Paul Bunyan Big Boy meal at a roadside steakhouse. The "Unfair" difficulty? It's unfair.

I can only assume Gunface allowed for reloading in this challenge due to the random chance and marathon nature of a WotR playthrough⁠—it really is, consistently, a 100+ hour deal. Gunface set the challenge of getting through without taking any avoidable damage. There are a few instances of story or cutscene-derived, unavoidable hits that just feel unsporting.

He took the definition of "avoidable" to some admirable extremes though, like managing to sidestep a "supposed to lose" fight at the beginning of the game by uncovering a rare sequence gated as the failure state of a specific moral choice. That's pure RPGs, baby.

WotR, like Neverwinter Nights: Swordflight, already sits at the end stage of optimization and powergaming for a Core playthrough. Unfair, let alone hitless, demands you escalate to primeval outer reaches of buildcrafting psychosis.

One example: Gunface got through WotR's infamous Shield Maze prologue with the popular Unfair tactic of sacrificing your starter companions' builds, multiclassing them in ways that are ruinous in the long run, but life-saving in the hyper-specific hell of levels 2 through 4. The one-shot master Rowdy Rogue came in handy, and everybody loves giving companions Lann or Wenduag a Sabertooth Tiger pet.

Across the whole of the game, Gunface opted for a Human (gotta get that extra feat) Witch of the Veil 10 / Loremaster 9 / Rowdy Rogue 1, parlaying the Witch's game-changing early hexes but booboo spell list into the Loremaster prestige class' expanded spellbook. He also picked the "eviler than the bad guys" Swarm That Walks path, making for a fun pairing with his custom portrait, a picture of his dog.

Truly, this is a "beyond the impossible" sort of challenge, one better suited for precise, input-driven games where you actually control whether you get hit or not. Doing so in a game built on d20 rolls feels avant garde. Gunface's full video is a three-hour long runner if you're looking for something to come back to over a few days, and you can also follow him on YouTube or support via Patreon.

PalworldAfter two-and-a-half years of early access, Palworld is launching into full release tomorrow, July 10. It's a moment that brings both good news and some potential bad news: The price isn't going up, which is very nice, but if you have any old mods left installed, you may run into trouble.

Pocketpair said in today's caution that it supports modding, writing, "we look forward to seeing all the amazing mods that will be made after 1.0." The potential for trouble, particularly for people who are coming back to the game for the 1.0 release after a long time away, is found in old and "potentially harmful" mod data that may still be lying around.

"The upcoming 1.0 update for Palworld makes significant changes to the game’s systems," Pocketpair explained. "If you still have mods installed from the past, especially mods that have been left installed since around 2024, you may encounter problems such as crashes when launching or playing the game, corrupted save data or save data failing to load, [or] quests or events becoming impossible to progress."

Simply disabling mods isn't sufficient, because data and mod loaders may still be loaded when the game starts, even if the mods themselves are switched off. The only way to be sure is to nuke it all from orbit—which is to say, manually delete all the relevant data.

Detailed instructions for doing so are included in Pocketpair's mod usage guidelines, but it's not an especially complicated procedure: Back up your save data (always back up your save data before you start horsing around with this kind of thing), delete Pal\Binaries\Win64 and Pal\Content\Paks, verify your game files on Steam, then verify the game launches properly before applying the 1.0 update. If you're subscribed to any Steam Workshop mods, you'll have to unsubscribe from those as well, and be sure to manually delete that data too.

Pocketpair also recommended not reinstalling any mods until their makers have confirmed they've been updated for the 1.0 version, and doing them one at a time to ensure everything works nice and smooth—because, as the studio said, "Please note that issues that occur while using MODs, or modified game data, are not covered by support."

It's been just shy of two months since Subnautica 2 splashed into early access, and developer Unknown Worlds is celebrating its success on X by sharing some official statistics on what players have achieved during their over 58,000,000 hours of combined playtime.

According to the studio's data, those achievements include a spectacular number of drownings. I'm talking about truly impressive metrics regarding millions of people forgetting they need to breathe.

Tallying the top causes of reprint (read: death), Unknown Worlds says running out of oxygen is by far the most common source of Subnautica 2 mortality: Players have drowned a total of 15,636,881 times, accounting for 42.6% of all player deaths. By my calculations, that means that—between Subnautica 2's early access launch at 11 am EDT on May 14, 2026 and the time these statistics were shared at 11 am EDT on July 9, 2026—an average of 192 players have drowned every minute since launch.

For context, the CDC says there was an average of 4,083 yearly unintentional drowning deaths in the US from 2012 to 2021, meaning that in just under two months Subnautica 2 players suffered a number of drownings more than 3,829 times higher than what Americans suffer in an entire year.

Allow me to remind you that these are players who are often equipped with oxygen tanks and who are navigating oceans populated by alien flora that release bubbles of breathable oxygen at regular intervals. It's a stunning accomplishment in mortal incompetence.

But not all of Unknown Worlds' statistics are so grim: The studio also shared that players have collectively traveled 545,615,747 kilometers through the ocean depths of Proteus, which—I'm told—is about 86.8% of the distance between here and Jupiter. And yet the few meters separating players and breathable air still seems so insurmountable. Funny how that works.

Along the way, we've managed to collect over 331 million water slugs, either for avoiding dehydration or just to pile them in a room so we can admire them later. And while it's interesting to know we've built a total of 5,887,642 Tadpole submersibles, the studio included the curious statistic that, somewhere in the world, there's a player who built 195 in a single game.

I can only begin to guess why; there are, as ever, countless mysteries in the deep. And with Subnautica 2's first update arriving this week, there are likely plenty more in store.

We're just a day away from Palworld's much anticipated 1.0 release, and to celebrate Pocketpair both released all 27 pages of patch notes and confirmed that there'll be no price hike when the survival and crafting game exits from early access. Oh yeah, it's all coming together.

"After much thought, we have decided not to raise the price of Palworld following the 1.0 release and will keep it at $29.99," Palworld announced on social media. "We are incredibly proud of how far Palworld has come. Thanks to the amazing support of our players, it has become a success beyond our wildest dreams."

Keeping the price fixed at its early access rate is just "a small way of saying thank you" from the team for all the "continued support" the game has been shown by its very dedicated playerbase.

It's typical for games to raise prices when leaving early access: Valheim, for example, announced it will jump from $20 to $30 when it graduates to 1.0 in September. his isn't outlandish, the whole point of early access is it's an unpolished and unfinished snippet of a game, and therefore its full release should be worth more if you consider the better state it'll release in and all of the additional content it'll contain. If the 27 pages of patch notes are anything to go by, Palworld fits the bill as well, which makes it all the nicer that Pocketpair has chosen to keep the price steady.

All in all, $30 for everything that Palworld offers seems like a proper steal. You get all the much-loved existing features, new additions like the wing pack, plus all the new items and Pals. Oh, and that big old World Tree. It's certainly a great way to kick off and celebrate the launch of 1.0—all that's left is to wait and see what it's like once we actually get our hands on it.

It's Spring in Forza Horizon 6 Series 2, so we've got another treasure chest to find. While last week sent us into the snowy hills of Sotoyama, this week's Ito region Treasure Hunt calls for a beach day. Finding the specific beach you need on the islands of Japan, you know, where there are tons of beaches, isn't easy. Here's where you need to go.

Forza Horizon 6 Ito region Treasure Hunt location

This week's Festival Playlist Treasure Hunt chest is in Ito, on the beach at the northeast tip of the region, past the coastal town of Ine—you can see the white and blue sign on your map. It's basically as northeast as you can travel in the region, and there are no major events around here, just a billboard. Simply:

1. Travel to the coastal town of Ine in the north of Ito—this is where the Moto Auto Zine story missions take place.
2. Take the road northeast up the narrow coastline on the right side of the harbour.
3. Drive onto the sand and up to the northern tip, where you'll see the chest.
4. Crash into the Treasure Hunt chest to smash it, completing the challenge.

As always, you'll earn three Festival Playlist points, 5,000 XP, and 100,000 credits, which is a good reward for such a quick diversion.

This week, those Festival Playlist points go towards the 2017 Mercedes-AMG GT R and the 2017 Saleen S7 LM, which is much more exciting than last week's trucks to be sure. You should also grab the last few points to unlock the Series 2 milestone rewards, the 1993 Porsche 911 Turbo S Leichtbau and the 2018 Lotus Exige Cup 430, before Series 3 rolls around next week.

It's the 16th anniversary of Star Trek Online this year, and the 60th anniversary of Star Trek itself. That's an absurdly long time for both MMOs and TV shows. For fans of the shows, though, it's bittersweet, as the two remaining ones are now rushing towards their post-cancellation conclusions. Star Trek Online, on the other hand, feels like it's entering a new era.

OK, I might be getting a wee bit ahead of myself, but things are definitely changing. Earlier this year, Cryptic Studios' former CEO, MMO heavyweight Jack Emmert, returned, taking up the CEO mantle once more. And just as critically, Cryptic and publisher Arc Games were able to extricate themselves from owner Embracer—a company that's mostly known for buying studios and killing them.

It's going to take time to really see the impact of these changes, but STO's new Undiscovered update does feel different—for numerous reasons. The ongoing storyline has been temporarily paused, one of STO's oldest arcs has been completely remade, with two Voyager veterans returning to voice their characters, and there's a big push to make sector space a bit more interesting—namely by revamping Deep Space Encounters.

Executive producer Thomas Marrone tells me that he's "really grateful to have Jack back", and that the returning CEO has been interested in Cryptic's STO team "trying new things and asking a lot of questions".

Marrone doesn't want to call it a "rut", but prior to the changes, the team found itself in a comfortable rhythm.

"We had a rhythm of here's an episode, here's a TFO [Task Force Operations are the dungeons and raids of STO], here's a couple patrols, here's an episode, here's a TFO, here's a couple patrols. And that was great, and I know people enjoyed it, because we have all the metrics. That's just what you do as a live service company, but with Jack back, we do have a mandate to try new things, and to look at, are there ways to give people something new every update. Undiscovered is one of the first examples of this."

Undiscovered's remade storyline and Deep Space Encounters still tick all the traditional STO boxes. They're extremely replayable and won't take a million hours to finish. Episodes are brisk (though not rushed) and the sector space encounters aim to be 15-minute adventures. With both comes new rewards, new and returning characters, and more voice acting. And the update launched with an event that will see players rewarded with a gigantic Bird of Prey.

It's not entirely unfamiliar, then, but as Marrone says, it's a "different flavour". And instead of adding, say, a new storyline or multiplayer diversion onto a creaky frame, the update is attempting to patch up the frame itself. "It's really geared at making the game feel alive and feel like it's worth flying around and exploring sector space in a way that I don't think we had before."

Emmert has enabled this, says Marrone. "Jack has encouraged us to think about new ways of building content for the game that isn't just the same thing over and over again."

Senior narrative designer Flo McQuibban says the team is "trying to push the boundaries" of what they can achieve both narratively and mechanically—"within the limit of what's possible with our development timeframe of our resources".

That last part is important. After Embracer acquired Cryptic, it gutted the team and put a mobile studio in charge of Cryptic's MMOs. And while the Embracer days are behind it, Cryptic's still having to run multiple MMOs without the resources that, say, Blizzard or Square Enix have available to them. So when it wants to do something new, like remake an arc, that needs to be the focus.

So don't expect Cryptic to immediately jump right into another old arc to remake it.

"I mean, we'd love to," says Marrone. "There are so many other arcs that are really cool and have good bones. The Iconian War is another great example of something that could really use some help, at least with the cutscenes. Unfortunately, game development is a zero sum game, in that we have this much time to make this much stuff."

But that certainly doesn't mean it won't happen. STO has a legacy of tweaking old stories. Indeed, the story that was just remade had been given a glow up a few years before it was put in the vault—though it wasn't even close to the extent of the Undiscovered changes. But Cryptic has to balance out any trips back in time with producing brand new storylines and activities.

So how does STO keep going for another 16 years? McQuibban thinks maintaining a good relationship with the community is the trick.

"We're a very communicative development team," she says. "And I feel like the playerbase has a lot of empathy back towards us, and grace and patience for when we are transparent and in regular discussion with them … I think that's going to be key, and it's part of like empathy towards the players. We hear you, and we see you, and your feedback; maybe it'll take a while to fix, but we've seen it, and we've logged it, and we're gonna consider it and figure it out together."

It can be challenging, though, "as the game gets older, technologies advance, expectations change about what's in a game," says Marrone. But it helps that "STO is blessed with a very, very high rate of retention". I've been playing STO since 2010, and somehow have managed to keep playing despite the nature of my job, meaning I'm constantly bouncing between games. And it's backed up by the concurrents, too, which are not incredibly high, but have been remarkably stable over the last decade.

So while the team has this mandate to experiment, one of the other things Emmert has been encouraging is, as McQuibban mentioned, empathy. "Jack said right when he got back that he wants us to have empathy for the player," says Marrone. "So that means that we play the games ourselves, that we understand the experience of playing the game, and that we understand, hey, this isn't so great, this is really cool, we should do more of this, we should do less of this, we should fix that."

As long as the team maintains this relationship with STO's players and understands what they want, reckons Marrone, "that is, I think, going to carry us; it's the relationship that's carried us this far".

With Paramount's plans for Star Trek still up in the air, and the last two shows going into their final seasons, Star Trek Online is going to need to keep the flame burning. I'm pretty confident it's up to the task.

For the most part, the long-awaited and worst-kept secret, Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced, is very faithful to one of my favourite games from 13 years ago. And anything that's brand-new, like some islands, the ship officers, and an extended story, fits in pretty seamlessly, almost like they were there in the original.

But you know what I don't remember from the original Black Flag? A microtransaction store filled with obnoxious outfits, faux battle passes, and weekly challenges. You know where I've seen that before? The RPG era of Assassin's Creed. Where I hated it.

In a full-priced remake of a 13-year-old swashbuckler, and a single-player game no less, Ubisoft decided to tack on one of the most distasteful cases of monetisation. You're greeted by the store on the main menu, little adverts when you pause the game, and it's actually fewer buttons to access the shop in-game than it is to save your progress. That's neat.

Inside this store you'll see very immersion-breaking outfits that I'm sure must appeal to someone, otherwise they wouldn't exist. I'll stick to my pirate outfits. Though I suppose it is being faithful to the original Black Flag in letting you buy resources and the 'Map Pack' that just reveals all of the treasure maps, Mayan stones, and so on. I mean, you could just Google that if you're lazy.

So, you might say that I shouldn't complain because it doesn't really affect me. True, to an extent—I won't buy exploitative map packs or these gaudy skins, so I won't see them in my game. But there's still a cash shop shoehorned into a "faithfully enhanced remake". That's not what I'd call faithful or enhanced.

More importantly, it undermines one of the key areas I'd have liked the remake to improve—the lack of new outfits in Resynced is one of my main disappointments. I want more costumes to find while exploring the world, especially now that it's bigger. Instead, the original outfits have simply been shifted out of the merchants and into chests across the map. The new skins Ubisoft has created, you've got to pay for separately.

Then there are the Animus Projects and whatnot directly lifted from Assassin's Creed Shadows. There are free (thankfully) reward tracks that look like battle passes, and you progress them by completing weekly Anomaly challenges. There's the Exchange store where you can trade Keys for Connor's iconic robes—I can only assume that Altair's and Ezio's robes, which were present in the original and are now mysteriously absent, will appear in the store in the future update.

Now look, Ubisoft, I'm not logging on each week to complete mindless challenges like it's a live-service multiplayer shooter. Just let me find the damn outfits by exploring the beautiful open world you've created and diligently expanded on in Resynced. Please.

Ubisoft was presented with the perfect opportunity to iterate on what many, myself included, would claim is the best Assassin's Creed game. And in as many ways as it has, it's also taken a step back. Content locked behind unnecessary, mindless challenges and microtransactions could instead have been fun rewards for the new activities and locations the team has added. If Black Flag Resynced is faithful to anything, it's Ubisoft's obsession with trying to pinch my dubloons. Talk about the golden age of piracy.

Black Flag Resynced has finally launched, and with it, a reprisal of the eternal debate surrounding the different stripes of Assassin's Creed combat. As Morgan notes in our review, Resynced ultimately "loses more than it gains" thanks to its wide-ranging changes masquerading as quality of life, and I'm inclined to agree.

For me, the most glaring offender here are the fights. Now don't get me wrong, Black Flag's combat was a bit of a joke, an almost cinematic experience of watching an endless array of beautifully brutal finisher animations play out before your eyes, as Edward terminated his fifth ship crew that day. It was cakewalk combat, and it's even easier to see that if you return to Black Flag after playing Resynced.

The counter window is absurdly long and you only have to kill one enemy to chain finisher everyone else around you. But what Black Flag did have was choice. You could whip out your hidden blades and decimate enemies in a more low profile manner, pick up a massive axe and swing it about your head, or even carry and reload a musket, and each weapon had its own bespoke melee animations. I remember being amazed the first time I killed a fella with a musket in Black Flag that they'd even made animations for it.

Resynced, by comparison, only lets you use boring old cutlasses, and I struggle to see how removing a vast swathe of situational weaponry is an upgrade. For my part, I almost exclusively used hidden blades, throwing knives, and the occasional musket in the original—I literally would've unequipped my cutlasses if I could have. So playing through Black Flag Resynced in its entirety with them didn't really feel like the same game to me.

Not to say that Resynced doesn't have some decent ideas combat wise. Its kicks-on-demand are fun, and it's certainly a tad more challenging than Black Flag ever was, but what I struggle to understand is why that increase in difficulty couldn't have combined with the original's weapon choice? All Black Flag's combat really needed to be better was removing the endless chain finishers and reducing the counter window—that alone would've made a huge difference.

I feel like the removal of temporary weapons also fundamentally misunderstands that combat isn't their only use. Having a musket, for instance, lets you take out troublesome sharpshooters in towers or on ship tops—the only way to do that now is get close and hope your pistol has the range, or climb up and kick them off. Throwing knives let you quickly kill enemies that spot you at a distance, so are useful in stealth, but also slick as hell.

These were never only weapons for pure combat, but tools that changed how you approached situations, which is the core premise of Assassin's Creed, and something you kind of needed before Resynced removed fail conditions for stealth missions. The saddest part is that we have a new enemy with a blunderbuss. I feel like that would have been an incredible temporary weapon to pick up and use. What did we get instead? A rope dart.

Resynced's combat is certainly passable, it just isn't Black Flag combat. You can't remove viable playstyles from a game and then claim it's a true remake. If I can't play a remake the same way I played the original, it's something else entirely. But that's ultimately my issue with Black Flag Resynced—it may be beautiful and have better ship combat, but its myriad changes mean it doesn't retain the feel of the original, something I realised when I went back and played Black Flag after finishing Resynced.

It comes as a surprise to absolutely no one that Subnautica 2 has finally surpassed 5 million copies sold. It did sell two million copies in just 12 hours after all. Then, not that long ago, it broke 4 million copies sold, which was excellent for everyone involved except for Krafton. And now its 5 million copies sold coincides with its first major update in early access, 1.1.

The biggest addition from the latest update was the introduction of just a little violence, after masses of players complained about the game's forced pacifism. You still can't kill sea creatures though, only bonk them on the head or zap them when they get uncomfortably close.

I played a great deal of the first Subnautica and Below Zero, despite my thalassophobia, and so far Subnautica 2 has lived up to any expectation I had. The only practical issues I had with the early access game so far seem to have been addressed in its 1.1 update.

After exploring all that was available to see, I took to settling in for some good old-fashioned base building, something that has always been a favourite pastime in Subnautica games. After gathering material and saving up silver I managed to make a pretty impressive build, the only thing left to do was make a moon door and a tadpole dock big enough for my two, yes two, tadpoles.

This proved to be difficult. Actually it was more than difficult, it was pretty infuriating. No matter what I did, I just couldn't seem to get the build size right, and I had a great deal of trouble fitting it into my pre-existing build layout. But hopefully this will be easier in the future as Unknown Worlds has improved the "placement for the Tadpole Dock" to make it easier to slot into small spaces.

Other base-building updates (which is all I'm really bothered about right now) include better placement for the fabricator, a new dedicated storage structure, as well as additional improvements to "rendering, creature behaviour, and the user interface." I'm here for all of that.

"With this update, we focused on refining the early-game experience and core systems," Fernando Melo, executive producer at Unknown Worlds explains in a press release. "We’ll continue shaping the world of Subnautica 2 together with our players throughout Early Access." I can't wait to see what Unknown Worlds does next.

One of the most controversial bits of World of Warcraft: Midnight was Blizzard taking aim at UI mods (addons) that impacted combat, with the idea that you probably shouldn't have to make your game look like an airplane dashboard designed by a drunk person just to play a videogame. Something that I've come around to, for the most part.

In a recent interview with PCGamesN, game director Ion Hazzikostas has affirmed Blizzard's choice to revoke addon author's access to combat information (with a few exceptions): "I know this may be a controversial statement, but I will say that, overall, [the new UI] has been successful so far. It's not done, it's not perfect; there's more work to go, and we are continuing to undertake that work."

"Controversial" is somewhat correct, mind. While I've been handling the shift absolutely fine, I'm also primarily a DPS guy—during the last raid tier, healers were suffering due to a complete mismatch between Blizzard's encounter design and their UI's ability to track dispellable debuffs.

Essentially, while Blizzard has touted that it's designing its encounters with an addonless world in mind, a raid encounter in Midnight's first season, Crown of the Cosmos, had a debuff called Null Corona that needed to be dispelled. However, because the studio's changes made it impossible to track dispels, healers were forced to squint at their party member's health bars to find a tiny purple jpeg.

This was eventually hotfixed, but that's far from the only issue. The homegrown DPS meter could, er, be better. It's missing a huge amount of functionality that was there with meter addons before, a step back by pretty much every metric. And it's not like Blizzard isn't working on it, but it's easy to feel salty about a sweeping lack of convenience—the rapidfire development cycle of hobbyist mod builders absolutely beats the often-complicated and difficult tasks of a major development studio.

"I think that, by and large, the vast majority of people are completing the same level of content that they were before, and far more are doing it without feeling like they need to seek out external tools. There have been some exceptions to that where the community has figured out ways of making some computational logic work, and we didn't want to keep breaking things in the middle of a patch."

That's another asterisk to the whole thing—many high-end raiders have figured out ways to gain the same functionality they'd lost before, but because of both the new rules around addons and the usability lost from the death of something like WeakAuras, these addons mostly aren't accessible to the general public.

Hazzikostas says that patch 12.1 should iron out a lot of those kinks, though: "The 12.1 update has what we think is a more comprehensive overhaul of the security backend of our addon interface, which should make it a little easier for addon authors to write addons, but also close some of the loopholes we've seen pop up here and there. Alongside that, we're continuing to improve our base user interface."

Ultimately, Hazzikostas says that "I think, while it's certainly been a transition with its challenges, we're excited to have this new baseline and foundation, and things will only continue to get better from here, both as we continue to add functionality to the base UI, and we continue to empower addon authors to add customization options.

"And as we, frankly, internally relearn some aspects of how we can build encounters in this new world. I think that's going to open up new doors and possibilities for players in raids, dungeons, Delves, and everything in between."

While former Dragon Age lead writer David Gaider won't play The Veilguard, he knows enough to realise that the series ain't looking too hot right now. He's pretty sure it's dead, at least under EA.

When we asked if he saw a future in the series he considers "his baby", he wasn't hopeful.

"From Electronic Arts? Unlikely. Throughout the entire time I was there, we were always one breath away from the project being shelved. The thing that happened is that we kept releasing games, and it would sell much better than they thought it should, and it kept surprising them."

EA never seemed to understand Dragon Age, as evidenced by the Origins trailer that used a Marilyn Manson track and was filled with blood. Instead of a mature fantasy RPG, it was presented as some edgelord nonsense for teen boys. This misunderstanding continues to this very day. EA CEO Andrew Wilson, for instance, blamed The Veilguard's failings on a lack of live service features. It would be hilarious if it wasn't so sad.

Things were different with Mass Effect, EA's favourite RPG.

"It was funny," says Gaider, "because if Mass Effect releases didn't sell as well, they got excuses, because it was an action-oriented game. They thought it should sell more. It was slicker."

Gaider has nothing bad to say about the sci-fi RPG, and counts Mass Effect 2 as one of the "best RPGs of all time", but the differences in the way Dragon Age and Mass Effect were treated by EA must have stung.

"The way EA looked at it was that Mass Effect was the slick, modern RPG that had action, and they could sell really easily. Whereas Dragon Age was old-fashioned and focused on story. Our action, ranging from Dragon Age: Origins, was a little bit on the slow, cumbersome side, and then was too fast. They never knew what to do with it. So whenever a Dragon Age game sold well, we got excuses on the opposite side. Basically that it was a fluke."

It's worth noting that Dragon Age: Inquisition beat EA's sales expectations and became BioWare's most successful game. But EA has always treated Dragon Age, as Gaider says, like "the redheaded stepchild".

"They gave us a head of marketing at one point who literally talked about having to put lipstick on a pig in order to sell it. When you're on a team and you're hearing this, you're like, ‘Alright, what am I supposed to do with this?’"

Despite all of this, Gaider is interested in working on Dragon Age again—albeit not with EA. Though this is a more recent development.

"If you'd asked me that in the past, I would have said absolutely not. That I’d done my time. I left the Dragon Age team before I left BioWare. After Inquisition came out, I went to Mike Laidlaw and I said, ‘I've told all the stories with mages and dragons and what have you that I have in me. And I could keep going, but if I keep working on this, it's going to become rote, and I think that would be a disservice to the team. So I should step aside, let fresher voices rise’. I don't know if that was the right decision, but it felt right at the time."

If someone gave him the keys to Thedas now, though, he might be up for it.

"I do like a challenge," he says. "So if, out of some weird alignment of the stars, somebody handed the Dragon Age franchise back to me and said, ‘Breathe the life back into this baby’, that'd be a tough one, but I think that'd be an interesting thing to do. To go back to the basics of what made Dragon Age appeal to so many people in the first place. And go somewhere dark and dangerous, and do things that will make people upset. I think that’s what I would want to do with it."

If Richard Garriott can get his hands on Ultima again, who knows? Maybe there's still hope for Dragon Age.

Bandai Namco's next anime action game is just on the horizon as it gears up for another Sword Art Online release, Echoes of Aincrad. It was one of the top played demos during Steam's most recent Next Fest, and that demo is available for those of you who can't stand to wait just a few more hours.

The anime souls-like is is releasing for PC, PlayStation, and Xbox, but its console launch times don't exactly line up across platforms. So, here I am to break it all down with details on the Echoes of Aincrad release date and time.

When is the Echoes of Aincrad release date and time?

Echoes of Aincrad launches on Thursday, July 9, at 3 pm PDT for all players on PC around the world. The base game is available on Steam for $70/£55, or you can upgrade to the deluxe edition for an extra $20/£20 and tack on the expansion DLC launching later this year.

The Echoes of Aincrad launch time in more regions for PC

If your timezone isn't listed above, check out this handy time and date site to sort all of the tedious timezone math for you. I've already adjusted the calendar for Echoes of Aincrad's launch time, so you'll just need to plug in your city.

Echoes of Aincrad launch times for PlayStation and Xbox

Does Echoes of Aincrad have preloading?

No, Echoes of Aincrad does not have pre-loading for players on Steam. Pre-loading is only available for consoles.

Back when Microsoft acquired Bethesda, our first thought was, 'I wonder if this will be bad,' but our second thought was, 'Ooh, maybe now Obsidian will make Fallout: New Vegas 2.' And when the Fallout TV show turned out to be a hit, we scratched our heads over the continued absence of a new Fallout game.

Now it looks like a new Obsidian-made Fallout RPG may actually happen. Word on the street is that Microsoft has put Obsidian's Josh Sawyer—who directed Fallout: New Vegas—at the helm of a new Fallout game as part of the "Xbox reset" shakeup, which will see 3,200 people lose their jobs.

The situation is "still in flux," according to the Bloomberg report that broke the news, and could change. But supposing that Obsidian and Sawyer do dive into this project, are you excited? There's a poll below, and the comments are open.

I'm feeling ambivalent. I like Obsidian and Sawyer, and a new Fallout game seems like a perfectly good pursuit for the developer and director, and a good thing for fans of the series who've been asking for just this for years.

But the news comes alongside thousands of layoffs across Xbox, including a substantial number at Obsidian itself, which has reportedly cancelled an Avowed sequel and other projects to make way for Fallout. It's not exactly an auspicious way to kick off a new project, and it's hard to sustain feelings I'd describe as positive after a bunch of people were just put out of work.

When it comes to finishing games in a timely manner, I've got two major weaknesses guaranteed to tack on dozens of unnecessary hours to my total playtime: snappy, satisfying card games, and fishing minigames of literally any caliber.

I'm serious—I love fishing in most videogames. It can be the most notoriously finicky games, like the hellish fishing controls of Okami, or the more thoughtful and serene ones, like Cast 'n' Chill. I just want to sit somewhere on a dock or a boat and listen to the waves gently roll around me, only to be interrupted by the sounds of me furiously mashing whatever button reels in a bite.

Some of you are nodding along in agreement, because you're wise with good taste (and poor time management skills). As for the rest of you, I'm assuming you agree with my colleague Lauren's take on how fishing minigames are the worst. I'll have to sit you down for a stern talking-to later, but for now, I have a new quiz to deliver.

So here's the deal: Set aside some time, because I'm going to show you screenshots of fish from 21 games, and then you tell me what game that fish is from. You've got 16 minutes to see how many you can reel in. Good luck! And when you're done, let us know how you did.

Former Destiny 2 and Marathon director Christopher Barrett has settled his lawsuit against Sony and Bungie. Terms of the settlement were not disclosed, but Barrett implied a favorable outcome, saying he's "very satisfied" with it.

Barrett had a long career at Bungie, where he spent nearly 25 years as a designer and director on the Halo and Destiny games. He also served as game director on Marathon before his unexpected departure in 2024; subsequent reports said he was fired following complaints of inappropriate behavior with women at the studio.

Barrett, however, alleged that the real reason for his dismissal was a desire to avoid paying him more than $45 million under the terms of his employment agreement, and to "shift blame for and deflect attention from their massive business failures." He sued Sony and Bungie for $200 million, alleging that they colluded in a "premeditated scheme to terminate Barrett, avoid paying him the tens of millions of dollars he was owed, and make him a scapegoat for Defendants' business failures and reputational issues."

It initially appeared that Sony was going to fight: Its reply to the lawsuit included multiple examples of written communications between Barrett and female subordinates, which it claimed "reveal his pattern of misconduct." They included alleged drunk calls, requests to play "sexually charged games of 'Truth or Dare'," and comments such as "You want to be worshipped, I think?" Barrett's lawyers, however, said Sony was misrepresenting the nature of the interactions by cherry-picking text messages and "alleged conversations."

Sony's reply included a detailed breakdown of what Barrett earned following Sony's acquisition of Bungie in January 2022, and what was left on his contract when he was terminated: He was paid $36,811,044 in 2022, and $1,883,057 in 2023; he was due to collect another $45,579,627 from 2024-2026, broken down into three payments of $941,529 each for unvested RSUs [restricted stock units] in May and November 2024 and May 2025, and three payments of $14,251,680 each for re-vested shares (including Premium Bonus) in July 2024, July 2025, and July 2026.

Those staggering sums came about as part of Sony's $3.6 billion acquisition of Bungie in 2022, $1.2 billion of which went toward talent retention: Essentially, Sony had big plans for Bungie as a multi-game studio in those days, and wanted to ensure key employees like Barrett stuck around for the long haul. But those massive payouts started to look less well-considered following layoffs at the studio through 2023 and 2024, which put hundreds of people out of work. Meanwhile, higher-ups on these retention bonuses were essentially incentivized to stick around thanks to their 'golden handcuff' deals.

In a way, this settlement looks like something of a repeat: While numbers weren't revealed, Barrett seems very happy about it, and even if he 'only' got what he claimed he was owed on his contract, that's still $45 million in his pocket, just a couple weeks after Bungie laid off most of the Destiny development team and some Marathon devs as well.

In a joint statement shared by Barrett on LinkedIn, Sony and Bungie credited him for contributing to "some of Bungie's most successful games," and said they have added his name to the Marathon credits as the original game director.

Is there anything more piratey than searching for buried treasure? I think not. Digging up the treasure map locations was one of my favourite side activities in the original game, and that's not changed in Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced. If you completed everything in the original and thought you knew it like the back of your hand, you don't now. The tectonic plates have shifted, as the remake has moved the location of major islands, and the clues are different too.

All Black Flag Resynced treasure map locations

There are 22 treasure maps in Black Flag Resynced, mostly lining up with the original game. If you're wondering where the old Anotto Bay to Principe map has gone, that's more or less been replaced by Blackbeard's Treasure quest.

To be able to dig up the buried treasure, you need to have the associated map—you can't skip straight to the reward, sorry. That's why I've also included where you can find each map.

Speaking of booty, buried treasure chests generally include a handful of Reales and either an Ultimate Ship Plan upgrade, a Design Plan, or some art for the Great Inagua collection, making them a worthwhile distraction while not murdering Templars and boarding ships.

Here's where to find each buried treasure chest via their coordinates and the rewards you'll get, sorted into the order you're likely to encounter each clue (some are locked behind story progress):

Cape Bonavista

• Rewards: 1,500 Reales

Havana

• Rewards: The Queen Anne's Figurehead design plan, 3,000 Reales

Salt Lagoon

• Rewards: Serpent Figurehead design plan, 3,000 Reales

New Bone

• Rewards: Maize Deity, 3,000 Reales

Abaco Island

• Rewards: Earth Monster relief, 2,500 Reales

Andreas Island

• Rewards: Harpoon Strength ultimate plan, 3,000 Reales

Nassau

• Rewards: Elite Sails design plan, 3,000 Reales

Isla Providencia

• Rewards: Governor Outfit, 1,000 Reales

Anotto Bay

• Rewards: Crimson Cloak outfit, 2,400 Reales

Kingston

• Rewards: Gilded Hull design plan, 3,000 Reales

San Juan

• Rewards: Fire Barrel Strength ultimate plan, 3,000 Reales

Petite Caverne

• Rewards: Heavy Shot Storage ultimate plan, 3,000 Reales

Pinos Isle

• Rewards: Ivory Wheel design plan, 3,000 Reales

Matanzas

• Rewards: Mortar Storage ultimate plan, 3,000 Reales

Tulum

• Rewards: Fire Barrel Storage ultimate plan, 3,000 Reales

Jiquey

• Rewards: Baroque Guitar, 2,500 Reales

Cumberland Bay

• Rewards: 4,000 Reales

Princípe

• Rewards: Standard Bearer art, 1,000 Reales

Cayman Sound

• Rewards: 4,800 Reales

Ambergris Key

• Rewards: Pirate Captain outfit, 2,400 Reales

Misteriosa

• Rewards: Heavy Shot Strength ultimate plan, 3,600 Reales

Long Bay

• Rewards: Scottish Broadswords (rare cutlass)

Finding Blackbeard's Treasure in Black Flag Resynced is actually a lot tougher than the game's other treasure maps, mainly because it doesn't give you any coordinates, forcing you to rely on your knowledge of the Caribbean. This is a new quest that was added in Resynced, but you won't get it until after you complete the Do Not Go Gently main quest.

Edward finds the treasure map hidden in Blackbeard's hat, which starts the hunt, so you can't miss it. Below I'll explain where the map points to, and how to navigate the area it's contained within.

Where to find Blackbeard's Treasure in Black Flag Resynced

The location Blackbeard's Map points to is Anotto Bay (coordinates 590,245) to the north of Kingston on the north coast of the island, in the Charlotte region. When you arrive, you'll find a bunch of pirate ships also laying claim to the treasure, who you'll have to sink before landing the Jackdaw.

Finding the treasure is relatively straightforward. From where you land, hop across the boats to your left and dive down, looking for the sunken mineshaft. You'll have to navigate these tunnels, dodging sharks and sea anemones until you reach an area with wooden platforms, gunpowder barrels, and a bunch of enemies. Pick up one of the kegs and take it over to the far side of the room where the rubble is (this will glow green when you hold LT on controller).

Place the barrel down and shoot it to blow up the rubble. Continue on until you reach the cave where you have to confront Blackbeard's former sailing master, and then grab another gunpowder barrel and carry it up the path to the right of the waterfall, where you'll find a second pile of rubble to destroy.

Inside, you'll find the treasure, though you'll have to head back to Great Inagua afterwards to actually complete the quest. As a reward, you'll get Blackbeard's portrait, which you can hang in the loot cave area of the manor.

The Elite Ship Upgrades from the original game have been renamed in Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced. Now called Ultimate Ship Plans, these schematics still serve the same purpose: fully upgrading the Jackdaw. So you'll want to find each and every one of the locations if you're hoping to take on the legendary ships.

All Black Flag Resynced Ultimate Ship Plan locations

There are 12 Ultimate Ship Plans for you to find, locked behind either dives or treasure maps. You'll need to complete the first Sequence 6 main mission, Diving for Medicine, before you can start hunting for the plan locations in earnest, since this unlocks the diving bell, and most of the plans are located underwater.

Once you've found the plan, you then need to head to any shipmaster to purchase the upgrades for your ship—they're not free, unfortunately, costing both Reales and materials.

Here's where to find all 12 Ultimate Ship Plans in the remake:

Finding all the Mayan stone locations is one of your big distractions while sailing the Caribbean in Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced, and it's mostly unchanged from the original game. You still need to solve 16 of these stele to complete the Mayan Mystery task and unlock the Mayan Armour, one of the best outfits. But just like the treasure maps, a few locations have shifted around in the remake.

All Black Flag Resynced Mayan stone locations

While you might have stumbled upon some of these Mayan sculptures beforehand, you need to complete This Old Cove during the main story to be able to interact with the stele. James Kidd will explain how they work but, basically, you just need to climb to the top of the sculpture, interact with it, rotate the pattern until it aligns with the glowing objects, then grab the Mayan stone.

You need to collect 16 Mayan stones from the stele across the map in order to open the door guarding the Mayan Armour in Tulum, which you'll have access to after completing the main missions Nothing is True and Overrun And Outnumbered. This unique outfit now comes with a charm that houses its old perk of deflecting projectiles. That means you can gain the benefits of the armour without necessarily wearing the silly costume.

You'll find them on the following islands:

• Great Inagua, Gibara
• Cat Island, Eleuthera
• Cape Bonavista, Dry Tortuga
• Misteriosa, Serranilla
• Santanillas, Chinchorro
• Matanzas, Dry Tortuga
• Sacrifice Island, Conttoyor
• Tulum, Conttoyor
• Tortuga, Punta Guarico
• Pinos Isle, Castillo de Jagua
• New Bone, Serranilla
• Long Bay, Charlotte
• Isla Providencia, Serranilla

Here's exactly where to find all 16 Mayan stones via their coordinates and how to solve them in the remake:

1. Great Inagua, Gibara

You complete this one during the main story mission This Old Cove, so you can't miss it. It's a simple one to start you off, but just in case, rotate the overlay so that the squares line up with the square pillars on the left and top right.

2. Cat Island, Eleuthera (703,670)

On the northern beach, just a short distance from the warehouse that you'll have raided earlier in the main story. Flip the overlay so the large circle covers the rubble on the left and the oval is around the narrow rock.

3. Cape Bonavista, Dry Tortuga (159,583)

To reach it, head up into the mountains from the northernmost synchronisation point. Rotate and shrink the overlay so that the largest circle surrounds the bottom pillar, while the two smaller circles are around the top two posts.

4. Matanzas, Dry Tortuga (311,617)

This one's in the hills in the far southeast of the island, past the warehouse. Rotate it left so that the large circle near the cross on the overlap lines up with the tree, and the two medium-sized circles match the rocks on the far right side.

5. Misteriosa, Serranilla (265,171)

The first Mayan stele on this island is on the western beach, with Spanish soldiers on the walls above it. All you need to do is rotate it left so the two circles cover the posts at the bottom, and the arches line up with the broken arches on the wall.

6. Misteriosa, Serranilla (272,175)

The second sculpture on this island is on the ramparts leading up to the synchronisation point in the northeast, next to a treasure map. Rotate it left so that the largest circle lines up with the biggest rock on the left, next to the boat.

7. New Bone, Serranilla (400,92)

This stele is in the northwest of the island, conveniently where the warehouse guard and his muse will be talking. It's one of the easiest to solve: flip the overlay so that the four rectangles cover the rocks at the bottom.

8. Santanillas, Chinchorro (187,221)

There's only one Mayan stone on this island, but there were two in the original game, located in the ruins near the centre of the occupied island. Flip it so the thicker, parallel lines connecting two of the circles are around the two pillars at the top.

9. Sacrifice Island, Conttoyor (18,548)

Next to the synchronisation point in the centre of the island. All you have to do is flip the overlay so that the thicker, parallel lines of the triangle join up the two rocks at the bottom.

10. Tulum, Conttoyor (30,382)

This one's on the west side of the island, not far from where you finish the Overrun and Outnumbered mission (which immediately follows Nothing is True). To solve the puzzle, flip it almost fully so that the two circles on the same line match up with the top and right pillars.

11. Tortuga, Punta Guarico (846,352)

Just up the hill from the plantation's northern beach, you'll find another Mayan stele, not far from the island's synchronisation point. Solving it is as simple as flipping the overlay so that the smallest circle is on the rock at the bottom, and the line shoots off towards the ocean.

12. Pinos Isle, Castillo de Jagua (303,452)

There are two Mayan stones up for grabs on this island, the first of which is just a short walk south of the synchronisation point in the northwest. Rotate the grid left to match the rectangle with the collapsed pillar at the top.

13. Pinos Isle, Castillo de Jagua (312,454)

The second stele on Pinos Isle is east of the synchronisation point, on the hill overlooking the shipwreck on the shore. And solving it is very simple: flip it so the rectangle aligns with the wall at the top.

14. Long Bay, Charlotte (502,216)

You need to progress the main story until you gain access to Long Bay and reach the Observatory. Once there, the stele is to the left of the main entrance to the Observatory.

15. Isla Providencia, Serranilla (487,33)

You also need to progress the main story to unlock Isla Providencia, which houses the final two Mayan stones. The first stele on the island is in the northernmost temple ruin area close to the beach where the Jackdaw fast travels to.

16. Isla Providencia, Serranilla (476,16)

The second stele on Isla Providencia is just to the right of the synchronisation viewpoint in the southernmost temple.

As mentioned, once you've gathered all 16 Mayan stones, return to the locked door back on Tulum, Conttoyor, near the beach in the northeast. You'll be greeted by a short climbing section in the temple before grabbing the Mayan Armour. You'll also get the Yax Tun pendant, which absorbs all gunshots without you having to wear the (frankly, kinda ugly) Mayan fit like you had to in the original game.

Legendary ships were the pinnacle challenge of the Caribbean in the original, and they return even stronger in Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced. These boss battles now have more unique gimmicks and phases, and pack a serious punch. But you've got a lot more tools of destruction to deal with them, the rewards have changed, and they now respawn so you can fight them again.

Black Flag Resynced legendary ships explained

Just like in the original, there are four legendary ships, located in each of the corners of the map. They'll be revealed once you destroy the fortresses in their respective regions:

• El Impoluto (Dry Tortuga)
• HMS Fearless & Royal Sovereign (Eleuthera)
• La Dama Negra (Serranilla)
• HMS Prince (Nevassa)

These are extremely tough battles that will require an almost, if not fully, upgraded Jackdaw to take on. I recommend at least having the best armour, broadside cannons, swivel cannons, and ram—check out the Ultimate Ship Plans, some of which are hidden behind treasure maps.

In fact, the legendary ships are even harder in Resynced compared to the original game, having more health and dealing more damage, as well as having clearer phases as you whittle their health down. Your biggest advantage, though are the three new naval officers, who you should recruit before going after the legendary ships:

1. Padre, recruited through the A Second Chance quest after Sequence 4: This Old Cove, lets you charge ram for bonus speed and damage.
2. Lucy Baldwin, unlocked in A Proper Shipwright after Sequence 4: This Old Cove, allows you to brace at the last second to almost nullify damage taken.
3. Tobias 'Deadman' Smith, unlocked in No Box Dark Enough after Sequence 11: Everything is Permitted and A World Without Gold, lets you maximise broadside cannon damage and completing his quest also gets you a powerful multi-shot mortar variant.

The major difference in the Resynced remake is the reward. You'll notice that the old Ram Dash upgrade you got for beating all four legendary ships is now unlocked by recruiting Padre. Given that these are endgame challenges, you can now get and use Ram Dash much earlier—it's been buffed, too. In its place, legendary ships now reward you with ship cosmetics for the Jackdaw's figurehead, hull, wheel, and sails.

Legendary ships are also repeatable now—they'll respawn after a period of time if you fancy a rematch.

Here are all four legendary ships and how to beat them:

El Impoluto

• Location: Dry Tortuga (161,804)

Despite stalking the seas of the starting region, I'd argue El Impoluto is the second-hardest legendary ship. It's incredibly tanky and deals obscene amounts of damage from its lengthy cannon barrages, which make it hard to perfectly brace and nullify the hits. Plus, while it favours close-range ramming, it's got very long-range cannons, so you can't just sail away from it.

Here are some tips for the fight:

Once you beat El Impoluto, you'll earn the following rewards:

• 12,000 Reales
• El Impoluto sails
• El Impoluto wheel
• El Impoluto hull
• El Impoluto figurehead
• El Impoluto ship model

HMS Fearless & Royal Sovereign

• Location: Eleuthera (811,858)

The HMS Fearless & Royal Sovereign legendary ship battle is unique in that it's actually a two-on-one. Rather unfair, if you ask me, and it's the one I had the most trouble with. Since you'll have to contend with two ships at once, they have reduced health compared to the other legendary ships. And once you destroy one of the pair, the other will set itself ablaze and chase you down.

Here are some tips:

Once you beat this legendary ship battle, you'll earn the following rewards:

• 12,000 Reales
• HMS Fearless sails
• HMS Fearless wheel
• HMS Fearless hull
• HMS Fearless figurehead
• Brothers in Arms ship model

La Dama Negra

• Location: Serranilla (241,73)

La Dama Negra is armed to the teeth and, in fact, the only ship with armour, too. Metal plates of the hull reduce damage you deal to the sides of the ship and prevent swivel gun critical hits. Your positioning is very important here.

Here are my tips:

Once you beat the ghost ship, you'll earn the following rewards:

• 12,000 Reales
• La Dama Negra sails
• La Dama Negra wheel
• La Dama Negra hull
• La Dama Negra figurehead
• La Dama Negra ship model

HMS Prince

• Location: Navassa (854,55)

Described as the ghost ship, HMS Prince is arguably the easiest of the legendary ships to fight, though it certainly drags on once you reach its second phase and it starts hiding in the fog.

Here are some tips to take it out:

Once you beat the ghost ship, you'll earn the following rewards:

• 12,000 Reales
• HMS Prince sails
• HMS Prince wheel
• HMS Prince hull
• HMS Prince figurehead
• HMS Prince ship model

I'm not sure who asked for daily quests and what is essentially a battle pass in Black Flag Resynced, but here we are. Similar to Shadows, you can earn Data Fragments to spend on unlocking special cosmetics and keys in your Animus projects.

First off, make sure that you have the Eyes in the Dark project active, as this one gives you rewards in Black Flag itself versus AC Shadows. Otherwise, here's how to earn Data Fragments so you can spend them on new cosmetics and keys, which you can use to unlock further items in the exchange.

How to get Data Fragments in Black Flag Resynced

The main way you get Data Fragments is by completing anomalies located around the Caribbean. These activities first unlocked for me after I completed Sequence 4: This Old Cove, where you take over Great Inagua. If you open your map and press tab (X on controller) to open your quest log, you can cycle down to anomalies and look at all the different ones available.

The range of activities depends on which project you have active in the Animus, but generally they are quite straightforward, and either involve sinking corrupted ships and convoys, or completing short puzzle sections, such as the rifts. Once done, you'll earn the amount of Data Fragments listed, which you can then spend to unlock rewards on your active project track.

These rewards include cosmetics, weapons, but also keys, which you can spend in the exchange to purchase items themed around other Assassins Creed games, too. You'll get new anomalies to complete based on the timer above each one. So, if you complete one, you'll have to wait a while for another to replace it.

Completing the Art Lover quest in Black Flag Resynced sees you finding art pieces from Great Inagua's scattered collection to return them to the manor. This is one of the new quests that was added in Resynced, alongside a new character, Bernard. This aged butler served the previous owner of the house before Du Casse took it over.

There are lots of different ways to gather the Great Inagua art collection and the reward is one of Ezio's outfits, so I'll run through the easiest ways to gather what you need.

Black Flag Resynced art collection locations

To complete the Art Lover quest, you'll need to find 30 art pieces across the Caribbean, though you'll have to return to talk to Bernard once you've found 15 and then 25, before completing the quest at 30, earning yourself the Master Assassin outfit (One of Ezio's outfits) and the Obsidian Hull ornament.

There are many ways to gather art, but it's worth noting the Templar and pirate portraits you hang in the manor don't count towards this quest. Here's how to gather the art collection:

1. Collecting ship models

Every time you board a ship for the first time after defeating it, you'll earn its model, and these models count as part of the Inagua art collection since you can display them on a shelf in the main room. Since there's a British and Spanish variant for each ship type, that's ten art pieces you can easily earn, not to mention that you'll unlock extra ship models as you complete the main story.

2. Buying art pieces

You can buy six art pieces from any General Store, though since these cost Reales, you might want to hold onto your money and leave these as a last resort. It depends how quickly you want to complete the quest and get Ezio's Revelations outfit.

3. Looting plantation warehouses

The first time you loot a plantation warehouse, you'll get a painting you can hang in the manor, which counts towards the Great Inagua art collection. Plantations are easy to find; simply look for the island symbols that have three plants growing out of some soil. You'll have to head inside, find the key, and unlock the warehouse door. These can also contain treasure maps.

4. Kenway's fleet missions

Some of Kenway's fleet missions (the ones you organise via the map in the manor or Jackdaw's cabin) provide art pieces as rewards, specifically, the Piracy and Trade missions. They also have a scale and skull symbol on the map and list their type below their title.

You'll need a brig for Piracy and a schooner for Trade. Simply look for the missions that have a little furniture or art piece image in their listed rewards—they're usually pretty easy to recognise as, besides map pieces, they're the only rewards that have "1x" next to them.

5. Treasure maps

While not all do, some buried treasure maps contain art pieces as their rewards. Specifically:

• New Bone treasure map (722,607)
• Abaco Island treasure map (543,694)
• Jiquey treasure map (812,114)
• Principe treasure map (605,132)

That last one is locked by the main story until you go to the island of Principe, since it's not on the main map. If you're struggling with any of these, check out our treasure map guide linked above.

With all of these, you should easily be able to cobble together the 30 pieces you need, just make sure to return to Bernard when the quest marker reappears in Great Inagua. If you want to know your progress, open the world map, press X to open the quest list via the prompt in the top right, and cycle through sidequests to find and toggle it active.

Though it makes a variety of changes to the original, Black Flag Resynced adds quite a lot of new content to the much-beloved Assassin's Creed instalment. There's a boatload of new sidequests, including a whole new chapter you unlock later in the game. There are also tweaks to combat, stealth, the Jackdaw, and legendary ships.

The point of this guide is to walk you through the new content as you play, so you know what unlocks when, and don't miss anything along the way.

How to access all new content in Black Flag Resynced

Before I run through how to access all of the new stuff in order (so you can use this guide while playing), there are a few more general changes to the game.

First off, combat and stealth:

• A new blunderbuss-wielding enemy
• The ability to crouch anywhere by pressing X and a visibility meter
• You can perform Heavy Strikes by holding the attack button
• There are now Trinkets you can equip with unique buffs. For example, finding all Mayan Stones now also gives you a Trinket that absorbs gunfire as well are the Mayan Armor it used to
• You can't pick up enemy weapons anymore
• No more hidden blade combat beyond finishers
• No more fail conditions for stealth missions if you are found

And in terms of the Jackdaw and ship combat:

• Three new officer quests that provide upgrades, such as firing double broadsides, enhanced brace, and the ram ability you used to get by defeating all legendary ships
• New secondary firing modes for ship weapons, including:
  • Continuous Heated Shots for broadside cannons
  • Double shot for the bowchasers
  • Shrapnel barrels for the barrels
  • Deadman's Cohort for the mortar (unlocked via his officer quest)
  • Swivel guns can now be manually aimed AC Rogue-style
• Legendary ships are tougher and respawn over time
• New sea shanties, some of which you unlock via sidequests (like Captain Stede Bonnet)

The way you get many of Black Flag's outfits has also changed, the Jackdaw's Ship Plans are now called Ultimate Plans, and the Treasure Maps have changed somewhat, too. All that said, here's everything new in order of when it unlocks during the game.

1. Rope Dart (Sequence 3: Sugarcane and Its Yields)

This is Black Flag's new combat tool, a rope dart you can hang enemies with, or throw at them to pull them towards you, though it has a cooldown.

2. A bunch of quests, Rifts, and two new pets (Sequence 4: This Old Cove)

This is the first major set of unlocks once you take the cove at Great Inagua. This includes:

• Art Lover quest: You'll meet the butler, Bernard, during This Old Cove, and he tasks you with collecting art pieces to restore the manor's lost collection.
• Two new officer quests: A Second Chance and A Proper Shipwright will appear to the southeast and west respectively. These quests see you recruit two officers to the Jackdaw who provide special abilities and a nice pair of pistols if you complete their questlines fully.
• Rifts and Animus Projects: Rifts are new narrative activities that explore Edward Kenway's choices. The first one appeared for me on the south coast of Great Inagua after I finished This Old Cove. From this point on you can also earn Data Fragments for Animus Projects, unlocking cosmetics and gear. As you progress the story, you'll unlock more Rifts, so keep an eye out.
• Two new pets: The first new pet is Soot the Cat in the town of Great Inagua, marked by the Cat Distribution System local event. The second is Albert the Monkey, who you can find at the Monkey Business local event marker in southeast Havana, off the shore on a ship. Your equipped pet in your loadout will sit on the railing as you sail.

3. Blackbeard's Treasure sidequest (Sequence 8: Do Not Go Gently)

This sidequest unlocks after Do Not Go Gently in Sequence 8 and sees you tracking down Blackbeard's treasure via a special map. This quest automatically starts through the main story, so you don't need to worry about activating it yourself. This acts as an epilogue for Ed Thatch's character.

4. Captain Stede Bonnet sidequest (Sequence 8: Marooned)

Once you complete Marooned, you'll find the Captain Stede Bonnet sidequest marker in the manor in Great Inagua. As with Blackbeard's Treasure, this quest is about the merchant-turned-pirate, Stede Bonnet, who you encounter throughout the game.

5. A World Without Gold chapter and one more officer quest (Sequence 11: Everything is Permitted)

Though this is a very late unlock, it's actually most significant for my money, adding an entirely new chapter to the game. Once you complete Everything is Permitted, you'll find the That Bastard Maynard quest marker by the tavern in Great Inagua, after you leave the Assassin's Compound with Anne. As you might have guessed, this quest is about Maynard, the pirate-hunter you briefly met in the original game.

You'll unlock the officer, Tobias Smith, via this questline when you complete I Just Want to Talk as well as his upgrade. His quest then continues separately to A World Without Gold. If you then complete No Box Dark Enough (which you'll find in Great Inagua) and then his subsequent quests, you'll unlock a new mortar type for the Jackdaw which fires a continuous stream. This is the final major new unlock in Black Flag Resynced.

Just like the original game, getting all the outfits isn't simple in Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced, but for a slightly different reason. Most outfits are still bought from the merchants or crafted, but a few have moved locations for no apparent reason.

Everyone's favourite Crimson Cloak, for example, is no longer available from the General Store. Likewise, loyalty outfits like Ezio's robes are now behind quests. The remake also borrows a few tricks from Shadows to further complicate your wardrobe collection.

How to get all Black Flag Resynced outfits

There are 26 outfits in Resynced, or 28 if you're counting the exclusive pre-order and Deluxe Edition bundles. You'll get at least two outfits by default a short way into the story. You start with Duncan Walpole's Robes for your trip to Havana, and when you leave, Cap'n Kenway will modify them, unlocking Edward Kenway's Robes. Unlike the original game, you can swap back to Duncan's Assassin robes if you'd rather they not be replaced.

If you've pre-ordered the game, you'll be able to equip Blackbeard's Crimson Outfit, and those with the Master Assassin pack (included in the Deluxe Edition) will also have the black and gold robes of the same name.

If you've played the original game, you'll notice a few odd absences, despite Ubisoft stating that every legacy outfit would return. For example, we didn't find the Officer and Explorer outfits, nor Ezio's and Altair's robes. I suspect the latter two will be available in the Exchange store in the future, however, similar to Connor's outfit.

Here's every other outfit you need to unlock:

Brown Cloak

The first outfit you can get is the Brown Cloak from the large chest in the Governor's compound in the southeast of Havana, Dry Tortuga, at the following coordinates: 204,573. You can grab this while you're sneaking around during the main mission, or return later.

Pirate Cloak

Purchase it for 600 Reales from the General Store after completing the main mission This Old Cove to liberate Great Inagua, Gibara. It's basically the Brown Cloak but with a cool skull on the back.

Captain Drake's Outfit

Loot the chest in the ocean off the northeast coast of Sacrifice Island, Conttoyor, at the following coordinates: 18,547. It will be marked when you use the nearby sync point.

Merchant Outfit

Purchase it for 3000 Reales from the General Store after completing the Sequence 4 main mission Overrun and Outnumbered.

Politician's Outfit

Purchase it for 3,000 Reales from the General Store after completing the Sequence 4 main mission Overrun and Outnumbered.

Privateer Outfit

Purchase it for 3,000 Reales from the General Store after completing the Sequence 4 main mission Overrun and Outnumbered.

Feline Pelt Outfit

Build the Treasure Dealer at Great Inagua, Gibara, after completing the Sequence 4 main mission This Old Cove, and trade the following items:

• 2x Ocelot Pelt
• 6x Jaguar Pelt
• 1x White Jaguar Pelt
• 2x Black Jaguar Pelt

Whaler Outfit

Build the Treasure Dealer at Great Inagua, Gibara, after completing the Sequence 4 main mission This Old Cove, and trade the following items:

• 2x Humpback Whale Skin
• 2x Killer Whale Skin

Shark-Hunter Outfit

Build the Treasure Dealer at Great Inagua, Gibara, after completing the Sequence 4 main mission This Old Cove, and trade the following items:

• 1x Great White Shark Bone
• 2x Bull Shark Skin
• 2x Hammerhead Shark Bone

Stede Bonnet's Attire

Masquerade as the one and only merchant (or gentleman pirate) Stede Bonnet by looting the largest chest on the east hill of Mystery Island in the far east of Navassa, at the following coordinates: 913,123.

Captain Morgan's Redingote

Part of The Black Island DLC pack in the original game, this content is included in the remake. You need to loot the large chest overlooking the shore in the hills north of Black Island, northeast Gibara, at the following coordinates: 915,618.

Pirate Captain Outfit

Complete the Ambergris Key treasure map. You can find the map next to the campfire on the northeastern beach of Corozal, western Chinchorro (31,230). Then head to Ambergris Key, southern Chinchorro (30,157) to collect the chest.

Crimson Cloak

Complete the Anotto Bay treasure map. You can get the map by looting the warehouse in the northwest of Havana (205,600), then sail to Anotto Bay, northeast Charlotte (590,245) to collect the chest. This outfit was available immediately from the General Store in the original game.

Governor Outfit

Complete the Isla Providencia treasure map. Grab the map from the warehouse in the south of Nassau (594,750). You then need to progress the main story until you gain access to Isla Providencia, where you'll find the buried treasure near boat wrecks on the southern beach (487,11).

Stealth Outfit

Just like the original game, you need to complete 16, just over half, of the Assassin Contracts. You'll get the Stealth Outfit, plus the Hidden Ones Sigil legendary trinket. Completing every contract will net you the legendary Spring-Steel Swords.

Foreign Diplomat Disguise

You'll get this fancy red overcoat as a disguise during the Sequence 12 main mission Governor No Longer and keep it afterwards.

Mayan Armour

Find all 16 Mayan stones to recover the stones required to complete the Mayan Mysteries side quest and open the locked door on Tulum.

Templar Armour

After completing Sequence 3: A Single Madman and taking Julien du Casse's Templar Key, complete the four Templar Hunts and use the keys from each to open the gate in the manor in Great Inagua, Gibara.

Master Assassin Outfit

To get Edward's Master Assassin robes, you need to complete the Art Lover quest by collecting art, such as paintings from raiding warehouses, ship models from boarding enemy vessels, and sculptures from chests or merchants.

Edward the Legend

Fully restore and upgrade every building at your base, including the manor, in Great Inagua, Gibara, unlocked after beating This Old Cove. You'll need heaps of resources and Reales, so don't expect to do this quickly.

Naoe's Robes

Reach level 12 in the Riptides Animus Project to get Naoe's outfit from Shadows. This is a free battle pass progressed by earning and spending Data Fragments. These contain items available in both Black Flag Resynced and Shadows.

Yasuke's Yoroi

Reach level 12 in the Undertow Animus Project to get Yasuke's outfit from Shadows. This is a free battle pass progressed by earning and spending Data Fragments. These contain items available in both Black Flag Resynced and Shadows.

Dark Animus Corsair Robes

Reach level 18 in the Eye in the Dark Animus Project, a free battle pass progressed by completing Anomaly challenges. Unlike the other Projects, all the rewards here are exclusive to Black Flag Resynced.

Connor's Outfit

To get Connor's cool robes from Assassin's Creed 3, you need to purchase them for 3,000 Keys from the Animus Exchange store. This is effectively the replacement for Uplay challenges which used to be the home of legacy Assassin outfits.

Nomad's Bronze Ensemble

You can get the Nomad's Bronze Ensemble for free at the bottom of the in-game store. You should also grab the Rustic Flintlocks and Shipmate Monkey while you're here.

"Just when I thought I was out," Al Pacino hissed in The Godfather Part 3, "they pull me back in!" I'm starting to feel that way about MindsEye, the infamously bad action game from Build a Rocket Boy: I played it, I had an accidental good time, the expansion was abysmally bad, and it was over. But now, for suitably bizarre reasons, it's back in my life.

We're talking about MindsEye today because, as reported by Eurogamer, Build a Rocket Boy is bringing in an unknown number of community members for an on-site playtest at its studio in Edinburgh. And by "bringing in," I mean the studio is paying for their flights to Scotland, two nights' accommodations, and flights back home. I would guess that at least one meal is also being covered, given that attendees will take part in a meet-and-greet with Build a Rocket Boy staff.

How bizarre, I thought to myself, particularly given the game's minuscule player numbers. What could Build a Rocket Boy possibly have to show that justifies an in-person event, and more to the point, why would anyone care?

But one group cares very much: Build a Rocket Boy developers. The studio is holding this event, and more to the point paying for round-trip flights and hotel rooms, after repeated rounds of layoffs—the most recent in May—that left the studio gutted, and that just doesn't sit right with at least some of the workers at the studio. So they're going to protest the playtest at Build a Rocket Boy headquarters this Saturday, July 11, while the playtest is happening.

To be clear, this all seems legitimate and true. Build a Rocket Boy did indeed announce an in-person playtest for "a small group of community members" on its Discord back in June, promising to pay for "flights to Edinburgh, flights back home after the event, and hotel accommodations."

And there is indeed a protest planned, according to a Town Spot post: "Build A Rocket Boy execs are spending thousands on an unnecessary playtest event after laying off over 400 staff over the last year—come join affected workers and supporters outside their offices to show we're organised and ready to fight for jobs."

It's serious enough that the Independent Workers Union of Great Britain—the group that's currently embroiled in legal action against Rockstar over the 2025 firing of 31 employees—is getting involved.

"With their latest release labelled the worst game of 2025, and surrounded by allegations from their workers of secret surveillance, mishandled redundancies and union blacklisting, BARB management are now desperately turning towards fans to save them," the union wrote on Instagram. "As well as trying to buy fan favour with prize holidays, they are handing over work, both paid and unpaid, from the BARB workforce to the BARB fanbase, during a game sector job crisis.

"The playtest, which will see fans take on testing duties usually carried out by professional staff, follows another recent decision to cut longstanding staff members on the community team and hire a player, with no sign of a formal interview process or role advertisement."

The union, which is also in the midst of legal action against Build a Rocket Boy over allegations that the studio was "recording individuals in their homes and without their consent" via surveillance software installed on employee PCs without their knowledge, confirmed that it will be taking part in the July 11 protest.

What happens next, I can't even guess. MindsEye itself is enough fun that it's not a bad pickup for, say, a tenner or less, as long as you enjoy "fun" in the MST3K sense—but for some reason, it's still holding at a $35 regular price. The long awaited Blacklisted expansion that promised to reveal evidence of sabotage against the game, meanwhile, was just straight-up garbola, lacking even the high school drama club earnestness and occasional bits of absolutely bonkers bullshit that made MindsEye itself entertaining. As someone who's played more MindsEye than most, this dogged, determined effort to salvage MindsEye is beyond baffling, akin giving CPR to Lenin: People might talk about it, but probably not for the reasons Bulid a Rocket Boy wants.

We're always keeping an eye out for new Stardew Valley mods. For instance, not long ago I played a mod where I could open my own grocery store and make Pierre buy my seeds for a change, dammit! It was satisfying.

But here's a mod (via Gaming Bible) created by modder kittycatcasey, aka spacechase0, that immediately looks different from all the other Stardew mods out there. That's cuz it's in 3D. Have a look at "The Third Dimension," a proof-of-concept video of a 3D version of Stardew Valley—and then come back here and help me decide if it looks completely rad or vaguely horrifying.

I'm delighted at first: the video shows the modder strolling around their house, interacting with the kids, and talking with their spouse, Penny. It really is neat seeing the game's bright and cheerful art in 3D, even though the sprites (except for structures like walls and floors) are all still 2D.

But as I watch more, it quickly begins to get unsettling. Since nearly every entity is still currently 2D, it only has one side to face the player, which means it all swivels to continue facing you no matter where you go. Everything: plants, decorations, furnaces, the mailbox, scarecrows, containers, all slowly turning as you walk by. As if alive. As if watching you. It's creeptastic.

This is temporary, of course: "Right now just about almost everything besides the terrain is billboarded sprites, but the plan is to over time give everything a unique 3D model," spacechase0 says.

I feel better again while watching spacechase0 harvest blueberries from the farm: it's delightful to look up instead of down at the plants, to be surrounded by them like you were really out there doing some gardening. But then I notice the house in the background. It, too, is swiveling to watch you, everywhere you go, like some sort of extremely nosy Baba Yaga's Hut. I'm glad the video doesn't show downtown Stardew. Just imagine those shops and houses all turning to watch as you walked around. Chilling!

This isn't shade on the modder, by the way: turning a 2D game into 3D is really impressive, and even this extremely early proof-of-concept looks great (except when it makes my skin crawl). The second half of the video is a demonstration of the 3D concept compatible with VR, which is amazing—though fighting off bats sure looks tricky.

The mod isn't available to try yet, which works for me: I think I'd be a little too creeped out with all those sprites slowly swiveling around to stare at me everywhere I went. If you want to play Stardew Valley in 3D or VR someday, though, this is one mod you should keep a close eye on.

A Bloomberg report says Obsidian Entertainment, which was recently hit hard by mass layoffs at Xbox, has cancelled projects including a sequel to Avowed and will instead begin working on a new Fallout game.

The plans are "in flux" and could change, according to the report.

A California WARN report shared by GameFile says 52 employees at Obsidian were let go in the layoffs, which Bloomberg says represents roughly a quarter of the studio's workforce. The sequel to Avowed, the outstanding 2025 first-person RPG set in the studio's Pillars of Eternity universe, is one of multiple unannounced games in development that have been cancelled amidst the bloodletting.

Instead of that, a new Fallout game is reportedly being headed up by Obsidian design director Josh Sawyer. Sawyer has an enviable record of RPG credits to his name, most notably in this moment as the lead designer and director of Fallout: New Vegas.

Still, I'll be the first to say it, in this story at least: This sucks. I'm as down for a new Fallout as much as the next guy, but I could also really go for more Pillars, or whatever non-Fallout RPG Sawyer was reportedly directing before his attention was diverted to this.

I also can't help wondering how the circumstances will impact what ultimately comes out of this. Sawyer has previously said he'd head up a new Fallout game if Microsoft asked, if he could do it on his own terms, but I doubt his terms would ever have included seeing a quarter of the studio put out of work, or that the mood among those who remain is going to contribute positively to the project.

I've reached out to Obsidian for comment on the report and will update if I receive a reply. In the meantime, if you want to see what Sawyer and Obsidian can do when they don't have shareholder-obsessed overlords breathing down their necks, I would urge you to check out Pentiment, an astonishingly good slow-burn journey through 16th century Bavaria. It's currently on sale for $10/£7.49/€10—that's half-price—in the Steam Summer Sale. (Also, a bit of advice: Don't spoil it for yourself.)

Less than three years after it went live on Steam, Final Fantasy 7: Ever Crisis is calling it quits. Square Enix said in an end-of-service announcement that the sale of Red Crystal in-game currency has already been halted, and the game itself will be taken offline on October 6.

Square Enix apologized for any disappointment in its shutdown announcement, saying that it has "worked to provide the best possible experience for our players" since the game went live in 2023. However, for reasons unspecified, "we have determined that it will be difficult to continue doing so and have made the decision to end service."

A tepid response to the game may be a big part of the issue. Final Fantasy 7: Ever Crisis holds a "mixed" rating on Steam, and its player numbers have been in a slow, bumpy, but overall steady decline since it launched on that platform. Android and iOS versions of the game have considerably better ratings, but player numbers aren't known.

PC Gamer Final Fantasy fan Mollie Taylor described Ever Crisis as "a retelling of Final Fantasy 7's overarching story, offering the narrative from the original game, the movie Advent Children, and spin-off games Before Crisis, Crisis Core and Dirge of Cerberus," which seems to me like a lot of Final Fantasy. She seemed a little bit dubious about its gacha game mechanics, though (or maybe just tired of it as a concept), and that can be seen in the Steam reviews too, many of which complain about its monetization and relentless grind.

In-game events will continue to run until Final Fantasy 7: Ever Crisis shuts down—Square Enix dropped a final roadmap leading into the closure that you can check out below. It also makes clear that once the servers close, it is over: "To protect users' personal information, account information will be deleted once all procedures associated with the end of the service have been completed."

Here's a question that haunts me: are there people out there who actually keep a Humble Choice subscription going across multiple months? As far as I'm concerned, Humble Bundle's monthly basket of games is just a bundle by another name. If the games are good, I drop some money, snag the keys, then cancel. The notion of leaving it rolling across multiple months, with no idea as to the games that are coming up, confuses and frightens me.

Anyway, all that's just prelude to me telling you this: Humble Choice is pretty good this month. You might want to give it a look-in if you're into old-school RPGs, the Zeldas of yore, horny shooters, or being a goddamn cop.

The headline items for this month's selection are:

• Sea of Stars
• Tunic
• Neon White

The games that get smaller boxouts are:

• Police Simulator: Patrol Officers
• Drop Duchy Complete
• Sledders, Dicefolk
• Our Adventurer Guild.

With the exception of the cop game, which doesn't look remarkably different from any of countless other cop games on Steam (though I will confess I have not played it, so maybe it is great), these are all rather well-regarded games—either by us here at PCG or by fans on Steam.

Neon White is probably the most universally beloved: a fast-paced shooter that we scored 85%, writing "these blistering platforming time trials are a heavenly delight." It does have some remarkably, deliberately cliche anime writing, but hey, you can always mute it. It also features Spike Spiegel's English VA in a lead role, just in case you needed more anime-related motivation.

Tunic, meanwhile, is a game in the style of the ancient Zeldas that we scored 86%, declaring that "delightfully difficult combat and meaningful exploration make Tunic a retro-inspired modern marvel." As for Sea of Stars, it asks one question: Do you like very pretty RPGs that are very much like Chrono Trigger? If so, you will want to grab it. As for the rest, all of them have their stalwarts, and Drop Duchy in particular has earned high praise in these pages before.

If you fancy grabbing them all, they can be had for $15 / £11.50. Just, you know, remember to cancel the sub once you've gotten your keys, unless you're willing to roll the dice on the months to come.