The fact that Warhammer 40K: Space Marine 2 has turned out to be wildly successful doesn't necessarily come as a surprise, as it was pretty darned awesome. The ?bit that might be surprising, instead, is that Saber Interactive? may be working on even more content than we know of.

This information comes from an impromptu Q&A held by the game's creative director, Oliver Hollis-Leick, over on Twitter. According to him, there absolutely will be narrative additions to Space Marine 2, whereas up until now we only really knew about what was coming as part of the game's first year of post-launch content. Broadly, the season pass focuses exclusively on cosmetics, while the "Battle Plan" for year one also references free PvE additions via Operations, Horde Mode, and so on. No story content was mentioned there, making Hollis-Leick's commentary quite important? in the grand scheme of? things.

Creative Director suggests Space Marine 2 DLC is on the way, but there are restrictions in place on certain content

Now, to be perfectly fair, it's not impossible that Space Marine 2's Creative Director was simply referring to sprawling new Operations here. Since all the Operations actually take place in parallel with certain campaign missions, they obviously have narrative significance even if it doesn't seem that way at a glance. On the flip side, the campaign is done and dusted, which means new Operations are probably going to have to exist beyond?? the scope of the main story.

It's an interesting predicament, especially since Hollis-Leick doesn't outright deny the idea that all-new factions of combatants might make their way into the game down the line. So, an Ork-themed?? Operatio??n is not out of the question at all, at least judging by the responses left by the creative director.

Fans of Chaos Astartes don't need to worry, either. When asked whether the forces of Chaos might receive some manner of customization in the future, Hollis-Leick said that "it's likely [Saber Interactive will] add it eventually." For those who haven't had the chance to step into the shoes of the Adversaries, Chaos Astartes cannot be customized in any meaningful way in Space Marine 2, even though ?they're a fully playable faction in the game's PvP mode. Obviously, this puts a dampener on things for fans of the faction, ?so it's good to see that Saber is seemingly looking into upgrading the Chaos item roster down the line.

Hollis-Leick's commentary is very interesting from a lore point of view, too, as he's been freely responding to various questions from community members that help contextualize Space Marine 2's story. From a more practical point of view, thou??gh, the most intere?sting bit comes from the several comments that Hollis-Leick left when asked about certain weapons, such as the Storm Bolter.

It would seem that the IP rights holder for Warhammer 40K, Games Workshop, is being very careful with Space Marine 2's handling of the license. For example, when asked about potentially including the Chapter Mater of Blood Angels, Dante, would "need a big story involvement," said Hollis-Leick. "Each of these characters are very precious to GW and they require a plot weighty enough to allow us to?? use them. Not something we could drop in a DLC probably," he explained. Further, he also said that "We have a lot of IP restrictions on what [weapons] we can and can't use with different characters and armor types."

In summary, then, Saber Interactive won't be able to go mad and allow us to quad-wield Storm Bolters as a Scout Marine, sadly. More content is on the way, however, and if the base Space Marine 2 experience is anything to go by, we've got lots to look? forward to. Now, if only Saber could buff t??hose bolters in Operations Mode by a smidge...

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There's no question about the sheer quality of craftsmanship on show in Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, but much as was the case with its predecessor, the game suffered on PC due to shoddy performance and excessive stuttering. Survivor's latest performance update sadly fails to resol??ve this problem.

To be perfectly clear, now, Jedi: Survivor's Update 9 is a proper game-changer if you'd excuse the pun. We're seeing a substantial increase in the game's frame rate basically across the board as well as losing the much-maligned Denuvo anti-tamper. Yet, thorough testing conducted by Overclock3D and my own personal experience show that Respawn has failed to resolve Jedi: Survivor's traversal stutter. To that end, the stutter-struggle sadly continues, and ??I've got little hope that it's going to be fixed anytime soon, if ever.

Star Wars Jedi: Survivor's traversal stutter is still a big problem, and it's likely to stay that way

Specifically, I'm talking about Star Wars Jedi: Survivor's recent Update 9. Update 9 is, for the most part, a real slam dunk for this technically flawed but otherwise incredible game. Full disclosure: I'm not a fan of Star Wars at all, so it's a testament to Respawn's fine work on Jedi titles that even someone such as myself would play and enjoy them. As good as they are on the gameplay side of things, however, these games are extremely poor performers whose excessive stuttering is going to annoy those that are sensitive to frametime spikes ??and performance pro?blems.

The obvious hope, then, was that Update 9 would finally bring Jedi: Survivor to a level of polish and performance that befits such a premium title. Not the case, however. Respawn did manage to (seemingly) resolve the unusably crash-prone ray-tracing features, granted. The team also substantially improved Jedi: Survivor's performance, which may or may not have something to do with Denuvo itself. These are, certainly, huge and praiseworthy wins for Jedi: Survivor, but the game's arguably big??gest and most pervasive problem is the traversal stutter that you literally cannot resolve no matter what. And that, sadly, is still present.

To be sure, traversal stutter is way less prominent and annoying than it's been before, but the fact that it's still around does not give me hope that Respawn is even capable of fixing it. This sounds damning, but it's actually not, because Jedi: Fallen Order never was fixed. I can vouch for this fact myself, actually, as I tried playing Fallen Order late last year only to experience some of the worst shader compilation and traversal stuttering I had ever seen in a modern game. And, sure, shader stutters do eventually go away, bu traversal does not, and Survivor is in a state that reminds me quite a ??lot of its pr??edecessor.

For those who find these problems too egregious not to deal with them, Fallen Order can be patched up to an extent by using the DXVK Vulkan Async tweak. I've got no such advice to share about Survivor, sadly, but if you're on Nvidia, I do recommend taking this Redditor's advice and properly updating the game's frame generation plugin to resolve excessive artifacting. Why w??asn't this updated? I'm not sure, honestly, but much ??as is the case with the ongoing stutter-struggle, I do think we won't ever hear much about it from Respawn itself.

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Comparing video games to good literature used to be the ultimate go??tcha for the longest time. Simply bringing up games as a serious option for storytelling could get you laughed ?out of the room in some circles, but this is slowly changing, and non-explicit narratives are responsible for this.

Now, simply obscuring a game's story is not enough to make it interesting, engaging, or even genuinely worth engaging with. T??here must still be a spark of something special tucked away behind the monster closets and the resource grinds. Slowly but certainly, more and more developers are figuring out that they don't have to explain themselves to the player in the simplest terms possible.

Some games, like Bungie's classic Marathon for example, have embraced this type of oblique ?narrative progression from the very start. It's just that, outside of niche communities, the general gaming public didn't care to discuss them until decades after the fact. That's all changing slowly, and this is immensely thrilling for reasons we're about to go into.

Here, I've grabbed a ??few mainstream examples of games with huge amounts of non-explicit or obscure narrative el?ements to see how they fit into the wider context of video game storytelling.

Destiny is all about civilizational trauma

On the face of it, the Destiny franchise has simply been about fending off armies of aliens in a post-apocalyptic far-future. Behind the scenes, though, it's a fair bit different. Much as was the case with Marathon, it's important for? a Bungie shooter to offer two layers of narrative development: the first is surface-level and obvious, where Guardians beat down the imminent threat and give humanity a second lease on life... over and over again.

The second layer, however, is anything but obvious. It needs to be peeled back by going through veritable mountains of lore---much of it available over at Ishtar Collective---and piecing together character motives, universal ontology, and oodles upon oodles of other features over a long period of time. This is only for the really invested players, and while I'll be the first to admit that Bungie doesn't always deliver, there's something special cooking in the background of Destiny for sure.

Interacting with Destiny's deep lore is extremely ergodic, if I'm being honest. It's not everyone's cup of tea at all. Bungie makes you work for the game's big revelations, and quite often, they simply don't land in the moment-to-moment campaign. The simpler stuff ?takes precedence, and that's probably for the best.

From my point of view, Destiny is actually about people's inability to cope with gods and the impossibility of proper communication between them. The Witness itself---the game's?? biggest Big Bad so far---came about as a response to the Traveler's presence. A silent deity hovering above its people simply stopped being enough for the Precursor civilization, and so they became the Witness. This set off a series of events leading to the slaughter and destruction of untold trillions, with the latest batch of the Witness' victims--the Eliksni, the Cabal, and the humans---barely surviving by the time the Light and Dark saga wrapped up.

Elden Ring is all about changing the rules of reality

It's easy to get lost in Elden Ring's moment-to-moment lore, characters, their relationships, and how they may or may not have interacted with one another. Doubly so, due to the developers' insisten?ce on not giving us the whole picture and narrative. Instead, FromSoft's games are almost ridiculously obl?ique from an outsider's perspective. They only really come into their own when you're poring through item descriptions and whatnot, and that's a pretty big ask for the average player.

Disregarding any hunt for "true lore" for a little bit, Elden Ring seems like an infinitely loaded monster closet. You travel through one region after another and dismantle its defenders, take down huge monsters, and make yourself a nuisance for about 90 percent ?of the continent. Admittedly, it's fun to think about the game from this point of view, but that misses the point.

In truth, the bits that I myself can make sense of suggest that the Lands Between host a war for the nature of reality itself. The key is the Elden Ring itself, of course: a strange object that somehow dictates how the continent, the world, or the universe functions. The Elden Ring is so p?owerful, in fact, that removing a particular part of it nullifies death itself, so that's fun.

Now, toying with the ontology of existence is... problematic, to say the least, and the Lands ?Between are reeling from various factions and deities' attempts to capitalize on taking control over the Elden Ring.

No Man's Sky is all about coping with the fact that nothing matters

Did you know that No Man's Sky actually has a story? It's an oblique matter, I'll give you that, but it's genuin??ely the stuff of deep, existential horror, and it's about as far from b?eing obvious as possible.

The gist of it is that it is, boringly enough, a simulation. The bit that amortizes this "problem" is that No Man's Sky does away with the usual Matrix-pattern take on this trope. This game, instead, tries hard to drive home the point that it straight-up does not ma?tter whether its own story exists in a simulation or not. Further, its NPCs sometimes break the fourth wall and ask you, the player, whether you can be certain that y??ou, too, do not exist in a higher-order simulation and whether you'd be able to tell if one is running in the first place.

Aside from this, No Man's Sky also plays host to what may or may not be the primordial god of its universe. There's also a single being that killed trillions of thinking creatures in its first life a??nd waxes philosophic with the player when push comes to shove. It's oddly poetic, the whole shindig.

Games are more and more eager to give their players mental homework, and that's a good thing

One thing all three examples I highlighted here have in common is that their true narratives require a non-insignificant amount of? mental legwork from the player. The fact that it's all entirely optional and doesn't come in the way of gameplay or of more surface-level storytell??ing is awesome, too. Those of us who want to engage with this stuff can do so. Those who choose not to, however, can just shoot guns and slash away at monsters, and they're still not missing out on the most important part of the medium.

This drives home the argument that video games are maturing into a genuinely engaging narrative medium. Figuring out the stuff I outlined above took a lot of work from the community, collecting data entries, lore tidbits, and other remarkably obscure writings. And people often still have to make their own conclusions about the things that are presented to them. For example, Elden Ring's actual story and the truth behin?d the Greater Will are still hotly contested, even after the DLC's been out for months and the game's been datamined to hec?k and back.

I genuinely believe Elden Ring would be a way worse game i?f not for FromSoft's sometimes obnoxious insistence on mystery, and this whole aspect of it is---once again---optional.

It's an impressive feat, and I'm extremely thankful for t?he developers who choose to tell s?tories such as these. And I'm not the only one.

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From an objective point of view, Destiny 2 is a thoroughbred Bungie shooter. Satisfying movement and gunplay, loads of gear to chase after, and all the trappings of a modern live-service content treadmill. Yet, the fantasy it sells to the player is a fair bit different. The Destiny you ?see in passing isn't ?quite the Destiny that lured me in.

The bit that spurred me to actually articulate why I first started playing Destiny 2 came about very, very recently, with Bungie's an??nouncement of the content structure for 2025. Now, the stuff Bungie told us about sounds fine. Interesting, even, but that's not really what I want to talk about here at all. Instead, it's the artwork. Specificall?y, the ve??ry picture I use as the featured header above.

Now, Destiny has always been excellent at showing awesome alien vistas without actually allowing you to actually properly interact with them. And, to be perfectly frank, "interact" in this context is basically sci-fi overlanding with a bit of survivalism thrown in, for good measure. Obviously, that is not what Destiny is, but much?? of its art does?? rhyme with the concept.

One of Beyond Light's most striking pieces of media wasn't a screens?hot of a decked-out Guardian taking down a squad of Fallen in a single (frosty) attack. Instead, it was a calm image of a G?uardian taking a cliffside breather, with the Pyramid vessel in the far background.

This piece of art is most certainly not an outlier. Huge, sweeping vistas come part and parcel with every single pre-release artwork package Bungie puts out, and they help ground the world in a way no in-game vista ever could. Destiny has always been famous for all of the delightful views Guardians witness on their way to pummel this week's new ontological hyper-predator. This is a surface-level nod at the grander; it's a suggested exploration happening in-universe and is about as far as Destiny 2 goes.

Yet, I often find myself wanting to interact with the environment and just explore the world of Destiny, and I'm most definitely not the only one. That's where Starfield comes into the picture.

Pre-release, Starfield, too, targeted the same sense of awe as Destiny often did. And from the beginning, one key difference kept their journeys distinctly apart �?Bungie's world stayed neat and focused, whereas Starfield, by virtue of its gameplay, could not. Then it was hey, presto, suddenly I could reach out and venture into the concept art to explore all those places I could never access in Destiny.

In this respect, Starfield is perfect. It's an effectively infinite exploration engine, brimming with places to be and weird things to find. I've also upgraded the exploratory aspects of the game with the delightful Desolation - POI Overhaul mod by agd25, as well as Shade's Vehicle Tuner. The former makes POIs a bit ??more sensible and far spread out, while the latter adds actual overlanding features to the REV-8 buggy. All this plays further into the free-form sci-fi exploration niche I've hoped to experience for literal years now.

And sure, perfect is a bit much, as Starfield isn't on top?? of its game elsewhere. It's clunky and underbuilt in some maj??or ways, and after about 120 hours of gameplay, it struggles to truly surprise me in a meaningful way. Such is the nature of these things. I was never under the impression that an actual playable game could deliver the same sense of awe as static concept artwork could, of course, so I'm generally okay with the trade-off.

Raiding and completing dungeons is, understandably, the high-point of any Destiny player's experience with the game. Yet, those aren't the bits I myself appreciate the most about the game. Instead, I've always been fond of just snooping around the maps, finding one-off setpieces (now entirely devoid of any activity) and enjoying the Bungie artists' penchant for detail. Try looking up the old Niobe Labs in the EDZ map, for example, and it won't take long at all to feel like you've unearthed a forgotten secret in the far-future, post-apocalyptic Switzerland of Destiny.

I've never been particularly fond of live-service offerings, and Destiny 2's infamous sunsetting, in particular, managed to break my infatuation with the game itself. The artists' hard work I still very much appreciate, of course, but the removal of Io and Titan - some of my favorite stomping grounds - nudged me to look elsewhere for my exploratory adventures. Starfield is so?? close to what I wanted in this respect that it's gotten annoying by now. Yet, the game's insistence on repeating points of interest over and over again, populating its worlds with fauna that doesn't act like it belongs, and generally being just the ti?niest bit too janky to achieve proper immersion really pulls me out of of the world.

Starfield could very well be the game I want it to be, but it just isn't yet. Maybe in a few years' time, when Bethesda pushes out a few more meaningful, game-changing updates such as REV-8, modders release more delights such as Desolation, and we've had a few more big expansion packs in tow. It's a big maybe, to be sure, but it's not an impossible hope, either. And hey, the same absolutely cannot be said about Destiny, which is ?more than happy to stick with? its unreachable vistas and tightly curated combat hallways.

Now, obviously, I don't expect this topic to make sense to everyone. For most players, Destiny 2 is all about those things that keep us glued to the screen in the moment-to-moment gameplay. That is, of course, perfectly fine and valid. If you'd like to get a better idea of what I've been mulling on about here, though, I recommend checking out Bungie's very own 10-year Destiny "Art Blast" over on ArtStation to begin with. Then, if you're still up for it, scroll on through the absolutely phenomenal unofficial concept art collection hosted by ??Redditor Dark129. It consists of about 2,000 pieces of Bungie's Destiny artwork, and it communicates the scope and scale of this univers?e incredibl?y well.

Bungie isn't likely to lean into the more exploratory, conceptual aspects of Destiny anytime soon, I'm afraid. The game's patrol zones are simply too busy and too small to properly deliver on that promise. That's okay, though. Starfield is extremely imperfect in many of the things it tries to do, but it almost gives me that oblique high that Bungie's been hint?ing at all along. In that sense, it certainly fails to deliver, but looking at it from a different point of view, it sure as heck is the closest I've gotten to it. So, I'll take it happily.

In the end, I suppose I'm just trapped between Starfield's comparative mediocrity and Destiny's forever-unattainable fantasy, forever bouncing between the two until the end of time. Or, rather, until Starfield's been appropriately modded.

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Escape From Tarkov has, by most measures, managed to stabilize its community and meta since the last time I talked about it. The big tripwire update is neat, too, but I just can't bring ?myself to play it anymore. Instead, I spend my time in SPT, and it's a hoot.

Now, obviously, I'm a bit weird when it comes to my gaming preferences. I actively play Helldivers 2 on my own, deliberately. And, really, I've never been shy about the fact that I adore what the SPT team has done with Escape From Tarkov. By now, though, I'm absolutely all-in on Single-Player Tarkov with virtually no interest in actually getting my PMC eviscerated by a cheater on the official servers. Some are probably going to wonder why on Earth wouldn't I just jump into Escape From Tarkov's official PvE mode, and ??the answer?? is actually very simple: mods.

The fact that SPT (now simplified from the mod's previous SPT-AKI moniker) is a fair few build and content updates behind official has stopped worrying me. The FOMO of using the a??forementioned tripwires, bipods, and the revered Dese?rt Eagle gets pretty inconsequential when you have access to SPT's ridiculously varied glut of player-made content, you see.

To be fair, SPT has always had mods. A community has been brewing in the background of this project?? for a very long time now, and some modders are still simply updating their years-old custom content to keep it relevant in 2024? and beyond.

From my personal experience, however, it wasn't until SPT's 3.8 build (one before the current 3.9ish) that SPT's modding scene really took off. We now have significant near-weekly community content drops from some creator groups. Usually, they include entirely new guns, such as IWI Carmel, which I don't?? believe I've seen in any other media just yet.

For the nostalgia hounds, however, I'd recommend both variants of the classic Remington ACR carbine, as they allow you to set up custom builds with different generational variants of the weapon. For those who want to modernize their ACR kit, the Modern Warfare 3 version of the fictional MCW platform has also been developed for SPT. Yes, those are three different versions of the same weapon, more or less, except each is slightly different in some meaningful ways. Perfect f??or? a gun nerd.

New guns are just the tip of the iceberg for SPT, naturally. I've previously discussed the addition of Pokemon car?ds to the game as an ?optional high-value collectible. Well, now there are Yu-Gi-Oh cards available, too. If you want to add even more zesty variety to your SPT experience, you could install the More Energy Drinks and WTT - Corner Store mods as well, each adding a kind of ridiculous number of real-world food 'n' stuff. I've installed an incredible number of mods to my build of SPT by now, and there have been? no problems with crashing or an?ything like that. The initial loading, granted, is a bit longer, but I can live with it.

Just to circle back to SPT being a few content updates behind Escape From Tarkov live, a dedicated modder has back-ported all of Update 15's new guns, clothing, armor, and attachments into SPT 3.9 alr??eady. Kind of ridiculous, isn't it?

The sheer breadth and variety of community-made mods for SPT are astonishing. Escape From Tarkov is the much-needed baseline for SPT, and BSG's work is hugely valued. The th??????????????????????????ing is that I just cannot see myself returning to the stock Tark??ov experience, and I'm sure I'm not the only one.

This is where it gets interesting, sort of. Battlestate Games has, as of very recently, stated that "[they] will add MOD support for PvE mode after release of the game." I've got absolute??ly no idea how that might work, but I expect this will be a hugely neutered feature that won't be able to compare to the stuff that SPT modders have been putting out.

It's still good news, of course, and a potential sign that BSG might properly upgrade the official PvE game mode down ??the line.

As it currently stands, though? SPT has far superior AI, a greater variety of content, and essentially weekly content drops that you can but don't ha??ve to interact with. All of it is driven by the community, all thanks to mods. I just don't see the official PvE mode being open enough to meaningfully integrate all of these upgrades.

And so I'm more than happy to stick a few builds behind Tarkov proper just to be able to access the SPT community's content goodness. In fact, I'm way more excited about new mod drops nowadays than I am about Escape From Tarkov's major content updates. It's?? not something I expected to happen just a few years back, but here we are.

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Payday 3 has been fighting an uphill battle since its launch, unlike Payday 2's delightful early days (which included Destructoid, too). Now, with the first year of content support wrapped up, Payday 3 is replacing its game director w?ith? someone very familiar to the community.

Specifically, Payday 3's previous game director, Miodrag Kovačević, is being replaced by the dynamic duo of Almir Listo and Andreas Häll Penninger. Almir Listo, specifically, is a known quantity among Payday players. Having been under the limelight for the vast majority of Payday 2's development and specifically coming under fire during the infamous safe fiasco, he's since regained the players' trust. In fact, Almir has been so successful that t??he community is positively thrilled with Kovačević's demotion.

Almir is now one of the game directors in charge of Payday 3

Now, it doesn't seem like there's any real bad blood towards Kovačević, with most players being glad that he's still going to stick around working on Payday 3. Yet, the fact that Penninger and Listo are taking over as the interim creative force behind the next? couple of updates ?has players cheering on the game's main subreddit.

For context's sake, Kovačević took over creative control over Payday 3 just a few months after it first came out. Now, with Overkill actively celebrating the g??a??me's first anniversary, I can safely say that things haven't gotten worse outright. Stuff is actually happening and getting changed for the better, though the studio has been struggling to keep up with community's wishes. Might this be the turning point Payday 3 has needed all along? Well, the players? are certainly hoping that's what's happening.

From my point of view, it's still far too early to say whether Payday 3 is "back," as it were. On Steam, the game is still enjoying a 'Mixed' review rating that's been very well deserved, and Overkill is yet to prove it can begin to turn things around properly. Between a remarkably grindy progression system, limited customization options, and a relatively small number of available heists, Payday 3 simply isn't in a good spot ri??ght now, and just loading it up with more and more content is unlikely to help.

Instead, a huge chunk of the broader Payday player base is quite happy to stick it out with Payday 2 from the look of things. I'm not keen on Steam Chart comparisons, but the difference between Payday 3's 24-hour 800-player peak and Payday 2's almost 12,000 players is striking. Starbreeze and O?verkill will have to step up and prove that they have what it takes to keep players around as they move from the legacy title to the young hopeful, and that is no mean feat.

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After its surprise beta upgrade in March, Valve's excellent Steam Family Sharing feature is finally getting released to the wider public as the new and reformed Steam Families. The new system replaces Family Sharing in its entirety, and it's an almost entirely superior feature in all the ways ??that matter.

The gist of Steam Families is that it's a comprehensive replacement for both Family Sharing and Family V?iew. These two legacy features allowed you to share yo??ur game licenses and dictate which features of Steam your family members have access to, respectively.

Both of them are now rolled up into Families, giving administrator-level accounts a quick and easy way to manage their entire family unit from one spot. The most important upgra??de that came with Families' beta release, though, was certainly the fact that using a game license no longer locked the owner of the license entirely out of their account. It gets better, though.

Steam Families is a superb game sharing feature, as long as you contend with its new rules

Up to six members of a household/family can now pool their game licenses together into one Steam Family, thanks to the new feature. If there are multiple copies of a given game - like Helldivers 2, for example - available in a family collection, they will simply be doled out to family members as they attempt to play the game. Compared to the system's previous iteration, this is a huge quality-of-life improvement. Further, as long as a game supports family sharing (which is not always a given)??, it can also be played offline by any family members.

Two types of accounts can be created in the context of a given Steam Family: Adults and Children. Adults have unrestricted access to all available game licenses, as well as the ability to curate the type of content Children-type accounts can see, which Steam features they can access, set playtime limits, and more. Children, on the other hand, only see the bits that Parents want them to see. They can also set up game purchase request, which is a neat addition. Generally, this is excellent PC gaming solution for, you've guessed it, families of video game aficionados.

There are some caveats to keep in mind about Steam Families, however. Firstly, whereas Family Sharing worked beyond the limits of a single household, users report that Families specifically does not support this use-case. Regional limits do still apply, too, as was the case during the beta-testing period. In other words, there are some key lim?itations to the new system that are going to make it incompatible with some Family Sharing users' specific needs.

The silver lining, for the time being, is that Family Sharing is going to stay in place as an optional legacy f??eature. So, if you're one of those who just cannot make use of Families due to living abroad from the rest of your family, now's the time to think of an alternative. Further, do remember that developers and publishers do sometimes opt out of the feature. Ubisoft games, for example, were often excluded from Family Sharing, and that's going to continue being the case. Something to keep in mind as Families continues to gain more and more steam.

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It was suggested from the very start that Destiny 2's Episodes - the content format for 2024 - would only be a temporary solution. Now, Bungie has doubled down on that notion with a comprehensive explanation of Codename: Frontiers, the next big chapter in Destiny 2's rich and storied history.

Following Bungie's recent integration with Sony, there was a big question mark above Destiny 2's proverbial head. Notably, The Final Shape was an amazing expansion pack, but it also served as an even better off-ramp for veteran players. With no information on what the heck Destiny 2: Frontiers may or may not be, and with the new Episodes just delivering more of the same, it was easy to lose personal investment in the game. Thankfully, Bungie's newly revealed plans for Frontiers sound genuinely interestin??g and could be used to revamp the game so that it stays relevant.

Bungie's plans for Destiny 2 in 2025 sound very, very interesting

First things first, let me deal with the elephant in the room: Destiny 3 isn't even on the docket yet. The topic of a potential sequel or even just a broad follow-up to Destiny 2 wasn't even broached in Bungie's new Frontiers blog. Instead, it delved deep into the gist of what this new approach to content is. The bottom line? Episodes are going to stay in 2024 for goo??d.

The roadmap featured above "lays out the plan for Year 11 and?? beyond," Bungie?? says. Generally speaking, we'll now be getting:

• Two paid expansion packs per year
• Four "major" free content updates per year

The reasoning behind this change is perfectly sensible, for what that's worth: "The truth is that [DLCs such as The Final Shape] dominate almost all our development effort," Bungie says. "We need to free ourselves up to expl?ore and innovate with how we deliver Destiny 2 content so we can invest in areas of the game that will feel m??ore impactful to players."

Instead of attempting to pull off a single super-sized DLC every year, Bungie will now focus on delivering smaller, "medium-sized" expansion packs every six months or so. "Each of these will depart from the one-shot campaign structure we’ve been using essentially unchanged since Shadowkeep, and each will be an opportunity to explore exciting new formats instead," says the blog. Promising, I'd say. Each DLC will also come wit?h a seasonal reset to keep progression more manageable in the long run (no sunsetting, thankfully).

At the same time, the free content upd?ates are supposed to deliver on other fronts:

• Strikes, Exotic missions, and new game modes (e.g. Onslaught)
• Weapons, armor, Exotics, Artifact mods
• Weekly events
• Gameplay features
• Balancing updates

Now, if I wanted to be particularly cynical about Frontiers, I could say that I, too, remember the state of Destiny 2 in its first year. I do remember what it was like when we were getting two DLCs per year, and just how poorly Curse of Osiris was received upon its release. In a way, Frontiers is simply attempting to do the same thi?ng but in a? different way, but will it pan out? I certainly hope so.

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Things are happening in Destinyland, folks. Bungie recently published a huge new blog discussing the future of Destiny 2 from 2025 onwards, and it's nothing if not promising. 2025's first paid DLC, Codename: Apollo, is particularly interesting as it's supposed to be? a "nonlinear" experience, of all thi?ngs.

Historically, Destiny 2's paid annual DLCs have always followed the same format. You get an extremely impressive first mission followed up with a series of bespoke one-off content interspersed with Patrol activities, Strikes, and other repeatable stuff. Then, after loading up your power level and/or grinding an appropriately high level of gear, you jump into the final mission that's sometimes equally as impressive as the intro. Cue the outro cutscene, and you're done. According to Bungie, Destiny 2: Apollo is going to be a nonlin??ear experience instead, taking place "over dozens of threads you’ll explore and discover." Interesting stuff.

Destiny 2: Apollo may be the game's biggest DLC shake-up yet

"Previously, in stories like The Final Shape, you experienced the story as A to B to C to D in a nice straight line," Bungie explains in its recent blog post. "[In Apollo], when you land on our brand new loc???ation, the story starts at A, and then you can choose if you want to explore C first, or try and get into B, or maybe investigate D."

The bits that you don't explore on your first go through the campaign are, supposedly, going to stick around for exploration later on. It's a curious take on the Destiny formula, for sur?e, and I am genuinely excited at the prospect of giving this a shot: "The order in which you explore will be something y??ou choose, but we have built Codename: Apollo in a way the story always makes sense and flows from beginning to middle to end. There’s no time gating, no waiting for the next drop, Codename: Apollo’s story unfolds based on player progression," says the blog post.

Now, while Bungie seemingly eager to try out this brave new approach to the core Destiny fantasy, it's not something that's going to be set in stone for the next yearly DLC, Behemoth. Specifically, Bungie says that "this shift to nonlinear stories isn’t something we’re locking ourselves into, but it is?? the structure that fits Codename: Apollo best." In other words, this may well end up being a one-off that doesn't pan out in the long run.

As it stands, it's way, way too early to tell whether Bungie is onto something with this approach. Personally, I'm all for it, but the specifics are going to be what makes or breaks Apollo's nonlinear take on Destiny gameplay. Story-wise, it is some promising stuff though: "Apollo ends with the narrative gasoline that will propel us into the next few years with a clear theme, goal, and a destination that won’t come at you as a straight ?line but will be well-worth the trip," Bungie promises. "It’ll reward you, it’ll surprise you, and it’ll take us places Destiny has never seen before."

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It's finally happening, folks: the Director interface that's served as the basic staging ground for all of Destiny 2's core activities is going away. We've already seen some official mockups for the Portal UI, and it both looks and sounds pretty da?rn solid so far, though I do have concerns.

Destiny 2's new Portal UI is going to be "an easier, modernized way to browse and launch Core Game activities," Bungie promises. "It will offer a varied selection of new and updated activities across a wide range of activity types." Broadly speaking, the goal for the Portal is to give all players a universal jump-off point for activities both new and old. Functionally, that's an excellent goal, but as interesting as the mockup seems, the execution is what it's all goi??ng to boil down to.

Destiny 2's Director is going away, with Portal as its replacement

To celebrate the first decade of Destiny, Bungie has gone out of its way to deliver a frankly astonishing number of blog posts about the future of the game. It's very promising stuff, too, covering a broad spectrum of topics ranging from open-world content all the way to activity and gear balancing. The discussion of the Portal UI in Destiny 2 is thus being a tad overshado?wed, but it's a hugely important topic because it essentially concerns new player onboarding more so than anything else.

Playing a game needs to be a frictionless experience, and while Bungie does understand this in a sense, Destiny 2 is an infamously complex experienc?e to be breaking into. Portal is supposed to alleviate this in a very specific way, by giving everyone ready access to a simple, sensible list of activities from the game's roster of PvE and PvP content.

According to Bungie, Portal is going to:

• Offer a curated activity list that will be refreshed every three months, with every major content update
• Provide bonus rewards for engaging in Portal activities
• Relegate the Destination portion of the Director to "world navigation and accessing older activities"

"The emphasis of this redesign is quick and clean access to a wider offering of activities with updated rewards, as well as quick access ??to the current Expansion or Event content," Bungie explains. "Our intent is for most activity launching in a season to occur from the Portal, and any choice you make will be a path to worthwhile rewards."

Most content categories are fairly self-explanatory, with Fireteam Ops featuring Strikes, Onslaught, and the like, while Pinnacle Ops focus on Du?ngeons and Exotic missions, for example. Rewards are the really interesting bit in my book, thoug??h, as Portal will give players daily access to

• Specific weapons
• Specific armor slot items
• Targeted currencies (Strange Coins, enhancement materials, etc.)

It's interesting stuff, honestly, and there's potential for this to be the ultimate source of daily activity engagement in Destiny 2. The bit that sort of worries me, though, is that a huge chunk of the game's activities will still be relegated to Destinations, and so this might not end up being the ultimate streamlining that Destiny actually needs. Time will tell, however.

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Ghostrunner 2's pretty darn good, even if it did stray away from its predecessor's single-minded concept. In turn, we got the super-cyber-ninja bike to ride on, so it's not really that big of a loss. Now, though, tha?t bike gets to be the star of its o??wn DLC.

In what may or may not be a kind of a love letter to the awesomeness of Thumper, Ghostrunner 2's latest DLC is a tour de force that focuses exclusively on the aforementioned bike. While we might've said that the ninja-bike was a tad underused in Ghostrunner 2's main campaign, that may no longer ??be the case now that it's got its own dedicated game mode. The slight kicker that's worth keeping in mind? It appears to be a Season Pass exclusiv??e, at least for the time being.

Ghostrunner 2: Endless Moto Mode is a part of the game's Season Pass

While this isn't necessarily a particularly popular opinion, I personally felt Ghostrunner 2 failed to deliver the same rush of adrenaline that the original title had in spades. More specifically, the sequel's insistence on giving me multiple different ways of tackling a problem and even going so far as to have Metroidvania-esque features in some cases just didn't feel right. Ghostrunner was about pushing forward at ridiculous speeds. Ghostrunner 2 is only sometimes about that, sadly.

That's where the new Endless Moto Mode comes into the picture, surprisingly enough. As shown off in the delightfully hectic trailer featured above, Endless Moto Mode only gives you one (1) direction you should be going in. No diversions, alternative routes, or the ability to muck things up and find yourself in an awkward location. In Endless Moto Mode, you just go, and you go fast.

All cheekiness aside, Ghostrunner 2's Endless Moto Mode is available right now, but it appears to be a Season Pass exclusive. All the other Season Pass DLCs are available as standalone purchases, though they don't actually come with content content, just weapon and character skins. Endless Mot?o Mode, on the other hand, is a pretty big addition to the game, all things considered.

I do still think the first Ghostrunner is the superior game, though.

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It's plain as day by now that Black Myth: Wukong is kind of a big deal, both for those who are familiar with the game's timeless tale and for those who are not. Good news, then: the beloved non-Soulslike is going to be getting a DLC sooner or later.

This information, as unsurprising as it might seem considering Wukong's remarkable success, comes straight from a major Game Science investor, Daniel Wu. Wu's relatively obscure company, Hero Games, is the biggest third-party shareholder of the Black Myth developer Game Science. He talked about his experiences in a recent interview with Bloomberg, where he p??lainly stated an expansi??on is next on Game Science's docket.

Black Myth: Wukong investor claims a DLC is on the way

As Bloomberg's interview explains, Wu told them that it won't take over half a decade for Game Science to produce a follow-up to Black Myth: Wukong. Instead, the studio is already hard at work on a full-blooded Wukong expansion pack, drawing a direct comparison to Elden Ring's Shadow of the Erdtree. It's a heck of a comparison, to be sure, but Wukong has proven its mettle as a heavy hitter on the gaming marketplaces. Its success is even more impressive than it seems at a glance, in fact, as it's not even out yet on Xbox consoles.

"If you want to hear the truth," Wu told Bloomberg, "Game Science's success today is built upon its four failures in a row. Wukong proves not? only that we have top-notch game-making capabilities, but also we can tell a good story with Chinese elements."

Both Hero Games and Game Science are obviously proud of what they've accomplished with Black Myth: Wukong. For good reason, of course, as the game is quite stellar as long as yo??u don't mind a record num??ber of invisible walls in your games.

For Wu, Wukong's success is particularly important because he invested $8.5 million (60 million yuan) in Game Science back in 2017, which amounts to a 20% stake in the development company. For his investment, Wu struck gold, as Bloomberg estimates Black Myth: Wukong has earned about $700 million so far. The mysterious DLC Wu revealed the existence of is bound to prop up this number further still, as players simply can't get enough of t??he ?Destined One's adventures.

Curiously, Bloomberg learned that Wu's Hero Games was behind the massive Black Myth: Wukong marketing campaign. The publisher was responsible for the streamer guidance document, which forbade them to talk? about "feminist propaganda", Covid-19, or "politics" in a broader ??sense, ??and Wu declined to comment on the matter. Probably for the best, I reckon.

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Helldivers 2 has turned out to be a way, way more complicated game to manage than anyone anticipated to be. This includes its developer, Arrowhead Games, with the team struggling to stay on top of Helldivers 2's problematic meta. A new upda?te, though, is coming, ??and it's coming soon.

Notably, the current Arrowhead Games CEO, Shams Jorjani, has responded to one player's concerns about the state of the Thermite Grenade, telling them to "see how [they] feel in 2 weeks." This suggests that some manner of balancing will be dropping in within the next 14 days, which puts this potential update well ahead of Arrowhead's prior 60-day rebalancing plan. There's potential for this to be a?? majorly positive showing, if that's what's really up.

Arrowhead CEO suggests a balancing update is coming our way within the next two weeks

Now, the really intriguing bit comes from a little while ago, when the former CEO, Johan Pilestedt, held an impromptu ??Q&A session on that very same Discord. There, he promised a comprehensive rebalance of the Helldivers 2 meta in the coming weeks. Pilestedt's responses were obviously more far-reaching than anything that could qu??ickly be plopped down into a balancing update. Yet, it's entirely reasonable to expect that the ??update Jorjani's hinting at would include some of the goodies Pilestedt himself talked about.

At the very tail end of April, Pilested also discussed how a future update would make for a big "experience shift" for Helldivers 2. The update's goal? To make the game feel more like it did back on day one, at the very height of its glory and popu??larity. "I have had a good time with the experience shift, and it is closer to the original intent of the game and what it was at launch," he said at the time.

All of this combines to make for a very promising update. At the same time, I'd recommend keeping a pinch of salt at hand, just in case. The Escalation of Freedom update looked like an absolute slam dunk at the time, only for it to end up tanking Helldivers 2's meta in a particularly painful way. As I said at the start, balancing Helldivers 2 is no mean feat.

Now, I recently took a look back at Helldivers 2 in the context of Magicka. Magicka was, for a long while, Arrowhead Game's most popular and beloved offering, but it ended up falling face-first into the mud. It's currently altogether brokend and an absolute crash bonanza if you're not using a community patch, and if we're being honest, many of the game's problems came about due to Arrowhead's inexperience in gamedev at the time. Thing is, Arrowhead is seemingly repeating many of those problems with Helldivers 2, too, and I can't he?lp but wonder why that is the case.?? A staccato of solid, community-applauded updates could still turn things around, thankfully, and I've got my fingers crossed this is the start of it.

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After the reasonably successful Syntax Error DLC, Payday 3 players can already look forward to a big new update that's on the horizon. The aptly titled Fear & Greed DLC represents the first half of Payday 3's first anniversary cont?ent drop, and honestly, it's looking migh?ty fine indeed.

Set and primed to release on September 16, the first half of Payday 3's anniversary content update includes the Fear & Greed DLC and a fancy batch of free goodies. The obvious highlight is the awesome new Overkill weapon: the M135 Minigun, but those who shell out for the DLC proper have a lot more to look forward to. To celebrate the occasion and get some hype going, Starbreeze has cooked up a brutal new gameplay trailer showing off the ins and outs of Fear & Greed. Or, at least, some of them.

Payday 3's first anniversary is all about that Fear and Greed

The first part of Payday 3's first anniversary update consists of the Fear & Greed DLC and the free content update that's co??ming to all owners of the base game. The paid DLC is likely to be priced at about ??$12, as its predecessors have been, and it'll include:

• the Stock Exchange heist
• 3 new weapons, including the SPAS-12 and Desert Eagle variants (but excluding the free minigun)
• the Tailor Pack, including 4 new masks, 4 new suits, and 4 new pairs of gloves

The f??ree batch of content is ad??mittedly humble in comparison:

• Houston - new playable Heister
• M135 Minigun Overkill weapon
• new masks
• new Twitch drops

Part 2 of Payday 3's anniversary, on the other hand, is slated for an October release, and it's supposed to include a wealth of QoL improvements. Some examples include the server browser, proper in-game VOIP, and a reworked user interface. We'll have to wait to see what comes of Part 2 proper, though, because the limelight is currently shining onto the Fear & Greed DLC for the time being.

Obviously, Payday 3 has had a rough time reaching the heights of its predecessor. Slowly but certainly, though, Starbreeze has successfully recuperated the?? game's image, and there may be a brighter future ahead. The success of Fear & Greed is pivotal in this respect, as Payday 3 does not currently have any future paid or free batches of content announced, and the community is unsure what's going to happen with it next. For comparison, Payday 2 enjoyed a full decade's worth?? of active development, which its sequel never could've m?atched on day one.

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Denuvo DRM is one of the most infamous pieces of software in the modern gaming industry, for very good reason. Nowadays, almost every new release goes out of its way to clarify whether it's using Denuvo or not, and Warhammer 40K: Space Marine 2 is very pointedly saying "no".

Quite literally, though, that's what the developer Saber Interactive has to say on the matter: "no" to Denuvo DRM. Or to DRM of any sort, for that matter. According to a recent FAQ posted on the official Space Marine 2 website, the game will not rely on digital rights management for copy protection. The FAQ is a veritable treasure trove of valuable information, in fact, and anyone interested in the game ought to check it out in full, if you ask me. For those who just want a summary o?f the crucial bits, though, I've got you covered.

No DRM for Space Marine 2, but that's just the start

The fact that Space Marine 2 isn't going to rely on DRM to annoying paying customers is phenomenal news in and of itself, but th??ere's more where that came from. Loads more, in fact:

• Space Marine 2 does not have any microtransactions: "All gameplay content and features will be free to all players," says the FAQ. "Any paid DLCs will be cosmetic only."
• PvP Eternal War mode features dedicated servers in NA, Europe, LATAM, and SIE regions (!). No LAN, but that was to be expected.
• Space Marine 2's main narrative - 10-12 hours long in total - is fully canon to WH40K.
• The game will be available on GeForce Now from day one onwards, with fully functioning cross-platform saves and offline progression. Operations Mode needs online access to play, however.
• The game will not be available via Xbox Game Pass.
• No friendly fire in any game mode.
• DLSS2/FSR2 available on day one, DLSS3/FSR3 coming later on. No plans for raytracing.
• Steam Deck optimizations targeted for the end of 2024.
• Space Marine 2 relies on EAC for anti-cheat coverage.

Granted, some of these bits and pieces were either outright sta??ted or hinted at in prior info-drops, but it's still good to see Saber doubling down on some of them.

Really, the only problematic bit I've found about Space Marine 2 is somewhat arcane: the game will not support "wide screens" on launch day. This ostensibly refers to ultrawide and super-ultrawide monitors (21:9, 32:9) which I myself use, and it is a pretty big shame. Thing is, one of the Saber's previous games WWZ suffered from this problem on day one as well, and it was resolved some time after release via a dedicated patch. So, not a huge problem in and of itself.

In fact, the recently published post-launch content ro??admap clarifies that "wide screen" support will be coming in September. Aside from that, Warhammer 40K and Astartes ??fans, specifically, have got oodles of goodies to look forward to. Now, let's see if the game is any good in the first p??lace, right?

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After releasing the phenomenal Risk of Rain Returns and letting Gearbox take control and development of Risk of Rain 2 - for bett??er or for worse - Hopoo Games' next project was a big mystery. Now, however, ?that mystery is being put on hold as studio heads take on roles at Valve.

More specifically, Valve is essentially subsuming a significant chunk of Hopoo Games. This includes Hopoo co-founders Duncan Drummond and Paul Morse, as well as a host of "many other talented members" of the development team. It is, perhaps, important to note that Hopoo's statement outright states that the people joining Valve will be specifically working on "game development," so logic dictates their work probably won't have anything directly to do with Steam proper. It might have something to do with Half-Life 3, though. Right?

Hopoo Games developers leave the studio to start working at Valve

Naturally, now that a significant part of Hopoo Games' workforce is leaving the studio to work for Valve, it would be extremely difficult to continue the production of any ongoing titles. To that end, the unannounced Snail project is no longer under active production, and will presumably be put on ice indefinitely. Virtually nothing was known about Snail up until now, short of the fact? that Hopoo was worki?ng on it, so it's not likely to have gotten too far down the production pipeline.

For fans of Hopoo Games' output, there is some hope on the horizon. Notably, the studio's current final statement on Twitter says that Hopoo "will continue to [make games] for years to come," while implying that it's only currently being put on ice for the foreseeable future. The obvious expectation is that, had this been a full-on closer, Hopoo Games' statement would've ?been a bit more conclusive.

With Snail effectively cancelled and a huge part of the Hopoo crew now a part of Valve, it seems this is it for the beloved studio for the time being. As for what the future holds, that much nobody can say. It sure would be cool to have a Risk of Rain 2 type of game set in the Team Fortress universe though, right?

Speaking of which, this news does make Risk of Rain 2's current state all the sadder. Notably, Gearbox messed up the release of Risk of Rain 2's new DLC by pushing out a horribly underbaked update alongside it, breaking the base game along the way. Hopoo staff did say they "still believe that Gearbox is he??ading in the right d?irection," but it's not a great look regardless. Here's hoping Gearbox will be able to clear things up and bring ROR2 back into the positive? limelight, so as to celebrate Hopoo's legacy.

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With Year 2 DLC on the horizon and the Shattered Space expansion pack almost upon us, Starfield is getting a bevy of of?ficial content. The unofficia??l goodies - mods - are where it's really at, though, and the WIP Dune - Project Arrakis mod is a prime example of why that's the case.

Produced by modder Questionthis, Dune - Project Arrakis is precisely what it says on the tin, and then some. It's a comprehensive planet replacer mod that attempts to overhaul the backwater world of McClure III into glorious Arrakis from the mind of Paul Herbert and Dune. This means Spice, Sandworms, sietches, Fremen factions, and lots more. As this is a one-person job, though, it's going to take a long while before Questionthis makes good on their ambition. The good news is that the bits that are currently there are extremely promising in their own right.

Starfield's getting a Dune/Arrakis mod that replaces a whole planet

Questionthis has a very long road ahead of them, though I will say that they're on the right track from my point of view. You can - and should - check out Du?ne - Project Arrakis on? Nexus Mods right now, where you'll be beset by a series of su?rprisingly atmospheric screenshots. Some of them even include the embodiment of Shai-Hulud, the sandworms themselves, and they are absolutely horrific.

I will say that the filter-feeding version?? of the creature from Villeneuve's recent silver screen adaptations makes more biological sense than the multi-jawed super-predator monstrosity created by Questionthis. Yet, it's hard to argue against the modded variant's sheer awesomeness and creepiness, so I'm quite happy with how Question?this's work has been turning out.

And, really, they're thoroughly dedicated to this mod: "This is more than a planet conversion mod," they say. "It's a comprehensive and hand-crafted overhaul of McClure III to bring the world of Frank Herbert's Dune to Starfield."

Comprehe??nsive indeed! Here's the planned feature list:

• Hand-crafted POIs and settlements.
• Player homes.
• New mineable materials (e.g. Spice Melange).
• New creatures, factions, NPCs, and even abilities.
• New quests

As of update 1.4 for Dune - Project Arrakis, you can already plop down Spice Extractors to harvest Melange on Arrakis, enjoy your very own customizable sietch??, and even find mini-worms out and about. Plenty more to come, of course, but? Questionthis's work is already plenty impressive in my book.

With that all out of the way, where's that DOOM questline mod we sa?w almost a month ago? The expectation was that it would be released sometime around the admittedly awesome REV-8 vehicle update late in August, but it's nowhere to be seen so far. Stay tuned!

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The STALKER series has a long, complicated, and extremely storied history of development. From the earliest days of Oblivion Lost all the way to the release of the open-source port of GSC Game World's X-Ray engine, it's quite fascinating. How likely, though, is it that STALKER 2 tops all that?

Here's the thing about STALKER 2: the odds of it truly substituting and improving upon every single aspect of its predecessors are remarkably slim. I've said before that, following the latest developer deep dive, I'm way more keen on the stat?e of the game than ever before. The developer, GSC Game World, is obviously doing its best to replicate the immaculate vibes of the old STALKER titles in every possible way, but I ??just don't see it happening across the board, and modding is one of the reasons why I feel this way.

Now, obviously, this article may well prove to be incorrect within a couple of years: STALKER 2 may well be the title that will kickstart full-fledged Unreal Engine 5 modding in an unprecedented way. You're going to want to keep a pinch of salt at hand as you read, is what I'm getting at. Yet, having been at the ground zero of each and every one of STALKER's PC releases,?? I can't help but be skeptical of UE's ability to host this franchise's burgeoning modding community. Down below, I'll explain why that's the case.

STALKER 2 replaces X-Ray with Unreal Engine 5, but is it for the better?

Obviously, this header is a bit of a stinker when you think about it, because good grief was X-Ray an absolute mess in its Shadow of Chernobyl build. Yet, as years went by and OpenXRay came into its own, the community ended up fixing and improving upon every single aspect of the old, original STALKER titles while developing a new standalon?e? experience along the way.

This materialized in the form of Call of Chernobyl - a free single-player mod that unifies all the content from Shadow of Chernobyl, Clear Sky, and Call of Pripyat into one A-Life simulating super-sandbox. It is phenomenal, and if you haven't yet given it a chance, I highly recommend doing so. Avoid the usual assortment of Anomaly and GAMMA modpacks that players often recommend, too: just give STALKER a chance for its ecology to start popping off. Now, had STALKER always relied on third-party engines, this wouldn't have been possible, and I firmly believe that, in turn, we wouldn't be so vigorously discussing the merits of a full-featured STALKER 2 to begin with.

Don't get me wrong: Unreal Engine 5 is obviously going to be a huge improvement to the core stability and feature-set of STALKER 2: Heart of Chornobyl. Its tech-stack is so massive that GSC Game World didn't have to spend time producing their own custom engine that would, inevitably, come apart at the seams if X-Ray is anything to go by. Yet, in moving over to a mainstream third-party solution, GSC Game World is without a doubt losing something that's been absolutely crucial to STALKER: modding capacity.

The STALKER modding community is almost guaranteed to suffer

Certainly, there are moddable Unreal Engine 5 games. The engine lends itself to third-party customiza??tion way better than its immediate predecessor, but it's still not even close to the flexibility of Unreal Engine 3. UE3, in turn, was a pale shadow of some other game engines when it comes to modding, and X-Ray is one of them.

It's crucial to understand that STALKER games have had prolific modding communities basically from day one onwards. True, we didn't get to enjoy the golden age of Call of Chernobyl until after the release of OpenXRay in 2020, but that's beside the point: deep modding is a crucial implement for a STALKER game. It's a pillar of the franchise's community, and I sadly do not think this will continue with STALKER 2: Heart of Chornobyl.

Here's the jig: it all has to do with Unreal Engine 5 and how moddable it is or is not. Now, obviously, all of this depends entirely on the developer, a game's community, and whether or not they end up releasing the mod-kit/SDK for a game in the end. Some UE5 games are moddable, to an extent. Take Ready or Not, for example, which has map mods, gun?? mods, AI mods, and a variety of other thingamabobs ?play??ers can install through the integrated modding UI.

Thing is, though, that virtually everyone recommends manually installing mods regardless, because the in-game UI is simply unreliable and doesn't work properly half the time. I can vouch for this, too: the mods will not reliably load in Ready or Not if you don't put in some elbow grease.

Technically, the possibility of modding is on the table for STALKER 2 and, certainly, GSC Game World has promised to support it, as per the official website. Given UE5's track record, though, I just don't think the game's modding community will ever reach the ridiculous heights of its predecessors. Predecessors which, note, did not come ??with S?DKs of any sort, only for modders themselves to reverse-engineer them into being.

STALKER 2 will continue the franchise's legacy, but jankiness and free-form modding may be a thing of the past

I fear that this article's tone may suggest that I'm somehow skeptical of STALKER 2 in general. Not at all, though: not after the lates?t batch of gameplay t??railers and showpieces. Heck, I was absolutely thrilled when Scar of Clear Sky fame made a triumphant (and surprisingly jolly) appearance in his own dedicated trailer.

No, I genuinely believe that STALKER 2: Heart of Chornobyl will deliver a true STALKER gaming experience that meaningfully riffs on what came before it. I just don't think the game's new tech-stack is going to allow the modding community to spread its wings quite as much as it did with Call of Chernobyl.

Gun skins, armors, and perhaps even some new content? I'm sure it'll drop in, sooner or later. Something resembling a full-scale retrofit such as GAMMA, though? No shot. At least not from what we've seen of Unreal Engine 5 so far. And, really, it's hard to argue that this hypothetical scenario wouldn't be a marked loss for the STALKER community.

For the time being, let's wait and see what comes of all this. Even if STALKER 2 does manage to find its footing as a proper modding platform, it'll take years before we know how far modders can take it. In the interi?m?, we just gotta hope that GSC Game World can deliver the base gameplay experience we're all hoping to see.

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I love Magicka. It's one of the most broken, poorly balanced games I've ever spent dozens of hours playing, and that's not a joke. Arrowhead Games' old classic actually shares a lot of DNA with Helldivers 2, and after looking into its development history, stuff's begun t??o make sense.

For context, I'm basing a huge chunk of my thoughts in this article on three diffe??rent sources:

• My personal experience with Arrowhead's output (I was one of those who played The Showdown Effect)
• The community's experiences with Helldivers 2 which is extremely hard to miss if you frequent the game's main subreddit
• A 2011 postmortem of Magicka was posted on GameDeveloper, where the former Arrowhead CEO (and current CCO) Johan Pilestedt explained many of the team's mistakes.

The latter is an excellent article in general, but more specifically, it's just about all the insight you need into Arrowhead Games' production capacities. It's a mirror, too, of what's going on with Helldivers 2 at this time, as the game just keeps jumping from o?ne world-ending crisis?? into another without a pause.

I'm not interested in kicking Helldivers 2 while it's down at all. I enjoy it quite a lot even today, even as a solo player, and I genuinely believe it's going to improve at some point. If you need a bit? of hope in this regard, look no further than Pilestedt's own little Q&A that recently went up on Discord. It's good stuff, though it obviously remains to be seen whether Arrowhead can deliver all that.

That being what it is, I feel like it might be useful for those who aren't familiar with Magicka and Helldivers 1 to get a sense of why this game is having so many problems. Because, really, though it might feel like Arrowhead is a mostly unknown quantity from a casual, mainstream point of view, this really couldn't be further from the truth. Quite the opposite, in fact, as the studio is seemingly repeating some of the mistakes it did with Magicka in the late aughts.

Helldivers 2 is a repeat of Magicka in some key ways, and that's not a compliment

As I said before, you should read up on that interview with Pilestedt if you want to get into the nitty-gritty of what made (and broke!) Magicka back in the day. It's an excellent article, and I genuinely feel it will help readers understand what might be going on with Helldivers 2 in the background. Here are some pertinen??t facts to keep in mind if you don't have the time to ?do so, though:

• Arrowhead massively underestimated the amount of work it would take to make Magicka, by a whopping 700 percent.
• Magicka was being made to be a "niche" game, which allowed Arrowhead to easily "filter and dismiss "incorrect" feedback from certain well-established people that knew the industry better." Later on, Pilestedt admits that some of this advice had a bearing on their situation: "It was almost as if we were told about the exact position of all the mines in a minefield and we still, like some sort of imbeciles, were compelled to step on them."
• The game's instability wasn't apparent until it was released on Steam, where a "huge number of people bought it the first day" and encountered "severe bugs and crashes."
• There wasn't a grand plan for the production of the game, leading to the release of content that shouldn't have been pushed out: "All that existed was a timeline on the whiteboard with numbered weeks associated with levels and features. If a level slipped past the week to which it was assigned, we would just consider it "good enough" -- even though it was missing crucial gameplay features."
• Pilestedt adds that his team had a "tendency of having to experience mistakes before learning from them," which "kept haunting [Arrowhead] throughout the entire development process."

I'm sure you get the point by now. I'm not saying that Helldivers 2 is a scaled-up carbon copy of the problematic development of Magicka, but I am saying that the two games appear to rhyme in some key ways. What does that mean, exact?ly? Maybe nothing. Possibly everything. This is the same studio we're talking about, after all, with many of the same people spearheading its production pipelines? and project management.

It's not too late to start playing Helldivers 2, not by a long shot, but Arrowhead has been burning through player goodwill at a frankly ridiculous rate. I'm wondering just how many times the CEO or CCO will need to explai?n themselves (again) ?and promise to do better, only for the next update to tank things further.

I still believe Helldivers 2 is a good game. Frankly, I still think it's one of the best releases of the year and beyond. It's just that it's turn?ed out to be a bit of a hot potato for Arrowhead, and the studio seems not to have put on its gloves yet.

Unlike Magicka, Helldivers 2 still has a chance of rising beyond its problems

As it currently stands, Magicka is kind of toast. The game is thoroughly broken and unplayable without a community patch, and there's virtual??ly no chance of it ever being officially fixed. There is Magicka 2, but it wasn't made by Arrowhead at all, so it's not relevant to my argument.

Helldivers 2, however, doesn't have to share this fate. It seems all but obvious that Arrowhead Games and PIlestedt himself have repeated some pretty big mistakes in developing this game. The team is now struggling to keep up with the community's demand for more content on top of having some questionable balancing choices. Both of these problems, though, can be resolved in due time.

I genuinely believe that the last couple of months have just been Helldivers 2's teething issues as Arrowhead scrambles to nudge itself into live-service operations mode. The ga?me is simply too important both for A??rrowhead and for Sony to keep driving it into the mud, and Pilestedt's outlined plan for the game's future updates is excellent.

For this to happen, though, I'm hoping that Arrowhead does end up looking back at what happened to Magicka. It's an excellent example o??f what can happen to a fun, funny, and zeitgeisty game if it's mishandled, and it really was Arrowhead's doing at the time.

The post Is Helldivers 2 repeating Magicka’s mistakes? appeared first on Destructoid.

I'm usually the first to bemoan the modern Forza games' ??ridiculous insistenc?e on temporarily adding new content to the game, only to yank it back out in a few weeks' time, but this time I've got better news. Turn 10 announced that Forza Motorsport is un-sunsetting its timed content.

Well, alright, it's not all timed content that's coming back to Forza Motorsport, and there are still some problems left for Turn 10 to discuss, but this is excellent news regardless, and it ought to be celebrated. In a recent blog post on Steam bearing the mysterious, initially equally ominous and promising title to "A Message to the Motorsport Community," this blog is basically all good news through-and-through. Between new tracks, the new Drift Mode, more ways to unlock timed rewards, and Builders' Cup upgrades, Forza Motorsport fans have got much to look forward to.

Turn 10 announces oodles of good news for Forza Motorsport, including the big un-sunsetting of content

To get the elephant out of the room first, the un-sunsetting of Forza Motorsport's annoyingly timed content isn't going to be comprehensive. Not yet, at least, as Turn 10 is currently only going to add select temporary cups and rewards from prior ??seasons to the game: "Later this year, we will add select serie??s and rewards from previous updates as permanent additions to the Builders Cup," says the announcement, adding that "next year we'll be introducing a number of permanent race car-focused Tours to the Career."

Not bad, right? This builds on top of the announcement of the new Challenge Hub feature, too, which will allow players to unlock specific timed and permanent rewards in a variety of different ways. Upgrades to Builder's Cup and the Challenge Hub should help alleviate some of Motorsport's most annoying FOMO, in theory. If Turn 10 continues to upgrade Builder's Cup on a yearly(ish) basis, though, there won't be much to complai??n about in this regard.

Before the end of the year, Turn 10 has also promised all of the following b??oons:

• Weather options for Free-Play racing (ranging from Partly Cloudy to Rain Lightning)
• Sunset Peninsula race track, slated for Update 13 (mid-October)
• Bathurst race track, slated for Update 15 (December)
• a substantially improved Spectate Mode
• Drift Mode, accompanied by Formula Drift vehicles being added to the Showroom
• Creative Hub for vinyls, tunes, photos, replays, etc.
• Share Codes for custom-made content

And loads more, which you can read about in the full blog post over on Steam. Should many of these features have been in the game on day one? Absolutely. Is it still good that Turn 10 is looking to continue improving Forza Motorsport for the foreseeable future, though? Absolutely. "In 2025, we will contin??ue to update Forza Motorsport, and as in 2024, this will include new features, bug fixes, and additional cars and tracks," says the blog.

As I mentioned earlier, there are still some problems that Turn 10 needs to deal with outside of adding more permanent content to the game. Forza Motorsport's performance and stability are still somewhat iffy on PC, to begin with, and its always-online nature leaves much to be desired for those of us who are on shoddy, unstable Internet. So, perhaps, the next time Turn 10 po?sts a "message to the Motorsport community," they might tackle these issues head-on. In the interim, kudos!

The post Forza Motorsport is returning some of its previously sunset content, updating old even??ts, adding drift mode, and loads more appeared first on Destructoid.

I'm sure I'm not the only one who has trouble dealing with the constant onslaught of live-ser??vice gam??es that never end, and want you to keep playing them and (preferably) spending money forever. Enter Warhammer 40K: Space Marine 2, whose announce?d live-service plans seem remarkably reasonable, in ?comparison!

As per the official Space Marine 2 content roadmap posted by Saber Interactive, the stud??io's plans for the game are a far cry from most other live-service titles we're all familiar with. Broadly, what we're looking at here is a system where virtually all the genuinely important content (i.e. Operations, weapons, enemy types, PvP maps, etc.) will be ??dropping into the game at no additional charge.

The paid DLC will, from the look of things, be f?ocused exclusively on cosmetics of various sorts, which is about as player-friendly as a modern live-service game will get.

All Space Marine 2 content will be free, with cosmetics locked behind season passes

According to Saber Interactive's "Year One Battle Plan" for Space Marine 2, the free updates for the game will include:

• QoL improvements, such as ultrawide render support
• New PvE missions, difficulties, weapons, and game modes at large
• Bonus progression options, such as the PvE Prestige Ranks feature

Season pass offerings, on the other hand, are exclusively of the cosmetic sort. Specifically, Saber Interactive seems to plan on introducing virtually every major Astartes Chapter into the game, with a huge roster of Champion Packs already slated for release. We know, for one, that the game's Season 2 will include a host of Dark Angels customization o??ptions, and those who don't purchase the season pass will simply not get to use those armor pie??ces and skins for their custom Astartes.

It's a pretty good deal, all things considered. Obviously, we'll have to wait and see how it pans out in practice, but Saber Interactive's plan is more player-friendly than I expected it to be, and it shows that the developer is seemingly intent on keeping all players on a le?vel playing field. Some will just be shinier than others, that's all.

If you, too, are genuinely excited about Space Marine 2, you may be interested in learning about the game's four-day early access period, which is kicking off on September 5. Sadly, this is locked behind Gold and Ultra edition pre-orders, but if you know you'll ??be playing this game on day one, it may well be worth it to splurge. Granted, this is a fairly expensive predicament, so it may well be sensible to wait until September 9 for the proper release. If nothing else, the reviews are bound to be in by then, and we'll know for sure Saber Interactive really has cooked up something special.

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Are you on an Exotic-earning spree in Destiny 2? If so, you're probably pretty thrilled about the release of an exciting new Exotic mission, En??core, which lets you earn the awesome-looking Choi?r of One special ammo auto rifle. The bit that might dampen the excitement, though, are all the bugs.

While some of Destiny 2's bugs have historically even been welcomed by the community and turned into full-blooded features due? to ??their usefulness, the problems with Encore are markedly more annoying. According to those who've been hard at work trying to unlock Choir of One, the new Encore mission is absolutely choc-full of problems that are virtually impossible to avoid. Examples include excessive soft-locking, random insta-death occurrences, and broken progress??ion mechanics, which all combine to make for a particularly annoying Exotic mission.

Getting the Choir of One is a real chore in Destiny 2, due to bugs

On top of confusing and outright broken gameplay mechanics that pop up throughout Encore, players have also highlighted the presence of more invisible walls than there usually are in such missions. New Independent Variable Minotaurs are egregiously annoying to fight, too, due to their longer-range telep??ortation abilitie??s.

The roster of problems with Encore is too long to list here, which illustrates just how big of a fumble this release has been so far. This puts Bungie's previous comments in an interview with GamesRadar about it being "the biggest Exotic mission we've ever built" into starkly negative light, one might feel: "The ability for us to build this massive Exotic mission �?literally one of the ??biggest �?it wouldn't have been possible in the past."

The fact that Encore is currently such a pain to interact with a particularly notable disappointment to those who've stayed on top of this year's seasonal offerings. It's simple: Bungie may be going through a particularly problematic period of time, but the content of this year's first Episode has been genuinely solid. Starting with a strong kick-off and wrapping up each new story beat with satisfying Act finales, fans of the game have had an opportunity to continue enjoying Destiny 2 even after its Light and Dark saga wrapped up in full with The Final Shape.

Heck, even the new Battleground missions have been?? a marked improvement compared to those that came before it, to the point where I'm no longer particularly worried about them potentially diluting the Vanguard Ops playlist further still.

Exotic missions? are just a single step down fro?m the heights of Raids and Dungeons, and having one of the biggest and most promising pieces of this type of content fumble due to bugs is a real shame. Bungie is yet to chime in on the matter, though the team is almost certainly already working out fixes to Encore's many, many problems.

The silver lining, granted, is that some players claim they haven't encountere??d bugs of any sort playing Encore. S?o, there's a chance - however slim it may be - that you, too, will be able to play this mission the way it was meant to be en?joyed.

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The first major expansion pack for Starfield, Shattered Space, is due to launch on September 30??. Bethesda has, naturally, been t??rying to work up the community ahead of the grand release with cool pre-release materials, but an interview with lead creative producer Tim Lamb seems to have gone under the radar.

This interview, courtesy of Gaming Boulevard, took place during this year's Gamescom, and while much of it simply reiterates what we already know ?about the DLC, there are some really interesting tidbits in there still. Like, for example, Lamb outright states that there are some "new mechanics that [Bethesda is] really excited about." Lamb here references some new zero-gravity combat scenarios, for one, as well as a way to "really tailor [the player ships] to the [owners']?? playstyle." What this means, exactly, we do not know, but that's just the start of it.

Starfield promises loads of new gear for Shattered Space

Continuing his comment abo?ut new combat scenarios and ship customization options, Lamb also said that "there are new tools and gadgets that will help players interact with the environment in deeper, more meaningful ways," which isn't necessarily something I expected to hear. Certainly, new guns, gear, and even ship g??oodies are sort of to be expected, but Lamb's comments here have some slightly different implications. They might not amount to anything in the end, as he might've been referring to ship upgrades in a flowery way, but the fact that Bethesda recently released the RAV-8 land vehicle clearly shows that the studio is upping its game over time.

Something to keep in mind here is that Shattered Space seems to be a more endgame-oriented piece of content: "The DLC is definitely designed with more experienced players in mind," Lamb told Gaming Boulevard. "We wanted to make sure that the challenges and the story feel appropriately scaled for those who have already invested time into bui?lding up their characters."

This, taken in tandem with the interaction comments, could suggest that there's more to Shattered Space than meets the eye, and that the DLC might lead to some meaningful upgrades to Starfield's core gameplay loop. Even beyond the tailor-made content of Shattered Space, that is.

Let's not forget, either, that Shattered Space is only just the start for Starfield's post-launch paid offerings, with the s??econd year of DLC(s) having already be?en confirmed a while ago. For those of us who found Starfield uniquely compelling from day one onwards, this has been a heck of a ride. Further, the recent gl??ut of mods and meaningful game?play updates isn't about to stop anytime soon, meaning we'll have even more reasons to keep spending time in Bethesda's flagship space exploration RPG down the line. A solid showing. Let's see what comes next. And remember that there's that Doom-themed questline coming our way, too.

The post S?tarfield: Shattered Space interview touts new s?hip customization, tools, and gadget options appeared first on Destructoid.

If you, too, can't wait for Project Zomboid's long anticipated Build 42 to launch, then now's the perfect time to explore some other niche takes on the zombie survival fantasy. That's where Terminus: Zombie Survivors comes in, a low-profile roguelike that had its full 1.0 releas?e very recently.

Terminus: Zombie Survivors is, in truth, far more similar to Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead than it is to Zomboid proper, but there's just no mentioning one without also chiming in on the other, given the subject matter on show. To that end, Terminus is a dedicated turn-based roguelike (yes, like) that actually manages to boil down its incredibly deep survival gameplay systems into fairly straightforward verbiage. Graphics are, obviously, not Terminus' strong suit, but ??its strengths plainly lie in gameplay and simulation, and the fact that it's currently got over 2,000 reviews and an ?'Overwhelmingly Positive' rating on Steam kind of speaks for itself.

Terminus: Zombie Survivors released as a full 1.0 experience with stellar reviews

Now, even though Terminus doesn't enjoy the sort of limelight that Zomboid and C:DDA usually get - which is, in itself, relatively minor - it's been trucking along for a fair bit of time. Having first released in Early Access in March 2021, the developer Longplay Studios had a good stint and proved itself with a genuinely compelling product. Its price, too, is similarly compelling at a meager $19,99 without any discounts applied.

Engaging with Terminus: Zombie Survivors in a meaningful ??way is going to take some getting used to for sure, but this is one of those games that are going to keep you? busy for dozens of hours on end if you enjoy the core gameplay loop. And, really, if the reviews are anything to go by, this is a must-play for fans of the niche.

Keeping all of the above in mind, I'm sure that Terminus' turn-based nature is going to put off a significant number of Project Zomboid fans. That's perfectly fine, of course, as not every game is a good fit for every kind of player. It wasn't too long ago that I myself came to terms with the long, long wait between major builds of Project Zomboid, actually, and this helped me temporarily move on to what may or may not be greener pastures. Oh, I'll be back to playing Zomboid as soon as B42 hits, of course, but in the interim, Terminus: Zombie Survivors looks like ?just th??e sort of antidote I need to keep myself from turning.

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Remember Spore? That weird, yet delightfully zany Maxis title that oddly tapered off as you evolved your once glorious single-celled organism into something resembling an intergalactic empire? Well, if you find yourself yearning for its creature creator features, enter the aptly titled Creature Creator on Steam.

Creature Creator comes in as one of the only genuine attempts to replicate one of Spore's most beloved and acclaimed features: the creature creator. Look, Creature Creator makes absolutely no attempt to hide its inspiration. In fact, the game wears it on its proverbial sleeves, with a huge list of content and functionality having been built specifically to replicate Maxis' old feature set in a somewhat modernized format. The final product? A whole game built around the creature creator. Is it worth playing? If you, like me, are a fan of Spore, then absolutely.

The Creature Creator lets you remake your old Spore monstrosities and share them with the world

Though some of its reviews question whether Creature Creator is still undergoing active development, the fact of the matter is that the game just received a shiny new update very recently. Its biggest draw is the addition of?? some fancy new creature customization options (i.e. body p??art shine, asymmetry, metallic properties, etc.) and improved support for the Steam Workshop, where you can share and download other players' creatures to your heart's content.

Circling back to my earlier thoughts about Spore, the game definitely fell apart after it left behind its creature-focused progression and gameplay mechanics. Developing a whole civilization just didn't feel nearly as interesting and engaging as developing a single type of organism did, and Spore suffered for this mistake. Creature Creator thus attempts to focus just on that one particular lightning that Spore managed to capture back?? in the day, and it delivers precisely ?that.

Now, to be perfectly fair, I'd be hard-pressed to call Creature Creator an excellent game. It's not that, not really, and its 'Mixed' review status is generally about what you'd expect out of one such project. Thing is, though, that Creature Creator is the single game that's ever properly attempted to capitalize on the honestly ridiculous appeal that Spore's original Creature Creator feature had back in the day. Outside of this game, there's precious little to look for elsewhere. With that in mind, if you're about as nostalgic over Spore as I am, I do recommend Creature Creator. Not even for the game??play, necessarily, but for the titular feature itself.

If you're not all that nostalgic about Spore, though, there's still merit in checking Creature Creator out. You do get to build and play as some seriously improbable gen?etic monstrosities, and - most impor?tantly - the game is only $5 a pop, so it's a minor investment at most. Not bad, right?

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For a game that's been vaguely on the horizon for as long as STALKER 2, it sure is surprising to see it taking up such a wonderfully nostalgic shape. As if that wasn't enticing enough, we now have confirmation that one of the prior ga??mes' protagonists is coming back: S??car!

That's right: STALKER: Clear Sky's playable character, Scar, appears not to have been zombified at the end of the original STALKER's standalone expansion pack and narrative prequel. Instead, he's quite lively in STALKER 2, as depicted in the latest trailer released by GSC Game World. Although this particular trailer won't be quite as fascinating? to franchise newcomers as some of the other ones might've been, it is just the sort of thing veterans will be on the lookout f?or. Check it out:

Clear Sky protagonist Scar is a supporting character in STALKER 2, it seems

Pushback after pushback, STALKER 2 is still going strong as we approach its supposed Novemb??er release date, and I'll be the first to admit that I'm genuinely surprised with how comprehensive and engaging GSC Game World's recent media blitz has been.? When the last release day postponement was announced, the studio promised oodles of game information over the coming weeks, and that much has certainly been delivered via gameplay videos, in-depth developer talks, and trailers such as the one featured above.

For those who are not in the know, Scar is a bit of a legend in STALKER lore because he was one of the mercenaries tasked with hunting down and killing Strelok, from the original STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl title. The curious bit is that the final sequence of Clear Sky, where Scar chases a?fter Strelok all over Chernobyl NPP with a Gauss Rifle, ??leads to Strelok's amnesia and, in turn, sets the stage for everything else that happens afterwards.

Further, Scar was also the tip of the spear for the Clear Sky faction, and the main working theory as to what happened to him (after the faction wars and the events of Clear Sky) was that he was lobotomized by the Brain Scorcher and turned into a Monolith leader. That's really why this trailer is such a big deal: it redefines a pretty bit chunk of STALKER ??lore and reintroduces Scar as a key character in the new game.

It's exciting stuff, honestly, and that's coming from someone who's gotten fairly jaded about this franchise over the years. I'm not saying that GSC Game World has turned me back into a STALKER believer just yet, mind. It's just that, after the studio's recent efforts, the vision of what STALKER 2 is? and is not is getting clearer and clearer. And?, honestly? I'm here for it.

The post A fan-favorite Clear Sky character returns in STALKER 2, new t?railer reveals appeared first on Destructoid.

It feels like Helldivers 2 has been in hot water for this reason or the other basically from the get go. The infamous Escalation of Freedom update didn't fare all that well, either, prompting the former CEO of Arrowhead Games to talk to the community via an un??expec??ted Q&A.

Pilestedt left his former position as the CEO to take up a more hands-on approach to developing Helldivers 2 as the new CCO. While the game hasn't really made good on all of its promises from that point onwards, Pilestedt has remained one of the community's favorite Arrowhead developers due to his penchant for discussing upcoming content and explaining the reasoning for why Helldivers 2 is going in the direction it's ??been going. His latest Q&A on Discord is no different, in that respect.

Arrowhead CCO Johan Pilestedt reveals lots about Helldivers 2 in recent Q&A

The full Pilestedt Q&A is far too long to be discussed ??in a short article, but I highly recommend checking out the featured Reddit post to sell all the items he talked about t??here. If you're interested in a short, to-the-point summary, though, I'm thrilled to oblige:

• Pilestedt says weapons "should feel powerful - as it says on the box"
• Arrowhead Games is currently operating at roughly 80% of capacity due to the recent vacation season in Sweden
• Helldivers 1-style boss encounters are "maybe" coming to Helldivers 2
• Review bombing cape is still on the docket, Arrowhead "don't want to release it until [they] get more clarity on the country [availability] issue; the game may yet return to sale in some countries
• There's some "tech instability" in regard to Helldivers 2's performance
• Arrowhead is working on a "color mod system" similar to the current vehicle customization feature
• Good chance of releasing weapons with infra-red and night vision optics in the "long-term"
• The current, nerfed version of the Flamethrower was "not iterated upon enough and the VFX looks like [Team Fortress 1]"
• A variety of Helldivers 1 content is bound to be released in Helldivers 2 down the line (e.g. LAS-13, AT-47, EXO-51, etc.)
• An experimental testing server for Helldivers 2 is coming "at some point," is currently being worked on
• Pre-saved gear loadouts are in the works
• Some manner of weapon upgrading and customization is coming
• Removing the Eruptor's shrapnel effect was "the wrong way to go"

That's a whole lot of information, of course, and the really impressive bit is that Pilestedt's interview goes into even more detail on each of these topics and then some. Seriously, I cannot recommend reading through the ??featured Reddit thread enough.

Keeping all of the above in mind, members of the Helldivers 2 community raised a very good ?point very recently:

Arrowhead Games is currently struggling t??o keep up with the community's demands, often delivering nerfs where players feel none are needed, as was the case with the Flamethrower, Eruptor, and Railgun weapons - among many others.

On August 14, Arrowhead promised to de??liver a balancing plan within the next 60 days that should inform players as to what'll be happening with the game's meta in the future, but who knows how that might pan out once it's finally shown off. Further, even if the plan works out fine, can Arrowhead deliver upon its promises? Whatever the case may be, at least the game is fun as long as you stick to the lower difficulties.

The post Former Arrowhead CEO ??has an impromptu Discord Q&A about Helldivers 2 and beyond appeared first on Destructoid.

As Bungie continues its problem-ridden development of the extraction shooter Marathon reboot, the classic Marathon trilogy is now completely released on Steam, now that Marathon Infinity is out and about. All thanks to the efforts of the Aleph One team, we now get to enjoy classic Marathon without any fuss.

Whereas Marathon and Marathon 2: Durandal at least pretended to be simple, straightforward run-and-gun shooters at face value, Marathon Infinity throws any pretense of common sense right out the window with its ridiculously broad, time-hopping main narrative. It's phenomenally weird, and now that Infinity is properly available on Steam, you, too, get to try to make sense of the game's hard-hitting final screen. It's an absolute hoot, I promise you that.

Download Marathon Infinity for free on Steam

Setting its delightfully insane main story aside for a little bit, the Steam version of Marathon Infinity still plays much like a true Marathon game in the sense that it's an extremely puzzle-heavy Doom-alike. Originally released back in October 1996, Marathon Infinity was revived thanks to the efforts of the Aleph One development team, who keep all three classic Marathon titles up and running on modern machinery.

To that end, playing any of the three Marathon titles is easy as pie now that they're all on Steam. Simply install them much as you would any other Steam title - for free, of course - and hit play. There's a heck of a learning curve in getting accustomed to the games' strange delivery of the story, puzzle and movement intricacies, and the hardcore nature of combat. Is it rewarding, though? Absolutely. For context on what's what in Marathon, I recommend checking out MandaloreGaming's reviews of classic Marathon on Youtube:

?//www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9rMu1XYB98&list??=PLfZTtT3IEdDjQTHu3NqLjOUX65d4cDG54

And that's about all there is to it, really. I do recommend installing some of the more recent mods for all three Marathon games to improve assets and whatnot, but aside from that, playing through this surprisingly abstract trilogy of shooters is quite unlike anything else. Oh, and if you're familiar with Destiny's weirdness, you'll feel right at home playing Marathon.

The post All ??three Classic Marathon games are now free on Steam appeared first on Destructoid.

Bethesda has seemingly struck gold with the all-new driveable buggy, which released as part of a free new Gamescom update for Starfield. REV-8 is proving so popular, in fact, that it's effectively taken over the game's biggest subreddit and it already has a few cool mods to have fun with.

As a long-time mainline Bethesda fan, I feel like it's pretty important to note that the release of an actual driveable non-hat vehicle in one of the studio's RPGs is monum??ental stuff. The fact that it's fun, useful, and seemingly universally beloved at this point is a huge boon fo??r the game, too, and the community is absolutely all in on the current REV-8 zeitgeist.

Starfield's new driveable buggy is pretty popular already

Memes, obviously, are the talk of the town, even in loading screens, and since you can take your REV-8 virtually anywhere this means getting it stuck on NASApunk architecture is the obvious go-to for wannabe daredevils. All jokes aside, people genuinely seem to be excited about the car, and even though it's currently missing some pretty obvious functionality (i.e. a storage of some sort) and lacks true customization options, it's a must-have for every Starfield player. Good thing it's free, right?

Now for the really impressive stuff: we already have a host of vehicle mods for players to choose from. Two notable examples are Satou's Old Earth ATV, which takes the shape of a generic Jeep, and the positively delightful NASA Lunar Rover created by Bub. Both of these mods were put together mere hours after the official REV-8 buggy came out, which implies ridiculously fast turnover no matter how you flip it. And, of course, that's all just the start of it, as there are innumerable mods yet to come.

For those who feel like the Starfield Nexus is a bit of a ghost town these days, there's actually a sensible explanation for that: most people have moved on to using Bethesda's official Creations interface, ins?tead. This unprecedented move blindsided me as it's never really happened before, but the good news is that Nexus isn't going anywhere, as the? more complex mods may still need t?o be hosted outside of Creations regardless.

Oh, and for those who aren't all that keen on Starfield's actual driveable vehicles - as monumental of a release as this might be - there's more goodness coming very, very soon. More specifically, Doom-themed goodness, as we're getting a big new bundle of Doom content thanks to the efforts of the modder responsible for the legendary Sim Settlements mod for Fallout 4. Quite the tour de force, all this.

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Are you, too, sick and tired of having to wait for all the good immersive sim games to release from? Early Access to play them? Well, good news then, because the physics-driven Corpus Edax - following the Thief and Dark Messiah schools of game design - is coming out very soon.

Corpus Edax describes itself as a lo-fi sci-fi immersive first-person melee RPG that's "set in a distant retro-futuristic city on the brink of a revolution and on a planet that hides its own secrets." It's a bit of a mouthful, to be frank, but there's really no easy way to describe a true immersive sim without resorting to tongue-tying exercises, honestly. Those who enjoyed Dark Messiah of Might and Magic back in the day will find much to enjoy in Corpus Edax' new release date trailer, I feel.

Indie immersive sim Corpus Edax releases on August 28

As per the trailer featured above, Corpus Edax is due to hit the stores on August 28, and the really good news is that there's a playable demo available on Steam right now. It's an excellent demo, too, and I highly recommend giving it a shot. While it doesn't necessarily speak to the quality of the game's full roster of 12 unique levels, it does offer a solid vertical slice of Corpus Edax gameplay mechanics. ?Spoiler: they're pretty darn great.

The bit that sets Corpus Edax apart from most other modern immersive sims is that it fully embraces melee combat. Players that end up stacking points into physical skills will, therefore, find themselves ragdolling enemies left and right, while those who invest in stealth will play something more like a Thief than anything else. It's an exciting mashup of gameplay options, honestly, and as long as Corpus Edax lives up to what's on show in the demo, this is bound to become a must-play for fans of the ImSim ?niche.

Corpus Edax will - if it ends up delivering on its promises - be just the thing to play while we wait for Raphael Colantonio and Wolfeye Studios' ne??xt big ImSim project. We still don't have a title for the mysterious first-person game, but we do know it's going to be roughly set around the Wild West era, which is neat. There really aren't many of these games coming out at the best of times, so the presence of smaller-scale titles such as Corpus Edax is worth celebrating. With the game coming out in jus??t a few days' time, we won't have?? to wait long to see how good or bad it ends up being.

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