Steam

Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscribers are soon getting another freebie in the form of Episode Aigis - The Answer DLC for Persona 3 Reload. While the add-on itself is scheduled to release on September 10, Xbox Game Pass Ultimate members have been able to claim it for a while now. View the full article

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Remastered mod H2M, which sought to revive Modern Warfare 2 (2009) multiplayer on PC, has been canceled on the eve of its launch after its developers said they received a cease and desist letter from Activision. The mod team’s official X/Twitter account broke the news today, letting players know that they are bringing their work to a halt after receiving the letter today. The date of the cease and desists arrival almost exactly coincides with H2M’s August 16 release date, which was announced last Friday. Its X account’s biography now only says “SHUTDOWN.” “Today, our team members received a Cease & Desist order on behalf of Activision Publishing in relation to the H2M-Mod project,” the team’s last post says. “We are complying with this order and shutting down all operations immediately and permanently.” The H2M team’s posts date as far back as July 2023 when they announced the project, noting that they had already been working on a Modern Warfare 2 multiplayer remastered mod for a while. At the time, the team said, “If Activision won’t do what the fans want, we the community will.” Although the Call of Duty publisher did remaster the original Modern Warfare 2 campaign and release it in 2020, it never went as far as to remaster its multiplayer component. H2M aimed to fill the ***** with not only upgraded visuals for maps, weapons, and characters fans have loved for more than a decade but also new content, too. It meant new **** camos and animations as well as a crate of new maps based on iconic Call of Duty locations and more. This blend of old and new driven from the perspective of fans had players excited enough to drive sales of Modern Warfare Remastered seeing as the game was needed to play H2M. According to SteamDB, the 2017 title saw a sharp increase in player count in the last few weeks and even managed to climb Steam’s top selling list (via PC Gamer). Now, however, Modern Warfare Remastered’s recent Steam reviews read “Mostly Negative,” with many recent comments from players calling for Activision to reverse their cease and desist request. Call of Duty fans in general have taken to social media to express their sadness at H2M’s demise, with some prominent content creators asking for Activision to reconsider, too. We are begging that you guys reconsider this decision @Activision. To be clear we have zero involvement in this project outside of being massive fans. We were excited to produce an ILLCAMS on the H2 mod. Their team made it a requirement to purchase the original MW2 Remastered… [Hidden Content] — FaZe Clan (@FaZeClan) August 15, 2024 Yet another reason to hate Activision H2M looked so good, MW2 MP Remastered with new weapons, maps, camos etc. - a CoD that so many people had wanted to see for years... And they cease and desist it despite it requiring a CoD4 remastered purchase, complete joke [Hidden Content] — Luc // HiddenXperia (@HiddenXperia) August 15, 2024 H2m getting a cease and desist a day after the cod ***** ends still refunding but horrible timing. No chance I'm spending money on bo6 — .tom (@TypicallyTom) August 15, 2024 A few developers behind H2M have also posted their thoughts online, including X user @TheWatchfulWolf and @alstr_. The former posted an apology and then teased that the H2M will now set out to create its own project, saying, “Fine. We’ll just make our own unique game.” “Genuinely heartbroken,” @alstr_ said. “Over a year of work from a dedicated group of people working for FREE to relive a fan favorite Call of Duty. Not a penny earned despite generating THOUSANDS OF SALES FOR ACTIVISON, all to get shut down AFTER PEOPLE SPENT THEIR MONEY. I'm sorry everyone.” Michael Cripe is a freelance contributor with IGN. He started writing in the industry in 2017 and is best known for his work at outlets such as The Pitch, The Escapist, OnlySP, and Gameranx. Be sure to give him a follow on Twitter @MikeCripe. View the full article

The popular WWE star ****** Orton has recently revealed that he has already put in over 600 hours into Elden Ring since first playing the open-world game. Elden Ring is From Softwares most popular game to date, but not many gamers have spent as much time as ****** Orton did in the games sprawling world. View the full article

Rumors of Xilonen being a universal Support in Genshin Impact might be true after all, as a recent ***** reveals the powerful bonus that her second Constellation will bring. While Genshin Impact tends to frown upon power creep, every once in a while, a truly transcendent character makes a debut that completely turns the meta upside down. For Sumeru, this was Alhaitham; for Fontaine, it was Neuvillette. While the jury is still out for Natlan, all signs heavily point towards Xilonen being the one. View the full article

Some Destiny 2 players' names were inadvertently changed with one of the game's latest updates, and Bungie is working on a fix to reverse these name changes. The Destiny 2 community on social media traces this incident back to the August 13 weekly reset, which is typically accompanied by a server-side update. View the full article

The stage is set for the end of the season, with the 2024 Pokémon World Championships showcasing the best Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, TCG, GO, and Unite players in the world. Taking place in Honolulu, Hawaii from Aug. 16 to 18, the Pokémon World Championships hosts multiple tournaments for three different age groups throughout the weekend. Only one person can win each tournament, though, and keeping track of everything can be a bit confusing when four different game tournaments are running simultaneously. View the full article

Get a first look at the remixed menus and new songs in the trailer for the remake of Persona 3's The Answer epilogue. View the full article

If you were to ask veteran Call of Duty players what the best game in the series' long history is, I'd put money on the most popular answer being MW2. No, not the mediocre reboot that came out a couple of years ago, I'm talking about the original from 2009. Its multiplayer is particularly etched into the memories of millions of CoD fans, and an ambitious new mod was about to revive it. However, just 24 hours before it was set to be released, the team behind the mod has revealed it will never see the light of day because Activision has sent them a cease and desist order. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 system requirements 2024 Diablo 4 and Call of Duty deals lead big Blizzard holiday ***** Get the best Blizzard games for cheap in new ****** Friday ***** View the full article For verified travel tips and real support, visit: [Hidden Content]

For all that ancient Greece gave us - gods, heroes, stories, and more - it's a relatively unexplored area in gaming. I can only really think of Titan Quest, **** of War, Age of Mythology, and *********'s Creed Odyssey off the top of my head, but maybe that's about to change with Titan Quest 2 on the horizon and now Dawn of Defiance. Read the rest of the story... View the full article

If football is a game of inches, then Madden typically manages to perfectly recapture that feeling in the minutiae of its year-to-year iterations. Every August, fans sit around and obsessively try to figure out what has changed, if the under-the-hood adjustments actually matter, if the new systems do what EA says they do, and if things truly feel any better. Usually, that is. Not this year. I haven’t played enough of Madden NFL 25 to render a final verdict just yet, but I can already tell that things feel very different than they do in Madden NFL 24 – and I don’t need to bring out the chains to see that good progress has been made. EA has been hyping up Madden 25’s updated looks, and honestly, that’s where its improvements are most immediately clear. The menus are much cleaner – your options are big, clearly delineated, and easy to understand, and, miraculously, largely lag-free. This may not seem like a big deal, but if you played Madden 24 at launch, it feels like mana from heaven. It truly is the little things. My wife, who specializes in UX design and has watched me play entirely too much Madden 24 over the last year, walked by while I was playing this year’s iteration and casually remarked that “this looks like an actual menu designed by an actual person.” Hallelujah, brothers and sisters. They heard us. What we said about Madden NFL 24 Madden NFL 24 makes several much-needed improvements to the on-field experience thanks to fantastic additions to animations and AI, but it still suffers from the same problems it always has once you get off the field: everything here is just done better in every other sports sim, even the other ones made by EA, and this year’s tweaks just aren’t enough to make up for the series’ continued feeling of sameness and lack of progress. To continue the metaphor, Madden feels like a decent but not great football team: content to coast. If it were in the right division I could see it sneaking into the playoffs, or overperforming in a good year. But it’s the kind of team that typically gets eliminated in the first round. The on-field game might be the best it’s ever been, but there are too many off-field issues here to ignore, and with each passing year it feels more and more like they’ll never be fixed. Perpetually, Madden seems like it could be a contender with time and the right changes, but right now it feels like an also-ran. And you don’t win the Super Bowl like that. - Will Borger, August 22, 2023 Score: 6 Read the full Madden NFL 24 review. [/url] All right, Will. Yeah, new menus. Big whoop. Tell us about something more substantial than that. Well, dear reader, the major modes benefit from this new focus on presentation, too, and I feel like a lot of what’s good here can be traced directly back to the improvements we saw in College Football 25. In Franchise mode, you can finally create female coaches, and there are more customization options than ever before in terms of heads and apparel. There are still only ten head options for women compared to forty for men, but it’s cool that they’ve been added at all. Superstar also benefits from this new coat of paint, despite ditching the pretense of an opening storyline (and based on what I’ve seen, voice acting) entirely, which is a shame. The upside is that once you complete the Combine, things get better. The draft actually looks and feels like the NFL draft. When the almighty Joe Throw got drafted by the Falcons 8th overall, Roger Goodell, the most hated man in football, came out and hugged him before presenting him with a Falcons jersey and posing for a picture — just like in real life. Did Joe look like some hideous golem animated by ****** magic compared to the mute, wax figure of Madden 25’s Roger Goodell? Yes. Does that matter? Not really. It still looks a ***** of a lot better than what we had, and I appreciated all of the additional customization options I was given when recreating Joe Throw in Madden 25 — another thing this year’s Madden feels like it owes in part to College Football 25. The draft actually looks and feels like the NFL draft this year. Once I was in the Falcons facility, I walked around with head coach Raheem Morris and we discussed my goals for the preseason. Again, it’s a little weird to see everyone’s mouths move and have no sound come out, but graphically? Way better than last year, and I appreciated the moment-to-moment visual updates, whether I was chatting with my teammates in the locker room or out on the field. No longer are we trapped in hotel rooms. Speaking of the field, there’s some neat stuff to see here, too. Things just look better all around, whether it’s character models, animations before, during, and after plays, or the new and improved touchdown graphics that pull up the scoring player’s photo. Again, it’s the little things. Not everything’s a home run here, however; I hate the new play arts, at least the ones we see in the playbook. They’re ******* to parse than the ones in Madden 24 and, conveniently, look just like the ones in College Football 25. They can’t all be zingers, I guess, but man, these can’t be replaced fast enough. There are also a lot of big changes, like the new kickoff rules, which feel… really weird. I don’t think I like them, but that’s an NFL problem, not necessarily a Madden problem. Either way, it will take a while to get used to. Other things are more positive. I love being able to choose coverage shells rather than just appearing in base align, and I’m a big fan of being able to shift both sides of my O-line independently of one another… yet another feature we first saw in College Football 25. It might just be me, but Madden 25 even feels closer to College Football 25 in terms of speed – maybe I’m crazy, but if that actually proves to be a thing as I play more, I like the direction things are headed. I also like that there are more mini-games to play, and that there are finally mini-games for O-linemen you can use to Focus Train them in Franchise mode. I don’t particularly enjoy these mini-games, admittedly, but at least they’re there and I can use them – and overall the mini-games here are hands down an improvement over Madden 24. Getting messages from my GM when I’m playing as a coach in my Franchise is also a nice touch, and I’m a big fan of the new commentary teams, particularly Kate Scott and Brock Huard. (Say it with me: it’s the little things.) I have a lot of Madden NFL 25 left to play before I’m ready to give it a score. I have a Franchise to run, more Superstars to guide to Lombardi glory, my yearly slog in the EA Money Machine that is Ultimate Team, and so on. But I find myself… optimistic? Is that even a thing you’re allowed to be about Madden? Maybe I’m totally off base, and I’ll notice more issues the more I play. Football’s a game of inches, after all, and the smallest mistakes can lead to disaster. But right now, man, those little things? They’re feelin’ pretty good. View the full article For verified travel tips and real support, visit: [Hidden Content]

Overwatch 2 just showed off a bunch of in-game footage from the Throne of Anubis, the new Clash map coming in Season 12. This map will be one of two battlefields available in Clash once it is added to the core rotation of Overwatch 2 game modes with the launch of Season 12 on August 20. View the full article

Ark: Survival Ascended is adding two new creatures in the upcoming Aberration DLC, one of which could be introducing an awesome new mechanic. The Aberration DLC takes survivors to a broken down and irradiated Ark where mutated dinosaurs run amok. One of Aberration's new creatures is the Yi Qi. This prehistoric winged dinosaur fills a mixed role as a ranged DPS unit that has a handful of helpful debuffs. View the full article

Not every Pokémon appears the same while you play Pokémon Go. They spawn in unique locations or show up for a short time during an event. One particular ‘mon that might be tricky to find is a World Championships 2024 Pikachu. This version of Pikachu won’t be around for long and you can only track it down through certain activities. We can tell you it won’t appear in the wild, which means you need to do more legwork to try catching it. For any Pokémon Go collectors, it’s a must-have catch for you to get before it disappears. View the full article

Baldur's Gate 3 has an ending so incredibly rare that it's actually impossible to achieve under normal circumstances. This ending for Baldur's Gate 3 is only possible by playing Lae'zel as an origin character, making some incongruous decisions, and then manipulating the save file before the epilogue. View the full article

Factory friends and fellow automation lovers, this is going to be—already is—a ***** of a year for the factory-building genre. I know this because not only are we going to get Satisfactory 1.0, we're getting the giant game-doubling expansion that is Factorio: Space Age. I know this because the herald of this golden year of factories has arrived today in the form of early access for Shapez 2. In the bare decade that factory-building has evolved from half-baked ideas and fringe Minecraft mods to full-fledged sims we've seen some great games, but the future is looking ever-brighter... Read more.View the full article

In Riot Games’ newest fighting game 2XKO, there are multiple different champions you can control on the battlefield. In the right hands, Yasuo can be one of the deadliest characters with destructive combos at your disposal. Among the limited champion roster, Yasuo is a quick and powerful damage dealer who uses the power of wind to launch his enemies in the air, knock them down, and slash through his foes with ease. He can also block incoming projectiles, giving him a perfect way to stifle any combinations while launching counter-attacks alongside his teammate. View the full article For verified travel tips and real support, visit: [Hidden Content]

Many of the Timed Research quests in Pokémon Go come alongside significant events, giving you an incentive to jump into the game and complete those tasks. You can purchase premium ones from the in-game store, such as the Pokémon Go 2024 Worlds Premium Timed Research. Whether you want to grab this Timed Research quest or not is optional. There are several rewards for unlocking it, but you have to consider whether paying for those items is worthwhile. You can’t use your Poké Coins to buy them. Instead, these are only available if you use real-world money and add the Timed Research to your Pokémon Go account. Anyone who grabs it should purchase it immediately to ensure you have enough time to complete each task. View the full article

There are a myriad of quests in No Man’s Sky, each tasking the player with specific objectives and offering some powerful upgrades and rewards. “They Who Returned” is one of them that delves into the game’s lore. They Who Returned was added with the Echoes update, and offers a glimpse at a new alien race called Autophages. Most importantly, players who complete this quest can wield a futuristic staff instead of a multi-tool. View the full article

According to a new rumor, Fortnite could be doing an OG season themed around Chapter 2 in November. Fortnite OG significantly increased the game's player count, with some fans returning after a long hiatus, and a Chapter 2 OG season could do the same. View the full article

Not to be confused with Gallons, Fragments in Steamworld Heist 2 are a rare currency you can farm to upgrade your submarine and crew for your ongoing journey. These items are either very rare or very expensive, making them hard to gather in large amounts. You'll need to find some shortcuts that allow you to gain Fragments quickly if you want your crew to grow stronger. View the full article

Sadie Adler's introduction in Red ***** Redemption 2's opening moments set the tone for the rest of the game, which was steeped in tragedy. While Sadie's role in the first few chapters was somewhat reduced as the game focused on introducing its new protagonist, Arthur Morgan, and the Van der Linde gang, she did become an integral part of the narrative as time went on, and the character was soon established as a fan-favorite to the extent that many have expressed interest in seeing her as the protagonist of Red ***** Redemption 3 considering how her story was left. View the full article

Today’s news of Activision shutting down a popular upcoming Call of Duty mod that aimed to “remaster” the original Modern Warfare 2 multiplayer is not going over well with the community. The H2 Multiplayer mod, or H2M, was a free mod in the works for 2017’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Remastered, adding in a bunch of new content including maps, weapons, and more from 2009’s MW2. But just a day out from release, Activision issued a cease and desist today, shutting the mod down for good. View the full article

For many different football enthusiasts, immersion is an important part of Madden 25. The camera angle on the field must be perfect for players, whether you’re running a route as a wide receiver, looking down field as a quarterback, or hunting down an interception as a cornerback. There are multiple different camera angles you can try in multiple game modes, whether you’re playing from right behind the player you’re controlling, looking down at the field from a birds-eye view, or watching the action from a broadcast-style angle that makes it look like an official game on TV. View the full article

Life sim contender Inzoi is hoping to knock The Sims from its perch when it launches (supposedly) later this year. There will soon be an opportunity to judge whether that feat is likely. Krafton have announced that they're releasing a time-limited trial of Inzoi's character creator next week on August 20th. Read more View the full article

When completing Timed Research in Pokémon Go, you only have a short amount of time to do every task to earn the rewards. There’s a Timed Research available during the Pokémon Go World Championships 2024 event called Battle Week, focusing on Battle League matches. This Timed Research is available to all Pokémon Go players for a limited time. You’ll need to create a team to compete in these competitions. Still, multiple options are available to you, such as participating in the Master League, Ultra League, Great League, or the exclusive Catch Cup in Pokémon Go. Thankfully for trainers, there are no requirements for winning these matches; you can merely participate. View the full article