Steam

The El Capitan Evolution has arrived in FC 26 Ultimate Team, and you can convert a base card into a ********** item. The evolution, available for 30,000 coins, will allow you to add new playstyles, roles, and stat upgrades to the card of your choice. Let's quickly look at the best possible contender for this evolution based on the upgrades and requirements. Table of contentsFC 26 El Capitan Evolution requirementsFC 26 El Capitan Evolution upgradesBest players to use in El Capitan EvolutionFC 26 El Capitan Evolution requirements Here are the requirements of El Capitan Evolution in FC 26. OverallMax 84Total PositionsMax 3PlayStyleMax 10PlayStyle+Max 1Not RarityWorld Tour Silver StarsPositionSTNot PositionRW, LWFC 26 El Capitan Evolution upgrades The evolution has four levels of upgrades, each with certain conditions to fulfil. Level 1 upgrades Overall: +5|86Agility: +8|86Shot Power: +7|85PlayStyles: Incisive Pass|6Roles: False 9+ Level 2 upgrades Pace: +5|86Balance: +10|88Finishing: +10|88Long Shots: +7|84Penalties: +7|82Positioning: +10|88 Level 3 upgrades Long Passing: +8|80Short Passing: +10|86Stamina: +10|86Vision: +10|86Positions: CAMRoles: Shadow Striker++ Level 4 upgrades Long Passing: +8|80Short Passing: +10|86Stamina: +10|86Vision: +10|86Positions: CAMRoles: Shadow Striker++ Level 5 upgrades Volleys: +10|86PlayStyles+: Finesse Shot|1PlayStyles: Chip Shot|6Roles: Advanced Forward+ Level 1 upgrade requirements Play 2 matches in Squad Battles on min. Semi-Pro difficulty (or Rush/Rivals/Champions/Live Events) using your active EVO Player in game. Level 2 upgrade requirements Win 2 matches in Squad Battles on min. Semi-Pro difficulty (or Rush/Rivals/Champions/Live Events) using your active EVO Player in game.Score 2 goals in Squad Battles on min. Semi-Pro difficulty (or Rush/Rivals/Champions/Live Events) using your active EVO Player in game. Level 3 upgrade requirements Play 3 matches in Squad Battles on min. Semi-Pro difficulty (or Rush/Rivals/Champions/Live Events) using your active EVO Player in game.Win 2 matches in Squad Battles on min. Semi-Pro difficulty (or Rush/Rivals/Champions/Live Events) using your active EVO Player in game. Level 4 upgrade requirements Win 3 matches in Squad Battles on min. Semi-Pro difficulty (or Rush/Rivals/Champions/Live Events) using your active EVO Player in game.Assist 2 goals in Squad Battles on min. Semi-Pro difficulty (or Rush/Rivals/Champions/Live Events) using your active EVO Player in game. Level 5 upgrade requirements Play 3 matches in Squad Battles on min. Semi-Pro difficulty (or Rush/Rivals/Champions/Live Events) using your active EVO Player in game.Best players to use in El Capitan Evolution Here are some of my best recommendations for inclusion in the evolution. Lois OpendaOshoalaRafaAdemola LookmanAyoze PerezKolo MuaniGabriel JesusJonathan David While the upgrades are significant, you will be able to include these cards in future evolutions to create a chain and evolve their stats further. The post Best players for FC 26 El Capitan Evolution appeared first on Destructoid. View the full article

To progress in ARC Raiders, one has to be mindful of their workshop, and especially the many workstations that can be installed and used to craft amazing items. Upgrading those workstations, though, is easier said than done, as a lot of unique and rarely-spawning components are necessary for each upgrade. One such component is the Damaged Heat Sink, required for progressing your Utility Station. Thankfully, there is a spot that's almost guaranteed to drop them, so here's where you should look. Damaged Heat Sink location in ARC Raiders The top of the Launch Towers has almost a 100 percent chance to drop one or more Damaged Heat Sink. Screenshot by Destructoid The Damaged Heat Sink is a random drop that can be found in any Technological loot zones. However, we've found that one spot in particular tends to almost always drop at least one of these items in its many containers: the Launch Towers on the Spaceport map. You will have to climb to the very top of the Launch Towers (which also grants an achievement) and scour both sides to maximize your odds of finding a Damaged Heat Sink. There are dozens of containers on both platforms, which should drop one or multiple Damaged Heat Sinks per round. The very first time I visited this spot, it dropped me one in the control pads on the left side. Keep in mind that this is a highly-trafficked area with numerous players running to get their hands on the Launch Towers' loot stashes, so come prepared and always use an Augment that has a Safe Pocket to ensure your Heat Sinks are extracted no matter what happens. The post How to find Damaged Heat Sink in ARC Raiders appeared first on Destructoid. View the full article

The first weekend of ARC Raiders is going to spice up things across different maps with unique modifiers for the players to explore. The map conditions will have unique effects live during the weekend, which will increase the risks on Topside. This guide will give you a brief idea of what to expect. How will ARC Raiders map conditions work in Weekend 1 The first weekend will have map conditions applicable to Dam Battlegrounds, Spaceport, and Blue Gate. ModifierApplicable mapsHow they workElectromagnetic StormDam Battlegrounds, Spaceport, Blue GateLightning strikes will occur at random, which can impact everyone who might get stuck. You can take advantage of it to get rid of certain ARCs that might be too harsh to take down. The lightning strikes could also leave behind exclusive crafting materials/currencies of some kind.Hidden BunkerSpaceport OutskirtsA secret bunker that's supposed to offer some fantastic rewards. However, you'll need to tread carefully as there will be plenty of ARC enemies. Additionally, you can also expect to find other human players who are going to raid the place for precious resources. Night RaidBlue GateNight Raids will be taking place in the Blue Gate region, which will severely increase the difficulty of successfully extracting from the place. Expect to find stronger ARC enemies trying to take you down as you try to secure the rarer loot. Other Raiders will also be there to stop you, and it's best to stay on your toes. Overall, the first set of modifiers really looks interesting and covers all locations barring Buried City. The Hidden Bunker should be at the top of your agenda, and it will be interesting to find out its locations and what types of riches you can expect inside it. [Hidden Content] Hunting through the Electromagnetic Storm will add a different layer of complexity to the mix. While it can take down an ARC and help you survive, you'll also want to avoid it at any cost. Let's wait to figure out how the weekend map modifiers will force players to adopt new strategies in ARC Raiders. The post All ARC Raiders map conditions (Weekend 1) and how they work appeared first on Destructoid. View the full article

Take-Two Interactive and Rockstar Games have been busy. GTA 6 was delayed yesterday, news that broke alongside Take-Two's quarterly earnings call. And just last week, Rockstar fired between 30 and 40 employees, claiming later that they were "distributing and discussing confidential information in a public forum" against company policy. The fired employees, however, say they were participating in a union-related Discord chat, and that their firing was "blatant" and "ruthless" union busting. Amid all this, Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick is defending the company's culture and labor record, saying Take-Two is "incredibly proud" of its labor relations. Speaking to IGN yesterday ahead of the earnings announcement, Zelnick pointed me to Take-Two and Rockstar's existing public statements when I asked if he had any response to the allegations of union busting, and reiterating that "we fully support Rockstar." So then I asked Zelnick, what is Take-Two's stance on unions, generally? Zelnick did not reply to that specific question. But here's what he did say: “Here’s what we have a stance on. We value every one of our colleagues greatly. We have 13,500 colleagues worldwide. We’re so proud of our culture. In the last few years we’ve been recognized over 15 times as an employer of choice... we’ve been certified this year as a great place to work in the U.S. and ***, Forbes recently called us one of the world’s best employers, and further... our attrition rate is half or less of the industry average. To be specific, our global attrition rate is just over 6%, in the *** it's less than 4%. The industry average is over 12%, and Rockstar is even lower than our average." "So, you know, the proof is in the pudding, and the food is good, and I think our culture is extraordinary. And we strive to be the most creative, most innovative, and most efficient company in the business. So that’s how we look at it. We’re incredibly proud of our labor relations." [A Take-Two spokesperson later clarified Rockstar's global attrition rate is 4%, and in the *** it is "half that number." IGN followed up to ask for the source of the over 12% industry average attrition. The spokesperson clarified it was for "entertainment and tech" and that the source was Take-Two's own internal research: "we use a variety of related data platforms/sources to compile."] Zelnick's response comes amid ongoing uproar over the firings, with affected employees and supporters picketing outside Rockstar and Take-Two's *** offices yesterday. According to the Independent Workers Union of Great Britain (IWGB), the only non-Rockstar people inside the private union Discord were union organizers. IWGB boss Alex Marshall issued IGN the following statement: "Rockstar continue to deflect from the real reason for these dismissals: they are afraid of hard working staff privately discussing exercising their rights for a fairer workplace and a collective voice. Management are showing they don’t care about delays to GTA 6, and that they’re prioritising union busting by targeting the very people who make the game. "In recent years, Rockstar executives have benefited from £443 million in tax relief, while showing total disregard for the law or the livelihoods of their staff. At every turn, they’ve chosen profits over both workers and fans of their games. The only non Rockstar employees in the union Discord channel were union organisers." Rockstar maintains that the firings were for "gross misconduct, and for no other reason." This isn't the first instance of labor unrest at the company. Last year, the studio asked employees to come to the office five days a week, citing a desire for both increased productivity and security following a massive leak of the in-development GTA 6 in 2022 and the day-early release of GTA 6 Trailer 1 the following year. The decision was criticized by workers affiliated with the IWGB, who said Rockstar broke promises with the forced return to office, and accused the studio of refusing to engage with workers on the issue. GTA 6 is now scheduled for release on November 19, 2026. Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. You can find her posting on BlueSky @duckvalentine.bsky.social. Got a story tip? Send it to [email protected]. View the full article

Call of Duty: ****** Ops is a decades-spanning tale of deception, betrayal, and questionable psychiatry. It’s just one of CoD’s several separate subseries, but it’s by far the beefiest. Back in 2010, it would have been easy for developer Treyarch to whip up some jungle assets and ship Call of Duty 7: Vietnam, but instead it unleashed a sprawling techno-thriller with all-you-can eat acronyms in which half of the characters are hallucinations and the rest are historical figures up to no good. ****** Ops is where Call of Duty gets weird– a stylish head trip with plot twists to spare. There’s a century’s worth of storyline in this epic espionage saga with more on the way, so consider this your pre-mission briefing ahead of ****** Ops 7. Here is everything you need to know about the ****** Ops story so far. BLOPS is a twisted web of flashbacks, dream sequences, and choice-driven alternate endings, so we’re charting the most chronological and canonical path we can. It begins with a World at War. 1942 Stalingrad, September 1942. Red Army soldier Dimitri Petrenko claws his way through streets of corpses guided by his comrade, Soviet sniper Viktor Reznov. Reznov’s father was killed by the Nazis, creating in him a thirst for payback so deep that not even death will quench it. 1945 Petrenko and Reznov blast into Berlin and plant the hammer and sickle atop the Reichstag in 1945. ****** Ops 1 reveals their post-war fates. Treacherous officer Nikita Dragovich and his **** ******* Lev Kravchenko drag our heroes into a task force hunting ******* scientist Friedrich Steiner– the evil genius behind a doomsday nerve gas called Nova 6. They corner the unrepentant jerk in the Arctic Circle where Steiner defects, to Reznov’s disgust. Dragovich betrays Reznov and gasses his men with the Nova 6, killing several including our POV character from World at War. Reznov is rescued by the British but sinks the Nova stockpile beneath the ice.Dragovich, Kravchenko, and Steiner escape with the formula. Reznov is recaptured and sent to the Vorkuta prison camp where he waits 16 years for a new protagonist to bro out with. 1961 During the Bay of Pigs invasion, the United States supports a coup that fails to overthrow Fidel Castro’s government. In real life, the U.S. provided funding, training, and air support for the revolution. In ****** Ops 1, the CIA sends some special ops assassins to eliminate Castro: Alaskan Marine Alex Mason, Navy Seal Joseph Bowman, and chain-smoking, nigh unkillable veteran Frank Woods. Mason and Woods become the bedrock characters of BLOPS. Bowman, not so much. Treyarch’s trio take down El Commandante’s body double. Mason is captured and taunted by an alive and well Fidel. Castro hands his prisoner over to returning Soviet heavies Kravchenko and Dragovich, who throw him in the gulag at Vorkuta. The bad guys rewire Mason’s brain to become a sleeper agent controlled by a cryptic numbers station. Mason resists with the help of Reznov, his lone ally in the bowels of the Russian prison– Shawshank Redemption in a Soviet labor camp. As the men bond, Reznov programs a ********* into Mason’s brain, compelling him to annihilate Steiner, Kravchenko, and Dragovich by any means necessary. 1963 Reznov engineers an uprising with a catchy 8-step plan that doubles as a conditioning tool. Big Vik sacrifices his own freedom so Mason can catch the last train out of Vorkuta, ending his two year imprisonment. The extremely traumatized Mason is assigned to handler Jason Hudson and summoned to the Pentagon. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara briefs them on Dragovich’s plans while Mason, who probably should have taken some self care PTO, starts to unravel. Mason’s mental breakdown crescendos when he meets John F. Kennedy as Dragovich’s programming surfaces. Despite the fact that he just crashed out in front of the President, Mason’s bosses send him to sabotage the Soyuz space program and torch the team of Nazi scientists working on Nova 6. The team rescues double-agent Grigori Weaver, who loses an eye in the process. He doesn’t have a massive role beyond BLOPS 1, but he plays a pivotal part in the Zombies’ Dark Aether Saga– one of many characters who found new life within the mode. Most operators would call it a day there, but because of Reznov’s programming, Mason literally cannot stop until he finds and ends Dragovich. The gang blows up his limo but they bail before the kill is confirmed. Five days later, President Kennedy is assassinated in Dallas, Texas. Mason is present at the scene, but the CIA is quite unbothered by the brainwashed killing machine’s proximity to the crime of the century and keeps him on the payroll. 1968 In Vietnam, Mason joins up with old buddies Woods and Bowman in search of Soviet intel on Nova 6. Mason meets with a defector that he believes is Viktor Reznov and they survive a lot of action setpieces together. The crew eventually arrives in Laos to secure a crashed plane carrying a cargo of Nova 6, but the gas is gone when they arrive. VC and Spetsnaz troops ambush team BLOPS and force them to play Russian Roulette in a gruesome homage to The Deer Hunter. After Bowman is brutally murdered, Mason and Woods fight their way free, ******* a Hind, and bust up Kravchenko's headquarters, saving “Reznov” once again. Woods sacrifices himself to save Mason from the cornered Kravchenko, and both men are presumed dead. In true Call of Duty fashion, neither are. Meanwhile, Weaver and Hudson make contact with Dr. Steiner, who is now terrified of Dragovich and desperate to flip on him. He reveals that Dragovich is hours away from ordering sleeper agents to unleash Nova 6 across the U.S., provoking nuclear war. Hudson and Weaver rush to Steiner’s lab on Rebirth Island, but Mason and his guardian angel beat them to it. They infiltrate the facility on their own and find Steiner. Reznov executes the Nazi scientist, but that’s not what Hudson and Weaver see. Mason is alone, and they watch him pull the trigger. Hudson and Weaver take Mason in and race to unravel his severely compromised brain to stop World War 3. Their desperate interrogation makes up the iconic frame narrative of ****** Ops 1. “The numbers, Mason!” ranks among Call of Duty’s most immortal lines– right up there with “50,000 people used to live here” and “f***ing campers.” We learn the truth: Reznov died in Vorkuta and the disgruntled old soldier who's been following Mason around is a Fight Club-style figment of his imagination. Mason decodes the sequence and leads a strike on Dragovich’s undersea numbers station. In the final showdown, Mason strangles Dragovich and puts an end to his decades-spanning plot. This will not be the last of Mason’s problems. With ****** Ops in the bag, we leap forward four games in the release order to ****** Ops: Cold War, set in the brief window of the 1980s before the flashback sequences of ****** Ops 2. Dragovich is dead, Mason is half out of his mind, and a new figure named Persus has emerged from the ashes. 1981 Soviet spymaster “Perseus” amasses power and creates his own rogue intelligence network to sow discord across the world. By 1981, they’ve stolen an American-made nuclear bomb courtesy of Operation Greenlight, an extremely dubious top-secret program that hid scorched-earth nukes all across Europe. Woods is back in action after blowing up and escaping from a POW camp. Hudson asks him to join Mason and new super spy guy Russell Adler to hunt down Perseus for the CIA. They capture an injured Perseus lieutenant and bring them in for some light MKULTRA. M16 agent Helen Park helps implant the Perseus agent with false memories of serving with Adler in Vietnam in order to exploit them for intel. Reborn as “Bell,” the new player character joins Adler’s team, where they are kept in check with a “would you kindly” style control phrase: “We’ve got a job to do.” They gather a CIA Scooby gang and uncover a Spetsnaz training ground dressed up like an idyllic American suburb, complete with an arcade and *******-appropriate Doritos. They confirm the stolen nuke was of U.S. origin, and learn the truth about Operation Greenlight– and their boss’s role in it. Hudson was not only aware of the plan, he was in charge of it. The squad shelves their beef and plots to steal a list of sleeper agents from KGB headquarters in Moscow. With the help of a mole named Belikov, Adler and Bell infiltrate the Lubyanka and cross paths with Mikhail Gorbachev and a bunch of Soviet spooks, including young Imran Zakhaev, the future final boss of Modern Warfare. The two series don’t cross over very often, but there are sporadic hints that the worlds of Treyarch and Infinity Ward aren’t as separate as they seem. The agents go loud and escape with the sleeper list, which points them to a Greenlight scientist named Hastings. By the time they find him it’s too late– Perseus has the activation codes. Adler abandons his totally subtle mind-meld scheme and force-feeds drugs directly into Bell’s brain instead. Their past as a Perseus agent resurfaces along with the location of the secret base. The story can go a few different ways from here, but as far as canon is concerned, Bell lets Adler’s intrusion slide and gives up the real location. The team destroys Perseus’ monastery stronghold and secures the nukes, but the man himself escapes. Hudson, wanting to clear up any loose ends, orders Adler to execute Bell as the story concludes. Cold War sits awkwardly in the ****** Ops timeline– you’d think someone would mention the whole “seeding a continent with nukes” thing over the next few decades of the story. Still, the retcon works, and characters like Park will pop up in future games. The real main event of ****** Ops in the 1980s isn’t Perseus, however– it’s ****** Ops 2's Raul Menendez, a ruthless arms dealer turned charismatic cult leader locked in a 40-year blood feud with Mason and Woods. 1986 Alex Mason has retired to Alaska’s frozen tundra, raising his son David and being generally irritable. He should try mushing wolf-dogs. Ex-handler Hudson and Oliver North come a-knocking with one last job: “Uncle” Woods has gotten himself captured again while messing around in the Angolan civil war. Mason and Hudson rescue Woods and in the process Mason crosses paths with an ice-cold young arms dealer named Raul Menendez. The men scuffle, Mason shoots his eye out and leaves him for dead. At this point in his career, Mason has slaughtered entire legions of hostile NPCS. What difference does one more gun-runner make? But Menendez survives with a gnarly scar and swears vengeance on the spook. Raul was raised during Nicaragua’s dirty wars, watching U.S. backed Contras tear his homeland to shreds. His animosity towards America became personal when his beloved sister Josefina was nearly burned alive by a greedy American businessman. Raul and his father built a massive drug cartel that attracted the ire of the CIA. The agency merced Papa Menendez in front of his son, which further soured Raul’s feelings towards the United States. By 1986, he’s running arms with the Soviets in Afghanistan. Mason and company are sent to intervene, linking up with local freedom fighters and a ******** contact named Tian Zhao. They survive a Soviet attack led by Lev Kravchenko, last of the Dragovich loyalists. The sight of Kravchenko does a number on Mason’s, let’s face it, completely cooked brain, but it’s Woods who canonically delivers the killshot after they learn about a mole in the CIA. The Mujahideen leader turns on the Americans under orders from Menendez, leaving the squad to die in the desert. A delirious Mason sees “Tricky Vik” Reznov ride in on horseback to save the day. The CIA finds the Menendez family compound in Nicaragua and cuts a check to Manuel Noriega, the real-life Panamanian dictator on the U.S. payroll. Noriega’s goons storm the compound and brutalize Josefina. Raul goes berzerk. Noriega shoots his own men and lets Menendez go as a favor, which Raul returns by nearly beating the general to death. When they finally meet, Woods hurls a grenade meant for Raul, but a bad bounce means it kills Josefina instead. Raul survives, and vows that Woods, and the entire world, will one day feel his absolute loss. Three years later, Menendez puts his plan into motion. 1989 The U.S. invades Panama with the aim of overthrowing Noriega. In real life, Noriega was smoked out of the ******** embassy by Van Halen music on loop. In BLOPSworld he’s captured by (who else?) Mason and Woods. Hudson informs his men that Noriega is a “high-value individual” to be exchanged for an anonymous prisoner. Hudson tells Woods that the hooded captive is Raul Menendez, and orders him to shoot the restrained prisoner during the swap. To Woods’s horror, the man is really Alex Mason, and while the canon isn’t absolutely clear about this, it’s widely believed that Mason is no more. Afterwards, the real Menendez appears, blows away Woods’s kneecaps, and reveals that he’s kidnapped Mason’s son David. Menendez used the boy as leverage to force Hudson to do his bidding. He slits Hudson’s throat with Josefina’s locket, leaves David traumatized, and spares Woods to suffer with the guilt of killing his closest friend. In one fell swoop, two lead characters from the previous ****** Ops game were wiped off the board and another horribly mutilated, leaving young David to pick up the pieces– a story to which we’ll return after a detour through the early ‘90s for ****** Ops 6. Woods spends the intervening years riding a desk and raising David as best he can without revealing the truth behind his father’s death. The CIA believes that Russell Adler is the mole, paid off by Menendez to teamkill his CoD clan. Woods doesn’t buy it, and suspects a shadow faction inside the agency itself: Pantheon. Pantheon began as a CIA subdivision in the ‘70s, experimenting with a psychotropic super-soldier serum called Project: Cradle. After a disastrous outbreak of the Cradle virus turned survivors into hallucinating rage monsters, Deputy Director Daniel Livingstone officially disavowed it. The group reformed as an independent rogue cabal, reviving Cradle in secret while fanning the flames of America’s forever wars. Speaking of which, grab your best bootleg Bart Simpson shirt and get ready to rip some packs of Gulf War generals, because it’s 1991 and we’re invading Iraq… the first time. 1991 Wheelchair-bound Woods is fielding a new team: his protege Troy Marshall, ops specialist Jane Harrow, and the enigmatic William “Case” Calderon. The squad is tasked to extract Saddam Hussein’s defecting defense minister Saeed Alawai, but their target is executed on the spot by fugitive Russell Adler. Adler insists that the CIA is compromised, and says he couldn’t allow the man to fall into Pantheon’s clutches. He surrenders himself with a simple riddle for Woods: “Bishop takes Rook.” Livingstone dismisses his warning and suspends the squad, who decide to follow Adler’s trail anyway. “Rook” refers to an old KGB safehouse in Bulgaria that Adler and Woods discovered during their adventures in the ‘70s. The disgraced team shacks up there and recruits some new allies: ******* tech guy Felix Neumann and Sev Dumas, an assassin from the fictional city-state of Avalon. She was trained and betrayed by the Guild, an underground criminal network that will become way more important in the sequel. With the gang assembled, they break out Adler from a CIA ****** site deep beneath the U.S. Capitol building while Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton works the room at a glitzy gala upstairs.. Back at the Rook, Adler explains that Pantheon was in bed with Hussein, trading experimental weapons for access to his definitely-real WMD facilities. He tells them about Cradle and where they might find it. Next stop: Saddam’s palace. With help from Cold War’s Helen Park, the rogue BLOPers infiltrate Hussein’s gilded bunker. Among his hoard of treasures, the squad finds a sample of Cradle. They also discover that Jane Harrow is Pantheon’s mole within the CIA and trace the virus’s origin to a research facility on American soil. When they arrive in Kentucky, Case falls down an elevator shaft and is exposed to the Cradle, experiencing a Zombie nightmare. Case overcomes his BLOPs protagonist amnesia and unlocks his past– he was the failed original test “case” for a Cradle-powered super-soldier. The project was scrapped, his memories were erased, and he was welcomed back into the loving arms of the CIA, which remains oddly unconcerned with the scrambling of its employees’ minds. A casino heist points the squad towards Gusev, Harrow’s Cradle scientist. He’s hiding out in Kuwait, so Case, Adler, and Lawrence Sims, another Cold War veteran, ground his flight. Gusev tells the gang that Pantheon’s headquarters is located in an old Soviet prison camp– Victor Reznov’s old haunt Vorkuta, ground zero for the entire ****** Ops saga. In the most shameless nostalgia fest since Snake returned to Shadow Moses, team Rogue BLOPs revisits the gulag and apprehends the traitorous Harrow. They dose her with truth serum and drag the whole story out of her: She blames Adler for the home-invasion deaths of her parents and joined Pantheon for revenge. Their master plan is to use the Cradle for a false-flag terror attack on Washington, D.C. The Iraqis would take the fall, Livingstone would be KIA, and Harrow/Pantheon would be in charge of the CIA. Pantheon invades the Rook, setting off a climactic safehouse standoff. Harrow attempts to escape on a helicopter, but Case boards her vessel mid-flight. Completely geeked on Cradle, Case strangles Harrow in a blind rage and sends the chopper crashing into a river, where both are presumed dead. Sure they are! Livingstone makes peace with Woods, Adler, and Marshall and encourages them to hang out their shingle as an off-the-books ****** Ops cell. In a final stinger, we see that Pantheon is down but not out as another mole, Jackson Caine, slips into Livingstone’s office and hacks into his computer. The story continues 44 years later in ****** Ops 7, but first there’s the matter of Menendez to attend to. In 2014, a social movement named Cordis Die emerges from the internet. Its charismatic leader Odysseus gains followers with his impassioned rants against the corrupt 1%. He engineers riots in Iran and North Korea and develops an unstoppable computer worm out of the rare earth metal Celerium with the help of hacker Chloe ******. He uses it to hack the ******** stock exchange in 2018, pinning the blame on the U.S. and triggering a second cold war between NATO and China amid an escalated drone arms race. Mason’s former ally Tian Zhao is in charge of China’s SDC and working with Menendez, combining their vast resources to heat up the conflict and usher in a new world order. 2025 By the far off distant future of 2025, Cordis Die has amassed two billion followers, none of whom realise their cult leader is the Nicaraguan narco-terrorist, and that the entire “Occupy BLOPS” movement was just a cover for one man’s mad-on against Woods and Mason. Young David Mason is now a Navy Seal operator named “Section” who still checks in on his dear old Uncle Frank. Menendez makes the first move by visiting a still-living, still-smoking Woods in the Vault, a retirement home for Mimis and Pop Pops with red in their ledger. He leaves behind the pendant used to ******* Hudson. Section and his JSOC boys Mike Harper and Javier Salazar visit Woods for some action-packed ‘60s flashbacks. The old man gives them the dirt on his tragic history with Menendez and clues them in about Celerium. The young bucks embark on a series of missions investigating Menendez, and his massive mercenary army. The gang eavesdrops for intel about a cyber weapon called “Karma.” Section, Harper, and Salazar search for it on the decadent floating city of Colossus, where they discover that “Karma” is actually Chloe ******, and that Menendez is trying to kill her to keep her quiet about the Celerium computer worm. Her fate has yet to be confirmed by canon, but if they do save Karma from top henchman DeFalco, she uncovers Menendez's ultimate plan: on June 19th, Freedom Day, he’s going to ******* the U.S. military’s drone system and unleash an electronic rumbling on every major city within both global superpowers. That’s tomorrow. Over Section’s objections, his commander Admiral Briggs decides it’s high time to grab Menendez. They contact Farid, a deep cover operative observing Menendez ignite a revolution in Yemen. Farid sacrifices himself to save Harper and Melendez is easily captured and taken onboard the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Barack Obama. Surprise! We were playing right into Menendez’s brilliant ruse the entire time. It’s the “getting caught was part of my plan” gambit that was all the rage in the late aughts, though to be fair, ****** Ops 2 scribe David S. Goyer also wrote the screenplay for the trope-defining Dark Knight. Cordis Die goons storm the Obama and Menendez seizes control of the ship with the help of his double agent, your now ex-BFF Salazar. He uploads the virus and takes over the U.S. military drone network before escaping. Since canon presumes you completed the bonus Strike Missions and took down Tian Zhao, ******** planes will save the ship and ally with JSOC against the drones, ending the cold war for good. As thousands of metal death machines swarm upon populated cities, Section, Harper, David Petraeus, and the President of the United States are shot down in a war-torn Los Angeles. Under siege by an army of killer drones, the men ******* POTUS to safety in one the most spectacular setpieces in a series that has a lot of them. JSOC and China trace the drone control signal to a Cordis Die facility in Haiti and stage a full-scale invasion. Menendez goes live when they arrive, but instead of destroying the world’s cities he blows up every single one of the drones instead, crippling American military infrastructure. Section finally captures his father’s ********* and makes a martyr out of Menendez– which is exactly what he wanted. He posts a posthumous YouTube video instructing his billions of followers to take advantage of the drone-free power void and seize control of the United States. Treyarch has been pretty firm that the "Menendez dies” ending of ****** Op 2 is canonical, although his promised Cordis Die uprising fizzles out. 2035 Call of Duty: ****** Ops 7 is set a decade after the end of BLOPS 2. Frank Woods has finally gone to that old soldiers’ home in the sky and David Mason is still dorkily calling himself Section and leading a new team named “Specter One,” with old faces like Harper and Marshall and new ones like the bionic 50/50. The world is still shaken from the drone incident. The Guild has shed its shady beginning and is reborn as a powerful tech giant offering protection in uncertain times. In 2035, the dead Menendez shocks the world with a prophecy and a threat: in three days, your streets will run red with your blood. He’s presumably referring to a new fear-based macguffin that pushes minds to the edge of consciousness with typical ****** Ops trippiness. It’s a “five minutes into the future” setting, a touch more sci-fi than Modern Warfare but closer to a tomorrow that seems just around the corner. It’s not the first time that ****** Ops has moved forward in the timeline, and it’s nowhere close to the giant leap taken by Treyarch for ****** Ops 3. 2062 Set in 2062, ****** Ops 3 is the odd duck in an already pretty weird franchise. It depicts a surreal, Phillip K. Dickian future that’s been forged in the fallout of Cordis Die’s drone war, where the old geopolitical order has collapsed and optimized into two bloated megafactions locked in endless proxy wars. New technology makes air supremacy obsolete. Mechs roam the battlefield, and wallrunning supersoldiers interface directly with the grid. ****** Ops 3’s campaign is ambitious and strange, but it feels less like the next chapter in the ****** Ops saga and more of an optional epilogue, the kind of ending you’d reload a save to avoid. There’s connective tissue to the larger mythos, but none of the classic characters or grudges survive the time skip. Also, BLOPS being BLOPS, most of the action turns out to be the digital experiences of a disembodied dying consciousness inside a simulation. While there’s no reason to doubt its canonicity, ****** Ops 3 is not the focus of ****** Ops 7– The latest title has far too much unfinished business in the past to linger in the far-flung future. Still, the slow drift towards sci-fi is undeniable, and it makes total sense: ****** Ops has spent the last 15 years strip-mining the shadow wars of the 20th century, and there’s really only one direction left to go. Will ****** Ops lose its psycho wetworks swagger if it moves beyond the current day? Is there still more juice to squeeze from our clandestine past? Or is it time for Treyarch and Raven Software to invent something entirely new? After all, if we learned anything from Call of Duty: ****** Ops, it’s that identities are anything but permanent. View the full article

Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds is coming to Nintendo Switch 2 on December 4, 2025. The Nintendo Switch 2 Edition will be available digitally for players priced $69.99/£64.99. The Nintendo Switch 2 Edition Upgrade Pack will also be available for $10/£10 to owners of Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds, allowing both content and progress to transfer over. A physical version is coming — which ***** says will "feature the full base game on the cartridge" — but that's not expected to release until "early 2026." ***** also revealed there will not be a Limited Run Games Collector's Edition for Nintendo Switch 2, nor any pre-order sweeteners for this particular version of the game. The publisher confirmed there "will not be a Digital Deluxe Edition on Nintendo Switch 2 Edition," however, you can "still access the Nintendo Switch 2 enhanced Digital Deluxe Edition content by buying the Nintendo Switch Digital Deluxe Edition and the Nintendo Switch 2 Edition Upgrade Pack." If you already own the game, you can also upgrade by purchasing the Nintendo Switch season pass. CrossWorlds features a huge roster of playable characters, both in the base game and additional DLC. Characters you’d expect to see, such as Sonic, Dr. Eggman, Knuckles, Shadow, and Tails are present and correct, but there's also characters like SpongeBob SquarePants, Avatar, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and Mega Man, whose appearance leaked early when retailers broke the game's official street date. We thought Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds was 'Amazing,' awarding it 9/10 in IGN's review, writing: "Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds fires on all cylinders with a fantastic roster, excellent courses, and lengthy list of customization options." Vikki Blake is a reporter for IGN, as well as a critic, columnist, and consultant with 15+ years experience working with some of the world's biggest gaming sites and publications. She's also a Guardian, Spartan, Silent Hillian, Legend, and perpetually High Chaos. Find her at BlueSky. View the full article

For a while now Valve have been tweaking Steam store pages, including making them a fair bit wider which is now actually live everywhere for all users. Read the full article here: [Hidden Content] View the full article

Going topside and extracting with the best loot possible is every raider's dream, but it doesn't always go over smoothly. Containers are empty and barren, ARCs rain down hell from everywhere, and there's that one dude camping the extract, waiting to pounce. But you can just ignore all that. The thing you should prioritize: Security Breaches, a unique type of container spawning around every map in the game that requires a specific trait to be leveled up in the Survivability skill tree. Without it, they're locked, and with them all the ultra valuable loot. And on the topic of ultra valuable loot, each Security Breach has good odds to contain at least one (or even several) pink, upgraded weapons that can then be sold for tens of thousands of in-game funds that you can then funnel into all sorts of goodies and equipment. Raider Hatches and Security Breaches maximize your loot and help you escape unscathed. Image via Embark Studios Most players in the game are either unaware of Security Breaches or have leveled their Mobility too much to get them, leaving a ton of great loot on the table. On top of that, Raider Hatches are so broken and a means to extract so much better than elevators or subways that there's no real point in doing the latter whatsoever. By continuously extracting with lots of pink items and selling them, you can keep purchasing Raider Hatch Keys from Shani ad infinitum, completely removing yourself from the petty squabbles of ARCs and raiders and silently taking all the money with you. It's a sure-fire way to level up, get a lot of dosh, and brag about it on Reddit. Well, maybe not this last, because you'll end up bringing developer attention to it too much. It's probably going to be nerfed eventually anyhow, so go out there and breach some containers before the opportunity slips away. The post This one mechanic in ARC Raiders is your sure-fire way to get awesome loot—until it’s inevitably nerfed appeared first on Destructoid. View the full article

"Through this settlement, we will once again strive for the further development of the game industry"View the full article

With today's Steam update, you'll now find that many store pages throughout Steam are wider, making better use of your larger monitors and better organizing some of the information on screen. For users opted into the Steam client beta, these set of changes have been visible since late August while we refined the update and gave game developers a chance to prepare for wider store page assets. Today's update officially moves these changes out of beta to be fully public, widening many pages from 940 pixels to now 1200 pixels. If you have been opted into the beta, you've already been using the new wider store pages and won't see much change today. For those of you that haven't been opted into the Steam client beta, read on for a quick overview of the changes. A few upgrades for game store pagesThe biggest changes can be found on game store pages, where we've also recently updated the video player (you can read about that in our post from July: Steam Trailer Player Upgrades). Overhauled trailer/screenshot carouselThe trailer and screenshot carousel now supports three different modes (default, theater mode, full-screen mode) with the same functionality. All modes adhere to your preferences for whether to auto-play trailers and whether audio should be on or off by default. Higher resolution images - Since the page is wider, we can now show off more of the game detail represented in screenshots and trailers. New modes for even ******* viewing - In the lower-right corner of screenshots, you'll see two buttons for theater mode and full-screen mode. New theater mode - Pop open a view that covers most of your browser or Steam client window and flip through screenshots and trailers. New full-screen mode - The same functionality to flip through trailers and screenshots, but in full screen. More robust game descriptionsWe've also expanded the tools and options that game developers can make use of when explaining their game and showing off the features that make up their game. On many newer store pages, you'll see ******* and higher-quality images and more interesting formatting in the "About the Game" section. If you're curious about the improvement to the tools for game developers, you can read our Steamworks blog post, Beta: Wider store pages; Video support for written game descriptions Refined background imageryYou might also notice some subtle updates to the backgrounds of game store pages, allowing a little more of the color and texture of the game artwork to come through and give the store page a little more personality from the game. Minor updates across the Steam StoreAlong the way, we also widened a lot of pages across the Steam Store. Here are a few examples: Search results are wider and each row is slightly taller giving a little more room for the game artwork to increase in size. Bundle detail pages also now have slightly more colorful backgrounds and larger artwork in the list of contents. Recommendation pages like the Interactive Recommender and Popular Among Friends are wider. Store hubs such as for individual tags (eg. Supernatural) have always been a little wider than game pages. We updated these now to all be the same width. Steam Charts and News Hub were both slightly different sizes and even different sets of colors. These have been consolidated some to bring them more inline with Steam platform colors. You can explore all of the pages that make up the Steam store by visiting the site map. Frequently Asked QuestionsQ: Why 1200 pixels wide? A: We know many of you have 4k monitors with lots of pixels to spare (we can tell from the Steam Hardware Survey), our research shows that most players don't run the Steam client or web browsers full screen. While we experimented with different proportions, we found that 1200 pixels wide felt like a good balance where we can show more content on screen without overwhelming the page and making it hard to navigate. Q: What about the homepage? It doesn't look any wider. A: We've got some similar adjustments coming in the near future for the homepage, but they aren't quite ready yet. Stay tuned. Q: What happens if my browser or client window is narrower than 1200px? A: Steam store pages are designed to shrink appropriately to fit well within smaller size monitors, browsers, and Steam client windows. It also adapts in size to fit on tablets, Steam Decks, and mobile devices. We've even been testing on a tiny old iPod that someone had laying around (It mostly works, but things get pretty small). View the full article

With today's Steam update, you'll now find that many store pages throughout Steam are wider, making better use of your larger monitors and better organizing some of the information on screen. For users opted into the Steam client beta, these set of changes have been visible since late August while we refined the update and gave game developers a chance to prepare for wider store page assets. Today's update officially moves these changes out of beta to be fully public, widening many pages from 940 pixels to now 1200 pixels. If you have been opted into the beta, you've already been using the new wider store pages and won't see much change today. For those of you that haven't been opted into the Steam client beta, read on for a quick overview of the changes. A few upgrades for game store pagesThe biggest changes can be found on game store pages, where we've also recently updated the video player (you can read about that in our post from July: Steam Trailer Player Upgrades). Overhauled trailer/screenshot carouselThe trailer and screenshot carousel now supports three different modes (default, theater mode, full-screen mode) with the same functionality. All modes adhere to your preferences for whether to auto-play trailers and whether audio should be on or off by default. Higher resolution images - Since the page is wider, we can now show off more of the game detail represented in screenshots and trailers. New modes for even ******* viewing - In the lower-right corner of screenshots, you'll see two buttons for theater mode and full-screen mode. New theater mode - Pop open a view that covers most of your browser or Steam client window and flip through screenshots and trailers. New full-screen mode - The same functionality to flip through trailers and screenshots, but in full screen. More robust game descriptionsWe've also expanded the tools and options that game developers can make use of when explaining their game and showing off the features that make up their game. On many newer store pages, you'll see ******* and higher-quality images and more interesting formatting in the "About the Game" section. If you're curious about the improvement to the tools for game developers, you can read our Steamworks blog post, Beta: Wider store pages; Video support for written game descriptions Refined background imageryYou might also notice some subtle updates to the backgrounds of game store pages, allowing a little more of the color and texture of the game artwork to come through and give the store page a little more personality from the game. Minor updates across the Steam StoreAlong the way, we also widened a lot of pages across the Steam Store. Here are a few examples: Search results are wider and each row is slightly taller giving a little more room for the game artwork to increase in size. Bundle detail pages also now have slightly more colorful backgrounds and larger artwork in the list of contents. Recommendation pages like the Interactive Recommender and Popular Among Friends are wider. Store hubs such as for individual tags (eg. Supernatural) have always been a little wider than game pages. We updated these now to all be the same width. Steam Charts and News Hub were both slightly different sizes and even different sets of colors. These have been consolidated some to bring them more inline with Steam platform colors. You can explore all of the pages that make up the Steam store by visiting the site map. Frequently Asked QuestionsQ: Why 1200 pixels wide? A: We know many of you have 4k monitors with lots of pixels to spare (we can tell from the Steam Hardware Survey), our research shows that most players don't run the Steam client or web browsers full screen. While we experimented with different proportions, we found that 1200 pixels wide felt like a good balance where we can show more content on screen without overwhelming the page and making it hard to navigate. Q: What about the homepage? It doesn't look any wider. A: We've got some similar adjustments coming in the near future for the homepage, but they aren't quite ready yet. Stay tuned. Q: What happens if my browser or client window is narrower than 1200px? A: Steam store pages are designed to shrink appropriately to fit well within smaller size monitors, browsers, and Steam client windows. It also adapts in size to fit on tablets, Steam Decks, and mobile devices. We've even been testing on a tiny old iPod that someone had laying around (It mostly works, but things get pretty small). View the full article

The rarest Arc Raiders blueprints are up for *****, if you've got the cashView the full article

And "ALL future updates and expansions will be free"View the full article

Texas is suing Roblox Corporation for misleading parents about the dangers of its digital ecosystem. The Texas Attorney General’s office claims the company placed "pedophiles and profits" ahead of the safety of Roblox's youngest users. View the full article

Blizzard are adding a new premium virtual currency to World Of Warcraft alongside player housing in the MMO's forthcoming Midnight expansion. It's called Hearthsteel, and is "purchased with real money using your Battle.net balance and used in turn to buy Housing items from the Battle.net shop and in-game shop," as detailed in a blog post this week. Read more View the full article

Hearts of Iron 4 hasn't budged from its position as one of the best WW2 games on Steam for many years, and with good reason. But Paradox's tactics titan might have some serious competition on its hands from publisher Slitherine. Having already brought us the likes of Headquarters: World War II and Panzer Corps 2, it's just given us a proper look at Battleplan. Developed by Foolish Mortals, this new historical strategy game simulates "massive, month-long battles with hundreds of thousands of troops, second by second, day by day," and puts you right at the top level of command. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: New WW2 strategy game Battleplan has you command armies with a stroke of a pen View the full article

Indie Spotlight | There's something very, very strange in these old woodsView the full article

I've said it before and, unless PC Gamer fires me for all that embezzling I've been doing, I'm bound to say it again: OpenMW is one of the coolest mod projects out there. Much like DevilutionX does for Diablo or Daggerfall Unity does for Daggerfall, OpenMW is an open-source engine reimplementation for The Elder Scrolls 3 that lets you play it on damn near any device and with a lot of mod-cons... Read more.View the full article

"Pivot or die." That's the message from Facepunch Studios as it unleashes the November Rust update, which takes last month's controversial, meta-shifting patch and ramps up the stakes even further. Holding onto the most-played spot among Steam's best survival games requires a fine balance between familiarity and freshness, and the new patch is all about rekindling the sense of discovery that made it special in the first place. As it continues "to make meaningful experimental changes to Rust's progression," Facepunch COO Alistair McFarlane says the team is "taking things a step further [...] by making progression easier." Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: New Hollow Knight Silksong update turns to a fan-made mod to solve its biggest remaining problem If you're tired of waiting for Subnautica 2, new survival game The Last Caretaker tasks a seafaring robot with saving humanity Dungeons and Dragons adventure Solasta 2 has just tightened its launch window, so get planning your class now View the full article

I really wanted to love the Glorious Model O 3 Wireless, and if that price drops significantly I may still.View the full article

If you're looking to upgrade from your aging and slow 1080p gaming monitor but have a limited budget, this Asus gaming monitor deal could be perfect for you. The Asus TUF Gaming VG259QMRL5A is a 310Hz gaming monitor that normally costs $200 but right now is down to just $149, making it one of the cheapest displays around that can hit such a high refresh rate. This isn't a super-basic display, either. Asus has given it an IPS LCD panel, rather than TN, so it offers good viewing angles and stable colors, plus its stand includes height, pivot, rotation, and tilt adjustment. Sure, it's never going to sit at the top of our best gaming monitor guide, but it offers a great set of specs for a bargain price, and is ideal for the best FPS games. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: This 180Hz, 1440p Asus gaming monitor was a premium buy until it got slapped with this huge $110 discount Asus is releasing a marshmallow keyboard and scented mouse, but I need to see s'more At $89.99, this 144Hz Asus gaming monitor is an absolute steal View the full article

Lethal Company, RV There Yet, Slots & Daggers, Cloverpit, the list goes onView the full article

Happy N7 DayView the full article

The November 6 weekly reset is minor but meaningfulView the full article

Placing it right behind Wii SportsView the full article