As that only reflects the number of players on Steam and doesn’t account for the thousands of players hot-dropping on console, too, it’s a significant milestone for Respawn’s fan-favourite battle royale, and is further bolstered by the shooter’s recently revised concurrent player peak, which was also broken earlier this month. As evidenced on SteamDB and spotted by PCGN, in July, the minimum daily peak was 311,275, but in August jumped to 329,041 players....

“Recently, we have seen increased harassment of our development team,” the studio wrote in a statement shared on Twitter. “We welcome community input, however, the line between constructive feedback and the harassment of our dev team cannot be crossed.” “We want to remind our players that we have a zero tolerance policy for threats and the harassment of our developers,” the statement continued. “We will take appropriate action to ensure the healthy and safety of our team”....

In a reddit post blasting Ubisoft, a Valhalla fan opined that the developer “just keeps adding and adding ridiculous shit to the microtransaction store, just milking the whales of their money with content that only a very small percentage of players will actually get to enjoy”. The post - which has been upvoted over 5000 times - adds that while some of it is “cosmetic stuff”, “it actually affects gameplay and is in some cases rather overpowered”....

It’s also worth mentioning that there’s no clear best gaming mouse on the market - but there are definitely better and worse options based on our extensive testing. While we have taken what critics and users think when making our selections, these are still just starting points to guide your own experimentation, rather than a definitive ranking. Don’t worry if your favourite mouse didn’t make the list - we probably considered it, but ultimately went with a different option....

This new Black Ops Cold War bug lets players control the clouds - sort of. A redditor uploaded a clip of the bug in action to the Black Ops Cold War sub. It took place on the Moscow map as a match of search and destroy was about to begin, with the player zooming in and out of their weapon’s scope to pass the time during the countdown. With each press of the trigger the clouds appear to get smaller, then move back to normal size as the trigger is released....

Developer Blizzard has not yet commented on the change, though fans have spotted the “Z” has now disappeared in the game’s most recent update (thanks, PC Gamer). It’s not hard to guess why this change has occured now. The “Z” symbol has recently become co-opted by Putin-supporting Russian citizens and emblazoned on military vehicles currently involved in the country’s devastating invasion of Ukraine. The connection is perhaps made more obvious in the case of Zarya due to the character’s own fictional Russian heritage....

It’s the latest round of reassurance from Blizzard on Diablo 4 following the controversial monetisation of its recent free-to-play spin-off Diablo Immortal, in which players have argued you can pay extortionate amounts and become more powerful. By contrast, Diablo 4 will feature a cosmetics shop and season pass - “none of which provide any pay-for-power options”, Diablo 4 product director Kegan Clark said. Seasons will add “all-new gameplay, quests, challenges, meta changes, and quality-of-life improvements”, and come with a season pass offering both free and premium reward tracks....

Back in October 2020, McDonald said he would give Sony a chance to update From Software’s masterpiece to run at 60fps first. That hasn’t happened, so McDonald has gone ahead and released his own. Last year, McDonald joined forces with Digital Foundry’s John Linneman to showcase his Bloodborne work, and amazing the game looks indeed: In a post on his Patreon, McDonald said the patch must be applied to Bloodborne v1....

And a release date too: 12th May 2023. Nintendo shared the news at its latest Direct with a new trailer, check it out below. Watch on YouTube The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom – Coming May 12th, 2023 It opens with various runes hinting at Hyrule’s past, before Link opens giant doors on to the sky and leaping into the clouds. And is that a stasis rune upgrade to ride rocks into the sky?...

Nearly 450,000 people bought the bundle, which offered almost 1000 games at a fraction of their usual price. The minimum contribution was $10, though the average contribution was a little higher - $14.17. The bundle’s top donation was a whopping $9000 from one person. Still looking to donate and get some games for a good cause? It’s worth taking a look at the more recent, Humble Stand with Ukraine bundle which has raised more than $7m so far....

League Play is the ultra competitive portion of Black Ops Cold War’s multiplayer that sorts players into a skill-based division and challenges them to move up a ranking ladder. It strips the game down to 4v4 (standard multiplayer is at least 6v6), and puts restrictions on loadouts in a bid to recreate the ruleset used by professional players in the Call of Duty League. Only three game modes are playable (Control, Search and Destroy, and Hardpoint), across a limited number of maps....

Warzone 2.0 is set to launch on 16th November, some two weeks after the launch of Modern Warfare 2 on 28th October. The pair will share the same engine, a first for the Call of Duty franchise and one that should ensure parity and a more consistent feature set - all of which makes this feel like something of a new dawn for the series. Warzone 2.0 introduces the new desert map of Al Mazrah, plus some of its own twists on the battle royale formula such as multiple circles appearing in certain end-game scenarios....

The trio squads tournament, which starred some of the biggest names in Warzone, blew up in the penultimate game of the final day of the event after multiple high-profile participants accused a Canadian player called Metzy of using an aimbot, with one clip in particular raising eyebrows. The clip shows Metzy’s reticle shift quickly to a player who jumps out of a window. Metzy plays Warzone on PC using a controller....

Early in the game there’s a particular level that takes place in the Dutch capital and players have taken to social media to praise its fidelity. Some have even made videos comparing the game directly to real life. Watch on YouTube MWII ‘Squad Up’ | Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II Twitter user Juan Buis shared a clip of the level that soon went viral, praising its realism. He also shared a video from Melih Korkmaz, who went to the same spot in the city to compare....

Among the many other major changes made to gameplay in Modern Warfare 2, audio design also got a major overhaul, and many players weren’t happy. In the beta, footsteps were incredibly loud, sometimes overwhelmingly so, that was it was hard to hear anything else. This also made moving around stealthily or flanking almost impossible. Fans speculated that developer Infinity Ward made this choice to encourage “sentinel” gameplay (which is just a fancy way of saying camping)....

It guides progression throughout the game’s competitive mode, and learning how to get fast XP - whether it’s through choosing the best game mode for XP or learning how to use double XP - means you can unlock what you want sooner. XP point sources Match XP (from kills and objectives Match bonus (doubled for winning) Challenge Bonus (completing challenges) Headquarters Challenges (such as Commend a Soldier, 750XP each) Contract rewards (varies from 750XP to 3000 XP depending on difficulty)...

On 15th January, Canadian firm Lambert Avocat Inc. filed an application to be permitted to bring a class action suit against Nintendo in a bid to “obtain a compensation for all Québec consumers who bought the Nintendo Switch and Nintendo Switch Lite gaming systems, as well as Joy-Con and Nintendo Switch Pro controllers”. The paperwork says that “goods purchased must be fit for the purposes for which goods of that kind are ordinarily used and must be durable in normal use for a reasonable length of time”, and therefore Joy-Con drift - the seemingly common experience of finding your controller not responding properly to analogue stick controls, or suddenly controlling itself - constitutes “an important, serious, and hidden defect”....

Last year, it released the likes of Resident Evil: Village and Monster Hunter Stories 2: Wings of Ruin, both of which exceeded sales expectations and are cited by Capcom as a direct reason for the forecast revision. Additionally, the release of Monster Hunter Rise on PC earlier this year - previously exclusive to the Nintendo Switch - has proven the “stable popularity of catalogue titles”. Back in February, Capcom released its sales figures for 2021, in which Monster Hunter Rise outsold Resident Evil Village....

In the game’s next update, the barbarians are getting a complete overhaul that makes them more than just empty-headed gold pinatas. In the video below, developer Firaxis goes into detail on how it all works. The February update, set for 25th February and free for all players, adds the new Barbarian Clans game mode. This completely changes how barbarians work in the game, adding six barbarian clans that can be found living on or near different map conditions, and each specialising in a different type of unit....

Now, Tomb Raider developer Crystal Dynamics has issued a DMCA takedown notice to the Sacred Symbols Patreon, which leaked the audition script in question - and in doing so pretty much verified the details as accurate. Sacred Symbols has since released a video about this takedown, saying the company had “[forced] our hand” on the matter. In this video, host Colin Moriarty stated: “They DMCA’d Patreon, to have them ask us to take down the offending audio of us talking about the new Tomb Raider game… I was acting on the notion that this is fair use, this is general interest, this is of huge general interest....