Eurogamer

The beta for Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 is set to arrive next month across PlayStation, Xbox and PC, and will include a map on a grand-prix track.

The Marina Bay Grand Prix map is inspired by the Singapore F1 street circuit of the same name, but with a much darker tone of course.

The open beta will take place across two weekends, with PlayStation players able to access the first exclusively.

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There’s something brilliant about tabletop evenings with friends. My Thursday nights usually involve Dungeons & Dragons. Playing an Arcane Archer from the Feywild, I’m joined by a lively party that includes a Firbolg Druid, Minotaur Barbarian, Goblin Ranger, and Tiefling Warlock. We’ve had some fun adventures these last few years. Defeating mind flayers and a lich, fighting servants of Lolth, I got shanked on a bridge - many memorable moments. Never solved that mysterious case of stray arrows hitting teammates though, very peculiar.

D&D inspires creativity, stimulating imaginations through the theatre of the mind. As a popular adaptation target, it left me wondering how game developers capture the spirit of these game. Nick Pechenin, lead systems designer at Larian Studios, happily answered my questions regarding Baldur’s Gate 3, which works off of D&D’s fifth edition. And I didn’t stop there. I can’t claim to be nearly as familiar with Warhammer as I am D&D, but I also approached publisher Slitherine over Black Lab Games’ Warhammer 40,000: Battlesector.

Speaking with Battlesector's executive producer David Sharrock, he informs me, "When we were coming to the end of our plans for Battlestar Galactica Deadlock, the Slitherine and Black Lab teams sat down and had a chat about where we should go next. The Black Lab Games team were looking to make use of their skills in making great strategy games that look amazing and the Slitherine team had already been in discussions with Games Workshop about how to follow up previous 40k Strategy titles like Armageddon and Sanctus Reach."

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Capcom has shared a small Tekken 8 teaser at Evo 2022. This clip shows Kazuya carrying Heihachi up to the edge of a cliff and depositing him off the side, before smiling at the camera.

The scene then cuts to a close-up of a new model of Kazuya doing the same smile, before the teaser tells us all to "get ready". You can see it for yourself at the end of the clip below.

This brief preview of things to come was then quickly reshared by The Game Awards Twitter account.

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The mysterious new Call of Duty Warzone will be revealed next month on 15th September, as part of a presentation which publisher Activision has bombastically described as an "era-defining livestream franchise event".

The livestream, dubbed Call of Duty Next, will also fully reveal the multiplayer mode featured in the upcoming Modern Warfare 2, and additionally feature Warzone on mobile.

But its Warzone 2.0, or whatever it ends up being called, that is the most intriguing part of this year's Call of Duty offerings. This is the refreshed version of Activision's COD battle royale that we know won't carry over much of your progress - and sounds like it will be an entirely separate entity.

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8K display support may still be AWOL but Sony surprised us all last week by revealing a new firmware beta test, opening the door to 1440p functionality for PlayStation 5 amongst a range of other smaller scale new features and quality of life upgrades. With its plans to break into the PC monitor market, adding support for 2560x1440 functionality makes sense and while the firmware beta works well, a little more work is required to ensure this update delivers everything it should.

Before going into the specifics, the introduction of this feature shows that Sony is responding more readily to consumer feedback. Not only has support for 1440p monitors been implemented, the firm has also responded to criticisms of its initial implementation of Auto Low Latency Mode support, an option that basically automatically invokes Game Mode on HDMI 2.1 TVs. First of all, ALLM wasn't available at all, then it was added but couldn't be turned off (causing issues with other TV features, such as black frame insertion). However, ALLM was finally added as a toggle, satisfying all parties. This may seem like a minor detail, but it's actually a good thing to see a platform holder addressing what some may consider to be minutiae.

The Switch is well into its sixth year, somehow, and despite some stiff competition from the Steam Deck recently it hasn't lost its lustre nor its position by my side wherever I go: maybe it's something to do with the immense library I've got on mine at this point, filled to the brim with shmups of all sizes in what's long been a speciality of the system.

Once it was the novelty of having these things on the go, plus the ease of playing vertical scrolling shooting games as intended in 'tate' mode with the screen flipped (and without worrying about permanent damage like I used to when pushing a chunky old CRT on its side to play Ikaruga as Treasure intended). Now it's just the abundance of classics that can be dipped in and out of at leisure - and the thing I love about the humble shmup is how immediate they are, making them perfect for short blasts.

So here's a list of some personal favourites, and a rundown of the shmups that are in almost constant rotation on my Switch. There should be an emphasis on the personal, here - there's no science here, and an awful lot of bias towards my own taste for simple, spectacular shmups rather than those with fussy scoring systems. So there's no Ikaruga here, I'm afraid - apologies, I do love it but I'm not going to pretend to be a master of its rigid polarity-based system (when - or if - Radiant Silvergun ever makes it to the Switch you can be assured it'll be top of this list, though).

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More than half of Activision Blizzard's revenue came from mobile games in April - June (Q2) 2022.

According to Activision Blizzard's most recent financial report, the developer/publisher generated £535m from its PC and console sales in Q2 2022 - £275m ($332m) on PC and £310m ($376m) consoles - while £688m ($831m) came from its "mobile and ancillary" business, which the company says "primarily include[s] revenues from mobile devices". That's more than 50 per cent of its entire net revenue for the period.

Part of this, of course, is because Activision acquired mobile developer King in 2016 - and right now, it's the most successful part of ABK's business - but it's likely not coincidental that Diablo Immortal released during this period, too (thanks, PC Gamer).

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An NFT minter on GameStop's newly launched NFT marketplace has been caught selling games they didn't make and had no authority to sell.

As first reported by Ars Technica, the "interactive NFTs" of the NiFTy Arcade collection were being minted and sold without the creators' permission, "much less any arrangement for the creators to share in any crypto profits".

GameStop has since confirmed that the person behind NiFTy Arcade has been suspended, but Ars reports that he is still "holding onto the tends of thousands of dollars in cryptocurrency he made by selling those NFTs before the suspension". Furthermore, the unlicensed games are also still fully accessible from GameStop's servers.

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A concert celebrating video game music at this year's BBC Proms is now available to watch online.

The annual music festival is held each summer in London's Royal Albert Hall, but this is the first time the classical music festival has featured a concert dedicated to game music.

The event - titled Gaming Prom – From 8-Bit to Infinity - took place earlier this week, hosted by BBC gaming reporter Steffan Powell and Louise Blain, who hosts the excellent Sound of Gaming podcast on BBC Sounds.

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Gaming merchandiser Numskull has confirmed the next addition to its Resident Evil statue line-up: Nemesis.

Standing 10.9 inches (27.7cm) high, the Nemesis figurine includes "hand-painted features for extra detail" - including the cracked tarmac base and hazard tape - and has been developed in conjunction with Capcom.

You can see him in all his grotesque glory in the video reveal below:

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PUBG developer Krafton has announced it's making a new game based upon the Korean fantasy book, The Bird That Drinks Tears.

Krafton says it is an "ambitious project" that "aims to bring the original fantasy universe of The Bird That Drinks Tears to life through its unique and refreshing fantasy races, beautiful, haunting landscapes, and gripping, immersive, and poignant stories".

"The Bird That Drinks Tears is a novel series that was created and written by Yeong-do Lee, who is widely acknowledged as the pioneer of the Korean fantasy genre," Krafton explains. "As one of the best-selling fantasy authors in Korea with millions of copies sold, Mr. Lee is an exceptionally imaginative writer who builds elaborate worlds and fills them with complex characters."

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Bethesda has confirmed that Arkane's new vampire game, Redfall, will get a 30-minute slot at its upcoming QuakeCon event.

QuakeCon itself is set to kick off at 6pm UK time on 18th August, whilst the Redfall-flavoured reveal will run for 30 minutes from 6.15pm and "takes you inside [Arkane's] upcoming squad-based vampire shooter with new insights, gameplay details and more!"

Other games set to feature in the presentation include The Elder Scrolls Online, Fallout 76, Fallout 4, Ghostwire: Tokyo, Deathloop, and Quake, of course. There'll also be Q&As, quizzes, cosplay, and more.

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PUBG: Battlegrounds' next big update, 19.1, is slated to release on 10th August for PC and 18th August for consoles.

It includes a new MP9 weapon - the first fully-automatic SMG that uses 9mm - a new vehicle that will see you "zipping down roads with sirens ablaze" (so not for the stealthy, it seems), and the Blue Chip Detector tactical gear which uses primary weapon slots but can be used to scan for enemies within a 100m radius; you'll see the nearest 12 enemies on the map.

We'll also get our collective hands on the brand-new 1500hp Folding Shield and "once again have the opportunity to drop onto the Haven map". The update also brings "familiar foes" from the recently-announced Assassin's Creed season.

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There's something I keep thinking about lately. It's this idea that we only have so much space in our minds for formative gaming experiences and it's diminishing returns forever after.

I was talking to a guy in a pub about it, who overheard a conversation I was having with someone else and leaped in, delighted to talk to someone, anyone, about games. It was quite endearing. And it was while talking about older games and remakes he said: I don't think anything will ever be as good as the original Deus Ex.

On the one hand, that's fair enough - the old Deus Ex was good, and it was a proper moment for games when people realised RPGs and FPSs could work together. It's not that which bothered me.

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Monster Hunter Rise, in both its Switch and PC forms, is fab - Eurogamer called it "as good as video games can get" - and its Sunbreak expansion is perhaps even better. More, then, is an extremely welcome proposition, and we'll soon know exactly what's in store for Sunbreak's first major post-launch update when it's newly announced livestream airs next week.

Monster Hunter Rise: Sunbreak's incoming digital event will be hosted by producer Ryozo Tsujimoto and game director Yoshitake Suzuki, with proceedings due to begin on Twitch next Tuesday, 9th August, at 3pm BST/7am PDT.

Capcom has already teased a little of what's to come in August's Title Update 1, with the Seething Bazelguese and Lucent Nargacuga (from Monster Hunter World: Iceborne and Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate respectively) both confirmed as new monster additions to the line-up, while the Forlorn Arena will be added as a new locale.

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Sega has released another round of fixes for Sonic Origins - the publisher's disappointing collection of classic Sonic platformers - this time taking aim at Sonic the Hedgehog 2's troublesome Tails AI.

Sonic Origins was, to put it politely, a bit of a mess when it launched earlier this year, and was plagued by enough presentational and technical issues - as extensively documented by Digital Foundry's John Linneman - that its developer publicly hit out at Sega, saying it was "very unhappy" at the state the game had been launched in.

Since then, Sega has been working to fix some of Origins' more egregious problems, and its latest patch - officially known as update 1.04 - leads with an attempt to remedy a widely reported AI issue that would repeatedly cause Tails to goes off-screen in Sonic the Hedgehog 2, unable to rejoin the action.

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The Super Smash Bros series is a near-impossible act to follow, but that's exactly the challenge MultiVersus faces as a new, free to play Smash-like from developer Player First Games. Now in open beta on PS5, Xbox Series X, last-gen and PC, it's a 5GB download that lets anyone hop in. It's admittedly light on options - as you may expect from an open beta - but you do get to tinker with 17 characters - all fully voice-acted. Crucially, MultiVersus also launches with robust online play, built from the ground up with rollback netcode - right away giving it an edge over Super Smash Bros Ultimate's online play on Switch. It's off to a good start. Speaking purely on MultiVersus' visual design as an Unreal Engine 4 title though, how much does it get right next to Nintendo's heavyweight? And where does it seem to fall short in its open beta state?

Valve continues to tinker behind the scenes with Steam and its latest client beta has officially introduced support for Nintendo's Switch Joy-Con controllers.

As such, those with a preference for Nintendo's dual-handed clutch capsules will now be able to use them across their PC games in a number of different configurations.

There's support for individual Joy-Cons, which can be used as mini gamepad, and two controllers can also be combined into pairs - as is the case on Switch - for a more traditional controller configuration.

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This one's a bit Inception: EA has put Liverpool star Diogo Jota's real life 'gamer' celebration in FIFA 23 - a celebration that sees Jota mimicking himself playing FIFA.

Background: one of my favourite video game stories of 2021 was the time when Jota had to quit a FIFA 22 tournament early to play a real-life match that afternoon - and performed a gamer celebration after scoring after just 97 seconds.

Jota celebrated by sitting down and pretending to play FIFA. (Jota continued his impressive form in front of goal by adding a second goal later in the first half. Liverpool went on to win 4-0.)

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Nintendo has finally delivered its second dollop of downloadable tracks for Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, and it's a doozy. Some of Mario Kart's finest moments are included here, alongside a few other enjoyable additions, throwbacks, and a brand-new entry.

As with the first wave, Nintendo has added eight courses divided into two cups. (Sadly, there's still no sign of extra kart pieces or characters, including Birdo.) And if you're not up to speed (sorry), players have already worked out what many other upcoming DLC courses will likely be.

Up first is New York Minute, a lively track from mobile game Mario Kart Tour's roster featuring a checklist of city landmarks. I'll get this out the way now - I am not enamoured with Mario Kart Tour, and the Mushroom Kingdom purist in me bristles at the inclusion of real-world cities.

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Another Monday, another Weekly - the show where we recap last week on Eurogamer for you. Remember, premium supporters get these episodes every Friday in time for the weekend, whereas everyone else listens from Monday.

Today, we've got former Eurogamer writer Emma Kent back! And it turns out that since moving on from Eurogamer, she's rediscovered a passion for football, and thrown herself so fully into it that she'll soon be in the FA Cup!

She's also been turning out some great pieces for us, including two State of the Game pieces - one on Valheim and one, more recently, on Red Dead Online. And it's that that we dive into first today.

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You step quietly into the castle, holding a lantern aloft in your gloved hand. You creep up the stairs into a room of stained glass windows. Then, turning to leave, the horrific ghost of Princess Peach lurches through the doorway to scare the crap out of you. Game Over.

Another Princess Is In Our Castle is a horror game based on the N64 classic Super Mario 64 that has you exploring Peach's famous castle in first person, spotted by Nintendo Life.

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Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice is arguably FromSoftware's most difficult game, but now you can use that to your advantage in Elden Ring.

Modder Hotbite has ported over animations from Sekiro's final boss, so now your Tarnished can adventure through The Lands Between with some incredibly flashy moves - spotted by PC Gamer.

Spoilers for Sekiro's final boss follow.

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Back in 2018, Belgium declared loot boxes in games were a form of gambling and therefore illegal, but it appears this law isn't being enforced.

Loot box researcher Leon Y Xiao has written a report stating the country's gambling law regulation of video game loot boxes has been ineffective, as reported by GamesIndustry.biz.

Despite the ban, paid loot boxes remained widespread in the top 100 grossing iPhone games in Belgium from 2021, with 82 percent including some form of random monetisation mechanic.

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A new game development kit (GDK) for the Xbox Series S will "optimise" the console's memory allocation, Microsoft has revealed.

"Hundreds of additional megabytes of memory are now available to Xbox Series S developers," explained the game dev team in a new video (see below) all about the GDK's updates (thanks, The Verge).

Microsoft says this will give developers "more control over memory", and as such will allow for "[improved] graphics performance in memory-constrained conditions." So, good news indeed.

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In the grim darkness of the far future there is only war... and if Games Workshop has its way, plenty of Warhammer 40,000 video games to play.

The sci-fi tabletop universe is enjoying a video game boom, with a handful of great games set within its very grim and very dark universe launched in recent years. Where there was nothing but an endless stream of mediocre Warhammer 40,000 games to play, like the terrifying Tyranids, the genre has adapted, improved and launched yet another wave, better than what came before.

Below you can find our recommendations for the best Warhammer 40,000 games!

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Overwatch 2 will not hold any more public betas before its full release in two months.

Blizzard exec Jon Spector tweeted the news last night, in response to questions from fans on whether another test period would take place.

"While we will continue testing OW2 daily internally, we're not planning any additional public beta tests," Spector wrote. "With all the valuable feedback we received from our alpha and two public beta tests, we will be focusing our efforts on launching the best game possible on 4th Oct."

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The Life is Strange series will not return to its original episodic model, developer Deck Nine has suggested.

Speaking to Rock, Paper, Shotgun, senior narrative designer Philip Lawrence said the decision to launch last year's entry True Colors as a complete experience was "the right decision", and one the studio wanted to stick with.

"I can't imagine we'd go back to the episodic model," Lawrence said. "The reaction has been very positive."

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Ahead of its release this September, Naughty Dog has been slowly sharing little snippets from The Last of Us Part 1 for PlayStation 5 and comparing it to the PS4 Remastered edition of the game.

The latest example of this sees Joel on horseback, as the screen slides between the PS4 and PS5 versions of the same scene.

"Get ready to hit the dusty trail for a beautiful - and dangerous - journey across America in The Last of Us Part 1," Naughty Dog proclaimed in its tweet with the footage, which you can see below.

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Yesterday Square Enix officially announced the forthcoming release of Tactics Ogre: Reborn, a remaster of the PSP remake of SNES game Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together.

However, some fans are unhappy with both graphical changes and the cost of the remake.

The pixel art of the original has been smoothed out which gives a rounded effect, while the text has been sharpened with a new font.

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Assassin's Creed Valhalla fans may soon be able to wield the godly powers of Thanos and Tony Stark, according to leaked details found in the game's files.

Dataminer AndyReloads has already filmed himself strutting around like Iron Man in a new suit of armour that lets you wield a chest laser akin to Stark's own arc reactor.

The design of the armour, and especially the colouring, are obviously Iron Man-themed. But - thankfully - you're not actually Iron Man, and the rest of the design bears resemblence to those warn by the series' technological Isu race.

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Square Enix has released its latest financial results, detailing a rise in MMO sales thanks to Final Fantasy 14 despite an overall decline.

However, comments have also emerged from an internal conference call concerning the financial report, courtesy of analyst David Gibson.

The sale of Square Enix's western studios - notably Crystal Dynamics and Eidos - was "driven by concerns that the titles cannibalised sales of the rest of the group", with the company aiming to improve capital efficiency.

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We're still not quite at the 1.0 release for Vampire Survivors, but we are at least now one step closer.

Following on from the recent release of patch 0.9, developer Poncle has now released patch 0.10.0 for the game, or in its words, "The Not One" patch. You can see a teaser for it below.

This patch brings with it a host of new content, such as new characters Cosmo Pavone and Big Trousers. Players will also now be able to get two new achievements, a new Arcana and a new weapon.

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Final Fantasy 14 remains the darling of Square Enix's output as the publisher announces declining financial results in its latest report.

Total net sales from the last financial quarter (April to June) were 74.8bn yen, a drop of almost 16 percent compared to the same period last year, while operating income was 14.4bn yen, a drop of almost 17 percent. Net income actually rose due to foreign exchange gains.

However, while net sales of HD games has declined year on year, sales of MMO games have conversely risen year on year.

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More information has been released regarding Kirby's 30th anniversary live concert, and how fans outside of Japan can take their seat remotely.

First announced in March, the concert will be held at Tokyo Garden Theatre on 11th August at 6pm local time in Japan.

For UK fans that's 10am, and you'll be able to stream it via YouTube and start your Thursday off with some Grammy-worthy tunes.

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Music files found in the latest Mario Kart 8 Deluxe update point to many of the upcoming, unannounced DLC tracks due over the coming 18 months.

Even better - for those of us who like peeking inside our Christmas presents a little early - these files line up with a previous leak which appeared to identify the specific platforms for each upcoming DLC course.

Now, fans have put together what they think is a schedule for the remaining DLC cups, including all of the tracks from Wave 3, expected later this year.

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Hello! Welcome back to our regular feature where we write a little bit about some of the games we've found ourselves playing over the last few days. This time: exercise, werewolves, and escape rooms.

If you fancy catching up on some of the older editions of What We've Been Playing, here's our archive.

I have now been part of the Eurogamer team for six wonderful months (woo). However, as a result of this new full-time position my physical activity levels have decreased somewhat (boo).

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Cast your mind back to March and you might recall reports claiming Microsoft was working on a new family plan for Game Pass. Those reports, it now transpires, were true, and an Insider Preview test of the new scheme is available now in an extremely limited number of countries.

As detailed in a new Microsoft blog post, the Xbox Insider trial version of the scheme will enable anyone with a special Insider Preview Game Pass plan to invite up to four people to share that subscription, with each one then gaining unique access to Xbox Game Pass Ultimate's full selection of games, content, and benefits.

The immediate catch right now is that the test is only available to those in Colombia and Ireland. And while the people being added to a subscription by Insiders don't need to be an Insider themselves, they do need a Microsoft account and must be in the same country.

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Following last week's announcement that Frogwares - the developer behind the likes of Sherlock Holmes: Chapter One and The Sinking City - is remaking its 2007 Sherlock/Lovecraft crossover The Awakened, the studio has released a first cinematic trailer for the project, which is seeking Kickstarter funding right now.

The Awakened, if you're unfamiliar, was the third instalment in a series of Frogwares-developed Sherlock Holmes investigatory adventures that has so far spanned nine games, pitting the Baker Street detective against Cthulhu cults and eldritch abominations across Victorian London, Switzerland, New Orleans, and the Scottish Highlands.

Frogwares' remake will see the studio reimagining the title for modern audiences, drawing on its learning from the more recent Sherlock games, and retooling its story to be a continuation of the young Sherlock arc, which started in last year's Chapter One. And if you're curious to know how that might look, the developer has you covered with a new cinematic trailer in which Sherlock and Watson traverse the New Orleans bayous into a strange realm that, pleasingly, looks to share more than a few aesthetic beats with Frogwares' Lovecraftian The Sinking City.

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Crypt of the Necrodancer, the acclaimed rhythm-based dungeon-crawler from Brace Yourself Games, has - following its first update in five years last month - launched a huge new expansion, titled Synchrony, into Steam early access, bringing new characters, online multiplayer, and more. And if that wasn't enough, there's also some sort of sequel or spin-off on the way.

Getting the latter part of the announcement out of the way first, as details are currently rather limited, the follow-up is called Rift of the Necrodancer and is described as "new standalone rhythm game in the Necrodancer universe." Exactly what form it'll take is currently unclear, but Brace Yourself says to "stay tuned" for more details.

Thankfully, if it's details you want, Crypt of the Necrodancer's newly released Synchrony DLC delivers in spades, arriving alongside an absolutely enormous set of release notes. To summarise though, it brings three new characters, new enemies, new items, online multiplayer, a new Versus mode, full mod support, plus a stack of DLC-exclusive features.

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