Single Player Tarkov, the unofficial offline version of extraction shooter pillar Escape from Tarkov, is shutting down after the development team received a trademark violation notice from creator Battlestate Games.

A notice announcing an end to work on SPT was posted to the game mode's official Discord server on August 1. SPT been around for years, gradually iterating on the promise of "a fully offline experience – no more server downtime, cheaters, or forced PvP."

Senior moderator DrakiaXYZ explains that Battlestate sent a notice and, shortly afterward, "certain users have decided to leak internal communications and push their own narrative as if it were the truth and final outcome, so we are forced to make an announcement before we were ready, and before a final decision was made about what we plan to do with all parts of the project."

Putting it clearly, they add, "This is the end of the SPT Project under the current team, and in its current form. However all of the source code will remain available if a future team wishes to continue from where we left off."

While "this leak has played a large part in the decisions that staff and maintainers have made in regards to this trademark violation notice," per DrakiaXYZ, it is not what forced the team to shutdown SPT outright.

Another SPT staff member, RaiRaiTheRaichu, writes in a follow-up post: "Leaks' are not the reason why SPT is not continuing development, 'leaks' are why the Github organization is not being directly passed on to anyone."

Many users reacted with confusion, wondering why the SPT team, in the absence of an actual cease and desist order from Battlestate, doesn't simply remove any mentions of the Tarkov name from the project.

RaiRaiTheRaichu affirms that SPT update 4.1, released just days ago, "has always been the intended last version of SPT from us." Additionally, the project cannot continue, they say, because "it is not as simple as 'just rehost it'/'just change the name,' also not as simple as 'give the website to someone else' – partly because why the heck are we going to hand over your passwords, DMs, emails, etc. to anybody."

A third Discord message from SPT lead Refringe, who says they were "personally sent the legal notice," hammers one final nail in the coffin.

"The plan right from the start was always for another team to pick up where we left off," Refringe writes. "That's why I packaged up all the GitHub repositories, including their history and issues, and shared with everyone on the staff and development team. It's also why I intend to keep sharing whatever data I can morally justify handing over (excluding anything involving user information) with people I trust to carry this forward responsibly."

Future development and availability for Single Player Tarkov is tough to make out through the legal and community drama in the air. It doesn't appear that the fan game mode will up and disappear – if only in the sense that nothing ever truly leaves the internet once posted, as plenty of people already have this offline mode installed and backed up – but there's no telling if or when it will find new shepherds, and I don't see a change of hands magically resolving Battlestate's complaint.

Earlier this year, Steam charts were rocked by Road to Vostok, a so-called "single player Tarkov" FPS by a solo ex-military dev who says "the past 24 hours have been absolutely insane."

Halo: Campaign Evolved had a strong launch day in the US, but you may or may not be surprised to hear that it appears to have been more popular on its home turf than on PS5.

According to analyst Mat Piscatella, Circana's player engagement tracker shows that on July 28 – Halo: Campaign Evolved's proper release date after leaving its advanced access period – it came in fourth place on the US's ranking of daily active users on Xbox. Although it might have missed out on the bronze medal, Piscatella notes that "8% of total Xbox players on that date launched the game," which is obviously an enormous number.

These percentages go down when you look at the game's day-one performance on Steam and PS5. Piscatella reports that its daily active users placed it in 14th place on Steam, with 2% of daily active users launching it, while it was in 29th place on PS5, with 1% of daily active users giving it their time.

Of course, while the figures might appear smaller, it's worth noting that they're not totally comparable. Different platforms have varying user bases – 1% of daily Steam users isn't the same number as 1% of daily PlayStation users, for example. It does give an indication of each platform's priorities, though – clearly, the US-based Xbox user base has a larger proportion of folks who care about Halo enough to play it on day one than the US-based PlayStation fandom.

According to Circana's Player Engagement Tracker, on July 28th Halo: Campaign Evolved ranked 4th in US DAU on Xbox platforms (8% of total Xbox players on that date launched the game), while placing 14th on Steam (2% of actives) and 29th on PlayStation (1% of actives).

— @matpiscatella.bsky.social (@matpiscatella.bsky.social.bsky.social) 2026-08-03T16:18:39.471Z

What is easier to compare is the amount of time players on different platforms spent playing the game. "The average console player engaged with Halo: Campaign Evolved for over 2 hours" on its main release date of July 28, Piscatella says, while your average Steam player spent "a little over 1 hour in the game."

Piscatella gets ahead of one console war-fuelled interpretation of these stats as he says: "The game is currently at the top of the PlayStation Store's best-sellers list, so it's doing fine on PlayStation. What this does show is the massive challenge for new games in an environment dominated by the live service behemoths."

It'd also be totally understandable if Campaign Evolved did have more players on Xbox than PlayStation – while the novelty of Halo coming to PS5 is very cool, chances are that most diehard fans of the series already own an Xbox console, and the game is playable via a Game Pass Ultimate subscription to boot, making it even more appealing to those already subscribed to give it a whirl at no extra cost. It'll certainly earn more fans via its PS5 release, but they're probably more likely to be new ones than returning veterans.

Secret Halo: Campaign Evolved ending strongly hints that another Halo 2 remake is in the works – "See you in the sequel."

Call of Duty: Black Ops 2's PS4 and PS5 port just got some backend updates as Activision works to "improve match security" amid reports of a hacker on the loose altering players' accounts.

Over the last few days, multiple players reported running into a hacker in their multiplayer lobbies who maxed out their accounts, even setting them to Prestige levels that don't actually exist. Some also reported experiencing game crashes after this, preventing them from playing. Thankfully, it's not taken too long for the devs to get on the case.

"We've released backend updates to improve match security as we review accounts with incorrect Prestige levels," a tweet from the official Call of Duty Updates account today reads.

Players are warned that they might "briefly see an account ban notice when they're removed from a match or session so our systems can correctly apply updated account data," but it doesn't necessarily mean they've actually been banned – it's just a "byproduct of legacy systems used by older titles," it adds.

"If you're able to reconnect after receiving this notice, your account has been processed successfully and no further action is required," it continues. "If you're unable to reconnect, your account has been identified for enforcement based on evidence of intentionally obtaining unauthorized Prestige levels or other violations of our Terms of Service, including account manipulation."

In theory, then, anyone who was randomly targeted by the hacker won't see any negative consequences, but it might be a different story if the account manipulation was intentional.

Based on the responses to the tweet, this process seemingly hasn't been entirely successful – some folks are reporting that no changes have been made to their affected accounts at all. Others are also irritated that they already reset their stats themselves after getting hacked – they're apparently back to square one with no way to get themselves back to their progress before having their accounts manipulated.

Perhaps most concerning is that the post doesn't mention any action being taken against those responsible for the hacks in the first place, raising the question of whether Activision is actually dealing with the root issue, which isn't exactly inspiring confidence in players that the situation is resolved.

Activision seemingly didn't bother fixing a 15-year-old Call of Duty: Black Ops exploit for its new port, modder says, but it's now investigating the leftover PS3 issue.

A now infamous hacker is reportedly going around Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 lobbies and bricking players' accounts in the game's new PlayStation ports.

Activision recently ported the first two Call of Duty: Black Ops games to PS4 and PS5 consoles, but the original games' vulnerable infrastructure seems to have been unchanged, which already led to years-old exploits remaining intact.

Things have gotten slightly worse in Black Ops 2's multiplayer, as a hacker who goes by the name 'C Isn't Sharp?' has been showing up in lobbies and messing with other people's accounts in various ways. Streamer TimTheTatMan fell victim to the hacker, who pushed his account to Level 55 and Prestige 16 - a Prestige level that doesn't even exist in the game proper. (Good spot, IGN.)

Some players have reported that being hacked has also left them unable play online matches at all since the game apparently keeps crashing thereafter. Certain players also claim their progress in other areas of the game have been reset after a chance run in with the hacker.

Right now, the only apparent fix is to look out for C Isn't Sharp's bright green name in lobbies and immediately close the game to stop your account from being altered. Hopping out of the lobby seemingly doesn't stop your stats from messing up, no matter how quick you are.

15-year-old exploits and now a boogeyman hacker haven't done much to turn public opinion around on the new Black Ops port, which were already getting side-eyed thanks to their $40 price tags - no to mention the $30 extra that it'll cost you for the map packs.

Despite all the commotion, Call of Duty is doing what Call of Duty always does: sell. Last month, both Black Ops games landed within the best-selling PlayStation games chart in the US.

Activision admits Call of Duty matchmaking used to be better, updates Black Ops 7 with a new system inspired by "classic games" like Black Ops 1 and 2

People are really out here porting Half-Life to the PlayStation 1.

Manny, of Bonnie Studios, is a self-described "software engineer, guitarist, and game developer from Sicily." His debut YouTube video promises "Half-Life on a Real PlayStation 1," and 14 minutes of glorious 1998 technology revisited with 2026 technology bears that promise out.

"Not an emulator and not a demake: a renderer and game runtime written from scratch in Rust," Manny stresses.

Manny is more broadly known for PSoXide, a PS1 development tech stack that, per his Itch.io page, covers an "emulator + Rust SDK + game engine + editor + asset pipeline." In this case, Half-Life was written fully for the Rust coding language without reliance on a traditional emulator, and is running on a proper PS1 console – in this case, "direct capture" off an SCPH-9002 model PS1.

"This is the full Hazard Course, all seven maps, start to finish in one sitting with no cuts," Manny explains in the video description. The Hazard Course is basically the tutorial prologue for Half-Life – a good sandbox for a demonstration like this.

"The deaths, the retries, the moment I get stuck inside a wall and die, and the audio glitches are all still in it," Manny asserts. "It averages around 17fps, holding 20 most of the time and dropping to 10-16 in the widest areas. The capture chain adds about 100ms between the pad and the picture, so it plays tighter on the console than it looks here."

As a quick refresher, the PS1 was released in North America by Sony in 1995, Valve dropped Half-Life in 1998, and the significantly more powerful PS2 arrived in 2000. Lauded for its advanced tech and physics, Half-Life launched on PC and only came to the PS2 in 2001.

Getting the game running at all on a system that predates it by several years is pretty impressive work, even if artifact-like graphical distortions do make it look like protagonist Gordon Freeman pounded back a few benadryl cocktails garnished with melatonin gummies before work.

I can't help but wonder if the AI-generated code that evidently went into the project played a part in that oddness, too, for all Manny's assurances that his "pre-AI coding background" and "core decision" shaped the programming. AI use in ports like this has become a battleground, with some teams targeting specific games just to outdo what they call vibe-coded slop. And GamesRadar+ has extensively covered why game developers in general don't want to use generative AI in any capacity.

Manny lays out just "some" of the workarounds necessary to fit 10 pounds of game into a 5-pound console: "BSP traversal doubling as painter's order for the ordering table, PVS culling, 16 colour CLUTs at 4 bits per pixel, LZ4 map chunks streamed into a static buffer, animation frames pre-posed at cook time because there is no FPU and no heap, SPU ADPCM audio and 27 Red Book CD tracks on the disc."

Which is all to say: squeezing blood from stone.

This being a fan effort, Manny says he's reached out to Valve "asking them to greenlight the project" before releasing the source code. "For legal reasons there will never be a downloadable disc image or a ready-to-play build," he adds. But if Valve miraculously gives him the thumbs up, or if he has "not heard back in a month or so," he says "I will take that as no objection and make it public."

Manny is doing much better than the company that promised and sold a Portal-inspired Steam Machine Companion Cube case "without ever asking Valve" for permission.

"Once released you will need your own lawfully obtained Steam copy of Half-Life: the converter reads it on your own machine and builds the disc from there," Manny adds. That, and you'll need a PS1.

On Twitter, Manny reveals that his next project hopes to get "Minecraft-style worlds running natively on PlayStation 1 hardware." That's full "chunk streaming, day/night, mobs and caves on a 33MHz CPU."

Earlier this month, a designer at Valve recreated Half-Life 2's Ravenholm in the company's new Source 2 engine, saying he was "blown away at powerful these tools are."

The "final game" from Half-Life 2 and Dishonored's late art director has been revealed: "The world's first Soulslike FPS," an apocalyptic Western at "the end of America."

• Halo: Campaign Evolved is perfect if you want a well-paced FPS packed with memorable levels that can be comfortably completed in a single weekend, either solo or with friends.

Let me give you a 60-second pitch for why you should play Halo: Campaign Evolved this weekend. I still remember the first time I played Halo, back when it was called Combat Evolved and the infamous "Duke" controller was too big for my little-kid hands – it was an extraordinary experience that set a new benchmark for first-person shooters on console.

Whether you're looking to indulge in a little nostalgia or looking to discover Halo for the very first time, Halo: Campaign Evolved is a must play; a well-crafted remake that retains the spirit of the 2001 original and introduces plenty of modern flourishes.

Why play it today?

• Halo: Combat Evolved changed the way a generation of players thought about first-person shooters.

Almost 25 years later, it's certainly true that there are elements of Halo: Campaign Evolved that are a little on the tired side – developer Halo Studios was intent on building a faithful remake, and didn't want to stray far from the foundations that plenty of other prominent shooters have expanded since. Elements of Halo's debut adventure that were once revolutionary are now quite perfunctory, such is its wide influence.

Still, Halo: Campaign Evolved is still an absolute riot for newcomers and returning players alike. There's a quality to its mission design, world scale, and enemy intelligence that's astounding. Seeing this game rebuilt so lovingly in Unreal Engine 5 is well worth the price of admission – and the introduction of console campaign-crossplay means there's more utility here than with Halo: The Master Chief Collection.

Time commitment:

If you're wondering how long it's going to take to beat Halo: Campaign Evolved, you're looking at around 10-14 hours for the main campaign. That means it's perfect for couch co-op sessions with a friend or online co-op with a group over either a long weekend or three evenings after work.

Play Halo: Campaign Evolved if you love:

Skip Halo: Campaign Evolved if you want:

One thing to know:

Halo: Campaign Evolved does actually contain some brand new content that is exclusive to this version of the original Master Chief adventure. Halo Studios has delivered three new prologue missions, set about a year before the events of Combat Evolved – a brand new adventure for Chief to go on alongside Sergeant Johnson.

A moment you'll remember:

There's a magic to the moment Master Chief steps onto Installation 04 for the first time. After evacuating the UNSC Pillar of Autumn, Chief is given a minute to breathe. Looking up at the curving Halo ring felt revolutionary back in 2001, and today it still generates a real feeling of genuine awe.

The final verdict:

• Read our full Halo: Campaign Evolved review to learn more.

You should play Halo: Campaign Evolved because it remains a true masterclass in FPS level design, with gunplay and enemy AI that revolutionized a genre. A lot has changed in 25 years, but Master Chief's debut adventure has lost none of its power. Campaign Evolved is every bit as enjoyable as Combat Evolved was back in 2001.

So, where can you play it?

Halo: Campaign Evolved is available now for for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X. You can also download the game as part of Game Pass Ultimate.

If you don't have a Game Pass subscription, the Halo: Campaign Evolved standard edition costs $49.99, while the premium edition is $69.99.

How to get started with Halo: Campaign Evolved:

If you're looking to get a better sense of where to start with Halo: Campaign Evolved this weekend, here's four essential guides to assist with your journey onto Installation 04.

Have your say:

If you're looking for a cheaper alternative to Halo: Campaign Evolved, both Titanfall 2 and Wolfenstein 2: The New Colossus feature in our best FPS games ranking and are regularly on sale across all major platforms.

If you're looking for all skull locations in Halo: Campaign Evolved then you're no doubt searching for ways to modify your playthrough. There are 42 skulls in total, with 39 of them hidden in some very obscure positions across the 13 levels. The other three are unlocked automatically once you collect your first two skulls. Remember, you'll need all 42 unlocked if you want to go after the Headhunter trophy/achievement in Halo: Campaign Evolved.

One helpful thing to know about the Skulls is that they make an ominous, ghostly breathing-like sound when you're nearby - wear some headphones and you might be able to home in by listening out. But some of them are impossible to find even when being thorough, requiring specific conditions to be met and puzzles to be solved.

With that in mind, below you'll find my guide to all Halo: Campaign Evolved skull locations and give details on how to collect them.

Make sure you also look out for the Halo Campaign Evolved Terminals as you explore every level!

Halo Campaign Evolved Pillar of Autumn Skull 1

From Rally Point Alpha, the start of the level.

As soon as soon as you have control of Master Chief, turn around and go to the two large, round containers on the left side of the back of the room. Climb onto these containers, then jump across to the nearby upper walkway. Walk to the other end and you'll find the Speed Limit Skull.

Speed Limit: Disables sprint.

Halo Campaign Evolved Pillar of Autumn Skull 2

From Rally Point Alpha, as soon as the marine says Cortana needs you at the bridge.

The next room the marine leads you into is an armory, and the Magnified Skull is on top of the weapon rack near the middle of the room.

Magnified: The assault rifle now has a 60-round magazine, just like the original.

Halo Campaign Evolved Pillar of Autumn Skull 3

From Rally Point Bravo, after the cutscene where Master Chief meets Keyes at the bridge.

Turn around and go back into the bridge. Head over to the main control area with the glass canopy and the two pilots in their chairs and drop down into the floorspace below them to find the Perspective Skull.

Perspective: Switches to a third-person, over-the-shoulder view.

Halo Campaign Evolved Halo Skull 1

From Rally Point Charlie, at the lifeboat crash site near the cliff edge where the marines are holed up underground.

Before getting into the details for this Skull, it's worth mentioning that it's much easier to get if you play this mission with the Acrophobia Skull active. Otherwise, make sure you DO NOT use any frag grenades while you rescue the marines.

Clear out the Covenant as normal, then head to the upper platform of the main Forerunner spire structure in the middle of the area. Jump onto the small lip on either side of the spire, then walk up the ramp – this will get you into a small nook in the middle of the spire where you can see a hole that leads down into the basement where the marines were hiding.

Standing in this nook, look at one of the corners opposite the hole where the ramp meets part of the spire and chuck a frag grenade into it. As you do, turn around to face the narrow ledge you need to get on top of, then jump just before the grenade explodes. The explosion should then boost you up enough to get on top of the ledge. You can also crouch in mid-air to tuck Chief's legs and help you get up. Walk up the narrow ledge to find the Grunt Funeral Skull at the top.

If you run out of frag grenades, quickly reload to the last checkpoint and you should be able to attempt again. It is possible to do this grenade jump with a plasma grenade, but their more powerful short-range explosion means you'll probably just blow yourself up. Otherwise, if you have the Acrophobia Skull active, you can fly up to the Skull very easily.

Grunt Funeral: When grunts die, they explode like a plasma grenade.

Halo Campaign Evolved Halo Skull 2

From Rally Point Charlie, at the lifeboat crash site near the rockslide.

After rescuing the marines in this area, go to the top of the rockslide area and stand on the largest of the rock formations (this is usually where a marine with a sniper rifle perches). Hop across to the large, grass-covered rock on your right, then jump down to the smaller rock ahead and below. The Floor Is Lava Skull is on this rock.

Floor Is Lava: Take continuous damage whenever you're touching the ground.

Halo Campaign Evolved Halo Skull 3

From Rally Point Charlie, along the river from the final lifeboat crash site in the hills.

Find the river and follow it uphill to until you reach the tall tunnel. Go inside the tunnel and on your left there will be some large rocks. Check next to the largest rock and you'll find the Give & Take Skull floating ominously.

Give & Take: Firing your weapon drains your shield, but damaging enemies recharges your shield.

Halo Campaign Evolved Truth and Reconciliation Skull 1

From Rally Point Alpha, just before using the gravity lift to get inside the ship.

From the grav lift, head up the hill towards the cliff and look for a small tree right on the cliff edge and to the left of a bushier shrub and a much taller tree.

Walk over to this small tree and then look down the cliff and you'll spot the Iron Skull on a tiny ledge. Carefully drop down to collect it. As far as I can tell, there's no way back up, so you have to die or reload your checkpoint.

Iron: Dying while playing solo restart the level. Dying in co-op resets to your last checkpoint.

Halo Campaign Evolved Truth and Reconciliation Skull 2

From Rally Point Bravo, after entering the vehicle bay with some Wraiths lying around.

Run along the upper walkway but rather than going through the door into the corridors leading down, keep going right until you find a Covenant barrel-looking object near the edge of the walkway next to a purple column – this column is the first in a row of three. The Endurance Spec Skull itself is on the furthest column.

To reach this Skull, you need to leap across the columns using the steep bulbous parts as jumping points. Be warned that this can be quite difficult as it's very easy to bounce or slip off the columns. But when you eventually reach the third one, start holding Square/X so that you grab the Skull without having to land on the column properly.

Endurance Spec: UNSC vehicles can't be damaged.

Halo Campaign Evolved Truth and Reconciliation Skull 3

From Rally Point Bravo, after entering the shuttle bay.

Immediately head right to a door which will occasionally open to let Covenant enemies join the fight. When the door opens, run inside and follow the corridor all the way to the other end. You'll find the Foreign Skull on the floor in a corner next to a round, purple hologram.

Foreign: You cannot use Covenant weapons.

Halo Campaign Evolved Silent Cartographer Skull 1

From Rally Point Alpha or Bravo, where the two Hunters are that guard the way to the security system.

The area where you find the Hunter pair features a Forerunner structure in the middle. Walk up the inclined part of this structure and you'll find the Acrophobia Skull at the end near the cliff wall.

Acrophobia: While in mid-air hold the jump button to fly.

Halo Campaign Evolved Silent Cartographer Skull 2

From Rally Point Alpha or Bravo, outside the entrance structure to the Silent Cartographer.

Standing on the platform outside the main entranceway and facing the entrance, look to your right for a hole in the cliff. Head inside to find a small cave tunnel and the Bandana Skull lying in the middle of a patch of light.

Bandana: Gain infinite ammo and grenades (also disables the ability to earn certain achievements).

Halo Campaign Evolved Silent Cartographer Skull 3

From Rally Point Charlie, after going through the previously locked door.

Follow the main objective through the Forerunner facility, including going down to the next floor. You'll then be directed to another stairwell that leads downward with a blue hologram in the gap. Look down this gap and you'll just about be able to spot the Hip Fire Skull on a small corner ledge. Jump down and collect the Skull.

Hip Fire: Disables aiming and scope zoom for all weapons.

Halo Campaign Evolved Assault on the Control Room Skull 1

From Rally Point Bravo, after driving the Scorpion tank across the bridge in the chasm.

Once on the other side of the bridge, turn left and drive the tank to the ice wall at the end of the platform. You'll notice a tall, narrow gap on the right side of this ice wall which is where the IWHBYD Skull (I Would Have Been Your Daddy, in case you're curious) is.

To reach it, turn the tank around and reverse so that the turret is close to the gap. Then get out the tank, climb on top of the turret, and jump to the Skull.

IWHBYD: Rare dialogue becomes more common.

Halo Campaign Evolved Assault on the Control Room Skull 2

From Rally Point Charlie, after reaching the snowy clearing with three large arches but before going through the door to to find the Control Center Ziggurat.

From this door, turn around to look at the three arch structures. Walk up the one on the right and you'll find the Angry Skull right in the middle.

Angry: Enemies fire their weapons faster and more frequently.

Halo Campaign Evolved Assault on the Control Room Skull 3

From Rally Point Echo, upon reaching the bridge next to the Control Center Ziggurat with the Banshees on it.

Walk up to the middle of the bridge and stand on the left where the slope of the ziggurat almost touches the bridge. Jump down this slope and walk down and under the bridge to find the Cowbell Skull perched on a rock.

Cowbell: Objects are more easily moved by physics effects, such as explosions.

Halo Campaign Evolved 343 Guilty Spark Skull 1

From Rally Point Alpha, just after you pass the crashed Spirit dropship.

Follow the path left and up the hill. When you pass the large tree on your left and get to the purple light, start climbing up the rock and dirt bank on the left. The Fog Skull is on top of a small dirt mound on this bank.

Fog: Motion Tracker is disabled.

Halo Campaign Evolved 343 Guilty Spark Skull 2

From Rally Point Bravo, upon finding the insane marine in the Forerunner facility who tries to shoot you.

Kill him. He'll drop the That's Just… Wrong Skull for that.

That's Just… Wrong: Enemies have increased awareness of your presence.

Halo Campaign Evolved 343 Guilty Spark Skull 3

From Rally Point Charlie, at the end of the level where you have to kill the Flood while you wait for evac next to a large Forerunner structure.

Obviously don't kill everything otherwise you'll end the mission. From the Forerunner structure, facing the oncoming Flood, turn left and go around the back of the structure into the dark forest. Keep going until you find a thin felled tree next to a much larger tree.

Climb up to and walk along the felled tree until you can see a large rock formation below. Look down and to your left and you'll spot the They Come Back Skull on this rock.

They Come Back: Flood Combat Forms reanimated by Infection Forms are much more dangerous.

Halo Campaign Evolved The Library Skull 1

From Rally Point Alpha, after going through the service tunnel (when you come out the other side, 343 Guilty Spark will remark on how you survived and Sentinels will arrive to kill the Flood).

From the service tunnel exit, walk forward, then turn around and you'll spot large slopes on either side. Climb up to the one on your left to find the Tilt Skull.

Tilt: Positive and negative damage multipliers are increased (for example, plasma weapons deal even more damage against shields, but even less against health).

Halo Campaign Evolved The Library Skull 2

From Rally Point Bravo, upon reaching the first large door that 343 Guilty Spark must open.

Opposite the door is an area with two large pillars and a small ledge against the wall with a light shining upwards. The Pop Skull is on this ledge. To get to it, climb up one of the slopes near either of the pillars, jump onto a pillar, then jump across to the ledge.

Pop: Shooting Flood enemies in their weakspot causes them to explode.

Halo Campaign Evolved The Library Skull 3

From Rally Point Charlie, after taking the elevator down to the Flood-infested final floor.

Go straight ahead from the lift, down the incline, and through the doorway into some Flood goop-filled corridors. Take the next left, and you'll find the Famine Skull on the floor near a wall of goop.

Famine: Weapons dropped by enemies contain half the ammo.

Halo Campaign Evolved Two Betrayals Skull 1

From Rally Point Alpha, upon grabbing a Banshee after leaving the Control Center.

Fly the Banshee to the top of the Control Center spire, land on it, then grab the Tough Luck Skull near the edge. Be aware that there's no way to get down without dying unless you've expertly landed your Banshee, so you'll have to reload a checkpoint or restart the level.

Tough Luck: Enemies always go berserk, constantly dive out the way, and rarely flee a fight.

Halo Campaign Evolved Two Betrayals Skull 2

From Rally Point Charlie, upon reaching the area with the three arches – the same snowy area where the Angry Skull was in Assault on the Control Room.

This time, walk across the middle arch then bear right into the small dead end of Flood growths. The Black Eye Skull is on a small pile of snow in this area.

Black Eye: Your shields only recharge when you melee enemies.

Halo Campaign Evolved Two Betrayals Skull 3

From Rally Point Charlie, once you reach the snow canyon where you need to commandeer another Banshee.

Fly to the top of the massive tower in the middle of the canyon and land your Banshee on the top. Activate the Forerunner console in the middle to open a door, then fly your Banshee to the landing area in front of the console – not the landing area the objective marker is telling you to go to.

Pass through the now unlocked door here to reach a room full of enemies. Kill everything inside (Flood, stealth Elites and Fuel Rod Gun Grunts), then go to the opposite side of the room to find another console which you can activate to open the nearby door. This leads into a Flood-infested corridor and you need to kill everything in here too so that you can activate another console, letting you into the final room.

Kill everything in this last room (lots of Flood, including Tank Forms), and then collect the Mythic Skull from the enclosure in the middle.

Mythic: Enemies have more health.

Halo Campaign Evolved Keyes Skull 1

From Rally Point Alpha on Heroic difficulty or higher, at the very start of the mission. Fair warning: this is by far the hardest Halo Campaign Evolved Skull to get.

The Catch Skull itself is at the highest point of the gravity lift that takes you into the Truth and Reconciliation ship, but it will disappear if you take too long to reach it.

To get this Skull, you need to speedrun through the opening section of Keyes, sprinting and jumping past every enemy, to get to the grav lift area as quickly as possible (Tip: look up slightly to prevent aim assist from dragging your aim around as you run past enemies!).

Once there, focus on killing the Covenant enemies, most of which will be marked with red icons. I recommend grabbing the Overshield, fighting your way to the grav lift itself, and then standing in it while chucking grenades and shooting at anything that approaches.

Eventually, the gravity lift will pull you up, at which point you need to hold Square/X. Doing so should guarantee that you collect the Skull as soon as you reach the highest point of the lift. To give you an idea of how quick you need to be, I grabbed the Skull in just under three minutes, but it is thankfully still obtainable even if you die and reload at a checkpoint midway through your speedrun.

Catch: Enemies throw and drop more grenades.

Halo Campaign Evolved Keyes Skull 2

From Rally Point Bravo, once you're inside the vehicle bay.

Get down to the main floor of the vehicle bay and head to the open doorway past the Wraiths. Down this corridor, you'll notice a destroyed Wraith and several Covenant containers blocking the way but stick to the left wall and you can crouch-walk under the Wraith. Go to the end of the corridor and you'll find the Blind Skull on the ground next to the locked door.

Blind: HUD and weapons are invisible.

Halo Campaign Evolved Keyes Skull 3

From Rally Point Charlie, after the cutscene where Master Chief removes Flood Keyes' neural lace.

Keep punching Keyes' Flood form until it drops the appropriately named Piñata Skull.

Piñata: Punching enemies makes them drop inert grenades.

Halo Campaign Evolved The Maw Skull 1

From Rally Point Bravo, in the burning cryo storage room.

Head to the far-left corner of the room where the fire, walk up the collapsed walkway, then turn around and jump onto the far support pillar against the wall. The Stowed Reload Skull is on top of this pillar.

Stowed Reload: Weapons reload while stowed.

Halo Campaign Evolved The Maw Skull 2

From Rally Point Bravo, just after destroying the four cores in Engineering.

From the far control panel on the right side of the room as you entered (this is the one that controls Core F), jump down on to the small platform with a box on it that's just below the wide doorway you can leave through. Then drop down to the left onto the narrow walkway, where you'll find the Boom Skull tucked away.

Boom: Explosion radius is doubled.

Halo Campaign Evolved The Maw Skull 3

From Rally Point Charlie, towards the beginning of the Warthog run.

Begin the Warthog run as normal until you reach the first tunnel section. On your right, you'll spot a smaller tunnel with red lights you can drive through as a shortcut. Go through and then keep driving until you find a second tunnel like this, also on your right. Drive halfway through this one, get out the Warthog, then walk over to the scorched wall on your right. The Thunderstorm Skull is on the floor next to this wall.

Thunderstorm: Upgrades the ranks of most enemies.

Halo Campaign Evolved Boarding Action Skull 1

From Rally Point Alpha, after defeating the two Hunters on the upper floor (you can hear this Skull from the very start of the mission but need to make it past this point to collect it).

Instead of going up to where the objective marker directs, go right and follow the walkway and corridors down to the Seraph (the purple spaceship) launch bay.

Go through the door beyond the Seraph and head towards the path with the orange lights on it past the Shade turret and to your right. The Malfunction Skull is on this path.

Malfunction: When you respawn, a random HUD element is disabled.

Halo Campaign Evolved Boarding Action Skull 2

From Rally Point Bravo, after reaching the Elite training room area with the purple tube above.

Rather than going through the purple tube as the objective marker directs, head left along the upper floor towards two open doors. Go through the one on your left and follow the corridor to emerge onto the upper floor of the room before the training room – there will also be a squad of Elites ahead, so make sure you kill them first.

Next, go straight ahead to the curved pathway that goes around a rock spire, and you'll find the Johnny Ammo Seed Skull there.

Johnny Ammo Seed: When reloading, any remaining ammo in the discarded magazine is lost.

Halo Campaign Evolved Boarding Action Skull 3

From Rally Point Delta, after fighting through the room with the central gravity lift.

Before riding the grav lift up, go through the door to the left of it and follow the corridor to the end to find the Leadhead Skull.

Leadhead: Headshots no longer provide extra damage or instant kills.

Halo Campaign Evolved The Most Dangerous Game Skull 1

From Rally Point Alpha as you need to play through almost the entire level in one go to get this Skull.

To get the Temperamental Skull in The Most Dangerous Game, you need to shoot an invincible gold Elite that appears at three set points during the mission. The problem is that it almost immediately retreats to safety if you start shooting it or get too close. Miss an opportunity to break its shield and you can't collect the Skull later in the level – I recommend holding onto a longer-range weapon, such as the Battle or Needle Rifle to help.

Here are the three places you must shoot the gold Elite and where to find the Skull afterwards:

1. From Rally Point Alpha, after the Brute ambush area. The next area features many tall trees with large leaves and a far-off rock hill. The Elite is at the top of this hill and will retreat into the Covenant building behind it when you start shooting.

2. From Rally Point Bravo, upon reaching the Covenant bridge with a Wraith at the opposite end. Run across the bridge and past the Wraith, then start shooting the Elite. It will very quickly retreat through the doors directly behind it.

3. From Rally Point Charlie, after rescuing the marines from the brig and reach the room with the windows that let you see the packed sarcophagi (this is also very close to this level's Terminal). Head through the exit door into an outside area, then immediately look left and up to spot the gold Elite in an elevated position. Shoot it quickly before it retreats backwards out of sight.

4. If you sufficiently shot the gold Elite in all three areas, the Temperamental Skull can be collected from the same area as above. Kill all the enemies, then go up to the purple spire structure in the middle of the area to find the Skull.

Temperamental: Allies attack you more quickly if you kill a friendly.

Halo Campaign Evolved The Most Dangerous Game Skull 2

From Rally Point Bravo, upon reaching the bridge with the Wraith at the end.

As you step onto the bridge, turn around and shoot the plasma batteries on top of the columns on either side of the large door. This will cause the door to open, letting you grab the Recession Skull on the ground and access an armory of UNSC weapons.

Recession: Every shot fired expends twice as much ammo.

Halo Campaign Evolved The Most Dangerous Game Skull 3

From Rally Point Charlie, after you go through a large door where Johnson, Williams, and Master Chief have a brief conversation.

From the large door you came in through, bear left until you reach a tree with lots of stalagmites next to it. Jump onto the stalagmites, then climb up the jagged cliff, heading towards the large door. The Ghost Skull itself is in the purple flame closest to the cliff, so once you've made it to the flatter side of the cliff, you just need to jump across to the flame and grab the Skull.

Ghost: Enemies don't flinch when shot at.

Halo Campaign Evolved Heavy Burden Skull 1

From Rally Point Alpha, when you reach a bridge across a large chasm.

Rather than crossing the bridge, turn left and go through the next door (be careful as some Elites will attack you from here) and cross the much narrower bridge nearby. The Eye Patch Skull is to the right of the door at the end of this bridge.

Eye Patch: Auto-aiming is disabled for all weapons.

Halo Campaign Evolved Heavy Burden Skull 2

From Rally Point Bravo, when you reach a massive room with several floors as you head back to regroup with Williams.

In this room, you'll notice an elevated circular platform with two purple fire braziers and a cluster of rock spires nearby. The Grunt Birthday Party Skull is on top of the tallest of these spires.

To get to it, you need to get down to this circular platform, hop onto the brazier closest to the rock spires, then sprint and jump across to the top of one of the shorter spires. Then you just need to jump up and hold Square/X to grab the Skull.

Grunt Birthday Party: Killing a grunt with a headshot produces confetti and cheers.

Halo Campaign Evolved Heavy Burden Skull 3

From Rally Point Charlie, after you restore power to the gondola and continue moving.

With the gondola moving again, it will hover into a large room with a bridge, then into a room with a station on either side of the tunnel. The Skull is tucked away in the far-right corner of the station on the left, so you've got to hop off the gondola, sprint to the corner, and grab the Efficient Skull. Unfortunately, this area also has a 'Return To The Battlefield' timer, and the chances of you making it back to the gondola in time are very slim.

Efficient: Enemies killed while you're at full health drop more ammo.

Campaign Remix Skulls

Once you've collected any three Skulls in Halo Campaign Evolved, you'll also unlock three more Skulls – Adaptation, Armistice, and Reload – and the Campaign Remix mode. This mode randomly applies a selection of the Skulls you've collected to a new campaign, except for Adaptation, Armistice, and Reload which are always active in Remix mode. Here's what these Skulls do:

• Adaptation: Randomizes the enemy factions present in a mission.
• Armistice: Enemy factions never fight one another.
• Reload: Randomizes all pre-placed weapons in a mission.

Collecting all of these Skulls will add several hours to how long it takes to beat Halo Campaign Evolved, and they're also one of the major Halo Campaign Evolved changes that the remake introduces.

© GamesRadar+. Not to be reproduced without permission.

EA managed to act a little morose earlier this year when it forced Battlefield 6 studios into "realignment" and laid off workers, but it seems CEO Andrew Wilson is doing fine. The executive made 305-times the average EA employee's salary in fiscal year 2026.

The publisher explains, in a newly amended annual report (thanks, Eurogamer), that "the annual total compensation of our median employee was $126,612," while "the annual total compensation of Mr. Wilson, was $38,649,984."

That's $8,120,149 more than Wilson made in fiscal year 2025, though the boss' base salary remained at a humble $1.3 million. Ultimately, the "Compensation Actually Paid" to Wilson, which EA describes on page 31, totaled $77,231,168. So "the ratio of these amounts is 305 to 1," EA says of the $38.6 million figure, but the full picture is even more sobering.

Additionally, the publisher notes on page 29 of its financial report, Wilson could be eligible for an additional estimate of $125 million under any "qualifying termination," which includes firing "in connection with a change in control." EA has no doubt strategically baked in this "'double-trigger' severance" benefit, as the publisher calls it.

A team of investors under Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund (PIF), Silver Lake, and the investment firm led by US President Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, Affinity Partners, currently stands to acquire EA in a $55 billion deal recently approved by the European Commission. That $125 million could be very useful for Wilson if things dramatically change for him during or after the merger.

It also sounds like Wilson was recently allowed to fly around in the company plane for fun: "In fiscal year 2026, Mr. Wilson was permitted to use corporate aircraft for personal travel, subject to a 75-hour cap," writes EA. So that's nice for him, too.

Meanwhile, many laid off Battlefield 6 developers are probably still looking for work after, EA admits again, delivering a "high-quality launch" that "achieved meeting all milestones." It's a shame they didn't benefit from that launch. Andrew Wilson, however, is still doing fine.

Dragon Age veteran says a series comeback would be difficult with EA's "frightening" graveyard of dormant IP: "I suspect that it wouldn't happen."

Halo's greatest strength is simplicity. Super-soldier protagonist Master Chief is an immovable object, the Covenant's alien invaders an unstoppable force, and hitting them together like action figures has created 25 years of entertaining FPS hijinks. Returning to the first game via Halo: Campaign Evolved, little has changed – even when it has.

The remake features a prologue from developer Halo Studios, with three all-new missions that see Chief tear through a Covenant ship before the events of the original game. The prologue is Halo Studios' first original creation since the studio's rebrand from 343 Industries in 2024, which means we're effectively getting a glimpse into the series' future while fresher players are given the perfect introduction to Master Chief and Halo's setting.

Shipping it

Aboard the Covenant's vessel, you're thrown straight into the carnage. It's an excellent setting for an FPS, particularly one of Halo's straightforwardness. Squeezed into the ship are cramped service corridors, grand halls, and even a domed Earth-like desert biome – all unmistakably alien, but designed with perfunctory violence. Ornate balconies can be a vantage point for Jackal snipers or a haven for Chief to blast Brutes from a distance, and every door is a potential entry-point for more aliens – and just about the only place you can create a chokepoint, if you're quick enough to frag a gaggle of Grunts before they can disperse. Even in a linear shooting gallery like this, I always feel moments away from being overrun on all sides.

The developer also recognizes the importance of Master Chief's momentum, which is something I clocked while playing the original game's remade levels. Standing still is a surefire way of being pelted with grenades, leaving you to push forward as your only option – if only to pluck a plasma rifle from a dead brute, as limited ammo makes every weapon a disposable tool. I'm pinballed from gun to gun, drawn further out of position until I look back and realize I've completed most of the prologue this way. The original Halo campaigns were defined by their breathlessness, and it's bracing to see Halo Studios lean into the same dynamic so effectively.

As someone who has lapsed from the series since the Xbox 360 days, the new prologue also serves as a nice way into Halo at its simplest. A Star Wars-style crawl establishes humanity's war against the Covenant, while Master Chief is endearingly portrayed as both stoic hero and tongue-in-cheek action film caricature. "Chief – you ever get tired of being the strong, almost-silent type?", he's asked during a lull between shootouts. Long pause. "No."

By remaking the first Halo after a major development overhaul, Halo Studios seems to be looking back to find its way forward. Its originality in the prologue shows the developer certainly has the shooter chops to carry Halo forward – five minutes with the CE Magnum is enough to confirm that – but the bigger question is how this action will be framed going forward. Does the prologue's claustrophobic structure mean we'll see more traditional shooter levels in future Halo games, or will they build upon Halo Infinite's open-world experimentation?

Whatever the answer, I just hope the next game from Halo Studios is wholly original. After all: what's Halo if not moving forward?

Not sure where to start? Here's how to play the Halo games in order

If you're looking to play the Halo games in order, I've brought together this handy guide to break it all down for you.

Here, you can find all of the major Halo games and some off-shoots compiled below in two different orders. Starting with the release date order first, you can find a list that gives you an overview of the series as it originally launched, from its beginnings in 2001, right up to the latest new game in 2026 with the arrival of the remake, Halo: Campaign Evolved (which you can find out more about in our Halo: Campaign Evolved review).

For those of you looking to explore the series in narrative order, I've also detailed how to play the Halo games chronologically, with overviews of where each entry sits in the Halo timeline and if or how the events of the games connect story wise. Of course, alternatively, you can also explore the series by checking out our ranking of the best Halo games if you're after the highlights, too. But for an overview of how to play the Halo games in order, read on.

How to play the Halo games in release order

If you want to play the Halo games in release order, you can find a helpful list breaking down all of the games (including some major spin-offs) below, with the original launch years they came out in.

• Halo: Combat Evolved (2001)
• Halo 2 (2004)
• Halo 3 (2007)
• Halo Wars (2009)
• Halo 3: ODST (2009)
• Halo Reach (2010)
• Halo 4 (2012)
• Halo: Spartan Assault (2013)
• Halo: Spartan Strike (2015)
• Halo 5: Guardians (2015)
• Halo Wars 2 (2017)
• Halo Infinite (2021)
• Halo: Campaign Evolved (2026)

How to play the Halo games in chronological order

If you're instead looking to play the Halo games in chronological order, the list looks quite different. While, for example, Halo: Combat Evolved was technically the very first Halo game to release, later Halo games take you to earlier points in the Halo timeline of events. So, if you're looking to experience the narrative of the series chronologically, I'll break it down for you here.

With both a list so you can see the order at a glance, as well as a more detailed overview of the timeframes and how it ties into the overall narrative, you'll also find current platforms listed where you can still play these today.

• Halo Wars
• Halo: Campaign Evolved (prologue missions)
• Halo: Reach
• Halo: Combat Evolved
• Halo 2
• Halo 3: ODST
• Halo 3
• Halo: Spartan Assault
• Halo 4
• Halo Spartan: Strike
• Halo 5: Guardians
• Halo Wars 2
• Halo Infinite

1. Halo Wars (2531)

Halo Wars is the first real-time strategy game set in the Halo universe, and it's also technically the first game in the series narratively speaking. With the events of Halo Wars taking place some 21 years before Halo: Combat Evolved (and, of course, its remake, Halo: Campaign Evolved).

Taking place in the year 2531 during the tail-end of the Harvest campaign – which revolved around trying to reclaim the colonist world of Harvest that's been ravaged by the alien Covenant empire (who are determined to destroy humanity). You play as one of various leaders and take command of either UNSC military units who are part of the Red Team, or the Covenant, and get thrown into the conflict. The parasitic threat known as The Flood also factors into the campaign.

2. Halo: Campaign Evolved (2551 - Prologue missions)

For the most part, Halo: Campaign Evolved serves as a shiny new remake of Halo: Combat Evolved, but there are some new bonus prequel missions introduced that place it earlier in the timeline narratively.

Taking place a year before the main story of Campaign Evolved (and Combat Evolved) and prior to Halo: Reach, these Operation Meteorite missions explore a self-contained story featuring Master Chief and Sergeant Johnson teaming up to infiltrate and investigate a Covenant research vessel above the colony of Promise. It mostly establishes that Chief and Johnson were best pals before the events of Halo 1, but also introduces a new Prophet character, who may be more important in the inevitable Halo 2 remake.

So, if you do want to play the Halo games in order, it could be worth tucking into Campaign Evolved over Combat Evolved, or play it before you play the original if you're keen to try both. However, you won't be missing much by skipping these prequel missions and going straight to the next game.

3. Halo: Reach (2552)

Halo: Reach brings forward the Halo timeline from Wars, but is still a precursor to Halo: Combat Evolved. And rather than being an RTS like Wars, it's an FPS like the majority of the series.

Taking place a few weeks before the events of Combat Evolved in the year 2552, the game explores the Fall of Reach, a key human colony planet that served as one of the last bastions of military strength against the Covenant.

The campaign sees you playing as super solider Spartan B312 (aka Noble Six), a member of the elite Noble Team, who are sent to look into a distress beacon on the planet. It soon becomes apparent that the Covenant are on Reach and you'll get swept up in countless battles against the alien invaders as they continue their devastation from the Harvest campaign. Reach's ending then almost immediately leads into the start of Halo: Combat Evolved.

4. Halo: Combat Evolved (2552)

The FPS that kicked off the Halo Series, Combat Evolved (and its 2026 remake, Halo: Campaign Evolved), bring the events forward from Halo: Reach some weeks later. Still set within the same year of 2552, Combat Evolved follows Spartan John-117, better known as Master Chief, who begins the game in cryo sleep aboard the UNSC ship Pillar of Autumn after the Fall of Reach.

The Pillar of Autumn is quickly overrun by the pursuing Covenant, and Captain Jacob Keyes charges Master Chief with protecting the ship's AI Cortana from falling into the hands of alien forces. But after you crash onto an ancient, mysterious ringworld (aka a Halo) known as Installation 04, you'll soon find yourself fighting back against the Covenant forces that revere it and uncovering its true purpose.

5. Halo 2 (2552)

Also taking place in the year 2552, Halo 2 unfolds following the events of Combat Evolved. But rather than solely focusing on Master Chief, Halo 2 also explores a Sangheili warrior called Thel 'Vadam who holds the title of The Arbiter.

Playing as both characters at different points in the narrative (before their plotlines eventually converge), the game sees the Human-Covenant war escalate, with the aliens now invading Earth. Master Chief starts the fight aboard Cairo Station before eventually battling through the city of New Mombasa, which sets up what's to come in Halo 3: ODST. Meanwhile, the Arbiter contends with The Flood on another Halo known as Installation 05.

6. Halo 3: ODST (2552)

Halo 3: ODST actually takes place during Halo 2 and acts as a prequel of sorts to Halo 3. Taking on the role of an Orbital Drop Shock Trooper called Rookie, you set out to find out the motivations behind the Covenant's attack and invasion of the city of New Mombasa on Earth.

Shaking up the combat, ODST introduces some stealth as you try to survive against the overwhelming enemy forces. Structurally, it's also quite different to other games, featuring some open world exploration as you explore the ruined streets of New Mombasa at night looking for clues as to where your missing squad mates are, which lead into more linear missions that show the chaos of the Covenant's invasion. Overall, it builds up a more complete picture of the Battle for Earth prior to the events of Halo 3.

7. Halo 3 (2552)

Halo 3 then sees out the year 2552 with the return of Master Chief, who's back in the leading role. The Arbiter also makes another appearance, although now he's only playable in co-op multiplayer. Set a few weeks after the events of Halo 2, the third entry follows on from ODST to bring the original Halo trilogy to a close.

After crash landing into an African jungle, Master Chief sets out to finally finish the long fight against the Covenant. As you battle against enemy forces, you also work to uncover a secret that could turn the tide of the fight. But along the way, you'll also have to contend with the threat of The Flood, too. With Halo 3 officially wrapping up the Human-Covenant War, the game ends with Master Chief entering cryo sleep on the UNSC Forward Unto Dawn ship – which is left adrift in space – to await rescue.

8. Halo: Spartan Assault (2554)

Set between the events of Halo 3 and Halo 4 in the year 2554, Halo: Spartan Assault is an off-shoot entry in the series that plays as a twin-stick, top-down arcade-y shooter rather than the mainstay FPS format of the core trilogy. Originally released on PC and mobile before coming to Xbox 360 and Xbox One, it features over 30 campaign missions.

Its concept revolves around a training simulation tool for Spartans. As you try to progress your career as a prospective Spartan, you'll be drawn into key battles that take place within the timeline. As the games go, this is one of those off-shoot you don't really need to play to follow the overarching narrative of the main series.

9. Halo 4 (2557)

Picking up where Halo 3 left off, Halo 4 takes place less than a handful of years later, and follows Master Chief as he's awakened by Cortana on the Forward Unto Dawn ship – which is still adrift. Cortana, now several years old, is starting to suffer from rampancy, making her unstable.

The duo eventually find themselves on the Forerunner world known as Requiem, where soon enough, he finds himself facing the Covenant and another threat in the Forerunners (another advanced alien species) with the mighty Didact as their commander.

10. Halo Spartan: Strike (2557)

Just like Halo Spartan: Assault, Halo Spartan: Strike is another off-shoot twin-stick shooter set in the Halo universe. Narratively speaking, it does jump a little in terms of the timeline, with it including events that took place in 2552, but it's technically set in the year 2557. As another smaller experience that doesn't hold as much weight as the mainline games, this is another one you could miss without much trouble.

But if you want to experience it, this is where it sits within the timeline of events, and it kind of mirrors the concept of Assault in that it's another series of missions centered around a tactical simulation training tool that was originally developed for mobile.

11. Halo 5: Guardians (2558)

Halo 5: Guardians takes place in the year 2558 after the events of Halo 4, and puts you in the role of both Spartan Jameson Locke, who's a part of ONI (Office of Naval Intelligence), and Master Chief. When series hero Master Chief goes AWOL after going after Cortana with his Blue Team Spartan allies, you as Locke set out to bring him back with Fireteam Osiris.

Playing as both characters at different points throughout the campaign, our original Halo 5: Guardians review picked at its story, which doesn't feel as cohesive or impactful as its predecessor, with much of its events feeling more inconsequential in the grand scheme of things.

12. Halo Wars 2 (2559)

Just like the first Halo Wars game, Halo Wars 2 takes the series back to the realms of strategy and sees the Spartan Red Team awaken from cryo sleep 28 years after the events of the first Wars game. Set in the year 2559, it takes place in the timeline following the events of Halo 5 and sees you play as a leader of your choice as you command your own army and take on a new threat in the Banished, a Brute-led faction born out of the Covenant.

With the option to play as either humanity, or the Banished in the story, you build up bases, take charge of troops and vehicles, and navigate battles in missions centered around the Ark – a Forerunner installation first seen in Halo 3

13. Halo Infinite (2560)

As the most recent game to release in the Halo series (outside of the Campaign Evolved Remake), Halo Infinite is also the latest entry in the timeline, with events unfolding in the year 2560. Taking place roughly 18 months after the events of Halo 5: Guardians, Infinite sees you assume the role of Master Chief as the war against the alien Banished faction has effectively been lost.

With Halo Infinite being set on a Halo ring known as Installation 07 (Zeta Halo) which is coming back online and poses another threat, Master Chief works to shut down the Halo. Cortana's actions from Halo 5 are largely glossed over and, while she features in the story, Master Chief instead finds himself paired with a new AI known as The Weapon. If you want a more in-depth explanation of the storyline, you can check out our Halo Infinite story explainer.

Looking for more recommendations? Check out our pick of the best FPS games.

Halo Campaign Evolved Terminals can all be collected with just some thorough searching. With that said, they're still easy to miss in a lot of cases, and don't expect your knowledge of the Terminal locations in Halo Combat Evolved Anniversary to help.

Unlike Campaign Evolved's Skulls, Terminals don't make any obvious noise. Also unlike the Skulls, there are only 13 of them – that's one per Halo Campaign Evolved level – so finding and activating them all for some unlockable lore entries isn’t too much of a chore. To help you find every Terminal in Halo Campaign Evolved, I've laid out all 13 locations below.

There are three Halo Campaign Evolved Skulls to collect in each level too, so keep an eye and ear out for those too.

Halo Campaign Evolved Pillar of Autumn Terminal

From Rally Point Charlie, when going through the upper cryo room with the cracked windows.

This is the room where Cortana says, "it looks like the Covenant wanted to catch you napping". Proceed through the next door, then immediately turn left to find another open door leading into a small room with red lights and lots of screens everywhere. The Pillar of Autumn Terminal in Halo Campaign Evolved is at the far end, which unlocks the Approach entry.

Halo Campaign Evolved Halo Terminal

From Rally Point Bravo, as you drive into the "this cave is not a natural formation" Forerunner tunnel.

Drive through the tunnel until you reach the straight section with two small bumps in the road and a large window on your right. Hop out your Warthog, then jump through the window and carefully drop down to the ledge directly below. You'll find the Halo Terminal, Forgotten, down there.

Halo Campaign Evolved Truth and Reconciliation Terminal

From Rally Point Charlie, as you make your way to the brig to find Captain Keyes after clearing out the ship's command room.

After navigating several corridors after the command room, you'll eventually arrive at a large room with several doors around the perimeter. Go through the one immediately on the right as you enter and you'll find yourself in one of the prison rooms. Use the central console to deactivate the forcefields and then head inside the cell almost opposite the console to find the Truth and Reconciliation Terminal and get the Inquisitor lore entry.

Halo Campaign Evolved Silent Cartographer Terminal

From Rally Point Bravo, just after you shut down the security system.

From the security system console, turn around and head to the outer walkway of this area and look for the extended platform. The Status Update Terminal is behind a small Forerunner structure with two pointy bits.

Halo Campaign Evolved Assault on the Control Room Terminal

From Rally Point Charlie, after you've gone up the ice cave.

When you emerge into the canyon from the ice cave, follow the path to the right, then go through the doorway in the central rock formation on your left.

Head through the door and follow the corridor until you reach a large, empty central rooms. From here, go up the ramp that leads onto a balcony, then look to your right once you get onto the balcony. You'll find the Terminal for Assault on the Control Room, Tangent 1, tucked in the corner.

Halo Campaign Evolved 343 Guilty Spark Terminal

From Rally Point Bravo, after backtracking partway through the Forerunner facility while fighting the Flood.

You'll eventually reach a point on your journey through this facility where you have to go through a door with two large, pale symbols on either side.

Head through and turn left to find a cluster of dead marines and all their gear. From here take the next right to go down a dark corridor where you'll find the Halo Campaign Evolved 343 Guilty Spark Terminal – Tangent 2, which carries on from the last one.

Halo Campaign Evolved The Library Terminal

From Rally Point Bravo, after 343 Guilty Spark opens a large door and you're presented with two consoles, with a prompt directing you to the one on the right.

Ignore the objective and activate the console on the left to open a doorway on the left.

Head through and then go through the small hole in the Flood-infested wall. This will lead you into a small room featuring a dead marine and the Library Terminal, which rounds out the Tangent series into a trilogy.

Halo Campaign Evolved Two Betrayals Terminal

From Rally Point Alpha, right after destroying all the attacking Sentinels.

Rather than heading out the door straight ahead, head right and run around the ring walkway instead. You'll run into the Two Betrayals Terminal here, unlocking the Alone entry.

Halo Campaign Evolved Keyes Terminal

From Rally Point Charlie, when trying to ascend to a higher deck in the shuttle bay.

After dropping off to the ground floor of the shuttle bay, follow the objective marker through the door then right and up the inclined corridor – there are always Flood enemies and two Hunters in here. When you get to the first junction halfway up the corridor, turn left then left again to find the Terminal for Keyes in Halo Campaign Evolved.

Halo Campaign Evolved The Maw Terminal

From Rally Point Alpha, after clearing out the mess hall room.

From the entrance to the mess hall, bear right and you'll find the Arrival Terminal in a nook on top of some UNSC boxes.

Halo Campaign Evolved Boarding Action Terminal

From Rally Point Delta, after you've taken the gravity lift upwards to head for the Triumph of Tolerance's upper decks.

This grav lift will put you right in front of the corridor and doorway you’re meant to go through for the final combat encounter of the mission, but the terminal is behind you. Turn to face the opposite direction and then go through the door on the right to find the Heavy Burden Terminal.

Halo Campaign Evolved The Most Dangerous Game Terminal

Rally Point Charlie, after rescuing the marines from the brig.

Fight through the rest of the ship following the objective markers until you reach a room with several windows on the left that let you see many sarcophagus-like devices in a large room. Instead of going through the next door, head through the one on the right and you'll find a storage room full of UNSC gear, including the Halo Campaign Evolved Terminal for this mission, Penitent Report.

Halo Campaign Evolved Heavy Burden Terminal

From Rally Point Bravo, immediately after the cutscene where Chief and Johnson get the starholo data.

At the start of this Rally Point, you'll be facing a pair of doors on the far side of this room on the ground floor. Go through either of them to reach another pair of doors. Go through either of those doors to get inside a Covenant armory, then go through the next door to reach a relatively small storage room. The Terminal for Heavy Burden is hidden behind the Covenant equipment on the left.

These Terminals are just one of the many Halo Campaign Evolved changes compared to the original. Bear in mind that finding them all is also going to add a fairly significant amount of time to how long it takes you to beat Halo Campaign Evolved too.

© GamesRadar+. Not to be reproduced without permission.

Nothing humbles a fan of first-person shooters faster than a hardcore Mil-Sim like Hell Let Loose: Vietnam.

Picture it. You're creeping under cover of the jungle canopy as helicopters whir overhead. Short sharp shocks of gunfire are your only real guide towards a forming frontline; squad orders are the other, as the voice of a squadron Commander crackles over the comms line to scramble Infantry units back through dense brush to reform fracturing formations. As enemies pour over the crest of a distant hill, your M16 rumbles as bodies crumble. And then, nothing. A bullet fired from an unknown location rips through your torso. Medics in the area ignore your pleas for help. The long walk back to the action begins again.

There was a time in my life where military simulation games were all I would play. Highly lethal gunplay meets minimal visibility and low hit detection across large open terrains? Count me in! The Operation Flashpoint and ARMA series were where I graduated to after growing a little tired of the more predictable cycles of Battlefield, Ghost Recon, and SOCOM. After a weekend of getting my ass kicked, I'm struggling to remember what attracted me to the brutality to begin with.

Run Through the Jungle

My friend group has started to migrate away from Battlefield 6, which has left me looking for a new shooter to play – ideally one that isn't of the Battle or Extraction persuasion. The Battlefield Studios effort really made me fall back in love with the idea of larger-scale, open-combat experiences so Hell Let Loose: Vietnam appealed.

Here's the thing, Hell Let Loose: Vietnam is an experience defined by the friction it generates. With 100 players populating exceptionally wide multiplayer arenas, the game is designed around dynamic frontlines and intense team communications. Every soldier has a role to play, and players buying into the fantasy of their assigned Command, Support, Infantry, or Specialized unit is the only way for such an unforgiving shooter to function appropriately.

Let's take respawning as an example of this game theory put into action. Despite being so focused on team dynamics, you are not able to spawn directly on squadmates in Hell Let Loose: Vietnam. Instead, you're able to dive back into the fray from a Garrison, created in tandem between Commanders and Specialists, or from an Outpost placed by a Squad Leader near objective points. If these fail to be established then you're forced to spawn far from the frontlines, back at a headquarters where you'll face a 10 minute walk back to any action. Once you return, you're as likely to get nailed from an unseen attacker as you are to establish a chokepoint to catch enemy soldiers pouring from trenches.

With this in mind, setting up Outposts or fortifying capture points to allow for faster redeployments into the fray is just as valuable – if not more so – than generating an unholy amount of kills and assists. Hell Let Loose: Vietnam reflects that in its unstable firing models, lack of discernible weapon feedback, and any real visual hit detection. The objective is to win the day as a group, not sit atop the leaderboard as an individual – killing enemy soldiers is simply a means to this end.

Whether this sounds even remotely appealing to you will determine whether Hell Let Loose: Vietnam is something you will enjoy. When it clicks, as 50 players come together to generate battlefield momentum, it's fairly spectacular – intense and rapid, capturing a tangible sense of large-scale action that Battlefield can only dream of delivering. When a round doesn't come together, it's a mess. A slow slog through open expanses where you're left to lament the shift in online gaming culture; wide adoption of microphones (at least on console) seems like a relic of a distant past, which is a problem for a multiplayer game foundationally built around quick-fire collaboration.

Hell Let Loose: Vietnam is a polished FPS with a well-defined identity, one which easily separates it from Battlefield, Call of Duty, and the waves of battle royale and extraction shooters dominating the charts. It's a challenging, uncompromising experience that isn't going to be for everybody. The brutality isn't a bug, it's a feature – the great differentiator that gives developer Expression Games a lane to dominate. I don't know that I necessarily have the patience for this sort of Mil-Sim any more but, then again, I still find myself eyeing the August 13 release date with an almost morbid curiosity.

Hell Let Loose: Vietnam is coming to PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X on August 13. If you're looking for more on new games of 2026 and other recent shooters, here's some reads I recommend for you next:

Remember Craig? The ugly alien brute from Halo Infinite who immediately became subject to droves of online ridicule before eventually becoming a loveable internet meme? Halo: Campaign Evolved has now canonized the horrid internet icon, and perhaps even explained why he looks like that.

There are many hulking brutes stomping around the Halo games, but some fans are now convinced that they've had found Craig himself hidden in the newly-released Halo: Campaign Evolved because A) most brutes aren't completely bald and B) not all brutes are that unmistakably fugly.

In one of the remake's new prequel missions, Master Chief can stumble upon liquid-filled pods containing various brutes who have likely been experimented on by their Covenant overlords. Zoom in closely and you'll see that one of them looks very much like our poor old Craig, sad frown and all.

There you have it, then - Craig isn't ugly because Halo Infinite's first gameplay demo wasn't really ready to be shown off. Craig's ugly because he's the victim of genetic alteration and who knows what else? You bully. How he got out of that pod, survived the entire Covenant-UNSC-Flood war, and eventually became a Banished trooper getting whacked in the face by Chief on a faraway ringworld is still a mystery, however. Perhaps we'll need to wait for another Halo remake, which is looking increasingly likely, to find out the full story.

Halo: Campaign Evolved is still available in early access to owners of the Premium Edition only. The full game launches July 28, so be sure to check out what time Halo: Campaign releases in your region. You can also find information on how to pre-load Halo: Campaign Evolved with our handy guide.

Here's all the Halo Campaign Evolved changes and new features compared to the original Combat Evolved.

The Halo Campaign Evolved Skulls and Terminal found in the first level, The Pillar of Autumn, aren't too difficult to find, for the most part. The main issue is that a couple of Skulls are found so early in the game that you'll no doubt run right past them the first time you play. So, to help you find them quickly, I've explained exactly where to find the Terminal and all Skulls in the first level of Halo Campaign Evolved below.

Halo Campaign Evolved Pillar of Autumn Skull 1

From Rally Point Alpha, the start of the level.

At the very start of the level as soon as soon as you have control over Master Chief, turn around and head over to the two large, round containers towards the left side of the back of the room. Climb on top of these containers, then jump across to the nearby upper walkway. Walk to the other end and you'll find the Speed Limit Skull.

Halo Campaign Evolved Pillar of Autumn Skull 2

From Rally Point Alpha, as soon as the marine says Cortana needs you at the bridge.

The next room the marine will lead you into is an armory, and the Magnified Skull is on top of the central weapon rack near the middle of the room.

Halo Campaign Evolved Pillar of Autumn Skull 3

From Rally Point Bravo, after the cutscene where Master Chief meets Keyes at the bridge.

After this cutscene finishes, turn around and head back into the bridge. Go to the main control area with the glass canopy and the two pilots in their chairs and drop down into the floorspace below them. This is where you'll find the Perspective Skull, and there's a ladder you can use to get out.

Halo Campaign Evolved Pillar of Autumn Terminal

From Rally Point Charlie, when going through the upper cryo room with the cracked windows.

You'll know you're in the right room if Cortana says, "it looks like the Covenant wanted to catch you napping". From here, carry on through the next door, then immediately turn left to find another open door leading into another room with red lights and lots of screens. The Approach Terminal is at the far end.

Finding all these collectibles also takes a while, so expect it to add a few hours to how long it takes to beat Halo Campaign Evolved. If you've played Halo CE in The Master Chief Collection, you will have noticed that all the Skulls are in completely different places to that, which is one of the many Halo Campaign Evolved changes.

This Halo 1 remake is out now in early access but the full Halo Campaign Evolved release time is still to come. In the meantime, make sure you've got your Halo Campaign Evolved pre-load sorted.

© GamesRadar+. Not to be reproduced without permission.

Halo: Campaign Evolved might be a remake of one of the best shooters to ever do it, but that doesn't mean it's entirely bullet proof. On Steam, the remake has debuted to an average 'Mixed' rating thanks to player complaints of crashes and server login issues that temporarily stopped people from playing the campaign-only game.

For context, Halo: Campaign Evolved launches in full on July 28, but owners of the $70/£70 Premium Edition get to skip the queue and jump in five days early. Despite paying extra, those fans have maybe been given the short end of the stick if user reviews are anything to go by.

At the time of writing, about 32% of Campaign Evolved's 1,666 Steam user reviews give it the thumbs down, with many reviews citing semi-frequent crashes and problems even connecting to the game's servers in the first place.

"Yes the game just came out, but it shouldn't be a trend for a game to always come out severely broken," one player writes. "Call me a boomer, but I miss when games came out in a playable state without patches needed."

"Login failed," another states. "Cannot play the single-player game as servers are overloaded. Screw your DRM." Halo Studios actually responded to that user review by promising that login issues should now be fixed, and judging by the almost 20 hours the fan has on record, it seems server issues are a non-issue for now.

Still, some other fans took issue with the fact that Halo: Campaign Evolved requires a login and a connection at all. The game is playable start-to-finish in online co-op, but there's no real reason why Spartans who prefer to go in solo should have to connect their Microsoft accounts before even reaching the main menu.

Technical issues and a bumpy launch aside, players who aren't being interrupted by crashes seem otherwise happy with the classic game's second remake.

"Finished the prequel missions. Barely any problems whatsoever, and so far it's been refreshing playing a "new" Halo game again," one fans says of the new three-mission arc.

"Well – it's Halo 1's campaign, but with a new coat of paint on top and some interesting and fun tweaks to mix up the gameplay, with the most comprehensive set of skulls the series has ever seen that offer tons of replay value," a second player explains. "Really, that's all I think needs to be said to justify the recommendation here."

GamesRadar's Halo: Campaign Evolved review had similarly good things to say about the remake, even if the package as a whole also felt like "a wasted opportunity for Halo Studios to put its own spin on a classic."

Want more? A secret Halo: Campaign Evolved ending strongly hints that another Halo 2 remake is in the works – "See you in the sequel."

There are quite a lot of Halo Campaign Evolved changes compared to the original, including completely new missions and weapons, sprinting, and accessibility options. There are plenty of headline tweaks and differences that Halo Studios have made for this Combat Evolved remake to bring it up to modern standards. But there are lots of other minor changes that might slip past seasoned Halo players. If you're curious about what's new and different from the original, here are all the changes I've noticed in Halo Campaign Evolved.

New Halo Campaign Evolved features

Halo Campaign Evolved includes several major gameplay features that aren't available in the original game or the Halo Combat Evolved Anniversary remaster in The Master Chief Collection:

• Operation Meteorite bonus missions: On top of the remade campaign, this remake features three new prequel missions that tell the story of Master Chief and Sergeant Johnson during Operation Meteorite, adding a few more hours to how long it takes to beat Halo Campaign Evolved. Taking place one year before the events of the campaign, this operation sees the duo infiltrate and investigate a Covenant research vessel. Brutes make an exclusive appearance in these missions, wielding Spikers and Brute Plasma Rifles.
• Campaign Remix: Campaign Remix is a new mode that lets you replay missions with randomized elements, including available weapons, enemy factions, and active Halo Campaign Evolved Skulls. It is unlocked after you collect any three Skulls.
• Four-player online co-op: Halo Campaign Evolved is the only way you can officially play some form of Halo 1 with three other players in online co-op. The game also supports crossplay and cross-progression, so you can play with anyone on any platform and even play on any platform without losing progress. You can also play Campaign Evolved in two-player split-screen on consoles only.
• Difficulty and accessibility settings: The usual Easy, Normal, Heroic, and Legendary difficulty options are still there, but you can also create difficulty presets that adjust things like friendly fire, damage resistance, and shield recharge rate – this is all on top of Skulls too! As for accessibility, there are plenty of changes you can make to the aiming crosshair, HUD, subtitles, input rebinding, and lots more.

New Halo Campaign Evolved weapons, vehicles, and enemies

The Halo Combat Evolved sandbox of weapons and vehicles, as well as the array of enemies you'll face, have been considerably expanded for this remake:

• Expanded weapon sandbox: The Energy Sword, Sentinel Beam, Fuel Rod Gun, SMG, and Needle Rifle have all been added to the main campaign. The Battle Rifle, Brute Plasma Rifle, and Spiker are exclusive to the new bonus missions, and the Needle Rifle is significantly more common in them too.
• You can drive Wraiths now: The Covenant Wraith tank is now pilotable in some levels, such as Assault on the Control Room. Most vehicles can also be hijacked now, but note that this works both ways, so the Covenant can hijack you right back!
• Equipment can be stored and used whenever you like: Unlike in the original where Overshields and Active Camo would activate as soon as you pick them up, Campaign Evolved treats them like Halo 3-style equipment pieces that must be deployed with a button press.
• Jackal snipers have been added (oh god): Jackal snipers are an infamously lethal foe in practically every Halo game except for the first one. Campaign Evolved rectifies this, adding them into plenty of missions.
• Flood Tank Forms join the fight: The large Tank Form Flood, first seen in Halo 3, appear in Campaign Evolved. They're rare and pose quite a serious threat, similar to a Covenant Hunter.

Halo Campaign Evolved gameplay changes

Halo Campaign Evolved also introduces some key gameplay change over the original that mostly serve to modernize the game:

• Sprint: As in Halo Studios' previous games, Master Chief has a dedicated sprint button in Campaign Evolved, letting him get around the ring a bit faster on foot.
• Smart-link aiming: While weapons like the Magnum and Sniper Rifle all had scopes in the original game, now Halo Campaign Evolved weapons benefit from some form of aiming thanks to the smart-link system that Halo 5 Guardians introduced. It essentially amounts to a small amount of zoom (usually 1.4x) that helps you more accurately shoot enemies that are slightly further away than is ideal.
• No health kits: Master Chief's health now regenerates like his shields. The original game's health kits that were necessary for healing Chief are therefore absent in Halo Campaign Evolved.
• Improved waypoints and objective tracking: Objectives and their markers are now almost always visible on screen, helping you stay on mission and navigate levels more easily. You can adjust how these appear if you find them getting in the way.
• Slightly redesigned levels: The Library has received the most significant changes to make it easier to navigate and more varied, with new areas and light bridge mechanics. Otherwise, most levels remain almost entirely the same in terms of layout, with some receiving small tweaks. As an example, the Forerunner cave that you drive the Warthog through in Halo no longer has that weird ramp section and is now just one continuous path.
• Skulls and Terminals: Collectible Skull modifiers and lore-based Halo Campaign Evolved Terminals weren't in the original game but got added for the Combat Evolved Anniversary remaster. For Campaign Evolved there are even more of them to collect, with 42 Skulls (three per level for a total of 39 plus three Campaign Remix ones) and 13 Terminals (one per level). They're also all in different places compared to the Anniversary remaster, so your memories of those won't help.
• No PvP multiplayer: As the Campaign Evolved subtitle suggests, this game features only the campaign – no arena multiplayer.

Halo Campaign Evolved visual and audio changes

The most obvious change of all over the original is the visual overhaul, but there are plenty of other changes to things like dialogue and cutscenes that might go over your head:

• Updated graphics: Halo Campaign Evolved is a complete remake of the original Combat Evolved in Unreal Engine 5, so it benefits from the advanced graphical technology of that engine for stunningly rendered photorealistic textures and lighting. But, as I note in my Halo Campaign Evolved review, it does lead to some typical UE5 performance issues.
• New and altered dialogue and cutscenes: Narratively, Halo Campaign Evolved is the same as the original, but Halo Studios has added and adjusted plenty of dialogue and cutscenes. The new lines are mostly tutorials and explanation from Cortana and other NPCs. Some lines, such as "I don't keep it loaded, son, you'll have to find ammo as you go" from Keyes, and Cortana telling 343 Guilty Spark to "sod off", have been cut, however.
• The original Chief and Cortana voice actors are back…: Steve Downes and Jen Taylor, who voice Master Chief and Cortana respectively, have re-recorded their lines, including some new ones as mentioned above.
• …But Captain Keyes and Sergeant Johnson have been recast: Keith Silverstein, who you may know as Torbjorn from Overwatch, now plays Keyes, while Keston John, who stars in Call of Duty Black Ops 6 and 7 and Yakuza 0 Director's Cut, voices Sergeant Johnson.
• The Covenant now speak English: Elites have various combat barks in human languages that let you know how fervently they fight for the Prophets and the Covenant. It also sounds like Grunt dialogue from Halo 2 and 3 has been repurposed. Overall, there's a lot less "wort, wort, wort".

© GamesRadar+. Not to be reproduced without permission.

Halo: Campaign Evolved strongly hints that another Halo remake could be on the way.

Rumors have been swirling for a while that Halo Studios is planning to remake Master Chief's entire original trilogy – Halo CE, Halo 2, and Halo 3 – in the same style as its newly-released revamp, Halo: Campaign Evolved. That means yes to sprint, no to multiplayer, and sweeping changes to the rest of the game (new levels, weapons, updated visuals, etc.)

For anyone crossing their fingers for Halo 2 and Halo 3 to get the same treatment, good news! Halo: Campaign Evolved rather explicitly pours fuel over the fire of those rumors in its secret ending, unlocked by completing the game on Legendary difficulty. (Don't worry, there's no hard spoilers here.)

Finishing the fight on the game's toughest difficulty rewards you with an alternative ending that's surprisingly different to Bungie's 2001 shooter. The part that's important here is a line uttered by our good old Sergeant Avery Johnson, who caps off the entire game with: "See you in the sequel!"

While that's not hard confirmation of a Halo 2 remake in itself, the implication is crystal clear since an inevitable Halo 7 isn't exactly a sequel to Halo: Campaign Evolved, and I doubt HD Johnson is telling folks to go back and play the original Halo 2 after the series' latest remake.

Halo 2 has also actually been remade once before in Halo 2 Anniversary, which came bundled with The Master Chief Collection, but that was the case with the series' first game too, so it's not exactly a deal breaker for Xbox Game Studios.

The iconic Xbox sequel was also infamously a victim of a turbulent development cycle that left tons of content on the cutting room floor. The "finishing this fight" line became so recognizable in the first place because Master Chief did not, in fact, finish the fight until an entire game later when Halo 2's cliffhanger ending was finally resolved.

My point is, Halo 2 perhaps stands to benefit more than its older sibling should it get another, more comprehensive remake. It's also worth nothing that Halo 2 Anniversary was beholden to the source material's exact level layout since you could switch between both graphical options on the fly – a Campaign Evolved-style remake would presumably allow for more dramatic changes.

Our Halo: Campaign Evolved review calls it a "faithful remake of the 2001 classic that highlights exactly why the original Halo holds up so well 25 years later," even though Halo Studios could've done more to put its own spin on the classic game.

Halo 3's final mission could have been a flying banshee scene inspired by Star Wars: Return of the Jedi.

How long it takes to beat Halo Campaign Evolved isn't all that different from 2001's Halo Combat Evolved, clocking in at roughly 10 hours long. However, this remake of the original packs in a few extras that will add a few hours to your completion time – namely a three-mission bonus campaign and plenty of Skulls and Terminals – though it somewhat depends on what your definition of 'complete' is. With that in mind, here are some estimations for how long Halo Campaign Evolved is based on how much you play.

How long is Halo Campaign Evolved?

The average playthrough for Halo Campaign Evolved is about 10 hours, but with things like difficulty, prior knowledge from the original, and collectibles to find, your completion time is affected by many factors:

• Main campaign: 8-12 hours
• Main campaign + bonus missions: 10-14 hours
• 100% completion: 20+ hours

As mentioned, the core campaign – that's the 10 main missions from The Pillar of Autumn to The Maw – should take you 10 hours, give or take a couple. If you're charging through each mission on Easy difficulty or have played the classic Halo Combat Evolved already, you may even be able to get through it much faster. Conversely if you're committing to a Heroic or Legendary playthrough, plenty of deaths will add up to a couple of extra hours.

The Operation Meteorite campaign, comprising three prequel missions featuring Master Chief and Sergeant Johnson, adds a couple more hours of story content, but you should still get through the whole thing in under 15 hours. I completed all 13 missions on Heroic difficulty in about 13 hours, having also played Combat Evolved a few times before.

Finally, for those that commit to finding all 39 Halo Campaign Evolved Skulls and all 13 Halo Campaign Evolved Terminals spread across each mission, you'll be spending several more hours replaying and scouring each level. If you're going for the Platinum Trophy too, there are plenty of tough challenges that will likely take you multiple attempts to complete, so don't expect a quick and easy walk in the park!

While the run time of the main campaign remains roughly the same. compared to the original game, there are many other Halo Campaign Evolved changes to be aware of.

© GamesRadar+. Not to be reproduced without permission.

It takes a moment to adjust to the fact I'm using a DualSense controller and my PS5 to play a Halo game – something which seemed like heresy only a few years ago. But from the moment I fire the iconic M6D Magnum pistol in Halo: Campaign Evolved, my muscle memory from years past kicks right back in. Navigating space cruiser Pillar of Autumn's rat's nest of corridors before crash-landing onto Installation 04 and mounting up in a warthog remains one of my favorite openings for a video game, and Halo Studios has recreated it with stunning accuracy.

Despite being a ground-up remake of the game that started it all for Halo (and arguably Xbox) 25 years ago, it's impressive not only how instantly familiar Halo: Campaign Evolved feels but also how well it holds up. But, after a full run of the campaign and its three new bonus missions, I can't help but feel that such a faithful approach might be to Halo: Campaign Evolved's detriment. It certainly looks the part, but there are so few flourishes that I also can't find many reasons to play it over what's come before.

Sacred Icon

Playing through the opening half of Halo: Campaign Evolved reminded me that The Pillar of Autumn through to Assault on the Control Room really is an all-timer sequence of levels. You get to see almost the whole gamut of Halo environments, from claustrophobic spaceships to lush landscapes, rugged canyons, and esoteric Forerunner facilities.

These have all been beautifully and vibrantly rendered in Unreal Engine 5. Levels like 343 Guilty Spark and The Library benefit greatly from some significant visual improvements. Advanced lighting, a ghostly knee-high fog, and plenty of Flood goop all add to the mysterious atmosphere of these ancient installations, break up the monotony, and even amp up the horror.

I also can't deny that such dedication to realism means Campaign Evolved lacks a certain charm compared to the polygonal and yet timeless look of its precursor. Even so, it's also much kinder on the eyes compared to the brightly lit and overly detailed Anniversary remaster in The Master Chief Collection.

The visuals for Halo: Campaign Evolved are where the most obvious changes to the original lie, though there are a few mechanical additions to bring the original up to modern Halo standards. Namely, Master Chief can use smart-link aiming with any weapon and is now allowed to sprint. I found that both can be safely ignored for a classic feel (there's even a Skull that fully disables sprinting if you hate it that much), with sprinting being a nice addition to simply get around some of the larger levels a bit faster. It hardly dictates the flow of combat with the only foes that really pushed me to sprint mid-combat being aggressive chargers like Hunters, energy sword Elites, and the hulking Pure Form Flood.

Although, I was a little disappointed to see health packs have been cut in favor of Chief regenerating health. This always felt like a nice separation between his Mark 5 and Mark 6 Mjolnir amor, with the latter appearing from Halo 2 onwards along with fully regenerating health – a reminder that Master Chief isn't quite so invincible that encouraged you to play a little more tactically rather than charging in like a barbarian.

With that said, going in guns blazing at all times on Normal difficulty is where Halo: Campaign Evolved really shines, feeling closer to the original game's Heroic difficulty. Measured aggression in the face of the Covenant and using every tool in Chief's arsenal means you can play more like Doomguy, strafing around and filling each enemy with lead or pistol-whipping them before charging to the next. And it’s still as satisfying as ever to perfectly Hail Mary a plasma grenade into a cluster of Grunts, sending them wailing and flying.

So, with the 2001 classic acting as such a solid foundation, it's practically impossible to not have a good time playing Halo: Campaign Evolved, at the very least. I was initially apprehensive that these relatively simple 25-year-old design principles just wouldn't hold up in a time of fast-paced movement shooters and vast open worlds. Surely such a basic feel would make for a terrible first impression for PS5 players who may have no idea what Halo even is, let alone never played it before. But I think it's this simplicity that makes it shine. As such a faithful remake of its forerunner, Halo: Campaign Evolved is a first-person shooter in its purest form.

Unnatural formation

The more I play Halo: Campaign Evolved the more I also realize that this commitment to faithfulness is a double-edged sword. How can a game titled "Campaign Evolved" claim to be an evolution if it sticks so closely to its source material?

Sprinting, regenerating health, and other modernizations are joined by minor tweaks to level design and dialogue, and an expanded arsenal. The Energy Sword, Sentinel Beam, and Wraith tank, all previously tantalizingly out of reach for Chief in the original, can now be wielded to great effect on the ring – they're even joined by the Needle Rifle, SMG, and Fuel Rod Gun, further fleshing out the already excellent weapon sandbox.

The Library, my least favorite level in Halo: Combat Evolved for its monotonous and labyrinthine structure, has been redesigned a little to trim the fat and inject a bit of variety to its vast halls. You go down instead of up now! That vastness certainly had its own appeal, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't glad that it's a considerably more intuitive place to navigate in Halo: Campaign Evolved. It still feels maze-like without you getting lost, providing a greater sense of momentum even as the incessant monitor orb Guilty Spark dawdles and spouts nonsense. But it's a crying shame that Cortana no longer tells him to "sod off" at the start of Two Betrayals.

The stunning scenery that is arguably one of the main draws of Halo: Campaign Evolved also comes at the cost of Unreal Engine 5 choppiness. I noticed that whenever there were lots of enemies on screen or plenty of particle effects going off at once, animation frame rates would noticeably plummet. Nothing game-breaking, but hardly what I'd expect from something that is so otherwise polished.

Hopping back into Halo: Combat Evolved via The Master Chief Collection made me realize that this remake's changes are unfortunately quite inconsequential. Halo Studios has imitated the original so well that there is little that Halo: Campaign Evolved does that makes it an essential play. Obviously, if you only have a PS5, then Halo: Campaign Evolved is your sole option – that's also ultimately who this game is for too – but I find it difficult to recommend to anyone else when The Master Chief Collection, and therefore the original Halo, is widely available.

I think we're just getting started

Of course, Halo Studios already thought about this and so Halo: Campaign Evolved also includes a new three-mission prequel campaign, Operation Meteorite. These bonus missions see Master Chief teaming up with his best non-AI pal and fan-favorite Sergeant Johnson to investigate a mysterious research vessel to hopefully learn the location of the heart of the Covenant.

To be blunt, these missions are quite unremarkable. Despite taking place one year prior to the main campaign, what transpires is of no real relevance whatsoever. It essentially just establishes that Johnson and Chief are two bros who like to kill aliens together and find themselves in an almost Rogue One-style plot-hole-that-didn't-need-explaining story. Narratively, these missions end up being more relevant to Halo 2's story, so Halo fans can do the Leonardo DiCaprio pointing meme while it flies right over the heads of PS5 greenhorns.

These missions are also the only place in all of Halo: Campaign Evolved where you'll get to use the Battle Rifle and fight Brutes. Couple that with the limp narrative and Operation Meteorite ends up feeling more like a chance to deploy some fan service in the form of mild banter between Chief and Johnson, who wears Chief's 1999 MacWorld demo Orion armor, while also testing some things for the surely inevitable Halo 2: Evolved – there's even a gondola section!

Halo Studios clearly has a lot of respect for Bungie's legacy but has also avoided doing anything particularly interesting or new with it. I would have liked to have seen more substantial structural changes to levels given that the developers aren't bound by the technical limitations of the original Xbox. That resulted in recycled environments and backtracking through levels, which are neatly woven into the narrative, but it feels like a wasted opportunity to leverage such modern technology and then not put your own spin on those classics.

However, after trying to go bold with Halo 4, Halo 5, and Halo Infinite and having to go back to the drawing board every time, I'm hardly surprised that this is how Halo: Campaign Evolved turned out. A modern recreation is certainly the safest option for Halo Studios and Xbox Game Studios, and it's a solid effort that resurrects what feels like a bygone era of single-player shooters. But, only because it copies the genre-defining Halo: Combat Evolved so closely. Why iterate on near-perfection? Yet, the promise of an evolved campaign experience, like Installation 04 itself, rings hollow, and I'm left wondering if playing it safe is really what Xbox should be aiming for with Halo right now.

Halo: Campaign Evolved was reviewed on PS5, with a code provided by the publisher.

Halo: Campaign Evolved is one of the best FPS games you can play this year, and if you're interested in the rest of the Halo series, take a look at our list of the best Halo games.

Halo Campaign Evolved pre-loading is now available for all platforms and all editions, so whether you're on PS5, PC, or Xbox Series X, you can get the game installed now, ready for the full launch. With the early access period still running, many players can still upgrade, download, and start playing right now, but you may as well get set for July 28 instead. With that, I've explained everything you need to get done before Halo Campaign Evolved's full launch, including pre-loading, so that you can dive in as soon as possible.

How to pre-load Halo Campaign Evolved

To start pre-installing Halo, you obviously must have pre-ordered the Standard Edition of the game on your platform of choice. Bear in mind that if you've got the Premium Edition or the Premium Edition upgrade, you can install and start playing the game now before the Halo Campaign Evolved release time thanks to the included early access period.

With the game pre-ordered, your platform's storefront should automatically begin pre-installing the game right away, assuming you have automatic downloads switched on. Otherwise, check the Halo Campaign Evolved page on your platform's store front or your game library and you should be able to start the early download from there. To ensure you have enough space for it, you should have about 100GB of free space on your console or PC's storage.

I also highly recommend making sure you get your Microsoft account details ready – or make an account if you don't have one while you wait – so that you can get your account linked and start playing Halo with minimal hassle. You can't play the game without an account, and it's used to make crossplay and cross-progression function, so you can play Halo Campaign Evolved with whoever and on whatever eligible platforms you have available to you.

© GamesRadar+. Not to be reproduced without permission.

The Halo Campaign Evolved release time has almost arrived, letting all players dive in from July 28 and not just those with the Premium Edition. With a global simultaneous release for all platforms, everyone will be able to log into Halo Campaign Evolved from the same time, but that works out as a different time for each region due to time zones. So, if you want to know when you'll be able to start playing, I've laid out some of the Halo CE remake release times below.

Halo Campaign Evolved release time

Halo Campaign Evolved releases globally on July 28 at 3pm UTC. That means all players, whether you're on Xbox Series X, PS5, or PC will be able to play from that time. Here's how that translates to different time zones so you know exactly when you can play:

• US Pacific: 8AM PDT on July 28
• US Eastern: 11AM EDT on July 28
• UK: 4PM BST on July 28
• Central Europe: 5PM CEST on July 28
• Eastern Australia: 1AM AEST on July 29
• New Zealand: 3AM NZST on July 29

There's not long left to get your Halo Campaign Evolved pre-load sorted so that you're ready to play as soon as the launch time arrives. And to make sure you can hop in without a hitch, I also recommend making sure that you have your Microsoft account details ready so that you can link it to your platform account, particularly if you're going to play on PS5 or Steam (obviously now is a good time to make one if you don't have one).

This is essential for crossplay and cross-progression, letting you join your friends regardless of what platform they're on and change platforms without losing progress and unlocks.

Halo Campaign Evolved early access release time

If you've pre-ordered the Premium Edition of Halo Campaign Evolved you can hop into Halo Campaign Evolved right now but there are mere hours left of early access. This period started on July 23 at 3pm UTC and will last until the full launch on the 28th when everyone else gets to play.

You might also want to know how long Halo Campaign Evolved is, particularly if you're planning on 100%-ing it.

© GamesRadar+. Not to be reproduced without permission.

They don't make 'em like they used to, but this week, Season 5 of Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 will introduce an updated matchmaking system that's more in line with how they used to make 'em.

In a new tweet, the official Call of Duty Twitter account reflects, "Over the past year, we've continued to learn a lot about Multiplayer matchmaking through player data and community feedback."

This comes on the heels of the recent PS4 and PS5 release of Call of Duty: Black Ops and Black Ops 2, which has finally given the latest PlayStation consoles official versions of the first two games in this sub-series. Their release also stoked discussion of how Black Ops used to feel (spoilers: sometimes full of cheaters).

"We're also excited to see all the recent love for Black Ops and Black Ops II, which reinforced that there are many elements of those experiences that players appreciate," Activision agrees. "Starting this week with Season 05, we're updating Black Ops Classic, Quick Play, and Party Games in Black Ops 7 with a new matchmaking system inspired by those classic games."

With this change, the exact vibe of which will warrant some hands-on testing in the days ahead, Black Ops 7 will "continue to offer" modern Open playlists, and Activision says "we'll also include Open playlist options in the upcoming Modern Warfare 4 Beta." But if you're an older Call of Duty fan who maintains that the newer games have lost a little something, you may be in better company than you realized.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 expands Ricochet anti-cheat to combat exploits in Ranked after banning over 263,000 cheaters already this year.

The war against cheaters continues, with Activision bringing in the latest round of protections for Call of Duty: Black Ops 7. The publisher is utilizing the Ricochet software to help handle ne'er-do-wells in the FPS, in order to better single out the more discreet exploits players are taking advantage of.

Ricochet is already part of the framework for the latest Call of Duty, and Warzone 2, but now Activision's revealed the partnership is being extended. "Through June, Ricochet Anti-Cheat banned more than 293,000 accounts year-to-date while making it harder for cheaters to create new ones," a social media statement reads. "In Season 5, we're further expanding our hardware ban capabilities."

This was prompted by a rash of poor behavior in Ranked, where the higher-skilled players frequent. Cheaters are getting smarter and more intricate, only using tools for specific instances, making it harder to catch them in the act.

Cases are getting so minute, in fact, that Activision says only a small portion of the accounts that get spotted and banned stem from video evidence captured by others. What you can see as another competitor in the same match is only the tip of the iceberg in terms of the data the devs are gathering.

"Public clips can help flag cases that deserve a closer look, but they account for about 0.11% of all enforcement actions," the post reads. "The remaining 99.89% are driven by detection data, investigations, in-game player reports, and internal monitoring. In other words, the work is happening well beyond what players can see publicly."

Ricochet, then, "combines client protections, server-side analysis, and dedicated investigation tools" for a robust set of defences against malicious carry on. A kernel-level driver can spot third-party software that shouldn't be part of the in-game experience, layering the hurdles for cheaters.

The message ends by pointing that while "bans matter," you may not see the banhammer come down straight away. Timing is taken into consideration, to help avoid exploiters adapting too quickly to the latest defences.

This is a constant bugbear, but with any luck, Black Ops 7 and Warzone 2 will see a decrease in such activity. At least, for now.

Call of Duty: Black Ops and Black Ops 2 ports were both in the top 10 US PlayStation games last week despite cheating and DLC mess

A former Bethesda employee has revealed that the publisher was working on an unannounced PVP shooter which was eventually canceled.

The employee, who was included in Xbox's latest wave of layoffs that hit the publisher, included details about his 12-year tenure at Bethesda on his LinkedIn profile (via Twitter user Timur222), which included a detail from his role as an associate producer that reads: "Supported production on an unannounced PvP FPS title (subsequently canceled), contributing to scheduling and cross-team coordination."

However, that's pretty much all there is in terms of info for this title. Keep in mind the dev worked at Bethesda Softworks, not Bethesda Game Studios – the studio developing Elder Scrolls and Fallout titles – so there's a ton of possibilities.

One throughline in the resume is working with Machine Games on Wolfenstein games, and while the studio most recently released Indiana Jones and The Great Circle, there was a rumored FPS title in the works. In a Bethesda roadmap leaked in 2023, there was a title called "Project Platinum," which Giant Bomb founder Jeff Gerstmann identified as a Machine Games title in the vein of Rainbow Six Siege or Counter-Strike.

Over a year ago, Timur222 also spotted a "Canceled unannounced project" on the LinkedIn page of another MachineGames employee, giving the idea that this was Project Platinum a little more evidence, given it fits within the 2021 - 2025 timeframe.

Earlier this year, rumors emerged that MachineGames had begun work on Wolfenstein 3, after eight years and two spinoffs since Wolfenstein 2: The New Colossus' ending, which felt like it was the beginning of something big (I mean, you gotta kill Mecha Hitler, right?).

Since the layoffs, word has emerged that Bethesda is set to focus on its "strongest franchises," which includes Doom, Quake, and Wolfenstein. And while wanting to focus on Doom and Quake while destroying the studio behind them is certainly a move, the news does suggest that Wolfenstein 3 is safe from cancellation for now.

Doom developer id Software "is essentially dead," Duke Nukem 3D co-creator says after layoffs

The Call of Duty Serialized Gilded Ruin Camo presents players with an opportunity to earn a unique weapon skin, by completing a specific challenge as quickly as possible. The first 100,000 players to hit the target will receive a camo stamped with a serial number in the order they are unlocked, so grabbing low digits will confer significant kudos when you show off this weapon finish in Black Ops 7 and Modern Warfare 4.

A recent blog post outlines how to unlock this special skin, but that includes a lot of details so I'm here to quickly outline exactly what you need to do to add it to your Gunsmith collection. You'll have to act fast if you want to secure one of these unique items, so here's how to unlock the Serialized Gilded Ruin Camo in Black Ops 7 and Modern Warfare 4.

How to access the Gilded Ruin Camo in Call of Duty

To access the Gilded Ruin Camo in Call of Duty, you need to pre-order Modern Warfare 4 (Standard or Vault Edition) prior to July 23, 2026 and the launch of Black Ops 7 Season 05 to instantly receive the Gilded Pearl Camo Pack. This will give you immediate access to the Moonlit Pearl Universal Camo, and unlocks the challenge to earn the Gilded Ruin Weapon Camo on July 23, 2026 at 12noon PDT / 3pm EDT / 8pm BST.

If you place a pre-order after this time you will still receive the Gilded Pearl Camo Pack and unlock this challenge, though your chances of earning the Serialized Gilded Ruin Weapon Camo will be significantly reduced due to the time-sensitive nature of the task. Don't forget that pre-ordering the game will also get you Early Access to the Modern Warfare 4 beta from August 21, 2026, a full week ahead of the Open Beta.

How to earn the Serialized Gilded Ruin Camo in Call of Duty

To unlock the Gilded Ruin Weapon Camo in Call of Duty, you need to complete the Gilded Pearl Camo Pack Challenge which involves earning 5,000 Skulls across various game modes in Black Ops 7 and Warzone. Skulls are awarded per Elimination, at different rates per game mode as outlined below:

• Endgame: Defeat enemies for 5 Skulls per Elimination
• Multiplayer: Defeat other players for 10 Skulls per Elimination
• Zombies: Defeat enemies for 1 Skull per Elimination
• Warzone: Defeat other players for 30 Skulls per Elimination

You can swap between different game modes during this challenge and your earned Skulls will carry over, as there is just a single overall Skull Score being tracked. Once you hit 5,000 Skulls in total, claim the Gilded Ruin Universal Camo and if you were one of the first 100,000 players to reach the target then you will also receive the Serialized Gilded Ruin Camo with your unique serial number attached!

After all 100,000 of the serial numbers have been allocated, completing the challenge will just unlock the standard Gilded Ruin Universal Camo. This can be used alongside the Moonlit Pearl Universal Camo in Black Ops 7, then when Modern Warfare 4 launches on October 23, 2026 both will be unlocked instantly for use there too.

© GamesRadar+. Not to be reproduced without permission.

Despite being a bit of a terrible deal, the PS4 and PS5 versions of Call of Duty: Black Ops and Black Ops 2 both charted among the most played games on PlayStation in the US last week.

Earlier this month, Activision released the rumored Call of Duty: Black Ops 1 and 2 ports on PS4 and PS5. And despite being the highlight of the franchise for many people, these ports haven't exactly gone down well with fans.

First off, unless you have PlayStation Plus to take advantage of a limited-time discount, both games are $40 each, and $30 on top of that for the DLC map packs, which fragments the player base between those who do and don't have DLC… the already fragmented player base, as there's no crossplay between PS4 and PS5.

And on top of that, the game swiftly became rife with cheaters – presumably due to the fact that 15-year-old exploits haven't been fixed – making the online just a bit of a miserable experience.

Circana Player Engagement Tracker - US Top 10 Titles by Total Weekly Active Users (Not Concurrent) - W/E Jul 11, 2026- Call of Duty: Black Ops I & II debut in top 10 on PlayStation- Palworld jumps from 57th on Steam a week ago to 2nd with v1.0 official launch

— @matpiscatella.bsky.social (@matpiscatella.bsky.social.bsky.social) 2026-07-21T14:54:39.588Z

And yet, the nostalgia for these two games has proven potent, as thanks to Circana's Mat Piscatella, we know that both games debuted in the top 10 most played games on PlayStation in the US. Black Ops came in at ninth place, with only Madden NFL 26 behind it in the top 10, while Minecraft and Marvel Rivals came in eighth and seventh before Black Ops 2 appeared at number six. However, the regular old Call of Duty (the app that encompasses the likes of Warzone) came in fourth, giving Activision's shooter three spots in the top 10.

Predictably, the top 10 outside of these two games is filled with titles that were also in last week's ranking, with Fortnite, NBA 2K26, and Roblox holding the same top three spots. As for last week's big release, Assassin's Creed Black Flag: Resynced, the chart notes that it launched within the top 30 on PlayStation. So nostalgia is potent, but maybe for some things more than others.

Here are the 10 best Call of Duty games of all-time.

The Modern Warfare 4 beta dates have been announced, so we now know when we can get hands-on with the latest shooter instalment. As always, there will be an initial Early Access period for players who have pre-ordered the game, followed by an Open Beta where everyone can check out Modern Warfare 4 ahead of its October release without having to commit to a purchase.

Following a recent blog post we have some early intel on the MW4 beta, including the dates when it will be running and the requirements to join it, though exact times haven't been confirmed yet. If you're keen to get involved, then here's everything we know so far about the Call of Duty Modern Warfare 4 beta and how to access it.

Pre-ordering the game also gives access to the challenge that unlocks the Call of Duty Serialized Gilded Ruin Camo, so check out the details here.

When are the Modern Warfare 4 beta dates?

The Modern Warfare 4 beta dates are divided between two sessions as follows:

• Early Access
  • Start: Friday, August 21
  • End: Tuesday, August 25
• Open Beta
  • Start: Friday, August 28
  • End: Tuesday, September 1

Above are the dates for the Modern Warfare 4 beta, and although we don't have exact times as yet we do know that the Early Access beta starts immediately after the Call of Duty: NEXT broadcast on August 21.

To access the initial Early Access period on PS5, Xbox Series X, or PC you need to pre-order Modern Warfare 4 in either Standard or Vault Edition format, though if you reserve the Vault Edition you'll receive additional perks during the beta – more on that below. The exception to this is Nintendo Switch 2, where pre-orders don't open until August 28, but at that point Switch 2 players can join everyone else in the Open Beta period where no pre-order is required to take part.

What's in the Modern Warfare 4 beta?

The full details of what's included in the Modern Warfare 4 beta haven't been revealed yet, but we know that there will be a selection of multiplayer maps and modes available from small-scale 3v3 skirmishes to huge tactical battles. These will include Search & Destroy and the Training Mobility Course, alongside the brand new Kill Block experience.

Players who pre-order the Vault Edition of Modern Warfare 4 will get access to additional content during the beta, including:

• Hostile Alliance Operator Pack
  • Price
  • Valeria
  • Ghost
  • Blix
• Special Forces Operator Pack
  • COM SFT (France)
  • KSK Amphibious (Germany)
  • SK Special Forces (South Korea)
  • SAS (United Kingdom)
• Signature Weapons Collection
  • Kastov 762 Assault Rifle and “Voltspine” Blueprint
  • ISO Nightshade Submachine Gun and “La Sombra Venenosa” (“The Poisonous Shadow”) Blueprint
  • Rezi 12 Shotgun and “Shattered Code” Blueprint
  • Oris 8.6 Marksman Rifle and “Volt-Edge” Blueprint
  • Combat Knife (Melee) and “Sombra Besada” (“Shadow’s Kiss”) Blueprint

More details on the Modern Warfare 4 beta, including what exclusive beta rewards can be unlocked, are due to be announced in the coming weeks – so check back here for updates as information is revealed.

When will the Modern Warfare 4 beta end?

The Modern Warfare 4 beta is officially scheduled to end on Tuesday, September 1, when the Open Beta draws to a close. The previous Black Ops 7 beta did get extended by an extra day though, so this end point isn't set in stone yet depending on how the rest of the MW4 beta period goes.

© GamesRadar+. Not to be reproduced without permission.

It's that time of year, as publicity starts ramping up for the next Call of Duty game. The next installment is Modern Warfare 4, from Infinity Ward, and on the heels of the first demonstration of the FPS as well as the initial bout of open beta testing, the studio teased some incoming changes.

On Twitter, the official Infinity Ward account took a second to address that most omnipresent of Call of Duty subjects: leveling up. "We see the conversation around weapon progression," the post reads. "We’ve got more to share on leveling and the grind soon. We got you on this."

No other details are given, but this is a discussion that comes up every Call of Duty installment, and it's a tricky subject for studios. Players want to feel rewarded and enjoy gradually unlocking their skins and such, but they don't want it to be too easy or too much of a slog.

Finding that balance is a constant back-and-forth for the devs. What kind of rewards do you make available? What should the criteria be for each prize? How high should the leveling go? Black Ops 7 goes up to level 100, which seems like overkill, but then 30 or 40 is probably too low, even to start.

The Modern Warfare reboot in 2019 serves as a worthwhile benchmark for the series, at least going by community sentiment.

"[Modern Warfare 2019] progression was good imo. Not too easy, not too hard, balanced," says a commenter on Reddit. "Please no more armory unlocks. just do the same thing you did with [Modern Warfare 2019]," adds another.

Broadly speaking, the 2019 Modern Warfare offered straightforward progression for your standard guns, though there were issues in other areas. Specific challenges for camo, for instance, required you to jump through a lot of hoops in terms of kills. It was imperfect, but the foundation was there.

We'll have to wait and see what Infinity Ward has to say here for what Modern Warfare 4 will offer. People got their first chance to check it out at Fanatics Fest, with a demo of new mode Kill Block.

The open Modern Warfare 4 beta, then, arrives on August 21 for those who pre-order. If you'd like to get in on that, you'd best put your money down soon, otherwise you'll be waiting until October.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 DMZ devs have been "paying attention" to other extraction shooters like Arc Raiders, but think they've got them beat on "weapon feel"

Marathon game director Joe Ziegler has stepped down and left Bungie a short two months after the developer announced its final update for fellow FPS Destiny 2. His last day at the company was July 17.

Former Destiny 2 design lead Del Chafe III will take over as game director with help from Marathon's current creative director Julia Nardin. Ziegler writes in a Twitter announcement, "Both of them have been operating in a strong leadership capacity for the team and are ready to guide Marathon into the next chapter with an even better and brighter future." Marathon launched in March with a peak concurrent player count of 88,337, according to Steam DB, and its current player count as of writing is 6,775.

Nardin told GamesRadar+ earlier this summer that Marathon's team already knew "where we want to take the story over the next few years," so, at least publicly, Bungie looks ready to invest in Marathon as it leaves Destiny 2 in a sad, comatose state. But the fact that the shooter has gone from nearly 90,000 simultaneous players to under 10,000 is a foreboding one.

"I just want to say a deeply heartfelt thank you to all of you for supporting me and Marathon in our windy mission to bring a dark and terrifying space survival frontier to your screen," Ziegler says. "The mission will continue in new and surprising ways so stay tuned for what this team has in store for you!" The developer says he will "be heading to something new, somewhere else" with updates to come "soon."

"Hopefully as I move onto new things, you'll join me for those adventures as well," he adds.

Bungie has recently been shedding employees like cat hair – it laid off "most" of its Destiny 2 team in a massive sweep, and while PlayStation CEO Herman Hulst swore to staff at the time that Marathon "remains an important part of our portfolio, and we will continue to support the team," some of its devs were also impacted by layoffs. Following those layoffs, Bundie studio head Justin Truman reportedly stepped down from his position after less than a year.

"Working at Bungie was the most toxic, dysfunctional experience of my professional life," former narrative lead Michael Zenke, who left Bungie in 2017, remarked after Destiny 2's death knell update was announced. Ziegler's sudden departure from Marathon after a now seems like evidence of this. You can't enjoy a home with a crumbling foundation.

As Destiny 2 ends, what's next for Bungie?

Doom: The Dark Ages director and id Software co-studio director Hugo Martin has acknowledged the layoffs the studio is facing, and says things aren't as dire as they sound.

As part of a Slayers Club Live stream on the Bethesda YouTube channel (spotted by Kotaku), Martin says: "There's been reports that we've been 'nerfed into the ground' and 'gutted' and we have 50 people and that’s not true."

These reports came from a mixture of places. Derek Best, a principal VFX artist at the studio, talked of Xbox "nuking a team into the dirt," while a WARN notice filed in Texas suggested that 136 of the 185 developers at the studio were let go.

Martin continues, "We're the size we were when we made Doom 2016 and id Tech is very much alive and well." Reports also claimed that the id Tech team was decimated at the Texas studio, but Martin says: "You have to understand we have id Tech engineers both in Frankfurt and at MachineGames. We collaborate quite a bit."

Furthermore, he adds: "The id Tech is there, the Doom team is here, and we're excited to share with you guys more of what we're working on in the future when it is appropriate and approved."

After the layoffs occurred, former employees claimed Martin had proposed a "Gun Fu" action game inspired by the likes of John Wick, while Perfect Dark, a western robot survival game, and multiple Doom projects were also rumoured to have been pitched.

Martin says "the fact that we made a game that people like and is critical and commercially successful – like I said, it's doing very well related to the forecast and stuff – that's good for everyone, for the people at the studio, for the people who, unfortunately, we had to say goodbye to." He adds: "But what matters the most is that the games are good and I'm so happy that people, I don't know… It's just a good thing for everybody, it's going to help. So we are really here to just play the game now and celebrate the work."

If anything, Martin's note that Doom was critically and commercially successful just makes Microsoft's layoffs more mind boggling. A legendary studio which created some of the most iconic shooter franchises in history – ones Xbox is reportedly pushing Bethesda to make more of – facing layoffs at this scale while also being successful and owned by one of the most affluent companies in history is difficult to explain, to put it lightly.

Laid-off id Software devs "cannot imagine a path forward where they make another game in id Tech," despite the Doom studio's claims.

Despite having 15 years between them, Call of Duty: Black Ops' PS4 and PS5 port is seemingly suffering from the same exploits that its PS3 version has also been a victim of.

Activision released both Call of Duty: Black Ops and Black Ops 2 for the PS4 and PS5 last week in the form of straightforward ports, not remasters – both games are also on Xbox Series X|S via backward compatibility. While making two fan-favorite games available to more people should've been a slam dunk win for Activision, XP exploits quickly made multiplayer lobbies nearly unplayable for large waves of Black Ops 1's online population.

As spotted by IGN, YouTuber Tdawgsmitty recently chatted with a modder who explained that the problem might actually be a leftover exploit from the original game's PS3 and Xbox 360 days. Right now, there aren't any aimbots and such flooding the game, but people are modding save files to farm more XP than is usually possible by spamming themselves with grenades, say, which is ruining competitive games for regular players.

"Essentially, what you're doing is that it's like PS3 where you copy [a save file] to your USB, and there's a website that lets you unencrypt it," the modder says. "The site lets you use a jailbroken PS4/PS5, and it will decrypt it for you. The save data is the exact same as PS3. What sucks about this port is that Iron Galaxy [and] Activision didn't bother changing the encryption on the files, which is the whole reason why this is available right now. That's the only reason why."

Activision disabled "select playlists" a few days ago while it investigates reported issues. It then updated some playlists with "a server-wide fix," though the modder suggests other game modes are still exploitable.

For now, reminisce with the best Call of Duty games of all time.

The shield saw, the star of last year's Doom: The Dark Ages, was my favorite weapon in Doom's entire bloody history. Not content with just sticking a parry in Doom and going for lunch early, id Software instead delivered the world's deadliest beyblade. A merciless disc of death you could frisbee into a screaming demon, or boomerang through entire hordes. The slowest, most lumbering entry of the new-Doom trilogy also starred a 'shield bash' that sent you rushing across the battlefield and slamming into Hell's finest. Slow? Please. Sonic wishes he could move like this.

The shield saw should be patched into Dark Souls immediately. Every other shield in gaming should hang its non-head in shame. What I'm basically trying to get across here is that the shield saw rules. And within the opening hour of Doom: The Dark Ages – Revelations, the FPS' new DLC, id took my shield saw away and snapped it in half.

It's a bold new step forward for the Doom Slayer, but rather than developers being able to celebrate, the studio is already losing half its staff as part of Xbox's ongoing large-scale layoffs. That includes reportedly putting the future of the id Tech engine itself in jeopardy, and leading developers to question the value of Microsoft's purchase of ZeniMax, which included id owner Bethesda, back in 2021 in the first place. That's all before we even had enough time to tell you this Doom: The Dark Ages expansion is actually super rad. Turns out, big business can be more devastating than any BFG – and that's heartbreaking.

Sawly Missed

The Doom Slayer has been sent to Hell-prison, you see, presumably on about four billion demon murder charges. He thankfully gets to keep all the spectacular guns from last year's game, including the one that sprays bone fragments of demon skulls, the shotgun that sounds like the Earth itself splitting in half when you fire it, and that wonderful chainshot that's essentially the grittiest reboot of ball-and-paddle ever.

While it's great to be reunited with all these magnificent murder-toys, the shield saw being taken away truly hurts. Last year this studio trained us to approach Doom in a whole new defensive way, and now it's ripped and torn that option out entirely. Even FromSoftware let us enjoy an entire trilogy of Dark Souls games cowering behind a shield before snatching it away with Sekiro. id barely waited a year.

So what replaces this divine disc of death? The new chain spear, which is so weedy in appearance compared to a shield/chainsaw hybrid that I thought the game was joking. It looks like the kind of thing the Doom Slayer would use as a toothpick.

The spear actually shares a surprising amount of the shield's functionality. You can hookshot onto obstacles on enemies, like the shield dash. It can parry green attacks, and it stuns enemies you lob it into – though this effect only lasts until its hookshot has finished dragging you towards your victim. Which means you'll now be standing right next to a monster who's no longer stunned and is ready to get revenge. Gee, thanks.

Ah, but I soon discover that where I land is actually in my control. This isn't your bog standard videogame hookshot, wherein you latch onto where you want to go and then simply watch yourself get yanked towards it. No, you're able to swing left, right, and above as you're hooked forward, opening up some sublime new strategies.

The cacodemon, the floating megabrain that caused me so much misery in the main campaign, is now basically a hookshot launch pad for me to ascend myself to bullet heaven. I fling myself over it then unload super shotgun blasts into its grey-going-on-red matter the whole way down, landing in a fresh pile of its giblet-y remains. Bloody bliss.

Revelations also restores the much-missed dash button from Doom Eternal. Not being able to block isn't so bad when you can hurl yourself around or keep flinging yourself into the sky. Better yet, Revelations starts rewarding daring dodges as much as it rewards parries.

Death From Above

Last-second dodges fill a meter you can spend on executing special moves. I initially opt for a ground slam that damages anything stupid enough to be near where I land. That dash works in the air, too, so I can hook myself up and get an impressive amount of kills in before my feet ever get reacquainted with the ground. Doom has rediscovered its love of sending you airborne and developed a newfound romance with keeping you up there.

Ammo scarcity, something I all but forgot about in The Dark Ages proper, constantly catches me out this time. Probably because all my ammo upgrades from the main campaign are gone, and Revelations is about as difficult as that game's third act right from the starting shot. Not being able to just rely on a couple of guns to get through an encounter, but actually properly engaging with the weapon wheel is friction I'd sorely missed. Oh, I have a weapon called the impaler! Good to see you, old friend. Sorry for, er, completely forgetting you existed. Um… has the shield saw asked about me at all?

Doom has also learnt how to keep a secret again. The Dark Ages' main campaign made the bizarre decision to put almost every collectable on the map screen. Then it had the audacity to cheer 'you found a secret area!' when you walked into the clearly signposted 'secret' area. Imagine if I showed you where my bathroom was and then bellowed "SECRET AREA FOUND" as soon as you entered it. You'd be baffled for a number of reasons. Revelations, somewhat ironically, knows to keep things under wraps so finding its secret areas and bonus pickups actually feel like achievements again.

You'll want to seek them out, too, to afford the excellent Chain Spear upgrades. There's Deflection, which makes the spear reflect back automatic weapon fire whenever you dash, the slayer twirling it like a dance baton (where was this in Lollipop Chainsaw?). Tormentor will spin you around an enemy you've got the hook of the spear buried in, perfect for filling them with lead. Upgrade Tormentor again and enemies will also drop ammo and catch fire during that process. Cowards are definitely onto something – shooting someone in the back is immensely satisfying. …What?

So, after a steep learning curve, the Chain Spear definitely won me over. But before it did, something odd happened. The saw shield came crawling back. A few hours in, Revelations returns the shield to you, and now you can switch it out with the spear whenever you want. I was really torn about this. Great as it was to have my favorite toy back, I respected the game a lot more when it locked me into a new playstyle.

Offense is the Best Defence?

The shield is essentially a safer, steadier bet. Whereas the spear, when used well, can end a brutal battle in seconds. The catch being it can also end the battle for you in seconds. Eventually, you learn when best to switch them out on the fly. Demons who fire automatic guns at me are no match for a spear which can deflect those bullets. Whereas near the end of a long, long onslaught of demons, I appreciate a quick breather behind the shield so I don't lose the last twenty minutes of progress.

Once I truly got a handle on the spear, the shield was reduced to mere cameos, but I still think the game would have benefitted from at least another hour of it being my sole option before tempting me back into the more familiar pleasures of the shield saw.

It's a minor pacing complaint with what's otherwise a terrific package, an inspired remix of Dark Ages and Eternal that's as exhilarating as Doom has ever been. It's beautiful, the story is… well, much less crap than the main campaign's, and the puzzles can actually be called puzzles this time without being laughed out of the room. Best of all, the core combat is about as good as FPS gunplay gets. Only Saros threatens this one's perch for single-player shooter of the year. I said single-player, Marathon stans. Put away your shield saws…

Imagine owning a studio that can make games of this quality, that last year got three million players on board, and then gutting them more viciously than a demon on the wrong end of a chain spear. Tragically, Xbox's cruel layoffs that are targeting 3,200 roles across several studios may have finally delivered the killing blow to the Doom Slayer. Let's hope Revelations isn't the swansong to a studio of such incredible talent.

Check out our best FPS games ranking for more blasting!

Destiny 2 has been one of the most influential and enduring online shooters of the last decade, and the news that active development is officially ending has prompted some intense reactions from fans.

Bungie threw caution to the wind last month with Destiny 2's final update, Monument of Triumph, which made the game more active than it had been in years as current and lapsed players returned for the big send-off. Numbers from SteamDB showed Destiny 2's concurrent Steam player count had climbed to more than 165,000 at the time, which was the highest number for the game since summer 2024, which saw the game approach its all-time peak of 316,750.

Now we have some data from Circana senior director Mat Piscatella demonstrating the success of Destiny 2's last hurrah from a different angle. Instead of looking at raw player figures, Piscatella showed Steam's ranking of games with the most active monthly US-based users from June 2026. The data shows that Destiny jumped all the way from the 32nd position to 5th place, an absolutely staggering leap for a game knocking on death's door.

Circana Player Engagement Tracker US MAU charts for June 2026:- Meccha Chameleon debuted on top of the Steam US monthly active user chart- Destiny 2 jumped to 5th from 32nd in May on Steam- Where Winds Meet launched in top 10 on Xbox with Game Pass release

— @matpiscatella.bsky.social (@matpiscatella.bsky.social.bsky.social) 2026-07-17T00:02:35.627Z

Unfortunately, these impressive player numbers are far too little and too late to do anything more than satisfy the morbidly curious. PlayStation laid off most of the Destiny 2 team as Bungie shifts its focus over to Marathon, even if the shiny new extraction shooter hasn't yet established itself as having anywhere near the impact of Destiny. Even developers from other studios, like Warframe lead Rebecca Ford, have said Destiny 2's death is "horrible news" for everyone because if it can happen to Bungie, it can happen to anyone.

"I am utterly livid": Destiny 2 lore master says secret scene reveals "the potential that was ahead" before the game abruptly ended

Maintaining a live-service game is a tough line of work. You've got to keep the updates coming, constantly roll out hotfixes, and you're constantly relying on your community to make the release viable. Warframe's been going steady for 13 years now, an impressive feat, and Rebecca Ford, the game's creative director, takes nothing for granted.

"You can be as wise as those that came before you, you can learn from those who have not continued on, and the truth is always somewhere in the middle of it," she explains to GamesRadar+ during an interview at TennoCon 2026. "Just try and make a good game before they kick you out."

That's a slightly dispiriting outlook, but it's pragmatic, since we just saw the sudden finish of Destiny 2. Bungie's sci-fi FPS came to a slightly unceremonious end in June, with a sudden final update after it was reported Sony took a considerable loss on acquiring the studio, leading to a large amount of layoffs.

Warframe developer Digital Extremes knows full well the environment it's in. "It shows that even if you care so much, the business side of this industry always gets the last remark," Ford says of what happened to Bungie. "Those are the types of stories and experiences that, when you're in a position where you have your own game, your own IP, and you work as hard as you do on it… That's not the first time it's happened, and it'll happen again, where the business aspect of the video game economy makes the decision for you."

She mentions that "the idea that we aren't in charge of our own goodbye is something I wake up thinking about every single day," demonstrating the kind of pressure she and her colleagues work under. Right now, Warframe seems to be going strong. TennoCon gets bigger each and every year, and being both free and well-balanced as a game makes Warframe appealing and easy to settle into.

There have been layoffs in the studio before, though, and Ford notes that despite this, the internal structure contains many longtime employees – including herself, as she's risen from community management to her current role – giving them a distinct perspective.

"Anyone here in a leadership position didn't come into the company in that position, which I think gives us a little bit of a unique way of working as a team," she explains. "None of us signed up for this, but we do it because it must be done, and we trust each other, which is one of the most fundamental parts of our operations, and every day, every week, we can improve how we work as a business with an office, or how we work remote as a studio."

Warframe lead Rebecca Ford says Destiny 2's death is "horrible news" for everyone: "Not the first time it's happened, and it'll happen again"

Despite a statement from the studio, former id Software staff don't see how the studio can possibly make another game in its id Tech engine after a majority of the devs at the Texas-based studio were laid off.

Last week, after much conversation about what state the legendary studio is left in after 136 of its 185 developers were laid off by Microsoft, id Software released a statement on Twitter. "While our studio was impacted, those changes were spread across teams. We still have the crew we need to build the games and tech we're known for," the post reads, saying "The team today is about the same size we were when making Doom 2016."

While the Doom 2016 line may be true, the cost of game development is rapidly increasing compared to even ten years ago. And given the comments from developers affected by these layoffs, like Derek Best, former principal VFX artist, who said, "Nothing says business success like nuking a team into the dirt and relegating them to support studio size," many saw this as potential damage control from higher-ups at the studio.

Speaking to Game Developer, a source impacted by the cuts at id Software says, "Does Microsoft care? Absolutely not. And they seem to actually put some level of effort and care into making it as painful as possible."

Another dev let go last week told the outlet "They've just gotten rid of all the people who could ever fix, maintain, or change [id Tech], so it's most likely going to end up in the in the trash can," and while Microsoft commented on word that only one staff member remained at the Texas studio working on id Tech, they did not specify how many were working on the engine, which is also used by Wolfenstein developer Machine Games.

The developer continues, "The institutional knowledge [that has been lost] on the id Tech side is immense... I cannot imagine a path forward where they make another game in id Tech."

And yet, word is Bethesda is planning to focus on its biggest franchises going forward, and while The Elder Scrolls 6 and Fallout 5 are likely the priority for Bethesda Game Studios, Doom, Quake, and Wolfenstein – three series made in id Tech – are apparently included in that focus. I'm not sure I see the thought process behind Xbox's decision with that one.

"There are no benefits to being owned by Microsoft," says Doom dev: "They have destroyed immense amounts of value that I don't even think that they're aware of"

An id Software developer says there is no benefit to being owned by Microsoft after the Xbox-owned developer faced mass layoffs one day before the launch of a new Doom DLC expansion.

Speaking to Gamedeveloper, the unnamed source at the Doom developer explained, "They [Microsoft] didn't even wait to see if the product is successful before they got rid of the team."

And had Microsoft waited, it would've seen that Doom: The Dark Ages' Revelation DLC has netted rave reviews on Steam and is one of the top-rated games of 2026 on Opencritic.

Reports say the studio has seen 136 of its 185 developers laid off by Microsoft, in its fifth round of mass layoffs since spending 75 billion to acquire Activision Blizzard. Despite the publisher apparently pushing Bethesda to make more Doom games, Xbox saw fit to seemingly gut the team behind the iconic franchise.

"There are no benefits to being owned by Microsoft," the developer continues. "In fact, they have destroyed immense amounts of value that I don't even think that they're aware of."

Unfortunately, even if you release a good and successful game now, you're still not safe. Doom: The Dark Ages was the "biggest launch in id's history" when it launched in 2025, and just over a year later, id has reportedly been made a shell of its former self.

Meanwhile, Ubisoft is in the process of letting go of 51 developers at Ubisoft Barcelona, right as Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced was is released. One Gamedeveloper source echoed this, saying, "It feels like we put a good product out and it just has zero effect on your longevity in the industry."

There really aren't many studios left with the legacy of id Software – the studio that revolutionized the FPS, which would then go on to become the biggest genre in the world for a time – and it's a studio that has never really had any major missteps either. It's a shame to think that years of knowledge might be lost as 136 developers seek out new employment in an industry with fewer jobs to go around.

"Great job Microsoft": Former id Software artist says the legendary dev has been "relegated to support studio size" after Xbox's strategy of "nuking a team into the dirt"

Things aren't going well for the new ports of Call of Duty: Black Ops and its follow-up on PlayStation 4 and 5. Mere days after launch, players found the lobbies to be absolutely riddled with cheaters, to the point that the FPS is basically unplayable, prompting Activision to take drastic action.

These versions of Black Ops 1 and 2 launched on July 9, and it wasn't long before reports emerged of fans having a frustrating time due to hacks and exploits. Not just your routine exploits either, custom lobbies have made it so that you can jump to the top level by grenading yourself right as a match starts.

This is leading to entire teams blowing themselves up, giving the opposition the win by default. What fun, eh? Who needs bullets and guns and actually playing the game properly? Seeing this rather large wildfire of issues, Activision quickly shut everything down by flat-out disabling certain playlists for the time being.

The publisher announced this on the Call of Duty Updates Twitter account on July 13. Since then, the "first phase" of hotfixes have been rolled out. Playlists have gotten a server-side fix, and anyone lumbered with negative XP has now been reset to level 20 for regular progression.

That second one is due to a bizarre hack on the first Black Ops. Killing someone in a round of Domination where a player is already at the top level will either catapult you to level 50, or take away the same amount of experience from overall score, putting you in minus figures and locking you out of playing altogether because the game reads you as less than level 1.

I'm not a gambling man anyway, but I definitely wouldn't be taking that risk. Activision had made it clear the multiplayer infrastructure is built on new servers, to prevent age old glitches and issues re-emerging. Sadly, hackers have only gotten worse in the 16 years since the first Black Ops, and the fact these re-releases are coming at a $40 premium just makes this all the more irritating.

"Call of Duty is bigger than the Marvel Cinematic Universe": New Xbox CEO brags as more of its games turn to film and TV

Warframe leadership isn't about to celebrate the impending death of Destiny 2, even if they are on course to outlive one of their game's strongest competitors in the sci-fi live-service space.

Developer Bungie announced in May that it's ending active development on Destiny 2 after more than a decade as it turns its attention toward its new extraction shooter Marathon. Destiny 2 will remain playable for the foreseeable future, but its briefly resurgent Monument of Triumph update from June will be its last major content drop as static events and retouched modes sustain the game's live operations.

Warframe, meanwhile, which released a year before Destiny (the original) in 2013, is showing no signs of slowing down with major story and content updates continuing at a regular cadence. Still, creative director Rebecca Ford refuses to dance on a grave, not just because she's above something like that, but because she knows that if a game as enduring and influential as Destiny 2 can fall in favor of short-term business needs, anything can.

"It's horrible news, because it shows that even if you care so much, the business side of this industry always gets the last remark," Ford tells GamesRadar+ during a conversation at TennoCon 2026.

"Those are the types of stories and experiences that, when you're in a position where you have your own game, your own IP, and you work as hard as you do on it... That's not the first time it's happened, and it'll happen again, where the business aspect of the video game economy makes the decision for you, and it is existentially threatening at every level, because the idea that we aren't in charge of our own goodbye is something I wake up thinking about every single day."

Unless you're a strictly independent, private studio which doesn't answer to shareholders, this is the sort of thing every game developer worries about to some degree in 2026 as consolidation, mass layoffs, studio closures, and game cancelations define one of the most turbulent periods in games industry history. Everything happening at Xbox this week spells nothing but bad news for devs and the projects which now may or may not ever come to light.

Case in point: The Elder Scrolls 6 will be hurt and potentially delayed by Xbox layoffs, Bethesda devs expect: "This has had a crushing effect on morale"

Xbox claims that reports of there being only one person in Texas left working on id Software's id Tech engine are inaccurate.

Reports emerged that as part of the devastating layoffs at id Software – which saw 136 of the studio's 185 staff members laid off – the team working on the id Tech engine was affected massively. Yesterday, it was claimed that this was so widespread that only one person was left working on the engine at id Software's main Richardson, Texas studio. However, in a statement given to Kotaku, an Xbox spokesperson says this is inaccurate

"There are dozens of people working on id Tech across multiple locations," the spokesperson says , adding: "Reports that there's only one person left in Texas are inaccurate." That being said, it is unconfirmed just how many people are left working on the tech.

Kotaku's source said they weren't sure how the engine could be patched due to the breadth of the layoffs, saying: "The institutional knowledge is just not there." The same source said: "id Tech as a technology is probably dead forever."

Derek Best, former principal VFX artist at id Software who worked on the latest Doom trilogy as part of his 12 year tenure at the studio, claimed the studio has been relegated "to support studio size," while saying Microsoft was responsible for "nuking a team into the dirt" and "throwing out massive technological achievements."

Alongside these comments, Best noted that "the VFX team was eliminated down to one single artist with no lead or producer." As for the engine, he also mentioned that "the engine programmer responsible for the massive gains in VFX pipeline improvements (like all the particle editor work) was let go as well," adding that "all devs that had Houdini knowledge for procedural modeling or cached animations were wiped out." Best said: "All the work for Doom: The Dark Ages in that program has gone to waste with no one to carry it on."

Pitches for a co-op Doom, a new Perfect Dark, and a John Wick-inspired cyberpunk game were cooking at id Software before Microsoft layoffs reportedly led to 136 job cuts.

id Software co-founder John Carmack has reacted to the massive layoffs under Microsoft, which have reportedly led to the majority of the studio losing their jobs.

"I have been trying to find something meaningful to say about the Id Software layoffs." Carmack says in a thread on Twitter. "My 'Microsoft will probably be a good steward of the brand' statement isn't aging well," he says, adding "this is certainly going to dampen the mood of the founder reunion at QuakeCon next month."

Carmack explains: "I'm saddened, but I can't muster anger or outrage over it. I don't have access to the books, but I suspect that Id Software was a marginal business from Microsoft's perspective." He says, "I believe the reports that Minecraft revenues have been carrying several other studios," in reference to a Bloomberg report (via PC Gamer) that claims that profits from Minecraft had been used to prop up less successful studios under the Xbox banner.

However, Carmack is taking a bit more pragmatic approach when it comes to the layoffs, even if they are coming from a company that made $281.7 billion in 2025. "To continue being produced long term, games need to succeed, not just be beloved," Carmack adds, saying, "You can't rule out the possibility that executives are idiots, but that shouldn't be your default belief. I don't think there is any obvious path that would have doubled the revenue from id games."

Carmack then speculates on different approaches that could've been taken like different pricing or marketing – and one could argue giving away Doom: The Dark Ages, a $70 game, for the price of a subscription fee probably didn't help it sell.

Former principal VFX artist at id Software, Derek Best said earlier this week that Microsoft has nuked "a team into the dirt" and relegated them "to support studio size." But despite this, Carmack believes, "The game isn't over yet, and I hope the studio rallies through." Fellow id co-founder John Romero also commented on the layoffs, calling them "devastating" while praising the developers who carried on id's legacy after the founders left, saying: "The last few games showed real care, skill and respect for what those worlds mean to people."

Pitches for a co-op Doom, a new Perfect Dark, and a John Wick-inspired cyberpunk game were cooking at id Software before Microsoft layoffs reportedly led to 136 job cuts.

The original Call of Duty: Black Ops and Black Ops 2 are now available natively on PS5 (and PS4) thanks to shadow-dropped new ports, and the prices haven't aged a day.

Call of Duty: Black Ops is $39.99 at base or $19.99 with PlayStation Plus through August 6. Its season pass comes with the First Strike, Escalation, Annihilation, and Rezurrection content packs, and is $29.99 or $9.89 with PlayStation Plus, also through August 6.

The same prices and limited-time PlayStation Plus promos apply to Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 and its season pass, which includes four DLCs – Revolution, Uprising, Vengeance, and Apocalypse – along with the Nuketown Zombies map and an "Exclusive Calling Card - 'The Deuce.'"

Cross-platform multiplayer is notably not supported by these versions, which is one of several complaints circulating among Call of Duty fans, along with player base fragmentation resulting from the expansion packs being sold separately. Modern Warzone notes that Wager Matches and Theatre mode are also missing from the PlayStation ports.

All in all, post-discount, you could be spending as much as $140 to get everything in both games. On the one hand, this comes as no surprise; this is exactly how much these games and content packs cost on Steam, for comparison. The PS Plus deals do take the edge off, if only for now, and you will need a PS Plus sub to play online to begin with. It does feel kind of weird to pay this price for the season passes of 16- and 14-year-old games, I'll agree. After all, those seasons have long passed.

Here are the 10 best Call of Duty games of all-time.

The axe is swinging around Xbox at the moment, as hundreds of jobs have already been cut across Microsoft's game studios. Of the teams impacted, id Software's reportedly been substantially hit, to the point that there's apparently only one single person left working on the id Tech engine.

This comes from a report by Kotaku which goes into the changes at the legendary studio. Sources tell the outlet that id Tech is now a department of one following the latest redundancies. The engine is bespoke technology to the company and has been the backbone of the Quake, Wolfenstein and Doom games since the mid-'90s.

"The institutional knowledge is just not there. id Tech as a technology is probably dead forever," a person familiar with the situation says.

Although the engine was mostly for in-house games, it had been used elsewhere, such as in Indiana Jones and the Great Circle from MachineGames, and in both The Evil Within installments from Tango Gameworks. Really, though, it's the implementation in the modern Doom games that garnered the most praise.

The bouncy, punchy power fantasy of Doom 2016, Eternal, and The Dark Ages comes from the engine and how confidently id Software was able to use it. These are all among the finest first-person shooters of the last 20 years, and to see people integral to them be treated this way is just sad.

It's noted that id Software has a European office based in Frankfurt, and there's a chance some people there may be drafted in to help maintain id Tech. But that's speculation for now, as direct communication on these issues remains limited for now as companies reel from the sudden changes.

As of now, Obsidian, id Software, Bethesda and more have reportedly been significantly affected by job losses and other changes. Apparently, no projects are currently greenlit at id Software, leaving the outfit in a state of flux for the time-being.

After 37 years at Microsoft, veteran who led Xbox Backward Compatibility program has been laid off: "I look forward to watching how Xbox evolves going forward."

id Software's massive layoffs have turned the iconic FPS developers into effectively a support studio, according to a developer affected by the job cuts.

Despite the word that Xbox is apparently pushing Bethesda to work on tentpole franchises like Doom, Quake and Wolfenstein – as well as to get the likes of The Elder Scrolls 6 and Fallout 5 out sooner, which has apparently resulted in Obsidian canceling an Avowed sequel to work on a Fallout game – Microsoft has decided to absolutely decimate Doom and Quake developer id Software. Word is that the studio has seen 136 of its 185 developers laid off by Microsoft, with word that the id Tech engine team is now a single employee.

Derek Best, former principal VFX artist at id Software – who worked at the company from 2014 until he was laid off this week – posted on LinkedIn (via VGC) about the layoffs.

"A little over 12 years ended unceremoniously the day before the DLC launch we all crunched to get out the door." He continues, "I'm still in shock at how brutal the layoff cuts were," saying that "Collectively decades of knowledge was wiped out of the studio."

Best notes that among the 136 employees affected. "The VFX team was eliminated down to one single artist with no lead or producer."

Best adds, "Great job Microsoft. Nothing says business success like nuking a team into the dirt and relegating them to support studio size while also throwing out massive technological achievements."

It's hard to stress how much the id Tech engine was integral to almost every Quake game as well as the modern Doom games.

Not to mention the IW Engine and Treyarch NGL engines used for Call of Duty titles are based on idTech 3 after it was used for the first Call of Duty game. And most recently, Indiana Jones and The Great Circle proved how good it is for other genres, with the adventure game looking gorgeous and running smoothly. And I can't expect whatever Xbox has planned for Doom or Quake in Unreal Engine to feel quite as right.

Still, it's not about Doom or Quake feeling right at the end of the day. It's about 136 jobs being lost and one of the most important studios in the history of gaming being hollowed out by its owner, and the decades of technical knowledge leaving the studio with those employees.

Pitches for a co-op Doom, a new Perfect Dark, and a John Wick-inspired cyberpunk game were cooking at id Software before Microsoft layoffs reportedly led to 136 job cuts

Doom developer id Software was reportedly pitching various projects before a majority of the studio was laid off, including a new Perfect Dark, a John Wick-inspired game, and a multiplayer Doom game.

As reported by GamesBeat – which has interviewed now-former employees about the massive layoffs at id Software that have reportedly seen 136 of its 185 developers laid off by Xbox – after finishing Doom: The Dark Ages' Revelations DLC, the studio wasn't working on a major project, and was in the midst of pitching various ideas, which unfortunately left it in a vulnerable position. These projects apparently included an original game called Fury, a new Perfect Dark, and a multiplayer-focused Doom title.

Fury is reportedly a project that studio co-director Hugo Martin proposed, and blended sci-fi, noir and cyberpunk elements with Gun Fu combat in the vein of the John Wick film series. Another apparent candidate was a western robot survival game with the codename Ironwood. Meanwhile, Doom reportedly had pitches for multiplayer, co-op, and DLC projects for the series that never materialized.

There was also a Perfect Dark pitch reportedly being worked on with a presentation given and concept art in the works. The series hasn't had a release since the Xbox 360 launch title, with the rebooted project from The Initiative and Crystal Dynamics canceled last year as part of what seems like now-yearly mass layoffs at Xbox.

However, none of these projects are likely to ever come to light. Reports out of Bethesda claim that Xbox is apparently pushing the company to get the likes of The Elder Scrolls 6 and Fallout 5 out sooner, and that alongside those two, the company is to focus on tentpole franchises like Wolfenstein, Doom, and Quake.

Of course, I don't really understand why you would absolutely gut the company responsible for Doom and Quake (as well as the studio that made Wolfenstein's most influential title: Wolfenstein 3D) if you wanted to focus on those series, but Xbox and Microsoft decisions don't always make the most sense. Previously, Matt Booty (then head of Xbox Game Studios, now executive vice president and chief content officer of Xbox) said "we need smaller games that give us prestige and awards," a day after closing Tango Gameworks, which had released Hi-Fi Rush – a smaller game that gave Xbox prestige and awards.

John Romero praises the devs who carried on id Software's legacy as Microsoft reportedly lays off half of the studio.

Former Marathon and Destiny 2 director Christopher Barrett has reached an agreement with both Bungie and Sony following his $200 million lawsuit against the companies.

As per his LinkedIn, Barrett spent over two decades at Bungie, starting his career there as an art director back in 1999. Most recently (for well over 10 years, mind you), the developer was a game director leading projects like Marathon and the now-dying Destiny 2. He left Bungie unexpectedly in the spring of 2024 – and that's where things get a bit messy.

Reports following his departure alleged inappropriate behavior toward female colleagues.

Barrett said he was actually fired so his employers could avoid paying him about $45 million under his employment contract, stating that they were trying to "deflect attention from their massive business failures."

Then, he sued both Bungie and Sony for $200 million, citing a "premeditated scheme to terminate" him and "avoid paying him the tens of millions of dollars he was owed." It's all… a lot.

Sony did respond, sharing supposed examples of Barrett's allegedly inappropriate behavior and a rundown of his financial earnings.

There hasn't been much to say about the case since then, but Barrett's most recent post on LinkedIn confirms that moves have been made – and that a settlement has been reached.

"I am pleased to share that Sony, Bungie, and I have reached an agreement to resolve the lawsuit," it reads.

"The outcome is one I am very satisfied with, and I am grateful to everyone who stood by me. Closing this chapter allows me to focus my attention on what's next in my gaming journey, and I look forward to what lies ahead."

At the end, Barrett includes "the parties' joint statement," which reasserts that they've settled the case and the dev's name has been added to the credits of Marathon "to reflect" his work on the shooter as game director.

Like I said earlier, it's all certainly a lot. Here's hoping that this truly is in the past now, and that every party involved can move forward.

In the ashes of Destiny 2, furious developer creates playable Pete Parsons-themed parody raid where the former Bungie CEO attacks "the entire playerbase" with cars

One Destiny 2 player, an apparent game developer, has made their own raid to throw one last tomato at former Bungie CEO Pete Parsons, who departed the struggling company amid controversy over the small fortune he'd seemingly recently spent on exotic cars.

Satire Twitter account Pete Carsons, whose operator is currently unclear, proudly revealed "The Vault of Cars" this week – a fully playable, in-browser Destiny raid which parodies the Vault of Glass and features Parsons, reborn as a Taniks-like machine hybrid with a South Park-style bucket mouth, as the final boss.

Spite absolutely drips off of this joke raid. A simulated orbit popup asks, "Do you have what it takes to face Pete Carsons in the Vault of Cars and stop him from purchasing all of the remaining cars in The Last City?"

A Twitter post adds: "Note: This experience is not affiliated with or endorsed by Bungie. It is satire only." You know, in case you weren't sure.

Once you log in to "The Final Car," you're thrown into a conversation with "Pete Carsons, Destroyer of Guardians" in a blurry Vault of Glass. Like every freaking Destiny boss, "Pete Carsons" throws up an invincible shield and starts chucking MacGuffins at you – in this case, a procession of cars with labels like "team reduction, crunch enforcer, layoff candidate, micro management, bad taste," and more.

This is a multilayered fight and a fairly impressive lo-fi recreation of the Vault of Glass final boss, Atheon. If you survive the cars – obviously, by throwing tomatoes at them – you'll be whisked to another realm beset by blinking oracles. If you fail the mechanics, you'll see a wipe screen which confirms that the Guardian in this scenario is named "The Entire Playerbase."

Clearing the raid seems to pull up a "We Want Destiny 3" page, which links to the petition calling for a sequel. The parody's creator, "a random developer," writes, "Building video games is hard. It is very hard.

"This industry is neither forgiving nor secure, and yet – we build these worlds because we know millions of people will be invited to experienced the combined efforts of tens of millions of hours it takes to build those worlds."

This sentiment hits hard as the games industry bloodbath continues amidst, most recently, thousands of layoffs and multiple studio divestments at Xbox.

Skewering "very bad and sometimes obvious decisions" made at the expense of game devs, the creator of Pete Carsons continues: "For me, Destiny was special, and although I never got to work on it, a lot of my friends did, friends who can no longer continue to build their world. This is the devastating reality of those bad decisions. The conditions that presented themselves to make Destiny a reality might not be conditions we see for a very, very long time again, if ever."

This parody comes as Bungie reels from massive layoffs, struggles to even hotfix Destiny 2 now that it's in permanent maintenance mode, and watches Marathon lose players. In May, as players prayed for a Destiny 3, a former Destiny 2 writer said, "It turns out the real Destiny killer was Pete Parsons."

Destiny 2 community manager calls out "leaders who made multiple years of poor decisions" as former Bungie VP shares post blaming industry implosion on the market.

Xbox is in the midst of an aggressive recalibration. CEO Asha Sharma is pursuing a "reset" of the content portfolio. Compulsion Games and Double Fine have regained their independence, Ninja Theory and Undead Labs have been sold; thousands of jobs have been cut across Activision Blizzard, Bethesda, and Xbox Game Studios. We're still getting a grasp on how severely individual studios are impacted, although some appear significant.

Reportedly, id Software has lost 50% of its staff. It's a shocking development, leaving a pioneering developer – the stewards of the id Tech engine, and creators of Doom and Quake – with drastically lowered capacity. Bethesda Game Studios, id, MachineGames, and ZeniMax Online have apparently been given a mandate to refocus on Bethesda's "strongest franchises", but it's difficult to know where id goes from here.

Doom, Eternal, and The Dark Ages performed admirably, but didn't necessarily rip and tear the market to shreds. Quake Champions launched out of early access in 2022 but failed to gain momentum – arena shooters remain a challenge in an environment dominated by battle royale, extraction, and hero shooters. It's been over seven years since Rage 2.

Common sense would dictate that id shifts to support MachineGames – long rumored to be developing a sequel to 2017's Wolfenstein 2: The New Colossus. This would make sense: MachineGames has collaborated with other Bethesda studios around Wolfenstein in the past, having launched Cyberpilot and Youngblood with Arkane Lyon in 2019.

There's also external pressure to consider. A live action Wolfenstein television series is in development at Amazon MGM Studios, and given that Asha Sharma recently outlined a trans-media vision for the future of Xbox, it's unlikely that she will want to repeat the mistake made with Fallout: two hugely successful seasons of the show landing without a new Fallout game to meet raised interest.

Speaking of Fallout, id Software could help Xbox pursue its ambition of getting players back into the wasteland a little faster. Given the palpable appetite within the Xbox community for Obsidian to deliver New Vegas 2, I'd rather see id's expertise placed elsewhere. The studio is world renown for making the best feeling shotguns in video games – that would be wasted on V.A.T.S.

Xbox owns arguably the greatest catalogue of shooter franchises in the video game industry. Brink, Call of Duty, Doom, Gears of War, Halo, Overwatch, Perfect Dark, Prey, Quake, Rage, Singularity, Soldier of Fortune, StarCraft, and Wolfenstein to name but a few. If Xbox is serious about wanting to deliver more of its biggest franchises faster, it could do far worse than transition id to Gears or Halo.

Halo 3: ODST proved that Halo can thrive under tonal shifts; perhaps a faster, more furious id instalment would work wonders as Halo Studios gets its arms around the future of the mainline series. But really, id and Gears are a match made in heaven. The series could do far worse than an FPS experiment.

The gritty setting is perfect territory for a grounded, viscerally violent FPS. Don't just take my word for it, Cliff Bleszinski (designer of the original trilogy) toyed with taking Gears in this direction before Epic sold the IP to Microsoft. "I can tell you I wanted to actually consider going first-person with it," he told XboxEra. "I mean, can you imagine chainsawing a Locust in first person?"

I can imagine it, Cliff, and I want to play it. And there's no studio more equipped to make it a reality than id Software. Whether it will be given the opportunity under this new era of Xbox remains to be seen.

Related Stories:

Before taking on the role of level designer at Valve, game developer Chuck Wilson toyed with recreating Half-Life 2 levels in Source 2.

In case you're out of the loop, Source 2 is Valve's most recent iteration of its in-house engine, powering games like Counter-Strike 2, Deadlock, and Half-Life: Alyx. Older titles from the studio, like the ever-beloved Half-Life 2, used Source – and before that, the GoldSrc engine.

As for Wilson himself, his portfolio includes stints at Sucker Punch Productions, Respawn Entertainment, and now, of course, Valve.

Prior to joining Valve as a level designer in 2022, however, Wilson experimented with Source 2 – perhaps to try and learn the engine before joining the company, or as a test project for the team.

An eagle-eyed fan on Reddit has spotted as much, linking to the dev's website, where he recalls recreating Half-Life 2's spooky ghost town, Ravenholm, in Source 2. Wilson first describes his goal with the recreation.

Chuck Wilson’s (Valve Level Designer) Ravenholm Source 2 project [2022] from r/HalfLife

​"Learn how the editor works by looking over the example content Valve provided, and dive into the levels they shipped to better understand their construction," he writes. "Then build something with what I learned."

Attached are screenshots of his Ravenholm recreation – and, yep, it looks pretty dang great. Much smoother textures than we saw as kids, with improved lighting… but the same eerie vibe from 2004.

Wilson explains why he chose Ravenholm, then goes on to describe his process. "The opening to Ravenholm seemed like it would be an appropriately scaled project to tackle. I started by loading up Ravenholm and taking tons of pictures of the opening area and reacquainting myself with the look, feel, and scale of the space. From the ref, I was able to deduce the scale and re-block it out with Hammer 2's modeling tools."

He's likely referencing Hammer, known by some as Hammer 5 or Hammer 2, which serves as Valve's in-house level editor for games in the Source 2 engine.

"After I got the whole space blocked in, I decided to make some compositional changes to the space to better guide players to the zombie and to the eerily lit sawblade shack," continues Wilson.

Once he was done with the composition, he explored "some of the new features Hammer 2 had to offer." It sounds as though he was a big fan of his time in Source 2 recreating Ravenholm, too – even if there was much to learn.

"Throughout the project, I was able to learn and make use of Hammer 2's modeling tools for geometry, physics sims for cloth, cables, and the hanging zombie ragdoll, tilesets (3d meshes placed off of a single face), hotspot materials (insanely fast UVing of faces), volumetric fog, cubemaps, compile processes, and more."

The level designer concludes: "A small space proved to be a fantastic way to learn a wide variety of tools and prepare me for future projects. I walked away being blown away at how powerful these tools are for Level Designers, and even more so if you are a Level Designer with some environment art background. These are easily my favorite tools I have worked with to date." That's quite the compliment.

Unsurprisingly, Wilson's portfolio share here has sparked new hope in fans' hearts for a Half-Life 2 remake in Source 2. As one commenter exclaims, "This genuinely makes me excited for a Half-Life 2 Source 2 remake in vein of Black Mesa."

Others aren't convinced this means anything at all, though. As somebody else says, "There’s nothing to be read into here." Hey, a girl can dream… right?

Sadly, I doubt we'll see a Half-Life 2 remake from Valve anytime soon, however. Heck, we're still playing the waiting game for Half-Life 3.

Steam is more than 50% larger than PlayStation according to expert's estimate, which puts Valve's store around 200 million monthly active users

The new Doom: The Dark Ages DLC is being received well on Steam as it releases on the same week Microsoft reportedly laid off around half of the staff at developer id Software.

Doom: The Dark Ages wasn't the most well received game in the series, as its pivot to a slower, more deliberate style of gameplay put off some players that were accustomed to how fast Doom Eternal was (myself included). id Software clearly took this on board as the first look at Doom: The Dark Ages' first big expansion, Revelations (nothing to do with the upcoming Final Fantasy 7 game), seems to speed things right up, with a far more aggressive style.

Over on Steam, the DLC currently sits at a "Very Positive" rating, with one dubbing it "What base game should've been from the start." Another review says: "It's like Dark Ages and Eternal had a child. This doesn't even feel like a dlc this feels like a full on sequel."

Unfortunately, this DLC's release date has come at the worst time, as id Software has been hit hard by Xbox's seemingly endless spree of layoffs – the fifth since Microsoft bought Activision Blizzard – with roughly half of the legendary studio reportedly laid off.

Naturally, a lot of the reviews for the DLC are acknowledging the layoffs, with the current top review saying: "Sending my love and support for ID software after this release, and having half their studio laid off. Nobody deserved this." Meanwhile, the second highest says: "Cherish this DLC with every second you spend playing it. It may very well be the last piece of good DOOM content that we ever get. I see no purpose in review bombing it. It will not change Microsoft's mind." Review bombing the DLC, they add, would not give any laid off staff "their jobs back."

Doom developer id Software "is essentially dead," Duke Nukem 3D co-creator says after layoffs reportedly cut almost half of the studio.

No new content is coming to Destiny 2 following its final major update and heavy layoffs at developer Bungie, but the game is keeping the lights on with irregular hotfixes. The studio has admitted it can't guarantee fixes to all reported problems going forward, but one member of the team says some solutions may be workable.

Bungie released the patch notes for a small Destiny 2 update earlier today. It's actually not all that miserably tiny; we've seen smaller updates during livelier periods of the game. But it is basically just a bunch of fixed issues, and that's all we'll see going forward.

Every time Bungie releases a patch like this nowadays, players wonder if this is the last Destiny 2 patch, and blog post, ever. Has the game died its true death? One Twitter user put the question to the Destiny 2 Team account earlier today, and Bungie principal comms manager dmg04 responded.

"There may be moments where we break glass for highest priority issues (game crashes)," he explains. "There will indeed still be downtimes for general server maintenance/upkeep. If we have the opportunity, a small fix could sneak in here or there."

You might think that no new updates means no new crashes, but I've learned not to doubt the power of spaghetti code.

Previously, the Destiny 2 Team account told players that an incoming patch would come "when possible" and contained a "handful of fixes" from "impacted team members." It's a sad story up and down: issues being fixed by people who are no longer at the studio, as that studio tries to keep its head above water at a dire time for the industry altogether.

Id Software veteran of over 20 years absolutely rips and tears into Microsoft after devastating layoffs: "XBOX decided half the team was no longer needed."