Arc Raiders Expeditions will be on pause until early 2027 after the upcoming fifth wipe while developer Embark Studios plans "major improvements" to the divisive system.

In a new blog post, Embark outlines changes made with the fifth Expedition. The footnote is the most important part: "The fifth Expedition will be the last one until early 2027, when Expeditions will return with major improvements, tackling some of the biggest player pain points."

Oddly enough, this means the big October 8 update, Frozen Trail, will come and go without an Expedition.

Historically, Arc Raiders has made a bad habit of putting out new content right before an Expedition window, meaning players planning to wipe and prestige their raiders can't really engage with the new rewards until after the Expedition concludes.

Skipping Expeditions altogether solves that problem quite tidily for Frozen Trail, but it does also remove a cog from the endgame loop. Of course, if you never bother with Expeditions, this doesn't annoy you one bit. Here's hoping the promised long-term pursuits of Frozen Trail provide more appealing goals to work toward in this downtime and beyond.

Embark says "we have been carefully reviewing your feedback on Expeditions, and while we've made ongoing improvements along the way, we've come to realize that some of the issues you've raised, like the tight departure windows, the reward structure, and accessibility for new players, need more than incremental fixes. They call for bigger changes."

One big change was just made in the fifth Expedition. Players no longer automatically reset their quests when they embark on an Expedition and wipe their character. Instead, you can opt into a quest reset if you, for some unknowable reason, wish to repeat some of the most unrewarding quests to ever blight a game.

And if you're wondering, Embark says "since the Hullcracker Blueprint can only be obtained through the quest line, we will give you other ways to get it."

Any expedition bonuses players have obtained will persist through this quiet period. "Also, since Caravans will be reset," Embark explains, "any partially completed Caravans will be replaced with Ermal Vouchers of equal value which can be used to purchase Ermal offers together with ARC Parts and firearms trade, or sold for Coin."

Between Frozen Trail and this Expedition hiatus, it feels like Embark has decided that the usual live service appetizers aren't making a difference anymore. The game's declined considerably since launch, and increasingly it feels like the coming winter season may be its last real shot at rekindling that day-one fire.

Arc Raiders' Frozen Trail update is out October 8, Embark admits "it's time to expand" as recent Steam reviews hit 50% negative.

Helldivers 2 Crushers are the lumbering monstrosities that belong to the Illuminate, capable of insta-killing players with brutal blows from their clubs. Currently, you'll only find them in Helldivers 2 missions where the Vote Snatcher enemy sub-faction is active, but it's very important that you know how to put down a Crusher efficiently if you are to survive. So, having fought many of these massive foes myself, here's everything you need to know about killing Illuminate Crushers in Helldivers 2.

Best ways to kill Helldivers 2 Crushers

There are two ways to kill a Crusher, neither of which are especially easy. The first is to shoot them constantly until they die, and the other is to destroy their helmet and then shoot their very weak head.

The simplest of the two is to riddle them with bullets. Crushers have a lot of health and regenerate unless they're taking damage, so you'll want fast-firing weapons on you to wear them down without them self-healing – their lack of armor also means light-armor-penetration weapons will suffice!

Therefore, some of the best Helldivers 2 support weapons for the job are things like the Machine Gun, Heavy Machine Gun, Bullet Storm, Maxigun, Stalwart, and WASP Launcher. Crushers are also vulnerable to fire (as are Helldivers 2 Wretches!), so the Cremator and Flamethrower are great choices as well.

Alternatively, destroying the helmet and shooting the head is a much faster way of killing a Crusher, but requires specialized gear. The helmet counts as heavy armor, so you need to hit it with a heavy-armor-penetration weapon. Support weapons like the Autocannon, Railgun, Recoilless Rifle, Expendable Anti-Tank, Commando, Quasar Cannon, and plenty more are good options for this, but you could also use the Senator revolver or Bolt Pistol – two of the best Helldivers 2 secondary weapons.

Once you've destroyed a Crusher's helmet, its tiny head weakspot will be exposed. Like the rest of its body, it has no armor, so you can shoot it with any weapon, and the Crusher should fall very quickly.

Crushers are otherwise quite a simple enemy to deal with but are incredibly lethal. Their overhead slam attack has surprising reach and can kill Helldivers instantly. My only other tip is to keep as further away than you think is necessary from Crushers because I've been caught out by that overhead attack so many times – if you find yourself a little too close for comfort, start sprinting and diving to get out of clubbing range.

© GamesRadar+. Not to be reproduced without permission.

Helldivers 2 Wretches are the necromorph-looking horrors with scything claws that can eviscerate players that the Illuminate have started deploying. For now, they only feature in missions where the active Helldivers 2 sub-faction is Vote Snatchers, but they appear in sometimes overwhelming numbers and can be horrific to deal with if you don’t know what their weaknesses are. With that in mind, here are the key things to know about Wretches in Helldivers 2.

Best way to kill Helldivers 2 Wretches

The best way to kill a Wretch is to shoot both of its claw arms. Severing both will not only disable its most dangerous attacks but should kill it – if not, a little more damage will finish it off. The crucial thing to remember with Wretches is that, while they don't have much health overall, their head is not a weak spot, so don't expect to kill them quickly by shooting only their bonce.

Wretches also don't have any armor aside from medium armor on their arms. That means there are plenty of weapons that can kill them, but it's ideal to have a weapon with medium armor penetration to blast their arms off. You could opt for a more precise weapon to specifically target the limbs, but from my experience, Wretches always come in groups, so I'm of the opinion that spraying and praying at any and all limbs with a rapid-fire weapon is much easier. Like Helldivers 2 Crushers, they also have a vulnerability to fire.

Some of the best Helldivers 2 primary weapons for killing Wretches are therefore the Coyote and Scorcher, the former having incendiary rounds while the latter fires explosive bolts. As for the best Helldivers 2 support weapons, the Machine Gun, Flamethrower, Cremator, Stalwart, and Bullet Storm are great options. Finally, Gas Grenades are good for disrupting groups of Wretches, preventing them from pursuing you as easily while also dealing damage.

The main thing to bear in mind when facing down any number of Wretches is to keep moving and be prepared to dive out of the way of their attacks. Wretches are obviously very dangerous when up close, so keep a good distance and be prepared for them to leap at you to close the distance. This move is usually telegraphed pretty clearly though, so you can dive out the way reasonably easily.

© GamesRadar+. Not to be reproduced without permission.

While it hasn't quite reached Overwatch's pre-relaunch numbers, Marvel Rivals has managed to court a still very impressive 40 million players around the world.

Perhaps no game has lit quite so big a fire under Overwatch's heels as Marvel Rivals, a superhero shooter that remixes that same team-based formula with a third-person perspective. Since Marvel Rivals' 2024 launch, the two games have been compared endlessly and have arguably pushed each other in the right directions, and now, we finally have some solid stats.

Disney today revealed that Marvel Rivals "has attracted 40 million players worldwide" since its release. The company's executive vice president of video games, Sean Shoptaw, says the game is "a really good example of just how powerful and meaningful these worlds can be."

A whopping 60% of those 40 million players are also under the age of 24, according to Disney. "These are platforms where Gen Z [and] Gen Alpha primarily are spending a lot of their time, hanging out with their friends," Shoptaw adds.

A huge success, for sure, and definitely an indication of how important the Marvel Cinematic Universe movies have been in giving younger audiences an attachment to these comic book characters. But Blizzard Entertainment likely isn't sweating since, even before it made a free-to-play pivot, the original paid release of Overwatch sold upwards of 50 million copies. The lively game's population has probably grown in the years since it was made freely available to anyone with a modern console or PC, as well.

Blizzard hasn't given an update on Overwatch's player figures in years, but the candy-colored hero shooter did knock out a major comeback in January with a huge update that overhauled many parts of the game, added five new characters at once, and won back fans that fallen off since the first heydays of Overwatch. Blizzard also apparently became Xbox's top studio after Overwatch's overperformance.

Marvel Rivals devs respond to Storm summer skin controversy, promise to do better but say harassment "is not acceptable"

Marvel Rivals studio NetEase has now responded to hours of fan backlash aimed at a new costume for Storm, promising that the X-Men icon will receive more cosmetics in the future.

This week, Marvel Rivals announced a new set of Summer Special swimsuit cosmetics for a bunch of heroes, including beach-themed skins for Magik and Scarlet Witch, but it's Storm's summer costume in particular that spurred intense online backlash within the community.

A 'JusticeForStorm' hashtag went semi-viral, and all of Marvel Rivals' online posts were flooded with complaints accusing the game of neglecting the weather-controlling mutant, at best, and of racial bias against the game's limited roster of black heroes, at worst.

For context, Storm's Sacred Skies skin was the only swimsuit cosmetic for a female character to be Epic tier, rather than the Legendary skins that every other woman in the heroic lineup enjoyed. That also meant the cosmetic came without the modified visual effects that Legendary skins normally offer - plus, the bundle's very limited recolor options didn't help matters. Having the only black woman in the game excluded certainly didn't look good to many.

And while the subpar Storm skin may have been the catalyst, criticism of Marvel Rivals' (mis)management of black heroes has been bubbling for months now. One player noted that Black Panther hasn't gotten a store skin in well over a year, while Storm's one and only Legendary skin came almost two years ago.

Of course, Marvel Rivals is a free-to-play superhero shooter that lives or dies based on cosmetic sales, so you'd expect NetEase to put more resources into its best-selling characters. That's understandable, sure. But white heroes with similar pick rates often receive far more support than characters like Blade, Moon Girl, and Black Panther - and the concept of Elsa Bloodstone, of all people, getting more support than Storm, a frequent X-leader and comic book trailblazer, is pretty absurd even without the wider context.

"We've seen the community's feedback regarding today's announcement of Storm's most recent costume as well as the overall sentiment towards her cosmetic options," developer NetEase writes in a new social media post. "We hear your passion and want to share our plan going forward with the community."

For starters, the studio is upgrading the Sacred Skies swimsuit into a Legendary costume at no extra cost to buyers. "This upgrade will include an all-new lobby animation and an updated MVP animation" at its current price of $16.

Looking to the future, NetEase is also promising "there will be more Storm Legendary tier costumes coming, so please keep your eyes on the skies over the rest of the year."

All the discourse may have made NetEase reverse course on its plans, but the studio is still quite rightly urging players to keep things respectful: "While we understand that tensions run high, harassment of our staff, including the development team and moderators, is not acceptable. As the upgrades will take some time, please be patient, as we are already hard at work on the above. Get ready for the Mistress of the Elements to reign over the battlefield soon."

Marvel Rivals Season 9.5 update will shrink the game by up to 40GB thanks to a texture revamp from NetEase

Frozen Trail, the next big Arc Raiders update, will launch on October 8, developer Embark Studios announced.

In a new blog post, the studio describes the kind of bombshell changes that the game really needs at this point. The reveal arrives as Arc Raiders' recent Steam reviews dip to 50% positive, a "Mixed" rating reflecting rising cheating issues and a worsening hunger for new content.

Hopefully it's enough to move the needle. Frozen Trail brings a new map where "something big has happened" with the Arc. Executive producer Aleksander Grøndal promises "greater verticality, exploration, and opportunities for discovery." It is, as you'd expect, a mountainous, wintry place.

But we've already seen that a new map alone can't solve Arc Raiders' long-tail problems. Fortunately, Grøndal says Frozen Trail also has a "new high-level challenge" built for "experienced Raiders looking to push themselves even further." It sounds like an expansion of the Queen and Matriarch fights that regularly descend into multiplayer madness.

"Success won’t come easily," Grøndal says. "You’ll need to balance combat, teamwork, risk, and survival in what we believe will be one of the most intense experiences ARC Raiders has offered to date – one that rewards those willing to rise to the challenge."

Rewards are the talk of the town. Most lapsed Arc Raiders players will tell you they ran out of stuff to do or chase (it me). Embark thinks it's got a solution, and it starts with more new Arc enemies that "range from a small and nifty problem-maker to an enormous machine that will halt you in your tracks."

But once again, new Arc aren't enough on their own. Fortunately, Frozen Trail is also looking at "deepening progression" with systemic overhauls and expansions.

"One lesson that’s continued to shape our thinking is that the most rewarding raids are driven by meaningful choices," Grøndal reflects.

"Your Raider Den has served you well, but it’s time to expand. We're building deeper progression systems, giving players more ways to craft their own journey and build toward long-term goals."

Frozen Trail will introduce a new base: the Outpost. "Decorate your Outpost, research new elements of the world, and take your first steps to reclaiming the surface," Grøndal explains.

Additionally, "we’re also adjusting the Skill Tree to give you more agency over the kind of Raider you want to become. Raider Decks have also been on our radar, with the focus on making them more engaging and rewarding for players."

Now we're starting to get into double-take territory. After such a long wait, Arc Raiders is going to need something huge to pull players back and recapture even a fraction of its launch excitement. If these promises of end-game challenges and long-term pursuits are upheld come October, Arc Raiders might actually be back.

Addressing another elephant in the room, Grøndal adds: "Alongside all of that, we'll continue improving the core ARC Raiders experience through ongoing work on matchmaking, anti-cheat, stability, and quality-of-life updates. While these improvements may not always be the headline features, they remain a critical part of making every raid feel balanced and enjoyable."

Arc Raiders makes it official: "Only the PvP fights players choose to initiate" will impact your aggression rating for matchmaking.

The Max Payne 1 and 2 remake Remedy announced in 2022 and then barely acknowledged at all over the ensuing four years is definitely still happening, but the developer is relying on publisher Rockstar Games to provide more details.

Rockstar and original developer Remedy described their partnership while revealing the remake of the Y2K-noir shooters all those moons ago, with Rockstar founder Sam Houser saying in a press release at the time, "We are massive fans of the work the Remedy team has created over the years, and we can't wait to play these new versions." But he doesn't seem to have much to say beyond that, as Remedy now suggests during a recent financial Q&A session that it can't talk about Max Payne until Rockstar does.

The Remedy moderator addresses the virtual audience of investors, analysts, and media members present for the Q&A and acknowledges that they're all submitting "a lot of questions concerning Max Payne." Makes sense, it's been four years. Everyone wants to know what's going on with the remake as Remedy spits out other games – Alan Wake 2 and FBC: Firebreak both launched since the Max Payne remake's reveal, and Remedy announced the upcoming Control Resonant.

But the Remedy moderator explains that the developer's GTA 6-style silence on Max Payne comes from the fact that, "On that game, Rockstar Games is handling the publishing side. So we cannot comment on those questions."

Earlier in the financial presentation, CEO Jean-Charles Gaudechon reminded everyone, "We are a multi-project studio – Max Payne 1 and 2 remake remains in full production with Rockstar Games." It seems Remedy can't do much more than that, give confirmation. But maybe that's OK – the longer we wait for Max Payne news, the more time you have to practice your Max Payne face.

Max Payne's iconic mug came about because of its creator's university TTRPG club, but he got so "self-conscious" after the game's release that he had to change his hairstyle to remain incognito.

July's GamesRadar Replay winners saw Indy take a long distant shot at a nazi with a frying pan, and Edward take a one way dive in Black Flag Resynced. Both win a $/£250 Amazon Voucher for capturing the moment and next time it could be you!

You see, Replay challenges you to send us your funniest, strangest, or most impressive clips every month for the chance to win one of two $/£250 Amazon voucher prizes. There's one prize for the best clip overall from any game, and one for the best Theme of the Month clip, which for August is animals. We share all the best clips here on the site and across our socials channels - so if you want the world to see your achievements, accidents or discoveries, let us know! (You can have a credit to wherever you want, or stay anonymous.)

If you want a chance of winning the August prize then submit your clips via the big orange button below. You can send in anything from gameplay or a stream - a funny moment, an amazing clip, a weird bug, or just some good chat.

Remember, there are two $/£250 Amazon Vouchers to be won - one for the best video overall, and another for our animal Theme of the Month.

By submitting your clip, you agree to the Terms and Conditions.

If you need a helping hand, here's how to record gameplay on PC, PS5, Xbox Series X, and Switch/Switch 2 to save your highlights

The July Winners!

This month's overall Replay winner is this amazing long-range frying pan snipe in Indiana Jones and the Great Circle.

It's got everything, incredible skill (luck), amazing timing and the best 'donk' we've heard in a while.

And for our July Theme, which was Assassin's Creed, this final dive from Edward wins the prize. I didn't even know you could die like that but it proves that even assassins really need to look before they leap...

If you want to see what the Replay community has contributed already, then take a look below:

Helldivers 2 just got one of its coolest (but creepiest) trailers to date as Arrowhead teases a horrifying new threat facing Super Earth's finest next week, and some theorize it could even further expand on the game's Warhammer 40K crossover, which is arriving on the same day.

Today, developer Arrowhead Game Studios shared a teaser video titled Face the Unknown, showing a cute teddy bear dressed as a Helldiver floating through space towards a purple void, before visions of it being pulled apart and sprouting terrifying sharp teeth flash on the screen. The clip ends with a figure reaching towards the bear (we can see a vague silhouette reflected in the teddy's eye) and a date – August 12, the same day that the Helldivers 2 Warhammer 40K Warbond is releasing.

A mysterious phenomenon known as The Void has been spreading across the Galactic Map and absorbing planets thanks to the Illuminate for months at this point, so it'd be easy to connect this teaser to that. There are plenty of comments theorizing that we could be fighting a new group of the Illuminate next week – folks have been speculating about the addition of a Cultist faction for some time now. But what if it's something else entirely?

As fans have pointed out, the void in the teaser is giving major Warhammer 40K Eye of Terror vibes. Not only does the glowing purple and red void we see look like one of the rifts to the 40K universe's parallel Warp dimension, but the very same one that destroyed Cadia – the planet that the Karskin hail from. Y'know, the same folks you'll be able to dress up as thanks to the new armor being added in the Warbond next week. Coincidence?

We even see a prolonged shot of one of the bear's eyes glowing purple, much like how the Cadians' eyes were stained purple by the Warp. With that in mind, could we be about to take on 40K's Chaos Gods, instead? Many folks are certainly convinced.

"They done gave us the warp with our 40k warbond," as one comment puts it, as another speculates: "So we're getting 40k gear AND the Eye of Terror? …Nice." Another adds: "We get Imperial Guard gear just in time to dive into the Warp; prepare the Gellar Fields!"

We'll probably have to wait until next week to find out if this new narrative really is connected to the Warhammer crossover, but it wouldn't be too surprising. After all, there's a lot of love for Warhammer on the dev team – Helldivers 2 creative director Johan Pilestedt once joked that if the game was ever flooded with "giant microtransactions," it'd be to fund his Warhammer hobby, after all. Here's hoping that the collab might be a bit more significant than the Halo and Killzone ones to come before it.

Saudi Arabia's $55 billion takeover of EA could waste "one of the best catalogues in the industry" by reducing it to a "sequel-and-mega-franchise machine," Helldivers 2 boss worries.

File size is a real bugbear when it comes to live-service games, because they consistently balloon as updates and features stack. NetEase is working on remedying how much Marvel Rivals takes up on your hard drive, knocking 40GB off on PC in the latest update.

This will come as part of the Season 9.5 patch, coming on August 7. The mid-season sweep will give all the textures and visuals a lick of paint, and chop the install size down in the process, not just on PC but consoles too.

Sadly, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S players aren't getting quite the same improvement. On consoles, Marvel Rivals is only going down by 15GB. That's the price you pay for convenience, I suppose!

"As the Marvel Rivals universe expands with every season, so does our file size," Guangguang, the creative director of Marvel Rivals, says in the latest dev diary. "While this is the nature of a growing Chronoverse, our tech wizards have been hard at work forging solutions."

He explains that the "texture compression" is a significant contributor to being able to shrink the space the free multiplayer game takes up, and he warns that it mightn't feel like a decrease at first due to how big the update itself is. "Because we are completely repackaging these assets, the initial Season 9.5 update will be larger than usual, but the final install size will be much lighter," he adds.

This comes amid the latest addition to the roster, the gun-wielding The Hood, a New York City criminal and technological genius. Good thing NetEase is making the game more efficient, because he definitely wouldn't stand for such inconsistency.

Marvel Rivals adds a legendarily horny Captain America skin fans say "feels like a gooner mod," but at least it's based on a 34-year-old comic design.

The crossover we've been waiting for is finally about to arrive. Warhammer 40,000 is coming to Helldivers 2 in the form of new weapons, armor, stratagems and more, to make destroying the bugs and robots even easier than before.

Developer Arrowhead Game Studios has shared a trailer revealing everything in the Helldivers 2 Warhammer 40K Warbond, and there's plenty to dig into. Right off the bat, and I think we all expected this, the Bolt Pistol is being added to the armory. A safe, sturdy piece of kit that'll reduce any insect to flailing limbs.

Then you've the Meltamine, used against Automatons in the video to demonstrate its usefulness against metal and heavy armor. Anything that gives robot scum and even worse day is perfectly fine by me. Preferable, even.

The Hot Shot Marksman Rifle rounds out the standard weapons, a semi-automatic sniper made for picking out headshots when faced with a maelstrom of enemies. Ideal for giving cover, or staving off a wave of insects from a distance.

While these can be used for your loadouts, the Meltagun is a new stratagem. I gawked at first at the notion of this not being something I can lock and load as soon as I drop in, but then seeing it in action, I get it. Melting things by pulling a trigger is a power you should earn, and only for a limited time.

Two sets of armor accompany these, inspired by the Astra Militarum's Kasrkin, which are certainly far more appropriate for Super Earth's loyal army of death-prone soldiers than the more robust, superhuman Space Marines of the 40K universe, for example. Otherwise, there's a smattering of other minor changes that'll come in tow. It all looks like a lot of fun, especially if you like war, and boy howdy, do I like war.

The Warhammer 40,000 collaboration kicks off on August 12.

Helldivers 2 targets Super Credit cheaters with "radically improved" tools, but not everyone's on board with Arrowhead's announcement.

The Helldivers 2 Warhammer 40K Legendary Warbond provides Super Earth's finest with a small selection wargear fit for the elite Kasrkin. Beset on all sides from xenos horrors, you can take the fight to them in Helldivers 2 with the Meltagun, classic Bolt Pistol, and more. Here's a full breakdown of the entire Helldivers 2 x Warhammer 40K Legendary Warbond and whether it's worth unlocking. For the Empero- I mean, Super Earth!

Is the Helldivers 2 Warhammer 40K Warbond worth it?

The Warhammer 40K Warbond is definitely the best Legendary Warbond, packing a great selection of gear that's all quite effective and fun to use. The Meltagun is the highlight, being an incredibly powerful support weapon that can make short work of tough enemies in one or two shots. However, its throwable Meltamine cousin is a tad underwhelming due to its surprisingly small blast radius, though it can still wound larger targets.

Furthermore, the two armor sets are good all-rounders thanks to the True Grit passive, improving gun ergonomics and support weapon reload speed – that's really useful for weapons with stationary and round-by-round reload weapons. The Bolt Pistol and Hot-Shot Marksman Rifle are both solid weapons too, though have some notable flaws. The Bolt Pistol kicks up a lot, making it tricky to aim, and the marksman rifle's long-range focus means it's best for fighting the Automatons only.

Overall, it's a pretty good offering that any player – not just Warhammer 40K fans – will enjoy. But it's not quite one of the best Warbonds in Helldivers 2 and you need to consider that it costs 500 Super Credits more than usual.

All Helldivers 2 Warhammer 40K Warbond gear

The Warhammer Warbond will contain 17 items, including three loadout weapons, two armor sets, and several cosmetics, all of which will set you back just over 650 Helldivers 2 Medals – that actually makes it one of the cheapest Warbonds in the whole game in terms of total Medal cost! Remember, since this is a Legendary Warbond, there are no Super Credits to unlock either, unfortunately. Here's a breakdown of everything you can get your Helldiver hands in the Warhammer 40K Warbond:

• PAGE 1
  • Weapons:
    • R/40-K Hot-Shot Marksman Rifle (35 Medals): This is a sniper-style configuration of the Hot-Shot Lasgun from Warhammer 40K, appearing in Helldivers 2 as a punchy, energy-based, semi-automatic marksman rifle with medium armor penetration.
  • Armor:
    • TG-8 Sharpshooter armor (45 Medals): Medium armor with the True Grit passive, which improves all weapon ergonomics and increases the reload speed of Helldivers 2 Support Weapons by 30%. This armor set resembles the standard uniform of Kasrkin troopers with a green camouflage pattern.
    • TG-8 Sharpshooter helmet (30 Medals)
  • Cosmetics:
    • Camo Cloak Cape (8 Medals)
    • Camo Cloak Player Card (2 Medals)
    • Castellan's Green Hellpod pattern (20 Medals)
• TOTAL PAGE COST = 140 Medals

• PAGE 2 (Spend 105 Medals to unlock)
  • Weapons:
    • P/40-K Bolt Pistol (50 Medals): This isn't quite the full-fat bolt pistol that Space Marines use, but it's still mightily powerful, dealing massive explosive damage with heavy armor penetration. The Bolt Pistol also has a tiny magazine of six shots and massive recoil to compensate.
    • G/40-K Meltamine (50 Medals): A powerful thermal anti-tank mine that you can lob out.
  • Armor:
    • TG-122 Demo-Trooper armor (55 Medals): Heavy armor also with the True Grit passive. This armor set is made to look like the mine-lobbing Kasrkin demo-trooper in an urban camo scheme.
    • TG-122 Demo-Trooper helmet (45 Medals)
  • Cosmetics:
    • City Fighter's Resolve Cape (25 Medals)
    • City Fighter's Resolve Player Card (7 Medals)
    • Castellan Green Shuttle pattern (50 Medals)
• TOTAL PAGE COST = 282 Medals

• PAGE 3 (Spend 210 Medals to unlock)
  • Stratagems:
    • 40-K Meltagun (110 Medals): Fires a short-range thermal beam with anti-tank armor penetration, dealing massive damage.
  • Cosmetics:
    • Still Standing Player Title (20 Medals)
    • Castellan Green FRV pattern (55 Medals)
    • Castellan Green Exosuit pattern (50 Medals)
• TOTAL PAGE COST = 235 Medals
• TOTAL COST OF ALL REWARDS = 657 Medals

How to get the Helldivers 2 Warhammer 40K Warbond

The Warhammer 40K Warbond is now available to buy in the in-game Superstore for 1,500 Helldivers 2 Super Credits. Since it's a special Legendary Warbond, like the Helldivers 2 Halo Warbond it's a bit pricier than the usual 1,000SCs you need to pay. Because this is a Legendary Warbond, you can't use a Helldivers 2 Warbond Token to unlock it either. Your options are to either spend some real money on Super Credits or start farming for them in missions.

© GamesRadar+. Not to be reproduced without permission.

You simply will not believe this: Arc Raiders is messing with the matchmaking again. In its latest update, developer Embark Studios says it's reinforcing a previous change that received positive feedback from players, and this time, it's spelling it out loud and clear.

"The matchmaking changes follow on from earlier matchmaking improvements made on May 20, which reduced the matchmaking impact of defensive actions," Embark explains.

That May update made it clear that "defending yourself is no longer treated the same as starting a fight" in terms of your behavior tracking. Embark finally, properly pulled back the curtain on the matchmaking algorithm in that same update, explaining just how Arc Raiders uses PvP aggression to group like-minded players.

Today, the studio says it's going even further. "Following positive player feedback on those earlier adjustments, this will now be extended so that only the PvP fights players choose to initiate will impact their playstyle estimate, while defensive actions will have no influence at all on playstyle estimate," Embark explains.

"The team will continue to collect and monitor player feedback throughout the trial period. More information, including a player survey to share feedback, can be found in the patch notes here."

Every day, we inch closer to an Arc Raiders PvE mode – which is technically already available in the Chinese branch of the game.

Just last week, Embark revealed yet another change in a similar vein. The idea with that experiment was to better optimize matchmaking for playstyle and team size, meaning friendly players would be more likely to find each other, and duos would be less likely to run into trios.

"When Arc Raiders was at its peak," Embark was burning 30 terabytes of data per day tracking every single bullet fired: "We want to know who shot first."

The next Helldivers 2 Legendary Warbond, this time a collaboration with Warhammer 40,000, is getting a full reveal on July 30.

Arrowhead Game Studios tells fans to tune in next week with a short trailer showing nothing but a handgun, a date, and a couple logos. A trailer for an incoming trailer two months after the crossover's announcement trailer, then.

"Attention, Helldivers," the developer tweets. "July 30 has been designated as a date of operational significance. Update your calendar accordingly. Further briefing to follow."

Not much is known about the forthcoming Warhammer 40,000 Warbond, but if it follows in the footsteps of the Killzone and Halo collaborations, then we're likely to get some sick cosmetics and cool weapons that would almost fit right into the sci-fi settings of both universes.

Squashing legions of juicy bugs and spreading democracy to all corners of the galaxy with the light touch of ultra-violent, ultra-deadly, sometimes fascist soldiers is common ground for both Helldivers and Warhammer, making this a match made in heaven. Here's hoping the Legendary Warbond can live up to its potential.

Arrowhead actually had another Warbond planned to release this summer, but the developer needed "more time to cook" and "would rather hold back" than apparently launch something half-baked. The unannounced Warbond doesn't have a new release date yet, though the studio says it'll keep players posted once the package nears completion.

Elsewhere in the bug-alien-killing video game world, July 30 is also the same day Gears of War: E-Day plans to show what it has in store for its multiplayer modes. Big day ahead for fans of chainsaw-adjacent weapons and meat-grinding shooters.

Helldivers 2 targets Super Credit cheaters with "radically improved" tools, but not everyone's on board with Arrowhead's announcement.

An otherwise tiny Arc Raiders update released today has made what seems like a sizable change to the game's matchmaking system, with developer Embark leaning even further into its player behavior-driven algorithm.

Store update 1.38.0 introduces a customary outfit color swap, but the real meat of the patch is in Embark's newest "matchmaking optimization."

"We've heard your feedback on matchmaking," the studio says. "It works well most of the time, but there is room for improvement — especially during low-population hours, in certain regions, or in specific map conditions. We're working to improve those cases."

Going forward, Embark will be "testing adjustments" that hopefully improve the average match quality. Longer queue times are a natural, expected consequence: "The algorithm may take a little longer to find a match, since it's now working harder to find you a better one."

With these matchmaking changes, Embark says players should "run into squads that match your playstyle and squad size even more consistently, making for more fair and enjoyable raids."

This reads as: friendly raiders should encounter more friendlies, PvP fiends will more reliably hear the song of their people (constant gunfire and raider flares), and duos should face more duos and fewer trios.

Earlier this month, Arc Raiders made another hotly requested change to matchmaking: separating the solo, duo, and trio algorithms to let you cut up with your friends without putting your character in bloodthirsty solo lobbies.

Population dips are more relevant than ever with Arc Raiders following the inescapable population decay of live service games. Despite steady decline, SteamDB shows it is impressively still in the top 12 for daily active users on Steam (as ever, just one platform, but the one with the clearest player data available). But with Arc Raiders' next big update set for October and smaller tweaks in the interim having little lasting impact, more and more players have proven that they've had their fill of the Arc Raiders of today and are content to set it aside and wait for whatever moves the needle next.

The casual-friendly approach that got Embark those huge, unsustainable launch numbers seems to have limited Arc Raiders' long-term appeal, with little to grind for long-term and Expedition soft-resets growing repetitive. But, speaking as someone who only got tired of the game after around 350 enjoyable hours, I still think a big enough update could bring many lapsed players right back.

Embark slaps Arc Raiders dupers with bans and drains their vaults: "Suspensions for the severe cases, particularly, where exploit usage had a significant impact on the in-game economy."

Blizzard has announced that it's ending support for Overwatch's MOBA-inspired Stadium mode due to low player numbers.

In a new blog post, game director Aaron Keller breaks down the different Overwatch modes by the amount of players they're attracting, and well, it's easy to see why Blizzard has decided not to bother making new content for Stadium.

The main unranked 5v5 queue is unsurprisingly the most popular and accounts for 54% of daily players, while 34% of players up the stakes for ranked 5v5 queue. From there, 19% and 8% log in for unranked and ranked open queue 6v6, respectively, and just 4% are playing unranked mystery heroes 6v6. All the way at the bottom is poor old Stadium mode, whose ranked and unranked queues are seeing just 3% of the player base tune in.

Keller notes that there's overlap in the data accounting for players who play different modes in the same session, which is why the percentages don't add up to a perfect 100%, but the numbers don't lie: Stadium just isn't very popular.

"With this in mind, while we'll continue supporting Stadium with seasonal balance updates, rank resets, and rewards," says Keller. "We're not planning on expanding Stadium with new Heroes or maps. Instead, we're taking what lessons we've gleaned from building it and applying those lessons (and those talented devs) to our future plans."

In the same blog, Keller also announced two new experimental 6v6 modes that'll be tested in the back half of season 3. The new modes are aimed at finding "ways of making matches more dynamic in Role Queue, improving the tank experience, and removing some of the volatility of team fights while also removing some of the pain points that players have with our current formats.

The first test runs this week from July 16 through July 19 and turns Quick Play into a "Flex Queue" where each team will always have at least one tank, three flex damage dealers, and two supports. The rub is that, at any point in the match, one of the team's damage dealers will have the option to swap into the tank role with a different hero, which Keller hopes will reduce queue times, make for a "slightly more dynamic experience" than the regular 2-2-2 team makeup, and provide a "more consistent" experience than open queue.

"There are a few downsides to this format and the biggest is the potential social pressure for Damage dealers to play Tank," says Keller. "But if the burden is shared among 3 people with more freedom to play different Heroes, will it feel acceptable? We're hoping to find out!"

Another test will run from July 28 to August 3 and is being called "Dynamic Queue," featuring a "blend" of Flex Queue and Role Queue elements. This time around, whether team composition is decided by the Flex Queue rules depends on how many people queue up for Tank, which is Blizzard's "current bottleneck."

"Think of the shift into Flex Queue format as a 'release valve' for the 2-2-2 queue," Keller explains, adding that the upside here is that it'll often result in "what we anticipate will be the most preferred format, 2-2-2." The downside is that the loss of consistency could make matches feel less competitive, which is something Blizzard will be keeping tabs on.

As if eulogizing Stadium, Keller encourages players to engage in these more experimental modes. "Give them a chance and go into those queues with an open mind. The pace of fights and general vibe of these matches may seem very different. Spend time getting used to how they feel and see if your initial reactions change over the mode's duration," he says.

Overwatch escapes "Mostly Negative" Steam reviews 3 years after becoming the worst-rated game on Valve's store: "In 2026, we finally got back to just Overwatch"

Following an especially egregious wave of Arc Raiders dupes, developer Embark Studios has dropped the ban hammer on even mild offenders, in some cases suspending accounts and seizing ill-gotten goods.

In a post on the Arc Raiders Discord server, community lead Ossen says, "Following last week's fix for the duplication glitch, we've been banning accounts that gained a significant advantage from exploiting it. That effort continues this week, similarly to how we handled it in February."

"Low-severity cases where abuse" of the dupe was limited will get off with a warning, but any coins and items gained from the dupe will be removed from accounts. This resulted in a rather amusing wave of players who woke up to a reverse-Christmas situation: suddenly, all their goodies were gone. "Dupers in a stupor after punishment rolls out," chimes in Reddit user CWGM.

Additionally, Embark's doled out "suspensions for the severe cases, particularly, where exploit usage had a significant impact on the in-game economy or other players’ experience." This punishment was presumably reserved for the folks unleashing endless grenades in PvP, polluting the economy with infinite rare weapons, and similar exploits.

If you stumbled upon a curiously generous raider (or, inexplicably, the body of an incredibly wealthy one) in the past few weeks, you may be alright. But as ever, if you go looking for trouble, you'll find it.

"Players who deliberately exploited the glitch but didn't gain a major advantage will not be suspended," Oseen concludes. "And if you simply received a few items from someone who was duping, without knowingly exploiting the glitch yourself, you may receive a warning. Our goal is to only take action against those who significantly and deliberately abused the exploit, not to catch players who were incidentally affected."

Arc Raiders update brings one of the "most requested matchmaking features" that lets you switch between "friendly questing" in solo "to adrenaline-fueled PvP Trio games" with ease.

Arc Raiders continues to struggle with dupes dumping items into the economy, with developer Embark now patching what must be a double-digit duplication exploit.

In a fresh post on the official Arc Raiders Discord server, community lead Ossen confirms, "We have just pushed a hotfix on all platforms to mitigate a duplication issue as well as the UI bug in the Expedition screen that showed Skill Points instead of Mystery Rewards for players on their fourth Expedition."

"As we stated before regarding the use of exploits, we will continue issuing bans on accounts that have been gaining significant advantage," Ossen adds.

Dupes have hit Arc Raiders like a rash, with new methods and targets appearing like clockwork. Recently, players have noticed a curious influx of pink-rarity weapons with the exact same attachments, alongside classic money mules like rare, stackable ducks. The latest dupe has been called "even easier" by some players, as it's evidently tied to dropping items with careful timing, making it easy to multiply anything in your loadout.

Arc Raiders doesn't have a global economy or auction house – Embark actually decided against adding something like this after building one in early development – so in practice, duping is often just a minor form of cheating, and it's a lot less frustrating than wall-hacking, lag-switching, RPM-breaking cheaters.

That said, when you run into somebody with endless utility items, consumables, or throwables, dupes can have a very real impact on engagements. And if a dupe spreads quickly enough, the economy for a season can get flooded, with players getting instant access to high-level upgrades and weapons with zero risk pr effort. Even if it doesn't get you unfairly killed, duping can still cheapen the game.

The irony, as players have pointed out, is that drawing attention to a dupe by spreading it will make it a higher priority for Embark and likely hasten a fix, but not without consequences. Especially with the game's population much smaller than it was at launch, it may feel like dupers are more common.

Arc Raiders update brings one of the "most requested matchmaking features" that lets you switch between "friendly questing" in solo "to adrenaline-fueled PvP Trio games" with ease.

Arrowhead Game Studios is cracking down on Helldivers 2 players who use cheats to get rich quick and farm Super Credits illegitimately, but the developer's announcement doesn't have everyone on their side of the galactic war table.

"You've told us that cheaters and exploiters ruin the experience that it feels unfair when someone games the Super Credit system while you're out there earning yours the hard way," the developer writes in a recent transmission posted to the game's Discord channel.

"We heard you, and we're starting to implement changes that will tackle issues like this... Today we're improving our monitoring methods for suspicious Super Credit activity." Now, should a grunt extract with a "substantially higher" number of Super Credits than the highest-earning players ever recorded, Arrowhead has better tools to detect and stop them in their tracks.

"This will not affect legitimate players, only the bad apples cheating the system," the dev assures. "If you're playing the game grinding maps, clearing POIs, looting bunkers you will never experience any change... The steps exist to catch bad actors, not to slow you down."

"Cheaters. Botters. People using automation and duplication exploits to hoover up Super Credits at rates no human Helldiver could ever reach legitimately," are being targeted by the studio's improved detection tools, however. Arrowhead says its new system will "stop them at the source, before they can do damage to the economy you play in."

"This is a win for the community. A healthier economy means the Super Credits you earn through honest service to Super Earth stay worth earning," the message ends off. "You told us the fight wasn't fair. Today marks a big step towards eradicating pesky cheaters."

While Arrowhead isn't wrong for implementing measures against cheaters, some players in the community have taken issue with the company framing its announcement as a "win" for anyone other than Arrowhead, Sony, and both companies' wallets. You see, Helldivers 2 doesn't have a player-affected economy. It's not an MMO. It's not even a competitive shooter, and Super Credits are only used to buy in-game packs that don't expire.

"Nothing but corpo words lmao, it's the economy that they created," one players writes online. "They prefer focusing on banning cheaters instead of giving actual decent ways to get SC."

Another puts it eloquently: "Preventing SC cheating was inevitable, but this really could have and should have been done better. By buffing SC gains on higher difficulties, for example- or literally anything instead of pretending like this is some huge community-driven update when it’s literally the definition of a money driven decision."

Again, it's Arrowhead's right to protect its business interests, of course, but penalizing cheaters without addressing why people use Super Credit exploits in the first place (grinding for Super Credits is torture) has rubbed some folks the wrong way.

Helldivers 2 overhauls Major Orders with Galactic Campaigns, adds a new biome, buffs Exo Suits, and much more in a massive patch

In the midst of a total upheaval at Xbox, Blizzard is handing over publishing duties for Overwatch in Korea to live-service juggernaut Nexon.

In a joint press release, Blizzard and Nexon announced a new Overwatch service for PC players in Korea, with registration and account linking available now ahead of the official August 12 migration, lining up with the start of Overwatch season 4.

"Registration is now open and excitement is growing for the August 12 start of Nexon's service of Overwatch on PC in Korea," says Nexon president and CEO Junghun Lee, in a press release. "The Nexon team has been working closely with Blizzard to provide a service that enhances the Overwatch experience through Nexon's best-in-class live operations and hyperlocalization."

While the events aren't explicitly linked, the timing of an Xbox-owned franchise shifting hands even regionally is peculiar in the wake of Microsoft's historic downsizing of its gaming division, which saw 1,600 jobs cut immediately and will ultimately result in 3,200 redundancies by the end of fiscal year 2027.

The restructuring also splits off at least four studios from the XGS umbrella, with Compulsion Games and Double Fine going independent and Ninja Theory and Undead Labs entering "terms to join new ownership." Xbox CEO Asha Sharma says the company is reviewing "potential strategic options" for Dishonored and Deathloop studio Arkane.

"Opening registration is an exciting step forward as we approach the August launch of Nexon's service for Overwatch on PC in Korea," says Blizzard's head of development on live games, Walter Kong. "Together with Nexon, we are proud of the high-quality, tailored experience we are building for players in Korea, and we are excited to usher in this new chapter for the Korean Overwatch community."

Over on the official sign-up page for Nexon's new Overwatch service, the publisher encourages players to complete their account linking early and "receive special rewards, including 20 Mythic Prisms, a new Legendary skin, and Loot Boxes."

It's unclear if this will effectively region-lock Overwatch players in Korea, but the mention of hyperlocalized content and the mandatory Nexon account-linking seems to suggest that's the case. I've reached out to Blizzard and Nexon for comment and will update this article if I hear back.

Bethesda union blasts Microsoft as Xbox layoffs hit the Fallout and Elder Scrolls studio, too: "When will this cycle of cuts in pursuit of ever-greater profits end?"

Arc Raiders' 1.36.0 update is here, bringing with it a big matchmaking change that should make the shooter much more pleasant to play if your playstyle varies between solo, duo, and trio games.

In today's patch, Embark outlines a key change to solo, duo, and trio matchmaking. Specifically, thanks to feedback logged by players during May's matchmaking survey, one of the "most requested matchmaking features" has been added – from now on, "we now track your playstyle separately for Solo, Duo, and Trio rounds, and match you accordingly."

Essentially, if you tend to take a more aggressive, PvP-focused approach to Arc Raiders when you're playing with your friends, but a friendlier one when you're playing solo, the new matchmaking feature should acknowledge this and give you your best match no matter what, rather than constantly pushing you into more aggressive lobbies even in solo, for example.

"Now, there's no overlap," explains Embark community lead Ossen. "You'll be able to go from friendly questing and plant-picking in Solo rounds to adrenaline-fueled PvP Trio games (if that's how you usually play in those respective cases) by simply changing your squad size. The same holds for Duo – all three are tracked on their own."

Alongside a bunch of bug fixes, Embark has also "significantly increased the value of loot dropped by ARC Turbines" to make them more rewarding to take down. Speaking of which, ARC Turbines can no longer randomly disappear right after spawning in, so happy hunting.

Embark acknowledges its recent anti-cheat efforts ("we are continuously getting more effective at identifying & acting against cheaters," the post says), as well as the action it's taken against duplication exploits.

Going forward, the devs also plan to expand on the "No Free Loadout" requirement introduced in patch 1.33.0 for Close Scrutiny and Night Raid. "We are looking into expanding 'No Free Loadout' to more map conditions and investigating other opportunities to further improve the experience overall," says Ossen.

"When Arc Raiders was at its peak," Embark was burning 30 terabytes of data per day tracking every single bullet fired: "We want to know who shot first."

Overwatch has had a turbulent history on Steam, launching as the storefront's lowest-rated game in 2023 and only rising out of the "Overwhelmingly Negative" depths a couple of times – but now, things might just be turning around for Blizzard's hero shooter.

It's no secret that Overwatch hasn't performed well review-wise over on Valve's platform. Heck, even game director Aaron Keller himself has commented on the negative reception, stating earlier this year that he's "not sure what it would take for us to move up to a positive score at this point" – but, what do you know, Overwatch no longer has a negative rating attached to it on Steam at all. Now, it's actually "Mixed."

This applies to both its recent and overall reviews, as a new influx of more positive feedback has seen the previously "Mostly Negative" rating rise.

Sure, there are still plenty of comments on the game being disappointing. One amusing review (with 1,467 hours in-game, mind you) describes its writer's time in Overwatch as a "toxic relationship that needs to end." Others criticize performance, gameplay, and, yes, microtransactions.

Folks bring up microtransactions and in-game purchases quite a few times, unsurprisingly – I mean, we are talking about that game that recently charged nearly $100 for a cosmetic bundle that introduced a new skin rarity, after all.

As for the more positive reception the game has received recently, reviews range from amusing ("hot girls," y'all… hot girls) to informative, with some players feeling that Overwatch has made a comeback this year.

"In 2026, we finally got back to just Overwatch," reads one such review. "The new characters are fun with interesting kits, the battle pass is good value, there's a lot of chances to get loot boxes, which means free cosmetics, the paid cosmetics have been really good, and overall the game has a lot to offer everyone."

Another adds, "I never thought I'd be writing a positive Overwatch review again, but here we are. Character development, apparently."

Character development, indeed. This does beg the question, could Overwatch rise up even more on the Steam ladder and perhaps see some variation of a positive review rating? I'm not keeping my fingers crossed for "Overwhelmingly Positive" or anything, but I do wonder…

Uncharted 3 co-director and The Dragon Prince co-creator joins the Overwatch team, once again reigniting hopes for an animated show.

A new Captain America cosmetic continues Marvel Rivals' hot streak of, urm, hot outfits, but this isn't merely an example of classic gooner bait from developer NetEase – the skin is actually an important historical recreation that just so happens to double as gooner bait, thank you very much.

Even at a quick glance, it's not hard to see why fans are going feral for Captain America's new Seaside Sentinel skin. Our Steve Rogers has his bushy chest and bulky arms out, although, what makes the summery fit exceptionally horny is the skin-tight swimsuit that wildly exaggerates his – ahem – assets and front assets.

"This literally feels like a gooner mod," one fan tweets in reaction to Cap's multiple bulges.

"Marvel Rivals is an equal opportunity gooner game," someone else rightly points out. NetEase stays consistent between its male and female heroes, at least.

Certain emotes and poses emphasize his proportions even further, but that is America's ass, after all, as the MCU and now Marvel Rivals like to constantly remind us.

Captain America's skin comes as part of the game's summer season that welcomes a number of revealing (more so than usual) skins to the game. Seaside Sentinel is particularly interesting because it's actually adapted straight from a 34-year-old comic, 1992's Marvel Swimsuit Special.

Marvel Swimsuit Special was a short-lived limited series that aimed to parody those '90s magazines stuffed with half-nude models, only this time with superheroes bathing in the sun. Marvel's since tried to revive the idea with last year's Swimsuit Special: Friends, Foes & Rivals and this year's Marvel Swimsuit Special: Brand New Beach Day, which looks more focused on the Spideyverse characters.

Marvel Rivals will become a "'moving anime' experience" by 2027, says creative director, as devs evolve past PvP with PvE, Infinity Saga updates, and more game modes.

Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League generally isn't remembered as a successful game, critically or commercially, but apparently the trauma of making it was enough to make two of its lead developers nearly quit the games industry.

Of course, I was being exceedingly generous describing Rocksteady's live-service Suicide Squad game as simply unsuccessful. In reality, it was a catastrophic failure that cost publisher Warner Bros. Games a reported $200 million in write-offs and led to multiple rounds of layoffs at Rocksteady, not to mention the reported cancelation of Monolith's Wonder Woman game. Even so, apparently things were even worse behind the scenes during Suicide Squad's seven-year development cycle.

Associate design lead Johnny Armstrong and game director Axel Rydby tell Bloomberg development priorities shifted from the project's early days as repeated delays caused production costs to swell and Warner Bros. executives to gradually push for features that would help them recoup their investment. Questions like, "How many players can we reach with this feature?" and "how can we twist this design into something that can be more replayable?" were allegedly frequently asked in meetings.

"That's when I started feeling like I wasn't making games anymore," Rydby says. "I was following a spreadsheet, some elusive marketing-analysis spreadsheet that no one could present clearly. I kind of felt like this isn't the gaming industry I wanted to work in."

Armstrong felt a similar feeling of disillusionment following the game's disappointing launch, telling Bloomberg the experience developing the game and the subsequent blowback was bad enough that his joy of making games was temporarily diminished.

"I felt everything drained from me," Armstrong says. "I said, 'I can't do this again. I don't know if I'm done with the industry, but I'm done.' I could feel myself coming apart at the seams."

Of course, Armstrong and Rydby aren't done making games, but they did both leave Rocksteady after Suicide Squad and in fact are joining forces on the indie retro deckbuilder RPG Secret of Circadia, which has racked up $1500 in funding from its Kickstarter. That's obviously peanuts compared to any AAA budget, but if they manage to secure their goal of $11,382, we'll get to see if they're able to put their money to better use than when they were under Warner Bros' umbrella.

Going independent is helping Rydby rediscover his love for game development, but he has a warning for publishers prioritizing sales potential over the passion of developers: "I think as an industry we are severely losing our way," he says. "It used to be passion projects that you loved and hoped other people loved too. When they did, it was such an amazing feeling. It became less and less of that. It became: 'Let's hope it sells. Let's hope we get money from it.'"

Guess which Rocksteady games made our list of the best Batman games ever made.

Arc Raiders developer Embark Studios recently pulled back the curtain on the data pipeline it uses to track what players are doing and make adjustments based on their behavior, revealing a staggering bit of tech that can, within seconds, tell the devs about every single bullet fired in the game.

Speaking at the developer conference held by publisher Nexon, data engineer Mattias Andersson examines the structure and purpose of Embark's intense data tracking. This covers the studio's previous game, The Finals, as well, but Arc Raiders is the focus.

"We track every bullet in these games," Andersson says. "We track where the players are. We track whenever a bullet hits something. We have miniguns in our game, at least in The Finals, so this is a lot of bullets to keep track of.

"We're tracking more than 1,000 different event types," he continues. "We were tracking more than 100 billion events per day when Arc Raiders was at its peak. That is 30 terabytes of data per day. And we do all this with less than two second latency into [the data tool] BigQuery. So as soon as you fire a bullet, two seconds later, I can run a query in BigQuery and find out if you hit or not."

That peak would've been around November 2025 to February 2026, when Arc Raiders was regularly pulling over 400,000 concurrent players on Steam alone. The game is averaging far fewer than that today, with some players simply moving on or perhaps waiting for the big October update, but Arc Raiders is still hanging out in or around the top 50 most-played games on Steam.

Embark tracks this stuff so granularly, Andersson explains, for anti-cheat purposes, bug detection, improving elements like weapon balancing based on accuracy and damage, and to tune the behavior-driven matchmaking system of Arc Raiders in particular.

"We try to find out how aggressive a player you are," he says of Arc Raiders matchmaking. "We want to know who shot first in any encounter. Who was the one who started shooting at the other player? And then we try to make sure that people who want to PvP a lot get matchmade who PvP a lot, and the people who never initiate fights, the friendly players, get moved in together with the more friendly players."

This gives us a closer look at something Arc Raiders designer director Virgil Watkins told us about earlier this year. "We can track who shoots first and who takes damage and who [does] whatever," Watkins said at the time. "But the one thing the system does not do is attempt to assume intent. If I'm a very bad player and you're a good player, and I'm the aggressor and I just miss all my shots and you defend yourself, the game doesn't know what the intent was. They just saw you kill me because I'm terrible."

The data pipeline underpinning this approach is, from the outside, a dizzying labyrinth of dashboards, printouts, and applications. But some of it is pretty intuitive. For example, Embark has access to a custom "round viewer" that can replay player actions, including a "map replay" that shows where people move throughout a round. Heatmaps showing where players move, where they die, and clusters of other actions function similarly. An in-engine voxel heatmap of Arc Raiders' Stella Montis map confirms a few unsurprising death boxes.

Arc Raiders devs have "completed our rollout of Denuvo Anti-Cheat to all players," but Embark isn't done yet with "a more extensive update" striving for fair play.

Embark has hit an important milestone in its continued mission to root out and prevent cheating in Arc Raiders. The Denuvo Anti-Cheat software is now part of the experience for all players in the extraction shooter, and the devs are keeping an eye out for any anomalies it may cause.

"We have completed our rollout of Denuvo Anti-Cheat to all players," Embark community lead Ossen says in a new blog post. "We're keeping a close eye on its impact and performance."

Denuvo is part of ongoing efforts to combat people who're using various third-party services to get an unfair upper-hand while playing, as well as the exploits that are continually popping up. Embark's been playing whack-a-mole with duplication glitches near enough since Arc Raiders launched, as members of the community keep finding different ways of getting away with it.

"We are working on a more extensive update on our efforts towards fair play, which we'll share as soon as it's ready," the post finishes. This echoes prior messaging, where the studio emphasized how much of an ongoing process this is.

The plan is to put a framework in place where cheating of any kind is quickly noticed, and stamped out just as fast. "This means carefully detecting incidents, addressing them directly, and building safeguards to prevent them from happening in the future," a previous blog says. "It's detailed, methodical work."

That much is definitely true. These anti-cheat add-ons can create hurdles, due to false flags and potentially harming people's hardware. Obviously, the less of that the better, and treating it like a gradual process rather than a catch-all solution is always the right way forward in matters such as these.

Arc Raiders devs replace skill points with "mystery rewards" in latest Expedition as they try to address "the frustration of new players."

Arc Raiders is about to kick off its fourth Expedition, and the developers at Embark have some major changes on the way. In short? You're no longer getting any skill points from completing the Expedition challenge this time around, as you'll instead be getting an array of "mystery rewards" made up of small Raider Token payouts and temporary blueprints. The apparent nerf to Expedition rewards seems to be part of an ongoing effort to make the system friendlier to new players.

When the new Arc Raiders Expedition kicks off on July 7, you'll still be dealing damage to earn rewards, in line with the changes the devs made to the system earlier this year. Each completed departure objective will reward you with blueprints from a list that Embark has detailed in its announcement. These rewards are "temporary and will reset when you depart on your next Expedition." On the permanent side, you'll also get 150 Raider Token payouts for each completed departure objective.

Neither of those rewards really compete with the bonus skill points players were able to earn in the first three expeditions, however. Those extra skill points offered players a nice leg up on reset, but that seems to be exactly the problem – veteran players with a bank of extra skill points always have an advantage over newer ones, and while new players can retroactively get those bonus skill points in subsequent expeditions, it's not fun to dive into a new game with a pile of catch-up work to do.

"We understand the frustration of new players that are only now starting to do their Expeditions," the devs explain. "We need to find the right balance of rewarding our veteran players but also give new players fair and fun ways to catch up and not feel like they are always behind. This is a continuous effort and we'll keep you updated as we have more to share."

Judging by the tone of the responses to the change on Reddit, it seems the balance isn't really hitting right for veteran players. Without a meaningful reward to grind for, there's little reason to engage with Expeditions at all, and I doubt that's the outcome Embark is looking for.

Arc Raiders and Marathon aren't "dead" just because their concurrent player count has dropped, Palworld lead says – but he's "not denying that some games do 'die.'"

Arc Raiders studio Embark may have finally squished the duplication bugs infesting the extraction shooter for months with its recent patch, though cheaters are already trying to figure out how to raise the dead. Some people can't help themselves.

"Success on stopping the dupers... for now," says one Reddit user in a popular thread in the Arc Raiders subreddit, sharing a screenshot from "one of the dupe discords I'm spying in," in which a user announces that they're suspending sales of their Arc Raiders dupe tool that utilizes Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP). This particular approach to duping seems to have been addressed by what Arc Raiders community lead Ossen referred to as "a fix for some instances of duplication exploits" in notes for Embark's June 23 Store Update 1.34.0.

Embark also addressed Arc Raiders' apparently endless parade of duplication glitches leading players to infinite ammo, rubber ducks, and debauchery in its June 16 patch that aimed to bolster Denuvo Anti-Cheat. The developer wrote at the time, "We've been focusing on addressing item duplication and taking strict measures against those involved. This means carefully detecting incidents, addressing them directly, and building safeguards to prevent them from happening in the future."

The developer sounds serious – but we've heard it all before. Embark has been struggling to fly swat all of Arc Raiders' duplication glitches for as long as they've been annoyingly buzzing around… which feels like forever. Law-abiding Arc Raiders players are understandably tired. As soon as one dupe glitch goes down, it seems another sprouts up right where it fell.

But this time, cheaters at least seem to be intimidated by Embark's dupe fix. In the screenshot the aforementioned Reddit user posted, the dupe exploiter calls their new attempts to circumvent Embark "a long shot," and they admit, "To be completely transparent, this one is a bit tricky."

The cheater continues to say it'll be "really complex" to develop a new, working dupe tool, and they seem really upset. That's great!

Arc Raiders preparing new kernel-level anti-cheat to blast cheaters out of the sky and "sharpen both detection and precision."

Helldivers 2 developer Arrowhead made an impassioned commitment in late spring this year to be better for irritated players. Like an estranged spouse who comes limping back, the developer promised to not just make promises this time – there would be frequent check-ins, community-informed updates, and other attempts to rebuild trust with its increasingly skeptical playerbase. So far, Arrowhead has stuck to its vows, and therefore it was easy for it to let fans know on June 23 that the next Warbond would be delayed indefinitely.

Leaks earlier this week had Helldivers 2 fans split on its summer Warbond, which was first revealed by a roadmap Arrowhead released in March. Some players were hesitant to judge what amounted to an unreleased battle pass as explained by Reddit screenshots, while others were comfortable declaring the leak "the worst warbond of helldivers," as one player wrote in a Reddit thread discussing the content of the leak.

The player says in the thread, "I'm shocked by the leaks, I thought they were fake, but apparently they're real, and it's horrible. Arrowhead hasn't learned anything."

Another player responds, "Get as angry as you want once the stuff is actually out please."

Arrowhead seems to have noticed the commotion in its community, so it issued that June 23 statement in both the Helldivers 2 official Discord and Twitter, explaining, "The last Warbond listed on the roadmap for June needs more time to cook. We would rather hold back and make sure the final product is something we're proud to release and you're excited to unlock."

The developer continues, "We will provide more information as it nears completion, and we appreciate your patience and your feedback about our latest update!"

Fans are guessing Arrowhead is scrambling to fill an empty Warbond after releasing a Fast Recon Vehicle (FRV) – here's how to get the Helldivers 2 FRV, by the way – as a stratagem rather than as part of its next battlepass. To me, that feels like part of the story, but possibly not all of it. I'd consider Arrowhead's delay statement neither confirmation nor denial of the Warbond leak's contents – it seems Arrowhead is primarily on mitigation duty after a preview of its next Warbond inspired civil unrest instead of a fireworks celebration.

And it seems to be going well, so far. Many Helldivers 2 fans seem glad Arrowhead is sticking to its spousal declarations of honesty, so they aren't disturbed by the next Warbond's delay if it means more chatting with devs.

"Thank you for the transparency!" one popular fan reaction on Twitter says. "We love when you COOK!"

"Fuck my life," another person says. Ultimately, whether you're on Super Earth or only the regular Earth, you can't win everyone over.

Helldivers 2 overhauls Major Orders with Galactic Campaigns, adds a new biome, buffs Exo Suits, and much more in a massive patch.

2026 has been a busy year for Capcom. Launching hot on the heels of Resident Evil Requiem came Pragmata, a third-person "dad-and-daughter" shooter set in a lunar facility overrun by a rogue AI. Themes of duality run through the whole game, a series of pushes and pulls that somehow balance one another out – humanity versus machine, shooting versus hacking, and two little android girls created with a very specific purpose in mind.

The response from the community has been resoundingly positive. To learn more about Capcom's reaction to all the buzz, I managed to get some questions across to producer Naoto Oyama to fill in the gaps following our last interview with the Pragmata team.

Q: Capcom's known for a lot of really strong legacy franchises, but Pragmata is a fantastic brand new addition. What do you think is important to get right with a new IP like this?

Naoto Oyama, producer: Since the start, our focus was to create something genuinely distinct, which is crucial when making a new IP. With that in mind, for Pragmata, we challenged ourselves to make a game which meshes unique combat and puzzle-solving encounters within a striking lunar setting. Our aim was to create something new and fresh, but also intuitive to actually play once held in the player's hand.

Releasing a demo to showcase elements of the game was also beneficial, as it allowed us to communicate the game's core 'hack n shoot' mechanics for new players to understand.

I would also add that making the game tightly paced allowed for each individual system and narrative beat to have its time in the sun. For a new IP, this helped us deliver something neatly packaged, memorable and satisfying.

Q: The game features sectors of the space station that were constructed to resemble what an AI might build itself, as a digital mind that doesn't quite understand humanity. How did you approach this almost uncanny design challenge?

Naoto: Regarding environmental design, we aimed to create spaces that felt they could be designed by a near-future AI on the moon. These digital spaces, on first glance, contain items and structures which resemble what they look like in the real world, but on closer inspection actually contain oddities. This is where that uncanny aesthetic fits; these are places and things which look familiar, but are distorted in some strange and peculiar way.

In the New York inspired sector, taxis, for instance, are literally phasing through the floor, and buses protrude from the walls. We created structures and things which appear functional, but in some bizarre way, collapse when closely viewed. This is essentially how we've designed the game's sectors – from the perspective of a system trying to imitate human environments.

No generative AI was used in the design process - even the most uncanny elements you see in the game are all hand-designed by human artists!

Q: GenAI is a hot button topic at the moment. How has that influenced your approach to tackling AI as a core theme in Pragmata?

Naoto: We started development on Pragmata before generative AI became quite as huge as it is today, so we were surprised by this development. Perhaps the near-future world we envisioned is closer than anyone thought!

Q: Half the controller feels like it's for shooting, and half for hacking. It works really well on a controller. How challenging was it to make doing two things at once feel right?

Naoto: There are only so many buttons on a controller, so we've worked to ensure the controls are simple and intuitive. In the early stages we've limited the maximum number of enemies that appear at once and slowed down their approach speed, so that players can get used to the basics of hacking and shooting at the same time. As the game progresses and players become more accustomed to the controls, new weapons and actions are unlocked, while the number and strength of enemies change, so players gradually get used to performing multiple actions simultaneously.

Balancing all this was very difficult, and took a lot of playtesting and refinement, including regularly getting feedback from first-time players. I think this approach worked and we got great results.

A lot of reviews have compared Pragmata to an Xbox 360-era title as a compliment [a sentiment echoed by director Yonghee Cho]. Why do you think that is? What's your response to that?

Naoto: We take this as a compliment! We know many players from the Xbox 360 and PS3 console era resonate with compact action games which contain engaging gameplay mechanics. Each sector in Pragmata is designed to introduce new additions (weapons, hacking nodes) which layer themselves on previous mechanics, and this sort of design is something players from that era associate with the game.

As with other titles from that era, rather than opting for a dense open-world, each sector is a bespoke and tightly designed zone where combat encounters steadily introduce new mechanics that test the player and diversify their tactical loadouts.

Q: Do you see Pragmata as the potential start to a new series?

Naoto: We're very grateful for the positive reception from Pragmata and the responses we've seen from players. While we can't talk about future plans, the game has only just been released and we're going to work to get even more players to join Hugh and Diana on their journey.

The Arc Raiders Forgotten Relics event and Converging Paths project are both live now, based around finding a Swamp and then various rare items from the past, including vintage relics and props. With two different ways to earn rewards, including a rare blueprint, it's worth understanding this limited time event before it disappears and you lose the chance to earn the prizes attached to it.

Below I'll take you through both a walkthrough for the Forgotten Relics event, and the attached Converging Paths project, as well as lay out how to complete all the mission objectives in the latter that Arc Raiders has included.

Forgotten Relics event in Arc Raiders explained

The new Forgotten Relics event in Arc Raiders is limited time and will only last for 42 days from launch, until July 28, 2026. It involves both a progression path with Merit rewards, and a new project called Converging Paths, both of which are their own individual challenges.

Forgotten Relics is its own progression path where players unlock rewards by earning Merits. Merits are earned through XP, but you can gain extra Merits by extracting with any of the following items:

• Train model (10)
• Sextant (15)
• Vintage Steering Wheel (15)
• Equatorial Sundial (25)
• Rare Colorful Shoes (25)
• Tellurion (50)
• Epic Colorful Shoes (50)
• Legendary Colorful Shoes (150)
• Elephant Obelisk (150)

These rewards, being Trinkets, are easiest and most commonly found in Commercial and Residential area. This makes the Bird City map modifier and the Buried City generally very good places to farm for them.

If players can work their way through to 3,150 Merits, they can unlock all 21 rewards on the progression path.

How to complete the Converging Paths project in Arc Raiders

Converging Paths is the player project tied to the Forgotten Relics event, accessible via the Projects tab on the Raider menu as normal. It's broken up into six sections, as outlined below.

Stage 1: Secure Safe Passage for the Nomads

In the first stage of the Forgotten Relics project you need to deal 1,200 damage to Arc enemies in the Swamp, by which they mean the area to the South of Dam Battlegrounds, around the South Swamp Outpost on the map shown above. The best thing you can do is spawn in and just go to work hunting them without leaving the area. It might take a few missions, but it's just a matter of time.

Stage 2: Collect Supplies

Stage 2 of Converging Paths goes back to the traditional approach of collecting items to submit. You'll need to get the following:

• Train Model x3
• Vintage Steering Wheel x2
• Air Freshener x2
• Arc Thermo Lining x6
• Rewards: Smoke Grenade Trap x3, Explosive Mine x3, Raider Tokens x25

Stage 3: Procure Relics

Rarity and number of items in Converging Paths escalate for the third phase.

• Sextant x4
• Equatorial Sundial x3
• Metal Brackets x5
• Arc Performance Steel x7
• Rewards: Blaze Grenade Trap x3, Jolt Mine x3, Rascal (level 2) x1, Raider Tokens x50

Stage 4: Create Emergency Caches

Stage 4 for Converging Paths escalates again, now demanding you obtain legendary tier items.

• Tellurion x3
• Elephant Obelisk x1
• Light Bulb x6
• Arc Coolant x9
• Rewards: Surge Coil x3, Blaze Grenade Trap x3, Explosive Mine x3, Raider Tokens x50

Stage 5: Finish the Cabinet of Curiosities

The penultimate phase of Converging Paths is the hardest for item collection, as now you need two legendary items.

• Rare Colorful Shoes x6
• Epic Colorful Shoes x3
• Legendary Colorful Shoes x2
• Arc Synthetic Resin x10
• Rewards: Combat Mk.3 (Flanking) Augment x1, Photoelectric Cloak x1, Bobcat (level 2) x1, Raider Tokens x50

Stage 6: Use Nomad Tactics to Fight Arc

The last Stage of Converging Paths is another objective mission, not an item collectathon. Here, you need to deal damage to Arc using mines or traps. That can include any of the following, to any enemy, on any map:

• Blaze Grenade Traps
• Pulse Mines
• Jolt Mines
• Explosive Mines
• Surge Coils

It's easiest to do this by applying them on huge enemies like Bastions who are easy to steer into them, but ultimately it's down to player preference.

• Rewards: Sextant Backpack Charm, Saltwalker "Red Black" outfit color, Raider Tokens x100, Surge Coil Blueprint x1

© GamesRadar+. Not to be reproduced without permission.

Arc Raiders has seemingly entered the "it's so over" chapter of the inescapable live service cycle, with a non-trivial chunk of players recently put off by perhaps the most egregious wave of cheated items in the game's history, even as the game maintains a daily user base most games would kill for.

Coupled with slowing patches amid developer Embark Studios' pivot to major updates released six months apart, the game's been a bit quiet and the community a bit cranky. Facing this, Embark has promised "strict measures" for cheaters and dupe abusers. It's also rolled out a change that many fans have requested since 2025: a ban on free loadouts in certain modes.

In the latest Arc Raiders patch notes, Embark reveals a new, experimental restriction on night raids and the Close Scrutiny Arc event. For the next three weeks, you won't be able to bring a free loadout into these modes.

"We are disabling free loadouts for Night Raid and Close Scrutiny to increase the barrier of entry so that players commit to appropriate risk and reward in these scenarios that have better loot," Embark says.

"This is a time-limited change that we will be testing for the next three weeks. We may add this limitation to more map conditions in the future after we’ve observed its impact and analyzed your feedback."

Free loadouts have been contentious almost since Arc Raiders released. As soon as players built up enough gear to feel bad about losing it to someone who risks nothing, folks began calling for free loadouts to be nerfed somehow. We have seen direct nerfs to some of the white-rarity weapons included in free loadouts, as well as matchmaking changes that skew free loadout users toward joining raids late, but the risk-free option remains.

With this restriction, Embark is simultaneously juicing up night raids and Close Scrutiny rounds by raising the loot floor and implementing a soft version of the gear ante that players have also requested in the past. There isn't a true minimum loadout value barrier – in Marathon's end game map Cryo Archive, for instance, you have to bring in at least 5,000 credits worth of gear – but you will have to bring something. Well, in theory, you could bring literally nothing, not even a free kit, but you won't be a threat to anyone at that point either – at least not until you scrounge up some gear and ammo.

Embark acknowledges the slow spot Arc Raiders is in right now, and recognizes that "the road to October" and the fall major update, Frozen Trail, is a long one.

"We know that this quieter period is taking some getting used to, and we completely understand the desire for more things to do in the game," the devs say. "The balance for us is providing content in the short term through Projects and Events, and building something truly substantial for October, and then every six months beyond."

But really, there's no silver bullet (though that experimental PvE mode might excite some players). Things take time to make. Arc Raiders has some new but extremely familiar resource grinds in the latest update, but the game's gone mostly unchanged for a little while. Embark insists it's got its best and biggest on the way, but for now, you're just going to have to find your own fun or, in the wise words of the Final Fantasy 14 dev team, go play something else for a bit. I had my 350+ hours of fun with Arc Raiders, and I will come back for more, but all these RPGs won't play themselves.

If you're looking for something new to play, here are the best games of 2026 so far.

An enormous Helldivers 2 patch is here, overhauling the Major Order experience, adding a new biome, buffing Exo Suits, and much more.

Helldivers 2 Machinery of Oppression 6.3.0 is out now, and it finally adds some of those long-awaited "core" improvements that Arrowhead teased back in May. Specifically, Galactic Campaigns are here – Arrowhead previously described these as "the next evolution of Major Orders," which will each last one to three weeks and make current progress and potential outcomes clearer than before.

To assist in that aim, loyal Helldivers have now been given access to the Control Center terminal, found opposite your armory in your Super Destroyer. "Now Helldivers will be able to get more context to the ongoing Campaigns and their subsequent Major Orders," Arrowhead explains in the patch notes. "Each Campaign will come with its own potential reward, should the Helldivers be victorious in a majority of the Major Orders within it. The terminal will also feature an archive (to be populated as the first campaign concludes) so that new and returning Helldivers can read up on the twists and turns of previous campaigns."

Beyond that, and the new Fall-themed forest biome, there's a lot of rebalancing to dig into. Vehicles have been given "more accurate Armor values," with the Bastion tank appropriately "tankier" with its heavy armor, Exo Suits now able to better withstand medium and heavy attacks thanks to a health increase, with a similar health boost to the FRV to increase its survivability and make it more resistant to heavy attacks. The Ballistic Shield should also now be able to handle medium attacks better than before, and feel like it can ignore small attacks."

In another buff for Exo Suits, the cooldown has been reduced from 10 minutes to eight in the hopes of allowing "more time with fun stratagems."

Otherwise, reloading has been tweaked to make it feel "more responsive." Arrowhead explains: "Part of this is allowing reloading while dodge diving, also remembering the reload state better so if you're ragdolled while reloading you will continue it when regaining control." Delayed reloads have been introduced as part of this: "If you try to trigger a reload while the player is not allowed to do so, the reload will be delayed until the player is able to reload with a maximum of 1.2s delay from when the reload input was pressed."

Meanwhile, Orbital stratagems have been adjusted, with larger projectile explosions like the 120mm and 380mm "increased to make close hits more effective vs larger enemies like Chargers." Arrowhead adds: "Compared to explosions like the Ultimatum these will have less damage at the center, but also less damage fall off so it will have a more consistent damage over its total area."

There are many, many more adjustments and bug fixes in the full patch notes, so many that we'd be here all day if we went through them here – I'd recommend reading the full blog if you're interested. What's nice to see, though, is Arrowhead's commitment to making Helldivers 2 a better experience.

"Helldivers, we are committed to making the necessary upgrades to keep you in the fight," the patch notes read. "Because you have never given up on Managed Democracy, we will never give up on making it easier for you to spread."

The next Helldivers 2 Legendary Warbond is Warhammer 40,000, which is kind of perfect.

Embark says "our commitment to anti-cheat initiatives remains a top priority" for Arc Raiders, and it's pleased with how things are going so far when it comes to stomping out cheaters and item duplication.

In a new blog post, the team says that Denuvo Anti-Cheat is being expanded to more players and that devs are "pleased with the progress so far" and expect "further improvement as we scale up."

When it comes to one of the community's biggest bugbears, item duplication, Embark says that "strict measures" are being taken against those involved.

"This means carefully detecting incidents, addressing them directly, and building safeguards to prevent them from happening in the future," the blog post reads. "It's detailed, methodical work, and we truly appreciate your patience while we see it through."

In a move, no doubt, to make people feel like their reports are leading to something, Embark is also introducing new inbox messages to let you know what's been raised has been actioned. Now, you might receive an Action Notice if a player you've reported has been banned, or Loot Compensation, which will occur when Embark detects a cheater who led you to lose, well, loot.

"Our commitment to anti-cheat initiatives remains a top priority, and we will keep you informed as we work to maintain a fair environment," Embark says. "We appreciate your ongoing feedback and reports, and we thank you for being a part of the incredible journey through Topside."

Arc Raiders' fight against bad actors has been ongoing since its launch last year, though it's not something we haven't seen before, sadly. Popular shooters are often full of people using cheats to get results faster, at the expense of everyone else.

One benefit we have today, at least, is that this isn't new. If you're Embark, you can turn to the likes of Call of Duty and Apex Legends and see if there's any shared learning to be had.

It's necessary, no doubt. While Arc Raiders has enjoyed a great deal of popularity since its launch, we've also seen popular streamers come and go due to the cheating situation, which has basically cut off an arm of free marketing for Embark.

Combine that with other issues typical of anything live service – people running out of content, or simply getting bored – and it leaves the Arc Raiders team with plenty to do.

Thankfully, it looks like plenty is, indeed, being done. Elsewhere in the blog, the developers touch on an October update that's sure to be sizable. If you missed it, Embark recently admitted that its content style is no longer serving its needs, and that bigger swings are needed to keep people coming back. That, and a lack of cheaters. Thankfully, there seems to be movement on both.

Arc Raiders PvE mode coming to the Chinese version, and global players already want it in the main game too.

Taylor Kurosaki and Jacob Minkoff believe they have found a remedy to the rot that has crept into the third-person shooter genre. You may not recognise the names, but you'll certainly be familiar with their work – the pair have collaborated for almost two decades, having left their mark on countless Naughty Dog adventures and led the Modern Warfare revival at Infinity Ward.

Kurosaki and Minkoff just unveiled their latest creative endeavour: Crossfire. It's the debut project from That's No Moon Entertainment, developed in partnership with Smilegate. It's a third-person tactical action game with a focus on grounded stealth combat, built to leverage all that Unreal Engine 5 has to offer. Crossfire looks absolutely stunning in action, but the real point of focus should be in the miniature of its movement systems.

"Our vision is to combine cinematic storytelling with a genre-reinventing cover and traversal system that rewards players for being smart and tactical," says Minkoff, game director of Crossfire. "Our system will allow you to react to the severe pressure that we're putting on you in ways that you haven't been able to before in other video games."

To understand the ambition driving That's No Moon, you first need to understand where the genre it's claiming to reinvent is positioned. Back in 2004, developer Namco Hometek unleashed Kill.Switch – credited as the first video game to use cover as a core mechanic. It's one of those titles you probably haven't played, but you've certainly felt its influence elsewhere: Kill.Switch inspired the heavy cover systems that were later popularised by Gears of War and Uncharted. The third-person shooter never looked back, leaving battlefields strewn with blocks of waist-high cover in its wake.

Crossfire is here to change that. "The system that we have developed, and the fundamental innovation of this game, is what we are calling 'Adaptive Cover'," Minkoff tells me. "The basic idea is that the player enters cover mode, deflects the stick, and then the system chooses the correct stance and motions for the character, given the context of the environment around them and the line-of-sight of enemies."

I know what you're thinking, this all sounds incredibly dry, doesn't it? The thing you need to understand about Crossfire is that it's presenting exceptionally realistic environments (which is to say, unconventional; at least by traditional video game standards) for special-operative Layla, and her reluctant partner, Cross, to crawl through. It's all jagged rocks and splintered points of cover, a playspace that looks as if it has been weathered by time rather than the requirements of antiquated third-person shooter systems.

Adaptive Cover has been designed to dynamically adjust your stance to the terrain and enemy positions, allowing you to intuitively maintain cover. I should note that this is integral, given that a single bullet can kill here. While Minkoff is keen to explain that Crossfire is by no means a military simulator, it is designed to be tactical and challenging – ammunition and armor is limited, as are health reserves.

"We believe that a shooter that has sufficient lethality to make the player use interesting tactical options is also a shooter that has sufficient pressure to make the player buy into the arc of the characters," he tells me. "So, Crossfire is a stealth forward game. It kind of had to be, because this is a game about being intelligent in how you use the environment. This is a game about strategy over strength."

That strategy is reflected in the way that enemies relentlessly hunt Layla and Cross. "Enemies have individual knowledge of you and your buddy. Even if you're in hot combat, enemies can lose track of you. You're able to reacquire stealth, even if they are still firing at your buddy, allowing you to do stealth kills in the middle of a firefight." Minkoff adds: "Crossfire is all about being stealth-forward, and being intelligent about how you analyze the environment."

GamesRadar+ will have more to share on Crossfire in the coming days, following our visit to That's No Moon's base of operations. But before I let you all go, I should flag that there's something that Taylor Kurosaki, chief creative officer, really wants you to know about Crossfire: "This is not a multiplayer game. There are no live-ops components to it. It's a single-player experience, made in the grand tradition of tentpole single-player experiences."

Kurosaki and Minkoff believe that Crossfire has the ability to challenge the way we think about third-person shooters. By leveraging a more adaptive approach to cover and firing, by embracing a sense of true lethality, and by using cutting-edge technology to increase player empathy with sharply-written characters, Crossfire can finally make a stand in a Western market that has so often overlooked the success it has achieved elsewhere around the globe.

Crossfire is coming to PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X but doesn't have a confirmed release window. Check back on GamesRadar+ in the days ahead for more insight from Kurosaki and Minkoff, and more detail on the game's ambitious systems.

May's GamesRadar Replay winners saw Leon discovering you can't play safely in traffic, and a one-man army taking down a Matriarch single handed in Arc Raiders. It's a mix of funny and impressive, meaning both take home a $/£250 Amazon Voucher.

Replay challenges you to send us your best, funniest, strangest stand-out clips every month for the chance to win one of two $/£250 Amazon vouchers - one for the best clip overall and one for the best Theme of the Month game, which for June is 007 First Light. We share all our favorite clips on on the site and our socials channels - so if you want the world to see your achievements, accidents or discoveries, let us know!

If you want a chance of winning the June prize then you can submit clips via the big orange button below. It could be anything, from general gameplay to a stream - a funny moment, an amazing clip, a weird bug, or just some good chat.

Remember, there are two $/£250 Amazon Vouchers to be won - one for the best video overall, and another for our 007 First Light Theme of the Month.

By submitting your clip, you agree to the Terms and Conditions.

If you need a helping hand, here's how to record gameplay on PC, PS5, Xbox Series X, and Switch/Switch 2 to save your highlights

The June Winners!

This month's overall Replay winner is this perfectly timed traffic moment in Resident Evil Requiem.

While winner for the May theme of the month, Arc Raiders, is this impressive one man take down of a Matriarch in barely a minute. That's a lot of Wolfpacks.

If you want to see what the Replay community has contributed already, then take a look below:

Capcom is on a hot streak. With some slipups, the company has managed multiple consecutive years of excellent releases across several series, leading to record sales. On the heels of the likes of Resident Evil Requiem and Monster Hunter Stories 3 in 2026, the creators of Pragmata, a new IP that famously took four extra years in the oven, could feel the pressure. Nobody wanted to break the streak, and especially not Yonghee Cho, who made his directorial debut with Pragmata.

I spoke to Cho, and producer Naoto Oyama, about the making of Pragmata. A big focus was on the pre-release period, the calm before the storm. The night of April 16, even with strong positive reviews in hand, Cho was up late, anxious.

"It's my debut as a director in a game, so if this game didn't do well, that wouldn't be the best start for me as a director," he says (via interpreter). "But going beyond myself, I was also nervous for Capcom as a company. Capcom gave me a chance to do a new IP, so from that stance as well, I really wanted the game to succeed."

Cho says "I was so nervous I really couldn't sleep" the night before launch, so when positive user reviews began to roll in on April 17, he was thrilled and, like Oyama, relieved.

"Thinking back, there's so many points in time that are big steps," Cho and Oyama recall in joint comments. "First, media previews of the game came out, and we're happy to see how the media really liked the game. But in the back of our mind, we're like, we can't let our guard down. Because next is going to be reviews. Then reviews come out, and even if they're good, it's like, but the game's not out yet. We still have to wait for what the players actually think about the game. When we finally see the player score, that's the moment we actually feel, oh, we did it."

Cho compares Capcom's 2026 lineup to a baton race, with each new runner preparing to do their sprint and then pass the baton to the next teammate. "You don't want to be the one to trip and fall when it's your turn," he says.

In some ways, on top of heightened expectations or pressure, joining a sterling 2026 lineup also gave Pragmata a bit of a comfier position. Capcom already had momentum and internal morale was high; Pragmata didn't have to build things up, and it probably had more eyes on it than it would have in a weaker year.

"Because those were all positively received as well," Oyama says of Capcom's recent games, "[it's] not necessarily higher expectations, but we feel like we can add to that success when there's this instance where these games came out in a relatively short timeframe."

Capcom did not expect people to like the first Pragmata trailer so much, and like Todd Howard wincing at The Elder Scrolls 6, kind of regretted announcing it so early.

The war for democracy is going through an evolution. Progression across Helldivers 2 is getting revamped, changing how players level up and earn rewards on both personally and as a whole community.

"We have consistently received feedback around our endgame progression plans, with players asking about level cap increases and additional ship modules," Mikael Eriksson, game director, says in an official blog. "Simply put: we feel like previously seen progression elements, like raising the level cap in silo, aren’t enough and wouldn't address your feedback on a foundational level."

The first part he runs through involves Major Orders. Many of the greatest moments in Helldivers 2 come from players rallying together to serve Super Earth, but, as Eriksson puts it: "It's never been clear if the actions of the community actually lead to different outcomes, or if it's all just smoke and mirrors."

Likewise, where we are in any given objective can be hard to discern if you weren't there as soon as the latest battle started. Thus, Major Orders will become Galactic War Campaigns - these are one-to-three week long objectives, with a more easily readable breakdown of what's happening, what needs doing, and how you can jump in quicker.

Then, a feature Arrowhead wanted to implement at launch, Planet Warfronts, is now coming to the shooter. These are essentially territorial skirmishes, and they'll operate in three ways: Defend, Frontline War, and Behind Enemy Lines. Each will come with their particular struggles, and completing them will impact the complexion of whatever planet you're on.

But the idea is to make it more rewarding and fun to operate as a squad. For individual players, then, Personal Orders are becoming Personal Campaign Progression, a parallel pathway alongside the campaign goals. The level cap is going to 300 in tandem with this.

"The intent is for every Galactic War Campaign to come with a personal progression reward track," Eriksson writes. "That way, even if the community fails to reach a larger goal, players can still do their part toward their personal goals and get rewarded with cool things to mark their participation in various Campaigns. This change won't happen with the launch of Galactic War Campaigns, but we are planning to deploy it this year."

On top of all of this, ship customization is getting better as well. Arrowhead now has a dedicated team for your Super Destroyers, but that's still in flux for now. Liberation is about to get that much more efficient. Exciting times.

Helldivers 2 players say new performance patch made the game look worse between "awful" DLSS implementation and a visual bug that'll make your eyes burn

Arc Raiders seems to be finally getting a PvE mode to the delight of its least violent players, but it'll only be available in China. So, although they have a history of nonviolence, the rest of the players eager for PvE are seething.

Embark Studios' website for the Chinese version of its multiplayer game, which it co-develops with Chinese conglomerate Tencent, reveals a new safe zone mode, according to fan translations.

Arc Raiders fans in China will soon be able to opt into a map modifier where all players are friendly by default, though anyone can choose to defect from the group at the risk of becoming public enemy number one, revealed as a traitor by a red highlight That idea has seemingly also transferred to Arc Raiders' real-life audience, whose Chinese members have once again been marooned from everyone else.

Chinese gamers are sometimes known for especially severe Steam reviews – typically, both because internet restrictions in China give them few options for sharing their opinions, and because Chinese localization work can be uniquely awful. Tom Kaczmarczyk, CEO of business intelligence company IndieBI, touched on this phenomenon while talking to developers at a Digital Dragons 2026 panel recently attended by GamesRadar+, telling them that, "if the Chinese localization is bad," they can expect players "will roast you in the reviews."

Since Chinese players' problems can be so central to the fact that they live in China that global gamers have sometimes taken to dismissing their complaints as melodrama. To this attitude, an Arc Raiders player on Reddit who claims to have been invited to the new safe zone mode's closed beta test says, "Everyone used to mock Chinese gamers for giving bad reviews, but now it seems they genuinely have unique insights and design skills when it comes to games. Now, before buying a game, I check the simplified Chinese review sections."

This seems true here, as I can confirm that global reactions to the Chinese Arc Raiders' new modes are filled with yearning. They, too, want to opt out of PvP, which has always been a contentious aspect of Arc Raiders, and they'd like to try the new dual boss battleground also coming to China. That mode will see the Queen and Matriarch bosses appear at the same time, and, probably, block out all the light in the sky.

China is also getting fresh weapon and armor skins, one of which adds lopsided mouse ears to your helmet, so you can traverse Arc Raiders looking as pampered as a family sharing a big turkey leg at Disney World.

"There'll be some happy Era members if this mode comes to the global build," muses one reply in a discussion about Arc Raiders' exclusive PvE mechanism on ResetEra.

"Somehow China version got what a lot of PvE players have been asking for," says a more bitter comment in a Reddit thread on the topic.

The odds of this experimental mode coming to the mainline version of Arc Raiders are shaky. Embark has repeatedly gone to bat for a balance of PvP and PvE – it did, after all, pivot away from pure PvE to save the game from development hell – and the Chinese branch of the game is a bit wilder overall. But equally, the studio has been blown away by how many people like the peaceful life, and has discussed plans to lean into it outside matchmaking changes. Perhaps friendly raiders will get their wish.

Arc Raiders just knocked 2 million coins off the price of the new Expedition Vault slots because nobody was buying them.

This month June is all about James, with Replay's Theme of the Month focusing on 007 First Light. While you can send in any clips of any game for a chance to win a $/£250 Amazon voucher, there's a special separate prize for the best Bond video.

In case you've not seen it before, GamesRadar+ Replay is our community series where you can submit gaming clips or streams of anything you're playing for a chance to win $/£250 in Amazon vouchers - one for the best clip overall, and one for the best 007 First Light video.

All you need to do for a chance of winning is to submit your clips via the big orange button below. The winners will be then chosen by the GamerRadar+ team at the end of the month.

So, if you clip anything amazing, interesting or just plain weird, send it our way and you could win a $/£250 Amazon voucher to spend on whatever you want.

By submitting your clip, you agree to the Terms and Conditions.

If you need a helping hand, here's how to record gameplay on PC, PS5, Xbox Series X, and Switch/Switch 2 to save your highlights

If we like your clip then we'll post it and share it so you can join the Replay ranks like the videos you can see below.

Oh dear. Helldivers 2's latest patch – rolled out with the sole purpose of optimization, tackling issues, and making the fight for Managed Democracy feel smoother than ever – has apparently had the exact opposite effect for some, with players reporting worsened graphics and some zany visual glitches after the update.

Today's Helldivers 2 patch – created by Arrowhead in collaboration with Nixxes Software – was supposed to be the devs' "opening salvo in an ongoing campaign to improve performance across the fleet," and looking at the patch notes, you'd think that's exactly what had been achieved. "From upscaling technologies and latency-reduction features to various optimizations and stability fixes, this patch is built to help you stay on target when the battlefield gets chaotic," the devs explained today. Support for FSR 3.1.5, DLSS 4.5, and XeSS 3.0 upscalers was added, amongst other things.

Alas, looking at players' reactions on social media, not everyone is impressed. "DLSS implementation is AWFUL!!!" one Reddit player writes, reporting that "on DLSS Performance (720p to 1440p) smoke dissolves into 'pixels,' sub-pixel details is completely lost, in distance everything is low quality and shimmery, everything is also shaky and shimmers A LOT."

Another player in the replies shares a screenshot comparing DLSS native and quality, and they're not happy: "Tested on 5080, can confirm DLSS is shit, and we waited 2 days for this bullshit."

A separate post shares similar concerns about DLSS. "Upscalers are not implemented correctly and are essentially unusable," they say, sharing a series of screenshots showing how crusty objects in the distance now look for them. "It looks like the actual Helldiver model gets upscaled correctly, while the rest of the world doesn't. This feels like they're forcing on a buggy VRS while it's disabled," they say of one of the shots.

Obviously, worsened visuals are nothing to be cheerful about, but it apparently, it could – and can – be worse. Since the patch, a number of players have also shared pictures of a wild visual glitch that can only be described as an unintentional festive mode. From what looks like colorful fairy lights decorating the Super Destroyer to one Illuminate world mission truly living up to its name, it's safe to say that, uh, Helldivers 2 isn't meant to look like this.

Arrowhead hasn't yet addressed any of these issues, so it remains to be seen how long it'll take to fix them. Ironically, this very update was actually slightly delayed as the devs were "waiting on a fix from our platform partners so that we can submit the patch," but it seems like it could have done with a bit more time in the oven.

The next Helldivers 2 Legendary Warbond is Warhammer 40,000, which is kind of perfect.

Last week, Arrowhead Game Studios announced it was getting serious (again) about finally fixing Helldivers 2's long-standing technical issues with an update focused on stability, latency reduction, and the implementation of upscaling features. The developer has made good on that promise today with a big new patch.

"As the fight for Managed Democracy rages on, Super Earth's finest engineers have been hard at work making every drop into hostile territory smoother," the studio writes in its latest blog post. "Together with our friends at Nixxes Software, we've deployed an update with improvements across PC, PlayStation, and Xbox. From upscaling technologies and latency-reduction features to various optimizations and stability fixes, this patch is built to help you stay on target when the battlefield gets chaotic."

The new patch implements various upscaling features depending on how souped up your ole personal computer is, alongside VRR support on PS5 and PS5 Pro and VRS implementation for supported machines. In the dev's words, VRS smooths performance by "reducing shading rates on certain areas of the image," which then lightens the load on GPUs.

There are a number of other tech-related improvements and solutions elsewhere in the patch notes - all console versions have increased resolutions when playing in performance mode, for example, so you should check out the full list of changes for yourself.

Arrowhead's dropped a number of bug fixes, too. One fix sorts out an issue where divers couldn't "manually climb small obstacles and ledges without auto-climb." Other fixes note that performance and image quality have been upped across all platforms more generally.

The developer previously said this big update was only the "opening salvo" in its ongoing efforts to buff Helldivers 2's creaky skeleton. Another tech-focused update is planned to come later this summer, and the studio's also keeping an eye on how this new patch goes down.

Despite High Command's best efforts to quell dissent, fans have been complaining about Helldivers 2's performance woes for more than a year now. Perhaps recruiting PlayStation's PC porting house will properly do the trick this time.

The next Helldivers 2 Legendary Warbond is Warhammer 40,000, which is kind of perfect

From early previews through to critic and user reviews, a common bit of feedback on Pragmata, Capcom's shooter-puzzle action game about dismantling rogue robots on the moon, is that it feels like something from a different era. Many people compared it to the tight, linear action games of the PS3 and Xbox 360, and I was delighted to see many people cite Platinum Games' Vanquish specifically (in part for its similar weapon system). Our Pragmata review is similarly positive.

Pragmata director Yonghee Cho and producer Naoto Oyama have clearly heard this feedback before. When I asked them about it in a recent interview, they both cracked a smile before my question was even relayed in Japanese via interpreter.

Simply put, I wanted to know how Cho and Oyama feel about the PS3-era comparisons, and how they look back on that era of gaming.

"The dev team has heard similar comments from both reviewers as well as players themselves," Cho begins. "Honestly, it's a huge compliment. I really enjoyed games during the PS3, Xbox 360 era, and games before that era as well, so to hear that it has a similar feel, that's basically an honor, a huge compliment, and I appreciate the sentiment."

Oyama focuses on where this feeling may have come from. Why did Pragmata scratch this specific itch for so many people?

"Maybe the reason people might feel that way is because, during the PS3 and Xbox 360 era, a lot of different developers and publishers were experimenting with new types of games and just completely new games. Maybe that's what causes people to feel that way.

"Because the Pragmata dev team, as well, they put a lot of passion into creating something new, so perhaps that's what people feel, and it reminds them of that era when so many developers were jumping into new, different ideas."

This kind reception for Pragmata and games like it is, in some ways, arguably an indictment of the stagnation in today's games industry, particularly at the AAA level. I generally believe that games are better than ever if you know where to look, but a lot of companies have de-risked themselves into outright toothlessness, and experimental releases are definitely more common in indie circles nowadays. There are a lot of reasons for that, and I do think nostalgia is a force in these conversations, but there is something to be said for that particular console generation.

The PS3 and Xbox 360 ended up being one of the wilder cycles. It was arguably the last massive leap forward technologically – the jump to HD – as modern console generations yield smaller and smaller gains. I love the SSDs in my PS5 and Xbox Series X, but AAA games haven't changed a lot since the PS4 and Xbox One. You might even say we are still playing the exact same games, if only because two average AAA production cycles will last an entire console generation nowadays.

We also had more significant hardware differences between platforms 20 years ago, whereas today's systems all kind of orbit the same architecture, Nintendo's novel form factors and leaner processors notwithstanding. It's all just games running on computers in strangely shaped boxes at the end of the day, but I think there's something to be said for how hardware and the culture around it bleeds into software.

Though the consoles themselves may have helped set the stage for experimental games, the industry was also very different in the 2000s. The market was less mature. Games tended to be shorter, companies weren't facing the same forces of consolidation, development budgets hadn't ballooned so dramatically (even accounting for inflation), and the same 10 live service games weren't consuming so much of everyone's time and money. There are obviously a lot of other factors behind the past 20 years of industry sediment, but in short, the patterns that have emerged and settled today were much looser on the PS3 and 360, or just weren't there at all.

I actually spoke to Cho about the nature of scoping a game like this. "There's not really a single deciding factor on game scale in that sense," he reasons. "There's a lot of different elements that go into it.

"If you want a quick, rough overview, the director has kind of their idea of what they think would be a good scale for such a single-player game. And then from there they look into where they can place enemies, they go through level design, things like that, and see if that initial estimate is really the best length for their idea. Basically, it's a lot of trial and error, but that's the rough process."

"Of course" the director of Pragmata would love a sequel, but he's "not the only one who decides" that at Capcom.

You know the interview is good when PR is freaking out. I asked Pragmata director Yonghee Cho and producer Naoto Oyama if they hope to see Pragmata become a new franchise for Capcom, following up on remarks from Capcom USA COO Rob Dyer.

Oyama gives the expected response (via interpreter): "I honestly don't know what the future holds. Like you said, it's only been a month since Pragmata went on sale, so honestly, what I'm focused on is just trying to get as many people to experience Pragmata as I can. I'm focused on Pragmata itself."

So I asked again. This time, I put a different question to Cho directly. If he could snap his fingers and make it happen, would he want to make Pragmata 2?

"Of course I'd love to see a sequel," he says. "But I'm not the only one who decides, so unfortunately I can't really comment beyond that."

This was about 51 minutes into my interview with Cho and Oyama on Tuesday night, and this was the point that Capcom PR on the Japan side of the call really spoke up. You'd think Cho had dropped a live hand grenade in the room from the way everyone rushed to dive on his response.

Cho is quick to stress that this is just his "own personal opinion on the matter."

"Please don't take that line out of context," Oyama adds with a laugh.

Once again, PR says this is just Cho's thoughts, not an answer from Capcom the company.

So this is not an announcement for Pragmata 2, a game which does not exist. But as someone who really enjoyed Pragmata, it is exactly what I want to hear.

Pragmata marked Cho's directorial debut after well over a decade in games, and not only was it a critical success that sold 2 million copies in just over two weeks, it's a new IP, an extreme rarity among big publishers today. It's also a short, linear, single-player action game with genuinely novel gameplay – another rare breed outside indie circles. (Cho says he was actually pushing for a more "indie" spirit with the project.)

For my money, Pragmata is the kind of game we need more of. Echoing the likes of tower defense oddball Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess, it's also the kind of risk I want to see Capcom take as it reclines in a bean bag chair full of Resident Evil and Monster Hunter bucks.

We'll have much more from Cho and Oyama in the days ahead, so stick around.

Capcom wants to "nurture" dormant game series like Devil May Cry and Dragon's Dogma with "sequels, remakes, ports," and more.

The latest Arc Raiders patch addresses how much you're paying to stash items for the Expedition. Now, the pricing doesn't stack, making it easier to put more of your favorite loot away once your character takes their caravan off into the great unknown.

In Arc Raiders, as you're likely aware, Ermal offers storage in the form of the Expedition Vault, for items you'd like your next character to access once this one goes. Previously, the five tiers increased in price the higher you went up, but Embark's changed it following insight from players - likely the part where people weren't investing due to how expnesive it was.

"After analyzing data and the early feedback since Ermal appeared in Speranza, we are adjusting the Expedition Vault pricing this week to encourage more trading," Embark says in the patch notes. "Tier one price will remain the same and all following levels will cost 200.000."

There are five tiers, and they went up in increments of 200,000, making the top a cool one million, and the whole lot costing someone two million to buy. Now, it's a fraction of that - a good alteration in theory, although players are skeptical.

"The expedition slots being priced flat is a bad change," says one commenter on Reddit, who suggests pricing should go up in 50,000 intervals. "The total price for all of them would remain the same (one million), but the early ones should be less expensive to make them at least somewhat realistic for casuals while keeping the later ones more expensive for the hardcore players."

Another fan on Reddit comments that it doesn't fix wider problems around the trader's presence. "The Trader was meant to give purpose to loot, as since the expedition changed stash value has no purpose," the player writes. "Instead it introduced a grind for specific materials most players wouldn't hoard in the first place, as all arc materials stack very poorly in the stash."

That's a deeper problem to handle, but likely something Embark is aware of. At least for now, players can make use of vaulting for cheaper.

Arc Raiders is getting a new "official" roadmap soon, Embark CEO says, and it'll feature even "more details than we've done in the past"

When you think of The Lord of the Rings, you likely think of bare-footed Hobbits, Gandalf's epic showdown against the Balrog, elves that speak in magical tongues, and rings that contain immense, corrupting power. You probably don't immediately picture hulking brutes in power armors that'd struggle getting through the average doorway, swarms of aliens, and massive guns. Nonetheless, a lead on the sci-fi shooter Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 thinks that the series' expansive, genre-hopping universe and the work of J.R.R Tolkien have more in common than you think.

Oliver Hollis-Leick, who serves as creative director on Space Marine 2, recently told Edge that he felt the IP was "up there with Tolkien." Hollis-Leick added, "Its vast history and story is just such a rich playground for any fantasy or quest, or whatever kind of journey you want to take someone on."

Hollis-Leick is, of course, gesturing at two things here. The first is the wider and more expansive world of Warhammer, not just the 40,000 sub-series in which Space Marine 2 is nestled. The 40K games (as they're often shortened to) are a sci-fi counterpart that was eventually developed to bring the appeal of Warhammer, a strategy tabletop role-playing game set in a fantasy world Edge calls "cheekily Tolkien-like," to a wider audience.

The second is the brand's immense flexibility, which Hollis-Leick discusses at length with Edge. He makes specific reference to Warhammer's ability to transform to meet the wants of its sizeable audience, whether that's into a deep single-player RPG like Rogue Trader, a first-person cooperative jaunt through fantasy or sci-fi settings like Vermintide and Darktide respectively, or a chunky third-person shooter like the Space Marine titles.

In this regard, Hollis-Leick's comments feel less pointed at The Lord of the Rings, the most famous of Tolkien's work. Instead, they feel more directed at the books' complementary texts, like the Silmarillion, which is a collection of stories that elaborate upon, among other things, the creation of the world in which Middle-earth is situated and its history and mythology over the course of several ages. These stories, as well as many of the incomplete works that Tolkien's son would eventually release, have taken all kinds of shapes, sizes, and, as such, adopted many perspectives. So too have a lot of adaptations of the source material.

In the world of video games alone, Tolkien's work has been shaped into countless forms: text adventures, action-oriented titles, real-time strategy games, open-world RPGs, an MMO, a poorly received stealth game, a procedurally generated survival game, a cozy farming sim, and more. Most recently, it was announced that Warhorse, the team behind the critically lauded Kingdom Come: Deliverance games, would be making a brand new RPG set in Middle-earth.

Perhaps, Hollis-Leick is onto something, and we ought to be treating Warhammer with more esteem than we've been giving it.

Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 studio confirms Lord of the Rings rumors, Warhorse is making an "open world Middle-earth RPG"

A new Helldivers 2 Legendary Warbond was announced at the big Warhammer Skulls fest today, and wouldn't you know it, Warhammer 40,000 reinforcements are stepping in to help with the galactic war.

Helldivers 2 game director Mikael Eriksson, who says developer Arrowhead is full of Warhammer nerds, shared the news. The Helldivers elevator pitch to "liberate the galaxy from evil, oppressive aliens threatening our way of life" via extreme violence is an oddly perfect match for Warhammer, which is no stranger to souped-up, death-dealing soldiers or alien extinction.

"We are beyond thrilled to see this Legendary Warbond come to life," Eriksson says. This presumably goes double for CEO Shams Jorjani, who said last year that Warhammer owner Games Workshop "would love a crossover," but that it had proven difficult to commit to one between other development responsibilities – not to mention former Arrowhead CEO and current creative lead Johan Pilestedt, who seems to spend roughly 95% of his income on Warhammer kits.

The contents of the Warbond are still under lock and key. The reveal trailer is a mix of standard Helldivers 2 footage and real-world Warhammer detailing, revealing extremely little about what new toys will be handed to Helldivers – unless those miniatures are quietly teasing Warbond rewards, after all.

Based on previous Legendary Warbonds, we can reasonably expect some Warhammer-inspired weaponry, armor, cosmetics, and potentially vehicles. I would personally love to see the iconic Warhammer space marine armor, hulking pauldrons and all, turned into some kind of exo suit for our tiny, squishy Helldivers to pilot.

Arrowhead says it will reveal more details on the Warhammer 40,000 Legendary Warbond this year. We also don't have a release date for it just yet – all we know is that it's "coming soon".

Helldivers 2 recruits PlayStation PC port studio for "opening salvo in an ongoing campaign to improve performance."

Helldivers 2 has long struggled to stabilize its rocky foundations, but Arrowhead Game Studios is now preparing to launch an "opening salvo" and blast away the game's performance issues like a colony of juicy bugs. And, encouragingly, it's recruited PlayStation's PC port studio for help.

Helldivers 2 players have been complaining about the game's questionable performance for well over a year, most recently in an uncensored Reddit AMA with creative lead and former CEO Johan Pilestedt where he promised clearer, more frequent communication with the community.

That promise manifested today in a new Steam blog revealing a new update coming on May 27. "In collaboration with our partners at Nixxes, this release brings a range of long-awaited updates across all platforms," the dev writes. "Every frame counts when the pressure is on. This update focuses on three primary pillars: stability, latency reduction, and advanced upscaling technologies - helping ensure performance stays consistent, even in the most demanding moments."

To balance visual clarity and performance, the studio is implementing FSR 3.1 on PS5 and Xbox Series X|S, PSSR 1 on PS5 Pro, and various upscaling solutions on PC depending on how buffed up your machine is.

Arrowhead is also looking to lighten the load on GPUs with VRS technology, and is adding DRS (dynamic resolution scaling) to all versions of the game to make sure the frame rate stays steady even in more intensive situations. You can read a list of changes in the studio's blog post now, but note there'll be "additional fixes" come next week, too.

This upcoming update is far from Arrowhead's last step in making everyone less mad. The developer calls it "just the opening salvo in an ongoing campaign to improve performance across the fleet" as it also promises to monitor the situation carefully from here on and deploy hotfixes when needed.

"We're also preparing a dedicated tech-focused update later this summer to push these improvements even further," it writes. "With our friends at Nixxes dropping onto the battlefield as our backup, we're committing to make diving with your friends better and better. And keep the feedback coming, Helldivers, it's the key to helping us shape the future of the game."

This is far from the first time Arrowhead's promised big changes to the way it updates and improves its best-selling shooter, which is otherwise a brilliant game, I should add, but Nixxes' involvement is a promising step forward this time. The PlayStation subsidiary is responsible for bringing several first-party games to PC (Marvel's Spider-Man, Ghost of Tsushima) with really solid ports.

Helldivers 2 will receive "core" improvements by summer as Arrowhead works on making the Galactic War "more reactive" with multi-week campaigns and better rewards

Arc Raiders will soon be getting a new roadmap outlining content that's on the way in more depth than ever before, Embark Studios CEO Patrick Söderlund confirms.

Embark Studios's latest multiplayer hit has now been out for almost seven months, but in that time, the devs have completed everything they laid out in the Arc Raiders 2026 roadmap. After all, it only went up to April's big Riven Tides update, but it sounds like we'll be getting a new one soon.

Speaking on a new episode of The Fourth Curtain (below), Söderlund says Embark feels it owes it to players to give them "a lot more" content. "Because of the success of Arc Raiders, we have put ourselves in a position where I feel like we owe it to ourselves and to the people out there playing the game to make a lot more, you know, to just make sure that people have more to do," he begins.

Söderlund admits he recently "had to apologize" to the Arc Raiders leadership team because he "wasn't happy with the speed that we were building things and kind of feeding the community with," even though he acknowledges that "that's unfair towards the developers" who are "really working hard." He points to the work Embark has been putting into its anti-cheat measures, saying that "we've really gone hard after that problem" and are "trying everything we can to fix" it. Söderlund adds: "I think we've mitigated a lot of it. Maybe not all of it, but we're not going to give up until we feel like we're ahead of that curve."

He continues, saying it's the "same thing with bigger updates that [are] coming, new maps and things." He explains: "We're going to be publishing very shortly kind of [an] official roadmap of content to come so people know what they are waiting for, with more details than we've done in the past."

While Söderlund doesn't elaborate on what exactly he or the devs have in mind, he teases that "there's so much we can do with both the game itself, but also the lore, the fiction, new types of enemy. Like, there's so much you can do with that game." The devs at Embark have "a thousand ideas," he says.

Hopefully, then, we'll soon find out what Embark's plans are. What we do already know is that we won't be getting any more major updates until October, when we'll see the launch of Frozen Trail, the biggest Arc Raiders update yet. In general, major updates are now set to arrive twice a year, though "regular live updates" with balance changes and bug fixes will still come in between.

Based on when The Fourth Curtain's interview with Söderlund was published, it looks like there's a good chance it took place before the announcement of the new bi-annual update cadence took place, as Söderlund doesn't refer to the Frozen Trail update. I'm curious what a roadmap could actually look like for the game given that announcement – it certainly sounds like it'd be a more forward-looking thing, but it'd be nice to have more details about the October update and what comes after that.

"Defending yourself is no longer treated the same as starting a fight": Arc Raiders devs update matchmaking, explain how it really works, and shoot down player theories.

Clearing up months of speculation, Arc Raiders developer Embark Studios released a detailed breakdown of how the game's matchmaking works alongside an update packing two major changes to that system.

These matchmaking changes are "live now," and Embark will "keep tuning" as players respond to them.

Firstly, Embark says in a new post, "defending yourself is no longer treated the same as starting a fight." Until now, though Embark was able to track who shoots first, it appears the flow of an engagement was weighted in such a way that "your playstyle," as the system evaluates you, "didn't capture whether you started a PvP encounter or merely defended yourself."

"This meant cautious Raiders could be treated as more PvP-focused than they actually are," Embark says. "Now, the two are treated differently."

Secondly, "low-activity rounds carry less weight in your playstyle history." This seems aimed at the tactic of spawning in on free kits and instantly surrendering to bring down your perceived aggression rating (which Embark calls a misnomer). Looking at short runs in general, "reducing their weight helps the system reflect how you genuinely play when you're out there making choices," Embark says.

Your "playstyle" is the recurring theme of Embark's matchmaking explainer. The studio says it wanted to prioritize "fairness" and "enjoyment" with matches, and it found that "matching players based on playstyle drives enjoyment and reduces friction."

"We take multiple factors into account when forming a lobby," the devs explain. "One of the strongest is your playstyle across previous rounds, especially as it relates to how you engage with other Raiders. It's important to understand that playstyles aren't binary. This isn't 'friendly' vs. 'shoot on sight.' It's a continuous scale."

This is Embark once again dismantling the idea of friendly or PvP lobbies. "Our system tries to place you with players who sit closer to you on that scale, while still keeping Topside from becoming completely predictable," it says.

As such, you are more "likely" to be matched with players who are close to you on the playstyle distribution graph, which Embark visualizes using "cooperative, mixed, and PvP-focused" styles. If you're over in cooperative camp, the bloodthirsty PvP players are an "unlikely" but never impossible match.

Embark stresses that "your behavior shapes your future lobbies - gradually," not as a result of individual rounds or knee-jerk punishments. This sets up a list of myths, many of which still circulate among players, regarding matchmaking and ways to game it.

Here's the full list of Arc Raiders matchmaking myths that Embark has shut down.

• "There are not only two kinds of lobbies - friendly and aggressive"
• "One shot or kill does not immediately put you in 'PvP-focused' lobbies"
• "There are no 'PvE-only' lobbies/servers where other Raiders will never attack you"
• "Your end-of-round feedback does not affect matchmaking"
• "Your loadout does not affect matchmaking"
• "Patches and updates don't reset your matchmaking profile"
• "Looting knocked-out players doesn't affect your matchmaking"
• "We don't matchmake based only on the squad leader"
• "Turning crossplay on or off does not impact the level of cooperation / PvP in the round"

I know from experience that it's easy to fall into some of these theories, either because you unwittingly look for confirmation or you overestimate a string of coincidences. Turning off crossplay is (or certainly was) common advice among PC players looking to avoid the scourge of barbaric console players, for instance. It's also hilarious to me to have confirmation that my history of violence is, in fact, dragging my pacifist friend into a warzone when we play together, no matter who leads the squad.

The stated goal for Arc Raiders matchmaking is to avoid removing danger from lobbies, or making them too predictable, while also nudging like-minded players toward each other. As production director Caigo Braga told us last month, "players shouldn't feel fully safe," but they shouldn't all be dragged into intense firefights every match either.

Arc Raiders devs know everyone just uses the Survivor augment, so they're buffing "underperforming" options to make loadouts more interesting.