Author: Game Infliction

Upcoming multiteam MOBA game Project ZETA announced today that signups are open for its next beta test, which will begin on Steam on December 12. This final closed beta will be the last chance to jump in early before the game goes public, and the developers have asked for opinionated players to help shape its future.

If you’re not already familiar with Project ZETA, we can catch you up to speed. Developed by Nirvanana, a team built of former Eternal Return devs, it mixes up the traditional MOBA formula in two key ways. First, instead of the standard of having two teams go head-to-head, it pits five teams against each other at the same time in a race to capture Prisms, the game’s most precious resource. There are multiple ways to get Prisms, giving each team the opportunity to follow different paths to victory. And second, it uses a third-person camera rather than an isometric one, making combat more dynamic and action-focused.

That combat is PvPvE, with monsters and bosses populating the map. Defeating monsters will score you XP and shards, which can upgrade your abilities and provide buffs to your stats, cooldowns, and more. Defeating bosses gets you all of that plus Prisms. However, just picking up a Prism isn’t enough, you need to return it to the center of the map in order for it to actually count toward your score.

And that’s where the PvP comes in. Competing teams can ambush you on your way to deposit your Prisms and steal them from you. And that looming threat constantly affects the strategy your team chooses. Do you blitz bosses and try to rush their Prisms to the center of the map to win quickly? Do you bide your time, taking down monsters to scale your team’s power and enter the next fight better prepared? Or do you lie in wait near the center of the map to pounce on opposing teams and take their Prisms after they’ve already done the work for you?

These are all viable strategies, but the reality is within one match you’ll jump between all three. In Project ZETA, strategies shift dynamically from one moment to the next. With five teams roaming the Aran Plateau, improvisation matters most. Focus too much on one adversary and another might stab you in the back, or worse, run up the score to take a commanding lead.

Your strategy will also be driven by the heroes your team members choose. There are currently 13 heroes, with more to be revealed in the future, and they’re grouped into four categories: Fighter, Marksman, Assassin, and Mage. Each hero has unique abilities that can synergize with other heroes, some of which can trigger devastating multikills if you pull them off at the right time.

It’s been six months since Project ZETA’s second closed beta, and a lot has changed in that time. In fact, it’s been the period with the biggest advancements in the game to date. There are two new heroes, reworked visuals and abilities for most heroes, new game-changing equipables, revamped environments, simplified Prism scoring, team respawn fixes, and lots more, all based on player feedback.

The final beta test will offer another chance to provide more feedback and further enhance the game. Anyone in North America or Europe can sign up for it on Steam, and both regions will have devoted servers running on two weekends: the first will be December 12–14, and the second will be December 19–21. For those who can’t stop playing, there will also be a custom game server that will stay live for the entirety of the beta, from December 12–21.

Project ZETA is also available to wishlist on Steam, and if you want the latest info and updates, you can join the official Discord server, follow on Twitter or Facebook, or check out its official website.

Girls’ Frontline 2: Exilium is celebrating its first anniversary, introducing a major update with brand-new Crew Deck gameplay. Now there are more ways than ever to interact with your T-Dolls, with exclusive animations and story content for nearly 40 characters. Each Doll has unique behaviors that come out as you spend more time with them, and there are interaction scenes between certain Dolls when they show up together.

New Features Land in Crew Deck Upgrade

With the Crew Deck open, Commanders will find fully realized 3D versions of the collectible cabinet and armory in addition to the new interactive story moments. Commanders should have received mail with an item that lets them unlock the interactive story scene for the hard-eyed but soft-hearted sniper, Makiatto. The story scene “Time Capsule – Pulse-Racing Night” will be available for free. If you already have Makiatto’s Outfit (“Embroidered Bamboo, Blooming Shadows”), you’ll be able to experience Makiatto’s scene after unlocking the relevant area. You’ll also be able to get 35 Outfit Access Permissions at no charge through upgrade rewards, mail rewards, and other limited-time events.

An interactive story scene is available for the elite Doll Klukai alongside the release of her new “Cerulean Breaker” outfit, which gives you the unlock item “Time Capsule – Body Maintenance Technician.” For a limited time, you will also be able to make exchanges for more Outfit Access Permissions.

Speaking of Klukai, she’s the highlight of the Crew Deck’s new Holography Function. You can collect 3D trinkets, customize your living space, cook, play minigames in the Crimson Arcade, and lots more.

Anniversary Rewards Overflowing

‘Tis all about giving during the Starry Season, and developer Mica Team has tons of limited-time event rewards to put on GFL2’s plate for its first-year anniversary celebration. By joining in, players can earn more than 130 pulls and more than 13,000 Collapse Pieces.

The Crew Deck Date Reward includes 10 Access Permissions, an Elmo Model ornament, 300 Collapse Pieces, and more growth materials. The season also delivers two free outfits: Dragon Chef for Qiuhua from the Glory Store and Enjoy the Fragrance for Springfield are unlocked for free once your collectibles reach the required level. Additional Access Permissions can be earned from daily activities, furniture exchanges, gift packs, mail rewards, and the seasonal Battle Pass event.

Check out the Video of 404 Squad, with More to Come

Commanders can look forward to meeting two new Dolls, Leva and Lenna. These additions from the original 404 Squad use electricity to attack and debuff their foes, and they’re sure to give Electric teams a boost.

Check in with GFL2’s main site and social media (Including Twitter and YouTube) for more information about the timing of prize drops, stay up-to-date on upcoming collabs with other games and franchises, and to see a new trailer that reunites the 404 Squad when Lenna, Leva, Klukai, and Mechty are reunited under the Commander to carry out a dangerous mission. There are intense battles with gatling guns, helicopters, humvees, and other heavy machinery. Commanders and their Dolls should expect to stay busy for quite a while, but don’t forget to relax on the Crew Deck from time to time. That’s what it’s for.

EA and Battlefield Studios are preparing Battlefield 6 players for Season 1: Winter Offensive with a community letter with a list of changes set to be introduced with the upcoming 1.1.3.0 update.

The message, which aims to roll out the welcome mat for what will be yet another feedback-driven update, was posted on the official Battlefield 6 website today. It comes with a breakdown for some of the community talking points BF Studios has attempted to address so far, while giving fans a closer look at what’s to come when Winter Offensive launches December 9.

With anticheat, challenge/progression, and Escalation updates topping the list of recent highlights, BF Studios is turning its attention to a number of key issues across combat, REDSEC, and the overall Battlefield 6 experience. One especially troublesome issue for the community that the team is seeking to fix with update 1.1.3.0 are audio issues that have existed since launch. Players should notice, for example, that footsteps have been tweaked to “improve clarity, distance definition, and positional awareness across the game.”

“We have also continued to work on performance and memory issues that could cause sounds,” BF Studios says, “such as vehicles or footsteps, to sometimes not play as intended, which has been particularly noticeable on larger Battle Royale maps.”

Following last month’s multiplayer mode tweaks is a set of additional adjustments for Rush and Breakthrough. The studio explains the new changes as another step in the balancing act that has seen it attempting to keep matches fair, with the new update ideally improving the experience for attacking players.

Capture volumes and vehicle availability in Breakthrough will also be updated when 1.1.3.0 launches next week, with BF Studios explaining that Siege of Cairo, for example, will feature an additional attacker tank for Sectors 1 and 3 and a reworked capture area for objective B. Rush fans will notice M-COM locations for Manhattan Bridge and Liberation Peak have been adjusted to further refine attacker gameplay.

“These updates are intended to reduce bottlenecks, remove frustration points, and create more consistent and engaging fights around objectives,” BF Studios says.

“Beyond these highlights, we have also made a range of quality-of-life improvements across UI clarity, minimap behavior, controller aiming responsiveness, and more, which you will see detailed in the full notes.”

Another topic plaguing the Battlefield 6 fanbase since launch involves potential hit registration and netcode issues. It’s an area BF Studios has taken aim at before, with update 1.1.3.0 set to, hopefully, buff out even more scratches related to inconsistent gameplay across multiplayer and REDSEC. Also included in the new changes is the promise that Battlefield 6 will be easier on the eyes thanks to changes to close-range soldier visibility, lighting, prone animations, and more.

While players across the experience will likely pick up on “wide-ranging” changes to weapon handling, attachments, and recoil patterns, REDSEC fans can look forward to armor and tank availability changes. Armor changes for the battle royale experience will be detailed in its own dedicated post in the near future, with tank changes also subject to change as fans get their hands on update 1.1.3.0.

“We are actively exploring several areas aimed at improving clarity, responsiveness, and fairness in combat, BF Studios adds. “This includes further work on edge cases related to hit registration, investigating rare desync scenarios with destructible objects, and gathering deeper data on situations where players feel they were eliminated after reaching cover. These areas remain key priorities, and the findings from our ongoing investigations will inform updates planned for the new year.”

This latest communication from the Battlefield team stops short of providing full Battlefield 6 update 1.1.3.0 patch notes. Players are told to expect a more detailed list of all of the new weapon, map, and mode changes in “the next few days.”

Battlefield 6 Season 1 will deliver its third and final chapter when Winter Offensive launches December 9 for PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X | S. While the two previous chapters have introduced additional weapons, modes, and two maps – Blackwell Fields and Eastwood – next week’s content update focuses on its Ice Lock event changes. Expect snowy limited-time goodies for Gauntlet and Empire State, as well as an ice climbing axe melee weapon.

Battlefield 6 launched for PC and consoles October 10. As BF Studios continues to refine its gameplay, players have found themselves divided over map sizes and goofy skins while EA boasts record-breaking launch sales.

Michael Cripe is a freelance writer with IGN. He’s best known for his work at sites like The Pitch, The Escapist, and OnlySP. Be sure to give him a follow on Bluesky (@mikecripe.bsky.social) and Twitter (@MikeCripe).

The highly-acclaimed Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 just added yet another accolade to its name — as it’s now the biggest new third-party game launch on Xbox Game Pass in 2025.

Microsoft announced the news today after examining data from every day one Xbox Game Pass launch this year, and ranking every third-party game by the number of unique users during its first 30 days of availability.

It’s a hugely impressive achievement for Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, the debut game from French studio Sandfall Interactive, for several different reasons. Firstly, because the game arrived just two days after Bethesda’s The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered (which itself also launched via Game Pass). And secondly, because we already know that Clair Obscur went on to sell very well too (5 million copies in five months) — something its launch via Game Pass does not appear to have dented.

“From being there to announce our game back in Summer 2024, to coming to the studio for the Developer_Direct video in January, Xbox helped us get the word out there and reach a lot of players,” Sandfall creative director Guillaume Broche said in a statement.

Xbox Game Pass let “a lot of people try our game when maybe they might not have before,” Broche continued. “The turn-based RPG genre has a lot of fans but sometimes it might put people who prefer more real-time action games off, but Game Pass lowered that barrier of entry. They could just try it and see how it feels. So a lot of curious players could start the game, explore Lumière and the early game, and realize there’s a lot to enjoy here, even if they weren’t expecting it at first.”

So, what was Clair Obscur’s Xbox Game Pass competition? It’s been a long year, so it’s worth reminding ourselves of everything the turn-based RPG has beaten to become this year’s biggest third-party Xbox Game Pass release. (And remember, this is separate to Microsoft’s own first-party output, which will include Avowed and South by Midnight, as well as Bethesda games such as The Outer Worlds 2, and Activision fare like Call of Duty: Black Ops 7.)

Other third-party games that arrived day one via Microsoft’s subscription service notably included the highly-anticipated Hollow Knight: Silksong, as well as the post-apocalyptic survival game Atomfall. The highly-acclaimed indie puzzle favorite Blue Prince also arrived this year, as did Ninja Gaiden 2 Black, Wuchang: Fallen Feathers, Ball X Pit, and PowerWash Simulator 2.

Congratulations, then, to Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 — something we may well be hearing a few more times this month, considering its record-breaking number of nominations at The Game Awards. Tempted to give it a try? It’s still on Xbox Game Pass, and we have an array of tips for the important things to know before going into Clair Obscur: Expedition 33.

Tom Phillips is IGN’s News Editor. You can reach Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social

Briana White, the actress who portrays Aerith in Final Fantasy 7, has called on fans to stop tagging voice artists in spicy material featuring their characters.

The discussion began after White saw KPop: Demon Hunters actor Rei Ami discovering adult fanfiction featuring her character Zoey. In response, White suggested fans in general had “forgotten the meaning of the word inappropriate.”

“Maybe let’s normalize not tagging voice actors in smut of their characters,” White wrote in a series of posts on X. But many fans responded by saying Ami had gone on to look for the content purposefully — to which White then suggested it was all a matter of “consent.”

“It’s really a shame when VAs want to interact with the people who love the characters on social media but just a few creeps ruin it for everyone,” White wrote, acknowledging that she had seen all sorts of fan-made Final Fantasy 7 content even though she tried to “actively avoid it.”

White portrayed Aerith in the 2020 Final Fantasy 7 Remake, a role she has then continued in Crisis Core: Final Fantasy 7 Reunion, 2024’s Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, and Final Fantasy Tactics: The Ivalice Chronicles.

“I’m so associated with FF7 that it gets shown to me every single day anyway,” White explained. “As someone said earlier, it is a matter of consent. And it can be almost impossible to know what exactly is acceptable or not to an individual just from knowing their social media persona.”

Ultimately, White conceded that while Ami had chosen to seek out the fan-made content that had prompted her initial post, fans should still be mindful of what they share. “Alright alright y’all have spoken and I hear you,” White concluded. “Point stands, just not for [Rei Ami]. Carry on.”

White is set to return in Square Enix’s upcoming third and final entry in its Final Fantasy 7 Remake trilogy — a game that won’t cut content in order to feel “more concise” than the sometimes meandering Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth.

“It’s about making sure the pacing feels right,” series director Naoki Hamaguchi said. “It’s not about cutting out content, it’s making sure that it feels right, the speed that the story progresses at feels right, and it is fairly quick and feels like you can get through it at a reasonable pace. But it has to feel right, so that’s what I mainly intended to say there.”

Tom Phillips is IGN’s News Editor. You can reach Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social