Category: IGN

Released on October 2, Ghost of Yotei is quickly garnering praise from Japanese gamers who are busy exploring Sucker Punch’s depiction of 1600s Japan. Its choice of setting, picturesque scenery, and expansive map seem to be resonating with local residents, with the developers receiving plaudits for their detailed research and sense of style.

Sucker Punch’s standalone sequel to 2020’s award-winning Ghost of Tsushima moves the action to Ezo on Japan’s northernmost main island of Hokkaido. You play as Atsu, a warrior on a quest to take vengeance on the six men who slaughtered her family.

Overall, Ghost of Yotei’s scenery is getting a lot of praise from Japanese speaking commenters for its beauty, especially the titular Mount Yotei. However, one commenter, who apparently lives in Hokkaido, shared a photo of the real Mount Yotei, saying: “You were probably thinking they exaggerated its beauty for the game, right? But Mount Yotei really is a beautiful mountain. Please come and visit.”

In a follow-up post, they added that the developers’ decision to choose “Mount Yotei instead of (Hokkaido’s highest mountain) Daisetsuzan makes so much sense as a person born and raised in Hokkaido. Mount Yotei isn’t part of a mountain range, it stands alone, and that’s what gives it the ‘wow’ factor.”

#ゴーストオブヨウテイ 、北海道で一番高い山は大雪山なんだけど、大雪山じゃなくて羊蹄山を選んだの、道産子としてめちゃくちゃよくわかる。
羊蹄山って山脈の中にある山じゃなくてぽつんとそびえたっていて、それが「うわあ」ってなるんだよね。 pic.twitter.com/CRKpybvzLU

— ⭕️りなんご⭕️ (@rina_asami_w) October 2, 2025

The view from the mountain in-game is also getting some love for being extremely beautiful, with one user sharing screenshots.

羊蹄山からの景色バチクソ綺麗なんよなぁ#GhostofYotei #ゴーストオブヨウテイ pic.twitter.com/KBskFi6g2w

— 悠介二式/🌟 (@YusukeORTtype2) October 6, 2025

Sharing an in-game screenshot featuring Mount Yotei, another user commented: “I live in Ezo but Ghost of Yotei is way more quintessentially Hokkaido than I could have imagined, lol. (…) Whether it is to scale or not, the fact that the entire map is Hokkaido is deeply moving.”

蝦夷地在住の者だけど、ヨウテイが想像以上に北海道すぎてわろてる
情報あんまり追ってないから知らなかったけど、実際のスケールはともかく全体マップが北海道そのまんまなのも感慨深い🥺#ゴーストオブヨウテイ pic.twitter.com/EjRvQwye1x

— ぶっち🐺 (@ngo_nyanko) October 1, 2025

As a sidenote, map software company Zenrin got into the Ghost of Yotei spirit by sharing a real-life map of Ezo on its official X account to mark the game’s release.

特に深い意味はありませんが、こちらは北海道の羊蹄山周辺の地図です。 pic.twitter.com/r0hAZPnhdo

— 株式会社ゼンリン (@ZENRIN_official) October 1, 2025

Although Atsu’s story is serious, like in Ghost of Tsushima the game also gives the player plenty of opportunities to explore the beautiful landscapes, relax in hotsprings and interact with local fauna, such as foxes. Many Japanese comments point out how “cute” these animals and their movements are, such as the fox’s butt-wiggle reaction to your attempts to slice through bamboo, and the appearance of the Japanese long tailed tit, with users sharing a screenshot of the white bird perching on Atsu’s hand.

シマエナガ来てくれるの！？
かわいい！#GhostofYotei#ゴーストオブヨウテイ pic.twitter.com/3kjb2N2ciZ

— ぽぽた (@popo_ta9568) October 2, 2025

However, as cute as these animals might be, one user warned players that petting foxes like Atsu can do is not a good idea in real life, as although it wasn’t an issue in the 1600s, the foxes in Hokkaido nowadays carry the parasitic disease echinococcosis, which can be passed to humans.

Ghost of Yotei’s opening title movie, which follows Atsu riding through the landscape at speed, also gained much praise and shares, with one Japanese language comment going so far as to say: “As expected, this game’s opening movie has surpassed all others.” Talking about the opening, another commenter added: “You’re galloping up the hill and then boom, Mt Yotei appears at its most beautiful. I take my hat off to the staff of Sucker Punch for their good taste and successful research. They really know how to hit the right note for Japanese audiences.” Others praised translation and voice acting aspects, saying that Ghost of Yotei has a “perfect localization for Japan.”

During the making of Ghost of Yotei, the developers took many research trips to Japan. Director Nate Fox previously talked about the team’s commitment to creating a respectful representation of Japan to match Sucker Punch’s previous work on Ghost of Tsushima. In fact, Fox and Jason Connel were made permanent tourism ambassadors to the real-life Tsushima in recognition of how Ghost of Tsushima has spread awareness of the place. As more people experience Ghost of Yotei, it will be interesting to see if it gets similar recognition.

Verity Townsend is a Japan-based freelance writer who previously served as editor, contributor and translator for the game news site Automaton West. She has also written about Japanese culture and movies for various publications.

97% of Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 cheaters were caught within 30 minutes of signing into the beta, Activision has said.

The mega publisher said that its anti-cheat effort, dubbed Team Ricochet, “hit the ground running,” and that “fewer than 1% of cheating attempts reached a match.”

“Cheaters were expected. But our upgraded systems caught them faster than ever, powered by strengthened TPM 2.0 checks and automated systems helping to eliminate a large number of attempts to cheat,” Activision explained. “Those who did manage to slip through didn’t last long. Most never made it into a match.

“You may have seen clips of cheaters in the Black Ops 7 Beta. We had already actioned on most of those accounts before they hit social media. We’re watching closely, acting in real time, and learning from every attempt.”

Activision also reminded players that while Team Ricochet’s anti-cheat detection systems stop most cheaters even reaching a match, player reports “still play a vital role” as they “help fuel our detection models, refine enforcement and improve coverage.”

Interestingly, Activision also spoke about the individuals and companies that sell cheats, saying most major cheat providers have admitted their tools are “unusable” for Black Ops 7, and is targeting them “beyond in-game enforcement,” having closed over 40 cheat developers and resellers since Black Ops 6 launched last year.

“And this is just the beginning. When launch arrives, every layer of protection will be in full force, and Ricochet Anti-Cheat’s defenses will only grow stronger,” the statement concluded. “The fight against cheating is an industry-wide challenge – and we’re committed to leading the charge. We continue to bring new systems online during Beta, fine-tuning our protections, responding faster and gaining deeper insights. We’re dedicated to transparency, community feedback, and constant evolution in our fight for fair play.”

Last week, Activision said it was well aware that cheaters would strike the Black Ops 7 beta, and warned PC gamers that they would not be able to play during the beta or at launch if they do not enable TPM 2.0 and Secure Boot. It also added that getting cheats in the beta is “exactly what we want because Team Ricochet is here, watching, learning, and removing them as they appear. Any account permanently banned for cheating during the Beta will be banned across all Call of Duty titles, from Call of Duty: Modern Warfare to future releases.”

If you’re looking to jump into the beta while it’s live, we’ve got a guide on how to get into the BO7 Early Access Beta, plus how to enable Secure Boot for BO7 if you’re on PC. We’ve also got details of all the BO7 unlockable weapons, and the BO7 Twitch drops you can get your hands on.

Vikki Blake is a reporter for IGN, as well as a critic, columnist, and consultant with 15+ years experience working with some of the world’s biggest gaming sites and publications. She’s also a Guardian, Spartan, Silent Hillian, Legend, and perpetually High Chaos. Find her at BlueSky.

Redemption Road has delayed its shooter strategy game Kingmakers indefinitely, saying it needs “a little bit more time on content polish before we feel good about charging money for it.”

In a statement posted to social media on October 3, the studio said the October 8 release date was now “no longer possible,” and apologized to players, adding: “we are sorry for letting you down.”

Kingmakers features a soldier who travels back to Medieval England, hoping to “change the course of a bloody war” to avert the apocalypse. According to the official release, it will be a “fully real-time simulation with thousands of soldiers fighting simultaneously” utilizing “next-gen multi-threaded AI.”

Kingmakers’ announcement trailer was a viral hit, garnering hundreds of thousands of views on IGN and other channels, with more than a few fans comparing it to Gate, an anime that features a similar mix of modern warfare and medieval fantasy.

While many fans accepted the news, some were disappointed about the late notice, especially as the delay came less than a week before the scheduled release date.

“Why is Kingmakers being delayed? In short, it’s an incredibly ambitious, uncompromising game, and we don’t want to cut any planned features, for the sake of getting it out the door earlier,” the company explained. “Our goal, from the start, has been to create something that’s nothing like anything else on the market, in terms of gameplay, scale, scope, and interactivity.

“With Kingmakers, we set out to push the Unreal Engine 4 codebase to its absolute limits, while still providing true 60fps to mid-range PCs, without the need for fake frames. We are an 80% engineering team, who got into this business to push technological barriers.”

The statement went on to explain that the shooter boasts “tens of thousands of soldiers, each with AI and pathfinding that rivals what you’d expect from a AAA person shooter.”

“When you walk away from a battle, it continues to play out,” it added. “Nothing is faked. We have giant six story castles where every room can be entered and every wall, floor, and ceiling destroyed. When you build a Lumbermill, it’s a real place that can be entered or, in an enemy invasion, turned into a combat area.

“Every mission takes place in a giant, massive map that each player on the server is free to explore – with or without their own personal army of thousands,” Redemption added. “We set out to do all of this, with full drop-in/drop-out four-player multiplayer support, and we have. We just need a little bit more time on content polish before we feel good about charging money for it. So that is what we are doing now. We’re making sure everyone who buys the game is enthralled and feels like their money was well spent. We want this to be the case whether you have a top-of-the-line rig or a PC that’s seen better days.”

Redemption Road did not provide a revised release date, but did promise to share a half-hour-long “deepdive on Kingmakers gameplay very soon.”

Vikki Blake is a reporter for IGN, as well as a critic, columnist, and consultant with 15+ years experience working with some of the world’s biggest gaming sites and publications. She’s also a Guardian, Spartan, Silent Hillian, Legend, and perpetually High Chaos. Find her at BlueSky.

EA has confirmed the global release times for Battlefield 6. EA’s first-person shooter has an October 10 release date, with pre-loads available now across all platforms except the Epic Games Store.

Season 1, Battlefield 6’s first major free update, kicks off on October 28 and releases in three phases: Rogue Ops, which brings new map Blackwell Fields, new weapons, and a new 4v4 mode called Strikepoint; California Resistance, which introduces new SoCal map Eastwood and a 8v8 mode called Sabotage — that’s coming on November 18; and the final phase of the first season, Winter Offensive, which rolls out on December 9. That includes “seasonal map” Empire State and an unannounced themed event.

There is no early access for players buying the more expensive editions, so Battlefield 6 unlocks for all at the same time across PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X and S. Steam players will not need to use EA App to play Battlefield 6 but will need an EA account. Those who purchased Battlefield 6 via the Epic Games Store will need EA App and an EA account to play. EA Play Pro members get unlimited access to Battlefield 6 Phantom Edition on Day 1 through the EA App only.

While you wait to play, check out IGN’s Battlefield 6 Campaign Preview, and find out what we think of Battlefield 6 Multiplayer. A free-to-download battle royale mode is expected to launch later in October.

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Death Stranding 2: On The Beach for $49.99

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Often, we attach a certain descriptor to the fans of particular gaming genres. Someone might be a shooter aficionado or a puzzle expert, maybe a sports enthusiast, each eliciting a certain image that we might associate with a particular audience. Then there are the lovers of tough action games, those of us who take joy in friction, revel in the struggle. Or as we like to call ourselves, sickos. At Tokyo Game Show 2025, this sicko went hands-on with Phantom Blade 0, the highly anticipated upcoming action RPG from S-Game. With an arsenal of ferocious weapons, brutal finishers, and savage enemies, it has all the makings of a bloody good time. After an hour of uninterrupted combat, boss battles, and more than a few deaths, I came away with one question: how soon can I schedule my sick days?

Sophisticated Swordplay

You play as Soul, an assassin framed for the murder of the head of his order. Our journey with him in this demo begins at the bottom of the canyon. After just a few steps, we encounter an enemy camp. There will be no easing into battle, as a pair of foot soldiers charge, followed by a spear-wielder mounted on a horse, while a bowman in a nearby tower takes aim. If it’s a fight they want, it’s a fight they’ll get, as I pull out my sword and start jockeying for position.

Phantom Blade 0 is an action game, first and foremost. Combatants, you included, have a health bar and a Sha-Chi meter. The former does exactly what you’d expect, while the latter acts as a mix of stamina, skill, power, and energy for special attacks. It’s not stamina-based combat in the strict Soulslike sense; you can do things like throw out basic attacks or dodge without fear of losing your ability to defend yourself. But you do need it to fuel your more powerful Sha-Chi (aka heavy) attacks, and it is consumed while blocking. If you or an enemy runs out of Sha-Chi, you become breached, which breaks your stance and leaves you extremely vulnerable until it refills.

I take a few arrows for my trouble, but manage to carve through the small detachment. As the enemy’s health and Sha-Chi drops, I’m able to execute finishers, aka dazzling flourishes that eliminate enemies in brutal and bloody ways. As I push forward, I come across a small bell suspended from a short wooden stand. With a flick, it rings out, revealing a portion of the map. This also functions as a respawn area and fast travel point, similar to a bonfire from Dark Souls.

Executing a block just as an attack arrives allows you to parry the blow, and I learned quickly that these aren’t just a defensive option; they are an essential part of combat. Not only do they negate incoming damage without draining your Sha-Chi, but they also deplete that of the attacker. Sure, you might be able to breach one enemy with pure aggression, but against tougher foes or groups, all of whom are only too eager to start beating on you at once, that’s not going to cut it. The best option isn’t necessarily to go in sword-a-flailing, like in Ninja Gaiden, or take turns parrying like in Sekiro; it’s almost like a middle ground where elements of both converge, giving the combat a very distinct feeling as you push forward, invite attacks, then parry and riposte.

That’s not to say there isn’t a place for dodging. Enemies launch special attacks called Brutal Moves and Killer Moves; the former are meant to be parried, the latter dodged. Using the right type of defense results in you performing a Ghostep, a really slick-looking teleport dodge that leads directly into a counterattack. That comes in handy as I climb the rickety scaffolding up the cliffside. I stealth kill one swordsman on the climb, but fail to get a spearman, and have to rely heavily on those Ghosteps as he and the three buddies he calls over take turns trying to turn me into a pincushion.

Death is Only the Beginning

My first death comes around 15 minutes into my demo. After fighting across several isolated platforms, I face off against a pair of spear users. I strike one down quickly, but eat too many shots in my aggression. I try to take a more measured approach with the second, though, and as soon as I try to create space, I’m killed by an explosive arrow from some far-off archer. My life ends, punctuated with a crimson “Dead” scrawled across the screen.

Moments later, I awaken at the Bell stand from before. Unlike a Souls game, where visiting a Site of Grace or equivalent brings fallen enemies back to life, everyone I’ve defeated remains dead. There are no runes to collect, or battles to be refought, but that doesn’t mean death is without consequences. Soul has 66 days to complete his mission, and every death costs him one of them. Now, how strict that limit is or whether or not we can get days back is unclear, but I certainly feel the pressure to stay alive and not waste any of that potentially limited time by dying if I can avoid it.

I decide it’s time to switch up my armaments a bit. Soul can equip two weapons for general combat, and two Phantom Edges, which are limited-use items, like a powerful bow and arrow or Man-Cutter, an enormous halberd that can crush enemies with a charged smash attack. Each weapon has unique combinations and comes with some sort of perk or special ability. Sanguine, your default long sword, can launch a rapid succession of tumbling attacks, which is great for shredding a breached enemy.

I had been leaning on Seamless Death, a pair of Chakram-like weapons that can be used for fast up close combinations, or thrown to do solid damage from a distance. Now I decide to give Jagged Edge, the enormous greatsword, a go, as I return to the site of my death and enact my revenge on the remaining spear soldier. I have to run to avoid the incoming fire from the bowman across the chasm, and eventually find a route to some platforms I can use to get across, executing an excellent wall-run into an instant kill of a swordsman I caught unawares along the way.

I ring a bell here, establishing a new respawn point, and jump down towards another pair of bow-and-arrow-equipped enemies. I land atop one, executing a throw-and-stab combo to kill him in one fell swoop, then separate the head and body of his buddy with a finisher, creating a satisfying fountain of blood. A short while later, I’m ambushed by a pair of dagger wielders; rather than defeat them with my blade, I call upon Flaming Mane, one of my Phantom Edges. This takes the form of a flame-spewing lion mask, quickly burning up both of my adversaries, opening the way for me to advance.

Revel in the Struggle

Eventually, I reach a large open area at the bottom of the cliffs. After fighting through a few groups of enemies, it’s time to take on my first boss. Enter Wan Jun “Coppermaul”, a towering figure built like The Butcher from Diablo, with a massive warhammer that perfectly matches his sheer mass. I quickly learn he fights dirty too, as he scatters dirt into my face with his weapon, covering the screen to obscure my visibility. Getting caught in that proves a fatal mistake as he grabs me, lines me up, and crushes me with a swing that would make Cal Raleigh proud.

Undeterred, I return to give him another go. His wild swings are powerful, but I quickly get the timing down to parry most of his attacks, taking large chunks out of his Shi-Chi with each combination. Once he is breached, I press the attack hard using the Soft Snake Sword, a flexible, almost whip-like blade that dishes damage quickly. There are a few dicey moments, but the thrill of victory is mine as I take down the giant. It’s a cool fight, and a solid example of how important learning boss patterns on the fly will be. I add Bashpole, as his weapon is called, to my arsenal as a Phantom Edge. Using it to smash through a wooden floor to reach a new passageway, I press on.

The next boss comes as a complete surprise. As I made my way through some sort of village, I climbed to the roof of a round building. Standing dramatically atop a small spire at the center was Red Wraith. It was an intimidating entrance despite her smaller frame, made doubly so by the total lack of cutscene, gate, or any other sort of forewarning. She immediately presses the attack with her longsword and some sort of thrown blade, but I manage to Ghosteps to quickly break her guard. Something seems off, though – the fight seems almost too easy, which doesn’t go unnoticed by Soul, and he suggests that we could leave her be and flee if we wanted. Curiosity gets the better of me and I make a hasty retreat, leaving the Red Wraith behind – a decision that would come back to haunt me.

A few skirmishes later, I reach the final boss of the demo, the Chief Disciple of the Seven Stars. He leads a team of six other warriors, and, even as a veteran of many, many action games, I have to admit this is one of the more impressive boss fights in recent memory. Each warrior has their own health bar, including the Chief Disciple, with the boss’s health bar, and they seamlessly switch between acting independently and striking as one. One moment I’m isolating one enemy, chipping away at their health, then suddenly the entire group converges on me with a coordinated thrust attack from all directions, as my perfectly timed dodge allows me to leap their collective attack, and land gracefully upon the combined tips of all their weapons.

It’s a gorgeous spectacle, and each time I chip away at the Chief Disciple’s health in this intricate dance of steel, his followers heal him, sacrificing their own health in the process. I continuously chip away at the group, using a leaping smash from Bashpole to send everyone flying when I’m in danger of being overwhelmed. As their numbers dwindle, the Chief Disciple changes tactics, giving away his health to make sure there are at least three followers at his side at all times. This proves his folly, as I take advantage of his rapidly diminishing strength and drop him with a thrown barrage from Seamless Death.

The fight wa= sn’t over yet, however. His three disciples scattered to a trio of towers, throwing out what resembled thread. The boss, now called the Chief Disciple’s Fallen Hope, rose from the ground like some abomination of a marionette, and the battle began anew. This time it was strictly a 1v1, his ferocious attacks now coming with him dangling as he rushed me with melee attacks and threw a screen-filling barrage of his own threads. Even this I thought I could handle, until I heard a voice call out, “Nothing can separate us, not even in Death!” The Red Wraith had returned, and the combined fury of both bosses was more than I could handle.

I died. Then I died again. And again. Each rematch began at the start of the marionette phase, but time and time again I fell when the Red Wraith arrived, my decision to be merciful earlier haunting me. But dammit if I didn’t learn just a little more each time, get to that last phase with just a little more health each attempt. As I threw myself at what seemed like an impossible fight just a few attempts earlier, I began to see the windows to attack, until finally, my heart pounding in my chest, I struck down the Red Wraith with a leaping finisher from my Seamless Death, withstood the enraged counterattack from The Disciple’s Lost Hope, and severed his strings and head with one last swipe of my sword.

There are three difficulty options to choose from, but even at the default setting that I played at, Phantom Blade 0 is hard, and I loved that about it. It never felt cheap; it just demanded more from me. In just over an hour of play, I was easily ten times the player I was when I started. It’s a feeling of achievement that is reserved for the very best action games on the planet. If the rest is anything like what I played at TGS, I feel like there’s a real chance that Phantom Blade 0 might be one of those games.

I look forward to the Call of Duty multiplayer beta each fall in the same way I look forward to the return of pumpkin spice lattes: I know exactly what I’m in for, and I always savor that first warm, familiar sip. This year’s closed beta is the blast of violent, nutmeg-infused flavor I’ve been looking for since that first northerly chill swept across the land, and while it definitely feels like the CoD I’ve come to expect, there are a few new features I’m already really enjoying and a few more I’m really looking forward to unlocking.

I installed the beta Thursday afternoon and had planned to play it well into the night, rallying my dedicated group of Call of Duty friends (the Beef Lords) to join in on the fun. In fact, playing with the boys is absolutely my favorite thing about CoD, and even a given year’s iteration is only so-so, we still have a good time together.

Sadly, and I can’t really fault it since this is a closed beta, every time I tried to squad up with my friends, I had a hard crash. In fact, it felt like I spent more time waiting for BLOPS7 to restart than I did in matches. That’s a huge bummer, because I just want to run around shooting strangers in the face with my bros. Eventually I was able to get into a few matches with one friends, and good old Call of Duty fun was had by all. It still crashed, but only after a few matches this time. I had initially planned to hit the level 20 cap last night, but with all the time I wasted rebooting not only the BLOPS7 beta but also my PC, I was only able to make it to level 14. I know. I’m not proud.

Crashing aside, and no surprise here, but I’ve had a blast with what I’ve been able to play so far. I mean, it’s Call of Duty, where the whole point is either to rack up as many kills as possible, or hold an objective… while also racking up as many kills as possible. I truly believe no one does it better than CoD, at least when it comes to gunplay. It’s razor-sharp every damn year. It works exactly how I want it to work, it feels exactly how I want it to feel. It’s as dependable as the sun rising in the east each morning.

Omnimovement, Omnimprovement

The biggest and most immediate changes this year are updates to the Omnimove system first introduced in last year’s Black Ops 6. If you’re not familiar, Omnimovement is a control mechanic that lets you perform John Woo-esque flights of gun-firing fancy, while also allowing you to move around more naturally when you’re on the ground. Previously, dropping prone would reduce your target size but would render your movement slow and cumbersome. Omnimovement lets you slide to prone and do sick dolphin dives, mantle walls, and look like an action movie star in everyone else’s clips, firing your weapon with 360-degrees of aiming movement while on your back.

This year’s Omnimovement system adds wall running and wall jumping to your arsenal. It basically lets you hop around the map like Jiminy Cricket, as you can chain up to three wall jumps together. It’s really fun, though I haven’t really used it tactically so far. Mostly I’m flying off walls just because it feels awesome, and if I happen to get the literal drop on an enemy, all the better.

It also makes moving around the map faster and gives you an advantage over mantling. When you mantle a ledge, your arms can’t be used to shooting, on account of them being used to pull you up and onto that ledge. On top of that, it’s kind of slow, and an opponent can use this to their advantage. You’re basically a sitting duck until you get your feet all the way up, and those few moments can be the difference between life and death… well, usually death and a different kind of death.

Wall jumps change that, because rather than mantle over a ledge in the traditional way, you can just bounce off the wall and make your way to the top without using your arms. You never have to put away your weapon – heck, you don’t even need to stop firing your weapon. It takes away that moment of complete vulnerability, and as long as there’s a wall nearby and the next level up is reachable within three jumps, you can parkour your way to victory.

It’s easier said than done, mind you, and I’m not yet skilled enough to consistently hit shots when I’m going up or down from a wall jump. But it’s still fun as hell, and might be my favorite addition to BLOPS7 so far.

BLOPS7 Beta Maps

There are three maps in the closed beta: Cortex, The Forge, and Exposure. They’re fine. They’re not bad maps by any means, and I do like playing on them, but nothing about them really stands out to me in the way some of the maps from BLOPS6 did, either. Last year’s Rewind map, with its super long corridors and building interiors, was one of my favorites, as was Skyline, with its secret passageway, various hiding spots, and multiple levels.

Then again, the maps in last year’s beta were even worse (I’m looking at you, Babylon), so the middling nature of these is probably not an indication of overall quality.

Cortex is probably my favorite of the three this year just because it has everything I like in a map: outside lanes with the possibility of falling to your death, tight interiors to come face-to-face with opps, as well as medium-length interiors and exteriors that work well with LMGs, SMGs, and assault rifles. It lends itself really well to deathmatch and objective-based modes. Plus it has some sweet sci-fi incubator tanks where I presume the super soldiers of tomorrow are being grown from the cells of past heroes.

Exposure is a larger map, and has a lot of cool opportunities to really feel out the wall jumping and running. There’s a dangling shipping container on the map that might as well have a Wile E. Coyote-esque sign on it saying “WALL JUMP HERE.” Meanwhile, The Forge is pretty big, but it doesn’t really have any super long, open lanes for snipers to trade lead back and forth. That’s not to say there aren’t some great opportunities to do just that, but it doesn’t have the same feel as last year’s Rewind, with its back alley and strip mall-front.

The Forge might not be my favorite map of the three, but it does have one of my favorite environmental features so far: a spinning, four-piece circular wall in the center of the map. During modes like hardpoint, the hardpoint will spawn in that area and people take turns either hiding behind or popping out from those spinning walls. It adds an extra layer of unpredictability when you’re trying to hold an objective that I really like. You can’t just lay prone with a sniper and peek around a corner, because the corner moves. That being said, there are a pair of lookouts on either side, so you can keep watch of the objective or just pick people off as they try to bumrush it. It’s great. Even in deathmatch or Kill Confirmed it’s fun, but it’s really cool for Hardpoint and Domination.

According to the official BLOPS7 blog, there’s a fourth map, Imprint. Either I’ve just had terrible RNG luck or they haven’t actually turned that one on yet, because I haven’t seen it so far. I’m going to play the hell out of BLOPS7 over the weekend, so that could change.

Guns and Guns

Once you unlock all the level requirements, there are a total of 16 available guns. Right now, and I hope Treyarch is reading this, the M10 Breacher, the default shotgun, is stupidly overpowered. You can nail enemies from way farther away than the laws of physics should allow right out of the gate, and they’ll fall down dead when you do so. You barely need to aim it to get a kill across a large room. That sort of shotgun behavior is fine, even expected, at close range, or when you’ve leveled up and thrown a bunch of attachments on it. But as a default gun, it’s just too powerful.

On the flip side, and this is something I never expected I’d say, but the XR-3 ION sniper rifle is exactly where it should be, power wise. Usually I feel like sniper rifles lean toward being way too OP. Don’t get me wrong, I still hate snipers, and I still think people who use snipers on small maps are weak and their bloodlines are weak. But when you get a kill with the XR-3 it feels earned. There’s a level of finesse here I’m not accustomed to with previous sniper rifle iterations, and I’ve actually used it without feeling like a dirty sniperboy.

I’ve always loved SMGs in Call of Duty, but none of the three available this year are doing it for me as of yet. They feel a tad too weak, which is usually the case, but it’s generally made up for by a high rate of fire and lighting-fast speed of handling. I’m going to have to wait and see on the SMGs until progress is fully unlocked, but for right now, they don’t feel quite like they should, as if it takes one or two bullets more than I’d expect to down an opponent. I also don’t love the LMG, the Mk. 78. Similarly to the SMGs, it feels like it takes a millisecond or two too long to effectively down an enemy. I’m going to need more time with that one as well to see how it ends up running when it’s fully kitted out, but for right now I’m not feeling it at all.

The Assault Rifles this year are, much like last year, where it’s at. While in previous years I ran with SMGs or LMGs, in BLOPS6 I fell madly in love with my XM4 assault rifle. This year I’ve been grinding on the M15 MOD 0, but I’m a level away from unlocking the Peacekeeper Mk.1 in the beta, which might be the best weapon in multiplayer, hands down. At Call of Duty Next, it felt like everyone was using it, so I’m excited to try it out again from the comfort of my own desk.

I’ve got an entire weekend with the closed beta, and I plan to hit that level cap and unlock as much as it will let me. The open beta next week will let you grind to level 30, and the best part is all your progress will carry over to the final game. I’m hoping CoD keeps to its promises, because the new features sound pretty sick: trading loadouts with friends and even copying them from enemies who killed you, XP carrying across all modes instead of on a per-mode basis, and the ability to re-roll the daily challenges, which I love. Also, the final game promises some of the sweetest gun camos yet, and I’m really excited to spend hours and hours of time I’ll never get back just so I can have a gun that’s all shiny. Until then, I’m really enjoying BLOPS7, and I’ll be back with a full review around launch.

Seth Macy is Senior Social Commerce Producer, and just wants to be your friend. You can find him online.

With World of Warcraft: Midnight, Blizzard is getting ready to make good on a major change to the game teased earlier this year: making some of the numerous mods, or add-ons, players love to use to enhance their play obsolete. But Blizzard isn’t just adding features to make the game’s combat add-ons redundant — it’s also preparing to remove the functionality of those add-ons altogether, and players are none too happy.

The conversation around WoW’s add-on problem began back in April, when we spoke to game director Ion Hazzikostas about a new “one-button rotation” feature coming to the game that would allow players to automatically use the optimal next combat ability with the push of a single button. This, along with some other quality-of-life features at the time, were the first steps in what Hazzikostas described as an effort to “rein in” some of the functionality of add-ons around “real time in combat problem solving, specifically where like automating, coordination, communication, in ways that are always going to be better than anything the UI could natively provide you, as long as they remain possible.

What Hazzikostas means here is a long history in World of Warcraft of players using add-ons in combat for all sorts of things: tracking buffs, debuffs, ability procs, and cooldowns, keeping track of damage numbers, boss timers, warnings when bosses are about to do something, even hyper-customized add-ons that offer automatic, quick, plotted out solutions to raid positioning during challenging boss mechanics. Some of those add-ons are harmless by any definition – it’s hard to argue that there’s anything wrong with knowing how much damage everyone did in a given encounter, or having better visibility on when your abilities are off cooldown. But Hazzikostas and other WoW developers have been expressing more and more lately a desire to reduce the amount of work add-ons are doing to actually solve in-combat problems for players, such as positioning or reaction to a boss mechanics. They want to remove that, they say, and replace it with better combat design that doesn’t require such methods in the first place.

Which leads us to now. World of Warcraft’s next expansion, Midnight, is currently in an alpha with a number of media and creators getting the opportunity to test it out, including us. As a part of that, Blizzard has come right out and explained what’s happening to add-ons in Midnight: it’s disabling the ability to use any add-ons related to real-time combat data. That means extremely popular tools such as BigWigs and Deadly Boss Mods simply won’t work anymore starting in Midnight.

What’s more, a good chunk of the functionality of popular add-on WeakAuras is also disappearing. WeakAuras is one of World of Warcraft’s most popular add-ons, and is a powerful tool that lets players essentially display all sorts of custom graphics and information in their game based on a variety of factors. While it’s used for a ton of different things, many players use it for combat data, either for tracking their own abilities in some way or to help direct them in boss encounters. I personally use it as an elemental shaman to track which of my abilities are active or procced at a given time, and in the current raid, there are several encounters (Fractillus especially) that people have made custom WeakAura strings for that anyone can copy into their game and use to make the mechanics a bit easier.

With Midnight, all of that disappears. In an interview with Wowhead, Hazzikostas emphasized that the goal isn’t to “kill WeakAuras”. “That is not what we are doing,” he said. However, just today, the developers behind WeakAuras announced they would no longer be developing the add-on into the Midnight expansion:

The restrictions are so severe that core functionality, such as Conditions or Actions, or having multiple triggers in one aura or a cloning trigger, would become impossible. Producing a stripped-down version of WeakAuras without these features would require several months of refactoring. The result would be a barely recognizable version. Given that, we have made the difficult decision not to create a WeakAuras version for Midnight.

All this is leaving a number of players frustrated, nervous, and even angry. While Blizzard has said it’s going to be implementing its own in-house tools in Midnight to fill some of the gaps left by DBM and WeakAuras, most of those new features aren’t yet available for testing in Midnight. As such, there’s no way for anyone to tell if they’ll be an adequate substitute yet. Blizzard has also tried to reassure that it’s started Midnight with the most extreme version of cuts to combat data functionality with add-ons, and intends to pare back based on player feedback. That may be true, but at first blush, the changes are extreme. Many players are lamenting the loss of tools they’ve used to play WoW for years and gotten used to. Blizzard argues it’s “leveling the playing field” so players don’t need to spend hours configuring WeakAuras just to play the game competitively with others, but it’s difficult to swallow that pill without immediate evidence that the game will remain playable for all those people to begin with.

And sure, you could argue that players should be able to play World of Warcraft without them, but recall that add-ons have been a fact of life for WoW players for decades now. It’s almost assumed that everyone has and uses them, especially some of the most popular ones. It’s natural to be alarmed to think that suddenly a huge chunk of what makes your UI look the way you want it to, and your combat rotation understandable to you, might vanish overnight.

Speaking with Hazzikostas and UX designer Crash Reed, I asked the pair what was up with what felt like such a sudden blow: why drop this news without giving everyone time to mess around with the actual, in-house Blizzard updates first, so they could figure out what worked and what didn’t? Here’s Hazzikostas’ response:

I mean, I would argue that the next few months are that opportunity to mess around with all of these things. We are in week one of our alpha test, with several weeks of alpha to follow and then beta. This is a change that I think needs to happen with an expansion rollout. It’s not something we could ever do mid-expansion. I think it’s important that we are able to build an entire tier of dungeons and raids, all of that in this world. That we’re able to design our classes for this world rather than changing expectations out from under people while they’re in the, accustomed to doing existing content.

I think we’ve tried to be as transparent as possible about what some of the upcoming UI improvements were. We’ve had many of them rolled out during War Within to begin getting feedback that we could already incorporate as players are seeing in the Midnight alpha today. And we’re going to be paying very close attention in the weeks and months to come to make sure that we land this in a way that’s really satisfying to players.

We also have invited a bunch of our add-on authors to alpha alongside everyone else so that they can start giving us feedback on collateral damage that’s unintended, things that we can change in our implementation to make their lives easier, to make players’ lives easier, and just make sure that we’re getting all the feedback that we need ASAP.

Reed added:

Because to add to that, honestly, we want to keep this an open dialogue. This is something that we want to have players continue to keep giving that information. We’re already getting a flood of it now. I mean you’re seeing the changes we’re making to the cooldown manager based on that feedback. That was the whole reason to launch it early so that we could, this is what we think it should be. Obviously it didn’t have everything attached to it, but we had enough there just to get the dialogue going

We want to change the way that we’re engaging with this so that it’s very, very open and players are getting their hands on things very, very early so that we can react to that feedback and this gives us that time.

I followed up with the pair, asking what they had to say to players who weren’t in the alpha or beta and couldn’t see these updates in real-time, who were now afraid that the game was about to become unplayable for them for whatever reason. I described my own scenario: I play regularly, I raid, and I use WeakAuras to track cooldowns and abilities to improve my play, but don’t really want to use the “one-button rotation” or other easier methods because I still enjoy the challenge of mastering my rotation. I use DBM for audio cues to help me understand when I’m standing in fire on the ground, especially when that fire’s difficult to see. Sure, I can play the game without these things, but it’ll make a major aspect of it that I enjoy (raiding) much more difficult, maybe to the point where I don’t want to do it anymore.

Hazzikostas gave me a lengthy response, which I’m reprinting in full below:

Philosophically, and just to be clear, I know there are many, many players who share your exact perspective and use add-ons in the same way and have the same concerns. Ultimately, if you are standing in something that is lethal and is going to kill your character, and the only way that you are aware of that fact is because you have an air horn that’s playing from an add-on, we have dropped the ball as developers. And that should be on us to fix.

“Purple fire in a purple raid,” I interjected here, referencing the current raid, Manaforge Omega. It’s, uh, very purple.

Yeah, well, yes, and we should stop doing red on red and purple on purple, and that feedback has been very well noted. I mean we’ve also continued to make visual effects improvements as we rolled out during War Within, with much crisper edges on things like this isn’t just a UI effort, it’s not just an encounter design effort, it’s combat design. It’s our artists, it’s our sound team, it’s everyone.

To ultimately take away this crutch that we have been leaning on to some extent we’re players who haven’t been using these tools, have honestly been playing a game, a version of the game that was in some ways unfair. We want to level the playing field, and ensure that everyone has the information at their disposal as part of the base experience that they need to succeed. And from a philosophical perspective as we approach difficulty tuning, our goal is for difficulty to be the same as it used to be. If your guild is accustomed to taking, I don’t know, X weeks to get ahead of the curve, or to clear normal, or Mythic or whatever tier you’re doing, it should be roughly that same amount of time. You should spend the same number of hours or wipes to learn a boss.

Just, ideally the things that are being tested are going to be more a product of coordinating, collaborating with your teammates and understanding, solving the puzzle of the encounter in a way that is this unique MMO PVE gameplay, as opposed to forcing us to test Twitch reaction times because there are a few other things that we can do that add-ons won’t solve. Or forcing, or players, as many people grumble about spending a bunch of time configuring WeakAuras or figuring out who has theirs improperly set up so that the raid assignment thing works correctly.

That’s not what raiding should be about. Ideally it’s about the gameplay playing the mechanics, but at the end of the day, again, as I said, part of why we’re rolling this out with the new expansion, part of why we have our first raid encounter available for testing in the first week of alpha, is to make sure that we’re getting all the data we need to tune the experience appropriately.

If maybe people need a couple more seconds to react to something and get into position, or there shouldn’t be quite as many of this debuff or this mechanic going out at the same time for it to be reasonable from a cognitive load perspective for a group of humans who aren’t using assistance to help manage that load. But at the end of the day, our goal is just to create fun encounters that are challenging people the way they’re accustomed to being challenged that still feel really satisfying to overcome, and I think we’re confident that we have a path to get there.

Ultimately, it’s unclear how all this is going to shake out by the time Midnight actually, officially drops at some unknown date in early 2026. Maybe Blizzard’s tools will be so good and its encounter design will be so stellar we’ll never need anything else. Maybe they’ll totally drop the ball and a bunch of raiders will quit. Maybe they’ll back off, and WeakAuras won’t shut down after all. There are a lot of possibilities between here and now, but at this moment, the community of people who have been playing in this very specific way for decades now are pretty reasonably freaked out. It’s on Blizzard’s team, and its plans for Midnight, to cool those fears in the coming months.

For our impressions of all the bits of Midnight we’ve seen so far, sans add-ons, check out our preview of the new expansion.

Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. You can find her posting on BlueSky @duckvalentine.bsky.social. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.

Pokémon TCG’s latest expansion, Mega Evolution, has only just landed, yet it’s already reshaping collector wishlists and competitive deck-building alike. From glittering Special Illustration Rares to powerful Mega ex cards, the set has proven to be a goldmine for players and investors.

Even when the set first launched, there were already those that had been declared the most valuable cards in Mega Evolution. Days later, TCGPlayer’s best-seller charts have now revealed which cards are flying off digital shelves, and why fans are rushing to pick them up.

Here are the most in-demand singles from Mega Evolution that are almost certainly worth chasing.

TL;DR: 10 Best-Selling Pokémon Cards from Mega Evolution

For those who want to jump right in, here are the top-selling Pokémon cards from the Mega Evolution set on TCGPlayer so far. The Mega Evolution expansion is already a collector’s dream, with Mega Lucario ex (Holo Rare) topping sales at a $1,299.99 market value & Mega Gardevoir ex close behind at $799.99.

Mega Venusaur ex ($499.99) and Marshadow ($199.99) round out the heavy hitters, while Lillie’s Determination and even Gumshoos are proving surprisingly popular. Below, however, check out the full rundown of the ten hottest cards fans are chasing right now.

10. Mega Latias ex – 181/132 (Special Illustration Rare)