The post Chronicles: Alexander the Great for Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition – Pre-order Now appeared first on Xbox Wire.
Category: Video Games
Donkey Kong Bananza: DK Island and Emerald Rush Review
I’ve put over 100 hours into Donkey Kong Bananza since July. I reached 100% completion on my first playthrough, did a zero-banana run on my second, and I’ve been using a third to practice crazy speedrun techniques and push DK’s incredible movement in more extreme ways. Two months after giving Bananza a 10 in my original review, I remain in awe of how DK’s frenetic, destructive abilities work masterfully in tandem with the underground’s meticulously-designed breakable environments. Nintendo nailed the relationship between Bananza’s world and its main character, and the new DK Island and Emerald Rush DLC is a really fun excuse to keep experimenting in this playground in a remixed, more frantic way, even if a slight lack of content and a few minor issues keep it from reaching the same inspired heights as the base game.
Before we get too far into things, a quick note. Bananza’s DLC is only accessible after clearing the main story, and it acts as somewhat of an extended postgame. I’m not going to outright spoil Bananza here, but if you’re still drilling your way to the planet core and don’t want to know anything about it, you may want to come back to this review once you’ve reached the end credits. That said, you should also do so before you dive too far past them, because the DLC makes some helpful changes to the original endgame grind that you may want to know about. There are two intertwined halves of the DLC to discuss: DK Island is a new level to explore, while Emerald Rush is a roguelite take on Bananza that makes up the majority of the content found in this combined package.
DK Island is a wonderful love letter to Rare’s Donkey Kong Country trilogy and Donkey Kong 64. It’s a nostalgic return to where DK platformers really began, comparable to exploring Super Mario 64’s Mushroom Kingdom in Super Mario Odyssey’s postgame. It’s overflowing with great references, from obvious ones like DK’s treehouse and King K. Rool’s Gangplank Galleon from Donkey Kong Country, to deeper cuts like DKC 2’s goal target tucked away in the corner on the ship’s main deck. As a huge fan of Donkey Kong Jungle Beat – the last DK platformer Nintendo developed internally prior to Bananza – my favorite part of DK Island has to be the bongos out at sea. There are so many more references to DK history I don’t want to give away, but if you have any love for this series, you’ll probably get a kick out of discovering all its easter eggs too.
Beyond that, though, there’s actually not that much to do on DK Island. There are no Banandium Gems or fossils to hunt down and no challenge rooms to conquer. Instead, the gold bonus stages found in Bananza’s main layers are all collected here, making DK Island a convenient place to grind for cash. Bananza’s original postgame sees Grumpy Kong demanding tens of thousands of gold pieces to unlock some of the final collectibles and reach 100% completion, and those who have access to DK Island will have a much easier time grinding than I did before the DLC was out. Elsewhere, DK’s old parrot companion Squawks is here, and he will hunt down one of DK Island’s dozens of collectible statues in exchange for Banandium Chips. Shiny replicas of Bananza’s allies, enemies, and Kongs live in galleries across DK Island, adding to its value as a nostalgic DK history museum. In classic Bananza fashion, you can pick them up, turf surf on them, and use them to carve through the island’s central mountain. You’ll need to grind thousands of Banandium Chips to buy them all, but thankfully, those are the main reward of the Emerald Rush mode.
Besides DK Island’s role as a rush of 90s nostalgia and a place to store cool trinkets, there’s not much to it, and I wouldn’t recommend buying the DLC if you’re only interested in this component. It’s a little odd that DK Island wasn’t included as a postgame reward in the base game since it’s so comparable to Odyssey’s Mushroom Kingdom, and gating it behind paid DLC feels kind of like a money-hungry move from Nintendo. This is the company that just charged $10 for Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour, though, so I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised at this somewhat eyeroll-worthy choice.
Fortunately, Bananza’s DLC does a much better job justifying its $20 price tag in its Emerald Rush mode. Void Kong has found his way to DK Island, and he’s moved on from his obsession with Banandium Gold to set his sights on a new prize: emerald ore… which is the exact same, but green. Void hires DK and Pauline to collect as much emerald ore as possible, and this introduction includes some cute followups and resolutions for Bananza’s main story and characters.
I’ve seen some online chatter calling Emerald Rush a simple minigame that should have been free, but it’s much more than that: it’s a fully-featured side mode that turns Bananza’s destruction-based platforming into a fun, replayable roguelite. Each run takes place across a series of rounds – ranging from six to 15 depending on the difficulty level selected – where you have 100 seconds to reach a quota of emerald ore to pay Void. If you don’t reach the goal, your run comes to an end right there. If you do, you can keep working on your build for the rest of the timer to stock up for the next round, where the quota progressively multiples.
Emerald Rush feels like a combination of Splatoon’s Salmon Run and Side Order modes. Personality-wise, it clearly takes inspiration from Salmon Run: both feature a hilariously mean boss screaming at you to meet your quota through a walkie talkie over increasingly difficult rounds. This is also Nintendo’s first take on a roguelite since last year’s excellent Side Order DLC for Splatoon 3 which, notably, also came bundled with a nostalgic hub to explore. It feels like Donkey Kong is following the exact same playbook, as Emerald Rush features dozens of perks that impact your score multiplier in a very similar fashion.
Each run of Emerald Rush begins by stripping DK of all his skills – including his five Bananza transformations at higher difficulties – and it’s up to you to power him back up while also gathering piles of emerald ore. This is done by frantically exploring layers, fast traveling around with a limited number of barrel cannons, collecting emerald bananas and fossils that restore DK’s skills and give you the choice of one of three perks, and completing goals Void Kong assigns you at specific locations across the map. I love starting from nothing, giving me a place to put all of DK’s high-level base techniques to use, and I found I was able to reach a lot of areas in really cool, satisfying ways – for example, using a chunk to essentially quadruple jump to a platform I traditionally would have used Ostrich Bananza to reach. Emerald Rush challenges advanced players to go for the highest score possible, and there’s always room to grow by deepening your understanding of how DK moves.
But even if you’re not interested in crazy parkour tricks, the most important part of Emerald Rush are the perks that alter how much emerald ore appears. There are generic power-ups like generating more when defeating a certain type of enemy, but the most exciting ways to score are the Groove subset of perks, which revolve around multipliers that increase the more you perform a specific action. For instance, my favorite is Turf Groove, where more emerald ore appears based on the total distance traveled by Turf Surfing. The second this perk shows up, my whole playstyle changes. Suddenly, I’m trying to get everywhere by Turf Surfing, which is a big challenge on denser layers. Emerald Rush leads to scenarios you’d never see in the base game, and with such an incredible foundation to build a roguelite on, it’s always fun seeing how you can push the mechanics.
Stacking multiple perks like this on top of each other can lead to completely busted results, and I scored well over one million points on a few runs where my target goal was less than half that. If you thought the base game had a lot happening on-screen at once, Emerald Rush achieves a new level of unregulated chaos, like one run where I got tons of bonus emerald ore for defeating enemies as Zebra Bananza, leading to 30 minutes of sprinting around nonstop, destroying everything in sight to flood the screen with an overwhelming, borderline unbelievable amount of emerald ore.
It’s not always a breeze, though. Like most roguelites, a lot of your success depends on what skills randomly show up, and I lost multiple runs by banking on a certain Bananza to spawn by building my perks around it, and ultimately failing when it never arrived. Speaking of Bananzas, Emerald Rush really rewards mastery over these five powered-up forms, as knowing the best way to take advantage of their unique strengths and swapping between them on the fly results in a high skill ceiling fitting of an endgame mode.
I do wish Emerald Rush went a little bit further with its abilities, though. Seeing big numbers get bigger is always enjoyable, and the way Emerald Rush overlays your multiplier onto every individual explosion is a nice touch – but with a few rare exceptions, there are no brand new abilities to find, and the perks simply make DK’s already-existing moves worth more points. It changes the scoring and the way you play, but beyond reclaiming powers I’m already very used to using in the base game, it never meaningfully expands the options available to you. The best roguelites make you feel more powerful throughout a run by giving you fresh moves as you go, and adding more exciting techniques to DK’s toolkit could have elevated this from a good roguelite mode to a great one.
Completing runs earns you piles of Banandium Chips and rating points that unlock cute bonus costumes, more powerful perks in the rotation, and new layers to tackle. Emerald Rush doesn’t take place in new areas besides DK Island. Instead, DK and Pauline return to familiar locations from Bananza’s campaign, and one of the coolest parts of this mode is how it rewards you for being intimately familiar with these layers. Emerald versions of Banandium Gems and fossils are found in the same locations as their counterparts in the main campaign, and knowing exactly where to find a vein of three fossils or a bunch of bananas makes Emerald Rush feel like a cool B-side to the main story. And, the Getaways you’ve built during the main story become essential fast travel points during a run, further incentivizing you to explore each layer to the fullest.
In that same vein, Void Kong’s objective will sometimes vaguely order you to do something like give Cranky Kong a high five, or take a swim in a layer that doesn’t have much water in it. Unlike the usual orders, these objectives don’t place a marker on your map, leaving it up to you to find them on your own. Thanks to my 100+ hours and multiple playthroughs, it didn’t take long for me to pinpoint Cranky hanging out on a big tree branch in the Forest Layer, or to find a quick pond to dive into in the Hilltop Layer. I initially thought reusing areas from the base game would be a weakness of Emerald Rush, but the way it leverages your knowledge of familiar locations is a really smart, novel way to effectively reuse old content.
Still, this is another place I wish Emerald Rush had added a little bit extra to keep things fresh. There are no new enemy types, and it never introduces boss encounters that could’ve nicely broken up the pace of runs that last up to 45 minutes. I reached the end credits after about six hours, and while the DLC’s postgame opens up several more layers to play Emerald Rush in, I’m starting to feel a little burnt out on the formula. I’ll probably only stick around to reach 100% completion out of obligation to the base game I’ve so thoroughly completed. And when I do return, I’ll almost certainly throw on my own music or a podcast – the pair of main themes is undeniably catchy with flourishes from Pauline that change depending on your active transformation, but I could definitely go without hearing either for a while after 10 hours in the DLC.
Here’s a game where you have to end parallel worlds that only takes 10 minutes to beat for “busy working adults”
There is nothing inherently awful in a game being obscenely long, in fact it can be quite pleasurable to get to know a digital world so intimately. The issue is that I am an “adult” who has to “work” to pay my “bills” and “taxes,” so I don’t always have time for such things. How some of you manage to fit in multiple playthroughs of Persona games will always be an enigma to me. But, as I sit here in my despair, along comes 34EVERLAST, a game designed to be beaten in “as little as 10 minutes,” expressly designed for “busy working adults.”
Here’s What I Thought of the Yu-Gi-Oh 2025 Mega Pack Tin, and the 10 Cards Everyone Wants Most
After spending a lot of time playing Yu-Gi-Oh! in my younger years, I must admit that I did end up swaying towards other card games in the years since. But, that’s changed again recently, and I’ve appreciated that Konami is putting in the work to bring new players in (and lapsed players back like myself) to this most unique of card games.
I’ve been loving my reentry into the TCG, with last year seeing the arrival of a Two-Player Starter Set and some 25th Anniversary reprints, alongside the Early Days Collection that offers a fantastic nostalgia hit for digital players. New this year is the 2025 Mega Pack Tin, and Konami kindly sent it over for me to take a look. So, let’s discuss my impressions and then run through what the big chase cards are from this year’s Mega-Pack, even if I had no luck in pulling them!
The 2025 Mega-Pack Tin Is Great For Collectors
Kicking off with the tin itself, it’s about the same size as the Legendary Collection and Two-Player Starter Set that we’ve seen in recent years.
It’s worth stressing that there are three packs inside, so the tin is far from full, but the packs included are Mega-Packs. You can buy them with the tin, or in a Tuck Box instead.
These contain 1 Starlight Rare, 1 Prismatic Super Rare, 3 Ultra Rares and 8 Commons for building out your collection, so you’re getting 39 cards in total out of the full sets 450 cards.
It’s a drop in the ocean when you look at it that way, but there are some great reprints on offer from across the game’s long history. Many of which you should be keeping an eye out for.
I’ve always been impressed by Yu-Gi-Oh’s consistent art. Even common cards like Zoma the Earthbound look like a final boss from a video game. Still, as a big fan of dragons in any medium, my favorite has to be the hilariously-named Number 95: Galaxy-Eyes Dark Matter Dragon.
Given there are cards that run the gamut from the classic Pot of Greed to Destiny Hero – Destroyer Phoenix Enforcer, there’s a huge array of options you could find, whether you’re buying pack bundles or the tin.
If you do get the tin, you’ll also find a trio of card dividers that call to mind classic playing cards with their two-sided designs. There’s one for Yugi, Kaiba, and Joey, with their respective monsters on the opposite side of the card, and the designs are inverted on the other side.
It’s a nice touch, and while it’s a little redundant given how large the tin is considering the number of cards, it feels like a great way to organize your deck.
The 10 Most In-Demand Cards From the 2025 Mega Pack Set
I enjoyed my time opening the 2025 Mega Tin, and while I wasn’t pulling anything super rare, I can still confidently say it’s a fun way to dig for chase cards without breaking the bank. It would definitely make a good stocking filler going into the holiday period as well.
That being said, what’s actually popping off from the new set? For starters, S:P Little Knight is rearing its head… again. Turning games since its release, it’s the one of the most popular pick-ups 2025 tins right now (according to data from our friends at TCGPlayer), and well worth chasing… or even buying standalone if you so choose.
Infinite Impermanence is another standout you’d rather not see played against you; it’s endlessly reprinted yet never cheap, and now back to flex in shinier rarities. Alongside other trap cards Dominus Purge & Impulse, these are demanding medium to high price tags on resale right now, with market values shifting between $20-$34 at the time of publication.
And then the Mulcharmys; Fuwalos already has eight rarities and can still be hard to find even on the secondary market, while Purulia keeps creeping up despite have five printings of its own. Both are in high demand, and both are worth keeping an eye out for when cracking packs.
There’s plenty more to consider in the top ten most popular cards from Yu-Gi-Oh’s 2025 Mega Packs, so ensure you’re also looking out for the likes of Primite Lordly Lode, The Black Goat Laughs, Lacrima the Crimson Tears, Fiendsmith’s Tract, and more.
Lloyd Coombes is an experienced freelancer in tech, gaming and fitness seen at Polygon, Eurogamer, Macworld, TechRadar and many more. He’s a big fan of Magic: The Gathering and other collectible card games, much to his wife’s dismay.
This article contains contributions from Robert Anderson.
Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2’s controversial DLC clans will be in the base game after all
About a month ago, it was announced that Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 would only feature four different clans in its base game, with two extra clans coming as day one DLC. This, unsurprisingly, was received like a wet fart on a hot Sunday at church, with publisher Paradox later saying that they would make “adjustments” based on the response. And as confirmed in a press release and new trailer, said adjustments are the fact that these two clans, Lasombra and Toreador, will be included in the base game at launch.
Guide: Where To Pre-Order Metroid Prime 4: Beyond For Nintendo Switch 1 + 2, Plus New Metroid amiibo
Prime time.
It’s been a long time coming, but the time has come: Metroid Prime 4: Beyond pre-orders are live for Switch 1 and 2.
You’ve had years to ponder this next chapter in the Prime series, so let’s dispense with the details and get down to things. In this guide, we’ve rounded up the best Metroid Prime 4 pre-order deals, including any pre-order bonus gifts from the biggest outlets in the US and UK.
Read the full article on nintendolife.com
Creating Creepy Redneck Dinosaur Mansion 3
“Freeze!” shouts our protagonist, J.J. Hardwell, who in exploring the titular creepy mansion finds himself in a green room which has the statement piece of “T-Rex Head in a giant jar of green liquid”. “You freeze! I’ve got a gun!” responds the tiny Dinosaur – named Dino Guard Wally – holding a pistol that is only slightly smaller than the dinosaur itself. “Oh my God you can talk.” responds J.J. and, naturally, we begin a match-3 puzzle battle between the two of them. Welcome to Creepy Redneck Dinosaur Mansion 3.
Creepy Redneck Dinosaur Mansion 3 is the world’s first “Matchroidvania”, by which we mean it is a match-3 game that also takes the “start again with new knowledge and abilities to unlock new parts of the map” element of a metroidvania. It’s also very much a comedy, which is inspired by classic survival horror games, and an RPG now I come to think about it. You know what, let’s watch the trailer together, it’s easier.
“But what about Creepy Redneck Dinosaur Mansion 1 or 2, did I miss those?” Well, no, until very recently neither existed – Creepy Redneck Dinosaur Mansion 1: Re-Raptored from Pedalboard Games is actually in development right now – so you’ve not missed anything. CRDM3, in the universe of the game, exists as an intriguing sequel to the critically acclaimed original Creepy Redneck Dinosaur Mansion, and the much more divisive big swing that was Creepy Redneck Dinosaur Mansion 2. Again, neither of these exist. I’m sort of getting ahead of myself though, because what you’re probably now asking is “Chris, mate, how did this game happen then? Come on now.” Well, don’t let me tell you, let’s ask the developers!
“We’ve had a few projects that come from my love of a specific mechanic, or angle on a mechanic.” says Studio Head Xalavier Nelson Jr. “And then there is a “bit” that I can’t let go of and over time I realize those two things can co-exist in the same space.” That angle on a mechanic was something Xalavier had loved about Puzzle Quest, the tantalizing idea that with a match-3 mechanic, you could really do anything.“You could negotiate with a guard via match-3, you could lock-pick a door!” It was taking this concept and just running as far as he could with it that unlocked Creepy Redneck Dinosaur Mansion 3.
“I had also, for years, wanted to make a game called Creepy Redneck Dinosaur Mansion 3. When the lightbulb went off and I realised this game could be brought to life with this mechanic I really believed in? Suddenly it coalesced and something existed thanks to the talents of many people over the years.”
Here at Strange Scaffold we tend to make tightly scoped games which in turn means we can work with smaller budgets and shorter than usual development times. CRDM3 however, has a longer development history than other titles. “Like I Am Your Beast,” – Xalavier Nelson Jr, Studio Head – “this was a Strange Scaffold project that got cancelled like, two or three times.” Getting Creepy Redneck Dinosaur Mansion 3 up and running was not easy, with the team being told “nobody cares about match-3” during one pitch meeting. This, along with other projects like Bass Reeves Can’t Die being cancelled had left the game, and the studio itself, looking at a bit of a darker future.
The success of both El Paso, Elsewhere and I Am Your Beast, however, had begun to turn things around along with the support of publisher Frosty Pop. And what could make for a tightly scoped, shorter development cycle better than a game that had already had some work done on it? When Colin McInerney, CRDM3 Co-Lead, Content Designer and Writer, stepped into the project, “There was two years of development on three different versions of this game” so, to say there was a Task ahead of them would be an understatement.
“A bunch of that code ended up being weirdly load bearing” explained Dan Pearce, Lead Programmer and Designer, “it ended up being if I take these variables out that we’re not actually using, none of the stuff that has just been developed is going to work properly.”
Now, while at first this seemed like it could be like diving into a web, having Dan join the game after development on I Am Your Beast finished meant that you had someone who knew how everything worked! The dream of all game development! This in turn led to the rest of the team being able to navigate development at a greater speed.
The team was also incredibly fortunate that back in 2022 Background Artist Judith McCroary had already created a whole bunch of stunning artwork that was ready to populate the various rooms you can explore in the mansion. “Our inspirations then were more click-based games, in the early iterations it was more roguelite.” But they still had a solid visual identity in place, “we wanted to keep it painterly, because we already had the character artist Marianee Canales, and she had already established a lot of that look.” And when it came time to expand the idea of the Mansion as a “Resident Evil”-like exploratory space, again, Judith absolutely nailed the look everyone was imagining.
Creepy Redneck Dinosaur Mansion 3 was a labour of love, from a studio known for throwing a lot of passion and heart into their titles. Honestly, to tell you too much more about Creepy Redneck Dinosaur Mansion 3 would spoil it, so, I won’t! I will say this, however. Of all the Strange Scaffold games, Creepy Redneck Dinosaur Mansion 3 is my personal favourite.
We have put out some wonderful games, but none have encapsulated the weirdness, the humour, the confidence and the open heart that I see in the studio quite as much as CRDM3. It has the “okay, I’m gonna try one more run” addictiveness packed with laughs, a wonderful soundtrack and beautiful artwork. I doubt many would expect to feel very emotional at the end of a game called Creepy Redneck Dinosaur Mansion 3, but there I was on first completion – proud and overcome with emotion. I can’t think of a higher recommendation than that.
Creepy Redneck Dinosaur Mansion 3
Strange Scaffold
$19.99
$17.99
Creepy Redneck Dinosaur Mansion 3 is “committing to the bit” so hard that it hurts. It’s a sequel to a game series that doesn’t exist, complete with lore and a fictional development team. It’s a game where match-3 is used not just for combat, but for lockpicking doors, debating robots, and swallowing a bunch of diamonds in front of a notorious gem thief so that he can’t steal them first. It is, all genre elements considered, a match-3 survival horror comedy RPG metroidvania, and it’s rad as hell.
20 years ago, Creepy Redneck Dinosaur Mansion emerged as a smash-hit genre fusion, casting fan-favorite protagonist Jack Briar in a fast-paced puzzle adventure.
8 years ago, Creepy Redneck Dinosaur Mansion 3 was announced on the biggest stage in gaming.
This is what happened next.
The post Creating Creepy Redneck Dinosaur Mansion 3 appeared first on Xbox Wire.
Battlefield 6 hands-on with Operation Firestorm, Mirak Valley
The thing that makes Battlefield feel like Battlefield is the enormous scope of its maps and the many ways you’ll fight your way across them. After Battlefield 6’s open beta test, I got another hands-on chance to play the game—this time, on two of its biggest maps and with the game’s full slate of vehicles strafing through combat.
While my first hands-on experience with Battlefield 6 gave a sense of weapons, the return of character classes, and the variety in map design, this look focused completely on Battlefield at its biggest and most explosive. Here’s everything I saw through the four-hour play session, including the return of Operation Firestorm and the new Escalation mode.
New maps, new mode
This hands-on session featured two of Battlefield 6’s biggest All-Out Warfare maps: Mirak Valley and Operation Firestorm. It also featured the new Escalation mode, which makes excellent use of those huge maps, with players fighting spread-out battles in the beginning of a match, only for the area of operation to become smaller to make for more intense skirmishes.
Mirak Valley — Battlefield 6’s largest map at launch is set in Tajikistan, just like the Liberation Peak map. It combines wide-open spaces with a big, burgeoning construction zone in the center and a small village at the far side, supporting both close-quarters infantry gameplay in and around the structures, and plenty of vehicle combat outside of them. Trenches cut through part of the map to allow infantry to move around while keeping their heads down to avoid snipers, although staying out of the sights of tanks is tougher.
Operation Firestorm — Operation Firestorm turns an oil field and refinery into a huge combined-arms battlefield with a mix of wide-open outdoor areas, high smokestacks that are great sniper nests, and lots of interior spaces. What was most notable was the application of Battlefield 6’s new destruction system to this revived Battlefield 3 map. There are plenty of buildings for infantry to fight in and use for cover, but with tanks, fighter jets, and attack helicopters on the prowl, you can never take the safety of four walls for granted.
Escalation — This mode is new for Battlefield 6, combining elements of Conquest and Breakthrough to offer both a wide-open approach to a battle, but with some more strategic aspects. The game starts with capture points littered across the map. When one team holds the majority of capture points, they start to “capture territory,” with a bar filling up on the screen. If the team manages to hold the majority of capture points until the bar fills completely, they score a point. The first team to score three points this way wins, but each time a team scores, one capture point is removed from the map. That forces players closer together, making them fight harder for fewer capture points.
Class training
Choose your class training — When I went hands-on with Battlefield 6 at its multiplayer reveal, I only got to see half of the class “Training” elements that will launch with the game. These are specializations that let you alter a particular class’s focus and role. Each class has two training options.
Assault: Frontliner and Breacher — The Frontliner training puts focus on damage recovery and a faster capture rate on objectives, while the Breacher training gives you additional grenades and a faster reload for room-clearing weapons like the Incendiary Shotgun and Breaching Launcher.
Support: Combat Medic and Fire Support — Everybody knows Support’s focus on keeping other players alive, but if you don’t like running around with defibrillators to resurrect squaddies as a Combat Medic, you can also go the Fire Support training route. Its focus is on creating defensible positions, providing suppressing fire, and dropping smoke to cover allied movements.
Engineer: Anti-Armor and Combat Engineer — Engineers’ Anti-Armor training gives them an advantage in taking down opposing vehicles, providing extra rockets and dampening the effects of enemy repairs. If you’re not a fan of always carrying a rocket launcher, however, there’s the Combat Engineer training, which can boost the rest of your team’s gear to make it more effective and enhance the repair capabilities of your tools.
Recon: Sniper and Spec Ops — The Sniper training gives Recon players better awareness, spotting targets at a longer range and dropping players with headshots so their teammates can’t revive them. With the Spec Ops training, you’re harder to detect, producing less sound when you move and leaving the In Combat state faster when you’re prone, so your teammates can spawn in on your location more quickly.
Adjustments since the beta
The Battlefield team has taken on a lot of feedback from players since its open beta in August, and we saw some of those adjustments in matches.
Tactical movement with less momentum — In the open beta, players could be pretty quick and pretty bouncy with the new Kinesthetic Combat system. Momentum has been dialed back a bit since then so that players can’t chain so many quick movements together. Moving around maps still feels quick and responsive thanks to lots of options, like sliding, diving, and moving more quickly when you put your weapons away.
A little less sniper dominance — There are some very long sightlines on both Mirak Valley and Operation Firestorm, and snipers were a major force in all the matches I played. That said, both maps have been designed with a wide variety of terrain and structures that provide a lot of cover. Snipers have also been tuned down a bit; they’re still dangerous, but you’re a little less likely to get dropped before you know you’re under fire.
More weapons feel useful — You can also feel the adjustments the Battlefield team has made to some of the weapons. In my first hands-on with the game, some guns didn’t feel especially viable; the light machine gun that’s default for the Support class, for instance, felt like it struggled to secure kills at any range. I’m happy to report that Medics can now secure a few kills as well as lay down covering fire for teammates. And the M87A1 Shotgun that dominated the beta is now a little less terrifying, but still feels great when clearing corners or a trench.
Speedy vehicles — The variety of vehicles in Battlefield 6 makes for some very intense and surprising moments, especially with its destruction system. All ground vehicles now also have a brief boost, which is especially great for dodging fire or getting heavy tanks over treacherous terrain.
Battlefield 6‘s launch is quickly approaching—it hits PS5 on October 10—so you won’t have to wait long to jump into a tank or a helicopter and try some of those new maps, modes, and adjustments for yourself.
Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 Adds Clans to Base Game After Fan Outcry Over Launch DLC
Publishers Paradox Interactive and White Wolf, as well as developer The Chinese Room, have announced that the Lasombra and Toreador clans will be available in the base Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 experience following backlash from players.
The team behind the long-in-development sequel revealed its launch shakeup today alongside two new story packs, which will be available as part of the Premium Edition’s Expansion Pass in 2026. Additionally, Paradox, White Wolf, and Chinese Room have pulled back the curtain on a new Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 overview trailer for players to sink their teeth into while they wait for its October 21, 2025, release date.
Fans expressed disappointment in the handling of the Lasombra and Toreador clans when they learned they would be accessible at launch as paid DLC or via the pricier Premium Edition. The uproar led to Paradox moving to offer refunds to those who pre-ordered through the PlayStation Store.
“Thanks to our community for the frank feedback on Bloodlines 2 and the Premium Edition. That feedback made it clear: Lasombra and Toreador belong in the base game, so that is what we are doing,” White Wolf executive vice president and Bloodlines 2 executive producer Marco Behrmann said in a statement. “We’d also like to thank The Chinese Room for their quick turnaround on the concepts for the post-launch Story Packs. We’re constantly impressed by their creativity and skill in weaving enticing narrative threads that expand on the main story in Bloodlines 2.”
Developing…
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).
Floating island survival game Lost Skies hits 1.0 today, with a few caveats
Lost Skies has left its early access release today, entering into its 1.0 version of the game. If you feel slightly surprised by that news, so do I, because it only launched into early access in April of this year, pretty much exactly five months ago. Every game will do early access differently of course, but it seems like Lost Skies could have done with a bit more time in the oven.