Stardew Valley developer ConcernedApe has confirmed the fans' suspicions: content update 1.6 is due to launch in 2024 after all! Though update 1.6 won't be the biggest the game's received yet, it has ended up being bigger than the developer expected, which is good news for the players.

As per some of ConcernedApe's previous announcements, Stardew Valley update 1.6 will be adding new tidbits and goodies to virtually every aspect of the game, and it is now officially in the "bug-fixing and polishing phase until it's ready for release," ConcernedApe has recently confirmed on Twitter.

Stardew Valley 1.6 is coming soon(ish)

Those who haven't kept up with the news will be thrilled to hear that Stardew Valley update 1.6 adds all of the following to the mix:

• An all-new "major" festival
• Two all-new mini-festivals
• Bonus late-game content
• New items and crafting recipes
• Joja alternatives to endgame quest lines
• 100+ new lines of dialogue
• Cold weather outfits for villagers
• 6-player multiplayer on PC
• New farm type
• New secrets
• A wealth of small additions and adjustments

This list, note, isn't what you'd call "exhaustive." ConcernedApe himself said that the list featured above is merely a "sneak peek" to the full list of additions, suggesting a fairly massive bump-up in content. Whatever the case may be, it's clear that Stardew Valley will be even better and more interesting after update 1.6 hits. It may even be enough to tide you over until Haunted Chocolatier comes out!

Curiously, Stardew Valley isn't the only hugely successful indie game that's getting a humongous content update in 2024. Project Zomboid's Build 42, for one, has been in active production since early 2021, and the developer has finally come out to announce it, too, would be released sometime this year. The overlap between Stardew and Zomboid isn't necessarily overwhelmingly massive, granted, but this does suggest that 2024 might end up being the Year of Awesome Indie Updates, as it were. Fun to think about, if nothing else!

The post Stardew Valley 1.6 ‘absolutely’ releasing in 2024 appeared first on Destructoid.

While there's certainly something to be said about Turn 10's overreliance on temporary, live-service content in Forza Motorsport, the studio has been adding lots to the game post-release. All-new tracks are usually the highlights of their respective updates, and Update 5's Nürburgring Nordschleife will be no different.

Slated for release sometime around mid-February, Forza Motorsport's Update 5 seems to be positively loaded with fixes and improvements. Important as they may be, these fixes aren't nearly as exciting as the long-anticipated release of the legendary 20.8-kilometer Nordschleife track, coming as a follow-up to Update 4's Daytona International Speedway and Update 3's Hockenheim. In comparison, Nordschleife is supposed to be a fair bit longer and more challenging, hopefully rivaling the racing heft of its real-world inspiration.

Forza Motorsport's Update 5 features the Nürburgring Nordschleife

Previously demoed as part of January 2024's Forza Monthly livestream, Nürburgring Nordschleife is one of the most popular and interesting racing tracks in the world, and the fact that it wasn't available in Forza Motorsport on day one was, arguably, a serious misstep for racing aficionados.

Thankfully, Turn 10 is now aiming to resolve this fault once and for all, allowing players to race on the Nordschleife in any of Forza Motorsport's available game modes.

Whether you're looking to try and beat 2022's production car lap record (6:35.183, for posterity's sake) or simply level up your vehicles on a fun and challenging new track, Nordschleife will be yours to do with as you please as soon as Update 5 hits your download queue.

In a broader sense, Forza Motorsport's Update 5 also marks the beginning of Turn 10's long-term fix-up plan for the game, as outlined in the studio's announcement from earlier this year. More specifically, Turn 10 promises that Update 5 will include all of the following improvements:

• Option to skip practice in Career Mode events via the pre-race menu
• Practice Session save point
• Livery Editor fixes and quality-of-life improvements
• Resolved letterboxing while using Photo Mode on non-baseline aspect rations (e.g. 21:9)
• PC performance improvements (reduced CPU spikes and better GPU utilization) and framerate consistency
• Resolved crashes caused by multi-threaded rendering
• Fixed performance issues caused by video setting changes

The full list is, of course, far more exhaustive, but this should give you an idea of what to expect out of Update 5.

Naturally, players should still expect the majority of newly added content to be of the temporary sort, with new Career Mode championships replacing the currently available roster. That is the nature of Forza Motorsport's live-service approach, however. As long as there's some evergreen content dropping in with large batches of fixes for all platforms, most players should find the game's FOMO relatively easy to ignore.

The post Forza Motorsport is getting the Nordschleife track at last appeared first on Destructoid.

After last week's vote on this year's Destiny 2 Festival of the Lost armor designs, Bungie has already published the winning sets. By popular vote, we've got Evil Wizard Hunters and Warlocks, and Good Wizard Titans, but the fashion community is not at all thrilled with the results.

For years now, Bungie has held seasonal votes for Destiny 2's Halloween Festival of the Lost events, allowing the community to decide which armor sets would eventually be made available. Naturally, not everyone is always thrilled with the results of the vote, but this year's results have riled up way more of a crowd than usual.

Destiny 2's Evil Wizard Armor wins

Following the announcement of the vote, a surprisingly widespread array of threads has popped up on the biggest Destiny 2 fashion subreddit. Some people are unhappy with the perceived "edginess" of the Evil Wizard sets, which is a fairly understandable take, all things considered:

• I'm so sad, posted GlassChopsticks
• Mindless hunters win the day again, says Curious_Savings_4751
• Why must you be like this, seriously, asks xXLjordSireXx
• Why couldn't you all be like Titans and just use 1 of the other 20 edgy sets we have, says HoneyBadger1342

Each of these threads has been positively inundated with comments from community members unhappy with the results of the vote: "Very sorry we exist in a community that is about 70% teenage boys who own hoodies with roses on them and they all have one syllable user names," said user pige0nzwastaken.

Naturally, many of the comments have simply been posted to oppose those who bemoan the voted-in armor sets. Epic_potato420, for example, said "Cry me a potion scarf boy," referencing the Good Wizard Hunter armor.

Of course, given the results, it's clear which armor sets have interested players the most, but it is quite fascinating to see how big of a disconnect there is between the DestinyFashion subreddit and the Destiny community at large. Whatever the case may be, it's going to be fairly easy to slap edgy or non-edgy Shaders onto the winning armor sets to tune them to look just right.

While many members of the community are pointing fingers and arguing over which armor sets should've won, others are taking a grander look at the situation as a whole. Gregermeister1, for example, has voiced their disappointment with "some people on [the DestinyFashion] subreddit" over this behavior.

"Let’s not be nasty to each other though over style differences," they said. "Let’s try to be the one positive destiny subreddit on here because destiny fashion is great and full of so many different style options! I for one am hyped to turn my titan into a paladin wizard and my hunter into an edgy, void arrow shooting witch!" An admirable take, for sure, but it remains to be seen whether this sentiment wins out in the end, or if everyone just keeps on pointing fingers.

The post Destiny 2 fashion fans are causing a ruckus over some ‘edgy’ wizard armor appeared first on Destructoid.

Depending on who you ask, indie games are the bread-and-butter of modern gaming, and there's certainly merit in that statement, as they serve niches that AAAs simply do not. Take stealth gaming, for example, which received something truly exciting just a few days back: Intravenous 2: Mercenarism.

Those of us who have been eagerly anticipating when on earth might Ubisoft finally announce a new Splinter Cell game may have missed the memo about Intravenous and its upcoming sequel, Intravenous 2. The mostly unknown stealth shooter from the developer HypeTrain Digital enjoys solid reviews, but it's the 2024 sequel that's really interesting here, mainly because it's got a top-tier demo you could start playing right this instant.

What is Intravenous 2: Mercenarism?

Intravenous 2: Mercenarism is, in essence, a fairly comprehensive demo for the full-fledged sequel. More importantly, however, it is a more-or-less standalone experience that ties the two narratives together. Players get to interact with Intravenous 2's gameplay systems throughout four separate missions, each of which is surprisingly interactive.

The core gameplay loop is, as the screenshots may betray, all-in on stealth. All Intravenous games allow players to fine-tune their characters' movement as they could in the old Splinter Cell games, and the bird's eye perspective is reminiscent of the classic Metal Gear and Metal Gear Solid titles. All the other stealth game tropes are present and accounted for, too. You can:

• Destroy lights and manage your sound profile
• Move bodies around and hide them in crates/closets
• Play non-lethally
• Pick locks
• Throw bottles and other assorted garbage to distract enemies
• Navigate levels and complete objectives in a free-form, open-ended fashion

It's a very impressive piece of kit, truly. Intravenous games can also be played as regular tactical shooters, though fairly hardcore ones, at that. They give you access to a whole arsenal of weapons both suppressed and not, each with their own respective statistics to keep track of. For example, there's a huge difference in the sound profile of a .22 LR veterinary pistol going off, and a 10MM Glock punching through the glass.

Intravenous 2, specifically, introduces remarkably in-depth gear and weapon modifications and the whole thing is present and accounted for in the Mercenarism demo. The demo which, in case I haven't been clear enough yet, any stealth game fan ought to try out.

Intravenous 2 proper is coming in 2024, but check out Intravenous, too

The full version of Intravenous 2 is due to launch sometime in 2024, with the full release window announcement still pending. Those who fall in love with the Mercenarism demo should make use of the first game's current discount, however, as it is now available at a whopping 60% off. The deal is available until February 2, so there's still some time to make the call.

Granted, it's not like Intravenous is an AAA game with an AAA price-point: at full price, it'll only set you back $20.00 or your regional equivalent. For stealth game fans, it's a lovely deal indeed.

The post Intravenous 2: Mercenarism is the stealth game you’ve been waiting for (and it’s free) appeared first on Destructoid.

Remember Diablo 2 and its infamously stingy inventory system? Years ago, the classic RPG taught many of us how remarkably satisfying it feels when all of your loot clicks together just right. Enter Backpack Hero: a game that takes this very system and runs —nay, sprints with it.

To be clear, Backpack Hero isn’t the first attempt to make a game out of loot packing. The Save Room games, for example, turn Resident Evil 4’s inventory system into a standalone puzzler. What, Backpack Hero does, instead, is interpret this concept as a full-fledged, deckbuilding roguelite. The result is surprisingly engaging, even if some of the game’s supplementary systems don’t quite stick the landing.

Backpack Hero (PC [Reviewed], Switch)
Developer: Jaspel
Publisher: Different Tales, IndieArk
Released: November 14, 2023
MSRP: $19.99

Granted, calling Backpack Hero a deckbuilder is slightly misleading. Here, items you find along the way are your deck, and your playing mat is the very backpack you’re lugging around. As you crawl through the game’s dungeons and engage in turn-based combat, the uppermost portion of the interface always shows your inventory. You attack, cast spells, and generally interact with the dungeon by activating items: swords, shields, gems, potions, and so on.

The catch is that most items require very specific placement and rotation in your inventory. Better yet, many of them must be arranged in a way relative to certain other items for them to work properly. And, since you’re getting new stuff basically all the time, Backpack Hero keeps you on your toes by forcing you to reinvent your inventory between encounters and loot drops.

Roguelikes and roguelites often force players to switch up strategies as they play, but Backpack Hero takes things a step further with its sheer variety of item effects. Only rarely is a sword just a sword. Instead, it may only work if stored diagonally, or heavily incentivize lugging some cursed auxiliary items around. Is it worth carrying around, then? That’s a choice you’ll have to make often in Backpack Hero. Acquiring a new piece of loot demands you seriously consider your item management. It’s engrossing and satisfying. 

For example, look no further than how Backpack Hero handles armor. Helmets are shoved in the topmost rows of your pack to be effective, while boots should go at the bottom. Add extra complexities, such as diagonal buff application and adjacency bonuses, and you’ve got a heck of a puzzle on your hand with every new encounter. 

Meanwhile, certain magical items might only work if there aren’t any items immediately adjacent. Others might be lighter than air and automatically float to the top of your bag. Since there aren’t any item slots to be concerned about, your efficiency in combat boils down to personal ingenuity and inventiveness. Look, if you want to fill up your backpack with three different suits of armor, that’s a choice Backpack Hero permits. You do you. 

In this sense, Backpack Hero is sublime. Every run is its own puzzle, with enough pieces in play to encourage optimization on your own terms. Synergy is the word of the day here, and discovering the optimal item placements, rotations, and correlations is a delight. Not only do you get to embody the proverbial loot goblin, but you also get to feel smart about it!

As with many other indie darlings, however, Backpack Hero has its own take on a vast, all-encompassing meta progression system. To keep you busy between dungeon runs, you’ll manage an entire downtrodden town: Haversack Hill. Shops, schools, libraries, houses… It's all reminiscent of the old PlayStation classic Dark Cloud.

Unfortunately, interacting with Haversack Hill’s denizens kills the brisk, satisfying pace of the core itemized dungeon crawling. One moment, you’ll be micromanaging your backpack to crowd control an entire gauntlet’s worth of enemies. Then, seconds later, you’re looking for roaming NPCs in Haversack Hill to tell them you’ve got that sweet stack of bricks they’ve been looking for. This disparity could work in the game’s favor to balance out tense combat encounters, certainly, but improvements to Haversack Hill were too dull for this to work.

The central narrative isn’t particularly good, and there aren’t any interesting characters or functionalities to fiddle around with during the townscape portions. Haversack Hill just doesn’t add much value to Backpack Hero’s already strong dungeon gameplay—  it’s more mundane busywork. Instead of looking forward to upgrades and unlocks you’d typically see in similar roguelikes, I just wanted to get back to dungeon crawling as soon as possible.

Haversack Hill does, inadvertently, offer one bright spot. The town itself is pure drudgery, but collecting resources for its progression is much more interesting. To establish new services and invite more NPCs, you collect unique resources in the dungeon. Naturally, gathering these is a balancing act in and of itself. The only way to lug around bricks, wood beams, and other building materials is to sacrifice room in your inventory which, in effect, means leaving optimal combat performance on the table.

I really enjoyed the risk vs reward tradeoff of this system, as it adds more puzzle elements to an already intricate dungeon crawler. Had Backpack Hero focused the township parts to their absolute basics, perhaps even reducing it down to a sleek UI, I could see myself playing it for hours on end. As is, though, I couldn’t stomach more than one round of town management per session.

That said, Backpack Hero comes with a dedicated Quick Game mode. Here, you’re free to choose whichever character you want, all of them pre-unlocked for your playing pleasure. I actually found this to be the best way to play the game: unrestrained from any townscape homework. Just you, your ingenuity, and a virtually infinite pool of delightfully weird magical items to choose from.

The obvious downside, though, is that you’re losing the main story mode’s sense of progression. By building up Haversack Hill, more regions of the dungeon open up, unlocking new goodies and passive bonuses in turn. It’s nice to skip the town segments via  Quick Game mode, but you’ll, in turn, sacrifice the intrigue of collecting resources and learning item synergies through the drip feed of unlocks. I still preferred playing via Quick Game at the end of the day, I just wish I could enjoy the best of both worlds.

Ultimately, Backpack Hero specifically lets you side-step its biggest fault  — it’s a thoughtful step that gets my praises. I’d go so far as to say the core gameplay is more than compelling enough to forget whatever other perceived problems there may be. It’s delightfully infectious, calling me back for the same reasons the legendary Slay the Spire did. 

Despite floundering a bit with meta-progression mechanics, Backpack Hero is still a thoroughly entertaining deckbuilding roguelike. Its use of item management as a central game mechanic is wildly inventive, and I consistently wanted to reenter the dungeon just to explore new item synergies. I do wish the town sections didn’t drag the pace of the main campaign as much as they did. But even if you strictly use the Quick Game mode, Backpack Hero is still a worthwhile venture.

_{[This review is based on a retail build of the game provided by the publisher.]}

The post Review: Backpack Hero appeared first on Destructoid.

It's been an extremely long time coming, but Project Zomboid's promising Build 42 update appears to finally be coming along. The developer The Indie Stone has now officially confirmed on Twitter: Build 42 is due to release sometime in 2024.

The importance of Project Zomboid's Build 42 cannot be overstated. The last major revision of the long-lasting indie zombie simulator, Build 41, came out in December 2021. From that point onwards, the majority of Zomboid's big and meaningful content and feature updates had been getting rolled up into Build 41. Examples include a substantial performance uplift, the addition of wildlife and animal/ husbandry, medieval-esque tools, fluid mechanics, map expansion, skyscrapers and bunkers, and loads more.

Project Zomboid's Build 42 is coming in 2024

As per The Indie Stone's latest announcement, "B42 will be out this year." This appears to have been a relatively tentative post, it's worth highlighting, as The Indie Stone dislikes giving out "long-range external ETAs" for major content updates and beyond. The studio prides itself on its dedication to non-crunch production, and putting out regular announcements and release window expectations might've stepped on the toes of this approach.

Indeed, Project Zomboid has been in active development for a very long time now, having first released as a tech demo in April of 2011. The Indie Stone subsequently released the game in Steam's Early Access programme in 2013, and Zomboid has slowly been trucking along ever since.

As exciting and promising as Build 42 might be, one problem that's now on the horizon are Project Zomboid's many mods. In fact, the Zomboid community has already started preparing for the inevitable "Modpocalypse" that will, sadly, affect virtually every contemporary Zomboid mod under the sun. Build 42 is a substantial rewrite of the game, after all, it's highly unlikely that any of the game's impressive mods will work with the new version without similarly substantial retrofits.

Keeping all of the above in mind, 2024 is definitely going to be a fascinating year for Project Zomboid players, even if its modding community ends up reeling from all the big changes that are coming up.

The post Project Zomboid’s hotly anticipated Build 42 is coming in 2024 appeared first on Destructoid.

Though it hasn't made its way onto Destructoid's list of most hotly anticipated titles of 2024, Rocksteady Studios' Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League sure as heck is coming. Due to release on February 2, Suicide Squad is also getting a suite of post-launch content, in true live-service fashion.

The very first batch of this content has only just been revealed, in fact, giving players a taste of what's to come over the next couple of months. It should come as no surprise that much of what's been revealed is classic live-service fare. Notably, not only was Rocksteady quite unshy about the game's live-service leanings for some time now, but the whole thing got leaked not too long ago, adding even more fuel to the proverbial fire.

Confirmed Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League Season 1 content

The good news, of course, is that Rocksteady seems intent on adding a wealth of post-launch content to Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League. It'll take a bit of time until the critics agree on whether the game warrants even pursuing this seasonal content based on its whelming gameplay reveal. Before that's all settled, those who are keen on jumping into Brainiac-infested Metropolis can also look forward to new characters, weapons, activities, and other such goodies.

More specifically, Rocksteady has promised that all of the following content would be released as part of Suicide Squad's first post-launch seasonal release:

• New playable character: The Joker
• New boss fights and enemy variants
• New (Joker-themed) playable environments
• DC Villain-themed weapons and gear
• 2 additional "Episodes"
• Bonus activities and Riddler-themed content

With the game coming out early in February, the fact that Season 1 is coming out in March is promising at face value. Content should be pouring into the title at a rapid pace if Rocksteady intends to keep things as brisk as they will be immediately after release, and there are at least three more seasons due for release over the course of the year.

Seasons 2 to 4 should, therefore, feature the following content:

• 3 new playable characters
• 3 new playable environments
• New activities, events, gear sets, and weaponry
• Unlisted mid-season updates

It is all fairly standard fare for a modern live-service offering, however, so those who might've hoped for a bit more out-there pizazz from Rocksteady may end up being slightly disappointed. That being what it is, it's going to be interesting to see how the Joker returns following his death in Batman: Arkham City, and whether Rocksteady can pull off such a monumental reveal.

The post Suicide Squad reveals Season 1 content, and it’s exactly what you’d expect appeared first on Destructoid.

Destiny 2: The Final Shape simply whelmed players on the day of its showcasing, only to be followed by a bout of nasty layoffs and a release date pushback. Ahead of the DLC's postponed release, however, Bungie managed to eke out some victories, such as the Guardian re-customization feature.

Indeed, players will finally get the option to rebuild their Guardians in Destiny 2 sometime before the release of The Final Shape, and what's particularly impressive is that it won't cost a penny. Broadly infamous for its nickel-and-diming of players that's only gotten more aggressive over time, Destiny 2 isn't shy about monetizing a variety of things. Armor transmogrification, for example, comes with a built-in seasonal limit that can only be bypassed by paying, so the obvious expectation was that the ability to change your Guardian's looks would be a paid option, too.

Destiny 2 will soon give you the ability to modify your Guardian's appearance

Thankfully, the ability to change your Guardians' looks will be totally free and available whenever, as per Bungie's latest TWID blog post: "You will be able to modify the appearance of your Guardians anytime, without cost or limit to the number of changes," says the announcement. Do note, however, that you will not be able to switch your Guardian's origin. If you've got an Awoken Guardian, you won't be able to turn them into an Exo, for example.

It's currently unclear when, exactly, this option might be dropping into Destiny 2, but the blog does clarify that it should be coming before The Final Shape's release window. The Final Shape is due to launch on June 4, which gives us a very rough estimate of when the re-customization options might be coming. Bungie did reveal, however, that an update in March would reset your Synthweave bounty cap, allowing you to earn more of the items needed to unlock armor transmog currency. It is possible that both of these features might come out at the same time, though it's still a tad early to tell.

With the widely acclaimed Fireteam Finder and the ability to re-customize a Guardian in tow, Destiny 2 may well end up in a solid spot before The Final Shape comes out. Everything that Bungie does before that is merely triage, however, and the DLC's quality is what will set the stage for Destiny 2 in the future. Only time will tell how that might pan out.

The post Destiny 2 will finally let you re-customize your Guardian appeared first on Destructoid.

Riding the wave from highs to lows, it's all too easy to forget that Destiny 2's live-service model is still trucking on regardless of any other happenstance. For example, consider this year's Festival of the Lost, which once again allows players to vote on their favorite armor ahead of time.

Last year's Festival of the Lost featured some interesting novelties and one of the most coveted Mementos in the game, and while these features are currently expected to return this year, the spooky bug-themed armor voting will not. Instead, this year's vote is down to two different types of wizards, with each of the game's Classes getting their own spellcaster armor to splurge on.

The Destiny 2 FOTL 2024 armor vote is now up

As per Bungie's latest TWID blog post, players can now officially begin casting their votes as to whether they'd like to get the "good" or "bad" wizard armor as part of 2024's FOTL. As usual, only one of these armor sets will end up being implemented, making this vote a relatively important decision for the community. Anybody that's interested in chipping in their own two cents on the matter can do so via Bungie's SurveyMonkey poll. You may also get an email from Bungie inviting you to cast your vote.

One thing worth highlighting here, however, is that the armor sets might not get implemented exactly as-is in the end. "Remember that these are draft concepts," says the TWID. "While we don't intend to change the designs substantially, we always reserve the right to do so. Our art team is composed of masters of their craft, so if they come up with a way to make them even cooler, we want to leave them the space to do what they do best."

Destiny 2's good wizard armor

The good wizard armor sets feature ornate tidbits and a blue-and-gold color combo by default, with plenty of doodads hanging about to really underline the armor sets' theme. With scarves, fine cloth, and softly glowing tidbits thrown in for good measure, these sets have a good vibe about them for sure.

Destiny 2's evil wizard armor

On the flip side, the evil wizard armor features heaps of pointy bits and an edgier aesthetic overall, with brown leather and greyscale metal bits bringing the designs together. Of course, players will be able to slap custom Shaders onto their armor however they see fit, so there's plenty of flexibility to be found here.

Of course, this does mean that the infamous Hunter Godzilla armor from a few years' back is not getting implemented at all. It's a shame, to be sure, but both of the presented themed sets are fairly snazzy in their own right, so it's a bittersweet situation for Destiny fashion fans, for sure.

The post Vote for your favorite Destiny 2 Wizard armor for Festival of the Lost appeared first on Destructoid.

Certainly, there is a glut of Early Access shooters on the market right now, but some of them genuinely are trying to innovate. Contain, for one, is due to release in beta form on January 16, and it is trying to combine Control, SCP (Secure, Contain, Protect), and Ready or Not into one.

Shoving experimental New Weird storytelling techniques into a tactical FPS envelope is, naturally, a rigmarole in and of itself, but Contain appears to be trying to go a step further still. Notably, the game features comprehensive gunsmithing and operator outfitting systems that appear to rival even those of Ground Branch and Escape from Tarkov. Talk about being prospective right off the bat.

Contain combines Weird horror influences with tactical FPS gameplay

The thing that makes Contain particularly interesting is, of course, its horror take on tactical FPS gameplay. Players are put into the shoes of poor sods that need to... well, secure, contain, and protect anomalous entities and phenomena. As an Early Access title from an unproven developer, SinginGiant, Contain may well end up falling flat on its face. Yet, the concept is nothing to scoff at, and the focus on customization could be one of the game's strongest features, to boot.

Contain is coming out as an Early Access title later today, on January 16, and the folks over at SinginGiant "anticipate staying in Early Access until the game reaches a solid build," which says precious little. On launch, "Players can enjoy the current missions in the early beta build of the game. You can take a look at gunsmithing and character customizations. Also, we can easily say the current version holds our vision for the game," as per the official statement.

Curiously, Contain isn't even the only game on the market trying to tackle the Weird fiction tactical shooter niche. In fact, the slightly older SCP: 5K is an honest-to-goodness tactical FPS set in the Secure, Contain, Protect universe, and there's more than a passing similarity between it and Contain. It's going to be interesting to see how the two compare as they close in on their respective release windows, and with a bit of luck, the niche will be all the better for it.

The post Contain combines Control, SCP, and Ready or Not into one horrific tactical shooter experience appeared first on Destructoid.

While Forza Motorsport may well insist on steering well clear of permanently adding new events to its roster, the developer Turn 10 has been able to deliver on some key fronts regardless. After the release of Hockenheim in December, in comes the Daytona International Speedway, at long last.

More broadly, new race tracks are the most notable repeat additions to Forza Motorsport's selection of content following its October launch window. Almost every major new patch has introduced a new track so far, and with Daytona coming in as part of Update 4 later today, on January 16, this seems poised to continue. Sadly, the rest of Update 4's content roster is way more transient after all.

Forza Motorsport's Update 4 adds the legendary Daytona

The Daytona International Speedway is, of course, the crowning jewel of Forza Motorsport's Update 4, but there's more to the patch than just that. For one, all three of the game's post-launch tracks (Yas Marina, Hockenheim, and Daytona) will now be integrated into existing evergreen Builders Cup events. This should help refresh the game's permanent race roster to some extent, though there's plenty of temporary content being added as part of Update 4 as well.

The Career Mode is, for example, being updated with the all-new Italian Challengers Featured Tour, pitting players against Italian vehicles in key motorsport niches. These are as follows:

• January 18: All-Wheel Driven
• January 25: Roadster Renaissance
• February 1: Alfa Performance
• February 8: Prancing Power

All four of these cups will, of course, get phased out of the game's rotation of active content on February 29. Players interested in racing against iconic Italian powerhouses ought to jump into the game before the time is up.

Naturally, Forza Motorsport's Open Tour mode is being refreshed as well. Whereas the last update featured races against vehicles built in the United Kingdom, players will now have the opportunity to face off against classic racing cars. The Open Tour refresh is kicking in on January 18, and players who complete all four of its events (C, B, A, and S-tier, respectively) will unlock the Alfa Romei Giulia Sprint GTA from 1965.

Now, there is an assortment of multiplayer events being added to the game as well, but Forza Motorsport is in a bit of a pickle in that regard. Notably, while Turn 10 may have promised massive improvements to the game's core systems for 2024, online racing communities TORA and Racing Haven have paused FM events until all of their qualms with the game are resolved. As Forza Motorsport banks heavily on its multiplayer features to keep players coming back for more, this is bad news for Turn 10, who will need to fight tooth and nail to get fans back into the game.

As good as Forza Motorsport's driving physics and core gameplay may be, Turn 10 still has a long road ahead of it before the game could be considered one of the greats. For those who are sticking with it, Update 4's Daytona should be a joy to race on, at least.

The post Forza Motorsport gets the Daytona track and a new suite of temporary content appeared first on Destructoid.

Though it's not everyone's cup of tea, Starfield certainly has made a name for itself among gaming audiences. The developer, Bethesda, is thankfully not dropping its post-launch updates anytime soon. The game's latest update is about to get a beta very, very soon, in fact.

As Bethesda promised late in 2023, Starfield is due to receive major, meaningful patches every six weeks or so in 2024. This improvement to the game's updating cadence won't be dropping in until sometime in February, but the good news is that Bethesda's plans for the interim update are more substantial than we might've expected. On top of the usual suite of bug fixing, for example, we're due to receive a whole assortment of graphical improvements to boot.

Starfield's first update of 2024 is promising, but not groundbreaking

Certainly, Bethesda's plans for Starfield's official updates are hardly as exciting as one modder's plight to develop pilotable mechs, but they're fairly promising in their own right. On top of fixing some truly infamous bugs, such as those sticky asteroids and inaccessible ship hatches, Bethesda also appears to be working on a few interesting graphical improvements for Starfield.

As per Bethesda's explanation, players can expect "improved textures, lighting, and shadows" in the game, as well as improvements to sun disk geometry and the rendering of planet ring shadows. Objects torn down to build up outposts will no longer pop back up, either, which was a royal pain when building on steep terrain and the like. Further, "additional widescreen support" is being touted as well, though there's no word yet on what, exactly, that might be referring to.

This means that the "new ways of traveling" update isn't on Bethesda's docket just yet, but we're still looking at some fairly promising improvements here.

Much as was the case with Starfield's DLSS update, the first patch of 2024 will first be available in beta form via Steam, starting on January 17. Bethesda claims we've got "over 100 fixes and improvements" to look forward to, and the fact that it's all coming in relatively soon is good news indeed, and a solid start of the year for Starfield. Let's see if Bethesda can keep this up.

The post Starfield’s first major update of 2024 delivers bugfixing, mostly appeared first on Destructoid.

It should come as no surprise to anyone that Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3's Season 1 Reloaded update is introducing a few potentially interesting new weapons, of course. The weird bit, though, is that there's an unmentioned third weapon being shown off, too.

The weapon in question is relatively easy to spot in the official announcement's featured image; in fact, though it's easy to overlook it when it's being held by a character clad in neon purple. Specifically, it's FN Herstal's classic bullpup assault rifle: the F2000. This wouldn't necessarily be worth mentioning, had F2000 been referenced in the body of the text at all. Instead, the two newly confirmed weapons coming as part of January 17's Season 1 Reloaded patch are the HRM-9 SMG and the TAQ Evolvere LMG (Beretta PMX and FN Evolys, respectively).

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3's mysterious FN F2000 lookalike

What this means, in effect, is that the grand return of the old Modern Warfare 2's legendary F2000 assault rifle is now all but confirmed for the new Modern Warfare 3. In due time, of course, as there's no telling when, exactly, the fictionalized version of FN F2000 might be getting released.

Further, this drives home the accuracy of the months-old pre-release weapon leak, which featured both the FN Evolys and the FN F2000 as prominent entries, though neither was seen as part of the game's official pre-release materials.

Naturally, the F2000 will almost certainly not be known by its actual name in the game. Instead, some have suggested that it would be implemented as the ANVIL-D carbine, likely under the TAQ branding. Call of Duty's TAQ, it's worth pointing out, is essentially a one-to-one fictionalization of the real-world FN Herstal brand. F2000 is the last popularized FN weapon that's not present in the new Modern Warfare titles, making it all the more likely that it, too, would appear sooner or later.

Curiously, the model featured in the image appears to be a repeat of the ridiculous BP50 version of the weapon, which appeared in the World War 2-themed Call of Duty: Vanguard, of all things. If nothing else, the weapon should be far less immersion-breaking by default, which is a boon in and of itself.

The post There’s a third hidden weapon in Modern Warfare 3’s Season 1 Reloaded announcement appeared first on Destructoid.

Everyone knows by now that Forza Motorsport launched in a less-than-stellar state in October last year. Developer Turn 10 has since pulled up its sleeves in the interim, delivering a series of solid updates over the last few months, but the best is yet to come.

At the very least, that's what Turn 10 itself claims in its latest development roundup. The studio is planning major revisions to three areas of Forza Motorsport's gameplay: the car progression system, AI, and race regulations. These should be getting revamped "in the coming months," though the extent of the changes isn't clear.

Turn 10 aims to continue improving Forza Motorsport in 2024

Naturally, Turn 10's window into what's going on behind the scenes with Forza Motorsport is great news. All three of the major gameplay aspects the studio highlighted do indeed need further revisions, with car progression, in particular, being a bit of a sore spot from day one.

"Addressing [the feedback on car progression] is a top priority for the team going into 2024, however it will take some time to properly evaluate options, make the necessary code changes, and thoroughly test those code changes," notes the blog.

Additionally, Turn 10 has seemingly reached out to experienced community members for help with Forza Motorsport's implementation of race regulations: "It’s important that we capture all the data that we can about a race when FRR rulings happen in error, so over the next few months, we will be working with some long-time competitive Motorsport players to gather direct telemetry from them while they’re playing."

As for the game's sometimes shoddy AI, improvements should be dropping in soon: "We understand how important it is to have fair and competitive AI in Motorsport and our top priorities in early 2024 are addressing overly aggressive AI, while also getting a cleaner race start into turn 1 where many of the issues above most severely manifest and impact players."

Great news across the board, but perhaps telling that not a word was said about Forza Motorsport's reliance on FOMO and timed events. Timed unlocks are unlikely to be changed anytime soon, of course, but if Turn 10 can deliver on all three of the frontlines promised, then the player base should have a far superior product at hand, regardless.

The post Forza Motorsport promises massive improvements for 2024 in three key areas appeared first on Destructoid.

Though Helldivers 2 may be one of the lesser-known PlayStation exclusives slated for 2024, it certainly is one of the most interesting future releases. A cooperative objective-based shooter with a legacy to die for, Helldivers 2 won't even be all that hard on our PCs, according to Sony.

As per Sony's latest Helldivers 2 blog post, the game should be relatively easy to run on a very wide range of PC hardware. Thanks to its multiplayer focus and potentially some live-service leanings, Helldivers 2 will be released on PC and PS5 simultaneously with full cross-play support. Since Sony will be trying to build as big of a Helldivers 2 community as possible on February 8, the day of its release, it does make sense that the game wouldn't target excessively strong hardware to begin with.

Helldivers 2 should perform well on lower-spec systems, from the looks of it

Keeping all of the above in mind, Sony claims that running Helldivers 2 on 'Medium' settings, with a 60 FPS target at the resolution of 1920x1080 should be a reasonably lightweight task. The company's official 'Recommended' hardware spec includes the humble Nvidia GeForce GTX 2060 (or the RX 6600 XT) and the Intel Core i7-9700K (or the Ryzen 7 3700X), both of which are as mid-range nowadays as it gets.

Naturally, cranking things all the way up to 'Ultra' at 4K is far more difficult, and calls for an RTX 4070Ti class of graphics processor. You'll find detailed spec recommendations in the section below, if you are so inclined, but the general sense is that we're looking at fairly sensible hardware requirements and a scalable experience overall. At least, that's what the spec sheet suggests. We still recommend keeping a pinch of salt at hand, just in case performance is out of hand on day one.

Helldivers 2 - PC system requirements and recommended settings

Now to get into the nitty-gritty of Sony's spec recommendations. There's a grand total of four disparate hardware targets ranging from the humble 'Minimum' to 'Ultra,' and we're hard-pressed to find anything out of the ordinary here. See for yourself.

Helldivers 2 Minimum Hardware Spec - 1080P/30 FPS

• Low graphics settings target
• GPU: Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050Ti / AMD Radeon RX 470
• CPU: Intel Core i7-4790K / AMD Ryzen 5 1500X
• RAM: 8 GB of DDR4 memory
• OS: Windows 10 64-bit
• Storage: 100 GB of free space, 7200 RPM HDD recommended

Helldivers 2 Recommended Hardware Spec - 1080P/60 FPS

• Medium graphics settings target
• GPU: Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 / AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT
• CPU: Intel Core i7-9700K / AMD Ryzen 7 3700X
• RAM: 16 GB of DDR4 memory
• OS: Windows 10 64-bit
• Storage: 100 GB of free space, SSD recommended

Helldivers 2 Performance Hardware Spec - 1440P/60 FPS

• High graphics settings target
• GPU: Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070 / AMD Radeon RX 6800
• CPU: Intel Core i5-12600K / AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D
• RAM: 16 GB of DDR4 memory
• OS: Windows 10 64-bit
• Storage: 100 GB of free space, SSD recommended

Helldivers 2 Ultra Hardware Spec - 4K/60 FPS

• Very High graphics settings target
• GPU: Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070Ti / AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX
• CPU: Intel Core i5-12600K / AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D
• RAM: 16 GB of DDR4 memory
• OS: Windows 10 64-bit
• Storage: 100 GB of free space, SSD recommended

All of the stuff outlined above is fairly promising as it currently stands, though we'll need to wait and see for ourselves how the game performs early this February.

The post Helldivers 2 should work well on lower-spec PCs, turns out appeared first on Destructoid.

It feels like Destiny 2 and Bungie are going through a never-ending torrent of struggles as of late, ranging in severity from downright catastrophic to mildly annoying. Somewhere closer to the annoying side of the scales falls the recent Checkmate PvP mode issues, which Bungie is now trying to alleviate.

Notably, Bungie admitted in mid-December its relatively newfangled Checkmate multiplayer mode didn't quite pan out. The community was so unhappy with it, in fact, that Bungie updated PvP to allow players to choose between Checkmate and the regular Control modes, which was a reasonably timely bandaid in its own right. Now, however, a new series of changes is coming to Checkmate, which may well be what the mode needed in the first place.

How Destiny 2's Checkmate PvP is changing

As per Bungie's latest Reddit post, players can expect a fairly hefty array of changes coming to Destiny 2's Checkmate PvP mode as early as today, January 9. The weekly reset brings with it a slew of potentially crucial improvements, such as:

• An adjustment of primary weapon time-to-kill, with the goal to bring all weapon classes up-to-par with the hand cannons
• Clash and Control Checkmate now starts players off with two kills' worth of special ammunition (e.g. 2 shotgun cartridges)
• Increased special ammo credit for assists and deaths, leading to more frequent ammo drops
• Reduced special ammo drops (to balance out the change outlined in the prior entry)
• Ability cooldown penalties reduced from 30% to 15%
• Increased melee damage (leading to two hits being enough to take a Guardian down)

Players can expect a more detailed summary of what's changing with the specific weapon archetypes as part of the January 9 patch notes. As it is, the changes do sound good on paper, but Destiny 2's meta is a fickle and finicky thing, so there's no telling how it'll all pan out until players get to spend some time in the new gameplay sandbox.

The post Bungie outlines a new set of Checkmate PvP changes for Destiny 2 appeared first on Destructoid.

Had things gone differently, Frogwares' The Sinking City would've trucked neatly along as one of the many decent but imperfect gaming renditions of Lovecraft's works. Though this wasn't meant to be, the developer is now finally in control of the game, with good news for its immediate future.

Notably, the controversy over the rights to The Sinking City has only come to a close very recently, with Frogwares regaining full publishing rights to the game almost five years after it first came out. To celebrate the occasion, fans can expect an all-new version of the game that integrates all the existing DLC, patches out bugs, and smooths out its performance. The new version of The Sinking City will be free for all owners of the game, and those who aren't keen on losing their saves will have the opportunity to keep playing the old version, should they choose to do so.

What's next for The Sinking City? And how will saves transfer?

As per Frogwares' latest announcement, the new build of The Sinking City includes "the bugfixes and optimizations previously released for the game on other platforms. Essentially, it's a patch. The reason we are calling it a new version is to emphasize the fact that it will exist alongside the current version for some time." The goal is to release the new version of The Sinking City around "mid-January," and it's going to be free for all owners of the game.

Though the old saves will not be compatible with the new build, Frogwares is going to prepare new save files so that players can continue playing roughly from where they last stopped, in the old build. "However, since these are our saves, we won’t be able to match your previous progress 100%, so please expect some of your previous choices, inventory items and skills to be different," says Frogwares.

Curiously, Frogwars has also hinted at some possible visual and gameplay improvements coming down the line, though players shouldn't expect any of those for the mid-January retrofit. Its main goal, instead, is to consolidate all Steam versions of The Sinking City under Frogwares' own banner, to release the three pieces of DLC that are available on other platforms (Merciful Madness, Chicago Organ Grinder, and the XP Boost), and patch out issues. The DLC will be sold separately for owners of the base game, but the Necronomicon Edition owners will be getting them for free, though potentially at a slightly later date.

The newer DLCs, Worshippers of the Necronomicon and the Investigator Pack, will be compatible with Frogwares' new version of The Sinking City once it comes out.

Finally, those who purchased the standalone Gamesplanet build of The Sinking City may end up getting Steam keys all of their own, though Frogwares isn't yet 100% sure on this front: "We are looking into it," says the blog post.

The post With their game back in their control, Sinking City devs aim to correct all the previous wrongs appeared first on Destructoid.

While much has been said about the Forza franchise's peculiar approach to fear of missing out, Forza Horizon 5 is not about to let go of its entire seasonal content model. It's good, then, that the new season is here to stave FOMO off, even if only by a bit.

More specifically, Playground Games held a poll among Forza Horizon 5 players a few months back, allowing them to vote on which timed exclusive vehicles ought to return in early 2024. With the votes counted and accounted for, Playground has now announced the full suite of returning exotics, such as the highly coveted Porsche 911 Reimagined by Singer from 1990. There's a grand total of 10 returning vehicles, as well as 8 new Community Choice cars, giving players lots to grind for.

Forza Horizon 5's 2024 Community Choice cars

Forza Horizon 5 players will have a lot to grind for over the next couple of weeks, from the looks of it. With two rosters of exciting new (or "new," as it were) cars to purchase and unlock, there should be no shortage of stuff to be excited about.

The first roster - the returning cars from seasons prior - will be available as regular, purchasable vehicles as part of the unique Autoshow selection starting January 30. The full list of cars includes all of the following:

• Porsche 911 Reimagined by Singer (1990)
• Aston Martin One-77 (2010)
• Lamborghini Sian Roadster (2021)
• Rimac Nevera (2021)
• Ferrari 599XX (2010)
• Porsche #23 917/20 (1971)
• Ferrari 250 GT Berlinetta Lusso (1962)
• Ferrari #24 Spa 330 P4 (1967)
• Italdesign Zerouno (2018)
• Peel Trident (1965)

The prices for these cars are yet to be revealed, of course, but it's a fairly safe bet that it'll take a pretty penny for players to purchase all of them outright. For those who just cannot scrounge up the case, as well as those who have kept up with Forza Horizon 5's timed seasonal releases, there's an extra roster of eight all-new cars being added to the game as well:

• January 4: McLaren 12C Coupe (2011), Aston Martin DBS (2008)
• January 11: Koenigsegg CCX (2006), W Motors Lykan HyperSport (2016)
• January 18: Mercedes-Benz 280 SL (1967), Pagani Huayra (2012)
• January 25: Fiat Dino 2.4 Coupe (1969), Spania GTA Spano (2016)

The only way to earn these vehicles will be to grind seasonal activities (40 and 80 points, respectively), but the good news is that doing so also earns you lots of Credits along the way. In other words, it shouldn't be too big of a deal to grind for both of these car rosters at the same time, depending on which pieces your collection may or may not be missing.

It's a good start to 2024 for Forza Horizon 5 players, then. Of course, the slight downer is that the new Community Choice vehicles won't be staying around all that long in the first place, perpetuating the FOMO further. Ah well, small victories!

The post Stave off Forza Horizon 5 FOMO in the latest seasonal release appeared first on Destructoid.

As one of the most player-friendly free-to-play live-service games on the market right now, Warframe has earned its long-lasting tenure for sure. To celebrate 2024, the developer Digital Extremes has announced Warframe's latest set of Void Corruption Alerts, giving players a chance to earn unique mods and bundles of credits.

Void Corruption Alerts aren't a new thing in Warframe, of course. While veteran players may find the content added as part of the recent Whispers in the Walls update more interesting, 2024's first batch of Void Corruption Alerts is still very important both for newcomers and for those who haven't yet filled out their Mod libraries. With Fleeting Expertise, Blind Rage, Transient Fortitude, and a slew of others on offer, now's the time to jump in and earn those mods.

A new round of Warframe Void Corruption Alert missions

Warframe's latest batch of Void Corruption Alerts is going to run over the course of the next couple of weekends. The really important bit is that each Alert will run for a few days at a time, which means that players should have ample opportunities to score the rare mods. Here's the full schedule, as featured in Digital Extremes' official blog post:

• Weekend #1: January 5 (11 AM ET) - January 8 (11 AM ET), Taranis - Defense (level 10-15), Fleeting Expertise + 30,000 Credits
• Weekend #2: January 12 (11 AM ET) - January 15 (11 AM ET), Tiwaz - Mobile Defense (level 20-25), Blind Rage + 30,000 Credits
• Weekend #3: January 19 (11 AM ET) - January 22 (11 AM ET), Ani - Survival (level 20-25), Narrow Minded + 30,000 Credits
• Weekend #4: January 26 (11 AM ET) - January 29 (11 AM ET), Ukko - Capture (level 30-35), Overextended + 30,000 Credits
• Weekend #5: February 2 (11 AM ET) - February 5 (11 AM ET), Oxomoco - Exterminate (level 30-35), Transient Fortitude + Stratos Emblem

It's a fine selection of goodies, then, and the Stratos Emblem in particular is a curious addition. Players who are just now getting through Warframe's earliest progression steps may wish to take note, as Corrupted mods could massively improve their load-outs quickly and easily. Of course, to participate in this latest batch of Void Corruption missions, you will need to have them unlocked in the first place, so it's worth planning around these Alerts while you have the time.

Why are Void Corruption Alert missions important?

Void Corruption Alerts are notable specifically because they award the mods outlined above: Fleeting Expertise, Blind Rage, Narrow Minded, Overextended, and Transient Fortitude. Unlike most other mods, these Corrupted mods offer massive bonuses at the cost of specific stat reductions. While this might not sound ideal at a glance, hyper-focusing on particular stats is a very viable strategy in Warframe, and having such mods at hand in case you need them is extremely useful.

The post Warframe announces 2024’s first Void Corruption Alert missions appeared first on Destructoid.

Destiny 2 and developer Bungie don't have the best reputation with the MMO's community right now, and that sentiment continues to pop up even in smaller ways. That rings true for this year's Dawning event, too, as it seems Destiny's snowball feature remains broken.

More specifically, special throwable snowballs are a unique feature of Destiny 2's seasonal Dawning celebrations. Only appearing for a limited time, snowballs have an entire series of upgrades dedicated to them as part of the Dawning progression system, as they allow players to take down enemies and apply crowd control via Stasis effects. Further, snowballs also spice up the regular gameplay loop, as they appear in Patrol Zones and playlist activities while the Dawning is active.

It should come as no surprise, then, that players are not happy with the fact that all five of the pertinent Dawning snowball upgrades have been broken from the very start of the event until its finale.

Fixing Destiny 2's weirdly broken Dawning snowballs

Destiny 2 players reported that the game's Dawning snowball upgrades were practically ineffective at the start of this year's holiday event. The obvious expectation was, naturally, that Bungie would get around to sorting this issue out before the event wrapped up, but that ship has now officially sailed. Indeed, with 2023's Dawning now having come and gone, we can say that an entire third of Destiny 2's unique event upgrades did not function for its entire duration.

Of course, there was still merit in completing the Dawning upgrades and all of the event's attached quest lines, as players could score a bunch of themed cosmetics and assorted loot drops. Still, it's not surprising to see that many are unhappy with how Bungie's handled the issue.

In and of itself, this wouldn't be a huge problem, necessarily, if Bungie wasn't already going through a hard time with Destiny 2 in a broader sense. Following a series of layoffs and a pushback of the company's flagship DLC, as well as a general loss of trust in Bungie, the game, the creatives supporting it, and the community are in an ugly spot.

The post Destiny 2’s Dawning snowballs did not get fixed, after all appeared first on Destructoid.

It's been known for some time now that Gran Turismo Sport would be getting sunset at the start of 2024, as per the official announcement from the devs, but it now seems that the process will be more thorough than most might've anticipated.

Indeed, while the announcement did specify that Sony and Polyphony Digital would "end the distribution" of purchasable DLCs and online services for Gran Turismo Sport, the expectation was that the game would remain accessible in an always-offline form. This, however, hasn't been the case, as anyone who hadn't purchased Sport before January 31, 2024, at 06:00 UTC won't be able to purchase, download, or play the game at all in the future. The community isn't thrilled about this development.

Gran Turismo Sport is no longer available, but it gets worse

Certainly, one could argue that there's virtually no need for Gran Turismo Sport now that Gran Turismo 7 has superseded the older title, which goes doubly so after the release of the recent SPEC II update. Sport, however, did stand on its own two feet with a more bog-standard solo mode focusing on regular progression and events, as seen in the older franchise entries. Regardless, it is a shame that such a relatively recent release would be no longer accessible to new players.

For those who do have access to Gran Turismo Sport, there's more bad news on the horizon. The game will continue existing in its current, full-fledged state for less than a month. Sport has been an always-online title from the get-go, and as its online services will come to an end on January 31, 2024, that means large batches of its content will no longer be accessible. This includes:

• Any form of multiplayer
• All player-made vehicle customizations (e.g. liveries)
• Community hub
• Open Lobby features
• Sport Mode features
• Mileage Store
• Trophies

Thankfully, the game's offline modes will remain accessible, with a limited form of progression available as well.

It's a sad day for GT Sport fans, then, though the good news is that the vast majority of Sport's cars are, indeed, available for driving in the newer Gran Turismo 7 title.

The obvious question, though, is whether GT7 itself is due to face a similar fate in a few years. The old Forza Motorsport games are not available at all, either, which means that the recent generations of racing games are in a serious predicament, potentially getting lost for good.

Even for those who are sticking with the latest AAA racing game releases, there are some troubling developments. Forza Motorsport, for one, is hardly adding permanent new events to its middling roster. This makes for an air of transience in the genre, and it doesn't seem like this will be changing anytime soon.

The post Gran Turismo Sport is being hacked to pieces in real-time appeared first on Destructoid.

Peter Thoman, more commonly known in gaming circles as "Durante," is renowned for his work on the infamously horrid Dark Souls port from the early 2010s. Focusing on technical rendering solutions as of late, Durante has now set his sights on a new kind of local multiplayer gaming.

More specifically, Durante's latest blog post, titled "A New Approach to Local Multiplayer / Splitscreen Perspective With Raytracing," goes in-depth on Thoman's idea of leveraging raytracing to develop a new kind of hotseat multiplayer screen-sharing experience. Historically, hotseat games have relied on one of several different types of split-screen implementations. A prominent example comes from racing games such as Gran Turismo, for one, where each player is allotted either one-half or one-quarter of the screen, depending on whether two or four players are participating.

"However," says Thoman, "even with the most advanced hardware support, only up to 4 different views can be rendered at once without substantial performance implications – and even that requires quite a lot of development effort." This is where his unorthodox reliance on hardware raytracing comes into the picture.

Leveraging hardware raytracing for local multiplayer camera

As the video featured above plainly demonstrates, Thoman has come up with a way to use raytracing to "dynamically adjust the [players'] camera(s) at a pixel level," resulting in a trippy, albeit novel way of rendering that side-steps all of the hotseat games' previous issues. The game itself is a technical demo that Thoman's team had worked on in the years prior, Sphere Spectacle.

"The most interesting part is what happens in the “no-man’s land” between [the players' screens]," explains Thoman. "where space appears squished as the camera parameters are interpolated." While the solution is fairly similar to the usual suite of split-screen setups that hotseat multiplayer games have previously relied on, Thoman claims this solution is "fundamentally so much simpler than trying to do anything like it in a rasterization pipeline."

Further, it doesn't appear to be overly difficult to implement, either: "I ultimately only spent two working days hacking this demo into Sphere Spectacle – and that includes implementing support for two players!"

Naturally, none of what Durante has shown off here is done just yet, even on a conceptual level. Instead, this is a proof of concept for a simplification of local multiplayer rendering. As he himself admits, "Now we just need someone to build a full game around it," which is bound to take a while. Yet, the feature is curious and has potential, and there's no telling what might come of it down the line.

The post Local multiplayer could be done via raytracing, strange as that sounds appeared first on Destructoid.

Slowly but surely, Battlestate Games' Escape From Tarkov continues its long trudge towards a full 1.0 release candidate with patch 0.14. The update features many exciting developments, not the least of which is an entire suite of new movement abilities and the introduction of the SIG SPEAR combat platform.

Indeed, as per Battlestate Games' forum announcement, the studio is preparing to release the big Escape From Tarkov patch 0.14, which comes with a slew of new weapons, bosses, movement abilities, and the long-awaited Ground Zero starter map. On top of all of that, the game's meta is being rebalanced by a meaningful margin, with barrel attachments getting reworked from the ground up.

Escape From Tarkov's 0.14 patch is quite hefty, in fact

Players interested in learning everything there is to know about EFT's update 0.14 ought to check out Battlestate Games' full post. Even just the highlights highlights, however, are very impressive:

• All-new Ground Zero map (available to PMCs who haven't yet gone over level 20)
• Shoreline map rework
• Kollontay boss encounter (Streets of Tarkov map)
• KBP 9A-91 and VSK-94 weapons
• SIG MCX SPEAR .277 FURY weapon platform
• Degtyarev RPD and RPDN machine guns
• Achievement System
• Hall of Fame Hideout room
• Reworked armor and hitbox systems (introduction of ballistic plating and more)
• Vaulting and obstacle interaction systems, allowing players to interact with levels in new (vertical) ways
• Weapon shoulder transition option
• Reworked weapon recoil mechanics
• Ability to hire certain NPCs for protection, loot recovery, and other services (Rogues, the new BTR vehicle, etc.)
• Weapon muzzle device rebalance (including suppressors, adapters, flash hiders, and compensators)
• Various QoL and bugfixing updates

As is usually the case with all of Escape From Tarkov's major content releases, players should be prepared to start their progression anew later today, on December 27. Battlestate Games confirmed that EFT's patch 0.14 will be rolling out over the course of the day, starting at 07:00 GMT / 14:00 EST. This means that all of the players' progression will be wiped, setting things up for a potentially very exciting new slate.

Now, if none of this is interesting to you, given that Escape From Tarkov is a decidedly PvPvE sort of ordeal, you may be chuffed to hear that there is a single-player version of the game being actively developed. The wondrous world of SPT-AKI holds limitless possibilities, and it's only a matter of time before the people in charge of the project update the full-fledged offline Tarkov with all of 0.14's content and features.

The post Escape From Tarkov 0.14 features new guns and the ability to jump over knee-high walls appeared first on Destructoid.

While there's a wealth of boomer shooters on Steam at this time—Cultic to Boltgun, just to mention a few—Ultrakill is still in a category all of its own. This infamy has been underlined further still with Patch 14, which features Layer 7 of Hell itself.

Ultrakill is set in a post-apocalypse where human blood is the only currency that matters anymore, as it fuels the few robots that remain. Given this premise, it's to be expected that the game's narrative and level design would take some weird turns, but the seventh layer of Hell is particularly noteworthy. Featuring remarkably agile, powerful, and aggressive angelic statues as the first encounter of the new Act, Ultrakill's Patch 14 is a sight to behold.

Ultrakill's Violent Night update introduces a strange and abstract Layer 7 of Hell

As Ultrakill is still in Early Access, each and every one of its major patches also comes with substantial new chunks of content. The aptly titled VIOLENT NIGHT Patch 14, for example, introduces a whole new Act with Layer 7 of Hell featured within. This means that any players who might've temporarily dropped Ultrakill to wait until more content is released should now have plenty of stuff to do. Exploring Layer 7 is a heck of an experience from the get-go, and according to players, Ultrakill's Level 7 does not let up at any point.

The goodness doesn't stop at the content, however. Patch 14 also includes a wealth of upgrades and improvements, with some of the highlights being:

• The ability to bind multiple keys to a single action.
• Quicksave availability in Sandbox mode.
• Quality-of-life improvements for Punch and Parry moves (more leniency in execution)
• Wall diving now allows players to continue wall-jumping while maintaining momentum.

Ultrakill's Patch 14 is an extremely promising showing that underscores some of the game's most important and widely acclaimed features. A heck of a way to wrap up another year's worth of active development, that's for sure.

The post Spectacular boomer shooter Ultrakill adds Layer 7 of Hell itself appeared first on Destructoid.

Whether you love it or hate it, Starfield is one of 2023's most notable releases. For all the things that it does well, there's loads of stuff that Bethesda could improve upon, too. It sounds like improvements should be coming in 2024, though, according to the company's latest announcement.

Work on the company's latest flagship appears to continue in the background. Many of its most pressing improvements have already been outlined in the days and weeks prior, but a few more precious details have just been provided, suggesting what else might be coming.

While Bethesda's already confirmed some of the stuff that's coming to Starfield in 2024, such as new travel options, city maps, and a rough update cadence, there are some curious new tidbits present here. Specifically, the following:

• New ship customization options.
• New gameplay options that allow further difficulty adjustments.

Bethesda's not provided any detailed information on whether the team intends to simply add new customizations and difficulty sliders, or go all-in on the concept. A survival mode such as the one featured in Fallout 4 is something that players have expressed interest in, for example.

Bethesda's plans for Starfield in 2024

Further, Bethesda's previously confirmed update cadence, with new patches coming in every six weeks or so, won't be kicking in before February. This suggests that there's nothing new coming to Starfield in the next two months or so.

Of course, Starfield's first confirmed expansion pack, Shattered Space, is still on the way. No date has been set for that yet, but the post says it's part of the 2024 plan.

Bethesda's end-of-year post outlining the near future of Starfield development could, therefore, either be taken with a dose of skepticism or hype, depending on one's opinion of what's already there. Things really could go either way for Starfield's post-launch support.

The post Bethesda aims to update Starfield roughly every six weeks in 2024 appeared first on Destructoid.

It's been a very tumultuous time for Bungie, the studio behind Destiny 2. Layoffs and reports have complicated the game's future. A potential balm? The Fireteam Finder, from the looks of it.

I'm being slightly cheeky here, of course, but the simple fact remains that Bungie has burned through surprisingly massive amounts of community goodwill ever since Destiny 2: Lightfall came out. After moving from one precarious situation into another, it was a bit of a surprise to see the studio embrace certain features and changes that, realistically, should've been in Destiny 2 from the get-go.

What makes Destiny 2's Fireteam Finder such a big deal?

Right off the bat, Bungie is clearly onto something with the Fireteam Finder. Though it is currently in its beta form with the full release slated for January 2024, the feature already enjoys widespread acclaim from the community.

To be perfectly honest, Bungie could've easily phoned things in for the Fireteam Finder, same as it did with the now-forgotten Guided Games feature from years back. The feature's failure would've hardly even registered compared to the problems Bungie has been going through as of late. The fact that people are as thrilled with a mere beta as they are implies that the expectations were, indeed, low.

It's great news, then, that Destiny 2's Fireteam Finder is just about everything a solo player needs to compete in endgame-tier activities. Whether it's Raids, Dungeons, or something as innocuous as a simple Vanguard Playlist romp, the Fireteam Finder allows players of all makes and experience levels to meet up and enjoy the game.

Up until now, all of Destiny 2's LFG (i.e. looking-for-games) systems have been out-of-game ordeals. Players had to use official or third-party apps, forums, and Discord servers to find other players for their fireteams, and for a game that underlines its social features to such a degree as Destiny, this was a truly befuddling choice on Bungie's end.

How Destiny 2's community ties the whole thing together

The Fireteam Finder is feature-rich and comprehensive already, allowing players to fine-tune their requests and playing group preferences however they want. All this would've been for naught if people weren't eager to participate, however.

While it's certainly worth remembering that the DestinyTheGame subreddit is just a tiny sliver of the broader Destiny 2 community, people have been reiterating their positive experiences in a recent thread, and they paint a very favorable situation for the Fireteam Finder.

"Ingame Fireteam Finder is a huge development," said poepkat, adding that they are "very happy with it." Destiny player DeepImpacted had similar things to say, explaining how they're "so glad [the Fireteam Finder] is in the game now."

Amid a sea of positive feedback, it was Inclemens' comment that piqued our interest in particular, though: "[The Fireteam Finder] is an amazing too. I just don't understand why we are only getting it now at the end of the game's life." People are, clearly, enjoying the Fireteam Finder for what it is, and it is an objectively valuable addition to Destiny 2. Moreover, it will get even better as the beta comes to a wrap early next year, but an in-game LFG system alone won't carry the game forward.

Destiny 2's hazy path forward

It is, perhaps, interesting that the successful beta release of the Fireteam Finder isn't the only recent example of Bungie successfully handling the community expectations. The second major highlight comes from the recent Vault accessibility bug, for one. After players discovered that they could access their Vaults even after loading into combat activities and Patrol zones, Bungie recognized the need for this feature and promised to reimplement it with official support further down the line.

It is through these relatively small-scale, player-focused grassroots implementations that Bungie has an opportunity to win back large portions of its player base ahead of The Final Shape. This is one of those better-late-than-never situations, and Destiny 2 is certainly a better game for the Fireteam Finder's existence.

The post Destiny 2’s Fireteam Finder is great, actually appeared first on Destructoid.

As one of 2023's infamously problematic releases, Payday 3 has had to fight tooth and nail to eke out some stability for its players due to its always-online nature. Now, roughly three months after the game's come out, Payday 3 receives its first major expansion pack, Syntax Error.

Following the "long and complicated" period of patching, Payday 3 developer Starbreeze Studios initially had to put its post-launch content plans on the back burner until the dust settled. That time has now come, from the looks of it, as Syntax Error introduces a high-tech new heist focusing on digital robbery. Alongside the heist, players also get three new weapons, and a suite of cosmetics to outfit their bandits with. The issue, though, is that it's not all that affordable.

Payday 3: Syntax Error is a tad expensive

Payday 3: Syntax Error is priced at $17.99/17.99€, which is relatively steep for what is, in effect, a single new level and a few new usable items. On Steam, players have called the DLC "underwhelming and overpriced," which has led to a 'Mixed' rating for it. Granted, it does seem that the new heist is pretty good, but even those reviewers who recommend it do not feel that it's worth the baseline asking price.

Now, all Payday 3 players who own the Silver or Gold editions of the game have received the Syntax Error DLC at no additional charge, which should help the bundle go down a bit easier in the grand scheme of things. Yet, this sets the stage for the game's second DLC at the very least, as it too is bundled in with the Gold edition of Payday 3, which might lead to poor ratings for it as well, regardless of its potential quality.

In the interim, for those who aren't thrilled with the direction Payday 3 is going in, the recently revealed Den of Wolves may be of interest. Not least because Den of Wolves is being made by the devs of the infamously hardcore GTFO, some of whom had previously worked on the original Payday: The Heist.

The post Payday 3 gets its first major expansion pack, Syntax Error appeared first on Destructoid.

Following its fairly problematic release, Forza Motorsport has slowly but surely started turning things around at the rate of a first-generation Bugatti Veyron, as it were. While the new updates have been adding lots of content, it just so happens that much of it is temporary, at best.

More specifically, even though the developer Turn 10 has been hard at work producing new events and adding them to Forza Motorsport's roster of available content, none of them are going to be permanently available as part of the game's relatively barebones Career mode. Updates 2.0 and 3.0 have both introduced two new Career Tours each (with four unique races featured in every Tour), only to have them taken out of the rotation as their respective seasons get wrapped up.

Forza Motorsport's Career championships are pure FOMO

As Forza Motorsport's Career Mode doesn't offer racing opportunities for many of the game's vehicles, this sets up a situation where Turn 10 introduces distinctive events and Tours as temporary additions, which is a clear signifier of FOMO (i.e. fear of missing out) player retention tactics. Even the Forza Motorsport community has caught wind of Turn 10's take on temporary content, and players are unhappy about it.

Naturally, there are unique, temporarily accessible rewards attached to these temporary Tours. Players who have missed out on getting the 2020 Acura ARX-05 and the 2020 Audi R8 V10 Performance models while their respective Tours were up can no longer obtain these cars, for example.

Even though this strategy is relatively novel to Forza Motorsport proper, it's not new to Forza at large. Playground Games' Forza Horizon 5 is infamously loaded with seasonal exclusivity and time-limited events, for example. One could argue that the new Motorsport's take on FOMO wouldn't be so problematic if its Career Mode had races for all of its vehicle types, but as it stands, there's just no reason why all of the game's post-launch content would have to get yanked out of rotation every so often.

The post Forza Motorsport is insistent on not adding permanent new Career events appeared first on Destructoid.

Amidst releasing exciting new gaming hardware and updating some of its oldest classic releases, Valve has also announced all the major Steam events slotted for the next year. Indeed, we now have exact dates for the first half of 2024's Steam sales and fests.

In a recent blog post, Valve announced a comprehensive array of 2024's biggest sale events and gaming fests, focusing specifically on the first half of the year. This announcement features all the start and end dates for each event, allowing users to plan their purchases well ahead of time, though we obviously aren't getting any real discount specifics so far in advance. The sale titles, however, are fairly telling in their own right.

All Steam sales and fests in the first half of 2024

Broadly speaking, Valve announced three types of Steam events: major seasonal sales, themed sale events (Fests), and the triannual Next Fest promotions. While some of these were previously announced, Valve has now filled the schedule out to include all major events slated for the first half of 2024, allowing both the developers/publishers and gamers to prepare well in advance. These are as follows:

• Capitalism and Economy Fest - January 8-15
• Pirates vs. Ninjas Fest - January 22-29
• Next Fest - February 5-12
• Remote Play Together - February 12-19
• Dinos vs. Robots Fest - February 26-March 4
• Steam Spring Sale - March 14 - 21
• Deckbuilders Fest - March 25-April 1
• FPS Fest - April 15-22
• Farming Fest - April 29-May 6
• Endless Replayability Fest - May 13-20
• Open World Survival Crafting Fest - May 27-June 3
• Next Fest - June 10-17
• Steam Summer Sale - June 27-July 11

It's a hefty list, for sure, and it perfectly underlines the notion that there's virtually always a big sale going on via Steam. Not each of these events will be a good fit for every gamer, but their respective titles betray their themes well enough, to the point that all the major niche interests do seem well served.

All that's left to do right now is to wait, but in the time interim, there is a big Winter Sale scheduled for December 21, 2023.

The post Valve confirms Steam sale event dates for 2024 appeared first on Destructoid.

Did you know that House Flipper 2 once beat Lies of P as Steam Next Fest's most-played demo? Well, it did, and now, it's about to come out very shortly. Supposedly a comprehensive upgrade to the middle-of-the-road original, House Flipper 2 is about to prove its worth.

The developer, Frozen District, appears to be quite certain of House Flipper 2's quality on day one, December 14. Essentially a game about flipping old, downtrodden houses (in this economy?), House Flipper 2 offers an upgraded feature roster compared to its immediate predecessor. Its most interesting draw? The ability to build houses from the ground-up, if you so desire.

House Flipper 2 releases on December 14

Of course, the reviews for House Flipper 2 are pending still, and there's currently no telling whether Frozen District's new offering will outmatch what came before. Yet, the competition in this highly specific simulator niche is basically nil, so all prospective (virtual) house flippers will at least consider a bid on the $39.99 title.

The good news for those who are curious about House Flipper 2, but uncertain whether it's a good investment, is that Frozen District aims to host a 2-hour developer livestream. The stream will be going live at 4 PM CET, and it makes for a perfect opportunity to check the game out without any fuss.

Finally, the developer has also announced that House Flipper 2 players can expect a big Community Contest shortly after the game's release. "We're proud to let you know that in the following days, we will present a ruleset, a list of exclusive rewards, as well as a theme for the first official House Flipper 2 Community Contest, and it is going to be focused around building your own house project," wrote Frozen District.

A promising start, perhaps, but it remains to be seen whether House Flipper 2 is truly up to the task.

The post House Flipper 2 launches this week, lets you live out the homeownership fantasy appeared first on Destructoid.