After yesterday's Instagram teaser, today Infinity Ward have released a more fleshed out promo for Call of Duty: Ghosts' first DLC campaign. Onslaught follows the traditional COD DLC pattern: containing four maps and a few extra bits. This time, the extra bits include a gun that's actually two guns, and a new episode of Extinction.

The most notable of the new maps is Fog. To go along with its horror-themed setting, players who complete a Field Order are transformed into Michael Myers, tearing up the map with his trademark axe and mask. It's a pretty weird bonus, but not as strange as if you'd been transformed into Mike Myers and forced to act out scenes from The Love Guru. On second thoughts, that would probably be more horrifying.

CoD Ghosts: Onslaught is out on Xboxes at the end of the month. The PC release date will likely be announced soon after.

Infinity Ward have announced their first DLC pack for Call of Duty: Ghosts. In an ideal world, this would update the campaign with even more animal followers. Personally, I'd love to see the addition of a stealth-friendly attack owl, a Worms-inspired exploding Sheep, and a bagful of hedgehogs to be thrown spines-first into the exposed faces of enemy soldiers. Alas, with the Onslaught DLC the Activision studio are instead sticking to the formula that guarantees them a truckload of money: four new multiplayer maps and some extra bits.

The teaser comes soon after the more traditional CoD DLC announcement route: a retail outlet poster. Spotted by Twitterer Ser6_Vick, the poster reveals that the added multiplayer battlespaces will be called Fog, Bayview, Containment and Ignition. As for the extras, it promises a new Maverick AR/Sniper Rifle, and another episode of the Extinction game mode, titled Nightfall.

It's that latter addition that the official Infinity Ward teaser focused on. And naturally, because you've gotta fill that Social Media Engagement quota, the announcement was made via Instagram.



Hidden in the teaser's accompanying onslaught of hashtags was the reveal, "something menacing is coming Jan. 28". Of course, as this is Call of Duty, it's not quite that simple. In an agreement that feels like it pre-dates the Treaty of Versailles, the DLC will appear as a timed exclusive on the Xbox Arbitrary Number. A PC release will follow later: sometime between a few weeks and the heat-death of the Universe.

Given that, as with all Call of Duty posts, the comments will likely gravitate towards an argument over whether the series is responsible for the death of all that is good and right about gaming, let's do something fun instead. What animal companion would you like to see added to the campaign? As well as the above examples, I'd also quite like a gruff but lovable honey badger, possibly voiced by Danny Dyer.

Thanks, CVG.

The holidays are a time for family gatherings, massive dinners, mildly disappointing presents, and visitations by ghosts who show you harrowing visions of what might have been. This year, the Ghost of Video Games Past showed me what the games of 2013 would have been like if graphics cards had never been invented! I have no idea why he did that. The Ghost of Video Games Past is a little weird.

However you feel about the Call of Duty series, we can all agree that the visuals are among the most cinematic in gaming. What happens when you remove the visuals? Follow me (and do exactly what I tell you when I tell you) and we'll find out with Call of Duty: Ghosts: The Text Adventure!

We're back! After a few weeks of work on special operations, we found a moment to catch us (and you) up on October and November's big games: XCOM: Enemy Within, Call of Duty: Ghosts, and Battlefield 4.

Sprint across a flowered field and embrace PC Gamer Podcast 365 - Ghost Grenade Dad.

Have a question, comment, complaint, or observation? Send an MP3 to pcgamerpodcast@gmail.com or call us toll-free at 877-404-1337 x724.

Subscribe to the podcast RSS feed.

Follow us on Twitter:
@ELahti (Evan Lahti)
@tyler_wilde (Tyler Wilde)
@demiurge (Cory Banks)

Previously, I'd assumed Call of Duty: Ghosts' heavy RAM requirement was there because loading a nice dog was a memory intensive procedure. Either that's not the case or canine computer tech is becoming increasingly advanced, because a new multiplayer patch has lowered the game's 6GB RAM restriction. Now you'll only need 4GB of memory juice to access the multiplayer portion, which should naturally mean more dogs chewing on more throats. Hooray?

The exact purpose of the update isn't entirely clear, with Infinity Ward planning to release the official patch notes later today. What the community have found is that, not only is the game mysteriously less RAM intensive, but that the e-sports features - originally thought to appear as part of the next MLG Championship - have made an early appearance.

Both Blitz and Search & Destroy modes have been updated with hard-coded rulesets, available to use in private matches. Players are also given the ability to set weapon, equipment and perk restrictions while using the e-sports functionality. In addition, a Broadcaster mode provides access to a new set of camera tools, including first-person, third-person and over-the-shoulder viewing modes.

Thanks, MP1st.

The tenth Call of Duty game came out this week, and by all accounts it's full of the same man-shootiness we've come to expect from the series. It's also not well optimised for PC. The frame-rate bobs all over the place and the apparently unshakeable mouse acceleration makes aiming feel slippery and weird. Players sensitive to narrow fields-of-view have also been suffering with Ghosts.

The good news is, there are a few tweaks and fixes popping up to alleviate the worst of it. Here are a few you might want to try from around the web.

Mouse Acceleration
Fear not, Barry, your days of wild slippery aiming will soon be over.

Does the mouse control in Call of Duty: Ghosts just feel wrong to you? You're not alone. You'll want to check that Mouse Acceleration is turned off in the main menu, of course. Then, disable any programs that add overlays, like Fraps, and the Steam overlay.

To disable the Steam overlay right click on Call of Duty: Ghosts, head to "Properties" and then visit the "General" tab. Uncheck the "Enable Steam Community In-Game" box there.

If that fails, then players on the COD: Ghosts Steam forums have reportedly had luck reducing the polling rate of their mice to 250Hz. The method for that will vary depending on your mouse software.

The always-useful PC Gaming Wiki have also found a config tweak that might help with the sudden jumps mouse movements can sometimes trigger. Change seta r)elevatedPriority "1" to seta r)elevatedPriority "0" in the config_mp.cfg file, found in Steam -> SteamApps -> common -> Call of Duty Ghosts -> players2

Stuttering and Framerate drops
 
This is the tenth Call of Duty game, and you're still not senior enough to open doors.

Don't trust the automatic settings. Where possible, switch graphics options away from "auto" to match your setup, that goes for setting your display ratio, too. It's thought that CoD upscales lower settings by default to keep the framerate high, but if you have a machine that can handle Ghosts easily, using extra settings with a defined aspect ratio will improve visual quality.

Call of Duty: Ghosts can stutter if your OS has it defined as a high priority process. You can improve performance by opening Task Manager, right clicking on iw6mp64_ship.exe and setting priority to "normal". If you're running Windows 8.1, head to your mouse settings on the Control Panel and make sure that Enhance Pointer Precision and Acceleration options are off.

If the frame rate is still tanking occasionally, try heading to the video options and running Ghosts in Windowed (no border) mode.

If your framerate is insanely high, but you want MORE, you may want to consider the CoD FPS unlocker at your own risk.
FOV and RAM requirements
That extra RAM is needed to power Ghost's advanced bird AI.

A community fix for Ghost's locked multiplayer field-of-view called Fovely appeared earlier in the week, but was quickly taken down apparently "due to a friendly threat from everyone's favorite publishing firm". Fovely, and others like it, are probably still out there on the world wide web somewhere, but take care when applying them. It looks like Activision don't want people meddling with Ghost's inner workings. Tweaks like this can sometimes result in multiplayer bans.

There's been some controversy over the question of whether or not Call of Duty: Ghosts uses the full six gigabytes of RAM that it insists you have. PC Gaming Wiki also has details of a way to remove Call of Duty's 6GB RAM requirement for the single player mode, but is also risky if you're planning on playing online, and requires a download.

Those are some of the best for now while we await any potential patches for the controls. Tyler laid down our official verdict yesterday in our Call of Duty: Ghosts review.