Infinity Ward stealth-added a brand new gun in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and Warzone this morning.
Head into your loadout and the shotgun category and you'll see the JAK-12 available to unlock. Infinity Ward's patch notes for this morning's update made no mention of this gun.
The JAK-12 is a fully automatic open bolt shotgun with a recoil reducing gas blowback system.
Assassin's Creed Valhalla narrative director Darby McDevitt has shed more light on the game's unusual decision to have you play as both male and female versions of main character Eivor different points.
Responding to me via Twitter this afternoon, McDevitt said the game's default option which included both male and female Eivor was "integral to the story we're telling" but that it "spoil the story" to say more.
"It enhances the story, IMO, and it doesn't happen frequently," McDevitt later added. "It always makes sense when the switch occurs."
This morning's Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and Warzone update adds mode-specific uninstall options on PC, and using it I was able to get the game's install footprint down to 168GB.
After downloading the ~20GB patch, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and Warzone weighed in at a whopping 231GB on PC.
Within Battle.net is a basic mode-specific uninstall manager that lets you ditch the campaign, multiplayer and / or spec ops. Warzone, however, is required and cannot be uninstalled, which is annoying if you just want to play Modern Warfare.
Take the A82 from Glasgow and drive north for two hours. Turn right at Glencoe, deeper inland, until you come to a huddle of identical white houses on the far end of the loch. This is Kinlochleven. Park by the visitor's centre and take the footpath east (marked West Highland Way), moving against the current of the river. Zip your jacket up! This is Scotland, after all, and the sky will be low, dull, and pregnant with rain. Persevere up the gutted and ill-kept trail, ignoring the mud that sucks hungrily at your boots, until the valley opens up into a bleak expanse of moorland. Feast your eyes on the sight before you. Wedged into the crooked hills, braced grimly against 24,000 million gallons of water, is Blackwater Dam: a two story high wall of pale concrete, smeared all over with slimy green moss.
Lots of horror games prefer to keep you closed off and claustrophobic in a spaghetti dinner of tight corridors and vent shafts. However, I think there's something to be said for the terror of open spaces, long empty roads and barren moorland, where the eyes play tricks on the mind. Cast your gaze to a far-off glen. Is that thing you took for a tree actually moving? Is it - no, surely not - is it coming closer?
At the centre of the spookiness is a certain graveyard that lies along the trail. A wooden picket fence has been hammered up and over a small uneven hill, closing in a plot of land pockmarked all over with concrete slabs. Some of them are carved with names: Mr W. Smith. Mr Cummingham. Mrs Reilly. Most just say 'Unknown'.
If Doom Eternal, Forza Motorsport 7, and the like weren't already enough to be getting on with this month, Microsoft has unveiled an additional batch of titles heading to Game Pass over the remainder of October, including Katana Zero, Age of Empires III: Definitive Edition, and more.
Microsoft's next Game Pass drop arrives this Thursday, 15th October, and begins with the aforementioned Age of Empires III: Definitive Edition on PC, which spruces up the acclaimed real-time strategy game with two new civilisations (the Swedes and Inca), updated multiplayer, two new game modes, enhanced audio and visuals, plus all previously released expansions.
PC also gets colourful "compact" action-RPG, The Swords of Ditto: Mormo's Curse, and Heave Ho, a sort of knockabout multiplayer grapple-'em-up, in which up to four friends must work together in a bid to successfully swing and hoist themselves to the end of each level.
Axiom Verge 2, the sequel to developer Thomas Happ's acclaimed retro-styled Metroid-a-like, will no longer release this year as originally anticipated, and is now due in the first half of 2021.
Breaking the delay news in a post on his blog, Happ explained that while last year's reveal trailer enthusiastically culminated in the words "Coming Fall 2020", that will no longer be the case. "I originally based my prediction on the remaining features on my project list and how long those tasks took when I was making Axiom Verge," Happ wrote; ultimately, however, a number of unforeseen factors - including the inevitable unpredictability caused by the ongoing pandemic - have "led my project schedule astray."
Happ goes through each contributing factor in more detail as part of his blog post but, succinctly, complications have arisen from Axiom Verge 2's enemies - which no longer follow a fixed path, unlike those seen in the original game - as well as its more complex art style, requiring seamless tiles that can blend into one another. The latter demand, says Happ, has "far reaching implications for the design, art, and ultimately feel of the game".
Lonely Mountain: Downhill's first paid DLC expansion, Eldfjall, is coming to Xbox One, PS4, Switch, and PC, next Thursday, 22nd October; it'll be accompanied by a free new seasonal Daily Rides feature for all players, initially bringing spookily themed rewards for Halloween.
Starting with Eldfjall, it introduces a new island map featuring an additional four leaderboard-enabled trails of serene/infuriating downhill bikery, complete with their own challenges and resting spots. This time, however, the elements won't be quite so hospitable, with players needing to navigate through the likes of thunderstorms and an erupting volcano.
Developer Megagon Industries is also throwing in new unlockable outfits, helmets, and paint jobs, new unlockable backpacks, and the pro helmet for use with existing outfits. All that will cost $5.99 USD (around £4.60) when it launches on 22nd October.
I'd like to think that - should all life on Earth be completely destroyed - the next civilisation will at least be able to figure out the basics of winemaking. And judging by Aloy's wonky walking in the PC version of Horizon Zero Dawn, it seems they probably will.
Guerilla Games has now rolled out another patch for Horizon Zero Dawn's PC port, and amongst the usual raft of bugfixes comes a solution to a problem that had plagued players since launch: Aloy's sideways walking. Aloy had a tendency to walk slightly off-centre to the left, rather than simply following the direction the camera was facing (as neatly displayed by ComManDerNomad in the video below). While that may sound like only a mild annoyance, some players reported it actually made them feel nauseous, so it's just as well that this is now being addressed in the patch. "Aloy now walks directly towards the direction the camera is facing when you press forward, rather than at a slight angle," the patch notes say. Back on the straight and arrow.
The patch also includes a number of crash fixes, and graphical improvements to stop character warping and flashing graphics in certain cutscenes. One fix tackles a HDR issue where the UI could be overlapped by a black screen, while a problem where "turning on the adaptive FPS option gave lower performance results than setting similar results manually" has also been resolved.
Football Manager 2021 has body language for chats with players, Sports Interactive has revealed.
This new body language system was shown off as part of a short video outlining new features for the sim. In the game, you get a description of your body language when you choose the way to respond to a player's question. You also get a read on the player's body language as they respond.
Other new features we noticed from the video include tweaks to transfers (now you can ask agents about their player's availability, which more accurately reflects modern transfers), and press conferences get a shake up, with a different layout more like a real conference.
I don't know why they didn't just call it Mordred. If you're going for a dark Arthurian vibe, why name it after a fluffy Heath Ledger film? Joust kidding. I'm sure there's a good reason. Maybe Heath's handsomeness didn't get as far as Hungary, and so we've got King Arthur: Knight's Tale instead.
It's the new game from a Hungarian studio called NeocoreGames, which you might know as the maker of the Van Helsing series of action RPGs, or Warhammer 40K Martyr, or, longer ago, the King Arthur series of games. But those Arthur games were different, quite Total Warry. This one, the new one, is more XCOM.
You play as Mordred, the famous baddie from the King Arthur tales. And true to form, it was you who killed King Arthur here. But he also killed you, so you both died and yet you both live. The Lady of the Lake kept you alive, and she wants you to end Arthur - who brought some kind of nightmare army to Avalon - for good. And you will fight his dark forces one turn-based, grid-based, tactical fight at a time.