In a shared to Bungie's official website, the Marathon dev team suggests feedback from the extraction shooter's alpha playtest, wꩲhich ended in early May, is at the heart of the delay. No new release date was revealed.

"The Alphܫa test created an opportunity for us to calibrate and focus the game on what will make it unﷺiquely compelling—survival under pressure, mystery and lore around every corner, raid-like endgame challenges, and Bungie’s genre-defining FPS combat," reads the news release.

"We're using this time to empower the team to create the intense, high-stakes experience that a title like Marathon is built around. This means deepening the relationship between the develope𒉰rs and the game’s most important voices: our players."

Bungie says we'll learn the new Marathon release date "later this Fall" when it'll share an update on the progress it's made on addressing feed🌼back from the alpha test.

Namely, the studio says it's "immediate focus" is on improving the game's survival elements by adding "more challenging and engaging AI encounters" and "more rewarding runs" with new loot and "dynamic events." It's also working on "mak🅰ing combat more tense and strategic." Which sort of sounds like the whole game, doesn't it?

Additionally𓄧, Bun๊gie says it's "doubling down on the Marathon universe" by improving visual fidelity, adding "more narrative and environmental storytelling," and focusing on "a darker tone that delivers on the themes of the original trilogy."

Finally, and this one seems to address a very common pain point, Bungie says it's "adding more s💯ocial experiences" to make for "a better experience for solo/duos." The only specific update we have right now in that regard is proximity chat, which will be added "so social stories can come to life."

Despite 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:a very 🔯public scandal relating to its in-game ꦆart, a divisive alpha, and 澳♓洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询🐲:a report signaling all-time low morale at Bungie, just last week PlayStation reported "strong early engagement"ꦫ in Marathon. This indefinite delay only makes it harder to reconcile PlayStation's messaging with the existing facts on the game, w♛hich has been positioned as a potentially genre-expanding release.

Marathon and Elden Ring Nightreign have a common problem: the solo experience is way worse, and I can't help but think nailing your game to teams of 3 is a mistake in 2025

In a new business segment focused on gaming, Sony doubled down on its live-service focus with at least four in-house studios all-in on evergreen online games. And in one slide, Sony makes a comparison between 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Helldivers 2, which has 3.6 million players a mon🤪th, and Marathon, which has apparently courted "strong early engagement for Bungie's bold and innovative new title."

Posi💜tioning Marathon as this year's Helldivers 2 would make sense - they're both big, premium, sci-fi shooters from the same publisher –♐ except for the fact that Bungie's facing an uphill battle this time around.

Just last month, it was found that Marathon's already divisive playtests (thanks, ) featured several designs and෴ art work from indie artist 'Antireal.' To avoid any legal trouble, the studio almost immediately 💟began reviewing ꦑall of the assets in the game.

"It came to our attention that an artist who worked on Marathon in the early stages of pre-production took a number of graphic elements from a graphic designer, without permission or acknowledgement, and placed them on a decal sheet that was then checked in in 2020," art director Joe Cross then 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:said iꦡn a slightly awkward dev stream.

"The decal sheet included icons and text elements. These elements ended up in our alpha build. There is absolutely no excuse for this ꧟oversight and we are working on and 100% committed to our review process to ensure instances like this don't happen again on Marathon or at Bungie." Bungie apparently reached out to Antireal, though we don't yet know how that turned out.

The iconic FPS developer has since been pretty much radio silent online. (The game's official hasn't tweeted anything since that livestream.) 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询🌸:A report about the company's low moral෴e also raised questions around whether Marathon would even come out this September, though another Sony slide does insist it꧃'s still set to release this fiscal year.

Marathon 𒀰is slated to come to PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S🦹 on September 23.

Don't miss a beat with our 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:new games of 2025 and beyond guide.

"Our show's a little bit different today," game director Joe Ziegler explained at the beginning of the str🤡eam. "We had planned to show a lot more stuff, but for a lot of reasons we're about toꦉ get into, we decided not to show a bunch of this stuff."

With that in mind, the devs elected not to show any🎶 gameplay footage during the stream. "We had a bunch of stuff we wanted to show today, but we decided not to show it because we're still scrubbing all of our assets to make sure that we are being respectful of the situation," Ziegler explained.

While much of the stream was dedicated to d🍎iscussing the game itself, franchise art director Joe Cross opened things with a prepared statement about the💧 art.

"It came to our attention that an artist who worked on Marathon in the early stages of pre-production took a number of graphic elements𝕴 from a graphic designer, without permission or acknowledgement, and placed them on a decal sheet that was then checked in in 2020," Cross said.

"The decal sheet included icons and text elements. These e🙈lements ended up in our alpha build. There is absolutely no excuse for this oversight and we are working on and 100% committed to our review process to ensure instances like this don't happen again on Marathon or at Bungie."

Cross said that Bungie has "reached out ♋to Antireal, the artist in question, and followed up to ensure we do right by this artist." No exact details on what Bungie intends to do were provided.

"I want to send my personal apology to Antireal, whose work was used in this case," Cross concluded. "I know how unfaꦇir this feels, and we're doing everything we can to make this right with her. Her work is fantastic and we clearly share mutual appreciation for a specific genre of graphic design. It's very exciting and I'm excited to have f๊olded that into our style in general. So thanks for listening and thanks for your patience."

5 months from launch, Marathon devs keep evading pricing questions, but Bungie promises that "it's definitely going to be a conversation."

Star Wars fans among Destiny 2's audience were understandably thrilled by the news, but others (like my clanmate ) were concerned that Bungie may be compromising the game's iden꧃tity to make some unseen number go up with a licensing deal.

We've had Baldur's Gate and Star Wars and even sillier cosmetic collabs before, but has the Fortnite-ification of Destiny 2 finally begun? This all notably follows the release of Darth Vader, General Grievous, and Kylo Ren armor sets in Destiny 2, included in the Year of Prophecy Ultimate Edition, joining three𝄹 previous cosmetics including a straight☂-up Storm Trooper.

assistant game director Robbie Stevens said:

"Rest assured, Guardians - everything in Renegades is in-canon for th♍e Destiny universe, but we're leaning into the aesthetic, tone and vibe of Star Wars to tell a Destiny story with Destiny characters."

This repeats some of the verbiage from the Renegades reveal: "A Destiny story at heart, but with a Star Wars-inspired ᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚtake that's bee𒐪n a dream for us to explore," Bungie said.

Stevens, howev♚er, is directly responding to worries like, "I don't mind inspiration/vibe but if Boba Fett shows up as an NPC I th✱ink I'd eat my hat," as Twitter user Matthew Rehwoldt put it.

That said, for the that Destiny 2 risks leaning too hard on another IP's identity and undermining its own at a time when it's said to be blazi⛄ng a new trail 11 years in, I don't know if anything short of the full-fat Renegades reveal, currently set for September, will fully assuage concerns.

There's every chance this is just down to semantics and the September show will calm everyone down. That said, Darth Vader is walking around the Tower. I have to wonder if some of this shakiness could've been avoided if Renegades was less of a Star Wars-inspired expansion and more of an original space Western that can feel like Star Wars, but I suppose that loses the LucasFilm buzz.

When Destiny 2 "weekly active users dropped lower and faster than we'd seen since 2018," Bungie assembled an A-Team to put out some fires: "We needed to do something."

The Year of Prophecy begins the FPS MMO's next big arc, the "multiyear" Fate Saga, a🧸nd it will see the release of two expansions: The Edge of Fate on July 15, and Renegades on December 2. These medium-sized expansions will be a bit bigger than Rise of Iron from Destiny 1, Bungie reiterated, and supported by free major updates.

Looking further a🍌head, a🃏re coming in 2026: Shattered Cycle in the summer, and The Alchemist in the winter.

The Edge of Fate is all about the Nine, a mysterious race of primordial beings who've acted more as fringe oddities in the Destiny universe until now. Renegꦗades, meanwhile, 🌱proves that Destiny 2's recent Star Wars armor was actually foreshadowing: the whole expansion is "Star Wars-inspired," filled with "themes and elements drawn from the iconic sci-fi franchise."

"The Nine are individuals," Bungie explained during today's reveal stream, and not a collective. Some Nine have proven evil in the p♐ast, no doubt, but we may find su🍌rprising allies among their number as well. Even if "humanity and the Guardians, to many of them, are ultimately just bugs."

The Fate Saga harkens back to a pivotal line in the Destiny universe: "Guardians make their own fate." In today's news, Bungie asks a new question: "Are we bound by fate?" (Feels like we already answered that, folks, but go off.)

The Ed𓂃ge of Fate begins to answer this question with the introduction of "a new threat that predates everything Guar🗹dians know about Sol," the system that's always been the Destiny series' core setting.

Starring Warlock Vanguard Ikora and new ally Lodi, the Edge of Fate takes place on new destination Kepler, which plays into the Metroidvania-adjacent des𓆏ign Bungie teased previ🦄ously. T🐽here's even an honest-to-goodness Metroid ball form, or at least a close-enough approximဣation.

Kepler was "inspired by the puzzle-solving and pathfinding challenges of Destiny 2’s dungeons and destination design which encourages deep exploration, mystery, and player-driven discovery,🍸" Bungie says.

The whole destination seems to revolve around a new mechanic called dark matter. You can use dark matte🌳r as fuel for a variety of abilities, including a way to "squeeze through tight spaces, jump and dash across terrain, and become a rolling force of destruction." There's also a Relocator Cannon that ca🌳n teleport you farther distances. Mattermorph, meanwhile, combines dark matter with Strand to further manipulate your surroundings.

This is what 11 years of Destiny looks like,🦂 people. We can turn into a ball. Finally.

As its pre-order package reveals, The Edge of Fate will see a new campaign and raid, a fresh rewards pass, and a pre-order-exclusive Exotic Ghost and emblem. Buying the big Year of Prophecy edition gets you The Edge of Fate, Renegades, the next raid and dungeon, and all the upcoming 🅰rewards 🐼passes.

The pricier ultimate edition seems to bundle in some more cosmetics, but also a 'new' Exotic sniper rifle: No Land Beyond, which Destiny 1 players may remember fondly for its bolt-action, iron sighted beauty. No Land Beyond, with an ornament and catalyst, will be availabꦆle at the Edge of Fate lau🌊nch, or you can get the base gun today if you pre-order the ultimate edition.

"The Fate Saga is gonna play out over several years," assistant game director Robbie Stevens said during Bungie's reveal 𒅌stream. "We know where we're driving this car, we know where we're going with it. The conclusion of The Edge of Fate itself is gonna leave you with more questions than answers, and it's gonna be the catalyst into this new multiyear saga. We really want to return Destiny to being a game about big questions. The way w♕e think about this is pouring jet fuel into the speculation engine."

This brings us to Renegades, which is a little more opaque for now. Renegades is th🎃e second expansion of the Year of Prophecy, and is billed as "a Destiny story at heart, but with a Star Wars-inspired take that's been a dream for u🔥s to explore."

"Renegades will introduce new Destiny characters, innovati🤡ve activities, and evolved mechanics designed to surprise and♛ delight players," Bungie adds.

Renegades will get its own dedicated reveal show in ﷺSeptember. One big detail dropped today: LucasFilm Games is attached to Renegades, so expect it to go heavy on Star Wars🦂.

Between and around these expansions, "core game updꦍates"🎐 and distinct "major updates" will tune the game and aim to keep players invested. A batch of core updates will arrive on July 15, while the major updates, which are also free to all players, have names of their own.

Major u꧒pdate Ash & Iron is coming on September 9. Shadow & Order is coming much later on March 3, 2026. These updates will be around the size of Into the Light, Bungie🌜 teased.

Bungie's already announced a few big systemic changes. We're getting overhauled armor with more buildcrafting🀅 baked in – including "armor that starts with full energy," praise be – along with Diablo-style world tiers with escalating🙈 loot and challenge. Guns are getting new tiers, too, seemingly with improved stats at higher tiers. (All guns in "every major event" will feature shiny weapons, too, for you hoarders out there.)

Personally, I'm most excited by the shooting range being added to the Tower as a new, proper🃏 way to DPS test guns and abilities. It only took 11 years!

Tha🐬t said, the crown jewel is probably the Portal, a new UI hub for all Destiny activit꧋ies.

"Players will be able to easily choose between Fireteam Ops, Pinnacle Ops, Crucible Ops, and the newly introduced Solo Ops," Bungie says of the Portal. "Fireteam Ops and Pinnacle Ops rein🐼force🍷 quick fireteam action and longer-form cooperative content, while the new Solo Ops activities are specifically designed for solo players who want short, self-contained gameplay sessions without the need for a fireteam.

"Additionally, players can tailor activities to match their desired gameplay and the specific rewards they are chasing. Fifty all-new modifiers will allow deeper gameplay customization and offer greater challenges for players, while curated activity rotations will ensure there is always something new to chasꦜe."

The Year of Prophecy technically kicks off today, May 6, with the release of the Rite of the Nine, a new activity available to all players. This is basically a d🔜ungeon remix starring Pr🌜ophecy, Spire of the Watcher, and Ghost of the Deep.

Old encou﷽nters have gotten new twists, and dungeon weapons have u🐷pdated perks and a Nine-esque look. Our old friend the Emissary is a focal point with the Rite of the Nine, setting up the Fate Saga.

"We don't expect Marathon to become Destiny 3": Bungie reckons "if you are a Destiny player who's not really interested in any PvP," Marathon is "probably not the game for you."

Bungie already made 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:a half-hearted attemꦑpt at soothing people's fears by writing in that "Marathon will not be aꦚ 'full-priced' title," and assistant director Del Cha🀅fe just repeated the line with equal half-heartedness in with streamer DrLupo.

"Yeah, I saw that on Twitter," DrLupo responds.

Chafe continues to say that "I can't go into details, but what I'll say is – we're not ready to talꦰk about it right now, but [...] we'll have conversations about this. When we're ready, we'll share some of the stuff we're talking about. Like, you and a bunch of other people are going to have really good feedback about it."

Presumably, the "other people" Chafe is referring to here denote other content creators like DrLupo, with millions of followers. I find that disappointing, considering the fact that there are plenty of not-famous gamers currently struggling under the weight of their 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:increasingly expensive hobby.

Chafe reiterates that price is "definitely going to be a conversation," since one of Bungie's "big goals here – especially kicking this off 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:with alpha – is to build th🎃is game and build a community around it. And so, we wa🔴nt to do that collaboratively. We want that perspective that helps us do what the players most care about."

🦩Unless players care most about knowing Marathon's price five months before it launches, it seems.

Any live service game is a risk, but Sony and Bungie are betting Marathon can make extraction shooters bigger: "I do think that the ceiling could rise."

"Join us on May 6, 2025 as we reveal The Ed𓆏ge of Fate and the upcoming year of Destiny 2," the studio says in a . Aꦅn accompanying image shows the symbols of The Nine, a mysterious group that's been lurking in the background of Destiny lore for years.

The reveal eve🐻nt is set to kick off at 9am PT / 12pm ET / 5pm BST on May 6. Bungie hasn't yet provided detail💎s on how to watch, but it'll be a safe bet to keep an eye on the studio's and channels.

We don't have much concrete detail on what to expect from the next round of Destiny 2 content, but Bungie has already offered a few hints. We know the studio is abandoning annual expansions in 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:favor ಌof "mediu🙈m-sized" expansions twice a year, roughly similar in scope to Rise of Iron from the original Destiny. And that first expansion is will see players "journey to a Metroidvania-inspir𒉰ed destinat♋ion."

A countdown hinting at the release date for the next expansio♌🐎n, previously codenamed Apollo, was mysteriously scrubbed from the game a few months ago. Whether that July 15 launch date pans out remains to be seen, but we'll likely know for sure in just a few weeks' tim🐭e.

After playing Marathon for 8 hours, I don't think Bungie's extraction shooter will be the next Helldivers 2 hit, but I don’t think it will be the next Concord bust either.

GamesRadar+ recently had the chance to sit down with Ziegler to talk all things Marathon, and we asked him why the team at Bungie is confident that it'll𝔍 become "the next hit PvP experience" given the relatively niche popularity of the extraction shooter genre. Turns out, Bungie is hoping to siphon some of the success from big sandbo𝓀x games with deeper, more meaningful stories.

"I do think that the c⭕eiling could rise from where it's at currently," Ziegler said. "And part of that is I think that we have a whole generation of people who are growing up in sandbox experiences. We have [battle royale] players, we have players who are playing other sandbox shooters as their main game as they were growing up. And for them, they're creating a lot of these stories, but a lot of the stories that they're creating are framed by the systems that those games embrace, right?

"And what we're trying to do is like, what if we took that to the next layer? When do you want to create emotional stories that will actually peak and valley in different ways, and create emotional texture t♍hat makes you feel something new and diffe🦄rent based on some of the things you know?"

With a survival extraction game, players are thrust into critically dangerous situations usually in ൩search of loot that's crucial to their survival, and it sounds like Ziegler and co. are hoping sandbox players become mo𓂃re emotionally invested because of the stakes at hand in Marathon.

"For us, when we're talking about extraction, we're really talking about the session-based survival experience that leads to chain storytelling. This story that we've created inside of this session has impact. We got loot out or we lost it, whatever the case is, and then that affects the next session. And so over time, you create this texture of different sessions that comes together to different stories that leads to a career inside of this spaꦍce."

For what it's worth, GR+ writer Austin Wood recently went hands on with Marathon and came away with a measured and cautiously optimistic take, writing, "After playing Maraꦜthon for 8 hours, I don’t think Bungie’s extraction shooter will be the next Helldivers 2 hit, but I don’t think it will be the next Concord bustꩲ either."

Marathon is due to launch across PS5, Xbox Series X, and PC on September 23, 2025, complete with full crossplay and cross save compatibility. 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历🌸史查询:🌼A closed alpha test is planned to start April 23. We don't yet know the price, but Bungie has said it won't be a "full-price꧒d title."

Marathon feels like a good extraction shooter, but it's not free-to-play, and I hope Sony and Bungie don't price it into an early grave.

"Marathon will be a premium title," Bungie writes in . "Maratho🔯n will not be a 'full-priced' title."

The admission is as murky as a puddle. While Bungie's use of "premium" here refers to what we recognize in our 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Marathon hands-on preview to be the PvP game🤡's stunning, intergalactic style and oiled-up, smo🍰oth controls, I'm a little paranoid that it also means Marathon will be $8 million.

Or, really, more like $50 or so. A "full-priced title," as Bungie says, could now refer to anything from the new, industry-standard 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:$70 price tag, to Nintendo's more 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:ambitious $80 cost for Mario K෴art Worl✅d, or its downright hubristic 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:$🌟90 Switch 2 copy of Breat꧃h of the Wild.

In the realm o🍸f paid extraction shooters like Marathon, the fire is tempered a bit as red-hot Helldivers 2 costs $40 and Hunt: Showdown 1896 costs $30 – though many other popular titles like Delta Force are free-to-play, as Marathon skeptics have noted.

"Not being f🍌ree to play will hurt it big time," quips a to Bungie's post on Twitter.

"If it wasn't bad news youജ'd announce it now," . Marathon will launch September 23 on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S, ܫso it's only a matter of time before we find out.

Marathon feels like a good extraction shooter, but it's not free-to-play, and I hope Sony and Bungie don't price it into an early grave.

"We didn’t want to use Master Chief," Ensemble Studios' Dave Pottinger tells of its executive decision, omitting the character from the RTS because the game "needed you to care about everybody else. We thought as soon as Master Chief shows up, that’s all anybody’s going to [care about]," he explains. This means tꦯheories that Bungie snubbed Ensemble by withholding the Master Chief license – and that the publisher objected to the game's existence in the firꦆst place – aren't true after all.

Spinning off a series renowned for delivering some of the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best FPS games of all time, Pottinger stressed how the strategy elements made it integral for players to keep an open mind in Haౠlo Wars, and how a lack of Master Chief made fans less inclined to prefer the Spartans by default. Still, the choice to leave him out entirely was not taken lightly. Ensemble "had these conversations seriously with people internally and externally," said Pottinger, which left the studio with a new question to parse: "How can it be an RTS? Clearly, Spartans are the best unit. Our challenge is making Spartans not the best unit, but making them an equal option [weighed against] the other units. That’s what a strategy game is.”

Having a Halo game without Master Chief sounds like a misstep off the cuff, but when Pottinger puts it that way, it makes perfect sense. Given the cul🎐t status th💛e humble RTS has achieved since its initially tepid 2009 reception, and how its popularity sparked a sequel years later from Alien: Isolation developer Creative Assembly, it seems Ensemble's gamble paid off handsomely. You're off the hook this time, Bungie!

From Wars to Infinite, check out the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best Halo games from across the Xbox series.

In a tweet last night, Halo YouTuber HiddenXperia announced that "I've been at Bungie all week playing Marathon." While the YouTuber wasn't able to provide any details about his time a💃t the studio, he said that it was a "surreal experience."

Bungie originally revealed Marathon in the May 2023 PlayStation Showcase, and it wasn't long after that before players unlocked a new trailer that suggested 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Marath💦on d🎃etails would still be a long way off. Back then,🦩 Bungie general manager Scott Taylor told players "we are going to go dark for a while - for 💯an extended period - while we focus on developing and playtesting the game."

Taylor also suggested that the next time we hear from Bungie about Marathon, the studio would be ready to reveal gameplay, but that's not what's happening here. While it's a positive sign that the studio is bringing in outside perspectives on the game, bringing experts in fr🤪om outside the development process is a relatively standard activity that could take place across any of a wide array of developmental milestones.

Marathon hasn't had a particularly easy time. Plans around the game and were said ౠto have become "overly ambitious," leading to layoffs at Bungie and a whole new studio being spun out of the company. Back in August, Bloomberg reporter Jason Schreier said 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:that development was going "no🍌t great," and that it had had to slip "a whole yea♕r." It could be that this round of playtests is evidence of a shot in the arm since that time, but I'm still not expecting to hear much from Bungie for a little while yet.

Bungie's Marathon looks the part, but do we really need another extraction shooter?

Insignia is the free and unofficial OG Xbox Live replacement that♌ has restored online functionality 🌜for almost 200 older games. The service requires you to jump through a few hoops to get it working on an original Xbox console, as detailed on its , which probably explains why there are just over 10,000 registered users and only 13 players online at the time of writing. 

But if you don't mind fiddling with your dusty machine, the service is a surefire way to play the Conker remake, Project Gotham Racing, and Phantasy Star Online with their servers intact. Even Star Wars Battlefront 1 & 2 are included - just in case server woes persist on their hi𒉰gh-definition remasters.

Next up on the online game preservation waitlist is Halo 2, which is coming to the service later today with ten multiplayer playlists: Team Slay🅰er, Skirmish, Training, Snipers, Hardcore, SWAT, Double Team, Rumble Pit, H2 Challenge, and my personal favorite, Big Team Battle. The shooter launches on Insignia in Public Beta at 8pm GMT and 4pm EST. 

Halo 2 was a landmark release two decades ago and it's still just as hilariously chaotic today thanks to some unshackled physics mayhem that sends tanks flying off the map, for instance. The game is still playable through normal means today via Halo: The Master Chief Collection, but I🧸'm happy to hear that online functionality is being revived for the shooter's original hardware.

Modders have worked magic on the classic game recently, with one🅘 team discovering and even resurrecting cut co💯ntent from before the game's release. Another mod forc🦹ed Spartans and Stormtroopers to battle it out for the sci-fi crown. And one animator used the game's textures to 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:create a Pokemon Snap crossover - yes, you read that right - that I never knew I needed. 

Developer 343 Industries is slowing down support on Halo Infinite as the studio prepares for new projects in the series. 

However, Helldivers 2 perfectly embodies the glorious and hilarious multiplayer carnage that those Bungie-era Halo games from over a decade ago provided. While many Halo players' experiences are defined by the white-hot crucible of Halo 3's Lone Wolf playlists or classic LAN parties, mine (and I’m sure many others') were defined by accidentally fragging my friends or running them over while driving a Ghost. Cooperative play, whether it's through the Campaign, Mu🀅ltiplayer, and later the Firefight mode, has always been a core part of my experience with Halo and it's great that Helldivers 2 has allowed me to rediscover the same joy. But that has also left me wondering why Halo: Infinite and 343 Industries' previous games just haven't landed with me in quite the same way.

Like peas in a Hellpod

In the canon of Helldivers 2, the titular, fragile heroes with fancy capes have an incredibly short life-expectancy of a mere two minutes. This might be because of the gnashing claws and mandibles of the Terminids or the unrelenting, heavily-armored꧃ Automatons, but based on my time playing, a big part of it is your own teammates.

For me, these friendly-fire incidents are crucial to the joy of Helldivers 2, no matter how annoying they can be. It comes down to the fact that all players can gradually🐟 unlock an increasingly bonkers꧟ armory of weapons. Starting from a humble assault rifle, machine gun, and precise orbital strike, players can eventually work their way up to half-ton bombs, railguns, grenade launchers, and orbital lasers. Giving all players access to this ludicrous weapon sandbox is what makes Helldivers 2 so unmistakably a Halo game in disguise, and so fun when playing with friends because, inevitably, it all goes wrong.

Committing to giving players such a varied and overpowered sandbox of weaponജs to pick from is a foundation o🍌f Halo, and what has made it one of my favorite video game series of all time. There aren't many other games where you can charge up a Spartan Laser to hit an enemy vehicle, only for your teammate to walk in front as it fires, getting vaporized too, but Helldivers 2 brings its own brand of discord with its spectacular Stratagems. Seeing your friends get obliterated by a stray shot from your own orbital barrage makes me laugh out loud, even in the most stressful high-difficulty missions where every life counts, and enemy hordes are unending.

It goes the other way too, in that both series offer plenty of ways to help and not just hiꦛnder your teammates. For example, most vehicles in Halo require multiple players to operate effectively, and some of Helldivers 2's most powerful weapons are best when a friend takes the ammo to help you rapidly reload. Whether you're being a good friend or a right bastard, both Bungie-era Halo and Helldivers 2 are better co-op experiences for allowing these teamwork and team-killing moments, creating a perfect mix of camaraderie and chaos. It's both a good reminder that communication and careful use of your gear is key to staying alive – and it's also really funny.

Combat Devolved

So why is it that every main Halo game since Halo: Reach in 2010 hasn🔥't quite scratched the same chaotic co-op itch that Helldiversꦛ 2 has? It’s not like that diverse sandbox of weapons that Halo is known for has gone away in the last 14 years, but there seems to have been a clear shift in priority when it came to PvP that had wide-reaching effects.

I've felt that the modern era of mainline Halo games from 343 Industries have had a habit of following the trends of the industry-leading shooters. Halo 4 introduced Call of Duty Killstreak-like personal ordnance drops and Halo 5: Guardians' microtransaction hell and Big Team Battle-equivalent mode, Warzone, introduced Req Pack cards. These kinds of personal power and progression systems are certainly fun to use, but they completely opposꦏe the more teamwork-oriented nature of Halo's roots. Why 🎃squad up in a Warthog with your friends when you can call in your own Scorpion tank or Banshee?

Along with new movement mechanics and a lesser emphasis on PvE outside the campaign, Halo 5: Guardians in particular felt like a real step back for cooperative play in Halo in general, despite the campaign being built with it in mind. Halo Infinite certainly made improvements in this department, but the notable absence of core features at launch, including online campaign co-op and Forge was a huge disappointment. Moreover, recent news of more adventurous pitches for Halo games, including a game like Helldivers 2, failing to get off the ground has not only been a sad glimpse at what could have been for Halo, but also suggests that not even Xbox se🍌ems to know what to do with its most recognizable franchise.

All this has essentially allowed a 100-strong Swedish studio to fill the gap with a phenomenal, sci-fi, co-op shooter with a huge weapons sandbox and strong emphasis on teamwork. With Halo Infinite now in its final season, things are winding down for 343 Industries to move onto other projects – hopefully ones that branch out from the prestigious, flagship franchise rut that Master Chief seems to be stuck in. For now, it seems like my friends and I will be sp♊reading Managed Democracy for a little while longer before bringing the war back to the Covenant.

Have fun locking and loading with the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best shooters right now 

Some in the studio's leadership were keen to try their hand at an MMORPG, spurred by the wildly popular beta of World Of Warcraft; others sugꦓgested an action RPG in the vein of Diablo. Both were backed enthusiastically, but lead programmer Angelo Laudon floated a more conservative option, one that would help keep the suits upstairs happy: stick to the RTS format on which the studio had built its name, while expanding beyond the PC audience.

At the time, the most high-profile example of a console RTS was StarCraft 64, a clumsy port of Blizzard's PC classic that ran poorly and lacked essential features. When Ensemble's own Age Of Empires 2 had been brought to PlayStation 2 a few years before, the port did little more than tie cursor movement to the left analogue stick and the Select button to X. "Angelo and I always felt💯 like there were ways to pull it off that nobo꧙dy was doing," Halo Wars producer Chris Rippy says. The plan, then, was to build a truly console-first RTS from the ground up, something that could live comfortably on the soon-to-launch Xbox 360. 

The bulk of the studio was tasked with finishing Age Of Empires 3 before moving on to the Diablo concept, another team was put onto the MMO project, and a final group – composed only of Laudon, Rippy and four others – got to work prototyping a console RTS codenamed 'Phoenix'. One of those four was Graeme Devine, a well-travelled designer and programmer whose credits spanned Doom 3 and cult puzzler The 7th Guest. Studio leadership reckoned his talents were being w🌊asted coding Age Of Empires 3, and suggested he take the reins of Phoenix's design. Relatively new to the studio, he hadn't yet burned out on the genre – and previous experience had taught him not to write off experimental console ideas. "I thought back to my time at Id, when we were just beginning Doom 3, and Halo came out for the first Xbox," he recalls. He and his colleagues dismissed the idea of a console FPS outright. "And then we played Halo and were like, 'Oh. Look at that. That's pretty darn playable'."

I can see your Halo

Achieving something similar with Phoenix wouldn't be easy. The RTS was perhaps even more bound to PC and mouse-and-keyboard controls than the FPS before it. Rippy lists some of the questions that faced the team: "What was it like to select units? What was it like to move units? What was it like to gather resources? It was really just the most basic things." In search of answers, the team dedicated the first year of development to making a fully functional console port of Age Of Mythology to demonstrate that♋ intuitive console controller support was even possible. "We always felt, at least at the beginning, that we were a skunkworks team off to the side," Rippy says. "We needed to prove ourselves." Tinkering with narrative, meanwhile, Devine decided that the game would step away from the historical settings – fantastical or otherwise – to which the studio had previously been tied. Phoenix would instead be a sci-fi epic that drew on War Of The Worlds and 2001: A Space Odyssey. "Humans go to the Moon, we find structures on the Moon, and we set off a cosmic car alarm," Devine says. An alien race called the Sway would follow the noise, triggering an invasion of Earth. 

Asymmetry was key. As in StarCraft, the human and alien factions would sport distinct unit types, abilities, upgrade paths and playstyles. The Sway would be able to blanket sections of the map in a fog of war, while the humans relied on stealth tactics. Both would advance through technological stages – much like the eras in Age Of Empires – but the Sway would do so by sacrificing their own units, adding a new dimension to skirmishes. Designs changed often, and the team's small size meant it could nimbly prototype and implement new ideas. "One of Ensemble's strengths was to playtest every day," Devine says, with the rest of the studio often jꩲoining in to give pointers. Eventually, they honed Phoenix to a state where they felt it was fun to play. "That was the point where we went to Microsoft." 

The publisher hadn't greenlit any of Ensemble's smaller prototypes in the past, but it liked Phoenix. Microsoft was keen to have one of🐬 its most𝄹 lauded studios produce something for its new platform, and seemed impressed by what the team had produced. There was just one snag. RTS had no proven console audience, and executives worried that Phoenix would struggle to sell without attachment to a bigger brand. Ensemble could develop the prototype into a full game, Microsoft said, on the condition that it became a Halo spinoff. 

Devine took this hard. He had spent a year building out a world of a🥃lien races, languages and future history. Now, he was being told to chuck it away for a series about which he knew little. "I baulked," he says. "I baulked badly. I did not like the idea." He was given the weekend to think about it. Then the arrangement was placed in stronger terms: if the team didn't get on board with the Halo pivot, there would be layoffs. "Well, OK, then," Devine reasoned at the time. "I guess I like Halo." 

Bar ✃the control system, ꦬwhich the team felt they'd just about cracked, most of the existing design work couldn't neatly map onto the Halo universe, making it redundant. And while Devine found a richer world in Halo than expected, the transition was made more complicated by the fact Ensemble was now working with another studio's IP. To start their relationship on the right foot, Devine and Rippy visited Bungie's headquarters in Seattle to demo an early build. The atmosphere was tense. Many Bungie staff seemed confused. After hesitations, Ensemble was given permission to add to the Halo canon – ideally in a far-off corner of the universe. 

Devine remembers Bungie's pitch: "Why don't you set this 100,000 years before the events of Halo, in the time of the ♐Forerunners?" Ensemble was on board, but not Microsoft: "'No, we want Spartans&ap♐os;." Except Ensemble couldn't use the one Spartan everyone knew. Master Chief – and indeed all of Halo's other central characters – were off limits, as the team skirted carefully around the in-development Halo 3 and the (ill-fated) Halo film. With Bungie's assistance, Devine created a new crew of UNSC soldiers that Ensemble could play with, avoiding the risk of stepping on any toes.

Give us space

While Halo Wars was progressing, Ensemble's other projects were struggling. The MMO team had pivoted that game into another Halo-themed spinoff without Microsoft's request or approval. The Diablo-style ARPG project was cancelled when Microsoft refused to greenlight it, and the prototype that replaced it – a Zeldainspired spy game called Agent – fared no better. The team was split up, and its staff distributed among the MMO and Halo Wars. The extra hands were sorely needed. Despite being the only active project at Ensemble that had received Microsoft's approval, Halo Wars had the smallest team. But, as senior staff rolled off other projects, the balance of what was once a lean, nimble unit shifted. Devine was left to focus on the narrative, while lead⛎ design duties were handed over to Dave Pottinger. 

A veteran of Ensemble who'd worked across all of the studio's releases, Pottinger immediately spotted problems: "The simulation was floundering, the pathfඣinding was pretty awful, and the computer-player AI was nonexistent." Many of the system improvements the studio had developed for Age Of Empires 3 hadn't been brought over to Halo Wars, while many of the design ideas borrowed from that series proved unworkable on console. "The complexity of the game was difficult for console players," Pottinger says. "When I took over as lead designer, we were sending builds out and people were playing them and they weren't having fun, because it was just too hard." Soldiers differentiated only by their weapons might work in a medieval setting but they looked confusingly similar in the world of Halo; selecting individual units from the hundreds on screen was a pain using analogue sticks; and managing an economy and building a base bogged down the momentum of skirmishes. 

Under Pottinger, t🐻he game was streamlined. The economy was changed to a two-resource system that didn't involve individual gatherer units; freestyle base-building was pared down to a preset building system; and a Select All option was added so that players could instantly control their entire force. Difficulties remained, though. Halo Wars was now a console game, an RTS and the next entry in Microsoft's biggest game series. But which was it first? "We had a lot of internal debate, really right up until the end, about the priority of those things," Pottinger remembers. "In my view, it was: Halo, console, RTS. Once you decide to make a Halo g♛ame, you have to deliver a Halo game." 

No wonder, then, that the Spartans were put front and centre, given the ability to hijack Covenant vehicles, and made an essential part of the ཧUNSC roster. In some ways, though, this was anathema to Ensemble's RTS prin🅠ciples, limiting players' strategic options by encouraging them to rely on a specific unit. But finding a balance between compelling and console-friendly design was always the challenge. "We had to pull back on some depth, and, honestly, we pulled back too much," Pottinger says. "Then we ran out of time to put the right amount of depth in. I think about Halo Wars as a lot of missed opportunities." 

Yet when the game finally launched, those missed opportunities weren't as clear to players as its makers. Halo Wars was popular enough to get a sequel – albeit not within the same studio. With the MMO project cancelled several months earlier, Microsoft announced ahead of Halo Wars' release that this would be the studio's final game. Ensemble, then, spent its last days working in the very genre its lead🐠ership had once been desperate to escape. It made sure, at least, to go out with a bang. "A lot of people thought about Halo Wars not necessarily just as a footnote to Microsoft," Devine says, "but as what Ensemble can do when we're at our best. And it was Ensemble at its best."

This feature originally appeared in 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Edge magazine. For more fantastic features, you can or . 

Brad's role at 2015 Inc was his first games industry job. In 🅷fact, although the studio had secured a modicum of credibility in first-person shooter circles with its SiN expansion, Wages Of Sin, it was mostly populated by young and inexperienced developers – nearly all of whom had travelled𒀰 to Tulsa, Oklahoma from elsewhere in America to seize their breakthrough opportunity. "I had moved out there from California, so it was a bit of a culture shock," Brad says. "But it was really fun." 

Robert Field, a modder who had built the enemy AI for Quake's popular Frogbot, was even further from home. He arrived at Tulsa International Airport on 15 December 2000, when development on Allied Assault was already underway. "I'm from Brisbane in Australia, so walking around in the snow in Tulsa was interesting," he says. "We even had a tornado once." The weather was tolerable because the work was fulfilling. With the Nineties over, Medal Of Honor: Allied Assault looked like the future. "To me, up until that point, a lot of games were hyper-coloured and bright and shiny, and this was not," Brad says. "This was subdued and realistic looking, and all the colours were drab. It was much more rich and i🐠nteresting, the way they were presenting it." 

D-day

The foundations for Call Of Duty were set here, in the shadow of Spielberg. In place of the machismo of Doom and Duke Nukem was a more subtle sense of historic pride, mingled with sadness and a sense of sacrifice. Your avatar wasn't a superman, but a vulnerable soldier victimised by World War II, attempting to carry out hair-raising orders as best they could. This was an interactive Savin🦹g Private Ryan or Band Of Brothers. Or at least, it would be, if 2015 Inc's rabble could all push in the right direction. 

"When I arrived, the animatiಞon system and everything was broken because they were replacing everything," Robert says. "I didn't know much about it because I was a mod author, so I thought, 'Oh, this is what you do.' Later on, Jason West brought the discipline where you always have a working game and you're able to show prototypes." Jason West had joined the team as a programmer to work on a console port. "But then I think Vince Zampella convinced him to take over," Robert says. "He became pretty much the lead of Allied Assault. We were a bunch of mod authors and he came on and got us meeting the schedule." Brad, who was creating the game's characters, would grab photos of members of the team and transform them into German or American soldiers, telling them, "You're gonna be the bad guy." 

"Everybody that I was working with was super talented, and super enthusiastic about what we were making," he says. "Everybody wanted to put the special sauce on it and spend the extra hours. It was really a fun experience, minus a few other things." Some on the Allied Assault team had concluded that they didn't want to stay at 2015 Inc beyond the end of the project. "We weren't going to get a good deal with the owner of 2015," Robert says. "Jason, Vince and Grant [Collier] wanted a better deal where we got royalty sharing." Resolving to set up a new company, a handful of key staff started to make moves. "We were all over the place, with five or six guys sneaking off to lunches and going, 'What are we going to do?,'" Brad says. "We had no idea what the name of the company was going to be. We just started spitballing ideas for games. One of our ex-producers had connections with different publishers, and he was like, 'What if we got this IP or that IP?' So it w🤪as really exciting. There were a ton of different ideas floating around and options that we could have done." 

Yet the first thing the new Infinity Ward worked on was, in fact, Medal Of Honor. More precisely, an add-on pack for Allied Assault at the behest of EA. "We were still working on the same game, with the same publisher, but as another company," Brad says. Many packed up and vacated the 2015 Inc office overnight. Although, as Brad remembers, Robert didn't get the memo straight away, "Robert was away on vacation or out of the country or something. So we didn't have a way to let him know. He shows up the next day, and everybody's gone. I think Grant contacted him and let him know, 'Hey, we're here, this is what's going on'. He may have been a little bewildered." The change and bewilderment didn't end there. When Infinity Ward was deep into development on its Medal Of Honor expansion, EA stopped paying for the work. "We were about to go under and get absorbed into the EA collective," Brad says. "And Activision swooped in. They were like, 'Hey, we'll fund your next project. If you work for us, you can stay together as a team.' And that was a really big issue for us, because we really liked working with each other."ꦫ 

"It's a family type of thing," Robert says. "We felt we had a good team, and we had Jason, who was pretty much the team leader, so we all rallied behind him." Activision wanted Infinity Ward to make a competitor to Medal Of Honor – an idea which didn't enthuse the entire team, who had already spent years with their heads in a simulated Second World War. But it was the best offer they had, and so they agreed – initiating a partnership that has now lasted for two decades and counting. "The goal was having a good solid team of people to work with that we liked," Brad says. "We trusted each other's instincts and talents [at Infinity Ward], and it was a great opportunity to continue working with nearly everybody." Twenty-two people had worked on Medal Of Honor: Allied Assault. "And when Call Of Duty started, we🧜 all moved six miles down the road in Tulsa," Robert says. The team occupied the 37th floor of the 60-story CityPlex tower. The iconic local building was first built by controversial televangelist Oral Roberts at the request of, as he told it, a 900-foot vision of Jesus. "Thirty-seven flights of stairs is not fun for fire alarms," Robert says. "After the first alarm I said, 'I'm not trashing my knees anymore. If it burns down, it burns down.'" 

Infinity Ward was led by West, Zampella and Courierಞ. "To fund Call Of Duty, Grant was maxing out his credit card originally," Robert says. "He was important from a biz point of view. And he got paid out well in the end." West was the creative force, however – steering the team through a tight 18 months of development. "Starting from Call Of Duty, Jason had a whole system of how we do features," Robert says. "At the beginning, all the level designers would write on cards the things they wanted in the game. Then the programmers would estimate how long that would take and look at our schedule and say, 'OK, this is how many things 🍬we think we can do.' We'd prioritise them and go down the list. We were scarred pretty badly from Allied Assault, where it got delayed." 

The team put together a detailed design doc – something they wouldn't bother with on later projects. "I guess we were trying to impress Activision," Robert says. "And Jason wanted to make sure we were on track." The addition of multiplayer was a compromise, made to please the publisher – a surprise, given how 🅰important the online component would later become to the series. "There was this notion back then of back-of- the-box features, and Activision was focussed on the buzzwords," Robert says. "We said, 'OK, we'll add multiplayer.' By Modern Warfare, half the development was on multiplayer. Earlier on, it was just minimal." 

Infinity Ward's primary focus was the campaign, an ambitious single-player mode that would see ꦑthe player fight on different fronts of the war as three separate soldiers – one Russian, one British, one American. "Probably at one point it was more than three," Brad says. "But we had to narrow it down for scope reasons, and have it all be able to fit on a CD." 

Strength in numbers

The decision to back multiple protagonists would have huge implications for COD's future of perspective-swapping stories. "I think we were put off by the idea of having just the one hero character that saves everybody in the war," Brad says. "It didn't feel as realistic. We wanted to represent everybody that contributed to that part of history." Like Medal Of Honor: Allied Assault, Call Of Duty was to be T-rated in the United States – suitable for ages 13 and up, with violence but little blood. Nonetheless, Infinity Ward wanted to ramp up the grittiness and intensity. "We had aiming down the sight and going prone, those sorts of things that were more tactical," Brad says. "A lo🌳t of the guys were playing Counter- Strike and they liked all those aspects of the shooting and the realism." Players of the first Call Of Duty demo were in awe when, during a nighttime assault on the French village of Sainte-Mère- Église, the impact of a nearby mortar shell would flatten their character prone, the impact ringing in their ears. 

"There was a lot of cool attention to detail that was put into that," Brad says. "We wanted it to feel like the player was the person, and the immersion was the thing. And it didn't have to be a name that went with a character that you were playing. It was really the idea of getting a feel for what it would be like to be in that situation." Brad was one of five artists on a team that ultimately totalled 26. "And a lot of people wore a lot of different hats," he says. "That was a good aspect of a small company. You're able to play with whatever you can." During one memorable mission, the player crosses the Volga river into Stꦕalingrad with a group of Red Army conscripts – and watches in horror as a boat of friendlies is struck by German artillery. Brad got to animate the ship as it sank into the depths. 

"I had our lead animator holding my hand and going, 'Try this, we're going to make this a little more extreme,'" he says. "It was a learning experience. Everybody was free to contribute." And if an idea didn't work out, nobody got into trouble. "That added to the game being as good as it was, because everybody was heard and everybody got excited about throwing out an idea," Brad says. "Maybe it would stick, or somebody might be able to help make it better." 🅘The Stalingrad level was heavily influenced by Enemy At The Gates, the 2001 Jude Law movie that follows two rival snipers over a long winter of battle. In one harrowing moment, the player is handed ammo rather than a gun – and commanded to pick up the rifle of a fellow soldier once he is killed. It's a scene pulled directly from the film. 

"Level designer Steve Fukuda had Saving Private Ryan running on another screen continually during the whole game, pretty much," Robert says. "Actually, there was talk that Activision wanted to make a Band Of Brothers series. But then they'd have to pay licensing. I don't think it would've been the best decision." The team was hungry for any new piece of cinema that featured the Second World War. "That helped us with setting things apart visually," Brad says. "Luckily th🎃ere was a nice wealth of really strong cinematography. Having that goal of making things feel cinematic and real and heavy led the way for the look of the three campaigns." Research tools were worth their weight in gold. 

"Whatever books we could find," Brad says. "Whatever things we could find on the internet. For the second COD, we sent a bunch of guys to different places for photo reference. But for the first one it was all about Google." Infinit♓y Ward bought model kits, and visited tank and aircraft museums on photo safaris. "When you didn't have a whole lot of access, you worked with what was close by, and luckily in Southern California there's a plethora of places that have all these artefacts and equipment from back in the 𒉰day," Brad says. "Even if it's not in the best condition, all of that wear and tear adds to the flavour. You don't want everything to look perfect, even though probably at the time it was brand-new. If you throw a little dirt and rust on it in the game, it just looks cool." Legendary military consultant Dale Dye returned, having worked with the team on Medal Of Honor. But the artists most valued their time with re-enactors, who would allow their gear to be photographed, "We were always trying to be as accurate as we could." 

Call Of Duty sold the idea that, rather than a catchphrase-ready commando, you were just one face in a crowd of desperate fighters. Robert worked on the AI, ensuring that each soldier could navigate the rubble and get to their intended destination, "If you've ever seen an AI clip through a wall in Call Of Duty, that's using the fail-safe that Jason said we definitely had to have," he says. "He said, 'No matter what, they have to get from point A💎 to point B.' If the AI doesn't get there, the level's broken, it's not going to continue. If they were really getting in trouble, getting caught on something, I would just noclip them wherever they're trying to go." In some of the larger battles, Infinity Ward compromised on the intelligence of its troops, by having the more distant soldiers follow animated paths rather than using their heads. "When you get off the boat in Stalingrad and all the guys are running up, they're actually not AI," Robert says. Among the hundreds of soldiers who passed through Call Of Duty's campaign, one moustachioed individual stood out: Captain Price. 

"It's pretty crazy," Brad says. "He made it all the way to Modern Warfare. He's one of the key guys now, he was the guy that stuck. Everybody was meant to be, not throwaway, but they weren't supposed to be the heroes. Everybody was supposed to be a hero, so nobody was supposed to be the main badass." The "big crazy struggle" of the project came in the summer of 2003, the year Call Of Dut💧y was to ship. That's when all of Infinity Ward upped sticks and moved from Oklahoma to California – into the LA building they would occupy until Modern Warfare 3. "We were more than just coworkers," Robert says. "And the fact that we all came from Tulsa, it's like this jo🃏urney you're on." 

"We were packing up all our stuff, figuring out where we were gonna live, and had to hit the ground running and make this game," Brad says. "It didn't really seem to affect us as much as we thought it was going to, because everybody was nose to the grindstone. We were all there as many hours as we could be." There were no demands that staff show up on the weekends. "But a lot of people were, because that was the mentality," Brad says. "As a new company trying to prove ourselves, everybody was super focussed on making our first game really good. Or else we wouldn't geꦚt to make another game. There were a lot of unspoken stresses." 

Los Angeles was chosen partly because it was near Activision HQ𓆉, and would allow studio leaders easy access to the producers managing t꧋he game. But as far as Robert was concerned, Infinity Ward felt like an independent company, with an independent culture. "You wouldn't get the sense that you were working at Activision," he says. "We were insulated from disputes over what was going to happen on the game. That would be Vince and Jason talking with Activision behind closed doors, and we'd be shielded."

Monster hunter

To the publish🥂er's credit, it often gave the team space to do their best work. "We weren't getting executives going, 'We want you to put this or that in the game,'" Robert says. "We weren't doing corporate dictates, we were just channelling what we thought was best for the player." The team at Infinity Ward was already proven, thanks to its work on Medal Of Honor. But they were intimidated by EA's series, the monster they'd helped create – not knowing if fans would stick with the name they knew or recognise the pedigree of the team behind Allied Assault. "EA had crazy awesome marketing at the time for Medal Of Honor," Brad says. "So we would see their commercials coming out, beautiful movie trailer-type things with live action. And we were like, 'Oh, man, that looks so good.'" As Robert remembers it, the team had been in competition with others for as long as it had existed. "On Allied Assault, we were trying to outdo the console Medal Of Honor," he says. "For Call Of Duty, we were going against EA's Allied Assault expansion, Spearhead. It's like a bogeyman." Robert compares the process of pulling Call Of Duty together to being in a Quake clan. 

"Obviously things can go wrong and you start shouting at each other," he says. "And designers a💟re trying to outdo each other with the cool scenes. But you've all got the sense of being on a team working together, pushing each other: 'I'll control that area, you control this.'" The push to the end was frantic and exciting. "And then you're just waiting for the reviews to come out," Robert says. "That was the first shot of drugs in the vein." Call Of Duty was hailed as a masterpiece, with scores over 90%. "We were just happy that it was well received," Brad says. 

The day after launch, Activision acquired Infinity Ward. For a few million dollars, the publisher bagged the studio behind the franchise that has since made it unstoppable. In 2020 alone, Call Of Duty made Activision over $3 billion. "They got us for a song," Brad says. "That was a super good business decision." In 2004, when EA finally did release its answer to Call Of Duty "it really wasn't competitive". "We were w☂orried about them because we saw their trailer and they had really cool rendering stuff," Robert says. "But once Medal Of Honor: Pacific Assault came out it was like, 'OK, these guys aren't our competition.' They didn't have their act together." By then, Infinity Ward was already turning its attention toward Bungie, which inspired West and the team to drop medikits in favour of regenerating health for Call Of Duty 2. "It was obviously based on Halo, because they had their shields," Robert says. "You don't want the game to become this treasure hunt for health packs. You want it to be more about the experܫience of playing than worrying about your last little bit of health." 

The shift reflected a growing concern with approachability. If an Infinity Ward designer was right-handed, they were told to test their level using their left, so that their aim would match that of an unseasoned player. "We were trying to get maximum sales," Robert says. "You're obviously not trying to do a garbage game, but we really were focussing on getting in as many people as possible. We'd get the reception🍷ist doing playtesting, people who hadn't played games before. Each level designer would have to watch the person play their level without any help, and if they were stuck in some spots, the designer would have to try to fix that." 

Approachability may have prepared Call Of Duty for the big time, but the switch from a historical backdrop to the modern day sealed the deal. "Our designers wanted to push for a new setting, because we were burnt out," Brad says. "As a company, we had made three World War II games, including Medal Of Honor. And so we were like, 'Can we change this up? We've been making World War II longer than World War II lasted.'" There was pushback from Activision, who didn't see many successful shooters on the market with contemporary settings💃, "They really didn&ไapos;t want us to make Modern Warfare." 

Brad doesn't know what changed the publisher's mind, but the launch of Modern Warfare marked Infinity Ward's ascension to the very peak of pop culture. Call Of Duty became a water-ཧcooler game, its campaign twists discussed on lunch breaks in schools and offices. It secured the future of the series for many more years to come. "We weren't expecting it," Brad says. "We knew that it was fun, especially the multiplayer – we would stick around late at night and play. But the success of that was ridiculous. It was a cool and fortunate experience – not all companies get to stick together that long."

This feature originally appeared in Retro Gamer magazine. For more fantastic in-depth features, interviews, and more on classic games, or . 

On November 21, Destiny developer Bungie announced that three new skins♏ "inspired by Geralt of Rivia" from The Witcher 3 will be arriving in its MMO alongside the upcoming Season of the Wish on No🐟vember 28. The crossover looks like it gives players a lot of choice as it features three armor sets that the White Wolf himself would wear. 

We're yet to get any proper information about these skins, including their price, but due to the cost of previous crossover skins (the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Destiny 2 Fortnite skins set players back £16.79/$19.ꦰ99 each or🎃 £50/$60 for all three), players are less than optimistic about how much the Witcher skins will cost. 

Twitter user an🅺d TodayinDestiny creator, , reacted to the news, telling fellow fans: "You can actually buy The Witcher 3 and all of its DLCs for less than it would cost you to buy ONE of the THREE Destiny 2 armor sets shown here." Other players have reacted similarly, replying to Bungie's tweet with things like: "Looks awesome! (Too bad they’ll be 20 USD exclusives on the Eververse)," and "Another overpriced collab?"

To be fair to Bungie, like we said, the price hasn't officially been revealed yet - although we also don&a🌸pos;t blame Destiny players for fearing the worst. As pointed out by the Twitter user, you can actually pick up The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt - Complete Edition for under $10 at the moment on . 

This isn't the first time someone has pointed out the high price of in-game cosmetics. Earlier this month, Halo Infinite players discovered that Halo Infinite's very expensive Master Chief armor (which helped the FPS to fly up Steam's revenue charts) is the same price as the ga🍬me that inspired it, Halo: Combat Evolved. The Mark V armor costs players $22, but Combat Evolved is currently less than $10 on Steam. 

Find out everything you need to know about the MMO's upcoming expansion with our 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Destiny 2: The Final Shape guide. 

Destiny 2 raid master TheSnazzzyRock, who previously set an unbelievable record for the Vault of Glass raid after some 200 hours of attempts, posted a video sharing the good word of the double-slug this week, with a tip of the hat to for uncovering it in the firs💦t place. It's just like you remember it: swapping 💦between weapons resets what's supposed to be a shared fire rate, letting you unload way more shells than Bungie ever intended. 

There's just one catch: you now have to use a Strand subclass with the grapple grenade equipped, and activate your grenade with every swap. Your grapple won't actual♏ly be consumed if you time it right, letting you keep the chain going forever on any class. This does effectively double the number of inputs needed for each swap, but that's a small price to pay for the power of the double-slug. Not only that, this Strand swap glitch seems to work with every weapon type in the game, though s⛄lug shotguns are still probably the best fit for it. 

Slug shotguns are uniquely positioned for this glitch among special weapons. They have good ammo reserves and magazines (unlike grenade launchers), fire instantly (unlike fusion rifles), and are quick to aim (unlike sniper rifles). Thanks to their precision damage modifier, they're also better damage than normal shotguns against anything with a weak point, which i꧅s basically every raid boss. In fact, it's literally every raid boss with the addition of the crit shell from the Exotic fusion rifle Divinity, which is better than ever thanks to a new Warlock Exotic helmet, the Cenotaph Mask, which lets you fire Divinity uninterrupted. 

The double-slug strat is still weaker than it used to be because the passive damage from the old go-to Exotic heavy pairing, Anarchy, is much lower after some nerfs, but Anarchy isn't weak by any means. You co🍷uld also use a machine gun for your heavy slot and treat it like a primary weapon to clear enemies between DPS phases, then bet it all on the slugs for boss killing. You honestly can't go wrong, so savor the double-slug while it lasts. 

Last month, Bungie fought an even bigger weapon clown fiesta as game-breaking "funny guns" destroyed the crafting system and also every boss in the game. 

In the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:latest issue of Edge Magazine, original Halo developers, including Alex Seropian and Chris Butcher, spoke about the challenges of making the first game - which was initially planned as a Mac-exclusive shooter. The key developers of the game explained that Halo: Combat Evolved - as we kno꧋w it now - only came together in the final year before its ambitious launch date alongside the 2001 release of the Xbox, and many sacrifices had to be made to make it happen.

"We made a lot of difficult decisions to make that🅰 [release] happen," said Alex Seropian, co-founder of Bungie during the interview. "We canceled [other] projects, we combined three teams together, we compromised on scope, [and] we shipped at least one level that we probably shouldn't have," he explained, likely referring to the infamous Library level that fans had been vocal of.

In the Edge feature, Seropian stated that eight months before the release, Bungie only had the "idea of a game" for Halo and that it only had the broader features and mechanics nailed down - all without a broader vision that pinned them together. The final stretch of development saw cuts made to the game, such as some weapons and set-piece moments. However, one of the original game's most iconic vehicles, featured in one of the game's most action-packed missi🤪ons, almost entered the developer's trash bin as well. 

"Four weeks before ship, [designer] John Howard decides we're cutting the tank, because it's not ready," stated Chris Butcไher, lead programmer on Halo: Combat Evolved. "The designer Paul Bertone was basically like 'fuck that, I'm not gonna listen to you, John - without the tank, this game sucks'. And so he went to the artists and the animators, like 'I know John told you guys that we cut the tank, but we're actually going to do it.' And they all just worked really hard, and a week and a half later, we're playing with the tank. And it works, and it's really fun. And John was upset about that, but ultim💞ately he was, 'I guess if you guys crunched to make it work - I was trying to make your lives easier, but you clearly don't want to listen to me.'"

Halo: Combat Evolved is a game that defined developer Bungie, and the Xbox brand itself. However, the development story of Halo is a common one that many other developers have experienced, where scope and vision all come into focus during the 11th hour. It also highlights how crunch was and is still commonly used to pull a game together.

For more on Halo, check out our ranking of the澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询: best Halo games of all-time.

A lot of people are saying the same old things. The game is dead, the devs at Bungie are lazy, they want to end this thing and be done with it. Those statements are as untrue as ever. Destiny 2 is unquestionably in a dip right now – the loudest alarm in my mind is – but it is not dying. It's still one of the most consistently successful live service games ever, and it's still got arguably the best gunplay in the history of video games. But at the same time, it d♎oes feel to me like a game near the end of its life. 

I don't actually think Destiny 2 is near the end of its life, but it feels like it is, and that's what's weighing on my mind. It's an old game that 💧feels old, as if vital systems are starting to give out under the unstoppable march of time. We are in Season 21 of Destiny 2, people. I don't know how much more this game has to give. I don't know how much more I want to ൲play it. 

Maybe this is just the inevitable fate of a seasonal model that's gone on this long. Every time Bungie gets a decent sandcastle going, a new season washes it away. Loot has become unappealing compared to stuff we already have, core playlists have deteriorated, the servers are on fire (obviously for different reasons, 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:but it ain't helping), and the narrative isꦗ once again up in the air. I'm past the point of discussing what should be done and am now pondering what can be done. With Bungie openly throwin𒈔g up its hands and declaring parts of its game unsalvageable, I'm not overflowing with optimism. 

The state of the game  

I've read a lot of Destiny State of the Game blog posts in 🥂these nine years, and it's rare for Bungie to sound so defeated. Destiny 2 is asking for more money than ever, yet at the same time, Bungie is saying🦩 it can't or won't dedicate resources to several sizable elements of the game.  

I've seen some players point out that, after this State of the Game, at least we can put some age-old hopes to bed. Yeah, sure. B⛦ut I'd argue that 'it's as bad as you thought and it's not getting better' is not the message the game needed. It's becoming increasingly difficult to have fun in Destiny 2 once you leave the bubble of the newest content, and that content rot is apparently only going to get worse. 

Look at Gambit. For god's sake, look at Gambit. Anyone who ever makes any kind of PvPvE game ought to study the bruised, battered, and burned corpse of Destiny 2's Gambit mode, which Bungie has now thrown into a woodchipper for good measure. Gambit was once touted as 🅠a premier addition for Forsaken – one of the game's biggest and most-loved expansions 🍸– and the middle ground for the core playlists. You've got PvE in Strikes, PvP in Crucible, and PvPvE in Gambit. And guess what: Gambit used to be fun! 

People have looked at ☂Gambit mourners and asked where this sudden love for the mode came from when the data shows almost nobody was playing it. I can honestly say I did like Gambit once upon a time. I would like to like it again! But lacking loot, heavy weapons, obnoxious Invader design, and a dire lack of updates has left it in such disrepair that Bungie would rather condemn it like an abandoned house and tell everyone they don't need to worry about it anymore. Ther🔯e's a logical argument for this decision, but I get enough harm reduction from US elections and don't find it any more encouraging here. 

Look at PvP. I don't know how Destiny 2 still has the PvP player base that it does, because gunplay aside, any half-decent competitive shooter will serve you better. Playing Destiny 2 for PvP is like buying a whole burger just to eat the pickles off it. You know people sell whole jars of pickles, right? I was once a top-50 Clash player in Destiny 1 (according to Destiny Tracker anyway), but at this point I think of PvP in Destiny 2 the way I think of PvP in Diablo 4. It's an unabashedly unbalanced and vestigial mess that most people can only enjoy if they like getting messy. If you go into it expecting ☂anything else, you will get burned. 

Maybe it is good for people to finally know, without a shadow of a doubt, that Bungie does hear the requests for more PvP maps but isn't going to make more because that would require resources it apparently can't spare. I guess that's better than players hanging onto threadbare wishes for years. And it's⛎ not like PvP is as neglected as Gambit. It's getting some new modes, loot, balance changes, and so on. But it just feels bad to hear a company known for multiplayer shooters🐲, and actively making a new PvP shooter, say it can't make maps. 

I've seen people complain about 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Marathon allegedly sucking up Destiny 2's resources, but the fact is, it's normal and good for a company to spend revenue from one success on new projects. That's how businesses work. I've also seen misconceptions over how澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询: the $3.6 billion Sony acquisition surely must have filled Bungie's coffers to the point that it can snap its fingers and buy a solution to anything. But that's noꦿt how acquisitions work, nor is that how money works. With all of that said, it doesn't feel good to see Bungie open a State of the Game by talking about all the things it can't do when it really doesn't f♒eel like people are asking for the moon here. 

The loot problem  

With Gambit updates and PvP maps, I can at least see where Bungie is coming from even if it leaves a sour taste in my mouth. But the armor thing? Come on. Making one ritual armor set a year "has become increasingly challenging, especially considering these sets have historically had very low adoption by players as both base armor and cosmetic ornaments." Come on, Bungie.

Players aren't wearing ritual armor because it drops with lꦿow stats. This is also one of the reasons most people don't like to grind the standard Vanguard playlist; Strikes, especially, are unrewarding. (A lot of Destiny 2 is unrewarꦐding, which is a big problem for a loot game!) And people aren't transmogging this armor because the sets have been pretty darn ugly. But instead of making more, stronger, or better-looking armor, we're just throwing in the towel after failing to deliver playlist armor in Lightfall?

There is absolutely no denying the optics of this in the context of Destiny 2's Eververse store pumping out plenty of more fashionable armor without issue. Release that slick bull Titan Eververse getup as ritual armor and see how many players adopt it. I recognize that Eververse is its own thing, ornaments are different from playlist drops, The Final Shape has new armor coming in several months, and we still get new sets in seasons and dungeons and raids. I'm not going to pretend that I know how this armor is made, and I'm not say🌞ing it would be easy for Bungie to make more playlist arm💞or. I'm saying this is an incredibly flimsy and disappointing argument for a loot-based game to make.

What comes next?  

There's not a doubt in my mind that Bungie will show some cool-ass footage full of cool-ass stuff at the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:August 22 Final Shape showcase. It will get people hyped right the hell up d𒅌espite that bitter State of the Game – which did, in fairness, promise some great quality-of-life changes. But after nine years, I would like to see more good news that doesn't come with bad news. 

My personal wishlist for the reveal is short but nebulous. What I want is something to look forward to, not for the year ahead, but for the years that Bungie says are still in store for Destiny 2. Because I am struggling to see a future for the game, or at least my future with it, beyond the Light and Darkness finale coming in the next expansion – the last part of a quadrilogy that wasn't even planned a few years ago. ♕After the narrative letdown of Lightfall, I'm less confident in even that than I was a year ago. 

The fact that I'm already desperately looking this far ahead goes to show how little staying power Lightfall and its seasons have had, and I think that's a big part of why the community is so down right now. Lightfal🏅l was not the lowest point in Destiny 2's history, but I reckon it was the biggest fumble of any annual expansion, and the effects of that are still sinking in. A lot of little problems, and some new big ones, have congealed into one disconcerting mass. 

These days, I play Destiny 2 purely for new story missions and weekly raid or dungeon resets. I still encourage people frustrated with any game to take a break, and I've certainly been playing less following my own advice. The smartest thing the Final Fantasy 14 devs ever did was repeatedly encourage people to play other games, rightly acknowledging that even the best MMOs can't be truly bottomless. And I don't expect Destiny 2 to be bottomless. I just want to want to play it more than the bare minimum. That doesn't f🎃eel like asking fဣor the moon. 

During Ryan's pre-recorded deposition shown as part of the hearings over the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Xbox Activision deal, he was asked if he believed Starfield and TES6 would come to PlayStation prior to the Microsoft acquisition (via Derek Strickland on ). Ryan said "we did," adding that "I think that pretty much every Bethesda game was multi-platform prior to the acquisition." He also said that it was only after the acquisition th🍰at Sony learned these games would not be available on PlayStation.

Ryan acknowledged that Sony had contracts for the Bethe🌜sda-published Ghostwire: Tokyo and Deathloop prior to the acquisition, which is how those games appeared on PS5 even after the deal closed - as one-year timed exclusives that have only recently hit Xbox at all.

Despite all that, Ryan also said that he wasn't too bothered by Microsoft's decision to make recent Bethesda titles Xbox exclusive (via Stephen Tot🎀ilo on ). Of Redfall's exclusivity, he said "I don’t like it, but I fundamentally have no quarrel with it." On Starfield, he said "I don’t like it but I don’t view it as anti-competitive."

Earlier in the hearings, Xbox boss Phil Spencer said that The Elder Scrolls 6 i꧋s "so far out" even he d🐬oesn't know what platforms it'll be on, indicating that Microsoft hasn't made a decision on whether or not it'll be an exclusive. According to the company's expected timing, TES6 might even 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:be a PS6 game if it comes to PlayStation at all.

Internal Xbox documents published during the hearings suggest that Microsoft had designs on buying Sega, Bungie, and at least seven other studios.

As part of the ongoing hearings over Microsoft's deal to purchase Activision Blizzard, several internal documents have been made public for various reasons. Some reveal interesting titbits – Phil Spencer's fear of 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Sony buying Starfield or 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Xbox's "final watchlist" for acq♓uisition, incl🧸uding Sega, Bungie, and seven other studios. 

Others are fairly understandable and yet still amusing, like Bethesda Softworks SVP of global marketing & communications Pete Hines asking Spencer what the deal is with being vocal over keeping Call of Duty on PlayStation when 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Starfield is locked down to Xbox.

As shared online by Bloomberg's Jason Schreier on , Hin🔥es expressed his "surprise" to Spencer regarding the messaging of an Xbox blog post about ensuring "Sony fans can continue to enjoy the games they love", going on to say it was being read as the opposite of what happened when Microsoft acquired Bethesda.

Also shared during the trial was Hines' email to other Bethesda buds like Todd Howard, getting across a similar sentiment more candidly. Hines expresses "confusion" as Microsoft's messaging over Call of Duty is the "opposite of what🎶 we were just asked (told) to do with our own titles?" Hines also mentions that it would have been good to get a heads-up as Howard was due to attend DICE, and would have likely been confronted with the topic in several interviews.

Again, the difference in tone is fairly par for the cꦆourse when it comes to corporate settings - it's just amusing to see the curtain on games development pulled back to reveal a group chat vs the side chat moment.

澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Starfield will have physical discs, after all, Bethesda confirms – just not PlayStation availability.

PlayStation acquired Destiny 2 developer Bungie inಞ a $3.6 billion deal announced over a year ago. During a financial report earlier this week (via ), Sony announced that it intends to "work with Bungie on a rigorous review process across the 12 live services we're working on," add♕ing that th✃e studio has helped PlayStation "more deeply understand what success means in live services."

Earlier today, Naughty Dog announced that 澳💙洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:The Last of Us multiplayer had been pushed back, but offered no specific reasons for the delay. However, a report published moments after the announcement suggeste🌄d that "Bungie raised questions about the The Last of Us multiplayer project’s ability to keep players engaged for a long period of time, which led to the reassessment."

Bloomberg says t𓆏hat the Last of Us multiplayer game has not been canceled, though development has been scaled back while the company "reevaluates the direction."

While The Last of Us is primarily known for its single-player narrative, the Factions multiplayer mode included in the original game has a devoted cult following. A similar follow-up mode was expected in The Last of Us Part 2, though it was 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:delayed from the game's launch and eventually 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:re-announced as a standalone title.

Today, multiplayer games live and die by their ability to keep players coming back not just for weeks, but years. After all, that's the only way a game can keep players dropping cash over the long haul. This Last of Us multiplayer game might've been able to satisfy Factions fans in its current state - we'll never know for sure - but it seems it wasn't expected to meet 澳洲幸运5开奖💛号码历史查询:PlayStation's lofty ♈live-service ambitions.

Time will tell how much PlayStation will shake up the ranks of the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best online games out there.

Set to bring us to planet of Tau Ceti 4 in a sci-fi universe that will see us explore a lost colony and go up against rival teams, Marathon is coming to us from a studio that's behind some of the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best FPS games around, and with plenty of experience in the genre, we can expect lots of PvP action. B💜ut Bungie also confirmed in the delay update that the push from September will see the development team put a greater focus on the survival and social elements, as well as the environmental storytelli൩ng.

Prior to the latest update, we also learned that the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Marathon reboot 🥃will not be free-to-play, and how much it will cost when it releases is still something of a question mark, with Bungie only vaguely stipꦏulating that it will not be "a full-priced 🍃title". As one of the big 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:new games set to come from the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:PlayStation Studios family, we also know it's set to arrive on multiple platforms alongside the lineup of 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:upcoming PS5 games. While we'll🐲 have to wait for the next update to find out when the new extraction shooter will arrive, you can find a full breakdown of everything we know so far about Marathon, from its gameplay to its characters, and more.

Marathon release date speculation

The Marathon release date has been delayed, with no set launch window currently in place.

Originally set to release on September 23, 2025, Bungie put out a announcing the decision to delay its upcoming extraction shooter🍨 following the Alpha test and feedback from players.

B♌eginning by thanking fans for all of the passionate feedback following Marathon's reveal and Alpha test across Discord and social media, the update from the dev team explained that the test "created an opportunity for us to calibrate and focus on what will make it [Marathon] uniquely compelling".

"We're using this time to empower the team to create the intense, high-stakes experience that a title like Marathon is built around", the post states. "This means deepening the relationship between the 🔯develope🙈rs and the game’s most important voices: our players."

"Over the next few months, we'll continue closed testing (including participants from the Alpha) to deploy gameplay updaไtes and test new features as they come online," the post adds.

While no new release date was given, the update closes by confirming that we'll be getting a further update this Fall, in which Bungie will give us another update on Marathon's progress "alongside the ga🐷me's new reಞlease date."

Prior to this, production had been stalled by numerous issues at Bungie, following multiple rounds of layoffs at the company. 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:The first set came in October 2023, where it was reported that Marathon had been pushed to 2025 and that Destiny: The Final Shape was being moved from February to June 2024 – the latter of which turned out to be true. 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:More layoffs have followed since, but the Marathon reboot is still happening. We'll be keeping an eye out for🍷 the next update.

Marathon platforms

Marathon will be released on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X.

While Sony acquired Bungie in 2022, 🔜the studio has committed to being a multi-game, multi-platform studio. As part of this commitment, the studio has confirmed that the 🌟new Marathon game will feature full cross-play and cross-save support.

Marathon developer

If you aren't familiar with the franchise, the Marathon trilogy is what Bungie earned its reputation on before it became synonymous with Halo and Destiny. These early first-person shooters were released for Mac OS between 1994 and 1996, and after a 27-year break, Bungie is returning to the universe it created – in fact, this i꧂s the first completely new project from Bungie in over a decade!

This new Marathon game is set to be a PvP-focused extraction shooter, where you'll need to compete with other players for riches, renown, and survival in an ever-evo♒lving world. Set on the alien planet of Tau Ceti IV, you'll have to embody cybernetic mercenaries known as "Runners". Explore the past colony on the planet's surface and uncover loot and ♋new weapons galore.

Is Marathon a sequel?

Bungie ma🐭y be known for the Halo and Bungie franchises, but before all of that, it was known for building a series of fantastic first-pe💯rson shooters called Marathon – Apple Macintosh exclusive games which were released between 1994 and 1996.

Christopher Barrett, game director for the new Marathon game, "not a direct sequel to the ori🅠ginals, but something that certainly belongs in the same universe." Barrett adds: "You don't need to know anything about Marathon to understand or play this game, but if you do, wಞe've made the experience with references and deep cuts you'll recognize."

Marathon gameplay

Above, you can check out some Marathon gameplay in action from our hands-on session with alpha build of the game to get a 15-minute taste ♕of what's in store.

While Bungie is recognized as one of the key players behiཧnd the FPS genre's ascent on console, thanks in part to its work with Halo in the earliest years of Xbox Live, the studio has never made a focused player-versus-player experience. That will change with Marathon, where gameplay will be specifically focused around your ability to navigate encounters with other players out in the wilds of Tau Ceti 4 – either running solo, or in crews of three.

Yo♍u'll play as𒐪 a Runner, venturing into the unknown areas of the planet to fight other players and AI-controlled enemies to secure loot and valuable resources, all of which you'll be able to reinvest into your character – should you survive long enough to extract, that is. Game director Christopher Barrett said that Bungie wants "to make sure players have tons of strategic choices, both in terms of the gear available and their loadouts, but also on the ground in terms of tactical options, entrance and exfil points, and so on."

Barrett also explained that there will be a variety of ways to 'win' in Marathon, besides surviving, and that there will be a whole mess of intriguing survival systems to contend with. Speaking to Bungie's ho༒pes to make the genre more approachable: "One of the ways we're addressing this is by making the core fantasies of survival and extraction fun, clear, and easy to understand. We want people to quickly understand fundamentals like healing, or oxygen, or how to organize their gear.

For more on how it plays, check out our 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Marathon hands-on preview.

Marathon Runners

The Marathon Runners we can play each possess different skills and essentially operate a bit like different c༺lass-builds. In an extensive , the team at Bungie introduced us to the four different Marathon Runners that will be in the Alpha build (with six runners in total set to be in the game for launch). The "four core" runners in alpha will be:

Locus, "the soldier kind of fantasy" character who's all about "push forward gameplay"; Blackbird who has a "reconnaissance-based kit", who's all about "figuring out where players and enemies are in general and punishing poor positioning"; Glitch is an "agile disrupter" who is all about "disrupting enemy teams"; and lastly, Void who's described as the "stealth boy" or "sneaky boy" who can use an active camo cloak and "throw down s༺moke" to take enemies by surprise.

Marathon will be multiplayer-only

ꩲMarathon will n﷽ot feature a single-player campaign. Bungie is building Marathon with "the PVP experience as our foundation," although game director Christopher Barrett says that narrative is still a key pillar to the experience – beyond the story-driven stories that extraction shooters are so adept at generating.

"The heart of Marathon’s gameplay experience is PvP but it isn’t the entire story. We're building a rich, immersive world that will have ample opportunities for exploration and conflict – both against other players and AI-controlled enemies. Combine thaꦉt with the different objectives and motivations that players will have for each run, as well as the narrative doors that can be unlocked as players discover things and accomplish tasks, and it creates this really rich palette of gameplay possibilitie𓃲s that will only continue to grow and evolve."

Marathon setting

The Marathon setting is the planet known as Tau Ceti 4, where a lost colony that disappeared without a trace once resided. Abandoned by the 30,000 souls who once called it home, as a Runner, you'll have the chance to expl🔯ore it all. There's also strange signals, long-dormant AI, and other mysteries to contend with.

"Players will engage solo or in crews of three, searching for mysterious alien artifacts, as well as for valuable loot and new weapons and gear that they can add to their collection, says game director Christopher Barrett, who also teases that the world will be "full of persistent, evolving zones, where players create their own journey ꦦwith every run they take."

While we all wait for Marathon, why not jump into one of the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best PS5 games to play right now?

"Community interaction and engagemen✅t is central to Bungie and our games," a from the Destiny 2 Team twitter account begins. "For years, we've invited creators and other members of the community to confidential summits to provide feedback on the🦂 future of Destiny. This is a beloved part of the process, but relies heavily on trust.

"Breaches of this trust could result in our inability to hold more summits. We take these breaches extremely seriously 𒊎and are taking actions to reinforce our policies with those invited to these internal meetings," it concludes. 

the studio's post, Bungie community manager Liana Ruppert🔴 added: "Sometimes this job hurts. I don’t think people realize how attached to folks we are. As a human, not employee: when that trust is betrayed, it hurts. Same thing when I was a talent manager: it’s hard when you genuinely care. And we do. Please don’t abuse that 🍎trust." 

Even known leak aꦡggregates like Destiny Bulletin apparently : "Leaking contents from a closed Community Summit that you've signed an NDA for is definitely a serious breach of trust and confidentiality." Longtime Destiny YouTuber True Vanguard put it,♈ uh, : "If you break NDA's from these summits, you can eat da poopoo."

The exact source of the leak seemi꧒ngly hasn't been pinned down or revealed just yet, but from the sound of things, I suspect somebody will face the wrath of Bungie's legal team soon enough. After all, the images currently spreading around social media certainly do look💖 a heck of a lot like photographs taken during an internal presentation at Bungie. 

I'm not going to share the images directly for obvious reasons, but there's no getting this genie back in the bottle. If you want to see the leaks, you won't have to look very hard – you can start with the replies to the Destiny 2 team's tweet. If you want to stay spoiler-free, you might want to mute some terms on social media or, for tot🌳al safety, stick your head in a big bucket of sand until the current season ends in... over a month. OK, maybe nix the sand plan. 

Ahead of this leak, Bungie acknowledged Destiny 2 Lightfall's divisive launch and committed to some big, highly requested changes. 

As reports, Activision employees are expected back at the office on April 10, with Blizzard staff returning July 10. Members of both companies will be required to come into the office three days a week, so there will still be some remote time. "We look for🦩ward to the increased in-person collaboration and teamwork," a statement from the company reads. 

The response from Activision Blizzard employees and other game devs has been more than mixed. One Blizzard staffer that "the majority of employees at ABK have no interest in returning to office either full or part time." A remote Blizzard hire that they learned of the news through a website, and while they won't be affected by the return꧅ to office as they've always been a fully remote hire, they argued "there's no logic to mandating being in the same physical location." 

Bungie cinematics director Jimmie Myer🌱s that "Bungie is a💮 remote first company" which developed and shipped Destiny 2's Season of the Seraph "entirely remotely." Many other Bungie employees have shared Myers' post and sentiment, with one senior design lead that working remotely "gives me back 15+ days of my life each year by not commuting."

As it happens, an interview with Bungie HR lead Holly Barbacovi recently went up on , which largely deals in office furniture and accessories. (Bungie has notably invested in a in Bellevue, Washington as it expands the Destiny team and invests in separate IP, but maintains that it's a remote-first company.) Barbacovi says Destiny 2's Witch Queen expansion was also developed entirely from home and went on to become the studio's best-selling, best-rated release. Our own 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Destiny 2: The Witch Queen review called it a new peak for the series. 

"There are a lot of workplace norms we thought were important and necessary, but as we all worked from home for a couple of years, those norms were really debunked – and that’s particularly true in the games industry," she says. "I think in the creative industries in general we have this sense that people being able to creatively collaborate in a common workspace is critical for being able to make brilliant entertainment♑. However, the expansion to our game that we shipped in early 2022 was our highest revenue yielding and our highest-rated expansion. And that was done entirely from home. So, we’ve debunked some of these ideas that held us in an unnecessary structure and we’re rethinking why people come into the workplaceཧ."

In the wake of this news, many game devs have criticized the industry's old habit of forcing people to move around – something that was fo🤪rcibly undone during the initial COVID years. O🐽thers stressed that, at least in the United States, access to reproductive healthcare can limit which states are even viable locations for work. 

Devs like Taylor Kurosaki of That's No Moon, a studio formed in 2021 by former Naughty Dog, Infinity Ward, and other PlayStation devs, were quick to remote opportunities. Kurosaki confirmed That's No Moon is offering remote work in all 50 US states and also supports "full-time and hybr☂id work at our Los Angeles studio and performance captur⭕e facility." 

We'll undoubtedly see this conversation continue to evolve in the years ahead, but there's clear demand for remote opportuniti💖es among game devs, and pro-remote studios are using them to draw people in. Animation director Ryan Duffin of State of Decay studio Undead Labs put it this way in a : "'Is WFH better' isn't an argument I care about anymore. It's just not realistic to ask people to almost definitely reduce their current quality of life to relocate for a job in a field that lays people off regularly. 'Can it work?&aℱpos; is a better question and we know that it can."

Activision Blizzard could hardly be more in flux between the biggest acquisition deal in the history of the games industry, lawsuits over that deal 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:including one from the US FTC, and the aftermath of a storm of lawsuits and investigations over sexual harassment and discrimination. 

For other fantastic great shooters you can play with your friends, you may want to check out our lists of the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best online games and the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best shooters. Otherwise, what you'll find below are 10 games like Halo that should feed your urge for big sci-fi action now that you're done with 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Halo Infinite. 

Destiny 2

Developer: Bungie
Platforms: Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, PS5, PC

Let’s start with the most obvious touchstone. 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Destiny 2 is a brilliant MMO looter shoote🅠r that’s clearly inspired by Bungie’s work. The expansive planetary vistas, the floaty jumping, the myriad alien enemies: Halo is in its DNA. But this is no simple clone – it’s one of the best shooters ever made in its own right. 

If you loved Halo’s campaigns, then Destiny 2 has several of its own, complete with climactic set pieces and some touching story 𝐆beats. If it’s Halo’s multiplayer you crave, jump into the Crucible, where you’ll find high-octane, competitive matches across a number of classic game modes. Halo made the actual act of popping headshots feel spectacular, but Destiny 2, somehow, manages to best it. Never before have video game guns felt this good to handle, and targeting weak spots rewards you with a trail of damage numbers and a shower of sci-fi sparks.

The amount of things to do in Destiny 2, between Raids, small-squad Strikes and sto♔ry missions, is nearly end🍰less. Any Halo fan will find at least one thing they love here, and you can try most of it out in the free to play New Light addition. What have you got to lose? (Hundreds of hours, that’s what!)

Titanfall 2

Developer: Respawn
Platforms: Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, PS5, PC

When it came out in 2016, 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Titanfall 2 had the best shooter campaign since a Halo game, and it still stands up to this day. It has more in common with Halo than just its high-tech sci-fi setting and powerful futuristic weapons: each story mission has its own theme and challenges, which varies the moment-to-moment action. A new enemy will transform your tactꩲics, and make you think differently about the way you control your giant, hulking titan. Sometimes, you’ll be swarmed with foes, other times, you’ll battle intelligent bosses – and regularly, you’ll leap out of the cockpit to battle enemies on foot.

The fluid movement and vertical maps sometimes makes us think of Master Chief, too. Halo’s low-gravity jumping is replaced by ledge grabbing 𝓡and wall-ru🌠nning here, but the results are just as glorious. The multiplayer community is, sadly, pretty spartan these days, but if you enjoyed Halo’s campaigns – who didn’t? – then Titanfall 2 is a must-play.

Doom Eternal 

Developer: iD Software
Platforms: Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, 𓂃PS5, PC, Nintendo Switch

When we think of Halo, we think of circle strafing through fairly open levels, dodging enemies and picking them off with well-placed shots. 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Doom Eternal is that formula on steroids. More enemies, more dodging, more bullets, and more alien guts. It is the best FPS you can play right now, and its combination of beefy weapons, expansive♋, varied maps and engrossing resource management – killing enemies in certain ways showers you in health, ammo or armor – pulls you through the sto๊ry at breakneck speed.

It’s more hectic than Halo, and more difficult on default settings. As every wave of demons descends on you, you’ll have to quickly come up with a plan of action and position yourself so you don’t get caught out, hopping around the environment as you secure kills. The asymmetric multiplayer doesn’t 🔯hold a candle to Halo 3, but the brilliant campaign, with its inventive setting, varied enemies and powerful guns, is up there with the best of Bungie’s offerings.

Half-Life 2

Developer: Valve
Platforms: Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, PS5, PC

Half-Life 2 isn’t just on this list for being one of the best shooters of all time. It’s here because its story captures the same feeling of exploration and wonder as the Halo seriꦛes, albeit in a slightly more grounded setting. You’re not jetting between planets here, or gaping in awe at beautiful skyboxes. The stage is City 17, a gritty place policed by an authoritarian state, but each level still feels distinct and memorable, and gives you new ways to master the mechanics at your disposal.

It, like many of the Halo games, is also perfectly-paced, an🅠d it ramps up the challenge as it whisks you through the campaign to a worthy climax. Gordon Freeman is no Master Chief, and lacks the mobility of our Halo hero, but he’s a worthy star man nonetheless. Both, as it happens, are men of few words, and it’s up to you to imagine their personalities, which creates a bond between player and protagonist. Just don’t make us cﷺhoose between the two.

Mass Effect: Andromeda 

Developer: BioWare
Platforms: Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, PS5, PC

Hear us out. Mass Effect: Andromeda’s redeeming feature was its combat. Up until that point, Mass Effect combat was largely something you put up with so you could experience a captivating story and hop between planets, and at its worst, was downright tedious. But Andromeda’s flexible ability system made blasting alien foes feel slick, punchy, and responsive. Clearing a room of enemies was, for the first time, genuinely fun. As good as in a Halo game?ꦺ Definitely not – but when you add in the ෴talent of Bioware’s best writers, it’s certainly a galaxy worth exploring.

While most of the criticisms levelled at it were completely fair, there are some good stories to follow and majestic planets to explore. It’s fundamentally an RPG, which Halo is not, but if you like poking ജaround alien structures, it will scratch a similar itch. Go for a Soldier class, which as its name suggests specialises in shooting stuff with rifles, and you’ll certainly see some similarities. Just don’t expect a masterpiece.

Outriders 

Developer: People Can Fly
Platforms: Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, PS5, PC

It's fun, it's foul-mouthed, and it's full of aliens. Outriders is an online-only co-op action RPG th😼at gives you wicked weapons and punchy powers that make combat fun and frenetic. Like Destiny 2, you can pick a class for your character and choose how to travel along its specific skill tree, with endless build options 🍰for both your character and its weapons. Outriders is, in essence, a looter-shooter, with 30-40 hours of solid gameplay that will keep you hooked. There's some rock-solid combat to enjoy here, even if the story isn't all that interesting.

Rage 2

Developer: Bethesda
Platforms: Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, PS5, PC

A game that has been forgotten all too quickly, Rage 2 is an addictive, relentless shooter that, like Halo, makes you t🍌hink carefully about the guns at your disposal and adapt your arsenal to whatever new situation you face. You feel more powerful than Master Chief here thanks to a suite of wওhacky abilities – one is basically a force push that sends enemies flying, while another makes you punch the ground and sends enemies skywards. Weapons have fun alternate fire modes too, such as one that tethers enemies to a point in space, so you can crunch their bones against solid ceilings and walls. 

The setting, a post-apocalyptic wasteland, is nowhere near as intཧeresting as Halo’s sci-fi world, but the levels have some decent verticality to them, encouraging you to double jump around to find collectibles. Plus, roaming the map in one of Rage 2’s vehicles can’t help but remind us of some of our favourite Halo moments.

Borderlands 3

Developer: Gearbox
Platforms: Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, PS5, PC

Did you ever wish Halo had a bit more weapon variety? 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Borderlands 3 might be for you. It’s a solid shooter with a gun count that numbers in the billions. No, seriously: every gun you come across will feel completely different, and many will have whacky, bespoke abilities. There’s one called the boomerang that you can throw, and it will keep firing as it spins through the air. The Erid✃ian Fabricator shoots, well, other guns, spawning piles of loot to pick through.

In tone, Borderlands couldn’t be further from Halo. It’s crass and classless, and much of its humor misses the mark. But its shooting is endlessly fun. Grab a co🍰uple of friends and you’ll speed through its sci-fi campaign, savouring the set pieces and comparing notes on who can find the most ridiculous shotgun.

Wolfenstein 2: The New Colossus

Developer: MachineGames
Platforms: Xbox One,🤡 Xbox Series X/S, PS4, PS5, PC, Nintendo Switch

Dual wielding is, sadly, a feature no longer championed by Bungie. It hasn’t been in the series since Halo 3, and if you’re hankering for the feeling of having a plasma rifle in one hand, SMG in the other, then you’ll want to give 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Wolfenstein 2: The New Colossus a go. It’s an old-school shooter that lets you dual wield any two guns, with hilarious results. Our favorite combination? A silenced pistol in our left, so that we can sneak through enemy bases silently, popping headshots from the shadoಌws, and a shotgun in our right for when, inevitably, it all goes wrong, and we need to start blasting.

Once you’re spotted in The New Colossus, your only option is to press forward, being aggressive with your movement, and keeping track of where other enemies are to ensure you don’t get flanked. Granted, killing Nazis is very different to ꧒killing aliens, but we find the combat has a similar, fast pace – and the credible acting means you’ll actually care✱ about hero B.J. Blazkowicz’s story.

Quake Champions 

Developer: iD Software
Platforms: PC

An underrated multiplayer gem that harks back to some of the best times we’ve had in Halo. Bungie’s series was, at its heart, an attempt to make FPS games feel at home on console, and as such it took inspiration from some of the PC’s best shooters, such as...Quake. Champions, naturally, has the same heritage, and if you enjoy multiplayer in Halo then you’ll feel at ℱhome in its mobile, frantic team deathmatches.

Being good at Quake Champions requires the same traits as being good at Halo: namely, knowing the arenas you’re fighting in like the back of yo✅ur hand – allowing you to predict enemy movements and ambush them – and knowing what weapon to use in any given situation. Mastering Champions’ arsenal isn’t easy, but once you’ve got to grips with the rocket launcher, shotgun, and tri-bol൲t, you’ll feel prepared for any eventually. Just be ready to keep moving at all times, and mash that jump button to bunny hop. 

Whatever it is that you like about the experience, these games like Borderlands, will welcome you with open, heavily-armed, er, arms. Is it the feeling of a job well done cooperatively that has you hooked? The promise of another new weapon around the corner? The knowledge that you're never too far from a joke? All of the above? This list will help you scratch those itches while we all wait for 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Borderlands 4 to arrive.

The best games like Borderlands to play in 2025

10. Destiny 2

Developer: Bungie
Platform(s): PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X, Xbox One, PC

Easily one of the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best FPS games available right now, Bungie gave the꧙ genre a more serious coat of paint with Destiny, it's fantasy space epic that invoked the best of Halo's first-person combat and mashed it together with a shared open-world that trumps Pandora for scale and scope.

If you're looking for a more hands-on, particular progression system and MMO-style end-game content, 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Destiny 2 will be right up your street. It’s also got some excellent PVP gameplay up its sleeve in The Crucib🔥le if you're tired of playing nice and want to frag your friends instead.

9. Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League

Developer: Rocksteady Studios
Platform(s): PC, PS5, Xbox Series X/S

Despite using licensed DC Comics characters and a third-person perspective, 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Suicide Squad: Kill the Justicꦬe Leagꦰue has major Borderlands vibes. The story has its tongue placed firmly in its cheek, every page♏ of the script is sewn together with jokes, and four players carving through hordes of enemies in a quest for better and better gear should be instantly familiar to any Borderlands fan.

With all post-launch updates now in place, there are more missions to complete and gear to grab than ever. There are a🍎lso now a total of eight playable characters. In addition to the launch lineup of Harley Quinn, King Shark, Deadshot, and Captain Boomeran🐓g, you can now unlock Joker, Deathstroke, Lawless, and Mrs Freeze through game progression. Like Borderlands, there's no shortage of unlocks to aim for, and besides, you always wanted the opportunity to shoot Batman in the face, didn't you? Of course you did.

Read our Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League review

8. Risk of Rain 2

Developer: Hopoo
Platform(s): PC, PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch 

An indie darling with a devilishly addictive Borderland🥂s-esque gameplay loop, Risk of Rain 2 is the 3D sequel to Hopoo Games' Game Maker smash hit that allows for four-player co-op and intense item management. You can curate builds and play as a suite of different characters who each have their own complementary skills.

Each level is like a more contained Borderlands mission, complete with its own bombastic boss battle as you risk it all to defend the teleporter that allows you to move between worlds. With a limitless difficulty slider and interesting roguelike mechanics, and curious secrets, Risk of Raꦆin 2 would be a natural fit for Borderlands players looking for a refreshing spin on the formula.

7. Tales From The Borderlands

Developer: Telltale
Platform(s): PS4, Xbox One, PC, Android, iOS

For the Borderlands fans who can't quite get enough of the game's writing style and rich world, Tales From The Borderlands is Telltale's narra🔥tive adventure set within the confines of the game's lore. With a host of vibrant and well-written new characters (and plenty of cool cameos), it's hard not to get wrapped up in th✱e fast-paced story, which rushes between set pieces and delivers wit, humor, and adrenaline in a more relaxed package.

Whilst it doesn't have any of ওthe gunplay you might be used to, it's still a gripping tale well worth playing through – in fact, it's one of the best Borderlands games of all time. 

Read our Tales from the Borderlands review

6. Helldivers 2

Developer: Arrowhead Game Studios
Platform(s): PC, PS5

Today, you can't talk about the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best online games out there without mentioning 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Helldivers 2. Nor should you want to. Its phenomenal success stems from an understanding that, sometimes, players can create at least half of the fun themselves if you give them the right toys to play with. Especially if those toys will sometimes🐟 accidentally and "accidentally" kill their teammates. Clearing out a horde of giant insectoid aliens is fine, but it's even better if your buddy gets caught up in the air support.

Like Borderlands, you play with up to three others against seemingly impossible odds. Weapons and gear are slowly unlocked through progression and (free) battle passes rat♛her than drops and chests, but a sense of humor is very much present and correct. Friendly fire aside, there's a strong Starship Troopers style of satire permeating the experience. The team that grins together wins together.

Read our 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Helldivers 2 review

5. The Division 2

Developer: Ubisoft
Platform(s): PC, PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X, Xbox One

A more serious and refined version of the looter-shooter, 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:The Division 2 much like grafts a lot of welcome MMO-lite features into the fray and frames it around a very hawkish, totally not political take on a dy♊stopian Washington D.C. ꦆWhilst the grim story leaves a lot to be desired, it makes up for it by providing extremely satisfying gameplay.

The feeling of shooting itself is addicting, and the feedback loop and gear slots will keep you scavenging and coming back for more, especially if you convince some friends to join you. The Dark Zone is its main unique pull, a social experiment in misdirection and betrayal that could lose you some good comrades if you don't play your cards right. The Division 2 is still being supported by Ubisoft, and it's one of the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best shooters available right now. 

Read our 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:The Division 2 review

4. Bulletstorm

Developer: People Can Fly
Platform(s): PS4, Xbox One, PC, and Nintendo Switch

Polish game developer People Can Fly was well knownౠ for their affinity for stylish shooters following the release of the excellent Painkiller, but this belief was later cemented by 🐽Bulletstorm, one of the more unique new IPs to arrive in the last decade.

An arcade experience with co-op score attack functionality, the game is excessive in every sense, rewarding the player for being creative in their approach towards turning legions of grunting foes into red mist. Borderlands is clearly its nearest 𒐪neighbor, given the tone and stylish gunplay, which means fans of Gearbox's shooter series will feel right at home in its silly world.

Read our 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Bulletstorm review

3. Tiny Tina's Wonderlands

Developer: Gearbox
Platform(s): PC, PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X, Xbox One

Perhaps the ultimate game like Borderlands: Tiny Tin🦄a's Wonderlands🧸 is a chaotic spin-off that will whisk you away from Pandora and into an out-of-control D&D game hosted by one of Borderlands' most colorful characters.

Tiny Tina's Wonderlands features an absurd amount of guns and some truly outrageous scenarios and is built around a four-player co-op. If you're looking for something like Borde🌄rlands but don't want to stray too far from the formula, you'll have an awesome time with Tiny Tina's Wonderlands. 

Read our Tiny Tina's Wonderlands review

2. Outriders

Developer: People Can Fly
Platform(s): PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S

When looking for games like Borderlands, you might be hoping to come across something that takes the basic idea and runs with it. 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Outriders does that, sure, but as ღwell as running, it jumps⭕, swears profusely, and shoots balls of fire around. It's immediately recognizable as a looter-shooter, but one with a vicious - yet fun-loving - attitude. Playing solo or with up to two others, you'll play through the story in this sci-fi world using the powers of your chosen class in conjunction with those all-important guns.

T🎃he World Tier mechanic puts you in control of how challenging you want things to be, with the highest difficulties offering the sweetest loot. You can even bypass the randomness of loot pickups to a degree, thanks to an upgrade system that allows you to make any gun into a mo🌸nster with the right materials. If you like always having a new weapon or ability to aim for while still feeling powerful, Outriders is for you.

Read our 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Outriders review

1. Payday 2

Developer: Overkill Software
Platform(s): PC, PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch

If you're in need of a break from the run-and-gun chaos and want more tactics and stealth in your co-op shooter, Payday 2 should be at the top of your list to play after you're tired of Borderlands. Whilst you can go loud if necessary, the focus is on communication and sleuthing as you curate skill trees and create the perfect criminal combos to unravel high-security banks and comp𒐪ounds.

Each reactive heist can fall to pieces in seconds, creating a palpable sense of adrenaline in each map. With some fun aesthetic loot mechanics and a similarly silly tone, Payday 2 is well worth it if you have a dedicated group of frie🥂nds who want a change of pace from Borderlands for some switched-on tactical gameplay. 

Read our 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Payday 2 review

Can't wait for Borderlands 4? Check out all the other 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:new games heading our way this year and beyond.

That&apoꦅs;s according to a new report from , ♌which cites sources familiar with the studio's plans and was later by Jeff Grubb. The report claims Bungie's Marathon revival, which is unannounced and therefore unconfirmed, is currently in pre-alpha as the first post-Destiny game developed at the studio. 

Described as the "ultimate example of a living game," this Marathon revival is said to feature a seasonal progression system which feeds into deeper customization of the cyborg "Runners" players pilot out in the field. The push for a new live game fits with Bungie's Destiny expertise, not to mention comments that Sony made when it 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:acquired the studio for $3.6 billion, largely to help fuel its 🤡own live service ambitions. That being said, when and where this unannounced game will be rel🔜eased remains to be seen. 

The alleged loop of the game will sound familiar to fans of Escape from Tarkov and its contemporaries: pick an area, choose an objective, deploy, explore, loot everything yꦓou can, and try to get out without dying – or lose everything you have if you do get killed. 

Grubb supported many of these claims in a receꦺnt Twitch stream. He also added that this game is "almost certainly" free-to-play, with the pivotal Runners providing opportunities for microtransactions of some sort. Given Destiny 2's shift to free-to-play (albeit with paid expansions and seasonal content),ꦚ not to mention the game's Eververse cosmetic shop, this would also come as no surprise. 

Regarding the Runners, Grubb stressed that players "are going to be customizing everything about this." He described the look of the game as "vibrant" but "brutalist," referring to a "boxy" sci-fi aesthetic. Grubb also touched on the bones of the game's tech and multiplayer, mentioning a push for "no load times" and "minimal que⭕ue times."

Rumors of new projects at Bungie have been swirling for years, and many of them have been fueled by cryptic job listings and comments from the company. As early as September 2019, Bungie CEO Pete Parsons committed to launching "other franchises" by 2025. In March 2021, design director Jacob Benton commented on Bungie's mystery games, talking up "a new secret world in parallel with Destiny" set to launch in or before 2025. 

New descriptions for this Marathon revival, which some speculate is tied to the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Matter trademark Bungie filed in 2018, loosely align with descriptions from several Bungie job listings. Bungie has specified 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:a new "multiplayer action game," seemingly with 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:"MMO, F2P, and mobile" elements as well as in-game purchases. However, whether all of these qualities are related to this neo Maratho🍰n, or indeed the same singular game, is unclear. 

For the unaware, the first Marathon game was released back in 1994. Per Bungie's , it started out as a sequel to Pathways into Darkness – the studio's first FPS, made back when it was just Alex Seropian and Jason Jones with assistance from Clin Brent – but evolved into its own franchise and ended up being Bungie&a🍌pos;s first major IP. Marathon predates the Myth strategy games and had a longer life than the RPG Minotaur: The Labyrinths of Crete, which is generally considered Bungie's first game, albeit not the first game its co-founders worked on.

More recent Bungie patents also hint at 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:a push for mobile games, and recent reports claim it may be partnering with NetEase on a game of its own. 

While only time will tell how this impacts the future of Overwatch going forward, there a lots of great alternatives out there if you're looking to tuck into something similar. From some of the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best FPS games and 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best shooters, this list also has some crossover with the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best online games. Whether you're looking foꦅr more hero shooters, you enjoy the PVP aspect, or you're looking for an alternative that features some similar ingredients to Overwatch, we've brought together a variety of options across all platforms.

So read on below as we tak🌃e your through our pick of 10 games like Overwatch to try ou🌌t right now.

10. Destiny 2

Developer: Bungie
Platforms: PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, PS5,

澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Destiny 2 is probably the furthest from games like Overwatch on this list but is worth checking out for those t♏hat love cooperative play. Destiny's rich universe is filled with PVE opportunities, but it’s the PVP Crucible where you can start putting your Overwatch skills to good use. Here, communication is key to stealing objectives, taking oಌut enemies, and ensuring you have a good mix of Destiny's three classes: Warlocks, Hunters, and Titans. This trio of flavors isn't quite as rich as Overwatch but comes with sets of subclasses that allow for a touch of customization. If you're looking for another game to get lost in with a pal, you won’t go far wrong with Destiny 2.

9. Brink

Developer: Splash Damage
Platforms: PC

Brink launched back in 2011, and it’s clear in retrospect that it was way ahead of its time. It brought class-based, high-mobility shooters to the market when Overwatch was still a twinkle in Jeff Kaplan’s eye. With servers that can support 16 players, Brink has four character classes to choose from (Soldier, Medic, Engineer, and Operative) that each possess their own unique set of skills to go all Liam Neeson on the enemy. Here in 2019, Brink's fairly long in the tooth - but n꧒ow it's free to play on Steam, you’re not risking much by giving it a try.

8. Fortnite

Developer: Epic Games
Platforms: PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, PS5, Switch

While Fortnite isn't a hero shooter, you'll likely enjoy the competitive nature and PVP modes of Epic Games' multiplayer extravaganza. Fortnite has grown and evolved a lot over the years, with seꦜasonal events, endless character skins that bring the likes of Naruto and John Wick together. But it's Batt♐le Royale goodness has never faltered, and if you're looking for another online competitive experience to get stuck into, it's a great alternative with a creative building edge.

7. Paladins

Developer: Hi-Rez Studios
Platforms: Xb🦩ox One, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, PS5, PC, Nintendo Switch

Since its launch, Paladins has deflected accusations that it copied Overwatch. For starters, it draws far more inspiration from MOBAs than Overwatch does, which steers more in the direction of objective-based shooters. There are ⭕heavy similarities between the two games’ heroes, sure, but Paladins’ concept art existed way before the public ever knew about Overwatch. Whether or not Hi-Rez Studios copied Blizzard’s homework, there’s a lot here to like. Character customization through a 'card' system provides opportunities to be creative across much larger maps. Fights feel more tactical, with Paladin characters generaꦓlly doing lower damage with higher mobility. This results in edge-of-your-seat confrontations that last minutes, instead of Pharah's rockets nuking you in two strikes.

6. Warframe

Developer: Digital Extremes
Platforms:꧂ Xbox One, X🐲box Series X/S, PS4, PS5, PC, Nintendo Switch

Warframe is serious multiplied by the power of Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk. Its lore is deep, ch𒀰ronicling an eternal war that’s torn apart the world. You play a Tenno soldier, fighting to bring peace across maps that are far darker and grittier than the cartoonish colors of, say, Junkertowꦉn. This free-to-play shooter offers a fair bit more than other games like Overwatch with an open world and complex story missions alongside multiplayer. But the skills you’ve sharpened in Overwatch working as a team to complete objectives will be vital in Warframe's PVP modes. The community here is incredibly friendly, keeping up-to-date wikis of the best strategies and even giving genuinely helpful advice in the global chat. Warframe is a great jump for those who want something a little grittier, but still fun.

5. Splatoon 3

Developer: Nintendo
Platforms: Nintendo Switch

While this may seem like a bit of a stretch at first, Splatoon 3 is like Knockout City with paint guns instead of dodgeballs. The team-based PvP matches task you with working together to mark your territory with bright, bold paint splatters, and there's a PvE mode that doubles down on the teamwork. It's a lot like Overwatch in that regard: the are multiple different game modes that require fast reflexes and teamwork, all set on vibrant maps featꦯuring tons of audio queues and bumping beats. While it's only available on Nintendo Switch, Splatoon 3 is a great option if you're looking to game on the go with something that feels similiar to Overwatch.

4. Apex Legends

Developer: Respawn
Platforms: Xbox One, Xbox Sꦆeri🎶es X/S, PS4, PS5, PC, Nintendo Switch

澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Apex Legends is a bit like Overwatch meets PUBG. Respawn's shooter is a free-to-play phenomenon that combꦫines the Battle Royale mode du jour with team-based class mechanics. Trios of players battle it out across a sprawling map based on Titanfall 2 to remain the last ones standing. Bloodhound, Mirage, Pathfinder, and their pals are as unique and interesting as any of Overwatch's fighters, and balance here is key. Just like you need a Mercy or Zenyatta to ensure victory, so too will Lifeline be a vital part of any team. If you've not yet tried a Battle Royale, Apex Legends is an excellent place to start.

3. Valorant

Developer: Riot Games
Platforms: PC, PS5, Xbox Series X/S

Valorant is a free-to-play FPS hero shooter from Riot Games that dropped in 2020 that is very close to Overwatch in how it plays. Choose from one of a collection of Agents, each of which has a unique set of skills and abilities. Unlike Overwatch, however, you can upgrade your weapons within every match using an in-gam𒐪e economic system that doles out money based on how you did in the previous round. Valorant is a ton of fun, and definitely worth checking out.

2. Team Fortress 2

Developer: Valve
Platforms: PC, Mac

In many ways, Team Fortress 2 is Overwatch’s big sister. Released in 2007 (nine years before Tracer first zipped onto our screens), fans have been quick to point out the similarities. Both are team-based shooters where coordination and positional strategy are key to beating the enemy. TF2's Scout bears a passing resemblance to Tracer, while Overwatch’s Hanzo is strikingly similar to Scout. Jeff Kaplan, the head honcho and game director over at Blizzard, has said on record that TF2 is "one of my favorite games of all time". It's also got a few more customization options than Overwatc𝄹h, player-ed༒ited maps, and totally free-to-play gameplay. At the end of the day, Team Fortress 2 is worth checking out just to see how it inspired one of today's most popular shooters.

1. Marvel Rivals

Developer: NetEase Games
Platform(s): PC, Xbox Series X/S, PS5

澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Marvel Rivals is a team-based PVP that shares a lot of similarities to Overwatch. The Superhero shooter brings together lots of popular Marvel characters - including both hero🔯es and villains - together for competitive 6v6 battles. Bringing all of the unique powers and abilities of the cast into the fold makes for some exciting action set across various locations in the Marvel universe. If you're looking for something fresh to play that has lots of Overwatch ingredients, look no further than Marvel Rivals.

Check out our 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best games like Halo.

Ridgeline Games is being establishe🅷d in Kirkland, Washington, a suburb of Seattle, and is set to develop a "narrative campaign set in the Battlefield universe." EA's does not provide any additional details on the game - at this point, we don&apoꦚs;t even know if it will be a standalone title or part of a larger game with Battlefield's traditional multiplayer features. A tweet from Ridgeline says that they'll "work closely" with other EA studios like DICE, Ripple Effect, and Industrial Toys.

Marcus Lehto will serve as game director and head of the studio. Lehto was an art director at Bungie in the studio's early days, and co-created the original Halo. He served as a creative director at Bungie from 2007 through 2012. More recently, he established V1 Interactive. That studio's only game, 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Disintegration, shut down less than a year after launch.

Gustavsson commented on his departure in a statement to , stopping short of revealing what he'll be doing next. "I've dedicated a substantial portion of my life to Battlefield and I'm very proud to have he🅷lped shape this franchise into what it is today," he said. "However, I think it's time for something new. Thank you for all your support over the years, especially to all the extremely talented co-workers I’ve had the pleasure to work with and, above all, the love and support from the community," 

EA announced last year that EA's putting Respawn head Vince Zampella in charge of the Battlefield series.

Season of the witch

I stopped playing Destiny 2 for two reasons: time and money. I first started with Beyond Light and got about 100 hours of playtime in within a month – though most of what was going on still con🔯fused me. After asking around for some more direction post-Beyond Light campaign, I honed in on quests and raids that would provide me with some great gear or help me level up my Stasis ability. But eventually, I just drifted away, unwilling to allow myself to continue to be enveloped in such a time-consuming game when there were others out there that cost less to enjoy. 

While there was still stuff to do in the Destiny 2 expansion I already had, new seasons and a new expansion promised more of everything – which, quite frankly, overwhelmed me. I couldn't bring myself to put any more time and money into Destiny 2. Even when our own Austin Wood called The Witch Queen "a new peak for the series" publicly (and "Bungie's best campaign including all three Halo games" privately), I was hesitant. You don't just dip a toe into ඣDestiny – you cannonball into the deep end.

But with Witch Queen available at no extra cost, I had to try it. Within moments of hearing Debra Wilson's excellent take on the Witch Queen herself, Savathun, I was emotionally invested and compelled to forge on to learn what the hell was going on. After fighting my way through Cabal and getting launched via cannon onto Savathun's ship, my jaw dropped at the world design, which felt like Giger meets Lord of the Rings. I was bewitched, and before I finished the second campaign mission, I bought the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Season of Plunder pass – I knew I was going to beat the entire campaign, so why not earn some extra goodies along the way? After two consecutive late nights, I beat the Witch Queen, bleary-eyed but completely enamored with it. And I'm still going to buy the expansion because I've got so much more to do, from weapon crafting side que🌳sts to Exotic weapon que🍨sts to missions specific to the campaign's new character, a funny little Ghost named Fynch. I've barely scratched the surface, and I desperately want to go deeper.

Once more unto the breach 

Why doesn't Bungie do this more often? It's notoriously difficult to get into Destiny 2, even with the current New Light campaign which rejigs the game's introductory missions to better acclimate newcomers. There's just so much to do, so many things to collect, and so many proper nouns to parse through that it can very easily overwhelm. And even lapsed players struggle to return: with well over a hundred hours under my belt, I found aspects of this la♛st week incredibly daunting. I'd forgotten all the controls (and spent way too long trying to remember how to summon my Sparrow), almost cried at all of the blinking icons alerting me of places to go and people to see, and edged towards a breakdown when I remembered just how much min/maxing you can and should do. 

The three campaigns Bungie gave us for free are the best ones the studio has made yet, but there's just too much to get through for players to get a handle on them in just a week. If the core gameplay of Destiny 2 already overwhelms, three meaty expansions with complex storytelling threaten to short-circuit your brain. If a week isn't enough time for a familiar Destiny 2 player, i♑t's certainly not enough for a new one. It only took aꦏ few minutes of Witch Queen cutscenes to draw me back in, but I've already played Beyond Light. A new player will need more time to grow fond of Crow and to better understand why the core characters are going through a crisis of faith – and that's on top of learning the game's mechanics, consumables, build options, and more. 

Giving away the three current campaigns may not be a reasonable way to keep Bungie funded, but there are 🐷other things the studio can do to help court new and old players – and mitigate expansion bloat. The studio could offer another free week𓄧 or two leading up to Destiny 2 Lightfall, which would help increase the chance that a casual or lapsed player will shell out the $50 for the expansion in February. Or, it can lump all the current expansion together in one big, high-value bundle that gatherers together the entire Light and Darkness saga, which will also help summarize the story so far. 

Ultimately, Bungie offering a free week to play all the current Destiny 2 campaign did exactly what the studio hoped: it dragged a f♑ormer player back into the fray. But there's a solid chance that more free weeks will lead to more new and returning players, many of whom will transition into more permanent, paying Destiny 2 fan♎s. Seems like a good idea, no?

Here's everything in the Destiny 2 Bungie 30th Anniversary Pack.

• How to get the Destiny 2 Bungie 30th Anniversary Pack
• All content included in the Destiny 2 Bungie 30th Anniversary Pack
• Free Destiny 2 Bungie 30th Anniversary Pack content for all players

How to get the Destiny 2 Bungie 30th Anniversary Pack

The Bungie 30th Anniversary Pack for Destiny 2 is a premium content collection that you'll need to buy, similar to a regular annual expansion for Destiny 2. You can buy the pack on your platform store of choice on its own for £21.99/$24.99.

Be aware that the pack only works on the platform you buy it on, even if you have Destiny 2 cross-save enabled. For example, if you buy the pack on Xbox and then switch to playing Destiny 2 on Steam, you will have to buy the pack again on Steam to access the pack’s content.

One good thing to note 🔜is that this pack will not be 'sunset' from Destiny 2 at any time, unlike with a few previous expansions. As of the Lightfall expansion showcase event, Bungie will no longer be sunsetting expansion content so th🔯is pack should be safe forever.

What's included in the Destiny 2 Bungie 30th Anniversary Pack?

In the Bungie 30th Anni🐷versary Pack for Destiny 2, you'll find lots of Bungie-themed content, including crossovers and references to several of its previous games. Here's a list of everything you can unlock if you download the pack:

• Bungie Streetwear Armor Ornament Set which is instantly unlocked
• Grasp of Avarice Dungeon which includes unique armor sets and weapons
• Gjallarhorn Exotic Rocket Launcher via a quest, the Gjallarhorn Exotic Catalyst, and a Gjallarhorn Exotic Weapon Ornament
• Marathon-themed Armor Ornament Sets for each Class
• Flaming Tiger Helmet Ornament for all Classes
• Four Emotes
• Inspired Eidolon Exotic Sparrow and Unixûrsal Voyager Exotic Ship from Xur's Treasure Hoard.

The main thing you’ll want to try out is the Grasp of Avarice Dungeon, which starts off in ♏the original loot cave in the Cosmodrome. From this Dungeon, you’ll be able to earn an armour set for each class themed around the♑ Thorn Exotic Hand Cannon. You can also get fan-favourite Destiny 1 Legendary weapons, such as the Eyasluna Hand Cannon, Matador 64 Shotgun, and the 1000-Yard Stare Sniper Rifle. Bungie has also thrown in the Hero of Ages Sword inspired by the Claymore from Myth.

To get the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Destiny 2 Gjallarhorn, you'll need to complete a quest from Xur which involves completing Grasp of Avarice too. Be sure to get its Exotic Catalyst afterwards to enhance your Gjallarhorn with an extra rocket in the tube and eꦡven more potent Wolfpack Rounds.

As for armor, you’ll be able to deck out your Guardians with six armor ornament sets (two for each Class) themed around 🌊Bungie’s history. Owners of the pack will instantly unlock the Bungie Stree🍬twear sets which include plenty of nods to Destiny, Bungie, and even Halo. Titans, Hunters, and Warlocks can also get Marathon-themed armor ornament sets, which are unlocked by ranking up your Strange Favor with Xur and spending Treasure Keys on the chests in Xur's Treasue Hoard.

There are plenty more cosmeti𝓀c items available🍎 in the Bungie 30th Anniversary Pack for Destiny 2. All players can get a Legendary helmet ornament that looks like a Tiger head, and emotes, shaders, and emblems are up for grabs by completing Triumphs in Dares of Eternity and the Grasp of Avarice Dungeon. If the return of Gjallarhorn wasn't enough, enthusiasts of the rocket launcher can also unlock the Gjallarswift Sparrow and the Hraesveglur Exotic Ornament.

Free Destiny 2 Bungie 30th Anniversary Pack content

However, players don't need to pay for the Anniversary Pack to gain access to all Bungie content in Destiny 2. All players - whether you own the Bungie 30th Anniversary Pack or not - can participate in the six-player, matchmade activity called Dares of Eternity. This is a gameshow-like mode that sees hosts Xur and Starhorse pitting Guardians against rounds of enemies and bosses with a ran🍸ge of mechanics, including poweru🍎ps, and rare lightning rounds. 

Players can also earn gear from successful dares, including new 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Destiny 2 Halo guns and Bungie-themed weapons, such as the BrX-55 Battler Pulse Rifle, Half-Truths Sword, and Wastelander M5 Shotgun. All players can also get bounties and rewards from Xur in his new Treasure Hoard area, and you'll even be able to get the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Destiny 2 Forerunner quest ꦿto get an Exotic Sidearm inspired by the Halo: Combat Evolved Magnum pistol. 

With big cinematic campaigns, memorable multiplayer maps, and more, Master Chief has taken us on all manner of adventures, and happily, we have some 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:new games to look forward to in the future. During 2024's Halo World Championship Series, news came that 𓂃343 Industries has rebranded to Halo Studios, with multiple new💟 Halo games are in the works.

While we wait it out for what's to come next for theꦉ series, now's a g🎀reat time to reflect on all it's brought us so far. So, whether you're a newcomer who wants to put on Master Chief's armor for the first time, or you're a longtime fan who wants to check out our ranking, read on below to discover our pick of the best Halo games.

10. Halo Wars 2

Platform(s): PC, Xbox One
Release year: 2017

Ask yourself an honest question. Do you really need another Halo real-time strategy game in your life? Probably not, right? Well, you’re getting one anyway, champ! In defense of Halo Wars 2, it continues to get one thing absolutely right: it's an RTS that works really well on a pad. The original is one of the few games in the genre that feels comfortable played on a controller, and this sequel subtly evolves the control scheme, giving you a streamlined strategy title that never feels like it needs a mouse and keyboard – though the PC version does support them.

New control groups make waging battles a more nuanced affair, and splitting your army into separate groups leads to multitasking alien murder on an epic scale. The story the Creative Assembly manages to spin is surprisingly decent, too, and Blur Studio's gorgeously rendered cinematics ooze big-budget sleekness. The army-building antics of the new Blitz mode are also worthy of praise – recruiting enormous UNSC armies by building decks of cards is a really cute spin on the RTS formula. Halo Wars 2 may continue to try and fill a gap in the market that probably doesn't need plugging, but it still serves up a decent slice of strategy. Read our 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Halo Wars 2 review for more details.

9. Halo Wars

Platform(s): PC, Xbox 360, Xbox One
Release year: 2009

It's hard to believe Halo Wars is even part of Mic🌸rosoft's flagship series. For one, it's about the rank-and-file of the UNSC, with nary a Master Chief in sight. Perhaps more importantly, it's not remotely close to being a first-person shooter. Developed by the studio that created PC strategy classics like Age of Empires, Ensemble Studios took Halo's myriad aliens, weapons, and vehicles and put them in a console-exclusive real-time strategy game - the video game equivalent of mixing oil and water. But not onlyไ does Halo Wars work - it's one of the series' unsung classics.

Halo Wars lets you build your own base, upgrade buildings, and amass a legion of soldiers, Warthogs, and Pelicans in order to crush the Covenant armada. But rather than getting bogged down in menus and statistics, Halo Wars streamlines the whole process for the Xbox 360, keeping the action running at a brisk pace that's distinctly Halo. It may not feature as many options as its more complex PC contemporaries, but if you want a break from staring down the barrel of an MA5 Assault Rifle, Halo Wars provides a unique perspective on an iconic franchise. Check out our 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Halo Wars review for more insights into this classic.

8. Halo 5: Guardians

Platform(s): Xbox One
Release year: 2015

Here it is: the first (and hopefully only) Halo campaign that's simply no fun to play on your lonesome. Make no mistake, Halo 5 was designed to be played with three online chums by your side. Fight against one of the campaign's dratted Wardens – an infuriating breed of mini-boss who can only be hurt from behind as your allies distract them from the front – and you'll know exactly what kind of tiresome grind Halo 5 is when 'enjoyed' on your own.

Despite Microsoft throwing an insane budget at Xbox One’s first proper Halo, every part of Guardians feels confused. Master Chief has to share the spotlight with new spartan protagonist Locke, Cortana is kinda the baddie but not really, while the game's controls crib on Call of Duty (Halo finally gets iron sights) and Titanfall (note the boost dash) without ever fully convincing. Even Warzone, a commendable, sprawling new online mode, feels outdated and placed next to the ever-evolving FPS treats of Destiny. Halo 5 isn't necessarily a bad video game, but it's unquestionably a deeply compromised one. Want to know more? Read our 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Halo 5 review.

7. Halo 4

Platform(s): Xbox One
Release year: 2012

Watching a studio take over a storied series from its creators is always difficult, but 343 Industries had it harder than almost everyone else. Bungie had essentially become The Beatles of game development by the time it bade farewell to its landmark sci-fi shooter. Halo 4 could've been the best game ever made, and it still would've been saddled with unreasonable expectations. Of course, this somewhat soft series reboot isn't the greatest game of all time; it's merely a very good shooter. But hey, that's still a might fine accomplishment.

Halo 4's campaign really shines, with smart level design that never falls prey to Bungie's bad habit of making huge spaces that are easy to get lost in. There's nothing like Halo: CE's Library or Halo 3's Floodgate here – no Flood at all, in fact – making it the first numbered Halo to totally excise the series' most annoying enemy. Multiplayer may try a little too hard to court the COD crowd – a sprint button in Halo still feels like heresy – yet there's no denying this is one of the most gorgeous games ever to hit Xbox 360. For more, check out our 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Halo 4 review.

6. Halo 2

Platform(s): PC, Xbox
Release year: 2004

The game that put Xbox Live on the map. You may look back and groan at all those lackluster Arbiter missions in the campaign, yet there's no denying Halo 2 has one of the most important online modes of all time. Though it needed a day-one patch to really sing (yes, even back then), Halo 2's multiplayer stands as a landmark in the history of Xbox Live, bringing Bungie's unique combat into a sprawling suite of matchmaking features, customization, skill ranking, and just about every feature you've come to expect from online games today.

Halo 2's online encounters had a seismic impact on the Xbox landscape, and the hugely influential mode nearly covers up a wobbling campaign filled with linear environments, grating shootouts, and cheap 'gotcha!' moments. The plot is smart to frame the first game's events as a spark that ignites civil war within the Covenant, but the spectacle is constantly looking for a better game to go along with it. At least Marty O'Donnell's music is phenomenal. Check out our 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Halo 2 review for more details!

5. Halo 3: ODST

Platform(s): Xbox 360
Release year: 2009

ODST doesn't even let you play as a Spartan, yet it solidifies a decent spot on this list as a jazzy, essential part of the Halo legacy. You get a different perspective on the battle against the Covenant. You aren't an invincible, genetically altered super soldier – you're just a guy who probably went down to the local recruiting office and signed up for the USNC. As such, you can't jump as high, survive as much punishment, or dual-wield weapons like the Chief. Who cares, though? Those shortcomings just makes your ODST stand out from the superhuman crowd.

Halo 3: ODST pulls together an engaging story that mixes the series' open-ended shooting with a detective-style story. Your character, the Rookie, becomes separated from his squad, and is subsequently knocked unconscious. When he awakes, he's forced to piece together the events caused by the shockwave from the Covenant ship's destructive departure over the city of New Mombasa. The campaign neatly ties into Halo 3's story, making it essential if you want to keep up with the overarching narrative. ODST is anything but the same old Halo game, and with a set of story missions you can tackle in any order you like, spread across an evocative sandbox-like city, this is perhaps the bravest entry in the franchise. Read our 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Halo 3: ODST review for more information on this must-play shooter.

4. Halo Infinite

Platform(s): PC, Xbox Series X
Release year: 2021

Released as part of the 20th anniversary of the Halo series, Halo Infinite is a stunning return to form for Master Chief. 343 Industries was able to take the promise of Halo: Combat Evolved – the dream of fighting for inches of space across a sprawling hostile alien world – and bring it to life. Faced with the difficult task of closing the chapter on Cortana's story arc and making the Chief feel relevant again on a new generation of consoles, 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Halo Infinite is undoubtedly the best this series has been since Bungie handed over tꦑhe reigns to the frꦇanchise to 343.

Of course, theꦺre's so much more to Halo Infinite than a fun campaign offering. 343 reimagined Halo's multiplayer to be tighter and more focused. At its heart, Halo Infinite is a four versus four arena shooter that makes it feel as if your team is only ever one kill away from victory. At the same time, the broader Big Team Battle skirmishes highlight how excellent Halo's core strafe, shoot, and melee setup really is. Released as a free-to-play experience, the Halo Infinite multiplayer is experiencing some growing pains with respect to content and progression, but the fun to be found here is undeniable.

Check out our 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Halo Infinite review to learn more about the best-value title on our list.

3. Halo: Combat Evolved

Platform(s): Xbox
Release year: 2001

One of the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best shooters of all time. End of. Halo instantly made Xbox a credible gaming platform right out of the gate, and it remains one of the best launch titles ever. No, it's not perfect – lord that the Flood-infested Library level ever suck – yet Combat Evolved still provided the granite-strong raw material that all future Halo outings were carved from. That first mission, where you drop into open combat with the Covenant, is often mimicked, rarely bettered (yes, 14 years later), and still brings out /all/ of the goosebumps. The story, while a little bloated, remains exciting, and the gameplay retains the lightweight, agile purity that's stayed constant over the years.

In fact, said agility, combined with super smooth shooting, forms the basis for Bungie's latest space-opera, 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Destiny 2, which owes a massive debt to Halo: CE. The Anniversary edition of CE prettied up the visuals, leaving most other elements untouched for better or for worse. Good: the enemy AI remains as fun to fight as it was back in 2001. Bad: the Library still exists, and the weapons – while retaining a beautiful, lethal simplicity – feel limited by modern 🌺Halo standards. Regardless of flaws, Halo: CE remains a glorious, streamlined prototype that changed the FPS forever, and is still well worth revisiting, even to this day.

2. Halo 3

Platform(s): Xbox 360
Release year: 2007

The best multiplayer game there's ever been, and quite possibly ever will be. There, we said it. Forget Mario Kart, Goldeneye or Timesplitters 2. Halo 3's multiplayer is incredible. INCREDIBLE. If you've ever gathered with your buddies for a disgustingly life-affirmingly addictive two-vs-two team 49-50 deathmatch on Guardian, you know what we're talking about. And if none of that sentence makes a lick of sense to you, rush out, pick up Halo: The Master Chief Collection, get together with three friends and immediately indulge in the most moreish deathmatches (played across the best multiplayer maps) ever conceived.

The campaign ain't half bad, either. The action is classic Halo in its prime, pulsing with superb gunplay, destructive vehicle segments, and co-op moments that still burn bright in the memory – remember /that/ Scarab fight? Couple this decidedly decent campaign with a multiplayer mode you may have gathered we're quite fond of, and you're left with a truly sublime Halo. For more information, check out our five-star 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Halo 3 review.

1. Halo: Reach

Platform(s): Xbox 360
Release year: 2010

澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Halo: Reach represents the pinnacle of Bungie's tinkering with the Halo formula. The graphics still hold up thanks to strong art direction, the sense of movement is intoxicating, each weapon packs a mighty wallop, and the supremely paced campaign is easily the best story mode to come out of the series. Reach boldly experiments with established mechanics and engages its players in a way no Halo before or since had the guts to. And don't even get us started on the inevitable, selfless conclusion.

Customizing your Spartan becomes a thorough and personal experience, allowing you to get into the nitty-gritty of building a look and loadout that perfectly suits your playstyle. Invasion mode offers asymmetrical multiplayer that makes matches exciting and unpredictable. You can spend endless hours in Firefight with its full matchmaking support and variety of maps. Daily and weekly challenges force gamers to switch up their playstyles and try something new. Commendations reward the most dedicated players and feel like gaining a medal of honor. Theater and File Share let you easily record and share your most unbelievable, awe-inspiring, or just plain goofy moments. Halo: Reach was Bungie's farewell to the series, and i♚t's a hell of a note to end on.

There's more where these come from for fans of Halo Infinite. Check out the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best co-op games to buddy up and get your looter-shooter fantasy on, from Rainbow Six Siege to GTA Online.

The truth is, there is no Haven Studios games list that we could share with you. 🎃This team, based out of Canada under the leadership of Jade Raymond (one of the key creative voices behind the Assassin's Creed and Watch Dogs franchises), is a little under a year old. The debut Haven Studios game is still in early production, and likely to be a number of years away from completion. So why did Sony go to s♛uch extreme lengths to lock Haven Studios games down to be PS5 exclusives in the future?

Sony continues to invest in PS5 multiplayer games

There are a couple of reasons, but the largest is likely to be Sony's desire to make a mark on the burgeoning live service games market. The acquisition of Bungie wasn't made to lock Xbox players out of 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Destiny 2. In fact, the legendary FPS maker has retained its autonomy within SIE, and will have the scope to launch a🐭ny of its games and expansions on any platforms that it wants to in the future. No, that purchase was made, in part, so that Bungie could share its expertise and experience across the wider PlayStation Studios network to kickstart a big internal shift towards the live service multiplayer space. 

Here's what Sony executive Hiroki Totoki had to ꦺsay , speaking to Sony's growing ambitions in an area where it currently has little authority. "The strategic significance of this acquisition lies not only in obtaining the highly successful Destiny franchise, as well as a major new IP Bungie is currently developing, but also incorporating into the Sony group the expertise and technologies Bungie has developed in the live game services space… We intend to utilize these strengths when developing game IP at PlayStation Studios as we expand into the live game services area. Through close collaboration between Bungie and PlayStation Studios we aim to launch more than 10 live service games by the fiscal year ending March 2026."

10 games in four years, it's an ambitious roadmap. Development of multiplayer games is inherently challenging – always-online and live service games even more so; it was only last week that Gran Turismo 7 was essentially inaccessibl🎐e for over 24 hours because server maintenance went awry. Sony needs all the help it can get here, and it's experienced studios 🐼like Bungie, and ambitious new teams stacked with industry veterans like Haven, who will help steer the shift towards PlayStation-funded online games. 

While Sony certainly has experience in the online space – those of you who have been with PlayStation platforms for some time will likely have fond memories of exclusives like SOCOM 2, Warhawk, and MAG – PlayStation Studios is largely known today as the creator of cinematic single-player action games. Titles like 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:The Last of Us 2, 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Uncharted 4: A Thief's End, 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Ghost of Tsushima, 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Marvel's Spider-Man, 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Horizon Forbidden West, and countless other exclusives have defined the last 🥃decade of play on PlayStation. 

But investment in the debut Haven Studios game (and the studio's evolution) shows how serious SIE is about live service. Haven is working on a multiplayer game, one which . "Our first new IP for PlayStation is on track to deliver a A🐬AA multip🥂layer experience with a vision to build a systemic and evolving world focused on freedom, thrill, and playfulness that will keep players entertained and engaged for years." 

PlayStation Studios head Hermen Hulst reaffirmed his intentions in an , explaining: "...we have invested in live service games, because that's incredibly exciting for us. It allo💫ws us to build larger worlds, it allows us to create really meaningful social connections between players. We have quite a few now in development or conceptualization, so yes we are setting up capabilities internally," says Hulst, before speaking directly to the acquisition of Haven. "But exactly for that reason, it is so exciting for us to welcome to the family a group of people who have a lot of experience with live-service games."

The idea of PlayStation launching 10 live service games in the next four years is inherently exciting, particularly if these multiplay💜er experiences launch with the high production value and attention to detail that the PlayStation Studios single-player teams are world-renowned for delivering. Of course, we're yet to get a clear picture of that lineup. 

We know that 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Deviation Games – the new studio set up by former Call of Duty developers, which SIE has invested in – is working on a multiplayer game. As are Bungie and 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Sony's London Studios, while rumors continue to circulate around a 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Twisted ไMetal revival from Firesprite and a 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Last of Us multiplayer spin-off from Naughty Dog. We'll find out more in time, because all we can be certain of right now is that Sony is serious abꦡout live service, and Haven Studios is one of the developers that will be trusted to spearhead the initiative. 

With the acquisition of Haven now finalised, here's why the new PlayStation studio Haven’s cloud tech is attracting the attention of the chief PS5 architect.

From some of the most iconic CRPGs, to standout strategy games, action-adventures, this list brings together some of the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best PC games on Steam right now, and if you have your hands on Valve's handheld, you'll be happy to know that lots of picks are also 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Steam Deck com💎patible, so you ca𝔍n tuck into them on the go, too.

And if you're after more recommendations to make the most of the platform, we recommend checking out the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best free Steam games you can play right now if you're after something that won't get your reaching for your wallet. With so many exciting 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:new games for 2025 head our way, this list is sure to change in the future, so be sure to check back often to see what we recommend currently🍸. So get comfy and ready yourself some PC gaming goodness as we take you through our list of the best Steam games.

The very best Steam games ever, starting with...

25. Split Fiction

Developer: Hazelight Studios

澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Split Fiction is the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best co-op game🤡 currently on Steam and is also probably the best game for couples ever made. That's right♏, Hazelight Studios, the minds behind the mega-hit It Takes Two, have outdone themselves again, creating an experience that prioritizes collaboration along with snappy gameplay that makes sure you never get bored with its mechanics.

Following the story of two wr✨iters (one specializing in fantasy, while the other in sci-fi) who get trapped in a machine trying to steal all their ideas, you'll have to jump into numerous worlds to find glitches to free yourselves and save creativity from greedy corporations. There are shooting sections, dragon-riding, and even flying pigs to play around with here. Each level is unique, and soon, you'll realize that time has flown by every time you and your player two pick up your controllers. It's a marvel and already one of the best games of 2025.

Read our 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Split Fiction review for more information!

24. Cities Skylines

Developer: Colossal Order Ltd.

The city-building genre is one of the original pillars of PC gaming, next to CRPGs and real-time strategy, but many of its past franchises have seen better days. But then Paradox Interactive made an attempt at a city-builder in the style of classics like Sim City, to gre🐠at success – the formula of 🐼whiling away your time building a sprawling metropolis holds true.

By now, there is likely no bigger game in this genre than Cities: Skylines, and༺ we mean 'big' literally – several DLCs allow you to build even more s🎃tuff and enjoy different seasons. If you like to simply build and maintain a city without having to worry about managing people (ew!), Cities: Skylines remains the best game in that category.

For more, check out our pick of the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best city building games.

23. Metaphor: ReFantazio

Developer: Atlus

Metaphor: ReFantazio was one of the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best RPGs of 2024, and if you are a fan of fantasy worlds and the Persona games, then this is a must-have addition to your Steam Library. Set in a world where the king has been assassinated, and a power struggle for the throne has begun, you play as the cursed crown prince's best friend who must steal power away from the evil Louis Guiabern bജefore it's too late.

As you navigate fun dungeons, complet💙e quests, and interact with your companions, you'll unlock and level up Archetypes that each grant you special skills and powers to take down your enemies. Metaphor: ReFantazio is a classic JRPG, but even if you aren't the biggest fan of turn-based combat, its amazing story and sleek art direction will have you hooked. Truly a PC stand out.

Read our 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Metaphor ReFantazio review for more insights!

22. Monster Hunter Wilds

Developer: Capcom

澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Monster Hunter Wilds is a triumph and if you ask us, has already positioned itself as the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best Monster Hunter game of all time. In this game, you roam through a beautiful world in se🍰arch of giant dinosaur-like monsters to, well, hunt. It's the loop from searching for monsters to taking them on to investing in new equipment that makes this game so irresistible.

Monster Hunter Wilds takes everything from the last game in the series (Monster Hunter World) and does it bigger and better. From its seamless map, new beasties to tame, and all 14 weapons feeling like they're at their best, Wilds is the best evolution of Capcom's iconic series yet. The new game also offers cross-play, so ꦫif you are looking for an online outing to play with other non-Steam friends, then this is an absolute must-buy.

For more, check out our 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Monster Hunter Wilds review.

21. Death Stranding

Developer: Kojima Productions

There is no game like 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Death Stranding, and that's what makes it so enticing – essentially, Metal Gear Solid creator Hideo Kojima went all out on a game about hiking. While there ꦕis the occasional combat sequence, Death Stranding is really more about a guy who deliﷺvers items, all by himself, on his back.

This way, it teaches you not only that walking with a lot of equipment to carry can be as meditative as it can be treacherous, but it also tells the story of a different kind of post-apocalypse, one that 🍌isn't about zombies or marauding gangs. It's a unique game that really needs to be experienced to understand its draw.

Check out our 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Death Stranding review to get our verdict.

20. Crusader Kings 3

Developer: Paradox

Winning territory and becoming a ruler are the themes of many strategy games, but Crusader Kings 3 comes with a unique social lay꧂er that's really all about your character holding i༒t together. Diplomacy turns into a soap opera, and you'll love exchanging stories about how both your empire and your family developed in unexpected ways.

Crusader Kings 3 is a lot like life in medieval t﷽imes must have been – war, intrigue, and scheming were part and parcel to the life of the nobility, and while you can be quite goofy with designing your own alternate history, th𓄧is is a credit to how deep the game's simulation truly runs.

For more recommendations, check out our pick of the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best strategy games.

19. Vampire Survivors

Developer: Poncle

If pixel 𒁏games and roguelites are your bag, Vampire Survivo🐽rs deserves a mention. It's an oddly relaxing shoot-'em-up where you move around your character to lay waste to your enemies - all of whom, oddly enough, are not actually vampires.

You don't need to do much more than that, since your chara🌠cter will auto-attack all enemies in its path on your quest to clear each round under timed constraints. Vampire Survivors doesn't have the realistic graphics and rich open worlds of many other games on this list, but as far as the best Steam games go, its raging popularity has to count for something.

Check out our pick of the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best roguelike games you can play right now.

18. GTA 5

Developer: Rockstar North

GTA 5 is a game that has shaped PC gaming with its open-world design and storytelling, which is often as vapid but sꦍimultaneously enjoyable as a movie blockbuster. While the story alone makes it worth a play - as exaggerated and trippy as it can get - GTA 5's eternal charm lies in how you'll inevitably get distracted by side missions, or beautiful cars to stea🌼l, or simply seeing what’s around the next bend.

Everything in GTA 5, from its online multiplayer to its heists, lives from its tight, open world, an exceptionally well-designed place you🧔 simply want to get to know – not a lot of games have offered such a good open-world since, especially not in a me💃tropolitan setting.

For more, head on over to our 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:GTA 5 review.

17. Doom Eternal

Developer: id Software

Doom Eternal is the embodiment of an adrenaline kick – tense, gripping andඣ fast. Some fights require precise t⭕iming and feel almost like something inspired by a rhythm game, and the Doom's trademark goriness makes every win feel impactful and earned.

How you choose to eviscerate your foes also determines what kind of equipment you can earn, adding a strategic layer to combat. Doom Eternal asks you to take risks, and sometimes, it's just those split-second decisions t📖hat let you be the last man standing in a room full of monsters. It's frankly thrilling s🌳tuff.

Find out what our verdict was in our 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Doom Eternal review.

16. Stardew Valley

Developer: ConcernedApe

Created by a single developer, 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Stardew Valley brought the farming sim craze back in a big way. It's easy to see why - updated and enhanced to this day, years after its initial release, Stardew is a labor of love. Day after virtual day, you work on your small farm, growing fruits and vegetables, taking care of animals, and weeding your land, but you can also unearth the secrets of the town's old mine or ge♛t to know the villager's stories, each of them memorable enough that the whole community will grow on you.

Star♊dew Valley understands that seeing the (literal) fruits of your labor is a🔯n extremely satisfying process, and it's always a joy to plan out a new farm and try something different.

Check out our pick of the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best farming games.

15. Disco Elysium

Developer: ZA/UM

Disco Elysium is a detective mystery with an RPG twist. Branching storylines stem from the decisions you make as you pick your way through the city, allowing you to either welcome the darkness as a crooked cop or become a true paragon of law and order. We don't want to give too much away here, but this is an amazing story to experience and has one of the best characters ever written in i♈t, too: Kim Kitsuragi.

Disco Elysium is the perfect choice for any fan of narrative-driven or visual novel-style gameplay, and it's more than des𓃲erving of its spot on our list of the best Steam games out there. It's also a great title to replay, so it's worth the investment of adding it to your Steam library.

See why it was one of the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best games of 2019.

14. Final Fantasy 14

Developer: Square Enix

Final Fantasy 14 is an MMO for people who don't like MMOs. This incredible comeback kid, which began its life as a series of repetitive fetch quests, has grown into an online game with one of the best stories. Best of all – you can play a large chunk of it completely🐎 free before you start paying the monthly subscription.

If you do decide to pl♎ay with others, you will meet a large and friendly community. Out of current Final Fantasy releases, this is simply the best one you can play. So, if you like your RPGs with a large world and a bit more fantasy than futuristic technology, similar to the direction Final Fantasy 12 took,꧅ this is the best option right now.

For more, check out our 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Final Fantasy 14 Dawntrail review.

13. Apex Legends

Developer: Respawn Entertainment

First and foremost, 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Apex Legends is incredibly smooth to play. Everything from movement to shooting feels good,ಌ and the helpful ping system makes finding anything again quick and easy. With a hero system that's similar to Overwatch, you get rewarded for putting a lot of time into your favorite character and get to take on a new challenge simply by playꦺing someone different.

Maps feel incredibly dense, too, and you need to get to know them in order to find the spots at which you can revive your allies, which is a vital cooperative tool that emphasizes you're playing 🎉with, as much as against, other people. We can't stress enough how good movement feels, however, because this is a top conceꦚrn for any frantic battle royale, and no game has mastered it like Apex.

For more, check out our 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Apex Legends review.

12. Hollow Knight

Developer: Team Cherry

Possibly the most alluring thing about this stellar Metroidvana - other than the gameplay challenge the boss encounters pose - is its sense ﷽of exploration. Hollow Knight has that feeling down pat. As a small bug knight, you explore an atmospheric underground kingdom, take on a large number of fellow bugs, and develop your skills to reach eve🎶n the last nooks and crannies.

Hollow Knight is an intriguing mix of difficult and relaxing, beautifully animated and mysterious enough to make you𒁏 want to keep goinღg even when the boss standing between you and the next section may make you want to tear your hair out – learning their move sets and eventually overcoming even the toughest foe is all part of the fun, after all.

For more, check out our pick of the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best Metroidvania games.

11. Dishonored 2

Developer: Arkane

When people talk about the freedom to play a game their way, Dishonored 2 is still the most common example. As assassin Corvo or Emily Attano, you sneak your way through the city of Karnaca, in order t🍸o learn the identity of a mysterious killer.

Di𒁏shonored isn't only an achievement in stealth; it also manages to give you compelling reasons to approach situations non-violently while still making sure you end up with your back to the wall often enough that sticking to one playstyle isn't all too ea♑sy. Renowned for its level design, Dishonored gives you many different approaches, and to pull off a particularly daring play is a joy all of its own.

Check out our verdict in our 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Dishonored 2 review.

10. Return of the Obra Dinn

Developer: Warp Digital Limited

Detectiv⭕e games don't get much better than Return of the Obra Dinn. Gruesome murders and other mysteries took place on a merchant ship, and it's up to you to figure out what exactly took place, simply by gatheri꧒ng clues and coming to your own conclusions. It's fascinating how hands-off the game is, too, simply asking you to pay attention to small things many other detective games regularly forget. You need a good eye and patience, but working a mystery out is immensely satisfying.

Return of the Obra Dinn shows that detective mysteries can be so much more than reading text-based clues and do𒉰ing ra🌱ndom puzzles – this is the full sleuthing experience.

For more, see our pick of the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best mystery games.

9. Destiny 2

Developer: Bungie

Destiny 2 is a game that keeps changing. Its latest incarnation, Beyond Light, deleted a good half of what's there to simply replace it with better things, like the fun new Stasis power. This is a loot shooter that lives from, you guessed it, it's excellent loot. Now that it's free, there is also no other online shooter quite like 🐬it, both in setting, feel, and sheer breadth of content.

One thing is for certain – Bungie will keep trying to innovate, and 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Destiny 2 isn't going anywhere just, so this i꧋s a great time to stꦉart the game everyone's playing.

For more, check out our 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Destiny 2: The Final Shape review.

8. Cyberpunk 2077

Developer: CD Projekt Red

There's never been a better time to dive into 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Cyberpunk 2077. Thanks to host of fantastic, substantial updates and the engrossing 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Phantom Liberty expansion, CD Projekt Red delivers an immersive RPG in the darkly dangerous neon-tinted streets of Night City.

Taking on the role of V, you'll be♊ joined by a Johnny Silverhand played Keanu Reeves as you set out to try and sav🅷e your own life and deal with the engram lodged in your head. With plenty of characters to meet and to know along the way, a wealth of memorable questlines, and a city that's yours to discover, Cyberpunk 2077 is an RPG that's well worth stepping into.

Check out our 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty review for more.

7. XCOM 2

Developer: Firaxis Games

The XCOM reboot revived the landscape of round-based tactics, but while its gameplay has often been copied, there is nothing quite like the original. It's one of those "just one more round" games where getting your squad through an encounter takes good planning (and a few lucky surprises). Even though your home base grows and your soldiers become stronger over time, 🌠XCOM 2 is enjoyably tense because none of that ever means you're safe – you’re simply gaining more gameplay options.

The excellent XCOM 2: War of the Chosen DLC adds a lot of flair to the game, thanks to its warring factions. What before was little more than just an assortment of missions about h🐼umanity surviving hostile takeover by aliens that way even eventually got an exciting conflict.

For more, check out our 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:XCOM 2 review.

6. Helldivers 2

Developer: Arrowhead Game Studios

澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Helldivers 2 is one of those games people will be talking about for ages, and for good reason. The squad-based online shooter balances the realms of comedy and action with bombastic '80s infomercial cheese to create a third♊-person shooter experience that's fast become one of the best St🔯eam games ever (not to mention the most popular).

The fact that friendly fire is always on means that it's all too easy to accidentally dust your teammates, of cour🗹se, but that just makes the action all the more chaotic – which is kind ꦛof why we're here.

For more, see our 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Helldivers 2 review.

5. Divinity: Original Sin 2

Developer: Larian Studios

The term "CRPG", or "computer roleplaying game" may have lost its meaning. However, it still describes a certain type of ad𝐆venture, isometric and heavily inspired by famous pen-and-paper roleplaying games such as Pathfinder and Dungeons and Dragons.

Divinity: Original Sin 2 is the best game of its kind you can play. You have the freedom to make a ton of really granular choices in regards to how to solve a quest, talk to your party members, and progress with the main story. Combat, too, can be endlessly versatile, if difficult, and you will havಌe hours upon hours of fun teasing of each of the game's secrets.

4. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

Developer: CD Projekt RED

More than anything else, it's the world of 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:The Witcher 3 that fascinates me because it's so large, beautiful, and stuffed with history. The Witcher 3 is a lot less clunky than Skyrim, which it often♓ gets compared to, and it shares its adult tone with some of the best high-fantasy RPG franchises out there.

Gruff Witcher Geralt will grow on you with each crotchety response, and the story paints a delicious, slowly unraveling mystery you w🎃ill want to see through to the end. There's a reason this game tops 🤪so many best gaming lists.

For more, check out our 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Witcher 3 review.

3. Elden Ring

Developer: FromSoftware

The developer is known for its punishing bosses and immense fantasy worlds, but 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Elden Ring shows what FromSoft is capable of in itꦉs absolute prime. Exploring and fighting your way across the Lands Between is a treacherous expedition, even for a Soulslike, but the rewards you reap when snatching victory from the crushing jaws of defeat makes it entirely worth th♔e challenge.

Elden Ring's hype is showing no sign of down, and its slick PC performances means i▨t's already cemented its place as one of the best Steam games out there.

See our 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Elden Ring review for more.

2. Red Dead Redemption 2

Developer: Rockstar Games

For most genres, you have multiple games to choose from, but when it comes to spending time in the Wild West, the buck stops at 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Red Dead Redemption 2. This game encompasses every facet of what you thought being a cow♐boy would be like – senseless mass carnage, mucking around at a saloon, enjoying t🔯he quiet of nature – and connecting to those who have it hard out in the West.

On the technical front, it's beautiful, the performances are top-notch, and, like with almost every one of the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best open-world games, you will frequently turn away on the road to your next objective, simply because you happened across an interesting encounter first. Red Dead Redemption 2 feels like an adventure in best sense – it can be dramatic and quiet, moving and brutal. It's fulfilling one of the biggest gaming fantasies from ou🔯r youth, next to being a knight and a ninja.

Check out our 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Red Dead Redemption 2 review.

1. Baldur's Gate 3

Developer: Larian Studios

The result of decades of experience with its acclaimed Divinity series, 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Baldur's Gate 3 feels a little bit impossible. The breadth, depth, and density o🅠f its world is unmatched, as is the reactivity of its story.

So endlessly replayable that you could play an entire 100-hour campaign and still barely scratch the surface of all it has to offer, this is a marvel up there with the best that its D&D background has ever prod📖uced. A new gold standard for Dungeons & Dragons, the RPGဣ genre, and potentially the industry as a whole.

Read our 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Baldur's Gate 3 review, which describes this as a once-in-a-generation experience.

Into VR gaming? Check out our list of 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:upcoming PSVR 2 games to get lost in the experience, or see what else awaits us with our roundup of 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:upcoming PC games.

Earlier this week, Venturebeat🧸 reporter Jeff Grubb spoke about a new project from support stuꦓdio Certain Affinity on his Grubbsnax podcast. Those claims have now been corroborated by , which suggests that the game, codename Project Suerte, is "a 'Monster Hunter' inspired game, implying big monster battles with multiplayer gameplay."

Details are 💝sc🎉arce, but Windows Central says that the project has been in development since the summer of 2020, "and is likely slated for a 2023 reveal and 2024 release", although those dates are subject to change.

Founded in 2006 by former Bungie developer Max Hoberman, Certain🌌 Affinity has worked closely with Microsoft since the days of the Xbox 360. Since 2007, it's contributed to the development of multiple Halo games, as well as a handful of Call of Duty titles, 2016's Doom, and even Left 4 Dead. The studio has also developed its own games; 2008 RTS Age of Booty (for which a mobile follow-up was released in 2014), and 2011 ARPG Crimson⭕ Alliance. It's currently working on Transformers Online and another game, .

That last title is an original FPS, which described as "a four-play co-op game set on a hellish alien world." It's not clear whether there are any links between Last Expedition and Project Suerte, bღut the multiplayer and otherworldly 🦹aspects do suggest some common threads with contemporary Monster Hunter.

While even the reveal of Project Suerte is thought to be at least a year away, its apparent existence is another sign of Microsoft's building strength - there's no word on whetherও this is planned as an exclusive Xbox title🌄, but given Creative Affinity's history with the platform, it could another weapon in the console's gradually-developing arsenal.

Excited for Microsoft's gathering storm? Here are all the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:upcoming Xbox Series X games.

GamesRadar+ has sifted through 10 years worth of releases to pick out and celebrate the best games of the decade. It's easy to forget, but the industry has changed such a great deal in that time. We've seen everything from the launch of a new generation of consoles in the PS4, Nintendo Switch, and Xbox One, to a shift in focus for the industry towards live-service and co-operative experiences. Big studios have come and gone, legacy franchises have drifted away from prominence, and new experiences hav꧒e pumped fresh life into each and every genre. 

In putting together this list, we've been able to see the highs and ᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤😼ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚlows of gaming in record speed – and now you get to see all of the highlights in a convenient list format. Below you'll find our pick of the 100 best games released between 1 January, 2010 and 31 December, 2019. 

And don't forget to check out our picks for the decade's best TV and movies too:

• 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Best of the Decade
• 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:100 Best TV shows of the decade
• 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:100 Best movies of the decade

100. Halo: Reach

Year: 2010 | Developer: Bungie

Saying goodbye is one of the hardest things to do in life. And yet, as Bungie worked to wrap up a decade worth of work on the franchise that changed the fundamentals of the first-person shooter, it delivered arguably its finest game to date. Halo: Reach is a progressive first-person shooter that pushed Halo's classic action in a bold new direction; it's a breathless act of closure that cast a big shadow over the future of the series. Josh West

99. Tomb Raider
Year: 2013 | Developer: Crystal Dynamics

Before 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Tomb Raider, video game reboots were considered risky business. But Crystal Dynamics dragged Lara Croft into the 21st century with both a deep respect for the source material and a recognition of the need to heavily update it for a modern audience; two standpoints that were crucial for the game's success. And succeed it did, reminding us all why Croft is an action hero deserving of the spotlight; tenacious, aspirational, and – more importantly – human. Alex Avard

98. Sleeping Dogs
Year: 2012 | Developer: United Front Games

澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Sleeping Dogs isn't the best at anything it does: its combat is faux-Arkham, its car chases are uplifted by their arcadey explosiveness, its story is more of a recitation of favourite scenes from Hong Kong crime dramas than an original homage. But still, it's lovely clobbering goons with unlockable kung fu moves, and driving through vibrant streets at night as the puddles reflect neon signs, and buying pork buns from obnoxious yet lovable street vendors. Connor Sheridan

97. FIFA 11
Year: 2010 | Developer: EA Canada

The start of the decade found EA Canada on relatively friendly terms with its audience – and, for a time, widely praised for reacting positively to fan feedback. FIFA 11 epitomises this relationship: solid on the park, slowly building the foundations of Ultimate Team, and home to the 'creation centre', where users could make their favourite squad of yesteryear for play in-game. Lost in the leap to PS4 and Xbox One, it remains one of the series' most-requested archive features. Ben Wilson

96. DOTA 2
Year: 2013 | Developer: Valve

One of the most popular esports games worldwide, DotA 2 is a MOBA that directly competes with the more popular League of Legends. Two teams of five heroes compete on a map consisting of three lanes with one goal; destroy their opponents' Ancient. Team cohesion and communication is vital to victory, especially in a competitive setting. DotA 2 features tournaments with some of the biggest prize pools of all time, with the latest instalment of the annual The International event providing over $34m. Ford James

95. Battlefield Bad Company 2

Year: 2010 | Developer: DICE

Before DICE was able to work out how to bring Battlefield's all-out-action to console without compromise, there was Bad Company 2. It put destruction front and centre of its multiplayer, letting players – quite literally – carve their own route to victory through an awesome variety of maps and objective types. Battlefield Bad Company 2 is one of the best multiplayer experiences of the previous generation, a game that celebrated player ingenuity and supported explosive creativity without restriction. Josh West

94. The Stanley Parable
Year: 2013 | Developer: Galactic Cafe

This indie marvel took the "but can games be funny" debate and smothered it to death with a whoopee cushion filled with wit. At first glance it's a parody of a walking simulator, setting you the task of exploring an abandoned office, but soon the narration that's been accompanying you becomes more and opinionated, even demanding until the fourth wall lies in ruins and you're left giggling and questioning every choice you've ever made in a game. Rachel Weber

93. Dragon's Dogma
Year: 2012 | Developer: Capcom

澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Dragon's Dogma is what western open-world RPGs like The Witcher 3 and Skyrim look like in another dimension, and it may be a better dimension than the one we live in. Its world is mysterious and full of dangers, and you'll truly feel like an adventurer every time you narrowly survive an ambush with the help of your companions. Plus, it's endless fun to customise your helper NPC "Pawns" and send them off to assist with friends. Connor Sheridan

92. Dragon Age: Inquisition
Year: 2014 | Developer: BioWare

澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Dragon Age: Inquisition is a fantastic example of how good the role-playing aspect of an RPG can be. In its expansive open-world, you can lead your very own adventure and shape the very fate of the Thedas with your own two hands. From character customisation to dialogue options, and multiple quest outcomes, you have a say in every aspect of your journey. What really makes it so memorable, though, are the superbly written companions that truly make Thedas feel alive. Heather Wald

91. Control
Year: 2019 | Developer: Remedy Entertainment

Control succeeds because you are robbed of it. You feel this as you are stalking through the shifting corridors of The Oldest House, as you are hunted by ever-present apparitions from another dimension, and as you begin to pull at the fraying threads of your own reality in search of clarity. In Control, Remedy Entertainment was able to deliver a stunning action game that constantly works to twist expectation and bend genre convention, delivering something truly special in the process. Josh West

90. Towerfall: Ascension

Year: 2014 | Developer: Matt Makes Games

This multiplayer gem can be summed up as Bomberman with bows, as four players battle it out on detailed pixel art maps. Like developer Matt Thorson's follow-up, the wonderful Celeste, 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Towerfall is so moreish because the movement of characters feels perfect, never too twitchy and with just the right amount of weight on your jumps. Moreover, this helped facilitate truly frantic fights (you haven't lived until your final arrow has landed in a mate's bum) that made it an instant couch multiplayer classic. Ben Tyrer

89. Pokemon X & Y
Year: 2013 | Developer: Game Freak

Marking a visual revolution for the franchise, Pokemon X & Y introduced true 3D graphics for the first time. Not only did it add a new sense of scope and scale to the series, but it also heightened the graphical finesse. New features like the Fairy Type Pokemon, Mega Evolutions, and Pokemon-Aime would also become series' staples going forward, making this one of the most pivotal entries to the long-running series. Pokemon X & Y was the gateway to the quality of Pokemon games to come. Sam Loveridge

88. NBA 2K17
Year: 2016 | Developer: Visual Concepts 

NHL 99 on PS1. PES 6 on PS2. MLB 11 The Show on PS3. While each previous generation has thrown up at least one sporting classic, PS4 and Xbox One had a tougher time unearthing its own icon – the downside of annual development cycles where graphics and micro-transaction appeal often trump gameplay advancements. 2K17's on-court excellence, franchise mode depth and formidable MyCareer offering render it the best of an unmemorable bunch. Ben Wilson

87. Diablo 3
Year: 2012 | Developer: Blizzard

Sure, there's amazing, multi-layered lore. And yeah, there's perfectly macabre levels. But Diablo is really all about the satisfaction of collecting a hoard of loot so large you need to open an interdimensional portal just to store it all. This instalment of the classic series completely delivered on that front, along with classes and abilities that were a joy to experiment with and enemies that were super satisfying to try your new toys out on as you hammer them to hellish smithereens. Rachel Weber

86. Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor
Year: 2014 | Developer: Monolith Productions

It's a small wonder that no subsequent games have lifted Shadow of Mordor's Nemesis system for their own gain, but perhaps that speaks to its originality as an idea, so quintessential to the identity of Monolith's adventure series that none have dared to replicate it. That technology, which allows players to develop advanced AI rivals and manipulate entire armies for their own gain, represents one of the few gaming advances that felt genuinely cutting edge this decade. Alex Avard

85. PUBG

Year: 2017 | Developer: PUBG Corp

The first battle royale title to make serious waves, PUBG swiftly became a favourite for PC gamers and streamers. Set on a fictional Russian island called Erangel (with more maps that followed), 100 players dove down off an enormous plane in a bid to be the last one standing. Numerous weapons, gear, and vehicles can be found throughout the map, with every step you make and gunshot you fire crucial to your chances of survival. Ford James

84. Rock Band 3
Year: 2010 | Developer: Harmonix

澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Rock Band 3 is the best rhythm game of the decade. It took the quintessential party game and ironed out the creases, ensuring that an entire generation of would-be rockstars could live out their musical fantasies without fear of falling on deaf ears. In introducing 'Pro Mode' too, Harmonix took the whole concept one step further, working in a way to gamify learning in a way that was as fun as it was brilliant. Alyssa Mercante

83. Divinity Original Sin 2
Year: 2017 | Developer: Larian Studios

Games that promise unrivalled player choice almost always come with strings attached, bottlenecking your story into one of several predetermined endings or limiting character customisation to a measly handful of classes. Divinity Original Sin 2 takes the scissors to those strings, and lets you run wild. Larian Studio's cult classic is an RPG in every sense of the word, giving players everything they need to chart their own path in this fantasy adventure, and never once punishing the curious. Alex Avard

82. Borderlands 2
Year: 2012 | Developer: Gearbox Software

They say that a story is only as good as its central villain, but Handsome Jack is far from the only asset which elevated 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Borderlands 2 above its contemporaries. An expansive campaign marked by a metatextual sense of humour, silky smooth gunplay that looked and ran like a dream, and an arsenal so large it made it into that year's Guinness Book of World Records, Borderlands 2 understood what's expected from a sequel, and blew those preconceptions out of the water. Alex Avard

81. Oxenfree
Year: 2016 | Developer: Night School Studio

Spooky science fiction with a hella amount of heart, Oxenfree mixes smart dialogue and strange radio signals to build a story around just how crappy being a teenager can be. Set on an isolated island, Alex and her gang of friends and frenemies accidentally cause a dimensional rift and then have to deal with the consequences. Don't let the witty chat between characters fool you, the game packs a serious punch. Oxenfree is a truly special indie game, one that rewards those that take the time to be curious. Rachel Weber

80. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe

Year: 2017 | Developer: Nintendo

As spin-off series go, Mario Kart is undeniably one of the most successful of all time, and this massive sequel continued to improve on strong foundations. Anti-grav track sections are the star addition, bringing visual flair and much-needed variety to Mario Kart's traditionally flawless on-track action. In fact, 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Mario Kart 8 was so good that it only needed a few minor updates, such as tweaking the battle mode, when Nintendo realised it wanted Mario Kart on hand to help shift the Switch. Ben Tyrer

79. MLB 11 The Show
Year: 2011 | Developer: Sony San Diego

Franchise modes are no longer what they were in the pre-Ultimate Team days, where studios' main focus was lifelike seasonal play with a single club, rather than fantasy line-ups and overpowered digi-cards. As a result, no solo mode offering on PS4 or Xbox One has topped Sony's last-gen baseball sim, which plugs faultless fundamentals into a career offering that's exhaustive in both scope and detail. It's the most emphatic home run of an illustrious major league career. Ben Wilson

78. Heavy Rain
Year: 2010 | Developer: Quantic Dream

When 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Heavy Rain arrived, it sparked a new wave of choice-based narrative games. Heavy Rain focuses on four characters connected by the hunt for a kidnapped little boy, with his father, Ethan, bearing the brunt of the terror as he's pushed through a series of Saw-esque challenges to get him back. Through its bold, striking weirdness, and interlocking stories, it's still a spectacle now, and a game that deserves a place on the list for the memes it's spawned alone. Press X to Jason! Sam Loveridge

77. Resident Evil 2: Remake
Year: 2019 | Developer: Capcom

No matter how influential the original was, there's no escaping that it's a pig to play now by modern standards. The controls and restrictive, checkpoint-free saving hasn't aged well. But, that said, the idea of rebuilding 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Resident Evil 2 from scratch sounds like sacrilege on paper. Capcom nailed it though, reshaping its well-trodden boards into a contemporary remake that honours the original's essence while providing strong competition for everything else released in 2019. Leon Hurley

76. Bastion
Year: 2011 | Developer: Supergiant Games

Bastion is an adventure worth taking. Supergiant Games' debut inspired a wave of creativity and innovation throughout the burgeoning independent scene for a good reason. To play Bastion is to tumble into the pages of some forgotten children's storybook. It's an adventure that is able to easily impress, thanks to its beautiful art direction, soulful sounds, and sharp storytelling – all of it driven by a dynamic narrator that makes Bastion feel as if it has been intimately designed for you, and you alone. Josh West

75. Marvel's Spider-Man

Year: 2018 | Developer: Insomniac Games

Insomniac's 'thing' is movement, with legendary tales of Spyro's development involving months of just making running around fun. So a chance to bring Spider-Man's city crossing world to life was a safe bet on that alone. But where this really stands out is how it breathes new life into Peter Parker's familiar story with warm charm, inventive interpretation, and devastating relationships twists. It says a lot of its success that it's now official Marvel canon, stretching out into both comics and the recent Into the Spider-Verse. Leon Hurley

74. NCAA Football 11
Year: 2010 | Developer: EA Tiburon

If Madden is the experienced pro everyone loves to write off, NCAA is its equally talented kid bro whose career was curtailed by injury. Well, lawsuits. EA's college heavyweight was axed in 2013 over a legal dispute re: player likenesses – to the genuine sadness of gridiron fans. With truly creative playbooks, more than 100 teams, an unendingly moreish franchise mode (you'd spend more time recruiting than playing matches), this was an EA series that everyone loved – and NCAA 11 represents its pinnacle. Ben Wilson

73. Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Year: 2019 | Developer: Intelligent Systems

澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Fire Emblem: Three Houses brought a new dimension to the world of Intelligent Systems' turn-based tactical RPG by putting you in the shoes of a teacher. The Hogwarts-esque feel of the adventure gave the long-running series an interesting refresh for the first Fire Emblem game on a home console in over a decade. With a frankly gargantuan cast of memorable characters and so much replayability, Three Houses succeeds at offering something new and still staying true to its tactical RPG roots. Heather Wald

72. Dying Light
Year: 2015 | Developer: Techland

Zombies and parkour were hardly fresh ingredients for video games in 2015, but Techland's splicing of Mirror's Edge infused mobility against an apocalyptic Middle Eastern backdrop brought new life to the walking dead nonetheless. Throw in an inspired day-night cycle that turns open-world romping into breakneck survival horror whenever the sun goes down, along with a fairly intuitive crafting system to help give combat a bloody edge, and it's easy to see why 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Dying Light became the unexpected smash hit that it did. Alex Avard

71. Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag

Year: 2013 | Developer: Ubisoft Montreal

Who knew that vast amounts of water was all that was needed to bring some much-needed revitalisation to Assassin's Creed? In truth, 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Black Flag soared where previous entries floundered by forcing Ubisoft to reconsider the importance of the series' relationship with historical tourism. Edward Kenway's high seas adventure thus demonstrated what could be achieved when setting become the lynchpin of Assassin's Creed identity, influencing all future AC games to come, and catalysing the franchise's sustained success in the process. Alex Avard

70. XCOM: Enemy Unknown

Year: 2012 | Developer: Firaxis Games

澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:XCOM: Enemy Unknown is the model for how to successfully reboot a legacy franchise. Firaxis Games navigated the pitfalls of nostalgia by retooling the X-COM brand entirely, taking the fundamental ideals of its namesake and overhauled everything around them. The result is a modern masterpiece of the turn-based strategy genre; Enemy Unknown set a new benchmark for strategy games that few have even come close to clearing in the years since its release. Josh West

69. Super Meat Boy
Year: 2010 | Developer: Team Meat

It's hard to believe that just two dudes made 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Super Meat Boy, a platformer that references its predecessors at every turn. The controls are precise, the level designs are difficult but not impossible, the humour is gleefully violent. Without knowing it's the product of the labour of two men, you'd consider Super Meat Boy a great game – when you know just how much work went into this funny, frustrating ode to platformers, you have to call it what it is: utterly fantastic. Alyssa Mercante

68. Papers, Please
Year: 2013 | Developer: 2909 LLC

Papers, Please is daring and reflective, an expertly crafted management sim that never fails to make you feel like a jerk. Cast as a border agent, you are forced to manage and mitigate a daily barrage of moral quandaries; pushed to confront bigotry, corruption, and desperation as you desperately attempt to manage the flow of immigration into an oppressive regime. Papers, Please is a routinely harrowing and deeply reflective experience, and that's all a part of its charm. Josh West

67. Her Story
Year: 2015 | Developer: Sam Barlow

Her Story draws from both video games and traditional film in its depiction of an interrogation-based murder mystery, yet enters a domain of narrative competence that neither of those mediums could ever hope to reach on their own. Sam Barlow's wildly smart work of choose-your-own whodunnit proves once again that we've barely scratched the surface when it comes to what's possible in the realm of interactive fiction, and paved the way for dozens of knowledge-based indie games to come. Alex Avard

66. StarCraft 2: Wings of Liberty
Year: 2010 | Developer: Blizzard Entertainment

There aren't many real-time strategy games that are so iconic they get , but 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:StarCraft 2 is in a league of its own. Three species – Protoss, Terran, and Zerg – battle it out on otherworldy maps, their various technological, organic or military advances all varied, but all somehow just balanced enough to make every battle tenser than a neurotic possum on a tightrope. This is Blizzard at the height of its power, and it is glorious. Rachel Weber

65. Hotline Miami

Year: 2012 | Developer: Dennaton Games

A grotty cocktail of gratuitous action and trial-and-error puzzling, this lurid VHS thriller of a game became an overnight indie sensation. If its style is what hooks you in, striking pixel art married to an incredible synth soundtrack, then its level design is what keeps you playing. Every room is a Rubik's Cube of violence, as you figure out the right moves you need to make so you can bash, shoot, and slice through grunts with mesmeric ease. Ben Tyrer

64. Undertale
Year: 2015 | Developer: Toby Fox

In a sea of games where violence is the only option, Toby Fox's character-rich RPG gives you the option to befriend all the foes you meet in its distinctively charming underworld. With a unique combat system where you can choose to talk your opponents down and show them mercy, it succeeds at making you feel utterly horrible if you do go on the offensive. Full of humour, colourful characters, and some memorable lines – such as "despite everything, you're still you" – Undertale has earned itself a cult following for a good reason. Heather Wald

63. Ultra Street Fighter 4
Year: 2014 | Developer: Capcom

Any one of the Street Fighter 4 editions put out into the world by Capcom could have made this list. While Super Street Fighter 4 rebalanced the already phenomenal core play and introduced a slew of new characters and modes, and Arcade Edition brought even further refinement to the roster, it is Ultra Street Fighter 4 that stands victorious as the best brawler of the decade. It's slick to control, irresistibly smooth, and contains the type of skill ceiling that has enraptured the flourishing competitive scene. Josh West

62. Firewatch
Year: 2016 | Developer: Campo Santo

For all of its chat about fires in the forest, 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Firewatch is actually a game that explores human flaws in a way that's rare to find in this medium. In amongst the escapism of its gorgeous natural landscape, there's some beautiful environmental storytelling and simple gameplay that makes you feel instantly connected to the game. Even if the story doesn't always hit the mark, it's one that'll stay with you long after the hills fade into the distance. Sam Loveridge

61. Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons
Year: 2013 | Developer: Starbreeze Studios

There's a moment in Brothers (you'll know it if you've played it) that connects the player through the controller into the narrative like never before, masterfully highlighting how games can weaponise the experience of play to strengthen the impact of their storytelling. It's a brilliantly conceived spot of game design from Starbreeze, and a testament to Brothers' power as both a heart-rendering familial fable and intuitive form of interactive entertainment. Analogue sticks of rubber and plastic have never been imbued with such raw emotion. Alex Avard

60. Counter-Strike: Global Offensive

Year: 2012 | Developer: Valve

澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Counter-Strike: Global Offensive is, without a shadow of a doubt, one of the most refined first-person-shooters ever made. It's easy enough to grasp the basics, but it is the epitome of games with an infinite skill ceiling. There are so many nuances and tricks to employ in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive that watching some of the best esports players in the world is utterly mesmerising. No other shooter has toppled CS when it comes to esports; in that respect, this is Valve's magnum opus. Ford James

59. BioShock Infinite
Year: 2013 | Developer: Irrational Games

Leaving the ocean for the sky, Bioshock Infinite is a fascinating continuation of the series. While it doesn't have a twist to rival the size of "Would you kindly…", it does have one of the most audacious endings of the last generation, one that delighted and confounded in equal measure. This ambition is what makes the shooter so endearing, as it swings for the fences with grandiose set-pieces and a setting in Columbia that's every bit as alluringly dangerous as Rapture. Ben Tyrer

58. Disco Elysium
Year: 2019 | Developer: ZA/UM

If only every game could contain just a kernel of Disco Elysium's cerebral smarts. ZA/UM's debut RPG is a fizzy, phantasmagorical treat of a video game, endlessly surprising and consistently impressive throughout its 30-hour runtime. Inspired by everything, from the real-time mechanics of tabletop role-playing to the works of Francisco Goya, you'd be hard-pressed to have found an experience quite as intelligent, idiosyncratic, and drop-dead gorgeous as Disco Elysium in 2019. Alex Avard

57. Horizon Zero Dawn
Year: 2017 | Developer: Guerrilla Games

For over a decade, Guerrilla Games was known as the Killzone studio; an identity that, by the time of Killzone: Shadowfall released, seemed like a label the developer would never be able to shake. Horizon Zero Dawn changed that, effortlessly proving that this studio wasn't just talented at making shooters, but talented at making great games, period. What's more, 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Horizon Zero Dawn gave us the PlayStation icon we didn't know we needed in Aloy – a character that instantly captured the hearts of millions. Alex Avard

56. Inside
Year: 2016 | Developer: Playdead

Inside is a quietly affecting and overtly brilliant experience. It's an exploration of dread in a monochrome world, a startling and arresting adventure that seems to find real delight in its ability to unsettle any that sit down to play it. Inside is simple and devastating, gradually warping into something more complex and stranger still. Playdead made an impact with its debut, Limbo; with Inside, it left a permanent scar on the psyche. Josh West

55. Monster Hunter World

Year: 2018 | Developer: Capcom

With 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Monster Hunter World, Capcom's dragon killing sim graduated from niche action-RPG to – fittingly – global sensation. It's Capcom's best-selling game ever, and more importantly, it's the best Monster Hunter ever made. By removing barriers to entry and streamlining the compelling gameplay loop that drives the series – hunt, craft, hunt, craft – it brought Monster Hunter into the modern era without sacrificing what makes it special. While previous Monster Hunters all felt aimed at core fans, Monster Hunter World is a game for everyone. Austin Wood

54. Uncharted 4
Year: 2016 | Developer: Naughty Dog

Let's be clear; 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Uncharted 4 has its problems, where the strains of a troubled development cycle are manifested in muddled pacing and half-formed features. It's also the most self-reflective game that Naughty Dog has ever made, one which looks back critically at the legacy of its central hero, and the series he's come to define. Uncharted 4 thus wades confidently across territory which few other developers could ever hope to tread. In that sense, it's arguably more deserving of its namesake than any other Uncharted game before it. Alex Avard

53. Celeste
Year: 2018 | Developer: Matt Makes Games

Celeste is a pixel-perfect platformer. In many ways, it feels like the natural evolution of the micro-challenge design popularised by games like Super Meat Boy, pushing you through an ever-escalating series of navigational puzzles where success is always but a carefully timed button press away. With its poignant narrative frame, hypnotic soundtrack, relentless pace, and incredible execution, Celeste is a careful exploration of the grip anxiety can hold over us all and the thrill to be had in overcoming it. Josh West

52. Bayonetta
Year: 2010 | Developer: PlatinumGames

Video game action rarely feels as smooth, satisfying, and strange as it does in Bayonetta. Its combo-driven combat system encourages players to take advantage of all the eponymous witch's abilities, freezing time, firing her handguns and shoeguns, turning her hair into a giant fist to punch angels out of the sky. You know, regular video game things. 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Bayonetta also made the crucial addition of extra easy modes, making an otherwise demanding genre accessible for players of all kinds. Connor Sheridan

51. Forza Horizon 4
Year: 2018 | Developer: Playground Games

Forza Horizon quietly became the best racing series of the decade, mixing the freedom of Burnout with the attention to detail that made its sister series, Forza Motorsport, so beloved with petrolheads. By moving the action over to the UK, and by adding in real-time weather seasons and a whole host of quality of life improvements, 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Forza Horizon 4 became an open-world racer that felt alive in ways its predecessors couldn't ever match. Ben Tyrer

50. Kentucky Route Zero

Year: 2013 | Developer: Cardboard Computer

Kentucky Route Zero will stand the test of time as a truly powerful work of art in the interactive medium. It is one of the clearest and most substantial creative visions of the decade, a lens in which you might be able to see the shift in the state of play for the industry. It's a beautiful, evocative, and deeply subversive work, a game that never fails to challenge expectations across each of its acts and interludes. Josh West

49. Persona 4 Golden
Year: 2012 | Developer: Atlus

Persona 4 Golden is a game of irresistible contrasts. Its small, sombre setting is enlivened by an inimitable soundtrack of jazz, pop, and even ragtime funk. Its bright and bubbly cast of anime characters battles personal and literal demons, all while struggling to determine which of the two are scarier. And its energetic turn-based fights are paired with the series' ever-engrossing social links, blending and balancing combat and storytelling so expertly that you wind up craving more of both at every turn. Austin Wood

48. Animal Crossing New Leaf
Year: 2012 | Developer: Nintendo EAD 

Simple, carefree, and utterly charming, 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Animal Crossing: New Leaf is a lot of things real life isn't. Its little slice of bug-collecting, fruit-picking, home-building paradise is exactly why we're all clamouring for a sequel. All it asks from you is time, and in exchange, you get a surprisingly compelling gameplay loop, living in a town of anthropomorphic animals, that runs parallel to our own – regularly interrupting real life for a moment of bliss, even if it's just to watch a dog play guitar. Sam Loveridge

47. Resident Evil 7: Biohazard
Year: 2017 | Developer: Capcom

After a decade of water-treading, Biohazard was not so much a comeback for Resident Evil as a full-on smashing through the windows home invasion. The formula was simple: throw out almost everything you remember to create a modern, cineliterate cat and mouse escape from a crazy family in a rotting old house. The reinvention is one of the best new horror games of a generation, with just enough crazy puzzle callbacks and hard to get shotguns to keep the spirit of the original alive. Leon Hurley

46. Life is Strange (Season 1)
Year: 2015 | Developer: Dontnod

澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Life is Strange holds a special place in the hearts of many thanks to its cast of excellent characters that you truly end up caring about. As you follow Max on her whirlwind journey in Arcadia Bay with the loveable blue-haired rebel, Chloe, the narrative shapes a story filled with plenty of twists and unexpected turns. The nature of its choice-based format lets you truly feel like you're a part of the world, and it's easy to get hella invested in the events that unfold as a result. Heather Wald

45. FTL: Faster Than Light

Year: 2012 | Developer: Subset Games

FTL: Faster Than Light is a relentless exercise in damage control. It tasks you with escaping from the clutches of federation forces with little more than a small crew aboard a severely underpowered ship. All you can really do is attempt to survive from one encounter to the next, all the while embracing the knowledge that one wrong move could set you back hours of progress. FTL is a sensational time sink, a game that seems to delight in breaking your heart one malfunctioning system at a time. Josh West

44. Return of the Obra Dinn
Year: 2018 | Developer: 3909 LLC

Return of the Obra Dinn is a meticulously crafted logic puzzle. It's a unique point-and-click adventure quite unlike any other, a smartly constructed whodunit designed to exploit those with a natural inclination towards attention to detail and the ability to discern fact from fiction. It's an intellectually curious and singular creation, the type of experience that highlights the true power of the interactive medium. To put it simply enough, Return of the Obra Dinn is an absolute must play.  Josh West

43. No Man's Sky
Year: 2016 | Developer: Hello Games

The fact that No Man's Sky is here would have come as a surprise to most of us three years ago, but that's exactly why it deserves such commendation. Undefeated by the blowback of its tumultuous 2016 release, Hello Game stood up, dusted itself off, and got back to work. Fast forward, and No Man's Sky is looking healthier than ever, its comeback story having already served as a teaching point for developers around the world that no true labour of love deserves to get left behind. Alex Avard

42. Far Cry 3
Year: 2012 | Developer: Ubisoft Montreal

Much has been said about Ubisoft's blanket application of a familiar open-world formula across almost all of its properties, but we forget how daring Far Cry 3 was for its time – a game which challenged FPS convention at every turn. Vaas' endlessly quoted line on the definition of insanity would later come to haunt Ubisoft as an easy jab at its design philosophy, but 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Far Cry 3 still stands the test of time as a shooter which forced you to consider the impact of every bullet. Alex Avard

41. Alien Isolation

Year: 2014 | Developer: Creative Assembly

Developers and filmmakers alike have spent decades attempting to authentically recapture the spirit of Alien, wrestling to recreate its suffocating atmosphere and tempered pacing. Enter 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Alien Isolation, a true survival horror experience that perfectly encapsulates why it is that we fell in love with the franchise to begin with. Creative Assembly unleashed a masterpiece in Alien Isolation; it's a bold, terrifying, and utterly breathtaking creative undertaking that is yet to be surpassed this generation. Josh West

40. Civilization 5

Year: 2010 | Developer: Firaxis Games

It's been a good decade for Frixaxis' signature series, with two new Civilization games launching in 2010 and 2017 respectively. Now both could have been on this list, but we plumped for Civ 5, as it opened up the series to players who might have found earlier versions less-than-accessible, as well as shaking the series up by introducing hexagonal tiles and only having one combat unit per tile. Fun fact: My dad has played 2001 hours of this game, so I feel confident saying it's quite good. Ben Tyrer

39. Nier: Automata
Year: 2017 | Developer: PlatinumGames

澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Nier: Automata is a philosophical action RPG that truly begins with its first true ending. Its tale of robots and androids on a post-human Earth is equal parts enchanting, confusing, depressing, and amusing. Even if that doesn't sound like your kind of game, the core battle system will keep you locked in with an exciting blend of combo-driven melee combat and shoot-em-up bullet dodging. Nier: Automata is PlatinumGames' trademark action at its most accessible, and JRPG storytelling at its most existential. Connor Sheridan

38. Night in the Woods
Year: 2017 | Developer: Infinite Fall

"At the end of everything, hold onto anything." It's not often that you come across an adventure game with a focus on exploration that so excellently blends relatable anthropomorphic characters with bizarre and outlandish occurrences, but 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Night in the Woods does just that and so much more besides. Mae Borowski is arguably one of the best protagonists of the last decade, and Infinite's Fall's destigmatising exploration of mental health has resonated with players everywhere for its honest and respectful portrayal. Heather Wald

37. Spelunky
Year: 2012 | Developer: Mossmouth

It's already been seven years since Spelunky was remade for console, and I'm still not certain that we've seen everything that it has to offer intrepid explorers. Mossmouth's wondrous 2D platformer brings organised chaos to procedural generation, and the result is a masterwork of level design. Spelunky teaches its systems, mechanics, controls, and rules through a consistent stream of punishment, and yet it's impossible to put down once it sinks its hooks into you. Josh West 

36. Tetris Effect
Year: 2018 | Developer: Monstars, Resonair

Turns out the perfect halfway point between "hallucinogenic spiritual experience" and "ideal virtual reality demo" is a Tetris-powered music visualizer. Tetris Effect is a game in which you play Tetris surrounded by beautiful star whales and monks that chant aggressively while on fire. It's a damn fine game of Tetris regardless of whether you're dropping blocks on a standard screen or in a VR headset, but the latter option truly makes Tetris Effect into an unforgettable and otherworldly experience. Connor Sheridan

35. Red Dead Redemption 2

Year: 2018 | Developer: Rockstar Games

Every tree in Red Dead Redemption 2 feels like it's been hand planted, fertilised, and watered each day until it's exactly the right size, as ordained by the technical wizards at Rockstar. This wild west tale is the closest thing we have to historical simulation, and frankly, anyone who takes an easy shot at 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Red Dead Redemption 2's control scheme needs to boot it up, saddle the nearest horse, and take a trip across open country to remind themselves of why it is true Game of the Decade material. Alex Avard

34. LittleBigPlanet 2
Year: 2011 | Developer: Media Molecule

Building on the success of its original creative toolbox, LittleBigPlanet 2 gave players the chance to move beyond simple platforming levels to build RPGs, racing games, and more. For budding Hideo Kojimas there was a new cutscene creator too, all delivered with the same irresistible Media Molecule charm and delight that we've come to know and love. LittleBigPlanet 2 is a game that celebrates creativity, giving you everything you could possibly need to leave your own mark on the wonderful world of video games. Rachel Weber

33. Destiny 2
Year: 2017 | Developer: Bungie

Destiny 2 is both hauntingly reminiscent of its predecessor and superior in almost every way. It, too, stumbled in its first year and only found its footing after a fundamental overhaul. But by inviting players into its narrative and embracing its MMO influences, 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Destiny 2 has grown into the engrossing, evolving space drama that Bungie always wanted to create. It's the silkiest shooter ever made, and after all these years, there's still nothing else like it – and there won't be until Destiny 3. Austin Wood

32. Outer Wilds
Year: 2019 | Developer: Mobius Digital

Outer Wilds is about the search for truth; a pursuit which, at the end of this particular decade, feels more important than ever. Knowledge is power in this handcrafted cosmos, where the discovery and application of information represents the only viable path to progress. Don't confuse Outer Wilds for a cold and distant space sim, however; beneath that intelligently designed outer crust, you'll find a moving meditation on some of the biggest questions of the universe, posed with masterful elegance and humanism by developer Mobius Digital. Alex Avard

31. Dead Space 2
Year: 2011 | Developer: Visceral Games

Dead Space 2 is an assault on the senses. It's as if Visceral Games uttered an incantation of pure terror and summoned this unyielding experience into the ether. The studio reinvented (and immediately redefined) the survival horror genre when this landed in 2011. Dead Space 2 is an intense and innovative adventure, effortlessly fostering a pervading sense of unease through its atmospheric environments, abrasive mechanics, and cut-throat combat. It's an incredible achievement of action and horror that developers are still trying to replicate to this day. Josh West

30. Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain

Year: 2016 | Developer: Kojima Productions

澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Metal Gear Solid 5 is a contradiction. It's the biggest the series has ever been, giving you two massive sandboxes full of idiosyncratic touches that make Hideo Kojima games so compelling. It's also notoriously been debated to death over how finished it was (澳洲꧑幸运5开奖号码历史查询:it's not, that's the point). Ignore that noise, though, as the real joy of the game is discovering the sheer breadth of Punished Snake's abilities. Discovering what you can do with the Fulton extraction system is one of this decade's greatest pleasures. Ben Tyrer

29. Gone Home
Year: 2013 | Developer: The Fullbright Company

澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Gone Home set a new standard for narrative-driven adventure games. It is further proof that video games can, and should, be about anything and everything. Its haunting atmosphere, exhaustive attention to detail, and focus a quietly personable story – one told entirely through environmental storytelling and exploration – helped establish Gone Home as a unique, relatable, and heartfelt expression love and loss. Gone Home is a focused and determined experience; a game built by curious designers for curious players. Josh West

28. Fallout: New Vegas
Year: 2010 | Developer: Obsidian Entertainment

Fallout: New Vegas will be remembered for many things (Matthew Perry, Fisto the sexbot, the list goes on) but, for me, it'll always be the Fallout game that respected my curiosity. Turn a corner, and a semi-cognizant ghoul will be pitching a get-rich-quick scheme in irradiated organ harvesting. Spelunk a cave, and some engorged abomination will emerge, asking for a shoulder to cry on. New Vegas is a nightmarish wonderland of freaks and tomfoolery and remains a joy to explore almost a decade on from launch. Alex Avard

27. Fez
Year: 2012 | Developer: Polytron

Fez is best described as wickedly inventive. It's a game that unequivocally exists within a league of its own, a mind-bending puzzle-platformer that revels in embracing an obtuse design and an extraordinary execution. Fez draws its challenge out across wonderfully intuitive 2D spaces in a fully three-dimensional world; it asks you to gain perspective through discovery and pushes you to embrace the freedom it affords you, it's an esoteric adventure that's best explored when you're blind to its mysteries and depth. Josh West

26. Super Mario Galaxy 2
Year: 2010 | Developer: Nintendo

It's frustrating, it's superfluous, it's bloody brilliant. Super Mario Galaxy 2 takes the best parts of the original and turns the dial up to 11, dropping you into trippy worlds with trippy physics that demand your rapt attention. It feels like Nintendo had a bit of freedom to go buck wild – the game came out shortly after New Super Mario Bros. Wii, so perhaps no one was tethered to the worries of turning a profit. And thus, greatness was created. Alyssa Mercante

25. Assassin's Creed Odyssey

Year: 2018 | Developer: Ubisoft 

The Assassin's Creed series could have easily taken another hiatus following the operatic prestige of Origins, but Ubisoft struck gold once again not one year later. The franchise had been dipping its toes in the role-playing genre for years, but Odyssey completed the full pivot, giving players total control of either Alexios or Kassandra in both conversation and combat. The result was an AC game that felt just as fresh and exciting as its Egyptian predecessor, reminding us once again that this series is far from losing its relevance. Alex Avard

24. Overwatch
Year: 2016 | Developer: Blizzard

It's not easy to make you care about characters in a game that has no campaign, but 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Overwatch pulls it off. The rare mix of rich, thoughtful lore and genuinely fun, vibrant gameplay makes this hero shooter one for the ages. You find yourself torn between choosing a hero not just because of their abilities, but because of your personal connection to them. Plus the dev team adjusts the game religiously, keeping it (relatively) fair and balanced despite regular additions to the squad. Alyssa Mercante

23. Bloodborne
Year: 2015 | Developer: FromSoftware

If Demon's Souls established the template of pain and punishment that has become so ubiquitous in gaming today; if Dark Souls is responsible for streamlining the core systems and mechanics of play; then 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Bloodborne is the glorious culmination of six years of dutiful iteration and evolution for developer FromSoftware. This gothic nightmare is a game of ingeniously designed boss battles, balanced combat, and undoubtedly one of the coolest and most atmospheric spaces we've seen a game this decade. Josh West

22. Pokemon Go 
Year: 2016 | Developer: Niantic

澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Pokemon Go was marketed as Pokemon come to life; the first-ever advert showed Snorlax asleep in the middle of a bridge, Charizard wandering around some mountains, and Pikachu scampering through an alleyway. While it's not quite as realistic as that, Pokemon Go is the closest thing there is to becoming an actual Pokemon trainer yourself. Niantic got us up off the sofa, out of the house, and into the real world to try and catch 'em all – the importance and impact of that can't be overstated. Ford James

21. Dishonored 2
Year: 2016 | Developer: Arkane Studios

This decade has given us some of the finest levels and set-pieces in gaming history, and Dishonored 2's Clockwork Mansion – an Escherian labyrinth of shifting structures and deadly traps – is up there with the very best of them. It's just one standout in a complete package of stealth-gaming greatness, however, as Arkane's sequel distils the science of supernatural slaughter to perfection, conjuring up another indelible immersive sim saturated with history and character. 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Dishonored 2 is the stealth game of the generation. Alex Avard

20. Dark Souls

Year: 2011 | Developer: FromSoftware

澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Dark Souls' magic lies in its mix of gothic design and gameplay that tests players to destruction. Exploring the shadowy open world is a lesson in caution and patience, as dangers and grotesque enemies lurk in every dimly lit corner, and death means losing your hard-fought rewards. Dark Souls' punishing difficulty meant finishing the game was a badge of honour for the hardcore – like a Transylvanian Tough Mudder – and a satisfying challenge for anyone who could make it through. Rachel Weber

19. Fortnite
Year: 2017 | Developer: Epic Games

Fortnite changed the games industry. You can argue until blue in the face whether that's for better or for worse, but there's no denying that Epic Games' battle royale experiment has been transformative. It has brought players from all walks of life together, a true global phenomenon that has penetrated popular culture unlike, arguably, anything else released this decade. Perhaps more importantly, though, it has helped to tear down the cross-platform play barriers and set a new standard for live-service storytelling. Josh West

18. Rocket League
Year: 2015 | Developer: Psyonix

Indoor football with pimped-out cars, crackerjack goals, and rocket boosts. Psyonix has added tie-ins with franchises such as Ghostbusters and Back to the Future during its flagship game's four-year history, yet it hasn't needed them to endure. The simplicity of those soccer-on-steroids foundations, and resulting 2am just-one-more-go factor, are what maintain its lofty spot among the greatest esports (and sofa play!) time sinks. There's every chance it appears in this list again come 2029. Ben Wilson

17. The Walking Dead: Season One
Year: 2012 | Developer: Telltale Games

Has there ever been a more effective storytelling tool than "Clementine will remember that"? Through those four words, Telltale was able to realign moral compasses with relative ease. Through a blur of confident writing, strong characters, and simple mechanics, The Walking Dead hit with what felt like the weight of the world behind it. The impact of every one of the decisions made felt integral, which ultimately ensured that the story reached a heart-breaking crescendo that won't soon be forgotten. Josh West

16. Destiny 
Year: 2014 | Developer: Bungie

While Destiny started off a little aimless and shallow, even in the bad times its gunplay was so good, and its world was so intriguing, that players managed to find their own fun. It wasn't until the release of The Taken King that Destiny really made its mark. That's when everyone – including Bungie – realised Destiny's true power. This is what Destiny is: a new breed of cooperative experience that takes RPG conventions and fires them out of fantastical guns into alien faces. The industry would never be the same again. Austin Wood

15. What Remains of Edith Finch

Year: 2017 | Developer: Giant Sparrow

Giant Sparrow raised the bar for storytelling in video games. The studio was able to effectively funnel a quaint story through short vignettes, giving us a window into the trials and tribulations of the Finch family. Over 30 different intuitive control schemes interlinked seamlessly with a beautiful narrative framing, the result is a moving and arresting piece of interactive storytelling that highlights the true power of the medium as a tool for ambitious storytellers. Josh West

14. Titanfall 2
Year: 2016 | Developer: Respawn Entertainment
澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Titanfall 2 is an easy game to fall in love with. It's a creative and energetic shooter, the type of release that – much like Half-Life 2 in the previous decade  – threatens to redefine one of the oldest and most-important genres in the industry. Between its wildly inventive and impeccably designed single-player campaign, and its high-energy, effortlessly-impressive multiplayer offering, Titanfall 2 stands as a true giant of the generation. Josh West

13. Minecraft
Year: 2011 | Developer: Mojang

Whether you love it to death, or couldn't care less, you can't deny that a world without Minecraft would be a world that feels… incomplete, like your first 4x4 house missing that one block of oak. What's more, as an experience that has continually stretched its own parameters at no further expense to play, 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Minecraft is the textbook example of how creators and communities can come together to build something that transcends the sum of its relatively modest parts. Alex Avard

12. Stardew Valley
Year: 2016 | Developer: ConcernedApe

Concerned Ape's delightful pixelated farming sim brought it's own unique spin on Harvest Moon to bring us a truly wonderful adventure in Pelican Town. Aside from growing and developing your farm, there's so much depth to the little town than first meets the eye. The residents are at the heart of the game, and everyone has a relatable and often surprising story to tell. 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Stardew Valley truly brought life back to the genre, and it's all the more impressive when you consider a one-man team was at the heart of it. Heather Wald

11. Super Mario Odyssey

Year: 2017 | Developer: Nintendo EPD

One of Mario's most iconic and recognisable features – aside from his moustache – is his cap with the signature M insignia. 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Super Mario Odyssey introduced the ingenious idea of making the hat a full-blown controllable character called Cappy. Venturing to a myriad of different kingdoms with plenty of nods of past Mario games, Cappy helps Mario take control of everything from a big cube of meat to a T-Rex with a tiny little 'stache. Simply put, its creative charm and originality make it an instant classic. Heather Wald

10. Journey

Year: 2012 | Developer: Thatgamecompany

They tell you magic lies in the mountain, but in fact, it starts from the very moment you lay a spindly foot upon the twinkling sand. Music and movement combine to make a ballet of gameplay, with twirling scarves emphasising the purity of the motions as you float across the sky. Silent companions join your journey via anonymous multiplayer, invoking emotions that few games can do without words. It is capable of taking you on an emotional journey like no other. Sam Loveridge

9. The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim

Year: 2011 | Developer: Bethesda Game Studios

Before Game of Thrones, it was Bethesda's mega fantasy RPG that had previously sane people obsessing over dragons and magic. The game felt so huge, with stories hiding around every tree stump and in every cave, that you had no choice but to immerse yourself completely in life as the Dragonborn. There's a reason the game is still selling on new consoles eight years on, and why 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Elder Scrolls 6 can send us into raptures with the merest mention. Rachel Weber

8. God of War

Year: 2018 | Developer: Sony Santa Monica

"Don't be sorry. Be better." Kratos' stern advice could well have been the motto for Santa Monica's approach to rebooting one of gaming's most contentious icons. The Kratos of old gave some of the greatest games from PlayStation's past, but this demigod's days of unabated rage were always numbered. Instead of letting the past die, however, 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:God of War builds something from the ashes of its protagonist's mistakes; an exquisitely crafted action game, yes, but also a fascinating rumination on fatherhood, and what it means to be human. Alex Avard 

7. Grand Theft Auto 5

Year: 2013 | Developer: Rockstar North

It's hard to sum up how much of a behemoth Rockstar produced with GTA 5, as alongside an explosive storyline featuring three disparate protagonists carrying out increasingly elaborate heists, they also created an entire living, breathing world you could fully immerse yourself in for hundreds of hours. This is borne out by the success of 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:GTA Online, which remains massively popular more than six years after its initial release, and now includes entire criminal empires for players to run for virtual profits. Iain Wilson

6. Mass Effect 2

Year: 2010 | Developer: BioWare 

Mass Effect 2 catapulted BioWare's space-faring RPG to starry new heights. It arrived with one of the most memorable opening and closing sequences of the decade, and perhaps it's no surprise that the sequel completely changed the RPG landscape when it landed in 2010. Mass Effect 2 proved that going in a bold narrative direction could really payoff for BioWare, giving the franchise a new lease of life as it worked to find a larger audience. BioWare's brilliant writing drove one of the most affecting RPG experiences of all time, and it delivered some of the most unforgettable characters in the genre in the process. Heather Wald

5. Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Year: 2017 | Developer: Nintendo EAD

Zelda: Breath of the Wild broke over 20 years of its own game series' rules and convention, in favour of gifting its ever-curious player base with a world that kept on delivering. We all became rich with secrets, treasures, and gloriously unceasing to-do lists, always encouraged to see what was over that next hill. Excellent combat gave way to clever puzzles, quests to a remarkable cast of characters, to create a Zelda game that would reinvent the series, and push other open-world games to do infinitely better. Sam Loveridge

4. Red Dead Redemption

Year: 2010 | Developer: Rockstar Games

By the time Red Dead Redemption rolled around, Rockstar had tackled the worlds of modern crime, private education, and, uh, table tennis, leaving few certain of what the studio's take on the western might look like. The result was one of its most personal works yet; one which offered poignant ruminations on regret and retribution, while again raising the high bars we had come to expect from its open-world power fantasies. John Marston may be dead, but his legacy will last well into the next decade and beyond. Alex Avard

3. Portal 2

Year: 2011 | Developer: Valve

It's hard to state just how good the writing in Portal 2 is. Wonderfully inventive puzzles aside, it's essentially a game about listening to speakers, whether that's the joyfully murderously GlaDOS, your floating Alexa, Wheatley, or the recorded conversations of long-dead Aperture founder Cave Johnson. The words sing with humour and life in a game made of sterile empty corridors devoid of human contact – a feat some games fail to match with hours of mocap, crowds of A-list talent and miles of environmental storytelling. Leon Hurley

2. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

Year: 2015 | Developer: CD Projekt Red

The Witcher 3 excels at discovery. Around every corner of its stunning fantasy world lies a new adventure; a new story thread to pull; a new character to befriend, bemoan, or betray; a new decision to deliberate over; a new romance to pursue; or a new vista to watch the sun sink into. With characters as fallible and interesting as the lands they inhabit, together they create a rare world that you won't begrudge a minute you sink into it. Sam Loveridge

1. The Last of Us

Year: 2013 | Developer: Naughty Dog

The Last of Us is an outstanding accomplishment. It is a pure and heartfelt expression, an expertly-paced and weighted exploration of love, loss, and the human condition. For as good as the combat, set-piece design, and enemy AI is in The Last of Us, it's a game that is remembered so fondly because of its characters. Joel and Ellie – a heartbroken father and his feisty surrogate daughter – might have been on a journey to salvage what little of the human race remains, but it's the trials and tribulations that they face along the way that left the largest impact on our collective psyche. The Last of Us is a narrative-driven adventure game that set the tone for the generation of games that would follow it, and it is yet to be bettered in the six years that have passed. Josh West

Extended reading: Games that defined the Decade: The Last of Us pushed video games to be smart𝓡er,﷽ bolder, and greater

Even in the darkest times, one thing the Destiny♔ community could always raღlly around was the brilliance of the raid design. Each raid is built to kick the asses of teams who venture inside, until eventually they master baffling mechanics, overcame a boss with a health bar the size of a surfboard, and emerge exhausted but triumphant. The inspiration for these epic dungeons comes from MMORPGs but, when shrunk to fit Destiny's six-person fireteams, the experience becomes a combination of puzzling, platforming, and endgame-level enemies. It's unlike anything found in other first-person shooters. Trying to manage esoteric callouts—"Who's on triple booby snake?"— while also maintaining an upbeat mood among a group of randos from an is… Well, not CoD.

So why put yourself through the stress? Because the environments and encounters tend to be the finest work that Bungie's designers are capable of—eerie, grandiose, and deliciously alien. And with a few notable exceptions (hello, ), the loot is usually worth the struggle—pr🐷ovided RNG is on your side. Destiny 2 is currently enjoying a major renaissance with the Forsaken expansion, and part of that is thanks to Last Wish, the biggest 𒀰raid Bungie has built to date. It takes place in The Dreaming City, which looks like a cross between a High Elf sanctuary and a '70s prog rock cover. Here, the guardians must hunt Riven, the last of a race of wish-granting dragons. 

I've beaten the raid seven times now, after initially getting stuck on the last boss until 3.30am. I've also had the raid exotic fusion rifle, One Thousand Voices, drop for me twice, much to the increasing annoyance of my teammates. After all, who wouldn't covet a gun whose main perk reads: "Charging this weapon unleashes a giant continuous beam of death." So I was eager to speak with , raid team lead at Bungie, and pick his considerable brains about the past, present and future of Destiny raiding. Also on the call were game director Steve Cotton and project lead S🐷cott Taylor, there to field more general questions and ensure Blackburn didn't reveal whether one of the chests at the end contains a guaranteed exotic drop. More on that later, but as with any good raid, let's start at the beginning.

Obvious mild spoilers warning for the Last Wish raid

GamesRadar+: What are the first phases of coming up with a new raid, its theme and individual encounters?

JB: We have a series of very early meetings where we take everyone involved in raids, put them in a room, and start coming up with what we call experience statements. These are the moments that drive what we want the raid to be about, or what we want a specific encounter to be about. So when we talk about encounters, people will say something like: "What if we made an encounter and the experience was 'the hunter becomes the hunted'?" and that’s sort of where the Gardens [also known as 'dogs' in the Leviathan raid] came from. Or: "You’re going to play hide and seek and then halfway through you’re going to switch roles." We put a bunch of these on the board, with everything from "I want to do something that feels like I’m playing " to "I want to do something that feels like I’m playing tag", and we pick the ones we feel th🤪e most passionate about as the driving principles for our encounters.

Here's something I read on your Twitter that stuck with me: "A very smart designer once told me people want a raid to last twenty hours the first time and twenty minutes every time after that" and you said you hadn’t slept since. How do you tackle that problem of making something that's initially so complex that it seems like normal players will never be able to cope, but in a couple of weeks they have it down pat?

JB: We talk a lot about mastery and how individuals can develop♕ it over a specific experience. We look at a lot of games, like even old school Mario. The first time you do a level, the Goomba gets you. But you soon learn the Goomba comes from the same spot, and you never get got by that Goomba again, right? Dark Souls does a great job of this too. Taking that sort of approach to mastery with our level design, we look at a lot of raid encounters where we’re going to throw a challenge at you, and the first time it seems daunting, but it has enough predictability that once you’ve mastered it, it’s easy for you to digest the information and pass it on to others.

What was your over/under on the number of hours that the world’s first team to beat Last Wish would take?

JB: We always go into a raid thinking there’s nothing that we’re going to throw at people that they’re not going to get within 24 hours, so this was ouꦗr first "Oh, okay—we came close this time!" Really early on we knew what we wanted to do for this one was to make your power matter. 

So having Steve and Scott get on board really early and say "Instead of people being 20 over the power level, what if they were 20-25 under power? Could we do that? And what would fighting Riven feel like when you’re 27 power under?" So we knew it was going to be longer this time, and I think we were happy with what we’d built. They 🌸probably took longer than we thought—the fatigue set in at some point. [Laughs]

SC: They ran a little longer than we were targeting, but I think what Joe was saying earlier—to your question about how do you make it take 20 hours the first time, and then 20 minutes the tenth time—power does play into that. I mean, if you can start people underpowered, then they can always improve their power and become more capable. That's one axis that we can use to make sure that the raid is easier on subsequent attempts. But most of it has to be about the mastery, it has to be about the mechanics, because you can get better at those. Or you learn the shortcuts and how to cheese the encounters—either way, that’s how yo⭕u get to the point where now you can go in with a group and maybe Sherpa somebody through and it can be more rewarding quicker.

What was the atmosphere like in the studio when you were hanging out in your conference room watching the streams play out?

JB: In the morning, if you’d talked to us we thought we were in for pretty standard fare. Even under-levelled, if you watched the first couple of encounters, it looked like it was going to be wrapped up somewhere around four or five o'clock. Steve was sending me messages like "What happens if it goes after six? What’s our plan?" because several of us needed to stay late to flip on a bunch of stuff for The Dreaming City. Foolishly, I said: "Steve, they’re already trounci𝄹ng through the encounters… later than 6? You’re crazy!"

SC: And I was like "OK, let’s have a backup plan just in case, because𒊎 it could be 2am."

 JB: Around the time t🃏he teams got to the💦 Vault encounter, and it took so long to figure out, we definitely knew there was going to be a brain drain on players after they got through that. We’d already made them fuzzy, and then we were going to hit them with Riven for a sort of knockout punch. After about four hours in the Vault we were like "OK, this might go long…"

I went to bed around 2am when Datto's team were at Riven, and when I woke up the next morning they were still there. In the end they missed out on the emblem for completing the raid in the first 24 hours by two minutes. Was there any discussion about giving it to them anyway?

JB: No. We gave that emblem a pre-set time and date—so we had this really concrete fin🗹ish line that we don’t always have, and I think the story of them being two minutes late is going to live way longer than if they’d got the emblem.

SC: Yeah, that’s the stuff of legend.

I remember once hearing that Crota's End was the raid team's take on an action movie. What kind of movie would Last Wish be?

JB: Really early on, we looked at Last Wish as🌠 sort of the Greatest Hits album of raids. We’d just come off doing Leviathan which was our attempt at "Hey, let’s do something that changes every week!" It was also: "Let’s do a weird thing where you can take shortcuts!" We had a lot of learnings from that, and all the way back to [Destiny's first raid] Vault of Glass. Our weird way of innovating with Last Wish was to say "Let’s do this straight through bunch-of-bosses raid, and let’s take all the learnings we have and put them together." So our innovation is actually looking back and perfecting the formula.

Did you also take inspiration from Warmind's Escalation Protocol mode? The encounter with Shuro Chi has that whole hectic, chaining supers together, six-person pyrotechnic mayhem thing going on.

JB: I think both Escalation Protocol and the Blind Well are hittiꦰng off the same feedback that we hear a lot of from players, and that’s that Destiny is a game about shooting aliens at its core, and we knew we wanted to make a bunch of beats in Last Wish that primarily were about shooting aliens and using your supers to get back to what makes Destiny feel so good and different from raiding in an MMO. So if you look at encounters like Shuro Chi, and the final encounter we refer to as 'The Escape', during which you carry Riven's heart out, they’re primarily about getting six people together and chaining supers and using heavy and getting that power fantasy that you can only find in Destiny. 

On the next page: Bungie talks Wishing Wall, designing raid exotics, and what kind of cheese is unacceptable  

I often see people saying "I wish I could raid but I’ve got no friends in the game." What can Bungie do better to turn those solo players into regular raiders?

SC: We’ve thought a lot about that—one of the things we did this time was introduce the idea of a dungeon. The Shattered Throne dungeon was an attempt to give all players access to something that felt kind of raid-like. I know a lot of people refer to it as a mini-raid. I realise it’s not easy to solo, but it is a potentially solo-able experience and at lea♎st you can go in there by yourself and make some progress𓂃.

The hope was to let all players aspire to do t💛his thing, and then as they get in there—solo, with a friend, or even three people—they can start getting exposed to the mechanics that are so compelling in the raid, and hopefully get excited about that. The idea of these dungeons is really to bridge the gap, and give players a taste of what makes raids so special.

I’m very excited that you said dungeons plural…

SC: Sorry, I🤡 mean dungeon singular. Did I say dungeons plural🔯? That’s not a real thing… [Laughs]

Feedback to Shattered Throne has been super positive. Did the raid team have any involvement in designing it?

JB: That was actually a different group working at the same time,🎐 but it was led by who was on the raid team previously, so it had a lot of raid experience built into it.

Given that Bungie announced that the next couple of DLCs won't feature traditional campaign missions, and will instead bring new activities and modes, is it fair to say that dungeons are the kind of thing we can expect from the Annual Pass?

SC: I hope we are able to deliver more of ♋that type of experience in the future. I mean yeah, that is fair to say that those type of activities are interesting to us and I th𝕴ink interesting to the players…

ST: But to be clear, Steve is not confirming that🌃 content…

SC: Scott’s keeping me honest! But yeah, there are a lot of differe⛄nt activities that we’re really excited about moving forward, and I think you’ve seen it in the Whisper of the Worm mission, the Shattered Throne Dungeon… it’s those types of activities that are really interesting to us.

Going back to Last Wish, what were the design goals for the Wishing Wall room that lets you input to trigger easter eggs and skip encounters?

JB: We looked at what we did for our last big two full raids, and were really happy with Wrath of the Machine and the monitor puzzle. We did something totally different with Leviathan, where the secrets were less about unlocking some epic r💞eward, and more about moving through the underbelly space. So we knew we wanted to do something that was on a totally different axis to both of those.

And so we sat in a roo🍰m and spat out a bunch of ideas. One of the things we were really passionate about was looking back at Vault of Glass and its potential for mystery. "Have we found all the things? We think we’ve found all the things but we don’t fully understand if we have. There was always a sense of “there could be more here…" One of the things we knew early on with Last Wish was that we wanted to have our secrets feel like a potential well that you can always be dippꦚing in—and that you couldn't be sure all the wishes have been found. 

The other inspiration we worked from was someone talked about the cheat codes of old. Internally, we called the Wishing Wall the GameShark for a long time. The old Mega Man X password puzzle was a really big inspiration for us. So we wanted to do some🌟thing that hit on those retro vibes of: "Oh, my friend just slipped me a sheet of paper with a cheat code on it, let’s go into a raid and see what it does…"

The Wishing Wall features 16 different symbols involving dragons, birds, snakes and fish that are also used throughout the raid for puzzle mechanics. Did you ever think: "This is going to be too much for people, they’re not going to be able to differentiate the birds"?

JB: At one point in design, we knew we weren’t making it hard enough. For our first pass at the symbols, we had these beautiful designs come back to us. The one that people now call  'Boring Bird', which is just a bird on the ground looking to the left, that used to have a snake under its feet. We went back and said "this is great, but we can’t have this snake. People are just going to call it 'Snakebird', and everyone will knows exactly what you’re talking a💞bout."

What we were passionate about was someone saying "Dragon" and the other person being "What the fuck dragon are you talking about?" Like: "All I see are 🤡dragons!" “Dragon breathing fire!" "There are two dragons breathing fire, which one?" The first time you come into Last Wish, talking about these symbols is so hard—but by the fourth and fifth time, your group has its own language, or you’ve stolen one from Reddit, and that becomes one of the ways you become an expert at the content.

The raid banners which you can place before each encounter are such a great addition, and something people have been crying out for for a long time. Why do we have to pay currency for them, shouldn’t they be there as standard?

JB: We knew we wanted to put a mechanism in to allow you to get super energy and ammo before every encounter, but 🐽we wanted to preserve the feeling that the raid is a place that no-one has ever been into before. Our big example was: if I walk into Riven’s mouth and there’s a Vanguard public event banner sitting there already, I’m going to be pretty disappointed. right? So we wanted to have this mechanism where players purchased these banners, brought them in, and they’re the ones slamming it down and staking their claim. 

SC: I want to elaborate on that. There was definitely a big push in all of Forsaken to give players an opportunity to feel smart and to feel like they’re the ones solving the problems of Destiny. Something Destiny 2 I think did too much of was to take that [feeling] away from players and remove their agency over solving problems and kind of jus🌠t gave them everything they needed to do. And so having a player have to now have to choose to go get a raid banner and bring it into the raid is an example of something like that, and I think we’re doing it all over the place.

Speaking of players feeling smart, Joe can you tell me whether in your eyes each of these ways to beat encounters qualifies as a cheese, an exploit, or legit strategy? Number one is all using the IKELOS shotgun to kill Morgeth the Spirekeeper by shooting him in the back of the leg.

JB: I would say that is not a cheese or an exploit. I would say that you’ve invested time in Destiny and now you get to feel a type of powerful. It sort of hits on that idea of the first time we did this it took 20 hours, but now it takes 🔴20 minutes. So on that one, yeah, good on you!

OK, how about equipping a 100K Nightfall emblem so you take no damage on the plates at Shuro Chi.

JB: Oooh—that one is a bug, it is being fixed. There are players that have used that bug in𝔍 a different way, but we just want to get it fixedꦚ.

Last one: killing Riven in the first stun room using cluster bomb rockets and a bunch of buffs.

JB: That’s the one we’re probably looking at right now. We’re evaluating the community’s response to it and we’re still looking and learning and figuring out what the right thing for that encoun🍨ter is.

How does the existence of boss-slaying weapons like 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Whisper of the Worm and the IKELOS shotgun alter the design of raid encounters? Presumably you also have to cater for teams who don’t have those guns.

JB: There’s actually a huge gap in player performance in Destiny. It's one of the things that makes Destiny great. We love watching and two-man encounters, and the fact that two players can hold that much personal skill in their pocket—but it does pose a huge challenge when we look at aspects of encounters and say "Yeah, if you’re coming in and you’re not the most hardcore hobby Destiny player, this is really, really brutal" Then we contrast that to someone who has Whisper, who has One Thousand Voices, ༺who has an IKELOS shotgun and all the experience… We try to find a middle ground where, 🦋when you have those weapons, you feel like "Oh, I’m succeeding" but the content doesn’t become trivial.

What was the thinking behind the Deal or No Deal boxes at the end of the escape sequence?

JB: We’re always looking for more ways that players can have interesting stories in raids, and Deal or No Deal is the exact inspiration there. We’d just come out of the Leviathan experience, where w𒁏hen you killed Calus a massive elevator drops down and you got to go to this cool space that was full of Calus 'bots. That was a really neat loot moment andไ we knew we wanted to do something special in Last Wish... So we opened up the experience statement conversation again and said "What’s a cool way for players to get loot?" And Deal or No Deal came up—this idea that you have the option to choose a chest that holds your destiny in it, right? And you get to think that "Oh, this is my lucky chest—always top right. That's where I know One Thousand Voices is going to be"

Do any of the chests have different RNG?

JB: I am not at liberty to give away secrets likಞe that.

Well, in my testing I’ve got two One Thousand Voices, and I’m saying the chests in the shadowy area are the lucky ones.

JB: See? You’ve fo𝓀und your sweet spot, you’ve got to let 🍰them know.

When I got mine I just walked around the Tower with it equipped hoping people would ask me about it.

JB: That’s the kind of stuff that really gets the raid team excited. We refer tౠo those [items] as moon rocks. That sense of "I’ve been to this epic place and I brought back this souvenir and it’s proof that I’ve done something amazing."

Let's talk raid armor. In Destiny 1, with Crota and King's Fall, it felt like we were wearing the discarded bones of our opponents. With Leviathan you started bringing in lore tabs that told these discrete stories—in that case about becoming Calus’ Shadows. Now, with Last Wish, you’ve got these medieval-looking sets. Are they meant to be reclaimed from Guardians who fell while hunting the Ahamkara?

JB: Yes, absolutely. So, Jon To, who’sඣ a fantastic writer—he wrote Callus, he wrote Riven, he’s the Drifter writer—we’re really fortunate to have him on the team, and we sort of handed off this problem to him. Pretty early on he came up with the idea that they should be about the people that hunted the Ahamkara to near-extinction. I am thrilled with how that turned out.

I guess it also plays into the 'Greatest Hits' nature of Last Wish as well, because there are a lot of classic heroes and heroines from Destiny lore in there.

JB: Yes👍, exactly. I love all the stuff with Eris, the Queen and Shaxx… that’s really exciting to me.

Why don’t you have raid-specific perks on the armor? That seems like it was something people really enjoyed back in Vault of Glass and Wrath of the Machine but you’ve done away with it now.

JB: What we wanted to hit on this time was a set of items that you could collect from the raid that would not only make you powerful in the raid, but would make you powerful throughout the game, and what we landed on there were the Taken mods. There's a single weapon mounted mod, and a suite of armour mods, that all augment how you fightꦯ Taken—and so that not only provides you with what we think is a 𓃲big benefit in the raid, but there’s also this idea that "Yeah, maybe I want to take 20% less damage from Taken while I’m in Gambit".

We didn༺'t want everyone in the game to just be wearing the raid armour set, we wanted you to have the flexibility of customisation where: “I got these mods from the raid and I can put them in any armour set that I’m passionate about.” 

But isn’t that the problem you've landed up with anyway in the sense that it’s only the Reverie Dawn and the Great Hunt sets which can roll with enhanced perks?

JB: Mmm, what specific perks are you talkingꦍ about for those two ♎sets?

Those are the two sets which can get the enhanced perks like Sniper Rifle Targeting, enhanced Hand Cannon loader, and so on.

JB: I think we’ll always probably have a set of armour that’s top tier and we’ll try to add to that as time go♉es on, but I definitely don’t think we’d be happy with a situation where everyone in the game who raided🍃 just wore the raid armour set.

The Collection will bundle together all four of Destiny's expansions for $60/£50. That means if you still haven't hopped aboard the sci-fi quasi-MMO's hype train, this version will get you caught up to speed. Pre-order digitally and you'll be able to play the base game, The Dark Below, House of Wolves, and The Taken King immediately, with 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Rise of Iron unlocking on September 20. Everyone who purchases𓂃 Destiny: The Collection will also get a l🐟evel 40 character boost.

The Collection also serve as a bridge for PS3 and Xbox 360 players, who recently got their 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:last scheduled patch and will not receive future expansions. These players can take advantage of an upgrade program by purchasing a digital copy of Destiny: The Collection for $40, which will also allow the transfer of characters from PS3 to PS4 and Xbox 360 to Xbox One. A few caveats th🥃o✅ugh: last-gen players will need to own The Taken King, and the upgrade program only lasts until January 31, 2017.

Seen something newsworthy? Tell us! 

user Helix3333 has been working on "Project Tiger" in their spare time ever since they s💞aw♔ fan art imagining Destiny as a 2D game several months ago. They finally shared their creation this week in honor of Bungie Day (an annual celebration when the company honors its community), and I gotta say, it ain't bad. I mean, I can't aim and I died a lot, but that's generally true of my Destiny experience regardless.

If you want to check out Project Tiger for yourself, Helix has set up several download mirrors which you can check out via their . Or, if you just want to watch and not touch, YouTube user Brenton Whitwell has captured some✤ gameplay for you: 

Seen something newsworthy? Tell us!

澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Pre-ordering the expansion will net you an Iron Black Gjallarhorn, but anyone who purchases this DLC will get the famous rocket launcher via an in-game quest. Rise of Iron will also add an increased Light cap, new maps, missions, a new Strike, a new Raid, a new social space, a new enemy faction, and a story focused arꦚound Lord Saladin and the Iron Lords.

But 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:no pet wolves. Sadface.

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Don't believe me? Here's a screencap:

We'd 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:heard rumblings regarding Rise of Iron before, including a 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:September 20 launc date. This, however, gives us confirmation. It also, interestingly, omits PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360🌳 from the listed consoles. Might this be the first step in pushing Destiny to current gen systems only?

Oh, and before you go and try to watch the trailer, it's not up yet. Clicking the image redirects to a roundup of reviews for Destiny's previous expansion, The Taken King. Which was 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:quite good, by the way.

Seen something newsworthy? Tell us!

Thats why weve taken a look back at some of the biggest developers working today, and unearthed the quirky titles from their distant (and sometimes not-so-distant) pasts. Most are by ൲no means awful, showing off fledgling talents and the burning passionಞ of youth, but some are genuinely bizarre. Its worth noting that studios like Valve and Kojima Productions have always made great games in keeping with their core values theres no Donald Duck: Going Quackers skeletons in their closets--which is why they dont appear in this list.

UK developer Rare has created or been involved with a staggering 130 games since starting up in 1986. Its break-out year was 1994 when Rare delivered Killer Instinct (Arcade) and Donkey Kong Country (SNES), and since then the studio has developed some of the most popular games ever including 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:GoldenEye, 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Perfect Dark, 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Banjo Kazooie and more recently the technically impressive 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Kinect Sports titles for their new Microsoft owners.

However, before they were the darlings of Nintendo (and Microsoft), Rare earned a living making games like Jeopardy (1988), Wheel of Fortune (1988), and Sesame Street 🏅123 (1989)--all for the NES. Bizarrely, for a British studio, they also made or contributed to severꦜal US sports games including Jordan vs Bird: One on One (1989), which boasted three exciting game modes and some questionable box art.

No-one is better at sci-fi shooters than Bungie. Even before the developer released Halo for the original Xbox (the game that undoubtedly tipped the Xbox from failure to success) the team was creating incredible titles for Mac like the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Marathon Trilogy (1994-96), Myth (1997-99) and Oni (2001) for PS2. Once the crown-jewel in Microsofts list of exclusive developers, Bungie is now in a 10 year publishing agreement with Activision, which will see the release of next-gen action game Destiny.

Like many other major development studios, though, Bungie sprang from humble beginnings. The first title created by an embryonic version of the company (founder Alex Seropian working on his own) was Gnop!, a free Pong clone for PC. When Jason Jones entered a collaboration with Alex, Bungie was born🎐, and Gnop! was closely followed in 1991 by a military action game called Operation: Desert Storm and an RPG called Minotaur (1992). "I grew up on the Apple II and then the Mac," says Jason Jones, speaking on Bungie.net, "I wrote all tওhis C code for PCs though, before I even went to school. This was the heyday of PCs, with Wing Commander and stuff. The PC market was really cutthroat, but the Mac market was all friendly and lame. So it was easier to compete."

Founded in 1996, Treyarch is a relative new-comer to the development scene. Once the Robin to Infinity Wards Batman, Treyarch are now on a level-footing with their Call of Duty partners at Activision--developing 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Black Ops from promising solo release to a young, exciting franchise in its own right: a🤪 franchise that just happens to have produced two of the best selling games in history. Although their rise to fame comes as nཧo great shock--even their early Spider-Man and Tony Hawk games were good--Treyarch has a bunch of unusual titles in its past

Did you know that Treyarch has worked three ice hockey games, including a pair of decent NHL 2K titles for rival publisher 2K? Their first game--Olympic Hockey Nagano 98--wasnt as successful, receiving a score of 0 from one review. Ouch. It was also responsible for the Triple Play baseball series from 1999 to 2001, and the company has also created a surfing game called 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Kelly Slaters Pro Surfer (2002).

At one time, 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:World of Warcraft had more than 10 million subscribers, making it the most popular MMO ever and it is just one of Blizzards insanely popular PC franchises. The developer is also responsible for the Diablo and 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Starcraft series, which 📖continue to dominate PC via sequels and expansions. Diablo III is even heading to PS3 later in 2013. The company is n𝕴ow part of Activision Blizzard, one of the largest publishers in the world, and certainly one of the most profitable.

Blizzard has only been called Blizzard since 1994, and the current company only has a couple of unusual games in its past, including The Death and Return of Superman (1994) and Justice League Task Force (1995). However, between 1991 and 1994 Blizzard was known as Silicon and Synapse, a company that kicked out an eclectic bunch of ports including Battle Chess (1992), RPM Racing (1991) and MicroLeague Baseball (1992) to ease themselves into game development. Speaking to IGN back in 2001, co-founder Allen Adham says: Our first originals were The Lost Vikings and Rock & Roll Racing for Nintendo. Those two titles together garnered us a Developer of the Year award and that combination of critical acclaim and sales succ🔯ess is what really put us on the map as a game developer. The rest is hᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚistory.

Perhaps the most well-known developer in the world, Rockstar North is the gate-keeper of the Grand Theft Auto franchise. The latest instalment, GTA 5, is due this September and it tops our list of the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:100 Most Anticipated Games of 2013. With good reason too, as previous games have consistently gathered 90%+ revie🦋ws across the board and generated millions of sales on whatever platform theyve appeared. However, before becoming Rockstar North in 2002, the team went by the name DMA Design, and created a number of interesting early titles.

DMAs first outing was Menace (1988), which--rather than being a pre-cursor to Bully--was actually a side-scrolling space shooter. Although it gathered average scores from critics, DMA followed it up with Blood Money (no relation to Hitman) in 1989, which was roundly praised. However, their break-out hit was Lemmings in 1991 for Amiga and PC. I've since met many people that were around 6 or 7 years old at the time, who have told me they used to play Lemmings, says former DMA man Mike Dailly, in his History of DMA Design. There have been very few games with such a cross section of players; Mario games are the only other ones I can think of sincenot even the Sonic games are played by such a wide cross section of ages. It wasnt until 1997 that the first Grand Theft Auto appeared, and the studio has been making more mature-themed games ever since all with a slice of that cheekyꦐ Lemmings humour.

Ah, Ubisoft Montreal. Home of 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Assassins Creed, 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Splinter Cell, the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Prince of Persia remakes, 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Far Cry 3, 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Watchdogs and all kinds of other high-profile games, most of which involve stabbing men in the face. Despite having its🅰 HQ in Paris, Ubisofts Montreal Studio is the heart of the company, and its one of the few studios in🍸 the world to have consistently delivered high-quality games throughout this generation and the last. Its currently working on Watchdogs and Assassins Creed Black Flag for PS4, in collaboration with several other Ubisoft studios.

Wasnt always the case, though. Montreal was originally planned as a studio for developing mass-market, kids games. Its first game was Tonic Trouble (1999), which followed a cartoonish character called Ed, living in a world where vegetables had become killers. The team followed that up with Donald Duck: Going Quackers (2000), which released to a chorus of meh on PC. So it came as something as a shock🍨 when Montreals third game, in 2002, turned out to be the Xbox exclusive, multi-award winning stealth outing Tom Clancys Splinter Cell. The rest, as they say, is history.

You know DICE as the creators of the incredible 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Battlefield series, which will spawn its fourth numbered title later in 2013. Originally a hit on PC (with Battlefield 1942, which released in 2002) the Battlefield series has spread onto console via the Bad Company spin-off, and remains the only credible opposition to Call of Duty in the military shooter space. DICE has also made several other titles since 2002, including 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Mirrors Edge and the under-apprec♈iate RalliSport Challenge games, but Battlefield remains its premier offering.

But why is the Swedish developer called DICE? Its actually an abbreviation of Digital Illusions Creative Entertainment, which was the lengthy name under which it released its first handful of games. Pinball Dreams (1992), Pinball Fantasies (1992), and Pinball Illusions (1995) were DICEs originals and they were genuinely great sims. The developer went through a period of releasing racing games throughout the late 90s, culminating in RalliSport Challenge 2 in 2004 (for Xbox), which remains ꦉone of the best (but least played) racing games ever made.

Bethesda Softworks--now known as Bethesda Game Studios--is responsible for the three best RPGs of this generation: 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:TESV: Skyrim and 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Fallout 3. As a publisher, they constantly cherry-pick some of the most interesting new games like Rage and 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Dishonored, although arent beyond releasing the odd duffer like 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Rogue Warrior and 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Hunted: The Demons Forge. No-ones perfect. Look back into their long history, though, and youll see some surprꦯising roots,

American Football, Ice Hockey, Drag Racing, 10-pin Bowling--Bethesda Softworks was a prolific producer of sports games from 1986-2001. Ironically, Wayne Gretzky Hockey (1988) was the reason Treyarchs Olympic Hockey 98 received a score of zero, as reviewers claimed the two games were virtually indistinguishable. Other quirky titles lurking in Bethesdas past include the 1991 NES version of Home Alone, and a version of Wheres Waldo (1991) for NES. It wasnt until 1994 (after several hit and miss Termi🌱nator games) that they produced the first Elder Scrolls title, ES Arena.

So there you have it--the sometimes embarrassing, sometimes proud history of your favourite studios laid bare. It shows that you can 🔯never really tell where the next blockbuster game is coming from, and gives 🦩a glimpse into the way the gaming industry has grown up. As ever, let us know your thoughts below. Why not tell us about the small studios you think will be dominant in the next generation.

Want to sip more sweet nectar from the cup of reminiscence? Check out our special 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:What Generation of Gamer Are You? quiz. Alternatively, why not gaze into the future and find out 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Everything Weಌ Know About PlayStation 4. Look forward, or look backwards your choice.

Namely, not much has been shown in the way of actual gameplay footage. In engine, we saw a sprawling vista here, and a character model there, but right now ඣwe're mostly going on Destiny's concep🍌t art. That's why we've decided to take a closer look at the beautiful art from Bungie's design team and pull a few more details about the characters and world of the upcoming, open-world shooter.

At the end of mankind's Golden Age, in which human civilization spanned the entire solar system, Earth and the other human settlements were attacked by 🍰an unknown enemy. The Human race was almost entirely stamped out of existence. But the Traveler intervened, sacrificing himself to save earth. He left the sphere floating above the surface, marking the location where the remaining humans would build a city. 🔯That's what you're looking at here.

This is the starting point of your adventure as a Guardian of The City. From the look of this image, the city appears to 𝔉be massive and surrounded by several protective walls. I♔f the Traveler's Sphere can be seen from orbit, the city could be a hundred miles in diameter. That could turn into a lot of travel time.

We don't know what a Cassini is yet, but these massive heaps of scrap metal float among the rings of Saturn. That is pretty much the only thing we are sure about. Bungie al❀so mentioned that players will be able to explore the ancient wreckage, which could mean you get out of your spaceship and float around Dead Space-style or there might be some way of salvaging treasure from the derelict fleets while insi♉de your ship. Either way, we can't wait to see more.

Many of the environments shown from Destiny were relatively familiar. We all can imagine what the surface of Mars looks like, and we've all run through a war-torn, post-apocalyptic Earth in one game or another. But then, Bungie introduced some locations that were completely alien, like ♓the garden above. This cou𒐪ld possibly be ruins on Earth that have been reclaimed by nature, or a serene location on some other planet. Since Earth was said to have been almost entirely destroyed, we're guessing it's the latter. Unless, of course, that destruction happened so long ago that Nature has begun to recover. One thing's for sure, it's probably the most beautiful maze we've ever seen.

This mass of floating rectangles and lightning bolts is one of the enemy strongholds players can raid, usually resulting in getting a few pieces of unique gear. In the image we can see some of the time-traveling robots calle💟d the Vex in the background defending their base against a fireteam of Guardians. If you look close, there appear to be two types of enemies. There's the standard, cone-headed grunts and a larger, more threatening robot further back in the group.

One thing to note about t𝐆he player characters in the front is both Guardians are carrying two primary weapons. They are both holding assault rifles, with another large rifle on their backs--emulating the two weapon rule of the Halo games.

Another enemy base located on Earth's moon. The Hellmouth is another example of the striking visual design of the environments. It looks to drop deep into the moon's surface and seems to have some activity with all that molten lava gushing out of the walls. We don't know much else about this location, but we can't wait to explore this bo🐻ttomless pit.

At first glance you might 🧸think that this is just another look at the surface of the moon. But giant floating boulders generally aren't a characteristic of the our moon's terrain and there aren't any identifiable continents on the blue planet in t🎀he background. Maybe we're not looking at the earth and moon at all. Could this be an asteroid passing by an unknown planet that ancient humans decided to build a space station on? Perhaps Destiny extends outside our solar system. Your guess is as good as ours.

These are the three revealed charaꦛcter classes: the Hunter, the Warlock, and the Vanguard (from l𒊎eft to right). You'll notice that each class has very different looking armor and from what they're wearing we can make a few assumptions on the part they'll play in combat.

The Hunter on the left is wearing lighter armor which may make her more agile or faster on her feet. She is also wearing a cloak, which generally indicates that the Hunter will be more of a stealth-type character which is also evidenced by the silencer on her rifle. We✃ already know that the Warlock will have access to supernatural abilities, but his flowing cloak definitely screams spellcaster. In this concept, the Warlock is carrying a short rifle, possibly a close-ranged SMG. Even more, there is a small, spherical drone of some type floating 🍸over the right shoulder. Some kind of pet perhaps? Finally, the Vanguard is obviously wearing the heaviest armor set and toting a significantly larger rifle than the other two classes. Judging by the size of the gun and the monstrous clip, he's most likely carrying a light machine gun.

This action-packed concept most notably highlights the three-man team co-op concept, as well as the magic abilities of the Warlock on the far right. Though we don't know much about the three-eyed insectoid enemies the heroes are combating, further support for the Hunter being a stealth class can be seen in the ♒camouflage cloak and silenced, carbine-like rifle. The Hunter also looks to be wearing a gas mask, which may suggest that he might use gas or poison-based attacks.

Here is an up-close look at a female Hunter on the left carrying a sniper rifle. The long-range weapon looks to have multiple attachments, includi𓆉ng a sight, bipod stand, and a Barret .50 cal-style compensator at the end of the barrel, all possible permutations 🔴of weapon customization.

The enemies in the background include the heavil🌺y armored war-rhinos called the Cabal and the four armed spider pirates called The Fallen. This is the first i🍸ndication that the separate enemy factions will work together, suggesting the two groups have formed some sort of human-eradicating alliance, or simply share the same leader.

This is another fortified enemy location players will be able to raid. Located in the red deserts of Mars, the massive, Sandcrawler-shaped buildings seem to be projecting some💟 sort of energy shiel𝓡d into the sky. Also, in the bottom right corner of the image, you can see what looks like a Vanguard and Hunter getting ready to enter the Cabal compound.

Here is a close look at a squad of the spider-like Fallen. This image makes it difficult to see their two additional arms, but you can see a glimpse of their weapons and technology. Their giant, rusted-out walking tank suggests that battles in Destiny won't just be simple foot-soldier skirmishes, but will involve taking down armored behemoths. You'll al꧂so notice that The Fallen's weapons look unique to their race, though they also have a floating spherical drone like the Warlock class.

T♕his also shows another example of environment and weather varieties that will be in Destiny. In addition to changing weather, a dynamic day-night cycle can alter the envirꦰonment.

This image shows another look at the Vex. But more interesting than the actual characters in the image is the environment they are in. The orange ocean the robots are trudging through doesn't seem to be a location on Earth--or at least, any Earth we know. Bungie mentioned that players would be able to explore the acid lake of Venus, so maybe that is what we're looking at.

Vehicles appear to play a large part in Destiny, and here is our first glimpse at what the personal mounts look like. This image shows a Vanguard character riding a vehicle called a Pike. The hover bike is armed with forward facing cannons and looks like it's going pretty fast. Bungie ꦉdescribed the Pike as being able to strafe around its targets, so perhaps it will control like the Covenant's Ghosts in Halo.

It's unclear how these vehicles will be a🐼cq💧uired in game, but Bungie mentioned a player had stolen one when describing a player-to-player interaction in a public area.

Those arღe all of the details we could pull out of the concept art. Did you notice anything you think we missed? Have any theories of your own? Let us know in the comments below.

For more information on Destiny, be sure to check out our article Destin♏y - All the information on Bungie's next shooter and our 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Radar Reacts video on Destiny.

You see I’d never got on with Halo. My attitude towards it over the years has been one of indifference at best, and one all too frequently typified by searing damnation of its generic universe, generic characters, and slow, generic, “my first FPS” gameplay. When I first played Combat Evolved on my uni friend’s Xbox I wasn’t impressed in the slightest. I was feasting upon a diet of Quake and 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Half-Life at the time, and the lumpen, broad strokes exploits of a faceless jolly green giant space marine in a cartoon sci-fi universe just did not do it for me at all. And as for all of those claims that Halo had changed the face of gaming forever by making FPS work on a console? Pah. 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Goldeneye had done that four ye🌌ars earlier as far as I was c♒oncerned. The N64 just lacked the Xbox’s second analogue stick.

I tried again with Halo 2, playing a chunk of the campaign in co-op with another friend. But again I couldn’t summon up even one iota of the effort required to care less about it. I had 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:TimeSplitters 2 by that point, which was faster, funnier, more imaginative in its design and storytelling, and looked way better from an art design perspective. And then 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Half-Life 2 happened. Sorry Halo. Another nic🌠e try, but I wasn’t biting.

And so it continued until last weekend. Every new Halo was a bit shinier and brought a couple of new tweaks, but a quick dabble always gave me the unpleasant, sluggish feeling of playing 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Quake III underwater. It still felt like a training wheels FPS. A competent game that copied the basics of multiple better games, but didn’t execute them with as much 𝄹finesse or flair.

Whatever Halo did, it never managed to shake my perception that the franchise had just got lucky. That it had gained an artificially high profile by simple virtue of being one of the stronger first-party exclusives in the Xbox’s launch line-up and had coasted along on undeserved circumstantial hype since then. So I kept going back to what I saw as the smarter, more interesting shooters, and left Halo on the shelf time and time again. With Half-Life and Portal and Bioshock and 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Battlefield multiꦺplayer to occupy me, there was no way that the Chief could possibly grab my attention.

But now he has. I rinsed through about 70% of Halo 4’s campaign in one sitting on Friday night. I finished it off the next day, and I’ve been playing mult🔯iplayer during every spare minute ever since. I just really, really like Halo now. Completely and wholeheartedly, and I absolutely cannot and will not stop playing it unless ꦕI absolutely have to.

I’ve discovered that I was wrong about it, basically. That’s not something I say about anything very often, because I’m a) usually right abo💦ut everything and b) always very stubborn. But I was wrong. Despite some flaws in its campaign, Halꦯo 4 has completely won me over.

But how did I get to this point? How did I come to be in possession of my own copy of Halo 4, after so many years unwilling to even use ꩵa Spartan-based disc as a novelty beer coaster? The simple explanation is that things have changed a lot in FPS over the last 11 years, and what Halo represents to me now is a very different thing to what it represented in 2001.

You see for me, first-person shooters are about a lot more than simply shooting things from a first-person perspective. Given their viewpoint they’re potentially the most immersive genre of all, but personally that immersion has to come as much from gameplay possibilities as it does from visual fidelity. There’s no point giving🎉 me a beautifullꦏy rendered world if I don’t feel like my actions within it really matter.

I need to be able to have a meaningful effect on ꦰmy FPS environments. I need my tactical decisions and the creativity of my thinking to shape or at least strongly influence the way things play out. And I need the game to accommodate my desire for a bespoke, self-authored experience and react to the one I create. To me, FPS guns aren’t weapons. They’re unique, functionally distinct tools with which to cultivate and choreograph eclectic emergen🎃t action sequences and mid-fight meta-narratives. And that sort of thing just doesn’t happen in FPS as much as it used to.

Shooters have become glossier and more cinematic, and insanely well polished of course. But without naming any names, it’s no secret that they’ve also become increasingly less interactive. In fact some of them now almost feel like part of a different genre to the stuff that first made me a fan. Level designs are i❀ncreasingly funnelled. Weapons are increasingly ‘realistic’ and similar in effect. AI is less demanding of creative play. Interactions are increasingly a case of follow the leader, do what you’re told. Playing an FPS used to feel like being a sculptor of action. Now a lot of tꦆhem make me feel like I’m just an actor in someone else’s play.

The truth is that I’ve labelled myself an enthusiastic FPS player for a very long time, but over recent years I’ve only felt like a fan in principle, finding less and less examples that really gave me what I wanted. Because what was the last great mainstream console FPS built around the qualities I’m after? 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Singularity? 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Bulletstorm? 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Bioshock 2? And two of those tanked commercially.

So I started to gravitate t🐻owards Halo 4 a couple of weeks ago. The series had long had a reputation as a freeform shooter sandbox, so out of borderline desperation I decided that it might be time to give it another try. The development shift from Bungie to 343 Industries helped too, if only in terms of giving me an outward justification for backing down on my long-held anti-fanboyism. Pride swallowed, excuses in place, I got hold of a copy and gave it a go.

And ye gods, was coming back to Halo a beautiful experience this time around. Yes, it has issues. There’s too much repeated level design in the campai🌼gn, and too much arbitrary button-pressing by way of narrative McGuffins. But I can forgive a handful of dated old-school design crutches when they come along with so much old-school design brilliance.

Each and every time I get into a firefight in Halo 4, magic happens. In campaign, a run-in with overwhelming opposing forces isn’t intimidating or irritating. There’s no fear of the cheap bullet-hell onslaught and attritional grind that ‘certain games’ bring in such situations. There’s just opportunity and excitement. Between the inter-locking intelligence of its enemy AI and the adventure playground puzzle-box of its environmental design, playing Halo 4 today is like finding a crisp waterfall of rainbows and wishes in the middle of a baked-hard desert of uniformly coloured sand. Multiply all of the above by the sheer number of ways that every single encou🍨nter can be interpreted and reinterpreted by each combination of weapons you and your co-op partners may be packing, and you have a vision of multiple possible, completely different Halo 4s stacked on top of each other, just waiting to be unlocked by player experimentation.

And multi𒀰player is a revelation. Because now that I’m actively looking to Halo for something specific, I’m seeing what it can really do for the first time. After tiring of multiplayer shooters built around twitch-focused hide-and-seek and insta-kill machine-guns, what I perceived as Halo’s slowness is now obviously just a perfect pace for allowing methodical, tactical firefights.

That weapon-set isn’t insipid, as I once thought. It just demands thoughtful use and has its power pitched towards playful, completely asymmetrical cat-and-mouse combat rather than instant domination. That regenerating shield isn’t a cop-out for cowardly players. It’s a fundamental tool in facilitating drawn-out skirmishes and a back-and-forth, almost conversational combat flow. It’s also a fantastic route to poker-style battles of nerve and wits, as players back off to preserve their own shield while trying to work out exactly how much punishm🌼ent their opponent can take.

🎐But you probably know all of this already, because there’s a good chance you’ve been happily playing Halo for years. But alas it’s taken 11 years and a ve꧟ry particular set of circumstances for me to come to appreciate it, as well as a rather hefty change of attitude. Now that I’m actively reaching out to Halo rather than poo-pooing its efforts in favour of those of its genre rivals, it’s obvious why it’s so good.

Via a combination of internal and external forces I’ve ended up really getting to know the game for the first time. To be fair to my earlier self, that can be a tricky thing to do unless you really want to, particularly when you’re dealing with the kind of great game design that thrives on subtle intricacy and depth. But the experience has been a positive one all round. You see not only do I like a new game now, and not only has that discovery r🅷eally cemented what I personally want out of game design, but it’s also made me realise just how easy it is to close yourself off to the good stuff. Even if – in fact especially if - you think you’re already looking at it elsewhere.

Fanboysism. P𒀰ositive or negative, iಌt gets your nowhere.

Now to get myself a copy of 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Halo Anniversary and start from the beginning. Again.

You know that kid at parties who talks too much? Drink in hand, way too enthusiastic, ponderously well-educated in topics no one in their right mind should know about? Loud? Well, that kid’s occasionally us. GR Editorials is a semi-regular feature where we share our informed insights on the news at hand. Sharp, funny, and finger-on-the-pulse, it’s the information you need to know even when you don’t know you need it.

Stick around as we review the video gaming hand-off that worked, andꦓ a few that dropp༺ed the ball...

There was once a time when Lara Croft could do no wrong. From 1996 onwards, Core Design's busty raider of tombs was the talk of pixeltown until 2003, when Ms. Croft's fame took a swan dive wi❀th the release of Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness, her first entry for the PlayStation 2. While far from terrible, Angel of Darkness's stiff controls and dated presentation confirmed what fans had long suspected: after pumping out six games in seven years, Core Design's crush on Lara was starting to fizzle.

Realizing the honeymoon was over, Core Designs gave its d🍸igital baby to Crystal Dynamics, a studio that was best known then for its Legacy of Kain series. Over the following years, Crystal Dynamics put Lara Croft through her paces; redesigning her looks, moves, and backstory. Even Tomb Raider creator Toby Gard returned for Lara's resurrection. In 2006, their efforts paid off in Tomb Raider: Legend, a game many considered a true return to form.

Hand-off results: Like the freshly rendered Lara herself, Crystal Dynamics dusted off the once-great franchise and made it exciting again. Tomb Raider: Legend became the fastest selling game in the series and remains one of the highest rated games in🃏 the Tomb Raider empire. More importantly, it reignited Lara's career, and is one of the reasons we're excited to see where Crystal Dynamics plans to take her next in her second reboot later this year.

Irrational Games broke (drilled, smashed, and shocked) new ground with BioShock in 2007. Designer Ken Levine and his team (then 2K Boston) created an FPS that focused as much on gunplay as itꦍ did on creating one of the most compelling worlds in gaming. Rapture and its inhabitants set a new bar in video game storytelling, and the variety of plasmid options and moral dilemmas scattered within gave players a🐎 reason to plunge its depths for multiple playthroughs. By the time BioShock sold its 2 millionth copy a few months later, rumors of a sequel were already starting to surface. Trouble was, Ken Levine had other plans.

No♔w richer from BioShock, 2K opened 2K Marin and approached Ken Levine's 2K Boston crew for talent. Levine agreed to give up members of the BioShock team, but opted to stay back to pursue other projects. As such, 2K Marin went on to continue Rapture's story, eventually adding multiplayer with help from Digital Extremes (among other developers). Meanwhile, Levine and 2K Boston reverted back to its Irra💙tional Games moniker worked in secret on its infinite plans.

Hand-off results: You remember BioShock 2, right? The game 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:we assigned a perfect score and the one that went on to make Take Two Interactive scads and scads of money? It's safe to say the BioShock vets at 2K Marin did Levine's vision proud, and that the Big Daddy and the Little Sisters suffered very little from the hand-off. In the time since, Levine has rededicated Irrational's efforts to the BioShock universe with BioShock Infinite, while 2K Marin has been working on an FPS reboo꧋t of PC classic XCOM, a development that hasn't gone all that smoothly.

Supernatural kids are creepy. It's a fact (look it up). And in 2005, Monolith Production played on our collective fear of ghostly underage girls in the freshman chapter of its F.E.A.R series. Inspired by decades of Japanese horror films, F.E.A.R injected a sense of genuine terror to the FPS genre, much of which was owed to a psychic ankle-biter name💜d Alma who (spoiler) turned out to be the leading man's mother. Again... creepy. But also, effective. So effective, in fact, that Monolith Productions was motivated to port its PC creeper hit to PS3 and Xbox 360 with the assistance of Day 1 Studios, the indie team that would later adopt Alma and the F.E.A.R franchise completely one sequel later.

Hand-off results: Day 1 Studio's F.E.A.R 3 is generally regarded as the weakest of its kin, but in all fairness, the F.E.A.R franchise was already losing its edge by the time Day 1 took over. The creepy kid fad was loosing its shock value, and F.E.A.R 3's scare tactics were becoming old hat. Left to rely on its FPS merits and multiplayer tricks alone, F.E.A.R 3 turned out to be an average time-waster; and in the FPS genre, average is a death sentence. In the end, Day 1 ๊Studios didn't sully F.E.A.R's good name, but it didn't help it much either.

2006's Dead Rising was an undead love letter to zombie pop culture. It offered a genuine Romero nightmare in in a morbidly entertaining sandbox that rewarded creativity, quick thinking, and a strong stomach. Capcom's (then) newest IP - starring everyman photojournalist Frank West - became North America's fastest selling next-gen title on the Xbox 360 in a matter of weeks, so it was a surprise to absolutely no one that a follow-up was announced iꦉn February 2009. To the surprise of some, however, the honor of continuing Capcom's undead phenom fell to Blue Castle Games, a studio largely known for cracking out baseball titles like The Bigs for 2K Sports.

Fears of a shoddy sequel were quickly put to rest by news that Capcom's Keiji Inafune and other Dead Rising alumni would be working closely with Blue Castle Games. Tꦰheir efforts gave rise to 2010's Dead Rising 2, a sequel that succeeded i🉐n expanding the Dead Rising concept with a larger playground, tweaked mechanics, and a weapon-crafting system that made zombie killing the new national past time.

Hand-off results: Dead Rising 2 didn't have Frank West's star power, but it didn't need it. The sequel sold more than its predecessor, and made a killing on DLC expansions; one of which brought Frank back into the fold in Dead Rising 2: Off the Record. Capcom was so pleased with Dead Rising 2 that it adopted Blue Castle Games as one of its own, renaming the studio Capcom Vancouver. It hasn't been confirmed yet if Blue Castle is attached to 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Dead Rising 3, but it's a good bet.

John Romero's Ion Storm studio was supposed to change the industry; and for a brief moment in 2000, it did. Shortly after its notorious Daikatana fumble, Ion Storm brought Warren Spector in to head the studio's expansion in Austin, Texas, trusting the new studio with the development of a new IP called Deus Ex for its publisher, Eidos. Spector and his team delivered in spades, introducing PC gamers (and later, Xbox'ers) to a cyberpunk action title that blended elements of stealth, role-playing, and traditional first-person shooter elements to massive cult success. Soon, fans wanted more, and Ion Storm's Austin team 𝐆answered the call with Deus Ex: Invisible War, the sequel that nearly put a bullet in the head of the Deus Ex franchise.

Seven years later, both Ion Storm offices had shuttered, Spector had moved on, and the future seemed bleak for Deus Ex. Then, like an augmented super-spy, Eidos crept out of nowhere to announce it wo𒀰uld be handling development of a brand new Deus Ex: Human Revolution out of its Montreal studio. Fans rejoiced for a split second, before proceeding to pick apart every new image and gameplay detail until its release. In the end🎀, Eidos held its own. Deus Ex: Human Revolution became one of the top games of 2011 and arguably the best title in the franchise.

Hand-off results: Save for the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:bland boss fights, Deus Ex: Human Revolution did everything it was meant to do. It re-introduced the franchise to a new generation, while retaining the series' moody, cyberpunk feel and emphasis on personalized play. It earned 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:perfect review scores across the board and booste꧃d profits for its publishers at Square Enix. More importantly, it resurrected a fra☂nchise many thought dead, and all but secured a sequel down the road. A good one, this time. We hope.

Black Isle Studios's first two Fallout games were groundbreaking on a number of fronts. For one, they proved role playing games could be badass, and they made a generation of gamers yearn for a nuclear war that would turn them into power-armored, Mad Max cowboys. Fortunately (sadly?) those nukes never came; however, the Fallout series put Black Isle and their Interplay overlords on the map. In the early 2000s, Black Isle went back to its radiated well for a new Fallout sequel, codenamed Vanജ Buren. Unfortunately, financial woes forced Interplay to pull the plug on Black Isle and trade off Fallout's single player rights in order to survive. Enter: Bethesda.

Fresh from the Elder Scrolls series, Bethesda set fire to the ill-fated Van Buren project, and built a its own post-apocalyptic vision from the ashes. The result was Fallout 3, an open-wor♏ld RPG that combined the open-world mastery of The Elder Scrolls and Black Isle's rich Fallout universe. The franchise's rebirth was hailed as monumental success by fans and critics, and it paved the way for Fallout: New Vegas a game that would see former Black Isle developers unite under the Obsidian Entertainment banner to finally take another crack at the series that made their careers.

Hand-off results: Fallout 3 was named Game of the Year by countless gaming outlets and way more importantly awarded our top prize in the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:2008 Annual Platinum Chalice Awards. It's popularity earned it a space in the Smithsonian Art Exhibition's video game display, as well as set up Obsidian's Black Isle vets nicely for their ꦕNew Vegas comeback.

It takes cojones the size of Guilty Sparks to tackle one of gamedome's most respected (and bazillion-dollar making) properties, but that's what Microsoft created 343 Industries to do following Bungie's exit from the f𓄧ranchise after Halo: Reach. Guided by members of Bungie's original crew, 343 Industries hit the ground running with the Defiant Map Pack" for Halo: Reach, and the Halo Waypoint app for Windows Phone 7 and Xbox 360's Live Arcade. However, it was only after these bit-sized projects when🐽 343's true test began.

At E3 2011, Microsoft announced it🐓s Bungie replacement was not only developing a HD remake of Halo Combat: Evolved for the series' 10th Anniversary, but that 343 Industries would also be piloting Master Chief's return in Halo 4. Fans squirmed. Critics sniped. Then 343 Industries silenced them all (well, most of them) with Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary, a game that was praised for its fresh look, tight gameplay, and reverence for the Halo universe. Suddenly, Master Chief's future looked bright.

Hand-off results: Halo: Combat Evolved launched to above-average reviews (澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:read ours - now!). It also proved 343 Industries was more than capable of picking up where Bungie left off. We'll know how clean this hand-off was when H🦂alo 4 comes out of stasis on November 6, 2012, but for now we're optimistic.

Since Infinity Ward laid a blitzkrieg on FPS gaming with the first Call of Duty in 2003, the wartime shooter has been passed around developers like a contraband porno mag, cycling through a slew notable game makers who have each added their own touch to the series while maintaini💫ng its genre-defining multiplayer and single-playe🦹r experiences.

The short version of Call of Dut🔯y' s history goes like this: In 2006, Infinity Ward tagged in Treyarch for Call of Duty 3, but stepped back in to launch Call of Duty's Modern Warfare series in 2007. Activision's internal team at Treyarch brought the series back to WWII in World at War (giving gamers a taste of Nazi Zombies), then Infinity Ward went modern again with the real sequel to its hit, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. Following a legal dust-up between publisher Activision and former Infinity Ward heads, devs Sledgehammer Games and Raven Software were called on to help the MW series running, eventually completing Modern Warfare 3 last year. Meanwhile, Treyarch went to Vietnam with Black Ops, which continues this November.

Hand-off results: Call of Duty games continue to set new sales records and gushing reviews with every yearly installment, despite the the regular cycle community bitching and moaning over the l🍷ack of originality that precedes every sequel. It's likely the Call oဣf Duty franchise will outlive us all no matter which developer takes control.

You know it's a successful hand-off when fans barely notice the switch. Case in point: Capcom's▨ string of Zelda games for Nintendo's portable systems, which began in 2001 with dual release of The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons and Oracle of Ages for the Game Boy Color. The interconnected chapters were developed by Flagship Co., a Capcom subsidiary headed by Final Fight creator Yoshiki Okamoto. Their retail success led to Capcom's official stamp on the port of The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past and Four Swords to Game Boy Advance in 2002; and its direct involvement in the creation of the critically acclaimed The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap for Game Boy Advance in 2004.

Hand-off results: Though the styles may be subtly different, most everyone who's played at least one of Capcom's handheld Zelda games would agree they deserve a place in Link's library as much as any other. True, Nintendo jumped back in for the next portable adventures with The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks and The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass for DS, but that was more about The Big N overseeing Zelda's next-gen deဣbut than reacting to Capcom's work. In the end, Capcom's officia🔴l run may have been brief, but it was memorable.

It's hard to tell now, but Nintendo's original Star Fox for the Super Nintendo was something of a graphical wunderkind back in 1993. It was one of the first console games to utilize 3D polygonal models, and it made Nintendo's Super FX chip look like a m𝄹iracle wor💜ker. It's next-gen follow, Starfox 64, performed equally well for Ninty, doubling as a showpiece for its 64-bit system. All was looking good for Fox McCloud and his barrel-rolling crew... and then came Star Fox Adventures.

Alright, we're being a little dramatic. Star Fox Adventures for the GameCube wasn't a bad game, but it wasn't really a Star Fox game either. As the story goes, Rare was working on an action-adventuꦜre title called Dinosaur Planet for the GameCube, before Nintendo stepped in and requested nay, demanded! - it be reskinned as a Star Fox title. As a result, Star Fox Adventures was born looking more like a Zelda game than a traditional, high-flyi🤡ng Star Fox adventure. Thankfully, fans later got their genuine Fox McCloud fix in 2005 with Star Fox Assault, Namco's own take on the series which returned it to its rail-shooter roots, albeit to mixed critical success.

Hand-off results: Under the care of Rare and Namco, the Star Fox series has flexed its wings, but it's never really been able to regain the level of fame it had under Nintendo's reign. Retro Studios is rumored to be working ꧋on a Metroid and Star Fox cross-over game for the Wii U, so maybe the third hand-off will be ꦜa charm?

Jamming on plastic guitars and pretending to sing at parties was all the rage back in the 2000s thanks in large part to Harmonix and RedOctane who made the rock and roll rhythm game genre famous with the first Guitar Hero game back in 2005. The✅n, in 2006, Activision stepped iღn and Yoko Ono'd the duo, taking RedOctane for its own, and sending Harmonix into the arms of MTV Games and publisher EA, where it started its own revenge franchise, Rock Band.

Eager to cash in on the music game craze (and justify the millions it spent on RedOctane), Activision called up its own Tony Hawk developer Neversoft to control the retail beast Harmonix had released for PS3 and Xbox 360, signing on Vicari♕ous Visions, Budcat Creations, and Aspyr Media to spread the Guitar Hero mojo to Wii, DS, PS2, and PC, respectively. Neversoft accepted its most sacred task, and proceeded to clutter living rooms with fake instruments through the release of an estimated 2.9 billion sequels and iterations of t🐻he Guitar Hero brand. By 2010, player tastes had moved to the dance game genre (in which Harmonix was already killing it with Dance Central), and Guitar Hero had become a washed-out, drug-addled husk of its former self. One year later, Activision pulled the plug on its once legendary performer, and Guitar Hero has been playing small town bars ever since.

Hand-off results: Under Neversoft's watch, Harmonix's creation went on to become one of the hottest selling properties in Activision's stable. The games sold tens of millions, and the downloadable song market became one of the hottest and most lucrative trends in DLC. As such, it's difficult to lay the blame for Guitar Hero's demise on Neversoft's performance, when Activision's ceaseless milking of the franchise seems a more likely suspect. Could Harmonix have kept the flame alive? We'll never know, but the company is at least trying to reignite it with the upcoming downloada🎃ble Rock Band Blitz.

Up until F-Zero GX, Nintendo and Sega were the Coke and Pepsi of the gaming world. That ended ♒in 2000, when Sega announced it was making the switch to third party 🍌development. Suddenly, it wasn't so taboo for the two video game juggernauts to be seen in the same room, and soon after Nintendo assigned Sega's subsidiary, Amusement Vision, to the next installment of its futuristic racing series, F-Zero. So began the first official collaboration between the two former rivals.

F-Zero GX was developed by Amusement Vision around the same time as F-Zero AX, an arcade racing game which resembled its GameCube counterpart, and even connected to the game via memory card. Both F-Zero properties were overseen by F-Zero designer Takaya Imamura and Nintendo co-producers Shigeru Miyamoto and Toshihiro ꦓNahoshi, but it was still Sega's Amusement Vision that did most of the heavy lifting. Granted, it may not have been a complete hand-off, but considering the companies' histories, it was valiant first step.

Hand-off results: Despite criticisms (including some from Miyamoto himself) for its steep difficult curve, F-Zero GX released to much acclaim and strong sales. It was the first F-Zero game to feature an actual story, and it succeeded in making Captain Falcon a recognizable face in Nintendo's roster. More importantly, it laid the foundation for an unlikely friendship between Nintendo and 𓂃Sega that carried forward into other collaborations.

Midway's NFL Blitz series was an arcadey alternative to the more sim-oriented football games of its time. Sporting fewer rules, big꧒ger hits, and exaggerated gameplay, Blitz was a breath of fresh air for gamers who wanted to chuck the virtual pigskin without the hassle of having to become an expert on the actual sport. The series continued to tweak its over-the-top formula for over a decade, until Midway caught a permanent injury in 2008, and the series was benched.

Enough hamfisted football analogies for ya? Here's one more. While Blitz fans feared the series was on a permanent delay, EA later picked up the ball in 2012 with a rebranded NFL Blitz downloadable title for PS3 and Xbox 360, treating Blitzers to an all-st𓆉ar follow-up.

Hand-off results: In addition to giving us a game that actually fits our hand-off analogy, EA gave Blitz fans a taste of their past without tainting it too much with Madden NFL sensibilities. As we found in our 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:NFL Blitz review, the pseudo-reboot was inst💞antly recognizable to Blitz aficionados, if not slightly more mature than it's ancesꦿtors. Still, better there be a slightly watered down Blitz than none at all, no?

We don't want to say anything untowards about Nintendo's spacefaring bounty hunter, but for the last 10 years Samus Aran has been stepping out with more than one developer. The first hand-off occurred after producer Shigeru Miyamoto paid a trip to Retro Studios, which had been commissioned to🌠 work on four unrelated titles for the GameCube. Miyamoto was so smitten with Retro's first-person shooter e🍌ngine that he suggested the studio scrap everything it was working on and begin anew on a first-person Metroid sequel. Retro Studios obliged (begrudgingly, we assume) and went on to produce an entire Metroid Prime Trilogy; a chain of games that marked a new era for the franchise, which had not seen a true sequel since Super Metroid for SNES.

The second hand-off took place in 2008. This time, it was Metroid designer Yashio Sakamoto who shopped Samus Aran around, settling on Team Ninja thanks to its proven skill with 3D gameplay and success with the Ninja Gaiden series. The pairing led to the development of Metroid: Other 𒉰M for the Nintendo Wii.

Hand-off results: While not the bestselling chapter in Samus's career (in fact, it's one of the worst), Metroid: Other M gave the long-running series a new flavor. It was the first imbue Samus with a melee system and a unique blend of third-person and first-person controls. Ultimately, Team Ninja's vision failed to set the Metroid community on fire, but it kept the brand alive all the same. Conversely, the Metroid Prime Trilogy🧔, earned Retro Studios a shinier place in Samus Aran's history.

Look, we know it's become𝔉 de rigeour to shoehorn Gearbox's Duke Nukem Forever into every article about games that broke our hearts, but you have to admit it fits the theme. We'll spare you a retelling of Duke's be🍎labored comeback, but the short story is Duke Nukem Forever was stuck in development purgatory long before Gearbox took its shot. As such, this wasn't so much of a developer hand-off as much as it was an 11th hour attempt to save the great Duke before he expired for good. And the result? Well...it's a matter of perspective.

Hand-off results: We'll save you the mystery: Duke Nukem Forever was not a great game. We 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:gave it a decent score, but even that was being generous. After nearly a decade and a half out of commission, Duke Nukem Forever's linear structure, uninspired sequences, and baffling long load sequences made the whole thing feel like it had arrived late to its own party. But less we crap over Gearbox for its misstep, it's only fair to say it did the best with what it had. That all said, the game also sold pretty well ꦫ(thanks in part to 14 years of hype), so Duke Nukem loyalists may still get a true, modern sequel down the road.

This is the part of the feature where we pass it off to you. Tell us what gaming hand⛄-offs we missed, and which we fumbled. Just be civil about it we don't want to have to do some replacing of our own...

As part of a court dispute, a California court saw fit to unseal contracts between Activision and Halo developer, Bungie, pertaining to their upcoming collaboration. While the contracts 💟contain mostly business information, and none of the fun stuff (in-game information) we pulled a few juicy tidbits from the report.

As was previously known,🍎 the contract bound famed developer Bungie to infamous publisher Activision, and tasked them with creating a new "sci-fantasy action" video 𒐪game series. Up until now, all we really knew was that the game was neither Halo nor Marathon, two of Bungie's previous games.

According to the which first viewed the documents, the contract is for a game code-named "Destiny" which will be the first of a serie♓s that will release every other year starting in Fall 2013. The contract also bound Bungie to release four DLC packs for each game, which are ꦍcodenamed "Comet."

These releases are scheduled to be releasing on both Xbox 360 as well as Microsoft's next system which is referred to as "Xbox 720." The first game will be exclusive to the๊ Xbox 360, but future games will branch out and be available on PS3 and/or its successor.

Another interesting note that was revealed, shows that Bungie was explicitly given the right to devot♏e 5% of its work force toward developing a sequel to the cult Mac-hit Marathon.

Now that the cat is - ever so slightly - out of the bag, we're wondering♈ if we'll hear anything about this project at E3 in a couple weeꦅks. However, with a Fall 2013 release date, that seems unlikely.

If substantial portions of your life are invested in the Halo player data, there's not really much you need to do – which is lucky, as there's not really much you can do. Bungie explains that all Halo support will now be provided through Waypoint, while legacy data will be preserved on Bungie.net “for as long as the Internet and Bungie's data storage systems remain functional.” Expect something hilarious to happen on 343's 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:first day on the job...

In an improvement from Bungie's Marathon 1 release, which was oꦉnly available for iPads, Marathon 2: Dur꧙andal is playable on any iOS gadget. It was developed in part by Daniel Blezek, the indie game maker credited with starting the that was later picked up by Bungie as an official project.

The port uses assets from the 2007 XBLA HD version, and conn꧅ects to Apple's Game Center community, allowing for achievements and leaderboard integration. It is also compatible with the Joypad app, which mutates iPhones and iPod Touch into wireless iPad controllers. If those features aren't enough (you know, ♔for a free game), the app also allows players to purchase high-res textures, a custom reticule pack, and Master Chief Mode cheats.

An update incorporating all these new tweaks and additions for Maraܫthon 1 is also available.

Marathon 2: Durandal was originally released as a computer FPS in 1995. It picks up seventeen years after the events of the original, and sends players on a mission to investigate the ruins of Lh'owen at the behest of their ship's AI program. Considering the first two games in the trilogy have been available as freeware for some time, we wouldn't be surprised if the third and final Marathon game were to invade the App 🐼Store in the near future.

The multiplayer portion of Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary runs on the same engine as that of Halo: Reach, as opposed to the upgraded version of the engine the campaign runs on. That means it's an easy task to release the maps from the former as DLC for the latter, allowing Reach players to get in on the nostalgia without shelling out for the whole pa൩ckage.

Best of all? The Anniversary Map Pack will be available for 1200 MSP on Combat Evolved Anniversary's launch date of Nov 15. If you're planning on picki൩ng up the remake, you'll be able to install the Map Pack within both titles, giving you twi꧂ce as many playmates on the new maps.

🌌And those of you who've been playing Breakneck for literally a decade, try to go easy on newcomers.