Helldivers 2 shows no signs of slowing down, and their next content update bestows C4 and suppressors on players to choose tactics carefully, or go guns blazing with Redacted Regiment.
After just releasing a quality of space update, and following with taking the fight to the Automatons in Into The Unjust, Arrowhead Studios continues to keep its foot on the gas and send Super Earth’s defenders after those who would dethrone democracy. This time, there are options. The Ministry of Defence Research & Development teams have brought the latest suppression technology and spec ops gear to give Helldivers 2 players a new stack of ordinance to blow up those who would threaten Super Earth. The Redacted Regiment premium warbond is adding C4, suppressors, and new armour for Helldivers to join the fight with, and a trailer showcasing all the action can be seen below.
Helldivers 2: Redacted Regiment outfits defenders of democracy with two new primary weapons, the R-72 Censor and the AR-59 Suppressor. The R-72 Censor is a mid-range precision rifle with an integrated suppressor, while the AR-59 Suppressor is a fully automatic assault rifle, also equipped with a suppressor. Together, the weapons are designed to keep missions discreet. The P-35 Re-Educator dart-firing secondary pistol further supports stealth-focused play, allowing players who are detected to escape by inducing delirium in organic targets and causing malfunctions in inorganic ones.
Redacted Regiment also introduces the B/MD C4 Pack stratagem, which delivers explosive firepower for Helldivers. The backpack includes six C4 charges and a wireless detonator that supports both individual and simultaneous detonation. Explosive options expand further with the TM-01 Lure Mine, a throwable anti-personnel mine that adheres to surfaces and emits light to attract nearby enemies. Once targets move within range, the mine detonates with devastating results.
Aside from weaponry, Helldivers 2: Redacted Regiment deploys new armour sets and a new Hellpod booster to keep movements concealed. The RS-89 Shadow Paragon light armour and the RS–67 Null Cipher medium armour come outfitted with the Reduced Signature passive, which reduces your noise level and the range at which the enemy can detect you.
Helldivers 2: Redacted Regiment is a premium warbond, and it will arrive for players on January 20.
Avowed is set to launch on PS5 on February 17th, bringing updates like improved skill trees and a new 3rd person view, along with additional features for all versions.
In January 2026, PlayStation Plus Essential offers three games: Need For Speed: Unbound, Disney Epic Mickey: Rebrushed, and Core Keeper. This month features unexpected PS4 inclusion amidst the subscription changes.
Beginning January 2026, PlayStation Plus Essential will stop offering monthly PS4 games, switching to PS5 titles only. This change aims to encourage users to transition to PS5, despite ongoing PS4 popularity.
For 6 years, the PlayStation 5 has been one of the most popular and successful gaming consoles on the market. While it would typically be natural for this to be the result of having strong exclusive titles with dedicated fan bases, the numbers in this case tell a different story.
God Of War Ragnarök’s chatty cast often spoiled the game’s puzzles, but we’re not sure this AI solution is any better (Sony)
Microsoft is already testing with AI as a video game guide, and it looks like Sony is at least interested in trying something similar.
It’s no secret that Sony is experimenting with AI technology for video games in more ways than one. Footage of an AI replica of Aloy from Horizon Forbidden West, that you could theoretically talk to, leaked last year and though details are purposefully vague, AI tech will be a key part of the PlayStation 6.
As such, it’s probably only a matter of time before we see some form of AI integration in PlayStation games, such as AI generated assets, which have cropped up in the likes of Call Of Duty: Black Ops 7 and Clair Obscur: Expedition 33.
Recently, a new patent filed by Sony was spotted and it talks about using generative AI to create a ‘ghost player’ that can essentially play video games for you.
Rather than have developers program the solutions for tricky levels or puzzles into it, the AI model will be trained on not just your own gameplay, but also footage posted to social media and streaming sites like YouTube and Twitch.
From that, the AI ghost supposedly learns how the game is played and can determine an optimal solution. The patent mentions two distinct modes: a guide mode, where the ghost shows the solution for you to copy, and a complete mode which does as the name suggests.
There’s even mention of allowing you to talk with the ghost and have them explain what you need to do, as well as having their appearance be customisable.
The patent goes as far as to suggest the ghost could take the form of characters from other games or movies, which just sounds like a legal nightmare.
Would you use such a guide? (WIPO)
While there’s certainly well-meaning intent behind the idea, this patent is ultimately offering a solution to a long since answered question. A lot of games nowadays have their own means of assisting players and not just through different difficulty options.
Some games will let you skip sections if you fail one too many times (which Insomniac does with the puzzles in its Spider-Man game) or have characters provide hints, like in God Of War: Ragnarök.
Not to mention the PlayStation 5 has a Game Help system already in place, that lets you watch videos of how other players bypassed any challenges you’re stuck on.
The act of having the game play itself isn’t even new, since Nintendo dabbled with the same idea with its Super Guide feature. For a while, Mario platformers like Super Mario Galaxy 2 and the New Super Mario Bros. games had an option where if you died enough times, you’d unlock the option for the game to autoplay itself and beat a level for you.
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It was only ever used in five games, though, before quietly vanishing, which suggests Nintendo figured out it wasn’t very popular or useful.
Considering this is only a patent, it’s entirely possible that Sony may not go through with this idea, as opposed to Microsoft which is still testing its Copilot AI as a video game guide.
A study last year showed that AI is actually quite useless for assisting players with games and often spreads misinformation – and it’s easy to see how that’s going to happen if it’s watching videos on TikTok to ‘learn’ how to play a game.
Xbox’s been more publicly enthusiastic about AI but don’t think Sony’s not keen on the tech as well (Microsoft)
Naughty Dog is notoriously known as a studio where employees periodically have to work excessive overtime. According to sources cited by Bloomberg journalist Jason Schreier, the team recently faced another round of crunches—this time related to the game Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet.
HIGH It’s a new Everybody’s Golf on multiple platforms! Yay!
LOW It’s a low-effort Everybody’s Golf on multiple platforms. Gah.
WTF Why does the thirteen-year-old Vita version look better than this?
Ah, Golf. The age-old sport of smashing a tiny ball with a club so that it flies hundreds of yards towards a hole the size of someone’s fist, avoiding sand traps and rough patches of grass along the way. Brilliant! And given its simplicity, an absolutely perfect fit for videogames. Green grass, blue skies, nerve-wracking shots across an undulating green… a good golf title is a thing of beauty, and few come close to the Everybody’s Golf experience.
For those not familiar with the franchise, it’s basically far and away the best golf series in the world. Sure, this may be my subjective opinion rather than an established, concrete fact, but it takes such a cheerful and personality-driven approach to characters and presentation that it’s easy for even the most golf-agnostic player to get lured in and sideswiped by the depth of its gameplay systems and breadth of things to unlock.
Up until now the series has been exclusive to Playstation consoles, with all but one previous entry developed by the talented Clap Hanz studio. Now Bandai Namco and HYDE have taken the reins, released it on every modern platform (aside from Xbox for whatever reason) and… well, results are mixed, unfortunately.
First, the good.
For the most part it plays well, with the traditional ‘three-tap’ approach to smacking the ball up the fairway. Select a club, tap a button to start the swing gauge, tap it again to set power and then one last time to set the impact angle. Spin, fade and other technical tomfoolery can be applied during this process to help direct it into the hole, as well as various special moves once unlocked – a Rising Shot will blast up the flagpole before dropping into the hole, for example, or a Super Spin will spiral around it in an unrealistic but visually pleasing flourish.
While only two characters are available at the start, it isn’t long before a bunch of anime golfers are available via their story modes, and they all have quirks which can affect gameplay. Some may favor playing at night or in the early morning, leading to easier or harder shot timing depending on the time of day. Some may enjoy playing in the rain or hate taking tee shots on longer courses, others may have their shots naturally soar higher than others to avoid obstacles, or be better at other technical aspects of each shot.
As a result, there’s almost certainly going to be a character that gels well for every player. I personally opted for Erika as my main — not because she’s a golfing virtuoso on the field, but because she has a high chance of accidentally bashing herself in the face with her club while celebrating a birdie, the adorable little klutz.
As mentioned, there’s plenty to unlock — a wide range of characters, golf clubs and balls with specific strengths and weaknesses, as well as performance-enhancing food, caddies, costumes and all sorts of good stuff for players who put the time in. While a few more characters being available right off the bat would have been welcome, it’s an experience that rewards those who put the time in.
There are also plenty of modes available, from standard tournaments and party modes with random course effects, to a story mode for every character. It’s nothing too fancy, typically just the selected cast member having a chinwag with their friends and adversaries before playing a round of golf under various rulesets, but it’s a welcome addition.
In addition to the above, each course has a day and night cycle, variable weather systems, specific rules such as additional penalties for bunker shots, or miniature vortexes tucked away in each hole helping to suck close but marginally wayward shots towards their goal. Variety isn’t a problem here.
So! It’s great, right? Well… at heart it’s an enjoyable game of golf, but it’s not without some serious issues.
The first thing players will likely notice is that the default camera angle was apparently chosen by someone who’s never played golf — or even videogames before — offering a skewed angle that hinders the player’s ability to see what’s directly in front of them. Fortunately this can be permanently changed to a more traditional view in the options, but it gives a bizarre first impression.
Everybody’s Golf: Hot Shots also looks objectively worse than the Vita version of Hot Shots Golf: World Invitational which was released more than a decade ago. This isn’t an exaggeration for comedic effect — the Vita build is visibly superior in almost all areas, ranging from overall presentation and personality to color depth and texture work.
About the only objective graphical improvement seen in Everybody’s Golf: Hot Shots is that it can run at sixty frames a second, which should be a given… but given the occasionally shaky performance, it somehow misses the mark there as well, which makes things interesting while trying to take a shot as the swing timer can be affected. It also crashed any time I tabbed out of the game or attempted to change the window from full screen to borderless, so the PC version still needs work.
The gameplay also occasionally lands in the rough, with too many shots screwing up in an unrealistic manner. During the final hole of the Top Pro tour I took two nearly identical shots in quick succession with wildly different outcomes — one swing landing out of bounds and causing a reset, the next neatly flopping down close to the hole. There was no wind, nothing that could have caused such a huge disparity in outcome. Failing any other explanation, the game must have grossly miscalculated the first swing.
Someone once said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results, but they were wrong — the definition of insanity is performing the exact same stroke under the same conditions only to have the bloody golf ball curve sharp left on the first attempt, then veer hard right on the second. It certainly drove me insane, anyway.
Thankfully this randomness in the physics was only an occasional hiccup — if it happened more frequently, I’d say the game was fundamentally broken. Thankfully it isn’t, but when these moments of inexplicable weirdness crop up, they’re hard to ignore. Hopefully this issue will be patched soon.
It’s great to finally have Everybody’s Golf on PC, and even though this entry fails to meet the series’ usual high standards, it still offers a fine walk out on the links. That said, it’s impossible to shake the feeling that it’s only achieved the absolute minimum here. Until the various bugs and other issues are patched out, I simply can’t recommend Everybody’s Golf in its current state. No matter how good the general golfing experience is, it’s impossible to ignore the wonky physics and overall lack of ambition. What should have been a near-effortless hole in one is perilously close to becoming a triple bogey instead.
Rating: 5 out of 10
Disclosures: This game is developed by HYDE and published by Bandai Namco. It is currently available on PS5/Switch and PC. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the PC. Approximately 22 hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode, and plenty of tournaments were won and courses unlocked. 3 hours of play were spent in multiplayer modes.
Parents: According to the ESRB, this game is rated E10+ and contains Mild Language and Mild Suggestive Themes. The official description reads: This is a golf simulation game in which players select from a collection of golfers to compete in matches. During a World Tour mode, characters engage in brief dialogue that references suggestive material (e.g., “…I heard I could use it to gaze up some lovely ladies”; “…[Y]our stalkers are on a whole new level of crazy”; “Did I startle you? Or were you peeking at something naughty?”). Some loading sequences depict close-up camera pans of golfers’ bodies. The word “damn” appears in the game.
Colorblind Modes: There are nocolorblind modes available.
Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: This game offers subtitles. I’d rate this game as 100% playable without sound — while the caddies may call out things to be aware of, this important information such as wind speed or green undulation can always be acquired visually.
Remappable Controls: Yes, this game offers fully remappable controls.
Asus is seldom afraid to try some outlandish gaming gear designs, but its latest collection is perhaps its bravest yet. Teaming up with Hideo Kojima - the legendary architect of the Metal Gear Solid series, as well as the more recent Death Stranding - the company is releasing a unique and distinctly quirky quartet of gaming hardware ideal for diehard fans of everything Kojima-verse. The set consists of an Asus ROG Keris II Origin gaming mouse, an ROG Delta II gaming headset, ROG Scabbard II XXL mouse mat, and the best gaming tablet around, the ROG Flow Z13, all of which have been heavily customized to fit in with the unique aesthetic of Kojima Productions' astronaut mascot, Ludens.
Between Automatons, Terminids, and the returning Illuminate – not to mention volcanic worlds and bug-infested catacombs – Helldivers 2 players have surmounted all kinds of challenges since launch. That could change very soon, as players on Reddit briefly spotted a new Illuminate structure in the latest Major Order’s news reel.
Why is this significant? Well, as Arrowhead Games Studio CEO Shams Jorjani noted in an impromptu Discord Q&A, the next major update will apparently see a “lot of Helldivers” dying. Death isn’t anything new for Super Earth’s elite forces, but this structure is all the more foreboding given how powerful the Illuminate have historically proven.
Of course, as has traditionally been the case, you can probably expect some new weapons to help even the odds. The last Premium Warbond added an assault rifle/grenade launcher combo and the Maxigun, fulfilling many a player’s long-standing Rambo fantasies. There’s also the Killzone Legendary Warbond, which has permanently returned and offers some fantastic weapons based on Guerrilla Games’ first-person shooter franchise.
You can likely expect an announcement in the coming weeks for the next update, so stay tuned. Maybe it will include the rogue-lite mode that Arrowhead had been prototyping, which “fundamentally” alters the game.
Helldivers 2 is available for PS5, PC, and most recently, Xbox Series X/S. Check out our review for the latter here.
MAJOR ORDER: The Star of Peace continues its march toward readiness, with its primary optical array now under construction.
This historic upgrade will convert the Democracy Space Station (DSS) into a macro-scale laser, capable of generating a high-yield beam optimized for mass… pic.twitter.com/uwgxmebhnl
“The Marathon art issue has been resolved with Bungie and Sony Interactive Entertainment to my satisfaction,” she said on Twitter. Whether that means compensation alongside the developer completely removing said assets remains to be seen. Regardless, at least someone has had a happy ending after this mess.
In the meantime, Bungie will be hosting another closed playtest from December 12th to 15th for Xbox Series X/S, PS5, and PC in North America. Since it’s a day after The Game Awards, you have to wonder if the extraction shooter is due for an announcement. Even if a release this year is unlikely, Sony expects it to arrive by March 31st, 2026.
While you wait for updates, check out details from the last playtest here, including the addition of two new Runners – the Medic and Scav.
The Marathon art issue has been resolved with Bungie and Sony Interactive Entertainment to my satisfaction.
Call it early Cyber Monday or late Black Friday, but this deal for the Sony Inzone M9 II gaming monitor is live right now and offers a huge discount on the original price of this stunning 4K, 27-inch display. In particular, if you want to take full advantage of the PS5's HDR abilities, this is an ideal option, thanks to its full array local dimming (FALD) backlight that can produce incredibly high contrast images. This display's predecessor, the Sony Inzone M9, has long been our choice for the best gaming monitor for HDR, at least when it comes to LCD displays, and this follow-up is a small but notable upgrade in just about every way. You can get the full lowdown on that original display in our Sony Inzone M9 review, but the main takeaways are that its 4K resolution on a tiny 27-inch screen looks amazing, and its 96 backlight dimming zones do a great job of boosting contrast and brightness in HDR.
Mark Cerny is well respected as a console architect and also as a game developer and has said on a recent podcast episode that he had a transformative experience back in the day playing the original Pikmin game on the iconic GameCube. Cerney says that he’s a sucker for a good story in video games… Read More »Sony’s Mark Cerny had “transformative” experience playing Pikmin on GameCube
One problem with a lot of modern games is just how big they're getting, but HELLDIVERS 2 is about to massively shrink thanks to work behind the scenes.
You can play any game online for free this weekend on PS5 and PS4 thanks to a new Sony promotion, but the times are quite specific.
It’s been over two years since Sony last increased the price of certain PS Plus subscriptions, but it has warned another might be on the horizon in the near future.
If you’ve already been priced out of a subscription, which allows you to play games like Call Of Duty: Black Ops 7 and Arc Raiders online, you’re in luck this weekend.
Sony has announced a free online multiplayer weekend for PlayStation 4 and 5 players starting from Saturday, December 6, which will span 48 hours in total.
When does the free PS Plus online multiplayer weekend start and end?
As highlighted by Sony, the promotion kicks off at 12.01am local time on Saturday, December 6, and runs until 11.59pm on Sunday, December 7.
During that window, you can play any online games you already own for free, so if you’ve already got Battlefield 6, for example, you can squeeze a few rounds in without needing to pay for PS Plus.
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It’s important to note this free weekend will not allow you to redeem games available at the PS Plus Essential tier this month, and only applies to the online multiplayer functionality.
The PlayStation Plus Monthly Games for December:🏹 LEGO Horizon Adventures🧟 Killing Floor 3🥽 The Outlast Trials🤖 Synduality Echo of Ada🃏 Neon WhiteFull details: https://t.co/CegyssE1Pjpic.twitter.com/dkRKbjTj4T
Another note for those unaware, you don’t need a PS Plus subscription to play free-to-play games online, such as Fortnite or Apex Legends, so take advantage of this offer by diving into something else on your digital shelf.
The PS Plus Essential line-up this month is more stacked than usual, with five games instead of the usual three. These include the excellent Neon White, Lego Horizon Adventures, Killing Floor 3, The Outlast Trials, and Synduality Echo Of Ada.
If you’re subscribed to the PS Plus Essential tier, you’ll be able to claim all these games from now until January 6, 2026. If you add the games to your account during this time, you’ll always have access to them as long as you have an active subscription.
Play Black Ops 7 online for free this weekend (Activision)
Sony Interactive Entertainment has announced plans to host a free online multiplayer weekend for PS5 & PS4 users, allowing those of you who have yet to fork out for one of the three PlayStation Plus tiers to take your favourite games online without dropping any cash.
The free multiplayer weekend will kick off at 0.01am local time on December 6, 2025 and will wrap up on 23.59pm local time on December 7. During this time, PS Plus membership won’t be required at all for whatever online gaming activities you get up to, and there’s plenty of titles to take advantage of.
PS Plus recently celebrated its 15th anniversary, having originally launched in June 2010 during the PS3 era. Prior to that, it wasn’t necessary to pay for online gaming on a Sony console, although the freebies awarded with PS Plus more than make up for that.
