When the website of Highguard suddenly began blaring that it was "unavailable" not long after news broke of layoffs at developer Wildlight, you could have been forgiven for thinking a Concord-style pulling offline might be in the shooter's near future. That doesn't look to be the case, though, with the studio having just announced a couple of new additions set to arrive in the game this week.
The next big update to Destiny 2, Shadow and Order, has been delayed as it undergoes a substantial round of tweakage and expansion. Such a substantial round of tweakage and expansion, in fact, that it'll no longer be called Shadow and Order when it returns.
"I mean, look, I think everybody knows why we announced it that way then." Stay calm, I've got to get my dinner first. "We know some things we're doing." Please stop trying to jump on the bench. "It's going to be a while yet." Some of these are things I often have to say to my cat when the clock ticks to within an hour of feeding time. Some of them are things Todd Howard has said about The Elder Scrolls 6 in his latest bout of interview chatter about the RPG. He's confirmed it's running on a new version of the Creation Engine, but will also be a return to Bethesda's "classic style".
Battlefield 6’s Season 2 thunders onto PC today, a three-month festival of Battlefoolery that begins with a new map, Contaminated, new modes for the Redsec battle royale component, a dinky yet deadly helicopter, and some new guns and gadgets. The EA shooter’s Steam playerbase has slumped following its chart-topping release last year, but don’t worry, ye Battlefaithful, because Season 2 has officially recaptured my interest by filling my lungs with psychoactive vapours.
In new limited-time mode VL-7 Strike, available in regular multiplayer and Redsec, you must wear a gas mask and replenish its filters to avoid falling victim to clouds of funky fumes. Idiot! Why would you want to avoid falling victim to clouds of funky fumes. It’s got to be more intriguing than flipping the objective yet again.
Avowed now has a bunch more possibilities when it comes to one of the most important fantasy RPG build archetypes, thanks to the deployment of its anniversary update. Three new character races are on offer alongside the established humans and elves, and you can arm them with a quarterstaff which caters to mages who think puny wands and books aren't quite showy enough.
As you might recall, some of the stuff included in this anniversary update was orignally supposed to arrive in Avowed late last year, but ended up being delayed by Obsidian.
Rubbing shoulders with factions is a big part of the Fallout: New Vegas charm, even if it often devolves into you doing a bunch of favours if you don't want to risk ending up on the vilified naughty list for one too many accidental grenade pickpocktings. You do get some nice perks for keeping the likes of the NCR or Legion on side, but a new mod aims to take that to a new level, letting you send faction cronies out on handy odd jobs while you kick your feet up.
Highguard is in a bit of a Schrödinger's cat situation. That's because at the time of writing, the official site only shows the shooter's logo, and text that reads "This site is currently unavailable. Please contact support@codethirtytwo.com for assistance," alongside links to its official Discord server and Dwitter page. This, of course, could just be a blip, but even as I'm writing this it's been the case for several hours, and there's not a single word from developer Wildlight about why it's down. So, it is both dead and not dead until someone opens the box.
Remember Hyper Scape? I acknowledge that this might come across as a tad mean, but in this ridiculously fast-paced world we find in, it can genuinely be hard to remember one failed live service game from the next. For a refresher, this was Ubisoft's attempt at a battle royale game back in 2020, though it didn't pan out as it was shut down only a couple of years later. Well, anyway, it's back! Sort of, not quite, but it might soon, or actually probably eventually, will be thanks to the efforts of a group of people hoping to revive it.
Well, this is cool. You can now download Unreal Tournament 2004 for free and with a patch that ensures it'll run smoothly on modern hardware. This is all thanks to a fan community called OldUnreal, who've made it their mission to keep Epic's classic shooters alive, even going as far as getting the Fortnite publishers' permission to do so.
“Get me somebody who’s played The Chinese Room's Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 STAT,” I yelled, barging through the double doors of our seedy news saloon. “I need 300 or more tasty words on these leaked videos of the older, unreleased Hardsuit Labs version.” A grim silence fell across the chamber. Mark furtively donned a pod-racing helmet. James hid himself behind his latest tower of graphics cards, with an apologetic murmur that while he had played a few hours of Bloodlines 2, he was very busy right now building towers of graphics cards.
“If you want something done, do it yourself, STAT,” I bellowed, swivelling on my heel while looking up the origins of the term “stat” on my phone. It turns out it’s something medical doctors say to convey urgency, and comes from the Latin “statim”, meaning “immediately”. “What a perfect way to introduce this video showing a hospital level from the aforesaid leaked Hardsuit Labs version of Bloodlines 2,” I roared to myself. “Why, I’ve accidentally written 177 words of the news post already.”
The second series of Amazon’s Fallout adaptation has now fully emerged from the vault, its eight episodes having been plinked out gradually, rather than whipped out in one fell swoop. Naturally, one of us has taken in the show how its distributors intended, injecting a stimpak a week in calm and measured fashion. The other waited until all the episodes were out, and then injected them all at once like an unhinged adventurer blowing through half their chem stash in a mid-fight panic. I’ll let you try to work out which is which, here’s our verdict.
Major spoilers for season 2 of the Fallout TV Show lie ahead.
WARNING: Major story spoliers for Yakuza Kiwami 3 & Dark Ties, as well as the original Yakuza 3, lie ahead.
It’s natural to spend a lot of time thinking about what games could have been, had different decisions been made. Whether the change is preferable to the reality often doesn’t come into it, the fantasy of another possible world is the draw.
Despite that, few studios choose to make major shifts - at least as far as the main stories of those games go - when they remake their previous games. This won't necessarily be a philosophical decision: the remaster or remake has to sell. Games which get revisited are ones players deeply love, and the suits will inevitably see tweaks to their fundamentals as an unnecessary risk. Old Oblivion is loved, so Bethesda adopted a rubber glove approach to the Oblivion remaster. They limited changes to modernising visuals and snipping away some annoying features. It's akin to polishing up a holy relic, rather than replacing the gemstones or changing the engravings.
Wildlight, the studio behind recently released shooter Highguard, have confirmed that they've "parted ways" with an unspecified number of staff. This confirmation follows a former Wildlight level designer affected by the cuts claiming in a LinkedIn post that "most of the team" at the studio have been laid off.
Look at all the mess lying around. You can't move for discarded detritus on the planets of No Man's Sky. Good news, then, that the space sandbox's latest update delivers a gravity gun and interstellar rubbish collection lorries that'll help clean those worlds up a bit.
The developer behind voxel sandbox Allumeria claims Microsoft have withdrawn a DMCA takedown filed against the game over alleged copyright infringement. According to an email posted on Discord by Allumeria developer Unomelon on February 10th, the strike accused their work of using content from Minecraft without Microsoft's permission.
It's another day, another Subnautica 2 dev vlog, this time one with a big focus on multiplayer. This ability to play with, heaven forbid, other people is one that developer Unknown Worlds very much understands is not for everyone, given the first game's big focus on isolation and ruffing it yourself. So, this vlog is all about explaining why you don't need to worry if you like to go solo. And also to show off a dive elevator.
Salt 2: Shores of Gold is a first-person role-playing, exploration and sandbox adventure themed around piracy that sailed out of early access in November, 2025.
As is standard with any role-player rubbing elbows with a ship, the story opens with my character surviving a presumed shipwreck — and this happens often enough to be a running gag. A blurry figure greeted me, excited I survived. They then departed for destinations unknown while I suffered another brief blackout before the tutorial.
The tutorial was typical fare for anything involving crafting and survival mechanics these days. Several scattered books gave tips to help me along as a new player, and by the end of half an hour, I was the proud owner of some half-usable crafting materials and a ship of my own.
I set sail following my heart to see what was on offer. As I began my journey, the uncooperative wind danced aimlessly behind my sails more than a fickle mermaid princess celebrating the find of a new dingle-hopper. I assumed this would hinder my progress, but soon discovered that the wind held little sway over my course — in fact, neither the wind nor ocean current presented an impediment. I was free to sail anywhere I liked, with the only thing impacting me being when the ship bounced on waves.
I had hoped for a bit more immersion with the sailing physics, but the graphics and audio filled in with the sun and moon charting their course through the sky, casting beautiful shadows. Together with the sounds of the sails and ocean, it created serene moments as I marked new islands with my sextant. The music came and went gingerly, never overstaying its welcome and setting a wonderful mood for exploration. Unfortunately, this serenity was jarred by islands popping into my spyglass due to the game not being able to manage immersive draw distances.
Setting foot onto an early island gave me a taste of combat, and it was bland like stale hardtack and watered-down grog. The only complexity in the first-person shooter-style gameplay was a basic parrying system that didn’t help when I was outnumbered. I also noticed that a mechanic from pen-and-paper games was a stowaway here — I was “rolling” critical failures indicated by red damage numbers popping up. Even when making a headshot with my flintlock from stealth for bonus damage, I often got minimum damage rolls, ruining my opening attacks at random.
These critical failures dismantled all feelings of power from gear upgrades and made dungeon delving for better kit feel like a waste of time. There were ways to mitigate this through randomly-generated gear traits, but I lacked the resources to craft equipment early on. By hour ten, I stopped caring and healed my way through combat setbacks with copiously provided potions as I took advantage of the easily confused, often-stuttering enemy pathfinding.
My hopes for sea combat were dashed as all ships I encountered ended up being friendlyshops. Despite a non-player character mentioning cannonballs, I never found a single cannon to pilfer or fire.The only quarry to sink my cutlass into were pirates, undead, and animals — and even then, on the islands only. There were no beasts or other freebooters to combat on the seas.
Island exploration also sunk. Salt 2 uses procedural generation to randomly place islands based on a seed, though the islands themselves are pulled from handcrafted assets with pseudo-random points of interest. In about six hours, I had seen the same underwater cave multiple times with loot in the same spots. Boredom followed swiftly.
Puzzles found on these islands posed zero intellectual challenge, with none more complex than pulling leversin the correct order, and there was always a note that told the answer. The only one that held some promise was a brief riddle towards the end of the major quest chain for the Sea Divers Guild. However, even that quest was no more difficult than paying attention to where each statue was looking.
Acquiring loot from enemies, random containers, or treasure chests brought terror-inducing flashbacks of Bethesda-style grabbing of everything that was not nailed down. It was an unwelcome feeling and never felt satisfying, and searching islands or dungeons for treasure chests often yielded junk. The only notable find was a legendary recipe for a spyglass that required hours of leveling skills to craft.
Speaking of crafting, the system is tiered and basic as the rest of the experience. Each level of equipment is locked behind a secondary skill that requires spending time and resources to level up. I attempted to make better gear often, but could never find new recipes from shops. This forced me to try and hunt for them, but I never managed to discover even a middling boot recipe in my 30 hours with Salt 2.
All of this lead me to one poignant conclusion — none of this content made me feel like a pirate.
The pirate theme was everywhere, but rather than imparting immersion, it felt like a cheap Halloween costume, flimsy plastic sword included. Also, after 30 hours, I had died a total of two times — once in combat getting my sea legs, and again from a buggy fall due to the complete absence of climbing mechanics. Taking risks is a key facet of piracy! My ship was unsinkable. There was never any risk of drowning. Food was copious. I could always strike enemies unopposed and heal near infinitely. Bosses had no unique abilities or mechanics to challenge me.
Ultimately, I can’t imagine who this game was for. If it was directed at children I could understand the level of difficulty, but the thin content and basic systems will hardly appeal to seasoned players. If Salt 2 were a ship, it would give the Kraken indigestion.
Rating: 3 out of 10
— John Powell
Disclosures: This game is developed and published by Lavaboot Studios. The game is currently available on PC. This copy of the game was obtained via Steam as a paid digital download by the reviewer. The game was reviewed on PC. Approximately 30 hours were devoted to the single-player mode and the game was not completed. 0 hours of play were spent in the multiplayer mode.
Parents: This game is not rated by the ESRB. The game includes depictions of blood, alcohol use, mild violence, mild horror, references to gambling, human remains, references to cannibalism, and suicide.
Colorblind Modes: No colorblind modes are available.
Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: The game does not offer subtitle settings. The introduction cutscene contains subtitles. All other dialogue is presented via written text regardless of audio settings. Spoken dialogue when interacting with non-player characters is flavor dialogue only. Enemies have non-subtitled audio cues when reacting to the player. This game is not fully accessible. Interface and written text options include: English, French, Italian, German, Russian, Simplified Chinese, Portuguese for Brazilian audiences, and Spanish for Spain and Latin America audiences.
Remappable Controls: This game offers fully remappable keyboard controls. Full controller support is offered through Steam for Xbox, DualShock (USB Only), and DualSense (USB Only) controllers. Controller buttons are not remappable in game, but are remappable via Steam interface. The game displays controller face buttons and their functions through user interface context hints. Keyboard binds are similar to first-person shooter-style WASD schema. The gamepad had a mostly standard setup based on Xbox controllers — left stick move (click for sprint), right stick look (click for crouch), A for jump, and X for use. An odd choice was the right bumper was dodge and right trigger was attack. Left bumper is reserved for the weapon wheel and left trigger is block.
Hello and welcome back to our regular feature where we write a little about the games we've been playing. This week, Victoria knows something her husband doesn't; Tom endures the perennial terror known as entertaining a child over half-term; Bertie realises he's missed something important again; and Will makes mech combat somehow sound rather fun.
We are just a matter of days away from the release of Resident Evil Requiem, but already leaks are running rampant, causing Capcom to ask its community to 'please, cut it out!'.
