When Nintendo announced that it would be shutting down the eShop for both the 3DS and Wii U in 2023, my reaction was simple: of course it is. The development wasn’t a huge surprise–after all, it wasn’t that long ago that PlayStation announced its decision to close down the digital storefronts for the PS3 and PS Vita (though this decision was ultimately reversed). Companies do as companies want, and mostly what they want is to make money, and to avoid wasting it. So of course Nintendo is closing down two of its older eShops. There’s no money in them. But for the rest of us, it sucks, right? My initial reaction was one of resignation, but after a conversation with my partner, my feelings quickly turned to frustration because of what we’re about to lose.

My partner is on a Fire Emblem kick at the minute. In fact, they only just got into the series properly after starting with Three Houses, and they’re now delving into the 3DS games. But after the eShop closes next year, Fire Emblem Fates: Revelation, the conclusive resolution to both Birthright and Conquest, will essentially be unplayable unless you’re willing to fork out hundreds of dollars on eBay for the very tough-to-find physical edition. Our combined irritation led me to think of all the other digital-only games on the eShop, like Attack of the Friday Monsters or Pushmo. Hell, even Pokemon Yellow won’t be legally playable again without owning a physical copy.

And so because of Nintendo’s decision, a number of games are going to be potentially lost in a legal capacity, just because that’s business. It’s clear the company isn’t interested in making those games easily accessible, either, as in the initial Q&A it released regarding the closure, Nintendo addressed players’ concerns by essentially saying it wasn’t obligated to make these games available. And unfortunately, that’s true.

Speaking with GameSpot, Iain Simons, writer and part-time curator at the UK’s National Video Game Museum, said, “In terms of fiscal responsibility to their shareholders, they likely don’t have a responsibility to make the titles available. So why should they? As their statement says, this is part of a ‘natural life-cycle’–all things must pass, games die.”

It isn’t just money that acts as a barrier, as Simons pointed out to me. Games are in a weird position when it comes to cultural recognition, and haven’t really managed to convince those who don’t play games that they are an art form worth spending time on. Mediums like film have the Oscars, an institution which–while far from perfect–still do better at presenting the format as art, opposed to something like The Game Awards, which is unfortunately more like an E3 press conference than an awards-focused show.

The 3DS And Wii U Games You Should Buy Before Their eShops Shut Down

There are other complications when it comes to preserving games, too, such as the ways platforms are frequently changing; materials used to make games, like metal and plastic, are constantly degrading; and copyright issues. These all make understanding games from a cultural perspective incredibly difficult.

“From a preservation point of view, you dip your head into that for an hour and immediately realize that this is a huge problem that’s going to require vast resources and coordination to even begin to make it work,” said Simons.

There are people who are working to preserve as much video game history as they can, even if it is an immense amount of work, however. But in doing that work, there is also a huge amount of exasperation that comes with it. The Video Game History Foundation is one of the higher-profile organizations dedicated to preserving video game history. Its statement regarding the closure of the 3DS and Wii U eShops acknowledges the business side of things but criticizes Nintendo’s other actions.

“As a paying member of the Entertainment Software Association, Nintendo actively funds lobbying that prevents even libraries from being able to provide legal access to these games,” wrote the VGHF. “Not providing commercial access is understandable, but preventing institutional work to preserve these titles on top of that is actively destructive to video game history.”

What the VGHF is referring to is that the ESA (best known as the organizers of E3) has actively lobbied against games from being made available in public libraries. In 2017, Museum of Art and Digital Entertainment (MADE) of Oakland asked the US copyright office for a Digital Millennium Copyright Act exemption for preserving MMOs that their publishers no longer supported. Then in 2018, the ESA filed for MADE’s request to be denied, saying that “video game publishers have strong economic incentives to preserve their own games.” Thankfully, MADE was successful and the copyright exemption was granted, but only if the assets are legally passed on by the intellectual property owner. So if a company discontinues an MMO, it can choose to pass the game’s assets to preservationists. But even that limited ability to save defunct games might not be possible, especially when we can’t even guarantee the safety of the source code of video games.

The source code for the original Kingdom Hearts was infamously lost, so it’s a blessing that the game is even playable on modern consoles. And “blessing” is an understatement. Assets had to be recreated for the purpose of the remastered version of the game, and if Square Enix decided it wasn’t worth it, then the only legal way to play the game would be through the PS2 version.

However, according to Damian Rogers of the Game Preservation Society, it’s likely that at least some of the source code for games on the Nintendo eShop will have been saved. “We can also be fairly certain that, thanks to modern development practices and more foresight on the part of the developers, the games are safe internally as well, though we do wish Nintendo and all game publishers would be more transparent with the details of those internal preservation efforts,” Rogers said.

Transparency is one of the biggest issues at play here, certainly with a company like Nintendo. With the renewed interest in Fire Emblem, Nintendo might be working on some kind of port or remake of at least one of the series’ 3DS games, so perhaps they won’t be out of circulation indefinitely. But that doesn’t make up for all the other games that aren’t enjoying a sudden, unexpected resurgence and will be lost because of the eShop closure.

Sure, there are ROM sites, but Nintendo is constantly filing takedowns of these sites, with legal cases ultimately ordering the owners of them to pay millions of dollars. But these sites are doing more work to preserve older titles than Nintendo in many cases–just think of Mother 3, a game only playable in English thanks to a fan localization. But if a company like Nintendo has no interest in making its older titles available for purchase on its digital storefronts, or for preservationists and historians, there’s nothing anyone can legally do about it. And so we have a situation in which these games are unavailable both publicly and commercially. “But, ultimately, these [eShops] are commercial stores rather than public archives,” James Newman said.

Newman also does work for the UK’s National Video Game Museum, in addition to serving as a research professor at Bath Spa University. And like me, he is cognizant of how digital sales and streaming media can act as a deterrent from preservation. “One of the important shifts to be mindful of here is that the shift to digital distribution, subscription, and streaming brings with it a change in how we, as consumers, have access to our media. We no longer buy a film, album, or game in quite the same way, but rather we pay for access to it while it is part of the catalog and for as long as we continue to subscribe.

“This has a potentially huge impact in terms of our ability to watch, listen to, and play, and also on our ability to pass on our collections of media to future generations, whether that be handing them on through families and friends, or donating to museums and archives.”

That point of handing media on is something that struck a chord with me. Being able to easily share a game with someone just by giving them a copy is a special act. There’s something welcomingly communal about loaning your friend a DVD, and the idea of playing one of my favorite games with a kid of my own one day feels like an opportunity to pass on something a little bit more fun than my genetics.

There isn’t much that an individual can do to combat this. But Newman did provide an explanation of what people can help preservation efforts, even if it isn’t direct preservation work–which is to simply document these works’ existence. Documentation and recordings that provide an understanding of a game’s place in the cultural conversation are an important part of the process. “There is a tendency to think of game preservation as a software project to do with extracting data and emulating old or obsolete systems,” he said. “But game preservation is also a documentary project.

“Being able to play a game like Super Mario Maker in the future will be revealing and show how Nintendo gamified game-making and focused on placing and arranging tiles, but to really understand the complex meanings of that game, we would also want to see the levels that were designed by players and all those videos of people building them and reacting to them as they attempted to complete the sometimes fiendishly complicated and intricate puzzles people had designed.”

Newman is right–documenting games through things like walkthroughs, let’s plays, streams, all of it is important. But it also isn’t enough. While it might be more likely that companies are better at keeping their source code safe, there’s no guarantee that they actually are. And if Nintendo continues to be successful in shutting ROM sites down, it won’t just affect its own library of games, but games from other platforms hosted on the same site.

Nintendo is rightfully beloved as the company that makes so many wonderful games. But as with a number of other publishers, it’s also the justifiable target of ire the company that doesn’t want you to be aware of its rich history. When companies like Nintendo and organizations like the ESA are often the ones to have a major say in how games should be made available, we are put into a position where we can’t win. So for now the main thing we can potentially do is follow Newman’s advice by documenting these games, or at best, look into the ways we can help groups like the Video Game History Foundation. Because for as long as the bottom line doesn’t provide an incentive to do so, it’s clear that publishers aren’t going to do the work.

Read MoreGameSpot – Game News

Friday ‘Nite is a weekly Fortnite column that takes a closer look at current events in the wide world of Fortnite, with a special emphasis on the game’s plot, characters, and lore.

Fortnite Chapter 3, Season 2 is launching this weekend. Probably. Maybe. We’ll see. While in-game signs point to this being the case, there’s nothing typical about this upcoming new season, so much so that we can’t confirm it’s even really happening.

It’s never been like this before for one of the biggest games in the world. Sure, two Fortnite seasons in 2020 were each extended by several weeks due to COVID, but those delays were communicated to players and press well in advance. Much of the world shut down in the early spring and summer months of the pandemic, and video games took a more public hit than many other industries as studios scrambled to adjust to at-home game dev. But today, a different struggle affects a small but specific set of games: Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

While the war’s most devastating effects include human rights violations too numerous to count, we’re also seeing how the conflict disrupts the lives of people not fighting in the war–or, in some cases, people not even near the conflict geographically.

Some studios in Ukraine have had to relocate developers and alert players to delays while their devs quite literally fight for their lives. Nintendo’s Advance Wars 1 + 2: Re-Boot Camp has been delayed for what seems like obvious reasons–the game’s depiction of military combat–despite the game’s rather lighthearted tone, even if Nintendo is toothless to say that’s really why the game was pushed back.

One can safely assume Activision, which was reportedly eager to reveal the next Call of Duty sooner than its usual marketing cycle would suggest, is now carefully watching the news in the hopes of not coming off as insensitive to those affected directly or indirectly by the war in Ukraine. When things like games, movies, and TV depict war against the backdrop of real-life war, things get messy.

The best intentions can come off as tone-deaf and ill-advised, and for Epic, the issue demands an immediate answer, but is without much of a roadmap.

Here’s some content that was being worked on this season but still unfinished, most likely for S2:

– Tanks
– Cattus Cave
– Tactical Sprint
– Double Deagle
– Jetpacks Chest
– Clamber Mechanic
– Tactical Overshield
– Zeppelin (maybe IO NPCs)
– Vehicle Mods: Armor & Turret

(1/2)

— HYPEX (@HYPEX) March 5, 2022

A season focused on the all-out war between Fortnite’s major factions has been in the works for months, if not years, but now may arrive just as players, or at least onlookers, find the whole storyline wrong-headed. Should Epic delay the season? My guess is that’s exactly the question its developers are asking themselves and each other right now, even just a day before the current season is meant to end.

Speaking to popular Fortnite content insiders, the vibe they’ve gotten is as you might expect if you’ve been tracking this lead-up to Season 2. Epic has not just been silent in a public-facing way, but even the game’s bustling Discord server has recently lacked regular engagement from the Epic devs who are normally seen popping in and out to chat with players and fans. Are they heads-down on altering the game’s content, their own messaging, both, or neither?

In my view, one of a few things is about to happen, and I genuinely don’t know which one we’ll see this weekend:

The first outcome: Epic quietly delays the season and the game gets no update this weekend. Never having truly announced the end date of Season 1, this would technically be an “internal” delay, even as fans know the season was set to end on March 19 thanks to the battle pass end date shown in-game, which has historically always told players the season finale date months before Epic says so.

The second outcome: Epic launches the season exactly as planned, with the exception that the hype cycle that normally surrounds the final days of a season is now absent. Without any teases for an event or the end of a season, Epic may simply kick off the new season and tell virtually no one it’s coming.

This outcome would indicate Epic thinks its in-game content isn’t problematic amid the news cycle, but that marketing the in-game war as the same colorful fun Fortnite is known for would be in bad taste. As much as one of the world’s biggest video games could possibly be stealth-launch, this would be Epic going for it.

The third outcome: Epic launches a heavily revised, but not delayed Season 2, with some would-be fascinating last-minute changes to which we may never be privy. This would be the most intensive outcome, but is perhaps also the most likely. If it’s too late to change the bulk of the content of the season–and let’s assume it is–then you either have to erase the messaging (outcome two) or radically revise it.

With Fortnite Season 2, Epic may be seeking an impossible tact for its war story.

I could see Epic scrambling to completely re-imagine its themes, title, trailers, and maybe even some dialogue for Season 2, in the hopes of painting it all in a less militaristic light. That’s going to be very hard to do when credible leaks suggest things like tanks and DIY armored cars are coming to the island for the first time ever, but maybe if those militaristic additions are later-season additions and not there at launch, Epic’s hope is that they won’t seem so poorly timed when it’s time to add them to the game.

Imagine the undertaking of re-rendering and rewriting its launch trailers in the dozens of languages they launch in each season. On top of that, the studio would need to find the right tact when doing so. How do you hype up your fans with a war-themed trailer without also inviting criticism from people who find it all sort of gross? It’s an unenviable balancing act, and come this weekend, we’ll learn whether Epic walks that tightrope, falls to the ground, or cuts the rope entirely.

Read MoreGameSpot – Game News

Venturing to the scarlet rot-infested lands of Caelid, located east of Limgrave, is no easy feat for new Elden Ring players. It’s tough to reach at low levels, and even if you do somehow find yourself there by mistake, you’ll definitely struggle to defeat Caelid’s large assortment of horrific monsters and bosses–and that’s if you don’t succumb to the unsightly scarlet rot disease that’s stricken the land and turned the sky bright red.

Caelid is an optional zone, meaning that you don’t need to explore it or defeat Starscourge Radahn at Redmane Castle if you don’t want to, though you do need to beat at least two shardbearers to progress to the end of Elden Ring. It’s best to fully explore Caelid after completing the Academy of Raya Lucaria and defeating Rennala.

Arriving in Caelid

Entering Caelid means you have to deal with scarlet rot-infested enemies, which drain your health over time.

Caelid is located directly east of Limgrave, but it’s reasonably cordoned off from the main path if you’ve been steadily heading north through the Stormveil Castle region toward Godrick the Grafted. Even though it’s nearby where you began Elden Ring, don’t feel like you absolutely need to clear your way through Caelid before you’re ready.

There are a handful of ways to arrive in Caelid, but there are three main pathways into Caelid that you’ll find useful if you’re determined to uncover Caelid’s secrets.

Dragon-Burnt Ruins to Sellia Crystal Tunnel

The Dragon-Burnt Ruins are located east of The First Step and the Church of Elleh.

Located immediately east of The First Step grace point, sunken into the Agheel Lake, is a set of ruins called the Dragon-Burnt Ruins. Fight through the swarm of undead grunts, then descend into the first staircase you find out in the open. Underneath these ruins is a teleporter trapped-chest which sends you to a cavern in Caelid, the Sellia Crystal Tunnel, which is full of diggers and prawn miners.

Don’t worry if you can’t fight these enemies yet; simply turn right from the shack you spawn into, head down the ramp and through the cave until you come to a ladder. Jump down and you’ll be at a Site of Grace, and the entrance to the Sellia Crystal Tunnel, which leads out into the Aeonia swamp in the heart of Caelid.

Smoldering Church

The Rotview Balcony, located directly southeast of the Smoldering Church.

Cross through the Saintsbridge/Summonwater Village areas of Limgrave and then keep heading northeast, ascending upward, until you come across an area called the Smoldering Church. You’ll get invaded by an NPC at this point, but if you can beat them, you’ll get the ability to travel further east toward Rotview Balcony, which is where you get your first real taste of the desolation that underscores the “Caelid experience,” as some online have put it. Another way to reach the Smoldering Church is by visiting the Third Church of Marika, then by riding the wind currents up the cliffs while riding Torrent.

Hidden Bestial Sanctum Teleporter

The location of the Third Church of Marika.

Behind the Third Church of Marika in Limgrave is a small creek. If you search through the foliage nearby, you’ll uncover a teleporter nestled into the base of the cliff. Activating the teleporter sends you all the way to the Bestial Sanctum, which is a valuable hunting ground to get a lot of runes very quickly with little chance of losing them all and having to start over. Grab the nearby grace point; from here, you can head south down the road (if you’re comfortable passing one or two bosses that can one-shot you, plus a few dragons) and descend into Caelid from the Dragonbarrow subregion that you teleported into.

Major Caelid areas

A view of Greyoll’s Dragonbarrow.

Caelid is brimming with secrets. We won’t spoil them all, in fact, we very likely haven’t found all of them yet ourselves! That said, it’s good to note which major areas to make a point of visiting while you’re on your quest to dethrone Radahn (and get as much loot as you can while doing it, because why not?)

Fort Gael and surroundings

The approach to Fort Gael is guarded by fire-wielding soldiers.

Fort Gael and Rotview Balcony share the western side of Caelid that’s characterized by lots of Lordsworn soldiers and giant rotting animals contesting for dominance over the blighted land. As you head south, you’ll witness more and more of the carnage. Fort Gael is more or less insulated from this, surrounded by elite guard troops and sitting on a cliffside, upon which it solemnly faces west toward Limgrave. If you manage to enter Fort Gael, you can fight a lion guardian which drops the Ash of War: Lion’s Claw, but be wary, since this fight takes place in an enclosure that the lion guardian likes to thrash around in, and it can be difficult to kill early on.

Aeonia Swamp

The Swamp of Aeonia is located in the middle of Caelid.

Aeonia Swamp sits in the center of Caelid, and it features the highest concentration of scarlet rot that you will come across. Points of interest are sparse, and you certainly don’t want to rest in one spot too long–scarlet rot can slowly build up, and if it reaches a certain threshold, it’ll begin draining your health. The Street of Sages Ruins on the west side of the Aeonia Swamp area houses the powerful Meteorite Staff that can be highly useful to Astrologer builds. The east side of Aeonia features a boss battle with Commander O’Neil, who is incredibly difficult to beat alone at low levels but is necessary to defeat in order to progress the Millicent questline.

Sellia

Sellia is located on the northeastern shore of Aeonia.

Sellia houses several interesting treasures, such as the Nox Flowing Sword and Lusat’s Glintstone Staff, both of which can be unlocked by lighting the three signal fires throughout town (located in three different towers, which can be accessed via the town’s rooftops) and defeating the Nox Swordstress and Nox Priest located in the Chair-Crypt of Sellia. Once the seal to the Sellia Backstreets is unlocked, you can travel uphill to the Church of the Plague, where you can find Millicent and begin her questline.

Greyoll’s Dragonbarrow

The entrance to the Bestial Sanctum, which contains Gurranq, Beast Clergyman.

Greyoll’s Dragonbarrow comprises the northern half of Caelid and is named for its wide array of dead and undead dragons. Presumably, it’s also named for the Elder Dragon Greyoll which guards the region south of the Farum Greatbridge that links the Caelid mainland and the northern Bestial Sanctum together. The Farum Greatbridge is, unironically, also guarded by a separate dragon named Greyll. There are two Minor Erdtrees in this region, as well as a plethora of caves and minor dungeons. The best place to farm runes early on in Elden Ring is by stalking the plains outside of Farum Greatbridge (south of Bestial Sanctum) and hunting the Vulgar Militia that wander around and drop 1000+ runes per kill.

Redmane Castle and Eastern Caelid

Redmane Castle is located on the southeastern tip of Caelid, beyond the Impassable Bridge.

Redmane Castle is similar to Stormveil Castle in Limgrave; it is the toughest part of the zone to break into, and it hosts Caelid’s big fight with the zone boss, Radahn. Unlike Stormveil, there is only one way to get inside once you’ve reached the front gates. Beyond Redmane Castle is a coastal area that hosts a few additional areas.

Caelid map location

The Caelid map is located under a placard near the Nomadic Merchant.

The Caelid map is located on a fork in the road between the Southern Aeonia Swamp Bank point of grace to the northeast, and the Cathedral of Dragon Communion to the southwest. The location where you’ll find the map is also characterized by a nearby Nomadic Merchant who sells Nomadic Warrior’s Cookbook [15] among a few other things.

The Dragonbarrow map is located under a placard near a fork in the road, southwest of the Divine Tower of Caelid.

You’ll also want to nab the Dragonbarrow map, which is located east of the Minor Erdtree closest to the Smoldering Church, and southwest of the Divine Tower of Caelid. It’s also in a fork in the road, and you can find the other Caelid merchant in the Isolated Merchant’s Shack to the northwest of where you found the Dragonbarrow map.

Millicent and Gowry

Gowry’s Shack is located south of Sellia, Town of Sorcery.

On the road between Sellia, Town of Sorcery (to the north) and Sellia Gateway (to the south) is Gowry’s Shack. Speaking to Gowry inside, he tells you he’d like to cure a young girl who has become stricken with scarlet rot. The only problem is that he needs an Unalloyed Gold Needle to do so.

Finding one is simple, obtaining it for yourself is not. In order to get one, you need to defeat Commander O’Neil who is located immediately west of Gowry’s Shack behind a thick canopy of sickened trees. He’s a particularly tough boss who summons exile soldiers and uses sweeping wind-based attacks with his halberd, so it’s recommended you either invite cooperators or rely heavily on Torrent for the fight.

Commander O’Neil drops the Commander’s Standard halberd, Unalloyed Gold Needle, and 12,000 runes.

Once finished, return to Gowry, who tells you to wait for a bit. Return to any point of grace, then back to Gowry’s shake, where he gives you a note explaining that you need to light the fires in Sellia to unlock its secret. Simply double-jump over the rooftops in town using Torrent; each tower is pretty easy to see at any point in town, you simply need to clear a path to each one without falling down onto the streets below.

Once all three are lit, you can enter the Sellia Backstreets and head up to the Church of the Plague, where Millicent is. Offer the item Gowry gave you and rest at the nearby grace point. Once rested, speak to her again to finish the quest.

Millicent gives you this Prosthesis-Wearer Heirloom upon finishing her quest.

Finishing Millicent’s quest in Caelid rewards the Prosthesis-Wearer Heirloom, a talisman that raises Dexterity by five points. If you complete her quest and save her from the scarlet rot, she appears later on in a much longer questline that culminates with you being able to earn Millicent’s Prosthesis, a talisman that rewards five points of Dexterity and increases the attack power of your consecutive attacks.

Pushing forward to Redmane Castle

At the southern tip of Caelid is a point of grace called Impassable Greatbridge. It’s possible to travel across this bridge, but it did get its name for a good reason; you’ll need to dodge an onslaught of ballista bolts that can easily knock you off of Torrent–even when dashing at full speed–and pin you to the ground if they don’t immediately kill you.

That said, if you can make it past all of Redmane Castle’s frontal defenses, you’ll find that the front gate is closed indefinitely. Good news though: There is a side passage that you can follow by jumping across the siege tower and onto the crag leading around the castle to the right. You’ll run into some potentially tough fights with giant bats along the way, but you’ll eventually find a ladder that you can climb up. Once inside the castle, rush to the ground floor then move north and east until you find the grace point called Chamber Outside the Plaza. This’ll be your foothold for exploring the rest of Redmane Castle on your own time, and this is also where you’ll launch your assault on Starscourge Radahn from.

After unlocking the Radahn boss fight, this sequence takes place when traveling deeper into the Redmane Castle Plaza.

Alternate route across the bridge

If crossing the Impassable Greatbridge isn’t your style, then there’s a stealthier way to get to the Redmane front gates. Travel to Fort Gael, south of the Rotview Balcony, and sneak inside by climbing onto the tree branch that winds around the corner to the right (past the closed front door). Climb up the ladder, then either fight or ignore the foes on the rampart, including the knight. Don’t fall into the pit or engage the lion guardian if you don’t want to. Your goal is to climb to the top of the tower and open the treasure chest at the top, which is a trapped teleporter chest that ports you directly to the Redmane Castle front gates.

Acquiring Moonveil

The location of the Gael Tunnel entrance in Caelid, south of the Rotview Balcony.

Caelid is where you can find one of the most powerful katanas in Elden Ring, Moonveil, which deals magic damage and scales with strength, dexterity, and intelligence. If that’s your style, then you can easily find it by slaying the Magma Wyrm inside of the Gael Tunnel dungeon.

You can travel south from Rotview Balcony to get to the main Gael Tunnel entrance if you’d like to grab that point of grace, but there’s a much easier and simple path directly to the boss fight from Limgrave. You can sneak into Gael Tunnel by going to the Third Church of Marika and climbing up the cliffs to the northeast until you find the Rear Gael Tunnel Entrance point of grace, which conveniently places you right next to the entrance to the Magma Wyrm’s lair.

The secluded Rear Gael Tunnel Entrance.

The Magma Wyrm is pretty slow and predictable, only using the same few moves in a row. It’s also weak to piercing attacks. The main attack to watch out for is its magma breath attack where it slowly fills certain areas of the chamber with magma as it plows through. The rest of the Magma Wyrm’s attacks are large area of effect sweeps with its claws and tail which can be telegraphed and dodge-rolled through. It also has an attack where it slashes the ground for a moment, then pulls its claw back in a sort of “fake out” move that can catch you unaware if you reacted too quickly to (i.e. dodge-rolled in closer to strike after) the initial ground-slash.

Fighting the Magma Wyrm is a piece of cake when you bring friends.

Other than that, the Magma Wyrm fight is pretty straightforward. Don’t feel shy about inviting friends to help you beat it! Once finished, you’re rewarded with the Moonveil and a fresh new Dragon Heart.

There’s plenty else to see and do in Caelid, but don’t let us spoil all the fun of uncovering the rest of its myriad secrets for yourself. Happy hunting, Tarnished.

Read MoreGameSpot – Game News

A breakable illusory wall in Elden Ring is raising questions among the community as to whether developer From Software has hidden more secrets in the game than previously thought. Which, to be honest, is exactly what that studio would do. But also, at the same time, it very well could be nothing.

This wall was discovered by Dark Souls YouTuber Iron Pineapple. It is found in Volcano Manor, a mid-game legacy dungeon located in the top left corner of Elden Ring’s map. Just keep going until you reach the volcano in question, Mt. Gelmir.

apparently some fake walls in Elden Ring take multiple hits to reveal, and oh my god this changes everything
(clip from user teristam on r/eldenring) pic.twitter.com/Jt8MNUDY0j

— Iron Pineapple (@IronPineapple_) March 18, 2022

Breakable walls aren’t anything new to From Software’s games–they date back to 2009’s Demon’s Souls, and can be found in all three of the Dark Souls games and Bloodborne. But they all notably can be destroyed in a single strike. And Elden Ring does have plenty of walls like that too. The wall in Volcano Manor is special as it requires many blows to take it down.

GameSpot has traveled to Volcano Manor to test out the wall ourselves. SEO editor Gabe Gurwin managed to take it down in 45 hits. I struck down the hapless wall in about 30 blows, though I did wail on it with several sorceries first (we’re not sure if that matters).

This wall raises more questions than anything else, as it’s actually quite useless. Destroying the wall and going through the newly made entryway simply leads back into the main hub area of Volcano Manor. Destroying this wall supplies no shortcut, reveals no items, and provides no additional narrative.

Assuming the whole thing isn’t a glitch or the remains of a shortcut that From Software initially planned but ultimately cut, the only thing the wall imparts is the possibility that similar barriers may be scattered throughout the game. It could be a clue to search for more, some of which may actually act as shortcuts or hide secrets just waiting to be discovered. Or, as we said at the top of this article, it very well could be nothing, beyond some sick joke on From Software’s part.

Read MoreGameSpot – Game News

Hearthstone’s next expansion, Voyage to the Sunken City, launches on April 12. The new set will introduce an entirely new class, Naga, the undersea race of magical beings, which reward using spells while they sit in your hand. When you get a class-based legendary Naga, of course the spell-based synergy is huge.

Enter Hedra the Heretic, a Druid legendary minion and part of the new Naga class. The 7-Mana minion with 4/5 stats has a relatively low stat-line, but its Battlecry is huge. It summons a minion equal to the spell cost of each spell you’ve cast while Hedra was in your hand. Yikes.

The Druid legendary Hedra the Heretic

That ability makes Hedra a good late-game finisher for Druid decks that favor big spells. Some of those will be cycling out of Standard rotation this year, but last year Blizzard introduced the Core Set, which allows it to cycle in cards from any past expansion to lay the groundwork from upcoming expansions. It’s safe to say that we’ll either see some high-cost spells returning, or new ones added to the pool in the Sunken City expansion.

But Hedra is even viable as a mid-game option for decks that run some lower-cost spells. If you can pop off Hedra flanked by two random 4- or 6-cost minions, she becomes a good value play and difficult to answer that early in the game.

According to the official description, Hedra rejected the rule of Queen Azshara, which may have been a bad idea.

“While most will tell you otherwise, not all Naga choose to follow Queen Azshara. Those that don’t are cast out into the deep sea, with only a few able to survive on their own. Hedra is one of those few. She travels the ocean to either turn Queen Azshara’s followers against her or vanquish those that won’t.”

Aside from the new Naga class, Voyage to the Sunken City introduces two new keywords. Dredge lets you grab cards from the bottom of the deck, while Colossal minions come in multiple parts and are all summoned simultaneously regardless of where each piece happens to be in your deck. Blizzard will be updating with more details on the new year of content and Core Set changes shortly before launch. Two Voyage to the Sunken City bundles are available for preorder now.

Activision Blizzard has been facing accusations of harassment and unfair labor practices following lawsuits from the state of California, and prompting further investigations. Microsoft has since announced plans to acquire Activision Blizzard, but it remains to be seen how this dynamic will impact the pending legal action.

Read MoreGameSpot – Game News

Just about every week brings something new to Destiny 2, whether it’s story beats, new activities, or interesting new combinations of elements that let players devastate each other in the Crucible. Iron Banter is our weekly look at what’s going on in the world of Destiny and a rundown of what’s drawing our attention across the solar system.

It’s okay to talk about the Vow of the Disciple, now, right? We’re two weeks out from The Witch Queen’s raid, and it was huge in terms of recontextualizing the background story of the game. If you still haven’t played through the raid and you’d like to do so unspoiled, you might want to leave now and come back when you’ve finished.

As for the rest of us, let’s talk about what a big deal Vow of the Disciple is for the ongoing story of Destiny 2.

Disciples all the way down

For years, we’ve been operating on a specific understanding of Destiny 2 that has slowly been expanding outward. Where we’ve battled the threats of the Vex, Cabal, Fallen, Hive, Scorn, and Taken throughout the course of Destiny 2, we now have confirmation of something worse. Over the last year or so, Destiny 2 confirmed that there’s an entity at least equal to the Traveler out there, and it’s coming for us. But we’ve still been dealing with other alien species all the while, addressing them as tools of this dark entity.

All through the time that Destiny 2 was setting up the Entity–what we would come to understand as The Witness–it was also setting up Savathun, a looming villain who has been manipulating events in the game for years. A big part of the story was wondering where Savathun stood, either with the Witness or against it, while also dreading what disaster Savathun was intending to unleash upon everyone else. With Vow of the Disciple, though, we learned what’s worse than Savathun, and everything else we’ve faced.

In essence, Vow adds a layer for frightening evil over and above everything we’ve seen before. The Witch Queen deals with Savathun as an existential threat to the solar system, but the raid goes one better to show us what Savathun fears: Rhulk, the evil hidden at the heart of the Sunken Pyramid. That effectively reorders our understanding of the universe, and gives what feels like is a big hint at where Destiny 2 will head with its future expansions, Lightfall and The Final Shape.

Check out the rest of Bungie concept artist Tobias Kwan’s excellent Rhulk work here.

Sure, we take Rhulk down, but Vow of the Disciple adds a lot more questions than it does answer. The coolest thing about the raid, however, is how well integrated it is into the story of Destiny 2. Raids of the past have, often as not, been a bit haphazard with storytelling. They might be more or less unrelated to whatever’s happening in the game at that point, or fracture off from Destiny’s overall tale to deal with what ultimately feels like a side problem. Vow of the Disciple, on the other hand, completely recontextualizes The Witch Queen. It shows us what Savathun was really after, gives us a sharper view of the game’s entire world, and provides a new perspective on years of story. It’s a great addition to the overall game.

What I like most about Rhulk and Vow of the Disciple is how much new possibility it introduces into the game. We have the Disciple himself, and the suggestion that there must be others–after all, who is commanding the Black Fleet? We have the Upended, Rhulk’s weird sun-shattering device about which we know almost nothing. And we have a new history of the Hive and the worm gods, giving us new information about Destiny 2’s villains that continues to help play into themes of gaining understanding about our foes and possibly finding some path toward peace with them.

There’s a whole lot of story scattered throughout and buried within the Vow of the Disciple, and I highly suggest digging into the lore attached to all the armor and in the unlockable Shattered Suns lore book. If you’re looking for a summary of everything we learned in the Pyramid (as near as I can tell, at least–it’s dense and not everything is fully clear yet), you can check out our raid story rundown.

Crow’s conviction

Speaking of really great Destiny 2 story, this week’s Season of the Risen story beat was another extremely strong one–the game’s seasonal storytelling was excellent last year, and it looks like we can expect it to be stellar again in 2022. If you haven’t played through the week’s episode, you might want to do so before we go further.

Crow learning the lesson about conviction and consequence will have repercussions that go beyond his character.

The beat this week deals with the consequences of Crow’s conscience, and it’s a great addition to the character building Bungie spent all of 2022 executing. Last year, Crow served as an outsider voice in the Vanguard, constantly suggesting to long-established characters that they reevaluate their preconceptions about the game’s long-term enemies. Crow had spent time with the Eliksni when he worked for the Spider and he suggested empathy for the Cabal when Caiatl first showed up in the solar system. He’s the guy who’s wondering if we shouldn’t be pursuing peace instead of endless war.

What’s great about the Season of the Risen, despite the fact that it seems its story is a bit truncated compared to last year’s seasons, is that it pushes back on Crow so that he doesn’t always get to be the default “good guy” in any given situation. Crow has been pushing back all season against the psychic warfare actions of the Vanguard. In the PsyOps activity, we’ve been capturing Hive Lightbearers and locking them in a state of painless but unending, deathless limbo, while Caiatl’s Cabal Psions use their psychic powers to plumb the Lightbearers’ minds. There’s an argument to be made here that this is torture, and Crow has argued against its use all season. That’s partially because it’s just kind of gross to use these tactics, even against the Hive, a society basically structured on genocide, and partially because Crow was once Uldren Sov, and fears that if monsters such as the Hive can’t be redeemed through the Light, maybe he can’t either.

Crow has been a great character for adding new perspectives to Destiny 2’s existing dynamics and questioning other characters about their beliefs–he’s a catalyst for growth throughout the game, for sure. Last year, he kind of acted as the game’s protagonist, and that helped Destiny 2 tell more engaging stories than it ever had in the past. Season of the Risen checks Crow, however, putting him on slightly more even footing with the rest of the cast. That, too, is a catalyst for growth, both in Crow and in others; in this case, Lord Saladin and Commander Zavala. These interpersonal conflicts are adding a ton of depth to the game and expanding on characters we’ve been interacting with for years. I’m really enjoying the softer side of Saladin that we saw this week, as well as the continued establishment of the fact that this super-old, gruff castle-dweller also has an entirely other, unexplored facet as a teacher and mentor.

I also wonder where things will go next from here, as Saladin’s move this week–taking the blame for Crow’s screw-up that got Caiatl’s Psion killed–repositions him in the game’s universe. He now serves Caiatl “until the end of his days.” That’s potentially huge, and could solidify the alliance between the Vanguard and the Cabal, or potentially send shockwaves through the world if Caiatl’s goals conflict with our own, and Saladin is forced to follow her orders. Honor is a big deal for him, so it’s unlikely that he’ll refuse the oath he’s sworn if it puts him at odds with Zavala and the Vanguard under most circumstances. A Lightbearer serving the Cabal empress is a big deal on its own; add to that the fact that Calus seems to be on his way back to the story, members of Caiatl’s military are defecting as seen in the Vox Obscura mission, and the alliance is still pretty tenuous, and this could be a very big development.

Cleaning up the Relic

There’s a lot of potential in the crafting system, but it still feels very experimental.

Finally, we’ll depart from the story a minute to talk about crafting, a new system in Destiny 2 that I really enjoy, but which very obviously has a long way to go. Bungie mentioned the system in its TWAB this week, talking about some key changes that are coming down the pipe. First, Bungie is raising the caps on crafting materials so it’ll be harder to top out on the bits you need to make new guns and change their perks. Later, it’s going to do away with a bunch of those materials entirely, which should streamline crafting and make it work a lot better.

The primary issues with crafting right now is that it can be confusing, and that you’re flooded with some of the materials you need, while others are extremely hard to come by. The idea is that when you make a new gun, it’s a weak version with some lesser perks. As you use it, the gun levels up, unlocking the ability to add lots of better perks–but they’re costly. The speedbumps right now are in reconciling the cost of improved perks with their capabilities. “Enhanced” perks in particular can be very good, it seems, and Bungie made them expensive so you can’t just turn out an arsenal of all the best stuff instantly. But getting the materials for those enhanced perks is already difficult (most of them don’t include matchmaking, raising the barrier because you need to find teammates to help you chase them), and a lot of the system as it stands makes it tough to experiment to find cool gun perk combinations to make interesting weapons.

Crafting has seemed like an experiment from the beginning, so I’m expecting Bungie to adjust it significantly over time as it gathers more data about how players actually use it and work to find the right balance between the difficulty of making extremely powerful weapons and the ease of experimentation. The upcoming changes sound like movements in the right direction. Destiny has long been overwhelmed by an excess of currencies, so cutting as many as possible from the crafting system is a good move.

What I’d really like to see, however, is a clearer and more consistent path to getting Ascendant Alloy, the material needed for enhanced perks. The stuff drops from top-tier Throne World activities as of right now–master-level Wellspring activities and story missions. Both don’t support matchmaking, however, which increases the difficulty of running them and earning Ascendant Alloy consistently. I appreciate that Bungie wants to make Ascendant Alloy hard to come by, but the truly most difficult part of Destiny 2 is, and always has been, scheduling with other players. We need a middle ground that balances the difficulty of earning Ascendant Alloy with the absolute pain of trying to organize three (or six) adults to run these activities. In other words: matchmaking for Master Wellsprings. Please.

The good ideas of the weapon crafting system are there, but Bungie still needs to iron out the smaller details, like how often you should earn crafting materials.

It feels like it’s going to take a while for Bungie to find the, ah, final shape for the crafting system, but so far the transparency is appreciated. This is an experiment in finding a way to make this system fit best into the game as it stands, and that’ll probably be a fairly lengthy process. Anything that streamlines and simplifies, however, is good, and I’m very interested to see where Bungie takes crafting in the future.

That’s about it for this week. With the Iron Banner up, I’m hoping to finally get some significant time in the Crucible, since story and secrets have been my top consideration for quite a while now. Void 3.0 made early experiences during The Witch Queen launch…interesting, and I’m looking forward to see how the community is evolving to deal with the changes. I got completely bodied in my first match, which suggests I’m going to need to shake some rust off. As Saladin says, however, iron sharpens iron.

What’s catching your attention in the solar system this week–whether in the story, the raid, the Throne World, or the Crucible? Leave your thoughts in the comments below.

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There are an abundance of NPCs and side quests in Elden Ring, but for players looking to utilize magic, Sorceress Sellen’s quest is a good one to tackle. Sorceress Sellen can be found early on in the game and is a disgraced member of the Academy of Raya Lucaria. Working with her awards multiple spells and gear, specialized for magic wielders. Here is how to complete Sorceress Sellen’s quest.

Finding Sorceress Sellen

You will first encounter Sorceress Sellen in the Waypoint Ruins.

You will first encounter Sorceress Sellen in the Waypoint Ruins in Limgrave, in an underground area. There she will begrudgingly sell you spells, but that’s about it. You will need to advance to the Altus Plateau and Mt. Gelmir to really begin her quest.

Primeval Sorcerer Azur can be found outside Volcano Manor.

Next you will need to find Primeval Sorcerer Azur, who can be found near Mt. Gelmir, southwest of the Volcano Manor area. In order to reach this area, you will need to approach from the southwest, starting in the Altus Plateau and work your way northwest. You will eventually have to do an entire counter-clockwise lap around Volcano Manor to get here, but if you use Torrent it is not too time-consuming. If you speak to Azur, he will give you the Comet Azur spell, one of the legendary spells and incantations in the game. Now, return to Sellen. Continue talking to her to learn about her exile from the academy and eventually she will ask you to journey together. Accept her offer and she will ask you to find Master Lusat and give you the Sellian Spellbreaker.

Lusat can be found inside the Sellia Hideaway.

From here, you need to travel to the northeastern part of Caelid. This is located above Sellia, Town of Sorcery. You will find a small graveyard with a sorcerer in it, behind them is a hidden cave blocked by an illusion. Head inside to find Lusat. Advance into the cave until you find a section where you must walk across giant crystals to advance. The path looks like you should head left, but navigate right until you find a small pathway with a magic barrier. The Sellian Spellbreaker will remove the barrier and inside you will find Lusat and receive the Stars of Ruin, another spell. There is a boss fight at the other end of this tunnel, but it’s not necessary for this quest, so you can just leave. Now head back to Sellen.

Sellen’s new body

Sellen’s real body can be found at the Witchbane Ruins.

When you return to Sellen in the Waypoint Ruins, she will state that Azur and Lusat need proper burials. Now you will need to have defeated Starscourge Radhan in Caelid to continue. After he is defeated, return to the Waypoint Ruins and Sellen will tell you to find her real body. Her body can be found in the Witchbane Ruins in the Weeping Peninsula. Inside you will find Sellen shackled to the wall. There you will remove her Primal Glintstone from her body. Now you need to find a new body for her, which can be located in the Three Sisters area in northwest Liurnia.

Sellen’s new body can be found underneath the ruins near Ranni’s Rise, indicated by the red circle.

Once there, you can find a set of ruins just outside Ranni’s Rise, where there is an illusionary wall blocking a staircase hedging underground. You will find a room full of bodies, head to the back of the room and behind another illusory wall you will find Sellen’s new body. Put the Primal Glintstone in the new body and Sellen will come to life.

Jerren, the witch hunter

Head north of the Redmane Castle Plaza to find Jerren.

Now you must find the other person relevant to Sellen’s quest, Jerren. You will have first met Jerren at Redmane Castle as he oversaw the “Festival” where you fought Radhan. Now return here and you can find him sitting in a chair in the northernmost part of the castle. Talk to him and he will say that he is free from his duty and can leave Redmane Castle. You will next find him in the Witchbane Ruins looking at Sellen’s body. He will tell you she is dangerous and likely heading for the Academy of Raya Lucaria.

It’s important to note that if you returned to Redmane Castle and spoke with Jerren prior to advancing Sellen’s questline, he might not appear at the Witchbane Ruins. If you can’t find him, he likely moved onto the academy. From here head to the Raya Lucaria Grand Library Site of Grace, where you fight Rennala. From here, head outside to find two summon signs outside the door, one is gold and the other red. The gold will let you defend Sellen from Jerren and the other will let you help Jerren kill Sellen.

Helping Sellen will award you:

Eccentric’s Armor setGlintstone Kris daggerShard Spiral sorcery (added to shop)Witch’s Glintstone Crown

Killing Sellen will award you:

Rune ArcFurlcalling Finger RemedySelen’s Bell BearingWitch’s Glintstone CrownHelping Sellen defeat Jerrren.

If you are building magic, the Glintstone Kris Dagger is a good item to have, so you should defend Sellen. After making your selection you will have to fight and kill whichever person you sided against. I chose to defend Sellen. After the fight Sellen can be found standing in the middle of the library where Rennala usually is, talk to her and she will tell you that the Academy has your back when you become the Elden Lord. After resting at a Site of Grace, Rennala will return to the center of the room and Sellen will move to the side.

I’m not sure what exactly triggers it, but if you return after a certain amount of time, Sellen will become a massive ball of Sorcerers and Sorceresses, which can barely speak. She will still sell you spells and you can find the Witch’s Glintstone Crown next to her, which you might recognize as the Burger King-esque head she was wearing throughout the game.

The Witch’s Glintstone Crown can be obtained after Sellen acquires her “new look.”

Read MoreGameSpot – Game News

There are plenty of fashionable NPCs and enemies in Elden Ring, but none look as cool as Blaidd the half-wolf. Blaidd is an NPC you likely have interacted with once or twice during your journey, as he is related to both the Ranni the Witch side quest and the Radhan boss fight. Here is how to claim Blaidd’s armor for yourself.

Ranni the Witch’s quest

The first thing you will need to do is complete Ranni the Witch’s side quest, as Blaidd is one of her companions. You can read our in-depth Ranni the Witch guide for all of the details, but here is the quick version of it.

First, meet Ranni in the Three Sisters area in northwest Liurnia, where you will first meet Blaidd. After that, travel to southeast Caelid to defeat Radhan, where Blaidd will be to support you. Next, use the hole in Limgrave created by the star crashing into the planet to reach Nokron, Eternal City and claim its treasure.

After that, return to Ranni and head to Renna’s tower nearby and use the teleport gate at the top. This takes you to the Ansel River, where you will find a Ranni the Witch doll, which you can take to the nearby Site of Grace to reveal that it is the real Ranni. Navigate further through the River until you get invaded by an NPC that looks like Blaidd, but isn’t. Ranni will give you a key, which opens a chest in the Raya Lucaria Grand Library, with the Dark Moon Ring inside. Advance past where you fought the invader to find the Lake of Rot and travel across it.

Head inside the building and follow the river to find a coffin near a waterfall. Climb inside and it will take you to the Astel, Naturalborn of the Void boss fight. After defeating it, use the tunnel at the back of the arena to reach the Moonlight Altar. Head immediately north to the Cathedral of Manus Celes and follow the underground tunnel inside. You will find Ranni at the end of it and give her the Dark Moon Ring, completing the quest.

Blaidd’s Armor

Blaidd is distraught, causing him to attack you.

While Blaidd does have his own short questline that coincides with Ranni’s, none of it is necessary to acquire his armor set. Instead, after completing Ranni’s quest, return to Ranni’s Rise and you will find Blaidd sitting outside the steps to the tower, mumbling to himself. At this point, Blaidd is hostile regardless of what you do, so go ahead and defeat him. Blaidd will drop his armor, gauntlets, greaves, and his Royal Greatsword. Unfortunately, there is no wolf head piece named after Blaidd, but there is a good substitute located nearby.

Blaidd’s armor with the Black Wolf Mask.

Head to Seluvis’ Rise, the southernmost tower in the Three Sisters area. Outside the tower on the left side you can find the Black Wolf Mask after using Torrent to jump up the ruins. While your former friend might now be dead, you can “honor” him by using his stuff.

Read MoreGameSpot – Game News

A new Xbox update available for testers removes the ability to upload gameplay clips directly to Twitter. Windows Central downloaded the patch and found that it’s now only possible to upload clips to your phone directly from the Xbox dashboard. Users can then share these on Twitter, but it’s an extra step.

Xbox has included the ability to upload gameplay clips and screenshots directly to Twitter from the system for years. Microsoft has not said why it has removed this functionality in the new build for testers.

It is possible that this is not a permanent change and that the removal is only for testing purposes. But that would be odd. Windows Central contacted Microsoft for comment and did not hear back. GameSpot is also attempting to reach the company in an attempt to get more details on this.

Posting clips directly to Twitter is available on PlayStation and Nintendo Switch. It’s generally seen as a good feature that people enjoy to share moments from gameplay sessions without the need for dedicated capture equipment or applications.

In other Xbox news, Microsoft has announced the next wave of Xbox Game Pass titles coming throughout the rest of March, while the company also confirmed the titles that are leaving Game Pass. The indie game Tunic saw a surprise-release on Game Pass this week as part of Microsoft’s wider ID@Xbox announcements.

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Halo Infinite developer 343 Industries has provided an update on the game’s anti-cheat systems and outlined how the studio is going about improving things down the road. In a blog post, 343 started off by revealing its anti-cheat system in the first place. It’s a proprietary system called Arbiter, and this is the first time that 343 is speaking about it in any real capacity–and there is a reason for that.

343 didn’t talk about it until now because the more it reveals, the more quickly and efficiently hackers can exploit it. Keeping things under wraps is in the best interest of making Halo Infinite multiplayer a fun and safe place, 343 said.

“We want to keep as much secret as possible, for as long as possible,” 343 said. “Anything we can do or say–or in this case, not say, to help protect our methods–is worth it to help protect our players and their in-game experience. We know some of you may not entirely agree with our decision to keep this conversation out of the spotlight up until now, and since we don’t believe the efficacy of our approach relies entirely on its secrecy, we want to be as transparent about the current state of anti-cheat as we can.”

Looking ahead, 343 admitted that there is no silver bullet for cheating and some amount of cheating will always exist in Halo Infinite. That said, the studio is continuing to try. In the future, 343 will do more to help improve its systems to detect cheating and to give players the ability to report instances of cheating that they witness.

“We’ve heard loud and clear that we need to improve our ability to report other players in-game for cheating or toxic behavior,” 343 said. “Right now, there’s an existing process through the Halo Support site at aka.ms/HaloReportAPlayer which leads to direct investigations from our Safety team. Every report of cheating is reviewed by a member of the Safety team, and we’re grateful to all of you who have submitted a ticket and helped us take action.”

In the future, 343 said it hopes to deliver an in-game player-reporting system, but it probably won’t be here anytime soon. “It’s a feature we’re working on, but it will take time as we build and polish all the supporting systems needed in the pipeline to make it run smoothly and accurately,” 343 said.

As for enforcement, 343 said the existing temporary and permanent bans have been effective at removing bad actors from matchmaking, but the system could be more robust.

“Since our multiplayer is free-to-play, some cheaters create new accounts or appear on new devices in an attempt to evade our enforcement actions. We typically catch ban evasion fairly quickly, but there is more we can do here and we’re pursuing multiple different solutions,” 343 said.

To help weed out people who create new accounts after getting banned, 343 is working on a system that requires players to complete a certain number of multiplayer matches before they can enter the Ranked playlist. The currently number is 25 games, but 343 said it could change.

“We think this not only to keeps the player out of Ranked for a while but also gives our other systems a chance to detect them as a current or recurring cheater. We expect this will also help new players find their footing in social playlists before they jump right into the more challenging Ranked experience,” 343 said.

343 went on to say it’s also looking into more methods by which it can identify banned players who make new accounts on the same device. “There are a few efforts underway here and nothing, including leveraging third-party solutions in combination with our existing work on Arbiter, is off the table. As with our improved player reporting, we’ll be sharing more about this work as we get closer to a release,” 343 said.

Overall, 343 said fans can rest assured that 343 is committed to making Halo Infinite’s anti-cheat systems more robust and competent. Some improvements for anti-cheat came in the recent mid-season update and more will be shipped as they are cleared for release, 343 said.

343 also explained that it created its own anti-cheat system for Halo Infinite instead of using a third-party tool because it was important for the company to be able to control everything from end-to-end. “That includes handling the detection and enforcement aspects that are usually provided by products like Easy Anti-Cheat or BattlEye. Building the whole solution in-house is a pretty common approach in the industry for studios who maintain multi-year live games like Halo Infinite,” 343 said.

“There’s nothing wrong with using a commercial anti-cheat, and like everything else it definitely isn’t something that we have completely ruled out as a way to augment our existing solution, but most anti-cheats don’t have a strong focus on prevention and protection and therefore we needed to build Arbiter anyway,” 343 added. “We’re certainly evaluating what it would look like to use both Arbiter and another third-party solution together.”

Arbiter is not a kernel-level driver, but it is something that 343 has considered, the studio said. Using a kernel-level driver does offer many advantages that are difficult or impossible at the application level, but overall there were too many cons for 343 to want to go down this path.

“To write the driver you need to make sure you have in-house kernel development experts. Stability becomes a serious concern because if you have a bug, you don’t just crash the game client, you bug check (‘blue screen’) the entire machine. You need to either run the game as administrator to start the driver when the game starts, or you need to install an administrator service to do it for you,” 343 said. “If the latter, then you need to write that service and keep it updated. Making changes to the driver requires signing and certification steps that add more time to an already lengthy release pipeline. On top of all that, you’re guaranteeing an escalation in the technical complexity of the cheats that do get developed to bypass your anti-cheat.”

There is also the matter of how kernel-level drivers are controversial over privacy concerns–that’s because kernel-level drivers give developers “unfettered system access” to a user’s machine.

“While that may not be as much of an issue as people believe, it does feel like an overreach as a game developer,” 343 said. “All that said, we’re committed to building what is necessary to protect the experience of our players. Nothing is completely off the table. If we did end up wanting to leverage a kernel driver, it’s likely we would use an existing third-party solution to provide that for us rather than build that component in-house.”

The full post is stacked with lots more detail and insight–go read it here.

In other Halo news, the long-awaited Halo TV series premieres on March 24. Xbox Game Pass Ultimate members can claim a free 30-day Paramount+ trial to watch the show.

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