Call of Duty Season 3’s mid-season update will go live for both Vanguard and Warzone following a May 24 update in Vanguard at 10 AM PT / 1 PM ET, and a Warzone update at 9 AM PT / 12 PM ET May 25. New additions will include a multiplayer map for Vanguard, while a new fast travel system is coming to Warzone.

Warzone

Champion of Caldera LTM

A new mode is arriving to Caldera for the mid-season update. This solo mode will feature 150 maximum players and a single, continuously closing circle. All players will drop in with their custom loadout, a gas mask, and a single Redeploy Extraction Token. Additionally, kills in this mode immediately refill player health, equipment, and ammo, incentivizing players to play aggressively.

Fast travel system

One of the main changes coming with Warzone’s mid-season update is the new fast travel system on Caldera. This new underground transit system will feature 14 access points, indicated on the Warzone Tac Map and minimap by a silver “vault door” symbol.

Fast travel in Caldera sounds similar to the subway travel on Verdansk. To travel via mine cart to another hub area, players will simply need to interact with the circular hatch and walk toward the cart. When doing so, the fast travel destination name will appear on the screen screen. After a few seconds of travel time, the player will instantly appear at their destination. Light and audio clues will let players figure out if an enemy is waiting on the other end of the fast travel location, or if the circle collapse will soon engulf the destination. A green light, it means it’s safe to fast travel, but anything else can signal potential danger.

New perk

Season 3 Reloaded also introduces a new perk to Warzone. Vanguard’s Serpentine perk is being added to help players sprint across the map more safely, as with the Serpentine perk sprinting reduces incoming damage from bullets, explosives, and fire by 20%. Players who shoot an enemy using Serpentine will get a “snake” indicator to let them know they’ll need to deal more damage.

New loot items

Three new lootable items are being added to Warzone: the Gulag Entry Token, Redeploy Extraction Token, and Speed Boost items.

The Gulag Entry Tokens will be found in supply boxes for standard battle royale matches. These tokens will allow eliminated players another shot in the gulag, if they’re holding a Gulag Entry Token. The Redeploy Extraction Token works similarly. This token will let eliminated players return directly to the fight and bypass the gulag. And finally, Speed Boost is another rare item that will be popping up in some supply boxes. The Speed Boost item will automatically grant a player a temporary movement buff.

High value loot zones

The high value loot zones that were originally featured in Season 3’s Operation Monarch limited-time mode, will now be available in standard battle royale matches. These high value loot zone locations will be random each match, but the areas will be marked with a dollar sign and offer higher quality loot.

Rebirth Island in-game event

Warzone’s smaller map will also get an in-game event to tie into the narrative from Season 2’s Reinforced event. The Occupation Scan event is vague, but Activision says that at some point during standard Rebirth Resurgence matches, players may be alerted of an “Occupation Scan.” At this point, they will need to go prone or else their position will be revealed to every other player on the Tac Map and minimap.

This seems to be teasing a further event for map changes or even a new map completely, as the publisher says the Occupation Scan should keep players “even more alert on an island from which they may need to escape . . .”

Additionally, Activision says Season 3 Reloaded will feature numerous quality of life updates, including a new “Squad heads-up-display,” which the publisher says will have the details revealed in patch notes for the big update.

Vanguard

Vanguard’s Sphere map

New map, weapon, and operator

For Vanguard’s mid-season update brings a new operator, weapon, and multiplayer map. Sphere is described as a small multiplayer map that takes place within a weapons lab. Season 3 Reloaded’s new weapon will be the H4 Blixen submachine gun, which is described as a gun that offers mobility and accuracy in medium range engagements. This weapon will be available to unlock for free with a weapon challenge or purchased with a cosmetic bundle.

And lastly, Kim Tae Young is Season 3’s final operator of Task Force Harpy. She will become available to unlock by purchasing her operator bundle. Tae Young is described as being a masked fighter, whose favorite weapon is the upcoming H4 Blixen submachine gun.

New bundles

Spilled Ink bundle

The mid-season update will introduce the Spilled Ink bundle, which includes an operator skin with tattoos designed by high-profile tattoo artists, such as Ink Master’s Ryan Ashley. Additional Season 3 Reloaded bundles will include Mastercraft skins of Vanguard weapons, and one of the bundles will be themed towards Zombies mode.

While Vanguard content continues, leaks are already surfacing for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and Warzone 2, which claim changes to loadout drops and reveal maps details. Additionally, here is everything we know about Infinity Ward’s upcoming Modern Warfare 2 release and Warzone’s sequel.

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Grand Theft Auto is one of the most popular and best-known franchises in gaming and expectations are high for the next entry in the series. Rockstar Games has announced Grand Theft Auto 6, though it technically hasn’t given the game an official title yet. While details are thin at the moment, we do know a little about it as we head into Not-E3 month and Summer Game Fest.

Who’s developing GTA 6?

Grand Theft Auto 6, as fans are calling it (despite Rockstar not officially announcing a title yet) is in development at Rockstar Games. Rockstar North, based in Edinburgh, Scotland, is leading the game’s development, but these days, Rockstar’s entire network of studios is known to work collectively on the same project, not unlike how development on Call of Duty is distributed between teams. Rockstar’s latest big game, Red Dead Redemption II, was developed by multiple teams.

“Well underway”

After years of speculation and assumptions, Rockstar Games officially announced in February 2022 that the next Grand Theft Auto was in development, with production “well underway.”

Whether or not the new game is called GTA 6 or something else remains to be seen.

While Rockstar isn’t ready just yet to divulge specifics on the next GTA, the company said its general philosophy with new games is to “significantly move beyond” what it achieved before.

“With the unprecedented longevity of GTA V, we know many of you have been asking us about a new entry in the Grand Theft Auto series. With every new project we embark on, our goal is always to significantly move beyond what we have previously delivered–and we are pleased to confirm that active development for the next entry in the Grand Theft Auto series is well underway,” Rockstar said. “We look forward to sharing more as soon as we are ready…”

GTA 6 rumors

Rumors about Grand Theft Auto 6 have been plentiful. One of the more intriguing rumors is that the game will have a Fortnite-style evolving map in some capacity. According to some scuttlebutt, this would allow Rockstar to frequently change and adjust GTA 6’s world map, similar to how live-service games mix things up on a regular basis.

Other rumors have suggested GTA 6 will be set in the 1980s, though reporter Tom Henderson has rejected that claim, saying the game will in fact take place in a modern-day version of Vice City. In terms of playable characters, its suggested that Rockstar will have multiple playable characters, a storytelling device that began with GTA 5 and was much praised at the time. In GTA 5, the three main characters–Trevor, Michael, and Franklin–were all male. However, rumors suggest that at least one of the characters in GTA 6 will be a woman.

Some of the other rumors in the mix for GTA 6 is that the game could launch as a timed-exclusive on PS5–this would be a huge deal but not necessarily surprising. GTA and PlayStation have been partners for some time already, and in the age of exclusive content, Sony paying Rockstar for some kind of exclusivity would continue that trend.

For more, check out GameSpot’s rundown of all the GTA 6 rumors.

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Spider-Man was almost an Xbox exclusive, as Marvel Games was looking to strike a new licensing deal in the 2010s according to executive vice president and head of Marvel Games, Jay Ong.

In an excerpt from Steven L. Kent’s 2021 book The Ultimate History of Video Games Vol 2 (via ResetEra and VGC), Ong detailed how Activision’s Amazing Spider-Man movie tie-in games had left Marvel Games unhappy regarding their overall quality, and both companies mutually agreed to end the Marvel licensing deal in 2014.

After Activision inquired as to what Marvel would do when the video game IP rights were returned, he replied that it would be finding a “better home” for them, to which Activision replied, “good luck finding your unicorn” according to Ong.

Marvel Games then went to Microsoft to see if a deal in forming an exclusive partnership could be arranged, but Microsoft passed on the offer as it was more concerned with focusing on its own IPs. Sony was more interested in acquiring the Spider-Man IP video game rights, and its pitch to develop a AAA experience with one of its “important partners” was accepted by Marvel Games.

Insomniac Games was revealed to be that crucial partner, and a few years later, Marvel’s Spider-Man was released to rave reviews and blockbuster sales. The game has currently sold more than 20 million copies since 2018, while its spin-off Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales sold a further 6.5 million units since it launched in late 2020.

Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 was announced at the PlayStation Showcase presentation in September 2021, and Insomniac is also working on a Wolverine game that is said to be darker and more mature in tone.

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Rainbow Six Siege Year 7, Season 2: Vector Glare has plenty to be excited about for existing fans, but I think it will be even more thrilling for players who haven’t played Siege in a while or have yet to try the game at all. It’s currently an ideal moment to get back into the game as well–Siege’s Year 7 is a definitive narrative shift for the multiplayer tactical shooter, intriguingly refocusing on the fact that its operators are meant to be specialist soldiers, not professional athletes.

Y7S2 finally adds the shooting range that fans have been clamoring for, offering an opportunity for players to test out how different attachments affect the recoil, precision, and noise of any gun. You can even switch between a traditional target that tracks a firearm’s bullet pattern and a practice dummy that tests a weapon’s effectiveness when trying to hit specific points on an enemy operator’s body.

Sens is the latest operator to come to Siege, joining the game at the start of Vector Glare.

For someone like me–a Siege player who sometimes goes months between sessions and has difficulty keeping track of every single adjustment made to the game–the shooting range is a blessing. Siege now rocks over 100 different firearms, so keeping track of how one compares to all the others can get tricky. The shooting range is also just a great way of getting in a few practice shots before a match to ensure my skills are still sharp.

“It’s also a way for us to showcase content that is already in the game [for existing players],” Siege game designer Mathieu Lacombe told me. “We have so many weapons. How do you differentiate them from one another? The shooting range is a great way to do so because sometimes you play a round, and then you play another round and you’re like, ‘Oh yeah, the recoil of this one, I feel it, but I don’t think about it.’ If you compare them in the same 30 seconds, however, you’ll get a better grasp. Like, ‘Oh yeah. This one kicks a lot. This one doesn’t.'”

The new season also further divides the roster of operators into individual squads. Primarily, this new feature reflects Siege’s renewed focus on storytelling, showcasing the alliances that are forming among the operators, and getting new or lapsed players up to speed on why not every playable character is getting along with each other.

“For us, this is a way to start giving more of a chance to our old cast of characters to come back in meaningful ways,” Siege creative director Alexander Karpazis told me. “We have over 60 characters in the game. And so trying to tell stories with just a random floating 60 characters is actually really hard to do. So splitting them into squads where they’re like the houses in Harry Potter gives you a sense of who they are right away.”

Ever since Rainbow started utilizing operators from Nighthaven, things have been heated.

There are only two squads to start: Nighthaven and Wolfguard. Nighthaven is led by Kali and features operators who belong to her private military company or utilize exceptionally advanced high-tech gadgetry. Wolfguard, meanwhile, is headed by Doc and features operators with a background in search and rescue or medicine, or have gadgets for healing or aiding fellow operators.

“We plan on releasing and announcing even more squads throughout the year,” Karpazis said. “This just gives us a bit of a narrative vehicle to tell a story that has a bit of meaning from every single character in our game that can kind of leverage that.”

The new squads have a gameplay ramification as well. “[The squads] are mostly for the narrative, but we did make sure that when we created the squads, there were viable teams within them that you could pick,” Lacombe said. “And, going ahead, we’ll push this further, that the teams that we propose, they should make sense. If I want to play with four buddies and we play a squad, we could pick all of the operators from the same squad and our team would be viable.”

I think this is a great system. At least on paper anyway–the true test of whether these squads actually present a way to curate balanced teams will be when Y7S2 launches and players can put it through its paces. But just quickly glancing at the rosters for Nighthaven and Wolfguard, they seem to be good blueprints for the basis of an ideal squad.

Y7S2’s new operator, Sens, is a member of one of these squads, so newcomers will know immediately which operators are good choices for pairing with the new face. Siege’s first non-binary playable character, Sens joins Wolfguard at the start of the season as an Attacker, utilizing their incredibly dope gadget as a means of blocking enemy sightlines or distracting a team, making them great at rescuing downed allies, coming to the aid of squadmates who are pinned down, or ambushing an entrenched squad.

Sens’ gadget is a delightful little ball of high-tech wizardry that they can roll across the floor to create a wall of (incredibly distracting) brilliant blueish green light. And since it can ricochet off surfaces, a skilled pool player (or just anyone half decent at geometry) can block multiple sightlines across an entire room with one carefully placed roll. It’s worth noting that this cover is purely sensory–players (including Sens and their allies) can’t see through it, but anyone can shoot or walk through it, no problem. The only exceptions to this rule are Glaz and Warden, who both can see through the wall with the use of their respective gadgets.

“[Sens] is definitely not a counter to a specific playstyle, but can help enable something that we saw in the past, which is being really strategic about your line of sight,” Karpazis said. “Whether you throw down a smoke or something and then you would have a Glaz on your team, and Glaz would be able to work with that while the team around you would execute on another front. That has died off and Sens breathes a bit more fresh air into that kind of strategy where now you can definitely take a Glaz along with you, run into a field with Sens and then start doing some interesting plays around that. And it also gives more value to Defenders like Warden, where he can actually see through Sens’ squall. And so he’s not as much a niche pick now. He has a little bit more purpose in a lineup.”

I enjoyed the brief period of time I got to play as Sens. Similar to Y7S1’s operator, Azami, Sens is able to transform the battlefield in interesting ways, disrupting even the most carefully laid plans by creating a wall wherever. Most operators’ gadgets are placed or fired and that’s it–you either walk away from them and they do their thing, or it’s a one-and-done use. But Azami and Sens utilize gadgets with an impact that’s both immediate and lasts a few seconds, ensuring they can be felt by multiple members of both teams–both operators have introduced the consideration that any sightline you’ve been able to depend upon for years can now be suddenly yanked away from you at any time. That can wreck any sort of strategy.

Sens’ addition, like Azami, should help shake up strategies that have been long established in Siege, promoting more opportunities where the winning team is composed of those who are better at thinking on their feet and adapting to an evolving situation, not whichever side just has more experienced players. This isn’t to say that I think Year 6’s operators were bad, but when it comes to Siege, Year 7’s operators are (so far) the type I’d like to see more of.

“I think Year 7 will have some creative gadgets that allow players to express themself a lot more,” Lacombe teased.

Overall, there’s plenty to look forward to in regards to Siege Y7S2. And though long-time Siege players will likely enjoy the new shooting range and Sens, I think these additions present an even more ideal draw for new and lapsed players. Year 7 is quickly shaping up to be a great year for Siege, with a strong-looking Season 2 following a great Season 1. Still no sign of those in-game quips I desperately want to hear, but there’s plenty else to keep folks occupied in the meantime.

Rainbow Six Siege Year 7, Season 2 is set to launch in June.

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