A staple of “Operator” culture, the M4 platform represents a uniquely American militaria aesthetic that has defined the visual style of Call of Duty: Warzone 2 and the Modern Warfare remakes. A shortened assault rifle that dispenses equal doses of liberalism and 5.56 NATO, the M4 shines as a jack-of-all-trades frame that benefits from both maximalist and minimalist approaches.

While it’s never been a favorite weapon of mine in any game’s arsenal (that honor belongs to the people’s weapon, the AK-47), Modern Warfare 2’s Gunsmith has made its royalty-free take on the Global North’s workhorse almost as versatile as its real-world counterpart. If you scored Modern Warfare 2’s Vault Edition, you’ve already got access to variant M4 frames and a bevy of attachments.

Call of Duty: Warzone 2 is now up and running, and instead of running (or gunning) right at your enemies you may want to team up with them instead, which is a thing you can do now. 

The new Warzone 2 assimilation feature allows you to recruit nearby rivals mid-match instead of taking them down. The “Unhinged” mode, as you’d guess from the name, has the most open rules for invites by allowing you to build a squad bigger than the one you started with.

Real-time strategy games are one of the longstanding bastions of PC gaming. Years before Steam digitised and slickened out how we play games, and before the PC was even deemed a mainstream gaming platform, games like Command & Conquer, Warcraft, and Total Annihilation kept PC gamers ticking over into the millennium, mouse-clicking deep into those long nights in front of glowing CRT screens.

Now, Crossfire: Legion is seeking to revive those glory days. The explosive new RTS game comes to us from stalwart developer Blackbird Interactive, who know a thing or two about reviving games in this genre, having previously brought us Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak, the acclaimed prequel to the 1999 classic Homeworld. 

Crossfire: Legion has been in Early Access since May this year, and has already made untold advances, adding new Acts to its story campaign, new maps, and a full-on level editor. 

Set in a near future ravaged by war, the game sees you command one of three distinct factions. Global Risk are basically your space-age privateers, working for governments to suppress ‘terrorist’ threats, and specialising in picking their opponents off through long-range warfare. Black List are a mercenary group made up of former members of Global Risk, disillusioned with what they see as a corrupt order. Speed kills with these guys, who use guerrilla tactics and fast movement to catch the enemy off-guard. Finally, there’s New Horizon, a transhumanist faction of mysterious origin built around heavy firepower and strong defence, making up in resilience what they lack in number.

Game Pass has proven to be of great value over the years. It’s a way to venture outside our comfort zones and explore games we would normally hesitate to buy. It’s not only been a great way for us to explore our tastes but for developers to make weirder and more wonderful games.

That’s certainly the case for Pentiment, a game that director Josh Sawyer says wouldn’t exist without Microsoft’s subscription service. He appeared on Waypoint’s Radio podcast (opens in new tab), telling host Rob Zacny “I never would have proposed making Pentiment without Game Pass. Like, I literally just wouldn’t have done it. I just don’t think it would have been possible.”

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 has just received the Shoothouse map as part of its first major update and… oh dear, oh dear oh dear. Players have been encountering a bug in the new release, which lest we forget is actually a re-release of an older map, which means that there are giant invisible walls across portions of the map: you can see other players, but fire and your bullets just pepper a wall you can’t see.

The walls also knock back your drill charges, decoy grenades, and other bits of kit. Here’s a video of the glitch: