February 2024 - Page 4 of 7 - Gaming Army United

8 things Helldivers 2 doesn’t tell you that are actually pretty important

You can tell Helldivers 2 has some legs when over a week from launch we’re still trying to figure out many of its quirks. Between ramping difficulty tiers, under-explained stratagems, and curveballs thrown into the galactic war simulation, it’s clear Arrowhead Games is intentionally maintaining an air of secrecy around Helldivers 2.

In these early days it feels like anything is possible, and that our understanding of Helldivers 2’s inner workings can change in an instant. Like, did you know explosive gun variants only deal extra damage to certain enemies? Arrowhead CEO John Pilestedt left that detail out of in-game descriptions, and says other details like it have yet to be discovered by players.

As we continue to play Helldivers 2 daily and share our experiences, here are our best non-obvious but important tips that Helldivers 2 does not tell you.

You don’t have to survive to succeed

In keeping with Helldivers 2’s cynical world, it’s not that important that you extract from a mission. You do get a bonus for every helldiver that leaves via airship, but as long as the main objective is completed, you’ll get your full Medals payout either way. This is good to keep in mind on missions with short timers: it’s OK to take your time on objectives and not sweat the extraction part.

EMS strikes are important against Automatons

The first thing you’ll learn in a high-difficulty Automaton mission is that they have more armor than you have bullets in a magazine. It’s easy to get overwhelmed in Helldivers 2 when your guns feel even slightly underpowered, and explosive airstrikes aren’t the silver bullet they are against Terminids. Consider asking one squadmate to bring an EMS strike (or EMS mortar), an AoE stun field that stops bots in their tracks and gives your squad room to take a breath, reload, and flank bot weak points. Beware that you can get stunned by the blast too, but it’s not lethal.

You can get a similar effect with smoke strikes. Smoke will blind bots long enough to break line of sight, but at close range they tend to march straight through smoke and pick up where they left off. EMS and smoke have quick cooldowns and carry no risk of blowing yourself up.

Helldivers 2 best Stratagems - Ammo

(Image credit: Arrowhead Game Studios)

The Supply Pack is the best stratagem in the game

As you start cranking up the difficulty in Helldivers, ammo becomes worth its weight in gold. You’ll really feel that two-minute Resupply cooldown on your third consecutive Bug Breach, and for that reason I often volunteer to bring a Supply Pack. The Supply Pack lets you carry up to four ammo boxes identical to the ones in resupply pods, effectively doubling your party’s ammo total at any given time. You can restock the pack with Resupply pods and, after a lengthy cooldown, even call down another for four free ammo boxes.

Grenade launchers are the best at clearing nests and spore towers

The grenade launcher support weapon is your best friend when you need to quickly clear nests and other side objectives. You only need one grenade to shut down each nest, and you can do it from a safe distance. It’s faster than an airstrike, more consistent, and much safer than getting close enough to toss your own grenades into nests. The same goes for those nasty spore towers that blanket whole chunks of the map in fog—launch a nade in from a mile away and clear it without issue.

helldivers 2 tips

(Image credit: Arrowhead Game Studios)

Explosion damage is 100% more effective against Terminid weak points

This tip comes straight from the mouth of Arrowhead Games CEO John Pilestedt, who explained on Twitter how the explosive trait on some weapon variants work.

“The explosive trait means that the weapon will do 100% damage against enemies that have massive squishy parts. Other guns will only do 10% dmg against those parts.”

Two examples of massive squishy parts:

The orange glowing bit on the backs of Chargers
The bulbous bodies of Bile Spewers

That’s an important detail, because if you only compare listed stats, explosive guns are weaker than the default versions. Nowhere in the description of the AR-23E Liberator Explosive or the Breaker equivalent does it explain the 100% weak point boost, but there you go.

In #helldivers2, the explosive trait means that the weapon will do 100% damage against enemies that have massive squishy parts. Other guns will only do 10% dmg against those parts.Examples of massive squishy parts:- charger butt- spewer buttBut there are others as well…February 10, 2024

Orbital strikes are fired at an angle

You might’ve noticed that you can look up and actually see where your offensive stratagems are coming from. Launch an eagle strike and you’ll see fighter jets strafe the battlefield. Call in a resupply and you can track its journey from your mothership. But did you know that Orbital type strikes always fire from your ship positioned at the center of the sky? That means it’s actually possible for your ship to miss.

It’s not likely to happen, but if you’re on a planet with steep hills, tall nest structures, and you’re on the edge of the map, a precision missile strike or gatling barrage can sometimes end up blasting the hill instead of your target.

Calling in an orbital strike

(Image credit: Arrowhead Game Studios)

Unlock the Orbital Laser ASAP

One of the strongest offensive stratagems in the game is the Orbital Laser strike, a superheated cylinder of death that evaporates all in its wake. It’s so powerful that it can only be used three times and has a whopping five minute cooldown. Use it when something big must die.

Prone protects against explosions

I spotted this one as a loading screen tooltip one time and then never saw it again. Going prone (or diving) will protect you against explosions to a degree. It’s not clearly exactly how much damage mitigation you get, but it’s enough to not immediately die if you’re in the splash zone of rockets, grenades, and smaller airstrikes. If you don’t think you can run away from an orbital strike before it lands, just hit the deck and hope for the best.

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Survival games are having another viral moment, making PC players the tastemakers once again

Across the history of PC gaming, plenty of genres have had the honor of being the most PC of genres—from the era of adventure games to the rise of FPSes—but the most PC gaming-ass genre of today is undeniably survival games. We are the birthplace and the proving ground for a style of game that just can’t stop producing massive hits several times a year, so let’s celebrate our time as tastemakers.

There were a few years there where, much as I’d enjoyed so many of them, I nearly got sick of the words “early access survival game.” I was in a Minecraft slump, I never got quite into Ark, and I thought maybe it was time to just get over punching trees and organizing fleets of stone storage. Then Valheim launched in 2021, selling over 5 million copies in its first month of early access and sucking me and my friends in for over 100 hours.

Valheim’s incredible success reminded me that it was a phenomenon that could have only happened on PC. I vowed to not to lose faith ever again in the genre we spawned—a commitment that my Palworld playtime has reconfirmed.

The modern survival genre was conceived on PC. Even before Steam’s official Early Access program put a stamp of legitimacy on the practice, the back to back success of Minecraft’s alpha and the original DayZ mod were proof that something about survival was irresistible even in an unfinished state. Soon after that we had Rust, Terraria, and Ark, all immense word of mouth sensations in the era just before we’d have called such success “viral.”

Valheim viking using cooking pot

(Image credit: Iron Gate Studio)

None of them could have become so successful on consoles. Not on PlayStation or Nintendo systems, certainly, but even the Xbox Live Arcade, the digital store of the late 2000’s that was known for producing some indie game hits of the time, didn’t have the structure to support the tech demo-like virality of early survival hits. PC players, who were already well familiar with downloading mods and patches, were the perfect audience. We were constantly putting up with shoddy PC ports of major, full-price games, so how could we hold a buggy experience against a cheaper, cutting edge trend?

Over a decade later, survival games are still producing hits and neither console publishers nor bigger studios have managed to wrest the genre away from us.

As if by unspoken agreement, we all came to expect that survival games would launch with the grit and weirdness of an unfinished experiment—whether with an Asset Store aesthetic or weird physics and collision glitches throughout. That became part of the pitch, because something about punching trees and tying stones to sticks to build a ramshackle log hut in a woods while staving off starvation with berries just keeps being compelling no matter what brand of jankiness each new game comes with.

The early access-ness that some originally met with wary suspicion became accepted convention. As if to encode those qualities, the genre that spawned in part as a mod continues to produce incredibly prolific modding communities that couldn’t have taken root anywhere but on PC. There’s a convoluted but traceable line from DayZ being an Arma 2 mod to Rust originating as a “DayZ clone” with Minecraft qualities and from Pokémon Minecraft mods to Palworld’s success. Eventually we’ll likely see changes to the genre that Palworld or its modding scene inspires.

Palworld - a purple deer Pal lounges in a hot tub near a player's wood house

(Image credit: Pocketpair)

Over a decade later, survival games are still producing hits and neither console publishers nor bigger studios have managed to wrest the genre away from us. Fortnite only found success after ditching survival to be a Battle Royale and the survival game Blizzard had in the works, which I was genuinely excited about, was canceled in the recent Activision Blizzard layoffs. Conan Exiles was developed by Funcom but it too cut its teeth in early access on PC. Hell, even DayZ’s original creator Dean Hall left Bohemia Interactive to work on another survival game, Icarus, in part because it “was an existing company, and I definitely felt like I was pulling them in a direction that was hard for them to go.”

Though survival games aren’t indies as a rule, the biggest hits keep coming from small teams. Valheim’s first early access version was developed by a team of five, while Palworld’s CEO described its initially inexperienced team as “the antithesis of proper game development.” Even the sleekest looking new contender Nightingale, though not what I’d call small or scrappy, is arriving next week as a product of an independent studio of 100 founded by members who’d left larger studios. And it’s starting in Early Access on PC, just like the rest. Once again, what could be the next trending game is entirely in our hands.

Unlike cinematic action games that Sony holds constantly out of PC players’ reach like a carrot on a stick, or the open world RPGs that Bethesda polishes to a console-ready shine, and even unlike PC mainstay genres like 4X and grand strategy that are perennially popular but not as splashy at launch, survival games are the genre that PC players retain exclusive rights to.

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Today’s Wordle answer for Friday, February 16

There’s a clue for today’s Wordle waiting just below if you need a hand with the February 16 (972) puzzle. Not the solution—just a little something to point you in the right direction. Need something stronger? You’ve got it. The answer to today’s game is only one quick click away.

I was doing great until I needed to find the very last letter and went off on a wild goose chase all over the keyboard, hoping I’d stumble on the final piece of today’s puzzle. It just wasn’t there, as far as I could tell. So, rather than throw my win streak away, I took a quick break and came back a little later—and that’s when I finally spotted today’s Wordle answer. Phew!

Today’s Wordle hint

Wordle today: A hint for Friday, February 16

You’ll need to think of sneaky storage to win today. A bundle of money, squirrelled away. A kid’s secret pile of chocolate, hidden in a drawer. Anything valuable or treasured, kept safe and out of sight.

Is there a double letter in Wordle today?

Yes, there is a double letter in today’s puzzle.

Wordle help: 3 tips for beating Wordle every day

A good starting word can be the difference between victory and defeat with the daily puzzle, but once you’ve got the basics, it’s much easier to nail down those Wordle wins. And as there’s nothing quite like a small victory to set you up for the rest of the day, here are a few tips to help set you on the right path:

A good opening guess should contain a mix of unique consonants and vowels.
Narrow down the pool of letters quickly with a tactical second guess.
Watch out for letters appearing more than once in the answer.

There’s no racing against the clock with Wordle so you don’t need to rush for the answer. Treating the game like a casual newspaper crossword can be a good tactic; that way, you can come back to it later if you’re coming up blank. Stepping away for a while might mean the difference between a win and a line of grey squares.

Today’s Wordle answer

Wordle answer

(Image credit: Future)

What is today’s Wordle answer?

You’ve got this. The answer to the February 16 (972) Wordle is STASH.

Previous Wordle answers

The last 10 Wordle answers

Past Wordle answers can give you some excellent ideas for fun starting words that keep your daily puzzle-solving fresh. They are also a good way to eliminate guesses for today’s Wordle, as the answer is unlikely to be repeated.

Here are some recent Wordle answers:

February 15: ASCOT
February 14: TALON
February 13: SCRAM
February 12: PASTA
February 11: NEVER
February 10: FRIED
February 9: STIFF
February 8: PLACE
February 7: AFTER
February 6: WHICH

Learn more about Wordle

Today's Wordle being played on a phone

(Image credit: Nurphoto via Getty)

Wordle gives you six rows of five boxes each day, and you’ll need to work out which secret five-letter word is hiding inside them to keep up your winning streak.

You should start with a strong word like ARISE, or any other word that contains a good mix of common consonants and multiple vowels. You’ll also want to avoid starting words with repeating letters, as you’re wasting the chance to potentially eliminate or confirm an extra letter. Once you hit Enter, you’ll see which ones you’ve got right or wrong. If a box turns , it means that letter isn’t in the secret word at all. means the letter is in the word, but not in that position. means you’ve got the right letter in the right spot.

Your second guess should compliment the starting word, using another “good” word to cover any common letters you missed last time while also trying to avoid any letter you now know for a fact isn’t present in today’s answer. With a bit of luck, you should have some coloured squares to work with and set you on the right path.

After that, it’s just a case of using what you’ve learned to narrow your guesses down to the right word. You have six tries in total and can only use real words (so no filling the boxes with EEEEE to see if there’s an E). Don’t forget letters can repeat too (ex: BOOKS).

If you need any further advice feel free to check out our Wordle tips, and if you’d like to find out which words have already been used you can scroll to the relevant section above.

Originally, Wordle was dreamed up by software engineer Josh Wardle, as a surprise for his partner who loves word games. From there it spread to his family, and finally got released to the public. The word puzzle game has since inspired tons of games like Wordle, refocusing the daily gimmick around music or math or geography. It wasn’t long before Wordle became so popular it was sold to the New York Times for seven figures. Surely it’s only a matter of time before we all solely communicate in tricolor boxes.

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OpenAI unveils powerful, creepy new text-to-video generator that it calls ‘a foundation for models that can understand and simulate the real world’

The generative AI company behind ChatGPT and DALL-E has a new toy: Sora, a text-to-video model that can (sometimes) generate pretty convincing 60-second clips from prompts like “a stylish woman walks down a Tokyo street…” and “a movie trailer featuring the adventures of the 30 year old space man wearing a red wool knitted motorcycle helmet…”

A lot of the AI video generation we’ve seen so far fails to sustain a consistent reality, redesigning faces and clothing and objects from one frame to the next. Sora, however, “understands not only what the user has asked for in the prompt, but also how those things exist in the physical world,” says OpenAI in its announcement post (using the word “understands” loosely).

View post on imgur.com”

The Sora clips are impressive. If I weren’t looking closely—say, I was just scrolling past them on social media—I’d probably think many of them were real. The prompt “a Chinese Lunar New Year celebration video with Chinese Dragon” looks at first like typical documentary footage of a parade. But then you realize that the people are oddly proportioned, and seem to be stumbling—it’s like the moment in a dream when you suddenly notice that everything is a little bit wrong. Creepy.

“The current model has weaknesses,” writes OpenAI. “It may struggle with accurately simulating the physics of a complex scene, and may not understand specific instances of cause and effect. For example, a person might take a bite out of a cookie, but afterward, the cookie may not have a bite mark. The model may also confuse spatial details of a prompt, for example, mixing up left and right, and may struggle with precise descriptions of events that take place over time, like following a specific camera trajectory.”

My favorite demonstration of Sora’s weaknesses is a video in which a plastic chair begins morphing into a Cronenberg lifeform. Behold:

View post on imgur.com”

Sora is not currently available to the public, and OpenAI says it’s assessing social risks of the model and working on mitigating them, for instance with “a detection classifier that can tell when a video was generated by Sora.”

It’s fascinating as a research project, but OpenAI isn’t just interested in doing cool computer science. If it can outmaneuver copyright critics and legislators, it’s here to make bank. The company says it’s currently “granting [Sora] access to a number of visual artists, designers, and filmmakers to gain feedback on how to advance the model to be most helpful for creative professionals.”

One commenter on X optimistically wondered if models like Sora will one day allow the public to wrest control of filmmaking away from Hollywood by making movies purely with prompts—but I wonder where they think the source material for all this generated video will come from if not, you know, filmmakers? Hollywood movies may already look pretty homogenous, but auto-reproducing Marvel Cinematic Universe-style CGI and car commercial drone shots isn’t exactly bringing creative expression to the masses, if you ask me. (The blog post notably doesn’t mention Sora’s training material.)

View post on imgur.com”

Despite the often clumsy results of generative AI and the legal, ethical quagmire it presents, we’re already seeing it used in professional creative media. That includes videogames, both in ways that are directly visible to us, like to generate art and voices and on-the-fly dialogue, and in ways that are less obvious, like generating code snippets or early concept art. A recent survey found that 31% of game development professionals use generative AI in some capacity. Combined with other software, I wonder what this kind of machine learning-driven video simulation could do besides generate slightly-off CG-like clips?

I don’t think anyone really knows how generative AI will be used in five or ten years or what the consequences of continued development will be, but it isn’t slowing down, so it appears we’ll find out. OpenAI and other companies are explicitly working not just toward better image and video and text generators, but toward “artificial general intelligence” or AGI—as in, the science fiction idea of what AI is.

“Sora serves as a foundation for models that can understand and simulate the real world, a capability we believe will be an important milestone for achieving AGI,” says OpenAI.

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Fellow Helldivers 2 players, I’m begging you to stop calling the extraction shuttle early

I am, when all’s said and done, quite a lazy man. I like naps, usually forget to take the bins out, and frequently put off making dinner until about 9 pm. But I’m a very diligent Helldiver. The propaganda machine back at Super Earth has really had an impact on me, and now I can’t help but try my hardest to spread managed democracy throughout the galaxy. Helldivers 2 has made me a bootlicker.

It’s very hard to do this very important work, however, when I’ve only got one ride off the planet, and the pilot doesn’t care that there are more bug nests and automaton outposts left standing. Once that shuttle leaves, the mission is over, whether I’m safely inside it or not.

helldivers 2 tips — (Image credit: Arrowhead Game Studios)

Right after launch, my fellow Helldivers seemed pretty keen to clean up during every mission. It was glorious victory after glorious victory. But now? Everyone seems to be in a rush to get back to the ship. Maybe there’s a birthday party about to kick off and they don’t want to miss out on the cake. I get it. Cake is great. But medals are also great, and I want more of them.

Last night, I couldn’t find a single PUG willing to 100% a mission. I desperately tried to steer my squad away from the main objective, knowing that as soon as we completed it we’d be hoofing it back to the extraction point. Granted, this is sometimes a very sensible strategy. In one mission, where disconnects left us down to a duo, and death had sapped us of all our respawn reserves, we really should have left sooner, but because we didn’t neither of us made it back to the ship. But that’s an anomaly in my experience, and most of the time there’s been no reason to flee so quickly.

So I’m using my privileged position as a person who writes stupid words on the internet to make a personal plea: please let me get more medals. Some more super credits would be nice, too. I’ve got my eye on some nifty heavy armour in the shop. How else will I be able to protect the weak, fleshy citizens of Super Earth?

Extraction shuttle

(Image credit: Arrowhead Game Studios)

This problem was inevitable when Arrowhead created an evac system where any member of the squad could call the shuttle down, regardless of consensus. Once the shuttle timer begins, there’s no going back. If you’re lucky, you might have time to strike off one more objective, if it’s close, but that also means you’re not helping your team defend the landing zone, which feels like a bit of a social faux pas.

I’m not convinced there’s an alternative, though. A vote system might sound good in principle, but that just creates more potential problems. One squad member not paying attention, or looking to do a bit of mischief, could screw up the whole mission. Individual extractions wouldn’t really work, either. With a single shuttle, players are forced to work together to protect the landing zone, and that singular objective helps ramp up the tension.

Maybe there could be a system where a majority could cancel the shuttle before it arrives, but I doubt there’s much impetus for Arrowhead to add such a feature. It’s not like the community is up in arms about this.

A soldier from Helldivers gives a patriotic salute while their comrade burns an alien corpse to death in the background.

(Image credit: Arrowhead Studios / PlayStation)

I’m embarrassed to admit that this situation has made me a touch passive aggressive. “Oh, so we’re just going to ignore the rest of the objectives then?” Honestly, this probably just makes the person summoning the shuttle early feel vindicated. Nobody wants the passive aggressive dude to have any fun, and rightly so. Am I the villain? Probably!

As much as it feels like this system is a personal attack against me and my hunger for medals, in truth it really just encourages better communication, and it’s really my fault for not wanting to talk to randos in PUGs. I should be hopping on voice comms straight away to ask if we could stick around after the main objective has been completed, instead of dropping some passive aggressive remarks in chat once it’s too late. It certainly seems like a more sensible approach than writing a whole article about it. Sorry, I just can’t help myself. It’s a sickness. And sick people deserve your help. To get more medals.

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Today’s Wordle answer for Thursday, February 15

Looking for help with today’s Wordle? Give your daily game an instant boost with our help. Whether you’re looking for general tips, a clue for the February 15 (971) game designed to focus your guesses, or you’d just like someone to tell you the answer right now, you’ll find all that and more on this page.

Two yellow letters kept taunting me today, refusing to turn green no matter what I did with them. Eventually, there were simply no other places left for them to go and once I pinned those down, today’s Wordle answer came to me in an instant. That was almost too close.

Today’s Wordle hint

Wordle today: A hint for Thursday, February 15

The answer today is a fashion accessory, something that looks a bit like a tie or a scarf. You know the bright orange neckpiece Fred wears in Scooby Doo? One of those.

Is there a double letter in Wordle today?

No letters are used twice in today’s puzzle.

Wordle help: 3 tips for beating Wordle every day

If you’re new to the daily Wordle puzzle or you just want a refresher after taking a break, I’ll share some quick tips to help you win. There’s nothing quite like a small victory to set you up for the rest of the day.

A mix of unique consonants and vowels makes for a solid opening word.
A tactical second guess should let you narrow down the pool of letters quickly.
There may be a repeat letter in the answer.

You’re not up against a timer, so you’ve got all the time in the world—well, until midnight—to find the winning word. If you’re stuck, there’s no shame in coming back to the puzzle later in the day and finishing it up when you’ve cleared your head.

Today’s Wordle answer

Wordle answers

(Image credit: Future)

What is today’s Wordle answer?

Need a hand? The answer to the February 15 (971) Wordle is ASCOT.

Previous Wordle answers

The last 10 Wordle answers

Keeping track of the last handful of Wordle answers can help to eliminate current possibilities. It’s also handy for inspiring opening words or subsequent guesses if you’re short on ideas for the day.

Here are the last 10 Wordle answers:

February 14: TALON
February 13: SCRAM
February 12: PASTA
February 11: NEVER
February 10: FRIED
February 9: STIFF
February 8: PLACE
February 7: AFTER
February 6: WHICH
February 5: REPEL

Learn more about Wordle

Today's Wordle being played on a phone

(Image credit: Nurphoto via Getty)

Wordle presents you with six rows of five boxes every day and the aim is to figure out the correct five-letter word by entering guesses and eliminating or confirming individual letters.

Getting off to a good start with a strong word like ARISE—something containing multiple vowels, common consonants, and no repeat letters—is a good tactic. Once you hit Enter, the boxes will show you which letters you’ve got right or wrong. If a box turns , it means that letter isn’t in the secret word at all. means the letter is in the word, but not in that position. means you’ve got the right letter in the right spot.

Your second guess should compliment the starting word, using another “good” word to cover any common letters you missed last time while also trying to avoid any letter you now know for a fact isn’t present in today’s answer. With a bit of luck, you should have some coloured squares to work with and set you on the right path.

After that, it’s just a case of using what you’ve learned to narrow your guesses down to the right word. You have six tries in total and can only use real words (so no filling the boxes with EEEEE to see if there’s an E). Don’t forget letters can repeat too (ex: BOOKS).

If you need any further advice feel free to check out our Wordle tips, and if you’d like to find out which words have already been used, you can scroll to the relevant section above.

Originally, Wordle was dreamed up by software engineer Josh Wardle, as a surprise for his partner who loves word games. From there it spread to his family, and finally got released to the public. The word puzzle game has since inspired tons of games like Wordle, refocusing the daily gimmick around music or math or geography. It wasn’t long before Wordle became so popular it was sold to the New York Times for seven figures. Surely it’s only a matter of time before we all solely communicate in tricolor boxes.

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Granblue Fantasy: Relink review

An airship crew with an unquenchable thirst for exploration flying through an endless sky: Granblue Fantasy has always had the perfect setting for an RPG, but the original mobile game only hinted at the wide open breadth and potential of its sunny world. Relink fully owns that potential, expertly capturing the feeling of going on an epic adventure with an upbeat bunch of friends. Verdant islands magically float within a sea of fluffy clouds, lush dappled forests brim with life, and mighty beasts practically beg for a heroic party to come and vanquish them.

Need to know

What is it? A popular long-running F2P mobile game brought to glorious ARPG life
Expect to pay £49.99/$59.99
Developer Cygames, Inc.
Publisher Cygames, Inc.
Reviewed on Intel i9-13900HX, GeForce RTX 4080 (laptop), 16GB RAM
Multiplayer? Yes
Steam Deck Unsupported
Link Official website

Relink is a spectacular game.

I loved it even though I haven’t been diligently keeping up with the F2P mobile game’s story over the past decade. No knowledge of Cygame’s long-running hit is expected or required. This action RPG, which I can enjoy alone or cooperatively with friends, sets sail for new lands filled with new friends and new enemies—the only thing anyone really needs to know is where to point their party’s swords and spells.

Relink barely gave me a second to ponder its optional lore anyway before plunging me into one breathtaking battle after another. It’s a fast-paced and focused game, chapters whisking me away somewhere new every hour or so before building up to a dramatic ending with a novel twist. One particularly memorable climax played out like all of my wildest Monster Hunter/Metal Gear Rising fantasies combined, giving me the chance to take down a gigantic adversary piece by piece.

It was supposed to be a simple mission—go in, get the treasure, and leave. Nobody mentioned that treasure was protected by a towering colossus buried beneath the sands, or that this mighty guardian was armed with laser death beams and was so huge I had to start the fight by chipping away at its ankle defences to get to the juicy glowing parts inside. And even after I’d done that it was all looking a bit desperate until the air support bristling with guns came in and… did basically nothing other than explode, conveniently dislodging a few still-functional turrets for me to use down at ground level. The fight just kept outdoing itself, layering on more and more adrenaline-fuelled setpiece moments.

Granblue Fantasy Relink

The bigger they are… the harder they hit (Image credit: Cygames Inc)

Was I really going to have to make a mad dash up its temporarily prone body? Yes. Was I seriously going to get thrown high into the air afterwards, and have to slide vertically down the same arm cannon I just saw casually obliterate an airship—while it’s still firing? Yes. Was I practically vibrating with excitement while finally standing face-to-face with its vulnerable core, more than ready to finish the damned thing off? YES. If the smile I’d been wearing for the previous 20 minutes had got any bigger, I’m sure my face would’ve split in two. I was in action RPG heaven.

And I stayed there. No matter what the game put me through, from picking off packs of goblins to world-ending threats up in the skies, Relink always showed me a good time. Some of that’s down to cast, their gorgeous, pencil-textured, designs backed up by reactive battle dialogue that reinforces their personalities and dishes out genuinely helpful information at the same time. But most of it’s thanks to the fantastically fluid combat.

Relink wants me to not just play a hero but act like one too, charging into battle with a sword in my hands and friends by my side. Combat is fast, furious, and no matter if I’m playing as an armoured knight or a fireball-flinging mage, almost always done at close range. Combos are short and simple but emphasise flexibility and reactivity, making it easy to break off my own flurry of blows to assist an ally at a moment’s notice, or quickly block a magical blast that would have otherwise torn through my character’s health. MMO-like danger markers often fill the floor, indicating where barrages of ice magic, giant sword swings, or red-hot balls of fire are about to land, Relink daring me to perfectly time my dodges straight through potentially fatal blasts to keep my assault going.

Dishing out a few blows of my own was even more satisfying than perfectly dodging an attack that looked undodgeable. Some characters’ combos will do more damage with proper timing, and special moves can open up new attack opportunities, grant temporary invincibility, debuff enemies, or rapidly close the distance. And even though the game only has two basic attack buttons, fighting as a sword-swinging hero is nothing like taking control of a mage, gunslinger, or even another kind of sword-swinging hero. Every character’s personal quirks and unique skill trees make them stand apart.

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Granblue Fantasy Relink — Relink’s action feels as good as it looks(Image credit: Cygames Inc)

The hands-off AI permanently controlling the other three members of my team turned out to be surprisingly reliable, even when a one-eyed beast chaotically spewed ice beams everywhere that they had to dodge. I didn’t have to babysit a squishier character when an angry horde appeared out of nowhere, or worry that someone wasn’t going to trigger their devastating Skybound Art—essentially a charged-up super move capable of dealing thousands upon thousands of points worth of damage—in the short window to keep an attack chain going. It just worked.

Between the long list of characters and their even longer move lists, Relink is practically begging for extensive testing to find out which skills work best together in each character’s four skill slots. There was a danger Relink’s emphasis on combat would end up overwhelming, all the fun buried under layer after layer of intertwining systems. Thankfully concise explanations for absolutely everything are never far away: every menu is designed to give me as much information as possible with the least amount of effort.

The game soon settles into a comfortable loop, a gorgeous hub of a town offering shops, sidequests and a counter allowing me to take on a selection of increasingly difficult trials, some personal to specific characters, some designed to crush anything other than a finely tuned offline party or a coordinated group of online friends. Outside the hub, the story doesn’t waste time, dropping me off exactly where I need to be: either an enclosed battlefield or a tightly choreographed path full of monsters leading up to one. No matter where I was in the main story or the further adventures beyond it, it always felt like there was a world of exciting experiences just waiting for me to grasp them.

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Relink’s not just a great game that’s been polished until it shines—playing it actually made me happier. I was literally on the edge of my seat at times, cheering for my crew, and always thrilled whenever some monster with glowing body parts and giant claws dared to take us on. I never had to stop having fun to tediously grind for materials during the main story; I found the game balanced to carefully provide just (and only just) enough of everything I needed to keep pushing forward. When I did lose a battle, a quick restart followed by an attempt to focus and fight better always turned things around.

That balance shifts slightly after the credits have rolled and the post-game challenge really gets into gear, but even then I regularly took on fights I was supposedly underpowered for and still came out on top by keeping a cool head and using my skills wisely, instead of expecting my stats to protect me.

I honestly enjoyed every moment of Relink, and once I finished the main game the combat encounters blossomed into something even more wonderful than they already were. The designers clearly felt free to focus on creating tough trials for the sort of person still eager to battle even after the credits rolled. I want to wring every last delicious drop out of it, and play it again purely for the pleasure of getting to spend more time with it. Action RPGs this good should be praised to the skies.

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Today’s Wordle answer for Wednesday, February 14

Need some help with Wordle today? Skip straight to the best part and give yourself an instant win—just click or scroll your way to the answer. Or, if you’d rather take your time but still keep your win streak safe, spend a minute with a fresh clue for the February 14 (970) game instead, and give your mind a helpful hint to work with.

The clues I found for today’s Wordle answer took me down a longer path than I hoped for, but I did enjoy the journey. Always wrong enough to be a little bit concerned, but always finding enough help to make an educated guess that got me a little closer to the win. I had fun with this one.

Today’s Wordle hint

Wordle hint - a grid with yellow, grey, and green letters — (Image credit: Josh Wardle)

Wordle today: A hint for Wednesday, February 14

Today’s answer is another way of describing an animal’s claw, specifically the sort you’d find on something like a falcon or eagle.

Is there a double letter in Wordle today?

No, there is no double letter in today’s puzzle.

Wordle help: 3 tips for beating Wordle every day

Playing Wordle well is like achieving a small victory every day—who doesn’t like a well-earned winning streak in a game you enjoy? If you’re new to the daily word game, or just want a refresher, I’m going to share a few quick tips to help set you on the path to success:

You want a balanced mix of unique consonants and vowels in your opening word.
A solid second guess helps to narrow down the pool of letters quickly.
The answer could contain letters more than once.

There’s no time pressure beyond making sure it’s done by the end of the day. If you’re struggling to find the answer or a tactical word for your next guess, there’s no harm in coming back to it later on.

Today’s Wordle answer

Wordle answers

(Image credit: Future)

What is today’s Wordle answer?

One win, just for you. The answer to the February 14 (970) Wordle is TALON.

Previous Wordle answers

The last 10 Wordle answers

Knowing previous Wordle solutions can be helpful in eliminating current possibilities. It’s unlikely a word will be repeated and you can find inspiration for guesses or starting words that may be eluding you.

Here are some recent Wordle answers:

February 13: SCRAM
February 12: PASTA
February 11: NEVER
February 10: FRIED
February 9: STIFF
February 8: PLACE
February 7: AFTER
February 6: WHICH
February 5: REPEL
February 4: VERGE

Learn more about Wordle

Today's Wordle being played on a phone

(Image credit: Nurphoto via Getty)

Wordle gives you six rows of five boxes each day, and it’s your job to work out which five-letter word is hiding by eliminating or confirming the letters it contains.

Starting with a strong word like LEASH—something containing multiple vowels, common consonants, and no repeat letters—is a good place to start. Once you hit Enter, the boxes will show you which letters you’ve got right or wrong. If a box turns , it means that letter isn’t in the secret word at all. means the letter is in the word, but not in that position. means you’ve got the right letter in the right spot.

Your second go should compliment the starting word, using another “good” guess to cover any common letters you missed last time while also trying to avoid any letter you now know for a fact isn’t present in today’s answer. After that, it’s just a case of using what you’ve learned to narrow your guesses down to the right word. You have six tries in total and can only use real words (so no filling the boxes with EEEEE to see if there’s an E). Don’t forget letters can repeat too (ex: BOOKS).

If you need any further advice feel free to check out our Wordle tips, and if you’d like to find out which words have already been used, you can scroll to the relevant section above.

Originally, Wordle was dreamed up by software engineer Josh Wardle, as a surprise for his partner who loves word games. From there it spread to his family, and finally got released to the public. The word puzzle game has since inspired tons of games like Wordle, refocusing the daily gimmick around music or math or geography. It wasn’t long before Wordle became so popular it was sold to the New York Times for seven figures. Surely it’s only a matter of time before we all solely communicate in tricolor boxes.

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Hearthstone is celebrating 10 years of RNG mayhem with free cards for everyone and a new nostalgia-themed expansion

Hearthstone Year of the Pegasus — (Image credit: Blizzard)

Can you believe Hearthstone turns ten this year? My bank manager can, because over the course of that decade I could have bought a small car rather than a near-complete card collection, but here we are. This week, Blizzard released a slew of announcements about what to expect from what it has dubbed The Year of the Pegasus. (Fun fact: Pegasus was the game’s internal codename during early development.)

Let’s run through them:

From today: free cards for logging in

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Free Hearthstone cards March 13 2024 — (Image credit: Blizzard)

The celebrations kicked off earlier today with a patch that added 12 brand new cards for everyone, including a legendary. Each of the 11 classes received a “Gift” card, all of which cost 1-Mana and generate a temporary copy of an iconic card from your class. So, for example, the Warrior version is called Garrosh’s Gift and it reads: “Discover a temporary Execute, Shield Block, or Brawl”.

What I like about the Gifts is that they essentially function like a mini sideboard, enabling you to run extra copies of single-target removal, board clears, card draw etc. Obviously, you’re paying a premium for that flexibility because you have to pay 1-Mana up front and have to use the card you pick on the same turn. But it’s a cool concept, and clearly leans on the success of E.T.C., Band Manager from Festival of Legends, which was also a sideboard on a stick.

Hearthstone Year of the Pegasus

Weirdly for such a fun and creative card, Harth Stonebrew’s best use might be in either very fast aggro decks looking to refill, or ultra grindy control decks that want another eight cards in fatigue. (Image credit: Blizzard)

In keeping with the nostalgic theme, which looks like it’ll be prevalent all year, you’ll also get a very cool legendary called Harth Stonebrew—who’s none other than Hearthstone’s own innkeeper, and has been used in marketing materials since launch, but never actually been collectible in-game.

He costs 6-Mana and comes with a suitably cool effect: “Battlecry: Replace your hand with an iconic one from Hearthstone’s past. (Once per game.)“

In practice, what that actually means is that when you play Darth your entire hand—regardless of how many cards you’re holding—will be swapped for eight cards from one of the game’s most famous decks. Note that what you receive could be from any class. The first time I played Darth Stonebrew I was on Druid but got a full hand of synergistic cards from the “Mill Rogue” archetype. The second time, I got stuff from “Libram Paladin”. The third one was “Cubelock”.

As to whether the effect is any good, it’s obviously incredibly situational, but I think it could be viable in decks that empty their hands fast. Suddenly having a fresh eight cards to play with, even if they don’t jibe with your original gameplan, is still powerful.

March 11: Get some World of Warcraft goodies

Given that it provided the source material, it’s only right that WoW pays tribute to its little brother. From March 11 you’ll be able to snag the new Fiery Hearthsteed mount for WoW, again just for logging into Hearthstone. For the following week, Blizzard says Hearthstone matches will be popping up in WoW’s capital cities too: “Stick around long enough and you’ll face a special encounter where you can defeat iconic minions to add to your deck and earn other fun new Hearthstone-themed rewards!”

I have no idea what this will actually entail as I haven’t played WoW since 2016, and then it was only to level a character to 20 so I could get a free Hearthstone portrait. Circle of life, I suppose. March 11 will also see Twitch drops live for 24 hours as part of a Community Day Anniversary Celebration, and a new Legendary Quest that will enable you to earn a pretty sweet 10th Anniversary card back.

From February 27 to March 19 there is also an in-game Hearthstone event that drops golden versions of all the Gift cards. Right now the golden version of Harth Stonebrew is listed in the collection as coming from an event, so fingers crossed it includes him, although I don’t see him on the accompanying image. Predictably, the Diamond version costs cash money, and those are too rich for even my whale blood.

March 19: New expansion and core set rotation

Last but very much not least is the next major expansion: Whizbang’s Workshop. In keeping with the theme, this set of 145 cards leans hard on Hearthstone’s history. The star of the show is undoubtedly Zilliax 3000 Deluxe, one of the coolest things the team has designed. For the first time, this is a card that you customise during deck building:

“Zilliax 3000 Deluxe comes with 8 different functional modules and 8 different cosmetic modules that you can combine to make a Zilliax of your very own … pick two different functional modules to set Zilliax’s combined cost, stats, and effects—and then pick a cosmetic module to match your style.”

Blizzard says that there are up to 200 possible combinations.

The initial raft of revealed cards also features multiple references to previous powerhouses. There’s a riff on Dr Boom that looks stupidly powerful, a nod to the 4-Mana 7/7 meme, and a new version of Corridor Creeper called Corridor Sleeper, which you can also play now if you pre-order the mega bundle.

My bank manager doesn’t advise doing that, but she does note that, as usual, you do get a free login legendary which is also available today. It’s an 8-Mana neutral Elemental called Colifero the Artist, with text that reads: “Battlecry: Draw a minion. Transform all other friendly minions into copies of it.” As is often the case with these, it’s a wacky effect that you’ll really need to build around to benefit from, but should be fun to mess about with while waiting for the new set.

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Reveal cards from Hearthstone's Whizzbang's Workshop expansion — (Image credit: Blizzard)

Whizzbang’s Workshop also features a new keyword: Minaturize. When you play a minion with this effect, you’ll receive a 1-Mana 1/1 copy of the same card in your hand, opening up the ability to double dip on powerful effects at a fraction of the original cost. Check out the initial batch of reveals below.

On March 19, the same day that Whizzbang’s Workshop releases, the game’s Core set will also do its annual rotation. There are way too many cards leaving and being added to list here, plus a smattering of entirely new cards that have been created to help round out some classes. Again, the theme is nostalgia, with the likes of Leeroy Jenkins, Fiery War Axe, and Doomguard returning to the mix. You can see the whole thing in the form of an infographic. The cards leaving are on the left, and the ones being added are on the right. Ooooh, hello Sylvanas!

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The best ways to kill Chargers in Helldivers 2

Trying to kill Chargers is one of Helldivers 2‘s more significant challenges on higher levels. You need the right gear or Stratagems if you want to crack open these large armoured bugs, and if you don’t have them equipped, well, you’ve got to do things the hard way. It wouldn’t be so bad if your squad was only dealing with a Charger, but they often spawn with lots of smaller enemies, and it’s a challenge to cope with both at once.

Luckily, there are some surefire methods if you prepare yourself and your Stratagems beforehand. You’re likely here because of the daily mission requiring you to kill three Chargers—with this list of strategies you should easily be able to defeat a few so you can get those medals.

How to kill Chargers in Helldivers 2

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Helldivers 2 kill Chargers - Aiming an Anti-Tank Expendable — The Anti-Tank Expendable and Recoilless Rifle are great for stripping the Charger’s leg armour(Image credit: Arrowhead Game Studios)

There are multiple ways to deal with Chargers in Helldivers 2, but your method will likely depend on your level and the situation you find yourself in:

Drop an Orbital Precision Strike on them before they notice you’re there—this option isn’t always possible if a Charger is coming out of a bug breach, for example, but it’s definitely viable when you find one patrolling the map, or just sitting in a bug nest. A well-placed Orbital Precision Strike will kill a Charger in one hit.
The slower and more annoying method is to have one team member bait the Charger while others shoot its glowing green tail. You’ll want to dodge prone to the side as the Charger rushes towards you, though since they have a slightly busted turning circle, make sure to time your dive late. This takes a little while, but it’ll serve if you don’t have any armour-piercing weapons.
Use a Recoilless Rifle or an Expendable Anti-Tank launcher to strip its leg armour off to give you a frontal target, then focus-fire that area as a squad. This is the best method depending on your level so be sure to bring either of these as a Stratagem.
If you’re a high level, you can use the Spear, Orbital Railcannon Strike, or Orbital Laser. All three of these are homing and will make short work of a Charger. The Orbital Railcannon Strike in particular has unlimited uses and auto-targets the largest enemy in the area, so is tailor-made for killing big armoured bugs. You will have to reach level 20 to unlock it, however.

It’s also worth noting that there are some regular weapons that will pierce medium armour—like the Chargers leg plates—as standard. The AR-23R Liberator Penetrator, for example, which you can unlock on page six of the regular Warbond store. I always use this assault rifle, since you can shoot straight through those armoured bugs that shield up when you fire at them.

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8 things Helldivers 2 doesn’t tell you that are actually pretty important

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Today’s Wordle answer for Friday, February 16

Today’s Wordle hint

Wordle today: A hint for Friday, February 16

OpenAI unveils powerful, creepy new text-to-video generator that it calls ‘a foundation for models that can understand and simulate the real world’

Fellow Helldivers 2 players, I’m begging you to stop calling the extraction shuttle early

Today’s Wordle answer for Thursday, February 15

Today’s Wordle hint

Wordle today: A hint for Thursday, February 15

Granblue Fantasy: Relink review

Today’s Wordle answer for Wednesday, February 14

Today’s Wordle hint

Wordle today: A hint for Wednesday, February 14

Hearthstone is celebrating 10 years of RNG mayhem with free cards for everyone and a new nostalgia-themed expansion

From today: free cards for logging in

The best ways to kill Chargers in Helldivers 2

How to kill Chargers in Helldivers 2

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Wordle today: A hint for Thursday, February 15

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Wordle today: A hint for Wednesday, February 14

From today: free cards for logging in

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