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.

One of my favorite things about Destiny 2 is when unforeseen weirdness coalesces in just the right way to create a moment–something you had to be there to experience. Lately, we’ve had one of those, as the nuances of how Dares of Eternity works has thrown new players into an unwinnable activity where they get repeatedly stomped, much to the chagrin of Xur and disapproval of the Starhorse.

It’s an unlucky confluence of how Dares works. Your first time in the game after the launch of Dares of Eternity, you’re automatically thrown into a match. The mode has a slightly higher Power requirement than 1100, the current starting Power level, which is just enough to make enemies unmanageable for green Guardians. Dares also includes Champions, which you can’t defeat without mods unlocked through the seasonal artifact. Thus, Xur goes from being an amiable-if-bewildered Steve Harvey type, to a demonic Richard Dawson, and Dares stops being a Destiny version of Press Your Luck and becomes something more like The Running Man.

As Destiny community manager dmg04 noted on Twitter, however, all hope has not been lost. Veteran Guardians have been delving into the game show hell that’s trapping New Lights by equipping low-Power gear and rescuing the players being tormented there. And that’s the best solution to the problem that currently exists, with Bungie encouraging players to go help until a fix can be instituted sometime in the future. There’s even going to be an emblem honoring the heroism of those community members helping out the blueberries (as well as commemorating the blueberries whose first steps in Destiny were a crucible [ahem] of demented, impossible equine whims).

These little in-game moments don’t happen super often but, for me, when they do, they make the game feel special. Sure, it was super annoying to play the Crucible during the time of Lord of Wolves, when the Exotic shotgun-meets-pulse rifle was ludicrously powerful, and it was extremely tough to compete with anything else. But it was also kind of hilarious, if I’m being honest, and it’s fascinating to see these instances when just about everyone in the Destiny community seizes on a particular idea or a specific opportunity. Sometimes Bungie creates these moments with elements like the Corridors of Time. And sometimes, they happen by accident. Either way, they help make the game feel like something more than just a game.

At this point, it sounds like there are so many Destiny 2 players dropping their Power levels down to help stranded New Lights that there aren’t really that many stranded New Lights left. The way the Destiny community comes together on things like this is pretty cool, and something I love about playing this game over a long period is being able to reminisce about moments like this. Remember when Xur tried to trap all the new players in a black hole? That sure was funny.

Apropos of nothing: Go buy the “Too Cool Dance” emote in the Eververse store. It’s evil Peter Parker’s hilarious dance from Spider-Man 3, and it’s essentially free this week–it’s available for Bright Dust and costs the same amount that Bungie gives for the week as part of the 30th Anniversary celebration. Treat yourself.

Destiny 2’s Best Year

With the close of 2021, GameSpot spent a whole lot of time looking at the past 12 months to assess the games we’d played, calling out the best of the year and highlighting our favorites. And now that that’s out of the way, I’ve been doing the same thing with Destiny over the last few days. I’ve been saying for a while that each year since the release of Forsaken, the game has seen significant improvement, and I think 2021 was Bungie’s best to date.

I tried to quantify some of those thoughts in another piece, where I zeroed in on one aspect that I think is indicative of the changes Destiny 2 has gone through this year that have seriously improved it: Crow. In a big way, Crow functions as a thematic protagonist for the story seasons following Beyond Light. He provides an outsider perspective on Destiny at large, and his backstory as Uldren Sov provides a thematic underpinning to everything that has happened. Crow is both a former enemy and someone who doesn’t see enemies in every alien–unlike those of us who have been playing the game for years. His perspective has freshened up a lot of storylines and shaken up a lot of characters.

I won’t rehash too much of what I already said about Crow. Some discussions I’ve had since publishing that article have pointed out, I think rightly, that despite the fact that I called him Destiny’s protagonist in that piece, he’s not everyone’s main character. I meant that more as a way to explain his function in the story–Crow is providing a through-line to seasons that would normally be somewhat segregated from one another. Destiny has a pretty diverse cast of characters at this point, and to the people who relate to those characters, Crow can feel like the sort of default male video game protagonist-type character. So when I say he’s the “main character” of Destiny right now, I mostly mean that his perspective is being used to challenge the game’s norms, thanks to his backstory, and not that he’s “better” or “more important” than the characters we already have years-long relationships with.

In fact, I’d say that while Crow’s moments were great in 2021, the best story told this year was that of Mithrax, Saint-14, Osiris, and Lakshmi-2 in the Season of the Splicer. The political machinery of the Tower, the re-evaluation of Saint’s relationship to the Eliksni, the tension between Saint and Osiris, the struggle of Mithrax to protect his people as a group of vulnerable refugees among ostensible enemies–it was all excellent, and added a huge degree of depth to traditional Destiny ideas. Crow was barely a part of that, and it’s true that you can think of each season as having its own protagonist. What I think Crow is indicative of is Bungie’s attempts to make each of those episodes part of a larger whole, not just happening near each other. And that has improved the game significantly in my mind.

The entire seasonal approach, I think, has been greatly enhanced in 2021, such that it stands apart from other Destiny years. Even though we haven’t had an expansion for a bit since The Witch Queen was delayed, 2021 still did a great job of providing content at what felt like a solid, but not irritating, cadence. I know some players will take issue with that viewpoint, but I’d hazard that the vast majority of Destiny players–even die-hards–benefit from small bursts of weekly content or seasonal content, rather than bigger drops, on the whole. I’ve said before that I loved turning in each week for a TV show-like burst of Destiny 2, where I wasn’t required to sink hours into the game at any given time. There’s enough to engage without being buried. As an adult with other obligations, I found that flow to be excellent.

I liked each of the seasons this year and thought all of them had something good to offer. The seasonal activities feel like improvements and refinements over past years, and a lot of the frustrations that grew out of things like forge ignitions or warsat launches have been ironed out. It’s all just generally more fun and less annoying. The Shattered Realm and Expunge missions deserve special shoutouts, I think, as well–mixing six-player activities with these slightly slower, more thoughtful levels mixes up the weekly routine in a way that keeps things repeatable, while feeling a lot less repetitious. It’s a great approach.

Finally, I want to mention my favorite thing this year: Presage. A phenomenal story mission with tons of secrets, I played Presage over and over and over again to uncover everything it had to offer. It’s a particularly excellent mission because it taps into different aspects of the Destiny story and world, pulling on different emotions. I’d love to see more horror-leaning missions in Destiny 2 and I think Presage is an excellent proof-of-concept in that regard. We saw this year just how well Destiny 2 can juggle different genres of experience within its framework–I’d say that Dares and Grasp of Avarice are the best comedy Bungie has brought to the game, for instance, and that’s another high-water mark of “not the usual Destiny” to go with Presage. The variety is exciting, and I hope Destiny 2 takes more steps in different, creative directions.

Destiny 2 is in a great place as we head toward The Witch Queen. The game continues to improve with each passing year. From what I’ve heard from Bungie about its approach to the new expansion’s campaign, for instance, I’m pretty excited about what the future holds. The game has hit a particularly excellent stride, and it seems very likely that it’ll gain more momentum with the launch of The Witch Queen and beyond.

As always, feel free to drop your own feelings in the comments if you want to argue with my rosy take on Destiny 2, or if you’d like to call out anything you liked about the game in particular this year (like transmog–man, so much fashion). If there’s something you’d like to see in future instances of this column, you can drop those in the comments as well.

Read MoreGameSpot – Game News

Recently, Halo Infinite has settled into a nice multiplayer groove. Soon after the free-to-play multiplayer mode launched, its monetization and battle pass were bombarded with rightful criticism from players. Over the past couple months, however, changes to the Battle Pass progression have been regular. Daily challenges finally offer enough experience points to effectively level up the game’s battle pass within a single gameplay session. Weekly challenges now have more variety and are easier to complete. An effective test case for this is the second Fracture Tenrai event. The first week of the event was controversial, as players claimed that it took too long to complete event-specific challenges with little reward to compensate. Seemingly in response, this week’s event offers more challenges (10 as compared to seven) and more frequent cosmetic rewards.

Changes to Halo Infinite multiplayer based on player feedback have been slow, rather than dramatic, but this latest event is a firm step in the right direction. However, even good changes belie the fundamental problem of Halo Infinite’s monetization system. No matter how much slicker systems of monetization and play become, the game’s money-making component relies on players spending more time and money than they otherwise might.

This isn’t to say that Halo Infinite has not undergone real improvement since its multiplayer mode launched in November. A good challenge structures play rather than dominates it. Sometimes I’m really in the mood for Slayer or Fiesta, but generally I’m up for whatever; I just want to play Halo. Challenges direct me to certain playstyles or modes. They help me feel as if each match is building to a larger goal than just winning in the moment. The addition of challenges like “Complete five FFA matches” or “Earn 7,500 Player Score In Team Slayer” help direct play while being relatively unobtrusive.

The primary problem here is having a whole queue of mode-specific challenges means you can only complete them one at a time. Fortunately, multiple challenges for the same mode tend to cue up at the same time. It’s relatively easy to bang out a challenge or two simultaneously, before moving on to the next “set.”

The challenge system still includes some annoyances, though they are significantly smaller than at launch. For example, I tend to skip challenges based on getting kills with certain weapons, unless those weapons are easily obtainable. Because each weapon spawn offers a type of weapon (e.g. pistol or shotgun), rather than a specific gun, it can be difficult to find the right weapon for your challenge, even if you know the maps by heart. Especially with the game’s more powerful weapons, which spawn on a timer and are also randomized based on the map, it can take five or more games to even get the opportunity to use a weapon for a challenge. The alternative is playing Fiesta, a mode where loadouts are randomized at spawn, but that obviously has a similar problem. It is always a little tough when a challenge locks you out because of random chance. To be fair, I have, at least, always had enough challenge swaps to get rid of particularly taxing or annoying challenges.

Despite the improvements, there is still a fundamental friction with the game that cannot be solved with better or more generous challenges. Multiple times, I have stopped playing Halo, though I was still up for more games, because I could get more XP in the morning. If I waited for the dailies to reset before activating a double XP boost, I could complete weekly and daily challenges simultaneously, thereby earning even more XP. I’ve also booted up another match, even though I felt done, because I needed one more kill to finish a goal. Fundamentally, battle passes and challenges push players to spend more time, more consistently with the game, regardless of whether they are enjoying that time or that consistency.

Furthermore, everything in the store is just too expensive. I, like every gay person playing Infinite, contemplated buying the cat ears bundle. I just couldn’t bite the bullet on spending 10 dollars on a minor accessory and the color pink. If you are playing the game for free, cosmetic options are limited to a handful of color swaps. This would be inconsequential if the game’s default designs were dynamic or varied. I am less interested in cosmetics in a game like Apex Legends, because the default designs are cool and at least vary from the dozens of other characters people might play. Loading into a match of Halo Infinite with four grey knock-off Master Chiefs is a grim sight, particularly since the game spends the opening and closing moments of the match showing off each player’s cosmetics. Because the multiplayer is free-to-play, it is inevitable that access to cosmetics requires plenty of time and at least a little money. That doesn’t make it feel any better.

Unfortunately, many or even most of these problems are inherent to monetization through a battle pass and a cosmetic store. There will always be a tangible difference between players who have spent money and those who haven’t. The battle pass will always encourage people to spend time on the game’s terms, rather than their own. I’ve said this before, but by nature, microtransitions uphold an exploitative economic model. This does not mean that it is fruitless to criticize issues with specific games or celebrate gradual change. Rather, I would invite us to open the possibility space, to trace the problems of monetization to their source, and to use these smaller controversies as fuel for transforming a frequently exploitative and destructive industry.

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The 24th annual Independent Games Festival is just around the corner and after a year filled with countless critically acclaimed indie games, the competition is pretty fierce. However, after sifting through a catalog of over 400 entries, the organizers behind the 2022 Game Developers Conference have revealed which independent titles are up for some of the festival’s most prestigious awards.

Leading the pack in award nominations are Daniel Mullins Games’ eerie deck-builder Inscryption and Witch Beam’s heartfelt puzzle game Unpacking, two games very different in content but both celebrated for their unique mechanics and interesting narrative. Both titles have four nomination each in the same categories: excellence in audio, excellence in design, excellence in narrative, and, last but not least, the Seumas McNally grand prize.

In addition to Inscryption and Unpacking, Overboard!, Jett: The Far Shore, and The Eternal Cylinder all have multiple nomination across award categories. Up for the festival’s grand prize–the Seumus McNally Award–are Inscryption, Unpacking, Loop Hero, The Eternal Cylinder, Cruelty Squad, and Unsighted.

You can read up on every game nominated for an IGF award–as well as all the honorable mentions–over on the festival’s official webpage. Here’s a list of the contenders for the showcase’s top five categories:

Seumas McNally Grand Prize

Inscryption (Daniel Mullins Games)Unpacking (Witch Beam)Loop Hero (Four Quarters)The Eternal Cylinder (ACE Team)Cruelty Squad (Consumer Softproducts)Unsighted (Studio Pixel Punk)

Excellence in Audio

Toem (Something We Made)Unpacking (Witch Beam)Jett: The Far Shore (Superbrothers A/V + Pine Scented)Mini Motorways (Dinosaur Polo Club)Sable (Shedworks)Inscryption (Daniel Mullins Games)

Excellence in Design

Inscryption (Daniel Mullins GamesUnpacking (Witch Beam)Overboard! (inkle)Strange Horticulture (Bad Viking)Webbed (Sbug Games)Midnight Protocol (LuGus Studios)

Excellence in Narrative

Last Call (Nina Freeman and Jake Jefferies)Neurocracy (Playthroughline)Closed Hands (Passenger)Overboard! (inkle)Inscryption (Daniel Mullins Games)Unpacking (Witch Beam)

Excellence in Visual Art

The Eternal Cylinder (ACE Team)Behind the Frame: The Finest Scenery (Silver Lining Studio)Papetura (Petums)Fuzz Dungeon (Jeremy Couillard)The Wild at Heart (Moonlight Kids)Jett: The Far Shore (Superbrothers A/V + Pine Scented)Read MoreGameSpot – Game News

My Hero Academia fans rejoice, as the English transition of the popular anime’s Japanese mobile game My Hero Ultra Impact has begun pre-registration on both the Apple App Store and Google Play.

The English version of the mobile RPG will include all of the characters, updates, and events of the Japanese version, which has amassed three million downloads since its May 2021 debut. In-game Hero Gems will be rewarded to those who pre-register, with the number of Hero Gems increasing with each milestone (up to 500 Gems per player).

My Hero Ultra Impact lets you relive the events of the anime through touch-based RPG gameplay, with each hero’s individual Quirks accessible with one tap. The game also features a PvP mode where players can customize and create teams of heroes and villains, as well as the Hero Base, a customizable area where players can invite characters from the anime, according to the official release, to “take a break from the strains of battle and relax.”

My Hero Ultra Impact is slated for a 2022 release, though a specific release date has not been announced. Ultra Impact is not the only MHA game available for mobile devices, with My Hero Academia: The Strongest Hero also on the App Store and Google Play now.

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Riot Games is getting ready for the arrival of Episode 4 Act I with a new agent, battle pass, and a new line of skins. On January 5, Neon was revealed via a trailer, and it has since been revealed that Act I will also introduce a new battle pass packed with Valentine’s Day-themed rewards, and a new line of sci-fi skins named Protocol 781-A.

Neon’s abilities are listed below (as described by Riot), alongside a peek at the new range of skins. Everything surrounding Act I of Valorant’s latest Episode feels very dark sci-fi and dystopian. So, it’ll be interesting to see where the lore takes us over the coming months, as well as how Neon may impact the balance of the game. So far, her abilities seem to revolve around speed and precision primarily.

Neon’s Abilities

Ability 1: High Gear – Instantly channel Neon’s power for increased speed. When charged, Alt fire to trigger an electric slide. Slide charge resets every two kills.

Ability 2: Relay Bolt – Instantly throw an energy bolt that bounces once. Upon hitting each surface, the bolt electrifies the ground below with a concussive blast.

Ability 3: Fast Lane – Fire two energy lines forward on the ground that extend a short distance or until they hit a surface. The lines rise into walls of static electricity that block vision and damage enemies passing through them.

Ultimate: Overdrive – Unleash Neon’s full power and speed for a short duration. Fire to channel the power into a deadly lightning beam with high movement accuracy. The duration resets on each kill.

When it came to designing Neon, two words were at the tip of developer’s tongues, “fast and frenetic,” says Ryan ‘rycou’ Cousart. “The goal we had aligned on for Neon was that she would move fast, and her utility should supplement,” they continued. If there is anything that players could’ve assumed about Neon from her trailer, it is that she would be speedy.

Protocol 781-A Skins

The latest bundle from Riot has themes of dark sci-fi and high-tech in its look. The bundle includes Personal Administrative Melee Unit, Phantom, Spectre, Bulldog, Sheriff, a Gun Buddy, a Card, and a Spray. Like previous bundles, Protocol will cost players 9,900 Valorant Points (approximately $104.98).

Riot senior producer Preeti Khanolkar stated “our goal was to create a sci-fi skin like that would be very appealing but unlike any other sci-fi skins we’d created so far,” when designing Protocol. “We ended up with a backstory that the skins exist in another world where large cities have seen explosive growth, resulting in overcrowding and chaos, so an oppressive shadow government attempts to control the disorder. As a result, a law known as Protocol 781-A dictates that all government personnel are issued a weapon which provides combat assistance, monitors performance, and ensures compliance,” said Preeti.

Thinking of the new bundle as a form of artificial intelligence program certainly adds a sinister element to how Valorant’s agents may be controlled. Yet, it’s undeniable that Riot have nailed its dystopian dream with the skins, Neon, and the accompanying battle pass for Episode 4 Act I.

Valorant’s current Act ends on January 10, with Episode 4 Act I being due to go live any day after that.

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Endgame Expeditions in Amazon’s MMO New World are about to get a whole lot harder, if players are willing to accept the challenge. Expedition modifiers called Mutators, and 10 additional difficulty levels for each Mutated Expedition, are currently being tested on the game’s public test realm.

As detailed by Amazon in a new blog post, Mutators augment enemies within Expeditions–New World’s versions of dungeons–with various affixes in a system that isn’t all that dissimilar to World of Warcraft’s Mythic+ dungeon system. Upon completing a Mutated Expedition, players are scored based on speed, the number of enemies killed, and how many times players died or wiped during the Expedition. Players can unlock higher difficulty levels (and earn better rewards) by earning a high enough score.

Amazon states that it expects higher difficulties to be “extremely difficult.” Given that more than a few players have complained about New World’s lack of endgame content, the introduction of Mutators and multiple difficulty levels will hopefully give New World’s most dedicated fans more goals to work towards.

The other major addition being tested on the PTR is the new Umbral Shard system. This new resource provides a means for players with items of 600 gear score to increase the power of those items up to 625, with Amazon stating that doing so will be “critical if you want to dive into higher-difficulty Mutated Expeditions or gain a competitive edge in PvP.” The shards can be acquired in a number of ways, including completing lower level Mutated Expeditions. Players will need a corresponding Expertise level of 600 to apply an Umbral Shard to a given piece of gear.

While Mutated Expeditions and the Umbral Shard system are the big talking points, the PTR does feature a few other changes as well. The Azoth cost for fast traveling long distances is being reduced significantly and Expeditions are also seeing their loot tables adjusted, alongside other minor changes.

No word yet on when Mutated Expeditions or Umbral Shards will be arriving in the live version of the game, but it’s likely to be within the next few weeks. New World received its first holiday event in the form of the Winter Convergence Festival last month. Amazon has recently started merging low population New World servers into one another in an effort to create servers with healthier populations.

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Mojang is back to updating Minecraft with the game’s first beta of the new year. Minecraft: Bedrock Edition Beta 1.18.10.26 is a small one, introducing a smattering of new features and bug fixes. The beta’s most notable feature, though, is the addition of three new Froglight blocks, which players can only get by using frogs.

Froglight blocks come in three colors: pearlescent, verdant, and ochre, and emit light of that color. However, actually getting the new blocks will likely be a challenge to anyone who doesn’t just spawn them in. Froglight blocks are, as the name suggests, made by frogs. Players will somehow have to lead a frog to a small Magma Cube, which the frog will then eat and summarily spawn a Froglight block.

The challenge there is getting the two entities close to one another. Magma Cubes only spawn in the Nether, so getting a frog from its native swamp into the Hellish biome will likely take some time. Likewise, small Magma Cubes are spawned after defeating larger ones, adding another step to the process.

Along with Froglight blocks, Minecraft’s latest beta adds a number of other changes, including visible damage on Iron Golems and Blast Furnaces and Smokers giving players XP again. A full list of the beta’s changes can be found below.

Minecraft beta 1.18.10.26 patch notes

Frogs

Frogs and Tadpoles now have soundsFrog panic speed is now appropriateTadpoles now have the panic goal

Frog Egg

Glow Lichen can no longer be placed on top of Frog Egg

Froglight

Three new Froglight blocks have been added (Pearlescent, Verdant, Ochre)The Froglight blocks emit lightThe blocks are obtained by luring a Frog close to a small Magma Cube. The Frog will eat the Magma Cube and a Froglight block will drop. Each Frog variant will cause a different Froglight block to drop

Features and Bug Fixes

Stability and Performance

Fixed an issue that could cause the entities in a chunk to not save when exiting a worldThe game now loads certain seeds and worlds around Mesa biomes without crashing

Vanilla Parity

Iron Golems now show different degrees of cracking depending on their health. Iron Ingots can be used on damaged Iron Golems to repair themGlow Lichen now has similar brightness as on Java EditionFoxes now aim downwards when they pounceRemoved the emerald icon above a Villager’s head when tradingUpdated trade tables for Butchers, Cartographers, Librarians, and Wandering TradersIron Golems now only attack players with a very bad standing in a village after attacking a villager

Accessibility

Text-to-speech (TTS) now correctly reads the names of experimental toggles

Commands

Added a new ‘/damage’ command to allow players to deal damage to entitiesPlacing Cocoa Beans with ‘/setblock’ or ‘/fill’ commands no longer results in an error

Feature placement

Large Dripstone feature does not generate floating on top of lava anymorePointed Dripstone clusters no longer have a chance of spawning only stalagmites of height one

Furnaces

Blast Furnaces and Smokers once again give XP

Gameplay

Pointed Dripstone now sometimes generate on large stalactites and stalagmitesLava pools now only generate in positive Y coordinates Lava pools that generate close to Y=0 will have Deepslate and Stone blocks casingCoral now generates in the deeper depths of Warm OceansThe Grove biome now has more variety of treesFixed Light Block’s brightness not being adjustable when playing in VRFixed Light Block not being continuously placed while holding right-click and movingLight Blocks can now be waterloggedFixed issue where breaking blocks, opening chests, and entering portals would be delayed/not work when there are lots of mobs nearbyGrass and double flowers now have proper animations when breakingFlower blocks are now properly destroyed by explosions when inside snow layersSkeleton Horsemen now pathfind correctly

World Generation

Iceberg features no longer replace Snow Blocks of Igloo structures (MCPE-147690)Water in open air mountain caves no longer generates unevenlyAquifers no longer generate with missing water blocks

Technical Updates

GameTest Framework (Experimental)

Entity Added function teleport(location: Location, dimension: Dimension, xRotation (optional): float, yRotation (optional): float)Added function teleportFacing(location: Location, dimension: Dimension, facingLocation: Location)Added registerAsyncmethod to register and properly track the state of GameTests using async functions

General

Reapplied changes to use “allowlist” instead of “whitelist”

JumpToBlockGoal

JumpToBlockGoal now correctly searches the same distance upwards and downwards when looking for jumpblockcandidates, allowing a mobs that use the goal to jump equally high as low

Blocks

Added support for blocks having the same name as long as they belong to different namespaces

Animations

Fixed animation controller recursion checks from falsely disallowing normal repeat usage of a controller

User-Interface

Fixed issue where up and down arrow buttons in the Resource Pack Settings screen became bigger when highlightedRead MoreGameSpot – Game News

Ahead of its release later this month, Ubisoft has released a new trailer for cooperative multiplayer shooter Rainbow Six Extraction, breaking down some of the game’s establishing lore.

The trailer kicks off with some striking imagery of the effect the Chimera parasite has had globally, with the black tendrils of the threat decapitating the statue of liberty. In response, the Rainbow Six team has established a new unit, called React, to go out into the field and study the parasite and its evolving threat. Only in this way can React develop tools needed to push back the threat and ultimately save humanity.

The trailer also provides new looks at two of the game’s special enemy types. The Lurker is an elite enemy that can turn itself and nearby allies invisible, while the Apex can spawn lesser enemies to the field and overrun your team quickly. As a member of React, you’ll be given access to special weapons to combat these threats, each of which you’ll need to strategically use with your teammates to survive.

Rainbow Six Extraction launches on January 20 and will come to Xbox Game Pass for Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and PC. Ubisoft has also announced plans to bring its own subscription service, Ubisoft+, to Xbox soon.

In our recent hands-on preview of Rainbow Six Extraction, editor Jordan Ramée praised the game’s overall gunplay, but lamented the lack of some elements that make Rainbow Six Siege’s maps so dynamic, writing, “The game has some cool-looking maps that dwarf the size of those found in Siege, but without an easy means of regularly bending that environment to your will in order to create new pathways and sightlines, it loses out on what I find most fulfilling about Siege’s gameplay.”

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Rust servers have been wiped, but no new content was pushed in the latest update. Instead, Rust devs Facepunch released a blog post recapping Rust’s 2021 and promised to keep providing updates on the first Thursday of each month in 2022.

As for what new things the new year will bring, Facepunch devs didn’t reveal much, but did comment that players “can expect to see new weapons, deployables, events, vehicles, animals and so much more.” The studio released two teaser images–one of a future arctic monument and a new animal, the polar bear.

In February, Rust will also get a “heap load” of quality-of-life changes. From January 1-14, Twitch Drops are enabled–which means if you catch one of the specific Twitch streamers mentioned on Facepunch’s list, you can get select in-game rewards. For the aforementioned January period, by watching the Spanish creators Egolands, you can get weapons, garage doors, and more.

This week’s limited edition skins are also available on Rust’s Steam page, including a frosty set of armor (’tis the season).

Rust had a pretty good 2021. The survival game received a surge of popularity and attention from Twitch streamers and viewers, and to this date, Rust has sold almost 12.5 million copies.

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With the Dawning now officially over, we’re in the home stretch in Destiny 2 before the launch of The Witch Queen expansion in February. If you’re still working on the various seals and triumphs from 2021, you’ve got roughly two months to get them done. As always, that means it’s a good idea to hit up Xur for some fresh Exotics and Legendary weapons and armor to help you along the way.

Xur arrives in the solar system on Friday morning, so we’ll update this article when he lands.

Xur is present every weekend in Destiny 2, starting with the daily reset at 9 AM PT / 12 PM ET each Friday. His exact location is always a mystery when he first arrives, as he is not listed on the map, and for novice players, he can be easy to miss. However, there are a set number of locations where he takes up residence, including the Tower Hangar area, on Nessus in Watcher’s Grave, and in the Winding Cove area of the EDZ.

Alongside changes in his location, Xur’s inventory also rotates weekly. That means it’s worth visiting him each time to check out his new weapons and rolls on Exotic and Legendary armor. You can visit him any time between his arrival Friday and the weekly reset at 9 AM PT / 12 PM ET the following Tuesday when Xur departs the solar system.

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