Month: August 2021

Unlike other enemies in Aliens: Fireteam Elite, Synthetic androids require a very different approach when encountered. Armed to the teeth and completely fearless, here’s a rundown of the blue-skinned Weyland-Yutani soldiers that you’ll need to fight with actual tactics and intelligence. For more guides, be sure to check out our Aliens: Fireteam Elite guide roundup.

Working Joe

“Brilliantly simple and simply brilliant” as they were described in Alien: Isolation, Working Joes aren’t too much of a threat. Android cannon fodder, these working units are armed with a wrench and can easily be taken down. If they do get close, though, they’re a disruptive presence that can do moderate damage.

Synth Guards and Troopers

They might be fragile, but these more advanced Synthetic troopers are still a force to be reckoned with and necessitate the use of cover-based tactics to deal with. Headshots are always effective, but Synth Guards are adept at also taking cover, have impressive levels of marksmanship, and they won’t hesitate to focus all of their attention on a single target that hasn’t yet found a safe barrier to hunker behind.

Containment Synth

Armed with a bulletproof shield, Containment Synths will slowly push forward while absorbing gunfire. There is a small gap in their shield to fire through if you’re skilled enough, but your best option when dealing with these troops is to let one player draw their attention and then circle behind them to take advantage of their exposed weak point. Electric rounds also work well, as being hit with this ammo-type will cause the Synths to drop their shields momentarily.

Synth Warden

Stronger, more durable, and able to issue commands, the Synth Warden is also easily identified by its cutting-edge baseball cap and its habit of throwing grenades at your position. When driven into a corner, it can activate its own Overclock ability to fire off rounds more quickly.

Synth Detonators

Even the Synthetic troops have a kamikaze unit, which happens to take the shape of a headless automaton that can somehow see you and won’t waste time rushing your position. Once they reach their mark, Synth Detonators will automatically self-destruct, damaging you and any equipment caught in their blast radius.

Synth Sniper

Not only do these Synthetics boast the best accuracy in the game, they’re also positioned well across the map, and they’ll easily shave huge chunks of health off of players caught in their crosshairs. Stick to cover, quickly close the gap when they stop aiming, and take out the ultimate marksman up close and personal if you’re wielding weapons that don’t work too well from long distances.

Synth Incinerator And Synth Heavy

The ultimate Synthetic combat unit, these combat androids are heavily armored and come equipped either with a flamethrower or a minigun. Essentially Demolishers, the heavy Synths will walk through whatever you throw at them and the best tactic for dealing with them is to once again focus fire, make ample use of your special abilities, and pop a consumable such as an electrified landmine.

Unlike past entries in the main series, Halo Infinite is coming to PC at launch. Now, the game’s system requirements appear to have been revealed, detailing what kind of rig you’ll need to run the game.

According to Steam, the minimum requirements call for an AMD FX-8370 or Intel i5-4400 processor better, 8 GB of RAM, and an AMD RX 570 or Nvidia GTX 1050 Ti card. The recommended specs, meanwhile, ask for an AMC Ryzen 7 3700X or Intel i7-9700k processor, 16 GB of RAM, and a Radeon RX 5700 XT or Nvidia RTX 2070 card. This applies to both the campaign and the multiplayer, both of which will also require about 50 GB of space to install, according to the Steam page.

We have followed up with Microsoft in an attempt to find out if these system requirements are the real deal or are placeholders.

According to Microsoft, Halo Infinite was “built from the ground up for PC.” It will have “advanced graphics settings” and support for ultrawide and super ultrawide monitors, along with triple-key binds and features like dynamic scaling and variable frame rates.

After a big delay, Halo Infinite is now slated to launch on December 8 for PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S. The campaign mode is included with Game Pass, while the multiplayer is completely free-to-play. The December 8 release date is the latest into the year that Microsoft will have ever released a new mainline Halo game, but analysts have said the specific timing maybe doesn’t matter so much because Halo Infinite is a live service game that will grow and evolve over time.

In other news, the next Halo Infinite beta test will be bigger in scope than the first one, introducing Big Team Battle and 4v4 Slayer. Microsoft also plans to invite more players to this test, so if you missed out on the first one, you might have a better chance of getting into the next one. The only way to get in is to sign up for Halo Insider.

Halo Infinite PC System Requirements

(According to Steam’s product page for the game, not confirmed by Microsoft)

MINIMUM

• OS: Windows 10 RS3 x64
• Processor: AMD FX-8370 or Intel i5-4440
• Memory: 8 GB RAM
• Graphics: AMD RX 570 or Nvidia GTX 1050 Ti
• DirectX: Version 12
• Storage: 50 GB available space
• Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system

RECOMMENDED:

• OS: Windows 10 19H2 x64
• Processor: AMD Ryzen 7 3700X or Intel i7-9700k
• Memory: 16 GB RAM
• Graphics: Radeon RX 5700 XT or Nvidia RTX 2070
• DirectX: Version 12
• Storage: 50 GB available space
• Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system

The original double-jaw killing machine, there’s no shortage of Xenomorphs roaming the corridors, air vents, and ancient alien ruins of Aliens: Fireteam Elite. Here’s a look at just how many variants you’ll face throughout the game. For more guides, be sure to check out our Aliens: Fireteam Elite guide roundup.

Facehuggers

The original 1979 nightmare fuel, Facehuggers may be fleshy obstacles that can be taken down with just a few rounds, but they make up for their fragility with speed and guile. They can usually be found in eggs in the later levels, where it’s always a good idea to destroy them before they can hatch. Should Facehuggers get loose, though, they’ll quickly move towards you and attempt to violate your social space, so keep an eye open for them as even a single one can disrupt a well-organized defense.

Runners

The rank and file variant of the iconic Xenomorph species, Runners are simple-minded cannon fodder that can easily be taken out with a precise burst from a pulse rifle. What the Runners lack in fortitude, they more than make up for in terms of numbers that can easily overwhelm a strike team and a cunning nature that allows them to use their environment to their full advantage. They’ll crawl over ceilings, climb walls, and run through your offense to get one last swipe in, while their corpses leave behind an acidic reminder once they expire.

Prowlers

For a Xenomorph species that features a distinct red carapace, Prowlers are adept at hiding in the shadows. They’ll often lurk in the quieter corridors of a level, and if you don’t spot one in time, they’ll pounce on you and deliver some quick damage. With a chunky health bar, you’ll need a full clip of ammo to take one of these predators down, and in combat, they’ll use the Runner as cover to close the gap and use a leap attack to finish you off.

Bursters

Every Xenomorph is a ticking time bomb thanks to the acidic blood that pumps through their veins, but Bursters take this idea to a whole new level. With more pressurized bodily fluids, Bursters operate similarly to Runners but explode upon death, leaving a longer-lasting and more damaging puddle of acid behind. Acidic blood from Runners result in minor damage, but Bursters will eat through your health points in no time at all if you’re caught in their deathly blast radius.

Drone

A blast from the past, Drones come out of the airlocks and other nearby entry points to stalk your team and hunt them down. While they don’t have too much armor, they do have a fairly substantial amount of health points. And once a Drone takes damage, they’ll scamper off to an exit point, biding their time until they can strike again. Drones aren’t much of a threat for a fireteam that sees them coming, but for any straggling members, they can be an instant death sentence.

Warrior

The Warrior essentially acts like a Drone that doesn’t care too much about self-preservation or finding a hiding spot when it has soaked up a few hundred bullets, as it’ll instead charge towards a player and grab them. At this point, you’ll have to quickly engage in a mini-game of avoiding its secondary set of jaws or hope that the rest of your team can take it out before it does too much damage.

Spitters

Unlike the majority of Xenomorphs that have a head-first strategy when dealing with hive intruders, Spitters will stick to a distance and fire lethal globs of their acidic fluids at players. Able to take a significant amount of damage, Spitters also make good use of cove,r and if one of their acid bombs connects, it’ll leave you in a stumbled state. If the projectile misses, it’ll still leave its mark on the ground around you as a temporary trap, so avoid, take cover, and force the Spitter out of hiding with some precise headshots.

Crusher

Big, heavy, and equipped with an armored head crest, Crushers are the tanks of the Xenomorph horde and won’t hesitate to rush in and knock players down. Most of their armor is situated around their head, so when this charger appears, distract it with one of your teammates and attack from the rear to quickly burn through its defenses before it smashes yours.

Praetorian

The pinnacle of the Xenomorph species, Praetorians serve multiple roles in a hive that range from royal guard to army commander. In Aliens: Fireteam Elite, that role is to utterly smash through any resistance, a job that they’re frighteningly well-equipped for. Praetorians have the thickest armor, do incredible amounts of damage, and will shrug off any attacks until they’re close enough to lunge towards you. The only way to halt them is with special attacks from certain Marine classes, incendiary ammo, and drones that highlight weak points, allowing for a fireteam to concentrate fire and cut these deadly giants down to size.

Alien Queen

Don’t gawk, don’t engage, and save your ammo. You’ll only encounter a Queen once in the game, as the end of the campaign will unleash the Xenomorph matriarch towards you. Don’t try to fight it, as the Queen is invulnerable and will knock you down with a single swipe. There’s no power-loader suit nearby, so all you can do is run. Remember, you don’t have to be faster than the queen, but you do have to be faster than the rest of your team.

The beta for Ubisoft’s new extreme sports game Riders Republic is now open for everyone. After a closed test, Ubisoft has opened it up to everyone, now until August 28.

To join the beta, you need only click the “Play Now” button on the Riders Republic beta website, and this will take you to a link to download the beta, which is available across console and PC.

The beta client is between 19-21 GB, depending on your platform, and the PC system requirements can be seen here. Unlike the closed beta, this open beta is not under any kind of NDA, so users can create and share content and videos with no restrictions.

For those who were chosen for the closed beta, which started August 23, their progress will carry forward to the open beta. However, as is often the case for open betas, progress will not extend to the full version of Riders Republic when it releases later this year.

Check out the Riders Republic FAQ page to learn more.

Riders Republic is an extreme sports game that builds on the foundation of Ubisoft Annecy’s Steep but goes much further with additional sports and a bigger world to explore. The game also has events called Mass Races, where more than 50 people race together.

After a delay, Riders Republic is slated to launch on October 28 for PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC, as well as PS4 and Xbox One. It’ll be on streaming services too, including Stadia and Luna, while subscribers to Ubisoft+ will get access to the game as well.

For more, check out GameSpot’s Riders Republic preorder guide. You can also check out GameSpot’s preview of the game, “Riders Republic Seems To Fulfill The Extreme Sports Fantasy.”

Following Halo Infinite‘s big showing at Gamescom’s Opening Night Live event where we saw a new multiplayer trailer and learned the game’s release date, series hero Master Chief has returned to Fortnite as a character skin.

The previously released Master Chief Set has returned to Fortnite’s in-game store. “Defender of humanity and destroyer of alien ringworlds, the Master Chief returns to the Island,” Epic Games said.

The set includes a Master Chief skin, a Gravity Hammer axe, a UNSC Pelican as a glider, and a themed emote and back bling. You can see all the items in the image above. The set, which is priced at 1,500 V-Bucks, was originally released in December 2020 but later rotated out of the shop, as items do.

Master Chief returns to Fortnite just after Microsoft announced Halo Infinite’s December 8 release date at Gamescom’s Opening Night Live event. The company also released a new Halo Infinite cinematic and announced a special-edition Xbox Series X console and Elite controller themed around Halo.

Fans have been waiting a long time for Halo Infinite, as it was originally slated to launch in holiday 2020 before being delayed an entire year. The game is using a games-as-a-service approach, and features like Forge and campaign co-op will be added after launch. The multiplayer element is free-to-play.

Volition’s Saints Row reboot is about to kickstart a new era for the series, but the overall style, attitude, and gameplay of this reboot still draws from the games that came before it. One change that fans can expect though is a revamped system for car combat, as Volition has transformed vehicles into four-wheeled weapons.

An example of this gameplay will be seen when the Saints challenge one of the rival gangs–Los Panteros, The Idols, or Marshall Defense Technologies–to a showdown in Santa Ileso. According to Volition’s chief creative officer Jim Boone, these events are inspired by action films such as John Wick and Baby Driver, and the car combat sequences won’t have any cruise control.

“We did spend a lot of time with a driving model to try to make it as drivable as possible,” Boone said to Polygon. “You will still be able to fire out the window like you could in previous games, but we’ve gone a different route in terms of the way the car combat works. You’re using the car more as a weapon in Saints Row than you are using your firearms. As a result of that, we didn’t feel like we needed to try to come up with that cruise control mechanic from the past.”

There’s more than one mode of transportation available in Saints Row though, as players can explore the city on motorcycles, hoverboards, and even wingsuits. Saints Row is currently scheduled to arrive on February 25, 2022.

The second month of next year is already stacked, as numerous other games will be launching within days of each other. SNK’s brawler The King of Fighters XV has February 17 in its sights, PS4 and PS5 exclusive Horizon Forbidden West arrives on February 18, and February 22 will be shared by indie martial arts game Sifu and the next expansion in the Destiny 2 saga, The Witch Queen.

Destiny 2’s ultimate PvP experience Trials of Osiris is getting a significant upgrade on September 10, resulting in a game mode that is being overhauled to feel more accessible and rewarding.

One of the biggest tweaks will be done to the schedule of Trials of Osiris, as it won’t be active every weekend as it traditionally was. During the first week of new seasons, Iron Banner weeks, and before the start of a world-first race when a new raid launches, Trials will be offline so that players can focus on other events.

Matchmaking has been tweaked, as solo players can matchmake with other groups instead of having to already be in orbit as part of a three-player team. A solo-only “freelance” playlist will be added in the future, mirroring the option found in Iron Banner. The catch here is that matchmaking will be skill-based, as players can only join other Guardians who have a similar number of wins under their belt from that particular Trials weekend.

As for the loot that drives players to try out Trials, Bungie is getting rid of Trials tokens and replacing it with Trials reputation. This will be earned for completing matches and winning individual rounds, with Trials armor and weapons earned through engrams earned via reputation rank-ups, Ranks 10 and 16 will guarantee unique weapons, and earning a Trials engram allows players to dictate which loot they get when they focus it, similar to how Umbral engrams function.

Trials Passages are now being tweaked to be account-wide and will no longer track losses. Players seeking a flawless run, passage to the Lighthouse, and Adept gear will still need to reset their cards after a loss, but getting seven wins and grinding for rewards will be easier as the three, five, and seven-win drops format has been removed.

Three-peeking has been almost eliminated so that players can’t abuse the shift to third-person view to get a better look at their surroundings, Bungie will ban players who use win-trading tactics, and Trials will only be accessible if players own the latest annual expansion.

More changes will be tested throughout the Season of the Lost through the Crucible Labs, as Bungie continues to fine-tune the multiplayer mode.

In other Destiny 2 news, this week saw plenty of reveals for the future of the series. Next year’s Witch Queen expansion received a full trailer, Bungie confirmed that fan-favorite Exotic rocket launcher Gjallarhorn is making a comeback in December, weapon crafting is coming to the game next year, and 2024 will bring the current Destiny saga to a close in the expansion The Final Shape.

Epic Games and Time Studios have teamed up to create Fortnite March Through Time, an all-new experience that pays homage to the life and achievements of Nobel Peace Prize recipient and civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr.

Developed by members of the Fortnite Community and available as of today, the new experience allows players to witness Dr. Martin Luther King’s full “I Have a Dream” speech in-game. Details of the game mode were shared on the PlayStation Blog, which states that players taking part in the experience will travel to a reimagined Washington DC at the Lincoln Memorial and US National Mall, where Dr. King originally gave his speech in 1963.

The experience also includes museum-inspired points of interest and mini-quests that players can undertake alongside one another. Those who fully complete the March Through Time experience will gain access to an in-game reward in the form of a D.C. 63 spray for their lockers.

In addition to the game’s new March Through Time experience, Fortnite recently also launched a new Impostors mode. With lobbies up to ten players, the game mode draws upon similar mechanics to the indie title Among Us. Situated on a new map known as The Bridge, fans of the title are split into teams of eight agents and two imposters who are then pitted against one another in a battle of wits and nerve.

Whilst many Fortnite fans have flocked towards the new game mode, the feelings haven’t all been positive – a number of Among Us developers took to Twitter upon Impostors release to share their feelings about the similarities between the two games. For more on Fortnite, make sure to check out our dedicated IGN page where you can access a range of the game’s latest news, clips, and trailers.

Jared Moore is a freelance writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter.