Author: Trafficblast

With Halloween nearly upon us, we’re seeing spooky events showing up in lots of games this month. Among them is the online shooter Destiny 2, a game that’s seen a significant uptick in fresh content since the launch of the Forsaken expansion. The latest update is the Festival of the Lost event, which runs between now and November 6 and introduces lots of new gear and cosmetics. The most sought-after reward in the whole event is a new auto rifle called Horror Story.

Horror Story is a fully-Masterworked Legendary auto rifle that comes with Zen Moment and Rampage. It’s also locked at 600 Light, which will give a nice Power boost to lower-level players. You can buy Horror Story from Amanda Holliday in the Tower, but to do so you’ll need to save up 120 Fragmented Souls, a new currency that was introduced in the Festival of the Lost. And the only way to get Fragmented Souls is to participate in a new PvE event called the Haunted Forest. Here’s everything you’ll need to do.

(If you’ve already unlocked the Haunted Forest, you can check out these 10 tips for surviving the Haunted Forest as well as a trick for escaping the scary pit at the end of each run.)

Unlock the Haunted Forest

The first thing you’ll need to do after downloading the latest Destiny 2 update is head to the hangar in the east end of the Tower and talk to Amanda Holliday. She’ll give you a Master Rahool mask and assign you a mission to investigate Lost Sectors on Io. Drop in at The Rupture on Io and complete the mission. Once you do, head back to the Tower and talk to Amanda, who will ask you to investigate the Haunted Forest.

As luck would have it, you can find the Haunted Forest right on the map of the Tower. Before you launch, equip your mask and apply one of the three mods available for it. Also make sure to equip a favorable loadout before launching, because for some reason your gear is locked for the duration of this quest step.

The Haunted Forest is a darker, spookier version of the Infinite Forest, but your goal is simple. All you have to do here is clear out the enemies in each area until the text on the screen reads, “Branch clear 100%.” At this point, you’ll be teleported to a battle against a Nightmare version of a boss.

Defeat it, and you’ll be returned to the Tower, where you’ll have to talk to Amanda one more time. She’ll give you a nice reward for your trouble: the Fighting Lion grenade launcher, along with its catalyst. Now the Haunted Forest is open for business, which means you can begin collecting Fragmented Souls.

Get Bounties

Regular trips through the Haunted Forest will net you a handful of Fragmented Souls, but collecting the 120 you’ll need to buy Horror Story requires a good deal of grinding, so you’ll want to maximize your time by getting all the advantages you can.

To get additional Souls, you can pick up all of the bounties Amanda Holliday has on offer. She sells five daily bounties that grant you one Soul each, plus one weekly bounty that gets you 40 Souls. To complete the weekly one you’ll need to do 15 Festival bounties, which is worthwhile, considering the weekly bounty gets you a third of the Souls you’ll need to buy the weapon.

Grind the Haunted Forest

Once you have the bounties, it’s time to head back to the Haunted Forest. You have two options for entering it: Haunted Forest and Firewalled Haunted Forest. The only difference is that Haunted Forest has matchmaking, while the Firewalled one does not. To maximize your Souls you’ll need a team of three players, so make sure to launch into the standard Haunted Forest option unless you’re already in a three-person Fireteam.

Each Haunted Forest run is similar to the one you did to unlock the area, except you and your partners have 15 minutes to clear as many branches as possible. When the timer runs out, you’ll be able to finish the branch you’re currently on, unless your team wipes. When it’s over, you’ll be transported near a loot chest that contains the Fragmented Souls you’ve earned. Don’t worry if you fail to collect the Souls for whatever reason–they’ll be waiting at the Postmaster.

As you collect Fragmented Souls, you might be tempted to spend them on masks and other items Holliday is selling, but you’ll probably want to wait until you get your hands on Horror Show before buying up the rest of her inventory. In any case, just make sure you save up 120 Souls before the Festival of the Lost goes away on November 6.

It seems Sony loves nothing more than springing a surprise sale on PS4 owners. Right now, in addition to the regular weekly PlayStation Store sale, you can save up to 50% on a mountain of mostly spooky games to play during the lead-up to Halloween and beyond. As usual, PS Plus members get an extra discount on top of these deals. It’s the Sale of the Dead, and it runs between now and November 2. Let’s take a look at what deals are available.

If bang for your buck is what you’re after, you can pick up BioShock: The Collection for $26. These creepy games tell some of the best and most out-there stories you’ll find in any shooter on the market. And if you’d like to spend time trying to avoid death-by-xenoomorph, grab Alien: Isolation for $15.

With Devil May Cry 5 scheduled for March 2019, now is a great time to catch up on the series. You can pick up the first three games in Devil May Cry HD Collection for $18 and finish it off with Devil May Cry 4 Special Edition for $10.

Some early PS4 games are on sale for deep discounts right now, including The Order: 1886 for $5 and Until Dawn for $6. Both are cinematic horror stories. Speaking of, What Remains of Edith Finch ($20) is basically a playable collection of short stories that all revolve around death. One of them even takes place on Halloween.

What connection, exactly, Street Fighter has to horror is unclear; nevertheless, you can pick up Street Fighter V: Arcade Edition on sale for $28. Hitman: Game of the Year Edition might not seem like it has a Halloween connection, but in fact it does: you can grab the Halloween Pack for free right now. The full game is also discounted to $30 right now.

We have more selections below, or you can head to the PlayStation Store to see the full list of sale items.

A new week means you can find a new set of video game deals at Best Buy, available both in-store and online. This week’s sale sees temporary price drops on a handful of PS4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch games, as well as discounts on accessories and $10 rewards for specific purchases and pre-orders. Let’s take a look at what deals are available between now and October 27.

For PS4 owners, select DualShock 4 controllers are $5 off this week, bringing them down to $60 each. They come in a variety of colors, which is great for anyone looking to expand beyond the traditional black. Pre-order Fallout 76 this week, and you’ll get a special steelbook edition, plus access to the beta. The beta begins October 23 on Xbox One and October 30 on PS4 and PC.

If you trade in select games between now and December 1, you’ll get a $10 coupon toward the purchase of Battlefield V in addition to the game’s trade value. That’s on top of the $10 reward credit you can get for pre-ordering Battlefield V. Speaking of credit, if you pre-order Just Cause 4, which comes out December 4, you’ll also get a $10 reward. And buying Dragon Ball FighterZ for Nintendo Switch gets you a free $10 Best Buy gift card.

There aren’t that many games on sale this week at Best Buy, but you can same some cash on a few fine titles. Sports fans can grab NHL 19 or NBA 2K19 for $40 each. The open-world shooter Far Cry 5 is on sale for $30, the cheapest we’ve seen it drop yet on console. And Xbox One owners can pick up Minecraft: Explorer’s Pack for $20.

You can find more video game discounts at Best Buy right here.

If you’ve been thinking about upgrading to an Xbox One X, you might want to do it soon. Between now and October 28, GameStop is running a promotion that gets you a sizable bonus on the trade-in value of other current-gen consoles–provided that you put the credit toward the purchase of an Xbox One X.

How much trade credit you get depends, of course, on which console you trade in. If you have a PS4 Pro lying around that you’re ready to part with, you can get $300 toward an Xbox One X at GameStop. That’s $50 more than you’d get for trading it in for regular GameStop credit.

In perhaps a more likely scenario, you can get $250 toward an Xbox One X for trading in a Nintendo Switch, PS4 Slim, original PS4, or Xbox One S. An original PS4 normally nets you $150 in trade credit, so that’s a nice $100 bonus. And if you’re looking to upgrade to an X from an original Xbox One, you’ll get $200 credit, which is also $100 more than you’d normally get. Seeing as an Xbox One X costs $500, this trade-in deal lets you get one by parting with just $200 to $300 in cash.

The Xbox One X is Microsoft’s mid-generation upgrade model that offers a boost in both power and features over the original Xbox One or Xbox One S. It plays all the same games, but it can render many of them natively in 4K, with HDR for more accurate colors, shorter load times, and improved framerates.

In our Xbox One X review, Jimmy Thang wrote, “While the Xbox One X is an expensive box, from a hardware standpoint, you’re getting a very powerful and capable machine. You’ll be hard pressed to build a comparably powerful PC for $500. On top of that, you get a 4K HDR Blu-ray player, which can cost several hundred dollars on its own.” For more information, you can check out our comparison of all Xbox One models.

Any game as big as Red Dead Redemption 2 is probably going to be a system-seller. And if you’re in the market for an Xbox One S or Xbox One X, you can save $100 if you buy Red Dead Redemption 2 from GameStop between October 25 and November 3. That’s a killer deal for anyone who’s looking to buy both of those items anyway. Better yet, you can pick up your copy of the game at GameStop starting at 9 PM local time, three hours earlier than it goes live on digital stores.

If you need help choosing between the two console models, you can check out our Xbox One S and Xbox One X reviews to get the full rundown on what features each one includes. We’ve also done an in-depth comparison of the models. It’s worth noting that Red Dead Redemption 2 is an Xbox One X-enhanced game, meaning it runs in 4K and supports HDR when played on an Xbox One X connected to a TV with the corresponding features. (The S also supports HDR, but not native 4K–it’s confusing).

Red Dead Redemption 2 is a prequel to the 2010 original. It takes place in 1899 and finds the Van der Linde gang on a crime spree in the Old West. You play as a man named Arthur Morgan this time around, though the previous game’s protagonist, John Marston, also makes an appearance. The game comes out October 26 on Xbox One and PlayStation 4.

You can check out our Red Dead Redemption story recap to get yourself up to speed from a narrative perspective. We’ve also gone hands-on with the game, so you can see our thoughts on 90 minutes of playtime. And if you’re ready to place your pre-order, we have everything you need to know about the pre-order bonuses, as well as what comes in each edition and how much it costs in our Red Dead Redemption 2 pre-order guide.

There’s no shortage of ways to get your hands on a copy of Red Dead Redemption 2 when it launches on October 26 for PS4 and Xbox One (you can check out our Red Dead Redemption 2 pre-order guide for details). The only problem is, you’ll have to wait until October 26 before you can play it. If you want to get it a little earlier, it turns out there’s a way to do so. Both Best Buy and GameStop have announced they’ll begin selling copies of the game at 9 PM local time on October 25–the day before it launches elsewhere.

That gives you a three-hour head start on everyone who ordered it digitally. You’ll still have to go home and install the game to your console’s hard drive before you can play it, of course–and it’s an enormous game. But because the data is installed on your hard drive from the disc instead of downloaded from the internet, it’s quite possible you’ll be up and running before midnight. (Then again, it’s also possible there will be a download on top of the disc install).

You can pre-order Red Dead Redemption 2 from GameStop here or from Best Buy here. All pre-orders come with a download code for the Ardennes War Horse and Outlaw Survival Kit.

Red Dead Redemption 2 takes place in 1899, at the tale end of the era when outlaw gangs were running amuck in the Wild West. Rather than taking control of John Marston like in the previous game, you play as Arthur Morgan, another member of Dutch Van der Linde’s gang. To refresh your memory about the story of the previous game, you can take a look at our Red Dead Redemption recap or watch the video above. Also be sure to check out our Red Dead Redemption 2 impressions for more information.

Ubisoft has announced a new update for Rainbow Six Siege that changes a few of the game’s Operators. The update comes halfway through Siege’s Year 3, Season 3–referred to as Operation Grim Sky–and makes adjustments based on the influence of the two newest Operators, Clash and Maverick.

The two Operators getting patched in the update are Maestro and Clash. Ubisoft outlined the changes the two would undergo in a blog post on Siege’s main website. Both Operators are Defenders. Ubisoft wants to make Maestro less confusing to use, and change Clash so that she performs more in line with the developer’s original plans for the Operator.

The update changes Maestro’s ALDA 5.56 so that its recoil matches that of other LMGs in the game. Currently, the ALDA 5.56 reduces recoil the longer it fires without aiming down the sights, but this has “led to confusion” where players try to aim as if recoil would increase with sustained fire.

Clash is getting reduced weapon swapping speed between her shield and sidearm, and the delay before her shield’s charge refills will be doubled. Also, Attackers that Clash shocks will regain full mobility after only 0.5 seconds, instead of the existing 1.5 seconds. “Ultimately, we believe that this will further drive the idea that Clash is reliant on teammates, as opposed to an Operator that can exist completely independently,” Ubisoft wrote. “She is not intended to be able to hold half of the map by herself, and will now require the proper support from teammates to do so.”

These changes were calculated as a part of both Operators’ Win Delta and Pick Rate. An Operator’s Win Delta is the percentage of how often said Operator is a part of a winning team. The Pick Rate is the percentage for how often an Operator is picked, regardless if they’re on a team that wins or loses. When graphed on a chart, Ubisoft is able to determine which Operators are over picked and too strong, over picked and too weak, under picked and too strong, or under picked and too weak.

Although there are no scheduled changes for any other Operators in this update, Ubisoft wants to patch both Lion and Glaz in the near future. The developer has two possible solutions for Lion, which should fix how “problematic” he is at higher level play. “One adjustment would remove the intel gathering aspect of his gadget, or we may go with the other, which will trigger more of a Jackal style ping,” Ubisoft wrote. For Glaz, Ubisoft wants to bring the Operator back to his original role as a sniper in the rear. Currently, Glaz is one of the best “site pushing” Operators who can lead the charge with a high-powered weapon.

Ubisoft held a Reddit AMA to address further details about the new update. The full patch notes for the update can be read below.

Rainbow Six Siege Y3S3.2 Update Patch Notes

Operators

Clash

• Reduced weapon swapping speed between CCE Shield and Sidearm
• Delay before refilling charge after usage ends increased to 2 seconds, from 1 second
• Attackers regain full mobility after 0.5 seconds, down from 1.5 seconds, after being shocked

Maestro

• ALDA 5.56 recoil aligned with other LMGs

Weapons

SMG-11

• Reducing recoil to improve handling

Vector

• Reducing recoil to improve handling

Two more Xbox 360 games have joined the Xbox One backwards compatibility lineup. These new additions include a family-friendly Star Wars game and a satirical sim.

Lego Star Wars 2: The Original Trilogy was one of the earliest Lego-branded takes on a popular franchise, after the first Lego Star Wars hit it big by immortalizing the prequel trilogy in plastic bricks. As the name implies, it’s a take on the three classic films A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi.

Tropico 4 is one of five entries in the long-running simulation series that makes you dictator of a small island nation. As “El Presidente” you’re tasked with keeping citizens happy or quelling rebellions to retain power and stave off the ever-present threat of being overthrown.

Both Lego Star Wars 2 and Tropico 4 received positive GameSpot reviews. As always, if you own these games digitally you can download them from your library, or insert the disc if you own the physical copies. They’re on sale in the Xbox Store for $15 (Lego Star Wars) and $10 (Tropico).

Microsoft has been regularly adding new backwards compatibility features since introducing the initiative in November 2015. The full list of backwards compatible games is getting pretty sizable at this point. If you need some recommendations on which ones are worth your time, check out our gallery of the best Xbox One backwards compatible games.

The beta for Fallout 76 is just about ready to get underway, and those who will be playing on Xbox One can already pre-load it. This test won’t be available at all times, but with the first of these nearly here, Bethesda has announced the first window during which you’ll be able to play. The initial session will take place today–Tuesday, October 23–from 7 PM ET / 4 PM PT to 11 PM ET / 8 PM PT. The full schedule for the first test follows below.

As previously detailed, Bethesda will be running individual targeted time frames for players to access the beta. The idea is that this will force more players together at a specific time to stress test and put the game through its paces. Sessions will typically last 4-8 hours in a given day, and then the beta will be inoperable again until the next session. The process will repeat over again until November 14.

A beta code is available to anyone who pre-ordered the game across Xbox One, PC, and PlayStation 4. Pre-loading is only available on Xbox One for now, since the PC and PS4 betas will begin on October 30. You’ll receive a code with your physical pre-order to enter into the accounts page, or you’ll be entered into the pool automatically if you pre-order a digital copy. Note that those codes don’t grant you access. Rather, they put you into the potential pool of players to get a distribution code later, since Bethesda is rolling out the invites in waves.

Fallout 76 Beta Times (October 23/24)

• US Pacific Time: 4 PM – 8 PM (Tuesday, October 23)
• US Eastern Time: 7 PM – 11 PM (Tuesday, October 23)
• UK BST: 12 AM – 4 AM (Wednesday, October 24)
• Australia AEDT: 10 AM – 2 PM (Wednesday, October 24)

Bethesda plans to let to keep your progress from the beta through to the full game. Pre-ordering also will get you 500 Atoms, the in-game currency, for purchasing cosmetic items in the shop.

Fallout 76 is due out on November 14. For more details, check out our guide to everything we know.