Category: Games

Battlefield 2042 does not have a campaign, but EA and DICE are not abandoning story altogether with the futuristic military shooter. A standalone short film set in the year 2042 is coming, and you won’t have to wait too much longer to watch it.

The movie will premiere on August 12 at 8 AM PT / 11 AM ET / 5 PM CEST. “Witness the locations of Battlefield 2042 through the eyes of embedded journalist Kayvan Bechir,” reads a line from its description. It seems like there will be teasers each day until August 12, as EA said players can expect more information every day until the full video premieres.

In the first teaser, a scrambled voice says, “The world wants to forget we exist. We will force them to see.” Brief flashes of footage appear, including a ship at sea, planes flying into a storm, and a soldier sprinting through an unban environment. Here’s the teaser:

Despite being an online-only multiplayer game, Battlefield 2042 does have some story elements. As we reported earlier, you play as a “No-Pat,” a person from one of the many countries that broke apart due in part to the impact of climate change, collapsing governments, and lack of resources.

GameSpot’s Phil Hornshaw explained, “Battlefield 2042 imagin[es] a worldwide refugee crisis creating a whole lot of conflict itself. The No-Pat people come from all walks of life, but just as farmers, doctors, engineers, and factory workers are displaced by the global problems, so are soldiers–and without a country to fight for, they’re also searching for a way to make a future in the world.”

Battlefield 2042 launches in October, but an open beta is coming up in September to give you a shot at trying out the game before launch. For more on the game, check out GameSpot’s recent preview of the ambitious mash-up mode, Portal.

Apex Legends Emergence has finally arrived, and it’s added a whole new array of new content to the popular battle royale game. Season 10 brings many new additions, including buffs to Fuse and Caustic, nerfs to Horizon and Revenant, a new gun, and a major change to the World’s Edge map.

The biggest addition in Emergence is the new Legend, Seer. Born under a bad sign, Seer is a recon-oriented Legend with abilities that track, reveal, and interrupt the actions of your opponents. His Ultimate creates a sphere of microdrones that reveal the footsteps or gunfire of nearby enemies, which gives you a major leg-up on opponents.

The game’s World’s Edge map is the site of another major shift. Overmining has pushed the land to its edge, and there are now two weather-control machines on the map that have made it into a winter wonderland with lava in the center. Emergence also adds a new gun to the game in the form of a Rampage, an LMG similar to the L-STAR. You can also load a thermite grenade into the Rampage to overclock its fire rate, which is a pretty nifty feature.

The new Ranked Arenas mode is another big addition to the game, which will finally allow players to track their competitive acumen in the game’s 3v3 team deathmatch mode. Emergence also makes several major changes to the Legend meta, including big buffs for Fuse and Caustic, and nerfs for Revenant and Horizon. Fuse’s ultimate now reveals the enemies caught inside of its ring of fire, which makes it much more useful.

Respawn recently said that it has no plans to bring back old battle passes to allow players to receive the exclusive sets from previous seasons. Exclusive sets that are tied to seasonal events that come into the game every now and then are generally available if you missed them the first time, though.

Apex Legends Season 10 Emergence Patch Notes

New Legend – Seer

With microdrones and an artist’s eye, Seer spots opportunities that other Legends might miss and seizes them in the most beautiful way he can. Check out his kit in action below.

Passive – Heart Seeker

Visualize and hear the heartbeats of nearby enemies when aiming down sights to get a clue to their location. Seer is able to “ADS” even while not holding a weapon.

Tactical – Focus of Attention

Summon microdrones to emit a focused, delayed blast that goes through walls, revealing enemies (and their health bars!), plus interrupting their actions.

Ultimate – Exhibit

Create a sphere of microdrones that reveal the footsteps of enemies moving quickly or firing their weapons within.

Class Passive: Recon

Scanning survey beacons reveals the next circle’s location.

Map Update – World’s Edge

After months of aggressive mining by the Harvester on World’s Edge, the land is overmined, overburdened, and pushed to its limit. The earth has fractured and erupted as nature is reclaiming what’s hers. Hammond is scrambling to contain the damage they’ve caused using weather-controlling machines: the Climatizer rapidly cools the surrounding area to subzero temperatures, and a Lava Siphon stabilizes the caldera. Fight for control of the always-moving gondolas in Climatizer and Lava Siphon, traverse the bubbling hot lava with caution, and show everyone what Legends are made of!

Read more on the map changes in this blog post.

New Weapon – Rampage

Rampart’s latest creation, the Rampage LMG, blasts onto the scene and has absolutely no chill. This high-powered heavy ammo LMG takes its time but packs one hell of a punch. The Rampage excels at mid-range combat but struggles up close with a slower fire rate. Not one for just accepting weakness, Rampart managed to modify the Rampage’s internal combustion mechanism with, what else? Thermite! Loading a thermite grenade into the Rampage’s special chamber overclocks the fire rate and lets Legends go on a, well… rampage!

RANKED ARENAS

With the launch of the Emergence update, we’re introducing Ranked Arenas! You begin your journey through Ranked Arenas in 10 placement matches where your performance will determine your initial Match Marking Rank (MMR) and your starting rank. MMR variance is wider initially, so your first 10 matches might be stomp-or-get-stomped until your MMR defines your placement.

Arenas is a head-to-head fight between two teams of three, so awarding Ranked Arenas Points is more cut-and-dry than in the 20 team Battle Royale. This means there is no entry cost and no AP for kills. Everything comes down to getting the win.

That’s just the high level of how ranked arenas work. To learn more details on how Ranked Arenas will work check out our blog here.

QUALITY OF LIFE UPDATES

• Added a new badge: Win Streak. Can you get 2, 3, 4, or 5 wins in a row?

• Added a “Hold On” response to enemy pings.

• Added distinct sound effects to the Gold Backpack’s revive. VFX were added in the Chaos Theory update. This gives additional feedback when players are close to but not in line-of-sight of revives.
• Updated the Heirloom store to give players a better view of all the items related to that item.

• Updated Open Pack Button to show how many packs of each type are available to open. Highlighting the button shows a complete breakdown.

LEGEND META

FUSE

• Enemies caught inside the ring of fire from Fuse’s Motherlode ultimate are now revealed to Fuse’s team.
• Knuckle Cluster Tactical explosion duration increased by 100%.
• Grenadier Passive can be toggled on and off to throw ordnance normally.

Dev Note: Fuse continues to struggle. We identified two opportunities to help him that weren’t just “give him more damage.” We believe Apex is a gun game first and foremost and therefore want to make sure we don’t put too much damage into character abilities.

The first opportunity we identified was his tactical. While meant as a persistent area denial tool, it currently does not last long enough to seriously inconvenience an enemy. We doubled the duration so you can now place one at a door and be reasonably sure no one’s coming through that door for a little while. While we doubled the duration, the damage per second remains the same. Please don’t stand in the fire.

Secondly, his ultimate often didn’t give his team an advantage; sure, you may catch enemies within it, but the flames made it impossible for you to step inside, and you couldn’t see the enemies you trapped either because the flames were in the way. We explored a few ways to deal with this but ended up going for the most straight-forward answer: you get enemy outlines as long as they stay inside the ring of fire.

HORIZON

• Reduced the slow after the initial Black Hole pull.
• Bumped Horizon gravity lift-up speed to a happy medium between 9.1 and Legacy update launch values.

Dev note: There’s no doubt the nerfs Horizon received with Legacy were necessary, but given the benefit of time and hindsight we decided we probably hit the speed of her tactical too hard. Instead of completely reverting that part of the nerf, we found a happy medium between how fast her gravity lift operated at release and how slow it was after the nerf. This one’s hard to communicate with numbers, so just give her a try and tell us what you think.

REVENANT

• There’s now a visual and audio cue when Death Totem protection is about to end which can be seen/heard by other players.
• Added a brief slow after being recalled to Death Totem.

CAUSTIC

• Gas damage starts at 5, increases by 1 every other tick indefinitely.
• Cooldown on Tactical has been reduced 25s -> 20s.
• Ultimate cooldown has been reduced 3.5m -> 3m. Duration reduced from 20s -> 15s.

Dev note:

Caustic is a dangerous character to buff. Push him a little too far, and he quickly takes over the meta. Constantly fighting through gas is no fun, so we definitely want to avoid him becoming dominant once more. That said, we’re now convinced the nerf that dropped his gas damage to a flat 5 damage went too far. When you can sit in gas and take a syringe or two and be fine, gas is not a scary enough deterrent. So we switched back to a scaling model. This time we decided to let the damage scale a little more slowly. Instead of going up by one every tick, we’re increasing it by one every other tick. Damage is uncapped at the top here, but really that’s very theoretical. Enemies will generally be dead around the time the gas reaches 11 damage per tick (unless you’ve been healing). The desired effect here is to make enemies feel a great urgency to leave the gas as soon as possible.

At the same time, we wanted to be mindful specifically of Caustic’s impact in late game circles at the highest level. Even with Ring 6 now slowly closing over 100 seconds, we were worried about the effect that a single Caustic ult could have in the late game. We reduced its duration by 5 seconds. The ult represents Caustic’s highest moment of power; his enemies have no way of countering it. 15 seconds is still a meaningful amount of time (and with the damage changes, 15s is long enough to kill someone) but it should hopefully make fighting a Caustic in the end game slightly less frustrating.

WEAPON META

SUPPLY DROP ROTATION

This season the Prowler returns to floor loot and taking its place is the M600 Spitfire. In addition to the Spitfire this season another weapon will be joining the supply drop: the Alternator SMG. See how each weapon changes down below.

HOP UPS

• Boosted Loader – Reloading near empty (but not at 0) increases reload speed and overloads the next magazine with extra rounds. This hop up will be equipable to the Hemlok Burst AR and the Wingman.
• To make room, the Anvil Receiver and Quickdraw Holster are being vaulted for now.

FULLY KITTED ROTATION

• Added: Peacekeeper, Rampage, RE-45, Flatline, and Charge Rifle
• Removed: Wingman, Bocek, R99, Hemlock, and Sentinel

MAGAZINE ATTACHMENTS

• Reload speed increase associated with magazines has been moved to the equivalent stock rarity tier.

Dev Note

Magazines are the most potent source of lootable power for most weapons and that largely comes in the form of ammo capacity. In addition to capacity, they were also offering increased reload speed. We’ve moved the reload speed buff to stocks to help increase the value of stocks and spread out our meaningful modifiers across our attachments.

STOCK ATTACHMENTS

• All stocks now offer increased reload speed (instead of magazines)
• Marksman Weapons (30-30 Repeater, G7 Scout, Triple-Take) now take Sniper Stocks instead of Tactical Stocks
• Sniper Stocks on Marksman weapons will offer increased stability and sway reduction with slightly reduced handling bonuses (from tactical stocks)

Dev Note

Sniper stocks are an often lonely attachment left sitting on the floor waiting for a crackshot legend to come along and give them some love. Instead of reducing the spawn rates to try and clean up the loot pool we’re putting them on Marksman Rifles to make them more desirable.

L-STAR

• Now takes Energy Magazines—Mags on the L-STAR work differently than other weapons because of its unique interaction with ammo. Instead they will allow the L-STAR to fire more shots before it overheats and allow it to cool-off its heat build up slightly faster.
• Now take Barrels for recoil reduction
• Projectile VFX scale reduced by roughly half
• First-Person on-hit impact effect intensity reduced
• Hipfire spread increased

Dev Note

The L-STAR has undergone a few changes in Emergence. We’ve attempted to improve the looting experience and extend the L-STAR’s power into the later phases of the game. In addition to these attachment additions the L-STAR is also seeing some VFX changes for combat readability.

LIGHT MACHINE GUNS

• Reduced the headshot multiplier for all LMGs from 2.0 to 1.75
• Increased the limbshot multiplier for all LMGs from 0.75 to 0.85

Dev Note

LMG spray-and-pray was feeling a little too oppressive when random headshots chunked with a 2.0 damage modifier. We’re shaving off some of that headshot firepower but adding a little back in by bringing up their limb damage. Unloading massive LMG mags to suppress your enemies should still be a valid tactic, we’re just reigning in the peaks and valleys to make it feel a bit more consistent.

PISTOLS

• Reduced handling time for all pistols by ~10%
• Raise, Holster, Zoom In/Out time

Dev Note

With the removal of the Quickdraw Holster and reload speed moving from mags to stocks Pistols took a bit of a hit. We’re increasing their base handling but will keep an eye on their performance as we get into Emergence.

PROWLER BURST PDW

• Time Between Burst increased from 0.2 to .24

Dev Note

The Prowler returns to the floor without its trusty side-kick the Select Fire hop up. But don’t sleep on it, it’s still a beast.

M600 SPITFIRE

• Damage increased from 18 to 19
• Hip Fire Spread back to season 8 pre-nerf values
• Purple Mag Size increased from 50 to 55

Dev Note

We’ve all woken up with a cold sweat in the middle of the night from a nightmare where Rampart with two gold mag spittys chases you on the World’s Edge train tracks laughing maniacally as she shoots for eternity, right? … right? Well for those of us that have, we’ll be able to sleep soundly for a while. The Spitfire takes its rightful place as a Supply Drop weapon this season. We’ve hit it a few times in recent patches and we still want it to be a desirable Supply Drop weapon so we’re walking back those nerfs while making it much harder to access.

ALTERNATOR

• Reintroducing the Disruptor Rounds which come equipped on a Supply Drop Alternator
• Disruptor Rounds – Increase shield damage by 40%
• Disruptor Rounds can ONLY be found on Alternators from the Supply Drop

Dev Note

The Alternator joins the Spitfire in the Supply Drop with its old friend the Disruptor Rounds. The shield damage has come down since we last saw Disruptors in Season 2, but it’s still a shield shredding monster. Pack an extra bat.

30-30 REPEATER

• Reload speed from stocks is increased.

Dev Note

The 30-30 can slap, but when it’s not slapping it’s probably reloading. We’re buffing the 30-30’s bonus to reload speed from stocks to help alleviate one of the sharper pain points when running this heavy rifle.

EVA-8

• Significantly reduced bolt fire-rate scaling for each rarity tier
• Base fire-rate remains unchanged

Dev Note

The EVA-8’s speed makes it a forgiving and formidable shotgun to run. It’s pulled ahead of the pack and has been seen as the clear choice for many leaving the Peacekeeper, Mastiff, and Mozambique in the dust. This change should help even the playing field between the shotguns.

ARENAS WEAPON UPDATES

Care package changes apply to arenas: the Prowler and Rampage replace the Alternator and Spitfire in the Arenas shop.

Prowler Base: 450 Lvl 1: 200 Lvl 2: 300 Lvl 3: 400

Rampage Base: 500 Lvl 1: 200 Lvl 2: 300 Lvl 3: 350

ARENAS PRICE ADJUSTMENTS

L-STAR

• Lvl 1: 100 -> 150
• Lvl 2: 200 -> 250
• Lvl 3: 300 -> 350

30-30 Repeater

• Lvl 1: 200 -> 150

Bocek Bow

• Base: 600 -> 500

Charge Rifle

• Base: 700 -> 600
• Lvl 1: 250 -> 200
• Lvl 2: 300 -> 200
• Lvl 3: 400 -> 450

EVA-8

• Base: 300 -> 350

Mastiff

• Base: 400 -> 350

Peacekeeper

• Base: 500 -> 350

Fuse

• Knuckle Cluster: 75 -> 100

ARENAS ABILITY ADJUSTMENTS

• Horizon’s Gravity Lift starting charges reduced from 2 to 1
• Mirage’s Psyche Out starting charges reduced from 3 to 2
• Bloodhound’s free scans while in Beast of the Hunt reduced from 3 to 2

BUG FIXES

Bloodhound

• Fixed an issue where Bloodhound’s tactical failed to highlight the enemy for the Bloodhound player while they used an emote.
• Enemy Legends now remain visible when performing Bloodhound’s “Tracking” Standing Emote at a higher elevation.
• Trident and Dropship audio should no longer be significantly dampened when Bloodhound is using their Ultimate.

Gibraltar

• Corrected an audio issue with Gibraltars Dome Shield failing to make sound.
• The “Gentle Giant” skin will no longer obstruct the player’s view when aiming down sight with the 1x Holo Sight attached.
• Fixed some instances where the Dome Shield would disappear on placement and not get refunded to the player.

Lifeline

• Fixed cases where Lifeline’s VO still says “I’ve got you. Shields up” even when she no longer has a shield.
• Fixed an issue preventing players from using Lifeline’s Care Package in Training Mode.

Pathfinder

• Pathfinder’s Grapple no longer stays connected when he’s killed while under Revenant’s Death Protection.
• Updated Pathfinder “Copper Core” legs so they now match in first-person view.
• Fixed an issue where Pathfinder’s Grapple cooldown audio cue replayed rapidly after deploying tactical in gameplay.

Wraith

• Wraith should no longer be crushed by closing doors while her tactical is active.
• Wraith can no longer use her ultimate while attached to Valkyrie’s ultimate.
• Fixed a rare bug which allowed downed players to jump/bunny-hop after entering a Wraith Portal that was placed by a crouching Wraith.

Bangalore

• Fixed an issue causing Bangalore’s Smoke Launcher to disappear when moving away from other players with certain Legendary skins equipped.

Caustic

• Solved a bug preventing Caustic barrels from making planting audio when they land in water.
• Caustic barrels tossed just before death should no longer disappear.
• Fixed a visual bug where the Caustic Heirloom pose has a model that disappears after the pose finishes playing during the previewer.
• Fixed a bug that allowed Caustic Barrels to be pushed into players, crushing them.
• Fuse’s Ultimate “Motherlode” is no longer destroyed if it interacts with Caustic gas.
• Wattson’s ult will no longer shoot down friendly Caustic barrels and ults.
• Players should no longer get a server error when attempting to purchase Caustic’s heirloom using Heirloom Shards from the “Heirloom” tab.

Mirage

• Addressed an issue where Mirage’s invisible revive wouldn’t fully cloak teammates when certain skins were being worn.

Octane

• Fixed an exploit that allowed players to wedge an Octane jump pad between a supply bin to make the Trident faster.
• Fixed a visual bug where Octane’s goggles moved independently after using his tactical.

Wattson

• Removed the beam of light that shoots into the sky every time Wattson places down her fence.

Crypto

• Fixed the choppy preview video for Crypto’s “Drone Scan” in the “Finishers” tab.
• Arenas: Fixed a bug where Crypto’s Drone could be deployed and recalled infinite times when the user had only one charge available.
• Switch Only: Fixed a visual bug where Crypto’s position indicator while in his drone flickered near the top and left edge of the screen.
• Switch Only: The UI for Crypto’s tactical charges should no longer overlap with the recharging UI when his drone is destroyed in Arenas.
• Fixed a bug that prevented the Drone from being able to detect enemies using Trident.

Revenant

• Fixed a visual bug when the Heirloom appears to be floating in third-person when looking up and down inside the Gravity Lift.
• Placing a Death Totem too close to the edge of the map should no longer teleport players off the map when returning to the totem.
• Emote fix: Added the missing Silence Orb to Revenant’s “Suffering Silence” emote.
• Fixed some exploitable hiding spots reachable in Rift using Revenant.
• Fixed some cases when Revenant didn’t have horizontal movement animations when holding the heirloom.

Loba

• Lots of fixes across all maps to address issues with exploits, hiding spots, and inconsistencies with using Loba’s tactical.
• UI Fix: The ammo Count in Loba’s Black Market should now display correctly.

Rampart

• Fixed an issue that allowed Rampart’s turret to be placed on Geyser.
• Fixed a bug that caused players to run faster after stowing a fully charged, chargeable weapon—this bug also caused the charged indicator in the UI to go away.
• Fixed an issue where Rampart’s wall would get stuck in an animation loop when hit by Caustic gas.

Horizon

• Addressed some cases where Blackhole/NEWT wouldn’t appear when using Horizon’s Ultimate.
• Fixed an issue where a player’s weapon appears horizontally on the back while using a survey beacon.
• Fixed some cases causing Horizon Ultimate ability to be cancelled out when placed near a supply bin if the bin was opened during gameplay.
• Fixed an issue causing the Trident’s momentum and friction constraints to be modified by interacting with Horizon’s abilities.
• Addressed some cases where Horizon’s Ultimate ability active state persists after being destroyed.

Fuse

• Addressed some cases where players could lose some functionalities after dropping with Fuse.
• Fixed a visual bug that caused part of Fuse’s body to pop up on the screen when toggling throw power after swapping grenades.

Valkyrie

• Made a small change to address feedback that Valkyrie’s UI feels noisy when she first drops from the dropship.
• Fixed an edge case causing passengers on Valkyrie’s ult with bad ping to be reverted back to the ground in an unusual position.
• The Ultimate/Skydive Special UI and targeting will now update with colourblind settings
• Teammates should no longer be able to float around while being tethered to Valkyrie’s Ult by breaking the explosive hold.
• Fixed an issue where Valkyrie could be pushed into unintended areas by the Trident when using her ultimate ability.
• Addressed some cases where Missile Swarm wouldn’t cause damage when hitting a floating enemy Valkyrie in her lower half.
• Fixed some cases of the camera clipping through geo and environment while preparing to launch Valkyrie’s Ultimate.
• Fix for cases where Missile Swarm fails to track the moving train.
• The Kraber target should no longer appear on screen when ADS after using Valkyrie’s passive.
• Fixed an issue where players could still activate Valkyrie’s Tactical and Ultimate while under structures without the vertical clearance requirement.
• Fixed some cases where teammates could clip through walls and appear on the same side of Valkyrie while tethered to her Ultimate.
• Fixed an exploitable spot on Canyonlands where Valkyrie could reach an inaccessible area using her passive.

Pokemon Unite is a simplified MOBA, but a MOBA nonetheless. That means a lot of its high-level play is based around making strong character builds that have subtle differences from one another and counters to each other. Top players are already starting to come up with best practices for the gear loadouts and moves, but if you’re venturing out on your own, there are some rules of thumb you can use to optimize your character build.

In general, to make a decent Pokemon Unite build starts by envisioning your role in a typical game. At a high level that starts with your Pokemon’s class, like Attacker or All-Rounder. That will help determine the type of team role you’ll be fulfilling, and that helps the other parts fall into place. If you choose a Defender, for example, you’ll be far more effective if you build everything–from your move selections to your gear–around defense.

With that in mind, here’s how to make your best build. For more, check out our full list of Pokemon Unite guides, including detailed class breakdowns.

Choose Your Role

The most basic starting point is laid out for you in the game itself. There are five class types in Pokemon Unite:

• Attacker – strong Pokemon that specialize in offensive capabilities to defeat opponents
• Defender – hearty Pokemon that specialize in zone control and blocking
• All-Rounder – versatile Pokemon can switch tasks as needed in battle
• Speedster – quick Pokemon that specialize in reaching contested map points fast
• Supporter – helpful Pokemon that specialize in healing teammates or disrupting enemies

Each Pokemon also has one of two combat types, Melee or Ranged. That makes for ten total possible combinations, like Ranged Attacker or Melee Defender, though some classes do not have both combat options. For example, there are currently no Melee Attackers, Ranged Speedsters, or Ranged All-Rounders in the game.

Choosing your role will be the single most influential decision in determining how you’ll approach a typical match, and you’ll get a pretty wide selection for free as a newcomer. If you choose a Defender, for example, you should go into matches assuming you’ll spend most of your time keeping opponents from scoring on your own goals, or denying your opponents easy movement when tussling with your teammates.

Even within a role, though, there are subtleties that will make them play differently. For that, you’ll probably have to spend some time with your chosen Pokemon to get a feel for how they’ll play. A Ranged Defender like Slowbro is going to play very differently than a Melee Defender like Snorlax.

Prep Your Moves

Once you’ve picked your role, you’ll want to plan out your moves. Each Pokemon will get two choices during combat from a branching path of two moves. To see those, you can check the Progression tab from the Pokemon menu. These are oriented by direction, so with a little foresight and practice, you’ll be able to learn which direction to hit when the upgrade option arrives. For example, if you know you want Cinderace to learn Blaze Kick and then Flame Charge, you’ll know to press Right and then Left on the D-pad when those two options appear.

Knowing your moves will also help you know how long to stay in the jungle. “Jungling” is a MOBA mainstay practice of taking down low-level AI enemies for experience (and in Pokemon Unite’s case, some points). Some Pokemon level up faster than others, so if your Pokemon doesn’t reach its combat potential until it’s further leveled, you may need to hang out in the jungle picking off enemies, or stick close to your teammates for that much longer.

Attack vs Special Attack

Each Pokemon falls into one of two attack types: Physical or Special. It’s important to know which kind your Pokemon uses, because that will impact your build significantly. According to Serebii, the current roster includes:

Physical:	Special:
Absol Charizard Cinderace Crustle Garchomp Greninja Lucario Machamp Snorlax Talonflame Zeraora	Alolan Ninetails Cramorant Eldegoss Gardevoir Gengar Mr. Mime Pikachu Slowbrow Venusaur Wigglytuff

Equipping Your Gear

You can equip Held Items in the Battle Prep section during the countdown before each match, but we highly recommend equipping your builds from the main menu instead, where there is no countdown timer. To find it, press X from the main menu, and then go to Battle Prep and then Held Items. Your Favorite Pokemon will be highlighted by default, but you can swap by pressing X once you’re looking at the gear.

This is where you can equip items, and it’s where all the knowledge above comes into play. Your chosen combat role will determine what kind of gear is best, and your Pokemon’s attack type will make the difference to which kinds of stats need a boost. Lucario, for example, is a Melee All-Rounder. It will naturally benefit from gear that boosts attack, but you need to make sure those buffs are to its physical attack with gear like the Muscle Band. Meanwhile, Support Pokemon that don’t get into direct combat will benefit more from an item like EXP Share. Play with different ideas.

This Battle Prep screen is also where you can level up your gear using earned Aeos Tickets. This has been criticized as pay-to-win, but don’t worry about buffing all of your equipment slots to level 30 right away. Giving them any kind of boost is helpful, and the bigger stat changes tend to come at the start of the upgrade path.

Consult the Experts

If you’re truly stumped about what kinds of builds to create, you have options. One of the world’s top players has already outlined recommended builds for each Pokemon available in the game. You can also find Example Sets in the Held Items tab by pressing Y when you’ve highlighted the items. These recommendations include two sets created by the developers and three more generated from worldwide Master players of each Pokemon. The nice thing about the developer-created builds is that they’re recommended for different priorities like Offense or Scoring, so that will help further guide your targeted playstyle.

While players have been shooting up bots and swinging around maps during Halo Infinite’s technical preview, some have noticed an odd detail. Homes in the future are either being built for Lady Dimitrescu-sized people or Spartans are getting shorter.

A screenshot of the ongoing Halo Infinite beta taken by GamesRadar’s Leon Hurley shows just how wonky the game’s scaling is. In it, a Spartan stands right next to a door, which you’d expect them to basically scrape their head against. Instead, the armored super-warrior looks like a middle schooler, standing with their chest at the doorknob. That’s a little odd taking into account that Spartans are, on average, around seven feet tall.

Of course, the door being so tall, along with most rooms in Halo Infinite‘s beta being so large, was likely done to make players feel more comfortable. With a more fluid movement system, indoor environments have to be larger to accommodate more players running and jumping around a room. It certainly wouldn’t be fun if players could only jump half a foot before banging their head on the ceiling.

Since this is just a beta (technically not even a beta), it’s also possible that Halo Infinite’s scaling could change by the time it launches. The game is currently set to launch this holiday season, but a solid date has not been announced yet. It’s unlikely to be delayed again though, with Xbox boss Phil Spencer saying that Halo Infinite’s release window has been narrowed down to just “a few weeks.”

There’s no such thing as a perfect video game, but Tetris comes pretty darn close. The puzzle classic has been going strong for decades and remains just as fun now as it was in the ’80s, which makes it the perfect choice for a new strategy board game. You can get it now at Target, and it won’t break the bank, either.

Created by Buffalo Games, the Tetris “head-to-head multiplayer strategy game” is available exclusively at Target and only costs $20. It’s designed for 2-4 players to complete in about half an hour, and just like in the video game, you’ll earn points when you complete lines on the vertical board. Pieces slot into a piece of plastic so they can fit into spaces as they would in the original game, and you’ll need to pay attention to the upcoming piece to plan your next move.

Gallery

It is a little bit different from standard Tetris, however, as there are special achievement cards you can try to complete, and there are bonus icons on the board that correspond to certain pieces, giving you extra points if you match them. A little piece called a “Mino” can also be placed in single squares.

Designer Phil Walker-Harding is also responsible for games like Sushi Go! and Silver & Gold, and though his take on Tetris may not be a 1:1 recreation, it certainly seems like it will add some strategy to make it more interesting for multiple people.

Once again, rumors have suggested that Halo Infinite could get a battle royale mode–but don’t get too excited (or upset) just yet. This latest rumor is far from confirmed, but it’s exciting to think about in any case.

According to reports, a datamining effort from the Halo Infinite multiplayer preview has revealed a voice line from multiplayer announcer Jeff Steitzer where he can be heard saying “battle royale.” This appears to stem from the same or a similar datamine that revealed story spoilers for Infinite’s campaign.

Posted on ResetEra, the voice file has Steitzer–or someone who sounds just like him–saying “battle royale.” Following the theory, this is the announcement players might hear at the start of a battle royale match in Halo Infinite, not unlike how Steitzer says “Slayer” at the start of a game.

There are plenty of reasons to be skeptical that Halo Infinite will find its way into the battle royale space in some capacity. First and foremost, developer 343 Industries has repeatedly shot down rumors of Halo Infinite having a battle royale mode. That said, the studio also distanced itself from reports of a grappling hook coming to Halo Infinite, but it did, and people are loving it.

In 2019, Halo franchise boss Frank O’Connor said it is not true that Halo Infinite will launch with a battle royale mode, though he did not rule it out that it could come later on.

Brad Sams, who has accurately reported on many unannounced Xbox endeavors, may be accurate in stating Microsoft has done some work on a Halo battle royale game. Game development is highly iterative. So it might be possible that 343 experimented with battle royale and decided not to pursue it further. Given the enduring appeal of the battle royale genre, it makes sense that Microsoft would at least consider a battle royale mode for Halo Infinite.

It’s also possible the “battle royale” voice line is an unused audio asset that 343’s audio team asked Steitzer to say to cover their bases should the studio ever want to put a battle royale mode in the game. Additionally, Steitzer has a public Cameo page where people can ask him to say anything, so in theory, someone could have paid him to say “battle royale” and then posted it online.

We don’t know for sure. As of publish time, it doesn’t appear that 343 has responded to this latest rumor about Halo Infinite and battle royale. Keep checking back with GameSpot for the latest.

For more on Halo Infinite and battle royale, check out GameSpot’s rundown of all the rumors and possibilities of what could happen.

The Halo Infinite technical multiplayer preview is available now for Halo Insider members who were chosen for the test–and already, they are competing for high scores in The Academy. The preview wraps up later today, August 2, but there will be additional trial periods coming up later, so if you didn’t get into this first one, you might receive an invite next time.

Halo Infinite launches this holiday for Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and PC. The multiplayer is free-to-play, while the campaign is included with Xbox Game Pass. Beware that some story spoilers have begun to leak.

Star Trek Starships: 2294-The Future – Updated and Expanded offers an unprecedented and impressively detailed look at Star Trek’s Starfleet starships, and IGN can exclusively reveal its first look and that it will be available on August 17, 2021.

This new updated and expanded version of Star Trek Starships: 2294-The Future, which first released in 2018, includes 70 pages of fresh reference imagery from starships featured in season three of Star Trek: Discovery and season one of Star Trek: Picard.

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Edited by Ben Robinson and Marcus Riley, this encyclopedia of Starfleet ships presents a chronological history of Star Trek starships from the 24th century to the far future, including the U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701-D from Star Trek: The Next Generation, U.S.S. Voyager from Star Trek: Voyager, and Starfleet’s first true warship – Star Trek: Deep Space Nine’s U.S.S. Defiant.

The hardcover book also features some of Star Trek’s time-travelling ships like Star Trek: Enterprise’s U.S.S. Enterprise-J, Star Trek: Discovery’s U.S.S. Discovery-A, and the Eisenberg-class ship – Star Trek: Discovery’s U.S.S. Nog.

All of the previously mentioned ships and all others are illustrated with CG artwork and include the original VFX models crafted for each of their shows.

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Priced at $34.95 in the U.S. and $44.95 in Canada, Star Trek Starships: 2294-The Future – Updated and Expanded is available for pre-order now from EagleMoss ahead of its official release later this month.

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Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to [email protected].

Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on Twitch.

Apex Legends Season 10: Emergence begins August 3, introducing playable character Seer. Of Seer’s three abilities, his passive ability, Heart Seeker, seems especially valuable as it allows him to track enemy legends through the sound of their heartbeats. Of course, not all of the playable legends are human–Pathfinder is a MRVN and Revenant is a simulacrum–so a few of the characters in Apex Legends don’t actually have hearts. Don’t worry: Seer can sense them too.

“Seer’s passive Heart Seeker ability does work on Pathfinder and Revenant,” software engineer Travis Nordin told GameSpot. “During development, the issue definitely came up! Do we have an alternate sound for non-human legends? Do we have it not work at all? In the end we settled on having the same sound as everyone else for clarity of gameplay. The sound isn’t quite a literal heartbeat and is somewhat synthesized so I think it works. The comparison I’ve been using is that we suspend our disbelief/bend the rules for Pathfinder being able to ‘heal’ by injecting a syringe into his arm–the same can apply here.”

Heart Seeker seems to be a powerful tracking ability–you only get to hear the sounds of heartbeats up to a certain distance but there is no limit on distance when it comes to seeing the heartbeats. So for all those moments you’re trying to discern whether a far-off target is an enemy player or a floating flower petal (if you’ve played on World’s Edge, you know what I’m talking about), you can use Seer’s Heart Seeker to see whether that far-off target has a heartbeat.

“The range for hearing the heartbeats of any enemies within your viewport is 75m,” Nordin said. “The UI element will still work beyond that, but only for targets that you have a direct line of sight to–we wanted to avoid the situation where you’re looking right at someone far away and have the heartbeat sensor UI do nothing. We have some subtle VFX that turns on when you activate the heartbeat sensor as well as an overlay for the ‘vision cone’ on the minimap to help players get a feel for the range in the world.”

In trailers, we’ve only seen Seer use his passive amidst small groups but anyone who plays Apex Legends can tell you that some areas of each map can become chokepoints, forcing half a dozen squads into a major firefight. Respawn planned for that, limiting the scope of Seer’s passive ability so that it won’t overwhelm you with information when you’re surrounded by dozens of heartbeats.

​​”The heartbeat sensor can track up to 10 targets, but we only play the actual audio event for the enemy that is closest to your crosshair,” Nordin said. “During development, it wasn’t always this way but we found that hearing multiple heartbeat sounds at the same time ended up just creating too much noise to parse.”

Nordin added that the UI element to the heartbeat sensor that appears on your crosshair won’t always be there. “[The crosshair] is obviously a very important piece of real estate on the screen, so the UI will fade out as you fire your weapon and dims if there are no targets nearby,” Nordin said. “The goal was for it to feel useful, while at the same time not getting in the way during combat. The UI has pips that rise and fall in the direction of an enemy with the rhythm of the heartbeat sound for an enemy.”

According to Nordin, the lower an enemy’s health, the faster their heart will beat. This is important to note if you’re looking to pair Heart Seeker with Seer’s tactical ability, Focus of Attention, which tracks enemy legends for eight seconds and temporarily stuns them, stopping healing items and certain character abilities.

“With their tactical, [Bloodhound] has this very wide scan,” Nordin said. “You just tag a whole POI and see who’s there, whereas Seer is much more close and intimate. The primary case that I always think: You’re in a building and you hear some footsteps, and you’re like, ‘Is that my teammate? Or is that another squad?’ So you just aim down sights, bringing up the heartbeat sensor, and look around to see if you get a reading. And then, if you do, you can follow up with [Focus of Attention] to hopefully tag them.”

Seer is Apex Legends’ fifth recon character (alongside Pathfinder, Bloodhound, Crypto, and Valkyrie), making him geared towards information gathering and enemy tracking. Like all new legends, you’ll be able to unlock him by spending 12,000 Legend Tokens or 750 Apex Coins.