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Rainbow Six Extraction, the one-to-three player co-op shooter, will launch with full cross-play and cross-progression across all platforms. Players will be able to also play their save on any platform using Ubisoft Connect.

You will be able to hunt down aliens and save missing operations will friends regardless of what platform they are on, for both current-gen and last-gen consoles. Anyone who plays both Rainbow Six Siege and Rainbow Six Extraction will unlock the United Front bundle in both games, unlocking skins for four different operators in both games. In addition to that, anyone who plays both games will unlock all 18 Rainbow Six Extraction operators in Rainbow Six Siege permanently.

Rainbow Six Extraction sees the Rainbow Six team take on an alien threat in repeatable missions where teams of one to three players must infiltrate alien-controlled zones to complete different objectives. If you fail the mission the operator you took on the mission will become unavailable until they are rescued. This mechanic is being used to punish quitters, if you quit a match your operator will also go MIA and be unavailable.

Rainbow Six Extraction releases on September 16 for Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PS4, PS5, PC, and Stadia. Anyone who preorders Rainbow Six Extraction will also unlock the Orbital Decay bundle, which includes a weapon skin, a charm, and a skin for both Lion and Finka.

Disney’s streaming service, Disney Plus, picked up 71 Emmy nominations this year and one of them has the person nominated for it quite confused.

When people think of The Falcon and The Winter Soldier, there’s plenty that probably comes to mind. However, it’s hard to imagine Don Cheadle is what people think of first — not because he wasn’t great in the show, but because he’s only in the series for a couple of minutes.

Despite only being on screen for less than two minutes, Cheadle picked up an Emmy nomination for the role and he’s quite confused by it.

thanks, well wishers. sorry, haters. agreed, 🤷🏿‍♂️ers. i don’t really get it either. buuuuuuuuuut on we go …

— Don” ‘t ask me google questions” Cheadle (@DonCheadle) July 13, 2021

As you can see in the actor’s tweet above, Cheadle doesn’t really understand why his short cameo in The Falcon and The Winter Soldier as MCU mainstay James “Rhodey” Rhodes earned him a nomination. TVLine says his cameo in the show lasted just 95 seconds and it was apparently enough to be nominated for the Guest Actor in a Drama Series Emmy.

In those less than two minutes of the Disney Plus MCU series, Cheadle’s Rhodey character speaks to show star Anthony Mackie (who plays Sam Wilson in the MCU) about Sam’s decision regarding a certain shield that belonged to a certain patriotic hero.

Cheadle, who’s been nominated for an Emmy 11 times according to Entertainment Weekly, is up against Courtney B. Vance in Lovecraft Country, Charles Dance in The Crown, Timothy Olyphant in The Mandalorian, and Carl Weathers in The Mandalorian.

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Cheadle’s nomination is just one of Disney Plus’ 71 Emmy nominations and while that number sounds quite high, it’s only the third highest amount by a streaming service. HBO Max raked in 130 nominations for first place followed by Netflix in second with 129.

Elsewhere in the Disney catalogue, Marvel’s WandaVision grabbed 23 nominations and Disney’s Mandalorian show received 24. The remaining nominations across Disney Plus’ 71 come from various shows found on the streaming service. The 73rd Emmy Awards will be hosted by Cedric the Entertainer and it will air on Sunday, September 19, 2021 on CBS and on Paramount+.

While waiting to see if Cheadle’s Emmy nomination becomes a win, check out our thoughts on the series that nabbed him that nomination in IGN’s The Falcon and The Winter Soldier review. Read this story about the Armor Wars series coming to Disney Plus centered on Cheadle’s War Machine character after that.

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Wesley LeBlanc is a freelance news writer and guide maker for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @LeBlancWes.

The Ninja Gaiden: Master Collection on PC now offers the ability to change graphical options in-game, one month after the collection was released. PC players were upset at the “barebones” PC port of the collection of Ninja Gaiden Sigma, Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2, and Ninja Gaiden 3: Razer’s Edge because it lacked a number of features typically found in PC games, like the ability to change the resolution in-game.

Version 1.0.0.2 adds a number of options to the in-game menu: display mode, resolution, V-Sync, triple buffering, anti-aliasing, depth of field, and display shadows. Some of the options previously existed, like resolution, however it could only be changed in the game’s properties in the Steam library. While this update does add a number of features that were missing from the initial release, it does not offer a fix for all of them. Notably, Ninja Gaiden Sigma still does not offer mouse and keyboard support, only being playable with a controller.

While at the time of launch a representative for Koei Tecmo said the company has “no comment to offer” on these concerns, it appears that the company is aware of the issues players have with the PC version and are fixing some of them. Koei Tecmo and developer Team Ninja have not publicly said when–or if–more updates will be released for the PC version.

Ninja Gaiden: Master Collection is available now on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and PC.

Call of Duty’s Season 4 Reloaded update arrives on July 15, and Treyarch released patch notes, detailing more of what’s to come for Black Ops Cold War‘s Zombies and multiplayer, including a classic nuke killstreak.

Multiplayer

Along with the return of Call of Duty’s classic Capture the Flag mode and Black Ops 2’s Rush paintball map, there will be a new Cranked Moshpit mode. This new playlist will include the all-new Cranked Team Deathmatch and Cranked Kill Confirmed, which will be similar to Cranked Hardpoint from the ’80s Action Heroes event. Basically, eliminate enemies to become “Cranked” to earn buffs, and keep getting kills before your Cranked Timer runs out.

If Cranked isn’t explosive enough for you, Treyarch announced players will now be able to call in a Nuke killstreak. It won’t be a game ending streak, but it will wipe all players when the nuke detonates in all modes. However, League Play and CDL variants, Multi-Team, Party Games, and Gunfight are excluded from the nuke streak.

Zombies

Arriving with the new Mauer der Toten round-based map, players can also expect major changes to enemy health caps, enemy armor durability, sniper rifle critical and max damage buffs, Pack-a-Punched melee weapon damage buffs, as well as damage scaling for equipment, support items, and field upgrades.

The update will also reintroduce the fan-favorite Mule Kick perk, which allows players to carry a third weapon. Treyarch detailed the new perk upgrades that will be available for Mule Kick as players level the perk up to Skill Tier V.

• Base ability: Carry a third primary weapon.
• Skill Tier I: Crafted Equipment grants an additional Equipment if able.
• Skill Tier II: All enemies have a small chance to drop ammo.
• Skill Tier III: Stowed weapons slowly refill ammo from stock.
• Skill Tier IV: 25% chance to keep non-retrievable Equipment when used.
• Skill Tier V: Third primary weapon is recovered when repurchasing Mule Kick.

League Play

Season Four Reloaded will add more rewards to earn in League Play, including new CDL-themed weapon blueprints, charms, emblems, stickers, and XP bonuses at milestones up to 100 wins:

• 10 Wins: Weapon Charm, Sticker, Emblem
• 20 Wins: Pistol Blueprint, Weapon Charm, Sticker, Emblem
• 35 Wins: Weapon Charm, Sticker, Emblem
• 50 Wins: Assault Rifle Blueprint, Weapon Charm, Sticker, Emblem
• 75 Wins: Weapon Charm, Sticker, Emblem
• 100 Wins: SMG Blueprint, Weapon Charm, Sticker, Emblem

Double XP Event

Double XP and Double Weapon XP will be live in both Black Ops Cold War and Warzone starting July 16 at 10 AM PT/ 1 PM ET and ending July 19 at 10 AM PT/ 1 PM ET.

You can see the full July 13 playlist update for Black Ops Cold War below, as shared by Treyarch.

GLOBAL

Weapons

OTs 9

• New SMG available via in-game challenge in Multiplayer or Zombies, or via unique Blueprint version in the Store.

Assault Rifles

Irons Sights have been pushed out for the following:

• XM4
• QBZ-83
• Krig 6
• FFAR 1

Features

Daily 2XP Token Reward

• New Daily 2XP Token Reward can now be earned by completing your first Daily Challenge of the day in Multiplayer or Zombies.
• Return each day for a new 2XP or 2X Weapon XP Token Reward.
• You can only earn one 2XP Token per day. If you don’t complete a Challenge that day, you’ll miss out on that day’s 2XP Token reward.

Prestige Shop

Weapon Blueprints

• New content available in the Prestige Shop, including the “Dark Horse” SMG Blueprint and “Confrontation” assault rifle Blueprint.

Challenges

• Addressed an issue where Challenges that require kills through surfaces would not consistently track kills.

War Tracks

• Addressed an issue that could prevent players from toggling War Tracks on and off while in a vehicle.

High Resolution Texture Packs (PlayStation 5)

• PlayStation 5 players will have high resolution textures moved to opt-in downloadable packs for Multiplayer, Zombies, and Dead Ops Arcade 3. These will no longer be installed by default, and players will need to download these packs for the best visual experience going forward.
• Upon boot-up, players will be prompted to install the packs or cancel the download. If the player cancels, these packs will be available for download via the in-game Store.

ZOMBIES

“Mauer der Toten”

• New round-based Zombies map available for free in Season Four Reloaded.

Enemies

• New enemies in “Mauer der Toten”: The Disciple and Tormentors.

Main Quest

• Main Quest coming to “Mauer der Toten” starting at 10AM PT July 15th.

Perks

Mule Kick

• New Perk available in the Mule Kick Perk Machine in “Mauer der Toten” and in Der Wunderfizz in “Die Maschine,” “Firebase Z,” and Outbreak.
• Base ability: Carry a third primary weapon.
• Skill Tier I: Crafted Equipment grants an additional Equipment if able.
• Skill Tier II: All enemies have a small chance to drop ammo.
• Skill Tier III: Stowed weapons slowly refill ammo from stock.
• Skill Tier IV: 25% chance to keep non-retrievable Equipment when used.
• Skill Tier V: Third primary weapon is recovered when repurchasing Mule Kick.

Wonder Weapons

CRBR-S

• New Wonder Weapon available exclusively in “Mauer der Toten.”
• Base pistol weapon with three Mod Kit variants.
• Zombies killed with any version of the weapon have a chance to drop one of the three Mod Kits.
• Equipping a Mod Kit will convert the weapon to one of its variant forms.

Equipment

LT53 Kazimir

• New Tactical Equipment that can be found as a drop or crafted at the Crafting Table in round-based maps and Outbreak.
• When deployed, creates a portal that pulls in enemies.
• Players who jump into the portal will be teleported to another location.
• Damage Scaling
• Equipment damage will now scale evenly to be more consistent in their ability to kill enemies.
• Addressed an issue where certain Equipment was doing more damage than intended on direct impacts.

Gameplay

Enemy Health Cap Reductions

• Zombies: Reduced to +100% at high rounds (down from +300%)
• Specials: Reduced to +50% at high rounds (down from +100%)
• Elites: Reduced to +25% at high rounds (down from +100%)
• HVTs: Reduced to +10% at high rounds (down from +100%)
• Enemy Armor Durability Reductions
• Reduced health of armor for Medium and Heavy zombies by 30%.
• Essence
• Addressed an issue where players were spawning with 1000 Essence in round-based maps instead of 500.

Intel

• New in-game Dark Aether story Intel available to discover in “Mauer der Toten” and Outbreak.

Challenges

• Added new Zombies Challenges for “Mauer der Toten,” including a new Dark Ops Challenge.
• Addressed an issue where the Season Four “Staycation” Challenge could be completed at the wrong round.

Support

• Damage from Support items will now scale evenly to be more consistent in their ability to kill enemies.

Field Upgrades

Frost Blast

• Frost Blast damage will now scale evenly to be more consistent in its ability to kill enemies.

Energy Mine

• Energy Mine damage will now scale evenly to be more consistent in its ability to kill enemies.

Aether Shroud

• Addressed an issue with Aether Shroud Tier V where activating its second charge while its first charge was already active would result in failing to accumulate subsequent charges.

Features

Dynamic Wall Buys

• Wall Buy weapons in all round-based Zombies maps will now have a chance to increase in rarity at the end of every fifth round, giving players more weapon options to choose from as the rounds go up.
• Rarities can increase all the way to Legendary.

Trials

• Additional weapons can now be obtained as Trials Rewards.

Weapon Unlock Challenges

OTs 9

• Added new Weapon Unlock Challenge for Zombies for the OTs 9 SMG.

Weapon Tuning (Zombies Only)

Melee Weapons

• Increased Pack-a-Punch base damage from 2000 to 2500.
• Increased Pack-a-Punch Level 3 damage multiplier from 4.0 to 5.0.

Sniper Rifles

Swiss K31

• Increased critical damage multiplier from 3.5 to 4.5.
• Increased Stock Ammo from 42 to 60.
• SWISS KH3353 (Pack-A-Punched)
• Increased critical damage multiplier from 3.5 to 4.5.

ZRG 20mm

• Increased critical damage multiplier from 3.5 to 4.5.
• Increased Stock Ammo from 24 to 30.
• Head Cannon (Pack-A-Punched)
• Increased critical damage multiplier from 3.5 to 4.5.
• Increased Stock Ammo from 64 to 72.

Sniper Rifle Charlie

• Increased max damage from 150 to 175.
• Increased Stock Ammo from 30 to 50.
• Anathema (Pack-A-Punched)
• Increased max damage from 300 to 350.

Pelington 703

• Increased max damage from 250 to 275.
• Increased critical damage multiplier from 4.0 to 5.0.
• Pellegrino della Morte (Pack-A-Punched)
• Increased max damage from 500 to 550.
• Increased critical damage multiplier from 4.0 to 5.0.

LW3 – Tundra

• Increased critical damage multiplier from 3.5 to 4.0.
• Increased Stock Ammo from 30 to 35.
• Permafrost (Pack-A-Punched)
• Increased critical damage multiplier from 3.5 to 4.0.
• Increased Stock Ammo from 70 to 90.

Stability

• Addressed stability issues related to the Orda and Mimic.
• Addressed stability issues related to Trials Challenges.

Outbreak

Enemies

• Increased chance for Ronald Raygun to spawn in Outbreak.

Regions/Objectives

• Region and Objective order will no longer loop once all combinations have been played when progressing Regions.

Stability

• Addressed stability issues related to Fishing in Outbreak.
• Addressed stability issues related to using the rappel lines in Outbreak.

Dead Ops Arcade 3

Playlists

• Added new First Person Solo Advanced Start playlist.

Gameplay

• Players should now see a wider variety in bonus room distribution.
• Adjustments to points awarded for Gladiator and Warden kills.
• Minor adjustments to item spawns.
• Doubled Egg pickup base health.
• Increased Golden Egg health by 40%.
• Reduced Egg hatch cycle so that Eggs now hatch faster.
• Eggs are now less jumpy, and should not jump as high or as far in general.
• Mama’s “Armory Basket” has been located.
• Closed various exploits.
• Stability
• Added stability fixes to further prevent “Charlie 285 Military Gorilla” errors.

Onslaught (PlayStation)

Maps

• Rush added to map rotation with new Intel to discover.

Modes

Onslaught Accelerated mode now available.

• Dark Aether orb never stops moving, and enemies never clear or stop spawning.
• Orb move speed is reduced to a consistent slower value compared to its normal average speed.
• Orb fill bar is removed in this mode.
• Because the orb cannot be filled, it does not explode and wipe out enemies, and there are no pauses in movement.
• Enemies killed increase the speed of the orb for a small period. Each kill increases orb movement speed by 50% for 3 seconds. This effect stacks with multiple kills.
• Elite Surge Waves still spawn on every third wave.

Challenges

• Unlock the “Chemtaminate” LMG Weapon Blueprint by surviving 20 accelerated Surges in Onslaught Accelerated.

Featured Playlists

• Outbreak
• Mauer der Toten [NEW]
• Firebase Z
• Die Maschine
• Dead Ops Arcade: First Person
• Dead Ops Arcade
• Onslaught (PlayStation)
• Onslaught Accelerated (PlayStation) [NEW]
• Onslaught Containment (PlayStation)
• Onslaught Rush (PlayStation) [NEW]

MULTIPLAYER

Maps

• Rush (6v6)
• New map added to Multiplayer rotation in 6v6 modes.

Modes

Capture the Flag [NEW]

• New mode added to Multiplayer.
• Capture the enemy’s flag and return it to your home base while defending your flag from the enemy team.
• The team with the highest numbers of captures at the end of the match wins.

Cranked Team Deathmatch [NEW]

• New mode available in the Cranked Moshpit playlist.
• Eliminate enemies to become Cranked and earn buffs.

Cranked Kill Confirmed [NEW]

• New mode available in the Cranked Moshpit playlist.
• Eliminate enemies and pick up their dropped tags to become Cranked and earn buffs.

Multi-Team (All Modes)

• Addressed an issue that allowed players to use Equipment immediately after exiting the infil plane.
• Increased Radiation Vest protection amount.

Multi-Team Elimination

• Weapons dropped by eliminated enemies will now be considered loot, allowing for easier pickups.
• Equipment and Field Upgrades will now be dropped on death.
• Improved visibility of Supply Drop smoke marker.

Scorestreaks

Nuke (30 Kills)

Nuke Scorestreak from Cranked Hardpoint now requires a Nuclear Medal (Kill 30 enemies without dying) and is now available in all modes except the following:

• League Play and CDL variants
• Multi-Team modes
• Party Games (Prop Hunt, Gun Game, Sticks and Stones, One in the Chamber)
• Gunfight

Featured Playlists

• Rush 24/7 [NEW] (Also available in Hardcore)
• Capture the Flag [NEW]
• Cranked Moshpit [NEW]
• NukeJacked 24/7 (Also available in Hardcore)
• Party Games
• Face Off 6v6
• Gunfight Blueprints
• Snipers Only Moshpit
• Multi-Team Moshpit

LEAGUE PLAY

Maps

• Removed Standoff from CDL Hardpoint map rotation.

Skill Divisions

• Addressed an issue that could prevent players from being able be promoted or demoted to the appropriate Skill Division.

Prior to creating its iconic Doom franchise and establishing itself as the premier first-person shooter developer, Id Software created the Commander Keen franchise, and this began in an unexpected way–a rejected port of Super Mario Bros. 3 for MS-DOS. While Nintendo wasn’t interested in bringing the game to PC, the Museum of Play has managed to track down a copy.

Acquired via an anonymous game developer who did not work on the game, the Super Mario Bros. 3 pitch disk was actually donated as part of a larger game collection, according to the Museum’s Andrew Borman in a conversation with GameSpot. A video had been posted online a few years back by former Id designer John Romero, known as the godfather of the first-person shooter for his work on Doom, but the actual game was not released into the wild.

Now, a backup exists on the Museum of Play’s system, and the staff was able to verify its legitimacy and will allow researchers to visit and play it in the future.

“When looking at PC games of the era, there really weren’t titles with the smooth scrolling seen in Nintendo’s hits,” Borman told GameSpot. “In less than a week, the team created something that was basically unheard of on the PC, with Mario controlling extremely well for the time.”

Id and its predecessor Idea From the Deep didn’t complete the game–it was just a pitch, after all–but it’s a very neat piece of gaming history that you can read more about in the book Masters of Doom or the upcoming TV project of the same name. Id would eventually use its technical breakthrough for Commander Keen, so it wasn’t a waste of time.

That breakthrough was not seen in a little-known version of the first Super Mario Bros. dubbed Super Mario Bros. Special. Released on home computers in Japan in 1984, it lacked any scrolling technology and thus transitioned between screens with black fading in and out. Mama Mia!

A VFX artist on big-name films like Deadpool 2 and Star Wars: Episode IX – The Rise of Skywalker has released a short film inspired by Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us with new characters and a rather heartbreaking ending.

The seven-minute film, titled Stay, follows new characters and lovers Emily and Sean as they explore–and try to escape from–the Santa Monica Pier. There are serene moments of the couple hanging out, Sean admiring Emily, interspersed between tense scenes of the two running from the Clickers. We even see an Ellie lookalike who bookends the film before its depressing end.

In a sequence reminiscent of The Last of Us gameplay, Emily falls into an abandoned building, alerting a Clicker while dealing with a bruised leg. Emily somehow gets infected in this perturbing exchange, much to Sean’s chagrin. Check out Stay’s gut-wrenching ending for yourself in the video below.

It’s worth noting that this is just a fan project. As VFX artist turned director Joshua Toonen notes in the YouTube description, Stay is a collaboration between 40 artists and fans with no endorsement from Naughty Dog.

A Last of Us TV show is in the works at HBO, with filming supposedly having started this month. The series will star Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey in the leading roles, with Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann writing the project together. Druckmann said the series will deviate significantly from the games.

Red Dead Redemption 2 is a stunning game, and one that will easily tax the most powerful PCs out there to run at its highest level of detail. That makes today’s release of Nvidia DLSS support for the open-world game so exciting, letting Nvidia customers enjoy higher framerates without much compromise.

If you’re unfamiliar, DLSS (Deep Learning Super Sampling) is Nvidia’s proprietary upscaling solution, utilizing specific machine-learning cores in its RTX line of GPUs. Games that support it can be rendered at a lower resolution, allowing you to enjoy higher framerates, while the deep learning algorithm upscales the result with little to no image quality impact.

It’s a feature that has really bolstered Nvidia’s position in the GPU market, with AMD still trying to come up with a suitable competitor. With Red Dead Redemption 2, Nvidia is saying you can expect up to 45% better performance when using the “Performance” DLSS preset, which renders the game at a quarter of your native resolution. That means rendering the game at 1080p on a 4K display, for example.

This improvement will allow you to play Red Dead Redemption 2 at 4K in excess of 90fps at its highest settings on a RTX 3080 Ti, or above 60fps at 1080p with any RTX graphics card. The patch is out now and available for anyone with an RTX 20 or 30-series GPU.

The update arrives with a new content drop for Red Dead Online. Blood Money adds a bunch of new lawless activities to the connected American frontier, including new high-stakes robberies and tense showdowns.

Update 7/13: Added details from the EA <3s Independent Studios spotlight panel.

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EA was one of the first publishers to announce their non-E3 2021 plans with a showcase in July. This year’s EA Play Live may be planned further away from all the other events, but hopefully, it will give us a much-needed dose of game announcements, especially since there’s usually a drought of news after E3. If you’re wondering what EA has up its sleeve this year, here’s everything you need to know to watch its showcase and what to expect from it.

When is EA Play Live?

EA Play Live is scheduled to stream on July 22 with a pre-show starting at 10am PT/1pm ET/6pm BST. That’s on July 23 at 3am AEST. EA has yet to announce exactly how long its main showcase will run for. In addition to the main EA Live Play event, the company has also announced an EA Play Live Spotlight Series that includes four broadcasts happening weeks to days in advance

• Madden NFL 22 All-Access – July 19, 4:00pm PT
• More EA SPORTS! – July 20, 10:00am PT
• The Future of First-Person Shooters – July 8, 10:00am PT
• EA <3s Independent Studios – July 13, 10:00am PT

How to Watch EA Play Live

You’ll be able to watch the EA Play Live showcase right here on IGN through the website and our social networks. Additionally, EA Play Live will run on EA’s YouTube channel and a few other platforms.

• IGN.com (homepage)
• IGN’s Facebook Channel
• IGN’s Twitter
• IGN’s Twitch Channel
• IGN’s Youtube Channel
• IGN’s iOS App
• IGN’s Android App
• IGN’s Xbox One App
• Roku
• IGN App for Android TV
• IGN for Amazon Fire TV
• Apple TV
• IGN 1 on Samsung TV Plus
• Pluto TV

Everything Announced Ahead of EA Play Live

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EA <3s Independent Studios

EA held a panel featuring indie developers Josef Fares, Melissa Phillips, Abubakar Salim, Guha Bala, and Oliv Redmalm, where they discussed the role indie games play in the industry. The showcase highlighted A Way Out, Lost in Random, Knockout City, and more. Check out the entire discussion above

The Future of First-Person Shooters

IGN’s own Stella Chung sat down with Vince Zampella and heads of Apex Legends and Dice to discuss well the future of first-person shooters.

We got one little tidbit that Battlefield 2042 will feature a third multiplayer mode. So far it has only been described as a “love letter” to series fans that will bring back some fan-favorite maps to Battlefield 2042. Leaks have pointed to this new mode being called Battlefield Hub and it will supposedly also bring back previous weapons and maps to give them a Battlefield 2042 twist with new features and mechanics.

Additionally, DICE GM Oskar Gabrielson also said that cloud computing will bring big changes to first-person shooters in a couple of years. Gabrielson explained Battlefield, for example, cloud computing could benefit the game’s destruction and visual fidelity. However, Gabrielson wouldn’t comment on whether cloud computing would come to Battlefield 2042.

What to Expect from EA Play Live

While EA hasn’t officially revealed what it plans to show at the showcase, it’s been banking up a collection of new games and developers over the last couple of months, so we might see quite the showcase come July. Here are some guesses at what we could see.

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Battlefield 2042

Battlefield 6 got its own reveal event on June 9th and we got to see some of the first multiplayer footage from the Xbox & Bethesda Showcase during E3 2021. We expect EA will show off more gameplay footage or another trailer during its Play Live event. We’d love to get a deeper dive into the weapons, tools, specialists, maps, and more about the game. So far we know Battlefield 2042 will use AI bots to fill multiplayer matches and the game will feature some of the series’ largest maps ever.

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Mass Effect 4 and Dragon Age 4

While now might seem like the perfect time for EA to reveal its work on a new Mass Effect game and Dragon Age 4, Bioware has announced it has no plans to show any of its games during EA Play Live.

New Respawn Game

Respawn has been EA’s golden child lately with smash hits like Apex Legends and Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order. The developer recently announced it was in the early days of building a new franchise and we hope to see the tiniest teaser or at least a title card during EA’s big livestream.

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Madden NFL 22

Another year, another football game. Madden NFL 22 will have to wow the online crowds as last year’s Madden NFL 21 was a disaster. So far the newest game is confirmed to add a few new features like home-field advantage, M-Factors, and Gameday Momentum. Madden NFL 22 also promises to bring more realism to the game with better stadiums, close-up shots of the virtual crowds, and an improved presentation of the Super Bowl. We’ll see plenty more of Madden NFL 22 during its dedicated All-Access livestream on July 19 at 4:00pm PT.

Skate 4

Possibly the most demanded game ever, Skate 4 would be a wonderful post-E3 surprise. At the start of the year, EA announced that a new studio named Full Circle is developing a Skate sequel. Whether it’s going to be Skate 4 or a total reboot for the whole series remains to be seen.

Fan-Favorite Series Revival

Apparently, we can expect to see a fan-favorite series revival according to corroborate reports from GamesBeat’s Jeff Grubb and Eurogamer. The two reports confirmed that EA Motive is working on an “established IP” that will be revealed during the event. EA Motive previously released Star Wars Squadrons and worked on Star Wars Battlefront 2, but with Assassin’s Creed Valhalla director Eric Baptizat joining its ranks, the studio could be moving in a new direction. There’s open speculation as to whether this revival might just be Stake 4, a remake of Dead Space, or something entirely different.

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Kevin Lee is IGN’s SEO Updates Editor. Follow him on Twitter @baggingspam

Diablo 2: Resurrected’s technical Alpha let players go hands-on with the updated ARPG classic back in April, and now Blizzard is outlining what changes are coming to the game based on players’ feedback.

Most of the changes are minor in nature, but do go to show the attention to detail Blizzard is putting into the remaster, which keeps the gameplay of the original Diablo 2 intact but features new visuals which can be toggled on or off. Spell effects, like the Sorceress’ Lightning and Blizzard, have been updated in the game’s new visuals to more closely match that of the original game, as has the Paladin’s Holy Freeze ability. Icons for various items like potions, weapons, and armor, have been slightly tweaked to add more clarity and color.

One larger change Blizzard says came about after “careful consideration” and that will make loot hoarders happy: The game’s shared stash is increasing in size from one tab to three.

“When it comes to a player’s personal storage chest, we understand it’s serious business,” Blizzard writes. “This change will enable players to better organize their loot across three tabs (100 slots each) of storage space and store many more items.”

Numerous quality-of-life features have also been tweaked. Players can now toggle off the compare item tooltip, and players also have the ability to toggle item names on or off at the press of the button. The game’s automap has had its color tweaked for easier readability as well. Players can also enable an in-game clock, should they so choose, and Blizzard says overall load times should be faster post-Alpha and that characters will no longer spawn in a hostile area until the game is fully loaded, “preventing characters from getting attacked or harmed during a loading screen.”

Players will get to experience the changes coming to Diablo 2: Resurrected soon, as the game’s beta is coming in August. Those who preorder Diablo 2 on PC, Xbox, or PlayStation will gain entry to an early-access beta, with an open beta on those platforms following soon after. Unfortunately, it looks like the beta will not be available for those who plan to play on Nintendo Switch.

Fans also have Diablo 4 to look forward to. While the new entry in the series won’t be coming in 2021 and doesn’t have a release date, Blizzard has been periodically updating fans with new details, such as how Diablo 4’s PvP system will work.

Something funny is going on with Call of Duty: Warzone’s Red Doors, and Activision continues to tease them ahead of the Season 4 Reloaded update.

Warzone‘s Red Doors were added with the launch of Season 4, and initially, they were randomly spawning doors that would appear in the walls of buildings at major points of interest such as Hospital, Stadium, and Summit. Entering a Red Door instantly warps the player to a loot-filled room in another area of the map. And since players are sent somewhere completely random, it really doesn’t serve as proper fast travel. It’s just a great way to gear up with high-quality weapons and killstreaks.

However, we’re very close to the mid-season “Reloaded” update for Season 4, and now the doors are behaving differently. They’re no longer randomly spawning. All 30 known Red Door locations are now appearing in each match, but they all despawn after so many have been opened. If you’ve recently found a Red Door in Warzone, but it dematerialized right in front of you, it’s likely the quota had been met for your match.

Warzone streamer and Easter egg hunter Geeky Pastimes believes that the quota is 10 doors per match. And he also has a handy guide for how to find all the doors to help players looking to teleport or test out Easter egg theories.

The recent changes in behavior could just be the developers balancing Red Door portals in Verdansk, but Raven Software usually addresses Warzone’s balancing tweaks in weekly patch notes. And with Activision continuing to tease the doors in this week’s blog, it’s highly possible that the Red Doors are part of Warzone’s narrative, and the mysteries of the Red Doors will likely get even weirder.

Activision’s blog says: All Operators should report to Verdansk to either escort or halt important Payloads crossing the region, taking note of any additional Red Doors they may see after this update…

There’s also another Red Door tease in the blog with part of the information redacted: Brave Operators across Verdansk have gone through the Red Doors, stepping out into parts unknown…

Further intel suggests that these Red Doors will appear [[REDACTED]] and take you to [[REDACTED]].

As Perseus sleeper cells are still at large in Verdansk, we caution you to [[REDACTED]].

The mention of sleeper cells in Verdansk ties into the Season 4 teaser trailer from June 8. All the vibes from the trailer point to Stitch trying to restart the Numbers program, which is the brainwashing narrative from the Black Ops storyline. Stitch needed to take down satellites that were interfering with the broadcast signal used to activate his sleeper agents, which are those satellites that came crashing down in the beginning of Season 4’s Ground Fall event. It looks like his sleeper agents might be activating with Season 4 Reloaded.

Maybe the Red Doors simply play into this Warzone narrative, but maybe there’s an even bigger picture. It could be likely this is meant to tease a new Easter egg or in-game event to reveal the next Call of Duty title. Nearly one year ago, Activision used Warzone’s bunkers to tease and eventually reveal Black Ops Cold War via Easter egg quests and a live in-game event. Activision could be cooking up a repeat of that with Warzone’s Red Doors and sleeper agents. Maybe one of those Red Doors warps us back to the middle of World War II, but the Red Doors did already play a major role in the Black Ops Cold War storyline.

We already know this year’s Call of Duty is being developed by Sledgehammer Games, and rumors strongly suggest a World War II setting, but we’re still waiting for those official reveal details.

I’d definitely suggest keeping an eye on those Red Doors as Warzone’s Season 4 Reloaded update arrives on July 15. We’ll keep you updated on all Easter egg details that could emerge.