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Rainbow Six Siege has been going strong for years, but the relatively recent addition of a battle pass model has been divisive in the community. Ubisoft is happy with the addition, though, stating that it’s performing well in a recent earnings report.

“The battle pass is doing very well,” said Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot. “It’s a good new addition to the franchise and a new way to play the game so it has good momentum and it’s doing well for the franchise.”

Similarly, Ubisoft mentioned that microtransaction revenue is growing for both Rainbow Six and Assassin’s Creed Odyssey.

The battle pass was criticized as a step too far in GameSpot’s recently reissued Rainbow Six Siege review. Specifically, reviewer Mat Paget said the addition of a battle pass on top of the annual operatore pass was “egregious” since it can cause you to “play or pay more than you initially wanted or intended to.”

The review was still very positive on the whole, though, earning a 10/10 from GameSpot. This was an improvement from the original 2015 review, which awarded it an 8/10, showing just how far the game has come in the last five years.

Ubisoft has been teasing its next new operators for Siege, Ace and Melusi. The two will get a full reveal soon, but we already know that Ace is a search-and-rescue expert and a Defender class, and Melusi is an stealthy anti-poaching operative and Attacker class.

Here’s something alarming: WB wanted the Doof Warrior cut from FURY ROAD!
“The Doof Warrior tested really badly at first,” Miller told me. “We had temp music, and whenever the Doof Warrior played in the test screening, it was the same riff, so it got annoying.” pic.twitter.com/ndSdOvxD9c

— Kyle Buchanan (@kylebuchanan) May 15, 2020

It doesn’t seem possible, but one Call of Duty: Warzone squad has set a new world record for most kills in a match, racking up an unthinkable 121 kills in a Quads mode match recently.

Well-known Call of Duty streamers TeePee, Symfuhny, HusKerrs, and DougisRaw set the record. There are 150 players in Warzone matches, so this team took down the overwhelming majority of them by themselves. You can see highlights from the achievement in the video below.

Call of Duty pro player Nadeshot responded to the achievement, writing on Twitter, “Wow, I can’t even fathom how you guys pulled this off. GGs.”

It’s not immediately clear what the previous record was for most kills in a Quads match of Warzone, while the records for Warzone’s other modes, including Solos, Duos, and Trios are also unknown.

In other news, Warzone just recently added a new Operator, Iskra. She is available as a store bundle and comes packaged with two new Legendary weapons, the “Savagery” helicopter vehicle skin, an Epic Finisher, and more.

For more on Warzone, check out GameSpot’s recent interview with Raven Software about the Gulag, which is linked below

Bioware has issued an update on the state of the Anthem overhaul, noting that the revamp is still in the incubation period and that the creation of a new version of the game will be a “longer process.”

In a statement on the Bioware blog, project lead Christian Daley outlined the current state of Anthem 2.0, noting that regardless of the current circumstances, the team is committed to the project.

The 30-strong team behind the game are currently working from home due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, but Daley notes that the game’s incubation phase has kicked off.

[ignvideo url=”https://www.ign.com/videos/2019/02/21/anthem-review”]

In his own words, Daley describes the incubation phase as a prototyping period. “We are starting to validate our design hypotheses,” Daley’s statement reads. “We are going back and experimenting/prototyping to improve on the areas where we believe we fell short and to leverage everything that you love currently about Anthem.” According to Daley, the nature of this approach means Anthem 2.0 will “be a longer process,” so don’t expect the new version of the game to arrive anytime soon.

“The team is small but the whole point of this is to take our time and go back to the drawing board,” Daley notes. “A small team gives us the agility a larger one can’t afford.”

Daley also talked about transparency, and assured fans that they would “see things that look awesome but end up on the cutting room floor or things that you might think suck that you feel we are spending too much time on.” In the spirit of experimentation, the team want to bring those interested in Anthem along for the ride, but Daley notes that “seeing how the sausage is made” is not always pretty.

[ignvideo url=”https://www.ign.com/videos/2018/12/07/anthem-story-trailer”]

Anthem’s overhaul was announced in February, with BioWare general manager Casey Hudson admitting that the game “needs a more satisfying loot experience, better long-term progression, and a more fulfilling end game.” Clearly, much of that is still in the ideas phase, with hands-on development work yet to begin. Daley doesn’t give a sense of how long that might take to begin.

The Anthem 2.0 team is also planning to bring ad-hoc live streams and updates to fans as they follow the game. “Stay tuned as we kick this off and we hope to see/hear from you as we go on this journey (stronger) together.” For more on Anthem, check out our piece on how the game’s first anniversary was celebrated by fans, but not Bioware.

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Jordan Oloman is a freelance writer for IGN. Follow him on Twitter. 

After a week of players working together to complete the first step of Destiny 2‘s latest story quest, “The Lie,” it appears many won’t be able to finish it. The last step of the quest is bugged, failing to trigger the mission players have to go through to get their reward.

Bungie confirmed the issue Sunday night on Twitter. After completing the other steps of the quest, The Lie directs you to Rasputin’s bunker on the Moon to activate a mission called “The Tyrant.” For many, starting the quest respawns you not at its start, but near bounty vendor Eris Morn at the Moon’s main landing zone. When that happens, there’s no way to advance; you just have to quit the activity and try to load it again. As of this writing, we’ve tried to run the quest roughly 10 times, to no avail.

At first, some players thought Bungie had released a new secret puzzle into the game, similar to Destiny 2’s Corridors of Time puzzle last season, and started a Reddit thread compiling information about it. Since the mission seemingly isn’t loading correctly for anyone right now, it’s not clear yet if there might be more to The Tyrant than just another mission.

On Twitter, Bungie said it would investigate the issue on Monday morning Pacific time, so it seems Destiny players are going to have to sit tight for the time being. That’s frustrating because according to datamining, completing the quest will reward players with Felwinter’s Lie, a legendary shotgun that returns from Destiny 1. The Lie also introduces new story elements about Rasputin, the giant AI character at the center of the current content season. The Lie might not be quite the Rasputin revelation we’d hoped for (at least so far), but it is seemingly linking elements from Destiny 1 to the current story.

Unfortunately, we’ll have to wait to find out exactly what “The Lie” is all about. We’ll update this story as Bungie provides more details.

The AFL is teaming up with Epic to host a charity Duos tournament in Fortnite. The charity event will be called the “AFL Stream King featuring Fortnite” and will run on Thursday, May 21 2AM PT and Friday, May 22 7PM AEST on the AFL Gamers Network YouTube channel.

The event will consist of 40 professional AFL players and 40 of Australia’s best Fortnite players will team up to battle it out for the ultimate crown and $50,000 AUD for the charity of the winner’s choice. Second place will earn $30,000 AUD for their chosen charity, with third earning $15,000 AUD, and fourth getting $5,000 AUD for their charities. The winners will also be crowned as the AFL Stream King(s).

“We are proud to partner with global giant Epic Games to put on this charity tournament, harnessing the strengths of both organisations, and providing what should be an amazing product for footy fans and gamers alike. Bringing together some of the biggest names in footy with the biggest names in Fortnite – we can’t wait to see who takes out the title,” said Ben Sellenger, AFL Head of Commercial Growth.

The AFL has become more involved in the gaming industry over the past few years, with AFL teams owning and sponsoring their own esports teams respectively. Back in 2017, the AFL became interested in esports after the Adelaide Crows purchased a local League of Legends team. Following that decision, the league began purchasing esports teams across the country, although many teams have ceased their partnerships over the past three years. Since then, the AFL has streamed over 6,500 hours of content that has been viewed by over 75,000 fans.

“The AFL has been involved in gaming for a number of years in various ways, and the AFL Gamers Network now allows us to deliver a product which gives our players who game a platform to unite under and grow their own fan base,” said Sellenger.

Currently, Fortnite is remaining a strong contender as one of the most lucrative multiplayer games, with the game generating $1 billion from microtransactions on mobile alone. Epic is pushing for the franchise to continue smashing records on the next generation of consoles, with both the PS5 and Xbox Series X editions of Fortnite will support cross-progression and cross-play on release.

Valve Software has made the tools for editing Half-Life: Alyx’s levels open to the community. In a new blog post on the official site, the developers have announced the release of the tools as part of the Steam Workshop support, an initiative by Valve to support the modding community.

The tools will allow for the creation of new levels, models, textures, and animations for the Half-Life VR game, along with letting creators upload their mods to the Steam Workshop for anyone to try.

Valve intends to continue updating and adding to the tool kit while still in beta. The first release includes the current editions of the following software:

• Hammer, the latest version of the Source 2 level editor.
• Material Editor, the tool for creating and tuning materials in Source 2.
• ModelDoc, a tool for viewing, editing, and compiling models with animation, collision, and other gameplay attributes.
• AnimGraph, our animation tool used to create complicated animation setups with blends and transitions.
• Particle Editor, for making new particle effects.
• Subrect Editor, for creating smart texture sheets known as “hotspots.”
• Source Filmmaker, the Source 2 cinematic renderer and animation tool.

In addition to these VR tools, the developers have included several sample maps to demonstrate how they authored enemy encounters in the game. These maps can be used as a template for understanding how the developers used features such as tile meshes, static/dynamic cables, and texture hotspotting to create the game’s levels.

If this is your first time messing around with these kinds of tools, the developers have also begun work on a Half-Life: Alyx Workshop Tools documentation, a guide for how to implement and best make use of the tools and software currently in the beta. Over time more documents will be added, especially as new software and tools are made available.

In GameSpot’s Half-Life: Alyx review, Michael found it to have “elevated many of the aspects we’ve come to love about Half-Life games… Even when familiarity starts to settle in, its gameplay systems still shine as a cohesive whole. And as it concludes, Half-Life: Alyx hits you with something unforgettable, transcending VR tropes for one of gaming’s greatest moments.”