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Guess who's back! The OG Hearthstone Death Knight hero cards are getting a month-long comeback in Standard. (Image credit: Blizzard) In an act of unprecedented generosity (or unprecedented hype-building, if you're more cynical), Hearthstone is bringing one of its most iconic card expansions back and giving every player free access. The Knights of the Frozen Throne set will be legal in the Standard format from today, and will remain so up until the release of the March of the Lich King set on December X, at which point it will be banished back to Wild. Thematically, bringing Knights of the Frozen Throne back is a cool teaser, because it was the first Hearthstone set to dip into Death Knight lore in the form of an undead 'hero card' for each class. It also added The Lich King as a legendary minion, which was Arthas Menethil's first appearance in the card game. As was also announced today, the forthcoming March of the Lich King expansion will finally add Death Knight as a playable class, with Arthas providing the starting hero. So yeah, as a tie-in, it makes total sense—especially given how beloved Knights of the Frozen Throne was. Originally released in August 2017, Knights of the Frozen Throne contains 135 cards, several of which subsequently had to be nerfed. Those changes have mostly been reverted, as has been the trend once cards have spent some time in Wild. Previously, the biggest number of Wild Cards that Blizzard has reintroduced into Standard as part of a promotion was October 2019's Doom in the Tomb event, which saw 23 cards come back (and also resulted in a diabolically unbalanced meta, but let's not dwell on that right now). Making such a large injection of old content into the traditional expansion cycle is bound to shake things up substantially. Knights of the Frozen Throne was an incredibly powerful set in its time, and although power creep means the likes of Frost Lich Jaina are unlikely to be as strong as they once were, I think we're bound to see surprises in terms of potential synergies with our modern collections. Here are 20 of the most noteworthy Knights of the Frozen cards, with thoughts on where they might fit in now. Spreading Plague Indisputably one of the greatest anti-aggro cards. Unlike many of Knights of the Frozen Throne's strongest cards, it hasn't had its nerf reverted. It did however get the Nature spell tag added, which provides some Topior the Shrubbagazzor and Lady Anacondra synergy. Also good to get off Convoke the Spirits in a pinch. (Image credit: Blizzard) Ultimate Infestation Again, another of the strongest spells ever printed. Deal damage! Gain armor! Draw cards! Build a board! Still almost certainly bonkers in stuff like Jailer Ramp Druid. (Image credit: Blizzard) Malfurion the Pestilent Here's one of the hero cards that was undoubtedly strong back in the day, but probably won't see play now because Druids will not want to lose Wildheart Guff's Mana ramp effect. (Image credit: Blizzard) Deathstalker Rexxar Simply one of the coolest cards ever printed. Blizzard's devs have told me that the hunter hero card is again being updated to include the newest Beasts in Standard. (Image credit: Blizzard) Frost Lich Jaina Another powerhouse hero card that might be too slow these days. There are a lot of strong elementals in Standard right now though, not least Lokholar and Neptulon, both of which have Rush. (Image credit: Blizzard) Shadowreaper Anduin Probably still be viable even without his buddy Raza the Chained, Shadowreaper Anduin's hero power overlaps with Xyrella the Devout's, but has the potential to be more aggressive, especially in a deck that can spam cheap spells. Naga Priest, anyone? (Image credit: Blizzard) Obsidian Statue Still one of the best (read: most obnoxious) Deathrattle minions Priest has ever had access to. Quest Priest does not need a 9-Drop, but the synergy with Xyrella the Devout is so good that maybe a Deathrattle deck could be a thing. Will definitely be a good Discover pick off Call of the Grave in the ultra-late game. (Image credit: Blizzard) Valeera the Hollow Again, the question is can you run it in the same deck as its more modern equivalent, Shadowcrafter Scabbs? Maaaaaybe? (Image credit: Blizzard) Leeching Poison Uh, so you'll be able to apply Lifesteal to the giant weapon made by Necrolord Draka. That seems… fine? (Image credit: Blizzard) Spectral Pillager More enormous burst damage for the current iteration of Miracle Rogue? Cool, cool. (Image credit: Blizzard) Thrall, Deathseer Evolve Shaman is barely a thing right now, but maybe this combined with return of the self-duplicating (and unnerfed) Saronite Chain Gang is enough to put it over the top. (Image credit: Blizzard) Moorabi Okay, yes, Snowfall Guardian got nerfed, but hear me out: Freeze Shaman. (Image credit: Blizzard) Bloodreaver Gul'dan Other than Mo'arg Forgefiend, there really aren't many huge demons to resummon with the Battlecry. The hero power will still be incredible in grindy games though. (Image credit: Blizzard) Blood Razor Having two whirlwind effects in one card adds even greater redundancy to the slept on Enrage Warrior deck. Should see play. (Image credit: Blizzard) Rotface A fat legendary that saw a little play first time around, but with the abundance of self-damage effects in Standard could merit a place as a value engine in Enrage Warrior. (Image credit: Blizzard) Dead Man's Hand I hate this card. It makes my head hurt. And the sort of Fatigue-based strategy it promotes probably doesn't work in a world where Quest Priest exists. Don't rule out some degenerate finding a way to bring back Infinity Warrior, though. (Image credit: Blizzard) Prince Keleseth Oh. Oh no, no, no. (Image credit: Blizzard) Bonemare Now unnerfed and back to 7-Mana, baby! Bonemare might not be good enough, but we are in a very board-centric meta, which is where the spooky nag thrived before. (Image credit: Blizzard) Skulking Geist No Jade Idols to target now, but here are some notable cards it can delete: Fury, Relic of Extinction, Wildfire, a bunch of Paladin crap, Shadow Word: Devour, Blackwater Cutlass, Schooling, Muck Pools, Flame Imp, Wicked Shipment, Sanguine Depths, Elwynn Boar, Irondeep Trogg, Sir Finley, Vicious Slitherspear. (Image credit: Blizzard) The Lich King Last, but very much not least, is the frosty value engine himself. Note that the cards he adds to your hand will be the same as before, and not (fairly obviously) cards from the new Death Knight class which is coming with the March of the Lich King expansion. (Image credit: Blizzard) View the full article

(Image credit: Blizzard) To the delight of everyone, with the possible exception of Monk mains, Hearthstone's next expansion will finally add Death Knight as a playable class. Blizzard has just announced that the new set, March of the Lich King, launches on December 6, and contains a whopping 203 new cards. That number is so high (sets are usually ~135 cards) partly because it includes 32 free core cards for Death Knight. In fact, the initial Death Knight collection comprises 68 cards—a substantial bump over the 45 that Demon Hunter, the last new class, launched with. The starting Death Knight hero will, of course, be Arthas Menethil. There must always be a Lich King, and for WoW fans there's nobody more iconic Arthas. Death Knight also has a bigger collection of cards than Demon Hunter did at launch because it actually functions like several classes in one. And the reason for that is runes. Leaning into how Death Knights use runes as resources in WoW, building a Death Knight deck means selecting cards according to their runic alignment. There are three types of runes which appear on Death Knight cards: Blood (red), Frost (blue), and Unholy (green). Death Knight cards either have no rune or between one and three of a given type. Take a look at the picture below and you'll see that Patchwerk is a legendary minion with a single Blood rune, whereas Frostwyrm's Fury is a spell that has three Frost runes, and Battlefield Necromancer is a double unholy Rune spell. Note that, for this expansion at least, no cards have multiple different coloured runes. (Image credit: Blizzard) The number of runes on a card matters because your Death Knight deck must be built according to a preset combination of three runes. You choose that combination by slotting three runes into the deck at the start, which then dictates the kind of cards you can include. So to include Frostwyrm's Fury you would need to dedicate all three slots to Frost, but to include Patchwerk you just need to assign a single Blood rune. The upshot is that Death Knight decks function differently to all other Hearthstone classes because their class cards have an additional restriction. Your opponent won't know which flavour of Death Knight deck you're playing until they've seen multiple cards and deduced the rune combination The benefit, from a design point of view, is that cards with two and three runes tend to be powerful and very synergistic with their corresponding play style. You might go for a 'triple Blood' deck (which will tend towards being very slow and controlling), or build a more tempo-orientated mix of spells and small minions by picking 'double Frost, single Unholy', or some other combination of runes entirely. Your opponent won't know which flavour of Death Knight deck you're playing until they've seen multiple cards and deduced the rune combination, which is likely to make mulliganing against Death Knight a real challenge. Here's a gallery of all the cards revealed today, which should give you a better sense of how the runes work in practice. Image 1 of 38 (Image credit: Blizzard)Image 2 of 38 (Image credit: Blizzard)Image 3 of 38 (Image credit: Blizzard)Image 4 of 38 (Image credit: Blizzard)Image 5 of 38 (Image credit: Blizzard)Image 6 of 38 (Image credit: Blizzard)Image 7 of 38 (Image credit: Blizzard)Image 8 of 38 (Image credit: Blizzard)Image 9 of 38 (Image credit: Blizzard)Image 10 of 38 (Image credit: Blizzard)Image 11 of 38 (Image credit: Blizzard)Image 12 of 38 (Image credit: Blizzard)Image 13 of 38 (Image credit: Blizzard)Image 14 of 38 (Image credit: Blizzard)Image 15 of 38 (Image credit: Blizzard)Image 16 of 38 (Image credit: Blizzard)Image 17 of 38 (Image credit: Blizzard)Image 18 of 38 (Image credit: Blizzard)Image 19 of 38 (Image credit: Blizzard)Image 20 of 38 (Image credit: Blizzard)Image 21 of 38 (Image credit: Blizzard)Image 22 of 38 (Image credit: Blizzard)Image 23 of 38 (Image credit: Blizzard)Image 24 of 38 (Image credit: Blizzard)Image 25 of 38 (Image credit: Blizzard)Image 26 of 38 (Image credit: Blizzard)Image 27 of 38 (Image credit: Blizzard)Image 28 of 38 (Image credit: Blizzard)Image 29 of 38 (Image credit: Blizzard)Image 30 of 38 (Image credit: Blizzard)Image 31 of 38 (Image credit: Blizzard)Image 32 of 38 (Image credit: Blizzard)Image 33 of 38 (Image credit: Blizzard)Image 34 of 38 (Image credit: Blizzard)Image 35 of 38 (Image credit: Blizzard)Image 36 of 38 (Image credit: Blizzard)Image 37 of 38 (Image credit: Blizzard)Image 38 of 38 (Image credit: Blizzard) Honestly, it sounds pretty head-scratching when written down, but having had a chance to mess around with the cards for a whole day, once you start building a deck the logic fell into place quite quickly. It also helps if you're familiar with 'splashing' colours from Magic: The Gathering. On my recent visit to Blizzard HQ I definitely sensed some trepidation mixed with excitement at how such a fundamental shift is going to be received. To better explain exactly how runes work, and give you a sense of some powerful Death Knight synergies, I asked Ben 'Ridiculous Hat' Goodman to write a full explainer, which can be found here. Let the corpses hit the floor I do want to quickly touch on the hero power, because obviously that's the heart of how any class functions. It's called Ghoul Charge, costs 2 Mana, and reads: "Summon a 1/1 Ghoul with Charge. It dies at the end of the turn." At a glance that might seem worse than Mage—a charging Ghoul can be blocked by Taunt—but what you need to understand about the Death Knight class is that it really thrives on stacking up dead bodies. (Image credit: Blizzard) While playing as Death Knight, next to your Mana Crystals you'll find a new corpse counter. Whenever a friendly minion dies it will create a Corpse, which a number of Death Knight cards can then spend to generate powerful effects. For example, Army of the Dead is a 5-Mana, 2 Unholy rune spell that reads: "Raise up to 5 Corpses as 2/2 Risen Ghouls with Rush." Or there's Corpse Explosion, a 5-Mana, 2 Blood rune spell that reads: "Detonate a Corpse to deal 1 damage to all minions. If any are alive, repeat this." Again, our explainer goes into much more detail, but suffice to say generating and then spending a sizable cache of cadavers is a key part of playing Death Knight. The addition of a new class is the main talking point in March of the Lich King, but the expansion still comes with the usual gamut of new features and mechanics. Here are three highlights: Manathirst is a new Keyword that makes cards more flexible Because Manathirst cards get a bump in power when played during the late game they should be less painful to top deck. (Image credit: Blizzard) The other main thematic component of March of the Lich King is the Blood Elves and their insatiable love of slurping power from the Sunwell. In-game, this is represented in the form of cards which proc a bonus effect when you have a certain number of Mana crystals. For example, Sunfury Clergy is a neutral 3-Mana 2/4 minion that reads: "Battlecry: Restore 3 Health to all friendly characters. Manathirst (6): Restore 6 Health instead." Note that Manathirst cards don't cost you additional Mana, you just need to have the amount of Mana stated in order to proc the effect. Undead is being added as a minion type and dual tags are now possible Why the long face, Invincible? Oh, that's right, you're dead. (Image credit: Blizzard) Knights of the Frozen throne is coming back for a month March of the Lich King is not the first time ol' frosty fingers has appeared in Hearthstone. He actually debuted as a legendary minion in Knights of the Frozen Throne, alongside a Death Knight-themed hero card for each class. So what better way to build anticipation for the new expansion than by bringing that whole set back to Standard and temporarily giving players all the cards for free? (There might be better ways, but to be clear that is what's happening.) Starting from today the likes of Deathstalker Rexxar and [gulp] Prince Keleseth are again legal in Standard. For a look at the 20 best cards coming back head here. Before we close, I imagine the question you really want to ask is: exactly how OP will Death Knight be at launch? Based on my one-day sample size, I will say that I don't expect Blizzard to have to nerf it in the first 24 hours, as happened with Demon Hunter. Death Knight has powerful synergies, but nothing that looks quite as ludicrous as Skull of Gul'dan for 5 Mana did. Instead, Death Knight gets a suite of cards that feel like a gigantic chocolate box to explore (though it should be noted that many of these confections do contain a lot of corpsemeat). My one concern is that the triple-rune variants may prove a little obvious to build, although with so much complexity being added to the game, having some plug-and-play decks isn't a terrible thing. March of the Lich King will be released on December 6, and as usual there are various pre-order bundles to pick from. View the full article

(Image credit: Blizzard) Hearthstone has only added one new class since launch—Demon Hunter, in April 2020—and its arrival was incredibly memorable. It was also incredibly broken. In fact, Demon Hunter was so overpowered that multiple cards had to be nerfed a day later. Over time, the design of the class has shifted, and it now has a unique identity beyond just being busted. The month Demon Hunter was added, more than 10 times the normal number of players hit legend rank, which gives a sense of the excitement a new class generates. On December 6, with the release of March of the Lich King, Hearthstone gets its second new class: Death Knight. Arthas Menethil is arguably even bigger than Illidan Stormrange in terms of World of Warcraft's most iconic characters, and the only logical choice to front the new Death Knight class. Fans have long theorized about how a Death Knight class might work in Hearthstone, and it's not a shock to learn that raising the dead and using runes are major themes of the finished class. If you've read the main announcement or watched Blizzard's accompanying video, you may be feeling a little overwhelmed. Death Knight decks are built differently, and the class has a unique gameplay mechanic, so there's a lot of info to process. Here's what you need to know. Rune to grow Death Knight's two major distinctions are an additional type of resource and an extra form of deck customization. Let's talk about Runes first, and no, these are not the same as the similarly-named Runestones, which are Hearthstone's unloved premium currency. Some (but not all) Death Knight cards have a rune value between one and three, which can be found underneath the Mana cost number. Runes can be Blood (red diamonds), Frost (blue circles), or Unholy (green squares). Each Death Knight card features some number of one rune type, but never a mix of rune types. Here's an example of a single Blood rune card that you may recognize from the past. (Image credit: Blizzard) Obliterate was originally a card generated from The Lich King and Arfus (who's a very good boy) back when they appeared in Knights of the Frozen Throne as legendary minions. Obliterate has now been remade as a collectible card, meaning you can include it in Death Knight decks. Well, some decks. The number and type of runes on Death Knight cards determines what kind of deck they can be used in. It will be possible to discover cards with runes you otherwise wouldn't have access to, potentially unlocking forbidden synergies. In the Collection Manager, your Death Knight deck has three slots into which you must place runes. You can pick any combination of Blood, Frost, and Unholy. You might opt for one of each, three of a single color, or a split if you feel like splashing. (For example: a single Frost rune in a double Blood build.) Image 1 of 4 Double Blood, single Frost, (Image credit: Blizzard)Here's how deck building with runes worksImage 2 of 4 Single Blood, double Frost. (Image credit: Blizzard)Here's how deck building with runes worksImage 3 of 4 Single Blood, Unholy, and Frost. (Image credit: Blizzard)Image 4 of 4 At the start of building a deck, with no runes slotted. (Image credit: Blizzard)Here's how deck building with runes works The runes you select at the start of deck building provides the combination for which cards you can use. So, if you picked two Blood runes, you may include any double Blood cards, but triple Bloods are out of the picture. If you have one Frost rune, then all the single Frost cards are fair game, but double or triple are out. And if you didn't pick any Unholy runes, then it means no green squares for you. Here's another important thing to note: The runic restriction only applies to the cards that start in your deck. It will be possible to use cards like Venomous Scorpid and School Teacher to discover cards with runes you otherwise wouldn't have access to, potentially unlocking forbidden synergies. Triple threat The three rune types correspond to specializations that Death Knights can make in World of Warcraft, and each confers a different playstyle. Having played Death Knight decks for a day at a recent preview event, it really is notable how much separation there is between, say, a triple Blood deck and a double Frost, single Unholy one. Let's take a closer look: Blood: Playing with Blood runes is like being a Control Warrior but with less Armor and more Lifesteal. You'll constantly be draining health to restore your own and it'll be pretty demoralizing for any board-based decks to face a card like Blood Boil, which will tick damage with Lifesteal perpetually until the infected minions die. What Blood lacks are ways to quickly end games, so if you go for a triple Blood deck you can expect grindy games, a few big minions, and very little damage from hand. Blood rune cards are great at killing your opponent's stuff. (Image credit: Blizzard) Frost: If you do want to deal direct damage, play Frost. The coolest spec is also the one with the most boundary-pushing mechanics. Frost has a strong emphasis on card draw, Mana cheating, and burst damage. Spooky! As a longtime Rogue player, Glacial Advance is exactly what gets me excited. It goes face! (Sorry… let me chill out.) Frost runes tend to favour high-tempo spells and a well-stocked hand, just don't expect to make wide boards of resilient minions. Frost favors a fast playstyle and can burst opponents from high life totals by duping damage spells. (Image credit: Blizzard) Unholy: If you do want to play more of a board swarm strategy, you'll have to turn to Unholy. These runes are by far the most minion-centric of the three. There are tokens, there are Reborn minions (yep, the old keyword is back) and there are board buffs. In our limited play time, it often felt good to include at least some Unholy runes if you're looking to build a deck that wants to generate Corpses reliably (more on that in a sec). Oh, and check out Lord Marrowgar. As you would expect given the inherent restriction, triple rune cards grant huge payoffs. I defy you not to shout 'BONESTORM!' at the monitor when playing him. Unholy runes best support a token strategy, which is the technical term for playing lots of little shitters. (Image credit: Blizzard) Ghouls just want to have fun The fact your Ghoul dies the same turn you play it as an upside in Death Knight. (Image credit: Blizzard) You may have noted a new mechanic in a few of the cards above. Did I neglect to explain it? Of corpse I did! "Corpse" is the other new Death Knight mechanic, and it's pretty straightforward. Whenever one of your minions dies, you get a corpse. (Lucky you.) There's a counter underneath the Mana bar that keeps track of how many you have in your own personal morgue, and it's up to you to use them as you see fit. If you're hanging out with Lord Marrowgar, that means a potentially big reward in the form of a bunch of big Risen Golems with Rush. All cards that reference corpses will either raise or spend them. You need to stack up a certain amount of corpses in order to proc the associated effect on cards that need to spend them. When you have enough corpses, the spend card will glow yellow and deplete your corpse counter when you play the card. Note that you don't decide whether or not to spend the corpses. If you have the required amount available, they'll automatically be used. The corpse counter lives under your Mana crystals. Don't worry, they soon pile up. (Image credit: Blizzard) Somewhat confusingly, when cards Raise minions, these don't turn into corpses after they die. It's spelled out on the tokens, and is obviously due to balance reasons, but you can bet that people will mess this up for the first few days. Corpses are also what makes the Death Knight hero power so clever. Ghoul Charge is a one-damage ping on par with a hero power like Mage or Druid, but it reliably adds to your corpse count. That covers the main Death Knight mechanics, but you may still be wondering how strong the class is. From our experience, this isn't going to be as wildly OP at launch as Demon Hunter was. The Rune system is not only a cool customization mechanic, it also serves as a safety valve to make sure that players can't throw all the most exciting stuff into the same deck. Death Knight is also launching alongside the third set of the year instead of the first. That means that the other ten classes will have access to a deeper pool of synergistic cards this time, making for a much more level playing field than when Demon Hunter dropped. Of course everyone is going to want to play Death Knight on day one, but hopefully that will be because it's new rather than because it steamrolls everything else. There must always be new Lich King cards Death Knight's core set needs to be larger to accommodate all three flavours of runes, so we're getting 32 cards instead of the normal 17. There will also be a 'Path of Arthas' mini-set released alongside March of the Lich King, which will include 26 cards that are legal in Standard until 2024's rotation. Core is free as always, but Path cards must be obtained through crafting, as a standalone purchase ($15 or 2,000 gold), or as part of the March of the Lich King mega bundle which is available now in the client or on Battle.net. It's a different model from the Demon Hunter release, where all the "Initiate" cards were given to players free, and likely to cause some community blowback. Blizzard will doubtless point to the fact that the 32 free Death Knight cards in core outnumber the 20 cards that Demon Hunter gave us temporarily as the reason why. Death Knight will also get the typical 10 cards per class as part of the March of the Lich King set, and all expansions going forward. Something to be aware of, though, is that it will be impossible for Blizzard to support all three rune types equally with every release. Much like how Warlock doesn't always get a good Zoo deck and Priest doesn't always get stupid bullpucky, Death Knight won't always get support for each rune spec in every expansion. This was confirmed directly to us by Blizzard devs, and makes sense when you remember that classes only have 10 new cards per expansion. We haven't seen all the cards yet, but I know for sure that I'll be starting with a Frost build leaning into doing a lot of damage for not a lot of Mana. We'll see if I need to full commit to Frost or if I can splash in Unholy for some board presence. I expect to be up all knight (sorry) trying different rune combos and hopefully won't feel like death (not sorry) at work the next morning. View the full article

Sources tell Politico that the European Commission plans to open an in-depth, "Phase 2" investigation into Microsoft's $68 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard. The commission is said to be launching the investigation after Microsoft decided against filing remedies—commitments that would satisfy the Commission's worries regarding the deal—before a deadline of midnight tonight. Just like the Brazilian and UK market regulators, the European Commission's issues stem largely from worries that Microsoft's ownership of Activision would close off its competitors' access (or Sony's access, if we're being specific) to Call of Duty, despite Microsoft's repeated insistence that it will keep the series on PlayStation. Politico also reports that the European Commission has been making inquiries of Microsoft's rivals about its cloud services, which came up a lot in Microsoft's recent submission to the UK Competition and Market Authority (CMA). It's probably not the reaction Microsoft was hoping for from the European Commission. The company would no doubt prefer every country to wave the deal through as easily as Saudi Arabia did, but it looks like Microsoft's lawyers are going to have to pen a lengthy submission to European regulators just like they did for the UK. On the plus side (at least for us), Microsoft's submission to the UK CMA revealed all sorts of interesting tidbits, like how a deal between Sony and Activision is somehow keeping Call of Duty off of Game Pass. We also learned that Microsoft isn't quite as bullish on cloud gaming in private as they are on gaming convention stages, and that the company thinks we should all stop worrying about Call of Duty exclusivity because, hey, what if the future games suck as much as Vanguard did? Who knows what we'll learn next? If Microsoft really does miss tonight's deadline to file remedies, the European Commission will have until November 8 to announce a full investigation of the acquisition. And then, we can but hope, comes even more revealing paperwork. View the full article

With World of Warcraft's upcoming expansion less than a month away, Blizzard has announced that you can grab some in-game goodies through Dragonflight Twitch drops—and one of those items is a rare Trading Card Game mount, the Feldrake. It's not like this mount just has a chance to drop either; it's guaranteed, providing you spend the required time watching Dragonflight content on Twitch. If you're unfamiliar with the WoW card game, you could get "special" versions of normal cards, offering codes to redeem unique cosmetic items in-game. Because there was only a tiny chance of getting one of these cards, the mounts and pets you could get from the TCG would end up going for hundreds of dollars on places like Ebay. It's great that everyone now has a chance to get their hands on one of the TCG mounts but it has to sting for anyone that forked out the cash for the TCG card previously. Still, I'm not going to say no to a free Feldrake mount. As well as the TCG mount you can earn other cool cosmetic items, such as pets and toys, in the coming months too, just by watching your favourite streamer play Dragonflight—assuming they've enabled the drops on their Twitch channel. Here are the Dragonflight Twitch drop phases: Phase 1: Watch four hours of Dragonflight contentReward: Dragon Kite petStart Time: November 15, 10:00 am PSTEnd Time: November 17, 11:59 pm PST Phase 2: Watch four hours of Dragonflight contentReward: Feldrake mountStart Time: November 28, 10:00 am PSTEnd Time: November 30, 11:59 pm PST Phase 3: Watch two hours of Dragonflight contentReward: Perpetual Purple Firework toyStart Time: December 13, 10:00 am PSTEnd Time: December 28, 11:59 pm PST World of Warcraft: Dragonflight is set to arrive on November 28, though the pre-patch is now live if you want to check out the new class talent trees and UI revamp. View the full article

Finding a good Black Friday gaming laptop deal isn't always as clear cut as we'd hope. With the portable gaming market in constant flux, and retailers having a tendency to artificially inflate pricing every now and then it's difficult to know how much is too much for a gaming laptop. To ease your indecision, I've put together the following Black Friday laptop crib sheet with rough prices you should expect to pay for a gaming laptop over the deals season. Black Friday kicks off on November 25 this year, with discounts running throughout November and over the big weekend itself, then into the following week through Cyber Monday and Cyber Week. While we should see some awesome discounts on RTX 3080-powered gaming laptops cropping up in that time, you can bet there will be retailers trying to get you to pay over the odds for older, far less relevant gear. Thankfully there are a few straightforward ways to determine whether a deal is really a deal, or if it's an absolute dud. We're curating all the best Black Friday PC gaming deals right here. The main thing to remember when tracking down a gaming laptop deal for Black Friday is that just because a discount is large, that doesn't mean it's any good. Many retailers will artificially inflate prices before Black Friday to make the 'now' price a little more palatable and a discount more enticing. We tend to check camelcamelcamel as the pricing over time graphs there will reveal any foul play. Generally, you should start your search thinking around a laptop's graphics card; it'll be the main factor in pricing and will dictate the kind of games you can play, and at what settings. This time around, we should see RTX 3060-powered cards for well under the $1,000 mark, since next year's going to see 40-series GPUs shifting into the portable space. But given that we're unlikely to see something as powerful as the RTX 4090 in mobile form, there may not actually be much between the RTX 30-series and new RTX 40-series GPUs in terms of raw power. That means laptops powered by higher-end RTX 30-series cards are absolutely still worth grabbing even as we expect a new generation to appear around CES time. We'd recommend not going any older than an RTX 30-series GPU, however, and avoiding 10- and 20-series altogether at this point. Obviously, if you can find an RTX 2080-powered laptop at sub-$700, go for it. As far as AMD goes, a Radeon RX 6000-series graphics card should be the goal, though they are harder to find than their Nvidia equivalents. (Image credit: Future) Here's a rough estimate of how much a gaming laptop with different GPUs should cost you over Black Friday. Before you wrench open your wallet for a tasty discount, though, make sure you double check there's nothing off about the config. How much should I pay for a Black Friday gaming laptop?We recommend that you should be looking at the following rough pricing guides for 1080p gaming laptops with the following GPUs inside them. RTX 3050 Ti ~$750 RTX 3060 ~$1,000 RTX 3070 ~$1,300 RTX 3070 Ti ~$1,500 RTX 3080 ~$1,800 RX 6700M ~$1,300 RX 6800M ~$1,700 There will be inevitable exceptions to these recommendations, however, because there are other parts of a laptop spec that can alter the price. Honestly, for us that doesn't really include the CPU, but more the attached SSD, and memory. The key thing, though, is the screen. A 17-inch 4K panel will always cost more, but if that's something you desire, it might be worth the extra outlay. Likewise, the rise in 1440p panels for laptops is also something that can be worth paying for, especially if you're picking up a machine with a high-spec GPU inside it. Where are the best Black Friday gaming laptop deals?In the US: Amazon - RTX 3050 laptops from Acer and Dell starting at $810 Asus - high-end ROG Zephyrus 14 with Ryzen 9 and RTX 3060 at Best Buy MSI - RTX 3080 gaming laptops up to $200 off at Newegg Gigabyte - up to 25% off Gigabyte gaming laptops at Newegg Walmart - cheap Gateway laptops. Remember them?! B&H Photo - up to $500 off Lenovo, Asus, & MSI gaming laptops Target - sub-$1,000 gaming laptops Staples - up to $300 off MSI gaming notebooks Lenovo - $700+ discounts on Legion laptops Razer - discounts on Razer Blade laptops, our favorite notebooks Newegg - RTX 3060 gaming laptops under $800 Microsoft - up to half price on last-gen laptops Dell - save over $300 on Dell and Alienware gaming laptops In the UK: Amazon - save on Asus, Razer, and Acer gaming laptops Dell - Alienware and Dell Gaming laptops with up to £500 off Overclockers - gaming laptop deals and components Ebuyer - RTX 3070 gaming laptops for under £1,000 Very - save up to £450 on RTX 3070 MSI gaming laptops Razer UK - tiny discounts out PC Gamer's favourite gaming laptops Box - excellent sub-£1,000 gaming laptop deals Lenovo - up to 46% discounts on Lenovo's business and party laptops Scan - up to £400 off gaming laptops from different manufactures Laptops Direct - save up to £1000 on Razer gaming laptops The thing about laptops is that the relationship between the various subsystems is pretty tight, and the options for upgrading are much more limited than they are with desktops. The key takeaway here is not to drop $1,500 on a gaming laptop that has an RTX 3060 at its heart when you know that sort of money can net you a much more powerful RTX 3070, though there's a little more to it than just the GPU. When you are checking for a deal, a holistic approach is key. After the graphics card itself, check you're getting an up-to-date CPU—we wouldn't go any older than a 10th Gen Intel CPU with 13th Gen on the horizon. Ideally you want an 11th or 12th Gen model (the numbers straight after the 'Core i5/i7/i9' bit denote the CPU generation). For AMD you'll want a Ryzen 4000-series or later, but ideally a Ryzen 5000-series chip. (Image credit: Future) Next up you need to look at the amount of memory (or RAM) on offer. Ideally, you want 16GB of RAM, preferably as 2x 8GB sticks, not just a single 16GB SODIMM. If you use a single stick of memory on a dual-channel machine you're effectively halving the memory bandwidth available. A laptop with two sticks of 8GB memory will have twice the bandwidth of one with one 16GB stick. On the cheaper systems, you'll often see 8GB as standard which is a little hard to recommend at this point in time. On the plus side, memory is generally one thing that can be upgraded. Though it is worth checking the model you're looking at first, because not all systems make it easy to get at the inside of your laptop. As for storage, you want at least a 500GB NVMe SSD or larger. If we're writing our dream specs, then a 1TB drive, or even 2TB, would be preferable considering the size of games today, but you can usually upgrade that later on. I say usually because some laptops still come with soldered SSDs—honestly, is it not the year of our Lord 2022? Whatever you're looking for, there are certainly going to be some good deals out there on gaming laptops. And as we get nearer to Black Friday, we expect some choice deals to appear. Just have a mind about how much you should pay for what's on offer, and you won't make a costly misstep. Buyer's remorse isn't a feeling to take into the holidays with you. View the full article

Overwatch 2's rewards suck harder than a DPS Moira. The pivot to free-to-play has made for some aggressive monetisation coupled with weekly rewards that Morgan Park validly described as "insultingly low." A legendary skin now takes around seven months to earn without whipping out a credit card. It takes so damn long that you may actually be better off playing an entirely different game. That's what a couple of World of Warcraft fans have determined, anyway. A Reddit post earlier this week garnered a fair bit of attention as user Everdale claimed that you could probably earn Overwatch 2 skins faster by playing Blizzard's MMO than you could by playing its hero shooter. Turns out World of Warcraft has a system that lets you purchase tokens with in-game gold, which can then be converted into Battle.net credit. It works out at around $15 USD/£10 GBP per token, which isn't too bad a reward for a bit of gold grinding. While it's not a directly comparable system, Overwatch 2 currently lets you earn a small number of coins per week by completing challenges. Completing all 11 challenges for the week nets you 60 gold coins, which roughly equates to 60 cents. Some of these challenges—like winning 10 games each as two different roles—can take a little bit of grinding out. It reduces the likelihood of earning the full reward week-on-week unless it's the only game you're playing. If you do manage 60 coins a week, that's around 16 weeks for a battle pass or just under 32 weeks for a legendary skin. It's a bit much. you_can_earn_ow2_skins_faster_by_playing_wow_than from r/Overwatch If you're playing WoW, though, those 16 weeks could get squeezed right down to about two. User Xenon1366 commented on the Reddit thread to say that the token method was "exactly how I got the battle pass." PC Gamer reached out for some further details on how they made it happen. "It really depends on how much you want to play the game," they said. "I have about six level 60s that I will do the mission board in your Covenant Sanctum with. I will then also do the daily Covenant callings, those yield about 2k each. So each day I get about 20k gold from very minimal playing. Last I looked a token cost about 230k, so about every 10 days I could get a token." Of course, token grinding in WoW isn't definitively a superior method. Apart from needing one (or several) high-level characters for it to be beneficial, there's the monthly subscription fee and the cost of actually purchasing the game, whereas Overwatch 2 is free-to-play. There's also the case of token prices being subject to supply and demand, which can tack on a fair bit of time when their worth is on the up. But if you're already a frequent WoW player and also like to dabble in a bit of Overwatch tomfoolery, it may well be a method worth trying. The situation also speaks to how dire Overwatch 2's monetisation really is. Aside from fans reacting angrily to "greedy" bundles and reselling of Overwatch 1 skins at $20 a pop, it's sucked to see any sense of reward effectively drained from the game. The battle pass is fine, bar my own personal distaste for them as a concept. Loot boxes sucked too, but it felt like a far steadier stream of goodies than what's offered now. Gone are the days of getting silly voice lines and sprays to mess about with before a match, unless you're willing to spend actual money on them. View the full article

Dwarf Fortress will likely never be finished with its quest to simulate (nearly) all of existence, but it is about to be finished with a major milestone: launching on Steam. The graphical version of the PC's deepest simulation is releasing on Steam on December 6, complete with cute sprite art we've been watching progress for the last two years, a completely reworked user interface, and a lovely acoustic soundtrack. This release will include the primary Fortress mode, where you grow and manage a community of dwarves and try to survive vicious elf attacks and underground aquifer floods, as well as the Legends mode, which essentially generates an entire world and history for you to peruse. The Steam launch will not include Adventure mode, however, which is a sort of roguelike D&D that has you controlling individual adventurers instead of managing a colony simulation. "Bay 12 Games continues working hard on making sure these modes are their best when they arrive on Steam & Itch and will continue to communicate with the community when further updates are available," said the press release announcing the December 6 release date. According to the Steam page, the unique UI for Adventure mode will require several months of additional work. Once that's finally done, the devs will move on to working on Dwarf Fortress's next big update: a long-in-the-works procedurally generated magic and myth system. Developers Tarn and Zach Adams and publisher Kitfox noted that a few final details are still up in the air pre-launch: "We're not totally sure whether we'll have Arena mode or Steam Workshop integration or Classic mode at launch, but we do know all are very very close and already partially working," they wrote on Steam. "Those three things might end up in the launch or they might end up being patched in in the weeks after. For the months following launch, we have more graphics we want to add. We'd like specific graphics for more plants (evergreens, real world plants, etc), for example, and we'd also love to put in images for baby animals instead of just scaling down the adult versions. Kittens and red panda cubs and giant eaglets!" As I highlighted recently, the tutorial launching with the new Steam version looks like it'll make the notoriously impenetrable game vastly more approachable, and its new mouse-friendly menus should go a long long way, too. I hope everyone who played RimWorld—which was heavily inspired by Dwarf Fortress—gives it a shot. It'll be $30 when it launches. View the full article

Modern Warfare 2 players in the game's multiplayer have discovered a tricksy way to rack up thousands of XP in no time at all: all you need is an enemy tank, a suppression mine, and an abundance of confidence. First documented on Reddit, the trick requires you to climb atop an enemy tank—one with an open hatch—and dump a suppression mine smack-dab behind the turret. The mine will activate and repeatedly suppress the tank's inhabitants while they drive around, accruing a whole bunch of XP for the player that dropped the mine. how_to_farm_weapon_xp_fast from r/ModernWarfareII It's easier said than done, to be fair: climbing on top of an enemy tank in the middle of a game of MW2 paints a pretty big target on your back, and getting the mine to land in just the right spot takes a bit of finesse and luck. More than a few players in the comments on the original Reddit thread reached the conclusion that it might have been more efficient to play the game normally, since it's so difficult to clamber aboard an enemy tank and drop the mine in the right spot without getting sniped or run over. Still, if you manage it, the potential rewards are significant. Plus, the rolling ticker of XP gains that flash up on the screen when you manage it has an almost Cookie Clicker-like intoxicating effect. And what are games for if not making numbers go up? If you want to try it out for yourself, you're better off doing it sooner rather than later. I don't imagine this is a trick Infinity Ward will want to leave in the game for long. Modern Warfare 2 had a good launch weekend after releasing last week, despite a few crashes and a bug where a yawning black void gradually expands to consume your entire field of vision (which I think the devs should leave in). The meta has yet to settle, but player are already making great use of overpowered sniper rifles and the anti-camping drill charge to ruin each other's day. Oh, and an Amsterdam hotel is considering legal action against the game after disapproving of its inclusion in one of MW2's levels. Ups and downs, I suppose. View the full article

Some cheeky bugs have slipped through the cracks and caused a bit of a nightmare for Modern Warfare 2 players during launch week. As a drastic temporary solution, Infinity Ward has disabled two key gameplay features: pinging enemy locations and attachment tuning. As Polygon reports, the developer tweeted it was "disabling attachment tuning until further notice" over the weekend, as it was causing crashes for players who had five attachments tuned. Infinity Ward added: "If you currently have a tuned attachment equipped, you will need to unequip and reequip it to use your loadout." Though Infinity Ward didn't mention issues with the ping system in its tweets, it's currently noted on the public Modern Warfare 2 Trello board. It doesn't specify what the exact issue is, but a video on Reddit points towards a pretty likely reason for its disabling. Turns out there's a bug with pinging that's accidentally creating an army of wallhackers. Pinging an enemy after their death leaves the marker hanging over their heads for the rest of the match, meaning players were able to repeatedly pick off enemies that had been pinged this way. huge_bug_you_can_ping_an_enemy_during_the_death from r/ModernWarfareII No word on when either of these issues will be fixed. The attachment tuning issue doesn't seem to be on the Trello board for some reason, but the ping system problem is currently marked as "fix in progress." It seems like Trello may be the way Infinity Ward will communicate bugs going forward, and I'm always here for more transparency. Even if the developer had a spot of trouble setting up the board, accidentally making it publicly editable and causing players to flood its entries with nonsense. And, of course, posts begging for the removal of SBMM. View the full article

Be the best with these Modern Warfare 2 guides (Image credit: Activision blizzard)Prestige and Ranks explained Modern Warfare 2 missions Safe codes for Alone and El Sin Nombre Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 offers weapon tuning for some of your favourite firearms. It's a neat way to customise guns to your liking and provides more control over how you want your weapons to handle. If you're trying to figure out how to access weapon tuning, I'll explain what you need to know. Weapon tuning isn't initially available and you'll need to unlock it before you can start using the feature. To add to the confusion, Infinity Ward has disabled weapon tuning temporarily due to crashing issues but you can follow the steps below once it has been re-enabled. Here's how to unlock Modern Warfare 2 weapon tuning. Modern Warfare 2 weapon tuning: How to unlock (Image credit: Activision) To unlock the tuning option in Modern Warfare 2, you'll need to get your weapon to its max level and thankfully, gaining XP for weapons is as easy as using them during a match. Before you start grinding those levels however, make sure your gun of choice can be edited in Gunsmith—this is a pretty solid indicator that you'll be able to tune the weapon once you've maxed it out. Once you've unlocked weapon tuning, you can add attachments to your gun which can then be tuned to your liking. Visit the Gunsmith from your loadout screen, then look for the "Tune" button above an equipped attachment. You'll have two sliders which will change the variables. In the example above, you can make adjustments to range, accuracy and handling, though improving one will reduce the effectiveness of another so you should play around and see what works for you. View the full article

Be the best with these Modern Warfare 2 guides (Image credit: Activision blizzard)Prestige and Ranks explained Modern Warfare 2 missions Safe codes for Alone and El Sin Nombre Your Modern Warfare 2 KD ratio is a good indicator of how well you're faring in the new multiplayer modes, displaying your average kills relative to your deaths. If you're new to first-person shooters, it might be a fresh concept for you, but for the most part a higher KD ratio indicates your skill at PvP and shooting folks with fancy guns. If you have a KD ratio of 2.0, that means you're killing two other players for every time you get taken down. However, unlike previous Call of Duty games, Modern Warfare 2 doesn't make it particularly easy to see how well you're doing in multiplayer. There is currently no Barracks feature like what Warzone has, and calling cards and emblems are instead accessed through your profile. Here, I'll explain the best method to see your KD ratio in-game. Modern Warfare 2 KD ratio: How to view it (Image credit: Activision) Currently, the only way to see your Modern Warfare 2 KD ratio is at the end of a match on the leaderboard. On PC, you can press TAB to view the leaderboard and your kills and deaths at any time in a match, but it won't show you the exact ratio until you've reached the end of a game mode. Usually, the Barracks would be where you would view your stats, but this feature wasn't included in Modern Warfare 2's full release. This means that there's no way to view your overall KD average in Modern Warfare 2 right now, only your average for individual matches. That said, KD ratios and other in-game stats are often provided by third party sites. CODTracker.gg, which displays KD ratios for Warzone and other COD games, says that Modern Warfare 2 stats are coming soon, and you can enter your email to be notified as to when they go live. So, even if you can't get your KD ratio in-game, before long you should be able to get it there. View the full article

Blizzard is disabling yet another Overwatch 2 hero due to bugs with their abilities. Only a few weeks after we temporarily lost Bastion and Torbjorn for bugs that made them wildly (but entertainingly) overpowered, Mei is now being taken out of play for a little bit in order to fix a glitch with her Ice Wall ability. "We are temporarily disabling Mei to address a bug with her Ice Wall ability that allows heroes to reach unintended locations," Blizzard said in a tweet posted yesterday, "We are working to address these issues as quickly as possible and aim to bring Mei back in our next upcoming patch which is set for November 15". Bad news for Mei mains ('Meins'?), who will have to find someone else to play as for the next two weeks. Blizzard is trying to address a bug that allowed players to use Mei's Ice Wall to traverse outside the intended boundaries of Overwatch 2's maps. You can see the bug in action in a clip posted to Reddit (originally spotted by Polygon), in which a Mei player is able to get underneath the level geometry and fire up at players above them. Personally, I think Mei-Ling Zhou, planeswalker is a great new twist on the character, but it looks like Blizzard disagrees. The Ice Wall bug is yet another bump in Overwatch 2's already bumpy launch. Since the game came out in early October (putting a swift end to Overwatch 1 in the process), it's been beset by agonising queues, controversy over its phone number requirement, and even the creation by some players of a gross "sexual assault" custom game mode that Blizzard had to crack down on. It hasn't been smooth sailing, to say the least, and the problems surrounding characters like Bastion, Torbjorn, and now Mei certainly haven't helped the perception that the game has gotten off on the wrong foot. Still, for the most part, Overwatch 2 is a game we like in spite of its flaws. We gave it 74%, noting that the foundation established by the first game is "too robust and too distinct to be completely erased," but that the transition to a live service model risks hollowing out the best parts of the Overwatch experience if allowed to run amok. Here's hoping the ship gets righted soon. View the full article

Black Friday gaming headset deals (Image credit: SteelSeries)Jump straight to the deals you want... 1. Gaming headset deals 2. Wireless gaming headset deals With Black Friday approaching, why not treat your ears or the ears of a loved one with fabulous pair of cans while saving some money? No matter the style or budget, expect to see all sorts of gaming headsets getting hit with genuine discounts from all the usual suspects, such as SteelSeries, HyperX, Logitech, and Razer. And if this Black Friday is anything like last year, expect to see some great headsets selling for as little as $50. When you're shopping around, however, it pays to keep a couple of things in mind. It is crucial for gamers playing online to ensure it comes with a microphone that doesn't sound like you are broadcasting from a World War 2 submarine. Your buddies will thank you. Directional audio has also gotten so much better over the years, so it's something to keep a look out for if you're after a little competitive edge. Not only will it help pinpoint footsteps in games like Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, but it adds a level of tension in slower, more atmospheric games like Scorn and Resident Evil. We're curating all the best Black Friday PC gaming deals right here. If you're looking for wireless headsets, anything with a battery life of over 25 hours is a good place to start. And finally, comfort goes a long way, considering how much time we spend these things resting on our delicate ears. Those are just some things we look at when curating our best wired gaming headsets and best wireless gaming headsets throughout the year. That should probably be the first place you look during the Black Friday weekend. However, keep an eye out below since we will be handpicking the deals that be worth your time. Not only do we want to see you save some money, but we also want to save you time from mining through dozens of headset deals. We've got you. Oh, and the deals don't stop on Black Friday weekend. Cyber Monday will likely have some surprising discounts you don't want to miss. This gives you one more chance to save money and finish your holiday shopping early. Where do we even find these deals? Here are just a few of the best retailers we've been keeping an eye on throughout the weekend: Where are the best Black Friday gaming headset deals?In the US: Amazon - big discounts on popular gaming headsets Walmart - console, and PC gaming headsets up to 30% off B&H Photo - deals on pro-sumer and gaming headsets Best Buy - save up to $50 on gaming headsets Target - gaming headsets as low as $13 Staples - tons of budget gaming headsets Lenovo - Turtle Beach headsets starting at $70 Razer - home of some of PCG's favorite headsets Newegg - gaming headsets starting at $25 In the UK: Amazon - tons of budget gaming headsets options Newegg - variety of gaming headset brands Overclockers - deals on wireless gaming headsets Scan - deals on Razer and Beyerdynamic headsets Ebuyer - gaming headsets as low as £17 Argos - budget gaming headsets aplenty Razer - makers of PCG's most favored gaming headsets What should I look for in a Black Friday gaming headset deal?Before you throw open your wallet, knowing what features are most important to you in a gaming headset is good. Consider how long you will wear it per day and for what purpose. If you play a lot of FPS games, it's worth investing in a headset with surround sound to you can pinpoint enemies and a noise-canceling mic, so your teammates don't have to listen to your mechanical keyboard going click-clack. If you're going wireless, consider dropping RGB lighting down your priority list, as it'll sap battery life like nobody's business. Otherwise, if you're looking to stand out among streamers, a wired RGB headset will surely hypnotize those fans into subscribing. Black Friday gaming headset deals Our state-of-the-art price-searching bots are all over the web, tracking down the best prices all the time. That means this list will be regularly curated multiple times each day. Back to top ^ Black Friday wireless gaming headset deals Our hard-working price-searching bots are working night and day to find the very best wireless gaming headset deals on the internet. View the full article

Black Friday keyboard and mouse deals Jump straight to the deals you want... 1. Keyboard deals 2. Mouse deals Black November, and most importantly the actual Black Friday weekend is the best time of year to secure yourself a brand-new gaming mouse or mechanical keyboard to spruce up your desk. After all, they are the most important pair of peripherals you'll use for PC gaming. If not for yourself, these items make for an excellent gift for the PC gamer in your life. This stuff doesn't come cheap, so seeing a zippy ambidextrous mouse or beautiful keyboard with some Cherry switches for half-off its retail price always puts a smile on my face. Why upgrade? Perhaps you're looking for a lightweight mouse with a high DPI that comfortably fits your hand while playing the latest season of Fortnite. Or maybe you need a wireless mouse to cut the wires from your life. Personally, I'm a sucker for a mouse with a ton of programmable buttons for playing MOBAs. Either way, these Black Friday deals on gaming mice are worth every penny. You're missing out if you haven't experienced the satisfying fingertipped joy of typing on a mechanical keyboard. Aside from type-feel, mechanical keyboards are known for their reliability and ability to take some abuse. With all the bells and whistles, these keyboards can be expensive, costing up to $250 in some cases. If you're not a gamer, don't worry. There is still value in scoring a deal on an ergonomic keyboard and mouse so you can preserve your precious wrists. Expect tons of deals leading up to and during Black Friday. Thankfully, we've tested and played with dozens of the most popular keyboards and mouse combos throughout the year, so we know a good deal when we see one. Our deal bots are working overtime scouring the web for Black Friday PC gaming deals. This list will be updated regularly, all the way through to Cyber Monday. Where are the best Black Friday gaming keyboard and mouse deals?In the US: Amazon - save up to 40% on PC gaming peripherals Walmart - save off Corsair and Razer mice and keyboards Best Buy - up to $70 off your next mechanical keyboard Target - budget gaming keyboards up to $50 off Staples - 20% off Logitech gaming keyboards Newegg - EVGA gaming mice for cheap In the UK: Amazon - mechanical gaming keyboards down to half price Overclockers - up to 20% off Glorious Model O gaming mice Ebuyer - big savings on Logitech keyboards Box - save up to $50 on wireless keyboards Argos - decent prices on budget to high-end keyboards When will Black Friday gaming keyboard and mouse deals start to appear?With Amazon kicking things off with its Prime Early Access sale in October there are already a bunch of retailers starting to offer deals on PC peripherals. And as we get into November proper that will only ramp up all the way to the big Black Friday event on November 25. What should I look out for in a Black Friday gaming keyboard or mouse?For starters, most of the top gaming keyboards use mechanical switches, and so too do the top gaming mice, for that matter. These differ from the usual membrane construction you'll find on cheaper keyboards, and that means greater responsiveness, reliability, and generally a nicer feel. Beyond that, gaming keyboards offer plenty of nice-to-have features, such as RGB lighting, media control keys, macro keys, USB passthrough, wireless connectivity, and much more. When it comes to gaming mice, you're looking more at the sensor that tracks your movements on your mouse pad. A good sensor will offer zero acceleration, track you accurately, and be able to withstand you throwing the mice hither and thither. Combined with a comfortable shape, you're looking at a winner. Throw in a cheaper price on top of all of those great features, and you have a keyboard or rodent set to last many years. Black Friday keyboard deals Our patented deal bots are working full-time, tracking down the best prices 24/7 so you don't have to. Back to top ^ Black Friday mouse deals Our magic price searching bots are all over the web, tracking down the best prices all the time. That means this list will be regularly curated multiple times each day Back to top ^ View the full article

Whether you're looking for today's Wordle answer or you'd just like to read a few general tips and tricks to improve your daily game you'll find all you need and plenty more right here in PC Gamer's Wordle column. Just keep scrolling for clues, guides, our extensive Wordle archive, and of course the solution to the November 1 (500) puzzle. I had some absolutely stunning luck today. I went with a starter I've never used before just for a bit of fun—and it turned out to be just one letter off the answer. More of that, please. Wordle hint A Wordle hint for Tuesday, November 1 Today's Wordle answer concerns a widely used and common type of conifer tree, perhaps best known for its distinctive cones. Anything that has the scent of these, or any object made out of them, or even a hillside covered in the trees themselves, can be described using this word. According to various dictionaries, this answer can also be spelled without the second of the two vowels used today. Wordle help: 3 tips for beating Wordle every day If there's one thing better than playing Wordle, it's playing Wordle well, which is why I'm going to share a few quick tips to help set you on the path to success: A good opener contains a balanced mix of unique vowels and consonants. A tactical second guess helps to narrow down the pool of letters quickly.The solution may contain repeat letters. There's no time pressure beyond making sure it's done by midnight. So there's no reason to not treat the game like a casual newspaper crossword and come back to it later if you're coming up blank. Today's Wordle answer (Image credit: Josh Wardle) What is the Wordle 500 answer? I'm here to help. The answer to the November 1 (500) Wordle is PINEY . Previous answers Wordle archive: Which words have been used The more past Wordle answers you can cram into your memory banks, the better your chances of guessing today's Wordle answer without accidentally picking a solution that's already been used. Past Wordle answers can also give you some excellent ideas for fun starting words that keep your daily puzzle solving fresh. Here are some recent Wordle solutions: October 31: APTLYOctober 30: WALTZOctober 29: LIBELOctober 28: SNEAKOctober 27: CARRYOctober 26: FLOUTOctober 25: FOGGYOctober 24: FAULTOctober 23: MUMMYOctober 22: SPIEL Learn more about Wordle Every day Wordle presents you with six rows of five boxes, and it's up to you to work out which secret five-letter word is hiding inside them. You'll want to start with a strong word like ALERT—something containing multiple vowels, common consonants, and no repeat letters. Hit Enter and the boxes will show you which letters you've got right or wrong. If a box turns ️, it means that letter isn't in the secret word at all. means the letter is in the word, but not in that position. means you've got the right letter in the right spot. You'll want your second go to compliment the first, using another "good" word to cover any common letters you missed last time while also trying to avoid any letter you now know for a fact isn't present in today's answer. After that it's just a case of using what you've learned to narrow your guesses down to the right word. You have six tries in total and can only use real words (so no filling the boxes with EEEEE to see if there's an E). Don't forget letters can repeat too (ex: BOOKS). If you need any further advice feel free to check out our Wordle tips, and if you'd like to find out which words have already been used you'll find those below. Originally, Wordle was dreamed up by software engineer Josh Wardle, as a surprise for his partner who loves word games. From there it spread to his family, and finally got released to the public. The word puzzle game has since inspired tons of games like Wordle, refocusing the daily gimmick around music or math or geography. It wasn't long before Wordle became so popular it was sold to the New York Times for seven figures. Surely it's only a matter of time before we all solely communicate in tricolor boxes. View the full article

Microsoft's Xbox boss Phil Spencer has made his most far-reaching promise about keeping Call of Duty on Sony platforms yet, saying during an interview with the tech and gaming podcast Same Brain that Microsoft intends to keep the games on PlayStation consoles for "as long as there's a PlayStation out there to ship to." The future of Call of Duty is a big sticking point in Microsoft's proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard. Sony, understandably, is worried about Microsoft making the huge hit series an Xbox exclusive; Microsoft has insisted that it has no such intentions. But those commitments have previously come with a time frame of some sort: In September, for instance, Microsoft guaranteed Call of Duty on PlayStation "for at least several more years beyond the current Sony contract." In response, Sony said the actual time frame of the offer was just three years. Perhaps Microsoft is facing more resistance from regulators than it expected, or maybe it's just tired of talking about it. Whatever the reason, Spencer basically made an open-ended promise while speaking on this podcast. "We're not taking Call of Duty from PlayStation. I know that—which isn't exactly what you asked, but just to like punch that one in the nose, that's not our intent," Spencer said. "Our intent is not to do that, and as long as there's a PlayStation out there to ship to, our intent is that we'd continue to ship Call of Duty on PlayStation, similar to what we've done with Minecraft since we've owned that. "We've expanded the places where people can play Minecraft, we haven't reduced the places, and it's been good. It's been good for the Minecraft community—my opinion—and I want to do the same as we think about where Call of Duty can go over the years." Spencer also touched on the topic of Game Pass, another potential point of contention with Sony, although he didn't mention the Call of Duty series by name. "For Xbox itself, players who have invested in our console, I think the biggest addition that you're going to see is some great games coming to Game Pass," Spencer said. "This isn't going to be about pulling, as I said, those communities off of other platforms, but I want to be a great place for people to see those games." It's not a legally binding contract, but the fact that Spencer is willing to make this kind of commitment publicly—and in the midst of multiple regulatory investigations—suggests very strongly to me that Microsoft is prepared to stand behind it. Despite some (largely token) pushback from the UK's Competition and Markets Authority, and a rather ridiculous response to it, Spencer said Microsoft remains confident that the deal will be approved, likely before the end of the company's current fiscal year, which ends in June 2023. View the full article

As reported by Massively Overpowered, Korean developer Pearl Abyss will end Black Desert Online's in-game Halloween event early following the trampling deaths of 154 people at a Halloween gathering in Seoul. CNN reports that Seoul's Itaewon district was filled with revelers on October 29 during the first Halloween celebration since the end of major Covid-19 restrictions in South Korea. Eyewitnesses described streets packed like crowded subway cars, and South Korean authorities are still investigating what caused the trampling deaths. South Korea has entered a week-long mourning period following the tragedy. Like many live service games, Black Desert Online features a yearly in-game Halloween event, with an opportunity to participate in seasonal activities and earn special items. 2022's event was originally set to run from October 26 through November 9. The event will now be cut off a week early: this Tuesday, November 2, at BDO's regular weekly reset. "In light of this terrible news, we will be ending the currently ongoing Halloween-related events and promotions during the scheduled maintenance on Wednesday, November 2," The developer wrote in a post to its official website. "We ask for your understanding, and we will provide more information in our maintenance notice." Fellow South Korean-developed MMO, Lost Ark, seems to be continuing on with its Mystics and Mayhem event, but that appears to be more generally autumnal and harvest-themed than specifically Halloween related, perhaps explaining its continuation. During the mourning period, non-urgent public events will be postponed, public buildings will fly flags at half-mast, and public employees will wear ribbons commemorating the tragedy. The national morning will continue through November 5. View the full article

Hello Glurak, Welcome to UnityHQ Nolfseries Community. Please feel free to browse around and get to know the others. If you have any questions please don't hesitate to ask. Glurak joined on the 10/31/2022. View Member

Ryan Karazija, the main mover behind the group Low Roar and the musician responsible for most of Death Stranding's singular soundscape, has died at the age of 40. The news was announced on the band's Instagram page, with a post that reads: "Ryan Karazija, front man and driving force behind Low Roar, has died at age 40. "His beautiful music and lyrics, sung in his haunting voice have touched the lives of so many people all over the world, and will continue to do so. He was a kind and beautiful soul and our worlds are shattered by the loss of him. "May we honour his memory through his art and hold him forever in his songs." Karazija spent the earlier part of his life and career in California, fronting the band Audrye Sessions from 2002 to 2010, before moving to Iceland and Reykjavík, where he began Low Roar. Initially a solo project, the group's eponymous debut was released in 2011, and it has now released five albums, with a sixth to be released posthumously. Low Roar did not enjoy huge commercial success, but videogame designer Hideo Kojima happened upon the band's music in a Reykjavik record shop. Kojima recognised that these alluring, sometimes discordant, and unusually constructed songs captured something of the essence of Death Stranding's mood: the loneliness, the struggle to survive with integrity, the wailing against the world we all indulge in. Kojima reacted to the news on social media saying that, without Karazija's contribution, "Death Stranding would not have been born." I heard the news. I can't believe it. I don't want to believe it. Without Ryan, without you and your music, Death Stranding would not have been born. Your music will live forever in this world and in me. Thank you. Rest in peace.Low Roar Ryan Karazija (1982-2022) pic.twitter.com/buzBwtBHvrOctober 29, 2022 See more "Ryan’s songs are sensual and the sounds he creates are unique," Kojima told Rolling Stone in 2016. “His goal isn’t to make money; he is about the art and shows a very original taste even in things like his album covers.” Death Stranding is a game of moments. Long stretches of solitude that, eventually, are broken by some sight in the distance, some sense of an achievement within one's grasp. Almost without exception these moments are soundtracked by Low Roar, which provides 18 of 22 songs on the soundtrack, to the extent they seem emblematic of Sam's inner life. Few games use music tracks like this, or create such an effect through them. Amusingly enough, Death Stranding was such a hush-hush project that, when Kojima got Sony to approach Low Roar about using the band's music, Sony wouldn't tell the band what it wanted the track for. "Sony contacted us in an obscure email offering us a certain amount of money to use the song ‘I’ll Keep Coming’, and they were not willing to tell us what they’re going to use the song for," Karazija told VG247 in 2020. "At that time we were in a gutter so we accepted it. And it turned out it was for Death Stranding." The use of Low Roar's music in Death Stranding saw the band find a significant new audience and go on tour. A later update from the band said that Karazija had died following complications from pneumonia. Low Roar's statement ends by saying that work on the sixth album is already underway and it "will be completed and released when it is ready. Please respect his family’s privacy at this incredibly difficult time." View the full article

Her Story creator Sam Barlow recently revealed on Twitter that Tesla once approached him about adding the game to its library of in-car games. The deal never happened, though, because Tesla didn't want to pay for it with anything but "exposure." Tesla's cars are notable for a few things, including catching fire, causing accidents, and being a literal game platform. And a reasonably powerful one, too, that's apparently capable of playing relatively new, demanding games like Cyberpunk 2077. But like other platforms, getting games onto it requires a license with the creator, which is where Barlow's story comes into play. "Tesla once reached out to ask to put Her Story in a car," Barlow tweeted. "I asked how much they would pay for the license and to cover the engineering working—they suggested zero, that I should consider the exposure I would get." The idea of exposure in this context is that creators will forgo money in favor of bringing their work to a larger audience, and thus a larger pool of potential paying customers, than they'd otherwise reach. It's basically a way for someone to get free work, and generally not considered a good idea: The Oatmeal did a famous comic on the obvious pitfalls of exposure, and there's a Twitter account dedicated to ridiculing its folly as well. Predictably, many of the responses to Barlow's tweet are very much on point: (Image credit: Twitter) (Image credit: Twitter) Ooh, exposure bucks! pic.twitter.com/Q8ELPjGiXdOctober 31, 2022 See more And it turns out that Barlow wasn't alone in this experience with Tesla. A developer who worked on Untitled Goose Game said in one-word reply that Tesla had come to them with the same offer. Same re: GooseOctober 31, 2022 See more Exposure is pretty useless all around—you can't buy food or pay rent with it—but it's even more useless to Barlow than it is for most because Her Story is a genuine indie hit. (He's done quite well since then without the Tesla exposure too, with Her Story followups Telling Lies and Immortality both earning critical acclaim.) And aside from that, the idea of putting Her Story in Teslas is pretty dumb right from the hop. I'm sure it's great being able to blow a few minutes on a momentary distraction while you're waiting for someone in the parking lot, something you can easily jump in and out of, but does anyone really want to play an intense piece of investigative interactive fiction that way? I suspect not. Barlow had some thoughts on that, too. Her Story in a car remains one of the sillier ideas I’ve heardOctober 31, 2022 See more View the full article

Infinity Ward would have us believe that history is written by the victors, but the resurgent dominance of the SPR-208 marksman rifle in Modern Warfare 2 shows that history is more prone to repetition. The Warzone 1.0 bolt-action death machine is back with a vengeance in Modern Warfare 2, and it’s the same beast all over again. Dealing instant death has rarely felt easier in Call of Duty. Chalk it up to a cocktail of cerebral palsy and apathy, but I’ve never been able to get a handle on sniping in multiplayer FPSes. That’s why I was floored the first time I took the SPR-208 for a spin in Ground War, consistently racking up four to five kills, at any distance, per life. For a guy with a pretty unimpressive 1.25 K/D average, the SPR-208’s performance is striking. The environments that the SPR-208 excels in aren’t just limited to the wide-open maps of Ground War and Invasion, though that’s where it’s performing best—you're bound to see a few show up in every 6v6 match right now. Lots of sniper rifles are capable of one-shot-kills, but the SPR is unique in that it's easy to get (unlocks at level 7), aims quickly with zero attachments, and has a crystal clear ironsight that questions the need for a scope at all. The dismal state of shotguns has further elevated the SPR-208 as a no-brainer pick for those running the Overkill perk (carry two primary weapons). If you came to Modern Warfare 2 for nostalgia reasons, you're in luck, because it feels like 2009 again. Specifically, the SPR-208 feels a lot like the dominant Intervention sniper rifle from the bygone days of the original Modern Warfare 2, unfairly gifted with the handling of a Kar-98k. It’s a marksman rifle only theoretically—at close ranges, it’s only marginally difficult to land a torso shot for an instant kill, and when tuned up with the proper attachments, the SPR-208 can excel at almost any range. What makes this so surprising is that the SPR-208 was a mid-game addition to Modern Warfare 2019 & Warzone 1.0, and was subject to a significant nerf not long after. Users of the Call of Duty subreddit have already taken heed of the bolt-action Death Star: "This is the best gun in the game right now. Just absolutely insane. — Smitty00"This gun is making my hardpoint matches so boring, every team seems to have 4 players using it and all they do is hold down lanes on maps, so boring." — Funnellboi"I wish all SP-R 208 users a very pleasant you hurt my feelings" — ANZAC3RAR"Scope needs to be mandatory on some of these guns, man." — RIPBlueRaven With some players calling for the outright removal of sniper rifles from Ground War & Invasion modes, it’s clear that Infinity Ward has a bit of a sniper conundrum. Call of Duty has always maintained a laissez-faire attitude toward game balance, but even the invisible hand has to show itself once in a while. As fun as it is, take it from someone whose aiming hand is permanently disabled—the SPR-208 is overtuned, and I’ve got the kills to prove it. View the full article

Last week ended on a sour note with the announcement that Henry Cavill will be taking off his white wig and hanging up his sword after The Witcher season 3. We'll see more of Geralt, but Cavill's moving on. Despite some iffy early pictures of him looking like a mediocre cosplayer, Cavill's depiction of the White Wolf has become just as iconic and defining as Doug Cockle's, so he'll definitely be missed. We're just a bit obsessed with Cavill in general here at PC Gamer, so naturally the mood is blue. How are we handling the tragic news? What do we think of Australian interloper Liam Hemsworth? Would we rather see someone else in the tub? Read on for our reactions. Fraser Brown, Online Editor: Cavill's planned departure from The Witcher has opened the door to a lot of speculation, but whatever the reasons I can't say I'm surprised that one of the world's biggest movie stars doesn't want to be locked into the same show year after year—especially not one that sees him perpetually covered in mud and gore and shoved into very tight trousers. This was bound to happen. That said, it's still a gargantuan loss for the show. I have no opinion on Liam Hemsworth—I've seen him in two movies and he did the job he was paid to do—but it'll be tough getting used to seeing him performing a role that Cavill so defined. And I think fans will be hesitant to embrace him as the new witcher when season 4 comes around, unless Cavill seriously drops the ball next season. It's not just that Cavill's performance is nuanced and immensely entertaining—it's that we know he takes the gig seriously. He knows the source material, he knows the games and he treats the character like he's a custodian, taking care of it and giving it respect—all things that keep fans happy. So he's built a relationship with a sizable community. And it goes beyond this role in the show. Stuff like his obsession with Warhammer and his PC building video makes this Greek-statue-looking, Superman-playing Hollywood action hero seem relatable, and people lap that 'frack' up. Even a miserable cynic like me. Playing Warhammer with Cavill is right at the top of my bucket list. So the odds are stacked against the second most famous Hemsworth, though I do think he'll at least look the part. He just needs to be scuffed up a bit. Liam Hemsworth, who will play Gerlat in The Wither's fourth season. (Image credit: Valerie Macon/AFP via Getty Images) Lauren Morton, Associate Editor: I'm going to harden my heart with some cynicism and say that this will not be the last or deepest disappointment. We're witnessing an inflection point in The Witcher's fanchisification, the capital letter Intellectual Property-ing. CD Projekt's game series and the Netflix show both snatched success from initial skepticism. We're statistically overdue for some real missed swings in this universe and if Hemsworth the younger doesn't become one of them, it'll be something else. As Fraser says, Cavill really made a name for himself as the Executive Witcher Fan in recent years. We were skeptical at first, but then he started talking about building PCs and how he wanted the role because he'd read the books. It may have been wielded for promotional purposes, but it was still nice to have a fellow PC gamer and Witcher fan in the show's lead role. I'm still going to try being all grim and sensible about the change, but it is hard not to feel let down. Lauren Aitken, Guides Editor: I was extremely unhappy with Cavill being cast as Geralt in the beginning, especially with those god awful prompt shots before he became buff and they got him a proper wig. Season 1's Geralt's hair was a bit too perfect and he was a bit too clean looking, but Cavill's insistence on following the source material to the letter meant we got a softer, more unkempt and ultimately more dangerous Geralt in season two. Season three Geralt could be the best TV Geralt possible without dubbing Doug Cockle's gravelly tones over Cavill's voice. I'm so used to seeing Cavill's buff Geralt interpretation that it's difficult to imagine there might be a more worn down, haggard type. Maybe we should let Liam run free and bring out an Australian accent—nobody said the Rivians couldn't sound like our pals from down under. Not sure shouting "Crikey, she's a beauty!" at a Bruxa is going to have the same effect as muttering "'frell'", though. I actually thought it was a Hard Drive article when I first heard of the recasting. Andy Chalk, NA News Lead: Plenty of people predicted that Heath Ledger would fail miserably as the Joker because Jack Nicholson owned the role so completely, and like Lauren I had powerful doubts about Henry as Geralt when I saw those first test shots. So I'm trying to keep an open mind about this recasting. But I just can't envision Dollar Store Thor filling the role convincingly: He's too young, too small, too tender. I hope he proves me wrong, but even if he does it won't soften the real blow: I feel incredibly let down by Henry. You can't blame a man for chasing the money, I know, and I'm not mad—just very, very disappointed. Imogen Mellor, Feature Producer: I actually thought it was a Hard Drive article when I first heard of the recasting. It feels almost ridiculous to recast someone so important to the series like this, but there must be a lot of trust in Liam Hemsworth's capabilities for them to believe he can pull it off. Either that or The Witcher is too successful for them to let go, Cavill or no Cavill. Either way, I don't envy Hemsworth's position. I just kind of wish they had picked someone a little older than Cavill, rather than younger. Rich Stanton, senior editor: It's definitely something to do with his Hollywood roles I think. DC is clearly gunning to have a more serious crack at the superhero extended nonsense. I wish Netflix had leaned into the skid: recast Cavill with someone who looks nothing like him. Ted Litchfield, Associate Editor: Steroids, plastic surgery, and crossfit have made leading men a dime a dozen. There are too many of them. Any even moderately successful comedian will be captured by Disney, injected with human growth hormone, and made to hit a tire with a hammer one million times so he can mug at the camera as the obscure Jack Kirby character Captain Doodoo and say "did that really just happen?" Cavill's got them all beat: He's the hunk's hunk, a man to lead all the other leading men. He killed it as Geralt, and all respect to Liam, I hope he proves me wrong, but I don't want to see the off-brand version of Cavill's performance. I wish Netflix had leaned into the skid: recast Cavill with someone who looks nothing like him. Ride the lightning, baby. The hunks have had their day, let's bring back character actors. Give me a sphinxlike and wry Mads Mikkelson Geralt. Show me the raw sexual charisma of a Matt Berry Geralt. Hell, maybe even the bracing manic energy of a Nic Cage or Paul Giamatti Geralt. This could have been an opportunity, not a tragedy. View the full article

Valve, as ever in PC gaming, continues to thread its own path throughout the industry. As well as operating the de facto PC distribution platform Steam, it seems to have finally cracked the hardware side with the Steam Deck, and continues to support some of the world's most popular games while steadfastly refusing to use the number '3'. Tell you what though: it's not as funny as it used to be. There's funny in the context of games, and then there's just funny period. Valve is in the latter camp and, for me, hit its richest vein of form around the Orange Box era. Portal was hilarious, everything about Team Fortress 2 raised a smile, and then Portal 2 arrived shortly afterwards and to this day remains the funniest singleplayer and co-op experience I've ever had. Perhaps it was pining for those days that led me to watch Valve's new video for a Cave Johnson announcer pack, and realise that the studio's still got it. Okay it is six minutes long. But what sights: a look behind-the-scenes on Gabe Newell's motivational process for voice actors. Employees wasting away on dog food. Studio kidnappings! And then the coup de grace of Gaben on a yacht, in a lovely pink shirt, playing Steam Deck with a cocktail and making his man flunkey bring over the potato phone. This is full of Portal 2 in-jokes, as one might expect, with a particularly nice touch being Gabe licking the potato phone before use. Despite its length the video doesn't showcase a huge amount of Cave Johnson's singular presence, but it's pretty clear that J.K. Simmons is back and not a moment too soon. The only bad news, of course, is that you have to be one of them there Dota 2 players in order to have Cave Johnson barking along in the background. At least the rest of us get to gaze on Gaben in all his glory. View the full article

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 just finished its official launch weekend after a week of campaign early access, and the word seems to be… good? Warzone 2.0's still due November 16, but basic CoD multiplayer's an institution, and despite some reports of crashing, it seems like the Boys of Autumn are happily quick scoping to their hearts' content. The number one issue right now is those crashes⁠—they're at the top of the list in the MW2 subreddit's bugs and issues megathread, and players are swapping horror stories in the comments of this post from redditor DemonOfLight. Almost all of MW2's negative Steam reviews cite crashes as the reason for their thumbs down (MW2 is currently sitting at "Mixed" status.) I do gotta hand it to Steam user Neek's summation of "crash of duty: modern errors 2." Got 'em. PC Gamer's own Morgan Park ran into about nine such multiplayer crashes over the weekend, hardly ideal. In addition to overall stability woes, MW2 does have a few more minor technical hiccups to be addressed. I'm a fan of a graphical glitch where a trippy void blob expands to fill your vision. I've seen it in a Reddit post from user, uh, Cannabisaurus, as well as in this sawn-off sniper quickscoping video from FaZe Bams. Polygon also reports that attachment tuning and pinging have been disabled due to the former causing crashes, and the latter effectively enabling permatracking of your enemies. There are already rumblings of hackers and overpowered weapons, but these discussions seem to roll in like the tide with CoD and there hasn't been time for the meta to settle. Early favorite guns include MW2's iterations of the M4, AK, MP5, and, curiously, a very easily-unlocked (level 7) sniper rifle, here dubbed the SPR 208. A lot of streamers seem to be mad about something called SBMM… Super Smash Brothers Melee Melee? Who can say. mw2wtf_did_i_just_find from r/CallOfDuty With all that said, CoD's an institution for a reason, and people seem to be having fun. Don't let anyone tell you different⁠: The exploding car map, Santa Seña, absolutely rules. It demonstrates the sort of playfulness and experimentation I associate with legendary old CoD maps like Nuketown or Rust. I love watching people run and gun, just get nutty with it in CoD, and Modern Warfare 2 seems to really prioritize that sort of aggressive play. The FaZe Bams video linked earlier is making me want to saw down a sniper rifle and go gunslinging myself, and PC Gamer's Morgan Park has been making the most of Modern Warfare 2's anti-camper Drill Charge, both for its intended purpose, but also just chucking it at people's heads. The outlook is good then, following Modern Warfare 2's launch weekend. Its classic multiplayer is as strong as ever, and we'll find out how Warzone 2 stacks up when it launches on November 16. View the full article