Like a zipline descending into Verdansk, the quality curve of the Call of Duty campaign trends ever downward, year-on-year. Or so a casual observer might assume. But this is Task Force 141, soldier: we don’t do casual observation. Take my binoculars and you’ll soon see that the real story is far more complicated and compelling.
For every Ghosts in the graveyard of CODs past, there’s an unlikely space adventure to rival Titanfall. And no matter how many times Captain Price tells you to let ‘em pass, there’s always an experimental RTS mechanic or Hitman-lite stealth mission waiting around the next corner. Call of Duty has been far more brave and changeable than it’s given credit for, and while the best ideas haven’t always stuck, they’re still very much playable. What’s more, they rarely outlast a weekend - which counts for a lot in an age of life-consuming AAA releases.
Over 20 years of service, I’ve played every single COD campaign, and can share my intel freely with allies like you. So hop in for a ride through the ups and downs of the series. Just don’t take the helicopter - those things never land softly around here.
]]>HDR on PC hasn't improved much in 2019. Despite there being more HDR gaming monitors than ever before, the very best gaming monitors for HDR continue to be quite expensive compared to non-HDR monitors, and the situation around Windows 10 support for it is still a bit of a mess. However, provided you're willing to fight through all that, then the next step on your path to high dynamic range glory is to get an HDR compatible graphics card.
Below, you'll find a complete list of all the Nvidia and AMD graphics cards that have built-in support for HDR, as well as everything you need to know about getting one that also supports Nvidia and AMD's own HDR standards, G-Sync Ultimate and FreeSync 2. I've also put together a list of all the PC games that support HDR as well, so you know exactly which PC games you can start playing in high dynamic range.
]]>Just when you thought your trusted deals herald was done for the day, here she is with another one fresh off the deals presses. It's arguably the best deal of the day, though, as Humble have just announced the early unlocks for their next Humble Monthly bundle: Call of Duty: WWII, the Crash Bandicoot N.Sane Trilogy and Spyro Reignited Trilogy. That's seven games, all for just $12. You'll need to be a Humble Monthly subscriber to get them, of course, but if you're not you can join up right now for just $12 a month.
]]>In December 2017, a scuffle over a $1.50 (£1.15) bet on a Call of Duty: WWII match ended in a man's death. As Casey Viner and Shane Gaskill's little dispute came to a head, Viner recruited veteran swatter Tyler Bariss to swat Gaskill - who had conveniently provided his own address to do so. Gaskill, of course, sent an old address. When police came to investigate Bariss's false report of a shooting and kidnapping, it wasn't Gaskill they found but 28-year-old father Andrew Finch. An officer shot Finch, claiming he thought he was reaching for a gun. He died.
Bariss was sentenced to 20 years behind bars in March, and now Viner is headed to prison.
]]>A Kansas court has sentenced a man to 20 years in prison on charges related to swatting, including one incident which started with a $1.50 (£1.15) bet on a Call Of Duty: WWII match and ended with the police shooting an innocent person dead. Swatting is the not-very-funny prank of phoning emergency services with fake threats so cops bust into the prankee's house, typically when they're streaming so the pranker can watch and chortle away. With America's ha-ha-hilariously militarised police, that brings a fair chance they'll be killed too. The US legal system has seemed slow to respond to swatting so it's good to see them recognise how serious it is.
]]>Michael Condrey, who co-founded Call Of Duty crew Sledgehammer Games after being a big cheese at EA's Visceral Games on games including Dead Space, has now joined 2K as president of a mysterious new studio. Continuing his tour of big American publishers, 2K say Condrey "will build and lead a new development team to work on an unannounced project." It is weird to see 2K opening a studio after shutting down so many in recent years, and that does make me doubt its long-term chances, but hey, we'll see.
]]>After so many Warfares of the Modern, Advanced, and Totally Wacky variety, there was something comforting about Call of Duty going back to World War 2. Playing Call of Duty: WW2’s multiplayer mode now, nine months after launch, is like slipping on an old boot — albeit a boot covered in mud, masonry dust, and the blood of tens of millions of people.
]]>We've just passed the half-way point of 2018, so Ian Gatekeeper and all his fabulously wealthy chums over at Valve have revealed which hundred games have sold best on Steam over the past six months. It's a list dominated by pre-2018 names, to be frank, a great many of which you'll be expected, but there are a few surprises in there.
2018 releases Jurassic World Evolution, Far Cry 5 Kingdom Come: Deliverance and Warhammer: Vermintide II are wearing some spectacular money-hats, for example, while the relatively lesser-known likes of Raft, Eco and Deep Rock Galactic have made themselves heard above the din of triple-A marketing budgets.
]]>It's very nearly Explosion Day in America, so that means that every online shooter is doing its best to bludgeon us senseless with loud guns and louder outfits. Call of Duty: WW2 is no exception, but accompanying the Liberty Strike event's obligatory and garish red/white/blue-painted weaponry and outfits is a juicy little cherry of daftness on top. While Call of Duty isn't my usual cup of shootybang tea, I love the sound of this week's time-limited playmode, available now until July 9th - Wanderlust Mosh Pit - as it seems delightfully stupid.
]]>Whatever your weapon of choice--plasma rifle, axe, M1 Garand, or raw capitalism, baby!--you may well be able to dabble in your favoured violence this weekend for free. The full versions of XCOM 2, For Honor, Call Of Duty: WWII's competitive multiplayer (okay, so not really the full version), and Offworld Trading Company are all available in free trial weekends for the next few days - mostly through Steam.
]]>With a month to go until Activision start blabbing about Call Of Duty: Black Ops 4, the last annual sequel in their mega-blockbuster shooter series, the rumour mill is filling in the space. According to whispers on the wind, Cod Blops 4 won't have a traditional story campaign, scrapped because it wasn't going to be ready in time for the October launch, and will instead focus on multiplayer and the cooperative Zombies mode. Other whispers say that the game will have a battle royale mode too. Activision reply that they "don't comment on rumor and speculation." Believe as much or as little as you please.
]]>I don't understand how anyone can believe any first-person shooter series is improved by removing wallrunning and jetpacks, but apparently "historical accuracy" demanded Activision do that with Call of Duty: WW2. What rot! But if you do want to try zippy face-shooting with horrifying screams and no jetpacks, you can play CoD WoWa2's multiplayer for free this weekend. A free trial kicked off last night, giving a free days to run on floors (not walls) and jump (not jumppack) around sodden and frozen battlefields. Might be fun to try, if you can download it in time.
]]>We've already seen which games sold best on Steam last year, but a perhaps more meaningful insight into movin' and a-shakin' in PC-land is the games that people feel warmest and snuggliest about. To that end, Valve have announced the winners of the 2017 Steam Awards, a fully community-voted affair which names the most-loved games across categories including best post-launch support, most player agency, exceeding pre-release expectations and most head-messing-with. Vintage cartoon-themed reflex-tester Cuphead leads the charge with two gongs, but ol' Plunkbat and The Witcher series also do rather well - as do a host of other games from 2017's great and good.
Full winners and runners-up below, with links to our previous coverage of each game if you're so-minded. Plus: I reveal which game I'd have gone for in each category.
]]>Another year over, a new one just begun, which means, impossibly, even more games. But what about last year? Which were the games that most people were buying and, more importantly, playing? As is now something of a tradition, Valve have let slip a big ol' breakdown of the most successful titles released on Steam over the past twelve months.
Below is the full, hundred-strong roster, complete with links to our coverage if you want to find out more about any of the games, or simply to marvel at how much seemed to happen in the space of 52 short weeks.
]]>You know what I love about the winter holidays? Shooting people in various 20th century European locales. If you too enjoy sending small chunks of metal through the air at high velocity towards a fellow human being’s vital organs, perhaps you will like the upcoming DLC for Call of Duty: WWII. It’s called Resistance and has three new multiplayer maps, a new mission for “war mode” and another chapter for the daft Nazi zombies mode. Inspect the liver-puncturing possibilities in the trailer below.
]]>Welcome to the Steam Charts. Here are the headlines.
]]>The tail-end of Steam's Autumnal sale sees a few old favourites lingering with the usual suspects in the charts this week. The discounts that got them here are all gone now, but it's only a couple of weeks now before everything goes completely bonkers for the Winter Sale, and you can expect to see all the same names deeply discounted once more.
]]>Videogames' extended voyage through the uncanny valley would go on for at least another couple of decades, I'd presumed until recently. Real, believable people conjured from our graphics cards would surely remain a pipedream for many hardware generations to come. Then I played Call of Duty: WW2, and the first cracks appeared in the walls of reality.
All of sudden, videogames can do faces. Amazing faces. Terrifying faces.
]]>Imagine what would happen if Plunkbat weren't to be at number 1? Could anyone even cope any more? Has all of gaming started operating on this as a foundation, forgetting that it could, one day, not sell more copies than everything else? What if I'm writing this as a bluff because it's not at number 1 this week? What if I just wrote that to imply the bluff even though there isn't a bluff?! OH MY GOODNESS EVERYONE QUICKLY READ THIS NOW!
]]>About this time every year, everyone huddles around the open fire roasting chestnuts and singing songs, keenly awaiting the arrival of the first patch for this year's new Call of Duty game. But while consoleers awoke on Friday to find a Call of Duty: WW2 patch hanging in the stocking over their TV, PCnauts have gone without. Are we... on the naughty list? Nah mate, turns out the patch is so busted on consoles that Sledgehammer Games took down multiplayer dedicated servers and are holding back its PC release. Bad news if you wanted the balance tweaks the patch brought, good news if you don't want to reach into your stocking and get covered in rotten satsuma.
]]>The continued clotting amalgamation of the Steam Charts, with CODWARs and AssCreed Oranges mysteriously occupying multiple spaces, is having frankly dangerous effects on the column. No The Witcher 3! No GTA V! And H1Z1 seems to have been entirely forgotten by the ages! What is a running joke to do?
]]>WAR. The men and women of the RPS podcast, the Electronic Wireless Show, are doing their part, but are you doing yours? We have shown bravery among the bullets and beaches of Call of Duty WWII, with John popping helmets in the "quite good" single player campaign, and Matt hiding in the bloodied crater of multiplayer. I've done sweet foxtrot alpha on the frontlines, so to make up for it I've invented another minigame for my fellow hosts. On top of that we've been horsing around (or unicorning around) in the Egypt of Assassin's Creed Origins, appreciating our friend the eagle and taking nice photos of the ancient civilisation. Come listen.
]]>Call of Duty WW2 takes the series back to its roots, stripping out the jetpacks and wallrunning from the recent futuristic iterations. As Sledgehammer Games enthusiastically say, the game is back to being ‘boots on the ground’. It’s certainly a change of pace, but I was happier when my boots were sailing through the air at 50mph.
]]>Do you find solace through memetics? Which enormously popular game you like is also liked by lots of other people? What else might form the triangle of your desire? Cast aside your romantic delusions, and delve into the acquisitive mire that is the Steam Charts.
]]>Fully expecting another ghastly CoD campaign, I've been utterly surprised by the shooter I've just played. Be shocked - Call Of Duty: WWII is a decent single-player game. And there's not a loot drop in sight. Here's wot I think:
]]>The new Call of Duty is out, and this time it’s War 2. Sledgehammer Games, not content with turning the beaches of Normandy into a “Headquarters” where players can run around like silent psychopaths, have introduced a system of loot crates in COD: WWII whereby you can see all the items your fellow infantrymen pull out of their goody boxes. Super. One strange mission, Eurogamer have noticed, even tasks you with watching people open their airborne presents.
]]>All of this has happened before, and all of this will happen again. You can take your modern wars and future wars and shove 'em where the Soap don't shine, because Call of Duty has, of today, gone back to the one-time future of first-person shooters: World War II. Call of Duty: WW2 is out now, y'see.
But is this latter-day noisenik shoutyman CoD with a 1940s skin on top, or is it really a concerted return to the glory days of the mid-2000s and the series' earliest days? Early word from our man in Normandy - i.e. Mister John Walker, who's currently reviewing CoD WW2 for us - is that the campaign is thus far Quite Good. He's not exactly been a fan of recent CoD singleplayers, so this might just be one to sit up and pay attention to.
]]>I jumped into the Call of Duty: WW2 beta over the weekend, and found that the series' leap back into the past applies to more than just the time period it's set in.
]]>Some have doubted the power of the Steam Charts to change people's lives. Those people are dead now. Belief in Steam Charts, RPS's greatest, longest-running, and most industry-revered column, is literally the only thing keeping you alive right now. Don't be a dead one. Love us. LOVE US.
]]>After larking around in the present and future, Call of Duty this year returns to the war that kicked the series off, wrapping modern CoD in the spats and mud of the Second World War. How has that worked out? Well, you can see for yourself this weekend in the free PC open beta test for Call of Duty: WW2 [official site]. The test will begin on Friday but we can now preload the client. It's a 14GB download so you might want to start now if your PC isn't slurping a jackhose ripped to the nines with gigabits to spare.
]]>Call of Duty [official site] is returning to its roots. No more orbital adventures and digital warfare, and little chance that the series will complete its full evolution into a sort of first-person Command & Conquer: Red Alert. Instead, the billboards that decorated E3 this year had a solemn air about them. "This," they wanted us to know, "is serious business."
We'll have to wait 'til CoD: WW2's singleplayer aspect is playable before we get a proper sense for the tone and the specific battlefields we'll be (re)visiting, but the multiplayer open beta is coming to PC in a couple of weeks. It's a little later than console and will run across the weekend, from the 29th September to the 2nd October. No real news on what exactly will be included yet but the announcement post gives a few more details.
]]>I welcome spaces to goof off in serious competitive games. On the Plunkbat loading runway, you'll find me creeping along wonkily as I lean and wobble or launching myself into the air with the plane wing glitch. In Natural Selection's ready room, you bet I'm climbing onto heads. And in Call of Duty: WW2 [official site], oh boy, the 'Headquarters' social space looks great fun. 48 players will get to fight, muck about, and shoot things in all sorts of fun ways. Have a look in this new trailer:
]]>Actors including David Tennant (Ian Whom PhD), Elodie Yung (Electro), Katheryn Winnick (Ribs), Ving Rhames (Quentin Tarantino's A True Story), and Udo Kier (Disturbia) are lending their voices to characters in the cooperative Nazi Zombies mode of Call of Duty: WW2 [official site], Activision announce. I'm sure they're fine actors but the next CoD: Infinite Warfare zombie DLC has Elvira, Mistress of the Dark and I know which I find more exciting. Anyway, this announcement trailer fresh from San Diego Comic-Con shows some of the shambling horrors we'll gun down with our chums:
]]>Each year E3 rolls around like a giant evil worm, crushing all that's good and pure. BUT that worm also announces lots of exciting gaming news as it wreaks its carnage upon the Earth. Here we have gathered every announcement, reveal, and exciting new trailer that emerged from the barrage of screamed press conferences over the last few days. And lots of it looks rather spiffy.
A rather enormous 47 PC games were either announced, revealed, or updated upon, with new trailers, information, and released dates that will all be missed by at least three months. We've collected the lot, with trailers, in alphabetical order, into one neat place, just for you.
]]>We’ve already had some Nazi shooting with Wolfenstein 2 this E3, so why not shoot some more? Sony have shown off some more Call of Duty: WWII [official site] footage. This time it’s what multiplayer will look like (er, once all the names hovering above your friends and enemies are stripped away and it's recorded from many other cinematic angles, that is) along with all the accompanying sounds of war – M1 Garand pings, shotgun cher-chicks and flamethrower fffsssshhhhhhhhssss’s. Yup, it’s CoD. War! Bullet belts! Grenade pins! I am duty bound to show you this footage because I am on the night shift! Pow pow! Etc!
]]>“Those who do not learn from from history, are doomed to make another World War II videogame.” A famous saying, and one we all know well. So when Activision hosted a live presentation for the reveal trailer of their latest shooter, Call of Duty: WWII [official site], I watched and felt nothing but a tired wave of low-burning resentment for everyone involved. During this presentation the word “visceral” was said a total of eight times and our own news editor Alice silently got up from her desk, walked solemnly out of her house, and never returned. If anyone has seen Alice, please call us.
]]>A month after word of its existence leaked, today we have our first peek at Call of Duty: WW2 [official site]. At a livestreamed mega-reveal-o-world-first-a-exclusive-y-shoot-o-bang-a-blowout, developers Sledgehammer Games and publishers Activision have shown the first trailer. It looks pretty fun! Has all those scenes from the WW2 movies. Lots of explosions and shouting. The event is still ongoing but seems mostly to consist of men saying "visceral" and pretending the game is serious historical documentation. I can't take this anymore. Look, I'll drop this trailer here then be on my way.
]]>Cor blimey, love a duck, and stone the crows: Activision have announced that the next Call of Duty game will be Call of Duty: WWII [official site]. Their official announcement says about as much as the leak which gave this away four weeks ago. Another supposed leak has sprung with unconfirmed babbling about unsurprising things like D-Day and a co-op mode. But what's most important is that ↑ teaser artwork up there. What's going on with the man we shall assume is named Robert Gunnington?
]]>Activision Blizzard Studios are planning for potentially years of Call of Duty movies, drawing inspiration from the interwoven Marvel Cinematic Universe. Activision reckon that Call of Duty could carry a series, jumping between the first-person shooter's sub-brands for different perspectives on war. Chinny reckon.
]]>If the rumours are true, and they most likely are, this year we'll be seeing Call Of Duty: WWII. People have reacted with concern, but I'm here to argue it's the best possible news.
There was a time when learning a game was set in World War II was deserving of the heaviest of sighs. Not only did it mean that it would be one of seven thousand other games that year plundering the past for an excuse to bob a gun at the bottom of the screen, but it was more likely to be crass and ignorant than a tribute to the bravery and miserable deaths of our ancestors. We got well and truly sick of WW2 games. Then to save us, the march of the zombies began. We had a whole new theme to groan at, and the Second World War has had something of a break.
The temptation of hearing the rumours that the all-conquering shooter series is to return to its own origins is to start sighing once again. But there are some really good reasons not to. In fact, if there's anything that could save CoD from itself, it's heading back.
]]>Rumours of Call of Duty's return to World War 2 have circulated since, well, since Activision's mega-hit FPS series left it almost a decade ago. This time it's really for really real, folks including our chums at Eurogamer say. Whispers, rumours, and supposedly leaked artwork say this year's game will bear the rubbish name Call of Duty: WWII. Presumably this would mean a sad farewell to the wall-running and double-jumping of futureCoDs but the welcome return of the M1 Garand rifle's ping, the loveliest sound in all murderdom.
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