Making Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 more accessible makes it easier for more players to jump into the game, which is why innovating and introducing accessibility options across Call of Duty has always been a priority. The accessibility settings menu is accessed by nearly half of all players, and with the launch of Black Ops 6, we're excited to share even more accessibility updates and new features which will allow players to further customize their experience.

In Black Ops 6, we're launching asymmetrical hearing compensation, an improved high contrast mode, updating the accessibility settings menu, and more. All the familiar accessibility features that were available in Modern Warfare III will also be available in Black Ops 6, like graphical adjustment options to reduce motion blur and joystick setting options. Read on for more info on new accessibility updates and features coming to Black Ops 6.

Epic Games kicked off the Unreal Fest in Seattle earlier this week with a keynote that revealed some interesting details about the company's marketing and publication strategies going forward. Also during that same keynote, Riot Games executive producer, Anna Donlon, teased that there will be more "playable experiences" coming to the "Valorant universe."

While Donlon was deliberately vague about any upcoming Valorant-adjacent games currently in development, she was a little more candid about Valorant's Unreal Engine 5 update, admitting that limitations in Unreal Engine 4.27—Valorant's current underpinnings—were what prompted the move to UE5 in the first place. However, a shift to Unreal Engine 5 will not immediately change how the game performs, feels, or looks.

Mojang has revealed that the Minecraft's annual mob vote (a feature that allows players to pick the next creature added to the game) tradition is coming to an end as part of a new game update structure, following TikTok war propaganda-inspired posters by players fed-up with the tradition.

On September 9, via a post on its blog, Mojang announced that its annual news livestream, Minecraft Live, is discarding the mob vote feature and is now being split up into several smaller, more-focused broadcasts, which will occur twice a year. Mojang also revealed that free content updates would be released more often, abandoning the traditional annual larger updates and sticking to smaller updates like this year's Armored Paws update.

With Mods (short for modifications), you can tailor your gaming experience to your unique preferences. Uploaded by creators all over the world, you can pick between anything to create the city of your dreams. Along with Beach Properties, the first wave of Cities: Skylines II Modding will be available. The Beta release of Modding will initially support Map and Code mods. With the Map Editor, you can make maps with the Terraforming Tools you're used to, import hightmaps to create highly accurate depictions of your hometown, and upload your creations to Paradox Mods.

With the Code Tools, you can show off your coding skills and create Code Mods to meet your heart's desire! Future updates will improve on these tools and come to include support for Asset Mods. As we've talked about before, there will be updates to these tools that we are currently working on, and we will see some updates before the 1.0 release. We will be taking your opinion into consideration when we continue to work on the editor and are looking forward to seeing the feedback that you might have. If you're curious on what the process of Modding will look like you can already check it out on the Cities: Skylines II Wiki here.

We recently released a patch containing our first round of balance changes to Helldivers 2 and our Head of Product Testing has some valuable insight into our philosophies and practices when it comes to balancing. Hello everyone! My name is Patrik Lasota, I was the designer on the first Helldivers and am currently Head of Product Testing at Arrowhead. A bit of a grandiose title, but what it means in this context is that I'm responsible for how Arrowhead listens to feedback and balances its games. I'd like to talk about the changes we made in this patch and why.

Primary weapons
First I'd like to speak to the general power of primary weapons. Many have commented that they aren't powerful enough and are unable to deal with all the enemies either by the amount of ammunition required or their raw DPS. This is very much intentional, you need to rely on your Stratagems, and the Stratagems of your team to deal with all the enemies effectively. Either by Eagle Airstrikes, Orbitals, Support Weapons, or Turrets, some of your loadout/team should be tailoring their loadout to killing the weaker stuff more efficiently. This doesn't mean that your primary weapon shouldn't feel good to use, but please understand that it is primary only in the sense that it's something you always spawn with.

MSI is preparing to launch its new generation of MPG and MAG series QD-OLED gaming monitors—early 2024 promotional activity included a couple of pre-launch initiatives. The company's marketing division is attempting to get into good graces with the gaming community—we have already witnessed the introduction of a 3-year warranty for OLED panel product, and permanent price cuts planned for launch day. It is highly probable that MSI is trying to attract customers away from ASUS ROG—the MPG 321URX ($949.99, formerly $1199) will be going up against the Swift OLED PG32UCDM ($1299).

The "MSI_Darutohne" Reddit account reached out to potential (and well heeled) customers on a popular premium gaming monitor discussion community: "Hello r/OLED_Gaming! Our QD-OLED monitors are finally rolling out, and we'd love to clarify any misconceptions and make sure everyone here is making an informed purchase! Let's get started with the Six NEW QD-OLED monitors. You may find them all listed here." Many members thanked MSI for the comprehensive product rundowns and answering of questions/queries, but one participant—Mars0813—took issue with the MAG 321UPX model's apparent inability to receive software/firmware updates. MSI_Darutohne responded and confirmed: "You are correct. The MAG 321UPX QD-OLED will NOT support software updates." Subsequent repliers stated that they would cancel their pre-orders, or request refunds. Jamartty45 stated: "Appreciate you for clarifying, but I purchased this yesterday and it will be returned as soon as it gets to my door. A $900 monitor that doesn't support software updates is absurd." The more expensive MPG tier appears to be the best route for gamers who enjoy a little bit of future-proofing and bug fixing.

Surprise! We're still here, and not just here - we have a whole year's worth of content coming to you! NFS turns 30 this year, and with that huge legacy, we couldn't stand idle. However, this year will be a bit different from the previous one. Because here's the thing—the NFS legacy signifies different things to each and every one of you. Some of you were there at the start of it all on Road and Track. Some of you will remember taking on the Eastsiders in Olympic City or smashing your way through the Blacklist in Rockport. Or you might have started playing more recently. Hustling by day and risking it all by night in Palm City. No matter your memory, we all have a shared love of NFS, and we want to build new memories over the next 12 months.

But, we'll be honest and admit we can't build everything everyone wants right now, but we can decide together what NFS should be in the future. Our vision is that through our second year of live service, you can, for the first time, begin to play the ultimate NFS experience in one place. Your feedback and gameplay will help shape the future of this iconic franchise. As you play, we will be listening, observing and reacting to the things you want to see and those you don't. It's an approach that we're calling Kaizen.

At CES 2024, Razer has updated its Blade laptop family spanning across various sizes, and even got a chance to present a "world's first" feature in a gaming product. The star of the Razer booth is the company's flagship Blade 16 laptop, which now supports 240 Hz refresh rate in its 16-inch OLED display format. Being the first to get there, Razer offers a high refresh rate at 2560 x 1600 QHD+ resolution. In addition to 0.2 ms response time and DCI-P3 100% color gamut, the display had VESA ClearMR 11000 and DisplayHDR True Black 500 certifications. At the center of the laptop is the 14th Gen Intel Core i9-14900HX processor, paired with up to NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 GPU with 175 Watt TGP. Pricing starts at $2999 for lower-end configurations and is available now.

Gaming allows us to experience worlds beyond imagination, share our stories and forge friendships with people across the world. At Xbox we believe that gaming is for everyone, including the over 429 million players with disabilities, and it is our responsibility to create a place where everyone feels welcome, safe, and included to experience the joy and community of gaming.

Each October we take a moment to celebrate the disability community, and earlier this month Xbox celebrated its partnership with Special Olympics in the form of Gaming for Inclusion, a hybrid, multi-day tournament that aims to showcase the power of inclusion through gaming, break down barriers and empower Special Olympics athletes through technology. Prioritizing accessibility in gaming invites more people to experience gaming, by empowering all gamers to play in the way that is true to them.

On September 26th, Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty launches with full ray tracing, DLSS 3.5, and Ray Reconstruction. Phantom Liberty is a new spy-thriller adventure for Cyberpunk 2077. When the orbital shuttle of the President of the New United States of America is shot down over the deadliest district of Night City, there's only one person who can save her—you. Become V, a cyberpunk for hire, and dive deep into a tangled web of espionage and political intrigue, unraveling a story that connects the highest echelons of power with the brutal world of black-market mercenaries.

"Thanks to DLSS 3.5's smart technology, fuelled by AI rendering power, you can experience Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty's newest location Dogtown at its very best—with sharper images, more accurate lighting, and the highest frame rates possible." said Jakub Knapik, VP of Art, Global Art Director, CD Projekt RED. On September 21st, return to the neon lights of Night City when Cyberpunk 2077's 2.0 update launches, featuring support for NVIDIA DLSS 3.5 and its new Ray Reconstruction technology, enhancing the quality of full ray tracing in Cyberpunk 2077's Ray Tracing: Overdrive Mode.

The Steam store and desktop client will soon be able to help players find games that support DualSense or DualShock controllers. If your game supports either of these devices, you can now enter that information in the Steamworks "edit store" section for your app. Steamworks has a new controller-support questionnaire for developers to better describe the devices supported by the game.

If your game plays well with a DualShock or DualSense Controller (PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 respectively), you can now specify that information within Steamworks. This is the first step toward helping players find games that support the most commonly-used PC video game controllers. Starting in October, we'll show this information to players in the Steam store and Steam desktop client. Here are more details on this new level of support.

Hey, all! We hope you're enjoying the game since it launched last week! We wanted to thank you all for the support, feedback and bug reports. Our second patch update that goes live today across PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X|S brings a lot of key fixes, so please be sure to read over the release notes below.
As always, be sure to follow our social channels for the latest on Immortals of Aveum, including any future updates for the game, as we're going to continue making it better and adding more options and features that you've been requesting.

Immortals of Aveum is a single-player, first-person magic shooter powered by the groundbreaking Unreal Engine 5.1 technology and set in an original fantasy universe. Developed by a new independent AAA studio made up of award-winning industry veterans and published under the EA Originals label, Immortals of Aveum puts players in a visceral and cinematic fantasy universe that combines modern characters and a story-driven campaign with intense magic-based action, world exploration and puzzle-solving. Summon your power, stop the Everwar, and save the realms starting now on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S and PC via the EA app, Steam and Epic Games Store worldwide.

Whispers in the Walls: Winter 2023—coming to all platforms this winter, Whispers in the Walls will drop you into a hair-raising conflict rife with shocking revelations that will shake the Origin System to its very core. In this new story-driven cinematic quest, you'll be caught in the middle of a deadly battle between Albrecht Entrati, one of the Origin System's most brilliant minds, and the unknowable Man in the Wall. The board is set and the pieces are moving. Can you put it all together in time, Tenno?

Naturally, you won't be fighting unarmed, either. Hold fast against the dangers littered throughout Albrecht Entrati's secret laboratory with an all-new Secondary weapon class—the otherworldly Grimoire. Whispers in the Walls will also introduce the Murmur, a brand-new faction created by the Man in the Wall, along with a reworked and expanded Necramech enemy faction. No matter how you do battle, the forces arrayed against you have never been more fearsome.

My favorite announcements are those coming soon, especially when "soon" means "right now" (looking at you Celeste!). We have hikes, we have Bros., kingdoms, and space, and more, so let's get to the games!

Available Today
Celeste (Cloud, Console, and PC)—Help Madeline survive her inner demons on her journey to the top of Celeste Mountain, in this super-tight platformer from the creators of TowerFall. Brave hundreds of hand-crafted challenges, uncover devious secrets, and piece together the mystery of the mountain.

Starting today, a new Home experience is rolling out to all Xbox Series X|S and Xbox One consoles. This update is designed from player feedback and makes it easier to discover new games, rediscover games you already love, connect with communities, and create a more personalized experience.

We're excited to share more about the journey that led us here, and what you can expect with this new update.

There are many opportunities to brush up on our real-life skills through gaming this month, including puzzle solving, cooking, building a settlement on the back of a giant wandering creature to survive a post-apocalyptic world, and even photography! Let's get to the games.

Available Today:
Techtonica (Game Preview) (Cloud, Console, and PC) - Available on day one with Game Pass: Dig into the sub-surface, bioluminescent world of a rogue alien planet as you explore and construct sprawling factories in Techtonica. Work alone or in co-op to master automation, gather resources, research new technologies, mold the destructible terrain, establish a base of operations, and uncover long-forgotten secrets.

Maxon, developers of professional software solutions for editors, filmmakers, motion designers, visual effects artists and creators of all types, announced today a comprehensive update to Maxon One. Maxon's Spring 2023 release offers exciting new features and workflow enhancements across the entire product line, that will empower designers and artists to turn their creative ideas into reality with stunning results. Cinema 4D 2023.2 offers an improved Commander, enhancements to its Nodes system, simulation improvements and a new Thicken generator for modeling. Updates to the Red Giant toolset feature new tools and augmentations; most notably the introduction of Symbol Mapper for Universe 2023.1, anamorphic lens support for Real Lens Flares for VFX 2023.3, and Trapcode 2023.3 includes performance optimizations for Particular and a new collection of Atomic Age sprites.

Redshift 3.5.14 brings a fantastic new Sky and Sun Model, a new Flakes Shader and new Camera Backplates. The latest release of ZBrush is highlighted by two new revolutionary workflow tools, Proxy Pose and Drop 3D. Forger updates include new features for lighting and previews, and the integration of ZBrush's powerful ZRemesher. The latest additions to Capsules include new material collections, a new dynamic Swirl Modifier and a new Redshift Shaderball. Rounding out this exciting release is an update to Cineware, focused on Unreal 5.0 and 5.1 integration.

Phil Spencer, CEO of Xbox Game Studios, appeared on the popular (Xbox-themed) Kinda Funny Games podcast earlier this week for a video interview (Xcast Episode 137). The almost 45-minute long conversation touched upon several topics relating to gaming matters at Microsoft, with the hosts managing to corner Spencer about the recent (not so good) launch of Bethesda and Arkane's horror FPS Redfall. Gaming community feedback has not exactly been encouraging in the wake of the game's release two days ago, and Spencer admits that he shares similar sentiments: "I'll just say all up, there's nothing that's more difficult for me than disappointing the Xbox community. I've been a part of it for a long time. I obviously work on Xbox, head of the business, have a lot of friends, get a lot of feedback. And just to watch the community lose confidence, be disappointed, I'm disappointed. I'm upset with myself. I revisit our process - I think back to the announcement of 60 FPS and then we weren't shipping 60 FPS, that was our punch in the chin, rightfully, a couple of weeks ago. And then seeing the game come out and the critical response was not what we wanted, and it's disappointing."

He continues his thought about reacting to feedback this early on in the process: "What can we learn? What can we get better? One thing I'll fight is what went wrong. There's clearly quality and execution things we can do, but one thing I won't do is push against creative aspirations of our teams. Then a lot of people will say, hey, you've got teams, teams know how to do one kind of game, just force them to go do the one kind of game they have a proven track record for. I'm just not a believer in that. Maybe that means I'll under deliver for some of our fans out there. But when a team like Rare wants to do Sea of Thieves, when a team like Obsidian wants to do Grounded, when Tango wants to go do Hi-Fi (Rush) when everybody probably thought they were doing The Evil Within 3, I want to give the teams the creative platform to go and push their ability, push their aspirations."

From May 4th through 15th, owners of Age of Empires IV on Steam will have an opportunity to dive into all the amazing content, updates and changes coming in Season Five! The Age of Empires IV Public Update Preview (PUP) presents an opportunity for our incredible players to get hands-on experience with exciting changes ahead of major updates. They also provide an opportunity to give feedback and help us prepare for upcoming major releases. PUP builds will generally contain new features, content, balance changes and bug fixes.

A New Game Mode, Team Voice Chat, Trade Updates and More!
Among the content highlighted in this PUP is Empire Wars, a new, quick-to-action game mode where players start with a burgeoning empire, ready to dive into combat or advance to the next Age! Players begin the match with a variety of pre-built buildings and villagers already tasked on resource collection. Not only that, but you'll be able to try out three news maps before they officially go live, including Golden Heights, Migration, and Volcanic Island!

Respawn Entertainment, the Star Wars division at Electronic Arts and Lucasfilm Games have today released their first patch for the PC version of Star Wars Jedi: Survivor - some folks must have been working like mad over the weekend in order to address some of the problems encountered shortly after the game's launch last Friday (April 28). The EA Star Wars Twitter account issued a statement regarding the initial batch of patches for all platforms affected: "Today a patch has become available for the PC version of Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, and tomorrow (5/2) we'll also be issuing a patch for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S. We are hard at work on patches that will further improve performance and fix bugs across all platforms. There are more updates to come across all platforms, and we will share that timing when it is available."

The patch notes for today's PC update only mention "performance improvements for non-raytraced rendering" so it seems the developers have a lot more work to do over the coming weeks. The situation on current generation PlayStation and Xbox consoles looks to largely the same, and tomorrow's fix list is extensive (the same problems have already been addressed on PC with today's patch). TPU's own resident reviewer extraordinaire went in-depth and explored Star Wars Jedi: Survivor's technical issues this weekend - part of W1zzard's conclusion was very unkind: "We're now paying $70 to beta-test an unpolished turd that they call an AAA game—not the first time this year. I'm starting to wonder if these companies aren't slowly eroding their customer base by delivering broken products over and over again."

Hi everyone! We're very happy to announce that our team is releasing Patch 1.21 for Horizon Forbidden West today. Patch 1.21 sets up the game for the release of Horizon Forbidden West: Burning Shores. It also brings additional Accessibility Features. Patch 1.21 is exclusive to PlayStation 5 users. Do note that Horizon Forbidden West: Burning Shores content will be playable from April 19th onwards.

Horizon Forbidden West: Burning Shores launches April 19 on PS5! This expansion sees Aloy pursue a sinister threat in the untamed wilds of Los Angeles, now a treacherous volcanic archipelago. Horizon Forbidden West: Burning Shores takes Aloy to the ruins of Los Angeles. The past millennia has seen the metropolis wracked by tectonic and volcanic activity. The result: a dangerous archipelago populated by deadly machines. Among these islands, a large settlement of Quen fight to survive.

Intel Corporation today announced that its board of directors has reset its dividend policy, reducing the quarterly dividend to $0.125 per share (or $0.50 annually) on the company's common stock. The dividend will be payable on June 1, 2023, to stockholders of record on May 7, 2023. Intel also reaffirmed its first-quarter 2023 business outlook provided at its most recent earnings call, including revenue of between $10.5 billion and $11.5 billion; gross margin of 34.1% on a GAAP basis and 39% on a non-GAAP basis; tax rate of (84%) on a GAAP basis and 13% on a non-GAAP basis; and earnings per share of $(0.80) on a GAAP basis and $(0.15) on a non-GAAP basis.

The decision to decrease the quarterly dividend reflects the board's deliberate approach to capital allocation and is designed to best position the company to create long-term value. The improved financial flexibility will support the critical investments needed to execute Intel's transformation during this period of macroeconomic uncertainty. Since first initiated in 1992, Intel's dividend has delivered more than $80 billion in cash returns to the company's stockholders, and the board is committed to maintaining a competitive dividend.

Microsoft's Windows Server 2008 and 2008 R2 customers still represent a large group, as Microsoft has announced an additional year of Extended Security Updates (ESU) with a caveat. Only available for Microsoft Azure customers, the ESU program will allow Windows Server 2008 and R2 users on Azure cloud to get security updates until January 9, 2024. By no means is this not a free program, and Microsoft will bill this extensively as it is available internationally. Many customers are forced to join the ESU program for their Windows Server 2008 and R2 systems, as upgrading the OS to the latest version is not always possible without significant downtime or a hardware update.

The following customer base has legibility to the fourth year of the ESU program:

• Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1 (SP1)
• Windows Server 2008 Service Pack 2 (SP2)
• Windows Embedded POSReady 7
• Windows Embedded Standard 7
• All Azure virtual machines (VMs) running Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows Server 2008 operating systems on Azure, Azure Stack, Azure VMWare Solutions, or Azure Nutanix Solution.

At the end of last month, ASRock revealed its UEFI/BIOS updates for its 600-series motherboards for the next generation of CPUs from Intel and now ASUS has announced that it will offer updates for its Z690 motherboards. We're not sure why ASUS has limited itself to only Z690, but we'd expect updates for all of its 600-series chipset motherboards to arrive in due time. ASUS has been just as short on details as ASRock, although in the case of ASUS, all the Z690 boards will start on the same UEFI version—160x—when it comes to Raptor Lake support.

ASUS will offer updates for its ROG, ROG Strix, ProArt, Prime and TUF Gaming boards at this first stage. ASUS recommends using the BIOS Flashback functionality on the motherboards, or its EZ Flash 3 program in Windows. To get the latest UEFI update for your motherboard, you need to head over to ASUS' support site and download it manually according to the press release.

Remember that hideous, remotely exploitable vulnerability on Windows' Print Spooler service, which would enable remote attackers to run code with administrator privileges on your machine? Well, Microsoft seems to be waking up from this particular instance of PrintNightmare, as the company has already issued critical, out-of-band security updates (meaning that they're outside Microsoft's cadenced patch rollout) for several versions of windows. Since the Print Spooler service runs by default and is an integral part of Windows releases (likely since the NT platform development), Microsoft has even pushed out patches to OSs that aren't currently supported.

Microsoft has issued correctives for Windows Server 2019, Windows Server 2012 R2, Windows Server 2008, Windows 8.1, Windows RT 8.1, a variety of supported versions of Windows 10, and even Windows 7. As per Microsoft, Windows Server 2012, Windows Server 2016, and Windows 10 Version 1607 products are still missing the security patches, but they're being actively worked on and should be released sooner rather than later. The security patches include mitigations for both the PrintNightmare issue (CVE-2021-34527), as well as another Print Spooler vulnerability that's been previously reported (CVE-2021-1675). The mitigations are being distributed via Windows Update, as always, and the relevant packages are KB5004945 through KB5004959 (depending on your version of Windows).