Dragon tales.

Rainbow Six Extraction takes the fraught SWAT vs. terrorists action found throughout the rest of the popular shooter series and replaces that particular threat to modern life with something completely out of this world. Aliens. There’s aliens in a Tom Clancy game. The “Archaean” menace has emerged in a handful of locations around the world, first in New York City, then in San Francisco and beyond, with Rainbow Six Operators coordinating under the REACT backronym to contain, study and eventually eradicate this threat. Thankfully, these aren’t aliens rocking up with a great big space ship and blowing up the White House and Pyramids, but rather the kind of aliens that will happily nest and mill around until a danger presents itself. As Rainbow’s elite operators, you’re having to head into an alien-infested hot zones – or “la zona caliente”, as one character calls them, Ubisoft ticking the big box for diversity with a crayon. If you want an idea as to how much playable content there is, Rainbow Six Extraction features four regions that each house three hot zones where you’ll be deployed. Each of these incursions gives your team of three a trio of tasks to complete as you move from one part of the map to the next, from taking down elite enemies, to destroying special spawning pods, rescuing humans, and the like. The immediate inclination of most gamers would be to run into the fray head first, but that’s really not the best way to go about things. Instead, you still need to play it a bit like Rainbow Six Siege shooter, and can rely on many of the same tools. In particular, the default gear gives players a recon drone that lets you scout ahead and mark aliens for team, and you can reinforce walls and doorways for when objectives need you to defend certain points. You can pick up the pace somewhat, though. The Archaeans are a pretty dopey bunch as you saunter into the levels, milling around like zombies until they spot you or are alerted by explosions and gunfire. Even then, they’re predominantly melee and explosive enemies that need to get close up, while spawn pods sprout on floors, walls and ceilings to add enemies to an area once they’re alerted. By and large, this means that, even when things do get spicy in the opening locations, you can deal with the danger. It’s only certain enemies that will fire from range, and while you don’t have automatically recharging health, you can take a decent bit of damage. Old school Rainbow Six this is not! Perhaps the most interesting system within Rainbow Six Extraction is that there’s persistence between rounds. Your characters will need to heal up if you come out having taken a fair bit of damage, and if you’re KO’d and your team wipes or isn’t able to extract your body, then that character will be MIA and need rescuing in a later incursion. It’s a smart system that forces you to mix things up with character selection, and provides some light stakes to mission failure. If all of your characters are left MIA, then the first one you lost will be unlocked so you can still play. There’s some good ideas at play here, and it’s competently put together, but so far Rainbow Six Extraction feels fairly flat. The Archaeans simply aren’t all that interesting to fight against, their designs rather bland, and their introduction sitting at odds with what the Rainbow Six and Tom Clancy franchises have been about since the late 90s. It’s an inoffensive tactical co-op that’s good for a few short and sharp missions, but is that enough? We’ll report back soon with our full review. Rainbow Six Extraction is available from 20th January on PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and PC, as well Google Stadia and Amazon Luna. You can also grab it via Xbox Game Pass.

Microsoft have gone and done it again, announcing the intended acquisition of Activision Blizzard in a move that will have a potentially huge impact on the future of the games industry. What does this really mean though? Will Call of Duty now be an Xbox exclusive? The Deal of the Century? First things first, the deal itself is huge. Microsoft and Activision Blizzard’s respective boards have agreed to a sale worth a whopping $68.7 billion. That’s just stupid money. That’s the kind of money that we used to only really see with the fundamentals of everyday life, when mobile phone companies merge or separate, when energy companies combine, when car manufacturers or pharmaceuticals unite. That thinking is old hat now. The tech and entertainment companies are coming and they want to own… stuff. Just all the stuff, please. Yeah, more stuff. Who doesn’t love having loads and loads of stuff? Disney certainly likes having stuff, having picked up Marvel on the cheap and turned its properties into a never-ending stream of films and TV shows, then snagged Star Wars for a now laughably small $4 billion, and eventually setting its sights on beefing up its new streaming service by acquiring media rival 21st Century Fox for $71.3 billion in 2018. In the realms of video games, we have widespread investment from Chinese conglomerates, we have Embracer Group buying up everything in sight, and Sony and Microsoft both seeking to expand their first party studios. $68.7 billion might feel like a huge sum for Activision Blizzard, but it’s actually a good deal for Microsoft. ABK has exploded in value over the past decade, making it a part of the S&P 500 index which charts the 500 biggest companies in the US. This time last year, Activision Blizzard’s market cap was about to hit an all-time high of $80 billion on 12th February 2021, though typically hovering around $70 billion for the first half of the year. It hasn’t stayed that way, though. Something happened around the middle of 2021 that saw the company’s valuation slide from that $70 billion mark to under $50 billion. Part of that is purely financial – delays to game releases from Blizzard amongst them – but another part is the scandal that has surrounded the company like someone filled Bobby Kotick’s pockets with rotten eggs. How can Microsoft make this money back? Simply put, they don’t need to. Activision’s 2020 revenue was $8 billion, but their operating income was $2.7 billion. At that rate, it would take 25 years to make the money back… but that’s really beside the point for Microsoft. This is about key, strategic content that gives them a further competitive advantage in a growing market. Oh, and Microsoft had $120 billion in the bank in 2020 and an operating income of $70 billion in 2021. They have plenty left over… Will he stay or will he go? Microsoft’s willingness to acquire Activision Blizzard means that they’re prepared to take on the job of cleaning up its reputation. For the time being, the company will continue to be run as normal by CEO Bobby Kotick and his team as they navigate lawsuits, striking workers and unionisation efforts. They have to carry on business as usual until the deal is approved. While the company has taken steps, ousting over 40 individuals in recent months for transgression, declaring a zero tolerance policy, and promising to make contracted workers full time, there’s still more work to be done. Kotick himself is a part of the problem, having previously drawn criticism for cutting the company’s workforce despite record profits in 2018, and also having allegedly been aware of allegations and done nothing to address them. The wording of the deal’s announcement states that Kotick will carry on, though certainly leaves the door open for him to leave as soon as the purchase is approved and completed or after a transition period. His position and reputation don’t feel tenable as a part of Microsoft and reports suggest that he is to leave after any deal is concluded. I’m sure some will be hoping the door hits him on the arse on the way out. Will everything go Xbox exclusive? Maybe? We just don’t know at this point, with Phil Spencer’s only comments so far being that he hopes to bring as much of Activision’s back catalogue into Xbox Game Pass as soon as possible. However, we can look at the company’s track record here. For one thing, Xbox has allowed recent acquisitions to see out their various contracts and obligations, from Psychonauts 2 coming to PS4 and Deathloop being a timed PS5 exclusive. Additionally, existing game releases have also been allowed to continue on, so Minecraft is available on every platform imaginable. However, exclusive content drives attachment, and that’s why Bethesda’s Starfield will be exclusive. Looking at Activision’s portfolio, we can speculate that they’d pick and choose different approaches depending on the game and franchise. Call of Duty: Warzone is a free-to-play offshoot that needs to reach as many people as possible, but that could go hand in hand with future paid games in the franchise becoming Xbox exclusive. Similarly, Overwatch 2’s unusual release plan as a semi-expansion to Overwatch could get the blue light to come to PlayStation, as it’s building on an already released game. Diablo IV, though? Bet on that being an Xbox exclusive if the release comes after the finalised acquisition. The one thing we can definitively say is that everything will be thrown into Xbox Game Pass. Will we get the “old” Blizzard back? And what about Activision? In a word, no, but first I have to explain the question. Many fans have become disillusioned with some of the decisions that Blizzard have made over the past decade. There’s a feeling that the company has become too corporate and lost touch with its fans when announcing things like the mobile-only Diablo Immortal, the disappointing rushed release of Warcraft III: Reforged, and subsequent disbanding of the team that worked on it. There’s no putting a genie like that back in the bottle, and considering some of the rot that was revealed last year, I don’t think we want that genie back. Blizzard will still remain a part of Activision Blizzard, which will be a separate division under Xbox, but there might not be the same push to hit release targets that could help restore some of the “when it’s ready” ethos that led to them striking gold with World of Warcraft and Overwatch. Similarly, the pressure could be lifted on Activision’s Call of Duty content mill. Needing a new COD every single year means that Activision now has pretty much every one of their studios making content for this franchise. That’s a crying shame when Toys for Bob has just shown what they can do with Crash Bandicoot 4, and Vicarious Visions (now a part of Blizzard) revived Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2 to great acclaim. Microsoft’s acquisitions so far have been to secure a diverse portfolio, and on the Activision side of the company, that’s not currently what’s happening. Will the acquisition be approved? This is the big question, and while there is increasing scrutiny over tech companies making huge purchases like this, I can’t see it being blocked by the European Commission or the US Securities and Exchange Commission that will be looking into the impact that this will have on the games industry. In particular, they’ll be looking at the rulings they received when acquiring Bethesda. Yes, the deal is almost ten times the size and the revenue that Activision Blizzard generates is much greater, but the argument will be that this does little to nothing to harming the diversity of games on offer across the industry and across competing platforms, and that Microsoft aren’t buying an erstwhile competitor. PlayStation will likely remain the dominant platform for the foreseeable future… though if Call of Duty goes X box exclusive, who could say what the future holds?

BMO me up, Tony.

The Lynx effect.

Nintendo’s Ring Fit Adventure is a revelation, turning otherwise bland and gruelling workouts into fun and fully customisable play sessions. Unsurprisingly, copies of the Nintendo Switch game and its intuitive peripheral were impossible to find during the height of the 2020 lockdown. Cut off from our usual exercise routines, many of us looked for an alternate way of staying fit. Ring Fit Adventure was waiting with a well-timed one-two punch, balancing interactive entertainment with its tailored workouts. Jim: From personal experience, Ring Fit helped me through those depressing first months of isolation. Shedding well over a stone in weight, it instilled discipline in an otherwise rudderless time in my life and helped me become a more active and mindful person overall. Meanwhile, Sam we ready to embark on a journey: after recovering from an injury, could Ring Fit get him back in shape to smash his 5k record? In May 2020 it became clear the pandemic wasn’t a short term thing that would blow over in a matter of months. I was losing my daily walking commute for the foreseeable future. I took up running to try and out-train my terrible diet. In August I found out that the London Marathon was going to be virtual and decided on a whim to sign up. In October I ran the marathon and raised over £1,000 for Musgrove Hospital. After the marathon I picked up some pain in my knee and couldn’t run for the next few months. And when I came back to my new hobby I was much slower and very out of shape. My previous 5k average time was around 27 minutes, but I was struggling to break 32 in February 2021. I wasn’t even able to complete the whole 5k without some walking for the first few weeks, which was actually worse than when I first started running in May 2020! This trend unfortunately continued without much improvement until the end of April 2021, when I purchased Nintendo’s Ring Fit Adventure. My plan was to run a test 5k to find my current speed and then to spend a month doing Ring Fit for at least 30 minutes, 3-5 times a week. Would I be able to drastically reduce my time from 31 minutes 56 seconds? Test 5k time – 31m 56s Week 1 I started out well, alternating easy runs with Ring Fit sessions. In the first week I managed 3 runs and 4 Ring Fit workouts, joined the game’s Reddit community, and bought a yoga mat. In my notes that week I have mostly complained about how the planks are hard and that Adventure’s opening 30 minute session was mostly story/cutscene. Week 2 I alternated this week and did 4 runs and 3 sessions on Ring Fit, but I have started to unlock more moves now to use in the battles and I’m enjoying these more. I’m unable to stop from only using the most powerful moves in battles, which are not always the most challenging. Planks are still the best core move and that’s a crying shame. Literally, I could have cried. For those who haven’t played, Ring Fit is basically a fitness JRPG. The story mode is split between obstacle courses that each represent a stage in your journey. Instead of issuing attack commands during turn-based battles, you’ll need to select one of the exercises slotted into your loadout. For example, 20 Tricep Kickbacks, or 15 Wide Squats. Successful reps will chip away at the health bars of your opponents. There’s a layer of strategic nuance for fans of the genre. Exercises are colour-coded to deal extra damage, items can be crafted, and there’s a hefty skill tree loaded with character upgrades. These elements are intriguing though not essential. Running the same stages with minimal interaction with the RPG mechanics is certainly viable and no less fun! Week 3 I noticed some improvements this week – I’m able to run the entire 5k route now without walking breaks. I’m also starting to enjoy Ring Fit’s minimal story. I’ve increased the difficulty a few times to get a harder workout and am in the upper set of levels. I finish the week with a test run. This isn’t a great idea. On the last few hundred yards of the run I feel a twinge in my knee. A short, sharp pain that is not unlike an injection. I finish the run and walk home, but the pain doesn’t go away. I’ve managed to re-injure myself. Week 4 Nope. Nothing. Week 5 Zip. Zilch. Week 6 I’ve been unable to run for two weeks now. I’ve also been unable to Ring Fit, as squatting causes the same knee pain. I think this is around this time Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart comes out. Good game. Week 7 I’m back! Taking it lightly, but I’m now able to play and run again. I manage 2 Ring Fit sessions and 2 runs, trying to take breaks and go for walks to recover. Week 8 With a lot of stretching, foam rolling and recovery walking I am back to full strength. I did 4 workouts and 3 runs. I’m planning on taking the final test run the week after next. I feel strong and my runs are feeling very easy, maybe this is the Ring Fit working. Week 9 I do 4 workouts and then 3 runs again. I’m feeling strong on my runs and strong on Ring Fit. I’ve increased the difficulty to the maximum to feel like I’ve worked out for long enough as there’s a lot of admin. I’ve seen the subreddit talking about custom workouts, so I start doing those. The hidden benefit of playing Ring Fit is the sense of routine it can help create. Blocking out just 20 minutes a few days a week can really show results not just in terms of your figure, but your mentality towards exercise. Away from story mode, you can start creating your own customised workouts, ideal for focusing on certain muscle groups, especially when you have an injury! Week 10 This is it. I’m doing custom workouts all week this week, pulling back on the running so I can go out on fresh legs for the test. I do 4 workouts in the build up. The time has come. I lace up my trainers and go out for the run. I set my watch to keep me on pace to run 5k in a specific time – 25 minutes. That’s 7 minutes faster than the beginning of this and 1 minute 42 seconds better than my best ever 5k time. I start out how I start out every max effort run – too fast. As I come up to the 1k point I check my watch and I’m 40 seconds ahead of pace. This is bad, I’m likely to tire out and not be able to run my best. I consciously try to slow down. 3k in and I am unable to keep up. My lead is dwindling away and by 3.5k I am now behind. I’m still going faster than I’ve ever run. At 4.5k my watch is estimating my finish time around 26 minutes 45. 3 seconds over my 5k PB. Not today. The final 200 meters starts with a descent. I sprint down and allow the momentum to carry me to the finish line. My watch chirps away to let me know I’m done, kind of like the music that plays when you win a battle in a JRPG. Fitting. 26 minutes. 11 seconds. 31 seconds over my fastest EVER time! I struggled for months to regain the speed, then not only regained it but smashed past it in only a few weeks with the help of Ring Fit. Instead of gluing us to the sofa, Nintendo has helped many gamers get up and moving, encouraging healthy habits and no doubt changing the lives of some players who would never have tried home workouts. Ring Fit has been an overwhelming success for the Switch and this will hopefully inspire Nintendo to revisit the concept in future for a potential sequel.

The games industry doesn’t hibernate for very long over the winter and holidays, so there’s already the first stirrings for what looks to be one of the busiest periods in gaming that I can remember. The next few months are jam-packed with game releases, many of which were delayed from the end of last year, and more trailers and announcements are starting to drop. That’s in addition to PC gamers getting a month where they can catch up on some huge games that are being ported to their platform for the first time. In the News This Week Hitman 3 Year 2 starts 20th January – Freelancer mode, a new level and free updates revealed All Xbox One consoles were discontinued by the end of 2020 Take Two purchasing Zynga for $12.7 billion Troy Baker backs a voice based NFT site but won’t be selling his own voice Deep Rock Galactic gains 6 million players in one week after PS Plus launch STALKER 2 hit with massive delay More Days Gone sequel plans revealed by game director Jeff Ross Overwatch 2 LEGO set delayed due to Activision Blizzard allegations PUBG’s free-to-play relaunch is now live on PlayStation, Xbox and Steam Techland clarify how long Dying Light 2 takes to complete Giveaways We’ve got a great giveaway this week for fans of the RuneScape MMORPG. Celebrating its 20th anniversary, which is mind-boggling for pretty much every game, Jagex created a gorgeous RuneScape: The First 20 Years book looking back of the game’s history. We’ve got five copies of the Deluxe Edition for a giveaway, which you can enter here. Games in Review and Featured Articles January seems to be the month of choice for games to get ports to PC, with both Monster Hunter Rise and God of War making the jump to keyboard & mouse. How did they hold up? Monster Hunter Rise – PC, NSW – 9/10 God of War – PC, PS5, PS4 – 8/10 Battle Brothers – PS4, XBO, PC – 7/10 Elsewhere, we took a good long look at The Anacrusis, a new sixties sci-fi themed take on the Left 4 Dead formula that’s now in Early Access and Xbox Game Preview, while Gareth dove back into the mind of Far Cry 4’s arch villain with the Far Cry 6 – Pagan: Control DLC. His mind is rather similar in structure to Vaas’ from the first DLC… Over the weekend, we had two features, the first from Eric delving into The Legend of Zelda Second Quest, and the second with Reggie asking what happened to Arena Shooters? Finally, What We Played featured The Anacrusis, Far Cry 6 and Fantasian. Trailer Park We could post trailers for days this week, but here’s a few of the highlights: Gran Turismo 7 gameplay trailer heads to the Daytona International Speedway Pokémon Legends: Arceus trailer reveals more gameplay from its Hisuian adventure Kirby and the Forgotten Land is coming out in March – new gameplay and co-op revealed in trailer New ELEX II trailer dives into the overhauled RPG combat Your Achievements And finally for this round-up, we come to… you! MrYd finished of Ghost of Tsushima’s main story and started on the Iki Island expansion. He also enjoyed playing through Life Is Strange 2 and got sucked into the cave-dwelling delights of Deep Rock Galactic. And willbuchanan is aiming to finish off Guardians of the Galaxy this weekend. He might even shoot for the platinum, which just depends on getting all of the outfits. That’s it for this week’s gaming round-up. Have a fun weekend, wrap up warm, and we’ll catch you again next week.

Just give me a min.

We love to give things away to our readers – who doesn’t like free stuff? In fact, one of the most heart-warming emails of 2021 came from someone that had won a TSA giveaway, so in an effort to keep the love-fest going in 2022 here’s our first giveaway of the year, courtesy of Jagex and Honest PR. We have five copies of the brand new book RuneScape: The First 20 Years, and it’s the deluxe edition too! This is a fancy piece of gaming literature, perfect for a fancy coffee table or a fancy bookshelf. Even better if you’re a lifelong fan of RuneScape, it covers twenty years of the game’s history, allowing you to reminisce about one of the most iconic and long-running MMORPGs. An illustrated history brought to you by Jagex and Dark Horse, this hardback book stands as the unmatched guide to the history of the RuneScape franchise, exploring the games’ detailed tapestry through exciting art and behind the scenes interviews. The Deluxe Edition also boasts an exclusive cover with foil treatments, gilded page edges, a ribbon page marker, a card slipcase, and a hard-backed folio containing two archive-quality art prints, so you’re getting the very best version of this tome, worth $99.99! Enter the RuneScape: The First 20 Years giveaway Want to get your hands on this memorialised RuneScape loveliness? Well, enter the below giveaway! Entries will be open until at 11PM GMT UK time on Monday 17th January. Please note that this giveaway is for UK entrants only. Winners must respond within three working days of being contacted, and if they do not another winner will be drawn. The prize will be shipped directly from Jagex/Honest PR. Our usual terms and conditions apply, and all decisions are final. All that’s left to say is good luck! Win a Runescape: The First 20 Years Deluxe Edition Book

Who's got two thumbs, but can't use them?

Retro-futurism is one of my favourite things. Seeing what people thought the future would look like in now decades old science fiction is so revealing of the time in which is was created, conjuring visions of gleaming optimism or grimy despair for our future. Out in PC Early Access and Xbox Game Preview (and Game Pass!) today, The Anacrusis lands somewhere between; an idyllic swinging sixties style of futurism that’s showing signs of wear and ultimately falls apart as an alien menace suddenly emerges. What I’m trying to say is that The Anacrusis is Left 4 Dead by way of Space Channel 5. The game is set upon a huge starship on the edge of explored space that has suddenly found itself swamped by an extra-terrestrial threat. These are the face-hugging kind for the most part, completely incapacitating the ship’s population and turning them into mindless hosts, but a handful of survivors remain – Nessa, Guion, Liu and Lance. They’re a diverse bunch, which is always nice to see, and you quickly pick up from their incidental dialogue that they’re not that well equipped to take on an alien invasion by themselves. They’re going to try, though! The Anacrusis follows a lot of the standard co-op shooter traits ingrained in the subgenre’s well-worn formula. Each episode is broken down into stages that are bookended by safe rooms – in this case well-stocked airlocks. The whole ship has been overrun by aliens that act like a zombie infestation and you’ll have to battle your way through the pretty mindless throngs that are just milling around until you disturb them. That would be far too simple though, and a devious AI director works in the background to spice things up from time to time. This means throwing hordes of enemies at you as well as more than a few special aliens that go far beyond the “thing on a human body” design. There’s a few Left 4 Dead tropes with the big lad Brute, the long-distance Grabber, and the Gooper that will slow you down and fix you in place, but things get more interesting from there. The Spawner creates ball aliens that roll around and unfurl to shoot at you like some kind of Droideka, while the Flasher isn’t an alien that shows an inappropriate amount of skin, but rather one that fills its surrounding area with blindingly bright light that makes it difficult to make out what’s going on. Perhaps my favourite enemy in the game is the Egg (or “Babies” as we started calling them for some reason). Acting like the Witch from L4D, they don’t react until triggered, but when they do? Hoo-boy! You better be ready for a flood of impossible-to-deal-with spiked balls that roll toward you and fill your entire view of the world until you die. They’re so overpowered they can absolutely wreck a run. They’re the best. Good eggs. Dealing with all these enemies means using an arsenal of weapons that might be appropriately sci fi, but feel a bit bland to use. They all come from a brand of ‘pew-pew’ laser guns that just isn’t particularly interesting, even if they will send the regular enemies flying or take them out in a couple of quick shots. The Anacrusis almost makes up for this by having an array of fun grenades to throw into the hordes. The Stasis grenade slows anything that moves through its bubble, which is a godsend when dealing with Brutes, while the Vortex grenade sucks everything in toward a mini black hole and then spits them out again. There’s also special pick up weapons that can arc electricity through closely-packed throngs, place a defensive turret, and more. The highs and lows of the weapons are echoed through some of the level design. As cool as the kitschy 60s sci-fi vibe is, the opening stages of the first episode just feel like running down a series of similar feeling vibrantly coloured hallways. It takes a bit too long before you get to step out into something that really feels completely different – a huge artificial garden under a fake sky. After that point, it continues to riff on similar themes, though there’s more and more signs of how damaged the ship is becoming through the invasion. There are some fun set pieces thrown in that do help spice things up, like holding off waves of enemies in a blaring disco, the first episode’s climactic battle on the bridge of the starship, and some fun times with sluices – this game’s a shoe-in for the Best Sluices GOTY 2022 award – though some levels come in feeling like they’re a bit on the long side. Part of that is also down to the AI-driven difficulty. The Anacrusis falls into the same trap that Back 4 Blood did of throwing too many special enemies at you in combination for a sudden difficulty spike. The balance is currently a bit off for enemies like the Gooper, which is able to repeatedly stick a player in place just seconds after they have been freed, especially when a team is struggling to deal with a string of half a dozen specials. It’s also a bit much when the same enemy type spawns in multiples or in quick succession. They don’t really feel so special anymore at that point… As The Anacrusis heads into PC Early Access and Xbox Game Preview today, it’s clear that there’s some way to go before it can go toe to toe with Back 4 Blood, Vermintide and Left 4 Dead. Of course, the point of Early Access releases like this is for a developer to get players invested, get their community’s feedback and make adjustments while growing the content. There’s potential here, and I hope that Stray Bombay can grow The Anacrusis into a great example of the co-op shooter at its best.

PC switch up.