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Showing all 33 published articles
AnalysisCS2 encrypted the chat in demo files: what you can still read back
Valve's 9 September update encrypted the chat stored inside Counter-Strike 2 demo files. Team chat cannot be read back at all, and global chat survives only inside the in-game watch UI. Nothing about playing changed — what changed is what a demo is worth as a record once the match is over.
Daniel Kim3 min read
AnalysisD.Mon got two hotfixes in four days: the cast-time cuts are the ones you feel
Overwatch 2 hotfixed its new tank twice in the first week of Season 4. The 12 August pass raised D.Mon's damage numbers. The 14 August pass cut the cast times and recovery on Surging Strike and Fusion Repeater — and that is the one that changed what she can get away with.
Elena Petrova3 min read
AnalysisValorant put Abyss back in Competitive: the map where falling off is a death
Patch 13.04 put Abyss into the Competitive and Deathmatch queues on 18 August and took Breeze out. Abyss is the only Valorant map with no outer boundaries and a death drop in Mid, which makes it the only map in your ranked pool where the geometry itself can end a round.
Marcus Reed4 min read
AnalysisCS2 map scripts can now read the bomb: what that changes for community maps
Valve's 3 August update gave Counter-Strike 2 map scripting direct access to the planted bomb's state and to grenade projectiles in flight. Nothing changes in your Premier queue — but the ceiling on what a Workshop retake or utility map can do just moved, and the update notes say where.
Daniel Kim4 min read
AnalysisCranked returns to Black Ops 7 on 20 August: the objective is what keeps you alive
Cranked Moshpit comes back with Season 05 Reloaded, and Treyarch has published the full buff ladder. Read it properly and the mode stops being a race to kill fast — it becomes a question of how you spend a life you are about to lose.
Elena Petrova4 min read
AnalysisEnergy weapons carry their own ammo now: what to grab off drop in Apex
Respawn removed energy ammo from the floor entirely and gave seven weapons a regenerating stockpile. That turns a Volt into a gun you can fight with on a hot drop, and it frees the inventory slots you used to spend on bullets.
Daniel Kim4 min read
AnalysisThe CS2 maps in your Competitive queue are not the Active Duty pool
The July update that put Cache into Active Duty also took four maps out of every game mode and put three unfamiliar ones into Competitive, Casual and Deathmatch. If you do not queue Premier, that second change is the one that affects you.
Marcus Reed3 min read
NewsRex Infernus arrives 20 August: every confirmed feature describes the same fight
Treyarch has named the enemies, the perk and the trap for the final Black Ops 7 Zombies map. Together they describe one problem: being surrounded at melee range and slowed. What is confirmed, what it implies, and the one reward with an undated deadline.
Elena Petrova4 min read
AnalysisFrozen Trail lands 8 October: the ARC Raiders you are playing now is the one you have until then
Embark has dated its biggest update since launch and confirmed it is running fewer, larger releases. That makes the next eight weeks the longest stable stretch the game has had — which changes what is worth investing in now.
Daniel Kim3 min read
GuideCS2 demos can now show what you actually saw: how to review one properly
TrueView re-runs the observed player's client-side prediction during demo playback, so a demo no longer shows only the server's version of a fight. That settles some arguments and creates new ways to read a demo wrongly.
Marcus Reed4 min read
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