Latest news with #Helldivers2
Tom's Guide
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Tom's Guide
Remedy's new Control co-op shooter is best played on Game Pass and PlayStation Plus — here's why
Remedy is one of my all-time favorite game developers, so when I was offered the chance to jump in and play its latest release on PS5 — the three-player co-operative first-person shooter, FBC: Firebreak — I jumped at the opportunity. Set within the enigmatic world of Control, FBC: Firebreak casts players as members of the eponymous response unit, Firebreak. The pitch, then, is essentially Left 4 Dead, Deep Rock Galactic, or even Helldivers 2 mapped out within the corridors of The Oldest House. The FBC is still contending with The Hiss (the enemies you fought as Jesse Faden in Control) and other threats, and it's down to you and your pals to fend them off. The game's launched on Steam, the Epic Games Store, and on Xbox and PlayStation consoles. It costs $39/£32 at launch, but is also available to play day one via PC Game Pass, Game Pass Ultimate, and on PlayStation Plus (on the Extra/Premium tiers)... and that's definitely the way to play. FBC: Firebreak is Remedy Entertainment's new three-player co-operative first-person shooter. Set in the world of Control, it sees players volunteering to take a stand within the Federal Bureau of Control's (FBC) headquarters, which is still under siege from the Hiss and other otherworldly anomalies. Players choose one of three character classes and put their weapons and wacky gear to use in a variety of objective-based missions as they defend The Oldest House during the ongoing assault. Additional platforms: $39 @ Steam | $39 @ Xbox Store I put dozens of hours into Helldivers 2 in total, but eventually burned out on the gameplay loop not long after the 50-hour mark. FBC: Firebreak, unfortunately, is a game that I don't think can even sustain anywhere near that kind of playtime. Admittedly, Remedy has been up front about not wanting FBC: Firebreak to be an all-encompassing live-service experience that capitalizes players' attention and punishes them if they can't (or don't want to) log in every single day. It's a refreshing stance, at least: I'm sure I can't be the only player who doesn't want to feel trapped by another game that wants me to log in for bland, daily quests or minimal rewards. Unfortunately, though, FBC: Firebreak arrives feeling like a fairly shallow experience, even as a game designed for only occasional co-op play. The mission types (or 'Jobs') that you'll be taking on just aren't that engaging. Take 'Paper Chase,' for example. Here, you'll be tasked with eradicating thousands of self-replicating sticky notes (and avoiding being consumed by them in the process). It's a unique mission type, but it's not that fun to play in practice. "Paper Chase" ultimately is little more than running around, gunning down waves of Control's 'Hiss' enemies, occasionally facing "Powerful" sub-bosses, or shooting 'shufflers' (FBC members who've been turned into sprinting sticky note monsters). Meanwhile, you're left trying to find ways to destroy sticky notes glued all over each section of the level. Once you're done, rush back to call the elevator, defending your position while you wait, and leave: job done. Missions offer you a choice of difficulty settings and "Levels", but these only really expand the number of map sections and increase the number of objectives you'll have to complete Missions offer you a choice of difficulty settings and "Levels", but these only really expand the number of map sections and increase the number of objectives you'll have to complete. Sure, the top-level caps things off with a big set piece... but after confronting "Sticky Ricky" a few times, that, too, will grow stale. Missions at the top difficulty level can be further complicated by Altered Items, objects that cause environmental effects such as augmenting gravity or causing enemy corpses to explode, but these don't liven the experience up significantly enough, either. Given other missions task you with riveting objectives like stuffing a container full of radioactive pearls harvested from giant leeches or shooting pink gunk off turbines, I'd have welcomed more out-there diversions. Realistically, after only a few runs through every Job, I already feel like I'd seen everything FBC: Firebreak has to offer. Worse still, playing beyond that point only made me more confident in my opinion. It doesn't help that the game also feels a tad stingy when it comes to offering up the necessary resources to work through your Requisitions table and build out your combat options. You start with a choice of the three Kits, each of which gives you a tool used to complete different tasks within a level (a wrench for repairing or building useful bits of tech in the field, for example), a weapon, and a grenade. Completing missions will earn you Samples, which you can use these to unlock new cosmetic armor sets, weapons, sprays and other gear items, or you can spend them on 'Research', unlocking perks (which confer typical abilities like longer sprint times and faster reloads to elemental weapon augments and some more left-field options). I'd suggest avoiding cosmetics, where you can. You'll need to spend Samples on new duds to unlock fresh pages of gear, but I'd bet players would much rather have the resources to expand their arsenal. You'll want to replace your substandard equipment if you plan to invest more time in Firebreak. Plus, it's worth remembering this is an FPS; it's not like you're going to be spending much time looking at that sweet new helmet you just bought for your intrepid FBC agent, is it? I think FBC: Firebreak will only really land for players who can make the experience fun for themselves, making it more of a hangout game. The Firebreakers themselves are fun enough to inhabit; combat feels punchy, and Remedy's humor and tone are still there, but what I've played hasn't convinced me to stick around. The gunplay's solid, but the progression and repetitive nature of the game's Jobs left me feeling stifled, and I'm convinced only the most unlock-hungry fans will want to commit to its grinds. Ultimately, this is precisely why I recommend curious players should only check FBC: Firebreak out via Game Pass or PlayStation Plus. That way, you can hop in for a few hours, see what the game's got to offer, and leave. You'll get to see what Remedy's cooked up, safe in the knowledge you've only invested your time (and a subscription fee) into a co-op shooter that just doesn't stand out in this crowded market.
Engadget
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- Engadget
Sony unlocks regional restrictions for some PC games in more than 100 countries
It turns out that region-locking your games makes it harder to sell more copies. First discovered by Wario64, Sony has lifted regional restrictions for several of its titles that are available to play on PC through Steam. Sony hasn't officially announced the removal of these region locks, nor the reason why, but God of War Ragnarok, The Last of Us Part II Remastered , Spider-Man 2 , and the hit co-op shooter Helldivers 2 can be purchased once again in 177 countries that were previously prohibited, as seen in database changelogs. To understand why Sony decided to limit sales of its games in certain countries, we have to revisit when the video game publisher announced it would require Helldivers 2 PC players to link their Steam accounts to the PlayStation Network. This controversial decision prohibited players in countries that didn't have access to the PSN, so Sony also removed Helldivers 2 from being on sale in those locations. The publisher quickly backtracked on that move, even later removing the PSN requirements for other titles like Spider-Man 2. More recently, the PC release of Stellar Blade on June 11 resurfaced Sony's PSN login requirement debacle. The game's developer, Shift Up, was able to work with Sony to loosen restrictions and make a PSN login optional, allowing for an explosive launch where the game saw a peak of nearly 200,000 players in its opening week. Now, PC gamers across the world can play Stellar Blade and Helldivers 2 without needing a PSN account. However, there are still some Sony titles on Steam that are heavily restricted, like Ghost of Tsushima and Until Dawn .
Forbes
14-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Forbes
PlayStation Has Its Head In The Sand About Its Live Service Future
Marathon While fans wait for crumbs of new information about PlayStation games like Intergalactic or Wolverine, Sony is continuing to tout their current and future live service plans, saying that it is "very, very committed to building a diverse and a resilient live-service portfolio,' according to boss Herman Hulst. This is in the wake of promises that PlayStation has learned lessons from the failure of Concord: "We have reviewed our processes in light of this to deeply understand how and why that title failed to meet expectations and to ensure we're not going to make the same mistakes again,' Hulst said. Live Services But looking at Sony's plans in the plain light of day, and despite all this projected confidence, it very much feels like the company is burying its head in the sand when it comes to the reality of its situation. Of the games pictured on its live-service planning sheet, we can break most of them down in different ways: Helldivers 2 FEATURED | Frase ByForbes™ Unscramble The Anagram To Reveal The Phrase Pinpoint By Linkedin Guess The Category Queens By Linkedin Crown Each Region Crossclimb By Linkedin Unlock A Trivia Ladder Helldivers 2 – An unequivocal success story, one of the only ones Sony has had during this recent push, but something of a limited-time offer. Developer Arrowhead is not a Sony studio, and it has announced that because Helldivers 2 has done so well, that they are able to self-fund and publish their next game without Sony's help at all. While they say it's no shade to Sony, it reinforces that Arrowhead is not some sort of in-house live-service powerhouse they can rely on indefinitely, and they will be moving on. Destiny 2 Frontiers Destiny 2 – The decade-spanning series is something of a miracle in the land of live services, and you can say it actually helped launch the entire trend. But in year 11, things are scaling way down in the post-Light and Darkness era. The game has gone from record highs to record lows as it moves toward a new 'Frontiers' era, which will allow the game to subsist, but it is simply never going to reach previously high water marks from here. Sony will also not allow Bungie to put D2 to bed in order to take time to make a Destiny 3 that may never even get here as D2 shambles on past its expiration date. Marathon Marathon – Herman Hulst made headlines calling the game 'bold and innovative' and slides touting 'strong engagement' about the game, but it's just sandblasting away the enormous issues facing Marathon, a quadruple combo blow of 1) a poor gameplay showcase, 2) mixed-to-poor alpha feedback, 3) a headline-dominating art plagiarism scandal, 4) a post-alpha, post-plagiarism livestream that did little to reassure anyone on any front. Marathon is in deep trouble, and it will take something of a miracle for this game to land the way Sony wants it to as an industry hit. Fairgame$ Fairgames – The head of the studio, Jade Raymond, just left the project. Reports of internal tests say the game is bad. We have not seen or heard anything from it in almost two years. This is either going to be cancelled ahead of release or explode on the launchpad. If any game had a Concord-like future ahead of it, if it did actually come out, it's Fairgames. Those are the listed games. The other major, non-cancelled projects we know about are an upcoming Horizon Zero Dawn multiplayer monster-hunter, where we've seen almost nothing from it, and it will involve the always-risky idea of trying to convert fans of a single player series into something that's a dedicated multiplayer offering. Sony carved out a chunk of Bungie to make a new, in-house studio working on the game codenamed Gummy Bears, which does not have a name or any sort of preview footage, and while internal tests have been positive, it's hardly the first time we've heard that before. Perhaps the most promising item is what we have the least amount of information about, that Jason Blundell has his own studio inside Sony now and may make something cool akin to his Black Ops Zombies experience. But again, zero information here. Sony may be putting on a brave face, but things are going poorly. Its next two live games are probably not even a coinflip of whether they fail or not, and if there are any ones that work past that, they're still years away with literally nothing public shown about any of them. It's not good. Follow me on Twitter, YouTube, Bluesky and Instagram. Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.
Forbes
13-06-2025
- Business
- Forbes
PlayStation Plus Prices Will Keep Going Up As Players Keep Upgrading
Helldivers 2 As part of a large-scale Sony business segment meeting, there was much discussion about the state of PlayStation and its plans for future earnings. One aspect brought up was the significant revenue of PlayStation Plus and confirmation that prices will keep going up in the future. And Sony thinks that's just fine, given recent player spending trends. In FY22 the percentage of PS Plus subscribers on Premium and Extra were 17% and 13%, respectively. By FY24, that had grown to 22% and 16%, totaling that 38% number. Sony notes that this is even after a global price increase, where in September of 2023, yearly prices went up by 35% in some regions. And still, growth. The highest profile subscription service we're always hearing about is Xbox Game Pass, Microsoft's slew of archived and day-one games that has players shelling out $20 a month to access. But with Sony's enormous fleet of PlayStation consoles in the wild, PS Plus is a huge revenue driver, and that's despite not offering really anything close to the breadth of Game Pass. PlayStation Plus FEATURED | Frase ByForbes™ Unscramble The Anagram To Reveal The Phrase Pinpoint By Linkedin Guess The Category Queens By Linkedin Crown Each Region Crossclimb By Linkedin Unlock A Trivia Ladder The market has arranged itself where you have no choice but to subscribe to these services if you want to play console games, unlike say, PC, where you're only paying for your actual internet. So the prices can go up indefinitely without real consequence, plus players are being herded into higher tiers over time. Sony is pleased with where things are going and how much they can continue to hike rates: If you want to read 'adjust our pricing strategy in a dynamic way to maximize profitability' in a way other than 'prices will keep going up,' I have a microtransaction of a bridge to sell you. Increasingly, console-makers are relying on revenue from online services to be the money printer over console sales with lower margins. That's more true for Xbox than PlayStation, given close to rock-bottom Xbox hardware sales as of late, but PS Plus is a huge deal for Sony, too. And they know that consumers don't really have a choice but to keep paying with their online games held hostage. Follow me on Twitter, YouTube, Bluesky and Instagram. Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.
Daily Mirror
12-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mirror
Helldivers 2 Force of Law Warbond price and every new weapon you can use
The Helldivers 2 Force of Law Warbond is the latest set of new additions for the game, and it's packed with new weapons, emotes, armour and more for players to unlock Helldivers 2 bites back with a new Warbond, available to players right now and issuing them some new police-grade weapons, armour and equipment. The quest for universal democracy continues unabated, and despite a plethora of shooters on the horizon following numerous showcase season reveals, including the surprising unveiling of Black Ops 7, Helldivers 2 remains in the fray. The game has been holding its own impressively, consistently offering players opportunities to battle against the Illuminate in galaxy-wide campaigns to maintain order. However, the game's most effective method of keeping players hooked is through dazzling new armour, potent weapons and cheesy emotes - and now, with the Helldivers 2 Force of Law Warbond, it comes with a fresh coat of paint befitting a harsh and relentless police force. Super Earth clearly still prioritises peace through strength, and at least its armourers are prepared to equip its warriors with bulletproof vests and weapons suitable for the force. So, what exactly does the new pack contain? Here's everything you need to know about the Helldivers 2 Force of Law Warbond. Helldivers 2 Force of Law Warbond The Helldivers 2 Force of Law Warbond is available now, and will remain a permanent fixture in the game thanks to the game's enduring Warbond system, giving you ample time to explore and unlock its items. Helldivers 2 Force of Law Warbond price The Helldivers 2 Force of Law Warbond is priced at 1,000 Super Credits (£7.99 / $9.99 / AU$14.95), and unlike other games' battle pass systems, you'll have permanent access to its contents. There's no need to fret about an expiry date, as you can keep returning and unlocking items until you've finished it. It's a thoughtful feature, and earning the Super Credits inside could help you inch closer to purchasing another Warbond without having to part with any cash. Helldivers 2 Force of Law Warbond items The new bundle is brimming with fresh items, including some novel Strategems that will prove invaluable on the battlefield. Here's every cosmetic item awaiting you in the Helldivers 2 Force of Law Warbond, as unveiled in a recent PlayStation blog post: It's a rather substantial collection of items, featuring the new Patterns which are a relatively recent addition to Warbonds with the introduction of the Masters of Ceremony Warbond issuing a number of historical decals for your Hellpods, Stratagems and more. It's hard to turn your nose up at bonus cosmetics, truth be told. Dive into the Helldivers 2 Force of Law Warbond and dispense some democracy by any means necessary.
