• A definitive ranking of Tom Cruise’s 26 best action movies

    After spending several months doing not much besides watching Tom Cruise movies, I now spend a lot of time wondering about Tom Cruise running.

    The Mission: Impossible star is a high-cadence runner. He’s famously short of stature, low to the ground and with short legs. But that build is perfect for cinema, because those arms swing and those legs churn and convey a viscerality, a violence, a constant labored activity that translates perfectly to the screen. What they convey is a man of action, a man summoning all of his energy and will in a single direction: to move as quickly as he can.

    What is he thinking about when he’s running? I like to think the answer is nothing. That Tom Cruise is able to empty his head when he runs, blanking out his career, his cultural meaning, his past and present personal relationships, and move in a state of pure being. Maybe he’s doing one of his infamous stunts, a run towards a large dangerous vehicle, or off the side of a cliff. Maybe that makes him run faster. Maybe he feels a drive toward oblivion, to make the ultimate sacrifice to cinema, resulting in a cultural afterlife even longer than eternal stardom allows.

    This, in many ways, has been Tom Cruise’s career-long relationship with action movies. They’re his port in the storm, a safe harbor, a place to go and find love and acceptance when there seemingly is none to be had elsewhere. When the press is digging into your religion or snickering about your failed marriages or accusing you of being awkward or crazy or scary, you can find refuge in a MacGuffin to track down, a bad guy’s plot to foil, a world to save.

    The challenge each writer and director must face is how to handle Cruise’s well-known persona. Do they lean in or subvert? And to what end? When gifted with perhaps the most charismatic, committed movie star ever, are you willing to grapple with this stardom, how it explains the actor at a given point in his career, and what our response to him means? Or do you run?

    The following is a ranking of Tom Cruise’s greatest action films. In the interest of gimmicky symmetry, we’ve once again capped ourselves at 26 titles. We didn’t cheat… much. The films below all contain shootouts, fistfights, corpses, and missile crises. Most importantly, they aretense, suspenseful, violent, escapist popcorn, not to be confused with the other half of Cruise’s equation: the pool-playing, the bartending, the litigating, and the deeply felt character work with auteurs, intended to get him the ultimate prize, which has eluded him for nearly half a century. Let’s run the numbers.

    26. ValkyrieDirector: Bryan SingerWhere to watch: Free on Pluto TV, Kanopy, Hoopla

    You could make a decent argument that this piece of shit doesn’t even belong on this list. It’s mostly a plodding chamber drama about “good Germans” ineffectually plotting to not kill Hitler at the end of World War II. But there’s an explosion, a dull shootout, and a bunch of executions at the end, so it seems to qualify as an action movie. Making Valkyrie is one of the most baffling decisions in Cruise’s entire career. And yet it’s also one of the most important films of his career, one that arguably defines his late period, because it’s how he first met his future M:I steward Christopher McQuarrie.

    Run report: Ominously, Tom Cruise doesn’t run in this movie.  

    25. Oblivion Director: Joseph KosinskiWhere to watch: Rent on Amazon, Apple

    Like Valkyrie, Oblivion technically qualifies as an action movie, but there’s little actual action or narrative tension to any of it. Cruise essentially plays the source code for a clone army created by a weird super-intelligence in space that runs Earth via killer droids, and the clones to service them. It comes out of a filmmaking period packed with sci-fi puzzlebox movies that were all atmosphere and often led nowhere, though this is probably the “best” example of that tiresome trend. The silver lining is that, like Valkyrie, this film led to Cruise meeting an important future collaborator: Top Gun: Maverick director Joseph Kosinski.

    Run report: Cruise literally exercises by running on a giant sleek modern hamster wheel in this. It’s the physical manifestation of everything I hate about this film.

    24. Legend Director: Ridley ScottWhere to watch: Rent on Amazon, Apple

    This 1985 fantasy movie has its defenders, but I am not one of them. The action is completely disjointed and chaotic, a fractured fairy tale composed of an incoherent, weird/horny unholy union of J.R.R. Tolkien, Jim Henson, Peter Greenaway, Ken Russell, and a handful of psilocybin mushrooms. Legend looks like something pieced together by Jack Horner on a camcorder, so it’s hard to fault Cruise for looking clunky and uncomfortable. Who knows what a good performance in that role would look like? 

    Run report: A lot of odd almost skipping around in this, which adds to the “high school play” quality of the film. Cruise has a proper run toward the end, but it’s not fully baked yet. 

    23. The Mummy Director: Alex KurtzmanWhere to watch: Rent on Amazon, Apple

    Rewatching 2017’s The Mummy actually made me slightly disappointed we didn’t get the Dark Universe Universal Pictures briefly promised us. The setup had potential: Cruise as Indiana Jones, with Jake Johnson as Short Round and Courtney B. Vance as the archetypal no-bullshit sergeant? Potential. But Alex Kurtzman’s take on Karl Freund’s 1932 Boris Karloff Mummy needed less plot and more screwing around. This is an instance where Spielbergian pacing actually ruins a blockbuster, because it entirely lacks Spielberg Sauce. It becomes a horror movie after the first act, with Cruise as a largely personality-free, mentally unsound Black Swan/Smile protagonist. Then they spend all this time with Russell Crowe as Dr. Jekyll, introducing this universe of monsters that never gets off the ground. No fun!

    Run report: Notable because co-star Annabelle Wallis did a ton of press speaking to how much thought Cruise puts into his on-screen running. She specifically said he initially didn’t want to run on screen with Wallis, because he doesn’t like to share his on-screen run time. He relented, to little effect. 

    22. Mission: Impossible II Director: John WooWhere to watch: Free on Hulu, Paramount Plus

    Folks, I rewatched this recently. I really wanted to love it because some close and valued colleagues sing its praises, and I love a good, hot contrarian take. Respectfully, I don’t know what the hell they’re on. The camera work in Mission: Impossible II is so berserk, it borders on amateurish. The series hadn’t figured out what it was yet, but not in an interesting exploratory way: This installment is more like trying on a pair of pants that are not your vibe.

    The idea that Ethan Hunt lost his team in Mission: Impossible and now he’s a broken lone wolf, an agent with the weight of the world on his shoulders, is not a bad premise. But in the role that ruined his career, Dougray Scott is a wooden, toothless bad guy. And somehow, the stakes feel impossibly low, even with a world-killing bioweapon on the line.

    Mission: Impossible II does, however, get points for being far and away the horniest movie in the franchise.

    Run report: Unsurprisingly, Woo is great at filming running, and there’s a lot of clay to work with here: Cruise’s long hair flopping in the wind, slow motion, a rare mid-run mask-rip, the inevitable dove-release: It’s all good!

    A definitive ranking of love interests and partners in the Mission: Impossible movies

    6. Claire Phelpsin Mission: Impossible5. Julia Meadein Mission: Impossible III and Fallout4. Gracein Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning and The Final Reckoning3. Nyah Nordoff-Hallin Mission: Impossible II2. Ilsa Faust in Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation, Fallout, and Dead Reckoning1. Jane Carterin in Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol

    21. American Made Director: Doug Liman Where to watch: Rent on Amazon, Apple

    It’s a funny idea: What if Top Gun’s Maverick was a schmuck pilot turned drug-runner? It’s clearly Cruise reaching for a Blow of his own, but decades into this type of narrative, we know the beats by heart. American Made is sorely lacking in depravity. Cruise’s affected good ol’ boy Southern accent both has nothing to do with the film’s disposability, and explains everything. It’s a sanitized drug narrative in which we never see Cruise blow a line or fire a gun. We don’t even see his death on screen — Cruise dying in a movie is a big deal, and has only happened a few times. It’s almost like he knew this nothingburger wasn’t worth the distinction.

    Run report: Not much running, which is indicative of a larger problem with this film. But at one point, Cruise runs after a car with Caleb Landry Jones in it, and it explodes, in arguably the highlight of the film, for whatever that’s worth. 

    20. The Last Samurai Director: Edward ZwickWhere to watch: Rent on Amazon, Apple

    The one’s a weird movie about a mercenary who, after participating in the genocide of Native Americans, goes native in 19th-century Japan, in the wake of the Meiji Restoration. But it’s a somewhat unusual approach to the standard Cruise narrative arc. In this, he begins as a broken, drunken husk, a mercenary arm of the growing American empire who belatedly regains his honor by joining up with some samurai. The aspects of that plotline which feel unusual for a Cruise movie don’t make up for all the story elements that have aged terribly, but they’re something. 

    Run report: Less running than you’d expect, but running with swords while wearing leather samurai armor.

    19. Jack Reacher: Never Go Back 

    Director: Edward ZwickWhere to watch: Rent on Amazon, Apple

    A lot of the films in the lower ranks of this list suffer from the problem of filmmakers settling, simply putting Cruise on screen and letting his iconography do the heavy lifting, sans interesting backstory or dialogue. In this sequel, thanks to Lee Child’s blunt dialogue, the deep-state rogue-army plotting in the source material, and Cruise’s typical level of meticulous fight choreo, it’s simply really entertaining, solid, replacement-level action. This sequel to 2012’s Jack Reacher gives the title troubleshootera surrogate daughter and a foil in Cobie Smulders, which is great. But its primary sin is replacing Werner Herzog, the villain from the first movie, with a generic snooze of a bad guy.

    Run report: Some running and sliding on rooftops with guns, as fireworks go off in the night sky. Impressive for some action movies, a bit ho-hum compared to the bigger hits on this list. 

    18. TapsDirector: Harold Becker Where to watch: Rent on Amazon, Apple

    Fascinating film. A Toy Soldiers riff interrogating the military-school system, and suggesting that it’s probably not a bad thing that former American ideals like patriotic honor, duty, and masculinity are fading. It’s Cruise’s first major role, and you’ll never believe this, but he plays a tightly wound, thrill-addicted, bloodthirsty maniac.

    Run report: Great characterization via run here. Cadet Captain David Shawn is a hawkish conservative dick, and Cruise’s running reflects that. He’s stiff, carrying an automatic rifle that he looks like he’s going to start firing wildly at any minute. 

    17. Mission: Impossible III 

    Director: J.J. Abrams

    Where to watch: Free on Hulu, Paramount Plus

    In the last Mission: Impossible installment made before the filmmakers really figured out what the series was doing, J.J. Abrams assembles a mostly incoherent, boring clunker that has a few very important grace notes. It’s a film about Ethan Hunt trying to carve out a normal life for himself, with the great Philip Seymour Hoffman playing the bucket of ice water dumped on his domestic fantasy. Hoffman’s Owen Davian is the greatest bad guy in the Cruise filmography, and there’s really no close second.There are many moments I could point to in Hoffman’s wonderful performance, but the one I’d recommend, if you want to feel something, is when Hoffman gets to play Ethan Hunt playing Owen Davian with a mask on for a few scenes during the Vatican kidnapping, roughly 50 minutes in. He was so fucking great. 

    Run report: A lot of running, but none of it is very good. No knock on Cruise, but Abrams is doing perfunctory work, shot poorly via shaky cam that has trouble keeping Cruise in the frame, from a perfunctory director making a perfunctory action film. There are two notable exceptions. “The Shanghai Run,” which we may have more on later, and Cruise running straight up a wall.

    A definitive ranking of Mission: Impossible villain performances

    10. Dougray Scott in Mission: Impossible II9. Eddie Marsan in Mission: Impossible III8. William Mapother — that’s right, Thomas Cruise Mapother IV’s cousin! — in Mission: Impossible II7. Lea Seydoux in Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol6. Sean Harris in Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation and Fallout5. Jean Reno in Mission: Impossible4. Esai Morales/The Entity in Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning and The Final Reckoning3. Jon Voight in Mission: Impossible2. Henry Cavill in Mission: Impossible – Fallout1. Phillip Seymour Hoffman in Mission: Impossible III

    16. Mission: Impossible – The Final ReckoningDirector: Christopher McQuarrieWhere to watch: In theaters

    The franchise potentially falls with a thud — or is it an AI-generated death fantasy that plays out entirely in Ethan Hunt’s head when he gets trapped in a digital coffin early in the movie? Either way, the resulting film is something the McQuarrie-Cruise collaboration has never been before: clunky and imprecise, a disjointed watch that delivers some high highs, but is unfortunately thin on story.

    McQuarrie seems unconcerned with character arcs, or any substantive grand narrative that might land in any meaningful way. This movie plays out like an aimless succession of beats, allowing boredom to creep in. That hasn’t been a part of the franchise since M:I 3. It’s a Simpsons clip show masquerading as a Mission: Impossible film, signaling that this iteration of the franchise is exhausted, with little left to say or explore. Perhaps there was no other way for this series to go out than on its back. 

    Run report: A run through the tunnels to save Luther, oddly reminiscent of the run attempting to save Ilsa Faust, followed by the run out of the tunnels, allowing Ethan to escape the film’s first trapA definitive ranking of Ethan Hunt’s “best friends/allies”17. Wes Bentley16. Greg Tarzan Davis15. Aaron Paul14. Jonathan Rhys Meyers13. Maggie Q12. Shea Whigham11. Hannah Waddington 10. Katy O’Brian9. Pom Klementieff8. Rolf Saxon7. Vanessa Kirby6. Keri Russell5. Simon Pegg4. Jeremy Renner3. Emilio Estevez2. Bogdan1. Luther15. War of the WorldsDirector: Steven Spielberg Where to watch: Free on Hulu, Paramount Plus

    A curious movie I liked better on a rewatch than I did on my initial watch 20 years ago. Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom is often misremembered as Spielberg’s darkest movie, but I’d argue that War of the Worlds beats it: It’s a divorced-dad-anxiety horror movie that has the most nightmare-inducing, traumatic, post-9/11 visuals in the master’s oeuvre. It can be read as Spielberg wrestling with his relationship with his son Max, who would’ve been around the age of Cruise’s disgruntled, estranged son in the movie.

    War of the Worlds has issues: Cruise never works when he’s cast in a “just some guy” role, as he’s meant to be here, and the plot goes off the rails in the third act. But it has some of the best set pieces Spielberg ever directed. What will haunt me for the rest of my life is a scene where Cruise’s character is forced to essentially make a Sophie’s Choice between his son and daughter, and lets his son go. The ominous music at the end when he’s magically reunited with his son is completely bizarre and unsettling, and I don’t think is meant to be taken at face value. 

    Run report: This is why Cruise is the king. He’s playing a supposed normal, everyday schmoe in this movie. When you focus on the running, compared to other roles, you can see he’s running like a mechanic who is still a little athletic, but doesn’t know where he’s going, or what is happening from one moment to the next. It’s building character through running. Incredible.

    14. Knight and DayDirector: James Mangold 

    Where to watch: Free on Cinemax; rent on Amazon, Apple

    Knight and Day is a sneakily important film in the Cruise action canon because it’s the first time a movie really puts Cruise into the role of the creepy, charismatic, psychotically intense, beleaguered, put-upon invincible cartoon character he became in the Mission: Impossible franchise as of Ghost Protocol. This movie is based around a funny idea: It’s basically a Mission: Impossible movie from the perspective of a clueless civilian. It helps that the civilian is phenomenal, physical, funny, and fucking ripped: Cameron Diaz plays the world’s hottest mechanic, and makes me wish she had gotten her own Atomic Blonde-style vehicle.

    Run report: Some co-running with Cameron Diaz here, which is as you might imagine, is good. 

    13. The FirmDirector. Sydney PollackWhere to watch: Free on Paramount Plus

    It’s easy to put The Firm on a pedestal because of Sydney Pollack, the jazz score, the ’90s outfits, Gene Hackman, and every other significant gravitas-oozing “That Guy” as a mobster, shady lawyer, or Fed in a great “They don’t make them like that anymore” legal thriller. But what really stood out to me on a recent rewatch is this movie is two and a half hours about the now laughably quaint notion of rediscovering purity in the law. It isn’t much more than a story about a shady law firm that gets hit with mail-fraud charges, plus several deaths and a few smartly tied up loose ends.

    Run report: A clinic in Tom Cruise running, a draft-version highlight reel of his running scenes. In my memory, this contains some of his most iconic early runs, and it signals the moment when “Tom Cruise running” became a whole cultural thing. 

    12. Top GunDirector: Tony Scott Where to watch: Free on Paramount Plus

    Top Gun set the template for Tom Cruise’s on-screen narrative, and it took a decade before filmmakers were willing to start subverting that narrative again. This is straight-up hero porn, without any of the humbling that the sequel eventually dishes out. Tom Cruise as Maverick is the best pilot on Earth. He loses his best friend and co-pilot Goose, due to a combination of a mechanical failure and another pilot’s fuck-up. He then has to find the courage to fly with the exact same lack of inhibition he did at the outset of the film, which he finally does, based on essentially nothing that happens in the plot. Scott makes the wise decision to center the actionof the film on pure Cruise charisma and star power, and it works.

    Run report: Believe it or not, Tom Cruise does not run in this movie. 

    11. Days of ThunderDirector: Tony Scott Where to watch: Free on Paramount Plus

    Scott and Cruise’s Top Gun follow-up is essentially Top Gun with cars instead of jets — but yes, it’s marginally better. Why? Because this is a quintessential “We didn’t know how good we had it” classic. It’s the film where Cruise met his future spouse Nicole Kidman on set. Robert Duvall is swigging moonshine. It’s Randy Quaid’s last performance actually based on planet Earth. Plus there’s John C. Reilly, Michael Rooker, Cary Elwes, Fred Thompson, Margo Martindale, and a rousing Hans Zimmer score. Need I say more?

    Run report: They cut the climatic race off, but Cruise’s character Cole potentially gets smoked by 59-year-old Robert Duvall?!

    10. Mission: Impossible – Dead ReckoningDirector: Christopher McQuarrieWhere to watch: Free on Paramount Plus

    The metaphor that the Mission: Impossible franchise is a manifestation of Tom Cruise’s deep-seated need to save blockbuster filmmaking and the Hollywood star system has never been more overt. Cruise is literally up against AI, which is always a step ahead of him, dismantling his every gambit. It’s an update/remix of Ghost Protocol’s premise: The only antidote to the world-spanning AI known as The Entity is becoming a refusenik anti-tech Luddite in the spirit of John Henry, and using the raw materials of humanity to defeat an invincible machine. 

    Run report: Cruise running in confined spaces is a lot of fun, but the heavily CGI’d running up the side of a train losing its battle with gravity isn’t. 

    A definitive ranking of Mission: Impossible MacGuffins

    8. Ghost Protocol’s Russian launch codes7. Fallout’s plutonium cores 6. Rogue Nation’s billion Syndicate bankroll5. M:I2’s Chimera Virus4. Final Reckoning’s Sevastopol3. M:I’s NOC list 2. Dead Reckoning Part One’s cruciform key1. M:I3’s rabbit’s foot

    9. Jack Reacher 

    Director: Christopher McQuarrie Where to watch: Free on Paramount Plus

    I loathe hyperbole: it’s a shortcut for unimaginative writers. I’ve never resorted to it in my entire life. So I hope you’ll take me at my word when I say that this movie is a fucking masterpiece. Amazon’s great Reacher series is made more in the image of Lee Child’s books, with a distinctive breakout lead in Alan Ritchson, who appears to have been designed in a lab to draw striking contrast to Tom Cruise in this role. But Reacher made us forget how good Jack Reacher gets.

    It’s a perfect elevated action programmer with a remarkable cast: David Oyelowo! Richard Jenkins! Rosamund Pike! A Days of Thunder reunion with Robert Duvall! Werner Herzog showing up in a completely brilliant, bonkers heel turn! McQuarrie made this one in vintage Shane Black ’90s style, with a dash of Don Siegel and Clint Eastwood. I totally get why Cruise decided to turn his career over to McQuarrie after this. I don’t understand why he didn’t let McQuarrie direct the sequel.

    Run report: There isn’t much running in this. At one point, Cruise is darting from shelter point to shelter point because a sniper is trying to pick him off, but that’s it. It’s because Jack fucking Reacher doesn’t have to run, which is simply good writing and filmmaking. 

    8. Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation 

    Director: Christopher McQuarrieWhere to watch: Free on Hulu, Paramount Plus

    This film famously opens with Tom Cruise hanging from the side of a plane as it takes off. But to me, the key moment comes when he’s broken into the plane, attached himself to a package which isn’t named, but looks like a crate of rockets the size of a minivan. He gives a final raised eyebrow and shrug to a gobsmacked henchman, who watches helplessly as Cruise deploys a parachute and falls out the back of the plane’s cargo bay with a ton of atomic weapons, and no plausible way to land without killing himself and creating a Grand Canyon-sized nuclear crater in Belarus. This scene was practically drawn by Chuck Jones, which sets the tone for a film that repositions Ethan Hunt on the border of superherodom, in a film about Tom Cruise as the literal manifestation of destiny. 

    It also marks the return of Alec Baldwin, the firstM:I handler who carried over from one film to the next. Evaluating the handlers’ position in the franchiseis challenging: They’re constantly shifting allegiances, at times working in service of Hunt’s mission, at times in direct opposition to it, either attacking him with governmental red tape, or colluding with nefarious forces.

    Run report: A lot of different looks when it comes to the running in this. Shirtless running, running with Rebecca Ferguson, running across the wing of a moving plane. It’s all good.

    A definitive ranking of the “most fun” M:I handlers

    6. Theodore Brasselin Mission: Impossible III5. Erika Sloanein Mission: Impossible – Fallout and The Final Reckoning4. Eugene Kittridgein Mission: Impossible3. John Musgravein Mission: Impossible III2. Commander Swanbeckin Mission: Impossible II1. Alan Hunleyin Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation and Fallout

    * One of my only lingering complaints about the M:I movies is that aside from Ving Rhames and Simon Pegg, we don’t get enough big family continuity. The Fast & Furious franchise is an exemplar/cautionary tale of how found-family dynamics can be a great source of fun and emotion — and also tank the series, if creators keep piling on new recurring elements. It sounds like Baldwin didn’t want to stay on board, but I would love to live in a world where he didn’t jump ship — or where, say, Henry Cavill’s August Walker joined Ethan’s team at the end of Mission: Impossible – Fallout, as he would have if he’d had a similar role in an F&F installment.

    7. Minority ReportDirector: Steven SpielbergWhere to watch: Free on Paramount Plus

    I’m guessing this placement on this ranking will upset some people. I’m surprised it’s this low in the rankings too — but that’s how good the next six films are. And honestly, Minority Report doesn’t hold up as the masterpiece I remember it being. It’s a very cool story. It marks the first fantasy-team matchup of Tom Cruise and Steven Spielberg. They’re adapting a paranoid Philip K. Dick story, and largely delivering on the promise that implies. Minority Report is an inventive, dark, weird future horror movie, made with Spielberg’s standard stunning visual economy.

    But among the perfect elements in this film, I have to call out some aspects that didn’t age well. Janusz Kaminski’s lighting effects feel like the whole movie is stuck inside an iPod halo. and this dutch-angled high melodrama, sauced with a dash of Terry Gilliam dystopian/gross wackiness, which lends the film a degree of occasionally atonal, squishy gonzo elasticity you’ve likely forgotten.  

    Run report: Mileage may vary on white pools of light, but running through them in futuristic uniforms is decisively cool. 

    6. Mission: Impossible Director: Brian De PalmaWhere to watch: Free on Hulu, Paramount Plus

    Because MI:2 and MI:3 struggle with tone, and because it’s actually Brad Bird that sets the template for the McQuarrie era of the franchise, you could argue the first Mission: Impossible is the strangest, most personal vision of what this series is and what it can be. DePalma is asserting himself with every practical mask and stylized shot. Your mileage may vary with that approach to what has become this Swiss set piece machine, I love it.

    A few things stand out nearly three decades on: Of course, how ridiculously young Cruise looks, but perhaps crucially, how collegial, intimate, and even tender the first act is before his first team is eliminated and the movie becomes a DePalma paranoid thriller. It’s an element we never quite get from Mission: Impossible again, one that brings the arc of the franchise into focus and explains Ethan Hunt if you extend continuity: He’s a character betrayed by his father figure and his government in the first film, and spends the rest of the franchise running from this largely unspoken trauma, determined to never let that happen again. In the wake of this, he reluctantly pieces together a life, semblance of a family, and all the risks that come with those personal attachments. In honor of my favorite set piece in any of the films, one of DePalma’s finest taught masterpieces:

    A definitive ranking of the top 10 M:I set pieces 

    Honorable Mention: The Sebastopol Extraction-The Train Fights– MI:1 & Dead Reckoning

    10. The Plane Door- Rogue Nation9. The “Kick In The Head” Russian Jail Break- Ghost Protocol8. The Water Vault Ledger Heist Into The Motorcycle Chase- Rogue Nation7. The Handcuffed Car Chase- Dead Reckoning6. The Red Baron Plane Fight- Final Reckoning5. The Burj Khalifa- Ghost Protocol4. Kidnapping At The Vatican- MI:33. The Opera House Hit- Rogue Nation2. The Louvre Halo Jump Into the Bathroom Fight- Fallout1. The NOC List Heist- MI:1

    Run report: Fitting that this franchise opens with Cruise putting on a running clinic, as that first op falls apart, then of course his run away from Kittridge and the massive fish tank explosion. 

    5. Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol 

    Director: Brad Bird Where to watch: Free on Hulu, Paramount Plus

    Nothing is working like it’s supposed to. Not the Impossible Mission Force, not the mask machine, not the radio comms, not the magnet gloves keeping Ethan Hunt tethered to the side of the world’s tallest building, not the Mission: Impossible franchise, and not Tom Cruise’s at-the-time fading movie stardom. But somehow, one incredible film made by a career animation director solves all of these problems, by stripping down, getting back to basics and reminding us what we always loved about these films and its star. It was supposed to be the beginning of a franchise reboot, with Jeremy Renner stepping in. Birdfights this decision off, gets away from trying to figure out the character Ethan Hunt and lets him be a superhero, more annoyed than concerned by the escalating difficulty of the impossible problems he has to solve. Through this, Bird correctly identifies the difference between Cruise and these other Hollywood candy asses: He’s a reckless warrior with a death wish who will do whatever is necessary to win, and he does. The team concept is back in full force with a genuinely showstopping stunt, and without the masks and tech, Cruise has to do it all with his wits, his hands, and his pure bravado. The series, and Cruise, never looked back. 

    Run report: Some of the most fun, imaginative set pieces built around running in this installment.

    A definitive ranking of who should replace Tom Cruise in the inevitable M:I reboot

    10. Aaron Taylor Johnson9. Charlie Cox8. Sterling K. Brown7. Florence Pugh6. John David Washington5. Haley Atwell4. Miles Teller3. Jeremy Renner2. Aaron Pierre 1. Glen Powell

    4. Top Gun: Maverick 

    Director: Joseph Kosinski Where to watch: Free on Paramount Plus

    It’s a death dream, it’s red meat nationalist troopaganda, it’s the greatest legacyquel ever made that no one asked for and you didn’t realize you desperately needed, it’s nostalgia porn, it saved the movie going experience post-COVID, it’s a finely calibrated joy machine. Cruise is downright mystical, shimmering in the sun’s reflection off the surf, dominating an endless football game with no rules that doesn’t make sense. He has actual chemistry with Jennifer Connelly, and he has the grace to cede the floor to his old nemesis — both in the first Top Gun and as a once contemporary Hollywood star/rival — the late Val Kilmer, to drive home the crush of time and destroy everyone in the theater, no matter how many times they went to see this monster hit that first summer back in theaters. 

    Run report: Immediately coming off of the stunning, emotional high point of the film, we get Cruise running in salt water soaked jeans shirtless on the beach. Are you not entertained?

    3. Collateral 

    Director: Michael Mann Where to watch: Free on Paramount Plus

    An elemental, visceral faceoff that is radical in its simplicity of purpose. A film made by the second-best director on this list, and on a very short list of Cruise’s finest performances ever. He’s the salt and pepper terminator in a taxi, playing a pure evil bad guy, a classic Mann anti-hero samurai nihilist that also lives by a code and values being good at his job. Of course Cruise retains a kind of charm, but is also willing to get slimy and be deeply unlikeable and die on screen. Well worth the sacrifice. 

    Run report: Incredible running on display here. Once again he is running like a professional killer probably runs, almost always holding a gun, the hair matches the suit, so fucking bad ass. 

    2. Mission: Impossible – Fallout 

    Director: Christopher McQuarrie Where to watch: Free on Hulu, Paramount Plus

    As much time and energy as I just expended exalting Ghost Protocol, at a certain point you have to eschew poetic narratives and tip your cap, by the slightest of margins, to a fucking perfect movie. Ghost Prot is close, but you can feel its lack of a nailed-down shooting script at certain points towards its conclusion, as the action begins to wind down. McQuarrie becomes the first director in the franchise to get a second bite of the apple, and the result is a finely cut diamond. Fallout is about exhaustion and the impossibility of that manifestation of destiny idea from Rogue Nation. It makes the argument that you can’t actually save the day and save everyone without making any sacrifices forever, and because of that, sets up The Trolly Problem over and over again to try and get Ethan Hunt to compromise and/or give up. But, of course, he won’t, and neither, seemingly, will Cruise. 

    Run report: You can tell McQuarrie loves watching Cruise run as much as we do. He frames the runs in these wide shots and takes his time with them. It’s not conveying any additional information, a beat or two less would suffice, but the camera lingers and you get to just sit and appreciate the form and it really connects. It’s why he was the logical choice to take control of this franchise. He understands how a Tom Cruise action flick operates and what makes it special. And of course:

    A definitive ranking of the best runs in the franchise

    10. The Opening Plane Run- Rogue Nation9. The Sandstorm Run- Ghost Protocol8. The Mask Rip Run- MI:27. Running through the alleys of Italy- Dead Reckoning6. Running Through the Tunnels for Luther- Final Reckoning5. Running down the Burj Khalifa- Ghost Protocol 4. Running from the fishtank explosion- MI:13. The Rooftop Run- Fallout2. The Shanghai Run- MI:31. The Kremlin Run- Ghost Protocol

    1. Edge of Tomorrow 

    Director: Doug Liman Where to watch: Rent on Amazon, Apple

    Edge of Tomorrow is the best Tom Cruise action film had to be made in his late period of action stardom. You need the gravity and the gravitas, the emotional baggage earned through those decades of culture-remaking roles, the toll that exerted effort took on him, and the time spent and time passed on his face. The late, largely perfect Mission: Impossible films that dominate the top 10 of this list do much of that work: They feint, they allude, they nod to the realities of stardom, of life and death. But Ethan Hunt is a superhero, an inevitability, so the outcome is never in doubt — until, perhaps someday, it is.

    But for now, the masterpiece from Doug Liman — a director who either hits dingers or strikes out looking, with no in between — is a movie that punctuated Cruise’s post-Ghost Prot action renaissance: Edge of Tomorrow, or Live. Die. Repeat. It’s the unlikely on-paper melding of Starship Troopers and Groundhog Day, but in practice it’s the action film equivalent of Jerry Maguire, a movie that relies on your history with Maverick, and Mitch McDeere, and Ethan Hunt, and uses it to dismantle and subvert Tom Cruise, the infallible hero. 

    Liman is at the top of his game, particularly in editing, which uses repetition and quick cuts masterfully to convey the long and slow transformation of a public relations major named Cage — who becomes trapped in a disastrous, endless intergalactic Normandy scenario — from a marketing clown in a uniform to an alien killer badass while he falls in love and saves the world. We watch as Cruise has all his bravado and bullshit stripped away by “a system”with no time for that, a woman smarter and stronger than he is and immune to his charms, and an invading force that tears him to pieces over and over again. We watch the five-tool movie star — robbed of all his tools — regroup, rebuild, and in the process, grow a soul. It’s the platonic ideal of what a great blockbuster action film can be, one that only could’ve been made by one of its most important, prolific, and talented stars. 

    Run report: A beautiful physical metaphor for this film is watching the evolution of Cruise’s ability to move in that ridiculous mech suit. 
    #definitive #ranking #tom #cruises #best
    A definitive ranking of Tom Cruise’s 26 best action movies
    After spending several months doing not much besides watching Tom Cruise movies, I now spend a lot of time wondering about Tom Cruise running. The Mission: Impossible star is a high-cadence runner. He’s famously short of stature, low to the ground and with short legs. But that build is perfect for cinema, because those arms swing and those legs churn and convey a viscerality, a violence, a constant labored activity that translates perfectly to the screen. What they convey is a man of action, a man summoning all of his energy and will in a single direction: to move as quickly as he can. What is he thinking about when he’s running? I like to think the answer is nothing. That Tom Cruise is able to empty his head when he runs, blanking out his career, his cultural meaning, his past and present personal relationships, and move in a state of pure being. Maybe he’s doing one of his infamous stunts, a run towards a large dangerous vehicle, or off the side of a cliff. Maybe that makes him run faster. Maybe he feels a drive toward oblivion, to make the ultimate sacrifice to cinema, resulting in a cultural afterlife even longer than eternal stardom allows. This, in many ways, has been Tom Cruise’s career-long relationship with action movies. They’re his port in the storm, a safe harbor, a place to go and find love and acceptance when there seemingly is none to be had elsewhere. When the press is digging into your religion or snickering about your failed marriages or accusing you of being awkward or crazy or scary, you can find refuge in a MacGuffin to track down, a bad guy’s plot to foil, a world to save. The challenge each writer and director must face is how to handle Cruise’s well-known persona. Do they lean in or subvert? And to what end? When gifted with perhaps the most charismatic, committed movie star ever, are you willing to grapple with this stardom, how it explains the actor at a given point in his career, and what our response to him means? Or do you run? The following is a ranking of Tom Cruise’s greatest action films. In the interest of gimmicky symmetry, we’ve once again capped ourselves at 26 titles. We didn’t cheat… much. The films below all contain shootouts, fistfights, corpses, and missile crises. Most importantly, they aretense, suspenseful, violent, escapist popcorn, not to be confused with the other half of Cruise’s equation: the pool-playing, the bartending, the litigating, and the deeply felt character work with auteurs, intended to get him the ultimate prize, which has eluded him for nearly half a century. Let’s run the numbers. 26. ValkyrieDirector: Bryan SingerWhere to watch: Free on Pluto TV, Kanopy, Hoopla You could make a decent argument that this piece of shit doesn’t even belong on this list. It’s mostly a plodding chamber drama about “good Germans” ineffectually plotting to not kill Hitler at the end of World War II. But there’s an explosion, a dull shootout, and a bunch of executions at the end, so it seems to qualify as an action movie. Making Valkyrie is one of the most baffling decisions in Cruise’s entire career. And yet it’s also one of the most important films of his career, one that arguably defines his late period, because it’s how he first met his future M:I steward Christopher McQuarrie. Run report: Ominously, Tom Cruise doesn’t run in this movie.   25. Oblivion Director: Joseph KosinskiWhere to watch: Rent on Amazon, Apple Like Valkyrie, Oblivion technically qualifies as an action movie, but there’s little actual action or narrative tension to any of it. Cruise essentially plays the source code for a clone army created by a weird super-intelligence in space that runs Earth via killer droids, and the clones to service them. It comes out of a filmmaking period packed with sci-fi puzzlebox movies that were all atmosphere and often led nowhere, though this is probably the “best” example of that tiresome trend. The silver lining is that, like Valkyrie, this film led to Cruise meeting an important future collaborator: Top Gun: Maverick director Joseph Kosinski. Run report: Cruise literally exercises by running on a giant sleek modern hamster wheel in this. It’s the physical manifestation of everything I hate about this film. 24. Legend Director: Ridley ScottWhere to watch: Rent on Amazon, Apple This 1985 fantasy movie has its defenders, but I am not one of them. The action is completely disjointed and chaotic, a fractured fairy tale composed of an incoherent, weird/horny unholy union of J.R.R. Tolkien, Jim Henson, Peter Greenaway, Ken Russell, and a handful of psilocybin mushrooms. Legend looks like something pieced together by Jack Horner on a camcorder, so it’s hard to fault Cruise for looking clunky and uncomfortable. Who knows what a good performance in that role would look like?  Run report: A lot of odd almost skipping around in this, which adds to the “high school play” quality of the film. Cruise has a proper run toward the end, but it’s not fully baked yet.  23. The Mummy Director: Alex KurtzmanWhere to watch: Rent on Amazon, Apple Rewatching 2017’s The Mummy actually made me slightly disappointed we didn’t get the Dark Universe Universal Pictures briefly promised us. The setup had potential: Cruise as Indiana Jones, with Jake Johnson as Short Round and Courtney B. Vance as the archetypal no-bullshit sergeant? Potential. But Alex Kurtzman’s take on Karl Freund’s 1932 Boris Karloff Mummy needed less plot and more screwing around. This is an instance where Spielbergian pacing actually ruins a blockbuster, because it entirely lacks Spielberg Sauce. It becomes a horror movie after the first act, with Cruise as a largely personality-free, mentally unsound Black Swan/Smile protagonist. Then they spend all this time with Russell Crowe as Dr. Jekyll, introducing this universe of monsters that never gets off the ground. No fun! Run report: Notable because co-star Annabelle Wallis did a ton of press speaking to how much thought Cruise puts into his on-screen running. She specifically said he initially didn’t want to run on screen with Wallis, because he doesn’t like to share his on-screen run time. He relented, to little effect.  22. Mission: Impossible II Director: John WooWhere to watch: Free on Hulu, Paramount Plus Folks, I rewatched this recently. I really wanted to love it because some close and valued colleagues sing its praises, and I love a good, hot contrarian take. Respectfully, I don’t know what the hell they’re on. The camera work in Mission: Impossible II is so berserk, it borders on amateurish. The series hadn’t figured out what it was yet, but not in an interesting exploratory way: This installment is more like trying on a pair of pants that are not your vibe. The idea that Ethan Hunt lost his team in Mission: Impossible and now he’s a broken lone wolf, an agent with the weight of the world on his shoulders, is not a bad premise. But in the role that ruined his career, Dougray Scott is a wooden, toothless bad guy. And somehow, the stakes feel impossibly low, even with a world-killing bioweapon on the line. Mission: Impossible II does, however, get points for being far and away the horniest movie in the franchise. Run report: Unsurprisingly, Woo is great at filming running, and there’s a lot of clay to work with here: Cruise’s long hair flopping in the wind, slow motion, a rare mid-run mask-rip, the inevitable dove-release: It’s all good! A definitive ranking of love interests and partners in the Mission: Impossible movies 6. Claire Phelpsin Mission: Impossible5. Julia Meadein Mission: Impossible III and Fallout4. Gracein Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning and The Final Reckoning3. Nyah Nordoff-Hallin Mission: Impossible II2. Ilsa Faust in Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation, Fallout, and Dead Reckoning1. Jane Carterin in Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol 21. American Made Director: Doug Liman Where to watch: Rent on Amazon, Apple It’s a funny idea: What if Top Gun’s Maverick was a schmuck pilot turned drug-runner? It’s clearly Cruise reaching for a Blow of his own, but decades into this type of narrative, we know the beats by heart. American Made is sorely lacking in depravity. Cruise’s affected good ol’ boy Southern accent both has nothing to do with the film’s disposability, and explains everything. It’s a sanitized drug narrative in which we never see Cruise blow a line or fire a gun. We don’t even see his death on screen — Cruise dying in a movie is a big deal, and has only happened a few times. It’s almost like he knew this nothingburger wasn’t worth the distinction. Run report: Not much running, which is indicative of a larger problem with this film. But at one point, Cruise runs after a car with Caleb Landry Jones in it, and it explodes, in arguably the highlight of the film, for whatever that’s worth.  20. The Last Samurai Director: Edward ZwickWhere to watch: Rent on Amazon, Apple The one’s a weird movie about a mercenary who, after participating in the genocide of Native Americans, goes native in 19th-century Japan, in the wake of the Meiji Restoration. But it’s a somewhat unusual approach to the standard Cruise narrative arc. In this, he begins as a broken, drunken husk, a mercenary arm of the growing American empire who belatedly regains his honor by joining up with some samurai. The aspects of that plotline which feel unusual for a Cruise movie don’t make up for all the story elements that have aged terribly, but they’re something.  Run report: Less running than you’d expect, but running with swords while wearing leather samurai armor. 19. Jack Reacher: Never Go Back  Director: Edward ZwickWhere to watch: Rent on Amazon, Apple A lot of the films in the lower ranks of this list suffer from the problem of filmmakers settling, simply putting Cruise on screen and letting his iconography do the heavy lifting, sans interesting backstory or dialogue. In this sequel, thanks to Lee Child’s blunt dialogue, the deep-state rogue-army plotting in the source material, and Cruise’s typical level of meticulous fight choreo, it’s simply really entertaining, solid, replacement-level action. This sequel to 2012’s Jack Reacher gives the title troubleshootera surrogate daughter and a foil in Cobie Smulders, which is great. But its primary sin is replacing Werner Herzog, the villain from the first movie, with a generic snooze of a bad guy. Run report: Some running and sliding on rooftops with guns, as fireworks go off in the night sky. Impressive for some action movies, a bit ho-hum compared to the bigger hits on this list.  18. TapsDirector: Harold Becker Where to watch: Rent on Amazon, Apple Fascinating film. A Toy Soldiers riff interrogating the military-school system, and suggesting that it’s probably not a bad thing that former American ideals like patriotic honor, duty, and masculinity are fading. It’s Cruise’s first major role, and you’ll never believe this, but he plays a tightly wound, thrill-addicted, bloodthirsty maniac. Run report: Great characterization via run here. Cadet Captain David Shawn is a hawkish conservative dick, and Cruise’s running reflects that. He’s stiff, carrying an automatic rifle that he looks like he’s going to start firing wildly at any minute.  17. Mission: Impossible III  Director: J.J. Abrams Where to watch: Free on Hulu, Paramount Plus In the last Mission: Impossible installment made before the filmmakers really figured out what the series was doing, J.J. Abrams assembles a mostly incoherent, boring clunker that has a few very important grace notes. It’s a film about Ethan Hunt trying to carve out a normal life for himself, with the great Philip Seymour Hoffman playing the bucket of ice water dumped on his domestic fantasy. Hoffman’s Owen Davian is the greatest bad guy in the Cruise filmography, and there’s really no close second.There are many moments I could point to in Hoffman’s wonderful performance, but the one I’d recommend, if you want to feel something, is when Hoffman gets to play Ethan Hunt playing Owen Davian with a mask on for a few scenes during the Vatican kidnapping, roughly 50 minutes in. He was so fucking great.  Run report: A lot of running, but none of it is very good. No knock on Cruise, but Abrams is doing perfunctory work, shot poorly via shaky cam that has trouble keeping Cruise in the frame, from a perfunctory director making a perfunctory action film. There are two notable exceptions. “The Shanghai Run,” which we may have more on later, and Cruise running straight up a wall. A definitive ranking of Mission: Impossible villain performances 10. Dougray Scott in Mission: Impossible II9. Eddie Marsan in Mission: Impossible III8. William Mapother — that’s right, Thomas Cruise Mapother IV’s cousin! — in Mission: Impossible II7. Lea Seydoux in Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol6. Sean Harris in Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation and Fallout5. Jean Reno in Mission: Impossible4. Esai Morales/The Entity in Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning and The Final Reckoning3. Jon Voight in Mission: Impossible2. Henry Cavill in Mission: Impossible – Fallout1. Phillip Seymour Hoffman in Mission: Impossible III 16. Mission: Impossible – The Final ReckoningDirector: Christopher McQuarrieWhere to watch: In theaters The franchise potentially falls with a thud — or is it an AI-generated death fantasy that plays out entirely in Ethan Hunt’s head when he gets trapped in a digital coffin early in the movie? Either way, the resulting film is something the McQuarrie-Cruise collaboration has never been before: clunky and imprecise, a disjointed watch that delivers some high highs, but is unfortunately thin on story. McQuarrie seems unconcerned with character arcs, or any substantive grand narrative that might land in any meaningful way. This movie plays out like an aimless succession of beats, allowing boredom to creep in. That hasn’t been a part of the franchise since M:I 3. It’s a Simpsons clip show masquerading as a Mission: Impossible film, signaling that this iteration of the franchise is exhausted, with little left to say or explore. Perhaps there was no other way for this series to go out than on its back.  Run report: A run through the tunnels to save Luther, oddly reminiscent of the run attempting to save Ilsa Faust, followed by the run out of the tunnels, allowing Ethan to escape the film’s first trapA definitive ranking of Ethan Hunt’s “best friends/allies”17. Wes Bentley16. Greg Tarzan Davis15. Aaron Paul14. Jonathan Rhys Meyers13. Maggie Q12. Shea Whigham11. Hannah Waddington 10. Katy O’Brian9. Pom Klementieff8. Rolf Saxon7. Vanessa Kirby6. Keri Russell5. Simon Pegg4. Jeremy Renner3. Emilio Estevez2. Bogdan1. Luther15. War of the WorldsDirector: Steven Spielberg Where to watch: Free on Hulu, Paramount Plus A curious movie I liked better on a rewatch than I did on my initial watch 20 years ago. Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom is often misremembered as Spielberg’s darkest movie, but I’d argue that War of the Worlds beats it: It’s a divorced-dad-anxiety horror movie that has the most nightmare-inducing, traumatic, post-9/11 visuals in the master’s oeuvre. It can be read as Spielberg wrestling with his relationship with his son Max, who would’ve been around the age of Cruise’s disgruntled, estranged son in the movie. War of the Worlds has issues: Cruise never works when he’s cast in a “just some guy” role, as he’s meant to be here, and the plot goes off the rails in the third act. But it has some of the best set pieces Spielberg ever directed. What will haunt me for the rest of my life is a scene where Cruise’s character is forced to essentially make a Sophie’s Choice between his son and daughter, and lets his son go. The ominous music at the end when he’s magically reunited with his son is completely bizarre and unsettling, and I don’t think is meant to be taken at face value.  Run report: This is why Cruise is the king. He’s playing a supposed normal, everyday schmoe in this movie. When you focus on the running, compared to other roles, you can see he’s running like a mechanic who is still a little athletic, but doesn’t know where he’s going, or what is happening from one moment to the next. It’s building character through running. Incredible. 14. Knight and DayDirector: James Mangold  Where to watch: Free on Cinemax; rent on Amazon, Apple Knight and Day is a sneakily important film in the Cruise action canon because it’s the first time a movie really puts Cruise into the role of the creepy, charismatic, psychotically intense, beleaguered, put-upon invincible cartoon character he became in the Mission: Impossible franchise as of Ghost Protocol. This movie is based around a funny idea: It’s basically a Mission: Impossible movie from the perspective of a clueless civilian. It helps that the civilian is phenomenal, physical, funny, and fucking ripped: Cameron Diaz plays the world’s hottest mechanic, and makes me wish she had gotten her own Atomic Blonde-style vehicle. Run report: Some co-running with Cameron Diaz here, which is as you might imagine, is good.  13. The FirmDirector. Sydney PollackWhere to watch: Free on Paramount Plus It’s easy to put The Firm on a pedestal because of Sydney Pollack, the jazz score, the ’90s outfits, Gene Hackman, and every other significant gravitas-oozing “That Guy” as a mobster, shady lawyer, or Fed in a great “They don’t make them like that anymore” legal thriller. But what really stood out to me on a recent rewatch is this movie is two and a half hours about the now laughably quaint notion of rediscovering purity in the law. It isn’t much more than a story about a shady law firm that gets hit with mail-fraud charges, plus several deaths and a few smartly tied up loose ends. Run report: A clinic in Tom Cruise running, a draft-version highlight reel of his running scenes. In my memory, this contains some of his most iconic early runs, and it signals the moment when “Tom Cruise running” became a whole cultural thing.  12. Top GunDirector: Tony Scott Where to watch: Free on Paramount Plus Top Gun set the template for Tom Cruise’s on-screen narrative, and it took a decade before filmmakers were willing to start subverting that narrative again. This is straight-up hero porn, without any of the humbling that the sequel eventually dishes out. Tom Cruise as Maverick is the best pilot on Earth. He loses his best friend and co-pilot Goose, due to a combination of a mechanical failure and another pilot’s fuck-up. He then has to find the courage to fly with the exact same lack of inhibition he did at the outset of the film, which he finally does, based on essentially nothing that happens in the plot. Scott makes the wise decision to center the actionof the film on pure Cruise charisma and star power, and it works. Run report: Believe it or not, Tom Cruise does not run in this movie.  11. Days of ThunderDirector: Tony Scott Where to watch: Free on Paramount Plus Scott and Cruise’s Top Gun follow-up is essentially Top Gun with cars instead of jets — but yes, it’s marginally better. Why? Because this is a quintessential “We didn’t know how good we had it” classic. It’s the film where Cruise met his future spouse Nicole Kidman on set. Robert Duvall is swigging moonshine. It’s Randy Quaid’s last performance actually based on planet Earth. Plus there’s John C. Reilly, Michael Rooker, Cary Elwes, Fred Thompson, Margo Martindale, and a rousing Hans Zimmer score. Need I say more? Run report: They cut the climatic race off, but Cruise’s character Cole potentially gets smoked by 59-year-old Robert Duvall?! 10. Mission: Impossible – Dead ReckoningDirector: Christopher McQuarrieWhere to watch: Free on Paramount Plus The metaphor that the Mission: Impossible franchise is a manifestation of Tom Cruise’s deep-seated need to save blockbuster filmmaking and the Hollywood star system has never been more overt. Cruise is literally up against AI, which is always a step ahead of him, dismantling his every gambit. It’s an update/remix of Ghost Protocol’s premise: The only antidote to the world-spanning AI known as The Entity is becoming a refusenik anti-tech Luddite in the spirit of John Henry, and using the raw materials of humanity to defeat an invincible machine.  Run report: Cruise running in confined spaces is a lot of fun, but the heavily CGI’d running up the side of a train losing its battle with gravity isn’t.  A definitive ranking of Mission: Impossible MacGuffins 8. Ghost Protocol’s Russian launch codes7. Fallout’s plutonium cores 6. Rogue Nation’s billion Syndicate bankroll5. M:I2’s Chimera Virus4. Final Reckoning’s Sevastopol3. M:I’s NOC list 2. Dead Reckoning Part One’s cruciform key1. M:I3’s rabbit’s foot 9. Jack Reacher  Director: Christopher McQuarrie Where to watch: Free on Paramount Plus I loathe hyperbole: it’s a shortcut for unimaginative writers. I’ve never resorted to it in my entire life. So I hope you’ll take me at my word when I say that this movie is a fucking masterpiece. Amazon’s great Reacher series is made more in the image of Lee Child’s books, with a distinctive breakout lead in Alan Ritchson, who appears to have been designed in a lab to draw striking contrast to Tom Cruise in this role. But Reacher made us forget how good Jack Reacher gets. It’s a perfect elevated action programmer with a remarkable cast: David Oyelowo! Richard Jenkins! Rosamund Pike! A Days of Thunder reunion with Robert Duvall! Werner Herzog showing up in a completely brilliant, bonkers heel turn! McQuarrie made this one in vintage Shane Black ’90s style, with a dash of Don Siegel and Clint Eastwood. I totally get why Cruise decided to turn his career over to McQuarrie after this. I don’t understand why he didn’t let McQuarrie direct the sequel. Run report: There isn’t much running in this. At one point, Cruise is darting from shelter point to shelter point because a sniper is trying to pick him off, but that’s it. It’s because Jack fucking Reacher doesn’t have to run, which is simply good writing and filmmaking.  8. Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation  Director: Christopher McQuarrieWhere to watch: Free on Hulu, Paramount Plus This film famously opens with Tom Cruise hanging from the side of a plane as it takes off. But to me, the key moment comes when he’s broken into the plane, attached himself to a package which isn’t named, but looks like a crate of rockets the size of a minivan. He gives a final raised eyebrow and shrug to a gobsmacked henchman, who watches helplessly as Cruise deploys a parachute and falls out the back of the plane’s cargo bay with a ton of atomic weapons, and no plausible way to land without killing himself and creating a Grand Canyon-sized nuclear crater in Belarus. This scene was practically drawn by Chuck Jones, which sets the tone for a film that repositions Ethan Hunt on the border of superherodom, in a film about Tom Cruise as the literal manifestation of destiny.  It also marks the return of Alec Baldwin, the firstM:I handler who carried over from one film to the next. Evaluating the handlers’ position in the franchiseis challenging: They’re constantly shifting allegiances, at times working in service of Hunt’s mission, at times in direct opposition to it, either attacking him with governmental red tape, or colluding with nefarious forces. Run report: A lot of different looks when it comes to the running in this. Shirtless running, running with Rebecca Ferguson, running across the wing of a moving plane. It’s all good. A definitive ranking of the “most fun” M:I handlers 6. Theodore Brasselin Mission: Impossible III5. Erika Sloanein Mission: Impossible – Fallout and The Final Reckoning4. Eugene Kittridgein Mission: Impossible3. John Musgravein Mission: Impossible III2. Commander Swanbeckin Mission: Impossible II1. Alan Hunleyin Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation and Fallout * One of my only lingering complaints about the M:I movies is that aside from Ving Rhames and Simon Pegg, we don’t get enough big family continuity. The Fast & Furious franchise is an exemplar/cautionary tale of how found-family dynamics can be a great source of fun and emotion — and also tank the series, if creators keep piling on new recurring elements. It sounds like Baldwin didn’t want to stay on board, but I would love to live in a world where he didn’t jump ship — or where, say, Henry Cavill’s August Walker joined Ethan’s team at the end of Mission: Impossible – Fallout, as he would have if he’d had a similar role in an F&F installment. 7. Minority ReportDirector: Steven SpielbergWhere to watch: Free on Paramount Plus I’m guessing this placement on this ranking will upset some people. I’m surprised it’s this low in the rankings too — but that’s how good the next six films are. And honestly, Minority Report doesn’t hold up as the masterpiece I remember it being. It’s a very cool story. It marks the first fantasy-team matchup of Tom Cruise and Steven Spielberg. They’re adapting a paranoid Philip K. Dick story, and largely delivering on the promise that implies. Minority Report is an inventive, dark, weird future horror movie, made with Spielberg’s standard stunning visual economy. But among the perfect elements in this film, I have to call out some aspects that didn’t age well. Janusz Kaminski’s lighting effects feel like the whole movie is stuck inside an iPod halo. and this dutch-angled high melodrama, sauced with a dash of Terry Gilliam dystopian/gross wackiness, which lends the film a degree of occasionally atonal, squishy gonzo elasticity you’ve likely forgotten.   Run report: Mileage may vary on white pools of light, but running through them in futuristic uniforms is decisively cool.  6. Mission: Impossible Director: Brian De PalmaWhere to watch: Free on Hulu, Paramount Plus Because MI:2 and MI:3 struggle with tone, and because it’s actually Brad Bird that sets the template for the McQuarrie era of the franchise, you could argue the first Mission: Impossible is the strangest, most personal vision of what this series is and what it can be. DePalma is asserting himself with every practical mask and stylized shot. Your mileage may vary with that approach to what has become this Swiss set piece machine, I love it. A few things stand out nearly three decades on: Of course, how ridiculously young Cruise looks, but perhaps crucially, how collegial, intimate, and even tender the first act is before his first team is eliminated and the movie becomes a DePalma paranoid thriller. It’s an element we never quite get from Mission: Impossible again, one that brings the arc of the franchise into focus and explains Ethan Hunt if you extend continuity: He’s a character betrayed by his father figure and his government in the first film, and spends the rest of the franchise running from this largely unspoken trauma, determined to never let that happen again. In the wake of this, he reluctantly pieces together a life, semblance of a family, and all the risks that come with those personal attachments. In honor of my favorite set piece in any of the films, one of DePalma’s finest taught masterpieces: A definitive ranking of the top 10 M:I set pieces  Honorable Mention: The Sebastopol Extraction-The Train Fights– MI:1 & Dead Reckoning 10. The Plane Door- Rogue Nation9. The “Kick In The Head” Russian Jail Break- Ghost Protocol8. The Water Vault Ledger Heist Into The Motorcycle Chase- Rogue Nation7. The Handcuffed Car Chase- Dead Reckoning6. The Red Baron Plane Fight- Final Reckoning5. The Burj Khalifa- Ghost Protocol4. Kidnapping At The Vatican- MI:33. The Opera House Hit- Rogue Nation2. The Louvre Halo Jump Into the Bathroom Fight- Fallout1. The NOC List Heist- MI:1 Run report: Fitting that this franchise opens with Cruise putting on a running clinic, as that first op falls apart, then of course his run away from Kittridge and the massive fish tank explosion.  5. Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol  Director: Brad Bird Where to watch: Free on Hulu, Paramount Plus Nothing is working like it’s supposed to. Not the Impossible Mission Force, not the mask machine, not the radio comms, not the magnet gloves keeping Ethan Hunt tethered to the side of the world’s tallest building, not the Mission: Impossible franchise, and not Tom Cruise’s at-the-time fading movie stardom. But somehow, one incredible film made by a career animation director solves all of these problems, by stripping down, getting back to basics and reminding us what we always loved about these films and its star. It was supposed to be the beginning of a franchise reboot, with Jeremy Renner stepping in. Birdfights this decision off, gets away from trying to figure out the character Ethan Hunt and lets him be a superhero, more annoyed than concerned by the escalating difficulty of the impossible problems he has to solve. Through this, Bird correctly identifies the difference between Cruise and these other Hollywood candy asses: He’s a reckless warrior with a death wish who will do whatever is necessary to win, and he does. The team concept is back in full force with a genuinely showstopping stunt, and without the masks and tech, Cruise has to do it all with his wits, his hands, and his pure bravado. The series, and Cruise, never looked back.  Run report: Some of the most fun, imaginative set pieces built around running in this installment. A definitive ranking of who should replace Tom Cruise in the inevitable M:I reboot 10. Aaron Taylor Johnson9. Charlie Cox8. Sterling K. Brown7. Florence Pugh6. John David Washington5. Haley Atwell4. Miles Teller3. Jeremy Renner2. Aaron Pierre 1. Glen Powell 4. Top Gun: Maverick  Director: Joseph Kosinski Where to watch: Free on Paramount Plus It’s a death dream, it’s red meat nationalist troopaganda, it’s the greatest legacyquel ever made that no one asked for and you didn’t realize you desperately needed, it’s nostalgia porn, it saved the movie going experience post-COVID, it’s a finely calibrated joy machine. Cruise is downright mystical, shimmering in the sun’s reflection off the surf, dominating an endless football game with no rules that doesn’t make sense. He has actual chemistry with Jennifer Connelly, and he has the grace to cede the floor to his old nemesis — both in the first Top Gun and as a once contemporary Hollywood star/rival — the late Val Kilmer, to drive home the crush of time and destroy everyone in the theater, no matter how many times they went to see this monster hit that first summer back in theaters.  Run report: Immediately coming off of the stunning, emotional high point of the film, we get Cruise running in salt water soaked jeans shirtless on the beach. Are you not entertained? 3. Collateral  Director: Michael Mann Where to watch: Free on Paramount Plus An elemental, visceral faceoff that is radical in its simplicity of purpose. A film made by the second-best director on this list, and on a very short list of Cruise’s finest performances ever. He’s the salt and pepper terminator in a taxi, playing a pure evil bad guy, a classic Mann anti-hero samurai nihilist that also lives by a code and values being good at his job. Of course Cruise retains a kind of charm, but is also willing to get slimy and be deeply unlikeable and die on screen. Well worth the sacrifice.  Run report: Incredible running on display here. Once again he is running like a professional killer probably runs, almost always holding a gun, the hair matches the suit, so fucking bad ass.  2. Mission: Impossible – Fallout  Director: Christopher McQuarrie Where to watch: Free on Hulu, Paramount Plus As much time and energy as I just expended exalting Ghost Protocol, at a certain point you have to eschew poetic narratives and tip your cap, by the slightest of margins, to a fucking perfect movie. Ghost Prot is close, but you can feel its lack of a nailed-down shooting script at certain points towards its conclusion, as the action begins to wind down. McQuarrie becomes the first director in the franchise to get a second bite of the apple, and the result is a finely cut diamond. Fallout is about exhaustion and the impossibility of that manifestation of destiny idea from Rogue Nation. It makes the argument that you can’t actually save the day and save everyone without making any sacrifices forever, and because of that, sets up The Trolly Problem over and over again to try and get Ethan Hunt to compromise and/or give up. But, of course, he won’t, and neither, seemingly, will Cruise.  Run report: You can tell McQuarrie loves watching Cruise run as much as we do. He frames the runs in these wide shots and takes his time with them. It’s not conveying any additional information, a beat or two less would suffice, but the camera lingers and you get to just sit and appreciate the form and it really connects. It’s why he was the logical choice to take control of this franchise. He understands how a Tom Cruise action flick operates and what makes it special. And of course: A definitive ranking of the best runs in the franchise 10. The Opening Plane Run- Rogue Nation9. The Sandstorm Run- Ghost Protocol8. The Mask Rip Run- MI:27. Running through the alleys of Italy- Dead Reckoning6. Running Through the Tunnels for Luther- Final Reckoning5. Running down the Burj Khalifa- Ghost Protocol 4. Running from the fishtank explosion- MI:13. The Rooftop Run- Fallout2. The Shanghai Run- MI:31. The Kremlin Run- Ghost Protocol 1. Edge of Tomorrow  Director: Doug Liman Where to watch: Rent on Amazon, Apple Edge of Tomorrow is the best Tom Cruise action film had to be made in his late period of action stardom. You need the gravity and the gravitas, the emotional baggage earned through those decades of culture-remaking roles, the toll that exerted effort took on him, and the time spent and time passed on his face. The late, largely perfect Mission: Impossible films that dominate the top 10 of this list do much of that work: They feint, they allude, they nod to the realities of stardom, of life and death. But Ethan Hunt is a superhero, an inevitability, so the outcome is never in doubt — until, perhaps someday, it is. But for now, the masterpiece from Doug Liman — a director who either hits dingers or strikes out looking, with no in between — is a movie that punctuated Cruise’s post-Ghost Prot action renaissance: Edge of Tomorrow, or Live. Die. Repeat. It’s the unlikely on-paper melding of Starship Troopers and Groundhog Day, but in practice it’s the action film equivalent of Jerry Maguire, a movie that relies on your history with Maverick, and Mitch McDeere, and Ethan Hunt, and uses it to dismantle and subvert Tom Cruise, the infallible hero.  Liman is at the top of his game, particularly in editing, which uses repetition and quick cuts masterfully to convey the long and slow transformation of a public relations major named Cage — who becomes trapped in a disastrous, endless intergalactic Normandy scenario — from a marketing clown in a uniform to an alien killer badass while he falls in love and saves the world. We watch as Cruise has all his bravado and bullshit stripped away by “a system”with no time for that, a woman smarter and stronger than he is and immune to his charms, and an invading force that tears him to pieces over and over again. We watch the five-tool movie star — robbed of all his tools — regroup, rebuild, and in the process, grow a soul. It’s the platonic ideal of what a great blockbuster action film can be, one that only could’ve been made by one of its most important, prolific, and talented stars.  Run report: A beautiful physical metaphor for this film is watching the evolution of Cruise’s ability to move in that ridiculous mech suit.  #definitive #ranking #tom #cruises #best
    WWW.POLYGON.COM
    A definitive ranking of Tom Cruise’s 26 best action movies
    After spending several months doing not much besides watching Tom Cruise movies, I now spend a lot of time wondering about Tom Cruise running. The Mission: Impossible star is a high-cadence runner. He’s famously short of stature, low to the ground and with short legs. But that build is perfect for cinema, because those arms swing and those legs churn and convey a viscerality, a violence, a constant labored activity that translates perfectly to the screen. What they convey is a man of action, a man summoning all of his energy and will in a single direction: to move as quickly as he can. What is he thinking about when he’s running? I like to think the answer is nothing. That Tom Cruise is able to empty his head when he runs, blanking out his career, his cultural meaning, his past and present personal relationships, and move in a state of pure being. Maybe he’s doing one of his infamous stunts, a run towards a large dangerous vehicle, or off the side of a cliff. Maybe that makes him run faster. Maybe he feels a drive toward oblivion (and for Oblivion), to make the ultimate sacrifice to cinema, resulting in a cultural afterlife even longer than eternal stardom allows. This, in many ways, has been Tom Cruise’s career-long relationship with action movies. They’re his port in the storm, a safe harbor, a place to go and find love and acceptance when there seemingly is none to be had elsewhere. When the press is digging into your religion or snickering about your failed marriages or accusing you of being awkward or crazy or scary, you can find refuge in a MacGuffin to track down, a bad guy’s plot to foil, a world to save. The challenge each writer and director must face is how to handle Cruise’s well-known persona. Do they lean in or subvert? And to what end? When gifted with perhaps the most charismatic, committed movie star ever, are you willing to grapple with this stardom, how it explains the actor at a given point in his career, and what our response to him means? Or do you run? The following is a ranking of Tom Cruise’s greatest action films. In the interest of gimmicky symmetry, we’ve once again capped ourselves at 26 titles. We didn’t cheat… much. The films below all contain shootouts, fistfights, corpses, and missile crises. Most importantly, they are (mostly) tense, suspenseful, violent, escapist popcorn, not to be confused with the other half of Cruise’s equation: the pool-playing, the bartending, the litigating, and the deeply felt character work with auteurs, intended to get him the ultimate prize, which has eluded him for nearly half a century. Let’s run the numbers. 26. Valkyrie (2008) Director: Bryan SingerWhere to watch: Free on Pluto TV, Kanopy, Hoopla You could make a decent argument that this piece of shit doesn’t even belong on this list. It’s mostly a plodding chamber drama about “good Germans” ineffectually plotting to not kill Hitler at the end of World War II. But there’s an explosion, a dull shootout, and a bunch of executions at the end, so it seems to qualify as an action movie. Making Valkyrie is one of the most baffling decisions in Cruise’s entire career. And yet it’s also one of the most important films of his career, one that arguably defines his late period, because it’s how he first met his future M:I steward Christopher McQuarrie. Run report: Ominously, Tom Cruise doesn’t run in this movie.   25. Oblivion (2013) Director: Joseph KosinskiWhere to watch: Rent on Amazon, Apple Like Valkyrie, Oblivion technically qualifies as an action movie, but there’s little actual action or narrative tension to any of it. Cruise essentially plays the source code for a clone army created by a weird super-intelligence in space that runs Earth via killer droids, and the clones to service them. It comes out of a filmmaking period packed with sci-fi puzzlebox movies that were all atmosphere and often led nowhere, though this is probably the “best” example of that tiresome trend. The silver lining is that, like Valkyrie, this film led to Cruise meeting an important future collaborator: Top Gun: Maverick director Joseph Kosinski. Run report: Cruise literally exercises by running on a giant sleek modern hamster wheel in this. It’s the physical manifestation of everything I hate about this film. 24. Legend (1985) Director: Ridley ScottWhere to watch: Rent on Amazon, Apple This 1985 fantasy movie has its defenders, but I am not one of them. The action is completely disjointed and chaotic, a fractured fairy tale composed of an incoherent, weird/horny unholy union of J.R.R. Tolkien, Jim Henson, Peter Greenaway, Ken Russell, and a handful of psilocybin mushrooms. Legend looks like something pieced together by Jack Horner on a camcorder, so it’s hard to fault Cruise for looking clunky and uncomfortable. Who knows what a good performance in that role would look like?  Run report: A lot of odd almost skipping around in this, which adds to the “high school play” quality of the film. Cruise has a proper run toward the end, but it’s not fully baked yet.  23. The Mummy (2017) Director: Alex KurtzmanWhere to watch: Rent on Amazon, Apple Rewatching 2017’s The Mummy actually made me slightly disappointed we didn’t get the Dark Universe Universal Pictures briefly promised us. The setup had potential: Cruise as Indiana Jones, with Jake Johnson as Short Round and Courtney B. Vance as the archetypal no-bullshit sergeant? Potential. But Alex Kurtzman’s take on Karl Freund’s 1932 Boris Karloff Mummy needed less plot and more screwing around. This is an instance where Spielbergian pacing actually ruins a blockbuster, because it entirely lacks Spielberg Sauce. It becomes a horror movie after the first act, with Cruise as a largely personality-free, mentally unsound Black Swan/Smile protagonist. Then they spend all this time with Russell Crowe as Dr. Jekyll, introducing this universe of monsters that never gets off the ground. No fun! Run report: Notable because co-star Annabelle Wallis did a ton of press speaking to how much thought Cruise puts into his on-screen running. She specifically said he initially didn’t want to run on screen with Wallis, because he doesn’t like to share his on-screen run time. He relented, to little effect.  22. Mission: Impossible II (2000) Director: John WooWhere to watch: Free on Hulu, Paramount Plus Folks, I rewatched this recently. I really wanted to love it because some close and valued colleagues sing its praises, and I love a good, hot contrarian take. Respectfully, I don’t know what the hell they’re on. The camera work in Mission: Impossible II is so berserk, it borders on amateurish. The series hadn’t figured out what it was yet, but not in an interesting exploratory way: This installment is more like trying on a pair of pants that are not your vibe. The idea that Ethan Hunt lost his team in Mission: Impossible and now he’s a broken lone wolf (plus Ving Rhames’ Luther and Thandiwe Newton’s Nyah), an agent with the weight of the world on his shoulders, is not a bad premise. But in the role that ruined his career, Dougray Scott is a wooden, toothless bad guy. And somehow, the stakes feel impossibly low, even with a world-killing bioweapon on the line. Mission: Impossible II does, however, get points for being far and away the horniest movie in the franchise. Run report: Unsurprisingly, Woo is great at filming running, and there’s a lot of clay to work with here: Cruise’s long hair flopping in the wind, slow motion, a rare mid-run mask-rip, the inevitable dove-release: It’s all good! A definitive ranking of love interests and partners in the Mission: Impossible movies 6. Claire Phelps (Emmanuelle Béart) in Mission: Impossible5. Julia Meade (Michelle Monaghan) in Mission: Impossible III and Fallout4. Grace (Hayley Atwell) in Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning and The Final Reckoning3. Nyah Nordoff-Hall (Thandiwe Newton) in Mission: Impossible II2. Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson) in Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation, Fallout, and Dead Reckoning1. Jane Carter (Paula Patton) in in Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol 21. American Made (2017) Director: Doug Liman Where to watch: Rent on Amazon, Apple It’s a funny idea: What if Top Gun’s Maverick was a schmuck pilot turned drug-runner? It’s clearly Cruise reaching for a Blow of his own, but decades into this type of narrative, we know the beats by heart. American Made is sorely lacking in depravity. Cruise’s affected good ol’ boy Southern accent both has nothing to do with the film’s disposability, and explains everything. It’s a sanitized drug narrative in which we never see Cruise blow a line or fire a gun. We don’t even see his death on screen — Cruise dying in a movie is a big deal, and has only happened a few times. It’s almost like he knew this nothingburger wasn’t worth the distinction. Run report: Not much running, which is indicative of a larger problem with this film. But at one point, Cruise runs after a car with Caleb Landry Jones in it, and it explodes, in arguably the highlight of the film, for whatever that’s worth.  20. The Last Samurai (2003) Director: Edward ZwickWhere to watch: Rent on Amazon, Apple The one’s a weird movie about a mercenary who, after participating in the genocide of Native Americans, goes native in 19th-century Japan, in the wake of the Meiji Restoration. But it’s a somewhat unusual approach to the standard Cruise narrative arc. In this, he begins as a broken, drunken husk, a mercenary arm of the growing American empire who belatedly regains his honor by joining up with some samurai. The aspects of that plotline which feel unusual for a Cruise movie don’t make up for all the story elements that have aged terribly, but they’re something.  Run report: Less running than you’d expect, but running with swords while wearing leather samurai armor. 19. Jack Reacher: Never Go Back (2016)  Director: Edward ZwickWhere to watch: Rent on Amazon, Apple A lot of the films in the lower ranks of this list suffer from the problem of filmmakers settling, simply putting Cruise on screen and letting his iconography do the heavy lifting, sans interesting backstory or dialogue. In this sequel, thanks to Lee Child’s blunt dialogue, the deep-state rogue-army plotting in the source material, and Cruise’s typical level of meticulous fight choreo, it’s simply really entertaining, solid, replacement-level action. This sequel to 2012’s Jack Reacher gives the title troubleshooter (played by Cruise) a surrogate daughter and a foil in Cobie Smulders, which is great. But its primary sin is replacing Werner Herzog, the villain from the first movie, with a generic snooze of a bad guy. Run report: Some running and sliding on rooftops with guns, as fireworks go off in the night sky. Impressive for some action movies, a bit ho-hum compared to the bigger hits on this list.  18. Taps (1981) Director: Harold Becker Where to watch: Rent on Amazon, Apple Fascinating film. A Toy Soldiers riff interrogating the military-school system, and suggesting that it’s probably not a bad thing that former American ideals like patriotic honor, duty, and masculinity are fading. It’s Cruise’s first major role (with George C.Scott, Sean Penn, and baby Giancarlo Esposito!), and you’ll never believe this, but he plays a tightly wound, thrill-addicted, bloodthirsty maniac. Run report: Great characterization via run here. Cadet Captain David Shawn is a hawkish conservative dick, and Cruise’s running reflects that. He’s stiff, carrying an automatic rifle that he looks like he’s going to start firing wildly at any minute.  17. Mission: Impossible III (2006)  Director: J.J. Abrams Where to watch: Free on Hulu, Paramount Plus In the last Mission: Impossible installment made before the filmmakers really figured out what the series was doing, J.J. Abrams assembles a mostly incoherent, boring clunker that has a few very important grace notes. It’s a film about Ethan Hunt trying to carve out a normal life for himself, with the great Philip Seymour Hoffman playing the bucket of ice water dumped on his domestic fantasy. Hoffman’s Owen Davian is the greatest bad guy in the Cruise filmography, and there’s really no close second. (I suppose, if there was a gun to my head, I would point to Werner Herzog in Jack Reacher, or Jay Mohr in Jerry Maguire.) There are many moments I could point to in Hoffman’s wonderful performance, but the one I’d recommend, if you want to feel something, is when Hoffman gets to play Ethan Hunt playing Owen Davian with a mask on for a few scenes during the Vatican kidnapping, roughly 50 minutes in. He was so fucking great.  Run report: A lot of running, but none of it is very good. No knock on Cruise, but Abrams is doing perfunctory work, shot poorly via shaky cam that has trouble keeping Cruise in the frame, from a perfunctory director making a perfunctory action film. There are two notable exceptions. “The Shanghai Run,” which we may have more on later, and Cruise running straight up a wall. A definitive ranking of Mission: Impossible villain performances 10. Dougray Scott in Mission: Impossible II9. Eddie Marsan in Mission: Impossible III8. William Mapother — that’s right, Thomas Cruise Mapother IV’s cousin! — in Mission: Impossible II7. Lea Seydoux in Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol6. Sean Harris in Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation and Fallout5. Jean Reno in Mission: Impossible4. Esai Morales/The Entity in Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning and The Final Reckoning3. Jon Voight in Mission: Impossible2. Henry Cavill in Mission: Impossible – Fallout1. Phillip Seymour Hoffman in Mission: Impossible III 16. Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning (2025) Director: Christopher McQuarrieWhere to watch: In theaters The franchise potentially falls with a thud — or is it an AI-generated death fantasy that plays out entirely in Ethan Hunt’s head when he gets trapped in a digital coffin early in the movie? Either way, the resulting film is something the McQuarrie-Cruise collaboration has never been before: clunky and imprecise, a disjointed watch that delivers some high highs, but is unfortunately thin on story. McQuarrie seems unconcerned with character arcs, or any substantive grand narrative that might land in any meaningful way. This movie plays out like an aimless succession of beats, allowing boredom to creep in. That hasn’t been a part of the franchise since M:I 3. It’s a Simpsons clip show masquerading as a Mission: Impossible film, signaling that this iteration of the franchise is exhausted, with little left to say or explore. Perhaps there was no other way for this series to go out than on its back.  Run report: A run through the tunnels to save Luther, oddly reminiscent of the run attempting to save Ilsa Faust, followed by the run out of the tunnels, allowing Ethan to escape the film’s first trap (or does he?) A definitive ranking of Ethan Hunt’s “best friends/allies” (non-love interest/boss division) 17. Wes Bentley16. Greg Tarzan Davis15. Aaron Paul14. Jonathan Rhys Meyers13. Maggie Q12. Shea Whigham11. Hannah Waddington 10. Katy O’Brian9. Pom Klementieff8. Rolf Saxon7. Vanessa Kirby6. Keri Russell5. Simon Pegg4. Jeremy Renner3. Emilio Estevez2. Bogdan (Miraj Grbić)1. Luther (Ving Rhames) 15. War of the Worlds (2005) Director: Steven Spielberg Where to watch: Free on Hulu, Paramount Plus A curious movie I liked better on a rewatch than I did on my initial watch 20 years ago. Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom is often misremembered as Spielberg’s darkest movie, but I’d argue that War of the Worlds beats it: It’s a divorced-dad-anxiety horror movie that has the most nightmare-inducing, traumatic, post-9/11 visuals in the master’s oeuvre. It can be read as Spielberg wrestling with his relationship with his son Max, who would’ve been around the age of Cruise’s disgruntled, estranged son in the movie. War of the Worlds has issues: Cruise never works when he’s cast in a “just some guy” role, as he’s meant to be here, and the plot goes off the rails in the third act. But it has some of the best set pieces Spielberg ever directed. What will haunt me for the rest of my life is a scene where Cruise’s character is forced to essentially make a Sophie’s Choice between his son and daughter (a great Dakota Fanning), and lets his son go. The ominous music at the end when he’s magically reunited with his son is completely bizarre and unsettling, and I don’t think is meant to be taken at face value.  Run report: This is why Cruise is the king. He’s playing a supposed normal, everyday schmoe in this movie. When you focus on the running, compared to other roles, you can see he’s running like a mechanic who is still a little athletic, but doesn’t know where he’s going, or what is happening from one moment to the next. It’s building character through running. Incredible. 14. Knight and Day (2010) Director: James Mangold  Where to watch: Free on Cinemax; rent on Amazon, Apple Knight and Day is a sneakily important film in the Cruise action canon because it’s the first time a movie really puts Cruise into the role of the creepy, charismatic, psychotically intense, beleaguered, put-upon invincible cartoon character he became in the Mission: Impossible franchise as of Ghost Protocol. This movie is based around a funny idea: It’s basically a Mission: Impossible movie from the perspective of a clueless civilian. It helps that the civilian is phenomenal, physical, funny, and fucking ripped: Cameron Diaz plays the world’s hottest mechanic, and makes me wish she had gotten her own Atomic Blonde-style vehicle. Run report: Some co-running with Cameron Diaz here, which is as you might imagine, is good.  13. The Firm (1993) Director. Sydney PollackWhere to watch: Free on Paramount Plus It’s easy to put The Firm on a pedestal because of Sydney Pollack, the jazz score, the ’90s outfits, Gene Hackman, and every other significant gravitas-oozing “That Guy” as a mobster, shady lawyer, or Fed in a great “They don’t make them like that anymore” legal thriller. But what really stood out to me on a recent rewatch is this movie is two and a half hours about the now laughably quaint notion of rediscovering purity in the law. It isn’t much more than a story about a shady law firm that gets hit with mail-fraud charges, plus several deaths and a few smartly tied up loose ends. Run report: A clinic in Tom Cruise running, a draft-version highlight reel of his running scenes. In my memory, this contains some of his most iconic early runs, and it signals the moment when “Tom Cruise running” became a whole cultural thing.  12. Top Gun (1986) Director: Tony Scott Where to watch: Free on Paramount Plus Top Gun set the template for Tom Cruise’s on-screen narrative, and it took a decade before filmmakers were willing to start subverting that narrative again. This is straight-up hero porn, without any of the humbling that the sequel eventually dishes out. Tom Cruise as Maverick is the best pilot on Earth. He loses his best friend and co-pilot Goose, due to a combination of a mechanical failure and another pilot’s fuck-up. He then has to find the courage to fly with the exact same lack of inhibition he did at the outset of the film, which he finally does, based on essentially nothing that happens in the plot. Scott makes the wise decision to center the action (or non-action) of the film on pure Cruise charisma and star power, and it works. Run report: Believe it or not, Tom Cruise does not run in this movie.  11. Days of Thunder (1990) Director: Tony Scott Where to watch: Free on Paramount Plus Scott and Cruise’s Top Gun follow-up is essentially Top Gun with cars instead of jets — but yes, it’s marginally better. Why? Because this is a quintessential “We didn’t know how good we had it” classic. It’s the film where Cruise met his future spouse Nicole Kidman on set. Robert Duvall is swigging moonshine. It’s Randy Quaid’s last performance actually based on planet Earth. Plus there’s John C. Reilly, Michael Rooker, Cary Elwes, Fred Thompson, Margo Martindale, and a rousing Hans Zimmer score. Need I say more? Run report: They cut the climatic race off, but Cruise’s character Cole potentially gets smoked by 59-year-old Robert Duvall?! 10. Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning (2023) Director: Christopher McQuarrieWhere to watch: Free on Paramount Plus The metaphor that the Mission: Impossible franchise is a manifestation of Tom Cruise’s deep-seated need to save blockbuster filmmaking and the Hollywood star system has never been more overt. Cruise is literally up against AI, which is always a step ahead of him, dismantling his every gambit. It’s an update/remix of Ghost Protocol’s premise: The only antidote to the world-spanning AI known as The Entity is becoming a refusenik anti-tech Luddite in the spirit of John Henry, and using the raw materials of humanity to defeat an invincible machine.  Run report: Cruise running in confined spaces is a lot of fun, but the heavily CGI’d running up the side of a train losing its battle with gravity isn’t.  A definitive ranking of Mission: Impossible MacGuffins 8. Ghost Protocol’s Russian launch codes7. Fallout’s plutonium cores 6. Rogue Nation’s $2.4 billion Syndicate bankroll5. M:I2’s Chimera Virus4. Final Reckoning’s Sevastopol3. M:I’s NOC list 2. Dead Reckoning Part One’s cruciform key1. M:I3’s rabbit’s foot 9. Jack Reacher (2012)  Director: Christopher McQuarrie Where to watch: Free on Paramount Plus I loathe hyperbole: it’s a shortcut for unimaginative writers. I’ve never resorted to it in my entire life. So I hope you’ll take me at my word when I say that this movie is a fucking masterpiece. Amazon’s great Reacher series is made more in the image of Lee Child’s books, with a distinctive breakout lead in Alan Ritchson, who appears to have been designed in a lab to draw striking contrast to Tom Cruise in this role. But Reacher made us forget how good Jack Reacher gets. It’s a perfect elevated action programmer with a remarkable cast: David Oyelowo! Richard Jenkins! Rosamund Pike! A Days of Thunder reunion with Robert Duvall! Werner Herzog showing up in a completely brilliant, bonkers heel turn! McQuarrie made this one in vintage Shane Black ’90s style, with a dash of Don Siegel and Clint Eastwood. I totally get why Cruise decided to turn his career over to McQuarrie after this. I don’t understand why he didn’t let McQuarrie direct the sequel. Run report: There isn’t much running in this. At one point, Cruise is darting from shelter point to shelter point because a sniper is trying to pick him off, but that’s it. It’s because Jack fucking Reacher doesn’t have to run, which is simply good writing and filmmaking.  8. Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation (2015)  Director: Christopher McQuarrieWhere to watch: Free on Hulu, Paramount Plus This film famously opens with Tom Cruise hanging from the side of a plane as it takes off. But to me, the key moment comes when he’s broken into the plane, attached himself to a package which isn’t named, but looks like a crate of rockets the size of a minivan. He gives a final raised eyebrow and shrug to a gobsmacked henchman, who watches helplessly as Cruise deploys a parachute and falls out the back of the plane’s cargo bay with a ton of atomic weapons, and no plausible way to land without killing himself and creating a Grand Canyon-sized nuclear crater in Belarus. This scene was practically drawn by Chuck Jones, which sets the tone for a film that repositions Ethan Hunt on the border of superherodom, in a film about Tom Cruise as the literal manifestation of destiny.  It also marks the return of Alec Baldwin, the first (but not last) M:I handler who carried over from one film to the next. Evaluating the handlers’ position in the franchise (see below) is challenging: They’re constantly shifting allegiances, at times working in service of Hunt’s mission, at times in direct opposition to it, either attacking him with governmental red tape, or colluding with nefarious forces. Run report: A lot of different looks when it comes to the running in this. Shirtless running, running with Rebecca Ferguson, running across the wing of a moving plane. It’s all good. A definitive ranking of the “most fun” M:I handlers 6. Theodore Brassel (Laurence Fishburne) in Mission: Impossible III5. Erika Sloane (Angela Bassett) in Mission: Impossible – Fallout and The Final Reckoning4. Eugene Kittridge (Henry Czerny) in Mission: Impossible3. John Musgrave (Billy Crudup) in Mission: Impossible III2. Commander Swanbeck (Anthony Hopkins) in Mission: Impossible II1. Alan Hunley (Alec Baldwin*) in Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation and Fallout * One of my only lingering complaints about the M:I movies is that aside from Ving Rhames and Simon Pegg, we don’t get enough big family continuity. The Fast & Furious franchise is an exemplar/cautionary tale of how found-family dynamics can be a great source of fun and emotion — and also tank the series, if creators keep piling on new recurring elements. It sounds like Baldwin didn’t want to stay on board, but I would love to live in a world where he didn’t jump ship — or where, say, Henry Cavill’s August Walker joined Ethan’s team at the end of Mission: Impossible – Fallout, as he would have if he’d had a similar role in an F&F installment. 7. Minority Report (2002) Director: Steven SpielbergWhere to watch: Free on Paramount Plus I’m guessing this placement on this ranking will upset some people. I’m surprised it’s this low in the rankings too — but that’s how good the next six films are. And honestly, Minority Report doesn’t hold up as the masterpiece I remember it being. It’s a very cool story. It marks the first fantasy-team matchup of Tom Cruise and Steven Spielberg. They’re adapting a paranoid Philip K. Dick story, and largely delivering on the promise that implies. Minority Report is an inventive, dark, weird future horror movie, made with Spielberg’s standard stunning visual economy. But among the perfect elements in this film, I have to call out some aspects that didn’t age well. Janusz Kaminski’s lighting effects feel like the whole movie is stuck inside an iPod halo. and this dutch-angled high melodrama, sauced with a dash of Terry Gilliam dystopian/gross wackiness, which lends the film a degree of occasionally atonal, squishy gonzo elasticity you’ve likely forgotten.   Run report: Mileage may vary on white pools of light, but running through them in futuristic uniforms is decisively cool.  6. Mission: Impossible (1996) Director: Brian De PalmaWhere to watch: Free on Hulu, Paramount Plus Because MI:2 and MI:3 struggle with tone (and long, listless patches), and because it’s actually Brad Bird that sets the template for the McQuarrie era of the franchise, you could argue the first Mission: Impossible is the strangest, most personal vision of what this series is and what it can be. DePalma is asserting himself with every practical mask and stylized shot. Your mileage may vary with that approach to what has become this Swiss set piece machine, I love it. A few things stand out nearly three decades on: Of course, how ridiculously young Cruise looks, but perhaps crucially, how collegial, intimate, and even tender the first act is before his first team is eliminated and the movie becomes a DePalma paranoid thriller. It’s an element we never quite get from Mission: Impossible again, one that brings the arc of the franchise into focus and explains Ethan Hunt if you extend continuity: He’s a character betrayed by his father figure and his government in the first film, and spends the rest of the franchise running from this largely unspoken trauma, determined to never let that happen again. In the wake of this, he reluctantly pieces together a life, semblance of a family, and all the risks that come with those personal attachments. In honor of my favorite set piece in any of the films, one of DePalma’s finest taught masterpieces: A definitive ranking of the top 10 M:I set pieces  Honorable Mention: The Sebastopol Extraction- (Tie) The Train Fights– MI:1 & Dead Reckoning 10. The Plane Door- Rogue Nation9. The “Kick In The Head” Russian Jail Break- Ghost Protocol8. The Water Vault Ledger Heist Into The Motorcycle Chase- Rogue Nation7. The Handcuffed Car Chase- Dead Reckoning6. The Red Baron Plane Fight- Final Reckoning5. The Burj Khalifa- Ghost Protocol4. Kidnapping At The Vatican- MI:33. The Opera House Hit- Rogue Nation2. The Louvre Halo Jump Into the Bathroom Fight- Fallout1. The NOC List Heist- MI:1 Run report: Fitting that this franchise opens with Cruise putting on a running clinic, as that first op falls apart, then of course his run away from Kittridge and the massive fish tank explosion.  5. Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol  Director: Brad Bird (2011) Where to watch: Free on Hulu, Paramount Plus Nothing is working like it’s supposed to. Not the Impossible Mission Force, not the mask machine, not the radio comms, not the magnet gloves keeping Ethan Hunt tethered to the side of the world’s tallest building, not the Mission: Impossible franchise, and not Tom Cruise’s at-the-time fading movie stardom. But somehow, one incredible film made by a career animation director solves all of these problems, by stripping down, getting back to basics and reminding us what we always loved about these films and its star. It was supposed to be the beginning of a franchise reboot, with Jeremy Renner stepping in. Bird (and McQuarrie, in for a pass at the troubled screenplay and on deck to become Cruise’s Guy For Life) fights this decision off, gets away from trying to figure out the character Ethan Hunt and lets him be a superhero, more annoyed than concerned by the escalating difficulty of the impossible problems he has to solve. Through this, Bird correctly identifies the difference between Cruise and these other Hollywood candy asses: He’s a reckless warrior with a death wish who will do whatever is necessary to win, and he does. The team concept is back in full force with a genuinely showstopping stunt, and without the masks and tech, Cruise has to do it all with his wits, his hands, and his pure bravado. The series, and Cruise, never looked back.  Run report: Some of the most fun, imaginative set pieces built around running in this installment. A definitive ranking of who should replace Tom Cruise in the inevitable M:I reboot 10. Aaron Taylor Johnson9. Charlie Cox8. Sterling K. Brown7. Florence Pugh6. John David Washington5. Haley Atwell4. Miles Teller3. Jeremy Renner2. Aaron Pierre 1. Glen Powell 4. Top Gun: Maverick  Director: Joseph Kosinski (2022) Where to watch: Free on Paramount Plus It’s a death dream, it’s red meat nationalist troopaganda, it’s the greatest legacyquel ever made that no one asked for and you didn’t realize you desperately needed, it’s nostalgia porn, it saved the movie going experience post-COVID, it’s a finely calibrated joy machine. Cruise is downright mystical, shimmering in the sun’s reflection off the surf, dominating an endless football game with no rules that doesn’t make sense. He has actual chemistry with Jennifer Connelly, and he has the grace to cede the floor to his old nemesis — both in the first Top Gun and as a once contemporary Hollywood star/rival — the late Val Kilmer, to drive home the crush of time and destroy everyone in the theater, no matter how many times they went to see this monster hit that first summer back in theaters.  Run report: Immediately coming off of the stunning, emotional high point of the film, we get Cruise running in salt water soaked jeans shirtless on the beach. Are you not entertained? 3. Collateral  Director: Michael Mann (2004) Where to watch: Free on Paramount Plus An elemental, visceral faceoff that is radical in its simplicity of purpose. A film made by the second-best director on this list, and on a very short list of Cruise’s finest performances ever. He’s the salt and pepper terminator in a taxi, playing a pure evil bad guy, a classic Mann anti-hero samurai nihilist that also lives by a code and values being good at his job. Of course Cruise retains a kind of charm, but is also willing to get slimy and be deeply unlikeable and die on screen. Well worth the sacrifice.  Run report: Incredible running on display here. Once again he is running like a professional killer probably runs, almost always holding a gun, the hair matches the suit, so fucking bad ass.  2. Mission: Impossible – Fallout  Director: Christopher McQuarrie (2018) Where to watch: Free on Hulu, Paramount Plus As much time and energy as I just expended exalting Ghost Protocol, at a certain point you have to eschew poetic narratives and tip your cap, by the slightest of margins, to a fucking perfect movie. Ghost Prot is close, but you can feel its lack of a nailed-down shooting script at certain points towards its conclusion, as the action begins to wind down. McQuarrie becomes the first director in the franchise to get a second bite of the apple, and the result is a finely cut diamond. Fallout is about exhaustion and the impossibility of that manifestation of destiny idea from Rogue Nation. It makes the argument that you can’t actually save the day and save everyone without making any sacrifices forever, and because of that, sets up The Trolly Problem over and over again to try and get Ethan Hunt to compromise and/or give up. But, of course, he won’t, and neither, seemingly, will Cruise.  Run report: You can tell McQuarrie loves watching Cruise run as much as we do. He frames the runs in these wide shots and takes his time with them. It’s not conveying any additional information, a beat or two less would suffice, but the camera lingers and you get to just sit and appreciate the form and it really connects. It’s why he was the logical choice to take control of this franchise. He understands how a Tom Cruise action flick operates and what makes it special. And of course: A definitive ranking of the best runs in the franchise 10. The Opening Plane Run- Rogue Nation9. The Sandstorm Run- Ghost Protocol8. The Mask Rip Run- MI:27. Running through the alleys of Italy- Dead Reckoning6. Running Through the Tunnels for Luther (then out)- Final Reckoning5. Running down the Burj Khalifa- Ghost Protocol 4. Running from the fishtank explosion- MI:13. The Rooftop Run- Fallout2. The Shanghai Run- MI:31. The Kremlin Run- Ghost Protocol 1. Edge of Tomorrow  Director: Doug Liman (2014) Where to watch: Rent on Amazon, Apple Edge of Tomorrow is the best Tom Cruise action film had to be made in his late period of action stardom. You need the gravity and the gravitas, the emotional baggage earned through those decades of culture-remaking roles, the toll that exerted effort took on him, and the time spent and time passed on his face. The late, largely perfect Mission: Impossible films that dominate the top 10 of this list do much of that work: They feint, they allude, they nod to the realities of stardom, of life and death. But Ethan Hunt is a superhero, an inevitability, so the outcome is never in doubt — until, perhaps someday, it is. But for now, the masterpiece from Doug Liman — a director who either hits dingers or strikes out looking, with no in between — is a movie that punctuated Cruise’s post-Ghost Prot action renaissance: Edge of Tomorrow, or Live. Die. Repeat. It’s the unlikely on-paper melding of Starship Troopers and Groundhog Day, but in practice it’s the action film equivalent of Jerry Maguire, a movie that relies on your history with Maverick, and Mitch McDeere, and Ethan Hunt, and uses it to dismantle and subvert Tom Cruise, the infallible hero.  Liman is at the top of his game, particularly in editing, which uses repetition and quick cuts masterfully to convey the long and slow transformation of a public relations major named Cage — who becomes trapped in a disastrous, endless intergalactic Normandy scenario — from a marketing clown in a uniform to an alien killer badass while he falls in love and saves the world. We watch as Cruise has all his bravado and bullshit stripped away by “a system” (maybe the single best Paxton performance?!) with no time for that, a woman smarter and stronger than he is and immune to his charms, and an invading force that tears him to pieces over and over again. We watch the five-tool movie star — robbed of all his tools — regroup, rebuild, and in the process, grow a soul. It’s the platonic ideal of what a great blockbuster action film can be, one that only could’ve been made by one of its most important, prolific, and talented stars.  Run report: A beautiful physical metaphor for this film is watching the evolution of Cruise’s ability to move in that ridiculous mech suit. 
    0 Comments 0 Shares
  • Warhammer 40K unveils Boltgun 2, tactical RPG Dark Heresy, and, yes, a free typing game

    Warhammer 40K unveils Boltgun 2, tactical RPG Dark Heresy, and, yes, a free typing game
    Plus new Space Marine 2 DLC and more.

    Image credit: Owlcat

    News

    by Matt Wales
    News Reporter

    Published on May 22, 2025

    It's been a busy day in the grimdark world of Warhammer 40K, thanks to its latest video game focused Warhammer Skulls showcase. Not only have we learned a couple of classics getting a spruce-up, there's brand-new stuff coming too, including a Boltgun sequel, new tactical RPG Dark Heresy, plus a smattering of fresh DLC.

    Warhammer 40K: Boltgun 2, which seems as good a place as any to start, is exactly what it sounds like - a follow-up to developer Auroch Digital's acclaimed 2023 retro shooter Boltgun. Details are relatively limited at present, but it'll pick up immediately after the events of the first game, and offer another helping of old-school-inspired FPS action over the course of its branching single-player campaign. There's talk of new locations - "from the colossal heights of a hive city to the impenetrable mangrove swamps of a jungle" - plus new weapons and never-before-seen foes, including the ferocious Bloodletters and their daemonic Juggernauts.

    Warhammer 40K Boltgun 2 teaser trailer.Watch on YouTube

    All that's coming to Xbox Series X/S, PS5, and PC sometime in 2026. However! There's an extra - and more immediate - treat for Boltgun fans in the form of Boltgun: Words of Vengeance. This "first person typer" twist on the retro shooter - in which players must deploy their QWERTY skills for maximum carnage - is entirely free and available to download on Steam today.

    Elsewhere in the gloomy world of Warhammer 40K, developer Owlcat has announced Warhammer 40K: Dark Heresy, a "narrative-driven tactical RPG" set against the backdrop of the Noctis Aeterna and the mystery of the Tyrant Star. "Players will lead a warband of diverse companions in a desperate battle against heresy and corruption," the studio explains, "from loyal Imperial subjects, such as a veteran Guardsman from the death world of Catachan, to nefarious xenos, including a bird-like Kroot mercenary."

    Warhammer 40K: Dark Heresy announcement trailer.Watch on YouTube

    There's talk of full voice acting, "intricate investigations", turn-based combat, and "choices that carry grave consequences", all said to build on the ideas introduced in Owlcat's Rogue Trader. And if that sounds intriguing, Dark Heresy is coming to Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 5, and PCat some currently undisclosed future point.

    Speaking of Rogue Trader, Owlcat has also announced a 24th June release date for the game's second expansion, Lex Imperialis. This introduces a faction of "incorruptible enforcers" known as the Adeptus Arbites, plus a new companion - Solomorne Anthar - across its 15-hour storyline. Additionally, the studio has revealed it's working on a Season Pass 2 for Rogue Trader, bundling together an appearance customisation pack and two more 15-hour expansions - each featuring new quests and a new companion. The first of these expansions takes players to a Necron vault curated by Trazyn the Infinite, where they'll encounter ancient guardians and uncover relics relating to the Von Valancius legacy. The second new expansion promises a "descent into madness and mystery" as they explore a "surreal" voidship graveyard.

    Warhammer 40K: Rogue Trader - Lex Imperialis release date trailerWatch on YouTube

    And while we're on the subject of DLC, there's one last bit of business to discuss in the form of Space Marine 2's new Siege mode. This "endless" PvE mode for the acclaimed shooter unfolds on Kadaku, where three players must survive against ever-more-deadly waves of Tyranid and Chaos as they attempt to defend an Imperial fortress. It'll be playable on Steam via developer Saber Interactive's Public Test Server starting 4th June, and it gets its full release across all platforms as part of a free update on 26th June.

    Space Marine 2 - Siege Mode teaser trailer.Watch on YouTube

    All of which pretty much covers the big Warhammer 40K news, but it's probably also worth mentioning there are currently significant discounts across a huge number of Warhammer games on Xbox, PlayStation, and PC as part of today's Warhammer Day celebrations.
    #warhammer #40k #unveils #boltgun #tactical
    Warhammer 40K unveils Boltgun 2, tactical RPG Dark Heresy, and, yes, a free typing game
    Warhammer 40K unveils Boltgun 2, tactical RPG Dark Heresy, and, yes, a free typing game Plus new Space Marine 2 DLC and more. Image credit: Owlcat News by Matt Wales News Reporter Published on May 22, 2025 It's been a busy day in the grimdark world of Warhammer 40K, thanks to its latest video game focused Warhammer Skulls showcase. Not only have we learned a couple of classics getting a spruce-up, there's brand-new stuff coming too, including a Boltgun sequel, new tactical RPG Dark Heresy, plus a smattering of fresh DLC. Warhammer 40K: Boltgun 2, which seems as good a place as any to start, is exactly what it sounds like - a follow-up to developer Auroch Digital's acclaimed 2023 retro shooter Boltgun. Details are relatively limited at present, but it'll pick up immediately after the events of the first game, and offer another helping of old-school-inspired FPS action over the course of its branching single-player campaign. There's talk of new locations - "from the colossal heights of a hive city to the impenetrable mangrove swamps of a jungle" - plus new weapons and never-before-seen foes, including the ferocious Bloodletters and their daemonic Juggernauts. Warhammer 40K Boltgun 2 teaser trailer.Watch on YouTube All that's coming to Xbox Series X/S, PS5, and PC sometime in 2026. However! There's an extra - and more immediate - treat for Boltgun fans in the form of Boltgun: Words of Vengeance. This "first person typer" twist on the retro shooter - in which players must deploy their QWERTY skills for maximum carnage - is entirely free and available to download on Steam today. Elsewhere in the gloomy world of Warhammer 40K, developer Owlcat has announced Warhammer 40K: Dark Heresy, a "narrative-driven tactical RPG" set against the backdrop of the Noctis Aeterna and the mystery of the Tyrant Star. "Players will lead a warband of diverse companions in a desperate battle against heresy and corruption," the studio explains, "from loyal Imperial subjects, such as a veteran Guardsman from the death world of Catachan, to nefarious xenos, including a bird-like Kroot mercenary." Warhammer 40K: Dark Heresy announcement trailer.Watch on YouTube There's talk of full voice acting, "intricate investigations", turn-based combat, and "choices that carry grave consequences", all said to build on the ideas introduced in Owlcat's Rogue Trader. And if that sounds intriguing, Dark Heresy is coming to Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 5, and PCat some currently undisclosed future point. Speaking of Rogue Trader, Owlcat has also announced a 24th June release date for the game's second expansion, Lex Imperialis. This introduces a faction of "incorruptible enforcers" known as the Adeptus Arbites, plus a new companion - Solomorne Anthar - across its 15-hour storyline. Additionally, the studio has revealed it's working on a Season Pass 2 for Rogue Trader, bundling together an appearance customisation pack and two more 15-hour expansions - each featuring new quests and a new companion. The first of these expansions takes players to a Necron vault curated by Trazyn the Infinite, where they'll encounter ancient guardians and uncover relics relating to the Von Valancius legacy. The second new expansion promises a "descent into madness and mystery" as they explore a "surreal" voidship graveyard. Warhammer 40K: Rogue Trader - Lex Imperialis release date trailerWatch on YouTube And while we're on the subject of DLC, there's one last bit of business to discuss in the form of Space Marine 2's new Siege mode. This "endless" PvE mode for the acclaimed shooter unfolds on Kadaku, where three players must survive against ever-more-deadly waves of Tyranid and Chaos as they attempt to defend an Imperial fortress. It'll be playable on Steam via developer Saber Interactive's Public Test Server starting 4th June, and it gets its full release across all platforms as part of a free update on 26th June. Space Marine 2 - Siege Mode teaser trailer.Watch on YouTube All of which pretty much covers the big Warhammer 40K news, but it's probably also worth mentioning there are currently significant discounts across a huge number of Warhammer games on Xbox, PlayStation, and PC as part of today's Warhammer Day celebrations. #warhammer #40k #unveils #boltgun #tactical
    WWW.EUROGAMER.NET
    Warhammer 40K unveils Boltgun 2, tactical RPG Dark Heresy, and, yes, a free typing game
    Warhammer 40K unveils Boltgun 2, tactical RPG Dark Heresy, and, yes, a free typing game Plus new Space Marine 2 DLC and more. Image credit: Owlcat News by Matt Wales News Reporter Published on May 22, 2025 It's been a busy day in the grimdark world of Warhammer 40K, thanks to its latest video game focused Warhammer Skulls showcase. Not only have we learned a couple of classics getting a spruce-up, there's brand-new stuff coming too, including a Boltgun sequel, new tactical RPG Dark Heresy, plus a smattering of fresh DLC. Warhammer 40K: Boltgun 2, which seems as good a place as any to start, is exactly what it sounds like - a follow-up to developer Auroch Digital's acclaimed 2023 retro shooter Boltgun. Details are relatively limited at present, but it'll pick up immediately after the events of the first game, and offer another helping of old-school-inspired FPS action over the course of its branching single-player campaign. There's talk of new locations - "from the colossal heights of a hive city to the impenetrable mangrove swamps of a jungle" - plus new weapons and never-before-seen foes, including the ferocious Bloodletters and their daemonic Juggernauts. Warhammer 40K Boltgun 2 teaser trailer.Watch on YouTube All that's coming to Xbox Series X/S, PS5, and PC sometime in 2026. However! There's an extra - and more immediate - treat for Boltgun fans in the form of Boltgun: Words of Vengeance. This "first person typer" twist on the retro shooter - in which players must deploy their QWERTY skills for maximum carnage - is entirely free and available to download on Steam today. Elsewhere in the gloomy world of Warhammer 40K, developer Owlcat has announced Warhammer 40K: Dark Heresy, a "narrative-driven tactical RPG" set against the backdrop of the Noctis Aeterna and the mystery of the Tyrant Star. "Players will lead a warband of diverse companions in a desperate battle against heresy and corruption," the studio explains, "from loyal Imperial subjects, such as a veteran Guardsman from the death world of Catachan, to nefarious xenos, including a bird-like Kroot mercenary." Warhammer 40K: Dark Heresy announcement trailer.Watch on YouTube There's talk of full voice acting, "intricate investigations", turn-based combat, and "choices that carry grave consequences", all said to build on the ideas introduced in Owlcat's Rogue Trader. And if that sounds intriguing, Dark Heresy is coming to Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 5, and PC (via Steam, GOG, and Epic) at some currently undisclosed future point. Speaking of Rogue Trader, Owlcat has also announced a 24th June release date for the game's second expansion, Lex Imperialis. This introduces a faction of "incorruptible enforcers" known as the Adeptus Arbites, plus a new companion - Solomorne Anthar - across its 15-hour storyline. Additionally, the studio has revealed it's working on a Season Pass 2 for Rogue Trader, bundling together an appearance customisation pack and two more 15-hour expansions - each featuring new quests and a new companion. The first of these expansions takes players to a Necron vault curated by Trazyn the Infinite, where they'll encounter ancient guardians and uncover relics relating to the Von Valancius legacy. The second new expansion promises a "descent into madness and mystery" as they explore a "surreal" voidship graveyard. Warhammer 40K: Rogue Trader - Lex Imperialis release date trailerWatch on YouTube And while we're on the subject of DLC, there's one last bit of business to discuss in the form of Space Marine 2's new Siege mode. This "endless" PvE mode for the acclaimed shooter unfolds on Kadaku, where three players must survive against ever-more-deadly waves of Tyranid and Chaos as they attempt to defend an Imperial fortress. It'll be playable on Steam via developer Saber Interactive's Public Test Server starting 4th June, and it gets its full release across all platforms as part of a free update on 26th June. Space Marine 2 - Siege Mode teaser trailer.Watch on YouTube All of which pretty much covers the big Warhammer 40K news, but it's probably also worth mentioning there are currently significant discounts across a huge number of Warhammer games on Xbox, PlayStation, and PC as part of today's Warhammer Day celebrations.
    0 Comments 0 Shares
  • Do you think the attempt to turn Halo into a Big Live Service after the 3rd game is what caused its little downfall over the last 10 years?

    MarcosBrXD
    Member

    Aug 28, 2024

    1,692

    I wonder if this pursuit of this in the Halo franchise has enough demand, did fans really want Halo to become a Destiny like? Did the storymake Halo Halo or was it the Multiplayer that propelled the Series to its peak in Reach...
     

    JigglesBunny
    Prophet of Truth
    Avenger

    Oct 27, 2017

    36,107

    Chicago

    343's mismanagement and sloppy direction is what caused its downfall, and that extends far beyond their tepid live service.
     

    Forerunner
    Resetufologist
    The Fallen

    Oct 30, 2017

    18,793

    H4 was a complete package, it just wasn't a good Halo game. Both H5 and Infinite had bare bones MP and it takes them too long to get rolling, so everyone moves on.

    They need a complete package at launch. It's crazy that they don't have modes from previous Halos at launch and takes them months if not years to add them. 

    NDA-Man
    Member

    Mar 23, 2020

    3,983

    Tastes changed. COD was stealing Halo's lunch even during the later Bungie days. COD 4 impacted gaming so hard everyone tried to catch up, and Activision having the staff to turn it into an annual franchise after sacrificing most of it's other projects kept it always in the covnersation. Then Hero Shooters rose, then Battle Royales. Yes, poor management and dumb decisions at 343 definitely played a role--but just as big a part is that 4v4 equal starts arena shooters are quite passe.

    I don't think a "Halo 3 Part 2" that ignores the fact that gaming has evolved in the near two-decades since the franchise peaked in terms of cultural cachet would do any better. 

    Pancracio17
    ▲ Legend ▲
    Avenger

    Oct 29, 2017

    21,730

    JigglesBunny said:

    343's mismanagement and sloppy direction is what caused its downfall, and that extends far beyond their tepid live service.

    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    Pretty much. You could go on and on about specific problems like Infinites first year of support, the dropping of plotlines after every game, Halo 5s story, etc. But it all comes down to that.
     

    colorboy
    Member

    Apr 5, 2025

    174

    The definitive death for me was Halo Infinite:

    - not having coop campaign
    - nonsense open world
    - no game on disc

    These 3 combined absolutely destroyed this series and I am so sad since I loved all 4 first entries 

    HockeyBird
    Member

    Oct 27, 2017

    13,794

    Halo 2 and 3 were already dipping their toes into the live service model with paid for map packs and post launch updates. I think it was pretty natural for Halo to keep going in that direction. I don't think Halo fans exactly dislike the live service model in theory because it means a game they like can continue to get new content for years and years. Putting aside people's opinions about the campaigns, in terms of multiplayer, the 343 games were lacking a lot of the content fans had come to expect at launch. This hurt each game's momentum out of the gate.

    I think many fans would say that Halo Infinite currently has a ton of content but think a lot of that should have been available at launch and not take this long to get expected features back into the game. 

    zoodoo
    Member

    Oct 26, 2017

    14,540

    Montreal

    MS has problems evolving their franchises. Sony on the other either retire them or completely change them. Gears has the same problem. The games are great but more of the same. They timidly try to incorporate new stuff like larger areas but the changes are not drastic enough.

    Halo could have had a game like Destiny or Mass Effect. Gears could have had a more horror entry. The attempts they did with boths franchises were low budget or in niche genres 

    wwm0nkey
    Member

    Oct 25, 2017

    16,795

    Forerunner said:

    H4 was a complete package, it just wasn't a good Halo game. Both H5 and Infinite had bare bones MP and it takes them too long to get rolling, so everyone moves on.

    They need a complete package at launch. It's crazy that they don't have modes from previous Halos at launch and takes them months if not years to add them.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    The fact Infinite launched without Forge was possibly the dumbest thing. Like they had it, they had a Halo with great gunplay with Infinite finally but didn't have the content to support it, had they had Forge the community could have at least done some heavy lifting for awhile.
     

    Transistor
    The Walnut King
    Administrator

    Oct 25, 2017

    41,639

    Washington, D.C.

    343 caused it's downfall.
     

    PucePikmin
    Member

    Apr 26, 2018

    5,346

    I don't think there's any great mystery about Halo's decline. Bungie left and the games stopped coming as often or being as good.
     

    SoftTaur
    Member

    Oct 25, 2017

    671

    Halo Infinite putting armor colors on a battlepass and expecting people to just accept that was wild. Map packs have fallen out of favor for obvious reasons, and they've never found monetization that worked since.
     

    BloodHound
    Member

    Oct 27, 2017

    11,247

    This forums playbook is blame everything on live service and AI.

    Zero critical thinking skills required. 

    Derbel McDillet
    ▲ Legend ▲
    Member

    Nov 23, 2022

    24,332

    Forerunner said:

    H4 was a complete package, it just wasn't a good Halo game. Both H5 and Infinite had bare bones MP and it takes them too long to get rolling, so everyone moves on.

    They need a complete package at launch. It's crazy that they don't have modes from previous Halos at launch and takes them months if not years to add them.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    I mean, it's a lot of freaking modes at this point. Halo 3 has more modes than we'll ask of any shooter except Halo.
     

    Detective
    Member

    Oct 27, 2017

    3,886

    343 is the reason for the downfall from the get go.
     

    Ascenion
    Prophet of Truth - One Winged Slayer
    Member

    Oct 25, 2017

    13,105

    Mecklenburg-Strelitz

    343 was a poorly led and managed studio. It remains to be seen if Halo Studios is just more of the same but 343 just sucked at management. And Halo Infinite is a fundamental failure at understanding what a live service requires.
     

    Stat
    Member

    Oct 25, 2017

    6,360

    I think the other thing is that arena shooters have really dried up. The idea of a standalone arena shooter just isn't a genre that a lot of people like too and people just expect these games with live service battle passes and seasons. Which is a shame.
     

    chickenandrofls
    Member

    Oct 27, 2017

    667

    People will blame 343 but COD4 changed multiplayer tastes and Halo never recovered. Reach fell off quick compared to H3 and by the time H4 came around and tried to ape COD it just came off half ass.

    I love halo MP to this day but it was wild seeing my entire crew and casual gaming friends all move over to COD. 

    MasterYoshi
    Member

    Oct 27, 2017

    12,224

    I couldn't believe how quickly the plug was pulled on substantial updates to Infinite's multiplayer. There was a narrative going with cutscenes that just stopped before it had even hardly began.

    Halo should have moved to become something like Battlefront where you could play as virtually any infantry from the game's history. All of the Covenant races, the Flood, all sorts of UNSC ranks. That's what I believe would have been a major success at reinventing Halo's wheel. 

    Gavalanche
    Prophet of Regret
    Member

    Oct 21, 2021

    25,900

    I think CoD contributed more to it than anything else. Halo used to be the big multiplayer shooter on console. It revolutionised that area. And then Modern Warfare came along and ate its lunch, and bit by bit the goal shifted. Exclusivity probably didn't help either; it is not a coincidence that Halos woes and console selling woes are hand in hand; now that could be simply because Halo has that big an influence that a bad Halo means that many people buy less xboes. But it also means the potential playerbase isn't as big, especially since most Halo weren't on PC at that time. Meanwhile CoD wasn't exclusive and just grew and grew and grew.
     

    Akira86
    Member

    Oct 25, 2017

    21,203

    I was content being an all Halo and No-Call of Duty ever player, and lots of people were.

    They fucked up. Plain and simple.

    Plenty of people loved Reachand just wanted a similar MP experience out of H4, but it wasn't similar. at all.
    People accused them of kowtowing to the COD type of game play. All they had to do was fix it in Halo 5 and release it on PC with plenty of maps and great MP.

    that didn't happen, Shake. 

    VariantX
    Member

    Oct 25, 2017

    18,026

    Columbia, SC

    SoftTaur said:

    Halo Infinite putting armor colors on a battlepass and expecting people to just accept that was wild. Map packs have fallen out of favor for obvious reasons, and they've never found monetization that worked since.

    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    Spartan customization was also part of progression, whether its just getting to a certain rank, playing on certain difficulties, skulls, or doing specific tasks, you did the stuff to get the customization you wanted and it kept a part of the audience playing. If you take stuff away or put it behind a monetization scheme, then you have to replace it with something else in the hopes that would keep people coming back and they frankly didn't have any thing to replace what was lost. 

    Kill3r7
    Member

    Oct 25, 2017

    29,044

    NDA-Man said:

    Tastes changed. COD was stealing Halo's lunch even during the later Bungie days. COD 4 impacted gaming so hard everyone tried to catch up, and Activision having the staff to turn it into an annual franchise after sacrificing most of it's other projects kept it always in the covnersation. Then Hero Shooters rose, then Battle Royales. Yes, poor management and dumb decisions at 343 definitely played a role--but just as big a part is that 4v4 equal starts arena shooters are quite passe.

    I don't think a "Halo 3 Part 2" that ignores the fact that gaming has evolved in the near two-decades since the franchise peaked in terms of cultural cachet would do any better.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...



    inkblot
    Member

    Mar 27, 2024

    1,090

    JigglesBunny said:

    343's mismanagement and sloppy direction is what caused its downfall, and that extends far beyond their tepid live service.

    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    first comment 

    bionic77
    Member

    Oct 25, 2017

    33,370

    NDA-Man said:

    Tastes changed. COD was stealing Halo's lunch even during the later Bungie days. COD 4 impacted gaming so hard everyone tried to catch up, and Activision having the staff to turn it into an annual franchise after sacrificing most of it's other projects kept it always in the covnersation. Then Hero Shooters rose, then Battle Royales. Yes, poor management and dumb decisions at 343 definitely played a role--but just as big a part is that 4v4 equal starts arena shooters are quite passe.

    I don't think a "Halo 3 Part 2" that ignores the fact that gaming has evolved in the near two-decades since the franchise peaked in terms of cultural cachet would do any better.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    Thats how I remember it. COD changed the game. Even on 360 that was THE multiplayer shooter for that generation.
     

    kowhite
    Member

    May 14, 2019

    7,473

    I couldn't tell you what caused the downfall of Halo. Granted I barely played 5 but I liked Infinite.
     

    Multievolution
    Member

    Jun 5, 2018

    4,179

    I still maintain reach was a good game, I put a fair bit of time into it, and enjoyed its lifespan.

    I think what finished the series off was one part a lack of direction story wise, and one part not knowing how to keep halo both relevant and unique. To the former, I enjoyed 4's story well enough, but learning where they went next put me off ever seeing it. And to the latter, halo needs to just do what it does best, avoid trying to make it into a battle royal as an example.

    FPS's in general haven't been interesting to me in at least a decade. 

    MYeager
    Member

    Oct 30, 2017

    960

    I don't get the op. Four wasn't a live service title and 5 wasn't either thought it had some elements. Infinite I wouldn't consider a downfall as it's the most time I've played a Halo title ever, and 3 was my second highest.

    Live service or not the issue is it exists at a time where arena shooters aren't the mainstream. 

    NDA-Man
    Member

    Mar 23, 2020

    3,983

    zoodoo said:

    Halo could have had a game like Destiny or Mass Effect. Gears could have had a more horror entry. The attempts they did with boths franchises were low budget or in niche genres

    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    To be blunt, I don't really buy into the idea of Halo as a universe that really supports much more than an FPS. We as fans can get uber excited about a Halo RPG or a Flood horror game, but the vast majority of the playerbase didn't read the Nylund Books or whatever. They hear Halo and don't think of a vast and rich tapestry of a sci-fi universe, they think a shooter where you kill helium space munchkins.

    MasterYoshi said:

    I couldn't believe how quickly the plug was pulled on substantial updates to Infinite's multiplayer. There was a narrative going with cutscenes that just stopped before it had even hardly began.

    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    Playerbase dropped off a cliff well over a year before they dropped those cutscenes. and nobody gave a fuck about the MP story until they axed it. 

    Sordid Plebeian
    Member

    Oct 26, 2017

    19,835

    It all comes down to 343i never knowing what to do with Halo. The only reason Infinite played it so safe is because they burned all their time chasing ideas no one wanted. Don't have much faith in Halo Studios.
     

    T0kenAussie
    Member

    Jan 15, 2020

    6,019

    Halos lore was never strong in game. If you just watch the cutscenes they are clearly vehicles to get to the next level and that's about it.

    Halos EU especially the books did a lot of the heavy lifting that people are nostalgically remembering as Bungie lore imo

    I think halo has done an OK job of doing halo things. H1->3 were always reinventing the wheel and adding new things to each game.

    But overall I'd argue that everyone remembers the sweaty LAN weekends with your mates in the garage doing a system link on blood gulch and sidewinder over the single player story. At least that's the core halo memory I have 

    Caiusto
    Member

    Oct 25, 2017

    6,879

    No, the strategy was good, the sheer incompetence of 343i is what caused its downfall.
     

    LilScooby77
    Member

    Dec 11, 2019

    12,280

    Campaign/co op mode/multiplayer/theater/forge/custom games.

    Halo Reach will die as the last to launch complete. 

    Josh5890
    I'm Your Favorite Poster's Favorite Poster
    The Fallen

    Oct 25, 2017

    26,480

    I've always been on the outside looking in, but it always felt like things went downhill after Bungie handed off the franchise to 343.
     

    Bishop89
    What Are Ya' Selling?
    Member

    Oct 25, 2017

    42,741

    Melbourne, Australia

    JigglesBunny said:

    343's mismanagement and sloppy direction is what caused its downfall, and that extends far beyond their tepid live service.

    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    This.
     

    Richietto
    One Winged Slayer
    Member

    Oct 25, 2017

    26,029

    North Carolina

    343 were just not ready to step into Bungies shoes. They were not at all as skilled as Bungie was. And in the case of Infinite? They released it too soon. It took a year to get 2 maps. That's insane. The game was not going to recover. They are not good at decision making.
     

    Letters
    Prophet of Truth
    Avenger

    Oct 27, 2017

    5,199

    Portugal

    To me it was the chasing of all kinds of trends instead of leaning into all the things in the gameplay what made it special and unique. Counter-Strike or Street Fighter would also be irrelevant today if they had done the same.
     

    Razgriz-Specter
    Member

    Oct 25, 2017

    34,486

    Detective said:

    343 is the reason for the downfall from the get go.

    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    I'd put some on Bungie even,

    Halo 3 was like the big climactic game... and then Reachcomes out within 3 years

    Big main Halos needed a break after 3 imo

    Literally Halo 3... then Reach happened in 3 years then Halo 4 just 2 years after Reach then Halo 5 in 3.. 

    Gunman
    Member

    Aug 19, 2020

    2,220

    Agree with the COD factor. Halo already felt old with 3.
     

    Green Marine
    Member

    Oct 25, 2017

    450

    El Paso

    Transistor said:

    343 caused it's downfall.

    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    This.

    For multiplayer, they had already lost the team death match crowd to Call of Duty back in 2007. That leaves you with objective modes, where nobody communicates or plays the objectives. I think they missed an enormous opportunity not being "first to market" with a Helldivers II style persistent PvE mode. Instead they've spent fifteen years getting their ass kicked by Call of Duty and Counter-Strike.

    As for the campaigns and story telling, this is an even bigger mess. Halo Reach through Halo 3was five campaigns that told a very cohesive, if vaguely unoriginal story. It often came off as a mixture of Starhammer, Ringworld, and The Flood being a dumb ripoff of the The Many in System Shock 2, but it mostly worked. There 343i games were a mess. They had a great opportunity to break away from the events of the Bungie era, but they decided only four years could pass, because Cortana's story was super important, and couldn't be an aspect of what went on between games. Hilarious, considering this is precisely what they did with Halo Infinite.

    Then you have a really bad story with Halo 5. The Banished were supposedly welcoming of humans, until they're retreating the the same threat of using the Halo Array to kill everyone. Eight years passed since the Prophet of Regret was murdered, but none of the the other alien factions know it's insta kill for anyone not on a shield world or outside of the Milky Way on The Ark? Zero explanation as to why Atriox's own high ranking soldiers think he died. The Endless are worse than The Flood… for absolutely no reason whatsoever. And this is before getting in to AI a level design issues. They couldn't mimic what GTA IV did in 2008 with an AI driving you around? You could have chosen between a scenic route where you noticed high value targets, or skip to the destination to get back the story after. Outside of "The Road", the last four levels were horrible.

    They should have focused on human factions resurfacing pre-Covenant conflicts. UNSC were essentially the bad guys before Harvest. The Banished could have been an actual "mercenary" force that worked for humans that paid them, rather than just being a drop in replacement for the Covenant. Just one missed opportunity after another. I still like firefight, but that's the only mode I play in Infinite multiplayer. I hope they turn things around, but I'm not optimistic. 

    Justin Iacobellis
    Member

    Oct 27, 2017

    2,446

    United States

    I think Call of Duty 4 and onwards were definitely a factor in Halo's demise. On console, CoD was one of the only multiplayer-focused shooters that offered a virtually consistent 60 FPS experience without overtly compromising elsewhere. On top of that, the range of ways to earn XP and relatively brisk rate at which you would join a new match created a flow that was difficult to remove yourself from, similarly to the "just one more run" mentality of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater.

    While technical reasons prevented Halo from going beyond a 30 FPS limit for the remainder of that console generation, 343 and Bungie attempted to replicate some of the Call of Duty experience with the introductions of armor abilities, loadouts, and the like. These changes are where I personally felt the series was beginning to lose its identity. If you are going to gradually incorporate the key elements of your competitors, why would I not just continue playing those instead? 

    TechnoSyndro
    Member

    May 15, 2019

    3,310

    Their inability to actually support a live service game is why their live service game died. Halo Infinite had a ton of players at launch but they fumbled the ball immediately.
     

    hydruxo
    ▲ Legend ▲
    Member

    Oct 25, 2017

    22,716

    I don't think that was the problem. I think it's more so that 343 didn't have the juice to keep people interested in Halo. Bungie was just better in every way.
     

    callamp
    Member

    Oct 27, 2017

    1,641

    Trends change over time and the Halo franchise was slow to adapt to that.

    Industry trends were already changing when Halo 3 was at its apex, with Modern Warfare changing the game. More recently we've had the shift towards battle royaleand Destiny-likes. Halo is still largely operating in the same space it did 20 years ago.

    The reality is that Microsoft and 343 were too cautious with the franchise. They delivered games that were typically fine - despite some of the hyperbole that gets thrown about - and you could legitimately argue that mechanically Infinite is the best multiplayer in the franchise. But if trends have changed and gamers aren't as enamoured with arena shooters, then that's ultimately not good enough.

    From Halo 1 to 3, the series was the trend setter and then after that it became a follower. In an ideal world, Bungie would have kept the franchise and it would have evolved to be similar to what they created with Destiny. Perhaps they would have noted PUGB success and pivoted into the battle royale genre. But none of that happened and so year-after-year the franchise just became a little less prominent. 

    daegan
    #REFANTAZIO SWEEP
    Member

    Oct 27, 2017

    3,304

    For SP: Too long between games and they got way way WAY overwritten, simultaneously pulling from deep lore but not giving you reasons to care in the games themselves. 4, 5, Infinite all basically being reboots and supposed to keep going forever and then just not having a great hook to keep people playing. 5 also just being an absolute dogshit campaign that has no business being with the rest of the series, even when the plot points could be interesting.

    For Multi: The larger audience they chase for multiplayer has splintered and spread out across games that more focus on what each kind of player likes and I don't know how you get that back. What itch does a future Halo scratch that nothing else does and is it an itch millions of people still have who also have the free time to plunge into it? 

    dotpatrick
    Member

    Oct 28, 2017

    400

    Definitely agree with the people referencing Call of Duty. That was the big turning point and I'm not sure anything there is anything 343 could've done short of figuring out the next big turn for the competitive multiplayer shooter. By the time even Reach came out, CoD had already supplanted it as THE console shooter.

    I still remember when Xbox used to post how many folks were playing a particular title on Xbox Live for a given week and Call of Duty 4 would beat or be just behind Halo 3. 

    HockeyBird
    Member

    Oct 27, 2017

    13,794

    Razgriz-Specter said:

    I'd put some on Bungie even,

    Halo 3 was like the big climactic game... and then Reachcomes out within 3 years

    Big main Halos needed a break after 3 imo

    Literally Halo 3... then Reach happened in 3 years then Halo 4 just 2 years after Reach then Halo 5 in 3..
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    3 years as the gap between Halo 1 and 2 and from 2 to 3. So Reach coming 3 years after Halo 3 isn't all that surprising. Also, as part of their agreement to split from Microsoft, they were obligated to produce two more Halo games after 3. One was Halo 3: ODST and the other was Reach. So they were fulfilling their contractual obligation to become independent and go off to create Destiny. 

    De Amigo
    Member

    Dec 19, 2017

    550

    Halo Reach was a fine enough game but it did feel like the beginning of the franchise releases going from major events to "expect another installment every couple of years no matter what". I wonder if them doing Halo 3 then taking a break until Halo 4 as like an Xbox One launch game could've kept the franchise's event status intact.
     

    saruboss
    Member

    Jan 26, 2025

    93

    If i am not wrong, didn't you make the same thread with "is halo infinite now considered a failure?" a couple of months ago.
     

    Gestault
    Member

    Oct 26, 2017

    14,690

    This is admittedly myopic, but from my perspective, their big public assertion about having learned the lesson from Halo 5 that they need split-screen, effectivelypromising it for future games, then totally omitting it from Infinite made clear the game wasn't being planned by serious people.

    I say this as someone who had a blast with Infinite overall. 
    #you #think #attempt #turn #halo
    Do you think the attempt to turn Halo into a Big Live Service after the 3rd game is what caused its little downfall over the last 10 years?
    MarcosBrXD Member Aug 28, 2024 1,692 I wonder if this pursuit of this in the Halo franchise has enough demand, did fans really want Halo to become a Destiny like? Did the storymake Halo Halo or was it the Multiplayer that propelled the Series to its peak in Reach...   JigglesBunny Prophet of Truth Avenger Oct 27, 2017 36,107 Chicago 343's mismanagement and sloppy direction is what caused its downfall, and that extends far beyond their tepid live service.   Forerunner Resetufologist The Fallen Oct 30, 2017 18,793 H4 was a complete package, it just wasn't a good Halo game. Both H5 and Infinite had bare bones MP and it takes them too long to get rolling, so everyone moves on. They need a complete package at launch. It's crazy that they don't have modes from previous Halos at launch and takes them months if not years to add them.  NDA-Man Member Mar 23, 2020 3,983 Tastes changed. COD was stealing Halo's lunch even during the later Bungie days. COD 4 impacted gaming so hard everyone tried to catch up, and Activision having the staff to turn it into an annual franchise after sacrificing most of it's other projects kept it always in the covnersation. Then Hero Shooters rose, then Battle Royales. Yes, poor management and dumb decisions at 343 definitely played a role--but just as big a part is that 4v4 equal starts arena shooters are quite passe. I don't think a "Halo 3 Part 2" that ignores the fact that gaming has evolved in the near two-decades since the franchise peaked in terms of cultural cachet would do any better.  Pancracio17 ▲ Legend ▲ Avenger Oct 29, 2017 21,730 JigglesBunny said: 343's mismanagement and sloppy direction is what caused its downfall, and that extends far beyond their tepid live service. Click to expand... Click to shrink... Pretty much. You could go on and on about specific problems like Infinites first year of support, the dropping of plotlines after every game, Halo 5s story, etc. But it all comes down to that.   colorboy Member Apr 5, 2025 174 The definitive death for me was Halo Infinite: - not having coop campaign - nonsense open world - no game on disc These 3 combined absolutely destroyed this series and I am so sad since I loved all 4 first entries  HockeyBird Member Oct 27, 2017 13,794 Halo 2 and 3 were already dipping their toes into the live service model with paid for map packs and post launch updates. I think it was pretty natural for Halo to keep going in that direction. I don't think Halo fans exactly dislike the live service model in theory because it means a game they like can continue to get new content for years and years. Putting aside people's opinions about the campaigns, in terms of multiplayer, the 343 games were lacking a lot of the content fans had come to expect at launch. This hurt each game's momentum out of the gate. I think many fans would say that Halo Infinite currently has a ton of content but think a lot of that should have been available at launch and not take this long to get expected features back into the game.  zoodoo Member Oct 26, 2017 14,540 Montreal MS has problems evolving their franchises. Sony on the other either retire them or completely change them. Gears has the same problem. The games are great but more of the same. They timidly try to incorporate new stuff like larger areas but the changes are not drastic enough. Halo could have had a game like Destiny or Mass Effect. Gears could have had a more horror entry. The attempts they did with boths franchises were low budget or in niche genres  wwm0nkey Member Oct 25, 2017 16,795 Forerunner said: H4 was a complete package, it just wasn't a good Halo game. Both H5 and Infinite had bare bones MP and it takes them too long to get rolling, so everyone moves on. They need a complete package at launch. It's crazy that they don't have modes from previous Halos at launch and takes them months if not years to add them. Click to expand... Click to shrink... The fact Infinite launched without Forge was possibly the dumbest thing. Like they had it, they had a Halo with great gunplay with Infinite finally but didn't have the content to support it, had they had Forge the community could have at least done some heavy lifting for awhile.   Transistor The Walnut King Administrator Oct 25, 2017 41,639 Washington, D.C. 343 caused it's downfall.   PucePikmin Member Apr 26, 2018 5,346 I don't think there's any great mystery about Halo's decline. Bungie left and the games stopped coming as often or being as good.   SoftTaur Member Oct 25, 2017 671 Halo Infinite putting armor colors on a battlepass and expecting people to just accept that was wild. Map packs have fallen out of favor for obvious reasons, and they've never found monetization that worked since.   BloodHound Member Oct 27, 2017 11,247 This forums playbook is blame everything on live service and AI. Zero critical thinking skills required.  Derbel McDillet ▲ Legend ▲ Member Nov 23, 2022 24,332 Forerunner said: H4 was a complete package, it just wasn't a good Halo game. Both H5 and Infinite had bare bones MP and it takes them too long to get rolling, so everyone moves on. They need a complete package at launch. It's crazy that they don't have modes from previous Halos at launch and takes them months if not years to add them. Click to expand... Click to shrink... I mean, it's a lot of freaking modes at this point. Halo 3 has more modes than we'll ask of any shooter except Halo.   Detective Member Oct 27, 2017 3,886 343 is the reason for the downfall from the get go.   Ascenion Prophet of Truth - One Winged Slayer Member Oct 25, 2017 13,105 Mecklenburg-Strelitz 343 was a poorly led and managed studio. It remains to be seen if Halo Studios is just more of the same but 343 just sucked at management. And Halo Infinite is a fundamental failure at understanding what a live service requires.   Stat Member Oct 25, 2017 6,360 I think the other thing is that arena shooters have really dried up. The idea of a standalone arena shooter just isn't a genre that a lot of people like too and people just expect these games with live service battle passes and seasons. Which is a shame.   chickenandrofls Member Oct 27, 2017 667 People will blame 343 but COD4 changed multiplayer tastes and Halo never recovered. Reach fell off quick compared to H3 and by the time H4 came around and tried to ape COD it just came off half ass. I love halo MP to this day but it was wild seeing my entire crew and casual gaming friends all move over to COD.  MasterYoshi Member Oct 27, 2017 12,224 I couldn't believe how quickly the plug was pulled on substantial updates to Infinite's multiplayer. There was a narrative going with cutscenes that just stopped before it had even hardly began. Halo should have moved to become something like Battlefront where you could play as virtually any infantry from the game's history. All of the Covenant races, the Flood, all sorts of UNSC ranks. That's what I believe would have been a major success at reinventing Halo's wheel.  Gavalanche Prophet of Regret Member Oct 21, 2021 25,900 I think CoD contributed more to it than anything else. Halo used to be the big multiplayer shooter on console. It revolutionised that area. And then Modern Warfare came along and ate its lunch, and bit by bit the goal shifted. Exclusivity probably didn't help either; it is not a coincidence that Halos woes and console selling woes are hand in hand; now that could be simply because Halo has that big an influence that a bad Halo means that many people buy less xboes. But it also means the potential playerbase isn't as big, especially since most Halo weren't on PC at that time. Meanwhile CoD wasn't exclusive and just grew and grew and grew.   Akira86 Member Oct 25, 2017 21,203 I was content being an all Halo and No-Call of Duty ever player, and lots of people were. They fucked up. Plain and simple. Plenty of people loved Reachand just wanted a similar MP experience out of H4, but it wasn't similar. at all. People accused them of kowtowing to the COD type of game play. All they had to do was fix it in Halo 5 and release it on PC with plenty of maps and great MP. that didn't happen, Shake.  VariantX Member Oct 25, 2017 18,026 Columbia, SC SoftTaur said: Halo Infinite putting armor colors on a battlepass and expecting people to just accept that was wild. Map packs have fallen out of favor for obvious reasons, and they've never found monetization that worked since. Click to expand... Click to shrink... Spartan customization was also part of progression, whether its just getting to a certain rank, playing on certain difficulties, skulls, or doing specific tasks, you did the stuff to get the customization you wanted and it kept a part of the audience playing. If you take stuff away or put it behind a monetization scheme, then you have to replace it with something else in the hopes that would keep people coming back and they frankly didn't have any thing to replace what was lost.  Kill3r7 Member Oct 25, 2017 29,044 NDA-Man said: Tastes changed. COD was stealing Halo's lunch even during the later Bungie days. COD 4 impacted gaming so hard everyone tried to catch up, and Activision having the staff to turn it into an annual franchise after sacrificing most of it's other projects kept it always in the covnersation. Then Hero Shooters rose, then Battle Royales. Yes, poor management and dumb decisions at 343 definitely played a role--but just as big a part is that 4v4 equal starts arena shooters are quite passe. I don't think a "Halo 3 Part 2" that ignores the fact that gaming has evolved in the near two-decades since the franchise peaked in terms of cultural cachet would do any better. Click to expand... Click to shrink... .  inkblot Member Mar 27, 2024 1,090 JigglesBunny said: 343's mismanagement and sloppy direction is what caused its downfall, and that extends far beyond their tepid live service. Click to expand... Click to shrink... first comment  bionic77 Member Oct 25, 2017 33,370 NDA-Man said: Tastes changed. COD was stealing Halo's lunch even during the later Bungie days. COD 4 impacted gaming so hard everyone tried to catch up, and Activision having the staff to turn it into an annual franchise after sacrificing most of it's other projects kept it always in the covnersation. Then Hero Shooters rose, then Battle Royales. Yes, poor management and dumb decisions at 343 definitely played a role--but just as big a part is that 4v4 equal starts arena shooters are quite passe. I don't think a "Halo 3 Part 2" that ignores the fact that gaming has evolved in the near two-decades since the franchise peaked in terms of cultural cachet would do any better. Click to expand... Click to shrink... Thats how I remember it. COD changed the game. Even on 360 that was THE multiplayer shooter for that generation.   kowhite Member May 14, 2019 7,473 I couldn't tell you what caused the downfall of Halo. Granted I barely played 5 but I liked Infinite.   Multievolution Member Jun 5, 2018 4,179 I still maintain reach was a good game, I put a fair bit of time into it, and enjoyed its lifespan. I think what finished the series off was one part a lack of direction story wise, and one part not knowing how to keep halo both relevant and unique. To the former, I enjoyed 4's story well enough, but learning where they went next put me off ever seeing it. And to the latter, halo needs to just do what it does best, avoid trying to make it into a battle royal as an example. FPS's in general haven't been interesting to me in at least a decade.  MYeager Member Oct 30, 2017 960 I don't get the op. Four wasn't a live service title and 5 wasn't either thought it had some elements. Infinite I wouldn't consider a downfall as it's the most time I've played a Halo title ever, and 3 was my second highest. Live service or not the issue is it exists at a time where arena shooters aren't the mainstream.  NDA-Man Member Mar 23, 2020 3,983 zoodoo said: Halo could have had a game like Destiny or Mass Effect. Gears could have had a more horror entry. The attempts they did with boths franchises were low budget or in niche genres Click to expand... Click to shrink... To be blunt, I don't really buy into the idea of Halo as a universe that really supports much more than an FPS. We as fans can get uber excited about a Halo RPG or a Flood horror game, but the vast majority of the playerbase didn't read the Nylund Books or whatever. They hear Halo and don't think of a vast and rich tapestry of a sci-fi universe, they think a shooter where you kill helium space munchkins. MasterYoshi said: I couldn't believe how quickly the plug was pulled on substantial updates to Infinite's multiplayer. There was a narrative going with cutscenes that just stopped before it had even hardly began. Click to expand... Click to shrink... Playerbase dropped off a cliff well over a year before they dropped those cutscenes. and nobody gave a fuck about the MP story until they axed it.  Sordid Plebeian Member Oct 26, 2017 19,835 It all comes down to 343i never knowing what to do with Halo. The only reason Infinite played it so safe is because they burned all their time chasing ideas no one wanted. Don't have much faith in Halo Studios.   T0kenAussie Member Jan 15, 2020 6,019 Halos lore was never strong in game. If you just watch the cutscenes they are clearly vehicles to get to the next level and that's about it. Halos EU especially the books did a lot of the heavy lifting that people are nostalgically remembering as Bungie lore imo I think halo has done an OK job of doing halo things. H1->3 were always reinventing the wheel and adding new things to each game. But overall I'd argue that everyone remembers the sweaty LAN weekends with your mates in the garage doing a system link on blood gulch and sidewinder over the single player story. At least that's the core halo memory I have  Caiusto Member Oct 25, 2017 6,879 No, the strategy was good, the sheer incompetence of 343i is what caused its downfall.   LilScooby77 Member Dec 11, 2019 12,280 Campaign/co op mode/multiplayer/theater/forge/custom games. Halo Reach will die as the last to launch complete.  Josh5890 I'm Your Favorite Poster's Favorite Poster The Fallen Oct 25, 2017 26,480 I've always been on the outside looking in, but it always felt like things went downhill after Bungie handed off the franchise to 343.   Bishop89 What Are Ya' Selling? Member Oct 25, 2017 42,741 Melbourne, Australia JigglesBunny said: 343's mismanagement and sloppy direction is what caused its downfall, and that extends far beyond their tepid live service. Click to expand... Click to shrink... This.   Richietto One Winged Slayer Member Oct 25, 2017 26,029 North Carolina 343 were just not ready to step into Bungies shoes. They were not at all as skilled as Bungie was. And in the case of Infinite? They released it too soon. It took a year to get 2 maps. That's insane. The game was not going to recover. They are not good at decision making.   Letters Prophet of Truth Avenger Oct 27, 2017 5,199 Portugal To me it was the chasing of all kinds of trends instead of leaning into all the things in the gameplay what made it special and unique. Counter-Strike or Street Fighter would also be irrelevant today if they had done the same.   Razgriz-Specter Member Oct 25, 2017 34,486 Detective said: 343 is the reason for the downfall from the get go. Click to expand... Click to shrink... I'd put some on Bungie even, Halo 3 was like the big climactic game... and then Reachcomes out within 3 years Big main Halos needed a break after 3 imo Literally Halo 3... then Reach happened in 3 years then Halo 4 just 2 years after Reach then Halo 5 in 3..  Gunman Member Aug 19, 2020 2,220 Agree with the COD factor. Halo already felt old with 3.   Green Marine Member Oct 25, 2017 450 El Paso Transistor said: 343 caused it's downfall. Click to expand... Click to shrink... This. For multiplayer, they had already lost the team death match crowd to Call of Duty back in 2007. That leaves you with objective modes, where nobody communicates or plays the objectives. I think they missed an enormous opportunity not being "first to market" with a Helldivers II style persistent PvE mode. Instead they've spent fifteen years getting their ass kicked by Call of Duty and Counter-Strike. As for the campaigns and story telling, this is an even bigger mess. Halo Reach through Halo 3was five campaigns that told a very cohesive, if vaguely unoriginal story. It often came off as a mixture of Starhammer, Ringworld, and The Flood being a dumb ripoff of the The Many in System Shock 2, but it mostly worked. There 343i games were a mess. They had a great opportunity to break away from the events of the Bungie era, but they decided only four years could pass, because Cortana's story was super important, and couldn't be an aspect of what went on between games. Hilarious, considering this is precisely what they did with Halo Infinite. Then you have a really bad story with Halo 5. The Banished were supposedly welcoming of humans, until they're retreating the the same threat of using the Halo Array to kill everyone. Eight years passed since the Prophet of Regret was murdered, but none of the the other alien factions know it's insta kill for anyone not on a shield world or outside of the Milky Way on The Ark? Zero explanation as to why Atriox's own high ranking soldiers think he died. The Endless are worse than The Flood… for absolutely no reason whatsoever. And this is before getting in to AI a level design issues. They couldn't mimic what GTA IV did in 2008 with an AI driving you around? You could have chosen between a scenic route where you noticed high value targets, or skip to the destination to get back the story after. Outside of "The Road", the last four levels were horrible. They should have focused on human factions resurfacing pre-Covenant conflicts. UNSC were essentially the bad guys before Harvest. The Banished could have been an actual "mercenary" force that worked for humans that paid them, rather than just being a drop in replacement for the Covenant. Just one missed opportunity after another. I still like firefight, but that's the only mode I play in Infinite multiplayer. I hope they turn things around, but I'm not optimistic.  Justin Iacobellis Member Oct 27, 2017 2,446 United States I think Call of Duty 4 and onwards were definitely a factor in Halo's demise. On console, CoD was one of the only multiplayer-focused shooters that offered a virtually consistent 60 FPS experience without overtly compromising elsewhere. On top of that, the range of ways to earn XP and relatively brisk rate at which you would join a new match created a flow that was difficult to remove yourself from, similarly to the "just one more run" mentality of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater. While technical reasons prevented Halo from going beyond a 30 FPS limit for the remainder of that console generation, 343 and Bungie attempted to replicate some of the Call of Duty experience with the introductions of armor abilities, loadouts, and the like. These changes are where I personally felt the series was beginning to lose its identity. If you are going to gradually incorporate the key elements of your competitors, why would I not just continue playing those instead?  TechnoSyndro Member May 15, 2019 3,310 Their inability to actually support a live service game is why their live service game died. Halo Infinite had a ton of players at launch but they fumbled the ball immediately.   hydruxo ▲ Legend ▲ Member Oct 25, 2017 22,716 I don't think that was the problem. I think it's more so that 343 didn't have the juice to keep people interested in Halo. Bungie was just better in every way.   callamp Member Oct 27, 2017 1,641 Trends change over time and the Halo franchise was slow to adapt to that. Industry trends were already changing when Halo 3 was at its apex, with Modern Warfare changing the game. More recently we've had the shift towards battle royaleand Destiny-likes. Halo is still largely operating in the same space it did 20 years ago. The reality is that Microsoft and 343 were too cautious with the franchise. They delivered games that were typically fine - despite some of the hyperbole that gets thrown about - and you could legitimately argue that mechanically Infinite is the best multiplayer in the franchise. But if trends have changed and gamers aren't as enamoured with arena shooters, then that's ultimately not good enough. From Halo 1 to 3, the series was the trend setter and then after that it became a follower. In an ideal world, Bungie would have kept the franchise and it would have evolved to be similar to what they created with Destiny. Perhaps they would have noted PUGB success and pivoted into the battle royale genre. But none of that happened and so year-after-year the franchise just became a little less prominent.  daegan #REFANTAZIO SWEEP Member Oct 27, 2017 3,304 For SP: Too long between games and they got way way WAY overwritten, simultaneously pulling from deep lore but not giving you reasons to care in the games themselves. 4, 5, Infinite all basically being reboots and supposed to keep going forever and then just not having a great hook to keep people playing. 5 also just being an absolute dogshit campaign that has no business being with the rest of the series, even when the plot points could be interesting. For Multi: The larger audience they chase for multiplayer has splintered and spread out across games that more focus on what each kind of player likes and I don't know how you get that back. What itch does a future Halo scratch that nothing else does and is it an itch millions of people still have who also have the free time to plunge into it?  dotpatrick Member Oct 28, 2017 400 Definitely agree with the people referencing Call of Duty. That was the big turning point and I'm not sure anything there is anything 343 could've done short of figuring out the next big turn for the competitive multiplayer shooter. By the time even Reach came out, CoD had already supplanted it as THE console shooter. I still remember when Xbox used to post how many folks were playing a particular title on Xbox Live for a given week and Call of Duty 4 would beat or be just behind Halo 3.  HockeyBird Member Oct 27, 2017 13,794 Razgriz-Specter said: I'd put some on Bungie even, Halo 3 was like the big climactic game... and then Reachcomes out within 3 years Big main Halos needed a break after 3 imo Literally Halo 3... then Reach happened in 3 years then Halo 4 just 2 years after Reach then Halo 5 in 3.. Click to expand... Click to shrink... 3 years as the gap between Halo 1 and 2 and from 2 to 3. So Reach coming 3 years after Halo 3 isn't all that surprising. Also, as part of their agreement to split from Microsoft, they were obligated to produce two more Halo games after 3. One was Halo 3: ODST and the other was Reach. So they were fulfilling their contractual obligation to become independent and go off to create Destiny.  De Amigo Member Dec 19, 2017 550 Halo Reach was a fine enough game but it did feel like the beginning of the franchise releases going from major events to "expect another installment every couple of years no matter what". I wonder if them doing Halo 3 then taking a break until Halo 4 as like an Xbox One launch game could've kept the franchise's event status intact.   saruboss Member Jan 26, 2025 93 If i am not wrong, didn't you make the same thread with "is halo infinite now considered a failure?" a couple of months ago.   Gestault Member Oct 26, 2017 14,690 This is admittedly myopic, but from my perspective, their big public assertion about having learned the lesson from Halo 5 that they need split-screen, effectivelypromising it for future games, then totally omitting it from Infinite made clear the game wasn't being planned by serious people. I say this as someone who had a blast with Infinite overall.  #you #think #attempt #turn #halo
    WWW.RESETERA.COM
    Do you think the attempt to turn Halo into a Big Live Service after the 3rd game is what caused its little downfall over the last 10 years?
    MarcosBrXD Member Aug 28, 2024 1,692 I wonder if this pursuit of this in the Halo franchise has enough demand, did fans really want Halo to become a Destiny like? Did the story (or lore) make Halo Halo or was it the Multiplayer that propelled the Series to its peak in Reach...   JigglesBunny Prophet of Truth Avenger Oct 27, 2017 36,107 Chicago 343's mismanagement and sloppy direction is what caused its downfall, and that extends far beyond their tepid live service.   Forerunner Resetufologist The Fallen Oct 30, 2017 18,793 H4 was a complete package, it just wasn't a good Halo game. Both H5 and Infinite had bare bones MP and it takes them too long to get rolling, so everyone moves on. They need a complete package at launch. It's crazy that they don't have modes from previous Halos at launch and takes them months if not years to add them.  NDA-Man Member Mar 23, 2020 3,983 Tastes changed. COD was stealing Halo's lunch even during the later Bungie days. COD 4 impacted gaming so hard everyone tried to catch up, and Activision having the staff to turn it into an annual franchise after sacrificing most of it's other projects kept it always in the covnersation. Then Hero Shooters rose, then Battle Royales. Yes, poor management and dumb decisions at 343 definitely played a role--but just as big a part is that 4v4 equal starts arena shooters are quite passe. I don't think a "Halo 3 Part 2" that ignores the fact that gaming has evolved in the near two-decades since the franchise peaked in terms of cultural cachet would do any better (Reach was not it's peak. 3 was. Hell, 5, one of the "bad" ones did better at keeping players than Reach).  Pancracio17 ▲ Legend ▲ Avenger Oct 29, 2017 21,730 JigglesBunny said: 343's mismanagement and sloppy direction is what caused its downfall, and that extends far beyond their tepid live service. Click to expand... Click to shrink... Pretty much. You could go on and on about specific problems like Infinites first year of support, the dropping of plotlines after every game, Halo 5s story, etc. But it all comes down to that.   colorboy Member Apr 5, 2025 174 The definitive death for me was Halo Infinite: - not having coop campaign - nonsense open world - no game on disc These 3 combined absolutely destroyed this series and I am so sad since I loved all 4 first entries  HockeyBird Member Oct 27, 2017 13,794 Halo 2 and 3 were already dipping their toes into the live service model with paid for map packs and post launch updates. I think it was pretty natural for Halo to keep going in that direction. I don't think Halo fans exactly dislike the live service model in theory because it means a game they like can continue to get new content for years and years. Putting aside people's opinions about the campaigns, in terms of multiplayer, the 343 games were lacking a lot of the content fans had come to expect at launch. This hurt each game's momentum out of the gate. I think many fans would say that Halo Infinite currently has a ton of content but think a lot of that should have been available at launch and not take this long to get expected features back into the game.  zoodoo Member Oct 26, 2017 14,540 Montreal MS has problems evolving their franchises. Sony on the other either retire them or completely change them (God of War). Gears has the same problem. The games are great but more of the same. They timidly try to incorporate new stuff like larger areas but the changes are not drastic enough. Halo could have had a game like Destiny or Mass Effect. Gears could have had a more horror entry. The attempts they did with boths franchises were low budget or in niche genres  wwm0nkey Member Oct 25, 2017 16,795 Forerunner said: H4 was a complete package, it just wasn't a good Halo game. Both H5 and Infinite had bare bones MP and it takes them too long to get rolling, so everyone moves on. They need a complete package at launch. It's crazy that they don't have modes from previous Halos at launch and takes them months if not years to add them. Click to expand... Click to shrink... The fact Infinite launched without Forge was possibly the dumbest thing. Like they had it, they had a Halo with great gunplay with Infinite finally but didn't have the content to support it, had they had Forge the community could have at least done some heavy lifting for awhile.   Transistor The Walnut King Administrator Oct 25, 2017 41,639 Washington, D.C. 343 caused it's downfall.   PucePikmin Member Apr 26, 2018 5,346 I don't think there's any great mystery about Halo's decline. Bungie left and the games stopped coming as often or being as good.   SoftTaur Member Oct 25, 2017 671 Halo Infinite putting armor colors on a battlepass and expecting people to just accept that was wild. Map packs have fallen out of favor for obvious reasons, and they've never found monetization that worked since.   BloodHound Member Oct 27, 2017 11,247 This forums playbook is blame everything on live service and AI. Zero critical thinking skills required.  Derbel McDillet ▲ Legend ▲ Member Nov 23, 2022 24,332 Forerunner said: H4 was a complete package, it just wasn't a good Halo game. Both H5 and Infinite had bare bones MP and it takes them too long to get rolling, so everyone moves on. They need a complete package at launch. It's crazy that they don't have modes from previous Halos at launch and takes them months if not years to add them. Click to expand... Click to shrink... I mean, it's a lot of freaking modes at this point. Halo 3 has more modes than we'll ask of any shooter except Halo.   Detective Member Oct 27, 2017 3,886 343 is the reason for the downfall from the get go.   Ascenion Prophet of Truth - One Winged Slayer Member Oct 25, 2017 13,105 Mecklenburg-Strelitz 343 was a poorly led and managed studio. It remains to be seen if Halo Studios is just more of the same but 343 just sucked at management. And Halo Infinite is a fundamental failure at understanding what a live service requires.   Stat Member Oct 25, 2017 6,360 I think the other thing is that arena shooters have really dried up. The idea of a standalone arena shooter just isn't a genre that a lot of people like too and people just expect these games with live service battle passes and seasons. Which is a shame.   chickenandrofls Member Oct 27, 2017 667 People will blame 343 but COD4 changed multiplayer tastes and Halo never recovered. Reach fell off quick compared to H3 and by the time H4 came around and tried to ape COD it just came off half ass. I love halo MP to this day but it was wild seeing my entire crew and casual gaming friends all move over to COD.  MasterYoshi Member Oct 27, 2017 12,224 I couldn't believe how quickly the plug was pulled on substantial updates to Infinite's multiplayer. There was a narrative going with cutscenes that just stopped before it had even hardly began. Halo should have moved to become something like Battlefront where you could play as virtually any infantry from the game's history. All of the Covenant races, the Flood, all sorts of UNSC ranks. That's what I believe would have been a major success at reinventing Halo's wheel.  Gavalanche Prophet of Regret Member Oct 21, 2021 25,900 I think CoD contributed more to it than anything else. Halo used to be the big multiplayer shooter on console. It revolutionised that area. And then Modern Warfare came along and ate its lunch, and bit by bit the goal shifted. Exclusivity probably didn't help either; it is not a coincidence that Halos woes and console selling woes are hand in hand; now that could be simply because Halo has that big an influence that a bad Halo means that many people buy less xboes. But it also means the potential playerbase isn't as big, especially since most Halo weren't on PC at that time. Meanwhile CoD wasn't exclusive and just grew and grew and grew.   Akira86 Member Oct 25, 2017 21,203 I was content being an all Halo and No-Call of Duty ever player, and lots of people were. They fucked up. Plain and simple. Plenty of people loved Reach(the hate was vocal and online as fuck) and just wanted a similar MP experience out of H4, but it wasn't similar. at all. People accused them of kowtowing to the COD type of game play. All they had to do was fix it in Halo 5 and release it on PC with plenty of maps and great MP. that didn't happen, Shake.  VariantX Member Oct 25, 2017 18,026 Columbia, SC SoftTaur said: Halo Infinite putting armor colors on a battlepass and expecting people to just accept that was wild. Map packs have fallen out of favor for obvious reasons, and they've never found monetization that worked since. Click to expand... Click to shrink... Spartan customization was also part of progression, whether its just getting to a certain rank, playing on certain difficulties, skulls, or doing specific tasks, you did the stuff to get the customization you wanted and it kept a part of the audience playing. If you take stuff away or put it behind a monetization scheme, then you have to replace it with something else in the hopes that would keep people coming back and they frankly didn't have any thing to replace what was lost.  Kill3r7 Member Oct 25, 2017 29,044 NDA-Man said: Tastes changed. COD was stealing Halo's lunch even during the later Bungie days. COD 4 impacted gaming so hard everyone tried to catch up, and Activision having the staff to turn it into an annual franchise after sacrificing most of it's other projects kept it always in the covnersation. Then Hero Shooters rose, then Battle Royales. Yes, poor management and dumb decisions at 343 definitely played a role--but just as big a part is that 4v4 equal starts arena shooters are quite passe. I don't think a "Halo 3 Part 2" that ignores the fact that gaming has evolved in the near two-decades since the franchise peaked in terms of cultural cachet would do any better (Reach was not it's peak. 3 was. Hell, 5, one of the "bad" ones did better at keeping players than Reach). Click to expand... Click to shrink... .  inkblot Member Mar 27, 2024 1,090 JigglesBunny said: 343's mismanagement and sloppy direction is what caused its downfall, and that extends far beyond their tepid live service. Click to expand... Click to shrink... first comment  bionic77 Member Oct 25, 2017 33,370 NDA-Man said: Tastes changed. COD was stealing Halo's lunch even during the later Bungie days. COD 4 impacted gaming so hard everyone tried to catch up, and Activision having the staff to turn it into an annual franchise after sacrificing most of it's other projects kept it always in the covnersation. Then Hero Shooters rose, then Battle Royales. Yes, poor management and dumb decisions at 343 definitely played a role--but just as big a part is that 4v4 equal starts arena shooters are quite passe. I don't think a "Halo 3 Part 2" that ignores the fact that gaming has evolved in the near two-decades since the franchise peaked in terms of cultural cachet would do any better (Reach was not it's peak. 3 was. Hell, 5, one of the "bad" ones did better at keeping players than Reach). Click to expand... Click to shrink... Thats how I remember it. COD changed the game. Even on 360 that was THE multiplayer shooter for that generation.   kowhite Member May 14, 2019 7,473 I couldn't tell you what caused the downfall of Halo. Granted I barely played 5 but I liked Infinite.   Multievolution Member Jun 5, 2018 4,179 I still maintain reach was a good game, I put a fair bit of time into it, and enjoyed its lifespan. I think what finished the series off was one part a lack of direction story wise, and one part not knowing how to keep halo both relevant and unique. To the former, I enjoyed 4's story well enough, but learning where they went next put me off ever seeing it. And to the latter, halo needs to just do what it does best, avoid trying to make it into a battle royal as an example. FPS's in general haven't been interesting to me in at least a decade.  MYeager Member Oct 30, 2017 960 I don't get the op. Four wasn't a live service title and 5 wasn't either thought it had some elements. Infinite I wouldn't consider a downfall as it's the most time I've played a Halo title ever, and 3 was my second highest. Live service or not the issue is it exists at a time where arena shooters aren't the mainstream.  NDA-Man Member Mar 23, 2020 3,983 zoodoo said: Halo could have had a game like Destiny or Mass Effect. Gears could have had a more horror entry. The attempts they did with boths franchises were low budget or in niche genres Click to expand... Click to shrink... To be blunt, I don't really buy into the idea of Halo as a universe that really supports much more than an FPS (which I guessed they could've cribbed from Destiny, but I dunno. It'd tick off the old heads who just want arena, and I don't think it'd pull folks away from destiny or their live service of choice). We as fans can get uber excited about a Halo RPG or a Flood horror game, but the vast majority of the playerbase didn't read the Nylund Books or whatever. They hear Halo and don't think of a vast and rich tapestry of a sci-fi universe, they think a shooter where you kill helium space munchkins. MasterYoshi said: I couldn't believe how quickly the plug was pulled on substantial updates to Infinite's multiplayer. There was a narrative going with cutscenes that just stopped before it had even hardly began. Click to expand... Click to shrink... Playerbase dropped off a cliff well over a year before they dropped those cutscenes (game launched late 2021, cutscenes were dropped June 2023). and nobody gave a fuck about the MP story until they axed it.  Sordid Plebeian Member Oct 26, 2017 19,835 It all comes down to 343i never knowing what to do with Halo. The only reason Infinite played it so safe is because they burned all their time chasing ideas no one wanted. Don't have much faith in Halo Studios.   T0kenAussie Member Jan 15, 2020 6,019 Halos lore was never strong in game. If you just watch the cutscenes they are clearly vehicles to get to the next level and that's about it. Halos EU especially the books did a lot of the heavy lifting that people are nostalgically remembering as Bungie lore imo I think halo has done an OK job of doing halo things. H1->3 were always reinventing the wheel and adding new things to each game. But overall I'd argue that everyone remembers the sweaty LAN weekends with your mates in the garage doing a system link on blood gulch and sidewinder over the single player story. At least that's the core halo memory I have  Caiusto Member Oct 25, 2017 6,879 No, the strategy was good, the sheer incompetence of 343i is what caused its downfall.   LilScooby77 Member Dec 11, 2019 12,280 Campaign/co op mode/multiplayer/theater/forge/custom games. Halo Reach will die as the last to launch complete.  Josh5890 I'm Your Favorite Poster's Favorite Poster The Fallen Oct 25, 2017 26,480 I've always been on the outside looking in, but it always felt like things went downhill after Bungie handed off the franchise to 343.   Bishop89 What Are Ya' Selling? Member Oct 25, 2017 42,741 Melbourne, Australia JigglesBunny said: 343's mismanagement and sloppy direction is what caused its downfall, and that extends far beyond their tepid live service. Click to expand... Click to shrink... This.   Richietto One Winged Slayer Member Oct 25, 2017 26,029 North Carolina 343 were just not ready to step into Bungies shoes. They were not at all as skilled as Bungie was. And in the case of Infinite? They released it too soon. It took a year to get 2 maps. That's insane. The game was not going to recover. They are not good at decision making.   Letters Prophet of Truth Avenger Oct 27, 2017 5,199 Portugal To me it was the chasing of all kinds of trends instead of leaning into all the things in the gameplay what made it special and unique. Counter-Strike or Street Fighter would also be irrelevant today if they had done the same.   Razgriz-Specter Member Oct 25, 2017 34,486 Detective said: 343 is the reason for the downfall from the get go. Click to expand... Click to shrink... I'd put some on Bungie even, Halo 3 was like the big climactic game... and then Reach(despite being good) comes out within 3 years Big main Halos needed a break after 3 imo Literally Halo 3... then Reach happened in 3 years then Halo 4 just 2 years after Reach then Halo 5 in 3..  Gunman Member Aug 19, 2020 2,220 Agree with the COD factor. Halo already felt old with 3.   Green Marine Member Oct 25, 2017 450 El Paso Transistor said: 343 caused it's downfall. Click to expand... Click to shrink... This. For multiplayer, they had already lost the team death match crowd to Call of Duty back in 2007. That leaves you with objective modes, where nobody communicates or plays the objectives. I think they missed an enormous opportunity not being "first to market" with a Helldivers II style persistent PvE mode (could have literally called it "Helljumpers"). Instead they've spent fifteen years getting their ass kicked by Call of Duty and Counter-Strike. As for the campaigns and story telling, this is an even bigger mess. Halo Reach through Halo 3 (including ODST) was five campaigns that told a very cohesive, if vaguely unoriginal story. It often came off as a mixture of Starhammer, Ringworld, and The Flood being a dumb ripoff of the The Many in System Shock 2, but it mostly worked. There 343i games were a mess. They had a great opportunity to break away from the events of the Bungie era, but they decided only four years could pass, because Cortana's story was super important, and couldn't be an aspect of what went on between games. Hilarious, considering this is precisely what they did with Halo Infinite. Then you have a really bad story with Halo 5 (The Covenant knew where to scan and dig for the Portal for the Ark, but had no idea a Forerunner super weapon was buried beneath the Elite home world the whole time? That could have won them the way). The Banished were supposedly welcoming of humans, until they're retreating the the same threat of using the Halo Array to kill everyone. Eight years passed since the Prophet of Regret was murdered, but none of the the other alien factions know it's insta kill for anyone not on a shield world or outside of the Milky Way on The Ark? Zero explanation as to why Atriox's own high ranking soldiers think he died. The Endless are worse than The Flood… for absolutely no reason whatsoever. And this is before getting in to AI a level design issues. They couldn't mimic what GTA IV did in 2008 with an AI driving you around? You could have chosen between a scenic route where you noticed high value targets, or skip to the destination to get back the story after. Outside of "The Road", the last four levels were horrible (more gondola rides… a level that so thoroughly seemed like firefight maps and two boss fights stitched together that you eventually got those levels in Firefight events). They should have focused on human factions resurfacing pre-Covenant conflicts. UNSC were essentially the bad guys before Harvest. The Banished could have been an actual "mercenary" force that worked for humans that paid them, rather than just being a drop in replacement for the Covenant. Just one missed opportunity after another. I still like firefight, but that's the only mode I play in Infinite multiplayer. I hope they turn things around, but I'm not optimistic.  Justin Iacobellis Member Oct 27, 2017 2,446 United States I think Call of Duty 4 and onwards were definitely a factor in Halo's demise. On console (360 and PS3), CoD was one of the only multiplayer-focused shooters that offered a virtually consistent 60 FPS experience without overtly compromising elsewhere. On top of that, the range of ways to earn XP and relatively brisk rate at which you would join a new match created a flow that was difficult to remove yourself from, similarly to the "just one more run" mentality of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater. While technical reasons prevented Halo from going beyond a 30 FPS limit for the remainder of that console generation, 343 and Bungie attempted to replicate some of the Call of Duty experience with the introductions of armor abilities, loadouts, and the like. These changes are where I personally felt the series was beginning to lose its identity. If you are going to gradually incorporate the key elements of your competitors, why would I not just continue playing those instead?  TechnoSyndro Member May 15, 2019 3,310 Their inability to actually support a live service game is why their live service game died. Halo Infinite had a ton of players at launch but they fumbled the ball immediately.   hydruxo ▲ Legend ▲ Member Oct 25, 2017 22,716 I don't think that was the problem. I think it's more so that 343 didn't have the juice to keep people interested in Halo. Bungie was just better in every way.   callamp Member Oct 27, 2017 1,641 Trends change over time and the Halo franchise was slow to adapt to that. Industry trends were already changing when Halo 3 was at its apex, with Modern Warfare changing the game. More recently we've had the shift towards battle royale (Fortnite, PUGB, Apex) and Destiny-likes. Halo is still largely operating in the same space it did 20 years ago (although Infinite's single player tried to branch out unsuccessfully). The reality is that Microsoft and 343 were too cautious with the franchise. They delivered games that were typically fine - despite some of the hyperbole that gets thrown about - and you could legitimately argue that mechanically Infinite is the best multiplayer in the franchise. But if trends have changed and gamers aren't as enamoured with arena shooters, then that's ultimately not good enough. From Halo 1 to 3, the series was the trend setter and then after that it became a follower. In an ideal world, Bungie would have kept the franchise and it would have evolved to be similar to what they created with Destiny. Perhaps they would have noted PUGB success and pivoted into the battle royale genre. But none of that happened and so year-after-year the franchise just became a little less prominent.  daegan #REFANTAZIO SWEEP Member Oct 27, 2017 3,304 For SP: Too long between games and they got way way WAY overwritten, simultaneously pulling from deep lore but not giving you reasons to care in the games themselves. 4, 5, Infinite all basically being reboots and supposed to keep going forever and then just not having a great hook to keep people playing. 5 also just being an absolute dogshit campaign that has no business being with the rest of the series, even when the plot points could be interesting. For Multi: The larger audience they chase for multiplayer has splintered and spread out across games that more focus on what each kind of player likes and I don't know how you get that back. What itch does a future Halo scratch that nothing else does and is it an itch millions of people still have who also have the free time to plunge into it?  dotpatrick Member Oct 28, 2017 400 Definitely agree with the people referencing Call of Duty. That was the big turning point and I'm not sure anything there is anything 343 could've done short of figuring out the next big turn for the competitive multiplayer shooter. By the time even Reach came out, CoD had already supplanted it as THE console shooter. I still remember when Xbox used to post how many folks were playing a particular title on Xbox Live for a given week and Call of Duty 4 would beat or be just behind Halo 3.  HockeyBird Member Oct 27, 2017 13,794 Razgriz-Specter said: I'd put some on Bungie even, Halo 3 was like the big climactic game... and then Reach(despite being good) comes out within 3 years Big main Halos needed a break after 3 imo Literally Halo 3... then Reach happened in 3 years then Halo 4 just 2 years after Reach then Halo 5 in 3.. Click to expand... Click to shrink... 3 years as the gap between Halo 1 and 2 and from 2 to 3. So Reach coming 3 years after Halo 3 isn't all that surprising. Also, as part of their agreement to split from Microsoft, they were obligated to produce two more Halo games after 3. One was Halo 3: ODST and the other was Reach. So they were fulfilling their contractual obligation to become independent and go off to create Destiny.  De Amigo Member Dec 19, 2017 550 Halo Reach was a fine enough game but it did feel like the beginning of the franchise releases going from major events to "expect another installment every couple of years no matter what". I wonder if them doing Halo 3 then taking a break until Halo 4 as like an Xbox One launch game could've kept the franchise's event status intact.   saruboss Member Jan 26, 2025 93 If i am not wrong, didn't you make the same thread with "is halo infinite now considered a failure?" a couple of months ago.   Gestault Member Oct 26, 2017 14,690 This is admittedly myopic, but from my perspective, their big public assertion about having learned the lesson from Halo 5 that they need split-screen, effectively (literally?) promising it for future games, then totally omitting it from Infinite made clear the game wasn't being planned by serious people. I say this as someone who had a blast with Infinite overall. 
    0 Comments 0 Shares
  • S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Legends of the Zone — Enhanced Edition Trailer (coming to PC [GOG/Steam/EGS]/PS5/Xbox Series on May 20th)

    sillyGecko
    Member

    Mar 14, 2025

    1,403

    View:



    S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Legends of the Zone Trilogy Enhanced Edition is a free upgrade to all existing owners of the S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Legends of the Zone collection on consoles

    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...



     

    Last edited: Wednesday at 9:38 AM

    Patitoloco
    Member

    Oct 27, 2017

    28,151

    wait what

    Hasn't been this been available for months now? 

    Reflecting Sky
    Member

    Mar 17, 2024

    2,634

    Patitoloco said:

    wait what

    Hasn't been this been available for months now?
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    Not the Enhanced Edition. 

    AgentStrange
    Member

    Oct 25, 2017

    5,009

    Slava
     

    Iwao
    Member

    Oct 25, 2017

    13,671

    Patitoloco said:

    Hasn't been this been available for months now?

    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    Original release was PS4/XB1/Switch.
     

    Rover_
    Member

    Jun 2, 2020

    5,421

    Very cool!

    Hoping that this means Stalker 2 for Ps5 soon. 

    ProdigyZA
    Member

    Jun 9, 2024

    1,493

    "S.T.A.L.K.E.R. trilogy on PC, Xbox, and PlayStation will receive a free upgrade to S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Legends of the Zone Trilogy Enhanced Edition on May 20, 2025.

    New shaders, lighting, textures, gamepad support, Steam Deck, Steam Workshop, and more."



     

    YuSuzzune
    Member

    Nov 21, 2018

    5,693

    Italy

    I think this should be also free for owners of the original games?
     

    Dest
    Has seen more 10s than EA ever will
    Coward

    Jun 4, 2018

    16,019

    Work

    Oh, nice! I was just getting the itch to finally boot these up.
     

    Condwiramurs
    Member

    Nov 10, 2020

    1,807

    Finally on pc, can now do achievements while waiting for stalker2 to get fixed
     

    Polk
    Avenger

    Oct 26, 2017

    6,009

    YuSuzzune said:

    I think this should be also free for owners of the original games?

    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    It is.
     

    ThereAreFourNaan
    Member

    Nov 8, 2017

    15,058

    Iwao said:

    Original release was PS4/XB1/Switch.

    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    I believe it wasn't on PC. Obviously you could buy the original version on pc, but you didn't get controller support / new ui etc. 

    ProdigyZA
    Member

    Jun 9, 2024

    1,493

    Condwiramurs said:

    Finally on pc, can now do achievements while waiting for stalker2 to get fixed

    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    Achievements are in this release.

    Edit: sorry read your post wrong. 

    Nameless
    Member

    Oct 25, 2017

    17,246

    Glad it's free on PC, but hopefully it doesn't completely replace the originals with over a decade of insane mod support.
     

    Duffking
    Member

    Oct 27, 2017

    6,717

    Nice. Controller support will mean I can get CoP on my Deck. Best STALKER.
     

    disgraciau
    Member

    Oct 27, 2017

    2,078

    Ibiza, Balearic Islands, Spain

    Nameless said:

    Glad it's free on PC, but hopefully it doesn't completely replace the originals with over a decade of insane mod support.

    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    Originals will still be available 

    Wollan
    Mostly Positive
    Member

    Oct 25, 2017

    9,929

    Norway but living in France

    Forgot it was a PS4 game I was playing last year, game was greatly restored for gamepad and console. Looking forward to this free enhanced upgrade.
     

    Jedi2016
    Member

    Oct 27, 2017

    20,043

    Nameless said:

    Glad it's free on PC, but hopefully it doesn't completely replace the originals with over a decade of insane mod support.

    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    They do show up as unique titles, not just DLC for the existing ones. But there's no price on them, just says it'll release next week.
     

    YuSuzzune
    Member

    Nov 21, 2018

    5,693

    Italy

    Nameless said:

    Glad it's free on PC, but hopefully it doesn't completely replace the originals with over a decade of insane mod support.

    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    Nah in the faqs they state those are new skus
     

    texhnolyze
    Shinra Employee
    Member

    Oct 25, 2017

    26,418

    Indonesia

    Gamepad support on PC! Oh my god..
     

    Mafro
    Member

    Oct 25, 2017

    9,109

    Dual Sense support! I was hoping for that.
     

    bloopland33
    Member

    Mar 4, 2020

    3,633

    I really hope they update the games for Switch 2 as well
     

    Nameless
    Member

    Oct 25, 2017

    17,246

    disgraciau said:

    Originals will still be available

    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    Jedi2016 said:

    They do show up as unique titles, not just DLC for the existing ones. But there's no price on them, just says it'll release next week.

    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    YuSuzzune said:

    Nah in the faqs they state those are new skus

    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    Glad to hear it. Thanks for confirming. 

    Stallion Free
    Member

    Oct 29, 2017

    1,402

    So pumped this is happening. Really hope there is solid ultrawide support.
     

    Threadmarks FAQ and system requirements
    New

    Index

    OP

    OP

    sillyGecko
    Member

    Mar 14, 2025

    1,403

    New

    Index

    Nacery
    Member

    Jul 11, 2018

    1,828

    Damn this is good! Also is this free for existing PC owners?.
     

    OP

    OP

    sillyGecko
    Member

    Mar 14, 2025

    1,403

    Nacery said:

    Damn this is good! Also is this free for existing PC owners?.

    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    Only a free upgrade on consoles if I read correctly
     

    RoboPlato
    Member

    Oct 25, 2017

    8,373

    Damn, lots of visual modes on console. Very cool

    Yes, the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Enhanced Edition on consoles will feature different graphical and performance modes to suit player preferences, including a Quality Balanced mode, a Performance mode, and an Ultra Performance mode. Xbox Series X, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 5 Pro: Quality, Balanced, Performance, Ultra Performance. Xbox Series S: Quality, Balanced, Performance. However, it is important to note that both the Quality Balanced mode and the Ultra Performance mode are exclusively available when using VRR compatible displays

    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

     

    The Praiseworthy
    Member

    Oct 30, 2017

    10,409

    Good.

    I bought this last year and was waiting for a native PS5 version to give it another chance. 

    OP

    OP

    sillyGecko
    Member

    Mar 14, 2025

    1,403

    Nacery said:

    Damn this is good! Also is this free for existing PC owners?.

    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    I did misread, free for PC as well



    S.T.A.L.K.E.R. trilogy on PC, Xbox, and PlayStation will receive a free upgrade to S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Legends of the Zone Trilogy Enhanced Edition on May 20, 2025.

    New shaders, lighting, textures, gamepad support, Steam Deck, Steam Workshop, and more.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

     

    Kadzork
    Has got mad skills!!
    Member

    Oct 27, 2017

    24,119

    Oh awesome!

    I didn't get very far at all in the first game from the PS4 release so will 100% start over with this new version. 

    Henrar
    Member

    Nov 27, 2017

    2,504

    texhnolyze said:

    Gamepad support on PC! Oh my god..

    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    And keyboard support on consoles :P
     

    astroturfing
    Member

    Nov 1, 2017

    7,556

    Suomi Finland

    so awesome, cant wait to see how the games look and feel on the Pro. 40fps FTW.

    i still havent actually played a single second of a Stalker game even though i've always wanted to, and i even own a physical PC copy of Call of Pripyat lol. goddamn fucking ridiculous backlog... 

    Stop It
    Bad Cat
    Member

    Oct 25, 2017

    6,767

    Day 0, can't wait to get back into the OG games.
     

    Zaro
    Member

    Nov 13, 2017

    1,786

    I'll probably get this on GOG but i hope for Switch 2 in the future.
     

    Bede-x
    Member

    Oct 25, 2017

    12,006

    Finally controller and Steam Deck support on PC. Never wanted to play the original games, because that was lacking.
     

    Randam
    Member

    Oct 27, 2017

    8,805

    Germany

    is this Stalker 1, 2 or 3?
     

    SweetBellic
    Member

    Oct 28, 2017

    4,878

    Wonder how this free upgrade works if I only have Shadow of Chernobyl on PC. I'd be happy to support the devs and just buy this new trilogy release in any event.
     

    Western Yokai
    Member

    Feb 14, 2025

    132

    This is only for the entire colletion? I only have Shadow of Chornobyl on Steam.
     

    Grimminski
    Member

    Oct 27, 2017

    11,043

    Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

    Randam said:

    is this Stalker 1, 2 or 3?

    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    Yes
     

    Jedi2016
    Member

    Oct 27, 2017

    20,043

    Western Yokai said:

    This is only for the entire colletion? I only have Shadow of Chornobyl on Steam.

    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    On PC, they're three separate "Enhanced Editions", there is no "Lengenday collection" or whatever, they've always been three separate titles.
     

    dstarMDA
    Member

    Dec 22, 2017

    5,243

    Randam said:

    is this Stalker 1, 2 or 3?

    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    This is Stalker 1 and its two follow-ups. Not Stalker 2. Think of it roughly like Assassin's Creed 2, Brotherhood and Revelations, which differ from proper AC3.
     

    Nacery
    Member

    Jul 11, 2018

    1,828

    Stallion Free said:

    So pumped this is happening. Really hope there is solid ultrawide support.

    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    From the steam FAQ

    Will the remasters support ultra-wide monitors on PC?

    Yes, S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Legends of the Zone Trilogy Enhanced Edition will feature support for ultra-wide monitors on PC.

    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

     

    Stallion Free
    Member

    Oct 29, 2017

    1,402

    Nacery said:

    From the steam FAQ

    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    Oh hell yes! Awesome that they called that out specifically.
     

    texhnolyze
    Shinra Employee
    Member

    Oct 25, 2017

    26,418

    Indonesia

    Jedi2016 said:

    On PC, they're three separate "Enhanced Editions", there is no "Lengenday collection" or whatever, they've always been three separate titles.

    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    Huh, interesting. So they will be a free upgrade for each game you own. Like I have shadow and clear sky but not prypiat, so I guess I still have to buy the last one.

    S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chornobyl - Enhanced Edition on Steam

    S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chornobyl, the first chapter of the Legends of the Zone Trilogy, which started it all.

    store.steampowered.com

    S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky - Enhanced Edition on Steam

    S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky is the prequel chapter of the Legends of the Zone Trilogy. With the ability to directly influence the balance of power through Faction Wars, step into the boots of Scar — a seasoned mercenary, able to somehow survive deadly Emissions.

    store.steampowered.com

    S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Prypiat - Enhanced Edition on Steam

    S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Prypiat follows the story of special service agent Major Degtyarev as he investigates the fate of a lost expedition.

    store.steampowered.com

     

    Jedi2016
    Member

    Oct 27, 2017

    20,043

    I actually do have all of them, but I've only ever played the original. I picked up all of them over the years in random sales for like apiece.
     

    BizzyBum
    Member

    Oct 26, 2017

    10,444

    New York

    Condwiramurs said:

    Finally on pc, can now do achievements while waiting for stalker2 to get fixed

    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    Man, what even happened to 2?

    It had so much hype pre-launch, then it came out pretty buggy which everyone was expecting, and now I feel like I haven't seen or heard anyone talk about it for months. Feels like it disappeared. 

    texhnolyze
    Shinra Employee
    Member

    Oct 25, 2017

    26,418

    Indonesia

    BizzyBum said:

    Man, what even happened to 2?

    It had so much hype pre-launch, then it came out pretty buggy which everyone was expecting, and now I feel like I haven't seen or heard anyone talk about it for months. Feels like it disappeared.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    They're still fixing the game with wall of text of patch notes every month. They've also just released their roadmap of fixes and improvements for Q2 2025, so there's little to no reason to play it in the current state.

    The game is still in early access in all but name. 

    XmarsMayflowerX
    Member

    Feb 2, 2025

    261

    Hell yea. Back to the zone on PC with controller!
     

    ascagnel
    Member

    Mar 29, 2018

    2,616

    BizzyBum said:

    Man, what even happened to 2?

    It had so much hype pre-launch, then it came out pretty buggy which everyone was expecting, and now I feel like I haven't seen or heard anyone talk about it for months. Feels like it disappeared.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    They're doing major work to the AI systems, because that was the highlight of the old games and fairly lackluster on S2.
     
    #stalker #legends #zone #enhanced #edition
    S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Legends of the Zone — Enhanced Edition Trailer (coming to PC [GOG/Steam/EGS]/PS5/Xbox Series on May 20th)
    sillyGecko Member Mar 14, 2025 1,403 View: S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Legends of the Zone Trilogy Enhanced Edition is a free upgrade to all existing owners of the S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Legends of the Zone collection on consoles Click to expand... Click to shrink...   Last edited: Wednesday at 9:38 AM Patitoloco Member Oct 27, 2017 28,151 wait what Hasn't been this been available for months now?  Reflecting Sky Member Mar 17, 2024 2,634 Patitoloco said: wait what Hasn't been this been available for months now? Click to expand... Click to shrink... Not the Enhanced Edition.  AgentStrange Member Oct 25, 2017 5,009 Slava   Iwao Member Oct 25, 2017 13,671 Patitoloco said: Hasn't been this been available for months now? Click to expand... Click to shrink... Original release was PS4/XB1/Switch.   Rover_ Member Jun 2, 2020 5,421 Very cool! Hoping that this means Stalker 2 for Ps5 soon.  ProdigyZA Member Jun 9, 2024 1,493 "S.T.A.L.K.E.R. trilogy on PC, Xbox, and PlayStation will receive a free upgrade to S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Legends of the Zone Trilogy Enhanced Edition on May 20, 2025. New shaders, lighting, textures, gamepad support, Steam Deck, Steam Workshop, and more."   YuSuzzune Member Nov 21, 2018 5,693 Italy I think this should be also free for owners of the original games?   Dest Has seen more 10s than EA ever will Coward Jun 4, 2018 16,019 Work Oh, nice! I was just getting the itch to finally boot these up.   Condwiramurs Member Nov 10, 2020 1,807 Finally on pc, can now do achievements while waiting for stalker2 to get fixed 🥳   Polk Avenger Oct 26, 2017 6,009 YuSuzzune said: I think this should be also free for owners of the original games? Click to expand... Click to shrink... It is.   ThereAreFourNaan Member Nov 8, 2017 15,058 Iwao said: Original release was PS4/XB1/Switch. Click to expand... Click to shrink... I believe it wasn't on PC. Obviously you could buy the original version on pc, but you didn't get controller support / new ui etc.  ProdigyZA Member Jun 9, 2024 1,493 Condwiramurs said: Finally on pc, can now do achievements while waiting for stalker2 to get fixed 🥳 Click to expand... Click to shrink... Achievements are in this release. Edit: sorry read your post wrong.  Nameless Member Oct 25, 2017 17,246 Glad it's free on PC, but hopefully it doesn't completely replace the originals with over a decade of insane mod support.   Duffking Member Oct 27, 2017 6,717 Nice. Controller support will mean I can get CoP on my Deck. Best STALKER.   disgraciau Member Oct 27, 2017 2,078 Ibiza, Balearic Islands, Spain Nameless said: Glad it's free on PC, but hopefully it doesn't completely replace the originals with over a decade of insane mod support. Click to expand... Click to shrink... Originals will still be available  Wollan Mostly Positive Member Oct 25, 2017 9,929 Norway but living in France Forgot it was a PS4 game I was playing last year, game was greatly restored for gamepad and console. Looking forward to this free enhanced upgrade.   Jedi2016 Member Oct 27, 2017 20,043 Nameless said: Glad it's free on PC, but hopefully it doesn't completely replace the originals with over a decade of insane mod support. Click to expand... Click to shrink... They do show up as unique titles, not just DLC for the existing ones. But there's no price on them, just says it'll release next week.   YuSuzzune Member Nov 21, 2018 5,693 Italy Nameless said: Glad it's free on PC, but hopefully it doesn't completely replace the originals with over a decade of insane mod support. Click to expand... Click to shrink... Nah in the faqs they state those are new skus   texhnolyze Shinra Employee Member Oct 25, 2017 26,418 Indonesia Gamepad support on PC! Oh my god..   Mafro Member Oct 25, 2017 9,109 Dual Sense support! I was hoping for that.   bloopland33 Member Mar 4, 2020 3,633 I really hope they update the games for Switch 2 as well   Nameless Member Oct 25, 2017 17,246 disgraciau said: Originals will still be available Click to expand... Click to shrink... Jedi2016 said: They do show up as unique titles, not just DLC for the existing ones. But there's no price on them, just says it'll release next week. Click to expand... Click to shrink... YuSuzzune said: Nah in the faqs they state those are new skus Click to expand... Click to shrink... Glad to hear it. Thanks for confirming.  Stallion Free Member Oct 29, 2017 1,402 So pumped this is happening. Really hope there is solid ultrawide support.   Threadmarks FAQ and system requirements New Index OP OP sillyGecko Member Mar 14, 2025 1,403 New Index Nacery Member Jul 11, 2018 1,828 Damn this is good! Also is this free for existing PC owners?.   OP OP sillyGecko Member Mar 14, 2025 1,403 Nacery said: Damn this is good! Also is this free for existing PC owners?. Click to expand... Click to shrink... Only a free upgrade on consoles if I read correctly   RoboPlato Member Oct 25, 2017 8,373 Damn, lots of visual modes on console. Very cool Yes, the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Enhanced Edition on consoles will feature different graphical and performance modes to suit player preferences, including a Quality Balanced mode, a Performance mode, and an Ultra Performance mode. Xbox Series X, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 5 Pro: Quality, Balanced, Performance, Ultra Performance. Xbox Series S: Quality, Balanced, Performance. However, it is important to note that both the Quality Balanced mode and the Ultra Performance mode are exclusively available when using VRR compatible displays Click to expand... Click to shrink...   The Praiseworthy Member Oct 30, 2017 10,409 Good. I bought this last year and was waiting for a native PS5 version to give it another chance.  OP OP sillyGecko Member Mar 14, 2025 1,403 Nacery said: Damn this is good! Also is this free for existing PC owners?. Click to expand... Click to shrink... I did misread, free for PC as well S.T.A.L.K.E.R. trilogy on PC, Xbox, and PlayStation will receive a free upgrade to S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Legends of the Zone Trilogy Enhanced Edition on May 20, 2025. New shaders, lighting, textures, gamepad support, Steam Deck, Steam Workshop, and more. Click to expand... Click to shrink...   Kadzork Has got mad skills!! Member Oct 27, 2017 24,119 Oh awesome! I didn't get very far at all in the first game from the PS4 release so will 100% start over with this new version.  Henrar Member Nov 27, 2017 2,504 texhnolyze said: Gamepad support on PC! Oh my god.. Click to expand... Click to shrink... And keyboard support on consoles :P   astroturfing Member Nov 1, 2017 7,556 Suomi Finland so awesome, cant wait to see how the games look and feel on the Pro. 40fps FTW. i still havent actually played a single second of a Stalker game even though i've always wanted to, and i even own a physical PC copy of Call of Pripyat lol. goddamn fucking ridiculous backlog...  Stop It Bad Cat Member Oct 25, 2017 6,767 Day 0, can't wait to get back into the OG games.   Zaro Member Nov 13, 2017 1,786 I'll probably get this on GOG but i hope for Switch 2 in the future.   Bede-x Member Oct 25, 2017 12,006 Finally controller and Steam Deck support on PC. Never wanted to play the original games, because that was lacking.   Randam Member Oct 27, 2017 8,805 Germany is this Stalker 1, 2 or 3?   SweetBellic Member Oct 28, 2017 4,878 Wonder how this free upgrade works if I only have Shadow of Chernobyl on PC. I'd be happy to support the devs and just buy this new trilogy release in any event.   Western Yokai Member Feb 14, 2025 132 This is only for the entire colletion? I only have Shadow of Chornobyl on Steam.   Grimminski Member Oct 27, 2017 11,043 Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Randam said: is this Stalker 1, 2 or 3? Click to expand... Click to shrink... Yes   Jedi2016 Member Oct 27, 2017 20,043 Western Yokai said: This is only for the entire colletion? I only have Shadow of Chornobyl on Steam. Click to expand... Click to shrink... On PC, they're three separate "Enhanced Editions", there is no "Lengenday collection" or whatever, they've always been three separate titles.   dstarMDA Member Dec 22, 2017 5,243 Randam said: is this Stalker 1, 2 or 3? Click to expand... Click to shrink... This is Stalker 1 and its two follow-ups. Not Stalker 2. Think of it roughly like Assassin's Creed 2, Brotherhood and Revelations, which differ from proper AC3.   Nacery Member Jul 11, 2018 1,828 Stallion Free said: So pumped this is happening. Really hope there is solid ultrawide support. Click to expand... Click to shrink... From the steam FAQ Will the remasters support ultra-wide monitors on PC? Yes, S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Legends of the Zone Trilogy Enhanced Edition will feature support for ultra-wide monitors on PC. Click to expand... Click to shrink...   Stallion Free Member Oct 29, 2017 1,402 Nacery said: From the steam FAQ Click to expand... Click to shrink... Oh hell yes! Awesome that they called that out specifically.   texhnolyze Shinra Employee Member Oct 25, 2017 26,418 Indonesia Jedi2016 said: On PC, they're three separate "Enhanced Editions", there is no "Lengenday collection" or whatever, they've always been three separate titles. Click to expand... Click to shrink... Huh, interesting. So they will be a free upgrade for each game you own. Like I have shadow and clear sky but not prypiat, so I guess I still have to buy the last one. S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chornobyl - Enhanced Edition on Steam S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chornobyl, the first chapter of the Legends of the Zone Trilogy, which started it all. store.steampowered.com S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky - Enhanced Edition on Steam S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky is the prequel chapter of the Legends of the Zone Trilogy. With the ability to directly influence the balance of power through Faction Wars, step into the boots of Scar — a seasoned mercenary, able to somehow survive deadly Emissions. store.steampowered.com S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Prypiat - Enhanced Edition on Steam S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Prypiat follows the story of special service agent Major Degtyarev as he investigates the fate of a lost expedition. store.steampowered.com   Jedi2016 Member Oct 27, 2017 20,043 I actually do have all of them, but I've only ever played the original. I picked up all of them over the years in random sales for like apiece.   BizzyBum Member Oct 26, 2017 10,444 New York Condwiramurs said: Finally on pc, can now do achievements while waiting for stalker2 to get fixed 🥳 Click to expand... Click to shrink... Man, what even happened to 2? It had so much hype pre-launch, then it came out pretty buggy which everyone was expecting, and now I feel like I haven't seen or heard anyone talk about it for months. Feels like it disappeared.  texhnolyze Shinra Employee Member Oct 25, 2017 26,418 Indonesia BizzyBum said: Man, what even happened to 2? It had so much hype pre-launch, then it came out pretty buggy which everyone was expecting, and now I feel like I haven't seen or heard anyone talk about it for months. Feels like it disappeared. Click to expand... Click to shrink... They're still fixing the game with wall of text of patch notes every month. They've also just released their roadmap of fixes and improvements for Q2 2025, so there's little to no reason to play it in the current state. The game is still in early access in all but name.  XmarsMayflowerX Member Feb 2, 2025 261 Hell yea. Back to the zone on PC with controller!   ascagnel Member Mar 29, 2018 2,616 BizzyBum said: Man, what even happened to 2? It had so much hype pre-launch, then it came out pretty buggy which everyone was expecting, and now I feel like I haven't seen or heard anyone talk about it for months. Feels like it disappeared. Click to expand... Click to shrink... They're doing major work to the AI systems, because that was the highlight of the old games and fairly lackluster on S2.   #stalker #legends #zone #enhanced #edition
    WWW.RESETERA.COM
    S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Legends of the Zone — Enhanced Edition Trailer (coming to PC [GOG/Steam/EGS]/PS5/Xbox Series on May 20th)
    sillyGecko Member Mar 14, 2025 1,403 View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVWkOx4Cj6g&ab_channel=GSCGameWorld https://x.com/wario64/status/1922640117723787480?s=46 S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Legends of the Zone Trilogy Enhanced Edition is a free upgrade to all existing owners of the S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Legends of the Zone collection on consoles Click to expand... Click to shrink... https://x.com/wario64/status/1922640947340251343?s=46   Last edited: Wednesday at 9:38 AM Patitoloco Member Oct 27, 2017 28,151 wait what Hasn't been this been available for months now?  Reflecting Sky Member Mar 17, 2024 2,634 Patitoloco said: wait what Hasn't been this been available for months now? Click to expand... Click to shrink... Not the Enhanced Edition.  AgentStrange Member Oct 25, 2017 5,009 Slava   Iwao Member Oct 25, 2017 13,671 Patitoloco said: Hasn't been this been available for months now? Click to expand... Click to shrink... Original release was PS4/XB1/Switch.   Rover_ Member Jun 2, 2020 5,421 Very cool! Hoping that this means Stalker 2 for Ps5 soon.  ProdigyZA Member Jun 9, 2024 1,493 "S.T.A.L.K.E.R. trilogy on PC, Xbox, and PlayStation will receive a free upgrade to S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Legends of the Zone Trilogy Enhanced Edition on May 20, 2025. New shaders, lighting, textures, gamepad support, Steam Deck, Steam Workshop, and more." https://www.stalker-game.com/en/faq   YuSuzzune Member Nov 21, 2018 5,693 Italy I think this should be also free for owners of the original games?   Dest Has seen more 10s than EA ever will Coward Jun 4, 2018 16,019 Work Oh, nice! I was just getting the itch to finally boot these up.   Condwiramurs Member Nov 10, 2020 1,807 Finally on pc, can now do achievements while waiting for stalker2 to get fixed 🥳   Polk Avenger Oct 26, 2017 6,009 YuSuzzune said: I think this should be also free for owners of the original games? Click to expand... Click to shrink... It is.   ThereAreFourNaan Member Nov 8, 2017 15,058 Iwao said: Original release was PS4/XB1/Switch. Click to expand... Click to shrink... I believe it wasn't on PC. Obviously you could buy the original version on pc, but you didn't get controller support / new ui etc.  ProdigyZA Member Jun 9, 2024 1,493 Condwiramurs said: Finally on pc, can now do achievements while waiting for stalker2 to get fixed 🥳 Click to expand... Click to shrink... Achievements are in this release. Edit: sorry read your post wrong.  Nameless Member Oct 25, 2017 17,246 Glad it's free on PC, but hopefully it doesn't completely replace the originals with over a decade of insane mod support.   Duffking Member Oct 27, 2017 6,717 Nice. Controller support will mean I can get CoP on my Deck. Best STALKER.   disgraciau Member Oct 27, 2017 2,078 Ibiza, Balearic Islands, Spain Nameless said: Glad it's free on PC, but hopefully it doesn't completely replace the originals with over a decade of insane mod support. Click to expand... Click to shrink... Originals will still be available  Wollan Mostly Positive Member Oct 25, 2017 9,929 Norway but living in France Forgot it was a PS4 game I was playing last year, game was greatly restored for gamepad and console. Looking forward to this free enhanced upgrade.   Jedi2016 Member Oct 27, 2017 20,043 Nameless said: Glad it's free on PC, but hopefully it doesn't completely replace the originals with over a decade of insane mod support. Click to expand... Click to shrink... They do show up as unique titles, not just DLC for the existing ones. But there's no price on them, just says it'll release next week.   YuSuzzune Member Nov 21, 2018 5,693 Italy Nameless said: Glad it's free on PC, but hopefully it doesn't completely replace the originals with over a decade of insane mod support. Click to expand... Click to shrink... Nah in the faqs they state those are new skus   texhnolyze Shinra Employee Member Oct 25, 2017 26,418 Indonesia Gamepad support on PC! Oh my god..   Mafro Member Oct 25, 2017 9,109 Dual Sense support! I was hoping for that.   bloopland33 Member Mar 4, 2020 3,633 I really hope they update the games for Switch 2 as well   Nameless Member Oct 25, 2017 17,246 disgraciau said: Originals will still be available Click to expand... Click to shrink... Jedi2016 said: They do show up as unique titles, not just DLC for the existing ones. But there's no price on them, just says it'll release next week. Click to expand... Click to shrink... YuSuzzune said: Nah in the faqs they state those are new skus Click to expand... Click to shrink... Glad to hear it. Thanks for confirming.  Stallion Free Member Oct 29, 2017 1,402 So pumped this is happening. Really hope there is solid ultrawide support.   Threadmarks FAQ and system requirements New Index OP OP sillyGecko Member Mar 14, 2025 1,403 New Index Nacery Member Jul 11, 2018 1,828 Damn this is good! Also is this free for existing PC owners? (I wouldn't mind paying for supporting the developers).   OP OP sillyGecko Member Mar 14, 2025 1,403 Nacery said: Damn this is good! Also is this free for existing PC owners? (I wouldn't mind paying for supporting the developers). Click to expand... Click to shrink... Only a free upgrade on consoles if I read correctly   RoboPlato Member Oct 25, 2017 8,373 Damn, lots of visual modes on console. Very cool Yes, the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Enhanced Edition on consoles will feature different graphical and performance modes to suit player preferences, including a Quality Balanced mode, a Performance mode, and an Ultra Performance mode. Xbox Series X, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 5 Pro: Quality (native 4K/30 FPS), Balanced (upscaled 4K/40 FPS), Performance (upscaled 4K/60 FPS), Ultra Performance (upscaled 2K/120 FPS). Xbox Series S: Quality (native 2K/30 FPS), Balanced (upscaled 2K/40 FPS), Performance (1080p/60 FPS). However, it is important to note that both the Quality Balanced mode and the Ultra Performance mode are exclusively available when using VRR compatible displays Click to expand... Click to shrink...   The Praiseworthy Member Oct 30, 2017 10,409 Good. I bought this last year and was waiting for a native PS5 version to give it another chance.  OP OP sillyGecko Member Mar 14, 2025 1,403 Nacery said: Damn this is good! Also is this free for existing PC owners? (I wouldn't mind paying for supporting the developers). Click to expand... Click to shrink... I did misread, free for PC as well https://x.com/stalker_thegame/status/1922640668674900242?s=46 S.T.A.L.K.E.R. trilogy on PC, Xbox, and PlayStation will receive a free upgrade to S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Legends of the Zone Trilogy Enhanced Edition on May 20, 2025. New shaders, lighting, textures, gamepad support, Steam Deck, Steam Workshop, and more. Click to expand... Click to shrink...   Kadzork Has got mad skills!! Member Oct 27, 2017 24,119 Oh awesome! I didn't get very far at all in the first game from the PS4 release so will 100% start over with this new version.  Henrar Member Nov 27, 2017 2,504 texhnolyze said: Gamepad support on PC! Oh my god.. Click to expand... Click to shrink... And keyboard support on consoles :P   astroturfing Member Nov 1, 2017 7,556 Suomi Finland so awesome, cant wait to see how the games look and feel on the Pro. 40fps FTW. i still havent actually played a single second of a Stalker game even though i've always wanted to, and i even own a physical PC copy of Call of Pripyat lol. goddamn fucking ridiculous backlog...  Stop It Bad Cat Member Oct 25, 2017 6,767 Day 0, can't wait to get back into the OG games.   Zaro Member Nov 13, 2017 1,786 I'll probably get this on GOG but i hope for Switch 2 in the future.   Bede-x Member Oct 25, 2017 12,006 Finally controller and Steam Deck support on PC. Never wanted to play the original games, because that was lacking.   Randam Member Oct 27, 2017 8,805 Germany is this Stalker 1, 2 or 3?   SweetBellic Member Oct 28, 2017 4,878 Wonder how this free upgrade works if I only have Shadow of Chernobyl on PC. I'd be happy to support the devs and just buy this new trilogy release in any event.   Western Yokai Member Feb 14, 2025 132 This is only for the entire colletion? I only have Shadow of Chornobyl on Steam.   Grimminski Member Oct 27, 2017 11,043 Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Randam said: is this Stalker 1, 2 or 3? Click to expand... Click to shrink... Yes   Jedi2016 Member Oct 27, 2017 20,043 Western Yokai said: This is only for the entire colletion? I only have Shadow of Chornobyl on Steam. Click to expand... Click to shrink... On PC, they're three separate "Enhanced Editions", there is no "Lengenday collection" or whatever, they've always been three separate titles.   dstarMDA Member Dec 22, 2017 5,243 Randam said: is this Stalker 1, 2 or 3? Click to expand... Click to shrink... This is Stalker 1 and its two follow-ups. Not Stalker 2. Think of it roughly like Assassin's Creed 2, Brotherhood and Revelations, which differ from proper AC3.   Nacery Member Jul 11, 2018 1,828 Stallion Free said: So pumped this is happening. Really hope there is solid ultrawide support. Click to expand... Click to shrink... From the steam FAQ Will the remasters support ultra-wide monitors on PC? Yes, S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Legends of the Zone Trilogy Enhanced Edition will feature support for ultra-wide monitors on PC. Click to expand... Click to shrink...   Stallion Free Member Oct 29, 2017 1,402 Nacery said: From the steam FAQ Click to expand... Click to shrink... Oh hell yes! Awesome that they called that out specifically.   texhnolyze Shinra Employee Member Oct 25, 2017 26,418 Indonesia Jedi2016 said: On PC, they're three separate "Enhanced Editions", there is no "Lengenday collection" or whatever, they've always been three separate titles. Click to expand... Click to shrink... Huh, interesting. So they will be a free upgrade for each game you own. Like I have shadow and clear sky but not prypiat, so I guess I still have to buy the last one. S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chornobyl - Enhanced Edition on Steam S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chornobyl, the first chapter of the Legends of the Zone Trilogy, which started it all. store.steampowered.com S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky - Enhanced Edition on Steam S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky is the prequel chapter of the Legends of the Zone Trilogy. With the ability to directly influence the balance of power through Faction Wars, step into the boots of Scar — a seasoned mercenary, able to somehow survive deadly Emissions. store.steampowered.com S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Prypiat - Enhanced Edition on Steam S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Prypiat follows the story of special service agent Major Degtyarev as he investigates the fate of a lost expedition. store.steampowered.com   Jedi2016 Member Oct 27, 2017 20,043 I actually do have all of them, but I've only ever played the original. I picked up all of them over the years in random sales for like $2 apiece.   BizzyBum Member Oct 26, 2017 10,444 New York Condwiramurs said: Finally on pc, can now do achievements while waiting for stalker2 to get fixed 🥳 Click to expand... Click to shrink... Man, what even happened to 2? It had so much hype pre-launch, then it came out pretty buggy which everyone was expecting, and now I feel like I haven't seen or heard anyone talk about it for months. Feels like it disappeared.  texhnolyze Shinra Employee Member Oct 25, 2017 26,418 Indonesia BizzyBum said: Man, what even happened to 2? It had so much hype pre-launch, then it came out pretty buggy which everyone was expecting, and now I feel like I haven't seen or heard anyone talk about it for months. Feels like it disappeared. Click to expand... Click to shrink... They're still fixing the game with wall of text of patch notes every month. They've also just released their roadmap of fixes and improvements for Q2 2025, so there's little to no reason to play it in the current state. The game is still in early access in all but name.  XmarsMayflowerX Member Feb 2, 2025 261 Hell yea. Back to the zone on PC with controller!   ascagnel Member Mar 29, 2018 2,616 BizzyBum said: Man, what even happened to 2? It had so much hype pre-launch, then it came out pretty buggy which everyone was expecting, and now I feel like I haven't seen or heard anyone talk about it for months. Feels like it disappeared. Click to expand... Click to shrink... They're doing major work to the AI systems, because that was the highlight of the old games and fairly lackluster on S2.  
    0 Comments 0 Shares
  • Magic: The Gathering’s Final Fantasy card pre-orders are back in stock

    Magic: The Gathering’s highly anticipated Final Fantasy set launches June 13, and demand is skyrocketing. The Final Fantasy commander decks are already mostly sold out. The prebuilt Starter Kit is the only item still widely available from major retailers like Amazon, which has it up for As for the other products, they’re already seeing price spikes. The Play Booster Set jumped from to on TCGPlayer, while Amazon’s restock sold out fast. A nine-booster bundle now averages though it’s still at Walmart. Even single boosters have risen from to These price hikes reflect the “Market Price” — a real-time, demand-based pricing system often exceeding MSRP by –especially for in-demand sets. Used to be that one would only have to worry about resellers pulling this, but now that they see the demand is there, your regular mom-and-pop shop is doing it too! How grand.

    TCGPlayer remains a top destination for singles and for tracking card values, especially if you pull rare Surge Foil cards like Cloud, Midgar Mercenary, or Tidus, Yuna’s Guardian, priced currently at and respectively on the site. As such, collectors are encouraged to pre-order now.

    For newcomers, the Starter Kit offers great value: two prebuilt decks, Arena code cards for online play, deck boxes, and tokens — but no boosters or chase cards inside. It’s what I chose this morning, and although FOMO can entice one to make a hasty purchase, keep in mind this FF set isn’t a limited edition, and availability will come back around.

    But if you’re living for the now, act fast. This crossover is shaping up to be one of the biggest Magic events in years.
    #magic #gatherings #final #fantasy #card
    Magic: The Gathering’s Final Fantasy card pre-orders are back in stock
    Magic: The Gathering’s highly anticipated Final Fantasy set launches June 13, and demand is skyrocketing. The Final Fantasy commander decks are already mostly sold out. The prebuilt Starter Kit is the only item still widely available from major retailers like Amazon, which has it up for As for the other products, they’re already seeing price spikes. The Play Booster Set jumped from to on TCGPlayer, while Amazon’s restock sold out fast. A nine-booster bundle now averages though it’s still at Walmart. Even single boosters have risen from to These price hikes reflect the “Market Price” — a real-time, demand-based pricing system often exceeding MSRP by –especially for in-demand sets. Used to be that one would only have to worry about resellers pulling this, but now that they see the demand is there, your regular mom-and-pop shop is doing it too! How grand. TCGPlayer remains a top destination for singles and for tracking card values, especially if you pull rare Surge Foil cards like Cloud, Midgar Mercenary, or Tidus, Yuna’s Guardian, priced currently at and respectively on the site. As such, collectors are encouraged to pre-order now. For newcomers, the Starter Kit offers great value: two prebuilt decks, Arena code cards for online play, deck boxes, and tokens — but no boosters or chase cards inside. It’s what I chose this morning, and although FOMO can entice one to make a hasty purchase, keep in mind this FF set isn’t a limited edition, and availability will come back around. But if you’re living for the now, act fast. This crossover is shaping up to be one of the biggest Magic events in years. #magic #gatherings #final #fantasy #card
    WWW.POLYGON.COM
    Magic: The Gathering’s Final Fantasy card pre-orders are back in stock
    Magic: The Gathering’s highly anticipated Final Fantasy set launches June 13, and demand is skyrocketing. The Final Fantasy commander decks are already mostly sold out. The prebuilt Starter Kit is the only item still widely available from major retailers like Amazon, which has it up for $20. As for the other products, they’re already seeing price spikes. The Play Booster Set jumped from $164.99 to $185.59 on TCGPlayer, while Amazon’s $189 restock sold out fast. A nine-booster bundle now averages $95, though it’s still $70 at Walmart. Even single boosters have risen from $7.99 to $9.54. These price hikes reflect the “Market Price” — a real-time, demand-based pricing system often exceeding MSRP by $20–$40, especially for in-demand sets. Used to be that one would only have to worry about resellers pulling this, but now that they see the demand is there, your regular mom-and-pop shop is doing it too! How grand. TCGPlayer remains a top destination for singles and for tracking card values, especially if you pull rare Surge Foil cards like Cloud, Midgar Mercenary (Borderless), or Tidus, Yuna’s Guardian (Borderless), priced currently at $599 and $351.27 respectively on the site. As such, collectors are encouraged to pre-order now. For newcomers, the Starter Kit offers great value: two prebuilt decks, Arena code cards for online play, deck boxes, and tokens — but no boosters or chase cards inside. It’s what I chose this morning, and although FOMO can entice one to make a hasty purchase, keep in mind this FF set isn’t a limited edition, and availability will come back around. But if you’re living for the now, act fast. This crossover is shaping up to be one of the biggest Magic events in years.
    0 Comments 0 Shares
  • Hexborn: Roguelike

    Hi IndieDB,
    I'm thrilled to introduce Hexborn, a roguelite retro FPS inspired by 90s classics like Blood and Doom. You play as Lucian Cross, a demon-bound mercenary descending into the ever-shifting Bloodstone Labyrinth to stop the Cult of Shadows from resurrecting a forgotten god.
    This game blends fast-paced gunplay with procedural generation and character progression systems. It's been in development for a while and already has a Steam page and devlog series.I'll be posting regular updates here as we move toward our next major milestone. In the meantime, feel free to wishlist the game or check out gameplay previews:
    Steam Page: Store.steampowered.comItch Page: Caspianinteractive.itch.io
    Thanks for reading — and stay tuned!– Caspian Interactive
    #hexborn #roguelike
    Hexborn: Roguelike
    Hi IndieDB, I'm thrilled to introduce Hexborn, a roguelite retro FPS inspired by 90s classics like Blood and Doom. You play as Lucian Cross, a demon-bound mercenary descending into the ever-shifting Bloodstone Labyrinth to stop the Cult of Shadows from resurrecting a forgotten god. This game blends fast-paced gunplay with procedural generation and character progression systems. It's been in development for a while and already has a Steam page and devlog series.I'll be posting regular updates here as we move toward our next major milestone. In the meantime, feel free to wishlist the game or check out gameplay previews: Steam Page: Store.steampowered.comItch Page: Caspianinteractive.itch.io Thanks for reading — and stay tuned!– Caspian Interactive #hexborn #roguelike
    WWW.INDIEDB.COM
    Hexborn: Roguelike
    Hi IndieDB, I'm thrilled to introduce Hexborn, a roguelite retro FPS inspired by 90s classics like Blood and Doom. You play as Lucian Cross, a demon-bound mercenary descending into the ever-shifting Bloodstone Labyrinth to stop the Cult of Shadows from resurrecting a forgotten god. This game blends fast-paced gunplay with procedural generation and character progression systems. It's been in development for a while and already has a Steam page and devlog series.I'll be posting regular updates here as we move toward our next major milestone. In the meantime, feel free to wishlist the game or check out gameplay previews: Steam Page: Store.steampowered.comItch Page: Caspianinteractive.itch.io Thanks for reading — and stay tuned!– Caspian Interactive
    0 Comments 0 Shares
  • DC Studios Drops ‘Peacemaker’ Season 2 Teaser

    Achieving peace is a team effort. And there is no I in Team. 
    DC Studios has dropped the official teaser for Peacemaker Season 2, which streams August 21 on Max. Eagly returns... and hope springs eternal.
    In Season 1 of the R-rated action-adventure-comedy series, which explores the origins of The Suicide Squad character played by John Cena, mercenary Christopher Smith returns home after recovering from his encounter with Bloodsport.
    Per the logline, the upcoming season follows the vigilante “as he struggles to reconcile his past with his newfound sense of purpose while continuing to kick righteous evil-doer butt in his misguided quest for peace at any cost.” Hopefully, his incredibly animated friend Eagly can keep him grounded in his ongoing search for purpose.
    Returning cast includes Danielle Brooks, Jennifer Holland, Freddie Stroma, Steve Agee, and Robert Patrick. New Season 2 cast members include Frank Grillo, David Denman, Sol Rodriguez, and Tim Meadows.
    James Gunn wrote all eight episodes of Peacemaker Season 2 and directed three, including the first episode. Gunn, Peter Safran, and Cena serve as executive producers. Greg Mottola, Peter Sollett, and Althea Jones also direct. Gunn’s Troll Court Entertainment and The Safran Company produce in association with Warner Bros. Television.
    VFX for Season 1 were crafted by Clear Angle Studios, Crafty Apes, Mr. Wolf, Peerless, Proof Inc, Rodeo FX, and Wētā FX. For Season 2, we know Wētā FX is involved, we’re guessing at least for the work on Eagly. You can read about their incredible first season raptor work here.
    Check out the teaser now:

    Source: DC Studios

    Journalist, antique shop owner, aspiring gemologist—L'Wren brings a diverse perspective to animation, where every frame reflects her varied passions.
    #studios #drops #peacemaker #season #teaser
    DC Studios Drops ‘Peacemaker’ Season 2 Teaser
    Achieving peace is a team effort. And there is no I in Team.  DC Studios has dropped the official teaser for Peacemaker Season 2, which streams August 21 on Max. Eagly returns... and hope springs eternal. In Season 1 of the R-rated action-adventure-comedy series, which explores the origins of The Suicide Squad character played by John Cena, mercenary Christopher Smith returns home after recovering from his encounter with Bloodsport. Per the logline, the upcoming season follows the vigilante “as he struggles to reconcile his past with his newfound sense of purpose while continuing to kick righteous evil-doer butt in his misguided quest for peace at any cost.” Hopefully, his incredibly animated friend Eagly can keep him grounded in his ongoing search for purpose. Returning cast includes Danielle Brooks, Jennifer Holland, Freddie Stroma, Steve Agee, and Robert Patrick. New Season 2 cast members include Frank Grillo, David Denman, Sol Rodriguez, and Tim Meadows. James Gunn wrote all eight episodes of Peacemaker Season 2 and directed three, including the first episode. Gunn, Peter Safran, and Cena serve as executive producers. Greg Mottola, Peter Sollett, and Althea Jones also direct. Gunn’s Troll Court Entertainment and The Safran Company produce in association with Warner Bros. Television. VFX for Season 1 were crafted by Clear Angle Studios, Crafty Apes, Mr. Wolf, Peerless, Proof Inc, Rodeo FX, and Wētā FX. For Season 2, we know Wētā FX is involved, we’re guessing at least for the work on Eagly. You can read about their incredible first season raptor work here. Check out the teaser now: Source: DC Studios Journalist, antique shop owner, aspiring gemologist—L'Wren brings a diverse perspective to animation, where every frame reflects her varied passions. #studios #drops #peacemaker #season #teaser
    WWW.AWN.COM
    DC Studios Drops ‘Peacemaker’ Season 2 Teaser
    Achieving peace is a team effort. And there is no I in Team.  DC Studios has dropped the official teaser for Peacemaker Season 2, which streams August 21 on Max. Eagly returns... and hope springs eternal. In Season 1 of the R-rated action-adventure-comedy series, which explores the origins of The Suicide Squad character played by John Cena, mercenary Christopher Smith returns home after recovering from his encounter with Bloodsport. Per the logline, the upcoming season follows the vigilante “as he struggles to reconcile his past with his newfound sense of purpose while continuing to kick righteous evil-doer butt in his misguided quest for peace at any cost.” Hopefully, his incredibly animated friend Eagly can keep him grounded in his ongoing search for purpose. Returning cast includes Danielle Brooks, Jennifer Holland, Freddie Stroma, Steve Agee, and Robert Patrick. New Season 2 cast members include Frank Grillo, David Denman, Sol Rodriguez, and Tim Meadows. James Gunn wrote all eight episodes of Peacemaker Season 2 and directed three, including the first episode. Gunn, Peter Safran, and Cena serve as executive producers. Greg Mottola, Peter Sollett, and Althea Jones also direct. Gunn’s Troll Court Entertainment and The Safran Company produce in association with Warner Bros. Television. VFX for Season 1 were crafted by Clear Angle Studios, Crafty Apes, Mr. Wolf, Peerless, Proof Inc, Rodeo FX, and Wētā FX. For Season 2, we know Wētā FX is involved, we’re guessing at least for the work on Eagly. You can read about their incredible first season raptor work here. Check out the teaser now: Source: DC Studios Journalist, antique shop owner, aspiring gemologist—L'Wren brings a diverse perspective to animation, where every frame reflects her varied passions.
    0 Comments 0 Shares
  • Google introduces Advanced Protection mode for its most at-risk Android users

    COMING TO A PHONE NEAR YOU

    Google introduces Advanced Protection mode for its most at-risk Android users

    A single flip of a settings button enables a host of defenses against hacking.

    Dan Goodin



    May 13, 2025 4:31 pm

    |
    27

    Credit:

    Getty Images

    Credit:

    Getty Images

    Story text
    Size
    Small
    Standard
    Large
    Width
    *
    Standard
    Wide
    Links
    Standard
    Orange
    * Subscribers only
      Learn more
    Google is adding a new security setting to Android to provide an extra layer of resistance against attacks that infect devices, tap calls traveling through insecure carrier networks, and deliver scams through messaging services.
    On Tuesday, the company unveiled the Advanced Protection mode, most of which will be rolled out in the upcoming release of Android 16.
    The setting comes as mercenary malware sold by NSO Group and a cottage industry of other exploit sellers continues to thrive.
    These players provide attacks-as-a-service through end-to-end platforms that exploit zero-day vulnerabilities on targeted devices, infect them with advanced spyware, and then capture contacts, message histories, locations, and other sensitive information.
    Over the past decade, phones running fully updated versions of Android and iOS have routinely been hacked through these services.
    A core suite of enhanced security features
    Advanced Protection is Google’s latest answer to this type of attack.
    By flipping a single button in device settings, users can enable a host of protections that can thwart some of the most common techniques used in sophisticated hacks.
    In some cases, the protections hamper performance and capabilities of the device, so Google is recommending the new mode mainly for journalists, elected officials, and other groups who are most often targeted or have the most to lose when infected.
    “With the release of Android 16, users who choose to activate Advanced Protection will gain immediate access to a core suite of enhanced security features,” Google’s product manager for Android Security, Il-Sung Lee, wrote.
    “Additional Advanced Protection features like Intrusion Logging, USB protection, the option to disable auto-reconnect to insecure networks, and integration with Scam Detection for Phone by Google will become available later this year.”
    Advanced Protection screen in Android 16.

    Credit:

    Google

    Activating Advanced Protection enables a host of existing and new security features that take a defense-in-depth approach to locking down phones when in high-risk environments, such as border crossings, when targeted by repressive governments, or when connected to older carrier networks that lack modern-day anti-snooping defenses.
    The features include:
    The inability to connect to 2G networks, which lack encryption protections preventing over-the-air monitoring of voice and text-messaging communications
    No automatic connections to insecure Wi-Fi networks, such as those using WEP or no encryption at all
    The enabling of the Memory Tagging Extension, a relatively new form of memory management that’s designed to provide an extra layer of protection against use-after-free exploits and other memory-corruption attacks
    Automatically locking when offline for extended periods
    Automatically powering down a device when locked for prolonged periods to make user data unreadable without a fresh unlock
    Intrusion logging that writes system events to a fortified region of the phone for use in detecting and diagnosing successful or attempted hacks
    JavaScript protections that shut down Android’s JavaScript optimizer, a feature that can be abused in certain types of exploits
    In some respects, Advanced Protection is the Android equivalent of the Lockdown mode Apple built into iOS in 2022.
    The main idea in both is to reduce the “surface area” hackers can exploit by turning off non-essential components that are the most susceptible to hacking.
    In many cases, running iOS in Lockdown mode is indistinguishable from the normal mode.
    Advanced Protection is likely to behave the same way.
    Dan Goodin
    Senior Security Editor
    Dan Goodin
    Senior Security Editor
    Dan Goodin is Senior Security Editor at Ars Technica, where he oversees coverage of malware, computer espionage, botnets, hardware hacking, encryption, and passwords.
    In his spare time, he enjoys gardening, cooking, and following the independent music scene.
    Dan is based in San Francisco.
    Follow him at here on Mastodon and here on Bluesky.
    Contact him on Signal at DanArs.82.

    27 Comments


    Source: https://arstechnica.com/security/2025/05/google-introduces-advanced-protection-mode-for-its-most-at-risk-android-users/" style="color: #0066cc;">https://arstechnica.com/security/2025/05/google-introduces-advanced-protection-mode-for-its-most-at-risk-android-users/
    #google #introduces #advanced #protection #mode #for #its #most #atrisk #android #users
    Google introduces Advanced Protection mode for its most at-risk Android users
    COMING TO A PHONE NEAR YOU Google introduces Advanced Protection mode for its most at-risk Android users A single flip of a settings button enables a host of defenses against hacking. Dan Goodin – May 13, 2025 4:31 pm | 27 Credit: Getty Images Credit: Getty Images Story text Size Small Standard Large Width * Standard Wide Links Standard Orange * Subscribers only   Learn more Google is adding a new security setting to Android to provide an extra layer of resistance against attacks that infect devices, tap calls traveling through insecure carrier networks, and deliver scams through messaging services. On Tuesday, the company unveiled the Advanced Protection mode, most of which will be rolled out in the upcoming release of Android 16. The setting comes as mercenary malware sold by NSO Group and a cottage industry of other exploit sellers continues to thrive. These players provide attacks-as-a-service through end-to-end platforms that exploit zero-day vulnerabilities on targeted devices, infect them with advanced spyware, and then capture contacts, message histories, locations, and other sensitive information. Over the past decade, phones running fully updated versions of Android and iOS have routinely been hacked through these services. A core suite of enhanced security features Advanced Protection is Google’s latest answer to this type of attack. By flipping a single button in device settings, users can enable a host of protections that can thwart some of the most common techniques used in sophisticated hacks. In some cases, the protections hamper performance and capabilities of the device, so Google is recommending the new mode mainly for journalists, elected officials, and other groups who are most often targeted or have the most to lose when infected. “With the release of Android 16, users who choose to activate Advanced Protection will gain immediate access to a core suite of enhanced security features,” Google’s product manager for Android Security, Il-Sung Lee, wrote. “Additional Advanced Protection features like Intrusion Logging, USB protection, the option to disable auto-reconnect to insecure networks, and integration with Scam Detection for Phone by Google will become available later this year.” Advanced Protection screen in Android 16. Credit: Google Activating Advanced Protection enables a host of existing and new security features that take a defense-in-depth approach to locking down phones when in high-risk environments, such as border crossings, when targeted by repressive governments, or when connected to older carrier networks that lack modern-day anti-snooping defenses. The features include: The inability to connect to 2G networks, which lack encryption protections preventing over-the-air monitoring of voice and text-messaging communications No automatic connections to insecure Wi-Fi networks, such as those using WEP or no encryption at all The enabling of the Memory Tagging Extension, a relatively new form of memory management that’s designed to provide an extra layer of protection against use-after-free exploits and other memory-corruption attacks Automatically locking when offline for extended periods Automatically powering down a device when locked for prolonged periods to make user data unreadable without a fresh unlock Intrusion logging that writes system events to a fortified region of the phone for use in detecting and diagnosing successful or attempted hacks JavaScript protections that shut down Android’s JavaScript optimizer, a feature that can be abused in certain types of exploits In some respects, Advanced Protection is the Android equivalent of the Lockdown mode Apple built into iOS in 2022. The main idea in both is to reduce the “surface area” hackers can exploit by turning off non-essential components that are the most susceptible to hacking. In many cases, running iOS in Lockdown mode is indistinguishable from the normal mode. Advanced Protection is likely to behave the same way. Dan Goodin Senior Security Editor Dan Goodin Senior Security Editor Dan Goodin is Senior Security Editor at Ars Technica, where he oversees coverage of malware, computer espionage, botnets, hardware hacking, encryption, and passwords. In his spare time, he enjoys gardening, cooking, and following the independent music scene. Dan is based in San Francisco. Follow him at here on Mastodon and here on Bluesky. Contact him on Signal at DanArs.82. 27 Comments Source: https://arstechnica.com/security/2025/05/google-introduces-advanced-protection-mode-for-its-most-at-risk-android-users/ #google #introduces #advanced #protection #mode #for #its #most #atrisk #android #users
    ARSTECHNICA.COM
    Google introduces Advanced Protection mode for its most at-risk Android users
    COMING TO A PHONE NEAR YOU Google introduces Advanced Protection mode for its most at-risk Android users A single flip of a settings button enables a host of defenses against hacking. Dan Goodin – May 13, 2025 4:31 pm | 27 Credit: Getty Images Credit: Getty Images Story text Size Small Standard Large Width * Standard Wide Links Standard Orange * Subscribers only   Learn more Google is adding a new security setting to Android to provide an extra layer of resistance against attacks that infect devices, tap calls traveling through insecure carrier networks, and deliver scams through messaging services. On Tuesday, the company unveiled the Advanced Protection mode, most of which will be rolled out in the upcoming release of Android 16. The setting comes as mercenary malware sold by NSO Group and a cottage industry of other exploit sellers continues to thrive. These players provide attacks-as-a-service through end-to-end platforms that exploit zero-day vulnerabilities on targeted devices, infect them with advanced spyware, and then capture contacts, message histories, locations, and other sensitive information. Over the past decade, phones running fully updated versions of Android and iOS have routinely been hacked through these services. A core suite of enhanced security features Advanced Protection is Google’s latest answer to this type of attack. By flipping a single button in device settings, users can enable a host of protections that can thwart some of the most common techniques used in sophisticated hacks. In some cases, the protections hamper performance and capabilities of the device, so Google is recommending the new mode mainly for journalists, elected officials, and other groups who are most often targeted or have the most to lose when infected. “With the release of Android 16, users who choose to activate Advanced Protection will gain immediate access to a core suite of enhanced security features,” Google’s product manager for Android Security, Il-Sung Lee, wrote. “Additional Advanced Protection features like Intrusion Logging, USB protection, the option to disable auto-reconnect to insecure networks, and integration with Scam Detection for Phone by Google will become available later this year.” Advanced Protection screen in Android 16. Credit: Google Activating Advanced Protection enables a host of existing and new security features that take a defense-in-depth approach to locking down phones when in high-risk environments, such as border crossings, when targeted by repressive governments, or when connected to older carrier networks that lack modern-day anti-snooping defenses. The features include: The inability to connect to 2G networks, which lack encryption protections preventing over-the-air monitoring of voice and text-messaging communications No automatic connections to insecure Wi-Fi networks, such as those using WEP or no encryption at all The enabling of the Memory Tagging Extension, a relatively new form of memory management that’s designed to provide an extra layer of protection against use-after-free exploits and other memory-corruption attacks Automatically locking when offline for extended periods Automatically powering down a device when locked for prolonged periods to make user data unreadable without a fresh unlock Intrusion logging that writes system events to a fortified region of the phone for use in detecting and diagnosing successful or attempted hacks JavaScript protections that shut down Android’s JavaScript optimizer, a feature that can be abused in certain types of exploits In some respects, Advanced Protection is the Android equivalent of the Lockdown mode Apple built into iOS in 2022. The main idea in both is to reduce the “surface area” hackers can exploit by turning off non-essential components that are the most susceptible to hacking. In many cases, running iOS in Lockdown mode is indistinguishable from the normal mode. Advanced Protection is likely to behave the same way. Dan Goodin Senior Security Editor Dan Goodin Senior Security Editor Dan Goodin is Senior Security Editor at Ars Technica, where he oversees coverage of malware, computer espionage, botnets, hardware hacking, encryption, and passwords. In his spare time, he enjoys gardening, cooking, and following the independent music scene. Dan is based in San Francisco. Follow him at here on Mastodon and here on Bluesky. Contact him on Signal at DanArs.82. 27 Comments
    0 Comments 0 Shares
  • Death wears many faces. Today, it chose his. Skeletal mercenary. #conceptart #digitalart

    Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IP5ahnTVJMQ
    #death #wears #many #faces #today #chose #his #skeletal #mercenary #conceptart #digitalart
    Death wears many faces. Today, it chose his. Skeletal mercenary. #conceptart #digitalart
    Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IP5ahnTVJMQ #death #wears #many #faces #today #chose #his #skeletal #mercenary #conceptart #digitalart
    0 Comments 0 Shares