Finding your own path is at the core of gameplay in Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen – players can go anywhere, climb anything, forge new routes, and follow their curiosity to find adventure. It’s not that different from how its creators, Visionary Realms, approaches building this MMORPG – they’re doing it their own way.Transporting players to the fantasy world of Terminus, Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen harkens back to classic MMOs, where accidental discovery wandering through an open world and social interactions with other players are at the heart of the game experience.Creating any multiplayer game is a challenge – but a highly social online game at this scale is an epic quest. We sat down with lead programmer Kyle Olsen about how the team is using Unity to connect players in this MMORPG fantasy world.So what makes Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen unique compared to other MMO games?It’s definitely the social aspect. You have to experience the world and move through it naturally. It can be a bit more of a grind in a way, but it I think connects you more to your character, to the game, and the world instead of just sort of teleporting everywhere and joining LFG systems or just being placed in a dungeon. You learn the land a bit better, you have to navigate and you use your eyes more than just bouncing around like a pinball from objective to objective, following quest markers and stuff. It’s more of a thought game.How are you managing synchronization between the player experience and specific world instances?We have our own network library we built for the socket transport layer called ViNL. That’s the bread and butter for all of the zone communications, between zones and player to zone. SQL server in the back end, kind of standard stuff there. But most of the transports are handled by our own network library.How do you approach asset loading for this giant world?We’ve got a step where we bake our continents out into these tiles, and we’ve got different backends that we can plug into that. We’ve got one that just outputs standard Prefabs, and we’ve got one that outputs subscenes that we were using before Unity 6, and then we’ve got actual full-on Unity scenes that you can load additively, so you can choose how you want to output your content. Before Unity 6, we had moved away from Prefabs and started loading the DOTS subscenes and using that, built on BRG.We also have an output that can render directly to our own custom batch render group as well, just using scriptable objects and managing our own data. So we’ve been able to experiment and test out the different ones, and see what yields the best client performance. Prior to Unity 6, we were outputting and rendering the entire continent with subscenes, but with Unity 6 we actually switched back to using Prefabs with Instantiate Async and Addressables to manage everything.We’re using the Resident Drawer and GPU occlusion culling, which ended up yielding even better performance than subscenes and our own batch render group – I’m assuming because GPU occlusion culling just isn’t supported by some of the other render paths at the moment. So we’ve bounced around quite a bit, and we landed on Addressables for managing all the memory and asset loading, and regular Instantiate Prefabs with the GPU Resident Drawer seems to be the best client-side performance at the moment.Did you upgrade to Unity 6 to take advantage of the GPU Resident Drawer, specifically?Actually, I really wanted it for the occlusion culling. I wasn’t aware that only certain render paths made use of the occlusion culling, so we were attempting to use it with the same subscene rendering that we were using prior to Unity 6 and realizing nothing’s actually being culled. So we opted to switch back to the Prefab output to see what that looked like with the Resident Drawer, and occlusion culling and FPS went up.We had some issues initially, because Instantiate Async wasn’t in before Unity 6, so we had some stalls when we would instantiate our tiles. There were quite a few things being instantiated, but switching that over to Instantiate Async after we fixed a couple of bugs we got rid of the stall on load and the overall frame rate was higher after load, so it was just a win-win.Were there any really remarkable productivity gains that came with the switch to Unity 6?Everything I've talked about so far was client-facing, so our players experienced those wins. For the developer side of things, the stability and performance of the Editor went up quite a bit. The Editor stability in Unity 6 has gone up pretty substantially – it’s very rare to actually crash now. That alone has been, at least for the coding side, a huge win. It feels more stable in its entirety for sure.How do you handle making changes and updates without breaking everything?We build with Addressables using the labels very heavily, and we do the Addressable packaging by labels. So if we edit a specific zone or an asset in a zone, or like a VFX that’s associated with a spell or something like that, only those bundles that touch that label get updated at all.And then, our own content delivery system, we have the game available on Steam and our own patcher, and those both handle the delta changes, where we’re just delivering small updates through those Addressable bundles. The netcode requires the same version to be connected in the first place, so the network library side of that is automatically handled in the handshake process.What guidance would you give someone who’s trying to tackle an MMO game or another ambitious multiplayer project?You kind of start small, I guess. It's a step-by-step process. If you’re a small team, you You start small. It's a step-by-step process. If you’re a small team, you can’t bite off too much. It’d be completely overwhelming – but that holds true with any larger-scale game, not just an MMO. Probably technology selection – making smart choices upfront and sticking to them. It’s going to be a lot of middleware and backend tech that you’re going to have to wrangle and get working well together, and swapping to the newest cool thing all the time is not going to bode well.What’s the most exciting technical achievement for your team with this game?I think that there aren’t many open world MMOs, period, that have been pulled off in Unity. We don’t have a huge team, and we're making a game that is genuinely massive, so we have to focus on little isolated areas, develop them as best we can, and then move on and get feedback.The whole package together is fairly new grounds – when there is an MMO, it needs to feel like an MMO in spirit, with lots of people all around, doing their own thing. And we’ve pulled that off – I think better than pretty much any Unity MMO ever has. I think we can pat ourselves on the back for that.Get more insights from developers on Unity’s Resources page and here on the blog. Check out Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen in Early Access on Steam.

Ancient Roman structures have always been a major attraction for both common people and researchers. The durability of those magnificent architectural feats like the Pantheon of Rome has made researchers curious about how they are standing tall nearly after two thousand years of the height of the Roman empire. While The longevity of these structures can be attributed largely to Roman concrete, question still prevails about the speciality and the materials used in the concrete itself. Ingredients of Roman concreteAccording to the study published in the journal Science Advances, an international team of researchers led by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) found that not only are the materials slightly different from what we may have thought, but the techniques used to mix them were also different.One key ingrediant was pozzolan, or ash. The Romans used ash from the volcanic beds of the Italian city Pozzuoli and shipped it all over the empire. The silica and alumina in the ash react with lime and water in a pozzolanic reaction at ambient temperatures, resulting in a stronger, longer lasting concrete.Another key ingredient is lime clasts, or small chunks of quicklime.These clasts give Roman concrete its self-healing capability. Concrete weathers and weakens over time, but water can infiltrate its cracks and reach the clasts. When they react with the water, the clasts create crystals called calcites that fill in the cracks.Difference with modern day cementThe high-temperature kiln process used today to make modern day Portland cement, grinds all materials into fine powder. It eliminates the lime clasts which results into the lack of the self-healing properties of Roman cement.The Romans utilized a method known as hot mixing, which involves combining quicklime with pozzolan, water and other ingredients and then heating them up. The MIT team found that this method helps unlock the lime clasts' self-healing abilities, and can result in faster setting than cement made with a quicklime-water solution called slaked lime.

Warning: contains spoilers for Doctor Who episode “Wish World”. In the penultimate episode of this season, John Smith and his loving wife Belinda live a picture-perfect life in suburbia with their very real daughter Poppy. Conrad Clark promises beautiful weather and tells light-hearted, very not-portentous stories on the TV, giant bone creatures stride across London, and everything is very normal. But Ruby Sunday is having doubts… How many ideas are too many? It’s a question that has nagged while watching this season of Doctor Who. While it’s arguably indecorous to snipe at previous eras of the show, it did sometimes feel like the Chibnall administration struggled to rustle up one killer idea per episode. That’s not been the problem with the second Russell T Davies epoch – quite the opposite, in fact. Granted, complaining about Doctor Who taking big swings is kind of like complaining about water being wet, but I’m not sure you can build a TV show on big swings alone. There are tons of ideas at play, and energy to spare (something the Chibnall era also often lacked), but the connective tissue isn’t always there to tie it all together. “Wish World”so much going on in this episode – we have to get to grips with an entirely new alternate reality, and our familiar characters’ new roles within it. We have the two Ranis, another new member of the Pantheon (a “terrifying” mystical baby with the power to grant wishes), Shirley’s ragtag crew of dispossessed freedom fighters, shots at reactionary conservatism, ableism, homophobia and tradwife aesthetics. The Seal of Rassilon is there. And then the climactic revelation that all this is merely a means to an end, as the Rani’s (Ranis’?) true objective becomes clear – to burrow beneath the surface of reality and find Omega, an all-powerful figure from ancient Time Lord history. It would be overstating it to say that the episode falls apart round about the time that Rani Prime (Archie Panjabi, having great fun chewing the appropriate quantity of scenery) starts monologuing to a confused Doctor about her dastardly scheme, but it’s where the cracks really start to show. It’s not the most elegant exposition that Davies has ever written, even if he does hang a cheeky lampshade on it by having the Rani explicitly refer to it as such, and making it part of her scheme. Steven Moffat tended to excel at these sorts of whirling expository scenes where everything falls into place, whereas here it very much feels like a rushed info dump connecting a bunch of disparate elements that haven’t all been adequately set up. It’s also here that the structure of ‘lots of ideas carried along with manic energy and high production values’ really creaks. Spending time in the wish world is great fun, with all the joys of mirror universe style stories, seeing everybody forced into perversely inappropriate roles and trying to work out exactly how this world works – or doesn’t work, as the case may be. There are lots of little grace notes, like Colonel Ibrahim’s horrified reaction when the Doctor unthinkingly reassures him that he’s “a beautiful man”, or the fascinating scene between Conrad and Mrs Flood, showing us the strain that keeping the wish alive is having on Conrad, and his uneasy relationship with the creepily chuckling god baby. But then the Rani starts monologuing, and it’s revealed that all of this – two years of Mrs Flood hints, the Pantheon, Conrad, the vindicators, the destruction of Earth, the wish world – is in service of reaching back into the dim and distant past of Gallifrey and finding an ancient Time Lord. A character who, if memory serves, hasn’t appeared on TV since the 1980s, apart from a blink-and-you-miss-it cameo in 2020’s “The Timeless Children”. It’s impossible to properly judge this reveal until we’ve seen next week’s “The Reality War”, but based on first impressions, it’s hard to feel terribly excited about the return of Omega. For an episode that’s generally so weird and spiky, and full of wonderfully unsettling imagery (like the baby’s mother gently collapsing into a pile of flowers), finding out that it’s all building towards the reveal of a figure who really belongs in the Wilderness Years does feel a tad anticlimactic. More than that, it feels fundamentally backwards-looking, which is a bizarre thing to be saying in a review of an episode that features a giggling god baby who grants wishes. Terrifying god babies that grant wishes are not something we’ve explored much in Doctor Who, whereas ancient Time Lord history really feels like it’s been done to death. Of course, it could all be a feint. Perhaps the twist will be that it was about the terrifying god baby all along, and Omega will remain in the dustbin of history. But, as with last season’s reveal of Sutekh, it almost feels as though Russell T Davies – who was so careful with how he rationed out classic series characters and references during his first run – is making up for lost time by playing with as much Doctor Who lore as he can get his hands on while he has the budget to visualise it, whether it’s the most dramatically compelling choice or not. And it contributes to the uneasy feeling that, while there are plenty of new ideas being introduced in this era, the inexorable gravity of Doctor Who’s mythos is always going to overpower them, so even something as bananas as a wish-granting god baby ultimately plays second fiddle. Admittedly, fans do like to see stuff they recognise. I am a fan. I like to see stuff I recognise. But we should not be indulged! Join our mailing list Get the best of Den of Geek delivered right to your inbox! As underwhelming as the Omega reveal is, it doesn’t scupper the episode, which is full of great little moments. Belinda rushing off into the countryside to scream is chilling – Varada Sethu is brilliant throughout, convincingly embodying a different character while still being recognisable, and her gradual horrified realisations are very well played. Ncuti Gatwa is arguably the version of the Doctor who looks the most ill at ease wearing a boring suit and doing normal domestic stuff, so that’s all compellingly off-kilter – even if it would be nice if he woke up from the illusion a bit earlier. Conrad’s sneering and the Rani’s monologuing don’t have quite the same dramatic impact when triumphantly directed at a guy who barely knows who or where he is. The dynamic between Mrs Flood and Rani Prime is also a lot of fun, and the design of Wish World is brilliant, from the Tim Burton-esque identikit suburbia, the bone creatures and the weird cyber-bondage drone things, down to Connor’s sharp white suit. As ever, in terms of production design and visuals, the show is firing on all cylinders. And while Davies is far from subtle when writing about social issues (did we really need two instances of Ruby being clumsily steered into making ableist microaggressions just so the others could chastise her for them?), the idea of the ignored and dispossessed rising up to save a society that has forsaken them is the kind of radical undercurrent that feels appropriately Doctor Who. But will they stick the landing? Will the Doctor escape the mother of all cliffhangers? Will we find out what’s going on with Poppy? Will we see more of Rogue? Where is Susan? And will Conrad get to finish his sandwich? Reservations aside, I’m excited to find out. Doctor Who series 15 concludes with “The Reality War” on Saturday May 31 on BBC One in the UK and Disney+ around the world.

Old Enemies, New Alliances: Black Ops 6 Season 04 is Here! Though he once had the chance to end Vikhor “Stitch” Kuzmin’s reign of terror, Adler spared his nemesis after they met at the culmination of Black Ops Cold War. Latest intel reveals Kuzmin was later captured and locked up in an Icelandic CIA black site until he might prove useful. Following the events and evidence uncovered by the deceased CIA Agent Jason Hudson, that day has come, and in an unlikely team up, Adler and team have broken Stitch out from his confinement, seeking his help to crack the codenames needed to find the Pantheon moles. With Verdansk once again an area of operations for deployment, what other plans might Stitch have in store? For now, Adler needs him to complete the mission at hand.  To succeed, the two must put their past behind them in pursuit of a new goal. Get in on the action when this stacked offering of free and premium content comes to Call of Duty®: Black Ops 6, launching in Season 04 on Thursday, May 29 at 9AM PT across all platforms. Nomenclature Note: Throughout the blog, you’ll see references to when gameplay content launches. Here are what these various suffixes mean: “Launch”: Expect to access this content immediately at the Season launch “Launch Window”: Expect to access this content between launch and up to 72 hours after launch.  “In Season”: Expect to access this content during the season, but before either the mid-season or next season arrives. “Mid-Season”: Expect to access this content at Mid-Season or later. All content timing may be subject to change. Multiplayer Content Summary Five MP Maps: Drop into Icelandic AOs with three new maps at launch including the Shutdown and Fugitive 6v6 Core maps and the Blitz Strike map. In the mid-season, party it up in Eclipse and play a reimagined Fringe. New and Returning Modes: Pick up dog tags to drain the enemy’s reserves in Team Elimination, a fun new twist on the Kill Confirmed formula. Make every bullet count with the return of One in the Chamber and get festive in the Party Ops Limited-Time Mode. Additional Equipment: The Grim Reaper Scorestreak returns from the original Black Ops, offering an explosive payload that’s guaranteed to blow the competition sky high. Season 04 Ranked Play: Challenge the best of the best, get those wins, and climb the Ranks in a new season of Multiplayer Ranked Play, with all-new rewards and bragging rights. Shutdown (Launch) Brand-New, Core, 6v6, Small-Sized Before breaking out Stitch, Adler and team first need to cut off the power to the black site prison, bringing them to a hydroelectric plant built on the rugged volcanic terrain of Iceland. Fight in and around the central building housing the now wrecked Turbine or dive down the Sluice into the Lake, its waters hugging the plant’s south end by the Transformers. Jump up by the red container to target enemies from far out or swim back onshore to reach the Atrium and Parking. Head to the north side to fight in the rugged Yard, away from the shoreline and bookended by the Pumphouse and Canteen. It’s a quick run to the Turbine from here, giving you good map coverage down the middle. If things get too hot, you can always drop down the Chute and swim your way to safety.  Fugitive (Launch) Brand-New, Core, 6v6, Medium-Sized Deploy to a secret CIA black site in a remote part of Iceland, the very location where Stitch has been imprisoned until Adler brings him in as an unlikely ally for an urgent operation. With the power out, Adler and his crew seize their chance to infiltrate the prison, climbing, zipping, and battling their way through the frozen compound. Upon reaching their target, Adler and Stitch strike a deal. Following the jailbreak, the alarms are blaring and warnings of a power failure light up the Cell Block. Though the area may appear smaller than expected when first glancing at the minimap, the prison’s intricate layout presents multiple levels and shortcuts to the various outside areas including the Checkpoint, Courtyard, and Recreation Yard. In the upper Cell Block, newly opened cells present the danger of ambush. Be on guard and look for ziplines for quick access to your next target. Blitz (Launch) Brand-New, Strike, 6v6/2v2, Small-Sized Traffic comes to a halt as Pantheon reinforcements race toward the prison but get ambushed by the Rogue team. Leave the road and seek out targets over the rugged terrain of the Cliffside or move inland, ambushing enemies at the Waterfall. To approach the battle head on, move down the central Bridge, using the scattered convoy for cover. Jump down from the center to move underneath the Bridge, a great means of pivoting to a new location. Though a small map overall, Blitz’s long lanes leave room for marksmen to shine. Eclipse (Mid-Season) Brand-New, Strike, 6v6/2v2, Small-Sized Stitch and the team arrive in Avalon, slipping into the shadows of an underground nightclub to discuss business. The neon lights flicker as they form a plan to break the Pantheon codenames, but the meeting is cut short when Pantheon agents storm in. Show off your best moves on the dance floor, dodging shots and flanking targets down the sides where seating offers party goers a chance to rest and order a drink from the bar. Ambush passing enemies from the DJ booth and then break through the broken façades on the walls, escaping into the halls. Fringe (Mid-Season) Remaster, Core, 6v6, Medium-Sized Revisit Fringe from Call of Duty: Black Ops 3, reimagined for the first time ever in Black Ops 6. Attend the grand opening of the Rolling Hills distillery, established in an idyllic setting with several navigable buildings and the surrounding grounds. Battle along the main Road or dive into the Bar for a closer fight. Watch for sharpshooters in the upper Barn and along the Bridge and relive the thrill of trying to make it out alive through the narrow Loading route. The first half of Season 04 brings two exciting Multiplayer modes: Team Elimination and One in the Chamber. In the mid-season, loosen up in the Party Ops Limited Time Mode. Team Elimination (Launch) In this twist on Kill Confirmed, two teams are given a limited amount of lives each round as they fight to be the last surviving team. Players drop a dog tag on death that can be picked up by the enemy to confirm the kill or by a teammate to deny the opposing team. Survive longer than the other team or hold the most remaining lives when the timer ends to win the round. Balance aggression and defense as you seek out enemy dog tags while preserving your life. Dig in with your teammates to counter enemy attacks and then ask for cover while you collect the droppings. Picking up tags is a great way to earn your next Scorestreak, so stay aggressive and keep up the momentum. Once your team’s life pool is drained, your remaining teammates can still revive you where you were last killed in a last-ditch effort to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. One in the Chamber (In-Season) Another Black Ops fan-favorite mode returns as One in the Chamber shows up in Season 04! In this free-for-all mode, each Operator is given one pistol, one bullet, a knife, and three lives. Precision is king, as bullets always eliminate on impact and the only way to earn another bullet is to get an elimination. Stay cool, aim true, and preserve your lives while aiming for the highest score. UAV scans keep the action moving, so don’t try to hide. At the end of the match, the top three scoring Operators will step up to the Winner’s Circle. Party Ops (Mid-Season) Get the party started with a new Limited-Time Mode arriving later in the season: Compete in a randomized set of party themed minigames. The player with the highest score at the end of the match wins it all. The devastating Grim Reaper Scorestreak is back from the original Black Ops, unleashing massive hits on other Operators and Scorestreaks alike. New Scorestreak Scorestreak: Grim Reaper (In-Season) Type: Lethal Score: 725 Mastery Badges: Yes Powerful semi-automatic launcher that can fire up to four rockets in one load. Wield the Grim Reaper, a quad tube loaded Launcher capable of inflicting heavy damage on enemies. Whether targeting Operators or locking on to enemy Scorestreaks, the Grim Reaper’s payload delivers a huge explosion. The weapon is lost if you’re taken out, so save it for the right moment and bring backup to ensure you have the protection needed to unleash havoc.  Season 04 Ranked Play Overview Prove you’re the very best by dedicating your Multiplayer match time to Ranked Play, using the same settings, maps, modes, and weapon restrictions used by the Call of Duty League™. Win matches to earn SR (Skill Rating) and progress through the Ranks while earning career rewards like Rank Skins and Win Challenge rewards. As usual, match wins ensure you progress through the Ranks throughout Season 04 to earn new seasonal rewards like a new Pro Issue Weapon Blueprint, Rank-themed Calling Cards, Ranked Charms, and more: Season 04 Ranked Play Rewards Get 10 Wins: “Pro Reissue AMES 85” AMES 85 Weapon Blueprint Get 100 Wins: “Ranked Season 4 – 100 Wins” Large Decal Silver: “Ranked Season 4 – Silver” Calling Card Gold: “Ranked Season 4 – Gold” Calling Card and Charm Platinum: “Ranked Season 4 – Platinum” Calling Card and Charm Diamond: “Ranked Season 4 – Diamond” Calling Card and Charm Crimson: “Ranked Season 4 – Crimson” Calling Card and Charm Iridescent: “Ranked Season 4 – Iridescent” Calling Card and Charm Top 250: “Ranked Season 4 – Top 250” Calling Card and Charm Season 04 Champion: “Ranked Season 4 – Top 250 Champion” Calling Card Note: Multiplayer Events: Check the General section later in this blog to uncover the full complement of events for this mode across Season 04. Zombies Content Summary Grief Returns! Drop into this epic 4v4 competitive battle on all maps, outlasting the opposition while securing Capture Zones to debuff and Grief your opponents. The last team still standing wins! Additional Gameplay Content: Crack open the armored undead and create area-of-effect explosions with the Shatter Blast Ammo Mod, chew over the impressive effects of three new GobbleGums, and create even bigger explosions with the Grim Reaper Support launcher. New Modes and More: Unlock hidden rewards with more Dark Ops Challenges, then prepare to face down a powered-up Abomination, survive as long as you can in the Starting Room LTM, and prove your Leaderboard worth by zombie slaying for bragging rights and rewards! 4v4 competitive mode where two teams outwit and outlast each other. Capture zones to debuff enemies. No damage against other players. Respawns every third round. Available Maps: Liberty Falls, Terminus, Citadelle des Morts, The Tomb, Shattered Veil. Restricted: Wonder Weapons, GobbleGums: Exit Strategy, Idle Eyes, Wonderbar!, Time Out, and Flavor Hex (Season 04 GobbleGum).  Not seen since Black Ops 2, Grief returns to Zombies! This fan-favorite mode pits two teams of four against each other, with both sides vying to out-survive the other. As the battlelines are drawn between S.A.M. and Director Richtofen, each team pledges their support to one of these rivals at the start of a match, subsequently receiving handler comms support from one of them throughout the ensuing chaos. Indirect PvP Combat The action is almost immediate as both teams drop into either side of the same Grief Arena within the chosen Zombies map, and indirect PvP combat comes into effect: The two teams of four players can’t outright kill members of the enemy team, but can interact with them by body-blocking, or slowing them  by using melee, bullet-based weapons, or projectiles.  Victory Conditions: The winning team is the one that manages to “Grief” their rivals into being killed or entering a downed state. As long as one or more team members are upright, the match continues! Grief Arena Features The action is constant and can get incredibly chaotic, due in part to your proximity to your opponents and the hordes of undead encroaching on your team, thanks to the Arena being a sub-section of the main Zombies map. These are known as “Grief Arenas.” Within a Grief Arena are a variety of features: An Open Environment: Grief Arenas are clearly defined areas where any critical doors have already been opened, and the power will already have been turned on. All other Door Buys are inactive. Both teams spawn on opposite sides of the Arena, each in a group of four. Player Respawning: Any team members that are downed – provided one or more of their team are still alive – can be revived at any time, though rival teams, undead enemies, and Shock Charges can hamper this action! Additionally, a Wave Respawner triggers every third round, automatically reviving any eliminated teammates from both teams. Join In Progress: Any player not in the game can join up until Round 10 has been completed and has a small grace period to orient themselves before they’re swarmed by zombies. Additionally, if a team has won back-to-back Capture Zones (see below), join-in-progress is not available. Essence and Salvage: Unlike in Standard playlists, Salvage pickups in Grief are worth 100 Salvage, visible to all players, and can only be picked up by the first player to grab it. Zombies: Rounds will progress faster than usual and the amount of zombies per round has been increased to account for 8 players! All undead entities – except for bosses – are to be expected. If players fail to kill zombies, the round will turn. Core Mechanics: The Arsenal, Pack-a-Punch, Mystery Box, Crafting Tables, Perk machines, GobbleGum machine (with Exit Strategy, Idle Eyes, Wonderbar!, Time Out, and Flavor Hex restricted), Armor Wall Buys, and Der Wunderfizz machine are available in a Grief Arena where they normally reside, or in a new location if they don’t normally exist in this portion of their respective maps. Note: While the current GobbleGum restrictions are in place to keep matches dynamic yet balanced, additional restrictions may be made in the future as the developers keep an eye on game balance, similar to Ranked Play. Capture Zones: Appearing at a regular cadence during a match, these are smaller areas within a Grief Arena where players are required to stand and earn specific types of kills to trigger a Grief  on the opposing team. Plan A: Survive! Plan B: Capture Zones! Keeping your team upright and focused on undead slaying for longer than your rivals is the main plan in this mode. However, there’s an important secondary focus you need to plan for: Capturing zones and “Griefing” your rival team! Capture Zones appear at regular intervals throughout a match, and after stepping through the glowing perimeter, you and your team can secure the Zone by staying inside it and dispatching zombies. Beckon your crew into a Zone to quicken the zombie slaying, and once your kill count meets the requirement, a Grief is triggered on the opposition. Note that if neither team reaches this requirement within the countdown inside a Capture Zone, the Grief is applied to both teams. What is a Grief? It’s a temporary debuff, penalty, or negative gameplay mechanic that you can inflict on your rival team at a Capture Zone. The type of Grief is shown at the objective tracker within a Capture Zone. Here are the possible Griefs you’re aiming to inflict on your foes: Weapon Nerf: The affected players inflict considerably reduced damage to zombie enemies. Ammo Drain: All ammo-based weapons, including those stowed, receive an ammo drain with bullets or shells being removed constantly while the Grief is active. Zombie Ambush: An Elite zombie is summoned, and it solely focuses its killing power on the enemy team until either the Elite or the team are defeated, or the timer runs out. Weapon Carousel: The rival players’ weapons are randomly swapped every few seconds. Frozen: This Grief reduces the enemy players’ movement, along with frost and ice coating the characters. Griefs and Capture Zones also introduce new score types, including: Capture Zone Kill: Awarded to a player who defeated a zombie type during a successful Capture Zone completion. Capture Zone Win: Awarded to all players on a team who successfully commandeer a Capture Zone. Capture Zone Elite Kill: Awarded to a player who slays an Elite spawned in a Capture Zone. Available Grief Arenas (11 Arenas, Launch) A total of 11 different Grief Arenas are available in this mode. Here’s a list along with a brief description of the points of interest within each one: Liberty Falls Arena 1: Pump & Pay, Motor Lodge, and Fuller’s Liberty Lanes Liberty Falls Arena 2: Dark Aether Church, Cemetery, Hilltop Terminus Arena 1: Bio Lab Terminus Arena 2: Crab Island  Citadelle des Morts Arena: Courtyard, Ramparts, and Entrance Hall The Tomb Arena 1: Dig Site, Mausoleum The Tomb Arena 2: Dark Aether Nexus Shattered Veil Arena 1: Garden Pond, Lower Terrace Shattered Veil Arena 2: Upper Terrace, Shem’s Henge, Motor Court Shattered Veil Arena 3: Mansion Foyer, Overlook, East Foyer, Library Shattered Veil Arena 4: West Hallways, Southwest Balcony, Bottlery Access the following new content within all five Zombies Maps (unless otherwise stated) throughout Season 04: Dark Ops Challenges (Launch) A mysterious new set of hidden Calling Cards and bounteous amounts of XP are available at the start of Season 04, thanks to a fresh drop of Zombies Dark Ops Challenges. Who knows... maybe there’s even one for Grief. All further information is [[REDACTED]]. New LTM: Starting Room (Mid-Season) Inspired by the starting room in the classic “Moon” Zombies map, drop in with up to three of your Zombies crew into a more straightforward but challenging experience where you’re locked into the first zone of a map. Raptor One is gone, and those undead hordes are only getting stronger, but all doors in the initial zone are locked. Survive to the highest round you can! New LTM: Abomination Challenge (Mid-Season) Enter a warped version of Liberty Falls during this new Mid-Season Event, and hunt down an ultra-powered-up Abomination. Perhaps it’s wise to bring backup. Wreck even the most battle-hardened undead threat with the explosive power of the Shatter Blast Ammo Mod, then drop even more devastating firepower on the hordes with the Grim Reaper Support launcher. There’s three new chewables, too! Ammo Mod: Shatter Blast (Launch) Available: Augments Menu, and In-Game (Pause Menu) “Bullets deal explosive damage. Each bullet has a chance to create an explosion that destroys armor.” Modify your ammunition to explode the toughened armor of certain normal and Special undead enemies. This mod also has a second benefit, creating an area-of-effect blast radius at the same time, whether any armor is shattered or not.  Due to the somewhat chaotic nature of this modification, there is a random chance of the Shatter Blast effect triggering, and it won’t happen every time you fire. Also expect a cooldown period after the effect. Note that Shatter Blast doesn’t directly affect Elite enemies (pending some Augment research!), but area-of-effect explosions can still damage them. You are wise to wrangle your undead into hordes so they’re near each other, to really inflict some damage! Shatter Blast: Major Augments Research the following Augments to further customize this Ammo Mod. Big Game Shatter Blast can be used against Elite enemies. Expect an impressively sized explosion. Blast Chain On explosion, three additional explosions occur in rapid succession. Blast Repair For every enemy that has its armor destroyed by Shatter Blast, armor health will be restored for the player. Shatter Blast: Minor Augments Blast Zone Increase the size of the explosion. Blast Boost Increase the explosion damage. Blast Wave Normal enemies are knocked down by the explosion. New GobbleGums (Launch) Crack your teeth on three new GobbleGums, available across all maps once you earn or unlock them and equip them in your GobbleGum Loadout Pack. Explosive Flourish (Epic): Reloading your weapon creates an explosion around you. GobbleGum lasts 2 minutes. Flavor Hex (Legendary): Activates a random Ultra GobbleGum. Rainburps (Whimsical): Zombies killed belch sparkly rainbow bubbles. Lasts 3 minutes. Additional Support Weapon: Grim Reaper (In-Season) Available: Rivals Event reward Salvage: 2000 Hammer away at the Crafting Table and assemble a powerful semi-automatic launcher known as the Grim Reaper, which deals out lethal damage to the undead with up to a quartet of missiles fired in one load. With a capacity to carry up to a dozen rockets, and the ability to fire them individually or as a quartet of devastation, this can level a courtyard of undead with a single launch! Unlock this Support weapon once you’ve earned it via the Rivals Event. Note: Zombies Events: Check the General section later in this blog to uncover a first look at events for this mode across Season 04, including the King of the Dead Leaderboard challenge! Call of Duty: Warzone Content Summary New Point of Interest: The towering skyscraper known as The Overlook comes to Downtown Verdansk, with ziplines, cranes, and an impressive interior to explore. New and Limited Time Modes: Clash mode – the massive 52v52 Verdansk Deathmatch – is back! Join 51 other Operators in a chaotic firefight to claim domination points and defeat foes. Then compete in a specially themed area of Verdansk in a match with rule-bending modifiers in Havoc Royale. And drop into Rebirth Island for a spot of Resurgence Casual human and bot combat. Doubling Down on Ranked Play: Call of Duty: Warzone doubles down – literally – with two separate Ranked Play modes; Battle Royale: Ranked (Verdansk) at launch running throughout the entire season, and the return of Ranked Play to Rebirth Island at Mid-season. New Features: Cranes and horizontal ziplines Downtown. Lobby Lockdown in The Overlook. Look up and look out!  Dominate foes with a gigantic new skyscraper point of interest, available to Operators within the vicinity of Downtown! The old tenement blocks, Burger Town, and SKN Comm tower have been demolished, and construction crews are finalizing a sprawling skyscraper that dominates the landscape! Look for a full recon tour below. Recon Tour: The Overlook As construction nears completion on this behemoth of a skyscraper (more than twice the height of any previous building within the Verdansk conurbation), it’s worth gaining a tactical advantage on this monolithic new point of interest. The Overlook Footprint: The “Diamond” and Perimeter Security Checkpoints Drop into the grounds of The Overlook, and you’ll immediately see the grounds of the new skyscraper under construction stretch in a rough diamond shape around the location of the old SKN Comm Tower. Flanked by two massive cranes, the building plot perimeter runs from the corner of the main bank, clockwise past the Post Office, passing the Rothwynn Donna building, northeast to the Museum/Art Gallery, and follows the road around to City Hall.  All the older structures (the Burger Town, low-rise tenement blocks, the building site, and the small coffee shop and bar across from the Museum) have been bulldozed in the name of progress! Perimeter Security Checkpoints Military-style security checkpoints have been set up on the corners and roads of the plot of land within the footprint of the structure. Most aren’t secure enough to impede vehicular progress, and some have ramps to allow airborne access. These serve as helpful visual cues that you’re entering the new POI, The Overlook.  Ground Level: Construction Sites Most of the groundwork around the skyscraper is in its final stages of completion, but there are plenty of barriers, fencing, canopies, and containers to use as cover in the area below each of the two giant cranes north and south of the structure. Ground Level: Restaurants Burger Town: Fans of the famous Burger Town Double Cheeseburger will be thrilled to know the fast-food chain has relocated a few meters further down the road from its previous location and is contained within the massive footprint of The Overlook. This outlet also serves as a lower entrance into the grand foyer interior of the building. Sushi Bar: Diagonally opposite the Burger Town, on the northwest side of the POI, is a small Sushi bar, within the footprint of the tower itself. Nestled in the stepped courtyard, you can quickly advance to the north crane or main lobby entrance. It’s also worth pointing out that the sight lines around this POI have significantly changed since Season 03, with much greater visibility across familiar POIs within Downtown and the surrounding districts. North and South Cranes Two huge cranes flank the north and south side of the monolith and are another way to traverse into The Overlook at great height. With five separate platforms attached to the mast to land on (two at ground, and three at height), use the vertical Ascender built into the crane’s mast and take an eight-second ascent to a platform just below the jib that extends out to the main winch, and the hoist allowing a jump to The Overlook roof. Operators who aren’t challenged by vertigo will have wild and panoramic views that extend to all of Verdansk’s POIs (except Quarry)! Both cranes are also functional, and providing you’ve found the necessary controls in the vicinity (both on and off the cranes’ superstructures), cargo on the hook block and hoist can be summoned and moved to various locations around the tower and nearby Downtown buildings, in case you or your team needs a daring lift! Zip Lines and Additional Rooftop Cover Increasing the ways you can quickly traverse and gain (or lose) great height in your tactical positioning near The Overlook exterior, zip-lines provide a diagonal route to and from the surrounding Downtown building rooftops.  Each also has a small billboard or other protective cover as you reach the zipline mechanism. Access to and from Overlook at the following locations: South: Post Office rooftop to Skydeck. West: Rothwynn Donna building rooftop to Skydeck. Northeast: Art Gallery/Museum rooftop to Skydeck. East: City Hall dome rooftop to Skydeck.  The Overlook: Entrance and Lobby Lockdown The Overlook has a substantial exterior and interior presence, mainly tiered fountains, planting, and stairs up to forecourts and shuttered entrances to the north, east, south, and west, all leading to a central interior lobby. If you find the main entrances shuttered, it means the lobby is experiencing a lockdown. Perhaps there’s a way to breach this security? Are there other ways to get in? The interior lobby has a coffee shop, mezzanine office, stairs, a variety of cover options, and other areas to investigate, not least the marginally terrifying 18-storey elevator ascenders to the northeast and southwest, and even those only get you halfway up the inside of the tower. The Overlook: Atrium and Skydeck (Interior, Exterior) Just above the midway point within The Overlook tower is a five-floor interior with exterior Skydeck. Depending on your use of ziplines, you’re able to access a large Atrium with concrete tile and planters and an abundance of plant life. Around the perimeter are rooms, stairwells, and two new elevator shafts, all enabling you to reach the exterior Skydeck. Known by some locals as the “cyclops” tower, due to this large central upper opening you can fly a helicopter through, the Skydeck features a small glass pyramid, some windswept seating, and infiltration to the floors above.  The large, rectangular holes on all four sides provide zipline access around Downtown, as well as daring helicopter maneuvers through the gaps. The ascent doesn’t end here; enter any of the four pillars holding up the roof of the skyscraper for another elevator ascender ride. The Overlook: Penthouse (Interior), Roof (Exterior) The remaining upper floors of The Overlook are nearing completion, meaning health and safety rules aren’t being observed as stringently as you’d like. Top floors up from the Skydeck is the roof. Missing windows, exterior gantries without railings, and exposed exterior ladders mean you’ll be thankful for your parachute.  Depending on which of the tower corners you’re fighting through, this offers another five floors to investigate, including rooms that are fully furnished.  These include a security and server room, a two-floor penthouse level with opulent bedroom, kitchen, and games area, and that’s before the more perturbed of Operators learn the secrets of the [[REDACTED]] room!  As well as the usual Battle Royale and Resurgence playlists across Verdansk and Rebirth Island, major modes – Clash and Battle Royale: Ranked Play – return to the game, with the intriguing Havoc Royale and the arrival of Resurgence: Ranked Play on Rebirth Island at mid-season! Clash LTM (Launch) 104 players (52v52), 15-minute matches 52v52 Team Deathmatch chaos is back in Call of Duty: Warzone! First introduced into Call of Duty: Warzone during Season Five of Black Ops Cold War back in September 2021 as a revamped version of the original “Rumble” mode, Clash is back, bigger than ever, and now includes some impressive, game-changing equipment and power-ups only available in this mode. But what is Clash Mode? This is Team Deathmatch and Domination on a massive scale! Overview, Win Conditions, and Scoring This action-packed team-based mode takes place in and around a specific POI within Verdansk, and pits two teams of 52 players (divided into 13 Quad Squads per side) against each other. With no Circle Collapse, no last stand benefit for the Survivor Perk, and your Loadouts available immediately, the plan is simple; your side needs to acquire 500 points by the end of the 15-minute time limit. These are mainly gained by slaying enemies (sometimes aided with power ups you can acquire within a match), completing contracts, and participating in the in-game Public Events, as well as the following: Scoring: 1 point per enemy elimination 2 points per enemy elimination with Double Down Power Up 5 points per Contract completed 10 points for capturing a Domination Point (Flag) 10 points for capturing a Bonus Crate or a Cash Crate Clash: Available Locations Expect Clash matches to occur across a sub-section of the main Verdansk map, incorporating several adjacent areas around the following POIs: Quarry Boneyard Farmland Promenade (East) Clash: Available Vehicles With the impetus to reach the enemy forces never more important, expect heavy use of vehicles throughout a Clash Match. The full complement of currently available ground and air vehicles are as follows: Heli Cargo Truck LTV (Light Tactical Vehicle) Polaris RZR Pro R 4 Available Contracts There are three available Contracts to complete in Clash Mode: Scavenger Search and Destroy Recon The Scavenger and Recon Contracts work in the same way as they do in Battle Royale Matches. In addition to the usual rewards and in-game cash, you receive five team points for each Contract completed. Search and Destroy Contracts (Clash Mode Only): Everything must go with this new contract, where one team plants a bomb on a Buy Station, and on detonation, they can earn impressive rarity weapons and items from the Buy Stations’ inventory. The other teams can defuse the bomb to earn a Fire Sale for a major discount from the Buy Stations.  Expect the Search and Destroy Contract to be available in Battle Royale, Resurgence, and Plunder Modes, at Mid-Season. In-Match Events and Domination Points During a Clash match, expect several in-match Events to occur. These are like those in Battle Royale Matches, though Clash Events are timed throughout the match rather than related to the Circle Collapse. The available Events are: Domination Points Bonus Points Crates Clash Firesale Cash Crates Power Surge Domination Points Event: Up to three single capture Dom Points (flags) appear on the map, and these respawn throughout the match. Much like the Multiplayer Mode of the same name, a team that reaches and captures one of the Dom Points receives a reward; in this case, 10 team points. Bonus Points Crates Event: A cargo plane flies across the center of the map, and up to four crates are dropped. Teams are likely to head to the crates as they float to the ground, as capturing a crate awards you with 10 team points. Clash Firesale Event: For the next two minutes, all players can take advantage of a Firesale as two Portable Buy Stations are dropped into the backfield of each team (a total of four). Additionally, all loot crates are restocked and cash found in crates is also increased.  Cash Crates: Capture one (or more) of the three Cash Crates that drop during this event also nets you 10 team points. Power Surge Event: For the next two minutes, there’s an increased drop rate of Power Ups when you dispatch an enemy player or loot any ground caches. Clash Mode Gameplay Features As well as the previously mentioned new Search and Destroy Contract, Clash comes loaded with features unique to the mode. Here’s the full run-down of what to expect: Buy Stations (Clash Mode only): Expect Buy Stations to be scattered across a Clash map and roughly split between each team’s area of operations. Portable Buy Stations are also available during the Firesale In-Match Event. Here’s what you can purchase: Armor Plate: $500 Munitions Box: $1,000 Trophy System: $1,500 Counter UAV: $3,000 Sentry Turret: $3,000 Hand Cannon: $4,000 Bunker Buster: $4,000 Cluster Strike: $4,000 Precision Airstrike: $6,000 Specialist Perk: $10,000 New Field Upgrade: Door Barricade (Clash Mode at Season Launch): Control access points more easily during mid or close-quarter combat scenarios and delay enemy incursions with the Door Barricade. Fit a barricade to a close single or double door, and a heavy-duty lock attaches to (and is visible on) both sides, preventing the opening or access through the door. This is until the barricade is either removed (only by the Operator or squadmates who fitted it), or destroyed, usually by using explosives, though gunfire and melee equipment is also an option. Expect the Door Barricade to be loot in Battle Royale and Battle Royale Casual Modes, via the new Care Package Killstreak, all coming at Mid-Season. New Killstreak: Hand Cannon (Clash Mode at Season Launch): This high-powered pistol Killstreak, originally available in Multiplayer during Season 01, is available in ground cache as rare loot. Expect a slow rate of fire and finite ammunition, but good handling, and improved hip fire accuracy with faster hip-fire shooting speed. Expect the Hand Cannon to be rare loot in Battle Royale, Battle Royale Casual, Resurgence, and Plunder Modes, via the new Care Package Killstreak, all coming at Mid-Season. Feature: SAM Turrets (Clash Mode only): Chopper and drone pilots take note; Clash mode maps feature SAM Turrets in various tactical positions across the environment. Spend $1,500 of in-match cash to activate these anti-air missile batteries and use them up to four times to target any aircraft and drones in the area. If you’re flying in the Heli on the receiving end of a SAM barrage, now’s the time to utilize flares to counter the incoming missiles! Train (Clash Mode only): If a Clash map features a portion of the large, circular railroad track that the train travels along, then this hulking engine and loot-filled carriages are parked and available to use as added cover and looting opportunities. UAV Towers (Clash Mode only): Providing you have the $2,000 in-match cash to activate them, teams can head to and capture a few scattered UAV Towers, allowing pinging of enemy movement across the local area. Clash Mode Powerups  Clash Mode features five differently hued in-match Powerups that are automatically used when found. Available as a possible loot drop or sometimes appearing as dropped loot near the body of an eliminated enemy Operator, these Powerups are color-coded and offer temporary benefits to the Operator who grabs them. All five can be obtained in a single match and expect the frequency of available Powerups to be significantly increased if the in-match Power Surge Event activates (usually in the final stages of a match). Here’s what each of the five Clash Powerups grant you: Hunter (Red Aura): Highlights enemies and allies in red and blue respectively. Allies are visible through walls. Applies Tracker and High Alert Perks. Speed Boost (Yellow Aura): Prevents fall damage and provides approximately 20 percent speed boost to your movement. Regeneration Aura (Green Aura): Refills your health and armor at roughly 20 percent per second. Allies within a small radius around you also receive this benefit. The effect does not stack. Double Down (Blue Aura): Grants you two points per enemy Operator elimination instead of one. Kill Mag (Purple Aura): Refills your active weapon magazine after a kill and quickens your reload. Havoc Royale LTM (Mid-Season) 44 players (Quads), 15-minute matches Compete in a Call of Duty: Warzone match like no other, where rule bending modifiers twist the realities of the usual Resurgence gameplay in chaotic and game-changing ways.  Drop into a specially themed area of Verdansk with your Loadout. Every new gas circle activates a different modifier. Adapt fast to sudden changes as Havoc modifiers may impact you, the environment, and even the gameplay rules. Survive the Havoc, be the last team standing, and claim victory! Expect a full rundown of this game mode in the Season 04 Reloaded blog, just prior to Mid-season. Resurgence Casual (Mid-Season) 44 Players, Players & Bots Infil into Rebirth Island with your squad and commit to winning using the regular Resurgence ruleset, but with one important twist; some of your adversaries aren’t human! Whether facing down a bot or not, Resurgence Casual is a great mode to drop into whether you’re warming up, teaching a new player about the game, or you’re wanting a Resurgence match that isn’t quite as extreme as normal. As with Battle Royale Casual or Call of Duty: Warzone Bootcamp, game progression is limited in this mode and results will not count towards or against your stats. This mode also doesn’t count towards your eligibility to accessing Resurgence Ranked Play when it arrives at Mid-Season. Grind your way towards a coveted position in the Top 250 as Battle Royale: Ranked Play becomes the first of two Ranked Play variants to drop in Season 04 within Call of Duty: Warzone. Harness the competitive spirit and earn new rewards for ranking up and advancing through the Skill Divisions, unlocking the following rewards as you go: Season 04 BR Ranked Play Rewards First Season Win: Weapon Charm Get 25 Eliminations: Elimination Sticker Get 100 Eliminations: Elimination Weapon Camo Get 250 Eliminations: Elimination LR 7.62 Weapon Blueprint Silver: “Ranked Season 4 – Silver” Emblem Gold: “Ranked Season 4 – Gold” Emblem and Decal Platinum: “Ranked Season 4 – Platinum” Emblem and Decal Diamond: “Ranked Season 4 – Diamond” Emblem and Decal Crimson: “Ranked Season 4 – Crimson” Emblem and Decal Iridescent: “Ranked Season 4 – Iridescent” Emblem and Decal Top 250: “Ranked Season 4 – Top 250” Emblem and Decal Season 04 Champion: “Ranked Season 4 – Top 250 Champion” Emblem Ranked Play: Resurgence (Mid-Season) Trios, Rebirth Island Craving some real competition on Rebirth Island? Then squad up with your winning Trio, and attempt dominance over the very best players as Resurgence Ranked Play makes its triumphant return! Expect the same rules set you remember during the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare® III era, and an expanded look at this returning, fan-favorite mode in the Season 04 Reloaded blog, just prior to Mid-season. Ranked Play Notes: Battle Royale: Ranked Play (Verdansk) runs from Launch Window throughout the entirety of Season 04. Resurgence: Ranked Play (Rebirth Island) begins at Mid-Season, and runs alongside Battle Royale: Ranked Play, meaning you can play one or both Modes when they are active. The ranking is separate from Battle Royale: Ranked Play. A new Contract, Field Upgrade, Killstreak, Perk, and ATV are all set to drop into Verdansk during Season 04: Clash Mode Features Expansion (Mid-Season) After an evaluation period in Call of Duty: Warzone’s Clash Mode, expect the following new equipment to become available across additional modes at mid-season. Here’s what to expect: Contract: Search & Destroy: Battle Royale, Resurgence, Plunder. Field Upgrade: Door Barricade: Battle Royale, Battle Royale Casual Modes. Available via Care Package. Killstreak: Hand Cannon: Battle Royale, Battle Royale Casual, and Plunder Modes. Available via Care Package. Killstreak: Care Package (Mid-Season) Open ground loot caches for a rare chance to obtain the Care Package, a throwable Killstreak that, when lobbed, explodes into trail of smoke, after which a loadout-sized crate falls from the skies. Open this crate for a chance to obtain rare loot including rare equipment, the Specialist Perk, and more. New Perk: Loot Master (Mid-Season) Available only as Ground Loot during Resurgence and Plunder matches, the Loot Master Perk allows you to maximize your scavenging potential and gear up faster by increasing the amount of loot you find while opening caches. Gain the early advantage or sustain yourself during prolonged engagements. Expect an increased drop rate for equipped weapon ammo, a higher chance to find tacticals and lethals, more cash, and a greater chance at field upgrades, killstreaks, and other high-tier gear. ATV: Polaris Sportsman XP 1000 (Launch) Added to the vehicle pool is the Polaris Sportsman XP 1000, a real wild ride allowing you to hit the Verdansk goat trails in comfort with legendary suspension, great clearance and traction, and versatility for positioning up to three Operators on the surface of the vehicle. Compared to the current ATV, the wheelbase and size of the Sportsman XP 1000 offers more stability than ever before.  Note: Call of Duty: Warzone Events: Check the General section later in this blog to uncover the full complement of events for this mode across Season 04. General Content (MP, ZM, WZ) Call of Duty: General Content Summary (All Modes and Games) Weapons Detail: Five new weapons arrive in Season 04, including two at launch: the LC10 SMG and FFAR 1 Assault Rifle. Later in the season, get your hands on the , Essex Model 07 Marksman Rifle, Olympia Special weapon and Pickaxe Melee weapon, and change up your playstyle with new attachments. The Events Horizon: Season 04 is packed with Events, including Rivals, Ballerina (From the World of John Wick), and even more coming mid-season.. Plus, prove your worth across the Zombies leaderboards and become King of the Dead! Battle Pass and BlackCell: The Season 04 Battle Pass brings Stitch and brutal BlackCell Operator Omen to the forefront alongside new Weapon Blueprints, Operator Skins, Calling Cards, Finishing Moves, Emotes, and more in a mix of free and premium tiers. Free tiers include two new base weapons and the G-Grip Tactical Foregrip. Season 04 Operators: Stitch returns after being freed from prison, headlining the new Battle Pass next to the sinister Omen leading BlackCell. Plus, deploy as assassin Eve Macarro in a collaboration with Ballerina, followed by much more at the mid-season. CDL Announcements: Major IV is almost here! Find out where to watch, plus the in-game rewards you can unlock, just for tuning in! Primary Weapon: LC10 (Launch) SMG, Battle Pass Page 3, Page 14 Battle Pass Blueprint Levels: 38 MAGS: 4 MAG SIZE: 34 Mastery Badges: Yes Attachments: Optic, Muzzle, Barrel, Underbarrel, Magazine, Rear Grip, Stock, Laser, Fire Mods Customize Options: Skins, Camos and Reticle Unlocks (MP, ZM, WZ), Accessories (1), Decals (1), Stickers (3). Full-auto submachine gun. Excellent accuracy and range, with a moderate rate of fire. Average mobility and very slow handling for its class. Returning after its debut in Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War, the LC10 SMG spits out rounds fast coupled with good accuracy and range, moderate damage, and a quick reload to get you back into the fight. The weapon performs well off the hip or down sights, with 34 rounds in the base magazine for a hefty ammo supply. Via Gunsmith, equip a variety of improvements such as a Laser for improved hipfire spread and an updated Barrel to further extend the weapon’s respectable damage range. Primary Weapon: FFAR 1 (Launch) Assault Rifle, Battle Pass Page 6, Page 11 HVT Tier Battle Pass Blueprint Levels: 42 MAGS: 3 MAG SIZE: 30 Mastery Badges: Yes Attachments: Optic, Muzzle, Barrel, Underbarrel, Magazine, Rear Grip, Stock, Laser, Fire Mods Customize Options: Skins, Camo and Reticle Unlocks (MP, ZM, WZ), Accessories (1), Decals (1), Stickers (3).  Full-auto assault rifle. Very high rate of fire and excellent CQB power, but slower handling and mobility. Boasting a blazing fast fire rate that rivals the SMG weapon class, this bullpup Assault Rifle is designed for taking down targets fast. The somewhat unpredictable recoil favors burst fire when tackling distant targets, but once you’re locked on it’s all over for them. Supporting a variety of Underbarrel Launcher attachments, use Gunsmith to add greater versatility to the weapon. Running low on ammo? Grab an Extended Mag while you’re at it. Primary Weapon: Essex Model 07 (In-Season) Marksman Rifle, Event Reward Levels: 38 MAGS: 3 MAG SIZE: 8 Mastery Badges: Yes Attachments: Optic, Muzzle, Barrel, Underbarrel, Magazine, Lever, Stock, Laser, Fire Mods Customize Options: Skins, Camo and Reticle Unlocks (MP, ZM, WZ), Accessories (1), Decals (1), Stickers (3). Lever-action marksman rifle. High damage potential. Balanced by slower rate of fire and handling. Inflict heavy critical point damage with this lever-action tactical rifle. An ideal tool for the new sheriff in town, this classic armament offers smooth handling with shots that quickly recenter after kicking up. Choose from a variety of Levers to further customize the weapon’s action, improving ADS speed, sprint to fire speed, and other movement abilities.  Special Weapon: Olympia (Mid-Season) Special, Event Reward Levels: 30 MAGS: 8 MAG SIZE: 2 Mastery Badges: Yes Attachments: Barrel, Stock Customize Options: Skins, Camos (MP, ZM, WZ), Accessories (1), Decals (1), Stickers (3). Double-barrel shotgun. Very high damage and respectable range but requires frequent reloading. The double-barrel Olympia – not seen since Black Ops 3 – makes its debut in Black Ops 6, returning as a Special Weapon that makes for the perfect backup when entering tight spaces. The Olympia holds two shots at a time, each spraying multiple pellets when your Operator pulls the trigger. Light customization via the Short Barrel and Cut-Off Stock attachments gives you some control over the weapon’s playstyle, but the fundamentals remain the same: get up close and make your shots count. Fire down the sight for a tighter pellet spread or shoot off the hip to inflict damage over a wider area. Melee Weapon: Pickaxe (Mid-Season) Melee, Event Reward Levels: 30 Mastery Badges: Yes Attachments: None Customize Options: Skins. One-hit kill. Medium attack speed. Short range. Without a Pickaxe, you’ll be lost in the tundra. Bring the right tool for the job when deploying to Iceland in Season 04’s Multiplayer maps, starting with this deadly Melee weapon that downs unarmored enemies with brutal severity. Though its range is short, the Pickaxe’s combination of rapid slashes and overhead swipes will keep enemies frozen in their tracks. Close the distance and say farewell. G-Grip (Launch) SMGs (except PP-19), Assault Rifles, Battle Pass Page 7 Reward Vertical foregrip with integrated laser for improved firing stability, horizontal recoil control, and tightened spread when transitioning between hipfire and aiming down sights. Beam: Blue. Blocks Laser attachments. Stryder .22 3-Round Burst Mod (Launch) Stryder .22 Pistol, Event Reward Convert the Stryder .22 into a 3-round burst. Drastically improves fire rate and maintains manageable gun kick but alters the weapon’s damage profile outside of the effective range. SVD Full Auto Mod (In-Season) SVD Sniper Rifle, Event Reward Convert the SVD from semi-auto to full-auto functionality, ramping up the speed of your damage output and drastically improving recoil and handling. TR2 CQB Auto Conversion (In-Season) TR2 Marksman Rifle, Event Reward Alter the TR2 Marksman Rifle to fire handgun caliber rounds, resulting in a Marksman Rifle with a compact frame and fully automatic capabilities that rival fire rates of an SMG! Stitch Returns to Action in the Season 04 Battle Pass Stitch returns to the fray, leading this season’s Battle Pass content in a shocking team up with Adler. Purchase the Season 04 Battle Pass for 1,100 COD Points or the Season 04 Battle Pass Bundle for 2,400 COD Points to immediately unlock the Instant Rewards Page of the Battle Pass, including the following items: 10% Battle Pass XP Boost The new “Supermax” Stitch Operator and “Supermax BlackCell” Stitch Operator Skin for those who purchase BlackCell The “Lock Up” Legendary Blueprint for the Feng 82 LMG The “Try Me!” Emote The “Untamable” Large Decal Start to unlock up to 1,100 COD Points as you progress through the Battle Pass The Season 04 Battle Pass includes over 110 pieces of unlockable content (excluding BlackCell) including two new Base Weapons, the G-Grip Tactical Foregrip Attachment, and several unlockable mil-sim style skins for Bailey, Payne, Grey, Caine, Brutus, Toro, Adler, Nazir, and Marshall. Stay tuned for the BlackCell, Battle Pass and Store Bundles blog prior to Season 04 launch for more details. BlackCell Offerings When the job needs to get done, summon Omen, the otherworldly Operator leading BlackCell content in Season 04. The menacing Operator and his three-headed guard dog are joined by a cast of infected, black and purple-hued Operator Skins and Weapon Blueprints earned exclusively through BlackCell. BlackCell owners can access the Season 04 Battle Pass via the exclusive BlackCell Page, instantly unlocking the following items: The “Omen” BlackCell Operator and Skin 10% XP Boost 1,100 COD Points The “Guard Dog” Companion Finishing Move The “Hellblock” Mastercraft Blueprint for the Ladra SMG The “Kill Tally” Gun Screen The “BlackCell” Clan Tag (showcased in Lobbies and Winner’s Circles) BlackCell owners get access to page after page of additional exclusive rewards within the Season 04 Battle Pass, including: Seven BlackCell-exclusive skins for Stitch (two skins), Bailey, Payne, Caine, Brutus, and Adler.  Seven BlackCell-exclusive Weapon Blueprints for the Krig C (Assault Rifle), XMG (LMG), SWAT 5.56 (Marksman Rifle), ASG-98 (Shotgun), FFAR 1 (Assault Rifle), Model L (Assault Rifle), LC10 (SMG) Over 130 item rewards (Battle Pass and BlackCell related) for those who fully complete the Season 04 BlackCell Battle Pass. As usual, players who upgrade to BlackCell after purchasing the Battle Pass will also receive back the COD Points they spent. BlackCell Daily Challenges: Players with BlackCell will receive additional Daily Challenges throughout Season 04 for Multiplayer, Zombies, and Call of Duty: Warzone, giving even more chances to rake in the XP during your play sessions! BlackCell Loyalty Bonus: Players who purchased BlackCell in a previous Black Ops 6season and go on to purchase Season 04 BlackCell will earn a permanent 10% Player and Weapon XP Loyalty Bonus, up to 30% for players who purchased Season 01, Season 02, and Season 03 BlackCell! The return of Stitch signals a shift in the battles ahead, requiring new Operators to meet the demands of the intensifying conflict. Predict a swift demise for your opponents with Omen leading BlackCell, joined by Stitch at the head of the Battle Pass plus a special appearance by Eve Macarro from Ballerina. Omen (BlackCell, Crimson One, Launch) “Omen” Operator: BlackCell Instant Reward Page It’s time for lockdown. Omen is a presence who strikes fear even in the world’s most dangerous criminals, with an almost preternatural ability to keep even the most sinister prisoners in line. Stitch (Battle Pass, Rogue Black Ops, Launch) “Supermax” and “Yard Dog” Skins: Battle Pass Instant Reward Page, Battle Pass Completion Page Until recently, Stitch was assumed dead. Instead of eliminating his enemy, however, Adler sent him off to a black site prison. Now the time has come, and following a daring jailbreak, Stitch is once again free. Adler needs his help cracking the codenames that will finally lead to the Pantheon moles, but at what cost? Ballerina (Bundle, Crimson One, In-Season) Store Bundle Seeking revenge for her slain father, Eve Macarro embarks on a relentless mission against the High Table’s most feared opponents in Ballerina, the highly anticipated new action film from the World of John Wick. Deploy as the elite assassin in one of two looks in the Ballerina Bundle arriving in Season 04. Participate in a new round of scheduled Events across Multiplayer, Zombies, and Call of Duty: Warzone. Earn rewards like new weapons, special attachments, and more. Here’s a first look at the Events to come (with more announcements in the Season 04 Reloaded blog): Event: Ballerina (MP, ZM, WZ, In-Season) Activation Dates: June 5 to June 12 Total Rewards: 10 (+ One BlackCell reward) Enter the world of John Wick with the new Ballerina Event. Prove your capabilities as a supreme assassin by slaying your way across Multiplayer, Zombies, and Call of Duty: Warzone. Rewards include the new Essex Model 07 Marksman Rifle and a Ballerina-themed Nunchuck Melee Blueprint for BlackCell Owners. Event: Rivals (MP, ZM, WZ, In-Season) Activation Dates: June 12 to June 26 Total Rewards: 15 (+ One BlackCell reward) Enemies become allies in the Rivals Event, when Stitch brings his code-cracking expertise to help uncover the real names of the final Pantheon moles in the CIA. The goal is simple; prove you’re the most proficient Operator by earning XP across all game modes and unlock a plethora of impressive free items. Dominate your enemies to become the first to unlock rewards including the Stryder .22 3-Round Burst Mod (Attachment) and Grim Reaper (Scorestreak). Events: King of the Dead, Master of Grief (Zombies, Mid-Season) Activation Dates (King of the Dead): June 26 to July 3 Activation Dates (Master of Grief): July 10 to July 17 King of the Dead: “Eliminate zombies in any Zombie mode to earn points to climb the leaderboard.” Master of Grief: “Collect Essence in Grief to earn points to climb the leaderboard.” Earn points by slaying all types of undead! As you’d expect, you receive more points for dispatching the harder zombie types. This, in turn, causes you to climb the Zombies leaderboard, and once the Event is over, rewards will be granted based on your leaderboard position. Everyone receives some kind of reward, but to obtain the really good stuff, it’s time to perfect your Special and Elite Zombies slaying!  Season 04 brings new Bundles to the Store, including a special crossover event with Ballerina. Get more intel in the Season 04 BlackCell, Battle Pass, and Bundles blog arriving before launch. Tracer Pack: Ballerina Choose one of two Operator Skins for Eve, a red sequin dress as “Eve Macarro” or a sleek black professional fit as the “Ruska Rogue.” Bring light to the darkness with three Legendary Weapon Blueprints featuring High Table Coin Tracers and High Table Coin Death FX: the “Relevé” AK-74 Assault Rifle, “Plié” Saug SMG, and the “Arabesque” 9MM PM Pistol. For a snazzier elimination, take them out with the “Dance With Death” Finishing Move. Balance lethality and elegance with additional Ballerina themed content, including the “Pirouette” Emote, “Keepsake” Weapon Charm, animated “Caged Grace” Emblem, animated “Pas de Duex Calling Card, and the “Take a Bow” Loading Screen. Tracer Pack: Ink and Smoke Reactive Ultra Skin Add some class to your deployments with the cel-shaded, black and greyscale “Hardboiled” Ultra Operator Skin for Weaver, accompanied by the Reactive “Lethal Inspection” AMES 85 Assault Rifle and “Personal Detective” ASG-89 Shotgun Weapon Blueprints, both featuring Noir Tracers and Ink Annihilation Death FX. For a closer finish, leap for their throats using the “Wire Cut” Finishing Move. When taking on the undead, equip the “Search Engine” Wonder Weapon skin for the Thrustodyne M23 and show off your Zombies credentials with the “Sidepiece” Weapon Charm, “Dead Noir” Weapon Sticker, “Evidence” Spray, “Greyscale” Loading Screen, and the consumable Time Out GobbleGum. Other Incoming Bundles There’s plenty more awesome new content arriving in the Season 04 Store, including the “Tracer Pack: Olympus Bolt Mastercraft Ultra Skin” Bundle, featuring an electrifying Mastercraft Weapon Blueprint for the new LC10 SMG alongside a divine Ultra Operator Skin for Caine. Also incoming is the “Tracer Pack: System Breach” Bundle, and the “Tracer Pack: The Goat Ultra Skin” Bundle with a Goat Companion Finishing Move. See more of the season’s upcoming Bundles and more in the Season 04 BlackCell, Battle Pass, and Store Bundle blog. Call of Duty League, the pinnacle of competitive Call of Duty, is bringing its fourth and final Major of the season to the DreamHack Dallas show floor. Guests with a CDL add-on ticket can watch Major IV live, where the 12 Call of Duty League teams will battle it out for the final CDL points to qualify for 2025 Call of Duty League Championship in June. Ensure you get into the action by tuning in and watching Major IV live on YouTube. Be sure to link your YouTube account with your Activision ID Account to earn some special viewership rewards (shown above). Click here for more intel. The event starts at 10:300 AM PT Friday, May 23, and continuing at 10:30 AM PT Saturday May 24 with the Finals beginning at 10:30 AM PT Sunday May 25.  Black Ops 6 is available now, and now’s definitely the time to experience the spy action thriller Campaign, the in-depth tactical chaos of best-in-class Multiplayer, and to soak in the gory glory of an incredible round-based Zombies experience with five maps and the brand-new Grief mode! Click here to Purchase Black Ops 6. © 2025 Activision Publishing, Inc. ACTIVISION, CALL OF DUTY, CALL OF DUTY WARZONE, MODERN WARFARE, CALL OF DUTY LEAGUE, and CALL OF DUTY BLACK OPS are trademarks of Activision Publishing, Inc. All other trademarks and trade names are the property of their respective owners. For more information, please visit www.callofduty.com and www.youtube.com/callofduty, and follow @Activision and @CallofDuty on X, Instagram, and Facebook. For Call of Duty Updates, follow @CODUpdates on X. ®, TM & © 2025 Lions Gate Entertainment Inc. and related companies. All Rights Reserved.

Russell Adler didn’t eliminate Vikhor “Stitch” Kuzmin after all, instead confining the villain to an Icelandic black site prison as insurance for a rainy day. That day has come as Adler and crew free their former foe, their only chance to finally crack the Pantheon codenames. Witness the return of Stitch in the massive Season 04 update for Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 and Call of Duty: Warzone, bringing new maps, modes, weapons, and more. Season 04 launches May 29 on PS5 and PS4. Play Video Multiplayer overview New Core 6v6 Maps Shutdown (Launch): Shut off the power to the prison with an attack on a hydroelectric dam in Iceland. Fight over the rugged terrain, dive into the lake, and battle around the damaged turbine. Fugitive (Launch): With the power cut, it’s time to break Stitch out of the black site prison. Infiltrate the frozen compound, climbing, ziplining, and battling over the grounds and in the cell block where alarms warn of the jailbreak. New 2v2/6v6 Strike Maps Blitz (Launch): Traffic comes to a halt as Pantheon agents race towards the prison but get ambushed by the Rogue team. Duck under the bridge for quick cover or trek the cliffside seeking enemy targets. Eclipse (Mid-Season): Stitch arrives in Avalon, slipping into an underground nightclub to discuss business. Battle in the neon lights down the halls and over the dance stage. Remaster, Core 6v6 Map Fringe (Mid-Season): Revisit Fringe, originally featured in Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 and coming to Black Ops 6 reimagined as the grand opening of the Rolling Hills distillery. New Multiplayer Modes Team Elimination (Launch): This twist on Kill Confirmed gives both teams a limited number of lives each round. Eliminated players drop a dog tag on death that can be picked up by the enemy to confirm the kill and drain the opposing team’s remaining lives, or by a teammate to prevent the action. One in the Chamber (Launch Window): One pistol, one bullet, a knife, and three lives. Eliminate enemies to earn more bullets in this Black Ops classic. Party Ops (In-Season): Get the party started in a new Limited-Time Mode arriving later in the season dropping players into a randomized set of themed minigames. Now launching: The Grim Reaper Scorestreak: Grim Reaper (Event Reward): The quad-tube loaded Launcher returns from the original Black Ops, inflicting heavy explosive damage on enemy Operators and Scorestreaks alike.   Zombies overview Returning Mode: Grief (Launch) The fan-favorite competitive Zombies mode returns! This 4v4 indirect PvP mode pits S.A.M. against Director Richtofen as teams pledge their support for one or the other, receiving handler comms guiding them throughout the match. Secure Capture Zones to thwart the enemy with modifiers including reduced damage, drained ammo, slowed movements, and more.  Put your Zombies talents to the test in this mode while competing against real players attempting to survive longer than you and your squad.  New Ammo Mod, GobbleGums, Grim Reaper  Ammo Mod: Shatter Blast: Modify your ammo to explode on contact, dealing armor-piercing damage in a blast radius. Research Major and Minor Augments to specialize Shatter Blast’s abilities in all-new ways. Three New GobbleGums: Chew on Explosive Flourish to trigger an area-of-effect explosion around your Operator when reloading. Pop Flavor Hex to activate a random Ultra GobbleGum, and force eliminated zombies to belch sparkly rainbow bubbles via Rainburps. Grim Reaper: Build the new Support weapon at the Crafting Table and blast those zombies to bits! New Challenges and LTMs Expect an influx of Dark Ops Challenges awarding Calling Cards and bounteous amounts of XP for those able to complete the secret challenges. Play new Limited-Time Modes, including the Starting Room LTM and Abomination Challenge LTM later in the season. Call of Duty: Warzone Overview New Point of Interest: The Overlook Battle up and down The Overlook, a new skyscraper under construction in Downtown. Burger Town and the SKN Comm tower have been demolished to make way for the building. Two cranes flank the dominant POI and checkpoints line the entrances. Work your way from ground level including the relocated Burger Town up to the Penthouse and Roof, or latch onto an ascender and get some serious height. New Limited-Time Modes Clash (Launch): Two teams of 52 drop into a specific POI within Verdansk. With no Circle Collapse and instant access to your Loadouts, be the first team to earn 500 points by eliminating enemies, completing contracts, and participating in Public Events. Earn upgrades like the new Door Barricade Field Upgrade and the Hand Cannon, spend cash to activate SAM Turrets, and earn powerups that alter the course of the match. Havoc Royale (Mid-Season): Compete in a Resurgence mode where modifiers bend the rules in game-changing ways. Survive the havoc, be the last team standing, and claim victory! Resurgence Casual (Mid-Season): Drop into a Resurgence match mixing human players and bots. A great mode for warming up, teaching new players about the game, or just chilling out. Mid-Season Loadout Items  Care Package: Deploy this rare throwable to summon an aerial drop with the chance to obtain rare equipment, the Specialist Perk, and more. Perk: Loot Master: Available only in Resurgence and Plunder, gear up faster by increasing the amount of loot you find while opening caches, including an increased drop rate for equipped weapon ammo, Tacticals and Lethals, cash, Field Upgrades, Killstreaks, and other high-tier gear. General Overview New Weapons: In the Battle Pass, unlock two rapid fire weapons in the LC10 SMG and the FFAR 1 Assault Rifle. Earn more across multiple seasonal events including the lever-action Essex Model 07 Marksman Rifle, Olympia Special weapon, and the Pickaxe Melee weapon. New Attachments: Lock in with the G-Grip Tactical Foregrip available on most SMGs and Assault Rifles. Get three weapon conversions, including a burst conversion for the Stryder. 22 Pistol and full-auto conversions for the SVD Sniper Rifle and TR2 Marksman Rifle. Events & Ranked Play Earn additional rewards across several in-season events, including coveted items like the Essex Model 07 Marksman Rifle, Stryder .22 3-Round Burst Mod, and the Grim Reaper Scorestreak. Plus, compete in a new season of Ranked Play for Multiplayer and Call of Duty: Warzone, including Ranked Play: Battle Royale and, in Mid-Season, Ranked Play: Resurgence. Play using a competitive ruleset and earn new seasonal rewards based on the highest Rank obtained in the season. Season 04 Battle Pass & Store Content Purchase the Battle Pass to immediately unlock rewards including a seasonal 10% Battle Pass XP Boost, the new “Supermax” Stitch Operator Skin, and more, providing access to over 110 pieces of unlockable content. Plus, earn up to 1,100 COD Points as you progress through the Battle Pass Pages. Get even more with BlackCell. Look for exciting new Store Bundles including the cel-shaded Tracer Pack: Ink and Smoke plus the Tracer Pack: System Breach, Tracer Pack: Olympus Bolt, and much more. Season 04 launches May 29 Black Ops 6 is available now on PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 4. Experience the spy action thriller Campaign, the in-depth tactical chaos of Multiplayer, and soak in the gory glory of round-based Zombies.

Rome wasn’t built in a day (Ubisoft) The fan favourite city-building series takes a welcome step back in time to second century Rome, as Anno 117 puts you in control of ancient Britain. Ubisoft’s Anno series, of historical city building sims, has quietly become one of the games industry’s hardiest perennials. Since 1998, it has mostly occupied a time period between the 15th and 19th centuries, albeit with two excursions into the future. Now, with Anno 117 (the eighth mainline instalment of the franchise), it is poised to take a large step back in time, to when the Roman Empire was in full swing and enjoying a period of extended peace. This is important because, as Anno players will be aware, the series is all about building, not fighting. We were given the chance to spend roughly three hours playing the new game, via Ubisoft’s streaming service on PC. Coming from the frenetic action of Doom: The Dark Ages, it felt like an oasis of tranquillity, with its considered gameplay requiring lots of thought and plenty of planning, along with a certain amount of waiting around for essential materials to be manufactured. As with all previous Anno games, it is very much a game for builders rather than destroyers. Given the technological sophistication of the Roman Empire – particularly by the time it had reached the second century AD – it’s surprising that the Anno franchise hadn’t previously explored the time period, but it’s obvious from the start that it’s a good fit. In the full game you’ll be given a choice between two areas of the Roman Empire, in which to establish your colony: Latium (an uncharted Mediterranean area which looks to be off the coast of Italy) or Albion – that is, what is now known as Britain. Much as we would have liked to have amazed the backwards natives by building a shiny Roman city on British shores, the constraints of the preview dictated that we would instead build in Latium. As such, our ship pitched up at a pristine, procedurally generated Mediterranean island, complete with a beach which could be developed into a port, flat land for farming, plenty of forests, a prominent river, and some mountains which could be mined. The first task – since we were taking on the position of governor of the new city – was to build a governor’s villa to accompany the trading post that had already been built on the beach. Once that was done, the from-scratch city-building started in earnest. Raw materials are obviously key, so a woodcutting operation was needed in the nearest forest, which has to be connected up to the trading post by road. As ever in a city-building game, close control over the network of roads is essential. Anno 117’s road-building system is exemplary – intelligent enough to let you curve roads to your satisfaction and snap them easily to form the connections they need to make. With a woodcutter and a sawmill constructed, and wood therefore in plentiful supply, we could then start building a number of homes for the workers who form the lifeblood of the city. Build those homes and you’re able to establish a workforce. In its early stages, Anno 117’s tutorial makes its objectives clear: you need to build 10 houses to establish that workforce. Unfulfilled criteria are clearly marked with little warning flags; Anno 117, mercifully, isn’t one of those strategy games which seems happy to leave you confused. After completing the tutorial, we were never at a loss as to what to do and the tutorial itself felt logical rather than manufactured. With our first residential area constructed and hooked up via a road network, we could start turning our attention to the needs of our burgeoning populace. Food, obviously, was required, so we built a fishery and established a wheat farm, along with a bakery and a porridge kitchen. We then began to have little interactions, as governor, with our inhabitants. We unlocked the ability to build a market and a tavern in the residential quarter, which bring helpful area effects. Pleasingly, what was now transforming from a village into a town began to exhibit some bustle, with carts of timber moving around and residents going about their daily work and heading to the tavern afterwards. Ancient Albion on the fringes of the Empire (Ubisoft) Our next task was to attract some more sophisticated, educated residents, by fulfilling a number of criteria in order to upgrade the basic housing. This brought considerations like fashion into the mix, by establishing a hemp farm and setting up a cloth-spinner. More sophisticated building materials such as tiles were also required, so we built a charcoal kiln and, on one of the river slots highlighted in the game’s geography, cleared a clay heap As that extended the city limits somewhat, it was necessary to build another warehouse. And we had to keep an eye on the mix of our population, between the basic Liberti and the more sophisticated Plebeians, by building more houses and upgrading some of them. Now that our town was really starting to take shape a level of exploration and interaction with other nearby enclaves came into play, with governors of nearby provinces appearing – giving us opportunities to indulge in diplomacy. Other residents then started asking to be ferried around the world map in the starting ship, which had previously remained moored as we established the basic structure of our town. More Trending During the tutorial period, we had concentrated on establishing a basic settlement rather than engaging in trade, so had been forced at one point to accept a loan from our superior in Rome. As the game progresses, trading becomes an increasingly important mechanism in the push to build a more sophisticated city. At this point you are given the ability to not only establish trade routes but also set religious criteria, by picking a preferred god to worship from the Roman pantheon. Even three hours in, we were quite happy with the progress we had made towards imposing a decent level of civilisation upon previously uninhabited territory. Those initial three hours with Anno 117: Pax Romana proved very satisfying and enjoyable. Although the series predates the phrase cosy game, it’s definitely that, while also being reminiscent of even older franchises like The Settlers (now also owned by Ubisoft). For a city builder, Anno 117 fells pretty exemplary in terms of its interface, which is clear and logical. It looks great and, with the local interactions and the trade route engine, offers more gameplay variety than most similar games. At the moment, it hasn’t been given a specific release date, but Ubisoft has said that it will come out this year on both consoles and PC. Formats: Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 5, and PCPublisher: UbisoftDeveloper: Ubisoft MainzRelease Date: 2025 Ocean trading is an important gameplay element (Ubisoft) Email gamecentral@metro.co.uk, leave a comment below, follow us on Twitter, and sign-up to our newsletter. To submit Inbox letters and Reader’s Features more easily, without the need to send an email, just use our Submit Stuff page here. For more stories like this, check our Gaming page. GameCentral Sign up for exclusive analysis, latest releases, and bonus community content. 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The Internet has greatly shortened product life cycles. Objects that stood the test of time offer lessons for today. So do designs that are intentionally ephemeral.Designing applications or websites means your designs don’t survive very long. Even if your product or app survives for a decade or more, there will be pressure to update the design every few years. This got me wondering how long designs of other things stay around. So here is a curated survey of how long our designs survive.Sticky NotesThe sticky note… a lab experiment gone awry(average lifespan: several hours) — The ubiquitous sticky note famously emerged from a lab experiment gone awry. Glue that wasn’t very sticky. Although sticky notes have been around for 45 years, the life of any single sticky note is probably measured in hours, not days. Nevertheless they have been a boon to brainstorming sessions and design sprints around the world. Their ephemeral nature is the key to their value. Don’t like what you wrote? Throw it out and write another one. Don’t think it belongs in this group? Move it to another. Sticky notes are the rare object that is as easily used digitally as their physical counterparts.Sand MandalaA finished sand mandala — Attribution: By the original uploader was Colonel Warden at English Wikipedia. — Transferred from en.wikipedia to Commons by SMasters using CommonsHelper., CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=16371236(in use for a few days or weeks) — A sand mandala is a symbolic representation of the universe made of colored sand. Creating them is a ceremonial act practiced by Tibetan monks and nuns and takes a few days to several weeks to create. Constructing one is an act of meditation requiring immense focus. After the mandala is finished, it is on view for only a short period of time. It is then destroyed in a dissolution ceremony meant to emphasize the impermanence of all things. Finally the sand is released into a river to transfer the spirits embodied in the mandala back into nature and the rest of the world.The first time I saw a video of this process, it shocked my world. The design was vivid, ornate, and beautiful. To see something so beautiful then destroyed by the people who made it jolted me. When swept into a pile, the vivid pigments quickly become a single gray mass. They are an amazing lesson about the nature of our lives and the world of things.WebsitesThe SF bay area edition of Craigslist.com barely changed from when it launched in 1995!(in use for 32 years) — The lifespan of your average website is about 2 years according to this post. Many sites are up for much longer but even those tend to need a refresh. Craigslist is the notable exception by still proudly sporting its original 1995 web 1.0 look and feel. I’ve worked on around 14 websites and apps. Of those, only 2 (7%) are live and still reflect the design I worked on. As dominant as the Internet is in today’s culture, “built to last” simply does not apply. Permanence is an anti-pattern.Thonet №14 ChairThe Thonet №14 Chair — Attribution: This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.(in use for 166 years) — Michael Thonet’s №14 Chair is a design classic. Simple and minimal. Introduced in 1859, It was the first chair to be mass produced but does not look like an industrial product. It is sometimes called the cafe chair due to its strong association with Parisian cafes. It was also sometimes referred to as the “lion-tamer chair”. You can see one in use in this post.BicycleThe ‘Flying Pigeon’ bicycle. Since the 1950s, over 500 million of these bikes have been produced and sold.(in use for 208 years) — The bicycle was invented in Germany and introduced in Paris around 1817. It is an amazing design object matched only by its engineering simplicity. The basic triangular geometry is minimal, strong, and still recognizable 200 years after being invented. There have been many improvements to the underlying technologies but the basic design remains.BuildingsThe Pantheon of Rome — Attribution: By Macrons — Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=49683083The Pantheon in Rome was completed around 126 AD and has been in continuous use for almost 2000 years. It is widely considered the oldest building still in continuous use today. It began as a Roman temple. For the ceiling of the Parthenon, the Romans used cement mixed with ash which kept it light but strong. In the 7th century, it became a Christian church, the Basilica of St. Mary and the Martyrs. Adaptive reuse helped preserve it through centuries of war, weather, and regime changes.“Built to last” is a phrase sometimes used for things like old cars, buildings, and walls. It certainly applies to the pyramids and the Pantheon. It is much less frequently applied to objects today. It doen’t apply to the majority of objects we use in our daily lives. Consumer culture has driven us towards a throw away culture. This impacts the environment and our ability to build things to last.What does it take to build something that will last?This is a question asked by Louis Kahn, one of the great American architects. His Exeter Library is his answer. He wanted to pursue an architecture that would stand the test of time. He wanted to build something that would be monumental, strong and, like the pyramids, remain beautiful even in ruin.The interior of the Phillips Exeter Academy Library showing the raw, monumental cement building structure. Image source: https://www.reddit.com/r/ArchitecturePornCities(in use for 11,000 years) — The title of oldest continuously inhabited city is a subject of debate but Damascus is often credited as the oldest city still in use today. Jericho is older but was not in continuous use. Jerusalem & Athens both date back about 5000 years. From a design perspective, I marvel at Venice. It’s been in existence for over 1000 years. Its lasting beauty is amazing when you realize it was originally built to escape invaders on the mainland. The buildings, plazas, along with the canals and bridges that connect them are an amazing experience.The Bucentaur Returns to the Pier at the Doge’s Palace (c. 1730) by Canaletto — Attribution: Google Arts & Culture — mwEV7sO9uSFCpw, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=22572210Mortar & PestleThe mortar & pestle — symbol of the pharmacist — Attribution: Image by Evan-Amos — Own work, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=12038229Beyond using our teeth, we’ve been grinding up food and other materials for about 37,000 years. The Mortar & Pestle was likely used initially to prepare grains and seeds to be more digestible but they had many other uses.They are still widely used today (guacamole anyone?) and have come to symbolize the pharmaceutical profession. As someone who cooks, I’m glad we figured out ground spices makes tastier dishes.Pyramids(built 4000 years ago) — The Great Pyramid of Giza was the tallest human-made structure in the world for 3800 years. I’m including pyramids for age reference only. How long they’ve been “in use” raises tricky questions. Should we measure use by the initial construction; as amazing ruins we only look at; or as a tomb for a dead pharaoh? They certainly were amazing feats of engineering.Bow & arrow / stone arrowheads(in use for 37,000–74,000 years) — These two designs are best taken as a connected journey. Arrows are an evolution of the stone-tipped spear. The bow & arrow was a leap in the efficiency and precision of throwing a spear. The innovation allowed hunters to remain farther away from their prey. The bow, arrow, and stone arrowhead built on the previous technology (an interesting concept known as “the adjacent possible” richly described by Steven Johnson in, ‘Where Good Ideas Come From’). Each element required an increase in precision and skill and offered advances over the previous tool. Older arrowheads were mostly focused on the general shape and cutting edges. Later versions were shaped to be more firmly lashed to wooden spears. As the first to enter the battlefield, U.S. Marines sometimes refer to themselves as, “the tip of the spear”. A 74,000 year old metaphor that is still understandable today.Hand axeIllustration of a hand axe.Imagine designing a product that was so good it was used for a million years. That’s 1,000,000 years! I remember seeing a hand axe in the “Tools: Extending Our Reach” exhibit at the Smithsonian’s Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum. I pondered it as a design object that dwarfed my career as a designer. The hand axe is a physical testament to both the slowness of early hominid evolution and the enduring utility of the object. The key innovation was the ever more skilled chipping away of flakes to create the cutting edge. Older versions of the axe are barely recognizable as being intentionally created. Later versions however, show two distinct functional requirements. The part that you held needed to be broad and round so as to be comfortable in the hand. While “the business end” had sharp, carefully-shaped cutting edges. I marvel at anything being used for this incomprehensible span of time.Final thoughts“If you want to go quickly, go alone. But if you want to go far, go together.” — African ProverbAs I wrote this post, I thought about the lessons of these very different objects. Here are my takeaways.Monumental acts take monumental teams — It takes incredible effort by many people to build something that has great impact and will last. Monumental achievements are never accomplished by one person. Each hand axe was likely created by one person but the concept we now know as the hand axe happened over a million years of usage. Venice is a singular experience. But building it required the work of many people over centuries.Adaptation is key to survival — The Pantheon survived in part because it is a space flexible in use. If your designs are to survive, you must hand them off to others. Loving caretakers are as important as passionate creators.Celebrate the ephemeral — Sand mandalas and sticky notes allow us to create something without becoming too attached to it. Having worked on lots of long-term projects, I’ve always found making dinner to be a positive antidote. Chopping vegetables can be meditative. A meal is finished in an hour or 2 and then you get to enjoy the creation. Simple acts are still creative.A graph showing how long these designs have been use. The hand axe was excluded because its million years of use reduces the other objects to tiny, barely visible bars.ReferenceTimeline of oldest human inventions — WikipediaOldest still standing buildings — WikipediaHow long designs survive was originally published in UX Collective on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

When we look at the relationship between 73-year-old legendary football coach Bill Belichick and his girlfriend and business partner, 24-year-old Jordon Hudson, it’s hard to know exactly what we’re seeing. Two grown-ups in love forging a dynamic business partnership? Elder abuse, as some have wildly speculated? Or is it, as the vitriolic comments in Hudson’s social media posts would have it, good old-fashioned gold digging? Gold digging is a misogynistic and retro term, but this scandal is a retro one. It’s a bizarre, slightly off-putting mystery that fits remarkably well into our current age of newly regressive gender politics.Hudson and Belichick, the six-time Super Bowl-winning former NFL coach, met on a flight in 2021 and went public with their relationship last December. While their nearly 50-year age gap has raised eyebrows amid observers, the scandal has only grown as Hudson has taken on an increasingly central role in Belichick’s professional world. It’s a bizarre, slightly off-putting mystery that fits remarkably well into our current age of newly regressive gender politics.Belichick requested Hudson be cc’ed on all publicity and media emails about him at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he is now a college football coach. In public records, she’s listed as the manager of several companies that appear to be tied to Belichick. Insider accounts say she essentially cast herself in a Dunkin Donuts commercial in which Belichick appeared, and that she blocked a docuseries about Belichick’s career. But speculation around the relationship reached a fever pitch when Hudson interrupted during Belichick’s interview on CBS Sunday Morning in April. “How did you guys meet?” host Tony Dokoupil asked Belichick, referring to Hudson. “We’re not talking about this,” Hudson cut in tersely from off-camera. “Jordon was a constant presence during our interview,” Dokoupil informs viewers in voiceover, in a moment that launched a thousand TikTok reaction videos. In the midst of this controversy, the couple has been manufacturing social media content about their relationship that isn’t alarming so much as it is lightly uncanny, especially given Belichick’s famously gruff public persona. On Hudson’s Instagram account, she has posted beachside pictures of herself balancing athletically on Belichick’s outstretched legs, and of Belichick, dressed as a fisherman, reeling in a mermaid-tailed Hudson from the surf. (“Ouucchhhh!!!” goes the caption on that one.)A few have defended the relationship between Belichick and Hudson. Sports media personality Colin Cowherd has said that Hudson’s choice to hop into Belichick’s interview was normal for PR directors, if “kind of a cringy thing.” Right-wing sports outlet The Outkick has rallied to Hudson’s side on the grounds that she triggers the libs, saying, “If Jordon wants to spend her weekends at Bill’s house on Nantucket, soaking up the sun and enjoying Cisco Brewery on Bill’s dime, I say GO FOR IT.” But the most common reaction to the spectacle of Hudson and Belichick’s relationship is the one outlined by sports media personality Katie Nolan on a podcast in February: This is weird and seems like it has sinister undertones.“We’re already going, ‘You’re how much younger than him?’ And then you show up in a commercial. And then you hear that she’s in charge in his career.” Nolan said. “It seems like you could be taking advantage of the guy. And he’s obviously taking advantage of the girl.” Notably, it doesn’t appear to be much of a head-scratcher why a powerful septuagenarian would choose to be with a recent college graduate and pageant contestant. But the nefarious reason implied about why Hudson wants to be with Belichick is the one people are misogynistically and freely throwing around: gold digger.The resurgence of the gold digger I don’t know anything about Hudson and Belichick’s private relationship, and most likely, neither do you. I don’t want to make any claims about who is using whom or what their private life is like. But as a feminist pop culture critic, I am interested to see the term “gold digger” swim back up from the collective unconsciousness again, ready and willing to go to work. There’s something almost old-fashioned about it. The last time “gold digger” was thrown around in pop culture so much was when teenager Courtney Stodden skyrocketed to fame in 2011 after they got married at age 16 to 51-year-old actor Doug Hutchison. Stodden would later describe their marriage as one characterized by grooming and sexual assault. Before that, the great pop culture gold digger was Anna Nicole Smith, the model turned paparazzi obsession who married oil tycoon J. Howard Marshall II in 1994. Since Smith’s untimely death in 2007, she’s found a place in the pantheon of wronged women of the 1990s, someone we came to believe over the last decade was publicly mistreated — in part by her tarring as a gold digger. “It’s a bit provincial to look down one’s nose at a woman wanting something from a man and give a pass to a man who arguably would have never given her a second glance had she not been a beautiful, blonde Playboy Playmate,” essayist and sex work activist Laura LeMoon argued in 2023, writing about Smith in Salon. “Rather than singling out and condemning Anna Nicole Smith, we should be pointing our fingers at the inequities and systemic failures that put people like me and Smith in positions where obtaining money and resources from men, directly or indirectly, is our best option for survival.”“Gold digger” is a euphemism that allows us as a culture to talk around those systemic failures. It’s a way to deride women when they take seriously the idea that their financial well-being should depend on their relationships with men. So it’s odd to see the term becoming so popular during a moment when popular culture has become rather infatuated with the idea that life is most pleasant, simple, and straightforward when women’s finances do depend on romantic relationships with men.TikTok is full of tradwives explaining how their lives became better once they got out of the 9-to-5 grind to make cereal from scratch for their children and let their husbands do the breadwinning. (That the most successful of the tradwife influencers are actually the primary breadwinners in their homes is an irony the influencers themselves seldom discuss.) Or there are the stay-at-home girlfriends cooing over how taking care of their boyfriends without even the financial safety net of a marriage contract has been their ticket to the soft life. The gold digger is the tradwife as seen through a funhouse mirror: a woman living off her ability to attract a man, only here done crassly.Meanwhile, some of President Donald Trump’s most vocal supporters are arguing that his tariffs will force women out of the workforce and make them once again financially dependent on men, either through marriage or through sex work, life paths these men treat as equivalent. Trump’s appeal to the dream of a lost American manufacturing economy is a nostalgic one. It’s an appealing fantasy to some of his more incel-adjacent fans: that under this economy, the sexes will revert to an older, allegedly more natural economic relationship, one in which women trade their sexuality and childrearing capabilities to men in exchange for financial security. The gold digger is the tradwife as seen through a funhouse mirror: a woman living off her ability to attract a man, only here done crassly, without the show of love to soften the crude edges of the transaction. The gold digger is simply a figure we can blame for how uncomfortable this dynamic makes us feel, without having to think through just what is so uncomfortable about it. So if we’re angry at Jordon Hudson, it’s worth asking the question: Are we angry with her, or with the fact that powerful people want to make gold digging one of a woman’s most viable career paths again?See More:

“How Zeke Got Religion” In 2019, Deadpool and Terminator: Dark Fate director Tim Miller launched Love, Death & Robots, an animated Netflix anthology series serving as a showcase for Miller’s own Blur Studio, along with other animators. The series has won a Primetime Emmy for each of its three seasons, which feature an eclectic mix of six- to 20-minute shorts spanning horror, science fiction, and fantasy. Miller went on to use the same formula for Prime Video’s Secret Level, where each of the shorts is based on a different video game. But that didn’t stop him from returning to Love, Death & Robots for a new 10-episode season: the series’ longest yet, but also its weakest. An episode of Love, Death & Robots can succeed based on a clever idea or some charming humor. John Scalzi has become a popular writer for the series, penning goofy tales of science and technology gone wrong and he delivers two episodes for volume 4 with varying results. But too much of this season is running on vibes, with episodes that feature cool visuals but not much plot. Others push the very concept too far, ditching any genre ties or even animation. The good thing about an anthology format is that if an individual episode isn’t great it’s over quick and then you can move on to the next one. Unfortunately there are chunks of volume 4 that feature dud after dud.   Love, Death & Robots is at its best when it uses a tight short story to deliver a strange and often disturbing tale. Highlights include Peter F. Hamilton’s brutal spin on Pokémon battles “Sonnie’s Edge” or Neal Asher’s horror at sea tale “Bad Traveling,” which was masterfully directed by David Fincher and featured an icy performance from Troy Baker. Fortunately there is one episode in volume 4 that still fits that mold. Written by J.T. Petty based on a short story by John McNichol, “How Zeke Got Religion” fuses aspects of Masters of the Air and Hellboy. Like last season’s excellent episode “In Vaulted Halls Entombed,” it starts out as a war story and becomes pure horror. In this case, the crew of the B-17 Flying Fortress Liberty Belle is antsy that they’ve been treated to chocolate and a John Wayne movie because “when brass is nice to you, you’re about to get fucked.” The best crew the Allies have is being sent on a solo mission to bomb a church in France at the behest of a mysterious new commander. The episode shows off how they work as a team normally, navigating flack, jammed weapons and a vicious dogfight that would be the nastiest part of most missions. But the church is the site of a bloody Nazi ritual to summon a fallen archangel that pursues their plane, leading to an abrupt genre shift and a gore-soaked battle that forces the jaded Zeke to reconsider what he knows about the world. Director Diego Porral, who served as the lead animator for last season’s hyper-violent episode “Kill Team Kill,” and Titmouse, the animation studio behind Scavengers Reign and Pantheon, do a phenomenal job making the fallen very different from the typical horned and bat-winged demon. It’s more like a biblically accurate angel, a cherubic face on a body with far too many eyes that rips soldiers apart with baby hands. When it literally spits out bullets from newly formed screaming mouths, the crew find that faith is their best weapon. If you watch one episode of Love, Death & Robots volume 4, make it “How Zeke Got Religion.” After that, consult this ranked list of the rest of the season’s entries. 10. “Can’t Stop” This is just a Red Hot Chili Peppers music filmed by David Fincher with marionettes standing in for the band and crowd. There’s no love, death or robots which makes it feel like a pretty pointless entry in the series. 9. “The Screaming of the Tyrannosaur” MrBeast plays the Grand Master-like emcee of spectacle featuring triceratops, a tyrannosaur, naked gladiators, and way too much voiceover. This episode is extremely predictable and self-serious for something based on how dinosaur fights are cool. 8. “Spider Rose” The series returns to Bruce Sterling’s universe portrayed in the season 3 episode “Swarm” for a much less compelling tale. “Swarm” was a deeply unsettling story about human greed and the nature of sentience and this is a bland revenge story with a weird, cute alien pet. Though the way Blur Studio animates people floating in space continues to be beautiful. 7. “Golgotha” Rhys Darby (What We Do in the Shadows, Our Flag Means Death) brings his signature affable neurosis to playing a vicar who saw a beached dolphin seemingly return to life, attracting the attention of a group of aquatic aliens. Unfortunately there’s not much to the story and it’s a very odd choice to have a live-action short in the mix. 6. “The Other Large Thing” The weaker of this season’s two Scalzi stories features a fluffy cat called Sanchez (Chris Parnell) who sees his chance at world domination when his negligent, lazy owners bring home a robot voiced by John Oliver. AGBO’s grotesque animation of the humans makes it feel like they really have it coming, though the story is very basic and the final joke falls flat. 5. “400 Boys” Robert Valley, who directed the Emmy-winning season 2 episode “Ice,” returns to Love, Death & Robots for a beautifully animated tale starring John Boyega as the leader of one of many warring gangs in post-apocalyptic Britain. It’s such a strange rich world filled with psychics and alien giants that I wish it was developed a bit more beyond the stunning action sequences. 4. “Close Encounters of the Mini Kind” Last season, Robert Bisi and Andy Lyon teamed up to use sped-up miniatures to tell a rapid-fire zombie apocalypse story, and they reunited in volume 4 to do the same thing for an alien invasion. It’s a very funny rush through the genre’s tropes with a pretty low opinion of humans, who create a problem and repeatedly make it worse. 3. “Smart Appliances, Stupid Owners” John Scalzi and director Patrick Osborne teamed up for last season’s “Three Robots: Exit Strategies” and they’re back together for a series of confessionals from smart electronics fed up with the way their owners are using or neglecting them. Aaron Sims Creative provides the claymation-style animation for the anthropomorphic waffle iron, toothbrush, showerhead and more being voiced by a stacked cast of comedians including Ronny Chieng, Amy Sedaris and Kevin Hart. 2. “For He Can Creep” The Locked Tomb author Tamsyn Muir wrote this charming episode based on Siobhan Carroll Nebula-nominated novelette of the same name. Daniel Stevens (Legion, Beauty and the Beast) plays a dapper version of Satan tormenting a poet he believes can aid his dark cause. Luckily the poet has a loyal cat who, while tempted by the Prince of Darkness’ offer of treats, unites his surprisingly powerful feline friends to fight for the poet’s soul. 1. “How Zeke Got Religion” If you skimmed the intro, go back and read about this wonderful short. Love, Death & Robots volume 4 is streaming now on Netflix.

Proton Mail4.5 ExcellentBottom LineProton Mail is an easy-to-use webmail service that brings zero-access encryption to your local message store and end-to-end encryption for message transmission, along with an impressive posse of related programs.US Street Price$47.88Learn MoreProton Mail ReviewVSPreVeil4.5 ExcellentBottom LineWith PreVeil, you get free end-to-end encrypted secure cloud storage along with secure email that’s tough enough for business but extremely easy to use, all while keeping your existing email address.Learn MorePreVeil Review Table of ContentsPricing and Pricing TiersDo I Need a New Email Address?Authentication and Security OptionsCloud Storage and File SharingEmail Client IntegrationTemporary Email AddressesAdvanced Security FeaturesFeatures Beyond Email Encryption Pricing and Pricing TiersPreVeil’s pricing system is as simple as can be—it’s free. Period.You can use ProtonMail for free, too, but a free Proton Mail account lacks some features and limits others. For example, you can only send 150 messages per day and only manage a single email account. When you pay $47.88 per year for a Proton Mail Plus account, the limit on messages per day vanishes, but there’s still a cap on the number of email addresses you can use.There’s one more option, Proton Mail Ultimate, which costs $119.88 per year and includes the full pantheon of Proton’s products. This one makes sense if you want your email encryption served up along with fully functional instances of Proton Calendar, Proton Drive, Proton VPN, and the Proton Pass password manager. Ultimately, everything’s better when it’s free, so PreVeil wins.Winner: PreVeilDo I Need a New Email Address?I’ve had the same personal email address for more than 20 years, and I’ve grown fond of it. I could sign up for PreVeil and keep that address. But if I wanted to rely on Proton Mail to safeguard my email secrets, I would have to pick a new address and share it with all my contacts.On the flip side, my 20-year-old email address has accumulated quite a collection of spam. It’s been revealed in dozens of data breaches and captured by who knows how many data brokers. If you want to level up your security game by using email encryption, you might prefer switching to a pristine new address, too.Here’s the thing. You can do the same thing with PreVeil. Just set up a new, clean email address before you start using PreVeil. But you simply can’t use Proton Mail with your existing address, except in one rare case. If you own your own domain, and if you host your email on that domain, and if you're up for such domain-management tasks as changing MX records and reconfiguring settings for DNS, DKIM, DMARC, and SPF, then you can use your own email. PreVeil wins on flexibility.Winner: PreVeilAuthentication and Security OptionsIt doesn’t matter how thoroughly your email is encrypted if an evildoer gains access to your encrypted inbox. Proton Mail offers multiple levels of protection, starting with using a strong password and an optional account recovery email. On top of that basic password protection, you can optionally configure it for multi-factor authentication (MFA) using Google Authenticator or a compatible authenticator app. You can advance to expert-tier authentication by configuring Proton Mail to require a hardware security key.(Credit: Proton/PCMag)PreVeil doesn’t use passwords at all, presuming that the security of your email account is sufficient. Yes, an attacker would need access to both your email account and a trusted device, which fits the definition of MFA, barely. But you can only use an authenticator app or hardware key to authenticate your email account, not PreVeil itself. When it comes to actively protecting access to your encrypted email system, Proton Mail takes the prize.Winner: Proton MailCloud Storage and File SharingIf you want to share a file or picture securely with someone, you can add it as an attachment to an encrypted email message. That’s a workable solution, but it’s not always the most convenient. Proton Mail and PreVeil both go beyond simple attachments by allowing you to store files in the cloud and share them securely.Your PreVeil account comes with 5GB of encrypted cloud storage that’s easily accessible from Windows Explorer. You also get the option to securely share folders (but not individual files) and to set each recipient’s permission level, from full Edit & Share permission down to View Only, which merely lets the recipient peek at the file’s content in a browser window.(Credit: PreVeil/PCMag)Proton Mail users at all pricing tiers get access to the separate Proton Drive app for cloud backup. Non-paying customers get a tenth of what PreVeil offers, just 500MB. However, at the commercial Plus level that storage rises to 15GB, and if you go all out with Proton Mail Ultimate, you can store 500GB of files. If you’re keeping score, those storage figures are three times and 100 times what PreVeil gives you.Proton Drive lets you share files directly with other Proton users and control their level of access in much the same way you do with PreVeil. You can also create a public link, optionally setting a password and an expiry date. PreVeil’s similar links only work for someone with whom you’ve already shared the folder.It’s true that PreVeil offers more storage than Proton Mail’s free tier, but there’s no easy path if you want more from PreVeil. And Proton Mail’s full backup app has more flexibility. This one goes to Proton Mail.Recommended by Our EditorsWinner: Proton MailEmail Client IntegrationEven if you’ve grudgingly switched to a new email address, you can at least keep the email client that you’ve used for years, right? Well, not necessarily. To get your Proton Mail messages into Apple Mail, Outlook, or Thunderbird, you must install a separate “bridge” app and go through a configuration routine that can get complicated. It doesn’t work with the latest Outlook because it requires access to IMAP and SMTP. And you don’t get full access to encryption features in your old familiar email app.(Credit: PreVeil/PCMag)With PreVeil, integration can be as simple as installing a plug-in for Gmail or Outlook. The plug-in adds a few handy controls, like an encryption on/off switch for the messages you compose, and clearly separates encrypted messages from those you’ve sent without encryption.Winner: PreVeilTemporary Email AddressesI mentioned earlier that being forced to spin up a new email address can be a blessing in disguise, as doing so frees you from any spam and baggage associated with the old address. But if you use a temporary email address service, you can avoid accumulating those problems in the first place. Using such a service lets you communicate with online merchants and other possibly shady connections without ever revealing your actual email address. You see and respond to the messages in your normal inbox, but they see only an email alias. And if one of your connections sells you out to a spam cartel, you just delete the corresponding alias.Sounds convenient, right? The Proton team agrees. At the Unlimited subscription level, you get full access to SimpleLogin, a four-star temporary email service. Yes, that’s the most expensive level, but PreVeil doesn’t offer email aliases at any level. (Don’t feel too left out if you’re using PreVeil or haven’t opted for the expensive Proton Mail Unlimited. You can supplement your email encryption for free with email aliases from ManyMe or Bulc Club.)Winner: Proton MailAdvanced Security FeaturesAfter going to the trouble of switching to encrypted email, you’d feel pretty dumb if you lost your login and couldn’t get access to your important messages. Proton Mail encourages you to save a recovery key in the form of a lengthy code and a QR code, but that recovery key itself now becomes a weakness. Someone who acquires your code owns your account.PreVeil offers a similar recovery code system, but encourages you to use its Recovery Group system instead. This is a high-tech solution more commonly seen in Enterprise-level security. With PreVeil, your recovery key resides with multiple friends, and the recovery process requires participation by several of them. For example, you might enlist six friends to hold your secret and require any three of them to activate recovery.PreVeil’s wrapped keys encryption system is proprietary, but Proton Mail relies on the venerable and widely used PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) encryption system. Proton Mail users can set up encrypted communication with users of other encryption tools that rely on PGP, such as Private-Mail and StartMail. For those with the tech chops, using PGP opens up immense possibilities.(Credit: Proton/PCMag)Proton Mail also actively protects your privacy against tracking that relies on images. When your email client displays an image, it necessarily requests that image from a server. From that request, the sender can learn your IP address, among other things. Proton Mail wipes out web beacons, which are images that have no purpose beyond penetrating your privacy. And it acts as an intermediary for normal images, so the sender gets the IP address of a Proton Mail server, not your personal address.Both services have clever, high-tech features. And in both cases, most users won’t use or pay attention to these features. I call this a draw.Winner: TieFeatures Beyond Email EncryptionI’ve already mentioned that both services offer encrypted file storage and secure sharing. For PreVeil, that’s about it.Proton Mail, on the other hand, offers several other significant security features. These include the already-mentioned Proton Drive, Proton VPN, Proton Calendar, and the Proton Pass password manager.(Credit: Proton/PCMag)Like Proton Drive, Proton Calendar and Proton Pass are available to free users, but with limitations. Free users of Proton VPN can use it to protect one device at a time and can’t choose which country the VPN connects through. Paying for Proton Mail lifts some of these limitations. And if you choose Proton Unlimited, you get the maximum from all the Proton apps.Winner: Proton Mail