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campaign

Despite fakery concerns, Stop Destroying Videogames campaign claim “around 97%” of their signatures are valid so far

by admin September 16, 2025

There’s a fresh update from the organisers of the Stop Destroying Videogames citizens’ initiative, that being the petition asking EU lawmakers to look into the issue of publishers rendering online games unplayable when servers are switched off. Despite some concerns on their part a few months ago, the group claim that while the signatures they amassed are still being verified, “early reports from several countries” suggest “around 97%” of these are valid.

For context, just a few months ago, those supporting the EU initiative were pretty concerned that alleged faking or spoofing of signatures on the petition could potentially inhibit its ability to land in front of policymakers. YouTuber Ross Scott, a voice of the wider Stop Killing Games campaign who’s spent a lot of time raising awareness of the similarly-named but distinct Stop Destroying Videogames’ initiative, said at the time this had left the organisers unsure of how many signuatures they’d actually amassed.

In a Reddit post over the weekend, those behind the initiative have confirmed it gathered around 1.45 million signatures before the July 31st deadline. “Verification is now underway, and early reports from several countries show around 97% of signatures being valid — excellent news that puts us in a very strong position going forward,” they continued.

That verification process is set to take around three months, at which point – assuming all’s gone well – the group will be able to formally pass the initiative along to EU politicians, who’ll then decide how to respond. Just to recap, the initiative is asking for game publishers to be required to provide “reasonable means” for any games with servers being shut down to remain playable “without the involvement from the side of the publisher”.

Until that point, the organisers plan to keep working to make sure the initiative “cannot be ignored”, via the likes of reaching out to EU politicians, setting up more formal community structures, and “countering misinformation and industry lobbying”. “Some of this work must remain behind the scenes for now — past attempts to undermine the initiative have shown us the risks of being too open,” the group claim. “But rest assured: important groundwork is being laid.”

The EU initiative is one of a few irons that the wider Stop Killing Games movement have in the fire, with similar actions in France, Germany and Australia also awaiting responses. “As long as we get a major market prohibiting game destruction, I think we’ll largely win this globally,” Scott said last month. “I don’t see lots of new stuff on the horizon later. I think we either win on at least one of these or if they all fail, then it’s over.”

Stop Killing Games was originally spurred into life by Ubisoft shutting down The Crew. A fan-made revival of the racer, dubbed The Crew Unlimited, has released today, September 15th.

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September 16, 2025 0 comments

Ghost of Yotei protagonist draws her sword.

Game Reviews

Ghost Of Yotei Dev Fired Over Charlie Kirk Joke After Pressure Campaign

by admin September 12, 2025

A contingent of right-wing online figures and their followers have been using the recent assassination of conservative podcaster Charlie Kirk to punish people they don’t like. That includes a developer at Ghost of Yotei maker Sucker Punch Productions who Sony confirms it has parted ways with after she made a joke on social media about the shooting.

“I hope the shooter’s name is Mario so that Luigi knows his bro got his back,” Drew Harrison, a nearly 10-year veteran of the PlayStation studio, posted in the evening after Kirk was shot and killed during a speaking event at Utah Valley University. A few hours later, the post was screen-grabbed and shared by anti-woke crusader Mark “Grummz” Kern.

“Suckerpunch Senior Dev celebrates Charlie Kirk’s death,” he wrote. “Ghost of Yotei is dead to me now.” A streamer who goes by Madamsavvy responded, “No more. Cowards keep quiet. The studio deserves to go under.” Kern replied, “No mercy.”

Harrison subsequently shared on social media that people had been contacting her employer angrily trying to get her fired, and posted a screenshot of a barrage of missed calls from anonymous numbers as evidence of an ongoing harassment campaign. Less than 24 hours later, she was fired.

“If standing up against fascism is what cost me my dream job I held for 10 years, I would do it again 100x stronger,” she wrote.

Sony confirmed her departure in an email to Kotaku but declined to comment further. “Drew Harrison is no longer an employee of Sucker Punch Productions,” a spokesperson from Sony Interactive Entertainment wrote.

1 It’s a game. An entertainment. A story a team of creators believes in. They want to make this.

2 it’s a game. If you don’t like it, don’t buy it. In fact, why not make the game you want yourself?

— shawn layden 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️🇺🇸🇯🇵 (@ShawnLayden) September 25, 2024

A loosely aligned “Gamergate 2.0” movement that grew out of conspiracy theories claiming DEI was ruining gaming has been hoping for this sort of outcome for months. The big PS5 exclusive has been in anti-woke activists’ firing line ever since Ghost of Yotei revealed the open-world samurai series’ latest entry would star a woman named Atsu, played by Erika Ishii.

Fed by an algorithmically juiced YouTube rage factory, certain online culture content creators latched onto one of Ishii’s past comments about abolishing the police as a way to attack the game. Videos with titles like “Ghost of Yōtei DOOMED? Radical Activist Erika Ishii Brings Woke Chaos!” later changed to things like “Ghost Of Yotei New Trailer Sparks BACKLASH, Hiring Activists Backfires For Sony & Sucker Punch” as YouTubers combed LinkedIn for evidence proving that people with opinions they disagreed with were ruining games.

Ghost of Yotei is far from the only high-profile blockbuster game to be dragged into this culture war quicksand. Kern and others attacked Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed Shadows as well for featuring an African samurai as one of its two main characters. Developers on the game were reportedly told not to comment on the harassment campaign when the game launched earlier this year.

While Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot condemned attacks targeting employees, he also said at the time the company was working on “tackling the dynamics behind the polarized comments around Ubisoft so as to protect the Group’s reputation and maximize our game’s sales potential.”

Members of the harassment campaign to get Harrison fired from Sucker Punch are already targeting individuals at other game studios and publishers over their social media comments. “Every single studio is compromised,” one of them wrote. “And it’s all American leftists doing this.”

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September 12, 2025 0 comments

Game Updates

Baldur’s Gate 3 custom campaign mod recreates the original Baldur’s Gate’s Candlekeep and prologue

by admin August 27, 2025

A new Baldur’s Gate 3 custom campaign mod has emerged onto the Nexus like Gale’s mitt through that portal, and it’s one you’ll likely want to check out if you fancy getting nostalgic for one of RPG’s classic siblings. Return to Candlekeep, as you might have gleaned from the title, aims to recreate the prologue of the original Baldur’s Gate, by taking you to a certain library fortress.

It’s not surprising someone’s given this a go. After all, daunting tasks as such things might be, a good number of the BG3 custom campaigns being put together with the Moonglasses toolkit have opted to try their hand at taking players to revamped versions of locations from the previous two games.

Enter catchily-named modder 786r786, who released Return to Candlekeep this weekend just gone. Re-creating the opening area from the first game, it’ll let you wander around everywhere from Candlekeep library, to the inn, and the pool/altar combo that makes up the Temple of Oghma.

You get a good look around these, plus a gander at the custom main menu, character creation screen and camp the modder’s included, in the over 20 minute-long tour video below. They don’t do much talking to NPCs in that, likely on account of the mod not having any voice acting at the moment, but write in the description that they’ve pulled across all of the quests and dialogue lines you’d expect from such a recreation. There should be enough to keep you occupied for “about an hour thirty at most”, which is why 786r786 has dubbed this a mini-campaign.

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There are some teething issues it’s worth being aware of, not that such a thing’s that surprising given the testing ground advanced BG3 campaign mods still are at this point. Parts of buildings can appear unloaded, leaving roofs awkwardly floating with no supports, while NPC helmets can “disconnect from their head at a distance”. On the plus side, cases of long-term helmet hair affliction are likely lower among the residents of Candlekeep than those of the base game.

786r786 says there’s nothing they can do about these issues at the moment, and as for whether they’ll flesh out the mod more going forwards, they’ve a one word answer: “potentially”.

Regardless of whether they keep at it, this is a cool thing for them to have done, given Larian themselves considered working a return to Candlekeep into Baldur’s Gate 3 while they were weaving their development magic. The devs even got as far as coming up with ideas for a zany seer chilling in the basement, as our Edwin, former RPSer/BG3 lead writer Adam Smith, and keen journo/Larian CEO Swen Vincke chatted about last year.

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August 27, 2025 0 comments

Gaming Gear

London targets noisy commuters with headphone campaign

by admin August 27, 2025

After bringing 4G and 5G connectivity to the Underground, London’s public transport authority has started scolding noisy passengers who subject everyone to music and calls blasting out of their phones. A new poster campaign launched by Transport for London (TfL) this week encourages customers to wear headphones when watching or listening to content on their devices to reduce disruption for other commuters.

“Please don’t disturb others with loud music or calls when travelling on the network,” reads the “Headphones On” poster. The posters are already being displayed on the Elizabeth rail line, according to TfL, and will expand to bus, Docklands Light Railway, London Overground, London Underground, and London Tram services from October.

The campaign targets headphone dodgers as data coverage becomes more available across the underground rail network, making it easier for passengers to stream content and make calls on the go. People who do so without donning headphones are annoying other commuters, however, with TfL research showing that 70 percent of 1,000 surveyed customers reported loud music and phone calls disrupting their journeys.

“The vast majority of Londoners use headphones when travelling on public transport in the capital, but the small minority who play music or videos out loud can be a real nuisance to other passengers and directly disturb their journeys,” says London’s deputy transport mayor, Seb Dance. “TfL’s new campaign will remind and encourage Londoners to always be considerate of other passengers.”

The new posters expand upon the “#TravelKind campaign” that TfL launched in 2017, highlighting ways that road and public transit users can help to prevent delays and make journeys run more smoothly.

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August 27, 2025 0 comments

NFT Gaming

Crypto Trader’s $2M social pressure campaign claims MEXC froze $3M for a year

by admin August 25, 2025

A cryptocurrency trader launched a $2 million social media pressure campaign against MEXC, claiming that the digital asset exchange had frozen more than $3 million worth of his personal funds for no clear reason.

In July 2025, centralized cryptocurrency exchange (CEX) MEXC allegedly froze $3.1 million worth of personal funds without any terms of service violations, according to pseudonymous crypto trader the White Whale.

In response, the trader is launching a $2 million social media pressure campaign against MEXC, claiming that the exchange had requested a one-year review period before unfreezing the user’s funds.

“I’m Putting a $2M Bounty Up For Grabs (half can be claimed by YOU),” wrote the White Whale in a Sunday X post, adding:

“What kind of review takes 12 months – without a single update, document, or charge?”

Numerous other traders are affected by similar account freezes, the trader said, adding that the industry’s most successful participants are “punished for winning.”

Source: the White Whale

Related: US retirement plans could fuel Bitcoin rally to $200K despite downturn: Finance Redefined

In response to his account suspension, the trader launched a social media campaign, requesting that users mint a free non-fungible token (NFT) on the Base network, tag MEXC or its chief operating officer’s X account with the “#FreeTheWhiteWhale” tag, and change their profile pictures to the above image.

For completing these tasks, $1 million of the bounty will be equally divided among the first 20,000 NFT holders, awarding each holder $50 USDC (USDC), provided that MEXC releases the frozen funds.

Another $1 million worth of USDC will be allocated to “verified, carefully vetted charities,” with the trader promising onchain receipts after the donations.

Source: The White Whale

The trader claimed to have previously completed the exchange’s Know Your Customer (KYC) verification process.

Cointelegraph was unable to verify the frozen account independently. Cointelegraph has approached MEXC for comment on the matter.

Related: Andrew Tate shorts Kanye West’s YZY, racks up $700K losses on Hyperliquid

“White whale” claims to surpass MEXC market makers before $3 million freeze

The trader claimed that his funds were frozen due to being more profitable than the exchange’s crypto market makers, firms or individuals who provide liquidity by placing consistent buy and sell orders to ensure smooth trading.

“My only conceivable offense? I was too profitable,” wrote the pseudonymous trader, adding:

“I consistently beat their external market makers – the firms they quietly partner with to be the counterparty to trades (this is public record).”

Crypto market makers are among the most misunderstood participants of the digital asset market, often blamed by traders for deliberately manipulating cryptocurrency prices, despite a lack of evidence.

Still, research from Acheron Trading suggested that 78.5% of new crypto launches between April and June 2024 were conducted in a manner that disrupted fair price discovery, detrimentally affecting both end-users and the projects themselves.

Breakdown of premarket listing approaches. Source: Acheron Trading

Moreover, 69.9% of primary token listings were “Parasitic,” meaning that market makers were exploiting premarket conditions by creating artificial scarcity and sentiment around the token.

Magazine: Solana Seeker review: Is the $500 crypto phone worth it?

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August 25, 2025 0 comments

Product Reviews

Dawn of War 4 developer King Art knows what you all really want: ‘Overwhelmingly, it’s singleplayer content and the campaign’

by admin August 22, 2025

One of the weird things about being a lover of RTS games—aside from the fact that it sometimes feels like the games industry has left us behind—is how often the people making these games, and certainly the ones financing them, seem to forget that the initial popularity of the genre was driven by high-quality singleplayer campaigns.

Folks look at StarCraft 2, the RTS that’s dominated the genre for 15 years, and think it’s all down to competitive multiplayer and esports. And that’s how we got Stormgate: a game designed by veterans, built to tap into the love of Warcraft 3 and StarCraft 2. And it launched with an unfinished, uninspired campaign, and has struggled ever since then.

While the competitive scene is certainly responsible for both games’ enviable longevity, most players won’t even touch multiplayer. What got most people through the door were the best-in-class campaigns. They led the pack in terms of storytelling and mission design, and that cemented them as two of the best strategy games ever designed.

King Art Games, the studio behind Dawn of War 4, hasn’t forgotten this.

“That was one of the things that we, as King Art, brought to the table,” Jan Theysen, creative director and game director, tells me. “We are known for making narrative-driven games, and the campaign for Iron Harvest was very well received. So for us, this was super clear: campaigns will be one of the big pillars for the game.”

King Art surveyed Iron Harvest players and asked them what the most important modes were for them. “And overwhelmingly,” says Theysen, “it’s singleplayer content and the campaign.” That informed the studio’s continued focus. But it didn’t just want to do one campaign.

“We had this idea, instead of just having a Space Marine campaign, or maybe one campaign where everybody has some little bits and pieces, let’s actually have a big campaign for each of the four factions. And that is already, of course, a lot of work, but then we said, OK, can we maybe even make the individual campaigns dynamic? And can we have optional missions, and can we make sure that the decisions that players make matter? And now we have these four beefy campaigns plus the tutorial.”

This isn’t to say that multiplayer is being given the short shrift, though.

“That’s definitely where we’re putting most of our focus for this title,” says senior game designer Elliott Verbiest. “But of course we are going to have multiplayer modes for people who want to play with their friends or against other players. But as we saw in both feedback from the community as well as what we remember, what we look most fondly back on when playing RTS games when we were all younger, or how that shaped our tastes in the genre, the singleplayer campaigns were one of the things that stuck the longest with us.”

It’s a relief, then, but not really surprising for Dawn of War, which has always placed greater importance on its singleplayer campaigns—though perhaps to a lesser extent in Dawn of War 3. But the amount of campaign we’re getting this time around—more than 70 missions across four distinct campaigns—feels especially generous.

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August 22, 2025 0 comments

Esports

Critical Role unveils the cast, system, world, and gameplay structure for campaign 4

by admin August 22, 2025

For the many people anticipating the next Critical Role campaign they have revealed a lot of info on the upcoming Campaign 4:

Critical Role, a leader in storytelling and world-building, today officially announced the main cast for its highly anticipated fourth campaign, confirmed the game system, and introduced a new-to-Critical Role West Marches–style structure across rotating tables, exploring a new world outside of Exandria.View the full video announcement HEREHelmed by award-winning creator, Game Master, and storyteller Brennan Lee Mulligan, Campaign 4 will be played using Dungeons & Dragons (2024 rules), as well as some homebrew from Darrington Press’s own Jeremy Crawford and Chris Perkins, and features Critical Role founders Laura Bailey, Taliesin Jaffe, Ashley Johnson, Matthew Mercer, Liam O’Brien, Marisha Ray, Sam Riegel, and Travis Willingham alongside Luis Carazo, Robbie Daymond, Aabria Iyengar, Whitney Moore, and Alex Ward. This cast will traverse the new world of Aramán in a West Marches-style approach to gameplay.

“When creating the worlds that we build and explore in all of our content at Critical Role, we have always held strong to the belief that we should use the system that best supports the story we want to tell,” said Marisha Ray, Creative Director, co-founder, and cast member of Critical Role. “We are certainly spoiled for choice when it comes to TTRPG systems that the cast knows and loves, so we are very excited to explore more of both Daggerheart and Dungeons and Dragons in our near (and hopefully distant) future.”

The first four episodes will act as an Overture, introducing and weaving all 13 cast members through intersecting scenes before the story splits into three smaller tables – the Soldiers, Schemers, and Seekers – for the rest of the campaign, with overarching themes and genres tying them altogether.

Campaign 4 will premiere with instant access on Beacon.tv as well as streamed to Critical Role’s YouTube and Twitch channels on October 2, with the VOD available for everyone the following Monday and podcast episodes available in two parts: the first one week after the premiere, and the second on the following Tuesday. Beacon members will also get exclusive access to all episodes of Critical Role Cooldown for Campaign 4, where the cameras keep rolling and you get a front row seat to the cast’s post-show reactions.

Go to Critical Role’s website or follow along on Instagram at @Critical_Role, TikTok at @CriticalRole, and Critical Role’s newsletter to stay up-to-date.

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August 22, 2025 0 comments

Game Reviews

Black Ops 7 brings back wallrunning, and introduces an unusual endgame mode to the campaign

by admin August 20, 2025

We’ve been expecting today’s reveal, of course, ever since Activision confirmed back in July that Black Ops 7 would be part of Opening Night Live’s line-up this year. This is technically the game’s second “reveal”, because its first outing was at the very end of the Xbox Showcase back in June.

Today’s showcase was a lot more detailed, offering a look at gameplay that went beyond just a simple teaser of the game’s setting.

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First things first, the leaked November release date turned out to be accurate. Black Ops 7 is set for launch on November 14. As for today’s reveal, its focus was mainly on the larger systems, features, and new mechanics arriving with the game. As previously announced, the co-op campaign (four-player) returns, but Treyarch is adding a pretty unusual twist to that.

The campaign’s final mission is what the developer calls Endgame, and it’s essentially a replayable, open-world section with some RPG and extraction elements. You get to customise your loadout and take on missions and other challenges within runs, where you can also level up and earn new abilities.

We also got a look at some of the futuristic weaponry we’ll be able to wield, and a few of the locations we’re going to be visiting. There’s a big emphasis on movement in Black Ops 7, which builds on Black Ops 6’s Omnimovement system with new possibilities, including the return of wallrunning.

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Round-based Zombies is a core feature of the game, of course. This year, you can look forward to vehicle-based gameplay, as well as the return of Survival maps. Multiplayer was touched on, but the full reveal won’t arrive until Call of Duty: Next on September 30. There’s going to be a beta following that, too, taking place October 2-8.

Black Ops 7’s story takes place in the near future, a decade after the events of Black Ops 2. The game is the first consecutive Black Ops release in Call of Duty history, following last year’s Black Ops 6.

As beloved as the Black Ops name is, however, this year’s game faces tough competition in the form of Battlefield 6, a game whose beta has been breaking records throughout the month, overtaking even the most popular Call of Duty release on Steam.

There’s still a lot yet to be revealed for Black Ops 7, but community sentiment so far has been a lot more in favour of Battlefield 6 over it. Call of Duty rarely misses, though, and even with it does, it still manages to be the best-selling game in the year of its release.

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August 20, 2025 0 comments

Game Updates

Black Ops 7 will let you level up your weapons in the campaign, and bring your Black Ops 6 weapons and operators into multiplayer

by admin August 20, 2025

The big Black Ops 7 media blowout has officially begun, kicking off, of course with last night’s gamescom Opening Night Live reveal. The trailer coincided with the release of plenty of new information covering many aspects of the game, with the promise of more to come.

There are, however, several new and returning features well worth diving into.

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For one, Carry Forward, the feature that allows you to bring some of the content from last year’s game into the new one, is coming back. Just like with Modern Warfare 2 to Modern Warfare 3 in 2023 – when the feature was first introduced, Black Ops 7 is doing the same with Black Ops 6’s content.

Weapons, operators, XP tokens, GobbleGums (Zombies), skins and other cosmetic items from last year’s game will be usable in Black Ops 7’s multiplayer, as well as Warzone. This will kick off a few weeks post launch, with the start of Season One.

There are, of course, some exceptions. You won’t be able to use skins for equipment and Scorestreaks that don’t exist, or work differently, in the new game. Weapon camos will carry forward, but they’re only going to apply to BO6 weapons, not BO7’s.

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The Black Ops 7 campaign, playable in up to four players in co-op, has its fair share of new innovations, too. We’ve covered the campaign’s Endgame, an open-ended co-op mission meant to be played multiple times that borrows from roguelites, RPGs, and extraction games.

But Treyarch is also introducing a new concept called Global Progression, which is something I am surprised took Call of Duty this long to implement. While we’ve been enjoying cross progression between multiplayer, co-op (Zombies etc.), and Warzone for years now, the campaign has always been left out of that.

In Black Ops 7, you earn XP as you play the campaign. What this means in practice is that you’ll be levelling up your weapon (even unlocking camos), and unlocking other challenges that transfer over to multiplayer, Zombies, and Warzone.

In a blog post, Treyarch specifically named weapon Prestige (which is also coming back with BO7), standard weapon progression, camos, Calling Cards, daily challenges and much of the progression side of things.

Image credit: Treyarch, Raven Software, Activision.

Further building on that ethos of connected progression, Black Ops 7 is introducing the ability to share your Gunsmith weapon builds. These can be saved and sent directly to friends, but you can even generate a code for your build so anyone else can immediately use it without having to replicate it piece-by-piece.

More on the multiplayer side of things will be revealed on September 30 at Call of Duty: Next. The game’s beta will begin shortly after, running October 2-8. The full game arrives November 14 on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.

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August 20, 2025 0 comments

Game Updates

Black Ops 7’s co-op campaign culminates in a DMZ-like ‘Endgame’ activity for 32 players in an open-world map, plus it has unlockable weapon camos

by admin August 20, 2025

Call of Duty is aiming for its next campaign to be a part of the “connected” experience of the overall live-service game, starting with Black Ops 7.

During a media briefing event last week, Treyarch revealed that the BO7 campaign is playable for up to four players in co-op, played over 11 standard, explosive set-piece missions. Not only that, but you will be able to unlock campaign-specific weapon camos (including four Mastery camos), reticles, player cards, and other cosmetics, all while earning XP to progress your overall level and even individual battle passes. There will even be daily and weekly challenges to complete.

Image via Activision

The campaign stars David Mason and his Spectre One team, including Mike Harper, Eric Samuels, and newcomer Leilani Tupuola, with support from BO6 character Troy Marshall who is now several decades older in this story. Some sort of red, hallucinogenic gas seems to be the main catalyst for weird visions and trippy missions, given what little gameplay I was shown.

Once that story’s 11 standard missions are completed, however, a new “Endgame” experience will unlock, featuring an open-world Avalon map for up to 32 players to explore and fight enemies in. Gamers will be able to fly into the battle royale map-like zone to fight AI soldiers and robots, complete missions, and rank up their operators with new abilities and a level-up system called Combat Rating.

Increasing your Combat Rating (max level 60) will give players access to higher-tier areas of the map, but here’s the catch: if you die, you wipe and have to start all over again, similar to games like Modern Warfare II’s DMZ mode or Escape From Tarkov. That’s right, wiping as a squad will reset your progress for that operator.

Each individual, playable operator also has their own abilities and skill specializations that can be unlocked and leveled up, such as a Grapple Hook, Mega Jump, or Drone Charmer that spawns quad-rotor drones to take down enemies.

Treyarch says that Endgame will be the “final proving ground where all of your campaign progress is tested in a new environment.” Progress is tied to “shutting down Guild activities” as you “move into the hardest regions.”

Image via Activision

A lot about Endgame is still being kept secret for now, but players looking to expand their BO7 experience and unlock everything it has to offer may find some real fun in this new co-op experience to play alongside multiplayer and Zombies modes.

BO7 launches for PlayStation, Xbox, and PC later this year.

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August 20, 2025 0 comments