New military gear, melee weapons, and infected

Dev Blog 3 covered military gear, new infected, and melee weapons. Bohemia Interactive showed three notable new uniforms: a short-sleeved police uniform, an OBR uniform, and an FNO uniform featuring a night desert camouflage pattern. The clothing is designed to look more beige, sun-exposed, and dry than existing DayZ gear.

The new infected stay true to DayZ’s existing infected as ordinary people suffering from an infection, not Hollywood zombies, with visible bloodstains and bruises. According to the dev blog, the art team followed strict visual guidelines covering skin treatment, dust, sweat, sun-exposure marks, clothing wear, and color grading, and significantly improved their visuals since the last dev blog.

Nasdara’s scale and launch performance changes

Nasdara is more than three times the size of Sakhal and is the largest and most ambitious terrain Bohemia has created for DayZ. Dev Blog 1, featuring creative lead Adam “Sumrak”, gave an overview of Nasdara’s history, terrain geography, and points of interest, plus a video of a character driving across the Dar-e Ardis border crossing.

For launch, Bohemia simplified some urban environments to improve performance and stability. The studio removed select areas and performance-intensive assets such as high-rise and tenement buildings, and reduced street clutter, furniture, and decorative items in rebuildable houses. Some release locations will have less environmental detail than earlier teasers showed.

Dev Blog 2 covered obstacles and protective clothing. Nasdara’s heat and water scarcity will keep the hydration stat challenged, and regional clothing reflects the culture of the region. Heavier, better-insulated clothing tends to have more inventory space, while lighter clothing has less.

Core features still on track for October 15

All core gameplay features remain on track for the October 15 release: sandstorms, rebuilding mechanics and rebuildable houses, motorcycles and their physics, radio gameplay with Morse code signals leading to underground shelters, new regional firearms, clothing, and loot, new regional wildlife, and underground facilities powered by a new terrain-hole system that will also be available for other maps and the modding community.

Bohemia said work will continue after launch, with performance and terrain optimization based on data and player feedback. The next dev blog, covering the wildlife of Nasdara, drops this week on September 25.

Most MMORPGs ask you to sit down at a desk. Fantasy Online 2 asks rather less. It is a persistent 2D pixel-art MMORPG from Pixel Games LLC, and the same account, characters, equipment and progression follow you between an Android phone, a browser tab and a Steam client. Log out on the bus, log back in on a desktop, and your character is where you left it.

The Android version arrived on 29 July 2026 as a free download with optional in-app purchases, and it has since passed 5,000 installs with a 4.4 rating from 115 reviews. The browser build runs from the official site with nothing to install. On Steam the game has been in paid Early Access since 6 January 2025 at 9.99 US dollars, with builds for Windows, macOS and Linux, and reviews sitting at Very Positive on 81 percent of 170. An iOS release has not landed yet. That spread of entry points is the pitch. You can try the world for nothing in a browser and buy into it later, or never.

A huge little world

The journey runs from Noob Island out to the gates of King’s Keep, through hand-built zones with quests, NPCs, monsters and bosses along the way. Characters take shape through equipment and skills rather than rigid classes, and players craft, collect and trade with each other. Parties and guilds are there for anyone who wants company, and bosses like those in the Temple of Lost Souls expect it.

The scale is easier to grasp from the official database, which the studio keeps public. It currently lists 3,201 items, 563 quests, 457 monsters, 574 NPCs, 290 skills, 672 crafting recipes, 417 achievements and 32 zones, alongside a build planner and a loot drop calculator. The drop rates published there are exact rather than estimated, which is a small act of confidence most live games decline to make. Worth noting that the Steam page still advertises 15 or more zones while the database lists 32, so the storefront is quietly underselling the game.

A new engine, mid-flight

The biggest change this year arrived on 15 August with Patch Notes #143 and PxEngine, a replacement client rather than a reskin. The studio lists faster loading, lower memory and bandwidth use, responsive layouts for desktop and mobile, better input handling and full interface localization. Smaller fixes tell the same story. NPCs can now be clicked from further away, party members can be selected while off-screen or in another zone, and clicks near the HUD no longer send your character wandering.

The same update rewrote the first minutes of the game. The opening two quest dialogues on Noob Island were rewritten for newcomers, the NPC Lori became Paul and Lori with new artwork, the Angry Skele quest moved across to them while Guardsman Phil took Armed Skeles and Smallish Ogres, and the Evil Escape requirement came down. A studio that reworks its opening quests two years into Early Access is thinking about the players it does not have yet, which is not where most live games spend their attention.

Localization landed properly in the same release. The interface and game content now run in Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, Vietnamese, Simplified Chinese, Japanese and Korean alongside English, with NPC names, dialogue, quests, skills and items translated rather than only the menus.

Reasons to log in daily

Patch Notes #144, on 29 August, brought back Farmageddon, in which the rotten veggie army returns to Mirabella Cove. Players gather Seeds of Rebellion from the militants and hand them to Turnip Ted for the Weed Killer, the Potato Head and the Strawberry Cap, with the Sunflower Staff unlocked if the community hits its collective goal.

The routine around it was rebuilt too. The Mirabella Bounty Board now draws three quests at random from a pool of twelve, split across level bands of 15 to 29, 30 to 44 and 45 and above, in place of a fixed list. Pickaxe Pete hands out three randomly chosen mining quests from pre-Rebirth zones, and players who have Rebirthed get two more from later regions. Quest guidance improved alongside it, with Tab targeting favouring nearby quest enemies and the tracker telling you when a target sits in another zone or has not spawned. Anyone who has hunted a mob that was never there will appreciate that last one.

For a game whose art style fits on a phone screen, the housekeeping is serious. Fantasy Online 2 spent 2026 replacing its engine, translating itself into six more languages and rewriting its first hour, all while running live. The browser build costs nothing to try, so finding out whether a huge little world suits you is a matter of minutes.

Enemy Spawning and Mission Balance

Per the patch notes, when a Helldiver is under low enemy pressure and the global enemy count reaches its performance maximum, enemies are preferentially spawned near that player. When the enemy count is over budget, far away enemies are despawned. The goal is to prevent roaming into empty outposts and deliver a more consistent experience across split teams.

The Evacuate High-Value Assets mission is also rebalanced. Arrowhead increased the maximum number of waves and reduced the time between waves. Start time between waves drops from 60 seconds to 42 seconds, end time from 40 seconds to 28 seconds, and maximum time between waves from 10 seconds to 2 seconds. More enemies can spawn per wave, encounter points scale more exponentially through mission steps and with additional players, Shriekers can now appear, and SEAF troops can spawn when included. Loot locations and weapons are randomized, three groups of ammo, health kits, grenades and weapons were added, and 10 common samples appear throughout. Each generator now displays its health percentage in the UI.

Weapons and Stratagems

The AR/GL-21 One-Two receives more grenade launcher ammunition. Starting amount increases from 2 to 3, max spare from 3 to 5, and refills from 3 to 5. The LAS-13 Trident has its vertical climb recoil reduced from 12 to 2 to remove an unintended change from the meltagun beam system. The G/40 Melta Mine can no longer stick to characters or vehicles; it can rest on level surfaces of characters and vehicles and arms on a timer unless it attaches to terrain. Orbital Precision Strike cooldown decreases from 90 to 80. The studio has also shipped premium Warbonds this year, including the Warhammer 40,000 Legendary Warbond from August.

Fixes and Quality of Life

Community feedback changes include enemies no longer targeting unoccupied vehicles and career stats correctly tracking kills from mines, vehicles, drones and backpacks. A rare stuck state that prevented reinforcement has been fixed. The Ice Plant hazard on arctic planets no longer ragdolls and staggers more than intended. Stratagem Hero now uses Destroyer based leaderboards with one entry per player. Crash fixes cover bunker caches, hotjoining on Oil Rig missions, and weapon function cycling with TED-63 Dynamite. Additional fixes address Wretches and Crushers clipping through floors, water levels on Eradicate Illuminate Forces, illegal broadcasts gaining sound, and the Retrieve Recon Craft mission being enabled for Terminids and Automatons.

Community-driven fixes and Open Beta

According to the Steam announcement, the patch contains 525 lines of changes, and 46.7 percent of them came directly from issues flagged by the player community through bug reports, forum threads, Reddit posts, and Discord discussions. Many of those reports arrived during an Open Beta that opened the first week of July and went through nine updates before release.

Custodian updates are free to everyone who owns Stellaris. Paradox warns that Cygnus breaks save compatibility because the Pop Group rework changes how Pops are stored, so saves from version 4.4 and earlier will not load correctly in 4.5. Players are advised to finish or back up campaigns first and to use the Stellaris 4.4 Rollback beta on Steam if needed.

Pop Groups, Factions, and Nomads content

Pop Groups are no longer split by Factions and Ethics. Each Pop Group now tracks what percentage of its Pops holds which Ethics and belongs to which Faction, which produces far fewer Pop Groups in the late game and less clutter in planetary management. The Factions screen now shows how attractive each Faction is, and Suppressing or Embracing a Faction is better reflected in its growth rate.

The update also unlocks Nomads content: the Cosmogenesis Ambition, the Knights of the Toxic God Origin, and the Storm Chasers Origin. Each requires its respective DLC from The Machine Age, Toxoids Species Pack, and Cosmic Storms.

AI, Federations, macOS, and customization

New Government policies let players weight what the Ship Autodesigner reaches for, and Starbases get the same treatment with reworked defense modules. Nomad AI behavior was improved with better Economic Plans and smarter system selection logic. Federations can now enact Economic Laws granting members free Research Agreements and Commercial or Wayline Pacts.

macOS builds now ship as a universal arm64 plus x86_64 binary and run natively on Apple Silicon, no longer requiring Rosetta 2 translation, with a significant performance improvement. Players can also choose map border, map fill, and ship colors independently of their primary and secondary Empire colors. Game Director Stephen Muray ran through the changes in the announcement.

Wildcard Fighting Styles and Fighter Form

Wildcard is the centerpiece. Four fighters arrive with their own Fighter Gear kits, each packing a Passive, Tactical, and Ultimate. Ryu closes in with fast movement and launches Hadokens at range, then finishes with a powerful Shin Shoryuken uppercut. Chun-Li wall-runs into the fight with faster melee attacks, fires Kikoken projectiles, and locks down a zone with a charged Kikosho blast. Akuma launches Gou Hadoken demon fireballs from range before finishing with a Shun Goku Satsu. Dhalsim floats above the fight on low gravity, using Yoga Teleport to control space and a Yoga Sunburst to rain fire from above.

Tokens collected around the map fill a Fight Gauge that powers Fighter Form. Activating it switches the camera to third-person and grants a new Tactical and Ultimate, stronger melee, a block ability, extra damage resistance, and bonus speed. The gauge drains while the form is active, though landing abilities refills it. Survive long enough and the match reaches Showdown, a final round where everyone holds an infinite Fight Gauge and downed or respawning players are tossed straight back into the Arena.

Olympus Remix, Cosmetics, and Rewards

The event plays out on a Street Fighter 6 remix of Olympus. Stepping into Luke’s Gym and its Fight Night ring activates Fighter Form, while Punch Trucks can be smashed for Tokens. Giant fighter statues, Street Fighter 6-inspired street art, Blanka-chan balloons, arcade cabinets, and signs fill out the map.

Eight new Iconic Skins turn Legends into Street Fighter 6 characters: Sparrow as Ryu, Alter as Chun-Li, Bangalore as Elena, Mirage as Luke, Gibraltar as Akuma, Wattson as Cammy, Caustic as Blanka, and Pathfinder as Dhalsim. Eight Legendary weapon skins cover the R-99, EVA-8, Flatline, Volt, G7 Scout, Mozambique, Devotion, and Peacekeeper, joined by the Hadoken Mythic Universal Melee with a matching Deathbox, plus Skydive Emotes, Holosprays, Stickers, Badges, Trackers, and Frames. The event continues Apex Legends’ run of brand crossovers, following the game’s earlier Cyberpunk crossover event.

Every fight earns Zenny that unlocks Reward Shop items, including a Lifeline x Li-Fen Epic Skin. Twitch Drops run September 22-29, rewarding the Insert Coin Here Weapon Charm after 60 minutes of watching an Apex Legends stream, and a Discord Quest runs September 22 to October 12, granting the Kung Fu Coach Tracker Set for 15 minutes of play. Claiming either reward requires an EA account linked to Twitch or Discord.

What you need to craft

A full 15-bookshelf ring takes 45 books and 90 wood planks. Breaking a bookshelf drops 3 books if you need to recover them. The enchanting table applies one of three random offered enchantments to an unenchanted item, with a chance for additional enchantments to also be applied.

Bookshelf placement rules

To count, a bookshelf must be placed exactly two blocks from the enchanting table along one horizontal axis, up to two blocks along the other, and on the same height as the table or one block higher. The space between the table and the bookshelf must not be blocked. In Java Edition, that gap must be air or another enchantment-power transmitter such as snow or short grass.

The maximum number of active bookshelves is 15. Any bookshelves beyond 15 are ignored. The standard layout is a two-block-tall square ring around the table at table height or one block above, with a single-block gap anywhere on a side.

Where it goes wrong

• Bookshelf too close or too far: A bookshelf that is not exactly two blocks from the table along one horizontal axis will not count.
• Blocked gap: A solid block between the table and the bookshelf stops the shelf from contributing.
• Wrong height: Bookshelves below the table or more than one block above do not count.
• More than 15 bookshelves: Extra shelves are ignored, so building 16 or more does not raise the cap.
• No lapis lazuli or levels: Enchanting costs lapis lazuli and experience levels, so you cannot take an offering without them.

FAQ

Do I need all 15 bookshelves?

Yes, fifteen bookshelves are needed to reach level 30 enchantments. Fewer bookshelves raise the table by a smaller amount.

Can I use a corner arrangement with 16 bookshelves?

A corner arrangement can use 16 bookshelves, one more than needed. You can leave out one corner bookshelf if its back sides are covered.

Do bookshelf planks need to match?

No, any plank type works for crafting a bookshelf. Only the ingredient count matters for the 15-bookshelf setup.

Race format and class targets

First Blood runs through two separate online solo challenges: Online Normal Solo Challenge and Online Hardcore Solo Challenge. Participants must use Seasonal Online Characters and can choose either Solo Account Found or Solo Character Found. A player can only win once, even across multiple classes or modes.

The race covers five classes: Acolyte, Mage, Primalist, Rogue, and Sentinel. With Normal and Hardcore modes, that creates ten Enraged Legend Supporter Pack prizes in total. Normal and Hardcore results are tracked separately for the five classes. If two players defeat Pinnacle Morditas at the same time, both win.

Rewards and the path to Pinnacle Morditas

Every player who logs into Season 5 during the first two weeks earns the in-game title Blood Seeker. The very first player to defeat Pinnacle Morditas in each class receives an Enraged Legend Supporter Pack. No player can win more than one Enraged Legend Supporter Pack for the event.

To reach Pinnacle Morditas, players must defeat Morditas through the Season’s new mechanic and claim the Woven Echo that drops. Then they step into the Woven Echo called Demigod’s Ascendance and face the Pinnacle fight.

Rules and timing

Only Seasonal Online Characters can take part. Accounts must be in good standing, meaning active bans or Code of Conduct violations disqualify a player. Eleventh Hour Games employees and Community Testers are not eligible to win. The studio tracks the kills, so participants do not need to record their fight.

First Blood begins October 1 at 11 AM CDT, the moment Season 5 goes live, and runs for two weeks. Once the God of Bloodshed falls once to every class across Normal and Hardcore, the race ends and winners are crowned.

Buff Chain combat and player skill

The core system is the Buff Chain. Players assign Buffs and Perks to specific triggers such as parries, dodge counters, and attack finishers. Abilities do not activate automatically. The player must perform the correct action to trigger them, so execution is central to any build. In the full release, Buffs cover mechanics including crowd control, healing, and damage. According to SummerClip, player skill is the bridge between the action and roguelite sides of the game. The roguelite elements act as a toolbox of options rather than automatic combinations. A player might use one Buff to control an enemy, another to deal damage, then trigger extra effects through a specific action. Fans of action-first roguelikes can compare it with Armatus, which blends scythe combat and firearms into its roguelike runs.

Difficulty options and the Training Ground

The launch version includes four difficulty levels: Easy, Normal, Hard, and Extreme. On Easy, enemies show a red warning indicator before attacking, giving a clear cue for incoming moves. Extreme is unlocked after clearing Hard. SummerClip originally planned a Very Hard difficulty with more enemy attack variations, but the team could not implement it for launch because of the development budget. A separate Training Ground lets players refight a Boss they cannot beat. There, players can learn the boss’s attacks and practice parries and dodges as many times as needed.

The path from playtests to release

Playtests started in September 2024, and a demo was released earlier this year. The developer is asking players to report bugs through the game’s Discord server. Other recent indie roguelike launches include Kernel Hearts on Xbox.

Grinding Gear Games has confirmed that the Path of Exile series is moving toward a December 11 full launch for Path of Exile 2, a free-to-play action RPG developed by the studio. The official announcement revealed that the Soulflame Weapon Effect has been unlocked as a new milestone reward for signing up for Path of Exile 2 Full Release updates.

This milestone is tied to the registration campaign that Grinding Gear Games has been running ahead of the full release. Because the goal for the Soulflame Weapon Effect has been met, everyone who registered will receive at least two exclusive cosmetic effects when Path of Exile 2 fully launches on December 11. Those rewards are separate from the three milestone rewards that remain locked.

The full December 11 launch will mark the delivery window for these registration rewards. Grinding Gear Games has not detailed every cosmetic effect, but the announcement makes clear that the minimum number of exclusive effects for registered players is now two.

How to Register and Confirm Your Email

Players still have until December 11 PST to register for the full release updates. Sign up at pathofexile2.com/register. After entering an email address, each player must confirm the registration to be counted. Grinding Gear Games noted that anyone who already submitted an email should check their inbox for a confirmation email.

Because the campaign runs on milestone goals, the current unlock applies to both new and existing registrations. Players who complete the confirmation step after signing up are included in the group that will receive the two exclusive cosmetic effects at launch. The registration deadline falls on the same date as the full launch, leaving time for players to join before Path of Exile 2 goes live.

More Rewards Ahead of December 11

With the Soulflame Weapon Effect now unlocked, the registration campaign has reached a new threshold. Grinding Gear Games said there are still three more rewards left to unlock, and additional sign-ups could push the campaign toward those future milestones before the December 11 launch.

The registration drive also lands in a wider live-service action RPG landscape that includes games like Last Epoch. For Path of Exile 2 players, the current set of confirmed rewards includes the Soulflame Weapon Effect and at least one other exclusive cosmetic effect, with more possible if the remaining milestones are reached.

Destiny 2’s vaulted history

Bungie says bringing this content back is not as simple as restoring old files. Changes made to Destiny 2 since Beyond Light require the studio to update lighting, encounters, combatants, and other underlying systems. The studio said the work will take time, and more details on the unvaulting effort will come in the months ahead.

Torkan and Deane wrote that the studio “lost trust” over the last few years and that the new leadership team must own that. They acknowledged that removing the vaulted experiences had a lasting impact on player trust and enjoyment of Destiny. While Bungie cannot change that decision, the leaders said it can acknowledge its impact and restore those parts of Destiny’s history. Bungie did not specify which campaigns, destinations, or raids will return first.

The authors stated that “Destiny is foundational to Bungie’s future” and “we are not done with Destiny.” They called the restoration the first step to lay the foundation for new stories and games. The blog post did not include a release window for the returned content.

Marathon’s deeper survival direction

The same post said Bungie will expand Marathon into a deeper survival experience beyond its original genre constraints. More is planned for an October Nightfall Refresh and a December Symbiosis update. Bungie also included Marathon’s evolution among its core commitments.

Core commitments

Bungie listed core commitments: build a stronger long-term future for Destiny while honoring and restoring its past, evolve Marathon, increase transparency around development priorities, and communicate more consistently. The post says these commitments are part of the leadership team’s response to losing player trust.

Further details on the unvaulting work are expected in the months ahead, according to the blog post.

The reversal follows a difficult stretch for Bungie. Earlier reporting covered how the studio considered ending Destiny 2 support, and separate coverage detailed Sony’s write-down on the studio after the acquisition failed to meet expectations. The new leadership now frames the unvaulting effort as a direct response to that lost trust.