The ports of Call of Duty: Black Ops (2010) and Black Ops 2 (2012) are available now. The ports, which were confirmed in June, are developed by Iron Galaxy in conjunction with Activision.

As announced previously, these are not remasters or remakes--if you enjoyed the games in their original states, that's what you're getting here.

The games cost $40, but PlayStation Plus members can get each for $20 through August 6. There is no bundle that puts them together.

Black Ops 1 and 2 are out now on PS4 and PS5.

The descriptions for each state that the games offer "a classic Call of Duty experience," and as such, cross-platform multiplayer is not supported. Beyond the base games, Activision is also selling each game's season pass for $30 (or $10 through August 6 for PlayStation Plus members). The season pass bundles include additional multiplayer maps and Zombies content.

The next brand-new Call of Duty game is Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4, which launches this October for PS5, Xbox Series X|S, Switch 2, and PC.

A new, fan-made map for Valve's free shooter Counter-Strike 2 has a unique spin on the game's popular Hostage Rescue mode, having players instead rescue dogs in danger.

The "Shelter" map (via Dexerto) takes place in a fictionalized suburban animal shelter, as players race to stop "Phoenix Biotechnical" from kidnapping animals for medical trials.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rtd0HLui7W4

As you can see in the walkthrough video below, Shelter is a large, impressively detailed map, featuring all manner of indoor and outdoor spaces. The attention to detail is notable, as you can see in the video that there are even "kennel cards" for the dogs in the facility that are only visible when scoping in. These are complete with descriptions like, "Very energetic and loves to run around."

It's also grim and sad to see the areas of the shelter with medical equipment where the kidnapped animals are tested on. In terms of gameplay, a video shows that players rescue the dogs and carry them on their shoulders to safety. If the mode is similar to regular Hostage Rescue, one team will try to rescue the dogs and the other team will try to stop them. I wouldn't want to play that side.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tqmCaemBNA

Counter-Strike 2 has more than 1 million people playing it concurrently right now, making it Steam's most popular game by far.

The new Shelter map comes not long after a story about dogs being rescued from a medical research facility garnered international headlines. More than 1,500 beagles were released from the Ridglan Farms facility in Wisconsin this year and have been put up for adoption, with many heartwarming stories of pups landing in good homes.

After more than two years in early access, Palworld has launched in 1.0, and there's some good news for anyone looking to dive into it. Usually, early access games charge a smaller fee to entice users, increasing the sticker price once the full release goes live. Palworld developer Pocketpair is bucking that trend, and it says that the game's price will remain at $30 following its full launch on PC and console.

"After much thought, we have decided not to raise the price of Palworld following the 1.0 release and will keep it at $29.99," the developer wrote. "We are incredibly proud of how far Palworld has come. Thanks to the amazing support of our players, it has become a success beyond our wildest dreams. As a small way of saying thank you, we'll be keeping the price at $29.99. Thank you for your continued support."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4iJOJi87_4

A lot has changed in Palworld since it first hit the scene in 2024, as the creature-collecting and survival-crafting game has received numerous gameplay updates and new content. Some of these changes were legally required, as Palworld found itself in the crosshairs of Nintendo shortly after launch. The company sued Pocketpair for copyright and patent infringement of the Pokemon franchise, and Pocketpair was forced to appease Nintendo by compromising on certain gameplay mechanics, like gliding.

Meanwhile, Nintendo has also been taken to task for attempting to copyright the gameplay mechanic of "summoning characters and making them fight," an idea that numerous games utilized long before Pokemon arrived on the scene. In November 2025, the new head of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), John A. Squires, ordered a reexamination of Nintendo's patent. 

What's next for Pocketpair, now that Palworld is out in the wild? The studio plans to keep supporting the game with post-launch content, and it's also working on an official IRL card game alongside a cozy Palworld spin-off. Palworld also reached an impressive milestone before its 1.0 release, as Pocketpair reported that the game had reached 40 million players so far.

The Backyard Sports series' resurgence began a few years ago with a re-release of the classic 1997 game Backyard Baseball, but this month's launch of Backyard Baseball--an all-new entry--is a monumental step for a franchise that had been on ice for years. But getting there wasn't easy, requiring years of work (and the help of a private investigator) to even acquire the rights, let alone find a development partner who could revive such a legendary franchise.

Playground Productions CEO Lindsay Barnett was up to the challenge, ultimately pivoting from her job as an elementary-school teacher when it became clear she was capable of bringing Backyard Baseball to a new generation of baseball fans. And now, the time has come for those kids (and their parents, if we're being honest) to see just what Barnett and her team have been cooking up. 

Making the best of a bad situation

While the Backyard Sports franchise is a pop-culture staple for many Millennial sports fans, it was essentially dead prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. Barnett was teaching second grade in Chicago at the time, and as her students shifted to remote-learning setups and she had a chance to ask them about what kinds of activities they were doing at home, it became clear that many were playing violent video games. She wanted to find something more age-appropriate for them to spend their time playing outside of class. 

Playground Productions CEO Lindsay Barnett

"I said, 'Well, what about sports games?"' Barnett told GameSpot. "And they said, 'Well, sports games are too hard for us to play. We can't play them. We can't master the controls.' And so I had suggested the Backyard Sports games [to them], and that's when I determined that they were nowhere to be found. And as any bored teacher would do during a pandemic in which they are stuck at home, I went and searched for the rights for the brand, and it was a very difficult search to find it. I wound up hiring a private investigator to track the rights down." 

It took more than two years, but Barnett was eventually able to acquire the rights to the Backyard Sports franchise, partnering with the Pittsburgh-based Mega Cat Studios to develop new games. Initially, the plan was to make a new game that was very similar to Backyard Baseball '97, but Mega Cat had another idea. 

"They said, 'Well, we could actually bring back Backyard Baseball '97.' And I said, 'No way. No you can't. We don't have any source code.' And they were like, 'No, we'll reverse-engineer and CD-ROM hack it and we can do it.'" 

That led to a number of re-releases of classic Backyard Sports games to test the waters, including the original Backyard Baseball '97 and its follow-up, Backyard Baseball 2001. Then it was time to make something a bit riskier: an entirely new game. The 2D style had been perfected, but Barnett wanted something that could merge that classic style and charm with a more modern look. 

"When I was thinking about what hadn't been done with this brand, there was no faithful representation of the 2D game that people like me loved when they were kids in the 3D world," Barnett said. "And so that became our mission from day one: How can we expand the Backyard universe, as we like to call it, into this 3D world?"

The solution, as you can see in the new Backyard Baseball game, was sort of a half-step between full-on 3D and the original games' visual style. The character models and environments are all in 3D, but they look extremely similar to the original 2D designs, and a number of 2D elements are still included. It's undeniably Backyard Baseball--instantly recognizable to a generation of sports fans who, like Barnett, grew up playing the originals. 

The secret weapon

It wasn't just the fans who loved those games, however: Current MLB players are right in that age range as well, and when it came time to promote the new game, Playground Productions had no shortage of interest. These pro players wanted Backyard Baseball at their ballparks, and that meant bringing the legendary Pablo Sanchez--The Secret Weapon--to do some public outreach. If you've watched an MLB game this year, there's a good chance you've seen him lurking in the crowd, perhaps hoping for a chance to pinch hit and send one over the fence.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AszLikoI3RU

"When we brought the brand back, we had tons of requests from athletes and teams to bring Pablo to their various stadiums or to interact with Pablo in some capacity. The games originally in 1997 were created as an educational tool to teach kids the rules of baseball or the rules of any of the sports that they were playing. And now fast-forward, a generation of Millennials have learned to play the sports that they've [then] mastered in the real world from these games."

One thing Millennials didn't have to deal with back at the turn of the century was microtransactions, and neither will a new generation of Backyard Baseball players. Once again, it comes back to Barnett's time as a teacher. 

Put away your wallet

"I would see my students--for holidays and birthdays--asking for virtual currency and spending so much money to unlock parts of the game that they could be grinding on and not be able to beat without the microtransaction. I saw people accidentally spend a lot of money and that was a huge part that I'd see from my students. They'd accidentally click a button because they were seven years old and then their parents wouldn't be able to get the money back. And I kind of just was like, 'Let's go back to basics.' When we were kids, we [just] played the game and this new game has tons of unlockables. There are trophies to win, [and] there are achievements to uncover. There are cards that you can redeem by just playing the game. You get tokens and you can redeem them for cards and try to chase and find them, but there are no microtransactions, which just felt kind of yucky." 

The classic Backyard clubhouse

More than just not wanting to siphon extra money from children, though, Playground Productions wants to ensure that kids trying out Backyard Baseball have a positive experience so they might try playing some real-life baseball. Backyard Baseball may just be their gateway to a lifetime of hitting dingers and throwing some power-up-free fastballs. 

"We don't want any of these kids to have a bad experience because we have a bigger commitment to kids in general, which is, if they have a bad experience with a baseball game like ours, they might be completely [unwilling] to interact with the whole sport. And we want to get kids and families to be connected together in sports in general." 

Baseball is for everyone

That philosophy of inclusion and removing barriers to entry is at the heart of Backyard Baseball, and has been since the original 1997 game. It launched with 15 boys and 15 girls, with many different ethnic backgrounds represented and the excellent pitcher Kenny Kawaguchi famously using a wheelchair. All of those kids return for the 2026 game, and that was a very deliberate decision. 

"It becomes more and more important every [time] that I meet a new fan because they tell our team about the different characters that they resonate with and why. And for me, the really great girls resonated with me and inspired me to go outside and play different sports that perhaps I wouldn't have played. I played on a co-ed flag football team when I was in elementary school. I never would've done that had I not had this game," Barnett said. "We hear all the time [from] tons of people in the wheelchair sports community [that] Kenny Kawaguchi means so much. They've never seen a character who's actually a star player represented in a wheelchair. And it means the world to our team when people come up and say, 'Yeah, I always pick Kenny on my team because he's like me.' We just hear different stories every day.

"Even [play-by-play broadcaster] Sunny Day! Sunny Day is a Black sports reporter and has been for almost 30 years, and that's meant something to a lot of girls who have been looking up at her. I think the representation means a ton. And we just leaned into who those characters were from the beginning." 

Sunny Day and Vinnie The Gooch

Backyard Baseball is available now for PC and Mac on Steam, with console releases to follow. The decision to not attach a number or year to the game's title was intentional, as Playground Productions has big plans for expansions and more content in the future. 

"This is not Backyard Baseball 2026," Barnett stressed. "And I, again, from my teaching experience, felt like having a sports game that comes out [with] a new one every single year is not always the best for fans. They spend a lot of money to play a great game and they want to have long-term fun. And so what we've done is design[ed] Backyard Baseball to be a long-term game. And so we have expansion packs that might come out in the future. We have unlockables that might come out in the future, new modes, and all sorts of different things that people will be able to do within this game for a very long time." 

That approach is extended beyond Backyard Baseball, as well, with Playground already bouncing around ideas for how the franchise could re-emerge in other sports, much like it did back in the early 2000s. 

"It's going to be a very long road for the Backyard," Barnett added. "We're not going anywhere."

While fans await news about GTA 6, Rockstar continues to update GTA Online, and its next big update is coming very soon.

The Kortz Center Heist, the first major brand-new heist in the game since 2020's Cayo Perico, releases on July 14, Rockstar Games has announced. In this heist, players will meet up with Mr. Faber and Raf De Angelis to steal valuable art.

Players will be able to acquire an Art Studio for their home as part of the new update, and after doing so, a "gifted counterfeiter" will occupy the space and create forgeries that players will use to replace the ones they steal.

The Kortz Center Heist goes live on July 14.

The Kortz Center Heist can be played solo or with a team of up to three others. As usual with GTA Online's heists, they're more fun with a team. The multi-stage heist will see players first scoping it out to learn how to get in undetected, then gearing up, and ultimately stealing the art. Players are encouraged to leave no witnesses and wipe out any CCTV footage.

This isn't a one-and-done heist, either, as there will be three new paintings to steal each week. Rockstar said there is "tons of variability" for how to approach the missions, enabling more replayability.

Additionally, the Kortz Center Heist update will add new vehicles to GTA Online and upgrade options from Hao's Special Works. GTA+ subscribers, meanwhile, can get the new Grotti Veleno GT car for free starting on July 14.

As for GTA 6, the game releases on November 19 for PS5 and Xbox Series X|S. Fans are convinced there might be some news about the game in August.

A teenage boy sustained injuries after lightning struck his home as he was playing video games, hitting him with an electrical shock.

The 13-year-old boy, Vladyslav Skuridin, told ABC News via a statement from his mother that he "felt a shock go through my whole body and I saw a super bright white light." He said he "quickly jolted back" and felt "super dizzy and confused."

He was playing a game on his computer at the time.

"Also, I kind of just started screaming because there was a super loud boom that made my ears hurt and pop," he said.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9r2F6k7BPS0

This happened on July 7 in the Houston, Texas suburb of Cypress. The event caused a small fire in the house's attic and injured the boy. He was evaluated on site by medical professionals but did not go to the hospital.

In response to the incident, local authorities said people should avoid using corded electronics and stay away from electrical wiring and plumbing during thunderstorms.

The Elder Scrolls 6 is one of the biggest upcoming games in the works at the Xbox-owned Bethesda Game Studios. But after Microsoft's sweeping layoffs, which also impacted BGS, developers there have expressed concerns about the impact on The Elder Scrolls 6 and the possibility of a delay.

A source at BGS told IGN that the developers have been "very excited and hyped" for The Elder Scrolls 6, and that the big Xbox "reset" has "had a crushing effect on morale" at the studio.

"We were already running a tight ship and are worried about this delaying the game (though a final release date was not yet chosen as far as we know)," the developer said.

The Elder Scrolls 6 was announced in 2018, so it's been in the works for a long time. A recent report from Bloomberg said The Elder Scrolls 6 was still a couple years away from releasing, but it remains to be seen if the cuts may impact timelines. Bethesda boss Todd Howard previously said the game may have been announced too soon.

The report cited another Bethesda developer who said "there is a fear" at the studio that the developers will be "replaced by cheaper, contracted labor" or that Bethesda will hire new developers to replace the laid-off ones who will then need to get up to speed with Bethesda's proprietary tools.

This, in turn, could lead to "more delays," the developer said, with workers then needing to "crunch to make up on time."

Bethesda cutting staff will lead to a "substantial and cascading effect" on The Elder Scrolls 6 and general morale, a developer said. "It's been a mix of every discipline: programmers, artists, and designers," said another source. "One person who's been at the company since Morrowind was cut."

In addition to The Elder Scrolls 6, Howard has discussed how the team is planning to make Fallout 5 later. At the same time, it was recently reported that Xbox's Obsidian studio is making a new Fallout game, with Fallout: New Vegas director Josh Sawyer leading the team.

Bethesda higher-up Jill Braff told staff in an email that the company needs to "change course" and focus on projects with the highest likelihood of making money. Before that, another report said Microsoft was making structural changes to help speed up the development of The Elder Scrolls (and Fallout) games.

The Xbox layoffs impacted 1,600 people this week, with another 1,600 people set to lose their jobs in the next year. Beyond the cuts at Xbox, Microsoft is slashing jobs throughout the entire company, with 4,800 roles impacted (about 2.1% of the company's total workforce). In addition to layoffs, Microsoft is divesting of five studios and cancelling projects, like Avowed 2.

Doom: The Dark Ages just received the Revelations expansion earlier this week, the latest work from prominent developer id Software. But what the studio was reportedly working on next sounds fascinating, according to GamesBeat. The team was reportedly playing around with a new Perfect Dark game, a co-op or multiplayer-centric version of Doom, and a John Wick-esque experience named Fury.

However, the chances these projects ever get fully fleshed out seem low after mass layoffs hit id Software earlier this week as part of the Xbox reset plan put in place by Xbox CEO Asha Sharma. In fact, VGC reports that apparently 136 people were fired. GamesBeat added that more than half of id Software got hit by the job cuts, with a former employee saying that "it's a bloodbath."

In addition, former id Software principal VFX artist Derek Best posted on LinkedIn that Microsoft is just "relegating them to support studio size" after the layoffs. Best had worked at id Software for 12 years before being let go earlier this week.

The Perfect Dark project became a possibility for id Software after The Initiative was closed down and that studio's game for the FPS franchise was canned. This appears to be a new take separate from The Initiative's, with concept art already made. Meanwhile, Doom: The Dark Ages director Hugo Martin was behind the proposal for Fury. The game was reportedly not greenlit officially from Microsoft, but incorporated "elements of sci-fi, noir, and Louisiana and Chicago gangsters." 

On top of these projects, the id Software layoffs could hint at the end of the historic id Tech engine. Other studios hit hard by the job cuts from Xbox leadership include Obsidian Entertainment and ZeniMax Online Studios.

Grand Theft Auto 6 preorders have finally arrived. New screenshots were also recently released. The game's November 19 release date is locked in. But Rockstar Games is still staying relatively quiet about the specifics of GTA 6, like what new kinds of gameplay experiences it provides.

To date, all that's been revealed are screenshots, story descriptions, and cinematic trailers. Fans are eagerly awaiting the arrival of any new information about the game, or a third trailer, and while it remains to be seen when that could happen, fans are now circling a new date on their calendars: August 7. That is the day that Rockstar owner Take-Two will release its next quarterly sales report.

Intriguingly, Take-Two is changing things up in terms of how it shares this update. Take-Two's quarterly reports, and the Q&A sessions that follow, are historically held after the market closes at 4 PM ET. But this new report on August 7 will be released before the market opens, with a conference call following at 8 AM ET. The market will then open that day at 9:30 AM ET.

People are speculating as to what this could mean, but Take-Two has not offered any official explanation for the change-up. Many companies report earnings before the bell and many report after. The notable bit here is that Take-Two normally reports after the market closes, not before it opens.

GTA 6 is coming this November.

In any event, there is precedent for Rockstar announcing new GTA 6 info around the time of Take-Two's earnings reports, so the excitement is not unfounded.

Take-Two has also said it will begin the marketing campaign for GTA 6 this summer, so people are waiting for that as well.

GTA 6 launches on November 19 for PS5 and Xbox Series X|S. The game will not be available on a disc, and that just makes sense.

The first big release of July 2026 has set sail, and so far, it looks like Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced is hitting a critical high note that the series hasn't seen since Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag. The remake of the 2013 game currently has a metascore of 84, a number that previous games have not reached for a very long time.

In comparison, the original Black Flag has a metascore of 88, and the highest review score aggregate between that game and its remake was Assassin's Creed Odyssey at 83. One thing that is worth pointing out is that Assassin's Creed Black Flag's metascore was gathered from 36 reviews on GameSpot's sister site Metacritic, while Black Flag Resynced's data stems from 83 critic reviews.

https://youtu.be/niSS6zePbYs

2013'S Black Flag may be a critical high point for the franchise, but it's not the highest-rated game across the mainline series. That honor belongs to Assassin's Creed 2, which has a metascore of 90, while Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood clocks in at 89. Here's a closer look at how Assassin's Creed games have scored over the years:

• Assassin's Creed -- 81 
• Assassin's Creed 2 -- 90
• Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood -- 89
• Assassin's Creed: Revelations -- 80
• Assassin's Creed 3 -- 84
• Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag -- 88
• Assassin's Creed Rogue -- 72
• Assassin's Creed Unity -- 72
• Assassin's Creed Syndicate -- 76
• Assassin's Creed Origins -- 81
• Assassin's Creed Odyssey -- 83
• Assassin's Creed Valhalla -- 80
• Assassin's Creed Mirage -- 76
• Assassin's Creed Shadows -- 81
• Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced -- 84

While most of the reviews have been positive, our own one wasn't as jazzed with the changes made to what some consider to be the peak of Assassin's Creed games. "You will see why the original game was the de facto pirate video game for years. But you will also find a remake that doesn't manage to take the crown from the very game that it's remaking," Jordan Ramée wrote in GameSpot's Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced review.

Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced - Standard Edition (PS5, Xbox Series X)

$60

See at Amazon View at other stores See at Best Buy See at Target See at GameStop Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced Digital Deluxe Edition (PS5, Xbox Series X, PC)

$70

See at Ubisoft Store Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced Collector's Edition (PS5, Xbox Series X, PC)

$200

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Persona saw a big presence at Anime Expo last weekend, featuring a dedicated booth, panels, and merchandise to promote the series' 30th anniversary, as well as the upcoming Persona 4 Revival and Persona 6. The staff behind P4R was also giving press interviews, and one comment by General Producer Kazuhisa Wada has been drawing attention.

Speaking to Anime Corner, Wada discussed some changes would be made to parts of the game, particularly with regard to one specific character.

"We haven't changed anything core about the characters," says Wada. "But we've just sort of brushed up the kind of corners, to make sure it all fits and really is appropriate for the characters and for the age that we live in now."

"We haven't really changed anything about the story of the characters' thoughts or how they act," he continues. "We've just ... changed the way we express some of this a little bit, mostly with Yosuke really. He's a little bit insensitive in terms of how he treats outsiders sometimes. We wanted to lighten that up and make it a little more fitting for the world that we live in now." He goes on to confirm that other hot-topic social links for characters like Kanji and Naoto will not be altered "at base."

Yosuke has been criticized for being somewhat abrasive, with some of his comments and actions coming off to players as homophobic. While some players see his attitude and words as rather typical of a teenager struggling with themselves, others have found him to be repellent. It's understandable why the team might want to reign Yosuke in a little.

This wouldn't be the first time a Persona re-release toned down some more controversial material: for example, Persona 3 Reload altered a scene that was largely seen as transphobic from the original game. What makes this a bit more interesting is that fans have found unused character dialogue and voiceover on the original PlayStation 2 disc of Persona 4 hinting at the main character being able to forge a close--perhaps romantic--relationship with Yosuke. Whether or not this angle could be explored in the remake is still up in the air--Wada does confirm that some new content will be present in the game--but one thing's for sure: If Atlus does take this step, thousands of fan-fiction writers the world over will be ecstatic.