If you've been looking for an online co-op game with some Alien vibes, the upcoming top-down tactical shooter DarkSwarm might just tickle your fancy. The debut title from Bitfire Games, and published by Deep Rock Galactic developer Ghost Ship Games, DarkSwarm is receiving its first closed alpha next month, and the pair of studios has confirmed just when that kicks off: September 2.

In DarkSwarm, you play as a team of "synthetically engineered elite mercenaries," tasked with various missions in dark corners of space to take on an alien infection. The game has four player classes to choose from, setting you out across procedurally generated, semi-destructible maps, and various weapons to choose from. Gameplay features include some stealth segments, hacking, and most notably, some top-down shooting against waves and waves of enemies. You'll also be able to play it in both online and local co-op.

Bitfire Games released a new trailer today that you can check out above, showing off some atmospheric lighting and the kind of moment-to-moment gameplay you can expect from DarkSwarm. If you are interested in trying DarkSwarm out, you can just head to the game's Steam page to sign up for its alpha test--Bitfire Games did previously note that spots are limited, so you might not get a chance to try it out.

Battlefield 6's open beta returned today, August 14, for its second and final weekend of testing. One of the new additions for Weekend 2 was the classic Battlefield mode Rush--but not everyone is enjoying the setup in Battlefield 6.

It was immediately discovered that Rush mode in Battlefield 6 limits matches to 12v12, for a total of 24 players--at least in the beta. People on Reddit and elsewhere online are saying this is simply too small. The current iteration of Rush in the beta is also infantry-only, so there are no tanks or vehicles whatsoever.

The objective in Rush mode is for the attacking side to arm and destroy MCOM stations, with the defenders trying to stop them. The attackers have a limited number of respawn tickets. Matches get pretty chaotic as attackers... rush to the stations and defenders do anything to stop them. Some have theorized that upping the player count would dial up the chaos beyond what would be enjoyable.

As soon as Netflix started to find huge amounts of success, companies everywhere started asking themselves "How can we do this, but for video games?" There's only company that's demonstrably found any success in that regard, i.e. Microsoft and its Xbox Game Pass--though whether or not the massive amount of revenue that subscription has brought in has translated to profit is another question entirely. If you ask former PlayStation boss and Sony Worldwide Studios chairman Shawn Layden, he's not so convinced that a Netflix-style games subscription will work out in the end.

Speaking to GamesIndustry.biz, Layden shared that he's "not a big supporter of the 'Netflix of gaming' idea. I think it is a danger." Layden went on to compare the idea to what happened to the music industry, and how many people think music should be free. "Spotify, what is that? It's 15 bucks a month or something, but virtually no one buys music anymore," he said.

He notes how at least the difference with music is that bands and artists can go on tours, meaning there's ticket sales and merchandise as another form of revenue. "The problem with gaming is all we have is launch," Layden continued. "That's it. No one wants to pay money to come into the studio and watch people code."