Call of Duty's midseason update arrives in both Black Ops 6 and Warzone this week, and here are all the major announcements for Season 5 Reloaded. The midseason update includes a DLC weapon, more multiplayer maps, a new scorestreak, and two seasonal events.

Table of Contents [hide]

• Call of Duty Season 5 Reloaded start times
• What to expect from Season 5 Reloaded
  • New weapon and scorestreak
  Call of Duty Season 5 Reloaded start times

  Activision confirmed that Call of Duty Season 5 Reloaded arrives on September 4. The update will go live at 9 AM PT / 12 PM ET / 5 PM BST across all platforms.

  What to expect from Season 5 ReloadedNew weapon and scorestreak

  This midseason update includes a new weapon and scorestreak. The new Gravemark .357 is a single-action revolver, and the Combat Bow serves as the new scorestreak. Both items will be unlocked as free rewards in the upcoming events.

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Helldivers 2 received a lot of new content this week as part of the Into the Unjust update, but if you're a scoleciphobiac, you might want to steer clear of the Terminid Hive Worlds for now. As players have discovered, gigantic Hive Lords that can give Destiny 2's Hive Worm gods a run for their money are lurking beneath the surface, and they're the devil to kill.

Easily one of the biggest bosses to date in Helldivers 2, Hive Lords boast an incredible amount of health and are covered in rocky scales of armor. These bullet-sponges can shrug off just about anything you can throw at them, and while they aren't unkillable, a Helldivers team is going to need to call in multiple drops of anti-tank weaponry and hellbombs to take down this skyscraper-sized titan.

Fighting a Hive Lord is challenging enough, but defending yourself from one is also a Herculean labor. The massive worms can burrow underground for surprise attacks, erupting to shower the battlefield with rocks or flatten you with their sheer mass. If that wasn't bad enough, they can blanket the area in corrosive bile, forcing teams to stay on the move during these fights.

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If you're at the intersection of ultra-wide monitor users and fans of Hollow Knight, then you're in luck. On the eve of the long-awaited (hard emphasis on "long") release of Hollow Knight: Silksong, the game's marketing lead confirmed that the metroidvania will support 21:9 displays, giving players another option on how to view its gorgeous 2D art.

Matthew Griffin, the marketing and publishing lead for Silksong, shared four screenshots from the game's PC version in ultrawide format, each showcasing a different biome from the setting of Pharloom. The original Hollow Knight, released in 2017, lacked official 21:9 support.

Hollow Knight: Silksong Ultrawide!
For PC players, screen ratios up to 21:9 are fully supported. pic.twitter.com/NAM1wYy4Nh

— Matthew Griffin (@griffinmatta) September 3, 2025

Including ultrawide support in a video game is easier said than done--it's a complete change in the game's field of view and resolution. A sidescrolling game like Hollow Knight: Silksong has to take into account the extra view space an ultrawide screen provides that a 16:9 screen won't have, and the developers at Team Cherry would have had to design around it.

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Cronos: The New Dawn is the latest survival horror game from Bloober Team, the developer behind the Silent Hill 2 remake last year. This original game blends survival horror with sci-fi, taking place in an alternate history Poland in the 1960s, under Soviet control. You explore the destroyed and life-less city, looking for jump points to find people in the past who could help prevent disaster.

For tips and guides on the toughest parts of Cronos: The New Dawn check out our guide on the optional Hospital Chapel puzzle.

How long is Cronos: The New Dawn?

Based on the completion time of three members of the GameSpot team, Cronos: The New Dawn will take you between 15 and 20 hours to complete. While there is some optional exploration and puzzle-solving to be done, the biggest swing in playtimes will come down to how difficult you find the combat to be. Cronos: The New Dawn has some tough encounters and restrictive inventory management, which could result in you getting stuck on some of the harder combat challenges.

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In the Hospital section of Cronos: The New Dawn, there is an optional puzzle you can complete to nab a new weapon. This comes during the time jump section of the hospital. Mild spoilers ahead.

The Hospital Chapel backroom can be unlocked by bringing two Chalices.

During the time jump sequence in the hospital, where you must help a trapped Weronika who is stuck in an elevator. To the right of the elevators, you can find the Traveler's safe room, which is also the hospital chapel. There is a locked backroom containing the Mace JER-5120, the double-barrel shotgun. In order to open the backdoor, you will need to gather two chalices in the hospital, one in the director's office, and another in a ward locked behind a key card.

Director's Office ChaliceHead under the obstacle shown, to shoot an explosive and open the room with the Director's Office passcode.

Advance through the main mission in the hospital area until you get the first chemical compound and the doctor's key card that opens locked areas. This will bring you to the Administration section of the hospital, and you want to go into this large room with large red fleshy tentacles going everywhere. There is a small side path you can walk down, leading to you ducking under some flesh.

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If you've come to a church door late in your journey through Cronos: The New Dawn, you may be feeling a bit stuck on how to proceed. Unlike many of the other puzzles in the game, this one requires you to actually find and place items in a very specific pattern to open the door. While you can get some clues from the mysterious engraving on the door, we can also provide you with the exact solution in this guide. Lastly, note that this is not the same puzzle as the chapel door, which is also found in the hospital, rather confusingly.

How to open the church door in Cronos: The New Dawn

If you approach the church door, you'll note that there are six statues. One statue is holding the Sickle, which can't be removed. Two others are holding a Cauldron and Shield. There are three empty statues, which means you'll need to find the remaining ornate items: a Child, a Sword, and a Trident.

These three items are found as you work your way through this area of the game, so they're not missable in any way. They'll be clearly defined in specific spots along the main path. When you've found them all, you can return to the door to begin solving the puzzle.

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Coming off the Silent Hill 2 remake, the biggest question I had for Bloober Team was whether the studio had fully reversed course. Once a developer of middling or worse horror games, Silent Hill 2 was a revelation. But it was also the beneficiary of a tremendously helpful blueprint: The game it remade was a masterpiece to begin with. Could the team make similar magic with a game entirely of its own creation?

Cronos: The New Dawn tells me it can. While it doesn't achieve the incredible heights of the Silent Hill 2 remake, Cronos earns its own name in the genre with an intense sci-fi horror story that will do well to satisfy anyone's horror fix, provided they can stomach its sometimes brutal enemy encounters.

Cronos: The New Dawn looks and feels like the middle ground between Resident Evil and Dead Space. Played in third-person and starring a character who moves with a noticeable heft that keeps them feeling vulnerable, it's a game that at no point gets easy in its 16- to 20-hour story. All the hallmarks of a classic survival-horror game are here, from its long list of different enemy types that demand specific tactics, to a serious commitment to managing a very limited inventory, and especially to the feeling of routinely limping to the next safe room, where the signature music becomes the soundtrack to your brief moments of respite before you trek back out into the untold horrors that await you.

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Former PlayStation exclusive game Helldivers 2 recently opened up the floodgates to Xbox Series X|S users. And while Helldivers 2 remains immensely popular, Arrowhead Game Studios CEO Shams Jorjani has indicated that his team has had trouble adjusting the game because the majority of players aren't offering any feedback about it.

"The vast, vast majority silently play the game--they don't post here or on Reddit," wrote Joriani on Discord (via GamesRadar). "When we do good, we [see] this in the stats. And when we don't, we also see it--sometimes it overlaps with what influencers or people say in social media--often it does not. So we use different tools to calibrate our compass."

Jorjani noted that the developers do listen to feedback from Helldivers 2 players who stream their games. However, he feels that they represent "the play style of a minority," while also setting "standards for many as they have a platform to broadcast and many who look." Ultimately, Joriani indicated that Arrowhead makes changes and fixes by balancing out external feedback with "a lot of data, metrics. and qualitative data."

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The Nintendo 64 - Nintendo Classics: Mature app gets a little bit bigger tomorrow, as the House of Mario revealed that the classic shooter Forsaken 64 will be making its way to the app on September 4. As always, this is only for Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack subscribers, and you'll need to have the Mature version of the Nintendo 64 app downloaded in order to play it. Forsaken 64 is actually only the fifth game to release on the Mature app, joining other classics like Perfect Dark and Turok: Dinosaur Hunter.

For those who might be on the younger side, Forsaken 64 is a shooter that first released way back in 1998 on the original Nintendo 64, as well as PlayStation and PC. It's set in the still-far-off year of 2113, where all life on Earth has been wiped out following a science experiment that caused a shockwave to hit the entire planet. The N64 version is actually unique compared to the PlayStation and PC versions--in the latter two, you play as someone trying to obtain some lost treasure, whereas in the former you play as a character trying to thwart said thieves by taking them down.

The future is… forsaken!
FORSAKEN 64 is coming to the Nintendo 64 – Nintendo Classics: Mature app on Sept 4 for #NintendoSwitchOnline + Expansion Pack members! pic.twitter.com/be5uGvh7ys

— Nintendo of America (@NintendoAmerica) September 3, 2025

A big thing that sets the game apart from that era of shooters is its movement--the game has a full six degrees of freedom, meaning you can move backwards and forwards, side to side, up and down, and combinations of all of those too. You'll also be able to play in multiplayer with up to four players at once like in the original game.

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Fans will find a way. After Ubisoft pulled the plug on The Crew--making the racing game unplayable last year--a community project called The Crew Unlimited has come up with a solution to revive the title on September 15.

Rock Paper Shotgun spotted that the "server emulator project" is close to releasing, with the fan-made team saying, "All that is left to do is to thoroughly test and validate the software." The Crew Unlimited also stressed that it's "not affiliated with publisher Ubisoft or developer Ivory Tower in any way." The mod will be available for free.

Ubisoft shut down The Crew servers in March 2024, making the game unplayable since it requires an online connection. That means owners of the game couldn't even check out the single-player campaign. This led to a couple of fans filing a lawsuit against Ubisoft over The Crew situation. In the aftermath of the uproar, Ubisoft has announced offline modes are on the way for The Crew 2 and The Crew: Motorfest.

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Earlier this summer, developer Wargaming shared the first look at World of Tanks 2.0, a massive update that may be the biggest one to date for the 15-year-old game. Now, the 2.0 update is live and players can dive into a new story-driven PvE mode and take out 16 new Tier XI tanks for a test drive on the battlefield.

Some of the other changes to the game include a redesigned hanger and user interface, an upgraded matchmaker, and "a comprehensive rebalance of hundreds of vehicles." A new Scandinavian map, Nordskar, will be the site of the PvE Event, "Operation Boiling Point." That's where players can try out three different Tier XI tanks.

Wargaming has also stated that the sound upgrades will include "heavier, more authentic tank sounds recorded from real vehicles." The developer is also rewarding longtime players who started before the 2.0 update with one full tech-tree branch (Tier VI–X), 2,500 Gold,15,000 Bonds, 10 million Credits, and 60 days of premium access.

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Octopath Traveler has always been the kind of old-school, massive retro game that real RPG sickos can sink our teeth into. The original pitch--a sprawling game that tracks the individual stories of eight different party members, each with their own individualized skills in both combat and towns, who then come together to face some grave threat--can easily last dozens of hours, and so far has across two games. Octopath Traveler 0, a prequel to the other two games, takes that foundation and adds even more: expanded customization, townbuilding with farming, larger party sizes, and quests that feed back into all of the other systems. It's enough to be absolutely daunting, but in the best of ways.

In a lengthy Gamescom demo, I was able to see the barest outlines of many of the new systems at play. For starters, Octopath 0 has a primary protagonist: a custom character you create yourself. We didn't have a chance to tinker with the character creator, but our session did have a "created" character as the lead, who looked like she fit in well with the HD-2D aesthetic of the game. I'm curious to see more of this, especially how you can mix and match different features while maintaining the lovely pixel art style that the Octopath games have helped to establish.

I have a lot of confidence that it can pull off rich character customization thanks to another piece of the game: the townbuilding. In Octopath Traveler 0, you have a home base that you can customize to your liking with houses, shops, and even fields for crops. You can lay buildings and other structures anywhere on a grid, and it's very cool to see the HD-2D style of building architecture merged with this customized dollhouse look. Once the buildings are set, the home base is unrecognizable from any other Octopath village, so it blends in seamlessly with the series' look. And the farming and livestock materials give it a Stardew Lite appeal, since you can improve things like your crop yields or building materials by exploring the world and battling.

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Red Dead Redemption 2 launched with a handy mobile companion app that let players use a tablet or phone as a second screen for the game, providing easy access to the map and other HUD features. The app has now been quietly delisted from Google Play and the iOS App Store, meaning only players who already downloaded the app will be able to access it.

The app included access to the game map, including the ability to mark waypoints and points of interest, and also displayed info such as health and ammo on the app, meaning you could remove the HUD from the actual game screen. The app also included a game manual, and offered the official game guide as an optional purchase.

The app was delisted from both the App Store and the Google Play store on August 19, something that has only just been picked up now thanks to two listings on the Rockstar support site, as picked up by Game Rant.

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The high cost of a PS5 is putting some pressure on Monster Hunter Wilds sales, Capcom president Haruhiro Tsujimoto says, with the strong first-month sales apparently in spite of this barrier to entry.

Nikkei Gaming interviewed the Capcom president in May this year, but only just published it, so his comments are mainly in the context of Wilds' first month sales--which topped 10 million units in an unprecedented success for Capcom. Despite the game's strong first month Tsujimoto said that the high price of Monster Hunter Wilds' "main platform," the PS5, was an "unexpectedly large" barrier to achieving this target.

The exec also pointed to the success of the Switch 2 and its moderate price to emphasize his point--though didn't say anything about the potential for a Switch 2 port for Wilds.

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Dolby has announced Dolby Vision 2, an upgrade to its proprietary HDR standard that is going beyond just HDR. The new standard implements AI tech, which Dolby says will intelligently adapt to the content you're watching to provide the best viewing experience.

Dolby Vision 2 boasts a more powerful image engine, which Dolby says will improve your viewing experience even for the existing library of Dolby Vision-supported content. The major difference for the new version of Dolby Vision is Content Intelligence, an AI-powered technology that claims to intelligently adapt your display based on "what you're watching and where you are watching."

These features include ambient-light detection and specific adjustments targeting the "unique needs" of live sports and gaming. The intelligent features also include a "Precision Black" feature that appears to be targeting viewer complaints that a lot of premium TV is too dark--saying Dolby Vision 2 can improve clarity of dark scenes "in any viewing environment without compromising artistic intent."

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PlayStation Link, the proprietary wireless connectivity tech that powers Sony's duo of PS5 headsets, is finally getting a PC driver--almost two years after it launched. The driver is set to roll out between now and October 2, and will allow users to adjust settings and update their devices on PC without having to connect to a PS5.

The new PS Link driver will add a quick menu that's accessible from the system tray or by pressing the PS Link button three times on the device itself. The menu allows users to adjust audio settings for the Pulse Elite or Pulse Explore, and it shows the battery level and notifies users if a new firmware update is available.

Take full control of your audio experience on PC with Pulse Elite and Explore.
Introducing a PlayStation Link PC Driver for Windows, rolling out gradually starting today. For more details on the driver, visit: https://t.co/08WToD1rnq pic.twitter.com/n22aTyhcdD

— PlayStation (@PlayStation) September 2, 2025

With the driver installed, users can also update firmware for either audio device or for the PS Link dongle directly from the PC. The Elite and Explore will need to be directly connected to the PC via USB cable in order to update firmware.

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Hirogami is a 3D action platformer inspired by the ancient Japanese art of origami (paper folding). Everything you encounter has been crafted to convey the physical, often fragile, natural world of paper, amidst a story interwoven with threads of wistful intrigue. Discover new forms to traverse the world, solve puzzles, and best your foes. Roll through obstacles and enemies alike as a hardy Armadillo, traverse the treetops and pound pests as a mighty Ape, and leap to previously unreachable heights as a formidable Frog. A powerful force of digital creatures - the Blight - is invading the world, defiling the delicate natural balance that has held sway for an age. As Hiro, an enigmatic performer (and master of the art of folding) from Shishiki village, it falls to you to cleanse the mind-warped inhabitants of this world, and to bring peace back to the land.