After adding two-player expeditions in the last Elden Ring Nightreign update, From Software's latest patch is adding some balance adjustments to the powerful abilities that come with the legendary sword known as Storm Ruler.

Going forward, it won't take as long to charge the storm effect and the animation speed of the blade will be faster. Overall, the performance of Storm Ruler will be increased, even when the attack power isn't charged with the storm. However, those upgrades come with a tweak that removes the bug that allowed players to use Storm Ruler without burning through FP.

The update also includes a number of other bug fixes, including one that addresses slowdown for other players when using too many Sorceries and Incantations. Performance issues appear to have been the main problems addressed in the patch, but there were others as well, including a bug that prevented some attacks of the Everdark Sovereign Caligo, Miasma of Night from hitting other players.

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Unlike many other multiplayer first-person shooters on the market, the Battlefield franchise hasn't always been keen to allow players to check their stats through the game's menus. That philosophy hasn't changed with Battlefield 6, as the multiplayer beta offers no way to check your account stats in-game. However, that doesn't mean you can't view your stats using an alternative method.

Fortunately for the community, EA has revealed a completely safe and official way to check all of your pertinent player stats in the Battlefield 6 beta.

How to view player stats in Battlefield 6

At the time of writing, you can only check your stats from the first weekend of the open beta in Battlefield 6. This should be expanded to include the second weekend after it concludes and eventually the full game when it releases in October. EA hasn't officially confirmed whether the stat-checking method will be a part of the full launch, but there's no reason to expect it won't be available.

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Some Terraria players charge into battle swinging broadswords, others rain arrows from afar, and then some prefer to watch the world burn from a safe distance. If your idea of fun involves turning mana into spectacular destruction, Terraria’s magic weapons are your bread and butter. From humble sparks to kaleidoscopic death rays, these staves of sorcery are the ultimate tools for mages looking to leave a scorching impression.

Magic wands in Terraria are more than just damage sticks. The best ones combine range, style, and special effects that can turn tricky boss fights into theatrical light shows. Our picks cover every stage of the game, from your first foray into the forests to the celestial gauntlet at the very end. Whether you’re into precise spellwork or screen-filling chaos, here’s what you should have in your arsenal.

Table of Contents [hide]

• Pre-Hardmode
  • Wand of Sparking
  Pre-HardmodeTerraria's Wand of Sparking in actionWand of Sparking
  • Damage: 14
  • Mana cost: 2
  • Knockback: 0
  • Critical chance: 14%
  • Speed: 26 (Average)

  If you’re fresh out of character creation and still rocking copper tools, the Wand of Sparking is your first taste of arcane power. It’s not subtle, shooting tiny flames with modest damage, but it’s notably accessible. You can find it in surface chests or wooden crates from fishing, meaning there’s a decent chance you’ll be clearing out caves and singeing zombies before you’ve even built a proper house.

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My first Evo was all the way back in 2003, when it was held at Cal Poly Pomona. It was a ragtag yet passionate operation where a bunch of weirdos crammed into one of the university's big halls to play fighting games and watch the best of the best from across North America (and the Japanese players they convinced to come attend) duke it out. There were a bunch of PlayStation 2 consoles and arcade machines, a few projection screens, and some seats if you wanted to either watch or play some games. There were no ads or major announcements--the entertainment during downtime consisted of fan-made combo videos and somebody playing the overhead levels of Contra III. Despite all of the tech hiccups and the obvious drive to run things as cheaply as possible, we all loved it there.

Never would I have dreamed that, almost a quarter-century later, Evo would become one of gaming's most-talked-about annual events: a celebration of love and community in fighting games that even people not really into the genre would tune in to watch online. Evo now occupies an entire, massive hall in the Las Vegas Convention Center, where thousands of players from around the world come for a chance to compete and share their passion for fighting games in a variety of ways--be it entering tournaments, running side events, drawing and selling art in the Artists Alley, cosplaying, or just playing casual sets all day with people they've never met before. In a way, the main Evo event has morphed from a tournament into a full-blown fighting game convention, where the tournaments are now just a major part of the show, not necessarily the sole reason why many of the people are there.

But with that rapid growth has come a massive price tag. If you didn't purchase admission early, a weekend competition pass to Evo 2025 was around $250, plus $10 for each of the official tournament games you wanted to enter. If you paid early and just wanted to watch or play casuals with other attendees, that would still set you back $180. That's not taking into account all of the other expenses: gas or airfare to get to Las Vegas, and then lodging, transportation, food once you're there. And that doesn't take into account a bunch of other miscellaneous expenses you might unexpectedly run into (Is your joystick bag too big? That's a checked-bag fee). Sure, there are ways to cut costs--the tried-and-true method of cramming a gaggle of people into a single hotel room is a favorite--but oftentimes they can wind up costing just as much or more. Staying at a cheaper hotel that's farther away from the LVCC? The moment you step into 105-degree Vegas summer heat, you're going to ditch the idea of walking and get a Lyft instead.

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The storytellers behind Blizzard's Story and Franchise Development team have decided to unionize. Following the results of a union-authorization vote, Blizzard's SFD will now join the Communications Workers of America in Orange County, California. Additionally, Microsoft has voluntarily recognized the SFD team's union vote.

There have been two previous unionization votes at Blizzard in the past year. In July 2024, the developers behind World of Warcraft voted to unionize and joined CWA. The Overwatch 2 team passed a similar vote in May 2025, and also joined CWA.

One of the SFD union organizers, Buddy Fisk, shared a statement through CWA citing the increasingly frequent layoffs in the video game industry as a driving force behind this vote.

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Nearly five years into the lifespan of the Xbox Series X|S and PlayStation 5 consoles, many live-service games still support the previous generation's Xbox One and PlayStation 4, but the number is always at risk of dropping. Today, Krafton announced it would be the next developer to end support for those last-gen consoles, as PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds will no longer be supported on Xbox One and PS4 beginning November 13.

Xbox One and PS4 support for PUBG will be shut off "during live server maintenance on November 13, 2025," according to the announcement post on PUBG's official website. The server maintenance will also make enhancements to the current-gen versions, including upgraded resolution and frame-rate options.

PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds

"It weighs heavily on us to deliver this news to our console players who have enjoyed PUBG on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One for so many years," the announcement post reads. "This was not a decision made lightly. It comes after long and careful consideration, in pursuit of the continued growth and long-term future of PUBG Console. We kindly ask for your understanding."

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Congressman Ro Khanna, a Democrat from California, has issued a call to the developers of Roblox to "do more" to help protect children amid ongoing reports that the platform is not doing enough to safeguard young people from bad actors.

"There is a growing issue in our country with Roblox, an online gaming platform, and the abuse of children," Khanna said in a video posted to TikTok. "Roblox is simply not doing enough to protect our kids, to inform parents, and to go after child predators. As you know, I am leading the fight for the full release of the Epstein files. I believe in transparency and I believe in protecting our children."

Khanna said he's urging people to sign a petition to "push Roblox to do more," asking for 1 million signatures by Friday, August 15. "We need to keep our kids safe online," he said.

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Magic: The Gathering's crossover with Avatar: The Last Airbender releases November 21, and preorders just went live on Amazon. Store pages are also live at Best Buy, but none of the products are available to purchase at the time of writing. The Avatar MTG set has multiple booster boxes, a pair of Scene Boxes, the always-popular $70 bundle, and the Beginner Box, a $35 set designed for new players to learn how to play MTG with the Avatar: The Last Airbender set.

Preorder at Amazon

We've listed all of the Avatar: The Last Airbender Magic: The Gathering products below.

Magic: The Gathering x Avatar: The Last Airbender

• Beginner Box -- $35
• Avatar: The Last Airbender Bundle -- $70
• Scene Box 1 - The Black Sun Invasion -- $42
• Scene Box 2 - Tea Time at The Jasmine Dragon -- $42
• Commander's Bundle -- $110
• Jumpstart Booster Box -- $167.76
• Play Booster Box -- $209.70
• Jumpstart Pack -- $14
• Play Booster Sleeve -- $7
• Collector Booster Pack -- $40
• Collector Booster Box -- $430

Avatar: The Last Airbender x Magic: The Gathering

Like all MTG crossovers with major franchises, the Avatar: The Last Airbender crossover will be popular. If you're interested in adding some Avatar MTG cards to your collection, securing your preorders early is a good idea. Many of the Final Fantasy Magic products sold out long before launch, and most of the products in the Spider-Man Magic: The Gathering set are sold out ahead of the Marvel hero's MTG debut next month.

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Dragon Age: Origins was the start of a long-running and beloved series at BioWare, but it wasn't always meant to be. Former executive producer Mark Darrah, who worked for BioWare from 1998 through 2022, said that the game was conceived as a standalone story, and that you can still see that intent in some unresolved story threads.

"Dragon Age: Origins originally was intended as a standalone game," Darrah told MrMattyPlays (via PC Gamer). "You can see this, if you play Dragon Age: Origins, knowing that it was intended to stand alone. There's a lot of threads that are cast out that kind of had to be abandoned because there could be werewolves all over the world, there might be a civil war happening underground in Orzammar." He said those elements were good for world-building but were difficult to deal with as an ongoing series.

Dragon Age became known as BioWare's fantasy series alongside the sci-fi Mass Effect. Both had ongoing stories that respected your earlier choices, including the ability to import your saves from Dragon Age: Origins and Dragon Age 2 into the third game, Dragon Age: Inquisition. Or, you could customize a set of pre-set choices to build the world of Thedas to your liking. But accounting for all those choices in the third game meant that they could only be so impactful while still telling new original stories, because the studio hadn't counted on needing to pay off every decision from Origins into later games. Then Origins was a success, and the company was inclined to iterate with sequels.

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Battlefield 6's open beta returns on August 14 for its second and final weekend of testing, and now Battlefield Studios has outlined what to expect, including playlist changes, a nice new feature, and more.

For Weekend 2, more playlists will rotate between different game modes. For example, the All-Out Warfare playlist will feature Breakthrough, Conquest, and Rush for the second weekend.

"Rotating through multiple modes within playlists helps us understand what our community enjoys as we shape the launch experience, and enables us to keep more fan-favorite modes available at the same time," Battlefield Studios said.

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Famously, parks full of monsters always work out well, right? Those things never like... get loose and wreak havoc on their captors, forcing them to deal with the morality (not to mention safety) of these decisions, do they? Okay cool, because Helldivers 2 is making a second Tyranny Park.

Or at least, it's trying to. Helldivers 2's latest major order--a series of challenges for players to complete as a community--promises the erection of a new Tyranny Park for a hefty set of prices, including the liberation of a planet, the extermination of quite literally millions of the game's bug-like Terminid enemies, and more. Only then can Tyranny Park 2 be completed.

MAJOR ORDER: The citizens of Super Earth have endured over a year of war, initiated and perpetuated by the enemies of Freedom. And while their resolve is firm, they must be afforded some relief. Diversion is demanded - and deserved.
Accordingly, the Super Earth Government has… pic.twitter.com/TJZYAwJTKy

— HELLDIVERS™ 2 (@helldivers2) August 13, 2025

To be specific, players must complete the following milestones to see the likely disastrous construction of Tyranny Park 2 become real:

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Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls was one of the big surprises of the Summer Game Fest season. With Marvel Comics' famous character roster, Arc System Works' fighting game development prowess, and Sony Interactive Entertainment's publishing might powering it, it's easy to see how Tokon has quickly become one of the most anticipated fighting games.

Nowhere was that excitement more palpable than at Evo 2025, where Tokon made its public playable debut. Throughout the entire three-day event, lines to try the game stretched around the Arc System Works exhibition booth, with many eagerly waiting for hours for a brief Tokon trial session. So when Sony and Arc System Works offered me a special hands-on session to try out the superhero scuffles of Marvel Tokon, I leapt into action. What I found was a striking, highly approachable fighter that feels like it's poised for success.

Arc System Works' pedigree among fighting game fans needs little introduction: It won over fans in the early aughts with the sharp visuals and in-depth gameplay of the Guilty Gear series, moved into the HD era with BlazBlue, and have since become widely known for its games' signature anime-style, incredibly detailed graphics and high-octane, technically oriented combat. It's worked with other companies' IPs to create titles like Persona 4 Arena, Dragon Ball FighterZ, and Granblue Fantasy Versus to great success.

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Helldivers 2 is gearing up for its Xbox release on August 26, and fans have found even more evidence of an imminent crossover with Halo in the form of a mysterious signal that sounds suspiciously like Halo 3: ODST's Superintendent.

The crossover seems to be all but confirmed at this point, with the latest Helldivers 2 trailer teasing a Halo 3: ODST collab by including some of the game's iconic music (which begins at the 1:17 timestamp, no less) set amidst the backdrop of a rainy city. Now, fans have put together yet another tease, this time in the form of a mysterious signal from the Helldivers Discord server (via GamesRadar).

At first, the signal seems familiar but doesn't quite sound like anything from Halo. However, when the signal's audio is reversed, it sounds almost identical to the phone alarm for the AI Superintendent from Halo 3: ODST. It's that alarm which helps guide ODST's Rookie through the embattled streets of New Mombasa following a Covenant invasion. Is the Superintendent now trying to warn Helldivers of a coming threat?

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Tekken is a mainstay of the Evo tournament series--and of the entire fighting game genre. But things haven't been entirely rosy at the King of Iron Fist tournament lately. Despite very strong sales for Tekken 8, many competitive players have expressed a dislike for the changes to characters and overall gameplay introduced in Season 2, and they've been very vocal about it on social media. Knowing that things are a bit stormy around Tekken 8's competitive scene lately, I went into an interview with members of the Tekken team at Evo to ask questions about their upcoming content plans, how to deal with criticism, revisiting past games, and the impending return of their number one 3D fighting game rival.

As the session began, I was shown the trailer for Armor King by director Kohei Ikeda, often referred to by players and staff as Nakatsu. Armor King is a classic returning character, with appearances going back to the very first Tekken. He leans heavily into the "heel" wrestling persona, with a black, spikey outfit and an offense-oriented skillset with a new stance called Bad Jaguar. He can even make the stage floor crumble when performing his rage art.

I noticed that when Armor King's attacks hit the opponent, there's a brief flash of the Japanese kanji "aku" (悪), meaning evil. "You're the first person to notice that," Tekken designer and interpreter Michael Murray said. "It's there because Armor King's classic costume used to feature that kanji prominently."

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A new hide-and-seek online multiplayer mode called Fox Hunt for Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater will have a pretty big drawback: no cross-play support. That means players can't face off unless they're on the same platform. The remake of the PlayStation 2 classic is slated for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S.

Konami confirmed the lack of cross-play for Metal Gear Solid Delta on X, with GameSpot verifying the translation. While the game launches later this month, Fox Hunt isn't set to arrive until this fall. The multiplayer mode will share elements with 2008's Metal Gear Online but is completely original.

【ご案内】
『METAL GEAR SOLID Δ: SNAKE EATER』のオンライン対戦モード 「FOX HUNT」につきまして、異なるプラットフォーム間でのクロスプレイは非対応となります。
対応機種
PlayStation®5、Xbox Series X|S、Steam®#MGSDelta #MetalGearSolid #メタルギアソリッド pic.twitter.com/sGsv3CjyhW

— メタルギア公式 (METAL GEAR) (@metalgear_jp) August 13, 2025

Fox Hunt won't be the only additional activity alongside the main campaign. Metal Gear Solid Delta will also feature Snake Vs. Monkey on PC and PS5 (which was part of the original Metal Gear Solid 3) and Snake Vs. Bomberman on Xbox Series X|S (which is a new mode). The game is set to come out August 28, with the collector's edition recently restocked.

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Superstar Mode has returned in Madden NFL 26, and it allows you to create your own player and go through the entire NFL experience. This includes the entire pre-draft process, which culminates with getting drafted by one of the 32 NFL teams. However, before you can get drafted, you need to participate in the NFL Combine. The Combine is meant to be a complete evaluation of you as a player, but it's not just your physical traits being tested. There's also a Combine interview where teams will ask you a series of questions, and you need to provide the correct answers.

While you can try to complete the interview by yourself, we have provided a list of every question and answer for the NFL Combine in the guide below. This lets you completely ace the test and get drafted highly in Madden 26's Superstar Mode.

All NFL Combine answers in Madden 26Superstar Mode allows you to take over the NFL in Madden 26, and that starts at the Combine.

In total, there are six questions you can be asked during the NFL Combine interview, but some of the questions are only for certain positions. You'll be asked five general questions plus a position-specific question for a total of six.

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Assassin's Creed Shadows was the series' long-anticipated trip to Japan, but it also made some significant changes to the series. Most notable for longtime fans was the absence of "social stealth," a series mainstay that allows your assassin to blend in with a crowd. But Ubisoft says it had good reason for the change, and reassured fans that social stealth could make a comeback.

In a Reddit AMA, a trio of Ubisoft developers addressed a fan who asked about social stealth elements.

"For Shadows, our stealth team chose to put 100% of their energy on the moment-to-moment tactical shinobi experience, which left no space for Social Stealth," they said. "Tthat [sic] does not mean that Social Stealth is gone from the Assassin's Creed franchise, though!"

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NBA 2K26 is releasing soon, and with it comes a whole new crop of rookie players looking to make their mark in the real world and the virtual one as well. To continue on with 2K26's ratings week, the developers have revealed the best rookies in the game at launch. While the first few members of the top 10 rookies are as expected, there are some shifts at the bottom of the list compared to how draft night went earlier in 2025.

Below, you can see the top 10 rookies in NBA 2K26 according to their ratings at launch.

NBA 2K26 rookie ratings

We'll count down each of the top rookies by their rating below. There's certainly one outlier on the list, and you can probably guess who that is, but there are some other rookies you'll definitely want to keep your eye on as the NBA season begins.

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Overwatch 2 fans can look forward to a new addition to the roster later this month, with the arrival of Wuyang. The new support-class hero looks like he'd fight right into the world of Avatar: The Last Airbender, and this new gameplay trailer for the character shows how he uses unique water-based abilities to disrupt enemies while also protecting his allies.

Wuyang will officially debut in Season 18 of Overwatch 2 when it kicks off on August 26, but players can also take him for a spin in a Hero Trial from August 14-18. Blizzard has also confirmed the abilities that Wuyang can wield in combat and his perks, and it looks like he's designed to be a mobile medic. Here's a closer look at his skills.

Wuyang AbilitiesWuyangGallery Xuanwu Staff

Primary attack: Fire a damaging Water Orb. Hold to control its trajectory and empower its explosion.

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The official The Legend of Zelda Movie account has appeared on social media, and Nintendo fans are pointing out how strange it is that Sony Pictures seems to be running the account. But there is a simple and understandable reason for this.

The page follows just two accounts: Sony Pictures and PlayStation. It doesn't follow any accounts related to Nintendo, which of course created The Legend of Zelda franchise and develops the games.

The account is likely linked to Sony because Sony Pictures itself is co-financing the movie with Nintendo, with Sony Pictures handling the theatrical distribution of the movie. Nintendo is financing more than 50% of the costs. Given Sony Pictures is distributing the movie, it stands to reason that it might have control of the account. For its part, Nintendo has made announcements about the movie, like the cast reveal, via the Nintendo account.

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