E-Sport

Two expansions ago, with 2016’s Legion, high-level and endgame World of Warcraft underwent a big change. Legion introduced Artifact weapons for each class specialisation that could be infinitely powered up and used to further customise each specialisation’s playstyle. All told, it was a net positive, dovetailing well with some of the expansion’s other innovations – such as the repeatable, rotating World Quests – to open long-term endgame progression to a wider variety of players than just the raiding hardcore. WOW became a game you could pleasurably grind away at and advance your character without feeling funnelled towards more and more challenging group content in the quest for elusive loot drops. (It became a lot more like Diablo in that respect – coincidentally or not, current WOW production director John Hight also served as the production director on Diablo 3’s excellent console version and Reaper of Souls expansion.)

However, layered-on, limitless … Read the rest

Capcom has issued a patch for Devil May Cry 5 Special Edition, addressing problematic support for 120Hz unique to the PlayStation 5 version of the game – as reported in prior Digital Foundry coverage. The issue in a nutshell is this: if your TV supports 120Hz, the PS5 version of the game hard-set the console to run at that refresh rate – even if you weren’t using the 120H frame-rate mode. This presented several problems, the most notable being that many 4K TVs only support 120Hz at 1080p or 1440p, meaning that DMC5’s 4K-specific modes would produce a downscaled output.

Even those with the latest HDMI 2.1 displays capable of running full 4K at 120Hz would have issues with the game: Devil May Cry 5 would then run with an unlocked frame-rate, with the game often running in excess of 60 frames per second. While this was great for … Read the rest

Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War, the latest in Activision’s annual first-person shooter series, is a solid effort. Playing through its campaign, multiplayer and zombies modes – Call of Duty’s golden triangle – there is a lot to like. And I do believe Black Ops Cold War is probably the best game it has any right to be under the circumstances – circumstances that were troubled even before the pandemic forced the developers at Raven and Treyarch and the enormous quality assurance effort that goes into a Call of Duty to switch to work from home. Like a Black Ops operation behind enemy lines, Cold War is something of a miraculous rescue job, the result of what I have no doubt was a crushing effort to meet Activision’s launch deadline. That there is a solid game to play at all is a fantastic achievement. But, every now and then, … Read the rest