Everything you need to know about DMZ mode in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4

Everything you need to know about DMZ mode in  Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 https://ift.tt/mtISFLa

DMZ is Call of Duty’s definitive extraction shooter experience, launching alongside Campaign and Multiplayer when Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 releases on October 23. To help prepare you for this extraction game mode, here are the major highlights, starting with a tour of the Forward Operating Base and its many stations.

Forward Operating Base

The Forward Operating Base (FOB) is your command center for DMZ. Manage progression, prepare your gear, and plan the next deployment. As you complete Operations across Hajin, the FOB evolves with you, transforming from a foothold to a fully operational base with over a dozen different Stations. Here’s a look at the stations you can immediately access:

• Operators: Manage and select your Active Duty Operator, check their status, and select one for deployment.
• DMZ Orders: Where you review your current set of Missions downloaded to your Orders Tablet. Earn rewards for completing these structured objectives during deployments.
• Stash/Loadout: Stow looted items you’ve extracted with in your Stash. Equip weapons and gear in your Loadout, ready for the next infil.
• Firing Range: Test your equipped weapons at the FOB Firing Range against a variety of targets.  
• Deploy: A threshold of razor wire leads to a heavy-lift military transport waiting for your orders to deploy.

Continue successful deployments within Hajin, and focus on expanding your base with more stations. Here’s what you can unlock:

• 3D Printer: Use Resources and 3D Printer Ingredients to craft a variety of gear. This is also used to upgrade various stations in the FOB.
• Gunsmith: Loot weapons and return with them, then use DMZ Cash to purchase attachments, or build brand new weapons by extracting from Hajin with a Weapon Manual.
• Vendor: Check the vendor’s wares and spend DMZ Cash on a selection of weapons and other helpful gear. The items on sale rotate from day to day, so buy something when you see it.
• Bounty Leaderboard: Gain intel on the most dangerous PvP Bounty hunters and killers active across Hajin.
• Boss Board: Need to track down a high-value target? Seek intel on Lieutenants, then drop into Hajin, search them out, and face down the exclusion zone’s most dangerous foes.
• Dog Tag Case: Display your trophies from defeated Operators.
• DMZ Progression: Ensure you’re leveling up in DMZ with this dedicated Progression Track, from 1-70. Unlock FOB stations and gain rewards every step of the way.

Deployment

Customize your match experience by choosing one of three deployment options: 

• Story Missions: Select and replay narrative objectives across Hajin for big rewards.
• Dynamic Operations: Deploy directly into a Dynamic Op to earn DMZ Cash and XP. Every completed Operation provides a Supply Drop of increasing rarity for your squad. 
• Free Roam: Deploy without a mission and lose yourself exploring Hajin City. 

Tips for gaining DMZ XP

Story Missions, Dynamic Ops, Orders: Prioritize completing Story Missions, Dynamic Ops, and Orders to earn valuable gear and big DMZ XP payouts.

Boss Hunt: Hunt down Lieutenants and Commanders to earn major rewards. These tough enemies roam the map in different locations around Hajin, and when defeated, award plenty of XP along with their weapons and high-value loot.

Loot Up: Loot consistently to acquire new items, use them at the 3D Printer back at your Forward Operating Base, and to improve your match rating.

After Action Report: Fight the enemy, loot, and complete objectives to improve your overall deployment rating. Strive for an S Tier performance (or better) for the best rewards.

Vehicles: Take advantage of the numerous vehicles throughout Hajin for faster travel across land, water, and air. Repair and refuel vehicles at the Gas Station.

Threat Levels and more

Each area of Hajin has a particular Threat Level associated with it. If you’re too loud, expect a violent enemy response specific to the area you’re in. It may be wise to be stealthy.

This just scratches the surface of DMZ. Squad up and experience the exciting new game mode firsthand at launch and expect additional content in the updates to come.

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Modern Warfare 4 is available for pre-order now on PlayStation 5, launching October 23.

Players’ Choice: Vote for September’s best new game

Players’ Choice: Vote for September’s best new game https://ift.tt/Lf31tlF

Last month was filled with an extensive release of games ranging from story-driven spectacles to mini-adventures! Some big new releases included Marvel’s Wolverine, Control Resonant, Dune: Awakening, and NBA 2K27. Which game was your favorite?

How does it work? At the end of every month, PlayStation Blog will open a poll where you can vote for the best new game released that month. After the polls close we will tally your votes, and announce the winner on our social channels and PlayStation.Blog.

What is the voting criteria? That’s up to you! If you were only able to recommend one new release to a friend that month, which would it be? Note: re-released games don’t qualify, but remakes do. We define remakes as ambitious, larger-scale rebuilds such as Resident Evil 4 (2023) and Final Fantasy VII Remake.

How are nominees decided? The PlayStation Blog editorial team will gather a list of that month’s most noteworthy releases and use it to seed the poll.

Official PlayStation Podcast Episode 549: Friendly Ghosts

Official PlayStation Podcast Episode 549: Friendly Ghosts https://ift.tt/uDwUpyg

Email us at PSPodcast@sony.com!

Subscribe via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or download here

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Hey, y’all! Tim and Kristen are back this week to chat through news from the week and games we can’t stop playing. Plus, Gillen stops in to interview Ghost of Yōtei actor Erika Ishii to celebrate the release of the game’s Complete Edition and its one year anniversary.

Stuff We Talked About

• Next week’s release highlights:
  • Kingdom Hearts I-III | PS5 
  • Star Wars: Galactic Racer | PS5 
  • Deck of Haunts | PS5 
• Ghost of Yōtei Complete Edition
• The Blood of Dawnwalker (Kristen gets its name right this time)
• Silent Hill: Townfall
• Onimusha: Way of the Sword
  
• God of War Laufey pre-orders available now, editions detailed – All the juicy details on pre-order bonuses, Digital Deluxe Edition, some peeks at Faye’s armor coming in those editions, and a highlight of Faye’s Serpent Bow combat.
• How Control Resonant’s art design and tech shaped its bosses, paranaturally-twisted Manhattan and more – Deep dive into Remedy’s inspirations, how they designed Dylan and his combat animations, the twisted version of Manhattan, liminal spaces, boss fights, and PS5 features
• PlayStation Plus Monthly Games for October: F1 25, Hunt: Showdown 1896, Earth Defense Force: World Brothers 2
• Kena: Scars of Kosmora launches 2027– Ember Labs offers a development update, as well as a new look at Kena’s spirit companion

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The Cast

Tim Turi – Content Communications Manager, SIE

Kristen Zitani – Content Communications Manager, SIE

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Thanks to Dormilón for our rad theme song and show music.

[Editor’s note: PSN game release dates are subject to change without notice. Game details are gathered from press releases from their individual publishers and/or ESRB rating descriptions.]

Share of the Week: Marvel’s Wolverine – Logan

Share of the Week: Marvel’s Wolverine – Logan https://ift.tt/a6zcAvL

Last week, we asked you to share portraits of Logan from Marvel’s Wolverine using #PSshare #PSBlog for a chance to be featured. Here are this week’s highlights:

calisarah1998 shares Logan growling in front of some wreckage

Gib84G shares Logan surrounded by money from the casino

PurplePampano shares Logan with his hat tipped

lets_gaming.vp  shares a black and white portrait of Logan peering through his claws

PatmanGames shares Logan with a shredded shirt

abd23.gameframes shares Logan leaping into the night

Search #PSshare #PSBlog on Twitter or Instagram to see more entries to this week’s theme, or be inspired by other great games featuring Photo Mode. Want to be featured in the next Share of the Week?

THEME: Marvel’s Wolverine – Allies & Villains
SUBMIT BY: 11:59 PM PT on October 7, 2026

Next week, share moments fighting alongside Team X and Jean Grey, or against various villains in Marvel’s Wolverine using #PSshare #PSBlog for a chance to be featured.

Ghost of Yōtei Complete Edition – Erika Ishii interview

Ghost of Yōtei Complete Edition – Erika Ishii interview https://ift.tt/XYiOUdv

Atsu’s hunt is not over. A year after the original game launched, PS5 players can dive into the Ghost of Yōtei Complete Edition. Available now on PS5, this brings together the story campaign, the Ghost of Yōtei Legends multiplayer mode, and two new major additions: the roguelike mode Most Wanted, and the narrative expansion Echoes of Sekigahara. The story is split between the present day and flashbacks to Atsu’s time on the mainland.

To mark the Complete Edition’s launch, and celebrate the game’s first anniversary, we welcome back the voice of Atsu, Erika Ishii, to talk about the game.

Note: The below interview is condensed for clarity and brevity. You can listen to the full chat on the latest episode of the PlayStation Podcast, available later today.

PlayStation Blog: It’s been a year since the game originally launched. What has Atsu brought to your life since?

Erika Ishii: I still can’t get over it, you know, because again, this was my dream. I played The Last of Us and I said, I want to do that. I already knew I wanted to act. I already knew I loved video games. But I said specifically – that. That is what I want to do. And… yeah, being on my PlayStation home screen, playing the game, getting to travel to Tokyo Game Show, which was another dream of mine. And to have a beautiful professional cosplay made for me of Atsu so I could be Atsu on the Sony PlayStation stage in Japan… it really does feel like a fever dream sometime.

I was curious to know whether your dialogue for the expansion was recorded after the fact or part of the bundle together with the original recording. Sounds like you came back. So what’s the time gap there between that last piece of dialogue you recorded for the main story campaign and then coming back to the expansion?

There were at least a couple of months between. They had to work really hard on polish to get the game out, then take a very well-deserved little bit of a break. But as we were nearing the end of production, I was inquiring constantly. “Are we doing DLC? Because Iki Island was really great and really fleshed out some stuff that I wanted to know about in Atsu’s backstory…”

And I did have a list of pitches for them [laughs] They didn’t go with anything that I suggested. But even at the launch party I was talking with Courtney Woods, the writer for Echoes of Sekigahara. And we were scheming. We thought “Atsu needs a little romance in her life”. Like, there’s no way she didn’t have any romance. She mentioned [as such] in one of the onsen scenes. So you know she’d had bedtime bed companions at least. But what’s the deal with personal attachments? Is this the only time in her life up until now she’s had them? And so I got my wish.

You had that little bit of time away. Did that time increase your awareness of the character, or anything you experienced outside the role that helped inform your performance of Atsu further?

Pretty much playing the game. It’s wild because, you know, most of the time voice actors don’t get to play the game until after it comes out. I was fortunate enough [to do so] during production. But playing through the finished game and literally being hands-on and in her shoes. Because a lot of times, if it’s been a while since you’ve played a character, they’ll play you reference audio. But I could go directly to being Atsu, go right into the booth. It was such a gift.

There are flashbacks. So it’s two periods of Atsu’s life. So how do you get into that headspace where you’re having to switch?

A couple of things helped. We had done a lot of flashbacks with young Atsu. And so extrapolating what happened. Most of the time in acting you have what is called a prior moment. Before any scene starts you have to know where you were. You have to have a whole lived life experience prior to this moment. I already had to have it in my head and sort of know what she had been through and what this huge informative point in her life felt like.

For an actor, you have to have [to be able to] drop in at any moment and be like, okay, well, I think that her time doing this probably informed how it’s going to be in the quote-unquote present day.

This roguelike mode, Most Wanted. Did you record new dialogue for that?

Yes, there is some new dialogue for that. Because it is a new mode and non-canonical, it has a slightly different feeling to it, more mystical, in the way that the multiplayer is more mythological. There’s a heightened quality to it.

You’re not the only character in Most Wanted. There’s some familiar faces, but a surprise face is… Jin, who is returning, and I believe Daisaku Tsuji recorded new voice lines for this as well. I understand you didn’t crossover during the recording sessions but you folks must have got together to talk all things Ghost and just compare experiences?

I got to chat with him [when he was in Los Angeles] and we chatted a little bit about it. And that was actually before the game had launched. I told him how much his work meant to me and how I’m grateful to be accepting the Ghost torch.

In a lot of ways he was new to video games with Ghost of Tsushima. But since then he’s appeared in many other games. I think almost all of which I am also in. We joke that we’re bound together forever, and one of us will follow in the other’s footsteps.

Last year I asked you where launch day would find you. You mentioned it was a gathering of folk from the game. So where does the first anniversary of Yotei find you?

Oh, my gosh. I think the big thing is that the Complete Edition is out. I didn’t know the launch date until the rest of the world did. We all had a little betting pool as to when we thought this was going to drop. And I said, I guarantee it’ll be on the anniversary. I was one day off [laughs]. I feel like this is the one year celebration.

It’s very bittersweet to me. It’s been four years of my life being her face, her movements and her voice, and helping to develop her and working with just like some of the greatest team of all time is…  Atsu is going to be a part of my heart forever. And, you know, when they have the PlayStation logos, they’re going to have a picture of Atsu, a picture of my face there. I still see cosplays at conventions. I… This is, again, to bring it back around to the beginning, this was my dream. And I think that what do you do when you accomplish the big thing when you get to the top of the mountain is you just got to keep going there. There are more mountains to climb, I think.

I have the great privilege of, in addition to Atsu, having other characters or work that are a part of my oeuvre. I don’t have to be defined by Atsu, but she is… gonna always be so special to me.

Martial arts meet fluid platforming in Elta: Defy All Gods, with a free PS5 demo out today

Martial arts meet fluid platforming in Elta: Defy All Gods, with a free PS5 demo out today https://ift.tt/h6HL7Ym

Take the punchy, fast-paced combat of a brawler, the tight platforming and exploration of a search-action game, and a cute dragon companion (who’s also the millennia-old god you worship), and blend everything together with a dash of anime flair. That is the recipe for Elta: Defy All Gods, our upcoming game here at Afterburner Studios, launching February 2nd, 2027.

Dive in with us as we explain how our action-platformer brings back the best from the classics while making it a fresh experience, what inspired us, and why you should jump into the free demo on PlayStation 5 today.

A new take on action-platformers

Action-platformers have had a resurgence of interest in the last few years, providing an interesting mix of combat, exploration, and story, but few have tried blending explosive hand-to-hand fights with labyrinthian, non-linear exploration. Elta: Defy All Gods provides just that: impactful melee action, mixing martial arts and magic, broken up by flowing aerial platforming and discovery across three winding sci-fi worlds. The challenge lies in mastering both combat and navigation; juggling enemies in dynamic encounters across sprawling worlds that won’t always hold your hand.

The best way to explain our unique take on the genre is to coin a new term. We like to call Elta: Defy All Gods a “brawlervania”. Brawler enthusiasts will enjoy three martial art stances, each with their own skill trees, alongside magic systems to unleash built-up energy in massive attacks. Platforming players, on the other hand, will get a growing set of movement abilities with classic moves, such as the double jump, dash, wall run, and grapple. That’s not all though; Elta, your dragon, will be key, by giving you new unique abilities to hit harder and reach previously inaccessible locations.

The inspirations behind Elta: Defy All Gods

Veteran players will definitely catch nods to series we grew up with, like Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, God of War, Darksiders, and Jak and Daxter. We take a lot of pride in honoring these classics, but we wanted to do more than just rehash them. To carve out our own identity within that familiar formula, we traded traditional weapon-based hacking and slashing for fluid, hand-to-hand martial arts. By weaving your dragon companion’s abilities right into your fights and platforming acrobatics, we hope to bring something fresh to the table. To find that specific energy, we also sought creative inspiration outside of the gaming realm entirely.

Moving to TV screens, shōnen anime, and especially Dragon Ball Z, have been a massive inspiration for us, echoing the power fantasy you can experience playing the warrior monk Victus. With such a heavy focus on melee combat, we also turned to Hong Kong martial arts movies, ranging from the Ip Man saga to Shaw Brothers’ classics. These influences have been wrapped in a painterly art direction that makes each vista look like living concept art. The sense of power you get while playing echoes the sense of scale you feel when taking in each landscape.

Reaching high ambitions as an indie team

Despite the big-budget games listed above, we are not a large studio by any means. With three co-founders and a dozen core members, delivering on this game’s promise has been a real challenge for us at Afterburner Studios. It’s one that required us to lean heavily on our background in indie development. We’ve taken lessons from our previous game into Elta, finding clever ways to achieve bigger things with our small-sized team. While we’ve stayed true to our vision of a modernized take on classic mechanics, Elta has gone through constant iteration over the course of the last five years to allow us to deliver the best versions of this game to players – both in world, gameplay and tone.

This was also made possible through a partnership with Focus Entertainment, the folks behind Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 and Resonance: A Plague Tale Legacy. By lending us their design, production, and QA experience, they allowed us to expand our vision and tackle a dream project – one that would only be possible with their support. Instead of getting slowed down by our ambitions, this fruitful partnership allowed us to double down on what we do best: crafting satisfying game feel.

Game feel as our main priority

At every stage of development, we’ve gotten the same feedback: this is a game that must be felt, controller in hand, rather than just watched. All our mechanics, in both combat and platforming, have been tuned to be as satisfying as possible. By using the haptics of the DualSense controller, landing punches and hitting platforms has a real tactile weight, resulting in a more immersive experience for PlayStation players. Ultimately, we want to create an action-packed adventure that puts fun first and continues to defy your expectations for what a small indie team can pull off.

And you don’t need to wait to try it out for yourself: our free demo is available today on PS5, allowing you to experience the very beginning of Elta: Defy All Gods. Retrieve the lost dragon-god you worship, brawl corrupted enemies in intense melee combat, and explore Lerna, a glacial world filled with hidden secrets, ancient ruins, and industrial remnants. The full game releases on February 2, 2027, and if you pre-order, you can get the Vanguard Armor, a special cosmetic skin for Victus.

Find Elta, face off against the gods and start the journey to bring salvation to your people with the free demo, available today on PlayStation 5.

Return to Fabletown with The Wolf Among Us Remastered, out October 29

Return to Fabletown with The Wolf Among Us Remastered, out October 29 https://ift.tt/MIwL9uB

Telltale’s The Wolf Among Us Remastered launches October 29. To get ready for Bigby Wolf’s enhanced tale we sat down with Telltale’s Matt Saia, the game director of The Wolf Among Us Remastered, and VP of Creative at Telltale, to talk about returning to Fabletown.

The Wolf Among Us is one of Telltale’s most beloved series. Do you remember the first time you played it? What resonated most and stayed with you since? 

Matt Saia: I came to it as a fan of Telltale having played The Walking Dead and Back to the Future. Wolf had a killer look and a werewolf in it, that was enough to get me in the door. From the first scene, the story, the contrast of these fables characters in the 1980s, and the neon noir style had me hooked. Their stories touched human emotions and stuck with me forever.

What was the goal with remastering The Wolf Among Us? 

We wanted to honor the Telltale legacy. This is a classic title, and it needed a respectful update. We avoided touching the story, the directorial choices, and the overall art style, those are sacred to us. The goal is to introduce new players to Wolf in the best way possible and create a fun experience for returning players by packing it with updated art and behind the scenes features. Ultimately, it was a love letter to fans. We’re all fans and we took time to make sure it is the best version of The Wolf Among Us that stays true to the original.

Telltale added Noir Mode to The Wolf Among Us Remastered. What do you think this brings to the game? 

Coincidentally, I was the person who added Shadows Mode to Telltale’s Batman series. We’ve treated it differently in Remastered. Unlike Batman, where we had highlights of color we’ve kept Wolf with a pure noir film vibe. The tone feels different when it’s black and white. I love the colors of the main game but, in Noir Mode, the shadows feel a little darker.

Let’s talk about some of the technical improvements. How was it working with the original Telltale engine? 

The old Telltale engine is quirky but cool. We started by moving it up to the latest engine used in the Batman series. Next, we created new shaders for things like shiny bottles, and inverted lines on moving objects like the ghost ship.

The biggest challenge was lighting. It wasn’t something we intended to do but we realized anything we changed in any scene required that we redo the lighting. By the end, every scene in the game was relit.One of the biggest testaments to how good we got with the old engine is we built the entire Summer Games Fest trailer in engine.

How about the Character art? 

Our choice was to elevate the game that everybody loved. The remastered characters have amazing detail but when you look at Bigby, he looks like Bigby. I think that’s the balance beam you walk; we wanted people to say “That’s the Bigby I remember”, but if you go back and look at the original, the remastered one is unmistakably more refined. 

Every single character went through concept to high-end model to final in-game model. All the textures and models are new and multiple times more detailed than the original game. If you did a simple up-rez, all you’re really doing is taking the curves and lines that are already there and making them smoother.

Our process provoked more aggressive choices with how you treat the characters without losing who they are because you’re taking them from scratch. It was a big lift, but worth it.

Is there anything from this remastering process that exceeded your expectations?  

The werewolf. I think everybody wanted to change him in a big way, and we did. He is ferocious, so much more feral and powerful than the original but still true to The Wolf Among Us.

Is there anything else you’d like people to know?  

It was amazing to revisit Fabletown. The team was incredible. We love every dusty apartment and lit cigarette and, more importantly, the characters and story they tell. To me, that’s what makes a great remaster; when you know people poured their soul into it.

We want existing fans to show up and know they are in good hands. For new fans, it’s an opportunity to be captivated by a fully-realized version of this amazing universe just as we all were. To everyone out there, thank you for sticking with Telltale and believing in us. 

 The Wolf Among Us Remastered launches October 29 and is available to wishlist now.