Call of Duty fans surprised to discover new Black Ops 2 port preserve…

Amongst all the news of brutal layoffs, studio divestments, and ironic task force appointments at Microsoft this week, over in the Call of Duty corner of the megacorp, something kinda cool happened. Activision released updated ports of Call of Duty: Black Ops (2010) and Black Ops 2 (2012).

They come with caveats, of course: At $40 a pop, the Call of Duty tax is firmly affixed to these elderly shooters. They're also PlayStation only, sadly, so the millions of fans who originally played them on PC are cut off from the reinvigorated scene. But they are nearly complete updates of those original games, now upscaled to 1080p, with few exceptions. Players were especially surprised to learn that even the emblem editor—a beloved and somewhat controversial feature of Treyarch's early games—made the cut. turconews.click

Because, well, people are making swastika emblems with it. And depictions of 9/11. And Charlie Kirk's assassination. And a KKK member. And that's just all that fit into this tweet from influencer JakeSucky.

As you can see, the emblem editor is surprisingly powerful—its stock of primitive shapes, symbols, colors, and layers let dedicated thumbstickers depict just about anything. Most often, custom emblems ended up looking like the trash bin of an early South Park animator, but it was a regular occurrence to glance at a profile and be treated to a remarkably convincing Mona Lisa, cartoon character, or yes, something naughty.

I'm also quite surprised the feature made the cut. Even with player moderation, there's no policing photoshop, so a tool that allows for high expression assumes that sometimes your killer will flash you with cartoon racism. There are normal, cool, creative emblems being made as well, but in keeping with the Call of Duty community, terrible behavior is more the norm.

As others have pointed out, they should've done the work to let people turn off custom emblems entirely—there wasn't an option back in 2010 and there isn't one now.

Weirdly, the only major change to the ports is the omission of some modes. Wager matches are gone from Black Ops 1, so clearly developer Iron Galaxy did some surgery here, but you won't find modern options like FOV sliders or high refresh rates. Pretty barebones ports, all told.

God of War Laufey will be available on a physical disc, developer Sony Santa Monica has confirmed. This strongly suggests the game will launch before the PS6, which is strongly expected to be a digital only console.

In the before times, this wouldn't be much of a story, but in a world where the biggest game to release this century, GTA 6, seemingly has no plans for a traditional physical launch, and more pertinent to this story, where PlayStation is ending production of physical discs, it's pretty big news. For physical game collectors, it's one of the biggest upcoming PS5 games on the horizon and one more they'll be able to save a space for on their shelves, like the good old days.

Responding to questions on Twitter, the official Sony Santa Monica account confirms: "We can confirm God of War Laufey will be available on disc."

God of War Laufey is the next mainline game in Sony Santa Monica's God of War series and the third game in the Norse saga. Instead of being a direct sequel to 2022's God of War Ragnarok, Laufey's story picks up directly following the scene depicting Faye's funeral from 2018 God of War, serving as a sort of connective link between God of War and God of War Ragnarok. And as you might expect from the title, longtime series protagonist Kratos isn't the lead protagonist here. Instead, players take control of the much more agile, but equally powerful, Laufey, Kratos's second wife and the mother of Atreus.

There's no release date for God of War Laufey yet, but again, if it's getting a disc, it's likely to launch as a PS5 game instead of a PS6 exclusive. Analysts think the PS6 could launch around 2028.

God of War Laufey proves women are still gaining ground in gaming, and I'm thrilled Kratos is sitting this one out