Quick Hits

• Retail Biometrics: To combat aggressive scalpers, Japanese Pokémon card stores are implementing facial recognition technology to enforce strict one-per-day purchasing rules.
• A Bizarre Resurgence: An indie developer was baffled to discover their neglected 8-year-old game, Crashphalt, experienced a 1700% spike in player activity because the community figured out how to use it as a multiplayer server for an Undertale mod.
• Nostalgia Wins the Summer: Amidst a slow summer for new releases, a PS5 port of the 14-year-old game Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 just dethroned Fortnite as the most-played title on the US PlayStation Network.
• Season 5 is Live: Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 Season 5 has officially launched across multiplayer and Warzone, bringing a fresh meta of new guns and attachments to master.
• Matchmaking Tweaks: Embark Studios is changing matchmaking in Arc Raiders once again, aiming to ease player anxieties surrounding self-defense engagements.

Pokémon & Nintendo

It’s a great time to be a collector, though the hoops required to do so are getting more intense. According to GameSpot, VGC, and PC Gamer, Japanese retailers are rolling out facial recognition cameras to scan customers, ensuring scalpers can't bypass daily limits on highly sought-after Pokémon TCG products. Once you've secured your cards, you can admire the upcoming wave of Pokémon LEGO sets, which Nintendo Life notes look "really rather nice" alongside the new Smart Brick range.

In gaming and community news, the spin-off Splatoon Raiders has officially launched on the Switch 2, and Nintendo Life wants to know your final review score after your weekend ink-slinging sessions. In other Nintendo Life coverage, the Mario Party-style LEGO Party—featuring 60 hilarious minigames—just received an ESRB rating for the Switch 2. Meanwhile, Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds is getting TMNT paid DLC this week. Over in the Pokémon community, Kotaku highlighted a fan who set up a staggering 58 consoles to hunt a one-in-nine-million shiny Golduck in Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire, while others are fiercely debating the legitimacy of a mysterious Mew card from the upcoming 30th-anniversary TCG set.

Looking at the broader industry, developers are speaking out about massive AAA scopes. Nintendo Life reports that Final Fantasy developers believe future franchise remakes would likely stretch beyond a trilogy due to the sheer undertaking. Conversely, Capcom has set a rigid goal to release a Resident Evil game every single year, leaning heavily on remakes to keep the pipeline flowing.

Call of Duty

Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 Season 5 is officially live, bringing major updates to both standard multiplayer and Warzone. GameSpot has already compiled the best loadouts for both modes, highlighting the new battle pass weapons and attachments that are sure to shake up the current meta. However, the biggest Call of Duty story of the day actually belongs to a game released over a decade ago. Destructoid reports that a PS5 port of the 2012 classic Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 recently dethroned Fortnite as the most-played title on PSN in the US, leaving many to wonder exactly how this summer's slower release schedule is impacting player habits.

Indie Games

The indie scene delivered one of the wildest gaming stories of the year. As reported by Kotaku, VGC, PC Gamer, and Rock Paper Shotgun, an indie developer was shocked to find that their forgotten 2018 multiplayer game, Crashphalt, had seen a 1700% spike in player activity. The reason? Modders realized they could use the game's backend as an unofficial multiplayer server for an Undertale co-op mod, allowing fans to finally experience the beloved RPG together online.

Unfortunately, it's not all wholesome indie news. Eurogamer reported a severe security breach involving the viral hit prop-hunt game Meccha Chameleon. The game's official Discord server was hacked over the weekend, and developers had to issue urgent warnings after malicious user-made maps uploaded to the Steam Workshop were discovered to contain malware.

Steam & PC

Valve continues to refine and secure the PC ecosystem. PC Gamer reports that Valve has completely fixed local network game transfers on Steam, meaning you no longer have to worry about eating up your internet bandwidth or data caps when moving massive game files between your rig and a Steam Deck. Speaking of hardware, the still-unreleased Steam Frame VR headset is reportedly facing more bad news, as Qualcomm is set to raise the price of its chips.

On the extreme side of PC hardware modding, one particularly chaotic player decided to attach literal spikes and a taser to their Steam Deck purely to stop their family members from "borrowing" it—a move PC Gamer dubbed "easily the dumbest thing" ever built.

Gaming Roundup

• Arc Raiders: Embark Studios is actively iterating on its upcoming extraction shooter, with PC Gamer noting that matchmaking is being tweaked again to alleviate player concerns and "fully soothe your self-defense fears" regarding rule-breakers.
• New from Game Freak: GameSpot revealed an in-depth look at Beast of Reincarnation. The legendary Pokémon studio is stepping out of its comfort zone, blending real-time and turn-based mechanics for a fresh action-RPG experience.
• Marvel Domination: GameSpot shared 13 new details about Insomniac's Marvel's Wolverine, which is shaping up to put a fresh spin on the iconic hero ahead of a stacked September release window. Meanwhile, over in the fighting game scene, PC Gamer notes that Blade and Magik are dominating as the most popular characters in the ongoing Marvel Tōkon beta.
• Resident Evil Film: Director Zach Cregger is steering the upcoming Resident Evil movie with a unique approach. According to PC Gamer, he is opting to use entirely original characters because he admitted he simply won't be able to improve on franchise veteran Leon Kennedy.
• Engine Exodus: Following his departure from Epic Games last month, the former "Unreal evangelist" has announced they are building a brand-new game engine from scratch, as highlighted by PC Gamer.