As you progress in The Division 2’s campaign, you’ll unlock Settlements. Later in the campaign, you’ll unlock the Campus in Downtown West. Upgrading your Settlements will add NPCs who unlock new features in your Base of Operations at the White House. To upgrade your Settlement’s cosmetics, you’ll need to complete Projects or side missions, as detailed in the image above. You unlock the Clan and Dark Zone vendors by upgrading the Theater Settlement at the start of Division 2.

The Division 2 has Safe Houses scattered around its world. Unlike Settlements or the Base of Operations, Safe Houses act more like fast travel points than bases. But Safe Houses are worth getting as early as you can to help make your trip around D.C. that much easier. Safe Houses also come with their own Projects attached. We recommend taking 45 minutes to run around D.C., and unlock the Safe Houses early in The Division 2.

The Apex Legends battle pass is imminent, signaling the official start of the game’s first season. The battle pass includes a variety of cosmetic items for the game, and will be available to purchase for 950 Apex Coins (about $9.50) on Tuesday, March 19. Apex Legends’ season 1 battle pass has unlocks for most of the game’s characters, including Octane, who will apparently be released along with the battle pass as part of the first season. The battle pass is leveled up by gaining XP in the game,

But what we tried to do compared to Rape Day is completely different. One More Story Games CEO Jean Leggett suggests that Steam’s current content policy is alienating for some developers. “After significant fact-finding and discussion, we think ‘Rape Day’ poses unknown costs and risks and therefore won’t be on Steam,” Valve says. Members of U.K.’s Parliament and the Scottish Parliament have called for stronger legislation around content like Rape Day. Valve’s reactionary process ensures that alm

Apex Legends is getting a new character named Octane, developer Respawn Entertainment announced on Monday. The character — Apex Legends’ first post-launch Legend — will be released alongside the game’s season 1 “Wild Frontier” battle pass on March 19. While Octane’s abilities aren’t yet visible on the game’s official website, Sony’s PlayStation Blog gave us a preview of what the character can do. However, it’s possible that Octane will be given to everyone as soon as the new season launches. Oct

Well, this is great news for Sniper Elite fans, and I speak as one: The cult-hit stealth/shooter/period piece is not only getting a Sniper Elite 5, to tide its many friends over until then there are three other projects in the works. That would be a remaster of 2012’s Sniper Elite V2, the launch of 2014’s Sniper Elite 3 on Nintendo Switch (as Sniper Elite 3: Ultimate Edition), and a virtual reality project. “It’s still very early in development,” he said, “but the team here are busy working away

Blood, the 22-year-old FPS from that genre’s bloody mid-1990s heyday, gets another 16 screenshots today showing what Nightdive Studios has in mind for the game’s forthcoming remaster. The batch of screens from Nightdive shows the latest build of the game (1.6.10, for what it’s worth) and the effect developers are going for. The nature of the HUD and visuals show this is a restoration with enhancements, rather than a remaster. The first Blood (heh) was made by Monolith Productions, the gang behin

Sega’s Sonic the Hedgehog panel from SXSW in Austin today showcased customization options for Team Sonic Racing and said, in very broad terms, that the Blue Blur’s next game is underway. The 90-second trailer (above) highlights the performance modifications (and in so doing, gives another look at the characters and vehicle fleet, all of which appear to be staples for the Sonic Racing franchise). The customization options are part vanity details and part performance, carrying over from 2012’s Son

The Ides of March have come for Xbox Game Pass, and fortunately they spared large-scale AAA titles from being removed from the library. Just four are leaving at the end of the March: Kingdom New Lands, Late Shift, Portal Knights and Sacred Citadel. Kingdom: New Lands is a 2016 reworking of Kingdom, which is, per its name, a kingdom-building simulation game. And Sacred Citadel, the only of the four games for Xbox 360, launched in 2013. There are 217 titles currently in the Xbox Game Pass library;

Valve says it’s refining its approach to how customer reviews are handled on Steam, announcing today that it plans to identify and remove “off-topic review bombs” that might affect user review scores. Review bombing has been a longstanding problem for digital storefronts with user reviews, and Valve has tried to combat their impact on Steam with other methods, including reviews of user reviews and graphs that display “temporary distortions” in user feedback. But to date, Valve has still factored

ESP Gaming’s new series, the World Showdown of Esports, challenges some of the notions of what makes an ideal arena for esports. Some esports, like Dota 2 or Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, have players competing in ongoing events in order to quality for larger events. Ongoing leagues, like Riot Games’ League Championship Series or Blizzard’s Overwatch League, are the primary way that esports are breaking into the mainstream. “I want to do for esports what UFC did for MMA,” Christian Bishop, t

The last season of Game of Thrones is almost here, and everything about it is shrouded in mystery. One thing we now know for sure is how long each of the season’s episodes will be. While fan sites have been speculating about episode lengths for the last couple of weeks, HBO finally confirmed them on Friday. With fan speculation about the events of Game of Thrones’ final season reaching a boiling point, these episode lengths have also already given way to theories about which episodes are which.

Koei Tecmo and Team Ninja released on Friday the free-to-play version of fighting game Dead or Alive 6 on PlayStation 4, Windows PC, and Xbox One. Called Dead or Alive 6: Core Fighters, the game includes four playable characters: Kasumi, Hitomi, Diego, and Bass. Koei Tecmo offered a similar free-to-play version of Dead or Alive 5: Last Round. That Core Fighters version of DOA 5 was a major content effort for the company; more than 1,100 add-ons, including characters, costumes, modes, and bundles

Disney has reinstated James Gunn as the director of Marvel Studios’ Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. Gunn’s tweets, some of them a decade old, included jokes about rape and pedophilia. At the time, Walt Disney chairman Alan Horn called Gunn’s tweets “offensive” and “indefensible and inconsistent with our studio’s values” in a statement announcing Gunn’s termination. In the intervening months, Gunn was hired to write and direct Suicide Squad 2 for Warner Bros. Gunn’s reps say Marvel will commence pro

The next episode of The Simpsons will send Bart, Homer, and the rest of the Simpsons clan to Korea for an esports-focused episode. Bart will complete in a League of Legends-like game in the episode titled “E My Sports.”“As Bart begins to excel in video game competitions, Homer discovers a passion for coaching him,” the episode’s official description reads. But the writers reportedly tapped League of Legends creator Riot Games for some help in the show’s take on esports. Bart will compete alongsi

There are two new mechanics that will exist on cards in the Rise of Shadows expansion. The new expansion will also have lackeys, cards which are generated by other Rise of Shadows cards. Rise of Shadows will launch a single-player campaign in May that will offer the most campaign content yet. Rise of Shadows is set to release on April 9, and will be the first expansion of Hearthstone’s Year of the Dragon. Check out the first cards from Rise of Shadows in the gallery below.

The studio that developed the original Left 4 Dead is developing what sounds like a spiritual sequel: Back 4 Blood, described as a cooperative shooter against hordes of zombies. In other words, it sounds like the Left 4 Dead follow-up that Valve still hasn’t delivered. Back 4 Blood is being developed by Turtle Rock Studios, the team that also created Evolve, and published by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment. We know this title has to stand out and we fully intend to make that happen.”Back

Overwatch’s next hero, the combat medic Baptiste, is coming to the game on Tuesday, March 19, Blizzard announced Wednesday. Jean-Baptiste Augustin is Overwatch’s newest support class character, and a former member of the Caribbean Coalition military group and Talon. Baptiste is Overwatch’s 30th hero overall and the game’s seventh support character. When Baptiste drops next week, he’ll come with at least two legendary skins: Spec Ops and Buccaneer. SPEC OPS Baptiste and the rest of his items are

The latest patch adds a new Behemoth, reworks an old weapon, and ushers in a third Hunt Pass for players interested in cosmetics. Hunt Pass season 3Phoenix Labs first introduced the Hunt Pass last year, in its Game Awards update. Like other battle passes, Dauntless’ Hunt Pass is cosmetic focused. Hunt Pass season 3 is the first that offers players a full armor and weapon set transmog. Phoenix Labs will move Dauntless exclusively to the Epic Games Store on PC and consoles later this year.

Baba Is You review: one of the best puzzle games in yearsShare Baba Is You review: one of the best puzzle games in yearsEvery video game has its own rules, but in the case of Baba Is You, the rules are the game. In the new puzzle game from Arvi “Hempuli” Teikari, the rules exist literally within its world, ready to be remixed. Also on the stage are its rules: Baba Is You, Flag Is Win, Wall Is Stop, Rock Is Push. Puzzle games give me that burst of mental achievement, as if I’m the smartest person