Activision is doing something different with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III, this year's entry in the blockbuster military shooter series. Rather than starting from scratch and having to rebuild your collection of weapons and cosmetic items, Activision is letting players carry over nearly everything they unlock in Modern Warfare II.

This so-called Carry Forward initiative also applies to Call of Duty: Warzone, given that content is shared between the mainline games and the free-to-play battle royale. Warzone Mobile, which is slated to arrive later this year, will be integrated into all of this too.

For the most part, your unlocked operators, operator skins, bundles, all weapons, attachments and other rewards and cosmetic items will move forward from MW2 to MW3. What's more, if you continue to level up guns in MW2, that progress will be reflected in MW3.

This is a one-way street, though. Any MW3 progress or unlocks won't be replicated in MW2. There's no Carry Back feature.

The main things that won't progress from the 2022 game to this year's one are cosmetics for vehicles that aren't present in MW3. War Tracks, which are songs that can be played in vehicles, won't move over either. "Some Tactical and Lethal equipment may not be available depending on the removing of those items in MW3, to be replaced with MW3-only equipment," Activision noted in an extensive FAQ.

Even though MW2 and MW3 are handled by different internal studios (Infinity Ward and Sledgehammer Games, respectively), you won't have to jump through any hoops to transfer your weapons and cosmetics either. Activision will handle everything, though of course you'll need to be using the same account or profile for both games.

Activision will release Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III on November 10th. We'll learn much more about the upcoming game at a reveal event, which is set for August 17th.

Meanwhile, following the game's latest trailer, fans are speculating that MW3 will include an updated take on the hugely controversial No Russian mission from the original Modern Warfare II, which came out in 2009. That level wasn't in last year's rebooted version of MW2.

The surprisingly emotional and strangely addictive “dystopian document thriller” Papers, Please just turned ten years old and has officially sold five million copies across multiple platforms throughout the past decade. To celebrate the milestone, developer Lucas Pope and his company 3909 LLC released a web game called LCD, Please that allows players to go through certain aspects of the original title.

Just like the real game, LCD, Please tasks you with approving or denying passport and transit requests. As the name suggests, the graphics style emulates those LCD portable devices of yesteryear, like Nintendo’s Game & Watch series. The sound is monotone, the controls are simple and the gameplay is addictive, making it a great way to accidentally waste a few minutes during the work day.

The web game isn’t the only way the developer is celebrating the success of Papers, Please. There’s also an official soundtrack, available now on Spotify and Apple Music, a developer’s log with insider information chronicling the game’s original pitch and a store selling related merchandise. To the latter, you can pick up posters, shirts, stickers and more.

Since the game’s initial release in 2013, Papers, Please has gone on to launch on over 40 platforms, according to the developer. Most recently, the title was released for Android and iOS devices last year. The game’s success also inspired a short film, which was well-received and lauded for capturing the spirit of the source material. Since making Papers, Please, developer Lucas Pope has gone on to create the seafaring whodunnitReturn of the Obra Dinn.

Netflix’s push into video games continues, as the company just dropped a dedicated controller app for iOS devices. The app, simply called “Netflix Game Controller,” lets you use your phone or tablet as a gamepad once you pair the device with your TV. This will allow you to play games available through Netflix’s service on the TV, while controlling things from your mobile device.

Though the app is already available for download, further news remains scant. For instance, we don’t know what games it will support or any details surrounding the pairing process. We also don’t know if and when this will be followed up by an Android app. The app’s description just teases that the gamepad functionality is “coming soon to Netflix.”

This isn’t a huge surprise, given the company’s expanding growth as an indie game publisher. Netflix Games has published or hosted nearly 70 titles in the past two years, some of which are accessible via the regular Netflix streaming app with others available on mobile devices and gaming consoles. These aren’t throwaway titles, either, as games like Oxenfree II: Lost Signals released to critical acclaim. Oxenfree developer Night School has gone on to become Netflix’s first in-house studio.

Other titles coming to the Netflix platform in the coming months include indie standouts like Storytellers, Paper Trail and the Monument Valley series. There’s also an Assassin’s Creed game in the works, along with a port of the mobile title LEGO: Legacy Heroes Unboxed. It’s a safe assumption that you should be able to use the recently-launched controller app to play some of these games. Engadget reached out to Netflix to inquire about compatibility and the possibility of an Android release. A company spokesperson said that it isn't making comments at this time. 

We're not too far away from the fall, which of course means there's a new Call of Duty game on the horizon. Activision has confirmed long-standing rumors that this year's entry is Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III from Sledgehammer Games. The publisher also revealed that the latest game in the rebooted series will hit PC and consoles (perhaps including Nintendo Switch) on November 10th.

There aren't many other confirmed details yet beyond a teaser video. However, Activision recently implied that, for the first time, players will be able to carry over items like operators, weapons and bundles from one year's Call of Duty game (in this case, Modern Warfare II) to the next. That was a pretty strong indication that the next entry would be Modern Warfare III and not, say, a return to a World War II setting.

At one point, it seemed like there wouldn't be an entirely new Call of Duty game this year. Reports in early 2022 suggested that Activision would slow things down a bit and instead deliver a significant expansion for Modern Warfare II while continuing to update Warzone and working on the next mainline game. Ultimately, the publisher decided to stick with its cadence of releasing a full-price Call of Duty game every year.

In February, Bloomberg reported that Modern Warfare III was set to include maps and modes from last year's game while still feeling like a standalone full-price title. We'll learn just how Activision is making the transition into Modern Warfare III as it reveals more details in the coming weeks and months.

Meanwhile, it's looking increasingly likely that Microsoft will close its pending $68.7 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard very soon. If so, that could result in Modern Warfare III becoming the first Call of Duty title to hit Xbox Game Pass on its release day.

Devolver Digital has cultivated a name for itself over the years as a publisher with an offbeat approach to marketing games. To that end, it has announced a Devolver Delayed event, which it calls the "first-ever showcase celebrating games that are courageously moving into 2024." It seems Devolver will try to have things both ways by pushing back some release dates and, at the same time, poking fun at the never-ending spate of game delays. You'll be able to watch the stream below at 11AM ET on August 7th.

The publisher has a bunch of intriguing games currently slated for the rest of the year. I'm really looking forward to Skate Story, which has already blown many people away with its ultra-stylish visuals, so I hope that one isn't pushed back until 2024. The same goes for The Plucky Squire, an utterly adorable-looking adventure game that sees you switching between 2D and 3D environments.

Other titles on Devolver's books for 2023 include "gritty noir-punk action-adventure" Gunbrella. The publisher confirmed that game hasn't been delayed, but will feature in the showcase. The fate of the likes of Wizard with a Gun, The Talos Principle 2 and Pepper Grinder remains to be seen. However, Baby Steps (which looks like a 3D version of QWOP with a man-baby for a lead character) is already scheduled for a 2024 debut.

An enterprising developer is working on reviving a lost piece of gaming history. A YouTuber using the handle Tuxality has posted a video (viaGamesRadar) showing early work on an emulator that can play the games from an obscure rival to the Wii, Xbox 360 and PS3 that only launched in two countries.

There’s a good chance you’ve forgotten — or never heard of — the Zeebo gaming console. The Qualcomm-backed system (costing around $170 in US dollar conversions) launched in 2009 with a grand plan to target markets like Brazil and Mexico, where imports of its much-better-known rivals were priced out of reach for most people. It had cellular 3G functionality built in and supported around 40 games. Companies including Activision, Capcom, EA, Disney Interactive Studios and id Software lined up to develop software for the upstart system.

Launching the same year as the iPhone App Store, the Zeebo eschewed discs and cartridges, instead earning a footnote in gaming history as the first console that exclusively used digital downloads. Think of it as a precursor to homebound mobile-game consoles like the also-defunct Ouya.

Zeebo

However, the strategy didn’t go as planned, and the company announced the end of its operations in its only two markets by 2011. Although its website teased information about future launches in China and Russia and an upcoming Android-based system, nothing ever materialized. The company was never heard from again. Today, the URL that once served as the system’s online home is now the landing page for a supplements ad.

As you can see in the video below, Tuxality demonstrates early progress in loading the Zeebo’s operating system and firing up Crash Bandicoot Nitro Kart 3D. The emulation shows numerous graphical hiccups, typical of early emulator builds. However, the fact that a talented software engineer is eyeing the system as a personal project should be welcome news for video game preservationists. Even obscure and short-lived projects like the Zeebo played a part in the relatively brief legacy of gaming hardware, and — like any history — its library is better conserved than erased.

If your idea of relaxation involves opening cardboard boxes, you're in for a good time. Humble Games and Witch Beam have confirmed that Unpacking is coming to iOS and Android on August 24th. You can pre-order the iOS version for $10 today. This has been a long time in coming given that the game first arrived on consoles and PCs in 2021, but it may be worthwhile if you're new to the concept.

Unpacking is, at its heart, a hybrid puzzle and home decoration game. You have to find space for items as an unseen person moves into a new abode. There's no time limit or other pressure, and it can be very soothing as you set up a child's bedroom or the family kitchen. However, it's particularly clever for the way it tells its story. You're learning about a woman's life by seeing where she goes and what she brings with her, rather than dialog. As the title is almost entirely wordless, it's accessible to a wide range of people.

The game isn't changing significantly with the move to mobile. However, the developers argue Unpacking is "perfect" for touch as you can drag objects with your finger and sense the world through haptic feedback. Whether or not that's true, the portability may be appealing. This may be the most appropriate game to play when you've just moved to a new place — you can fire it up while your usual gaming hardware is still packed away.

It took a decade, but Square Enix's premier massively multiplayer online role-playing game is finally coming to Xbox consoles. The developer has revealed that Final Fantasy XIV will be available for Xbox Series X/S in spring 2024. Like its PS5 counterpart, this version will support 4K visuals on Series X and faster loading times. It's not yet clear if there will be Xbox-only upgrades.

An open beta is expected for patch 6.5X. In other words, the Xbox port should be ready in time for the Dawntrail expansion due in summer next year.

Microsoft has been eager to add Final Fantasy games to its catalog. In 2019, it added 10 titles to Game Pass that included many of the releases from VII through to XV. The deluge didn't include XIV, however, leaving Xbox players without an active MMO. The game debuted on PS3 and PC in 2013, with ports for PS4 (2014), Mac (2015) and PS5 (2021) in subsequent years.

The incentives are clear. Final Fantasy XIV helps court fans of the series, particularly those left out by the timed PS5 exclusive for XVI. It's also an attempt to reach out to both Japanese gamers and JRPG enthusiasts. The Xbox has struggled in Japan due in no small part to local studios skipping the platform in favor of domestic consoles from Nintendo and Sony. This game won't suddenly improve Microsoft's fortunes, but it does eliminate a barrier to adoption for some players.

For anyone with an eye on video game news, it’s been hard to ignore the recent rise of names like Annapurna Interactive, Devolver Digital, Private Division, Humble, Epic Games and Netflix tied to independent projects. The distribution process for indie developers has shifted over the past few years from a self-publishing-first model, to one that prioritizes deal-making and acquisitions. For the moment, this shift is powering a small but highly visible boom in the world of indie games.

“I don't think I ever want to self-publish again.”

Ben Ruiz has been a game developer since 2005, and in that time, he’s pretty much done it all. He founded two studios, he did contract work on titles including Super Meat Boy and Overland, and he independently published a tentpole original project, the monochromatic brawler Aztez. Nowadays, Ruiz is running a five-person studio called Dinogod and he’s building Bounty Star, a game that blends mech combat with life-sim mechanics. Bounty Star is being published by Annapurna Interactive and it’s due out in early 2024.

Annapurna Interactive

“Everything favors a publisher relationship, seemingly, because self-publishing has become this extraordinarily difficult thing,” Ruiz said. “It’s possible, but without help, I just don't know how anyone's doing it … I got a lot of friends in the same boat.”

Ruiz’s career is a microcosm of the shifting landscape for indie developers over the past 10 years. He began working on Aztez in 2010, when Steam was a curated marketplace where Valve employees hand-selected individual games for the platform. This system had fully imploded by 2012: On the heels of breakout hits like Braid, Super Meat Boy and Fez, the indie market was overrun by new games and developers, and Steam dropped its curation efforts. It shifted to a community-voting approach called Greenlight, before eventually landing on the everything-goes Early Access model we know today.

Ruiz and his business partner built Aztez in between contract projects, and by the time it was ready to debut on Steam in 2017, the indie market was saturated. There were 309 games added to Steam in 2010; in 2017, there were 6,306. Even with a hefty amount of hype behind it, Aztez had trouble standing out, and that was the last time Ruiz tried self-publishing.

Ruiz did contract work for a while after Aztez, and in 2018 he pitched Bounty Star to people he knew at Annapurna. The game has a complex premise — it stars Clem, a desert bounty hunter with plenty of baggage, and it involves mech battles, emotional narrative scenes and home-management mechanics, including some light gardening. Annapurna bit, and Ruiz landed a publishing deal.

Annapurna Interactive

Annapurna Interactive is one of the most prominent publishers of indie games today, with titles like Stray, Outer Wilds, Neon White, Donut County and What Remains of Edith Finch on its books. It was founded in 2016 as an offshoot of Annapurna Pictures and quickly established its brand as an arthouse publisher, focused on visually innovative and emotionally driven experiences. Its showcases are now a staple of the gaming calendar.

Annapurna is handling the marketing for Bounty Star, and it’s also financially supporting Ruiz’s studio, Dinogod. When Ruiz pitched the game, he was clear that he’d need a team of five or six people to bring his vision to life, and Annapurna gave him the funding to hire up.

“The fact that Dinogod has five full time people, that was a part of the partnership,” Ruiz said. “When everything was greenlit, that was the first step, to bring in these five or six people…. If [Annapurna is] into a thing that they think is a good move, and it needs more people, that seems to be fully okay. Like, they're not averse to scale.”

It’s not just Annapurna making these types of deals with indies nowadays. Devolver Digital is the granddaddy of indie publishers, and since 2009 it’s released hits including Hotline Miami, Hatoful Boyfriend, The Talos Principle, Gris, Fall Guys, Inscryption, Weird West and Cult of the Lamb, all in collaboration with small development teams. There’s also Humble, Private Division, Raw Fury, Epic Games, Finji, Gearbox, EA and Netflix, all of which have stepped up their indie publishing efforts in recent years. Meanwhile, Microsoft’s strategy is to simply acquire the studios it likes, and today it has 23 developers under the Xbox Game Studios banner. Sony is taking a similar approach, though it owns fewer studios than Microsoft. Microsoft and Sony are also signing hundreds of one-off deals with indies as they attempt to fill their streaming libraries — Xbox Game Pass and PlayStation Plus Premium — with a steady stream of new experiences.

This is the new standard for indie developers: Identify the publisher that best matches your game’s tone, pitch it, and pray. Even established studios, such as Device 6 creator Simogo, have swapped to a publisher-first model. Simogo’s latest projects, Sayonara Wild Hearts and Lorelei and the Laser Eyes, are the result of its partnership with Annapurna.

Annapurna Interactive

“I think for us as a studio, the biggest change is working with a publisher, something which we would see as completely uninteresting and impractical ten years ago,” Simogo co-founder Simor Flesser told Engadget earlier this month.

And then there’s Netflix. The streaming company officially entered the game-distribution business in 2021, and it’s on track to have 100 titles in its library by the end of 2023, all freely available to anyone with a Netflix subscription. It’s already brought a number of high-profile titles to mobile devices, including Kentucky Route Zero, Poinpy, Into the Breach, Spiritfarer, Lucky Luna and Oxenfree II, and it’s purchased a few studios outright — notably, Alphabear developer Spry Fox and Oxenfree house Night School Studio. The first of these purchases was Night School, which Netflix acquired in 2021.

“Consolidation — I didn't really have my finger as much on the pulse of that, because when we joined Netflix, it didn't feel like that was happening so rapidly,” Night School co-founder Sean Krankel told Engadget. “And now in the last few years, literally, it's non-stop.”

The acquisition allowed Night School to move into the Netflix offices and it provided stability for the studio overall, Krankel said. With Netflix’s resources, the Night School team was able to add day-one support for 32 languages in Oxenfree II, and they were able to fly in remote collaborators as needed.

“All that's really exciting,” Oxenfree II lead developer Bryant Cannon said just ahead of the game’s July 12th release. “I think the game is going to be better because we have this battery in our back.”

Netflix

Outside of acquisitions, Netflix is also signing individual deals with developers. Snowman is best known as the name behind Alto’s Adventure and Alto’s Odyssey, and its latest project is Laya’s Horizon, a serene wingsuit experience exclusive to Netflix. There are two big benefits of working with Netflix, according to Snowman creative director Jason Medeiros: The instant access to an audience of more than 230 million people, and the freedom to build a game without worrying about monetization.

“You'll notice real quick that the game that you've been playing can't be free-to-play,” Medeiros told Engadget in April. “Like, where would the ads go? It’s this fantasy world with no currency, even, and all that’s intentional. As the creative director, I didn't want any of that stuff. Because I mean, I liked games before all that stuff happened. So having a platform like Netflix, it's just like, none of that matters. You don't have to do that stuff. It's a breath of fresh air; we jump on opportunities to make games that way.”

Of course, there are still developers self-publishing their projects — Vampire Survivors, Phasmophobia, Celeste and Among Us are all standout examples — but there’s a murkier path to success with this model, one based on timing, trends and a hefty amount of luck. There are more than 90,000 games on Steam today; Xbox Game Pass and PS Plus Premium libraries each have more than 400 titles (and counting). In this marketplace, it’s hard to stand out without a little help.

It’s taken 10 years to get here, but it’s now a solid, quantifiable fact: There’s a lot of money in indie games. So much money that outside companies are popping up and trying to get a piece of the pie — and for now, it’s created a shiny bubble of pretty PR packages and bespoke showcases dedicated to small teams and their games.

Devolver Digital

It’s difficult to ignore the potential for exploitation down the line, especially with Netflix in the mix. Amid the ongoing writers’ and actors’ strike, the company is facing accusations that it instituted wildly unfair compensation deals for creatives, paying out one-time, minimal wages even as projects became massive hits on the streaming service. Annapurna, for its part, was accused of mishandling claims of abuse at three prominent studios on its publishing roster — Mountains, Funomena and Fullbright — in a March 2022 documentary by People Make Games. Meanwhile, the current consolidation craze is shrinking the video game industry overall, even as the market caps of the biggest companies continue to rise.

For now, bespoke publishing is the name of the indie game. This system has already distributed innovative and important games to huge audiences — Tchia, Tunic, Sea of Solitude, Gris — and it’s offered stability to a lot of independent artists. Like, for instance, Ben Ruiz.

“I hope Annapurna’s success means more Annapurnas in the future,” Ruiz said. “It doesn’t feel like they’re just trying to grab a thing that will make money or collaborate with people that are just going to make them money. They clearly have a brand and an aesthetic directive … if I can keep making games for them for a long time, I will.”

The new normal works for Ruiz — and Flesser, Krankel, Medeiros and plenty of others. For now, it’s a functional system, even if it ultimately leaves publishers, rather than independent developers, with most of the power.

Sony has revealed the PlayStation Plus monthly games lineup for August. There’s no clear headliner here, but a trio of nifty titles are about to drop, including the incredible Zelda-ish adventure Death’s Door and a little-known golf sim called PGA Tour 2K23. Also in the lineup is Media Molecule’s long-running game-making platformDreams.

Dreams is a community-focused app that builds upon the level-creation tools first debuted in the LittleBigPlanet series. Players have used the system to make just about anything you can imagine, from VR experiences to full-fledged CGI movies. Sony even allowed some of the more popular creators to sell their works.

Unfortunately, Sony is winding down Dreams, as the company recently announced it will stop releasing updates later this year. The launch on PS Plus, however, will provide users with one last hurrah, especially given the final game on this month’s list of releases, which is another Media Molecule title. Tren is a train-based adventure game that was entirely built in Dreams and only accessible within the title. Sony calls it a “nostalgic adventure that puts you in the driving seat of a remarkable toy train, and tells a personal tale about growing up – and the transformative power of play."

These titles are all available on August 1st and you have until the final day of July to scoop up expiring games like Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War, Alan Wake Remastered and Endling – Extinction is Forever.