2026 VIDEO GAMES CATCH ALL THREAD

[RIPPA]

Beat the main story of Spider-Man 2

Have to clear a few more nests and get the rest of the spider bots and then look at an achievement list to see if I am gonna try to 100% it

Did a Google search to see who the second post-credit scene was teasing which lead me to Spider-Man 2 reddit and - Hoo Boy - are people fucking weird

[Casey]

I’m wondering if Silk will even be in the third one, or if it was a setup for the cancelled live service game.

[J.T.]

On 4/11/2026 at 12:52 PM, RIPPA said:

Did a Google search to see who the second post-credit scene was teasing which lead me to Spider-Man 2 reddit and - Hoy Boy - are people fucking weird

The Helldivers 2 reddit is also chock full of batshit crazy people.

 

Edited April 13 by J.T.

[supremebve]

5 hours ago, J.T. said:

The Helldivers 2 reddit is also chock full of batshit crazy people.

 

I have to say, the more time I spend on the internet the worst I feel about the future of humanity.  I swear my Reddit use is 75% of this feeling.  I can't tell you how tired I am of seeing posts about overrated athletes featuring names like Emmitt Smith, Tim Duncan, and John Elway.  As a generation, we've failed the children.  Now, they punish us by saying absurd shit about our favorite things internet.  

[odessasteps]

The problem is you can’t tell at first glance if people are trolling or just stupid, regardless of the topic.

[Raziel]

Assume 90% of all hot takes on the internet is purely to drive engagement numbers and probably don't reflect the giver's actual views, but they stance they take publicly to gain more money.

[Craig H]

On 4/5/2026 at 4:19 AM, J.T. said:

1. I am not dead.

2. I've been playing a shitload of Helldivers 2 lately. 

Shoot me your Friend Code if you are killing stuff in the name of managed democracy.

I may have to jump back in again then to serve up some cups of Liber-tea.

[J.T.]

I am Level 70ish and am working on the Level 4 upgrades to my Super Destroyer. The only standard stratagem I have left to buy is the new tank. I've held off on it for a while but they are now key for survival on Cyborg held planets. I have been blown out of my boots by Vox Engines enough times to know that the devs are not so gently nudging me in the direction of panzer warfare.

I've got like five achievments to go before I platinum this thing and *surprise* they are the hardest ones to get. I finally killed a Charger with a Suply Pod about a month ago and had to do it solo because some rando would call in a drop for himself before I spotted a Charger, or I would get the Supply Pod marker on the Charger just in time for a fucking rando to railgun the damn thing.

Shooting the arms off of a Brute and then extracting while it was still alive was also the opposite of fun but I got a lot of practice in with the Anti-Materiel Rifle. I'm not a half bad sniper now.

I've been trying to get the six orbitals at once achievement for weeks but my teammates do not seem to take the hint and chuck all of their orbitals when I am chucking all of mlne. Either they already have the achievement or they are just dense.

Edited April 16 by J.T.

[J.T.]

15 hours ago, supremebve said:

I have to say, the more time I spend on the internet the worst I feel about the future of humanity.  I swear my Reddit use is 75% of this feeling.  I can't tell you how tired I am of seeing posts about overrated athletes featuring names like Emmitt Smith, Tim Duncan, and John Elway.  As a generation, we've failed the children.  Now, they punish us by saying absurd shit about our favorite things internet.  

Video Game Reddit and Pro Wrestling Reddit are depressing places. I hate the people that like the same things that I do. 

Well, most of them anyway. Horror Reddit aka Dreadit has a very supportive community and for some reason the Joshi reddits like STARDOM and TJPW are remarkably civil. I recommended a good sports bar in Osaka to a guy heading to a STARDOM show there during the Winter Basho and got like a bazillion upvotes.

Edited April 14 by J.T.

[Craig H]

Why? Why do I keep going back to Marathon? It's a game I actively dislike and yet I have put more hours into it than Arc Raiders lately. I think what drives me to it the most is that this game feels like an arena/deathmatch/CTF/objective taking multiplayer game and instead it's forced into this extraction shooter wrapper. 

I don't like looting in the game. I have had far more success with free kits and getting to exfil than going in with my own kit which almost always guarantees death so I feel deterred from going in with my own kit. The progression path is confusing as fuck and arduous as fuck AND it's tied to a season system that I think will just wipe your progress unlike Arc Raiders where you have a choice if you want your progress wiped. I still think the maps kinda stink.

And yet...I load it up more than Arc Raiders and I'm not sure why. If I could try to pin it to any one thing it's just being able to kill other players, but even then the TTK is so fast. It's weird.

Anyway....

And fuck Peanut...Motherfucker is actually getting me to want to play Rust. Only reason why I haven't is that it's $40 and there's no way the rest of my crew is going to spend any money on games and those who do just got into No Rest for the Wicked, something I promoted to them months ago. And the other contingent in my friend group will only play anything that's "F2P" like Dota or Path of Exile. But the more I watch of Peanut playing Rust the more fun it looks. Survival game, destructible environments, looting, base building, lots of space to goof the fuck around, and an Arc Raiders like diplomacy that comes with a heaping side of distrust.

[Contentious C]

Saw someone at Wally World with an NCR cover on their spare tire. It ruled. That is all.

[Casey]

17 hours ago, Craig H said:

Why? Why do I keep going back to Marathon? It's a game I actively dislike and yet I have put more hours into it than Arc Raiders lately. I think what drives me to it the most is that this game feels like an arena/deathmatch/CTF/objective taking multiplayer game and instead it's forced into this extraction shooter wrapper. 

I don't like looting in the game. I have had far more success with free kits and getting to exfil than going in with my own kit which almost always guarantees death so I feel deterred from going in with my own kit. The progression path is confusing as fuck and arduous as fuck AND it's tied to a season system that I think will just wipe your progress unlike Arc Raiders where you have a choice if you want your progress wiped. I still think the maps kinda stink.

And yet...I load it up more than Arc Raiders and I'm not sure why. If I could try to pin it to any one thing it's just being able to kill other players, but even then the TTK is so fast. It's weird.

Anyway....

And fuck Peanut...Motherfucker is actually getting me to want to play Rust. Only reason why I haven't is that it's $40 and there's no way the rest of my crew is going to spend any money on games and those who do just got into No Rest for the Wicked, something I promoted to them months ago. And the other contingent in my friend group will only play anything that's "F2P" like Dota or Path of Exile. But the more I watch of Peanut playing Rust the more fun it looks. Survival game, destructible environments, looting, base building, lots of space to goof the fuck around, and an Arc Raiders like diplomacy that comes with a heaping side of distrust.

I played the server slam for both Arc and Marathon.

almost 300 hours deep into ARC, while I bought Marathon at launch and put maybe 12 hours into it and then deleted it. The same thing I hated about Destiny is becoming a thing with Marathon, where it’s just designed for the ultra sweats. That server slam, and the first week or two after the launch it was fine, but now it’s just unbearable.

BUT - the same thing is happening to ARC. Either people are getting bored and attacking others a lot more than they used to, or they actually broke/tweaked the ABMM. I can’t do a quest or anything without getting shot at within 5 minutes of loading into a map, and it’s worse when I turn on crossplay. PC players are *unhinged* on mic, in my experience.

[RIPPA]

My time with Hades 2 has begun

[Craig H]

7 hours ago, Casey said:

I played the server slam for both Arc and Marathon.

almost 300 hours deep into ARC, while I bought Marathon at launch and put maybe 12 hours into it and then deleted it. The same thing I hated about Destiny is becoming a thing with Marathon, where it’s just designed for the ultra sweats. That server slam, and the first week or two after the launch it was fine, but now it’s just unbearable.

BUT - the same thing is happening to ARC. Either people are getting bored and attacking others a lot more than they used to, or they actually broke/tweaked the ABMM. I can’t do a quest or anything without getting shot at within 5 minutes of loading into a map, and it’s worse when I turn on crossplay. PC players are *unhinged* on mic, in my experience.

I have far more fun with Arc and yet I keep playing Marathon for what I can only assume is this hint or taste of what would be a fun non-extraction shooter game.

Every time I jump back into Arc though I'm still in friendly/carebear lobbies. I also play with crossplay off because people on PS5 or Xbox are the ones who don't use comms and are the ones that I think are most accustomed to being KIS. I'm sure others would feel differently. Every now and then I'll come across a roleplayer in Arc, but most of the time it's a lot of, "you good? You cool?" Or someone helps you out against a Firefly and then the two or three of you bitch about how much you hate Fireflies and Comets. Or you're doing trials on Blue Gate and you're all talking about what your current score is.

The only time I'll kill someone on Arc without being attacked first is if someone runs in on me in a loot room or in another enclosed locale, they don't respond on comms with either voice or in game emotes, and they don't even respond if you tell them you're just grabbing what you need and they can have the rest or you're going to pull on them if they don't stop acting hostile. That all happens in seconds and if there is still nothing then I'll put them down. A couple times I've done that they're then cutting in with voice saying "WAIT! WAIT! SORRY! I was trying to figure out comms." I give them the benefit of the doubt at that point and revive them and and it hasn't backfired on me yet.

Oh, the other time I'll kill someone is if it's because they tried to gank or rat someone else, which is pretty rare. Even on Stella Montis. Stella Montis is always just a mad dash for either loot or trial scores.

That's where I think people are getting bored. Trials is just the same cycle of objectives, which when you've hit the top rank or like me, second from the top, then you're just kin d of like, well where do I go from here? Other reasons could be that people in carebear lobbies don't want to start killing people to change shit up because they either feel bad or they don't want their algo fucked up. Endgame content is still dull/non-existent.

And maybe the biggest cause for player count drop off? Peanut and his goofy gang only play Arc Raiders very sparingly and have focused very heavily on Rust or playing other silly games or games that give them a different flavor of fun. All of the super sweaty people like Shroud and Ninja are crybabies and left Arc to go back to other shit and when someone like Ninja has tried to stay within Peanut's sphere of influence, they crash out because their super serious playstyle is completely at adds with how Peanut, Gingy, Hutch, Nickmercs (eyeroll), and Cloakzy play. Even then, Cloakzy acted butthurt because his base in Rust got raided because he's in this space between being sweaty and being silly. You can track the drop in Steam player count in Arc to how much less Peanut has played it. Peanut and him being a goofball all the time isn't for everyone, but it did help boost the Arc community and now that he's moved to a sort of walled garden with Rust, people are just not as interested in Arc and they're also not moving in droves to Rust because there's zero chance you're going to play with any of them and you'll just be stuck with the usual sweats.

[Craig H]

And I would be inclined to do more PvP in Arc in a team if killing players in a team didn't fuck with your ABMM as a solo. I just don't want to risk it. However if the two weren't linked then yeah, I would do way more PvP because Arc has way more people on comms than Marathon. Marathon's comms are also usually fucked up.

[SirSmUgly]

The new Hades II update dropped yesterday and added new relationship development storylines and new unlockables, but also a dream couch that essentially remixes the eight levels in the game and gives you four at random, with all vows that you have enacted for regular runs also applying to Dream Runs. So that's awesome, and I'm glad to have more to do in this game. I would have paid for it and am thrilled to get this stuff for free. 

[RIPPA]

I am really  really trying to not look up anything regarding Hades II but my memory is also shit so I can't remember what half these symbols mean

[The Natural]

On 4/11/2026 at 11:07 PM, Casey said:

I’m wondering if Silk will even be in the third one, or if it was a setup for the cancelled live service game.

I can't fucking stand Silk. Fuck that character.

[The Natural]

Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat films this year. Feels like the 1990s all over in the battle of the videogames. I've always preferred Mortal Kombat. Which camp are you in?

[supremebve]

9 minutes ago, The Natural said:

I can't fucking stand Silk. Fuck that character.

Was she the woman in that Hulk Hogan video?

[SirSmUgly]

23 hours ago, RIPPA said:

I am really  really trying to not look up anything regarding Hades II but my memory is also shit so I can't remember what half these symbols mean

Some of them, you won't have seen before because there are more gods/demigods/etc. from the pantheon in this game than there were in the first game.

 

[NikoBaltimore]

On 4/15/2026 at 2:28 PM, SirSmUgly said:

The new Hades II update dropped yesterday and added new relationship development storylines and new unlockables, but also a dream couch that essentially remixes the eight levels in the game and gives you four at random, with all vows that you have enacted for regular runs also applying to Dream Runs. So that's awesome, and I'm glad to have more to do in this game. I would have paid for it and am thrilled to get this stuff for free. 

I feel like I largely tapped out on the game so I'll see if the additions manage to lure me back in.  I had most relationships maxed out so will need to see how things go.  It's also kind of surprising they add more to this considering when the game got out of early access it sounded like that was essentially all they would do aside from bug fixes.

[twiztor]

6 hours ago, The Natural said:

Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat films this year. Feels like the 1990s all over in the battle of the videogames. I've always preferred Mortal Kombat. Which camp are you in?

Team Mortal Kombat here too. But i largely stopped caring after Trilogy and the move to 3d graphics. 

[Technico Support]

On 4/11/2026 at 12:52 PM, RIPPA said:

Spider-Man 2 reddit and - Hoo Boy - are people fucking weird

Spider Man 2 was rushed and feels like a jumbled mess of plot ideas, and changed antagonists just as the third act began, but isn't nearly as bad as the SM2 subreddit makes it sound.

[SirSmUgly]

I just think that Peter and MJ are completely wrong for one another in these games and should just be good friends. I genuinely don't understand why they're dating. But that's small stuff.

7 hours ago, The Natural said:

Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat films this year. Feels like the 1990s all over in the battle of the videogames. I've always preferred Mortal Kombat. Which camp are you in?

Porque no los dos? I still think MK '94 is the best video game movie ever, mostly because it rips off a much better Bruce Lee flick and is an entertaining version of said flick.

As for the games, I like them both. Sometimes, I want to dial up my combos, sometimes I don't. I bounced right off of MK1, though, and wished that it was an Injustice game instead the whole time. 

SFIII: Third Strike is still the GOAT game from either series to me. 

1 hour ago, NikoBaltimore said:

I feel like I largely tapped out on the game so I'll see if the additions manage to lure me back in.  I had most relationships maxed out so will need to see how things go.  It's also kind of surprising they add more to this considering when the game got out of early access it sounded like that was essentially all they would do aside from bug fixes.

They did a ton of game balancing, too. The patch notes are pretty long.

I just fell in love with the combat, I think. I kept playing it even after I unlocked everything.