Once more unto the breach. Morning Checkpoint, Kotaku’s daily round-up of news, interesting stuff, and more, is here. This morning we’re looking at a second screen for the Switch 2 and a wider Steam, we’ve got good news about that new Mafia game, and the devs behind Battlefield 6 are making some changes to the beta. Oh, and don’t worry, we’re getting a new video game based on Chicken Run. I know everyone was waiting for that.
Rush in the BF6 open beta isn’t a great experience
The Battlefield 6 open beta is back for its second and final weekend, and that’s great. This weekend also sees a new mode join the fun, Rush, which is a classic BF mode. Sadly, Rush in the beta is bad. I played a few matches last night and didn’t enjoy it. Maps are too small, points are too close, and attackers are at a big disadvantage when trying to blow up the MCOM stations.
MCOM Timer Changes to Rush
We’ve just made a change to Rush: the MCOM timer is now reduced from 45 to 30 seconds to better the balance between attacking and defending players.
We’ll continue to monitor and are ready and able to make further balance adjustments.
— Battlefield Comms (@BattlefieldComm) August 15, 2025
EA seems to get that Rush isn’t working, and a few hours after the beta went live, the team changed how long it takes to blow up an MCOM station with a bomb. Previously, it took 45 seconds, which gave defenders plenty of time to run in and defuse it. Now it takes 30 seconds, which should help. But if this mode is going to join my rotation in the full game in October, more changes will have to be made.
Steam game pages are getting wider
Don’t be alarmed if soon store pages on Steam look a bit wider. Valve is testing out some new options for developers and publishers that will let them customize and alter how store pages for games look on the popular digital storefront. Valve is also testing out the option to let devs upload high-quality videos to the store page instead of just gifs. Hopefully this makes store pages look nicer and doesn’t turn Steam into a giant mess.
Mafia: The Old Country is selling really well
2K’s linear action game Mafia: The Old Country has received fairly good reviews and seems to be a hit with fans of the franchise. But more importantly for the bean counters at 2K, the new Mafia sequel, which is actually set before all the other games in the series, is selling like hotcakes. According to some data shared by Sensor Tower, The Old Country has already sold 800,000 units in just two weeks. PS5 and PC are the biggest platforms for the game. Hopefully this is good news for Hangar 13, and they can avoid layoffs.
Hardspace: Shipbreaker devs now own the franchise
On August 14 Blackbird Interactive, developers behind spaceship salvage sim Hardspace: Shipbreaker, announced that it had bought back the rights to the game and the franchise from publisher Focus Entertainment. The devs also announced that they were now working on multiple projects within the Hardspace universe and promised a small Shipbreaker update in the future that will tweak some things to reflect the new ownership.
“We’re eternally grateful for [Focus Entertainment’s] partnership and willingness to work with us so we could take ownership of the Hardspace IP,” said Blackbird Interactive.
WNBA stars will be able to play with NBA stars in 2K26
While women players from the WNBA have been a part of the NBA 2K series for a few years now, the latest game in the franchise will let them compete against NBA stars for the first time ever. This will be possible only in NBA 2K’s popular (and profitable) MyTeam mode. The women players will be available in all MyTeam game modes.
Wait a minute, is that a Switch 2 dual-screen patent?
People have spotted what appears to be a new patent from Nintendo for a dual-screen attachment or accessory for the Nintendo Switch 2. Of course, companies patent all sorts of stuff and then never do anything with it. So don’t expect Nintendo to announce this tomorrow, next month, or ever. But it is interesting, isn’t it?
