Halo 2 is a 2004 first-person shooter game developed by Bungie and published by Microsoft Game Studios for the Xbox console. Halo 2 is the second installment in the Halo franchise and the sequel to 2001's critically acclaimed Halo: Combat Evolved. The game features new weapons, enemies, and vehicles, another player character, and shipped with online multiplayer via Microsoft's Xbox Live service. In Halo 2's story mode, the player assumes the roles of the human Master Chief and alien Arbiter in a 26th-century conflict between the United Nations Space Command, the genocidal Covenant, and later, the parasitic Flood.
An online game is a video game that is either partially or primarily played through the Internet or any other computer network available. Online games are ubiquitous on modern gaming platforms, including PCs, consoles and mobile devices, and span many genres, including first-person shooters, strategy games, and massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPG). In 2019, revenue in the online games segment reached $16.9 billion, with $4.2 billion generated by China and $3.5 billion in the United States. Since the 2010s, a common trend among online games has been to operate them as games as a service, using monetization schemes such as loot boxes and battle passes as purchasable items atop freely-offered games. Unlike purchased retail games, online games have the problem of not being permanently playable, as they require special servers in order to function.
Battlestations: Midway is a video game developed by Eidos Hungary and released in 2007 for the Xbox 360 and Microsoft Windows. The Mac version of this game was developed by Robosoft Technologies, based out of India and published in July 2008 by Feral Interactive.
Kingdom Under Fire II was a video game set in a high fantasy setting developed by Blueside which merged real-time strategy (RTS), role-playing game (RPG) and massively multiplayer online game (MMO) genres. The game had a single-player and an online multiplayer mode. The game followed on chronologically from Kingdom Under Fire: Circle of Doom, and was the first RTS game set in the Kingdom Under Fire universe to be released since the 2005 Kingdom Under Fire: Heroes. Due to its mass cancellation, most of the 4 platforms were scrapped, and it was Windows-exclusive.
Toy Soldiers is an action and strategy video game developed by Signal Studios released on Xbox Live Arcade on March 3, 2010. It is featured in the Windows 8 Consumer Preview Store. It has been available since February 29, 2012, debuting alongside the Windows 8 Consumer Preview beta release. The game was officially released for Microsoft Windows on April 27, 2012. A high-definition port, published by Accelerate Games, was released on October 21, 2021, for Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Microsoft Windows.
Warhammer 40,000: Eternal Crusade was a science fiction online third-person shooter video game based on the Warhammer 40,000 universe. The game was released on September 23, 2016 for Microsoft Windows. As of January 2016 it was planned to release the game for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One on a later date, but the ports were later canceled.
Black Desert Online (Korean: 검은사막) is a sandbox-oriented fantasy massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) developed by Korean video game developer Pearl Abyss and originally published for Microsoft Windows in 2015. A mobile version titled Black Desert Mobile was initially released in Asia by early 2019, and worldwide in December 2019. The Xbox One and PlayStation 4 versions, known simply as Black Desert, were released in 2019. The game is free-to-play in some parts of the world, but follows a buy-to-play business model in other editions, including the English-language editions.
In video games with online gaming functionality, also called cross-compatible play, cross-platform play, crossplay, or cross-play describes the ability of players using different video game hardware to play with each other simultaneously. It is commonly applied to the ability for players using a game on a specific video game console to play alongside a player on a different hardware platform such as another console or a computer. A related concept is cross-save, where the player's progress in a game is stored in separate servers, and can be continued in the game but on a different hardware platform.
Badiya is an upcoming open world survival video game title developed by Saudi Arabian developer Semaphore. The title refers to two different games with the same settings and content.
PUBG: Battlegrounds is a battle royale game developed by PUBG Studios and published by Krafton. The game, which was inspired by the Japanese film Battle Royale (2000), is based on previous mods created by Brendan "PlayerUnknown" Greene for other games, and expanded into a standalone game under Greene's creative direction. It is the first game in the PUBG Universe series.
Game Pass is a subscription service as part of Xbox and offered by Microsoft Gaming. Launched on June 1, 2017, the service allows users to download and play video games for Xbox video game consoles or Microsoft Windows PCs from a rotating library, with the games remaining accessible as long as the user has an active subscription. Game Pass subscribers also receive discounts on purchases of games from the service's library and their respective downloadable content (DLC).
A battle royale game is an online multiplayer video game genre that blends last-man-standing gameplay with the survival, exploration and scavenging elements of a survival game. Battle royale games involve dozens to hundreds of players, who start with minimal equipment and then must eliminate all other opponents while avoiding being trapped outside a shrinking "safe area", with the winner being the last player or team alive.
Realm Royale is a free-to-play third-person shooter battle royale game developed by Heroic Leap Games. The game features multiple character classes each with unique abilities. It is a spin-off of the hero shooter Paladins, where it originated as a game mode known as Paladins: Battlegrounds. The game was released for Microsoft Windows via Steam's early access program in June 2018, with versions for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One released two months later. Realm Royale entered open beta on PS4 and Xbox One on January 22, 2019. On May 24, 2019, the game entered closed beta on Nintendo Switch and went into open beta on June 20, 2019. On August 22, 2022, the game was relaunched and updated as Realm Royale Reforged, marking the first update to the game since February 2020.
Halo Infinite is a 2021 first-person shooter game developed by 343 Industries and published by Xbox Game Studios. It is the sixth mainline installment in the Halo series, following Halo 5: Guardians (2015). The game's campaign follows the human supersoldier Master Chief and his fight against a mercenary organization, known as the Banished, on the Forerunner ringworld Zeta Halo. Unlike previous mainline entries in the series, the multiplayer portion of the game is free-to-play.
PixARK is a survival video game that was released on March 27, 2018 in early access for Microsoft Windows. A spin-off of Ark: Survival Evolved, the game can be played in both single-player and multiplayer modes.
Call of Duty: Mobile is a 2019 first-person shooter video game developed by TiMi Studio Group and published by Activision for Android and iOS. Released as a free-to-play title, it was one of the largest mobile game launches in history, generating over US$480 million with 270 million downloads within a year. Call of Duty: Mobile was published in other regions by Garena, Tencent Games, VNG Corporation and TiMi Studio Group.
Call of Duty: Warzone was a 2020 free-to-play battle royale first-person shooter game developed by Raven Software and Infinity Ward and published by Activision. It was released on March 10, 2020, for PlayStation 4, Windows, and Xbox One as part of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (2019) and was subsequently connected to Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War (2020) and Call of Duty: Vanguard (2021), but did not require purchase of any of the aforementioned titles. Warzone allowed online multiplayer combat among 150 players and featured both cross-platform play and cross-platform progression between the three aforementioned titles.
Titanfall is a media franchise that mainly features first-person shooter games. The series was created by Respawn Entertainment and debuted on Xbox and Microsoft Windows; it has expanded to other consoles and platforms.
Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Frontline is a cancelled live-service first-person massively multiplayer online PvP class-based tactical shooter battle royale game by Ubisoft announced on October 6, 2021. It was under development for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S, plus Amazon Luna and Google Stadia. On July 21, 2022, Ubisoft announced that it had cancelled development of the game.
