EA isn't sitting in a good spot with Battlefield V with the company starting off on the wrong foot with angered gamers over some of the choices they made within the setting of the game, to say the least. Now there's news of pre-order numbers being low, and that's not good at all.

The company recently lost Patrick Soderlund, who was the ex-CEO of DICE until EA acquired the company back in 2006. Soderlund had high-up roles within EA after the transition, and is now leaving the company.

Now there's Sarah Needleman of the Wall Street Journal reporting that Cowen Group analysts have that that pre-order sales for Battlefield V "have been weak". These analysts are going by things said to them by EA connections, and if we look at someone as instrumental as Soderlund leaving EA two months before the launch of Battlefield V, one of EA's largest franchises... this does look weird.

Intel has released a short video at Siggraph 2018 this week in Vancouver teasing about their upcoming discrete GPU in 2020. The newly installed Intel discrete graphics boss, Raja Koduri, has been spotted roaming around Vancouver this week as well. The Twitter post by Intel can be found here.

The image of the card in the video has been confirmed to us by Intel as a rendering and not an actual product image. Intel made no formal presentations this year at Siggraph in Vancouver about their upcoming plans, although we are expecting more information to begin appearing in 2019.

Raja Koduri joined Intel late in 2017 as we reported here. Earlier this year Chris Hook of AMD and ATI fame, as well Tom Forsyth joined the expanding Intel discrete graphics team.

NVIDIA should be announcing its next-gen GeForce RTX series of graphics cards on August 20, with more details, speculation and rumor being thrown onto the internet than ever before.

We're now seeing some detailed specifications on not just the forthcoming GeForce RTX 2070 and RTX 2080 but the higher-end RTX 2080 Ti that should truly blow the doors off of everything else on the market. The current rumors peg the RTX 2080 at beating the TITAN V, and considering that's a Volta-based HBM2-powered $3000 graphics card, those claims are beyond imagination.

We should expect NVIDIA to release a beefed up GeForce RTX 2080 Ti if the naming scheme stays the same as the GTX 10 series (GTX 1070, 1080, 1080 Ti) and from the current crop of information, it will be an utter beast. If the GeForce RTX 2080 is beating the TITAN V, then the RTX 2080 Ti would be truly insane. It should have 11GB of GDDR6 on a 352-bit memory bus (the GTX 1080 Ti has 11GB of GDDR5X on a 352-bit memory bus).

On the heels of its recent Timesplitters acquisition, THQ Nordic confirms a rather robust lineup of in-development games.

THQ Nordic currently has 51 projects in the works, the company announced in today's Q2 financial results. This fifty-strong slate is the company's "strongest pipeline to date," the filings say, the majority of which are unannounced games. The publisher says 34 of its 51 games are unannounced titles.

However all of the projects may not be top-tier games from key franchises, and instead may include partner titles, third-party-owned games, and licensed projects. Renown studios like Saints Row dev Volition Entertainment and Dambuster Studios are both developing "top secret" AAA titles, the report says, and the company recently issued new shares in a bid to raise funds for game development, acquisitions, and operations.

The fan-favorite 2000's Timesplitters series has been bought by THQ Nordic as the publisher expands its IP lineup.

THQ Nordic has been snapping up studios, companies and IPs for a while now, and the most notable acquisition was that of Saints Row and Metro publisher Koch Media back in February. Now the Swedish games-maker has snapped up rights to the Timesplitters and Second Sight sci-fi game franchises under its Koch Media subsidiary.

As Koch Media's CEO asserts, this acquisition should see a new Timesplitters in the works.

Blizzard's not-so-subtle tease was right on the money: Diablo III is coming to the Nintendo Switch later this year.

Following confirmation that its working on several new Diablo projects, Blizzard plans to release Diablo III on Nintendo's handheld-console Switch hybrid as the Diablo III Eternal Collection later this year. As you'd expect, this is a GOTY version with Reaper of Souls and the Rise of the Necromancer DLCs.

The news was prematurely posted on Forbes (now taken down) and made its rounds on the internet, including Reddit and Kotaku, both of which confirm interesting details about the ARPG port.

Never picked up Rainbow Six Siege throughout the Steam sales? Well, Ubisoft are going to give you a free shot at it regardless. Rainbow Six Siege will have a free weekend beginning on August 16th.

Ubisoft have decided to make Rainbow Six Siege completely free-to-play across all platfroms beginning August 16th, the event will run to August 20th. Throughout this time, Ubisoft have also decided to massively discount Rainbow Six Siege, according to their blog post found on the Ubisoft website, "you can pick up the Starter, Standard, Advanced, Gold, and Complete Editions of the game for a discount of up to 60% off if you purchase before August 27".

For those that already own Rainbow Six Siege, this free weekend also happens to coincide with Europe's largest Rainbow Six tournament, Six Major Paris. The tournament will be running from August 13th to August 19th and will be livestreamed on twitch.tv/Rainbow6. According to the Ubisoft blogpost, 'Operation Grim Sky' the next season for Rainbow Six Siege will also be showcased throughout livestream, and it will later be officially released on September 4th. For more information visit the Ubisoft website here.

The upcoming Norse-inspired mythological adventure Rune: Ragnarok has had it's official Steam listing made live. The developers, Human Head Studios have also released the titles official PC requirements and a new teaser trailer.

For those that don't know, Rune: Ragnarok is a sandbox adventure game that allows for players to be immersed within a Nordic world where the gods are descending on earth. Players will have to battle beasts, monsters and eachother to survive Ragnarok.

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SMITE developers Hi-Rez Studios have decided to create three brand new development teams to take care of each of the respective games, introducing Titan Forge Games, Heroic Leap Games and Evil Mojo Games.

Hi-Rez Studios has decided to split its development teams into three separate studios, each of the studios will control the development of each of Hi-Rez Studios' IP's. The first studio is called Titan Forge Games and will be taking control of the eSports success SMITE. The second is Evil Mojo Games and will be taking the helm of the 2018 hero shooter Paladins. The last is Heroic Leap Games and that team will operate Realm Royale, the new battle royale title on Steam.

Each of the first party studios will be overseen by Chris Larson who is now the general manager, his current goal is to establish each of the respective teams and make sure they "fulfil their maximum potential and stay hyper focused on serving their individual player communities," said Larson. According to the press release, Larson has said that "We view game operation as a marathon, not a sprint. Our games are built to provide near constant updates over many years. By giving each major game its own dedicated studio and identity, we empower them to control their own destiny and focus exclusively on their player communities, while still having access to our leading shared publishing services." For more information regarding Hi-Rez Studios, visit their official website here.

Team17 has taken to their website to announce some new content for Overcooked 2. Players that are master chefs and have already completed the game will be glad to know the steaks have just been amped up, introducing New Game+ mode.

According to the Team17 blog post, players that have already achieved the 3-stars on each level will now have a brand new goal. New Game+ will be available to players that have already "ventured through the Onion Kingdom for the first time", the mode will allow for ambitious cooks to replay the 45 kitchens at much harder difficulty. This increase in difficulty will cause each of kitchens to reward players with 4-stars instead of 3, thus showcasing further the players pure cooking greatness.

Team17 also mention throughout the blog post that even more content is in the pipeline for Overcooked 2, we will find out about this content in the "days, weeks and months ahead." For further information regarding Overcooked 2, visit the official website here.