Fortnite's new update adds a new spin onto the massively popular game, with Epic Games' new 'High Stakes' update for Fortnite also adding in a grappling hook that will change the way you play the game.

Fortnite's new grappling hook is named 'The Grappler' and can be fired between 10-15 times and will see players firing it up or at something to get out of a fight. The Grappler lets you fly up hills and buildings at ease, especially if your enemy doesn't have one and you do.

The new High Stakes update includes an all-new Getaway mode, new skins, and so much more.

NVIDIA's upcoming GeForce RTX 20 series graphics cards have built-in RT cores for ray tracing and Tensor cores for some very interesting AI-based goodies in the future... but what about more games using these RTX features?

Now we have Mass Effect developer BioWare addressing some questions over Twitter on whether their upcoming game Anthem will have support for DLSS, ray tracing or multiple GPU gaming rigs. Executive Producer on Anthem, Mark Darrah said "We're looking into it right now" when asked about DLSS, ray tracing and mGPU in Anthem.

EA will be publishing Anthem, so it would make sense for BioWare's next-gen game to support RTX since Battlefield V will have support for real-time ray tracing on NVIDIA's next-gen GeForce RTX 20 series cards.

Mega Rumor and Trigger Warning: This is all rumor territory, and I'm just reporting from various sources who are providing the relative performance of the GeForce RTX 2080 Ti against the GeForce GTX 1080 Ti.

Yesterday I reported about the GeForce RTX 2080 Ti being 35% faster in the 3DMark Time Spy run over the GTX 1080 Ti, but now new information has surfaced which drives the tease-o-meter up to 11/10. 3DCenter.org has compiled a list of relative performance gains over the GTX 1080 Ti from the it-still-doesn't-have-drivers GeForce RTX 2080 Ti.

Some of the results are freaking impressive with games like Far Cry 5 expected to receive a huge 55% performance upgrade at 4K, while PUBG will see a large 45% increase. The list includes Call of Duty: WW2, For Honor, GTA V, Mass Effect: Andromeda, Rainbow Six: Victories, The Crew 2, and The Witcher 3.

Anthem apparently won't follow Destiny's expansion model and carve up story content and fracture the playerbase: future story DLC will be free. Plus BioWare touches upon the game's post-story content.

As a live service game it only makes sense that Anthem won't have a season pass. Post-launch content will be funded by cosmetic-only microtransactions--lootboxes won't be in Anthem--rather than paid macrotransactions (expansions, passes, etc) and will include various endgame activities called Elder Content. Anthem's Elder Content umbrella enfolds numerous things to do when players finish the story, such as Strongholds, a high-level 4-player event that doles out strong gear, as well as rotating seasonal content to keep users engaged.

In a PAX West 2018 panel BioWare devs touched on Anthem's endgame:

BioWare explains why Anthem's two-choice conversation system is quite condensed and how it can potentially affect gameplay and NPC relationships.

In many ways Anthem aims to redefine BioWare games. Mostly known for rich singleplayer RPGs with expansive dialogue, Anthem is an action-based online multiplayer game that scraps Mass Effect's conversation wheel in favor of a more streamlined binary system. Gamers will only be able to pick two dialog options when talking to NPCs, but the studio says Fort Tarsis--the home to all mission-doling agents and NPCs--will change based on your decisions.

Game flow is one of the major reasons for Anthem's diminished dialog choice. BioWare says it wants to give action-oriented players a means of moving forward without necessarily being overwhelmed by conversation (as a live game it's important players are continually engaged and that BioWare caters to all sorts of fans).

We've known for a while now that BioWare is working on a new Dragon Age game, and sources tell Kotaku's Jason Schreier that it'll have live service elements. And there's evidence a new Mass Effect is in early planning stages. Now at a recent PAX West 2018 panel key BioWare devs assert that Anthem's online infrastructure could power certain storytelling elements in its future games--including new Dragon Age and Mass Effect titles.

Now that BioWare has put insurmountable effort into Anthem's online framework and live game infrastructure, the studio sees that its other franchises could benefit from a similar online path, at least when it comes to continuing story and lore.

Future Dragon Age and Mass Effect games could be quite different from what gamers are used to in this respect (and possibly in a good way). Thanks to a live game approach, which would require gamers to be online versus playing offline, BioWare could examine data and ensure post-launch DLC and stories are tailor-made to how gamers play and how much progress they've made with certain characters.

Final Fantasy XIV just got a lot more popular with a big influx of players, Square Enix has announced.

Few games have experienced a dramatic turnaround as Final Fantasy XIV. The MMORPG started out messy and alienated many core fans, but through countless hours of crunching, guidance, and player-driven feedback, Square Enix completely evolved the project. As of now the game remains one of the best (if not the best) MMOs on the market today, and with some 14 million users, it has the numbers to back it up.

Ahead of its fifth anniversary celebration, Final Fantasy XIV has now topped 14 million registered players. This milestone saw a whopping 4 million players join Eorzea in 2018 alone. Beloved game director and savior of Eorzea Naoki Yoshida had this to say about the achievement:

AMD has itself teased its upcoming next generation CPU and GPU architectures on the new 7nm node, with a press release teasing that AMD's "next major milestone is the introduction of our upcoming 7nm product portfolio, including the initial products with our second generation "Zen 2" CPU core and our new "Navi" GPU architecture".

We already know that AMD worked closely with Sony on the Navi GPU architecture for the next-gen PlayStation 5 console, but now AMD is officially talking about the Navi architecture filling out its 7nm portfolio and making a point that its one of their next major milestones in the family. AMD is a little cryptic and throwing some people off by saying that their first 7nm GPU will launch "later this year" with some thinking it'll be Navi, but this will be their Vega 20 GPU.

Interestingly, we see AMD has "already taped out multiple 7nm products at TSMC" which include not just the 7nm GPU, but their first 7nm server CPU that will be launched in 2019. AMD adds: "Our work with TSMC on their 7nm node has gone very well and we have seen excellent results from early silicon. To streamline our development and align our investments closely with each of our foundry partner's investments, today we are announcing we intend to focus the breadth of our 7nm product portfolio on TSMC's industry-leading 7nm process".

Microsoft is ramping up to the launch of Shadow of the Tomb Raider by unveiling a new custom Xbox One X console, with an awesome trailer to show it off - the attention to detail is stunning, with it being one of the best-looking consoles of its generation.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider developer Crystal Dynamics worked with Microsoft on the custom Xbox One X console, with Head of Studio at Eidos-Montreal saying: "Shadow of the Tomb Raider will challenge Lara Croft in new and unexpected ways. Our team has created a diverse set of skills, combat techniques and equipment for players to master, and they'll certainly need them".

Don't think it'll be cheap as the custom Shadow of the Tomb Raider Xbox One X console is currently on auction on eBay for a current bid of $7600, and I'm sure it'll go up. 100% of the sale of the beautiful piece of technology will benefit the Best Friends Animal Society, which is a "leading national animal welfare organization dedicated to ending the killing of dogs and cats in America's shelters".

The newly released open world survival game SCUM has had its developer release a new patch for the title, the update adds anticheat code, fixes memory leak issues and much more.

Gamespires, the developers behind SCUM have debuted a brand new patch to SCUM. Within this patch, server admin controls have been added, sentries have been slightly nerfed, disabled chat and mic icon while in single-player and anti-cheat code has been implemented. It should be noted that any exploits will be counted as cheating and result in a bannable offense if detected.

If you are interested in checking out the official SCUM Steam listing, a link can be found here. In other news about SCUM, just within the first 24 hours of release SCUM already managed to sell a whopping 250,000 copies, if you want to catch up on that story, visit it here.