Crystal Dynamics opens a new sister studio to help work on its big new Avengers game.

Both publisher Square Enix and developer Crystal Dynamics have been ramping up for the ambitious Avengers game for some time. The Tomb Raider studio has been making key acquisitions left and right, folding top dev talent into their studios to bolster the project, and today marks yet another milestone for growth with the opening of a new Bellevue, Washington branch.

The new studio is called Crystal Northwest and will directly help sculpt the studio's upcoming games, including the Avengers game conscripted by Marvel in a multi-year agreement.

id Software is far from finished with the Doom franchise.

At Quakecon 2018 id said something interesting about Doom Eternal and the series altogether: the team aims to flesh out the brutal, hallowed and chaotic universe that's enthralled millions for decades now. Rather that simply make another FPS joyride through hell, id is carefully sculpting the rebooted franchise's future, which means Doom Eternal is likely just the second portal through hell that we'll jovially cross. There could be many more.

"We're not just making a Doom game any more. We're building a Doom universe," Doom Eternal game director Marty Stratton said on the event's stage. This strongly hints that more Doom is on the way. Doom 2016 was just the beginning, and Doom Eternal is just the second chapter...but what lies beyond that is still being inked out.

RAGE 2 will be a singleplayer-driven game, developer id Software says, but it will have some sort of online social interaction.

When I first saw RAGE 2 I thought its open-ended chaotic sandbox made a good blueprint for a potential online service game. My thoughts were amplified once I heard RAGE 2 would be monetized in some fashion and follow the traditional live service engagement-revenue model. It turns out my predictions were wrong: it's not actually an online multiplayer game...well at least in the traditional sense. RAGE 2 will indeed have some sort of player-based interactivity, but don't expect drop-in/drop-out co-op akin to Borderlands.

id Software was quite busy at QuakeCon 2018. We saw Doom Eternal footage, tons of Fallout 76 info, and some clarification on RAGE 2's social-not-multiplayer tactics. "We will have a social component but it's not your typical multiplayer," id Software studio director Tom Willits told Eurogamer in a recent interview.

Last week we saw the original Donkey Kong Country creator reveal that he regretted the name 'King K. Rool' after the villain was announced for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.

Gregg Mayles, the designer for Donkey Kong Country has posted a follow-up tweet regarding his support for King K. Rool joining the Super Smash Bros. roster. The new tweet from Mayles reveals the original plans the developers had for the Donkey Kong franchise back in March 1994. The sheet of paper reads that Donkey Kong Country was going to be called 'Monkey Mayhem' and that its main villain King K. Rool was going to instead be called 'Kommander.'

If you missed the reveal of King K. Rool for the new Super Smash Bros. Ultimate definitely check out the trailer here. Simon Belmont from the Castlevania series was also announced at the Super Smash Bros. Ultimate direct, you can check that out here.

In an interview with Variety, Tim Willits, id Software's Studio Director discusses whether the sequel to RAGE will see a Nintendo Switch release in the future.

Variety has sat down with Willits and the director has revealed some of the studios plans for the release of RAGE 2 in 2019. According to Willits, RAGE 2 will instead of concentrating on a post-apocalyptic world will push the boundaries and bring players a world that is "post-post-apocalyptic world,' where people are trying to rebuild and vegetation has come back." Willits also reveals that RAGE 2 will be featuring a much more colorful and vibrant world, this will be done by pushing the game 30 years in the future when compared to the last release in the series.

Willits is also asked if players will see RAGE 2 debut to the Nintendo Switch, especially after the studio worked so closely with Panic Button to bring many id Software titles such as DOOM, Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus and the coming DOOM Eternal to the handheld console. When Willits was asked about a Switch release for RAGE 2 he replied with "We're looking at the tech on that right now, and we're still evaluating that. We stream everything, and we're just looking... because everything is open, everything's available, so there's no level loads. We are looking at that now, but we don't know." For more information regarding RAGE 2 check out their website here.

Eidos Montreal has spoken out about their latest installment into the Tomb Raider franchise, according to the developer a release of Shadow of the Tomb Raider on the Nintendo Switch looks quite grim.

Health Smith, the Lead Game Designer has told GameSpot in a recent interview that development studio Eidos Montreal currently has "no plans" for Shadow of the Tomb Raider releasing on the Nintendo Switch. According to Smith, the studio is currently throwing all of its priority eggs into the PS4, Xbox One and PC basket.

Smith did say throughout the interview that he personally really enjoys the Nintendo Switch, but it seems that Shadow of the Tomb Raider was better suited for a console/PC release. If you want to catch up on some older Shadow of the Tomb Raider news, check out the first 15 minutes of gameplay footage that has been released in 4K. If you have already seen that then there is 40 seconds of gameplay showcasing 'Deadly Tombs' and a further 35 seconds of environmental gameplay.

The Initiative, a brand new studio announced by Microsoft back at E3 2018 has seen some new developers join its ranks. Darrell Gallagher, the lead designer has announced that he is already excited to add many talented to developers to the team.

Darrell Gallagher previously worked on titles such as Tomb Raider, Deus Ex & Hitman. He also overlooked other massive titles such as Call of Duty, Destiny 2 and Crash Bandicoot: N. Sane Trilogy for Activision. Gallagher announced on his Linkedln and Twitter that numerous big name developers were joining his team at The Initiative. Some of these names included, Brian Westergard who was the Lead Producer/Senior Producer for Rise of the Tomb Raider and also Senior Managing Producer for God of War.

Other developers that were mentioned are Christian Cantamessa, who was the lead writer and designer for Rockstars Red Dead Redemption. More names included: Linsey McQueeny and Daniel Neuburger who worked at Crystal Dynamics with Rise of the Tomb Raider. With many big name developers now joining the ranks of the new studio, it will be very interesting to see what Microsoft's now amazing team will be able to produce under The Initiative brand. For further information about the new studio, visit their official website here.

After the amazing reveal of DOOM Eternal at this years QuakeCon, id Software Executive Producer Marty Stratton, and Creative Director Hugo Martin sat down with Eurogamer to discuss some further details about the upcoming title.

Both developers were asked numerous questions, some of which included if DOOM Eternal would be launching on the Nintendo Switch at the same time as the other platforms. Stratton replied to this question and said: "That's the plan right now; we'll see. We're still a way away from launching but we have made the decision to make Switch a, what we call internally, 'first class citizen.'"

Stratton further clarified if the title would be a port or would be developed internally for the handheld console. Here is what he had to say: "No. We're actually working with Panic Button again, but before, we made the game and then we brought it to Switch, and now we are making the game with Switch in mind. It's nice to know the platforms we want to hit up front." It was also confirmed in a later question if DOOM Eternal would be running at 60FPS on the Nintendo Switch, Stratton confirmed that the title would be running at 30FPS much like DOOM 2016, but will be a stable 60FPS on all other platforms. For further information regarding DOOM Eternal visit the Bethesda website here.

AMD has just announced a new graphics card at SIGGRAPH 2018, with the new Radeon Pro WX 8200 workstation graphics card set to ship to customers in September.

The new Radeon Pro WX 8200 is a cut down version of the flagship Radeon Pro WX 9100 except it's under half the price at $999 compared to $2200 of the WX 9100. How is the WX 8200 half the price of the WX 9100? Well, for starts we have 8GB of HBM2 compared to 16GB of HBM2 on the WX 9100, while the WX 8200 has also had its stream processors sliced down to 3584 compared to 4096 on the WX 9100.

AMD has used the same Vega 10 GPU on the same 14nm node, with 10.8 TFLOPs of single precision compute performance and 21.5 TFLOPs in half precision. Comparing this to the WX 9100 and its 12.3 TFLOPs of single precision compute performance, and 24.6 TFLOPs of half precision.

Inno3D is better known for its custom GeForce graphics cards but now the company is stepping into a new market: gaming memory, in the form of their new iChill RAM.

The new high-end iChill RAM will be in capacities between 4-16GB and speeds of between 2400-4000MHz with an interesting heatspreader to keep it cool. A set of gaming RAM couldn't be complete without RGBs, with Inno3D giving its new iChill gaming RAM some RGBs to seal the deal.

Inno3D has explained its new iChill gaming memory: "The hatching product family will crawl out of its shell under the name i CHILL and will come in various capacities of 4GB up to 16GB at speeds of 2400MHz up to 4000MHz and with ultra-low latencies up to 15CL".