Gaming News - Page 100

Nintendo is moving on from Tears of the Kingdom to focus on something new.

The latest Zelda games--Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom--are some of the most lauded video games ever made, but Nintendo might be leaving this modern era of Hyrule behind.

In an interview with Famitsu, Zelda franchise producer Eiji Aonuma says that he's ready to move on from Tears of the Kingdom. This means there's no DLC or expansions on the horizon for the breakthrough game, unlike Breath of the Wild, which had 2 expansions. Fans had been hoping for a new Tears of the Kingdom DLC that would reduce some of the major friction points with crafting.

In months following the revealing testimony in the FTC v Microsoft federal case, Bethesda's Todd Howard also discusses the benefits of platform exclusivity.

Starfield's exclusivity is controversial to gamers but it poses some unique advantages for Bethesda. The game was originally planned to release on the PlayStation 5 back when ZeniMax was an independent publisher, but after Microsoft bought the company for $7.5 billion in 2021, Starfield was made a firm Xbox console exclusive that would skip PlayStation.

This poses a distinct push-pull for Bethesda. On one side, exclusivity means less game sales, which is a big drawback considering the PlayStation 5 is selling almost double that of the Xbox Series X/S duo. On the other side, Bethesda's development lens is now focused on two platforms instead of three--both of which are connected via the same operating system and devkit environment.

The stealth video game where you play as a Stray cat is being converted into a movie, according to a report from Entertainment Weekly.

An unexpectedly well-received video game called Stray, developed by BlueTwelve Studio and published by Annapurna Interactive, was an immediate hit classic of 2022 when it was released as players could enjoy roaming a city as a stray cat that's observing the seemingly quirky existence of humans, without the humans.

The attraction of the video game is that players see the world through the point of view of being a cat that teams up with a robot called B-12. The game has inherent comedic qualities, which will be taken into account when the movie is developed.

If you have picked up Starfield and you are going through your first play-through, you may want to consider getting a romantic partner, and it's not just for the visual aspects.

Most gamers on their first play-through of a new open-world RPG title won't pursue romantic partners, or at least it's not very high on the to-do list. However, a recent article from PCGamer has pointed out, first discovered by VG247, that Starfield has a strong incentive to do very much that, as having sex with your in-game romantic partner grants your character a 15% XP boost for 24 real minutes. This status boost is, funnily enough, called "Emotional Security" and, as stated previously, will boost all experience gained for nearly half an hour of Earth time.

Notably, this status effect is similar to the "Well Rested" 10% XP bonus that's granted to your character when you sleep in a bed. However, 15% is obviously higher than 10%. A caveat to this buff is that players won't be able to have one-night stands with NPCs, and there are only a few select NPCs that are interested in sleeping with players. But, according to reports, its quite easy to get an NPC to fall in love with you.

Respawn Entertainment has released Jedi Survivor's biggest patch yet that takes aim at optimization on all platforms.

Today Respawn released Patch 7 for Jedi Survivor, addressing key concerns about the game's overall performance on consoles and PC. The PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S version was received well, but the PC port was widely criticized for its numerable issues. This latest patch is a direct response to those problems.

Patch 7 introduces a bunch of tweaks and overhauls to performance including better frame rates on consoles and the addition of NVIDIA's DLSS tech on PC. Jedi Survivor now runs at a 'solid' 60FPS on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S when in performance mode--a feat that was achieved by removing ray tracing in the mode as well as refining how the game stresses GPU and CPU workloads.

ZeniMax Online has rolled out a new update that reduces stress for new Elder Scrolls Online players.

Retention is important for any live game and it comes in phases. Grabbing a player's attention is important and convincing them to download your game is a high priority. What comes after that is also equally important--is the player driven away from your game due to complexity or frustration? As Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick notes, everything is competing for consumer attention, so there's always lots of other things to play and do. It's up to a developer to capture--and keep--a player's attention.

This has been a friction point for MMORPGs in particular. Organically onboarding players is tough. To really get into an MMORPG takes time, effort, research, and the willingness to fail and learn. Starting a live game is daunting in of itself, but being overrun with tasks large and small acts as a major deterrent for new users.

Starfield doesn't run all that well on Valve's new Steam Deck handheld-PC hybrid, but a new mod could help improve performance.

Starfield is coming out today and modders have been busily releasing tweaks and upgrades since the game released in early access. Starfield even has its own script extender now, which will open the doors to immense game-altering creations.

One such mod, Steam Deck Essentials over on Nexus Mods, aims to address Starfield's sub-30FPS performance on the Steam Deck. Reports from across the web show that Bethesda's latest spacefaring RPG simply isn't a great experience on the Steam Deck's custom SoC hardware (conversely, Starfield can run at 1080p 60FPS on the ROG Ally in Turbo Mode). This is because Starfield is an intensely CPU-bound game, hence why it may be limited to 30FPS on consoles (among other reasons including the significant VRAM reduction on the Series S).

Soon all Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S owners will be able to stream live gameplay sessions directly to Discord.

In a move that further blurs the lines between console and PC gaming, Discord game streaming functionality is coming to Xbox consoles. The feature will give a lot more interactivity to voice party chats on Xbox's Discord app, and friends will be able to gather together to check out boss fights, the latest epic drop, new strategies, learn tips and tricks from other members of the community, and even preview titles that are offered on Xbox Game Pass.

This is good news on the surface, but the feature comes with some limitations. Free Discord users will be locked to 720p 30FPS streams, which is typically fine for group/party chats depending on the circumstances (e.g. digital hang outs). Discord Nitro subscribers will instead be able to stream up to 1080p 60FPS, latency permitting.

Fable creator and notorious over-promiser Peter Molyneux is making a new game...but don't expect any real info on the project any time soon.

There's no one quite like Peter Molyneux in the games industry. His UK-based studio Lionhead (now defunct) gained mass popularity with the Fable series of games, but Molyneux's legacy is sadly tarnished by his penchant for over-hyping games, promising details and features that never showed up, and ultimately misrepresenting games that were nowhere near finished.

Since the explosive Rock Paper Shotgun interview in 2015 where Molyneux declared he 'doesn't have a reputation in the games industry any more,' the developer has been flying mostly under the radar. The last we heard is his studio, 22 Cans, was working on a strange crypto-based game called Legacy for Gala Games. Now Molyneux is back for another title...but he's not ready to divulge details just yet.

Microsoft's latest hire could improve Xbox's diminished presence in Japan.

Xbox is incredibly unpopular in Japan. The competition is simply too fierce. The overseas country is home to two of the industry's Big 3 with both Nintendo and Sony having established their billion-dollar games businesses for decades. Microsoft, on the other hand, is an outlier and has had a very hard time breaking into the Japanese market.

That could change thanks to the latest exec that Microsoft recently brought on board. According to Windows Central, Microsoft has recruited Mena Kato to serve as a kind of Japanese liaison to bridge the gap between the American company and Asian consumers. Kato looks to be instrumental in Microsoft's efforts towards the East as the Director of Japan Partnerships for the Xbox games division.