Gaming News - Page 276

Satellite internet such as SpaceX's Starlink comes with many benefits, but one benefit that may be considered least expected is gaming in rural areas.

SpaceX's intentions for Starlink are to provide an internet connection to individuals living out in rural areas, and while everyone may automatically assume that those individuals are in houses, that isn't always the case. One YouTuber called "TTTHEFINEPRINTTT" lives in a van and recently picked up Starlink so he could game wherever in the countryside he decides to park for the night.

Posted to his channel, the YouTuber showcases an unboxing of Starlink, its setup process, speed tests for his area, speed tests on top of a mountain, and of course, some gaming done over the SpaceX connection. The official SpaceX Twitter account saw the video and shared it, which was recently retweeted by Elon Musk, who wrote, "Play video games wherever you want".

Naughty Dog co-president and Last of Us director Neil Druckmann is working on a new secret game for the studio.

Uncharted and Last of Us developer Naughty Dog is pretty busy right now. The studio will release The Last of Us Remake on PS5 in September, and they're ramping up for an incredibly ambitious live service game that's bigger than anything they've done before. A separate time is also working on the studio's next AAA singleplayer epic.

Neil Druckmann confirmed the new game was in early dev: "I'm still making games. I haven't given up my day job. It's a little early to talk about it--maybe if someone at PlayStation wants to leak it then we could talk about it, otherwise we'll save it. I do have a new project but we'll save it for another Summer Game Fest," Neil Druckmann said at the tail end of this year's Summer Game Fest showcase with Goeff Keighley.

What if Alien Isolation merged with horror film V/H/S with a splash of found-footage Backrooms weirdness? Then you'd have Routine, a sci-fi thriller announced many years ago.

Remember Routine? You probably don't. It was a sci-horror game originally revealed in 2012 and set for a release in 2017, but it disappeared for years. Now it's back, and it looks better than ever. The game has been re-announced for PC, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, and Game Pass.

Sadly there's no release date. Lunar Software, the smaller indie dev working on Routine, says it "won't make the mistake of sharing a release date until we're entirely confident we can hit it." The studio says that the 10-year hiatus was due to financial struggles, but teaming up with Raw Fury has resurrected the Routine project.

Naughty Dog reveals new info about its upcoming The Last of Us multiplayer game, and confirms it's "in some ways bigger" than its massive singleplayer games.

The new Last of Us standalone live multiplayer game is "something special" and will help lead Sony's new push into service games. Naughty Dog has hyped up the new Last of Us multiplayer game, saying that it's an incredibly ambitious and massive story-driven live title. The game won't be done any time soon, though.

"One of the things we mentioned a while back was we started making a multiplayer mode, and it was something different that we've really never done before at Naughty Dog. We felt the way to do it justice was to make a standalone title. And working on it over the past 2 years the ambition has grown, and we're not quite ready to fully unveil it, but we'll give an update of where we're at," Naughty Dog co-president Neil Druckmann said during the Summer Game Fest stream.

UPDATE: Sony has officially announced The Last of Us Remake for PS5 and PC.

"We wanted to give people the definitive version of the original game that wasn't encumbered by technology, and we achieved that on PS5 and PC," Naughty Dog's Neil Druckmann said. The game will run at 60FPS on PS5.

Sony has accidentally leaked one of its biggest PlayStation 5 games and spoiled the surprise for everyone.

Activision, a company that made a record $8.8 billion in revenues last year, is charging $70 for Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 on PC and last-gen consoles.

Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 is coming back to Steam with a hefty price tag. First Square Enix charged $69.99 for Forspoken, now Activision-Blizzard is doing the same with Modern Warfare 2. The sequel is priced at gaming's new $69.99 standard price tag that was first set by Take-Two Interactive and Activision in 2020 on PS5 and Xbox Series X/S. Now the trend is catching on PC, too.

What's even more interesting is that there's no $59.99 SKU for Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2. There is no base PS4 or Xbox One SKU available in stores--instead, Activision is exclusively offering a $69.99 cross-gen bundle on PS4 that includes a PS5 version of the game as well. So gamers with a PS4 have to pay extra for a PS5 version of the game even if they don't own a PS5.

Modern Warfare 2 will introduce a new standalone Warzone BR that completely resets all progress from Warzone 2020.

Warzone 2.0 is coming later this year as a separate game, complete with its own progression system and content. Infinity Ward has confirmed that the new Warzone 2.0 will basically reboot the battle royale and that original content, unlocks, and progression from Warzone 1.0 will not carry over.

The reason for this is Warzone 2.0's massive technical overhaul. Infinity Ward and Activision have unified the engines that power both Call of Duty's mainline game and Warzone together. The Call of Duty franchise will be using a new next-gen games engine starting with Modern Warfare 2 and Warzone 2.0. Upgrades include higher resolution textures, optimization upgrades, and more.

Microsoft reiterates a major new feature coming to Xbox Game Pass subscribers that will make it even harder for Sony's PlayStation plus to compete.

The console wars have transformed into the service wars; Microsoft has won the service market with its ultra-valuable Game Pass subscription, but Sony is swooping in with its new 3-tiered PlayStation Plus. Each service has its own strengths and weaknesses. Game Pass includes day-one first-party games, and PlayStation Plus boasts a mighty 740 game library across six console generations.

Today Xbox Game Pass packed on some more muscle. Microsoft announced that Xbox games that subscribers already own will soon be available for cloud streaming. "We're excited to share that later this year, it's our intent to roll out the ability for Xbox Game Pass Ultimate members to play, from the cloud, select games they already own or have purchased outside the Xbox Game Pass library," Microsoft wrote on the Xbox Wire.

Xbox Game Pass is coming to Samsung TVs via a native app, transforming new Samsung-branded TVs into Xbox consoles via game streaming.

Starting June 30, owners of Samsung's new 2022 smart TVs will be able to stream Xbox Game Pass games directly to their TVs. The Xbox Game Pass Ultimate application will be available in the Samsung Gaming Hub across models like the Neo QLED 8K, Neo QLED 4K, QLED and 2022 Smart Monitor Series displays. Users can connect an Xbox or other controller to their TVs via Bluetooth to jump right into the games.

Microsoft currently has 372 games available for cloud streaming including a multitude of heavy-hitting first-party and third-party titles across four generations of Xbox consoles.

New Call of Duty franchise sales figures reveal that Activision has sold more than 25 million CoD games in one year.

Call of Duty is still the third-best selling video game franchise on the planet behind Super Mario (680 million) and Tetris (495 million), but soon it could be #2. According to the latest figures provided by Activision, the Call of Duty franchise has sold over 425 million copies of games to date. The last figure Activision had shared was 420 million back in April 2021, which means the company sold 25 million+ games in little over a year.

While 2021's Call of Duty Vanguard is included in the number, last year's release doesn't make up all the game sales. Call of Duty titles are periodically on discount throughout the year, especially evergreen titles released on older platforms. The sales range from older games released on Xbox 360 all the way to more modern titles like 2019's Modern Warfare and 2020's breakout hit Black Ops Cold War.