Gaming News - Page 299

Decentralized digital commodities like crypto and NFTs are quite volatile thanks to fluctuating values, shifting regulations, and security issues. Ubisoft has now effectively reminded the games industry as a whole just how unpredictable NFTs can be.

Ubisoft today announced that Ghost Recon Breakpoint is entering maintenance mode. Breakpoint will no longer get DLC or expansions and servers will remain online so the game can be played and monetized. Breakpoint was the first game to use Ubisoft's failed Quartz NFTs which are effectively in-game cosmetics that can be re-sold.

We've talked about how Ubisoft's NFTs are marginally bad for business; NFTs thrive off of scarcity and Ubisoft flooded the market, resulting in less than $3,000 in crypto resale value. That's 0.001% of Ubisoft's microtransaction earnings for Q3 2021.

Epic Games says that nearly half of all upcoming next-gen console games are using Unreal Engine technology.

The games industry typically uses two primary third-party game engines: Unity and Unreal Engine. Today's big Unreal Engine 5 showcase highlighted just how popular Epic's tools are for upcoming games on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S. According to Epic's Tim Sweeney, about 48% of all upcoming announced console games are using Unreal.

"Among game developers, 48% of announced next-generation console titles are powered by Unreal," Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney said.

Epic Games just released Unreal Engine 5 to developers and also shipped out a starter multiplayer game that's quite a bit like Mass Effect without powers.

Alongside UE5, Epic Games is shipping out starter game projects. One of them, a futuristic third-person shooter called Lyra, is pretty interesting. Lyra is basically a shell or framework for a game and isn't necessarily a finished product. Devs are to take Lyra and transform it into something of their own, but at its core the game looks very similar to the third-person multiplayer modes found in Mass Effect 3 and Mass Effect Andromeda (without the awesome abilities, of course).

The recent Unreal Engine showcase highlighted how easy it was for developers to start up Lyra and make direct changes in real-time in UE5, utilizing effects like the direct import feature from other libraries like Artstation and Quixel Megascans as well as a showcase of the new advanced lumen lighting tech.

It's expected that developer Battlestate Games will unleash NVIDIA DLSS technology into its new update for Escape from Tarkov, which could drop this week.

Escape from Tarkov is a super-hard game on your PC as it is, so any performance help is very, very welcomed. NVIDIA's kick-ass DLSS (Deep Learning Super Sampling) technology will offer its multiple upscaling modes in Escape from Tarkov: Quality, Balanced, and Performance.

The news is coming directly from Battlestate Games CEO Nikita Buyanov, who said in a recent podcast that NVIDIA DLSS support would be dropping in Escape from Tarkov sometime this week, and that it has passed the testing phases required for it to go live into the game.

Epic Games has unleashed Unreal Engine 5 into the world, where you can now download it from the Epic Games Launcher (20GB download). It was released during the State of Unreal 2022 event, where the developer displayed a list of game developers working on games powered by Unreal Engine 5.

During the State of Unreal 2022 live stream, developer Epic Games posted up a picture of a list of game developers that are working on games powered by Unreal Engine 5. The list includes developers like CD PROJEKT RED, Xbox, PlayStation (and PSVR 2), Ninja Theory, Tencent Games, Obsidian Entertainment, The Initiative, Codemasters, Remedy, Bloober, Splash Damage, Gearbox, and so many more.

Tomb Raider developer Crystal Dynamics announced during the State of Unreal 2022 event that its new Tomb Raider game was being made with Unreal Engine 5, while it'll be awesome to see the fruits of the UE5 labor in Sony's next-gen PlayStation VR2 headset and UE5-powered VR games of the future.

Epic Games absolutely blew my mind when I turned my PlayStation 5 on one morning, and got to experience their Unreal Engine 5-powered The Matrix Awakens: An Unreal Engine 5 Experience... which is now available to download. Be warned: The Matrix Awakens UE5-powered "City Sample" is a huge 93GB download.

The Unreal Engine 5-powered "The City Sample" can be downloaded as a sample project, providing the city scene from The Matrix Awakens experience. You'll need to download Unreal Engine 5, which is a 20GB download on its own, and then The City Sample separately.

Epic Games explains: "The City Sample is a free downloadable sample project that reveals how the city scene from The Matrix Awakens: An Unreal Engine 5 Experience was built. The project-which consists of a complete city with buildings, vehicles, and crowds of MetaHuman characters-demonstrates how we used new and improved systems in Unreal Engine 5 to create the experience. In addition to the complete sample, the content is available in separate packs, so you can download just the vehicles, for example".

The new Tomb Raider game will be tapping next-gen Unreal Engine 5 technology, in an announcement from developer Crystal Dynamics.

Crystal Dynamics announced during the "State of Unreal 2022" event that the new Tomb Raider is being built with Unreal Engine 5. We don't know what the new Tomb Raider will be, whether it'll be a successor to Shadow of the Tomb Raider, or something new: but whatever it is, it'll be powered by Epic Games' Unreal Engine 5.

The two previous Tomb Raider games from Crystal Dynamics -- Rise of the Tomb Raider, and Shadow of the Tomb Raider -- used their in-house Foundation Engine. This marks another big developer shifting away from their in-house engine, and into the warm arms of Epic Games and its new Unreal Engine 5 technology. The Witcher developer CD PROJEKT RED recently announced that it is working on a new Witcher game using Unreal Engine 5.

Horror game dev Bloober Team nearly tripled its revenues throughout 2021 thanks to the success of The Medium.

According to latest filings, Polish studio Bloober Team has reported record revenues and profits for 2021. The company made 74.832 million PLN ($18.326 million) in revenues throughout last year, driven by its wide slate of titles including The Medium, Layers of Fear VR, Layers of Fear 2 Switch port, and the recent Observer System Redux remaster.

Bloober Team also made a record for profits in 2021 with 21.783 million PLN ($5.334 million) generated for the period. The studio is currently working on a handful of projects including the next Layers of Fear game. Chinese juggernaut Tencent also purchased a 22% stake in Bloober Team last year.

Halo developer 343 Industries says it does not have plans to add a battle royale mode into Halo Master Chief Collection, but new content is coming soon.

Halo Infinite needs some new modes. Fans are starting to agree that Dr. Disrespect might've been right when he said Infinite should have a BR mode: "The people saying Halo doesn't need a battle royale said Battlefield didn't need one. Now look at where that game is. You have to have one." But what about Halo MCC?

343i has said on three separate occasions that Halo Infinite isn't getting battle royale. Now 343i's communication director Brian Jarrard says the Master Chief Collection won't get it either.

Here's DOOM like you never thought possible back in the 90s when id Software exploded onto the scene with its game-changing first-person shooter... now with ray traving:

A modder who has also added ray-tracing through path tracing into games like Half-Life and Serious Sam: The First Encounter, has now injected ray tracing into the original DOOM and the results are surprising. It looks fantastic next to the original DOOM, giving it a totally new vibe while remaining the same DOOM we all know and love.

The side-by-side comparison is great, as it makes the ray-traced version of DOOM stand out from the original. We've already seen similar, with Quak II RTX released onto Steam and is fully ray-traced, including the 3 levels from the original shareware version of the game. But DOOM with ray tracing on its own is still impressive, as it doesn't have a team of developers behind it. Makes me want to go back through and replay DOOM with ray tracing enabled.https://github.com/sultim-t/prboom-plus-rt/releases