Gaming News - Page 364

Embracer Group's 80 studios are going to be very busy over the next 5 years with a huge slate of upcoming AAA releases.

Embracer Group (formerly THQ Nordic) just posted up its Q2'21 results, confirming strong sales driven by digital earnings and a look at the company's ambitious release pipeline.

The company plans to release 25 AAA games by March 2026, which is more than most companies release in 10 years. This makes sense considering Embracer has an immense arsenal of 80 studios with a total of 9,000 employees.

NVIDIA has released its new GeForce Game Ready 496.76 WHQL drivers, which are optimized and tuned for Battlefield 2042, and more.

Battlefield 2042 officially launches in a few days but if you pre-ordered the game, or you are an Xbox Game Pass or EA Play Ultimate subscriber you get into the Early Access of Battlefield 2042 and can play it now. NVIDIA's new GeForce 496.76 drivers don't just offer Game Ready support for Battlefield 2042, but new games with DLSS.

Assetto Corsa Competizione, Bright Memory: Infinite, Farming Simulator 22, Hot Wheels Unleashed, and Myth of Empires are all powered with NVIDIA DLSS technology, with the new GeForce 496.76 drivers ready to go. There are the usual issues fixed, there are still known issues, while the biggest thing here apart from games being NVIDIA's new Image Scaling feature, which you can read more about here.

In what started out as an April Fools Day joke has turned into a reality, with gaming chair leader Secretlab unveiling their new teeny-tiny TITAN XXS. Yes, they really made the gaming chair for kids and pets, and are now selling it.

The new Secretlab TITAN XXS was created with the same industry-leading quality and materials as the higher-end TITAN 2022 range, with height-adjustable armrests, child-locking casters, and more. The TITAN XXS supports up to 70kg (154lbs or so) and will only be made in "limited quantities".

Secretlab's new TITAN XXS is made in a 1:2 scale so they look really awesome next to the proper TITAN gaming chair, with the company making them available in the black hybrid leatherette version for $299, while the Plush Pink or Frost Blue will cost $319. Secretlab explains its new TITAN XXS: "Meet the smallest member of the Secretlab family. The Secretlab TITAN Extra Extra Small (XXS) is a 1:2 collectible designed for true fans - the ones who demand world-class seating as a cornerstone of their living space".

Volition has pushed back the new Saints Row reboot to August 2022 to ensure it will be "fucking awesome".

Today Volition and Embracer Group have delayed the upcoming Saints Row game from February to August 2022. The game will now launch during the Q3 period on August 23, 2022, roughly six months after its planned release. The reason is add more polish to the game but no core gameplay mechanics will be adjusted or altered. This is the second time the game has been delayed.

"Saints Row will no longer release on the originally announced date of February 25, 2022, instead it will launch worldwide on August 23, 2022.

The Xbox backwards compatibility program is now 100% finished and Microsoft confirms no new games will be added.

Microsoft celebrated 20 years of Xbox by bringing 70 new Xbox and Xbox 360 games to the backwards compatibility program, adding big titles like Max Payne, the FEAR franchise, and NIER complete with Auto HDR, FPS Boost, and massive resolution scaling up to 4K.

The company also confirmed this batch are the last games that will be added to the program (they said this years ago, but it's for real this time).The final Xbox backwards compatibility list has a total of 595 original Xbox and Xbox 360 games that are playable on both the Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S generations. Almost all of these games have performance or visual boosts in some form.

Activision-Blizzard's board of directors defend company CEO Bobby Kotick despite reports that he lied to the board about sexual misconduct allegations.

Today the Wall Street Journal released a new scathing report that alleges CEO Bobby Kotick not only knew of sexual misconduct at the company, but was also an offender, and uncovered multiple instances of abuse with named company employees from court documents, internal emails, and anonymous sources. The expose triggered a cultural shift from Blizzard employees who are staging a walk-out strike until Kotick is fired. Workers are banding together and posting their stories with the #actiblizzwalkout hashtag.

It appears the demands will not be met. Despite apparently withholding information from the board, the directors are standing behind Kotick. A recent press release confirms Activision-Blizzard's board of directors is supporting Kotick, saying that it "remains confident in Bobby Kotick's leadership, commitment and ability."

A new scathing report from the Wall Street Journal claims that Activision CEO Bobby Kotick lied about about his knowledge of sexual misconduct and rape allegations to the company's board of directors.

Explosive investigations from the WSJ have uncovered more controversial details around Activision's current legal issues. According to documents attained by WSJ and internal sources, Activision CEO Bobby Kotick not only knew about specific sexual abuse allegations at the company, but lied about it to the board of directors. Internal reports say Kotick settled one allegation made by a former female Sledgehammer Games developer out of court.

The report illuminates problems with Activision-Blizzard's workplace culture, which range from excessive drinking to serious allegations of sexual abuse, rape, and coercion. It's a laundry list of systemic issues, claims of criminal activity made by employees, and what appears to be cover ups by a CEO worth tens of millions of dollars. The report states that over 500 people have stepped forward with their own claims of abuse in some form or another.

Hate the challenge-based progression system in Halo Infinite? It looks like 343 Industries will change it up.

The Halo Infinite multiplayer beta stealth launched yesterday and practically everyone loves the game. That is, except for the battle pass and level up system. Infinite's progression scheme is hotly contentious because it doesn't reward you for playing and instead only gives EXP when you complete specific challenges--getting headshots, winning games, etc. Gamers have been very vocal on their feelings on Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube and 343i is taking notes.

343i community director Ske7ch, who's been with Halo from the get-go, recently said that the studio is collecting and investigating progression data so they can make the next move (which should be an EXP overhaul):

Halo Infinite is now the most-played Microsoft first-party game on Steam after just one day on the market.

Halo Infinite surprise dropped yesterday to celebrate 20 years of Xbox. The free-to-play shooter is rocketing to the top with huge engagement numbers, especially on Steam where it has amassed over 272,000 players in just 24 hours. This makes Halo Infinite one of the most-played games on Steam and the most popular Xbox game ever released on the platform.

So far the Steam servers haven't buckled under the weight of hundreds of thousands of players, with peak players hitting 272,586. At the time of writing the game has over 146,000 players on Steam, and currently sits at the fourth spot in Steam's top 5 most-played games of all time list. That's quite an achievement for Microsoft and we might start seeing new updates on combined platform player counts and monetization in the coming weeks.

Battlefield 2042 is in the wild for PC and console owners if you pre-ordered the Gold Edition or Ultimate Edition of the game, or you're an Xbox Game Pass Ultimate or EA Play subscriber then you've got Early Access. Now that the game is out in the wild, comparisons between the next-gen consoles and PC are here for Battlefield 2042:

In a new video, ElAnalistaDeBits compares Battlefield 2042 on the next-gen Sony PlayStation 5 and Microsoft Xbox Series X/S consoles, as well as a PC with an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 graphics card. The video notes that the Xbox Series S has a "practically perfect framerate" in Battlefield 2042, with temporal reconstruction rendering driving 1260p resolution and 60FPS on XSS.

The video notes that the PlayStation 5 and beefier Xbox Series X versions of Battlefield 2042 actually "suffer some occasional drops, being more common on PS5". On top of that, the textures on the PS5 and XSX versions of BF2042 are nearly the same, while it's noted that the "PS5 version is closer to the PC version" while there's lower quality textures on the XSS version of the game.