Gaming News - Page 91

Alan Wake 2 is so close I can feel it... and so can the SSD inside of my PC. Now that Remedy Entertainment has started the pre-loading push for Alan Wake 2, we know the file sizes of the game and what SSD space you'll need to have to install it on your PC.

Epic Games Store will be the exclusive storefront where you'll buy Alan Wake 2 on the PC; with Epic Games funding the development with Remedy Entertainment for Alan Wake 2, we should expect it to stay away from the likes of Steam. Anyway, on the PC, you're going to need 86GB of SSD storage space to get Alan Wake 2 installed, while the PlayStation 5 version of the game weighs in at 85GB, and the Xbox Series X/S version at 82GB.

The launch trailer for Alan Wake 2 was recently revealed... oozing with atmosphere, inviting players to come and enjoy the very best of what Remedy has crafted with its revolutionary Northlight engine. Alan Wake 2 will squeeze every last transistor out of your GPU to showcase the best in visual technology in 2023, with NVIDIA's new DLSS 3.5 Ray Reconstruction technology on offer, as well as ray tracing, path tracing, and some incredible graphics and environments to explore.

If you haven't heard of THE FINALS, it should definitely be on your radar: it's a new team-based multiplayer first-person shooter that takes place inside of a virtual game show -- and it's made by ex-DICE developers who worked on the Battlefield franchise.

Well, THE FINALS will now enjoy a huge cross-platform Open Beta that kicks off tomorrow (October 26) and runs through until November 5 on the PC (through Steam) and the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S consoles. Embark Studios has already run some closed betas of THE FINALS, which were held earlier this year. Still, the new open beta will see the introduction of a new map -- Skyway Stadium -- a new playground for THE FINALS players.

Embark has included a new "Bank-It" game mode that will see four teams of three duke it out for coins in a "casual-friendly" combat-focused mode. Whatever team reaches the maximum limit first, or the team with the most cash banked at the end of the round, will win the Bank-It game mode.

Microsoft will combine Activision Blizzard King and Xbox revenues together starting in Q2, which corresponds to the market's busiest season.

Xbox recently closed its $68.7 billion merger with Activision and a new high watermark will soon be established for Xbox's earnings. Microsoft has confirmed that it will recognize Activision's revenues as part of its Q2 FY24 period, which runs from October - December 2023.

Microsoft has published Xbox earnings forecasts for holiday 2023, and based on the figures, Xbox could brush very close against PlayStation's quarterly results. In a recent earnings call, Microsoft Chief Financial Officer Amy Hood said that gaming is expected to rise by 45-49% year-over-year. Of this amount, Activision is expected to impact about 35% of earnings.

October 27 is just hours away at this point, with Remedy Entertainment unleashing the official Alan Wake 2 launch trailer... check it out:

The launch trailer for Alan Wake 2 oozes with atmosphere, inviting players to come and enjoy the very best of what Remedy has crafted with its revolutionary Northlight engine. Alan Wake 2 is filled with the very best of what GPU technology offers in 2023, with NVIDIA's new DLSS 3.5 Ray Reconstruction technology on offer, as well as ray tracing, path tracing, and some incredible graphics and environments to explore.

In some recent benchmarks, NVIDIA used its flagship GeForce RTX 4090 graphics card, which was capable of pushing 130FPS+ at 4K with DLSS 3.5 (Frame Generation, Ray Reconstruction, and Super Resolution), with full ray tracing enabled on max settings. That's some good stuff right there.

ARK: Survival Evolved was one of the biggest surprise hits of the last few years, and now Studio Wildcards' is cooking up something very, very exciting with its sequel... ARK: Survival Ascended, which has a new gameplay trailer to check out:

The new trailer was released during the Xbox Partner Preview showcase, with the Unreal Engine 5-powered ARK: Survival Ascended looking mighty fine in the graphics department because of it. We have massively upgraded environments, creatures that have an enormous amount of detail, destruction, and so much more. It's all in-engine, and it looks in-sane.

ARK: Survival Ascended is using Unreal Engine 5 to great effect, with many its technologies baked inside of the game, including Lumen, Nanite, Instance-Based Rendering, fluid and foilage animation technologies, and more. There are also modding abilities in ARK: Survival Ascended, with the new modding tools letting you access Unreal Engine 5 directly. Not only that, but console gamers playing ARK: Survival Ascended will be able to get in on the modding fun, too.

Microsoft's gaming division outperformed expectations and beat the highest internal forecasts by over $100 million.

Xbox is soaring right now. Microsoft's gaming branch just acquired Activision Blizzard King, folding in 8 more billion-dollar video game franchises into Xbox's mighty war chest. Starfield has propelled Xbox revenues to all-time highs, setting a record for Q1 results while proving the efficacy of new subscription-based monetization methods.

Starfield's success and subsequent bleed-over into Game Pass not only helped drive $3.92 billion revenues in Q1, making this the highest non-holiday quarter in Xbox history, but the game actually helped Microsoft exceed the highest upper limit of its internal earnings forecasts. Last quarter, Microsoft CFO Amy Hood forecasted that Xbox would make around $3.791 billion as a topline estimate.

Microsoft's games division now owns the rights to upwards of 17 separate video game franchises that have generated $1 billion in lifetime revenues.

Following the combination with gaming titan Activision-Blizzard, Xbox gaming has grown tremendously. Microsoft has acquired a war chest of some of the most highly-lauded and -profitable video game IPs on the planet, including the $31 billion Call of Duty franchise. In a recent Q1 earnings call, company CEO Satya Nadella puts the value of the Xbox brand into a more long-term perspective by highlighting the sheer breadth and volume of its new catalog.

According to Nadella, Microsoft will have access to 13 video game series with billion-dollar revenues...but our count puts this even higher. "With Activision Blizzard King, we will now add significant depth to our content portfolio. We will have 13 billion dollar-plus franchises - from Candy Crush, Diablo, and Halo, to Warcraft, Elder Scrolls, and Gears of War," the Microsoft CEO said during the call.

The Starfield community has collectively produced a sizeable patch for the game which fixes a lot of problems that Bethesda has yet to get around to resolving.

Specifically, this is a mod, and one packed with numerous fixes for the PC version of Starfield. Naturally, it's unofficial - of course - and you download and use it at your own risk. There are no guarantees it might not break other stuff in the game (and this is an early working version, too, v0.01 to be precise).

The patch authors note:

"The Starfield Community Patch (SFCP) project is a collective effort by mod authors and the wider player community of Starfield to fix bugs, errors and other inconsistencies present in the game. This includes tweaks, typos and other changes that may have been missed (or not yet released) by the developers. The overall goal is to improve the vanilla experience for all players. All fixes should be considered unofficial unless the change is carried forward by Bethesda."

A Redditor has shared a gargantuan project onto the Skyrim subreddit, revealing the finished product of Skyrim successfully recreated within Age of Empires 2.

Yes, that's right, Skyrim within Age of Empires 2 - specifically Age of Empires 2: Definitive Edition. The Reddit post was by user Grouchy_Bluejay4511, an alias account for Bubbabaelor, the mastermind behind the project, which took more than 400 hours of work and more than a year to complete. Bubbabaelor explained that their mod contains more than 50 quests, 100 unique characters, and the ability for players to "play as one of the Holds vying for control of Skyrim."

Bubbabaelor talked to GamesRadar and gave some backstory on the project, saying that the inspiration for it originally came from numerous mods for Age of Empires 2 HD that were based on books. Around that time, Bubbabaelor discovered a Skyrim map created by Zarko, but it was never fully completed. Bubbabaelor decided to take it upon himself to complete the project in their own way.

Activision posted the PC system requirements for the upcoming Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III release a little early. The post from the company, which has since been taken down, outlined the minimum and recommended specs for the next Call of Duty - and based on what we've been seeing of late (looking at you, Alan Wake 2), it's pretty modest stuff.

The minimum specs on the GPU side only require an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970, GeForce GTX 1650, or AMD Radeon RX 480 to get a playable version of the game. Of course, playing any PC release with the minimum specs, especially a fast-paced shooter, is a dangerous game - it's always best to look at the 'recommended' options to ensure a somewhat smooth experience.

Activision's 'recommended' specs for 60FPS "in most situations" ask for an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 or GeForce RTX 3050. Compared to last year's recommended GeForce GTX 1060 - it's not that big of an increase. This means most PC gamers shouldn't have an issue playing the game with a stable frame rate.