Gaming News - Page 115

Baldur's Gate 3 launches on August 3, in a couple of days, and it's one of the biggest RPG releases of the year on PC outside of Bethesda's Starfield. The return of the iconic role-playing franchise arrives courtesy of Larian Studios, who has been working on the game for quite some time - where it has been available to play in Early Access form for a while.

The full release, of course, is another level entirely, and today, we've got word that on day one, the game will feature support for NVIDIA DLSS 2 and DLAA - the AI version of anti-aliasing called Deep Learning Anti-Aliasing.

Regarding large-scale RPGs, Baldur's Gate 3 is pretty epic - with NVIDIA rattling off some numbers that are part of the DLSS and DLAA announcement. Twelve playable classes, 174 hours of cinematics, and around 2000 interactive characters to interact with. NVIDIA also provided some other numbers, performance covering what to expect when playing the game in 4K with DLSS on a GeForce RTX 40 Series graphics card.

Lenovo has plans to introduce its own PC gaming handheld, sources tell Windows Central's Jez Corden.

Chinese tech firm Lenovo will be the latest to enter the growing gaming handheld market. New reports indicate that Lenovo is working on its own Legion Go device that will take aim at Valve's Steam Deck, the ASUS ROG Ally, and the AYANEO PC gaming handhelds.

The Legion Go is expected to have an 8-inch screen and leverage the Windows 11 operating system for more widespread app and gaming support. As far as performance goes, sources tell Windows Central that the Legion Go is currently powered by AMD's new Phoenix APU processors, and it's possible that the Legion Go could utilize a custom variant to deliver high-end gaming similar to the customized ROG Ally Z1 Extreme chip that is built off of the Ryzen 7 7840U SoC.

Let's face it, console gamepads often have to take a fair bit of abuse - perhaps even occasionally being hurled across the living room - but if you've broken your Xbox controller (beyond the period of its warranty), Microsoft wants to help.

How, exactly? By selling you the components you need to repair a bust controller. Of course, you'll also need enough skill and technical knowhow to complete the repair, although Microsoft is on hand to help here, too.

Microsoft is offering video tutorials on repairing controllers via YouTube, and also has step-by-step DIY guides that Xbox owners can download should they wish to fix up their gamepad.

Remnant 2 now has DLSS 3, according to a report, and the game has already sold over a million units.

As revealed in the above tweet, sales have exceeded the one million mark in just four days after launch, which is pretty good going to say the least.

That said, PC gamers have been unhappy with performance levels in Remnant 2, and we've already seen that even NVIDIA's mighty RTX 4090 graphics card struggles with smoothness if you want to run in 4K resolution (and remember this game doesn't have ray tracing).

Sony is rolling out a new PlayStation 5 system software release in Beta that brings several new accessibility features to the console alongside Dolby Atmos and large 8TB capacity SSD support. The latter is great news for those with a growing digital library of PS5 games, and this update will probably get a few companies to release even higher capacity SSD solutions for the PS5 - as the current limit is 4TB.

The addition of Dolby Atmos is also very welcome, as the surround technology is the go-to for home movie releases, and Atmos has been available on the Xbox Series X|S for a while now. What's cool is that it's compatible with Sony's impressive Tempest 3D AudioTech, with the company noting that in-game audio with "specifically render to the Dolby Atmos audio device in use - including overhead channels - allowing for even greater levels of immersion."

Beta access to the new system software is "limited to invited participants in select countries," with Sony noting that it plans to release the update later this year. There's more than Dolby Atmos and 8TB support in the update, so let's look.

Diablo 4 devs are finally going to give some buffs to the recently nerfed sorcerer class, as well as the barbarian.

The news came via a campfire chat streamed at the weekend, as PC Gamer spotted, and it'll doubtless be very welcome from sorcerers who have been pretty miffed at the curtailing of their powers in the recent pre-season patch.

The next patch for Diablo 4, which will be version 1.1.1, will bring in the buffs and should arrive on August 8, a week tomorrow. The idea is to improve not just the effectiveness of sorcerers in battle, but also the fun factor of playing the class.

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion might be getting a remake or a remaster in Unreal Engine 5.

New leaks say that Oblivion might get remade in a new modern-day games engine with Virtuos at the helm. The report was posted to the Gaming Leaks and Rumors subreddit, but was promptly deleted shortly thereafter. Apparently there is no backup to the post on the Internet Archive.

Like any place that spreads rumors, the subreddit is a mix of authenticity and fabrication. The Oblivion remake news was seen as iffy until Insider Gaming's Tom Henderson published a report indicating that he spoke directly with a mod that vouched for the source's credibility. In this case, the source was reportedly a former Virtuous employee.

World of Warcraft actually performs better in certain ways than Call of Duty, a new report from the European Commission has found.

Blizzard's World of Warcraft MMORPG is one of the most popular games on the planet. It has millions of recurring subscribers, and according to the European Commission's findings, it's the only game of its type "able to extract a monthly fee."

The latest report from the EC outlines the Commission's thoughts, reasoning, and rationale behind its decision to approve the Microsoft-Activision merger. The document thoroughly outlines the different phases that were involved in its assessment, and nestled in the report is an interesting mention about how Activision's franchises compare to one another.

Nintendo's next gaming hardware may release in the second half of 2024, sources have told VideoGameChronicle.

According to new reports, Nintendo's upcoming next-gen gaming system could release in the latter half of 2024, possibly indicating a holiday 2024 release. Sources tell VGC that major studios now have devkits for the new system, echoing reports from Bloomberg made in 2021.

Nothing has been confirmed so far, but by all accounts Nintendo's new hardware will likely be an upgraded Switch model. Our assessment finds that Nintendo could choose NVIDIA's new Orin Tegra chip in an effort to deliver higher gaming performance at a low power profile while also leveraging NVIDIA's powerful DLSS technology to deliver upscaled 4K gaming experiences.

Microsoft has always had a complicated history with screenshots and captures, and now the saga is about to get even messier.

In a big blow to capture aficionados everywhere, Microsoft has announced plans to shut down the Xbox Console Companion App in late August. This app was the primary way to directly import and download screenshots from Xbox consoles to a PC. The way it works is that clips and screenshots captured on an Xbox console would be uploaded to Xbox LIVE, and then users could access those captures through the Companion App and download them to a local machine.

This is useful for a whole manner of reasons, especially for content creators who insert captured clips into their YouTube videos. As a writer and reviewer, I have often used the Companion App to download screenshots that I took on Xbox in order to put them into written reviews. The removal of the Companion App is another hassle