Gaming News - Page 267

Sony has been shipping out PlayStation VR2 devkits and one developer has taken a snapshot of the headset.

While Sony already revealed exactly what the retail version of its next-gen PlayStation VR2 will look like, the first photo of the HMD out in the wild has been released. The photo comes by way of Bit Planet Games, the developers of space planet sim Sol Survivor and airflight sims Ultrawings 1 & 2.

The HMD's look and presentation isn't exactly a surprise...but what is still surprising is just how small the complete kit is. The original PS4-powered PSVR was a tangle of cords thanks to its required breakout box peripheral required for play. The PSVR2 significantly reduces these requirements and only runs on a single USB-C cable. Having used a base PSVR headset I can say that a single cord is a life-saver and will pretty much eliminate friction while playing.

Old-school RPG Swordquest will finally be complete: Airworld has appeared out of thin air.

Back in the 80s, Atari released the Swordquest series of games The plan was to release four games after each element: Earthworld, Fireworld, Waterworld, and Airworld. The games were a kind of interactive scavenger hunt where players would collect clues to win a contest with serious prizes: There was a chalice, a talisman, a crown, and a philosopher's stone--all of which were encrusted with gems and precious metals. Winners would also come back for one final competition with the ultimate reward: a silver sword full of gems.

Airworld was never made, though. The video game crash during the 1980s pretty much wrecked Atari's financial books. Now as part of Atari's 50th anniversary, Airworld is coming back. The infamous Swordquest game will be released in Atari's new 50th Anniversary Collection, which packs in 80+ classic games including Airworld.

Blizzard bought a new studio to help build World of Warcraft's future.

Blizzard Entertainment has purchased Proletariat, the Boston-based indie studio behind Spellbreak, to work on new World of Warcraft content. The move comes shortly after Blizzard had its lowest revenues and monthly active users in the last six years, and close to the successful yet highly controversial release of Diablo Immortal.

Under Blizzard, Proletariat will apparently have no time to keep hosting and updating its online game Spellbreak. The studio announced that Spellbreak will be pulled offline in 2023, and development of new content will cease. Proletariat is to work on Dragonflight, the next major World of Warcraft expansion, as well as other future content and updates.

The original Overwatch launched in 2016, and now that Blizzard has Overwatch 2 ready for release, we're finding out some upsetting news.

Blizzard will be killing off the original Overwatch the second that Overwatch 2 goes live on October 4, confirmed by Overwatch 2 game director Aaron Keller in a recent AMA on Reddit. Overwatch 2 launches with a bunch of new heroes, maps, and so much more, but the original Overwatch... will be killed off.

In the Reddit AMA, one of the questions was "What does the term "Early Access" means for Overwatch 2? Does this means that on this day OW1 is getting replaced by OW2's PvP or will OW1 shutdown once the game is out of Early Access?"

Sony today revealed its new INZONE line of enthusiast gaming hardware built specifically for the PlayStation 5 and PC gaming, including two new high-end monitors and three gaming headsets.

As we previously reported, Sony's latest INZONE gaming hardware includes two gaming displays and three audio headsets that are optimized for both PS5 and PC gaming. The monitors come in two models: the INZONE M9, a 27-inch 4K 144Hz display, and the INZONE M3, which is also 27-inches but targets esports with 1920x1080 resolution and 240HZ refresh rates.

"INZONE is a totally new gaming brand from Sony. It sharpens your visual and hearing senses to maximize your ability, and leads you into the zone," Sony's marketing communication department general manager Shuhei Sugihara said. "We promise you higher performance and better results in gameplay."

AMD's new FidelityFX Super Resolution 2.0 (FSR 2.0) technology has been on a roll, with the company pushing out the FSR 2.0 source code, and into the arms of Xbox developers. But now, Epic Games is joining the FSR 2.0 party.

The new FSR 2.0 upscaling technology has made it into some new Unreal Engine plugins, with the @GPUOpen account tweeting that it has been an "FSR2-tastic" week... love it. The tweet continued, saying that AMD was "delighted" to launch Unreal Engine plugins for UE5 and UE4.26/4.27.

Starting now, game developers using Unreal Engine 4 and 5 can pack in either NVIDIA DLSS 2.0 or AMD FSR 2.0 upscaling technologies into their game, where they're free to use one or the other -- or if they want to mix it up: both. Being that FSR 2.0 supports AMD, Intel, and NVIDIA graphics cards... FSR 2.0 integration into Unreal Engine 5 (and previous-gen UE 4.26, UE 4.27) is a big deal.

Atari founder Nolan Bushnell explains the meaning behind the company's ultra-iconic Mt. Fuji logo.

Atari is one of the most recognizable brands on the planet. Even after decades of not releasing new consoles, Atari has a long-lasting 50-year legacy that spans multitudes of games, hardware, and merch, and was arguably created the foundation of modern gaming as we know it today. Every legacy needs an icon, and for Atari and the rest of the industry, the Fuji logo became synonymous with gaming.

"When we chose the Fuji logo, I wanted it to be an upward swoosh. It's a collective. It's aspirational. So right now it would be good to take the innovation legacy and push it forward into the future," Atari founder Nolan Bushnell said in a recent 50th Anniversary video.

Blizzard is treating Diablo II Resurrected (D2R) like a live game with rotating events...and the first one is pretty epic.

Today Blizzard made history in Diablo II by announcing a new timed event that could lead to much more interesting gameplay. Introducing Diablo II's Magic Find Weekend, a new event held from June 30 to July 4 that will temporarily boost magic find rates for all players across the globe. Gamers will get a flat +50% to MF that stacks with their existing magic find.

"You feel an intense rush of energy coursing through your veins, a faint internal humming overriding your own pulse. From June 30-July 4, a mysterious energy source will grant you a 50% buff to Magic Find, providing an increased chance to receive Magic, Rare, Set, or Unique loot as a drop from slain foes. This bonus stacks with any additional increases to Magic Find provided by your items," Blizzard said.

Amazon Prime subscribers will get six new in-game freebies for Fall Guys throughout the coming weeks.

Fall Guys is now free-to-play on all platforms, including PlayStation, Xbox, PC, and Nintendo Switch and comes complete with cross-play and cross-progression. Epic Games and Mediatonic are going all out to make the game as widely accessible as possible, and so far the plan has worked incredibly well: the game has amassed 20 million players worldwide.

Buyable in-game microtransactions and cosmetics are a big part of Fall Guys' economy, and if you're an Amazon Prime subscriber, you can unlock a handful of new customizable skins for your bean. Right now the Fall Guys Prime Gaming promo is limited to just one skin (to unlock the free item, click here) which includes an exclusive Falldazzler Bundle. Amazon plans to bring five more free Fall Guys cosmetics to players in the coming weeks.

Cyberpunk 2077 is one of the biggest, if not the biggest NVIDIA DLSS title... which now has unofficial AMD FSR 2.0 support, thanks to a third-party modder.

AMD's new FidelityFX Super Resolution 2.0 (FSR 2.0) technology is getting into more and more games, but with modder "PotatoOfDoom1337" replaced the NVIDIA DLSS 2.0 files with FSR 2.0, and it worked. Cyberpunk 2077 has support for FSR 1.0 already, but no official FSR 2.0 support yet.

All you have to do to get FSR 2.0 support into Cyberpunk 2077 is replace some files and make some changes to the registry in Windows, and you get some fantastic performance improvements thanks to FSR 2.0 upscaling tech. The modder used a previous-gen GeForce GTX 1080 graphics card, and ran Cyberpunk 2077 with FSR 2.0 at 4K at 45FPS... double the performance than he had from his GTX 1080, thanks to FSR 2.0.