Gaming News - Page 294

Xenoblade Chronicles 3 is set to bring sci-fi action to Nintendo Switch on July 29, MonolithSoft and Nintendo today announced.

Nintendo just dropped a new Xenoblade Chronicles 3 trailer that showcases combat, story beats, and officially confirms a July release date for the RPG. The game was originally supposed to launch in September, but was moved up two months--something that rarely happens in the games industry as of late.

The footage highlights the new Evangelion-style mechs called Ouroboros (the clandestine name for the infinity symbol), which essentially multiple party members combine into one for unique abilities, attacks, and playstyles. The mechanic seems pretty innovative and is a big hit among fans, who are excited for the new release.

Five years ago, EA shut down Visceral Games and cancelled Amy Hennig's Star Wars game. Now she's back and Lucasfilm has given her the rights to try again.

Uncharted series visionary Amy Hennig is working on a new Star Wars game under her studio Skydance New Media. Official details on the project are slim, but Hennig says the Star Wars game will be a "richly cinematic action-adventure game" with an all-original storyline not previously featured in other franchise media, films, TV shows, or books.

The news comes at an interesting time for Lucasfilm Games, who has broken its exclusivity deal with EA and is licensing out the Star Wars brand to various developers. Even Ubisoft is making a Star Wars game now.

CD Projekt delivered its second-highest earnings of all time in throughout 2021 despite a substantial drop in Cyberpunk 2077 unit sales.

Regardless of heated controversy and game delays, 2021 was another big year for CD Projekt. The Polish games-maker generated 888 million PLN in sales throughout the year, the second-highest earnings in company history. Chief financial officer Piotr Nielubowicz says Cyberpunk was the "most important source of revenues."

Cyberpunk 2077 sales dropped by 70% in 2021 to a respectable 4.3 million copies, impacted from the game being delisted PlayStation Network for 6 months. CD Projekt says the majority of the game's sales were digital on PC.

Some of the most pivotal figures in video game history are now embracing new trends like NFTs and blockchain.

It's happening. NFTs are coming, and some of gaming's founding fathers want to usher in the new blockchain era. In a development that can only be described as old-school meets new-school, Richard Garriott, renowned designer of the legendary Ultimate series, is making a new MMORPG that uses NFTs and blockchain.

Thanks to his efforts with the Ultima series, Richard "Lord British" Garriott is largely regarded as the father of modern video game RPGs. Now he's making a new game alongside longtime collaborator Todd Porter called Effigy, a new MMO game that uses blockchain to store data and manage in-game purchases. Effigy will allow players to "own" dungeons and in-game areas with the basic goal of turning players into investors.

SEGA is rebooting Dreamcast classics Jet Set Radio and Crazy Taxi, sources tell Bloomberg.

SEGA is reviving old-school Dreamcast classics in a big new way. Jet Set Radio and Crazy Taxi will be part of SEGA's new Super Games, a new category of video games invented by the company. Super Games follow specific criteria including AAA-quality, multiplayer experiences that can ultimately make close to $1 billion in lifetime revenues.

It's believed that both the Jet Set Radio and Crazy Taxi reboot will be online-based, microtransaction-driven, free-to-play games that launch simultaneously to a widespread audience across consoles, PC, and mobile. These are all key aspects of SEGA's Super Game category.

Sonic Origins has been rated and classified in South Korea and Japan, new database information has confirmed.

A bit ago SEGA revealed Sonic Origins, a new four-pack collection that bundles early Sonic games from the Genesis to the SEGA CD console. The publisher hasn't delivered an update on the project for quite some time but it looks like a release is on the horizon.

Sonic Origins was rated by South Korea's Game Management Committee on April 15, strongly indicating an impending release. The board also mentions that Origins has been rated A for all ages by Japan's domestic CERO ratings board.

Activision's new financial forecasts suggest something big is happening in 2023, and it could be another mainline Call of Duty game.

Reports say Call of Duty will break its annual release schedule for the first time in 19 years. Sources have told Bloomberg that Call of Duty will skip 2023 and move to a biennial cadence, returning in 2024 with a big new game. Activision is expected to release a standalone zombies live experience in 2023 to fill in the gap. Management says Call of Duty is moving towards an "always-on" structure.

However, new financial data from Activision-Blizzard may indicate otherwise. The company forecasts significant net revenue growth in 2023 to a new all-time record high of $4.688 billion, up nearly 18% over 2022's expected earnings.

No, Blizzard has no plans to create NFTs or play-to-earn blockchain games.

Blizzard recently sent out a poll trying to gauge interest in play-to-earn games and NFTs. This led to speculation Blizzard could be planning NFTs and following in the footsteps of Ubisoft and Konami.

Now Blizzard President Mike Ybarra squashes the rumors with a simple and curt response: "No one is doing NFTs."

What's going on with Cyberpunk 2077's multiplayer game? No one knows for sure, and CD Projekt RED won't give more details.

Back in 2017, we predicted Cyberpunk 2077 would have online multiplayer. Then in 2020 CD Projekt RED confirmed Cyberpunk 2077 multiplayer was coming, describing the game as a big AAA release.

Now these plans are in flux. CD Projekt has cancelled all future multiplayer development in Cyberpunk 2077's RED Engine and made a $4.9 million write-off on the technology. Instead CD Projekt will now use Unreal Engine 5 for its multiplayer ambitions.

Following an incredible box off performance, Sonic Speed Simulator is one of the most-played games on Roblox right now.

A bit ago SEGA launched an official Sonic game on Roblox called the Sonic Speed Simulator, a new open-world 3D adventure that's a lot like the early Sonic Adventure game. It's become a huge hit with Roblox's playerbase, amassing an all-time high of 100,000 concurrent users.

"Our Sonic game on Roblox just hit 100,000 concurrent players on its second day of release with a strategic marketing push combined with the organic digital buzz of the metaverse," Gamefam Chief Executive Officer Joe Ferencz said on LinkedIn.