Gaming News - Page 354

Cloud Imperium Games is selling a Star Citizen ship bundle that costs $40,000 USD.

The new Legatus pack is up on Star Citizen's storefront, and it's the same price of a brand new car. The Legatus 2951 bundle costs a cool $40,000 and is the successor to the infamous Legatus 2950 pack released earlier this year for $36,000. The Legatus bundles are infamous for their massive price tags and typically include over 100 of the highest-profile ships in the game. CIG originally released the first Legatus pack in 2018 for $27,000.

Not everyone can buy the pack and it's exclusive to high rollers with a "concierge" designation who spent at least $1,000 on the game's funding. Earlier this year, Roberts Space Industries and Cloud Imperium Games had raised over $400 million in funding since Star Citizen's inception in 2012, making it one of the most expensive games of all time--especially one that's continuing development.

AMD CEO Dr. Lisa Su has made some fresh comments on the state of the market regarding next-gen console supply, even with the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S consoles still nigh impossible to buy... or super-expensive from its limited supply.

In AMD's recent financial earnings call with investors, Dr. Su was asked an obvious question: about the current supply problems, and the seasonality of them. In reply, Dr. Su said that AMD is ramping up production of the semi-custom chips for the next-gen consoles throughout 2022, and she expects that it'll be yet another strong year for both Sony and Microsoft.

The AMD CEO said that it will be 2023 that will be the "peak year" for Microsoft and Sony's next-gen consoles, Dr. Lisa Su said: "Well, I think -- first of all, I think the console business, this console cycle and all when you look at it in totality, has been amazing. I mean if you think about the strength of the cycle, now we're sort of deep into the second year and the fact that the demand is so high. I mean we've been shipping a lot of product".

Missing from launch, iconic Halo game modes like Grifball, Multi-Team, and King of the Hill are returning to Halo Infinite.

Dataminers have uncovered new medals in Halo Infinite that confirm old-school modes are making a comeback. While Halo Infinite launched without a slayer playlist (that's since been remedied), it's still missing a bunch of gametypes like Grifball, King of the Hill, and the legendary Zombies. Apparently that's going to change, too.

The medals are succinctly named to match their respective gametypes; clash of kings is obviously tailored to King of the Hill, and Undead Hunter can really only mean one thing. Oh, and multi-team was also confirmed by dataminer HaloDotAPI who just today discovered two new teams: Valkyrie and Hades, which join the existing Eagle and Cobra teams.

343 Industries is selling Halo 5's microtransaction mascot in a $20 cosmetic bundle in Halo Infinite.

Halo Infinite's new weekly bundle is causing a stir within the community. Rather than stirring with anger, fans are now being shaken by laughter. It turns out the new monetized cosmetics are actually pretty funny to anyone who's played Halo 5.

The source for the irony-laden guffaws is how Mister Chief, the mascot for Halo 5's controversial (but extremely lucrative) lootbox system, is being sold in a cosmetic bundle worth 2000 Credits ($19.99). The Halo Infinite cosmetic bundle includes a Mister Chief AI who literally says "I'll make victory easier to obtain then a higher level requisition," a special AI skin, and various weapon trinkets and skins.

Path of Exile's big new 3.17 expansion has been delayed to February 2022, developer Grinding Gear Games has announced.

PoE's new v3.17 endgame update won't release in January as originally planned. The expansion has been delayed by "at least two weeks" and is now set to release in February 2022, the devs say. This also means the current Scourge League has been extended.

3.17 is anticipated by gamers and makes some big changes, including removing the Prophecy League and the full completing of the massive overhaul of the endgame Atlas system initiated in v3.16.

Reality star Paris Hilton will perform an electronic dance show within her own custom Roblox world, Paris World.

Paris World is coming back for a big New Year's Eve celebration, the star has told Reuters. Fans will soon be able to attend a special show in Paris Hilton's virtual Roblox world, where Hilton will DJ live music streamed over the internet. This show is a big step towards Roblox Corp's metaverse aspirations, which ideally sees users engaging (and spending) in special events from celebrities (like the Travis Scott Astronomical show in Fortnite).

Paris World was originally launched in October 2021 but was quickly made private after multiple hacks. Hilton's Roblox space includes in-game replicas of her lavish mansion and virtual representations of a celebrity lifestyle, including huge mansions, expensive clothing, beauty boutiques, and more.

Valve just released the top-earning Steam games of 2021 in both sales and in-game transactions. Here's a breakdown.

The new top-earning Steam 2021 figures give an idea of how certain games are performing on the PC's biggest sales marketplace. The games are separated into three tiers including platinum, gold, silver, and bronze, the latter of which includes the vast majority of games. A big thing to note is that this isn't a top-10 list that's organized by largest to smallest.

Everything has been randomized by Valve in an effort to protect actual Steam earnings data, which is not reported publicly. This is not a ranked list and just because GTA V is listed first doesn't mean it made the most. The list also includes full game sales and in-game purchases such as microtransactions and DLC. Still, though, we're able to glean a lot about traditional Steam staples and newcomers in 2021.

Final Fantasy XVI is the latest casualty of the COVID-19 delay season.

Square Enix and Yoshi-P's dev team have delayed Final Fantasy XVI's launch by half a year, or six months. Technically this isn't necessarily a delay considering the new high fantasy game never had an actual release date, but the team now says it will launch sometime in late 2022.

In a recent Twitter post, the ever-polite Yoshi-P outlined the main reasons for the interruptions. It's really the same as most developers: COVID-19 has scattered workers remotely across the globe, leading to a decentralized team. Different time zones makes collaboration with Square Enix's Tokyo office difficult and Yoshi-P says some assets have been delayed and even cancelled.

Tencent and Remedy inked a huge multi-year deal to expand its new free-to-play online game franchise.

Remedy Entertainment has found a partner for its new online game (codenamed Vanguard), and it happens to be the biggest games titan on Earth. The deal is an interesting one: Remedy will handling development and publishing across worldwide markets outside of China, and Tencent will localize the game for Asian markets. Both companies will have their own independent budgets--which is great for Remedy, who wants to self-publish more games--and will also share revenues with one another.

What's interesting is that Tencent gained licensing rights to create a mobile game based on Vanguard. This means the IP is pretty big, and likely set in the shared Alan Wake-Control universe. Having such a high-profile games giant interested in a new wholly-owned franchise is something special.

First George R.R. Martin helped with Elden Ring, now famed fantasy writer Brandon Sanderson is also helping another popular game studio make a new project.

Brandon Sanderson is one of the most renowned fantasy writers in the business, having worked on The Wheel of Time and created multiple universes (or Cosmeres) with The Stormlight Archive, and Mistborn series of books. Now he's also helping write a video game.

Sanderson revealed that he's been working on a video game for the "past several years," but it won't be set in one of his franchises. The game is entirely new, similar to Elden Ring with George R.R. Martin's lore contributions. This means it's likely a brand new IP considering other established fantasy RPGs like Dragon Age (and even Elden Ring) all have their own established lore and fictional historical bases set in place.