Gaming News - Page 75

For those playing on Steam, Bethesda has released a Beta update for Starfield that finally adds official NVIDIA DLSS rendering support, including Frame Generation, to the game alongside a number of notable updates. This is the biggest post-launch update we've seen so far, and it also includes a quality-of-life update that will make exploration and scavenging for resources more manageable. Plus, the long overdue ability to adjust in-game Brightness, Contrast, and HDR settings.

"By popular request, we have added the ability to ingest food and drink items upon finding them in the environment," Bethesda writes. "You can enjoy those Chunks immediately or save them for later."

Munching on Chunks aside, the big addition is full NVIDIA DLSS support covering RTX technologies like DLSS Super Resolution, Deep Learning Anti-aliasing (DLAA), NVIDIA Reflex Low Latency, and DLSS Frame Generation. Although some of these features have been modded into the game on PC by the community, official support is very welcome. Interestingly, the update doesn't add support for AMD's FSR 3 tech, but Bethesda has noted that this will be added at a later date.

Remedy Entertainment has written a detailed article that showcases the Northlight engine technology that was used in Alan Wake 2 and arguably has some of the best graphics that have ever been created.

The developer said its Northlight team is super-excited to have Alan Wake 2 out in the wild, where they've created and polished off a lot of new technology just for Alan Wake 2 so that it doesn't just look amazing. It feels great to play. The article that Remedy has covering Northlight is just covering some of the pieces of technology it has perfected but teased that Northlight engineers will be "back with more in-depth topics in due course."

The Northlight team starts by talking about its new data-oriented game object framework during the development of Alan Wake 2, with a new entity component system (ECS) based model that enables memory-efficient storage and makes parallel execution efficient and safe.

Grand Theft Auto V has reached yet another sales milestone, Take-Two Interactive today announced in its Q2 FY24 earnings results.

There's a few singular games that have the staying power to not only release across multiple console generations, but to generate tens of millions of sales along the way. Grand Theft Auto V is one of those games--Take Two confirms that GTA V has now sold-in (or shipped) 190 million copies across the globe.

This also pushes total GTA franchise sales to 410 million, and shows that GTA V has sold 5 million copies per quarter for 4 consecutive quarters in a row.

Patch 1.2.2 is just out for Diablo 4 on PC and consoles, applying a whole load of polish, and upping the ante with performance to boot, which is always welcome.

In the patch notes, the developer informs us that various performance improvements have been made to the RPG, along with better stability, so we should see fewer crashes as a result. Some tweaks have been made to polish up the visuals, too.

Mind you, all these improvements are being implemented on an ongoing basis in the various patches that have been issued thus far, but it all helps to make Diablo 4 a more pleasant experience.

Rockstar Games has officially confirmed that a GTA 6 announcement trailer is coming next month.

Yesterday, Bloomberg's Jason Schreier, one of the most definitive reporters in gaming, published a report about Rockstar's plans for a GTA 6 reveal.

The report indicated that Rockstar could announce Grand Theft Auto 6 sometime this week, and release a reveal trailer for GTA 6 next month to coincide with the studio's 25th anniversary (Rockstar was founded in December 1998). Now Rockstar has confirmed these reports, saying the debut trailer of the "next Grand Theft Auto" will come early in December.

BlizzCon 2023 took place last weekend, with the in-person community-focused celebration of Blizzard franchises like Warcraft and Diablo returning after a hiatus. The development studio, mired in recent years by scandal and lawsuits, now finds itself a part of the Xbox family thanks to Microsoft's $69 billion acquisition finally coming to a close.

Before Xbox head Phil Spencer appeared live on stage as part of the BlizzCon 2023 Opening Ceremony, the Microsoft executive visited the studio's main campus in Irvine, California, with a simple message - 'How can we help?'

A new report over at Bloomberg by Jason Schreier, with input from Blizzard, including comments from the studio's current president and former Xbox employee Mike Ybarra, paints a very positive outlook for the newly minted Xbox Game Studio.

Rockstar Games plans to announce Grand Theft Auto VI as early as this week, sources have told Bloomberg's Jason Schreier.

The GTA 6 reveal may be much closer than anyone had expected. Sources close to Rockstar Games tell Bloomberg's Jason Schreier that an announcement could happen sometime this week, with a trailer slated to release in December, possibly during The Game Awards 2023 showcase.

The GTA 6 trailer will be timed to coincide with Rockstar's 25th anniversary, the sources say. The game will feature two protagonists, including a male and a female, set in the Miami-inspired Vice City, Bloomberg continues.

This year's N7 Day kicks off with a bang as BioWare releases cryptic footage from its new Mass Effect game.

BioWare has been silent about the next Mass Effect game for a while, but that's changed with this year's N7 Day. The studio released a new 30-second teaser trailer that has sent Mass Effect faithful buzzing about the possibilities. BioWare released three small teasers entitled Epsilon, Defiance, and Nebula, then combining all three clips into the trailer above.

"Not everything is as it seems," Mass Effect project director Mike Gamble said on Twitter. Gamble also confirmed the footage was indeed in-engine.

Nintendo is reportedly preparing its next-generation games console that could build off of the Switch's legacy, but Nintendo's corporate leadership is predictably not ready to discuss the product's existence.

Nintendo, being one of the most conservative video games companies on the planet, has no qualms about remaining quiet about its new gaming system up until the eve of its reveal. Even with reports of the Switch 2 being shown off behind the scenes at Gamescom with an impressive Matrix Awakens UE5 demo and a potential release during Holiday 2024, Nintendo's top brass has deflected all questions about the Switch 2.

In a recent shareholders Q&A held in Japan, Nintendo President Shuntaro Furukawa was asked about the new console. Furukawa commented by saying the rumors of the Gamescom demos were untrue, further denying that Nintendo had briefed Activision CEO about the new system. During the FTC v Microsoft court case, Activision CEO Bobby Kotick testified that the company did not know the specs of Nintendo's new console.

There's a popular theory going around that Final Fantasy XVI has flopped, and Square Enix's recent 6-month performance figures are being used as proof. But the reality is that there's far more going on with Square Enix's accounts than the performance of a singular video game.

Square Enix's profits have dropped by over 57% since last year, and members of the gaming community are latching on to this drop as evidence that Final Fantasy XVI is a dud for the Japanese games-maker. It's not as simple as that; the real reason behind the drop is that last year is a tough year to compare against for a number of reasons. A closer look at Square Enix's income statement is warranted.

The first thing we have to look at is basic net sales and operating income. While net sales are up to 172 billion yen (+5.3% YoY) for the 1H'24 period (1H refers to first-half, or the first six months of the fiscal year), Square Enix's operating income is significantly lower than the year prior.