Gaming News - Page 1

Just when you thought Elden Ring was hard enough, a gamer demonstrated his patience and skill at the FromSoftware title by tackling it from start to finish using just a single button and Morse code.

The persistence, patience and resilience of gamers never fails to impressive me, especially when a gamer decides to purposefully make the game they are playing harder than necessary to create a unique challenge. Twitch streamer Silithur embarked on one of these adventures and decided to test his patience in Elden Ring only equipped with a button, Morse code, and a dream of beating the entire game.

On April 13 Silithur achieved what he set out to do, defeating the Elden Boss and becoming an Elden Lord. Elden Ring has become somewhat of a benchmark for gamers wanting to challenge themselves, as Silithur isn't the first to tackle the difficult game in an unconventional way, as back in April another Twitch streamer and psychology graduate beat the game using nothing but a brain signal controller. Another gamer took on Elden Ring with a dance pad, beating it with sweet moves.

NVIDIA is working with the PC industry to create a new SFF gaming PC ecosystem that will be powered by "SFF Enthusiast GeForce" GPUs, which makes me think... could this be a huge test for a GeForce-powered console?

The new SFF Enthusiast GeForce GPU isn't going to be a new release, nor will it be some next-gen Blackwell-based Mini-ITX graphics card. What NVIDIA is doing here is working with AIB partners to get tiny GeForce RTX series GPUs, like the RTX 4060 Ti and RTX 4060, into Mini-ITX systems... but what about monster GPUs?

NVIDIA's higher-end GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER and flagship RTX 4090 graphics cards will need a much bigger case, more cooling, and a beefier PSU. There are particular SFF cases on the market that are capable of housing a triple-slot, huge graphics card, but with NVIDIA putting its foot into the SFF ecosystem this hard, we will see future chassis designs with NVIDIA's new SFF guidelines in place.

Alongside releasing the PC hardware requirements for Ghost on Tsushima Director's Cut on PC, Sony has announced that it's bringing a PlayStation overlay to its PC games. The overlay will give players access to their PlayStation Profile, Friends list, Trophies, and Settings. Yes, PlayStation Trophies are coming to PC, starting with Ghost of Tsushima.

Sony recently announced that it would double down on multiplatform releases and bring more titles to PC. Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO Hiroki Totoki said, "Strong titles that achieve growth on PS5, PCs, and other platforms will widen our margins. We believe that we have opportunities for margin improvement and intend to pursue them aggressively."

Introducing a dedicated overlay that connects to the PlayStation Network that brings PSN Friends lists and Trophies to PC? That sounds aggressive to us.

PlayStation 4 classic (the game also got a PS5 update) Ghost of Tsushima is headed to PC on May 16, with the Director's Cut version hitting the platform with the Iki Island expansion and the co-op multiplayer Legends mode. In a fantastic move, we've got confirmation that the co-op will support cross-play with PlayStation gamers.

With the talented Nixxes Software handling the port (the studio's most recent effort was the excellent Horizon Forbidden West for PC), Ghost of Tsushima will feature a range of visual enhancements on PC, including support for ultrawide displays (up to 48:9 resolutions), an uncapped frame rate, and upscaling tech that includes NVIDIA DLSS, Intel XeSS, and AMD FSR 3.

Nixxes says it has been working hard to make the game "run well on older hardware." With the PC specs and hardware requirements released today, the good news is that you'll only need a GeForce GTX 960 with 4GB of VRAM to play the game on the lowest settings. The bad news? You'll need a beast of a rig to play the game in 4K 60 FPS.

No Rest for the Wicked is a new action RPG from the creators of the award-winning Ori and the Blind Forest and Ori and the Will of the Wisps platformers, with the team at Moon Studios channeling the likes of Diablo and Dark Souls to deliver a mature, story-driven, co-op loot-filled adventure in a dark and beautiful world.

Visually, No Rest for the Wicked is stunning, with a painterly art style that brings its gothic world to life. The animation is impressive; it makes the combat look intense. The game is launching into Early Access this week, on April 18 (on Steam), and the launch trailer showcases glimpses of the world, story, characters, and gameplay.

In the game, you become a "mystical holy warrior" and use your arsenal of supernatural powers to "defeat the Pestilence at any cost." At its core, No Rest for the Wicked is a Diablo-style action RPG where loot and skills will define your playstyle, with a zoomed-out isometric perspective framing exploration and action.

Shortly after Take-Two Interactive bought Borderlands developer Gearbox for $460 million, the publisher has announced a big cost-cutting plan that will eliminate hundreds of jobs.

Take-Two's new 8-K SEC filing confirms the company will lay off 5% of its workforce in a bid to save money. As of March 2023, Take-Two employed 11,580 full-time employees--assuming this is still accurate, a 5% elimination would affect 579 Take-Two employees. Layoffs had already been expected post-Gearbox acquisition.

Multiple undisclosed games have been cancelled because of the cost-reduction strategy. "As part of these efforts, the Company is rationalizing its pipeline and eliminating several projects in development and streamlining its organizational structure, which will eliminate headcount and reduce future hiring needs," reads the SEC filing.

Sony's upgraded PlayStation 5 Pro is coming later this year, and developers are already familiarizing themselves with the upgraded hardware so they can have games ready when the beefed-up console launches.

Inside, the new PlayStation 5 Pro console has an upgraded "Trinity" SoC made by AMD and fabbed by TSMC. It features a heavily upgraded GPU -- up to 45% faster than the standard PS5 -- and slightly faster CPU. We've heard that a new "PS5 Pro Enhanced" label for games will see 4K resolution, 60FPS, and improved ray tracing abilities.

PlayStation 5 Pro is said to have 2-3x the ray tracing performance of the standard PS5, so we're in for a true delight with PS5 Pro Enhanced games on a PlayStation 5 Pro console. I can definitely see, and I've been saying it for a while in my PS5 Pro and GTA 6 news, that GTA 6 will be a gigantic system seller for the PS5 Pro, so we can almost guarantee Grand Theft Auto 6 will be a PS5 Pro Enhanced title when the game launches in 2025.

Star Wars Outlaws is doing a good job upselling Ubisoft's own game subscription service.

Ubisoft's new Star Wars Outlaws game looks like one of the most authentic adventures in the sci-fi franchise, but it's still a product that's very much bound by business decisions. Like all of Ubisoft's new releases, Outlaws will release day one on the $18/month Ubisoft+ Premium subscription service.

The value proposition is pretty high. As a consumer, would you rather pay $18 to play a game for a month, or pay $70 to buy it? Sure you don't get to own the game with the sub option, and whether or not this is a good fit totally depends on your habits, but that value is what makes subscriptions so enticing. The choice between full game and subscription gets even harder to make when you bump up the game's price to $130; the Star Wars Outlaws Ultimate Edition bundle with its season pass and variety of extras retails for $130, but you can get access for $18 with Ubisoft+ Premium.

Roblox has opened up its creator economy to the public...but you'll have to pay a fee in order to peddle your digital goods.

Roblox Corp. has found a new way to monetize its userbase, more specifically, those that want to sell their custom creations to Roblox's 70 million daily active players. Yesterday, the company announced that its User-Generated Content (UGC) store was going public. Now every Roblox player has the opportunity to make their own 3D items and sell them to the community.

There's just one fly in the ointment: It's not free. You'll have to pay a 'publishing advance' fee in order to list your items on the store. You pay the fee, and then each time that your item sells, a portion of the sale is then credited to your account. Different types of items have different advance fees and full body assets are the most costly at 4,000 Robux. Check the fee structure here.

A bunch of Final Fantasy games are leaving PlayStation Plus next month. Could these games find a new home under a direct subscription from Square Enix?

New reports indicate that the majority of Final Fantasy games will be removed from PS Plus Extra sometime next month. The news is from a PlayStation catalog tracker on Twitter who notes that 24 games are rotating out of PlayStation Plus by May 21. The departing lineup includes 7 Final Fantasy titles.

There are currently 11 Final Fantasy games available on PS Plus: