Gaming News - Page 1

Baldur's Gate 3 is not only one of 2023's most celebrated games but is widely considered one of the best RPGs ever made, an iconic release that will influence RPGs for years. Developer Larian is still hard at work on the game, with the upcoming Patch 7 set to expand and improve the branching story's "evil endings" with new cutscenes.

However, as part of a recent community update on Steam, Larian confirmed that the studio is already working on its next game, and won't be Baldur's Gate 4. The studio's next two games will be moving on from the world of Dungeons & Dragons.

"After six years in the Forgotten Realms and much discussion and rumination, we've decided to seize the opportunity to develop our own IPs," Larian wrote. "We're currently working on two new projects, and we couldn't be more excited about what the future has in store." So, what does it mean for Baldur's Gate 4? Hasbro and Wizards of the Coast are figuring that out.

Microsoft isn't in a rush to disrupt its new billion-dollar publishing triumvirate--the company appears to be taking the old phrase 'if it's not broken, don't fix it' to heart.

Business consolidations can often be messy things, leading to hundreds of layoffs, product cancellations, and big interruptions. But that isn't the case with Microsoft's $70 billion buyout of Activision Blizzard King. The three-armed unit is indeed owned by Microsoft, but ABK operates as a limited-integration company--similar to ZeniMax/Bethesda, ABK has its own budgets, creates its own projects, and balances its own books.

Blizzard is apparently enjoying the transition over to Microsoft's employ. In a recent interview with VideoGamesChronicle, World of Warcraft VP Holly Longdale says that the trillion-dollar tech giant hasn't come in and starting telling everyone what to do. WoW is doing great right now, and Microsoft doesn't want to get in the way. In short, Microsoft wants Blizzard to just keep doing what it's doing--making hundreds of millions of dollars per quarter from successful live service games.

Target has confirmed plans to significantly reduce the amount of physical media that it sells on store shelves, but video games will not be impacted.

Last night, a social media post went viral that lamented the death of disc-based media at Target. "Exclusive: Target sources are telling me they reportedly will stop selling physical media in-store and online by 2025," the so-called President of Physical Media said on Twitter. It turns out this is only half true.

Target delivered a statement to IGN that clarified a few things.

On the heels of the big new Amazon Prime adaptation, Fallout games are headlining Sony's PlayStation Plus subscription service.

Thanks to the new Fallout TV show, millions of people are talking about the series. People are also buying and playing the games en masse--much to Microsoft's delight. We've already seen Fallout games skyrocket on Steam and now the same thing is happening on PlayStation.

According to listings on the PlayStation 5 console, the Fallout games are among the most popular titles on PlayStation Plus in the United States. Fallout 4 headlines the top 10 list with the #1 spot, and Fallout 76 is close behind at #3.

Bethesda isn't done with Starfield yet, and there are some 'really good updates' planned for the sci-fi RPG which will be revealed soon enough.

That's the word from Bethesda's Todd Howard, in an interview with IGN that mostly focused on the currently very popular Fallout TV show (streaming on Amazon Prime Video).

The gaming side of the equation did come up in the interview, unsurprisingly, and indeed IGN questioned whether the success of the show on Prime might lead Bethesda to switch priorities and have Fallout 5 come out before Elder Scrolls VI.

Sony and Microsoft may be direct competitors, but sales charts also show just how mutualistic the two companies are.

If nothing else, the FTC v Microsoft trial in 2023 taught us one important lesson: PlayStation and Xbox are as cooperative as they are competitive. Microsoft depends heavily on Sony's storefront to sell its games, including mega-hits like Minecraft and Call of Duty, and Sony in turn welcomes Microsoft's revenue contribution. This cooperation has evolved now that Microsoft has broken first-party Xbox game exclusivity.

Microsoft has grown considerably now that it owns Activision Blizzard King, so by virtue of its sheer size, it's not really a surprise that its games now have a larger share and populate multiple charts. To get a better idea of both Xbox's size and its synergistic relationship with Sony, we can take a quick look at best-selling games on the PlayStation Store.

Earlier this week we got confirmed specifications on Sony's upcoming PlayStation 5 Pro, with many of the consoles innerworkings being revealed we learned Sony will be including a CPU with a 10% performance boost compared to the standard PS5. But what does this mean for gamers?

In a recent video by Digital Foundry, the gold-standard when it comes to reviewing gaming hardware and technology, a question was posed to the tech experts regarding the impact of the 10% CPU performance boost. The experts explained that a 10% increase in performance is likely to not be enough to enable developers to push CPU-bound titles from 30FPS to 40FPS, as the CPU would still need to require some headroom.

However, it's probable that 40FPS may be enabled for titles that already run at 30+FPS on the standard PS5. While the aforementioned may be an option for developers, Sony is pushing for higher visual fidelity over framerate, with an emphasis on raytracing. This means that developers will likely choose to go for better graphics than framerate. However, the upgraded CPU should offer better stability in 40FPS modes, but the number of games utilizing this mode may be very limited.

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.