Google Stadia was always meant to be an interactive piece of YouTube that's monetized with subscriptions, microtransactions, and full game sales. Now the company reiterates the platform's secret sauce.

Stadia's main reason for existing is to merge game streaming, viewership, and play together in a neat interactive package. The service will do this in a number of ways, but chiefly centers around new ways for viewers to interact with streamers and broadcasters. In the latest Stadia Connect showcase, Google outlined Stadia-exclusive features coming to Dead by Daylight that illustrate this pretty well.

The features allow stream viewers to vote on specific in-game events and have a direct affect on gameplay and content. Streamers are steering the ship, but viewers control the destination. With the new Crowd Choice mechanic, viewers can vote on how streamers play, whether it be as a survivor or a killer and even choose what character they play as. Crowd Play also allows viewers to play directly with their favorite streamers. This is all huge for engagement and will tie perfectly with YouTube Gaming for maximum exposure and more importantly, ad revenues.

Epic Games wants to make it as easy as possible for developers to transition their projects between console gens and Unreal Engine 4 and Unreal Engine 5.

Next-gen consoles aren't full-on hardware, OS, architecture, or even software resets. Yes, there will be next-gen exclusives, but the PS5 and Xbox Series X are largely carry-overs from last generation in many ways. Both systems were built from the ground-up with extensive backwards compatibility in mind.

Both Sony and Microsoft know it's crucial devs can easily scale and bring over any in-development current-gen projects to next-gen hardware. The Xbox SDK allows devs to make one game that's playable on all platforms, and Sony's PS5 is the "easiest console to develop games for"--Sony's confidence is so high that they're forcing devs to also make any PS4 games submitted for certification after July to be playable on PS5.

Assassin's Creed Valhalla has all sorts of oddities and bizarre occult altars that can trigger some epic boss fights--both visually and mechanically.

Similar to Origins' desert hallucinations, Ubisoft's new Viking-themed Assassin's Creed will have its own form of bizarre illusions that're directly tied to Norse mythology. The devs have peppered all sorts of strange shrines throughout Dark Ages Anglo-Saxon England that can lead to unorthodox boss battles.

In the recent 30 minute Assassin's Creed Valhalla demo video we get to see all sorts of new additions. We've talked about many of those changes and new features here, but this time we're focusing on the delusional and trippy moments the game offers. Around the 22-minute mark we see Eivor interacting with an altar that poisons her, causing her to hallucinate not unlike Senua in her throes of psychosis (although Valhalla's visions are much more tame).

A random rumor said Sony would reveal the PS5's price tag and pre-order info yesterday...but that didn't happen. Retailers are still apparently gearing up for August's State of Play event.

Yesterday was a weird day for PlayStation fans. An rumor from Italian analyst Roberto Serrano said Sony would reveal the PS5's finalized retail price tag for both the digital and physical consoles. This is really the final piece of puzzle, and gamers have been speculating on next-gen costs for years now. Predictably, this didn't happen. But something else did.

Amazon's worldwide retailer pages have been slowly adding info sections for Sony's PlayStation 5. First there was Amazon India, then Amazon Canada, and Amazon Australia even put up a pre-order page for the system. Now the US Amazon page has also added a PS5 info section...but there's no pre-order listing.

The spotlight has been on NVIDIA's next-gen Ampere GPU architecture and the upcoming GeForce RTX 3000 series graphics cards for a while now... so it's now time for AMD's next-gen RDNA 2 architecture to enjoy that light.

A new rumor for Big Navi is teasing some truly huge performance, with YouTuber Moore's Law Is Dead saying that AMD's flagship RDNA 2-based graphics card will be 40-50% faster than NVIDIA's current flagship GeForce RTX 2080 Ti graphics card.

Big Navi being 40-50% faster than the RTX 2080 Ti is a huge, huge deal.

Hideo Kojima will be releasing his masterpiece Death Stranding on the PC in the next 24 hours, with some magical NVIDIA technology helping out GeForce RTX graphics card owners.

In an interview with Digital Foundry leading up to the PC release of Death Stranding, Kojima Productions' Technical Director Akio Sakamoto explained a bunch of the going-ons under the hood of the PC version of Death Stranding. But it was the talk from Digital Foundry on DLSS 2.0 that caught my eye.

Digital Foundry has chipped a little into the larger pie that is Death Stranding on the PC so far, writing: "Resolution has by far the biggest impact on performance, and at least there are some innovative options here. AMD's contrast adaptive shading renders at 75 per cent of the native resolution in both vertical and horizontal axes, then sharpens the image based on contrast at minimal cost".

Death Stranding launches on PC today in under 24 hours, with Kojima Productions giving us some more nuggets on the game in the last hours before launch on the PC.

In a new interview with Digital Foundry, Kojima Productions' Technical Director Akio Sakamoto said that the team considered ray tracing, but ditched the idea soon after. Sakamoto said:

"We are certainly interested in the technology and have looked into it and tested it, but as we wanted to bring the PC version to PC users as soon as possible, we decided against implementing that feature this time. But we would like to consider it for our next titles".

If you tried to check out the Ubisoft Forward stream over the weekend and had issues linking your uPlay account, then you have just scored yourself a free copy of Watch Dogs 2.

Ubisoft is aware that the PC launcher of uPlay was experiencing major issues, with the official Ubisoft Support Twitter account tweeting out: "Don't worry! We'll be giving out the rewards to all of you, even if you were unable to log in successfully. Sit back and enjoy the show!"

You won't just snag yourself a free copy of Watch Dogs 2, as Ubisoft was handing out smaller in-game rewards during the Ubisoft Forward event -- so because some PC gamers missed it, the developer is giving away all of them to uPlay account holders. Not too bad at all.

Thermaltake has just released one of the largest RGB gaming mouse pads ever, with the release of its new M900 XXL RGB Mouse Pad.

The new Thermaltake M900 XXL RGB Mouse Pad is a full desk surface mouse pad, meaning that it will indeed take up your entire desk. Hell, it's so big that gamers with smaller desks will have it rolling off the edge, so you'll want to make sure your desk is big enough to fit the M900 XXL RGB Mouse Pad.

It's 1600mm long and 800mm wide so you'll need a rather large desk in the first place, while it's 4mm thick that makes sure that your arm and hand move along the M900 XXL RGB Mouse Pad with a nice glide across any surface as well.

A bunch of new previews are out, and that means a flood of fresh Assassin's Creed Valhalla info.

The general consensus around Valhalla is that it doesn't exactly evolve the Origins or Odyssey formula, but it does add a bunch of nifty additions. The main change seems to be around RPG mechanics and exploration. There's no longer any level system, and instead Ubisoft has opted for Power, which is the sum of your three forms: Bear, Wolf, and Raven. You unlock skills in these three tiers across a huge Path of Exile-style tree made up of passives. Active abilities require players to roam the wilds and collect skill books to unlock.

Exploration is much more free-form this time, and gamers are incentivized to go hunting often. Eating food will help boost your HP and you'll always need to gather materials to upgrade your weapons, items, and generate resources for your settlements and clan. The main motivation for exploration is questing, though, and there's plenty littered throughout the game. Earlier we said Valhalla represents Ubisoft's very own Witcher 3, and that still seems to stand true, albeit the missions are less impacting.

Gamers who buy Far Cry 6 on current-gen systems get a free next-gen upgrade, Ubisoft confirms.

Ubisoft just announced Far Cry 6 as a cross-gen game, complete with optimizations on PS5 and Xbox Series X. Luckily Ubisoft isn't pulling a 2K Games and charging extra for next-gen copies. Anyone who buys the game on current-gen PS4 or Xbox One consoles gets a free copy on PS5 and Xbox Series X as well (technically there's not a separate SKU for Xbox Series X thanks to Smart Delivery).

"Fans who purchase Far Cry 6 on Xbox One or PlayStation 4 will be able to upgrade their version on a next-gen platform at no additional cost after the launch of Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5," reads a press release sent out by Ubisoft.

An ultra-rare sealed copy of Super Mario Bros. on NES is now the highest-valued game of all time.

A Wata 9.4 graded mint copy of Super Mario Bros. was just auctioned for a massive $114,000, making it the most expensive and rarest video game in the history of Heritage Auctions.

Demand for the game was pretty high. There were a whopping 6,108 bids placed on the rare collector's item. The main draw for the sealed copy was the cardboard hangtab on the back, alongside the higher 9.4 mint grade. The hangtab meant this copy was an early black box game shipped in limited quantities in 1985. Turns out there's a science to this higher-level video game collecting and this is the holy grail for black box NES games.

Devolver Digital announced a nifty-looking indie called Olija during its latest digital showcase that's worth checking out.

Indies are the life's blood of gaming and help fill out the giant spaces in between big tentpole releases. And many indies do a better job in conveying and highlighting the more nuanced and enamoring elements of gaming. New titles like Olija from Skeleton Crew Studios looks like one of those games.

Olija is a neat platformer that is kind of like Castlevania on crack. You play as Faraday, a harpoon-wielding survivor who can dish out some serious damage. The game's main hook (pun intended) centers around the harpoon mechanic, which flings you in a stylish blur across levels and right into enemies. I think Eric Lecarde would be proud of Faraday's skills.

Ubisoft's internal teams are reeling after sexual abuse, harassment, and infidelity allegations. Now some of its biggest creative forces are resigning.

Ubisoft recently confirmed that three of its lead executives are leaving the French company, and these departures will have a radical effect on its future games. These include chief creative officer Serge Hascoet, Yannis Mallat, who led Ubisoft's Canadian studios, and HR head Cecile Cornet. The news comes after multiple allegations against Hascoet and Mallat broke out, accusing both of sexual harassment and inappropriate workplace behavior. Their exploits have been detailed in French magazine Liberation.

The company might make games for a living, but it's clearly not playing around this time. Hascoet's departure speaks volumes about the company's past culture, and the future of its biggest franchises.

Kojima Productions built Death Stranding specifically for 60FPS, but had to dial things back on PS4. The PC version is the way the game was meant to be played.

In a recent interview with Digital Foundry, Kojima Productions' technical director Akio Sakamoto confirms the game was always built to run at 60FPS. Of course KojiPro had to scale things down to 30FPS on the PS4 and PS4 Pro. The PC port is the purest form of Kojima's original vision. We know Death Stranding exceeds 60FPS (more on that in our review coming soon) and is fully optimized for both AMD and NVIDIA cards, complete with DLSS 2.0 tech on RTX cards, but an interesting surprise is how the game was tweaked to run on DirectX 12.

Remember that development of the PC version started alongside the console game years ago. KojiPro used Guerrilla Games' Decima Engine to make Death Stranding, which was also used for Horizon Zero Dawn. But for the PC version, KojiPro used a DirectX 12 version of Decima. The upcoming Horizon Zero Dawn PC port will also use DX12.

UPDATE: Nintendo today announced the new NES LEGO set, and there's a buyable store page that lists a $229 price and an August 1 launch.

LEGO is making a new NES set with a "screen" that actually moves.

A new LEGO x Nintendo set has been leaked out, and this time it's centered around the classic NES. The kit has you building a mini Nintendo Entertainment System and an old-school CRT TV that actually scrolls images with a dial on the side to simulate a Mario game. As you twist the dial, Mario will move and jump across the level. It's extremely innovative and interesting, but like all LEGO sets--especially the Mario-themed ones--the NES kit will set you back a pretty penny.

Far Cry 6 pre-orders are live across multiple storefronts and platforms, but the game is missing from Steam.

Ubisoft confirms its new guerrilla-warfare shooter Far Cry 6 won't come to Steam when it launches in February 2021. "Far Cry 6 will launch on PC (through the Epic Games Store, Uplay, and UPLAY+)," Ubisoft said in a press release.

Far Cry 6 will be another Epic Games Store exclusive that skips Steam and even the Microsoft Store. The PC version of the game, which stars Breaking Bad's Giancarlo Eposito alongside a fearsome wiener dog on wheels, is available for pre-order on the Epic Store and uPlay, but is missing from both Steam and the Microsoft Store.

Microsoft has announced that Flight Simulator will be launching on August 18, and in order to make the news even better -- they've released a new 4K trailer for the game. Check it out:

Jord Neumann, the head of Microsoft Flight Simulator, explains: "We have been thrilled and humbled by the support and dedication that has fueled the Flight Sim community for the past 38 years. Since the launch of the very first Microsoft Flight Simulator in 1982, we knew it was finally the right time to develop the next-generation version of Microsoft Flight Simulator".

There will be 3 different versions of Flight Simulator released, these will include:

It wasn't too long ago that EPOS | Sennheiser came into fruition, and now EPOS has announced that it's currently in preparation for its first gaming audio-related product.

Above you will find a video that has been released on the EPOS Gaming YouTube Channel, and from the video, we can see that EPOS is pushing the theme of "Out of this world gaming audio". According to Jeppe Dalberg-Larsen, who is the President of EPOS said, "With our ambition to make EPOS the industry leader within premium audio solutions in gaming, we aim to win the minds of all gamers who want to push their own limits - unleashing their potential - through the Power of Audio."

In the press release that was sent out its stated that EPOS products will develiver powerful audio experiences that will give gamers an unsurpassed amounts of in-game immersion. Judging on the products that have come out of Sennheiser, and the relative success the company has had at providing awesome gaming audio products, I would expect that EPOS is going to launch a very competitively good audio product. If you are after a bit of history about EPOS, check out this link here.

It looks like someone is about to lose their job at Amazon Australia, with pre-order pages going up for the PlayStation 5, its hardware and accessories, and even a bunch of PS5 games.

A user on Reddit noticed that Amazon Australia had complete pre-order pages or the PS5 console, accessories and games, but you can't pre-order anything right now. The pages are live, and that's it -- but that means we're one step closer to the PS5 pre-orders going live worldwide.

We don't know about pricing on the PlayStation 5 just yet, but we're expecting somewhere in sub $500 range. We have had rumored pricing on the PS5 at $599 and $699, but new PS5 price leaks suggest $499 for the standard PS5 and $399 for the digital PS5 -- both launching on November 20.