Latest News - Page 1578

Anyone who works from home or has the ability to work from home, has most likely been busier than ever before. Personally, I'm busier than I've ever been and I'm a hard worker that has put 70-80 hours a week, every week, into TweakTown, for over 8 years.

Well, it's not just me -- but plenty of game developers are working harder than ever before during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Game Developers Conference recently polled around 2500 game developers, to see how the impact of COVID-19 has had on the gaming industry.

What they found was that less than 10% of developers said they were laid off or furloughed because of COVID-19. Around a third of game developers polled saw business increase, while another third of game developers saw business decrease.

In the most important gaming news today, developer Blizzard have changed their stance on charging gamers that wanted to change the gender of their character in World of Warcraft.

Those dark days are over, with Blizzard now making it free to change the gender of your character in World of Warcraft. The developer said after 11 years of charging to change the gender of your character that only now, is it "not the right message" to charge people to change the gender of a character in a fictional game.

Blizzard said during an interview with Eurogamer that in the next World of Warcraft expansion, the cost of changing the gender of your character would be removed. Once Shadowlands launches, the cost to change gender will be gone -- while you will see some new skin tones and ethnicities of the human characters in World of Warcraft.

Sony is gearing up for the launch of its next-gen A7S III camera, with the company confirming that it will be making the official debut of its new camera on July 28 at 10AM EDT.

What do we know about the new Sony A7S III camera? We are to expect a "complete redesign of the whole system, including the image sensor" according to Kenji Tanaka, Senior General Manager of Sony's Digital Imaging Group during an interview earlier this year with DPReview.

As for what's inside of the new A7S III camera, we're to expect a new 12-megapixel sensor that will have 15 stops of dynamic range, a super high resolution electronic viewfinder, and a new cooling system. The cooling system will see the Sony A7S III sustain long sessions of video recording, unlike the current A7S II.

Both the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X have been billed as 8K capable, and Sony has confirmed the PS5 can support 8K gaming. But devs have been quiet on the topic. Until now, that is.

In a recent interview with Gaming Bolt, The Initiative gameplay engineer Franciso Aisa Garcia asserts both next-gen consoles can handle 8K gaming with trade-offs. Similar to how the PS4 Pro and Xbox One X handled 4K gaming, next-gen console will also have to compromise other performance targets to maintain any semblance of 8K. The new AMD SoCs might be powerful but native 8K gaming is far out of their scope.

"My specialty lies on gameplay and AI, not graphics, so I couldn't tell you for a fact, but I do know these consoles are capable."

No Man's Sky's new Desolation update is basically Dead Space 4 re-created in the space sim.

With the latest Desolation update, Hello Games just basically made Dead Space 4 with a nifty twist. The Desolation expansion is 100% free and adds haunted houses in space, complete with ultra-creepy interiors and freaky monsters. Gamers can explore derelict freighters strewn across the cosmos that're filled with atmospheric horrors and dark lit-environments straight out of Dead Space. Jump into first-person mode to channel Alien: Isolation's unsettling sci-fi visuals and Halo CE's old-school Flood vibes.

The best part about Desolation is that each freighter is procedurally-generated. Like the countless planets and star systems in No Man's Sky, every freighter's interior is randomized to deliver a unique experience each time. Search the derelict for secrets and loot to bolster your journeys through the stars. The stories are also randomized, making every single hallowed ship a completely new experience.

Sony teases new first-party exclusives coming to the PlayStation 4 in the years to come.

Sony re-confirms the PS4 won't be retired after the PlayStation 5 releases this holiday, and that new first-party games are still coming to the platform.

"PlayStation 4 is a big part of everything we do, and will continue to be a big part of everything we do. There's a lot more to come on PlayStation 4," Sony marketing exec Eric Lempel said in a recent Summer Game Fest stream.

Why does Sony believe in console generations whereas Microsoft doesn't? It's simple: Next-gen experiences require next-gen hardware.

In a recent interview with Geoff Keighley on a Summer Game Fest stream, Sony marketing exec Eric Lempel explained why the company believes in hard generational shifts. The answer is the kinds of games, experiences, and content that Sony wants to deliver just simply aren't possible on the PS4 Pro's lower-end 14nm Jaguar SoC. Sony's vision with the PS5 is ambitious and so is the tech that powers it. The kind of seamless, ultra-interactive, and dazzling experiences on the PS5 require higher-end hardware like the 7nm AMD SoC with its 10.3 TFLOP Navi RDNA 2 CPU, 8-core 3.5GHz CPU, 16GB of GDDR6 and ultra-fast PCIe 4.0 SSD capable of 5.5GB/sec speeds.

In the interview, Lempel says the PS5's generational leap is all about empowering developers. The PS5's new DualSense controller is a big part of that. The controller features programmable triggers that deliver tensile and dynamic haptic feedback, a new kind of rumble, and even sensors that measure air pressure so you can blow into it. The built-in speaker is also higher-end and there's a mic for communication, too.

In today's Summer Game Fest stream, Geoff Keighley confirmed the PS5's new DualSense controller has a built-in mic that measures sound fluctuations to translate to in-game interactions.

You can blow into Sony's new PS5 DualSense controller and it'll have an actual affect on in-game events. The functionality was shown in the new Astro's Playroom game that comes pre-installed on the PlayStation 5, which is a kind of multi-hour tech demo that really shows off the DualSense's capabilities. In one section, Geoff had to blow into the device to spin a fan to beat the level.

It's a pretty surprising new feature that wasn't actually announced during Sony's DualSense reveal and could breathe new life (pun intended) into games interactivity. This could be used in all manner of games in creative new ways, possibly even in Horizon Forbidden West when Aloy is swimming deep beneath the ocean waters.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says that the current coronavirus relief bill going around Washington at its mammoth $1.3 trillion, won't even be enough to handle the carnage the COVID-19 pandemic has caused so far.

Congress has only a few more days left to extend the $600 per week upgraded unemployment benefits that have been instrumental in making millions of American families ends meet. Right now Democrats and Republicans are working out how to get this coronavirus relief bill out to the American people.

Speaker Pelosi tols reporters in Washington on Thursday: "They know there's going to be a bill. ... First it was going to be no bill. And then it was going to be some little bill. Now it's $1.3 [trillion]. That's not enough".

We are unfortunately living in a rough time where millions of Americans are waiting on news about a second stimulus package for COVID-19 pandemic relief, with more news expected next week when the US Senate returns from recess.

A new stimulus bill with coronavirus economic relief is being worked on, with Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell saying he's been working with Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin for a month on the new stimulus bill, reports The Hill.

McConnell said when he appeared in Kentucky on Monday: "I'm predicting we will have one more rescue package, which we'll begin to debate and discuss next week".

The US has reached yet another new record with COVID-19, with a new record 77,300 new coronavirus cases across the United States in the last 24 hours.

The news is coming directly from the John Hopkins University tracker, something you can check out here, which relies on government data. The US has been breaking records every few days with massive numbers of new coronavirus cases, but today's new total of 77,300 is a new record.

The US is still the worst hit country in the world when it comes to coronavirus, with 3,576,221 confirmed COVID-19 cases and 138,358 Americans losing their life to the pandemic. Brazil is second with 2,012,151 cases but their deaths are also lower with 76,688 deaths so far.

Most people in the US are struggling right now, with the COVID-19 pandemic wrecking havoc on the entire country -- but with a new stimulus package coming from the Trump administration, will it help?

It seems that the next stimulus check, while it will be larger than the original one, will be spent mostly on bills for families and individuals to keep things afloat. According to a new survey from Money/Morning Consult, nearly half of Americans -- 42% of them -- wil use the new stimulus check to cover basic expenses like housing and food.

COVID-19 pandemic is too strong for people to be getting that money, and then running out and buying a new LG OLED TV and gaming PC -- they need their rent, mortgage, food and bills all paid for. This is getting harder and harder with some depressing amounts of unemployment numbers, which seems like it's only going to get worse in the coming months.

Are you 35 years or under? Did you know that people under the age of 35 are contracting coronavirus at a scary-fast rate? Well, now you do -- read on.

Dr. William Schaffner, is a doctor that works at the Vanderbilt University as an Infectious Disease professor, recently said: "The spectrum of symptoms continues to expand and so younger people often do come in now somewhat to our surprise without fever, and this abdominal pain seems to affect them a little bit more".

Thanks to statistics from multiple states across the US, the country has seen a large uptick in COVID-19 cases that are coming from people in their 20s and 30s. Doctors are now seeing a different range of symptoms in younger patients.

The world is pretty freaked out over coronavirus as it is, but now Dr. Anthony Fauci has come out and said that coronavirus could beat the Spanish Flu -- yeah, the pandemic that killed tens of millions in the early 1900s.

Dr. Fauci said: "If you look at the magnitude of the 1918 pandemic where anywhere from 50 to 75 to 100 million people globally died, that was the mother of all pandemics and truly historic. I hope we don't even approach that with [COVID-19] but it does have the makings of, the possibility of approaching that in seriousness. This is a pandemic of historic proportions. I think we can't deny that fact. It's something I think that when history looks back on it, it will be comparable to what we saw in 1918".

He added: "That was influenza, this is coronavirus, that essentially thrust itself onto the human population. It had two characteristics that are the thing that make it, as I say, 'the perfect storm.' And that is a virus that jumps species, but that almost immediately has an extraordinarily, capable and efficient way of spreading from human to human. Simultaneously with having a considerable degree of morbidity and mortality".

It was back in early May of this year that the first person in the world had the trial COVID-19 vaccine, with David Rach, receiving his shot at the University of Maryland School of Medicine.

He has finally talked about his experience, with WJLA reporting that Rach said: "It's exciting. It's exciting from the side of a participant and graduate student studying immunology and also exciting in the promise of a vaccine by next year and life returning to a semblance of normal".

Vaccine manufacturer Pfizer also released some data from the first phase of the COVID-19 vaccine trial, with Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla saying: "That the vaccine in humans created the very robust immune responses in all individuals that received the vaccine. And those responses were also able to kill the virus. What we learned is that this vaccine can neutralize the virus".

If 2020 couldn't get any worse, the bubonic plague has reached the United States -- something that is otherwise known as black death.

It first started out in China, which unfortunately should come as no surprise, with the bubonic plague infecting people in the Inner Mongolia province. A teenager was infected with the disease, and later died. After that, a squirrel tested positive for the bubonic plague in the United States -- meaning the bubonic plague has reached the shores of the US.

China confirmed that the country had indeed had a case of the bubonic plague in the city of Bayannur, in Inner Mongolia. After he was infected with the disease, a 15-year-old boy died reports CBS News. The teenager contracted the disease from an infected marmot, according to local news agencies and health officials.

Microsoft Flight Simulator takes flight on August 18, with the game requiring a gigantic 150GB of storage on your PC -- imagine it in physical form.

Yeah well, Microsoft is offering the physical edition of Flight Simulator in Europe on DVDs where it comes on an absolutely insane 10 discs. As soon as I saw this news it gave me a flashback to the 90s, where I remember Phantasmagoria hitting headlines then (before the internet, really) that it came on 7 CDs... but 10 DVDs? Wow.

Microsoft partnered with Aerosoft for the physical release of Flight Simulator, which is probably going to take a really, really long time to install from 10 physical DVDs. The digital version of Flight Simulator launches on August 18, while the physical version of Flight Simulator will drop on August 21 in Europe.

The Coalition is aiming pretty high for Gears 5 on the next-gen Xbox Series X console, with the big open doors of 120FPS multiplayer on the table.

In the recent Inside Unreal livestream, the team at The Coalition talked about some of the visual features coming to the upgraded Xbox Series X version of Gears 5. This will include a heap of the features the PC version packs in the Ultra specs, which includes:

The Coalition is working on Screen Space Global Illumination, higher particle counts and 120FPS multiplayer. Xbox One X cinematics were displayed in 4K 30FPS, but the upgraded Xbox Series X version of Gears 5 will render real-time cinematics at the much more glorious 4K 60FPS.

I wrote about Crysis Enhanced Edition back in early June 2020, but in those nearly two months, the mod is finally here -- and it looks way better than Crytek's own Crysis Remastered.

Crysis Enhanced Edition was made by the Remaster Studio modding team, and features HD grass, maximum immersion textures, upscaled vanilla textures and Rygel's textures modification. If you want those super-insane custom-created 8K/4K and 2K textures then you'll need to back their Patreon.

The team explains: "For this public release of our mod, we made the decision to use a mix of various textures packs found on the web, from Rygels textures mod, HD Grass, Maximum Immersion Textures, and upscaled (4x) Vanilla textures".

Intel is preparing for "something big" in 6 weeks time, with the company teasing a new September 2 event where it says they "have something big to share".

The company teased its next-gen Tiger Lake CPU at CES 2020 earlier this year, but then the COVID-19 pandemic gripped the world and it's all we've really heard about since. Intel was most likely preparing to show something off at Computex 2020, but that event was was cancelled in the end.

The new Intel event for September 2 will probably see the company detailing (at least in some form) of its next-gen Tiger Lake CPU architecture, but we could also see some new details on the Xe GPU architecture.