Latest News - Page 1583

2013 was a big year for Valve. The company had three projects in experimental phases: A new fantasy RPG, a Morroccan-themed Left 4 Dead 3 set in a vast open world, and a Source 2 project that could've changed gaming forever. That last project was Half-Life 3.

Even in early phases of development Valve had ambitious plans for Half-Life 3. According to a new Half-Life: Alyx The Final Hours documentary, Valve wanted Half-Life 3 to be replayable on a new level. Instead of static levels like Half-Life 1 or Half-Life 2, the game would shake things up and shift certain sequences and levels.

The game would've used procedural generation to create unique and semi-randomized events and situations that could liven up every playthrough, ensuring no two runs were the same. It would've been something like a live campaign with a myriad of different outcomes.

Sony's latest patent further hints at unique save-state sharing functionalities on the PlayStation Network, which should allow gamers to create and share their own custom slices of gameplay.

Sony's PlayStation 5 may usher in a new evolution of the PSN service ecosystem. We've uncovered multiple patents that hint at transformative features similar to Google's Stadia platform and Microsoft's Project xCloud. If these patents coalesce, gamers will be able to capture, create, edit and share custom game demos. Think of it as not only watching a game clip, but being able to play it too.

The latest Sony patent, which was filed in June and published this month, specifically mentions instant play. The patent is built on a simple premise: "cloud-based game slice generation and frictionless social sharing with instant play." This tells us everything we need to know. It's clear Sony wants to emulate Stadia's unique save-state sharing feature with instant click-to-play access. Microsoft is also doing something similar with Project xCloud.

Sony has purchased a $250 million minority stake in billion-dollar titan Epic Games, the company today announced.

Sony has invested $250 million into Epic Games in a bid to strengthen its relationship with one of gaming's top moneymakers. The deal isn't just about swelling Sony's coffers, though. Epic has unique technological advantages in the industry thanks to its Unreal Engine games-making software.

For perspective's sake, the $250 million investment only nets Sony a 1.5% stake in Epic, which is now valued at over $17 billion.

Sony officially reveals the design and color scheme of next-gen PS5 game boxes, and they're not radically different.

The PS5's game cases will be different enough to distinguish between current- and next-gen games, but Sony hasn't opted for a dramatic redesign. The PS5 game cases feature a slightly darker transparent blue plastic casing, and the game cover art is accompanied by a stark white banner instead of the PS4's stylish blue gradient.

New job listings confirm Id Software is currently working on a next-gen Doom game for PS5 and Xbox Series X.

id's main Dallas, Texas branch is currently hiring multiple positions to work on a next-gen game, and we're betting it's the next big Doom slaughterfest. id is currently hiring for 21 open positions required for making a AAA game, but only a few of them explicitly mention next-gen consoles.

Both the Senior UI Programmer and Senior Rendering Graphics Programmer jobs specifically mention creating games for next-gen systems.

My heart hasn't stopped fluttering since Zack Snyder himself announced Zack Snyder's Justice League, which will be an exclusive on HBO Max in 2021.

But now some truly exciting news has just been announced: Junkie XL will be joined by the legend himself Hans Zimmer in scoring the true vision of Justice League. The news came from some back and forth between Snyder and some fans on Vero, where he was asked "We getting the Junkie XL score for JL?"

Snyder responded, saying: "Fuck yes" and then answered another question that asked in the form of "Han's Zimmer's two piano notes?" and Snyder throws out "Of course is there another".

AMD just launched their Matisse Refresh CPUs led by the new flagship Ryzen 9 3900XT (our review here), but then leaks on the new Ryzen Threadripper PRO series led by the flagship Ryzen Threadripper PRO 3995WX processor was teased -- and now, the Renoir APUs.

Some new leaks are from Dutch retailer Centralpoint, which has listed the Ryzen 7 Pro 4750G, Ryzen 5 Pro 4650G and Ryzen 3 Pro 4350G processors. The listings state that the two higher-end Ryzen PRO processors will ship within 3 to 5 days, while the Ryzen 3 Pro 4350G will be in stock on July 10.

As for pricing, we're looking at:

Intel has just announced the new generation of Thunderbolt, with the new Thunderbolt 4 standard being virtually identical to Thunderbolt 3 -- but Intel being Intel, we have Thunderbolt 4. Check it out:

What does Thunderbolt 4 do exactly? What is Intel's aim with Thunderbolt 4 is to boost up the minimum performance requirements, provide a couple of improvements, and USB4 specifications. The new Thunderbolt 4 standard supports dual 4K displays (versus just one 4K display on TB3) but now you can also connect a single 8K display over a single Thunderbolt 4 connection. Impressive.

Jason Ziller, Intel general manager of the Client Connectivity Division explains: "Thunderbolt provides consumers with a leading connectivity standard across a range of devices, helping to advance computing experiences and delivering on the promise of USB-C with simplicity, performance, and reliability. The arrival of Thunderbolt 4 underscores how Intel is advancing the PC ecosystem toward truly universal connectivity solutions".

PC gamers across the world might be stuck inside because of the COVID-19 pandemic, but we are doing what we do best: gaming. The entire global PC gaming hardware business has been thriving because of this -- as well as the countless releases of new games, and the upcoming next-gen consoles right around the corner.

Analyst firm JPR has released their Worldwide PC Gaming Hardware Market Report, which if you want to buy it and check it out will cost $27,500. The report is written by Senior Analyst Gaming Industry at JPR, Ted Pollak, who explains: "The PC Gaming Hardware market is in a rare scenario where every segment is going up. We see a lot of people buying and upgrading personal and company subsidized computers with better parts, with the intention of playing video games. In the Entry-Level, much of this revenue comes from new gamers".

He added: "The 2020 Entry-Level category is forecast to grow 21.7% which is unprecedented and totally unexpected. The Mid-Range has bounced back from a slide; now in positive territory. At the High-End, 1440p+ display sales (spurred by more affordable offerings) created a chain reaction of upgrades as gamers configure rigs for 60+ frames per second".

It's been a while since we've gotten big Switch Online NES and SNES games. Thankfully Nintendo breaks the dry spell with one of the best SNES games of all time.

With its new round of free games like Donkey Kong Country (finally!), The Immortal, and Natsume Championship Wrestling, Nintendo makes good on its promise to add more value to its Switch Online subscription service. The main draw here is obviously Donkey Kong Country, aka the stuff childhood dreams (and nightmares, god that stop and go level has haunted me to this day) are made of.

The Immortal looks pretty interesting too. It's an isometric exploration game that can be pretty maddening, but still looks like a bit of fun entertainment, especially with save states at your command. Check out this James and Mike Mondays episode to see what The Immortal is all about.

Niantic's immensely popular AR sensation Pokemon GO has generated nearly $1 billion in revenue every year for the last four years, Sensor Tower reports.

Pokemon GO just turned four years old but the mobile hit shows no signs of stopping. The free-to-play game has earned substantial revenues of $3.6 billion in estimated microtransaction spending across its four-year lifetime. The game is most popular in the United States, which spent $1.3 billion on the game, making up roughly 35% of total global earnings.

The pocket monster mobile hit is most popular on Android devices, Sensor Tower finds. Google Play generated $1.9 billion or 54% of total earnings, whereas the iOS App Store pulled in $1.7 billion, or about 46% of the mobile pie. Pokemon GO's 2020 numbers are on track to match or even beat 2019's performance with over $445 million earned through the year so far.

Sony hasn't thrown all of its next-gen cards on the table, and reportedly still has a few PS5 surprises in store for the rest of the year.

According to new reports from Eurogamer's Tom Phillips, Sony has held back some of its major game reveals for its rumored State of Play event in August. Phillips has a close ear with the going-ons in the games industry and has a good track record when it comes to inside knowledge--he was among the first to cover Nintendo Switch specs and hardware capabilities.

The move admittedly is common sense. Sony wouldn't benefit from showing everything at a singular PS5 reveal event. The better plan would be to show off the PS5, its games, and do some light talks about how the games will run and play on the system, then reveal more content, games, and features closer to the system's launch. That way the console is kind of refreshed in the public's eye before it hits store shelves in Holiday 2020.

Valorant's new Elderflame cosmetic skin set costs roughly $95 to unlock, which is roughly $31 more than current AAA game releases.

Like all of Riot's games, its new free-to-play hero shooter was built with microtransactions in mind. Now we're starting to see the upper limits of the game's monetization. The devs have announced a new Elderflame cosmetic set that transforms your guns into dragons, but the full set of unique skins come at a steep 9900 VP price tag. This equates to roughly $95 or thereabouts, or about 48% more than your average $59.99 game plus tax.

Given the current VP pricing tiers, the cheapest way to buy the Elderflame set would look something like this:

It looks like AMD is about to refresh its Ryzen Threadripper 3000 series processors just like it did with its Matisse Refresh CPUs in the last 24 hours (our review here).

VideoCardz is reporting that AMD is about to launch a new Ryzen Threadripper PRO series of processors, with samples already out in teh wild and posted on Chiphell. The new PRO series workstation series would be very similar to the just-refreshed Ryzen 3000 series CPUs with their new XT counterparts.

AMD's refresh Ryzen Threadripper PRO would reportedly see the flagship Ryzen Threadripper PRO 3995WX processor that will offer up 8-channel memory, with up to 2TB of capacity which is pretty crazy. The normal Threadripper CPUs only support 4-channel memory with up to 256GB, so these upgrades would be very welcomed by power users.

A new report has come out that the Trump administration has notified both Congress and the United Nations about withdrawing from the World Health Organization (WHO).

CNN has reported that sources close to them have said that the Trump administration is currently moving towards formally withdrawing the United States from the World Health Organization. This decision has come right as coronavirus cases are spiking across the United States, but Trump, and surrounding administration officials have still continued to criticize the efforts put in by the WHO in regards to the coronavirus outbreak.

The withdrawal is planned to go into effect on July 6th, and the decision has predictably drawn division among medical associations, advocacy organizations, and lawmakers. A state department official also confirmed to CNN that "the United States' notice of withdrawal, effective July 6, 2021, has been submitted to the UN Secretary-General, who is the depository for the WHO." A spokesperson for Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he has received the notice and "is in the process of verifying with the World Health Organization whether all the conditions for such withdrawal are met."

SAPPHIRE has just unveiled a new member of its Radeon RX 5600 XT stack of graphics cards, a new member of its PULSE family of custom Radeon graphics cards.

The new Radeon RX 5600 XT PULSE BE is a little different than the regular Radeon RX 5600 XT PULSE, where it is slightly smaller -- but it is based on the same Navi 14 GPU and 6GB of GDDR6 memory. SAPPHIRE has clocked the Navi 14 GPU at the same 1560MHz boost, 1620MHz peak GPU clock -- while upgrading the 6GB of GDDR6 up to 14Gbps.

SAPPHIRE's original Radeon RX 5600 XT PULSE graphics card (my review on that here) needed to have its BIOS updated in order to receive the higher-end GDDR6 clocks. The peak clock is also lower than the BIOS-upgraded Radeon RX 5600 XT PULSE graphics card (coming in at 1650MHz versus 1750MHz).

Some unfortunate news for the PC industry today, with MSI president and CEO Sheng-Chang "Charles" Chiang falling from a building to his death.

We don't know what happened exactly, other than he fell to his death. An MSI spokesperson reached out to Tom's Hardware, explaining: "Earlier today, MSI GM and CEO Charles Chiang passed away. Having been a part of the company for more than 20 years, he made outstanding contributions and was admired by his colleagues. Mr. Chiang was a respected leader in the MSI family, and helped pave the way for the brand's success. We are all deeply saddened by the news, and are mourning the loss of Mr. Chiang. He will be deeply missed by the entire team".

I never personally met Charles, but I have dealt with MSI professionally (and personally) for 10 years with TweakTown. They are one of our strongest partners in the industry, and our hearts go out Chiang's family, and to the entire team at MSI.

Microsoft may give developers tons of freedom in how they handle next-gen Xbox Series X optimizations, but there's one thing they forbid: charging money for next-gen game upgrades.

Internal Microsoft mandates prohibit game developers and publishers from selling game upgrades on the Xbox Series X platform, sources tell Video Game Chronicle. Instead of treating current-gen game upgrades as premium DLC on next-gen consoles, Microsoft is encouraging developers to support its Smart Delivery program, which automatically selects, downloads, and applies any developer-issued next-gen game upgrades.

Third-party games-makers have two options for cross-gen transitional games. First, they can support Smart Delivery, or second, they can release a separate next-gen exclusive SKU of the game. There's lots of wiggle room here. 2K Games, for example, is releasing a $69.99 next-gen exclusive version of NBA 2K21. EA is also releasing next-gen exclusive versions of FIFA 21 and Madden 21, but these games have a new program called Dual Entitlement, which gives a free copy of the next-gen version to anyone who buys a PS4 or Xbox One copy.

The new game from Greedfall developer Spiders Studios is extremely unique and lays out an interesting proposition: What if King Louis XVI quelled the French Revolution with an army of robots?

Spiders' new game Steelrising is rather interesting. It takes place in 18th Century France just before the disastrous and brutal French Revolution tore down the monarchy. King Louis XVI is in power and plans to smash any opposition with his brutal new mech army. Spiders says Steelrising is more action-oriented than Greedfall, Technomancer, or Bound By Flame, but didn't show any actual gameplay. It's possible this could be a very NieR-esque game that's cemented in the studio's native history.

In Steelrising, you play as Aegis, a powerful female automaton who serves as the personal protector of Queen Mary Antoinette. The teaser clearly shows Aegis as she leads a charge against corrupted robots. We should expect themes of transhumanism as well as Detroit: Become Human-style existential moments.

THQ Nordic is far from done with the Kingdoms of Amalur IP, and plans to launch new expansion content for the 2012 game. This could lay the groundwork for a big new sequel.

Kingdoms of Amalur is getting a remaster re-release in the next two months on PS4, Xbox One, and PC. The remaster packs in new graphics, effects, and improvements to the old-school RPG classic. It also sends a clear signal that THQ Nordic wants to capitalize on the IP, which isn't necessarily something that it does for all of the franchises it owns. But Kingdoms of Amalur isn't just getting a remaster--it's also getting a new expansion.

The next expansion is called Fatesworn, and it's due out in 2021 on all platforms. It'll be a paid and premium-style expansion, and could telegraph THQ Nordic's plans for the series. When games are resurrected like this, we often see devs work on expansions, DLC, or spin-offs to get developers back into the groove and help set up the story and tone for a sequel. Just look at what Valve did with Half-Life: Alyx, for example.