Latest News - Page 1690

Valve just revealed three meaty gameplay videos for its new VR-exclusive Half-Life game, which looks to be VR's must-have killer app.

On the heels of Half-Life: Alyx's launch later this month, Valve has released over 10 minutes of new Half-Life: Alyx gameplay footage that shows just how incredibly dynamic the game actually is.

The big features shown off are locomotion and basic first-person shooter mechanics. The game looks admittedly wonky insofar as an FPS. But that's to be expected as VR sensors are tracking your movements and translating in-game. Alyx can crouch, hide behind walls as cover, and use nearby objects as weapons. All in all the game looks like it could give you serious anxiety and the fights are pretty tense--especially with the total immersion of VR projecting you in the creepy Half-Life universe.

Death Stranding's Steam version on PC is getting some exclusive cross-over items straight out of Half-Life.

Norman Reedus' wardrobe is about to get a whole lot weirder. Kojima Productions has teamed up with Valve to inject some Xen awesomeness to Death Stranding's PC port, complete with extra cosmetics from the Half-Life universe.

Sam Porter Bridges can wear such stylish Black Mesa gear as Gordon Freeman's iconic glasses, a headcrab helmet (my favorite), and Alyx Vance's new makeshift gravity gauntlets from Half-Life: Alyx, the new VR-exclusive Half-Life coming in April. Even the Steam-maker's signature valve can be attached to the back of Sam's head.

Death Stranding's big PC debut will happen June 2, 2020 on both Steam and the Epic Games Store, 505 Games today announced.

Kojima's ultra-weird walking-simulator slash Lynchian horrorfest is coming to PC in just three months, and comes jam-packed with optimizations like boosted frame rates for higher-end rigs, a built-in photo mode, and ultra-wide 21:9 monitor support.

The official press release was a little light on the PC features and settings but we've reached out to 505 Games for more clarification. PC spec requirements were also not revealed.

Gamers can now try out Final Fantasy 7 Remake's full action-based combat with a new playable PS4 demo.

It's finally live: Today Square Enix stealth-released the Final Fantasy 7 Remake demo on the PlayStation Store. The demo clocks in at roughly 7.5GB on PlayStation 4 and contains a small slice of the overall Midgar-based game. Sadly your progress and saves won't carry over into the main game, and although the RPG is mostly finished, the publisher can still change things between now and release.

"The demo allows players to experience first-hand the opening chapter from the game, and the events of the iconic Mako Reactor 1 bombing mission," reads a press release issued by Square Enix. Anyone who downloads the demo will also get access to an exclusive PS4 theme that releases alongside the game in April.

In a new behind-the-scenes development diary from Cloud Imperium, the developers behind the ambitious Star Citizen, we are introduced to what is called 'Actor Status'.

Star Citizen's developers explain exactly what 'Actor Status' is, and why they are adding it to the game. According to the developers, 'Actor Status' will add a new level of survival mechanics that will force players to regulate multiple aspects of their character. For example, if a player lands on a hot/cold planet, they will be required to equip specific clothing to compensate for that planet's environment.

While that might sound simple, many factors are taken into account to establish the planet and the player's overall temperature. The environment is influenced by weather factors such as wind, humidity, temperature, and more. These aspects then influence the players 'Actor Status', and players can view what is affecting their character through the UI. If players don't correctly compensate for the planets' environmental factors, they will begin to suffer the effects of it. Examples for this can include hyperthermia and hypothermia, which can lead to death.

The Super Smash Bros. Ultimate community is patiently waiting for who Nintendo has selected as the next DLC fighter.

Even though Nintendo already has the next DLC's fighters set in stone, this hasn't stopped communities from running polls to voice who they would like most. The Japanese Super Smash Bros. Ultimate community has run their own poll and judging by the results, Sora from the Kingdom Hearts franchise is by far the most-wanted fighter. If you didn't know, Disney was recently blamed for blocking Sora from coming to Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.

Disney Japan specifically was deemed the ones to have blocked the extremely popular character from joining the roster. This news was sourced from gaming industry insider Ihran Khan, which means Disney hasn't officially confirmed Sora can't make it, giving fans a shred of hope that he still can. The Japanese poll was conducted by Inside Games and received hundreds of votes. 86.6% of those votes were from males, while the remaining 8.3% were from females. In the entirety of this article, I have provided the top 15 most-wanted characters.

Searching for planets in the vastness of space is time-consuming work for astronomers, but sometimes all you need on your side if a bit of beginner's luck.

University of British Columbia student Michelle Kunimoto had a little bit of that beginner's luck and has now officially found 17 new planets. Kunimoto has published a new paper in The Astronomical Journal detailing her discoveries, one of which is extremely promising as the planet is approximately Earth-sized and is located in the Goldilocks Zone of its neighboring star.

The planet is now called KIC-7340288 b it's about 50% larger than Earth, and its located in the Goldilocks zone of its star, meaning that it's at the right temperature to possibly have liquid water on its surface. Kunimoto said in a statement, "This planet is about a thousand light-years away, so we're not getting there anytime soon! But this is a really exciting find, since there have only been 15 small, confirmed planets in the Habitable Zone found in Kepler data so far."

During this year's Super Bowl, we saw a lot of technology-related ads, and one of those ads were for Jeep's ebike.

Jeep has now initiated pre-orders for its e-bike, and it won't be coming cheap... at all. Jeep's e-bike will cost consumers $5,899 and will sport a 750W motor, Fire-Link suspension, and a maximum range of 40 miles. Jeep has also partnered with QuietKat and has said that the new off-road mountain bike is the "most powerful" mountain bike yet.

Originally, Bill Murray was spotted in the e-bikes Super Bowl advertisement, and if you want to check out that video, it can be seen above. It seems that Jeep is following the likes of Tesla by transitioning to more electric-related vehicles. I won't be surprised if other vehicle manufacturers follow the same path, as consumers are now looking for clean alternatives. Jeep will begin shipping out their e-bike sometime in June.

Riot's coming first-person-shooter title has had a bunch of screenshots leaked, revealing what in-game looks like.

From the screenshots compiled in the above video, we know that Riot's first-person-shooter will be called "Valorant" and will resemble a team-shooter that is extremely similar to Overwatch or Team Fortress 2. A dedicated fan account has appeared on Twitter, and it's leaking a bunch of different images of Valorant's characters and in-game. The leaks are rumored to be coming straight from IGN, which means they could have broken an embargo early to get them up.

From the screenshots, we can see three characters; Viper, Brimstone, and Sage. We also get a look at Sage's abilities, which are the following; Barrier Orb, Slow Orb, Healing Orb, and Resurrection. Judging by what we can see on Sage's character select screen, it seems that each character will get four different abilities. If you are after more screenshots, check out the above video. The leaks also indicate that Riot will officially reveal Valorant on March 2nd.

Netflix has got all cylinders firing for the second season of The Witcher, and with only a few main characters yet to be announced, today we get to know who will be playing the influential Vesemir.

Netflix has revealed who will be playing Geralt of Rivia's teacher in the second season of The Witcher. At the end of the first season of The Witcher, we saw Geralt say that he's going to return back to Kaer Morhen to discuss matters with Vesemir, the oldest and most experienced Witcher and also Geralt's mentor. Vesemir will no doubt play a large roll in the second season of The Witcher due to how entangled his life is with Geralt's.

Netflix has chosen Kim Bodnia to play Vesemir, and we can expect to see him on-screen sometime throughout season two. Judging by the events of the first season, I would expect that he will be seen throughout the very first episode of season two, as Geralt should be getting close to Kaer Morhen. If you are after any more Witcher news, here's everything you need to know about season two.

Walmart is teaming with Verizon to make some big changes to their stores, with the two companies to pack 5G services into two Walmart stores this year. Why? Digital health services.

The faster 5G speeds would allow for Walmart to push digital health services that would include in-store video chats with doctors, and real-time medical data. It would improve your in-store experience by auto-registering you when you arrive, pulling medical data from your file online, and informing staff to restock any products you grab when you're there.

It wouldn't only benefit Walmart and its digital health services push, but it would also be able to provide faster internet speeds to those in the store. I guess you'd be able to walk around on your smartphone with super-fast connection speeds, while it will double as super-fast internet for its digital health services push. Weird flex by Walmart, but alrighty.

The effects of coronavirus are having larger and larger impacts on business, with tech giants Amazon and Google now pushing new restrictions on employee travel over coronavirus, or COVID-19.

Amazon has requested that its 798,000 employees stop all non-essential travel immediately, which includes both domestic and international travel. This move from Amazon comes after the company restricted travel to China in February with its employees, but now the restrictions apply globally, and domestically.

Moving over to everything giant Google, which has increased its employee travel restrictions to include Japan and South Korea -- a list that already banned travel to China, Iran, and two Italian regions: Lombardy and Veneto. A Google spokesperson said: "We can confirm that one employee from our Zurich office has been diagnosed with the coronavirus. They were in the Zurich office for a limited time, before they had any symptoms. We have taken -- and will continue to take - all necessary precautionary measures, following the advice of public health officials, as we prioritize everyone's health and safety".

The Doom Slayer might be a crazed, demon-slaughtering psychopath, but he's still a big kid with a very nerdy side.

Doom Eternal's hub world, the Fortress of Doom, humanizes the rampant killing machine we know and love. Turns out that murderous buff action hero is a huge nerd. Doom Slayer has his own room with personal trinkets, collections, and artifacts, including an old gaming PC that hearkens back to Doom's glory days in the 90s where dial-up and 3.5-inch floppy discs ruled the platform.

"He's a nerd. He's like one of us, only he's 300 pounds, really swole, and he can slaughter demons. He's also a gamer and he's really into the history of games," Doom Eternal creative director Hugo Martin said in a recent PAX East stream.

LG Display has stopped production at one of its smartphone display factories in Gumi, South Korea -- after a bank worker near the facility itself was tested positive for coronavirus, or COVID-19.

The company is aiming at resuming production at its factory on March 3, but the company hasn't said how much this stop in production will hurt its output of smartphone displays. LG will have its own phones impacted by the temporary production halt, but LG doesn't just make displays for its own smartphones.

LG makes panels for some of Apple's current iPhones, so we might expect some ripples in iPhone supply because of it. Although, it's only a few days so we shouldn't expect too much from this, but it's yet another production issue that coronavirus, or COVID-19 is placing on the technology industry.

With coronavirus or COVID-19 spreading throughout the world, 'stay-at-home' companies like Netflix are benefiting the most according to industry analysts.

BMO Capital Market analyst Dan Salmon wrote in a research note on Friday that Netflix "is an obvious beneficiary if consumers stay home due to coronavirus (COVID-19 virus) concerns, and this has been reflected in considerable stock price outperformance this week". Netflix shares were up 0.8% this week, after the worst sell-off on Wall Street in close to 9 years.

It's not just Netflix that is an "obvious beneficiary" of the coronavirus keeping people safer at home, but more internet-connected customers and services are benefiting. These include Facebook, Amazon, and others -- but throw in Microsoft, Sony, and every game developer and streaming service out there -- hell, including NVIDIA's just-launched GeForce NOW service into the mix.

Akira fans will remember the iconic and trend setting 1988 Japanese animated movie predicting that Tokyo would win the right to have the 2020 Olympics hosted in their country... but it gets freakier.

In a scene from the movie, there is a sign that encourages citizens to throw their support behind the 2020 Olympics to make it a success. But underneath the sign in the movie Akira, someone sprayed "Just cancel it!" underneath -- with the sign above noting "147 Days Until The Games".

Well, the Friday just gone (yesterday) was 147 days until the opening ceremony of the Tokyo 2020 Olympics -- which kicks off in July 24, 2020. Right now, 'Just Cancel It!' is trending on Japanese Twitter, putting Akira back into the spotlight with the recent news that the coronavirus outbreak might force the Tokyo 2020 Olympics to be canceled.

It feels like it was only a few days ago that Mobile World Congress (MWC) was canceled over coronavirus, and now another trade show has fallen victim to the disease: the Game Developers Conference (GDC).

The official GDC 2020 organizers have officially postponed the event, explaining that: "After close consultation with our partners in the game development industry and community around the world, we've made the difficult decision to postpone the Game Developers Conference this March".

The organizers continued: "Having spent the past year preparing for the show with our advisory boards, speakers, exhibitors, and event partners, we're genuinely upset and disappointed not to be able to host you at this time. We want to thank all our customers and partners for their support, open discussions and encouragement. As everyone has been reminding us, great things happen when the community comes together and connects at GDC. For this reason, we fully intend to host a GDC event later in the summer. We will be working with our partners to finalize the details and will share more information about our plans in the coming weeks".

Shadow Warrior 2 developer Flying Wild Hog has come out swinging in regards to teasing next-gen consoles, with a couple of new AAA games in development after they were acquired by Supernova Capital.

During an interview with Flying Wild Hog CEO Michal Szustak and Wccftech, it was unearthed that Szustak says getting to 60FPS on next-gen consoles is going to be "much easier". He's also, like me, an old school gamer and 60FPS gaming is important to him -- personally, I won't game at anything less than 60FPS minimum with the only exception in the last 20+ years being The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild on the Nintendo Switch.

During the interview, Szustak said: "So for us, since we do action games, we are super happy because it will be much easier to deliver 60 frames per second, obviously. I'm an old school gamer so 60FPS is important for me. So yeah, I'm super excited about it. In terms of difficulties with making the games, I think the new generation will be much more accessible".

Just as we're all enjoying the weekend, rumors of NVIDIA's next generation Ampere GPU have surfaced -- this time, teasing some basic specifications, purported performance, and more.

We know that NVIDIA's next-gen GPU architecture after Turing will be Ampere, and then Hopper -- with Ampere finding a new home on the 7nm node and offering some truly kick ass performance improvements as well as power efficiency. Pascal and Turing were already quite power efficient GPUs, but Ampere really amps things up... pun intended.

This is where Twitter user '_roggame' comes in, where he has discovered some Geekbench results for "two unknown NVIDIA GPUs". The first of which packs 7552 CUDA (so Ampere) cores, 118 compute units (CUs), GPU clock speeds of 1.11GHz and 24GB of memory. We could be looking at GDDR6 or HBM2/2e, that is not confirmed. The next one has 6912 CUDA cores, 180 compute units, and a GPU clock of 1.01GHz while it packs much more memory at 48GB.

Blizzard confirms some interesting new features coming to Diablo 4 on PC, including full controller support and total controller remapping/custom keybinding.

Diablo 4 is being developed for consoles and PC simultaneously, and Blizzard is going through great lengths to make the two versions as uniform as possible. This is actually the first time a Diablo game is getting made for two platforms at once--that could be both a good and bad thing.

It's only natural that the two platforms will share a lot of features in common, like being able to use a controller on both PC and consoles. There's also parity in aesthetic and UI design decisions. The inclusion of cross-platform controller support is affecting menu presentation, which is arguably one of the game's most important feature. For example, Diablo 4's skill menu is being designed so that it's controller-friendly, and a lot of the game's development decisions will center around compromising.