Death Stranding's peculiar and rather unique multiplayer won't be paygated behind PlayStation Plus.

Death Stranding's online multiplayer is pretty interesting. It's more of an indirect experience that lets you communicate, share, and help others...all without actually playing with them. The game has a shared world where you can drop items, gear, vehicles, and even help modify bases and build environment-changing structures like bridges. It's all about symbiosis, helping, and connecting with others.

Since there's no direct co-op or PVP action, Sony won't require PS Plus in order to play Death Stranding online. The news was outed from a GAME UK listing for the special edition Death Stranding PS4, whose box says "Death Stranding does not require PlayStation Plus." The North American box doesn't have this sticker, though.

The Last of Us Part II is a purely narrative-driven singleplayer game and won't have any sort of online multiplayer mode.

Unlike the first The Last of Us game, the sequel doesn't have multiplayer. This folds perfectly in with Sony's recent focus on singleplayer, system-selling exclusives, a trend that won't change even with the PlayStation 5 on the horizon.

"We're focusing on a single-player experience, so we're just making a single-player game for this," lead game designer Emilia Schatz told US Gamer.

It looks like Xbox One X consoles are struggling to handle Borderlands 3 in its current form, with players reporting (since launch I might add) that their consoles are overheating and shutting down while playing the game.

There are a bunch of people reporting this issue with 2K posting on the /r/XboxOne subreddit that it is aware of the issue, and the team is currently working on a fix. No date or time was announced, but at least 2K are aware of the issue.

How games launch this badly in 2019, is another question... however, plenty of comments on the Reddit post added that they have Xbox One X consoles and have no issues with Borderlands 3. On the other hand, some said that they experienced overheating issues with their Xbox One X shutting down to prevent further issues.

Prepare the salt shakers because this rumor is a doozy -- AMD's next-gen Zen 3 architecture reportedly features massive changes to its SMT capabilities that would enable 4 threads per core.

This means Zen 3 processors with 64 cores could have up to 256 threads, something that would be quite the leap from AMD compared to the current EPYC Rome CPUs with 64C/128T max. The 4 threads per core processors would be perfect for the data center and HPC markets, and would pave the way for gigantic performance improvements from all those threads.

4 cores per thread isn't exactly new, with IBM supporting it with its Power CPU architecture supporting a huge 8 execution threads per core. AMD would, however, be the first with 4 cores per thread on an x86 micro architecture.

Death Stranding is finished and off to manufacturing, with Hideo Kojima himself announcing on Twitter that Death Stranding has gone gold.

In the tweet, Kojima said it had been 3 years and 9 months since the doors at Kojima Productions opened, and he thanked Sony, Guerrilla, cast members, musicians, artists, staff, and fans for supporting him and the team behind Death Stranding.

Old school gamers are aware of what 'gone gold' means -- but if you don't, it means the game is in 'release quality'. This means everything that makes the game work is fully functional for you to boot it up, play it, and finish it. There will be niggly bugs to be fixed here and there, but a full playthrough of Death Stranding is now possible.

While it might not be the same feeling as playing on an actual table-top, its still extremely convenient to be able to play table-top games online with friends whenever you want. Dual Masters Play's is about to make very same transition.

Above we have the new announcement by companies Takara Tomy and DeNA for Dual Masters Play's arriving on both iOS and Android devices. The app will feature everything that the normal table-top game does plus some more features; deck building, custom character creation, single-player mode and appearances from legendary dualists such as hobu Kirifuda, Kyoshiro Kokujo, and Hakuoh.

For fans interested in jumping into the action via mobile, pre-registration is currently available to sign-up to here. It should be noted that there is a closed beta test that is planned from early October until October 24. Players should also note that there will only be 10,000 players selected from iOS and Android respectively, so if you really want to get into the beta sign-up ASAP.

Amazon have announced their first iteration of smart-jewelry, coming in the form of rings that allow users to take Alex anywhere.

Introducing Amazon's Alex-powered smart-ring wearable, The Echo Loop. From the above image, you can see that The Echo Loop is a thick-banded black ring. Its made out of titanium and has a tiny button located in the middle of the ring if you look close enough. According to Engadget who got to go hands-on with the new wearable, the Echo Loop requires users to press the small button to activate Alexa, and then users must raise their hand to the small microphone on the ring so the command can be heard.

Engadget's Nicole Lee said she felt like she was in a "goofy spy movie" as she would have to raise her had to her mouth to speak into the ring and then to her ear to hear the response. Lee also mentions that Echo Ring vibrates a little when Alexa is listening and whenever the user gets notifications. It is also detailed that the ring comes in four size variants; small, medium, large and extra large. Battery life isn't so good for the time being as Amazon says the ring will last about a single day before it needs charging. The Echo Loop retails for $130, for more information check out this link here.

Stick em up! Is exactly what you can say as either a joke to your kids or even seriously to an intruder that you spot in your house. Both of which are possible with Amazon's new Indoor and Stick Up Cam.

Amazon-owned company Ring has announced a new line of products at Amazon's annual hardware event. This year we are introduced to the new 'Cam' series of cameras, designed to apply a better level of security for users' homes. The new refresh of the 'Stick Up Cam' shoots in 1080p and has night vision as well as motion detection. It also has the ability to be solar, battery, or wired charged. Each of which have a different price point.

For people that are looking at spending less money on security cameras, Amazon and Ring offer the 'Indoor Cam. This camera is more budget friendly, but obviously can only be used indoors and is wired only. Moving onto pricing now, the Stick Up Cam Battery comes in at $99.99, the Stick Up Cam Plug-In sits at $99.99 and the Stick Up Cam Solar finishes up at $148.99. For the Indoor Cam variant it will only cost $59. For more information head on over to the Ring website here.

Creative Assembly just announced the next Total War Saga game and this time round players will be heading to mythological realm of TROY.

Above we have the Campaign Map reveal which introduces us to basic layout of what players can expect when entering the games campaign. The narrator explains the premise for the campaign and describes the events that eventually lead into a siege that once stopped the world.

Paris and his older brother Hector, who are both princes of Troy travelled to Sparta to make peace with the country. While there, Paris fell in love with King Menelaus' wife, and since Menelaus treated her so badly she ran away with Paris back to Troy.

Netflix has blessed its hungry viewers with the brand new full trailer for El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie. The upcoming TV show starts moments after the events of Breaking Bad.

Firstly, if you haven't seen Breaking Bad and you are thinking about watching this TV show you have already made a mistake. Binge watch Breaking Bad and I promise you that you won't regret it. Anyway, El Camino begins right after the events of the final episode of Breaking Bad and follows the story of the distressed and slowly recovering Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul).

From the above trailer, we can see that Jesse is on the run from the police and seeks refuge at his old drug deals house Skinny Pete. He is dirty, tired, emotionally torn in two, panicked and his friends seem extremely concerned for him. The trailer actually doesn't show off anymore than that, as a good trailer should do. El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie will release on Netflix on October 11th. In other news about the upcoming movie, it has been reported that the film will feature 10 cameo characters from Breaking Bad, more on that here.

NASA has issued out a new visualization that illustrates to viewers how a black hole warps its surroundings. The image is located below.

Above we have the image released by NASA, and they explain that we can see where the black holes extreme gravitational pull has managed to pull in large amounts of matter that form into a thin structure called an accretion disk. It is also detailed that due to the black holes gravitational pull that light cannot even escape its draw, skewing the rays from all different directions and resulting in the strange shape we observe.

Closest to the center of the black hole is gas which form knots that and dissipate and re-form as the accretion disks magnetic fields change. At the bottom center of the black hole we can see what is called a "photon-ring" which is composed of multiple rings of light that have been bent. These rings will grow progressively fainter as time goes on due to the light circling the black hole many times and eventually not being able to reach our eyes. Here is the first-ever image of real-life black hole.

Two new studies have been published by UT Southwestern and have shown evidence towards an artificial intelligence (AI) being able to determine whether antidepressants work on select patients.

With depression being a rampant disease in this day and age, scientists are working around the clock to counteract its widespread effects. The team out of UT Southwestern have used an AI to identify patterns of brain activity that allow them to determine whether or not an individual patient is responsive to certain antidepressants. This evidence suggests that if scientists can accurately scan patients brain activity they could be able to pinpoint whether or not the medication that has been prescribed to them is effective or not.

The complications that the team underwent is the fact that depression is extremely hard to pinpoint, as it can exist in various states of the brain. This makes it hard to get an accurate representation of how it manifests per patient and requires researchers to scan the brain in different states, eg emotion induced/resting. Dr. Madhukar Trivedi, founding Director of UT Southwestern's Center for Depression Research and Clinical Care said "Depression is a complex disease that affects people in different ways. Much like technology can identify us through fingerprints and facial scans, these studies show we can use imaging to identify specific signatures of depression in people."

The Soyuz 61 crew recently took off from Earths surface yesterday, and upon arrival at the International Space Station (ISS) a crew member of the ISS snapped this awesome picture.

NASA astronaut Jessica Meir, Russian cosmonaut Oleg Skripochka and United Arab Emirates spaceflight participant Hazza AlMansoori launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on September 25th. It wasn't long before they were to join the ISS crew of six that has been living and conducting experiments aboard the flying lab/observatory. Jessica Meir was on route to join her best-friend and classmate Christina Koch and upon Meirs arrival Koch snapped this incredible picture.

"What it looks like from @Space_Station when your best friend achieves her lifelong dream to go to space". She continued and explained what the image is of "Caught the second stage in progress! We can't wait to welcome you onboard, crew of Soyuz 61!" Meir and Skripochka will stay on board the ISS until February next year, while AlMansoori will return back to Earth in just week since he is just a spaceflight participant.

Amazon has revealed yesterday during their annual hardware event that a line of updates will soon be hitting Alexa's worldwide.

These updates bring new features to the virtual assistant which ultimately allows users to adopt the iconic voice of Samuel L. Jackson. Users can purchase two versions of Jackson's voice, one explicit and the other non-explicit, both will just be $0.99.

You are probably wondering how Amazon got hold of every voice line possible by Jackson. Well its not like he stood there and said everything possible into a recording Alexa, instead Amazon used neural text-to-speed technology to replicate his voice. Since the replication is being sold you can assume that it would be pretty damn close to the original, which makes me think that Jackson is just the first celebrity voice to hit the Alexa market.

Microsoft has just released two new Xbox bundles with new Xbox One S and Xbox One X bundles including a copy of Forza Horizon 4, as well as the new DLC for its Lego Speed Championship.

The new Xbox One S bundle will cost $300 while the Xbox One X bundle costs $500 -- both of them will include 1 month of Xbox Live Gold and the Xbox Game Pass, as well as an additional Xbox One controller.

Microsoft's new Xbox One X 1TB Console - Forza Horizon 4 LEGO Speed Champions Bundle (1TB) includes the full-game download of Forza Horizon 4 with the new LEGO Speed Champions add-on, not the physical copy of Forza Horizon 4.

Sony opens up a new online storefront to sell console hardware, accessories, and games, putting even more pressure on retailers like GameStop.

Sony just opened up a new store that lets you buy PlayStation games, hardware, and peripherals directly from them. Sony is offering slight MSRP savings on console bundles, but you won't save on any games. There's a PS4 + PS Plus bundle for $339, and a PS4 Pro + PS Plus bundle for $429 (All in all these are meager discounts). Sony's store offers two shipping methods; a 2-business day free option, or 1-day express shipping for $10. PlayStation Plus subscribers get free express shipping on every order.

Overall this isn't exciting news, but it has some serious far-reaching effects. Sony is using the store to gear up for its next-gen PlayStation 5 in 2020, and we'll see exclusive promotions, offers, and discounts on the store.

Respawn today announced Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond, its new VR shooter originally teased way back in 2017.

Titanfall VR isn't happening after all. Respawn's AAA VR shooter is a Medal of Honor adaptation centered in World War II, and promises to deliver authenticity and immersion via the Oculus platform. Above and Beyond takes players to various battles and theaters of war across Europe, and even tosses in some unique physics systems to enable realistic carnage.

Players can catch grenades mid-air and throw them back at enemies, toss knives, interact with the environment like climbing chains, ladders, walls, and even pulling a grenade pin with your teeth, operate tanks, and of course shoot a wide array of guns straight out of the brutal world conflict. You can even swim. The spatial head and body tracking will allow more freedom in VR, and Respawn wants to capture all the possibilities that Oculus VR has to offer.

Oculus' new Oculus Link tech merges lets Quest owners play Rift games through a single USB-C cable.

Today Oculus announced Oculus Link, a new feature that effectively transforms the $399 all-in-one Oculus Quest headset into a PC-powered Rift headset. Using Oculus Link software and a single USB Type-C cable, Quest owners can connect directly to a gaming PC and play dedicated Rift games on the headset.

Oculus Link effectively makes the Quest into a mobile-tethered hybrid that can switch at will (and also effectively phases out the Rift).

Nintendo puts a $5 a month subscription in its new free-to-play, lootbox-ridden Mario Kart Tour mobile game. Yes, really.

Nintendo's tried a lot of strategies with its mobile games. First it tried free-to-start with Super Mario Run, which let you play a portion of the game for free and pay to unlock the rest. This failed. Then they did traditional free-to-play with aggressive gacha-style microtransactions with games like Fire Emblem Heroes. This caught like wildfire.

Now Nintendo is trying to sell in-game subscriptions within its free-to-play mobile games, paygating content behind a recurring subscription.

BioWare just moved to a more spacious three-story, 75,000 square foot office in Edmonton, and it could help heal the studio's significant internal turmoil.

BioWare's in a rut. In fact, it's been in this rut since it shipped Dragon Age: Inquisition in 2014, a game which fundamentally changed how the studio operates. BioWare never got out of the harsh, grueling crunch that Inquisition demanded, slowly eroding team confidence and morale with years of mismanagement while tanking big-budget games like Mass Effect: Andromeda, and its new failed IP Anthem. Work on Anthem got so bad that developers indicated depression and anxiety were now endemic to BioWare; rather than a bastion of RPGs, it was now a black hole that pushed some people so hard they had to take medical leave to recuperate from stress overload.

Now with new leadership under Casey Hudson and a new change of scenery, BioWare may have a shot at recovery. The company just moved into a huge new three-story office in the EPCOR Tower in downtown Edmonton that's designed specifically for games development.