Latest News - Page 1810

Ubisoft takes a risk by over-monetizing Ghost Recon Breakpoint, effectively experimenting to see how far its live service plan can go.

Pretty much every aspect of Breakpoint is monetized. Gamers can simply pay real money to circumvent key parts of the grind. It has clear pay-to-win microtransations that let gamers pay real money for skill boosts, weapon attachments, blueprints, and upgrades, crafting materials, EXP boosters--you can even buy in-game cash to fuel your grind. You name it, it can be bought.

Time-savers, cosmetics, upgrades and more are locked behind a Ghost Coins premium currency that can only be bought with real money. Ghost Coins can't be earned in the game. Conversion rates are about $4.99 for 600 Ghost Coins and range up to $79.99 for 12,000 Ghost Coins. Weapon bundles are priced at roughly $10 when converted from GC to USD, whereas attachment bundles are around $30 or so. That's a lot of cash.

Destiny 2 players on PC can't jump in right away, unlike their console counterparts.

Even if you pre-loaded Destiny 2 on Steam and grabbed the big new Shadowkeep expansion, you still can't dive right into the game. There's one extra step you have to wait a few hours to complete: unpacking. Steam has to unpack and sort out all the data you downloaded, and it's a time-consuming process.

Once 1PM EST rolled around, I excitedly clicked PLAY on Destiny 2's Steam button, only to be met by a 3 hour "Preparing to Launch Destiny 2" timer. Did I miss a download? No...the massive 1TB of Destiny data was locked in and pre-downloaded on my hard drive. Was there another update? No, not exactly. Checking Steam's download page, I saw the data was getting unpacked. Steam wasn't actually downloading anything from Bungie.

Sony lowers PlayStation Now's monthly price down to $10 to make more attractive against competing services like Xbox Game Pass.

PlayStation Now has changed a lot over the years, and now it's changing even more. Sony is taking key plays from Microsoft's Game Pass playbook: not only has PS Now dropped to $9.99 a month, the service will rotate new games in and out every month. Starting in October we'll see big hits like God of War and GTA V arrive on PlayStation Now, letting gamers sample titles for a month (it's worth noting the PS Now PC subscription has different games than the PS4).

Sony's service combines the best of both worlds. It's a combination of Project xCloud's and Stadia's cloud-streaming and Game Pass, letting users play games remotely from Sony's servers or download them directly for dedicated console play. The selection goes all the way back to the 2000s era and includes more than 800 games from PS2 to PS4.

It isn't just Arnold Schwarzenegger that's playable in the new Mortal Kombat 11 character pass--the terrifying metallic T-800 endoskeleton is too.

The Terminator is coming to Mortal Kombat 11, complete with Arnold's face and body from the new Terminator: Dark Fate movie. But there's also a nice surprise: the T-800's skin can burn off, letting you play as the fearsome iconic metallic skeleton straight from the movies. The endoskeleton's moveset is also slightly different and less athletic than Arnold's, delivering more powerful swipes and mechanical smashes. There's also a ton of different skins lifted right from the movies.

The fatality is the best part of the entire reveal. The victim gets transported to the dark sci-fi future hellscape of a post-Skynet world and is completely obliterated by other T-800s. Now all we need is an entire game set in this 80s-tastic skull-filled world. Maybe the new Terminator shooter will deliver?

Zynga, the creators of the immensely popular Farmville, Draw Something and Zynga Poker have admitted to a data breach that has exposed 200 million accounts personal information.

A statement has recently been issued out by Zynga addressing the cyber attacks and it says that cyber attacks are "one of the unfortunate realities of doing business today." The statement also says that the company recently became aware that a "certain player account information" was possibly "illegally" acquired by "outside hackers".

Zynga has also said that they have launched an immediate investigate to how this hack occured and to assist them in their investigation they have brought in an outside forensic team. It is believed that no financial information was stolen throughout this hack and just "account information" was exposed. If you play any of the apps that fall under Zynga's massive umbrella I would advise you to change your passwords as soon as possible.

Earlier this month Blizzard dropped the news that Overwatch would soon be heading over to the Nintendo Switch. While that has certainly got many Nintendo Switch fans happy, the Super Smash Bros. Ultimate community has put their speculation caps on for potential future fighters.

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is the biggest game on the Nintendo Switch, so it would make sense for one of Blizzard heroes to make an appearance in the representative fighter, especially now that Overwatch is coming over to the handheld console. I'm not the only one who thinks this either, as Principal Game Producer Wes Yanagi said to GameStop that "As a player and big fan of [Smash], I think that would be awesome. It would be an honor if Nintendo chose to bring one of our characters into Smash Bros."

During Nintendo's September Direct they announced that after the initial Fighters Pass that they would be planning on releasing more DLC fighters to make Super Smash Bros. Ultimate the most ultimate Smash game ever. Could some heroes from Overwatch be included in this future Fighters Pass? At the moment there is no leaks or rumors suggesting as such, but I think it would be an incredible idea if Nintendo and Blizzard managed to pull it off.

A new deal has been announced between legendary console creator Atari and Antstream to bring "thousands" of retro titles to the Atari VCS when it launches.

The new deal will be bring optimized and expanded versions of Antstream's Arcade game subscription service exclusively to the VCS when it debuts. Users that pick up Atari's new console will have access to Atari's own personal library of 300+ titles as well as "thousands" of more titles from other vintage platforms.

Not only does the Antstream service bring users a plethora of more games, but it also includes a global leaderboard ranking system, social challenges and support for the classic joystick and modern controllers. The service will be provided to players as a subscription that users can opt into, it will cost either $10 a month or $96 a year to access the massive library of games. For more information head on over to the official website here.

With The Pirate Bay being the home to many illegal torrents and file sharing methods, Facebook has lodged an all out war against any links directed to the website.

According to TorrentFreak who noticed the update to Facebook, Pirate Bay related links were blocked from being sent from one Facebook account to another. But now in an effort from social media companies to crack down on the distribution of copyrighted content, Facebook has blocked the sharing of any links that are directed to the Pirate Bay in timeline posts or in chat messages.

This newly released blockade carries over to Facebook Messenger as well, and if a link is attempted to be shared among users this message will come up in the chat: "You can't share this link. Your post couldn't be shared, because this link goes against our Community Standards." This isn't the first time The Pirate Bay has been blocked by Facebook, ten years ago the site only prevented people from linking to torrent pages, but now users can't even link to its landing home page.

Scientists have been observing our solar system for quite some time now, and throughout their observations we have noticed some space objects affected by strange gravitational pulls.

While there are many different theories for why these space objects have had their trajectory affected by an anonymous gravitational pulls, a new theory has suggested that there could be an primordial black hole (PBH) located somewhere in our solar system. This black hole wouldn't be like the one that is located at the heart of our Milky Way Galaxy, as that black hole is a 'supermassive' one.

If there is a black hole hiding out somewhere in our solar system it would only be around five centimeters in radius, but still have five times Earth's mass. Due to the black holes size and gravitational pulling power, Astronomers Jakub Scholtz of Durham University and James Unwin of University of Illinois at Chicago believe that it could be located much closer than we originally think. The paper suggests that instead of thinking that there is a mysterious Planet Nine effecting the space objects, that this PBH could be the answer astronomers have been looking at for years.

NetherRealm Studios has taken to their official Twitter page to tease fans of the Terminator T-800 gameplay that is to be released extremely soon.

Back in late August the full official roster for Mortal Kombat 11's Kombat Pack was revealed and players were introduced to a massive cast of awesome characters to look forward to. One of those characters was Arnold Schwarzenegger's Terminator T-800, and while the design of the character is most definitely based off the famous movies, the voice acting unfortunately won't be done by Arnie.

Above we have the teaser video released onto the official Mortal Kombat Twitter page, it showcases the Terminators targeting system locking onto various Mortal Kombat characters such as Erron Black and Baraka. It says closer to the end of the video the release date for Terminator will be on October 8th, which coincides with what was originally announced back in August.

A new trailer has been released onto the PlayStation Europe YouTube Channel revealing a brand new indie title called Arise: A Simple Story.

Above we have the announcement trailer and from the video we can see that the title is published by Dying Light 2 developer Techland and is developed by Spanish studio Piccolo. The games premise seems to reflect that of what human life is like, an emotional struggle with many ups and downs that eventually results in us dying. Arise: A Simple Story begins right after our hero has died, and players will follow him as he travels through various memories from his long life which are represented by the different seasons.

The video's description says that "Arise is an emotional journey through the bittersweet lives of two people where memories come alive and time bends to your will". Players will relive his life's story which is a "story of joy and sorrow. A simple story." It should also be noted that the games soundtrack sounds absolutely incredible, this is because it's composed by David Garcia who composed the also incredible soundtracks for Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice and RiME.

NASA has announced that they are now funding more than a dozen technology projects that could assist with their future plans of landing back on the Moon and Mars.

The funding is sourced from NASA's Artemis Program which plans on landing humans back on the Moon by 2024. According to Jim Reuter, associate administrator of NASA's Space Technology Mission Directorate, "These are important technologies necessary for sustained exploration of the moon and Mars. These promising technologies are at a 'tipping point' in their development, meaning NASA's investment is likely the extra push a company needs to significantly mature a capability."

Some of the companies that are lucky enough to be able to receive the funding are Amazon owner, Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin which is focussing on cryogenic technology. NASA will be giving Blue Origin the largest chunk of money to test out a new way of cooling hydrogen and oxygen into liquid fuel. The eventual hopes of Blue Origin is to be able to establish and design a new system that can produce fuel on the moon based on this technology.

Sony is ramping up production of the PlayStation 5, so it makes sense that we're hearing about features ahead of time -- one of which will be an AI-powered in-game assistant called PlayStation Assist.

David Ahmad noticed the new patent, which sees Sony filing for an AI-powered voice assistant that lets you "input a query and then the game will dynamically respond". This means you could ask the game where the closest health pack is, and then it'll mark it on your map. Interesting, to say the least.

While most gamers won't use this feature on the PlayStation 5, I can see it being handy for the more casual players. Another thing is that if this is a feature built into the PS5, what other AI-powered features are we going to see?

Apex Legends is about to have its meta completely flipped upside down with the latest hero Crypto, with EA flying out a bunch of content creators to LA recently to play around with the new character, new map in World's Edge, and Season 3 as a whole.

IGN actually had someone competent with Apex Legends playing in the video above, with 6 hours of hands-on experience with Crypto and Season 3 of Apex Legends. Crypto's new abilities are broken down and explained in IGN's piece, with the aerial drone set to change the game and make Crypto a valuable player to any 3-man squad.

Crypto's drone can be flung out and flown by pressing Q as his tactical ability, which will then be controlled by you and your character in the game stays stationary. So you better be hiding when you are playing Crypto and use your drone, which will hover in the air when it's not being used and will passively spot enemies for you and your teammates.

Another article I thought I'd never have to write, but here I am -- PUBG Corp. has made some changes to PUBG with the v4.3 update last week, something that included Halloween skins, and more.

The new update introduced the new Survival Mystery system, changes to the shotgun -- but it's the Halloween skins that has made the biggest mess. A load of skins included a lion skin, which when dropping into the game its tail resembles a penis... yeah, you can see that in the shot above.

It seems PUBG Corp. prematurely unleashed the Battlegrounds 4.3 update, as the Leo Jumpsuit let you rock out with your tail out as a lion. PUBG Support tweeted out: "Please be aware that the "Leo Jumpsuit" is temporarily unavailable for purchase as we work to resolve an issue related to this skin. Any players who have already purchased the skin will have their BP refunded".

Microsoft's new Flight Simulator is one of my most anticipated games of 2020, and now the hype meter for it just went up a few notches. First, check out this video -- and second, below I'll write about how amazing this game sounds.

Gorgeous, isn't it? But it's not just pretty -- it is smart underneath, too. Microsoft is using Bing Maps data to populate the world of Flight Simulator with real-life locations, including living elements like trees, traffic, wildlife, running water, and even real-time and real-world weather. If it's raining in Los Angeles and you want to take off from LAX, you can have the real-time weather from LA and fly through it.

Microsoft is using the cloud to do most of this magic with the company calling it "adaptive streaming" which sees parts of Flight Simulator rendered, and streamed to your PC from the cloud. This means that the better your internet connection, the better and more detailed the game will be.

Shawn Layden is stepping down as CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment, Sony today announced.

After five years of leading Sony's PlayStation division and guiding its first-party games, Shawn Layden is moving on. From Sony's official announcement it sounds like Layden is leaving the company altogether, but the exec has yet to give a statement. "It is with great emotion that we announce that Worldwide Studios Chairman Shawn Layden will be departing SIE," Sony said on Twitter. "His visionary leadership will be greatly missed. We wish him success in future endeavors and are deeply grateful for his years of service."

Layden's departure comes at an interesting time. Sony is rumored to reveal its next-gen PlayStation 5 console at an event in February, possibly with a fleet of games in tow.

Nintendo's Brain Age series is coming to Switch, but it's only been announced in Japan so far.

Brain Age is making a return on the Nintendo Switch, complete with math puzzles, cognitive training exercises, and critical thinking drills. The game has multiple modes for mini-games including local two-player action at home or on the go. The JoyCon sensors can pick up your hand signals for rock, paper, scissors, and you can detach a JoyCon and hand it to a friend for Tabletop Mode multiplayer.

The new Brain Age is also compatible with a stylus, becoming the second Switch game to incorporate native stylus-powered touchscreen controls, further cementing the 3DS' retirement. You can turn the Switch vertically too for logic puzzles, math problems, and even a rudimentary piano game. You can even send messages from your Switch to players on mobile, too.

Stranger Things won't end any time soon, and Netflix will keep the series alive with new seasons and even movies.

Netflix today announced Stranger Things 4 and signed a big multi-year deal with The Duffer Brothers to expand the franchise. Netflix not only ordered new seasons past season 4, but also new films set in the beloved sci-fantasy universe. A new teaser for Stranger Things 4 takes us to the upside-down, and strongly hints the show will eventually move outside of Hawkins, possibly with new characters and perspectives.

No information on a season 4 release date was confirmed, and we're not sure what original cast members will return (likely all of them).

Norman Reedus' funky fetus friend will use DualShock 4 controller speakers to make spooky contact as you play.

As if Death Stranding couldn't get any weirder, the game will transmit baby sounds through your DualShock 4. Hideo Kojima confirmed BB (aka Bridge Baby, aka Norman Reedus' funky fetus) will routinely communicate with you as you play, providing valuable live feedback and fueling gameplay in a rather disconcerting way.

A huge portion of the game revolves around maintaining your tank baby and keeping it stress-free. That means paying close attention to what kinds of sounds it's making and checking up on your BB's health. Not only does BB help you spot terrifying Beached Things, it acts as a kind of battery to power vital life support tech as you explore the world.