Latest News - Page 1880

From the producer of the legendary Castlevania series we finally have Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night. The title is launched and is available for purchase and download right now.

Back in 2015, we learned of a kickstarter campaign for Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night. The campaign was more than successful, raising around 5.5 million from fans. The game which has been developed by Koji Igarashi, one of the producers of the Castlevania series and renowned godfathers of the side-scrolling vania genre. Unfortunately, the title experienced many development delays over the course of 4 years as Igarashi was searching for perfection, and now has finally launched out of nowhere.

Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night is a spiritual successor of the Castlevania series and will continue the legacy of franchise with its in-depth side-scrolling RPG action. Players will be able to experience "vast and deep gameplay" in the variety of unlocking spells, powers, character customization, crafting weapons and many upgradeables. Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night is available now on PC, Xbox One, and PS4. The Nintendo Switch version of the game will launch next week on June 25th. Here is the games Steam listing.

Nintendo informed us before E3 2019 that they would not be having any hardware announcements during their presentation, but that doesn't mean rumors aren't still kicking around about a Nintendo Switch Mini follow-up system.

According to Twitter user Daniel Ahmad, a Chinese gaming company has contacted him regarding Nintendo Switch Mini accessories. While Nintendo hasn't officially announced any new hardware, it is quite peculiar that a gaming accessories company would be making accessories for a console that technically doesn't exist yet.

In the above Tweet Ahmad says that this isn't a strange thing for Chinese companies to do, and has been done before. We can also see that the company has even gone ahead and created renders of not only the accessories they are creating but also the Nintendo Switch Mini system itself. To reiterate, this doesn't mean that Nintendo are officially launching a new system, this is merely a rumor at this stage and before any assumptions are made an official announcement will be needed before any confirming is done.

Grand Theft Auto 6 is very likely in development at Rockstar games for next-gen consoles, and the team could pare about singleplayer focus in favor of GTA Online expansion.

All evidence shows GTA 6 is being made right now. Rockstar parent company Take-Two Interactive strongly hinted as much in its recent financials, confirming the upcoming pipeline is "the strongest in our history." R&D spending is also up to $230 million, more than it's ever been in the last five years. Take-Two's cooking something up and Rockstar is probably in the kitchen.

So what can we expect from GTA 6? If GTA V is any indicator, we'll get served a larger-than-life campaign mode that leverages the full power of next-gen consoles like Sony's PlayStation 5 and Microsoft's new Project Scarlett. There should be a strong emphasis on graphics, NPC AI, absolute insane physics, open-world exploration, and shocking humor. But insofar as content, GTA 6 could actually be lacking compared to its predecessor, which also seemed to dial things back compared to GTA IV. The reason why? GTA Online.

Bethesda Game Studios like Fallout 4 take a long time to make. That's actually by design and it's not going to change any time soon.

Bethesda might be launching new games in 2019, but none of them are from its internal BGS studio. It's two new "big and crazy projects" Starfield, Bethesda's new space opera IP, and The Elder Scrolls VI are both still a ways off. This snail's pace is part of Bethesda's ethos and seems to follow Shigeru Miyamoto's legendary quote: "a delayed game is eventually good, but a rushed game is forever bad." So how does Bethesda explain Fallout 76?

Fallout 76's disastrous launch notwithstanding, studio director Todd Howard says he'd rather have a smaller team of talented devs take longer than cram too many people on a project and rush it out. In a recent interview with IGN, Howard discusses how BGS makes its games and what kinds of decisions go into the long and arduous journey that is making games like Fallout and The Elder Scrolls.

Capcom is beta testing Monster Hunter World's massive new Iceborne expansion, and PS Plus subscribers get first access.

Starting this Friday, June 21 at 6AM EST and ending on Monday, June 24 at 6AM EST, PlayStation Plus users can jump in and try out Iceborne's wintry wonderland of megalithic monsters for free. A second free beta test will be held for all PS4 gamers the following weekend on June 28 through July 1. Gamers won't need to own Monster Hunter World's base version to participate, and Capcom will open up pre-loading soon.

Capcom promises Iceborne will be quite titanic in size and scope. The DLC, which retails for $40, will rival the full game insofar as content, quests, and new additions. It's not just an update, but a fully-fledged expansion complete with new monsters like the frost dragon Velkhana (and some old ones like the Nargacuga), weapons, regions to explore.

PlatinumGames makes some of the best action games in the industry, so you'd think they'd be excited about the next-gen PS5 and Project Scarlett consoles. But studio boss Atsushi Inaba isn't that thrilled. The high-powered duo is just more of the same, he says.

Both Sony's next-gen PlayStation 5 and Microsoft's Project Scarlett are powerhouses for next-gen gaming. Armed with custom AMD chips outfitted with Zen 2 CPUs and Navi GPUs, the consoles will leverage high-end processing power to push 4K (and even 8K), 120FPS, and dramatically boosted performance. But to developers like PlatinumGames, these specs are just numbers. There's really nothing unique to be found in either box.

PlatinumGames boss Atsushi Inaba admits next-gen consoles will be good for gamers (especially their super-fast SSDs likely enabled by PCI 4.0 tech). "It's OK. And by that I mean, I'm sure that things will move faster, graphics will be better and maybe it will be easier with less wait times... that's good for the consumer," Inaba told VideoGame Chronicle.

On the heels of its 1996 MS-DOS shooter SkyNet, Bethesda made a sequel that let you play through the perspective of the deadly T-800.

Earlier today I commented on the marked lack of new Terminator games. The titanium tyrant is finding its way into a bunch of new games including Gears of War 5, Ghost Recon Breakpoint, and possibly even Mortal Kombat 11...but won't star in a game of its own. But back in the day anyone could make a game based off of John Cameron's epic duology--it was a Wild West for Terminator games--and Bethesda had something unique planned.

In a recent interview with IGN, Bethesda Games Studios' Todd Howard gave some history to the studio's short-lived run with the franchise. Bethesda made two Terminator games--Future Shock in 1995 and SkyNet in 1996--during a time when no one actually owned the rights to the franchise. It was incredibly advantageous for the team and gave them lots of freedom.

During Nintendo's E3 2019 presentation we learned that the rumors were true and that CD Projekt Red's Witcher 3: Wild Hunt will be coming to the Nintendo Switch. Now some more information has been released regarding the port.

According Twitter user Wario64, the Nintendo Switch version of the game won't be having a day one download if the title is purchased in the physical format. The game will be shipping on a 32GB cartridge and contain the entirety of the game, including both the DLC's: Heart of Stone and Blood and Wine.

The physical package also contains a compendium, map and many stickers. The port for Wild Hunt will be played at 540p on the Nintendo Switch in hand held mode, and docked the game will be bumped up to 720p. The pre-order for The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt can be found on Amazon for $60, a link is located here.

The next Alien video game won't be Alien: Isolation 2, but a MMO-style shooter from a small San Jose-based studio called Cold Iron.

A new Alien game is in the works but it could resemble something like Destiny instead of the ultra-creepy and clastrophobic horror of Alien Isolation. The game hasn't officially been announced, but was confirmed back in 2018 as a massively multiplayer online shooter for consoles and PC built with Unreal Engine 4. This year saw Alien: Blackout, a new mobile game that continued Ellen Ripley's story, and now Cold Iron's new MMO could deliver an action-packed survival power fantasy set around the 1986 Aliens film.

There's just one problem: the game probably isn't close to being finished. Cold Iron Studios is currently hiring for multiple key positions to help work on the game. At the time of writing, Cold Iron Studios has 22 job openings that were posted on June 13, eight of which are for lead and senior roles. As these jobs are filled we should see Cold Iron ramp up development on the project in earnest.

Nintendo has issued out the newest firmware update for their Nintendo Switch system. Don't worry, nothing major has been changed, in fact barely anything has been changed at all.

Nintendo has brought up the Nintendo Switch version to 8.1.0 and this time round The Big N hasn't added any new features, new additions or software to the system. Instead we just have "General system stability improvements to enhance the user's experience" which is quite standard to say the least.

It isn't really surprising that this system update is a small one considering the version 8.0.0 was a massive update filled with a bunch of new features and improvements, more information on that here. If you want to read up on the previous system updates, visit the official Nintendo website here.

If you were following this years E3 2019 presentation regarding Microsoft's Age of Empires franchise you would of probably noticed that no new Age of Empires IV news was revealed. Instead, it has been scheduled in for later this year.

If you didn't know, Relic Entertainment are developing Age of Empires IV and while there has been radio silence on the title for about two years now Microsoft hasn't forgotten about it. In an interview with PC Gamer, Microsoft's Executive VP of Gaming, Phil Spencer dicussed the relationship with Relic and the progression of the game. Starting off strong, Spencer said that Microsoft will "talk about it more this year" and that "we're making good progress with it."

Spencer touches on their relationship with Relic, saying "Relic's great as a studio" and that "They did the best job of, 'here's what we think Age should go to". Spencer also says that they as a company are "learning a lot revisiting Age 1, and Age 2. Those communities continue to exist, and they have large player bases, and there's a lot of feedback". So it seems Microsoft and Relic are teaming up and combining their knowledge bases with player feedback, to bring the best experience to Age of Empires IV as possible.

So you think you are pretty good at Mortal Kombat 11, you enjoy spilling blood, guts and despair on your enemies. Well, its time to kick it up a notch then isn't it? Welcome to the Kombat League, play at your own will.

Its time to put the story and AI aside for a moment and dive into some real action in Mortal Kombat 11's newly announced Kombat League. Developer NetherRealm Studios has announced the new mode which is basically their version of ranked seasonal play. Players will have four weeks to attempt to climb their way from the starting rank of apprentice and eventually working their way to the top to achieve Elder God status.

As expected, winning matches elevates players closer to their next rank. Climbing ranks will reward players will exclusive cosmetic rewards that can only be acquired from that specific season of Kombat League. Players will also be rewarded at the end of the season based on their highest climbed ranked. Meaning that if you start off going really well and climb nice and high in the ranks, then go on a loose streak and fall back down, you won't be rewarded on your current position, instead you will be rewarded on your highest achieved rank. Mortal Kombat 11's Kombat League 'Season of Blood' begins tomorrow on June 18.

Cyberpunk 2077 easily took the spotlight at this years E3, and gamers alike cannot wait to dive into the massive world created by CD Projekt RED. What about the ending though?

At E3 2019, YongYea managed to sit down with CD Projekt RED's Mateusz Tomaszkiewicz, the quest director for Cyberpunk 2077 to ask him a series of popular community questions regarding the title. One of the questions that were asked was aimed at the games ending, and if there would be multiple endings that would be determined by the players choices earlier in the game, the short answer - yes.

Tomaskiewicz also touches on the multiple ways players will be able to go about playing the game. An example of this would be if a player wanted to not use any cybernetic augmentations for their character, and instead want to progress through the game as humanly as possible. Tomaskiewicz says this example is completely doable if a player so chooses. It seems that whatever choices players make through progressing through Cyberpunk 2077 will have butterfly effects on the games ending, which means every choice is pivotal and also that Cyberpunk 2077 will have some decent replay value. Cyberpunk 2077 is launching on the Xbox One, PS4 and PC next year in April.

During E3 2019, Bandai Namco revealed their new Dragon Ball title that is currently in the works, Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot. We have now learned that while Kakarot won't be a traditional open world game it will still have large diverse environments.

According to a recent interview with Dualshockers, Bandai Namco's producer and director of Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot, Hara Ryosuke and Kimoto Kazuki, respectively, discussed Kakarots world design and what players can expect from the title. Ryosuke mentioned that Kakarot won't be a traditional open-world experience, but instead will take players to extremely wide and expansive areas or zones. Within these zones players will experience pivotal parts of Goku's story.

Here is what Ryosuke said exactly "I kind of want to mention I don't think this is a true open world in the way we've kind of come to understand the definition of an open world today. There are several very large and wide expansive areas or zones if you will where you can experience different sagas of the Goku story. They'll be unlocked as you progress through the narrative."

Remedy was at E3 2019 showing off its upcoming game Control, with the RTX version of the game powered by NVIDIA GeForce RTX graphics cards looking absolutely beautiful with all of its ray tracing technology on display.

The developer was using all of the RTX tools inside of Control including reflections, contact shadows, diffuse global illumination, and transparent reflections. Even with it enabled, the game was pretty damn steady at 60FPS -- something I can personally attest to, seeing it running on GeForce RTX hardware on the floors of E3 2019.

Unlike DSOGaming, I know what speccs were powering the RTX-enabled versions of Control but alas, I cannot tell you what was inside. The graphics cards inside were SUPER powerful, let's just say that. The effects, I spent a good 15-20 minutes slowly enabling and disabling them and was able to notice so many little details that RTX adds to the game increasing the immersion much more than it seems on photos and YouTube videos.

Amazon's ambitious gaming roadmap has been disrupted as it pivots away from certain projects, leading to mass layoffs.

Due to issues and complications with its internal Lumberyard games development engine, Amazon has cancelled another major PC game project and plans to fire dozens of employees, both Kotaku and The Wall Street Journal report. Sources familiar with Amazon's games business say its proprietary Lumberyard Engine isn't yet flexible enough to facilitate efficient development of specific multiplayer games, leading to at least one unannounced project being canned, and brings to mind BioWare's monumental woes with re-tooling DICE's Frostbite engine to play nicely with RPGs.

These development issues could also be he culprit behind recent shake-ups and firings. Amazon Game Studios says it's committed to delivering its ambitious New World MMO as well as other projects, and the re-organizations will allow it to streamline development.

Like most service games who dare not shake the lootbox tree of doom, the new Avengers game will have optional cosmetic microtransactions.

Just as we predicted long ago, Avengers is a live service game that'll be monetized with vanity items. Gamers will be able to spend real money to unlock character skins to customize their character's appearance. We should expect to see a massive collection of skins to buy and earn in-game, ranging from the full breadth of Marvel's Avengers comics--from classic old-school outfits and clunky Iron Man suits to sleek, modern-day attire.

Avengers having cosmetic mTX should've been fairly obvious. It's a live service game with four-player online co-op that'll deliver free updates over time. That pretty much told us everything we need to know and spells out microtransactions. The entire reason these games are made is to rake in more money over time via engagement and paid in-game content for the trade off of free updates over time.

Nintendo recently confirmed a Breath of the Wild sequel is in the works, which Eiji Aonuma says will be more bleak than the original.

Breath of the Wild had immensely cute and charming moments, but it also had a few tear-jerkers thrown in. It feels like a mature Zelda, a story set in a fantasy world where the stakes feel dire and the losses feel real. It's a story of good versus evil wound in a dramatic arc that pulls at the heartstrings and inspires triumphant heroism. With the sequel, Nintendo is upping the ante. Things are about to get a lot more grim.

In a recent interview with IGN, series producer Eiji Aonuma confirmed the sequel will be a "little darker" than the 2017 original. He also said that the sequel's dev team is taking inspiration from Red Dead Redemption 2, one of the most immersive and gritty games on the planet.

At E3 2019, The Terminator showed up in a few new games. Unfortunately none of them were an actual fully-fledged Terminator game.

There are some franchises that seem cursed when it comes to video game adaptations. Terminator is a prime example. There's a good reason why there's been no Terminator games as of late (the last game was a mobile game based on Genesys released in 2015). They're usually messy affairs with wonky controls, shameless movie tie-ins that don't sell very well and get even worse review scores.

With Terminator: Dark Fate on the way from Paramount Pictures, the company decided to throw the old Cyberdyne Systems Series T-800 metal murderer into established games rather than make a brand new Terminator game. It's a splash of cross-media promotion the industry is known for. The T-800 is confirmed to show up in two big games in 2019: Gears of War 5 as a character skin, and Ghost Recon: Breakpoint. There's evidence the skull-crushing annihilator will wreak havoc in Mortal Kombat 11, too.

Nintendo is and has been experimenting with game streaming tech in Japan, and now Nintendo of America President Doug Bowser publicly discusses interest in the latent platform.

Game streaming is on the horizon. Both Google's new Stadia cloud-streaming tech and Microsoft's Project xCloud service launch in 2019, promising a new era of choice and accessibility. With PS Now, Stadia, and Project xCloud, Nintendo will be the odd one out of the streaming market. These services pose a direct threat to Nintendo's transforming handheld-console hybrid by challenging the Switch's main selling point: playing on the go or at home. Nintendo will have to answer this threat eventually...but luckily it's been planning streaming services of its own.

Nintendo has experimented with cloud streaming on the Switch, beaming games like Resident Evil 7 and Assassin's Creed: Odyssey to the device. But is this the extent of their focus? Can we expect more? According to Nintendo President Doug Bowser, possibly.