Latest News - Page 1928

Google might've changed gaming forever by ushering its new Stadia game streaming platform, but Microsoft is set to one-up the tech giant with its own Project xCloud.

Following Google's first strike in the Cloud Wars, Microsoft is biding its time with a streaming fusillade of its own. The home of Xbox is preparing its own ambitious "Netflix for games" cloud streaming service called Project xCloud, which will use its potent webwork of Xbox LIVE and live services to beam games to consumers' phones, desktops/laptops, and consoles. While Google has YouTube, Microsoft has its own strengths with its huge Xbox LIVE engagement ecosystem, and it plans to leverage this might to the fullest.

E3 2019 will be Microsoft's time in the lime light, and Xbox division head Phil Spencer hints the company will showcase its own Project xCloud streaming service en masse at the event. "Google went big today and we have a couple of months until E3 when we will go big," Spencer said in an internal memo published by Thurrot.

Today at GCD 2019, Oculus announced the new Oculus Rift S virtual reality headset.

The Oculus Rift S isn't a dramatic jump over the existing Rift insofar as power, and isn't what you'd expect from a true next-gen successor. If anything the Rift S is an iterative refresh over Facebook's original HMD and serves as the new dedicated desktop-powered model. The Rift S will sit higher above the middling self-contained $199 Oculus Go in the company's VR hierarchy.

The Oculus Rift S has quality-of-life upgrades across the board including convenient Oculus Insight inside-out motion tracking built right into the headset, alleviating the need for external sensors. Using five sensors built into the HMD, Oculus Insight tracks and maps out physical environments in real-time to preserve immersion for room-scale VR experiences. The Rift S' visuals have been upgraded too.

Disney has seemingly resurrected Lucasfilm Games, an old label dating before LucasArts. But it's not what you think.

New job openings for Lucasfilm Games have sent some mixed signals. Gamers and industry reporters think this means Disney could start making its own games again, namely Star Wars titles, but this isn't the case. The seven jobs in question aren't for game developers, but for producers, marketing specialists, and brand coordinators--all the people who serve as administrative gatekeepers and manage, review, and approve the content, not actually create it.

These jobs are for the very same gatekeepers that made Star Wars games development so difficult. While working on titles like Star Wars 1313, Visceral's cancelled Project Ragtag game, and even EA Vancouver's scrapped big open-world game, developers had to run their ideas through middlemen at Lucasfilm. Every little decision would have to be approved by administrators (and before Disney bought Star Wars, George Lucas himself) before it made it into a game build. And often times these additions wouldn't even release in the final game.

Some of Microsoft's key first-party indies are coming to the Nintendo's handheld-console hybrid with Xbox LIVE integration, but this doesn't mean Game Pass will follow.

At GDC 2019, Microsoft today confirmed Cuphead is coming to Nintendo Switch with Xbox LIVE features. Studio MDHR will use the new Xbox Game Stack toolset to migrate undisclosed Xbox LIVE functionality to the Switch port (we'll likely see cross-play, friends lists, and achievements arrive). The Xbox online platform will be introduced in a post-launch update following the game's Switch release on April 28, 2019.

"Growing out of these recent discussions, we are partnering with Studio MDHR to investigate bringing Xbox Live features beyond Xbox and PC to Nintendo Switch," reads a post on the Xbox Wire.

During today's Unreal GDC 2019 livestream, Epic Games revealed a host of new exclusives coming to the Epic Store that won't be available on Steam for a year. Games like Obsidian's upcoming FPS RPG The Outer Worlds, which was on Steam's storefront for months after its reveal, are now marked for the Epic Store instead of Steam. The Outer Worlds will launch on the Windows 10 storefront, though, and being published by Take-Two's new Private Division label.

Remedy's ambitious new sci-horror shooter IP Control is another big one crossing over (it too has been on Steam for a long while). We know Remedy is making another game outside of Control, and this too could be on the Epic Store. This move kind of feels like a bait-and-switch: most of these games have been pre-orderable on Steam and will instead jump to a competing platform (like Metro: Exodus).

Quantic Dreams traded one exclusivity deal for another. PC ports of its upcoming once PlayStation-exclusive games Heavy Rain, Beyond Two Souls, and Detroit: Become Human are all Epic Store exclusives.

CD Projekt RED's next major AAA game should be set in the Witcher RPG series, the developer reiterates.

Back in 2016, CD Projekt RED outlined a new five-year plan that sees Cyberpunk 2077 and a big new AAA RPG both released by 2021. As of March 2018, that plan is still in place.

The studio is only working with two IPs, Cyberpunk and The Witcher, and there's no reason to speculate further, CD Projekt RED President Adam Kicinski said in a Pareto Securities stream from 2018.

Anthem has a lot of problems. It's a wonky service game with tedious mechanics that've upset many players, but that didn't stop it from topping sales charts in the UK, Japan, and the United States.

Today analyst firm NPD Group confirmed Anthem was the best-selling game in February 2019 across digital and physical releases, and was actually the second biggest title in BioWare's history behind Mass Effect 3. Anthem also ranks number two on 2019's total year-to-date earnings, only being beaten out by Kingdom Hearts III (this only includes two months of the current year, though).

"Anthem launches as the best-selling game of February, helping overall industry sales increase 4% vs year ago to $1 billion," NPD's Mat Piscatella said.

Ever wondered what it'd be like to play Ocarina of Time with a friend? A team of five dedicated modders answers that question with an ambitious project.

Ocarina of Time Online turns the N64 classic into a server-powered multiplayer extravaganza that makes my inner 10 year old squirm with delight. Using highly customized ROM mods and hacks and a tailor-made online framework, OoT Online's creators enable simultaneous co-op online multiplayer within Hyrule.

Gamers can play with up to 15 people and tackle dungeons, take on bosses, and generally explore and adventure across one of the best games ever made.

There is quite a few popular apps from Nintendo in the mobile market, but is that enough to sway The Big N on making their own gaming handset?

According to a DigiTimes report, Nintendo are reportedly considering jumping into the mobile gaming market with their very own handset. If this is true they will be going up against the likes of Razer, Xiaomi Vivo and some other companies, but is this a good idea considering the Nintendo Switch only released two years ago? The DigiTimes report says that "There have been speculations about Nintendo planning to launch a gaming handset that can integrate with its Switch consoles", and that "the Japan-based vendor has yet to respond to such speculations".

So judging from the source, there is next to no evidence that Nintendo are planning on doing this, just speculation and a lack of response from Nintendo. Lets play with idea before dismissing it though - how realistic is it that Nintendo will join the gaming phone market? Well, with the launch of the Switch, Nintendo are using mobile devices as a means of communication, rankings and some other additional features for online players. Is this app and the five other Nintendo apps worth making their own handset? Probably not. Considering that the global demand for gaming phones is around the 100,000 units per year margin, Nintendo most likely doesn't consider this a vital market to be jumping into.

Microsoft have rolled out a new update for Minecraft, this time round we will be seeing the addition of shields, cats, pillagers and many more fun and practical things.

A new update has hit Minecraft and within this update players will be able to enjoy the sharpness of the brand new crossbow. They will also be able to construct and decorate their homes with the new lanterns. The update will also be bringing Pillagers will that ransack players' homes, but do not fret as these pillagers are currently only coming to Creative Mode within this update.

Some details have been released onto the official Minecraft website, some of the details address that there is currently a "bug that currently affects HD texture packs on mobile devices. Using these texture packs may cause your game to crash. Until we get this bug fixed, we advise you to not use HD texture packs on mobile devices." This new update is planned to be rolling out to the Xbox One, PC, iOS, Android and Nintendo Switch versions of Minecraft. For more information visit the official Minecraft website here.

The time has finally come, Activision have decided to join the mobile market with one of their lead franchises, Call of Duty. Call of Duty Mobile will be a combination of previous Call of Duty titles.

The announcement has come from Activision features a brand new trailer that has been released onto the Call of Duty YouTube Channel and also their official Twitter page. Call of Duty Mobile features online multiplayer-only and allows for its users to jump into a Call of Duty game that combines the likes of the Modern Warfare franchise with that of the Black Ops franchise. Meaning that players will be able to use guns, kill streaks and characters from the respective franchises in destructive battles.

Call of Duty Mobile is planned to be arriving on iOS and Android devices sometime closer to the end of the year. There is no current release date set in stone, but there is a beta that is planned for sometime during this Summer. If you are interested in jumping in on the mobile action for Call of Duty, you can sign up to the beta here. For more information about Call of Duty Mobile, visit the official website here.

Castle Crashers developer, The Behemoth have announced that their popular 2D title will soon be making its way to the Nintendo Switch and PS4.

The announcement has been sourced from the official Behemoth website and features a nostalgic video of some of the best moments the developers have had over the past decade. The blog post gives details for what is going to be featured on both of the platforms. For the Nintendo Switch Castle Crashers Remastered will run at 60FPS, all previously released downloadable content, online multiplayer, HD rumble, Switch Online, 4 player local Joy-Con support and much more.

The PS4 version will come with the latest lighting supporting on the controllers, which will reflect the color of your character on your controller. The PS4 version will also support all of the features that I mentioned the Nintendo Switch version would be getting, excluding the Nintendo specific features such as Switch Online and Joy-Con support. For anymore information, visit the official blog post here. In the entirety of this post you will find the 'Celebrating 10+ Years of Crashing Castles' video that showcases the progression the developers have achieved over the years.

It was close to 6 months ago that NVIDIA first showed off the gorgeous RTX features for Shadow of the Tomb Raider, and now in March 2019 we're finally getting an update to the game that provides these features.

A new update is being pushed out for Shadow of the Tomb Raider that adds both RTX shadows and DLSS technologies into the game. You'll need the very latest version of the game, the very latest version of Windows 10, and the GeForce 419.35 or higher drivers to get it working. The developer notes: "While we expect this patch to be an improvement for everyone, if you do have trouble with this patch and prefer to stay on the old version, we have made a Beta available on Steam, Build 279, that can be used to switch back to the previous version"

There's a surprise here remember, since NVIDIA only just yesterday announced that RTX abilities will now work on previous-gen GeForce GTX series graphics cards with a new driver dropping next month. This means you'll be able to enjoy some RTX/DLSS abilities in Shadow of the Tomb Raider with a GTX 10/16 series graphics card.

The PC version of Halo: Master Chief Collection will be the definitive version of the game, with developer 343 Industries handling the public beautifully since its announcement.

Brian, aka 'ske7ch', the community director at Halo developer 343 Industries took to Reddit to field some questions, with one of his answers being very important to PC gamers: "Current plan is to support 'uncapped FPS' in each title. But, as we move deeper into development on each title, we'll have to determine what's feasible within each game".

Uncapped FPS, excellent.

Remedy used GDC 2019 to debut a new 2-minute teaser trailer of its upcoming game Control, showing off some gorgeous real-time ray tracing technology powered by NVIDIA's new GeForce RTX graphics cards.

If you haven't read up about Control, it's from the developers behind Max Payne, Alan Wake and Quantum Break and is a sandbox-style, gameplay-driven experience that is very different to what you'd expect. There's supernatural abilities like telekineses, environmental destruction (from the use of the environment itself), modifiable loadouts, and more.

Remedy is powering Control with its in-house Northlight Engine, with the new trailer concentrating around RTX features including Ray Traced Indirect Diffuse, Ray Traced Indirect Specular and Ray Traced Contact Shadows.

Nightdive Studios has just revelaed a huge 20-minute gameplay video on their official YouTube channel, which gives us a detailed look at the gorgeous System Shock remake.

The 20-minute clip is from pre-alpha gameplay from the Medical Bay level of the game, right at the beginning of your adventures in System Shock and fight against Shodan. I'm a huge fan of the series having pumped countless hours into System Shock and System Shock 2 when they were first out, and with the recent tease of System Shock 3 there has been no better time to be a fan of the series.

The team at Nightdive has done an incredible job from the look of this video, as it seems like we can expect something special with the System Shock remake. Please, please don't disappoint me, Nightdive.

Legendary game developer Warren Spector has unveiled our first look at pre-alpha footage of System Shock 3, which is currently under development by OtherSide Entertainment. Check it out:

The new pre-alpha teaser trailer was debuted by Spector during the Unity panel at GDC 2019, saying that he and his team used the Unity technology to create a world in System Shock 3 that is full of "robots, mutants and the dead". You will be fighting the mega-powerful AI 'Shodan' just as you did in the previous System Shock games.

It looks pretty damn good in its current form, which we know is about half way done now.

Unity showed off an amazing tech demo in the form of a new short film called The Heretic at GDC 2019, centered around a strange man that has some form of mechanical substance that can be controlled, and is helping him navigate the environment. Check it out:

Veselin Efremov, creative director at Unity's demo team explains The Heretic: "I'm fascinated by technology and its impact on us as humans; our psychology, sense of self-identification, and our deeply ingrained sense of spirituality. I thought it would be fun to explore these existential and philosophical themes in the guise of a simpler adventure story".

The concept of The Heretic tech demo started with the goal of creating a virtual person that looked as real as possible. The results are pretty damn good, and I think we're getting very close to it with this new release from Unity. Silvia Rasheva, the producer on the demo team for The Heretic, said: "Most of the technology is available today. The project is based on Unity 2019.1, which releases soon, and some of the improvements we've made are slated for Unity 2019.2".

Google announced its new Stadia platform today, a cloud-based gaming platform that promises big things: delivering up to 4K 60FPS HDR gaming over devices that aren't even built for gaming, blasted over Chromecast.

The announcement saw id Software executive producer Marty Stratton talking about Google Stadia pumping out DOOM Eternal at 4K 60FPS with HDR support, all on a single AMD-powered Stadia GPU. DOOM Eternal will be playable on all Stadia-capable devices, which will include smartphones, tablets, TVs, desktops and laptops. It'll also work with Google's new Stadia game controller, too.

Stratton said it only took the developers at id Software a few weeks to get DOOM Eternal working on Stadia, which is impressive to hear. Stratton explained: "If you're going to prove to the world that you can stream games from the cloud, what better proof than Doom? [...] It didn't take us more than a few weeks to get Doom Eternal looking and playing great on Stadia. [...] We couldn't be happier to be bringing Doom Eternal to Stadia, and are thrilled to announce the game will be capable of running at true 4K resolution, with HDR, at an unrelenting 60fps".

Pixar has just released the first official trailer to Toy Story 4, which sees the iconic characters of the beloved franchise returning for another adventure. Check it out:

We know that Woody meets up with Bo Peep again in Toy Story 4, which is going to have fans of the franchise happy, as well as lots of tears shed during the movie I'm sure. We do get to see in the new Toy Story 4 trailer a new character called "Forky", which Bonnie adds to her collection of friends and I think plenty of hilarious antics will happen from this character alone.

Disney Pixar explains Toy Story 4's synopsis: "Woody has always been confident about his place in the world and that his priority is taking care of his kid, whether that's Andy or Bonnie. But when Bonnie adds a reluctant new toy called "Forky" to her room, a road trip adventure alongside old and new friends will show Woody how big the world can be for a toy".