Fallout 76 is indeed an online-based game with RPG, survival, shooter and co-operative gameplay mechanics.

Fallout 76 is "entirely online," Bethesda's Todd Howard tonight confirmed. The game is a dynamic, evolving experience that's being built with new rendering and lighting effects that allow for 16 times the detail and visibility of far-away weather distance.

The game is an always-online experience, but it's not an MMO. It will have 100% dedicated servers and is designed to last for years, meaning it should have service game elements. You can play solo if you like, but things will be easier if you team up with friends or random players. "You'll be in a world with dozens of other players, not hundreds or thousands. You'll be able to join with your friends or anyone you want, whenever you want, and all of your progression goes with you," Howard said.

E3 2018 - The mega success of PUBG and Fortnite has seen DICE obsessed with the Battle Royale game mode, with the team announcing 'Royale' for Battlefield V during E3.

The official Battlefield Twitter account teases that Royale for Battlefield V is "reimagined with the core pillars of destruction, team play, and vehicles. It will be unlike anything you've played before, and we'll have more to talk about later this year". Sounds exciting to me, especially since we're not that far away from the release of Battlefield V.

If you thought this was EA shoving Royale down DICE's throats, you're wrong. It was actually DICE developers that had been playing Fortnite and PUBG and falling in love with Battle Royale that they developed Royale for Battlefield V. Normally it's the big bad studio that makes the developers throw in something that they otherwise didn't want to, just because it was popular (money maker), but to hear it was DICE's love of Battle Royale makes my heart warm.

Not only did CD Projekt RED "hack" Microsoft's E3 2018 stream, but they threw in a neat little secret message to fans in the latest Cyberpunk 2077 trailer.

It's been a bit since the new Cyberpunk 2077 trailer hit, but I'm still kind of reeling from its promises of exotic, gritty techno-punk action in a city overrun with flying cars. Cyberpunk 2077 is the biggest game the Polish devs have ever worked on and the new footage shows that quite clearly. Apart from the obvious hype-building visuals, the trailer actually contains a nice little nod from the devs at CDPR.

The message, stylized as a hack overlay, reinforces some info we already know about the game. Cyberpunk 2077 won't have microtransactions, CDPR confirms (but it could still have online elements to help buffer the enormous resources required for its huge living, breathing cities), but the studio still has no clue just when it'll launch. The company's recent fiscal reports say Cyberpunk 2077 should launch in 2021 alongside a new AAA RPG, however.

Cyberpunk 2077 finally gets a new trailer that shows off CD Projekt RED's incredibly ambitious vision.

We've been covering Cyberpunk 2077's developments for a while now, and we've been able to piece together some interesting tidbits over the years. Despite having an idea of what to expect--flying cars, living breathing cities, advanced AI--nothing really prepared me for what CD Projekt RED today dropped at Microsoft's E3 2018 presser: literally one of the best video game trailers I've ever seen.

Cyberpunk 2077 is an exotic world that's dripping with high-tech, neon-lit flavor. In many ways it seems like a fantasy world (or an AI's fever dream) whose technology is too accelerated for its own good. Citizens run amok wielding advanced guns, glowing outfits, and generally wreaking havoc wherever and however they can. While the trailer wasn't actually gameplay footage and instead used in-engine visuals, it still is something to marvel at and gives fans more than an idea of what to expect from CDPR's massive new game.

343 Industries is busily working on the next Halo game, which is codenamed "Infinite".

Halo didn't steal Microsoft's E3 2018 press conference like I had hoped. Instead of a triumphant demo that caused explosive yells from the audience, 343i showed off an engine tech teaser for its newest Slipspace Engine, which is powering the latest Halo project. Halo Infinite will continue Master Chief's journey past Halo 5 and should round out the Reclaimer Trilogy.

"In Halo Infinite we will join Master Chief on his most epic journey to save humanity," said Xbox division head Phil Spencer.

Bethesda's new Fallout 76 game will be absolutely massive, but no new details on its reported online mode were revealed.

Fallout 76 received a nice presence at Microsoft's E3 2018 showcase, including some new gameplay footage and a few meaty tidbits from Bethesda's Todd Howard. The exec confirmed a detail we already knew--the new Fallout is a prequel set 25 years after the Great War and before the original games--but we still have no clue if it's actually an experimental online survival RPG or not. But we do know it'll be absolutely huge.

"Fallout 76 is a prequel to all the other games. And it's our biggest one yet. Fallout 76 is four times the size of Fallout 4. Set in the hills of West Virginia, you are one of the first to emerge into an untamed and very different wasteland," Howard said on stage.

A batch of Assassin's Creed: Odyssey screenshots has been accidentally leaked ahead of E3 2018.

Ubisoft has confirmed its new Assassin's Creed game is called Odyssey and that it'll take place in ancient Greece, likely during the region's tumultuous battle with the Persian Empire. But aside from tidbits gleaned from a brief teaser and some images, no actual information has been unveiled by the publisher--it's of course waiting for its big E3 stage event.

In recent tradition, key details about the game have been leaked ahead of schedule. New Assassin's Creed: Odyssey screenshots were discovered by Gematsu on a German website's server, and assuming authenticity, they show quite a bit of info. Odyssey looks a lot like last year's excellent Hellenistic Egypt-based Origins insofar as visuals and overall mechanics--combat, UI, skill trees, inventory menus and environments all look close to Origins.

After many delays and setbacks, Kingdom Hearts III is finally coming early next year.

Kingdom Hearts III will release on January 29, 2019, the game's official Twitter account today announced. Originally due out in 2018, the massively anticipated RPG was hit with yet another delay to ensure optimum polish and performance as is so often the case in the games industry.

Originally confirmed at E3 2013, Kingdom Hearts III's development cycle has been tumultuous. The internal team at Square Enix made the decision to shift the game over to the Unreal Engine 4 which caused more delays. Tetsuya Nomura also confirmed that the dev team had limited personnel to work on the project--with less manpower the game would take more time to make.

EA's new Origin Access Premiere subscription will give instant access to the publishers newest games, similar to Microsoft's popular Game Pass service.

Origin Access Premiere costs $14.99 a month or $99.99 a year, and subscribers get full access to EA's new games like Anthem and Battlefield V as well as the original selection of vault titles. The service is currently exclusive to PC. Users also get unlimited trials of upcoming EA games, as well as five-day early access to all new titles.

"Origin Access Premiere will bring you all of our new PC games, starting with Madden NFL 19, back on the PC for the first time in over a decade, then FIFA 19, Battlefield V, and of course Anthem. And they'll be many more titles for the years to come," EA CEO Andrew Wilson said during the company's E3 press conference.

Anthem will be due out a month earlier than originally planned, but still fits the early 2019 timeframe set by EA.

BioWare's big new online action RPG Anthem will release on February 22, 2019, EA today announced. Company CFO Blake Jorgensen recently affirmed the game would release in the "last month of our fiscal year," which pointed to a March launch, but the extra month will give EA a nice buffer for sales and potential monetization.

Speaking of monetization, BioWare said Anthem will rake in additional revenues via cosmetics only. Lootboxes won't be present, and gamers can't buy items that directly affect gameplay or make them more powerful. All cosmetics will be straightforward and players will know "exactly what you'll buy before you spend money," BioWare's Mark Darrah said.

Anthem, BioWare's massive new shared-worlds IP, won't have lootboxes of any kind.

Despite lootboxes bringing in billions across the industry, BioWare's latest flying mech-shooter will be monetized via cosmetics only. This aligns with recent predictions from analysts and confirms that Anthem will have a recurring hook.

"We are going to have some cosmetics and vanity items that you'll be able to purchase, but you're always going to know what you'll get before you spend any money on it," BioWare's Mark Darrah said at EA Play 2018.

Respawn's Vince Zampella makes good on his promise to reveal new tidbits at E3, and now we know more about its upcoming Star Wars game.

Respawn's new narrative-driven Star Wars game is called Jedi Fallen Order and is set in the dark time between A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back, Respawn today revealed.

"We've been working with Lucas on getting the name and the setting for what our Star Wars game's going to be," Zampella said at EA Play. "The Star Wars game's name is Jedi Fallen Order. So it kinda gives you some idea that you'll be playing a Jedi. It takes place during the dark times when the Jedi are being hunted, and it's going to be spectacular."

The devs behind Alien Isolation and Halo Wars are busily readying a big new IP, and now we have more concrete details.

We've known for a while now that SEGA subsidiary Creative Assembly is making a new IP, and that it might be an online service-based game of some kind. Now in recent job listings from the studio's UK-based branch confirms key info about the project: "Creative Assembly's award-winning team behind Alien: Isolation are exploring new frontiers with a brand-new and exciting First Person Tactical Shooter IP," reads the intro banners on the listings.

Creative Assembly is currently hiring four positions to work on its new IP:

Respawn will be a part of EA's big E3 press conference in some way, but details are still nebulous.

New information on an upcoming project will be teased at tomorrow's EA Play, Respawn's Vince Zampella today confirmed. Respawn, now owned by EA after being acquired for $315 million, is currently developing three major games: a new war-based VR game, a narrative-driven third-person action Star Wars game, and Titanfall 3. Which one could be teased? We're hoping for the middle one.

Following Battlefront II's big lootbox controversy and Visceral Games' closure and the cannibalization of its interesting-sounding Star Wars project (aka Project Ragtag) the Star Wars gaming market has been pretty slim. EA's exclusive license to make Star Wars games has been stretched out now that the timeline has been disrupted. Project Ragtag was to release in 2018, and Respawn's game was to launch in 2019 or 2020 (EA's FY2020 and FY2021, respectively). Considering the Star Wars game is Respawn's highest profile game in development it's possible we could get more concrete info about it at E3 2018. However the VR war game is to release in 2019...so it could be that too.

The pre-E3 leaks just aren't slowing down and have now revealed the existence of Just Cause 4, taking some thunder away from Square Enix's press conference.

Just like many online retailers (looking at you Walmart Canada) Valve accidentally revealed Just Cause 4 by way of Steam startup ad. The actual store page for Just Cause 4 isn't live just yet, however, so exact details are still unknown. The game was just one of the many titles revealed on Walmart Canada's storepage that have been confirmed so far; others include RAGE 2 and the newly announced Assassin's Creed: Odyssey.

Just Cause 4's existence means that Avalanche Studios has been quite busy. The dev studio was recently acquired by Dutch film company Nordisk Film and has apparently been working on not only Just Cause 4, but it's newly announced IP Generation Zero, and will assist id Softworks with tons of open-world aspects of RAGE 2.

Computex 2018 - Intel unveiled their knee jerk reaction to the news of AMD's impending Threadripper 2 announcement, which until AMD's own Computex 2018 press conference the industry thought it was going to be 24C/48T only.

But it seems Intel's announcement was beyond knee jerk and into the ridiculous, as it is now being reported that the company "forgot" to mention that their "new" 28C/56T processor was overclocked to 5GHz and most tech press thought it was a monstrous 5GHz chip... except it's not.

Our good friend Paul Alcorn from Tom's Harware is reporting that he met with Intel reps yesterday that said that "in the excitement of the moment" they "forgot" to say that the 28C/56T processor was overclocked. Intel PR seems to have all failed here, as the impression most people got was that this was a 5GHz behemoth that would crush Threadripper 2.

On the heels of its accidental leak, Hitman 2 has been confirmed for a release in 2018 by Warner Bros. Interactive.

Agent 47's lethal escapades will continue in Hitman 2, which serves as a direct sequel to IO Interactive's 2016 reboot. Unlike the previous game the sequel won't be carved up in episodic chapters--instead it'll ship as a complete experience with even more dynamic gameplay. Hitman 2 will also feature a co-op mode called Sniper Assassin that allows two friends to team up and take out specific targets online, which should boost engagement.

Hitman 2 will take players all across the world to new locales like Miami and other exotic cities: "from sun-drenched streets to dark and dangerous rainforests, each intricate location provides multiple paths to discover and unparalleled game depth," reads the press release. Warner Bros. affirms the game's sandboxes will be much larger than the predecessor to offer unique ways to tackle targets.

Days Gone will release February 22, 2019, Sony today announced on the PlayStation Blog.

Sony's new first-party open-world game Days Gone looks pretty interesting--not only does it have lush environments, but it will be story-driven as much as it is surviving a zombie breakout. The game itself features lots of characters that will provide meaningful interactions to the main character Deacon's adventure, along with various factions and disease-ridden creatures to take on.

Days Gone was previously delayed into 2019 from its original 2018 launch, and it appears Sony's Bend Studio has put that extra time to good use. The latest trailer is quite impressive and I'm hoping the actual shipped game will look this fluid and graphically appealing.

Fallout 76 should be built on the same framework as Fallout 4, but with a few big changes.

While watching NoClip's excellent Bethesda documentary I realized something that's fairly obvious when you think about it: Bethesda Game Studios' own first-party games like Skyrim and Fallout 4 are all iterative with one another and share common development threads. One game typically uses tricks, engine features, and other techniques found in previous titles in an effort to grow and one-up the previous game.

While working on Oblivion, for example, Bethesda Game Studios had a back-up plan just in case it didn't do well--a project that became Fallout 3. The team employed much of what they learned making Oblivion into Fallout 3...except for the whole having to build gun combat from the ground up. It's no secret that game studios work on multiple projects at once, but it's important to remember that BGS titles can cross-over insofar as development work.

Microsoft has delayed Crackdown 3 into 2019, sources say, corroborating past reports.

Xbox gamers may be in for big disappointment this E3 season: Crackdown 3 has been pushed back into next year, two sources familiar with the matter told Kotaku's Jason Schreier. Originally announced in 2014, Crackdown 3 was due out in 2017 alongside Microsoft's beefy Xbox One X console, and then delayed into Spring 2018--which has technically passed.

Crackdown 3 will be powered by Microsoft's Azure cloud technology to assist with the demanding gameplay, which includes destructible environments and multiplayer. Developer Sumo Digital and its partnered studios will reportedly need more time to polish and shore up the game's rough edges. On the plus side Crackdown 3 sounds pretty ambitious. The game should launch as part of the Xbox Game Pass and is a Play Anywhere game on console and PC.