Phoenix Labs has announced that their monster hunting title Dauntless will be debuting its open beta today. The developer has also released open beta trailer for everyone to enjoy.

Phoenix Labs is an independent developer that harbors former developers from massive studios such as Riot Games, BioWare and Capcom. Players that choose to participate in the open beta for Dauntless will be put into the role of the Slayer. The slayers sole role in the game is to defend humanity against the invading monsters known as the Behemoth's.

Jess Houston, CEO and Co-founder of Phoenix Labs has commented on the titles open-beta debut, here is what he had to say: "Open Beta is an exciting next step for us, but it is just the beginning for what we have planned for Dauntless. For the past four years we've been dedicated to creating the next, great online game for players to share together, and Open Beta is the next huge step in fulfilling our promise. We will be continually adding content and updates to Dauntless and incorporating feedback from our passionate community. We are committed to providing more and more reasons for players to come back to Dauntless for years to come."

FromSoftware, the developers behind the critically acclaimed franchise Dark Souls, have released Dark Souls Remastered a whole day early for Steam users.

For those that are not aware, Dark Souls Remastered does feature some slight changes even though it is mostly a graphical/performance improvement. Players will be glad to know that multiplayer now supports up to six participants as well as the title now runs at a smooth 60FPS instead of the measly 30FPS that it was originally running at.

Graphical wise, Dark Souls Remastered features improved lighting and texture work and for those that have already purchased the original and now de-listed Prepare to Die Edition on Steam, will receive a 50% discount on Dark Souls Remastered. Dark Souls Remastered launched a day early for Steam users, console fans will have to wait a whole day longer to get their hands-on the famously difficult title. Dark Souls Remastered is $39.99 USD on the Steam Store.

Amazon have their evil tentacles in as many places as you can imagine, including a huge $10 billion deal with The Pentagon, so the news of a 1984-style facial recognition technology system shouldn't surprise you, at all.

The new surveillance system is reportedly called "Rekognition", with Amazon having a huge library of "tens of millions of faces" that will see it track up to 100 individuals in a given image, and then analyze their identity. Don't worry about your privacy as this is all for security and your personal safety.

Don't think that Amazon's super-secret Rekognition system is just a pipe dream, it is already deployed in some US cities. Washington County Sheriff's Office is already using Rekognition to reduce the time suspect identification takes, down from multiple days to a few minutes.

Gamers all around the world were excited for the future of mobile gaming on their smartphones and tablets with Valve's touted Steam Link app, but Apple being the courageous company they are have rejected the app on iOS over "business conflicts".

Valve has since released a statement where the Half-Life developer said that Apple approved Steam Link for release on May 7, but in the end rejected the app because there were conflicts that the iPhone maker didn't see in their first review of Steam Link.

Valve said: "On Monday, May 7th, Apple approved the Steam Link app for release. On Weds, May 9th, Valve released news of the app. The following morning, Apple revoked its approval citing business conflicts with app guidelines that had allegedly not been realized by the original review team".

NVIDIA has just released a new set of Game Ready drivers, with the GeForce 397.93 WHQL drivers delivering optimizations for State of Decay 2 and The Crew 2 beta, and more.

The Crew 2 beta test will happen between May 31 and June 4, while the full game is released on June 29, so we get some time with our GeForce graphics cards before the full release in official driver support form. NVIDIA has also added or updated SLI profiles for both DRG Initiative and Star Wars: Battlefront II.

There are a bunch of fixes, which you can read in the full patch notes here. You can grab the new GeForce Game Ready 397.93 WHQL drivers here.

The price of Bitcoin has been sinking for a few solid days now, so it comes as a surprise that hte US Department of Justice is looking into criminal traders who might be manipulating the price of BTC and other cryptocurrenices.

Bloomberg reports from its wources that the DOJ investigation will target practices that have been regulated out of futures and equities markets. Illegal practices happen, where traders will submit false orders and then cancel them at the last minute, or they'll trade big numbers with themselves to create the look of (false) demand.

The site added: "Authorities worry that virtual currencies are susceptible to fraud for multiple reasons: skepticism that all exchanges are actively pursuing cheaters, wild price swings that could make it easy to push valuations around and a lack of regulations like the ones that govern stocks and other assets".

Fortnite is in a constant state of flux for all the right reasons, with developer Epic Games planning some huge changes for the game on all platforms: PC, Xbox One, PS4, and iOS.

Epic has said that its fifth State of Development is a tease into future content, with changes to be made to controllers, quality of life improvements, more Limited Time modes, and a new Playground mode that will lets players respawn on the way. Starting with Playground, which is a new Limited Time mode that will load you into the Battle Royale map with more time to explore.

There are more resources, all treasure chests and ammo crates are on offer, and gulp... friendly fire is enabled, with immediate respawns. As for the controllers, Epic is taking the feedback about Builder Pro being inconsistent to heart, making huge improvements along the way.

Qualcomm has just unveiled its new Snapdragon 710 processor, which is a slight bump on the Snapdragon 700 series that the co many unveiled earlier in the year.

The new Snapdragon 710 is better than the mid-range Snapdragon 600 and 700 series designs, with Qualcomm touting double the AI performance compared to the Snapdragon 660. We have the X15 LTE modem and Spectra 250 image processor, lower on the tech tree than the flagship X20 modem and Spectra 280 processor inside of the Snapdragon 800 series.

As for the X15 modem we can expect up to 800Mbps over LTE, with the Snapdragon 710 including 10-bit color support as well as it being the first Qualcomm chip to support 4K HDR playback, a first for Snapdragon outside of the flagship 800 series.

Acer has just unveiled its new, and super-massive 17.3-inch gaming notebooks in the form of the new Predator Helios 500 range, which can pack the latest Core i9 processor from Intel.

The highest-end Predator Helius 500 can be configured with an Intel Core i9-8950HK, which is a 6C/12T chip from the Coffee Lake architecture, while NVIDIA backs the beefy CPU up with the GeForce GTX 1070. The CPU and GPU are cooled with Acer's own Dual AeroBlade 3D cooling system that packs all-metal fans that improve cooling, and opens up the floodgates for overclocking.

You can configure the gaming notebook with up to 64GB of DDR4 RAM, with Acer including an Intel Optane SSD as well as providing ports for PCIe SSDs. The 17.3-inch display comes in either 1080p or 4K, with up to 144Hz refresh with G-Sync for the 1080p option. There's a 2.1-channel audio system with a built-in subwoofer on offer, with Acer TrueHarmony and Waves MAXXAudio.

Big publishers are keen on tapping the battle royale trend in their own ways--just look at Activision with Call of Duty Black Ops 4--and apparently EA is no different.

Although pre-reveal Battlefield V rumors attached a battle royale mode to the upcoming WWII shooter, DICE didn't unveil their own unique spin on the popular gametype. The Battlefield V reveal event had no mention of a battle royale mode of any sort. Instead DICE opted to announce Tides of War, a huge new engagement-driven series of live events that rotate and take place in various theaters of war during WWII. But that doesn't mean the developers aren't actively experimenting and attempting to innovate the explosive sub-genre.

According to senior DICE producer Andreas Morrel, battle royale and the Battlefield series are natural mates.

Ubisoft will have a retinue of high-priority games in tow at their E3 2018 event.

Beyond Good and Evil 2 has been in development for quite some time. Following the game's triumphant unveiling at E3 2017, fans are eager to know more about the huge sprawling online-based prequel, especially given the massive ambition Ubisoft Montpelier envisions. The publisher will indeed showcase the sequel-that's-actually-a-prequel at their E3 venue along with a number of other big titles like The Division 2.

Here's Ubisoft's Michel Ancel on Beyond Good and Evil 2:

Sony has confirmed its new PlayStation 5 console is at least three years away.

The PS4 has had an amazing lifecycle so far with 79.4 million shipments worldwide, and the system will continue its long-standing run through 2021, Sony corporate recently said. In its new three-year play the company announced future plans for the PlayStation gaming division which are pretty much the same: hardware and software sales with stronger emphasis on subscriptions and engagement. But what about the PlayStation 5? Don't expect it any time soon.

We know Sony is working on the next console and that it may feature discrete graphics instead of an APU design. There's also a strong chance the PS5 will play existing PS4 games, too. Analysts predict the system could be out in 2020 or thereabouts but not any time sooner--there's really no rush, the experts say.

Sony may put more emphasis on portable gaming in its hardware ecosystem once more...but it may not manifest like you think.

Sony's PlayStation Vita has essentially been retired, but Nintendo's massive success with its Switch portable handheld-console hybrid has turned many heads. Despite the PS Vita's failure on the market, John Kodera, who leads Sony's massively lucrative gaming division, says portable gaming should be seen as a part of the PlayStation brand. Mr. Kodera also affirms that Sony is experimenting with new technologies and methods in the portable arena.

"In my opinion, rather than separating portable gaming from consoles, it's necessary to continue thinking of it (portable gaming) as one method to deliver more gaming experiences and exploring what our customers want from portable. We want to think about many options," SIE head John Kodera recently told journalists in a post-corporate press conference.

Sony has announced that the PlayStation 4's DualShock 4 gamepad is the best-selling controller of all time, when purely looking at dollar sales.

According to Sony's most recent NPD, the PlayStation 4 DualShock 4 controller has been deemed the all-time best-selling gamepad when just looking at dollar sales. This doesn't mean that the controller has sold the most units ever, this just means that Sony has singled out the standard black controller while not taking into account the other consoles controllers that its up against.

Here is the official statement from Sony, "the PlayStation 4 DualShock 4 Wireless Controller Black is now the all-time best-selling Gamepad in dollar sales."

Bandai Namco are celebrating the anniversary of Tekken 7 by gifting the title with a free DLC later this month.

Bandai has said that the DLC is going to be entirely cosmetic and will be bringing players six different costume sets, these will include the following: Story Mode Costume Set, the Aura Set, the Female Hairstyle Set, the New Japan Pro-Wrestling Set, the Kuma and Panda Set, and the Metallic Item Set.

The cosmetic DLC will be released to players on May 31st which is two days before the date of the titles one year anniversary. Players that wish to view the screenshots of the costumes in their entirety should visit the official Bandai Namco Twitter page here.

Rocksteady Studios is reportedly set to tease a new open world Superman game in the next week or two, with a full reveal coming next month at E3 2018.

The new rumor started on 4chan, with some movie/game sites picking it up and talking about it. Rocksteady Studios is reportedly the developer of the unnamed Superman game, coming in from their super successful Batman: Arkham games. The new Superman game would be powered by Unreal Engine 4 and will feature an open world Metropolis that is 3x bigger than the size of Arkham Knight.

Over the years developers have tried and utterly failed to make a good Superman game, with the most-known probably being Superman 64 on the Nintendo 64, which has been rated one of the worst games ever made. From the details above it sounds like it could be great, but I need to be sold on the "semi-destructible environments" in a freaking Superman game.

A new mod has surfaced for Chucklefish's Stardew Valley and instead of players enjoying taming their farms with their 4 others friends it is now possible to farm with on one big mega farm. With as many friends as you possibly can.

A modder going by the name of Armitxes, has uploaded a mod onto nexusmods which changes Stardew Valley's cabin limit (player limit) that is currently tied to everyones game. Players now have the choice of approaching the town's carpenter, Robin and continuing to build as many cabins as your heart desires.

One of the best features of this mod is the fact that not all players that desire to play on the same farm together have to install it. The mod only requires the host player to have it installed, making everyones lives just that much more easier. If you are interested in checking out the mod and starting up a mega farm with all of your friends visit the nexusmods website here and download it.

Jagex has taken to their community forums to announce the farewell of one of the longest running MMORPG's, RuneScape Classic will have its servers shutdown this August.

If you grew up during the early 2000's and was involved in gaming, you would of most likely heard of or played RuneScape one way or another. RuneScape Classic was first released back in 2001 and since then the game has gone through two evolutionary stages, evolving from RuneScape Classic to RuneScape 2 and then further evolving into RuneScape 3.

For players that have been apart of the RuneScape community since Classic, they will know that the farewell of the very old servers will be heartfelt moment. RuneScape Classic has not been supported by Jagex for the last couple of years, the developer has said that "the number of bugs is getting worse, and we're gradually seeing the game breaking. It's important to highlight these are bugs which we won't fix, most of them we can't fix due to the unsupported nature of the game."

Overwatch is one of the biggest games on the market right now, and one of my personal favorites (it's all I play at the moment) but what about a sequel to the super huge 6v6 shooter?

This is something GameSpot asked Blizzard during an interview, about the potential of Overwatch 2 to which Assistant Game Director Aaron Keller replied with: "I think at the core sitting here at the two-year anniversary, we've had a wildly successful 6v6 shooter game which has blown us away with how the community has responded to it. We dip our toes into different areas here and there with the Archives event and Junkenstein. But I think our focus is really on keeping the community engaged with the 6v6 shooter that we have on the live service".

Senior Game Producer Matthew Hawley also added: "Running a live service game takes a lot of work and I hope the community knows we have been committed to continually improving the game and creating content. What people might not realise is the team now is significantly bigger than what it was when we shipped the game, and we have put all of that into working on the live game and the new maps, heroes, and events like Anniversary. At least for the time being, [supporting Overwatch] is our focus right now, and we're excited to work on this game".

The original RAGE was powered by id Software's in-house idTech engine, but its sequel will be using the Avalanche engine which powered the Just Cause games.

RAGE was powered by the idTech 5 engine at the time, with the developer using their own engine for games like DOOM, but it seems that RAGE 2 won't be using idTech this time around. Avalanche Studio founder Christofer Sundberg tweeted to a fan who asked what engine RAGE 2 would be using, where he said: "It's Apex - Avalanche Open-World Engine".

It's a fitting engine considering that RAGE 2 is pushing for an open-world experience, and the Avalanche Engine powered games like Just Cause and Mad Max, both featuring large game worlds. RAGE 2 isn't coming until 2019, so we should expect some more details on its engine and graphics prowess during E3 2018 next month.