The hype is building for Shadow of the Tomb Raider, with Eidos Montreal boss David Anfossi revealing some very interesting details about the game in an interview with Electric Playground.

Anfossi said that they have optimized Shadow of the Tomb Raider for the Xbox One X so that it hits 4K 60FPS, but didn't provide any exact details. This means it could run at up to 4K but not native 4K, and up to 60FPS but not locked 60FPS, something I hope the developer confirms sometime soon.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider will be the "most beautiful game on the Xbox One S ever" according to Anfossi, so it's not just the Xbox One X that gets that optimization lovin'. The PS4, PS4 Pro and PC versions will all be tuned to their benefit, but Microsoft has a much closer relationship with Eidos Montreal and gets the special sauce.

Facebook has announced that there is a complete redesign of Messenger on the way, something that will make the chat app that is used by over 1.2 billion people much easier, and cleaner to use. Great news, especially after Facebook started throwing in everything but the kitchen sink into Messenger over the last few years.

Mark Zuckerberg, robot overlord and Facebook founder explains: "When you're messaging, you really want a simple and fast experience. We're taking this moment to completely redesign Messenger to focus on these ideas".

Messenger VP David Marcus said that the redesigned Messenger app will be coming "very, very soon" and it's something that the team has been slugging away at for a few months now. Facebook is doing something new by offering a dark mode, which is perfect for those who chat while in bed or dark areas, and those with OLED-based displays.

Intel is preparing for an earlier launch of its discrete graphics card than people know, at least according to my sources, and now we're seeing more proof of that with new GPU drivers.

Intel has launched its first-ever launch day graphics driver in history, something that marks the start of something truly new when the company launches its new GPU. The new driver has improved HDR support, Vulkan 1.1 support, fixes graphics problems in a bunch of games and other general issues.

We should begin to hear more about Intel's next-gen GPU technologies in Arctic Sound and Jupiter Sound, with these new GPU drivers the first step in a new direction for Intel.

Facebook Messenger is one of the most-used messaging clients on the planet, so it shouldn't come as a surprise that the social networking giant unveiled an AI-powered feature at their annual F8 developer conference.

Facebook announced that Messenger's built-in assistant 'M' will soon use AI to help you chat with people talking in different languages, translating it on-the-fly. The AI will detect which language you or your chatting partner are speaking, where it will pop up and offer automatic cross-translation.

The company will limit M to translating on the Facebook Marketplace for now, before shifting to deeper parts of Messenger and beyond. Facebook is rolling out across the US at first, which should happen in the next couple of weeks.

Overwatch fans will be pleased to know that Blizzard have announced their latest map, Rialto, will be going live this week after being used in the PTR in April.

Rialto will launch off the back of the start of Season 10 of Competitive Play, which started on May 1. Blizzard couldn't get Rialto ready for S10 and won't be addeded into competitive play for a little while yet, with the developer explaining: "This will help provide the community with plenty of time to learn how to play with the new map".

Brigitte is the latest hero to enter the realms of competitive play, with the new character enabled for Season 10. I'm a big fan of Overwatch as it's all I've played for the last few months, and she is already beginning to bug me. I can't counter her very well, and when a good player is playing Brigitte, it can really swing matches quickly.

Sony has filed a new patent that could use blockchain technology to better secure games sold on the PlayStation Store.

Blockchain is a unique avenue that can be used for a number of different applications, and even game publishers like Ubisoft and EA are experimenting with the tech. Interestingly enough Sony's latest patent aims at using the versatility of blockchain to safeguard its own games--and potentially those sold on its digital online network.

As is customary for patents, the document is quite long and meticulous, covering lots of iterations, methods, and permutations of use. The main focus "relates to digital rights management (DRM), and more specifically, to implementing the DRM using blockchains," according to the patent.

PS2 games are starting to arrive for PS Now, but the first batch is quite small.

Sony's $20 a month PlayStation Now service really isn't that popular and is ultimately getting annihilated by Microsoft's Xbox Game Pass in terms of value for dollar. But Sony has a massive wealth of beloved classic games to revitalize on the PS4, including PS2 and even PS1-era titles we know and love. Although this probably won't even the playing field against the Xbox One's native disc-based backward compatibility, it's something.

Now that PS Now is available on PC alongside the PS4, Sony is starting to flip the switch for PS2 games on the service. The first wave is a meager trickling of what the console had to offer and apparently only includes four games--Dark Cloud 2, Hot Shots: Tennis, Ape Escape 2, and Siren--but the major story here is that Pandora's box has been opened. We should see more and more PS2 games arrive on the service to incentivize subscriptions as time goes by.

Rockstar's latest trailer for Red Dead Redemption 2 paints a somber tone for the sequel-that's-actually-a-prequel, and shows off a few familiar faces.

A while back Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick said Red Dead Redemption 2 would have "incredible emotional depth," and it looks like Rockstar is delivering in spades. The new RDR2 trailer is all kinds of gritty, grim, and dramatic, capturing the bloody trail left by the Van Der Linde gang as they swept across the West.

The game itself will take place in the year 1899, pre-dating the original by some 11 years and showing lots of the events and situations that led up to John Marston's adventures.

Marvel's Spider-Man is moving closer to its release date and thanks to Game Informer we now know the end-game powers players will receive after beating the game.

Insomniac Games' Creative Director, Bryan Intihar revealed some details about the titles rewards after completion. According to Intihar, players will have the power of controlling the weather after they complete the games main story. Intihar explains that this is a vital aspect to adding to the games immersive story but what not intended for a first time play-through.

Other subjects that were discussed throughout the interview were the Iron Spider Suit. Currently the suit is locked behind a pre-order wall but the director says that will not always be the case. Marvel's Spider-Man will be released on September 7th exclusively for PS4.

Fortnite is currently being updated and when the servers are back online players will be able to update their game clients and drive straight into Fortnite's Season 4.

Patch 4.0 has debuted and a disaster has happened, the rumored comet crashing onto the map has become real and many locations have been affected by its impact. This has resulted in many locations being completely demolished or changed.

Also included in the new patch is updates for smoothness for characters movements on the starting island as well as performance improvements all round and many more patches/bug fixes. If you are interested in viewing the full patch notes visit the official Epic Games v4.0 patch notes here.

One of the most fan-favorite characters from the Soulcalibur series is Taki and now we have confirmation that the female Ninja will be featured in Soulcalibur VI.

The character reveal trailer that Bandai Namco was planning on releasing has now leaked onto a Japanese video site called NicoNico. This has resulted in the video to be copied numerous times and plastered all over YouTube. The above video really isn't in the best quality but its enough to see that Taki still has all of her moves from the previous games.

From the trailer we can see that Taki seems quite the same as she always has, being featured in every Soulcalibur game besides the last one definitely has had fans age with her move-set, and the strengths that come with it. For those that are interested in more character reveal trailers for the upcoming Soulcalibur check out the Siegfried, Nightmare and Geralt trailers here.

This year hasn't been very nice to cryptocurrency prices, with Bitcoin tumbling down to some worrying lows but now it is recovering in the best way it has for 2018 alone.

Bitcoin is now sitting pretty at over $9000, representing a 33% rise from April 1's low of $6926, the largest increase in BTC's price this year. Bitcoin dropped from its massive price of $13,860 on January 1 to a much lower $10,166 on February 1, and then down to $7000 in March.

We still need to see Bitcoin rise above $10,000 before it is on the road to a proper recovery, but we need to see it at over $17,000 as it was before January before we can rest easy.

Facebook and Oculus have announced something surprising during their F8 developer conference: Oculus Venues. Oculus Venues is a new app that Oculus made in-house that will handle live sporting events, comedy shows, and concerts that are shot and broadcasted in VR.

Facebook and Oculus partnered up with multiple companies to include content from the likes of NextVR, who have been streaming sporting events with its own partnerships with companies like the NBA, NFL, NHL, and WWE.

NextVR CEO David Cole explains: "Oculus Venues is a bold move to provide profound social VR engagement and we are honored to deliver such an important part of this new product release from Oculus. NextVR has built a passionate fan base around leading VR content experiences. Venues will satisfy our fans who want to enjoy this type of content on a massively social scale".

Facebook is taking a swipe at Tinder with the announcement of its new dating feature, since so many people find their partners online, why leave Facebook to do it?

Robot overlord and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg announced that the new dating feature was designed from the ground up with privacy and safety in mind, and I'm seriously sure he meant that, except probably not. The dating feature won't suggest any of your Facebook friends as a match, and if you do use the feature none of your FB friends will see your dating profile.

Facebook users will be able to set up a dating profile that is completely separate to their normal FB profile, with nothing connected between the two parts of Facebook showing up in your News Feed. Once you're in the new dating feature, you can slide through groups and events to see who you're compatible with.

RED might have seen better days with its failed relationship with AMD over the Radeon Pro SSG, but the camera giant has teamed with Facebook on a new "all-in-one" camera.

The new camera sounds impressive, where it offers six degrees of freedom (6DoF) for 3D and 360-degree video capture. RED will team up with Facebook's depth detection technology, while using RED's low-light performance to capture all of the 3D information in the scene, and not just the well-lit ones.

We don't know when this will happen, as RED and Facebook only announced the news without giving a proper date, but we should expect that you'll need a VR headset with 6DoF support. This means that you can't use VR headsets like the Oculus Go, and instead will need proper VR HMDs like the Oculus Rift or HTC Vive.

Atari has announced plans to launch pre-orders for its upcoming Atari VCS console, with pre-orders opening on May 30 and the first batch of consoles will ship in Spring 2019.

IndieGogo has an exclusive for the pre-orders of the Atari VCS console, with an awesome limited edition Atari VCS Collector's Edition that rocks a beautiful retro-styled wood front and it's giving me shivers. If you score yourself one of the first Atari VCS consoles, you'll be looking at $199 for a limited amount of time.

Atari COO of Connected Devices, Michael Arzt, said: "We continue moving forward on the Atari VCS project and are excited to see this pre-sale kickoff and to share more updates with our fans as we look toward the first shipments. We are building outstanding teams and forging alliances that will make this product great and truly worthy of the Atari VCS name. Expert hardware partners are helping make this project possible and we couldn't be more pleased with their contributions".

Kingdom Come: Deliverance had its fair share of hype last year and into the new year before it launched, with it being one of the biggest games on Steam earlier this year.

GitHyp tracks Steam stats, where they've seen an epic 95% loss in Kingdom Come: Deliverance's player base since the game launched back in February. Kingdom Come: Deliverance sold over 1 million copies across all platforms and then reached 96,000 concurrent players in its first two weeks.

Kingdom Come: Deliverance developer Warhorse Studios released a game that had its fair share of issues, and have been slow to fixing them which really doesn't help the situation. But remember that KCD is a single player game and unless it's absolutely massive, the player base drop off numbers aren't surprising... but then again, a 95% drop is HUGE.

Intel didn't really have a good time with their Kaby Lake-X line of processors, with Chipzilla announcing that they are discontinuing the CPUs after only 11 months on the market.

Originally, Kaby Lake-X were designed and marketed as an enthusiast HEDT platform to give quad-core CPUs on the 14nm+ architecture, but after a lack of sales and enthusiasm around them, Intel has put Kaby Lake-X into EOL (end of life).

At the time, Intel announced the X299 platform and two quad-core SKUs of KLX that were based on the enhanced 14nm+ node, but had less PCIe lanes, dual-channel DDR4 support, and next to no performance gains over the Skylake-X family of CPUs at the time on the much cheaper Z270 platform.

Infinite Sunshine Dust has just been released on the Steam Store by Kena MAKF, the developer describes the unique title as a psychedelic horror adventure.

This very unique title is obviously indie and according the description it will be putting players in a "psychedelic horror adventure game."

The full description of the newly released game goes as follows: "Infinite Sunshine Dust (LSD) is a psychedelic horror adventure game. Four prisoners wander a virtual world for insane experiment and they get involved with many, many strange things."

Blizzard has released some screenshots and details for their upcoming expansion Battle for Azeroth. The screenshots showcase the Zandalari City Zuldazar.

The below screenshots have been compiled together, from them we can see different types of wildlife as well as what seems like a jungle biome.

For those that are not aware, Zuldazar is the capital city of Zandalar which is where King Rastakhan and his golden through lay. If a player decides to choose to side with Horde they will begin in this area and will start to aid the king against the battle with the Alliance.