Latest News - Page 2137

EA has officially closed Visceral Games, the studio responsible for Dead Space and Battlefield Hardline, and the developer's ambitious new Star Wars project (codenamed "Ragtag") has been handed off to another internal EA studio.

Visceral Games is no more, and one of the big reasons EA likely canned the studio was because of their upcoming Star Wars game led by Amy Hennig. EA is embracing the games-as-a-service business model that essentially sees games lasting much longer and making more long-term money via microtransactions and lootboxes. I've reported on this in the past, and predicted that pretty much every new EA game--or AAA game from a big publisher--will have microtransactions and embrace this model. Sadly, Visceral's new Star Wars project just didn't fit this model, and EA has decided to dismantle the studio entirely and hand the project off to EA Vancouver, who will make a game from the assets and bones of Project Ragtag while incorporating that critical GaaS hook. This marks the second time EA has shut down a studio recently, the first being BioWare Montreal, who was shut down after the humiliating reception around Mass Effect: Andromeda.

In a recent blog post, EA exec Patrick Soderlund announced Visceral Games' closure and explained what the future holds for Project Ragtag.

While the gaming world is dominated by the likes of Battlegrounds, Fortnite, Star Wars: Battlefront II, and others... don't forget massive fan favorites like Team Fortress 2, which is celebrating its 10th anniversary.

Valve is celebrating the 10-year anniversary of Team Fortress 2 with one of the games largest updates ever; Jungle Inferno. The new update relocates your heroes to tropical climates, with a story ripped from the script of Jurassic Park. Mann Co. President, Saxton Hale, has opened up Yeti Park. But there's a twist! The yetis escape and start causing all sorts of problems, as you can see in the video above.

Another surprise is that Valve released a new map, which is the first in-house map created since 2015, as well as some yeti-related taunts. The company has also unleashed five new fan-designed maps, with more content planned in the new Jungle Inferno content pack that will be released over the next couple of weeks.

Seriously... if you haven't picked up a Nintendo Switch and played Zelda: Breath of the Wild, you really ought to. It's one of the best games I've ever played, safely tucked into my top 10... but PUBG is definitely my #1. YouTuber BSoD Gaming has a great comparison between the Switch version, and the PC version with all of the bells and whistles.

To get the best experience out of the comparison, watch the video in 4K. First off, the visual style of Zelda: BotW is instantly apparent, but it is highlighted in the PC version with all of the mods. We have a new graphics pack, which adds much more contrast and saturation to the world, resulting in a much more luscious world.

The one big thing that I will point out, that I haven't seen anyone talk about yet. Most of you know I'm a huge graphics/PCMR kinda guy, but the actual experience of playing Zelda: BotW on the Nintendo Switch in portable mode. It's an amazing experience in portable mode, almost as if Nintendo made the Switch just for Zelda: Breath of the Wild. It runs at 720p 30FPS, and as someone who games at 3440x1440 @ 100FPS+ it's a huge drop, but BotW is worth it.

Qualcomm took the wraps off of its new 5G breakthrough, reaching a huge 1Gbps but they weren't done - the company has just unveiled its new Snapdragon 636 processor, too. The new Snapdragon 636 has support for extra-tall FHD+ resolution screens (2160x1080), too.

Qualcomm's new Snapdragon 636 processor is the successor to the mid-range Snapdragon 630, which is ready for Assertive Display - for increased visibility in not-so-great lighting. Adreno 509 graphics are just 10% faster than the previous-gen chip, while the Kryo 260 CPU is 40% faster.

Inside, we have up to 600Mbps LTE support, while we have Qualcomm's impressive Spectra 160 image signal processor that will provide great photo-taking abilities. Qualcomm will be shipping its new Snapdragon 636 processors out to phone makers in November.

Man, oh man... the amount of hours I pumped into my Sega Genesis, NES, and SNES... but now, Analogue is tempting me with their new Super Nt.

SuperNt is a new console that is capable of playing the massive 2200+ library of SNES and Super Famicom cartridges at 1080p, with no lag, and is compatible with every single accessory out there. The new console will play SNES games at 1080p, all while looking super-fly, as if it was designed this year.

The new console runs games from 480p to 1080p, with both NTSC and PAL support, as well as 48KHz 16-bit audio. There's even the same controller ports as the original SNES, with the new Super Nt capable of having its firmware updated with an SD card. Analogue has even included scanline options, scaling options, and more in order to get the exact image you want on your TV.

Microsoft has just made its next-gen Surface Book 2 official, with the new laptop coming in two different sizes: 13-inch, and 15-inch.

The flagship 15-inch Surface Book 2 rocks an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 graphics card, a 3240 x 2160 PixelSense display, Intel's new quad-core Core i7-8650U @ 4.2GHz 'max turbo' clocks, 16GB of RAM, 256GB/512GB/1TB of storage, with the GTX 1060 rocking 6GB of RAM. We're looking at a weight of 4.2 pounds, or 1.8 pounds in tablet mode, while the price starts @ $2499.

Microsoft's refreshed 13-inch Surface Book 2 rocks a 3000x2000 resolution, dual-core i5-7300U or quad-core i7-8650U @ 4.2GHz, 16GB of RAM and the same 256GB/512GB/1TB storage options. GPU wise we have a knocked down GTX 1060 with 2GB of RAM (the Core i5 model will use integrated graphics), while we have 3.62 pounds and 1.59 pounds in tablet mode, with a starting price of $1499.

The recent leaks of HP's upcoming Raven Ridge APU-powered notebook teased some potential specs of AMD's upcoming Vega Mobile GPU, but now we have some more solid performance numbers to share.

AMD's upcoming Ryzen 7 2700U will feature Vega-based graphics, with 3DMark 11 graphics performance similar to NVIDIA's GeForce MX150. Leaked benchmarks show the Raven Ridge APU losing to the GeForce MX150 by 11%, which isn't bad when you consider the GeForce MX150 is a discrete GPU.

Power consumption of Raven Ridge is going to be a hot topic, with HP's rumored Spectre x360 15t-bl100 said to feature a 45W TDP. We don't know how much power the APU has, but it's not the full 45W as the notebook has to power everything else, too. As more details arrive, we'll keep you updated.

Monolith and WB Games have announced a weekly calendar timeline of post-release events for gamers to tackle in the war-torn world of Middle-earth.

One of the main reasons Shadow of War has lootboxes is that WB Games wants the experience to last quite some time; with the help of the devs at Monolith, the publisher has effectively turned Shadow of War into a service game, complete with an optional online mode with a distinct multiplayer hook. And one of the traditional benefits of this monetization strategy is free post-release content updates that typically keep players engaged and so they "stick" to the game. Now Monolith has revealed a small slice of this post-release engagement with a weekly list of rotating challenges.

All in all the calendar isn't too impressive, but it's not a timeline of content perse, more of a smattering of community-driven challenges and mini-events that net specific rewards. Each challenge week is separated into weekly and weekend challenges that rotate on a week-to-week basis, and the ending challenges seem to be geared towards online play. All in all I expected a bit more from Monolith on the engagement front, but the game is still young and they'll have time to roll out more updates and the like. And of course the team just launched Shadow of War so they need a breather--any dev team needs a fair bit of R&R after launching a massive game like this.

Sumo Digital, the UK-based independent games developer known for titles like Crackdown 3, Dead Island 2 and Forza Horizon 3, plans to go public with an IPO worth $198 million, British publication The Times reports.

Sources familiar with the matter tell The Times that Sumo Digital are currently preparing to go public in London in an IPO worth £150m, or about $198 million based on recent conversions. The developer has hired Zeus Capital to help plan the IPO, and the company's co-founders, Carl Cavers and Paul Porter, will receive significant portions of the offering thanks to their current stakes.

Interestingly enough, Sumo Digital is currently run by equity firm Perwyn, who has majority of the company's stake after a buyout in 2016. It will be interesting to see how this IPO affects the development of future games such as Crackdown 3, which has been delayed to 2018, and Deep Silver's often-delayed Dead Island 2.

Gearbox Software is hiring a writer for an "unannounced AAA FPS/RPG hybrid with strong characters and a central narrative thread," and we're pretty sure it's Borderlands 3.

We've known that Borderlands 3 is in the works for quite some time--last April Gearbox officially confirmed the third chapter is in development--and 2K Games label parent company Take-Two Interactive has even strongly iterated that Borderlands 3 will release in the company's fiscal year ending March 2019. Now a new job listing has popped up to give us a few more details.

The listing calls for a writer to help "punch up" the story and plot outlines, including writing up voice-over dialogue and in-game text for missions and interactions. Gearbox wants candidates to have a penchant for humor and inject comedy into the mix--another staple of the Borderlands series--while staying true to the plot arc.

Like other major publishers such as Activision, Electronic Arts, and Ubisoft, Take-Two Interactive, the parent company of Rockstar Games, 2K Games, and Gearbox Software, uses recurring monetization streams via microtransactions and in-game purchases to act as safety nets in case new IPs backfire.

Making AAA games costs a lot of money--sometimes even $100 million--and publishers are typically risk averse when it comes to new IPs. But some publishers, like Ubisoft, have used new IPs as a gateway for a new interactive digital business model and have tremendously benefited from taking that risk. But Ubisoft's new IPs and digital games all have one thing in common: they're monetized via in-game purchases. This isn't a mistake: if, say, For Honor tanked, Ubisoft could buffer the loss with microtransaction earnings from a successful game like Ghost Recon: Wildlands or Rainbow Six: Siege. This is part of the biggest and more lucrative digital strategy the games industry is currently following, and will be a big part of gaming's future because of the tangible benefits it offers.

Take-Two Interactive CEO Strauss Zelnick recently spoke out on the topic, discussing the merits of microtransactions and how they help big publishers make key decisions. If it weren't for the big billion-dollar treasure trove of earnings from GTA Online's microtransactions over the years (analyst firm SuperData says GTA Online has made over $1 billion in earnings to date), Take-Two (and more specifically Gearbox) would've been hit a lot harder by Battleborn's failure. And if it weren't for those recurring revenue streams, which continually bring in money, Battleborn may not have been greenlit in the first place as the publisher would be more risk adverse than they already are.

UK MP Tracey Crouch, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary for the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, has responded to the popular petition regarding lootboxes. Her answer? It's basically up to the Gambling Commission what answers are taken.

Following the ESRB's affirmations that lootboxes technically aren't gambling and the ratings board can't define it as such, as well as the European ratings board PEGI delivering a similar response, frustrated gamers and concerned citizens in the UK formally wrote up a petition asking the government how it plans to "protect vulnerable adults and children from illegal gambling, in-game gambling, and loot boxes within computer games."

Today the UK's Tracey Crouch delivered a response, and it's not what loot-box haters wanted to hear. The MP notes that regulations outlined for gambling and loot boxes have been outlined by the government's Gambling Commission in a position paper released in March 2017, and that commission is "keeping this matter under review and will continue to monitor developments in the market."

Rocket League are introducing their first themed-event for Halloween, Haunted Hallows. The timed event introduces new crates, in-game items and a new form of currency, Candy Corn. Haunted Hallows begins tomorrow- October 16 and runs through to November 6.

Candy Corn is Haunted Hallows limited-time currency and is earned by completing Online Matches. The Candy Corn currency can be redeemed for Halloween items, Decryptors, and locked "Haunted Hallows" crates. Candy Corn won't expire on November 6 when Haunted Hallows is finished, you will still have the option to spend remaining currency for one-week post-Halloween Hallows.

Decryptors are the latest way to unlock crates and can only be purchased using your precious Candy Corn. Decryptors can open any crate in Rocket League, including Event Crates, not a bad item to stock up on.

The road towards The International 8 is officially underway, with the first minor tournament of the new Dota 2 season completed. The group stage saw six teams from six regional qualifiers join Team Liquid and Newbee as direct invites to StarLadder i-League Invitational Season 3, with the top 4 of the group stage progessing to the Playoffs.

StarLadder i-League Invitational Season 3 featured a total prize pool of $300,000 with $135,000 going home with the eventual winners, Team Liquid. The International 7 winners were too strong for the resurgent Mineski, who had just an impressive performance to make it to the grand final only dropping two games to Team Liquid in the group stage and one to compLexity in the semi-finals. It would take until game one of the grand final before Team Liquid would even drop a game in the tournament with Mineski drawing first blood, but the defending SL i-League Invitational and TI7 champions would have the last laugh.

Game one saw Mineski surprise the TI7 winners with early pressure and early kills. Team Liquid were able to recover and force Mineski into teamfight after teamfight with Liquid gaining some momentum. It was short-lived success however, as once Mineski's BKBs were online it was all over for Team Liquid.

Former Naughty Dog employee David Ballard has claimed that he was sexually harassed by one of the studio's leads and that when he reported this situation he was fired because the company was going in a different direction and his position was no longer required.

The incident occurred in late 2015, originally Mr Ballard was too ashamed of the situation but has been inspired by other TV/Film individuals speaking of their experiences. Ballad took to Twitter over the weekend to deliver his account of events.

"In late 2015, I was sexually harassed at Naughty Dog by a lead. My work environment became extremely toxic afterward," Ballard said in a series of posts. "In February 2016 I had a mental breakdown at work & Sony PlayStation HR became involved. When I told them about the harassment they ended the call and fired me the next day. They cited the company was moving in a different direction and my job was no longer needed. They tried to silence me by offering $20,000 if I signed a letter agreeing to the termination as well as to not discuss it with anyone. I declined to sign."

Following up from the successful H1Z1: Fight for the Crown tournament earlier this year, Developer Daybreak Games in partnership with Twin Galaxies, have announced the launch of the H1Z1 Pro League. The H1Z1: King of the Kill based professional esports league will feature 15 teams competing in a 20-week season, followed by the first-ever league championship in late 2018.

With esports rapidly expanding, we've seen Blizzard announce the Overwatch League along with Dota 2, CS:GO and League of Legends already well established in esports. H1Z1 is next to enter into the esport scene with The H1Z1 Pro League. "Our goal with the H1Z1 Pro League is to create a world-class experience worthy of our incredibly competitive community," said H1Z1's general manager Anthony Castoro as he recently spoke with Polygon. This will ensure a "player-first" approach, includes a guaranteed minimum player salary of $50,000, a governing committee and a well-defined revenue sharing model.

H1Z1: Fight for the Crown featured a $300,000 prize pool and had an estimated 390,000 viewers when it aired on CW Network in April, this success has opened the door for the inception of the H1Z1 Pro League. "We were the first to do a battle royale esports [event] with the H1Z1 Invitational in 2015," Castoro said. "Over the past couple of years, we've really started to develop best practices and learned how to run this kind of large scale event. ... We had really great success with the commercial broadcast of Fight for the Crown on the CW. I think our ratings were right up there with the NHL, the playoff game that was happening the same night." Anthony Castoro said with Polygon.

Following Epic Games stance on cheaters, Blizzard have been busy themselves with regards to punishing cheaters, specifically targeting World of Warcraft players who use third-party software to cheat.

No figure of how many accounts were suspended, but repeat offenders were dealt with bans up to 18 months while first time offenders were given 6 months. Blizzard have developed a method to detect cheaters using WoW bot software Honorbuddy as the 'ban section' of their forums have been FLOODED with posts. Honorbuddy released a statement via their forums confirming that their 'bot/tool' had been detected.

It appears as if Honorbuddy isn't the only software that was detected, with several other third-party software also being detected. These programs allow players to instantly teleport around the map, scripts to help them in combat and even fully automated bots which operate on behalf of the player.

Qualcomm is at the absolute bleeding edge of connectivity technology, with the world's first tests of 5G connections on a mobile device now completed.

The company tested the 5G internet connection on their own X50 5G modem, using the 28GHz millimeter wave frequency band. Qualcomm adds that they reached over 1Gbps with the test, but 5G is capable of much higher speeds of 5Gbps once the 5G deployments are complete.

Qualcomm also unveiled the world's first 5G smartphone reference design, which the company will use to test 5G modems, radios, and networks with smartphone makers over the next 1-2 years, as we get closer to companies releasing 5G-capable smartphones. 5G smartphones are expected in the first half of 2019, while Qualcomm's new 5G reference smartphone rocks an edge-to-edge display, and is just 9mm thick.

Overwatch has hit yet another milestone, with Blizzard announcing there are now over 35 million players since the game launched back in May 2016.

We don't know which platforms have the most users, but I'd dare say the PC version of Overwatch has the lion's share of gamers. Blizzard hit 20 million players in Overwatch back in November 2016, and then 30 million in April this year. PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds continues to pummel other games into the ground, so it'll be interesting to see how Overwatch's numbers get affected as PUBG continues to grow.

Blizzard hasn't revealed any other details about the 35 million Overwatch players, so we don't know if the free weekends count (they probably do). No matter what, 35 million gamers is a big milestone for Overwatch.

PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds is racing towards v1.0, but Bluehole has a lot of work to do before we get there. The developer has talked about some updates that gamers have wanted since PUBG launched earlier this year: vaulting, and climbing.

Bluehole has said that climbing and vaulting have a massive impact on gameplay, which means they need to be tested "for at least a month" before they go live. The developer adds: "The content and features that will be in test servers need to be tested for at least 2 to 4 weeks. It will be very difficult for us to provide a stable service if we rush updates to live servers after short bursts of testing. As we would like to go through rigorous testing to prepare for official launch, we will not be updating new content to live servers and run test servers for a longer period of time instead".

PUBG will receive climbing and vaulting in "late October or early November", but personally... I think Bluehole need to work on hitting 100% optimization on Unreal Engine 4 for the game.