Latest News - Page 2452

Assassin's Creed creative director Patrice Desilets has won back the rights of the mysterious dark alternate history game Amsterdam: 1666 from Ubisoft.

The beef between Patrice Desilets and Ubisoft surrounding the once-cancelled Amsterdam: 1666 game has officially been squashed, and Desilets now owns creative and business control over the IP. Amsterdam: 1666 was to be Desilets' next AAA game at THQ Montreal, but the company eventually fell apart, and Ubisoft scooped up the project and the dev team. Shortly after acquiring the game, however, Ubisoft cancelled the project and fired Desilets. This kicked off a fierce legal battle between the Assassin's Creed creative director and Ubisoft, but the publisher has finally relinquished its control to deliver 1666: Amsterdam back in Desilets' hands.

Although we know next to nothing about the game, Desilets showed off a bit of artwork that speaks volumes. The teaser is quite eye-catching, and portrays a dark, macabre alternate-history universe that conjures up Middle Age vampires, demons, and other harrowing ghastly creatures. Considering Desilets was directly responsible for making Assassin's Creed into a AAA juggernaut, we could see 1666: Amsterdam become a smashing success. I for one can't stop looking at the imagery...it's quite hypnotic and mesmerizing.

CD Projekt RED is making dramatic changes to its in-house games development software to ensure Cyberpunk 2077 lives up to the staggering hype.

In order to make Cyberpunk 2077 "bigger, better and more revolutionary" than The Witcher 3, CD Projekt RED laying the foundations with a new suite of powerful dev tools. The studio is using hard-earned feedback gleaned from Witcher 3 programmers and developers to help streamline Cyberpunk 2077's development. These enhancements include a brand new visual effects editor, along with a suite of other optimized features and most likely a new, heavily customized game engine.

"The most important thing that's happening at the moment is that the programmers are taking the feedback we gave them from working on The Witcher . As cliche as it sounds it was a big learning experience," CDPR visual effect artist Jose Teixeira told iDigitalTimes. "The programmers are updating our software quite drastically."

While spin-off character 'Deadpool' might have unexpectedly taken some of the attention away from the upcoming sixth film in the 'X-Men' saga, Apocalypse has come to command your attention. Today, Fox have released the final trailer for the film which follows up the plot threads from the last film 'X-Men: Days of Future Past'.

Starring James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender reprising their roles as Professor X and Magneto, and introducing Oscar Isaac as Apocalypse - the original and most powerful mutant of them all, the film also returns Jennifer Lawrence as Mystique, Nicholas Hoult as Beast and Sophie Turner as Jean Grey. I won't spoil the surprise, but be sure to stay right to the end of the trailer for a hint on who's set to make a most welcome cameo appearance.

'X-Men: Apocalypse' hits 2D, 3D and IMAX screens worldwide from May 18.

Epic games has revealed today that there is definitely going to be a retail release of their free-to-play MOBA hybrid and that they're going to sell a premium, or Essentials, version on the PlayStation 4 version that should add some starting value to those wishing to hit the ground running.

The game itself is completely free-to-play, aside from the in-game currency that can be used to purchase skins, rep boosts and XP boosts. The Paragon Essentials Edition will cost $60 on launch and include what Epic Games is saying is a total of $160 of value. You'll have 6000 Paragon coins, five hero master challenges that will unlock challenger skins and XP boosts. And as an added bonus, if you pre-order this Essentials edition, then you'll receive an extra 1000 Paragon coins thrown in for good measure. Alongside the in-game currency, you'll get five skins, one of which is a launch-exclusive, five rep boosts and a rep speed boost.

You'll be able to find that new paid edition inside the PlayStation store starting on June 7th with a full release of the game slated for sometime later in 2016 on the PS4 and PC. MOBA's and any game with its own economy tend to have micro-transactions of these tyeps that might at first feel like a pay-to-win situation. Epic has been adamant that you can play, win and achieve all in-game items without paying anything, however.

A very interesting revelation has appeared as thanks to the ESRB. Driveclub VR has officially been rated by the US's game rating organization, which means that it's that much closer to launch. Theoretically.

The ESRB is generally very good about not releasing information, the rating or the synopsis and explanation of their rating, until very close to the actual release date. They generally follow NDA's or are careful about leaks. Thus, Driveclub VR could very well be ready for download very soon, and certainly a launch game for the PS VR.

Evolution Studios, who has since had their doors shuttered, had teased off a 360-degree video of Driveclub that was a precursor to the official game that's being reported here. Despite the closure of the studio, Sony is still committed to supporting the game and even adding new content and experiences. Driving games are perfect for VR, and this might be enough to lead more players back to the game.

John Romero has been teasing his re-entry into triple-A gaming for some time, reiterating his dedication to his original genre and that he's going to introduce something "soon." Blackroom is the name of his new game which is being developed by him and his new studio, Night Works Games. It's classic FPS at it's heart, but with a great overarching story might actually make you feel something for the characters.

John Romero is intent on recapturing the fun and excitement that we had with some of his earlier projects, such as Quake, where the story is the driving force of the action, and the action surrounding that story is brutal and exciting. It's not easy to bring back those nostalgic feels in such a way, as the recent DOOM beta has attested to. But damned if Romero and crew aren't going to give it a try.

In Blackroom, the story revolves around a new immersive holographic simulation technology, known as Blackroom. That technology has been developed to help create better training experiences for the military and much more. The tech, like anything as new, has it's share of bugs and glitches the just might be very deadly, and it's up to you as the chief engineer to fid those problems and fix them by traveling through different simulations. There's a huge focus on the narrative, with Romero wanting to integrate it into the gameplay.

Rhapsody International -- parent company of streaming music companies Rhapsody and Napster -- has appointed Mike Davis (pictured here) as its first CEO. Until now, the company has been led by executive committee.

Davis' background lies in private equity; he recently served as a "growth adviser" and senior operating consultant to LA firm The Gores Group.

The move seems to be a response to the intense competition seen from Spotify and Apple Music, as has recent feature additions to the Rhapsody client in recent months.

The PlayStation 4 gets to have some exclusive content in HITMAN. Not just a unique skin or costume that you can unlock, but an entire sub-set of stories that are completely self-contained and should provide a few more hours of content within each new episode. A new trailer for these Sarajevo Six missions has just been released, and it's quite entertaining.

The Sarajevo Six are a set of missions where you have the option of pursuing and finding members of a paramilitary unit known as CICADA. In Sapienza you'll have the pleasure of finding a Gary Lunn, who is apparently working at a bio lab developing any number of devious substances, or rather enforcing the wrath of his superiors instead. He's rumored to be in the Villa Caruso, and should prove to be quite the worthy opponent. And I'm sure there are some very hilarious way that you can set up his ultimate end. You're limited only by your imagination, after all.

Of course these particular missions are only available to those on the PS4 and will be ready to go once the second season is available to play.

AMD's longstanding residence of the Sunnyvale campus will be no more before long, rumor has it; The Irvine Company is set to buy it from New York real estate investment trust W.P. Carey, according to real estate sources. Irvine Company is known to raze offices and R&D campuses, so it makes sense that we're hearing AMD is consequently seeking another headquarters in Silicon Valley.

While the company forecast for AMD has been looking increasingly better in recent times, it's still 2,000 employees shy of what it was in 2011, and so it's said to be looking at properties with a 35 to 40 percent footprint reduction, or about 175,000 - 225,000 square feet versus the 319,000 square feet of its current location.

AMD's has resided at the Sunnyvale campus since 1977; its lease ends December 2018.

The team behind the very successful Unofficial Oblivion Patch and Unofficial Skyrim Patch is at it again with Fallout 4.

The Unofficial Fallout 4 Patch, as it's known, has the ambitious goal of fixing every bug in the game not fixed by Bethesda; it currently boasts hundreds of fixes, touching on gameplay, quests, items, perks, stats, settlements, and more. For the full details on what's been changed, head here.

The patch is said to be mod friendly. When installing, ensure your load order is as follows: Fallout4.esm, [Official DLCs], [Other ESM Files], Unofficial Fallout 4 Patch.esp, [The rest of your mods]. As well, use LOOT to set load order when using other mods.

Rainbow Six Siege's next content drop, Operation Dust Line, is going to be available on May 9th for season pass holders and sometime shortly after that for those haven't elected to buy into the entire season of DLC in one go around.

Following the previous DLC that was released in February, Operation Dust Line will include two new operators to choose from as well as a new as-of-yet unannounced map. Both the new operators have Navy SEAL backgrounds, with Valkyrie being a more defensive addition with the ability to deploy sticky cameras to help observe the battlefield as you make preparations. Blackbeard is an offensive character, being equipped with a rifle and shield. More info about Valkyrie and Blackbeard will be coming on May 7th following the Rainbow Six Pro League Finals that'll be taking place.

This is the second of four planned content drops that are coming to the game. The first added one new map and two characters, and that trend is looking to continue for the last three. Rainbow Six Siege started off a bit rough after the beta test had issues with network connectivity and rampant cheating has been off-putting to the legitimate players of the new game. Ubisoft has since fixed a great deal of the latent bugs and is hoping their anti-cheating measures are enough to bring back in the audience it may have lost.

Quantum Break for the PC, and even the Xbox One for that matter, wasn't quite one of the smoothest of launches on a technical scale. On the PC side, there've been rampant performance issues and other visual oddities that make it a strange game to play. Remedy is working on a sizable patch that should be available sometime by the end of the week.

According to the head of PR at Remedy, Thomas Puha, both the Xbox One and the PC version of the patch are currently in the certification process with small bugs within the update being stamped out as quickly as possible. There's no word on what changes are actually inside due to the contents of it being subject to change. It's large and a sign that they're definitely committed to fixing any transgressions that happened as result of Remedy releasing perhaps a bit too early.

The PC version suffers from some fairly frequent framerate stuttering and generally poor performance on a variety of hardware, including a Titan X. Even being a fully DX12 title, it doesn't make use of the compute queue at all, for anything. The new patch should, hopefully, resolve some performance-based issues.

ARK: Survival Evolved continues to grow, with developer Studio Wildcard announcing that it's kicking off an Official Mods Program that will see user-made mods become part of the main game.

The user-made mods being folded into the main game will take place not only on the PC but the Xbox One version of the game. It'll be starting off with The Center, a fantasy-themed map that will drop next month, while Primitive Plus, which makes you rely on wood and stone, will be released in the summer.

Studio Wildcard hasn't added whether mod creators will receive compensation ($$$) for their work, but it's great to see the developer moving in this direction - and including console gamers in on the modding fun.

Outlast was one of the best horror games in recent times, with developer Red Barrel teasing Outlast 2 at PAX East 2016 last week. In my story about it, I said in the headline 'but where's the VR version?' and it looks like my question has been answered.

Red Barrel co-founder Phillippe Morin and writer JT Petty talked about Outlast 2 during their official Twitch livestream, saying that the main protagonist in the sequel will be a cameraman who is investigating the murder of a Jane Doe, and trying to work out where these people come from.

The cameraman takes a helicopter and goes to investigate the canyons of Arizona, but the chopper crashes and then when you wake up, you find yourself separated from your wife, and in a secluded village full of people who believe the end of time is coming. Morin reiterated that Outlast 2 is once again about immersion, with gameplay mechanics existing to create emotions.

Acer unveiled some new gaming desktops and laptops during the week, but there were also three new Predator Z1 gaming monitors unveiled, too.

The new Predator Z1 monitors unveiled at Acer's event in NYC are all curved gaming panels, coming in 31.5-, 30- and 27-inch sizes. All models include NVIDIA's G-Sync technology, with the 30-inch Predator Z1 featuring a 21:9 UltraWide aspect ratio.

The new Acer Predator Z1 monitors start at $600, and will be made available throughout the US and Europe in June. I'm still rocking the Acer Predator X34 monitor, which is the best gaming display on the market right now with its 3440x1440 native resolution, huge 100Hz refresh rate (at least for a 3440x1440 panel) and NVIDIA's G-Sync technology - check out our review on that, here.

An accidental Xbox Store listing reveals what Coalition has planned for Gears of War 4's season pass DLC.

Gears of War 4's season pass will give players access to a total of 24 co-op and multiplayer map packs, which Coalition plans to release in waves of two maps per month for a year. That's according to a premature listing on the Xbox Australia storefront, initially spotted by eagle-eyed industry vet Wario64. The season pass also confirms Gears of War 4 will have dedicated servers, and pass owners will get to preview upcoming DLC maps, weapons, and modes before they're released.

"Join this VIP experience and score the following perks: Five exclusive digital items as part of the Vintage VIP Pack; permanent DLC map ownership of over 24 additional maps (two per month for a year) for private play on dedicated servers; an exclusive VIP "Early Access" Playlist that grants a preview to upcoming modes, maps and variants; and six Gear Packs."

Microsoft is offering early access to Gears of War 4 to gamers who buy the $100 Ultimate Edition.

If you buy Gears of War 4's $100 Ultimate Edition, you'll be able to play the game four days ahead of everyone else. Renowned industry vet Wario64 caught a quick screenshot of the pre-sale incentive, which was previously live on the Xbox Store, but Microsoft yanked the page shortly after news broke out. The listing was posted on the Xbox Australia site with a $140 AUD price tag, which converts to roughly $108 USD.

"Gears of War 4 Ultimate Edition is your gateway to Early Access for Gears of War 4, allowing you to download the game and start playing Friday, October 7 - four days before the game's standard release date," reads the edition's main page. The Gears of War 4 Ultimate Edition includes a copy of the game and a season pass for all future DLC packs. The season pass includes access to 24 DLC maps, which will be released two per month by Coalition.

The last time DOOM was in the headlines, was when we reported that the game is a 'slow generic console multiplayer shooter clone'. Well, just how much HDD space does this slow generic console multiplayer shooter clone take up?

According to the official listing on the Xbox One store, DOOM requires 45.04GB HDD space. The PS4 and PC versions shouldn't require much more or less, so we can expect somewhere in the 40-50GB size.

Comparing DOOM to The Division, Ubisoft's open-world RPG took just 32GB, while Xbox One exclusive Halo: The Master Chief Collection chewed up a huge 62GB HDD space.

Logitech's "Great Wall of G810s" goes down as one of the most ingenious and impressive spectacles in PAX East history.

At this year's PAX East show, Logitech built a massive colorful wall of out of 18,400 keyboard LEDs to simulate old-school arcade games. The wall used 160 of Logitech's new G810 RGB mechanical keyboards, and was made possible thanks to custom laser-etched keycaps to make every key simulate a colored pixel. The huge LED wall drew lots of attention at the show, and reportedly took six months of planning to orchestrate.

"I'm a dork, I'm a nerd, I grew up playing Pac Man, Space Invaders, Asteroids...so I thought 'how cool would it be if we built a huge wall out of our keyboards and we programmed a video game on it," Logitech's Vice President and General Manager Ujesh Desai told Gamers Nexus.

We're only weeks away from the official unveiling of AMD's next-gen Polaris 10 GPU, with new reports from a recent event hosted by the company in Taiwan about Polaris.

The event doubled as a way of showcasing their next-gen Polaris architecture, as well as the new dual Fiji video card, the Radeon Pro Duo. The upcoming Polaris 10 has a TDP of 175W, but will "actually consume much less than that", reports WCCFTech.

The Polaris 10 reportedly hits around 4000 points in 3DMark FireStrike Ultra, compared to the R9 Fury X and GeForce GTX 980 Ti which also hit around 4000 points. All AMD will have to do is hit the $300 (or so) price point on the Polaris 10, and it would be a winner if it consumes less than 175W, and cranks out GTX 980 Ti like performance.