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The hype train has well and truly begun with Gears of War 4, with developer The Coalition saying that the game will be "a graphical showcase" for the Xbox One.

The Coalition boss Rod Fergusson was interviewed in the latest issue of Official Xbox Magazine US, where he talked about Gears of War 4, where the teamed learned a lot from its experience in the 60FPS gameplay from Gears of War: Ultimate Edition. The studio wanted to bring some of their findings into Gears of War 4, with Fergusson saying: "Delivering [with Ultimate Edition] the first 60fps multiplayer experience in franchise history really taught us a lot about what it means to have a 60fps culture on the team and we're leveraging that experience for Gears of War 4".

The original Gears of War launched on the Xbox 360 some 10 years ago now, in 2006, and was praised for its graphics back in the day. Fergusson said The Coalition's mission is for Gears of War 4 to be "a graphical showcase" for the Xbox One, where he said: "Like how the original Gears of War was a visual showcase for the Xbox 360, Gears of War 4 will be a graphical showcase for the Xbox One".

After all of the leaks on Doom, we're getting some official information from the Twitter account of Doom regarding the single-player side of things.

Someone asked how long the single-player campaign would be, with the following reply on the Twitter page for Doom: "The difficulty level plays a factor, but folks playing at the office average 13+ hours in the campaign". Not too bad, but Doom isn't really a single-player game - people will be buying it for the multiplayer (which I think will be short lived, but shhh). As for the single-player side of things, there will be 17 missions. These include:

Doom will be released on May 13 for the Xbox One, PS4 and PC.

Ubisoft might have found a winner with its Snowdrop engine, the gorgeous piece of technology that powers The Division - speaking of which, the open beta is here - are you enjoying it?

Well, during an interview with Finder, Ubisoft Massive's Head of IP, Martin Hultberg said that the Snowdrop engine is now available to other studios within Ubisoft. Hultberg said: "It's just more efficient that way. In our case we developed the Snowdrop Engine from the ground-up because we needed middleware that could run on the new consoles and PC, while doing everything we wanted to do with the open world, the weather, time of day and such features. Now we've made that engine available to other studios, and not just the Clancy teams. Any Ubisoft team can use Snowdrop now".

One of the key parts of Snowdrop is the awesome Dark Zone within The Division, which is where the multiplayer side of the game resides. Hultberg confirmed that the Dark Zone was thanks to Snowdrop, that that it can now be incorporated into other open world games, especially considering Ubisoft dominates open world games. Hultberg continued: "The Dark Zone experience in itself isn't technology specific to the rest of the game, but the transitions that we do between the [campaign and Dark Zone] game modes - the fact that we do not use lobbies or menus - is the key part of the Snowdrop Engine. I think that feature could definitely be incorporated into other Ubisoft games like Assassin's Creed. It's a really immersive feature that I think fits with pretty much all Ubisoft's IPs".

Mobile World Congress 2016 kicks off next week in Barcelona, Spain - so it's perfect timing that Acer begins teasing what the world will see next week.

Acer CEO Jason Chen teased reporters last week, saying that the Taiwanese company "has been conducting research and development of VR technologies for a while", and that it is "planning to introduce some new technologies to surprise everyone", reports Taipei Times. Chen added: "We are thinking of how to expand Acer's reach in the field and turn our VR technologies into a business. And that is an important element in the process of Acer's corporate transformation".

Considering Samsung and HTC have been in the VR game for quite a while now with their Gear VR and Vive, respectively, what could Acer reveal that would "surprise everyone" at MWC? It's exciting, and mysterious, and I love it.

Intel launched their new Broadwell-based Xeon D processors last week, led by the impressive Xeon D-1587. Intel's new Xeon D family includes a few system-on-chip (SoCs) that are aimed at the microserver and storage markets, thanks to Intel being able to make the new Xeon D family in a low TDP package.

The flagship Xeon D-1587 is a beast in itself, with 16 physical cores with 32 logical threads. It boasts 24MB of cache, and has its 16 cores clocked at 1.7GHz, best of all - it rocks this all at 65W. Impressive, eh? The next one down is the Xeon D-1577 which has the same specifications, 16 cores and the same 24MB cache, but a 1.3GHz clock speed and only 45W TDP. Last of all, is the Xeon D-1571 which features the same 16-core goodness, falling in line with the Xeon E5 V4 processors powered by Broadwell-EP. But, it gets a clock speed of 1.3GHz, 24MB cache, and same 45W TDP.

Intel's new Broadwell-powered Xeon D processors arrive in BGA packaging, so you'll need to purchase them directly from Intel's AIB partners, such as SuperMicro, GIGABYTE, or others. As for pricing, the Xeon D-1571 is priced at $1222, so expect the Xeon D-1587 to be priced a little higher than that. But the next question is: what about performance? Yeah well, Intel has you covered there, too. Before that, we have support for dual-channel DDR4 2133MHz, or DDR3L at 1600MHz. The system would support up to 128GB of RDIMM, 64GB of UDIMM/SO-DIMM in ECC or non-ECC. The SoC features a total of 24 x PCIe 3.0 lanes and 8 x PCIe 2.0 lanes, while we have dual 10GbE for networking, 4 x USB 3.0 and 4 x USB 2.0 ports, with 6 x SATA 6Gbps ports for HDD connectivity.

Square Enix opened the doors to its closed beta of Hitman on February 19 for the PC, letting gamers go around assassinating a bunch of people before the game goes live.

The Hitman beta throws people into The Prologue, which is set in a "secret ICA training facility". It shows Agent 47's introduction into the ICA, showing off his first meeting with Diana Burnwood, his handler who, in the future, will assign him deadly contracts. Well, some gamers are taking screenshots of the game - thanks to its Glacier engine, it looks pretty damn good. The problem is, if we compare it to games like Crysis (released in 2007) it really doesn't shape up that well at all.

Above, we have a screenshot of the new Hitman, compared to Crysis from 2007 - there's quite the difference there, and it's not in Hitman's favor.

Nintendo is gearing up for its next-gen console release, currently codenamed 'NX', but what launch titles can we expect? Early rumors are pointing to Zelda, which would be a huge start for the company and its next-gen console.

According to NintenGen, a source that works for Nintendo has said that the NX console would be released this year. Furthermore, Zelda NX would be released inside the launch window, meaning the new Zelda game would either launch with the NX console or very close to its launch. NintenGen reports: "The source at Nintendo is not able to give details on exactly what the NX is but since Zelda is definitely on the system it heavily indicates that it is a home console. Further information of the Nintendo NX functionality, specs and the controller interface are still secrets that are very deeply hidden within Nintendo".

AMD has been teasing its dual Fiji GPU for a while, but now we're seeing things become much more real as we get closer to the Game Developers Conference next month.

Well, Corporate Vice President of AMD and VR fan Roy Taylor posted a picture to his Facebook and Twitter accounts, teasing the new Tiki PCs built by Falcon Northwest. Inside, we have AMD's super-secret dual-GPU, the Radeon R9 Fury X2. Taylor teased: "Developers, we have something coming for you... :)". A picture, speaks a thousand words - of course.

Falcon Northwest collaborated with AMD on the new Tiki PCs, as they were the system builder of choice for the console-sized PC that sports an insanely powerful dual GPU. When should we see the Falcon Northwest Tiki PC powered by the Radeon R9 Fury X2? Well, we should see it next month at GDC.

Screen dimming software f.lux isn't having much luck with iOS lately, but Android progress seems to be coming along. Recently, a beta became available to interested users, likely indicating it's not too far off from a public release.

To gain access to the beta, you must have a rooted phone. Assuming you fulfill that criteria, head here to request joining the Android testing group, then here for installation instructions.

Requiring a rooted phone no doubt will alienate many users, so hopefully that gets nixed prior to the public launch. Should we hear anything to that end, we'll be sure to report it.

Tech giants Google, Twitter, and Apple have publicly denounced the FBI's fight to get around phone encryption, favoring the privacy rights of their users instead. Now Facebook is hopping on board, too.

"We will continue to fight aggressively against requirements for companies to weaken the security of their systems," a Facebook spokesperson told Reuters yesterday. "These demands would create a chilly precedent and obstruct companies' efforts to secure their products."

That makes four for four. Microsoft is the biggest tech company to not yet comment on the issue; to that end, we've put in in an inquiry, and will report if we hear back.

A document leaked to TechCrunch reveales Facebook will be integrating advertising into its Messenger app starting in the second quarter of 2016. It's not the advertising you'd expect, though. Rather, advertising messages will be sent to users who have previously initiated chats with the company.

"Our aim with Messenger is to create a high quality, engaging experience for 800 million people around the world, and that includes ensuring people do not experience unwanted messages of any type," a Facebook spokesperson commented, neglecting to confirm or deny the news.

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), following a months-long investigation, has declared the use of hoverboards -- and self-balancing scooters -- currently on the market to be unsafe. Consequently, retailers, manufacturers, and importers are now required to follow safety standards in order to sell current and future boards, lest they face legal action. Until now, no safety standards were in place. The news is expected to result in mass recalls.

Although it has admitted open flame was never achieved in its testing (which comprised examining hoverboard circuit boards, batteries, and burned hoverboards, as well as dynamometer tests), the CPSC witnessed enough melting and overheating to feel comfortable making their move. No doubt the 52 hoverboard fires constituting $2 million in property damage and killing two dogs and nearly three children -- all between December 1 and February 17 -- helped to that end as well.

New, certified hoverboards should start selling later this year.

Quantum Break has entered the time-honored state of matter known as "going gold" and we're now just waiting for it to hit physical and digital shelves. And of course, it's time to pop the cork on some expensive Champagne as well, because this release marks the banding together of the Xbox One and the PC in the gaming sphere.

If you haven't already you can pre-order the Xbox One digital version and receive the PC version plus a copy of Alan Wake and it's delightful DLC, American Nightmare, as a pre-order bonus.

The PC version is exclusive to the Windows Store, however, and won't be making an appearance on Steam. Thankfully, however, it'll be the first game that's DirectX 12 only as a result of only being available on Windows 10. Windows 7 users won't be able join in on the fun.

Master of Orion's voice cast has just been revealed by Wargaming.net, and it includes a whole lot of triple-A actors from a lot of different sci-fi franchises helping to bring it to life.

The full list is below but of note are Mark Hamill, Troy Baker, John de Lancie and Michael Dorn serving as your narrator. His deep, sharp yet refined voice is the perfect match for the futuristic space opera. He'll also fit in with the dry wit of the series.

"The original Master of Orion captured the hearts of gamers with solid gameplay and a rich, diverse universe where every choice makes a difference," Chris Keeling, Director of Product Vision at WG Labs, said in a statement. "Having some of the most iconic science fiction, horror and video game voice talent lending their skills to the game only helps us realize this amazing universe in even more exciting ways." The reboot of Master of Orion will be available in Early Access on Steam starting on February 26th.

Warner Bros. offshoot New Line Cinema is apparently hard at work developing a new feature film version of the classic anime 'Astro Boy' in live action - a first for the 60 year old, but much loved property.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the studio has tapped 'San Andreas' writers Andre Fabrizio and Jeremy Passmore to come up with the film's script, in conjunction with Japan's Tezuka Productions. Famed Japanese animator Osamu Tezuka created the 'Astro Boy' character in 1952, and has gone onto to various incarnations in print, TV and cinema. The most recent incarnation of the character was portrayed in the 2009 CG animated film, which failed to generate much box office interest, (particularly in Japan) nor even recoup it's production budget.

Galactic Civilizations III: Mercenaries, the first full-blown expansion for its popular 4X space strategy game is now live on Steam. It adds a new campaign, Galactic Bazaars, new races, the ability to recruit elite units with special abilities, new ship parts, and much more.

In Mercenaries, you will be able to visit new Galactic Bazaars where you can hire mercenaries to assist in expanding across the galaxy. With several new mercenary ships and multiple Bazaars to discover on each map, the expansion offers hours of unique gameplay.

"Once they're gone, they're gone," said Paul Boyer, Lead Designer of Galactic Civilizations III. "When a mercenary is hired by a civilization in a game, it is no longer available to the others. You will need to act quickly and choose wisely in order to get the best mercenaries and leave your enemies without." The campaign for Mercenaries centers around the peaceful Torian race who have long been enslaved and farmed for their meat by the cruel Drengin. Explore and discover mercenaries, then hire them to aid in escaping the oppressors. Liberate the Torians and help them rebuild their shattered civilization while staying out of reach of the Drengin.

Roller Coaster Tycoon World is having the finishing touches put on it as it's successfully finished being beta tested by endearing fans. It's been a bumpy road as things haven't always had a positive impact on the community at large. There have been a few missteps, but the feedback gained is being take to heart and being taken very seriously.

We had a chance to ask a few questions with Matthew Labunka, a senior producer over at Atari whose working diligently on making sure Roller Coaster Tycoon World meets the expectations the series demands. They're very excited about the direction that it's taking and want it to be a game that everyone of every skill level can properly enjoy. You don't have to be a master architect or engineer to appreciate the complex tools, but if you want to make some intricate, physics-defying contraptions, you can do that too.

Let's delve into the conversation and see where this train (or roller coaster) is headed. The franchise is old, but there's plenty of innovation to be had.

It turns out that a proper Roller Coaster Tycoon game fits perfectly with VR. Just imagine creating your own rides and then putting on your headset to take them for a proper spin, literally. Roller Coaster Tycoon World will eventually incorporate VR into the game, though only when they can perfect the experience.

Speaking with Matthew Labunka, a Senior Producer at Atari, he told us that "VR does naturally lend itself to the simulation genre. We are working on designing the best experience for the platform. A solid VR experience takes time and we want to provide relevant game features that fit the platform." It really is a natural fit, because you can already take a ride on any ride you create, so why not make it more visceral. Even better would be the incorporation of a "4D" type of experience with a chair that moves with the ride.

We've seen the experience already with mobile games and other VR demos, but they were incomplete and didn't quite capture the full experience of speeding along a rickety track. Sound, too, is an important aspect of true immersion, and real VR audio solutions aren't quite among us yet, though those solutions are coming.

As Ubisoft shifts towards a new long-term player-engagement strategy, we may never see an annual Assassin's Creed release again.

"The goal is not to automatically come back to an annual cycle, but to come back on a regular basis. We can't say every year," Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot said during a company investor's meeting.

Ubisoft recently announced that Assassin's Creed will skip 2016 so it could "re-examine the franchise". Instead of a constant string of game releases, the publisher is now pushing a "live operation" business model based on multi-year engagement.

The 19th annual Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences DICE awards were last night, honoring games and developers themselves in their quest to create the ultimate in gaming entertainment. The Game of the Year was naturally Fallout 4, celebrating the brave new world it explored, despite the graphical downgrade that seemed to be the ire of so many.

During the event, Hideo Kojima was inducted into the Hall of Fame while the late president of Nintendo, Satoru Iwata was given a posthumous lifetime achievement award for his enthusiasm and dedication to the gaming community. The rest of the categories might surprise you with what came out on top. Perhaps not, however. You'll find the full list of nominees and their winners below.