Latest News - Page 305

FromSoftware and Bandai Namco have dropped new gameplay footage for the deadly Duchess class in the new PvE Elden Ring game.

Elden Ring Nightreign is due out next month, bringing a unique PVE co-op spin to FromSoftware's games. Players will choose one of five classes and work together to outlast the night, taking down horrendous bosses and collecting loot along the way. FromSoft aims to capture some of those lightning in a bottle moments that happened with Elden Ring, but on a multiplayer level, and with some roguelike elements thrown in (read more about Nightreign's gameplay here).

Anyone who participated in Nightreign's network test will recognize the Duchess class, and the devs have released some new footage that shows off her skills in action, including the Finale ability that makes her completely invisible to nearby enemies.

Nintendo's new Switch 2 will supercharge first-party games like Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom with 4K 60FPS gameplay.

The Switch 2 is apparently capable of some pretty impressive performance, at least when compared to its predecessor. According to hands-on reports from the recent Nintendo Switch 2 event, the handheld-console hybrid can achieve 4K 60FPS in games like Tears of the Kingdom when docked.

The Switch 2's new 4K-ready gaming is made possible by a customized NVIDIA Tegra processor that facilitates DLSS upscaling, allowing much more performance to be squeezed out of the smaller integrated package. The Switch 2's Tegra SoC features both RT Cores for raytracing and Tensor Cores for built-in DLSS support, and is said to deliver 10x the graphical performance of the Switch 1.

Why do some Switch 2 games cost $80? In Nintendo's own words: value.

Nintendo's new Switch 2 software and hardware prices are delivering sticker shock.to consumers; the system was priced at $450 in the US, but could go higher because of tariffs, and software has a new MSRP of $80 on the platform. Nintendo is pricing its own premiere launch first-party Switch 2 game, Mario Kart World, at $80 in a bid to push adoption of this new cost.

$80 is a lot, but it is Mario Kart, and Nintendo has sweetened the pot to get people to buy. Mario Kart World is pretty sizable in scope and content with its interconnected world and new Grand Theft Auto-like free roam mode, mimicking the kind of broader gameplay mechanics, modes, and features you'd typically see in expansions or DLC-driven updates. It feels like Nintendo decided to pack in any sort of future expansion content upfront and charge extra in the process. (Note: Mario Kart 8 Deluxe has sold over 67 million copies across the last 8 years at a $59.99 MSRP).

Ahead of Apple's official unveiling of its upcoming iPhone 17 line-up, a dummy unit for the company's rumored iPhone 17 Air has surfaced, showcasing what will be Apple's thinnest iPhone ever released.

Bloomberg reporter and Apple insider Mark Gurman put to bed some Apple rumors over the weekend, which previously suggested Apple was introducing a two-tone color design for its iPhone 17 Pro, with the Bloomberg reporter clarifying the upcoming device will have a mono-color design, meaning the camera area will be the same color as the rest of the device.

As for the elusive iPhone 17 Air, a dummy unit has appeared in the hands of X user Majin Bu, who posted a selection of photos of the unit showing it also features a mono-color design. Notably, the color of dummy units isn't indicative of the final design of the device, as dummy units are mostly used for dimensional purposes by accessory manufacturers to prepare their products ahead of the launch. The color of the dummy unit won't influence the dimensions.

Nintendo has delayed pre-orders in Canada to make sure all of North America is on the same track.

A bit ago, Nintendo made the controversial (but apparently necessary) decision to delay Switch 2 pre-orders in the United States. Nintendo may simply have to raise the price of the Switch 2 in North America, especially the United States, because of ongoing trade tariffs. Now that pre-order uncertainty has been extended to Canada.

"Pre-orders for Nintendo Switch 2 in Canada will not start on April 9, 2025 in order to align with the timing of pre-orders to be determined in the U.S. Nintendo will provide updated information at a later date. The launch date of June 5 is unchanged," Nintendo told website MobileSyrup.

It's a dark day for achievement hunters, as Nintendo has confirmed that the upcoming Switch 2 will not have any system-wide achievements.

Nintendo is not breaking from its longstanding mould of passing on the inclusion of having a system-wide achievement list such as Xbox's Gamerscore, or PlayStation's Trophies system, and the Switch 2 will be no different as Polygon has asked Nintendo's Vice President of Player and Product Experience if the upcoming console will have its own built-in achievement system, and he said, "Nope." Achievement hunters will be somewhat satisfied to know that doesn't mean Nintendo Switch 2 games won't have their own achievement lists.

In fact, two Nintendo Switch 2 Edition games have already been confirmed to have achievements, and those are: The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. These achievements will be introduced through the Zelda Notes features in the updated Nintendo Switch App. To unlock these achievements, players will need to defeat bosses, reach shrines, and reach certain in-game milestones. Moreover, players will be able to track their achievements against their friends within the Nintendo Switch App.

If you've ever imagined that it might be hell to work in a fast-food restaurant, someone has taken that thought very literally, making a Doom 2 mod that has the player serving the various demons that we all loved to frag many moons ago in this ancient shooter.

PC Gamer noticed the Doom 2 mod, which is called 'Put The Fries In The Bag' and comes from a modder by the name of SlendyMawn.

As explained in the YouTube clip above, the modder created the fast-food restaurant setting (a well-known brand - and yes, this whole thing is a copyright and legal minefield) in Ultimate Doom Builder.

We have finally gotten to take a close-up look at the Nintendo Switch 2, and during the presentation the company showcased a launch title called Welcome Tour, which was confirmed to have a price tag.

However, Nintendo didn't reveal during its Direct presentation how much Welcome Tour would be at launch, just that it was launching alongside the Nintendo Switch 2 with Mario Kart World and Donkey Kong Bananza. For those who don't know, Welcome Tour is a "game" dedicated to explaining the different features and parts of the Nintendo Switch 2 within a virtual world.

Nintendo showed throughout its presentation that users will be able to touch the different buttons and features on the Nintendo Switch 2 hardware within the virtual world to get an explanation of what they do and how to use them. These explanations will come in the form of text boxes with animations showing how to use the feature or in mini-games that enable a user to practise using them. In an interview with The Verge, Nintendo of America president Doug Bowser confirmed the price tag for the digital-only Welcome Tour will be $9.99, and the reason for that is as follows:

NVIDIA's RTX 5060 and 5060 Ti models are apparently set to use GDDR7 video RAM and a 128-bit memory bus, or that's the latest from the GPU grapevine.

VideoCardz, often a source of graphics card rumors, got the scoop on this, noticing the mentions of these specs on NBD (a shipping data platform).

The site discovered GPU shipping manifests that show NVIDIA's graphics cards, albeit not named explicitly, but referred to as PG152 boards with GB206 chips (which is what the rumor mill believes the RTX 5060 models are - the vanilla version will be a cutdown GB206, as you might guess).

Apple is caught in a downward spiral of its stock price following President Trump's sweeping tariffs that are targeting some of Apple's main sources of manufacturing.

On Monday, Apple's stock price dropped by another 3.7%, marking a 19% decrease in just three days. The downward spiral was caused by President Trump's new trade tariffs aimed at many countries around the world, but particularly the leaders in manufacturing, but particularly China. The goal of the tariffs is to bring manufacturing back to encourage companies to bring manufacturing to the United States to avoid paying the newly implemented levies, which in the case of China, one of Apple's biggest manufacturers, will be a 57% increase on all imported goods.

Apple's other main manufacturers are India, Vietnam, and Thailand, but these countries didn't dodge Trump's tariffs either, with many of them also being hit with hefty new taxes. So, what will happen to Apple with the new tariffs?

Valve continues to print money with its Counter-Strike franchise as reports indicate the hub for PC gaming made a staggering $100 million from just Counter-Strike 2 cases in just the last month.

The report comes from Dextero, which states that throughout March 2025, no less than 32 million cases were opened by Counter-Strike 2 players, and for every one of these case opens, it requires a $2.49 key, which is paid directly to Valve. At $2.49 per key and 32 million cases, Valve has raked in $82 million in just openings. On top of that already staggering amount of money, Valve takes a 15% cut from any purchases made on the Steam marketplace, where many of these cases were bought.

So, by adding in the cut from the Steam marketplace and the total number of cases opened (keys), Valve has managed to pull in more than $100 million in revenue just from cases. This isn't counting any transactions on skins, knives, etc -- all of which Valve takes that 15% of the transaction's value.

Families trying to enjoy the new Minecraft movie are having to deal with delinquent fans who are deciding to trash the cinema by throwing food and drink around over an internet meme.

Cinemas are having to warn movie fans about attending the newly released "A Minecraft Movie" over several instances of fans participating in a social media trend and a seemingly weird internet meme where viewers scream "Chicken Jockey" at a specific scene in the movie. If it were just the screaming, it would be annoying, but as part of the meme, viewers are throwing popcorn, drinks, and other items around the cinema when the "Chicken Jockey" appears on screen. In one instance that was captured on TikTok, the police were called as a result of the outburst.

At the end of March, screenshots leaked showcasing Star Wars: Bruno, the placeholder for Respawn Entertainment and Bit Reactor's turn-based strategy title. According to reports from MP1st, the mysterious project has an official name, and it is set to be unveiled at Star Wars Celebration Japan later in April.

EA and Lucasfilm Games first announced Respawn's Star Wars strategy game in January 2022, alongside the sequel to Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order and a Star Wars FPS project, which was cancelled two years later in 2024. Respawn's RTS game has survived, however, and as reported by MP1st, it will be released under the title Star Wars: Zero Company.

Star Wars: Zero Company is being developed in collaboration with Respawn Entertainment and Bit Reactor, a studio formed by former XCOM developers. The title features turn-based tactical gameplay, and previous leaks highlighted imagery including a squad of Mandalorians, a Jedi character, and concept art of the game's possible in-game hub.

More speculation continues to bubble in the rumor pot regarding the possibility that the Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion remake is set for release in April - and it looks like the game could be out in two weeks' time.

On top of a bunch of other rumors already floated on X, we've got a clarification from Detective Seeds, who previously told us that the Oblivion remake might come out last week (which obviously didn't happen) or this week.

The leaker admitted that they were wrong in this, but as you can see from the new post on X above, they seem very confident the remake will debut during the week of the Elder Scrolls Online anniversary event.

A species of wolf that became extinct approximately 12,500 years ago has now been resurrected by researchers who used ancient DNA samples of the species and combined that with bioengineering.

The achievement has been made by Dallas-based biotech company Colossal Biosciences who created three dire wolf pups by using ancient DNA of the species and advanced technologies such as cloning and gene-editing tools. The researchers took the ancient DNA and by using the aforementioned tools they combined it with the genes of a gray wolf, which is the dire wolf's closest living relative. The result is a hybrid of both species that has an extremely similar appearance and structure to its extinct ancestor.

Cyber Streets is a new Unreal Engine 5.5.3 tech demo from lighting artist Pasquale Scionti that was created to showcase a Blade Runner and Cyberpunk-inspired scene using dynamic lights. This means no Lumen (Unreal Engine 5's in-built ray-tracing), path tracing, ray-tracing, or baked lighting.

This version of the Cyber Streets tech demo, which you can watch above, runs on a GeForce RTX 5080 and is impressive in presenting a complex scene with many dynamic lights. It leverages Unreal Engine's Nanite system with distance field meshes and added screen space reflections to show an interactive scene that looks impressive even without any RTX or Lumen action.

This week, the creator has posted an updated version of the Cyber Streets tech demo that uses Lumen for ray-traced global illumination, with ray-traced shadows, ambient occlusion, and reflections. It turns the tech demo into a Cyberpunk 2077-style scene where you can instantly tell the difference, even though the non-Lumen and non-RT versions still look fantastic.

GameChat is one of the big new features of the Nintendo Switch 2. It is a Discord and Twitch-like video chat, multiplayer, and screen-sharing system that uses the Switch 2's new microphone and USB-C camera functionality. With voice chat support for up to 12 people and game screen sharing with video chat for up to four people, GameChat was one of the first features Nintendo highlighted during its big Nintendo Switch 2 Direct last week.

For those who have seen the broadcast, you'll probably note that the overall image quality of the camera and the low frame rate of the streamed game capture isn't broadcast quality or what you'd expect from a premium service. Still, it is impressive to see background removal and how Nintendo is even incorporating this system into Mario Party for mini-games that include the camera for multiplayer.

Although Nintendo or NVIDIA haven't disclosed the full specs of the custom chip powering the Switch 2, we know that Nintendo is leveraging the GPU's Tensor Cores for AI-powered face tracking and background removal, similar to RTX Broadcast.

Last year, we reported on the world's smallest GeForce RTX 4070 with the Zephyr GeForce RTX 4070 ITX Sakura Blizzard graphics card, which instantly sold out in China. With a GPU length of only 172mm and a single fan for cooling, the ITX-ready card was - at the time - an ideal option for small form-factor ITX builds. It's so tiny that it wouldn't be cramped even in a mini-ITX case.

Well, Zephyr is back - with another tiny GeForce RTX 4070. The new Zephyr GeForce RTX 4070 ITX Sakura Snow X looks to be an improved version of what we saw last year as it includes a full CNC shroud and casing with the aluminum shell including the I/O bracket as part of the design. Although slightly longer at 178mm with a height of 128mm, the larger 105mm fan and aluminum should deliver better thermal performance.

Zephyr notes that the redesigned RTX 4070 runs up to 6 degrees cooler than its previous single-fan model, which is impressive. Interestingly, the company is sticking with the GeForce RTX 40 Series for this design and not moving to the newer GeForce RTX 5070.

Following the official unveiling and close-up look at the Nintendo Switch 2, both Sony and Xbox are looking into new handheld devices, potentially for a release sometime in the future.

Xbox has long been rumored to be working on its own first-party handheld, with rumors pegging its release to be sometime in 2027. As for Sony, there have only been rumors based on patents that have become public, with no date mentioned as to when the company could release a PSP 2-esque device.

However, with Nintendo's recent Switch 2-focussed Direct it has both Sony and Microsoft stirring the handheld development pot, as Sony is currently probing its PlayStation gamers with questions about their favorite aspects of the Nintendo Switch 2 device and launch, in what seems to be an effort to gather as much intelligence as it can on what gamers like about the console for its own handheld.

Nintendo Switch 2 developers have sat down for an interview to discuss the upcoming console's hardware capabilities and what game developers will have at their disposal when it comes to building games for Nintendo's latest platform.

Kouchi Kawamoto and Takuhiro Dohta from Nintendo's Entertainment Planning and Development Department, and Tetusya Sasaki from Nintendo's Technology Development Division spoke with IGN, who asked several questions about what is under the hood of the Switch 2. Nintendo was asked if the Switch 2 is running a NVIDIA Tegra SOC (System on Chip), and what graphics architecture the chip is based on. Nintendo slightly deflected from the question by saying that "a lot of details" will be discovered in "NVIDIA's information they've shared."

Additionally, Nintendo was asked what kind of upscaling the system uses, and if it's AI upscaling. Nintendo responded by saying, "I think probably the main kind of easiest upscaling to use is the DLSS that NVIDIA provides. So from that standpoint, I guess you could say this AI." Nintendo added that its planning on rolling out "other options of upscaling through software" that include both AI-based and non-AI-based upscaling.