Crytek recently announced its new next-generation CryEngine V graphics engine, which is optimized for DirectX 12 and VR gaming. The studio has been busily experimenting with the new engine, and now we have a nice glimpse at some of the fruits of their labor.

With CryEngine V, artists can create amazing environments with realistic effects like volumetric fog without bogging down CPU performance. Crytek lighting artist Damian Stempniewski recently showed off CryEngine V's lighting effects by applying the engine's SVOGI global illumination tech to forest scenes made in older engines. The results are pretty impressive, and Stempniewski says he built the environments only using stock CryEngine V assets.

Crytek's principal 3D/environment artist Finn Meinert Matthiesen spent just 30 minutes in CryEngine V to create the night scenes seen below. Matthiesen was playing around with various lighting and fog feature effects, showing just how versatile and powerful the CryEngine V is.

GDC 2016 - I've been itching to play Budget Cuts ever since I saw some videos on YouTube of it, so I made sure to find out where it was being displayed at the Game Developers Conference, so I popped into the Unity booth and tried it out.

Budget Cuts has a specific corporate art style that made me feel like I was walking around in something familiar, but in a virtual world, it felt unique. Navigating in the virtual Budget Cuts world was the most innovative yet, where you use the left Lighthouse controller with the HTC Vive to throw out a portal - and then a window of that portal pops up above your left controller, letting you peek into the portal to see what's around the corner.

It was one of the best ways of mavigating the world in a VR game yet, as you could pop a portal next to a grill on the wall - pull the grill away, and peek through the grill. Looking around corners and into windows was something truly awesome in Budget Cuts because it made me feel like I was right there in the world - creating an amazing sense of presence.

AMD laid out its GPU architecture roadmap through to 2019 at its huge Capsaicin event during the Game Developers Conference, but now we're hearing rumbles on its exciting new Vega GPU - due out in 2017.

Vega will reportedly rock a huge 4096 stream processors based on the Greenland GPU, with improvements in the way of the GCN 4.0 architecture, which are included in the IP v9.0 generation of graphics chips under development from AMD.

We should expect Vega 10 to be AMD's flagship product from the Greenland GPU era - rocking somewhere between 15-18 billion transistors, and the exciting new HBM2 technology which offers up to 1TB/sec of memory bandwidth. Vega looks like it'll be fighting against NVIDIA's compute-powerful GP100 (the Pascal-based successor to the GTX Titan X and GTX 980 Ti) - as Vega is the only HBM2-powered card on AMD's roadmap for 2017.

Oculus has just starting shipping the initial wave of Oculus Rift VR headsets, but Palmer Luckey had a big surprise in store for the very first Rift recipient.

As a means of saying "thanks for believing in us," Oculus founder Palmer Luckey traveled all the way to Alaska to personally hand-deliver the very first Oculus Rift VR headset. The recipient, a software dev named Ross Martin, was the very first person to pre-order the Rift, and is now the first person in the world to own a consumer-ready Rift headset. The HMD's box has been signed by Luckey, Michael Antonov, Brenden Iribe, and Nate Mitchell, turning it into an instant collector's item.

Luckey chronicled the entire adventure on Facebook (of course), saying: "This is incredible. I've been working on the Rift for so long, and you're the first person to actually get one. It's kinda like me taking all that work and handing it off to you, so you have to make sure you have fun with it!"

David Hayter, the immortal voice of Metal Gear Solid's legendary Snake, recently revealed what it was like to work with Hideo Kojima and Konami. And the results aren't so pretty.

Just about every MGS fan thought that David Hayter and Hideo Kojima were best buds, but Hayter revealed that Kojima actually tried to replace him on a separate occasion--way before Hayter was replaced by Keifer Sutherland. "I've got no particular love for Kojima," Hayter said, affirming he won't work with the beloved dev on his new game.

In a recent podcast interview with Game Informer, Hayter says that Hideo Kojima originally wanted Kurt Russell to voice Snake in 2004's Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater. Snake's original character was based on a number of heroic archetypes including Snake Plisskin, portrayed by Kurt Russell played in the iconic Escape from New York. Hayter says that he was forced to re-audition for his role as Snake, even when Russell passed on the opportunity.

William Shatner is an icon in science fiction, not the least because of his role in one of the largest franchises in Sci-Fi history. He's now lent his voice talent to the developers at Elite: Dangerous for a high-quality voice pack that'll replace the already gentle and rather marvelous voice inside the game. Now we can hear Captain Kirk himself narrate our journey, courtesy of HCS voicepacks.

Orion is more than just replacing the in-game ship voice with his commanding presence, but they've also created an in-game tour, of sorts, which is narrated by William Shatner while you go to certain waypoints throughout the galaxy. He's contributed over 1300 different phrases to replace the original voice. This voice pack is officially endorsed by Frontier Developments and a completely legal and authorized mod to put into your game. William Shatner has signed a few posters and his new book that, if you pre-order by April 8th, you'll be entered into a drawing to win. His new book Leonard is part of the prize pool and is a tribute to his co-star, colleague and friend Leonard Nimoy. Check it out, it's a fascinating voice-over that adds a new element, if not terribly exciting, that's quite unique to the game. If anything it can add something from your favorite Sci-Fi franchise to it. When Leonard Nimoy himself narrated portions of Star Trek Online it was a wonderful surprise as his voice lives on in ways that otherwise wouldn't be possible.

Virtuix is going in a different direction in raising funds for 2016, with the VR locomotion company launching its mini-IPO round of funding, allowing the general public to invest in the company and its future. Within the first 24 hours, Virtuix raised an impressive $2.5 million.

The $2.5 million raised happened thanks to over 500 private investors, and 5 institutional investors. Virtuix stock is available for $2.33 per share, with the company planning on expanding its team, and continuing to build VR motion technologies. Right now, the Virtuix Omni can be purchased, allowing people to strap on a special pair of shoes, stand on the Omni with the harness attached, and enjoy a huge physical additional to the virtual world.

Virtuix founder and CEO, Jan Goetgeluk talked about the mini-IPO funding round: "We are thrilled to see the overwhelming response to our stock offering. We are excited that our community can now participate in our financial future and be part of the next chapter of our story".

Amazon surprised the world with its impressive Echo device, a personal voice assistant that has made waves - so much so, that Google is reportedly working on a device very similar, according to The Verge.

Considering Google owns connected thermostat and smoke detector company Nest, it will most likely leverage its $3.2 billion acquisition to better combat the Amazon Echo. The rumors have Nest wanting to work on an Echo-like product, but Google dismissed the idea, as it was working on its own. Nest has been struggling to expand on its product line since Google acquired the company in early 2014.

Google making an Echo-like product makes total sense, especially with its powerful Google Now service - involving Nest into this, would make sense - so I don't understand why this wouldn't happen. Google, what's going on?

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice is finally here, with the movie beating both The Dark Knight and The Avengers at the box office on Thursday night.

During its preview debut on Thursday, Batman v Superman made $27.7 million at the domestic box office - beating out Age of Ultron which pulled in $27.6 million last year. It also beat The Dark Night, which made $18.5 million during its preview screenings. The all-time record for Thursday night screenings still goes to Star Wars: The Force Awakens, which commanded a huge $57 million during its Thursday night screening.

Batman v Superman is still aiming at around $160 million for its opening weekend, even through a sea of negative reviews. It's already scooped up $7 million overseas, as it is flooding international markets. I've seen it and simply wasn't a fan - even after enjoying Man of Steel - seeing it a second time with the disappointment behind me had a more enjoyable feel - but it is definitely very messy with its editing, and its characters are constantly in impossible situations - which feels super forced. The last third of the movie however, is pretty much directly out of the comic book - which is awesome.

With only a few days until the Oculus Rift starts shipping to consumers, the VR company has announced that its SDK for the Rift now supports Asynchronous Timewarp (ATW). It might not sound like much, but it actually improves the VR experience.

ATW renders a scene before it reaches your eyes, but also handles head movement and shifts by your head, before the Rift renders it to your eyes. Thanks to ATW, we have reduced latency, smoother movements and improved efficiency. Oculus says that ATW reduces judder (in the form of shaking and vibration) that is produced when a frame is displayed out of sync, because the hardware wasn't capable of rendering the frame quick enough.

Oculus teamed with Microsoft, NVIDIA and AMD to make the best of GPU preemption (rendering a scene before it's required), to its new SDK. Our Rift should ship on March 28, so expect a constant flow of VR-related content starting in April.