Gaming News - Page 1

What if you combined a drive-in with a real-life let's play, all while avoiding potential contagion risk? That's what one Canadian is doing.

Right now everyone's restless, tired, and bored thanks to COVID-19 quarantines. One industrious Canadian Redditor wants to change all that. Introducing CutieGremlin, a gamer who's transformed the side of a huge apartment complex building into an entertainment billboard for themselves and their neighbors.

CutieGremlin keeps things interesting with a wide variety of games. Sometimes there's Mario Kart 64, other times there's NES classics like Bubble Bobble. Maybe we'll see some Super Smash Bros. in there at some point.

A retired NBA superstar has gone to the store to buy some items and was shocked to find out that his credit card declined. He was even more shocked when he realized why it was declining.

Kendrick Perkins isn't the biggest fan of video games, and since the coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic, many children and parents alike are staying home and enjoying forms of entertainment. One of those forms of entertainment for kids is video games, and according to Perkins, both of his sons have developed an obsession with Fortnite. This obsession didn't just cost Perkins some patience, but also a hefty bill.

When Perkins' card declined at the store, he checked his credit card report, and to his shock, he realized he had $16,000 worth of Fortnite bills attached to his account. Here's what he said, "I go to the store to buy something, credit card declined. I get my credit card bill back. Come to find out, I got US$16,000 worth of Fortnite bills on my credit card. It was from buying skins every day, whatever that is. I don't even know what it is."

Borderlands 3 went way over-budget and ate up the big bonus checks employees were promised years ago.

A new expose from Kotaku's Jason Schreier gives a rare glimpse at the inner-workings of games industry deals, particularly Gearbox's internal employee pay policies. Gearbox isn't like other independent studios. Developers make lower wages but Gearbox offers a 60/40% royalty split to its employees. Workers get to take home 40% of royalties, and the rest goes to Gearbox. This incentivizes working hard to make games as profitable as possible; the more a game sells, the more royalty cash flows into worker's wallets.

The should've happened with Borderlands 3, a mega-hit that's sold over 8 million copies to date and stands as the best-selling Borderlands game of all time. But instead of paying out large bonus checks, Gearbox's Randy Pitchford told the workers their bonuses would be a lot smaller than expected. The royalty money is drying up fast.

With E3 2020 cancelled, many publishers are moving towards digital-only streams to replace the June event. Even E3's showrunners are trying to pivot towards some sort of digital venue. But Bethesda says it won't be participating.

Today Bethesda exec Pete Hines confirmed the publisher won't have a digital event in June. The reason is simple: Coronavirus has significantly disrupting Bethesda's plans. That means no Starfield info, no Ghostwire Tokyo gameplay footage, no Deathloop content or an update on the anticipated Wolfenstein 3. And maybe, just maybe, Prey 2. Bethesda will instead stagger its announcements out across 2020 and may not be attached to the Xbox Series X or PlayStation 5 sizzle reels that may come in June 2020.

"Given the many challenges we're facing due to the pandemic, we will not host a digital Showcase in June. We have lots of exciting things to share about our games and look forward to telling you more in the coming months," Hines said on Twitter.

The new Viking-themed Assassin's Creed game is coming in 2020, and now we have an idea what period of the Viking Age it'll be set in.

Ubisoft's next Assassin's Creed game might be it's biggest yet. The game, codenamed Kingdom, is an ambitious open-world title set in the brutal age of the Vikings. It's due out this year with cross-gen releases including PS5 and Xbox Series X. Norse mythology offers tons of potential with lots of strange gods and creatures. Now a leaked achievement list could set the game's time setting while confirming big boss battles.

The achievement list originates from 4Chan and could easily be faked. But if it's genuine, the list points at an 9th century setting for the game. We originally predicted Kingdom would take place during Charlemagne's conquest of Europe under the Holy Roman Empire. Now it looks like the game could take place shortly after Charlemagne's death in the 9th century.

Wolfenstein: Youngblood's co-op play might've been a test run for MachineGames' next big Wolfenstein sequel.

A new MachineGames job listing could hint at a return to classic deathmatch multiplayer with the next Wolfenstein, or maybe an online co-op mode similar to Youngblood. The job listing calls for a level designer that has experience with creating multiplayer levels, strongly hinting Wolfenstein 3 will have some sort of MP action. Bethesda confirmed Wolfenstein 3 was in development as far back as 2018, but MachineGames has yet to make a formal announcement.

Up until Youngblood, which introduced online co-op and microtransactions, all Wolfenstein games have been over-the-top singleplayer-only campaigns with tons of violence, action, and massive production values. But ZeniMax, the parent company of Bethesda, has made a marked shift towards monetization and adapting core IPs into replayable live service-esque titles.

There are multiple ways you can help support the new global fight against the coronavirus COVID-19, but if you are a gamer, then this might just be the best way you can help.

Humble has announced a new bundle, and this bundle is dedicated to battling the coronavirus pandemic while also giving gamers a slew of fantastic titles to enjoy while they are staying indoors. The bundle is called Humble Conquer COVID-19 Bundle, and usually, Humble allows buyers to choose what they want to pay, but this time it's different. Humble is asking for a flat fee of $30 for this bundle, and buyers will get a ridiculous 45 games valued at $1,071 if they decide to purchase it.

All of the proceeds made from this bundle will be donated to organizations that are responding to the coronavirus pandemic. Examples of where the proceeds will be going are; delivering protective gear to healthcare workers, and providing medical care to those who need it. On top of the games, Humble is also giving buyers 26 eBooks. If you are interested in checking out what games are included in the bundle, Destructoid has provided dot points that can be found in the entirety of this post. If you want to help the fight against COVID-19, a link to the bundle can be found here.

Valve has been extremely quick at updating Half-Life: Alyx considering it was released just a week ago, with the first patch (v1.1) adding in Continuous Turn as an option -- and now, v1.2 has been released.

The new 1.2 update for Half-Life: Alyx lets you switch movement controls between the left and right hand -- no matter what hand is being used to hold your weapon. You'll need to visit the in-game menu, then the SteamVR controller setup to choose which hand you'd like as your default for a weapon.

Half-Life: Alyx also gets the usual bug fixes and less crashes in the new 1.2 update, while performance has been improved just a bit with "better detection of low-memory situations". Half-Life: Alyx will update automatically through Steam.

Pokemon GO developer Niantic has just acquired 3D mapping startup 6D.ai, where the acquisition will see them building out "planet-scale" augmented reality, or AR.

6D.ai will infuse into Niantic and use its 3D environment reconstruction and persistent AR objects that will advance AR-based games and apps in a big way. Niantic burst onto the scene with Pokemon GO, but imagine planet-scale Pokemon GO where you see dragons and other creations flying around and landing on buildings, right in front of you -- in augmented reality.

Niantic said it knows "better than anyone" about this type of AR, while 6D.ai boss Matt Miesnieks said there "couldn't be a better team" for 6D.ai to join. Niantic is ramping into the future of AR, when everyone is allowed back outside after the global COVID-19 quarantines and lockdowns lift.

Valve has just announced Half-Life 4, which is a direct sequel to Half-Life 2 and the events of Half-Life 2: Episode One and Half-Life 2: Episode Two, as well as continuing the events after the amazing VR-exclusive Half-Life: Alyx (which is now the best PC game of 2020 on Metacritic).

Half-Life 4 will have VR support that will exceed the top-rated work in VR that the developer did with the recently-released Half-Life: Alyx, with Valve promising it won't screw over the PC gaming community that have supported the company for decades. Half-Life 4 will not be a VR exclusive like Half-Life: Alyx.

Half-Life 4 will come out on 3/3/2023 as it seems Valve can count to 3 when it comes to release dates, just not game titles. Valve hasn't yet confirmed whether we'll see Team Fortress 3, Portal 3, and Left 4 Dead 3 -- but their announcements could be right around the corner.