Gaming Posts - Page 1

Back in December, hackers were wiping out and stealing Fallout 76 player inventories en masse. Now Bethesda has restored those items.

Fallout 76 is no stranger to hacking, but one nefarious spree deleted gearsets and inventories for lots of players, a move that threatened to basically destroy the game's playerbase. Thankfully Bethesda had a backup plan. The team cloned previous versions of gamers' characters to replicate their compromised gear and return it back to the owners. The clone can then be used to transfer the gear to a user's main.

"A clone of your character will be restored on January 22, 2020. Once restored, this character will have the entire inventory of items, gear and scrap (100% of your stuff) that it posessed on December 20, 2019," Bethesda wrote in a support ticket.

A new PS5 devkit video purportedly shows a bootup screen complemented by a complete console hardware form-factor revision. But there's a chance it's fake.

The purported PS5 video was specifically uploaded to gather feedback on a QR code error, but was accidentally made public by the uploader. The footage might've revealed the PS5's new secondary devkit revision, hinting that development testing hardware is accelerating past the V-shaped devkits with their stackable chassis and elaborate ventilation.

The console's case is rather drab insofar as looks and resembles a 4K UHD media player. It's a far cry from the rather artistic X-shaped PS5 parallelogram prototypes. There's a stylish LED strip on the right side that goes from orange (sleep mode) to blue (startup/boot) to white (operational). If the console is a fake, it's a very detailed one.

Epic Games is ramping up into Chapter 2 - Season 2 of Fortnite, and with the new v11.50 update for the game the developer is adding in support for Unreal Engine 4's awesome Chaos Physics System.

If you don't know what the Chaos Physics System is, I've embedded the above video to bring you up to speed. I've been a huge fan of destruction in games since the days of Red Faction and later, some of the Battlefield games (Battlefield: Bad Company 2 had awesome destruction).

Epic Games notes that while it has just launched, they have goals to keep Fortnite feeling like Fortnite even with the introduction of the Chaos Physics System. The developer explained: "Along the way there will be some bumps, so we're starting tests with a small group of players. We'll also closely monitor feedback and make improvements over time".

Activision-Blizzard will now host its games from Google's cloud infrastructure, a move that could have massive implications for future games.

Activision-Blizzard will use Google Cloud as a new delivery mechanism to expand its games. We'll see high-octane online multiplayer games like Overwatch and Call of Duty tighten up with improved latency, but the real possibilities go beyond boosted connectivity. The publisher could use Google Cloud to tremendously boost engagement by directly reaching gamers on a personal level.

For example, Google Cloud's AI will constantly monitor and develop behavior profiles based on how and what you play. That data could be compounded if you link your YouTube account to the game for, say, extra in-game currency. The cloud could even enable native YouTube video/stream embeds right into the games themselves--and give gamers rewards for watching specific content.

Activision-Blizzard's upcoming esports events won't be streamed on Twitch, and are now exclusive to YouTube.

Today Activision-Blizzard signed a huge multi-year deal with Google to make all Overwatch, Hearthstone, and Call of Duty esports events available exclusively on YouTube. This is an obvious slam to streaming competitor Twitch and could represent a massive win for YouTube's advertisement and engagement revenues. Esports is a thriving billion-dollar business that millions of people watch every year, and helps massively boost in-game spending, full game purchases, and overall play time.

The move is all part of Activision-Blizzard's new engagement-first strategy. Choosing YouTube is actually a multi-layered decision that will allow the publisher to do more than they could on Twitch, including using Google's cloud infrastructure to specially target users with advertisements, offers, and more (ie discounts to gamers who haven't played Call of Duty Modern Warfare yet, etc).

There's a rumor going around that Rocksteady is developing a new Superman game, and it'll be exclusive to the Xbox Series X. This isn't happening.

Rocksteady's new project has yet to be announced, but we know one thing: It's not a Superman game. Way back in 2018, studio co-founder and creative director Sefton Hill officially confirmed Rocksteady isn't making a Superman game.

Reports indicate Rocksteady's game will instead be a live-service based Justice League with monetized online play, in which of course Superman could still show up. But the game won't be centered around the Son of Krypton.

A new Alien multiplayer online shooter has been in development for years now, but the studio that's making it is about to get sold. Twice.

Back in September 2019, we reported that Cold Iron Studios, the devs behind the new unannounced Alien MMOFPS, could get sold. I predicted this could lead to significant disruptions for the game's development, namely with delays or even an outright cancellation. Now those reports have come true: Disney is selling FoxNEXT, the label that includes Cold Iron Studios.

Following acquisition of FOX and all of its IPs and subsidiaries, Disney is shedding key parts of the business. Disney has no interest in actually making games and instead wants to license them, ergo the sale of FoxNEXT. Disney is selling FoxNEXT to Scopely, a mobile gaming company that's only interested in its Marvel Strike Force team. Scopely plans to dissect Cold Iron Studious from FoxNEXT and sell the dev team again, meaning the studio behind the new Alien game is changing hands two times.

A new GDC 2020 survey shows devs are interested in making next-gen games, but not very many of them actually are currently working on projects for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X. PC remains the platform of choice for most projects.

According to the new GDC 2020 State of the Industry report, roughly 11% of respondents (or 440 developers) are making games for Sony's next-gen PlayStation 5, and only 9% of surveyors are developing for Xbox Series X (or about 360 developers). That means all of these creators currently have PS5 and Xbox SX devkits and are becoming more familiar with the next-gen Navi GPU and Zen 2 CPU-powered hardware setups.

The last bit of data is particularly interesting considering Microsoft won't release any Xbox Series X exclusives for at least two years. This means the next-gen Xbox projects won't release for quite some time--or possibly hints at a forked SKU with dual releases on both Xbox One and Xbox Series X systems.

A new Knights of the Old Republic game is back in development at EA, sources tell Cinelinx.

Back in 2017, there were rumblings of a KOTOR remaster being made at BioWare Austin, the team behind The Old Republic MMO. In actuality the team--along with every other BioWare branch--was working hard on the studio's new IP Anthem. KOTOR had been put on hold, if it had even been in development at all.

Now sources say the KOTOR project has been resurrected. The game will apparently be a sequel with strong spiritual successor elements, borrowing from the original duo's canon and may feature distinct RPG mechanics to boot. EA's shift away from live Star Wars games may have a lot to do with this decision, especially with Jedi: Fallen Order's landmark success as a singleplayer-only action game.

It was only a week ago that we heard about another massive Steam sale being in the pipeline. Now, that sale has arrived, and it has slashed prices on a variety of different games.

Introducing, Steam's Lunar New Year sale that will give Steam users the opportunity to open free gifts for every day of the sale. Steam sales usually run for a couple of weeks, but this time around the Lunar New Year sale will only be running for four days. Each day that a Steam user visits the Steam Store, they will be able to open a free gift that contains some rat coins and a part of a story.

The coins can be used to purchase event-exclusive items such as "profile backgrounds, mini-profile backgrounds, chat room effects, chat stickers, and more." Now, let's move onto what PC gamers have come here for -- cheap games. At the moment, there are some fantastic titles heavily discounted; examples include; Hitman 2, Hunt: Showdown, Dark Souls III, Human Fall Flat, Total War: Three Kingdoms, Assassin's Creed Odyssey, Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition and more. I have provided screenshots of the sales and a link to the store in the entirety of this post.