Gaming News - Page 1

The highest-ranking Super Smash Bros. Ultimate player is no longer a free agent, as he has just announced that he's signed with T1.

Leonardo Lopez Perez, also known as MkLeo in the Super Smash Bros. community, is the world's highest-ranking player for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. MkLeo has had a fantastic career in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate since it launched, taking out some of the other highest-ranking players with his notorious Joker play.

MkLeo was a free agent for a period of time, and being the world's number one player for Ultimate, it didn't take long for a sponsor to pick him up. According to MkLeo's personal Twitter account, he has now signed a new deal with T1 to create content under their banner as well as continue tournament play. The terms of the agreement were not revealed, but being the best player in the world, I'm sure MkLeo walked away from this deal happy.

Amazon is notorious for posting listings for games that aren't even on a specific platform yet, and just this morning that that very thing happened for Horizon Zero Dawn.

The listing was posted by Amazon France, and it claimed that Guerrilla Games' Horizon Zero Dawn would be coming over to the PC. Funnily enough, the listing also says that Sony is apart of the transition, and not too long ago Kotaku's Jason Schreier said that Sony was looking at bringing Horizon Zero Dawn over to PC. While this could easily be a coincidence, the correlation is still there.

Maybe Sony and Guerrilla Games are currently working on a PC port of Horizon Zero Dawn behind the scenes. It should also be noted that the third anniversary for Horizon Zero Dawn is almost upon us (Feb 28th), so maybe an announcement could come soon? Another fact to take away from this is that Horizon Zero Dawn is built on the Decima Engine, which was given to Hideo Kojima to build Death Stranding and Death Stranding is arriving on PC sometime later this year. So maybe Horizon Zero Dawn will receive the same treatment?

GOG extends its refund policy to 30 days after purchase regardless of play time, making it the most open store in the entire industry.

Today GOG announced a surprise update to how it's handling refunds. The storefront's money back window has been extended to 30 days after purchase, giving users an entire month to try out and play the game to see if they like it. This is a hefty jump over the previous 14-day refund policy.

It's possible this decision could be overturned soon, though. Considering GOG is a DRM-free marketplace, there's nothing stopping buyers from simply copying the game files and then getting a refund. It's a potential worry for developers. While GOG doesn't mention a hard limit on play time, the company says its reserves the right to deny a refund for any reason.

One of the Xbox Series X's biggest features isn't its raw GPU power, or its high FPS functionality. It's a small quality-of-life improvement that has massive implications.

The Xbox Series X is designed for speed and power, and more importantly, to link the two indiscriminately in a cyclic fashion. The Xbox Series X's brute hardware is complemented by flexible, adaptable, and powerful software that intelligently uses the system's raw strength--it's a marriage of brains and brawn. The console's synergized 7nm AMD SoC, PCIe 4.0 SSD, and GDDR6 RAM hardware are held together by a sophisticated software stack that enables developers to tap the beastly 12TFLOP GPU while delivering effects like Variable Rate Shading or ray tracing, boosting frame rates and immersion in the process.

One big part of this emphasis on speed is the console's new enhanced quick resume functionality. This feature lets you basically turn any play session into a save state that's preserved even after you turn off the console. The Xbox Series X lets you pause multiple games at once and come back to them at any point without having to load anything. It's kind of like how Netflix and Hulu save your spot when you stop watching.

As consoles get more and more advanced, it's important that developers have access to more powerful software development tools to squeeze out every last drop of hardware might. No one knows that better than Microsoft.

Microsoft is going above and beyond with the Xbox Series X. Not only will the system have a huge 12TFLOP RDNA 2-powered Navi GPU that enables new effects like ray tracing, 8K resolution, and 120FPS gaming, but the next-gen Xbox also comes packed with massively optimized SDK dev tools for crafting new experiences. Flexible and fast software environments are just as important as hardware, and the Xbox Series X's true potential lies in the synergy between the two.

In a recent Major Nelson podcast, Xbox exec Jason Ronald reiterated just how important software is.

"Teraflops are an easy to gauge the power of the GPU. But in reality we view power much more expansively beyond just TFLOPs. We put a lot of innovation into the Xbox Series X and the real magic is going to be the integration between hardware and software to not only use the raw capabilities of the box, but also to use it in the most efficient way possible to make your games even better," said Jason Ronald, partner director of program management at Xbox.

Riot Games will use Unity to power two of its major new League of Legends mobile games, the company today announced.

Thanks to Unity's cross-platform flexibility and intuitive network integration, Riot will use the engine for its two massive LoL mobile games including the League of Legends: Runeterra card game, and League of Legends: Wild Rift, a standalone MOBA designed from the ground up for smart devices and consoles.

"Unity's technology enables us to focus on delivering the beloved League of Legends experience to as many players across as many platforms as possible. We want to meet our players where they are, and Unity's world-class tools and platform optimization help us achieve that. With the expert support provided by Unity, we've been able to unlock the power of Unity's technology like never before," said Brian Cho, Head of Corporate and Business Development, Riot Games.

Cyber Shadow, the new rockin' retro hack-and-slash platformer from one-man indie studio Mechanical Head Studios, just got a Fall 2020 release date. And an amazing trailer.

Today Yacht Club Games' publishing arm showcased a new gameplay trailer for Cyber Shadow, a new stylish indie that we all need in our lives. If you're not convinced just check out the trailer above. Luckily we won't have to wait too long to play it.

Cyber Shadow has it all: A killer soundtrack, old-school graphics right out of an NES game, platformer action with fast-paced slice-and-dice combat, huge ridiculous monstrous bosses, a storyline straight out of a 1990s comic book, and even Shovel Knight's (well should I say Scrooge McDuck's) signature downward sword pogo bounce attack.

Final Fantasy 7 Remake and other Square Enix games won't get next-gen re-releases, and will instead rely on backwards compatibility.

Square Enix today confirmed how it will handle existing games playing on next-gen consoles. Instead of releasing two versions of its games--one for PS4 and one for PS5, for example--the publisher will simply use next-gen backwards compatibility to ensure cross-generation play. Gamers won't need to re-buy a PS5 version of Final Fantasy 7 Remake, and the PS4 version will be playable on the PlayStation 5.

In a recent Q&A session with investors, the games-maker says it won't embrace full-on next-gen exclusives any time soon. This makes sense on a business perspective given the PS4 and PS5 lifecycles will overlap. Square Enix depends on the flexibility of multi-platform sales and it's not about to simply close the door on the PS4's massive 100 million strong install base.

First there was Viewtiful Joe, then The Wonderful 101. Now there's Project GG, PlatinumGames' next wholly-original IP under director Hideki Kamiya.

PlatinumGames is on a roll. The company just announced Project GG A Go! Go!, a new hero-based game where giant mechs battle monstrous kaijus across a sprawling cityscape. The game will be directed by Hideki Kamiya and produced by Atsushi Inaba, and is the last chapter in Kamiya's superhero saga. It's also company's first-ever self-published game. This freedom lets PG live out the indie dream with total control over Project GG's direction--there's no publisher looming over their shoulder and checking every little detail.

Kamiya is careful to say that Project GG is a long ways away and that the team is inheriting lots of new hurdles and responsibilities with self-publishing.

Adult Swim Games pulled a surprise move by announcing a new Samurai Jack video game that stays authentic to the show's vibe, visual flair, and voice actors.

It's been 10 years, but Samurai Jack is returning to the video game realm. Samurai Jack: Battle Through Time is a hack-and-slash beat-em-up that aims to expand the series while keeping it super familiar for die-hard fans. It's a mix of old-school side-scrolling platforming action and 3D battle sequences, both of which seem to switch seamlessly.

We didn't get to see very much gameplay in the announcement trailer, but the game's Steam page gives some more details. Samurai Jack's latest romp has a multitude of skills to level up and weapons to master and you'll also jump to various locations and worlds straight from the show--all while trying to slice and dice your way to Aku.