Gaming - Page 1006

CD Projekt RED is completely devoted to Cyberpunk 2077 and doesn't have the time to upgrade Witcher 3 for the PS4 Pro.

Sony and a smattering of third-party devs have embraced the PS4 Pro, and are busily upgrading their games to support upscaled 4K HDR, higher frame rates in 1080p, boosted environmental lighting effects, and super-sampling techniques. But PS4 Pro owners won't get to play one of the best games of era in 4K: The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt.

Curious Redditor govind1262 actually emailed CDPR to see if Geralt's last adventure would get upgraded on the PS4 Pro, and the devs actually responded, saying that Cyberpunk 2077 and Gwent have their full attention right now: "I'm afraid that we have no plans to release the PS4 Pro edition for The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. Our teams are currently working very hard on our upcoming projects such as GWENT: The Witcher Card Game and Cyberpunk 2077. We want to be entirely focused on the development of these projects."

Sony has confirmed what tech enthusiasts already knew: most of the games played on Sony's new PS4 Pro will be upscaled to 4K resolution, not native 3840 x 2160p 4K.

Sony is marketing its new high-end PS4 Pro towards "hardcore" gamers, offering a "premium" 4K HDR gaming experience. The truth is, however, that the PS4 Pro's highly customized Polaris GPU--while a massive improvement over the original PS4--isn't capable of hitting true 4K resolution in every game.

Developers use "streamlined rendering techniques" like Checkerboard Rendering to multiply native 1080p textures at the PS4's original High preset four-fold to simulate 4K resolution on the PS4 Pro. Sony President Andrew House has now admitted that the majority of games upgraded with the PS4 Pro--including both old and new PS4 games--aren't rendered in native 4K, so you're not going to get a full 4K experience with every title.

No Man's Sky will go down in history as one of the biggest blunders in recent gaming, but who's to blame for all the misleading advertisements, trailers, and footage? Not Sony, of course: it's all Hello Games' fault.

Despite signing a deal with Hello Games to publish No Man's Sky, promoting a massive advertisement campaign built on misdirection and misleading content, and putting out an actual TV commercial for the game, and promoting almost a dozen misleading trailers for the game, Sony pretty much shrugs off all accountability for No Man's Sky's massive PR failure.

"It wasn't a great PR strategy, because he didn't have a PR person helping him, and in the end he is an indie developer," Sony Worldwide President Shuhei Yoshida told Eurogamer in a recent interview. "But he says their plan is to continue to develop No Man's Sky features and such, and I'm looking forward to continuing to play the game."

BioShock streaming is not avaliable! Yes, that's right - 2K has posted on their support boards confirming this to be the case, but has not explained to gamers as to why the content is unavailable.

For those wanting to stream from their console, no date or time frame has yet been given to users as to when it will be back online. With this weeks release of BioShock: The Collection for PS4 and Xbox One, which have all three Bioshock games and content included, the unavailability of streaming may create frustration for gamers wanting to stream, as neither console supports the ability to do so.

2K support did release this for customers: "Unfortunately, streaming BioShock: The Collection isn't an option right now. We will update this article should this situation change".

The Rainbow Six Siege Starter Edition is back! After being released for a limited time in June this year, the latest in the Tom Clancy's franchise has returned, with explosive features not available in the Standard Edition. The offer will be valid from September 15 to October 11.

Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege Starter Edition is available through Ubisoft's Uplay store. The title will be sold for PC and comes with the multiplayer perk , allowing users to team up against rival teams.

The new release does differ from the Standard Edition of the game, in which players will be given 4 original Operators, already unlocked for play. The exclusive also enables players to have full game access and content, including weapons, maps, game modes, characters and more.

Now that Remedy is over the Quantum Break mess on Xbox One and Windows 10, the developer is beginning to tease its future games, with a post on the official Remedy website.

Creative Director and the face of Max Payne, Sam Lake, with Game Director Mikael Kasurinen teased their future goals, and their decisions on various games. They said: "As announced last July, we're busy working on CROSSFIRE 2 story mode with Smilegate, as well as building something totally new with a second (as of yet unannounced) game project. This includes working on the long-term roadmap for Northlight, our proprietary game engine and tools".

Destiny's microtransactions are no longer purely cosmetic: starting with the next expansion, Bungie will let gamers buy in-game items that allow you to unlock items sooner.

Along with a host of new content, Destiny's new Rise of Iron expac will introduce paid reputation boosts that can be purchased with Silver in the in-game Eververse Trading Co. microtransaction storefront. IGN reports that these rep boosts are a time-saving convenience feature that will raise your standing with PVP and PVE factions. Reputation levels are needed to buy specific Legendary items from main faction handlers like the Crucible's Lord Shaxx, Vanguard's Commander Zavala, or Variks at the House of Judgement.

These reputation boosts can also be unlocked regularly without the Silver microtransaction currency in Sterling or Radiant Treasure Boxes that are likely strewn throughout Rise of Iron and given as quest, Strike, and Crucible rewards.

4A Games, the studio that brought us the excellent Metro 2033 and Metro: Last Light games, has teased a look at their next project...and it looks like a futuristic FPS.

We know that 4A Games was working on "two exciting new projects," and now the devs have given us a glimpse at what they have in store. 4A shared two different images on their Facebook and Twitter streams that are obviously pieces from the same image, showing what appears to be the first-person HUD of a high-tech shooter like Halo or even Crysis.

While I originally thought the devs were working on Metro 2035, these images completely nix that theory. There's just no evidence of a post-apocalyptic world. 4A Games is on the cusp of something interesting, and it could very well be a fresh new original IP that taps the impressive FPS foundation they've worked so hard to cultivate in the Metro games.

Ever wondered what would happen if you mixed Dark Souls with Castlevania: Symphony of the Night? You get this nifty indie platformer, Dark Flame.

I've been on a big Castlevania kick lately, so any game that remote resembles an awesome Metroidvania style side-scroller has caught my attention. So when I came across Dark Flame earlier today, I squeed with delight.

Dark Flame is a love-letter to anyone who's entranced by the macabre style and relentless platforming hack-and-slash chaos of the Castlevania series. One look instantly conjures up nostalgic memories playing Symphony of the Night on PlayStation, getting lost in Dracula's winding castle and battling bit-style foes. Although I haven't played it (I hope to remedy that very soon!) Dark Flame checks all the right boxes: giant boss battles, that classic gothic eeriness infused with delicious retro visuals, a pretty dynamic RPG system with weapons, armors, and abilities, and more.

Resident Evil 7 is about to get a lot weirder--considering how freaky the game's original Beginning Hour demo is, I'm both trepidatious and excited.

Capcom has announced a new Twilight content update for Resident Evil 7's excellent (and super disturbing) teaser demo, along with a fresh batch of screenshots and a new trailer.

Starting today the Resident Evil 7 demo (including the new Twilight update) will be available to all PS4 gamers and won't require PlayStation Plus, so be sure to check it out--it's definitely worth a playthrough, and has a very real PT vibe to it. Capcom has also announced that Resident Evil 7's Deluxe Edition will include a new story expansion, bringing up the grand total of season pass story missions to three. To make up for this extra bit of content, the deluxe edition will jump from $79.99 to $89.99, but if you pre-order it before the adjustment you'll get all three missions.

AMD is celebrating the first birthday of Radeon Technologies Group, with the announcement of a new Battlefield 1 upgrade code for Radeon RX 480 graphics cards in certain markets.

The bundle will arrive in the form of an upgrade code for Battlefield 1, which turns the Standard Edition copy of the game to the Deluxe Edition. Effectively, AMD is providing a voucher for an upgrade worth $20 - the difference between the Standard and Deluxe Edition of Battlefield 1 on Origin.

You'll need to redeem your code before October 21, where your Battlefield 1 Standard Edition will be upgraded to the Early Enlister Deluxe Edition, which also lets you get into the early pre-launch of the game, 3 days earlier than everyone else. If you use the code after October 21, you'll receive the normal Deluxe Edition of the game, without the pre-launch access.

When Sony's new 4K-ready PlayStation Pro console launches in November, it'll undoubtedly be the most powerful console on the market. Sony has doubled the GPU power, and the PS4 Pro is the first console to leverage AMD's new Polaris GPU technology, and system is outfitted with a 4.2 TFLOPs GPU that sits just below a Radeon RX 470 in power, allowing upscaled 4K gaming and possibly native 1080p 60FPS.

But the PS4 Pro's more powerful GPU will actually be held back by the console's outdated components, mainly the same 8-core Jaguar CPU found in the original PS4, and the same 8GB of unified GDDR5 system memory. Sony has overclocked the Jaguar CPU from its original 1.6GHz to 2.1GHz to eke out more speed and boosted the GDDR5 RAM bandwidth, but the components are essentially still the same, and without a dramatic CPU overhaul and boosted RAM cap, developers are going to run into ceilings.

This means developers will have to compromise specific features while providing upgrades like upscaled 4K 30FPS and native 1080p 60FPS in games, with certain effects like lighting, shadows, environmental features and more being scaled and dialed back.

Just how much of a difference is there between upscaled 4K and native 4K resolution? As Digital Foundry illustrates in the video below, it's like the night and day difference between 30FPS and 60FPS.

On a whim, Eurogamer decided to compare what Rise of the Tomb Raider looks like in 4K on Sony's new PS4 Pro versus a 4K-ready PC running the game at Very High settings. For comparison's sake, the PS4 Pro runs Rise of the Tomb Raider in upscaled 4K 30FPS, whereas the test PC leverages an unspecified discrete video card capable of hitting native 4K resolution at Very High settings with Very High textures.

"But the two most glaring differences come down to key limitations found in the PlayStation 4 Pro hardware itself - the fact that its GPU isn't capable of handling native 3840x2160 UHD resolution, along with the lack of a meaningful amount of additional memory. Developers have access to a number of upscaling strategies for PS4 Pro titles running in the 4K mode, and while Crystal Dynamics wouldn't be drawn on the technique used for this game, what's clear is that the overall presentation is somewhat soft, far more so than the Sony first-party titles we saw that are confirmed to be using the checkerboard upscaling."

Crystal Dynamics sets an example for all other devs to follow concerning PS4 Pro upgrades, and embraces both 4K visuals and FPS improvements in 1080p.

Thanks to the PS4 Pro's new Polaris-grade GPU, the console can upscale games to 4K resolution with HDR support, enable native 1080p 60FPS, and significantly boost performance and visuals for both 1080p HDTV and 4K UHDTV owners. Old PS4 games can be updated with Forward Compatibility patches to enable 4K HDR and 1080p 60FPS, too.

There's only one caveat: it's up to developers to make the most of the hardware, and they get to choose what upgrades to apply. So that means not every PS4 Pro upgraded game will support 60FPS for 1080p HDTV owners, as developers have been told to prioritize 4K HDR support.

Crytek has updated their roadmap for CRYENGINE, with the release of CRYENGINE 5.3 promised for November, where support for Vulkan and PhysX will be included.

The new version of CRYENGINE also has improvements for SVOGI (Sparse Voxel Octree Global Illumination), the voxel-based GI solution that was teased a few months ago. But it's the v5.4 update to CRYENGINE that's coming in February 2017 during the Game Developers Conference that has me excited.

CRYENGINE 5.4 will include Multi-Adapter support thanks to DirectX 12, which will allow gamers to use both discrete and integrated GPUs together, as well as better multi-GPU support overall if you're running a pair of NVIDIA GeForce graphics cards in SLI, or AMD Radeon cards in CrossFire.

EA has announced a big shake-up of its organizational structure, with big changes taking place with the formation of EA Worldwide Studios, which brings several EA development studios together under one roof.

Andrew Wilson, EA's Chief Executive announced the news on the official EA website. The shift will see EA Mobile and Maxis into the larger company, with Samantha Ryan stepping up as Senior VP, who is also with BioWare. One of the more notable changes here is that the Frostbite Engine team will move over to the technology side of EA's business, and will be run by Ken Moss acting as the Chief Technology Officer.

The move is something EA explains as a "responsibility to put [their] players first", with EA executive Peter Moore explaining last month that the company was aiming for a "player-first" direction. After EA had been voted "Worst Company in America" for a couple of years, EA is wanting to change direction and move towards a better path.

Microsoft made a pretty big shipping error back in 2013: it accidentally shipped out a prototype Xbox One console months before the system was revealed.

Back in March 2013, Jia Li ordered a laptop from the Microsoft Store. Instead of receiving the notebook, Li received a working prototype of an early Xbox One console codenamed "Kryptos".

"The box had a lot of security tape over it," Li told Business Insider. "So I was wondering, 'What is that?' I opened it, and it's something I've never seen before."

Some of the main creative forces behind World of Warcraft, Diablo III, and Battle.net have jumped Blizzard's ship to form their own games development studio with League of Legends' Riot Games picking up the check.

Blizzard is losing a lot of their talent lately: legendary Warcraft and Diablo co-creator Chris Metzen has retired, and now three more devs have left: Blizzard's cinematics expert Nick Carpenter, Diablo III's game director Josh Mosqueira, 16-year vet and Battle.net director Matthew Versluys, and Nexon's ex-CEO Min Kim have joined ex-World of Warcarft lead director Rob Pardo as the "original five" to form the new Bonfire Studios.

In an announcement blog post, Rob Pardo says that the original five left their cushy jobs at Blizzard so they could have more freedom and creative control over their projects.

To no one's surprise, Riot Games' MOBA League of Legends has hit astronomical popularity.

Everyone knows that League of Legends is a celebrated PC game--over the past seven years, the MOBA has risen to become one of the most renown titles in history of the platform (and gaming in general), surpassing Valve's own mega-famous DOTA 2. Riot has become a juggernaut in the industry with an estimated worth of $1 billion. But up until now, we didn't really know just how popular the game was.

Riot Games' co-founders Marc Merrill and Brandon Beck now reveals that League of Legends pulls in roughly over 100 million players each month. "It's hard to parse, but at the end of the day, those things don't even feel real. The coolest thing is actually when we're at the live events and get to meet fans face to face. Only then does it start to feel real. Otherwise, they're just numbers on a screen all over the world,"Beck told Polygon in a recent interview.

Destiny, one of the PS4's best shooters, won't harness the power of Sony's new 4K-ready PlayStation 4 Pro console.

One of the best things that Sony could do to sell PS4 Pro consoles is to work with Bungie to upgrade Destiny to native 60FPS. I could care less about 4K support or HDR, just enable 60FPS and I'll be happy. Destiny is an extremely competent console shooter that clearly carries forth everything Bungie's learned from the Halo series, but there's just one problem: the game is locked at 1080p 30FPS.

Sadly, Bungie has no plans to upgrade the current form of the game, Destiny: Rise of Iron, to enable native 1080p 60FPS on the PS4 Pro. Speaking to Gamespot, Destiny executive producer Scott Taylor said Bungie has no plans to upgrade the game on PS4 Pro right now, but that could change in the future. "No, we're not planning on any support for PS4 Pro. Not for Rise of Iron. Maybe as far as the future, but we have nothing to announce today. But I mean we'll be looking at [PS4 Pro upgrades]."