Gaming - Page 1031

Castle defense just got a bit more serious, and realistic, with the latest alpha-test of Crowfall. ArtCraft has just announced that they're starting some external testing of their Castle Siege mode in their newest game, where you get the chance to topple castles.

Crowfall is an up and coming MMORPG that takes a bit of a different approach than some others. It's heavily focused on PvP and they even have a castle siege mode where you can literally destroy another persons castle, with real-time, server-side physics, to give one spectacular show of death, destruction and rubble. This is real castle defense, not that 2D isometric stuff that's popular, and addictive, with mobile games.

Right now the pre-alpha test 2.0 is a very closed test with only a few participants that get to square off as one of two factions that'll be in the final game, the Chaos or the Order. Right now they have five of Crowfall's eventual 13 archetypes will be available to players in this round of testing: Champion, Confessor, Knight, Legionnaire and the recently-added Ranger.

A new Overwatch beta, a more inclusive one, will be kicking off this Friday, April 15th at 9AM PDT and running through Saturday, April 16th at 9PM PDT. A short test, to be sure, but one necessary to make sure the new pose works as stated and to further test the networking backend ready just in time for the full release. That's always the hardest part it seems.

Starting this Thursday Blizzard is going to scour through Battle.net to start flagging accounts and giving them the permissions necessary to actually play. Around Thursday, when the start, you might end up receiving an email notification saying that you've been selected.

If you do happen to get in, you'll have access to the entire roster of 21 heroes available to you with three maps; Hanamura, Route 66 and Nepal. Due to the limited focus of the test, there's no Weekly Brawl or Competitive Play at all. Instead, this is all about getting as many people onto their hardware and stressing it to the absolute maximum. To that end, Blizzard has stated that for this test, you might see some unexpected downtime or even performance issues. But to not worry, that's the scope of this particular test. In other words, we'll hear plenty of complaining about it across the Interwebs, even though it's meant to happen.

No Man's Sky is going to have a gargantuan galaxy to explore, one so big that they've had to build in-game probes to send out and explore it for them to ensure that the game is working as it should. It's so big, though, that Sean Murray, the founder of Hello Games, says that 99.9% of the planets won't even be discovered, let alone visited.

During a video interview with IGN, Murray was showing the progress of his game, he explained that there's likely to be no game guide sufficient enough to encompass absolutely everything. "When you land on a planet, like I said, no one has been there before. There is no YouTube video that you can look up, there is no FAQ, so you have to discover it for yourself. A big part of it is you can scan creatures, and when you scan them, you can name them" Sean Murray said. "It's actually a slightly sad but amazing thing that 99.9 percent of the planets in No Man's Sky I think will probably never be visited."

The galaxy is so massive due to the procedural generation technology that underlies it. They're able to generate an almost unlimited number of world's in the galaxy and even can spawn a whole ecosystem on each and every one of those world's. Infinite Kepler world's to explore, and almost literally no time to do it. There's infinite variety, though perhaps not infinite variety in stuff to do, which is always a concern in a space-sim that's so all-encompassing.

Armored Warfare is still well into development and not nearly complete, but they're already adding new content like absolute mad. Update 0.15 has a lot of new things in store with new futuristic weapons of war, an overhaul of the Garage UI based on user feedback. There's also a lot more going on, too.

They keep on adding tiers to the garage, with Tier 10 being the latest. This tier is comprised completely of futuristic, theoretical and experimental vehicles that represent the future of what warfare might or will look like. They're planning on making models of the T-14 Armata, the PL-01, Leopard 2A7-140, SPHINX, XM1A3 and the Challenger 2B. Since these are going to be the most deadly vehicles in the game, they needed to be placed at the top, otherwise, it just wouldn't be fair. From the sounds of it, there is a chance that more super deadly vehicles will arrive alongside in the future, too.

They've also added in two new PvE missions that should be challenging. Operation Prometheus puts you racing towards a grounded cargo ship to secure the weapons that were being transported on it. Operation Meltdown has you defending a dam and an advanced nuclear reactor in a small snow-filled map. You'll be able to use the newly included Merkava 2B MBT, a premium Tier 7 tank, that they talked about some time ago.

Lindsey Lohan isn't the only one suing in response to Grand Theft Auto 5. The former president of Rockstar North and lead producer for the Grand Theft Auto series, Leslie Benzies, is taking legal action against parent-company, Take-Two Interactive, for the sum of $150 million in alleged unpaid royalties from GTA5.

Benzies alleges that he was actually forced out of the company after being compelled into a sabbatical that he went on starting in September of 2014. While on the compelled vacation, he apparently was privy to some information that pointed to just what he suspected, his colleagues attempting to force him out of the company. His lawyer, Christopher Bakes, gave a statement to Polygon, saying that "while on sabbatical, Mr. Benzies discovered numerous deceptions on the part of Take-Two, Rockstar, Rockstar North Ltd, Sam Houser and Dan Houser, who sought to force him out of the company and terminate his portion of royalty payments based upon arbitrary actions by the company's royalty Allocation Committee, a committee that may or may not have actually ever met."

That said, those royalties that he alleges haven't been paid, amount to a staggering $150 million. Those profits were part of a long-term agreement that Rockstar North entered into with Take-Two Interactive for an incentive program for upper-level executives back in 2008. All well and good, except now Take-Two and Rockstar are filing a counter-suit that cites that Benzies breached his contract, left without good reason and thus is not entitled to those royalties at all.

The folks at Creative Assembly have announced their plans for continued support after they finally release Total War: Warhammer. They're putting a lot of effort into the main game but they also want you to keep coming back for me. For free, as is tradition.

They plan on having three different types of DLC that'll eventually be available so that they cover every facet of the Warhammer universe, which is quite extensive. The World of Warhammer Fantasy Battles is vast, even covering it in three games would leave certain races and characters out of the mix. With DLC we're able to expand the experience post-release and, much as with our previous games, there will be a range of sizes and types of DLC pack on offer. We'll eventually see different DLC packs for new Lords, Races and Campaigns that'll bring new interesting avenues. The full explanation of what's in these new packs is below, after the break, and these aren't insignificant additions either. They want to provide an immense experience before the second game hits shelves, and it looks like they'll provide it with the

They're definitely excited about the DLC, well ahead of the games launch. This will follow a similar DLC pattern to their previous games, too, which was very heavy with new content. We're already getting around 100+ hours of stuff to do in the main game. "With both Rome II and Attila we were able to release playable factions, new formats and even a free campaign expansion as a thanks to players for supporting Total War," said Rob Bartholomew, Brand Director at Creative Assembly. "The Warhammer Fantasy Battles World is gigantic, and we're looking forward to exploring it over the forthcoming trilogy. But that incredible cast of characters and monsters also provides us the chance to make lots of interesting Free DLC to support our games over time."

The latest firmware update, version 3.50, was released at the beginning of the month with a few new changes that made the social aspect of gaming a bit easier to attend to. It also finally brought the ability to play PS4 games through your PC or Mac remotely, among other unannounced features that were secretly baked in. What wasn't expected were the numerous bugs and glitches that also came with it, more than usual, in fact.

Some of the more surprising issues that seem to have cropped up are a great number of reported issues regarding the PS4 seemingly not able to boot-up properly after being installed. This can be resolved by booting into safe mode and reinstalling the last update, but that's a lot of hassle for an issue that shouldn't exist. Some are reporting that they can't even enter safe mode, meaning their console is completely useless now. On top of that, the many that can boot in are seeing some strange artifacts in video playing apps like YouTube and Hulu.

Other issues seem to center around the controller, too. Rampart among those are connection problems, where the controller will become unresponsive, randomly, even while plugged in. Headphones with an inline microphone also seem to have stopped working for a number of people when plugged into their controller. So far temporary fixes have only worked sparingly for different reasons.

So Dark Souls III might have a game-breaking bug or two that completely destroys your will to continue, and that might cause literal headaches. But at least the launch trailer that Bandai NAMCO has put out just today is pretty stunning to watch. So soothe yourself on this trailer while they quickly fix the last of the bugs.

If you can hold on to your horses, I'd bet that a fix is on the way for those crashes that are happening early on. Sure, it's frustrating and since the game has actually been out in Japan for a few weeks longer, one would think this could be taken care of and shouldn't even be in the final game. But alas, we do not live in a perfect world. And at the very least we have a pretty trailer to look at. Rumor also has it that this game is actually quite enjoyable, easily as enjoyable as the first.

In case you're even more curious, the song used in the video is Hozier's In The Woods Somewhere.

Torn Banner Studios is finally ready to take the lid off of their newest project, that they revealed only recently, at PAX East this year.

Their next Unreal Engine 4 multiplayer fantasy-based combat simulator, Mirage: Arcane Warfare, will be playable in limited numbers at PAX. If you can make it over to booth #10200 should you happen to be visiting the PAX East adventure this year, you can delight in some magical 6v6 combat. They'll let you choose from a variety of the classes that'll be featured in the final game so you can enjoy the different play styles. Want to be a backstabbing sneaky assassin? Sure. What about a someone a bit more up-close and personal? Of course that's in the game! You'll get to see first-hand what the objective-based gameplay is all about.

These are the guys that brought us Chivalry: Medieval Warfare, a particularly brutal FPS game set in the middle ages of history. They're bringing all their lessons learned and adding a particular fantastical flair to it for a different sort of game. It's based on Unreal Engine 4 and takes great advantage of all that has to offer, meaning some quite stunning backdrops while you're slaying your enemies. This also means that gore should be well rendered too. And who doesn't want that?

A glitch in Dark Souls 3's PC port is keeping players from progressing past the first bonfire, pretty much walling off the entire rest of the game.

Dark Souls day was actually a downer for many PC gamers. Tons of Steam users are reporting that Dark Souls 3 is constantly crashing at the bonfire in the tutorial section, and sometimes at the first Firelink Shrine. Countless users are reporting instances of the glitch--and other bugs--on Reddit and the Steam Forums.

Since the game crashes at the bonfire or the shrine, users can't progress past this point, meaning they can't even really play the game they paid for. Although the exact cause of the bug hasn't been determined, it seems to be somehow tied to your character's class and certain graphics settings. Users have found a workaround by setting your class to a Knight and adjusting the game's lighting level to "Low", but there's no guarantee it'll work.

Coming up later this week everyone on all platforms will get the chance to play through the multiplayer beta test of DOOM, so we've compiled everything you need to know about it right here.

DOOM is coming, and we'll be able to take part in some of the most violent gib-throwing

When is the beta test?

It's easy to neglect putting in a proper skill or talent system in a game. It's also easy to fall into the trap of making your games system of competence uninspired or copy the more successful models outright. Escape From Tarkov has taken the hard road with a very unique approach. Not so much learning them, but in retaining them. And of course there's a massive list of skills you can learn, all useful to the progression of the game.

In the model that Battle State Games is using, learning skills is done through a repetition system. The things you do make you better at them, and you can upgrade skills once you've done them a distinct number of times, letting you then do the same thing to the upgraded skill and so forth. That's great, it's been done to great success before, and so long as you don't have to grind too much for skills, it should work well here, too.

The real fun part comes in how you retain those skills. Everything you learn can be unlearned if you don't use it often enough. Thankfully there's a predefined minimum that skills are rolled back to so you don't completely forget them outright. They've even modeled a bit of muscle memory in how you can retrain forgotten skills more easily and quickly too. We've got the full list of skills as they are now just below after the break. The great thing is that they're inclined to add more as development progresses, so this isn't complete at all, but just a start.

Quantum Break is so bad that Remedy almost wishes that it could go back in time - just like the time stopping/manipulation abilities it provides you in the game. Well, damage control mode has been enabled.

Remedy's PR boss Thomas Puha took to Twitter, fielding questions like: "I have to say, that's disappointing because it's extremely distracting. But, nothing can be done then". Puha replied: "The film grain as well, that's a stylistic choice as we want to make a cinematic looking game". Ugh, like we haven't heard this "cinematic" line before, guys.

Another person asked: "How much of these visuals artefacts, ghosting, soft textures, screen-tearing and pop-ins can be fixed in a patch?" and the answer, is disappointing. Puha said: "Ghosting is just a result of the temporal reconstruction. Just the way we render things".

PAX East is turning out to have a lot of things going for it and a lot of new games slated for 2016 release dates that you'll get to dabble with. Square Enix is bringing their A game, and all of their AAA games along for the ride. Though the lines might end up being slightly long, you'll get a chance to play with nearly everything they have coming out.

In their lineup, they'll even have a version of HITMAN GO that uses GearVR and the Oculus Rift. That means you'll get to control your cloned avatar and interact with the 3D isometric world right in front of your eyes. I'm a little curious how they'll have you interacting with Agent 47, but the prospect of a VR Hitman game are rather exciting nonetheless.

If you happen to be attending, you're invited to booth #4044 to go hands-on with nearly their entire current catalog, with Star Ocean: Integrity and Faithlessness, Hitman, I Am Setsuna, HITMAN GO: VR Edition, Hitman Sniper - Death Valley Challenge Mode, Kingdom Hearts Unchained χ (pronounced "key"), Final Fantasy XIV: Heavensward, Final Fantasy XV, Sébastien Loeb Rally EVO, MXGP 2 and Just Cause 3: Sky Fortress on hand for you. That's a whole lot of game to try if you have time.

Total War: Warhammer is coming even closer to release, and for the what feels like the first time ever (but isn't really), it'll be playable at PAX East for all those fans that are itching to try their hand at the game. The complex Total War controls combined with massive on screen battles could elicit quite the response from fans and non-fans alike.

The game will be playable at booth #8109, Friday, Saturday and Sunday from 10AM - 6PM. The booth will also be outfitted with key team members from Creative Assembly aiding you in trying to wander around through the interfaces and combat. As part of the show, they will also be giving presentations showing exclusive new campaign and battle content, along with daily live contests offering fans the chance to play live on stage and win some fantastic prizes.

This version of Warhammer is said to provide the definitive tabletop experience in a digital form. It's precisely the kind of thing that should appeal to the traditional player, except that you don't have to clean up after playing. Well, in the traditional sense at least. The Total War motif should help to make it interesting even if you don't like the underlying lore, letting you engage in massive battles that defy reality, in a good way. Regardless, if you're at PAX East, you should let us know how it plays and if you like it.

No Man's Sky creator and developer Sean Murray sits down with IGN to play 21 minutes of his landmark space sim, giving a yet another fresh perspective on the game.

The latest gameplay footage for No Man's Sky aims to answer a simple question: what do you actually do in the game? Sure we know all of the things you can do, but a list of features isn't the same as a natural, organic playthrough. Now Hello Games wants to shed light on an everyday session of No Man's Sky. "The thing I wanted to show people is the kinds of things you do in No Man's Sky. You explore, you fight, you try to survive, and you trade as well in the game," Murray said.

Apart from answering that fundamental question, this session is chocked-full of new info that we didn't know before. We've already compiled a giant list of everything we know about No Man's Sky so far, but Murray reveals even more. Take relics, for example; these megaliths are left by mysterious ancient alien races (think Forerunners), and when you discover them they'll unlock different things, such as new alien words. The relics can also improve your standing with certain alien races.

Today is a special day in the PC gaming community: we're on the cusp of delving into Hidetaka Miyazaki's final Souls game.

Although Dark Souls 3 has been out for weeks in Japan, millions of North American PC gamers are eagerly waiting for their chance to die, die, and die again in the hallowed medieval realms. Today they'll finally get their wish. Dark Souls 3 is slated to launch simultaneously on Steam as early as 3:00 pm PST, so you'll definitely want to start pre-loading to prepare for the release.

While it's true Dark Souls 3 has had some frame rate troubles on other platforms, From Software has confirmed that it will run up to 60FPS on PC. Here's when you can start playing Dark Souls 3 on Steam:

EA has just released the first teaser trailer for Titanfall 2, giving would-be pilots a small glimpse at the action-packed sequel.

Since we know that Titanfall 2 will be released by 2017, it's no surprise that EA has started teasing the sequel. The footage is actually pretty interesting, showing a titan wielding a blade that closely resembles Cloud's Buster Sword.

Respawn and EA plan to officially showcase a Titanfall 2 worldwide reveal ahead of E3 2016 on June 12, and we'll be sure to keep you updated with the latest coverage. Unlike its predecessor, Titanfall 2 will have a "grounded, gritty, human and real" singleplayer campaign, and it'll release on all platforms--PS4, Xbox One, and PC. Respawn also recently boosted its dev team by 30% to prepare for the game.

With Mass Effect: Andromeda's huge E3 2016 showcase just around the corner, BioWare devs continue to release little hints and teases across social media. The newest batch of teases highlight a new character progression system, titanic boss battles, and sexy romance interactions.

BioWare is busily tweaking Mass Effect: Andromeda in preparations for its 2017 launch, and as we all know, it's hard for devs to stay completely tight-lipped about their creations. Ian Frazier, the lead designer on Mass Effect: Andromeda, recently took to Twitter to tease some brand new info on the game.

Accord to Frazier, we can expect "very, very large new foes" to fight in ME: Andromeda, probably in the context of a boss battle. What if gamers have to fight huge titanic monstrosities out in space? What if we actually get a huge fleet battle sequence? That'd be quite epic. You'll also be pleased to know that romance scenes are still in (of course they are!), and senior cinematic animator Tal Peleg says the cutscenes will be rather hot and heavy.

The female models inside Rust have finally arrived and now the game will assign you a gender based on your SteamID instead of letting you choose what your gender is.

On the blog, Garry Newman, of Garry's Mod fame, addressed his audience and explained some of the new features they've been working on and putting in the game. One of those is the new female gender models that have actually been a point of contention among fans who noticed their absence. But now the game will randomize your gender when you enter the world of Rust based off of your SteamID. This has not quite set well for some gamers, who do not like not having the choice for their in-game gender. Garry is not without logic in his implementation, however.

"We understand this is a sore subject for a lot of people. We understand that you may now be a gender that you don't identify with in real-life. We understand this causes you distress and makes you not want to play the game anymore," Garry said in the devblog. He continued to explain the position, "Technically nothing has changed, since half the population was already living with those feelings. The only difference is that whether you feel like this is now decided by your SteamID instead of your real life gender."