Gaming - Page 1047

A single-player, story campaign has been one of the most wished for components of Star Wars Battlefront. It seems that EA and DICE have been strangely resistent to the idea though. The offline missions leave a lot to be desired and while they're fun, they aren't really in the spirit of Star Wars. We need that overarching narrative. Even John Boyega, Finn from Star Wars: The Force Awakens, wants a full-on story campaign. And he's got a date with EA UK to talk more about it.

The actor admitted that he's a long-time Battlefront fan, and it looks like he's less than impressed with the "missions" portion of the game, and hopefully his input can help to change it for the better. Who knows, maybe we''ll get a story campaign leading up to the defection of Finn as a result his collaboration.

By bringing Xbox games to PC, Microsoft is seriously talking its way out of Xbox One sales. If all future Xbox games are coming to PC anyway, why should you even buy an Xbox One?

In a bid to further its unified cross-platform ecosystem, future Xbox games will also see a simultaneous release on Windows 10 PC's. We've already seen this with Gears of War: Ultimate Edition, whose PC version is in utter shambles, and with the upcoming DirectX 12 exclusive Quantum Break. While all of that sounds pretty nifty, Microsoft's PC games are exclusive to its dreaded Windows Store storefront service, which severely restricts basic features of PC gaming.

At Microsoft's recent press event, company exec Peter Orullian told CNET that pretty much all future Xbox One games will also be coming to PC as Windows 10/Windows Store exclusives. "We'll get to the point where [shipping simultaneous versions] is the intent for every title," he said. So why would anyone buy a Xbox One? Microsoft seems to be shooting themselves in the foot and fumbling with its console presence while maintaining that it just wants to "break down the walls and bring gamers together".

Or maybe it's not concept art at all, but this render of the protagonist from Mass Effect: Andromeda in ZBrush is quite stunning. In fact, these shots that were posted to ZBrushCentral are modeled by Herbert Lowis from BioWare Montreal could be the real-deal, though they weren't posted by the artist at all.

"And our Pathfinder character model at Bioware Montreal... for Mass Effect Andromeda - Modelled By Herbert Lowis."

So just how did they make their way onto that site anyway? No matter how the shots made it to the forum, the models are definitetly the spitting image (with a whole lot more detail) of the hero we saw in the E3 2015 trailer of Mass Effect: Andromeda. It's him alright, and it follows similar design philosophy and style from the Mass Effect universe. And we'll be dammed if they don't look good.

The road to the release of The Division has been a long one, with acusations of a downgrade to the graphics to almost direct comparisons to Watch Dogs. But the wait is almost over, and you can start preloading the game today in anticipation of helping save Manhatten.

If you haven't already, you can start the process in a few hours, which began at 9am PT/12pm ET. After that, you just hae to wait for it to unlock on the 8th of March at 12:01am ET. Preloading can help save a lot of time when all you want to do is just get in and game. It's such a novel idea regardless of whether it's more useful for pre-orders or not. Just set it to download at night and then get right into the action.

Just remember that the beta was only a fraction of what should be available in the full game. We found ourselves quickly out of stuff to do once the small missions were done, and even the Dark Zone was sparse with action. Thankfully the whole idea of battling through a chaotic Manhatten and later unlocking other parts of New York is kind of exciting. The underlying cover-mechanics worked pretty well too. Check out our impressions of the beta test if you haven't already.

Sega is celebrating the 25th Anniversary of Sonic the Hedgehog this year, and they're promising that we'll get some very exciting news to honor this milestone at a special panel being hosted at SXSW this year.

We've already heard the rumors of a special anniversary game that might make an appearance sometime this year, and there was a confirmation of a big-screen movie in the works as well. It's also not out of the question for them to take the blue blur in a completely different direction and announce a new, more modern take on the hedgehog.

The special Sonic the Hedgehog: 25 Year Anniversary panel will be held on the 19th of March 1t 3:30 CT/4:30 ET. "Join us as we celebrate the past and look to the future with breaking news and an inside glimpse at what fans can expect in this milestone year," Sega said in the official announcement. They'll have the original creators, developers and voice actors there to talk about Sonic and supposedly have something new to offer. We can't wait to find out just what that is.

Black Desert Online is now officially released. There's always that one MMO that seems to tug at your heart strings, and not just the emotional ones either. It draws you in with its art style, good looks and promise for a deep character driven experience. Then it slams some excellent hack n' slash combat with other MMO-centric, alternate life, mechanics. But in a way that doesn't force you to grind forever.

That's what Black Desert Online has done up until now, surprise you with the ease in which you can get into it but the whole wealth of opportunity that lays before you. It's an MMO for goodness sake, so of course there's an inherent grind, but they've made it a fun grind. And now it's officially out for everyone to enjoy.

And it's a technological marvel, something that takes you aback a bit when you realize it's made to accommodate a huge variety of hardware. But it looks great considering. Curoius about it? It's only $29.99 for the "Traveler's Package" that'll get you started.

An interesting, and very game-changing move to the way Valve deals with Steam game bundles is reportedly on the way, according to PCGamesN.

They report that in "official documentation given to developers and received by PCGN, Valve have outlined a redesign of Steam bundles so that they automatically give buyers that already own some of the products within a discount. This scales based on the number of products, and is already available on some bundles in the wild, though remains officially unannounced. This also has the knock-on effect of making sure that bundles are properly discounted when their components are on timed sales".

Valve's official explanation to developers, is something along the lines of: "With Steam Bundles, if a customer already [owns] some items in the Bundle, they will pay for and receive only the items not already in their account. This allows the best fans of your series or franchise to 'complete the set' and get a deal on the remaining items in the Bundle".

Now that Far Cry Primal is out and in the wild, people are pulling it apart - and finding where Ubisoft may have done something very, very sneaky. According to the findings being reported by Gamepressure, the map in Far Cry Primal "replicates the topography of the map in Far Cry 4", reports GameSpot.

According to a source close to Ubisoft, which Kotaku allegedly confirmed, the Far Cry Primal development team used Far Cry 4's heightmaps "as a basis for their game". If you check out the image above, it looks pretty damn close to what we saw in Far Cry 4.

Have you played Far Cry Primal yet? What do you think of the 'new' map in Primal? We have a PC performance analysis here, with some pretty good numbers on our various video cards, too.

Microsoft has gone crazy on gaming news in the last few days, with the near silent launch of Gears of War: Ultimate Edition - which is just so broken right now, as well as Killer Instinct Season 3 coming to the PC on March 29, and Forza 6 Apex launching on the PC this spring.

Well, during the press event in San Francisco, Remedy Entertainment's Production Director, Miloš Jeřábek teased some of the first details on the PC version of Quantum Break. He said: "The Windows 10 version is trying to use all the power from the PC machines. It will focus on the image quality even more than Xbox One, we're implementing 4K resolution, 60FPS, we are working on really cool graphical settings that will bump up the VFX, the shadow quality and the quality of volumetric lighting".

I'm scared that we will see Quantum Break not support multi-GPU setups because it will be an exclusive to the Windows Store, with Windows Store-based games not supporting SLI and Crossfire. Microsoft, get off your ass and fix that now, admit your mistakes (and make it very vocal) and never do it again, then - and only then, launch Quantum Break.

A few slip-ups and accidentally leaks takes some of the mystery out of the infinitely procedural space sim No Man's Sky.

The last update we heard about No Man's Sky was an official June 2016 release date for PS4. Since then, the devs at Hello Games have been pretty much under the radar, busily hacking away at their ambitious project to ensure it's ready for the impending release. Thanks to a blunder from Sony, however, we know that the space sim indie will be priced as a full PS4 game at $59.99, and pre-orders may open up tomorrow.

If that wasn't enough, Amazon might have leaked the game's official release date. The online retailer sent an email to redditor ChaosZeroX saying that No Man's Sky will release on June 21, 2016.

Daedalic Entertainment is breaking into the console market with a delightful adventure game called Deponia Doomsday. As the name implies, the only endgame option is to blow up the world to save. There's just no other way.

The game utilizes hand-drawn 2D comic graphics, a very spicy and humorous dialog and melds that with a point and click type adventure game. Within the 20 or so hours of gameplay you'll come across some unique, oddball characters, all part of the actual story that's unfolding.

You're Rufus, and when you wake-up you find out that Elysium (the magnificent flying city) has fallen from the sky and a new species, the Fewlocks, have started taking over the ruins of the entire planet of Deponia, and of course there's only one choice. And you get travel through time to do it. Each decision you make in time will have consequences that echo through the other time periods that you'll get to see. And there's even going to be an alternate ending coming soon as well.

If you play Quantum Break on PC, you'll need a persistent internet connection to stream the game's live-action cutscenes. Xbox One players, on the other hand, get the option to download the videos.

Remedy Entertainment revealed that Quantum Break's cutscene segments won't be included on-disc, meaning the game could potentially be a nightmare for gamers with slow connections. Quantum Break is separated into four different acts, and as you beat each section, a live-action video segment will play depending on the actions and choices you made. Remedy says that they chose to stream the video remotely in order to cut down on hard drive and disc space, affirming that the live-action video segments will have a ton of different outcomes and permutations based on player's decisions.

"We have 40 different variations of the show in total where basically your choices get to make it evolve and change whether it's from a junction choice or we have these things called 'Quantum Ripples' which essentially unlocked sort of deleted scenes from the show," Quantum Break narrative designer Greg Louden told Game Informer.

The whole premise of Roller Coaster Tycoon World is making some of the craziest and most unusual rides that you've ever seenm

Roller Coaster Tycoon World has some very big shoes to fill since it's the first PC game of the franchise in nearly a decade. And with the advent of the Steam Workshop and the big focus on modding in the PC community with a lot of other games this could be the perfect platform to show Atari's attention to the PC crowd again. The beta tests have provided some invaluable insight into what fans want, and one of those is user-generated-content. Being able to take an insanely over-engineered masterpiece and slap it into your own park.

This UGC functionality is Atari's answer to a new generation of Roller Coaster Tycoon players on the PC that have embraced this personalization and want ways to truly customize content on their own. It integrates directly with Steam Workshop and lets anyone decorate and plan the best-looking park you've ever dreamed of. You may not have the time it takes to make some of the more complex rides, and we expect people to be very imaginative with their creations, so why not be able to share what you've made and use other's to make your park unique among all others. This is a great development, and it does show their commitment to making PC gaming a priority for Atari.

Torn Banner Studios, the folks behind Chivalry: Medieval Warfare are hard at work on their next game, and it looks like it'll take the multiplayer warfare madness from their first game and morph it into an enchanted adventure.

It's short, and the full teaser won't be until next week, but what we're shown is a fast-paced and bloody, combat-centric multiplayer game rendered in Unreal Engine 4. They want to branch into the high-fantasy realm and the magical effects look pretty dazzling so far. We can't wait to see the official reveal coming up on March 9th.

If it's anything like Medieval Warfare, then we're bound to have an interactive and unique online game That is, if the underlying community doesn't become toxic and ruin the experience for those just wishing to have fun.

I've always thought that crossbows fit extremely well into the Fallout universe, and was super bummed when Bethesda didn't add them into Fallout 4. Luckily modders once again have our collective backs, and now we can channel Daryl Dixon's deadly arrow-slinging prowess in the wasteland.

Crossbows of the Commonwealth introduces actual working bolt-shooting crossbows into Fallout 4, meeting a very real demand among players. The crossbow is crank-fired like the laser musket, and must be reloaded manually after each shot. It's a neat idea, but in execution, the weapon leaves much to be desired unless you're playing on lower difficulties. Of course, you can fully kit it out with upgrades and even Legendary stats.

After installing the mod, raiders will randomly start using crossbows, and certain merchants will sell bolts as ammunition. Or you could just use the "help crossbow 4" console command to get the spawn code, and manually add them to your inventory. The closest thing we've seen to actual crossbows is Geralt's Witcher Gear mod, but that one fired actual bullets instead of bolts.

Written in conjunction with Simon den Bekker

Counter-Strike Global Offensive has a strange internal economy that's driven in large part by the weapon skins created by the community. It also attracts a lot of attention and players to the game. In essence, it's the backbone of the game, a reason why people play. To have these digital works of art and display them in-game. These player-contributed and professionally contributed works of art (and sometimes non-art) are sometimes a source of great pride among players, as they compare and compete in order to win or open a case with an expensive and sometimes beautiful looking weapon skin. Also, people can make money from these.

Valve oddly makes betting incredibly easy in the game itself. One can buy cases that have randomly won weapons upon opening, which the keys to open also cost money. Those weapon skins can be easily transferred to third-party pools, or websites, to be either sold or put into a 'pot' to be won by betting on different professional and semi-professional CSGO matches. There is a wide variety of websites that offer ways to use your weapon skins as collateral, and currency, to gamble and place bets.

As a die-hard fan of the Diablo ARPG series, I'm incredibly excited to report that Blizzard may be making a new chapter of the landmark franchise.

A batch of new job listings pretty much confirm that a new Diablo is in the works, with Blizzard hiring a senior concept artist, a lighting artist, and a senior character artist for an "unnannounced project". Blizzard pretty much gives it away by explicitly stating that the ideal candidates will be responsible for molding the Diablo universe.

"Blizzard Entertainment is seeking exceptionally skilled and passionate senior concept artists to help drive the vision of characters and world's in our next hit game! We're looking for artists that are self-starting, versatile, and enjoy being part of a collaborative environment. The ideal candidate shares our sensibilities, loves dark medieval world's, and feels there are countless stories left to tell in the Diablo universe!"

An adrenalin charged trailer for Io Interactive's upcoming Hitman was just released, and it shows off some of the settings and missions we'll be exploring when it releases on March 11th.

The first "season" as they're calling it is going to have a variety of very different and engaging missions to go through. Agent 47 is back and in the prime of his career in this new, live and almost re-imagined game. The amount of free-will and choices you'll have should be astounding. Even the beta, as short as it was, had a great many possibilities in how to accomplish it.

The episodic way that they're releasing this will give you new, fresh contracts and challenges to complete every week as well as new, major content appearing every month until the season ends. The plan for them is to continue to support the game with fresh content for quite some time. The base-mechanics are already in-place, and they're pretty good.

Steam is an oft-hacked platform for a number of reasons. The internal economy and lack of proper controls for trading the strangely valuable items makes it a very sweet target for scammers and hackers alike. Valve is committed to helping stop that from happening and is rolling out some new ways to help prevent you from outright losing your inventory.

On March 9th, a Steam update will add a number of new features to the trading mechanism to make it more difficult for scammers to steal from their intended victims. These changes are in response to the nearly 77,000 accounts that tend to be hacked or otherwise compromised in some fashion each month.

And for goodness sake, use Steam Guard Mobile Authenticator, it's relatively easy to setup and it helps tremendously. 2FA is a very effective tool in preventing both hacking as well as enabling a safer and more effective trading environment.

Star Wars has been a very successful franchise for EA this year with Battlefront alone having shipped more than 13 million copies worldwide since it released. Star Wars: The Old Republic has seen a revival in its player base thanks, in part, to a return to the highly successful narrative driven gameplay they reintroduced with the Knights of the Fallen Empire. Galaxy of Heroes, too, has been a smashing success.

And now EA wants to start teasing what they're planning on doing next with the franchise. During the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media and Telecom Conference in San Francisco, the companies CFO, Blake Jorgensen, talked elusively about how they plan on moving forward. "We've got a couple of things up our sleeve that we haven't talked about yet but you'll probably see them teased over the next six months," Jorgensen said. We already have an idea about the direction they're headed, with an Amy Hennig directed open-world RPG and even potential sequels to Battlefront itself.

The strong sales of Battlefront, regardless of the actual numbers of people playing at any given time, has show EA just how strong a franchise it can be for them, hopefully something that'll resonate and help to invigorate the development of well thought-out games that are true to the spirit of Star Wars.