Gaming News - Page 105

Sony's new PlayStation handheld gets an official announcement with pricing details.

Sony's first gaming handheld since the PlayStation Vita isn't what you'd expect. The so-called Project Q handheld has been officially revealed as the PlayStation Portal, and unlike the Vita, it does not play games on its own. The PlayStation Portal is described by Sony as a "remote player," and rightly so, because the handheld is meant to be an extension of the PS5.

The new PlayStation Portal handheld features basic functionality when compared to its peers and only streams PlayStation games, whereas other similarly-priced mobile handhelds offer access to Android apps and other services/games. At the same price of $199, consumers can opt for a Nintendo Switch handheld and play full dedicated titles. But that's not really who the PS Portal is for--Sony is aiming at the fan who is already entrenched in the ecosystem.

At Gamescom 2023, NVIDIA announced DLSS 3.5 for all GeForce RTX graphics cards coming this year, introducing AI-powered Ray Reconstruction to improve ray-tracing image quality. For support titles (and so far, NVIDIA has announced DLSS 3.5 is coming to Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty, Portal with RTX, and Alan Wake 2), it will be a game-changer for 'how good' games will look with RT enabled.

It replaces hand-tuned denoisers, which are used to fill in pixel detail when tracing rays, with an AI solution that improves image quality and reduces things like ghosting. And with DLSS 3.5 coming to Cyberpunk 2077, NVIDIA provided a few screenshots of DLSS 3.5 in action, and we get to see ray-traced reflections look cleaner, sharper, and generally more impressive.

And with that, we've got a trailer for Cyberpunk: Phantom Liberty showcasing DLSS 3.5 in action, and the results are impressive, to say the least - making it one of the best-looking PC games in 2023. As nice as the fancy RT effect can be, CD Project Red has presented a new trailer for Cyberpunk: Phantom Liberty, showcasing how much it overhauls the game.

At Gamescom 2023, Blizzard lifted the lid on the upcoming second season of Diablo IV called 'Season of Blood', which is set to begin on October 17. Per the naming, the next season will feature a story all about a new "fanged threat" emerging from the shadows - vampires.

The brief story description hints at a "dark master" controlling an army of vampires unleashed on Sanctuary, which will unfold as part of a new questline, including obtaining new Vampiric Powers "to wield against their originators." Blizzard has released a trailer for the new season that introduces Erys, a vampire hunter voiced by actress and producer Gemma Chan.

In addition to bloodsuckers, five new endgame bosses will be arriving, with players finally able to target specific Unique and Uber Unique items as a drop.

Gamescom Opening Night has kicked off, and what better way to start 2023's biggest gaming announcement week than Bethesda's Todd Howard taking to the stage to tease the highly anticipated Starfield.

Todd Howard, the director of Bethesda, took center stage at Gamescom 2023 opening night, teasing the highly anticipated Starfield by announcing that despite all Bethesda has shown of the title, there are still many surprises left for gamers to uncover. Howard also said that Bethesda has always dreamt of making a game that enables players to blast off from different planets, and explore the galaxy with complete freedom.

The Bethesda director went on to reveal some key details about the opening of Starfield, saying that players will experience a "NASA meets Indiana Jones"-style adventure that begins after players encounter a strange artifact. Despite revealing some details about the opening of Starfield, and the overall story, Howard says, "the story goes a lot of places" and that "the game has a lot of surprises that we haven't talked about. I don't want to spoil it here, but we're really really happy with how the story turned out, and where it goes."

Weeks ahead of its launch, hard copies of Bethesda's Starfield have been spotted in the wild, even ahead of the early access period.

Starfield is scheduled to become available on September 6, and those that purchase the Starfield Premium Edition/Constellation Edition will enter into the Early Access program, enabling gamers to jump into the space-based fun on September 1. However, before either of these release dates, X users have spotted hard copies of Starfield in the wild a full week before the Early Access launch. The image comes from @Starfieldboy, who took to X to announce that hard copies of Starfield have been spotted, adding an image of what appears to be an Xbox Series X version of Bethesda's title.

With what seems to be hard copies of Starfield already being passed out to gamers, it's only a matter of time before leaks start to surface on the internet. However, leakers for Starfield will have a much harder time accessing the game than they typically would, as each hard copy contains a code and not a hard disk - at least for the Premium and Constellation Editions. Bethesda customer support confirmed that Standard Editions will feature a code.

The UK's competition agency officially prohibits and blocks the Microsoft-Activision merger under the original deal terms.

Today the Competition and Markets Authority has made new announcements regarding their assessment of the Microsoft-Activision merger. The CMA has issued its Final Order, a legally-binding decision, that has prohibited the existing Microsoft-Activision merger due to a significant lessening of competition (SLC) in the cloud gaming space.

Alongside its Final Order, the CMA also published an explanation on recent events regarding the Competition Appeals Tribunal. A bit ago, the CMA and Microsoft jointly filed for a specific court motion that would effectively cancel an impending appeals trial. The CMA recently filed its Final Report in April that recommended blocking the merger, and an Interim Order in May.

Geoff Keighley can't catch a break as Gamescom gets stage crashed by pranksters.

During The Game Awards 2022, Matan Even aka the "Bill Clinton kid" snuck on stage alongside other FromSoftware developers and accepted the game of the year award for Elden Ring. At the end of the speech segment, Even dedicated the award to 42nd American president Bill Clinton.

Now fast-forwarding to the present, some less stealthy stage crashers paid homage to Bill Clinton. During the Gamescom Opening Night Live event in Cologne, Germany, two people went on stage to interrupt the stream to let everyone know that "Bill Clinton wants to play GTA 6."

When NVIDIA showcased the first look at its modding toolset called RTX Remix, which allows for the streamlined development and remastering of older PC games using modern rendering techniques like NVIDIA DLSS and real-time ray-tracing, our first reaction was probably similar to yours. Half-Life 2 RTX when?

Well, we don't have a definite answer to the when part but at Gamescom 2023, NVIDIA has announced that some of the top Half-Life 2 modders have joined forces to form a new studio called Orbifold Studios - and the team is working on Half-Life 2 RTX: An RTX Remix Project.

Using NVIDIA's groundbreaking AI and Omniverse-driven RTX Remix platform, this remaster will include full ray-tracing ala Portal with RTX, DLSS 3, RTX IO, and remastered and modernized assets.

Last week we got a closer look at the new Lenovo Legion Go handheld, which sees Lenovo entering the dedicated PC gaming handheld market popularized in recent months with the likes of Valve's Steam Deck and the ROG Ally from ASUS. Like the Ally, the Lenovo Legion Go will target Windows 11 as its operating system, with the physical design sharing as much in common with the Nintendo Switch as its direct competitors.

The detachable controller design will make docking the handheld and continuing to play while switching the display to a TV or monitor a breeze and help distinguish the Legion Go from the competition. This week we've got more images for the device and info from Windows Report, where we learn that the handheld will be powered by an AMD Ryzen Z1 processor similar to what's found inside the ROG Ally.

The odds are that the two handhelds will share similar specs regarding Compute Units and even clock speeds - though details of the SoC's TDP, storage, and memory capacity are still to be revealed.

Activision aims to break new ground with Modern Warfare 3's campaign design.

Call of Duty campaigns have traditionally delivered the kind of explosive bravado and chaos that you'd find a Summer action movie, combined with realism and dramatic storytelling. While the games have varied every which way in their respective campaigns, including size, scope, and time period, one thing ties Call of Duty campaigns together: linearity.

Modern Warfare 3 aims to change up this formula. Sledgehammer Games and Activision will introduce more sandbox-style gameplay with unpredictable and non-scripted dynamic moments. As part of the new open combat missions system, Call of Duty went from A-Z to an if/when game that conditionally reacts to player choices.