Gaming - Page 1052

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."

It wasn't exactly meant to happen, but there seems to be an issue where daily Hard and Challenging missions have disappeared completely from The Division due to a bug or glitch. Ubisoft is very much aware of the issue and has promised that it'll be fixed with the April update that's set to land on April 12th.

The issue seemed to have cropped up just yesterday as players noticed that the usual daily missions hadn't actually been updated since Saturday. Usually, they're restarted every day and allow everyone to complete them for a chance to acquire Phoenix Credits as well as some very rare purple and yellow loot. The issue is one that is being handled in the next update which is coming on the 12th, which is tomorrow.

Players are already rather outraged at the lack of ability to earn Phoenix Credits and are requesting that Ubisoft compensate them with the hard-to-get in-game currency as a means of restoring faith. Ubisoft has responded that there are currently no plans to do such. Some players are even threatening to request a refund through Amazon due to a lack of support though the grounds for such are shaky at best.

The new Gears of War 4 trailer hits home in the feels department, and really shows that Coalition cares about the franchise.

I'm not a Gears of War fan--let's get that out of the way right now. I've never really liked the games, but understood why people did. But this new Gears of War 4 trailer changes everything. It's kind of amazing how a little snippet of footage can do that, isn't it?

The trailer is soaked in feels and resonates strongly with specific themes. If you study any form of criticism, you'll recognize a lot of these themes and motifs: JD Fenix running in the dark of night, running from a storming horde of nightmares, trying to escape the darkness by venturing into the sanctuary of his ancestral home. In the past, this place was a haven, a place where dreams of tomorrow and laughs of a young JD Fenix could be heard across the garden. Now, though, it's a hallowed tomb--a tomb where old ghosts stir, a tomb that pulls the viewer's heartstrings.

The future for the employees of Evolution Studios, whose closure last month by Sony was quite the surprise, are being welcomed with open arms and a smile by Codemasters, another studio who specialize in the creation of racing games.

Codemasters wrote on their blog that they're expanding their studio to include a healthy portion of the talent from Evolution Studios. Though the majority seem to be moving over to their new home, a small team will still continue to work on keeping Driveclub on PS4 up and running, though they are still employees of Sony proper.

The decision to bolster their studio is a great one and in a time where they could no doubt expand their own brand and work on the next great racing game after DiRT Rally's successful launch after a long Early Access. They say that their two primary franchises, that of F1 and DiRT, have been successful enough to position them for continued growth, and they definitely didn't want to miss out on the talented people who formed the core team that made Driveclub, itself one of the better racing games on the PlayStation 4. Despite the initial hurdles, the game ended up being a technological marvel with some fantastic graphics. It even sold well enough, with 2 million units shipped as of August of last year.

Although Quantum Break is a hot mess on PC, Microsoft and Remedy are apparently reaping tremendous benefits from the game's launch.

Quantum Break is a smashing success for Microsoft. The game has gone on to top UK sales charts, and fans on Twitter are praising Remedy Entertainment's new time drama. Despite the game's rather poor performance on PC, console gamers are voting with their dollars, overwhelming PC gamers. As a result, Quantum Break has become the "biggest, best-selling new Microsoft Studios IP of this generation".

"We're delighted that Quantum Break has been so well received by fans and critics, it's a testament to the hard work, ambition and commitment of the team at Remedy that the game is already surpassing expectations. The game has already built up a passionate fanbase and we look forward to seeing and hearing about their experiences in Riverport," said Xbox Studios Senior Category Manager, Jon Edney.

It looks like Final Fantasy XV is going to be something special on the PC, according to a new interview with JeuxVideo with Video Game Director for Square Enix, Hajime Tabata.

Tabata said that the PC version of Final Fantasy XV would be a technology showcase, as it's something truly beyond what the consoles are capable of. Tabata said that Final Fantasy XV would be a "different kind of project", and that the game would be a tech showcase on the PC. He said that it uses the latest technology, something that's not possible on the consoles as they have serious hardware limitations.

He added that if the team does build a PC version of the game, they will have to do a technology overhaul, and completely redo some of the R&D testing to see what new stuff they can "rebuild the game" with. The PC version isn't confirmed, but Tabata says he wants to work on a PC version of the game, once the console version is wrapped up.

The new Doom beta is on the way, with an interesting feature for PlayStation 4 gamers. The new open beta adds a few new features to the game, with an FOV slider for PS4 owners.

There's also an option to disable damage numbers in Doom, but there are other tweaks and changes that haven't been reported just yet. The new Doom open beta will take place between April 15-18, with players gaining access to Team Deathmatch and Warpath, on both the Heatwave and Infernal maps.

id Software has also teased content updates for SnapMap, with map modules, props, and objects, as well as new multiplayer modes arriving through its SnapMap portal.

Quantum Break currently suffers from a number of technical issues on PC, including inconsistent frame rates, poorly optimized monitor refresh rates, crashing, screen tearing, and more. We know that Remedy can't do anything about the problems caused by Microsoft's Windows 10 UWP platform (no FPS-tracking overlays, no FreeSync or toggling VSync), and it looks like the devs may not even be able to fix the issues caused by its own Northlight Engine.

Remedy Entertainment is well aware of Quantum Break's PC hiccups, and is currently collecting data and investigating fixes. Despite these assurances, man of Quantum Break's visual faults are byproducts of the game's Northlight engine, so they can't be fixed.

When asked if the texture pop-in could be addressed in a patch, Remedy's PR rep Thomas Puha said no. "That just unfortunately is a quirk of our graphics engine," he said in a Tweet. Texture pop-ins occur when ugly low-res textures serve as placeholders and eventually snap into the high-res textures you're supposed to see. The graphical ghosting issue can't be fixed, either: "Ghosting is just a result of the temporal reconstruction. Just the way we render things," Puha said.

Gaming sure has a trend, doesn't it? Another week, another broken game release. This time MLB The Show 16 has been rendered unplayable at launch thanks to horrible server optimization, but Sony jumped in and promised fixes.

MLB The Show 16 released on March 29, and for over a week now, the game has been riddled with horrible server lag. This wouldn't be such a big deal if the game didn't have to sync to online servers for basic singleplayer game modes like Road to the Show and franchise. Even if you're trying to play singleplayer, you're pretty much out of luck.

Rather than issue out refunds for the broken game's launch, Sony is making up for player troubles with free DLC. The developers further acknowledge the server problems and affirm that a fix is on its way. "We apologize that the excitement of launch and the start of the season has been soured by these issues. Our team is taking every step necessary and working around the clock to stabilize our online servers as soon as possible," Sony San Diego said in an official statement.

Remember when we kept saying there's no reason to buy an Xbox One now that all Xbox games are coming to PC? Well, Quantum Break seems to be the exception to that rule, and could be part of Microsoft's new plan to keep Xbox One sales alive and kicking.

Overhyped and over-marketed, Quantum Break was supposed to be a proud flagship exclusive for Microsoft's Windows 10 PC platform. Instead, the game released as a total mess on PC; it can't even hit 60FPS, the 30FPS hard-lock doesn't work, there's crashing, screen tearing, ugly texture pop-ins, and other performance stutters marring the game. All of that is on top of the awful roadblocks of the Universal Windows Platform.

The Xbox One version of Quantum Break, however, is running smoothly. There's no hitches or hiccups, just the designated 30FPS hard cap and 720P upscaled to 1080P graphics. Normally, I'd just chalk this up to standard industry practices. Developers have long been releasing unfinished PC games alongside their more-optimized console ports simply because consoles take precedence. More people own consoles, which means more sales.

If the rumors are true, Sony is planning on changing the entire console industry with a mid-cycle PS4 refresh. While consumers have been buzzing about the prospect, the idea of PS4K or PS4.5 isn't too enticing to BioWare.

"I'd say that'd be a gigantic pain in the ass that flies in the face of the purpose of consoles," BioWare co-founder Greg Zeschuk told GameSpot. "It's funny, there's actually some stories behind that. For example, the original Xbox...Microsoft actually had multiple different DVD drives. They didn't tell anyone that, but as a developer, you discovered that you have different performance, and sometimes you'd have these boxes of refurbished drives and different brands and different equipment. It caused incredible variability."

The BioWare co-founder continued by saying that upgraded console hardware would make developer's jobs more difficult and confusing, especially the modular PC-like hardware swapping that Xbox boss Phil Spencer teased. "The whole purpose of consoles is the set of requirements that you work against from a hardware perspective. To change that is complete lunacy."

Well... the PC version of Quantum Break is a gigantic mess, and that doesn't surprise me one bit. Eurogamer's Digital Foundry have dug deep into Remedy's latest game, with nothing but problems reported.

During their testing, the AMD Radeon R9 390 smashes the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970, with the NVIDIA driver constantly crashing under Windows 10. Quantum Break is also unable to run at 100% of the screen refresh rate, so if you're running a 60Hz display, you'll only hit 50FPS or so. HOW DOES THIS HAPPEN.

The in-game 30FPS frame rate cap is broken, so you can't even receive the smoother performance that the super-underpowered Xbox One is capable of. The full-screen limitations of the Universal Windows Platform makes it impossible to use a third-party piece of software to get smoother performance. YIKES. Remedy has really done a number on the PC version of Quantum Break. Our advice? Don't buy it, yet at least.

65daysofstatic, a UK based instrumental band is going to be releasing their first original soundtrack, No Man's Sky: Music for an Infinite Universe on June 17th, coinciding with the release of one of the most anticipated sci-fi space simulators ever, No Man's Sky.

No Man's Sky is too big a production, and hyped way too much, to get just a normal soundtrack to be the backdrop for the vast, open, procedural generate masterpiece that it is. They've partnered with a UK instrumental band, 65daysofstatic, to produce a unique soundtrack that could only be good enough to grace your ears while exploring the space-lanes. Hello Games chose 65daysofstatic as their composers of choice after one of their singles, Debutante, was featured in the reveal trailer in 2013. Since then they've been hard at work composing the original music that'll be featured in-game.

The soundtrack is a bit unique when compared to other's of similar origin, in that it follows some of the similar practices of the procedural generated world that it'll be accentuating. They've compiled over two hours of music across 10 individual tracks, alongside a vast library of raw audio comprised of loops, sound textures and unique melody that currently being fed into the game's unique music engine, effectively creating a self-generating soundtrack that can mix itself into infinity.

The newest software update for the PlayStation 4, system software 3.50, seems to have some hidden, or unannounced functionality that Sony hasn't put into the official patch notes. The biggest change is support for external HDD's of up to 4TB, up from the previous limit.

There are also a few more features that have been uncovered by PlayStation 4 users in the Reddit firmware 3.50 megathread. This update was already a significant one, if not one of the larger updates, adding the rudimentary ability to stream games from the PS4 to your PC or Mac, but underneath they've found that the ability to play music stored on USB drives, also letting you play your stored music while you game. Along a similar vein, you can now attach 4TB external HDD's, just in case you want to download your entire library of games.

There are some smaller tweaks that have made their way into the update, too. It's easier to search for livestreams of specific games through the Live From PlayStation app, and you can actually pin up to three games at the top of the apps search field too. Screenshot notifications can be turned off, you can set a part limit from 2-8 people and there's plenty of stability improvements across the entire OS, including the PlayStation store.

Bandai Namco did something incredibly clever by using an already prevalent meme and using its popularity to promote their recently released Dark Souls 3 game. The official Dark Souls Twitter account used the viral Sad Affleck meme to advertise, and the result is actually quite entertaining.

Their marketing department and social media managers converged for what might be the perfect storm, something that itself went viral within mere minutes of posting. Sure, it's not to be outdone by the likes of their chicken wings eating contest and isn't quite the same as the great animated short video that they produced with the help of Eli Roth, but it's on the level of some of the most genius, and well timed, marketing stunts ever.

The original video is from an interview where Henry Cavill and Ben Affleck are asked about their thoughts in regards to the negative criticism of the movie, where Affleck seems to go to a dark place and his facial expressions mirror his thoughts. Cavill seems to keep his cool, however.

Cheaters seem to be rampart in The Division, so during a livestream with the developers where they talked about some of the finer features of update 1.1, they revealed that they're going to introduce a strict two-strikes policy for cheaters on the PC version, which ultimately will end in a permanent ban from the game.

The first time you dabble in the dark-arts of cheating you'll be greeted with a no-notice three day temporary ban from the game. If you can't login, that's your warning that the next time you're caught cheating that you'll receive a permanent ban from the game. They aren't playing around with cheaters, but are giving them the rightful chance to do the right thing and simply enjoy the game.

To help catch these cheaters, they've implemented a new reporting system that simply requires you to enter "/report [username]" to report any suspicious activity you might come across, which Ubisoft is very serious about investigating. They do note, however, that a good portion of suspected cheaters are likely a power-gap between high-level and better skilled players and not necessarily actual cheating. They're going to be very thorough in their investigations before handing out those bans.

Something big is about to be announced in regards to Gears of War 4, but we're not quite sure what it is. They promise it's like nothing we've ever seen before, so what could this surprise be?

A user on NeoGAF has uncovered something in the website's source code that points to something called "The Nightmare Before", and two videos show a downed plane in the midst of a lightning storm. Those may be unconnected completely, or we may be getting a prologue of sorts to help prep us for current nightmare that we might find ourselves in. Adam Fletcher, the community director for The Coalition, did say that we should expect to see several "revelations" over the next months that'll help reveal what JD Fenix and his crew will be enduring.

The Gears of War 4 story follows the story of Marcus Fenix's son and his companions as they undergo a very stressful day, with the entire game unfolding over one 24 hour period. The story is said to follow a similar dark, bleak outlook that defined the originals and as a result will have language and gore that mirrors those early installments. For those that are a bit more sensitive to such things, a filter will be available for you to turn on.