Gaming News - Page 110

Starfield doesn't run all that well on Valve's new Steam Deck handheld-PC hybrid, but a new mod could help improve performance.

Starfield is coming out today and modders have been busily releasing tweaks and upgrades since the game released in early access. Starfield even has its own script extender now, which will open the doors to immense game-altering creations.

One such mod, Steam Deck Essentials over on Nexus Mods, aims to address Starfield's sub-30FPS performance on the Steam Deck. Reports from across the web show that Bethesda's latest spacefaring RPG simply isn't a great experience on the Steam Deck's custom SoC hardware (conversely, Starfield can run at 1080p 60FPS on the ROG Ally in Turbo Mode). This is because Starfield is an intensely CPU-bound game, hence why it may be limited to 30FPS on consoles (among other reasons including the significant VRAM reduction on the Series S).

Soon all Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S owners will be able to stream live gameplay sessions directly to Discord.

In a move that further blurs the lines between console and PC gaming, Discord game streaming functionality is coming to Xbox consoles. The feature will give a lot more interactivity to voice party chats on Xbox's Discord app, and friends will be able to gather together to check out boss fights, the latest epic drop, new strategies, learn tips and tricks from other members of the community, and even preview titles that are offered on Xbox Game Pass.

This is good news on the surface, but the feature comes with some limitations. Free Discord users will be locked to 720p 30FPS streams, which is typically fine for group/party chats depending on the circumstances (e.g. digital hang outs). Discord Nitro subscribers will instead be able to stream up to 1080p 60FPS, latency permitting.

Fable creator and notorious over-promiser Peter Molyneux is making a new game...but don't expect any real info on the project any time soon.

There's no one quite like Peter Molyneux in the games industry. His UK-based studio Lionhead (now defunct) gained mass popularity with the Fable series of games, but Molyneux's legacy is sadly tarnished by his penchant for over-hyping games, promising details and features that never showed up, and ultimately misrepresenting games that were nowhere near finished.

Since the explosive Rock Paper Shotgun interview in 2015 where Molyneux declared he 'doesn't have a reputation in the games industry any more,' the developer has been flying mostly under the radar. The last we heard is his studio, 22 Cans, was working on a strange crypto-based game called Legacy for Gala Games. Now Molyneux is back for another title...but he's not ready to divulge details just yet.

Microsoft's latest hire could improve Xbox's diminished presence in Japan.

Xbox is incredibly unpopular in Japan. The competition is simply too fierce. The overseas country is home to two of the industry's Big 3 with both Nintendo and Sony having established their billion-dollar games businesses for decades. Microsoft, on the other hand, is an outlier and has had a very hard time breaking into the Japanese market.

That could change thanks to the latest exec that Microsoft recently brought on board. According to Windows Central, Microsoft has recruited Mena Kato to serve as a kind of Japanese liaison to bridge the gap between the American company and Asian consumers. Kato looks to be instrumental in Microsoft's efforts towards the East as the Director of Japan Partnerships for the Xbox games division.

The fact that Bethesda Game Studios has fully embraced the modding community over the years is wonderful, and it's a tradition that will continue with Starfield - a game that, like the studio's The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and Fallout 4, will end up being one of the most modded titles out there. Ahead of the game's full launch later this week, you can already download a number of mods over at Nexus Mods.

But the news that development on 'Starfield Script Extender' has already been completed means that we're on the cusp of getting a number of game-changing and potentially amazing mods to the game in the coming months. Like the 'Skyrim Script Extender,' this too "expands scripting capabilities and adds additional functionality," so odds are it will be as essential as that.

The Skyrim Script Extender or SKSE led to the amazing PC-centric SkyUI overhaul that became a must-have mod for the game, and with people already complaining about Starfield's similarly minimal but functional UI - this will allow modders to get to work on overhauling it similarly. However, there's a catch.

A movie insider has confirmed that the developers behind the immensely popular Hogwarts Legacy are already working on a sequel.

The confirmation comes from reputable movie leaker MyTimeToShineHello, who took to the platform formerly called Twitter, now X, to post that sources have informed the account that a Hogwarts Legacy sequel is "in the works". It can be assumed that the source of the leaker is an employee within Warner Bros., especially considering MyTimeToShineHello has leaked things from the studio in the past.

Unfortunately, the movie insider didn't reveal any specific details about the upcoming title, but considering how popular Hogwarts Legacy is/was, it's not surprising to hear about a sequel being worked on. For those that don't know, Hogwarts Legacy is the best-selling game for this year, with $1.3 billion in sales, and since it was so popular, it would make sense that developers behind the project are already working on the next installment in the series.

Bethesda Game Studios RPGs and mods go hand-in-hand, especially when looking at the developer's history in the PC gaming space - Morrowing, Oblivion, Skyrim, and most recently, Fallout 4. Some of the most moddable and modded games of all time, from simple texture updates to visual overhauls, redesigned UI, and even brand-new games.

Starfield will follow suit, thanks to the epic space RPG being built with the next iteration of the Creation Engine. Ahead of the launch of official mod kits and tools, as we saw with Fallout 4, based on the modding community's familiarity with the Creation Engine, we're already starting to see several Starfield mods over on Nexus Mods.

As of writing, the top mods are all about performance, with the number one mod for Starfield at launch being the 'Starfield Upscaler,' which replaces AMD FSR 2 with DLSS or XeSS. It's a straightforward installation that requires FSR 2 to be enabled and then brings up a menu in-game to override AMD's tech with either NVIDIA's or Intel's.

After several leaks showcasing and detailing the entire product, Lenovo has officially announced its PC gaming handheld that will compete against Valve's Steam Deck and the ROG Ally from ASUS. Like the ROG Ally, the Legion Go is a Windows-based handheld powered by AMD Ryzen Z1 Series processors.

Per the official announcement, Lenovo will offer various configurations for the Legion Go, with up to an AMD Ryzen Z1 Extreme processor, up to 16GB LPDDR5X (7500MHz) RAM, and up to 1TB of internal PCIe Gen4 SSD storage - starting from USD 799. And with that, we assume that the baseline model will sport the lower-end Ryzen Z1 processor with a 256Gb or 512GB internal storage configuration.

The baseline price is undoubtedly higher than the Steam Deck and ROG Ally, and this comes down to Lenovo opting for a robust and premium design that features detachable controllers (ala the Nintendo Switch) with a large 8.8-inch QHD+ (2560 x 1600) IPS display with a refresh rate of 144Hz and peak-brightness of 500-nits. Not to mention the cutting-edge APU, memory, and high-capacity 2-cell 49.2WHr battery.

Yoshi-P officially confirms that Final Fantasy XVI is coming to PC.

It's been a long time since we've heard Square Enix talk about FFXVI's PC port, but now the publisher has broken the silence. Yes, Final Fantasy XVI is indeed coming to PC at some point.

The news was dropped at a recent PAX West 2023 panel where game producer Naoki "Yoshi-P" Yoshida had a quick update: "Finally, while Final Fantasy XVI was released as a PlayStation 5 exclusive, we are aware that many of you have been asking for a PC version," Yoshi-P said on the stream.

Starfield features huge towering mechs lifted straight out of an early version of Armored Core, but you can't actually use them (yet?)

One of the first things you'll notice about Starfield is that it doesn't have vehicles. Players have to run or jetpack everywhere they go--well, boost pack--and there's no options to create land vehicles or flying vehicles that can zoom you through the skies. Starfield doesn't even have alien mounts. It's disappointing and maybe it'll change in the future...but for now that's a reality.

So when you come across gigantic metal mech warriors throughout your space adventures, it can be pretty exciting at first. When I found my first mech, I thought maybe, just maybe, I would be able to enter one like a giant suit of power armor from Fallout. Sadly, that isn't the case. You can't actually get inside of the mechs nor can you pilot them...but they're still really interesting to look at.