Gaming - Page 1130

Creative Assembly, the studio who released one of the most atmospheric games ever made last year in Alien: Isolation, has announced Total War: Warhammer. Total War: Warhammer is the third Total War game that the studio is working on right now, while they've just released Total War: Attila in February of this year.

The studio celebrated the news with a new cinematic trailer, which we've embedded above. The trailer teases that we can expect magic, monsters and flying beats, while providing players with turn-based campaign strategy and real-time tactical battles and letting you choose between various Warhammer factions.

With three Total War games in development right now, the announcement of Total War: Warhammer also includes the news of two additional standalone expansion packs. Announcing a third Total War game, and DLC at the same time, has allowed the studio to brag that all of this will "create the single largest Total War experience ever".

With Microsoft reportedly releasing Windows 10 in July, according to AMD at least, what will be some of the first games to be upgraded with DX12 support?

MSI has revealed that The Witcher 3 and Batman: Arkham Knight will be some of the first games to receive DX12 support, something CD Projekt Red and Rocksteady Studios will provide through patches made available after they release their respective games. The news was revealed by MSI, and has been found on various forums like NeoGAF. Right now it's rumor territory, but with Batman: Arkham Knight and The Witcher 3 being two of the hottest games this year, it wouldn't be surprising.

The motherboard and VGA company said: "The most exciting part of Windows 10 for gamers is the introduction of DirectX 12. You are likely to start seeing the benefits of the new graphics technology already in The Witcher 3, Batman: Arkham Knight and more games released later this year. Some CPU-bound games like MMO's are able get a performance bump of up to 50% according to Microsoft".

We were one of the first to break the news of Rockstar Games teasing the development of Grand Theft Auto 6, and here we are again. It looks like Rockstar is reportedly mapping the entire of the United States for its next GTA game, something that will push the release of GTA 6 to 2020. If this is true, it'll make benchmarking the game bigger and badder than ever.

The latest report has Rockstar mapping the whole US for GTA 6, and while this might be a rumor, it's not too far out of reality. Ubisoft did something similar with The Crew, which took the entire United States and shoved it into a smaller map which took around 1.5 hours to drive across.

The bigger issues of having the entire US mapped for GTA 6 would be playing in it, with the report stating: "Loading the entirety of the USA would have its issues. I mean, driving from one city to another could be a real chore, especially if it's just filled with country side and nothing much to do in between".

We've been finding out a bunch of details on Star Wars: Battlefront lately, where we know it will run at 60FPS on both the Xbox One and PS4, it'll be released on November 17, and it has some very beautiful visuals.

Now we know that DICE will not be forcing Battlelog onto anyone with Battlefront, but we're also going to see solo, and offline "Missions" which will feature bots. Niklas Fegraeus from DICE confirmed the news through Twitter where he said: "We have a feature called Missions that allow you to play solo or cooperatively with bots on or offline".

The bigger news here is that Battlelog won't be used, which is what's required to play Battlefield 4 and Battlefield: Hardline. You need to login through your web browser, with the launch happening from the browser for both single and multiplayer. Assistant Producer on Star Wars: Battlefront, Jesper Nielsen, has said that Battlefront won't require Battlelog, and that Star Wars: Battlefront system to launch the game is "built from scratch" and that there will be "no browser game launching".

Rockstar Games is right on top of the issues with Grand Theft Auto V on the PC, with the latest version 1.01 patch fixing some of the issues that people were having with the game. We've benchmarked the game at 1080p, 1440p and 4K too - so if you want to check out the performance on the game, check out our benchmarks.

The biggest issue that was fixed was the login issue, with version 1.01 fixing the problem that users were having from their Windows usernames. If your username featured characters other than alphanumeric (the letters A-Z, and numbers 0-9) then the game wouldn't launch properly. The studio offered a workaround last week, which had users needing to create a new administrator account on Windows, which isn't how you should deal with a problem when you've dropped $80 for a game.

Other issues have been fixed, such as the high CPU usage and potential crashes the game would have. The list is extensive, which you can check out below.

Star Wars: Battlefront is shaping up to be one of the best-looking games of the year, with the unveiling of the gameplay trailer yesterday, the Star Wars community has been super excited.

We've now found out that Battlefront will be running at 60FPS on both the Xbox One and PS4 thanks to DICE Producer Craig McLeod. He said: "We're making sure, first and foremost, to ensure it runs at 60 frames per second on everything because that's what delivers the best gameplay experience". McLeod continued: "When you couple the talent that we have in the office with the technology and new generation of consoles has allowed us to achieve, that's how you can get these environments that you're seeing which simply wasn't possible before".

The gameplay trailer that the studio released was running at 1080p with 8x MSAA enabled and a very high level of adaptive tessellation has lead to gamers looking at one of the best graphics in a game yet. With a 60FPS target, we should expect no level of MSAA to be used, or at the maximum possibly 2x MSAA on the consoles, and whatever your VGA card is capable of on the PC.

Fresh from the 2015 'Star Wars' Celebration in Anaheim which saw the release of the second teaser from 'The Force Awakens', and the first tantalising render of a Stormtrooper, Electronic Arts have now released the first trailer for the much anticipated game, which promises to originate from "game engine footage".

DICE also made the interesting admission that the game omits a story narrative, but hinges on separate missions, including locales from the original 'Star Wars' trilogy. EA will make available a free downloadable content pack called the 'Battle of Jakku'; the new desert planet glimpsed in both 'Force Awakens' trailers (previously assumed to be Tatooine) and which will serve as a prequel to the film.

The latest 'Battlefront' is the third in the franchise, and the first in a decade. The title will also mark the first 'Star Wars' game to be released for current-gen consoles. 'Battlefront' is scheduled for release on November 17, 2015 for Windows, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.

We heard about F1 2015 when we reported on DiRT 4 yesterday, but it has been confirmed that F1 2015 will be spinning its tires on the PS4 at 1080p, and the Xbox One at 900p, both at 60FPS.

With F1 2015 being designed exclusively for the current generation consoles, it has allowed the studio to utilize the new graphics engine and handling model with much higher levels of detail. The visual side of the new graphics engine has been improved dramatically over the previous generation engine, thanks to the increased horsepower in the Xbox One and PS4.

Codemasters has teased: "F1 2015 marks an exciting new chapter for Codemasters and FORMULA ONE; it's a shift in direction for the game series, on new formats and our brand new game engine, with the game set to be released earlier in the season, launching this June". The studio continued: "The handling is a vast improvement from our previous games. In particular our new tyre model is a superb step forward towards realism, letting you explore where the limit is and allowing you to instantly feel much more connected with the car. You can now experience the changes in grip caused by temperature changes, wear, car set-up, debris and weather conditions".

We heard previous rumblings about a November release window for Star Wars: Battlefront, to coincide with the cinema release of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, but it looks like November 17 might be the day.

According to Polygon's sources, we can expect Star Wars: Battlefront to be released on November 17, but we'll find out more information tomorrow at 1:30pm ET during the Star Wars Celebration that is still rocking along in Anaheim, California. EA has teased that gamers can expect more on Battlefront at that time, but someone has spotted the source code on the news page for the official site, which has gamers excited.

The source code teases: "The latest news and updates for Star WarsTM Battlefront . Available November 17, 2015 for PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC".

What worked this season, what didn't work? Can we shed any dead weight and can we poach some of the best? All questions that many CS:GO teams ask within themselves at the end of a season in order to improve their performance.

With the end of the CyberGamer Premier league here and Team Streamline taking the title (securing $2670 into their back pockets), the team shuffling has commenced.

Now that Australian CS:GO has some financial backing, international appearances and company support, it is starting to become counted as a much more legitimate addition to the local and global gaming scene - previously being completely overshadowed by League of Legends and Starcraft II thanks to their developer and Australian Cyber League support.

It looks like we should begin to get excited for Forza Motorsport 6, which according to the latest rumors, will feature support for DirectX 12. The news is coming from a new trademark application for the game, something GameSpot picked up.

Microsoft has told GameSpot that it has "filed a trademark application for ForzaTech, which is Turn 10 Studios' proprietary graphics and simulation engine for Forza". The company will be showing the game off in greater detail at E3 2015 in June, but Microsoft is going to have multiple new titles to show off at E3 2015, which is only going to help the Xbox One. These titles include Gears of War 4, and a few new titles from Rare.

Back to Forza Motorsport 6 and its new visual capabilities, Turn 10 Studios used a new game engine for Forza Motorsport 5 when they released it two years ago now, which was enhanced for Forza Horizon 2. But with increased competition in the graphics department from driving games like Driveclub and Project Cars, Microsoft needs all the help it can get for its Xbox One title.

Slightly Mad Studios is finally close to releasing Project Cars, which is one of the best looking games this year, and some would even say it's one of the best looking games this year.

We have found out the resolution that it will be rendered at on the current gerneation consoles, with the PS4 pushing it out at 1080p 60FPS, and the Xbox One at 900p 60FPS. The PC, can go magnitudes higher, all the way up to 12K and whatever framerate your PC can spit out at that resolution.

On the PC, you're going to need an Intel Core 2 Quad Q8400 or AMD Phenom II X4 940 at a minimum, with 4GB of RAM and an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260 or ATI Radeon HD 5770 with 1GB of VRAM. The studio recommends Project Cars players to have a Core i7 3770 processor, or an AMD FX-8350. The recommended requirements also bump up the RAM requirement to 8GB, and the VGA card to a GeForce GTX 600 series, or Radeon HD 7000 series card with at least 2GB of VRAM.

The US Department of Education hopes to bring teachers, gaming studios, researchers and students together in an effort to find ways to increase educational opportunities. As students rack up even more hours playing video games, the education community wants to find more innovative and proactive methods to teach students.

"If you look at the life of a student a lot of [them] play an average of about 10,000 hours of video games by the time they are graduating high school," said Erik Martin, head of the Department of Education's Games for Learning program, while speaking to Polygon. "That is almost the same amount of time they are spending in schools. You can imagine a lot of the time which of the two activities they might feel more engaged in or more relevant."

Understanding that students are playing games, whether mobile, PC or console gaming, it's something that educators can depend on.

Mobile game publishers are breaking out their checkbooks to invest in expensive TV advertisements, outpacing console game publishers, according to the iSpot.tv advertising tracking firm. Companies such as Machine Zone, Supercell and King want to attract more mobile gamers to their products, and don't have the name recognition as larger, traditional game studios.

Thirty percent of the overall TV advertising revenue spent during Q1 was dedicated to King, Machine Zone and Supercell, with mobile game companies spending $130 million so far in 2015. Companies such as Sony, Nintendo, Microsoft, 2K Games, Electronic Arts and Ubisoft all trail the mobile gamers - and it looks like gamers are paying attention.

"These spending patterns may merely indicate that mobile games are taking advantage of the relative lull in major game console advertising," said Sean Muller, CEO of iSpot.tv, in a guest post on Venture Beat. "But so long as this TV ad push results in more app downloads, we may likely be seeing a new long-term competitor to the mix."

Roberts Space Industries has taken to its website to provide a very in-depth article on how the first-person side of Star Citizen will work, teasing that there will be three different stances, as well as having your breathing impact gameplay.

First, the three different stances will include: lowered stance, ready stance, and ads stance. RSI explains that having three different stances means "that the game will have a more realistic system of weapon handling, which will immediately impact gameplay. Star Citizen's three stances are Lowered, Ready and Aim Down Sights (ADS). The Lowered stance trades the ability to fire for maneuverability. The Ready stance slows a soldier's movement while making reactionary fire and aiming a lot faster and more accurate. The ADS stance is the most accurate, but has the slowest movement and most restricted visibility of the three stances".

Not only that, but breathing will have a big part to play in the Star Citizen first-person shooter mode, which is "simulated in order to make first person combat a much deeper and more tactical experience than many familiar FPS titles". A big part of this is stamina, which is "a resource you will need to manage" according to RSI. The developer continues: "Performing actions such as sprinting, vaulting, mounting, climbing and breath control (detailed below) will lower your stamina. Low stamina will have several temporary knock-on effects, such as drastically reduced sprint distance, diminished ability to aim properly, and even a reduced amount of time that breath can be held".

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided was revealed last week, but now the full marketing campaign is beginning to ramp up, with Game Director Jean-François Dugas, teasing Deus Ex fans through his Twitter account.

Dugas was asked if Deus Ex: Mankind Divided would be ghostable, to which he replied that it would, and for the first time in a Deus Ex title, even during boss fights. Dugas said: "As always and even on boss side, finally!". Ghostable means you can play through the entire level, including boss fights, without being seen - providing the true stealth side of Deus Ex.

He continued, adding that the boss fights from Deus Ex: Human Revolution are coming back, which has fans excited. Dugas continued, when he was asked if Mankind Divided would be as hard as the original Deus Ex from 1999, where he said: "We'll have the 'Give me Deus Ex' again. Not exactly like the 1999 mode but you should expect a real challenge". When asked if the same team members from Human Revolution are working on Mankind Divided, Dugas replied with "For the most part, yes".

Grand Theft Auto V unlocks for PC gamers across the world in a little under 24 hours now, so after multiple delays, it doesn't even feel like it's happening - but it is, and in a big way.

Rockstar Games sat down with PC Gamer recently to talk about the game and how it runs at 60FPS, 4K and more. PC Gamer asked if GTA V on the PC was "locked at 60FPS", to which Rockstar replied: "The target framerate for the PC build of the game is 60fps, when you start up GTA 5 for the first time it chooses settings to maximise the framerate and visual quality on your PC. These are simply recommendations though, and players can change these to whatever they want. We will never be able to guarantee the framerate when someone decides to push their texture, shader or post-fx quality to a level that their PC can't support. That said, if your monitor and PC support it you can choose to run at even higher framerates".

PC Gamer also talked about 4K, asking "GTA 5 supports 4K resolution on PC - how much of a big deal do you think 4K will be for players? Do you think it'll transform the way they experience that world?" Rockstar's reply is pretty exciting, with the developer saying: "4k is an eye opener when you see if for the first time, it really does make you look at the world differently and in greater detail as you would expect. That said, you could probably say the same thing about a lot of the other high-end graphical options and ultimately it will be personal preference which particular resolution and graphical settings that each player decides to settle on".

The original Bioshock was created by Ken Levine, who teased that he was working on a new first-person shooter back in January, has just said that his upcoming project is using Epic Games' Unreal Engine 4 technology.

Levine has been quiet on his next project, with random tweets mentioning that his new protect will be "smaller, more entrepreneurial". The news came from Levine revealing that his titel would be using Unreal Engine 4 when a fan tweeted him asking which graphics engine he would be using for his new game.

Considering the entire Bioshock series was powered by Unreal Engine, Levine is most likely very familiar with it, and wants to continue to use Epic Games' proven technology. We should hear more about Levine's mystery project at E3 2015, hopefully.

Eidos-Montreal has shown off the official CGI trailer of Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, something you can watch below, but the studio has also teased that the sequel to Human Revolution will have some nice tricks up its sleeve in the graphics department.

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided uses the latest version of the impressive Dawn Engine, which was specificially built for Xbox One, PS4 and PC. AMD has been working closely with the studio under its Gaming Evolved program, which means we'll see full support for Windows 10 and DirectX 12, as well as TressFX 3.0.

The Technical Director on Frostbite, EA and DICE's incredible engine that powers Battlefield and Dragon's Age: Inquisition to name a few games, has taken to Twitter to tease the next-gen Frostbite engine.

Johan Andersson has said that he wants to see the minimum specification for Frostbite-powered games in 2016 to be Windows 10, DirectX 12 and WDDM 2.0. He said that this would "a bit aggressive" but we would see "major benefits". He said in a reply to EVGA's Product Manager, Jacob Freeman, "get rid of the Windows legacy and reap the benefits of a modern graphics API & memory management (WDDM 2.0)".

With Microsoft offering some users an upgrade to Windows 10 for free, next-gen gaming is going to be in for a big surprise on PC. But, the big question is: will EA see the install base significant enough to make DX12 and thus, Windows 10, the minimum spec for games? I would say definitely not, but we could see things shift as we move into 2016 with DX12, Windows 10, the big push into VR, and so much more.