Gaming - Page 132

UPDATE: Microsoft has provided us the following statement:

"We continue to implement organizational and workforce changes that are necessary to position the company and teams for success in a dynamic marketplace."

Microsoft has started its expected round of mass layoffs at Xbox, and the numbers are coming in.

GeForce Game Ready Driver 576.88 is the latest driver release for RTX gamers from NVIDIA. It brings DLSS 4 support to more games, alongside the addition of support for the new GeForce RTX 5050 desktop and laptop GPUs.

When it comes to new game support, the standout is Mecha BREAK, a new multiplayer third-person mech combat game launching with day-one DLSS 4 with Multi Frame Generation support. Playing in 4K with DLSS 4, the GeForce RTX 5070 can achieve over 210 FPS, while the flagship GeForce RTX 5090 pushes performance into the 450+ FPS realm.

As seen in the DLSS 4 gameplay trailer above, Mecha BREAK's 3v3, 6v6, and PvPvE looks fast, kinetic, and action-packed. GeForce Game Ready Driver 576.88 also brings optimizations and support for Diablo IV's Season 9 update and Monster Hunter Wilds, two titles that have added native DLSS 4 support into the game.

Red Dead Online's new Strange Tales of the West update brings zombies, robots, and other spine-tingling oddities to the 19th century Old West, culminating in the first RDO trailer in years.

Today, Rockstar Games announced a new Red Dead Online content update, and it seems to pack a punch. The update is called Strange Tales of the West, and it's a kind of anthology series where players will tackle supernaturally-altered areas of the online game where bizarre monstrosities roam--robots, undead zombies, heretics, and even cannibals. It's kind of like RDO has been taken over by The Twilight Zone or Tales From the Crypt.

Strange Tales of the West features four telegram missions that each have their own supernatural focus. Players will investigate a mysterious plague affecting Armadillo, hearkening back to the Undead Nightmare expansion from the original Red Dead Redemption. You'll also tackle very old-timey bullet-proof robots that look straight out of the 1999 film Wild Wild West.

A portion of subscribers is willing to bite on Xbox's latest Game Pass freebie, showing the attraction of 40 year-old games.

Last month, Microsoft added a surprise bonus for Xbox Game Pass members: Access to a treasure trove of old-school games, including Atari games like Pitfall, Kaboom!, and even MS-DOS games like MechWarrior. Dubbed the Retro Classics collection, the plethora of 50 golden age titles is actually served up by a cloud game streaming service called Antstream, which had made a subscription deal with Microsoft shortly after 2023's FTC antitrust trial.

This program is getting sizable engagement from subscribers; New updates show that over 1 million people have actively played the Retro Classics since the freebie launched last month. The last official update from Microsoft put Game Pass subscribers at 34 million.

Reports recently surfaced regarding Xbox being hit with another round of layoffs, and now a date has emerged as to when the firings will begin.

The previous reports stated that Microsoft is preparing for a third round of layoffs within its Xbox games division, with this round, in particular, being described as quite significant. Following the news of Microsoft preparing for another round of layoffs, developers working under the massive umbrella of Xbox Game Studios began to take to social media platforms to share their concern that they were going to fall within Microsoft's crosshair, with industry insiders and media alike saying that multiple studios are expected to be hit.

The Verge's Tom Warren pointed to Forza developer Turn 10 being in the sight of Microsoft, and now Bloomberg's Jason Schreier has taken to his personal BlueSky account to write when the layoffs will begin. According to Schreier, Xbox's fiscal year ended yesterday, and the layoffs are expected to start on Wednesday. The Bloomberg reporter didn't provide any additional context on which studios are going to be hit with the layoffs, just the date for when they will begin.

Frame generation is a contentious topic among PC gamers, with some vehemently opposed to the idea of "fake frames" and others embracing the free performance boost.

Technologies such as NVIDIA's Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS) and AMD's FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR) have ushered in this debate among PC gamers, and if you are still on the fence about whether or not it's good to turn on in your new game, Steam will now show you the difference between the "fake frames" being on and off.

The new feature comes with the latest update to the Steam Client, which is now available. However, Valve does state in the patch notes that this is the "first version" of the new feature, and focuses on "Windows users and on the most common GPU hardware."

Halo Studios has teased that it will reveal new details on the next project at this year's Halo World Championships event in October.

Last year was a pivotal time for the Halo franchise. 343 Industries changed its name to Halo Studios, announced it was abandoning its Slipspace Engine for the more versatile Unreal Engine 5, and that multiple new Halo games were in simultaneous development.

Details have been slim since the announcement, but Halo Studios is poised to reveal new details about the projects at the Halo World Championship event running from October 24-26. The team made this teaser in a recent Halo Waypoint post.

Reports indicate that the Nintendo Switch 2 sold 5 million units in its first quarter, and if true, the milestone further cements the system as the best-selling console of all time. But the source of the data is dubious and could be internal estimates and not actual sales.

Nintendo has accidentally released Switch 2 sales data prematurely on its website. While the data is no longer available, it was captured by onlookers. We can't independently verify the information contained herein (we didn't see the website), and it's unclear whether or not Nintendo would have this kind of shipment/sales data so early. Another point: Nintendo won't reveal its Q1 sales data for another month--the Q1 report is due out on August 1.

The data needs context. Apparently, the information is actually a week old and was originally spotted on June 24. The data is believed to be some kind of internal estimate at Nintendo and not actual sales data--the reason for this belief, in part, is the inconsistencies that were shown in quarter-over-quarter Switch 1 software sales.

Blizzard's Diablo franchise is very much alive and well, with four games currently receiving updates or seasonal content at a regular clip. From Diablo II: Resurrected to Diablo III, to Diablo IV, and Diablo Immortal, there's a lot of demon slaying action in Sanctuary on offer, with the style and type of action-RPG experience varying from title to title.

Diablo Immortal is Blizzard's free-to-play mobile on-the-go take on the franchise that debuted back in 2022, where at the time it received its fair share of criticism due to its monetization and how it tied endgame progress to a string of menus and spending pretend currency that you purchased with real-world money. Typical mobile game stuff, but that was then and this is now.

As a massive fan of the franchise, I haven't played much Diablo Immortal since its 2022 debut (my Diablo mains are Diablo 4 and Diablo 2), so I jumped at the chance to check out the game in 2025 while getting to go hands-on with the latest class joining the portable Sanctuary action this week: the Druid.

AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition 25.6.3 is now available, offering an optional driver update for Radeon GPU owners. This one appears to be focused on AMD's latest generation of Radeon RX 9000 Series GPUs, powered by the company's latest RDNA 4 architecture, as it adds AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution 4 (FSR 4) support to two new titles: Monster Hunter Wilds and Grand Theft Auto V Enhanced.

Monster Hunter Wilds is a PC release that has been controversial for Capcom due to widespread reports of poor performance and a reliance on AI-enhanced rendering to maintain a playable frame rate. This makes FSR 4 support in the game good news for RDNA 4 gamers, as the AI-powered FSR 4, exclusive to the Radeon RX 9000 Series, delivers fantastic image quality comparable to NVIDIA DLSS.

The optional AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition 25.6.3 also fixes FSR 4 support in several titles, including Star Wars: Outlaws and S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl. The driver-based override wasn't working as intended in these titles.

Billion-dollar sports games publisher Electronic Arts releases a teaser for a new college basketball game, and reports signal a 2028 release.

EA is working on a new NCAA Basketball game for the first time in 15 years. The news follows the meteoric sales success of EA's previous collegiate return to football, with College Football 25 becoming the best-selling sports video game of all time in the United States. Now EA wants to do the same with college basketball.

While EA officially confirmed the game publicly, there's been no confirmation of a launch window. Sources behind the scenes say that EA is targeting a 2028 launch for the new sports title.

Nintendo opted not to launch its mega-popular Switch 2 on Amazon in the US due to issues with price undercutting, sources tell Bloomberg.

Before launch. the Nintendo Switch 2 could be pre-ordered at practically every retailer except the US branch of the world's largest digital storefront. The Switch 2's absence on Amazon US was noticed by millions, and consumers didn't understand why Amazon had been excluded. Now we have an answer.

According to a new report from Bloomberg's Mochizuki Takashi, Nintendo withheld the Switch 2's launch from Amazon due to price undercutting.

Original Diablo 2 creator David Brevik briefly talks about the cancelled second expansion for the beloved ARPG sequel.

Diablo changed over the years, going from the grim dark fantasy from the first two games to the more colorful WoW-esque design of Diablo 3. But what if this design shift never happened? What kind of Diablo 3 would we have, and more importantly to the topic of this article, what kind of new Diablo 2 content would we get?

It's been widely known for a while now that Blizzard wanted to make a second expansion for Diablo 2. The expansion, which may have been called Diablo 2: Salvation, would have taken place after Lord of Destruction. In the past, D2 series creator David Brevik said this second expansion would have a new Cleric character class, but other details remain light.

Epic now makes it faster to rack up rewards points, but only if you are buying subscriptions or microtransaction currency.

The billion-dollar Fortnite makers at Epic have announced a small change to the Epic Rewards scheme. All rewards points from purchases of in-game currency like V-Bucks, and subscriptions like Fortnite Crew, will now be added instantly to a user's rewards balance. It used to take 14 days for points to show up from these purchases.

This system of immediate reward may help spark even more spending, as users rack up and redeem points through Fortnite's never-ending myriad of costumes and digital cosmetics. Plus, if you buy content from Epic-owned games and pay through Epic's payment system, giving all proceeds directly to the company, you'll get 20% of your purchase back in Epic Rewards points.

ASUS has teamed up with KFC China for two new menu items as part of its new "Fortress of Faith" campaign, with each burger arriving in a special branded box, with a ROG logo burned on top.

The ASUS ROG logo burned into the top of the burger bun shows everyone around you (and yourself, I guess) that you're about to chow down on a delicious Wagyu beef burger from KFC. KFC China is offering up two meal items: a four-piece meal set with a burger, fried chicken, an egg tart, and a drink for 39.90 yuan (around $5.60 USD or so). The other set includes a limited-edition keycap set for 42.90 yuan (around $5.99 USD or so).

The burger itself features 120 grams (around a quarter of a pound) of meat, special durian sauce, cheese, greens, and your choice of burger condiments, with the ASUS ROG + KFC burger dubbed the "Durian Multi-Cheese Juicy Wagyu Burger". If you're not a durian fan, there's the same promotional burger with the Classic Wagyu Burger - Smokey Cheese Flavor.

CD Projekt RED is taking all of its best learnings from previous games to fashion unique and impactful questlines for The Witcher 4.

The Witcher 3 is known for its remarkable side quests, but CD Projekt wants to go even further with Ciri's new adventure. The devs want to create stories in The Witcher 4 that are so engrossing that you completely forget about the main quest, ones that are filled with difficult decisions that lead to emotionally-driven consequences.

In a recent interview with GamesRadar, The Witcher 4 narrative director Philipp Weber discusses CDPR's thinking here, saying that it's important to give players the opportunity to intuit these decision points. But the game also has to better show the consequences of these choices, Weber says.

One of Microsoft's original gaming leads believes that Xbox hardware is effectively dead.

Microsoft is exiting the hardware business and will stop making Xbox consoles--at least that's what tech legend Laura Fryer believes. Fryer was one of the original few who fostered Microsoft's gaming ambitions in the late 90s with Microsoft Game Studios, and helped produce key software for the Xbox console in the early aughts. She saw the original Xbox ship, working alongside other names like Xbox console creator Seamus Blackley, and also helped lead Xbox's Advanced Technology Group (ATG) in its early days.

"From my perspective, the Xbox strategy has been chaotic," Fryer said in a recent video, going on to say that she believes "Xbox hardware is dead."

Sony's PlayStation 4 is still quite active in the gaming ecosystem, and comprises a respectable slice of business revenues as well as PlayStation Plus subscriptions.

PlayStation Plus just celebrated its 15th birthday, and Sony says that the service is still going strong into the fifth year of the PS5 generation. PS Plus has served as a kind of intermediary bridge between the PS4 and PS5 generations, but Sony may not have expected this bridge to last so long, nor for so many people to keep sticking with the PS4.

In a new interview with Game File's Stephen Totilo, Sony VP of global services Nick Maguire divulged an interesting stat: some 81% of PS Plus subscribers are on PS5, which means the remaining 19% are still on PS4.

Diablo 2 turns 25 years old today, so stay a while and listen to original series creator David Brevik talk about the early days of the franchise.

What's one of the best ways to celebrate a quarter century of Diablo? No, sorry, Blizzard isn't adding act 6 in a surprise patch, although they may have teased new Diablo 2 content is on the way.

In fact, one of the best celebrations of the sequel didn't even come from Blizzard. Today, Path of Exile co-founder Chris Wilson conducted an interview with Diablo series creator David Brevik, delivering easily the best Q&A session that we've seen with the former Blizzard North alum.

Capcom confirms that its dev teams explored many concept designs for the next Resident Evil game, including live online play set in an open world environment.

Resident Evil 9 could've taken the mainline franchise in a wildly different direction than the terror-driven experience that Capcom ultimately set upon. Recent rumors from well-informed series insider DuskGolem say that Capcom was testing an online Resident Evil that took place in an open-world Raccoon City. Both Jill and Leon were to star in the online game, it's alleged.

Now Capcom has outright confirmed that this report was true. In a rare instance where gamers are invited to peek behind the curtains, the studio actually showed gameplay of the early prototype builds for the online Resident Evil project.