Gaming News - Page 1586

Nintendo's new NX console hinges on the support of third-party industry giants, but EA says they'll only jump in "if it makes sense".

EA Studios vice president Patrick Soderlund says that the devs are in "constant communication" with Nintendo, but the publisher isn't ready to rush in with third-party support until the NX has been formally unveiled. "We're in constant communication with them and when they come to market something - and if it makes sense for us - we'll be there," Soderlund said in an interview with the BBC. "I personally and the company are huge fans of Nintendo, they're the reason why I started making games."

After Nintendo's failure with the Wii U, EA seems to be hesitant to repeat history with the NX. EA is one of the many third-party studios that stopped porting their games onto the Wii U, citing underwhelming specifications and complications as a major issue.

When DICE unveiled their new powerhouse WW1 shooter Battlefield 1, everyone was under the impression the game represented an alternate history. Now the devs have come in to set the record straight.

Battlefield 1 is based on authentic World War I history and doesn't feature any alternate history elements, according to DICE lead game designer Daniel Berlin. "Battlefield 1 is definitely rooted in history. There's no alternate mix of anything else. All the stuff you see is equipment that was available. All the vehicles you see were available at this time. This is our depiction through a modern lens, looking at World War One, the Great War," Berlin said in an interview with GamesBeat.

DICE has gone great lengths to showcase the cultures and technics of the time, promising that the 64-player multiplayer battles will be more chaotic than ever before. Both the multiplayer and campaign will be littered with accurate depictions of WW1, including new-world tech like biplanes, zeppelins, battleships, and tanks against old-war themes like horseback cavalry and sword combat. It even has biological weapons and trench warfare, along with accurate WW1 weaponry.

Battlefield 1's campaign will celebrate the lesser-known underdogs of World War 1, keeping with the "old vs new" and "dawn of modern warfare focus" by highlighting unfamiliar forces like the Harlem Hellfighters or Bedouin Arab forces on hoseback.

We already know that Battlefield 1's campaign won't have a central perspective, instead shifting to tell stories of varying world powers during World War I. "Our single-player will focus on different stories and different personalities across the world," said DICE lead designer Daniel Berlin.

DICE affirms that the campaign will shed light on obscure WW1 forces to tell a dynamic story: "When we set out on this game, we wanted to depict not just the common view of what the war was like. We wanted to challenge some preconceptions. We want to delve into some of the unknowns of World War One. Maybe people don't know that this person fought or that person fought, that this army was involved. We're stretching out and bringing all those stories into the game."

Amazon's listing for World War I shooter Battlefield 1 indicates PC players will not have the option to grab a disc version of the game or a Collector's Edition.

Listings on the site note read "Battlefield 1 - PC [NO DISC]", with no other option to choose from, and no PC Collector's Edition is listed anywhere. A PC Deluxe Edition is also not listed. However, this can be had through EA's Origin client.

The lack of disc is not surprising: RPG developer and publisher Larian Studios stated in 2014 that just 10% of its Divinity: Original Sin sales came from retail (and while Battlefield 1 won't necessarily see the same figure, it's reasonably to expect a similar result). Given the intense costs and effort associated with putting a product on shelves across the globe and many different retailers, it's not surprising Electronic Arts appears to be ditching the option and focusing entirely on digital instead.

PS4 exclusive Horizon: Zero Dawn might not be delayed to 2017 after all.

Copies of Uncharted 4 in France apparently come with a leaflet that clearly lists Horizon: Zero Dawn is "available in 2016".

The game was originally planned to launch this year, but industry insider Shinobi602 reported the PS4 exclusive would be pushed back to 2017 with a launch on Sony's new 4K-upscaled PlayStation 4 Neo.

The insanely popular Five Nights at Freddy's series will soon be accessible on the console realm, bringing the animatronic terror to a whole new audience.

Five Nights at Freddy's creator Scott Cawthon recently revealed that he plans on bringing the franchise to consoles. "Actually, yes! It will happen. I'm talking with a few companies who are interested in doing console remakes of the original games :)," Cawthon said on Steam.

The developer goes on to say that the console versions will be "full remakes, not ports", citing that the Clickteam engine used to make the Five Nights at Freddy's game is currently underpowered. As such, Cawthon has to work with third-party development studios to remake the games for consoles.

From Software's macabre Victorian Souls successor Bloodborne gets an amazing recreation in UE4.

Bloodborne's games engine is hard to match, but DICE environment artist Simon Barle does a stunning job in recreating the game's gothic overtones in Unreal Engine 4. We don't get to see the whole game in UE4, just the Hunter's Dream hub, but it's still an incredible look at UE4's versatility. The footage is rendered in 60 frames-per-second too, adding an extra layer of immersive realism to the environment.

Be sure to check below for a ton of screen captures from the footage, and I have to wonder what Hidetaki Miyazaki and the rest of From Software think of this homage.

Naughty Dog's final Uncharted game has been praised left and right for its amazing visual quality, and Digital Foundry's new Uncharted 4 tech analysis dissects the game's textures, character animations, volumetric lighting and more. Spoiler Warning: Location spoilers included in the trailer below!

There are few games that have been able to fully tap the full potential of current-gen consoles, but Uncharted 4: A Thief's End is now the reigning king of Sony's PlayStation 4. Naughty Dog's new engine tech makes use of a ton of nifty enhancements like "physically-based rendering, pre-computed global illumination and comprehensive physics simulation" to deliver insane image quality, interactive environments, volumetric lighting, amazing water simulations and character rendering/AI.

"Naughty Dog has developed a temporal anti-aliasing technique that delivers results that sometimes manage to approach the quality of a super-sampled image. Thin edges are remarkably clean, shader aliasing is almost non-existent, and shimmering is all but eliminated. Large, complex fields of detailed foliage remain razor sharp even at a distance while finer details on Nate's weapons remain clearly visible."

Battlefield 1 has pretty much redefined expectations from the franchise, and DICE has been busy talking the new WW1 up...but it looks like the campaign will be really short this time around.

According to leaks sourced by Twitter user txt231, Battlefield 1's World War I-themed campaign will only be six missions long. The leak was further solidified by the game's apparent achievement list, which lists half a dozen missions. Battlefield 1's campaign will shift perspectives across different world powers in WW1, from Arabs charging into battle on horseback to Germans flying high ontop of zeppelins. Below is the supposed list of the missions and their names:

I had such high hopes for Battlefield 1's campaign, especially since the game will focus on more than one protagonist team at a time. I hope that there's more than just six missions in the singleplayer campaign, or maybe each chapter has multiple parts/sequences to complete. Condensing the massive world-breaking struggle that is WW1 into six missions would be insanely difficult, and I don't think it'd be enough space to tell a proper story.

The Witcher 3's last Blood and Wine expansion launches later this month, according to a new leaks.

Blood and Wine may release on May 30, 2016, if a recently leaked Steam listing is accurate. CD Projekt RED has yet to confirm The Witcher 3's final DLC, but the studio did release a few new screenshots and is expected to reveal the DLC's release date later this month.

The DLC takes place in Toussaint, a huge new realm that's full of vibrant environments that contrast's the games dark overtones. As Blood and Wine is Geralt's last adventure, CDPR promises that the DLC will top the main game in almost every regard: "Blood and Wine is an independent history, not tied in particularly closely with the main plot of the Wild Hunt. With our experience and feedback received since the game is on sale, we believe we have achieved something even better than the main game," CDPR dev Jakub Szamalek said in a recent interview.