Gaming News - Page 1626

I've always thought that one of the best things about The Witcher 3 is the way the characters feel so believable, and the dialogue interactions went far to add that extra spark of immersion and magic to the game. Contrary to popular belief, CD Projekt RED aren't actual wizards--their sorcery is built around code and algorithms rather than grimoires--and the studio reveals how it spun those magical dialogue sequences.

At a recent talk at GDC, CD Projekt RED animation technical director Piotr Tomsinski discussed the science behind The Witcher 3's natural character dialogue. Rather than animate each individual scene by hand and piece together the dialogue, the devs utilized a rather powerful algorithm that compiles different ingredients like location, character type, and dialogue into a fully animated scene. Since the game has some 35 hours of dialogue alone, handcrafting each individual scene with custom mo-capture sequences would take an eternity.

"The generator requires three different types of inputs: information about the actors, [some cinematic instructions], and finally the extracted data from voiceovers," Tomsinski said at the talk. "We use an algorithm to generate markers, or accents, from the voiceovers, so later we can match the events in animation with the sound. It generates camera movement and placement, facial animation, body animations, and the lookats."

Much to the joy of fans like myself, a film adaptation of the popular post-apocalyptic game and novel series Metro 2033 is in the making.

The Metro 2033 movie will be based on Dmitry Glukhovsky's book series, and will follow the harrowing journey of Artyom's heroic struggle against the supernatural Dark Ones in the blasted ruins of Russia. The movie is expected to portray the full grit and psychological horror depicted in the landmark game series, complete with humanity's desperate efforts to survive in the underground metro tunnels.

Glukhovsky says that he's been waiting for a Metro 2033 adaptation for quite some time, but wanted to make sure the property was handled just right. "My novel and I have been waiting for this to happen for the last 10 years. I have previously been extremely careful about handing my 'baby' over to Hollywood producers for adaption for a feature film, but now I feel that it has landed in the right hands. De Luca and L'Heureux have a great vision for this project, and I feel it's an honor to work with them."

Remedy is one of my favorite developers, and as a gigantic Max Payne fan, Quantum Break is a complete mess. After letting the press see the game earlier this year, EuroGamer has published their story on the game - but with a much more watered down fashion.

The site says Quantum Break has a "native resolution of 720p" instead of the promised 1080p 30FPS from Remedy, with no word from the developer on the resolution being dropped to Xbox 360 levels, and below what Remedy has said was fact until now. The site adds that "we've yet to see evidence of full HD 1080p gameplay in close analysis - barring the title's HUD elements and menus. In every scene tested so far, a native resolution of 720p is the consistent result found in each pixel count test".

Not only but, but the report says: "the use of film grain, depth of field, and camera and object blur sets the tone for the game, creating a distinctly soft-focused look that squarely hits the cinematic target the developers are aiming for. Image quality stands out here, for both good and bad reasons". So the image quality is good, but there are bad reasons too.

The Witcher 3 is pretty much a masterpiece of third-person action, but I've always wondered what the game would be like in first-person. Imagine adding Skyrim-esque dungeon diving and combat to Andrzej Sapkowski's dark fantasy world--it'd be pretty epic.

Thanks to the talented efforts of modder Skacikpl, gamers may one day experience The Witcher 3 in first-person. Skacikpl has been tirelessly working on the new mod, but it turns out that game doesn't play nicely with the new perspective, leading to motion sickness from the camera jouncing. Plus CDPR's limited modding tools aren't much help either.

It's great to see modders completely rewrite the rules and open the doors to brand new experiences. It's also crazy to think that a simple perspective change would affect the game so dramatically. Don't expect the mod to release any time soon, as Skacikpl isn't sure if he'll even be able to optimize the mod enough to even support active gameplay...but it's a great effort nonetheless.

The hype machine for Cyberpunk 2077 is set to go into full swing this year, with developer CD Projekt Red (the studio behind The Witcher franchise) still be "a long ways away" from releasing the game, but the developer is now teasing that it's working on a "far bigger" scale with Cyberpunk 2077 being an "even more ambitious" project.

But now, CD Projekt Red has teased that we can expect some "f**king great" stuff from Cyberpunk 2077. CD Projekt Red's CEO and co-founder, Marcin Iwinski talked with GameSpot recently, where he said: "Right now, we have the success of the Witcher 3; people played it and people loved it. So it's even more responsibility. The fact that Witcher 3 performed so well allows us to be even more ambitious with Cyberpunk 2077. Right now, it's on our shoulders to deliver here. The next time you hear about Cyberpunk 2077 we will show something and it must be f**king great". Inwinski also added: "People really expect something great and that's what we have to stand up to and deliver".

Inwinski was asked if CD Projekt Red was excited to move over to making Cyberpunk 2077 after finishing with The Witcher 3, with Inwinski replying that "they definitely are". He added: "After a decade working with dragons, swords, and medieval themes, the team is feeling energized to work on a project involving guns, ammo, mutants, and implants".

GDC 2016 - Sony had a killer Game Developers Conference, announcing the $399 price on the PlayStation VR for the PS4, but what did Microsoft have? Well, nothing in the form of new hardware announcements - but the company did just drop the price on the Xbox One to $299 for a "limited time".

The normal price on the Xbox One is $349, with the $50 discount applied for now - but there's no news on if, or when the price will bounce back up to its original price. The discounted Xbox One pricing will include all of the current console bundles at participating retailers across the US.

Not only that, but the Xbox Spring Sale promotional event will also see discounts on a bunch of digital games on PC, Xbox One and Xbox 360 backwards compatible titles. This will kick off on March 22, two days after the Xbox One price was cut, where gamers can grab their game of choice and "save up to 40 to 60 percent off, with some at more than 60 percent off".

There seems to be some substantial information regarding a minor (or fairly major) refresh of Sony's PlayStation 4. In fact, some developers have reportedly told Kotaku that there have been actual discussions behind closed doors about a "PlayStation 4.5" that could include a more powerful GPU for actual 4K gaming.

More than three independent sources in the developer community seem to have been able to confirm the existence of some type of evolution in hardware and design. This information seems to be even more substantiated after a supposed behind-closed-doors meeting from Sony at GDC. And just what does it mean for current owners?

Well, it would be the anti-thesis of what makes a console such a valuable ecosystem. The hardware is similar for a full generation of development, meaning no one has to upgrade to experience their games at the greatest possible settings for that platform. Having different versions, even if one is discontinued, defeats the purpose of the fixed-specification console. This is even in line with Microsoft's want to have upgradable console hardware in the future. The console as we know it, then, might be doomed. Or we could be looking at the definitive next generation, earlier than usual.

IBM Japan has a big surprise in store for MMO fans. Out of nearly 100K applicants they only took a small sample of 208 people and showed them what they're calling a Virtual Reality Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game. They've transformed, in what looks like just a technical experiment at the moment, Sword Art Online into a massive VR experience.

They had hinted at such a project this past February, but there hasn't been much word about how they were going to make the futuristic MMORPG into a VR game, but now we have some more details on what they did. They've created their own VR headset based off of the Oculus Rift DK2, called the Navugia. They added additional sensors, including a Leap Motion sensor and a Kinect V2 attached to a helmet device. The resulting experience literally puts you into the years 2022, when the game is set.

The whole thing is running off of IBM's SoftLayer cloud service with their own cognitive layer, a showcase of what their deep learning tech can do. But really it's to show what life could be like if you wanted to literally live inside an MMO. Take a walk on the wild-side and you're likely never to come back. They're taking the "role-playing" quite literally here. The photos were taken by Inside Games while they took a look at it. It's an interseting use of VR, but perhaps cumbersome at this point. Nonetheless very impressive.

You might think that something like a "trading simulator" would be boring as can be. But you might be terribly wrong too. Remember The Oregon Trail? Oh yeah, that's been remastered and re-released too. That and all manner of management sims seem to gain popularity, even among their own small niches. But still, they can be great to relax to for many reasons. Caravan wants to offer you something like that. But with an Eastern flair.

Just what is it? Well, Caravan is a trading and exploration game with a bit of strategy and RPG mixed in. On top of that there's actually story that's being told as you progress. You'll be in control of a caravan in the pre-medieval Orient with the ability to travel to the various towns along the Arabic peninsula. Your caravan will steadily grow as you across more members, heroes and camels. And they're not just making it an easy "trading" game, there's a big emphasis on recreating all the dangers, adventure, tempting business opportunities and even combat that you might run up against.

Of course, there's also that trading mechanism, where you'll manage all the important resources, like water, provisions and the caravan's animals. A tough The really cool thing is that the game is based on actual history. There's elements of real lore and actual history mixed into other fantastical bits.

Star Wars Battlefront's next update is bringing us further into the Outer Rim and adding two new heroes, but we already knew that. A new trailer shows off even more info about what we can expect from the first official expansion.

We already know that Nien Nunb and Greedo are on the way to help out within the dark halls of Ja.bba's Palace and on the dangerous factories of Sullust, but we didn't really get to see them in action and actually in-game. The new maps are actually looking quite good and intricately laid out. And in fact it looks inspired by not only the movies, but also from the map that was part of Battlefront 2. In addition to the two new maps and heroes, there'll be new star cards (a scatter gun, dioxis grenade and an adrenaline stim) and weapons. You'll be able to equip the new Relby V10 rifle and the DT-12 blaster pistol. A new Extraction Mode is also making into the game that has the Rebels recovering resources while the Imperials defend them.

This DLC, however, isn't free and needs to purchased as part of the Season Pass. But, that also gets you more content down the road when they release it throughout the year. The Season Pass is $50 in total, or the DLC cna be purchased separately for $15.