Gaming - Page 165

Following Warner Bros. Games closing Monolith Productions, WB San Diego, and Player First Games and canceling a Wonder Woman game, DC Studios head James Gunn and Peter Safran have confirmed plans to create a more interconnected universe that spans across various DC-focussed media such as TV shows, movies, and games.

It appears DC is finally getting it together, and I mean that in the most literal sense, as reports indicate that talks are currently underway with Rocksteady and NetherRealm to connect titles such as the Batman: Arkham series and the Injustice Games to the wider DC cinematic universe. These changes are being headed by Gunn and Safran, who are working toward future DC games no longer being isolated products and instead will be connected to a wider universe.

Gunn intends to take a hands-on approach with the development of future DC video games and will push developers to take characters in certain directors so they complement the wider universal narrative. The approach is certainly a bold one and, if pulled off correctly, could result in a massive rise in DC comic book hero popularity, perhaps even to the point of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), which nailed the movie side of media, fell somewhat flat on the TV show side, and is nonexistent in the video game space (in terms of connecting each form of media into a cohesive universe).

In a market dominated by fantasy and sci-fi action, contemporary titles like Life is Strange, Firewatch and Gone Home are somewhat of a niche in modern gaming. However, Don't Nod, the original creators of Life is Strange, are back with their latest entry Lost Records: Bloom & Rage. The title, mixing Stephen King's IT with coming-of-age style fiction, takes players back to a unique setting between 1995 Michigan and the 2022 pandemic era in a mystery narrative adventure.

Tape 1, the first of two parts, was released last Tuesday. Similar to its predecessors, its gameplay loop leans heavily into emotional storytelling. Dialogue, exploration and atmosphere take center stage, and rather than equipping the player with weapons or mysterious powers, the playable character, Swann, is armed with a flashlight and a 90's camcorder.

The nostalgic touches - bulky TV sets, tangled AV cables, Tamagotchis, and troll dolls - make it a fascinating exploration as you jump between the mid-90s and modern-day settings. Similarly, you'll find the VHS-overlayed camera swapped for smartphones and the ever-beloved disposable masks when you revisit the modern day as a 43-year-old Swann.

If the recent teasers of Tony Hawk Pro Skater 3 + 4 wasn't enough to convince you a remaster was just around the corner, the unannounced title has now received an official rating by a statutory board.

Tony Hawk Pro Skater 3 + 4 is all but confirmed by Activision, with the publisher last week putting a mysterious countdown up on the official Tony Hawk game website with the date March 4, 2025. The potential remaster of the iconic franchise was first teased by professional skateboarder Tyshawn Jones, who said during an interview on the Breakfast Club that he was in a new Tony Hawk game that's "coming out" and that this game was a remaster. Presumably fans speculated it was Tony Hawk Pro Skater 3 + 4.

It was only a few days later that Black Ops 6 players discovered a mysterious date on the wall in the Grind map. The date was written the Pro Skater font and featured the Tony Hawk logo, and it was only a day after that countdown was discovered on the Tony Hawk game website. Now, the Infocomm Media Development Authority of Singapore, a body that gives official ratings to games has rated an unannounced "Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 + 4" for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, PC and Nintendo Switch.

WB Games is shutting down studios and cancelling games restructuring plan. The games lineup has been cut down to reflect a "less is more" approach that underlines WB's powerful IPs.

Today it was revealed that WB Games shuttered Monolith Productions, WB San Diego, and Player First Games while cancelling a big-budget Wonder Woman game in the process. The goal is simple: WB Discovery is tired of losing money on bad bets. The combined bad performance of Suicide Squad Kill the Justice League and Multiversus led to a $335 million impairment charge for the games division.

The restructuring has also led to big changes in how money is being spent on new projects. In an internal memo acquired by Bloomberg, WB Games management says that teams will now focus on a handful of franchises and IPs, which are predictable: Harry Potter, Mortal Kombat, DC Comics (with an emphasis on Batman), and Game of Thrones.

Xbox Game Studios' new boss shares his perspective on Microsoft's multi-platform games strategy, ultimately saying that the plan is good for creatives and consumers alike.

Microsoft no longer believes in exclusive games and is now selling its first-party games on PlayStation and Nintendo to maximize revenues. It's part of a strategy that uses terms like "broad reach" to emphasize just how much opportunity there is on rival hardware. The move has been polarizing, with many feeling that having no exclusive content will jeopardize Xbox hardware from the inside out.

Whatever the case may be, for the near- and mid-term, Microsoft is getting a revenue boost from multi-platform releases. The unpopular decision appears to be good for business, at least for now. We've heard executives like Phil Spencer, Sarah Bond, and Matt Booty comment on this decision, but what about the people that're closer to the creatives?

AMD has announced a new Monster Hunter Wilds game bundle with its RX 7000 GPUs and Ryzen 9000 and 7000 processors.

The new bundle gives gamers a free copy of Monster Hunter Wilds (value: $70) with selected pieces of hardware in the usual manner.

The following AMD CPUs will qualify you for the freebie (but do note that as ever, you need to purchase from an eligible retailer that AMD has drafted into the scheme):

Fable has been delayed to 2026, but Microsoft softens the blow by revealing new pre-alpha gameplay footage for the anticipated RPG.

The next Fable game will have an extra year for development, Xbox has announced, and developer Playground Games is reportedly making big strides with the game's progress. Aided with Eidos Montreal, Playground's new vision for Fable is touted as the "most beautiful" in the history of the series.

Alongside the game's delay announcement, Xbox Game Studios head Craig Duncan also teased new details about Fable, complete with pre-alpha gameplay footage. The sequences even included some bits of combat and apparently showcased Fable's seamless transitions between dialog and combat.

Warner Bros Games is shutting down Monolith Productions, the developers behind the popular Middle-earth series of games, and the new Wonder Woman game has been cancelled.

WB Games is making big changes to its games portfolio and talent roster. Sources have told Bloomberg'sJason Schreier that Warner Bros.' games division will close Monolith Productions, the high-profile studio responsible for big hits like the Middle-earth action-adventure duo, which introduced the iconic Nemesis system. The studio also made the popular FEAR first-person shooter series that blended action with horror. Monolith had originally been established in the 90s before being acquired by WB in 2004. The studio's website now redirects to the WB Games website.

Warner Bros. is also axing Monolith's turbulent Wonder Woman game, which had been in development for years and had reportedly been rebooted. Earlier reports paint a dismal picture for WB Games with big holes in the slate. Management had originally expected to achieve $3 billion from gaming, but this target remains in question as former WB Games president David Haddad prepares to leave the company.

The next Fable game has slipped into 2026, Microsoft has officially confirmed.

Playground Games will have some extra time to refine their new high-fantasy adventure. In today's Xbox Podcast, Xbox Game Studios head Craig Duncan announced that Fable will no longer release in 2025, and will instead launch in an undetermined period sometime next year.

Management did not give an exact reason for the delay, but it's possible that the daunting sales-hungry juggernaut that is Grand Theft Auto 6 could have something to do with the delay. GTA 6 is expected to sell in the tune of billions of dollars at launch, and is forecasted to uplift the entire games industry through boosted software, hardware, and services. Publishers are wary of this level of competition.

With the rise of artificial intelligence-generated content, gamers are calling for Valve to implement a new filter into Steam so they are able to filter out generative AI games.

A recent Steam forum suggestion thread has gained quite a bit of traction, suggesting Valve implement a new filter into the Steam store that filters out games that feature AI-generated content. Steam users have managed to keep the threat at the top of the page by using their Steam points to give it awards in hopes that Valve sees the thread and the support for the filter to be added. The filter wouldn't be unlike other filters Valve has added in the past, such as the option to hide NSFW games.

Many of the Steam users who are in favor of the new filter have taken issue with the AI models used to generate content and have likely acquired their training data illegally, which means other people who haven't consented to their data being taken. Valve has yet to respond to the popularity of the suggestion, but the company has already begun identifying games that contain AI-generated content on the Steam store listing for the game, which has set the precedent for other gaming storefronts to follow suit.

It seems Monster Hunter Wilds has performance issues even on Sony's latest hardware, with an early analysis indicating the game is struggling to maintain a consistent 30FPS.

According to French outlet GamerSyde, Monster Hunter Wilds on the PlayStation 5 Pro forces players to choose between different display modes, and when Resolution mode is selected, the game targets 30FPS and doesn't come with an option to disable raytracing, which, if disabled, would give more performance. Moreover, Resolution mode uses PSSR to upscale from a native resolution of 3072 x 1728p to 4K, and even with PSSR upscaling technology, Monster Hunter Wilds still isn't able to hit a consistent 30FPS on the PS5 Pro. GamerSyde speculates the inconsistent framerate or frequent drops in FPS are a result of incorrect frame pacing.

Moving to Balanced and Performance modes. Balanced mode hits an upscaled resolution of 2496 x 1404p and also doesn't have an option to disable raytracing. The report states the framerate in this mode is also quite inconsistent, with frequent spikes that can make the image lose quality. As for Performance mode, the early analysis found the PS5 Pro is capable of reaching 60FPs, but to achieve this framerate, the image quality has to be significantly reduced. The image quality hit can be attributed to PSSR struggling to upscale from the mode's native resolution of 1080p.

Before Ghost of Tsushima became one of PlayStation's biggest success stories, Sucker Punch Productions was just a small studio trying to keep up with the likes of Naughty Dog and Insomniac Games. In a recent creator-to-creator discussion, founder Brian Fleming admitted that the studio was so intimidated by its competition that they rarely even spoke to them.

During the PlayStation 2 era, Sucker Punch was still a young studio, having just landed its first major deal with Sony for Sly Cooper. Meanwhile, Insomniac and Naughty Dog had already established themselves as PlayStation powerhouses, releasing Ratchet & Clank and Jak and Daxter - games that defined the platforming genre at the time.

Avowed game director Carrie Patel says that Obsidian wants to delve further into the Pillars of Eternity universe, potentially indicating at new content for Avowed or maybe even a follow-up.

Xbox's latest first-party Avowed game looks to be a hit among RPG fans, and Obsidian apparently still has a lot of stories to tell in their unique high fantasy universe. The game's branching paths and choice-driven narrative offers a very Dragon Age-level opportunity for Obsidian to preserve some sort of continuity in between expansions or games.j

In a recent interview with Bloomberg, Avowed game director Carrie Patel expressed interest in staying in the world for a bit:

Avowed was released on February 18, and since then, the game has peaked at just shy of 20,000 concurrent players on Steam and, at the time of reporting, has approximately 11,000 players.

The latest release from Obsidian Entertainment has had a mixed response from gamers, with the Steam listing for the title landing on 78%, earning it the label "Mostly Positive," but a much lower percentage of 64% on the Xbox Store listing (3.2/5). Looking at Metacritic the game has received a lower score than past Obisidian Game releases with an 80 from critics and a 6.6/10 user score.

Notably, Metacritic doesn't require a user to have purchased the game to leave a rating, which may somewhat skew the ratings, especially when considering Avowed has been at the center of the gaming industry's recent controversy for the inclusion of "woke" aspects within the gameplay.

As reported by @CharlieIntel, Activision has confirmed that Call of Duty games include AI-generated content after a content disclosure recently appeared on the game's Steam page. The disclosure broadly outlines that the team uses generative AI tools to develop in-game assets.

Call of Duty has been the subject of accusations in the past for using AI to generate assets like skins, loading screens, and calling cards without disclosing it to the public. Fingers in AI-generated artwork are often a giveaway for AI use, and examples like the 6-fingered zombie in Black Ops 6 demonstrate this case in point.

Back in April 2024, it was also discovered through Treyarch job listings that the team was seeking 2D artists specifically "skilled with generative AI tools." Given the team's public openness to using the technology, it's no surprise that this disclaimer was coming eventually. Steam, in particular, has strict AI transparency requirements, and Comicbook.com speculates that Valve may have stepped in to enforce the policy.

Assassin's Creed Shadows is scheduled to release on March 20, but some gameplay has leaked showcasing various aspects of the title, and Ubisoft has responded with a statement.

Early copies of Assassin's Creed Shadows are being streamed online,e revealing spoilers for the game in social media posts that are quickly being taken down. Above and below are some GIFs of the gameplay, so view them with caution if you are attempting to dodge spoilers. Ubisoft has officially recognized the gameplay leaks in a recent post on X, where the company wrote, "We are aware players have accessed Assassin's Creed Shadows ahead of its official release," and that any footage seen online isn't representative of the final launch experience players will get on March 20.

With that out of the way, what do leaks show? Unfortunately for Ubisoft, quite a lot. Players have leaked the inventory of the game showcasing a range of items, gear, and weapons. Other leaks show consumables, tools, and character stats for both Naoe and Yasuke, the game's two protagonists. Moreover, one video has revealed the size of the map, the different regions, and many points of interest, with another video showing off some skill trees for various abilities. Lastly, one video showcases some combat, with Noae taking out several enemies with combos and fatalities.

NetEase is cutting ties with risky investments as its realigns its business strategies, leading to some surprising layoffs and closures. Not all of NetEase's investments will be affected by the move, however.

Blood of Dawnwalker, a new dark fantasy game from former Witcher 3 devs, hasn't been jeopardized by NetEase's cuts. It turns out that NetEase is only a minority shareholder in Rebel Wolves, the team that's making Blood of Dawnwalker.

In a recent LinkedIn post, studio co-owner Tomasz Tinc clarifies that Blood of Dawnwalker's production budget has already been paid for.

Microsoft's new generative AI tech could be compatible with user-generated content and pave the way to a new kind of customized gaming experience.

A bit ago, Microsoft made waves by announcing Muse, a generative AI gaming world model that essentially creates procedural gameplay from user inputs. Microsoft also said that it will start using its first-party games to train Muse, but devs can opt out if they choose.

There's still a lot of unknowns about Muse's practical applications, at least in the sense how a gamer could utilize it. In a recent interview with Dwarkesh Patel, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella suggests that content created with Muse could mesh well with user-created mods, and as someone who grew up playing Bethesda games on PC, this immediately piqued my interest.

Lost Soul Aside has had its PC system requirements released, where you'll need an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Ti graphics card to run the game on its Ultra Ray Tracing graphics preset.

In the PC system requirements now on Steam, Lost Soul Aside will need 16GB and 80GB of SSD at a bare minimum with the CPU requirement for the Minimum preset falling into the AMD Ryzen 5 3600 or Intel Core i5-10400 processors. On the GPU side, you'll need at a minimum, the GeForce GTX 1060 or Radeon RX 5500 XT.

The recommended PC system requirements require the same CPU at a minimum, but the GPU requirements increase up to the GeForce RTX 2060 or Radeon RX 5700 XT, while the High preset ups the CPU requirements to the AMD Ryzen 7 5700 X or Intel Core i7-11700, while the GPU requirements are far higher: GeForce RTX 3070 or Radeon RX 6800 XT.

Ubisoft has officially confirmed that the Assassin's Creed Shadows leaks are indeed happening, and warns players to avoid any footage or details about the game.

French games-maker Ubisoft just can't catch a break. Assassin's Creed Shadows has been mired in controversy and suffered a delay outside of the critical holiday season. Now copies of the game have apparently gone out ahead of its March release and a bunch of key info and details have been leaked.

Ubisoft has responded on social channels with a statement that essentially says any footage isn't finalized--meaning the actual game won't exactly look or play like the gameplay shown in any leaks.