Gaming News - Page 1718

It looks like Half-Life 3 won't be playable on Valve's own Vive VR headset--or any virtual reality headset for that matter. Valve's own Chet Faliszek was on hand at EGX where he delivered a panel discussing the future of VR. When the audience was allowed to ask one-on-one questions the inevitable Half-Life 3 query popped up, and of course Faliszek wasn't surprised.

Will Half-Life 3 be made in VR? "We were kinda thinking that was what you were going to ask...no," Faliszek answered at 43:34 with an air of finality, saying no more on the subject.

The Valve dev went on to talk about other troublesome hurdles that VR is facing, including the dreaded snake's nest of cords and cables. Right now every VR peripheral requires a wired connection to maintain the high-data low-latency streams that are essential to create the illusion of virtual reality. "Wireless is going to be really hard. And so what we've seen is the controllers are wireless, and they let you have input so you can kinda be free that way. And the cables and cords actually get thinner. Once you do [VR] enough you get this kind of cable management in your head where it becomes less than an issue. We wish there was no cable but there's physical limits."

Hi-Rez Studios is known for being the makers of popular games like SMITE and Tribes, often going down the free-to-play route and sometimes allowing users to play all characters without paying real-life money or spending horrendous amounts of hours grinding away. This new title to come to the table is called PALADINS: Champions of the Realm and it's a fully-unlocked free-to-play team-based FPS.

If you watch the video above, the first thing that sticks out is the ability to use mounts in an FPS game which is pretty damn neat, what else is cool is that it's going to be at TwitchCon this weekend, free for anyone to try out. The Early Access waiting pool is now open for signups, with this set to kick off "later this year" as pointed out in a recent press release.

What makes this game truly different is the use of power up cards, enhancing each characters abilities and allowing for a chop and change menu between the three you currently have active, depending on your needs. For more information on this, watch the video above.

Valve was at SIGGRAPH this year, with Dan Ginsburg having some interesting things to say about the various APIs at their fingertips including DirectX 12 and Vulkan.

In the video above (1:40:01 into the video), Ginsberg says that Valve has been working with Vulkan since its inception, and that there's no big reasons for developers to use a DX12 backend in their games. Ginsberg adds that Vulkan is far superior than DX12 in various areas. He said: "Unless you are aggressive enough to be shipping a DX12 game this year, I would argue that there is really not much reason to ever create a DX12 back end for your game".

He added: "And the reason for that is that Vulkan will cover you on Windows 10 on the same class of hardware and so much more from all these other platforms and IHVs that we've heard from. Metal is single platform, single vendor, and Vulkan... we are gonna have support for not only Windows 10 but Windows 7, Windows 8 and Linux".

In a move that doesn't seem so surprising, the Hitman reboot has been delayed from its original December 2015 release window to March 2016.

IO Interactive, the developer behind Hitman, has said that the delay applies to all versions of Hitman: the Xbox One, PS4 and PC versions. The launch plans have changed, with IO Interactive and publisher Square Enix to launch Hitman in stages, starting with the larger initial launch. After that, we'll see the rest of the locations in Hitman released over time.

The developer has teased that the tagline to Hitman is: "Enter a world of assassination", with that world being a constantly changing, evolving landscape. IO Interactive wrote on the official Hitman blog: "These few extra months will mean we can add more to the launch content of the game, more than we had originally planned, and then follow with a tighter frequency of updates, which ultimately will create a better game for everyone. And in the end, that's what we're all looking for".

Frontier Developments, the studio behind Elite: Dangerous, have just announced that their game will have support for Steam VR thanks to the HTC Vive headset.

Elite: Dangerous already has VR support thanks to the Oculus Rift, but this is a very good announcement for the Vive. HTC is set to unleash the Vive sometime in November in a very limited run, with more headsets being made available early next year. Creative Director of Frontier Developments, Jonny Watts, explains: "Back in December 2013 we were among the first to support virtual reality with a triple-A game, and for me, exploring, trading and fighting throughout Elite Dangerous' 1:1 scale Milky Way remains an unequaled virtual reality experience. We have been working closely with Valve to bring Elite Dangerous to HTC Vive, and we are delighted with the quality we have been able to achieve".

The big difference between the Oculus Rift and the HTC Vive is that the Rift is more of a sitting experience, and while the Vive can be used in the same way, if you've got the room for it, it's going to offer a much better VR experience. You'll be able to achieve this if you have a 15x15-foot room, with the Vive sporting its 'Lighthouse' base station. This blasts sensors into the room picking up an entire VR space that you can play in.

Sony has quietly added the PlayStation 4's first paid early access game to the platform, a move that could pave the way for cross-platform game testing and development.

Although Dungeon Defenders II is still in development, it will be available on the PlayStation 4 on September 29. Trendy Entertainment's arena sequel has been on Steam's early access since late 2014 and is now coming to Sony's PS4 in a "pre-alpha" build state.

Curiously enough Sony hasn't exactly billed the game as "early access". To be a part of the pre-alpha testing players will have to buy an in-game microtransaction bundle to get in, which start at $14.99. "Please note that Dungeon Defenders II is still under development," Trendy Entertainment's Philip Asher said in the update. "During this time some features, like local co-op and controller support, will be ahead of the PC version, but other features and content will be rolling in after they are released on PC."

As Sony's direct competitor in the console war, Microsoft has kept up with the old mantra of "know thy enemy" quite well. As a result, Xbox division head Phil Spencer has made some predictions on Sony's next move, and "fully expects" that Sony will expand the PS4's recent price cut overseas to the west.

"When I think about the playbook they've used in the past, I fully expect [Sony] will drop [the PS4's] price," Phil Spencer told IGN in a follow-up interview. "If history tells, then we'll see a price drop from them coming."

DICE has confirmed that Star Wars: Battlefront will indeed have dedicated servers to power the game's new skill-based matchmaking system, putting the fears of a peer-to-peer system to rest.

"We'll still have dedicated servers [in Battlefront], absolutely," DICE's Jamie Keen told PlayStation Lifestyle at TGS 2015. "It's one of the hallmarks of making sure we deliver an unparalled online service for the game." Given Battlefront has the 40-player Walker Assault mode, most gamers assumed DICE would go with dedicated servers. Then again the Frostbite engine has P2P support "baked in" and has been used for Battlefront 3's co-op missions.

We still don't have any concrete details on how Battlefront's new matchmaking system works, but DICE has made the extremely unpopular decision to cut out server browsers entirely on PC. This led to considerable backlash from the PC gaming community that sees server browsers as a must-have for games like Battlefront, giving users the freedom to pick and choose the type of maps and sessions they want to play.

Bungie and Activision are sending a clear message with Destiny's new The Taken King expansion: if you don't want to buy it, then there's no reason to play. Rather than moving away from the controversial paid DLC models, Destiny has embraced them in a whole new way for Year 2, which offers a decidedly shocking look at the future of the franchise.

Destiny's The Taken King isn't just an expansion: it's a whole new game. Bungie has finally made Destiny into the game we always wanted. But even with all of these new additions and changes, Activison and Bungie are still up to the same old marketing tricks.

Just as I was starting to have faith in Bungie again, I'm reminded how exactly Destiny works. The game is built upon a ridiculous paygate scheme that literally forces gamers to purchase new expansions if they want to continue onward. With every passing DLC, little bits and chips of the core game are locked off: Xur selling expansion-only gear, daily heroic missions and weekly Nightfall strikes featuring DLC-only missions.

Reports indicate that Konami has finally thrown in the towel for AAA games development, and is no longer willing to gamble on franchises and game releases outside of the safety umbrella of the Pro Evolution Soccer sports line.

The reports come straight from two French game outlets, which was then verified by Eurogamer that Konami is indeed shutting down all plans for future AAA releases--except for PES games. The news was reinforced by the departure of Julien Merceron, Konami's worldwide technology director, and it looks like Konami will completely focus on mobile games from hereon out.

That effectively means that Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, which is simultaneously lauded as a masterpiece and seen as an unfinished game by the community, will be the last Meta Gear Solid game. Konami prepared for this move when it fired Hideo Kojima and dissolved his development team, a move that ushered significant backlash from its own audience. Gamers also watched in horror as reports of Konami "imprisoning and exploitating" its employees with unfair working conditions surfaced on the web.