Gaming - Page 180

Two games have been cancelled at WB Montreal since the disappointing release of Gotham Knights, sources tell Bloomberg's Jason Schreier.

After booking $384 million in impairment charges from two costly failures, WB Games has been restructured. Executive leadership has departed, studios like Middle-earth Shadow of Mordor developer Monolith Productions have been closed down, and top brass has ordered a strict greenlight process that focuses on just a handful of IPs and franchises.

With all the talk about studio closures, gamers want to know: What's happening with WB Montreal? The studio did make Batman: Arkham Origins, which has received high praise. According to Bloomberg's Jason Schreier, WB Montreal has mostly become a support studio rather than a group leading its own projects, but the team has apparently pitched a Game of Thrones project.

Obsidian's new high fantasy roleplaying game Avowed may reach nearly 6 million players in its first month on the market, new estimates from data group MindGame Data indicate.

Avowed may be a popular game that will be played by 5.9 million people across Xbox and PC in its first month, with full game sales and Xbox Game Pass subscribers combined. The figure comes from a quick newsletter from MindGame Data, a firm that collects what's called "mindshare" data and uses that to estimate the potential playerbase of that game for a given period of time. These aren't confirmed or verified figures, and it's important to know that mindshare sources data from searches on Google as well as highlight data from YouTube and Twitch.

Now that that is out of the way, let's take a look at what the report says.

Microsoft will soon let Copilot Labs testers try out its new gaming AI technology.

Days ago, Microsoft made waves by announcing its first generative AI toolset for video games. It's called Muse, and it can generate actual gameplay sequences from user input (albeit at very low frame rates, around 10FPS or thereabouts). Theoretically, you can just hook up a controller and start pressing buttons and moving the joysticks, and Muse will generate, on-the-fly, video sequence footage based on your commands.

Soon the tech will be available for experimental runs on Copilot Labs, which is Microsoft's digital testing bed for new AI-oriented software and features. There's not an exact timeline on when you'll be able to try out Muse for yourself, and the games are meant to be short and smaller-scale slivers of experiences, potentially akin to mini-games, maybe like something you'd find in Fusion Frenzy.

New details about Sony's cancelled live service Twisted Metal game have emerged thanks to an programmer's portfolio page.

Just a few years ago, Sony announced plans to launch 12 live service games by 2026. A new Twisted Metal project was among these games. The next-gen Twisted Metal would be made for PS5 with online multiplayer, and it'd be developed by Firesprite. The Twisted Metal game was believed to be cancelled in February of last year.

Now there's some updated information about the project. A programmer has uploaded a brief description of Project Copper, which had been in development at Firesprite, and sounds suspiciously like a Twisted Metal game.

After years of exclusivity deals with PlayStation, Square Enix is now ready to sell its games on all platforms. This sentiment is found at both the executive and creative level, especially with the leads of the newer Final Fantasy VII remake trilogy.

It sounds like everyone is shrugging off exclusivity these days. After buying Activision, Microsoft starting selling its first-party games on PlayStation and Nintendo Switch. Then there's Square Enix, who had finally brought Final Fantasy XIV over to Xbox last year and pledged to launch more games on all systems--PC and Xbox included. That plan will continue, and the third chapter of the FF7 remake trilogy could be a multi-platform release.

Sony recently profiled FF7 Rebirth game director Naoki Hamaguchi on the topic of hardware and compatibility, and Hamaguchi's answers fall in line with those spoken by Square Enix's CEO:

Nintendo has confirmed that it will remove its first game from the Switch Online subscription service, showing the catalog is not permanent or static.

Later this month, Nintendo will delist a retro Super Nintendo classic from its subscription-only retro vault. The game in question, Super Soccer from 1992, isn't all that exciting, but it's still an ill omen to game preservationists and classic gaming nerds everywhere. It's unknown exactly why Super Soccer is being removed but it could have something to do with licensing rights--in this case, the rights holder is Japanese games firm Spike Chunsoft.

"Super Formation Soccer (Spike Chunsoft), a title included on Super Famicom Nintendo Switch Online, will cease distribution at 10:00 a.m. on Friday, March 28, 2025. Once distribution ends, even those who have already downloaded Super Famicom Nintendo Switch Online will no longer be able to use it," reads a post from Nintendo's Japanese account.

Activision could launch this year's Call of Duty game on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One consoles to squeeze out another year's worth of spending from gen 8 gamers.

Call of Duty 2025 is currently in development for last-gen consoles, sources tell Insider Gaming and Charlie Intel. The move is consistent with Microsoft's latest aggressive push into maximizing game sales, microtransactions, and services across as many platforms as possible--an ethos that has manifested in Xbox's current anti-exclusive business model.

Neither Activision nor Microsoft have confirmed the news, and sources appear to be unsure whether or not the game will actually launch on last-gen platforms. The current reports just say that COD '25 is in development for those systems.

WB Discovery has commented on the commercial failures of its video games unit, telling investors that what happened in 2024 probably won't happen again.

WBD just posted up its Q4 2024 results, and included in the report is an update on the WB Games division. Recent reports from Bloomberg indicates that WB has shut down 3 studios (which was later confirmed) in a restructuring move that management says will help created growth in 2025.

In the prepared remarks to investors, the company indicates that WB Games currently is not profitable. The games segment recorded a total impairment charge of $384 million for the entire year; basically, WB dramatically reduced the worth of its gaming assets in 2024. The significant losses from Suicide Squad Kill the Justice League and Multiversus are the main culprits.

AMD Software: Adrenaline Edition is the driver and software platform for AMD Radeon GPUs. With the arrival of RDNA and the Radeon RX 9070 and RX 9070 XT combo, it's getting a massive AI overhaul. One of the brand-new opt-in features is AMD Image Inspector, a driver-based AI convolutional neural network (CNN) model that will run live on the Radeon RX 9070 and Radeon RX 9070 XT and watch you game.

"Shortly after launching your game," AMD explains. "AMD Image Inspector starts sampling on-screen content at a fixed interval." Translation, it will take screenshots. The reason? It's designed to look for artefacts and issues by assigning the screenshot a score to see if it requires further investigation.

You can review all captures before sending them off to AMD, as "nothing is sent until you give the go-ahead." This will then be passed on to AMD's team as part of the AMD User Experience Program to identify and rectify issues internally. Yes, it's an AI tool that runs and takes screenshots of the games you're playing to streamline driver and Adrenaline Edition software improvements.

Cyberpunk 2077's impressive RT Overdrive Path Tracing Mode running on a Radeon RX 9070 XT with a playable frame-rate? Yes, it sounds like it's on the cards.

Path Tracing or Full Ray Tracing is the future of lighting in games; it takes the promise of ray-tracing and applies the concept of tracing light rays and bounces around a scene to calculate and render realistic shadows, reflections, indirect lighting, global illumination, and more. If a single real-time ray-tracing effect like reflections is hardware intensive, then Path Tracing is like jumping ahead a decade.

Path Tracing in games like Cyberpunk 2077, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, and Alan Wake 2 is like seeing remastered versions of these games from 2030. They're playable on modern hardware only due to AI - specifically DLSS Super Resolution, Ray Reconstruction, and Frame Generation. NVIDIA's DLSS-powered Ray Reconstruction is a key reason why these titles look incredible, as the AI-powered denoiser can restore or render noticeably more detail in everything from reflections to texture detail and lighting.

On a recent episode of The AnsweRED Podcast, CD Projekt Red discussed why Ciri was chosen as The Witcher 4's main protagonist and how her story naturally positions her as the next lead in the series.

Joining the discussion were The Witcher 4 Game Director Sebastian Kalemba, alongside trailer director Tomek Suwalski and producer Magdalena Rudnicka from Platige Image - the studio behind the game's reveal trailer. Rudnicka described the choice as an obvious one, highlighting Ciri's depth as a character.

Suwalski echoed this, calling the decision a "no-brainer." He explained that while Geralt was the protagonist of the previous games, The Witcher books have always revolved around Ciri.

Assassin's Creed Shadows is easily the most rollercoaster of a launch for Ubisoft out of every Assassin's Creed game the company has ever released, and now a new bump in the road has presented itself -- more gameplay has leaked.

It was only recently that copies of Assassin's Creed Shadows appeared in the wild and were being sold on online marketplaces, and before that, gameplay was being leaked online by presumably individuals who received review copies of the title. Now, more gameplay of Shadows has appeared online, showcasing some real big spoilers for the game's story, along with more combat, a look at the inventory, items and mechanics.

You should be warned the videos below do contain spoilers and a collection of 4K screenshots have also been provided. With that disclaimer out of the way, the videos showcase some interesting moments with the protagonist, Naoe, along with a conversation she has with the other protagonist, Yasuke, about his origin. In another video, we get a good look at the Naoe traveling rooftops in Kyoto and performing the iconic "synchronization" with a new area.

As announced this morning, Sony outlined that the PSVR2 will be getting a 30% price cut down to $399.99 for the second-gen VR headset. While PlayStation's venture into VR has been somewhat lukewarm, there are quite a few reasons to take a chance on the headset if you're both a PC and PlayStation 5 owner.

In August last year, Sony made the PSVR2 PC adapter available for $59.99, allowing players to connect their PSVR2 headsets to a PC and access SteamVR games. The ability to access popular PC titles like Half-Life: Alyx while engaging in Sony's first-party experiences in Horizon: Call of the Mountain and Gran Turismo 7 makes it a viable option for prospective VR gamers. While noting, the cumulative expense ($449.99) of these gadgets places it almost on par with a brand new PS5 console ($499.99 for the standard edition).

There are drawbacks, particularly for PC users. Key PSVR2 features like eye-tracking, HDR, and advanced haptics (beyond basic rumble) are restricted, meaning they won't function outside of the PlayStation ecosystem. Additionally, the PSVR2 Sense controllers rely on Bluetooth, which can be inconsistent depending on your PC's adapter setup.

As part of Xbox's strategy to expand its catalog to the PS5, Forza Horizon 5 has received an official release date of April 29. Indiana Jones, currently slated for a spring release, has yet to receive an official date but is expected to follow shortly after.

The announcement for Forza Horizon 5 appeared on the game's official website, detailing the new content expansion, Horizon Realms, which is rolling out on April 25. Players who purchase the $99.99 Premium Edition of Forza Horizon 5 on PS5 will be able to play from April 25, while everyone else can jump in on April 29.

The Horizon Realms expansion adds 12 evolving world locations, including 11 previously limited-time locations, and a new stadium track. It also introduces two new gameplay modes-Skill Mode, which involves competing for high scores between realms, and Free Mode, which removes leaderboards and offers a more relaxed, free-play experience. The expansion comes with 60+ accolades, 12 new badges, and 4 new reward cars.

Sony is dropping the price of its second-gen VR headset for the PlayStation, and it's a major price cut coming into effect in March.

In a blog post, Sony announced that the PlayStation VR2 is going to be reduced to $399.99. Previously, the asking price was $549.99, so this represents a drop of closing on 30%.

That's for the standard bundle of the PS VR2 headset, Sense controller, and headphones.

WB Games recently announced the closure of several studios under its umbrella, and now Bloomberg's Jason Schreier has given the full backstory on what led to Monolith Productions being closed down.

The events that led up to Monolith being closed down a few days ago began back in 2017 following the release of Shadow of War, which wasn't as successful as the critically acclaimed Shadow of Mordor that earned Monolith it's stars and stripes. Following the release of Shadow of War, Monolith wasn't interested in developing another Middle-Earth game and went on to develop a new IP codenamed Legacy. However, WB Games wasn't and still isn't interested in developing new IP and wants its studios to concentrate on making games around already established IP.

Monolith continued work on Legacy for several years with the thought it would have enough sway due to the success it has generated in the past that it would be able to convince WB to pursue the new IP. However, that dream died in 2021 when WB Games canceled the project, which resulted in Monolith's entire leadership, including many other developers, leaving the studio to go and form what is now Cliffhanger Games with EA. That team is now developing the Black Panther game.

As reported by Eurogamer, almost 40% of all playtime across console gamers in January was spent on the top 10 live-service games. These figures highlight a clear challenge for the industry - when free live-service games are absorbing so much attention, it's increasingly difficult for new releases to break through and compete for player engagement.

However, the figures on PC tell a different story. Mat Piscatella, the executive director of Circana, took to Bluesky to discuss some of these figures. While providing the aforementioned stats on player engagement on consoles, he also shared the top 15 titles in the US between PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC. The top rankings paint an interesting picture.

On console, the usual suspects - Call of Duty, Fortnite, GTA V, Roblox, NBA 2K25, and Minecraft - remain dominant. But on PC, the distribution shifts significantly. Helldivers 2, Monster Hunter: Wilds, and Balatro occupy the top five, alongside the recently released Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2. Other notable placements include Warframe, Civilization VII, and Baldur's Gate 3.

Marvel Rivals has been out for less than two months and is already a major success story, arguably breathing new life in the hero-shooter genre, and now it appears the developers are preparing to add none other than Deadpool.

It was only earlier this week that Marvel Rivals players received new heroes such as the Human Torch, and The Thing, but now the attention has shifted over to who else is coming. According to some leaked voice lines, it appears fan-favorite Deadpool is on the cards for release, as the voice lines loosely hint at the character. The leak comes from X user X0X_LEAK, who posted the voice lines that show superheroes such as Spider-Man, Punisher, and Captain America addressing a selection of unknown characters.

Spider-Man's voice line says, "Great, we are saving the world, and here comes the loosest cannon". It isn't that far of a stretch to describe Deadpool as the "loosest cannon," as the character is renowned for his unpredictability and proclivity to violent outbursts without the slightest provocation. The other voice lines are much more straightforward in their reference to the unannounced characters with the Punisher saying, "So long, monkey," which appears to reference Hit-Monkey, and Captain America saying, "Sometimes a big brain doesn't do much good".

Warner Bros. Games announced the closure of several studios, including Monolith Productions, the developers of the Shadow of Mordor/War games, which has thrown the famous Nemesis System into question.

However, despite the closure of Monolith WB Games will retain ownership over the Nemesis System due to it being patented by the publisher back in 2021. The patent states WB Games will retain exclusive rights to the Nemesis System until 2036. For those who don't know, the Nemesis System debuted in Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor and gives enemy NPCs the ability to learn from player encounters, particularly in battles.

For example, if a player encountered an enemy chief orc in Shadow of Mordor and the player lost the battle, the orc would level up, remember the past fight with the player, and comment on it to the player. The same principle can be applied to player victories, where enemy NPCs would remember player exploits as if they were passed among the ranks as rumors sparking fear.

Update (27/02/25): CD Projekt Red Game Director Sebastian Kalemba has confirmed on X that Ciri's character model has not been modified between the reveal trailer and the behind-the-scenes footage. He explained that the differences stem from raw, in-engine footage without cinematic effects like lighting or animation, noting the propensity for visual variation across trailers, 3D models, and in-game footage.

Original Article:

CD Projekt Red unveiled the first cinematic trailer for The Witcher 4 two months ago. One of the key talking points following the release was the face model for Ciri, which featured an older, more grizzled version of the character compared to her look in The Witcher 3. Following the latest behind-the-scenes breakdown, discussions are circulating around whether CD Projekt Red adjusted Ciri's face model in response to the mixed reception.