Gaming - Page 185

GeForce Game Ready Driver 572.42 has been released, and it includes day one support for Obsidian's (Fallout New Vegas, The Outer Worlds) latest RPG - Avowed. The game supports cutting-edge ray-tracing effects alongside DLSS Frame Generation, DLSS Super Resolution, and NVIDIA Reflex. DLSS 4 support is available on Steam via the NVIDIA App's DLSS Override feature.

This includes the new Multi Frame Generation technology to boost smoothness and maximize your display's refresh rate. NVIDIA has released some Avowed benchmarks showcasing the expected 4K performance. In 4K with DLSS 4 and Multi Frame Generation, the GeForce RTX 5090 hits an impressive 343.9 FPS, with the GeForce RTX 5080 hitting 259.3 FPS. This is with Ray Tracing, Max Settings, and the new DLSS 4 Transformer AI model.

Interestingly, looking at 1440p performance, it seems like Avowed is going to be a well-optimized game, as the GeForce RTX 5080 and the GeForce RTX 5090 can both hit 100+ FPS with Full Ray Tracing at Max Settings without DLSS. Even the GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER hits 66 FPS at 1440p without DLSS - which is always great.

Following the release of the latest Captain America MCU skin based on Avengers: Infinity War (2018), players have been quick to notice a particular design choice left in by the developers.

In Avengers: Endgame (2019), the culmination of nearly 15 years of comic book world-building, Paul Rudd's Scott Lang delivers a joke in the third act that got a big laugh from audiences:

The Marvel Rivals developers appear to have taken this literally. Memes have been circulating showing off a detail they included in the Avengers: Infinity War (2018) MCU skin. Boasting somewhat of an... 'enhancement' of the rear section.

Ubisoft's efforts to bolster Star Wars Outlaws sales haven't gone according to plan, the publisher says.

Despite steep discounts during the holidays, a release on Steam, and new content updates, Star Wars Outlaws still failed to meet Ubisoft's expectations. The news was confirmed during Ubisoft's latest Q3FY25 earnings call--but the company isn't giving up on Outlaws.

Ubisoft Chief Financial Officer Frederick Duguet is optimistic that Star Wars Outlaws will be a "long-term seller."

Sony's PlayStation State of Play was packed with reveals for anticipated game titles. Among them: Directive 8020, a story-based sci-fi horror experience set in space.

Directive 8020 kicks off Season 2 of The Dark Pictures Anthology, a series of shorter survival horror games with a unique story and cast in every entry. Directive 8020 was first teased during the mid-credits of The Devil in Me back in 2022, and a full announcement trailer was unveiled at Gamescom in August 2024.

Supermassive Games has always drawn inspiration from classic films. This time, they appear to be drawing on works like Alien and The Thing. The story trailer features astronauts facing an unknown alien threat while they grapple for survival aboard a spaceship called 'The Cassiopeia.'

Former Rockstar lead Leslie Benzies is working on a new action title set to release in the same year as GTA 6. Enter Mindseye - an action-packed third-person shooter set in a dystopian sci-fi-style cityscape, with explosive, high-octane combat taking the lead.

The two trailers, released at Sony's latest State of Play, feature protagonist Jacob Diaz - a former soldier fitted with a neural implant haunted by fragmented memories. The game centers around Jacob's journey to uncover the truth in a world fogged by AI, high-tech experimentation, and military corruption.

The developers have not specifically addressed the open-world comparison to GTA 6, instead emphasizing the cinematic narrative elements of the experience. Throughout the trailer, you'll find Jacob driving around in classic American muscle, and at the very least, it appears to be a semi-open-world experience. It also draws on the narrative third-person formula that Sony does so well, with the inclusion of high-fidelity, motion-captured cutscenes.

Borderlands 4, the next entry in the long-running looter scooter co-op action FPS series, is set to launch on September 23, 2025, for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC (via Steam and the Epic Games Store). 2K and Gearbox Software made the announcement earlier today during Sony's latest State of Play PlayStation event.

Gearbox describes the game as the "most ambitious Borderlands title to date," the trailer highlights its fast-paced action, expanded traversal, and weapons. Plus, it confirms that you'll be able to swim for the first time in the franchise. You'll no longer instantly wipe when touching the water, meaning Borderlands 4's Vault Hunters have learned how to swim.

The trailer also showcases the new grapple hook. This "fixed-point grapple" system will allow for faster movement and more aerial abilities alongside new double-jump and glide abilities. 2K notes that the Borderlands franchise has sold over 87 million copies, making it one of the publisher's most popular franchises.

Elden Ring Nightreign is a standalone spin-off to one of the most popular games in recent years, and it's a new co-op survival adventure game set in the Elden Ring universe. From developer FromSoftware (Dark Souls) and publisher Bandai Namco, the game is set to launch globally on May 30.

Alongside the release date announcement, Bandai Namco has announced that pre-orders for the game are now open and will ship in four versions: Standard Edition, Deluxe Edition, Seekers Edition, and Collector's Edition. The game will be available on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC (Steam).

Hit the jump for a breakdown of the various versions.

Ubisoft's delayed Assassin's Creed Shadows is finally on track for its March 20 release on PC and consoles. This week, the company announced detailed PC specs and hardware requirements alongside a new trailer showcasing the PC version. Running on the latest version of Assassin's Creed's Anvil engine, it's another major release focusing on ray-traced visuals.

The game's 'Selective Ray Tracing' mode will limit the RT to the game's Hideout base building mode. A GeForce GTX 1070 or Radeon RX 5700 is recommended for 1080p 30 FPS gameplay with "Dynamic Resolution and Upscaling." This also includes running the game with the 'Low' quality setting. However, as you can see in the image above, the game is designed to look good across all modes.

Assassin's Creed Shadows is launching with support for NVIDIA DLSS, AMD FSR, and Intel XeSS, including Frame Generation technologies. GeForce GTX 1070 owners will need to run the game with these specs using AMD's or Intel's upscaling solution, as DLSS is limited to GeForce RTX GPUs due to its requirement for AI Tensor Cores.

Blizzard is changing the game up with Overwatch 2 Season 15, just teased on X, with mechanics, new skins, new maps teased, and the return of the infamous lootboxes.

The developer is calling 2025 the "next evolution" of Overwatch 2 PvP with the introduction of the new Hero Perks mechanism, and a slew of changes to the game for Season 15 and future seasons throughout the year. The new Perks system sounds fantastic, with the Hero-specific mechanism giving players more control over how each character plays by offering exciting new upgrades two different times as you progress through a round.

Overwatch 2 Season 15 has big Competitive Mode changes, with a new competitive queue, the return of Loot Boxes, and more. Season 15 begins on February 18, with a competitive mode ranked reset, and new "competitive" Galactic Weapons that can be unlocked with rank Weapon Charms, Player Portraits, and more.

Crytek has just announced that its next-gen Crysis 4 is "on hold" as it lays off 15% of its global workforce, and puts its development focus into Hunt: Showdown 1896.

The developer announced the news in a post on X, saying that "complex, unfavorable market dynamics that have hit our industry these past several years. It pains us greatly to share today that we must lay off an estimated 15% of our around 400 employees".

Not only that, but the developer said "after putting the development of the next Crysis game on hold in Q3 2024" that Crytek has "been trying to shift developers over to Hunt: Showdown 1896". For now, let's hope that Crytek hasn't killed off its new Crysis game and that it's just on hold until the developer is in a better position, but it does NOT feel like good news for the infamous shooter.

Remedy has just announced that it has sold over 2 million copies of Alan Wake 2 as part of their full-year 2024 financial report.

Remedy CEO Tero Virtala said that the development and marketing costs of Alan Wake 2 have been recouped, with teh developer earning royalties for the game towards the end of Q4 2024. Virtala said that the continued support for Alan Wake 2 through Night Springs and Lake House expansions, as well as the beefy PS5 Pro update + RTX Mega Geometry updates, helped push sales of Alan Wake 2 up and over 2M copies.

Now that Alan Wake 2 is finished up, Remedy is now pushing full-steam ahead into its next projects including FBC: Firebreak, which Virtala confirmed for a 2025 launch. The Remedy CEO said in December 2024 that the development team had successfully conducted a closed technical test with external players, where they tested FBC: FIrebrerak and its matchmaking and backedn services, collecting as much data as they could to form the final game.

A Costco worker may have just leaked the price of the upcoming Nintendo Switch 2, and the leaked price has seemingly backed up recent statements from Nintendo.

Nintendo President Shuntaro Furukawa recently stated during a Q&A with investors that Nintendo will be taking into account the exchange rate environment shifting since the launch of the Nintendo Switch and how buyers expect Nintendo products to come with a degree of affordability. These statements from the Nintendo president quelled fears the Nintendo Switch 2 was going to be priced similarly to other competing consoles, and while that was never going to be a reality, it was good to hear it from Nintendo itself.

The official statements of the Nintendo Switch 2 being affordable have now been purportedly backed up by leaked pricing, as reported by NintendoWire. A Canadian Costco employee shared an internal product listing along with a sales floor sign that states the Nintendo Switch 2 will cost $499.99 CAD, which is about $350 USD. However, the Nintendo Switch OLED is currently priced at $450 CAD / $350 USD, which means the Nintendo Switch 2 will likely be priced at $399 USD.

Modern streaming culture has produced no shortage of viral gaming sensations. The most recent title to emerge is an unusual one - a Filipino horror game called Hapunan. The game throws you into the shoes of Niko, a vendor selling Filipino street food Balut (essentially fertilized duck eggs).

The premise is simple: you're a Balut vendor, and your job is to take care of your day-to-day responsiblities. Securing business permits, locking your windows and doors before work, selling food to customers. It features low-poly visual style similar to what you'll see in old games on the N64. So what is it that's actually grabbing people's attention?

Well, there's some cultural depth to the experience. The game, which starts as a 'work simulator,' devolves into a horror survival experience, with threatening figures lurking in the night. Gunmen equipped with threatening grins and heavy inspiration drawn from Filipino folklore.

After months of rumors, Sony's State of Play Livestream is officially happening. In a surprise blog post, Sony announced that the event will be taking place on Wednesday, February 12th, at 5PM ET, available to stream via YouTube and Twitch. The show will have a 40-minute run-time.

The last State of Play took place September 24th, 2024. We were shown the announcement trailer for Ghost of Yotei, in addition to the release dates for Monster Hunter Wilds, Lego Horizon Adventures, and a new trailer for Dragon Age: The Veilguard.

Four months have passed since the last State of Play, and there's still very little info regarding what to expect at this event. Three weeks ago, reputable leaker NateTheHate correctly hinted at the early February schedule for the event. A day ago, an anonymous Reddit poster also suggested that Hell is Us, an exploration-focused sci-fi action-adventure title, would be part of the 2025 State of Play lineup. However, no sources were provided to support this claim.

Rumors have begun recirculatnig about a modern video game adaptation of the famous Back to the Future franchise. Speculation about the project first emerged in a 2024 interview, where the film's screenwriter Bob Gale all but confirmed the possibility.

He also clearly iterated that 2025 is the 40th anniversary of the original movie, hinting that if there was any time to hear about it, it'd be this year.

Following the release of Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, the market has clearly begun to recognise the viability of video games as a platform to revive old film franchises. Harrison Ford publicly praised Troy Baker for his performance in the latest video game, highlighting "[Troy Baker] did a brilliant job, and it didn't take AI to do it,".

Take-Two Interactive, the publisher of the Grand Theft Auto franchise, has commented on the falling sales of the console market while alluding to the strategy the publisher and developer Rockstar Games will implement with the release of Grand Theft Auto VI.

During a recent interview with IGN, Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick touched on Grand Theft Auto 6 only coming to consoles when it releases in Fall 2025. While there hasn't been an official confirmation from Rockstar or Take-Two that a simultaneous console/PC release has been ruled out, it certainly appears that is the case. During the interview with IGN, Zelnick said, "We don't always go across all platforms simultaneously, historically, Rockstar has started with some platforms and then historically moved to other platforms."

This is hardly surprising, as it has been the case for all major Rockstar releases, with the PC port of Grand Theft Auto V taking 1.5 years. For any PC gamers still holding out hope Rockstar will release GTA 6 at the same time as the console version, the nails were further hammered into the coffin of that idea when Zelnick commented on the declining unit sales of both the current-gen consoles. Zelnick said Take-Two isn't worried console sales are declining because of the catalog of games, not just from Take-Two, but also from others scheduled to release in 2025.

Valve has continued its push to add more consumer protections on Steam: introducing a platform-wide ban for any games that force users to watch or engage with advertising.

The change was first sighted on Gaming on Linux, where users reported the new advertising guidelines added to the SteamWorks Documentation. The guidelines clearly outline that while product placement, cost promotions, and paid advertising outside Steam are allowed, developers cannot use paid advertising as a business model in-game. Examples cited included 'requiring players to watch or otherwise engage with advertising in order to play' or gating gameplay behind advertising.

The move comes in direct opposition to the freemium, ad-driven model that plagues a large portion of the mobile game market. It also follows an update, released last week, that provides warnings if an early access title hasn't been updated for a duration of longer than 12 months.

Independent video game developers gathered at the South Australian Game Exhibition over the weekend to showcase a collection of games currently in development, and these were the best games I saw at the show.

In a world where there are so many games and not enough time to enjoy them, it's sometimes worth seeing where they come from, meeting the people behind the titles, and giving those people feedback on your experience with the game. The South Australian Film Corporation (SAFC) recently held a showcase of South Australia's video game development sector, which featured a bunch of independent developers displaying the games they have been hard at work.

In an effort to shine a light on South Australian game development and indie game development as a whole, I have selected my personal favorite titles from the showcase and linked to each of their Steam listing. Sometimes us gamers forget that great games can be made by just a small team of passionate gamers.

Sony's PlayStation Network went offline for a considerable period this past weekend, with players unable to access their games and other online services for almost 24 hours. It's the second-longest PSN outage to date, falling behind the monumental 2011 outage that lasted weeks - sparking many to wonder if it was due to a breach or attack.

With Sony's PlayStation Network and PSN services restored, the company announced on social media that it had "fully recovered from an operational issue." This vague explanation has done little to satisfy fans wanting a detailed explanation or reasoning for the outage, which occurred right as the weekend began. On the plus side, Sony is compensating players with a free reward.

Sony's social media post reads, "We apologize for the inconvenience and thank the community for their patience. All PlayStation Plus members will automatically receive an additional 5 days of service."

The PlayStation Network has been down for 17 consecutive hours at the time of publication, and Sony has not given exact updates on when the servers will be back up.

PlayStation gamers woke up to a rude surprise today: Sony's PlayStation Network infrastructure has been knocked out for 17 hours, impacting Friday night game sales, subscription sign-ups, and the all-important microtransactions across the PlayStation Store. Sony has confirmed the PSN outage started last night on Friday, February 7 at 7PM EST.

More importantly, live service games were knocked out on console gaming's largest platform (by revenue). It's unknown how exactly this will impact Sony's upcoming Q4'25 quarterly earnings but it's not just Sony who's impacted: All third-party partners can't sell their games or make money from in-game purchases until the PlayStation Network is online.