Gaming - Page 237

After many years, the father of Final Fantasy has returned to work alongside Square Enix on a new project...but he's not returning to the best-selling franchise that he helped create.

In 2003, after nearly two decades of making Final Fantasy games, Hironobu Sakaguchi shocked the gaming world by leaving Square Enix to start up his own studio. Since then, Sakaguchi's studio, Mistwalker, has released some pretty big hits in the RPG space, including the much-celebrated Lost Odyssey, and the innovative Xbox-published Blue Dragon.

Now Sakaguchi is working with Square Enix once more...albeit not in a direct capacity. Square Enix is publishing Mistwalker's latest game, Fantasian, to new platforms. Fantasian was originally released on Apple Arcade in 2022 to a limited audience. Now, however, Sakaguchi, Mistwalker, and Square Enix aim to launch the game on PC and consoles.

NVIDIA has announced that 22 new titles will be added to its GeForce NOW cloud gaming service in July 2024. Several games will launch this month on Steam and, in some cases, on Steam and Xbox via PC Game Pass.

This week's games include the free-to-play co-op shooter The First Descendant (Steam), which also supports ray-tracing and DLSS, the stylish The Falconeer (currently Free on the Epic Games Store), Star Traders: Frontiers (Steam), and Wuthering Waves (Native and Epic Games Store).

Highlights for the rest of the month include Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn, a Souls-like spotlighted in Microsoft's recent Xbox summer showcase that launches on July 18. Devolver Digital's over-the-top first-person-foot game Anger Foot on July 11. And Cataclismo, a new real-time strategy castle defense game from the talented team behind indie-hit Moonlighter, on July 22. Here's the complete list of games coming.

The phenomenal success of the PlayStation 4 helped AMD avoid going bankrupt, in a new LinkedIn post from AMD's own Gaming Client PC Business boss. Check it out:

AMD is in quite an awesome position right now with the mega-success of its Ryzen CPUs, EPYC CPUs, semi-custom design wins inside of the PlayStation 5 (and PS4, obviously) as well as the Xbox Series X/S consoles, and even the PlayStation 5 Pro coming later this year... oh, and the next-generation PlayStation 6 console in a few years time.

But years ago, AMD wasn't in a good state... back in 2015, AMD reported a revenue slip of 10% because of a shrinking PC market, but that's where Sony stepped in with the PlayStation 4 console. AMD Gaming Client PC Business Lead, Renato Fragale, explained on his LinkedIn: "Managed 15-person product development team for Sony PlayStation 4 (PS4) that has sold over 91Mu to date. Viewed as one of the most successful launches in AMD history, helping AMD to avoid bankruptcy".

Whether you play PC games on a monitor or console games on a TV, you need a place to sit. You can use any form of seating, including a sofa, La-Z-Boy, or dining room chair. However, you should invest in a dedicated gaming chair if you want an optimal seating arrangement. They're comfortable, sturdy, and designed with gamers in mind. Take the AutoFull M6 Gaming Chair into consideration - a marvel of ergonomic design and advanced technology crafted to deliver unparalleled comfort and support. Let's dive into the key features that make this chair a must-have for anyone seeking the ultimate seating experience.

The core of the AUTO Dynamic Tracking Lumbar Pillow is its dynamic tracking technology, and the AutoFull M6 has achieved the ultimate in this regard. Unlike normal lumbar supports that remain static, this pillow employs sensors and motors to automatically adjust its position based on the user's posture and movements. Whether reclining, sitting upright, or shifting positions, the lumbar pillow intuitively provides continuous support, promoting healthier spine alignment and reducing strain on the lower back. The dynamic tracking lumbar pillow is ergonomically designed and equipped with adjustable neck and waist support, which effectively reduces the pressure and discomfort caused by sitting for long hours.

Paired with the head support and you've a comfortable and supportive combination. The high-density sponge filling of the seat and backrest ensures the softness and support of the sitting feeling, allowing you to stay comfortable even in intense competitions or work. You can remain focused and comfortable for longer periods.

FromSoftware's Elden Ring DLC "Shadow of the Erdtree" has been extremely well received by fans of the critically acclaimed open-world RPG, but now a new update has been released, which means there is a chance your favorite build may have changed.

Bandai Namco took to its website to share the patch notes for Elden Ring version 1.12.3, which has already been rolled out to all platforms Elden Ring is available on. Notably, this new patch includes some pretty severe nerfs to some strategies there were borderlining on exploits, and probably the biggest offender is the Lightning Perfume Bottle's, particularly when combined with the Rolling Sparks Ash of War.

Players were aiming these at the ground and when used with the aforementioned Ash of War it would result in immediate explosions that stacked. Players were able to beat the final boss of the DLC in just 13 seconds with this strategy. FromSoftware has now fixed this, as it was unintended. Additionally, players using spiky shields will no longer be able to walk through bosses by exploiting a glitch that occurred when thrust into attacks, which neither damaged the player nor reduced stamina.

Sony is introducing a new line of collectible figures as part of The Shapes Collection, which takes inspiration from PlayStation Studios titles. The first batch of figures, created in collaboration with Spin Master, features iconic characters from God of War RagnarÜk, Horizon Forbidden West, and Ghost of Tsushima.

"The highly detailed figures deliver the interactive storytelling element of these titles in an all-new way, extending the gaming experience from digital to physical," writes Grace Chen

Vice President of Network Advertising, Loyalty & Licensed Merchandise at Sony. "This creative line takes inspiration from details in each game, with interchangeable accessories and dozens of points of articulation to pose and display each figure in your collection of memorabilia."

The Watch Dogs has been in what Hollywood refers to as "development hell" for 10 years now, but today the official Ubisoft account on X posted an image of a clapperboard from the set, simply teasing "Lights_Camera_Actiion.exe" for the Watch Dogs movie. Check it out:

We have absolutely no more information regarding the Watch Dogs movie from this post on X, but it looks like the production team versus the cast of the movie itself. What we do know, is that actors Tom Blyth and Sophie Wilde will be starring in the Watch Dogs movie, but we don't know which roles they'll assume.

Ubisoft's head of content Margaret Boykin, New Regency CEO Yariv Milchan, and the company president of motion pictures Natalie Lehmann, are all producers on the Watch Dogs movie. Now that the Watch Dogs movie has officially started production, we should see more and more teases from the set, and a teaser trailer in the coming months. It would be nice to see a new Watch Dogs game get announced during this time, considering Watch Dogs and Watch Dogs 2 sold around 20 million units combined globally.

PlayStation 5 lead system architect Mark Cerny has had some interesting comments during a recent interview with GamesIndustry, where he said he was surprised by the wide adoption of ray tracing, and the huge push for 60FPS gaming.

During his chat with GamesIndustry, Cerny discussed his career that spans being the lead system architect for both the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 consoles, the present state of the industry, and the future of gaming. When asked about what has surprised him the most with the current-generation consoles, Cerny said he was surprised with the wide adoption of ray tracing, and the push for 60FPS, which was unexpected based on previous-gen consoles.

Cerny said: "The other thing that has been surprising is the push to 60 frames per second. Based on previous console lifecycles, I would have expected there to be a lot more games that are 30 frames per second only, just because the artwork can be so much more detailed if you have longer time to render it. Instead, the almost universal rule this time around has been the games run at 60".

Last week, AMD's long-awaited FSR 3.1 update arrived, with support from five games - all first-party PlayStation 5 ports from Sony studio Nixxes. Horizon Forbidden West, Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart, Ghost of Tsushima, Spider-Man Remastered, and Spider-Man Miles now feature FSR 3.1, which updates the upscaling Super Resolution component and Frame Generation.

It's good news regarding the latter because AMD's Frame Generation is now decoupled from FSR upscaling. It now works natively with NVIDIA DLSS, bringing Frame Generation to a legion of GeForce RTX 30 Series owners. As NVIDIA's AI-powered version is limited to the GeForce RTX 40 Series, AMD FSR 3.1 is the update you love to see, especially when AMDS Frame Generation performance and image quality are up there.

Even though AMD touted significant image quality updates to FSR 3.1, upscaling from less noise and ghosting, that's not the case. Based on initial reviews and tests from Digital Foundry and others, FSR upscaling is still a distant third behind NVIDIA DLSS and Intel XeSS.

In 2002, Ubisoft released the original Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell for the original Xbox console with the tagline 'Stealth Action Redefined.' A landmark release that created a PC gaming franchise focused on stealth, espionage, and tactical gameplay - and has been dormant for over a decade: the last Splinter Cell game, Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Blacklist, released in 2013.

Although Ubisoft announced in 2021 that it was working on a full remake of the original game, using the Snowdrop engine that powers The Division, Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, and Star Wars Outlaws, that hasn't stopped people from giving the game an RTX Remix makeover.

NVIDIA's RTX Remix tools allow modders to update almost any classic PC game with full path-traced lighting, AI-powered texture upscaling, DLSS, and Frame Generation support, and the ability to replace models with updated versions. Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell RTX from modder Skurtyyskirts is one of the many impressive RTX Remix mods currently in development. If you're a fan of Sam Fisher's exploits and funky night vision goggles, you'll want to check this out.

Activision's principal first-party games will start to show up on Xbox Game Pass next month, sources have told leaker eXtas1s and Windows Central.

It's been nearly a year since gaming's largest-ever merger closed, and now Microsoft is starting to make good on its promises to bring Activision titles to Xbox Game Pass. The first game from ABK dropped back in March 2024 with Blizzard's Diablo IV, but so far there haven't been any Activision-developed and -published games on the service. New reports say that will change next month.

Sources have told credible leaker eXtas1s that the first Activision title will drop on Game Pass in August (technically this would be the first Activision game on Game Pass, with Diablo IV technically being a Blizzard game). It won't be a watershed moment with classic Call of Duty games--instead, Microsoft appears to be starting off small with the Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy. Windows Central's Jez Corden has also corroborated the report, with sources telling Corden similar details.

It's a sad day for the Battlefield franchise, a franchise of first-person-shooter games that was once held in extremely high regard for its realistic gameplay (compared to Call of Duty), incredible map design, and vehicle use. Unfortunately, the days of Bad Company 2 Battlefield are behind us, and now it appears Battlefield 3 is also joining that list.

Electronic Arts (EA) took to the official Battlefield Comms X page to announce that on July 31st, the following Battlefield games will be removed from digital storefronts, along with access to any DLC content associated with the titles. The games that will be removed will be the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions of Battlefield 3, Battlefield 4, and Battlefield Hardline.

Additionally, EA announced that online services for these titles will end on November 7, 2024, with the single-player content in the games still remaining available to buyers. It should be noted that purchasing and online services for the aforementioned titles are only being removed from the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. All of the aforementioned titles will still be available to play and purchase on the PS4, Xbox One, and PC.

Valve is improving controller support on Steam and has provided some interesting data on PC gaming as part of an update. Valve says daily controller use has tripled from 5% of all sessions to 15% since 2018. We've also got a breakdown of the most popular controllers on the platform, with Xbox leading the charge with a 59% controller share on Steam.

This is followed by PlayStation controllers at 26% - a higher number than expected, considering Xbox controller integration has been a part of Windows for far longer. This is followed by Steam Deck, with a 10% share of controller use.

Valve has worked with Sony to improve PlayStation controller support on the platform, including the PS5's DualSense Edge 'elite' style controller. It's also great to hear that future third-party PlayStation controllers will be supported on Steam.

Nintendo is known for its tight grip around its IP, being one of the many companies that is ready to file lawsuits against anyone that has violated its policies.

Once again, the Mario and Zelda maker has filed lawsuits against people that it believes are misusing its intellectual property (IP), and this time, they are hitting two individuals who are allegedly involved in a piracy network of Nintendo content. In the past Nintendo has forced the shutdown of Switch emulators for PC, claiming the company behind them was making profit off its IP.

The same principle applies here but in the world of piracy, with Nintendo filing lawsuits against James Williams "archbox" [PDF] of Surprise, Arizona, and Ryan "Homebrew Homie" Daly of Flint, Michigan. Nintendo has accused Williams of being involved in creating, operating, and promoting not only pirated Nintendo content, but also assisting others in creating, operating, and promoting a network of online shops dedicated to storing pirated Nintendo Switch games that are available to download.

Sony's annual business segment meeting underlines the dominance that just a handful of franchises exert over the entire video games industry.

With a staggering $29.6 billion generated in FY23, PlayStation is gaming's single largest platform by revenue. Although over 9,000 games were purchased on the PlayStation Store during this time, PlayStation gamers spent the bulk of their money on less than a dozen game franchises.

According to Sony's latest Game and Network Services annual segment report, just 10 video game franchises made up 51% of total revenues generated in FY23. These games, some of which are single titles like Genshin Impact and Fortnite, accounted for roughly $15 billion in revenues for this period.

A Starfield gamer has come up with one of the most aspirational mod ideas of all time...and it would be an incredible feat to pull off.

Bethesda games are no stranger to incredibly ambitious world-changing mods. Creations like Fallout London, Skywind, and Skyblivion aim to add new maps and recreate whole games within another game.

So...what about Starfield? One fan has pitched a crazy idea: What if a team of modders could recreate the whole landmass of Elder Scrolls' fantasy world of Tamriel within Starfield's next-gen Creation Engine?

SEGA reveals new info about its upcoming Crazy Taxi game, confirming that it will have multiplayer elements. It's likely that Crazy Taxi is part of SEGA's ambitious Super Game initiative.

Like most publishers these days, SEGA is also chasing the billion-dollar live service craze. SEGA recently announced that new games based on classic franchises like Jet Set Radio and Crazy Taxi were in the works, and now we have solid confirmation that at least one of these will be an online-driven game.

According to a new SEGA developer interview, the new Crazy Taxi title will have live service elements complete with online multiplayer. This isn't a surprise--we've discussed this in the past--but we now have a better understanding on what to expect from the outrageously chaotic racer.

BioWare has baked in a number of new accessibility options into Dragon Age: The Veilguard, including a neat addition that gives players much more control over their in-game experience.

Dragon Age games haven't typically been known for their difficulty, but with a multitude of build options, team synergies, and combo effects, the RPG systems can be intricate and layered. With the new Veilguard entry, BioWare wants to allow players to better customize how they tackle everything from battle systems to navigation and everything in between.

As revealed in a new Game Informer feature, the new Dragon Age: The Veilguard sequel will put even more emphasis on "approachability," complete with big QoL improvements and options to scale the gameplay based on difficulty--but this balancing goes beyond combat.

Metal Gear Solid Survive producer Noriaki Okamura wants to work alongside Hideo Kojima on the series once again, but that is highly unlikely to happen given past history with the Japanese publisher.

Back in 2015, Konami surprised the gaming world by firing Hideo Kojima, the creator of the best-selling Metal Gear franchise. Not only was Kojima fired, but Silent Hills, a horror game starring Norman Reedus, was cancelled. A lot of Kojima's original MGS team also left Konami and together they formed Kojima Productions.

But the current Metal Gear producer Noriaki Okamura wants Kojima to come back. In an ideal world, Okamura would team up with Kojima and other former MGS alumni to expand the franchise. But Kojima has moved on with his own fully-fledged game-and-film production studio and created a big hit with Death Stranding, and is currently working on an experimental film-game hybrid OD, as well as Death Stranding 2.

Sony plans to eventually stop producing consumer-grade recordable Blu-ray discs, but commercial products such as game and film Blu-rays will still be produced.

Sony Group will lay off 250 employees at a division that produces recordable media discs, and start winding down the production of specific Blu-ray products, sources have told Japanese newspaper Mainichi.

However, contrary to recent reports, this decision will not affect Blu-ray discs that contain games, TV shows, or films. The staff reduction is happening to the Sony Sendai Technology Center, which produces recordable disc formats like CD-R, DVD-R, BD-R and archival discs for the Japanese region.