Gaming - Page 247

Microsoft has shut down three studios from ZeniMax as the games industry shrinks and retracts.

In a bid to cut spending and stabilize margins, Microsoft has made multiple rounds of layoffs across its Xbox games division. In January, Microsoft laid off 1,900 employees across its Xbox and Activision branches, and today it was revealed that three entire studios will also be closing down.

Arkane Austin, the developer of Prey and the ill-fated Redfall, Tango Gameworks, the devs of Hi-Fi Rush and the excellent Evil Within games, and Alpha Dog, who made mobile games like Mighty Doom for ZeniMax, have all been shut down.

Microsoft has announced the closure of at least four developer studios under its Bethesda branch, including Arkane Austin, the studio behind Redfall, and Tango Gameworks, the creators of Hi-Fi Rush and The Evil Within.

According to an internal email sent to studios by Matt Booty, the head of Xbox Game Studios, Microsoft has decided to blame the inevitable job cuts on its initiative of "reprioritization of titles and resources". The email states the team at Arkane Austin will be closing, and some members of the team will be going to other teams at Bethesda.

Alpha Dog Studios, the developers of the mobile game Alpha Dog, will also be closing, along with the internal development studio Roadhouse Games, which will be merged into ZeniMax Online Studios, which is working on titles such as The Elder Scrolls Online. As for Tango Gameworks, the developer behind Hi-Fi Rush, Booty, thanked the team for their work and said the game will remain available to players, the same as Redfall.

The president of Nintendo has confirmed when the company will make an announcement regarding a successor to the Nintendo Switch - something fans have been dying to know for many months now.

If you have been following along with the Nintendo Switch 2 news, you will know there have been plenty of rumors and leaks of information regarding Nintendo's next console, with some pointing to support for higher than 60FPS gameplay, and others saying the console will come with "electromagnetic suction" Joy-Cons, along with an 8-inch display. While all of the rumors haven't been confirmed, Nintendo has finally confirmed when it will be announcing its next-generation console.

Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa took to X and stated Nintendo will make an announcement regarding the successor to the Nintendo Switch "within the fiscal year". The president of Nintendo made a point to mention the Nintendo Switch was announced in March 2015, making its existence 9 years old, an incredible age for the console. For context, the Switch became available in March 2017.

Helldivers 2 has had a somewhat tumultuous week following Sony Interactive Entertainment's announcement that PC gamers will soon be required to connect to a PSN account to access the game.

Sony has since backpedalled on that announcement, saying via the PlayStation X account that none of the the previously announced changes were going to go ahead and that it's still learning how to engage with the PC gaming community. The initial news of forced PSN and Steam connection resulted in massive backlash in the form of negative review bombing the game's Steam listing and an uproar in the Helldivers 2 Discord.

Spitz, the Helldivers 2 community manager stopped posting in the game's dedicated Discord server on Saturday, one day after the changes were announced. PCGamer reports the community manager left then server and has only returned today, telling the community he was almost fired for his last public comments about the controversial situation.

Supergiant Games' Hades is not only one of the most critically acclaimed and celebrated games of all time, serving as the high watermark for narrative-driven rogue-like action games, but it was a game that went from great to genius through its Early Access period.

With a recent technical test for the highly anticipated Hade II proving to be a success, developer and publisher Supergiant Games has decided to launch Hades II into Early Access on Steam and the Epic Games Store.

Yes, you can play the game right now. Which, according to the team, "has more environments, foes, and fully-voiced characters than the full version of the original Hades game." However, it isn't complete with key areas, foes, and narrative events set to be added in the months ahead.

Microsoft is set to close the Xbox 360 Store on July 29, 2024, almost 19 years after the console first debuted in November 2005. Quite possibly the most popular Xbox console of all time, both in terms of sales, market share, and iconic games like Gears of War, Halo 3, and Fable 2, sunsetting the Xbox 360 Store isn't necessarily a doom-and-gloom scenario.

From July 2024, players can no longer purchase new games, DLC, and other content from the Xbox 360 Store and Xbox 360 Marketplace. The Movies & TV app is also going away, with Microsoft and the Xbox team confirming that "TV and movie content will no longer be viewable on your Xbox 360."

The good news is that you will still be able to play Xbox 360 games and DLC that you have already purchased, not only on Xbox 360 consoles but also via backward compatibility on Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S consoles.

Skywind is one of the most ambitious mod projects currently in development. It presents a complete remake of Bethersda's classic Morrowind in the Skyrim engine. The mod has been in development for well over a decade, since Skyrim was released in 2011.

Over the years, the team has been providing updates on the game's progress, with the latest outlining that it's shaping up to be a bigger game than Skyrim, with over double the NPCs and four times as many voice actors.

To put that into context, Skyrim has around 1,100 NPCs voiced by 70 actors, while Skywind has 3,000 NPCs voiced by 300 actors. The 2024 update video goes into great detail, outlining all aspects of the ambitious mod and its development progress. Covering everything from animation to art and level design, it's a fascinating insight into the mod creation process.

Resident Evil 9 will apparently take some cues from Dead Island when it releases in 2025.

New reports from insider DuskGolem may shed new light on Capcom's plans for the next mainline Resident Evil game. According to inside sources, Resident Evil 9 has been in development since 2018 and has had the longest dev time of any game in the series (7 years). Sources also say RE9 has the biggest budget out of all of the zombie-infested survival games.

But what about the locale? It sounds like Resident Evil 9 could be similar to Techland's 2011 hit Dead Island. DuskGolem further states that RE9 will take place in a "fictional rural town on an island in the Southeast Asia Sea inspired by Singapore specifically."

Sony's new PlayStation 5 Pro won't have a unique devkit design, Digital Foundry reports.

The PS5 Pro makes some big leaps over the base PS5 that was released in 2020. The mid-gen upgrade is a combination of brawn and brains, complete with a new RDNA 3.0 GPU with a +45% uptick in power alongside new AI-powered image reconstruction technology to deliver more convincing 4K visuals from 1080p inputs. While the specs are pretty different, there's one area where both the PS5 and PS5 Pro will stay the same: Their devkits.

According to Digital Foundry, who has received info from Sony's developer portal, the PS5 Pro devkit is identical to the original PS5's. You know, that V-shaped manta ray design that popped up everywhere--including in watermarked patent images.

Sony's new mid-gen PlayStation 5 Pro upgrade is expected to have an AMD RDNA 3 GPU that's capable of max speeds of 2.35GHz.

New reports from Digital Foundry highlight new upgrades in Sony's upcoming PS5 Pro. More documentation for the PS5 Pro has been leaked via Sony's developer portal, and this time we have new info on the PS5 Pro's GPU solution.

According to the reports, the PS5 Pro's GPU will have 60 RDNA 3.0 Compute Units (CUs) and can boost to a whopping 2.35GHz, which indicates a max 36 TFLOPs of compute power. That's a 5.4% increase over the PS5's 2.23GHz max GPU speeds. This boost will be hard to achieve and maintain, though, and only certain games are expected to really push the PS5 Pro to its 2.35GHz GPU speeds.

After days of review bombing, Sony has officially reversed its controversial decision with Helldivers 2.

Good news for PC players: Helldivers 2 will no longer require a PlayStation Network account in order to play. Sony had originally mandated that all Helldivers 2 users on Steam would have to make a PSN account and link it to their Steam account by June 4 or else they wouldn't be able to keep playing.

This caused massive backlash, leading to over 100,000 negative reviews for Helldivers 2 on Steam. Valve also started to delist Helldivers 2 in the dozens of countries that couldn't make a PSN account, and lots of refunds were issued. Helldivers 2 developer Arrowhead tried to triage the issue, working with Sony behind the scenes and promising updates soon. Now Sony has made the decision to just scrap its original mandate altogether.

Apple has today announced five new games for Apple Arcade subscribers to download with games compatible with the iPhone, iPad, and Mac - and one is even available for play on the Apple Vision Pro.

Rabbids: Legends of the Multiverse, Return to Monkey Island+, Tomb of the Mask+, Fabulous - Wedding Disaster+, and Apple Vision Pro spatial title Where Cards Fall will all launch in Apple Arcade at some point in the next month. And because these games are Apple Arcade titles they won't have any ads or in-app purchases and they're all available for download for free so long as you're an Apple Arcade subscriber.

Where Cards Fall is the Apple Arcade title and a 202 Apple Design Award winner. The game features tactile, accessible controls that have been designed for the Apple Vision Pro and will see players use gestures to manipulate and bring houses of cards to life, Apple's press release says.

Helldivers 2 PC players are returning back to the Steam listing to celebrate their voice being heard by Sony regarding the publisher's recent decision to make PSN account linking mandatory.

Sony recently announced via its official PlayStation X account that it will be rolling back the announced changes that stated Steam players would be required to link their account with a PSN account. This change had the Helldivers 2 community up in arms as some countries around the world don't have access to the PSN network, meaning they wouldn't be able to play Helldivers 2 at all.

Some others found it a major problem to force players to sign up to the PSN network when Sony has been hacked several times in the past, exploiting user information. For all of these reasons and more, Helldivers 2 players review bombed the title on its Steam listing, resulting in more than 200,000 negative reviews since Sony announced the incoming changes.

The Helldivers 2 PC controversy has seemingly ended after PlayStation announced it was going to backpedal on forcing Helldivers 2 players to connect their Steam account to a PSN account to be granted access to the game.

Only a matter of hours ago PlayStation took to its official X account to announce it has heard the feedback from the Helldivers 2 PC community regarding the linking update and has decided it "will not be moving forward". This change will cover both existing Helldivers 2 players and new Helldivers 2 players.

Arrowhead Studios CEO Johan Pilestedt has since taken to his personal X account to praise the efforts of the Helldivers 2 community for collaborating their efforts to get what they want and to thank PlayStation for their decision to leave PSN linking optional. Notably, PlayStation wrote in its post that it's still learning "what is best for PC players".

The debacle between Helldivers 2 PC players and the game's developer and publisher has reached new heights, with the developer Arrowhead Studios's CEO now blaming the publisher, Sony Interactive Entertainment. 

The Helldivers 2 controversy began when Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) announced on the Helldivers 2 Steam blog that Helldivers 2 PC players would be required to link a PlayStation Network (PSN) account to their Steam account to access the game. The community entered into an uproar at this news as many gamers in various countries around the world don't have access to the PSN network in their region, meaning they would get locked out of Helldivers 2 as soon as the change was implemented.  

Helldivers 2 was bombarded with more than 100,000 negative reviews, driving its review description down to "overwhelmingly negative". The CEO of Arrowhead Studios, Johan Pilestedt, apologized for the events that transpired and said the decision wasn't the developers - it was Sony's. In response to the community uproar, Helldivers 2's Steam listing was removed from more than 170 regions, as selling the game to consumers who won't be able to play due to a lack of PSN access is simply fraudulent. 

The ASUS ROG Ally is a super-popular gaming handheld with a 7-inch 1080p touchscreen, but someone has modded the handheld and added a secondary display. Check it out:

The ROG Ally 2nd Screen project on Github runs through the entire process, adding a second screen to the ROG Ally involved a 7-inch portable display, a USB Type-C dock to connect it to the ROG Ally, and then cramming everything inside of a few custom 3D printed parts.

YesItsKira used the WIMAXIT M728: a 7-inch 1024 x 600 resolution IPS LCD touchscreen display, and while normally you'd need to use an HDMI cable (and port) and a USB cable (and port) for video, touchscreen abilities, and power, but the ASUS ROG Ally doesn't have an HDMI port, which is why the USB-C dock was used.

A week ago, Helldivers 2 was beloved by PC and console gamers alike and on track to become Game of the Year by many. Then Sony and developer Arrowhead announced that PC players would need to team up with a PlayStation Network account to continue playing the game in the months ahead.

The news did not go down well, with many citing Sony's spotty track record regarding privacy and user accounts getting hacked. Also, with the PlayStation Network being unavailable in a long list of countries, lots of current Helldivers 2 players are set to lose access to the game. According to the studio, the game was always meant to have this requirement, with the PSN component only being optional at launch.

With hundreds of thousands of negative reviews on Steam, Helldivers II has gone from being one of the most beloved games on the platform to now sitting on a 'Mixed' user review score, with the most recent reviews being 'Overwhelmingly Negative.' With damage control in full effect, the CEO of Arrowhead, Johan Pilestedt, has taken to social media to state that the decision is out of their hands and was mandated by PlayStation.

The next Tomb Raider game in development is rumored to be an open world game according to the latest rumors, and it will be published by Amazon.

The new rumors are coming from movie insider V Scooper, which said that the next Tomb Raider game will be an open world game will see Lara exploring huge areas on her motorbike and parachute, and that it will be released in the next 12 months if there's no hiccups in between.

Tomb Raider will be shifting to northern India according to V Scooper, who explained the setting of this purported open world Tomb Raider game: "A natural disaster strikes northern India, revealing ancient emperor Ashoka's ruins and artifacts. Lara strategically races against a Society of Raiders and other rivals for these powerful relics. The Society of Raiders are inspired by Lara yet unaffiliated and might have some opposite agendas. This also relates to a new feature based on recruiting teams and allies to strategically aid you in missions and defeating rivals There's emphasis on a new non-lethal combat option".

The fiasco with Helldivers 2 and the requirement to connect a PlayStation network account to a Steam account to access the game has spilled over to other Sony titles. The latest in the scope of gamers is the Ghost of Tsushima PC port expected to release on May 16 on Steam.

The uproar of the Helldivers 2 community in response to the recent changes by Sony Interactive Entertainment has resulted in more than 100,000 negative reviews submitted to the title's Steam listing, bringing the overall review to "Overwhelmingly Negative." The fallout of this decision by Sony has raised the question to if the publisher will require other PlayStation games on Steam to be linked to PSN account.

Ghost of Tsushima Directors Cut will release on Steam on May 16, and the developer of the title Sucker Punch wants players to know the game will not require a linked PSN account for it to be playable. The developer took to its X account and explained a PSN account will be required for "Legends online multiplayer mode and to use PlayStation overlay," but it won't be required to "play the singleplayer game."

Sony is officially fumbling the bag with one of its hottest games ever released, as a seemingly simple announcement has led to more than 100,000 new negative reviews and thousands of gamers enraged.

Quick backstory: Sony Interactive Entertainment announced on the Helldivers 2 Steam blog that the grace period for it being optional to link a player's Steam account to a PlayStation Network account is coming to an end, and after May 6, all new Helldivers 2 players will be required to connect their Steam account to a PSN account, while current Steam players will begin to see a mandatory login from May 30 and will be required to have linked a Steam and PlayStation Network account by June 4.

Despite the news of accounts having to be connected being announced back in January, players only began reacting recently with a wave of negative reviews. Some of these reviews pointed out important factors such as some countries don't have access to the PlayStation network, meaning the player won't be able to make an account and would be locked out of Helldivers 2. A game that they purchased.