Gaming - Page 248

Unreal Engine 5.4 is out in the wild with people playing around with the Industrial Factory tech demo, which looks out of this world, but brings NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 4080 to its knees at 4K. Check it out in all its glory:

MXBenchmarkPC shared a new video running the Unreal Engine 5.4-powered Industrial Factory tech demo, running on his RTX 4080 at 1440p (2560 x 1440) managed 80-90FPS, but the RTX 4080 couldn't handle 4K at 60FPS in native form at least.

But, the demo itself looks truly amazing. It was created by Scans Factory, and you can download it and run it on your PC. MXBenchmarkPC ran an Intel Core i7-10700F processor and an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 at 4K, 1440p, and 1080p with Nanite, Lumen, and Epic graphics settings enabled on the Unreal Engine 5.4-powered Industrial Factory tech demo.

Nintendo has continued its crusade to remove any content that's being profiteered from that contains the company's copyrighted materials.

The latest in Nintendo's efforts to expunge this content from the internet is a Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) notice for 8,535 GitHub repositories, which are the most basic element on GitHub and is a place where developers are able to store code, files and more. The DMCA notice alleges these repositories containing Nintendo IP, particularly hosting code from the Yuzu Switch emulator that Nintendo said enabled "piracy at a colossal scale".

The issuing of the DMCA notice came after Nintendo settled a lawsuit with Yuzu's creators for $2.4 million. More specifically, Nintendo claims that these repositories contain Yuzu source code that "illegally circumvents Nintendo's technological protection measures and runs illegal copies of Switch games." GitHub has responded to the takedown notice and explained developers will have time to make changes to their content before its removed.

Ninja Theory is preparing for the launch of Senua's Saga: Hellblade II, the sequel to the critically acclaimed Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice.

One of the best-looking games of 2024 is about to be released, and the developers behind the title have now released what you will need to run the game on PC. Ninja Theory has taken to its official X account to share an image showing what PC gamers will need to boot up Hellblade II, and the requirements to even hit recommended are quite hefty.

This isn't really that surprising, considering how graphically intense the Hellblade 2 is. Taking one look at the above trailer, you can quickly realize Hellblade 2 is much more graphically intense than Hellblade 1, with Ninja Theory pioneering aspects such as motion capture, facial rendering, and cinematic storytelling. The minimum requirements on PC to hit 1080p on Low are an Intel i5-8400 or an AMD Ryzen 5 2600, a GTX 1070, an AMD RX 5700, or an Intel Arc A580.

Like the orbital arrays that drop bombs on alien infestations, gamers have dropped heavy artillery on Helldivers 2's review score.

Once the darling of PC gamers, Helldivers 2 is now getting review bombed on Steam due to a controversial decision from Sony. Helldivers 2 will now require a PlayStation Network account to keep playing. Users have until June 4 to make their PSN accounts and sign in.

Predictably, PC gamers weren't happy with the situation, especially those who live in the dozens of countries where PSN is not supported. It's especially frustrating to gamers in the UK who have to provide a form of ID in order to make a PSN account. The news caught some by surprise, especially since Helldivers 2 didn't require you to make a PSN account to play before. This was temporary, and the game was always designed to require a PSN sign-in at the behest of Sony Interactive Entertainment.

A major tactical FPS competitor has risen from the ashes of the Escape from Tarkov drama.

New early access survival shooter Gray Zone Warfare is doing incredibly well right now on Steam. The early access game is currently the #1 top-seller in terms of revenue on Steam, and is #2 globally. Even the $65 support edition upgrade is currently on the top 10 global best-sellers list. As of yesterday

So...how did this meteoric rise to success happen? The sales blitz might've been a result of a schism in one of gaming's most dedicated groups. It's likely that a significant portion of Gray Zone's players are actually taken from the Escape from Tarkov community following some massively controversial decisions.

The Helldivers 2 community has turned on the game after recent changes were announced by publisher Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE).

SIE took to the Helldivers 2 Steam listing to post an update regarding coming changes to the game, particularly the ending of the grace period for optional PlayStation Network (PSN) account linking. According to SIE, at the game's launch technical issues enabled Steam accounts being linked to a PSN account to be temporarily optional, and now that time period will expire. As of May 6, all new Helldivers 2 players will be required to connect their Steam account to a PSN account.

Additionally, 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. These changes of forcing a PSN account connection haven't boded well with many Helldivers 2 players, as the reviews for the game are now experiencing an incredibly high influx of bad reviews. Just on May 3, the Helldivers 2 Steam listing received more than 36,000 negative reviews.

ASUS is going to bring out a 2024 take on its ROG Ally handheld, or that's the gossip on the grapevine - but it's clear that this won't be some kind of sequel.

Rather than a ROG Ally 2, ASUS will push out a ROG Ally 2024 which is essentially the same device we already have, but with one important change - the fix for the much-aired SD card problems.

If you missed this saga somehow, the SD card reader on the ROG Ally is basically a ticking timebomb, eventually destined to fail (and maybe take your card with it, when it does).

In February, Microsoft confirmed that four first-party titles were making their way over to PlayStation, which was the company's first batch of tester titles, to see how Xbox games would perform on Sony's console.

Around this time, rumors suggested that Microsoft was going to lead with massive heavyweight, system-seller titles such as Gears of War, Starfield, and Halo, but it was later confirmed the first games to make it over to the PlayStation from Xbox would be Hi-Fi Rush, Pentiment, Grounded, and Sea of Thieves. Xbox's Phil Spencer described the transfer as an experiment and said at the time it didn't mean that other first-party Xbox titles would be coming to PlayStation.

While at the time Xbox may not be working on bringing heavy hitter titles over to PlayStation, Microsoft is clearly open to the idea, and more so leaning toward it if the experimental titles proved a success. Now, renowned Xbox insider and Windows Central journalist Jez Corden revisited the topic and said that all Xbox first-party titles will be coming to PlayStation, and this would include staple franchises such as Forza and Halo.

Orcs Must Die 3 is a different spin on tower defense that ticks some boxes - including having a top-notch name - and if you've always been half-tempted to take the plunge, now you've got no excuse.

We express this possibility of temptation because it applies very definitely to us - we've been meaning to pick up this game for some time (before the third instalment came out, in fact). And now that it's free on the Epic Games Store, we'll be doing exactly that.

Actually, hang on. Back in a moment...

A Nintendo dataminer has discovered within the latest version of the NintendoWare Bezel Engine supports frame rates of up to 240 frames-per-second (FPS).

This engine is used by Nintendo and third parties in select games, and the discovery of gameplay supporting up to 240 FPS has led to some theorizing that Nintendo's next console will be able to achieve framerates above 60FPS, which is the maximum the current Nintendo Switch is capable of producing. Notably, the dataminer wrote "this only applies to games that enable the variable frame rate mode".

The discovery of 240FPS support doesn't mean all future Nintendo games will be able to achieve 240FPS in gameplay; in fact, it's incredibly unlikely that Nintendo's next console will even have the horsepower to hit such a framerate unless at an expensive cost of resolution - likely far below 720p. However, what it does mean is there is room for the possibility of 40FPS, or even 120Hz modes that have already been seen in other consoles such as the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S.

Helldivers 2 publisher Sony Interactive Entertainment announced that all new Helldivers 2 players will need to connect their Steam account to a PlayStation Network account to access the game.

Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) took to the Helldivers 2 Steam blog with an update explaining that a technical issue at the game's launch forced SIE into making linking Steam and a PSN account optional, but that will now change. As of May 6, new Helldivers 2 players on Steam will be forced to link to a PSN account, and if they don't have one, they will be required to make one. Helldivers 2 won't be accessible if they don't.

According to SIE, linking a Steam and PSN account "plays a critical role in protecting our players and upholding the values of safety and security provided on PlayStation and PlayStation Studios games." Additionally, SIE wrote that linking the two accounts is the main way to "protect players from griefing and abuse" by banning players that are participating in that kind of behavior. Additionally, banned players will be able to appeal.

Helldivers II is estimated to be the best-selling release of 2024 so far.

The Verhoeven-inspired squad shooter Helldivers II is doing some heavy lifting for Sony. According to the latest updates from analyst firm Circana, it's the top-selling game in the United States so far in 2024. The game is so popular that either the PlayStation 5 or the Steam version are the best-sellers of the year in the region for their respective platforms.

Helldivers II was the best-selling game of March 2024, and also topped the charts for its debut month of February 2024 as well.

Hardware sales are down across all platforms, not just Xbox.

A few days ago, Microsoft announced that Xbox hardware sales were down -31% to $430 million, the lowest point of the Xbox Series generation. It's not just Xbox, though. All of the Big 3--Nintendo, PlayStation, and Xbox--saw console sales dips in the United States.

According to Circana analyst Mat Piscatella, U.S. spending on gaming hardware was down by 32% in March 2024, and sales were also down a sizable 24% across the entire Q1 period.

For those who are NVIDIA GeForce Now subscribers, but haven't got the streaming service up and running on their Steam Deck yet, because it seems like too much hassle perhaps - here's some good news.

NVIDIA has gone ahead and made the process of getting GeForce Now working on Valve's handheld a good deal easier.

As detailed in the latest GeForce Now Thursday update, NVIDIA has released an installation script that takes care of everything.

Bethesda Game Studios, the studio behind mainline entries in the Elder Scrolls and Fallout franchises, focuses primarily on one game at a time, switching between franchises. However, with the studio spending several years building its epic sci-fi RPG Starfield, it's been over a decade since we got The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and close to a decade since the launch of Fallout 4.

With the success of the Fallout TV show on Amazon Prime, Fallout 4 is currently one of the most played games on PC and consoles like the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X. However, With Bethesda Game Studios shifting its focus toward The Elder Scrolls 6 before tackling Fallout 5, it could be a decade before we see a new Fallout game - and years before The Elder Scrolls 6 is done and ready to ship.

Speaking with Kinda Funny Games, Bethesda Game Studios head and Skyrim and Starfield game director Todd Howard is fully aware of the long gap between entries in these iconic and popular franchises - and is looking to rectify it.

Tactical FPS Gray Zone Warfare has launched into Early Access on Steam. Even though it currently has a 'Mixed' user review rating, the general sentiment is that the game is on track to live up to its potential as an open-world shooter focused on realism. The good news for GeForce RTX 40 Series owners is that performance is boosted thanks to DLSS 3 Frame Generation support.

DLSS 3 makes it 60+ FPS playable in 4K using the 'Epic' quality preset on everything from the GeForce RTX 4070 to the RTX 4090 using DLSS 'Performance' mode with Frame Gen enabled. For those wanting triple-digit GeForce RTX 4070 performance, dropping the resolution to 1440p sees 81 FPS turn into 111 FPS.

This week, third-person space combat action RPG Everspace 2 is also getting DLSS 3 support. The game just got a massive Incursions Update for all players, introducing new content and migrating it from Unreal Engine 4 to Unreal Engine 5.3.

NVIDIA's RTX Remix enables modders to reimagine an older PC title with full ray tracing or path tracing, updated models, and AI-enhanced textures while leveraging modern rendering technologies and tools like DLSS, Frame Generation, and Reflex.

NVIDIA first showcased what RTX Remix could do with the impressive Portal RTX mod, and with the RTX Remix Open Beta kicking off earlier this year, we'll see many great projects pop up in the months and years ahead. This week, NVIDIA has updated RTX Remix with the addition of NVIDIA DLSS 3.5 with Ray Reconstruction. We first saw the groundbreaking tech in Cyberpunk 2077's Phantom Liberty expansion last year.

DLSS 3.5 with Ray Reconstruction dramatically improves the quality of ray tracing, adding new detail to ray-traced effects like reflections and shadows. Thanks to NVIDIA's GitHub community input, this week's update also improves RTX Remix mod performance and compatibility. We also got an update on the stunning Half-Life 2 RTX: An RTX Remix Project.

Diablo IV, Season 4: Loot Reborn will begin on May 14, 2024, and it will present a significant overhaul to many of the game's systems, including the endgame, itemization, crafting, leveling, and putting together a demon-slaying build. Throw in The Pit of Artificers, which sounds a lot like Diablo 3's Greater Rift system and revamped Helltide events, and Diablo IV is on track to become a whole new game in a few weeks.

With loot and items making up a big part of Diablo's action RPG fantasy, 'Loot Reborn' is bringing permanent and fundamental changes to how that will work. General items, including Legendaries, will now feature fewer, more meaningful affixes and stats and drop less frequently.

Customizing an item to make it more personal arrives with the new Tempering system that allows you to apply Weapons, Offensive, Defensive, Mobility, Utility, and Resource stats and abilities to items. In addition, the new Masterworking system is the endgame upgrade process that makes your gear more powerful.

A Nintendo Switch accessory manufacturer has revealed key details about Nintendo's highly anticipated Switch successor.

There has been no shortage of Nintendo Switch 2 leaks and the latest one comes from Switch accessory manufacturer Mobapad, who took to its website to share a list of what to expect Nintendo's next console will feature. According to the blogpost, the Switch 2 will come with Joy-Cons that have larger volume buttons, metal SL and SR shoulder buttons, an additional button alongside L and ZL on the left controller, and R and ZR on the right controller.

Additionally, the sliding rail for the Joy-Con has been replaced with "electromagnetic suction technology". Mobapad writes the Switch 2 will also be able to connect to existing Joy-Con controllers along with the Nintendo Switch Pro Controller. Another key feature is Mobapad writing the Nintendo Switch 2 cartridge slot will accept original Switch games, enabling full backwards compatibility. But, the Switch 2 cartridges won't fit in the original Switch slot.

Sony wants PS5 gamers to be able to easily jump into multiplayer experiences, and one hurdle is first adding your new friend to your friends list.

Sony's new feature seemingly solves that problem altogether as the company has announced via its blog a new feature that will be part of a coming PS5 update. The new feature streamlines gamers partying up with each other by generating a link that can be shared with anyone online. The recipient can then click this link, triggering them to jump into the party automatically. What is great about this feature is that players don't have to be friends for it to work, and it will work when they are away from their console.

An example of this feature working to its best ability would be a player meeting some friends on a social media app, and wanting to quickly jumping on a game together to play. One player sends the other a sharable link that has a QR code, and then a party is immediately formed, removing the need to exchange usernames first. It should be noted that this new feature will be coming to PS5 consoles later this year and will only work for PS5 games.