Gaming - Page 256

If you are a fan of the extremely popular Dune movies, you should keep Dune: Awakening on your radar, as the survival MMO looks very promising.

At the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, Dune: Awakening developer Funcom has provided some more details on its upcoming title. Chief Creative Officer at Funcom, Joel Bylos, touched on how PvP will work in Dune: Awakening, with the developer saying that Funcom believes PvP "works best" when players are competing over resources rather than fighting over bases, which is a common mechanic in other survival multiplayer games such as Rust, Ark, and DayZ.

For those that don't know, within the Dune universe, spice is the most valuable resource in the entire galaxy, and having Funcom adopt an approach that pits players against each other to acquire spice fits perfectly into the canon of the story. More specifically, players will be able to see "spice blows" as world events on the map. These spice events will be visible to all players, creating a sense of urgency to travel to the location, gather as much spice as possible and then transport their haul back to their home bases while fighting off other players.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has instructed his government to look into the requirements for organizing the production of both game consoles and portable gaming consoles in Russia.

Making them in Russia, producing them in Russia, and even creating a special operating system and cloud system for delivering games and programs to gamers. President Putin's deadline for executing the order is June 15, 2024, which is only a few months away.

Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin oversees the completion of the task, with Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov saying that Putin's order to consider the creation of a domestically-produced console will help develop Russia's native gaming industry. The Organization for Developing the Video Game Industry (RVI) provided a five-year roadmap to the Russian government in February, laying out an 83-point program for developing games in Russia.

Images of a yet-to-be-announced digital-only Xbox Series X have appeared online, showcasing an all-white version of the current console sans optical drive. The dimensions and size look the same in the surprisingly low-resolution leaked images presented by eXtas1s over on exputer.

Many have been expected to see the all-digital Xbox Series X sometime this year because it was included in that massive Microsoft document leak last year. The version of the console showcased there presented a cylindrical-shaped console with notes that the all-digital console would be released sometime in June or July of this year.

The leaked images, if real, show that Microsoft has moved on from creating a new look for the digital Xbox Series X console. Instead, it will be the same box in a white form factor to match the drive-free baseline Xbox Series S console. It's also reported to include an improved heatsink.

Described as a "Super Hero team-based PVP shooter," Marvel Rivals from NetEase and Marvel Games gives off serious Overwatch and Valorant vibes. The free-to-play PC game was announced earlier today, and the announcement trailer showcases a stacked lineup of Marvel characters battling it out, including Black Panther, Spider-Man, Magneto, Rocket Raccoon, Iron Man, and more.

According to the press release, the global team developing the game comprises talent who has worked on franchises like Call of Duty and Battlefield. The game will, of course, fall into the live service online competitive space currently populated by Overwatch, Valorant, and even Counter-Strike, with the game set to feature an "ever-evolving all-star squad of Super Heroes and Super Villains." So expect new maps, characters, Season Passes, and all that.

Marvel is calling it one of the most ambitious game projects it has worked on to date. It is set to feature characters from the worlds of the Avengers, Guardians of the Galaxy, X-Men, and more. An Alpha Test for Marvel Rivals begins in May, so a full or Early Access launch should happen this year.

Xbox head Phil Spencer has been vocal about opening up the traditional walled gardens associated with videogames, from exclusives to storefronts to platforms. This is reflected by recent Xbox actions, which have seen previously exclusive first-party releases like Sea of Thieves, Grounded, and Hi-Fi Rush make their way to platforms like PlayStation 5 and Nintendo Switch.

In the same Polygon interview where Phil Spencer hinted at more exclusives making their way to other platforms, he agreed to a radical idea for Xbox consoles: opening up the platform to additional storefronts like the Epic Games Store, Itch.io, and Steam. This would mean more than an open place to buy a game on a console, presenting a major shift for Xbox as a brand.

"[Consider] our history as the Windows company." Phil Spencer said. "Nobody would blink twice if I said, 'Hey when you're using a PC, you get to decide the type of experience you have [by picking where to buy games]. There's real value in that."

Diablo IV's long-awaited ray-tracing update is here, with ray-traced reflections and shadows adding more detail to the game on PC and console. On the PC side, DLSS 3 with Frame Generation and Reflex can improve performance by up to 3X - with the GeForce RTX 4090 can hit an average of 144.4 FPS at 4K with max settings, according to NVIDIA.

The recently released GeForce RTX 4070 Ti SUPER and RTX 4080 SUPER can also push performance past 100 FPS at 4K. Jumping down to 1440p, the GeForce RTX 4070 and RTX 4070 SUPER hit triple-digit performance, followed by the GeForce RTX 4060 Ti, which averages 92.5 FPS.

If you turn off DLSS 3 and Frame Generation, performance does take a notable hit, as the game's RT reflections reflect all pyrotechnics in the environment. RT shadows replace existing shadows to create a more realistic Sanctuary with "contact hardening and softening."

Rockstar's new Game Pass-like subscription service GTA+ gets a huge value boost.

In a recent Q3 earnings call, Take-Two management said it expects to make more money from Rockstar's premium GTA+ subscription. Now we're seeing how exactly that will happen: With must-play games.

Rockstar today announced that fan favorite Western sim Red Dead Redemption and its Undead Nightmare expansion are now available on its $5.99/month GTA+ subscription. RDR joins other hits like the recent GTA trilogy collection on consoles. This service is kind of like Xbox Game Pass for Rockstar titles; pay a fee to access a handful of Rockstar games and get GTA Online benefits along the way.

Why is Xbox making radical changes? It's all part of a big strategy that hopes to capture a new generation of gamers.

The games industry is changing, and Xbox is changing with it. Higher production costs have led to $70 games and microtransactions being included in practically every new release. The industry grew under COVID, but contracted due to economic pressures from inflation and reduced disposable income.

According to Xbox CEO Phil Spencer, the console market isn't growing, and global gaming revenues have been down for the past 2 years in a row. So that leaves Spencer and his team with an important question to answer: How does Xbox create growth if its core market isn't growing? Diversification is one option, and that's the current route Microsoft is trying to take.

More first-party Xbox games could break exclusivity and release on PlayStation and Nintendo Switch platforms, a new interview with Xbox CEO Phil Spencer indicates.

A bit ago, Microsoft made the controversial decision to officially break first-party exclusivity and sell Xbox games on PlayStation and Nintendo platforms. Four first-party Xbox Game Studios titles crossed over to PlayStation and Nintendo Switch, including Sea of Thieves, Grounded, Hi-Fi Rush and Pentiment. Now it sounds like more games are coming.

In a recent interview with Polygon, Xbox gaming CEO Phil Spencer asserted that Microsoft's new business plan has a few goals. Xbox wants to reduce friction and break the barriers in between the walled garden ecosystems that separate the Big 3's platforms. There's some ambiguity to Spencer's words because of the author's paraphrasing, but overall the interview shows how Spencer is thinking about the current gaming landscape and the future of Xbox.

Fortnite-maker Epic Games plans to bring its digital storefront to mobile, and this move should help improve the odds of the store becoming profitable.

Europe's new Digital Markets Act is helping shake up the video games industry. Apple made $14.8 billion from mobile games in 2022, despite not having released its own games. That money was generated from the 30% fee that Apple takes from mobile developers, which would put App Store mobile game revenues at nearly $50 billion. The EU's new DMA law requires Apple to let developers sell their games and goods directly to iOS users via separate stores, thereby avoiding the 30% revenue sharing "tax."

With the runway cleared, Epic Games is making big moves and intends to launch the Epic Games Store on both Android and iOS sometime in 2024. Epic has secured the support of key third-party partners that could include some of the biggest players in the business. In any case, mobile offers another endpoint for Epic to sell their digital wares--not just another endpoint, but the largest games platform on the market--and should help boost overall revenues and sales on EGS.

Dragon's Dogma 2 players struggling with frame rates - seemingly pretty much everyone - can pep up their FPS courtesy of a freshly launched unofficial mod that implements DLSS frame generation for those with NVIDIA's Lovelace graphics cards.

This is from well-known modder PureDark, who has previously brought DLSS 3 to the likes of Starfield, Elden Ring, and another high-profile PC games.

While Dragon's Dogma 2 has witnessed some considerable critical acclaim as a game, the performance issues have led to a seriously mixed bag of reviews on Steam. Frame rates can plummet to unplayable levels in towns, even bringing the mightiest GPUs to their knees and that includes NVIDIA's RTX 4090.

Epic Games has announced its plans to bring the Epic Games Store to mobile devices this year with the help of unnamed publishers and partners.

The European Union's new Digital Market Act has cracked open Apple's billion-dollar walled garden, forcing Apple to allow companies like Epic Games to bring their own stores into the iOS environment. Thanks to EU's DMA, Epic can sell its own games and Fortnite V-Bucks on iOS and Google through its own storefront and keep 100% of earnings. To gain traction on mobile, Epic has sought and acquired the help of some partners.

"We're excited to be leading the charge and bringing Fortnite back to mobile, along with a selection of third-party partners that have expressed interest in joining us when we launch," said Epic's Steve Allison said at GDC 2024.

Bethesda has taken to its social media channels to celebrate the 30th anniversary of The Elder Scrolls: Arena, the very first Elder Scrolls game.

The Elder Scrolls: Arena was released in 1994, and now 30 years later the franchise is one of the biggest open-world RPG series' of all time, with The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim being one of the most sold games of all time at 60+ million copies.

In celebration of how far the series has come, Bethesda took to its X account with a message outlining the impact of each game, with Bethesda writing that Arena "started it all, with the entirety of Tamriel generated for you to explore freely", Daggerfall introduced "political intrigue" and "a detailed character system," Morrowind introduced the franchise to consoles and modding, Oblivion brought players to the "heart of the empire," and Skyrim enabled epic battles with dragons.

Microsoft's new DirectSR (Direct Super Resolution) tech for DirectX was created to make it easier for developers to integrate and add support for popular upscaling technologies like NVIDIA's DLSS, AMD's FSR, and Intel's XeSS. Supporting both Windows and Xbox, it doesn't replace existing methods and plugins for adding something like DLSS into a game - instead; it's all about making the game data that all upscaling tech uses available in a single catch-all location.

Once DirectSR is added to a game, it becomes simple to add DLSS or FSR support, with Microsft describing the process as "pick which one you want." Integrating it into DirectX means it becomes part of the pipeline, with the added ability for developers to update games with newer versions of upscale tech via a simple file swap.

Interestingly, as AMD's FSR works with all graphics cards and was created as a general-purpose program for upscaling, Microsoft has integrated the FSR 2.2 code path as the base algorithm for DirectSR. So, the new DirectX update will make it trivial for developers to add FSR support to a game, including the recently announced FSR 3.1 update.

Although Unreal Engine 5 powers several high-profile games currently in development, several studios and publishers still use their own proprietary technology. This includes EA's Frostbite engine, which powers everything from Battlefield to the upcoming Dragon Age Dreadwolf, and Capcom's RE engine, developed for Resident Evil but most recently seen in the popular open-world action RPG Dragon's Dogma.

According to industry insider Dusk Golem on X, Capcom's engineers had to add open-world functionality to the engine to support the game's scope. This is a significant upgrade compared to the version found in the recent Resident Evil remakes.

Interestingly, Capcom will use this new and improved RE engine in two upcoming releases: Monster Hunter Wild and Resident Evil 9. Resident Evil going open-world for its next mainline entry would be a significant departure for the series. Dusk Golem quickly adds that the team aims to ensure Resident Evil 9 "retains the series DNA."

The first patient to have a Neuralink brain chip implanted into their head has been shown playing Mario Kart, which the patient describes as a "life-changing" experience.

The courageous first patient to undergo treatment by Neuralink is a 29-year-old man named Nolan Arbaugh, who explained via a video posted to the Neuralink X account that he was unfortunately paralyzed from the neck down after a tragic diving accident eight years ago. Now, Neuralink has posted a new hour-long video to its social channels, providing an update on Arbaugh's health following the implant and demonstrating the capabilities of the brain-computer interface (BCI).

During the company meeting, which featured Arbaugh as a guest, Neuralink showcased a quick gameplay video of Arbaugh playing Nintendo's Mario Kart. The video shows some split screen gameplay against another player, and what is impressive is that its hard to distinguish which player is Arbaugh, demonstrating the capabilities of Neuralink's BCI. Notably, Arbaugh was playing Bowser, and after watching the video its quickly seen the level of dexterity Arbaugh can have using the BCI.

Reports indicate that Grand Theft Auto VI could be delayed into 2026, and if that happens, Take-Two will have a sizable reduction in its revenue forecasts. But GTA V could help save the day (again).

How long can GTA V sustain the Grand Theft Auto franchise? If reports are accurate, the 11-year-old game could do some more heavy lifting. Sources have told Kotaku that GTA 6 might be pushed back as far as 2026 to give Rockstar Games more time to polish the game, which is believed to be one of the most important new releases for the modern games industry. The events of 2023 and 2024 (mass layoffs, budget cuts, lower-than-expected profit margins) have led to a mass culling of the industry and GTA 6 is seen as a savior of sorts that could uplift the market.

There's just one potential issue: Rockstar Games are perfectionists that require a lot of time to make their games. Red Dead Redemption 2 was delayed 3 times, and Rockstar has even reportedly rebooted GTA 6 in 2019. It's possible GTA 6 could miss its intended 2025 launch, a timeframe that could coincide with the rumored PlayStation 5 Pro console that's believed to be coming sometime in September - December 2024. If GTA 6 is delayed, and Sony does indeed release a PS5 Pro system, then Rockstar might have an opportunity to still boost its revenue while it works on GTA 6.

When it's finally released, Grand Theft Auto 6 will be one of the biggest games of all time, but according to the latest rumors, Rockstar is falling behind schedule and could delay it out of 2025 and into 2026.

Rockstar Games first revealed Grand Theft Auto 6 back in December 2023, but now Kotaku "has also learned that it's becoming more and more likely that the sequel might not land until late 2025". The site continues, saying that it's even possible GTA 6 could "even slip into 2026 as production reportedly falls behind". Sigh.

The developer pushed in a mandate for its staffers to return to the office instead of working from home, with Kotaku sources who wanted to remain anonymous to "avoid possible retaliation" said that the development of GTA 6 has started "falling behind". Kotaku says that their sources said that leadership at Rockstar is nervous, worrying that the game might miss its 2025 release and slip into 2026.

Overwatch 2 is poised to break a huge KPI milestone as soon as April, Blizzard says.

Overwatch 2 is an interesting case of a publisher actively experimenting with a new strategy, failing with said strategy, and actively pivoting while the game continues its live service delivery. Blizzard's new free-to-play endeavor has missed the mark with profitability, leading to cut budgets for the dev team, but that doesn't mean it's not popular.

According to OW2's devs, the franchise is set to achieve 100 million lifetime players by April. It's important to clarify that this milestone refers to the total sum of players of both Overwatch games and does not refer to just Overwatch 2.

Square Enix may have just teased the hotly anticipated FF9 Remake on stage at PAX East 2024.

Final Fantasy IX is expected to be the next game to get the full-on remake treatment from Square Enix, but official details have been slim. The existence of the FF9 Remake was accidentally leaked as part of NVIDIA's gigantic GeForce Now server hiccup from 2021. Things have certainly changed since then--the games industry has shrunken by over 16,000 workers--but it seems possible Square Enix kept FF9R's flame alive.

At PAX, Final Fantasy XIV director Yoshi-P outlined the MMORPG's new Dawntrail expansion, announcing two interesting in-game items that can be had with collector's edition pre-orders. Final Fantasy IX's main characters Zidane and Garnet will soon be included in the MMO as wind-up minions. Gamers quickly speculated that a FF9 Remake announcement could be imminent.