Gaming - Page 265

Nintendo's new console is now expected to launch in 2025 and not in 2024, sources have told multiple gaming publications.

The new DLSS-ready Switch 2 appears to have been delayed. Original reports indicated that Nintendo was planning to launch the new system sometime in the second half of 2024, possibly during the holiday 2024 shopping season.

Now sources have told both Video Games Chronicle and journalists at podcast O X do Controle that Nintendo's new hardware will now release sometime in Q1 2025.

Respawn's mysterious new Star Wars game is reportedly a Mandalorian FPS, sources tell Insider Gaming.

Following two successful Star Wars adventure games, Respawn is now working on three more projects in the sci-fi universe: Star Wars Jedi 3, a turn-based strategy game (they're publishing this one, not developing), and an unannounced first-person shooter. Now we may have more details on this third FPS.

According to Insider Gaming, Respawn's new shooter will be a Mandalorian game with fast-paced action mechanics. Reports indicate the Mandalorian FPS will deliver a mix of Titanfall and Apex traversal, with emphasis on dynamism and fluid motion. Gamers may be able to jet pack and slide around maps.

Nightingale is a highly anticipated survival adventure game launching this week on PC. Its blend of Victorian-era architecture and fantasy has pushed it to the top of gamers' most-wanted lists. And it looks stunning, with visuals set to take full advantage of modern PC hardware.

Ahead of the game's launch, developer Inflexion Games outlined that upscaling tools like NVIDIA DLSS or the Unreal Engine's own TSR are required alongside GPUs like the GeForce RTX 3070 or GeForce RTX 3090 to hit a playable frame rate.

The recommended GPUs for playing the game at 1080p with upscaling are the GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER or the Radeon RX 5700 XT. With that, the game was going to launch with support for NVIDIA DLSS 3, AMD FSR 3, Intel XeSS, and the in-engine TSR for upscaling and frame generation. However, days before the game's release, FSR 3 support has now been removed by Inflexion Games.

Bethesda has announced a new Fallout collection for fans, with the new Fallout S.P.E.C.I.A.L. Anthology including codes for seven Fallout games, including the most recent entries in the series and the old-school isometric games like the iconic Fallout 2. There's even the lesser-known Fallout Tactics, an obscure franchise offshoot focused on turn-based tactical combat.

The Fallout S.P.E.C.I.A.L. Anthology is launching on April 11, 2024, with the physical collector's item including a replica Mini-Nuke (with Audible bomb sound') and seven collector cards representing the game's S.P.E.C.I.A.L. character attributes and Fallout 76's in-game Perk Cards.

And with seven in total, each arrives with a Steam PC game code printed alongside artwork representing Strength, Perception, Endurance, Charisma, Intelligence, Agility, and Luck. The release coincides with the debut of Amazon Prime's Fallout TV series, which sees Bethesda Game Studios and Bethesda Softworks team up with Lisa Joy and Jonathan Nolan (among others) to tell an origins story set in the Fallout universe.

Cyberpunk 2077 is already one of the best-looking games on the market... but man, with these mods (and running at the glorious 8K resolution)... it has never looked better. Check it out:

A new video shared by modder NextGen Dreams on YouTube earlier this month shows off Cyberpunk 2077 with a bunch of mods installed: NovaLUT, the HD Reworked Project by HalfHogan, and a custom photorealism Reshade mod, all applied and running at 7680 x 4320.

The modded cars look absolutely insane; photorealism is the word here, making the world of Night City that Cyberpunk 2077 developed CD PROJEKT RED, shine brighter than it ever has before. Every single detail looks out-of-this-world, from the detail on the external parts of the car down to the tiny details on the interior... it all looks incredible.

Crazy Taxi is being revived by Sega, and it will be cruising back onto the market as a "triple-A" title, according to Sapporo Studio.

Sega opened Sapporo Studio, a developer that's the company's first outside of Tokyo, and according to a report, Sega wants to secure a stable development structure with the new studio, and one of the titles it will be working on is the revival of Crazy Taxi. This satellite office for Sega is responsible for the research and development of programming games while also having a "QA department in charge of quality control," said Takaya Segawa, the studio's president and Sega's senior executive officer.

The new studio is already responsible for multiple titles, such as Phantasy Star Online 2: New Genesis and Hatsune Miku: Colorful Stage! Segawa also said that Sapporo Studio is participating in the development of "Triple-A titles, including Crazy Taxi". Notably, Sega announced at The Game Awards last year that it would be reviving a batch of classic titles for modern platforms, which is a list that includes Jet Set Radio, Streets of Rage, Golden Axe, and Shinobi.

Microsoft has officially confirmed four Xbox first-party titles are coming to the PlayStation 5 and Nintendo Switch.

The decision to bring over exclusive Xbox titles to competing consoles is part of Microsoft's broader strategy to increase gaming growth beyond its own consoles. The news was confirmed by Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer during the latest episode of the official Xbox podcast.

Unfortunately, the Xbox officials didn't specifically mention the names of those four titles and only gave teasers as to what they could be. The Xbox officials said two are community-driven games, and the other two are smaller Xbox exclusives.

Sony's Chief Operating Officer (COO) and president of Sony Group Corporation said during the Q3 2023 earnings report that sales of the PlayStation 5 were slightly disappointing, and that sales targets of the current-gen console had to be revised.

While this may seem irrelevant to next-generation consoles, a part of the reason for sales of the current-gen consoles being slightly disappointing is the cost of the hardware that goes into them. Notably, Sony previously had a sales target of 25 million units for 2023 but had to revise that sales goal down to 21 million units.

Now, Genki Japan filtered this information from Sony into a refined post on X, "Sony COO Totoki said that it is harder to grow profits on the PS5 as the life cycle goes on in comparison to previous generations. With previous gens, as time went on, it became cheaper to produce them. But with PS5, the parts are becoming more expensive as the life cycle goes on."

New reports indicate when Nintendo is planning on releasing its next-generation console, which is slated to be the Nintendo Switch 2.

The highly anticipated successor to the immensely popular Nintendo Switch may not come to market until at least early 2025, according to outlets such as Bloomberg, VGC, and Eurogamer. Each of the aforementioned outlets has claimed via their own sources that Nintendo has sent out an internal briefing that has informed third-party companies of the console's delayed launch.

The reports state Nintendo's decision to delay the launch of its next-generation console was to provide the company enough time to gather a stronger launch line-up. Notably, the latest rumor surrounding when Nintendo will launch its next-generation console points to Q1 2025, which would align with the Nintendo Switch's release date, which was March 2017.

When we think about PC gaming platforms, the most recognizable and talked about is Steam. The last time we got word from Valve about monthly active users (MAU) was in 2021 when it reported that Steam had 132 million monthly active players.

Although it's been a couple of years since we've gotten an update from Valve relating to MAU numbers, Epic Games has just released its 'Epic Games Store 2023 Year in Review' which saw its monthly active users count hit 75 million in December 2023, a 10% increase from 2022.

The Epic Games Store is the home of Fortnite on PC, Rocket League, and other popular online titles like Valorant and League of Legends. It's also a Steam-like storefront with games from various publishers, with free games given away weekly. In fact, throughout 2023, users claimed 'nearly 586 million' free games.

The days of consoles getting substantially cheaper to produce the further into the lifecycle we get are over. As part of a new PlayStation financial presentation, PlayStation chairman Hiroki Totoki noted that compared to previous generations, it's increasingly more challenging to grow profits for the PlayStation 5 - one of the reasons being the price of components.

As summarized by insiders @Genki_JPN and @Kepler_L2 on X, costs relating to die shrinks and production of the complex chips and hardware found in consoles like the PlayStation 5 have remained flat - in that there's no way to create a more efficient and cost-effective console.

Usually, in the second half of a console's lifecycle, cheaper parts and more efficient nodes lead to more affordable consoles and increased hardware sales and profits. This is no longer the case and will most likely be the new norm in the lead-up to the PlayStation 6.

Tomb Raider developer Crystal Dynamics is currently working on a new entry in the long-running franchise, and the new look of Lara Croft combines the different eras of the character. These are the original games for the PlayStation and PC in the 1990s from Core Design and the recent reboot trilogy from Crystal Dynamics.

Lara's iconic blue tank top is back alongside dual pistols with their dual thigh holders. From the recent modern reboot era, Lara's jade necklace references her beginnings as an archeologist. The artwork depicts the 'unified design' of the new game, built with Unreal Engine 5 technology, and comes via the recently relaunched Tomb Raider website.

It's been a while since we got 2018's Shadow of the Tomb Raider, but that's changing - starting this month with the release of the Tomb Raider 1-3 Remastered for PC and consoles.

Released around this time last year, the Dead Space Remake from EA and Motive Studio presented a faithful built-from-the-ground-up remake of the iconic 2008 sci-fi horror game. With revamped visuals, audio, and various other improvements and updates, it was one of the best games from a stacked 2022 that also saw another iconic horror game get its remake dues with Capcom's Resident Evil 4.

Running on a high-end PC, the Dead Space Remake looks incredible, so it is no surprise that a ray tracing mod for the game also looks great. The video above shows that this uses Complete RT, a Reshade Ray Tracing Mod that adds ray-traced global illumination and ambient occlusion with volumetric fog and different color grading.

The change to color grading is immediately noticeable, giving the game a cooler blue-toned look, with the ray tracing being a more subtle change you notice during the gameplay sections. Look closely, and you'll see more detail across lighting and shadows, adding to the immersion.

It has been a wild couple of weeks in the world of Xbox, where the heads of the company convened to hold a special 'business update' to ease concerns and rumors that got to the point where some were reporting that Xbox was going third-party and would stop making hardware.

That's not the case, with Xbox reaffirming its hardware position by stating that its next-gen console will present the 'largest technical leap' in console history and that, for now, games like Starfield and the upcoming Indiana Jones title from Machine Games will remain exclusive to Xbox consoles, cloud, and PC. That said, four older and established games will be coming to PlayStation 5 and Nintendo Switch, with new releases still coming day and date to Xbox Game Pass.

As part of the presentation with Xbox heads Phil Spencer, Sarah Bond, and Matt Booty, we did get confirmation of the very first Blizzard game coming to Xbox Game Pass - and that's Diablo IV, which will launch on the subscription service on March 28, 2024.

RBO is a new game that's popped up on Steam and it's a sort of PvP version of Home Alone in a nutshell, from the maker of, and very much in the same vein as, Hello Neighbor.

Home Alone is a classic film (meaning it's terrible, like a good few classic films - though not all by any means, of course), but it looks like it'll translate into a rather smart multiplayer game.

The setup is, well, Home Alone, with one person, the 'protector' cast as the homeowner, and the others are 'intruders' who are trying to steal loot from the house.

No Man's Sky has a new update and the game will be free to play over the coming weekend, if you've never tried it, and wondered what all the fuss was about.

The expansive survival game set in space actually launched way back in 2016 - can you believe it was that long ago? - but has just got an expansion.

And with this Omega update, the publisher of No Man's Sky has made it so anyone can jump on and play, for free, from now until February 19. So you've got the entire weekend to get stuck in, see as much as you can, and work out whether this game is for you.

NVIDIA's GeForce Now streaming service just added the usual bunch of games, and this week's crop includes some high-profile titles.

First up, we have support for Skull and Bones, the new open world coop epic for budding pirates (nautical pirates, that is, not software thieves). Earlier this week, NVIDIA announced DLSS support for Skull and Bones, to boot (albeit DLSS 2 rather than DLSS 3 frame generation, but it's still going to provide a nice frame rate boost).

Another major addition to the GeForce Now library this week is Halo: Infinite, the shooter which has been around for a few years now. It still has a thriving multiplayer community, in case you were wondering.

Dune: Part Two is one of the most anticipated movie releases of the year, with the epic sci-fi sequel set to hit theatres and IMAX screens on March 1, 2024. Microsoft has partnered with Legendary Pictures and Warner Bros. Pictures to celebrate the release, and there are a couple of cool treats for fans on the horizon.

First, Microsoft Flight Simulator is getting a Dune-themed update, taking players beyond its incredible 1:1 recreation of Earth for the first time. Players can pilot a realistic recreation of the insect-like Royal Atreides Ornithopter on the iconic spice-filled planet of Arrakis. The Dune expansion includes three new tutorials covering take-off, landing, freefall flying, and six activities, including "a daring rescue mission where aviators must save their flight instructor before a massive sandstorm engulfs him."

Which is reminiscent of that tense rescue scene from Dune: Part One. In addition to the Microsoft Flight Simulator expansion, Microsoft is giving away a custom Xbox Series S with an elaborate Ornithopter Stand and the "world's first floating Xbox controller."

Microsoft gaming CEO Phil Spencer discusses some of the reasons why Xbox games are coming over to other platforms.

Gaming is at crossroads right now. Games have grown far beyond consoles, and now platform-holders like Microsoft and even Sony are eyeing expansion. Microsoft has expanded through content and services, keeping the bulk of its first-party games exclusive to Xbox. But with Xbox consoles hitting saturation levels, Microsoft now wants to expand to other platforms--even rivals like PlayStation and Nintendo.

Microsoft has announced plans to release previously-exclusive Xbox games to PlayStation and Nintendo Switch. On paper, this decision makes sense: The PlayStation 5 and Nintendo Switch have a combined shipment base of nearly 200 million units, compared to the estimated 27 million Xbox Series installed base.

Microsoft officially confirms it is going all-out on the next Xbox console, potentially refuting claims of a lower-powered system.

Reports indicate that Microsoft's next-generation console could leverage an ARM-based SoC to improve profitability/compatibility and use a combination of local power, AI, and the cloud for next-gen gaming. No one knows for sure what the next Xbox will be, but Microsoft wants us to know that it's trying to make something monstrous.

In today's business strategy meeting, Xbox gaming president Sarah Bond shared some enticing details about the future of Xbox hardware. There's also new Xbox hardware coming in 2024, which are likely to be the leaked digital-only Xbox Series X.