Gaming - Page 300

Starfield, like all Bethesda games, will punish you for carrying too much stuff. Here's a good way to get around this limitation.

Starfield is all about surpassing limitations and breaking barriers. Most of the early game is inhibited by a fair amount of restriction and players are pushed towards finding solutions in the form of gear and skill upgrades. Here's a quick way to use gear to turn around the pesky issue of being overburdened.

Now to get something out of the way first: Starfield's weight management system is actually pretty great...provided you know how to manipulate it. Unlike other games, Starfield doesn't make you move immensely slowly (or stop you outright) if you're carrying too much weight. Instead, the game will just drain your 02 really fast every time you move. Run out of 02 and incur too much C02 and you die.

Runescape developer Jagex could be sold to the highest bidder--which gaming firm will buy the popular MMORPG?

Reports indicate that Jagex could be up for sale for the sixth time. Sources have told Reuters that Jagex parent company Carlyle could be eyeing a sale of the Runescape developer throughout 2023. The developer is expected to have a current valuation of $1.25 billion, which is more than double than what Carlyle paid for Jagex in 2021 (the investment group is believed to have purchased the game dev for $530 million).

Nothing is certain about the potential sale, and Carlyle may hold an auction-style bidding war for Jagex throughout the end of 2023. Runescape remains one of the most popular video games on the market for browsers and PC, and will soon be released on consoles as a separate game. Having released in 2007, old-school Runescape is one of the longest-running MMORPGs available and is still quite popular among fans.

Developers behind the highly popular title Roblox have hosted a developer's conference where they announced that the title is making its way over to Sony consoles.

Yes, that's right, Roblox is finally coming over to PlayStation. According to a new blog post on the Roblox website, Roblox will be heading over to both the PS4 and PS5, enabling free access to the game for millions of users. According to the developers, PlayStation gamers will have full access to all of Roblox's experiences, which suggests that users will be able to sign in on their Roblox account and immediately jump into all of their favorite in-game experiences.

The launch of Roblox on PlayStation will add the title to its already long list of supported platforms: PC, Mac, iOS, Android, Meta Quest (late September 2023), and Xbox. But what about the Nintendo Switch? The Verge asked Roblox developers about a Switch version of the title, and the response was, "We want Roblox to be on all devices, anywhere around the world. At this time, we currently have no imminent plans to have Roblox available on the Nintendo Switch."

Microsoft legal counsel clarifies why the company ran simulations to see what would happen if Call of Duty and Activision games were not made available on PlayStation.

The FTC v Microsoft federal case revealed lots of interesting information about Xbox and the games industry as a whole. The testimony delivered in the five-day evidentiary hearing offered a rare look at the internal machinations of Microsoft's billion-dollar video games business and how the company's board of directors work with executive management to create and evaluate acquisition deals. Gamers and investors learned about Project Neutrino, Project Denali, and Xbox's missteps with cloud gaming, but this particular case was laser-focused on one possibility: Would Microsoft withhold Call of Duty from PlayStation?

While Microsoft has repeatedly asserted that it has no intent to withhold Call of Duty from PlayStation (doing so would, among other things, be ruinous for short- to medium-term revenues and incur significant reputational damage), the Federal Trade Commission had uncovered what looked to be a compelling argument against Microsoft's assertions.

First-party Xbox games have engaged half a billion players, Bloomberg Technology reports.

Microsoft might be third place in the Big 3 but it's games are still quite popular. In fact, key Xbox games have captured over 16% of the total 3.09 billion gamers worldwide.

That's according to a recent Bloomberg Technology interview with Todd Howard and Xbox gaming CEO Phil Spencer that discusses the recent Starfield launch. During the interview, a slide popped up that revealed an interesting metric that I don't remember seeing anywhere else: half a billion people have played Xbox games.

One of the most impressive features in Bethesda's sprawling space epic Starfield is the in-game ship editor that lets you customize and upgrade your existing ship via a complex and modular interface and create brand-new creations from scratch. It's a creative tool tailor-made for fans to go wild and recreate some of pop culture's most iconic spaceships.

And when it comes to galactic-based pop culture, it doesn't get much bigger than Star Wars, and so far, we've some impressive recreations of Han Solo's iconic Millenium Falcon (I'm sure you've heard of it) and the Rebel fighter better known as the X-Wing.

Impressive creations, though the best Star Wars ship build we've seen so far has to be the Consular Space Cruiser from Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace. It's the cool-looking ship from the film's introduction, and this Starfield recreation by DaMightyMilkMan over on Reddit looks incredible. Also incredible? The Planet Express ship from Futurama.

Xbox marketing proudly touts Starfield's millions-strong engagement that could help spark continued subscription growth.

Starfield is a big success for both Bethesda and Xbox. As of this morning, Starfield had over 6 million players worldwide on all platforms (MS Store, Steam, an Xbox Series X/S). This is an impressive amount of players to say the least and makes for eye-catching promos, but knowing Microsoft's penchant for blurring the lines between its data points, we have to consider a few things.

There's a lot that we don't know about this 6 million figure, including how much actual revenue that this figure could represent. This is the sum of all platforms across all delivery methods--subscription and purchase--so it's a completely mixed bag.

Nintendo's new upcoming gaming hardware was shown off to developers at Gamescom with , reports indicate.

The next Switch system looks to deliver some hefty upgrades over its low-powered Tegra X1-powered forebear, including ray tracing and DLSS support. Sources have told both Eurogamer and VideoGameChronicle that Nintendo held private backstage meetings to showcase its next-gen system to developers, which is a common practice for key industry events.

Nintendo reportedly demoed two things during the show: a high-end Matrix Awakens tech demo that was created to show off Unreal Engine 5's impressive capabilities and flex the power of the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X, and an upgraded version of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.

Starfield is a big success in terms of active players, but most people aren't engaging with the game on Steam.

In a not-so-surprising development, the majority of Starfield's players aren't playing the game on Steam. Instead, users are soaring into Bethesda's celestial simulator on Xbox and the Windows store version of the game. Yesterday, Xbox gaming CEO Phil Spencer confirmed that Starfield achieved 1 million concurrent players on all platforms.

According to SteamDB, Starfield's player count on Steam hit a peak of 269,177 players, which leaves some 730,000 users playing on both Xbox and Windows.

AMD has launched two new Radeon graphics cards this week, the Radeon RX 7700 XT and the Radeon RX 7800 XT - and this new combo, the RDNA 3 lineup of GPUs, is now complete. If you're interested in seeing how these new graphics cards perform, check out our massive in-depth reviews of the AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT and the Sapphire PULSE AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT.

Long story short, even though they might not offer a gen-on-gen upgrade in terms of raw performance (especially in the case of the Radeon RX 7800 XT compared to the Radeon RX 6800 XT), they're priced extremely competitively - so much so that they offer a compelling alternative to NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 4060 Ti and GeForce RTX 4070.

And to help sweeten the deal, both cards come with a free copy of the Premium edition of Bethesda's Starfield (also out this week), the long-awaited brand-new RPG from the creators of Skyrim and Fallout. It's an incredible game, so here's how it runs on these new AMD Radeon GPUs.

Nintendo is moving on from Tears of the Kingdom to focus on something new.

The latest Zelda games--Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom--are some of the most lauded video games ever made, but Nintendo might be leaving this modern era of Hyrule behind.

In an interview with Famitsu, Zelda franchise producer Eiji Aonuma says that he's ready to move on from Tears of the Kingdom. This means there's no DLC or expansions on the horizon for the breakthrough game, unlike Breath of the Wild, which had 2 expansions. Fans had been hoping for a new Tears of the Kingdom DLC that would reduce some of the major friction points with crafting.

In months following the revealing testimony in the FTC v Microsoft federal case, Bethesda's Todd Howard also discusses the benefits of platform exclusivity.

Starfield's exclusivity is controversial to gamers but it poses some unique advantages for Bethesda. The game was originally planned to release on the PlayStation 5 back when ZeniMax was an independent publisher, but after Microsoft bought the company for $7.5 billion in 2021, Starfield was made a firm Xbox console exclusive that would skip PlayStation.

This poses a distinct push-pull for Bethesda. On one side, exclusivity means less game sales, which is a big drawback considering the PlayStation 5 is selling almost double that of the Xbox Series X/S duo. On the other side, Bethesda's development lens is now focused on two platforms instead of three--both of which are connected via the same operating system and devkit environment.

The stealth video game where you play as a Stray cat is being converted into a movie, according to a report from Entertainment Weekly.

An unexpectedly well-received video game called Stray, developed by BlueTwelve Studio and published by Annapurna Interactive, was an immediate hit classic of 2022 when it was released as players could enjoy roaming a city as a stray cat that's observing the seemingly quirky existence of humans, without the humans.

The attraction of the video game is that players see the world through the point of view of being a cat that teams up with a robot called B-12. The game has inherent comedic qualities, which will be taken into account when the movie is developed.

If you have picked up Starfield and you are going through your first play-through, you may want to consider getting a romantic partner, and it's not just for the visual aspects.

Most gamers on their first play-through of a new open-world RPG title won't pursue romantic partners, or at least it's not very high on the to-do list. However, a recent article from PCGamer has pointed out, first discovered by VG247, that Starfield has a strong incentive to do very much that, as having sex with your in-game romantic partner grants your character a 15% XP boost for 24 real minutes. This status boost is, funnily enough, called "Emotional Security" and, as stated previously, will boost all experience gained for nearly half an hour of Earth time.

Notably, this status effect is similar to the "Well Rested" 10% XP bonus that's granted to your character when you sleep in a bed. However, 15% is obviously higher than 10%. A caveat to this buff is that players won't be able to have one-night stands with NPCs, and there are only a few select NPCs that are interested in sleeping with players. But, according to reports, its quite easy to get an NPC to fall in love with you.

Respawn Entertainment has released Jedi Survivor's biggest patch yet that takes aim at optimization on all platforms.

Today Respawn released Patch 7 for Jedi Survivor, addressing key concerns about the game's overall performance on consoles and PC. The PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S version was received well, but the PC port was widely criticized for its numerable issues. This latest patch is a direct response to those problems.

Patch 7 introduces a bunch of tweaks and overhauls to performance including better frame rates on consoles and the addition of NVIDIA's DLSS tech on PC. Jedi Survivor now runs at a 'solid' 60FPS on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S when in performance mode--a feat that was achieved by removing ray tracing in the mode as well as refining how the game stresses GPU and CPU workloads.

ZeniMax Online has rolled out a new update that reduces stress for new Elder Scrolls Online players.

Retention is important for any live game and it comes in phases. Grabbing a player's attention is important and convincing them to download your game is a high priority. What comes after that is also equally important--is the player driven away from your game due to complexity or frustration? As Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick notes, everything is competing for consumer attention, so there's always lots of other things to play and do. It's up to a developer to capture--and keep--a player's attention.

This has been a friction point for MMORPGs in particular. Organically onboarding players is tough. To really get into an MMORPG takes time, effort, research, and the willingness to fail and learn. Starting a live game is daunting in of itself, but being overrun with tasks large and small acts as a major deterrent for new users.

Starfield doesn't run all that well on Valve's new Steam Deck handheld-PC hybrid, but a new mod could help improve performance.

Starfield is coming out today and modders have been busily releasing tweaks and upgrades since the game released in early access. Starfield even has its own script extender now, which will open the doors to immense game-altering creations.

One such mod, Steam Deck Essentials over on Nexus Mods, aims to address Starfield's sub-30FPS performance on the Steam Deck. Reports from across the web show that Bethesda's latest spacefaring RPG simply isn't a great experience on the Steam Deck's custom SoC hardware (conversely, Starfield can run at 1080p 60FPS on the ROG Ally in Turbo Mode). This is because Starfield is an intensely CPU-bound game, hence why it may be limited to 30FPS on consoles (among other reasons including the significant VRAM reduction on the Series S).

Soon all Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S owners will be able to stream live gameplay sessions directly to Discord.

In a move that further blurs the lines between console and PC gaming, Discord game streaming functionality is coming to Xbox consoles. The feature will give a lot more interactivity to voice party chats on Xbox's Discord app, and friends will be able to gather together to check out boss fights, the latest epic drop, new strategies, learn tips and tricks from other members of the community, and even preview titles that are offered on Xbox Game Pass.

This is good news on the surface, but the feature comes with some limitations. Free Discord users will be locked to 720p 30FPS streams, which is typically fine for group/party chats depending on the circumstances (e.g. digital hang outs). Discord Nitro subscribers will instead be able to stream up to 1080p 60FPS, latency permitting.

Fable creator and notorious over-promiser Peter Molyneux is making a new game...but don't expect any real info on the project any time soon.

There's no one quite like Peter Molyneux in the games industry. His UK-based studio Lionhead (now defunct) gained mass popularity with the Fable series of games, but Molyneux's legacy is sadly tarnished by his penchant for over-hyping games, promising details and features that never showed up, and ultimately misrepresenting games that were nowhere near finished.

Since the explosive Rock Paper Shotgun interview in 2015 where Molyneux declared he 'doesn't have a reputation in the games industry any more,' the developer has been flying mostly under the radar. The last we heard is his studio, 22 Cans, was working on a strange crypto-based game called Legacy for Gala Games. Now Molyneux is back for another title...but he's not ready to divulge details just yet.

Microsoft's latest hire could improve Xbox's diminished presence in Japan.

Xbox is incredibly unpopular in Japan. The competition is simply too fierce. The overseas country is home to two of the industry's Big 3 with both Nintendo and Sony having established their billion-dollar games businesses for decades. Microsoft, on the other hand, is an outlier and has had a very hard time breaking into the Japanese market.

That could change thanks to the latest exec that Microsoft recently brought on board. According to Windows Central, Microsoft has recruited Mena Kato to serve as a kind of Japanese liaison to bridge the gap between the American company and Asian consumers. Kato looks to be instrumental in Microsoft's efforts towards the East as the Director of Japan Partnerships for the Xbox games division.