Gaming News - Page 301

A new report suggests that SEGA's Super Game lineup could use NFTs, but SEGA didn't actually say this is the case.

SEGA has an ambitious plan to release multiple billion-dollar live games onto the market. SEGA actually created a specific new genre called "Super Games" for its new titles. The so-called Super Games are defined as titles with widespread multi-platform releases that deliver $1 billion revenues similar to Phantasy Star Online, and will be deployed using cloud and online networks complete with live game business models. The company is investing over $800 million into its new Super Games, and wants to have multiple titles on the market by 2030.

A recent report suggested that SEGA's NFT plans could crossover into its Super Games initiative. The report cites a recent interview with SEGA executives concerning Super Games, but company leadership doesn't actually say that the new live games will incorporate NFTs.

Ubisoft is currently developing a new Ghost Recon game but its Quartz NFTs may not be part of the core gameplay experience.

Yesterday saw the end of Ghost Recon Breakpoint's new updates. Now sources tell Kotaku that Ubisoft is working on the next Ghost Recon game, and it looks like the controversial Quartz NFTs may not be included. Sources have also said that the company's Strategic Innovations Lab--the experimental technology division that oversees its Quartz NFTs, crypto, and blockchain gaming--have stayed out of the conversation following significant push-back from gamers.

The Ghost Recon game is codenamed OVER and was part of the massive NVIDIA GeForce server leak. The document reveals that Ubisoft Paris is developing the project, which has reportedly been in development for over a year.

Nanite is one of Unreal Engine 5's most powerful new features that can help game developers make their titles look better without meticulous work.

Epic just released Unreal Engine 5 with a host of new improvements, optimizations, and features to power next-gen games. UE5 emphasizes streamlined workflows in an effort to reduce friction and give developers tools to make games faster and more detailed than ever before. One of the headlining new features of UE5 is Nanite, a new micro-polygon geometry feature that allows devs to directly import ultra high-definition movie-quality assets into scenes without kit-bashing or having to bake down assets into low-poly models.

Epic Games has signed a long-term partnership with LEGO to help shape the early formative years of the "new internet."

Epic's vision of the nebulous metaverse is starting to take shape beyond Fortnite. The gaming giant is taking literal building blocks from LEGO to help build the foundation for its new web 3.0 infrastructure as part of a significant new multi-year agreement between Epic and LEGO.

Epic and LEGO promise to deliver a safe, kid-friendly digital experience for children of all ages to enjoy. The experience itself is never really defined, but expect some sort of cross-platform online game that probably includes VR, AR, consoles and PC in one cohesive package.

Activision has told employees that Call of Duty has moved away from an annualized franchise towards a live service business model.

As part of today's announcement that all Activision QA testers will become full-time employees with benefits and $20/hour salaries, company leadership tells employees that Call of Duty is shifting towards an "always-on" structure.

The news was relayed to Bloomberg via internal correspondence with Chief Operating Officer Josh Taub telling workers that the world's most popular FPS is moving away from annual releases and towards a live model.

In a major win for its contractor teams, Activision-Blizzard today announced that it will make all of its QA testers full-time employees.

Following months of walk-outs, protests, and pressure, Activision-Blizzard plans to enfold 1,110 quality assurance (QA) testers into its ranks. Activision says that all of its QA teams will become full-time employees with benefits and wages starting at $20/hour.

The move comes after employees and developers banded together to form A Better ABK, a coalition aimed at fair wages and better treatment of workers. A Better ABK has organized various walk-outs at the company and a separate group, Game Workers Alliance, has formed in an effort to unionize QA testers at Raven Software. Activision previously announced that it will not formally recognize the Game Workers Alliance union and today's move is a direct response to the demands made by the pro-union group.

Epic Games detailed and unleashed its next-gen Unreal Engine 5 during its State of Unreal 2022 event earlier this week, with game developers also teasing their new UE5-powered projects.

Gears developer The Coalition teased a rather beautiful Unreal Engine 5 demo running on Microsoft's next-gen Xbox Series X console. During the State of Unreal 2022 event the video was teased, but then Coalition Technical Director Kate Rayner provided more details during an interview with Xbox Wire.

Rayner said that Nanite -- Unreal Engine 5's new virtualized geometry system -- allows for over 100x the detail than previously possible. Rayner continued saying that the team can do so many new things with light, saying that fully dynamic real-time global illumination lighting "has been a long sought-after feature, but up until now, it's not been possible on console. Lumen is a total game-changer".

PC gamers are flocking to Windows 11 faster than you'd think, with the new Steam Hardware Survey data for March 2022 showing that 16.84% of users on Steam are now using Microsoft's latest OS.

There are around 16.84% of Steam users running Windows 11, where in March 2022 the new operating system scooped up another 1.25% (up from 15.59% in February 2022) away from Windows 10. Windows 10 lost 1% of users in March 2022, dropping to 74.69% of PC users running Windows 10.

The results aren't too surprising, given the big push by Microsoft for Windows 11 but there's just nothing pulling gamers to it. Sure there's some cool new tricks under the hood, but there's no games where I'm sitting here like "oh man, I've got to install Windows 11 so I can play X". Nothing. Nada. Zip.

Bloober Team is currently developing four new projects, and the dev expects two of them to be ready in the next 3-4 years.

While scanning Bloober Team's recent annual report I noticed an interesting section that revealed how many games the team is working on. The studio currently has four projects in development across a variety of publishers and partners. The biggest is the mysterious game for Konami, which is almost assuredly a Silent Hill project.

The Polish independent developer just posted record earnings in 2021 thanks to the success of The Medium, which has become one of its most lucrative IPs. The company expects to push these earnings even higher throughout 2022 and wants to release two big new games by 2025.

Max Payne 1 & 2 are getting reborn for the modern age.

Originally released in the PS2 and Xbox eras, Remedy's stylish and gritty Max Payne originals are getting the remastered treatment. Remedy today announced they are teaming up with Rockstar Games to remaster Max Payne 1 & 2 in the powerful Northlight engine for next-gen consoles like the PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and on PC.

Grand Theft Auto juggernaut Rockstar Games will publish and finance the remasters, which will be released as a single-game bundle. Remedy could also make royalties from game sales once Rockstar has been paid back. The budget for the project will be typical of Remedy's games (Control was made for $33 million).