Gaming - Page 303

Universal's next big video game adaptation will be based on The Legend of Zelda, sources have told renowned film critic and reporter Jeff Sneider.

Following the billion-dollar success of the Super Mario Bros. Movie, reports indicate that Nintendo is currently working out a mega-deal with Universal on a film adaptation of its popular Zelda franchise series. Illumination, the production studio that animated the Mario film, is likewise expected to bring Link's grand fantasy adventure to the big screen.

"I got this tip last week from a great source. I didn't want to just blurt it out, and I did call yesterday but I never heard back. So we're just going to put it out there. Again, not a big shocker, but from what I'm told it's getting close to official," Sneider said in a recent episode of The Hot Mic video series.

Microsoft and Xbox are celebrating 75 years of Porsche by launching a special edition version of the Xbox Series X console, but there's one big catch - you can't actually buy it.

The new console is instead only going to be available via a sweepstake, with people able to enter between now and midnight on October 1. After that, you'll just have to hope that one of these things pops up on eBay and even if it does, it's likely to cost a small fortune. As for the sweepstake, that's available to anyone who is 18 or over and happens to live in the United States, the UK, or Germany.

The sweapstake website says that Porsche has been fueled by a relentless pursuit of bringing dreams to life for its 75 years of existence, so Xbox has decided to celebrate by making 75 of these special consoles available. They're covered in a custom design that is inspired by Porsche racing colors, we're told, and they look pretty stunning. There is even a custom Xbox controller included in the package as well.

Like Proton for Linux, which makes Windows-based games playable on the OS within Steam, Apple is looking to make it just as easy for developers to make DirectX 12 games like Cyberpunk 2077 and Diablo IV playable on Mac computers with a new Game Porting Toolkit based on CodeWeaver's CrossOver source code.

The tool allows developers to quickly and easily fire up their games to see how they run on macOS, with Apple noting that it has been designed to make the whole Mac game port process as easy as possible. Powered by the source code from CrossOver, it can instantly translate Windows API calls so they can run on macOS - with Apple showcasing the technology by running the DirectX 12 survival horror game The Medium via the Game Porting Toolkit.

"The new Game Porting Toolkit provides an emulation environment to run your existing unmodified Windows game," Aiswariya Sreenivassan, an engineer at Apple, said during the Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC). "You can use it to quickly understand the graphics feature usage and performance potential of your game when running on a Mac."

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is coming early 2024, and it will ship on two discs, Square Enix today announced.

The Summer Game Fest showcase ended with an explosive reveal of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth gameplay that injected straight hype and nostalgia right into gamers' veins. The footage highlighted action-packed combat, impressive CGI sequences, and hints that Sephiroth is far more sinister and manipulative in Rebirth than we've ever seen him before.

Areas from the old-school 1997 classic were shown in splendid detail, including the Mythril Mines, the Chocobo Farm, Cosmo Canyon, and a look at Jenova.

NetherRealm's Ed Boon excitedly shares how Jean-Claude van Damme will be a part of Mortal Kombat 1, says that the team wanted him in the first game and had been trying to get the famed martial arts actor for many years.

Jean-Claude van Damme is finally coming to Mortal Kombat, and will be playing Johnny Cage in this year's Mortal Kombat 1 reboot. This is a monumental occasion for NetherRealm--the devs have been trying to get van Damme into the brutal beat-em-up since the first game launched in the early 1990s.

On stage at Geoff Keighley's Summer Games Fest, NetherRealm's Ed Boon shared his excitement on van Damme coming to Mortal Kombat 1, and said that the team basically wanted the first MK to be based around van Damme's bloody exploits on the big screen. The martial arts action-movie influences are quite obvious in Mortal Kombat, and remains at the core of the franchise a whole with practically every fictional macho star showing up in MK in some form, from Terminator and TMNT to Spawn and Robocop.

Epic Games made nearly $6 billion from digital in-game purchases made in Fortnite throughout 2021, handily beating all previous years of mTX sales.

The latest newsletter from games industry expert Joost van Dreunen contains some interesting and unexpected info on fashion. It turns out that Fortnite is the second best-earning seller of apparel when compared up against the likes of mega-brands Gucci, Ralph Lauren, Prada, and Hugo Boss.

According to data compiled by Dreunen, Epic Games' free-to-play sensation Fortnite managed to generate an incredible $5.8 billion from in-game digital cosmetics throughout 2021. This would make 2021 the best year for Fortnite earnings based on our recorded data, and would help push total Fortnite earnings past the $18.6 billion mark.

Sony and Insomniac Games today announced that Spider-Man 2 will launch on October 20, 2023 exclusively on PlayStation 5.

Insomniac Games' Bryan Intihar showed up at Summer Game Fest today to reveal Spider-Man 2's launch date on PS5, and dropped key details about the symbiote suit and Venom's involvement in the game. Intihar says that Insomnaic is "very confident" in the October launch date.

While on stage, Intihar says that Venom won't be Eddie Brock. Instead, Venom's identity will be separated from the comics and films--the team wanted to do something completely original.

The current Friday the 13th multiplayer game will officially be removed from all stores at the end of 2023, and will be taken permanently offline in 2024.

Today, Gun Media announced an unfortunate reality to all licensing deals made for big intellectual properties--they expire over time. That's the case with Friday the 13th: The Game. Gun's license rights will be withdrawn on December 31, 2023, and the game will be delisted from digital and physical stores worldwide. The live service game won't be pulled offline until a full year later on December 2024, however.

Much more content had been planned for Friday the 13th: The Game, but rights issues had stalled development of new DLC. In 2018, Illfonic and Gun Media announced that they could no longer provide new cosmetics and updates for the game.

Capcom continues its success streak as Resident Evil Village breaks a new sales milestone.

Just a bit ago we reported on the top 5 best-selling Capcom franchises and how each series grew over the past year. Resident Evil is by far and away Capcom's top franchise with over 142 million copies sold to date, and now it's been revealed that RE Village has surpassed 8 million sales since its release in May 2021.

"Resident Evil Village has just surpassed 8 million units sold! We owe this to all of our amazing fans. Thank you so much!" Capcom Tweeted late last night.

GameStop's board of directors has decided to fire CEO Matthew Furlong and establish Ryan Cohen as the executive chairman of the company.

Following years of operational losses, GameStop has shaken up its leadership team in an effort to further pivot towards transformation. GameStop's board of directors has fired former CEO Matthew Furlong without cause, as allowed in Furlong's employment contract, and has moved Ryan Cohen as the executive chairman. The announcement was made alongside GameStop's Q1 operational performance report which confirmed the company would not be holding a conference call for shareholders.

Following the announcement, GameStop ($GME) stock fell by over 19% from $26.11 to $21.09 in after-hours trading.

Microsoft or Activision may have revoked a confidentiality waiver from the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) which restricted the amount of information the UK agency could share with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in the United States.

In an effort to preserve transparency, the Competition and Markets Authority has published an email between agency CEO Sarah Cardell and Business and Trade Select Committee Chair Darren Jones in relation to a recent trade hearing. At the hearing, Cardell was asked to provide more information on how many times the CMA had shared information with the FTC in the United States. The hearing aimed to address concerns of potential influence between the two international merger control agencies, especially after allegations of collusion between the CMA and the FTC to block the Microsoft-Activision merger.

In the email, Cardell confirmed that the CMA had met with the FTC in 26 oral and written meetings, including video calls and emails. Cardell also says that the CMA had secured key confidentiality waivers from Microsoft, Activision, and third parties that allowed the agency to exchange certain information with the European Commission in the EU and the Federal Trade Commission in the United States. These waivers are common practice for worldwide mergers, and both the FTC and CMA have their own waiver templates.

After beating Diablo 4's campaign mission, you may find yourself wondering what adventures await you after bringing an end to Lilith's reign of terror. The good news is the game has only just begun!

The Diablo games have always been known to really start after you beat the campaign, and in this tetralogy version of the franchise, there is more to do than ever!

Once defeating Lilith and beating the game, return to Kyovashad and make your way north to the Cathedral of Light. Here you will find a large set of doors leading you to the Cathedral of Light dungeon. (Be sure to repair your gear and prepare for a challenge if you are under-leveled)

Diablo IV is here, and on PC and console, there are millions of players slaying demons throughout Sanctuary as they hunt for legendary gear in their quest to put a stop to Lilith. The only thing missing is taking Diablo IV with you on the go and playing on a portable device like Valve's Steam Deck. But that's an easy fix.

The Steam Deck has been a game changer for portable PC gaming, but as it runs a Linux-based OS out of the box, you are limited to what's available and compatible with the Steam platform.

For those looking to fire up some portable Diablo IV, which requires Blizzard's Battle.net app, there is good news - getting Diablo up and running on the Steam Deck is relatively easy. The key to getting Diablo IV running on Steam Deck is to run the Battle.net client natively on the handheld, and thankfully that can be achieved with a few simple steps.

Sarah Cardell, the chief executive officer of the UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) merger control agency, clarifies how many times it had contacted the Federal Trade Commission in the U.S. to discuss the Microsoft-Activision merger.

Both the FTC in the United States and the CMA in the United Kingdom believe the $68.7 billion Microsoft-Activision merger should be blocked. This has led to significant push-back from executives, past trade commissioners, UK ministers, law experts, and a number of other pundits across the intersecting worlds of industry mergers and interactive entertainment. The FTC's decision also caused former Republican commissioner Christine Wilson to retire from the FTC, leading Wilson to write a scathing op-ed piece that in term led to the U.S. House Oversight Committee to probe the FTC on allegations of "abuses of power."

Some went so far as to allege collusion between the the FTC and CMA, including Activision-Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick, who suggested the CMA had been "co-opted by FTC ideology" and was being "used as a tool by the FTC."

Two galactic forces of nerdery collide in the best way possible as Blizzard announces a collaboration with Spawn creator Todd McFarlane's toy company.

McFarlane Toys and Blizzard Entertainment have signed a deal to produce a series of high-quality action figures based on the Diablo and Warcraft franchises. The action figures will be specifically based on World of Warcraft and the cartoonish Warcraft Arclight Rumble games, but it's possible the Diablo collaboration will include characters from all four games. It's worth noting that NECA had previously made Diablo III figures, and these are typically more expensive than McFarlane figures.

"What I try and do within the walls of McFarlane is to find big brands that look super-cool. It's a fairly simple formula that can be very hard to find, but the talented creators over at Blizzard have been making and designing tons of fun, detailed and visually stunning worlds across their games for decades. And now, my company gets to go play in their sandbox. This should be a hoot!" Spawn creator Todd McFarlane said in the press release announcement.

It's official: Street Fighter 6 is a knockout hit that continues Capcom's powerful combo streak.

Capcom has recently confirmed sales figures for Street Fighter 6, and the numbers show that the legendary franchise has come back swinging. Capcom says that Street Fighter 6 has managed to sell 1 million copies in its first weekend on the market, which pushes franchise sales past 50 million.

"Even today, more than 35 years since Street Fighter first debuted, the series still enjoys immense popularity across the globe with cumulative sales for the series totaling over 50 million units worldwide," Capcom said in a press release.

BioShock creator Ken Levine gives gamers a history lesson on Ghost Story Games and discusses key developments that led to his new game Judas.

Sacred Symbol's latest interview with Ken Levine is a fantastic watch for all BioShock fans, but the podcast is more than that. Not only does it delve into the inner-workings of Irrational Games and the BioShock franchise, but the entire games industry as a whole.

In the interview, Ken Levine shows surprising candor and dispels a fair amount of mystery surrounding his departure from BioShock, the dissolution of Irrational Games, and how he formed his smaller-scale studio. What's most interesting, however, is how Take-Two Interactive and 2K Games actually convinced Levine to do it, and how much faith they had in his small-scale Ghost Story Games studio.

Diablo 4 has finally been released and has introduced a fantastic new feature that many players should want to get their hands-on: Mounts

Many of you may have already seen other players riding their steeds of choice into battle and wondered how you could get one of your own. Thankfully, obtaining a mount in Diablo 4 is quite easy, but it will take you a few hours of glorious demon-slaying first.

To unlock the ability to ride a mount, you will first need to progress through the main campaign enough until you reach the end of Act 3. Once you have progressed enough through the main game, you will be sent back to Kyovashad to speak with Donan at the Cathedral of Light.

Looking through the annals of Microsoft history and lore, during the early days of the Windows operating system, Bill Gates had to uninstall Minesweeper from his PC because he became addicted and realized that the games were eating up most of his time. It got so bad that one story states that engineers had to fabricate an unattainable Minesweeper high score just to get him to stop playing.

Bill Gates has a long and complicated history with video games; he's a fan; he dabbles but doesn't really get into them outside of the occasional sports game. He's played Halo but hasn't devoted countless hours to playing multiplayer on Xbox Live.

Then there's his initial skepticism about releasing a dedicated console, the Xbox, which according to reports, felt like an insult to his and Microsoft's legacy.

With Diablo 4 featuring five unique classes each with multiple different build paths, you may find yourself wondering what your best option is to take on the legions of hell.

There are five main class options for you to choose from at the beginning of your adventure: Necromancer, Druid, Barbarian, Rogue, and Sorcerer. Each of these options provides unique strengths, weaknesses, and playstyles.

While there is no correct answer to this question, each of these options provide a very different gameplay experience as far as things like mechanical difficulty and combat loops go. In this short guide, you will find a brief gameplay overview of what each class has to offer. Please keep in mind the best choice is always what seems the most fun to you as constant balance patches are always changing the meta and what is "powerful" is always subject to change.