Gaming - Page 303

Sony's new PlayStation handheld gets an official announcement with pricing details.

Sony's first gaming handheld since the PlayStation Vita isn't what you'd expect. The so-called Project Q handheld has been officially revealed as the PlayStation Portal, and unlike the Vita, it does not play games on its own. The PlayStation Portal is described by Sony as a "remote player," and rightly so, because the handheld is meant to be an extension of the PS5.

The new PlayStation Portal handheld features basic functionality when compared to its peers and only streams PlayStation games, whereas other similarly-priced mobile handhelds offer access to Android apps and other services/games. At the same price of $199, consumers can opt for a Nintendo Switch handheld and play full dedicated titles. But that's not really who the PS Portal is for--Sony is aiming at the fan who is already entrenched in the ecosystem.

At Gamescom 2023, NVIDIA announced DLSS 3.5 for all GeForce RTX graphics cards coming this year, introducing AI-powered Ray Reconstruction to improve ray-tracing image quality. For support titles (and so far, NVIDIA has announced DLSS 3.5 is coming to Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty, Portal with RTX, and Alan Wake 2), it will be a game-changer for 'how good' games will look with RT enabled.

It replaces hand-tuned denoisers, which are used to fill in pixel detail when tracing rays, with an AI solution that improves image quality and reduces things like ghosting. And with DLSS 3.5 coming to Cyberpunk 2077, NVIDIA provided a few screenshots of DLSS 3.5 in action, and we get to see ray-traced reflections look cleaner, sharper, and generally more impressive.

And with that, we've got a trailer for Cyberpunk: Phantom Liberty showcasing DLSS 3.5 in action, and the results are impressive, to say the least - making it one of the best-looking PC games in 2023. As nice as the fancy RT effect can be, CD Project Red has presented a new trailer for Cyberpunk: Phantom Liberty, showcasing how much it overhauls the game.

At Gamescom 2023, Blizzard lifted the lid on the upcoming second season of Diablo IV called 'Season of Blood', which is set to begin on October 17. Per the naming, the next season will feature a story all about a new "fanged threat" emerging from the shadows - vampires.

The brief story description hints at a "dark master" controlling an army of vampires unleashed on Sanctuary, which will unfold as part of a new questline, including obtaining new Vampiric Powers "to wield against their originators." Blizzard has released a trailer for the new season that introduces Erys, a vampire hunter voiced by actress and producer Gemma Chan.

In addition to bloodsuckers, five new endgame bosses will be arriving, with players finally able to target specific Unique and Uber Unique items as a drop.

Gamescom Opening Night has kicked off, and what better way to start 2023's biggest gaming announcement week than Bethesda's Todd Howard taking to the stage to tease the highly anticipated Starfield.

Todd Howard, the director of Bethesda, took center stage at Gamescom 2023 opening night, teasing the highly anticipated Starfield by announcing that despite all Bethesda has shown of the title, there are still many surprises left for gamers to uncover. Howard also said that Bethesda has always dreamt of making a game that enables players to blast off from different planets, and explore the galaxy with complete freedom.

The Bethesda director went on to reveal some key details about the opening of Starfield, saying that players will experience a "NASA meets Indiana Jones"-style adventure that begins after players encounter a strange artifact. Despite revealing some details about the opening of Starfield, and the overall story, Howard says, "the story goes a lot of places" and that "the game has a lot of surprises that we haven't talked about. I don't want to spoil it here, but we're really really happy with how the story turned out, and where it goes."

Weeks ahead of its launch, hard copies of Bethesda's Starfield have been spotted in the wild, even ahead of the early access period.

Starfield is scheduled to become available on September 6, and those that purchase the Starfield Premium Edition/Constellation Edition will enter into the Early Access program, enabling gamers to jump into the space-based fun on September 1. However, before either of these release dates, X users have spotted hard copies of Starfield in the wild a full week before the Early Access launch. The image comes from @Starfieldboy, who took to X to announce that hard copies of Starfield have been spotted, adding an image of what appears to be an Xbox Series X version of Bethesda's title.

With what seems to be hard copies of Starfield already being passed out to gamers, it's only a matter of time before leaks start to surface on the internet. However, leakers for Starfield will have a much harder time accessing the game than they typically would, as each hard copy contains a code and not a hard disk - at least for the Premium and Constellation Editions. Bethesda customer support confirmed that Standard Editions will feature a code.

The UK's competition agency officially prohibits and blocks the Microsoft-Activision merger under the original deal terms.

Today the Competition and Markets Authority has made new announcements regarding their assessment of the Microsoft-Activision merger. The CMA has issued its Final Order, a legally-binding decision, that has prohibited the existing Microsoft-Activision merger due to a significant lessening of competition (SLC) in the cloud gaming space.

Alongside its Final Order, the CMA also published an explanation on recent events regarding the Competition Appeals Tribunal. A bit ago, the CMA and Microsoft jointly filed for a specific court motion that would effectively cancel an impending appeals trial. The CMA recently filed its Final Report in April that recommended blocking the merger, and an Interim Order in May.

Geoff Keighley can't catch a break as Gamescom gets stage crashed by pranksters.

During The Game Awards 2022, Matan Even aka the "Bill Clinton kid" snuck on stage alongside other FromSoftware developers and accepted the game of the year award for Elden Ring. At the end of the speech segment, Even dedicated the award to 42nd American president Bill Clinton.

Now fast-forwarding to the present, some less stealthy stage crashers paid homage to Bill Clinton. During the Gamescom Opening Night Live event in Cologne, Germany, two people went on stage to interrupt the stream to let everyone know that "Bill Clinton wants to play GTA 6."

When NVIDIA showcased the first look at its modding toolset called RTX Remix, which allows for the streamlined development and remastering of older PC games using modern rendering techniques like NVIDIA DLSS and real-time ray-tracing, our first reaction was probably similar to yours. Half-Life 2 RTX when?

Well, we don't have a definite answer to the when part but at Gamescom 2023, NVIDIA has announced that some of the top Half-Life 2 modders have joined forces to form a new studio called Orbifold Studios - and the team is working on Half-Life 2 RTX: An RTX Remix Project.

Using NVIDIA's groundbreaking AI and Omniverse-driven RTX Remix platform, this remaster will include full ray-tracing ala Portal with RTX, DLSS 3, RTX IO, and remastered and modernized assets.

Last week we got a closer look at the new Lenovo Legion Go handheld, which sees Lenovo entering the dedicated PC gaming handheld market popularized in recent months with the likes of Valve's Steam Deck and the ROG Ally from ASUS. Like the Ally, the Lenovo Legion Go will target Windows 11 as its operating system, with the physical design sharing as much in common with the Nintendo Switch as its direct competitors.

The detachable controller design will make docking the handheld and continuing to play while switching the display to a TV or monitor a breeze and help distinguish the Legion Go from the competition. This week we've got more images for the device and info from Windows Report, where we learn that the handheld will be powered by an AMD Ryzen Z1 processor similar to what's found inside the ROG Ally.

The odds are that the two handhelds will share similar specs regarding Compute Units and even clock speeds - though details of the SoC's TDP, storage, and memory capacity are still to be revealed.

Activision aims to break new ground with Modern Warfare 3's campaign design.

Call of Duty campaigns have traditionally delivered the kind of explosive bravado and chaos that you'd find a Summer action movie, combined with realism and dramatic storytelling. While the games have varied every which way in their respective campaigns, including size, scope, and time period, one thing ties Call of Duty campaigns together: linearity.

Modern Warfare 3 aims to change up this formula. Sledgehammer Games and Activision will introduce more sandbox-style gameplay with unpredictable and non-scripted dynamic moments. As part of the new open combat missions system, Call of Duty went from A-Z to an if/when game that conditionally reacts to player choices.

Microsoft has revealed official Xbox Series X console wraps for $45-50 a piece.

It's taken some time, but current-gen consoles now have options to customize their respective unique designs. While PlayStation 5 gamers get to snap-on dedicated console blades, Xbox gamers now have some official first-party customization choices, starting with Starfield's iconic NASA-inspired white design that hearkens back to the golden age of the Space Race.

Unlike the PS5's custom plates, the Series X wraps fold around the console and hug the outside chassis. It's not a traditional skin or a wrap per say--it's not like Dbrands custom thin wraps that adhere to the system's surface like a second skin and is more like a stylish bit of protective armor.

Nintendo shares interesting, if vague, comments about the scope of its new video games hardware.

It's no secret that Nintendo is working on its next gaming hardware iteration. The new system is expected to be a continuation of the best-selling Nintendo Switch, complete with a hybridized design and backward compatible titles. As per usual for Nintendo, nothing has been announced or confirmed so far, and outside of references, match-ups with newer NVIDIA Tegra hardware, and anonymous source info, we really don't know much about the so-called Switch 2 (aka Super Switch).

Whatever Nintendo is working on, we can expect a certain level of consistency when it comes to innovating gaming experiences. Nintendo is always the outlier and has always took risks experimenting with new tech, hitting it big with the DS, the Wii, and more recently the Nintendo Switch. That's something Nintendo wants to continue doing with new hardware.

Charles Martinet, the official voice of Mario, will no longer play the iconic plumber.

It's an end of an era: Nintendo has announced that Mario's voice actor Charles Martinet will no longer lend his legendary high-pitched phrases to new games. In a recent announcement, Nintendo says that Martinet is "stepping back from recording character voices of our games."

The announcement makes it clear that Martinet will still portray Mario, just not in new games. Martinet will now be the first-ever Mario ambassador, a role that was created at Nintendo in an effort to continue his legacy even if his voice won't be in any new Mario titles.

NetEase has established its 10th new studio as it continues to expand to the West.

Chinese live service titan NetEase has opened yet another studio in the United States. The new team is called T-Minus Zero Entertainment, and is led by Rich Vogel, a veteran game developer with decades in the industry.

Vogel's career includes multi-year roles at BioWare, Certain Affinity, ans Sony Online Entertainment, and he was a co-founder of BioWare's Austin-based studio, the team that led development of the popular Star Wars: The Old Republic MMORPG. Vogel is also responsible for 3 games that have made $2.5 billion in cumulative revenues, one of which is Star Wars Galaxies.

When Bethesda announced that it was partnering with AMD for the upcoming release of Starfield on PC and Xbox Series X|S, it wasn't the big get that Team Red might have expected - at least in terms of community awareness and response. The immediate fallout centered on the PC version featuring AMD's FSR 2 upscaling method, not NVIDIA DLSS or Intel XeSS.

With review copies of Starfield finally in the hands of the press and influencers, alongside the game being available to preload for Game Pass subscribers and those that pre-ordered, those that have poured through the files have yet to find a reference to DLSS or XeSS.

This means the game will only officially support AMD's FidelityFX Super Resolution 2.0 - considered the lesser of the big three performance-boosting upscaling technologies. The good news is that modder PureDark has already announced plans to mod both DLSS 2 and DLSS 3 Frame Generation into the game as soon as Early Access becomes available on September 1.

A former Blizzard developer has posted a screenshot of Starfiel's start screen, roasting Bethesda's developers for either being overworked or having a lack of care for what they have made.

The former Blizzard developer is Mark Kern, who took to his personal X account to share a screenshot of Starfield's start screen, writing that the start screen can reveal a lot about how rushed the game's development team was and how much pride they took in their work. Kern continued and wrote, "Starfield's start screen either shows hasty shipping deadlines by a passionate team overworked, or a team that didn't care."

Kern further explained that start screens are often created "at the very end of development", as the team behind the title is busy constructing the core game. Additionally, Kern wrote, "It's quite common for the start screen to completely change once the game is shipping or on patch 0. Teams that take pride want to put a good face forward and will often redo these just prior to game going live."

Reviewers already have their hands on Starfield, and according to messages from a critic, Bethesda's highly anticipated title is extremely polished, or at least for the first 15 hours of gameplay.

It was only this week that Bethesda announced that Starfield had gone gold, which is undoubtedly great news leading up to the release of the title on September 6. What is even better news than the highly anticipated title going gold is hearing some thoughts from reviewers that have already got their hands on review codes.

According to Tyler McVicker, an investigative journalist that is currently under embargo for the title, who confirmed he had downloaded the game with a post on X, Starfield could be the most bug-free game Bethesda has ever released. McVicker can be seen expressing some of his thoughts about Starfield in a Discord channel, writing, "It's mind-blowing how good the game looks for it being creation engine. Also, 15 hours in and not a single bug".

Techland is adding a premium microtransaction currency into Dying Light 2 following the studio's acquisition by Tencent.

Last month, Techland announced that it would become the latest subsidiary of Chinese games juggernaut Tencent. Now shortly after that acquisition, the developer is adding DL Points into Dying Light 2 Become Human. Despite the timing, Techland says the move is not connected to the Tencent partnership.

In a new blog post, Techland details how this new currency will work and why it was implemented. In short, Techland wants to make it easier to buy skins and content directly from the game itself instead of having to navigate out of the game. The studio says that DL Points can't be used to buy DLC, upgrades, and expansions, and that all Dying Light 2 owners will get some free points when they launch.

What would a next-gen Ghostbusters game look like on PlayStation 5? Sony answers the question with an incredible new demo.

At SIGGRAPH 2023, Sony Pictures Entertainment showcased an impressive new bit of Ghostbusters footage that captures the classic '80s spirit from the original with the kinds of graphics you'd expect to see in a PS5 game. Sony's demo demonstrated the power and capabilities of its real-time visual effect technology, and is a collaborative effort that was created in conjunction with PlayStation Studios, Epic Games, Pixomondo and Ghost Corps, the division specifically made to handle the Ghostbusters franchise.

The demo is just a project and is not indicative of a new Ghostbusters game--it's more of a spectacle that shows what Sony Pictures Entertainment can pull off when collaborating with other entertainment divisions.

Following massive expansion, Embracer Group is now one of the largest video games companies on the planet with over 16,000 employees. This is expected to change as the company tightens its belt and its spending accounts become more lean.

Years after record earnings from pandemic spending, most video games companies are starting to pare back on operating expenses, whether it be budgets for more acquisitions or game development. We've seen mass layoffs in the tech sector with major publishers shedding hundreds of workers. That trend is set to continue with the Embracer Group, an entertainment company that houses some of the biggest names in gaming from Saber and Gearbox to THQ Nordic and Crystal Dynamics/Eidos.

Ever since Embracer's big $2 billion deal fell through, the company has been looking at ways to cut back its spending and has created a company-wide plan for cost saving. This plan includes the closure of game studios and the cancellation of specific titles. Other measures like divestment are also possible; Embracer is willing to sell off parts of or even whole studios in an effort to reduce its spending accounts. This is an interesting development in Embracer's years-long quest in acquisition expansion and somewhat ironically follows Square Enix's potential plans to also divest portions of its studios.