Gaming News - Page 34

The galactic war is being fought by hundreds of thousands of gamers from around the world, each trying to do their part to protect specific planets across the galaxy.

Helldivers 2 has quickly become one of the most popular games being enjoyed right now as hundreds of thousands of gamers dive down into planets, defeating seamlessly never-ending hoards of various enemies. Players are all on the same and are attempting to prevent the galaxy from being taken over by foreign invaders, and progress made by any team adds to the total foothold players have on that specific planet.

However, Helldivers 2 developers fight back players by taking back regions, sometimes viciously, and according to Arrowhead Studios CEO Johan Pilestedt, the developers behind the hit title, there is one man pulling all the strings, similar to a Dungeons & Dragons dungeon master. PCGamer interviewed Pilestedt who said one developer named Joel has been appointed to the role of "Game Master" and he is equipped with multiple tools that give him "a lot of control over the player experience".

Electronic Arts' next Battlefield game is expected to be released with a dedicated battle royale mode that will be free-to-play, according to a new report from Insider Gaming.

The recently released exclusive report outlines what we can expect from the next installment in Electronic Arts' Battlefield franchise. The next Battlefield game is being developed by Ripple Effect, who is being headed by Christian Grass, a former DICE LA member. Insider Gaming reports it has been informed the next mainline Battlefield game will be taking a "back to its roots approach" that will include classic 64-player matches, a return to its four-class system, and a complete overhaul of its in-game destruction systems.

Notably, the publication states it's learned the next Battlefield will be set in modern times, specifically between the dates of 2025 and 2030. As for the story, it will be focussed on modern technology used in war. Furthermore, Insider Gaming learned Ripple Effect is working on a "new experience" for the coming Battlefield game - a Battle Royale title that's going to be free-to-play and follow in the footsteps of Call of Duty: Warzone, which was released as free-to-play but included in next installment in the franchise.

Helldivers 2 has been a smashing success for developer Arrowhead so far, but in a new leaked video, we're being teased with something new: playable mechs. Check out the video of playable mechs in Helldivers 2 on Reddit here.

Arrowhead has the server issues for Helldivers 2 behind it now, racking up over 700,000+ concurrent players simultaneously. Now, it's working on new things for its uber-popular Democracy-spreading game. We knew mechs would probably be coming to Helldivers 2 as they were in the first game, and the "Report for Duty" trailer that dropped last month featured a mech, teased with "coming soon after launch."

But now, in a leaked video posted on Reddit by "fozzye18," we get to see the playable mech in Helldivers 2 in action; they said he joined a game by a player who was "showing us new things to enjoy." There's not just one mech in this video, but two, which are in the background for a matter of seconds.

Remedy Entertainment has just announced it acquired the full rights to the Control franchise from publisher 505 Games for $18 million.

This provides Remedy with the Control IP going forward, with the $18 million representing the amount of money 505 Games paid to the development of Control 2, which is codenamed Condor. 505 Games will continue to be the publisher of the original Control game through to December 31, 2024.

Remedy CEO Tera Virtala said: "Ever since we signed up with 505 Games in 2017 to develop and publish Control, we have enjoyed a good partnership in building Control into a successful game that has sold over 4 million units and generated shareable net revenue of approximately EUR 100 million to Remedy and 505 Games. As part of Remedy's long-term strategy to have more ownership over our business and the IPs we have created, we have gotten back all rights for Control and the in-development Condor and Control 2. Having complete ownership over the Control franchise gives us the freedom to decide the best path forward".

A 22-year-old who discovered a sealed copy of The Legend of Zelda from 1987 nearly sold it on eBay for just $17,000 when it may be worth close to $1 million.

The sealed copy of 1987's The Legend of Zelda was discovered by the seller Kiro, who decided to use a pseudonym for privacy reasons, spoke to CNBC and said the sealed game of one of the most iconic video game franchises of all time was part of his family ever since it was purchased for just $29.87 in 1987. Kiro told the publication that they looked on eBay for copies of the vintage Zelda game and thought he was going to get anywhere between $17,000 and $20,000 "if I'm lucky".

Kiro proceeded to list the video game and immediately got responses from buyers attempting to finalize their payments. The 22-year-old said that one buyer even offered $30,000 cash to drive to his location immediately and pick it up. Upon realizing what they had was likely worth more than what it was listed for, Kiro decided to remove the listing, and that night, a collector offered to call him to discuss the game.

Helldivers 2 studio boss Johan Pilestedt has been open and vocal on social media, with the Arrowhead CEO recently responding to why the game shipped on PC without DLSS and FSR upscaling support. The answer is straightforward and simple: the team focused on core gameplay "as it's what is most important for a game to be successful."

Of course, he prefaced by saying that while DLSS is cool tech, it's "not necessary" when launching a PC game. Naturally, many people took offense to this and misread it, as DLSS won't be coming to Helldivers 2 - at all. This isn't the case, with Johan Pilestedt stating in a follow-up, "That's not what I said!" implying that upscaling tech will be coming to the game at some point.

Helldivers 2, a riff on Starship Troopers, is a co-op action game that has reportedly sold over 3 million copies across PC and PlayStation 5 - making it the most popular first-party PlayStation launch on PC to date.

Nintendo of America has filed a lawsuit against the developers of the Nintendo Switch emulator Yuzu for "facilitating piracy at a colossal scale," aiming to shut development down and destroy all copies.

As an emulator, Yuzu allows users to play Switch games on a Windows PC or similar device, which makes it (according to Nintendo) a tool for "massive intellectual property infringement of Nintendo and others' copyrighted works." The lawsuit claims that the developers of Yuzu 'unlawfully' bypassed its hardware encryption and, by doing so, allowed games to run on other hardware.

With the release of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom in 2023 (check out our full review of this masterpiece here), the game leaked ahead of its launch - with many running the game at full speed with the Yuzu emulator ahead of its official console launch.

Star Wars: Dark Forces is a first-person shooter set in the iconic Star Wars universe developed by LucasArts and released for MS-DOS computers in 1995. It launched at a time when every release in the genre was labeled a 'Doom-clone'; however, the development team at LucasArts managed to inject the game with plenty of stories, cutting-edge multi-level stages, and incredible visuals and sound design (for the time).

This week, the game is getting a remaster courtesy of the retro gaming wizards at Nightdive Studios, collaborating with Lucasfilm Games, for the release of Star Wars: Dark Forces Remaster for PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and Nintendo Switch.

Nightdive, who recently remastered Quake II and Turok 3: Shadow of Oblivion Remastered, once again ports a classic to use its versatile KEX engine, allowing for up to 4K 120 FPS on current-gen consoles and PC hardware, with fully remastered artwork, including the cinematic sequences (or cut-scenes), presenting and preserving this classic for a new generation.

NVIDIA's GeForce NOW cloud gaming service allows users and PC gamers to stream and play over 1800 titles they own (plus free-to-play games) across a broad range of services. Paying GeForce Now Ultimate subscribers get access to a cloud-based GeForce RTX 4080 rig with priority access and even support for G-SYNC. Today's news, however, concerns GeForce NOW's free tier, which provides access to a 'Basic Rig' and one-hour sessions.

NVIDIA has informed free-tier users that as of March 5, 2024, they will begin showing up to two minutes of ads (or 'video sponsorship messaging') before each one-hour gaming session. The new ads will help pay for the free tier, with NVIDIA claiming that the change will "reduce average wait times for free users over time," though it's unclear how.

The change doesn't affect paying GeForce NOW customers, who get access to more powerful GeForce RTX hardware and longer gaming sessions. The 'Priority' tier offers up to 1080p 60 FPS gaming, while the 'Ultimate' tier offers up to 4K 120 FPS gaming on an RTX 4080 rig.

I think we've seen it all, folks... with the release of the new GameScent being a "fully immersive" AI-powered scent release system that's designed to make gamers' worlds even more immersive. Check it out:

The new GameScent AI device is compatible with all systems and consoles, automatically releasing scents based on the gameplay that's happening in real-time "without the need for any specific game development." Game developers don't need to make anything separately in order for the GameScent to work its smelly magic.

The new GameScent product is a patent-pending adapter that uses and captures real-time audio, processed by the GameScent's "innovative AI to release scents that correspond with the on-screen action". You can use it with your PC, game console, your TV with regular video content, or even a VR headset.