Gaming - Page 357

Something may be happening over at WB Games...and it might not be good news.

Rocksteady, the studio known for its Batman Arkham series of games, just lost its co-founders, signalling potential issues within the WB Games unit. Jamie Walker and Sefton Hill, who founded Rocksteady in 2004, are leaving the studio. The news was announced by WB Interactive Entertainment president David Haddad, who confirmed both Hill and Walker will leave at the end of 2022.

The news comes at an interesting time for WB Discovery. Following a mega-merger earlier this year, WB Games became a part of the new Warner Bros. Discovery brand. Fast-forwarding months later and the media giant is culling its spending en masse; WB Discovery plans to cancel and cut $2 billion worth of TV shows and films as well as firing more staff in order to reduce production spending.

The original Witcher game is getting a remake in Unreal Engine 5, but it won't be developed by CD Projekt RED.

The Witcher 1, CD Projekt RED's first game released in 2007, will be completely overhauled in Epic's powerful UE5 tech. The project is actually one of the many Witcher titles that the studio previously announced; the remake is Project Canis Majoris, or "greater dog," in this case referring to a bigger version of the White Wolf's original debut.

The Witcher remake isn't actually being developed by CD Projekt, though the game is definitely in good hands. The game is in early stages of development in a new studio called Fool's Theory, which is made up of many veteran Witcher devs who worked on the series at CDPR. And don't forget that CD Projekt will be overseeing the game's progress as a creative supervisor to make sure everything fits.

With the completion of the first season of Amazon's The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power and the massive divide between those who enjoyed the show and those who didn't due to lore inaccuracies, many Tolkien fans are looking for some new Middle-Earth media to get excited about before the next season comes out two years from now.

Introducing, The Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria, developed by Free Range Games and published by North Beach Games. Return to Moria is a survival crafting game that is based in the fourth age of Middle Earth. The game focuses on the race of the dwarves and follows a group that deems it time to reclaim their legendary home of Khazad-dum, later called Moria (black pit), after the Balrog or Durin's Bane is awoken by dwarves delving too deep.

The trailer for the game was released back in June, but the creators behind the game recently appeared on the Nerd of the Rings YouTube channel to dive into its inner workings, what inspired the selected location for the survival crafting game, and how much of what players will see while exploring will be accurate to Tolkien's writings. Corey Olsen, a Tolkien scholar, is consulting on the game, and as explained during Nerd of the Rings' roundtable discussion, the content that players will experience in Return to Moria will be heavily based on Tolkien's writings.

Microsoft kicks off its new Fiscal Year 2023 period with record Xbox revenues.

Xbox gaming just made history for the time this year. On the heels of generated a record-breaking $16.2 billion in total earnings last year, Microsoft's games platform has generated $3.610 billion in its Q1'23 period. This is a new all-time Q1 high that continues the platform's earnings streak.

Xbox content and services revenues were down 4% year-over-year, implying revenues of about $2.797 billion. Hardware was the main driver for these record Q1 results with a strong 13% increase in revenues, driven by higher premium costs of the newer Xbox Series S/X consoles.

Bayonetta voice actress Hellena Taylor claims the franchise has made $450 million in lifetime revenues, but that's not the case...and no one is really sure where she got the figure.

On October 15, Bayonetta actress Hellena Taylor published three videos that alleged she was only offered $4,000 to portray the heroine in Bayonetta 3. To illustrate the game's success and underline the alleged lowball offer, Taylor claimed the entire Bayonetta franchise "made an approximated $450 million dollars not including merchandise."

Most gamers would squint at this and understand the information isn't correct, and Bloomberg's Jason Schreier, who uncovered that Taylor was actually offered $15,000 to play Bayonetta in the third game and not $4,000, says the franchise figure is "fiction and frankly absurd."

It's official: The 2012 release of Dark Souls is now an offline game on PC.

Today Bandai Namco and FromSoftware confirmed that the PC version of the Dark Souls Prepare to Die Edition will be now be permanently offline singleplayer experience. The game's online multiplayer servers have been retired due to the age of the online infrastructure.

The online servers for the original Dark Souls are still online for consoles, and multiplayer has been restored for Dark Souls II: Scholar of the First Sin.

Bayonetta voice actress Hellena Taylor admits she was offered $15,000 to portray the heroine witch in the third game, not the $4,000 rate she had originally said.

A bit ago, Bayonetta's Hellena Taylor issued allegations of unfair pay against PlatinumGames and Nintendo. Taylor had released three videos on Twitter that alleged PlatinumGames offered her $4,000 US dollars as a "final offer to do the whole game as a buyout flat rate." Taylor had strongly-worded responses and called on fans to boycott Bayonetta 3.

Shortly after the claims were made, Bloomberg's Jason Schreier uncovered the full story: Taylor was actually offered $15,000 to lend her voice in Bayonetta 3. Now the voice actress has amended her statement, agreeing with the figures provided in the Bloomberg report.

Microsoft reportedly regrets not partnering with Chinese developer miHoYo before Genshin Impact became a billion-dollar sensation.

The old saying is true, hindsight is indeed 20/20. Sources have told Reuters that Microsoft feels that it missed a valuable opportunity by not partnering with miHoYo to bring Genshin Impact to Xbox. On paper, this certainly seems true: Genshin Impact is a mega-hit that has generated $3.7 billion on mobile devices alone, and was one of the five free-to-play games to generate $2 billion on Sony's PlayStation Network.

According to the report, Microsoft was unable to reach a deal with the Chinese game developer, miHoYo, who chose to partner with Sony and bring Genshin Impact to PlayStation instead. This sense of regret and loss is apparently a big motivator driving Microsoft's efforts to recruit Chinese game devs to bolster its Xbox Game Pass subscription network.

Bethesda is updating Fallout 4 once again...and PC players aren't enthused.

Today Bethesda announced that Fallout 4 is getting a free upgrade on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S. Normally this would be a day of celebration, but PC players are expecting big problems from the update.

The big issue is mod compatibility. Any time Bethesda updates or adjusts Fallout 4, the publisher typically breaks mod support in some fashion. This happened with the rollout of Creation Club back in 2017, kicking off a big controversy within the modding community. The main problem is that new versions of Fallout 4 typically break Fallout Script Extender compatibility, which is required for most of the most commonly used mods.

God of War Ragnarok is right around the corner, with gamers waiting quite a while for this next-gen gaming ride from Santa Monica Studio... and man, 4K 120FPS is going to be an option.

If you're gaming on a PlayStation 5 and a high-end 4K 120Hz TV or gaming monitor with HDMI 2.1, the developer is offering a multitude of graphics options for PS5 gamers. If you want the best quality, there's a "Favor Resolution" option in God of War Ragnarok which locks it to 4K 30FPS.

But if you want 60FPS then God of War Ragnarok has a "Performance" mode, but then we've got the HDMI 2.1-only Favor Resolution and Favor Performance (both with High Frame Rate enabled). Favor Resolution is locked to 4K 40FPS, while Favor Performance drives dynamic 4K up to 120FPS on the PS5 (both with HDMI 2.1 enabled, to be clear).

Red Dead Online Stadia players will be able to transfer their saves and progress over to another platform, but only if they meet this requirement.

Stadia is about to close down, but some developers are allowing players to transfer their hard-earned progress over to another platform. Much to the delight of players who have sunk hundreds or thousands of hours into the gamer, Rockstar Games is letting Stadia players migrate their Red Dead Online saves over to PC, PS4, or Xbox One (other examples also include Bethesda migrating Elder Scrolls Online data over as well).

There's just one catch...and it's a pretty big one. There's actually a cut off date to qualify for the migration path. To migrate your saves over to PC, you have to have logged into Red Dead Online 30 days before Google announced the closure of Stadia on September 29, 2022.

1990s PlayStation classic Parasite Eve may be the next Square Enix game to make a comeback.

Square Enix just filed a new trademark for Symbiogenesis in Japan, which could indicate a revival of its Parasite Eve franchise, or at least a spiritual successor. The term itself is defined as the "merging of two separate organisms to form a new single organism" which directly relates to the bio-horror game's central plot.

Originally published in 1998, Parasite Eve saw three releases across multiple PlayStation consoles (the first two games launched on PS1, and the Third Birthday launched on PS3). Interestingly enough, Square Enix may not be able to use the actual Parasite Eve name for this new project even if it is related to the original series.

Valve has expressed interest in bringing Game Pass to Steam, but could the megaton $70 billion Microsoft-Activision merger change things?

Back in February 2022, Valve's head honcho Gabe Newell said he'd like to work with Microsoft to get Xbox Game Pass on Steam. "We'd be more than happy to work with them to get that on Steam," Newell had told PC Gamer at the time.

Interestingly enough, Newell said this a month after Microsoft publicly announced that it wanted to purchase Activision-Blizzard for $70 billion. On the surface, it looks like Newell and Valve as a whole would be okay with integrating Xbox Game Pass onto Steam on a post-merger level, which could include multiple access points to big PC games like Call of Duty, Diablo, and possibly even World of Warcraft.

Steam has set a new concurrent player record, signalling that the PC gaming market is growing rapidly.

There are more gamers currently playing on Steam than there ever have been before. According to new figures from Steam DB and Valve's own Steam Charts database, over 30 million people logged on Steam in the last 24 hours. This is a new concurrent player milestone record that clearly underlines that the PC market is not only growing, but Valve's storefront-platform is more competitive than ever.

So what games are players currently engaged with? The most-played list is made up of the usual suspects. At the time of writing there are nearly 27 million concurrent users on Steam, and the charts see Counter-Strike Global Offensive reigning supreme with over 760,000 players in game, followed up by over 670,000 DOTA 2 players. Lost Ark is high on the list with over 200,000 players, and PUBG is also hitting over 200,000. EA's billion-dollar battle royale Apex Legends is a little under 150,000 on Steam right now.

Microsoft believes that five years is enough time for Sony to prepare for the loss of Call of Duty (and potentially other Activision-Blizzard franchises).

Right now UK regulators at the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) are closely scrutinizing Microsoft's proposed merger with Activision. Following a massive 70-page report from the CMA, Microsoft issued its own 33-page response that contains a treasure trove of data, insights, valuable roadmaps for the future of Xbox, and interesting arguments in favor of the merger.

One of these counterclaims is particularly interesting. Microsoft previously confirmed the existence of the controversial Call of Duty exclusivity contract first revealed by Sony's Jim Ryan. This contract would extend access to Call of Duty on PlayStation for at least the end of 2027. Now Microsoft argues that this timeframe gives Sony ample preparation for what it refers to as possible foreclosure strategies, which could indicate maneuvers like Call of Duty and other Activision franchises being kept off PlayStation platforms.

Uncharted just arrived on PC for the first time ever with the Legacy of Thieves Collection (Steam, Epic Store), but gamers shouldn't expect to see the first three Uncharted games on PC.

Today represents a major milestone for Sony as it brings one of its biggest PlayStation exclusive franchises over to PC. The Uncharted Legacy of Thieves Collection continues Sony's push onto the PC market as it chases compounding, recurring revenues on the $36 billion dollar PC market.

Sony has confirmed some games just won't show up on PC, though. This selection of games includes the original Uncharted trilogy, which apparently would take too much time to port and optimize for PC.

Final Fantasy XVI is practically done and the team is currently making significant progress in finalizing the game for its Summer 2023 launch.

Today Square Enix's Dev III team confirmed that Final Fantasy XVI's development has entered the "home stretch" and the core workforce is now focusing on bug fixes and finishing touches. The game hasn't gone gold yet (meaning it's not totally done) but it is on target for a mid-2023 release on PlayStation 5.

"With regards to development, the team has turned the corner and entered the home stretch, and is currently concentration its efforts on debugging, tweaking, polishing, and optimization," game producer Naoki "Yoshi-P" Yoshida said in a recent update.

Square Enix released a new Final Fantasy XVI trailer that highlights the game's mystical world of Valisthea.

Final Fantasy XVI looks to be the ultimate high-fantasy video game in recent memory. The developers have shifted full-force into the age-old sword and sorcery archetypes that the franchise is known for, and with the use of new advanced tech, Square Enix is crafting one of the most compelling worlds of myth and magic that we've seen in some time.

The mainstays of Final Fantasy are all present in the lore: World riven by political strife and/or chaos, warring nations, huge crystals of power, and chosen one prophecies.

Bungie will reportedly help fill out PlayStation's growing live service plans with a new Tarkov-like extraction shooter set in its classic Marathon universe.

Back in 1994, way before Halo, Bungie got its start in first-person shooters with a PC game called Marathon. The franchise had assembling the building blocks for the Halo franchise and Bungie had often paid homage to Marathon in the Halo games. Now it appears Marathon is coming back.

According to reports from Insider Gaming's Tom Henderson, Bungie plans to revive the Marathon series as a squad-based extraction shooter. The project is expected to be a live game where 3-player squads all compete and vie for control over resources and loot in an expansive space, collecting as much intel and loot as possible before being extracted.

The new Silent Hill 2 remake is being developed with Unreal Engine 5 and will use high-end technologies to deliver high-end effects and visuals.

Konami just announced a new Silent Hill 2 remake that's being built from the ground up for new-gen consoles and PCs, and will leverage UE5 engine tech alongside ultra-fast SSDs and advanced audio engines to deliver a terrifying experience.

Bloober Team has confirmed the game is being crafted in Unreal Engine 5, which presents lots of unique opportunities to inject lifelike realism into the haunted town, whether it's in the form of ultra-creepy atmospheric effects like fog or dense shadow thanks to UE5's global illumination tech Lumen, or adding dazzling visual quality with Nanite, new tech which allows developers to natively import high-resolution megascans and place them directly in scenes.