Gaming - Page 360

Halo Infinite's forge mode will let players scale the size of in-game objects...which should lead to absolutely hilarious custom games.

New leaked footage of Halo Infinite's forge mode has me incredibly excited for the future of the game. Forge looks like it could save the live shooter and pretty much create a stream of never-ending player-made content (kind of like Halo MCC with its customs browser, which is absolutely epic).

We already know that Halo Infinite's forge mode is basically a games engine that lets you customize a million different parameters of individual maps. One new feature shows that Infinite's forge will let players scale the size and scope of in-game objects, meaning you can create massive master chiefs and set them on the map. This is reminiscent of one of Fallout 4's coolest console commands that lets players (or any other NPC or object) become gigantic or tiny.

Skyrim Together Reborn, an updated version of the popular Skyrim co-op mod, will be released next week.

What if you could play Skyrim with friends? Modders have found a solution and created Skyrim Together, a co-op mod that allows multiple people to team up online and dungeon delve, battle dragons, and explore the Nordic continent. The mod's developers have now announced that the upgraded version will soon be available for Skyrim Special Edition owners.

"After a long development process, we are excited to announce that Skyrim Together Reborn is almost ready for release. It will release next Friday, July 8th, at 16:00 GMT. The mod will be published on Nexus," the devs announced on Reddit.

Sony's first-party developer Sucker Punch confirms that it is not working on any new games in key legacy franchises.

Contrary to countless reports, Sucker Punch today confirmed it is not developing new Sly Cooper or InFAMOUS games. Various rumors suggested that Sucker Punch could revive these landmark franchises to celebrate their 25th anniversary, but that's not happening.

"As our games continue to grow in scale and complexity, they require the full attention of our studio. With our focus on our current project, we have no plans to revisit inFAMOUS or Sly Cooper right now, and no other studio is currently working on projects related to those franchises either," the studio said in an announcement post.

Halo Infinite's long-awaited co-op will finally start beta testing in July, developer 343 Industries today announced.

At long last, Halo Infinite is finally getting co-op. The game was the first major Halo mainline title to release without co-operative play (neither local or online-based co-op were available) and it's taken over 7 months before 343i was ready to start testing it. That wait will soon be over: Halo Infinite's co-op and mission replay will enter flighting (what 343i calls beta testing) on July 11 across PC and Xbox consoles.

The devs revealed a few details on what's to come. First, existing campaign progress won't be available in the beta test. Second, we're getting a kind of new game+ feature with mission replay where all existing upgrades and unlockables will carry over when you replay a mission (which is to be expected). This includes skulls that you or your teammates have unlocked. Third, 343i is adding new achievements specifically for co-op play. And last but not least, four players will be able to enjoy campaign co-op with full cross-play across Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, and PC.

Bungie has literally NERFed one of Destiny's most infamous weapons: The nefarious Gjallarhorn.

Gjallarhorn is one of the most polarizing weapons in Destiny 2, and for good reason: It's really, really good. Bungie has finally nerfed the gun, but not in the way you'd expect.

Bungie has teamed up with NERF to create a limited-edition Gjallarhorn rocket launcher that you can hold over one shoulder and pretend to be an interstellar space wizard. The toy launcher is absolutely gigantic and is a scaled replica of the in-game exotic, complete with a mini scope and all the fine-grain details found on the beloved (and hated) launcher.

Fire Emblem Heroes has passed $1 billion in revenues since its release in February 2017, analyst firm SensorTower has reported.

Nintendo's mobile division just reached its first $1 billion game. The Japanese games giant has raked in $1 billion from Fire Emblem Heroes since its launch in early 2017, making it Nintendo's most lucrative free-to-play game to date. The mobile sensation has been downloaded 17.8 million times on iOS and Android.

This marks a big milestone for Nintendo's mobile segment, which traditionally accounts for less than 10% of its total quarterly revenues. From Q4 2017 to present, Nintendo has earned $2.363 billion from mobile games, with Fire Emblem Heroes leading the charge with an exponential leap in earnings compared to other titles (Mario Kart Tour, the second most popular of Nintendo's mobile games, made $282 million in comparison).

Atari is reaching far back into its treasure trove of retro classics with its new 50th Anniversary Collection, which includes games from the forgotten Atari Jaguar days of yore.

Today Atari announced a mega-bundle of games across six generations of hardware, including Atari 2600, Atari 5200, Atari 7800, Atari ST, Atari Jaguar, and Atari Lynx. The last two are pretty exciting for retro buffs due to their rarity.

The Jaguar in particular is an interesting entry in the annals of gaming. The Jaguar was the world's first 64-bit console and released one of the most notorious video games of all time, Cybermorph, which was lampooned by the angriest gaming geek on the internet (AVGN). "Where did you learn to fly?" was the first introduction that many had to the strange experimental system. Still, though, the console is a charming look at the earliest age of home console polygonal graphics that helped usher in a new era of 3D gaming.

DolphiniOS and Switch hacker Oatmeal Dome was able to get Half-Life 2 to run on the Nintendo Switch.

Oatmeal Dome, a big player in the modding scene who uncovered the Nintendo Switch's VR mode back in 2018, just got Half-Life 2 running on the Switch...and it runs pretty good.

The modder used the newly released Portal Companion Collection on Switch to load Half-Life 2 onto the handheld-console hybrid. "The main reason why this works so well is that Portal 1 is basically just a glorified mod for Half-Life 2. (For example, the player code for Portal is based directly on the player code for HL2)," Oatmeal Dome explained on Twitter.

Sony has been shipping out PlayStation VR2 devkits and one developer has taken a snapshot of the headset.

While Sony already revealed exactly what the retail version of its next-gen PlayStation VR2 will look like, the first photo of the HMD out in the wild has been released. The photo comes by way of Bit Planet Games, the developers of space planet sim Sol Survivor and airflight sims Ultrawings 1 & 2.

The HMD's look and presentation isn't exactly a surprise...but what is still surprising is just how small the complete kit is. The original PS4-powered PSVR was a tangle of cords thanks to its required breakout box peripheral required for play. The PSVR2 significantly reduces these requirements and only runs on a single USB-C cable. Having used a base PSVR headset I can say that a single cord is a life-saver and will pretty much eliminate friction while playing.

Old-school RPG Swordquest will finally be complete: Airworld has appeared out of thin air.

Back in the 80s, Atari released the Swordquest series of games The plan was to release four games after each element: Earthworld, Fireworld, Waterworld, and Airworld. The games were a kind of interactive scavenger hunt where players would collect clues to win a contest with serious prizes: There was a chalice, a talisman, a crown, and a philosopher's stone--all of which were encrusted with gems and precious metals. Winners would also come back for one final competition with the ultimate reward: a silver sword full of gems.

Airworld was never made, though. The video game crash during the 1980s pretty much wrecked Atari's financial books. Now as part of Atari's 50th anniversary, Airworld is coming back. The infamous Swordquest game will be released in Atari's new 50th Anniversary Collection, which packs in 80+ classic games including Airworld.

Blizzard bought a new studio to help build World of Warcraft's future.

Blizzard Entertainment has purchased Proletariat, the Boston-based indie studio behind Spellbreak, to work on new World of Warcraft content. The move comes shortly after Blizzard had its lowest revenues and monthly active users in the last six years, and close to the successful yet highly controversial release of Diablo Immortal.

Under Blizzard, Proletariat will apparently have no time to keep hosting and updating its online game Spellbreak. The studio announced that Spellbreak will be pulled offline in 2023, and development of new content will cease. Proletariat is to work on Dragonflight, the next major World of Warcraft expansion, as well as other future content and updates.

The original Overwatch launched in 2016, and now that Blizzard has Overwatch 2 ready for release, we're finding out some upsetting news.

Blizzard will be killing off the original Overwatch the second that Overwatch 2 goes live on October 4, confirmed by Overwatch 2 game director Aaron Keller in a recent AMA on Reddit. Overwatch 2 launches with a bunch of new heroes, maps, and so much more, but the original Overwatch... will be killed off.

In the Reddit AMA, one of the questions was "What does the term "Early Access" means for Overwatch 2? Does this means that on this day OW1 is getting replaced by OW2's PvP or will OW1 shutdown once the game is out of Early Access?"

Sony today revealed its new INZONE line of enthusiast gaming hardware built specifically for the PlayStation 5 and PC gaming, including two new high-end monitors and three gaming headsets.

As we previously reported, Sony's latest INZONE gaming hardware includes two gaming displays and three audio headsets that are optimized for both PS5 and PC gaming. The monitors come in two models: the INZONE M9, a 27-inch 4K 144Hz display, and the INZONE M3, which is also 27-inches but targets esports with 1920x1080 resolution and 240HZ refresh rates.

"INZONE is a totally new gaming brand from Sony. It sharpens your visual and hearing senses to maximize your ability, and leads you into the zone," Sony's marketing communication department general manager Shuhei Sugihara said. "We promise you higher performance and better results in gameplay."

AMD's new FidelityFX Super Resolution 2.0 (FSR 2.0) technology has been on a roll, with the company pushing out the FSR 2.0 source code, and into the arms of Xbox developers. But now, Epic Games is joining the FSR 2.0 party.

The new FSR 2.0 upscaling technology has made it into some new Unreal Engine plugins, with the @GPUOpen account tweeting that it has been an "FSR2-tastic" week... love it. The tweet continued, saying that AMD was "delighted" to launch Unreal Engine plugins for UE5 and UE4.26/4.27.

Starting now, game developers using Unreal Engine 4 and 5 can pack in either NVIDIA DLSS 2.0 or AMD FSR 2.0 upscaling technologies into their game, where they're free to use one or the other -- or if they want to mix it up: both. Being that FSR 2.0 supports AMD, Intel, and NVIDIA graphics cards... FSR 2.0 integration into Unreal Engine 5 (and previous-gen UE 4.26, UE 4.27) is a big deal.

Atari founder Nolan Bushnell explains the meaning behind the company's ultra-iconic Mt. Fuji logo.

Atari is one of the most recognizable brands on the planet. Even after decades of not releasing new consoles, Atari has a long-lasting 50-year legacy that spans multitudes of games, hardware, and merch, and was arguably created the foundation of modern gaming as we know it today. Every legacy needs an icon, and for Atari and the rest of the industry, the Fuji logo became synonymous with gaming.

"When we chose the Fuji logo, I wanted it to be an upward swoosh. It's a collective. It's aspirational. So right now it would be good to take the innovation legacy and push it forward into the future," Atari founder Nolan Bushnell said in a recent 50th Anniversary video.

Blizzard is treating Diablo II Resurrected (D2R) like a live game with rotating events...and the first one is pretty epic.

Today Blizzard made history in Diablo II by announcing a new timed event that could lead to much more interesting gameplay. Introducing Diablo II's Magic Find Weekend, a new event held from June 30 to July 4 that will temporarily boost magic find rates for all players across the globe. Gamers will get a flat +50% to MF that stacks with their existing magic find.

"You feel an intense rush of energy coursing through your veins, a faint internal humming overriding your own pulse. From June 30-July 4, a mysterious energy source will grant you a 50% buff to Magic Find, providing an increased chance to receive Magic, Rare, Set, or Unique loot as a drop from slain foes. This bonus stacks with any additional increases to Magic Find provided by your items," Blizzard said.

Amazon Prime subscribers will get six new in-game freebies for Fall Guys throughout the coming weeks.

Fall Guys is now free-to-play on all platforms, including PlayStation, Xbox, PC, and Nintendo Switch and comes complete with cross-play and cross-progression. Epic Games and Mediatonic are going all out to make the game as widely accessible as possible, and so far the plan has worked incredibly well: the game has amassed 20 million players worldwide.

Buyable in-game microtransactions and cosmetics are a big part of Fall Guys' economy, and if you're an Amazon Prime subscriber, you can unlock a handful of new customizable skins for your bean. Right now the Fall Guys Prime Gaming promo is limited to just one skin (to unlock the free item, click here) which includes an exclusive Falldazzler Bundle. Amazon plans to bring five more free Fall Guys cosmetics to players in the coming weeks.

Cyberpunk 2077 is one of the biggest, if not the biggest NVIDIA DLSS title... which now has unofficial AMD FSR 2.0 support, thanks to a third-party modder.

AMD's new FidelityFX Super Resolution 2.0 (FSR 2.0) technology is getting into more and more games, but with modder "PotatoOfDoom1337" replaced the NVIDIA DLSS 2.0 files with FSR 2.0, and it worked. Cyberpunk 2077 has support for FSR 1.0 already, but no official FSR 2.0 support yet.

All you have to do to get FSR 2.0 support into Cyberpunk 2077 is replace some files and make some changes to the registry in Windows, and you get some fantastic performance improvements thanks to FSR 2.0 upscaling tech. The modder used a previous-gen GeForce GTX 1080 graphics card, and ran Cyberpunk 2077 with FSR 2.0 at 4K at 45FPS... double the performance than he had from his GTX 1080, thanks to FSR 2.0.

Resident Evil 7 is loved by many, but now there's a new 4K texture pack that improves 1497 textures in the game, upscaling them to 4K using the magic of AI, of course.

Modder Ashok explains: "This mod retextures 1,497 vanilla 1K and 2K textures with AI upscaled 4K textures. Vanilla 4K textures are untouched. Wood, metal, and stone textures were AI upscaled and select paintings were replaced with high resolution imagery. Textures with very fine detail i.e. cloth, photographs, text, etc. remain untouched to prevent the game from having a "muddy" look. Some of these upscaled textures may look nearly identical to the originals with only subtle differences, but wood in particular should look much nicer up close. Highly recommended for VR".

"I have included a FULL and LITE version of the mod. The FULL version upscales most 1K & 2K textures to 4K. The LITE version upscales only 1K textures to 4K. This still gives a noticeable upgrade to the vanilla textures and may perform better for systems with limited VRAM. Supports both the Non-Ray Tracing and Ray Tracing releases of Resident Evil 7".

AMD only yesterday posted the official source code to FidelityFX Super Resolution 2.0 (FSR 2.0) which means it'll spread out far and wide to game developers across the world.

But in further news, FSR 2.0 is available now for Xbox developers, with the official GPUOpen Twitter account tweeting: "We are very excited to provide FidelityFX Super Resolution 2 to Xbox developers! FSR 2 can be found in the most recent. FSR 2 can be found in the most recent GDKX samples - building cross-platform for Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, and Windows Desktop. Many thanks to Microsoft for this continued collaboration".

We don't know if Sony has FSR 2.0 coming to PlayStation 5 development kits, but with FSR 2.0 being open source, it doesn't stop game developers from adding FSR 2.0 support on the PS5. Sony should clarify whether this will happen, considering how closely they worked with AMD on the semi-custom APU inside of the PlayStation 5. Come on, Sony.