Gaming - Page 385

BioWare is hiring 23 new developers to work on multiple projects. Two of these job listings are for Dragon Age, and one position could shed light on what to expect from the game.

Previous reports have said Dragon Age 4 is a singleplayer-driven RPG. The project has gone through three phase-shifts: the first iteration was codenamed Joplin and was a small game focused on Tevinter spies. Then it morphed into projected Morrison, a live game with shifting, evolving content. Now in its current iteration, which was formed in 2021, Dragon Age has shifted back to its roots and become a singleplayer-driven RPG.

A new game economy job listing strongly suggests that Dragon Age 4 will indeed be singleplayer and it might not have any multiplayer elements at all.

BioWare is currently hiring 23 people to work on three separate teams: Mass Effect, Dragon Age, and Star Wars: The Old Republic. A good portion of these devs are being positioned for the next Mass Effect project.

Mass Effect 4 (or 5, if you include Andromeda) is currently in early pre-production stages of development. BioWare's next project on the release slate is Dragon Age 4, which may not be ready until 2023. That doesn't mean BioWare can't ramp up its workforce in preparation for the next Mass Effect--and that's exactly what they're doing.

A recent job listings post confirms that BioWare is currently hiring 7 separate developers to fortify its next space RPG. The team, led by Mike Gamble, is currently hiring some higher-profile director and lead positions across all of its studios. It's interesting to note that all of BioWare's North American branches--Austin, Vancouver, and Edmonton--are helping with the game.

Elden Ring has sold over 12 million copies as of March 14, becoming one of Bandai Namco's best-selling games of all time.

FromSoftware's new masterpiece RPG has hit an incredible sales milestone of 12 million+ physical and digital copies purchased worldwide. With figures like these, it's implied that Elden Ring has made over $500 million in game sales revenues across all platforms in just 17 days (nearly 3 weeks).

Elden Ring is so successful that Bandai Namco has declared it a full IP series that will expand with more content. The publisher mentions that Elden Ring could cross over to other mediums outside of video games.

Two leading video game market analysts predict GTA 6 could release in 2024, but they disagree on exactly when.

A bit ago I predicted GTA 6 could launch in Take-Two's FY24, which ends in March 2024. Since then that prediction has been carried by analysts based on a substantial spike in net bookings for the period. A new SEC filing shows that both FY24 and FY25 will be big years for Take-Two with an estimated $5.2 billion and $5.5 billion in respective net bookings.

This suggests that GTA 6 could launch in either FY24 or FY25. Both of these include the 2024 calendar year. Jefferies analyst Andrew Uerkwitz believes that a major Rockstar title should launch throughout 2024: "Despite a significant multi-year content unlock that likely includes a major content release from Rockstar in 2024, Take-Two will still grow in FY25," Uerkwitz wrote.

EA has officially cancelled its annual EA Play Live summer showcase because its projects simply aren't ready to show just yet.

EA Play Live will not premiere in 2022 after all. The publisher issued a statement that strongly hinted that COVID-19 and work-from-home measures have impacted game development, and certain games won't be ready to show off.

"This year things aren't lining up to show you everything on one date. We have exciting things happening at our world-class studios and this year we'll reveal much more about these projects when the time is right for each of them. We look forward to spending time with you throughout the year!" EA told IGN.

Tencent has acquired a majority stake in Tequila Works, the indie studio known for video games like RiME.

Chinese juggernaut Tencent has just increased its hold on the games industry with yet another indie developer. This time Tencent has bought the majority shares of Tequila Works, the Madrid-based studio behind RiME and Deadlight.

Tencent's acquisition will inject new funding into Tequila Works, arming them with new resources to expand and develop projects in all-original IPs. Tencent will remain hands-off and allow the studio to continue on as it always has.

Keanu Reeves said it best: "It's ridiculous that there isn't [a new Matrix game]." Well now WB Games knows what to do.

A batch of mods for the new fighting game Sifu shows exactly what fans want from a new Matrix game. Just let us play as Neo, give us some awesome survival brawling combat, and watch as we wipe the floor with dozens of Agent Smiths. Yes, it really is that simple. Maybe throw in some shoot-em-up chaos and crazy stunts in an analog, green-filtered world and boom, there's your perfect Matrix game.

Graphics aren't super important but a dev could use the crazy next-gen tech from the Matrix Awakens Unreal Engine 5 tech demo. I'd say gameplay is what matters most in a game like this--especially with the fun of smashing tons of agents around.

Microsoft's breakthrough DirectStorage API tech, which promises to accelerate NVMe storage speeds, is now available to all PC game developers.

PC devs can now supercharge loading screens and rendering in their games with DirectStorage integration. The new API accelerates asset pipeline delivery by completely bypassing the CPU and blasting data directly to the GPU for on-screen rendering. The result will fully unlock the power of NVMe SSDs and deliver true PCIe Gen 4x4 (and beyond) levels of throughput. For an in-depth explanation on how DirectStorage works, click here.

DirectStorage is also compatible with Windows 10 games, however Microsoft notes that Windows 11 is the "recommended path for gaming" because it has certain optimizations built into the OS.

For the first time ever, Sony is devoting an entire State of Play event to a single third-party multi-platform video game.

Today Sony announced that Hogwart's Legacy, the new highly-anticipated Harry Potter RPG, will get its own State of Play stream. The stream goes live on Thursday, March 17 at 2PM PST/5PM EST on Twitch or YouTube, and will feature 14 minutes of gameplay captured on PlayStation 5 (an interesting choice considering PS5 stock is still very limited) alongside a 6-minute roundtable discussion with the devs at Avalanche Software who made the game.

Hogwart's Legacy has been mired in controversy for two main reasons: First is the transphobic comments made by J.K. Rowling, which has caused lots of fans to discourage pre-orders and purchases of all Harry Potter products, and the second is that one of the game developers, Troy Leavitt, ran a pro-GamerGate YouTube channel. Leavitt later resigned and left the game studio.

Konami has filed and published a new trademark for Silent Hill at the Japan Patent Office.

A new Silent Hill trademark has re-ignited rumors of a possible Sony-produced sequel. Konami's latest Silent Hill trademark was published today on the JPO database and includes many use cases including video games, commercial game machines/machine equipment, game software, and virtual reality headsets.

Recent reports indicate that Sony has acquired the rights to a big video game franchise. Former reports from 2020-2021 indicated that Sony was producing a new Silent Hill game and Hideo Kojima was possibly involved.

A new report from a well-known Rockstar Games leaker says Grand Theft Auto 6 could release in 2024 after all.

Sources have told Rockstar Games leaker and informant Chris Klippel that GTA 6 has broken an important development milestone and work on the game should accelerated in the coming months (and years).

"An important step in the development of GTA 6 has just been reached. Things should speed up (internally at Rockstar)," Klippel wrote on Twitter.

FromSoftware employees aren't happy working at the studio and are complaining of low wages and other issues. Meanwhile, FromSoft parent company Kadokawa Corp. has made over $1.4 billion in the last 9 months.

Like most big games, it looks like Elden Ring's expansive world came at a human cost. FromSoftware employees have complained about a number of issues on Japanese company feedback website Career Connection, stating low wages and crunch (one review says employees are "breaking their bodies" working so much) as problems with the work environment. FromSoft has earned a 2.6 out of 5 rating for employee satisfaction as a result.

According to the survey, FromSoftware employees earn roughly 4 million yen, or $29,000, a year. Those wages are a stark contrast to the $1.415 billion that FromSoftware parent company Kadokawa Corp. has made in the last 9 months.

Discovery Inc. shareholders have officially approved the WarnerMedia merger, meaning WB Games will soon have a new parent company.

The $43 billion WarnerMedia - Discovery merger has been greenlit by shareholders and is now awaiting regulatory approval. WB Games is included as part of the deal, which means developers like Netherealm, Rocksteady Studios, Avalanche, and WB Montreal will have a new corporate overlord soon. No details have been announced concerning possible layoffs, employee shuffling, or studio closures.

Former Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime doesn't believe Facebook's current metaverse plan will be successful.

The metaverse is a nebulous concept that delivers lots of promises to stakeholders and gamers. Investors are promised a huge interconnected ecosystem of ads, monetization, and engagement. Gamers are promised things that technically already exist today--connectivity, interactions, multiplayer games, value, etc. There's just one big problem: The metaverse still hasn't really been defined, and it'll take some serious growing pains and failures to do so.

Some of the games industry's biggest figures are pressing back against the metaverse--at least in its current iteration. According to Reggie Fils-Aime, who led Nintendo of America for multiple years, Facebook (who changed their name to Meta Platforms, signifying its devotion to the metaverse) isn't particularly innovative and their ideals for the metaverse simply won't take off.

Borderlands 3 should get PlayStation cross-play very soon, Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford says.

Cross-play might be thee most important new feature of modern gaming, especially for titles with live services and microtransactions. Borderlands 3, which ahs sold 15 million copies, is one such game. Borderlands 3 didn't launch with cross-play on gaming's biggest platform--the PlayStation 4. That should change soon.

On Twitter, Gearbox boss Randy Pitchford says Borderlands 3 cross-play on PS4/PS5 is an inevitability:

Nintendo confirms it will no longer ship video games hardware or physical games to Russia due to "volatile" market conditions.

One by one many of the world's biggest brands have turned their backs on Russia. The ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine has shocked the world and many companies are pulling their products and services out of the increasingly dangerous region. Nintendo is among the latest companies to stop selling to Russia.

In a statement given to Eurogamer, Nintendo says it has temporarily suspended shipments and sales to Russia due to unreliable economic conditions brought on by international sanctions.

Xbox has a vision for a cyclic, streamlined flow of new games that are both revealed and released over time.

Xbox's game division is absolutely massive. When Activision-Blizzard joins Microsoft, Xbox gaming will have over 30 teams working on a multitude of projects. There's so many games in development right now--and that's how Microsoft wants it. Xbox gaming aspires to have a kind of restaurant that's always updating its menu while serving up something new, and wants to give full visibility of its gaming feast to hungry diners.

"We want to get to this point where there's a steady flow of great games that are coming that customers can predict," Xbox president Phil Spencer said in a recent XboxEra podcast.

Peter Molyneux's new game Legacy, which is built around digital land NFTs and in-game commerce, has made over $57 million in crypto sales.

The latest game from Fable creator Peter Molyneux is a big departure from his previous work. His studio at 22Cans has teamed up with Gala Games, a publisher known for play-to-earn blockchain games, to make Legacy. This game is built around a kind of digital e-commerce platform with its own crypto called LegacyCoin where players create thingamabobs, trinkets, other fantastic creations and sell them on an in-game marketplace. Players buy land, make factories, and sell their goods. Like all blockchain games, the details are fuzzy.

That being said, 22Cans has completely sold out of its digital land NFTs. The company has made a total of $57.721 million from selling digital land based on ETH to USD conversions. That's a huge chunk of revenues that's roughly half of Ubisoft's entire microtransaction earnings made in Q3'21.

One of the most well-known game developers has condemned NFTs, joining voices with a multitude of other industry figures against the speculative market.

Warren Spector, known for creation of some of the most lauded franchises on the planet like Deus Ex and System Shock, is wholeheartedly against NFTs. "NFTs are ridiculous. I do not understand why anybody would want to climb on that bandwagon," Spector said in a recent interview with VentureBeat.

"Ownership of virtual goods that can be instantly reproduced in unlimited quantities. Who thinks that's a good idea? So NFTs...I have no interest."

Final Fantasy turns 35 years old this year and Square Enix is celebrating with a bunch of updates on upcoming games.

Square Enix just put up a special website to commemorate Final Fantasy's 35th anniversary. Throughout the year the publisher plans to roll out updates, teasers, and celebratory content highlighting both new and old releases, and has teased some big updates on some of the most anticipated titles in development including the new medieval action-based Final Fantasy XVI, and the ultra-hyped sequel to 2019's Final Fantasy 7 Remake.

Right now the FF35 website only includes updates on recently-announced games like Chocobo GP and Final Fantasy Origin: Stranger of Paradise, but the site also tease "more news" on future games too.