Gaming - Page 387

International sanctions from the United States and European Union have blocked payments to Russian Twitch streamers.

Early on in the Ukraine invasion, Western countries blocked Russian banks from SWIFT, the payment tracking system used by worldwide institutions. This has affected Russia's purchasing power as payment processors no longer accept payments to and from the region; Nintendo's eShop, for example, no longer accepts Russian rubles for online purchases.

Now Russian Twitch streamers are being affected. The California-based streaming company can no longer send payments to Russian influencers due to the sanctions. In the blink of an eye, streamers in Russia have been cut off from their monthly paychecks.

Gear up, Spartan! Catch the new Halo TV series on Paramount+ for just $2 a month.

The Halo TV series will premiere March 24 exclusively on Paramount+, and luckily the streamer is having a special promotion that steeply discounts monthly prices. Paramount is celebrating its one-year anniversary for the service and has dropped subscription costs to just $1/month for 3 months (or $2/month for commercial-free, which I highly suggest over the ad-based version). To get started, click here.

This promotion works even if you have already tried Paramount+ and I was able to re-activate and use the promo on an old existing account that I cancelled months ago.

Gamers are comparing Elden Ring to other open-world games like Assassin's Creed Valhalla, but this comparison doesn't hold water on a business perspective.

There's a few memes floating around that poke fun at Assassin's Creed games with the humorous tag "if Ubisoft made Elden Ring," complete with tons of on-screen icons, guides, and interactive UI features. The memes have garnered lots of response and gamers are becoming more critical to Ubisoft's style of game development, namely with monetization and hand-holding. Those things are fair on a critical level, but on a business level, comparing Elden Ring to Assassin's Creed is apples and oranges.

The reality is Ubisoft and Bandai Namco are two very different companies. To put it quite simply, Bandai Namco--and FromSoftware's owner, Kadokawa--have a different goals than Ubisoft.

Grand Theft Auto V is currently cheaper on PlayStation 5 than it is on PlayStation 4.

Pre-orders for the next-gen version of GTA V are now live, and the game is surprisingly affordable. GTA V won't cost $69.99 on PS5 and Xbox Series X/S as we had predicted. Instead, the game is only $9.99 right now on PlayStation 5 (only buyable on-console), which is cheaper than the $14.99 PS4 premium edition (this isn't an upgrade price as I don't currently own or have ever owned GTA V on PS4).

The full GTA V edition is $19.99 on Xbox Series X/S consoles, which is double the price of PS5. Why is that? Here's a refresher: Rockstar is splitting GTA Online from GTA V and selling it as a standalone game. There's now two SKUs, or versions, of Grand Theft Auto V: The Story Mode, which is erroneously named because it includes both story mode + GTA Online, and GTA Online standalone. GTA Online retails for $19.99, but is discounted to $9.99 on Xbox Series X/S until June 14, 2022.

Nintendo refreshed its portable gaming system last year with the introduction of the Nintendo Switch OLED, packing a beautiful OLED display that acted as enough of an upgrade over the original Switch, and now that OLED panel has been put through a burn-in torture test.

Now when I say burn-in torture test, I really do mean it: we're talking about a huge 3600-hour burn-in (3600 hours works out to 24/7 for 150 days). This is years of regular use crammed into less than half a year, with the OLED showing a bright scene the entire time (a static shot of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Link looking into the sun).

After the 3600 hours of being at full brightness, the Nintendo Switch OLED display had only just had ghosting appear... which isn't even that much really. The reality of burn-in has changed so much from the fear-driven panic of early Plasma and LCD TVs, but with OLED panels it really isn't that much of an issue.

Cyberpunk 2077's in-game character models get celebrated in this impressive new graphical showcase video.

Performance issues aside, there's one thing most of us can agree on: CD Projekt RED created one of the best-looking PC games of all time with Cyberpunk 2077 (especially in 8K resolution, as shown by TweakTown's own Anthony Garreffa).

A new video from YouTuber Ultraclocked highlights Cyberpunk 2077's incredibly detailed NPCs and character models featured throughout Night City. The result is a dazzling visual treat that closely inspects the fine grain details of the characters from their faces, eyes, and hair to the fluid animations and lighting effects.

One gamer paid a cam girl over $20,000 to beat Elden Ring's campaign with him.

Elden Ring is better with friends, but if you don't have them, you can apparently pay a digital escort to play with you. Chris, a gamer from New Jersey, reportedly paid cam girl Charley Hart a whopping $20,160 to play Elden Ring's main story with him. The session lasted for an epic 40 consecutive hours and became the longest cam stream on the CamSoda platform.

"It might not be for everyone, but I appreciated the companionship of Charley. She kept things...fun," Chris said in an interview.

Motive Studios is holding a new live stream event for their upcoming Dead Space remake.

EA and Motive today announced a YouTube stream for super-hyped Dead Space remake. The stream will premiere four days from now on March 11 at 1PM EST, complete with behind-the-scenes looks at the game's overall development. We should get closer looks at environments, animations, sound effects, and all of the other main core features that're going into the new remake.

"Motive invites you to the latest in their series of early looks at development and what goes into the remake of a game. Subscribe and keep notifications on to be the first to hear details about our upcoming Dead Space Remake Developer Livestream," the description reads.

WWE could leave 2K Games and move to EA Sports, reports indicate.

WWE 2K22 could be the last game in the wrestling franchise. Sources have told website Fightful Select that WWE Inc. is currently in talks with billion-dollar publisher Electronic Arts for future game releases. It's possible that WWE could license its franchise out to EA Sports. The WWE games are currently published by 2K Games' sports division and developed by Visual Concepts, a team that also makes the massively successful NBA 2K series.

There's reported friction between the WWE parent and 2K Games that stems from the controversial release of WWE 2K20, which scored bad reviews and frustrated lots of fans. This led to WWE 2K21 being cancelled altogether so Visual Concepts could build WWE 2K22 from scratch with a new engine specifically optimized for next-gen hardware.

Activision-Blizzard is the latest video game developer to respond to Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Call of Duty maker Activision-Blizzard has ceased game sales to Russia due to the ongoing war against Ukraine. The company will no longer sell or ship new copies of its mega-hit franchises to Russia, and will also cut off in-game purchases to the region.

"Today, we are announcing that Activision Blizzard will be suspending new sales of and in our games in Russia while this conflict continues. We will continue to look at ways to support the Ukrainian people," Activision-Blizzard Chief Operating Officer and President Daniel Alegre said.

Square Enix's latest RPG Forspoken has been delayed to October so the team has more time to polish and refine the game.

Luminous Productions today announced their latest hack-and-slash RPG Forspoken has been pushed back by over half a year. Originally set to release this month, Forspoken will now launch on October 11 during Square Enix's Q3 period.

"We have made the decision to move the release date of Forspoken to October 11, 2022. Our vision for this exciting new IP is to deliver a game world and hero that gamers across the globe will want to experience for years to come, so getting it right is extremely important to us," the team said.

Halo Infinite's new Fractures seasonal events aren't living up to their ultimate cross-synergy potential.

A bit ago I predicted that Halo Infinite's Fracture events would lead to cross-overs with other Xbox Studios franchises. For instance, one season could see new cosmetics inspired from franchises like Fallout or Doom cross over into Halo. It's not the best lore-friendly solution, but 343i themselves says the Fractures are slices of alternate timelines of what could've been.

Instead, 343i is using Fractures to try and split the Halo universe in unique ways. We saw early iterations of Fractures in Halo Master Chief Collection with Season 8's odd cosmetic design choices that added myth-inspired armors to the game including Nordic and Greek-style cosmetics. These didn't fit Halo (and still don't), and it's a big immersion-breaking seeing shields and Valkyrie helm-wearing Spartans in Halo 3.

Epic Games has enacted a temporary sales ban to Russia and will no longer sell games or services to the region.

Russian gamers can no longer purchas content on the Epic Store launcher. Epic Games announced that it has halted business with Russia due to the ongoing invasion of Ukraine

"Epic is stopping commerce with Russia in our games in response to its invasion of Ukraine. We're not blocking access for the same reason other communication tools remain online: the free world should keep all lines of dialogue open," the company wrote on Twitter.

Sony Interactive Entertainment is currently hiring an executive position to lead its new live services games division.

Sony's PlayStation Studios recently put up a job listing for a Vice President, Head of Live Services role that will help shape its new push into online-driven games. The executive position is open to all of SIE's branches, including its offices in London, Liverpool, San Diego, San Mateo and Los Angeles.

"As Head of Live Services, you will be responsible for the ownership and successful delivery of the PlayStation Studios Live Service operational framework. You will be responsible for architecting a cohesive and integrated live services business strategy, product strategy and operational framework to deliver commercial success," the listing reads.

One of Halo Infinite's principal developers has left 343 Industries, leading to discussions about the state of the game.

Lead multiplayer modes & systems designer Andrew Witts has left 343 Industries after 3 years with the company, the developer announced on Twitter.

Amazon will no longer localize New World for Russian players, the company has announced.

Amazon Games is one of the latest games companies to speak out against Russia's ongoing invasion of Ukraine. The developer has confirmed it will no longer bring Russian voice-over dialog or language support to New World as a result of the war.

"We were looking into localizing New World for Russia, and we stopped that," VP of Amazon Games Christoph Hartmann told TechRadar.

Indie developer Miquel Camps Orteza created an actual playable video game based on Red Hot Chili Pepper's iconic music video.

Californication might be one of the most memorable music videos of all time. It came out during those early days of 3D gaming and everyone who grew up during the time (including me) wanted an actual video game based on the video.

Now one aspiring game developer has delivered an actual playable version of RHCP's Californication, and you can download it now.

SEGA has joined other game developers in donating directly to Ukrainian relief funds.

Japanese games-maker SEGA is the latest video games company to raise funds for Ukraine. The Sonic developer shared an update on Twitter that pledged support for the beleaguered Eastern European country:

"SEGA is making a meaningful donation and is matching donations from its staff to various Ukraine-focused humanitarian aid causes. This money will go towards desperately needed help for those affected."

343i is adding three new game modes to Halo Infinite to keep things interesting.

Halo Infinite released in December 2021 without fan-favorite game modes and features. Campaign co-op wasn't available for the first time ever, and key multiplayer modes like king of the hill--which is tremendously fun--were missing. Now 343i confirms some of the missing modes are coming to Halo Infinite when season 2 releases in May 2022.

The new modes include:

Halo Infinite's campaign co-op won't be available at the start of season 2.

343i has finally announced new details on Halo Infinite's upcoming features, including co-op, forge, season 2, and bug fixes. 343i can't fix everything at once, and the studio has a prioritization hierarchy that looks like this:

Co-op isn't at the very top of the list, and there's a lot involved to get co-op running on five separate Xbox consoles. The studio says Halo Infinite's online/split-screen campaign co-op play will not be available when Season 2 begins on May 3.