Gaming - Page 398

It's happening... it's finally happening -- Crytek is making a next-gen Crytek game, right in the middle of a pandemic-fueled GPU shortage.

Crytek announced Crysis 4 out of nowhere, saying: "It's something you have been asking us for a long time, so it's now finally time to confirm - yes, the next Crysis game is happening! We are so pleased and excited to bring this news to you, and we really can't wait to reveal more details about what lies ahead".

The developer continues: "Right now the game is in the early stages of development so it will be a while yet, but we wanted to bring you the news at this time as we are so hyped for the future, and to let you know that we will be listening to our community".

Halo Infinite has amassed a substantial 20 million players since launch, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella confirms, a somewhat foggy KPI given the game's conditions.

Xbox gaming just delivered its best quarter of all time with $5.4 billion in revenues. On top of that, more than 20 million people have played Halo Infinite since release. That's about 20 million users in 48 days. A pretty big milestone.

Nadella also touts that Infinite was the largest debut in the history of Halo, however this is to be expected considering Infinite is not only free-to-play, but included with Xbox Game Pass, which has 25 million active subscribers on consoles and PC. The point is that there's a lot of access points to Halo Infinite--that's no mistake, as Microsoft makes its games to drive services and subscriptions.

The next two mainline Call of Duty games will release on PlayStation platforms and will not be Xbox exclusives.

Call of Duty won't be Xbox exclusive until 2025, sources tell Bloomberg in a new report. Sony's pre-existing deal with Activision will prevent full Call of Duty Xbox exclusivity following Microsoft's acquisition of Activision-Blizzard.

Sony's deal includes the next three Call of Duty games: 2022's Modern Warfare 2, a new shooter from Treyarch, another game--as well as a new version of Call of Duty Warzone.

Xbox gaming made more money in Holiday 2021 than it ever has before.

Microsoft recently reported its Q2'22 earnings (October - December 2021), confirming explosive results for its gaming division. Xbox generated record earnings during the holiday period with over $5.442 billion in revenues, up nearly half a billion dollars from last year's high Q2 water mark.

This is not only the best Q2 in Xbox history, but the best quarter of all time for Microsoft's video games platform. FY22's second-half earnings (Q1+Q2) are $9.035 billion, which is more than Xbox's total-year revenues in FY15. This year should be another record fiscal year for Xbox.

Blizzard's next big IP might be an interesting take on a Kid in King Arthur's Court and The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe.

Today Blizzard confirmed it is working on an ambitious new IP. The unnamed project is a survival game that merges modern and fantasy together, as per details gleaned from a brief concept art glimpse. Job listings also confirm the new IP will be an online-based adventure which is Blizzard's usual fare.

"Blizzard is embarking on our next quest. We are going on a journey to a whole new universe, home to a brand-new survival game for PC and console. A place full of heroes we have yet to meet, stories yet to be told, and adventures yet to be lived. A vast realm of possibility, waiting to be explored," reads a job posting.

Respawn Entertainment, EA's new darling that's responsible for the billion-dollar Apex Legends, is leading the development of multiple new Star Wars games.

Our suspicions were correct; Respawn is developing three new Star Wars projects. The first game is a sequel to 2019's best-selling Jedi: Fallen Order, which became the fastest-selling Star Wars game of all time. It was so successful that it changed how EA makes Star Wars games.

The second EA Star Wars project is a FPS led by Respawn's Peter Hirschmann, who says the game will "tell a story he's always wanted to tell." Hirschmann served as a producer at DreamWorks for 7 years, a VP for Product Development at LucasArts for 6 years, and has been at Respawn as a game director since 2016.

People Can Fly is developing a second AAA game for Square Enix...could it be Outriders 2?

Polish game developer People Can Fly is very busy. The company has expanded to multiple territories and is working on three big new games, one of which is another title for Square Enix.

The studio's recent Q3 2021 financial report confirms two new games are in currently in production for a slated 2024 release: Project Gemini, a new game for Square Enix, and Project Dagger, an RPG action game for Take-Two Interactive. PCF is also working on another new IP that it plans to self-fund and self-publish.

NetEase has funded Nagoshi Studio, a new game development team lead by former Yakuza director Toshihiro Nagoshi.

After 32 years at SEGA, Toshihiro Nagoshi joined up with Chinese games juggernaut NetEase to form a new studio. Like Kojima Productions did with Konami, the new Nagoshi Studio has poached former SEGA and Yakuza developers over to the team.

NetEase's substantial revenues affords Nagoshi more freedom to chase new ideas. NetEase's earnings dwarf those of Nagoshi's previous home; The Chinese games-maker has generated $9.7 billion in from Q1-Q3, which is nearly 4x as much money as SEGA generated throughout the whole FY21 period.

Online-only shooter Outriders may have taken 5 years to develop and ship onto the market.

People Can Fly's recent Q3 2021 financials indicate Outriders may have taken as long as 5 years to make, which isn't unusual for AAA loot-and-shoot video games.

The report confirms People Can Fly signed the multi-year publishing agreement with Square Enix in 2016:

Outriders' post-launch content may extend through 2023 with two big expansions.

Outriders' first major expansion, Worldslayer, is due out in 2022. But it may not be the only expansion People Can Fly has planned for the game.

Worldslayer is expected to propel the online-only looter shooter to new heights. Forbes' Paul Tassi guesses Worldslayer could be Outriders' own version of Reaper of Souls, complete with a new usable class, new zones, and more.

Valve is helping out developers with more funding to research open-source Radeon Linux GPU drivers for the Steam Deck handheld, with more testing of Mesa commits + Radeon GPU drivers.

Charlie Turner, programming consultant for Igalia, created a merge request on FreeDesktop's Mesa site for more dEQP runners. The agency itself "specializes in the growth of innovative projects and solutions" with the new request asking Valve to help with AMD Radeon GPU Linux drive testing, and since the Steam Deck is powered by an AMD RDNA 2-based GPU it makes sense for Valve to commit more resources to Radeon Linux GPU drivers.

"This series proposes to add more dEQP bare-metal runners, sponsored by Valve. For now the runners are conditioned on a selection of users (similar to how freedreno's restricted traces work), since there are not enough machines to hit the runtime targets required for inclusion in the automatic pre-merge pipelines. There's nothing secret about the test loads, the restriction is purely practical for now and any interested user may request access to the runner. A follow-up series will add trace testing runners to the CI, using a similar approach to the above".

Battlefield 2042 is an absolute mess, where it garnered literally less than 30 minutes of playtime before I stopped playing it and went back to Warzone and more specifically, Rebirth Resurgence... thinking of that, I don't think I even refunded it. Sigh.

Now we have Battlefield insider Tom Henderson tweeting that EA is reported "very disappointed" in how Battlefield 2042 has performed and that the company is "looking at all the options" when it comes to the future of the game. Henderson says that "this is including looking at Free to Play in some capacity".

But I really, really don't see how making a shit game free, in any capacity, will help. I think admitting the game is a mess, opening the game up to the community to mod into something actually playable... admitting your total faults to the community and maybe turning Battlefield 2042 into something that doesn't resemble a digital pile of dog shit.

Steam has amassed a new concurrent user record as PC gaming surges through 2022.

Today Valve's platform is full steam ahead: Steam has now hit a new all-time high of 29,201,174 lifetime concurrent users, up from the previous 28.7 million mark set earlier this month. That's two new records set in the beginning of 2022 alone and the numbers could inflate more as new releases start popping up.

It's worth noting these are users, not people who are in-game. The numbers for actual in-game users is at 8.5 million, so roughly 30% of the people who are logged in are actually playing games.

After 21 years of waiting, D2's mythical Act 6 could finally be released.

Popular Diablo 2 streamer and speedrunner MrLlamaSC may have accidentally outed plans for a new Act 6 in Diablo 2 Resurrected.

"You want standard of heroes to do something? Well when Act 6...," MrLlama said, quickly realizing what he said on a Twitch live stream and deflecting with: "Yeah...that'd be great if they gave us some sort of way to use it."

KeyBanc senior analyst Michael Turits predicts strong revenue growth for both Xbox and Activision-Blizzard by 2023.

Microsoft's $68.7 billion buyout of Activision-Blizzard is expected to close in FY23. By that time, analysts predict both companies will make substantial revenue growth. Keybanc's Michael Turits expects Activision-Blizzard to break the $10 billion revenue mark for the first time in history with a 13-year CAGR growth rate of 6.43%, possibly driven by cost-saving synergies within Microsoft's games division. Activision's last financials show $8.5 billion estimated revenues for calendar 2021.

Xbox gaming is likewise expected to jump to $16.9 billion, representing a 10% increase over the last reported FY21 period. Microsoft's games segment delivered a record $15.37 billion in FY21 driven by hardware and software synergy surges across game and console sales and subscriptions.

Multiple law firms are investigating Microsoft's proposed $68.7 billion buyout of Activision-Blizzard for possible violations of securities laws.

Seven law firms have announced formal investigations into Microsoft's massive Activision-Blizzard acquisition proposal. The investigations are centered around three main points:

The law firms are questioning the Activision-Blizzard board's exact motivations to sell. The Wall Street Journal reports that Activision's ongoing controversy and sexual discrimination lawsuits were a major factor behind the acquisition agreement.

Contrary to Bloomberg reports, Sony has issued a statement that it had no plans to end PS4 production in 2021.

Initial reports suggested the PS4 was retired at the end of 2021, and brought back to help offset stalled PS5 production due to semiconductor shortages. "There was no plan to end the production of PS4 at the end of last year," Sony said in a public statement to Japanese publication Netorabo.

The full statement is below:

Contrary to recent reports, Nintendo has apparently not entirely fixed Zelda Ocarina of Time's emulated graphics and effects on Switch Online.

Some Nintendo 64 games don't look so great on the Switch. The company is charging $50 a year for its new Switch Online + Expansion Pack subscription tier that comes with wonky emulation for specific games. Ocarina of Time, one of the best N64 games ever made, is a game that sometimes looks better on the original 1996 console than it does on Switch.

Sadly, Nintendo hasn't entirely fixed these issues...however there have been some adjustments since launch. Ocarina of Time's Switch N64 version is still missing the more enhanced reflection and fog effects that are used in the original N64 release, which are also seen in the GameCube and Wii VC versions. A Tweet from code tinkerer OatmealDome indicated that the OOT could've been fixed on the Switch; the infamous Water Temple has been adjusted to make the water more clear. Reflections have also been added, but they're not as extensive as the original version's reflections.

Switch Online's latest N64 game completes the Zelda 64-bit era duology.

Nintendo has announced The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask is the next N64 game coming to the premium Switch Online + Expansion Pack subscription. Majora's Mask will release in February 2022 as part of the Expansion Pack service.

The first Zelda N64 game, Ocarina of Time, was a launch game for the new subscription and is regarded as one of the best video games ever made.

Ubisoft has sunset Watchdogs Legion and confirms the game will no longer get new updates.

Watch Dogs Legion--which apparently started off as a new Driver game--is officially feature-complete. Ubisoft announces that the third Watchdogs game has been officially retired and will no longer receive new content updates or patches.

"TU 5.6 was our final update for Watch Dogs: Legion," Ubisoft said. Title Update 5.6 was introduced in September 2021 with a multitude of bug fixes.