Gaming - Page 403

E3 2022 will be all-digital again this year, but there's more to the story than coronavirus concerns.

Today the ESA sent out a statement saying E3 2022 won't have a physical venue at the Los Angeles Convention Center because of the ongoing global pandemic, namely the new omicron variant. "Due to the ongoing health risks surrounding COVID-19 and its potential impact on the safety of exhibitors and attendees, E3 will not be held in person in 2022," the ESA told Gamesbeat.

While the coronavirus plays a big role in E3 2022's cancellation, it's not the whole reason. According to analyst Mike Futter, the reality is the ESA gave up their booked dates for the Los Angeles Convention Center. A quick look at the LACC calendar shows that E3 is missing for both June and July 2022. A search on the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine also shows a clean slate for the month of June.

Konami's new Castlevania NFTs are just small clips of gameplay, animations, and BGM content that isn't really worth buying.

Konami is celebrating Castlevania's 35th anniversary with an NFT auction. Why? Because it's 2022, and everyone wants a piece of the multi-million NFT pie. The sad reality with Castlevania's NFTs is the value simply isn't there. Konami tried to make their NFTs unique but it's a hard sale; some of NFTs are small slices of gameplay where owners can play a singular, small portion. It's like playing an on-demand clickable demo.

The other NFTs are the equivalent of extras that you'd typically find in a old-school retro game, complete with background music samples (yes, really) and digital art posters. Whoa.

MSI has gone all-in with this new collaboration with EVANGELION e:PROJECT with a range of PC components inspired by one of the most popular anime on the planet -- as well as a wicked new case and PSU.

The new MSI x EVANGELION lineup of PC components is inspired by the look and style of Evangelion Unit-01, rocking a gorgeous purple/green/black color scheme. As for the PC components, we're looking at the MSI B660 Tomahawk EVA e-Project, MSI Gungnir 110R EVA e-Project, MSI MAG Coreliquid C240 EVA e-Project & the A650BN EVA e-project.

These new PC components aren't just products available now and re-made again inspired by Evangelion -- but rather brand new components that aren't already available.

Razer unveiled something truly ambitious at CES 2022 this year, with Project Sophia: the world's first true gaming desk concept, with an advanced gaming chair with built-in high-fidelity haptics, and a 65-inch OLED display.

The pandemic has spurred Razer into action, where Project Sophia was born into existence where the company has used a fully modular design that lets the desk work around you, and not the other way around. There's 13 separate modules that allow you to personalize the desk to your exact liking, including multiple displays, system monitoring tools (for Twitch streamers, benchmarkets, etc), touch-screen panels, tablets, mixers, and so much more.

Inside, Project Sophia rocks a customized PCB that has cutting-edge core components that include Intel's latest 12th Gen Core "Alder Lake" CPU and NVIDIA's latest GeForce RTX 30 series GPU. Razer has built all of the system into a super-slim chassis that magnetically snaps in underneath the glass tabletop -- this is detached easily, so that you can upgrade the internal components -- making the modular desk, even more customizable.

Aya Neo has just unveiled their third-gen Neo Next handheld gaming console, powered by an 8-core, 16-thread Ryzen 7 5800U "Cezanne-U" APU based on the Zen 3 architecture.

The regular Aya Neo Next comes with 16GB of RAM and 1TB of storage, while the Neo Next Advance comes with 16GB of RAM and 2TB of storage. From there we have the AYA Neo Next Advance Signature Edition which comes with 16GB RAM and 2TB of storage, with only 300 of these units made. Finally there's the Neo Pro with 32GB of RAM and 2TB of storage.

Each of the units has a 7-inch high-brightness IPS display, hail effect joystick and linear trigger, Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.2 connectivity, a replaceable joystick, NEXT Handgrip, X axis linar motor, two-channel speakers, and a 47 Wh long battery life. Not too bad at all.

Bethesda teases Elder Scrolls Online's next big expansion and confirms the MMORPG is going to a brand new land that's never been explored in the mainline series.

Elder Scrolls Online's new adventure sees players crossing the seas from the Tamriel mainland to a mysterious new island. A new teaser from Bethesda strongly hints that ESO's new 2022 yearly content will take place in the sea elve's (also known as maormer) homeland of Pyandonea, which lies south of the Somerset Isles.

"Across a vast sea awaits 2022's newest adventure for The Elder Scrolls Online. The coming year will satisfy a desire of Elder Scrolls fans everywhere by introducing a never-before-seen world and a tale that has yet to be told," reads a press release.

SEGA will scrap its NFT and play-to-earn plans if gamers don't approve.

Back in November, SEGA said it was interested in experimenting with NFTs and other emerging technologies. Now the Japanese games-maker says it could halt its R&D initiatives and investments into NFTs if the global gaming audience pushes back. So far gamers have vehemently decried NFTs, blockchain gaming, and play-to-earn despite major publishers like Ubisoft, EA, and Square Enix all evangelizing the new tech.

In a recent management meeting. SEGA CEO Haruki Satomi confirms there's no concrete plans with blockchain, NFTs, or play-to-earn. Lots of things need to be considered, Satomi says, including regulations, implementation, and overall player sentiment.

Ubisoft+ is coming to Xbox platforms, but don't expect to get it free with Game Pass.

Ubisoft's premium all-you-can-play games subscription service is coming to Xbox platforms, the company announced. Everyone assumes Ubisoft will include this free with Game Pass Ultimate, but that's not the case. It'll be an entirely separate subscription.

What's interesting is that Ubisoft+ is technically a Game Pass competitor that quite literally copies Microsoft's game plan. See if this familiar: Ubisoft+ grants access to over 100 games (131 games, to be exact) and new titles are released day-and-date on Ubisoft+. There's also extra bonuses like cosmetics and in-game items.

Months after the PS5 release, Death Stranding Director's Cut is finally coming to PC with a ton of QoL changes.

Holding off on Death Stranding was a wise decision, especially now with the Director's Cut on the horizon for PC. This will be the definitive version that makes big improvements over the original 2020 release. The changes are so significant that the original game is obsolete and there's no real reason to buy the base game now. For more info on the changes, click here.

505 Games and Kojima Productions have announced the Death Stranding Director's Cut is coming to Steam sometime in 2022. There's no release date, price, or details on a possible discount for existing owners available just yet.

Intel didn't have too much to show off in regards to its Xe-based Arc Alchemist desktop GPUs at CES 2022, but it did talk more about its supersampling technology -- Intel XeSS -- and had some rather large announcements.

Intel Arc graphics cards will work with XeSS but so will competitors' graphics cards, with Intel confirming that you'll receive more performance with its Arc Alchemist + Intel Core CPUs -- especially its new Alder Lake-based 12th Gen Core CPUs. But the bigger announcement was that Hideo Kojima's masterpiece Death Stranding Director's Cut, being one of the first with Intel XeSS support.

We now know that game developers including Ubisoft, IO Interactive, 505 Games, Kojima Productions, and PUBG Studios are stepping up to support Intel XeSS (meaning lots of money has exchanged hands) with many new games coming in 2022 with Intel XeSS support, especially with its Xe-based Arc Alchemist graphics cards launching this year.

PC gamers have spoken: The top Steam games include Resident Evil Village, It Takes Two, Deathloop, and Terraria. Here's the Steam Awards 2021 winners.

Shortly after The Game Awards, Valve recently held its own annual awards showcase to highlight the best PC games on the platform. The results aren't super surprising but are well-deserved nonetheless, with fantastic games like Resident Evil Village taking home Game of the Year (check out our official RE Village review to see why we love this game...and you should too).

After a year of controversy and mounting pressure, CD Projekt had a big win at the Steam Awards. Cyberpunk 2077 was recognized for its storytelling prowess just months after the game's Steam reviews became Mostly Positive.

BioShock creator Ken Levine's new game is currently in development hell due to his fickle creative process.

Ghost Story Games, Ken Levine's ne studio, was established in 2014 following BioShock Infinite's development. The last BioShock burned Levine out--and looking at his vastly complicated, volatile, and vacillating creative style it's no wonder--and he wanted a smaller-scale team to work on something special.

The problem is Levine's ambitions far outweigh the abilities of a small team. For the last 7 years, Ghost Story Games has quietly been working on a new project that's continually morphed and changed throughout the years. At one point the team was working on a mysterious Twilight Zone experience that was, predictably, cancelled.

Amazon Prime Gaming's free lineup for January 2022 is really good, and includes one of the best Star Wars games of all time.

From now until January 31, Amazon Prime subscribers can enjoy a handful of awesome free games including Respawn's beloved Star Wars adventure Jedi: Fallen Order (on EA's Origin client, not Steam). Another heavy-hitter offered in the free bundle chaotic RTS Total War: Warhmmer, and there's also Saber's popular World War Z shooter on the Epic Games Store.

The rest of the games lineup are launched natively within the Prime Gaming app on Windows, so there's no need to redeem keys or download another launcher like Origin or EGS. Respawn's next Star Wars game--a sequel to the popular Jedi: Fallen Order--may be revealed sometime this year with a release date in 2023 or 2024.

Alienware has just teased its Concept Nyx, a new product that -- if made into a reality-- would act as a Plex server for your PC games and wirelessly stream them to devices in your house... no matter where you purchased the games from.

The Alienware Concept Nyx would let you tap a single button similar to pressing the Chromecast button on your smart device when a Google Chromecast-capable device (Chromecast, NVIDIA Shield, Smart TVs, etc) is on your Wi-Fi network. Alienware's new Concept Nyx would allow up to 4 games being streamed at once, with repurposed Concept UFO controllers from CES 2020 spotted with Concept Nyx.

You'll need a beefy PC to handle it all, as well as some wicked-fast networking -- most high-end motherboards have 2.5GbE, 5GbE, and even 10GbE networking now -- but wired GbE ethernet should suffice. I'm sure we'll see Alienware release a specific device for it -- with enough grunt to handle it all -- as well as a paid service, but this is all in the air as it's a concept device right now.

Hideo Kojiima gives more cryptic teases of his new project and promises to merge different entertainment mediums together with the mysterious game.

Kojima has been talking up a new experimental project for a while now, and his latest remarks further underline what to expect. In a recent interview with Famitsu, the Metal Gear Solid creator affirmed the project would help blur the lines between mediums.

"A big title, and a title that's a new challenge. As the boundaries of entertainment disappear in the near future, I'd like to make this a year that we take a step forward into challenging different mediums and expressions," he said.

Shortly after a $149,000 NFT scam, the Fractal NFT trading site is currently open for business.

Fractal, the new NFT marketplace from Twitch co-founder Justin Kan, is now live and the first trades have taken place. Fractal is built on the Solana blockchain and its NFTs are currently selling from anywhere between 0.07 SOL to a whopping 14.00 SOL, or roughly $20,000.

The marketplace has integration with popular blockchain games like Panzerdogs, Aurory, Portals, Photo Finish, Genopets, Gaveworld, Nyan Heroes, Mini Royale, and Solchicks. Users can buy NFTs directly from developers in scheduled drops, or trade with other users across the Fractal platform. Kan also reveals that the official Fractal NFTs have now dropped

Steam kicks off 2022 with a new player record, showing that PC gaming is bigger than ever.

Two days into 2022 and Valve has already smashed previous player records on Steam. According to new data from Steam DB, Valve's bustling online marketplace had 27,942,036 peak concurrent users logged in at once. That's roughly 557,000 more users logged in now than in November 2021, the previous record month.

It's worth noting that only 8.2 million people were actually playing games in the last 24 hours, or roughly 30% of total concurrent users. Valve recently shared the top-selling Steam games of 2021 and heavy-hitters like Apex Legends, PUBG, Valheim, and first-party titles DOTA 2 and Counter-Strike dominated the list.

SEGA is doubling-down on PC gaming as one of its most popular franchises reaches nearly 3 million unit sales.

SEGA's Ryu Ga Gotoku series (known as Yakuza in the West) has sold 2.8 million units on PC, the company has announced in a December 2021 report. In a separate brief from November, SEGA confirmed the Yakuza franchise has sold 17 million units lifetime to date across consoles and PC; a quick bit of math shows that PC makes up roughly 16% of total series sales across all platforms.

SEGA has nine Yakuza games on Steam including:

Final Fantasy XIV's Hydaelyn-Zodiark storyline may be over, but the developers are just getting started on a brand new adventure.

Although Endwalker concludes the 10-year Mothercrystal saga, Yoshi-P and his team have plenty more in store for Final Fantasy XIV players. In a recent New Year's letter to fans, Yoshi-P says that the game is "far from over" and the team is currently working on the next big story arc. Square Enix has lofty ambitions for FFXIV to last another 10 years--and why not? It's one of the most popular MMOs in existence.

"Now then, as its title suggests, Endwalker winds up the tale that has been woven since 1.0. However, FFXIV itself is far from over, and we've already begun creating new journeys for all you Warriors of Light─or adventurers, rather─to embark upon!" Yoshi-P said.

Beloved old-school N64 shooter GoldenEye 007 could be coming to Xbox One soon, a list of newly leaked achievements indicates.

More classic Rareware games are returning to Xbox, and GoldenEye could be the latest to come to modern platforms. A full list of GoldenEye 007 achievements was spotted on Exophase complete with high-res pictures of the achievement images themselves.

GoldenEye's retro rebirth is apparently a result of a recent business deal between Nintendo and Microsoft, which sees Rare titles like N64 Banjo Kazooie crossing over to the Nintendo Switch Online service. It's believed that Nintendo is also allowing GoldenEye to jump over to Xbox.