Gaming - Page 412

EA's rockstar Vince Zampella now leads the Battlefield franchise amid a big internal shake-up at the company.

Big things are happening with the Battlefield universe. EA announced that Respawn Entertainment head Vince Zampella has taken over the Battlefield series and will guide the IP into the future with a multitude of new games.

Halo co-creator Marcus Lehto will also help expand the Battlefield universe. In October, EA opened a new Seattle-based studio and hired Lehto to lead the team. Now Lehto confirms his new studio is working on Battlefield.

Valve has confirmed that its upcoming Steam Deck portable handheld gaming device will not have any exclusive games; meaning there will be no Steam Deck exclusives that aren't available on the PC or other platforms.

Unlike every other platform which has exclusives like Microsoft with Halo, Sony with The Last of Us or Uncharted, Nintendo with Mario and Zelda, and so on -- Valve will instead not have any Steam Deck exclusives -- and there's a very good reason (from Valve themselves) on why.

Valve explains in its updated FAQ, with a question "Would Valve be interested in having any Steam Deck exclusive titles?" to which the developer answers: "No, that doesn't make much sense to us. It's a PC and it should just play games like a PC".

We all want it to happen, and we all fear it will never happen... Half-Life 3 will never come out.

In some fresh news, Valve insider Tyler McVicker talks about the future of the Half-Life franchise and highlights that no new entry in the Half-Life series is in development at Valve right now. Sure, Valve released the VR-exclusive Half-Life: Alyx, which was one of (if not the very) best game I've ev er played... but it doesn't mean Half-Life 3, or even Half-Life: Alyx 2 are in development.

McVicker added that Valve is full steam ahead on its portable gaming handheld, with the Steam Deck having Valve's full attention so that games work extremely well with most games.

Cyberpunk 2077 is already one of the best-looking games on the PC, especially when you've got the CPU and GPU hardware to handle it maxed out with ray tracing and DLSS enabled. But what about with the unreleased DLSS 2.3 update, and over 50 mods? Check it out:

Digital Dreams is using an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 graphics card at 4K with DLSS 2.3 enabled on Cyberpunk 2077, as well as adding over 50 mods and turning up every single visual dial to maximum. The result? Absolute pixel beauty. I mean, it looks so damn good it makes me want to properly fire up Cyberpunk 2077 and play it through like this.

It's not completely flawless, but Cyberpunk 2077 has never looked better. It makes all the work developer CD PROJEKT RED put into the game stand out even more, and look far better in some (more so than others, really) and absolutely drool-worthy in other locations and situations in Cyberpunk 2077 as they explore the city in its improved graphical beauty.

Multiplayer is coming to The Witcher franchise, CD Projekt RED has reiterated.

The next Witcher game could have live service elements complete with in-game monetization, such as cosmetic or progression-altering microtransactions. In a recent Q3 earnings call, CDPR president Adam Kicinski reiterates that multiplayer will come "gradually" to both The Witcher and Cyberpunk franchises. This echoes previous statements made in March, but now Kicinski says that Cyberpunk 2077's multiplayer may not come first.

CD Projekt RED plans to start working on two AAA franchises simultaneously as early as Q3 2022, the company has said.

Cyberpunk 2077's disastrous launch notwithstanding, CDPR is gearing up for big things in the next few years. The developer wants to start working on two big AAA projects at the same time with two main teams working in parallel with one another. This means new Witcher and Cyberpunk games will be developed at the same time, which is a big departure from the years' long dev cycles between Witcher and Cyberpunk 2077 titles.

Previously CDPR has said this process will begin in next year, and now company president Adam Kicinski clarifies dual development won't begin until both next-gen versions of Cyberpunk 2077 and The Witcher 3 are released by June 2022.

CD Projekt RED says it will spend as much time and money as needed in order to fix Cyberpunk 2077 across all platforms.

CDPR is committed to fixing Cyberpunk 2077 for the long haul. The studio has been spending millions on the game's extra development costs, which include new updates, patches, and optimizations to fix the game's disastrous launch performance on PS4 and Xbox One consoles. This spending also includes the next-gen version of Cyberpunk 2077 on PS5 and Xbox Series X/S systems.

In a recent Q3 earnings call, CD Projekt Chief Financial Officer Piotr Nielubowicz said this spending will continue as long as it's necessary. "Obviously we'll keep servicing the game for as long as necessary; however I strongly hope it will not take five years."

Congress wants to use legislation to stop bots from buying up all the electronics and manipulating the market.

COVID-19 has significantly disrupted supply lines and demand has skyrocketed as a result. This on its own led to higher prices, but bots and scalpers have pushed things to a new level as once-leisure products like PlayStations, Xboxes, Nintendo Switches, and graphics cards have doubled and tripled in price. Want an RTX 3090? You could have one...for the price of a used car. Everyone's trying to buy into a market that's already been bought up by automated bots.

In the good spirit of Christmas, Congress wants to put an end to the price-gouging madness with the Stopping Grinch Bots Act.

Titanfall 3 may be in the works over at Respawn as the developers tease the future of the beloved sci-fi shooter franchise.

Respawn has once again teased a new mainline Titanfall sequel. The developers today announced that Titanfall 1 is being de-listed and discontinued from sale on all digital marketplaces, but also confirmed that the franchise will continue onward.

"Rest assured, Titanfall is core to Respawn's DNA and this incredible universe will continue. Today in Titanfall 2 and Apex Legends, and in the future," the studio said.

Rockstar Games has delayed all physical retail copies of its new GTA trilogy remaster as it works on updates and fixes for the controversial game.

The new GTA trilogy re-release collection is one of the most-hated games of 2021, and has been lambasted and outright lampooned across social media, YouTube, and pretty much everywhere else. Everyone knows about the weird character models, bad weather effects, and outright embarrassing in-game glitches and mess ups. Rockstar has released a number of patches since the trilogy's launch to help fix various issues, but their work isn't done yet, and that's why the physical versions of the trilogy have been delayed slightly.

Rockstar announced the trilogy's disk-based SKUs will now release on December 17 across PS4 and Xbox One, whereas the Nintendo Switch physical cartridge version has been delayed to early 2022--possibly the same timeframe as GTA V Expanded & Enhanced.

The original online-only Titanfall game can no longer be purchased in digital storefronts, Respawn today announced.

Titanfall has officially been discontinued from sale and will be removed from subscriptions like EA Play in March 2022. Starting today gamers will no longer be able to buy Titanfall from storefronts like Steam, the PlayStation Store, or the Xbox marketplace. Respawn and EA still plan to keep the online multiplayer servers up and running, however the infrastructure is absolutely festooned with cheaters and hackers.

"Titanfall is part of our DNA at Respawn. It's a game that showcased the ambitions of the studio when it was first released more than 7 years ago and it continues to be a beacon of innovation that we strive for in all of our games," Respawn said in an announcement post.

We all know how hot the PlayStation 5 console is, with Sony's next-gen consoles virtually sold out across the world. You can find them at times during flash sales, or pay scalpers fees... or you can try to sell your console and get shot for it.

A 19-year-old met someone who he thought was someone interested in buying a PlayStation 5 console, in Harris County, Texas. The PS5 robbery took place at around 1:30PM in the 8300 block of Gros Ventre Lane, where the suspect then pulled a gun and committed an armed robbery of the PlayStation 5 console.

The suspect ran away with the PS5 console after shooting the owner in his side, with authorities saying the man was rushed to hospital in a "stable condition". It's "unclear if any arrests were made" it seems, so someone is in the wild is enjoying a PlayStation 5 and doesn't mind going to prison for it.

Qualcomm and Razer have been working together behind the scenes on a next-gen mobile gaming device, something that's powered by Snapdragon G3x silicon.

The news is coming from our friends over at VideoCardz, which have some sneaky leaked slides on Qualcomm's next-gen Snapdragon SoCs for 2022 and beyond. The new Snapdragon G3x is teased here, designed specifically for next-gen handheld gaming.

Razer collaborated with Qualcomm on the Snapdragon G3x, with the mobile device teased packing what should be a gorgeous 120Hz HDR OLED display. Inside, there's a large 6000mAh battery feeding the system and display. The device is advertised here as a game streaming product that supports Xbox Game Cloud, streaming from a console or even a PC... very, very nice.

Despite the ongoing Cyberpunk 2077 controversy, CD Projekt RED still has no plans to sell itself to a large company like Tencent, Sony, or even Microsoft.

CD Projekt Group, which includes subsidiaries like CD Projekt RED (The Witcher, Cyberpunk 2077) and Spokko (The Witcher Monster Slayer AR game), will stay independent and has no desires to be bought out or taken over. It's true that the massive Cyberpunk 2077 launch fiasco has tarnished the firm but company president Adam Kicinski is confident the game--and by extension, the studio--can be redeemed with enough time, patience, and hard work.

In a recent interview with Polish newspaper Rzeczpospolita, Kicinski reiterates that there are no plans to sell outside of publicly-traded shares on the stock market: "We have been repeating for years that we plan to remain independent and do not plan to become part of a larger entity. We are also not looking for a strategic investor."

There's one silver lining to Cyberpunk 2077's huge global controversy: Everyone knows about the game.

As No Man's Sky has proven, infamy can generate massive brand awareness and also sets the stage for an even better come back story. The negative repercussions typically far outweigh the positives; with CP2077 there was tons of pushback from gamers, missed revenues due to de-listing on the PlayStation Store, and even a securities fraud lawsuit.

Even still, CD Projekt RED is confident that it will eventually redeem Cyberpunk 2077 and turn things around. In a recent interview with Polish newspaper Rzeczpospolita, studio president Adam Kicinski says that the game could transform into a hit...long-term, of course.

A new MMORPG based on a Marvel IP is currently in development...what could it be?

Dimensional Ink, the studio that helped make big live service games like Star Wars Galaxies and the 10 year-old DC Universe Online, is developing a new MMORPG based on the Marvel universe. The news was discovered in an earnings report from Swedish games-maker Enad Global 7 (the parent of Dimensional Ink, Daybreak Games, and others).

The brief confirms the new MMORPG is a AAA-class project that takes place in an undisclosed Marvel property. Dimensional Ink boss Jack Emmert will lead development at the Austin-based studio (Dimensional Ink used to be Daybreak Games Austin and was re-branded in January 2020).

Sony Interactive Entertainment is being sued for alleged gender pay discrimination.

Ex-Sony employee Emma Lee Majo has filed a class action lawsuit against the company that alleges widespread and global gender pay gaps. Majo, who served 6 years as an IT Security Risk Analyst at Sony, says that the billion-dollar firm favors males with promotions an higher pay for the same jobs that women held.

"Sony tolerates and cultivates a work environment that discriminates against female employees, including female employees and those who identify as female. Female employees are subjected to continuoing unlawful disparate treatment in pay and work opportunities,"the lawsuit claims.

Activision-Blizzard has formed a new Workplace Responsibility Committee as part of its ongoing response to troubling abuse and misconduct within the company.

Activision released a press release detailing its new internal committee focused on holding management accountable for new cultural reforms. The Workplace Responsibility Committee will task Activision's CEO Bobby Kotick and the Chief Compliance Officer with establishing new policies aimed at stamping out harassment and the sexual abuse allegations that currently surround the billion-dollar firm.

The committee will serve as a middle man between chief executives and the board, frequently delivering reports and updates to the board of directors (who fully support CEO Bobby Kotick).

Fortnite mogul Tim Sweeney says the nascent and ambiguous Metaverse could become a trillion-dollar industry.

Right now video games are the most lucrative part of the entertainment industry. Analyst firm Newzoo predicts gaming will make $175 billion in 2021, and $200 billion in 2023. But what happens if the entire entertainment industry melds together with one another with a pinch of social networking too?

That's essentially the driving force behind the Metaverse, gaming's newest buzzword that's being bandied about by the likes of Facebook (who believes so strongly in the Metaverse they changed their name to Meta), Google, Microsoft, and Epic Games (and a concept originally envisioned by novels like Ready Player One). The Fortnite-maker has ambitious plans for the Metaverse and is buying up key companies like Harmonix to "make music for the Metaverse."

Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney calls for a single storefront that works across all platforms...but that's very unlikely to happen.

Epic's Tim Sweeney has a wildly ambitious idea to unify and centralize video games under one store. The idea is to make a digital marketplace--like, say, the Epic Games Store--where game purchases carry across all platforms. It could go even further with cross-over purchases; think of it as a storefront that supports Play Anywhere: Buy a game once on PC, play it on PlayStation, Xbox, Nintendo Switch, and even mobiles.

"What the world really needs now is a single store that works with all platforms," Sweeney said at the Global Conference for Mobile Application Ecosystem Fairness in Seoul, South Korea.