Gaming - Page 429

Nintendo's new premium $350 Switch OLED console has the same exact JoyCon controllers as the original models, the company confirms to Axios Gaming.

The new Switch OLED doesn't feature improved JoyCon controllers and are still susceptible to analog stick drift. The Switch OLED's JoyCon sticks are 100% exactly the same as those used in the 2017 and 2019 Switch revisions, as well as the Switch Lite handheld-only system. In 2019, two years after the Switch's launch, Nintendo addressed the JoyCon drift controversy by offering to repair affected controllers for free.

Read Also: Switch OLED specs compared: New model vs Lite vs 2017 launch Switch

UPDATE:Activision-Blizzard has settled the lawsuit and has agreed to pay $18 million in an escrow account for anyone who was discriminated against. See the filing here.

Establishing a Settlement Fund and General Provisions

1. Defendants will provide a total fund of $18,000,000 to be available to Eligible Claimants to resolve this Action. Within thirty (30) calendar days of the Effective Date, Defendants will cause that sum to be deposited into the Settlement Fund and provide the EEOC with written verification of that funding within seven (7) calendar days of deposit.

Anyone with a PC or an Xbox can play this weekend's Halo Infinite technical preview.

343i has announced that the second Halo Infinite technical preview multiplayer test from October 1 - October 3 will not require Halo Insider sign ups. Anyone will be able to participate in the test regardless if they're a Halo Insider or not. All you need to do is download the Xbox Insider app on PC or Xbox.

This weekend's test will include both 4v4 social arena and crazy 12v12 big team battle gametypes, complete with slayer, capture the flag, and zone capture modes. You don't want to miss this one. It'll be full of absolutely carnage on all platforms, especially now that players are finding creative ways to abuse the grapple shot and repulsor equipment.

It looks like Horizon Forbidden West will borrow from games like Far Cry 6 by adding skills and other bonuses to outfits.

Aloy's outfits in Horizon Forbidden West have been overhauled to provide more freedom and power to players to min-max specific build types. The armor pieces will now have skills as well as perks attached to them, Guerrilla Games confirms.

"Horizon Forbidden West will have a range of outfits for Aloy to benefit from; similar to and perhaps familiar from the first game, outfits allow for protection against a variety of dangers that Aloy encounters and can be purchased from Merchants or found in the world. A new addition to the system is that outfits in Horizon Forbidden West have skills attached to them, so players can boost their abilities in different ways."

The built-in Microsoft Edge web browser on the Xbox Series S and Series X consoles can now competently run emulators and ROMs.

According to Modern Vintage Gamer, the updated Edge browser on Xbox Series S/X consoles is now a great way to play retro ROMs and emulators without having download the console's Dev Mode app. This means you can run free javascript-based games natively within the browser without any downloads, including old-school MS-DOS games.

Some emulators like N64 js require you to load the ROMs directly and the Edge browser doesn't allow access to console files, so as MVG notes, you'll have to host the files from another website. Games from the Nintendo 64 and PlayStation 1 era seem to run flawlessly without FPS drops and hitches that can be found in other emulators--it's just seamless play without much setup involved.

Horizon Forbidden West will be a big marquee PlayStation 5 game when it launches in February 2022, but the devs promise it'll play and look great on PS4 too.

Aloy's new sequel adventure is a cross-gen game coming to both PS4 and PS5, and the next-gen version will feature high-end optimizations like 4K visuals, ultra-fast loading, and DualSense haptic feedback. To make sure the PS4 version lives up to the hype, Guerrilla is teasing "unexplored resources" to help boost realism on the 7 year-old console.

"We actually developed and tested the game simultaneously on both PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5, because it's very important to us as a studio to ensure PlayStation 4 players get an equally immersive experience," lead character artist Bastien Ramisse said in a PlayStation Blog post.

I wanted to be more excited about Battlefield Mobile but the recent Beta gameplay footage that has been leaked doesn't inspire much confidence. Before I dive into it, check it out:

There's two parts to this with the first above, and the second below -- uploaded by Techzamazing on YouTube from the Battlefield Mobile Android beta version of the game. Battlefield Mobile has recently kicked off with regional testing in Indonesia and the Philippines, and this is now our first look.

It doesn't look too bad with the environments large for a mobile game, but the graphics are a far cry from the screenshots the developer -- in this case Industrial Toys -- showed off when Battlefield Mobile was very first announced.

Halo Infinite's shock rifle can do interesting things like create electrified traps out of dropped weapons.

Players can drop weapons in Halo Infinite with a button press. Weapons also fall when you die, so enemies can pick up that rocket launcher or sniper rifle. Halo Infinite's new shock rifle can actually turn these items into dangerous AOE traps.

The new shock rifle in Halo Infinite is a lot of fun. It can zap players with a stream of lightning that would make Tesla proud. You can also make your own Death Sentry straight out of Diablo 2 by shooting dropped weapons with the shock rifle. The electricity will pass through the guns in a crackling line of death--turns out Infinite's weapons are all highly conductive. The zaps only last for a bit (a couple of seconds) but it's enough to strip shields and even kill players.

Halo Infinite's new repulsor equipment is transforming the game's competitive landscape.

Halo Infinite introduces two new abilities that have dramatically changed how gamers play: The grappleshot and the repulsor. The repulsor is something we saw in early teasers--its how the Spartan reflected the plasma pistol shot back at the enemy--and players are doing some insane things with the new equipment.

The repulsor does exactly that. It propels things with repulsion. You can launch yourself in the air from the ground, bounce off of walls, fling weapons to allies, use it to blast the flag across the map, bounce sticky grenades back at enemies, and best of all, utterly demolish vehicles by pushing them off the map. This piece of equipment has far-reaching implications for the meta.

Apple will continue exercising its legal right to keep Fortnite banned from the App Store.

The Epic Games vs Apple trial is now over, and the fallout sees some things changing--and more things staying the same. District court Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers ruled that Apple is not monopolistic nor did it violate antitrust laws, and it has the right to keep Fortnite--and Epic Games--off of its platform for as long as it likes.

Epic didn't like this ruling. In fact, Epic mostly lost the trial; The court only ruled in favor of Epic in one complaint--that Apple's 30% commission was unjustified, excessive, and "supracompetitive". Apple isn't antitrust, but it is showing signs of becoming antitrust through anti-competitive policies. Apple was forced to allow developers to offer in-game payment links that would bypass Apple's 30% revenue cut, letting app and game devs keep 100% of earnings.

Halo Infinite's second technical preview shows big visual upgrades over the controversial 2020 reveal.

Halo Infinite's graphics have changed dramatically over the last year. The game looks good now. Actually, it looks really good on both PC and Xbox Series X. Some big improvements include high-resolution textures, significantly upgraded lighting effects with light and shadow rolling off of detailed weapon textures, reflective surfaces that gleam brightly, and impressively layered environments that add lots of immersion.

Sony started planning out the PlayStation 5's M.2 external SSD support way back in 2018, roughly 2 years before the console launched.

There was a time when Sony wasn't sure if the PS5 would support PCIe 4.0 SSD expansion. In fact, Sony was planning support as early as 2018 before the first PCIe Gen4 M.2 SSD was on the market. While it was designing the PS5's custom 12-channel Marvell Titania 2 memory controller, the high-speed configuration, and advanced decompression tech, the games-maker took a gamble and decided to allow storage drives that technically didn't exist yet in an effort to future-proof the PS5. The gambit worked and the PS5 now supports blistering-fast PC-grade SSDs in excess of 7GB/sec.

"We knew any capacity we put into the machine as storage, one day you'll hit the capacity. We wanted to provide options. It was important for us to enable upgrade capability for users. We designed the M.2 SSD feature back in 2018. At that time, we were not sure if Gen4 SSDs were coming up or not, but we believed they were," SIE SVP of Platform Experience Hideaki Nishino said in a PlayStation Blog interview.

Is Respawn working on Titanfall 3, or a new Titanfall game? It's complicated.

Respawn is very busy right now. The studio is making Jedi: Fallen Order 2, continuing new Apex Legends updates, and even working on a new singleplayer title that's in early incubation phases. So where's Titanfall 3? Don't expect it any time soon.

Respawn has clarified multiple times that it's not making Titanfall 3 right now, and community dev Jason Garza also said this days ago: "Don't get your hopes up, man. I've said this before. We don't have anything in the works. There's nothing. We've got too many other games in the works right now."

Sony is offering a new promotion that discounts 1 month of PlayStation Plus for just $1.

Did you just grab a PS5 and want to try out PlayStation Plus? Sony has a new offer that gives you 30 days of PS Plus subscription for $1. The deal is predictably only for new PS Plus subscribers, and buying the sub enrolls you in auto-renew, which you'll have to turn off to avoid a $9.99 recurring charge.

Your 1-month membership will renew automatically and $9.99 + applicable tax will be deducted from your wallet every 1 month until you cancel. If your wallet has insufficient funds, your account's default payment method will be charged the remainder. Price may change," the deal page says.

Battlefield 2042 is finally getting closer and closer, with what should hopefully be fully locked in at this point with no further delay -- the Battlefield 2042 beta early access drops October 6, and then open for all on October 8, 2021.

The news is coming from Battlefield 2042 leaker Tom Henderson, who has now put firm dates on the Battlefield 2042 beta. October 6 isn't too much further away now, 10 days isn't so bad -- at least if you've pre-ordered Battlefield 2042 then you'll get access into the beta.

But man-oh-man the Battlefield 2042 open beta is going to be big, that's when the world will really either shine down, or sh*t on Battlefield 2042 before it drives up into its official launch. I'm pretty hyped at this point, but I don't have all my hopes put on it -- I'm enjoying Warzone (Rebirth at least) and will dive right into Battlefield 2042 the second it's available.

Remember those old BXB, BXR, and BYYB days? Relive those old tortured memories in Halo Infinite.

Halo Infinite has its own BYYB animation glitch that absolutely destroys players with a fusillade of melee attacks. Simply pressing the buttons in rapid succession lets you melee an infinite number of times, and of course you can remap on controller and PC to best suit your spamming needs. You can try it out for yourself by firing up the Halo Infinite technical test, starting Training Mode, and channeling Muhammed Ali on some poor AI bots.

343 Industries will assuredly patch this out before the game's final launch but we're surprised it made it into a technical test in the first place. It'll be interesting to see how much grief the glitch causes when PVP goes live later today.

Halo Infinite players have already found a way to glitch into the custom games browser and try out new guns that aren't supposed to be released yet.

Halo Infinite's PVP isn't live yet, but that hasn't stopped some gamers from jumping in anyway. Users have found a way to get into Halo Infinite's custom games browser and set up their own PVP tournaments with friends. The lobby confirms up to 28 players can join a game at a time (that's 14v14 team chaos) and has three maps to choose from, including the new Behemoth from BTB.

Redditor Shadowstrike1 was able to recreate the glitch multiple times with a very specific sequence of player invites and party boots.

The PlayStation 5's Control Center needs a storage quick launch function now more than ever.

The PS5 now supports M.2 SSDs for storage expansion, and gamers can now attach PC-grade PCIe 4.0 drives into the console to boost available space. This is a pretty big deal considering the PS5 only has 667GB of usable storage after formatting. Installed M.2 drives, however, can utilize nearly all of available storage and don't require extra reservations.

This new storage development means gamers might be spending more time transferring and paying closer attention to their available storage. By no means is the storage problem solved by the M.2 drive unlock--it's merely a band aid and you'll still eventually have to play the uninstallation mini-game at some point.

The new Castlevania Advance Collection just released on Switch for a cool $20, offering tremendous value for the price.

For a company that hasn't released a new mainline game in a while, Konami is being pretty reasonable with pricing of its re-releases. The new Castlevania Advance Collection has a pretty decent $19.99 price tag on Switch and includes the awesome old-school Game Boy Advance side-scrollers (Circle of the Moon, Harmony of Dissonance, and Aria of Sorrow) in one emulated package, complete with quality of life improvements like save states, regional ROM selection, and even extras like an interactive database of Castlevania content.

The collection also casually includes Castlevania Dracula X as a bonus game, which is one of the best in the series (that end Dracula boss fight is tough as nails so be prepared to use the save states). Just one of these retro games commands astronomical prices on eBay (Aria of Sorrow is going for over $160 as a single GBA cart) so this is a great way to experience some must-play on-the-go classics.

Microsoft's first-party studio The Initiative is getting help from Crystal Dynamics on its new Perfect Dark game.

Tomb Raider and Marvel's Avengers developer Crystal Dynamics is co-developing Microsoft's new Perfect Dark FPS, which is slated to releases as an Xbox Series X exclusive in the coming years.

"Perfect Dark update! We are partnering with Crystal Dynamics, the world class team behind character-driven games such as Tomb Raider, to bring this first-person spy thriller to a new generation," The Initiative said on Twitter.