Gaming - Page 435

Halo Infinite's campaign has changed dramatically since its disastrous 2020 reveal.

Today 343i dropped a new campaign trailer showing gameplay, in-engine footage, and CGI cutscenes. The result flexes the new Slipspace Engine technology with impressive-looking visuals, UHD 4K textures, lighting effects, and advanced physics rendering. In short, the new 2021 footage completely destroys the controversial 2020 Halo Infinite gameplay trailer. Check below for some side-by-sides.

While most of the trailer looks great, we're still a bit worried about those draw distances especially on Xbox One consoles. They don't look too great even on the higher-end hardware that the footage was captured on--we're betting it was on PC or Xbox Series X. 343i was also quick to clarify that not every scene was actually in-engine (like that amazing Escharum screenshot seen below). To showcase the differences between the new and old footage we've put together a bunch of side-by-side screenshots to help illustrate how much the game has changed in a year.

Now that the Battlefield 2042 Open Beta has been wound down, DICE has been more open about how the beta went and the feedback from the community -- as well as unveiling 5 new Specialists for Battlefield 2042. Check them out:

Battlefield 2042's new Specialists include Navin Rao (Recon class), Santiago 'Dozer' Espinoza (Assault class), Emma 'Sundance' Rosier (Assault class), Ji- Soo Paik (Recon class), and Constantin 'Angel' Anghel (Support class). As for the Battlefield 2042 Open Beta, DICE explained that it was branched from the main development one of Battlefield 2042 back in August.

This should mean the final version of Battlefield 2042 will be in a much better state, given there will have been many months of work on the code and optimization. NVIDIA's magical DLSS technology will be in the final version, ramping up performance for those who want the frames, or quality for those who want higher fidelity graphics. EA DICE has also made some other major changes in Battlefield 2042, which they've talked about.

Walt Williams, writer of 2012's renowned ethics-twisting Spec Ops: The Line, is the story lead behind Insomniac's new Wolverine game.

Spider-Man developer Insomniac Games is making a Wolverine game for PS5 aimed at emotional impact. Based on who's involved with story, it looks like the devs will deliver in spades. Spec Ops: The Line writer Walt Williams is not only working on the project, but he's leading the Wolverine game's story arc.

The yesteryear war shooter was known for its mind-bending narrative that made gamers question the ethics of their actions throughout the campaign, presenting scenes that didn't glorify war but exposed a more real and destructive side to it.

Overkill confirms new details about Payday 3 including the return of the original crew.

The Payday franchise just celebrated its 10th anniversary and Overkill spent some time looking ahead as it looked back over all those years. According to the developers, Payday 3, which is due out in 2023 on PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC, will have all four original heisters: Dallas, Hoxton, Chains and Wolf are returning.

The game takes place a few years after Payday 2 where the crew has retired. The world has moved on to digital-based currencies including crypto and there's a lot more to robbing than carefully-planned bank heists and gunning your way through SWAT teams. Now things are more subtle and heists will change a bit...however Overkill hasn't really detailed any specifics.

Halo modder RejectedShotgun is one step closer to huge global battles in Halo 3.

Halo 3 originally had a global battle feature that emphasized crazy wide-scale combat. That feature was cut (likely due to console hardware memory constraints) and Halo 3's AI limit was capped at 40 enemies on the screen at once. This attests to Bungie's creativity with those crazy open-ended battle sequences.

That limit is still in place, but modder RejectedShotgun has found a way to bypass it with a script that dynamically loads enemy AI in and out of sequences as needed. So far over 100 enemy AI can be loaded in and out in this wary. The result creates an illusion of bigger battles especially when you're roaming through areas on vehicles.

Old-school Halo modder RejectedShotgun is doing some crazy things with Halo 3's new modding tools.

We're seeing some amazing creations with Halo 3's new modding tools. Creators like RejectedShotgun are taking mods to new heights by creating heavy battle sequences with tons of enemies, vehicles, and even towering scarabs on the screen. It's like those big explosive missions that you know and love from Halo 3's campaign.

The end goal with the AI War project is to recreate the insanity of Halo 3's campaign mission The Ark via a concept called Global Battles, which is apparently something Bungie wanted to put in the game but cut due to hardware constraints. The mod is out now on NexusMods and you can mess about with it.

Grand Theft Auto fans have put together side-by-side screenshots comparing the original trilogy with the new remastered trilogy. The results are pretty impressive.

Rockstar's new Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy - The Definitive Edition has completely remastered the original PS2-era GTA games, complete with high-res textures, volumetric fog and ambient lighting, improve draw distances, and significant overhauls to environments, models, characters, and controls. The games now even support 4K 60FPS on PS5 and Xbox Series X.

Digital store listings confirm the new GTA remaster collection won't cost extra on next-gen consoles.

Today Rockstar opened up pre-orders for the Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy - The Definitive Edition remaster collection in both digital and physical formats. A new PS Store listing confirms the PlayStation 5 version of the remastered bundle won't cost $69.99 as previously believed, and will instead be priced at the normal MSRP of $59.99.

The Xbox store also lists the trilogy for $59.99 and notes the game is optimized for Xbox Series X/S. Rockstar has confirmed GTA III, Vice City, and San Andreas can all hit 4K 60FPS on PS5 and Xbox Series X systems with HDR support thrown in.

Rockstar announced the Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy - The Definitive Edition just hours ago, dropping on November 11 for virtually all of the consoles and of course, the PC.

Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy - The Definitive Edition on the PC will have support for NVIDIA DLSS, with DLSS (Deep Learning Super Sampling) offering its usual modes (Quality, Balanced, Performance) for the GTA trilogy in its best form yet. Rockstar has overhauled virtually everything with the GTA trilogy remaster,

Because you're not going to be as strained running the Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy - The Definitive Edition at 4K as you would a brand new AAA game made in 2021, if you've got the GPU horsepower you could use Quality mode and enjoy even better-looking graphics without the performance hit.

Sony today announced a new State of Play stream for next week on Wednesday, October 28 at 2PM PST / 5PM EST.

The new PlayStation State of Play event won't be a huge first-party reveal spree (Sony has already announced its lineup with God of War Ragnarok, Gran Turismo 7, and Horizon Forbidden West).

Instead the stream will focus exclusively on third-party games coming to both PS4 and PS5 platforms. Sony says most of these games will be previously-announced titles but teases a "few reveals" from unnamed developers. The stream will also be relatively short at just 20 minutes.

CD Projekt RED has purchased The Molasses Flood, the indie studio behind The Flame in the Flood and Drake Hollow.

CDPR has acquired another studio to help diversify its release slate. This time it bought The Molasses Flood, an American studio known for heartfelt survival games.

The newly-acquired team will retain its autonomy and is working on a "completely new game in the universe of an existing CD Projekt IP," possibly a spin-off cross-platform experience in the Cyberpunk 2077 world (CDPR has made three Witcher spin-offs with Gwent, Thronebreaker and the Monster Slayer AR game, so the time is right for CP2077 expansion).

All three original 3D Grand Theft Auto games can hit 4K 60FPS on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X.

Rockstar isn't cutting any corners with its new GTA trilogy remaster collection. The games can run at 4K 60FPS on next-gen consoles like the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X, and remasters also support NVIDIA DLSS on PC.

All the games look better than ever with crisp visual upgrades. Grand Theft Auto III, Vice City, and San Andreas have been re-tooled for both gen 8 and gen 9 console hardware with a completely overhauled lighting system, tons of new high-def textures, improved car and upgraded character models, and dynamic weather and physics effects thrown in.

The new GTA trilogy remaster completely revolutionizes the PS2 era games with significant graphics upgrades, making the games look better than they ever have before.

Rockstar just published in-game footage of the new GTA trilogy remaster. They knocked it out of the park. The remaster collection is very impressive and completely blows the original games out of the water (well...those character models are a bit goofy).

The devs have pretty much improved every single square inch of Vice City, San Andreas, and Liberty City. The cars have new models, the trees have more definition, water catches the light--everything is upgraded. Rockstar has baked into the game high-resolution textures, dynamic lighting and shadows, and higher-end physics and weather effects like fiery explosions to simultaneously add more realism and outrageous fourth-wall breaking chaos.

The new remastered version of Grand Theft Auto San Andreas is coming to Xbox Game Pass day and date of release, Rockstar Games has confirmed.

The holiday period is going to be stacked for Xbox Game Pass subscribers because of two games alone: GTA San Andreas The Definitive Edition in November, and Halo: Infinite in December. A standalone version of Rockstar's new San Andreas remaster will be available to all Game Pass subscribers next month bringing visual enhancements and modern controls to arguably one of the best video games ever made.

"Players will also be able to experience Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas - The Definitive Edition with Xbox Game Pass starting November 11,"Rockstar Games said on its website.

Forza Horizon 5 is right around the corner, with Microsoft and developer Playground Games revealing the download size for the game.

We're looking at 103GB of storage required on both the Windows and Steam versions of the game on the PC, with the next-gen Xbox Series X/S consoles both also needing 103GB free storage for Forza Horizon 5. The previous-gen Xbox One version of the game is actually larger, requiring 116GB of storage.

You can now pre-load Forza Horizon 5 on the Microsoft Store, while if you've pre-ordered the game on Steam you'll have to wait a little while longer. The developer explains: "With the high-speed internal SSD storage found on Xbox Series X|S consoles, we've reduced the install footprint of Forza Horizon 5 on those systems by optimizing our assets for higher bandwidth streaming. That means a shorter download combined with super-fast loading times so you can seamlessly jump into the action as soon as you say 'Let's Go!'"

Microsoft is bringing new fan-requested features to the Xbox Series X, including a 4K UHD resolution dashboard UI and more.

Ever-focused on continually evolving and adding to the Xbox ecosystem, Microsoft rolled out a new update for the Xbox Series X that makes some big changes to onscreen visuals. We're not talking about gaming, but the UI used for navigation, which is now rendered in native 3840 x 2160p. The old UI used to be 1080p upscaled to 4K, which resulted in lots of jaggies and fuzzy edges--a minor gripe considering major advantages like Quick Resume and cloud saves, but hey.

There's also a new night mode that softens the on-screen light and even reduces the light from the controller (a big deal because Xbox controllers run on batteries) and the console's button, which is a nice touch for anyone playing at night. There's even a blue light filter to help gamers with sensitive eyes...pretty important when your games service is keeping people glued to their TVs for hours on end.

Doom Eternal's anticipated horde mode is coming October 26 in Update 6.66, id Software today announced.

Horde mode was something that I always wanted in Doom Eternal. Every since I started messing around with cheats I kept trying to figure out a way to get enemies to spawn in certain locations--I wanted to take on three or four marauders at once and just see how insane the battles could get. Wide-scale demon wars that are so demanding that they crash the game. Stuff like that.

Thankfully the official horde mode is coming out soon. It looks to be a survival-fest that gets harder over time, where you face off against waves of demon monstrosities in a scored and ranked playlist. It's an arcade game from hell--the best kind of arcade game. Update 6.66 will also include Battlemode's 2.0 revamp, two new master levels, and Bethesda says "there's certainly a surprise or two in there."

Remember in 2020 when everyone said raytracing could fix Halo Infinite's bad graphics? That's actually happening. 343i just confirmed Infinite will support raytracing thanks to AMD.

Halo Infinite will support AMD's raytracing solution on PC and possibly Xbox Series X/S consoles. The developers today revealed a host of high-end performance features that will be available on PC at launch and says it is working with AMD, its official partner, to scale and optimize the game across the entire spectrum of hardware from Jaguar SoCs in the Xbox One to the 7nm+ Zen 2 SoCs in the Series X and blistering-fast new desktop CPUs and GPUs.

"We're looking forward to working closely with AMD to bring raytracing to Halo Infinite. Raytracing is one our top development priorities post-launch and look forward to sharing more soon," 343 Industries wrote in the update.

Microsoft and Seagate are introduce two new SSD expansion cards to boost Xbox Series X/S storage: A cheaper 512GB option, and a hefty 2TB version that's more expensive than an Xbox Series S.

Seagate is introducing two new Xbox Series X/S SSDs to help fill out the price spectrum: a 512GB SSD for $139 that will be available mid-November, and a 2TB SSD for an eye-watering $399 that's coming in December, which is more than the Xbox Series S' MSRP of $299. Each drive has the same performance of an internal Xbox Series X/S SSD.

By December, Xbox gamers will have three options to upgrade their next-gen Xbox storage:

Square Enix says Guardians of the Galaxy's install size on the spec requirement page will shrink by almost half before launch.

A bit ago some bruhaha broke out about Eidos-Montreal's new Guardians of the Galaxy game, mainly with its huge install size requirements. Previous Steam listings say the game needs 150GB of space. This is wrong. The game actually only needs about 80GB of space--Eidos-Montreal has shrunk the requirement down by nearly 50%--and the Steam store page has been updated to reflect this number.

Outside of this brief kerfuffle there hasn't been much negativity around the game. Guardians of the Galaxy is an offline, singleplayer-only action RPG and won't be monetized with microtransactions or DLC. It's a self-contained experience and is as opposite as Avengers as a game could get. Crystal Dynamics' Avengers game has been criticized for its over-monetized cosmetics and explosive, yet derivative gameplay.