Gaming - Page 446

Activision is leading into the Open Beta of Call of Duty: Vanguard, otherwise known as Call of Duty 2021 -- with the full game launching on October 5, 2021 -- and now we're hearing about Call of Duty 2022 aka Project Cortez.

The codenamed Project Cortez is reportedly a sequel to 2019's Modern Warfare, the revamped version of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and where Warzone all started. Battlefield leaker Tom Henderson is behind the leak, and after a damn good track record with his leaks on Battlefield 2042, the first tease of Project Cortez is here.

Henderson said: "It looks like Call of Duty: 2022 is codenamed Project Cortez. It's expected to be a sequel to Modern Warfare 2019".

DEATHLOOP is now out on the PC and both the next-gen PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 4 consoles, but now we have some more performance details on the PS5 version of DEATHLOOP.

Bethesda and Arkane have added AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR) support, which helps out the PC version of the game on both AMD Radeon and NVIDIA GeForce GPUs. DEATHLOOP is using temporal reconstruction to scale the resolution on the PS5, with ray-traced shadows on offer that are generated by natural light and are part of the ambient occlusion.

In a video comparing the PS5 and PC versions of the game made by ElAnalistaDeBits, and that the PS5 has "stuttering issues" and that the Quality Mode runs between 40-60FPS average. I wouldn't be running this game, or any other game without 60FPS average -- especially since DEATHLOOP has a Performance Mode offering 4K 60FPS (without ray tracing).

If you're gaming away on an AMD Radeon graphics card, then you'll want to grab the very latest AMD Radeon Adrenalin 21.9.1 drivers.

AMD's new Radeon Adrenalin 21.9.1 drivers include support for Bethesda and Arkane's latest first-person shooter, DEATHLOOP, as well as support for the Call of Duty: Vanguard Open Beta. The new drivers also include AMD Smart Access Memory (SAM) for the Radeon RX 5000 series (RDNA) graphics cards.

There's also Radeon Software support for Windows 11, which isn't far away with Microsoft unleashing its next-gen Windows 11 operating system on October 5. If you're using the Windows 11 Insider Preview build that you can read more about below, then the new Windows 11 driver from AMD is available and ready to rock and roll with your Radeon GPU.

Halo 5's mention in a GeForce Now database leads fans to believe the game is coming to PC, but 343i says otherwise.

Halo 5: Guardians was recently mentioned three times in a huge GeForce Now database leak of over 5,000 games and apps, but 343 Industries says it still has no plans to bring Halo 5 to PC. Right now 343 Industries is totally focused on Halo: Infinite's development.

"Maybe this was for H5:Forge but I can confirm there are no plans to bring H5 to PC. We know there's some demand for it, but as we've stated before, not in the cards as the studio is fully focused on Infinite and MCC. Will never say never, but nothing underway currently," 343i Community Manager Brian Jarrard said on Twitter.

The Xbox Series X's internal PCIe 4.0 SSD can technically be replaced, but only with a cloned drive from the exact same console...and a Series X SSD doesn't work on an Xbox Series S console.

According to YouTuber TronixFix, the Xbox Series X's internal SSD is apparently replaceable, but there's a catch: The replacement drive has to be a cloned version of the console's original drive.

Tests from YouTuber TronixFix confirm that the Series X's internal SSD has custom features that are essential to the console's operation, and the system won't power up unless the original drive--or a clone of the original drive--is installed. You can't just go out and buy a M.2 2230 SSD, slot it into the Xbox Series X's internal socket, and expect it to power up and operate. This is likely due to the custom ASIC that enables PCIe 4.0 (Gen4 x2) on the internal Xbox WD SN530 drive.

Epic Games has paid Apple its court-ordered fee of $6 million for breaching its Developer Product Licensing Agreement.

On August 2020, Epic Games went rogue and added its own direct payment processing system in Fortnite on iOS, breaching its contract and keeping all in-game revenues for itself. This maneuver kicked off the infamous Epic vs Apple trial. Apple kicked Fortnite off the App Store, and then Epic sued Apple for anti-trust and anti-competitive practices. Now the trial is over, and the dust has settled with Epic being forced to pay back money that Apple is lawfully owed.

The courts ordered that Epic Games would pay back Apple 30% of the $12.167 million that Fortnite earned from direct payments from August through November 2020, alongside of 30% of Fortnite's iOS Safari browser earnings from November through September 2021. Epic was found breaching its contractual obligations to Apple, which called for 30% commission on all in-game revenues. Epic CEO Tim Sweeney confirms this amounted for roughly $6 million; roughly $3 million from the direct payments, and the remainder from Safari revenues and associated fees.

Take-Two Interactive hasn't downwardly adjusted its earnings forecast to reflect the recent GTA V delay.

Grand Theft Auto V's delay from November 2021 to March 2022 on PS5 and Xbox Series X won't affect Take-Two's current earnings forecast. The company currently expects to make $3.14 billion - $3.24 billion in revenues during the Fiscal Year 2022 period. Based on this, it's possible Take-Two and Rockstar knew about the GTA V delay as early as May when the forecast was established, or that Take-Two chose not to include potential GTA V next-gen sales in its projections.

"Despite this change, the Company is reaffirming its prior guidance for the fiscal year, driven by continued strong engagement trends in its existing games, as well as the planned release of new games from its pipeline during the balance of its fiscal year," Take-Two wrote on its website.

Epic Games has appealed the ruling that declares Apple hasn't violated anti-trust laws, likely in an attempt to force third-party payment storefronts within the App Store.

The Epic vs Apple trial is over and the US District Court of Northern California has issued an official ruling declaring Apple anti-competitive, but not in violation of anti-trust. Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers declared Apple is anti-competitive, calling the 30% App Store commission "supracompetitive," and led to "excessive" high operating margins that Apple "could not justify." This has led to an official ruling to allow calls, links, and buttons to third-party payment systems that would circumvent Apple's 30% paycut.

Apple won all other counts in the trial, however, and Apple has the right to keep Fortnite off of the App Store for good. The court also forced Epic Games to pay back (i) 30% of all Fortnite revenues it earned from its direct payment system and (ii) 30% of all revenues it earned from bringing Fortnite back to iOS via Safari browsers and GeForce Now between November 2020 through September 2021. Epic is appealing the ruling, but specifics haven't been revealed yet.

Grand Theft Auto V's new PS5 trailer is quite unpopular as fans push back against Rockstar Games.

Console gamers aren't too happy about re-buying GTA V for the third time, and have shown their frustration with Rockstar by massively ratio-ing the recent GTA V E&E trailer. At the time of writing the trailer has 120K dislikes compared to 25K likes on YouTube, representing an incredible 82.7% dislike ratio.

Gamers lambast Rockstar with comments criticizing the game's graphics, which have been likened to the PS4 Pro version and haven't wowed viewers. The majority of comments also accuse Rockstar of "milking" GTA V across three console generations, and it doesn't help to note that the GTA franchise has made over $6.4 billion in revenues since GTA V's launch in 2014.

Starting tomorrow all PlayStation 5 owners will be able to upgrade their console's internal storage beyond the measly 667GB of onboard space.

The PS5's M.2 SSD expansion slot will be unlocked via a new firmware update tomorrow, Sony has announced, allowing gamers to supercharge their storage with premium PC-grade SSDs.

The PlayStation 5 is only compatible with higher-end PCIe Gen4 x4 NVMe M.2 SSDs with speeds of at least 5.5GB/sec or faster, but a wide range of capacities are supported ranging from 250GB all the way up to 4TB. The PS5's expansion slot will support a number of M.2 form factors including the smaller 2230 drives used in the Series X/S, 2242, 2260, 2280, and the larger 22110.

NVIDIA has released an official comment on the GeForce Now database leak that listed tons of games like Titanfall 3, Injustice 3, Final Fantasy 9 Remake and Crysis 4.

A bit ago diligent coder Ighor July found a backdoor into the full catalog of GeForce Now games, including listings to thousands of titles that aren't available to consumers yet. Yesterday he posted up a proxy server with access to the full catalog, and Steam DB creator Pavel Djundik created a huge .csv with over 5,000 unannounced games and apps including unrevealed games from some of gaming's biggest publishers--from Treyarch's next shooter to Tekken 8, Resident Evil 4 Remake, Street Fighter 6, and new Metal Gear Solid HD games.

Now NVIDIA has delivered an official comment on the database leak. The company says that the list speculative and not indicative of game that's currently in development or announced, and that developers used GeForce Now for internal and remote testing of their PC games. Several of the games listed on the leak are actually in development for PC, including Redfall, the new Indiana Jones game from MachineGames, and The Elder Scrolls VI, to name a few.

Dying Light 2 has been delayed nearly 60 days and will now release in 2022, Techland confirms.

Dying Light 2 has been pushed back from its original December 7, 2021 release date to February 4, 2022. Techland says this decision was made to ensure the team can "polish and optimize" the huge reactive open-world of Dying Light 2, but we're willing to bet the congested holiday season was also a determining factor (Halo Infinite would've released one day after Dying Light 2, for instance).

"The team is steadily progressing with the production and the game is nearing the finish line. The game is completed and we are currently playtesting it. It is by far the biggest and most ambitious project we've ever done," the studio wrote.

DEATHLOOP is now available on the PC and PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 4 consoles, with some nice PC upgrades up its sleeve in the graphics and visuals departments.

Bethesda is behind DEATHLOOP with developer Arkane requiring a pretty hefty gaming PC if you want to have 4K 60FPS with Ultra settings. The PC requirements for 4K 60FPS Ultra settings is an Intel Core i9-10900K or AMD Ryzen 7 3800XT processor, 16GB of RAM, and an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 or AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT graphics card.

I can confirm that; running it right now on 4K at over 60FPS (and sometimes below it) with the graphics settings maxed out on an Intel Core i9-10900K and AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT graphics card. DEATHLOOP supports ray traced shadows, HDR, NVIDIA Reflex, and AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution support.

Hideo Kojima is interested in making a game that changes in real-time and could use the cloud as a platform for making it happen.

Kojima has delivered more clues on what his next game could be like. We already know Kojima wants to make an interactive horror film-game hybrid, and that he's working with Microsoft on a special cloud streaming experience. Now the auteur says he'd like to create something that shifts based on your actions, personality, and location. This might be possible using Microsoft's Azure-powered servers and powerful AI infrastructures with machine learning capabilities on the Xbox Series X/S consoles.

"I want to create a game that changes in real-time. Even though there are people of different ages and trades playing the same game, they are playing it in the same way. Instead, I want the game to change based on where that person lives, and that person's unique perspective," Kojima told Japanese publication Anan.

Korean game dev ShiftUp celebrates the big reveal of its new action game Project Eve in a special way.

Lots of gamers like the look of ShiftUp's new PS5 exclusive Project Eve, and to keep morale high and commemorate the game's positive reception, company CEO Hyung-Tae Kim has purchased PlayStation 5 consoles for all of the studio's 260 employees. That's a lot of PS5s and amounts to nearly $140,000 with a 7% sales tax, but the consoles might be tax deductible. What a great way to reward your workers.

Right now ShiftUp is gearing up to push the PS5 to its limits with Project Eve using new Unreal Engine tech. The studio is hiring multiple developers in an effort to transition from mobile games into the mainstream AAA market. Based on Project Eve's gameplay we'd say the Korean dev is doing exceptionally well especially with its fluidity at 4K 60FPS.

Nearly five years into the console's lifecycle, Nintendo has officially cut the price of the base Switch by £20, or about £20 cheaper than launch MSRP.

Nintendo just made the first permanent price cut for the Nintendo Switch in Europe. The base 2017 and 2019 handheld-console hybrid now costs £259.99 in parts of Europe and the UK, down £20 from the previous £279.99 MSRP. This price drop is ahead of the new Switch OLED's launch later next month for £309.

In a statement to Eurogamer, Nintendo explains that it adjusted the price due to many factors, including time on the market, current sales rates, and exchange rates.

Sony's cheaper $399 PlayStation 5 digital edition apparently blocks disc drives on an OS level.

According to YouTuber Tronix Fix, Sony has baked in special custom firmware to cut off access to disc drives on the PlayStation 5 digital edition. To conduct the test, Tronix Fix took out a disc drive from a base PlayStation 5 console and soldered connector pins directly onto a PS5 digital edition's motherboard. Fun fact: The PS5 digital and disc version both have the same motherboard except the digital edition is missing connectors for a disc drive.

The transplanted drive actually powered up and spun a disc, but nothing showed on the screen, essentially confirming a disc-less PlayStation 5 can't be converted into a disc-playing console. Sony hasn't discussed whether or not the PS5's digital edition has custom OS firmware or not, but it makes sense as a way to discourage users from just fastening their own drives instead of buying the more expensive premium $499 PS5.

Intrepid coder Ighor July was able to load up the full GeForce Now catalog with 18,000+ games, which reportedly include listings for a ton of unannounced and unreleased sequels like Titanfall 3, Crysis 4, Kingdom Hearts IV and many more.

GeForce Now database listings may have outed some of gaming's biggest upcoming titles. The contents of the database was uploaded to a GitHub repository and shows surprising games including Titanfall 3, Crysis 4, Half-Life 2 Remastered, Kingdom Hearts IV, Final Fantasy 9 Remastered, and even the GTA remastered trilogy. The titles are listed as games but they don't have Steam app ids, which is to be expected because they haven't been released yet.

The source of the info is a coder named Ighor July who was able to gain access to the full GeForce Now library, which also had direct listings for upcoming PlayStation exclusives like God of War (2018) and even a New Super Mario Bros Wii game (which Nintendo brought to the Shield TV exclusively for China).

Red Dead Redemption 2 is already a beautiful game, and that's just in its regular form and at most resolutions. When you scale it up to 4K it looks even better, and add in DLSS and ramp it up to 8K and you have one of the best-looking games on the market.

But now we have the Beyond All Limits Raytracing Reshade and 50+ mods on Red Dead Redemption 2, running on an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 graphics card at 8K -- so 7680 x 4320. That's 4x the pixels of 4K and 16x the pixels of 1080p, with totally maxed-out graphics.

Digital Dreams have done just that, and it looks absolutely incredible. Red Dead Redemption 2 looks scrumptious at 8K with over 50 mods enabled and the ReShade Ray Tracing effects. NVIDIA's magic DLSS technology has been used to hit desired frame rates, but you would be silly to not enable DLSS in RDR2 -- even more so with all these mods enabled, and even more so at 8K.

Gamers seem surprised that EA isn't involved with the new Knights of the Old Republic Remake, but why would they be?

On the heels of lots or rumors and reports, the new Knights of the Old Republic Remake was officially announced a few days ago. Sony Interactive Entertainment is producing the game--a contract that has allowed PlayStation 5 timed exclusivity--with Aspyr Media developing the project. Also remember that Aspyr is owned by Embracer Group, and of course KOTOR is owned by Lucasfilm Games (then known as LucasArts).

Fans speculation whether or not BioWare or EA are involved in the project. As revealed by a dodgy non-answer from the publisher, neither EA nor BioWare are attached to the KOTOR Remake (the reality is BioWare is super busy with Dragon Age 4 and Mass Effect 5). EA's exclusivity license with Star Wars has expired (Ubisoft, for example, is making their own action-adventure Star Wars game), but EA is actually developing new Star Wars projects. Also remember that KOTOR was released in 2003, and it's impossible that Luasfilm, one of the most over-protective entertainment companies on the planet, would let EA or BioWare have IP rights to a Star Wars property.