Gaming - Page 466

Halo Infinite isn't just a game, but a platform gateway for all future Halo titles. That's why 343i wants to cram as much content as possible in the new shooter.

343 Industries seems to be going all out with Halo Infinite's multiplayer content. The devs have an ambitious roadmap with seasonal battle passes that rotate every 3 months, complete with new challenges, activities, objectives, and unlockables. The developers promise a lot of content ranging from new armor sets and cosmetics to actual game-changing features like new vehicles, weapons, and equipment.

There's still a few mysterious pieces to this new grand Halo puzzle. In a recent update, 343i mentions a new event called Fractures which could be timed world events that take place within Infinite's sandbox. I'm honestly getting Destiny-esque vibes here and I'm imagining something big.

Independent developer Quantic Dream is pivoting towards microtransaction-driven games following games like Detroit Become Human and Heavy Rain.

Quantic Dream is mostly known for its high production value singleplayer games with actors and next-gen graphics, including Beyond Two Souls and Detroit Become Human. The company's next game could break that convention with an online title.

The studio recently put up a new job listing for a Senior Economy Designer, which directly mentions economic models with "purchase drivers and pricing". This usually accompanies an online-driven game.

Microsoft clarifies that it has separated revenue shares for apps and PC games.

Windows 11 brings a lot of changes to both consumers and developers alike (consumers get new features like DirectStorage and Auto HDR, for example). The new Microsoft Store will let app developers add in their own payment processing platform to completely circumvent any revenue share to Microsoft. Devs that use their own payment system for their apps get to keep 100% of all revenues from purchases made in that app.

This doesn't apply to PC games, however. PC game developers will instead enjoy a 85-15 split where devs get to keep 85% of all revenues, leaving 15% for Microsoft.

WitcherCon promises to deliver "lots of surprises and exclusive first looks," but a new Witcher game won't be among them.

Although CD Projekt RED plans to start development of a new Witcher game in 2022, the devs have no plans to reveal the project any time soon. The Witcher 4 certainly won't be at the new WitcherCon in July. The convention will instead focus on season 2 of the Netflix series as well as tidbits of lore and other cross-media content.

"In case you're wondering, no new Witcher game will be announced at WitcherCon, but there are still lots of reasons to tune in! Look out for the full schedule reveal coming soon!" the convention's website says.

Halo Infinite has a story-driven campaign based around hope and classic themes, but the free-to-play multiplayer will also expand the lore.

Like Battlefield 2042 and Call of Duty Warzone, Halo Infinite's online multiplayer will also continually expand the game's storyline through updates and content. Each of Halo Infinite's battle passes will have its own theme and push the story forward a bit more, but 343i is vague on how exactly this will work.

343i's Joseph Staten confirms Infinite's first battle pass season will be called Heroes of Reach, and that the time is a "transformational moment in Halo history." Every 3 months, the battle pass updates will bring new story beats, new armors, modes, weapons, vehicles--the works. No specifics on season 2 have been announced yet.

343 Industries confirms our suspicions: Halo Infinite's cosmetic armor unlocks are separated in tiers of rarity, and it looks like consumables like XP boosts may be for sale too.

A while back, 343i said it would sell premium items in Halo Infinite's store. This aligned with our previous predictions of cosmetic-only monetization. 343i has also said gamers will always know what they're about to buy beforehand, confirming the in-game store (yes, Infinite will sell cosmetics for real money) will let users purchase content in a straightforward way. There's no lootboxes or REQ packs this time around.

Now it looks like there's another part of Infinite's monetization. New screenshots from Infinite's in-game economy show a consumables tab, which suggests gamers may be able to buy things like XP boosts from the online store. These could also be earned by purely playing the game too.

Luminous Productions, the team behind Final Fantasy XV, wants to push the PS5 to its limits with its new game Forspoken. The team has lofty aspirations and is using AMD's new FidelityFX Super Resolution tech to make it happen.

In a recent tech showcase, Luminous Productions boss Takeshi Aramaki discussed the studio's ambitions with Forspoken. The game will run at high spec on the PS5, aiming for 4K resolution at higher frame rates (probably 4K 60FPS) using the potent Luminous Engine, which was so powerful that it far outstripped the PS4/Xbox One's capabilities in FF15.

Now console tech is able to keep up, but the devs are still using tricks like dynamic resolution in order to hit consistently high frame rates.

Insomniac Games' next project might be a multiplayer-based game that helps Sony diversify PS5's first-party games lineup.

While Guerrilla Games, the devs behind Killzone, double-down on Horizon Forbidden West, it looks like Insomniac could be making PlayStation's next big multiplayer game. A new Systems Designer job listing at Insomniac directly mentions multiplayer:

"Insomniac Games is searching for a rockstar Systems Designer with experience in multiplayer games. This role is responsible for overseeing and executing on many aspects of the game including, but not limited to, multiplayer features, mechanics, and systems design, as well as helping to determine the conventions, processes and practices used to create the product."

Massive Entertainment built a beautiful graphics engine with its Snowdrop engine, really shown off beautifully in The Division 2 -- but now Snowdrop goes next-gen with the just-introduced Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora. Check it out:

Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora is Ubisoft's first next-gen only game, with the "tech showcase" video above detailing the tech side of the game -- with no official gameplay shown so far. Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora developer, which also made The Division 2 -- has shown off the technical prowess inside of the new Snowdrop engine.

Massive had to overhaul the Snowdrop engine for what was required in Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, where the team introduced some very Unreal Engine 5 sounding technical tricks into the game. The new hardware inside of the next-gen consoles as well as the hardware available on PC, is now capable of doing what Massive wanted it to do, in order to deliver us Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora.

Hideo Kojima is reportedly in negotiations to make a new game for Xbox, and it might help kick off Microsoft's new cloud games.

It looks like Kojima's experimental new horror game-film hybrid has found a home at Microsoft. Stadia design director Kim Swift recently joined Microsoft to help lead new cloud gaming initiatives, namely courting studios to work on titles specifically for Project xCloud. Sources tell Games Beat that Kojima is one of the various devs being courted for xCloud's new push and that Kojima had previously pitched a game to Stadia.

Kojima has expressed interest in cloud streaming for a while now and has a few ideas for his new project. After P.T., Kojima says he wants to make a new interactive horror game using the cloud as the delivery system. His comments suggest the project will be a game/film hybrid similar to something like Bandersnatch with more interactivity, possibly with AI-based randomization or procedurally-generated scenarios.

Windows 11 will feature Auto HDR settings built natively into the operating system, Microsoft confirms.

Microsoft is going all-in on PC gaming with Windows 11. The new OS will come with a built-in Xbox app complete with Game Pass and Project xCloud streaming, and other features like Auto HDR that will help breathe new life into old and new games.

"Games will look better than ever thanks to Auto HDR, a unique capability we're offering with Windows 11 which automatically adds High Dynamic Range (HDR) enhancements to games built on DirectX 11 or higher that previously only leveraged Standard Dynamic Range (SDR)," Microsoft said in a blog post.

DirectX 12's new DirectStorage feature will be exclusive to Windows 11 and won't be available to Windows 10 users, Microsoft confirms.

Today's big Windows 11 info blowout confirms a major tech breakthrough is exclusive to the new OS. "With DirectStorage, which will only be available with Windows 11, games can quickly load assets to the graphics card without bogging down the CPU," Microsoft said.

"This means you'll get to experience incredibly detailed game worlds rendered at lightning speeds, without long load times. "DirectStorage Optimized" Windows 11 PCs are configured with the hardware and drivers needed to enable this amazing experience."

id Software, like every other game developer on the planet, is already planning their next game. What could it be?

In a recent Dropped Frames stream on Twitch, Xbox's Phil Spencer gives insight on how Microsoft runs its 23 game development teams. Xbox has a distinctly unique approach that ranges from hands-off all the way to direct cross-studio collaborations, financing and hiring sprees. Spencer is always meeting with first-party studios to discuss future plans, and he recent met with id to talk about what's next for the hellrazers.

"Marty Stratton and I were on a call yesterday and we were talking about id and the roadmap there, which was fun. I can't wait to get on the ground with the studios and talk to them about what they want to do,"Spencer said in the stream.

Microsoft is likely waiting on major competitors to announce their games before it commits to a Halo Infinite launch date.

Microsoft and 343i have narrowed down Halo Infinite's release date and are still confident in a holiday 2021 launch, but other big shooters like Battlefield 2042 and Call of Duty Vanguard might get in the way. It's likely that Microsoft is holding back Infinite's launch until after Vanguard's announcement so they can place the game in a free-ish slot during the holiday season. Holiday 2021 (October - December) will be quite congested with big competing cross-platform games like Battlefield 2042, CoD Vanguard, which should release in November, and Grand Theft Auto V's next-gen release.

In a recent Dropped Frames show on Twitch, Xbox's Phil Spencer discussed what's going on with the release schedule:

NVIDIA and Bethesda have teamed up for a kick ass exclusive new DOOM Eternal bundle, to help celebrate the release of the new GeForce RTX 3080 Ti and the new Game Ready drivers which add RTX ray tracing and DLSS technology support in DOOM Eternal.

The new DOOM Eternal GeForce RTX 3080 Ti Demon Slayer Bundle starts from $1450, and will include NVIDIA's latest flagship GeForce RTX 3080 Ti Founders Edition graphics card, a DOOM Eternal game code, a $100 gift card, and more.

There are only 300 "winners" in this new bundle, which is an open reservation raffle -- it begins today at 5AM MST and ends on 7th of July at 11:59PM MST. The 300 winners of the DOOM Eternal GeForce RTX 3080 Ti Demon Slayer Bundle will be notified over email on July 8 and is open to gamers in the US, Canada, EU, and Australia.

WB Games studios like Netherealm, Avalanche, Monolith, and WB Games Montreal won't be sold off, a recent press release seems to confirm.

WarnerMedia is merging with Discovery to form a huge new mega-company. So what happens to the WB Games division that includes franchises like Mortal Kombat, Batman, and Superman? The games division will still be part of WarnerMedia and the parent will not sell its biggest studios or IPs.

Today WarnerMedia sold off its first games studio following the merger deal with Discovery. EA bought mobile dev Playdemic from WB for $1.4 billion in cash. This apparently is the only studio that will be sold:

After buying Glu Mobile and Codemasters for a combined $3.3 billion, EA makes another billion-dollar power acquisition.

EA is going all-in on mobile. The company recently bought Glu Mobile for $2.1 billion in an effort to solidify its smartphone gaming business, and Glu is expected to be the literal glue that holds this business together as developers focus on a myriad of projects.

"We are forming a powerful growth engine that will expand our current games and deliver more amazing new experiences across sports, lifestyle, mid-core, and casual for players everywhere," EA said in a press release.

The new Aliens Fireteam Elite shooter authentically captures H.R. Giger's bizarre art that inspired the classic horror franchise.

Action is at the core of the new Aliens Fireteam Elite third-person shooter, but the scenery is lifted straight out of a feature-length film. The environments pay great respect to the macabre paintings and bio-mechanical designs of H.R. Giger, who's responsible for the original Alien costume as well as the ship on LV-426. Giger's work was just as instrumental to the Alien franchise as McQuarrie was to Star Wars, and his art has defined the series ever since.

Aliens Fireteam Elite has lots of nods to Giger's work, and rightly so given his dark imagination set the tone for the films. Many of the environments feature Giger's curved metallic frames, glistening organic walls, and terrifying feline grace of the aliens themselves. Overall this game looks like the ultimate Alien multiplayer experience.

DOOM Eternal receiving ray tracing and more so the DLSS (Deep Learning Super Sampling) technology is some of the biggest news for NVIDIA of the year, and now there's some new GeForce Game Ready drivers that add support for ray-traced reflections and DLSS in DOOM Eternal.

Even before the ray-traced reflections, DOOM Eternal was one of the best-looking games on the market... but now it looks even better. On top of that, we have DLSS that boosts the performance in all settings and resolution combos -- pushing 4K 120FPS+ on GeForce RTX graphics cards.

NVIDIA's new GeForce Game Ready 471.11 WHQL drivers not only add support for the new ray-traced reflections and DLSS upgrades in DOOM Eternal, but they add support for NVIDIA Reflex tech inside of Escape from Tarkov, Rust and its DLSS upgrades, and the ray tracing and DLSS upgrades in LEGO Builder's Journey.

343 Industries is doing early preliminary investigations on boosting Halo MCC's big team battle player counts past 16 players.

Since MCC launched in 2014, 343i has been reinventing classic Halo games in a multitude of ways like cross-play, unlockables, and mod support, and it's not finished just yet. The developer is currently looking into boosting Halo's ultra-nostalgic big team battle game mode and increasing the max player count beyond 8v8. How big could it go? Maybe 20v20 or 30v30.

"How epic is big team battle? You know, another thing...We're doing some investigations on increasing player counts above 16," 343i producer Sean Swidersky said in a recent Xbox Plays stream.