Gaming - Page 470

Microsoft's E3 show delivered a ton of announcements and gameplay reveals, but one thing caught me off guard: Mention of the Wolfenstein franchise.

Although Halo Infinite dominated the Xbox E3 2021 show, Phil Spencer might've teased the next Wolfenstein game from MachineGames. "We unveiled the stunning multiplayer mode for the world's most beloved shooter in Halo Infinite, adding to the roster of iconic Xbox shooters alongside Wolfenstein, Gears of War, Perfect Dark, and Doom," Spencer said at the end of the show.

On the surface this doesn't mean much. However, we know a new Gears of War is in development, as well as a new Perfect Dark. Wolfenstein was mentioned alongside these in-development games (and there's a good chance a new Doom is in the works, too).

UPDATE: Blizzard's blog site confirms Diablo II Resurrected is still coming to last-gen consoles like PS4 and Xbox One.

Blizzard finally announced a release date for Diablo II Resurrected, and it's sooner than you think.

Diablo II Resurrected will launch September 23, 2021 on consoles and PC, complete with overhauled 4K graphics, new quality-of-life improvements like an expanded stash, chat rooms and lobbies, as well as trading and everything else the original classic was known for. And yes, Diablo II Resurrected is built on Lord of Destruction (v1.13 to be exact).

Battlefield 2042 isn't coming to Xbox Game Pass on day one, EA and Microsoft today confirmed.

Today DICE showcased the first gameplay footage for Battlefield 2042, revealing crazy world-breaking storms, wingsuits, grappling hooks, ziplines, and on-the-fly weapon attachment changing.

The biggest surprise was something that didn't show up. Rumor has it Battlefield 2042 was to release on Xbox Game Pass day one, but those reports were wrong. The end of the trailer had no mention of Game Pass, so the shooter will only be available via a subscription on EA Play Pro on PC.

Bethesda confirms its new sci-fi space epic will use a next-gen iteration of its Creation Engine.

Today Bethesda announced Starfield will release on November 11, 2022 exclusively for PC and Xbox Series X/S consoles. It won't be coming to Xbox One. The team is building the game with its new and enhanced Creation Engine 2, which was scaled specifically to harness the raw power of new hardware, including the Series X's Zen 2 CPU, Navi GPU, and PCIe 4.0 SSD.

"In this next generation role-playing game set amongst the stars, create any character you want and explore with unparalleled freedom. Harnessing the power of next-gen technology and built on the all-new Creation Engine 2, Starfield takes you on a journey through space as you strive to answer humanity's greatest mystery," Bethesda said.

UPDATE: Todd Howard had this to say about Starfield:

"Set hundreds of years in the future, an epic about hope, answering the greatest mystery. It wasn't until now we have the hardware to make our dream a reality."

Insomniac praises the PS5's power and versatility, says they were "astonished" when Ratchet and Clank was able to hit 60FPS without any major compromises.

Making console games is all about compromise, but the PS5's Zen 2 CPU, Navi GPU, and ultra-fast SSD help eliminate sacrifices and unlocks game performance. Case in point: Ratchet and Clank Rift Apart, which has three in-game performance profiles (native 4K 30FPS, 4K 60FPS with variable scaling, 60FPS with RT on).

"Something else that occurred to me is...when you start development on a game, you're just trying to figure out what the game is, then you come back to questions like target frame rate and resolution," Ratchet and Clank Rift Apart lead designer Mike Daly said in a recent Twitch stream.

Galvanic Games' new nifty indie Wizard With a Gun is a stylish new sandbox survival game that channels some interesting source material.

Today Devolver Digital revealed a ton of interesting and weird indie games. Wizard With a Gun was one of them. The game is described as an online cooperative sandbox game with an emphasis on crafting and survival. The grid-based tilesets and strange wilderness instantly conjure up Don't Starve, and the entire map seems to be floating in the void, not unlike the old-school SEGA Genesis classic Toejam and Earl's weird planet explorations. Wizard With a Gun's biomes are also randomly generated, just like Toejam and Earl's maps.

The opening sequence of the reveal was totally reminiscent of Ralph Bakshi's older Wizards animated film, featuring a gritty and colorful visual style. The in-game art is also dark and brooding with stark shadows and lots of maroon tint.

Everyone wants to know how Geoff Keighley secured one of the hottest new games for Summer Game Fest. The reality is that negotiations between Keighley and FromSoftware began years ago.

There's been lots of talk about Elden Ring over the past few months. The game was revealed over two years ago at E3 2019, and Bandai Namco's silence led to lots of speculation. There were rumors of Elden Ring being part of tomorrow's Xbox showcase, but Keighley swooped in and secured the deal from Microsoft. No one knows exactly why FromSoftware and Bandai Namco went to Keighley instead of Microsoft, but we do know negotiations and talks had been happening as early as 2018.

"We've been talking about it for a long time with From and I, for years, with doing something with Elden Ring. I mean it stretches back to 2018 or 2019, I think when we first started talking about it?" Geoff Keighley said in a Q&A after stream session during Summer Game Fest.

Ubisoft went off the script for Far Cry 6's season pass. Instead of story expansions, they're trying something different: A three-chapter series of DLCs where you play as some of the most evil villains in gaming history.

Far Cry 6's new season pass will let you play as Vaas, Pagan Min, and Father Joseph Seed in first-person perspectives. The idea is that you'll step into the mind of villains and experience a unique hell tailor-made for each of their twisted psyches. Vaas, for example, is stuck on a nightmarishly twisted rendition of Far Cry 3's Rook Islands where a cataclysm breaks the skies, sharks swim in the air, and the volcano is always erupting.

The DLC chapters are a cerebral and bizarre revenge fantasy that's kind of like a Tales From the Crypt episode directed by Hannibal's Bryan Fuller. Now Ubisoft reveals more details about the pass. Each chapter is basically a roguelike where you lose all your progress when you die.

Jordan Vogt-Roberts teases new game-related projects that may be in the works before or after the new Metal Gear Solid movie.

During a brief E3 2021 panel, Kong Skull Island director Jordan Vogt-Roberts discussed gaming, the new Metal Gear film, and other projects. Working on Metal Gear Solid is a dream come true, Roberts said, but negotiations for the film were nearly a decade in the making. Roberts says the film took more than 7 years to secure.

The Metal Gear Solid movie isn't the end of Roberts' game adaptations. "There's other game things and other IPs I'm working on. A big part of my driving force is to be a part of these things and to re-write how people see these franchises," Roberts said during the interview.

Far Cry 6's season pass will include three weird cerebral chapters that lets players step into the mind of Far Cry villains.

Far Cry villains Pagan Min, Father Joseph Seed, and the legendary Vaas will be playable in Far Cry 6. Well...sort of. The terrifying psychos will return in their very own mind-torture scenarios where players get to see, think, and experience life as a Far Cry villain.

The season pass includes three chapters that each focus on the villains. The chapters look like something out of a Twilight Zone, Outer Limits, or even Tales From the Crypt episode where the bad guy gets his just desserts in the worst way possible.

Homeworld 3 is now in full production at Blackbird Interactive, the studio today announced.

One of the most exciting announcements at Gearbox's E3 2021 showcase was centered around a classic PC franchise. Homeworld 3 is now in production at Blackbird Interactive, who promises the game will return to the series roots with a "gripping continuation of the story, fully-3D combat, and the classic RTS elements you expect."

"It's not a prequel, it's not a remaster. It is Homeworld 3, the next Homeworld," said Blackbird Interactive CCO Rory McGuire.

Ubisoft today announced another game in the beloved Mario + Rabbids crossover strategy series.

Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope is coming in 2022 exclusively for Nintendo Switch. The game will take players across a huge star-spanning galaxy with lots of planets to explore and save from a new threat.

"It's not a sequel at all. We decided to expand the tactical genre even more. We wanted to create a completely new combat experience for our players. The combat system has been totally redesigned with the focus on fluidity and action with emphasis on being able to move the heroes in real-time. We believe it offers an entirely new tactical experience," said lead producer Xavier Manzanares.

Ubisoft's ambitious new Avatar game is called Frontiers of Pandora, and will release sometime in 2022 exclusively for next-gen console hardware and PC.

The footage confirmed Frontiers of Pandora will be a first-person game, but there's also seamless transitions to third-person scenes as well. Overall the experience looks incredibly cinematic and the game has been built from the ground up for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S hardware. It won't be coming to last-gen systems and held back by their limited performance.

Today we got to see the first gameplay footage for Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, the Snowdrop-powered action game from the Ubi Massive studio. The game has been in development for years now in conjunction with Lightstorm Entertainment, and looks to be a major showcase for the Snowdrop engine's next-gen capabilities.

More Assassin's Creed Valhalla content and expansions are coming in 2022, Ubisoft today confirmed.

Valhalla is doing so well that Ubisoft plans to support the game for a second year. This is the first time in franchise history that this has happened. AC Valhalla will get more expansions as well as free seasonal content, updates, and gear.

"Eivor still has a long journey ahead," Ubisoft said. "We're also building on Eivor's story with game expansions."

Ubisoft's new Rider's Republic game is coming this September, and it looks rad as hell.

Rider's Republic looks like pure dumb fun. It has snowboarding straight out of 1080, complete with Tony Hawk-style grinding and trick-setting. You can create your own maps and modes and share them with the community. There's even crazy stunt racing sports like jetpack chaos that sees you flying through the Grand Canyon, as well as more slow and steady things like parachute gliding.

The mountain bike sports racing looks pretty chaotic, too. You'll be making death-defying leaps across huge gaps, scaling terrifying terrain, and zooming across tumultuous landscapes.

Saber Interactive's new Evil Dead game looks like a blast, featuring PvP chaos similar to Friday the 13th: The Game with some PvE sprinkled in too.

Gameplay for the new Evil Dead game finally got revealed during the Summer Game Fest, and it looks pretty good. Bruce Campbell stars in the game as Ash, and there's characters from the entire Evil Dead movie series--even Ash's sister Cheryl makes a return. The game has locations, characters, and enemies from all three movies and the Ash vs Evil Dead series on Starz. It's a pure celebration of one of the most hilarious and over-the-top horror franchises ever made.

It features third-person combat like Friday the 13th The Game, complete with a Halo 5 Warzone-esque gametype where players can work together to kill Deadites, gather resources, and progress through the level--and one player can also jump in as a Kandarian demon to slaughter the survivors. It looks like an online-driven live game so expect cosmetics and the like. Saber will leverage what it's learned with World War Z to power the new project.

Jedi: Fallen Order's next-gen version can natively play PS4 saves and doesn't require any tricks or save uploads.

Next-gen upgrades have been a hassle for PlayStation 5 owners. Existing PS4 game saves aren't always compatible with the new next-gen versions, requiring gamers to upload their saves via an in-game tool.

Final Fantasy 7 Remake's PS4-> PS5 save migration process is particularly frustrating, requiring gamers to download the PS4 version, upload their saves from within the game, and re-download the PS5 version which clocks in at over 80GB. The PS5 can store both a current-gen and next-gen version of a game so users will have two versions of FF7R on their system.

Insomniac Games goes from one stellar PlayStation exclusive to another, with the release of Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart here -- the PlayStation 5 exclusive is getting hands-on by gamers and getting compared against the 2020 launch trailer.

As you can see in the video above, which perfectly compares the 2020 reveal trailer of Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart versus the final version that has now launched on the PlayStation 5. It seems like there is no downgrade by Insomniac Games, but instead some small -- but very major improvements in the final version of the game.

Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart is one of the best-looking games ever made, and easily one of the best-looking games on the PlayStation 5. It's an incredible achievement from the team at Insomniac Games, and has won reviewers, influencers, and gamers with glowing reviews.

PlayStation boss Jim Ryan talks about Sony's mobile ambitions and touts the brand's IP.

Like Ubisoft, Take-Two, EA and Activision-Blizzard, Sony is expanding deeper into mobile to chase ancillary revenues and consistent monetization. Sony plans to adapt its wealth of wholly-owned PlayStation series and IPs to mobile in 2021, followed by more releases on PC. Sony has traditionally put the PlayStation 4 at the center of its gaming empire and this pivot towards PC and mobile marks a big transition point for its business.

Sony has a lot of confidence in this plan. According to Jim Ryan, the motivation is to expand reach to the world's most accessible market. "The thinking here is that our IP portfolio is in such a strong state right now, it seems perverse to restrict enjoyment of it to our existing PlayStation community," Ryan told Axios.