Gaming - Page 488

Another day, another leak for Battlefield from insider Tom Henderson that says Battlefield 2021 won't be coming to last-gen consoles.

In a new tweet, Henderson said that he still hasn't heard "anything concrete" on whether the new Battlefield is coming to last-gen consoles. His theory is that Battlefield 2021 will not launch on the last-gen consoles and that will be "the biggest reason" that Battlefield 2021 will be on Xbox Game Pass on day one to "boost up player numbers".

If you look at it in another way, if these rumors are true then EA DICE has worked closely with Microsoft on Battlefield 2021 so I'm sure we'll see some Xbox-specific content for the game -- especially if it's going to be on Xbox Game Pass, that's going to inject a good chunk of gamers into Battlefield 2021 boosting up those player numbers.

The new Mass Effect Legendary Edition has a fully-fledged photo mode that can be used across the entire trilogy, BioWare confirms.

BioWare is including a flexible and functional photo mode editor in the new Mass Effect remaster trilogy so you can capture all those iconic moments in glorious 4K. Apart from keeping gamers busy and cementing key moments in the games, the photo mode will help drive organic engagement as millions of players share screenshots across social media. This is kind of like unpaid advertising in a way, and is the first time in the Mass Effect series that an in-game photo capture has been included.

The dev team is clearly going all out with the Legendary Edition.

Outriders just got a new patch that should prevent new inventory wipes from happening, and the devs share more plans on their big restoration of lost gear.

Outriders dev team People Can Fly just rolled out a new update that adds a three-step safeguard against future gear deletion. Everyone wants to know when they'll get their gear back, but the team isn't ready to do the mass restoration just yet. The plan is to fix the glitch to ensure gear can't randomly disappear before it flicks on the restoration switch and gives players back their lost items.

In a news update, the devs say the restoration process won't require any patches and will be a real-time, server-wide event:

Ubisoft will be at E3 2021 with another Ubisoft Forward show that goes live in June, but what will we see?

Ubisoft Forward will kick off on Saturday, June 12, 2021 at 12PM PST / 3PM EST, the publisher today confirmed. The announcement didn't come with any hints on what will be at the show, but Ubisoft did confirm it'll be a digital conference, so expect dev talks alongside sizzle reels and trailers.

So what can we expect from the show? Far Cry 6 is a given, as is Rainbow Six Parasite. We could see teases of Assassin's Creed Valhalla's second major expansion pack and new content for Watch Dogs Legion. Ubisoft should detail updates across its portfolio of live service games, including Rainbow Six Siege, The Division 2, and From Honor. Maybe, just maybe, we'll get a small snippet of Massive's new Star Was project, or maybe even their new Avatar game.

Ubisoft is making its own G4TV-style channel aimed at celebrating the games industry by entertaining and educating players.

G4TV is coming back soon, but Ubisoft has a headstart with its new gTV network. The gTV channel is aimed at gamers across all types, and will include a ton of programming including variety shows, talk shows/podcasts, original content like the comedy-inspired CafeXP, mini-documentaries, and talks with Ubisoft developers on existing and upcoming projects.

Here's a quick rundown of the weekly content gTV will show:

CD Projekt will make more money in 2020 than it ever has before thanks to Cyberpunk 2077's sales numbers.

Despite its development woes, CD Projekt's finances are soaring. The company is set to deliver record earnings in FY2020 that eclipse the high watermark set by The Witcher in 2015. CD Projekt Group estimates it will earn a staggering 2.139 billion PLN in revenues and 1.154 billion PLN in net profits, mostly driven by Cyberpunk 2077's incredible 13 million sales.

Q4 2020, which runs from October to December, was the best-performing quarter in history, beating 2015's entire yearly earnings (the same year Witcher 3 released) by a whopping 109%.

Epic's new MetaHuman Creator could supercharge games development and speed up production times with easy 3D character creation for use in the Unreal Engine. Now the new tech is in early access.

Epic Games has one goal with its MetaHuman tech: Allow anyone anywhere to create high-fidelity digital characters. The MetaHuman Creator is a cloud-based app where creators can make their own in-game characters, complete with significant customization options set in an easy-to-use UI. These models are fully rigged, real-time, and ready for animation, and can easily be scaled and imported directly into Unreal Engine projects.

"What used to take months, now takes minutes,"said Vladimir Mastilovic, Epic Games VP of Digital Humans Technology.

Outriders developer People Can Fly details its plan to restore lost inventory items, but there's a few trade-offs and the restoration won't be perfect.

Outriders really can't catch a break. First the game was plagued with disconnection errors, now the game is deleting whole inventories worth of items. Gamers are understandably angry about having their treasure hoards wiped out, and many players are quitting en masse.

Luckily People Can Fly is on the case and has a plan to solve the issue. The team says fixing and restoring lost inventory items is their top priority. The devs know who was affected, what they lost, and plans a huge restoration effort in the near future. There's just no exact ETA and only the most valuable items like epic and legendary gear will be replaced. The restoration won't roll back your current inventory though, and will just add your lost items to your existing stores.

Tribute Games is making an extremely authentic tribute to TMNT arcade beat-em-ups, and it's also coming to Nintendo Switch sometime this year.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge is a love-letter to shell-heads everywhere. The game has fans buzzing, and for good reason: The retro pixellated styles match the old-school vibes of Konami's beloved arcade game from the 1990s. Now Tribute Games has announced the game will arrive on Nintendo Switch as well as PC, PS4, and Xbox.

Today the devs dropped a new Shredder's Revenge gameplay trailer that shows the four turtle bros. in action, complete with special moves and satisfying Foot-smashing chaos. The game's eShop listing confirms the game will support all three modes on the Switch, including TV Mode, Tabletop Mode, and Handheld Mode, complete with four-player co-op straight out of the original game.

I don't know about you but I really would love to see this bad boy running -- a fully-custom Flight Simulator PC that is shaped like a damn jet engine which is half exposed... I mean, it's just GLORIOUS.

Xbox France posted on Twitter teasing that they're giving away the amazing custom Flight Simulator PC and that all you need to do is follow their Twitter account, and then comment with the #MicrosoftFlightSimulator hashtag.

Inside of the Flight Simulator PC we have the not-flagship GIGABYTE GeForce RTX 3070 graphics card, an Intel Core i7-11700K processor, and AORUS Z590 Elite AX motherboard. The entire PC is housed inside of a custom chassis that is shaped like a jet engine -- but it's like it's sliced down the side perfectly so you can see inside and it looks amazing.

Apex Legends has now reached over 100 million players globally since its February 2019 launch, and Respawn says it's just getting started.

Apex Legends has gone from an experimental F2P battle royale to one of the pillars of EA's business. In two years' time, Apex Legends has amassed 100 million players across all platforms, and will generate over $1 billion in lifetime revenues this year.

The game is so big that EA expects Apex to deliver $1 billion every year from here on out, thanks in no small part to the upcoming mobile game.

A new PS5 firmware update adds 120Hz support, but the console still won't output 1440p resolution.

Sony just released a new PS5 system firmware 21.01-03.00.00 update that enables 120Hz output for 1080p monitors as well as some nifty HDR options. Sadly, the console still doesn't support native 1440p resolution output and will revert to 1080p when hooked up to 2560 x 1440 monitors.

"Some PC monitors that can display 1080p/120 Hz now support 120 Hz display for games. If you're having trouble viewing your game at 120 Hz, go to Settings > Screen and Video > Video Output, and then turn off Enable 120 Hz Output," reads Sony's patch notes.

Giving up on Cyberpunk 2077 isn't an option for CD Projekt RED, and company president Adam Kicinski says there's no choice but to fix the game.

Many gamers think CDPR should just scrap Cyberpunk 2077 and move on, but CDPR President Adam Kicinski tells Reuters this is impossible. "I don't see an option to shelve Cyberpunk 2077. We are convinced that we can bring the game to such a state that we can be proud of it and therefore successfully sell it for years to come," Kicinski said.

The reality is CDPR can't afford to give up on Cyberpunk 2077. This would go against the company's business model, which sees big games released every few years. The company relies on sales of older games to generate revenue while it works on new games. The plan has worked tremendously well, and CD Projekt RED has remained profitable for the last few years between big game launches.

A new update to a Take-Two website domain has kicked off fresh rumors that GTA 6 could take place in the 1980s during the rise of Colombian drug cartels (despite the Project Americas rumors being debunked).

Take-Two Interactive has apparently updated its 19 year-old rockstarcartel.com website domain, and fans think it could be related to Grand Theft Auto 6. A quick WhoIs lookup shows the Rockstar Cartel domain is registered to Take-Two Interactive, and connecting to the website lands you to Rockstar Games' mainsite with a specific "domain-check-failed" error in the URL.

A whois lookup of Rockstarcartel.com mentions MarkMonitor, who Take-Two has used to register domains in the past, and Take-Two Interactive directly, and also lists a number of DNS and NS addresses associated with Take-Two Interactive.

Forever Entertainment is bringing The House of the Dead Remake to the Nintendo Switch, complete with co-op zombie slaying action.

The House of the Dead Remake is coming to Nintendo Switch in 2021 and supports two-players in TV Mode, Handheld Mode, and Tabletop Mode. Publisher Forever Entertainment revealed a ton of new screenshots and a brand new trailer for the game during Nintendo's latest Indie World showcase, revealing a big graphical overhaul for SEGA's old-school shooter.

There's no word on possible lightgun peripherals for the Switch, and the official eShop page doesn't confirm gyroscopic aiming--that would be a bit weird--so expect to use JoyCon analog sticks to move the cursor around the screen. The remake is due out sometime in 2021 but no pricing was revealed. Check below for info and screenshots.

Konami made a surprise splash at Nintendo's Indie World showcase with GetsuFumaDen, a new updated sequel to a 34 year-old Famicom game.

Today Konami finally announced a new game, but it's not Metal Gear or Silent Hill. It's a smaller roguelite game made in collaboration with indie studio GuruGuru. Introducing GetsuFumaDen: The Undying Moon, a frenetic hack-and-slash platformer with insane boss fights and a unique visual style. The game is coming to Steam in 2021 via early access and Switch in 2022.

Gamers are perplexed by this move. Why an indie? Why such an old game? The new title is actually a sequel to a decades-old cult hilt for the Famicom, and the original GetsuFumaDen is said to have inspired the best-selling Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles NES game.

Epic has once again raised gargantuan investment from multiple brokers, and Sony even contributed 20% of the total funding round.

Fortnite titan Epic Games has raised another $1 billion for its ambitious gaming plans. Sony put in another $200 million into Epic during this round, bringing its total investment to $450 million. Epic says it will use the cash to expand and grow across all facets of its business, which include the Epic Games Store, which is expected to have lost a total of $593 million by 2021, significant advancements in Unreal Engine 5 and Oodle tech, and new Fortnite content and cross-branding opportunities.

Epic says it now has a total market equity valuation of $28.7 billion, up 68% from last year. This follows a massive $750 funding round secured in June 2020. It's also worth noting that Epic Games generated a staggering $9.6 billion in revenues in 2020, and $3.8 billion in total profits.

Writing about Grand Theft Auto 6 is tricky and often involves at grasping at straws or reporting rumors that don't normally have sourceable information. Most of it is hearsay and very rarely do we get actual snippets from Rockstar themselves. To give more context on how these rumors start, we may have found the inspiration for the most recent GTA 6 modern day rumors.

Rumor has it that Grand Theft Auto 6 takes place during modern times (previous rumors said it was based in the 1980s and would connect Vice City, Liberty City and Los Santos with playable regions, but this has been debunked), but there's not anything really to back this claim up. A Rockstar Indie job listing for a Mixed Media Animator has been stretched to help accommodate the rumor and possibly even serves as the baseline for the claims.

One of the primary roles of the Mixed Media Animator is to "develop In-Game content to enhance the player experience," which includes the satirical websites in GTA IV and GTA V, as well as TV shows like Fame or Shame. The rationale is that GTA 6 must therefore be set in modern times--why expand the team if the game is set before the internet existed? Wouldn't that remove an entire platform for Rockstar's famous in-game hijinks?

A new job listing suggests Blizzard is working on a RPG mobile game with monetization, and it could be one of the new Warcraft games.

As Activision-Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick recently confirmed, Blizzard is currently working on multiple Warcraft mobile games: "We've made multiple mobile free-to-play Warcraft experiences, and they're now in advanced development based on our franchise's beloved IP this will create opportunities for both existing players and new fans to experience the Warcraft universe in entirely new ways."

Now we might have some clues as to what these Warcraft games are. According to a Systems Designer job listing for an unannounced mobile games requires the applicant to "concept, design, and tune RPG progression systems and rewards."

Blizzard is working on something very big, and it's not a video game.

Blizzard is pretty busy right now. It's currently hiring 55 developers to work on unannounced projects and games, including new Warcraft mobile games and a multiplayer shooter for consoles and PC. What's most exciting isn't the games themselves but the technology that powers them.

The Overwatch, World of Warcraft, and Diablo titan is currently working on a next-gen engine revamp that will power its future games. This is a long-term project that Blizzard has been working on since at least 2018, and Blizzard's career page paints a grand plan to significantly update, overhaul, and optimize all facets of its internal games development process.