Gaming - Page 509

First Disney resurrected Lucasfilm Games. Now Bethesda is developing a new Indiana Jones game.

Today Bethesda announced a curveball: They're making a new Indiana Jones game, and it's being developed by Wolfenstein reboot studio MachineGames. The new project will have an all-original storyline that deviates from the movies, and Elder Scrolls/Fallout creative Todd Howard will be executive producer on the game. Specifics, platforms, and launch dates are unknown.

Lucasfilm Games is back, but Disney still has no plans to develop its own games in-house.

George Lucas' gaming division has gone full circle. Lucasfilm Games was first established in 1983 as a way to bring Star Wars and Indiana Jones to the video game world. Then in 1990, Lucasfilm Games became LucasArts and put out games developed in-house. When Disney took over in 2013, LucasArts' dev teams were shuttered and development on games like Star Wars 1313 was cancelled. Disney instead licensed these properties out; companies like EA made the games now, and Disney collects royalties.

Now the Lucasfilm Games brand has been resurrected. It's just a name change, though, and Disney won't be paying the big bucks to fund first-party games. There's no LucasArts or Lucasfilm Games development teams. IPs like Star Wars and Indiana Jones will continue to be licensed out to external studios who will pay for the bulk of development, publishing, and shipping of games.

Today Sony confirmed a few launch windows for PlayStation 5 games, including Square Enix's big new action RPG Project Athia, Capcom's new Pragmata IP, and other PlayStation exclusives.

Sony's recent CES 2021 livestream locked in a few launch windows for key first- and third-party PS5 games. According to the disclaimer at the end of the game sizzle reel, Project Athia, the ultra-fast and chaotic new action RPG from Final Fantasy XV developer Luminous Productions, is set to release in January 2022. The two-year exclusivity deal Sony signed will keep Athia off of Xbox for at least 2024. Project Athia will also come to PC though.

Capcom's new cerebral IP, Pragmata, has also been delayed to 2023 and will likely be exclusive to PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S hardware.

Poland's Office of Competition and Consumer Protection has opened a formal investigation into CD Projekt S.A. for Cyberpunk 2077's performance.

Right now CD Projekt is in hot water. Five separate U.S.-based law firms have filed class-action lawsuits against the company for possibly misleading investors. Cyberpunk 2077's poor PS4 and Xbox One performance has caused massive controversy, and shares have dropped 33% since the game's release. Now Poland's Office of Competition and Consumer Protection, the country's FTC-equivalent consumer protection agency, is now scrutinizing the company.

The news comes from Polish newspaper Dziennik.pl, who contacted the regulatory body and confirmed key details about the investigation. The office has contacted CD Projekt to see what steps it's taking to fix Cyberpunk 2077 for consumers, based on the responses, it will determine whether or not the company should be punished.

Today Pennsylvania-based law firm RM Law announced it has filed a class-action suit against CD Projekt S.A. for allegedly misleading investors and consumers over Cyberpunk 2077's performance.

Investor rights attorney office RM Law joins four other law firms in suing CD Projekt Group for possible securities fraud. The suit alleges that the company purposefully misled or failed to disclose key information surrounding Cyberpunk 2077's dismal PS4 and Xbox One ports. The game's low-end performance led to controversy, triggering mass refunds and removal from the PlayStation Store as well as a substantial drop in CD Projekt S.A. share value. Shortly after, CD Projekt executives took a conference call where they admitted to neglecting and hiding Cyberpunk 2077's last-gen gameplay from the public and investors.

CD Projekt is now being sued by five U.S. law firms:

Today LG confirmed it will release a Stadia app on its new smart TVs, bringing game streaming to a fleet of higher-end displays.

In an effort to underline its commitment to gaming, LG plans to roll out a Stadia app for its smart TVs in late 2021. The app will be available to download from the LG storefront for the "latest webOS smart TVs." A list of exact compatible models wasn't outlined in the press release.

This could help catalyze the fledgling game streaming market. Stadia and other game-streaming services like Amazon's Luna and Microsoft's Project xCloud have yet to take off due to issues like latency and network data caps. The inclusion of Stadia on LG's smart TVs won't alleviate these issues day one, but it will help push adoption during the critical introduction phase. Instant, console-free gaming could become a powerful alternative to buying expensive hardware.

Microsoft has lofty ambitions to take over Western RPG gaming. Now we know of another big project in the company's first-party arsenal, and it's from the Wasteland devs at inXile.

Microsoft has a ton of RPGs in development right now. Obsidian is making new games including the new fantasy game Avowed and possibly The Outer Worlds 2. Bethesda is flexing with Starfield and The Elder Scrolls VI (and maybe even Fallout 5). PlayGround Games is working on Fable 4. Now we're getting clues about inXile's new project.

According to a new job listing for a Senior Gameplay Designer, inXile, the studio known for the Wasteland series, is making a new first-person shooter RPG.

NiOh 2, one of the best Soulsborne games on the market, is just $10 right now on Walmart.com.

If you've beaten Sekiro, Dark Souls, and Bloodborne, and find yourself wanting a new challenge, definitely pick up NiOh 2 on Walmart. The PS4 version is just $10 and offers quite a bit of bang for your buck, including intense demon-slaying chaos, Oni transformations, and big upgrades over the original insofar as loot and mechanics.

The game has a deep Japanese folklore-fantasy scope and taps into history and legend, complete with excruciatingly challenging hack-and-slash combat. The bossfights are over the top, the combat is fluid and innovative with multiple stances and weapon types, and there's lots of room for experimentation with the new Oni powers and transformations.

Dying Light 2 narrative director Pawel Selinger recently left Techland after 22 years with the studio. What if he left because the project is finished?

Dying Light 2 has had a rocky development timeline. First the game was delayed indefinitely so Techland could target next-gen consoles. Then Chris Avellone, the game's previous writer, was embroiled in controversy, forcing Techland to find a new writer.

Now Selinger is leaving the company. The popular consensus is that Selinger is leaving because of Techland's internal problems, and that Dying Light 2 could be in development hell similar to Dead Island 2. But what if this isn't the case? What if the game is already written and Selinger is simply moving on because the work is finished?

Grand Theft Auto V's upcoming next-gen version might be built off of Red Dead Redemption 2's enhanced RAGE engine tech, possibly with more optimizations and upgrades.

Rockstar plans to bring GTA V to PS5 and Xbox Series X in 2021, complete with a standalone version of GTA Online. New tidbits found in GTA V's source code hints the game will be built from RDR2's excellent RAGE engine optimizations. The code was uncovered by GTA Forums user Tez2 and directly references RDR2's RAGE version.

Remember that Red Dead Redemption 2 was built from the ground up for the PS4, PS4 Pro, and Xbox family of consoles, so its RAGE engine is specifically designed to harness the power of those systems. Expect Rockstar to tweak the engine to utilize the full might of the PS5 and Xbox Series X SoCs, which include Navi 2 GPUs and Zen 2 CPUs, as well as hefty16GB GDDR6 RAM upgrades.

Ground Zero: Texas was one of my favorite games on the Sega CD all the way back in 1993, so it comes with much excitement to deliver news to you that the FMV classic is being remastered. Introducing Ground Zero: Texas - Nuclear Edition.

It is looking much better than its garbage look on the Sega CD at the time with 3000 layers of interlacing, but the remaster in Ground Zero: Texas - Nuclear Edition is looking quite great. Ground Zero: Texas was originally developed for the Sega CD by Digital Pictures, and saw you taking on an alien invasion in the town of El Cadron.

It's an FMV (full-motion video) with real actors, that you "shoot" and they "react" to your shot. It was played with a controller at the time, and saw gameplay from the FMV shooter that blended the American Laser Games series with the camera-switching, puzzle-solving of games like Night Trap and Double Switch.

The Switch has absolutely annihilated the PS4 and Xbox One in Japan, compromising 87% of total console sales in 2020.

The Nintendo Switch is a monster. The console has sold-in 68.3 million units worldwide as of Q2, and continues its strong momentum as it enters its fourth year on the market. The system is especially popular in Japan, where it crushes the PS4, Xbox One, and even the new next-gen systems.

According to Famitsu and Media Create sales data collected by Game Data Library, the Switch sold a whopping 6.2 million systems in Japan in 2020. This represents a 1.7 million sales gain, up 40% YoY from 2019. The Switch also made up a huge 87% of total consoles sales for the period, up from 76% in 2019.

Lenovo takes a direct shot at Nintendo with a transforming Switch-like mini PC, the LaVie Mini.

The Switch's Tegra X1 is pretty underpowered and leads to limited in-game performance. Lenovo wants to break the Switch's shackles with its new LaVie Mini concept PC. The computer is a fully-fledged Windows 10 PC that marries the Switch's trademark portability and transformability with new high-powered hardware.

The LaVie Mini sports Intel's new 11th generation chips, including a Core i7-1180G7 CPU and integrated Xe Iris graphics. It's lightweight, has an 8-inch 1920x1200 resolution touchscreen, and even has attachable/detachable side controllers just like the Switch's JoyCons. There's even an HDMI dock that lets you continue gaming on an HDTV to promote seamless, swappable gaming (just like the Switch).

Sony might've flipped the kill switch on PlayStation's answer to the Halo franchise.

Killzone's official website has been retired and now delivers a message thanking fans for their "enthusiasm and support." It's no longer possible to see stats on the website, nor can gamers create or manage clans in Killzone Shadow Fall. The consensus is that Sony may have closed development on the Killzone franchise as a whole. Multiplayer isn't the same if you can't track your stats with an external site, and this kind of cross-platform integration is a boon for PVP engagement. The elimination of this kind of info might be a signal that the IP is being put on the back burner.

This message is now up on the Killzone.com website:

Epic Games just made one of the most strategic acquisitions in its history by buying RAD Game Tools.

Epic Games now owns RAD Game Tools, the company behind some of the most-used game environment tools in the industry. RAD Game Tools includes Bink Video, proprietary file format tech that's been used in the industry for the past 21 years, along with Oodle data compression technology. Oodle's next-gen Kraken is the compression tech used in the PlayStation 5's I/O hardware and makes the higher 9GB/sec transfer rates possible on the PCIe 4.0 SSD. Oodle is used in countless games to reduce overall data footprint and compress high-res assets.

RAD will directly integrate its toolset into Unreal Engine, but has no plans to make its tools exclusive to Unreal Engine projects.

BioWare's new Dragon Age executive producer rings in the new year with some fresh Dragon Age 4 concept art.

Christian Dailey recently took over the role of Dragon Age producer from 23-year BioWare veteran Mark Darrah. Now Dailey kicks off 2021 with a neat glimpse at Dragon Age 4's archer, complete with the fancy magical bow (possibly lyrium) showcased in the game's first-ever in-engine footage.

BioWare recently dropped a bunch of Dragon Age 4 concept art revealing an exotic fantasy style unlike anything else in the series. Dragon Age writer Patrick Weekes warned gamers not to look too closely into the concept art and extract info through the visuals. Concept art is a nebulous guide that helps shape the worlds but doesn't always explicitly define them.

Gaming titan Roblox Corp. has completed a new $520 million funding round valuing the company at nearly $30 billion--more than Grand Theft Auto parent company Take-Two Interactive.

Roblox is a juggernaut that has grown significantly in just one year's time. Following a successful half-billion funding round, Roblox Corp. is now worth an estimated $29.5 billion. This represents an astronomical 700% raise in market value in just 11 months. The funding round issued 11,556 shares at $45 a piece, and major new investors Dragoneer Investment Group and Altimeter Capital join established investors like Warner Music Group.

The game regularly makes billions every year from in-game monetization, and pulled in over $1 billion on mobile in 2020. Exact 2020 revenues are unknown as Roblox Corp. is a private company that doesn't publish results. That will change soon when the company goes public with a direct stock listing.

Twitch has permanently removed the iconic 11-year-old pogchamp emote due to controversial statements from streamer Ryan "Gootecks" Gutierrez.

If you've ever chatted on Twitch, you've probably seen the pogchamp emote pop up on nearly every stream--especially game reveals. That's about to change forever. In response to Gootecks' recent Twitter posts concerning the recent Capitol Hill invasions, Twitch has yanked pogchamp off the service and laid rest to an entire era of streaming.

"We've made the decision to remove the PogChamp emote following statements from the face of the emote encouraging further violence after what took place in the Capitol today," Twitch said. "We want the sentiment and use of Pog to live on - its meaning is much bigger than the person depicted or image itself- and it has a big place in Twitch culture. However, we can't in good conscience continue to enable use of the image."

Remember that huge 4Chan post that "sourced" a game developer from CD Projekt RED? Yeah, that was totally fake.

CD Projekt RED has officially debunked a shady new 4Chan rumor that made some bold claims. The poster claimed to be an anonymous CDPR developer and talked about CD Projekt's plans for future patches and discussed internal issues during Cyberpunk 2077's tumultuous development. The post is filled with a laundry list of tidbits, including how the code for the PS4 and Xbox One versions are being completely rewritten for a June 2021 launch. Oh, and they also claimed Johnny Silverhand was originally based on David Hayter's Snake, and that he was much cooler before Keanu.

The poster also says the disastrous launch was "beneficial." CD Projekt's legal department would probably beg to differ--the company has lots of enraged investors and is being sued by four U.S.-based law firms.

PUBG is still one of the biggest games on the market right now, with a super solid playerbase that is able to still battle new Battle Royale giants like Call of Duty: Warzone, Fortnite, and Apex Legends. But now we have some juicy rumors on the next-gen PUBG 2 that is reportedly in development.

Korean media outlet MTN has teased that PUBG 2 is an "authentic sequel" to the original PUBG, which reportedly started development back in May 2019. The team that developed PUBG Lite for low-end PCs is working on PUBG Mobile 2, but these projects are separate to PUBG 2.

PUBG 2 is reportedly a next-gen game for PC, console and mobile and will be most importantly cross-platform which should have lots of gamers happy. It'll be interesting to see what PUBG 2 eventuates into, and how many upgrades, features, new graphics and more that we'll get from it.