Gaming - Page 548

Sony has just kick started the TV advertisement marketing for its next generation PlayStation 5 console, which focuses on the 3D audio, adaptive triggers, and haptic feedback on the PS5 and its DualSense controller. Check it out:

The company seems to be concentrating its first wave of PlayStation 5 marketing on its new DualSense controller, which will usher in a "new world of immersion" for gamers. This makes sense for the ad, which -- in its own, very weird way, is (I guess) marketing those things.

Sony's marketing VP, Mary Yee, explained on the official PlayStation website: "Today, I am pleased to share with you our first global spot for PlayStation that showcases some of the immersive gameplay you will experience on the new PS5 console. In our first global digital ad for the PS5 console, you'll see the new console's features come to life through a young woman's eyes and her movements".

It looks like Ubisoft's Prince of Persia series could make a comeback soon, but we don't know exactly when.

Listings for an unspecified Prince of Persia remake were spotted on Guatemalan retailer Max.com, hinting at an incoming remaster from Ubisoft. The listings have since been taken down after coverage went widespread. The listings were for an unspecified game, but the platforms were PS4 and Switch, so we could see a remaster of the PS3 self-titled Prince of Persia or even Sands of Time.

Ubisoft could be saving this reveal for Gamescom's new Opening Night Live digital ceremony on August 27. Show host Geoff Keighley teases a ton of "exciting reveals" for gamers.

Today Amazon made a megaton announcement: It's teaming up with South Korean titan Smilegate to make a new game.

Amazon's first-party game development projects seem to be floundering. New World has been delayed to 2021, and Crucible, the Overwatch knock-off, is back in beta after an unsuccessful launch. So now Amazon is pivoting and will team up Smilegate, with one of the most successful developers on the planet.

Smilegate's FPS CrossFire is the most popular shooter in the world. It has 670 million registered users and 8 million active users across the world. Smilegate will develop the game, and Amazon Games will publish the project. We don't know exactly what Smilegate is working on, but it could be another shooter. The game is set to release in 2021. It's worth noting that Control and Alan Wake developer Remedy Entertainment is working on a singleplayer campaign for CrossFireX.

The PS5's DualSense controller has programmable adaptive triggers, and developers are doing some creative things with them including locking them completely when your gun jams.

Outside of VR-based peripherals, the DualSense might be the most innovative controller ever made. The controller has special adaptive triggers that interact with the force feedback in a dynamic way, creating multitudes of possibilities for nuanced and instantaneous sensory input.

Examples include how the trigger with vibrate to reflect the tensile strength of a bowstring pull, or different levels of targeted vibration to simulate different terrains. Devs can literally program the triggers to react to gameplay as they see fit.

Sony's next-gen PS5 lineup includes heavy-hitters like Spider-Man Miles Morales, Horizon Forbidden West, Gran Turismo 7, the Demon's Souls remake, and the new Ratchet and Clank Rift Apart game. Sony is extremely confident in this selection of games, and even calls it the "best in PlayStation history."

As of right now, the PS5 won't have a whole lot of games when it releases in holiday 2020. Key launch games include Godfall, a third-party action RPG, and Spider-Man Miles Morales, a smaller spin-off of Insomniac's Spider-Man. Third-party will push sales more than first-party by virtue of more games, and we'll see big hits like Assassin's Creed Valhalla, NBA 2K21, Control Ultimate Edition, and Call of Duty Black Ops Cold War all release on the system.

Instead, the PS5 will mostly rely heavily on the backwards compatibility and play thousands of PS4 games at launch. Most of these games will be optimized with next-gen upgrades or enhancements, too.

Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War's new key art has been revealed, and could give hints about the game's campaign.

Yesterday Treyarch confirmed Black Ops Cold War with a teaser trailer that outlined key story beats. The game takes place during the Cold War, and the trailer played a historic interview with Soviet defector Yuri Bezmenov the lay out the dire circumstances of the conflict.

The new art confirms multiple time settings, too. The two soldiers--one KGB, and the other American--are covered with Space Race-era propaganda which stretched across 20 years. The previous teaser also shows events from the 50s (Red Square Protest from 1958), 60s (peace protests), 70s (Vietnam conflict) and 80s (fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989). The artwork gives key inference on what to expect about the game, and could indicate a dual-campaign approach similar to Modern Warfare.

Control is coming to next-gen PS5 and Xbox Series X consoles as a separate re-release, and 505 Games promises the game will harness the full might of each console. But current-gen versions will still be boosted too.

Today 505 Games put out a new blog post trying to explain why existing Control owners aren't getting free upgrades on PS5, Xbox Series X. They didn't specify exact details, but did confirm there were multiple roadblocks along the way, possibly with either console's handling of scaled next-gen performance. The logistics of upgrading the PS4 version of Control to a PS5 version may not be very easy. There's probably also contractual obligations to consider, and both of these things can't be talked about yet.

One thing 505 Games did confirm is that Control will "take full advantage of the power and features provided by these new consoles". The publisher didn't outline just how Control will play on next-gen, but expect hardware-based raytracing, high FPS, and native 4K resolution to name a few.

Project CARS 3 is nearly here, with the pedal being pushed firmly into the metal on September 28 -- but between now and then we're finding out about the changes inside of the new MADNESS graphics engine, and more.

In a recent interview with Wccftech, Joseph Barron, Marketing & esports Manager at Slightly Mad Studios talked about the technology side of Project CARS 3. You can read the entire interview here, but there are some great tidbits to take away from it.

The team have put some enhancements into the MADNESS engine for Project CARS 3, with Barron explaining: "The first big thing on the engine side is CFR (Clustered Forward Rendered) lightning. This is a different lightning technology compared to what he had in the previous Project CARS titles, and it allows us to have a greater number of active light sources in a specific given area thereby significantly increasing the quantity of lights that our systems can handle without any negative impact on performance".

Dirt 5 is launching in October, so now Codemasters is preparing PC gamers with some system requirements for the game.

At a bare minimum, you're going to need 8GB of RAM and 60GB of HDD space -- although the recommended specs are 16GB and I would definitely recommend most gamers have 16GB of RAM minimum. The CPU requirements aren't too harsh with an AMD FX-4300 or Intel Core i3-2130 at a minimum.

The recommended specs are much, much higher -- pushing for an AMD Ryzen 5 3600 or Intel Core i5-9600K, 16GB of RAM, and a higher-end AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT or GeForce GTX 1070 Ti graphics card.

Microsoft has officially started the engines of Flight Simulator which is now taking off, with a bit of turbulence in the fact that you only download around 500MB of the game from Steam.

Once you've got Flight Simulator 'installed' with that 500MB download and installation, the game opens up and begins downloading. This means that time is ticking over for the many hours, and especially depending on your PC -- many, many hours it will take to download -- the Steam refund window closes.

So if you don't like the game for whatever reason (it's fantastic) and wanted a refund (I get it), you can't -- because you've played the game for more than 2 hours. Steam's internal timer begins once the launcher opens, so even on a high-end PC with a 500Mbps internet connection, it took me around 3 hours to get it fully installed.

Right on time, WB Montreal today opened up the second code entry for its cryptic Batman game teaser site, confirms Two-Face is in the game.

WB Montreal's big new Batman Gotham Knights game will be reveled on August 22, but we're getting four days' worth of teasers up until the reveal. Today was day two--yesterday's teaser confirmed the Court of Owls is in Gotham Knights--and skilled Twitter users had to de-scramble an icon to get a new code (941) and enter it on the r3dak3d website.

Once de-scrambled, the icon appears to reveal another enemy faction to be featured in Gotham Knights. No one's exactly sure what the image pertains to, but it could be talons from the Court of Owls or another faction altogether, possibly related to Two-Face.

Like all simulator games--especially airplane ones--Microsoft's new Flight Simulator carves up key portions of content and sells it for extra money. Microsoft is locking higher-detailed airports behind the more expensive $90 and $120 deluxe editions.

The standard $59.99 version of Flight Simulator doesn't include many of the extras in the $90 and $120 deluxe editions--and rightly so, given the extra cost. The more premium versions come with more airports and more airplanes, but base game owners can buy them from an in-game microtransaction storefront. This is nothing new for the simulator genre. Aerofly FS 2, for example, has 21 DLC packs that cost $520 total, including $30 airplanes.

One key difference between the standard version and the Deluxe/Premium Deluxe editions is the quality of airport detail. The expensive versions come with handcrafted airports, meaning they have more detailed areas and are extremely realistic like-for-like renditions of their real-life counterparts. The standard edition comes with these airports, but they're basic renditions and lack the care and attention found in the meticulous hand-crafted ones.

It's finally happening: Activision will reveal Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War later this month.

Black Ops Cold War is the next Call of Duty game, and Activision will reveal it on August 26, 2020. The game obviously takes place during the Cold War, which actually lasted up until the Vietnam conflict, but recent leaked gameplay clearly outlines a 1980s setting for the game.

The new teaser trailer outlines a basic premise for the game's storyline: a Soviet spy codenamed Perseus who covertly infiltrates the U.S. to gather intelligence for the communist arms race. The game won't be completely grounded in historical events, but based around them, and calls for gamers to "know their history."

EA is taking an interesting approach to pivot away from the lootbox-based monetization that makes the company billions every year.

While scouting the new EA Play webpage, I noticed something interesting: EA Play Pro (formerly Origin Access Premiere) subscribers will get exclusive cosmetics in Star Wars Squadrons. I don't mean a little reward or just a single skin, but an entire series of unlockables that aren't available for normal players. This could be a new trend for EA to move away from in-game microtransactions.

Remember that Star Wars Squadrons doesn't have in-game purchases. It's an odd move because the game is prime territory for mTX; it has online-based play with replayable missions, it has tons of unlockables and cosmetics, and, well, it's Star Wars. The game is also $40. EA CFO Blake Jorgensen explains why the game doesn't have mTX (an anomaly for EA): "Our games are on different scales. We designed Squadrons to really focus on Star Wars dogfighting fantasy. It doesn't have the breadth of some of our games and we wanted to make it more widely available (cross-platform, cross-play, VR)."

After the massive over-performance of Persona 4 Golden, SEGA now wants to release its biggest games day-and-date on PC.

SEGA has always had high ambitions for PC re-releases, and in the past has pledged to bring more of its games to storefronts like Steam. SEGA's games typically come to PC after they've released on consoles, which is due to the higher proportion of console game sales and bigger worldwide install base of those systems. But now it wants to target PC from the get-go.

In a recent Q&A session, SEGA corporate says they want to start planning games development with PC in mind. The multi-platform approach should include consoles, PC, and other platforms, SEGA says, but it'll be on a per-title basis. SEGA could also try and make a splash in the game-streaming market via Google Stadia.

Ghost of Tsushima is getting a new free co-op multiplayer mode that allows four players to team up. But unlike most games, this mode won't be monetized.

The new Legends mode for Ghost of Tsushima is prime territory for microtransactions. It has action-based play, online interactions, multiple classes, and is a kind of separate add-on mode. But unlike most gametypes of this nature, Legends won't have any microtransactions. This is a sharp contrast to the multiplayer found in games like Mass Effect 3, Dragon Age Inquisition, and even Uncharted 4 and The Last of Us' Factions MP.

"There are no microtransactions in Ghost of Tsushima: Legends, and we have absolutely no plans to add them. All of the content is unlocked through play," Sucker Punch tells IGN.

Starbreeze still hasn't secured a publishing deal for Payday 3, and it's running out of revenues. So now it's opened up a second offering for shareholders to raise more capital.

Payday game developer Starbreeze Studios is still in trouble. The company just reported its second-half 2020 earnings and while net sales are positive at 53 million SEK and overall EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation & amortization) was up to 25.9 million SEK, financial expenses amounted to 111 million SEK and loss before profits was -105.6 million SEK. These expenses were incurred by paying interest on and extending the convertible bond, which delays the bond maturity and also delays when Starbreeze has to pay out to investors.

The new share issue, also known as a second offering, is a way for Starbreeze to raise money without having to secure a loan. The second offering gives existing shareholders the option to buy shares at a discounted "subscription rate," effectively giving them more shares for less money. Companies then use this money to pay down debt or fund operating activities.

I've been a PC gamer since I was a young kid -- 5-6 years of age, and now I'm 37. Over 30 years of being a PC gamer, but I've had every console, VR headset, and portable in between.

PC gaming is something that shaped my entire life (my online nickname is 'anthony256', after the GeForce 256 and before that it was 'Voodoo' after the infamous 3Dfx graphics cards), crafting my career in IT sales for 10 years before -- a now 10 years here working for TweakTown.

So to hear that there are over 1.5 billion PC gamers, at least according to DFC Intelligence and its new report, warms my heart. The report says there are over 3.1 billion gamers worldwide, with 48% of them being PC gamers -- over 1,500,000,000 people worldwide are PC gamers.

NVIDIA has just released its new GeForce Game Ready 452.06 WHQL drivers, which have day one optimizations and enhancements for the just-released Microsoft Flight Simulator, and more.

Not only do we have the best performance possible right now in Flight Simulator, but NVIDIA has also added support for ray traced shadows in World of Warcraft: Shadowlands beta -- as well as adding 8 new G-SYNC compatible gaming monitors to the list of growing G-SYNC compatible monitors.

These monitors include: Acer XB273U GX, VG272 LV, XV272 LV, CP5271U V, X34 GS models along with the ASUS PG329, IO Data GC252UXm, and Lenovo Y25-25.

Microsoft just launched Flight Simulator on the PC after months and months of teasing, with the game quickly impressing reviewers and gamers and becoming the highest rated PC game of 2020.

The feat took less than 24 hours, with Flight Simulator taking off with a Metacritic score of 93 -- where the only game close to that reception is Valve's VR exclusive Half-Life: Alyx. The new Flight Simulator has also quickly become the highest rated game in the series, too.

Flight Simulator didn't have the best launch on PC in the last 24 hours, with a turbulent start -- but things stabilized, and the drinks started flowing and snacks to gorge on. The game is breathtakingly beautiful, having just taken a quick flight across the Hudson River in New York -- from my hometown here in Gawler, South Australia.