Gaming - Page 549

UPDATE:Games industry analytics firm IDG Consulting says other publishers are likely to raise next-gen game prices to $69.99 to offset game development costs, which have risen by as much as 300%.

Next-gen PS5 and Xbox Series X titles will retail for $69.99, representing a sizable $10 or 17% price increase from current-gen.

NBA 2K21 is the first next-gen game to raise its price tag from $59.99 to $69.99, and other publishers are expected to follow suit. The PS5 and Xbox Series X versions of the game are currently available for pre-order on the 2K Store for $69.99 which would bring the total cost to roughly $74.88 for states with 7% tax. Conversely, games cost roughly $64.18 with the same tax.

We knew it was coming, but now it is official: Worms Rumble has just been announced by Team17 and is a radically new take on the classic franchise.

Worms Rumble handles 32 players in a new twist: it's all done in real-time, versus the old Worms games from the 90s. In the older Worms games (which I loved) it was a much slower-paced game where you would plan your next move... but Worms Rumble is just all-out chaos.

You can dodge, roll, and even wall jump in Worms Rumble... with a bunch of different game modes to play. This includes the regular Deathmatch skirmish, a battle royale style 'Last Worm Standing' mode as well as a Last Squad Standing variant of the battle royale mode for Worms Rumble.

Death Stranding's release on the PC is right around the corner, showcasing the Decima Engine by developers Guerrilla Games. It has some gorgeous graphics, that are improved yet again on the PC and even more so with NVIDIA's DLSS 2.0 technology.

But the most important question is: how does it run?

Well we now have some benchmarks to share for Death Stranding on the PC, where starting on the GeForce RTX 2060 we have a huge 110FPS average at 1080p with everything maxed out. The test systems are an Intel Core i9-9900K, 32GB of DDR4 RAM, Windows 10 64-bit and NVIDIA DLSS 2.0 "Quality Mode" set.

Cyberpunk 2077 is one of the best looking games of 2020 by far, and when it has all of its graphical bells and whistles enabled (thanks, NVIDIA) it truly looks out of this world.

Well, all of those pretty graphics are a DirectX 12 exclusive -- with PC gamers requiring Windows 10 for the most part, but will work with Windows 7 and its implementation of DX12. The reason? Marcin Gollent, Lead Graphics Programmer at CD PROJEKT RED says it's because of ray tracing.

During a recent interview with PC Games Hardware, Gollent said: "Thanks to the introduction of DX12 support for Windows 7 SP1 that Microsoft introduced last year, the game will run on this system. We do, and will continue to, test Cyberpunk 2077 on Windows 7 in an attempt to iron out any edge-cases that might arise. Unfortunately, Windows 8 didn't receive its variant of DX12 libraries".

Sony's Dreams game is getting full and native PlayStation VR support, allowing gamers to create and play unique levels and designs.

Dreams is a transformative game that basically lets you make your own personal games and experiences with a potent and flexible level editor. Think of it like the GECK that's used to make Fallout mods. But Sony is kicking things up a notch by adding full VR support for the game, complete with VR-specific creation tools

"When it comes to Create Mode in VR, sculpting is truly unique, allowing you to bring your Dreams to life around you. If you have PlayStation Move Controllers, you'll find sculpting in VR is a very one-to-one experience and lets you fully immerse in the creation process."

Superstar indie game publisher and industry rebel Devolver Digital will bring their signature mayhem to Not-E3 in mid-July.

Today Devolver Digital announced their annual direct showcase for July 12, 2020 at 12PM PST/3PM EST, and promised quite a bit of ridiculous content. These events are basically the Adult Swim version of E3 and offer absolutely hilarious satirical jabs at the games market while also dropping fresh reveals in the process. There's nothing like a Devolver Digital show and this one could be their craziest ever given the pandemic landscape.

Devolver plans to show off new games (of course) and do lots of overpromising and misuse their marketing budget. We'll also get to try out digital demos of games like Carrion and Disc Room. The show will be livestreamed on Twitchand within the Steam launcher.

The PS5's backwards compatibility will probably only include PS4 games, and shouldn't natively play PS1, PS2, or PS3 game discs.

Sony wants its next-gen PlayStation 5 to play thousands of PS4 games when it releases this holiday. The PS5's custom SoC, OS, and software architecture environment was built from the ground up with PS4 backward compatibility in mind. That doesn't include PS1, PS2 or PS3 games, though. At least that's what's Sony is hinting.

While Sony strongly indicates the PS5 will only be backwards compatible with PS4 games, the company isn't yet ready to disconfirm speculations. In a recent interview with GameSpark, a Sony rep says PS4 game support is currently the top focus:

Tencent is mostly known for its billion-dollar monetization and buying out devs, but now it wants to make a big splash in the AAA games market.

Tencent today announced Lightspeed Studio, a new development team that'll make big-budget AAA games for next-gen PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X consoles. Lightspeed Studio is headquartered in the U.S. game dev mecca of Los Angeles and is helmed by ex-Rockstar Games San Diego director Steve Martin. Lightspeed has also courted seasoned devs from studios like Respawn, Insomniac, and 2K Games.

Reports say Lightspeed's first game will be a sizable open-world AAA title that's optimized specifically for next-gen hardware, so expect larger-than-life content. Tencent surely has deep enough pockets to make their debut first-party AAA game a dazzling and unforgettable experience. The company made over $16 billion last year from games alone, but most of that is from heavily monetized free-to-play games.

Crytek pulled a really dog move today, with the developer pulling the Crysis Remastered gameplay reveal literally in the last hour -- and then announcing it had delayed the entire game and its launch, too. The leaked images seem to be getting at least some of the blame, you can see those crappy screenshots of Crysis Remastered here.

The above tweet is from the official Crysis Twitter account, which reads: "As you know, Crysis Remastered will be coming into the world this year -- and at the same time the Crysis IP will debut on Nintendo Switch!" It sounds so upbeat, ending that first sentence with an exclamation mark, but it's all disappointment and sadness from here on in.

Crytek continues: "Your passion for the Crysis franchise deserves an undeniably high-quality game, and we are ccommitted to delivering just that. To ensure that we meet that commitment, we will need to delay the launch date (all platforms) and trailer premiere by a few weeks. Because they already started, pre-orders for Switch will stay open, but pre-orders for all other platforms will be delayed as well".

EA and Crytek are just hours away from unveiling Crysis Remastered in all its glory, but new leaked screenshots aren't really doing the game any favors.

The screenshots are from the Microsoft Store, so maybe they're for the Xbox One version of the game. It actually doesn't look good at all, and has that 'console gloss' as I like to call it, sprayed all over it. I'm expecting a much bigger graphical upgrade from the PC version of Crysis Remastered over the original Crysis.

But just check out these screenshots, they have to be from the Xbox version of the game.

Death Stranding will be hitting the PC on July 14 on both the Epic Games Store and Steam, with a bunch of PC-exclusive features included in Hideo Kojima's masterpiece.

The PC version of Death Stranding is now rumored to have NVIDIA's great DLSS 2.0 technology, or Deep Learning Super Sampling. This is on top of high frame rate support, a Photo Mode which I'm sure is going to result in some crazy posts online, UltraWide monitor support, and more.

But the introduction of DLSS technology will see it being the first Kojima Productions game to have DLSS 2.0 support. The rumor is coming from PCMRACE, with an NVIDIA rep reportedly telling the outlet: "Among the highlights is the long-awaited Death Stranding, a title that unfolds a grim post-apocalyptic future, devised by the creator of the Metal Gear series, Hideo Kojima".

Soon gamers will be able to add custom cosmetic skins to weapons and vehicles in Halo: Combat Evolved.

Custom skins are a big part of Halo 5's monetization, and are now one of the main components of any live games microtransaction system. But 343i had a different idea with their new Halo 1 skin customization scheme.

The feature will be added in the big new Season 2 progression update coming to Master Chief Collection on PC, and right now it's limited to Halo 1. The customization is limited to just three things: Weapons (both UNSC and Covenant weapons have different skins), visors (basic color swaps), and vehicle skins (again, both UNSC vehicles and Covenant have different skins).

Cyberpunk 2077 will be strongly censored in Japan with nudity and sexually explicit content edited out, Press Start Australia reports.

CD Projekt RED's latest sci-fi FPS RPG is as mature as a game can get. It'll feature brutal violence and crime, full-frontal nudity complete with genitalia customization, and explicit scene scenes, all of which are wrapped up in a bloody and chaotic story arc. Some regions like Japan don't take kindly to this content and plan to censor the game.

The reports come from Press Start Australia, who didn't link to any sources. So we decided to do a little digging on the Japanese CERO ratings board website to see what kind of designated rating Cyberpunk would get. Oddly enough Cyberpunk 2077 wasn't mentioned at all. The listings look stale and old, and mostly yesteryear titles popped up, so it's possible the site hasn't been updated in a while.

At a recent shareholders meeting, Nintendo was directly asked about a new next-gen Switch console. Stock owners want to know what's next: Can we expect the rumored Switch Pro with 4K capabilities and enhanced horsepower? Nintendo tempers expectations by asserting its age-old stance of fun over specs.

When asked about the Switch being limited by its form-factor design and hardware specifications, Nintendo senior executive officer and director Ko Shioda said:

"We are developing the game consoles that we make with a focus not on performance (high technical specifications), but on how comfortably customers can enjoy the fun software."

After a premature launch, Amazon's first-ever game release, is being pulled from sale and reverting back to closed beta state.

Crucible, the Overwatch-like hero shooter hardly anyone has heard of, clearly wasn't ready for a retail release. Amazon's internal game studios have pulled Crucible off of Steam and put the project back into closed beta phases. The idea is to revamp gameplay elements and use current owners as beta-testing guinea pigs. If they're still playing, that is--Crucible had abysmal concurrent player counts shortly after launching.

The news was announced in a recent developer blog post:

The latest Crash Bandicoot won't be monetized with microtransaction purchases, game developer Toys for Bob confirms.

Contrary to popular belief, Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time won't have piecemeal in-game purchases. "We're seeing confusion about MTX in Crash Bandicoot 4 and want to be crystal clear: There are no microtransactions in Crash 4. As a bonus, the Totally Tubular skins are included in all digital versions of the game," the game's developer Toys for Bob said on Twitter.

The game's Microsoft Store listing says Crash 4 "offers in-app purchases," and considering it's an Activision game, everyone immediately thought the worst. After all, Activision added microtransactions into the Crash Team Racing: Nitro Fueled after it was launched. But also remember in-app purchases aren't just limited to microtransactions. This includes macrotransactions too, which are basically expansions and paid post-launch content.

Nintendo assures shareholders, consumers, and fans that upcoming Switch first-party games haven't been delayed by COVID-19 work-from-home measures.

Nintendo says its new first-party games won't be pushed back by coronavirus precautions and asserts its current Switch software lineup will release as planned.

In a recent briefing with shareholders, Shinya Takahashi, senior vice president and executive officer said delays did occur, but the more immediate slate of titles hasn't been affected.

Ever since COVID-19 hit, the Nintendo Switch has become a scarce rarity on store shelves. The console is sold out across the globe and Nintendo is scrambling to keep up. Nintendo President Shuntaro Furukawa says Switch production is almost finished, but warns of a lag between manufacturing and availability.

The Switch is practically sold out everywhere. Demand has far exceeded supply, and company shareholders are worried about missed sales opportunities. In an annual shareholders meeting in Japan, Nintendo President Shuntaro Furukawa attempts to allay these fears by confirming new hardware production is almost finished and ready to be shipped out.

"We apologize for the inconvenience caused to many customers due to the shortage of Nintendo Switch and Nintendo Switch Lite. In particular after the release of Animal Crossing: New Horizons, [supply] has continue to run short in markets all over the world. [But] hardware production has almost recovered," Shuntaro said.

The unannounced Xbox Series S shaves off a bunch of features, but it won't skimp out on CPU speeds.

The Lockhart speculation saga continues to evolve with new developments, and things are starting to heat up. New reports from The Verge's Tom Warren, who has spoken to inside sources close to Lockhart's development, allege the Xbox Series S's CPU is the same as the Xbox Series X.

We previously believed everything on the Series S (Lockhart) would be downgraded in order to save costs, but it appears Lockhart will use the exact same 8-core, 16-thread 3.8GHz Zen 2 CPU as the Series X. If accurate, the Xbox Series S would be a smidgen faster than the PlayStation 5's 3.5GHz CPU.

Deck13, the team who made big indies like The Surge, The Surge 2, and Lords of the Fallen has been 100% acquired by Focus Home Interactive.

Focus Home Interactive is mostly known for smaller-scale AA hits like Greedfall, Vampyr, and The Surge 2, so buying out Deck13 makes a lot of sense. Not only are Deck13's games commercial successes (The Surge made €5.5 million in one year), the German games company brings 60 talented employees to the table.

The publisher has fully acquired the studio, its games IPs like Lords of the Fallen and The Surge, and its lucrative independent games publishing arm that's responsible for fan-favorites like the CrossCode RPG.