Gaming - Page 549

The honkin' boys are back in town: Untitled Goose Game is getting two-player local co-op with a new update.

Two honks are better than one--at least that's what indie dev House House seems to think. Untitled Goose Game is getting multiplayer with a new update, which will roll out in September alongside the new physical releases and subsequent Steam release.

The update brings a second goose--a Chinese goose with its big yellow knobby-beak--to enact hijinks and to completely terrorize poor hapless townsfolk. The two goofy ducks run amok (bonus points if you get that reference) in the full campaign mode, and the update will be available on all platforms including PC (Epic, Itch.io, and Steam), Xbox One, PS4, and Nintendo Switch.

New reports say Microsoft's cheaper next-gen Xbox Series S console will feature a 61% reduction in compute units to power a ~4TFLOP GPU.

The Xbox Series S will have a Navi GPU with 20 Compute Units and a 1.550GHz clock speed, The Verge's Tom Warren reports. This is a 61% reducing in CUs and will translate to lower perf targets, aligning with past reports that the Series S is targeting 1440p 60FPS gaming. There's also a 275MHz difference between the Series X (1.825GHz) and Series S (1.550GHz) GPUs.

The news comes in response to our Series X vs Series S table, and up until now, we haven't really had much info on the weaker system's compute unit count. Reports have only mentioned the GPU TFLOP perf target, which is about 4TFLOPs, or 66% weaker than the Xbox Series X's monstrous 12TFLOP of power.

The Embracer Group (formerly THQ Nordic) recently posted record Q2'20 net sales games earnings of $174 million, up a strong 153% year-over-year, setting a new all-time quarterly high.

Like most games companies, Embracer rode the coronavirus wave to record quarterly games revenues. Embracer notes a sharp 71% uptick in profits to $9.76 million on the back of $222.03 million in net sales revenues, This surge was thanks to over-performance in the games segment across Deep Silver, THQ Nordic, and the newly-acquired Saber Interactive.

Embracer attributes stronger sales revenues due to COVID-19 lockdowns, and favorable adoption of new games like SnowRunner, Spongebob Battle of Bikini Bottom Rehydrated, and Deep Rock Galactic, as well as digital sales of back catalog games in the Metro franchise.

Microsoft is getting closer to revealing its next-gen Xbox Series X console in all its glory, with the new console being spotted at the Xperion E-Arena by Saturn in Germany.

The images were posted on Twitter by @KeemaMr, who took the shots himself at the Xperion E-Arena by Saturn in Germany. Microsoft didn't have a final Xbox Series X unit, as you can see a clear 'PROTOTYPE - NOT FOR SALE' on the back of the unit.

These new images just give us a look at the Xbox Series X in the flesh, and damn does it look good. I love the design choice Microsoft went with for this generation of Xbox, and can't wait to see if the smaller Xbox Series S console is truly super-small or not.

With its new free multiplayer mode, Ghost of Tsushima just became Ghosts of Tsushima.

July's best-selling game in the U.S. is getting a free online co-op multiplayer mode called Legends so you can samurai slash with friends. It turns out that multiplayer was always planned for Ghost of Tsushima from the start, and Sucker Punch's new online mode is a spin-off akin to The Last of Us' Factions mode, or even the ill-fated Comrades mode from Final Fantasy XV.

Legends is entirely separate from the core game, and you won't play as Jin. Instead you'll pick a samurai and go slashing with up to 3 other players and build up different legends. There's four character classes that all behave differently in battle: Samurai, Hunter, Ronin, and Assassin.

The Xbox Series X represents a natural evolution in console hardware and planning, and its built-in SSD was planned as far back as 2007.

In 2007, just years after the Xbox 360 was release, Microsoft planned to switch to SSD flash memory to help reduce rising DRAM costs and supercharge data pipelines. In a recent Hot Chips presentation slide, Microsoft highlighted how the Xbox Series X's proprietary PCIe 4.0 SSD CFExpress flash memory is fruition of seeds sown 13 years ago.

The idea is that Microsoft wanted to use high-bandwidth NVMe flash memory as a backup, or a buffer/cache to hold high-resolution assets and data, to help offset a smaller DRAM footprint. This allows Microsoft to spend less on DRAM (which is 33x more expensive as flash) without losing performance.

The Xbox Series X will have an expensive price tag due to higher-cost chip production, Microsoft today confirmed in a presentation.

Today Microsoft released a bunch of new slides from its upcoming Hot Chips presentation. The Xbox Series X console's innards were laid bare, including GPU blocks, variable rate shading capabilities, discussions on the velocity architecture, and more. But one slide in particular caught my eye: Discussions on production costs.

The Xbox Series X's 7nm+ SoC costs more to make. Wafer prices are higher because of the newer 7nm enhanced process, which is optimized for higher transistor density in a smaller die. The Series X's SoC has 15.4 billion transistors on a 7nm chip, a 133% increase from those in the Xbox Series X's 16nm FinFet SoC.

In 2 weeks, Apple will cut Epic Games off from the iOS platform completely unless Epic removes its direct payment option in Fortnite. Without Epic compliance, or court intervention, Fortnite could be removed from iPhones, iPads, and Macs forever.

Epic's staged coup against Apple could have massive ramifications for the games industry. First Epic added a direct payment option to Fortnite on iOS that completely circumvented Apple's 30% revenue cut. Apple fired back by removing Fortnite from iOS. Epic predicted this, and had an anti-trust lawsuit at the ready, which it submitted to courts.

Now Apple is threatening to completely remove Epic's developer account from iOS if it doesn't remove the direct-pay system. Epic has two weeks to comply, or else its accounts will be closed and its iOS licensed revoked. If this happens, it won't just be Epic that's scrubbed off iOS. The entire Unreal Engine toolset will be removed too, and Epic would be forced to discontinue Unreal support for the platform. Epic is risking the ruination of one of its most lucrative business segments to force change.

WB Montreal is back with more teases for its big new Batman game, and this time confirms what we long suspected: The Court of Owls will be an antagonist faction.

Today WB Montreal put up a mysterious new R3dakt3d.com website up that teased its new Batman game. Through a bit of Chrome inspect wizardry, users have manipulated elements of the site's code and uncovered a message and some hidden content. The website clearly teases something for tomorrow, 8/18 and lets you enter codes--or it did, before WB Montreal turned off this functionality--that unlocked an image showing a specific area on a map.

Here's a Twitter thread with instructions on how to view all of this yourself.

Saber Interactive has 15 new projects in the works across its multitude of work-for-hire and internal dev teams, THQ Nordic confirms.

The Embracer Group (THQ Nordic) reveals that its Saber Interactive branch is working on more than a dozen new projects. Saber, which has now become a label that oversees the newly-acquired Metro developer 4A Games, is developing 15 new games. One of these games is a new Metro title with online multiplayer, which Saber is co-developing with 4A Games and will utilize the World War Z online live service framework.

The company's financials confirm Saber's Madrid and St. Petersburg studios are both working on new games--the latter of which is the native land of Metro writer Dmitry Glukhovsky, who is also helping write the next Metro title.

Japanese adult book enthusiast and kamehameha blaster Master Roshi is coming to Dragon Ball FighterZ, Bandai Namco today announced.

Master Roshi is one of the most ridiculous characters in Dragonball Z, and since practically every other character is in Bandai Namco's new DB Fighterz, it's only fitting Roshi gets added too. The affable curmudgeon will be the third DLC character in the latest DB FighterZ pass, and will come with signature moves and stylish attacks in place like the Evil Containment Wave, which was used in the old Dragon Ball series.

We didn't get to see Roshi transform with his Max Power move and get ultra-buff, nor did we see the signature kamehameha, but expect both of those to be included. And I'd love to see a return of the turtle Umigame too.

The Last of Us Part II is Sony's third best-earning PlayStation game of all time in the United States, beating historical legacy games and second behind other PS4 mega-hits.

According to NPD Groups latest U.S. earnings for July 2020, The Last of Us Part II has cemented itself as the third best-earning Sony game of all time, and is currently the third best-selling game of 2020 to date. The game sits behind PS4 games like Spider-Man and God of War, which conquer the U.S. sales revenues charts.

No exact sales revenues were given for the sequel, but Sony did confirm The Last of Us Part II was the fastest-selling PS4 exclusive of all time with four million copies sold in 3 days.

The Embracer Group (formerly THQ Nordic) now owns 190 intellectual properties, including high-profile franchises like Saints Row, Metro, Dead Island, Kingdoms of Amalur, and employs a massive 3,439 studios across 98 development studios.

In its recent earnings reports, THQ Nordic outlined its astronomical pool of IPs that it currently has as its disposal. Right now THQ Nordic owns a treasure trove of 190 IPs across a fleet of franchises, but the company is careful to say not all of these IPs will get new games. The more relevant IPs will power the massive 133 game development pipeline that Embracer is currently working on.

This IP count increased by 16 franchises after the company's recent acquisition spree, which saw THQ Nordic buying up 8 new studios including Metro developer 4A Games.

The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword was just listed on Amazon UK, hinting at an upcoming remaster.

Skyward Sword is probably coming to Switch soon, but maybe not in 2020. Remember that this year marks the 35th anniversary of Super Mario on the NES. Reports say 2020 is supposed to be the Year of Mario, complete with a ton of re-releases and remasters on the Switch including Super Mario Galaxy 1 & 2, Super Mario Sunshine, Super Mario 3D Land, and Super Mario 64. Nintendo already made good on these reports by releasing a new Paper Mario game.

This listing contrasts with what Nintendo said in 2018, when it disconfirmed rumors of a Skyward Sword remaster on Switch. "At this time we have no plans to release The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword on Nintendo Switch," Nintendo told Eurogamer in 2018. Luckily that was two years ago and there's been lots of time to work on a remaster.

Reports say that Sony has made pricey timed exclusivity deals to ensure some multi-platform games come to PlayStation 5 first. While this could be true, the spending is far off the mark.

A recent rumor says Sony is spending $750 million to get Grand Theft Auto 6 to be 30-day timed exclusive on PS5. This is preposterous for many reasons. It's not the fact that Sony would secure timed exclusivity for GTA 6 that's ridiculous. That deal could very well be possible. Sony did open its PlayStation 5 reveal event with the next-gen announcement of Grand Theft Auto V, and also secured a free 30-day deal for the new standalone GTA Online for PS4 and PS5 gamers.

What's most ludicrous is the price tag associated with this report.

A huge tease took place on Twitter just over a week ago, where Rocksteady Games confirmed it was working on a new Suicide Squad game -- with a simple picture of Superman with a target on his head.

Now we know what is coming: Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, which will be unveiled at the virtual DC FanDome event on August 22 at 5PM PT, 8PM ET, 1AM BT. Will Arnett, who voices Batman in The Lego Movie, and The Lego Batman Movie, will be hosting the event.

The Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League event will be a smaller 20-minute event inside of DC FanDome, which I'm sure will give Rocksteady enough time to get the hype meter flying in the (hopefully positive) right direction.

We were meant to have already had enjoyed Crysis Remastered for nearly a month now, with its original release date of July 23, 2020 -- but it was delayed. It has since been released on the Nintendo Switch, and now we're getting some more teases about the game.

In a recent tweet, the official Crysis Twitter account teased that the "wait is almost over, and we promise it will be worth it. Please stand-by for further intel". The tweet includes a download link to a brand new remastered 8K Nanosuit wallpaper that you can download here.

The screenshot itself looks magnificent, so I'm hoping the entire of Crysis Remastered has that type of visual upgrade. It did give my PC a small stroke to look at it, but with a Intel Core i9-9900K and custom MSI GeForce RTX 2080 Ti LIGHTNING Z -- waiting for Ampere here, guys -- to run Crysis Remastered at my 43-inch 4K 144Hz and 8K 60Hz monitors.

Infinity Ward pushed out a new, and small update for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and Warzone -- except it stuffed up in a huge way for Xbox One gamers.

The new title update is a small download for PS4 players at 1.2GB, while PC gamers have a download somewhere between 800MB and 1.83GB. But wow did something go wrong with the Xbox One update for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and Warzone coming in at a gigantic 66.3GB.

Why is it so big? Well, Infinity Ward explains it was due to an "unforeseen bug with the Microsoft patch delivery process, this download requires Xbox users to redownload files they already have, but it does NOT impact the overall install size".

THQ Nordic's (aka the Embracer Group) financials hint that big games are on the way, which historically means big Deep Silver games. This could mean Dead Island 2 or Saints Row V (or both) will release in 2020, likely for next-gen PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X consoles.

THQ Nordic's new Q2'20 financials are jam-packed with information, but one key metric stood out to me: It's forecasted earnings from completed games. This is basically how much the company expects to make from the games that will be available in or by 2020. The tremendous surge in expected earnings could telegraph what's to come from THQ Nordic.

For 2020, THQ Nordic expects to make up to 1.4 billion SEK from completed games, which represents an all-time high. It's also a substantial 123% year-over-year increase from 2019, which delivered 644 million SEK.

The Embracer Group (aka THQ Nordic) has over 100 games currently in development and most of them have yet to be revealed to investors or consumers.

THQ Nordic's latest Q2'20 earnings report is jam-packed with interesting tidbits including earnings, in-development project pipelines, and an update on its studio headcount. Right now the company currently has 133 projects in development, and 79 of them, or 59%, are unannounced projects across its mighty stable of developers. This total is up 30 projects from last quarter--18 unannounced projects and 9 announced games--which clearly shows how much THQ Nordic is accelerating its plans.

The jump in projects comes from its recent acquisition spree, which saw studios like Metro developer 4A Games, New World Interactive, Pow Wow Studios, Palindrome interactive, Rare Earth Games, Vermila Studios, and DECA Games. New announced projects include the next Metro game, which 4A Games is currently developing alongside Saber and will have online multiplayer, alongside Dead Island 2 and Saints Row V, which should be released at some point.