Gaming - Page 557

Halo 3 ODST's Firefight is the best. Reach is good, but ODST is on a whole other level. It's a four-player co-op survival-fest with no equipment--just your wits, your weapons management skills, and silenced 2x scope pistol. Now 343 Industries reveals how it's completely revitalizing ODST's Firefight mode for MCC.

Today 343 Industries confirmed some exciting news about Halo 3 ODST's Firefight mode on the Master Chief Collection, including new weapons, gametypes, custom games, and more. Halo 3's weapons are coming over to Firefight. This is a big, big deal that adds a new dimension of play.

343i says a lot of Halo 3's weapons are coming into ODST's Firefight that simply weren't available before. We'll see weapons like Halo 3's BR55HB cross over, and 343i teases a redacted weapon. What could it be?

For the most part, Xbox is a good sport. Halo: Infinite, 343 Industries, and Microsoft all got a grilling over the recent Xbox game showcase stream. Halo: Infinite, a game that's supposed to sell Xbox Series X features, just didn't look very next-gen. And then Craig, the stoic goofball Brute that was at the right place at the right time, showed up and became a meme legend. Thus Halo: Infinite has become synonymous with Craig the Brute.

While 343 Industries is 'very serious' about fixing Halo: Infinite's graphics and shadows, they're still rolling with the punches and trying not to take things too hard. In this business you really have to. When something you've worked hard on for years gets lambasted, memed, and made fun of, you kind of have to roll with the tide a little.

Xbox division head Phil Spencer is in the same boat. On Twitter, Spencer pulled a PR maneuver to embrace Craig instead of ignoring and deflecting, or promising Craig will look much better in ultra-HD resolution. Spencer says that Craig is now the official Xbox mascot. He's not, of course. The official Xbox mascot is the Game Pass logo, which is more important than Master Chief or Minecraft's Steve.

Rumor has it EA is interested in buying A&T's Warner Bros. Games division, which includes top-tier dev talent like Netherealm, Rocksteady Studios and Avalanche Software. This is exactly the kind of thing EA wants to get more of.

EA wants to make new acquisitions, but the company is more interested in buying new talent than it is new IPs. Case in point: EA didn't buy Respawn to acquire the Titanfall IP, but to secure the dev team behind the game. The same could be true for the rumored $4 billion Warner Bros. Games division sale.

So is EA buying Warner Bros. Games? No one knows for sure, but EA CFO Blake Jorgensen says they've looked at the buyout potential in a recent Fiscal Year Q1'21 earnings call.

UPDATE: 343i today confirmed Halo: Infinite is indeed free-to-play, and that it'll support optional 120FPS modes on Xbox Series X and PC. No graphics details were discussed.

New leaks suggest Halo: Infinite's campaign and multiplayer will be separated into two parts, and multiplayer will be free-to-play for everyone.

Halo: Infinite might actually two games in one. There;s the huge open-world campaign that's basically a living sandbox combination of Spartan Ops and Firefight, complete with objectives, RPG-esque upgrades, a huge overworld map, and co-op play. This will be the paid version. Then there's multiplayer, which according to info from Retailer Smyth's Toys, will be free-to-play on PC and Xbox.

For a next-gen system-selling game, Halo: Infinite has been criticized for its lackluster and rather current-gen graphics. Now 343 Industries delivers an official comment on the matter, promising to take all feedback very seriously.

Mechanically, Halo: Infinite looks like a great game. But the visuals are bogged down by the new dynamic lighting system, which takes the definition out of textures and models that're in shadowy areas. Will this change before launch? Possibly.

343 Industries says they'll release a ray tracing update post-launch, which will add much-needing lighting to make the high-end textures really pop. But now the devs talk more about their plans.

COVID-19 has closed down practically every major worldwide sporting event, delaying and cancelling leagues and seasons. Now fans are turning to big EA games like Madden and FIFA for their fix.

EA, like other games companies, is benefiting tremendously from COVID-19. Consumers are staying at home and buying more games to play in their off time. This goes double for EA. As the world of sports is put on hiatus, gamers are recreating seasons of their own in EA's billion-dollar sports franchises.

In a Q1'21 recent earnings call, EA CFO Blake Jorgensen brought up a good point. Now that football and soccer seasons have been suspended, the only real way to continue engaging with these sports is through EA's games. This has led to a massive surge in digital revenues like game sales and microtransactions.

If you played the Hyper Scape open beta, you probably would have noticed that there were some balancing issues with the game.

These balancing issues ranged from hacks (abilities), to some guns feeling just a little bit too strong. Disclaimer - personally, I have been smashing Hyper Scape, and at the current time of writing this I have already maxed out the Battle Pass (Tier 30), and because of the time I have spent playing the game I believe I have a decent understanding of how the title feels and plays out.

Ubisoft says in its patch notes found on the website that this patch is directly aimed at what is "Time-to-kill (TTK)", which is exactly what it sounds like - the time it takes to kill someone once combat is engaged. Ubisoft says that the community voiced concerns about the TTK being too slow, and because of that, they have decided to buff the damage on many guns, while simultaneously nerfing most hacks across the board. Most notably, Ubisoft has nerfed the Protocol V, Mine Hack's overall power level, and the Invisibility Hack.

Ubisoft has taken to its social media to announce that its new battle royale shooter will be leaving open beta and enters its first official season.

According to the Hyper Scape Twitter account, the free-to-play battle royale will be leaving open beta on PC on August 2nd. The Ubisoft website says that all progression made throughout the open beta will be crossed over to the full release of the game. Additionally, Ubisoft has also announced that Hyper Scape will be making its way over to the PS4 and Xbox One on August 11th.

Season 1 will come with a slew of new changes, some of which include a new gun, the Dragonfly, a new hack, and a Magnet. Season 1 is titled "The First Principle", and will be adding new limited-time game modes, as well as new features for Crowncast (Hyper Scape's interactive Twitch extension). Season 1 will also come with some lore insight into how the world of Hyper Scape came about. If you are after more information on the first season of Hyper Scape, check out this link here.

NVIDIA has been slowly adding more and more games to its GeForce NOW game streaming service, but there's some new news that is exciting.

The company has now made it possible to synchronize your entire Steam game library with GeForce NOW, by turning the option on in Settings > Sync Game. Once you've got your Steam account synced with your GeForce NOW account, you can then identify all of the games that have support for GeForce NOW.

Once it has scanned the GeForce NOW compatible games, the new games will turn up in the My Library section of GeForce NOW.

Star Wars Squadrons is a $40 game for a number of reasons, and it looks like EA is changing how it sees Star Wars games.

Typically when a game with online play is lower priced that means it'll have in-game purchases. mTX is a way to offset the lower retail price tag. On the surface, Star Wars Squadrons has the potential to be a big live service game monetized with microtransactions.

It has a grindy upgrade-based gameplay loop complete with cosmetic and game-affecting content, online multiplayer, and a campaign. It also fills a void left by Battlefront II, which has now been sunset.

While other publishers like 2K Games are eager to charge $70 for next-gen PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X versions of their games, EA isn't sure on how to proceed.

EA may not charge $70 for next-gen PS5 and Xbox Series X SKUs of its games. In a recent Q1'21 earnings call, EA CEO Andrew Wilson commented on raising prices of next-gen games. EA will offer free next-gen upgrades of Madden 21 and FIFA 21, and is more focused on the smooth cross-generation transition instead of trying to capitalizing on full $70 next-gen titles.

"We start with the player motivations, the expectations the players have around depth and breadth of live service, and we go from there," EA CEO Andrew Wilson said.

Like pretty much every games company, EA is benefiting tremendously from COVID-19 lockdowns, and their recent Q1'21 earnings reflect strong spikes in overall earnings.

Today EA reported record first-quarter results for Fiscal Year Q1'21 that far exceeded the company's expectations. In the quarter ended March 31, 2020, EA generated $1.459 billion in total revenues, up 21% from last year. Net bookings were up tremendously by 78% YoY to $1.390 billion, outperforming EA's forecast by $390 million, driven by astronomical growth in full game sales and live service monetization. Free cash flow is up 286% to $340 million on these strong results.

Full game sales are up triple digit percentage points to $287 million (+202% YoY), which were driven in part by EA's fusillade of re-releases on Steam and strong console purchases. This reflects increased consumer purchases during COVID-19 quarantines. Q1 is typically EA's slowest period for game sales.

Halo: Infinite will run at 4K 60FPS on the Xbox Series X and PC, but will gamers play it if the shadows still look bad?

Right now Halo: Infinite has an issue with visuals, and everyone's noticed. The culprit is the game's new dynamic lighting that blankets the open-world setting. Things look great in the light, but in shadows, we see models lose their definition. The result is textures and models of guns, buildings, and characters look very last-gen.

343 Industries can fix it with global illumination techniques like hardware- or software-based ray tracing, which the Xbox Series X conveniently supports. But this fix comes at a performance hit. Halo: Infinite may not run at the advertised 4K 60FPS with ray tracing enabled; in its present state, with the dynamic lighting and shadows obfuscating details, it could hit a dynamic (or possibly even native) 3840 x 2160 with a steady 60FPS. With ray tracing turned on, it could drop to 1080p 60FPS.

Rocket League is already immensely popular, but now it'll grow even more by going free-to-play. There's a catch, though. It's easy access is gated off by the Epic Games Store.

Psyonix recently confirmed Rocket League is going F2P on PC, but only on the Epic Store. This follows Psyonix's full buyout from Epic in May 2019. New Rocket League PC players will have to download the chaotic auto sport indie from the Epic Store.

When Rocket League goes free-to-play it'll be simultaneously de-listed from Steam. Anyone who already owns the game on Steam will be able to keep playing, and Pysonix is preserving cross-play between Steam and the Epic Store versions as well as PS4 and Xbox One. The game will also support cross-progression on every platform so your unlocks will carry over wherever you go.

STALKER 2 will be dropping in 2021 exclusive to the PC and next-gen Xbox Series X, and now we're hearing reports it might offer an 120FPS option on the Xbox Series X version.

On the Xbox store page for STALKER 2, it says that it was designed to take advantage of the powerful hardware inside of Microsoft's new Xbox Seires X console and it means "frame rates up to 120FPS".

The store page reads: "Games built using the Xbox Series X development kit are designed to take advantage of the unique capabilities of the Xbox Series X. They will showcase unparalleled load-times, visuals, responsiveness, and frame rates up to 120 FPS".

Roblox Corporation has said that its game has over 150 million monthly players, with the company expecting to pull in $250 million this year.

During the COVID-19 pandemic there have been more and more players in Roblox, with the developer announcing the news during its annual developer conference -- held virtually because of the on-going coronavirus pandemic.

David Baszucki, founder and CEO of Roblox Corporation explained: "The accomplishments of our developer community have eclipsed even our loftiest expectations. Our focus is to give developers the tools and resources they need to pursue their vision and create larger, more complex, more realistic experiences and collectively build the Metaverse".

Sony will launch its next-gen PlayStation 5 console in November, but between its launch and the first 5 years on the market the console is expected to sell at least 120 million units.

The news is coming from DigiTimes, which reports it from sources in the "backend supply chain in Taiwan", which explains: "The life cycle for household game consoles may be shortened to five years from 6-7 years, and PS5 shipments may challenge 120-170 million units when its 5-year cycle expires, compared to 110 million units registered to date for PS4 launched in November 2013".

It added: "Sony has recently boosted its PS5 shipment estimate for 2020 to near 10 million units".

Analogue's new $199 Pocket handheld aims to be the king of all retro pocket-consoles by playing tons of old-school cartridges better than ever before.

If you love playing retro handheld games, then the new Analogue Pocket was made just for you. Analogue revealed a bunch of surprising new details around the Pocket, including pre-orders that go live on August 3.

The Pocket's specs are also pretty nice. The display is a 3.6-inch, Gorilla Glass-covered LCD panel with 1600x1440p resolution and 615ppi, which is roughly 10x the resolution of an original Game Boy. It has a 4300mAh battery that allows for 6-10 hours of play, and fully remappable buttons. Here's a quick breakdown of some of the most interesting features:

Atari's new VCS console will be accompanied by a storefront, but the digital marketplace won't copy Steam's catalog of AAA games.

The Atari VCS is a kind of jack-of-all-trades. It's a console-PC hybrid that supports Linux and Windows 10. It's also a console with its own first-party storefront, controllers, and online ecosystem. But unlike Steam or the PlayStation Store, the Atari VCS store won't sell $59.99 AAA games--at least not at launch. Instead, the Atari VCS games will be capped at $25 a pop and will be more like GOG than Steam.

Atari is taking a smaller approach with its store and will exclusively sell remasters, classic version of its old games, and indie games at launch, complete with its vault of 100 Atari classics, Anstream on-demand retro game streaming, and remasters of older games like Missile Command.

Introducing the Aya-Eve, a new gaming PC in a Switch-like handheld form factor.

Handheld PCs are on the way to merge portability with actual PC-quality gaming. First we had the GPD Win 2, then the GPD Win Max, and Alienware's impressive Project UFO handheld with its detachable controllers. Now there's another competitor called the Aya-Eve.

The Aya-Eve has some decent specs including an AMD 4500U notebook APU with 6 cores and 6 threads, 16GB of DDR4-4266 RAM, and 512GB of onboard NVMe flash memory. Other specs are tentative and could change, but right now the team is targeting a 7-inch 1280 x 800 IPS display, which is akin to the Switch's 6.2-inch 1280 x 720 screen.