Gaming - Page 561

The entire world is pretty much on lockdown and millions of gamers are sitting inside, waiting out what feels like a deep winter for CD PROJEKT RED's gigantic release of Cyberpunk 2077 later this year.

Well before now and then, how about you virtually tour the offices of CD PROJEKT RED, which is based in Warsaw, Poland. You can use Google Maps street view to virtually few the offices, where you can get a glimpse into the work spaces CDPR has setup for its staff.

You're greeted with accolades, awards, magazine covers with CD PROJEKT RED games on them -- and an awesome Witcher statue in the front lobby.

Final Fantasy 7 Remake's upcoming second chapter could be release as a separate next-gen PlayStation 5 game, Tetsuya Nomura seems to hint.

In a recent interview with Famitsu, game director Tetsuya Nomura confirmed that Final Fantasy 7 Remake Part 2 is in full-blown development. The team likely moved on to the second chapter weeks or even months before Final Fantasy 7 Remake shipped in April, and in the new interview Nomura promises to raise the quality even further than the PS4 release.

This is interesting considering how amazing FF7R looks and plays on PlayStation 4, especially with the backgrounds, CGI cinematics, and overall fluid gameplay. The next logical performance and quality jump is of course on Sony's next-gen PlayStation 5, which offers massive upgrades via new powerful CPU, GPU, RAM, and high-end PCIe 4.0 hardware with 5.5GB/sec transfer speeds.

Anton Castillo, played by Breaking Bad's Giancarlo Esposito, is the villain in Ubisoft's new tropical Far Cry 6 game. Now Ubisoft takes a closer look at Anton's twisted psychology.

In Far Cry 6, there's one main opposing force: Anton Castillo, el presidente of the Latin island-country of Yara. Castillo rules the so-called Jewel of the Caribbean with an iron fist, aiming to smite any uprisings by sheer force. This only fans the flames of revolution, igniting a full-on Cuba-esque guerrilla revolution that sees Yara's streets filled with chaos. But Anton isn't going to let up. He plans to quell the rebellion by smashing it to bits. That's where you come in as Dani Rojas, a Yara native who leads the heart of the revolution.

Far Cry's villains are some of the most captivating and interesting parts of the games. Every time they're different and a little crazy in their own way. Anton, however, is a more reserved brand of crazy.

Ubisoft Quebec originally planned to have Kassandra as the sole playable character in Assassin's Creed Odyssey, but company exec Serge Hascoet forced the team to add in a playable male character because "females don't sell."

According to Bloomberg's new lengthy expose into Ubisoft's alleged culture of misconduct, the company had very different plans for both its new Assassin's Creed games. Origins, for example, originally killed off the charismatic, stoic, and likable Medjay Bayek early on in the game. Players were supposed to play as his wife, Aya, for most of the game as she sought answers and revenge.

The ancient Greece-based Assassin's Creed Odyssey went farther and originally didn't even feature a playable male protagonist. Kassandra was to be the sole lead, as is obvious by her magnetism and excellent character development. Alexios was added in at the behest of Serge Hascoet, a now-departed high-level Ubisoft executive who's orbited by illicit allegations of sexism, sexual abuse, and harassment.

Before Ghost of Tsushima, Sucker Punch was working on a medieval third-person action-adventure game called Prophecy.

The game features a gruff protagonist named Abel Taboora, the most-wanted person in the fantasy world of Glascony. Abel has turned into a thief who's being hunted down, and the vertical slice has him running through a medieval-style city in a kind of linear scripted sequence, complete with seamless blending of gameplay and cutscenes. The gameplay is brutal and visceral like The Last of Us 2, and death scenes are particularly grisly.

The game's mechanics are reminiscent of Assassin's Creed with leaping and parkour, but it's clear how Prophecy helped shape Ghost of Tsushima. The cancelled game has swordplay and stealth that resembles Jin Sakai's maneuvers, and enemies have Samurai-esque armor. Abel has an assortment of alchemical potions that dish out elemental damage like fire and explosions.

Nintendo's latest 2020 annual report shows a number of substantial investments into partner companies, but it's biggest is Bandai Namco.

While scouting Nintendo's new annual report, I noticed something interesting: The Japanese games-maker has invested considerably into Bandai Namco, one of its principal game development partners. Nintendo currently owns over 3.8 million shares of Bandai Namco that're worth roughly $186 million. The company says this investment serves the "purpose of maintaining and developing the business relationship."

This makes sense considering Bandai Namco has developed and is developing high-profile games for Nintendo, including Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, Nintendo's second best-selling game on Switch with over 18 million units sold, and the upcoming Metroid Prime 4.

Today House House and iam8bit announce the Untitled Goose Game Lovely Edition, a limited physical boxed edition of the infamous honkin' indie.

After tons of acclaim, sales, and awards, House House's beloved Untitled Goose Game is coming to physical retail stores as a boxed indie. The game releases on September 29 and will be sold as a boxed edition on PS4 ($29.99) and Nintendo Switch ($34.99), complete with a 24-page physical booklet, a poster, and a special anti-goose sticker.

The eco-friendly Lovely Edition is exclusive to iam8bit and is priced the same as the other SKU.

Overcooked and Overcooked 2 are being remastered for next-gen consoles, with Overcooked: All You Can Eat announced. Check out the announcement trailer:

Ghost Town Games is remastering both of the Overcooked games for the next-gen PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X consoles. Overcooked: All You Can Eat will pack remasters of both games, all of the DLC from both games, and overhauled graphics.

Overcooked: All You Can Eat will be running at the glorious 4K resolution at 60FPS, as well as having super-fast load times. Ghost Town Games has also even rebuilt the original Overcooked using the newer Overcooked 2 engine, so the original game will look even better than before.

In a move which I'm sure felt like forever, Microsoft is finally moving Minecraft onto its own Azure server infrastructure -- away from competitor Amazon Web Services (AWS).

Minecraft developer Mojang has been using AWS for Minecraft Realms since 2014, where gamers can create private play spaces in Minecraft without needing to set up and then host a private server, for an $8 per month subscription service.

But now, things are changing with Mojang Studios moving Minecraft away from AWS and into the warm arms of Azure -- Microsoft's cloud service. Also remember Microsoft acquired Mojang back in 2014 for $2.5 billion and now owns Minecraft.

Today the Epic Games Store has received full integration support into CD Projekt RED's GOG Galaxy 2.0 platform, a move that sees storefronts and ecosystems blurring lines and joining forces.

With GOG Galaxy, CDPR has an ambitious idea: To unify all storefronts in a universal launcher. Some stores are resistant to the idea--Steam, for example, and EA's Origin--but Epic has pledged their support. GOG Galaxy 2.0 can now link up with your Epic account and migrate, launch, and connect to your Epic Games Store content and games.

"We're partnering with our friends at Epic Games to bring you a more seamless and reliable experience while organizing, installing, and launching your Epic Games Store games via GOG Galaxy 2.0 thanks to the new official integration," CDPR wrote in a GOG update pane.

Logic might've quit the rap game, but he's not ready to give up gaming altogether.

Logic, the rapper behind the platinum album Everybody, has signed an exclusive streaming deal with Twitch worth seven figures. The move comes as more celebrities and artists are pivoting towards streaming due to COVID-19 disrupting tours, premieres, and shows. Twitch is likewise pivoting to attract mainstream performers outside of its typical gaming sphere.

Even still, Logic says he's just a nerd that loves video games. "I'm not this rapper guy, man. I'm just a nerd. I love video games," he said in a recent interview with The Verge. That doesn't mean he'll stop being a musician--despite announcing his departure from the rap world, Logic will still perform on Twitch.

During today's Summer Game Fest stream, Team 17 announced a huge new Stir of Dawn expansion coming to Blasphemous in August.

Get ready to jump back into the bizarre, hallowed world of Cvstodia, O' Penitent One. Team17 is rolling out a sizable free DLC for Blasphemous that adds a ton of content including the long-awaited NewGame+, new mind-bending storylines, and a new penitence system that's a more cruel version of the original Fallout's traits system.

Gamers will also get new maps, new enemies and NPCs, and a ton of new items and buffs/nerfs/balances. Essentially Blasphemous will take on a whole new scope with the free Stir of Dawn update.

Spider-Man Miles Morales may be among the first playable 8K resolution games on Sony's next-gen PS5.

Today Insomniac Games confirmed some surprising news: Their new Spider-Man game will run at 4K 60FPS on PS5 via an optional Performance Mode, hinting at higher resolution for the other mode. Insomniac didn't clarify if this was native 4K resolution, though.

Just like PS4 Pro Enhanced games, some next-gen PS5 games will have two modes: A performance mode that prioritizes frame rates and gameplay, and another that emphasizes resolution. The new Demon's Souls remake is another PS5 game that will have these two modes.

The PS5's new DualSense controller is somewhat chonky and outsizes the PS4's DualShock 4 in new side-by-side comparisons.

Summer Game Fest's Geoff Keighley recently went hands-on with the DualSense in the first-ever PS5 vs PS4 controller size comparison, and the results aren't too surprising. Keighley took a bunch of pictures of the new PS5 controller, but there's one that we're interested in most: the side-by-side shot.

Early images from Sony hinted the DualSense would be wider and taller than the DualShock 4, and that's indeed true. The controller has more fang-shaped handles and is somewhat reminiscent of a PS3 prototype and DualShock 4 mash-up. According to Keighley, the DualSense weighs more than the DualShock 4

The Morrowind Rebirth team just released a new v5.2 patch that eliminates a ton of bugs while tweaking features, textures, and more.

Who's still playing Morrowind in 2020? If you're on PC, you're likely using the ambitious Morrowind Rebirth mod, and you'll be pretty happy with the latest update. Rebirth v5.2 adds a lot of features and content, including a swath of tweaks to gameplay like speechcraft, combat, questing, and a lot of visual upgrades.

Some of the more noteworthy changes are traders letting you buy and sell goods if you have ghoul hearts, changing the early first-quest package to Caius Cosades into an actual package, new supply chests to other factions like Imperial Cult, Thieves Guild, and Morag Tong, making certain ingredients lighter, a new White Guard Hide ingredient, adding a brand new unique St. Meris Shield of Serenity item, and massive changes to the Speechcraft system where NPCs will stop talking if their disposition falls too low.

As we've said before, don't expect Xbox Game Pass to show up on competing platforms like the Nintendo Switch, and especially not on Sony's PlayStation ecosystem.

In a recent interview with German website Game Star, Xbox boss Phil Spencer discussed why critical services like Game Pass won't show up on other hardware platforms like the Switch, PlayStation, or even Google Stadia. The reason is pretty simple: Microsoft can't bring over the other Xbox ecosystem tidbits like achievements, friends, and more.

"The thing about other gaming console platforms is we're not able to bring a full Xbox experience on those platforms," Spencer said.

Nintendo has taken to their official Twitter page to announce that they will be posting a new Nintendo Direct video.

Above is the post from the official Nintendo of America Twitter account, and it says that Nintendo will be debuting what is called the Nintendo Direct Mini: Partner Showcase, which will be a Direct focused on titles from "our development & publishing partners". This will mark the very first Nintendo Direct Mini: Partner Showcase, but according to the post, this will be "series".

The video that will be posted will be around 10 minutes long and be pre-recorded. The contents of the showcase will also include "a few updates on a small group of previously-announced #NintendoSwitch games." Games that are suspected to be included in the video are No More Heroes 3, Shin Megami Tensei V, and more. If you are interested in viewing the video, it will be posted on the 7/20 at 10 AM ET.

If you're a World of Tanks gamer on console, you're going to be happy to hear that the developer will be making crossplay gaming possible between Xbox One and PS4.

The new crossplay feature for World of Tanks is coming on July 21, with developer Wargaming announcing the news on their website. Wargaming explains: "Cross-play is coming to World of Tanks on console, allowing Xbox and PlayStation Tank Commanders to play together or battle each other! Cross-play will be available from July 21".

World of Tanks is one of the most popular free-to-play MMOs on the market, and now with crossplay support between the Xbox and PlayStation consoles it's only going to continue succeeding.

Death Stranding has received its first patch on the PC, with publisher 505 Games and developer Kojima Productions pushing out the first patch now.

It weighs in at 5GB for the PC, with Death Stranding receiving AVX judgment to CPU check at startup, the usual stability improvements, and even more usual general bug fixes.

505 Games explained the new patch on the official Death Stranding subreddit, explaining: "This update just contains a lot of small fixes around bugs and stability issues. Nothing too major!"

The Xbox Series X's Velocity Architecture features many revolutionary new technologies and architectural optimizations, one of which is Sampler Feedback Streaming, which can dramatically reduce texture pack file sizes by eliminating redundancy.

The Xbox Series X is a game-changer. The sum of its parts--whether it be the higher-end Navi GPU, Zen 2 CPU, and powerful PCIe 4.0 SSD hardware or the new software/OS/architecture optimizations--are all massively synergized to work together. Sampler Feedback Streaming is one of these parts, and it's featured in the new Velocity Architecture, a banner that's focused on making the Xbox Series X fast and efficient.

We've already outlined the basics of Sampler Feedback Streaming in our in-depth Xbox Series X SSD video, but now we have a developer's perspective on the topic. Despite Microsoft's transparency on the console, devs have been markedly silent on how the Xbox Series X's new features will benefit them. But now Team Blur Games' lead designer Gavin Stevens offers some golden insight.