Gaming - Page 574

Call of Duty Warzone was set to break records when it was released, and now it's doing that very thing with millions of players flocking to the battle royale.

According to a new post by the official Call of Duty Twitter account, Warzone how now surpassed the 50 million player mark as of April 11th. It should be noted that Warzone only released just over a month ago on March 10th, meaning that the new battle royale shooter has amassed a staggering 50 million players in just a month. As of March, 2019, Fortnite is reported to have 250 million players in total, which means Warzone has almost reached a quarter of Fortnite's total players in just over a month.

To keep new players happy and engaged, Infinity Ward recently rolled out a new content update that includes a bunch of new weapons and skins. This content update comes under 'Season 3', and also added four-player squads for Warzone, or 'quads'. Not only do Warzone players get to enjoy the carnage with three of their friends, but they also get a bunch of new weapon blueprints and more. Infinity Ward didn't forget about the Modern Warfare players either, content such as 6v6 maps was released, more on that can be found here.

Zack Snyder's Justice League star Henry Cavill and Superman himself, is like us right now -- stuck inside of their homes on COVID-19 coronavirus lockdown.

But the Superman star is a gamer (and a PC gamer at that) as well as a huge nerd, so during his lockdown Cavill showed off on his personal Instagram that he is a huge fan of Total War and Warhammer. Cavill posted a picture of himself painting an Adeptus Custodes helmet, and said: "One of my almost life long hobbies, that I've been following but not actively doing, is this. A company called Games Workshop... or plastic crack as 'we' call it".

Kal-El continued: "Genuinely can't get enough of the lore they have built over the decades. They have been some of my most enthused reads! If you were in denial about me being a geek before, you can't hide from it now".

New PlayStation 5 renders are a mix of PS4 Slim, the V-style devkit, and a stylish spoiler because...why not? The PS5's gotta go fast.

After Sony revealed its new DualSense controller, we've seen some nice mock-ups try to recreate the style and guess what the PS5 will look like. Now Redditor robo3687 just made a batch of new PS5 renders using the DualSense as a template.

The mock-up accounts for sizing and cooling specifics too. robo3687 says their mock-up clocks in at 11.8 inches wide x 11 inches deep x 2.6 inches high, which is akin to the PlayStation 4 Pro's sizing. It can fit a 50mm fan and has special curvatures on the sides for airflow. "Yes it has a spoiler," the artist said.

There's apparently a rumor going around that Microsoft could acquire SEGA. That's not going to happen. At the most, we'll see a collaboration.

We shouldn't really have to write this article, and to a lot of you, the rumors of Microsoft buying SEGA are ridiculous. But we thought it prudent to illustrate why this won't happen. The reasons are pretty clear: Microsoft has no real reason to buy SEGA, and SEGA has no reason to sell. It's the same situation as the Sony buying Metal Gear Solid rumors, or the more preposterous Microsoft acquiring CD Projekt RED rumors.

First lets take a look at SEGA. Right now, SEGA is doing pretty good. The Japanese games-maker is an interesting company with a variety of revenue streams that stem from gaming to resort businesses. The latter will probably be hit hard thanks to COVID-19, but SEGA is nowhere near the red. That's usually when companies start eyeing buyouts or even selling off its IPs. SEGA is still making $1 billion+ in quarterly revenues; in Q3'19 during the holiday period, SEGA made $1.7 billion in revenues, and its profits were up a massive 52% YoY to $148 million. To put that into perspective, that's roughly 1/3 of what Xbox makes every quarter.

The ESRB has updated its new in-game purchases label warning with even more transparency and will now disclose a game's randomized elements.

The new label would specifically mark games with random microtransactions, namely lootboxes. This has huge implications for the live games market, which is thrived under blind awareness for years now. This is a particularly interesting move from the ESRB, especially since it said lootboxes aren't gambling back in 2017. Publishers have tried to circumvent the label warnings by delaying microtransaction roll outs until after a game box is printed and released in stores, and this has actually worked in the past.

Crytek once again teases Crysis remastered with a new two-word Tweet that speaks volumes. This is the first time the Crysis Twitter has been active since 2016.

Crytek hasn't been too subtle about teasing Crysis remastered. It's left more than a few clues in its latest CryEngine tech demos, and all the signs point to a re-release on current- and next-gen consoles and PC. We're talking high-end optimizations like 4K 60FPS+ and ray tracing, all wrapped in the beastly new CryEngine 5.6.

Throw in special attention to next-gen console SSD tech, and Crysis will be blistering fast, buttery smooth, and push the on-board APU's Zen 2 CPU and Navi 2X GPU to their limits. In short, Crysis could be back to utterly melt our hardware again.

Resident Evil 3 might have divided the fan base a little bit, but Capcom's latest remake is a big success on the market with 2 million units shipped worldwide in five days.

Capcom today announced some pretty beefy figures for its new Resident Evil 3 Remake. The action-based game has sold-in (shipped, not sold-through or actual sales) over 2 million copies globally in its first five days of availability. This figure includes both physical copies shipped around the world as well as digital purchases on PS4, Xbox One, and PC. Capcom also confirmed 50% of RE3 Remake's sales were from digital, which is quite substantial but not necessarily surprising given the COVID-19 lockdowns.

Those are big numbers for any AAA game, but Resident Evil 2 Remake's 3 million copies sold in 3 days still conquers the sequel. At the time of writing, Resident Evil 2 Remake is now beating Street Fighter II with a whopping whopping 6.5 million copies sold on all platforms. RE2 Remake is now Capcom's fifth best-selling game of all time.

Half-Life: Alyx is the best VR game ever made, and one of the best games I have played in my 37 years on this planet. But, you need a VR headset to play it and not everyone has, or wants to buy one for Half-Life: Alyx.

But now, you don't need a VR headset to play, enjoy, and finish Valve's masterpiece game in Half-Life: Alyx as you can play it with a new no VR mod. The new mod is called Driver, and it lets you play Half-Life: Alyx without a VR headset.

I would suggest playing it in VR if you can because it is utterly amazing, as Valve built Half-Life: Alyx from the ground up for VR and it would be a shame not to play it the way the developer intended. But still, if you don't want to or simply don't like gaming in VR -- now you don't need to and can play Half-Life: Alyx in all its glory.

Microsoft employees are pretty confident in the next-gen Xbox Series X, and aren't really worried about the PlayStation 5 dominating the landscape.

Microsoft's teams aren't really ones to crazily ignite the console wars. Yes, they've said things like the "world's most powerful console" in marketing promos, but actual employees are more level-headed and recognize the other side has some pretty big advantages. That being said, some of Team Green's members still think Xbox Series X is a better console.

In a recent Dealer Gaming podcast, Bill Stillwell, a mixed reality exec who worked closely with the Xbox backward compatibility team, says Xbox SX should be the overall better system. "I think what you saw was the unfortunate byproduct of a GDC talk being turned into a marketing event. I liked Cerny's talk, I think they've got some cool tech, I personally think we're going to have a better console. The other side if it is they have great IP, so I do expect they'll have a good experience," he said.

Recent PlayStation 5 mock-ups look pretty nice, but they might be totally off the mark. Sony's next-gen PS5 could look radically different than anything we've seen so far.

Like the Xbox Series X, the PlayStation 5 will require a pretty substantial cooling solution. PS5 architect Mark Cerny says we'll be pretty happy with the console's cooling and that the system's SoC was built from the ground up with proper heat dissipation in mind (the Navi GPU's and Zen 2 CPU's power draw was adjusted to maintain proper cooling).

Cerny also says the PS5 will require a 'noticably larger' fan and power supply, which should transform the overall case design. How Sony designs this array--which is described as a lavish and more expensive option--will dictate the shape of the system itself. Sony has yet to reveal specifics on the PS5's cooling or fan setup, but the Xbox Series X conversely uses a 130mm exhaust fan to pull air from the bottom up in a kind of vortex of airflow alongside a vapor chamber APU cooler. But also remember power is handled differently between the two systems: Xbox SX locks the CPU and GPU frequencies, whereas the PS5 has variable frequencies.

Square Enix's big cash-crop subscription Final Fantasy XIV has been interrupted from worldwide coronavirus lockdowns.

Final Fantasy XIV's updates are currently at a standstill thanks to coronavirus disruption. Game director Naoki Yoshida confirms the MMORPG's planned 5.3 patch has been delayed as the game's worldwide teams are quarantined against COVID-19 spread. Yoshida explains that everything from QA testing, voice acting, and of course asset animation and generation has been affected as workers are stuck at home.

Yoshida affirms the update is still coming, but it won't meet its original June launch date--it could be delayed up to a month. The team is currently rolling out server maintenance from their homes, so don't worry, you won't be abandoned.

Backwards compatibility is one of the Xbox brand's biggest strengths. But Microsoft was faced with lots of resistance when first starting the legacy-supported initiative.

The Xbox One backwards compatibility program had a rocky launch. Developers weren't originally enthusiastic about Microsoft emulating their games and gave explicit instructions not to meddle with their creations. Publishers, developers, and IP holders all had the same sentiment: Don't touch our games and keep them the same. That meant re-creating everything the original game offered, including game-breaking bugs and other issues.

This actually proved to be tough for the Xbox back-compat team. Microsoft got so good at emulating older Xbox 360 games that they had to dial back certain things to reproduce certain errors found in the legacy games. In a recent podcast with Dealer Gaming, Xbox exec Bill Stillwell gives an interesting perspective on what it was like when BC first started, and how developers eventually warmed up to the idea of their old-school games looking and playing better on modern hardware.

Capcom has started early planning phases of development on a Resident Evil 4 remake with M-Two at the helm, sources tell VideoGameChronicle.

It's happening: The medieval-style, ultra-creepy Resident Evil 4 will be remade for current (and probably next-gen) consoles. Sources say the game is being made by Japanese game dev M-Two. Horror maven Shinji Mikami, who directed the original RE4 in 2005, was asked to direct the game, but Mikami declined. The diabolical dev will instead advise M-Two as it works on the game, which is apparently pegged for a 2022 release.

Fans are divided on the idea of a RE4 remake. Many argue that Resident Evil 4 is perfect the way it is and shouldn't be changed or altered. Capcom's remakes typically put a new spin on old concepts, characters, and locations, and the games are usually all the better for it. Right now Resident Evil 4 is regarded as the best in the series thanks to its over-the-shoulder combat, unique and original haunted village locale, and overall departure for the franchise.

The Dreamcast might be dead for good, but Retro-Bit is reviving SEGA's old-school controller for a nostalgic hurrah.

Retro-Bit plans to release its new Dreamcast controller sometime in 2020, complete with wired and wireless options for gamers to choose from. The controllers will mimic the original Dreamcast's weird polygonal peripheral while also packing some new add-ons, including an improved analog stick, a new D-pad, a six-button layout for fighting games, and re-positioned triggers. Retro-Bit's controller also features the original Dreamcast hookup so it can play with your old-school machine, as well as a USB converter for PC play.

There's nothing quite like the Dreamcast controller. If you ever held one in the 90s, you know what I'm talking about. They're just so...weird but oddly satisfying at the same time. Using one now would be awkward since it doesn't have a second joystick, but for the time, it was quite unique.

Cyberpunk 2077 will follow in The Witcher 3's footsteps with a huge arsenal of free DLC packs, complete with sprawling post-launch expansions that carry the story forward.

CD Projekt RED's overall gameplan will continue with Cyberpunk 2077. The team plans to deliver a massive game that spans, oh, probably 100 hours, complete with a bunch of free DLC to boot. We'll also see sizable expansions that rival Witcher 3's titanic Blood and Wine and Hearts of Stone.

In a recent interview with Polish investors, CD Projekt RED president Adam Kicinski says not to expect anything less than what The Witcher 3 delivered.

Doom Eternal's Carmack Reshade mod gives a neat overhaul to the graphics, but some areas don't look as good as others. We toned down the default settings a bit (removed bloom entirely) to see how some of the more basic effects stack up against the vanilla version.

Reshade mods can really make a game pop, or they can diffuse everything in darkness. The general settings in Carmack's Eternal Reshade kind of ride the border between making the game look amazing, and somewhat unplayable. We tweaked a few of the settings--there's a ton of them, so you can mix and match and create some really amazing setpieces--in early experiments to see what we could pull off. We used more basic presets like tweaked Fake HDR, LevelsPlus, LUT, and Adaptive Sharpen. I also recommend messing around with Monochrome too.

Square Enix reveals the latest Final Fantasy 7 Remake trailer footage was captured on PC. This could be for disclosure (the graphics are obviously beyond what a PS4 Pro can deliver) or it could hint at a PC port. We're betting on both.

To no one's surprise, Final Fantasy 7 Remake is probably coming to PC. Square Enix previously confirmed the game is only debuting first on PS4 and isn't a full-on exclusive. This indicates FF7R will come to other platforms after FF7R's one-year PS4 exclusivity runs out. That means we won't see FF7R cross over to Xbox One or PC until April 10, 2021 at the earliest.

"The highly anticipated FINAL FANTASY VII REMAKE will debut first on the PlayStation 4 computer entertainment system on March 3rd, 2020," read a press release from 2019.

Doom Eternal's new Carmack Reshade mod adds a whole new dimension of depth, vibrancy, and brutality to your favorite demon-slaying shooter.

We just tried out the Carmack Eternal Reshade mod from Nexus Mods, and the results are pretty crazy. The mod itself is basically a Vulkan effects editor that lets you adjust various graphics, lighting, and visual settings in the game, including ambient light, simulated HDR, monochrome black-and-white filters to make everything into a 1950's gorefest, godrays, bloom--the works.

You can download the Reshade mod and customize everything yourself and experiment with all the awesome effects, or just use the presets designed by the mod's uploader. Either way, the game will look even better than it already did...which is saying a lot.

Cyberpunk 2077 will have special next-gen optimized releases for the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X's new higher-end hardware, allowing for ultra-fast loading times, high frame rates, hardware-based ray tracing, 4K 60FPS, and more.

In its recent earnings call, CD Projekt RED confirms it plans to release a separate next-gen version of Cyberpunk 2077 that leverages the full power of the Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5. The next-gen version may not be available when next-gen consoles launch in 2020, though.

There's two ways CDPR will likely handle this: upgrading the existing PS4 and Xbox One versions with enhancement patches to enable boosted performance and features, and launching a separate SKU in stores. CDPR has already confirmed anyone who buys an Xbox One copy will also get the Series X version too.

The PlayStation 5's new DualSense controller has lots of nifty improvements, but the new Create button might be a gateway to a new kind of interactivity that console gaming has never seen before.

Let me preface this article by saying this is all theoretical, and my points are centered around patents that may not actually manifest into PS5 features. But it seems very likely to happen. And yes, this is a big article.

Sony just revealed the PlayStation 5's controller, the DualSense. It's a new next-gen controller design that kicks off a brand new type of peripheral; the DualShock had motion tracking and rumble, the DualSense has haptic/tactical triggers and a new kind of sound output with the PS5's Tempest audio engine. Those are exciting, sure, but the biggest innovator might be hiding in plain sight. It's the Create button that could ultimately change how users interact with games.