Gaming - Page 576

Halo: Infinite isn't finished yet, but that hasn't stopped 343i from planning the next project.

343 Industries is hiring a senior producer for an unannounced Halo game within its engineering branch, specifically for Microsoft's Core Services team. "343 Industries is looking for a Senior Producer to work with our Core Services team to help develop a new project in the Halo universe," reads the job listing.

This is pretty much par for the course in the games industry. Developers always plan out future projects while specific games are still in development. At the same time though, Halo: Infinite is the biggest project 343i has done to date, and is being built from the ground up with a new Slipspace Engine. It's interesting to see the studio start hiring higher-profile developers for the next game.

The United States is still rife with protests, clashing, and civil unrest, so major publishers like EA have delayed their biggest gaming events to not detract from current events.

Like Sony and practically the rest of the games industry, EA has delayed their upcoming game reveal event to make way for protesters. EA has pushed back its EA Play 2020 event to June 18 at 7PM EST, and it's something you should definitely bookmark. This show could be EA's biggest yet.

"With the important conversations taking place and important voices being heard around the world right now, we're moving our time to come together in play," the company said on Twitter.

A new trademark filing adds even more evidence of a next-gen Gran Turismo launching alongside the PS5 in 2020.

Sony and Polyphony Digital just filed new trademarks for Gran Turismo on Argentina's National Institute of Industrial Property database, strongly hinting at a PlayStation 5 release. The filings were made on June 3, just a day before the originally-planned PS5 games reveal event. There were also filings for a Gran Turismo logo.

This development isn't the first time we've heard about a next-gen Gran Turismo. Back in 2018, Sony showcased Gran Turismo running on its new 8K CLEDIS display technology, which the PlayStation 5 will of course support. Polyphony Digital also said GT Sport's assets went beyond just 1080p and 4K. Some were made specifically in 8K and should translate directly over to the PS5 GT release.

Itch.io's new Bundle for Racial Equality packs in over 740 games and assets to help raise money for NAACP and bail funds to aid arrested protesters.

The latest Itch.io bundle gives you access to a metric ton of content for $5. The bundle offers $3400 worth of games, tilesets, and assets, many of which are tiny bite-sized amateur works. Labeling all of these things as traditional games is a tad misleading, though, and there's a lot of tabletop RPGs, comics, tools, game assets, and books. A good portion of the games that are included are actually free to begin with.

That being said, the bundle does include some awesome projects like Night in the Woods, Overland, Heavy Bullets, Oxenfree, Minit, Shipwreck, and Myth Bearer to name a few. If you have a passing interest in any of the games on the huge list then be sure to pick it up. All money raised from the bundle is split between the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund and Community Bail Fund.

Yager's older 2015 build of Dead Island 2 has somehow leaked on the internet, and now we have tons of gameplay footage on what the game was like all those years ago.

After years of development hell, we now have a our first look at Dead Island 2. The catch is the footage isn't for the actual game that'll release in 2021, but Yager Interactive's older playtest build from June 2015. Dead Island 2 has had 3 separate developers--Yager in 2015, Sumo Digital in 2017, and now Dambuster Studios in 2019--so the final build will probably be pretty different than what we see here.

Still though there's some innovations that should carry forward. The footage shows some neat additions like dual-wielding, which lets players hold both a pistol or SMG as well as a 1-handed weapon, and cryo weapons that freeze zombies. There's also a look at the skill tree system, the four character classes (runner, berserker, hunter, and bishop), and weapon crafting and customization.

The Last of Us Part 2 has been in the headlines for all the wrong reasons lately, and here's another one: the game makes the PlayStation 4 Pro run so hot that gamers are having to increase the volume on their speakers or headset.

Yeah, it's that bad -- with Washington Post game report Gene Park tweeting that the fans on his PS4 Pro were "louder than my air-conditioning unit. They were so loud I had to raise the volume up on my speakers". As a PC gamer, this has never happened to me -- at least not in many, many years. Maybe back with NVIDIA's Fermi GPU release.

But it's not all bad as Park says that his PS4 Pro makes a noise very similar to what The Last of Us Part 2 did with "every huge AAA release" including Death Stranding. Luckily Sony has its next-gen PlayStation 5 right around the corner with a purported 6 fans to keep the V-shaped design cool -- at least in its PS5 developer kit.

P.T. was one of the creepiest games I ever played, but now there's something even scarier: P.T. in VR.

We've seen plenty of fan remakes and mods for P.T. over the years, but the now-canceled Silent Hills game from the minds of Hideo Kojima and movie director Guillermo del Toro can now make you poop your pants in VR.

A new mod from creator 'AmbientDruth' called Half Life Alyx Silent Hills PT Mod, with some serious work going into making P.T. work better in the virtual world of VR. The new VR version of P.T. uses the original looping corridor, radio ambiance, talking paper bag, and more.

Bloodborne is coming to PS5 and Steam with 4K 60FPS support, multiple new rumors say.

We've been here before. It seems every year new rumors of a Bloodborne PC port break out. But now things could be a bit different, especially with Sony's PlayStation 5 on the way. Rumor has it a Bloodborne remaster is coming to both PS5 and Steam, complete with new optimizations like 4K 60FPS, beefed up visuals, boosted loading times (especially with the PS5's high-end 5.5GB PCIe 4.0 SSD), and Ultrawide support on PC.

Sources tell YouTuber PC Gaming Inquisition that Bluepoint Games and Dark Souls remastered developer QLOC are working on the project. FromSoftware is currently working on their huge new grim fantasy game Elden Ring. There's clarification that the old Demon Soul's remastered rumors were actually for Bloodborne.

A bit ago Linus from Linus Tech Tips called Tim Sweeney out and criticized the Epic boss' remarks about the PS5's SSD. Now Linus has apologized and delves deeper into the PlayStation 5's storage tech.

Tim Sweeney is a huge fan of the PS5's SSD, and went so far as to call it 'god-tier.' Sony's next-gen SSD is beyond the highest-level PC SSDs on the market today with best-in-class storage, Sweeney said. Like many PC gamers, Linus Sebastian was skeptical and made some comments about Sweeney shilling for the PS5. But now after actually watching Mark Cerny's presentation, digging through research, and checking out older Sony SSD patents, Linus is apologizing.

The apology video goes into depth about the PS5's SSD, but none of the details will be a surprise to anyone that's read our PlayStation 5 SSD deep dive coverage.

The custom Cyberpunk 2077 Xbox is the best-looking custom Xbox One X to date, and comes with a ton of extras to sweeten the pot.

The new Cyberpunk 2077 console will close out the Xbox One X's lifecycle, and Microsoft is making sure it goes out with a bang. The $300 limited edition Cyberpunk 2077 Xbox One X will be quite rare, limited to just 45,000 units worldwide, but that kind of availability allows for some pretty big extras like a free copy of Cyerpunk 2077 and free access to the game's first major paid expansion.

The news was confirmed in a recent Best Buy listing which reads: "Enjoy a full-game digital download of Cyberpunk 2077 (available September 17, 2020), as well as the future first expansion release, on the 1TB limited edition console that uses textures, glowing elements, bright panels, and color shift effects to capture the vibrant grit and technical enhancements of Night City."

A long-awaited feature has shown in up the latest Xbox App update: dedicated mod support.

Microsoft is finally enabling native mods in PC games sold on the Xbox store. Right now the feature is in beta testing phases and isn't ready for widespread public release (just like the app itself), and Microsoft warns users of certain restrictions while using mods. This is basically analogous to Steam Workshop mods, complete with in-app mod folder navigation. Right now only a few games support mods, including strategy game Into the Breach.

Enabling mods in the app could interfere with specific service functions and features, and could disrupt gameplay updates:

EA games might be coming to Steam, but you'll still have to not only download the Origin client, but have it running at all times in order to play games.

EA is making a big push onto Steam and plans to simultaneously launch all of its PC games on both Steam and Origin. Apparently Valve wants Apex Legends, and EA wants more sales. But before we get too excited, there's one important caveat to remember: You can't completely dodge Origin. EA will use the Origin client as a DRM check for all of its games on Steam.

This message is nestled in the new EA game listings: "Incorporates 3rd-party DRM: EA on-line activation and Origin client software installation and background use required."

Riot Games is currently testing and prototyping Valorant on consoles, but the devs aren't 100% sure the game will translate properly to more casual controller play.

In a recent interview with Gamespot, Valorant executive producer Anna Donlon said Riot is experimenting with consoles right now...but there's no guarantee the game will actually arrive on PlayStation, Xbox, or even the Nintendo Switch.

"We are definitely prototyping that right now, but there's a way to play this game and there's a way to experience this game that we're not entirely sure translates completely to console play."

Investment watchdog and Activision-Blizzard shareholder CTW Investment Group calls out Bobby Kotick's huge salaries, and prompts investors to vote against a new compensation package for the CEO.

According to the CTW Investment Group's director Dieter Waizenegger, Activision's CEO Bobby Kotick makes way too much money. In 2019, Kotick ranked #45 on the highest paid CEOs, and managed to rake in over $28 million throughout the year. As Activision-Blizzard's coffers swelled to billion-dollar proportions throughout the years, so too has Kotick's payouts, which grew to nearly $100 million across four years.

CTW, an activist firm aimed at equalizing pay and fair treatment of workers, owns active shares in Activision-Blizzard and called the company out in a recent SEC filing. The firm basically states that Kotick is raking in too much compensation in comparison to its workers. Waizenegger makes a compelling argument and puts numbers into perspective and gives a closer look at the inner workings of the company's executive structure.

New gameplay for this year's Call of Duty has leaked out, confirming a Cold War era setting for the upcoming shooter.

Activision has been busily scrubbing all instances of the Black Ops Cold War gameplay off the internet, but we found a rather janky and blurry re-upload that shows the basics. The movement schemes and interactions are lifted right out of the latest engine used to build Modern Warfare and show fluid physics systems. There's no actual combat, and the environments sport the unfinished multi-colored walls found in playtest builds.

What's most interesting is the gun and the tank seen in the footage. The gun is an AK5, which was made in Sweden in the early 1980s and used in the Cold War. The tank is an the American M1 Abrams tank, which was also used in the Cold War in exercises focused in Western Germany.

We all know the George Floyd protest are on-going in the US and slowly throughout the world, but now game developers and other companies are jumping in to support the cause: now, it's time for NBA 2K20.

In a tweet from ESPN, NBA 2K20 paused its entire online play operations for two entire hours, as well as gave out Black Lives Matter and I Can't Breathe in-game shirts to players. This is all done in the protests for George Floyd, where we can see players in the above tweet walking around in the game with their new BLM and I Can't Breathe shirts.

2K Games also announced that they were giving $1 million in additional funding to their 2K Foundations Program, which will expand its mission to "help fight racial injustice and inequalities in black communities across the globe".

I've been really digging the PlayStation 5 and its V-shaped design in its development kit form, secretly (well, probably not-so-secretly as I've said it here publicly working for TweakTown for years now) hoping the final PS5 has the V-shaped design.

Well, now we have a new patent for the PlayStation 5 development kit that has been uploaded to the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). The new patent shows us some more details on how the PlayStation 5 is being cooled, where that gorgeous V-shaped design is coming into play with Sony.

The new patent for the PlayStation 5 sees the next-gen console having two "wings" -- with 3 fans used to cool the APU, and 3 others to cool the PSU. Sony is using a vapor chamber, with Sony reportedly using an "advanced liquid cooling system" to keep the PlayStation 5 nice and cool.

Activision recently halted the launch of Call of Duty's new seasons because of the unrest in the US, and now it is Epic Games that is delaying Fortnite events and its new season.

Fortnite's new one-time event dubbed The Device was meant to launch on June 6, and has now been delayed until June 15. Not only that, but Chapter 2 Season 3 has been delayed, and will now launch two days after The Device event, with Chapter 2 Season 3 of Fortnite now launching on June 17.

This isn't the first time Epic has delayed Season 3 of Fortnite, which was originally meant to start on May 1 -- but was delayed until June 4, then June 11, and now June 17.

Today EA made good on its promise and brought a ton of back catalog PC games over to Steam. This is just the beginning, and new PC games are also dropping on Valve's platform.

For the longest time, EA locked its PC games behind its own storefront-and-service ecosystem. But now that's all changed. EA is now eager to tap Steam's massive 95 million userbase and wants to maximize sales.

Increased sales by boosted availability is the main motivation behind the big Steam push. Today EA dropped over 25 of its best-selling PC games on Steam, including yesteryear hits Dragon Age 2, Dragon Age: Inquisition, a handful of Need for Speed games, and many more that're also on sale. The bigger news is EA confirming all future PC games would simultaneously launch on Steam as well.

Yoshi-P isn't directing Final Fantasy 16, and is really busy with expanding Square Enix's big Final Fantasy 14 MMORPG with new updates.

Back in 2019, Square Enix posted up a recruitment page for a new project led by Naoki Yoshida, aka Yoshi-P. Everyone thought this meant the beloved director who saved Final Fantasy 14 was moving on to the next singleplayer-driven mainline game and leaving the MMO behind. This isn't true at all. Yoshi P remains committed to Final Fantasy 14 for many years to come, and expresses exasperation with the "fake news".

"Ah, looks like some kind of big fake news came out. I'll say it clearly - it's annoying," Yoshida wrote in a YouTube live stream text response.