Gaming - Page 577

Borderlands 3 went way over-budget and ate up the big bonus checks employees were promised years ago.

A new expose from Kotaku's Jason Schreier gives a rare glimpse at the inner-workings of games industry deals, particularly Gearbox's internal employee pay policies. Gearbox isn't like other independent studios. Developers make lower wages but Gearbox offers a 60/40% royalty split to its employees. Workers get to take home 40% of royalties, and the rest goes to Gearbox. This incentivizes working hard to make games as profitable as possible; the more a game sells, the more royalty cash flows into worker's wallets.

The should've happened with Borderlands 3, a mega-hit that's sold over 8 million copies to date and stands as the best-selling Borderlands game of all time. But instead of paying out large bonus checks, Gearbox's Randy Pitchford told the workers their bonuses would be a lot smaller than expected. The royalty money is drying up fast.

With E3 2020 cancelled, many publishers are moving towards digital-only streams to replace the June event. Even E3's showrunners are trying to pivot towards some sort of digital venue. But Bethesda says it won't be participating.

Today Bethesda exec Pete Hines confirmed the publisher won't have a digital event in June. The reason is simple: Coronavirus has significantly disrupting Bethesda's plans. That means no Starfield info, no Ghostwire Tokyo gameplay footage, no Deathloop content or an update on the anticipated Wolfenstein 3. And maybe, just maybe, Prey 2. Bethesda will instead stagger its announcements out across 2020 and may not be attached to the Xbox Series X or PlayStation 5 sizzle reels that may come in June 2020.

"Given the many challenges we're facing due to the pandemic, we will not host a digital Showcase in June. We have lots of exciting things to share about our games and look forward to telling you more in the coming months," Hines said on Twitter.

The new Viking-themed Assassin's Creed game is coming in 2020, and now we have an idea what period of the Viking Age it'll be set in.

Ubisoft's next Assassin's Creed game might be it's biggest yet. The game, codenamed Kingdom, is an ambitious open-world title set in the brutal age of the Vikings. It's due out this year with cross-gen releases including PS5 and Xbox Series X. Norse mythology offers tons of potential with lots of strange gods and creatures. Now a leaked achievement list could set the game's time setting while confirming big boss battles.

The achievement list originates from 4Chan and could easily be faked. But if it's genuine, the list points at an 9th century setting for the game. We originally predicted Kingdom would take place during Charlemagne's conquest of Europe under the Holy Roman Empire. Now it looks like the game could take place shortly after Charlemagne's death in the 9th century.

Wolfenstein: Youngblood's co-op play might've been a test run for MachineGames' next big Wolfenstein sequel.

A new MachineGames job listing could hint at a return to classic deathmatch multiplayer with the next Wolfenstein, or maybe an online co-op mode similar to Youngblood. The job listing calls for a level designer that has experience with creating multiplayer levels, strongly hinting Wolfenstein 3 will have some sort of MP action. Bethesda confirmed Wolfenstein 3 was in development as far back as 2018, but MachineGames has yet to make a formal announcement.

Up until Youngblood, which introduced online co-op and microtransactions, all Wolfenstein games have been over-the-top singleplayer-only campaigns with tons of violence, action, and massive production values. But ZeniMax, the parent company of Bethesda, has made a marked shift towards monetization and adapting core IPs into replayable live service-esque titles.

Valve has been extremely quick at updating Half-Life: Alyx considering it was released just a week ago, with the first patch (v1.1) adding in Continuous Turn as an option -- and now, v1.2 has been released.

The new 1.2 update for Half-Life: Alyx lets you switch movement controls between the left and right hand -- no matter what hand is being used to hold your weapon. You'll need to visit the in-game menu, then the SteamVR controller setup to choose which hand you'd like as your default for a weapon.

Half-Life: Alyx also gets the usual bug fixes and less crashes in the new 1.2 update, while performance has been improved just a bit with "better detection of low-memory situations". Half-Life: Alyx will update automatically through Steam.

Pokemon GO developer Niantic has just acquired 3D mapping startup 6D.ai, where the acquisition will see them building out "planet-scale" augmented reality, or AR.

6D.ai will infuse into Niantic and use its 3D environment reconstruction and persistent AR objects that will advance AR-based games and apps in a big way. Niantic burst onto the scene with Pokemon GO, but imagine planet-scale Pokemon GO where you see dragons and other creations flying around and landing on buildings, right in front of you -- in augmented reality.

Niantic said it knows "better than anyone" about this type of AR, while 6D.ai boss Matt Miesnieks said there "couldn't be a better team" for 6D.ai to join. Niantic is ramping into the future of AR, when everyone is allowed back outside after the global COVID-19 quarantines and lockdowns lift.

Valve has just announced Half-Life 4, which is a direct sequel to Half-Life 2 and the events of Half-Life 2: Episode One and Half-Life 2: Episode Two, as well as continuing the events after the amazing VR-exclusive Half-Life: Alyx (which is now the best PC game of 2020 on Metacritic).

Half-Life 4 will have VR support that will exceed the top-rated work in VR that the developer did with the recently-released Half-Life: Alyx, with Valve promising it won't screw over the PC gaming community that have supported the company for decades. Half-Life 4 will not be a VR exclusive like Half-Life: Alyx.

Half-Life 4 will come out on 3/3/2023 as it seems Valve can count to 3 when it comes to release dates, just not game titles. Valve hasn't yet confirmed whether we'll see Team Fortress 3, Portal 3, and Left 4 Dead 3 -- but their announcements could be right around the corner.

For the first time in 25 years, QuakeCon 2020 has officially been cancelled.

Today Bethesda announced QuakeCon 2020 has been cancelled due to significant coronavirus disruption. Although the event would've been several months away in August, the recent COVID-19 pandemic has completely interrupted the critical planning phases for the event. Even if the coronavirus was under control by August 2020, Bethesda says it wouldn't be able to properly prepare a quality show with the industry's current state of disarray.

"In recent weeks we have spent a lot of time discussing how we might still move forward with QuakeCon this year, particularly given it's the 25th year of the event.

Activision teams up with Sony to launch Modern Warfare 2 remastered first on PlayStation 4, but this doesn't actually matter much for Activision.

To no one's surprise, Activision today officially announced Modern Warfare 2 remastered. There's a catch, though: The game is only available on PS4 today, and is coming to other platforms on April 30. This really isn't that big of a deal for the publisher. In fact, MW2R is a low-risk release.

The remaster is campaign-only (no co-op, no spec-ops, just campaign) so it won't interfere with the billion-dollar monetizable multiplayer market that Activision thrives on. That also means the game's gated-off accessibility doesn't matter as much as it would if MW2R had multiplayer. In short, this timed exclusivity won't hurt Activision in the long run because MW2R is just an extra piece of game sale downloads and doesn't affect what it cares about most: Live service microtransactions.

Doom Eternal has sold an estimated 700,000 copies on Steam in its first week alone, making it the best-selling Steam game of 2020 so far.

According to the latest data estimates from PlayTracker, Doom Eternal sales on PC are absolutely destroying console sales. The firm reports the rip-and-tear sequel has amassed over 700,000 in its first week on Steam compared to the 250,000 - 400,000 sold on PS4 and Xbox One. That's a pretty huge variance range and we're guessing the lower side of that is Xbox One due to the system's smaller 40 million install base. Also remember this doesn't include Bethesda.net sales and may be digital-only.

The sales-tracker says Doom Eternal has beaten Half-Life: Alyx's sales, which also isn't surprising considering the new Half-Life requires a hefty PC-powered VR headset to play.

With the help of console commands, we got Doom Eternal running in third-person for some no-holds-barred (and supremely glitchy) demon-slaying mayhem.

Doom Eternal is probably the best FPS game I've played in the last decade, but how would it play as a third-person shooter? Pretty damn good. The combat is fluid and you get a great view of the carnage and explosive bloody death you're unleashing. In many ways it's even harder than first-person, especially if you're playing withe HUD off like some insane masochist (yes, we played it this way and it's tough as nails).

With Sunbeam's cheat table, we were able to get Doom Eternal running in third-person. The result is game-breaking fun, even if some weapons simply don't play nicely with third-person. I'm looking at you, assault rifle. Hell most of the precision weapons are extra tough because you simply can't aim down any scopes and the Doom Slayer's massive lats get in the way of the reticle. I can see why id didn't add the mode in and cut access to console commands, but I still really feel like it should be some sort of optional mode.

Old School RuneScape has never been the prettiest game out there, but players who don't care about graphics don't really mind. But what if Old School RuneScape could look graphically impressive? At least in comparison to current RuneScape graphics?

A post has recently blown up on the Old School RuneScape subreddit, the post is by Tottty and shows a next-gen RuneScape client that takes the graphics level of RuneScape to a completely new level. The post received major support from the games community, and Jordan (Tottty) decided to give a little history behind the client's existence. Jordan explains that the client was merely a side project for him when he was 17 and learning to program as a hobby outside of school and other activities.

Jagex, the developers of RuneScape, then invited him to Jagex HQ to discuss implementing Jordan's client into the live game. Unfortunately, that never happened, so Jordan sold the client off to a third-party developer, which funnily enough they didn't end up finishing either. The third-party developer then gave the rights for the client back to Jordan, which then resulted in Jordan deciding to create a new one. Jordan states that "So here I am in 2020, giving it another shot. After seeing the shift in perception of 3rd party clients in both the community and Jagex's posts, I figured now would be a good time to realistically be allowed to release this."

With everyone being urged to stay indoors due to the coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic that is running rampant across the globe, many people have turned to gaming to keep them entertained while they are waiting out the virus.

One of those platforms is the staple PC gaming platform, Valve's Steam. If you are a new PC gamer, one of the first programs you should download is Steam. Steam is renowned as one of, if not the best client to run games off of, as its selection is massive and sales are almost unbeatable. Since everyone is being urged to stay indoors and minimize the amount of human-to-human interaction that is being done, Steam has seen a massive increase in concurrent players.

Steam has now broken its all-time record for the number of players on its platform three times in a row. Steam's first record for this year was set back on February 2nd, with 18.8 million concurrent users. That record was beaten on March 15th when it was spotted that Steam had over 20 million concurrent users, more precisely - 20,313,476 concurrent users. That record was beaten just a week later when more than 22 million players were on Steam at the same time. Now, the previous record has been broken, as 23,572,311 users have been recorded to be on the platform.

As the world crumbles around us and infections rise, we have some good COVID-19 news: Square Enix is releasing Final Fantasy 7 Remake early in some regions. It's not much, but it'll certainly put a smile on some gamers' faces during these tumultuous times.

The coronavirus has disrupted every industry, including gaming. Critical supply and shipment lines have been interrupted, leading to delays of physical copies of key big AAA marquee games. In an effort to counterbalance this disruption, Square Enix will release its massively-anticipated Final Fantasy 7 Remake a week early in Europe and Australia.

"We had some hard decisions to make during the final few weeks before launch due to disruption to distribution channels caused by the spread of the COVID-19 virus. These unique circumstances have made it very difficult to align timing of our global shipping. Our highest priority is that all of you, including those who live in countries currently facing the biggest disruption, can play the game at launch, so we made the decisions to ship the game far earlier than usual to Europe and Australia," reads the announcement.

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild 2 probably won't release in 2020. All eyes will be on Nintendo's beloved platforming plumber as he celebrates his 35th birthday.

Mario is set to dominate 2020 with a slew of new games. The beloved Nintendo mascot is turning 35 this year and the company is going all out with a ton of new remasters and Mario re-releases on the Switch. Sources say Nintendo will release Switch remasters of Super Mario Sunshine, Super Mario Galaxy 1 & 2, Super Mario 3D World, and even Mario 64. Other games like a new Paper Mario are also expected this year too.

With a slate like that, Nintendo likely won't have room for another big first-party AAA release like Breath of the Wild 2. They won't need to roll out another big heavy-hitter for the rest of the fiscal year; Between Animal Crossing, the new Mario salvo, and the continued success of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, Nintendo has 2020 locked down.

Nintendo is releasing a massive salvo of Mario games on the Switch in 2020 to commemorate the plumber's 35th anniversary.

Remasters of Super Mario Galaxy 1 & 2, Super Mario Sunshine, Super Mario 3D Land, and even Mario 64 will launch in 2020 for the Nintendo Switch, both Eurogamer and VideoGamesChronicle today confirmed. It's likely these games will be wrapped together and sold in a collection on the Switch, as well as sold separately on the eShop as individual downloads.

Sources also say Nintendo will release a brand new Paper Mario game in 2020. Fans have been asking for a new Paper Mario game since the Switch was released in 2017, and news of the game already has the gaming sphere in a tizzy. The next Paper Mario should be the plumber's major release for 2020 alongside the huge string of remasters.

Not content with raking in tremendous earnings spikes with Call of Duty Mobile and the new Warzone battle royale, Activision plans to release another $25 campaign-only remaster to monetize nostalgia.

Modern Warfare 2 remastered is coming tomorrow March 31, 2020 on all platforms, and it won't have any multiplayer or co-op. The news was accidentally leaked out by a PlayStation Germany store listing (now offline) that not only revealed info but also screenshots and a trailer. The remaster is campaign-only, which is a good move considering how intensely popular Warzone is right now. Gamers can re-experience some nostalgia to complement the crazy online chaos that the 150-player BR has to offer.

What's interesting is Modern Warfare 2 remastered shares skins with Modern Warfare and Warzone. Users can buy a special Ghost cosmetic bundle that's compatible with all three games, and changes Ghost's appearance in the singleplayer campaign. This is to be expected from Activision--the company will always find new ways to sell you old stuff--and ties right into the company's massive new engagement-monetization strategy that's permeated all of its games.

Halo 5's REQ microtransactions have made millions since the game's 2015 release, and Microsoft has used them to raise money for various causes. Now they're doing the same with the rampant coronavirus outbreak.

Halo's pay-to-win lootbox microtransactions are being used for a good cause. 343 Industries recently announced a special Halo 5 Relief and Recovery REQ Pack where all proceeds are donated to Global Giving's campaign to aid those affected by the COVID-19 disruption, whether it be loss of jobs, housing, or food. The REQ pack costs $10, roughly half the price of the 7x gold pack offer.

If you have most of the permanent unlocks, the REQ pack mostly consists of XP boosts and the like. Other gamers will get a bunch of ultra rare goodies.

Coronavirus' global economic disruption could interrupt Sony's PlayStation plans for 2020 (and beyond), including delaying first-party games as well as its next-gen PlayStation 5 console.

The PlayStation 5 is still officially due out Holiday 2020, but it's still possible the console could be delayed for a number of reasons. Sony's latest update to shareholders doesn't exactly inspire confidence of a PS5 launch in 2020.

In the press release, Sony says that its four Chinese manufacturing plants have been up and running since February 10, but supply chain issues still remain. It also warns that Sony engineers haven't been able to make overseas travel to overseas plants to instruct the manufacturing processes. The company has also shut down two of its Malaysian plants until April 14, further constricting and disrupting supply. There's no explicit mention of the PS5 here, but it's definitely implied. A Sony spokesperson told Bloomberg that the PS5 shouldn't be delayed.

Doom Eternal has lots of hidden secrets in its console command treasure chest. There's third-person mode, the hidden pistol (yes, Doom Eternal has a pistol!), and the classics like godmode and noclip. We show you how to access everything and what commands are useful.

Doom Eternal's console isn't active by default. The developers hindered access for a good reason: It makes the game pretty unstable. But we can force it to work using Sunbeam's Cheat Engine 7.0 program and Doom Eternal's custom cheat table. Yes, we'll be cheating to make this happen, so there's some risks involved. We don't know the full ramifications of the cheats so keep that in mind.

Our tutorial video explains everything, but we've also included the download links for everything you need below, including a full list of all the known CVARS and console commands. You can use CTRL+F to find specific parameters like "weapons", "camera", or "AI" in the following lists and copy and paste it right into the console itself.