Gaming - Page 58

Epic Games' CEO Tim Sweeney has pushed back against the idea of game stores informing customers that titles have been created with the help of artificial intelligence.

Steam recently adopted the tag "Made with AI" for titles it lists on its online marketplace, with the goal being to inform customers if the game they are considering purchasing was made with the assistance of AI, as many people feel the involvement of AI in game development, and art in general is wrong for a multitude of reasons.

Regardless of whether those reasons are justifiable or not, AI is here to stay, and according to Epic Games' CEO the label is pointless as AI is going to be involved in one way or another in nearly all future production. Sweeney responded to an X post calling for Steam and other digital marketplaces to drop the "Made with AI label," writing, "Agreed" and that the AI tag is only "relevant to art exhibits for authorship disclosure, and to digital content licensing marketplaces where buyers need to understand the rights situation."

The Game Awards is just two weeks away, and many are wondering which big, highly anticipated titles will be at the show to tease more footage.

One of those games is CD Projekt Red's The Witcher 4, but for those that were holding out hope that CD Projekt Red is quietly preparing to drop more footage of the game at The Game Awards, sadly, that won't be happening, as the CEO of CD Projekt Red, Michał Nowakowski, has recently taken to X to confirm The Witcher 4 won't be at The Game Awards 2025.

The confirmation from the CEO comes on the heels of a thank you for The Witcher 4 being nominated for the Most Anticipated Game category at The Game Awards, which appears to be going up against Rockstar Games' Grand Theft Auto 6.

There probably isn't a more active or dedicated community on the internet than the Grand Theft Auto community, which are chomping at the bit for any news regarding the upcoming title, Grand Theft Auto 6.

Grand Theft Auto 6 is the most anticipated game of all time, and because of that it has spawned GTA 6 news accounts, which are dedicated to posting anything and everything related to the upcoming title. However, one such account has now gone from a credible source of GTA 6 news to deemed "worthless" after the account shared a video it claimed was a "leak," which turned out to be AI generated.

That X account is Zap Actu GTA6 shared a video that gained 8 million views in just 24 hours before it was removed by the uploader. The account claimed it was a "leak" of GTA 6 gameplay, but this wasn't gameplay at all, it was AI-generated footage. Notably, this same account shared similar videos earlier in the months, some of which have large numbers of views, but this recent video really hit the mainstream as many viewers of the video didn't realize it was AI and took the video at face value.

Bungie is currently going through a rough patch, with Sony recently confirming that the once-esteemed studio has fallen $200 million short of expectations, and most of that shortfall can be attributed to the declining performance of Destiny 2.

Sony stated during a recent earnings call that Destiny 2's underperformance has resulted in Sony having to record a $204 million impairment loss against Bungie's assets, which means that Sony has put on the books that Bungie's assets are now worth $200 million less than what it originally valued them at when it purchased the studio in 2022.

Most of that reduction in value can be attributed to the declining Destiny 2 player base, which has shrunk from the once-316,000-player peak nearly three years ago to just 15,000 daily players today. Despite Destiny 2's struggles, leaks have surfaced suggesting that Destiny 3 is in very early stages of development, with two separate sources, Colony Leaks and CheddaLeaks, both writing in X posts that Destiny 3 is in the works at Bungie.

With all of its seasonal sales events, Steam doesn't really do Black Friday Sales - until now. With significant savings covering thousands of games, plus a great deal on the Steam Deck 256GB LCD handheld (it's 20% off and on sale for $319.20 USD), it's also great to see that there are big discounts on games that are still pretty fresh. Probably the best deal on a massive 2025 release is DOOM: The Dark Ages, which is 50% off at $34.99 USD.

id Software's third game in its modern re-imagined DOOM trilogy shifts the focus to a more grounded and fast-paced melee and gun combat flow that includes a versatile shield, alongside an expanded focus on telling a cinematic story as you take control of the DOOM Slayer in a medieval sci-fi fantasy world. Visually, it's also one of the most impressive releases of 2025, thanks to its ray-traced lighting effects and id Software's world-class engine technology.

Although it's a single-player only game, DOOM: The Dark Ages recently received a significant update that expanded the options, features, and flow of the post-campaign Ripatorium arena mode. This is definitely a game made for FPS fans; however, it's not the only major 2025 FPS game on sale as part of Steam's Black Friday Sales.

Elon Musk has challenged the best professional League of Legends team to versus Grok 5, xAI's latest iteration of its artificial intelligence software.

That League of Legends team is T1, a South Korean esports organization that has won a staggering six League of Legends World Championship titles. T1 won the most recent League of Legends World Championship, marking the first three-peat in the history of professional League of Legends. In an effort to test Grok 5's skill, Elon Musk has taken to his personal X account to outline some rules for the match.

Musk wrote that Grok will "see" the game the same way a human would, but through a camera positioned in front of a monitor. A handicap will be imposed to account for reaction latency, so Grok can't react any faster than a human.

Valve added tags and labels to Steam games that feature AI-generated content a while ago, and it also updated the submission process so developers can disclose the specific AI tools they used to help create their games. To get a good picture of how it looks, simply check out the ARC Raiders store page, which includes an "AI Generated Content Disclosure" section.

Granted, the AI disclosure on the ARC Raiders store page is pretty generic and doesn't specifically mention the game's use of AI-generated voices, but it's there for those wanting to know which games have been developed with AI-based tools. Valve added the tag and requirement well over a year ago, which is a long time in the fast-moving AI space, and many are wondering if it's still required, as most creative and productivity apps have all been steadily adding AI tools and features.

In a response to someone saying exactly that, Epic Games founder and CEO responded with an emphatic, "Agreed." Adding that putting an AI tag "makes no sense for game stores, where AI will be involved in nearly all future production."

We now have an official release date for World of Warcraft: Midnight, and the eleventh expansion for the veteran MMORPG will arrive on March 2, 2026.

Wccftech spotted the release date reveal trailer on YouTube - check it out above. This launch date should mean that early access kicks off on February 27, but that hasn't actually been confirmed by Blizzard yet.

At any rate, this means that there's only just a touch more than three months to wait before the player base can get stuck into this latest World of Warcraft expansion where you "return to the Elven kingdom of Quel'Thalas and stand against Xal'atath and her Void army."

Helldivers 2 is getting a new warbond that has a gatling gun and a chainsaw straight out of old 80s and 90s action schlock movies.

Arrowhead Studios and Sony have announced the new Helldivers 2 Python Commandos warbond, introducing a bunch of high-octane strategems and weapons that channel the machismo spirit of Dutch and Rambo.

The premium warbond includes two new armor sets--the hulking RS-40 Beast of Prey commando and the lighter, red bandana-toting RS-20 Constrictor. Both have the Rock Solid passive that reduces stagger. The highlight of the warbond is the over-the-top M1000 Maxigun, a fully-fledged gatling gun inspired by Cooper's Ol' Painless minigun from Predator 1984. There's also a huge chainsaw wand, the CQC-9 defoliation tool, and a torch drone that unleashes torrents of fiery napalm onto foes.

NVIDIA is showcasing a new batch of PC games getting DLSS 4 with Multi Frame Generation support this week, alongside some Battlefield 6 goodies as part of the Season of RTX. On the DLSS 4 front, one of the pleasant surprises is that we got some DLSS 4 gameplay for the upcoming release of Tides of Annihilation, a game that still doesn't have a release date.

Tides of Annihilation, from Chinese studio Eclipse Glow Games, is a new third-person action-adventure set in a "shattered" fantastical take on modern London, with a story inspired by Arthurian legend. This one has a lot of hype behind it based on the announcement trailers and gameplay seen so far, which feature impressive visuals, grandiose scope, and fast-paced balletic action.

Headed to all platforms, the PC version will include DLSS 4 with Multi Frame Generation support, and NVIDIA's trailer for the game showcases how DLSS 4 improves performance, from around 80 FPS in 4K with Max Settings to 300+ FPS on a GeForce RTX 5090. With a DLSS performance trailer, it's safe to assume that Tides of Annihilation is on track for a 2026 release.

The new ROG Xbox Ally handhelds will soon get an innovative new feature that automatically scales in-game performance to boost frame rates and battery life.

Microsoft and ASUS are introducing Default Game Profiles to the Xbox Ally and Xbox Ally X Windows PC handhelds. The new feature will natively optimize game software in such a way that prioritizes the fine balancing act of gameplay and power draw, leading to more fluid experiences that last longer while on-the-go. The setting has to be toggled within the Armoury Crate UI.

"Spend more time playing and less time fine-tuning. Default Game Profiles, available in preview starting today, automatically balance frame rate (FPS) and power consumption for 40 supported games at launch," Microsoft wrote on the Xbox Wire.

Rust developer Facepunch Studios reveals why the sim won't show up on Linux or be compatible on Valve's Proton, saying that the platform is a hotbed for cheating. This exposes some of the thinking around Valve and whether or not big online games with anti-cheat could show up on Valve's new Steam Machine.

Valve's Steam Machine sounds great on paper: It'll be a small form-factor PC with a discrete GPU, a zippy CPU, and plenty of RAM--all wrapped in Valve's flexible and capable SteamOS. But there's just one issue: Anti-cheat. SteamOS is based on Linux, and Valve has developed a Proton compatibility layer to ensure Windows games run on SteamOS. Devs don't like to bring their games to Linux because of the uphill battle with anti-cheat on the platform--Linux is apparently a wild west frontier for cheating.

This could be a drawback for Valve's Steam Machine and give Microsoft's reported Windows-powered Xbox PC an upper edge. While Valve has added in anti-cheat support into Proton, including Easy Anti-Cheat, it's ultimately up to developers to do the work and enable the function and get any first-party toolsets working with Proton. That being said, Valve is still working closely with high-level developers and publishers to find solutions--and to hopefully ensure that big live service games can be played on Steam Machine.

Sony has been slowly becoming more PC-focused with the release of its first- and second-party PlayStation Studios titles on Steam, and it's not hard to see why. According to a new report by Alinea Analytics, PlayStation Studios games released on Steam (PC gaming's number one platform) have generated $1.5 billion in revenue for Sony.

And even when you take out Valve's cut, that's still around $1.2 billion for Sony. With over 43 million games sold, the biggest seller for Sony isn't Marvel's Spider-Man, God of War, or Horizon Zero Dawn; it's Helldivers 2. And it's not even close, with Helldivers 2 reportedly selling 12.7 million copies on Steam, making it the most popular PlayStation Studios release on PC, with second-place going to Horizon Zero Dawn, which has sold 4.5 million copies.

Alinea Analytics notes that Helldiver 2's success on PC is Sony's first "megahit," with it selling over double the amount of copies on Steam as it did on PS5. Other big sellers on PC for Sony include God of War and Days Gone, which sold 4.2 million and 3.4 million copies, respectively.

If you grew up playing PC games on DOS and operating systems like Windows 95 and Windows 98, then here's an early present for the holiday season - eXoWin9x Vol. 1. A single pack available to download that includes 662 fully emulated games from 1994 through to 1996, released during the era where Windows went 32-bit and became the go-to operating system for PC.

The list of games included in the 263GB package includes well-known classics like DOOM II, MechWarrior 2, Myst, SimCity 2000, Heroes of Might and Magic, Quake, Wing Commander IV, and the original Diablo. Still, it's chock-full of forgotten classics and lesser-known games you might recall from the era. Titles like Spycraft - The Great Game, SimGolf, Rally Racers, Phantasmagoria, and several other multimedia-enhanced games from the CD-ROM era, as well as rare releases no longer available on any platform.

It's an impressive collection with a detailed front-end that includes information and goodies for each game, including cover art, manuals, soundtracks, and other materials. Everything is pre-configured with a simple setup process, and every game runs in a virtual machine from a single launcher, so there's no need to configure or modify your existing system.

Microsoft's Xbox Full Screen Experience (or FSE) for Windows 11 debuted with the ROG Xbox Ally gaming handhelds last month, marking the first time the OS delivers a console-like, controller-friendly experience for gamers. With XBE now rolling out to more Windows 11 gaming handhelds, Microsoft is also making it available to Windows 11 Insiders to test out and use on any laptop or PC.

The big feature is the ability to boot straight into the Xbox app and interface for a smoother, faster gaming experience. By booting straight into the Xbox app, which still gives you access to other storefronts like Steam and the Epic Game Store, the FSE also disables unneeded non-essential and non-gaming Windows 11 processes to free up system resources and memory.

"Designed for controller-first navigation, it provides a gaming-first, full-screen environment where players can easily browse and launch titles from across their game libraries- including most popular PC storefronts," Microsoft explains, "A powerful Task Switcher enables quick movement between games and apps, delivering a seamless experience."

While EA, Ubisoft, and Microsoft all tout artificial intelligence, Rockstar co-founder Dan Houser has a more down-to-earth assessment of the new technology.

AI is all the rage right now. We've seen major video game companies invest billions into artificial intelligence in the hopes of streamlining content production and eliminating wasteful spending. Almost every video games company in existence has laid off workers while simultaneously embracing AI, some in the tune of thousands of job eliminations. But one pretty high-ranking games industry creative isn't convinced that AI will be the savior of the games industry that it's hyped up to be.

Rockstar Games co-founder Dan Houser was recently on Channel 4's Sunday Brunch show, and he had some interesting things to say about what AI can and can't do.

Valve wants to deliver a Steam Deck successor that has next-gen performance with current-gen battery life.

The Steam Deck 2 will happen at some point, but for now Valve says the technology to do what they want simply doesn't exist yet. The priorities remain the same for a new Steam Deck handheld with a careful balance between capability and longevity. Valve aims to deliver higher-end performance and power befit of a next-generation machine with a similar power and battery profile to Steam Deck OLED.

In a recent interview with Skill Up, Valve designer Lawrence Yang and software engineer Pierre-Loup Griffais briefly discuss what kinds of hurdles they're navigating while thinking about the Steam Deck 2. Essentially, the chip technology doesn't exist yet, but Valve is carefully watching the market and assessing the needs of the Steam community.

Valve is open to a Steam Machine Pro in the future, but the company has more than enough on its plate with the current hardware spec.

The Steam Machine isn't an enthusiast device. Valve is instead targeting the mid-range user who wants a more complete package that delivers plug-and-play compatibility, kind of like a console. Price will determine whether or not it becomes a mass-market machine, and right now RAM costs are through the roof. Given Valve's focus, and the current market trends, a higher-spec Steam Machine Pro may not happen for a while--if at all. But Valve is still receptive to the idea of beefier Steam Machines, maybe even from third-party OEMs.

"Potentially yeah, I think we're open to anything," Valve software engineer Pierre-Loup Griffais said in a recent interview with Skill Up. "For now we're focusing on this level of spec because we think it's a good trade-off between affordability and the level of power that we get."

The world's largest tech companies are embracing AI in the hope of streamlining workflows and eliminating waste, but the move might be backfiring for the games industry.

Just days ago, Ubisoft confirmed that generative AI is now being used organization-wide, with every office and development team incorporating gen AI. The entire tech sector is betting big on AI, especially in gaming. Microsoft created gen AI tools like MUSE that eliminate the need for game dev coding, and EA is creating a ChatGPT-like chatbotthat can change gameplay in real time.

The widespread use of AI comes with some drawbacks and growing pains, though. Recent reports say AI is causing problems for EA, leading to extra work as developers have to come in and clean up critical mistakes made by the tech. Despite the presentations and assurances, dev teams aren't really showing how AI is used in their games, perhaps to avoid controversy. Or perhaps, as Bloomberg's Jason Schreier suggests, AI is causing more harm than good for game developers.

Valve is making around $50 million per employee based on recent data which sees the company making an incredible $16.2 billion in revenue from its Steam platform alone this year so far, and should easily tip over $17-18 billion by the end of 2025.

This data comes from a recent report from Alinea Analytics, with Valve itself making over $4 billion this year from Steam itself, while each of the 350+ employees of the company creating $50 million each for Valve. We must remember that Valve is a private company, so we don't know exactly how many people work for the company, nor do we know their exact revenues and profits.

If we compare these numbers to the likes of Apple which reportedly makes around $2.4 million per employee, and Facebook parent company, Meta, which makes $1.9 million per year, it's an impressive feat for Valve. Valve knows about this, where back in 2012 the company made its "Handbook for New Employees" available, where it stated: "Our profitability per employee is higher than that of Google or Amazon or Microsoft, and we believe strongly that the right thing to do in that case is to put a maximum amount of money back into each employee's pocket".