Gaming - Page 586

EA just cancelled another Star Wars game, and we have to wonder what Disney's new CEO thinks about the publisher's track record.

Disney just got a new CEO, and he could shake things up on the game development level. Bob Iger recently stepped down as Disney's CEO and now company alum Bob Chapek is in the big seat. In the past, Iger said he's happy with the 10-year deal with EA despite the growing number of game cancellations and timeline disruptions. Will Chapek feel the same way?

The major deciding factor whether or not EA gets to keep the license is costs vs sales revenues. If Disney is spending more money to make the games than the games are actually pulling in, then we could see a hand-off to another publisher. There's compelling arguments for and against EA keeping the exclusive game license.

For Resident Evil 3's terrifying villain, Nemesis isn't just a name--it's a way of life. You're never safe from the walking mutant tank.

Nemesis is a lot like Alien: Isolation's xenomorph. The S.T.A.R.s-obsessed monstrosity is relentless in his pursuit and will stop at nothing to just annihilate Jill every chance he gets. And like the terrifying alien, Nemesis will hunt you at any point in the game.

As per Resident Evil 3 producer Peter Fabiano, Nemesis can even smash through safe rooms to test your mettle. Basically Resident Evil 3 doesn't really have safe rooms because you're never actually safe from Nemesis. I can already feel my anxiety rising.

The Turbo Grafx 16 mini won't release this month as planned thanks to coronavirus supply chain disruption.

Konami's foray into the mini-console craze has been pushed back to an undetermined timeframe. The company today announced both its Turbo Grafx 16 and PC Engine micro-consoles have been delayed indefinitely thanks to the new worldwide COVID-19 health risk.

"Regarding the TurboGrafx-16 mini console and its peripheral accessories, the manufacturing and shipping facilities in China have encountered an unavoidable suspension due to the current Coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak. As a result, the delivery of all TurboGrafx-16 mini products, which was originally scheduled for March 19th, 2020, will be delayed until further notice.

If chill cyberwave music was made into a video game, it'd look a lot like this new indie Cloudpunk.

Cloudpunk might be industry's new ultimate palate cleanser. You know what I mean. Every gamer has a palate cleanser; it's one of those games you play to just kind of zone out to. Those small, simplistic slices of gaming you play to basically detoxify yourself from the insane pressures of Call of Duty or Apex Legends. I think for a lot of people mobile games are palate cleansers, but for dedicated gamers, titles like Minecraft or even No Man's Sky fit the bill nicely.

Cloudpunk, a new indie from indie studio Ion Lands, is one such game. It's a serene sci-fi sim that really underlines the simple things in 20xx life, and floating by its mesmerizing future cities inside your hovercar inspires a kind of cybernetic zen. A new gameplay trailer had an interesting calming effect on me, proving that sometimes you just want to zoom around in your Fifth Element cab and make deliveries.

Developers won't have to make two separate hardware-specific optimizations for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X. The new generation-defining feature is easily scalable for developers.

Next-gen consoles have been built from the ground up to empower developers. A big part of that power is versatile and flexible dev tools, APIs, and OS-driven software stacks that make everything much more efficient for developers. These pieces are critical as devs learn the new hardware and also scale their older games to run better on next-gen systems. Remember, current-gen and next-gen will overlap, and devs will release games on both generations at the same time.

Luckily, ray tracing is something that devs won't have to sweat too much. AMD's new RDNA 2 architecture, which supports hardware-accelerated ray tracing, is unified across platforms and lets devs easily translate ray tracing features from one console to the next. This is huge for devs making multi-platform games (a segment that comprises the bulk of the entire industry) on both the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X.

A new job listing for Avalanche Software seeks a lighting wizard for a "soon to be announced AAA title," and it's probably that new Harry Potter game.

According to a job listing filed just yesterday, WB Games is gearing up for a big game reveal. Since it's Avalanche's game, we expect it to be the new Wizarding World RPG. "Avalanche Software, a WB Games studio, seeks a Lighting Technical Artist to work closely with a talented group of artists and engineers on an exciting, soon to be announced AAA title," reads the listing.

"The Lighting Technical Artist will work closely with a team to create visually stunning lighting and ambiance for real-world settings and will contribute to the overall aesthetic beauty of the game. The successful candidate will work to create and optimize UE4 light setups in addition to working with our proprietary time of day lighting system"

Gamers absolutely love cross-play support for their titles, as it opens up a whole new realm of enjoyment when gamers can enjoy the game they love with people from other platforms.

It's even better when gamers can share save files between platforms as well. Well, that's exactly what Gearbox Software is giving Borderlands 3 players, according to the developers' recent announcement. Gearbox says that when players launch Borderlands 3 on Steam for the first time, and on Epic after installing a brand new patch, they will be prompted with a "PC Cross-Play" screen.

This prompt will give players the option to enable/disable cross-play between these platforms. If a player chooses to enable cross-play, he/she will be able to queue up with fellow gamers on the other platform. I think the 'disabling' part is quite self-explanatory. On top of that juicy cross-play goodness, PC players will be able to transfer save data between Steam and the Epic Games Store. This means players won't have to worry about starting all over again if they decide to jump platform. Side note - Gearbox does warn players who decide to do this have a risk of loosing their save files. So backups will be necessary if this is what you want to do.

While Microsoft's Flight Simulator is still in its alpha phase, that hasn't stopped the game from looking simply gorgeous.

In the entirety of this article, you will find a fresh set of screenshots reinforcing how incredible Flight Simulator looks. The screenshots show off next-gen graphics in the form of environments, airplanes, cities, landscapes, and more. If you didn't know, Microsoft's Flight Simulator will have dynamic seasons. This means as players are flying around the game world they will experience what it's like to operate a vehicle while having to deal with seasonal weather difficulties such as rain, snow, heat, and more.

Microsoft Flight Simulator will also use real-time weather data, which means if a storm is happening in your area, players will be able to take a plane and fly right into to see what happens. On top of that incredible technology, Microsoft is introducing an amazingly realistic world, as seen in the screenshots. At the moment, there isn't a release date in place for Microsoft's Flight Simulator, but as soon as there is one, I will be sure to update you in a follow-up post.

The world of streaming is getting very, very interesting as big-name streamers are being fought over by streaming platforms.

As other companies begin to slowly build their streaming platforms, they have been poaching streamers from Twitch. A couple that spring to mind at Ninja, and Shroud who have both gone over to Microsoft's Mixer. Another streamer that could be mentioned is the biggest Super Smash Bros. streamer, ZeRo, who has now gone over to Facebook Gaming. As you can see, Twitch is losing some of its biggest players when it comes to streaming, so they have now decided to consolidate.

Most, if not all, of these streamers that have left Twitch, have been offered big paychecks or even bigger opportunities over at respective platforms. As business people, it would be silly to not test the waters over a competing platform, as more growth could come to fruition out of nowhere. Twitch now wants to offer streamers the same kind of opportunities to stay on its platform, and a great example of that is Pokimane, who recently announced that her feet are firmly planted in the world of Twitch streaming. Check out the above video to find out why.

Gears of War 5 will have next-gen enhancements on Xbox Series X, possibly with new features like ray tracing, 120FPS support, and even 8K resolution gaming.

Phil Spencer recently took a trip to Gears of War developer The Coalition to check out a new upgraded version of Gears 5, confirming the game will be boosted on the next-gen Xbox Series X. This isn't a surprise though. Microsoft recently announced that all of its first-party studios would upgrade their games on the Xbox SX through Smart Delivery, a new content delivery pipeline that transports enhancement patches online.

The Tweet was vague and the image is fuzzy, and there's lots of enhancement possibilities here. The Xbox Series X's new tightly synergized 7nm SoC offers a wealth of potential optimizations including boosted frame rates, variable refresh rates and variable rate shading, and ray tracing for improved lighting and visuals. Given AMD's recent presentation, the most likely upgrade is ray tracing.

Microsoft could unveil its cheaper next-gen Xbox console pretty soon, offering a new mid-gen refresh at launch instead of years down the line.

Ever since 2018 there's been rumors of two next-gen Xbox consoles launching in 2020, not one. The two consoles would include the monstrous 12TFLOP Xbox Series X, which will be an expensive enthusiast solution that hits 8K resolution and delivers 120FPS, and a lower-end, cheaper system codenamed Lockhart with a dramatically reduced 4TFLOP GPU that targets 1440p 60FPS. Gamers have dubbed the cheaper model as the Xbox Series S because it's basically the Xbox One S of the next generation.

Now there's rumblings that Microsoft could pull the curtain off of Lockhart (aka Xbox Series S) quite soon. Sources tell Dealer Gaming, a YouTube and gaming personality that keeps a close eye on Xbox, that the cheaper next-gen Xbox will be announced momentarily. It's possible Microsoft wants to formally unveil Lockhart ahead of E3 2020 to avoid mixed messaging at the event.

Sucker Punch's new stylish cinematic samurai game Ghost of Tsushima releases on June 26, 2020, Sony today announced.

The Ghost of Tsushima's revenge-fueled quest is coming in just four months, and will bring with it yet another superlative showcase of Sony's first-party power. Today Sucker Punch revealed a June 2020 release date and also dropped an incredible trailer that sets a somber, bloody, and ultimately captivating tone for the game.

Most of the footage was cinematic sequences--the facial animations are amazing--but there was some gameplay thrown in there too. Ghost of Tsushima reminds me a lot of a clunkier version of a samurai Tenchu, complete with engrossing dialog sequences. The title looks to be an experience rather than a simple game.

After the coronavirus is tamed, video game publishers could switch to digital-only streams and avoid costly events and expos altogether. Video might kill the expo star.

The coronavirus (COVID-19) is disrupting every major industry right now, especially tech and gaming, and at critical advertising and networking points. Almost every major trade show has been cancelled or transformed into a digital-only affair. So far the response has been to adapt or suffer from the disruption. Predictably, the companies have chosen the former. Everyone still has products, content, and ideas to sell to consumers.

The virus is transforming whole industries who are shifting--albeit temporarily--to a more fluid online communications model. Companies will simply hold online streams to reach viewers, gamers, consumers, investors, and analysts directly. With this strategy, companies hit two birds with one stone. First, they avoid possible coronavirus exposure, and secondly and most importantly, they keep costs down.

If you loved Resident Evil 2 Remake, then I'm sure you are excited for Resident Evil 3 Remake. Today, GameSpot released a 26-minute gameplay video revealing some of the games best features.

The above video has been released onto the GameSpot Gameplay YouTube Channel and features Capcom's UK Community Manager Kat as she plays and commentates over some Resident Evil 3 Remake gameplay. It should be noted that out of the entire 26 minutes, there are no spoilers to the game's story, and that the whole purpose of the video to highlight some of the game's core mechanics such as the dodging system and combat.

Throughout the video, we get a long in-depth look at what Capcom has done to overhaul Resident Evil 3, and it looks simply gorgeous. Capcom has taken no steps backward in reviving Resident Evil 3 in comparison to the work they put in for the Resident Evil 2 Remake. The demo for Resident Evil 3 Remake is expected to release sometime this month. The full release for the title is scheduled in for April 3rd, 2020, and it will be coming to the Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC.

The entire gaming world is going to explode once Rockstar officially teases Grand Theft Auto 6, but it looks like the company kinda did -- on their own YouTube channel of all places.

In a tweet from Rockstar_Mag, a very small but very important discovery has been made on Rockstar's official YouTube channel. The tweet itself shows that Rockstar has added a private video to their YouTube channel, that hasn't been unveiled to the public yet. This of course has started the rumors that it could be for Grand Theft Auto 6.

But with the Game Developers Conference recently postponed and a bunch of developers out of pocket, and out of the eyes of the media to show off their games -- maybe Rockstar had planned a GDC 2020 tease for Grand Theft Auto 6? We'll never know, but now all eyes will be on Rockstar going forward (as if they weren't already) as we get closer to E3 2020 -- which is still going ahead, according to its organizers.

The Half-Life franchise isn't going back into hiding after Half-Life: Alyx ships. Valve promises this is just the beginning.

Valve is returning to game dev in a big way with Half-Life: Alyx, its new VR-exclusive game. It's the first new Half-Life title in almost 13 years but it certainly won't be the last. In a recent interview with Game Informer, Valve's Robin Walker says the series will live on.

"We absolutely see Half-Life: Alyx as our return to this world, not the end of it," Walker said. "Half-Life means a lot to us, and it's been incredibly rewarding to refamiliarize ourselves with its characters, setting, and mechanics."

The Xbox Series X's new Smart Delivery system may also let you pick and choose which portion of a game you want to install, effectively reducing the overall size of a game.

Games these days are absolutely huge. Modern Warfare, for example, clocks in at over 100GB for the whole package. But what if you could carve up the installation and only download what you actually want to play?

This feature, dubbed custom installation, has tremendous implications for next-gen consoles. Remember next-gen systems like the Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5 will use SSDs (probably QLC flash-powered drives for improved reliability) instead of hard drives. SSDs typically aren't as reliable as HDDs and lots of writes and deletes could bog down the storage. Plus there's a fixed amount of space on them, so developers will need to be conscious of how to best use the storage.

Halo: Combat Evolved is now available on PC for just $10, complete with platform optimizations to ensure high FPS and smooth gameplay.

Yesterday 343 Industries pulled a surprise worthy of a Grunt birthday party: They launched Halo 1's anticipated PC port on Steam and the Microsoft Store.

Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary can be purchased separately for $10 and also comes included in the $40 Master Chief Collection, which packs six Halo games in one purchase. It's also included as part of Microsoft's $10 a month Game Pass subscription on PC.

Without any specifics, reveals, or even teasers, Google makes it hard to get excited about new Stadia studio announcements.

Google today opened its third game development studio for its Stadia game streaming service. The new Playa Vista, California-based studio will be helmed by ex-Sony exec Shannon Studstill, who served as Sony's vice president of product development for the last nine years.

Google is clearly gearing up for big with Stadia and is eager to throw money at the service, but it's still hard to get excited about these kinds of reveals. Google simply hasn't communicated enough actual interactive content to its audiences. There's no snippets of gameplay, no key art, new ARGs or creative showcases of what is coming--or what's even possible with Stadia. There's just assurances that these things are coming, PR speak, and nebulous claims.

In a surprise move, Konami today released Castlevania: Symphony of the Night for Android and iPhones.

Castlevania: Symphony of the Night is now available on both iOS and Google Play mobile storefronts for just $2.99, a huge fraction of the game's actual value. This is a big surprise as most Japanese publishers charge at least $10 for big legacy games. Symphony of the Night is easily one of the longest Castlevania games and will keep you busy with its Metroidvania-style nonlinear structure, with tons of RPG mechanics and exploration.

The mobile port is fully optimized with enhanced touchscreen controls, but also supports Bluetooth and wired controllers for better precision. There's some nice convenience features added in like macro-ing spells for quick execution, and save state functionality, which lets you save anywhere in the game and pick up right where you left off.