Gaming - Page 589

As consoles get more and more advanced, it's important that developers have access to more powerful software development tools to squeeze out every last drop of hardware might. No one knows that better than Microsoft.

Microsoft is going above and beyond with the Xbox Series X. Not only will the system have a huge 12TFLOP RDNA 2-powered Navi GPU that enables new effects like ray tracing, 8K resolution, and 120FPS gaming, but the next-gen Xbox also comes packed with massively optimized SDK dev tools for crafting new experiences. Flexible and fast software environments are just as important as hardware, and the Xbox Series X's true potential lies in the synergy between the two.

In a recent Major Nelson podcast, Xbox exec Jason Ronald reiterated just how important software is.

Riot Games will use Unity to power two of its major new League of Legends mobile games, the company today announced.

Thanks to Unity's cross-platform flexibility and intuitive network integration, Riot will use the engine for its two massive LoL mobile games including the League of Legends: Runeterra card game, and League of Legends: Wild Rift, a standalone MOBA designed from the ground up for smart devices and consoles.

"Unity's technology enables us to focus on delivering the beloved League of Legends experience to as many players across as many platforms as possible. We want to meet our players where they are, and Unity's world-class tools and platform optimization help us achieve that. With the expert support provided by Unity, we've been able to unlock the power of Unity's technology like never before," said Brian Cho, Head of Corporate and Business Development, Riot Games.

Cyber Shadow, the new rockin' retro hack-and-slash platformer from one-man indie studio Mechanical Head Studios, just got a Fall 2020 release date. And an amazing trailer.

Today Yacht Club Games' publishing arm showcased a new gameplay trailer for Cyber Shadow, a new stylish indie that we all need in our lives. If you're not convinced just check out the trailer above. Luckily we won't have to wait too long to play it.

Cyber Shadow has it all: A killer soundtrack, old-school graphics right out of an NES game, platformer action with fast-paced slice-and-dice combat, huge ridiculous monstrous bosses, a storyline straight out of a 1990s comic book, and even Shovel Knight's (well should I say Scrooge McDuck's) signature downward sword pogo bounce attack.

Final Fantasy 7 Remake and other Square Enix games won't get next-gen re-releases, and will instead rely on backwards compatibility.

Square Enix today confirmed how it will handle existing games playing on next-gen consoles. Instead of releasing two versions of its games--one for PS4 and one for PS5, for example--the publisher will simply use next-gen backwards compatibility to ensure cross-generation play. Gamers won't need to re-buy a PS5 version of Final Fantasy 7 Remake, and the PS4 version will be playable on the PlayStation 5.

In a recent Q&A session with investors, the games-maker says it won't embrace full-on next-gen exclusives any time soon. This makes sense on a business perspective given the PS4 and PS5 lifecycles will overlap. Square Enix depends on the flexibility of multi-platform sales and it's not about to simply close the door on the PS4's massive 100 million strong install base.

First there was Viewtiful Joe, then The Wonderful 101. Now there's Project GG, PlatinumGames' next wholly-original IP under director Hideki Kamiya.

PlatinumGames is on a roll. The company just announced Project GG A Go! Go!, a new hero-based game where giant mechs battle monstrous kaijus across a sprawling cityscape. The game will be directed by Hideki Kamiya and produced by Atsushi Inaba, and is the last chapter in Kamiya's superhero saga. It's also company's first-ever self-published game. This freedom lets PG live out the indie dream with total control over Project GG's direction--there's no publisher looming over their shoulder and checking every little detail.

Kamiya is careful to say that Project GG is a long ways away and that the team is inheriting lots of new hurdles and responsibilities with self-publishing.

Adult Swim Games pulled a surprise move by announcing a new Samurai Jack video game that stays authentic to the show's vibe, visual flair, and voice actors.

It's been 10 years, but Samurai Jack is returning to the video game realm. Samurai Jack: Battle Through Time is a hack-and-slash beat-em-up that aims to expand the series while keeping it super familiar for die-hard fans. It's a mix of old-school side-scrolling platforming action and 3D battle sequences, both of which seem to switch seamlessly.

We didn't get to see very much gameplay in the announcement trailer, but the game's Steam page gives some more details. Samurai Jack's latest romp has a multitude of skills to level up and weapons to master and you'll also jump to various locations and worlds straight from the show--all while trying to slice and dice your way to Aku.

Patriot might've low-key revealed the PS5's first external SSD solution for high-speed gaming and data transfers.

Patriot Gaming will publicly test out its new external Viper PXD M.2 SSD at PAX East with a PlayStation 4 to see how the drive works with consoles. And the game they're using for the test is Insomniac's Spider-Man, the same game Sony used to showcase the PS5's ultra-fast loading times.

This test could be a tease for the PlayStation 5's external storage solutions and compatibility for the console's customized SSD. Massive speed discrepancies are expected between current external HDDs and the new higher-end PCIe 4.0 SSDs found in the PlayStation 5, and Patriot's compact and lightweight 2TB PXD could be a solution to this problem.

If you are yet to play the DOOM series, and own a Nintendo Switch you are in luck. Bethesda is currently wanting to get DOOM out to many gamers as possible, and that means a crazy sale.

Bethesda is working hard on getting all of the DOOM games on the Nintendo Switch, and at the moment we already have the original DOOM, DOOM II and DOOM III. Bethesda will also be releasing DOOM 64, and DOOM Eternal on the Switch. DOOM 64 will be arriving on the handheld console on March 20th this year, the same day that DOOM Eternal releases.

Side-note - If you pre-ordered DOOM Eternal you will get a free copy of DOOM 64. Now, moving onto the current sales of the older DOOM games. Right now, on the Nintendo eShop you can pick up the original DOOM game for just $1.49, the second DOOM game is also $1.49, and finally the third is $2.99. In total, you can spend $5.97 and get all three DOOM games for your handheld console. Then if you pre-ordered Eternal you would have completed the collection!

UPDATE: A PAX representative informs us that neither CD Projekt RED nor Bluehole had planned to hold panels or show floor presences. The article has been updated to reflect this.

The looming coronavirus threat is disrupting the games industry's biggest annual events, and key players like Sony, CD Projekt RED, Capcom, and many more are skipping major trade shows like PAX East.

Following the CDC's warning to the American public, more games titans have decided to skip PAX East just days before the event. Capcom and Square Enix are no longer attending or limiting attendance at the show as a health precaution, and CD Projekt RED's and PUBG's teams are no longer coming to the event either.

Ubisoft could eventually make a F2P spin-off for cash crop shooter Rainbow Six: Siege to maximize exposure, monetization, and engagement.

Rainbow Six developers are interested in a free-to-play version of Siege to pull in more players--and more importantly, more revenue. In a recent interview with PC Gamer, game director Leroy Athanassoff said he's interested in a F2P Rainbow Six shooter.

But of course it's not up to him. It's up to Ubisoft, and the company has previously said Rainbow Six: Siege will always be a premium product in an effort to curb toxicity. "It's a company decision. I think on the development team we want that at some point. We want the game to be accessible to everyone," he said.

On the heels of a successful teaser, THQ Nordic has officially greenlit a full HD remaster of Piranha Byte's original Gothic game.

A bit ago THQ Nordic (now called The Embracer Group) released a playable teaser for a Gothic remaster. The idea was to determine if gamers were interested in a remake and gauge buying intent. The publisher wanted to know if it was worth it to remaster the old-school RPG and collected valuable feedback in a survey from the people who matter most (Gothic enthusiasts). The results were overwhelmingly positive, and 98% of the total 43,000 gamers said they wanted the remake to continue.

THQ Nordic, who now owns a wealth of IPs including the Gothic series, decided to greenlit the remaster on the strength of the survey results. It's unknown if the original devs at Piranha Bytes will be attached to the project, but it's highly likely given THQ Nordic owns the studio. The announcement post on Steam mentions opening up a new studio in Barcelona, Spain and that development will enter full swing sometime soon.

Emergency dodging returns in the new Resident Evil 3 remake, adding more heart-pumping anxiety to every encounter.

Resident Evil 3 will be a lot harder than the RE2 REmake; enemies are much more dangerous, there's lots of areas to get stuck in, and Nemesis makes Tyrant look like a baby. Luckily Jill Valentine has some serious skills at her disposal to strategically avoid and dispatch foes.

The main ability is emergency dodging, an evasion mechanic from the original game that's been massively overhauled. Jill can perform a quick and nimble over-the-shoulder roll out of harm's way by pressing R1 and the directional stick. The original game just saw you shove an enemy to avoid its grip.

Respawn exec Drew McCoy is leaving the studio after 10 years of giant mechs, battle royale chaos, and Jedi magic.

Apex Legends producer Drew McCoy recently announced he's departing Respawn Entertainment to "find new challenges." The developer has been with Respawn for 10 years, since the early days when Vince Zampella and Jason West founded the studio in 2010.

"Today marks the start of a new adventure for me. I will absolutely cherish the last 10 years I spent helping start Respawn and ship some awesome games alongside amazing people. I'll miss the people the most - the daily arguments, successes, failures, and everything in-between," McCoy said on Twitter.

Disney and Lucasfilm today announced a new sun-lit era of Star Wars set at the pinnacle of the Galactic Republic, and it could be the beginning of a big new multi-year game slate.

Now that the Skywalker saga is wrapped up, Disney is exploring a new frontier for Star Wars. The golden era is called The High Republic (previously known as Project Luminous), a glorious new age set during the height of the Jedi Order's power.

The general theme with the High Republic is optimism and exploration, a kind of revitalization of the franchise driven by multitudes of creators who are tasked with diving deep into the series' high fantasy lore.

Alan Wake was almost an episodic game with its parts sold separately, but Microsoft scrapped that plan in favor of the more traditional retail sales model.

According to Xbox exec Phil Spencer, Microsoft's original vision for Alan Wake was more like reading a book than playing through a big game. The project was almost a series of smaller bite-sized games that would've been sold and released a la carte on the Xbox Store. That really wasn't the best way to launch the game, though, and instead opted to combine everything onto one disc and release in stores.

"When we started on Alan Wake we wanted to make it an episodic game. In fact, if you play through the game you can actually kind of see the structure of the episodes in the game. You know, it's about an author writing a book and the chapters and it all kind of made sense," Phil Spencer said in a recent interview with the Game Maker's Notebook.

In an era where publishers make millions from re-selling games on new platforms, CD Projekt RED is taking a novel approach to cross-gen game purchases.

Today CD Projekt RED announced that Cyberpunk 2077's ownership will carry forward between console generations. For example, if you buy Cyberpunk 2077 on Xbox One, you won't have to re-buy it again if CDPR releases a next-gen exclusive port.

"Gamers should never be forced to purchase the same game twice or pay for upgrades. Owners of Cyberpunk 2077 for Xbox One will receive the Xbox Series X upgrade for free when available," CDPR said on Twitter.

All Xbox One games are playable on the Xbox Series X, but developers can roll out enhancement patches to upgrade current-gen games with next-gen performance.

Today Microsoft confirmed two major Xbox Series X backward compatibility features we'd predicted for a while: The next-gen console will natively upscale and play all legacy compatible games better than ever, and devs can add new forward-compatibility patches that update current-gen games to harness the full power of the system's highly-synergized hardware.

Microsoft is careful to say developers have full control on whether or not their games get enhanced on Xbox Series X. Given the console's massive power leap and capability over the Xbox One, devs have incredible potential to breathe new life into their games.

Microsoft's new Xbox Series X console will natively play all backward compatibility games better and optimize them with its boosted GPU and CPU hardware.

Today Microsoft confirmed something I've said from the beginning: Next-gen consoles are both extensions and evolutions of the current generation. The next-gen Xbox SX will play four generations' worth of Xbox games, hearkening all the way back to the OG Xbox era, all of which will play and look better than ever before.

The Xbox Series X will have its own built-in boost mode functionality that automatically and natively upscales the performance of all supported games across the Xbox, Xbox 360, and Xbox One eras. This means all games will run better on the Xbox Series X, and older titles in particular will benefit from enhanced frame rates, better load times, reduced screen tearing, and adjusted resolution.

Today Microsoft revealed more Xbox Series X specs, confirming a powerful 12TFLOP RDNA 2-powered GPU on AMD's Big Navi refresh while showing just how big the leap from current- to next-gen actually is.

Contrary to the recent leaked specs, the Xbox Series X will have a 12 TFLOP GPU that's better than any current Navi GPU on the market, reinforcing Microsoft's original "double the Xbox One X's GPU" statements. With its new heavily customized 7nm AMD SoC, the Xbox Series X's GPU is eight times as powerful as an Xbox One, and it's Zen 2 CPU is four times as powerful as the lower-end Jaguar CPU found in the original launch Xbox One.

Activision is hunting down the Reddit user who leaked out Call of Duty Warzone's artwork, and is using the Digital Millennium Copyright Act to secure the leaker's personal info from Reddit.

Activision has filed a DMCA subpoena to Reddit in an attempt to unmask Assyrian2410, the Reddit user who revealed key art for the publisher's new Call of Duty Warzone battle royale.

As The Hollywood Reporter notes, sites like Reddit aren't held liable for copyright infringement from leaks as long as they take the content down and adhere to requests made by the copyright holders--in this case, Reddit is pressured to surrender the user's digital identifiable information.