Gaming - Page 591

The director of the Super Smash Bros. series has spoken out about Super Smash Bros. Ultimate's DLC content, as well as the next Super Smash Bros. game.

Masahiro Sakurai recently took to Japanese magazine Famitsu to discuss the coming six DLC fighters to Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, and to talk about the next Smash Bros. game after Ultimate. Sakurai says that all of the DLC fighters were chosen by Nintendo and that while working on Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, he can't direct any new game idea. Sakurai also mentions that he is ok with this, as he wants to work to make other people happy, and not himself.

Sakurai also touches on if there is a new Super Smash Bros. game in development already. Sakurai says that at the moment, Nintendo currently doesn't have any plans for a new entry in the Super Smash Bros. series and that he doesn't know what will happen with the franchise yet. It's highly unlikely that Ultimate will be the last entry in the Super Smash Bros. series, especially when you consider that Ultimate is the best-selling game out of the entire series, and out of every fighting game in US history.

If you are an avid competitive gamer, then you would understand the frustration of losing after pouring your heart and soul into your game. That frustration can easily be tipped over into anger once a fellow player says the dreaded words " it's just a game".

This might not be the case for gamers who play their games casually and are in the game for the pleasure of just playing it. For competitive gamers that want to better their craft and move forward towards getting better, they invest heavy emotion into the game. Investing emotion into the game has one of two pay off. The first being the satisfaction increase of winning, and the second being the frustration of losing. This is something that is not felt if you are just playing the game casually.

This same principle can be said for any sport that is played by a competitive player. Tyler "Ninja" Belvins highlights this principle in his latest Tweet, saying, "The phrase "it's just a game" is such a weak mindset. You are ok with what happened, losing, imperfection of a craft. When you stop getting angry after losing, you've lost twice. There's always something to learn, and always room for improvement, never settle."

Only moments ago, Hideo Kojima released a new video on his Twitter account. The consensus of the video is that something new is coming to Death Stranding this year.

At the moment, there's no confirmation to whether or not there will be any DLC content for Death Stranding, as Hideo Kojima and his studio haven't announced anything since the game's release. There have been some teasers, and what has been called 'cryptic messages', but no official announcement has been made. This means fans are under the assumption that the base game is all they are going to get, but what if that isn't the case?

Hideo Kojima just took to his personal Twitter account to release the above video. While the footage in the video has been seen before, there was an added addition - "2020". This could suggest one of two things. The first being the PC release of Death Stranding arriving sometime in 2020, or follow up DLC content that will be coming sometime in 2020. Kojima gave no context for what this video means, which leaves us fans waiting on the edge of our seats for even more.

Back in late January, Nintendo held their Nintendo Direct that was dedicated to Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. Throughout that Direct, they announced that six more DLC fighters would be coming to Smash Ultimate in the form of a second Fighters Pass - Vol. 2.

Now, Masahiro Sakurai, the Super Smash Bros. Ultimate director, has taken to Japanese magazine Famitsu to reveal that Fighters Pass Volume 2 will be the last DLC content for Smash Bros. Ultimate. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate players will receive six additional fighters to close out the DLC content for Ultimate. These fighters have already been chosen by Nintendo, which means no matter what the community says, no fighter changes can be made.

This isn't really that surprising considering Super Smash Bros. Ultimate post-content support has been going for much longer than expected. It's also a major secret who these six additional fighters will be, there's been talk about Sora from the Kingdom Hearts series making it to Ultimate's roster, but that talk was shot down by rumors about Disney Japan specifically blocking his addition. This doesn't mean Sora has zero chance of making it to the roster, but it does seem very unlikely at this stage. Personally, I'd love to see Sora.

Microsoft will be packing in dedicated hardware-accelerated audio in its next-gen Xbox Series X console, which will add another layer of next-gen goodness onto its console.

It reminds me of the big push Microsoft did with its original Xbox, adding in Dolby Digital 5.1 technology which was a huge leap in audio back in the day. The new hardware-accelerated audio technology was confirmed when Microsoft teased its GDC 2020 presentation titled 'Building Audio Gateways Into Immersive Worlds With Spatial Sound'.

Microsoft explains: "Learn from the audio designers of Borderlands 3 and Gears of War 5 around how a collaboration between Microsoft, Dolby, and our middleware partners kicked off a revolution with spatial sound that turns any pair of headphones into a multi-dimensional gateway to another world. Attendees will dive deep into the audio design pipeline (Project Acoustics) and the relationship to dedicated hardware-acceleration on newer generation Xbox consoles".

CD Projekt RED is hard at work on what should be one of the biggest releases of 2020, with Cyberpunk 2077 dropping on September 17, 2020 -- but now NVIDIA has some good news to share. It was only a couple of days ago that NVIDIA announced its GeForce RTX 2080 Ti Cyberpunk 2077 Edition graphics card -- you can win one of those here.

NVIDIA has announced it will have Cyberpunk 2077 available on its newly-launched GeForce NOW game streaming service, the first day it launches. NVIDIA explains: "Cyberpunk 2077 will be available to play on GeForce Now on the day it's released. GeForce Now members will be able to grab their copy on Steam and play the game the moment it's available".

NVIDIA continues: "GeForce Now Founders members can explore the streets of Night City with RTX ON, fully optimized and instantly available, even on your Mac laptop. We're thrilled to work with CD Projekt Red to bring its eagerly-anticipated game to GeForce Now".

Before revealing gameplay footage for Halo: Infinite, 343i and Microsoft have announced NERF guns and plans to help bolster the franchise's ailing esports league.

343 Industries has big plans for Halo: Infinite's esports presence, a presence that's currently lacking a smidgen of the billion-dollar might of the Call of Duty League. The devs are teaming up with pro gaming company esports Engine to manage Halo: Infinite's competitive scene. This is an odd move on the surface, especially since the studio has yet to actually reveal any gameplay footage. The only two Halo: Infinite trailers we've been shown are a game engine demonstration at E3 2018, and a video of in-engine footage at E3 2019, not actual gameplay.

This pretty much underlines Microsoft's main goal for gaming: Engagement. The company is all-in on live services, online multiplayer, and engagement strategies that sell digital games, subscriptions, and of course microtransactions (and yes, Halo: Infinite will be monetized). Microsoft wants esports to be a part of this engagement strategy. Esports is a potent mechanism for exposure, events, and streaming viewership, all of which will tie into Microsoft's Mixer platform and make money via ad revenue and the tip system.

Sony today announced it won't be attending PAX East, and all of its plans for the show have been cancelled.

Sony is skipping PAX East to play it safe against the spreading coronavirus, which is spreading fast across the globe. The games-maker previously planned to show off key first-party games like Ghosts of Tsushima and even have a hands-on The Last of Us Part II demo, but those showcases have been scrapped. This is the second major event Sony has missed in February; first with Taipei Game Show's mandatory cancellation, and now the elective withdrawal from PAX East.

Sony gave a statement on the situation: "Today, Sony Interactive Entertainment made the decision to cancel its participation at PAX East in Boston this year due to increasing concerns related to the coronavirus. We felt this was the safest option as the situation is changing daily. We are disappointed to cancel our participation in this event, but the health and safety of our global workforce is our highest concern."

Gamestop is in trouble. It's been in trouble for a long time now as it bleeds money due to lower hardware and game sales. But the company isn't exactly making things better; higher-ups are panicking, leading to bizarre business decisions that restrict earnings in the long run.

In a new expose from Polygon, a number of Gamestop employees paint a bleak picture for the company's future. The retailer is endemic with strange business decisions that verge on the edge of mismanagement.

Store managers are tasked with lumbering responsibilities that don't actually equate to sales, like pushing phone-trade ins, many of which pester and bombard guests with offers and information. It's like going into a store for a product and only getting bombarded for advertisements for other products, but from an exasperated human who's needlessly stressed. Gamestop has been using its workforce as reverse door-to-door salesman for a while now, but the pressure has apparently gotten worse as Gamestop earnings slip, putting even more weight on managerial shoulders.

Saber Interactive is now part of THQ Nordic's massive stable of studios and game subsidiaries, which includes Deep Silver's umbrella of devs, Tarsier Studios, and indie devs like Coffee Stain.

The Embracer Group (formerly THQ Nordic) just bought Saber Interactive for $525 million in mixed cash and company shares, making it a wholly-owned subsidiary of the company. Saber, who is mostly known for World War Z, Halo: The Master Chief Collection, the Ghostbusters remaster, Killing Floor 2, and Switch ports of games like The Witcher 3 and Vampyr, was an attractive prospect because they not only have their own proprietary games engine tech but pulled in a sizable $105 million in revenues in 2019.

Saber currently employs 630 workers across 5 teams around the world and will continue as a work-for-hire studio that gleans royalty-based revenues from its projects. In fact, that's another major reason why Embracer bought the company. The parent company wants to grow Saber to 1,500 employees to take on more contracts and work on new games.

A new listing on the Steam Store has revealed that Grand Theft Auto IV will be returning back to Valve's platform under the new name of "Grand Theft Auto IV: Complete Edition".

According to the listing, the resurfaced game won't pack all of its features it had before. The listing says that starting on the 19th of March 2020, "Grand Theft Auto IV: Complete Edition will replace both Grand Theft Auto IV and Grand Theft Auto: Episodes from Liberty City wherever it is currently digitally available." It also mentions that the Complete Edition will also be playable via the Rockstar Games Launcher.

Potential buyers should also note that the game will be arriving with no multiplayer mode, no leaderboards, and no Games for Windows Live. The game will also be coming back to Steam with some in-game radio stations being "temporarily disabled". Those radio stations are; RamJam FM, Self-Actualization FM, and Vice City FM. If you are interested in any more information regarding what Grand Theft Auto IV: Complete Edition will or will not have, I've provided dot points in the entirety of this post. A link to the Steam listing can also be found here.

The first Witcher game wasn't the greatest title in the series, but it certainly put a spotlight on Geralt of Rivia. While the game hasn't aged amazingly well, perhaps a new perspective is needed to re-spark people's interest.

That's where modder Patryk Loan has come in by announcing that he plans to re-create the entire first Witcher game in virtual reality. The new project's goal is to take the entire game developed by CD Projekt Red and allow players to experience it from the first-person perspective in virtual reality.

Loan, is currently re-building the game in Unreal Engine 4 and plans to have it compatible with a range of different virtual reality headsets. At the moment it supports, Oculus, HTC, and WMR. For players that want to jump into the action now, the game only lets you explore Kaer Morhen, but Loan is working on new maps and even adding a "fully playable plot, like a Prologue".

Well, well, well... what do we have here? We have some new leaked specs on Microsoft's next-gen Xbox Series X and Sony's next-gen PlayStation 5 console. The new posts are from 4chan, so take a walk to your cupboard and pick up whatever salt you have, because you're going to need it.

The new new post is reportedly a "game tester in a 3rd party studio" that has leaked out some specs for the second version of a PlayStation 5 developer kit. The specs are interesting, as it sees the PlayStation 5 with 12.6 TFLOPs of performance from an "RDNA 1.5" GPU -- this is very interesting. It's not RDNA (Radeon RX 5000 series) and it's not RDNA2 (next-gen Radeon).

The Xbox Series X in these specs has a slightly slower 11.8 TFLOPs performance, but a higher-clocked Zen 2-based CPU at 3.7GHz (compared to 3.6GHz of the PlayStation 5). The PlayStation 5 has 18GB of GDDR6 memory while the Xbox Series X has 16GB of GDDR6, but both consoles have 4GB of DDR4 system RAM.

EA servers went down today, taking down millions of players that were either playing or wanting to play huge games like Apex Legends, FIFA 20, Star Wars Battlefront II, and more.

Gamers were being blasted with error messages logging into EA games, with Down Detector reporting the EA server outages involved connectivity and log-in problems. Apex Legends, FIFA 20, Star Wars Battlefront II and other games were all affected, with EA quick off the mark tweeting out status updates.

EA was first aware of the issue, and then thanked gamers for their patience once all was restored. Apex Legends should be back up by the time you read this, while FIFA 20 is still niggly, and the Star Wars Battlefront II team is still working on a fix.

Motion Twin confirms it plans to launch more paid and free content for their wildly successful roguelike Dead Cells.

Dead Cells fans rejoice: The latest $5 DLC expansion Bad Seed is just the beginning of a new roadmap of post-launch content coming to the Metroidvania. In a recent Reddit AmA with Motion Twin, the devs say they're far from finished with the hard-as-nails game. There's ideas for new expansions and sequels that could explore the series and break out of the side-scrolling genre.

When asked about the future of Dead Cells vis-a-vis content, Motion Twin said: "More content both free and paid... Hopefully more games in the same universe? Man dreams and time..."

Nintendo finally ends the drought with a new Animal Crossing: New Horizons Direct showcase planned for February 20.

The latest Nintendo Direct will star the furry islanders of Animal Crossing: New Horizons in a sizable 25 minute livestream. The Direct, which goes live on Thursday, February 20 at 6am PST / 9am EST (those times though), will cover a myriad of topics about Tom Nook's famous vacation package. We should expect to see more details on characters, building and crafting options, interactions with other players via co-op and online play, and the biggest of all, cloud saves.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons looks to be the ultimate relaxing palate cleanser with it's ultra-cute style and laid-back tone, but don't let that fool you: You're still in debt to Tom Nook and you've got to work your tail off to repay those bells. We should get a closer look at major gameplay mechanics--exploration, customization, etc.--and a tour through the charming tropical isle.

Halo: Infinite-themed NERF guns are coming, and purchases will unlock special in-game skins, confirming the existence of weapon cosmetics in the upcoming Halo game.

In today's Halo NERF gun reveal, 343 Industries inadvertently confirmed Halo: Infinite will have weapon skins, and we fully expect them to be monetized in some form. "Select products will also include an exclusive Halo Infinite code for unlockable game add-on content." A new Gamespot article confirms this add-on content is additional NERF weapon skins for the game.

While it's not been explicitly confirmed that buyable skins are included, it's not hard to see where Microsoft is going here. We actually saw this coming a mile away, originally predicting Halo: Infinite could have piecemeal cosmetic purchases combined with a seasonal battle pass scheme. Now that REQ packs--Halo 5's massively lucrative version of lootboxes--aren't coming back for Infinite, I expect to see layered monetization that could culminate in both cosmetic armor and weapon skins, along with the aforementioned battle pass system.

Cross-save opens up a new dimension of play for the Switch, and could help catalyze game sales while increasing play time on the handheld console.

According to NPD Group data, the Nintendo Switch is an additive system. Most Switch owners also have a PS4, Xbox One, or PC for gaming, making Nintendo's portable handheld a complementary device that lives alongside other hardware. Users simply switch (pun intended) to the handheld for on-the-go play and then jump back to other systems on a lark. Now thanks to cross-save support and cloud syncing, gamers don't have to restart their sessions every time they Switch over. Wherever they go with the Switch, their saves follow too.

Along with cross-play, the industry's most transformative feature for online play, cross-saves break down the platform barriers and alleviate one of the main frustrations with third-party re-releases on the Switch. Today's announcement of Witcher 3's PC-to-Switch cross-save support really drove this point home; before now, anyone who bought the Switcher would have to start over from scratch regardless if they had a 200-hour save on PC. After today's update, gamers can import their Witcher 3 files from GOG or Steam and seamlessly continue their progress.

The Witcher 3 on Switch now has cross-save with PC, allowing gamers to freely import their master files from GoG or Steam and play them on-the-go.

Today CD Projekt RED brought one of the most important features to the Switcher: cross-save. The new v3.6 game update lets Switcher gamers link up their GoG or Steam account and import their saves and continue Geralt's epic adventure. This was one of the biggest points of frustration for gamers who double-dipped and had to restart completely from scratch. Now that's not the case, now you can bring your hundreds-hours long game with you wherever you go (Switcher is perfect for long flights and commutes).

There's some potential issues, though. If you use a save file with mods, any issues, glitches, or bugs will transfer over to the Switch version. Also don't rename your master PC file or else the Switch Online cloud save can't access it--assuming you have an active Switch Online membership.

A new job listing by Ubisoft has highlighted that its game development studio is currently building a team for a new unannounced VR project situated around one of Ubisoft's greatest IP's.

According to the new job listing, Ubisoft is currently looking for applications for a "Narrative Designer - VR [Unannounced Project]". This person would be working on cutting-edge VR technology on what is described as "one of Ubisoft's greatest IP's." The listing also states that this new title will be developed across multiple studios and that the Narrative Designer will have to create a consistent and believable narrative structure throughout all of the dynamics of the game.

It has been known for quite some time that Ubisoft is slowly moving towards VR titles, but this is the first bit of news we have gotten in regards to those titles being on "one of Ubisoft's greatest IP's". According to The Information, Facebook has signed deals for exclusive VR games with Ubisoft on their IP's; Assassin's Creed and Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell. While this hasn't been confirmed officially yet, this job listing could be for either of those titles. Until Ubisoft officially announces something, it's all speculation, all we know for sure is that their VR titles will be on "one of Ubisoft's greatest IP's".