Gaming - Page 600

Memory cards are back and they're better (and more expensive) than ever. The Xbox Series X will use special memory cards to expand the console's built-in 1TB solid state drive. External hard drives are still supported, but they offer limited functionality and are locked to older games.

Microsoft has teamed up with Seagate to make special expandable memory cards for the Xbox Series X that plug into that vertical slot in the console's rear side. These cards pack fully-fledged PCIe 4.0 SSDs that're identical copies of the powerful drive used in the console. The Xbox Series X also supports current external HDDs as expandable memory. But things get a bit tricky with legacy HDDs.

Games that're optimized to use the new hardware aren't compatible with HDDs because of the huge performance disparity. Although Xbox Series X won't get exclusive games, it will offer enhancement upgrades of games that use the new high-speed SSD's DirectStorage and Xbox Velocity Architecture. Once a game is upgraded, it can hit high performance like 120FPS with ray tracing, 4K 60FPS, and more, but only if it runs from the internal SSD or the new expandable storage drives.

The Xbox Series X has baked-in boost mode functionality that will upgrade select current-gen games to run at native 4K.

Microsoft's next-gen Xbox is fully backward compatible with every Xbox One game, but it'll actually play all of these games better. Xbox Series X has two ways to boost in-game performance of older games: Native upgrades that're performed on a system level, and enhancement patches issued out by developers. What's incredible is that some first-party games will actually mix the benefits of both.

Microsoft today confirmed that select current-gen Xbox One games will be automatically boosted to native 4K resolution on UHD displays. The system's 3.8GHz Zen 2 CPU and Navi GPU-outfitted hardware handles all the work, and there's no optimizations from the developer. Devs don't have to touch their games at all and there's no downloads. The games are simply automatically upgraded by the system itself, and is part of the console's new robust software stack and expanded backward compatibility support.

Microsoft's new Xbox Series X uses a 1TB PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD to hit blazing fast speeds and open the doors to incredible new opportunities for game developers.

Today Microsoft revealed the Xbox Series X's full specs, confirming beastly hardware like a 3.8GHz Zen 2 CPU, 12.15TFLOP Navi GPU, and 16GB of GDDR6 RAM. The console's full might comes from the sum of its parts, the magical conjunction of hardware and software that allows serious performance boosts. One part, the console's new solid state drive, will help revolutionize console gaming as we know it.

The Xbox Series X uses a custom-made proprietary PCIe 4.0 SSD that's specifically designed to synergize with the rest of the system on a hardware and software level. The SSD itself is being made in partnership with Seagate and can deliver up to 4.8GB/sec compressed data transfer rates. That's 40x faster than the mechanical HDDs found in the Xbox One X. This translates to speedy load times like booting State of Decay 2 in 8 seconds versus the 30 seconds on the Xbox One X.

Microsoft today revealed the full specs of its new next-gen Xbox Series X console, and they're absolutely monstrous.

The Xbox Series X is going to revolutionize console gaming. Outfitted with a beefy 8-core 16-thread 3.8GHz Zen 2 CPU with hyperthreading, a 12.15 TFLOP Navi GPU clocked at 1.825GHz, and 16GB of GDDR6 memory, the system's raw hardware specs rival today's modern PC builds. Digital Foundry's latest deep-dive on the Xbox Series X delivers an illuminating reveal at the transformative system.

The Xbox Series X's 7nm SoC has 15.3 billion transistors, up 118% from the Xbox One X's 14nm Scorpio Engine SoC.

Gears 5 can hit Ultra PC settings with Ultra textures on the Xbox Series X, maintaining 60FPS throughout--the game is even running at over 100FPS on the console. Now we have our first look at just how impressive backward compatibility enhancement patches can get.

Current-gen first-party games like Gears 5 are already tapping the Xbox Series X's 3.8GHz Zen 2 CPU and titanic 12.15TFLOP Navi 2x GPU to deliver insane upgraded performance. Digital Foundry reports Gears 5's performance on the Xbox Series X is equivalent to that of an RTX 2080 GPU-powered PC.

In just two weeks, the Coalition got Gears 5 running at Ultra-level PC settings with high-level textures and a ton of improvements. The Coalition is working closely to get UE4 running on Xbox Series X, and have produced in-game enhancements like UE4's new ray-traced global illumination lighting effects, improved contact shadows, and even 100FPS+ gaming. The studio wants to get 120FPS in multiplayer soon.

Control, our favorite game of 2019, is getting its first expansion. And it looks just as weird as the main game.

Today Remedy launched a new gameplay trailer for Control's electrifying and ultra-weird new Foundation DLC, which is coming out on March 26 on PS4, Xbox One and PC for $15. The expansion delves into the deepest roots of the game's true star: The Oldest House, a supernatural, constantly-shifting environment that has a life of its own. The photo-realism is absolutely mind-blowing and the world is just as bizarre as ever, complete with interdimesional brutalist designs.

The Foundation DLC brings a bunch of new abilities, too. Jesse can now summon crystals to stab enemies, and even prisms that act like makeshift platforms for those stellar vertical levels. There's also a Lovecraftian boss horror from some hellish abyssal plane waiting for us.

Minecraft being one of the most popular games ever created owes its success to its vast array of creative features. Now, those creative features are being used in a way that has never been before.

Introducing, 'The Uncensored Library' a new Minecraft server that boasts freedom of the press rights. Yes, that's right, this Minecraft server is open to the global public who want to read books that contain articles that are originally censored. The people behind this project are the organization Reporters Without Borders and BlockWorks.

These groups decided to make this Minecraft server for people in countries such as Egypt, Russia, Saudi Arabia and Vietnam where censorship has taken hold. Players who jump into the server can read censored articles from Mada Masr, grani.ru, Javier Valdez, Jamal Khashoggi, and Nguyen Van Dai. According to James Delaney, the Managing Director at BlockWorks and Architect of the Uncensored Library, "The Uncensored Library is a bold use of Minecraft. It really encapsulates everything that is great about this game and the community it has created."

Many fans of the Alien franchise were dying to know what 3D Realms had in store for its now-canceled Alien game. Back in late February, 3D Realms' VP, Frederik Schreiber, revealed some most-wanted details, and now he has done it again.

3D Realms' canceled Alien game was meant to be called Aliens: Hadleys Hope, and it was originally meant to be the ultimate Aliens gaming experience. From the pitch notes, players would have been able to play as both Marines and Aliens. Marines would have to work together as a team, and each marine would have its own unique abilities and classes. As you might've expected, if players decided to play as marines, their goal would be to eliminate all aliens in sight, kill the queen and escape the planet.

If players decided to play as aliens, they would start deep underground in a terraforming facility. Players would then spawn in a facehugger and begin to view the game world through the perspective of the facehugger. The first goal when playing the Aliens was to take the first facehugger and find a colonist to give birth to the first Xenomorph. From there, players would have been able to control every alien through a HiveMind, which means players could've controlled each alien individually and swapped between all of them in real-time.

The Nintendo Switch is no doubt an impressive console that has sold very well for Nintendo. But what is fueling that success?

Well, for game developers, the foundation for the Nintendo Switch's success is the hardware that is underneath the handheld console. Until now, gamers who are enjoying playing games on their Nintendo Switch haven't been able to see what that hardware is doing while games are being played-introducing the 'Tesla, The Nintendo Switch Overlay' mod.

This new mod allows gamers to get real-time diagnostic feedback on what that hardware is specifically doing (Tegra X1 chipset). In the above video, Digitial Foundry takes this mod and runs it through several big titles on the Nintendo Switch. DOOM, Mario Odyssey, Zelda, and more titles were tested, and what they found was those game developers utilized different parts of the Tegra X1 chipset. The mod showcased the current GPU/CPU temperatures, CPU core usage, memory clock speeds, RAM usage, and thermals. On top of that, users can also overclock their Nintendo Switch.

If you haven't seen the survival mechanics coming to Star Citizen, then you might want to check that out as they sound pretty damn amazing -- and even more immersive, which are set to drop in Alpha 3.9.

Cloud Imperium Games has announced that Star Citizen Alpha 3.9 will feature the aforementioned survival mechanics, with the developer teasing that Alpha 3.9 will include support for food, third, and temperature survival. You will need to keep your fluids up, with players in Star Citizen to drink things between bottled water through to energy drinks. As for food, you'll have to find things between fruits (that you can harvest youself), burritos to canned food.

Star Citizen Alpha 3.9 will see people having to look after how much they're eating and drinking, but not too realistic that it ruins gameplay. The developer explains: "In terms of how often you should be eating/drinking - the idea behind it was to make it long enough so that it was not intrusive to the gameplay - but short enough that at least you had to eat/drink once a play session (i.e. several hours)".

So, Xbox Live is down and gamers are ripping their hair out -- especially with the world in panic lockdown mode over COVID-19 coronavirus, more gamers than ever before are at home and wanting to play games.

Microsoft has taken to its official Twitter account for Xbox Support, explaining: "We understand some users may be experiencing errors with sign in or matching making on Xbox Live, and are currently investigating". The service was down for just over 3 hours or so, with Xbox Support tweeting out again:

The tweet explains that players should "once again be able to sign in and access Xbox Live services normally". Yay!

EA has just joined the COVID-19 coronavirus lock down, where it has now limited social gatherings in an effort to "fight this pandemic". The company has said it has postponed all live game events until "the global coronavirus situation improves".

This means that EA has just temporarily halted live game events involving some of the biggest games in the world, including battle royale superstar Apex Legends. Other EA games included in the live event lockdown include the Apex Legends Global Series, FIFA 20 Global Series, FIFA Online 4 Live, and Madden NFL 20 Championship Series.

Online events will continue, with gamers and staff able to play and work remotely, respectively. EA explains: "This has been an unprecedented few days in an already unprecedented time. As the world works to limit the spread of the coronavirus pandemic, a sweeping set of societal and cultural changes are now impacting all of our daily lives. We'd like to take a moment to update all of you on what we're doing at Electronic Arts to ensure the health and wellbeing of our employees, while also making sure that everyone is able to keep playing their favorite games".

Like its predecessor, Doom Eternal will come with a built-in FPS and CPU/GPU performance overlay that shows you real-time metrics.

Doom Eternal's new id Tech 7 engine offers tons of new improvements like enabling insane 1000FPS gameplay on PC, but some familiar features are coming back too. Today Doom engine lead Billy Khan confirmed Eternal will have an in-game FPS overlay that tracks and relays GPU usage, per-core CPU load, VRAM usage, and of course frame rates. We're not sure if Doom Eternal's overlay will be more robust than Doom 2016's, but it's likely. The original game was missing vital stats like GPU and CPU temps.

Khan suggests gamers use the built-in id Tech 7 overlay and warns gamers to disable any other FPS counters while running the native overlay. "The performance metrics are back. You can display FPS, CPU time, GPU time, and much more. For optimal performance, use the idTech7 metrics over external overlays. External overlays introduce bubbles, often decreasing performance slightly."

On the heels of recent Silent Hill news, an old rumor from January that Sony wants to buy some of Konami's biggest franchises has resurfaced. But Konami is very unlikely to sell.

Sources tell Rely On Horror that Sony is funding two new Silent Hill games: A Silent Hill reboot with original series devs at the helm, and a remake of Silent Hills with Hideo Kojima as director.

Now gamers are connecting an old 4Chan rumor (now deleted) that Sony wants to buy Castlevania, Silent Hill, and Metal Gear Solid from Konami. After all, the original post did predict two new Silent Hill games, leading to others like Dusk Golem to report the same.

As studios like Naughty Dog impose merciless crunch that's hospitalizing its developers, id Software didn't crunch while making Doom Eternal.

Doom Eternal's core development team--at least the higher-ups--didn't crunch long hours readying the game for release. At least that's what creative director Hugo Martin said in a recent podcast with Joe Rogan.

"It's not really crunch. It's like a lifestyle. I live and breathe this. No one makes me stay at the office, and even when I come home I see my kids, I do my thing, and then I just do research. It sounds ridiculous but my research is that of a 13 year old. I play video games and read comic books and engross myself in pop culture because essentially what we do is make pop culture content," Martin said.

Sony Interactive Entertainment is reportedly producing and funding two new Silent Hill exclusives for PlayStation: A Silent Hills remake with Kojima Productions at the helm, and a reboot of the classic original game.

Rather than spend big on new Silent Hill games, Konami will license the IP out to Sony, sources familiar with Konami's plans tell tell Rely On Horror. Sony has two projects in the works including a Silent Hill reboot and very tentative plans for resurrecting Silent Hills with original director Hideo Kojima at the helm. Silent Hills was originally cancelled in 2015 and Konami hasn't released a big-budget game in its original IPs since then.

The sources say original Silent Hill creator Keiichiro Toyama will lead the reboot, alongside other series vets like creative designer Masahiro Ito, and Akira Yamaoka, who composed Silent Hill's soundtracks. Back in January, Ito confirmed he's currently working on a new project.

Rockstar Games is the latest AAA games dev to mandate employees work from home due to the worldwide coronavirus pandemic.

The offices of all of Rockstar's eight international game dev studios from Rockstar North to Rockstar Bangalore are now on lockdown. The billion-dollar games-maker has enacted remote work policies to safeguard against COVID-19. The studio has actually created robust tools and hardware to ensure game devs can continue their work without disruption--which is critical considering Grand Theft Auto VI is on the horizon. Rockstar titles get delayed enough as it is.

"In the interest of reducing the possible impact of COVID-19, Rockstar Games has implemented work from home policies across our international offices and studios. After significant research and consultation with our teams around the work, we began rolling out remote work solutions worldwide across the past week, and we are confident we have a robust system in place for our teams to continue their work with a minimum disruption," Rockstar said in a statement on Twitter.

When CD Projekt Red released The Witcher 3 back in 2015, gamers were stunned at just how gorgeous the game was, and you'd probably think that after five years it wouldn't give that same 'wow' reaction. Well, take a look at this...

Above is a video released onto the Halk Hogan YouTube Channel that reveals a gorgeous new mod for The Witcher 3. It completely overhauls all of the current textures The Witcher 3 has and adds in some gorgeous new ones. The mod is called 'The Witcher 3 HD Reworked Project,' and the mod offers high-quality 4K resolution textures that unlock more sharpness and overall increase object detail.

So what does the mod actually rework? Basically, everything. Terrain, rocks, water, vegetation, NPC's, animals, and much more. In the above video, you can see a side-by-side comparison of The Witcher 3's stock graphics versus the mod. If you are interested in trying this mod out for yourself, head on over to the official website and download it here. In other Witcher news, CD Projekt Red will be working on a new Witcher title after they complete Cyberpunk 2077, more on that here.

It was recently confirmed that Sony would be bringing one of its best PlayStation-exclusive titles over to PC -- Guerrilla Games' Horizon Zero Dawn.

While PC fans rejoiced at the news of a one PlayStation exclusive title coming over to PC, some PC gamers were wondering what kind of support the port would be arriving with. On the Horizon Zero Dawn Steam Community Forums, a representative for the development team confirmed that the game would be arriving with ultrawide support.

At the same time, as confirming that Horizon Zero Dawn will be coming to PC with ultrawide support, the representative also confirmed that there would be Steam Achievements. The representative also teased that more details about more features will be coming soon. At the moment, the PC port of Horizon Zero Dawn is planned for release sometime in the Summer of 2020. If you want to check out the Steam listing, a link can be found here.

The Xbox Series X's new proprietary SSD was custom-built by Microsoft for fast loading times, intuitive functionality like expanded Quick Resume, and a virtual RAM memory cache for developers.

Microsoft has confirmed our suspicions: The Xbox Series X will use a customized solid state drive tailor-made for the console. The next-gen Xbox's SSD is specifically designed to massively boost in-game load times and asset fetching speeds first and foremost, but it has some unique memory capabilities that enable new expansive features. Thanks to the new SSD, Quick Resume on the Xbox Series X will let you keep save states for multiple games at once. These save states also survive a hard system reboot.

In a recent Major Nelson podcast, Xbox director of program management Jason Ronald confirmed the next-gen Xbox will indeed use specially-made storage.