Gaming - Page 602

There's a rumor going around that Rocksteady is developing a new Superman game, and it'll be exclusive to the Xbox Series X. This isn't happening.

Rocksteady's new project has yet to be announced, but we know one thing: It's not a Superman game. Way back in 2018, studio co-founder and creative director Sefton Hill officially confirmed Rocksteady isn't making a Superman game.

Reports indicate Rocksteady's game will instead be a live-service based Justice League with monetized online play, in which of course Superman could still show up. But the game won't be centered around the Son of Krypton.

UPDATE: As of February 12, Cold Iron Studios is still working on the Alien game.

A new Alien multiplayer online shooter has been in development for years now, but the studio that's making it is about to get sold. Twice.

Back in September 2019, we reported that Cold Iron Studios, the devs behind the new unannounced Alien MMOFPS, could get sold. I predicted this could lead to significant disruptions for the game's development, namely with delays or even an outright cancellation. Now those reports have come true: Disney is selling FoxNEXT, the label that includes Cold Iron Studios.

A new GDC 2020 survey shows devs are interested in making next-gen games, but not very many of them actually are currently working on projects for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X. PC remains the platform of choice for most projects.

According to the new GDC 2020 State of the Industry report, roughly 11% of respondents (or 440 developers) are making games for Sony's next-gen PlayStation 5, and only 9% of surveyors are developing for Xbox Series X (or about 360 developers). That means all of these creators currently have PS5 and Xbox SX devkits and are becoming more familiar with the next-gen Navi GPU and Zen 2 CPU-powered hardware setups.

The last bit of data is particularly interesting considering Microsoft won't release any Xbox Series X exclusives for at least two years. This means the next-gen Xbox projects won't release for quite some time--or possibly hints at a forked SKU with dual releases on both Xbox One and Xbox Series X systems.

A new Knights of the Old Republic game is back in development at EA, sources tell Cinelinx.

Back in 2017, there were rumblings of a KOTOR remaster being made at BioWare Austin, the team behind The Old Republic MMO. In actuality the team--along with every other BioWare branch--was working hard on the studio's new IP Anthem. KOTOR had been put on hold, if it had even been in development at all.

Now sources say the KOTOR project has been resurrected. The game will apparently be a sequel with strong spiritual successor elements, borrowing from the original duo's canon and may feature distinct RPG mechanics to boot. EA's shift away from live Star Wars games may have a lot to do with this decision, especially with Jedi: Fallen Order's landmark success as a singleplayer-only action game.

It was only a week ago that we heard about another massive Steam sale being in the pipeline. Now, that sale has arrived, and it has slashed prices on a variety of different games.

Introducing, Steam's Lunar New Year sale that will give Steam users the opportunity to open free gifts for every day of the sale. Steam sales usually run for a couple of weeks, but this time around the Lunar New Year sale will only be running for four days. Each day that a Steam user visits the Steam Store, they will be able to open a free gift that contains some rat coins and a part of a story.

The coins can be used to purchase event-exclusive items such as "profile backgrounds, mini-profile backgrounds, chat room effects, chat stickers, and more." Now, let's move onto what PC gamers have come here for -- cheap games. At the moment, there are some fantastic titles heavily discounted; examples include; Hitman 2, Hunt: Showdown, Dark Souls III, Human Fall Flat, Total War: Three Kingdoms, Assassin's Creed Odyssey, Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition and more. I have provided screenshots of the sales and a link to the store in the entirety of this post.

Rocket League is known for his cross-platform combatability, but now that seems to be coming to a close as the developer has announced its ending support for two platforms.

In a recent blog post on the Rocket League website, Psyonix has announced that it will "no longer viable for us to maintain support for the macOS and Linux (SteamOS) platforms". This March, Psyonix will be rolling out the last patch for the game that will ultimately kill online support for Rocket League with these platforms.

The post says that the game will still be able to be loaded into and offline Local Matches and Splitscreen will still be accessible, but anything to do with online won't. In the entirety of this article I have listed out in dot point form what aspects of Rocket League will still be usable after the update, and what features won't.

During an earnings call with NBCUniversal's parent company Comcast, it was revealed that Super Nintendo World wouldn't open until at least 2023.

Super Nintendo World is arriving at Universal Studios' theme park in Japan closer to the end of this year. While that might sound disappointing for western fans, don't worry, the Mario-themed world is also coming to the United States in Universal's upcoming theme park Epic Universe. The theme park is planned to be built in Orlando, Florida, and doesn't expect to be ready until 2023.

Thomas Williams, NBCUniversal CEO of Universal Parks & Resorts, said back in September that the Nintendo-theme park will come to both Hollywood and Orlando, but he never specified on when that time would be. Fun fact - The Super Nintendo World in Universal Studios in Japan is rumored to cost up to $544 million to build. The world is also set to have a real-life Super Mario Kart ride as well as Yoshi's Adventure ride.

Red Dead Redemption 2 was one of the biggest releases of last year, and now we have some data that highlights its success on the PC -- and more so, its boosted success on Steam.

SuperData's latest report shows us that Red Dead Redemption 2's sales more than doubled once it reached Steam, with SuperData's report also shows that Rockstar Games' announcement that it was coming to Steam meant that people held off buying it on the Epic Games Store.

The report reads: "Digital unit sales more than doubled from 406K in November to 1.0M in December. The game became available on Steam on December 5, one month after releasing elsewhere including the Epic Games Store and Rockstar Games Launcher. This brief exclusivity window was advertised in advance, so many players simply waited a short period to play the game on their preferred launcher".

Microsoft's new Xbox Series X is getting more and more detailed, with a new video from Italian designer and newly-minted LetsGoDigital staffer Giuseppe Spinelli now made into gorgeous 3D renders.

My previous post on the Xbox Series X renders from LetsGoDigital had USB Type-C connectors, but these new ones do not. These renders, if you'll notice, see the USB Type-A port on the front of the Xbox Series X console is not labelled 'SS' which means it is not a SuperSpeed port.

On the back of the Xbox Series X render we have a HDMI output, 2 x USB ports (both SuperSpeed), an Ethernet connector, digital optical audio output, and the power connector at the bottom.

Sony is working on a new horror IP for its next generation PlayStation 5 console, with new rumors teasing that the new horror game is being worked on "by a very well respected horror game director".

The new rumor is coming from entertainment insider Emre Kaya, who looks to have a fresh contact at Sony and some big, big news. The new "horror IP" is headed to the PlayStation 5, but the follow-up tweet with a GIF of legendary (and PlayStation exclusive) game developer Hideo Kojima is a huge hint.

This isn't confirming that Kojima himself is making the new game, but we could see a next-gen version of Silent Hills for example. Whatever it is, a new horror game with a totally next-gen console that has all sorts of new technology and features that will provide some of the best lighting, shadows, and possibilities in a game yet? Color me excited.

In four years time, Eric Barone's charming pixellated farming sim has become a titan in the games industry, conquering other indies on sales charts and even beating some AAA games too.

Stardew Valley has sold over 10 million copies across its six available platforms, making it one of the most successful indie titles in gaming. The figure was nonchalantly added to the game's presskit page: "Since release, the game has sold over 10 million copies worldwide."

These numbers are absolutely massive for any game, whether it be an independent creation like Barone's or a high-budget AAA RPG like Final Fantasy XV (yes, Stardew Valley beat FFXV's sales and even Battlefield V's). Sure it helps that Stardew Valley is sold on practically every device you can play games on, including Switch, PC, consoles, and mobile phones, but the game's Harvest Moon-esque charm has enraptured and engaged millions worldwide.

Modern Warfare has pulled in over $78 million from digital spending one month, proving Activision's new anti-season pass model for Call of Duty is doing tremendously well.

Call of Duty's new monetization scheme is pulling in serious cashflow. According to analyst firm SuperData, Modern Warfare made $78.8 million from player spending on microtransactions and battle passes across consoles and PC. The game generated these revenues in December alone, putting it just $20 million shy of what Black Ops 4 made in an entire quarter.

Modern Warfare conquered December 2019's top-grossing charts, marking a dynamic shift for the franchise insofar as digital in-game purchases. Activision has invested tremendously in this new engagement model, which sees lootboxes being eradicated and content being added to the game for free with exclusive features like skins and CoD Points gated off by battle passes.

Hideo Kojima wants to stay busy in between big game releases, and plans to create smaller-scale projects to fill the void.

Kojima games typically take a long time to make. Metal Gear Solid V took about 5 years to make, and Death Stranding was in dev for roughly 4 years. That's a long time not to release anything, especially for an indie studio. Kojima wants to change that and plans to focus on shorter episodic experiences in between huge AAA titles. But what exactly will Kojma Productions work on?

Speaking to Famitsu, Kojima says he's open to creating all sorts of things--even manga and anime. This isn't the first time Kojima has talked about transmedia content. A bit ago he said KojiPro would make smaller films, possibly kicking off a whole new era of interactive film-game hybrids for Sony's new PlayStation Productions label.

Housemarque turns 25 this year, and to celebrate they plan to reveal their big new game that's been 3 years in the making.

Resogun and Alienation dev Housemarque has spent the last few years working on a singular project, and secured a big partner to help make it happen. Now in Summer 2020 that game will be revealed. The indie team is mostly known for making smaller-scale games for PS4, but this new experience aims to break into AAA territory with huge ambitions. The new project is actually so big that Housemarque has everything else on hold, including Stormdivers.

"We are working on our biggest and most ambitious title yet and have amazing support from our yet-to-be announced partner," said Housemarque CEO Ilari Kuittinen. "We have now spent almost three years working on this game, and now we are in full scale production and super excited to reveal more in the coming months."

Daybreak Game Company, the team behind a number of free-to-play hits like Everquest II, today announced a new three-pronged plan to handle its biggest franchises.

Daybreak (formerly Sony Online Entertainment) has formed three new game studios that will each initially focus on one game at a time. First there's Dimensional Ink Games, who will continue supporting the popular DC Universe Online MMORPG with tons of free content updates. The studio is being helmed by Star Trek Online and Neverwinter alum Jack Emmert.

Daybreak's second studio is Darkpaw Games, who will continue supporting Everquest I & II with updates, as well as work on a brand new Everquest title. "Darkpaw's mission is to continue to expand upon the unique and amazing fantasy adventure that is EverQuest and EverQuest II and develop the next innovation for the franchise."

Nintendo has announced the next major update for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, update 7.0.0. This new update will contain the next DLC fighter Byleth and a bunch of changes.

Nintendo has been following the pattern of adding a new DLC fighter with each significant update that rounds off to a whole number. For example, update 3.0.0 contained Joker, 4.0.0 contained Hero, 5.0.0 had Banjo & Kazooie, and 6.0.0 had Terry Bogard. It only makes sense that Nintendo is going to be following the same sequence, and considering Nintendo said that Byleth would be released on January 28th, I'd say that's when patch 7.0.0 will drop.

It's not unusual for Nintendo to make some fighter tweaks when adding in a major update as well. Nintendo does usually make slight changes to a range of different characters as well as fixes some bugs that may have been noticed by either players or the development team. I will follow up with another article when Byleth drops and all the tweaks that Nintendo makes to the rest of the cast, if there is any.

Nintendo's director behind Super Smash Bros. Ultimate announced via his personal Twitter account that throughout 2019 he managed to complete 242 PlayStation games.

Sakurai is known for his dedication towards video games, and not just in the development side of things either. Sakurai is an avid gamer, and this announcement is surprising because it proves that he doesn't just play Nintendo games either. In the Twitter thread, a follower of Sakurai's "PushDustIn" translated what the post says. Here's the translation "Sakurai has played 242 PlayStation games".

The post is taken from PlayStation's official 2019 wrap up, and something to consider is if Sakurai managed to finish 242 PlayStation games on the PS4, then how many did he do on the Nintendo Switch or PC? Unfortunately, Sakurai didn't mention what games he enjoyed the most, but we do now know that Sakurai's passion for gamers is almost unmatched.

Infinity Ward has just pushed out the latest huge update to Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, with the new patch including the Crossbow -- for free. Not bad at all.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare's new update sees the exciting new crossbow introduced as a deadly one-hit kill weapon, it is treated like a marksman rifle. If you want to earn the crossbow, you'll need to compete a marksman rifle-related challenge. The best ain't free, ya know? The new update doesn't just have the crossbow, there's also more going on under the COD:MW update hood.

Infinity Ward has squished a bunch of bugs, fixed player collisions (something that's been pissing gamers off since it was "accidentally" added") and even another 5 new custom loadout slots for multiplayer. The game mode rotation should "work properly" after the launch, and a bunch more you can read about here.

Valve hosted a Reddit AMA highlighting a bunch of new details on Half-Life: Alyx for us to goss over, with the team saying that the game is completely finished.

Valve said: "With the exception of some tweaks to the absolute final scene, the game is done. Lots of us at Valve, as well as playtesters, have played through the entire game multiple times. Right now we're primarily polishing and fixing bugs, which is where we'd hope to be at this point in the development cycle. We're confident we'll hit our intended release. (We let the Valve Time happen before we announced Half-Life Alyx)".

This is great to see, as it means Half-Life: Alyx should be one of the only AAA games of the last few years that hasn't been delayed. It's right around the corner, with the developer making all Half-Life games free-to-play ahead of Half-Life: Alyx's launch.

Valve has just completed a Reddit AMA session for Half-Life: Alyx, where the world has found out a bunch of new details on what should be the best VR game ever released. To bring you up to speed, check out the Half-Life: Alyx announcement trailer below:

One of the most concerning things about Half-Life: Alyx is whether it will be delayed from its March 2020 release, and the answer to that is: no. Valve confirmed the news during its Reddit AMA, saying: "With the exception of some tweaks to the absolute final scene, the game is done. Lots of us at Valve, as well as playtesters, have played through the entire game multiple times".

The developer continued: "Right now we're primarily polishing and fixing bugs, which is where we'd hope to be at this point in the development cycle. We're confident we'll hit our intended release. (We let the Valve Time happen before we announced Half-Life Alyx)".