Gaming - Page 608

PUBG will be throwing in an interesting and unexpected change with its upcoming v6.1 update, with a new map called Karakin that is a 2x2km island that also introduces destructible buildings.

The new 64-player map has a huge network of underground tunnels, with a new threat called the 'Black Zone' that sees the map blasted with disasters that will take down entire buildings and towns. This means you won't be able to camp it up, as the map will evolve in real-time with the added threat of pure destruction.

PUBG's new 6.1 update will see a few different walls have proper bullet penetration, so if you know an enemy is on the other side of a particular wall, blast a magazine into it. Better yet, Karakin will also see the introduction of a new sticky bomb that can be used on breach points, as well as blasting holes in hidden areas (walls or floors).

According to a now-deleted listing from Austrian retailer Gameware, Grand Theft Auto 6 could release in 2020. But we're skeptical.

Austrian game-seller Gameware recently put up pre-order listings for GTA 6, complete with a 2020 release date. I say reports because the listings are down, and there's no links that've been backed up on internet archives, so there's no real proof the listings were there at all (they could've easily been Photoshopped). Even taking into account Gameware's history of leaking real games like Need For Speed Heat and Devil May Cry 5 ahead of their announcements, these listings don't seem accurate.

For one, the listings show Grand Theft Auto 6 being rated by AT-PEGI, or the Austrian branch of the Pan-European Gaming Information ratings board. Of course no listing for GTA 6 exists on the website.

Epic Games today announced the Icon Series, a new rollout of purchasable skins for popular streamers, YouTubers, and content creators.

Fortnite is no stranger to breaking the fourth wall. The game has served as a powerful advertisement billboard for movies and franchises like Star Wars, Batman, and John Wick, and even held its own exclusive in-game concert. These tactics have been extremely valuable by engaging the game's 250 million-strong userbase. Now the battle royale sensation continues smashing the fourth wall by injecting big influencers into its game.

Ninja, the most popular Fortnite streamer on the planet, is the first to be immortalized in the game with his very own skin. Fortnite players can become Ninja starting on Thursday but no pricing has been revealed (possibly $10 or more). Other content creators like late night female streamer Loserfruit and popular Spanish YouTuber Grefg are next in line to receive Fortnite skins.

Some new ratings have appeared online in regards to 2K's BioShock series. According to the new ratings BioShock The Collection will be making its way over to Nintendo Switch.

The new ratings have been found on this website, and according to the listings, the Nintendo Switch will be blessed with the BioShock Collection. The listing also reveals some other titles which have been rated; those titles include; BioShock 1 Remastered, BioShock 2 Remastered, and BioShock Infinite: The Complete Collection.

At the moment, 2K Games hasn't made any official announcements regarding the BioShock series heading over to Nintendo Switch, but seeing the games be rated is a very good sign it's happening. We cannot confirm that 2K will port the games soon, but if an official announcement is made, I will be sure to follow up with another post detailing it.

Nintendo has finally announced what every Super Smash Bros. Ultimate player has been wondering - "when is the next DLC fighter going to be revealed?"

The news has come from the official Nintendo Versus Twitter account, which states that Super Smash Bros. Ultimate director Masahiro Sakurai will be taking the helm once again for an in-depth look at the new fighter. The live stream will clock in at about 35 minutes long, and throughout the stream, Sakurai will delve into the new character's move set, abilities, advantages, disadvantages, and what players can overall expect from the new fighter.

So who is the 5th DLC fighter? Well, no one officially knows, but rumors and speculation are now pointing towards Dante from the Devil May Cry series. The speculation behind Dante is because Devil May Cry 3 is releasing on the Nintendo Switch soon and that the Devil May Cry Twitter account Tweeted out to fans to "mark these dates on your calender's January 16". January 16 is the same date as the DLC fighter reveal. So it would kind of make sense? Either way, we will just have to wait patiently before confirming anything. Who do you hope makes it into Smash Ultimate?

No gamer likes to hear that the game they are most anticipated for is being delayed by a few months, but what if that delay is necessary?

Crystal Dynamics has announced on the official Marvel's Avengers Twitter account some unfortunate news for fans. The release date for Marvel's Avengers is being moved from May 15th to September 4th. Why is this happening? According to the Twitter thread, Crystal Dymanics states that it's been their ambition to deliver the ultimate Avengers gaming experience and for them to do that they are going to need more time for "fine tuning and polishing the game to the high standards out fans expect and deserve".

Judging on the fans responses in the Twitter thread, most, if not all of the fans are more than happy to wait for a completely polished title than receiving some half-baked game that barely works and is overall a disapointing experience. The main thing that gamers can appreciate is the communication between the developer, publisher and the community. The more communication, and the more that the community is informed the less backlash developers and publishers receive when delays unfortunately happen.

The Epic Store has made over $608 million in total revenues to date, but less than half of that is actually from game sales.

Epic just revealed some surprising figures on its new storefront. The Epic Games Store is doing quite well and has amassed $608 million in accumulated spending over the last year or so. But there's one catch: Only 39% of that, or $251 million, was made from third-party game sales. The other $357 million was generated from Fortnite microtransactions on PC (for reference, Fortnite earned $1.8 billion on all platforms in 2019).

Remember the Epic Games Store isn't just a marketplace but also a launcher for the industry's most lucrative battle royale sensation. So all of those numbers--earnings and active users--are mixed together. It's no different than Counter-Strike GO, Team Fortress, or DOTA 2 on Steam.

In early 2019, I proclaimed Capcom as the masters of horror. This new Resident Evil 3 Remake trailer ups the ante with more action and thrills.

Capcom just dropped a new Resident Evil 3 Remake trailer and it's giving me all kinds of anxiety. The footage conjures up flashback from the PS1 original where Nemesis relentlessly tracks your movements through a ruined hellscape city full of undead. Tyrant was bad and constantly made you feel like prey, but Nemesis is worse...much worse. Capcom says he's more unpredictable and dangerous...and the trailer really highlights this. Nemesis is crashing through roofs when you least expect it, and smacking everything with his wicked tentacle whip.

The latest trailer also confirms the terrifying hybrid hunter monstrosities are back to wreck your day. To supplement the footage, Capcom dropped a ton of screenshots for friendly faces like Carlos Oliveira, Bad Vickers, and a handful of other U.B.C.S operatives, as well as undead terrors like Nemesis and the freakish hunters.

Doom Eternal isn't just the best Doom game id has ever made, but their best game altogether. That's a pretty tall order, but it looks like id can deliver.

id Software is teasing big things for its new brutal demon-slaying shooter. Not only will Doom Eternal deliver insane next-gen FPS carnage with ultra-smooth frame rates, but it'll do with the best-looking graphics id's new revamped engine is capable of. The delay will apparently be well worth the wait.

"DOOM Eternal is the best game we have ever made," id lead engine programmer Billy Khan said on Twitter.

Gamestop is being squeezed further by digital game sales and subscriptions, but their Q3 losses are actually substantially lower than last year's.

Gamestop is having a rough time. Its financial losses have forced closures of stores nationwide, and even overseas EB Games stores. As more stores close, Gamestop's hold on the physical game sales market shrinks. It seems to be a lose-lose for the retailer.

There's a silver lining though. Yes, Gamestop is still losing money, but it's losing less money than last year. In its recent Q3'20 financial report, Gamestop confirmed net losses of $83.4 million, representing a huge 83% reduction in net losses from last year's disastrous $488.6 million net loss. Despite reporting a 25.7% decrease in total global sales during the critical holiday months, Gamestop managed to rake in $1.4 billion in the three-month period.

Final Fantasy 7 Remake has been delayed again, this time to April 2020, putting it firmly against CD Projekt RED's Cyberpunk 2077.

Today Square Enix confirmed Final Fantasy 7 Remake has been pushed back a few weeks past its original March 20 release date. The game will now launch on April 10, 2020 on PlayStation 4. The dev team simply wants more time to optimize the experience for the current PlayStation family of consoles.

"In order to ensure we deliver a game that is in-line with our vision, and the quality that our fans who have been waiting for deserve, we have decided to move the release date to April 10, 2020," FF7 Remake producer Yoshinori Kitase said in a recent update.

If you are a big Harry Potter fan and also find yourself spending hours in Minecraft enjoying some building, then you are in luck as you can go to Hogwarts if you like.

The Floo Network has posted a new video to their YouTube Channel that reveals what can only be considered as a Harry Potter fan's dream, but playable in Minecraft. Players can attend the School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, cast spells, learn new ones, traverse the halls of Hogwarts, complete quests/puzzles, explore a Harry Potter-themed map, trade-in Diagon alley and find new items.

Players will also be able to explore famous locations that were present throughout the Harry Potter series, such as the Quidditch fields, Hagrid's house, the Weasley house, and more. This isn't just a small "map" added to Minecraft. This is more like an entire new Harry Potter game inside of Minecraft. It would have taken the creators of this map hundreds if not thousands of hours to create this map at this level of detail. At the moment, we don't know when it's going to release, but we do know that it will be released for free.

The bushfires that are currently sweeping across Australia have ravaged not only people's homes but many square miles of wildlife. Infinity Ward has recognized this and is going to be donating 100% of the proceeds of a DLC pack to the countries recovery.

In a new Twitter post on the official Infinity Ward Twitter account, the studio announced that as a part of their efforts to support the rebuilding of what the bushfires caused they will be "donating 100% of Activision's net proceeds from each purchase of the "Outback" pack." In the Twitter post, they detail that they have renamed the pack to the "Outback Relief Pack" and that until January 31st, all purchases from all platforms will be donated.

For those who have already purchased the pack, Activision has said that your purchases will be counted as a donation. So how much is the "Outback Relief Pack"? Activision has priced the pack at 1,8000 CoD points, which equates to about $20. The pack includes new skins such as the Bushranger operator skin, a koala charm, and some other cool little cosmetics. Please support the bushfires in Australia. They have caused terrible damage to not only people and their lives but also the land. Every little bit helps.

There's no doubt that online gaming has a big stigma that surrounds it; harassment, flaming online, hacking and bullying. Sometimes that isn't all that happens though, and sometimes online gaming can save lives.

January 2nd could of ended a whole lot worse for 17-year-old Aiden Jackson who lives in the United Kingdom town of Widnes. While he was gaming with his 20-year-old friend Dia Lathora who is located in Texas, they were speaking to each other in a call and then Jackson suddenly stopped talking. In panic, Lathora attempted to ask Jackson if he was ok, and there was no reply, she then proceeded to do something amazing.

Lathora decided to call emergency services in Jackson's area, "When he didn't respond I instantly started to look up the emergency number for the EU." She managed to get into contact with Jackson's local emergency services, which rushed to his house and surprised his confused parents. The police and Jackson's parents found Jackson upstairs having a seizure. Jackson said to Sky News, "Next thing I knew, I was waking up with police and my parents in my room, saying that I'd just had a seizure".

At the start of October 2019, the developers behind Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story + Bowser Jr.'s Journey had to opt-out of game development due to poor sales. Since then, the Mario & Luigi series has taken a bit of a back seat until now.

According to a new trademark filed by Nintendo America found by LetsGoDigital, the Mario & Luigi series might not necessarily be completely dead. The new trademark has been filed in Argentina for new Mario & Luigi "Computer game cartridges; game memory cards; computer game software; video game memory cards; interactive entertainment software to play video games; covers for mobile phones."

It should be noted that this trademark covers "mobile phones", which could mean that the next Mario & Luigi game (if there is one being developed) could be a mobile-based game that isn't arriving on the Nintendo Switch. Hopefully, Nintendo does bring back the series as its been going since the Game Boy Advance generation back in 2003. If Nintendo is making a new Mario & Luigi game, would you like to see it on the Nintendo Switch or mobile? In my personal opinion, I'd prefer it on the Nintendo Switch if it's still going to play like the original games.

Untitled Goose Game is one of those unique titles out there, and is a simple yet extremely effective creation from indie developer House House. But why is it so successful?

The games composer, Dan Golding is scratching his head at this question as in a recent interview he expressed that it is has been "kind of weird" since the game has reached extreme levels of success. The games co-creator Nico Disseldorp said after the game sold 100,000 copies that the studio can "go on and keep making video games as long as we like now". The title recently passed 10x those sales with 1 million copies sold.

In an interview with GamesBeat, Golding said that "It was this weird, several stage process where for the first few days, almost the first whole week, we're like, 'Yeah, cool, people like this game. That's great. It's getting good reviews'. Then I remember one morning I woke up and Chrissy Teigen had tweeted out a photo of her and John Legend [buying the game] and was just - I have no frame of reference to understand what's happening. And I still don't, really. It's just been kind of weird from then on out."

Today Sony confirmed it won't be at E3 2020, and neither will the PlayStation 5, lining up with inside sources and our suppositions. Instead Sony plans to host and attend hundreds of events to showcase PlayStation's present and future.

It's official: Sony is skipping E3 2020, making it the second time in the last two decades it missed the event. Sony announced the news to GamesIndustry.biz with a statement that promises big things for PlayStation throughout the year. It's just these things won't include E3. There was no announcement of the rumored PlayStation 5 reveal event in February, though.

"After thorough evaluation SIE has decided not to participate in E3 2020. ...We do not feel the vision of E3 2020 is the right venue for what we are focused on this year.

Those Assassin's Creed Ragnarok Amazon listings were made as bait to lure out "unprofessional games journalism".

Photo: Michael Weisheim Beresin

Twitter user xJ0nathan confesses to making fake Amazon listings for the new viking-themed Assassin's Creed. The bogus pre-order listing was made simply to see how many websites would report on it without tracing the image back to the source, who revealed the images were fake just a day later. The whole thing is a scathing critique on games reporting.

Game Pass is one of the most potent and transformative forces in the games industry right now. It benefits Microsoft by selling games and keeping subs active, but also has a massively positive effect for developers.

Game Pass gives developers one of the most vital pieces of the game-selling puzzle: Visibility. The subscription offers such a wide breadth of content and gamers are eager to sample everything from AAA hits to obscure indies they never heard of. This accessibility to games is extremely beneficial to independent developers because it actually helps them sell more games--Game Pass sparks full game sales--while earning money from being on Game Pass to begin with. This level of engagement affords a kind of freedom that fosters a new level of creativity and innovation.

According to Outer Wilds developer Mobius Digital, Game Pass allows devs to buffer risks while making the games they actually want to make. Having this level of exposure mitigates the potential downside of making weird and eccentric games.

Six months after launch, Bethesda optimizes its multiplayer-driven Wolfenstein game for NVIDIA's raytracing tech.

Raytracing is a game-changer that breathes a new level of immersion and visual quality in specific games. We've seen it in Control, whose reflections are absolutely dazzling with RTX on, and now the same enhancements are coming to Wolfenstein: Youngblood.

MachineGames today released a patch that not only tightens up frame rates and optimizations across the board, but adds in RTX support. The game is kind of a strange choice for raytracing--it's a game based around co-op multiplayer and engagement where fidelity doesn't necessarily matter as much as it would in singleplayer FPS titles--but it's nonetheless a shooter set in a kind of small-scale, verticalized world with a stylized Nazi-occupied 80's vibe. So there's plenty of opportunities to show off the new lighting and reflection effects.