Gaming - Page 651

Expect more of Bethesda's biggest franchise to get mobile ports. The publisher is far from finished with gaming's most lucrative platform.

Bethesda has transformed from a singleplayer-driven publisher to a live service curator. A big part of that is mobile, especially revenue-pushers like the free-to-play Fallout Shelter and Elder Scrolls Blades, the latter of which made over $1.5 million from microtransactions in a single month.

Since it's making tons of money, Bethesda won't just stop making free-to-play mobile ports of its IPs. Bethesda just bought out the mobile game devs at Alpha Dog Games to help develop "new and exciting titles for iOS and Android devices."

Now that Call of Duty: Modern Warfare is here, Infinity Ward have pushed out the usual and common day-one patch with the new one for COD:MW including some PC-specific changes.

The new day-one patch includes a bunch of stuff, but starting with the PC-specific additions to Call of Duty: Modern Warfare's first patch include HDR support and the ability to use NVIDIA Highlight in multiplayer matches.

Another issue solved is an annoying FOV issue that saw the FOV reverted back to its original setting before you loaded into a round, and the ADS transition animations looking a bit funky when the frame rates were too high.

Twitch just lost another big streamer in as many days, this time with King Gothalion's departure to Mixer.

The Influencer Wars are in full swing right now. Big platforms like Amazon's Twitch and Microsoft's Mixer are duking it out for gaming's biggest streamers. Microsoft waved around its billions to woo streaming titan Ninja over to the platform, kicking off an exodus from Twitch. Now it's inspiring other big Twitch streamers to leave with more lucrative deals.

Just a few days ago Shroud left Twitch to hop to Mixer, and now variety streamer King Gothalion has also dropped Twitch in favor of Mixer.

EA's exclusivity route with Origin isn't working as intended. Despite including big hits like Battlefield V as they come out, Origin Access Premiere isn't attracting subscribers. Exposure and accessibility is becoming more important as the company faces the realities of subscription saturation and a fractured market, so we should expect to see newer EA games on Steam very soon.

A bit ago a rumor popped up that EA would bring its games back to Steam. Now EA strongly hints that it will indeed happen with a new Tweet of a steaming cup of coffee. It's not hard to read between the lines.

So why would EA jeopardize its Origin client? They spent years filling it out and locking games exclusively behind it. EA also gets to keep 100% of all revenues generated on the platform. The answer is simple: Steam has a huge 100 million-strong MAU userbase and EA wants more money.

Contrary to previous reports, Overwatch 2 will apparently get new heroes alongside a PVE mode and other updates.

More sources say Overwatch 2 is coming with a new PVE story-driven mode as well as an RPG-like leveling system. Sources tell esports insider Rod Breslau that Overwatch 2 will be unveiled at Blizzcon 2019, complete with the new four-player co-op campaign setting. The mysterious AI-robot Echo will also be the new hero debuting in Overwatch 2, documents acquired by ESPN confirm.

Details on the leveling system remain fuzzy, but the report notes that a talents system is coming to the game, possibly with new active abilities and passive bonuses. Monetization is expected to be preserved as cosmetic-based.

With Death Stranding finished and ready to ship, Hideo Kojima's team is working on the next project...and it could be a creepy spiritual successor to P.T.

Like a film director for movies, Hideo Kojima has lots of ideas for new games. In fact, the Metal Gear Solid creator says he's already making his next game, and it could be a more immersive horror experience that expands on the infamous P.T. demo for Silent Hills. In an in-depth interview with Rocket Beans Gaming, Kojima talks about film-making aspirations, confirms his next project is in early planning phases, and discusses why he wants to make a terrifying horror game one day.

"I don't want to stop making games. But I want to create something like a short film or movie in-between. But I'm kind of working on the next project, so it's really difficult to focus on other mediums, but of course I really am interested," Kojima said in the interview.

Jump into a real western gunslinger on the handheld console this year, as Call of Juarez: Gunslinger has been announced for the Nintendo Switch.

Call of Juarez is a first-person western shooter that was originally released back in 2006 for the PC and Xbox 360. The title was developed by Techland and they have now officially announced that it will be making its way over to the Nintendo Switch before the end of the year.

The announcement comes from the official Call of Juarez Twitter account where they say the following: "Become the best Gunslinger the world has ever seen in this epic adventure filled with the Old West greatest legends. Coming December 10th, enhanced for Nintendo Switch." It should also be noted that when Call of Juarez arrives on the Nintendo Switch it will be coming with Switch motion controls and HD rumble. Call of Juarez will shoot out onto the Nintendo Switch December 10th.

It was only a couple of days ago that The Outer Worlds made its way over to the Xbox One, PS4 and PC. Now the companies behind the title have announced that the Nintendo Switch will also be getting its own version.

According to Private Division, the publisher of the title and Obsidian Entertainment the developer, The Outer Worlds will be flying over to the Nintendo Switch sometime next year. The news has come from an official press release from both the companies but unfortunately the press release didn't detail an official release date.

Here is what the press release said, "Today, Private Division and Obsidian Entertainment are proud to announce that The Outer Worlds is now available across the Xbox One family of devices, including Xbox One X, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 4 Pro, and Windows PC, and will be coming to Nintendo Switch in 2020."

If you have played a Zelda game, you would understand the mystical and enchanting world of Hyrule. Well, an artistic has now captured that mysticism in an amazing topographical wooden map.

The artist named Mason Drumm decided to pick the incredible landscape of 2017's The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. Drumm contacted Kotaku with images, and also gave a statement for how he went about creating such amazing work. To summarize from the statement, Drumm says the Breath of the Wild map was his "most ambitious woodworking project to date".

Drumm also says that he spent hundreds of hours playing Breath of the Wild with his wife, and that this is what inspired him to complete the project which took him over 65 hours of work, six weeks of his time. In the entirety of this article I have provided the rest of the images that were taken, and from them you can really see the exquisite detail that has gone into the maps recreation.

Diablo IV's first character has been outed, but it's not a class. Lilith, the daughter of Hatred, will return for Diablo IV.

A new Diablo artbook is spoiling some Diablo IV details ahead of the game's official Blizzcon 2019 reveal. Thanks to the book, we know Lilith, the Queen of the Succubi, mother to all nephalem, and the daughter of Prime Evil Mephisto (aka the Lord of Hatred, aka good MF running boss), will be a demonic boss in the new game.

There's no actual screenshot of how Lilith will appear in Diablo IV, just some concept art. We also don't know what kinds of new classes will be included or if old classes like the Amazon, Druid, or Paladin are returning to Diablo IV. I'm also interested to know which Prime Evils will make an appearance, but discussing this in length would of course spoil Diablo III.

As an online-only game, The Elder Scrolls: Blades still seems like an iffy bet on the Nintendo Switch.

Right now the Switch doesn't play all that well with online-based games. Specific games function, and titles like Paladins actually run quite well, but it's still an awkward kind of experience for an on-the-go device. Especially when that experience is singleplayer-driven. So we're a bit dubious about The Elder Scrolls Blades, Bethesda's new free-to-play microtransaction-based RPG, doing too hot on the Switch.

Bethesda recently confirmed Blades will be online-only on the Switch, which isn't a surprise for a monetized, engagement-driven game of this nature. The idea is to keep you hooked to a connected environment where your progress, data, and spending habits are tracked, and it also allows for cross-saves and cross-play on all devices. It's also a way to constantly tempt you with the real reason the game exists: The microtransaction storefront that lets you pay money to bypass wait timers.

Hideo Kojima is very interested in virtual reality, and could eventually make a game for Sony's PlayStation VR headset...just don't expect it any time soon.

In a recent interview with Rocket Beans Gaming, Hideo Kojima expresses lots of curiosity and interest in virtual reality. The beloved auteur wants to tap the immersive medium to create some kind of experience, whether it be a kind of interactive film (something Kojima has always wanted to do) or an actual video game. There's just one catch: He's way too busy to do it right now.

"As for VR, I'm really interested in it. I think I'm not free enough for it. I said in the panel yesterday, we have a monitor or a square like an iPad or iPhone, a kind of frame. VR is kind of free from the limitation of this framing aspect. I want to do it definitely, but I don't have time right now to really concentrate on VR," Kojima said in the interview, speaking through a translator.

Fallout 76 just got a new $100 a year subscription plan for private servers and major convenience items. It's a total mess, and these convenience features are actually deleting precious materials. Bethesda says it will fix the bugs and even give gamers back the items they lost.

Bethesda has locked Fallout 76's private servers behind Fallout 1st, a new $13 a month/$100 year subscription plan.

The idea is to charge money to host private servers while including lots of pay-to-win style convenience mechanics (and even a Ranger cosmetic skin from Fallout: New Vegas) as extra incentives. Arguably the most attractive extras is the Scrap Box, which holds an unlimited amount of scrap.

Capcom finally dates Iceborne's release on PC, confirming a January 9, 2020 launch on the platform.

Monster Hunter World's massive first and only expansion is coming to PC in January, complete with optimizations like uncapped frame rates, 4K resolution support with matching high-res textures, and 21:9 UltraWide monitor support. There's still a discrepancy between the console and PC content offerings, though: Iceborne on PC will launch with the expansion's original content and PS4 and Xbox One will still be ahead.

Capcom says it's accelerating development of updates on PC and aims to eventually roll out updates simultaneously on all platforms. PC gamers will get the first major content update in February 2020 with a new monster and the Resident Evil crossover, and even more content in March 2020.

Overkill resumes production of Payday 2 with both free and paid expansion content to help fund Payday 3.

Today Starbreeze announced Payday 2 is back in business. Originally retired in late 2018, Overkill is now picking the game back up and plans to revitalize it with a bunch of new updates. Some of these new updates will cost money, which of course breaks Overkill's original promise of free content.

The reasoning for this is simple: Starbreeze is suffering crushing financial losses and needs to recoup some cash fast. Any revenue generated from Payday 2 will also help Payday 3's development, which is set to release sometime between 2022-2023 on next-gen consoles.

Just as we speculated back in April, Ubisoft strongly indicates the next Assassin's Creed game will harness the full might of Sony's PlayStation 5 and Microsoft's Project Scarlett next-gen consoles.

Reports say Assassin's Creed will go to the brutal age of seafaring Vikings in 2020, fitting in line with Ubisoft's two-year release schedule for the series. Now Ubisoft hints this is true, and the game will be fully optimized for next-generation console hardware.

The move is framed by a recent business change at Ubisoft. The company just delayed three big games (Watch Dogs Legion, Rainbow Six: Quarantine, and Gods and Monsters) following disappointing earnings from The Division 2 and Ghost Recon Breakpoint. All three games have moved to the FY2021 timeline (April 1, 2020 - March 31, 2021) and will tap next-gen console power.

Changes to Diablo II's and Lord of Destruction's icons on Battle.net aren't actually new.

Overwatch streamer Metro is back with new Blizzard info, this time showing a screen capture of altered Diablo II and Diablo II: Lord of Destruction icons. But these icons changed a while back. The hope was this icon swap indicated a Diablo II remaster for Blizzcon 2019, possibly alongside Diablo IV. As an owner of both games on Battle.net, I was able to confirm the icons are indeed the same on the storefront page and on the download section. But they've been that way for a long time.

This particular report is a false alarm. I actually re-installed both games on my PC just to see if the launcher icons had changed, and lo and behold, they're still the same as back in the old days. The new generic stylized DII logo isn't found.

Mixer has now nabbed two of the biggest streamers in the world, Shroud and Ninja. A new announcement from Shroud has said "Same Shroud. New Home".

The announcement comes from Michael "Shroud" Grzesiek's personal Twitter account, which featurs a short video that pokes some fun at how serious some of these streamer moves have been taken as of late. Instead of another serious transition trailer, Shroud decided to lighten the move with a cat and being interrupted half-way through the epic trailer.

Shroud has already picked up 40,000 followers on Mixer, and while that might seem like an extremely small amount compared to his Twitch following, that number is sure to grow as he continues to stream. Shroud will now also be joining Ninja on Mixer who also recently made the transition, more on that here.

THQ Nordic and Purple Lamp Studios have revealed the two special editions for their upcoming SpongeBob SqaurePants title, SpongeBob SquarePants: Battle for Bikini Bottom - Rehydrated.

Firstly, the 'Shiny' edition includes the following: a copy of the game, an eight-inch figurine, wall stickers, six lithographs and a pair of SpongeBob SquarePants tennis socks. The 'F.U.N' edition is the larger of the two, including: a copy of the game, the figurine, two more 18 and 20 cm figurine of Patrick and Sandy, wall stickers, tiki keyrings, six lithographs and the socks.

The 'Shiny' editions comes in at a price of $149.99 and the 'F.U.N' edition comes in at a hefty price of $299.99. The game will be launching on PS4, Xbox One and PC sometime in 2020. At the moment there has been no official release date announced as of yet. I will be sure to update you with a follow-up article once it is.

CD Projekt RED's highly anticipated Cyberpunk 2077 is no doubt going to move some units once it releases in April next year, but how many exactly?

According to Bloomberg analyst, Matthew Kanterman, Cyberpunk 2077 is predicted to exceed 20 million copies within its first year of release. To give a bit of context on how big of a feat this is, CD Projekt RED's The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt only managed to exceed 20 million copies four years into its release and that title also picked up a Game of The Year Award.

Its unclear if Cyberpunk 2077 will be able to beat that record, but judging from the hype that has been circling the game for quite some time now, I wouldn't be surprised if it crossed the 20 million mark by the one year mark. If you have missed out on some Cyberpunk 2077 news and would like to catch up, recently it was discovered that the could would feature acid rain. There was also a really cool 4K screenshot released, more on that here.