Gaming - Page 657

Following its huge cosmic apocalypse, Fortnite has been completely reset with Chapter 2.

Fortnite Chapter 2 is now live and the battle royale sensation is back online, bringing a bunch of new content. Chapter 2 takes place on a new island with 13 locales, all of which have different biomes. There's the tropical beach by the coast, and industrial zone to the north east, a more arid dryland in the east, and the frosty mountainous highlands to the south east.

Big additions include new vehicles like boats. Players can zoom around across waterways and rivers on battleboats, and up to four users can jump in and unleash havoc on foes on land or by sea.

Google's new Stadia game streaming service launches in November 19, but only if you bought the $129 Founder's Edition.

New online-only game streaming service Stadia is set to launch in November, but there's some stipulations. Not everyone will get to jump in, and you won't get to play Stadia for free until 2020. You'll only get to play on November 19 if you bought the Stadia Founder's or Premiere Editions. Things get a big complicated from here.

Stadia's free version isn't launching until 2020, so the November launch is exclusively for paid Stadia Pro members. Stadia Pro costs $10 a month and gives you one free game a month along with discounts on all games. Subscribers still have to buy games separately from Stadia's storefront, but Destiny 2's full game is included with the $129 Founder's Edition.

Following multiple departures of high-profile developers, Gamers are concerned about Halo 6. But there's more to the story, and 343 Industries says everything's on track.

Halo: Infinite (aka Halo 6) sounds like the most ambitious Halo game to date. It aims to capture the sci-fi mystique of the original FPS while deliver high-end graphics and performance on Microsoft's next-gen Project Scarlett console. It'll be a feast for the eyes, and more importantly for Microsoft, it'll tap right into live service engagement with lots of online content.

But how's development faring? With more than a year left to finish the game, 343i has been understandably quiet, leaving gamers to extrapolate info from industry trends. One of these trends is departures. First Halo: Infinite creative director Tim Longo left 343i, prompting worry from the Halo faithful (myself included). Now that worry has been kicked up a notch as producer Mary Olson, who was supposed to take charge of Halo 6's campaign team, leaves the project.

Runescape shows no signs of slowing down, raking in millions every month from memberships, microtransactions, and passes.

Runescape is quite a profitable IP. In the last 18 years, the MMO has generated more then $1 billion in revenue and enjoyed over 260 million player sign ups. But how much money is it making now? According to analyst firm SuperData, Runescape pulls in roughly $10 million every single month throughout 2019, culminating in about $100 million in earnings.

These numbers include a variety of digital spending, from cosmetic purchases to monthly memberships and the new RunePass system. Some big spenders shell out over $60,000 on in-game items, prompting lots of controversy. Jagex's earnings are set to inflate even more with Runescape's impending mobile port, which allows gamers to seamlessly switch between PC and iOS/Android with full cross-progression saves.

Riot Games will announce a new League of Legends mobile game during its big 10th anniversary event, but there's some conflicting reports on what it'll be.

A League of Legends mobile game has been in the works for a while now. Now fully owned by Chinese titan Tencent, Riot must diversify into gaming's biggest billion-dollar market (mobile gaming) to chase Tencent's never-ending thirst for revenues. But there's a few ways it could do this.

Sources tell esports consultant Rod Breslau that Riot will unveil a new collectible card game called Legends of Runeterra for mobile. No details were announced yet of course, but expect it to be like Elder Scrolls Legends, Gwent, and of course MTG Arena.

Indie studio Ruffian Games confirms Rockstar is working on multiple new titles, which could include Grand Theft Auto 6 and Bully 2.

A Rockstar dev recently confirmed the studio is working on multiple new unannounced projects. Now an indie dev reinforces these claims with new job listings.

Like most big game developers that work on huge multi-year projects, Rockstar outsources a portion of its games development to independent developers. In this case Ruffian Games, the team who's responsible for remasters and is also helping make Halo: MCC on PC, has stepped in to help with Rockstar's next titles. Ruffian is currently hiring for seven high-profile engineer jobs ranging from UI to graphics and even a multiplayer systems specialist (likely for GTA 6's online portion).

Instead of buying a house or a dream car, one big-pocketed gamer spent over $150,000 on a mobile Transformers game. Yes, really.

Mobile games are juggernaut bread-winners that rake in hundreds of millions every year. Reliant almost universally on in-game microtransactions, these games monetize every part of the experience. The idea is the same as coin-op arcades: Want to keep playing? Stick in another quarter. One quarter becomes four, four becomes 16, and before you know you've spent $150,000 on digital items.

That's what one "whale" (the term used to describe big spenders on microtransactions) did in Transformers: Earth Wars, an online-only RTS-style mobile game. According to Earth Wars publisher Yodo1, someone spent over $150,000 on microtransactions in the game. That's over double the massive $62,000 spent on Runescape. The big reason to spend is to make it easier to unlock new Transformers, making the mobile game into a kind of old-school collect-them-all toy scheme.

At first Blizzard wrote off the Nintendo Switch, but with Diablo III the studio became a believer. And now the Overwatch team has fully embraced the platform thanks to its surprising versatility.

Overwatch is coming to Switch as a digital-only game. With over 36 million units sold, the Switch is hard to ignore, and remains a lucrative re-release and remaster platform. Although that wasn't always the case, and some devs like Blizzard shrugged the system off for a while. But Blizzard's decision isn't all about the Switch's install base--the platform has some distinct advantages, like transforming to and from a console to a handheld.

Now Blizzard's Overwatch team discusses why they've changed their minds on the Switch. For one, they can monetize players on-the-go thanks to the Switch's portability. And two, they can utilize extras like intuitive gyroscopic motion controls for immersive aiming when playing portably or docked at home.

Legendary movie director, Martin Scorsese recently gave his opinion on how massive comic book movies such as the Marvel Cinematic franchise has affected cinema. Lets just say Mr. Scorsese isn't thrilled about the idea.

He spoke out at a press conference this past Sunday accompanied by Robert De Niro and Al Pacino, for the closing-night screening for his upcoming movie 'The Irishman'. The director compared today's theater expereince to that of an "amusement park" and called for cinemas to "step up and show films that are narrative films".

Scorsese went on to say that Marvel films are "not cinema" and that "We shouldn't be invaded by it. Theaters have become amusement parks. That is all fine and good but don't invade everything else in that sense. That is fine and good for those who enjoy that type of film and, by the way, knowing what goes into them now, I admire what they do. It's not my kind of thing, it simply is not. It's creating another kind of audience that thinks cinema is that."

It has almost been a decade since the release of the massively popular MOBA League of Legends, and to celebrate the 10-year mark Riot are planning some streams.

According to a blogpost on the League of Legends' official website, Rioters around the world will be spending the entire day doing celebratory live streams. Riot says that many "of our regional offices are also planning in-person events and activities" and that to tune into the streams players or fans should check their local League of Legends channels on the 15th of October.

Riot will also be hosting a main event that will be starting at 6 PM PDT. This event will be the 10th Anniversary Edition of Riot Pls and will show the first look at this year's SR preseason update and TFT's "set two" content. Below i have provided dot points listing all of Riots events, happy birthday League of Legends!

In a hugely surprising move (maximum sarcasm enabled), Blizzard has cancelled its Overwatch Switch launch party that was about to kick off at Nintendo in New York City. Overwatch launches on the Nintendo Switch later today, October 15.

Overwatch is about to launch on the Nintendo Switch, with its NYC-based launch event taking place at NintendoNYC on October 16 abruptly cancelled by Blizzard. Nintendo NYC explained in a tweet that the event had been "cancelled by Blizzard" and that it apologizes for "any inconvenience this may cause".

Blizzard has been in super-hot water over its treatment and silencing of professional Hearthstone player 'blitzchung' who voiced support for the protests going on in Hong Kong. Activision-Blizzard banned him from the game, and took his prize money -- then started throwing out 1000-year bans to anyone talking about Hong Kong and China on its forums.

Mega Man fans will be first excited, and then disappointed with the news of this massive Mega Man collection for the Nintendo Switch... as it's only available in Japan.

The huge Mega Man collection includes Mega Man 11 booklet, a 30th-anniversary art piece, and copies of Mega Man Legacy Collection 1 + 2, Mega Man X Legacy Collection 1 + 2, and Mega Man 11. Yeah, that's a lot of Mega Man -- and unless you're in Japan, you'll be missing out.

The new Mega Man collection for the Nintendo Switch is listed on Amazon Japan right now for ￥10,989 which works out to around $100. The huge box set will be available on December 19, right in time for Christmas.

It's that time of the year again for Blizzard to unleash Halloween-themed goodies and a new dab of paint into Overwatch with the upcoming Halloween Terror 2019 event kicking off.

The official Twitter account for Overwatch tweeted the news, with the Halloween Terror 2019 even running between October 15 and November 4. We know that we'll expect a bunch of Halloween-themed skins, a limited-time loot box bundle to grab them, and the continued story of Dr. Junkenstein.

Blizzard is riding the new Overwatch event alongside the exciting release of the game on the Nintendo Switch, which funnily enough the Nintendo Switch version of the game in physical form actually not including a physical disc inside of the packaging.

Microsoft has officially launched its cloud streaming platform Project xCloud in certain countries (at least for now) with Project xCloud now live in the United States, the UK, and Korea.

Right now Microsoft is inviting people into the beta of Project xCloud which will see limited testing of Gears 5, Halo 5: Guardians, Killer Instinct, and Sea of Thieves. Microsoft cloud gaming boss Kareem Choudhry, explains: "Public preview is a critical phase in our multi-year ambition to deliver game streaming globally at the scale and quality of experience that the gaming community deserves and expects".

He continued: "It's time to put Project xCloud to the test in a broader capacity, with a range of gamers, devices, network environments and real-world use-case scenarios".

We all know every single keyboard and mouse is being tapped and prodded right now getting Cyberpunk 2077 for its big release in 2020, and that it's pretty much established fact that developer CD Projekt RED needs to get their stories ready for each game ahead of time.

In a recent interview with GameSpot at PAX Australia, CDPR staffer John Mamais said: "Something that we need to do better, from my perspective, is finish story sooner. Story is so important to the process for the games we make. We iterate on it quite a long time. Since everything else revolves around the narrative, the sooner it's brushed up the better it is for the development of a game".

He added: "It's a catch-22, you don't know [how good the story is] until you get it in the game and start playing quests and see how it feels. If something doesn't feel right, you have to change it again. So it's kind of a tug of war. The more you can get done up front, conceptually, and locked in, the better off you are".

Sorry, The Coalition -- you ain't no match for the ferocity of Activision-Blizzard with their 1000-day bans on the Blizzard forums with your 640-day bans... but it is still a serious ban.

Yeah, the developer is banning Gears 5 gamers for leaving a multiplayer game without a reason, which would leave the remaining players annoyed. So, the developer is throwing out a huge 640-day ban which equates to close to two years banned from the game. By then, the game will be long forgotten and gathering dust in the halls of no-longer-played multiplayer games.

GameRevolution noticed the 640-day ban in Gears 5 after The Coalition had slammed players for leaving games, with The Coalition's Director of Communications Dana Sissions tweeting: "Gears 5 quit penalties are active. You've been warned".

I have been covering the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Scarlett for what feels like forever, and was one of the first to confirm that AMD would provide semi-custom designs using Zen 2 and Navi technologies inside of the PS5... but the exact month of release has eluded me, until now.

Sony itself has confirmed the new PlayStation 5 console will be out in Holiday 2020 but according to my industry sources we are to expect a firm December 2020 release. This makes sense as it would be a huge seller over the Black Friday/Thanksgiving holidays leading right into Christmas 2020. Sony will need as many of those 7nm chips that AMD and TSMC can make between now and then, in the order of millions and millions of new PS5 consoles.

My sources stated that Sony's next-gen PS5 will release "in December" but didn't provide an exact date. I would dare say it would be early December, but I also feel like December is too late. Releasing the PlayStation 5 in October would make more sense for Sony to ride the huge sales of November and right into the Christmas sales of December... but also whetting gamers' appetites with a huge December release would be equally as significant.

PUBG Mobile made a ridiculous amount of money in three months, raking in $496 million from global microtransaction earnings.

Chinese juggernaut Tencent typically reigns mobile gaming with Honor of Kings, but this time one of its newer games takes the lead. Analyst firm Sensor Tower finds PUBG Mobile was the top-earning mobile game in calendar Q3 2019, seeing its earnings rise astronomically by 652% to nearly $500 million. That means Tencent's BR shooter pulled in 3% of global Q3'19 mobile earnings and helped the segment rise to $16.3 billion.

It's worth noting the cutoff was just days before Call of Duty Mobile rolled out to conquer 100 million downloads.

Fortnite 1.0 is dead and gone, sucked up by a vast black hole. So what's next? A new leaked Fortnite Chapter 2 trailer reveals tons of info.

Fortnite Chapter 2 Season 1 brings a lot of nifty changes to Epic's massively popular BR sensation. Boats are being added, and it looks like four players can ride in a boat and duke it out over open water.

Epic is also adding a bunch of new ways to level up and progress with its new medal system, which rewards you however you play, whether it's singleplayer or multiplayer. You'll get extra EXP for completing challenges like opening chests, chopping down trees for materials, and of course pulling off sweet kills in battle. Players can also level up by doing small leisure tasks like fishing.

Google's new Stadia game-streaming service will smash through data caps with ease and could end up costing more than consoles in the long run.

The major selling point of Stadia is playing high-end games without actually owning a console or a PC. You'll be able to launch a game in a Chrome browser on a laptop, or through your Chromecast Ultra, all without downloading anything. But Stadia is totally reliant on your internet connection, so you'll need a decent connection (at least 20mbps for 1080p 60FPS gaming, and 35mbps for 4K). And if you have a monthly data cap, that cost could be pretty high.

According to a new study, over 6 million people would destroy their monthly data caps while using Stadia. The platform beams games wirelessly to devices like Pixel smartphones, laptops, desktops, and Chromecasts Ultra using the cloud, but that data adds up fast. Especially if you're doing any kind of 4K gaming. Most consumers only stream in 1080p even if they own 4K TVs so they don't go over their allotted data limit.