Gaming - Page 658

Cyberpunk 2077's upcoming online multiplayer may not be bogged down with tons of microtransactions. If so, it could launch as a standalone premium game.

CD Projekt RED has a unique view of live services. Despite launching the free-to-play Gwent with its buyable card packs, the company says quality singleplayer games will always be a priority. This hints Cyberpunk 2077's planned multiplayer will be ancillary to the core experience, but it also somewhat contradicts with what we're hearing now about the possibility of no microtransactions.

Right from the start I predicted not only would Cyberpunk 2077 get multiplayer, but it'd be monetized as well. It wasn't hard to come to this conclusion: CDPR outlined seamless multiplayer in a recent government grant. The company started working on multiplayer in its R&D branches, too.

It turns out suspense and mystery are still extremely powerful: Fortnite's vast cosmic annihilation was watched by over 6 million players, making it the most popular gaming event in Western history.

Fortnite will soon be reborn, but for now the entire game has been sucked into a whirling vortex. Everything--the battle bus, the battle royale map, characters, the actual in-game island--was pulled into a game-spanning black hole, culminating in one of the most riveting and engaging events in gaming. I mean how often do you see a game literally destroy itself? The last time I can remember is Final Fantasy XIV's before ARR.

Over six million people tuned in to watch Fortnite's demise. The game is known for its mysterious and puzzling world events, but this one was by far the most ambitious. So many people were watching streams that both Twitch and Mixer had trouble keeping up.

It's about time that we're hearing about next-gen games, with a new post by a former GameFan magazine editor on ResetEra talking about a new unreleased next-gen tech demo of an upcoming open-world game in development for the PlayStation 5, Xbox Scarlett, and PC.

The poster said that this new open-world game looked better than Red Dead Redemption 2 and The Last of Us 2, specifically saying that those two games in terms of scope, lighting, and environment dynamics "aren't even in the same time zone" as this next-gen open-world game.

In its early state the game was reportedly at 25-30FPS with the poster saying it was in an "early, early, early" form of development, noting that he "actually said out loud WTF when I first saw it". He pointed to the quality of the shadows being a highlight of this game, saying: "When they were swaying in the wind they were casting moving shadows with f**king PERFECT detail. No shimmering or stairstepping at all".

Tomorrow the Nintendo Switch will be hit with one of CD Projekt RED's most nostoriously amazing titles, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. Just before the games release we have already got a framerate test and it actually looks good!

If you have played The Witcher 3, you understand that the game is small by no means. This raised the question to gamers to how much the game will be down-scaled to run on the Nintendo Switch's hardware. While also in conjunction with that question is 'what framerate will it run at?'

Luckily before the release of the game, we already have some gameplay footage to look at. The above footage has come from Pixelacos Gameplays and it shows The Witcher 3 running on the Nintendo Switch in docked mode at a solid 30FPS. The game looks incredibly down-scaled when compared to its beautiful PC or console counter-parts, but that the expected price to be paid for a large game to go portable. The Witcher 3 on Nintendo Switch will be arriving on the hand-held console tomorrow.

The previous rumors of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare having supply drops or loot boxes have been squashed, with Infinity Ward Art Director Joel Emslie, confirming that IW is not working on any form of system like this for COD: Modern Warfare.

In a recent post on the official Modern Warfare subreddit, Emslie explained: "Sigh. There continues to be misinformed and incorrect info being pushed about Modern Warfare. What I can say right now is that we are definitely NOT working on any kind of supply drop or loot box system. Also, functional stuff is unlocked through GAMEPLAY. Stay tuned, we're planning to release info this week".

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare might not have supply drops or loot boxes, but that doesn't mean there are no microtransactions at all. Infinity Ward confirmed the game will indeed have microtransactions, but they should be limited to just cosmetic items inside of the game. We hope. It's not like Activision-Blizzard needs anymore drama right now... right???

The release of Death Stranding is right around the corner and while many gamers have pre-ordered Hideo Kojima's mystery title, how much space will they need available on their system for the install?

According to a snag by ResetEra user, vestan who was looking through Best Buy yesterday and found the listing for the Death Stranding LE PS4 Pro, Death Stranding will require "55GB minimum". This number is located at the bottom of the image, and judging on the size of games that have been recently released, and the world that we have seen in Death Stranding - I think its safe to assume there could be some kind of day one patch. If not a day one patch, the box art could be accounting for a potential future patch.

Then again, Kojima and his team could of done some incredible work on this title and managed to squeeze the entire title down into the Bluray disc space. This would be the best case scenario for gamers, as they wouldn't have to account for potentially more disk space than 55GB. Obviously for those gamers who have the larger storage consoles with not-so-many-games this won't be an issue, but for gamers who have limited storage space on their consoles, its very beneficial to know big their coming game is. Death Stranding is releasing on PlayStation on November 11th.

Anyone who plays Apex Legends and has used, or been annihilated with the Charge Rifle knows that it is completely over powered and was going to be nerfed. So it should come as no surprise that developer Respawn Entertainment is about to do just that.

Respawn posted on the Trello board about the upcoming changes to Apex Legends, with the team explaining: "Current Charge Rifle balance is not where it should be. Changes incoming". Personally, I love the Charge Rifle but I do agree it is overpowered. I think it should have its own ammo and made to be used sparingly, versus using energy ammo that allows you to have hundreds of super-powered rounds.

On top of that, you can dump a sniper scope on the Charge Rifle and have crazy long distances of fodder to turn to dust.

Now this is something I can get behind -- NVIDIA beginning a new game remastering program that would see older games receive some gorgeous new ray tracing effects.

NVIDIA has a new job listing that is looking for an executive producer to run a new RTX Remaster project, with the job listing asking seeing NVIDIA "cherry-picking some of the greatest titles from the past decades and bringing them into the ray-tracing age, giving them state-of-the-art visuals while keeping the gameplay that made them great".

The new team will be called NVIDIA Lightspeed Studios, with NVIDIA building a team of "talented, dedicated game developers who are ready to get going quickly". This is music to my ears... with the Lightspeed Studios team forming in 2015 and looked after remaking older PC games and getting them onto Android devices, but now they're all systems go into injecting RTX into classic PC games?

In what appears to get a gigantic marketing stunt, Epic Games has literally deleted Fortnite from the internet after the end of their Season 10 'The End' event.

Twitch streamer 'CouRage' was in the middle of a game of Fortnite when it all happened, with a huge asteroid appearing above the map -- which then started flaring up as it entered the atmosphere and then blasted into the planet. This explosion caused a black hole which sucked everything into it, with CouRage capturing the entire event live with his reaction, including goosebumps.

Epic is now live streaming the black hole on the official Fortnite Twitch channel, where at the time of writing there were close to 40,000 people streaming it. Better yet, Epic has a new mystery for its upcoming 'Chapter 2' with a bunch of numbers -- which is giving me Lost vibes.

Since CD Projekt RED is only working on two franchises (Witcher and Cyberpunk), they're probably not done with the medieval fantasy RPG. Now one dev says he'd like to do more Witcher games...and that could happen quite soon.

We've been collecting evidence of a new Witcher game for years now. Although The Witcher 3 is the end of Geralt's epic journey, there's still room to explore the franchise, and CD Projekt RED isn't about to give up the lucrative IP. Even as CDPR works on the titanic Cyberpunk 2077 with its next-gen visuals, insane engine tech, and immersive freedom, the studio is also developing a mysterious AAA RPG. Right from the start I speculated this could be Witcher-related, especially given its 2021 release deadline, which would firmly plant it in next-gen console territory.

Now in a recent interview with GameSpot at PAX Australia, CD Projekt RED Krakow studio head John Mamais expressed interest in making new Witcher games.

Steam is launching a new feature that allows offline local co-op games to be played online, but there's some limitations.

Introducing Remote Play Together, a new Steam mode lets you play local-only arcade-style games like Cuphead or Killer Queen Black with friends on the internet. It's a way for developers to extend playtime and reach for audiences on PC, and potentially make more sales. Valve says that all local co-op games will be automatically entered into Remote Play Together beta.

The logistics are quite similar to the PS4's Share Play functionality, which basically streams gameplay to another console via a connected network.

Red Dead Redemption 2 on PC will have singleplayer content that isn't coming to consoles, including guns, missions, hideouts and more.

Apart from the obvious huge performance leaps like uncapped frame rates and 4K support, Rockstar is giving players even more reason to play Red Dead Redemption 2 on PC with some exclusive content.

The new content includes new bounty hunter missions, which can actually be pretty dynamic and take you across the entire map, more gang hideouts spread across varying regions, new treasure maps, and most importantly, new weapons and horses. Most of the new weapons are actually found in Red Dead Online on consoles, but aren't actually available in singleplayer. One gun--the M1899 Pistol--was tailor-made for RDR2 on PC.

Likely as part of Activision's big marketing deal with Sony, the new Call of Duty League will hold its tournaments on PS4 consoles instead of PC.

Activision's new Call of Duty League follows the Overwatch League as the company's latest attempt to re-capitalize on a billion-dollar franchise. It's a huge new endeavor that could rake in millions from licenses, marketing deals, sponsorships, merchandise, and ticket sales in a whirwind of sporting event moneymaking. So it's no surprise that Activision has teamed up with the world's most dominant console platform for its new Call of Duty league.

The Call of Duty League sees 12 teams of pro players competing in the new Modern Warfare reboot for a huge $6 million prize pool. But the best of the best won't use enthusiast-grade PC hardware for their high-stakes matches--instead they'll be stuck with the PlayStation 4 Pro and its limited performance. Activision is apparently putting lucrative deals over choosing the ideal platform for pro tournament play.

Konami is adapting yet another beloved franchise into a gambling machine. This time the macabre Silent Hill is getting the treatment.

Silent Hill is coming back, but not in the way you'd hope. It's never good news when one of Konami's franchises gets resurrected, is it? We've been waiting a long, long time for a new Silent Hill game (the last one came out in 2012) and everyone thought the series was pretty much dead after Konami cancelled Hideo Kojima's ultra-spooky Silent Hills game and fired the superstar to boot. It turns out Silent Hills is actually worse than dead: It's now a slot machine.

Konami announced that Silent Hill will be transformed into a "for-wager slot experience" on its new slot cabinet.

As Bethesda readies The Elder Scrolls VI, ZeniMax will keep the franchise alive with continued Elder Scrolls Online expansions and content updates.

At PAX Australia, ESO creative director Rich Lambert said the MMO shows no signs of stopping. The plan is to make ESO last well into the next-gen console age of 2020 and in the years after, but of course no exact details were outlined. This makes sense considering The Elder Scrolls VI is a long, long ways away (it'll ship after Bethesda's new ambitious Starfield IP) and ZeniMax isn't going to let the huge RPG series go dormant.

So far ZeniMax has made tremendous efforts with ESO. Since its release in 2014, the game has received three major expansions that massively expand the game world (Morrowind, Summerset, and the latest dragon-fueled Elsweyr) and further the story. There's been 11 major DLC drops that also add new dungeons and content to compliment the expansions.

Blizzard finally spoke out about the tumultuous Hong Kong controversy, reversing its original punishments. Now Blitzchung responds with a statement of his own that praises Blizzard's move.

Blizzard kicked the hornet's nest by banning Chinese player Blitzchung for calling for Hong Kong's liberation, leading to nearly a week of roiling PR chaos as fans boycotted the company, politicians lambasted Blizzard, and gamers expressed outrage. Now Blizzard is backpedaling on their original decision and plans to give Blitzchung his winnings back and reduce his ban.

In a recent statement, Hearthstone pro player Blitzchung expressed gratitude to Blizzard for their change of face. The player is happy to hear his winnings will be returned, and his one-year ban has been reduced to six months. He isn't sure if he'll compete in pro Hearthstone tournaments, though.

Overwatch retail copies on Switch don't actually include a cartridge, and ship in an empty box.

Overwatch is coming to Switch, but it's basically a digital-only game even if you buy it in stores. Retailers and Nintendo themselves say versions sold on store shelves will be empty and instead include a code to download the game from Nintendo's eShop.

Luckily the game won't be ridiculously huge: Overwatch clocks in at roughly 12GB on Switch. It's not too bad unless you don't have an SD card for extra storage...then Overwatch will take a chunk out of the Switch's 25.9GB of available memory.

Payday 3 should release in the next few years between 2022 and 2023, Starbreeze Studios today announced.

Despite its crushing financial woes, Starbreeze expects to bounce back with Payday 3. In a recent investor's announcement, Starbreeze revealed a roadmap to stable revenues that hinges on a publishing contract for the release of Payday 3.

The games-maker says it'll procure a publishing deal next year, and Payday 3 will release in 2022-2023, well into the lifecycle of next-gen consoles like the PlayStation 5 and Project Scarlett. Both systems will feature high-end AMD Zen 2 CPUs and Navi GPUs to push 4K gaming and beyond with high FPS and latency, so Payday 3 should be the best-looking and best-playing game to date.

As Blizzard's image tanks and burns thanks to the recent Hong Kong controversy, Chinese-owned Riot Games cautions League of Legends esports players to avoid "sensitive topics" during on-air streams.

After seeing what's happening to Blizzard, Riot Games wants to stay completely out of any fiascos or PR nightmares. It's trying to stay neutral by reminding streamers and esports pros to avoid discussions of Hong Kong or any other geo-political or cultural incidents. But as a China-owned company, gamers are having a hard time believing Riot Games is doing anything but censoring outcry and kowtowing to Tencent and the Chinese government.

"As a general rule, we want to keep our broadcasts focused on the game, the sport, and the players. We have reminded our casters and pro players to refrain from discussing any of these topics on air," Global Head of League of Legends Esports John Needham said in a statement.

Will a Final Fantasy VIII Remake happen? Maybe, but Yoshinori Kitase might not work on it.

After nearly 30 years of making Final Fantasy games, Yoshinori Kitase wants a younger generation to step in. He's not retiring--Kitase is leading the charge on the multi-volume Final Fantasy VII Remake alongside Tetsuya Nomura--but he seems a bit weary from RPG development and wants Square Enix's new guard to lead the charge.

When asked if he'd help development on a Final Fantasy VIII Remake once the FF7R was finished, Kitase told Famitsu: