Gaming - Page 660

This week has been huge for mobile users who have been wanting to get dark mode on the rest of their most-used apps. Instagram has already made the jump and now Google has teased that some other big apps will be soon joining the dark side.

On the official Android Instagram account, Google posted a quick two-frame animated gif that shows off a slew of apps and system settings going from their original white color to dark. We see the likes of Google Maps which is prominently centered in the middle of the image, blackened out message notifications, Digital Wellbeing, Google Photos, Google Search and Drive.

It seems from this image that when Google decide to roll out Dark Mode for all of their apps that they aren't going to be doing it one app at a time, instead they will release the new mode for all apps at once. The gif also suggests that users will be able to enable and disable dark mode across all apps with a single press of a button, or perhaps even be able to choose what apps are using dark mode and which aren't.

Instagram has been all over the news as of late, mostly due to the app being updated with a bunch of new features (dark mode) and some features even removed. Now the PC version is getting some love, not a lot of love, just a little bit.

Obviously Instagram is predominately aimed towards mobile and its extremely popular app, meaning that the PC version falls behind in features and updates. Most Instagram users are on mobile, but there is still a small portion of users who enjoy browsing the website version. Today is PC users' lucky day as it has been discovered that Instagrams Direct messaging, or DM's for short, is working on PC.

Jane Manchun Wong, who also found out that Instagram is testing a new 'Group Story' feature, managed to get Instagram Direct for desktop to show up through digging around in the source code.

EA and DICE are looking to get some more Battlefield V (BF5) players by letting any PC gamer jump onto BFV completely free of charge for the next three weekends.

Each of the free weekends will feature different multiplayer game modes for a variety of different gamers. Also, throughout the trial periods Squad Contest mode, War Stories and the untold and single-player stories inspired by real WW2 events are available. If you decide to participate in any of the free weekends, all progression throughout the trail periods will be carried over to your account if you decide to purchase the game.

EA has planned for players to try out the Rush game mode for the first week on the trial, second week will be legendary Conquest mode and finally the third week will be the Grand Operations mode. If you are interested in jumping into the action, you can pre-load the game through the Origin Store, a link to that can be found here.

Rocket League have kicked off the teaser trailer for this years upcoming Halloween event, and this time round drivers will be pitted against Stranger Things' Upside Down.

Above we have the official teaser trailer for what Psyonix has titled as the Haunted Hallows. According to the blog post found on the Rocket League website, all roads will lead to Farmstead where Stranger Things' Mind Flayer has invaded and is looking down on the matches occurring below. Its unclear if the Mind Flayer will be able to influence the matches below, but Psyonix does say "make sure to look after your teammates."

Of course cosmetics will also be added to support the Halloween event and according to the post players will earn "Candy-Corn" after matches that can be used in the Hallows Event Store. Some of the wares in the Hallows Event Store are developed by the Hawkins National Laboratory and sneak peaks for them have been provided in the entirety of this article. Haunted Hallows featuring Stranger Things will be going live on through the October Update scheduled to release on October 14th. The event will run until November 11th. Good-luck in the Upside Down drivers!

It's an all-out detail war in the last few days when it comes to Sony's next-gen PlayStation 5, where Sony have officially confirmed it as the PlayStation 5 -- we now know it'll rock an 8C/16T chip from AMD, and now we're hearing about the next-gen PlayStation VR 2 headset.

The folks at LetsGoDigital don't seem to sleep, posting up details on the new PSVR 2 headset reporting that it will come with built-in cameras and even a transparent mode, something that is very, very interesting. This new patent is right in line with my previous report from July 2019, with the rumored wireless mode, head and eye-tracing technology, and more.

When it comes to the cameras, we're looking at what appears to be dual front-facing cameras and a single (and I'm sure wide angle) camera on the back. The new PSVR 2 controller will even come with a camera, with it all detailed in a recently-published patent that was approved, and published on October 3, 2019.

Now that the cat is out of the bag regarding Sony's next-gen PlayStation 5, we're slowly finding out more info (and confirming rumors) about the new console.

We're now seeing Japanese magazine Famitsu reporting that the PlayStation 5 does indeed include an 8C/16T chip based on AMD's new Zen 2 architecture. We have been hearing rumors of this for a while now, but it seems that specs are being solidified as developer kits reach game developers.

8C/16T in the next-gen PS5 is going to be a huge deal for game developers and gamers, as it will allow developers to build worlds far bigger than anything possible on current 8-core consoles. The 8-core CPUs in consoles is over a decade old now, whereas Zen 2 is fresh and made in 2019.

Blizzard plans to use huge Blizzcon 2019 announcements to take attention from the recent Hong Kong controversy.

Right now Blizzard is in the worst spot for a video game company to be in. It's embroiled in a political controversy stemming from suppression of Hong Kong liberation sentiments from its players.

After winning a big Hearthstone tournament, Chinese pro gamer Ng Wai "Blitzchung" Chung announced his support for the protests in Hong Kong. Blizzard responded by suspending Blitzchung for a year and taking away his winnings of $10,000. Two esports announcers were also fired.

Red Dead Redemption 2 is hands-down the best-looking game on PS4 and Xbox One. But it'll look even better on PC.

Today Rockstar showed a batch of 4K Red Dead Redemption 2 screenshots that illustrate the kind of eye-popping visuals we can expect on PC. There's impressive lighting, illumination, and ambient fog effects that're sure to push your PC to the max, complete immensely detailed clothing textures, facial expressions, environments (that water is incredible), and just about everything else. If you can see it, it'll look amazing on PC.

Rockstar isn't playing around with PC optimizations. The devs say Red Dead Redemption 2 will be the "ultimate version of Arthur Morgan and the Van der Linde gang's open world epic," complete with high-level tweaks and enhancements to push enthusiast hardware to its limit. The game will support higher FPS, HDR and resolutions in 4K and beyond, with UltraWide and multi-monitor configurations also supported.

Modern Warfare will need a lot of hard drive space when it ships later this month. In fact, it'll require more space than Red Dead Redemption 2 on PC.

Today Activision revealed Modern Warfare's PC system requirements, and everything looks good...except for the massive 175GB of storage needed to play the game. Yeah, you'll need almost 200GB of free space on your PC for Modern Warfare.

This could mean one of two things: either it's the file size at the start, or the total sum of space needed for the finished game, complete with all DLC and extra content. Since Activision says Modern Warfare will have more DLC and updates than any other Call of Duty in history, I sure hope it's the latter.

Today Rockstar revealed Red Dead Redemption 2's PC spec requirements, and they're pretty lenient.

Red Dead Redemption 2 is coming to PC next month, and it could end up being the best-looking PC game of the year. But you won't need an insanely powerful setup to play it--in fact it's quite the opposite. The minimum spec requirements call for an Intel i5-2500K or an AMD FX-6300 CPU, an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 770 or AMD Radeon R9 280, 8GB of RAM, and 150GB of hard drive space (this likely for bottom of the barrel 720p Low settings gaming).

The recommended specs are likewise not too demanding. Intel Core i7-4770K or an AMD Ryzen 5 1500X, an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 with 6GB VRAM or AMD Radeon RX 480 with 4GB of VRAM, and 12GB of RAM. You'll likely get Medium-ish settings at 1080p with these specs, with some ticked on High. Similar with GTA V, expect a huge level of tweakable settings. Take-Two and Rockstar want as many people to play as possible, and it looks like RDR2 on PC is pretty optimized.

If you played the PS2, Xbox or PC back in the early 2000's then you have no doubt heard, or even played The Simpsons Hit & Run. What a magical experience that games was at the time, but what if we could do it all over again in a fully remastered version?

While that idea sounds like a pipe dream of some sorts, its not entirely out of the question. According to the games producer, Vlad Ceraldi it's very possible for The Simpsons Hit & Run to receive a remaster, and this remaster would be for multiple platforms as well. Speaking to LADbible, Ceraldi said "I could see it on multiple different types of platforms as a remake or remaster."

He continued and said that for this to happen "It would have to take the parties who are in charge of the property to want that to happen and someone out there to decide that they were going to go out and do it. But absolutely, it would be fun to explore those characters and that universe again, that work again." This is fantastic news, The Simpsons Hit & Run is one of my favorite games of all time. My close childhood friends and I had countless hours wrecking havoc on Springfield and its citizens, and I'd very much like to do it all over again in the remaster.

Just last week I reported on Super Mario Odyssey being able to run on the PC at a stable 60FPS. Well, now we have another Nintendo Switch exclusive title that can also run at a solid 60FPS on PC, The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening.

Just like Super Mario Odyssey, The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening uses the Nintendo Switch emulator called Yuzu, and from the above gameplay video you can see the title is running very smoothly on PC. The reason for Link's Awakening and Odyssey running so smooth on this emulator is because of a new update that has introduced a brand new version of asynchronous GPU emulation, buffing performance for many Nintendo Switch titles.

How does the asynchronous GPU emulation work? Basically, the update allows for the game to utilize a second core to offload emulated GPU instructions, allowing for users' CPU to concentrate on more CPU bound tasks. You might notice that there are some visual artifacts displayed throughout the game, while this might be a slight downside to look at, I believe this is a small price to pay for a stable and very much playable game.

The professional gaming scene, or better known as eSports has been thrown right into the mix of a polical debate after Blizzard has banned one of their pro-players after he voiced his opinion on the Hong Kong protests.

During a post-match interview, Hearthstone pro-player Ng Wai Chung, or known as his gamer-tag 'Blitzchung' spoke out about the current protests that are running rampant in Hong Kong. The interview was held on the official Taiwanese Hearthstone stream and Chung appeared on camera wearing a gas mask, he then lifted the mask and said "Liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our age!" Blizzard has now come in and banned Chung for violating rules that forbid players from saying anything that "offends a portion or group of the public" or "otherwise damages" Blizzard's image.

Blizzard has also eliminated Chung from the Hearthstone Grandmasters, removed his winnings from the tournament and stopped all work with the two Hearthstone commentators that are present in the video. So why the crackdown from Blizzard? It could perhaps be because China is a massive market for the company, and having any opinion associated with the current events that are occurring over there could cause the Chinese government to ban Blizzard from conducting any work in their country.

Doppio Games and Netflix has announced a new partnership to push the boundaries of voice-controlled gaming and entertainment. This partnership will focus in on the launch of 'The 3% Challenge', a voice-only game based on Netflix's original show.

'The 3% Challenge' is a prequel story to Netflix's critically acclaimed 3% series and will take players to 20 years before the events in the first season of the show. The game will require smart speakers such as Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant to play, and for fans wondering if the game will use the voice of the lead character in the show, it will. Bianca Comparato, who plays Michele in the show will be returning to voice-over the game.

The game will push players to make hard decisions that are described to be "custom-made voice-based challenges that test players' skills". It should also be noted that the games prequel story was written by the same people who wrote the show, Pedro Aguilera and Cassio Koshikumo. This means there should be no storyline confusion between the game and the show. Doppio Games' CEO and co-founder, Jeferson Valadares spoke out about the collaboration, saying "With AI changing the landscape of gaming, we are revolutionizing the gaming industry with captivating gaming experiences that can't be achieved on any other platforms."

I've been gaming since I was a very young kid, growing up with the Amiga 500 through to the NES through to every Xbox and PlayStation, the Colecovision, and being a PC gamer the entire time.

But how many gamers are there now? According to The NPD Group, a huge 73% of Americans are gamers. In their new report titled "2019 Evolution of Entertainment", The NPD Group reports that US gamers aged 2 years and older play games, noting a 6% increase since June 2018.

The survey also explains that gaming accounts to 17% of consumers' entertainment time, and a huge 11% of their overall spending on entertainment.

EA and Respawn will be getting into the Halloween spirit in the coming weeks with Apex Legends and its upcoming "Fight or Fright" event, with a bunch of Halloween-themed goodies.

There will be a new Shadowfall limited time mode, something that throws Kings Canyon into utter darkness, and then once players are killed they will turn into zombies. I really love the idea of that, it's a cool spin on the battle royale game introducing zombies.

It wouldn't be an event if EA couldn't make money off it, so there will be a bunch of new cosmetics that you can buy with real money -- from Apex Packs. You can create some of them with Crafting Metals earned in Apex Legends, or spend real money buying Apex Packs and scouring loot for the Halloween-themed goods.

Call of Duty: Mobile is now 'the largest mobile game launch in history' with over 100 million downloads since its launch on October 1.

This means Call of Duty: Mobile has outranked the huge mobile gaming juggernauts in Fortnite and PUBG, according to industry analyst outlet Sensor Tower. Randy Nelson, the head of mobile insights at Sensor Tower, told Reuters: "This is by far the largest mobile game launch in history in terms of the player base that's been built in the first week".

The 100 million downloads of Call of Duty: Mobile includes both the iOS and Android versions of the game, and accounts for worldwide numbers. If we compare the 100M downloads in the first week of Call of Duty: Mobile against PUBG and Fortnite, Call of Duty utterly dominates.

We have already heard rumors of Sony launching two next-gen PS5 consoles in 2020: the regular PlayStation 5 which will be joined by the PlayStation 5 Pro... but what would the big difference between them be?

According to the latest from LetsGoDigital and their new PlayStation 5 renders, which we covered here, the regular PS5 might not have a super-fast SSD. The higher-end PlayStation 5 Pro console would have the super-fast PCIe 4.0-based SSD while the regular PS5 will have, well, we don't know yet.

I doubt Sony would use a regular HDD so they could use a normal 2.5-inch SSD in the regular PS5 that maxes out at 500-550MB/sec, leaving the worlds of 4GB/sec+ speeds to the higher-end PS5 Pro.

The first round of 3D renders of the next-gen (and now confirmed) PlayStation 5 console by the fine folks at LetsGoDigital were amazing... but the team is back with some slick new renders that give us a closer look at what to expect from the PS5.

Sony confirmed the PlayStation 5 in the last 24 hours, so if you want to read up on that click here -- but now we're going to dive into these delicious new renders. Gizmodo broke a story last week from its sources that between June and August 2019, they talked with a game developer that is working on a next-gen game for the PS5 and Xbox Two consoles.

Let's start off at the front -- we can see the new PS5 renders show that it would have a stand-by button, and next to it a reset (or record) and eject button that will eject those huge 100GB Blu-ray BDXL discs. The three buttons are joined by two LED indicators above the Blu-ray drive.

Jedi: Fallen Order's PC spec requirements went up today, but EA erroneously listed 32GB as the game's RAM recommendation. The real recommendation is only 16GB.

EA's Star Wars team confused a lot of PC gamers today by accidentally listing the wrong system memory recommendations for Jedi: Fallen Order. The game was originally listed as recommending a huge 32GB of RAM, which of course made everything think Respawn hadn't properly optimized the game on PC. All the other PC specs are fine: minimum requirements sit at an i3-3220/FX-6100 CPU, 8GB of RAM, and an AMD Radeon HD 7750 or NVIDIA GeForce GTX 650. The recommended specs are also pretty mild and ask for a Ryzen 7 1700 CPU/Intel i7-6700K and a RX Vega 56 or NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 GPU.

Now EA's Ben Walke jumps in to confirm it was an error. Jedi: Fallen Order recommends users have 16GB of on board RAM, matching up and balancing with the other specs.