Gaming - Page 705

If you were following this years E3 2019 presentation regarding Microsoft's Age of Empires franchise you would of probably noticed that no new Age of Empires IV news was revealed. Instead, it has been scheduled in for later this year.

If you didn't know, Relic Entertainment are developing Age of Empires IV and while there has been radio silence on the title for about two years now Microsoft hasn't forgotten about it. In an interview with PC Gamer, Microsoft's Executive VP of Gaming, Phil Spencer dicussed the relationship with Relic and the progression of the game. Starting off strong, Spencer said that Microsoft will "talk about it more this year" and that "we're making good progress with it."

Spencer touches on their relationship with Relic, saying "Relic's great as a studio" and that "They did the best job of, 'here's what we think Age should go to". Spencer also says that they as a company are "learning a lot revisiting Age 1, and Age 2. Those communities continue to exist, and they have large player bases, and there's a lot of feedback". So it seems Microsoft and Relic are teaming up and combining their knowledge bases with player feedback, to bring the best experience to Age of Empires IV as possible.

So you think you are pretty good at Mortal Kombat 11, you enjoy spilling blood, guts and despair on your enemies. Well, its time to kick it up a notch then isn't it? Welcome to the Kombat League, play at your own will.

Its time to put the story and AI aside for a moment and dive into some real action in Mortal Kombat 11's newly announced Kombat League. Developer NetherRealm Studios has announced the new mode which is basically their version of ranked seasonal play. Players will have four weeks to attempt to climb their way from the starting rank of apprentice and eventually working their way to the top to achieve Elder God status.

As expected, winning matches elevates players closer to their next rank. Climbing ranks will reward players will exclusive cosmetic rewards that can only be acquired from that specific season of Kombat League. Players will also be rewarded at the end of the season based on their highest climbed ranked. Meaning that if you start off going really well and climb nice and high in the ranks, then go on a loose streak and fall back down, you won't be rewarded on your current position, instead you will be rewarded on your highest achieved rank. Mortal Kombat 11's Kombat League 'Season of Blood' begins tomorrow on June 18.

Cyberpunk 2077 easily took the spotlight at this years E3, and gamers alike cannot wait to dive into the massive world created by CD Projekt RED. What about the ending though?

At E3 2019, YongYea managed to sit down with CD Projekt RED's Mateusz Tomaszkiewicz, the quest director for Cyberpunk 2077 to ask him a series of popular community questions regarding the title. One of the questions that were asked was aimed at the games ending, and if there would be multiple endings that would be determined by the players choices earlier in the game, the short answer - yes.

Tomaskiewicz also touches on the multiple ways players will be able to go about playing the game. An example of this would be if a player wanted to not use any cybernetic augmentations for their character, and instead want to progress through the game as humanly as possible. Tomaskiewicz says this example is completely doable if a player so chooses. It seems that whatever choices players make through progressing through Cyberpunk 2077 will have butterfly effects on the games ending, which means every choice is pivotal and also that Cyberpunk 2077 will have some decent replay value. Cyberpunk 2077 is launching on the Xbox One, PS4 and PC next year in April.

During E3 2019, Bandai Namco revealed their new Dragon Ball title that is currently in the works, Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot. We have now learned that while Kakarot won't be a traditional open world game it will still have large diverse environments.

According to a recent interview with Dualshockers, Bandai Namco's producer and director of Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot, Hara Ryosuke and Kimoto Kazuki, respectively, discussed Kakarots world design and what players can expect from the title. Ryosuke mentioned that Kakarot won't be a traditional open-world experience, but instead will take players to extremely wide and expansive areas or zones. Within these zones players will experience pivotal parts of Goku's story.

Here is what Ryosuke said exactly "I kind of want to mention I don't think this is a true open world in the way we've kind of come to understand the definition of an open world today. There are several very large and wide expansive areas or zones if you will where you can experience different sagas of the Goku story. They'll be unlocked as you progress through the narrative."

Remedy was at E3 2019 showing off its upcoming game Control, with the RTX version of the game powered by NVIDIA GeForce RTX graphics cards looking absolutely beautiful with all of its ray tracing technology on display.

The developer was using all of the RTX tools inside of Control including reflections, contact shadows, diffuse global illumination, and transparent reflections. Even with it enabled, the game was pretty damn steady at 60FPS -- something I can personally attest to, seeing it running on GeForce RTX hardware on the floors of E3 2019.

Unlike DSOGaming, I know what speccs were powering the RTX-enabled versions of Control but alas, I cannot tell you what was inside. The graphics cards inside were SUPER powerful, let's just say that. The effects, I spent a good 15-20 minutes slowly enabling and disabling them and was able to notice so many little details that RTX adds to the game increasing the immersion much more than it seems on photos and YouTube videos.

Amazon's ambitious gaming roadmap has been disrupted as it pivots away from certain projects, leading to mass layoffs.

Due to issues and complications with its internal Lumberyard games development engine, Amazon has cancelled another major PC game project and plans to fire dozens of employees, both Kotaku and The Wall Street Journal report. Sources familiar with Amazon's games business say its proprietary Lumberyard Engine isn't yet flexible enough to facilitate efficient development of specific multiplayer games, leading to at least one unannounced project being canned, and brings to mind BioWare's monumental woes with re-tooling DICE's Frostbite engine to play nicely with RPGs.

These development issues could also be he culprit behind recent shake-ups and firings. Amazon Game Studios says it's committed to delivering its ambitious New World MMO as well as other projects, and the re-organizations will allow it to streamline development.

Like most service games who dare not shake the lootbox tree of doom, the new Avengers game will have optional cosmetic microtransactions.

Just as we predicted long ago, Avengers is a live service game that'll be monetized with vanity items. Gamers will be able to spend real money to unlock character skins to customize their character's appearance. We should expect to see a massive collection of skins to buy and earn in-game, ranging from the full breadth of Marvel's Avengers comics--from classic old-school outfits and clunky Iron Man suits to sleek, modern-day attire.

Avengers having cosmetic mTX should've been fairly obvious. It's a live service game with four-player online co-op that'll deliver free updates over time. That pretty much told us everything we need to know and spells out microtransactions. The entire reason these games are made is to rake in more money over time via engagement and paid in-game content for the trade off of free updates over time.

Nintendo recently confirmed a Breath of the Wild sequel is in the works, which Eiji Aonuma says will be more bleak than the original.

Breath of the Wild had immensely cute and charming moments, but it also had a few tear-jerkers thrown in. It feels like a mature Zelda, a story set in a fantasy world where the stakes feel dire and the losses feel real. It's a story of good versus evil wound in a dramatic arc that pulls at the heartstrings and inspires triumphant heroism. With the sequel, Nintendo is upping the ante. Things are about to get a lot more grim.

In a recent interview with IGN, series producer Eiji Aonuma confirmed the sequel will be a "little darker" than the 2017 original. He also said that the sequel's dev team is taking inspiration from Red Dead Redemption 2, one of the most immersive and gritty games on the planet.

At E3 2019, The Terminator showed up in a few new games. Unfortunately none of them were an actual fully-fledged Terminator game.

There are some franchises that seem cursed when it comes to video game adaptations. Terminator is a prime example. There's a good reason why there's been no Terminator games as of late (the last game was a mobile game based on Genesys released in 2015). They're usually messy affairs with wonky controls, shameless movie tie-ins that don't sell very well and get even worse review scores.

With Terminator: Dark Fate on the way from Paramount Pictures, the company decided to throw the old Cyberdyne Systems Series T-800 metal murderer into established games rather than make a brand new Terminator game. It's a splash of cross-media promotion the industry is known for. The T-800 is confirmed to show up in two big games in 2019: Gears of War 5 as a character skin, and Ghost Recon: Breakpoint. There's evidence the skull-crushing annihilator will wreak havoc in Mortal Kombat 11, too.

Nintendo is and has been experimenting with game streaming tech in Japan, and now Nintendo of America President Doug Bowser publicly discusses interest in the latent platform.

Game streaming is on the horizon. Both Google's new Stadia cloud-streaming tech and Microsoft's Project xCloud service launch in 2019, promising a new era of choice and accessibility. With PS Now, Stadia, and Project xCloud, Nintendo will be the odd one out of the streaming market. These services pose a direct threat to Nintendo's transforming handheld-console hybrid by challenging the Switch's main selling point: playing on the go or at home. Nintendo will have to answer this threat eventually...but luckily it's been planning streaming services of its own.

Nintendo has experimented with cloud streaming on the Switch, beaming games like Resident Evil 7 and Assassin's Creed: Odyssey to the device. But is this the extent of their focus? Can we expect more? According to Nintendo President Doug Bowser, possibly.

NetherRealm Studios has released the patch notes for the most recent update to Mortal Kombat 11. The patch bring a bunch of gameplay and move changes ahead of the games upcoming DLC launch.

The patch notes let us dive into what changes have been made in this recent update, so far we can see many move list corrections, numerous bug fixes across the cast of fighters, online fixes, controller fixes, krypt fixes and AI fixes. Players who want the specifics on what has been changed in this most recent patch can find the full patch notes within the entirety of this post.

In other news about Mortal Kombat 11, Evil Dead's Ash Williams DLC character rumor has taken a blow as the characters actor Bruce Campbell has denied any involvement with Mortal Kombat 11. When asked about the rumors on the Jim and Sam show, Campbell says that "will not" be appearing as a voice actor in Mortal Kombat 11, and then clarifies further on this Twitter with an image captioned "this my finishing move against a certain internet rumor".

New information has surfaced regarding some brand new titles headed over to the NVIDIA Shield system, make way for Donkey Kong Country Returns.

A senior analyst at Niko Partners has reported that the NVIDIA Shield will soon be home to a new Nintendo title. Ahmad has said via his Twitter account that the game have been approved by Chinese gaming regulations and will soon join some other Nintendo titles that are on the Shield such as Super Mario Galaxy and The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess.

Here is the quote from Ahmad; "Donkey Kong Country Returns recently received approval from China's gaming regulator to launch in China. The platform is listed as NVIDIA Shield. It will join NSMBU Wii, Zelda TP, Punch Out & Super Mario Galaxy as Nintendo titles available on NVIDIA Shield in China." If you want to check out our review on the NVIDIA Shield, visit this link here.

So you are a Nintendo Switch owner and are excited for Luigi's Mansion 3? Well, how about you check out the full opening cinematic for the title right now.

Thanks to GameXplain, we can see in the full opening cinematic cut-scene for Luigi's Mansion 3 Mario, Peach, Luigi and Toad make their way to the brand new mansion. We also see Luigi pull out an invitation for the mansion from his suitcase and pat the a ghost dogs belly that is next to him.

Nintendo plan on releasing Luigi's Mansion 3 exclusively on the Nintendo Switch, unfortunately there hasn't been an official release date revealed as of yet. All we know is that Luigi's Mansion 3 will be arriving on the Switch sometime this year, most likely closer to the end of the year.

E3 2019 - Being apart of the Nintendo Switch Online program gives users the opportunity to utilize cloud saves, but that depends on the game of course.

According to an interview with a french game site, Gamekult on the upcoming sequel to Animal Crossing, Animal Crossing: New Horizons. The games director and producer, Aya Kyoguku and Higashi Nogami, respectively, discussed the games cloud save support. Nogami said that "New Horizons will not be compatible with cloud backups to avoid manipulating time" and that stopping time manipulation is pivitol because its one the games "founding concepts of the series".

Amiibo support was also discussed, Kyogoku chimed in and said "given the number of cards and figures available, we obviously think New Horizons will be compatible with amiibo, but I can not tell you more about this compatibility at this stage of development". If you are interested in checking out more information for Animal Crossing: New Horizons check out our post regarding the released gameplay trailer here. Animal Crossing: New Horizons is planned for launch on March 3, 2020.

I had a meeting on the morning after the AMD Next Horizon Gaming event at E3 2019 to go to an exclusive viewing of Cyberpunk 2077, something I could never deny. We were escorted to a private room where developer CD Projekt RED had rigged, dipped in the world of Cyberpunk 2077. It looked amazing. I've got some photos below of it. I'm going to write a more detailed article with more photos of my visit, and a look at the exclusive jacket they gave as a VIP present.

The footage I saw was absolutely amazing and something I wish CDPR had shown off to the world during or after E3 2019, but it seems the developer is holding the 50-minute gameplay video of Cyberpunk 2077 close to its chest.

According to notorious industry leaker shinobi602, the extended gameplay footage of Cyberpunk 2077 from E3 2019 "won't be made public until after Gamescom 2019" which takes place August 20-24, so we can expect PAX West which kicks off August 30 and runs through to September 2. Maybe we might see a slightly extended look of Cyberpunk 2077 at Gamescom, but it seems the full clip will be shown off just after.

Just as I finished watching HBO's hit show Chernobyl, which was fan-effing-fantastic by the way, we're finding out some new info on STALKER 2 finally, with developer GSC GameWorld talking details about the game during an interview with YouTuber 'Antiscnaps'.

In the video GSC GameWorld says that they will not include a battle royale mode, which I think is a good idea, and that the team is using the latest and greatest technology to build the game so that it looks "really modern". The original STALKER was one of the most-hyped games of its generation and was considered like Crysis when it came to pushing the graphical envelope on the PC.

STALKER 2 takes in the steps of its predecessor and its trilogy of games in Shadow of Chernobyl, Clear Sky, and Call of Pripyat. The developer hasn't confirmed whether STALKER 2 will support ray tracing in any form, but if the original is anything to go by not including ray tracing would be a mistake.

Google Stadia will benefit multiplayer-driven games the most, especially live service games like Destiny 2 with persistent worlds.

Google's new Stadia game-streaming service could revolutionize gaming forever. It beams higher-end games directly to your TV, phone, laptop or PC for a $10 a month subscription, and alleviates the need to buy expensive gaming hardware. It has some issues too, namely latency and connection requirements, plus you don't get to actually play games if the service ever goes offline. At E3 2019, Google talked up Stadia quite a bit and promised it'll open incredible new horizons for the games industry.

Stadia's flexibility and server power will arm devs with new ways to build multiplayer games, and offer ultra-low latency when specific games are hosted on Google servers.

Doom Slayer, the infamous rage-fueled, demon-smashing, one-man army who leaves utter obliteration in his wake, has his moments of humanity. But you have to squint and look past all the blood and guts to find them...and they're not always obvious.

Doom: Eternal is a video game first and a sprawling cinematic experience second. id wants to make sure you get your money's worth and have a good time more than it wants to immerse you in a faraway world. Part of that fun comes from not delving too far into Doom Slayer's personality. Sure we have a lot of lore and history behind the mythical Slayer, but who's behind the helmet? We never know why Slayer does what he does. Is he saving mankind, or does he just want to massacre demons?

id wants to keep you guessing, but if the devs had to pick, Slayer isn't a total unfeeling metal machine of death but more akin to a murderous rampager who has a few slivers of humanity. Doomguy is more like Michael Myers than Terminator, if you will.

Doom: Eternal was created to keep you entertained all the way through. From the first level to the endgame where you slay interstellar archangels from another dimension, id wants you to be engaged--but not in the online multiplayer sense.

id isn't creating an immersive, cinematic experience with Doom Eternal. It's not meant to be some grand sprawling affair into a dramatic, narrative story arc. As id says, it's a video game with a capital V, soaked in blood and violence. The next Doom puts fun and gameplay over immersion and it's all the better for it: it looks like a video game, walks like a video game, and talks like a video game, complete with insane action and thrilling chaos. All of these things are wrapped up in one focus: to keep you engaged in a singleplayer world that's there for your amusement.

"Engagement is a key word for us. No matter what you're doing, we really do try to make everything worth your time. The whole game is about being worth your money, worth your time, and worth your thought and your engagement," said executive producer Marty Stratton.

E3 2019 - Goole's new Stadia platform aims to squeeze consoles out by giving gamers a more accessible platform, but Microsoft's Project xCloud will sit firmly alongside Xbox consoles for the forseeable future.

Microsoft doesn't currently envision a path where streaming conquers consoles. Project xCloud, it's new cloud-streaming service that beams games to phones, laptops, PCs, and even consoles via the power of cloud server banks, doesn't spell doom for Xbox hardware. Microsoft's Phil Spencer is adamant that streaming won't be the best way to play games for a long time. It's more of an alternative or an extension to dedicated play.

"I'm not trying to tell people to stop playing console games, or stop playing PC games, or even to buy a second copy of a game so you can play it somewhere else. What I'm saying is that I like playing on Xbox LIVE, and when I'm away from my console or my PC, I want to continue playing my games. This is a convenience feature, a choice feature for you,"Xbox VP of gaming Phil Spencer said in a recent interview with Giant Bomb.