Gaming - Page 727

Apex Legends came out of nowhere and became the hottest game of the moment, but it seems its time in the sun is shading if you look at Twitch viewer ship numbers.

According to the latest data, Twitch viewership of Apex Legends has dropped 75% from its launch high of 40 million viewers per week down to 10 million viewers per week in late-March. Seeking Alpha financial analysts said that the huge buzz and instant success of Apex Legends was "acquired" and not organic.

This is true as EA paid big money to some of the biggest Twitch and game streamers on the planet, but now there are other games taking gamers' time away from Apex Legends and it's showing instantly. Even myself, I pumped 50 hours or so into the game in the weeks after it launched but then moved off to The Division 2 when it launched and have been addicted to that ever since.

Amid financial dips, Square Enix needs a win right now and E3 2019 is the perfect opportunity to stoke the fires of hype.

Today Square Enix announced its E3 2019 plans, confirming a showcase in Sony's old time slot. Fans everywhere have high hopes for the event, and for good reason: the publisher is working on a multitude of exciting projects including the insanely hyped Final Fantasy VII: Remake. The company has been relatively quiet as it develops these games, including transforming FF7 from a turn-based RPG into an action game like Final Fantasy XV, but that silence could be broken in a few months' time.

One project we should hear more about is Square Enix's ambitious Avengers game. Square Enix signed a big multi-year partnership with Marvel to make games based on the comic universe, and the Avengers will be the first of many games. We don't know much about the Avengers game other than it's a completely original story and that it's meant to be played for years to come, indicating live service elements.

A new announcement has come out from the Kingdom Hearts III Twitter account, the announcement reveals that the game will be getting a free 'challenge mode' sometime tomorrow.

For Kingdom Hearts III players who need a bit more of a challenge, Sqaure Enix will be releasing a new level of difficulty called 'Critical Mode'. The new mode will be arriving as a free update tomorrow for users and Square Enix's Tetsuya Nomura, who is the director of the Kingdom Hearts series, have said "We've changed things up from the previous games, so I hope you enjoy".

According to the games co-director, Tai Yasue the critical mode will be "more technical and offensive" and is more so designed for those are would consider themselves "good at action games". It will be interesting to see how much harder Kingdom Hearts III will get after this update, for more information visit the official Kingdom Hearts website here.

The release of Mortal Kombat 11 is only a few hours away and as fighting game fans build that hype Capcom have decided to try and take a slice of NetherRealm Studios' pie.

As I reported last week, Capcom announced that Street Fight V would be going completely free of charge for a limited amount of time on PlayStation and PC. The free trial period is scheduled to begin on April 23 and will last two weeks until May 5th. What will be included within the trial has been listed on the official Capcom blog, a link to that can be found here.

This might seem like a bit of cheeky move by Capcom but that is just what these companies do to grab audience, its classic marketing tactics for their products. It is unclear if the tactic will actually have a drastic effect on Mortal Kombat 11 sales, but I would assume that it certainly wouldn't be helping them. Mortal Kombat 11 recently had gameplay released for the Nintendo Switch, check that out here. There is also the Shao Kahn gameplay trailer if you want to see some bloody action mixed with "you suck" taunts.

Epic Games have decided to ride the hype of the upcoming Avengers: Endgame release which is planned for launch this week. Epic Games will be bringing Avengers to Fortnite very soon.

In a recent Tweet that was posted onto the official Fortnite Twitter page, Epic Games has shown that Fortnite will soon be getting a cross-over from none other than the Avengers.

The Tweet is quite a simple one, all that Epic Games have said is "Whatever it takes. 4.25.19" with the hash tag #FortniteXAvengers. We can also see a Fortnite character holding Captain America's shield, which could suggest that this cross-over will give Fortnite players some of the abilities of the Avengers. We will know more on April 25th.

Just a day out from the official release of Mortal Kombat 11, some users have already gotten the title and have dived into the game files. Some peculiar file names have been spotted and have revealed what is to be believed as the games DLC line-up.

According to Redditor LeoNatan, who claims to already have a copy of the Nintendo Switch version of Mortal Kombat 11 and has already dived into the game files, there will be 9 DLC characters. The list that LeoNatan provides is the following; Shang Tsung (already confirmed), Joker, Nightwolf, Terminator, Sindel, Spawn, Ash Williams, Fujin and Sheeva.

Just like any 'data mined' information, please do take the above list as rumored information as there is has been no official confirmation for any of these characters except for Shang Tsung. Moving onto what could be possible, Sheeva has been spotted a few times in the story mode of Mortal Kombat 11, so her being included as a DLC character does make sense. As for Terminator and Joker, these characters would be absolutely awesome to play in Mortal Kombat and I personally hope that this just isn't a rumor and is actually true. Mortal Kombat 11 will be coming to the Xbox One, PS4, PC and Nintendo Switch on April 23rd.

We are only one day out from the release of Mortal Kombat 11 and NetherRealm Studios has decided to drop a brand new gameplay trailer for the recently leaked fighter Frost.

Last week, an image of Mortal Kombat 11's full fighting roster was leaked out and we saw that Frost was going to be included. Now, NetherRealm Studios has released the above gameplay trailer of Frost which has officially introduced her into Mortal Kombat 11. Frost is an old returning character, and was first introduced into the Mortal Kombat franchise as Sub-Zero's apprentice in Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance.

Frost seems to be somewhat like an android or perhaps, more accurately, a Frost Cyborg. She uses a combination of very fast attacks that include her conjuring frost weapons to press her advantage, or even taking her own head off to use as a frost grenade. Frost seems to be best suited in mid to close range combat, using her weapons as a kiting tool players will be able to run frost rings around their opponent if they correctly utilize all of the options her kit displays. Mortal Kombat 11 is coming to the Xbox One, PS4, PC and Nintendo Switch on April 23rd.

The first real hardware teased for Microsoft's next-gen Xbox console saw it featuring some serious horsepower, led by AMD's soon-to-be-released next-gen Zen 2 and Navi architectures both on 7nm.

I reported on those leaks back in January of this year and they saw the consoles split into two: the higher-end codename Anaconda and Lockhart consoles. Now there's new reports that suggest Anaconda will be more powerful than the PS5, which falls exactly in line with my predictions. The higher-end Anaconda will reportedly be called Next Xbox X and will be the fastest next-gen console with its Navi GPU with 12 TFLOPs of performance compared to the Next Xbox Streaming or 'Lockhart' and its knocked down 4 TFLOPs of performance.

Now there are new reports from Seasoned Gaming boss Ainsley Bowden who tweeted that "multiple insiders" have confirmed Microsoft's codename Anaconda console will be faster than the PlayStation 5. This is something backed up by the big leaks from January 2019 on the purported Next Xbox consoles, including codename Anaconda. He tweeted:

A new rumor is lighting the hype train on fire for the PlayStation 5, with Pelham Smithers of research firm Pelham Smithers Associates saying he estimates Sony will price the PS5 at $399.

Smithers explains that the PlayStation 5 will reportedly have AMD's new Ryzen 3600G processor, which will be based on the new Zen 2 architecture on 7nm. This chip, according to Smithers' estimates will make up around $180-$220 of the cost of the PS5. If this estimate is correct then I'd expect to have Navi GPU cores on the APU itself.

Sony has teased that the next-gen PlayStation 5 will have some super-fast SSD technology that will bring game load times from 15+ seconds down to less than a second with the PS4 version of Spider-Man used as an example of 0.8 seconds on the new SSD tech in the PS5 from over 15 seconds on the PS4.

Nexon could become the latest force in Disney's massive arsenal of world domination.

Nexon founder Kim Jung-ju plans to sell off his enormous 98.6% stake in the company's Korean branch, and major players like Tencent, Comcast, Amazon, and even Electronic Arts are interested in buying. But the Korea Herald reports the Nexon exec wants to sell his $8.9 billion valuation to Disney, an entertainment behemoth notorious for straying far away from making its own games.

Right now Nexon is among the top 12 most lucrative games-makers on the planet, and earned $2.25 billion in 2018 thanks to its wide array of monetized mobile and PC games. Disney would of course have Nexon run as it has, and not meddle with the Asian corporations' business model--if anything it'd just enjoy a steady stream of revenues from mobile games and maybe use it as a wheelhouse for Marvel games.

Anthem hasn't gone very well, and BioWare has been playing catch up since the game's hotly-contested launch. Gamers are jumping ship en masse and the game's live service roadmap, which is critical for its long-term success, has seemingly been disrupted. But starting tomorrow this drip-feed of updates will end and gamers will finally get some new content to chew on.

After a lapse of communication with fans, BioWare confirms Anthem's long-awaited new stronghold will release tomorrow. BioWare community lead Andrew Johnson confirmed the news, saying that the latest stronghold will be accompanied by a host of bug fixes and tweaks. "Our next game update (1.1.0) will be released tomorrow with the new Stronghold and various other game improvements and fixes. We will detail all of that out in our patch notes tomorrow, as well as give an update on the 90-Day calendar," Johnson said.

Over the last few weeks BioWare has been exceedingly cautious about interacting with the Anthem community. The Anthem subreddit now looks just like Destiny's: there's tons of posts lambasting the studio, lost of suggestions on how to fix the game, and a lot of discourse that ultimately creates a negative atmosphere.

Sony could merge two of its biggest strengths--gaming and movies--to bolster the PlayStation 5's service roadmap.

Services are very important for companies like Sony. Long after hardware is sold, it's services like PS Plus and sales on the PS Store network that continually make money. With the next-gen PS5 on the horizon, which has some serious power with an AMD Zen 2 CPU and Navi graphics, Sony has to get creative to add more value to its services to compete against the likes of Microsoft, Nintendo, Google, and even Apple. What's Sony to do? Maybe make a new streaming service that combines games and film into one bold interactive experience, Bandersnatch-style.

Yesterday I saw something Hideo Kojima said and this idea was born. Kojima spoke about how game streaming will ultimately merge into services like Netflix, creating boundless interactive opportunities. Gaming could become synonymous with watching. Bandersnatch and the recent You vs Wild are key examples. Kojima said he had something "big" planned for this unification, and it got me thinking...what if Sony made interactive choose-your-own adventure game/movies out of first-party IPs like Uncharted, Death Stranding, The Last of Us, Days Gone, Horizon: Zero Dawn and God of War?

RAGE 2 is Bethesda's latest experiment to find a niche in the live gaming market, and is quite an important piece of the publisher's puzzle.

Yesterday I said that RAGE 2 definitely needs multiplayer. It's clearly set up to be played for a long period of time, featuring grindy Ubisoft-esque mechanics like material hunting, open-world exploration with vehicles, RPG level ups, and an involved weapon mod system. It's just missing one big thing: co-op play with friends.

This, strangely enough, is by design. RAGE 2 is a singleplayer-only game that will have optional live service content. It aims to engage players with new updates and additional content, all while missing the critical key in any live game: multiplayer. Online multiplayer sees users engaging with each other as well as a constantly-evolving world with new things to do. The idea is the more gamers play, the more they'll be engaged--ie the more they'll want to keep playing--and the more likely they are to spend money on optional stuff like microtransactions, DLC, and subscriptions.

A recent announcement from William Peter Hjate, or better known as Super Smash Bros star 'Leffen' has revealed the pro-player is going to take a hiatus from Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.

If you are unsure of who Leffen is, William Hjate is the best Super Smash Bros. Melee player in the world and took home first place at EVO 2018 Championship for Melee. Leffen has decided to take a break from Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, as he feels satisfied with his efforts for now and has decided to concentrate his time into streaming Melee.In the Twitter post, Leffen says that the possibility of him entering in a Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is not completely out the window but he won't be practicing anymore.

It is not uncommon for professional pro-players of their chosen game to take a break from the game they are playing, only to return after a healthy amount of time away from it. Many pro-players experience a 'burn-out' effect from grinding many hours into the game they play, which is completely understandable when your job is to literally put full-time+ hours into a game. So for now we say goodbye to Leffen in Ultimate, hopefully he makes a return when he feels its the right time to compete in the new game once again.

According to a recent interview with an employee at CD Projekt RED, Cyberpunk 2077 is "pretty different" from the E3 2018 demo we were shown last year.

A disclaimer before we jump into the specific details, CD Projet RED has not changed the fundamental aspects of the game, these aspects would include; first-person RPG, open-world and a narrative-driven experience with multiple-choice missions. Now, what has been changed? According to Mateusz Tomaszkiewicz, Quest Director of Cyberpunk 2077, there is many things that have not been showcased and there is many things that are still being worked on. "So, there are many stuff that we didn't show yet, there are many things that we are still working on. I would say that the game is pretty different to what we shown last year but there are many details that we are currently working on."

Tomaszkiewicz continues to speak about Cyberpunk 2077 and dives into some of the gameplay experiences players can expect. According to Tomaszkiewicz, there is many ways to play the title in terms of gameplay. He even goes into detail to say that there is a "variety of options depending on how you want to play the title and allows you to enjoy the way you want to play. I think that's how I would describe the title." Cyberpunk 2077 doesn't have an official release date yet, but it is being created for next-gen consoles and the PS4, Xbox One and PC. If you are interested in some more description on Cyberpunk 2077, check out this link here.

Fighting game fans who haven't had a chance to jump into Street Fighter V will soon be able to completely free of charge.

Capcom have announced via their Capcom Blog that Street Fighter V: Arcade Edition will experience a free trial period for PlayStation and PC gamers. The free trail period will begin on April 23rd and will continue through until May 5th. It will feature 16 playable fighters for players to enjoy as well as four bonus DLC characters. However, these four DLC characters will only be available in certain game modes, such as Ranked, Casual, and Training.

The release date for this free trial is quite a peculiar one, as April 23 is also the release date for the highly anticipated Mortal Kombat 11 by NetherRealm Studios. Perhaps Capcom has pulling a sly move here by trying to keep or distract fighting game fans on Street Fighter V or away from Mortal Kombat 11. For more information about Street Fighter V, check out the official blog post on the Capcom website here.

Can't get enough of God of War? How about diving into how the game was created since there is not going to be DLC for the title. PlayStation and Santa Monica Studios are creating that very thing.

A new announcement has been released onto the official PlayStation Blog and reveals that in celebration of the one year anniversary for God of War there will be a behind-the-scenes documentary released called 'Raising Kratos'. The above video is the trailer for the documentary and is commentated by God of War's Director Cory Barlog.

Barlog runs us through some of the thought processes he was taking when creating the critically-acclaimed title. We see scenes from the motion capture side of the development, as well as voice capture studio work, massive fan support and some of the locations the team decided use in-game. It should be noted that the documentary has been formed together through 400 hours of footage over the three years of game development, meaning that fans can expect a "full-length" documentary. God of War: Raising Kratos will be released onto the official PlayStation YouTube Channel "very soon".

While most of the time you hear about review bombers its mostly 'bad' news, an example of this would be the Metro family of games being attacked after the announcement of Metro Exodus being a Epic Games Store exclusive.

This time round though its the other side of the coin, review bombers have taken to the Assassin's Creed Unity Steam page to show their support and thanks to Ubisoft in wake of the tragic events that have occurred at Notre Dame. If you didn't know, Ubisoft donated 500,000 EURO to the rebuilding efforts planned for Notre Dame, and also made Assassin's Creed Unity completely free until April 25th so players could experience Notre Dame virtually.

In support for Ubisoft's efforts, players have taken to the Assassin's Creed Unity Steam page. Hundreds of players have commented on the game saying that they are more than happy with what Ubisoft have done, and despite what was considered a lack-luster Assassin's Creed title it has given players a reason to give it another shot. If you are interested in checking out Notre Dame virtually, Assassin's Creed Unity is completely free on the Uplay Store until April 25th, a link can be found here.

Following an anxiety-filled dev cycle, Anthem is a mess right now...but Cloud Imperium's Chris Roberts is confident that BioWare could save it.

With enough determination and effort, BioWare's big ambitious new IP Anthem could make a big No Man's Sky-style comeback story. That's according to Chris Roberts, who said in a recent Newsweek interview that BioWare and EA shouldn't give up on their vision. They could turn things around and salvage the sinking ship, the same way Hello Games saved No Man's Sky and Square Enix pulled Final Fantasy XIV from the rubble. It'll just take time and lots of iteration.

"I would say the same [thing with No Man's Sky can happen] for Anthem. I've played it, so I know there's plenty of nice stuff in there, stuff that works, and then there's some stuff that doesn't work. It's like what we're doing on Star Citizen. It's just iteration," Roberts said. "I hope EA and BioWare don't give up on it, that they get their heads down, roll out and improve things to make it work. Destiny was an ongoing process. That's kind of how these games are."

RAGE 2 may not be a monetized online service game, but it still aims to capture engagement by creating long cycles of play with tons of stuff to do. As some Ubisoft games prove, this could actually be a bad thing.

When I saw this RAGE 2 gameplay stream from Twitch user CohhCarnage, I immediately thought: "Hey, this looks like a Ubisoft game." A lot of my hype died on the vine right there. Instead of the chaotic, in-your-face explosive action RAGE 2's trailers showed, I was met with a very lifeless-looking open world filled with exploration, vehicles thrown in to make foot travel less montonous, and oodles and oodles of stuff to collect. There's objectives telling you to uncover chests, do X to get Y, and a massive array of abilities to unlock by collecting in-game materials. Throw in tons of enemies on a huge map and we have all the trimmings for a singleplayer grind-fest.

I think this is exactly what Bethesda wants...but it doesn't exactly fit with the publisher's current live focus. The game is clearly designed to be repeatedly played over and over again and grinded to eternity. Everything looks like it'll be stretched way too thin, though, to make the experiences really count. What's weird is that RAGE 2 is missing the most important engagement hook: online play. Every bit of gameplay reminded me how much more fun the experience would be with another player, especially during the hulking boss fights.