Gaming - Page 734

If you were like me and gaming your life away in the 90s during some of the best game releases like Hexen and Heretic, you'll be surprised (and glad) to hear about somethign I didn't know about until today: an AI-powered texture pack for Heretic.

Improving games using AI and new texture packs isn't something new, but modder Grandgreed has used a neural network-created texture pack for the new Heretic called Heretic Neural Texture Pack. The new AI-powered texture pack improves the surface textures of Heretic, as well as its enemies and pick up sprites which all look much better with the Heretic Neural Texture Pack.

Just looking at the enemy models, the AI-based texture mod is doing a great job here alone.

Battlefield V will soon receive its Tides of War Chapter 3: Trials by Fire Update #2 with developer DICE providing some update notes for gamers on what to expect in the upcoming patch.

DICE has focused the update on Battlefield V's new battle royale mode, Firestorm, with tweaks amounting to improved interaction with safes, fixed visual issues, and making the Flare Gun usable while in water. The developer adds that other parts of the multiplayer of Battlefield V have been improved, with the team adding a soldier stance icon from single-player, which was a big request from players. DICE adds that "we've made multiple stability improvements, bug fixes, and some quality-of-life enhancements".

There are some PC-specific improvements in the new Battlefield V update as well, with concentration on DXR and DLSS features, and much more. Check out that full list below:

BioWare has big, big problems. It's systemic issues have affected big marquee games like Mass Effect: Andromeda, and most recently, the studio's massive new IP Anthem. These issues have existed for a long while and now, but the studio finally makes a big step towards change.

BioWare's magic is running thin. Gone are the glory days of Dragon Age: Origins and Mass Effect 2. BioWare now seems to export strange experiments rather than great games, and has created an environment endemic of anxiety, depression, and massive stress to the point where employees suffer mental breakdowns. Now after years of reports about crunch on Dragon Age: Inquisition, and a startling expose on Anthem's development, studio General Manager Casey Hudson confirms these issues exist. BioWare is in bad shape...but Hudson is determined to fix how the studio makes games.

"The article mentions many of the problems in the development of Anthem and some of our previous projects. And it draws a link between those issues and the quality of our workplace and the well-being of our staff. These problems are real and it's our top priority to continue working to solve them," current BioWare General Manager Casey Hudson said in an internal memo acquired by Kotaku.

Games take a very real toll on developers, but some studios in particular shed more weight on their workers. BioWare is one such studio, and the company has a very big morale problem on its hands.

According to a new report from Kotaku, sources close to BioWare confirm the studio is endemic with depression, frustration, and mismangement. BioWare's development practices are grueling, years-long cycles of crunch, anxiety, and mental duress that see employees regularly have mental breakdowns. It's so bad people go into closets and cry, yell at walls out of anger, or simply disappear for months at a time on stress leave.

"I actually cannot count the amount of stress casualties we had on Mass Effect: Andromeda or Anthem. A stress casualty at BioWare means someone had such a mental breakdown from the stress they're just gone for one to three months. Some come back. Some don't," one ex-BioWare dev told Kotaku's Jason Schreier.

Outside of being the only place to buy specific games on PC, Epic hasn't made a compelling argument for its storefront. Until it can fortify a very flimsy marketplace we should expect this buying spree to continue.

Epic's exclusivity deals won't stop any time soon. The company will continue to poach games from Steam as devs jump over to the Epic Store's attractive 88% revenue split. Tim Sweeney already confirmed as much, but he really didn't have to say anything. One visit to the Epic Store says everything you need to know. Here's what Sweeney said in a recent Tweet:

"We've had a lot of discussions about [exclusivity deals] since GDC. Epic is open to continuing to sign funding/exclusivity deals with willing developers and publishers regardless of their previous plans or announcements around Steam," Epic Games' founder said.

Risk of Rain 2 is one of the most explosively chaotic and fun indies I've played in recent memory. Apparently I'm not the only one who thinks this; the game has pulled in a metric ton of players in its short availability on Steam.

Hopoo's new sequel brings the classic Risk of Rain roguelike to the 3D realm, complete with 4-player co-op madness and hard-as-nails boss fights. The formula has proven to be immensely powerful: Risk of Rain 2 has amassed over 650,000 players on Steam in its first week of early access. For an indie--or any game on the platform, really--these numbers are absolutely gigantic. The numbers are inflated a bit from the recent BOGO offer, but Hopoo is about to crest 650,000 copies sold on Steam...and those are just early access figures. Those sales could jump dramatically when Risk of Rain 2 launches on other platforms later this year.

Armed with this surge of goodwill, the devs are committed to laying out the game's future roadmap of content. There's still more classes, maps, items, and titanic world-breaking bosses to deliver, as well as a ton of tweaks and hotfixes to roll out. Right now Risk of Rain 2 feels like a complete game to me, so I'm excited about the prospect of expansion into this weird, punishing sci-fi universe.

Remedy wants to make another Alan Wake game, and now we know they actually were developing a sequel at one point. But we shouldn't expect the dark series to make a comeback any time soon.

In a recent interview with VG247, Remedy's Thomas Puha says the studio was actually making Alan Wake 2 a long while ago. The game just fell apart while in development for undisclosed reasons--Microsoft could've canned it, Remedy could've moved on to other things, or the game could've just fizzled out as is all too common in the industry.

Puha affirms that Alan Wake probably won't be seen for a while now. Remedy is working on a bunch of projects, including its new IP Control, a game called CrossFire 2, and another mystery title. "We were working on Alan Wake 2 years ago and it just didn't pan out, so there's nothing. We're just booked solid for the next couple of years, really."

2K Games and Firaxis Games has now enabled support for cross-platform saves for Civilization VI between the PC and the Nintendo Switch. PC Civilization games can now be continued portably!

A recent announcement onto the Civilization VI: Gathering Storm Twitter account has brought in a new way of portability for PC Civilization VI games. Players that happen to own a Nintendo Switch and have a second copy of Civilization VI will now be able to continue their PC game that they were playing on their Nintendo Switch as Firaxis and 2K have enabled cross-platform saving.

Players can now link their 2K account to multi-platform cloud saves in the options menu, then depending on what platform players choose to play on, they will able to continue right where they left off. It should be noted that at the moment both the Rise and Fall or Gathering Storm expansions are not available on the Nintendo Switch version, so cloud saved games with these expansions enabled will not be able to be played on the Switch. More positively, those expansions will soon be released onto the Nintendo Switch, so players will be able to enjoy cloud saves with more than just the vanilla game.

Darksiders fans will be glad to know that they can pick up the Darksiders Warmastered Edition for their Nintendo Switch, digital and physical releases have been made available.

Back in late January, we heard about the Warmastered Edition having its trailer leak onto the main website. The video was the official trailer for the Warmastered Edition and revealed the edition was for the Nintendo Switch. Not surprisingly, the video was taken down shortly after it was found, but eventually was uploaded to the official Darksiders YouTube Channel and showcases to players the protagonist they will be playing.

War, who is the first Horseman of the Apocalypse is accused of inciting a war between Heaven and Hell. He is sent out to restore the balance. Buyers will be able to pick up either a detail or physical release of the Darksiders Warmastered Edition on April 2nd. For more information, or you would like to pick up the most recently released Darksiders game - Darksiders III - visit the official Darksiders website here.

In a recent interview, Mortal Kombat 11's Co-creator and Creative Director Ed Boon has spoken out about the performance of the Nintendo Switch version of Mortal Kombat 11.

GameInformer is following up on their coverage of Mortal Kombat 11 over the month of April, and a newly released rapid-fire questions interview with Ed Boon has revealed what we can expect performance wise for the Nintendo Switch version of the game. GameInformer asked Boon "is the Switch version going to run at 30FPS?", Boon replied with "No, the Switch version is going to run at 60FPS."

A follow up question was asked to Boon regarding how the Nintendo Switch version of the game is shaping up. Boon replied with "Its looking great" GameInformer then asks if the background in the fights is going to be blurry, basically asking how bad is the downscaling for the Nintendo Switch edition. Boon replies with "no, no, no - its Mortal Kombat 11". Mortal Kombat 11 is planned for release on the PS4, Xbox One, PC and Nintendo Switch on April 23rd.

Game retailers are known for their accidental leaks of unannounced games coming to certain platforms through their website listings, and now we have a few more. This time round Nintendo Switch titles have taken the spotlight.

Supposed leaks of Best Buy's internal staff-only data base has showcased three unannounced Nintendo Switch titles. According to the above images from Wario64 - a very well known leaker of game information - the Metroid Prime Trilogy, The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past and Persona 5 are heading over to the Nintendo Switch. Here is a imgur folder of all the leaked images.

If you didn't know, Persona 5's 'Joker' is heading over to Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, which could be a big enough reason for Nintendo to bring his whole game over to the Switch. The listing for Zelda is quite puzzling, as Best Buy has not mistaken A Link to the Past for the announced remake of Link's Awakening, as there is a separate listing for Awakening also in the stores database. The Metroid Prime Trilogy listing could very well be true as Nintendo did delay Metroid Prime 4 for further development time, perhaps a remake of the older games will be enough to tie over Metroid fans until Metroid Prime 4 is ready?

If you wanted some confirmation that next-gen consoles will be good for AMD, look no further than Gearbox Software's new announcement that it will have optimized performance on AMD Ryzen and Radeon products.

Borderlands 3 has been "developed from the ground up with AMD" announced publisher 2K and developer Gearbox Software, the press release continued: "Developed from the ground up with AMD, Borderlands 3 will take full advantage of the most powerful PC hardware available and is optimized for top performance and incredible gaming experiences on AMD Radeon graphics cards and Ryzen CPUs".

The game is powered by Unreal Engine 4 with the team at Gearbox using Unreal Engine 3 for the first two Borderlands game, with studio boss Randy Pitchford saying at GDC 2017 that UE4 was helping Gearbox "evolve" the Borderlands series.

Cyberpunk 2077 developer CD PROJEKT RED has announced that it is opening up a merchandise store for gamers in the next couple oif weeks, and wanted to wait until April 2 to announce the news as it didn't want to have fans thinking it was an April Fools prank.

The developer has said its new merch store will be opening "in the following weeks" and tells its Twitter followers to "keep your eyes open for updates". We should expect merchandise for the entire Witcher series of games, as well as some sweet new merch for the upcoming Cyberpunk 2077, which still doesn't have a firm release date.

Cyberpunk 2077 is the latest game in development by CDPR and teased as a first-person shooter RPG that is set in a futuristic noir-like city that the studio is deep in development of. CD PROJEKT RED has said they will be showing Cyberpunk 2077 off in much more detail at E3 2019 which is only a couple of months away.

After decades of making Mortal Kombat games, Ed Boon wants to expand outside of the ultra-violent, face-smashing fighter. His dream? An online IP that's always active.

In a recent interview with GameInformer, Mortal Kombat creator Ed Boon discussed his ideas for a brand new kind of Netherealm game. Work on Mortal Kombat 11 is going smoothly, but Boon would like to explore a bit more. The new IP would be a kind of online-based experience that puts gamers' hard-earned loot in danger when they're not actually playing.

"On a scale of 1-10, how badly do you want to make a new IP?"

Today Gearbox announced a bunch of new Borderlands 3 info, including the dreaded Epic Store exclusivity, confirmation of a season pass with 4 DLC packs, and an introduction to the game's four vault hunters.

The leaks were 100% accurate on this one. Borderlands 3 will have four classes like its predecessors, one of which is actually familiar. Gamers can customize skills in unique ways, the devs promise, adding more flavor to the experience: each class has "unique abilities, playstyles, deep skill trees, and tons of personalization options" (side note: Borderlands 3 will have over 1 billion guns).

The new stars of Gearbox's chaotic shooter include FL4K, a beastmaster who can charm monsters to his side, Moze, the leaked "botjock" who can instantly call in an explosively powerful mech named Bear to wreak havoc on enemies, Amara, a siren who smashes enemies with her fiery blue fists, and Zane, a soldier operative that uses gadgets and other creative self-made creations to annihilate foes.

Like a phoenix rising from the ashes, BioWare's next Dragon Age game will be reborn from the dust and bones of Anthem's failing infrastructure. But is this a blessing or a curse?

Making games is never a straightforward process. Devs typically draw inspiration from previous games and iterate on everything they've done before to make new titles, including animations, engine tech modifications, lighting, textures, and effects. Like the games that came before it, Dragon Age 4 will too iterate on and share key similarities with its predecessor (in this case the troubled Anthem). But with Anthem's laundry list of mistakes and hiccups, this could be somewhat alarming.

To understand how this could affect future games, we need to inspect the present.Anthem actually broke the iteration formula BioWare had used for years, making things quite difficult for its team.

Today Gearbox revealed new details about Borderlands 3, including the hotly contested Epic Store exclusivity on PC. But they also hinted at what's to come after the game releases.

Post-launch DLC is par for the course with big AAA games like Borderlands, and the third chapter will be no different. Gearbox's new chaotic shoot-and-loot FPS Borderlands 3 will have four different expansions that release seasonally over the course of a year. The DLC packs are wrapped in a $29.99 season pass and will include new story missions and campaign content among some extras like weapon skins, trinkets, and mods (which may hint at microtransactions).

"Continue your Borderlands 3 adventure with the Season Pass, featuring exclusive cosmetic items and four story campaign add-ons with new missions and challenges!" reads the listing.

Borderlands 3 is yet another timed-exclusivity casualty of the PC Game Store Wars, and won't be arriving on Steam until April 2020.

Today Gearbox Software confirmed two bits of bad Borderlands 3 news: it's exclusive to the Epic Store on PC, and that the game is coming out on September 13, 2019 on all platforms. The first is obviously frustrating for Steam's massive 100 million-strong PC gaming community, and ultimately aligns with Take-Two Interactive's goal to maximize potential profits (the Epic Store lets devs keep 85% of all sales revenues). Epic's exclusivity with Borderlands 3 lasts six months, and the game isn't even up for pre-order on Steam.

Borderlands 3's release timing is wonky, though. Gearbox's huge new sequel will release in a congested window.

Bandai Namco is back again to take the Humble Store by storm with a brand new bundle containing many discounts on some awesome titles.

The above announcement has come from the official Humble Store, it regards the third Bandai themed bundle that is currently available. At the price point of just $1, buyers of this bundle will receive; Enslaved: Odyssey to the West, PAC-Man Championship Edition DX, and Impact Winter. Moving onto the $9 margin, buyers of this bundle will get; Little Nightmares, 11-11 Memories Retold, Get Even and Project Cars.

Moving up in price, the $15 bundle will give you all of the previously mentioned titles as well as GOD EATER 2: Rage Burst and SWORD ART ONLINE: Fatal Bullet. Finally, if you thrown $25 you will additionally receive Tekken 7. If you are interested in picking up any of these great Bandai titles for very low prices, head on over to the Humble Store here.

One of the biggest fighting game tournaments is Evolution Championship Series or EVO. The registration numbers for EVO 2019 and as no surprise, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is sitting at first place.

The news comes from the President of EVO, Joey Cuellar who posted the above tweet onto his personal Twitter account. The tweet showcases the registration scoreboard for each of the respective games and what position they have fallen in from 1st - 9th. At this years EVO, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is sitting at 1st place, with Tekken 7 at 2nd, Street Fighter V at 3rd, the soon to be released Mortal Kombat 11 at 4th and Under the Night In Birth at 5th.

Surprisingly, Bandai Namco's Dragon Ball FighterZ didn't make it into the top 5 despite it having the highest registration rate for EVO 2018. It should also be noted that Super Smash Bros for Wii U or Smash 4 has been retired for this years EVO, alongside Smash Bros. Melee. The registration will be available for EVO 2019 up until July 14th, the actual event for EVO 2019 will be held on August 2nd until August 4th at the Mandalay Bay.