Gaming - Page 760

Microsoft is getting busy with the marketing push for its upcoming Crackdown 3, with Microsoft Studio Creative Director and Writer Joe Staten talking about the single player campaign during an interview with GamesBeat.

Staten said that Crackdown 3 has around 15 hours worth of single player campaign, he said: "The game comes with a 15-hour-plus single-player campaign where you get to play as an agent in the open world of New Providence, a neon-lit city controlled by the mysterious organization Terra Nova. One by one, you take down the crime bosses of the city and solve its mystery. You can play one of 21 different agents, and switch between them at any time you come across supply points in the city".

Crackdown 3's single player campaign isn't just something happening in the story and you dealing with it, with Staten adding that it'll also train you on how to play tghe game. He added: "It'll get your skills sharp enough to be competitive in multiplayer. It'll also just give you fictional context for the world, that kind of thing. The way I look at it these days, the reason you put a campaign in any game is because players are different. Depending on the day, everyone has a different mood. Some days I feel like being super social. Sometimes I feel like not talking to anybody. Some days I feel really cooperative. Some days I'm super competitive. I think the more games can satisfy all of those different player moods, the more successful they're going to be".

Sony Japan has reportedly just registered a new patent that would allow for full backwards compatibility on its next-gen PlayStation 5 console from "previous consoles", something that could see PS1, PS2, PS3, and PS4 games working on the PS5.

This new patent teases something that popped up last year that we covered, where it would see the new CPU in the PS5 (which will be a custom Zen 2 processor from AMD) being able to "interpret" the CPUs of previous-gen PlayStation consoles. Mark Cerny, the brains behind the PS4, filed the patent that could provide the backwards compatibility on PS5.

The patent would have the PS5 playing previous-gen PlayStation games smoothly, with its more powerful hardware able to iron out the sychronization errors between the frequency and core counts of the processors. For example, the PS3 and PS4 have radically different CPU architectures, frequencies, and core/thread counts than the upcoming PS5. Games made for the PS3 are made for that very specific hardware in only the PS3, making it difficult to 'simply emulate' it on PS4.

Microsoft will have some surprises up its sleeve at the Game Developers Conference next month, with rumors the company will unveil a new cross-platform development platform that would see Xbox Live support for games on Android, iOS, and Nintendo Switch.

Using the Xbox Live service on a different platform isn't totally new, with Microsoft owned games like Minecraft requiring an Xbox Live login across Android, iOS and the Nintendo Switch. This new move at GDC 2019 would see many more Xbox Live games being supported on the various mobile platforms, as well as the usual Xbox Live achievements, social network, multiplayer, and more.

This news comes directly from Microsoft on the official GDC 2019 scheduling website, with the company explaining:

Amid a rather hectic PR nightmare caused by Metro Exodus' Epic Store exclusivity, a Metro game dev says the series could skip PC entirely if sales do poorly. This won't happen for many reasons we'll outline here, and we'll bring some more grounded discussion to the heated topic.

The Metro Exodus PC debacle is raging on. Angry PC gamers are boycotting Deep Silver and review-bombing Metro games on Steam, saying the sequel's exclusivity deal with Epic Store is unfair. Suffice it to say, PC players aren't happy about the new PC Game Store Wars that will soon fracture their favorite platform. 4A Games, the team behind the Metro series, aren't too happy about this either. One game dev even said if Metro Exodus does badly on PC, future games won't arrive there. This won't happen. To understand why, we have to take a closer look at how games are made.

First of all, it's not always up to the developer where (and even when) their game launches. Depending on the deal 4A Games signed with Deep Silver, the publisher probably calls the shots. Publishers put up serious cash to get the games actually made and then distributed over a worldwide audience. The publisher has obviously signed a deal with Epic Games for timed exclusivity rights (yes, Exodus will launch on Steam, but not before 2020) and this deal could even extend to future games. We have no clue how much Epic offered Deep Silver for timed exclusivity, but the Fortnite-maker has plenty of cash to wave around.

Respawn Entertainment is adapting its fast-paced shooter into a free-to-play battle royale game...and for some reason it won't have mechs.

Respawn is making a new Titanfall spin-off game called Apex Legends, sources say, that's a lot like Blizzard's Overwatch. The game will be free-to-play on consoles and PC, centering around the popular battle royale genre where gamers battle it out in an arena map. Apex Legends won't have mech suits like previous Titanfall games and instead takes queues from Overwatch with a selection of pilot operators with unique abilities and roles. The game will of course be monetized as all F2P games (and online EA games) are with tactics like lootboxes.

According to eSports writer Rod Breslau, Apex Legends will be 3v3 action with multiple classes:

The entire Metro Exodus moving from Steam to the Epic Store scandal is enough for me to not support 4A Games, so I've been staying out of the stories and letting the games news writers Jak and Derek handle it all. But then this news broke out on the weekend and I'm the only one writing news right now, so here we go.

4A Games is having a full on dummy spit moving Metro Exodus hastily from the Steam store to the new Epic Store where it will make more money per sale, which is great for them, but a super dick move towards Valve that has been marketing Metro Exodus for what feels like years now. Anyway, now the Metro developer is throwing shade at the PC gaming market threatening that if Metro Exodus bombs on the PC we most likely won't see future Metro titles on the PC as the developer would seemingly go console exclusive.

How did this happen? One of the 4A Games developers posted on Russian board 'GAMEINATOR' where he touched on the review bombing of Metro Exodus on Steam make the developer hurt that it was trying to make a great game. Yeah, alright. The developer pushed a narrative that if Metro Exodus bombs in sales on the PC because of these review bombings on Steam, future Metro games (if there are any) will most likely not arrive on the PC.

Crackdown 3 is right around the corner with the latest bit of hype something worth being excited over, as well as the game looking like an insane amount of fun, will harness the power of cloud-based technology for new levels of destruction.

Microsoft Studios creative director Joe Staten during an interview with VentureBeat teased: "What we're doing in Wrecking Zone is we're running Havok in Azure. We're spinning up the equivalent of 12 Xbox Ones, that level of cloud compute, to do this lockstep full destruction. What this means is that if you're on a day one Xbox One from four years ago, or a brand new Xbox One X, that experience of destruction will be the same on all platforms. An Xbox One X will be rendering it in 4K and an Xbox One will be in 1080p or what have you, but a destructive chunk is a destructive chunk regardless of the platform. It's really nice. It means that even if I have an older piece of hardware, I'm not getting a downgraded Wrecking Zone experience".

Crackdown has always been about destruction but with the latest version the developer wanted to take it to the next level, which is a large reason why Crackdown 3 took so long to develop is that the multiplayer was being tuned the entire time. Not just in gameplay, but to make sure the destruction wasn't just added in and that it was still a super-fan game to play, even with all of the physical destruction mayhem happening around you.

Nintendo is making a new free-to-play Dr. Mario mobile game with microtransactions.

Keen on tapping the billion-dollar mobile game market, Nintendo expands its smartphone gaming business with a new partnership. Similar to its team-up with DeNA for games like Miitomo, Nintendo partners with Japanese studio LINE for a new mobile game based on the NES classic Dr. Mario.

Dr. Mario World is a free-to-play action-puzzler for iOS and Android that will be monetized with optional microtransactions, Nintendo says, and should be an online-based experience. Expect to see competitive multiplayer aspects with little engagement and spending hooks throughout gameplay. This move folds right into Nintendo's focus on recurring revenue streams.

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is utterly annihilating sales charts and was a huge driven for console sales growth for the holiday quarter.

Nintendo's latest Super Smash Bros. brawler has sold 12.08 million copies worldwide in less than a month after release, the company reveals in its latest earnings report. The game, which has the biggest roster in series history, sold 8.92 million copies across overseas territories like Europe and North America, and 3.17 million in Japan. These huge numbers skyrocketed Nintendo Switch holiday sales to 9.41 million units, up a mighty 30% year-over-year, and jumped total software sales to over 163 million.

Nintendo President Shuntaro Furukawa says Super Smash Bros.' radical success outperformed company expectations. The fan-favorite fighter now holds a new sales record.

The Switch's big new mainline Pokemon RPG is still on track for a late 2019 release, but other games like Bayonetta 3 are still deep in development.

In its latest financial reports, Nintendo re-affirmed release windows of key first-party Switch games that will propel Fiscal Year 2019's earnings. Strong software like Super Smash Bros. Ultimate and Pokemon Let's Go Eevee and Pikachu helped Nintendo sell 9.42 million consoles during the holidays, and pushed total game sales over 163 million. Nintendo plans to leverage this plan in 2019 with strategically staggered game releases.

Nintendo says Animal Crossing is still on for its nebulous 2019 release, possibly early or mid-year to round out the release timeline, whereas the Pokemon RPG, a "traditional find, battle, train type experience," will launch in late 2019 (probably during the Q3 holiday period from October - December). Nintendo's consistency with this window hints development is going well. It's likely the Pokemon mainline game will have some sort of integration with Pokemon Go and utilize specially-made hardware that connects to Switch consoles and smartphones.

The Nintendo Switch enjoys an explosive holiday quarter that propelled total global sales past 32 million units.

The Switch handheld-console hybrid has now sold 32.27 million systems worldwide, Nintendo announced in its recent Fiscal Year Q3'18 filings. During the critically important holiday quarter from October through December, a period that earns most of Nintendo's yearly revenue, the company sold a staggering 9.41 million Switch consoles, exceeding analyst predictions by nearly 1 million sales.

Q3 sales are up a mighty 30% year-over-year, and dwarf Q1 sales by nearly nine-fold and Q2 sales by nearly three-fold (a trend that's quite typical in the industry). Nintendo also sold 2.4 million more Switches in holiday 2018 (9.41 million) than in holiday 2017 (7.24 million). Big first-party software like Super Smash Bros. Ultimate and Pokemon Let's Go Evee and Pikachu were main drivers for adoption, along with holiday discounts.

After yesterdays accidental leak of Darksiders coming to the Nintendo Switch, THQ Nordic has quickly covered their tracks by officially announcing the game.

The official announcement comes via the Darksiders YouTube Channel and showcasing the exact same trailer we saw yesterday. Yesterday, THQ Nordic accidentally uploaded the trailer to their website before an official announcement was made, this leak was quickly picked up by fans and, just like any leak, instant copies were made as soon it was discovered.

The first Darksiders will be arriving on the Nintendo Switch on April 2nd, 2019. It will be coming in the form of digital and physical copy releases. If you want to check out the key features to the game, I have provided dot points in the entirety of this post for your leisure. For more information, visit the official Darksiders website here.

Steam is certainly the leading platform for PC gaming, it has a library of games for all types of players, but what if those games skip Steam and go somewhere else? Dauntless has joined the herd in this fashion and is headed for the Epic Games Store.

In a recent post to the official Dauntless website, developers Pheonix Labs have announced that their monster-hunter inspired title 'Dauntless' will now be making its way to the Epic Games Store. Dauntless isn't the first title to make the decision of skipping Steam and head straight to the Epic Games Store, Deep Silver's Metro Exodus has also chosen this path. It seems that Epic's 88% of revenue returning to developers has provided more than appealing for publishers and developers.

Over time as Epic accumulates more titles that attract gamers to their platform we could see a combatant to Steam? Simply put, perhaps we could. As we watch the decisions of publishers and developers over the course of 2019 we will have a much better idea of how Epic's store sizes up against the monolith of Steam. For now though, Dauntless players will have to do nothing in terms of account changing, Phoenix Labs has said they will be converting all Dauntless accounts into Epic Games accounts which will then provide a seamless continuation of players' adventures.

Deep Silver, the publisher for Metro Exodus made the dividing decision to remove their coming title from Valve's Steam. Now Steam users have their pitchforks out and are now carpet bombing the review section of Exodus.

If you have missed the fiasco publishing nightmare which has been surrounding Metro Exodus, then here is a quick catch up of what has happened. Deep Silver, the publisher for Metro Exodus abruptly removed Exodus from Steam through a new announcement with Epic Games. The announcement saw that Metro Exodus would only be exclusively available on the Epic Games Store for the entirety of 2019, it would then return back to Steam after this period.

Since this new deal has essentially divided the Metro community, many fans of the series that are not happy with this decision by Deep Silver, and have taken to not only the Metro Exodus Steam Store listing, but the other Metro titles in the franchise. On the listings for these games, some fans have decided to review bomb each of the titles, expressing there feelings towards Deep Silvers publishing decision. The review comments have gone as far to say that some fans will not be supporting Deep Silver anymore or if they are are going to take Metro Exodus off Steam then they should take the entire Metro franchise. Check out these review comments for yourself, visit the Metro 2033 listing here and the Metro: Last Light listing here.

Nintendo's recently released Q4 2018 earnings report have shined some light on the companies first-party game sales that no doubt helped drive the Switch sales to what they are now.

According to the financial results released by Nintendo, software sales have been extremely popular for the Nintendo Switch. The accessibility and convenience of software purchases has pushed the total amount of software sales for the hand-held console to reach a new total of 163.61 million units. Nintendo also revealed the individual sales for many of its popular first party titles, examples include; Super Mario Odyssey at 13.76 million units, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild at 11.68 million units and Pokemon Let's Go Pikachu and Eevee which collectively sold 10 million units.

The game which would be the most impressive out of Nintendo's library of titles would have to be Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. Smash Ultimate has managed to sell 12.08 million units in less than one month, making it the fastest-selling Nintendo Switch title as well as the third best-selling game for the Switch. Smash Ultimate has already beaten The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and is on its way to reach the 20 million mark by the end of its lifetime.

Remedy Entertainment has kicked off the second half of the week with some new 4K screenshots of its next-gen game, Control. We have some beautiful screenshtos on offer, all displayed in their 4K glory below. You'll have to click into the story to see them uncompressed, as the one below is compressed so that there's not 10MB of images instantly.

Control is a new game from the makers of Max Payne, Alan Wake and Quantum Break that is powered by the latest version of Remedy's in-house Northlight Engine.

Control is a sandbox-style game that is a gameplay-driven experience from Remedy that will have players taking the role of a character with supernatural abilities, reactive environments, and more.

Ubisoft is opening up the private beta gates for The Division 2 between February 7-11 but before we get to the starting line, the company has better detailed what to expect in terms of content from The Division 2's upcoming private beta.

The Division 2 private beta will include two main missions that will take place at the Grand Washington Hotel and Jefferson Trade Center, while the Dark Zone and Conflict modes are both teased with the latter including skirmish 4v4 PvP mode. Ubisoft has also teased the End Game content that will kick off on February 8 at 5PM CET, and it'll include one invaded mission and three specializations.

Ubisoft details the private beta that will feature a "portion of The Division 2's end game! After completing Jefferson Trade Center for the first time, you will gain access to an end-game mission that unlocks three level 30 characters on your account. Upon logging in with one of these characters, the end game mission will begin. Each character is equipped with a different Specialization, so feel free to find your favorite!"

This week has been quite a rocky road for news about Metro Exodus, so now the parent company for the title has stepped in to settle the publishing dust that has been floating around the news.

Three days ago we learned that Deep Silver, the publisher for Metro Exodus was only going to be bringing the title to Epic Games Store in a newly announced deal. The deal required Valve to pull the listing of Metro Exodus from Steam, players that have already bought a copy of Metro Exodus will still be honored with playability through Steam's platform and full DLC support.

Yesterday THQ Nordic GmbH, a subsidiary company to parent company THQ Nordic AB said "The decision to publish Metro Exodus as a timed Epic Store exclusive was made entirely on Koch Media's side as Metro is their intellectual property." Koch Media is the parent company to Deep Silver, THQ Nordic GmbH continued "We do not want to categorically exclude the possibility of timed exclusives for any of our games in the future, but speaking in the here and now, we definitely want to have the players choose the platform of their liking and make our portfolio available to as many outlets as possible."

THQ Nordic may have just accidentally revealed that Darksiders would be arriving on the Nintendo Switch, introducing the 'Warmastered Edition' and its leaked trailer.

According to Nintendo Wire, THQ Nordic, the publisher behind the Darksiders franchise took to their main website today to post a video. The video was quickly removed by THQ Nordic, but before that could be done the website Vooks.net managed to make a copy. At the end of the above video we can see the 'Darksiders Warmastered Edition' and most importantly both the Nintendo eShop and Nintendo Switch logo.

I wouldn't be surprised if these video trailers are taken down soon, as THQ Nordic would most likely ban them under copy right laws. I would also expect that sometime soon an official announcement will take place. At the moment there is no known release date for the 'Warmastered Edition' arriving on the Nintendo Switch, I will be sure to update you with a follow up once there is one. If you are unsure of what Darksiders is, feel free to check out the game on its official Steam listing here.

The PS4 exclusive title from Quantic Dream 'Detroit: Become Human' is reaching new sales heights, as the game pushes the 3 million units sold mark developers Quantic Dream plan to expand their studio.

The news comes from GamesBeat where the sales numbers for Detroit: Become Human were revealed through an interview with Quantic Dream's CEO, David Cage. Cage said "Detroit is certainly a radical proposition for some people, but the most important thing for us was the amazing reception the game received from gamers, which has translated into our studio's biggest commercial success to date. Eight months following the release, we are closing in on 3 million units sold worldwide as an exclusive PS4 title. The game's commercial performance has been particularly noteworthy in Japan and across all Asia."

Cage continues and explains that not only is the PS4 exclusive title selling well, but it also is being well received by reviewers. Some websites even giving the title a 87% user score. All of this motivation rushing through Quantic Dream off the back of their efforts with Detroit: Become Human has caused the development studio to want to increase the total amount of employee's. Here is what Cage had to say on that matter: "Yes, we are right now hiring across all disciplines, from production and programming to game design and art. We are looking for talented people who want to work on very ambitious projects. The team was around 200 people at the peak of Detroit, so our objective will be to reach around 300 people."