Gaming - Page 78

It's becoming more challenging to find something new in the world of experimental gaming - also known as 'playing Doom on an insert-improbable-device-here' - but this is definitely a striking new first: playing Minecraft on a printer.

A receipt printer to be precise, and YouTuber Smill managed to pull this off, as Tom's Hardware flagged up.

The YouTuber beat Minecraft with a speedrun that took up less time than needed for the printer to churn through the five rolls of receipt paper that was all he had to hand. You can see the run in the video above (which has some colorful language and jokes - be warned).

Ubisoft confirmed that it was bringing Assassin's Creed Shadows to the Nintendo Switch 2 with an announcement trailer published around a month ago, and with the release only a few days away, the publisher has revealed the graphical features and performance Switch 2 owners can expect from Shadows.

The Nintendo Switch 2 has a much smaller performance envelope than competing platforms, such as the Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5, and PC, and, due to its limited performance headroom, Ubisoft has had to make dramatic changes to Shadows to get it to run on Nintendo's latest handheld. According to Ubisoft's Project Lead Programmer, in many ways, Shadows has been redesigned for the Nintendo Switch 2, specifically in how the world is rendered, and many of the fundamental in-game systems.

Despite these changes, Ubisoft says it has maintained the core systems, such as clouds and cloth rendering, but they have been heavily optimized, meaning they have been downscaled to free up more hardware resources. Additionally, Shadows on the Nintendo Switch 2 will ditch ray-traced global illumination in favor of a baked solution used by lower-end PCs and the Xbox Series S, significantly reducing RAM usage.

GeForce NOW, NVIDIA's cloud gaming service, is also having a Black Friday Sale by offering new members 50% off the first three months of a GeForce NOW Ultimate subscription. This is the tier that gives you access to GeForce RTX 5080-class servers, which include full DLSS 4 support and low-latency cloud gaming at up to 5K at 120 frames per second.

With this deal, NVIDIA has also announced that the RTX Blackwell upgrade for GeForce NOW is now "fully live across all servers," with Stockholm being the final region to get the new RTX 5080-class performance. This means that wherever GeForce NOW is available, the brand-new RTX Blackwell technology is also available for Ultimate members.

Games that support the new hardware, which includes new releases like Battlefield 6, Borderlands 4, and The Outer Worlds 2, feature a tag on the GeForce NOW interface to confirm you're getting GeForce RTX 50 Series performance. GeForce NOW's Black Friday Sale ends Sunday, November 30. And with that, let's get to the new games added to the GeForce NOW library this week.

The new Witcher trilogy is still planned to release in a six-year period starting with the first game's launch, CD Projekt has reiterated.

CD Projekt's Q3 results give a quick update on the business and what's next for the group. Cyberpunk 2 is accelerating development alongside The Witcher 4, the latter of which is currently in full production phases. In the transcript, company co-CEO Michal Nowakowski says that the plans to launch Ciri's full Witcher trilogy in a six-year span have not changed, and that the switch to Unreal Engine 5 is the key to making this happen.

There's been no confirmation of a release date or release window, however CD Projekt does say that The Witcher 4 won't be out in 2026, so that means the full Witcher trilogy will be complete and released after 2032. Nowakowski also mentions that the teams have been using UE5 for roughly four years and are quite impressed with the engine's capabilities.

CD Projekt executive management makes a quick connection between subscriptions and game sales, saying that introducing titles on services like PS Plus can lead to overall lower sales of the game for a period.

Since CD Projekt only has two franchises, The Witcher and Cyberpunk, the group has to get very creative to continue making money well after its game products are released. The Polish game-makers pull this off with a unique flywheel model that incorporates a strategically-timed series of promos, licensing deals, and transmedia content. Subscription services are a part of this model.

In a recent Q3'26 earnings report, CD Projekt leadership made an interesting concession by acknowledging that subscription services can lead to fewer games sold, but that's a trade-off the company made as part of its planned business strategy. Basically, CD Projekt will rotate older catalog games like Cyberpunk 2077 and The Witcher 3 into subscription services in exchange for upfront revenue from Sony and/or Microsoft, thereby boosting revenues for the period and also elongating engagement for the franchises. CD Projekt notes that the PS Plus deal contributed to a strong +53% revenue spike in Q3.

CD Projekt is enjoying the success of some particularly interesting trends for Cyberpunk 2077 after introducing the game to Sony's PlayStation Plus subscription service.

CD Projekt's latest Q3 results touch upon a topic that most publishers don't really talk about: Subscription trends, and more importantly, how these services are affecting sales. According to co-CEO Michal Nowakowski, putting Cyberpunk 2077 on PS Plus helped boost license revenues for the period and contributed to a mighty +53% boost in total revenue.

Another eye-catching trend is happening as a result of Cyberpunk 2077 on PS Plus, though. Data shows that users who access Cyberpunk on the PlayStation service are more likely to buy the Phantom Liberty expansion. This actually gives us dual optics on both Sony and CD Projekt; subscribers are willing to buy an expansion for a game that could rotate out of the service, indicating that the users may be subscribed for longer periods, and for CD Projekt, it means a potential additional sale for the Cyberpunk base game if users want to keep playing after the game moves out of PS Plus.

Cyberpunk 2077 has reached a new milestone with 35 million copies sold globally on all platforms, and the game's performance helped CD Projekt boost third quarter revenues by 53%.

CD Projekt's latest Q3'26 results show that the company's flywheel strategy is working quite well. Cyberpunk 2077's continued sales performance helped deliver a strong +53% spike in revenue throughout Q3, with earnings reaching 350 million zloty ($96 million) for the period.

All-told, Cyberpunk has now reached 35 million sales, up 5 million copies from the last update in November 2024. The surge in volume sales and overall revenue could be attributed to Cyberpunk 2077's launch on Switch 2 (although this period only includes roughly one month of sales) as well as well-timed discounts and promotions on all platforms--which are strategic parts of CD Projekt's flywheel business model.

CD Projekt has established a core leadership team at its Boston studio to helm Cyberpunk 2's development

The latest results for CD Projekt RED's Q3 period give a quick update on Cyberpunk 2, the upcoming sequel to the best-selling Cyberpunk 2077. Company co-CEO Michal Nowakowski confirms that Cyberpunk 2's foundational senior leadership team is now in place at its Boston group, with 80 developers currently at the studio.

The Boston-centric Cyberpunk 2 team will continue to grow throughout the next two years and more developers from other groups will start attaching themselves to the sequel, including those from the Canadian and Polish subsidiaries.

Epic Games' CEO Tim Sweeney has pushed back against the idea of game stores informing customers that titles have been created with the help of artificial intelligence.

Steam recently adopted the tag "Made with AI" for titles it lists on its online marketplace, with the goal being to inform customers if the game they are considering purchasing was made with the assistance of AI, as many people feel the involvement of AI in game development, and art in general is wrong for a multitude of reasons.

Regardless of whether those reasons are justifiable or not, AI is here to stay, and according to Epic Games' CEO the label is pointless as AI is going to be involved in one way or another in nearly all future production. Sweeney responded to an X post calling for Steam and other digital marketplaces to drop the "Made with AI label," writing, "Agreed" and that the AI tag is only "relevant to art exhibits for authorship disclosure, and to digital content licensing marketplaces where buyers need to understand the rights situation."

The Game Awards is just two weeks away, and many are wondering which big, highly anticipated titles will be at the show to tease more footage.

One of those games is CD Projekt Red's The Witcher 4, but for those that were holding out hope that CD Projekt Red is quietly preparing to drop more footage of the game at The Game Awards, sadly, that won't be happening, as the CEO of CD Projekt Red, Michał Nowakowski, has recently taken to X to confirm The Witcher 4 won't be at The Game Awards 2025.

The confirmation from the CEO comes on the heels of a thank you for The Witcher 4 being nominated for the Most Anticipated Game category at The Game Awards, which appears to be going up against Rockstar Games' Grand Theft Auto 6.

There probably isn't a more active or dedicated community on the internet than the Grand Theft Auto community, which are chomping at the bit for any news regarding the upcoming title, Grand Theft Auto 6.

Grand Theft Auto 6 is the most anticipated game of all time, and because of that it has spawned GTA 6 news accounts, which are dedicated to posting anything and everything related to the upcoming title. However, one such account has now gone from a credible source of GTA 6 news to deemed "worthless" after the account shared a video it claimed was a "leak," which turned out to be AI generated.

That X account is Zap Actu GTA6 shared a video that gained 8 million views in just 24 hours before it was removed by the uploader. The account claimed it was a "leak" of GTA 6 gameplay, but this wasn't gameplay at all, it was AI-generated footage. Notably, this same account shared similar videos earlier in the months, some of which have large numbers of views, but this recent video really hit the mainstream as many viewers of the video didn't realize it was AI and took the video at face value.

Bungie is currently going through a rough patch, with Sony recently confirming that the once-esteemed studio has fallen $200 million short of expectations, and most of that shortfall can be attributed to the declining performance of Destiny 2.

Sony stated during a recent earnings call that Destiny 2's underperformance has resulted in Sony having to record a $204 million impairment loss against Bungie's assets, which means that Sony has put on the books that Bungie's assets are now worth $200 million less than what it originally valued them at when it purchased the studio in 2022.

Most of that reduction in value can be attributed to the declining Destiny 2 player base, which has shrunk from the once-316,000-player peak nearly three years ago to just 15,000 daily players today. Despite Destiny 2's struggles, leaks have surfaced suggesting that Destiny 3 is in very early stages of development, with two separate sources, Colony Leaks and CheddaLeaks, both writing in X posts that Destiny 3 is in the works at Bungie.

With all of its seasonal sales events, Steam doesn't really do Black Friday Sales - until now. With significant savings covering thousands of games, plus a great deal on the Steam Deck 256GB LCD handheld (it's 20% off and on sale for $319.20 USD), it's also great to see that there are big discounts on games that are still pretty fresh. Probably the best deal on a massive 2025 release is DOOM: The Dark Ages, which is 50% off at $34.99 USD.

id Software's third game in its modern re-imagined DOOM trilogy shifts the focus to a more grounded and fast-paced melee and gun combat flow that includes a versatile shield, alongside an expanded focus on telling a cinematic story as you take control of the DOOM Slayer in a medieval sci-fi fantasy world. Visually, it's also one of the most impressive releases of 2025, thanks to its ray-traced lighting effects and id Software's world-class engine technology.

Although it's a single-player only game, DOOM: The Dark Ages recently received a significant update that expanded the options, features, and flow of the post-campaign Ripatorium arena mode. This is definitely a game made for FPS fans; however, it's not the only major 2025 FPS game on sale as part of Steam's Black Friday Sales.

Elon Musk has challenged the best professional League of Legends team to versus Grok 5, xAI's latest iteration of its artificial intelligence software.

That League of Legends team is T1, a South Korean esports organization that has won a staggering six League of Legends World Championship titles. T1 won the most recent League of Legends World Championship, marking the first three-peat in the history of professional League of Legends. In an effort to test Grok 5's skill, Elon Musk has taken to his personal X account to outline some rules for the match.

Musk wrote that Grok will "see" the game the same way a human would, but through a camera positioned in front of a monitor. A handicap will be imposed to account for reaction latency, so Grok can't react any faster than a human.

Valve added tags and labels to Steam games that feature AI-generated content a while ago, and it also updated the submission process so developers can disclose the specific AI tools they used to help create their games. To get a good picture of how it looks, simply check out the ARC Raiders store page, which includes an "AI Generated Content Disclosure" section.

Granted, the AI disclosure on the ARC Raiders store page is pretty generic and doesn't specifically mention the game's use of AI-generated voices, but it's there for those wanting to know which games have been developed with AI-based tools. Valve added the tag and requirement well over a year ago, which is a long time in the fast-moving AI space, and many are wondering if it's still required, as most creative and productivity apps have all been steadily adding AI tools and features.

In a response to someone saying exactly that, Epic Games founder and CEO responded with an emphatic, "Agreed." Adding that putting an AI tag "makes no sense for game stores, where AI will be involved in nearly all future production."

We now have an official release date for World of Warcraft: Midnight, and the eleventh expansion for the veteran MMORPG will arrive on March 2, 2026.

Wccftech spotted the release date reveal trailer on YouTube - check it out above. This launch date should mean that early access kicks off on February 27, but that hasn't actually been confirmed by Blizzard yet.

At any rate, this means that there's only just a touch more than three months to wait before the player base can get stuck into this latest World of Warcraft expansion where you "return to the Elven kingdom of Quel'Thalas and stand against Xal'atath and her Void army."

Helldivers 2 is getting a new warbond that has a gatling gun and a chainsaw straight out of old 80s and 90s action schlock movies.

Arrowhead Studios and Sony have announced the new Helldivers 2 Python Commandos warbond, introducing a bunch of high-octane strategems and weapons that channel the machismo spirit of Dutch and Rambo.

The premium warbond includes two new armor sets--the hulking RS-40 Beast of Prey commando and the lighter, red bandana-toting RS-20 Constrictor. Both have the Rock Solid passive that reduces stagger. The highlight of the warbond is the over-the-top M1000 Maxigun, a fully-fledged gatling gun inspired by Cooper's Ol' Painless minigun from Predator 1984. There's also a huge chainsaw wand, the CQC-9 defoliation tool, and a torch drone that unleashes torrents of fiery napalm onto foes.

NVIDIA is showcasing a new batch of PC games getting DLSS 4 with Multi Frame Generation support this week, alongside some Battlefield 6 goodies as part of the Season of RTX. On the DLSS 4 front, one of the pleasant surprises is that we got some DLSS 4 gameplay for the upcoming release of Tides of Annihilation, a game that still doesn't have a release date.

Tides of Annihilation, from Chinese studio Eclipse Glow Games, is a new third-person action-adventure set in a "shattered" fantastical take on modern London, with a story inspired by Arthurian legend. This one has a lot of hype behind it based on the announcement trailers and gameplay seen so far, which feature impressive visuals, grandiose scope, and fast-paced balletic action.

Headed to all platforms, the PC version will include DLSS 4 with Multi Frame Generation support, and NVIDIA's trailer for the game showcases how DLSS 4 improves performance, from around 80 FPS in 4K with Max Settings to 300+ FPS on a GeForce RTX 5090. With a DLSS performance trailer, it's safe to assume that Tides of Annihilation is on track for a 2026 release.

The new ROG Xbox Ally handhelds will soon get an innovative new feature that automatically scales in-game performance to boost frame rates and battery life.

Microsoft and ASUS are introducing Default Game Profiles to the Xbox Ally and Xbox Ally X Windows PC handhelds. The new feature will natively optimize game software in such a way that prioritizes the fine balancing act of gameplay and power draw, leading to more fluid experiences that last longer while on-the-go. The setting has to be toggled within the Armoury Crate UI.

"Spend more time playing and less time fine-tuning. Default Game Profiles, available in preview starting today, automatically balance frame rate (FPS) and power consumption for 40 supported games at launch," Microsoft wrote on the Xbox Wire.

Rust developer Facepunch Studios reveals why the sim won't show up on Linux or be compatible on Valve's Proton, saying that the platform is a hotbed for cheating. This exposes some of the thinking around Valve and whether or not big online games with anti-cheat could show up on Valve's new Steam Machine.

Valve's Steam Machine sounds great on paper: It'll be a small form-factor PC with a discrete GPU, a zippy CPU, and plenty of RAM--all wrapped in Valve's flexible and capable SteamOS. But there's just one issue: Anti-cheat. SteamOS is based on Linux, and Valve has developed a Proton compatibility layer to ensure Windows games run on SteamOS. Devs don't like to bring their games to Linux because of the uphill battle with anti-cheat on the platform--Linux is apparently a wild west frontier for cheating.

This could be a drawback for Valve's Steam Machine and give Microsoft's reported Windows-powered Xbox PC an upper edge. While Valve has added in anti-cheat support into Proton, including Easy Anti-Cheat, it's ultimately up to developers to do the work and enable the function and get any first-party toolsets working with Proton. That being said, Valve is still working closely with high-level developers and publishers to find solutions--and to hopefully ensure that big live service games can be played on Steam Machine.