Gaming - Page 782

Using the knowledge and lessons learned from Fortnite's massive success, Epic Games has now entered in the crowded ring of selling games.

Epic Games today announced the Epic Games Store, a new digital distribution platform that puts even more pressure on Steam. Epic plans to attract developers and publishers by letting them keep more revenues, likely thanks to Fortnite's billions: the Epic Games Store only keeps 12% of earnings versus Steam's 30%, meaning anyone who sells games on the platform keeps 88% of earnings.

Epic has ambitious plans for the service and could eventually take aim at Google Play, which is circumvented with Fortnite's mobile flavor. PC, Mac, and eventually Android games will be sold on the storefront in 2019 and beyond.

A new turn-based tactical game called 'Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden' launches tomorrow and ahead of the games release, developers 'The Bearded Ladies' have dived into some juicy details about the title.

WCCFtech was lucky enough to be able to get an interview with Haraldur Thormundsson, CEO of the development team. Thormundsson answered several questions regarding the games storyline and if it is linear, side content, how many mutants players would have to choose from, mod support, console enhancements and a Nintendo Switch port.

Glossing over the above mentioned questions, players will be immersed within a linear storyline that will provide some choices in side-missions. Players will have 5 mutants to choose from but only will be able to select 3 to play with, there will be not mod support as of yet but that could be subject to change in the future. Console enhancement wise; "Max resolution for Xbox One X: 3200×1800. For PlayStation 4 Pro, the UI resolution is rendered at 4K while the frame resolution is 80% of 4K (3072×1728)." Since Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden runs on Unreal Engine 4, a question was posed if we would see a Nintendo Switch port, Thormundsson answered with "That is something we will look into soon(TM)."

Koei Tecmo is bringing Samurai Warriors 4 DX to the Nintendo Switch and PS4 in Japan next year, the game will be arriving fully complete with a bunch of DLC content and some other goodies.

It can be assumed that Koei Tecmo will eventually be bringing this title over to the west sometime after it is released in Japan as the company does have tendencies to do that. Moving onto what is included within the package, Samurai Warriors 4 DX will be arriving with over 150 pieces of downloadable content fully ready for the player to enjoy.

For those that want to spend a little bit extra, there is the 'anniversary box' which includes an art book, four-disc soundtrack, four DVD set with music videos and 144-piece post card set with each of the games characters. The anniversary package is priced at 14,800 yen which is equivalent to about $130 USD. Samurai Warriors 4 DX is planned for release on March 14, 2019 and will be coming in at 5,800 yen or $51 USD.

Old-school gamers would no doubt remember the classic duo ToeJam & Earl, the old-boys are soon get a new game titled ToeJam & Earl: Back in the Groove and on December 9 will will be getting a new trailer and official release date.

We first heard about Back in the Groove in 2015 when the project was announced, sadly it was delayed until 2019 and since then we haven't heard a sniff of news about it. Its not like the game didn't have fan support either, as it has been reported by Destructoid that the Kickstarter featured $508,000 of crowd funding.

The announcemnet that we will be receiving a new trailer and an official release date comes from developer HumaNature Studios and more accurately on the ToeJam & Earls official Twitter page. We will be sure to update you with a trailer and an official release date once it is announced. ToeJam & Earl: Back in the Groove should arrive on PS4, Xbox One, PC and the Nintendo Switch.

Deadline has reported that Marvel Studios has in their scope an Asian lead for the coming movie Shang-Chi. It is believe that Marvel would like to replicate the success of Black Panther but this time with a different ethnic group.

Marvel are no doubt attempting to replicate the success they had with Black Panther on a culture level, having an almost all-black cast tied the movie perfectly into these category, the same goal is apparent with Shang-Chi. According to sources that have told Deadline, Marvel has set Chinese-American writer Dave Callaham to write the screenplay for Shang-Chi, while at the same time Marvel are searching for a similar Asian-American cast to fill the rest of the roles out.

Jumping into a bit of background on Shang-Chi, the character first appeared in the Special Marvel Edition #15 back in December of 1973. The character was designed by Steve Englehart and Jim Starlin and lets us experience the likes of being a son to a China-based globalist. Growing up in a China compound with no contact to the outside world, Shang-Chi spends his time learning martial arts and honing his skills until they are unmatchable by any opponent. It could be assumed that Shang-Chi will be apart of Marvels next phase of movies, since after next years Captain Marvel and Avengers 4 we will be moving forward with a new round of hero's.

We are only just a couple days out from this years Game Awards and just before everything is about to kick off we have an announcement for what music we will will be hearing throughout the show. Hans Zimmer and Lorne Balfe will be providing the sounds for the show!

The news comes from The Game Awards official Twitter account which says that Hans Zimmer will be performing alongside Lorne Balfe this Thursday night. For those that don't know who Hans Zimmer is, there is a high chance that you have already heard his music. Zimmer is renowned for his incredible work in movie soundtracks and even some very popular games. Some of Zimmers best work would be Christopher Nolans Interstellar, The Dark Knight, Man of Steel, Batman Vs Superman and many other movie titles. Game wise, Zimmer sprinkled his magic over the legendary Call of Duty title Modern Warfare 2.

Lorne Balfe is equally as incredible in his own regard, known for his work on the Assassin Creed series, The Lego Batman Movie, Skylanders, Terminator Genisys and of course the awesome Mission: Impossible - Fallout. This years Game Awards is truly going to be epic, with composers like these taking the reins for the shows sound all that are watching are going to be in for a treat. Tune in for this years Game Awards this Thursday night.

Red Dead Online's miserly in-game economy will soon change into something more forgiving.

Red Dead Redemption 2's online mode, Red Dead Online, is designed to do two things: keep people playing for as long as possible, and keep them paying as long as possible via microtransactions. But the latter completely depends on the former, and without proper rewarding, engaging activities the cash simply won't flow. With a dramatically disrupted in-game economy that required tons of investment to earn meager premium currency, the Red Dead Online beta painted a harsh, microtransaction-driven picture of the mode's future. While Rockstar doesn't sell the premium currency for real money yet, gamers are worried once the microtransaction switch is flipped that RDO will become immensely greed-driven.

But now Rockstar Games pledges to fix RDO's digital economy in a bid to make things more enjoyable for everyone. The developer says new updates are coming to Red Dead Online as early as this week and the economy will be a major focus.

Titanfall developer Respawn Entertainment is making a new Star Wars game, and new details may have leaked out.

Now that Visceral Games is dead and its ambitious Star Wars RPG has been cannibalized, there's lots of pressure on Respawn to make its new game, Jedi: Fallen Order, pick up the slack. Although EA and Respawn have yet to show it off, we actually know a fair bit about Jedi: Fallen Order; it's a third-person action game with strong emphasis on characters and storytelling, takes place between Episodes III and IV, and will be out in 2019. Other reports say it could be like The Force Unleashed.

But now a purported leak may shed new light on the project. According to an anonymous source who says they attended a Star Wars marketing meeting, Jedi: Fallen Order tells the story of Cal, a padawan who escaped Starkiller's Jedi massacre, and features characters lifted from the comics. The game takes place five years after Revenge of the Sith, the source says, and will release in November 2019--in time for the holiday season.

Overkill's new The Walking Dead shooter isn't even a month old yet and just received a $30 starter edition.

Starbreeze wasn't too happy about The Walking Dead FPS' initial sales on PC. The publisher notes the game, which taps one of the most popular horror franchises of all time, didn't meet its internal targets. Despite it being quite early in the sales game (remember TWD is quite new) the devs at Overkill created a $30 base game to attract new users and fold them into the long-term monetization strategy. This is a move akin to dropping the price of, say, Destiny 2's base game on the heels of Forsaken's launch.

The new $30 Starter Edition is quite limited, though, and only has access to Season 1 content (maps, characters, guns, etc). So you can't play the new content in Season 2 unless you're invited by a friend who owns the full versions (Standard and Deluxe). Everyone who paid $59.99 for the standard version gets Season 2 content up until June.

THQ Nordic has bought up many, many IPs from publishers and rights owners, but not all of these series will actually get sequels.

The THQ brand has been on quite the comeback spree. First the company amassed game franchises (Timesplitters and Kingdoms of Amalur, and it just bought the Carmageddon IP) like a dragon collecting piles of gold, then it bought Saint's Row and Metro game publisher Koch Media. While THQ has plans for a number of its trove of games including re-releases and even a resurgence of old Nickelodeon games, the publisher stipulates some guidelines for sequels.

THQ Nordic CEO Lars Wingefors affirms that only relevant games will see sequels, which makes sense from a marketing perspective. But what makes a game relevant? A few things like popularity, awareness, and general community interest...but there's also an internal timeline.

Thanks to frame rate drops, slowdowns, and jitters, Sony's $100 PlayStation Classic is something gamers should probably avoid.

The PlayStation Classic has more than a few problems, and the most damning of all are technical. The nostalgia box's games library isn't fantastic to start, but the problems compound thanks to Sony's decision to include PAL games (almost half of the PS Classic's games are PAL). This leads to slowdowns and other issues because of the frame rate disparity between PAL and NTSC games.

But just how bad are the frame rate dips? Pretty bad, at least according to DigitalFoundry's latest technical assessment. PAL games like Tekken 3 have obvious stutters and starts that mar one of the biggest reasons to buy the PS Classic to begin with.

If you are after another 2D platformer to enjoy look no further than Thunder Lotus Games' Sundered. Nintendo Switch owners will be able to pick up this great title on December 21st.

For those that don't know what Sundered is, the title is developed by Thunder Lotus Games who also developed the title Jotun. Just like Jotun, Sundered features beautiful hand-drawn art and animation and throws the player into a horrifying fight for survival and sanity. Players will take the reins of "Eshe, a wanderer in a ruined world, trapped in ever-­changing caverns filled with hordes of terrifying enemies."

With Eshe, players will "Harness the power of corrupted relics to defeat gigantic bosses, at the cost of your humanity." In the features section of the games description, it describes hundreds of upgrades and multiple character builds and 15+ hours of gameplay to enjoy. In the entirety of this post you will find a further breakdown on the game. Sundered will be arriving on the Nintendo Switch on December 21st.

As we are only a couple days out from the release of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate and Nintendo have decided to tease fans with crossover spirits between the Pokemon: Let's Go games and Ultimate.

The teaser comes from the Nintendo AU & NZ Twitter page and reveals images of two spirits. From the pictures we can see Partner Pikachu and Partner Eevee, we learn from the description on the post that players who have Pokemon: Let's Go Pikachu or Eevee save data on their Switch will automatically unlock the respective spirit once Smash Ultimate is downloaded and opened.

For those wondering if this is the only way to unlock these two spirits, do not stress as both Partner Pikachu and Partner Eevee can be normally acquired by completing challenges. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is scheduled to release on December 7th for the Nintendo Switch. For more information regarding Smash Ultimate, visit the official website here.

Developer of Darksiders III, Gunfire Games has taken to their Twitter page to say the PC beta patch is accessible via Steams beta branch and that a console version of the patch will be following soon.

According to the above post, the above patch will be adding multiple improvements to the game. Starting off we improvements in performance and loading, "Performance improvements should also significantly reduce stuttering in high-density areas." Next we have updates to the story mode to be more forgiving for players and modifications to hit indicators for better readability.

Moving onto the fixes that will be arriving with the patch, we now have an "added FOV scaling to keep correct FOV on 21:9 monitors." Fixes to crashes widespread across the game, an option to force respawn has been added and much more. In the entirety of this post you will find the entire change log for this PC beta patch. For more information, visit the official blog post here.

The indie hit title Firewatch will be making its way to the Nintendo Switch later this month, developer Camp Santo has confirmed the news via Twitter.

The above post is from the official Campo Santo Twitter account and confirms that Firewatch will be arriving on the Nintendo Switch on December 17th. Future players will not have to worry about their region as Firewatch will be available in the "Americas, Europe, Australia, and Japan eShops."

If you didn't know, Valve recently acquired Campo Santo after the success of Firewatch and their team of 12 have since relocated to Washington DC to continue working on their coming title In The Valley of Gods. More on that story here. If you want to know more about Firewatch or Campo Santo in general, visit their official website here.

The unboxing video comes from none other than Nintendo Minute hosts Kit and Krysta. Both hosts dive straight into every item that will be available for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.

The video begins with the hosts getting their hands-on the steelbook bundle edition which contains a Super Smash Bros. Ultimate themed pro-controller and a steelbook game cover. After the hosts go through each of the details found on both the pro-controller and the steelbook they move onto the Smash Bros. Ultimate themed GameCube controller and the GameCube adapter.

According to both the hosts, the GameCube controller is quite weighty which is something I can certainly say I'm happy about. The hosts then move onto the official game guides, we get a very good look at the hard-cover edition as the middle of the book is opened revealing a detailed breakdown of Incineroar and each of his moves. We can assume that since the book has a section for Incineroar that there will be sections for each of the other fighters. For more information regarding Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, visit the official website here.

In a bid to keep big-budget games on Steam, Valve ups the revenue split for top earners...and some independent developers feel cheated.

Publishers like Bethesda, EA, Ubisoft, and Activision-Blizzard have left Steam behind and opened up their own digital storefronts to sell their PC games. Major games-makers simply want to avoid Valve's 30% retainer from all game sales and want to keep all the profits for themselves, which sees major games missing the platform. Now Valve is trying to win back publishers and devs with a newly revised revenue system that favors big games...but will it work?

Steam's new revenue system basically rewards devs and publishers if their games hit it big. If your game sells well and breaks $10 million you'll get to keep 75% of all earnings instead of the previous 70%. And if your game makes over $50 million, you'll get to keep 80%. Here's Valve's official statement:

Blizzard is currently working on multiple Diablo projects, and some of them should be revealed in 2019.

Instead of revealing Diablo 4 at Blizzcon 2018, the studio announced a mobile game aimed at maximum exposure and microtransactions. Diablo Immortal isn't the game anyone wanted, especially since we know Diablo 4 is in development. Gamers want to know more about Diablo 4 and these other mysterious projects and now Blizzard's community manager gives a nebulous 2019 info window.

"We continue to read feedback and our internal discussions are ongoing. We have many plans for Diablo across multiple projects which we'll be revealing over the course of the coming year," said Blizzard community manager Nevalistis.

Rocksteady squashes months and months of rumors in one fell swoop.

Batman Arkham developer Rocksteady Games is working on a new project, but it isn't based on Superman. Despite rampant rumors, studio co-founder and creative director Sefton Hill confirmed Rocksteady's next big game won't do for Superman what Arkham did for Batman.

"We're still hard at work in our development bunker so don't expect an announcement from Rocksteady Games. When it's ready to show, you'll be the first to know. Spoiler: it's not Superman," Hill wrote on Twitter.

Microsoft's newly bought AA game studios will release their games onto Game Pass, similar to AAA devs.

In a bid to fill out its flagging first-party slate, Microsoft recently bought a slew of renowned games-makers like Ninja Theory, Undead Labs Compulsion Games, Playground Games, Obsidian Entertainment, and inXile. These purchases were tactical and have a two-fold goal, though: to release new games on Xbox LIVE and in stores as well as significantly bolster its popular $10 a month Xbox Game Pass subscription service.

It's important to note that the mix of acquired studios are considered AA and AAA (Ninja Theory and Obsidian are AA, whereas Playground Games are AAA) and will games for Microsoft accordingly. This poses an interesting spectrum of content that'll soon be doled out on Game Pass: first we'll have indies, then AA experiences like Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice, and then bigger projects like Playground's new RPG (probably a new Fable).