Gaming - Page 831

After years of hard development work, Insomniac has wrapped its massive new Spider-Man title.

Sony's substantial new PS4 exclusive Spider-Man game has gone gold, meaning its now officially finished and ready to be shipped for its September release date. The game has garnered massive hype for its rather enticing web-slinging and beat-em-up combat action, bringing to mind classic PS2-era games melded with updated graphics, advanced physics systems, and a wider sandbox.

Spider-Man is expected to drive PS4 console sales ahead of Sony's big holiday push and engage the existing playerbase with more singleplayer content, and should be a contender among 2018's biggest games. NPD Group analyst Mat Piscatella predicts Insomniac's Spider-Man will sit in this year's top ten sellers, albeit at the #10 slot.

Japanese publisher Bandai Namco wants to move towards original IP creation to help bolster earnings.

Any major games-maker-and-publisher combo in the games industry typically has a line of strong, wholly-owned IPs to continually generate sales and revenue. Publishers like Square Enix with its Final Fantasy series or Activision-Blizzard with Call of Duty and Overwatch IPs rake in hundreds of millions (or even billions) a year from their respective titles, all without having to shell out for licenses. Bandai Namco, who typically makes a portion of its game sales from licensed franchises like Dragon Ball Z, wants to embrace this business model.

In a recent interview with GamesIndustry.Biz, Bandai Namco exec Herve Hoerdt says the company wants about half of its games to be new IPs--something Bandai Namco has acted upon with its new Code Vein game.

Disenchantment, Matt Groening's newest T.V show is coming to Netflix on August 17th and ahead of it's launch, Netflix has released four videos introducing us to the three main characters and the Kingdom of Dreamland.

We are only two weeks away from the launch of Matt Groening's newest animated T.V show Disenchanted, and for fans to get to know the characters/setting before the official launch Netflix have released some short videos. The first video introduces us to the main protagonist Bean (Abbi Jacobson), Bean is a princess that wants to figure herself out before getting married, she seems set on choosing her own destiny. The second video we have Elfo (Nat Faxon), Elfo wants to experience more of the world so he ventures away from his homeland to take on one-adventure at a time. Finally, we have Luci (Eric Andre), Luci is Bean's very own personal demon, he is thrown into the trio mix as the character who will bring up all of the terrible ideas.

The fourth video released by Netflix showcases to fans the setting of the animated series, the Kingdom of Dreamland. Dreamland is home to the noble king, a 'friendly' fairy, a decrepit peddler, an educated orge and an executioner who has an entire book of golf jokes. According to an interview conducted by IGN with executive producer of the show, Josh Weinstein and voice-actor Eric Andre, fans can assume that the comedic value of Disenchantment will be a combination of The Simpsons and Futurama with a touch of Gravity Falls.

CD Projekt Red's Cyberpunk 2077 has been all of the talk since E3 2018, now it has been revealed within the lastest edition of the Official Xbox Magazine (167) that the franchise is more politically charged than you might of thought.

Within the latest Official Xbox Magazine, CD Projekt Red Quest Designer, Patrick Mills took everyone through what the studio was thinking when they are designing the unstable society of Cyberpunk 2077. According to Mills, the developers have created a world where not only violence and mature themes are abundant, but also intellectual challenges are present. Mills says that "Of course, to us, mature doesn't mean just sex and violence. We will try to engage you on multiple levels, not just the visceral, but also the intellectual. Cyberpunk is an inherently political genre and it's an inherently political franchise."

Mills continues and says that Cyberpunk 2077's world is ruled by a very small amount of ultra-rich individuals, they rule from an absolute corporate power structure that forces the less fortunate to be caught up in an endless cycle of poverty and violence against one-another. Mills also discusses the decision of making Cyberpunk 2077 a first-person game instead of third-person, he says that the decision came from the lackluster immersion third-person titles have, an example he gave was "Go play a third-person game, go play The Witcher, and look up. Just try to look straight up. You'll find that the immersion never really works, it never feels like you are looking up. It feels like you're moving a camera around."

For Honor will soon be receiving it's seventh season, it has been titled Storm and Fury and will be released onto all of For Honors platforms at once. The release is planned for August 2nd.

Storm and Fury will be bringing players a brand new map called 'Secluded Keep', according to the description, the map was previously owned by a high lord and has now become a highly disputed abandoned outpost. Players will be able to enjoy the new map in the following game modes: Elimination, Tribute, Skirmish, Brawl and Duel. After feedback from players, Ubisoft Montreal have decided that they will be bringing changes to two heroes within this new season, Valkyrie and Warden "will receive major gameplay updates to improve the versatility and efficiency of their respective move sets."

Storm of Fury will also be introducing a ranking system update, there will now be two new divisions - Master and Grand Master. Here is the description of the new divisions: "Introducing two new divisions in the For Honor Ranking System - Master and Grand Master, which are reserved for the fiercest warriors. Players will also be able to monitor their progress with the new Ranking Leaderboard. To focus the community on the new leaderboard and Master divisions, players will be able to join Ranked Duel matches outside Tournaments. Tournaments will instead be triggered on rotation, starting on a week-end basis."

EA has some major AAA game franchises on the market that could benefit from some major attention to cross-platform use, and now that Fortnite has made so much money and been a cultutal influence, the company is stepping up and taking notice.

During EA's recent earnings report, EA CEO Andrew Wilson talked about the future of the company and their path to cross-platform for their franchises. Wilson said: "In terms of cross-platform play, again we are seeing the same thing. And remember, we have a vision on a 3- to 5-year time horizon where a great portion of game experience will exist in the cloud and be pushed to every device you own. And the game experience you have won't be measured by local CPU or GPU but will be measured by screen size and session time you have, and will drive tremendous liquidity in the market - in a player base. And I think we are to deliver very different types of experiences as a result of a cloud gaming offering".

He added: "In the near term, you should also appreciate that we're looking at key franchises in terms of how we could deliver cross-platform players in a similar way that Fortnite has, especially some of the titles have a broad and diverse player base. Households typically have one console, so the ability to bring PC to console and console to mobile into that play experience can bring families together, can bring friends together. And we think it's an important part of our future development profile both in terms of mobile games that we have today moving up per se to console and PC, and console and PC games being playable in mobile. And so, I expect more from us on that front in the future".

It was nearly two years ago that Hello Games released what was then a huge mess, with No Man's Sky ripped to shreds by reviewers, gamers, streamers even the ice cream man. But now... well, now it's 22 months later and the game is finding success.

Hello Games released a game-changing update to No Man's Sky that has piqued gamers' interest once again, seeing the game enter Steam's top 10 most-played games with a peak of 84,612 gamers playing the game at the time of writing. There are more people playing No Man's Sky right now than ARK: Survival Evolved, or Team Fortress 2. To give it further perspective, CS:GO is absolutely huge and has 370,000+ concurrent players right now. Hell, even GTA V has 'only' 133,000 players concurrently at the time of writing.

No Man's Sky hasn't been very active over the last 22 months with a peak of 212,321 players at launch in August 2016, and around 2000 concurrent players each month. The last time there was a spike with player numbers was the Atlas Rises patch in August 2017, a year after launch, with 19,000 concurrent players. This new update is 300% more than that, so there are a lot of interested gamers.

Ultimate Team microtransactions are a huge source of recurring revenue for publisher EA, especially for its latest quarter.

EA recently announced earnings for its Fiscal Q1'19 timeline that was powered by its strong growth in digital, especially via live services. Numbers show EA raked in $693 million in digital net bookings, up 2% year-over-year. The publisher's titanous live services pulled in $450 million in the three-month quarter from April to June 2018, up 7% YoY, representing a mighty 65% of segment revenues. The source of these healthy figures are FIFA Online 4, The Sims 4, and the juggernaut pull of FIFA Ultimate Team.

But just how much did Ultimate Team pull in? EA typically doesn't reveal exact figures for its microtransaction-driven cash crop which spans multiple games, but company CFO and COO Blake Jorgensen says Ultimate Team makes over 50% of quarterly live services revenue on average. The company also had over 15 million people engaged in the FIFA World Cup mode.

Thanks to Origin Access Premiere, EA's current fiscal year could end up planting the seeds for stronger long-term growth.

EA's new Origin Access Premiere subscription folds perfectly into the company's digital-driven focus on live services. EA, like other games-makers as Activision, Take-Two Interactive, and Ubisoft, makes billions every year from its strong multi-faceted live service strategy. The publishers Origin/EA Access subscription duo has been quite transformative for both the PC and console gaming space by offering access to a pool of games for a flat monthly or annual fee, leading major players like Microsoft to jump in with its own successful GamePass service. But starting next week EA aims to kick things up a notch.

The company has announced that Origin Access Premiere will launch on July 30, 2018 on PC, meaning the service was nearly ready during its E3 reveal. But interestingly enough EA is taking a page from the GamePass playbook: before, Origin Access subscribers had to wait until EA rotated new games into the mix. But with the $14.99 a month/$99 a year Origin Access Premiere, users get early access to new games like Anthem and Battlefield V a full five days ahead of release.

As with Halo 5 and previous games, 343 Industries won't be the only dev team to tackle Master Chief's next big adventure.

When Halo: Infinite--aka Halo 6/the next mainline FPS in the series--was announced at E3 2018, I had some misgivings. First we didn't get any actual meaningful content. The footage was more of a tech demo of the game's new Slipspace Engine than anything truly exciting, but that's to be expected since the game itself is in such early phases of dev. Like other major first-party games, Halo: Infinite is turning out to be a massive project that requires more gruntwork than one team can deliver.

343 Industries has tapped indie studio SkyBox Labs to help with Halo: Infinite's progress--a move that's all too common in the games industry. The great news is that SkyBox and 343i have a tight-knit relationship thanks to their previous partnerships (SkyBox made Halo 5's Forge mode for PC and rolled out the game's Xbox One X enhancement updates) so this team-up should lead to great things.

Although the lootbox controversy has somewhat died down from 2017's roaring crescendo, major game devs like Turn 10 are starting to uncouple their games from the monetization strategy.

Randomized crates will soon be abolished from Forza Motorsport 7 at the behest of player feedback, the developers at Turn 10 announced. Even paid tokens aren't coming to Forza 7 or the upcoming Forza Horizon 4 that's slated to release in October. These tokens were an optional premium currency that allowed gamers to save time by directly buying in-game content.

"One major area of discussion for the team has been prize crates. While we've never charged money for prize crates in Forza Motorsport 7, their presence in the game has continued to be a source of controversy," said Turn 10's Alan Hartman.

Capcom are gearing up for the Mega Man 11 release this October, the developers have now taken to their Twitter page to introduce to us Blast Man and Torch Man through a short video.

Back at the start of July, we saw that Capcom released information regarding Blast Man, we know that players will have to avoid on the levels "fireball-launching foes and explosion-prone mini-bots." In regards to the boss Blast Man, we can see from the video that players will have dodge numerous bombs that come from above and some directly at them. Blast Man will also throw out an attack called "chain blast", chain blast will have four separate bombs attached to it and will hone in on the player, evasive maneuvers will be required to dodge this attack. Once Blast Man is defeated players will be rewarded with his weapon attack "chain blast", the weapons has the exact same principals as when Blast Man used it, but instead Mega Man can now use it on enemies.

Jumping into Torch Man, just last week Capcom revealed the boss through another developers blog post. Torch Man will launch repetitive flaming rockets at players that seem to come in sequences of threes, after this he will fly up into the air and fly kick downwards toward the player. Other attacks are in the forms of charging swift kicks and a power up ability that will make him throw flaming crescent circles at your from both sides of the map. Once Torch Man is defeated players will be rewarded with the special weapon "blazing torch." Blazing torch will shoot fire upwards but then will sharply turn at a downwards angle, making it very useful for players that are targeting enemies above them.

Nintendo has just announced their first new Labo kit since the release of the cardboard controllers back in April this year. The new kit is called the Labo 'Vehicle Kit' and will be coming with a selection of new vehicles players can enjoy.

From the above trailer that was released onto the Nintendo YouTube Channel, players can see that the 'vehicle kit' contains three vehicle options. The vehicle pack will include a Toy-Con Car controller, Toy-Con Pedal, Toy-Con Plane stick, Toy-Con Key and a Toy-Con Submarine. Players will have the liberty of switching to any of the available vehicles at any given moment, this will be done by placing the Toy-Con Key within any of the vehicles with the obvious consideration of the terrain in-game.

A short description of the pack has been provided, it reads as follows: "Make, Play and Discover new adventures with the all new Nintendo Labo: Vehicle Kit! Create and control three new Toy-Con Projects, including the Car, Plane, and Submarine. Use your special Toy-Con Key to activate the different Nintendo Labo controls for each vehicle, and explore a mysterious world full of challenges!"According to the Nintendo Labo website, the vehicle pack will be costing players $69.99 and won't be available until September 14th. For further information visit the official Nintendo Labo website here.

Electronic Arts CEO Andrew Wilson has spoken out at the EA investors and analysts conference regarding Q1 fiscal year 2019, the reporting revealed that A Way Out surprised EA with the amount of gamer participation.

According to Wilson, the title co-op action-adventure game from Hazelight Studios pulled in a massive 2.6 million players within the first quarter of 2018. The title released back on March 23rd and within the 2 weeks of its release sold more than 1 million copies. During this meeting, Chief Financial Officer Blake Jorgensen addressed the expectation for both digital sales and physical sales.

According to Jorgensen, the sheer amount of sales from titles such as A Way Out, Battlefield 1 and FIFA Online 3 pushed the sales way past the mark of expectations. A Way Out is available on the PS4, Xbox One and PC. If you want to check out the official PC requirements for the title visit them here. For further information regarding A Way Out visit the website here.

The developer and publisher behind Shadow of the Tomb Raider have taken to the 'Tomb Raider' Twitter account to announce that their title has completed it's final development process.

According to the Twitter post, Shadow of the Tomb Raider has hit "gold" status for development, the title has left the very careful and hardworking hands of Eidos Montreal and now is on the way to manufacturing. The Twitter post shows what seems to be the entire Shadow of the Tombs Raider team, celebrating the completion of their title.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider is planned for release this September and the development process has already been completed, that is no doubt a valiant effort from Eidos Montreal. It could also be possible that the developers are still working, but instead of it being on the main title, the focus could be DLC's for the future Shadow of the Tomb Raider season pass. Shadow of the Tomb Raider is planned for release on Spetember 14th and will be launching on the PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC.

Team17 have released a brand new trailer for Overcooked 2, the trailer showcases what players will be receiving when they pre-order the new title.

The new trailer released onto the Team17 YouTube Channel reveals to players the bonuses that they will be receiving when they pre-order the next installment into the co-op cooking chaos. Players will be getting a "Kevin's Special" which is a little dog, the pre-order bonus will also include "Too Many Cooks" which will be five bonus chefs.

The new features that are within Overcooked 2 are the following: online multiplayer, the ability to throw, new level mechanics, dynamic levels, interactive world map, kitchens, recipes and chefs. Overcooked 2 will be arriving on August 8th, it will be coming to PS4, Xbox One, PS4 and Nintendo Switch. For further information about the title visit the Overcooked wesbite here.

EA and DICE held quite a successful closed alpha for Battlefield V, something that was a surprise to the company in terms of its success that EA has now said it is planning more "hands-on opportunities" for the game before it launches.

EA CEO Andrew Wilson had some interesting things to say during Thursday's financial call: "The 'Battlefield 5' beta results exceeded our expectations. The feedback was highly positive with players able to feel the advancements that DICE has focused on for the gameplay. This type of early play opportunity is now foundational to our development process". Wilson teased at the end: "We are planning more hands-on opportunity for 'Battlefield 5' prior to launch".

Battlefield V's recent closed alpha kicked off towards the end of June and ran into early July, something that EA says had 3x the number of planned players. Now we have some new information that will excite Battlefield V fans: expect a new beta to launch in September, something that could be followed with more plays with the game before its launch on October 19.

Fortnite is a huge success on the PC, consoles and iOS but the mobile world is much larger on Google's side of the fence with Android, and until now the largest game on the market right now has not found a home on Android.

Samsung is set to launch its upcoming Galaxy Note 9 on August 9 with pre-orders opening up on August 14 and public availability just over a week later on August 24. The latest rumor is that Fortnite will launch as an exclusive to the Galaxy Note 9 for a month, which should end on September 23/24. This would give Samsung a huge marketing win as Fortnite is one of the biggest games on mobile right now, something Apple dominates with its iPhone exclusively.

9to5Google is behind the latest rumor with their source also saying there will more incentive for consumers to get the Galaxy Note 9 if they want Fortnite, with pre-orders reportedly getting $100-$150 worth of V-Bucks for the game. If you don't want the V-Bucks since you don't play Fortnite, there will reportedly be an option for wireless AKG headphones that will be worth as much as the V-Bucks provided if you play Fortnite.

The Binding of Issac creator, Edmund McMillen has decided he is going to be taking his indie roguelike video game to the next level by making a card game. The card game has been titled The Binding of Issac: Four Souls and has already begun its funding process on Kickstarter, raising a whopping $2 million+.

According to McMillien, The Binding of Issac: Four Souls is much like the The Binding of Issac video game, but in the form of cards. McMillien said "the card game is incredibly similar to the video game, except that it doesn't play like it all, it emobodies what the game is, except that it's a multiplayer environment."McMillien also said that he is treating this project as he would designing a video game, rigorous testing is constant but regardless, he has said that he has enjoyed designing and overall creating the game.

At the time of writing this, the Kickstarer has pulled in $2.9 million with 30,803 backers and counting. At the pace that the numbers are increasing The Binding of Issac: Four Souls could reach over the $3 million mark before the Kickstarter ends in 27 hours. If you are interested in checking out how The Binding of Issac: Four Souls card game works, or you would like to support the project, head over to the official Kickstarter page here.

Back in the July of 2010, the sequel to StarCraft, one of the most known real-time-strategy games ever released. It has been eight years and counting since the release of StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty, and to celebrate the games eighth anniversary Blizzard will be giving out prizes.

Blizzard released the first StarCraft back in 1998, players that fell in love with the millitary science fiction RTS had to wait a further 12 years to get the sequel. Since the sequel has released, two expansions have been added onto the initial game, StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm and StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void. Blizzard have decided not to add any further content to the title and have actually seen the game age so well that they decided to make the title completely free-to-play.

To celebrate the eighth anniversary of StarCraft II, Blizzard will be rewarding any player that jumps into a versus game with a brand new cake portrait. In-game celebrations will also be apparent as well, whenever a player builds a structure fireworks and banners will be displayed on screen. Experience wise, Blizzard will be "activating a 100% bonus to the base experience gained in co-op commanders and for leveling up individual races in versus." This double experience will be lasting until July 30th, for further information regarding the eighth anniversary visit the official Blizzard StarCraft II blog here.