Gaming - Page 841

Cyberpunk 2077 is shaping up to be one of the biggest games in development, with developer CD Projekt Red teasing some exciting news.

Kyle Rowley, the associate design director for Cyberpunk 2077 was chatting with people on the official Discord server for the game, confirming it will have absolutely no loading screens. This is pretty damn mind blowing considering that it's an open-world game with a bunch of buildings you can enter.

Cyberpunk 2077 features a beautiful, dense world that is bigger than previous CDPR developed games like The Witcher series. To hear that there are no loading screens in Cyberpunk 2077 feels almost impossible at this stage, increasing the hype for this game a whole lot more.

What would Remedy be working on if it had total freedom? Maybe Alan Wake 2.

Although Remedy is currently deep in developing Control (formerly P7) its ambitious new IP that blends Quantum Break with supernatural sci-horror, the studio says it wants to make a new Alan Wake game.

"So we own the Alan Wake IP, yes. I just want to say right away that it's very dear to us and close to our hearts. We all love Alan Wake at Remedy and I think all of us want to see a new Alan Wake game," Remedy's Mikael Kasurinen told DualShockers at E3 2018. "I just want to say that out loud. Unfortunately, I can't speak to it anymore than that. We'll see what happens with Alan Wake next but we all want to see it happen, absolutely."

It's no secret that Cyberpunk 2077 is the most ambitious game CD Projekt RED has ever made, and that the game is running on next-level tech. But shortly after the game's E3 2018 trailer and subsequent gameplay demo the devs affirm they're aiming to push current-gen consoles to their limits.

With flying cars, a living, breathing city with real-time AI, deep RPG elements, and chaotic FPS action, Cyberpunk 2077 is sounding better by the minute. Everything we've seen and hear about the game so far has left quite an impression and rightly so: it's all powered by CD Projekt RED's newly evolved world-building engine technology, something that's been in development for quite some time. Sure, we've known Cyberpunk 2077 would use crazy high-end tech to achieve the devs' sci-fi vision, but actually seeing it is quite different. After all CDPR has been laboring for years on iterating and one-upping its games engine in an effort to outdo their prowess with The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt.

According to CD Projekt RED CEO Marcin Iwinski the team is still trying to squeeze even more out of the engine to prepare for the game's mysterious release.

Sony resurrects its Greatest Hits label for the PlayStation 4 age and discounts a ton of great games in the process.

As a kid growing up I loved Sony's Greatest Hits libraries, first with PlayStation and then PlayStation 2. Sure you got a green (or red) stripe on the side and your game box lost some authenticity, but waiting a while got you the same game for cheaper. Now more than four years into the current console life cycle, Sony is doing the same thing with PS4 games.

For some strange reason Sony changed the branding for its discounted PS4 games label: it's called "PlayStation Hits" instead of the familiar "Greatest Hits" that's been around from PS1 all the way to PS3. The games, which cost $19.99, include big names like Bloodborne, Uncharted 4, DOOM, Metal Gear Solid 5 and even Yakuza's 0 and Kiwami.

Despite having an online presence with the Wii, Wii U, and 3DS, Nintendo is still new to monetizing engagement via microtransactions. But it's something it wants to learn.

Nintendo--like all hardware-makers with first-party games--understands the new frontier of online engagement. The company has pushed into season passes in games like Zelda: Breath of the Wild and has had success with its microtransaction-laden mobile games. But this is just the beginning and Nintendo probably won't stop rolling out randomized lootboxes. After all they're quite profitable: Fire Emblem Heroes (a mobile game with random lootbox-style purchases) raked in $295 million in its first year.

Despite the big pushback against these trends in the console realm, Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime affirms that lootboxes will remain in the company's arsenal of engagement-driven monetization. "Loot boxes, broadly speaking, have gotten a bit of a bad rap. The game mechanic of buying something that you're not sure what's inside is as old as baseball cards," Fils-Aime told Bloomberg in a recent interview.

An analyst from MIDiA Research, Karol Severin has addressed why Sony feels as if they need to protect their user base from potential threats.

The recent debuting of Fortnite to the Nintendo Switch has posed a question towards Sony as to why the company won't be allowing cross-play between platforms. Analyst Karol Severin, from MIDiA Research has addressed this question and said that from a business point of view Sony has made a strong choice here. According to Severin, "PlayStation has the largest console gaming ecosystem out there" as they are a single platform, "Microsoft owns two gaming platforms (Xbox and Windows)" so it makes more sense for them to have cross-play but how does Sony benefit from this relationship?

Xbox is quite far behind Sony in regards to active gamers on their platform, for Microsoft to harp on the 'cross-play' movement could simply just be a way for them to close to the gap between Sony's leading console. Unfortunately, Sony's standpoint is definitely not looking out for their players, but from a business point of view I can understand that Sony is looking to the future and seeing themselves still sitting as the number one console.

Unity has launched their brand new technology demo titled Book of the Dead, the demo showcases what is possible with using Unity 2018.

Unity is promoting their new Scriptable Render Pipeline which has increased the customization abilities of the rendering architecture Unity can support. From the above demo released by Unity, we can see the photogrammetry-scanned real-world environments combined with Unity textures and high-quality scanned assets.

The Book of the Dead technology demo is a interactive story and if you are interested in downloading it and viewing the capabilities of the Unity Engine visit the official website here.

On Twitter's blog page, Rishi Chadha, the Head of Gaming Content Partnerships has written an E3 summary for the most popular tweets throughout the week.

According to Chadha, during the week of E3 "there were nearly 15 million #E3 related Tweets" and the "highest spike in E3 conversation came during the Nintendo Direct press conference between 9-10 AM ET on June 12 with 890K Tweets."

The blogpost also reveals where the leading countries of these tweets came from, taking first place is the United States, then Japan, followed by the UK and then Spain and France. The blogpost also offers the most tweeted about companies/newly-announced games. Nintendo comes in at first, followed by Xbox and then Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate was also the most talked about newly-announced title, beating Kingdom Hearts 3 and Fallout 76. If you are interested in reading the official blogpost from Twitter you can check it out here.

During Sony's E3 2018 presentation we saw that Resident Evil 2 was being remade, a gameplay trailer was displayed during the conference and it did not disappoint. What is disappointing though, Capcom currently has no plans on bringing the title to the Nintendo Switch.

This information was confirmed by Capcom Brand Manager Mike Lunn during E3 2018. Lunn was asked if a Nintendo Switch iteration was planned, Lunn replied with "No, not at this time. We just wanted to focus on PS4, Xbox One, and PC at the moment."

This is not a permanent goal for Capcom, so Nintendo Switch users don't be upset quite just yet. Capcom has already brought Resident Evil 7 to the Nintendo Switch in the form of a cloud streaming service, we could see this very same form of cloud based streaming service for a Resident Evil 2 Remake later down the track.

The new Battlegrounds map is launching this week, with Sanhok pitting players into a 4x4km area set in a Southeast Asian-inspired location.

PUBG has been testing out the map in its test servers for a while now, but the official launch of Sanhok takes place with an update arriving on June 22. It's not just a new map that arrives this week, but a new "Event Pass" that is similar to Fortnite and its Battle Pass.

The new Event Pass, as PUBG Corp. explains: "is designed for players who wanted a trackable progression-related system, and at the same time allows you to unlock new content in PUBG in a way that is different from the crate and key system".

In just 90 days on iOS it seems Epic Games can't be stopped with Fortnite absolutely dominating on Apple's iPhone and iPads, with Fortnite making $100 million in the three-month span.

Knives Out is the PUBG-like Battle Royale giant on iOS, but Fortnite made 335% more money over the 90-day period which is quite simply insane. In just 30 days, Fortnite made $25 million joined by another $50 million in the 45 days after, with no signs of slowing down.

Fortnite might have made $100 million in 90 days but it only comes close to the $154 million that Clash Royale from Supercell made in its first 90 days on iOS. PUBG on mobile doesn't count yet because it has only been on iOS for 60 days now and hasn't reached $100 million, yet.

Psyonix is going to be following in the steps of Epic Games and Fortnite by introducing what seems to be quite similar to that of a Fortnite Battle Pass.

If you are unfamiliar with how the Fortnite Battle Pass system works, it is a system that allows for players to purchase a two month long season pass that grants access to cosmetic content while also giving additional rewards to players that earn more XP. Rocket League is now doing the exact same thing, giving players the opportunity to "earn free Customization Items, Player Banners, in-game Titles, and Decryptors."

The Rocket Pass will come in the form of two options, The Free Rocket Pass and also The Premium Pass. Players can upgrade to the Premium Pass for ten keys which comes in at $9.99, the premium option includes "new Customization Items, new Car Bodies, Keys, Premium Player Banners and Premium Titles." If you are interested in reading the full breakdown of the Rocket Pass visit the official Rocket League website here.

Valve has now given Steam users the option to view their total account spending, summing up all purchases made via external funds as well.

After all this time of millions of gamers using Steam, Valve has finally given users the ability to see how much Steam sales have pillaged gamers bank accounts and wallets. The new Steam Support function allows for users to sign-in to the Steam website and view how many funds have been passed through their Steam Wallets.

If you are interested in viewing your total spendings for your Steam account you can find the Steam support page here.

Sony has had so many great titles released on the PlayStation 4 since its release in 2013, now the company is bringing users amazing sales via PlayStation Hits.

Sony's Vice President of PlayStation Marketing at Sony Interactive Entertainment has taken to the PlayStation blog to announce PlayStation Hits. PlayStation Hits will be bringing PS4 owners great deals on some of the most renowned game titles at an amazing price. PlayStation Hits will be featured on the PlayStation Store and will be putting game genres on sale from family friendly titles to blood-and-gore masterpieces.

PlayStation Hits will be bringing titles to gamers for only $19.99 across the board, games included are: Bloodborne, Driveclub, InFamous Second Son, Killzone Shadow Fall, LittleBigPlanet 3, Ratchet & Clank, The Last of Us Remastered, Uncharted 4: A Thief's End, Doom, Project CARS, Street Fighter V, Yakuza Kiwami, Yakuza 0 and Metal Gear Solid V.

Following up on the recent release of Fortnite on the Nintendo Switch, fans are up-in-arms once again that cross-play is not available through the Sony platform. A former head of Sony has said that this problem could be much more simple than we expect, all coming down to 'money.'

Former head of Sony Online Entertainment, John Smedley has responded on Twitter to a video by Kinda Funny's Greg Miller who was discussing the cross-play issue. Here is what Smedley had to say, "If we keep up the pressure, the problem goes away." He continued by saying "when I was at Sony, the stated reason internally for this was money. They didn't like someone buying something on an Xbox and it being used on a PlayStation. simple as that. dumb reason, but there it is."

Those that aren't aware of what has sparked this community outrage at Sony should know that Fortnite releasing on the Nintendo Switch brought this issue to fruition. Players that have previously logged onto their Epic Games account via a PlayStation 4 cannot log onto their Nintendo Switch with the same account, forcing users to make a second Epic Games account just to be able to play on their Nintendo Switch. This is not an issue for PC and Xbox One, as the account can be carried across these platforms making it very easy for owners that already play on these platforms but also happen to own a Nintendo Switch.

Square Enix has recognized that the story line could be slightly confusing with the debuting of so many new characters Kingdom Hearts III, the company has released a slew of videos explaining where the story is at.

Unfortunately the videos are in Japanese as Square Enix hasn't released English versions as of yet. Each video is displayed in the form of a narration throughout an animated book, showcasing the Chapter of Departures, Chapter of Memories, Chapter of Twilight, Chapter of Darkness and Chapter of Dawn.

We very much hope that Square Enix re-releases these animated videos in English as the videos are high-quality and provide a lot of vital information that could tie-up some loose ends for some people. Kingdom Hearts III will be released into the Western markets on January 29th 2019.

One of Bethesda's critical learning points for Fallout 76 will come to Xbox One first, and then PS4 and PC later.

Fallout 76, Bethesda's new experimental online-only survival game, is at its core an interactive live-based experience. Like any live service-powered game it's absolutely vital that the team hold beta tests to fully understand player feedback. Fallout 76 is being tested at the studio, of course, but that's not the same: players will always find ways to break the game with crazy shenanigans the devs couldn't even imagine. No, a series of live tests is needed to prepare the world for the first-ever online Fallout game.

Oddly enough Fallout 76's beta, which requires a valid pre-order of the game, will be coming to Xbox One first. It's odd not from a marketing decision--FO76 was shown on the Xbox E3 2018 stage--but for an overall standpoint of data collection. Live games require digestion and interpretation of a lot of data across all platforms that's used to morph and balance the game with continual updates. The game's beta test is an important opportunity to collect and glean feedback from the data/player habits to ready Fallout 76 for its debut in November.

At E3 2018, CD Projekt RED showcased a dazzling Cyberpunk 2077 gameplay demo that revealed tons of new info about the massively ambitious new project.

Cyberpunk 2077 has been in development for quite some time (more than half a decade, give or take) and up until now the hype has been building to a crescendo. We've heard CDPR say the game is their biggest title ever, and that it'll feature flying cars and living, breathing AI. Based on everything we've heard about the E3 2018 demo, Cyberpunk 2077 isn't just living up to the hype--it's one-upping it.

While we didn't actually get to see the demo first-hand, there's tons of info floating about from second-hand sources. The demo confirmed that Cyberpunk 2077 is a first-person shooter infused with strong RPG elements--the same way the high-tech world is infused with punkish neon-lit grime-and-crime style--that puts incredibly strong emphasis on player choice and consequence. In fact CDPR says that Cyberpunk 2077 has the most choice in any game they've ever made, even The Witcher 3.

2K Games has revealed a decent amount of information for the upcoming WWE 2K19, the publisher has showcased the games special editions as well as the titles release date.

According to the announcement, fans of the series will have a choice between two editions when purchasing the game. Firstly, the WWE 2K19 Deluxe Edition will give players access to the full-game, special packaging, the games Season Pass, pre-order digital content and the Collector's Edition digital content.

The WWE 2K19 Collector's Edition will be including the full-game, all content from the Deluxe Edition, plus "exclusive and rare collectibles" and a limited edition WWE SuperCard content. Currently, WWE 2K19 is planned for release on Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PC. WWE 2K18 first released on the other platforms then came to the Switch some months after. So in regards to WWE 2K19, we could expect a release on the Nintendo Switch maybe some months down the track after the initial debut on October 9th.

Disney has announced that they will be partnering-up with Nintendo to present a new TV show completely dedicated to a family playing the Nintendo Switch.

According to Business Insider, the upcoming show will be titled "Nintendo Switch Family Showdown" and will bring four families together to compete with eachother in a selection of Nintendo Switch games. The games that will be played are Super Mario Odyssey, Mario Tennis Aces and Just Dance 2018.

Nintendo Switch Family Showdown will be streamed on the Disney Channel, Disney XD and the DisneyNOW app. Personally, I don't think that this show will 'take-off' very well at all, instead of Disney and Nintendo making a show based around playing the Nintendo Switch they should make a show featuring the Nintendo universe and all of its amazing characters. I feel as this idea would apply to a much larger audience and would not only attract younger generations to buying/playing Nintendo Switch games, but it will also older generations that would love to see their favorite characters in a Disney level TV show.