Gaming - Page 887

Crystal Dynamics has snagged a bunch of key industry developers to help build its Avengers project.

Marvel's recent deal with Square Enix is a pretty big deal: the Disney-owned titan has conscripted the Japanese games-maker for a multi-year slew of games, including a new Avengers game that players can "enjoy for years to come." The game has undoubtedly been in the works for a bit, and Crystal Dynamics, the team developing it, has acquired 15 new top industry vets to help fortify the project including former Naughty Dog Creative Director Shaun Escayg who joins The Avengers Project as Creative Director, and as Director of Production Stephen Barry, a 27 year veteran from EA/Visceral Games.

Armed with this new talent the developer has made "tremendous progress" on the Avengers game. "We're committed to delivering an incredible, completely original Avengers experience to our gamers, and that means we are always looking to add amazing developers to our existing best in class studio talent," said Scot Amos, Co-Head of Studio at Crystal Dynamics.

On the heels of Microsoft's big Xbox Game Pass announcement comes some even more welcome news: some of them can be played on PC as well.

Just yesterday Microsoft confirmed that future first-party games like Sea of Thieves, Crackdown 3, State of Decay 2 and even new Halo, Forza and Gears of War games can all be played on Xbox Game Pass. That means if you subscribe for $10 a month that you'll be able to play new titles the day they come out rather than ponying up the full $60 price tag. Plus there's an added 20% off bonus if you decide to buy the game and then cancel your subscription.

But now Microsoft's Aaron Greenberg confirms that Play Anywhere games on the service can be played on PC, too. And since most first-party Xbox One games are Play Anywhere...this could be a neat little boon for PC gamers to get in on the action as well. Which, of course, is Microsoft's plan now that Xbox is a multi-platform service and no longer a console.

Cowen analyst Doug Creutz highlights how Destiny 2's issues could affect Activision's future fiscal performance.

It's no secret that Destiny 2 is having a problem with player engagement, which happens to be the hallmark and bread and butter of service games. The shooter's lackluster end-game rewards, tedious grinding, and community revolt against microtransactions have had a serious affect on public opinion as well as player retention. As Epic's Fortnite and Bluehole's PUBG continue to soak in new players every day, it's critical for Bungie to fix this gaping hole in Destiny's ship--not patch it with minuscule paid expansions.

Now analyst Doug Creutz underlines some of the key ways that Destiny 2 is on the downhill, including Bungie's secrecy regarding future content as well as how microtransactions were implemented with the Eververse.

Monster Hunter games are synonymous with Nintendo hardware...but Capcom's latest MonHun will miss Nintendo's hot new Switch system. Why? Well...it's been in development for a long time.

Monster Hunter: World is a huge game for Capcom in many ways: not only is it an online service type of game with key multiplayer elements (a massive undertaking in of itself), it's jumping over to the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC as a multi-platform release. The Japanese games-maker has a lot riding on this to say the least. Monster Hunter is one of its premiere top-earning IPs in game sales, and if done right, MonHun: World could be a huge boon.

Capcom definitely understands this: that's why the game has been in development for almost four years time, way before the Nintendo Switch was revealed behind closed doors to key devs. Remember Capcom played an instrumental role in helping the Switch grow...but even then the company says it's not necessarily the right platform for their new online Monster Hunter.

Microsoft has recently revealed a big new step in its digital engagement strategy: releasing new Xbox One games directly onto Xbox Game Pass.

Right now Microsoft's Xbox division is mostly focused on engagement rather than raw hardware sales. The company has leveraged the diversity and power of its Xbox LIVE network to bring new services and player-building content such as communities and other social features in a bid to not only pull more players in, but retain them. As the industry shifts towards digital gaming for the sake of convenience (and revenue earning via full game downloads and microtransactions) it's important hardware-makers follow suit, including Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft. The latter of which has taken an interesting new jump in merging its flagging exclusive games lineup with one of its core strengths: backwards compatibility and digital-based focus.

Microsoft's Phil Spencer has announced that future Xbox games like Crackdown 3, Sea of Thieves, and State of Decay 2 will be available on Xbox Game Pass, which charges gamers on a per-month basis for access to a pool of digital games. This novel step also includes future unannounced games like the next Halo, Forza and Gears of War games--as well as all future Xbox One exclusives to boot.

Bandai Namco has taken to their Twitter page to announce the beta test times release for the Xbox One version of the game.

As we know the last beta for Dragon Ball FighterZ had several problems with online connectivity, this resulted in the players being unable to jump into the online fighting action. Bandai Namco has made up for this by releasing a second beta for Xbox One users that missed out.

The new beta is going to run for a total of 24 hours, beginning on January 23 at 9pm PST and ending on January 24 at 9pm PST.

Cory Barlog, creative director at Santa Monica Studios has taken to Sonys PlayStation Blog to announce a confirmed release date for God of War.

Barlog announces the launch date for April 20th and to go with the announcement of the date, a new story trailer has been released for the game.

The story trailer gives some insight into the relationship between Atreus and Kratos, and also provides us with some small amounts of action.

With a game that has sold just under 28 million copies and daily see's over 2 million playing at a given time, it's fair to say there will be some people who really want that chicken dinner and use cheats to ensure they get it. Who am I kidding, there is A LOT of people who cheat in PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds and if you believe The PUBG Development and Community Team, things are about to change.

Recently in a post on the official Battlegrounds forums, PUBG developer 'PUBG_Hawkinz' has said that since 1.0 release, the development team has prioritized a fair and competitive environment for gamers.

"We recently discovered a new pattern of cheats in action. This week, we performed a thorough gameplay data review of 10 million players and completed analysis of tens of millions of data logs. Through this exercise, we were able to identify over 100,000 instances of the new pattern related to use of cheat and now we have confirmed that it was clearly an attempt of compromising our game. These players will be permanently banned in a single wave. This is an example of additional measures we will be taking on top of the basic detection systems in place."

It is only a few more days until Dragon Ball FighterZ gets fully released, and in order to keep the anticipation high Bandai Namco has put out a launch trailer and a character trailer for Android 21.

We already know that Dragon Ball FighterZ will be featuring a story mode but some were confused on how the new character Android 21 would fit into that since she is a completely original to the game.

According to the description of the launch video, players will "Join Goku, Piccolo, Vegeta and the rest of the squad as they take on a mysterious new foe, Android 21."

People that follow Steam Early Access releases know that some titles can get stuck in this development phase and never see a full release. Well Rust is now not one of them as the game is due for release on February 8.

Facepunch founder, Garry Newman, has announced this news on a blog post explaining that the game will be leaving Steam Early Access but in no regard is it a completed product.

Newman says that Rust will be breaking into two separate versions, one for bleeding edge updates and another for the main game which would be more stable.

Ubisoft has revealed the official PC requirements for their upcoming Far Cry 5, they have said that the game will automatically detect users' hardware and calibrate for optimal performance.

According to Ubisoft's official news post on their Far Cry 5 website, the game will be featuring what seems to be everything that a PC gamer wants when it comes to customization for optimal performance.

Kirill Bragin, the PC version producer on Far Cry 5 was quoted in the news post and said "In order to help ensure PC players have the best experience possible, the Benchmark feature and video memory usage meter will help you analyze your system and calibrate the myriad visual options, including variant aspect ratio support, FOV adjustment, optional FPS locking, and resolution scaling."

Yuji Naka, who's credited with programming and helming the original Sonic games and basically pioneering the Blue Blur's definitive gaming experience, is now working with Final Fantasy publisher Square Enix on something new.

While Naka didn't actually jump from SEGA to Square Enix--he left the company in 2006 to start up his own indie studio called Probe--the move is quite interesting to say the least. Square Enix is gearing up for a number of games in its next fiscal slate and beyond, some of which we actually know about (Final Fantasy VII: Remake, another NieR game, Octopath Traveler, the new Marvel Avengers and Guardians of the Galaxy game, etc) but Yuji Naka's project might be one of the mystery ones left in the dark.

"Just a quick note to let you know, I joined SQUARE ENIX in January. I'm joining game development as before, and strive to develop games at SQUARE ENIX. I aim to develop an enjoyable game, please look forward to it," Naka wrote on Twitter.

Stardew Valley, the beloved Harvest Moon-esque game of growing crops and managing a ranch, has become the best-selling game download on the Nintendo Switch in 2017...beating out the games-makers own titles.

Stardew Valley was the most downloaded Switch game of last year--that's according to Nintendo's announcement which was highlighted in a new report published by SuperData's senior analyst Elena Fedina. The firm highlights that the indie sensation has sold over 3.5 million units to date, and in January 2018 alone the active playerbase has jumped 13% year-over-year to 700,000 players.

What's the secret to Stardew Valley's success? Dedication, love, and scratching a particular itch gamers have been feeling for years. "[The game's] success is also the result of an incredible amount of work and dedication," Fedina writes in the report.

The global video games industry could pull in a staggering $170 billion this year, according to a new report released by analyst firm DigiCapital.

In DigiCapital's latest forecast report, the firm foresees the games industry continuing to grow at a rapid pace up until 2022, which should converge with a new generation of games consoles and a litany of fresh new games across the full hardware spectrum (not to mention new iterations on the service game model and other lucrative business strategies). The firm says the global video games market, which includes hardware, software, peripherals and components across the entire world, could reach as high as $170 billion in 2018 - a big jump from the $108.9 billion that Newzoo predicted would be earned in 2017.

Mobile gaming will take the biggest part of the earnings pie with up to $60 billion earned in 2018, representing about 35% of the maximum prediction for the year, and could reach a huge $90-$95 billion by the end of 2022. Given how steadily mobile gaming has risen in the wake of free-to-play microtransaction games across the globe (especially in Asia where they're particularly popular and profitable) this certainly makes sense.

As we wait patiently for the release of the new God of War, Cory Barlog, the director at Sony Santa Monica Studios has taken to Twitter to announce that the game will not be featuring a season pass of any kind.

Just last week we saw what the God of War Collectors Edition would provide fans and now to keep the hype moving forward we have now learned that the game will have "No season pass" according to Cory Barlog.

This doesn't mean that the game will not have a DLC as this could still be a possibility for the PS4 exclusive. Single-player game fans can now rest at ease knowing that their "wide linear" single-player game will not harbor the modernized money making traits that most AAA title games do these days.

COLORFUL has quickly become one of the best AIB partners making GeForce graphics cards, with the Chinese giant now expanding into the eSports market with their new COLORFUL Games Union (or CGU). This isn't their first CGU, but COLORFUL has bigger and better plans for its eSports event, something it's now detailing.

COLORFUL plans to develop CGU into a "global event to further highlight the company's position as a dedicated gaming company that delivers products and experiences targeted for gamers".

The company explains that "eSports becoming more and more ingrained in Chinese culture, COLORFUL decided to unite the figures that make eSports exciting: the teams, casters, celebrities, products and other IPs form together to bring COLORFUL Games Union which debuted in 2013. This event saw the birth of the now famous professional team Snake and COLORFUL intends to become key a partner in seeking and establishing budding teams and talents and bring them into the global spotlight".

Cygames, the publisher for Granblue Fantasy, have released a video showcasing the work that Platinum Games has put into their upcoming action RPG.

Cygames has released a video onto their YouTube channel showing the very interesting and beautiful art style that they have chosen for Granblue Fantasy Project Re:Link.

Not only do we see the colors that are used throughout the main character walking around the village but also we get a full scale Platinum Games developed battle scene. According to the videos description we get to witness "a battle sequence in which the characters Katalina, Io, Percival and Rackam each make use of electrifying special abilities culminating in a Chain Burst attack."

DICE and EA have come forward and shared news about their upcoming DLC for Battlefield 1, "Apocalypse." The DLC is going to be adding a range of new maps, guns and concentrates on aerial dogfights.

The new expansion is due to arrive next month, with the developer detailing the DLC with a new mode called Air Assault. The mode will feature aerial dogfights but sadly will only be available to play on two maps, "On London Calling and Razor's Edge."

DICE have not forgotten the ground troops either though, as the DLC is also bringing a new range of anti-aircraft weapons to the game. The DLC patch notes mentions the adding of the "the Assault Class's AA Rocket Gun" which "arms infantry soldiers with a way to assist airborne team mates and deliver serious damage to enemy aircrafts."

Epic Games community coordinator, Edgar Diaz has taken to the sub-reddit of their MOBA, Paragon, announcing that the company has doubts towards the path they have laid out for the aspiring success of the game.

The sub-reddit post details that the company has been trying to push the MOBA out into the mainstream view but has failed with updates since its release to early access back in March last year.

The post continues to elaborate why the playerbase is not growing, saying "of new players who try Paragon, only a small number continue to play regularly after a month. Though Paragon has evolved, no iteration has yet achieved that magical combination of ingredients that make for a sustainable game."

One of the most classic real-time-strategy games ever made has been completely revamped and is on its way back to the world of PC gamers. Age of Empires: Definitive Edition has been confirmed to be arriving on February 20th.

According to a post on Major Nelsons website, Microsofts Creative Director, Adam Isgreen confirmed that Age of Empires: Definitive Edition is due for a release on February 20th. The price of the remastered game is quite appropriate coming in at just $19.99.

The Definitive Edition will feature a modernized 4K graphical upgrade, a re-recording of the original soundtrack, campaign narration for every mission and even support for the classic LAN play.