Gaming - Page 909

Developers will have a hard time recreating Fable's magical charm without key Lionhead devs at the helm.

Even as Lionhead is now defunct, leading to the long awaited Fable Legends project being cancelled, Microsoft still owns the rights to Fable so the company could (and probably will) continue the IP in some form. But if Microsoft chose to do this they'd probably have a tough time bringing the series' distinct flair, style, and grace back to the gaming world without the help of ex-Lionhead veterans.

In a recent interview with The Daily Star, ex-Lionhead gameplay programmer Adam Langridge said a new Fable without Lionhead would be quite different. "We feel such a personal connection to that series. There are such a large number of key people - creative director Dene Carter, for example - whose vision crafted that franchise, and without those key people, you're going to have a very hard time recreating the same kind of Fable," Langridge said. "Their personalities permeated the games, you know? You could feel them in there like names through a stick of rock."

Oculus has teamed up with Respawn Entertainment to make a major new VR game that aims to recreate the visceral, brutal chaos of the life of a soldier at war.

Respawn Entertainment, the developers of Titanfall and veterans of the FPS genre, today announced a new VR game for release in 2019. The untitled project will show the bloody brutality of war through the perspective of a soldier's eyes, and sounds like a major Oculus exclusive that could end up being the Rift's killer app answer to Vive's Fallout 4 exclusive. It's also possible that this next-gen game will be powered by the new high-end Oculus Rift headset, codenamed Santa Cruz, which may release in 2019.

Respawn is just only now starting work on the new VR experience, and is currently developing an unannounced narrative-driven third-person Star Wars action game that may release in 2019 or 2020. Visceral Games' new Star Wars game will release next year in 2018. So it's possible Respawn's new Star Wars game and VR experience will both release in 2019.

Contrary to popular opinion, lootboxes apparently aren't exactly gambling, and the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) won't designate them as such.

Gamers' calls for the ESRB to formally designate in-game lootboxes, which allow users to spend real money to get random items, as gambling have failed. The ratings board told Kotaku that, because lootboxes are always guaranteed to give players something for their money, they can't be considered gambling--the latter has no actual guarantee of winning anything. Lootboxes are similar to the random element in, say, buying a Magic: The Gathering booster pack from a store, says the ESRB.

"ESRB does not consider loot boxes to be gambling. While there's an element of chance in these mechanics, the player is always guaranteed to receive in-game content (even if the player unfortunately receives something they don't want). We think of it as a similar principle to collectible card games: Sometimes you'll open a pack and get a brand new holographic card you've had your eye on for a while. But other times you'll end up with a pack of cards you already have."

Two of my favorite passions are about to combine... and no, I had nothing to do with it. WWE 2K18 is set to include the fast-food pioneer, KFC's Colonel Sanders as a playable character in 2K's upcoming installment in WWE 2K series. Oh it's true, it's damn true.

While Colonel Sanders is not technically an official wrestler in WWE 2K18, the Colonel is easily created in "Create a Wrestler". If you're an avid viewer of WWE's products then this crossover is of little surprise, you would have noticed some subliminal obvious advertisement of KFC within WWE television with wrestlers such as Shawn Michaels, Dolph Ziggler and now, Kurt Angle all portraying the legendary Colonel Sanders.

Hulu, a video on demand service, will exclusively stream four unique series that are based around esports that will air this Fall. The series will be produced by ESL with each series focusing on a unique theme delivered in a podcast-style discussion, rather than a traditional documentary. These series captures various aspects of esports, including athlete training and preparation, news and industry trends, and coverage of ESL's tournaments.

Player v Player (10x30 minute episodes) is a gamified debate show that features casters and esport influencers, as they debate the hottest tops in esports to accrue points.

Bootcamp (6x30 minute episodes) is a weekly series that follows CS:GO team- The Immortals. The series features in-depth footage of how the team rebuild their roster leading up to one of CS:GO's premier tournaments, IEM Oakland.

Back in August of this year, Planet Coaster developer Frontier first announced Jurassic World Evolution, a theme park simulator with a slight twist... you're building, researching and bio-engineering of new dinosaur breeds for your very own Jurassic World.

Frontier have recently released some in-game footage that was shown at the Frontier Expo to complements their announcement trailer. The footage is beautiful, showcasing various dinosaurs in their habitat, unfortunately that's about it.

Frontier did release some interesting aspects about the game via a panel discussion at the Frontier Expo. To begin the game, users will be required to send dig teams across the globe to locate fossils, these fossils are required to bio-engineer the dinosaurs for your park. You're also able to expand the number of islands, beginning with one and able to own up to five islands, each with unique resources.

Nintendo is celebrating the impending release of Super Mario Odyssey on the Nintendo Switch with a new classical-styled music trailer of the game that sees Mario dancing with real people. Check it out:

If you're like me and thought "I have no idea what I just watched", don't worry... you're not alone. But I've got to give a hat tip to Nintendo for advertising Super Mario Odyssey in a really unique way, with Mario dancing through the streets of New Donk City. Millions of gamers across the world are pumped for the release, which looks like it could be one of the best Super Mario games of all time.

Super Mario Odyssey launches exclusively for the Nintendo Switch on October 27.

PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds has officially sold 15 million copies, making Bluehole a nice mountain of cash... at $30 per copy, the developer has pulled in a huge $450 million. Not bad for a game that isn't even out yet, remember that PUBG is a Steam Early Access title.

PUBG was released on March 23, and has since been a darling of the PC gaming scene. It has continued to break records, topping the most-played PC games on the planet like Dota 2 and CS:GO. Champions of their genres, knocked down and completely beaten to a bloody pulp - even with their level 3 armor on, with PUBG taking over as the king of PC gaming.

I recently wrote about Battlegrounds getting awfully close to 2 million concurrent gamers recently, and I'm sure we're only one or two days away from the game reaching 2 million concurrent players. PUBG is expected to be unleashed from its Steam Early Access state sometime in 2018, with an Xbox One version of the game planned, as well as Xbox One X specific optimizations.

It looks like we should get a little hyped for Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus, with the developer teasing it is "bigger, badder, and more brutal" than the first.

Developer MachineGames made the big switch to the id Tech 6 engine for Wolfenstein II, with Creative Director Jens Matthies explaining to GameSpot in a recent interview: "A big change was switching to [Id Tech 6] because the first [Wolfenstein] was made in the transition from the previous generation to the new generation of consoles. So, in terms of the visuals and how our faces can express things, everything the sound design, the technology is way, way, way more advanced. Everything on the audio/visual front has a very big upgrade. The whole sound engine is new, it's everything from the AI on up - we rebuilt everything. So, everything is much more capable".

The Xbox One X and PS4 Pro will be getting console-specific enhancements, while the PC will be the supreme version as expected. Matthies continued: "We have uncapped frame rates. We are huge PC players, too, and I think all of id's games have a very strong PC DNA in them. So, it's very important for us to make sure the PC version of the game feels as solid as any console version. And [PC] is also our primary testing platform. I am confident that PC players will be very happy with the PC version".

New Blizzard job opening gives potential clues on the studio's upcoming next-gen shooter--it could be Overwatch-related in some capacity. Or it could be something brand new.

Before I start this coverage, there's something you need to remember. A new Overwatch game has not been confirmed. Blizzard is hiring an art intern to help map out super duper early artwork for a new unannounced game. This game isn't even in proper development phases yet, and is in Blizzard's infamous incubation phase, which is pre-production planning. Games that are planned and plotted in incubation phases often die out and become nothing. Blizzard takes a long time to make its games (Diablo III took 10 years to make). Now that you've tempered your expectations, let's get onto the coverage.

According to the new job opening, Blizzard is hiring a generalist art intern at its incubation branch in Irvine to help conceptualize a new unannounced game that may or may not be related to Overwatch. We've known for a while that Blizzard is making a new next-gen FPS, and previously was hiring an engineer to make a "robust first-person engine for an unannounced project." These two job listings are likely connected.

Square Enix had a tough time scaling down the raw power of Final Fantasy XV's Luminous Engine to run on outdated console hardware.

It should be no surprise that consoles aren't very potent--Microsoft's new Xbox One X notwithstanding--and typically require significant optimization scaling to ensure a new demanding game can run on them. Some games like Final Fantasy XV are even built on a powerful next-gen iteration of a studio's proprietary game engine that's literally too powerful to run on PS4 and Xbox One hardware, and devs have to put tons of effort into downscaling the game to even hit 1080p 30FPS. According to Final Fantasy XV's game director Hajime Tabata, the core dev team at Square Enix had a tremendously difficult time getting the action RPG running on PS4, PS4 Pro, Xbox One and Xbox One S hardware.

Final Fantasy XV is a fine example of a developer's worst nightmare. From a technical standpoint, the game is a marvel: the action RPG mechanics are interspersed dynamically with the hugely detailed open world, allowing combat to seamlessly break out at any given point at a solid frame rate. The visuals are pristine, and the volumetric lighting, fog, shadows and a myriad of other effects add a deep layer of immersion to the experience. But make no mistake: Final Fantasy XV was built to run on higher-end machines and flex the raw power of today's most demanding hardware...but to get the game to the mainstream console audience, Square Enix had to dramatically condense this experience and ensure the game didn't fall apart while running on older hardware.

Just in time for Middle-Earth: Shadows of War, The Evil Within 2 and Forza Motorsport 7, NVIDIA have released the latest GeForce 387.92 WHQL drivers. Also included is Game Ready VR support for ARKTIKA.1, bug fixes and multiple SLI and 3D Vision profiles added.

NVIDIA have added SLI profiles for the following titles:

As for fixed bugs and issues, NVIDIA have addressed some common issues including SLI and Intel X299 experiencing low GPU usage resulting in poor performance, YouTube users with Fast Sync enabled, twitching occurs in full-screen videos while moving the mouse cursor, custom resolutions are not preserved after updating the driver plus a whole lot more.

Some of my best gaming memories have been on older consoles, with plenty of hours pumped into the PS3 over the years. Now we have RPCS3, a new open source PS3 emulator that will render your favorite games at up to 10K.

The performance of the PS3 emulator is said to be great, but you'll need a graphics card that supports Vulkan. The developers have also added anistrophic filtering and have plans to add anti-aliasing, texture scaling, and even game-specific patches in the near future. The video above does an amazing job at convincing you if you had any doubts, which all of mine were squished as soon as I was 30 seconds into the clip.

Seeing games like Demon Souls running at 4K, and even games like Yakuza and titles I've never even heard of with Ni No Kuni and Catherine looking absolutely stunning once they were run with the emulator at 4K. The team explains: "The video showcases various popular titles with a side-by-side comparison from 720p (native PS3 resolution) to 4K rendering with 16x anisotropic filtering in RPCS3. The difference is quite incredible in titles that have high quality assets. There is a lot of detail that just wasn't visible at 720p. This feature is available for every PlayStation 3 game running on RPCS3. The only exception being that it does not yet work with Strict Rendering Mode. Games that require this setting will have to wait a bit longer before they can benefit from high resolution rendering".

The Last of Us Part II could be released in 2019, something that has been hinted at by the composer for the score in the original The Last of Us, Gustavo Santaolalla.

Santaolalla was recently interviewed for Argentinian radio station Vorterix, where he says that the plan is to have The Last of Us Part II launch in 2019. Developer Naughty Dog as well as Sony haven't hinted at a release date for The Last of Us Part II, but this news might force something out of the companies.

Given the 2019 release date, I'd expect The Last of Us Part II to launch alongside the next-gen PlayStation 5 console. It's a big enough franchise, something that would sell millions of consoles if it was pushed in 4K 60FPS with next-gen graphics, on a next-gen PS5. Gimme, gimme. The last time we heard about the PS5 was from my exclusive story that the PS5 will feature a discrete GPU, something that we currently don't see in an APU-powered console world.

With Battlefront II EA has crafted one of the most addicting shooters I've ever played, which can make the arguable "pay to win" lootboxes even more potentially dangerous.

I played the open Battlefront II over the weekend (I'm still playing it because I'm hooked) and quickly found the game to be extremely addicting. Not just because it's fun, precisely, but because it's so engaging and chaotic. The 40-player Galactic Assault mode, in particular, is tremendously engaging and puts players in an insane all-out war between two sides. It's Star Wars fully realized. But the reason why it's so addicting to me is because I'm so bad at it. Bear with me here--things might get a little weird.

When I fired up Battlefront II for the first time I got my ass handed to me. I sucked really bad (and still kind of do). Coming from a game like Halo or Destiny 2, which all have set rules for their PVP action, Battlefront II is a jarring experience. Here we have a havoc-filled landscape that's decided drenched with lootboxes that directly sway the outcome of any battle. I felt like just fodder for the better players, or the ones who had spend enough time to accrue points to spend on packs and unlock more goodies--in short, when you start Battlefront II as a noob, you're already at a disadvantage (or at least that's how you feel). But that's also one of the main reasons why the game is so addicting.

Microsoft's new high-end $499 Xbox One X is tailor-made for the 4K television market, and the company has been approached by various display-makers in bids to usher in the new jump for the 4K TV market.

With the PlayStation 4 Pro and the new Xbox One X, Both Sony and Microsoft are doing their part to help catalyze the 4K UHDTV market. But this push can't happen without the support of OEMs like Samsung, LG, and even Sony who are indeed helping the resolution revolution with their own range of higher-end premium 4K television sets. Microsoft exec Albert Penello is confident that the Xbox One X will help drive the momentum of 4K TV adoption, and in a few years, it'll be the main choice for the games industry. Then again, 4K is something you have to see to believe, which means the console and display industry have to come together in a symbiotic to adequately showcase and market their products.

"It's been an interesting marketing challenge," Penello said in a recent interview with MCVUK. "We have momentum on our side, which helps. The majority of TVs sold this year will be 4K TVs, there are all kind of analysts reports, and within the next few years everything will be 4K. So it's coming, in terms of retail of displays."

According to IGN editor Dan Stapleton, Middle-earth: Shadow of War clocks in at a huge 97.7GB on PC, which is over 50% bigger than the PS4 version.

Monolith Productions has been crafting Shadow of War for a few years now, and it's meant to be an epic, sprawling open-world experience with enough content to keep you busy for months. In fact, the team hopes gamers will be playing Shadow of War "for years". Open world games are huge, there's no doubt about that, and the data needed for these massive titles often comes with a colossal weight on our hard drives. Shadow of War is no different, and according to recent info from an IGN editor, the game will weigh in at 97.7GB on PC, which is 53% bigger than the PlayStation 4 Pro's 63.93GB install size.

Assassin's Creed: Origins game director Ashraf Ismail affirms that the game's loot boxes won't be monetized and can be purchased with in-game currency, not premium currency, and that the game will have options to buy time saving packs of content from the in-game e-store.

Months ago I predicted that Assassin's Creed: Origins would be monetized--thanks to its RNG approach to gear, I thought randomized loot boxes would show up. Now it appears that the game won't be monetized in such a way--however it will have options for gamers to spend real money on in-game items. Ashraf Ismail, game director for the latest entry on ancient Egypt, told Eurogamer that the in-game Nomad's Bazaar, run by the NPC Heda, isn't a form of loot box microtransactions such as Overwatch or Shadow of War. The boxes sold by Heda in the Nomad's Bazaar are bought with in-game currency, and you can sell items to him as well for profit. Plus Heda will send you on a daily quest for the chance to earn riches and rewards.

"The reason we did that was because we saw, even two years ago, people playing the game in different ways," Ismail told Eurogamer. "There are people who like to go into a military location, infiltrate them, steal the loot and equipment and hopefully find some unique or legendary gear."

With Blizzard finalizing the teams for its inaugural Overwatch League, esports powerhouses Rogue have announced via Twitter that they will part ways with their current Overwatch roster after failing to secure a spot in the Overwatch League.

It appears that the financial buy-in for Season one of the Overwatch League wasn't an issue for Rogue, and with some impressive results in this calendar year including being crowned champions of the BEAT Invitation Season 2 and Overwatch PIT Championship, Rogue clearly had no option but to start fresh.

If you haven't noticed, I'm a HUGE fan of the Divinity series and I'm absolutely loving Divinity: Original Sin 2. If you're reading this, I'm assuming you're also enjoying the latest adventure in the world of Rivellon. Larian Studios have recently released their third significant patch for D:OS2, addressing a diverse range of issues and bugs while also nerfing a few ability that when combined, were clearly over-powered.

The most noteworthy changes In path 3.0.146.559 include improvements to the game's journal, "several" unspecified quests should now close out as they should instead of lingering in your active journal, Attacks of Opportunity no longer working inside of smoke, right clicking at any time will stop your characters movement, Reduced Chicken form running distance to 6 meters and plenty more.

You can view the incredibly long patch notes in detail by clicking here to read the official post by Larian Studios.