Gaming - Page 911

If enough gamers want it, Final Fantasy XIV MMO game director Naoki Yoshida says the game could go free-to-play one day--or at the very least he'll consider it.

Final Fantasy XIV is one of the best MMOs I've ever played because it adds tremendous value to your experience. The amount of effort Square Enix puts into this game is staggering, and you feel that your money is well-spent. The game is one of the last bastions of subscription-based gaming out there, and throughout its triumphant relaunch as A Realm Reborn, the team has opened the experience up with an expansive free trial and some microtransaction additions. But it never lost its high-quality focus for active subscribers. So far lots of gamers agree with my asessment: Final Fantasy XIV broke subscriber milestones this year and saw 10 million cumulative players.

But Yoshida-san is so ardent in his cause to serve the community that if enough Final Fantasy XIV players demanded the game to F2P to make it more accessible, he'd consider the possibility.

Forza 7 has gotten lots of flak recently for its "pay to earn" scheme that sees gamers optionally paying real-world money not to directly buy in-game rewards, but to boost the possible outcome of said rewards. But this isn't a new trend in gaming--far from it.

Pay to earn is actually an old staple of freemium microtransactions, but it's used in new AAA games too. Take Destiny 2, for example. Destiny 2's microtransactions are creatively tied with the base game to essentially whet the appetite of players who become locked into the game's addictive ecosystem--addictive because of the loot grind cycle that's freely available to all players, but mTX offers yet another calculated layer to the addiction. Destiny 2, a paid $60 AAA game, contains a pay-to-earn tick...although it's more indirect than Forza 7. In Destiny 2 players can buy Silver to exchange for Bright Engrams, which contain mods, cosmetics, emblems, and most importantly, shaders. But if you don't like what you get, you can dismantle the loot box gear for Bright Dust, which is used as a second currency to buy other items, including EXP and loot boosts. So essentially you can convert real-world money into loot boosts--or you can simply level up an get Bright Engrams for free.

The second and third examples are free-to-play games. Blizzard's Heroes of the Storm lets you exchange Gems, which are bought with real-world money, for stimpacks, which boost the XP outcome for a period of time. Star Wars: The Old Republic, another free-to-play game, lets players buy Experience Boosts to increase their EXP gain and level up faster. While the trend may not exactly be new, the inclusion of these schemes in full-priced AAA games kind of is.

With Dota 2's new competitive season about to commence, much of the discussion has been about Valve's new Minor-Major system that begins with StarLadder October 11. In somewhat of a slight novelty, MoonduckTV has announced a new concept entitled "Midas Mode", with the tournament commencing November 18. Midas Mode pits eight teams (4 North America and 4 European) against each other in somewhat of a Fantasy Football meets Dota 2.

Each team is given a set amount of virtual currency, or "Moonbucks", this currency is then used to purchase actions in every aspect of the game. This includes picking and banning heroes, playing as Radiant or Dire and pausing in game will all cost you Moonbucks. This adds an extra level of strategy to the game as popular heroes will cost more, in fact hero prices will fluctuate depending on their win-rate and popularity. Do you spend Moonbucks picking popular heroes? Or do you spend your Moonbucks banning opposition comfort picks? It is up to the team's captain, he just has to make sure there's enough Moonbucks to pause for toilet breaks!

What happens when the bank runs dry? When a team is out of Moonbucks, penalties will occur. They will be forced to pick from a hero-pool of the worst performing heroes, they won't be able to ban, choose sides or even pause. Teams do have a chance to make their Moonbucks back via the Bounty System. The Bounty System is where the viewers can suggest challenges for the pros to attempt so they can earn Moonbucks. Simple right? The harder the challenge, the more Moonbucks to be earnt. A challenge may consist of something simple like winning a game as Techies, or a little more challenging like drafting a lineup consisting entirely of flying heroes, it's up to viewers to set the bounty.

Microsoft has surprised with the announcement of Halo Recruit, a new Halo experience that uses mixed reality technology inside of the Windows Mixed Reality platform.

Microsoft's Mixed Reality boss Alex Kipman explains Halo Recruit as "It's a fun, brief introduction into the world of Halo. You'll see a variety of iconic characters in mixed reality for the first time". 343 Industries worked on Halo Recruit, but other than that we have no idea what to expect from Halo Recruit just yet.

Halo Recruit will be available on October 17, with Microsoft explaining on their own Windows blog that Halo Recruit is a "fun, brief introduction into the world of Halo - where you'll see several iconic characters in mixed reality for the very first time".

Can you believe we're at the front steps of the Star Wars Battlefront II official beta? I can't either, but EA and DICE are celebrating the fact with a new trailer to the game which should hype you in all the right ways, even teasing split-screen coop gameplay.

The new trailer teases everything you need to see in terms of space battles, beautiful Frostbite engine graphics, and so much more. If you're gaming on the PC, Xbox, or PlayStation then the beta is open to everyone through to Sunday. The official game launches on November 17, with pre-orders including the usual bonuses if you're into that thing - like the "Lightsaver Mastery" upgrade for Yoda if you pre-order by October 9.

Microsoft isn't too much further away from the release of its flagship Xbox One X console, the first true 4K-capable console ever. Our friends over at Linus Tech Tips have had some hands-on time with Xbox One X, with Luke giving the new console a teardown in the video below.

Inside, the Xbox One X rocks an 8-core CPU @ 2.3GHz alongside 12GB of GDDR5 RAM and a GPU clocked at 1172MHz that's capable of 6 TFLOPs of compute power. AMD helped Microsoft design the refreshed APU inside of Xbox One X, so when it's compared against Sony's beefed up PS4 Pro, Microsoft comes out ahead in a big way with Xbox One X. More so when you consider Xbox One X also features a 4K Blu-ray player, while Sony gives gamers no options whatsoever for 4K Blu-ray playback... not even with an external drive.

Microsoft has engineered Xbox One X with a single 120mm radial fan that keeps the elaborate console nice and cool, with an easy-to-repair console that repairers should be breathing a side of relief at. Not bad, Microsoft - you continue to impress me with your engineering abilities on Xbox One X.

Scorn seeps into our mind and ignites the strange, hallowed depths of our imaginations--and I love every minute of it.

As a fan of weird body horror the likes you find in David Cronenberg or Clive Barker films, I love it when games get weird. I've openly praised Madmind Studio's new hellishly grotesque game Agony every chance I get, and I always want to see video game adaptations of this blasphemously dark and plain exotic style. And through the magic of indies, my wish is being fulfilled.

Scorn is the type of game I've always wanted to see in the video game world. In a sense, the developers at Ebb Software are making my dreams come true--well, maybe "nightmares" is more apt. The game, which takes stark visual queues from the unnerving phantasms of H.R. Giger's art or Zdzislaw Beksinski's otherworldly visions, is a first-person horror title that's been successfully funded on Kickstarter. At the time of publication Scorn has raised $196,003, more than $20,000 over their initial goal.

After more than 20 years with Sony, PlayStation boss Andrew House is relinquishing his position and will leave the company at the end of this year.

As President and Chief Executive Officer of Sony Interactive Entertainment since 2011, Andrew House revitalized the PlayStation brand after the PS3 console's sales dip and steered the tech titan towards billion-dollar growth with the massively successful PlayStation 4. Following the PS4's reveal in 2013, Mr. House presided over a period of explosive growth during the last five years, with 63.3 million PS4s shipped globally to date and Sony's Games and Network Services rocketing into the lucrative billions-earning segment it is today. (For example, the games segment pulled in $14.730 billion last fiscal year, making up 21.69% of Sony's total FY16 revenues.)

Now Mr. House has decided to leave the company on a high note. "I"m tremendously proud of what we've built with PlayStation and Sony Interactive Entertainment," the corporate executive said in a PR statement. "PlayStation has been a huge part of my life for more than 20 years but with the business having achieved record-breaking success, now seemed to be the right time for me to pursue new challenges."

Team Ninja's gruelingly challenging and amazingly executed samurai "Soulsborne" masterpiece is coming to PC, but not everyone will be able to play.

NiOh is a great game that stands as a shining example of Team Ninja's development prowess, and the game's incoming arrival on PC in November fills a very real void left by Dark Souls' discontinuation. But there's an entry cost this time, and the PC spec requirements to run NiOh aren't super lenient; gamers will need a moderately decent graphics card on top of the huge 100GB file size.

According to NiOh's official Steam Page, the game will require at least an Intel i5-3550 CPU, 6GB of RAM, and an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 or AMD Radeon R9 280 with at least 3GB of VRAM. This is somewhat surprising given NiOh ran quite well on PlayStation 4 consoles that notoriously feature older graphics hardware and components.

Unsung Story: Tale of the Guardians has been on a rollercoaster ride since reaching their funding goal via Kickstarter way back in 2014. If you're a backer (myself included) then you're probably aware of the path that Unsung Story: Tale of the Guardian has taken. There's good news however for the tactical-RPG, in August 2017 it was recently announced that Unsung Story has been picked up by new developer Little Orbit who has since shared their vision of the game and this weekend announced Unsung Story: Tale of the Guardians will be released on consoles including Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch.

"For me, I remember playing Final Fantasy Tactics from the couch on my PS1, and that format was quintessential to my experience enjoying that game,"Little Orbit CEO Matthew Scott said. Backers will also be able to update their platform preference via a survey.

In Little Orbit's Kickstarter update, Scott mentioned that they would be cancelling or modifying some backer rewards as it was "financially wasteful to produce" due to limited amount of backers. No need to worry though, partial refunds will be allocated for those tier backers.

PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds is one of the biggest releases of 2017, and has smashed all sorts of records in the gaming industry since it hit Steam Early Access in March earlier this year.

PUBG developer Bluehole has signed a timed exclusive with Microsoft for Xbox One X, which will definitely boost sales of Microsoft's new flagship console with the hottest game right now as a console exclusive. Bloomberg is now reporting that Bluehole "has had talks with all of the major console companies", and then being very specific that the developer was "in talks with Sony" about a PS4 release of Battlegrounds.

Sony might not see a release of Battlegrounds on the PS4, but Bluehole even talking to them in the first place is promising. Microsoft might only have a timed exclusive on Battlegrounds for Xbox, and I'm sure Sony wants to make sure it's ready as soon as it possibly can with a PS4 version of PUBG. If we're seeing 1.5 million concurrent users on the PC right now, where would those numbers be if Battlegrounds was on both Xbox and PlayStation consoles?

Call of Duty: WWII's beta has wrapped up, with developer Raven putting in the extra mile for the PC version of the game. You don't need a supercomputer to run the game, either.

Raven Software worked on the PC port of the game, with Raven CTO Dwight Luetscher talking with PCGamer recently where he said: "The World War 2 setting, and this game in particular I think, is very well suited for the PC community, in the way some of the recent releases haven't (been)". He continued: "We really believe this is the year where the PC is going to excel. This is the year that we're going to give it our best shot to win the hearts and minds of the PC community".

I don't believe a word about "this game" being "very well suited for the PC community", but I see it as more that PUBG is doing so well it's going to drag the entire PC gaming market out of the slump that Raven thinks it was in, and into the limelight. Not another Ctrl+C/Ctrl+V development job on the latest COD because it has some additional PC features that gamers have been complaining were missing from the series for YEARS.

Ten years before CD Projekt RED made The Witcher series a beloved name in gaming, another game development studio called Metropolis tried to make an adaptation on Sapkowski's works back in the 1990s.

The Metropolis Witcher project was believed to be lost in the ravages of time, but two developers give us a rare look into the early days of PC games development--back before CDPR thought about plunging headlong into making a series that would become their magnum opus. Polish game dev Metropolis Software started developing their Witcher adaptation in 1996, but apart from a few pictures, nothing had ever surfaced--until now.

In a recent interview with arhn.eu , ex-Metropolis game devs Kacper Reutt and Jarek Sobierski not only discussed key points about the failed project, but also managed to get an early tech demo prototype up and running in the stream. What followed is an early look at what could've been the very first Witcher game. The interview is about 13 minutes of interesting game development tidbits and I advise any Witcher fan to give it a watch.

Sony is updating the original PlayStation VR headset with some small hardware iterations--just don't expect new HMD technology or anything.

The new PlayStation VR, model CUH-ZVR2, will allow HDR pass-through via a new enhanced Processor Unit, aka the little box that flips the video signal to the television. With the new box users will no longer have to unhook the video feed cable to game on an HDR screen, which solves one of the main frustration points for PS4 Pro owners. But there's a trade-off: the new CUH-ZVR2 model won't be compatible with the cord from the original CUH-ZVR1 launch model, meaning if you lose your cord you'll have to buy a new one.

"A hardware update to PlayStation VR is being prepared. The new version, model number CUH-ZVR2, features an updated design that enables the stereo headphone cables to be integrated with the VR headset and a slimmer, streamlined connection cable. There's also an updated Processor Unit that supports HDR pass through, enabling users to enjoy HDR-compatible PS4 content on a TV without having to disconnect the Processor Unit in between the TV and the PS4 system. This function can be used only when the VR headset is turned off," reads an update on the PlayStation Blog.

In a surprise announcement, Disney and GoG.com have brought back Battlefront 2's classic multiplayer on PC.

When GameSpy went kaput in 2014, many games that used its servers were knocked offline, including the beloved 2005 shooter Battlefront II. Over the past few years dedicated fans kept the game alive through private servers, but now Disney and CD Projekt RED's GoG storefront have brought the game back online and restored it to its full glory--and just a month before the release of the big new Battlefront sequel, I might add.

In a press release GoG explains that the definitive Battlefront II legacy experience will be available to all owners on Steam and GoG.com with full cross-play. Existing and new owners will be able to play online in the full range of modes and gametypes, and no one will need to download any special tools--the game will be hosted with GoG Galaxy's servers.

The newly released fantastic indie gem Cuphead is selling well on Steam, where it's now broken 100,000 copies since launch.

Cuphead is one of those rare indies that completely entrances most anyone who watches. The old 1930's cartoon style is enamoring and whimsical, and melded with a brutal Contra-esque bullet-hell run-and-gun style, Studio MDHR Entertainment has created something unique that engages players on so many levels. As a result of that style, and the mechanics, and massive press, Cuphead is doing very well on Steam so far.

According to SteamSpy, Cuphead has currently sold 124,540 units on Steam. The game is also available on Xbox One and the Windows 10 Store for $19.99. Cuphead holds the triumphant and much revered 90 Metacritic score, and currently has Overwhelmingly Positive reviews on Steam. It's great to see that after being delayed two times, fans and gamers everywhere are still willing to take a risk on an interesting indie and breathe fresh life into a retro genre. The indie movement has been responsible for keeping nostalgia alive for quite some time, and it'll be interesting to see if companies like Nintendo attempt to emulate or capture that style in their own way.

One of the great, yet simple features of Steam's platform is the ability to digitally gift games. Xbox One gamers can rejoice with the introduction, albeit currently only for the Xbox Insider Program, the ability to gift Xbox One titles (and titles that also support Play Anywhere to Windows 10 users) through the official Xbox Marketplace.

Xbox One players now can send a title directly to one of your Xbox Live friends or straight to a nominated email address. The recipient then has to simply redeem a code to claim their game, download and then enjoy.

No official word on when this feature will reach the public builds, we can imagine sooner rather than later. We all have a friend that 'can't afford' to buy a game and now you will probably find a few more friends who suddenly can't afford to purchase games either!

Nintendo's mini NES and SNES have seen great success, it would only make sense for more retro-mini gaming systems to be released, wouldn't it? Correct, next up is the Commodore 64, or as it's officially been released as, the C64 Mini.

The C64 Mini is a 50% scale replica of the original Commodore 64 that features HDMI output, pixel filter options (sharp, CRT, scanline emulation), ability to save games and multiple USB ports to allow for a USB keyboard, joystick or to add a second joystick for 2-player games.

64 pre-installed games are currently included for the C64 Mini, including cult classics such as California Games, Monty Mole and Paradroid. Personally, I would have LOVED to see Street Rod included, Street Rod was my first experience with computer games and is still a game I enjoy today.

The perfect accessory for consoles could have just been released, with Marseille's new mCable Gaming Edition, which features a built-in "intelligent graphics pixel processor".

Marseille's special herbs and spices inside of the mCable Gaming Edition is the VTV-122x series chip, which comes with some pretty damn good features. Marseille explains just how the contextual anti-aliasing (CXAA) method removes jaggies, without introducing more motion blur. The company explains: "mCable's patent pending 'Contextual Processing' engine automatically recognizes various elements of the rendered image such as edges, texture and other proprietary details context. It analyzes every single pixel to repair it in the most suitable way for that pixel".

They continue: "By emulating critical human eye perception, it re-creates every pixel for a more realistic rendering. With this unique capability, mCable achieves advanced anti-aliasing filtering which fixes jagged edges and removes shimmering effects from the texture without noticeable blur. Using mCable Gaming Edition as an additional graphics processor, it can remove up to 75% of graphics artifacts while at the same time retaining all the valuable details game designers want you to enjoy. mCable Gaming Edition also supports 24p film mode. It automatically detects film content, enhances and up-scales to Ultra-HD and 4K Cinema format that are certified by Technicolor, a technology leader in Hollywood for more than 100 years".

To commemorate the release of the Super Nintendo Classic Edition, Nintendo interviewed key developers responsible for some of the console's most celebrated games--and of course Super Metroid was among them. What follows is a neat little peek at the rigors and triumphs of game development during the golden era of console gaming.

The interview, which sees Metroid creator Yoshio Sakamoto and sound director Kenji Yamamoto revealing neat little tidbits about the development experience, offers a brief look at what it was like to make Super Metroid. The classic was made by a team of only 17 people, and like any other major release, the team had to crunch to get the project done. The game would take considerable effort from this team across two years before it was done. When the game was finally finished, Yamamoto-san actually burst into tears--the project he'd spent two and a half years on was complete. Super Metroid was done, and would go on to become one of the most beloved games ever made. It was an overwhelming experience for everyone, especially the sound director.

On the toll that crunch took on Super Metroid's small team, Yamamoto-san said: "It really was hard. Back then, we had a nap room with lots of futons lined up, and staff members took turns sleeping." Sakamoto-san recalls that the team were often so dazed and absorbed they forgot about sleep--it became a distant memory. "Sometimes we didn't know when we had last slept," he said.