Gaming - Page 916

Larian Studios are set to release their highly anticipated sequel to 2014's Divinity: Original Sin, with tomorrow (September 14) seeing the PC release of Divinity: Original Sin 2. Those unfamiliar with the series, D:OS 2 is a turn-based ARPG, that features six origin characters each with their own unique story, a main-character development system featuring over 200 skills and spells to master and a map full of adventure and secrets for you to discover.

D:OS2 has been in Early Access on Steam since September 2016, with frequent content updates along the journey to keep backers happy. Today Larian Studios released a feature trailer that previews what you can expect on your 100+ hour journey.

If you haven't played any of the Divinity series, do yourself a favor and get lost in the magical Divinity world of Rivellon. I've already told my significant other not to expect to see me this weekend. You can too, by checking out the D:OS2 Steam page.

Beyond Star Wars Battlefront's shallow gameplay, lies a terrific game with incredible visuals, and the ability to play as Darth Vader. Star Wars Battlefront 2 is set to release November 17 and EA have treated us gamers with an early gift, a free season pass for Battlefront.

All you need is to own the base game, head over to either the Xbox Store, PlayStation Store or Origin depending on your platform and add the season pass. The Star Wars Battlefront Season Pass includes four DLC packs- Outer Rim, Bespin, Death Star and Rogue One. Totaling 4 new modes, 8 heroes and 16 new maps, not bad for free.

This free promotion is for a limited time only and available now, so quickly download your season pass before it's too late.

PlayerUnknown himself recently sat down with Polygon to discuss his pre-launch thoughts on Battlegrounds, where PUBG creator Brendan Greene expected sales to hit a ceiling of 300,000 or so. Except, now they're over 10 million with no signs of stopping.

The latest news for Battlegrounds is that the developer has teamed up with Vivox, who will be integrating their proprietary 3D positional audio technology into the game. Vivox CEO Rob Seaver said: "Our team has been playing PUBG since it launched in Early Access, and we'd like to congratulate Bluehole and Mr. Greene on the exceptionally positive response they've received from players".

Seaver, CEO of Vivox, continued: "Even after a hundred game integrations, we're always excited to see a game utilize our capabilities to enhance gameplay and community engagement for players. Bluehole has done a fantastic job and has shown how much core pieces of technology - like 3D voice comms - can change player experiences".

Battlegrounds sits atop of the most-played games on Steam and is one of the best-selling games of all time (smashing CS:GO and Dota 2 from their invincible perks is a BIG DEAL), but its creator didn't have faith in the beginning.

Brendan "PlayerUnknown" Greene recently talked with Polygon, where he was settling into his "whirlwind year". Greene said: "A lot of the [internal team], they really couldn't believe it. There were a few veterans of the game industry that were [saying], like, 'No, no. 200,000 [or] 300,000 the first year.' But then when we hit that first million, there were a lot of smiles around the office".

Greene added that when he first proposed the game to Bluehole, he was confident PUBG would hit 1 million sales in the first month. But even with that optimism, he didn't think there would be 10 million sales this quickly. He added: "I mean, we're walking around wondering why we've been this successful. You know, I had faith in my own game mode ... but [10] million copies and number one on Steam in just under five months I think we're at now? It's just crazy to me".

Two of Bethesda's most mature games are arriving on the Switch--the newest Doom reboot, and Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus.

Bethesda Softworks has been open about its Switch support, and the company pulled a nice twist by announcing that Doom and Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus are both coming to the handheld-console hybrid. The announcement was made during Nintendo's most recent Direct showcase. We originally predicted that Bethesda would announce Fallout 4 for the device simply because of its Creation Club monetization platform stands to make a killing on the platform, but alas the publisher surprised us.

It'll be interesting to see what kind of trade-offs id Software has to make to get Doom running in handheld mode, especially since the game is renowned for its blistering frame rates on PC. Bethesda may continue bringing more of its games to the platform in the future and opening up a new way for gamers to play at home or on-the-go.

Before they were titans of the industry, development studios like Blizzard and id Software have humble beginnings--even Microsoft, HP and Apple were started in garages. Blizzard president and co-founder Mike Morhaime reveals the company's early beginnings at BlizzCon 2017.

According to Mr. Morhaime, Blizzard's billions were kickstarted with the help of a smallish $15,000 loan from his grandma. "Allen Adham and I each contributed $10,00," the Blizzard co-founder said in a pre-BlizzCon stream. "In order to get my $10,000, I borrowed $15,000 from my grandmother. She didn't charge me any interest, that was very nice of her. Before we had any games, before we had actually done anything, this was basically the doors opening and us starting out."

Today Blizzard is one of the most successful games companies in the industry with multiple billion dollar franchises that dominate all facets of gaming.

After scalpers have sold countless NES Classic Edition consoles for obscene prices, Nintendo pulls a 180 and decides to sell its emulation machine again next year. And yes, the NES Mini is made from cheap components.

Last we reported, Nintendo had killed of the NES Mini, adding a significant layer to the already-toppling frustration cake that consumers munched on. Now the Japanese games-maker decided it likes profits, and money, so it's going to re-release the cheap mini console again next year--and put retail workers through hell again (and probably again after that).

While it's great news for many gamers who weren't able to buy the $59.99 system and relive classic nostalgia, it puts Nintendo Switch owners in a precarious position. Are we ever getting traditional a la carte on-demand VirtualConsole on Switch? The Switch Online service, which retails for $20 a year, includes access to classic NES games...and I have a feeling this is all we'll get. If this is true, this is a bad oversight on Nintendo's part; the NES Classic should be for gamers outside of Nintendo's traditional hardware ecosystem, a one-off purchase that locks players to a limited set-top box. The Swtich, however, is an ecosystem that should embrace traditional VirtualConsole simply because gamers will buy the games, and Nintendo is losing money every day the service isn't available.

Steam's review system is not always a true reflection of a gamers experience with a game. We recently saw negative Dota 2 reviews because gamers were blaming Dota 2 for killing Half Life 3.

Now gamers have recently taken to Campo Santo's walking simulator, Firewatch with a wealth of negative reviews in protest of Campo Santo's co-founder Sean Vanaman's recent Twitter remarks "We're filing a DMCA takedown of PewDiePie's Firewatch content and any future Campo Santo games."

In a recent stream of PUBG, Felix "PewDiePie" Kjellberg dropped the n-word and this clearly upset the Campo Santo co-founder. Vanaman has since encouraged other developers to do the same, which has caused the gaming community to rally behind PewDiePie.

It's unfortunate the Bungie isn't launching Destiny 2 onto all platforms at the same time, as the PC version of the game isn't coming out until October 24 - a good 6 weeks after the Xbox One and PS4 versions. But... this could be a good thing.

First off, we live in a world of unfinished, always-changing games. Destiny 2 will be patched constantly for the first few months, so this gives Bungie an additional six weeks of updates for Destiny 2 on the consoles to get the PC version in a better state. The game is already solid as it is, but there will be small fixes and tweaks thanks to the console gamers kinda beta testing it for us (thanks guys).

It's reaffirmed when there are updates being pushed out for Destiny 2 already, with a "longer-than-scheduled maintenance period" for Destiny 2 servers today. After this outage, Bungie baked in some new features that included the matchmaking equivalent for high-end activities, Guided Games.

The latest update for PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds is here, at least for those on the PTR servers, that has improved performance for low-end PCs, and a bunch of other stuff going on.

Bluehole has improved foggy weather conditions, better sky visuals in pre-existing weather effects, an improved UI and better shadows, and so much more. The new September update has a lot going on:

Client Optimization

Last year when Nintendo released the NES Classic, there was extreme supply issues that caused people to sell their NES Classic's at inflated prices for profit. Move ahead a year and Nintendo are planning to release the SNES Classic Edition and it appears it's a case of déjà vu.

When Nintendo's SNES Classic Edition went on sale last month, it was instantly sold out. Reggie Fils-Aimé, Nintendo of America President, spoke to the Financial Times and said that he "would strongly urge" anyone trying to purchase a SNES Classic to avoid using auction sites and that you realistically shouldn't have to pay more than the $79.99 price. Reggie also stated that Nintendo have "dramatically increased" production for SNES Classic to eliminate supply issues we saw with the original NES Classic.

To shut down rumors that Nintendo purposely held back stock make the NES Classic more sought-after item, Fils-Aime said the company was not holding back stock on purpose and that Nintendo simply didn't produce enough units. He also said that Nintendo anticipated that their retro console wouldn't be very popular due to other companies retro console sales figures.

If you're like me, you spent hundreds of hours playing Super Mario 64 on your Nintendo 64. Well, thanks for a new fan project, you're going add a few more hours to that collection but with a twist. With multiple playable characters, each with their own unique handling and move-set, you can play with up to 24 friends online to create the perfect star-hunting party, or to create havoc for each other.

Modders Kaze Emanuar, Melonspeedruns and Marshivolt have published Super Mario 64 Online, a tool that modifies Super Mario 64 ROM. The project requires some work to enable it, but it's a small price to pay to relive Super Mario 64 with friends. Player save games are separate, but are in the same world and can interact with each other. This means players still must collect their own stars to progress through the story.

I still remember pumping hundreds of hours into Battlefield 1942 when it came out, after a heavy multi-year addiction to Quake and Unreal, and even Unreal Tournament (oh and let's not forget Half-Life and a million other great first-person shooters from the 90s).

Fast forward 15 years and we're now looking at an attempt to bring Battlefield 1942 into the new world ruled by high-res gaming monitors, right up to 4K and beyond. 'ScureHD' on moddb.com and YouTube has posted has put some good work into the Battlefield 1942 Remaster Project, with a damn good paint job on the old DICE technology that powered by Refractor Engine 2, the engine that powered Codename Eagle (internet points for those who remember CE).

Before the days of Frostbite, which looks freaking incredible these days, were the days of BF1942 in its usual 1024x768 resolution or so when it debuted. Now we have 4K and beyond displays with the new work from ReShade looking great - at least for a game of its age, with new particle effects (dust, smoke, explosions and more), new water effects, higher resolution reflections, higher quality level of detail, and more.

It was only a matter of time until PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds hit the 1 million concurrent users, September 9 saw a record high of 1,028,275 players online at once. Knocking off the previous king of Steam, Valve's Dota 2 for the day. Today has seen PUBG fall short of only 183,959 concurrent users on Dota 2's record of 1,295,114 users online at once. Let's face it, it's a question of when, not if, PUBG will break Dota 2's record.

Remember that PUBG is still in Early Access and will continue to grow with their new desert map on the horizon and backed with constant content updates. The question is how big will PUBG become? A challenger for League of Legends? You bet.

It's only a few weeks until the beta of Star Wars Battlefront II kicks off, with EA DICE preparing the beta for PC, Xbox One, and PS4 games between October 6 and 9. But between now and then, we have some leaked details on what the Battlefront II beta should include.

Reddit user 'Some_Info' has leaked out some details on the upcoming beta of Battlefront II, which should include three maps. These three maps should be Galactic Assault (40 players) on Theed, Starfighter Assault on Fondor (24 players) and then Strike which is set on t he planet Takodana. We should expect an offline Skirmish mode, which should feature solo, split-screen and co-op gaming for up to two gamers.

Star Wars Battlefront II's upcoming beta will drop on the PC, Xbox One and PS4 on October 6, running for three days, through to October 9. The beta should weigh in at something like 14-16GB, with the full game coming out on November 17.

Destiny 2 is off to a roaring start on PS4 and Xbox One, and for good reason: the game is actually pretty damn good.

Bungie today announced that Destiny 2 has amassed 1.2 million concurrent users on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, which pretty much means the game is a bona-fide hit (we expected nothing less). Despite the hotly contested monetized shader controversy, console gamers are apparently milling into Destiny 2's majestic and expansive open-ended world to gun down countless aliens and collect sweet, sweet loot.

While Bungie didn't give out actual sales figures--and we likely won't hear anything until Activision drops their fiscal Q3'17 earnings--the concurrent users give a hint at Destiny 2's sales. Bungie's Tweet went life at 2:24 PM, which is hardly prime time, and during 7PM - 10PM those numbers could skyrocket. Analyst firm SuperData predicted that Destiny 2 on console has a 33% chance to sell 1.5 million units digitally in its first three months of availability, and overall sales could be much, much higher. Also remember the PC version of the game hasn't launched yet, and is currently scheduled for an October 24 release.

A Bethesda executive says the publisher has a new unannounced game coming out this year, and we're pretty sure it's Fallout 4 on Nintendo Switch.

In a recent video interview with Tek Syndicate at PAX West 2017, Bethesda Softworks VP of Public Relations Pete Hines said that the company has a mysterious new game coming out this year that they haven't told anyone about. "We have nine games hands-on here, and all of which are coming out this year or are already out. Three VR titles including Skyrim for PSVR, we have Skyrim Switch, we've got Wolfenstein 2 and The Evil Within 2...we have a ton of stuff going on. And we even have a game coming out this year that we haven't even told anyone about yet," Mr. Hines said. "They can wait. It won't be so long."

Before you get too excited, we have strong reason to believe this is just Fallout 4 on Nintendo Switch. Bethesda typically reveals any new games the same year they release, and if it were a major new game, it would've been revealed at Bethesda's huge E3 2017 event. There's been Fallout 4 GOTY Switch listings at select retailers, but even if these listings didn't exist, Bethesda has already told us enough information with the Creation Club. The Creation Club is Bethesda's new storefront that monetizes optional bite-sized DLC content, and is specifically geared to make most of its money from platforms that don't support free mods very well: Sony's PlayStation 4 is one of these, but the biggest is Nintendo's Switch platform.

The remastered version of 2011's L.A Noire is set for release on current-gen consoles on November 14, however PC gamers were left in the dark regarding a remastered release. However, Rockster also revealed that they're working on their entry into the virtual reality market with L.A Noire: The VR Case Files for the HTC Vive.

L.A Noire: The VR Case Files is specifically designed for VR that includes seven cases from the original game. With VR technology, you'll be able to use the Vive's wands to steer cars, open their doors, shoot while driving and change the radio station.

The HTC Vive blog explains: "Players can use real-world physical motions including grabbing, inspecting and manipulating individual clues or using the detective's notebook to make notes or draw freehand."

There have been simulators of real life events and animals before, but now developer SOEDESCO have announced the latest in simulators: Real Farm.

Real Farm will be released on October 20, with the developer unveiling the first gameplay trailer and screenshots for the game. The developers promises that simulator fans and traditional gamers will enjoy Real Farm and its two game modes: Free Mode and Career Mode.

Starting with Free Mode, wher eyou will start off in an established farm and begin wherever, and however you want. But if you play in Career Mode, you'll start Real Farm with NOTHING. You'll have to do work jobs and missions for other farmers in order to gain their respect, reputation, and earn that important money... so that you can buy your own farm, and expand your game.

PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds has surpassed 10 million sales, pulling in over $300 million in sales for developer Bluehole, but now PUBG creator Brendan "PlayerUnknown" Greene has talked about the water in his game. This will be done before PUBG reaches 100 million sales, I'd say.

During an interview with GamesIndustry, Greene said that the water technology from Sea of Thieves could be used in Battlegrounds in the near future. Greene said: "There are games like Destiny that really get auto-aim and controllers in an FPS feeling good. And I think that with Microsoft's help it's really going to get it feeling like a good shooter on console. We want to give the same experience. We want to PC and Xbox to be identical in terms of the experience you have playing the game".

He continued: "And another thing is, I was at the Microsoft event last night talking to the Sea of Thieves guys. They said they loved the game, they play it a lot, but, 'Oh, you're water.' I mean, our water is not very good, but Rare has great water tech. They said, 'We should share some knowledge.' That's a great thing about being part of a network of studios. We can get that water tech, essentially for free, and we can share stuff with them. That's just invaluable, because their water is great. Having that would really finish off our world nicely".