Gaming - Page 918

PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds is one of the hottest games at the moment, with PUBG close to hitting 1 million concurrent users, some players are taking advantage of the system by joining games only to AFK. This allows the player to be idle in game, but still obtain in-game currency to buy cosmetic items.

This doesn't sound like much of an issue, as the items are purely cosmetic and provide no advantage when playing. However, this does inflate the Steam Marketplace prices for players who legitimately put the time in to farm their items.

At PAX West 2017, PC Gamer spoke with Battlegrounds producer Chang-Han Kim mentioned "It's something we will definitely be addressing." While not many people are AFKing right now, PUBG developers do want to implement countermeasures of some description to prevent players going AFK or how players earn points.

Microsoft is getting serious about pricing its Xbox One S console in a direct death threat to Sony and the PS4 and PS4 Pro, as well as paving the way to its upcoming Xbox One X console. The Xbox One S is now available through Microsoft's own Xbox store for just $249, and that includes a freaking game as well.

The new Xbox One S deal includes the 500GB console with different bundles available:

But there's also a huge price reduction on the 1TB console, with Xbox One S 1TB console bundles that include Battlefield 1 or Gears of War 4, with these consoles and specific games giving you the 1TB console for just $249. That's damn good considering the 2TB console is $349 on sale, and normally $399.

Ubisoft have announced a free major update for The Division, entitled the Resistance update. This update, patch 1.8, focuses on PvE with the inclusion of a multi-zone map called the West Side Pier. However, it's more than just a map. Ubisoft have revealed that there will be frequent alerts for new events, short-term mini assignments and dynamic enemy spawning. To encourage players to play through the new PvE content, players will be rewarded with same Division Tech resources that you will earn in PvP Dark Zone.

The Resistance update also introduces horde mode Resistance mode. A four-player co-op mode taking on waves and waves of enemies. Finally, the addition of a four-on-four Skirmish mode that resembles a classic time-based multiplayer match, just with the requirement that you finish players off to earn the kill rounds off the update content.

Slated for a Fall release, Ubisoft will be hoping this new content will revive its player base.

I don't think it'll happen soon, but Xbox director Mike Ybarra has said that keyboard and mouse support is coming to the Xbox, where he said it's "definitely coming" and that he's aware about concerns gamers have about keyboard and mouse users DOMINATING controller users.

Ybarra said: "We have to be very smart in how we do that. We'll leave it a lot up to developer choice. A lot of people tweet me and say, 'You can't do this because of fairness,' and we understand that. We run two platforms; the Windows platform and the Xbox platform".

Once the company adds mouse and keyboard support to the Xbox, Microsoft will reportedly "coach" developers on the best practices. Ybarra said that developers could let gamers decide who they want to play against: the slower gamers on controllers, or the precise-aimers on keyboard and mice.

It looks like Ubisoft might provide Xbox One X gamers with the option for 1080p 60FPS in Assassin's Creed Origins, with YouTuber "DEE BATCH" nothing that Ubisoft said during the Fan Expo Canada event that the studio is working on a 1080p 60FPS option for Xbox One X.

Assassin's Creed Origin is the largest open world game ever created, so it'll be interesting to see how many dials and options Ubisoft has had to turn down in order to hit 60FPS @ 1080p. We should expect Assassin's Creed Origins to use dynamic resolution scaling to reach their designated 4K 30FPS, so we could expect the resolution to drop as low as 1080p in order to keep things from becoming a chug fest.

The PS4 Pro version of Assassin's Creed Origins might feature a 1080p 60FPS mode since Sony added more grunt into the PS4 Pro, but the Xbox One X has a much better GPU that could handle 1080p 60FPS a lot easier. Remember both consoles have that junk Jaguar CPU from something like 44 years ago or something, so the big difference between the Xbox One X and PS4 Pro comes down to the GPU grunt and bandwidth.

PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds continues its titanic growth in the video games industry by ending League of Legends' viewing streak on Twitch.

Gaming juggernaut League of Legends was the top-viewed game on Twitch from October 2016 to July 2017--that was, of course, until early access sensation PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds broke its 34-month streak and dominated Twitch live-streaming viewership for the month of August.

"For the 1st time since we started monitoring Twitch data in 2014, League didn't rank #1 across a full month, dethroned as it was by PUBG," Twitch viewership monitoring company Gameloco reports.

Experts believe European titan Vivendi will make a major move to take over Ubisoft sometime this year, and the French games-maker's co-founders are buying more stake in the company to prevent a hostile takeover.

Ubisoft's founding Guillemot family has today acquired another 1.75% of the company's share capital by purchasing 2 million shares at an undisclosed price; at the current worth of 56.25 Euros per share, the Guillemots likely spent about 112.5 million Euros on the acquisition. As of June 27 the Guillemot family owned 13.6% of Ubisoft's share capital, and following today's share acquisition that number rises 15.35%, with the family owning 20.02% of the company's voting rights. As of June, Vivendi owns 27% of Ubisoft's share capital and 24.5% of its voting rights.

"Ubisoft has been informed that Guillemot Brothers SE and a bank have entered today into an agreement related to the purchase by Guillemot Brothers SE of a maximum number of 2,000,016 shares of Ubisoft representing c. 1.75% of the share capital of Ubisoft," reads a press release sent out by Ubisoft.

Bethesda's new Creation Club storefront has been widely criticized and protested by gamers everywhere, and Bethesda says it's listening to all feedback--especially the game auto-downloading Creation Club content before users even buy it.

Besides the rather disappointing content offering and the pricing model of Creation Club's premium currency, one of the most hotly contested mechanics of the storefront is how it automatically downloads Creation Club content onto a user's hard-drive via game updates. Creation Club content is added to a user's hard drive regardless if they purchase the content or not, and upon purchase the content is simply unlocked for use. Gamers are worried that the Creation Club will eventually eat up tons of storage space--specially on consoles where HDD space is at a premium.

While Bethesda Game Studios as a whole has yet to deliver an official statement on Creation Club's many controversial features, a Bethesda.net Community Content Manager "Cartogriffi" says that the company is currently working on a solution to avoid auto-downloads. This strongly indicates that the feature was intentional and is working as intended.

If you're like me, you have fond memories of playing through Tomb Raider 2 on PC or the original PlayStation. Unfortunately, the graphics haven't aged too well over the last 20 years. True, you could get your Lara Croft fix from the latest Tomb Raider games, but that doesn't quite satisfy the urge to relive some of Lara's previous adventures.

Never fear, Nicobass and a small team of contributors have been busy over the 18 months working on Tomb Raider The Dagger of Xian, a Tomb Raider 2 fan remake. This is great news for all retro gamers (myself included), especially considering Tomb Raider The Dagger of Xian will be utilizing Unreal Engine 4, and it looks stunning.

Nicobass have recently released a playable demo of about an hour worth of content, featuring the first cave from The Great Wall level that allows us to preview the epic adventure to come. You can download the playable demo here.

Zelda: Breath of the Wild was one of the best games of the year for the Nintendo Switch, but it would only be a far improved experience when played at 4K... and a 60FPS. Amazing stuff.

YouTuber 'Bradley' has shared footage of the CEMU-based Zelda: Breath of the Wild running at 4K 60FPS with an unreleased beta of Xalpheno's 60FPS patch. With this patch, even outdoor areas can be enjoyed how most games should be played at a minimum: 60FPS.

Let us know what you think of Zelda: Breath of the Wild running at 4K 60FPS in the comments below.

Destiny 2's beta test gives clues on how the final game will perform when it's released on PC this October, and the results are quite good.

Destiny 2's PC version is the real deal, according to in-depth analyses from PC Gamer. The findings show that Bungie's shooter sequel actually has a frame rate cap of 200 FPS on PC, at least in the beta, which is a huge jump from the 30FPS that Destiny 2 is locked to on consoles.

"If you were hoping to hit 240+ fps, obviously you're out of luck, since there's a 200 fps framerate cap. Even 144 fps is going to be a bit of a stretch for most systems, with the 1070, 1080, and 1080 Ti being the only cards to hit that mark. Note that even with an i7-7700K, the 1080 Ti is hitting a CPU bottleneck, but faster DDR4-3200 memory from G.Skill allowed a different desktop to average over 170 fps," said PC Gamer's Jarred Walton.

While Nintendo's new Switch handheld-console hybrid is in hot demand, big-name publishers like Electronic Arts have their work cut out for them when bringing big franchises like FIFA to the platform's constricted specifications. FIFA 18's sales performance on the Switch will have a direct impact on EA's future plans on the system--especially since the company put so much effort packing their big sports juggernaut into such a small package.

Why aren't more publishers bringing third-party games to the Switch? Gamers frequently ask this query while requesting popular titles like Overwatch get ported to the device. In a recent interview with Eurogamer, EA Sports Bucharest's Andrei Lazarescu gives the answer: the hardware is "very difficult". The producer, who's helming FIFA 18's development at the Bucharest studio, says the team had to create a new engine from scratch to ensure FIFA 18 could run on the Switch. As EA has strongly pushed its teams to exclusively use Frostbite for its games, this compromise speaks volumes--and trade-offs like these are really what developing big games onto the Switch entails.

"The hardware is very difficult," Lazarescu said in the interview. When asked if FIFA 18 on Switch could even have close approximation of the features on PC and console versions of the game, which include modes like FUT Champions, Squad Battles, and The Journey campaign, the producer said: "it would take an army of people, if it was possible, to be done."

ARK: Survival Evolved's final $59.99 version hasn't been out for a week yet and Studio Wildcard is already planning to release a new expansion next month.

The new ARK expansion is called Aberration, and marks the second major expansion for the massively popular MMO after the controversial Scorched Earth, which was released while the game was still in early access. Aberration sees players entering a new derelict ARK with a unique subterranean biome full of exotic and vibrant color, bizarre creatures, new sci-fi weapons, wingsuits, and much more. The expansion even borrows from the Alien franchise as you'll be able to tame a new creature called the Nameless Queen and "impregnate your foes with a horrifying reproductive chest-burster."

The new Aberration expansion pack will release sometime on October on PS4, Xbox One and PC, and requires the full $59.99 version of ARK: Survival Evolved to play.

Western Digital has teamed up with Nintendo to provide official Nintendo Switch branded microSD cards for markets outside of Japan.

The microSD cards will be manufactured by Western Digital's Sandisk memory unit, and come in 64GB and 128GB capacities, and are specifically optimized for Nintendo's new Switch handheld-console hybrid. This announcement comes shortly after the Japanese games-maker confirmed that some Nintendo Switch game cartridges will require expandable memory to be installed in order to access full in-game content, as specific titles simply aren't fitting on the device's game cartridges. Nintendo affirmed that users without microSD memory can play "a selection of content" in games that require expanded storage memory to be installed. Since only 25.9GB of the Nintendo Switch's advertised 32GB internal storage is accessible for game installations, owners are heavily incentivized to purchase expandable memory--that scant memory allocation will also continue to shrink as Nintendo rolls out more firmware updates.

The official Nintendo Switch Sandisk memory cards should be affordable as the performance and capacity are more mainstream rather than the high-end specifications used for enthusiast grade microSD memory. Both the 64GB SDXC and 128GB SDXC cards feature a UHS-I interface bus that supports up to 104MB/sec speeds, and are rated for a UHS 3 (U3) speed class that has a minimum sequential writing speed for 30MB/sec. The product boxes tout the cards can deliver up to 90MB/sec write and 100MB/sec read speeds, which is much more performance than users typically need for the Nintendo Switch.

Destiny's 2 console launch is just right around the corner, and as a veteran who stormed Old Russia at launch, I'm quite hyped to jump back into the fray. Bungie delivers its last community update before the launch, dropping a bunch of new info for eager Guardians.

According to the update, players will have ample time to prepare for Destiny 2's post-game content. The sequel's first raid is slated to open up a week after launch at 1PM EST on September 13, and it should offer a huge dose of cryptic puzzles for fireteams to solve (raids typically take up to 12 hours or so to completely solve, and serve as a source of massive fascination in the community. Destiny 2's Nightfall mode, which pits a fireteam against crippling foes in a Strike mission, will be available right when the game goes live--but be forewarned, this mode is pretty rough.

Secondly, Destiny 2's Trials mode will go live a little over a week after launch at 1PM EST on September 15. But of course the real excitement is the raid; these events are long-winded affairs that see players marathon running a mysterious region and trying to figure out cryptic puzzles and sequences, all while relying on wit as well as strategy and skill. It's really the ultimate test of teamwork, and I can say there's really no other experience quite like it.

Bungie is in overdrive right now handling the beta of Destiny 2, with Design Director Luke Smith talking about the game in a YouTube video where he answered questions from the community of Wired.

Smith said that private PvP matches are something Bungie is talking about doing, but he can't guarantee the team will add them in the first few updates to Destiny 2. Smith was also asked about Blizzard's PTR (Public Test Realms) and whether the game will get something similar to test upcoming updates.

Smith said: "We have talked a lot internally about the possibility of opening something like this up to player groups and honestly, I like the idea of players not totally knowing everything that's there before the game comes out. I think that test realms in, like, private test beta if we expanded that, would be amazing for a bunch of things like stability. I'm still interested in challenging us to do our best job without having to expose it to the public. I wouldn't say never, but I wouldn't say yes".

Twitch has just announced Twitch Extensions, a new set of tools that will empower Twitch streamers to customize their pages with a slew of features. Amazon acquired Twitch in 2014 and until now, haven't done too much with the streaming giant. This move, is a game changer for full-time Twitch streamers.

Twitch streamers now have access to enabling polls, leaderboards, tickers, schedules, overlays, and virtual pets, to their streams. Better yet, Twitch is adding a new "Gear on Amazon" extension that lets Twitch streamers show off their favorite Amazon products.

If you click any of the 'Buy Now' buttons on the Gear on Amazon links of your favorite Twitch streamer, they will get a commission through the Amazon Associates program.

A new Conan game is currently in pre-production phases at Funcom's core Oslo-based development branch.

During its fiscal Q2 2017 earnings report, Funcom has outlined the immediate and distant future for its company's development focus, confirming that a new Conan game as well as a new Secret World project are in early planning at its Oslo- and North Carolina-based studios. The Norwegian developer affirms that it's fully committed to supporting existing titles like Conan Exiles and Secret World Legends.

In the report Funcom proudly announced that 1H'17 is the most profitable half-year in the company's entire history, and that its debt was almost halved during the six-month period. However the company acknowledged the poor reception of Conan Exiles on Xbox One's early access program, citing technical issues and promising that fixes are on the way. "We will do better," Funcom said in the filing.

Bethesda's new Creation Club initiative has been utterly demolished by players, with gamers across the globe lambasting the publisher for being "greedy" and dismantling the "it's not paid mods" argument left and right.

I had hopes for the Creation Club: not only was it a way for Bethesda to earn money in a microtransaction-esque monetization path while providing more content and subsequent value to games like Fallout 4 and Skyrim, the service launched with an almost insultingly bad level of content. We've gone over the major problems with the Creation Club's value, worth, and pricing scheme here, but gamers aren't just disappointed, they're outright up in arms. Bethesda, who famously tried to institute paid mods on Steam and was utterly burned by unanimous pushback from the PC gaming community, is opening those old wounds anew, and they're starting to fester already.

Across Reddit alone I've seen thousands of gamers post their impressions on the Creation Club, and the overwhelming majority of them absolutely disapprove of the service. Bethesda originally sold the service as a way for big mod-makers to sell their creations in a secure environment, offering big slices of content alongside smaller weapons and armor modifications. But despite promises of change and potential, the service launched with an embarrassing offering of content that's not only available for free via mod services, but includes ridiculous additions like Pip-boy paintjobs that cost $0.50 a pop. Right now the Creation Club is a mess and needs more high-quality content, and gamers have made up their mind about the service.

PlatinumGames, the Japanese developer behind popular gaming hits like NieR: Automata and the Bayonetta series of games, may reveal a new IP sometime next week.

When asked about plans for a new IP, Hideki Kamiya, PlatinumGames' game director behind Bayonetta games, responded "next week...in game magazines," strongly indicating the new title will be unveiled sometime in the coming week. I've reported on PlatinumGames' new IP in the past: company producer, executive vice president and studio head Atsushi Inaba affirmed the new IP would have a new game director--possibly NieR: Automata's game designer Takahisa Taura--and that it's a "formless, shapeless IP" and that it's very important to the studio.

"One thing we want you to really be aware of is that there's a new formless, shapeless IP, but we can't talk about that right now. But it's really important to us," Inaba-san said during BitSummit 2017's keynote speech (stream here). "Every single year we're thinking about new technology, new formless and shapeless and abstract technologies and we take advantage of events like GDC to really show off what we've learned and where we're headed."