Gaming - Page 996

DOOM's new update is here, with id Software adding its new Arcade game mode, new multiplayer modes, classic DOOM modules in SnapMap, and more.

id Software's new Arcade mode will let you play against your friends and other DOOMers from around the world, aiming for the highest score in the single player campaign. You'll need to fight against demon hordes with your completely unlocked array of guns, Praetor suit upgrades, and runes. The developer teases: "Earn medals and achievements, play on every difficulty, and challenge yourself with the new scoring system that rewards aggression and accuracy".

The new patch also includes classic DOOM modules in SnapMap, so you can build and play through new maps using the assets from the original game. DOOM's new update also includes two new multiplayer modes, with Possession and Bloodrush.

Nintendo has unveiled its new NX hardware, and it's actually called the Nintendo Switch.

The Swtich is a transforming handheld tablet, and has a docking station just like past reports. Gamers can actively switch between the tablet on the go, attaching transforming controllers to it, or dock it for console based play. The Switch was shown playing Zelda Breath of the Wild, and it looks like you'll get the exact same gameplay while on-the-go on the handheld as you would while it's docked for console play.

It will have cartridge-based games, and features a detachable controllers called JoyCons. The tablet itself is referred to as the "Switch console", and docks into a U-shaped "Switch Dock" to enable traditional couch-based living room play. The Switch will have its own traditional wireless Pro Controller, as well as a "JoyCon Grip" that merges the two JoyCon controllers together. Up to four Nintendo Switch consoles can be hooked up for seamless wireless multiplayer.

After months of waiting and silence, Nintendo will reveal its NX system today at 10AM EST in a brief 3 minute preview trailer, possibly showing off some of the NX's games. Ahead of the major reveal, Nintendo Japan has published two new bits of Zelda: Breath of the Wild footage that may accompany the system's announcement.

Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild features a seamless and dynamically interactive open world, and it may be one of the NX's core launch titles. Nintendo affirms that this new Zelda will be an "immediate reason to buy an NX." We're not sure if the new footage is actually running on an NX or not, but if it is, don't expect any major high-end specs: after all, Nintendo has affirmed it's focusing on the "greatness of games over specs."

Nintendo has confirmed the game will launch simultaneously on the NX and Wii U, possibly around March 2017. We might even get a bonafide release date for Breath of the Wild during Nintendo's NX preview event, but I'd expect something this big to be announced at the full follow-up Nintendo Direct showcase.

While the focus on gaming right now sits with Battlefield 1, Respawn Entertainment and EA are rolling up to the big launch of Titanfall 2, which has a new gameplay trailer released powered by NVIDIA's new Titan X graphics card.

Titanfall 2 running at 4K 60FPS is truly glorious to see, with Respawn teasing: "Check out the exclusiveTitanfall 2 4K gameplay footage of the Trial By Fire single player campaign mission running at 60 frames per second, captured on a TITAN X". The game launches with some exclusive PC options, with NVIDIA working with the team at Respawn on Titanfall 2. Here's what to expect:

Forza Horizon 3 is definitely a gorgeous game, and now we know how the team at Playground Games achieved that, as Creative Director Ralph Fulton recently sat dwon with The Guardian and talked about some of the technical side of FH3.

Fulton started with talking about the use of a voxel-based GI solution for real-time lighting, explaining: "Forza Horizon 3 uses a voxel-based global illumination system to calculate light bounces in real-time. This system uses the HDR sky, other light sources and offline-generated occlusion data to work out which surfaces the light bounces onto".

He continued: "For an easy way to see the impact that bounced light has on a scene, look at locations with complex shadows like the entrance to a cave or crevices in a rock formation - in Forza Horizon 2, those shadows would have had a single colour value which meant the shadow would be uniform everywhere there was no direct light. In Forza Horizon 3, we calculate how light - and hence colour - bounces into partially occluded areas so shadows have a much higher variation in darkness and colour. The depths of a tunnel, with no direct and minimal indirect light, will be almost black; whereas the edges of shadow will bleed naturally from dark to light based on indirect bounced light".

Nintendo will broadcast a preview trailer for its new NX system tomorrow at 7AM PST/10AM EST.

After months of total silence and waiting, Nintendo will finally unveil the NX (or at least part of it) in a special preview trailer on the morrow. Nintendo is now describing the NX as a "home gaming system," hinting that it will be a traditional handheld-and-console duo rather than a transforming handheld hybrid.

It's no secret that Path of Exile was heavily influenced by old-school ARPGs like Diablo, and many gamers considering Path of Exile to be the true successor to Diablo II. In a very fitting "the stars have aligned" bit of prophecy, David Brevik, one of the original founders of Blizzard North and key devs behind the Diablo franchise, is now advising Path of Exile's development.

Remember when legendary Diablo dev David Brevik (or "Dark Father David Brevik" as the announcement post refers to him) Tweeted this and the entire Diablo fanbase thought it meant he was returning to work on Diablo 4? Sadly that turned out to be false, but it's the next best thing: Brevik has been tapped to help steer the free-to-play ARPG Path of Exile back on course by "polishing" the game in order to "bring back players."

As announced in a recent Chinese press release, Brevik will serve in an advisory role, and has been communicating directly with Grinding Gear Games founder and dev Chris Wilson.

The voice of BJ Blazkovicz teases that the gruff Nazi-hunter's story isn't over, and we could be getting a Wolfenstein game sequel.

There had been rumblings of a sequel to Machine Games' excellent Wolfenstein: The New Order for quite some time, and Bethesda's subtle E3 2016 clue directly listed a new game called Wolfenstein: The New Colossus. The New Colossus is the name of Emma Lazarus' poem inscribed on the Statue of Liberty, with the the famous "give us your tired, your poor, your huddled masses" line.

Now BJ Blazkowicz voice actor Brian Bloom delivers some fresh hints in a recent interview with Two Left Sticks:

Microsoft truly believes that major third-party publishers like EA, Activision and Ubisoft will embrace its cross-buy PC-and-console Play Anywhere initiative, despite these companies losing out on potential sales.

Xbox's Play Anywhere program is great for first-party games, and many gamers love the idea of buying a digital PC game and getting a free console port with their purchase. It's an effort to unify Windows 10 PCs and the Xbox brand, but not all publishers are likely to be keen on this idea, as companies typically hate the word "free," especially when it applies to something they can charge $60 for. In an interview with PC Authority, Xbox division manager Phil Spencer was recently asked if third-party publishers will ever adopt Play Anywhere, and here's what he said:

"I'd say some of the bigger traditional third party publishers, they want to see how [Play Anywhere] works out for us. There's always a fear that 'are you giving away two games for the price of one?' I'll say I think there are very few people that actually buy a game twice, once on PC, once on console."

Blizzard prepared something special for World of Warcraft players, especially those who have been playing the game for a while. After updating some of the old dungeons in the past, such as Deadmines and Shadowfang Keep, Blizzard will now upgrade Karazhan and turn it into a 5-man dungeon.

Karazhan was initially introduced as a ten-player raid instance in the Burning Crusade expansion but even after newer expansions came out, and Karazhan wasn't actual anymore, many players kept returning there hoping the Fiery Warhorse's Reins would drop.

With patch 7.1, confirmed for October 25th, players will once again return to Karazhan. The developers promised that the Return to Karazhan would feature lots of new content, and the comeback of the iconic Karazhan will gladden many players.

After the rather dull Platinum Demo, my expectations for Final Fantasy 15 somewhat faltered; and I wasn't alone. FF15's Titan battle demo at Xbox's E3 2016 showcase didn't help much, and then we had reports that the game was an unoptimized mess on consoles, barely hitting 1080p 30FPS. To address this and polish the game to a fine sheen, Square Enix delayed FF15 to late November.

But it looks like all of our fears and worries were in vain, and Square Enix has made great progress with the game. According to Polygon's Phil Kollar, the game is actually "very good" and "worth the wait," featuring a "story that's much more engaging than I had imagined."

Kollar played through the first 15 hours of the game's total 200 or so hours of content, taking on a portion of what the game had to offer in that slice of time: side missions, main quests, combat, open world exploration, etc. We're not sure if Kollar tested the final optimized version, or if he's playing the E3 2016 demo version, and I've reached out to him for clarification. Seeing as FF15 drops next month, I'm guessing it's the final version, or very close to the final release build.

Battlefield 1 hits a glorious 160x90p 60FPS on PS4. Wait...what?

As we all know, PS4 and Xbox One typically can't hit 1080p 60FPS in games, so they use dynamic resolution scaling that sacrifices resolution in order to hit a targeted frame rate. Battlefield 1 hits 60FPS on both PS4 and Xbox One, so both consoles have to dip in resolution.

A glitch in the PS4 version of Battlefield 1 sees the dynamic resolution scaling backfire tremendously, with the resolution dropping to an insanely paltry 160x90p at ~60FPS. The glitch was caught in a Battlefield 1 PS4 frame rate test by VG_Tech, and has gone viral across the net.

EA has just revealed its pricing fee structure for Battlefield 1's private server rentals, and they're kinda expensive.

With Battlefield 1's Rent a Server program, any player can rent a private server on PS4, Xbox One, or PC. The Rent-a-Server pricing, however, comes at a premium, and PC gamers can expect to shell out $150 for the maximum 6 month rental period, whereas PS4 and Xbox One owners get charged $100.

Battlefield 1's Rent-a-Server Program will launch in November. Check below for the full pricing scheme as well as a FAQ at the end.

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided limped through its release on the PC, with Nixxes releasing yet another update that includes DX12 performance and stability optimizations. The last patch released by Nixxes included multi-GPU support for DX12, as well as being the official DX12 support stamp for Mankind Divided on PC.

Nixxes' new patch is built 592.1, and includes many improvements to DX12, gameplay, and general fixes/stability improvements. The full details:

The following gameplay changes are in this patch:

The Pokemon GO craze has no doubt taken over the gaming scene around the world, but now it looks like the app will be making its first music career debut, starring in a parody type style video for the new Maroon 5 single: "Don't Wanna Know". Launching on YouTube only days ago, the video provided below is the official clip posted.

Maroon 5 known for its hit songs "This Love" and "Sugar", along with many other record selling titles, has taken the smartphone app an incorporated their own spin on it with the adaptation of humor and chaos, similar to how it's portrayed in today's society both online, and through social media.

The video clip captures lead singer, Adam Levine and other band members in what appears to be a monster/Pokemon like costumes running away from children that are seen holding phones, chasing after them. The music video then switches to a different scene located at a concert where it's apparent that all members are performing in Pokemon like costumes as the one in which Adam is wearing could be mistaken for the water Mon "Squirtle", as it possesses a turtle like shell and is visually the same color.

Today's game graphics are so close to reality that it's sometimes hard to tell whether it is a photograph or a scene from the latest game. Although the video gaming would not reach mainstream popularity until the 1970s and 80s, with arcade video games, gaming consoles and PC games, the first games were actually created about twenty years earlier.

What is considered to be the first video game - Tennis for Two, was released on this day, October 18th, 1958. American physicist William Higinbotham and technician Robert V. Dvorak, who created the game, displayed it on an oscilloscope and played with two custom aluminum controllers.

The game was pretty simple - it was rendered as a horizontal line, representing the tennis court, and a vertical line in the center, representing the tennis net. It was designed for two players, as the game says, who would hit and point the ball with a button on their controller.

Watch Dogs 2's PC port has been delayed to November 29 to ensure the game launches with key PC features intact, including multi-GPU support, 4K support, uncapped FPS, and much more.

Ubisoft is taking Watch Dogs 2 very, very seriously, so they've delayed the game two weeks on PC. The publisher affirms this delay will ensure a number of PC-specific features at launch, including 4K support, no FPS cap and frame rate optimization, full SLI/CrossFire support with multi-GPU setups

Read Also: Everything you need to know about Watch Dogs 2

PS4 owners will get exclusive free access to Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare's second multiplayer beta test weekend.

Activision's deal with Sony extends to Infinite Warfare's beta test, and if you own a PS4, you'll be able to try out Infinite Warfare's multiplayer starting on Friday, October 21 at 10AM PST (1PM EST) till Monday, October 24 at 10AM PST (1PM EST).

After breaking the internet with image teases, Rockstar Games finally announced Red Dead Redemption 2. Sadly, there's no mention of a PC release at launch.

In a Facebook post, Rockstar revealed that Red Dead Redemption 2's Fall 2017 release date applies to PS4 and Xbox One, meaning PC gamers will have to wait...again. This isn't anything new for PC gamers; we've waited a year and a half for GTA V to launch on PC, but it was well worth the wait, and I'm expecting RDR2 will be as well. Think of it this way; console gamers will be essentially beta testing the game for its impending PC launch.

Red Dead Redemption 2 will usher in online multiplayer to the Red Dead franchise, likely carrying over Rockstar's GTA Online mechanics to the Western frontier. The studio affirms that RDR2 will feature "a new kind of multiplayer experience," hinting the online mechanics will be different than the wildly successful GTA Online.

After two days of teasing, Rockstar Games has finally let the cat out of the bag: it's Red Dead Redemption 2, folks.

Rockstar today announced Red Dead Redemption 2, a sequel to 2011's landmark Red Dead Redemption. It'll feature an "epic tale of life in America's unforgiving heartland," and deliver a "brand new multiplayer experience." Since Rockstar just filed a trademark for Red Dead Online, we could expect to see a more dynamic GTA Online-style online system for RDR2. Red Dead Redemption 2 will launch Fall 2017 on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, and a trailer will drop this Thursday at 11am EST.

"Developed by the creators of Grand Theft Auto V and Red Dead Redemption, Red Dead Redemption 2 is an epic tale of life in America's unforgiving heartland. The game's vast and atmospheric world will also provide the foundation for a brand new online multiplayer experience."