Gaming News - Page 1

Ubisoft just stealth-announced the official name of the upcoming Assassin's Creed game set in Japan.

In 2022, Ubisoft made Assassin's Creed fans very happy with the reveal of Codename Red, a new project set in the wide 700-year period of Feudal Japan. Today, Ubisoft has confirmed the game will be called Assassin's Creed Shadows.

Assassin's Creed Codename Red becomes Assassin's Creed Shadows.

CD Projekt Red's Cyberpunk 2077 has certainly come a long way from its release in December 2020, when at the time was met with extreme criticism from console players that nearly resulted in CD Projekt Red investors suing the developer.

If you remember the release of Cyberpunk 2077, you will likely remember absolute chaos, widespread criticism, performance issues across the board, and overall thousands of unhappy gamers - so many that Sony even gave refunds to those who wanted them before pulling the game from its marketplace altogether. Since its release, Cyberpunk 2077 has been slowly climbing its way back to where it should have been at launch, and now the game is stable, playable, enjoyable, and, most of all, gorgeous.

A testament to the Cyberpunk 2077 community turning around the game is CD Projekt Red's Phantom Liberty DLC, which has been well-received by gamers. 95% of the 7000+ reviews left in the last month are positive, and according to Cyberpunk's director, Paweł Sasko, he "always believed" it was possible, but "never thought [he] would actually see it".

Gamma is a new iOS app flying up the charts, and it's pretty easy to understand why. It's the next major emulator for Apple iOS devices, a free app that lets you play original PlayStation or PS1 games on iPhone and iPad. Developed by developer ZodTTD, it brings games from Sony's iconic console to iOS users without third-party software or jailbreaking.

With iPhone and iPad versions available to download, Gamma has customizable on-screen touch controls and support for Bluetooth controllers and even keyboards. The app connects to Google Drive and Dropbox for game saves and game files without the need to track down BIOS files or other proprietary data.

All you need to do is supply the ROMs or images of old-school PlayStation games. Gamma's UI and feel are similar to Delta, a popular Game Boy Advance emulator for iOS that is currently the top Entertainment app on iOS, beating out the likes of TikTok, Netflix, and Amazon Prime Video.

The Nintendo 64, a 1996 console, has undoubtedly aged in the ensuing decades. However, as one of the first pieces of hardware to present full 3D worlds to explore, it's fondly remembered by many. A vibrant emulation and mod scene helped to keep the late '90s Nintendo gaming era alive. From Super Mario 64 to The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, some of the most beloved 3D games of all time were for the N64.

In recent years, we've had some impressive N64 projects and endeavors, including full decompilation and native PC ports. This has led to games like Super Mario 64 getting ray-tracing support and other enhancements. But the manual decompilation and then recompilation process is long, often taking fans years - until now.

One of the N64 scene's most talented coders, Mr. Wiseguy, has created N64: Recompiled - 'a tool to statically recompile N64 binaries into C code that can be compiled for any platform.' Any N64 can now be ported to a PC and run as a native app, paving the way for mods and ray-tracing support.

Before it created Halo and before it created Destiny, veteran game development studio Bungie released the classic first-person shooter Marathon for the Apple Macintosh in 1994. Hailed as the Mac's answer to Doom, Marathon spawned a sequel several years later, leading to the studio's creation of the iconic Halo: Combat Evolved.

With Bungie now a first-party PlayStation studio owned by Sony, the team is developing a new entry in the series called Marathon. It takes place in the same futuristic sci-fi universe as the original but is shifting the gameplay and style to fit the mold of a PvP extraction shooter - ala Escape From Tarkov.

We've got some great news if you want to get a taste of where it all began. The community-driven team at Aleph One Developers has released a remastered version of the 1994 original - playable on modern PC gaming hardware and available for free on Steam.

Sony, not Valve, is behind the recent unpopular decisions regarding PlayStation PC games.

A bit ago, Sony learned a tough lesson about PC gamers: They're an austere and fickle audience. This was proven by the mass orbital review bombings that Helldivers 2 recently suffered. Sony has a policy to require PlayStation Network accounts in its games that include online multiplayer. This included Helldivers 2, and gamers had to make a PSN account in order to keep playing.

Predictably, everyone pushed back against this mandate and Sony eventually reversed course. But something else happened along the way: Helldivers 2 was delisted and removed from sale in countries that don't support PSN accounts, all 181 of them. This policy has led to a lot fewer players--and payers--for Sony.

On the heels of reports that Microsoft is unsure whether or not launching new Call of Duty titles on Game Pass is a good idea, Xbox president Sarah Bond reiterates the company's day-one policy for the subscription service.

In a recent interview with Bloomberg Tech, Xbox president Sarah Bond brought up the day-and-date Xbox Game Pass policy as one of the touchstones of Microsoft's core gaming business. Bond says that a plethora of high-profile games are coming to Game Pass later this year. Games like Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, Starfield's Shattered Space expansion, and new Fallout 76/Elder Scrolls Online will be among the releases, but what about Call of Duty: Black Ops Gulf War?

New reports say that Xbox management is conflicted on launching new Call of Duty games on the service. After all, COD titles sell many millions of copies a year--offering new COD games day one would undoubtedly affect these sales. But that seems to be waived by the Xbox president, who hints that Call of Duty 2024 could be among the titles included on Game Pass this year.

Electronic Arts is currently working on new ways to integrate ads into its games, and it's possible the ads could extend outside of sports.

EA is no stranger to advertising. The company's EA Sports label makes multi-million deals with top brands like Nike, Pepsi, and even teamed up with Uber Eats to make an FC24 tournament. Advertising is a big part of sports sims.

But what about EA's other titles? Games like Battlefield, or even Dragon Age and Mass Effect? Could advertisements show up there in some way? In a recent Q4 earnings call, EA CEO Andrew Wilson says that there are teams currently looking at ways to place more ads into games, but the extent of this remains unclear.

Xbox president Sarah Bond says 'new options' are coming to Microsoft's game streaming offerings.

Microsoft's foray into cloud gaming is far from over. The company is still gung-ho on the nascent technology and hopes to use cloud to accelerate its multi-faceted games business. In a recent interview with Bloomberg Tech's Dina Bass, Xbox president Sarah Bond says that cloud gaming is seeing tremendous growth.

This growth is likely driven by a sharp uptick in Xbox game availability on services like GeForce Now. In an effort to assuage regulatory concerns, Microsoft signed a 10-year agreement to bring Xbox and Activision games to competing cloud services like GeForce Now and Boosteroid. In return, NVIDIA would get a lower Windows license fee. The partnership has born lots of fruit; in 2022, there were exactly 0 licenses for Xbox games that could be streamed on GFN, and as of today, there are 234 Xbox games that can be streamed over GFN.

Xbox's top brass are reportedly conflicted on whether or not new Call of Duty titles should launch on Game Pass.

Something as big as Call of Duty on Game Pass could skew things quite a bit, and in ways that Microsoft can't fully predict. The megaton shooter franchise is worth over $31 billion, but all of those earnings started with one thing: Premium game sales. Including Call of Duty on Xbox Game Pass will lead to fewer game sales--a replacive effect referred to as "cannibalization." Who's going to spend $70 on Call of Duty when they can play it for $17, or maybe even $25?

This is the exact reason that Activision Blizzard never included its games on Game Pass in the first place. Microsoft would have to pay quite a bit to make up for the potential impact on sales, and other publishers have reportedly referred to Game Pass as 'value destructive'. Consumers typically enter ABK's biggest games through a point of sale, especially Call of Duty.