Gaming News - Page 1
Hidetaka Miyazaki isn't opposed to Bloodborne PC port, stoking fresh hope it might just happen
It's a bit of a standing joke at this point, questions and rumors about Bloodborne being ported to the PC - but we've just had a juicy little hint that has fired up a sliver of hope that one day, this could still happen. Maybe.
But we wouldn't get carried away with that notion, because, of course, speculation about Bloodborne being brought over for PC gamers to enjoy goes back a long old way.
At any rate, PC Gamer has the latest nugget of a rumor on the subject, prised from the president of FromSoftware, Hidetaka Miyazaki, at the close of an interview on the Shadow of the Erdtree expansion for Elden Ring.
Basemark intros Breaking Limit: new cross-platform GPU benchmark with ray tracing
Basemark has just announced its new Breaking Limit benchmark, which will test ray traced gaming performance on your iOS, Android, Linux, and Windows device.
The new Breaking Limit benchmark is aimed at current-gen iOS and Android mobile devices -- think smartphones and tablets -- while Basemark's new benchmark will also work on Linux, and of course, Windows. The new Breaking Limit benchmark includes global illumination, ray traced shadows and reflections, and support for NVIDIA DLSS 2 and AMD FSR 2 upscaling in the "Ultra" version, of course.
Basemark explains Breaking Limit: "Breaking Limit is our most demanding ray tracing benchmark for mobile and PC. Leveraging cutting-edge ray tracing technologies, including ray traced shadows, reflections, and global illumination, it also offers comprehensive performance evaluations for both FSR and DLSS. Breaking Limit is a true cross-platform solution, enabling effortless comparison of performance across various devices utilizing the same workload. Additionally, it has a desktop-dedicated mode tailored for high-end devices, catering to extreme workload demands".
Bethesda faces backlash after releasing controversial Starfield mission
Earlier in the week at the Xbox Game Showcase, Bethesda revealed what it has planned for its June update scheduled for Starfield.
Bethesda unveiled "The Shattered Space" DLC, along with the Starfield Creation Kit, which will enable players to add new content to the game. The Creation Kit will undoubtedly revitalize the Starfield community with an injection of numerous sought-after mods and customizations, which is one of the main reasons Skyrim has retained its consistent popularity over the years. However, that isn't what Starfield players are upset about; it's the DLC, particularly its pricing.
In a June update posted to Bethesda's YouTube channel the publisher explained that players will be able to download new missions for a group called the Track Alliance, but one mission has been locked behind a $7 paywall. GameSpot reports the paywall isn't just $7, but it's actually $10, as players must purchase 1,000 Starfield creation credits to obtain it.
Unreal Engine 5 isn't running any game at native 4K due to a major limitation
Unreal Engine 5, developed by Epic Games, is renowned as one of the most impressive game engines currently available, providing nearly unmatched visuals in an ever-growing number of titles.
However, the engine isn't capable of running games at native 4K, according to Infuse Studio co-founder Jacob Sutton, who sat down for an interview with Moore's Law is Dead and explained Unreal Engine 5 has a baked-in feature that restricts developers from running games at native 4K. Sutton said that upscaling technologies that are becoming ever more present in games, such as NVIDIA's DLSS, AMD's FSR, and Intel's XeSS, are being relied upon by developers to fix optimization issues with titles.
Throughout this explanation, Sutton used Unreal Engine 5 as an example, saying that Epic Games' impressive engine in-built default upscaling software called Temporal Super Resolution (TSR), and that developers are almost required to use the upscaling feature to achieve a desired framerate.
Alan Wake 2 DLC, Pax Dei, Black Myth Wukong, and more get DLSS and Frame Generation support
NVIDIA has announced the latest round of PC games launching with DLSS, Reflex, and other RTX technologies - kicking off with the release of the Alan Wake 2: Night Springs expansion from Remedy. Like the base game, it supports Full Ray Tracing (or Path Tracing) with the benefit of DLSS 3.5 Ray Reconstruction to improve image fidelity.
The visuals in Alan Wake 2 and the new Night Springs expansion are so impressive and cutting edge that you need DLSS Super Resolution, Frame Generation, and Reflex to make it playable. Check out the trailer above, which includes some tasty 4K DLSS 3 footage with Full RT.
Black Myth: Wukong is one of the most anticipated PC games of 2024. The stunning Unreal Engine 5-powered game launches on August 20. There's no new footage of the game with Full Ray Tracing with DLSS 3.5 Reconstruction and Frame Generation this week, but we did get a cool-looking CG Trailer for the game's upcoming launch.
Massive Epic Games Store leak reveals unannounced PC games from Square, Sony, Bethesda
You've probably heard of third-party Steam tools like SteamDB, which can access data from the platform to present stats on games. Well, with similar third-party access provided by Epic Games for the Epic Games Store, a third-party tool called EpicDB (naturally) was able to access and scrape a database to reveal several unannounced games from publishers and developers like Sony, Square Enix, Sega, and Bethesda.
Epic has since updated its third-party tools so they can no longer scrape info from unpublished or unreleased titles from the Epic Games Store catalog, but not in time for PC gamers to go through all of the data and post some of the juiciest findings over on ResetEra.
Many of the unannounced projects and potential games are listed with codenames, but fans and internet sleuths were able to decipher a few. One of the more notable listings comes from Square Enix for a game called Momo, which is presumed to be a Final Fantasy 9 Remake thanks to pre-order bonuses like the Tetra Master Starter Pack giving it away.
Valve is being sued for $840 million in the UK for allegedly ripping off 14 million gamers
Valve is being sued in the UK and accused of using its market dominance with Steam to overcharge 14 million gamers. The claim, filed at the Competition Appeal Tribunal in London, says Valve is shutting out competition in the digital PC gaming market through its business practices.
"Valve is rigging the market and taking advantage of UK gamers," says children's digital rights campaigner Vicki Shotbolt, the person behind the claim with the support of law firm Milberg London LLP. There's even a website up for the suit, steamyouoweus.co.uk, which says that if the claim is successful, UK PC gamers could be eligible to take their share of the £656 million ($840 million USD) suit - around £44 each in compensation (or $56 USD).
Okay, so you're probably aware there's no shortage of digital platforms to buy and play PC games. There's the Epic Games Store, Battle.net, Ubisoft Connect, Xbox and the Microsoft Store, GOG.com, and more. And with that, you might be wondering what the lawsuit is carrying on about. Let's break it down.
Seeing Project G-Assist in action made us want NVIDIA's AI Assistant for all our PC gaming
Project G-Assist was a surprise announcement from NVIDIA at Computex 2024. It is a new AI-powered digital assistant designed for PC gaming with a GeForce RTX graphics card - or what the company now calls an RTX AI PC. Like DLSS, it's a general LLM or AI model trained on a broad range of titles, and Project G-Assist is ready to be plugged into any existing or upcoming release.
Project G-Assist's capabilities and features blew us away when we got to participate in a live demo of the technology integrated into the popular survival game Ark: Survival Ascended with help from its developer, Studio Wildcard. One of Project G-Assist's key features is that it can analyze and see what's happening on the screen. Plus, it has real-time access to game-specific data.
Ark is a game full of dinosaurs, so a few of the first questions we asked were simple things like, "What's that dinosaur on the left there?" "What's the best weapon to take out that enemy, and where do I find it?" As a general model, Project G-Assist, as seen in this example, has access to up-to-date lore and various Ark knowledgebases and Wikis.
We spoke to NVIDIA's Digital Humans in the 'Covert Protocol' game demo
Game tech demos are usually created to showcase new rendering techniques, advanced animation, or stuff like real-time ray tracing. Even though NVIDIA and Inworld AI's Covert Protocol tech demo features an impressive-looking and lavish hotel lobby with detailed environments, ray tracing, and highly detailed character models, the visual fidelity is simply here to showcase a groundbreaking new bit of tech - digital humans that you can interact with.
NVIDIA first showcased Covert Protocol at GTX a few months ago. At Computex 2024 in Taipei, the company presented the same tech demo with AI digital humans powered by NVIDIA Avatar Cloud Engine (ACE) technologies running locally on a high-end GeForce RTX 4090 powered rig.
At the show, I had the chance to go hands-on with NVIDIA's impressive RTX AI technologies, and when it came to Covert Protocol, I was quietly blown away by the depth and breadth of its digital humans.
Continue reading: We spoke to NVIDIA's Digital Humans in the 'Covert Protocol' game demo (full post)
Apple unveils how gaming on Mac just got a whole lot better while teasing new titles
Apple isn't necessarily known for making products that are great at gaming, but with the rise of the company's own in-house chips that dream is becoming more of a reality.
At WWDC Apple showed its intentions to drive deeper into the gaming market, especially considering the popularity of the App Store and all of the games it offers. However, Apple isn't just looking at mobile, as the company explained it wants to expand the possibilities of its Mac product line to gamers that want to experience full AAA titles.
Apple stated during its keynote that its MacOS named Sequoia was going to usher in some considerable upgrades for gamers, such as the inclusion of Personalized Spatial Audio, which will arrive for games that support Game Mode. Additionally, this new audio feature will be launching on iPhone. According to Apple, Personalized Spatial Audio "significantly reduces audio latency with AirPods Pro (2nd generation).