Gaming News - Page 1

In a recent interview with PCGamer, FromSoftware president Hidetaka Miyazaki said the developer isn't against the Seamless Co-op mod for Elden Ring, and it's something it's actively taking notes on and considering for future FromSoftware games.

For those that don't know what the FromSoftware president is referring to, the Seamless Co-op mod enables PC players have a true co-op experience within Elden Ring that enables players to take on bosses together and experience the narrative. Prior to this mod players were only able to summon in friends through the use of an item and in certain situations.

The Seamless Co-op mod revamped the way Elden Ring co-op could be played and was quickly popularized by players that wanted to experience their second or third play-through with a friend. Miyazaki was asked what he thinks about the mod, to which he said FromSoftware definitely doesn't "actively oppose or want to downplay" and it is something FromSoftware will consider "with our future games".

Blizzard Entertainment is looking to introduce a single-player "story mode" with the soon-to-be-released expansion for World of Warcraft.

According to a recent interview with PCGamer, associate game director Morgan Day sat down with Tyler Colp to tease a coming story mode, which players could use to level up characters through playing past expansion narratives. Notably, this single-player mode would enable players to experience classic raid moments in past expansions, and the experience gained would be included in their journey to reach the maximum level.

"In Shadowlands, we added 'Chromie Time,' where you can play past expansions to level up," he said. "We always talk about the strength of World of Warcraft and how we have so much cool content, and how we can leverage that better. As we've seen with Remix, the team is trying new and different ideas to leverage that."

With the recent success of Amazon Prime's Fallout TV adaptation, more people have played games in the long-running Fallout franchise than ever before. The most recent mainline entry, Fallout 4, saw its Steam concurrent player count reach heights it hadn't seen since 2015. The co-op and multiplayer-focused Fallout 76 is also breaking player-count records as Bethesda releases its first map expansion since its 2018 debut.

In a new interview with YouTube creator MrMattyPlays, Bethesda Game Studios head Todd Howard addressed several questions surrounding the future of the Fallout franchise while offering tempering expectations for those of us who thought the success of the Fallout TV show would expedite development on Fallout 5.

From Todd's comments, it sounds like Fallout 76 will be updated for many years to come. And right now, the Fallout TV show is the place for those wanting a cinematic or in-depth story set in the Fallout universe.

Earlier this year, when Microsoft announced it would start releasing more first-party Xbox titles on Sony's PlayStation consoles, it shocked many longtime Xbox gamers. Although we're now in a place where even Sony is releasing major first-party PlayStation games on PC and even the Nintendo Switch (with its upcoming LEGO Horizon spin-off), seeing first-party Xbox games on PS5 hits a little differently because they're competing platforms.

With the dust now settled on Microsoft's decision to bring select Xbox titles to the PS5, the controversial move is proving successful. First-party Xbox Game Studios game Sea of Thieves was the most downloaded PlayStation 5 game chart in the US/Canada and the European region in May 2024.

More PlayStation 5 gamers downloaded and installed Sea of Thieves in May 2024 than they did Madden, Call of Duty, Helldivers 2, Grand Theft Auto 5, Fallout 4, and Stellar Blade. Fellow Xbox game Minecraft topped the PS4 charts for the same regions.

Gamers are always looking for the latest game everyone has jumped on, and usually, these titles offer something unique in terms of gameplay or overall immersion. An example of this would be the rise in popularity of Helldivers 2.

A good place to find these emerging titles and get in on the action early is the Steam charts, which tracks the most-played games across the client. The top five most played concurrent titles hardly change, and when it does, it's a representation of the game making a noticeable splash in the gaming community. As I previously stated, when a game makes it into the top five, it usually has something unique about it that has attracted players or has legacy power behind it.

But that isn't 100% of all cases. Sometimes, a game can enter the top five for no apparent reason at all besides players simply choosing to get behind it. An example of that is Banana, developed by Pony, Sky, and AestheticSpark and published by Sky. Banana is a clicker game that involves players just clicking on the banana in the middle of the screen, and a tally starts. It's a free-to-play game that has earned itself more than 775,000 concurrent players at the time of writing, and peaked today for concurrent players at 830,000.

Gears of War studio The Coalition is widely considered one of the most adept at working with Unreal Engine 5. It has collaborated with Epic Games to create UE tech demos like the impressive The Matrix Awakens from 2021. The studio's first proper Unreal Engine 5-powered game, Gears of War: E-Day, was revealed last week, and it's set to be a technical showstopper.

The reveal trailer for Gears of War prequel taps into the horror of the first game while bringing back iconic characters like Marcus Fenix and Dom Santiago. Although a pre-rendered cinematic, developers at The Coalition note that it was created using in-game assets and lighting effects to give gamers and Gears fans a taste of what to expect.

"Our ambition is to, once again, set a new standard in technical excellence," explains Kate Rayner, Studio Technical Director at The Coalition. "We have fully modernized Gears from the ground up, infusing the DNA of Gears with the full capabilities of modern gaming technology. Every character, environment, and animation in Gears of War: E-Day has been completely rebuilt in Unreal Engine 5, allowing us to portray the Gears universe with unprecedented detail and fidelity."

Russian President Vladimir Putin instructed his government to organize and create a domestic gaming console that would compete with the likes of the PlayStation and Xbox consoles... with the Russian Ministry of Industry and Trade seeking a company to help it create a console.

However, the ministry is also talking with businesses and other departments to work out if the necessary resources and support are there for the project, with experts doubting a Russian-made console is something that will happen without the Russian government providing subsidies, with massive amounts of time (many years) and investment required.

After Putin's presidential directive in making a Russian-made gaming console, skeptical experts are still concerned, saying that no Russian company is capable of creating a console that competes with Sony's PlayStation and Microsoft's Xbox console, as these consoles pack some of the most bleeding-edge chips on the market, that cost hundreds of millions, but more like billions of dollars to develop.

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 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".

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.