Gaming News & Rumours

[lilfrenchidiot]

By default fuck Elon Musk, but I’ll wait to see what happens there.

[ceero]

By default fuck Elon Musk

This & especially his fanboys, I have hard times thinking of something more obnoxious than those people

Couldn't care less about twitter tho tbh

[Morbid_Angel]

Personally, if he can implement a better system for bans etc. I have no problem with him buying Twitter. (I'm an avid user myself)

Some possible takeover news in the gaming-sphere:
[Tech/All Plats] Ubisoft reportedly in early talks for possible acquisition

It's rumoured that Ubisoft are in early talks with at least 2 separate private equity funds (Blackstone Inc. and KKR & Co.) for a possible buyout.
Now, whether or not these talks will amount to anything, or if they'll prompt other, more powerful entities (Sony/Playstation, and Microsoft especially) to pull the trigger and try and buy the company, is unknown at this time.
Ubisoft's current market value is estimated at €4.8 billion/$5.2 billion, with their share values dropping over 40% over the past year.

Source and more info: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... t-interest

[Morbid_Angel]

[Multi Plat] Embracer Group has bought Crystal Dynamics, Eidos-Montréal, and Square Enix Montréal for $300M.

Embracer Group (who already owns THQ Nordic, Koch Media, Coffee Stain, Amplifier Game Invest, Saber Interactive, DECA Games, Gearbox Entertainment, Easybrain, Asmodee, and Dark Horse) late last night EU time put out a statement revealing that they'd acquired 3 studios from Square Enix Holdings (SEH), which has a catalogue of IPs which are as follows: Tomb Raider, Deus Ex, Thief, and Legacy of Kain, as well as over 50 back-catalogue games. (meaning the rights to these IPs older titles)

This acquisition is imo a positive one, because it frees these studios from an archaic publisher who has a history of being extremely lenient with their JP studio, often not caring if their "home" studios take 10+ years to develop a game, and not meeting sales expectations, whereas their overseas studios were always on tight deadlines and had massive sales expectations that they (for the most part) had no realistic way of meeting. (Deus Ex: Mankind Divided is a prime example of this practice)
Another positive about this is that we might have a chance now for a remaster/make of the original Deus Ex and Legacy of Kain games, as well as sequels to these franchises - and chance long dead in the hands of SEH.

Source: https://embracer.com/release/embracer-g ... er-assets/

[Tech] Rumour: AMD Radeon RX 7900XT could potentially feature 3 GHz GPU clock

The leaker now claims that the GPU might hit 92 TFLOPS of FP32 performance, which is 28% more than the previous claim of 75 TFLOPS. This new number is also four times as high as RDNA2 based Navi 21 GPU (RX 6900XT) model.

This sounds/reads absolutely insane in terms of performance and so on, but as always I'll remain skeptical because I want to see some benchmarks from independent reviewers before I board any sort of hype train.

[Freddy]

Could we have separate topics for Tech and for Game related?

Not sure why they are merged. Not interested in Games at all, but having only Tech related topic would be cool

[Morbid_Angel]

You can just make one, and I'll rename this one to be gaming only.

[Morbid_Angel]

[Tech/PC] Steam Deck Gets Even Better: 40-60Hz Support, VRS, Refined Acoustics

Digital Foundry (a fantastic Youtube channel when it comes to Tech in the gaming sphere) has tested a new update released for the Steam deck, and the results are overall quite positive.

The latest Steam Deck update has arrived, and with it some exciting new features - including the ability to set the refresh rate between 40Hz and 60Hz while in-game and variable rate shading support. Alex goes hands-on to test out these new features work, and how a new fan profile has affected the Steam Deck's thermals, noise and performance in version 3.2.

Now, I don't own a Steam Deck nor plan to buy one, but I still think it's a really cool gadget, and it's incredible how a handheld can now play games at such high fidelity. Furthermore it's a relatively cheap entryway into PC gaming which I can only applaud, and I think Valve is really knocking it out of the park when it comes to putting customers first, and trying their best to give the people what they want. (For example, you can change the internal storage if you want to, and they've made a video on how to repair your deck, physically, should the need arise)

I'm going to sound like a massive shill here, but I'm just incredibly happy that Valve exists and continues to be pro consumer, rather than a whirling cesspool of Microtransactions (MTX) and NFTs. (Disclaimer: I too hate how there are MTXs in some of their games, but at the very least it's not something they seem to focus on too heavily)

[Morbid_Angel]

[Multi Plat] "Mafia 4" rumoured to be set in Sicily and to be a prequel to the first game

According to a dude called Shpeshal Nick (from the podcast Xboxera, and known industry insider) the next installment in the Mafia franchise, which is currently in development at 2K's Hangar 13 Studios, will be a prequel to the first games, and will revolve around the story of Don Salieri.

Some quick bullet points

- the action of ” Mafia 4 ” may be set in Sicily
- specifically at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries
- the new version will be a bit more linear than Mafia III and in this aspect resemble the first two parts of the gangster cycle
- the story will focus on the adventures of Don Salieri ‘s family
- this guy is well known to fans of Mafia: The City of Lost Heaven and its remake called Mafia: Final Edition

Source: https://thegamespoof.com/gaming-news/ma ... eri-rumor/

For my money, if they just shy away from that awful Mafia 3 formula, I don't think it'll be half bad, but these rumours do sound promising.

[PC] Zelda: Ocarina of Time’s (Fan made!) PC port now supports 60fps, save states, Linux and more

This is not something I know anything about, but I have a feeling this is free of any emulators and whatnot.
The actual name of the port is Ship of Harkinian.
Here's a quote blurb for a little more info:

As part of the fan development team’s latest “Ship of Harkinian Direct”, Habour Masters unveiled the frame-rate boost as well as a host of new features.

In addition to 60fps, the port now runs on Linux, and new features such as save states, Gameshark-style cheats and accessibility features such as voice descriptions have been added to the game.

The next release of the port, named Roy Alfa, is now available on the team’s official Discord. The new features were unveiled via a video published on Friday

And here's the source: https://www.videogameschronicle.com/new ... -and-more/

[Morbid_Angel]

[Multi Plat] Techland developing AAA open-world fantasy action RPG with former CD Projekt RED staff

Techland (the studio behind the Dying Light franchise, and Call of Juarez: Gunslinger) recently announced that they're working on a brand new IP. According to their press release it's a AAA open-world action RPG set in a fantasy environment, and they've enlisted some very good people to get them off the ground running.

The Team includes:
Karolina Stachyra – Narrative director who previously worked with CD Projekt RED on The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings and The Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt, plus its downloadable content.
Arkadiusz Borowik – Narrative lead who previously worked with CD Projekt RED on The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings and The Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt, plus its downloadable content.
In just the last few months, the team was also joined by:

Bartosz Ochman – Open world director who previously worked on Cyberpunk 2077 and The Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt.
Mario Maltezos – Creative director who previously worked with companies like Ubisoft (Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time), Warner Bros. (Mad Max), and Microsoft.
David McClure – Lead game designer previously associated with Arkane Studios (DEATHLOOP), Deep Silver, and Playground Games.
Kevin Quaid – Lead animator with over eight years of experience at Guerrilla Games, working on titles such as Horizon Zero Dawn and its expansion, "The Frozen Wilds."
Marcin Surosz – Lead user interface / user experience designer with amazing skill in defining players’ needs, formerly with People Can Fly.

Here's the first concept artwork.


Looks kinda Mesoamerican (Aztec, Mayan) to my eyes, and that on it's own is pretty exciting, as that whole time period is grossly underutilized imo.

They're also hiring for this project. Thought I'd mention it, just in case.

Source: https://www.gematsu.com/2022/05/techlan ... -red-staff

[Morbid_Angel]

[PC] *speculation* Current PS5 exclusive 'Returnal' listed in SteamDB under codename 'Oregon' hinting at a PC launch

Now this isn't confirmed by any means, but the user tags line-up pretty well with Returnal.

Source: https://steamdb.info/app/1649240/

[Multi Plat] Xbox store accidentally confirms ‘Destroy All Humans!’ expansion

The sales page, which has now been taken down, revealed the “standalone DLC” for the Destroy All Humans! remake was called Clone Carnage and would allow multiplayer modes.

The sales page, which has now been taken down, revealed the “standalone DLC” for the Destroy All Humans! remake was called Clone Carnage and would allow multiplayer modes.

As reported by Eurogamer, the page also revealed that Clone Carnage would feature six new maps for players to explore alongside four new modes – Rampage, Armageddon, Race and Abduction

Source: https://www.nme.com/news/gaming-news/xb ... on-3232664

[PC] PlayStation says half of its releases will be on PC and mobile by 2025 - And PS4 releases will be phased out

Speaking during a business briefing on Thursday, SIE president Jim Ryan said that expanding to the larger platforms, and in particular committing to releasing at least 12 live service games in the coming years, could be “transformational to our business”.

“PlayStation Studios historically has executed wonderfully in the delivery of a strong portfolio of narrative rich, graphically beautiful single-player games, but it’s certainly the case that we have restricted ourselves to a rather narrow portion of the gaming market,” Ryan said.

There's more on this in the article

Source: https://www.videogameschronicle.com/new ... e-by-2025/

And to add to this, here are the sales numbers from the games they've put on PC so far:
Horizon Zero Dawn
• 2.39m
• $60 Million in Revenue

Days Gone
• 852k
• $22.7 Million in Revenue

God of War
• 971k
• $26.2 Million in Revenue



As you can see from the pic, Sony are projecting huge growth in the PC space by years end, so expect more releases. (Uncharted 4 confirmed)
Also, remember to that GoW was the latest game they released for PC, hence the lesser numbers. (PC sales aren't as frontloaded as console sales)