Category: Gameinformer

  • Red Dead Redemption II Has A Companion App

    Red Dead Redemption II Has A Companion App

    Rockstar has revealed that, in addition to playing Red Dead Redemption II on your big screen, you can also add a few inches to your screen by looking at a smaller screen sometimes. With the Red Dead companion app, the old west is at your fingertips.

    In fairness to Red Dead, and putting aside well-warranted cynicism from years of companion apps, this one doesn’t look too bad. The app, available on iOS and Android, lets you make waypoints directly from your phone for you to follow in the game. That means that the app has a complete map of the old west on it, which is thematically consistent, because companion apps also feel like they’re from a bygone era.

    Way more importantly, though, the app lets you move all the heads-up display (HUD) elements onto your phone, so you can play the game HUD-free if you so choose. I’m a big fan of getting rid of HUDs for open world games, so this is pretty cool. 

    If you buy the Red Dead Redemption II guide from Piggyback digitally, you will get to use it through the app, so no having to open up Google for help while using a private tab so your friends won’t know the part they all talked about being super easy required a few tips to figure out. Only you will know, as well as your phone, and the NSA agents monitoring it.

    The companion app will will launch alongside the game this Friday on iOS and Android, while the game itself releases on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.

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  • All Locations Revealed In New Hitman 2 Trailer

    All Locations Revealed In New Hitman 2 Trailer

    Hitman 2 released a new trailer today, teasing a glimpse of all the diverse locales to expect in Agent 47’s newest adventure. The trailer splices together clips of a dark, stormy beach, a dusty train yard, tropical jungles and a bustling tourist attraction. Based on what we know, two of these locations are a racetrack in Miami and a cartel mansion located in the Colombian jungle. The video’s description also gives the names of each new location: “Hawke’s Bay, Mumbai, Vermont, and the mysterious Isle of Sgàil,” so you can guess which is which in the trailer below.

    Earlier this week, IO Interactive announced that legendary villain-actor, Sean Bean will play the first elusive target in Hitman 2, which makes sense as Bean’s long list of on-screen deaths has become a meme.

    Hitman 2 comes out as a single release this time around, on November 13. For more intel on the assassin’s next mission, stop by our constantly updating Hitman 2 news hub for exclusive hands-on content. 

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  • Gwent: The Witcher Card Game Comes Out Of Beta Alongside The Release Of Thronebreaker

    Gwent: The Witcher Card Game Comes Out Of Beta Alongside The Release Of Thronebreaker

    Good news Gwent aficionados, Gwent: The Witcher Card game is out on PC. You can download the free-to-play competitive card game rooted in the world of The Witcher at GOG.

    Alongside the game’s launch, CD Projekt RED announced that Gwent: The Witcher Card Game received a major update which it called Homecoming. The Homecoming update is reportedly the biggest in the games history and brings additional cards, overhauled visuals, improved mechanics, and unique lore-inspired designs to the digital table. 

    To kick off the game’s release with a bang, you will be able to purchase a Launch Celebration Pack including:

    • 24 kegs with 5 cards per keg
    • 1 Legendary card; you will be given a pick out of 3
    • 500 Meteorite Powder
    • 5 Arena tickets that will give you access to Gwent’s Arena Mode

    Gwent: The Witcher Card Game will launch for the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One on December 4. If you are interested in Gwent, we recently posted the lengthy gameplay trailer for Thronebreaker: The Witcher Tales, the narrative driven game using Gwent mechanics that was initially conceived of as a campaign mode for Gwent: The Witcher Card Game. Thronebreaker also releases today on PC for $29.99.

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  • Oculus Co-Founder Leaves Following Cancellation Of Rift Successor

    Update: Facebook has responded to TechCrunch’s report regarding the reported cancelation of Rift 2, stating: “While we can’t comment on our product roadmap specifics, we do have future plans, and can confirm that we are planning for a future version of Rift.”

    It’s unknown if this “future version of Rift” refers specifically to Rift 2 or another product.

    Original Story:

    Brendan Iribe, co-founder of Oculus, has left the company after the company’s owners at Facebook have reportedly cancelled a next-generation Oculus Rift. Iribe confirmed his departure today.

    According to TechCrunch, Iribe had been heading development of what was internally called the Rift 2, a PC-powered (and thus PC-tethered) headset that iterates on the company’s original headset, the Oculus Rift. Oculus’ parent company Facebook has seemingly ended development on the new headset, indicating a focus change on Oculus headsets that don’t require a powerful personal computer to use.

    Last month, Facebook and Oculus announced a standalone VR headset called the Oculus Quest, which seems to be the direction the company wants to move rather than the Rift.

    Iribe co-founded Oculus as part of a Kickstarter with seemingly ousted former-chief Palmer Luckey in 2012. The company was sold to Facebook in 2014 for $2 billion, moving Iribe from the company’s CEO to the head of the PC VR division.

    [Source: TechCrunch]

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  • Ion Maiden Blasts Onto PS4, Xbox One, And Switch

    Ion Maiden Blasts Onto PS4, Xbox One, And Switch

    Earlier this year, we got a solid look at Ion Maiden, 3D Realms’ new first-person shooter. Ion Maiden attempts to capture the glory days of shooters like Duke Nukem, Blood, and Shadow Warrior, right down to the pixelated art style, ridiculous number of secret areas, and frantic action.  3D Realms just confirmed, after much teasing, that the game will be arriving on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch as well.

    According to a press release, 3D Realms is teaming up with Russian publisher 1C Entertainment to bring the game to consoles in Q2 2019.

    For more on Ion Maiden, check out our impressions here.

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  • Major Layoffs At MMO Studio Trion Worlds

    Major Layoffs At MMO Studio Trion Worlds

    Massive layoffs have reportedly affected MMO developer Trion Worlds today, the studio behind MMOs like Rift and most recently Atlas Reactor. Reports indicate that the company slashed its staff across its U.S.-based studios to only 25 people from a previous 200.

    The layoffs come as a result of an acquisition from the German Gamigo group, which publishes a number of casual and MMO titles in its portfolio. This transaction of Trion Worlds and its games created what appear to be a significant number of redundancies with Gamigo, resulting in an incredibly severe reduction in staff.

    While we reached out to Trion Worlds this morning for confirmation and comment, they did not reply. They did tell Gamasutra, however, that many names remain and confirmed the layoffs, but did not mention the number. Gamasutra’s sources reported the reduction to 25 employees.

    If accurate, that means that since September of this year, between Capcom Vancouver, Carbine Studios, Telltale, and Trion Worlds, an estimated 725 employees have been laid off or otherwise had their studio closed within the game industry.

    Our thoughts and best wishes go with everyone affected by these layoffs.

    [Source: Gamasutra]

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  • Devil May Cry 5 Special Editions Will Keep You Warm But Cost You $20,000 For Everything

    Devil May Cry 5 Special Editions Will Keep You Warm But Cost You $20,000 For Everything

    The time has come and so has Devil May Cry 5, which is releasing in the relatively short future of March. If you’re a big fan of the series, you’re probably anticipating buying the game and maybe also whatever special edition Capcom inevitably puts up with the game. Well, you might not want to commit to that last part quite yet, at least if you’re not independently wealthy and fairly cold.

    Capcom has revealed three new special edition bundles for Devil May Cry 5 for sale via Capcom Japan’s store. The three versions are basically extremely expensive jackets you can buy for each of the main characters: Dante’s red duster, Nero’s dark-blue coat, and V’s sleeveless goth dream.

    The Dante variation is of course the most expensive, running ¥900,000 or roughly $8000 U.S. No one ever said being stylish is easy or cheap, though you’d think Dante would take better care of his jacket considering how often it gets chopped up or sliced or he himself gets impaled.

    For people who don’t have $8000 to spend on a jacket, but do have $6500 (¥750,000), Nero’s new jacket is also an option. Sadly, this does not come with a bunch of replaceable arms, but one of the sleeves is cut off, so if you do have replaceable arms you’re good to go.

    Finally, we have V’s vest-jacket. Now you can tell the world “I am probably related to Lady but that’s not confirmed so in the meantime let’s just make Kylo Ren jokes” in one quick fashion statement.

    The jackets are all replicas of the ones Capcom used to scan in to the game using the same technology they used for Resident Evil 7’s photorealistic clothing. That means the Dante coat you buy is identical to what he wears in the game.

    This is also not a new thing in general for Capcom, who has become somewhat taken by the idea of the massively expensive special editions. These Devil May Cry 5 bundles come after Capcom’s already announced $700 Resident Evil 2 keyboard, which is still for sale. Maybe you can haggle them down to a price break for all three jackets and the keyboard.

    Devil May Cry 5 releases on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC on March 8.

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  • Intellivision Is Making A New Family-Friendly Console

    Intellivision Is Making A New Family-Friendly Console

    Intellivision Entertainment unveiled its plans this morning to re-enter the console market with the Amico home video game console. The company has some experience in this field, having released a console almost 40 years ago, but with its new system, Intellivision hopes to create a product for more casual gamers and families. Towards this end, Intellivision will reportedly only release games rated E for Everyone or E10+ on the Amico. 

    Tommy Tallarico, Intellivision’s President, had this to say:

     “Most every game being made for the home consoles these days is created with only the hardcore gamer in mind.  We see a world where everyone is interested in playing at home and with friends, but this isn’t currently possible because the barrier to entry is nearly impossible for a non-gamer due to the complexity of the controllers, intricacy of gameplay, expense of the hardware and software and steep learning curve with an unbalanced fun factor for the beginner.  Our goal was to create a console that both gamers and non-gamers are able to have fun with and play together.  The Intellivision Amico is our answer to this gaping hole we see within the current video game industry.”

    The Amico will reportedly offer an exclusive selection of remastered Intellivision classics like Astrosmash, Star Strike, and B-17 Bomber alongside select favorites from the Atari and Imagic. According to the press release, you can expect these titles to include modernized graphics, updated audio, additional levels, and local and online multi-player modes. However, Intellivision also plans on bringing brand-new games to the new console, which are currently being developed. 

    The Amico launches in North America, the United Kingdom, and Europe on October 10, 2020 with an expected price point between $149 – $179.

    [Source: Intellivision Entertainment]

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  • Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 Reportedly Running At A Different Server Rate Than Beta (Update: Treyarch Improving Server Rate)

    Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 Reportedly Running At A Different Server Rate Than Beta (Update: Treyarch Improving Server Rate)

    Update: Treyarch has responded on the game’s subreddit, saying that they will improve the network performance after initially throttling it for launch week.

    “We’ve also noticed a lot of discussion around network performance over the past couple of days and wanted to take a moment to address this directly. We’re constantly working to optimize the game, and particularly network performance, to ensure the highest quality online experience for our players. For a game launch with as massive a population as ours hitting so many global servers at once, we configure our infrastructure to ensure game stability as the highest priority over all other factors.

    Now that we’re past the initial launch of the game, we are focusing on fine-tuning network performance around the globe, using the real-world data that we have collected. Over the course of the next two weeks, we will roll out several updates to our network setup that will continue to improve upon the experience of our players since launch. As we have always said, launch is just the beginning, and we’re committed to making Black Ops 4 the best-supported game we’ve ever delivered. This is a journey that will involve constant adjustments, improvements, and additions. We appreciate your continued support and patience – thank you!”

    The original story from 10/21 at 5:05 p.m. CT is as follows:

    A user on Reddit has been testing Call of Duty: Black Ops 4’s Blackout and Multiplayer mode and has noticed that the final game’s server send and receive rates differ from the beta before it. This gets a bit technical, so I’m going to let Reddit user Smcro explain it on the game’s subreddit.

    That said, here’s a basic if not very specific breakdown:

    Basically, online multiplayer games have a server send rate and a client send rate. Server send rate is how many updates the server sends to your device (PC, console, whatever) per second. Client send rate is the same thing, but in reverse – how many times your device goes “Hey, cool, thanks, here’s what we’re sending back to you” to the server per second. As a general rule for multiplayer games online, higher rates are better, as it means the information trade is more accurate to what is happening across multiple devices.

    What Smcro is saying is that, when Black Ops 4 was being beta tested, videos showed the server send rate at 60hz, or around 60 updates per second. With the game now out and released, Smcro has pegged the server send rate at around 20hz, a third of what it was during the beta, after testing on PlayStation 4. Blackout tends to waver a bit between 20hz and 60hz, veering lower on average.

    “The server send rate has been lowered from 60hz to 20hz causing more inconsistency compared to the beta due to the fact that there is (on average) triple the amount of time between server updates,” he writes. “Also, it would seem that matchmaking sometimes chooses servers that are undesirable in terms of latency. It would be nice to have the ability to whitelist server locations which give the best experience to prevent this from happening.”

    Whether or not most fans notice it, now that the numbers (which we have not verified and Treyarch has not commented on) are public, people on the Call of Duty subreddit are upset. A lot are asking for Treyarch to respond to the issue and some others are straight up asking for a fix. While it would be easy to say this is merely people jumping on a critical bandwagon, some research does show people complaining about the final game feeling differently from the beta at release.

    You can check out our Black Ops 4 review right here, which goes over all the modes in the game.

    [Source: Eurogamer]

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  • Studio Head Jade Raymond Leaves EA

    Studio Head Jade Raymond Leaves EA

    EA announced some big organizational changes today. Jade Raymond, the head of EA Motive, the studio focused on Star War properties, is leaving her position.

    During Raymond’s time, Battlefront II was released, but we knew the studio was also working on multiple projects, including an open-world Star Wars game, a new action-adventure IP, and a mysterious project. Raymond joined back in 2015 to head a multi-purpose studio, which would create its own IP and provide support for other EA projects. Raymond previously worked at Ubisoft as producer on the Assassin’s Creed series and executive producer on both Watch Dogs and Splinter Cell: Blacklist. We do not know Raymond’s plans at this time for her next venture.

    We do, however, know Samantha Ryan will be taking Raymond’s place. Ryan has an impressive resume, previously working as president of Monolith and as SVP of product and development at Warner Bros. Ryan has been helping lead other teams at EA, from BioWare to Maxis. 

    EA issued the following statement to Game Informer

    EA Studios is focused on bringing more creative new games and content to players. Laura Miele and her team have taken several steps internally to better support our game makers in this pursuit, such as expanding Samantha Ryan’s portfolio to lead additional studios, including Motive. Samantha is known for driving creative design and supporting game teams so they can bring their visions to life. She is a deeply experienced game-maker with a gameography that spans from The Sims to Batman: Arkham City to No One Lives Forever to the highly-anticipated Anthem. With this change, Jade Raymond has decided to leave Electronic Arts. In her time with us, Jade helped to build great teams, and our projects underway at Motive and other studios continue unchanged. We’re appreciative of all of her efforts, and we wish Jade all the best as she moves on to her next adventure. We are driving greater creativity into everything we do across EA Studios, and we’ll look forward to sharing more in the months to come.

    EA Motive has seen its share of ups and downs, announcing the closure of Visceral Games and putting an end to its single-player, linear Star Wars game. The project is currently being revamped to go in a more open-world direction.

    A few months ago when we talked to Raymond, she discussed some road bumps with Motive’s new IP. Raymond noted some people who joined the project early on already left and the game still hadn’t left the conceptual phase. 

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