Category: Gamespot

We’ve heard before how the power of the PlayStation 4 is making Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End a better game. And now, lead designer Ricky Cambier has expanded further, saying the system’s beefiness allowed the developer to make spaces that were not only larger, but also highly detailed.

He also said the game’s user of real-time cutscenes–where there is a seamless transition between cutscene and gameplay–will be “kind of profound.” This is a first for the series.

“There have been games before that have done pretty big spaces,” Cambier said in an interview with MCV. “We wanted to do it at a certain visual quality that wouldn’t have ever been possible except on the PS4. We are able to give you this much room to explore and still offer that level of detail.”

Previously, Naughty Dog said A Thief’s End has 10 times the playable space of previous entries in the series.

On the subject of real-time cutscenes, A Thief’s End is the first Naughty Dog game to use this approach–and he thinks it will have a major impact.

“Also, one of the things we are doing for the first time is that there are no pre-rendered cut scenes,” he explained. “In the past, we always went over to a black frame and we switch over into a movie. We don’t do that anymore. That was a limitation we sort of accepted back then.

“The impact of removing that has been kind of profound. You just seamlessly go into these cut scenes and then come out of them–that whole transition goes away.”

The full MCV interview is filled with many more details and stories about the development of A Thief’s End. Go read it here.

After multiple delays, A Thief’s End is now due to launch on May 10 for PlayStation 4. It’s the final game that Naughty Dog plans to make, but not necessarily the last game in the series. In fact, creative director Neil Druckmann said he would be happy to see another studio make Uncharted 5.

For lots more on A Thief’s End, you can check out GameSpot’s recent hands-on preview, “How The Last of Us Made Uncharted 4 a Better Game.”

You can also check out GameSpot’s interview with Druckmann, writer Josh Scherr, and Cambier. In the interview, the developers talk about saying goodbye to Nathan Drake and the Uncharted series, A Thief’s End’s stealth elements, and a lot more.

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More than six million people played Killer Instinct in March 2016 across Xbox One and PC, representing a new single-month record for the fighting game, Microsoft announced this week as part of its NPD report.

Killer Instinct, a free-to-play game, was released in November 2013 as an Xbox One launch title. It came to PC on March 29 alongside a major Season 3 update that introduced new characters (Halo’s Arbiter and Battletoads’ Rash among them) and made other changes to gameplay and visuals. .

Six million is indeed a big number, but there is no word on how the game is performing from a business perspective. Though it’s free, Microsoft offers an assortment of microtransactions, letting users pay real-world money for extra characters and virtual currency.

It is also unclear what the previous monthly user record was. Additionally, Microsoft did not share any details on how the six million figure breaks down between Xbox One and PC.

In other news about Killer Instinct, a new single-player mode called Shadow Lords and even more characters, will be added to the game through future updates.

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It has been known for some time that Game of Thrones will probably end after its eighth season. It has now been been reported that the final two seasons of HBO’s fantasy hit might be considerably shorter than their predecessors.

Variety have revealed that executive producers David Benioff and DB Weiss are planning only 13 more episodes after the upcoming sixth season. In other words, seven for season seven, and just six of the eighth. Previous seasons have always contained ten episodes.

“I think we’re down to our final 13 episodes after this season. We’re heading into the final lap,” Benioff said. “That’s the guess, though nothing is yet set in stone, but that’s what we’re looking at.”

The news was confirmed by HBO programming president Michael Lombardo, athough he did stress that these were early conversations, and that nothing had been decided. “That’s my understanding from them right now, those have been the conversations we’ve had,” he revealed. “Because where these narratives go, it feels like another two years to them. As a television executive, as a fan, do I wish they said another six years? I do.

“I’m always an optimist, and I do believe we will figure this out.”

In other Game of Thrones news, a fan-made season six trailer containing every scene released so far by HBO has been put online. Check it out below:

Game of Thrones season six debuts on HBO on April 24. For more, check out GameSpot’s roundup of all the news, videos, and images for it.

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With the Gears of War 4 multiplayer beta scheduled to kick off very soon, developer The Coalition has now announced the special rewards players can earn for reaching level 20.

All players who hit that mark will receive “vintage” skins for the lancer, the pistol, and the character Kait. Additionally, players will receive a vintage Kait emblem and a bounty card that offers double XP for one match. You can see all of the rewards in the image below.

It’s unclear if these rewards will be granted immediately in the beta or if players will have to wait until Gears of War 4 launches in October to receive them. We have followed up with Microsoft in an attempt to get more details and will update this post with anything we hear back.

The Gears of War 4 multiplayer beta starts on April 18 for people who played Gears of War Ultimate Edition on Xbox One or PC by April 11. After an “early access” period for these players wraps up on April 24, an open beta for all Xbox Live Gold users will run April 25-May 1.

In other news about the beta, during The Coalition’s livestream later today (April 15) the studio will hand out codes that let you jump in right away, before everyone else. You can also check out this post to see exactly how and when beta codes will be distributed in the coming days.

For more on Gears of War 4, check out the stories below and the video above.

• Gears of War 4 Multiplayer Plays It Safe (For Now)
• Gears of War 4 Devs on Making Multiplayer Matter, Not Taking Story Too Seriously
• Gears of War 4 to Include Microtransactions

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The first post-launch DLC pack for From Software’s RPG Dark Souls III will launch this fall, publisher Bandai Namco has confirmed. Unfortunately for fans, there is no word yet on what the expansion pack will contain. However, a previous leak suggested things like new maps, bosses, enemies, and additional weapon and armor sets would be added to the game through DLC.

VideoGamer first reported on the Dark Souls III DLC release window today. GameSpot has followed up with Bandai Namco in an attempt to get more details on the timing and content of the DLC.

The existence of Dark Souls III DLC came to light in February when listings for a Season Pass popped up on digital storefronts. There will be two expansion packs, bundled together through the $25 Season Pass and likely also available individually. The official description for the Season Pass reads:

“Challenge yourself with new maps, bosses, enemies, and additional weapon and armor sets. Prepare yourself once more and embrace the darkness.”

Dark Souls III launched in the west on April 12 to mostly positive reviews, though there have been some issues with the PC edition. On the subject of general issues with Dark Souls III, Bandai Namco said on Twitter recently that it’s ramping up its efforts to improve the game experience.

“Thank you to everyone who’s contacted us thus far,” the publisher said. “We are investigating and escalating and will share updates as we have them.”

GameSpot’s Dark Souls III review awarded the sequel 8/10.

“There are several possible endings to Dark Souls III, and although most are anticlimactic, they drive home the loneliness of the paths we took,” reviewer Mike Mahardy said.

“The old lords have abandoned their posts, and in the hunt to usurp them, we descend into those dark valleys, and climb those imposing peaks. This is the essence of Dark Souls III: periods of doubt, followed by great reward. The journey may be rocky, but there’s a throne waiting at the end.”

For more on Dark Souls III, check out all of GameSpot’s previous coverage of the game.

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Expendables star Jason Statham has faced a wide variety of enemies in his career, but the actor will soon take on his biggest, scariest adversary to date. It has been reported that Statham has signed on to topline the long-in-development giant shark thriller Meg.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Statham will star in the monster movie, which is to be directed by Jon Turteltaub, best known for the National Treasure films. Turteltaub signed on to direct last month, after Hostel filmmaker Eli Roth exited the project.

The film is based on the 1997 novel Meg: A Novel of Deep Terror, written by Steve Alten. It was the first of a series of books focusing upon the adventures Navy deep sea diver Jonas Taylor, the role which former Olympic diver Statham is expected to play.

Development on a film adaptation of Meg began in 1997, and has moved between studios ever since, with directors such as Jan De Bont and Guillermo Del Toro attached at various stages. The rights reverted back to Alten in 2007, but until now the cost of the production has proved prohibitive for many potentially interested studios.

The film will be a co-production between Warner and Chinese company Gravity, and reportedly the location of the story will now change from the Mariana Islands near the Philippines to the coast of China.

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Unlike in the first Mirror’s Edge, upcoming reboot Catalyst locks core free-running abilities, such as the quick-turn and skill-roll, behind experience points and a skill progression tree.

The departure in design has drawn criticism from some fans, who say they are unhappy with developer DICE’s decision to not make core movement abilities from the first game available from the outset.

The decision, according to DICE’s senior producer Jeremy Miller, was made in order to help people get a better grasp of the different ways Faith can navigate the city of Glass.

“The RPG element is really about allowing the player to engage in the tools, because it is a unique way of interacting with the world,” he said in an interview with GameSpot.

“We’ve got a different control scheme. It’s a little more intuitive and fluid. Part of having this progression in there is to allow you to be able to master your tools, and to give you a little bit of breathing room so you feel confident and excited about what you can do.”

When asked specifically about not giving players immediate access to basic moves such as Quickturn, Miller noted that by introducing it gradually, players tended to explore the new opportunities the ability provided more.

“The quick-turn is a slightly more abstract tool and people didn’t use it as much [in Mirror’s Edge],” he said.

“We’ve seen a distinct increase in people going, ‘Oh, I’ve got this, how do I use it?’ It’s worked into people’s movement language much more successfully as a result of doing that.”

GameSpot recently played Mirror’s Edge Catalyst and our hands-on impressions can be found here, along with details on why DICE decided to remove Faith’s ability to use guns and the ways hand-to-hand combat has improved.

A Mirror’s Edge Catalyst closed beta will begin on April 22 and last for five days, ending on April 26.

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Oculus has said it considers Revive, a program that enables Rift-exclusive games to be played on HTC’s Vive headset, to be a “hack,” and has stated future software updates will likely remove compatibility with the software.

On April 14, Reddit user CrossVR shared files that allowed Lucky’s Tale and the Oculus Dreamdeck to be playable on HTC’s headset. In response, Oculus said “this is a hack, and we don’t condone it.”

In a statement to Ars Technica, the VR company added that “users should expect that hacked games won’t work indefinitely, as regular software updates to games, apps, and our platform are likely to break hacked software.”

Revive creator CrossVR has said Oculus’ reaction was “perfectly fine.”

“Of course, they can’t condone it, that would mean they’d have to actively support the Revive project, which is completely outside of their control,” he added. “But from that reaction it doesn’t seem they’ll actively try to prohibit it either.

“They’re worried people may buy games expecting them to work on the Vive and they may get disappointed. Especially if I can’t keep feature parity with the Oculus SDK, which is what the comment about future updates is about.”

He continued: “This is exactly the reason why, for the first version of Revive, I chose to only actively support two games you could get for free in the Oculus Store. Since I don’t want people spending money only to find out that the game they want to play is not yet supported.”

You can check out more of our virtual reality coverage at the following links:

• Oculus Rift Review
• HTC Vive Review
• Oculus Rift, PlayStation VR, and Vive Comparison: Prices, Specs, & Games

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Halo 5 players can check out an in-development version of the sci-fi game’s new Warzone Firefight mode starting today as part of a beta test. As announced previously, the beta will run April 14-18.

If you already own Halo 5, no further download is required. You’ll find the Warzone Firefight mode in the “Warzone” playlist when it goes live later today, designer David Ellis said on Twitter.

As for an exact time when the mode will launch today, Ellis said, “Don’t want to promise a specific time in case of unforeseen technical issues.”

We will update this post when the beta officially goes live. Note that this is an in-development, unfinished version of Warzone Firefight, so there may be some technical hiccups. Developer 343 Industries is hoping to gather feedback from the beta to make the final version a more polished and refined experience.

Earlier this week during a livestream event, 343 showed off the first live gameplay for Warzone Firefight. If you missed it, not to worry, as an archive is available and can be seen below.

As was the case with Firefight’s first appearance in Halo 3: ODST, teams of players (eight in Halo 5 vs four in ODST) will take on waves of increasingly difficult enemies, and also complete objectives across five rounds.

Halo 5’s version of Firefight will feature the most on-screen enemies in Halo history, including a new “Mythic” tier of enemy bosses. “Thought the Warden Eternal was menacing? You ain’t seen nothing yet,” Microsoft said in March.

Warzone Firefight players can also make use of their Reqs, which can include things like weapons, vehicles, armor, power-ups, and more. It’s called Warzone Firefight instead of just Firefight because matches will play out on Warzone maps.

The mode is coming to Halo 5 sometime this summer, though a release date has not been announced. Other modes added to Halo 5 following its launch in October 2015 have included Big Team Battle, Grifball, Fiesta, and Warzone Turbo.

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Kingsman: The Secret Service was one of the surprise hits of 2014–Matthew Vaughn’s action comedy made more than $414 million worldwide, and inevitably a sequel is on the way. Last week the first poster for Kingsman: The Golden Circle was released, and now Jump Street star Channing Tatum has revealed on Twitter that he will be joining the cast.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Tatum was offered several roles, athough it is unknown who he will be playing.

The Golden Circle will see Taron Egerton play young spy Gary “Eggsy” Unwin once more, with Mark Strong and Edward Holcroft also set to return.

Halle Barry and Julianne Moore are set to join the cast, and it has been rumoured that Elton John may also play a part. Vaughn will direct again.

Kingsman: The Golden Circle hits cinemas on 16 June, 2017.

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