Latest Articles (Page 640)

Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City has been delayed by two months, to 24th November.

In one scene in Genesis Noir, I'm sticking my virtual hands into the prehistoric ocean to create the first life forms out of parts that look like a child's building blocks. It's basically creationist Lego. I need to build molecules in a way that allows them to reach other molecules out there in the soup and mate with them, and tadah! - I've just spurred on abiogenesis, the origin of life. Before playing Genesis Noir, I'd neither heard of abiogenesis nor would I have understood it as anything other than an abstract construct. Elsewhere, my character, a slouch hat-wearing watch peddler in a trench coat, is cheering on Golden Boy, a cosmic entity giving a saxophone performance.

UPDATE 16/3/21, 7.07pm: Just a day after confirming it would be officially implementing a fan-made fix to reduce Grand Theft Auto Online's load times by up to 70 percent on PC, Rockstar has announced the update is now live.

Wise-cracking anthropomorphic crime-fighting duo Sam & Max will be making their VR debut on Oculus Quest this June in developer HappyGiant's brand-new adventure outing Sam & Max: This Time It's Virtual, with releases on Steam, Viveport Infinity, and PSVR to follow.

It's only been six weeks since the arrival of No Man's Sky's pet-themed Companions update, but already developer Hello Games is back with more, this time introducing seasonal, galaxy spanning Expeditions and accompanying rewards.

Developer Ion Lands is returning to the neon-drenched streets of its gorgeous Blade Runner-esque delivery thriller Cloudpunk in a new "sequel-sized" DLC, City of Ghosts.

Sony has announced April 2021's PlayStation Plus titles, all of which will be available to download from 6th April to 3rd May.

A selection of Microsoft's backwards compatible Xbox and Xbox 360 catalogue is now available to stream via xCloud.

Ratchet & Clank is now playable in 60 FPS on PlayStation 5, developer Insomniac Games has announced - a little earlier than scheduled.

Nintendo has finally made the Animal Crossing Sanrio amiibo cards available to pre-order from its official UK site.

Twin Breaker studio Lillymo Games has had to abandon its plans to release a project for PlayStation Vita in the wake of Sony's confirmation it will shutter the handheld's online store on 27th August.

The delightfully unusual detective role-playing game Disco Elysium is finally on console. The Final Cut version of the game arrived yesterday on PlayStation machines (4 and 5), the App Store, Stadia and PC (a free update if you already own the base game), and there's an Xbox version due to follow this summer.

Call of Duty: Warzone added a potentially powerful new killstreak with this morning's huge update.

CD Projekt's big online Cyberpunk 2077 multiplayer portion will no longer be launched as a standalone release.

In 2016, the computer scientist Andrew Ng compared worrying about superintelligent AI to worrying about overpopulation on Mars. We haven't even landed on the planet, he said, so why on Earth should we start freaking out? Modern AI can pull some snazzy tricks, sure, but it's a zillion miles away from presenting an existential threat to humanity.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare has new maps this morning, four months after Activision left the game behind to focus on Black Ops Cold War and Warzone.

Europa Universalis 4, Paradox Interactive's dizzyingly rich grand strategy game, will be getting its 17th major expansion, titled Leviathan, on 27th April.

This year's Summer Games Done Quick charity speedrunning event will run from 4th-11th July, organisers have announced, and will once again be an online-only affair.

IO Interactive has launched a new Hitman 3 starter pack, giving curious players the chance to check out bits of the celebrated stealth series for free.

Frictional Games' desert horror Amnesia: Rebirth has just received a free new Adventure Mode, stripping out the game's life-threatening monster encounters, jump scares, and darkness for those keen to experience its story without fear of fainting dead away.

Cyberpunk 2077 maker CD Projekt Red will change how it operates to develop multiple AAA games and expansions in parallel, and only begin promoting its creations much closer to release.

UPDATE 30/3/21 As the Easter-like Ostara event continues in Assassin's Creed Valhalla, publisher Ubisoft has provided more detail on the Godly Reward gift being offered free to all players - and which includes the cosmetic items from Christmas' Yuletide event.

A PlayStation 5 version of Wreckfest will launch on 1st June, publisher THQ Nordic has announced.

Artisan Studios has unveiled Astria Ascending, a new Japanese-style RPG being developed in conjunction with Final Fantasy 7 writer Kazushige Nojima and FF12 composer Hitoshi Sakimoto.

The PC rendition of Game Pass received a boost last week when it was reported that its revised ports of Platinum Games' Nier Automata and Tango Game Works' The Evil Within were actually improved over the Steam equivalents. It was seemingly good news for PC gamers: two critically acclaimed titles received sub-optimal PC versions, and while limiting improved versions to Game Pass only is problematic, at least it's a step in the right direction... or is it? In our tests, we noted some content improvements on The Evil Within - albeit with a huge caveat attached - while the underlying performance issues do not seem to be any different at all on the Game Pass builds. Nier Automata also new features, but performance issues unresolved since launch remain untouched.

Last week, we took an exclusive look at the PlayStation 5 version of Marvel's Avengers for PlayStation 5, but Xbox Series code - difficult to give in advance owing to Smart Delivery complications - was not forthcoming. So how have developers Crystal Dynamics and Nixxes handled the port to both Series X and Series S consoles? The results are in, and we are looking at a game which exemplifies what we have referred to as the 'post resolution era' - where raw pixel counts are only one component in a game's visual make-up and perhaps not the most important.

Back in February, Frogwares teased first gameplay footage of Sherlock Holmes: Chapter One, the latest entry in its well-regarded deduction-based adventure series, and the developer has now returned with a first proper gameplay trailer for those eager to see more.

For a few days last week, the world felt a bit brighter thanks to the work of one boat. After getting caught up in high winds, the Evergreen Marine Corporation's Ever Given wedged itself rather firmly in the Suez Canal, disrupting an estimated 12 per cent of global trade in the process (via The Guardian). Not so funny for the captain or the hundreds of ships waiting in line to get through the canal, perhaps.

UPDATE #2 30/3/21 3pm UK: Activision has now acknowledged the issue faced by Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1+2 players on Xbox Series X/S, and said it is working to solve the crashes.

Marvel Cinematic Universe-inspired outfits coming to Marvel's Avengers will exclusively be sold in the game's marketplace, developer Crystal Dynamics has now confirmed.