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April 16, 2021
12:20
Various Video Game Stories from the Week of April 12, 2021
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It is Friday and so time to go through some of the video games from the week, with this first item coming from publisher Dear Villagers. The Forgotten City is an upcoming title based on a mod that places you in a hidden city from the Roman Empire. There twenty-three people live under the Golden Rule, where if even one person commits a crime, they all die, and by exploring their final moments through a time loop, you must determine who the criminal is to stop them.

This week a new cinematic trailer for the game has been shared, as well as its release window of this Summer. It will be coming to PC and Xbox One, as previously announced, as well as PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 5, and Nintendo Switch.

Source: Dear Villagers (The Forgotten City)

Deep Silver announced this week that Wasteland 3 will be receiving its first narrative expansion, The Battle of Steeltown on June 3 for both PC and consoles. In this DLC, players will take their team of Rangers to visit Steeltown in the southwest of Colorado to determine why its deliveries of trucks, armor, weapons, and robots have been missed up, late, or gone missing. Upon arrival the Rangers find the complex in disarray with workers striking, bandits raiding, and the gates locked.

Alongside the new story content, there will also be new robotic enemies to deal with, new mechanics in combat such as stacking status effects and non-lethal weapons, as well as new weapons, armor, and encounters. The content will be leveled to provide appropriate challenges to players, depending on their progress.

Source: Deep Silver (Wasteland 3)

Having acquired Codemasters late last year, EA has finally announced the first title from this developer that will be published by EA Sports. F1 2021 is to be the next experience in the series of official FIA Formula One World Championship games, and it will feature a new story mode, expanded Career mode with a two-player option, as well as three new circuits, Portimao, Imola, and Jeddah. The new story mode is Braking Point that will follow a driver as they rise through Formula 2 racing for a shot at Formula 1. With it players will get to experience some of the lifestyle on and off the track, and it will re-introduce Devon Butler, who had debuted in F1 2019. With the two-player option in Career mode, a friend can join online to help or to race against you on another team. The mode will also introduce Real-Season Start, so you can begin at any time in the season with real-time driver and constructor standings.

F1 2021 will be coming to PC via Steam, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X/S, and PlayStation 5. Those who pre-order the Standard Edition will receive the Braking Point Content Pack with exclusive in-game items and 5000 PitCoins. The Digital Deluxe edition will include seven iconic F1 drivers for My Team, customization content, 18,000 PitCoins, the Braking Point Content Pack, and three days of early access.

Source: EA (F1 2021)

Koch Media and 1C Entertainment have shared a new trailer for King's Bounty II titled "Unite Them or Fall." In this the focus is on that which torments the world of Nostria, including the conspiracy plaguing its lands. With counties calling for independence, bandits prowling, sabotage, necromancy, and rumors of the Blight's power being spread in the dark, Prince Adrian must find a way to unite the lands to survive. His father, King Claudius, was poisoned, leaving this duty on his shoulders, but it is said there is a savior already present within the kingdom that can restore peace.

King's Bounty II will bring its turn-based, tactical RPG gameplay to PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Nintendo Switch on August 24.

Source: Press Release (Koch Media [King's Bounty II])

In case that is not quite what you are looking for, Koch Media also shared a new trailer for Siege Survival: Gloria Victis, an upcoming survival management, strategy game coming from Black Eye Games. In this trailer we see the events that have shaped the game's story as well as a get a view of some of the gameplay. Behind a city's walls, survivors are clinging to life as best they can while trying to supply and support the troops keeping the enemy back until a relief force arrives. Your civilians avoid the fighting, but at times they will need to exit the relative safety of the besieged city to scavenge what supplies they can find beyond its walls.

Source: Press Release (Koch Media [Siege Survival: Gloria Victis])

Modus Games has revealed the launch date for the much anticipated Cris Tales as July 20, alongside a new trailer. In this JRPG, players will manipulate time as the past, present, and future of the various in-game locations are shown at once. Even combat can be spread across the eras, making for some interesting combo opportunities, which Crisbell and her group must take advantage of to save the kingdoms of Crystallis.

Cris Tales will be coming to Steam, Epic Games Store, GOG, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch, and Google Stadia for $39.99. A limited Collector's Edition is up for pre-order, containing an art book, pins, Matias plush, character stickers, and more.

Source: Modus Games (Cris Tales)

Comanche is a THQ Nordic title currently in Early Access on Steam and it has just received its Update 7, Conflicts that adds single-player missions. These three missions are Operation: Itzal, Operation: Purple Nemi, and Operation: Terhen and they are separate from the story campaign. Each features specific requirements to receive their medals, and you must earn every medal from a mission before the next one unlocks. A link to the complete changelog can be found at the source link.

Source: THQ Nordic (Comanche)
April 09, 2021
11:15
Various Video Game Stories from the Week of April 5, 2021
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Another week and another collection of video game news stories to run through, with an interesting piece of hardware news at the end. First up are a couple pieces from Dear Villagers, starting with The Dungeon of Naheulbeuk: The Amulet of Chaos as an upcoming DLC has been announced for the tactical RPG. Titled the Ruins of Limis, players will get to bring the part of heroes back together starting May 25 to fight new enemies and uncover the secret of a haunted tavern. Vampires, zombies, necromancers, and chickens will challenge the heroes and call for news ways of fighting.

While the DLC will be available to purchase on PC and Mac come May 25, it will be bundled with the Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Nintendo Switch versions when they release during the Summer.

Source: Dear Villagers [2] (The Dungeon of Naheulbeuk: The Amulet of Chaos)

Also being published by Dear Villagers is Edge of Eternity, a JPRG that has been in Steam Early Access for two years, but will finally reach full release status on June 8. As part of that release a massive update will arrive with 20 hours of new gameplay content, bringing the story to an end. Celebrating this announcement, the game is 33% off until April 13. If you would rather enter this broken world and fight a war against a mysterious invader on console, the Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X/S, and PlayStation 5 versions are to arrive in Q4 of this year.

Source: Dear Villagers [2] (Edge of Eternity)

Streets of Rage 4, from Dotemu, Lizardcube, and Guard Crush Games, will be receiving paid DLC named Mr. X Nightmare. When it arrives later this year, it will add three new playable characters and a new Survival game mode. Among the three new characters is Estel Aguirre, who had previously appeared as a boss fight-style enemy, but will turn her powerful slugs and spin kicks to help the game's heroes. The DLC's Survival mode will challenge players to prove themselves with tests of skills, but we can expect more details on its design in the future. Character customization is coming as well, allowing you to develop your own fighting style with new moves. There will also be extra weapons and enemies to make sure the fights remain interesting.

Though the DLC content will need to be purchased, there will also be a free update adding to the game. The New Mania+ difficulty will challenge the strongest players while an in-depth training system will help perfect strategies and combos.

Source: Dotemu (Streets of Rage 4)

The first gameplay video for Hot Wheels Unleashed has been shared, revealing some of what we can expect come September 30. It also shows off the first six vehicles of the over 60 that will be available in the game at launch. These six are the Rodger Dodger, Twin Mill, Rip Rod, Night Shifter, Dragon Blaster, and Sharkruiser. Just as important, the gameplay is in the Garage environment, so you can get an idea of some of the special track pieces to expect in the future. Also shared was a livestream with Executive Producer Michele Caletti and Lead Game Designer Federico Cardini, providing a deep dive into the game's unique features and content. The video of that livestream can be viewed here: Hot Wheels Unleashed Gameplay Showcase.

Hot Wheels Unleashed will be coming to Steam, Epic Games Store, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 5, and Nintendo Switch, when it launches.

Source: Press Release (Koch Media)

Square Enix has announced NEO: The World Ends with You is releasing on July 27 for PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch with a PC version arriving for the Epic Games Store in the Summer. This action RPG is the follow up to The World Ends with You as you explore Tokyo as Rindo, the game's protagonist, trying to uncover the secrets behind the Reapers' Game that he has been forced to take part in. Accompanying this announcement is a trailer introducing the new characters as well as its fashionable equipment system and stylish battle system.

Source: Square Enix (Neo: The World Ends with You)

Ubisoft has shared a roadmap for two upcoming Title Updates for Ghost Recon Breakpoint that should be releasing this year. The first will be update 4.0.0, the Teammate Experience Update. In a previous update AI teammates were added and the focus for 4.0.0 is to iterate upon them with such additions as a new XP progression for your AI squad as well as new passive skills and abilities. With a dedicated quest log, you should be more able to experiment with the AI squad features while also getting some new rewards. This update is expected by the end of Spring.

Title Update 4.1.0 has its release targeting Fall and should be one of the biggest operations thus far. Unfortunately no additional information has been given than that, so we will have some months to wait before learning more. Both Title Updates will be free to all players.

Source: Ubisoft (Ghost Recon Breakpoint)

Lastly a patent application from AMD was discovered recently and it is quite interesting as it pertains to possible chiplet-based GPUs. For years now AMD has been applying a chiplet design for its Zen-based CPUs for multiple reasons, including the ability to mass-produce smaller dies. Smaller dies are easier and less expensive to produce, partly because they are less susceptible to defects, so if they can be successfully connected together to produce comparable performance to a large, monolithic chip, the price can be appreciably lower. For the current CPUs, to the best of my understanding, the connection between them is passive, meaning it is just wires in the substrate between the different chiplets. What the new patent describes is an active interconnect or bridge between the chiplets, meaning there is some circuitry there, specifically a unified last-level cache or LLC. Technically it would be an L3 cache, which is not traditionally present in GPU design but AMD's RDNA2-based RX 6000 series does employ it under the name Infinity Cache. Though it was introduced as a way to increase effective memory bandwidth without a larger and more power hungry memory bus, many speculated its ultimate purpose is for future chiplet designs.

What this LLC bridge shared by the chiplets enables is communication between them and a way to synchronize work across them. While the work a GPU does is highly parallel, it is not a trivial task to break it up across multiple components, but having shared memory access across the components will aid in that. Also impost is this cache would have a single address registry, so a developer does not need to be concerned about writing for a chiplet design. Additionally the patent describes that the first chiplet in the array would be the one coupled with the CPU, again to hide the fact it is not a single GPU but multiple.

What is not known with this patent, which was filed on September 27, 2019 but only published April 1, 2021, is where this technology may appear first. After many years relying on a single all-purpose architecture with GCN, AMD now has CDNA for compute and RDNA for graphics. As many predict the future of advanced processors is chiplets, as a means to address the problems with growing die sizes, cost and defect rates, a graphics card comprised of GPU chiplets is certainly going to arrive eventually, but we do not know when.

Source: Free Patents Online (Active Bridge Chiplet with Integrated Cache)
April 02, 2021
11:04
Various Video Game Stories from the Week of March 29, 2021
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With the week coming to its end, that means it is time to go through the various video game news items, starting with an update to GOG's Spring Sale as some new deals have been added to it, and a new game giveaway. For the next 48 hours you can claim a copy of Steel Rats and at the top of the list of new deals is Horizon Zero Dawn Complete Edition that is 40% off until April 8. Multiple Bethesda titles are also on sale now, including Fallout: New Vegas Ultimate Edition at 50% off, the Definitive Edition of Dishonored at 60%, and Prey at 60% off as well. These Bethesda deals will continue until April 16 though the main sale ends on Monday, April 5, so be sure to check out the offerings before time is up.

Source: GOG [1] (Steel Rats Giveaway), [2] (Horizon Zero Dawn), and [3] (Bethesda Deals).

Now for a couple items from 2K, both concerning Borderlands 3. This first reveal for the game concerns its upcoming Director's Cut DLC as it will add a new in-game resource; diamond keys. These serve as a possible reward from the Vault Card Chest you can unlock by playing with a Vault Card active. Once you have a diamond key, you can use it in the Diamond Armory, a new room beneath the bridge of Sanctuary III's upper deck, on the Diamond Chest. Surrounding the chest are three walls; one marked for shields, one for weapons, and one for grenades. Activating the chest opens these three walls and grants access to the trove of loot behind them, but you can only take one from each. Naturally you will want to scan through the loot to decide which you want most, but you need to hurry as a timer will close the shutters before long. If you had not made you decision yet though, then one piece of loot, randomly selected from each wall will be dropped for you. Additionally the chest itself will drop another piece of gear, guaranteed to be Legendary, so for each key you will get four pieces of loot. The Director's Cut DLC that this content is exclusive to will be releasing on April 8.

The other announcement for Borderlands 3 is the return of the "Show Me the Eridium" mini-event, running until April 8, at which time we will also see two new machines arrive in the base game, Crazy Earl's Reroll and Maurice's Black Market Vending Machine. With the former, you can spend Eridium to change the Anointment on a specified item. Anointments are powerful effects that can be used to enhance the efficacy of character builds, so getting the right ones on your gear can be quite important. The latter machine offers only Legendary loot, but will also be moved to a new location each week. Fortunately with the "Show Me the Eridium" mini-event going on from now until April 8, you can build up your Eridium reserves before these machines arrive to drain your virtual wallet.

Source: 2K [1] (Borderlands 3 Diamond Keys) and [2] (Borderlands 3 Show Me the Eridium)

Now for some news from Devolver Digital as it revealed Death's Door, a new game coming from Acid Nerve, the studio behind Titan Souls. This action-adventure title is set in a world where crows are responsible for collecting the souls of the dead. Though usually monotonous, the job has just gotten more interesting as the soul you were assigned has been stolen and taken to a realm without death. This has allowed creatures to grow old and very powerful.

Death's Door is to arrive this Summer on PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.

Source: Press Release (Devolver Digital)

Dice Legacy, from developer DESTINYbit and Kock Media's Ravenscourt publishing unit, has been announced as a dice-based city builder, survival game. The goal for this original concept is to take the best aspects of these genres and create a distinct feeling to the experience. Each action is based on the roll of traditional six-sided dice, including planting and harvesting all the way to combat and forming supply chains. This makes sense as the dice actually represent the work force, and so you will need to care for them as a ruler, builder, conqueror, and trader so as to not see them disappear.

Despite having a core team of only seven developers working on the project, it is expected to launch on PC and Nintendo Switch this Summer.

Source: Press Release (Koch Media)

The 23^rd major update for Dead Cells has arrived from Motion Twin and Evil Empire, and it has been titled 'Whack-a-Mole.' Among the content arriving with this update are new and very large weapons: the Oven Axe; the Toothpick; and Tombstone. The Tombstone is in fact a massive tombstone to kill your enemies with, and it will allow you to leave your mark on their grave. The new mutations include Execution that will instantly kill enemies when they are below 15% health, though the effect is halved for bosses. The Barbed Tips mutation will cause enemies to take damage every second, as the arrows remain stuck in them. Lastly the Point Blank mutation increases the damage of close-range attacks by a certain percentage. You can check out the full patch notes by the source link below, and it might be worth doing so as the developers are experimenting with a new difficulty curve, to give them a new way of increasing the challenge from one BC to the next.

Source: Motion Twin (Dead Cells Patch Notes)

Rounding this week off with some non-video game news are a couple hardware-concerned items, starting with the announcement from Acer of availability for the Predator Triton 300 SE gaming notebook. It features an RTX 3060 GPU and Intel Core i7-11375H Special Edition 4-core CPU within a 0.70 in., 3.75 lbs. chassis. The GPU, which can be overclocked, will drive a 14 in. 1920x1080 display running at 144 Hz and the battery can last up to 10 hours, to help you get your use out of it, whether that is at school or in a business environment. The Predator Triton 300 SE also has 16 GB of RAM and a 512 GB NVMe SSD, with an Intel Killer Wi-Fi 6 AX1650 wireless connection and Thunderbolt 4 support. It will be available exclusively from Best Buy and is priced at $1399.99.

Source: Press Release (Acer) and Best Buy (Predator Triton 300 SE Product Page)

Lastly we have some news from EK Water Blocks that is celebrating Easter in a couple ways. First, any sale through the EK Shop that surpasses $300 will get you a free EK-CryoFuel dye pack that appears to contain Red, Yellow, and Blue dye bottles. If you are not looking to spend that much money but are interested in a new cooler, there is also the Easter Giveaway going until April 8. All three prizes include an EK AIO cooler, with first prize have an EK AIO 280 D-RGB along with an RGB gaming mouse and RGB gaming mouse pad. The second and third prizes both feature an EK AIO Basic 240 and black mouse pad. You can enter via the source link below and winners will be randomly selected and announced on April 9.

Source: EK Water Blocks
March 26, 2021
11:44
Various Video Game Stories from the Week of March 22, 2021
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Another busy week, and another collection of video game news stories to cover, including a pair of time sensitive items starting with GOG launching its Spring Sale. Until April 5 you can find of 3000 items on sale in GOG's DRM-free catalog, including some new additions to the library. Headlining these additions is Mad Max from 2015, which is also on sale at 75% off, with Raji: An Ancient Epic and Travellers Rest being the other two. These last two are on sale at 50% off and 20% off respectively. You can also check on the GOG homepage to spot 48 flash hour deals.

Source: GOG (Spring Sale)

The other bit of time sensitive news comes from Ubisoft as Watch Dogs: Legion is enjoying a free weekend on Ubisoft Connect and Epic Games Store on PC, as well as Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X/S, and PlayStation 5 via PS4 backwards compatibility. Until March 29 you can freely try the game's single player and online modes, at least to a certain point. For the single player eight of London's boroughs are free to explore and the campaign goes up to the Skye Larsen mission. Both the co-op and PvP options are open in the online mode, but Tactical Ops will require the full version of the game. Each of these platforms also have the game on sale though, and progress will carry over if you choose to buy it. On PC the Standard, Gold, and Ultimate Editions are 50% off while the Season Pass is 25% off. This sale goes until March 29 on Epic Games Store while it continues until April 9 for the Ubisoft Store.

Source: Ubisoft (Watch Dogs: Legion)

Crytek has some news to share this week as Hunt: Showdown reaches its third anniversary this month. To celebrate a new live event has been launched, titled "As the Crow Flies" and it runs until April 12, allowing players collect some legendary items. Everyone who logs in during the event will receive one Iron reliquary and Dark Miasma, which is a new legendary chain pistol.

"As the Crow Flies" consists of two acts, with the first having players search for event-themed clues, smashing bird skeletons, hunting down crows, and ultimately earning Event Points to unlock Scrapbeak, the new boss. With act two the Event Points you earn will go towards personal progression and once you hit the daily cap you will receive the points as Hunter XP the remainder of the day.

Source: Crytek (Hunt: Showdown)

The Serious Sam series is 20 years old now and Croteam decided to mark the occasion with a couple updates. Serious Sam 4 received its 1.08 update that includes new playable characters, tweaks, and fixes, but more importantly official modding tools in the Serious Editor 2021. Additionally, the game now has full Steam Workshop support to make trying and sharing mods as easy as possible.

Serious Sam 2, despite the years since it has last been touched, has also received an update adding a dozen multi-player maps and a lot of gameplay improvements. Sprinting is now possible so you can get to the enemies even faster to show off the new capacity to dual-wield, and plenty more changes have also been made.

Source: Devolver Digital/Croteam

Also from Devolver Digital, Sub Rosa from developer CrypticSea has entered Steam Early Access and had a trailer release this week. This experimental online shooter was actually launched in 2017 but only accessible through a direct link, to keep the playerbase small and manageable during early development. In the game players will get to engage in tense deals and double-crosses with the occasional high-speed car chase, all to earn the cash to buy new gear, cars, and suits for your corporation. You can play in the persistent World Mode, workweek Round Mode, and the deception-filed Eliminator Mode. It will be in Early Access for an indefinite period, so potential players are encouraged to look at gameplay and doing some research before purchasing.

Source: Press Release (Devolver Digital)

Modus Games has released a new character trailer for Cris Tales, the upcoming JRPG where you will be exploring and fighting across three timelines. The trailer is too short to introduce everyone you can encounter but does feature Crisbell, the game's main character, Marias, the talking frog, Willhelm, the child mage, Christopher, a combat mage, Zas, a young nomad, and JKR-721, an android protector. The voice actors as well as other roles you may know them from are all listed in the source link, as well as many other voice actors that have brought their talent to the game. Cris Tales will be launching in July for PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch, and Google Stadia. If you cannot wait that long or are simply curious, you can find a demo for it on Steam, GOG, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Nintendo Switch.

Source: Modus Games (Cris Tales)

Rebellion has shared a new trailer for Evil Genius 2: World Domination showing off the game's four geniuses. Each has their own personalities and campaigns to achieve their ultimate desire and conquering the globe, and now you can easily see their differences. Whether you want brute strength, scientific prowess, deception, or something a bit more rounded, there is a genius you can choose when the game launches on March 30.

Source: Press Release (Rebellion)

There are a few pieces of news from THQ Nordic, beginning with the publisher incorporating Ashborne Games, an Czech Studio in Brno, Czech Republic, that will be working on a new IP. Though the studio is new, it has veteran developers including some that worked on the Mafia and ArmA franchise, Silent Hill: Downpour, Vigor and the UFO trilogy. The new IP will be working on a new strategy/RPG title while also supporting Comanche as it continues in its early access phase. It has some open positions yet and works with Unreal Engine 4, for anyone interested.

Source: THQ Nordic [1] (Ashborne Games)

Biomutant has received a new combat trailer with its launch two months away, on May 25, showing off more of its gameplay. Digital pre-orders are also open now for the PC, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4 with a suggested price of $59.99. Pre-ordering will get you the Mercenary, which gives you dual-wielding as a starting ability while also being geared up with a katana and shorter wakizashi blade, to complete the classic samurai look. Only digital pre-orders and physical Super SKUs of the game will include this, with the Super SKUs always containing it, regardless of it being a pre-order or not. The Mercenary DLC will be offered after release, for those who miss the pre-order period but still want it.

Source: THQ Nordic [2] (Biomutant)

Lastly from THQ Nordic, the publisher has announced a new football manager game coming from Winning Streak Games. Named We Are Football, the game will allow you to take on the role of head coach and manager for your team, so you can organize daily training, choose the tactics to defeat your opponents, select the players you want, negotiate the advertising contracts, and even build the stadium for your growing number of fans. As long a list as that is, the developers are promising to keep this full control simple so you will not need to spend complete evenings to understand it all. Ultimately an entire season could be finished in less time than it takes a real professional game to end; two hours. The release date for PC is June 10.

Source: THQ Nordic [3] (Football Manager)
March 19, 2021
12:11
Various Video Game Stories from the Week of March 15, 2021
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This has been a fairly busy week and there is plenty to cover, even keeping to just video games news. Starting things off are some time-sensitive items as we have a sale and a couple free weekends to cover. The sale is over at GOG as its Weekend Sale features titles from publisher Deep Silver, including Metro Exodus and its DLC, Wasteland 3, Gods Will Fall, and the Saints Row franchise, with the much praised Saints Row: The Third priced at just $2.99 for the Full Package. In addition to the sale, Deadlight: Director's Cut is free to anyone who buys a Deep Silver title during this sale, or already owns a Deep Silver title. There are many good games at good prices, so it might be worth the time to check out.

Source: GOG (Deep Silver Weekend Sale)

The first of the free weekends over on Steam is for Offworld Trading Company from publisher Stardock. It is a rather fun economic strategy game that challenges the player to achieve market dominance, rather than military dominance as in traditional RTS titles. The game's multiplayer has been free to play for a bit now, but for the weekend you can try out the single player experience.

The free weekend is to celebrate the release of the game's new Interdimensional DLC that combines the challenges found on Io, Europa, and Ceres as the new maps feature a mix of terrains. Europa's frozen surface can be next to the volcanically active Io, making some decisions critical for survival. The new DLC is priced at $4.99 and the free weekend for the base game goes until March 22.

Source: Stardock (Offworld Trading Company) and Steam Store Page (Offworld Trading Company)

The second free weekend is for Rainbow Six Siege but it runs until March 24. It celebrates the first season of the game's Year 6, titled Crimson Heist that brings with it various innovations including the new operator Flores, the Border map rework, Gonne-6 secondary weapon, and the Match Replay beta. This free weekend is available on Steam (store page link below and free period ends on March 23), Ubisoft Connect (look under Discover in the client), Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X/S, and PlayStation 5. (PlayStation 5 players will have the PlayStation 4 version, and so without any visual enhancements.)

Source: Ubisoft (Rainbow Six Siege) and Steam Store Page

In other Ubisoft news, Assassin's Creed Valhalla will be receiving its first expansion, Wrath of the Druids, on April 29. In this expansion players will get to travel to Ireland to uncover the mysteries of an ancient druidic cult by tracking down and discovering its members. Players will fight through haunted forests and dazzling landscapes to get through the Gaelic myths and folklores to gain influence with Gaelic kings.

Additionally, the game's Season 2, Ostara Season has begun, bringing exclusive narrative content and in-game events to all players. The Ostara Festival with its new challenges and rewards is time limited, with the in-game event ending on April 8. You can find the festivities near Ravensthorpe and they include a settlement decoration activity, three new character quests including an egg hunt, three new skills, and, naturally, drinking, archery, and fighting mini-games.

Source: Ubisoft (Assassin's Creed Valhalla)

Publisher dear Villagers had some news to share this week as Ashwalkers will be releasing on Steam on April 15. In this game, players will lead four adventurers through a world that suffered a geological disaster 200 years ago. The goal for the adventurers, the Squad, is to find a safe haven for their people, so morality in this wasteland comes down to what you are comfortable with. From the many decisions you will face, you will come to one of 34 different endings for the game.

Source: Press Release (Dear Villagers [1])

Also being published by Dear Villagers is Revita a twin-stick roguelite that released onto Steam Early Access earlier this month. The news is the release of a behind-the-scenes video featuring BenStar, the game's sole creator, and gives players a view of the game's history as well as future plans as development continues.

Source: Press Release (Dear Villagers [2])

Next we have some news from Devolver Digital as Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout will begin its Season 4 on March 22. For this season, players are taken to the year 4041 and the neon-drenched Blunderdome of the future. There will be seven new rounds to compete in against astronauts, alien invaders, and Beans in Black.

Source: Press Release (Devolver Digital)

Monster Energy Supercross – The Official Videogame 4 will be starting its first Track Editor Contest on April 14 and ending on June 14. A jury of industry personalities will nominate the 25 best tracks that a technical commission will then examine to determine the ultimate winner. Why would a technical commission need to be involved? The winning track will be recreated in real life and included in the 2022 Official Championship, making this the first time an in-game creation will be brought to life in a competitive sport. The contest will be available on PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X/S, and PlayStation 5.

Source: Press Release (Koch Media)

Maximum Games has announced the Curved Space will be releasing on June 18 for PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 5, and Nintendo Switch. In this rapid-fire, twin-stick shooter you will take on massive battles in the Campaign Mode, be given the opportunity to demonstrate your skill on leaderboards, and see just how long you and your ship can survive in Endless Mode. Like the arcade classics that inspired it, players can hunt for power-ups and upgrades on the map while dodging enemy fire and destroying interdimensional bugs. The launch date was revealed through the trailer below that showcases the available modes.

Source: Press Release (Maximum Games)

Rebellion has shared a cinematic trailer for the upcoming Evil Genius 2: World Domination. It showcases not only CGI animation but also new gameplay footage, and you can see text along the bottom for much of it that it was captured from actual gameplay. Watch and see how it is not all about taking over the world, but also stopping enemy agents with cutting edge traps as well as collecting priceless artifacts for your collection. The developer has also announced the game will be receiving a Photo Mode at launch, allowing you to capture agents, both in and outside of holding cells.

Post-launch plans have been shared for the game as well, and it includes free and paid content. We can expect a new campaign pack in the future, along with a new Genius to play as, new island lair, and Force of Justice. From the other packs we will get new henchmen, minion types, room types, traps, items, and more with details to arrive shortly after launch. Evil Genius 2 releases on March 30 and will be priced at $39.99 for the Standard Edition while the Deluxe Edition, which includes the Season Pass One, will be priced at $59.99.

Source: Rebellion

Square Enix shared a number of things at its Square Enix Presents Spring 2021 event, and conveniently has a single item summing it all up. Life is Strange: True Colors will be the next entry in the series, following the new protagonist Alex Chen. Her supernatural ability is the psychic power of Empathy, allowing her to experience, absorb, and even manipulate the power of others. She had spent years suppressing this ability, seeing it as a curse, but after the death of her brother, she finally embraces it. Set in Haven Springs, Alex will apply her powers to discover the secrets the town hides.

That was not the only news for the award-winning series as Life is Strange Remastered Collection is arriving in September. It will be part of the Life is Strange: True Colors Ultimate Edition initially and then made available standalone later in the year. It will feature both Life is Strange and Life is Strange: Before the Storm with enhanced visuals and animation.

Marvel's Avengers has received Operation: Hawkeye – Future Imperfect content, adding Clint Barton's Hawkeye to the game's roster along with his quiver of arrows, including such favorites as the boomerang arrow. The Operation will also introduce Maestro as a new villain for the Avengers to face, a new biome to explore, the ability to replay campaign missions, and to customize HARM rooms. The War for Wakanda is also coming, with a reveal trailer for that and the Black Panther.

A new trailer has been shared for Outriders ahead of its April 1 release date. There is still plenty to see in the game, even if you have played through the demo.

This year is the 25^th Anniversary of Tomb Raider, and among the many ways it is being celebrated will be the release of Tomb Raider: Definitive Survivor Trilogy. It will contain Tomb Raider (2013), Rise of the Tomb Raider, and Shadow of the Tomb Raider along with all of their DLC, allowing new players to experience the games that bring Lara from a green adventurer to the Tomb Raider.

Balan Wonderworld is releasing on March 26 and a new trailer has been released to show off the platformer, especially how costumes and abilities will allow Leo and Emma, the game's protagonists, to overcome the challenges before them.

Source: Square Enix [1] (Presenting Spring 2021)

Another announcement from the event was Forspoken, a new adventure coming from Luminous Productions. In this game you will enter the land of Athia as Frey and need to learn magical abilities to survive. The name of the world may sound familiar as the game had been introduced last year under the working title of Project Athia. It will be a narrative-driven adventure and Luminous Productions will work to apply the latest technologies available to express its creativity. The game is being designed specifically for the PlayStation 5 but will also arrive for the PC in 2022.

Source: Square Enix [2] (Forspoken)
March 12, 2021
11:06
Various Video Game Stories from the Week of March 8, 2021
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It is Friday and so it is also time to go through some video game stories of the week, with the first coming from Dotemu and Tribute Games as the publisher and developer have partnered with Nickelodeon to create Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge. This side-scrolling beat-em-up is inspired by the classic TMNT games and will feature a pixel-art style, reminiscent of their 1987 design. In the game, the turtles will be fighting through several iconic locations to stop the Foot Clan and thwart the latest scheme from Shredder and Krang, including travelling to Dimension X.

We have an announcement trailer for game and know it will be coming to PC and consoles, but I do not see a release date or window yet.

Source: Dotemu (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge

GOG has announced many of the games set in the Witcher universe are now available on NVIDIA's GeForce Now cloud gaming service. If you have a copy of The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Game of the Year Edition, The Witcher Adventure Game, or Thronebreaker: The Witcher Tales on GOG and link that account with your GeForce Now account, you will be able to stream them to even low-powered computers. Both of these titles in the Witcher trilogy were quite visually impressive and stressful on modern hardware when they launched, and while modern hardware might handle them more easily, something like a Chromebook, which GeForce Now supports, will not be enough.

Source: GOG (The Witcher Games on GeForce Now)

HandyGames has announced the release date for Pile Up! Box by Box, a game that had been featured at gamescom 2020, and it is arriving next week. In this 3D platformer you help the boxlings solve various environmental puzzles alone or in local co-op with up to four players. Players can freely enter and leave with the dynamic challenge rescaling and remote play is possible thanks to Steam. If you would rather challenge your friends, there are minigames you can play to see who is the best with boxes.

Pile Up! Box by Box is releasing on March 18 for PC priced at $14.99, while the Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Nintendo Switch versions arriving in Summer.

Source: HandyGames (Pile Up! Box by Box)

Last year saw the release of Lost Words: Beyond the Page on Google Stadia, but come April 6 it will be arriving on PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Nintendo Switch. The game tells the story of Izzy as she comes to terms with the loss of a close loved one by entering a surreal story. This story evolves in unpredictable ways but by interacting with the words in her diary, you will be able to solve the different puzzles and overcome the platforming segments to progress.

Source: Press Release (Modus Games)

Lastly for the video game news, THQ Nordic has announced the incorporation of Alkimia Interactive, the publisher's newest studio. We already know the first game this studio will work on, in part because the studio was formed for the Gothic Remake. During Summer 2020 operations started at the studio and the team started to be brought together, but there it is hardly complete. There are several position still open for and the studio is taking international applications. Though the Gothic Remake is its first project, the studio's ultimate purpose is to create high quality RPGs and action adventure games. We can expect to see the results of the studio's work in the new couple months, according to THQ Nordic.

Source: THQ Nordic (Alkimia Interactive Forming) and Alkimia Interactive (Studio Website)

Finishing off this piece is EK's 10K Challenge for PC builders and modders. By partnering with builds.gg the custom-liquid-cooling company is running a contest for the builds.gg community to vote on the best builds on the Internet. The top three builds to participate will receive a total of $10,000 across them, with first place getting $5000, second place $3000, and third place receiving the final $2000. Voters can also win some prizes from EK and other sponsors including Noblechairs, Crucial, Thermal Grizzly, and CableMod. The voting starts on March 15 and goes until March 29.

Source: EK Water Blocks
March 11, 2021
10:06
Liquid Devil AMD Radeon RX 6800XT and RX 6900XT Graphics Cards Launched by PowerColor
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No matter the component, efficient cooling is critical to getting the best performance out of our computers. This is why massive air coolers for CPUs and thick fin stacks on GPUs exist, but also why liquid cooling is an option for those willing to invest a bit more into their system. With the coolant carrying the heat from the part to a large radiator or multiple, temperatures can be kept low. Today PowerColor has launched its Liquid Devil versions of the AMD Radeon 6800XT and RX 6900XT graphics cards, the two most powerful GPUs from AMD presently.

As the name suggests, the Liquid Devil is designed with liquid cooling in mind as the cards come with a GPU block, designed in partnership with EK Water Blocks, already installed. The block features a copper base that has been nickel plated to prevent corrosion and to give it a quality finish. Another advantage to liquid cooling a GPU is it can be thinner than some air-cooled designs, such as the Red Devil versions PowerColor produces. While the Liquid Devil cards will take two slots, not counting fittings and tubes, the coolers on the Red Devils occupy three PCIe slots. The Liquid Devils are also only 266 mm long and 162 mm tall, while the Red Devil versions are 320 mm long and 135 mm tall.

Beneath the water blocks, PowerColor has also improved the power delivery for the GPU, opting for a 14+2 design using the best DrMOS phases paired with high polymer capacitors. This should allow for greater performance and power stability than the reference design and also means the Liquid Devil cards can pull over 400 W. To achieve that, the cards have three 8-pin connections, which can provide 450 W, according to their specification, and the PCIe slot on the motherboard can provide another 75 W, if you are concerned about power limitations when overclocking. The cards do feature a BIOS switch to go between a base OC mode that offers more balanced power use and an Unleash mode to enable the highest clocks. Also the blocks do cover more than just the GPU die itself, but also the memory, PWM, and more to keep everything cool and performing as best as possible.

According to the specifications, the Liquid Devil RX 6800XT has a boost clock of 2360 MHz and a game clock of 2110 MHz, so that is what you can expect while playing a game. The RX 6900XT version has marginally better clocks, with a boost of 2365 MHz and game clock of 2135 MHz, but also features a fully enabled GPU die. The RX 6900XT has a full 80 Compute Units while the RX 6800XT has only 72 CU enabled. For reference, the clock speeds of the reference design have both the RX 6900XT and RX 6800XT boosting to 2250 MHz and the game clock at 2015 MHz, so even without manual overclocking, these Liquid Devil versions offer better performance. Of course you will need a powerful system behind them as the minimum recommended power supply is 900 W, which is the same recommendation for the Red Devil versions.

Included with the Liquid Devil cards is the Devil Dye pack that contains three colors you can add to clear or white EK-CryoFuel coolants to get the color you want. These Liquid Devil graphics cards are to be available the week of March 15. I do not see a price listed for either Liquid Devil card, but even without the current supply situation, these would certainly call for a greater price than the reference MSRP and most AIB models as well.

Source: PowerColor
March 05, 2021
12:44
Various Video Game Stories from the Week of March 1, 2021
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Another week so another collection of video game news stories to go through, starting with some from publisher Dear Villagers. Revita, a roguelite from solo-developer BenStar, has entered Steam Early Access, and is enjoying a 10% sale until March 9, pricing it at $13.49, instead of the normal $14.99 price. In Revita you attempt to climb an ominous clock tower and its procedurally generated rooms, with the ultimate goal of reclaiming your lost memories. To help or hurt you along the way, you can sacrifice some of your health to purchase randomized upgrades, so hopefully the benefit will be worth the loss. For this release there are three different biomes to explore and conquer as well as over 150 relics that players can use to build their combos.

Source: Dear Villagers (Revita) and Steam Store Page

Next we have the announcement from this week that Epic Games has acquired Tonic Games Group, which owns Mediatonic, the studio behind Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout. Epic is promising the gameplay will not be changed and it will continue to be available on Steam and PlayStation, with Xbox and Nintendo Switch versions to come soon. As the Mediatonic post shares, there are several features currently in Fortnite and Rocket League, which are both also owned by Epic Games, it hopes to bring to Fall Guys such as account systems, cross-play, and squad vs. squad modes. After Epic Games acquired Rocket League it made the transition to being a free-to-play title, so for those wondering if that may happen, Mediatonic only says, "Nothing to announce right now!"

Source: Epic Games and Mediatonic

Rebellion's Evil Genius 2: World Domination is releasing on March 30 and this week the company revealed the voice cast for the game, which includes Samantha Bond. You may recognize that name as she played Moneypenny in the Brosnan era of James Bond films. Now she is the voice of Emma, a spymaster-turned-supervillain seeking revenge against her former intelligence agency. Brian Blessed has previously been revealed as the voice behind Red Ivan, a might-focused supervillain while Emma applies cunning with her seething contempt for humanity. Deception is the focus for her skills and abilities, allowing her to help players craft their schemes from the shadows. You can see some Emma gameplay in the newly released trailer below.

The remaining to evil geniuses are the gold-obsessed egomaniac Max, voiced by Glen McCready and the billionaire scientist Zalika, voiced by Rakie Ayola.

Source: Rebellion (Evil Genius 2: World Domination)

From Ubisoft we have the announcement that For Honor's Year 5 Season 1, Asunder, is arriving on March 11. It will bring with it a time-limited event called the Horkos Masquerade with a 4v4 game mode named the Carousel of Horkos. Naturally players can also expect various updates to arrive with the season, and for new armor variations and weapons to drop during the season, along with a Battle Pass.

Source: Ubisoft (For Honor)

For those enjoying The Division 2, the publisher has shared it is continuing to work on the game's next major update, but because of how significant this work is, previous seasons will be re-run for the game. The next season, which would be Season 5, is actually going to be a repeat of Season 1, allowing everyone a chance to get the rewards and collectibles you may have missed out on before. The major content update that is coming is to have a game mode new to the franchise and the developers are looking into new ways to progress agents through an emphasis on build variety and viability.

Source: Ubisoft (The Division 2)

Lastly we have some non-game news as EK Water Blocks has released a new version of its EK-Loop Connect software: 1.3.11. Among the changelog is the ability to change which temperature source controls the PWM output, two additional points for the custom PWM curve profile, PWM settings being preserved across software updates, RGB number value and HEX value input, and used values for RGB colors and effects are saved when the app updates or restarts.

In addition to the new hardware there are also new accessories coming to market, such as the EK-Loop Connect Flow Meter. This compact device features two G1/4" ports for easy addition to a loop and the software allows you to calibrate its readout. It can also detect if your pump stops working and report the failure, to prevent overheating. The Level Sensor TBE 60 allows the software to monitor how much coolant is in the reservoir and report when it needs to be topped off, and if there has been a leak. Last for the accessories is a special USB cable that allows the controller unit to be connected to a traditional USB port on the same system, or another. There might be situations where controlling the pump, fan, and RGB settings by a separate machine is desirable, and this will make it possible.

Source: EK Water Blocks
March 03, 2021
11:13
AMD Announces Radeon RX 6700XT, Arriving March 18 with SEP of $479
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As has been expected for a while now, AMD has finally announced its next RDNA2-based GPU, with a more mainstream target than the previously launched RX 6800, RX 6800XT, and RX 6900XT. While those GPUs are all based on an 80 Compute Unit design, the newly announced RX 6700XT uses 40 CUs. When the image of the die was shown, it looked a lot like it was the larger die cut in half, but not everything has been cut down like that. The larger GPUs have 128 MB of Infinity Cache while this smaller die features 96 MB, so three-fourths the amount. For those who may not remember, the Infinity Cache is akin to the L3 cache on CPUs, increasing effective bandwidth thanks to its higher speed and proximity to the processor, as compared to RAM. Besides increasing speed, it also allows for greater energy efficiency.

With 40 CUs, the RX 6700XT is targeting 1440p resolutions in modern games, like the RX 5700XT did with its 40 CUs a few years ago when it launched. With the RDNA2 architecture though, the frequency has increased significantly as the RX 6700XT will have a Game Clock, the expected clock speed while gaming, of 2424 MHz while the RX 5700XT was at 1755 MHz. Also RDNA2 has an RT accelerator with each CU, so the new graphics card will have 40 of these.

Paired with the GPU will be 12 GB of GDDR6 VRAM, connected using a 192-bit interface. This is partly where the Infinity Cache helps to save power as that interface takes less energy while the cache keeps effective bandwidth up. According to AMD, many games today demand more than the 8 GB of many graphics cards for 1440p at maximum settings, and even 10 GB is not always enough.

For power consumption, AMD stated the board power will be 230 W, just 5 W above the RX 5700XT despite the much higher clock speed. To provide that power, the reference design will feature an 8+6 pin connection to its 11 power phases. The reference design will have two axial fans with a Zero RPM mode to cool the fin stacks connected to three heat pipes that draw heat away from the CPU through a phase-change TIM. For connectivity, the GPU supports DisplayPort 1.4 and HDMI 2.1 for the highest resolution and refresh rate combinations available today.

For comparisons, AMD first showed a graph with GTX 1070 Ti and RTX 2080 Super performance on it for five games, including Assassin's Creed Valhalla, Cyberpunk 2077, and DiRT 5, all running at 1440p with "max settings" and the "best API." In each game the RX 6700XT demonstrated a reasonable to impressive lead over these older GPUs some may be upgrading from. A little later is when AMD compared performance with the newer RTX 3060 Ti and RTX 3070, two NVIDIA GPUs one would likely consider against the RX 6700XT. Three more games were added to the list and it was also only in three games the RX 6700XT did not lead, though not the three games added. Cyberpunk 2077, Gears 5, and Watch Dogs Legion saw the RX 6700XT behind the RTX 3070, though only in Watch Dogs Legion was it behind the RTX 3060 Ti as well. The leads were, one way or another, were rarely that large, with the only exceptions being three games: Assassin's Creed Valhalla; DiRT 5; and Watch Dogs Legion.

As I put in the title, The RX 6700XT is to launch on March 18 with the reference model having an SEP of $479. Of course availability of other GPUs at suggested pricing has been a problem for months now, but that is still the official number, making it $100 less than the RX 6800 and $80 more than the RX 5700XT at their launch prices. The AIB partner cards are also to be available on that day.

While the new hardware was certainly AMD's focus, it did have other announcements to share, including Smart Access Memory coming to Ryzen 3000 series CPUs, when paired with RX 6000 series graphics cards. Smart Access Memory is based on the PCIe re-sizable BAR feature, allowing a CPU the ability to directly access more of a GPU's VRAM for improved performance. Exactly how much performance is improved varies between games.

AMD also shared that both Radeon Anti-Lag and Radeon Boost will be receiving some updates soon, with Anti-Lag gaining support for DX12 titles. Previously it was only supported with DX9 and DX11 titles. Radeon Boost launched as a feature available in some games that will reduce the rendering resolution during movement, to increase performance, but will gain motion adaptive variable rate shading in the future for supported DX12 games. Variable rate shading, or VRS, allows the shading rate, the amount of computational work done to determine the color of a pixel or group of pixels, to be altered based on certain criteria. The most basic example would be to reduce the shading rate for objects in the distance, where the loss in detail is not so noticeable. With motion adaptive VRS shading rate will be reduced based on camera movement, improving performance at those times. I wonder if this might done to the entire scene, or more selectively, such as leaving foreground objects unaffected. AMD only supports VRS on the RX 6000 series GPUs, so while many of its GPUs do support Radeon Boost, Radeon Boost VRS will be limited to the latest generation.

Resident Evil Village was shown off as well as it will feature both ray tracing support and FidelityFX technologies. Unfortunately the one FidelityFX technology many have been looking forward to was not shared today. FidelityFX Super Resolution is expected to be AMD's response to NVIDIA's DLSS technology that allows a game to be rendered at a lower resolution but then intelligently upscaled using a trained neural network. Though not perfect, the result is comparable visual quality to native-resolution rendering but with appreciably to significantly better performance. As AMD's FidelityFX initiative includes making the technologies open source and freely usable by developers and lacking special hardware requirements, it will be interesting to see how these competitors' solutions may compare, but it seems that will have to wait a bit longer.

Source: AMD and Anandtech
February 26, 2021
12:33
Various Video Game Stories from the Week of February 22, 2021
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As another week closes, we have a collection of video game news to go through, starting with some from Devolver Digital. First the publisher and developer Ronimo Games have launched Blightbound's Final Charge update, which brings it to version 0.7. With this update comes new challenges, items, and a new hero to rescue, Commander Clegg. He has the legendary leader of the mercenary band, The Fifth, which had fought with the great army to defeat the Titan Kriusz in the past. Now he is able to summon phalanxes to fight on the battlefield alongside him and his allies against the Blight. Among the items is the Vortex Blade that can draw enemies in to deal increased damage. You may need this to survive the Blightrifts, unique and dangerous challenges that test your skills and puzzle-solving capabilities.

Source: Press Release (Devolver Digital)

Also from Devolver came the announcement of Boomerang X, a game coming to PC and Nintendo Switch from developer DANG! of New York. In this, players will wield a boomerang to throw yourself through the air, slow time, and cut through enemies with its razer-sharp edges. It is to release this Spring, but you can find the demo for it on Steam already.

Source: Press Release (Devolver Digital) and Steam (Boomerang X Store Page)

Turning to Koch Media now with the announcement of Hot Wheels Unleashed, coming later this year thanks to a partnership with Mattel. Milestone, a subsidiary of Koch Media, is the developer and has a long history of crafting racing games. In this game, players will get to drift, boost, jump, and of course crash on the iconic orange tracks while in single player game modes as well as multiplayer races when challenging your friends. You will have your choice of Hot Wheels vehicles and they will have different attributes and rarity levels, but players will be free to customize them with different skins. The tracks will be placed in everyday environments and there will be the Track Editor so you can create your own within the game environments, and then share them with the community.

Hot Wheels Unleashed is arriving on September 30 for PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 5, and Nintendo Switch.

Source: Press Release (Koch Media)

Slocap is the studio behind Absolver and has revealed its next title, Sifu. This too is an artful, true-to-combat Kung Fu game and it will be exploring revenge and redemption when it arrives this Fall on PC, PlayStation 4, and PlayStation 5.

In the game you will follow a young Kung Fu student that has been training their entire life for when they can get revenge on the assassination squad that murdered their family. You will need to hunt them down one by one by exploring deep into the gang-ridden suburbs, hidden corner of the city, and hallways of corporate towers. Positioning and adaption will be key to survival. If you fail and die, a magic pendant will revive you, but at the cost of aging significantly making time the price for revenge.

Source: Press Release (Slocap)

Square Enix has released the demo for the much anticipated OUTRIDERS, which will allow players to enter the opening chapter of the campaign and try each of the four classes. That chapter will take about three hours to complete, so if you decide to try each class, which might be a good idea to find which you prefer, that is about ten hours (less some time as you learn the ropes). You will not need to go alone in the demo as it supports three-player teams for taking on the missions, and these teams can be across platforms. The demo is available on PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X/S, and PlayStation 5 with full cross-play supported. In addition to the campaign chapter, you will also be free to explore the game's first hub, Rift Town, and to completely any side quests you find by talking to NPCs.

OUTRIDERS is releasing on April 1 and progress from the demo will carry over if you choose to purchase the full game.

Source: Square Enix

Ubisoft is up now with its announcement of Hyper Scape Season 3: Shadow Rising arriving on March 11. With this new season will come a revamped Neo Arcadia 2.0 map as well as Firewall, a new deployable hack to create a barrier for blocking incoming fire, but allow outgoing to your enemies. With the new map design, there are new landmarks and more identifiable zones amongst the more diversified terrain, so veterans will face some challenge to keep pace with the new comers.

Season 3 is bringing with it the new 2D Hub Flow to optimize the main menu so it is faster and provides a more interactive experience. This includes being able to view your full squad in their selected outfits and the ability to access the Locker and Shop in matchmaking. The game will also have three always-on game modes in Crown Rush Squad and Crown Rush Solo, which are both for 60 players though the former is ranked and the latter unranked. The third mode is Team Deathmatch 6v6, which is also unranked.

For the story of this season, despite the claims of everything being under control, the structures that had been floating above Neo Arcadia after the Blackout have formed a temple hovering above it. Basilisk is the first to enter it and finds Tower, who claims he has lost pieces of himself and gives Basilisk the quest of recovering them. To help him, Basilisk recruits Huo Shu, a rogue hacker so they can recover one of the fragments from Prisma HQ, but at the same time Prisma is preparing to deploy its own forces, including Bai Hu, its new enforcer, to destroy the anomalies however they can. Each week during the season players can find Memory Shards to explore the season's story and lore.

Source: Ubisoft (Hyper Scape)

Also from Ubisoft this week is news for Rainbow Six Siege as the first details on the first season of Year 6: Crimson Heist have been revealed. This season will introduce Flores, an Argentinian Operator, as well as a reworked Border map, additional features, and new Elite skins. Flores arrives with the Ratero Charge or RCE, an original gadget he can drive through the map for a limited time, because once the timer is up it will arm its explosive, become bulletproof, and initiate a short timer. For arms, Flores can wield the AR33 or SR-25 as a primary weapon and a GSH-18 as a secondary.

For the Border map, its interior balcony now connects the East staircase to the Break room and the bathroom has been extended to connect to the Tellers. Presenting new challenges to players will be some blocked entries, fewer destructible walls, and a new outside staircase. There will also be the Gonne-6 secondary gadget coming with the new season, that has a single shot, but it can pierce bulletproof gadgets.

Ubisoft has also shared the Future of Siege, including information on a system that was running in the background during the past season. It was the first version of the Reputation System for the game and it was invisible to the players, but has the goal of encouraging positive behavior and punishing toxicity. Players who make a positive impact on the game will be rewarded with in-game content, while toxic behavior will result in limited access to ranked playlist, for example. When the tool launches in Year 6 it will be made transparent to players, so you can learn how to increase your score and such.

Also coming is a special streamer mode to protect their anonymity. It can be used to hide their name, region, ping, as well as everyone else in the match, the matchmaking delay, their clearance level, and profile image. The first version of this will be available on the Crimson Heist Test Server

Another changing coming during Year 6 will be the ability for players to control cameras and gadgets after death, so they can continue to help their teammates during the support phase. Also Attackers will be able to change their Operators and loadouts as much as they wish during the preparation phase, to make scouting more important and to open up new tactical possibilities. The last gameplay update listed is that Armor ratings will be translated to Health totals, to make it clearer how much damage an operator can take.

Source: Ubisoft [2] (Rainbow Six Siege Year 6 Content) and [3] (Future of Siege)

There is some non-video game news this week as well, including Kingston selling its HyperX division to HP. HyperX is well-known and recognized for its various gaming peripherals such as headsets, keyboards, mice, and microphones. It appears it will now join HP's OMEN brand for its gaming portfolio so the company can work to innovate how gamers see, hear, and touch. Under the agreement, HP will pay $425 million to Kingston to acquire the gaming peripherals portfolio and it is expected to close in Q2, assuming it passes regulatory review and customary closing conditions. Kingston will keep the DRAM, flash, and SSD products it has that target gamers and enthusiasts.

Source: HyperX

Finally, VideoCardz has shared that after examining the latest drivers what GPUs NVIDIA's recently announced CMP hardware will be utilizing. These are the Cryptocurrency Mining Processors the company announced last week that it hopes will help relieve pressure on the supply of its GeForce branded gaming products. It had seemed odd how the efficiencies of the CMP devices were not matching up against the latest Ampere-based products, but it appears the reason is simply that they use a Turing-based design. At least the first two models, the CMP 30HX and 40HX are using versions of the TU116 and TU106 dies respectively. A version of the TU116 previously powered the GTX 1650, GTX 1650 Super, and GTX 1660 Ti and Super, while versions of the TU106 were found inside the RTX 2060, RTX 2060 Super, and original RTX 2070.

Source: VideoCardz
February 20, 2021
17:36
Blizzard Makes Several Announcements at BlizzCon 2021 Including Diablo II: Resurrected
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Depending on how long you have been into PC games, you may have some favorite members from classic Blizzard titles, and at this year's BlizzCon, the remaster of one of these classic was announced. Diablo II: Resurrected is coming and it is to release this year for PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 5, and Nintendo Switch, bringing remastered graphics to the classic gameplay and the story's five acts. If you would rather have the classic visuals though, there will be the legacy toggle button to return to the original graphics. A number of gameplay features have also received some attention, such as the redesigned UI to give you more character stat information and expanded personal stash along with a shared stash tab, so item management is easier and mules are not necessary. It will also have updated Battle.net support and there is plan to support cross-progression too, so you can continue your game across supported platforms, if they are linked to your Battle.net account.

Older fans of World of Warcraft also got the announcement that Burning Crusade Classic is coming to the WoW Classic servers. Players will be able to enter Outland once more by crossing through the Dark Portal. This will also be the introduction of the blood elves and draeni to the Classic servers, along with flying mounts. Spell batching, a relic of old technology was restored for WoW Classic but because it can cause latency issues and abilities to not cast as players expect, it will be removed for Burning Crusade Classic. You can learn more about the returning expansion from the Burning Crusade Classic Deep Dive source link below, but you also may not have long to wait as the goal is to have it launch in 2021. There will be beta tests before long though, as Blizzard wants to make sure they get it right by incorporating feedback.

Another announcement is the coming of the Blizzard Arcade Collection that celebrates the company's 30^th anniversary. It brings together three console classics to make them playable on current consoles and PC. The Lost Vikings, Rock N Roll Racing, and Blackthorne are coming to PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Nintendo Switch, and both the Xbox Series X/S and PlayStation 5 can play them thanks to backwards compatibility. Some new features and content have been added though, such as saving and rewind, as well as digital manuals, classic artwork, and interviews with developers. The collection will also contain Definitive Editions for each game that feature upgrades like enhanced local multiplayer, new songs and artist performances for Rock N Roll Racing, a new level map for Blackthorne, and 12 new language localizations. The Blizzard Arcade Collection can be purchased separately but is also part of each level of the Celebration Collection available in the Blizzard store.

For new content, World of Warcraft will be receiving the Chains of Domination update for the Shadowlands expansion. In this players will enter into the Jailer's domain, intent on understanding the nature of his plans. The power of the four Covenants will help you, but there is also a new champion of the Banished One to overcome as you explore the Maw and Korthia, the City of Secrets. The Jailer has pulled the city into the Maw to learn more about the First Ones so he can bring about his vision for the afterlifes.

Chains of Domination will feature a 10-boss raid in Torghast, the Sanctum of Domination, where you will be able to face off with the Eye of the Jailer, Tarragrue, Kel'Thuzad, and fight the Banshee Queen. There is also the Veiled Market of Tazavesh, the new mega-dungeon with eight bosses that is a Mythic-only instance and can reward players with gear the broker society covets. Chains of Domination marks the start of Shadowlands Season 2.

Source: Blizzard [1] (Diablo II: Resurrected), [2] (Diablo II Site), [3] (Burning Crusade Classic), [4] (Burning Crusade Classic Deep Dive), [5] (Blizzard Arcade Collection)
February 19, 2021
13:54
Cooler Master Releasing New Fans and Tempered Glass, ARGB GPU Support Bracket
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Good airflow is necessary for getting the most out of your computer, which is why there are already so many fans out there to choose from, and Cooler Master has added to the list with its MasterFan SF120M ARGB and MasterFan MF120 Prismatic. Both of these feature ARGB lighting to get the colors and effects you want for your build, but if that is not enough the company has also announced the MasterAccessory ARGB GPU Support Bracket with tempered glass and edge-lighting.

With how large graphics cards have become, some are heavy enough for their components to separate over time and even pull down on the motherboard's PCIe slot. As both sag and bending can impair performance if not damage the hardware involved, support brackets are employed to help hold the weight. This bracket works by being placed beneath the GPU, with its base featuring a magnet to hold it in place and an adjustable arm to support the graphics card. The bracket comes with two versions of the arm that had different orientations so you can place the bracket at the end of the card, or along its side, next to the case side panel. The arms can be placed at a height between 41 mm and 171 mm, to accommodate multiple case designs. The tempered glass is transparent except along opaque sections meant to disperse the light. With the lighting off entirely, the glass can all but vanish, if that is your preferred aesthetic.

Coming to the new fans, the SF120M ARGB features Cooler Master anti-vibration motor and damping frame structure, which is combined with a dual ball-bearing design to enable silent operation. With the use of industrial grade materials, the fan will also be efficient, durable, and stable as the ball-bearing design means its lifespan will not be dependent on mounting orientation. There are 18 addressable RGB LEDs in the fan, with six in the inner ring and the remaining 12 in the outer frame. Providing a contrast to the appearance of the spinning fans, the Cooler Master logo on the center hub remains static. These fans will be available for purchase in March, starting at an MSRP of $34.99.

If your preference is for a different kind of look for case fans, there is also the MasterFan MF120 Prismatic with its tri-loop ARGB lighting. The light rings on both sides of the fan feature a crystalized appearance to disperse the light in and outside of your case. There are 24 LEDs uniformly placed around the loops and another six on the fan hub. To keep dust out and lubricant in, a two-tier sealing design is used around the motor to make sure the lifespan is as long as possible. It too will be available in March, but with an MSRP of $29.99. Both this and the SF120M ARGB fan are compatible with Asus Aura, ASRock RGB, and MSI RGB motherboards.

Source: Press Release
12:12
Various Video Game Stories from the Week of February 15, 2021
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Once again the week has reached its end, so it is time to go through some of the video game news from the week. One exception will be the Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition announcement as that got its own item.

First up we have some news from 2K as Tales from the Borderlands has returned for sale on Steam, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and is now available on the Epic Games Store for the first time. It will be coming to Nintendo Switch on March 24. Originally five episodes launched between November 2014 and October 2015, this re-release combines them all into a single package, allowing you to experience events between Borderlands 2 and Borderlands 3. Though this choice-driven narrative adventure game is certainly going to be a different experience from the main FPS games of the franchise, it is still cannon, for those of you that want the complete experience.

Source: 2K (Tales from the Borderlands)

Dear Villagers have announced the Early Access release date for Revita, which was only announced a couple weeks ago. On March 3, players will have their first opportunity to try ascending the clock tower by overcoming its procedurally generated rooms and challenging bosses. Potentially helping you on your quest is the ability to trade health for random upgrades. Obviously that may work out as a significant gamble in this roguelite, developed by a lover of roguelites, BenStar or Benjamin Kiefer.

In the Early Access version, Revita will have three biomes to explore and over 200 relics to use for creating your ultimate combos. A station hub the player can also customize will allow you to rest at times, and you will be able to find strange residents as well as vanity hats, because what is an adventure without a hat.

Source: Dear Villagers (Revita)

Minit Fun racer has been released by publisher Devolver Digital and developers Kitty Calis, Jan Willem Nijman, Jukio Kallio, and Dominik Johann, the same team behind Minit, but this has a couple twists to it. One, as the name implies, this is a racing game but the time limit of the original game is still present, making it important to go quickly and purchase the upgrades to help you go farther. The other is all proceeds from the game's sale will go to charity, and this will be the case the life of the game. The base price of the game is $2.99 but there are also options to purchase it for $9.99 and $19.99, if you wish to give more. Presently the charity being supported is Doctors Without Borders, but the team intends to rotate in other charities over time.

Source: Press Release (Devolver Digital)

EA has acquired Codemasters, the studio behind many racing simulation games including F1 2020, DiRT Rally 2.0, DiRT 5, and GRID, naturally including their respective franchises. EA purchased each ordinary share of Codemasters for approximately $8.37 each, bringing the total value to roughly $1.2 billion. EA is hardly without its own racing games, as it has the Need for Speed franchise, but Codemasters has a very strong portfolio of titles and series, and from this combination the studio will gain access to EA's resources, including the company's larger player network.

Source: EA (Codemasters Acquisition)

Koch Media with Milestone and Dorna Sports has announced MotoGP 21, the next entry in this franchise, and it will be arriving on PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 5, and Nintendo Switch on April 22. This title will feature a new progressive and strategic Career Mode as well as an advanced neural AI to make the offline competition more lifelike and some "real-life" gameplay improvements to provide a sense of simulation and immersion. With the Career Mode you will be able to engage in team management with both on and off track decisions. You will want to build the best bikes and team if you want to win and the Team Manage, Technical Director, Personal Manager, Chief Engineer, and Data Analyst will all be essential to that. Some other changes include a sequence for retrieving your bike if you fall off, rather than just being respawned on the track. Brake temperature will be a new concern for players, as the brakes' effectiveness depends on if they are too hot or too cold. The suspension for the bikes has also been revised, again to give a greater sense of realism to the experience.

MotoGP 21 will be priced at $49.99 for the PC and consoles except the Nintendo Switch, which will have an MSRP of $39.99.

Source: Press Release (Koch Media)

Rebellion has revealed Evil Genius 2: World Domination will feature a Sandbox Mode, and it will be available at launch for all players. With this mode you will be free to build your lair as you wish, without concern for rules or common sense, which seems quite appropriate for an evil genius. Actually I am now wondering why you would not be allowed to fill a floor with pinball bumpers to perpetually trap enemy agents as they bounce around under normal conditions.

Also this week the pre-purchases for the game are live with a 10% discount, though owners of Evil Genius will receive a special 15% discount. Every pre-purchase comes with the Fountain of Youth and Trojan Horse bonus items. If you are truly an evil genius that cannot be satisfied with only that, two special editions have also been revealed: the Deluxe Edition; and Collector's Edition. The Deluxe Edition includes the two items that come with all pre-purchases as well as the Aurora Borealis in-game item and Season Pass One. Season One consists of a campaign pack, two henchmen packs, two minion packs, and a lair item pack as they release post-launch. The Collector's Edition adds on top of that with a limited edition Maximilian vinyl figure and a print version of the Evil Genius official magazine, containing background on the new game, developer interview, genius profiles, and information on the new features. The Deluxe Edition has the same discounts applied to it as the base game for pre-purchase and while the Collector's Edition must be purchased from the Rebellion store, it too can be gotten for up to 15% off.

Evil genius 2: World Domination releases on March 30. The base game, before discounts, is priced at $39.99, the Deluxe Edition at $59.99, and the Collector's Edition at $84.99.

Source: Rebellion [1] (Evil Genius 2: World Domination)

Rebellion has also released Zombie Army 4: Dead War to Steam, and until February 25 it is 10% off, except for the Super Deluxe Edition at 15% off. In this game you can work through the campaign alone or with up to three friends through drop-in, drop-out co-op. With cross-play, your friends can be on Steam or the Epic Games Store. As you play you will rank up through the one hundred levels, unlocking skills, special attacks, weapon upgrades, and more that will help survive against the hordes.

The games two season passes are also available on Steam, so you can immediately get the two additional story campaigns as well as new character packs, weapon bundles, outfit bundles, weapon skins, and headgear bundles and charms. The Deluxe Edition adds another character pack, weapon bundle, weapon skin pack, and character outfit bundle while the Super Deluxe Edition adds Season Pass One on top of that.

Source: Rebellion [2] (Zombie Army 4)

Ubisoft has a couple announcements this week, including the release of a new update for Assassin's Creed Valhalla that adds River Raids to the game. Through this new replayable game mode, you can engage in higher-stakes raids separate from your game progression. If you fail to revive a member of your crew during one of these raids though, you will lose them temporarily. To help you being back your spoils, you get a new longship that is exclusively for use with this game mode, but can be customized. That includes upgrading its hold so you can come bring back more.

Alongside this, your Jomsvikings now have ranks with higher ranks indicating they have a better chance of surviving a raid. At the same time your Jomsviking Hall has three upgrade levels to it in Season 1, with higher levels attracting higher ranked Jomsvikings. You are introduced to all of this by the new NPC, Vagn and his crew of raiders.

If the River Raids are not enough for you, the update adds new rewards and abilities as well. For gear there is the Saint George Armor set and Great Sword as well as new cosmetics. There are three new abilities to be found in monasteries and two new buildings for your Settlement. All of this is part of the game's Season 1.

Assassin's Creed Valhalla's Season 2 begins in March and will start with a festival in the Settlement and will add a new game mode to expand on the core combat experience. The first expansion for the game, Wrath of the druids, is to launch in Spring 2021.

Source: Ubisoft [1] (Assassin's Creed Valhalla)

Lastly, Ubisoft is celebrating the fourth anniversary of For Honor with its announcement of Year 5 and Shovel Knight content. Year 5 has been dubbed Year of the Covenants and will continue the narrative arc that started in Year 4 on March 11, when it launches. On the content roadmap we can expected four themed seasons with new customization items, a pair of heroes that will be released with Season 2 and Season 4, and new events to enjoy for each season.

With the Shovel Knight crossover, players can get the Shovel Drop emote as well as three outfits, each with ornaments, mood effects, symbols, and more. The emote is priced at 10,000 Steel and the outfits at 15,000 to 20,000 each until March 4.

Source: Ubisoft [1] (For Honor)
February 18, 2021
13:36
NVIDIA Announces Crypto-Targeting CMP Processors and Driver-Side Limitation for RTX 3060
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Due to a combination of reasons, new graphics cards have been difficult to come by, at least at prices near the MSRP. Among the causes is an increase in cryptocurrency mining, as miners will purchase as many GPUs from the limited supply as they can to increasing production. To address this, NVIDIA has announced two things; the Cryptocurrency Mining Processor (CMP) and a driver-side limitation for the upcoming RTX 3060. According to NVIDIA, the RTX 3060 driver will be able to recognize when the GPU is being used to mine Ethereum, and will react by limiting the hash rate by about half. The hope is to make the GPU too inefficient at mining to be worth the investment, freeing up supply for consumers that want them for gaming and other traditional purposes.

Though the specific algorithms and approaches used varies between cryptocurrencies, the basic idea is that transactions using the currency are recorded and encrypted. Mining a cryptocurrency refers to using a device, whether that is a CPU, GPU, or ASIC, to do the encryption of the transaction log, and the user is rewarded with some of the currency. The faster a device can do the encryption, and the less power it uses, the more desirable it is to miners, so attacking this efficiency with a driver-side limiter may make the RTX 3060 undesirable to miners.

As Ethereum miners are also customers, NVIDIA has announced CMP products, which are targeted at miners. These cards lack graphics outputs, which frees up space and allows for better airflow out of the case. They also fall below the specifications for GeForce GPUs, so they should not impact the supply of graphics cards. The peak core voltage and frequency is lower as well, which may benefit miners by improving efficiency.

Exactly how the drivers will limit the RTX 3060 hash rate is not clear at the moment, but some are already speculating on how long it will take before someone discovers a workaround. This limit will not come to already released GPUs though, as there would be little point to it since there are already drivers available without it. Anandtech has confirmed the Linux drivers will also be receiving this limitation, which would be necessary for this plan to work as the belief is many dedicated miners use Linux rather than Windows.

Anandtech's article also includes a table that is fairly interesting in regards to the NVIDIA CMP announcement. According to NVIDIA, there will be four CMP products, the 30HX, 40HX, 50HX, and 90HX with the names approximately matching the hash rate, though in each case from rounding up. The 30HX and 40HX are expected to be available from authorized partners in Q1 while the 50HX and 90HX are expected in Q2. The 30HX has a power rating of 125 W while the 90HX will pull up to 320 W in its reference design. That table I mentioned earlier shares the hash rates for several GeForce GPUs, along with their power draw and efficiency from Minerstat, which shows only the RTX 2080 Ti being less efficient than the 90HX. While the 90HX has an efficiency of 0.27 MH/s/W (mega-hash per second per watt), the RTX 2080 Ti is at 0.20 MH/s/W. The next lowest GPU is the RTX 3090 at 0.42 MH/s/W, so to make the 90HX better, it will have to priced significantly below the RTX 3090, and the RTX 3080, RTX 3070, and RTX 3060 Ti are all also more efficient.

It will be interesting to see if this approach to addressing mining demand will have a significant impact, coming from a GPU manufacturer, as opposed to an AIB partner as some have tried to produce and sell mining-targeted products before. Obviously the hope is providing miners with something better suited to their purpose will relieve the pressure on the consumer market, but the devil could be in the details, such as the pricing of the CMP cards. NVIDIA should have greater freedom with pricing these products, as it will not directly impact consumer prices, unless the price is too high and drives miners back to the gaming products. Something NVIDIA is undoubtedly going to be thankful for is that the CMP, once no longer wanted, will not be able to flood and disrupt the used market for GPUs.

The RTX 3060 releases next week, on February 25, and while it will be the first opportunity to see the impact of these announcements, availability could still be limited, as we have been seeing for months for other graphics cards.

Source: NVIDIA [1] (Announcement), [2] (CMP Features and Specifications), and Anandtech
February 17, 2021
11:06
NZXT H1 Case Being Formally Recalled Due to Fire Hazard
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If you have purchased the NZXT H1 computer case you should cease using it and contact NZXT to receive a repair kit, according to the Consumer Product Safety Commission of the United States. This comes following analysis from Gamers Nexus, with the outlet's latest video on the subject embedded below, through which a significant fire hazard was discovered. You can request a repair kit from NZXT at this address, which is given again in the source links: NZXT H1 Safety Notice

Gamers Nexus has several videos on the subject, all of which are linked to below, as they show a faulty design to the H1 PCIe riser capable enables a short circuit from the PCIe slot's 12 V connection to ground, which can then ignite a fire due to the design of the riser's PCB. Printed circuit boards consist of multiple layers that copper traces are placed on to connect the pins and/or pads of the components on the board. One way to think of it is as though instead of having loose wires running between the components, they are laid out inside the PCB like city streets. If the connection is meant to carry a signal, then the wires or traces between components will be direct and avoid crossing with any other trace, as that risks a short circuit. Some connections do not carry a signal though, such as a connection to ground or to power, so large planes are present across the PCB allowing the designer to easily connect any component to them without special traces for that purpose.

What Gamers Nexus discovered is the H1 riser cable has a 12 V plane that is apparently quite poorly designed as it reaches to at least one of the riser's screw holes. For most PCBs I am familiar with, including those for the custom mechanical keyboard builds I have done, the screw holes have cladding to them, which at minimum will serve to protect the PCB from the threading of the screw. This cladding can also be connected to the ground plane, if present, to ensure no charge will build up on the screw. For the NZXT H1 riser, however, there is no cladding on the screw holes, so installing and removing the screw as normal will almost certainly dig out some of the PCB's material. That is not enough to cause a short circuit and fire though, but the fact the 12 V plane for the riser reaches out to near the screw hole does. In one of its videos, Gamers Nexus shows exposed copper in the screw hole and by probing the appropriate PCIe pins are able to confirm this is a 12 V connection.

Even though the holes on the riser are not clad and connected to ground, the computer case itself is grounded to the power supply, as would be the design of all computer cases. The screws then, by securing the riser to the case through the motherboard tray, will complete a connection from that 12 V plane to ground, causing a short circuit and allowing enough current to flow to heat up and ignite. Though this is not guaranteed to happen, as a metal screw's thread must be in contact with the thin 12 plane, over time the possibility of it happening will increase through normal use, and that is why H1 owners are urged to stop using the case immediately and request a repair kit from NZXT.

Previously NZXT replaced the metal screws for the riser with plastic screws and nuts. Obviously plastic screws will not conduct electricity, and so avoid a short circuit, and these screws are apparently a bit smaller than the hole, thus requiring the nuts to secure them in place, but the risk remained with this approach. All it would take would be for an owner to decide to replace the plastic screws with a metal one, such as if the plastic screw fails, and a short circuit and fire would be possible.

The company is working on a new PCIe riser that will lack this design flaw and be sent out to current H1 owners. Consumers can also expect updates to be provided over the next few weeks concerning the issue, but remember, in the meantime you should stop using the NZXT H1 case if you own one.

Gamers Nexus video 1: Unsafe Computer Catches Fire: NZXT H1 Case & BLD Serious Problems

Gamers Nexus video 2: NZXT is Irresponsible & Dangerous: H1 Riser Fire Hazard Should Be Recalled

Gamers Nexus video 3: NZXT Responds to GN's H1 Case Fire Coverage: New PCIe Riser, Formal Recall, & Refunds

Source: Consumer Product Safety Commission (Recall), NZXT (H1 Safety Notice), and Gamers Nexus (videos linked above)
February 15, 2021
13:13
Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition Announced, Arriving in Spring for PC
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When Metro Exodus released two years ago, it was among the first games to feature ray tracing that many enjoyed, but still required powerful hardware to achieve the best experience. Traditional techniques were required then for computers lacking ray tracing acceleration capabilities and consoles, but today there are far more GPUs with dedicated hardware for ray tracing and the new Xbox Series X/S and PlayStation 5 consoles both also have such hardware. The developers and 4A Games have decided to produce the Enhanced Edition of the game with improved effects and optimizations for better performance and visuals. Best of all, for those who already own the game on Steam, Epic Games Store, and GOG will receive the Enhanced Edition for free, and those with the console versions can also expect a free upgrade. On Xbox, Smart Delivery will be used to deliver this update. Unfortunately, a ray tracing-capable GPU will be the minimum specification, so even when this releases, you might not be able to use it until you upgrade your hardware.

For the Enhanced Edition, the developers have create a new fully ray traced lighting pipeline to enable the optimizations, upgrades, and new features for the ray traced global illumination, RTGI, and emissive lighting technologies. Many consider RTGI the ultimate goal for ray tracing effects as it simulates indirect lighting, where light bouncing off of not perfectly reflective surfaces illuminate the area and objects around it. Also being upgraded is the temporal reconstruction technology that was necessary to enable the desired visuals. Global illumination is quite difficult to achieve with the number of rays it requires, so to overcome the limited performance of even the most powerful RT acceleration solutions, temporal reconstruction applied so the rays from multiple frames are used to create the image. Even with that technology, Metro Exodus would still only use half a ray per pixel or one per pixel, depending on the setting, so to improve the final image the developers applied a technique called stochastic sampling. The idea is to sample in different positions and not following a regular pattern. As a method to address aliasing, the result would be noise instead of the jagged edges a regular pattern would produce that is also much easier for the human eye to see. Though 4A Games solution very possibly differs from the anti-aliasing method, you can still learn some more about it from this article: Serious Statistics: The Aliasing Adventure – Stochastic Sampling.

While these ray tracing improvements might be the primary highlight of Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition, there are more changes than that arriving with it. The original release was not just an early example of real-time ray tracing in games but also NVIDIA's RTX DLSS technology that left many unimpressed. Though it has been a couple years now, I can still clearly remember when I experimented with it during my Performance Analysis of the game and how it clearly degraded the visual quality of the game. The basic concept to DLSS is to render the game at a lower resolution and then upscale and enhance the image with a trained neural network powering that enhancement. The promise was that the result would be image quality on par with that of rendering at native resolution, but with the performance improvement of rendering at a sub-native resolution. Many consider the original implementation of DLSS to have failed because of the degraded quality, which I recall as obvious polygon popping, a kind of aliasing artifact that occurs when details fall between two sampling positions, so movement makes the polygon appear to pop in and out of existence. NVIDIA has since developed DLSS 2.0 and while I can spot visual issues with it, it is far closer to achieving the goal of near-native quality with significantly improved performance. The Enhanced Edition will support DLSS 2.0, which may prove very interesting as a means of comparing the two versions of the technology within very similar game content, if not identical.

Though not mentioned in the text of the blog post announcing the Enhanced Edition, it may also support Variable Rate Shading. Within the post is a list of different features that are coming to compare that being offered by the console and PC versions with VRS mentioned under DX12 Ultimate Support. Shading rate refers to the calculations done to determine the final color, or shading of a pixel, and reducing it will reduce the detail and quality of the image. However, these calculations can also be quite intense, so that quality reduction comes with a performance improvement. What VRS enables is for different areas of the scene to have different shading rates, such as reducing it for objects in the distance, where detail and quality are less necessary. You can see the impact it can have in the Serious Sam 4 Performance Analysis I did last year. Though I did notice some quality issues under certain configurations, I was confident then that patches could correct them, but I have not confirmed if a patch has done so in the months since. In any case, I was using a Founder's Edition RTX 2060 driving a 1920x1080 display and found with VRS this GPU was capable of running the game at SSAA 4x and kept above 60 FPS quite well. Except for having other anti-aliasing settings disabled, the game was running at its High preset, so there was plenty of room for tweaking if even better performance is desired. You can find the image quality impact of VRS here on the Acceptable Qualities section, near the bottom, and the performance impact in the Variable Rate Shading (RTX 2060) section of that performance analysis.

Other improvements arriving with Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition are a Field of View slider in the game options and 4K textures. We can the PC Enhanced Edition to arrive later this Spring while the console versions are only noted as arriving later this year. It was also shared that the Max version of Metro Exodus should arrive in the Mac App Store, Steam, and the Epic Games Store in March while the Linux version will appear on Steam later this year.

Source: Deep Silver
February 12, 2021

Permalink for 'Various Video Game Stories from the Week of February 8, 2021'

10:04

Various Video Game Stories from the Week of February 8, 2021

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It is Friday, so time for another gathering of the different pieces of video game news from the week, and there certainly has been some interesting and announcements. First though are the more time sensitive items, which would be some of the sales that are going on now. Steam and Humble Bundle are both holding their own Lunar New Year sales, but while Steam's ends on February 15, Humble Bundle's goes until February 18 as well as its Lovers x Fighters sale. Meanwhile GOG's We Love Games Sale is going until February 17 and it also saw some games added to its catalog, such as the Commander Keen Complete Pack, which is 70% off at $1.49. Lastly there is the Epic Games Store Showcase Sale that is going until February 25. There were several announcements as part of Epic Game's Spring Showcase that I will cover later. For now though, there are a host of games on sale across all kinds of genres, so if you are looking to expand your library, now might be a good time.

Source: Epic Games Store, GOG, Humble Bundle [1] (Lunar New Year Sale), [2] (Fighters x Lovers Sale), and Steam (Lunar New Year Sale)

Coming to the other news this week, 2K shared news on the Director's Cut DLC arriving for Borderlands 3 that will be releasing on March 18. Headlining the content it brings with it is Hemovorous the Invincible, a new raid boss that has been hidden behind a locked door since the game launched. There is also a series of murder mystery missions with new locations and a crime scene analysis mechanic. It appears Ava believes she has a lead on some slayings and has documented her findings as a serialized podcast, so you will be serving as the gun-toting co-host. The Director's Cut will also provide you with three Vault Cards that you can level up by having the active while you completely daily and weekly challenges, with enough progress potentially unlocking a cache of themed cosmetics and powerful gear. The first Vault Card will arrive with the DLC while the other two will launch by the end of the year. They do not expire and you can select which you want active when you have multiple.

Borderlands 3 is also holding its Broken Hearts Day seasonal event for the second year now, adding floating hearts around lovesick enemies throughout the game. Breaking these hearts will help Maurice with his studies of human courting rituals. By destroying enough hearts, Maurice will send you various rewards, but when they fall to the ground they may produce an explosion, drop loot, give you health, turn enemies to allies temporarily, or spawn in more enemies to fight. Though rare, some hearts may spawn in ghosts from the Bloody Harvest event, allowing you to get some of the normally seasonal loot.

The Broken Hearts Day seasonal event goes until February 25.

Source: 2K [1] (Borderlands 3 Director's Cut) and [2] (Borderlands 3 Broken Hearts Day Event)

CD Projekt Red shared earlier this week that its systems had suffered a targeted cyber-attack and while some devices were encrypted by the attackers, its backups were not impacted and so the company has been restoring them after securing its infrastructure. The attackers were able to collect data from CDPR, but the systems that were compromised did not include any personal information on players or users of their services. However, according to the ransom note the attackers left they were able to get the complete source code for Cyberpunk 2077, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, Gwent, and apparently an unreleased version of The Witcher 3. Though the threat was made the information would be leaked or sold if CDPR did not pay a ransom, the company stated in its announcement of this event that it will not give in to the demands or engage in negotiations. It appears the source code for Gwent has been released and we will have to see what more is leaked. CDPR has reached out to those who might be impacted by this breach and approached law enforcement and IT forensic specialists to investigate this.

Source: CD Projekt Red Twitter Account

Deep Silver and Clever Beans has shared the DLC roadmap for Gods Will Fall, which is to be released in Q2 and Q3 this year. This content will include a new level and god encounter as well as new gear, skills, and cosmetic items with the first two content drops including a new weapon class, each. The overworld will also receive some new features.

While this DLC content will arrive automatically for those with the Valiant Edition of the game, the game will also receive the Dolmen Depths level as a free update. With this you can enter a new procedurally generated dungeon and fight to recover a long-lost warrior to add to your party. It is expected to release in Q2.

Source: Press Release (Deep Silver)

Now we come to the announcements from the Epic Games Spring Showcase, with the highlight almost certainly being that the Kingdom Hearts series is coming to PC as an Epic Games Store exclusive. Specifically, it is Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5 + 2.5 ReMIX, Kingdom Hearts HD 2.8 Final Chapter Prologue, Kingdom Hearts III + Re Mind DLC, and Kingdom Hearts Melody of Memory that will be arriving on March 30. Though this is just four titles, some consist of multiple games bringing the total to eleven of the series adventures coming to PC, covering the entirety of "the Dark Seeker Saga."

For those unfamiliar with the Kingdom Hearts franchise, it is an action-RPG series featuring some of the most popular characters from Disney and Pixar, as well as the Final Fantasy series. You can find out more from the appropriate source links below, including one for Square Enix, the franchise's developer.

While that might be the most significant of the announcements, it was not the only one as Oddworld: Soulstorm was revealed and it too will be an Epic Games Store exclusive on PC, though also available on the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5. We can expect this action adventure platformer to launch this Spring, allowing players to once again help the reluctant Mudokon hear, Abe, as he leads a fight for freedom. Axiom Verge 2, Binary Smoke, and Chivalry II are other exclusives coming to the Epic Games Store, though only Chivalry II has a release date yet. That date is June 8, though there will be a closed beta from March 26 to 29.

Other announcements include that Magic: Legends, Core, and World of Warships will be arriving later this year. Magic: Legends will have an Open Beta starting on March 23. Core, arriving in Spring, will all you to experience thousands of Unreal Engine games, as well as to create and share your own, including shooters, action-adventure, RPGs, and platformers.

Source: Epic Games [1] (Spring Showcase Recap), [2] (Kingdom Hearts), [3] (Oddworld: Soulstorm), and Square Enix (Kingdom Hearts)

Something else that was also revealed at the Epic Games Spring Showcase was that King's Bounty II, from Koch Media and 1C Entertainment, will be arriving on August 24. This does represent a significant delay from the original March target, but the team feels it is necessary to ensure it is the best experience possible. According to the press release, the content is complete and playable, but they want the additional time for playtesting, fixing, and polishing. It will be coming to PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Nintendo Switch.

Source: Press Release (Koch Media)

Override 2: Super Mech League from Modus Games has released an update that includes, for those with the ULTRAMAN DLC, Bemular. The game's version is based on its appearance in the Netflix anime series and features a move set with powerful ranged attacks capable of threatening enemies throughout the arena. Bemular is the second of the four ULTRAMAN characters coming to the game as mechs, with Black King and Dan Moroboshi to arrive in the coming months.

For those without the DLC, this update includes balancing tweaks and the addition of two-player co-op matchmaking for Leagues and Quick Play modes.

Source: Modus Games (Override 2: Super Mech League)

Rebellion has shared the first gameplay footage for its upcoming Evil Genius 2: World Domination game, showing off ten minutes with commentary from Lead Designer Rich Edwards and Producer Ash Tregay. The video looks at the game's tutorial to show case its base-building mechanics, how to create and develop your criminal networks, and some of the ways to stop enemy agents.

The developers have also shared the minimum and recommended specifications to play the game, which are relatively light.

	Minimum	Recommend
CPU (AMD)		Ryzen 5 1600
CPU (Intel)	Core i3-8100	Core i7-4770K
RAM	8 GB	8 GB
GPU (AMD)	RX 550	RX 5700
GPU (NVIDIA)	GT 1030	GTX 1660 Super
OS	Windows 10	Windows 10

Evil Genius 2: World Domination is coming to Steam on March 30.

Source: Press Release (Rebellion) and Rebellion (System Requirements)

Fans of Red dead Redemption 2, in particular its soundtrack should be pleased to learn Rockstar has releases "The Music of Red Dead Redemption 2: The Housebuilding EP," which does include "The Housebuilding Song" that has become a fan-favorite. The soundtrack is available to stream online but can also be purchased as a limited edition blue sky vinyl at Lakeshore Records and Rockstar Warehouse. The company also has 20 it will be giving away, with ten going to people to enter from the Social Club contest entry page and ten chosen from those who follow Rockstar Games on Twitter and retweet the entry tweet. The entry tweet will be shared later today and only entries received by February 13 will be accepted.

Source: Rockstar (Red Dead Redemption 2 Soundtrack)

Square Enix has shared gameplay footage for NieR Replicant ver.1.22474487139, which is a retelling of NieR Replicant coming to PC, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4. In this video we see the protagonist exploring the desert kingdom of Façade and investigating the Barren Temple. It is over nine minutes long and gives us a glimpse of the young protagonist with companions Kaine, a fierce warrior, and Grimoire Weiss, a magical tome. NieR Replicant ver.1.22474487139 is to release on April 23.

Source: Press Release (Square Enix)

Those looking forward to THQ Nordic's SpellForce 3 Main Game Rework are going to have to wait a bit longer as the developers have announced it will not be releasing early this year. According to the statement, it is a very challenging project and unfortunately it cannot be done faster by adding to the team. The Grimlore Games and THQ Nordic Team feel it is best to be honest about the progress being made rather than raising hopes, and also do not want to share a release date. However, it does say in the statement it is a matter of months, not years to get this work done.

Source: THQ Nordic (SpellForce 3)

Also from THQ Nordic we have a new tournament and car pack for Wreckfest. The new track for the game is the Wrecknado with four loops to lead drivers into a vortex of destruction. This month's tournament is to challenge the player to wreck as many AI cars on the track as possible. Along with that, Car Pack #9, also known as the Reckless Car Pack, has released this week as well, adding the Gorbie, Blade, and Stepvan. It is included as part of season Pass 2 but can be purchased separately for $3.99.

Source: THQ Nordic (Wreckfest)

Ubisoft has announced Anno 1800 Season 3, which will consist of three DLCs, Docklands, Tourist Season, and The High Life. The first of these, Docklands, is releasing later this month, on February 23 and it will allow players to create a modular warehouse district in their city. It will also enable a new way of trading, with players able to export goods to reinforce their economy. Captain Tobias Morris will serve as the link between players and companies across the world, making it possible for your to find interesting exports and become a market leader.

Tourist Season is schedule to launch in Spring and add things such as enriching activities, new dishes from their restaurants, and even tour bus networks. The High Life is to arrive in Summer and will teach players to manage cities full of skyscrapers as well as satisfying citizens with new goods and malls.

Besides the Season 3 Pass being available, Ubisoft has also announced the Gold Edition Year 3 and Complete Edition Year 3 versions of the game. Gold Edition Year 3 contains the main game, Deluxe pack, and Season 3 Pass while the Complete Edition Year 3 includes the game, Deluxe pack, and all three season passes. Alongside each of the three DLC there will also be free game updates, focused on improving the gaming experience.

Source: Ubisoft (Anno 1800)

Stepping a bit away from specifically game, we have some game technology news as the Unreal Engine marketplace now has an NVIDIA DLSS plugin. This plugin is fully integrated into the Unreal Editor UI and includes a Blueprint library for integration into the application logic. It requires version 4.26 of Unreal Engine 4 and that your project uses DirectX 11, DirectX 12, or Vulkan for the graphics API.

With this plugin now available to all UE4 developers, way may see DLSS's use significantly increase in the future. The technology previously required special integration into a game, which is likely a significant reason why there are not too many games applying this trained neural network to upscale images. The idea is that with such advanced upscaling and enhancing, a game can be rendered at a lower resolution, which significantly reduces the work a GPU needs to do, thereby allowing for greater performance.

Source: NVIDIA and Unreal Engine Marketplace

Lastly we have a new feature test arriving for 3DMark that covers a feature that could prove very valuable in future games. Feature tests are not meant for comparing performance like the actual benchmarks, but will provide performance numbers and allow developers and users alike to see the impact of new technologies, such as Variable Rate Shading. This new test focuses on the new mesh shader approach to graphics, which is essentially to replace the traditional graphics pipeline with something more flexible following a compute programming model. The traditional graphics pipeline consists of multiple steps that run in sequence and this can result in a performance bottleneck, especially with in-game objects being built from more complicated meshes, the set of vertices, edges, and faces that define an object's shape. The mesh shaders concept does away with this rigid pipeline by effectively replacing the various distinct shader steps with mesh shaders that are more compute-like. Rather than having dedicated vertex shader, tessellation shader, and geometry shader steps, mesh shaders that replicate these same functions can be applied, or not applied as needed. Two reasons this can prove especially powerful are that mesh shaders can be run on sections of a mesh, meshlets, in parallel for greater performance and culling can be done earlier, to prevent resources from being spent on vertices that will not be visible in the final image.

In this feature test the scene is a hall containing multiple rows of detailed pillars, with those in the foreground blocking or occluding those behind them. As the camera moves, what is occluded changes. The test runs two passes with the first using traditional geometry culling to provide a performance baseline while the second demonstrates the effectiveness of the mesh shader approach for culling the occluded meshlets. There is also an interactive version of the test, to help demonstrate the impact of this application as well as the LOD for each meshlet.

The test uses DirectX 12, and with mesh shaders being among the DirectX 12 Ultimate list of features you will need Windows 10 version 2004 or newer to run the test, as well as a graphics card and drivers that support DX12 Ultimate. (Mesh shaders are not unique to DX12, though this test is only for that API.) The test is available as a free update for Advanced Edition users.

Source: UL Benchmarks (3DMark Mesh Shader Feature Test)

February 05, 2021
12:33
Various Video Game Stories from the Week of February 1, 2021
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Another week so another collection of video game news items to share, including Embracer Group purchasing a number of studios, but first a time sensitive story. Last week Stardock had announced Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation would be receiving its quite massive v3.0 update this week. With this update comes a significant overhaul to the game's balance, update benchmark as well as performance optimizations, and two new maps and while before it was available to try as part of a Steam beta channel, it has been released for everyone. If you do not have a copy of the game though but are interested in the massive armies you can create and launch after your enemies, the game is on sale at 55% off. That brings it down to $13.49 on Steam and from Stardock's store until February 8. I decided to do some fresh recordings in it, as I did not have any from when I reviewed it, so if you want to see those (warning, I am not good at the game) you can find them here: Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation â Let's Play+

Source: Stardock (Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation v3.0)

Dear Villagers has an update on Ashwalkers, the survival RPG that had its release month of April revealed last week, as a playable demo is now available on Steam. It is part of the Steam Game Festival and will only be available until February 9, so if you are curious about what the first 30 minutes or so will be like, be sure to check it out before Tuesday. We should be able to expect quite a bit more from the game than what the first half hour will show as your decisions will lead to one of 34 possible endings.

Source: Dear Villagers (Ashwalkers)

Also from Dear Villagers is the announcement of Revita, a twin-stick roguelike platformer coming later this year. In this game, the player will be climbing an ominous clock tower by completing its procedurally generated rooms and defeating the bosses they encounter, all while trying to reclaim their lost memory. Your health will not just be for keeping you alive but also trading for randomized upgrades, so hopefully the power you gain will be enough to survivor. Revita is being developed by Benjamin Kiefer, aka BenStar, a solo developer with a love of this genre and choose to expresses that love by making games.

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Source: Dear Villagers (Revita)

Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout from Devolver Digital and Mediatonic has received its Season 3, mid-season update this week, bringing with it a new round named Snowball Survival as well as more than 40 round remixes. You can also pick up the Sugar Plum DLC pack with three new costumes for your beans, and the Godzilla, Sonic, and Goose Game costumes have returned as additions to the regular store, if you missed them before.

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Source: Devolver Digital (Fall Guys)

Also being published by Devolver Digital is Loop Hero, which we now have a release date for of March 4. Its announcement came a few weeks ago as it received the Devolver Digital 2021 Game of the Year Award at the start of the year. In this game, the world has been trapped in a timeless loop, trapping its inhabitants in endless chaos. You try to restore balance to the world by building your deck of cards to place enemies, buildings, and terrain along the path of your expedition, while also trying to recover your hero's memories. If you are interested and want more than just the gameplay trailer below, you can check out the Steam demo.

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Source: Press Release (Devolver Digital)

Publisher Dotemu is up now as it has revealed Windjammer 2's Arcade Mode, which will allow you to play solo against a gauntlet of AI opponents and optional challenges. Success will likely demand you adapt your playstyle on the fly, with the reward being credits that can keep you from falling out of a tournament, even when you lose. It should serve as a good starting point for those new to Windjammers, especially as it also has personalized endings for the characters as they rise through the ranks.

In addition to showing off this mode in a new trailer, Steve Miller is also shown to return. He should do well as a balanced choice for players, as his throw range is on the weaker side, but he is also agile enough to pull off reversals and curved shots to defeat opponents.

Like many other games, you can check out a demo for Windjammers 2 as part of the Steam Game Festival until February 9.

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Source: Dotemu (Windjammers 2)

Now for some EA news, starting with the announcement of Mass Effect Legendary Edition, which contains the franchise's original trilogy along with over 40 of its DLC all in a single package with visuals upgraded for 4K and HDR. It will be arriving on May 14 for Steam, Origin, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4, and be compatible with Xbox Series X/S and PlayStation 5. The textures have been up-ressed, shaders and visual effects improved, along with updated lighting, dynamic shadows, volumetrics, and depth-of-field all to add a new level of immersion for the trilogy. We will also find updated interfaces and quality of life improvements, which would almost certainly be necessary as several things changed between Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2. Also, all three games now have unified character creation options that will persist across all three, including expanded hear, makeup, and skin tone options. The Female Shepard appearance from Mass Effect 3 will also be the default female Shepard across all three games as well.

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Source: EA (Mass Effect Legendary Edition)

In other EA news, the company announced we can expect the return of college football to EA SPORTS, thanks to a partnership with CLC, the nation's leading collegiate trademark licensing company. EA SPORTS College Football development is underway with launch timing still to be determined.

Also, the company has shared its prediction for Super Bowl LV from Madden NFL 21. According to the game, the Kansas City Chiefs will win once again, with a 37 to 27 victory over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. You can check out the press release or the prediction below.

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Source: EA [1] (College Football Games) and [2] (Superbowl LV prediction)

Now we come to the news from Embracer Group as it is acquiring or merging with three companies: Gearbox Entertainment Company; Aspyr Media; and Easybrain Limited. Both Gearbox and Easybrain will become new operating groups, acting as wholly owned subsidiaries of Embracer. Randy Pitchford will continue to lead Gearbox as its IP portfolio including the Borderlands, Brothers in Arms, and Homeworld IP join Embracer with a purchase price of $363 million, with %175 million paid in newly issued Embracer B shares and the rest as cash. If it is able to meet certain targets over the next six years, an additional consideration of up to $1,015 million might be paid out.

Easybrain is a mobile game developer that focuses on advertising-based puzzle and logic games with 750 million installs and 12 million daily users across 15 live games. The price was $640 million with $130 million coming from Embracer B shares.

Aspyr has been acquired through Saber Interactive, which Embracer owns, adding this company that has developed a strong reputation for porting games to new platforms as well as being a developer and publisher. It will continue as a stand-alone entity under Saber Interactive and was acquired for $100 million, with $60 million coming in the form of Embracer B shares.

Source: Embracer Group [1] (Gearbox), [2] (Aspyr), and [3] (Easybrain)

The Irregular Corporation has announced RAILGRADE, and you can already check out a demo for it as part of the Steam Game Festival. In this construction-strategy game your task is to rebuild and restore the industry on a planet undergoing and economic decline. You will achieve this by exploring the planet's resources through industrial chains and strategic construction until you cover the screen with trains and see cities develop by meeting their demand. There is no release date yet but we can expect it this year.

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Source: The Irregular Corporation (RAILGRADE)

Koch Media has announced Siege Survival: Gloria Victis from its partnership with Black Eye Games and ultimately releasing under the Ravenscourt label. In this title you will lead your group of civilians as they try to survive the siege of their city through strategic management of resources. You will want to keep your troops well-stocked in order to prevent the city from being seized. A playable demo is available as part of the Steam Game Festival that will let you experience the first few days of the siege, while the full campaign will take you through 30 in-game days.

Source: Koch Media (Siege Survival: Gloria Victis)

Cris Tales from Modus Games and Dreams Uncorporated has had its release month revealed of July, so in five months we can expect to experience this time-bending JPRG. Along with this news came a new trailer providing an overview of the different locations we will get to visit with Crisbell and her friends during the time-hoping journey. If a JRPG where the past, present, and future are all brought together on the same screen intrigues you, it will be priced at $39.99 and will be available on Steam, Epic Games Store, GOG, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch, and Google Stadia.

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Source: Modus Games (Cris Tales)
January 29, 2021
12:42
Various Video Game Stories from the Week of January 25, 2021
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It is Friday which means it is also time to go through the various video game news releases for the week, and there certainly were a few, including some new game releases. Before getting to those, GOG has added some 12 titles to its DRM catalog, and is holding special sales for them. Eight games from the 18 Wheels of Steel series are now available and are on sale at up to 50% off as part of a 'build your own bundle' sale. The other four games are Gunboat, Steel Thunder, The Train Escape to Normandy, which are all simulation classics, and the RPG Sea Legends. Each of these can also be purchased at as much as 50% off as part of a Ziggurat Interactive 'build your own bundle' publisher sale.

Source: GOG [1] (18 Wheels of Steel) and [2] (Ziggurat Interactive Titles)

The releases this week include TOHU from The Irregular Corporation, Gods Will Fall from Deep Silver that I was able to review, Olija from Devolver Digital, the Fatal Falls expansion for Dead Cells from Motion Twins and Evil Empire, the Balan Wonderworld demo from Square Enix is now available, and the A New God DLC for Immortals Fenyx Rising from Ubisoft also released. (It is my intention to review the DLC for Immortals Fenyx Rising but will likely wait for them all to release.)

As this last paragraph covers multiple games, I would not normally share a trailer, but because it is somewhat amusing, here is the animated trailer for Dead Cells: Fatal Falls.

Source: The Irregular Corporation (TOHU), Deep Silver (Gods Will Fall), Square Enix (Balan Wonderworld Demo), Ubisoft (Immortals Fenyx Rising), and Press Releases

From publisher Dear Villagers, Ashwalkers, which previously had the working title of Cendres, has been given a release month of April. In this game from Nameless XIII, a studio founded by DONTNOD co-founder and Life is Strange co-creator Hervé Bonin, players will lead a group of four adventurers trying to cross a post-apocalyptic Earth to find a new safe-haven for their people. Society has collapsed in this narrative survival sim and left you without moral judgement for the choices you make, leaving it up to your personal integrity to lead you to one of the 34 possible endings. Along with making the various decisions you come across, you will also need to manage the food, medication, and other supplies for these adventurers.

Source: Dear Villagers (Ashwalkers)

Those interested in King's Bounty II should be happy to learn a new Q&A video has been shared, in which the developers speak about the different races and monsters players will encounter, the differences between units, customization options, as well as connections to prior games. This next game in the King's Bounty series expands on the turn-based battles of the previous to provide an immersive RPG experience with weight to each decision. You will be faced with choices such as leading an army into battle or building up relations with townspeople as you take on the role of one of three heroes, each possessing their own personality and background. During normal gameplay you will get to explore the world with a third-person perspective, but when conflict occurs the view will shift to tactical, turn-based combat.

King's Bounty II is coming to PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Nintendo Switch.

Source: Press Release (Koch Media)

Rebellion has finally announced a release date for Evil Genius 2: World Domination, so come March 30 you will get your chance to take over the world. As one of four bad guys, you can build up your lair on one of three islands, recruit and train minions and henchmen to help you conquer the world and defend against the Forces of Justice when they come to attack your base. Your choice of geniuses are the narcissist despot Max, heavy-muscle madman Ivan, manipulative former spymaster Emma, or the scientist zealot Zalika, with each having their own story campaign as they try to force their visions onto the world.

Though the release is only a couple months away, there are still some secrets Rebellion is keeping and we can expect to see shared during the coming weeks. Among these is a game mode the developer has not talked about yet.

Source: Rebellion (Evil Genius 2)

Ashes of the Singularity was originally released back in 2016 with Escalation coming out months later, so while this is hardly a recent title, it is continuing to be worked on by Stardock as v3.0 has been announced and is releasing on February 4. How significant will this update be? In Microsoft Word the changelog is some 32 pages long. When it comes to game balance, nothing was left untouched as units, buildings, and abilities have all been altered in some way. For example, weapon accuracy has now been standardized based on the weapon and impact type, so all beam weapons that impact over time will have a 100% accuracy while dispersed explosives will only have 65% accuracy. Passive regeneration of shields and health have been changed to be based on unit tier and both the visual and radar ranges have received similar treatment.

In addition to these balance changes, optimizations have also been applied to improve performance and the benchmarks have been updated too. For the GPU benchmark redundant units and armies have been removed with armies also changed to show more units. The CPU benchmark has had some fixes applied to avoid errors and crashes as well as unit compositions to deal with pathfinding issues. Among the miscellaneous changes is a note that the engine has been updated to support up to 32 logical cores and the lists of supported AMD and NVIDIA GPUs have been updated too.

Though the update officially rolls out on February 4, you can try it out now by selecting the "v2.99 opt-in" beta channel in the game's Steam properties.

Source: Stardock [1] (Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation v3.0 Announcement) and [2] (v3.0 Patch Notes)

Now we have something that many have certainly been looking forward to for years now as THQ Nordic has, at long last, given a release date for Biomutant. It will be coming to PC, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4 on May 25. For those that do not remember, Biomutant is an open-world RPG set in a post-apocalyptic world telling a Kung-fu fable where you apply melee attacks, ranged weapons, and mutant abilities to survive. Definitely a curious combination of concepts here as it tries to provide a new take on 3^rd person combat with its martial arts style fighting system that is designed to grant freedom of movement and agility while allowing you to mix your melee and ranged attacks along with your mutant powers. Mutant powers are gained by re-coding your genetic structure, and doing so will not only alter your capabilities but your appearance as well. Exposure to environmental contaminations can also unlock new abilities, depending on what it is you find. Just as your body can be manipulated, so too can your weapons with the crafting system allowing you to mix and match parts as you wish for both melee and ranged weapons.

Biomutant was first announced quite some time ago and subject to numerous delays, so it is nice to see if finally has a release date, and hopefully this one will not slip. For those particularly interested in the game, you can check out the source link for information on the different special editions and what that offer.

Source: THQ Nordic (Biomutant)

Lastly we have Ubisoft as the company has announced Hyper Scape's Takeshi's Team Deathmatch Party event is now available and comes with exclusive rewards. Perhaps just as importantly as this event is that PC crossplay is available now as part of the game's Title Update 4, which also brings with it new cosmetics and tweaks to combat and game modes.

The Takeshi's Team Deathmatch Party event is running until February 9 that invites players into intense team deathmatch battles, giving you the opportunity to earn some cosmetic rewards. For playing five matches you get the "City Pop Ripper" weapon skin; winning one match unlocks the "Takeshi City Pop" champion outfit; and winning ten matches gets you the "B-Boy" emote with each of these being exclusive rewards.

With PC crossplay now enabled as part of TU 4, PC players will be able to enter into the same global matchmaking pool as Xbox and PlayStation players. The update has also adjusted aim-assist to decrease the bullet magnetism for mid-to-long range on all projectile weapons. Crown Rush squad and solo, Team Deathmatch, Player Comfort, and Arcadium Squad game mods have also all been updated with the Crown Rush modes supporting a maximum of 60 players in a match now. The Team Deathmatch mode will have players spawn with a single gun and Hack at the start with a randomized initial loadout applied for all players. Player Comfort has new tiles for its Play portal to indicate activity level for each mode and those waiting in a lobby will be given an estimate of how long the wait will be. For Arcadium Squad, players who load into the training mode as a squad will be able to use Party chat to communicate.

Source: Press Release (Ubisoft)
January 22, 2021
12:25
Various Video Game Stories from the Week of January 18, 2021
» ‎ Overclockers Club news Feed

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It is the end of the week, which means it is time to cover the different video game press releases that have collected in my inbox. As usual I will be going in alphabetical order, which means starting with some news from 2K as Borderlands 3 is has begun an Arms Race event. For the next three weeks, each week will feature a new mini-event for Arms Race, a roguelike experience within the game as you are stripped of you gear, abilities, and action skills before being dropped into a new area. Once you arrive, you will need to hurry to find the gear you will need to survive and ultimately collect some of the best Legendary loot you can find.

These mini-events are only available to those with the Designer's Cut add-on or Season Pass 2 which includes that and the Director's Cut add-on. The first week's mini-event, which started January 21, is dubbed Clear Skies as it slows the encroaching storm, granting you more time to explore. Week 2, starting on January 28, has the Extra Extra Extraction mini-event where air drops will have a greater chance of dropping DAHL chests, which then provide more chances to get some of the Arms Race exclusive gear. There are also additional slots at the extraction stations, so you can get more out. The third week, starting February 4, is Gear Rush as rare chests are more likely to appear and green DAHL chests are found at major points of interests. The Murdercane will be closing more quickly though, so be careful to not waste any time.

Source: 2K (Borderlands 3)

On January 28, Olija releases on PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Nintendo Switch, so a new trailer has been released to share some of the game's story. Coming from Thomas Olsson, Skeleton Crew Studio, and being published by Devolver Digital, in Olija you are shipwrecked in the land of Terraphage and on you journey to find your crew and get back home, you discover the cursed Harpoon of Legend. By wielding its power, you may yet be able to overcome the many challenges and enemies of the land to get home, especially after your encounter with Olija, the princess of the land.

Source: Press Release (Devolver Digital)

Koch Media, Milestone, and Feld Entertainment have announced Monster Energy Supercross – The Official Videogame 4 is now up for pre-order on digital. Along with this announcement is a new trailer to show off the features of the game that make it the most ambitious in the series. This includes a new Career Mode structure, the skill tree, and the improvements to the Track Editor.

Monster Energy Supercross – The Official Videogame 4 will be available on March 11 for PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 5, and Google Stadia. There is both a Standard Edition and a Special Edition, with the latter including the Season Pass and three days of early access

Source: Press Release (Koch Media)

Modus Games has announced a limited Collector's Edition for Cris Tales, an upcoming JPRG that features time manipulation for exploring and influencing the world, as well as setting up powerful tactics in combat. The Collector's Edition, available from the Maximum Games Store, will include a collector's box, plush of Matias, your frog companion, lithographic art prints, three character stickers, four enamel character pins, a 60 page artbook, four wallpaper downloads for your desktop and eight for your phone, and ten character avartars. Naturally it will also include a copy of the game, but only for console: Xbox One; PlayStation 4; Xbox Series X/S; PlayStation 5; and Nintendo Switch.

The Collector's Edition is priced at $99.99 and the quantity is limited, so you may wish to hurry if you want one. Currently shipping is only available in the US.

Source: Modus Games (Cris Tales)

The finale of Rebellions' Zombie Army 4 Death from Above campaign, named Dead Zeppelin, released this week, finally allowing players to board the demonic airship. It is important to hurry and destroy it before it can rain death on Earth.

In addition to this release, new content has come to the game as well such as the Night Ops Jun Outfit, Toxic Hazard Weapon Skins, Buckets Headgear Pack, and 7.65 Polizeipistole Pistol Bundle. These are available individually or as part of Season Pass Two.

Source: Rebellion

Square Enix has announced its free demo for Balan Wonderworld will be releasing next week. This is the new action-platformer coming from the creators of Sonic the Hedgehog and will be releasing on March 26 for PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 5, and Nintendo Switch. If that is too long to wait, the demo will be out on January 28 and allow you to experience two hours of the gameplay we can expect at release. You can enjoy it in single-player mode or with local co-op if you wish, with on player acting as Leo and the other as Emma, combining the powers of the costumes both are wearing.

The demo will contain parts from three of the twelve worlds that will be in the final game. World 1, The Man Who Rages Against the Storm, will be present with its Act 1, Act 2, and Boss Battle, while both World 4, The Boy Who Would be One with the Wind, and World 6, The Girl and the Kitten, will only have their Act 1 present in the demo. You will also be able to access the Isle of Tims that serves as a base area and the gateway to these three worlds.

Source: Press Release (Square Enix)

Coming to Ubisoft now, The Crew 2 Season 1 Episode 2: The Hunt is available now as a free update. In this, outlaws are on the move with what they stole from Vault Corp. and players will need to apply their off-road skills in Rally Raid and Rally Cross Chase events to stop them. A new Motorpass has also arrived, giving players the opportunity to earn vehicles such as the K.S. Masked Leader hypercar and the Chevrolet Camaro Z/28 RS Enforcer Edition for Rally Cross.

Source: Ubisoft [1] (The Crew 2)

Resident Evil is turning 25 years old, and Ubisoft has decided to celebrate in The Division 2 with an Apparel Event. Starting on February 2 you will be able to unlock caches with iconic Resident Evil themed cosmetic items, though only for a limited time. There are 21 new apparel items that can be earned or purchased to recreate the outfits of different Resident Evil characters. Also, those who log in during the event will receive the Leon Kennedy RPD 3-piece outfit to begin their collection. The event will run from February 2 to February 16.

Source: Ubisoft [2] (The Division 2)

Immortals Fenyx Rising is also holding a special event, but this one is part of a crossover with "Blood of Zeus" from Netflix. Until January 28 players will be able to take on a themed quest titled "A tribute to family" and face the Chimera and Cerberus. After completing the quest, you get the Eagle pendant and new customization options that relate to the show.

Though the event will end, there are "Blood of Zeus" themed weapon and character packs that will continue to be available for purchase after January 28.

Source: Ubisoft [3] (Immortals Fenyx Rising)

Closing this out is the start of the Rainbow Six Siege Road to Six Invitational event. Every Thursday to Monday from now until February 22 players will be able to compete in Bomb matches in the revamped Stadium map. All operators will be unlocked for these three-minute, three-round unranked matches.

In addition to these matches, there is also the Raid to SI Battle Pass with 100 tiers and 135 rewards to unlock. The free track is free to all players while the premium track will cost 1200 R6 credits. Part of the revenue from the Battle Pass supports the Six Invitational Prize Pool that is distributed between teams after the championship on February 12-21.

Source: Ubisoft [4] (Rain Six Siege)
January 19, 2021
14:09
TerraMaster Announces NAS with 10 GbE, 5 Drive Bays, and 4-Core CPU
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Depending on your business and hobbies, data storage might be a significant issue for you. One solution is a NAS and today TerraMaster has announced a new addition to its 10 GbE series, the F5-422 with five drive bays and an Intel Celeron quad-core processor powering it. By populating it with 16 TB drives you can achieve 80 TB of storage with a RAID, but when configured as a single volume the maximum size is 108 TB, which will hopefully be enough for most people. Of course for some the need is not just for significant amounts of storage, but fast storage as well, such as when working with video content. Across the 10 GbE connection and when using 6 TB IronWolf NAS drives from Seagate, the F5-422 was able to reach read and write speeds of 670 MB/s. With two additional 1 Gb ports, the NAS also supports network aggregation.

Inside the F5-422 is an Intel Celeron J3455 quad-core process with a 1.5 GHz base clock and 2.3 GHz boost that is paired with 4 GB of memory. For those wanting or in need of more memory, it can be upgraded by adding a second 4 GB stick, for a total of 8 GB. Thanks to its DLNA protocol compatibility and TerraMaster's Multimedia Server, this NAS also offers real-time hardware transcoding of 4K video so it can be streamed to devices that normally do not support this format. You can also apply Emby or Plex to make it into multimedia entertainment center with well-organized directories for easy access across various devices.

For business users, the F5-422 supports virtual machines, VPN servers, proxy servers, DNS servers, AD domains, web server, multimedia server, and more. This will make it possible to provide a secure internet connection to shared resources on your network. The NAS also offers several layers of data security including SSL encryption, protection from DOS attacks, and advanced account protection. The privilege management system allows you to control permissions by user, user groups, and folders, with storage limits also being configurable. Multiple backup options are available as well, including to external USB storage, remote TNAS, and cloud storage. It also supports Time Machine backup and Rsync remote backup. With the new TOS 4.2 system, the Hyperlock-WORM file system can be enabled to create areas of unmodifiable and undeletable memory spaces. The internal drives can only be formatted with either EXT4 or Btrfs, with Btrfs offering its advanced storage and Snapshot technology to avoid data damage and thereby ease maintenance costs. The file services supported include SMB/CIFS, NFS, AFP, FTP/SFTP, and WebDAV.

TerraMaster has priced at F5-422 at $599.99 and that does include the company's worry-free warranty. For two years you get 24/7 rapid response service, including replacement with a new unit if the original fails. If you are looking for a NAS like this, but perhaps want something a bit smaller, TerraMaster does offer other 422 units with 10 GbE connections, such as the F4-422 with only four drive bays and F2-422 with just two bays. On the larger side is the F8-422 with eight drive bays for those with greater data needs.

Source: Press Release
January 15, 2021

Permalink for 'Various Video Game Stories from the Week of January 11, 2021'

11:17

Various Video Game Stories from the Week of January 11, 2021

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While CES 2021 has certainly dominated the news this week, there has also been some gaming news to cover, with one particularly significant announcement, but as I go by alphabetical order, I have something else to cover first. The Irregular Corporation with developer Fireart Games have announced TOHU will be releasing on January 28 for PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, and Google Stadia. This also means it can be pre-ordered now for Xbox One and Nintendo Switch, and all pre-orders will have a 10% discount as well.

TOHU is an adventure game that follows The Girl as her world of fish planets is disturbed by a strange, shadowy creature. Seeking only chaos, The Stranger destroys the sacred engine for this world, putting life on every planet in jeopardy. The Girl must now go on a journey to save the world, and on the way she will meet several eccentric characters, including Juncle, a forgetful friend and former caregiver, and The Broker, a highbrow trader who lives in a bathtub. During the gameplay you will be able to swap between The Girl and Cubus whenever it is necessary to apply their different abilities.

Source: The Irregular Corporation (TOHU)

Now for that particularly significant announcement, which is Lucasfilm Games has been formed and will now be the identity for all gaming titles coming from Lucasfilm. This means Star Wars games are now going to controlled by it instead of EA, but also other Lucasfilm properties. MachineGames, the developers of Wolfenstein: The New Order and Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus, are working on an Indiana Jones game with an original story with Todd Howard of Bethesda Games Studios as an executive producer. The only other information we have for the title is the original story will be set at the height of the career of the adventurer, which would be around World War II.

Also revealed is that Ubisoft is working on a new, story-driven, open-world Star Wars adventure as well, with Ubisoft Massive specifically working on it. The studio's most recent game is The Division 2. It will definitely prove interesting to see what additional studios will partner with Lucasfilm Games going forward, and what properties we can expect new titles in.

Source: StarWars.com [1] (Lucasfilm Games) and [2] (Indiana Jones Game)

Motion Twin and Evil Empire have shared that Dead Cells next DLC, Fatal Falls, will be releasing on January 26. A new gameplay trailer was also released, to let you see what we can expect from the game's second paid DLC since it debuted in 2017. Pre-orders for the new Dead Cells: The Fatal Seed Bundle have also begun on the Nintendo Switch, but we can expect it with a discount on other platforms late this month. Exactly when the sale starts will vary by platform, so you should check your preferred platform's store on January 26 for details on the 10+ discount period. This bundle includes the game with its 20 free updates and both of the paid DLC, The Bad Seed and Fata Falls.

With Fatal Falls the game will receive two new mid-game biomes to explore, a new boss, as well as new weapons and items to help you survive. You can see The Fractured Shrines and The Undying Shores biomes in the gameplay reveal trailer below, as well as The Scarecrow, the new boss. If you are already familiar with the game, you may recognize the boss as the Royal Gardener gone wrong with Malaise. For new weapons we have the maniacal sword that flies and scythes have been added. There are also lightning rods, Ferryman's lantern, Scarecrow's sickles, and more to help you slash your way through the enemies.

If you are interested in the game but unsure if you want to get the bundle, the base game will be on sale during the same period at 50% off for the first time. The Bad Seed DLC will also be on sale at 30%, its first discount. You can check out the latest patch notes with the source link below.

Source: Press Release Motion Twins and Evil Empire (Dead Cells Patch Notes)

Now for some news from Square Enix as the publisher with developer People Can Fly have released some information on the PC version of the upcoming OUTRIDERS game, including specifications.

Â	Minium (Low, 760p60)	Recommended (High, 1080p60)	Ultra (Ultra, 2160p60)
OS	Window 10	Windows 10	Windows 10
CPU (AMD)	FX 8350	Ryzen 5 1600	TBD
CPU (Intel)	i5 3470	i7 7700	TBD
Memory	8 GB	16 GB	16 GB
GPU (AMD)	R9 270X	RX 480 (8 GB)	TBD
GPU (NVIDIA)	GTX 750 Ti	GTX 1060 (6 GB)	TBD
DirectX	DirectX 11	DirectX 12	DirectX 12
Storage	70 GB	70 GB	70 GB

As you can see there is actually a pretty good range here as 1080p60 at the High preset is only requiring an AMD RX 480 or NVIDIA GTX 1060 (6 GB). The exact specifications for enjoying the Ultra preset at 2160p60 are missing currently, but as the game will support DLSS, those with NVIDIA RTX GPUs may be able to apply that to help run at such a configuration. For those with other GPUs, dynamic resolution scaling can be applied to increase performance by reducing resolution, when necessary. There is also support for ultrawide monitors at 3440x1440, customizable HUD, key remapping, adjustable FOV, and NVIDIA Ansel. Those who prefer a different language will find 13 are supported for the interface and subtitles while nine have full audio support. There will be full cross play across platforms, so you can play with your friends whatever their preferred platforms, though Cross Save is limited to the same eco-system.

OUTRIDERS is releasing on April 1 for PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X/S, and PlayStation 5, though there will be a demo for these same platforms on February 25. The Google Stadia release will come later in 2021.

Source: Outriders Steam News [1] (Information and Specs) and [2] (NVIDIA DLSS Support)

THQ Nordic has announced with Feld Entertainment Monster Jam Steel Titans 2 will be arriving on March 2 for PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, and Google Stadia. With this title the franchise will be expanded with online multiplayer, a larger truck roster, and five new worlds. You can see the gameplay in the trailer embedded below, and if it interests you, the base game will be priced at $39.99 while the Power Out Bundle will cost $59.99. Those who pre-order either version on the Xbox One or PlayStation 4 will receive the Inverse Higher Education truck, bringing their fleet of vehicles to 39. The Power Out Bundle, when pre-ordered on the Xbox One or PlayStation 4, will also get 24 hours of early access, the original Monster Jam Steel Titans, and three DLC track packs.

Source: THQ Nordic (Monster Jam Steel Titans 2)

Ubisoft has announced a cross over event between Ghost Recon Breakpoint and Rainbow 6 Siege that will allow the Ghosts to team up with Operators. Operation Amber Sky takes place across nine new and free missions as Ghosts and Rainbow investigate a gas being manufactured by Sentinal, and after completing the first mission you will be able to deploy Ash, Thatcher, and Finka in place of your regular AI teammates. With this event will also come the survival mechanic of needing to don a gasmask and replace filters in areas filled with the deadly gas. There will also be over 120 customization items added as part of this and completely all of the event missions will grant 11 unique rewards.

The event is arriving as part of Title Update 3.10 on January 19 and there will be a free weekend from January 21 to January 24, so anyone can try out the game and Operation Amber Sky on PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 5, and Google Stadia. During the free weekend the game will also be on sale for 85% off, and naturally any progression will carry over.

Source: Ubisoft (Ghost Recon Breakpoint Operation Amber Sky)

Those who have been looking forward to Riders Republic will have to wait a bit longer, as Ubisoft has announced the game has been delayed. This massive multiplayer, outdoor sports playground title is going to be coming out later this year as the development team feel they need the time to make it into the best fun fueled experience it can be.

Source: Ubisoft (Riders Republic)

This week has seen the release of Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World: The Game â Complete Edition, if you need something old that is new again to play. This version of the brawler includes all of the original game's DLC and can be purchased on PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, Google Stadia, Amazon Luna, and Ubisoft+ for $14.99. For those with the newer Xbox Series X/S or PlayStation 5, it will be playable with compatibility mode.

For the biggest fans of the game, starting today you can pre-order Limited Editions of the game that will include a physical copy for the PlayStation 4 or Nintendo Switch, as well as exclusive merchandise. These editions will only be available for six weeks and only from limitedrungames.com. The Standard Edition, priced at $34.99 includes a reversible cover with new art from the original game artist, "Leo's Place" ticket stub, and a full-color instruction booklet. The Classic Edition will be $54.99 and adds a hard clamshell retro box, CD of the soundtrack, folded overworld map, and sticker sheet. Lastly the K.O. Edition, priced at $139.99, adds on to the Classic Edition with "Sex Bob-omb" guitar picks, drum sticks, the soundtrack on cassette tape, seven card high-gloss holofoil trading card set, hardbound guide book, and an authentic, hinged hard-shell roadie case box with 3D pip-up scene with working lights and sound.

Source: Ubisoft (Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World: The Game â Complete Edition)

January 14, 2021
21:03
Acer's CES 2021 Announcements Including Monitors and Laptops
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Acer was at CES 2021 and brought with it a number of new products to this virtual event, though some were actually announced the Friday before, including these new monitors. The Predator XB273U NX, Predator XB323QK NV, and Nitro XV282K KV were all revealed prior to the show and between them you have your choice of 2560x1440 or 3840x2160 running at 144 Hz or better. The Predator XB273U NX is a 27 in 1440p monitor with an overclocked refresh rate of 275 Hz and 0.5 ms gray-to-gray response time, so if you are looking for speed, this could be a good monitor to consider. Like many high refresh rate monitors, it does support NVIDIA G-Sync and this one also includes the NVIDIA Reflex Latency Analyzer that can measure the time between a mouse click and an action happening on screen. For colors it covers 95% of the DCI-P3 color gamut and with Acer's Agile-Splendor IPS technology the images should remain clear at wide angles.

If you need something larger and high resolution, the Predator XB323QK NV is a 31.5 in, 3840x1260 display with a refresh rate of 144 Hz. It is G-Sync Compatible to address screen tearing and that should also support AMD FreeSync. For colors it covers 90% of the DCI-P3 gamut, which is enough for it to have VESA DisplayHDR 400 certification, and it also uses the Agile Splendor IPS technology for wider viewing angles.

Both of these Predator monitors feature Acer VisionCare 4.0, which is a suite of technologies meant to keep your eyes comfortable during long sessions. These other technologies are LightSense, that adjusts screen brightness based on ambient light, as well as AdaptiveLight, ColorSense, and ProxiSense which also monitor ambient and environmental light to adjust brightness and color. These will also be the first monitors in the world to be TÜV Rheinland Eyesafe certified and they use Acer's ErgoStand that offers swivel, pivot, tilt, and height control.

The Nitro XV282K KV is a 3840x2160 display that covers 90% of DCI-P3 and has a 144 Hz refresh rate. It supports AMD FreeSync Premium which requires support for low framerate compensation and has low latency, in addition to a minimum refresh rate of 120 Hz. The response time is 1 ms so it should also be a pretty fast monitor. It comes with an HDMI 2.1 cable in the box so you will be able to connect a new game console to it and enjoy 4K 120 Hz variable refresh rate gameplay. It too features Agile-Splendor, has the TÜV Rheinland Eyesafe certification, and has Acer VisionCare 3.0.

All three of these monitors should be available in North America in May with the Nitro XV282K KV starting at $899.99, the Predator XB273U NX starting at $1099.99, and the Predator XB323QK NV starting at $1199.99.

Coming to the gaming laptops, which were announced at CES, we have updates to the Predator Triton and Helios series as well as a refresh to the Nitro 5. The Predator Triton 300 SE and Nitro 5 have been update to off the 11^th Gen Core H35 series of processors from Intel, while both the Triton 300 SE and Helios 300 have been updated to offer NVIDIA GeForce RTX 30 series GPUs. The Triton 300 SE is only 17.9 mm (0.7 in) thick but inside will offer up to a Core i7 that can reach 5 GHz and an RTX 3060. To keep the Triton 300 SE cool, Acer's 5^th generation AeroBlade 3D fans are being used and according to MobileMark 2014 it will still be able to offer up to 10 hours of battery life. The display is a 1920x1080, 14 in panel with 144 Hz refresh rate and for connectivity there is Intel Killer Wi-Fi AX1650 for wireless and Thunderbolt 4, USB 3.2 Gen 2, and HDMI for ports.

If you want more power, the Helios 300 can come with the RTX 3080 and up to 32 GB of DDR4 memory. The display offers a refresh rate of 240 Hz with a 3 ms response time, so not as good as the monitors mentioned above, but this is more portable.

The Nitro 5 described along with these Predator laptops appears to be a little leaner on the graphics front, as only GeForce GTX GPUs are mentioned, rather than RTX, but we still have support for the new Core H35 series CPUs and 32 GB of DDR4 to pair it with. For storage there are a pair of m.2 slots that can support PCIe or SATA SSDs. The display has a refresh rate of 144 Hz with a response time of 3 ms and for connectivity we have USB Type-C Thunderbolt 4 support and Intel Wi-Fi 6 for wireless. The charging port has been moved to the back of the laptop, so the cord will be out of the way while charging.

For availability we can expect the Predator Helios 300 in North America in February, starting at $1249.99 and the Predator Triton 300 SE in March, starting at $1399.99. The Nitro 5, both the 15 in and 17 in versions do not have North America availability listed, but EMEA availability will be in March with both starting at €999.

Those are not the only variants of the Nitro 5 announced though as Acer is also bring out some with the new AMD Ryzen 5000 Series Mobile Processors, and these will be coming to North America. These versions will be available with up to the Ryzen 9 5900HX and GeForce RTX 3080, which should prove to be a powerful combination for gaming, especially as AMD's HX series is unlocked. There are versions with a 15.6 in and 17.3 in display with 2560x1440 resolution and 165 Hz refresh rate or 1920x1080 at up to 360 Hz, so the RTX 3080 will have plenty of pixels to push and quickly. The Nitro 5 has two m.2 slots for PCIe or SATA SSD storage and you can have up to 32 GB of DDR4 memory installed too. For wireless connectivity there is Killer E2600 support for Wi-Fi 6.

For those not looking for laptops less focused on gaming performance, there are the Aspire 7 and Aspire 5 that are also supporting the Ryzen 5000 Series Mobile CPUs. The Aspire 7 will pair that with a GTX 1650 GPU, up to 32 GB of DDR4 and up to a 1 TB PCIe SSD. For connectivity there is USB-C for up to 5 Gbps transfer and dual-band Wi-Fi 6 wireless connectivity. Its 15.6 in display has a 1920x1080 panel and the whole thing weighs in at 2.15 Kg, or 4.73 lbs.

With the Aspire 5 the Ryzen 5000 mobile CPU will be paired with a Radeon RX 640 GPU and up to 24 GB of DDR4 memory. For storage it can have up to a 1 TB m.2 NVMe SSD and/or a 2 TB HDD and similarly it has a USB-C port and Wi-Fi 6 for wireless connectivity. The display is also 15.6 in and 1920x1080.

For availability, both sizes of the Nitro 5 will be available in North America starting in February, but the 15 in version will start at $749.99 while the 17 in starts at $849.99. The two Aspire laptops will be available in NA in March with the Aspire 7 starting at $749.99 and the Aspire 5 starting at $549.99.

Lastly we have the Chromebook Spin 514, which is the first Chromebook that matches a Ryzen Mobile processor with Radeon graphics. This was announced prior to the trade show though, so it is the Ryzen 3000 C-Series processors, not the newer 5000 series of the Nitro and Aspire above. Still, the Spin 514 should be pretty fast with either the Ryzen 7 3700C or Ryzen 5 3500 quad-core processors driving the Chrome OS experience. They will offer up to 10 hours of batter life, based on the Google power LoadTest, and come in at 1.55 Kg (3.42 lbs) while being only 17.35 mm (0.68 in) thick. The chassis is made of anodized and sandblasted aluminum with a diamond-cut pattern on the top and the touchpad. With US MIL-STD 810H compliance, its reinforced chassis will resist dents, dings, and corrosion, being able to survive falls of 122 cm, or 48 in, and 132 pounds of downward force. The display is 14 inches in size, 1920x1080, and a touch screen covered in Gorilla Glass, again helping it resist scratches. As the Spin may suggest with its name, the display can be folded back a full 360º so it can be converted into a tablet, if that is preferred. Connectivity comes in the way of two USB 3.2 Gen 1 ports with one featuring power-off charging, a microSD card reader, HDMI port, webcam, Bluetooth 5.0, and dual-band Wi-Fi 5. If you need something other than HDMI, it supports DisplayPort over USB-C with both ports, as well as USB charging.

The Chromebook Enterprise Spin 514 is the variant meant for businesses as it provides enterprise security and capabilities. Among these features is zero-touch enrollment so IT departments can easily bring it under enterprise enrollment without having direct access. The enrollment will be done automatically once the user connects to the Internet. Both versions come with up to 16 GB of DDR4 memory and 256 GB of NVMe storage.

The Chromebook Spin 514 will be available in North America in February, starting at $479.99 while the Enterprise Spin 514 will be available in March and start at $749.99.

Source: Acer">[https:] [1] (Monitors), [2] (Gaming Laptops), [3] (AMD Laptops), and [4]">[https:] (Chromebooks)
15:30
EKWB Announces Various Products Across Three Days of CES 2021
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EK Water Blocks is one of the large names in computer liquid cooling components and just as in years prior was present at CES. Instead of showing off everything on the first day though, the company split it across three days and produced videos for each day, making its YouTube channel worth a look if you want something more than text.

There really were a number of things announced over these three days, including new EK Fluid Works workstations, which are pre-built workstations that will come with components already liquid cooled. It is still possible to service and expand the systems, such as adding new graphics cards thanks to the distribution blocks used. While a workstation is probably not what you want for home use, perhaps this could be a good expenditure for your work.

New Quantum Torque fittings were shown, including 90º and 45º female-female adapters to make tight bends. Rather to avoid having to make bends in your tubing. Novelty drain valves are another fitting shown, with these featuring a cap and they work with a sliding movement. They are also smaller than the traditional ball valve, and with one male thread on them can be installed most anywhere with requiring an adapter. There are three new Torque-style plugs now too, with some smaller but still tall enough for a good grip, while others are large and flat. The third type has an Allen key socket but also comes with an EK badge to hide that socket, if that is your preference. Lastly for these fittings there is a simple T splitter, but we can expect more Torque products to be announced in the near future, if there is still something you are looking for.

Though sometimes forgotten or neglected, the back plate of a graphics card can be very important, especially for hotter cards. With thermal pads between the PCB and a metal back plate, it can serve as an additional passive heatsink, but as some of the latest GPUs actually have components on the backside, EK has developed active back plate coolers. The design allows it to be integrated seamlessly and such that awkward soft tubing connections will not be necessary. EK also points out that the active back plate is sturdier than traditional back plates, which can help reduce coil whine by better absorbing the vibrations.

The Lian Li O11 Dynamic is one of the most popular cases for custom liquid cooling because of its clever design, but it was designed before we had all of the power hungry and hot components we have today. For those with the case already or thinking about a new build in one, EK has an external cooling unit for it. This can be seamlessly integrated into the case by using the stock case feet, so the result keeps case's the aesthetic. Inside the unit is a D5 pump and distribution plate that feeds the liquid between where two radiators can be mounted within. If you already have a pump inside of your case, there will be a blocking plate option.

If you are looking for a different kind of case though, EK is working on a new concept case with an open frame design. It is also modular, enabling the addition of an extra radiator mount. Perhaps its most interesting features though are the ways the case itself can be mounted, for those who want to be able to show it off. With a standard VESA mount on the back, this case can be hung on wall like a television or even attached to a monitor arm, allowing it to be moved around. It would certainly allow you to show off any RGB lighting as well as colored fluids. The bottom of the case also has a mounting system so it can be attached to the backside of a desk, but this can be removed if you decide to go with a wall mount.

Of course not everyone is up for the added complexity of custom liquid cooling, so the company also announced new AIO coolers. These three additions are the EK-AIO Basic 240, AIO Basic 360, and AIO Elite Aurum 360 D-RGB. The AIO Basic options come with an all-black, RGB-free design and are meant to be more price competitive. Of course I can believe some would choose them just to not have to deal with any RGB lighting with this more minimalistic design.

The AIO Elite Aurum 360 is a special version of the AIO Elite cooler with a glossy, gold-nickel finish on the pump, if that is your preferred aesthetic or if other components already feature a similar look. As the name suggests, the radiator is 360 mm long but it comes with six fans, enabling a push-pull configuration immediately. That does make it a bit chunkier than other coolers, but will also be able to handle a lot of heat from your CPU. Helping with cable management, the EK-Hub is included with its ability to connect up to seven sets of RGB and PWM headers.

All three of these AIOs are available on the EK Online Store for purchase or pre-order with the AIO Basic 240 priced at $89.99, the AIO Basic 360 at $119.99, and the AIO Elite Aurum 360 D-RGB at $229.99. The two AIO Basic coolers show as in stock while AIO Elite Aurum is for pre-order, with them expected to ship in early February.

EK also announced the latest results of their partnerships with MSI and ASUS as the MSI MPG Z590 Carbon EK X and ASUS ROG Maximums XIII Extreme Glacial are both liquid cooled motherboards featuring Intel's Z590 chipset. The block on the MSI board covers both the CPU and the VRM for improved cooling and performance while the ASUS board also has its PCH cooled as well as five M.2 heatsinks to keep your high speed storage cool as well.

Lastly, EK has worked with PowerColor to create water blocks for the Radeon RX 6800XT and RX 6900XT Liquid Devil series. With the full-cover EK water block for these graphics cards, you will be able to get great performance while keeping temperature and noise down.

Source: EK Water Blocks [1] (CES 2021 Overview), [2] (New AIO Coolers), and ASUS (ROG Maximum XIII Extreme Glacial)
12:20
Intel Names New CEO and Rumor Claims TSMC Will Manufacture CPUs This Year
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It is hardly news that Intel has been struggling in recent times, as its 10 nm manufacturing process has been slow to come out, AMD has successfully brought significant pressure in the CPU market, and Apple decided to develop its own M1 silicon for its devices. This week the company announced a significant change that could help it continue through these challenges and a rumor has come out that may also help, but the announcement first.

On February 15 Bob Swan will be stepping down as CEO of Intel with Pat Gelsinger taking on the position. Swan has been in this position since January 2019, and while two years is not a very long time, he succeeded in growing the company's revenue streams despite the issues with 10 nm and such. Still, as the Anandtech article points out this change will bring an engineer to the head of the company again, and one with significant experience, including at Intel.

Pat Gelsinger has been the CEO of VMWare since 2012 and was able to make the company into a global leader for cloud infrastructure, enterprise mobility, and cyber security. Prior to this position he was a COO at EMC where he oversaw operations concerning storage, data computing, backup, and RSA security. It is before EMC that was at Intel for 30 years, as Intel is also where his career started. During that time he worked on USB and Wi-Fi that have both become ubiquitous standards today and was the architect for the original 80486 processor. He also led 14 microprocessor programs and was key to the Core and Xeon families of processors, so it is hardly surprising he became Intel's first CTO.

Under Swan's leadership, Intel has had the goal of becoming a multi-architecture company so it can enter into new and fast growing markets. One clear example of this is the work on X^e graphics as GPUs and other specialized accelerator are fast becoming the desired hardware for data centers and supercomputers. As the Anandtech article points out, with Gelsinger we will see the futures of 10 nm, Intel 7 nm, Alder Lake and the future Lakes processors, Sapphire Rapids, discrete graphics, Ponte Vecchio, networking, packaging, Internet-of-Things, infrastructure, artificial intelligence, and 5G compute. It would not surprise me if there is more that can be added to that list either as Intel is involved in a great many areas.

With Swan continuing as CEO until February 15, that means he will be the one on the January 21 earnings call when Intel will report its Q4 and full 2020 earnings. There will also be an update on the progress for Intel's 7 nm processing node. Due to the struggles with getting 10 nm ready for mass production, Intel has had to face questions of if it will turn to third party fabricators, such as TSMC which is producing AMD's 7 nm parts. Already Intel has outsourced the production of some of its non-CPU parts, but according to TrendForce, it may allow CPUs to be manufactured by TSMC later this year.

More specifically, the rumor claims mass production of Core i3 CPUs would begin at TSMC in the second half of this year on its 5 nm node, but in the second half of 2022 mid-range and even high-end CPUs would be mass produced on TSMC's 3 nm node. If proven true, this would be very significant news as Intel has not wanted to outsource its CPU manufacturing, but with TSMC successfully getting ahead of it in process technology, some have speculate it would eventually happen.

As it happens, Anandtech had an interview with Bob Swan recently and during it he mentioned Intel would have certain requirements before outsourcing CPU manufacture. These include preferential treatment for the necessary volumes and the integration of related design tools. Licensing the technology from a third party is also an option that would be considered, but we will possibly learn more on that from the earnings call next week.

Source: Intel (Pat Gelsinger CEO Appointment), t^h" target="_blank">Anandtech (Pat Gelsinger CEO Appointment), and Trendforce (TSMC Possibly Producing Intel CPUs)
January 12, 2021
14:01
NVIDIA Announces RTX 3060 with RTX 30 Series Laptops at CES 2021
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Shortly following AMD's CES 2021 event, NVIDIA had its where the company announced the upcoming RTX 3060, upcoming laptops with the RTX 30 series, and some new technologies, such as 3^rd Generation Max-Q. As the RTX 3060 may be the more interesting announcement for many of you, I will start with this $329 part expected to launch in late February. For the announcement, the success of the popular GTX 1060 was covered first, setting this new part up as its successor. NVIDIA is claiming the RTX 3060 will offer double the raster performance of the GTX 1060, making it powerful enough for titles like Cyberpunk 2077. It will have 13 shader TFLOPs, 25 RT TFLOPs, and 101 tensor TFLOPs, which will be to drive DLSS. The GPU will also have a 192-bit memory interface to connect to 12 GB of GDDR6.

In addition to support for the various RTX technologies, the RTX 3060 will be the first graphics card from NVIDIA to support resizable BAR, a feature of the PCIe specification that has gained significant attention since AMD announced Smart Access Memory that takes advantage of the same technology. Basically the CPU is able to directly access a portion of your GPU's VRAM, but normally this is limited to 256 MB at a time. The resizable BAR feature introduced with the PCIe specification makes it possible for the CPU to access larger portions of the VRAM, which can positively impact performance. How large an improvement will depend on the title and potentially also the optimizations we see in the future, as the use of this technology is still fairly new.

Turning to the mobile news now, NVIDIA shared that we can expect over 70 laptops will be launching with an RTX 30 series GPU. Those with an RTX 3060 will be available starting at $999; an RTX 3070 will bring the price up to $1299; and then the flagship RTX 3080 will cost $1999 to start, but it can also be paired with up to 16 GB of VRAM. The mobile RTX 3060 is targeting 90 FPS at 1080p with games at their ultra configurations, putting it above the RTX 2080 Super. The RTX 3070 goes up a notch by targeting the same configurations and 90 FPS experience, but at 1440p. The RTX 3080 laptops though will drive past 100 FPS at ultra configurations and 1440p.

Helping to get this much performance into laptops is the 3^rd gen of Max-Q, NVIDIA's suite of technologies and optimizations to achieve greater power and thermal efficiency. This new version of the suite includes DLSS and resizable BAR, as well as both Dynamic Boost 2.0 and WhisperMode 2.0, which both apply AI approaches to improve results. With Dynamic Boost 2.0, the AI network will work to balance the power between the CPU, GPU, and now also the GPU VRAM of the laptop more effectively, to achieve optimal performance. Laptop components have to work within a certain power budget so by intelligently rebalancing the budget across the different components as needed, desirable performance improvements can be achieved. WhisperMoe 2.0 applies its AI algorithms to manage the different temperatures in the laptop as well as the fan speeds to arrive at the user's desired acoustics. This solution has been completely reengineered and will be custom built for each laptop.

We can expect the first RTX 30 series laptops to be available starting on January 26 and coming from OEMs such as Acer, ASUS, HP, Lenovo, MSI, and Razer. In fact the end of the event shared a video of a Razer Blade 15 with an RTX 3080 driving a Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 simulator rig that included three displays.

Other announcements include that Call of Duty: Warzone and the upcoming Outriders will support DLSS while Five Nights at Freddy's: Security Breach and F.I.S.T.: Forged in Shadow Torch will feature both ray tracing and DLSS. Both Rainbow 6 Siege and Overwatch will be gaining NVIDIA Reflex support too and there are five new monitors coming with Reflex Latency Analyzers built in, including some with 1440p resolutions and ultra-wide sizes.

Source: NVIDIA [1] (RTX 3060) and [2] (RTX 30 Series Laptops)
13:16
AMD CES 2021 Keynote Announces New Mobile and Desktop CPUs, Shares Milan EPYC Information
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Yesterday Intel shared its announcements and teases at CES 2021, with today being AMD's opportunity to grab consumer's attention. While a good amount of the keynote focused on partners, there were some interesting product announcements, though mainly focused on the mobile parts, including the new HX series we can expect with the Ryzen 5000 Series for Mobile lineup. These new parts provide as much as a 23% single-thread performance increase and 17% multi-threaded performance increase over the previous generation.

Starting with the already established H and U series, both will be topped by a Ryzen 7 5800 variant feature 8 cores/16 threads. The U series targets lower power products and so the 5800U will run its eight cores within a 15 W TDP. This brings the base clock down to 1.9 GHz, but it will still be able to boost up to 4.4 GHz. The 5800H has a 45 W TDP, raising the base clock to 3.2 GHz, though with the same boost clock.

There is also the 5800HS with a lower TDP of 35 W and lower base clock of 2.8 GHz, for products that have greater thermal capacity, but are not performance leaders. The 5900HS and 5980HS are above that, but keep the same 35 W TDP though likely thanks to better silicon quality, offer improved base and boost clocks. The 5900HS has a base clock of 3.0 GHz and a boost of 4.6 GHz while the 5980HS is able to achieve a boost of 4.8 GHz, with the same base clock.

For those that demand the most performance, or possibly the most control, there is the new HX series with the 5980HX at its top. This will have a base clock of 3.3 GHz and a boost of 4.8 GHz with a 45+ W TDP. The reason for the "+" is that the HX series of mobile processors will be unlocked, allowing users to overclock the part in their laptop. (Personally I think I would attempt some undervolting.) The only other HX part is the 5900HX that offers a lower boost clock of 4.6 GHz, but the same 3.3 GHz base.

Other parts for the Ryzen 5000 Mobile series include the 5600H, 5600HS, and 5600U that are 6 core/12 thread processors with boost clocks of 4.2 GHz. The 5600H has a base clock of 3.3 GHz with its 45 W TDP while the HS version is at 3.0 GHz with its 35 W TDP. The 5600U has the lowest TDP at 15 W, bringing its base clock to 2.3 GHz. All three of these have 19 MB of cache, while the eight-core parts covered above feature 20 MB.

The last three parts to comprise the 5000 Mobile series are the 5700U, 5500U, and 5300U, which are all based on the Zen 2 architecture, while the others mentioned above are using Zen 3. Being U series parts, they each have 15 W TDPs with the 8 core/16 thread 5700U having a base clock of 1.8 GHz and a boost of 4.3 GHz, the 5500U having a base of 2.1 GHz and a boost of 4.0 GHz for its 6 core/12 thread design. The 5300U is the only 4 core/8 thread part in the stack and has a base clock of 2.6 GHz and a boost of 3.8 GHz.

The first laptops with these processors are expected to launch in February with the Ryzen PRO versions also expected in the first half of this year.

Mobile CPUs were not the only processors announced, though I do not recall them mentioned during the keynote. In any case, the Ryzen 9 5900 and Ryzen 7 5800 desktop processors are 65 W TDP versions of the already available 5900X and 5800X processors. The Ryzen 9 5900 will have a 3.0 GHz base clock and 4.7 GHz boost clock for its 12 cores and 24 threads while the 8 core/16 thread Ryzen 7 5800 will have a base of 3.4 GHz and boost of 4.6 GHz. Due to the different number of CCDs, the 5900 will have 70 MB of cache while the 5800 has only 36 MB.

The press release also states the Ryzen Threadripper PRO CPUs will be available for direct purchase by consumers, with on-shelf availability coming in March 2021. This means you will be able to build a workstation with these professionally verified products, including the 3995WX with its 64 cores and 128 threads paired with 288 MB of cache and 280 W TDP.

For those hoping for a new generation of Threadripper CPUs, based on Zen 3, nothing was announced, but the 3^rd Gen EPYC processors were teased. Codenamed Milan, these will be based on Zen 3 and be offered with at up to a 64 core/128 thread design. To show off what they will be capable of, a system with a pair of 32 core Milan CPUs was pitted against a pair of Intel Xeon Gold 6258R processors, which are 28 core/56 thread products, running the Weather Research and Forecast (WRF) model. This model, which is used in over 160 countries, was completed by the dual EYPC parts about 68% faster than the dual Xeon setup. Such extra speed can be applied to make additional runs or to feed more data to the runs, potentially increasing accuracy either way.

No new discrete GPUs or related technologies were announced either, but it was announced that new RX 6000 series cards should be arriving in H1, as well as gaming laptops using RDNA2-based GPUs. At least one of these mobile GPUs was shown to drive DiRT 5 at 1440p and surpassing 60 FPs while running at the game's Ultra High configuration. At the same time as the H1 release target was shared, two images of what may prove to be reference discrete GPUs were shown, with one featuring a dual-fan design, appearing to be a full length card, while another had a single fan and was a half-length card, ending just past the length of the PCIe connector. These might only be renders and so might not prove to be actual products, but it seems we might be able to expect such a compact card from AMD in the future.

Source: AMD [1] (Ryzen 5000 Series Mobile) and [2] (CES 2021 Recap)
January 11, 2021
20:02
Intel Unveils New Processors and Platforms for CES 2021
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It is the beginning of the year which also means it is CES time and for CES 2021 Intel has started things off with its round of announcements, including previews of Rocket Lake and Alder Lake processors. Rocket Lake-S processors are to offer a 19% IPC improvement generation-over-generation for the highest frequency cores, and the series will be topped by the Core i9-11900K. This architecture will also offer 20 PCIe 4.0 lanes from the CPU itself as well as new AI capabilities and optimizations for games. We can expect these to launch in the first quarter of 2021.

Coming in the second half of the year will be the Alder Lake parts, which may prove to be the more interesting product. Alder Lake will feature both high performance and high efficiency cores in the same chip, a design seen with some ARM-based CPUs. The idea is to allow background tasks and others that do not require peak performance to run on the more efficient cores while the more powerful cores are left idling. This may sound like it will prove more valuable for mobile products than desktop, but we can expect it to come to desktop processors in the future as well. It will also be manufactured an enhanced version of Intel's 10 nm SuperFin technology. SuperFin and other technology were discussed by Intel back in August, as part of the company's Architecture Day 2020.

Of course Intel had more news to share than just these two processors as the company also showed off its 11^th Gen Intel Core vPro platform aimed at businesses. The vPro processors include several security technologies, such as Intel Hardware Shield. This utilizes a silicon-enabled AI threat detection system to detect and stop attacks, such as ransomware. Control Flow Enforcement Technology is also present to protect against this class of attacks that software solutions have struggled with. In addition to these security technologies, the processors will utilize Iris X^e graphics and support Intel Wi-Fi 6/6E connectivity, to help keep employees connected with fast uploads and downloads. Artificial intelligence performance is supposed to be eight times better than the previous generation, and 2.3 times faster creation and video editing. Intel is also claiming the Core vPro i7-1185G7 is able to beat AMD's Ryzen 7 Pro 4750U in Office 365 by 23% and as much as 50% faster in other office productivity tests.

To create the best experience for business users, Intel launched the Evo vPro platform for laptop, as those verified as part of this platform are to be stylish, thin, and light while providing great responsiveness and instant wake. This year there should be over 60 laptops launching from different manufacturers as part of the Evo vPro platform, and Intel Evo Chromebooks were also announced, which are to be a new class of premium Chromebooks.

As this past year had many turn to their computers more than ever before, including students relying on them for education, Intel is introducing the N-series Pentium Silver and Celeron processors. These are to provide a balance of performance, media, and collaboration for education. Built on the company's 10 nm process, these processors should offer up to 35% better application performance and 78% better graphics performance compared to the previous generation. In April Intel started its Online Learning Initiative to get laptops and other resources to students and the company intends to continue its efforts this year as well.

You can find more information about these at the source links below, especially the second one which is patterned as a live blog for the news conference. Also you can find the footnotes at the end of the first link, providing more information on Intel's testing to arrive at the performance comparisons it shared.

Source: Intel [1] and [2]
January 08, 2021
11:59
Various Video Game Stories from the Week of January 4, 2021
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With the first full week of the year coming to an end, it is time to go over some of the video games news it has brought us. Unfortunately the week has not been that busy with game news, but with CES 2021 starting next week, we know there will be plenty of tech news to digest soon.

Starting things off is some news from Deep Silver as Gods Will Fall can now be pre-ordered. In this game you are the last hope for humanity as you enter into the realm of the gods to defeat them, ending their cruelty. There are eight survivors in your Celtic clan, with each being different sizes and wielding their own weapon, making it important to select the appropriate warrior for the next fight.

With the game releasing on January 29 for PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, and Google Stadia, you are now able to pre-order the title and get with it the exclusive Hunter's Head Gear. With each playthrough the gear is assigned at random and will allow you to wear the hides of a wolf, bear, boar, fox, or badger to show the gods why they should fear you. In addition to the standard edition, you can also pre-order the Valiant Edition that brings with it the Valley of the Dormant Gods DLC. This adds three new gods and their infernal realms to challenge you, as well as two new warriors with their own weapons and style of combat. There are also new items, skills, things to find in the overworld to help you as you enter the realms of the gods, and battle-ready attire to equip.

Source: Press Release (Deep Silver)

Devolver Digital had some news to share too as Fall Guys will be receiving, for a limited time, some iconic costumes from the DOOM franchise. From the trailer below you can see you can dress the Slayer or as demons as you rip and tear through the Blunderdome. These costumes will be available starting on January 12. A special point is made in the press release that Team Deathmatch remains unconfirmed for the game, so your goal will still be to acquire the crown and not to dismember your enemies.

Source: Press Release (Devolver Digital)

Lastly, Epic Games has shared it has acquired RAD Game Tools, a company that even if you have not personally heard of you very possibly are familiar with just the same. This company has specialized in compression technologies for years and has seen that technology used in almost 25,000 games, according to the press release, and considering how many I have seen use Bink compressed videos, I can believe it. The company is behind more than that one format and codec though, and that is why Epic decided to acquire them. The intent is to integrate the tools into Unreal Engine to enable games to load and download faster while improving the gaming experience. With the size some modern games have reached, perhaps integration of better compression methods is exactly what we need.

Though Epic Games is the new owner, RAD will continue to support their partners in the game, film, and television industries, regardless of if Unreal Engine is used. The sales and business development teams will continue to maintain and sell licenses for the company's products.

Source: Epic Games
December 24, 2020
10:19
Various Video Game Stories from the Week of December 21, 2020
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Since tomorrow is going to be somewhat busy, I decided to go through the various bits of video game news I have today. To start things off, here is a quick reminder that the Steam Winter Sale has begun, and it will be going until January 5. Hopefully that is enough time to find the games and deals you want to start the new year with. Among the games on sale are DOOM Eternal, F1 2020, Carrion, Relicta, and Serious Sam 4, each of which released this year. You can also find a bunch of Stardock games and software including The Political Machine 2020 and Star Control: Origins with its Earth Rising expansion.

Also, do not forget to check out the Epic Games Store as it continues with the one-day game giveaways during its sale and GOG is giving away Brigador: Up-Armored Deluxe until December 25 at 2 PM UTC. The DRM-free store also added more games to its sale, such as Horizon Zero Dawn Complete Edition and Streets of Rage 4.

Source: Various Store Pages

First up for the more specific gaming news is some from Devolver Digital as players of Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout are able to get a free costume for their bean. To mark this, a special live-action trailer has been released, showing us how a Fall Guy spends its holidays. I also saw today a Behind the Schemes video for the making of that trailer was shared, so here is a link to that: Fall Guys Holiday Special - Behind the Schemes.

Source: Press Release (Devolver Digital)

Modus Games is up now as Override 2: Super Mech League released earlier this week. Perhaps battling behemoth bots is exactly what you need this holiday season, or what someone else wants. It is available on PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 5, and Nintendo Switch for $29.99. While split-screen multi-player is supported on all platforms, the consoles do have certain limitations. The Xbox One and PlayStation 4 are limited to HD resolution and 30 FPS while the newer Xbox Series X/S and PlayStation 5 are limited to 4K and 60 FPS, but each of these is capable of 4-player local versus matches. The Nintendo Switch, however, is limited to 2-player local versus and 720p at 30 FPS for these matches.

Source: Modus Games [1] (Override 2: Super Mech League)

This week Modus Games announced its partnership with Jutsu Games and Game Operators to release Rustler to Steam Early Access in 2021. In Rustler you play as the anti-hero Guy seeks to win the Great Tournament for its prize of the princess' hand in marriage. To achieve this goal you may need to steal some horses though. And murder some people. Digging up some dinosaur bones may also help and launching cows in the sky is a feature more games could probably use. The gameplay trailer is embedded below, so you can get an idea of what Rustler is about and decide if you want to be a medieval thug when it comes to Early Access next year.

Source: Modus Games [2] (Rustler)

Dead Cells from Motion Twins has received its Update 21 on Steam with the console version arriving in January. It includes a lot of new additions and gameplay changes to enjoy over the holidays, but thankfully there is a TLDR list in the press release. Color scaling, Malaise, and the backpack have all received reworks while new mutations, a new mob, new weapon, outfits, and diets have been added, along with the Hand of the King lore room. This is to explain some about the mystery man, if you can find the room hidden in the castle. For the new weapon we have the Katana the community has been requesting, allowing you to chain together a slash with a dashing charge. The new mob is the Demolisher with its Explosive Crossbow and can be found in the Distillery at BC0 and other places later on as well, as an alternate to the Knife Thrower. There are plenty of other changes to the game, so you may want to check out the patch notes linked below.

Source Press Release (Motion Twins) and Dead Cells Patch Notes

Lastly we have some news from Rockstar Games as the holiday events for GTA Online and Red Dead Online have begun. Snow has fallen across Southern San Andreas and the five states of the Frontier, which have also been decorated for the season and even have carolers out. In GTA Online you will find clothing and vehicle livery gifts such as the Vibrant Stitch Emissive Mask and the Buckingham Akula. The holiday care package contains the Firework Launcher with 20 rockets, 25 sticky bombs, 25 grenades, 10 proximity mines, and 10 molotovs. Also, if you visit Southern San Andreas Super Autos before December 30 you can get the Grotti Brioso 300 for free.

For Read Dead Online you can get the new Winter Evans Repeater variant for free this week, as well as a coupon for a free coat and repeater. The money and experience has tripled for the festive versions of Make It Count – Bow & Arrow and Last Stand and there is a new legendary bounty to hunt. Bounty hunter role activities are also granting double character and role experience for the event and there are holiday role discounts to take advantage of, alongside other discounts.

Source: Rockstar Games [1] (GTA Online) and [2] (Read Dead Online)
December 18, 2020
13:04
Various Video Game Stories from the Week of December 14, 2020
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As another week comes to its close we have some video game news to cover. First up are the different sales that have started to celebrate the holidays, as these are time sensitive. The Epic Games Store has begun its Holiday Sale 2020 and it includes not only daily game giveaways but also the return of the Epic Coupon. These coupons give $10 off purchases of $14.99 or more, and you get one each time you make a qualifying purpose. These coupons will expire on January 7, when the sale also ends.

GOG has also begun its Winter Sale with many of the games in its DRM-free catalog being on sale, but also some new games have been added. Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey, Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus, The Walking Dead: The Telltale Definitive Series, and Shing! have all been added and are all on sale too. There are also first time sales on some titles, such as some Konami classic like Metal Gear Solid.

Lastly, the Humble Store has several sales going on covering different publishers and developers. 2K, Ubisoft, Paradox, Rockstar Games, Private Division are four of the sales I can see from the main page, with more to find after a few clicks.

The Steam sale has not begun yet, but it seems like that will just be a matter of time.

Source: Epic Games Store, GOG, and Humble Bundle

Turning to other news, 2K Games has announced Borderlands 3's Co-op Loot Drop mini-event, which runs from December 17 to January 21. During this event all Badass enemies will drop additional loot so long as you are playing with others. Whether online or via split-screen, the larger your co-op party, the more loot will fall from Badass enemies you find in the base game and any of the DLC areas you can access.

Source: 2K Games

Edge of Eternity, an indie JRPG from publisher Dear Villagers and developer Midgard Studio has released the game's final Early Access content update. With this update comes The God's Herald, the game's sixth chapter that brings it to over 45 hours of content with three new areas, a new playable character, and more. These new areas are the Scorched Halcyon, Refugee Camp, and the Valorian Pass. Cutscenes have been added for previous chapters as well and Daryon and Ysoris have received two new special attacks as well.

The full release of the game is planned for next year on Steam, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4.

Source: Press Release (Dear Villagers)

DiRT 5 has received an update to version 2.00 that brings with it wheel support across all platforms, as well as improved online matchmaking, bug fixes, and optimizations. Also arriving with the update is the Snow Limits pack that adds various festive items to the Playgrounds mode, and this content pack is free to all players. It also adds a new Sprint race around Roosevelt Island, new customization options for your profile and the livery. The Ford Mustang GT4 and Porsche Cayenne Transsyberia both can have a new themed appearance to them.

Source: Codemasters (DiRT 5 Patch Notes)

The Rusviet Revolution DLC has released for Iron Harvest, from KING Art Games and Deep Silver. With this new content, players will get to see the Rusviet people rise up to fight their Tsar across four new campaign missions to learn more about the mysterious Rasputin and what he has set in motion. The missions can be enjoyed in single-player or co-op multiplayer.

The Rusviet Revolution DLC is free to all of the Kickstarter Backers as well as the Deluxe Edition owners. You can also purchase it on Steam, Epic Games Store, or GOG for $3.99.

Source: Press Release (Deep Silver – Iron Harvest)

Outward has received its second major content expansion on PC; The Three Brothers. In this expansion your path takes you to Caldera, a new region of Aurai that is waiting to reveal its new adventures, dangers, and secrets. Part of your purpose there will be to help with the rebuilding of old Sirocco, but you will also be able to find new weapons, skills, recipes, and pets, if you need the additional incentive.

The Three Brothers expansion will come to consoles in 2021.

Source: Press Release (Deep Silver - Outward)

Time for some Devolver Digital news, starting with Fall Guys beginning its Season 3 that makes the mayhem more festive. There are new costumes and emotes as well as seven wintry rounds added to the lineup. With Ski Fall you will slip and slide down an icy slope while Tundra Run provides a different take to the gauntlet style. Freezy Peak is a spiral summit that throws snowballs at the competitors. Snowy Scrap pits three teams against each other, with just three snowballs and Pegwin Pursuit releases tiny penguins into the arena for the players to grab. Thin Ice is a finale that has the icy tiles beneath your feet crack until you fall to an instant elimination. Roll Off applies the perpetual motion and fancy footwork of Roll Out to create a fresh finale to determine the bet bean.

Other additions include Crown Ranks that can unlock various rewards, including exclusive Golden Costumes, and the Bulletin Board, where you can follow the latest news and announcements for the game.

Source: Press Release (Devolver Digital – Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout)

Olija, from Skeleton Crew Studio and Devolver Digital, has had its release date set for January 28. In a bit more than a month players will get to wash up in Terraphage as Faraday. Wielding a legendary harpoon, he must survive and help other shipwreck survivors do the same and ultimately escape this hostile nation to return home.

Source: Press Release (Devolver Digital – Olija)

Publisher Modus Games has released a new gameplay clip for Cris Tales, the upcoming JRPG where you play as Crisbell. In this video we see Crisbell discover her ability to observe the past and future versions of her surroundings, as well as manipulate them during those different times. With some help, she will be able to create a brighter future for those near and far in the world. At the end of the video we get a look at the Synchro system used in combat to combine the skills of your team members.

Cris Tales is coming to PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 5, and Nintendo Switch in 2021 for a price of $39.99.

Source: Press Release (Modus Games – Cris Tales)

Lastly for the video game news, Ubisoft has begun the Yule Season for Assassin's Creed Valhalla. With this first season for the game, which will run for three months, players can find exclusive narrative content and in-game events to access and enjoy. This content, as well as that for future seasons, will be free for all players.

While the season lasts for three months, the Yule Festival will end on January 7. This is an event with a dedicated area in your settlement where you can take part in some new activities, like an Archery mini-game and Fist Fight tournament, as well as a couple new character quests.

For those curious about the future of the game, more content will be added to the Yule Season in February as River Raids and Jomsviking ranks arrive. The River Raids game mode brings with it a dynamic and challenging raiding experience that will see players relying on their Jomsviking, so make sure yours and those you hire from your friends are up for the task.

Source: Ubisoft

The Khronos Group is the consortium companies behind the Vulkan graphics API, amongst others, and this week released Vulkan SDK 1.2.162.0, which is significant because it contains full support for the new Vulkan Ray Tracing Extensions. This includes Validation Layers as well as upgraded GLSL, HLSL, and SPIR-V upgraded shader tool chains. The final Vulkan Ray Tracing extensions were released in November, but with this release comes all of the components developers need to easily apply them without needing to build from multiple repositories.

If you follow the source link you can learn more about this release, including other articles on how they work and how to use them. One thing fairly interesting that is shared was that Khronos worked to satisfy the developer community's desire to make it easy to bring DirectX Ray Tracing to Vulkan. This was achieved by designing a superset of DXR and integrating support into the open source HLSL compiler for DXC. It was also designed in such a way that a project like vkd3d-Proton will be able to translate DXR to Vulkan, as well as other calls for DX12 to Vulkan.

Source: Khronos Group

Bringing this to an end, UL has announced several tests are seeing their support come to an end. These are the 3DMark Sky Diver, 3DMark API Overhead feature test, PCMark 8, Servermark Media Transcode, and VRMark for Android. When a benchmark or test is no longer supported that means it will no longer be sold, updated, eligible for support, or guaranteed to work with the online services. Legacy benchmarks also become free to download though, but are meant for entertainment purposes only as compatibility is not guaranteed.

Sky Diver is a DX11 benchmark that targeted integrated graphics when it released in 2014, but it is now considered too lightweight for modern computers. Instead, Night Raid and Wild Life, which are DX12 and Vulkan benchmarks respectively, are recommended instead. The API Overhead feature test was meant to show one of the advantages for low-level APIs, and while this capability is still valuable, UL feels developers today are going to select APIs based on other features as well as compatibility, making this test unnecessary.

PCMark 8 targeted Windows 8, but as only 5% of desktops are running this OS, the time has come to retire it. Servermark Media Transcode was meant to test the performance of media transcoding servers, but it targeted a narrow range of processors and libraries, and as these components are no longer used, the benchmark has lost its use as well. The company does not intend to update or replace it. VRMark for Android was meant to benchmark Google Daydream devices, but as Google as announced it is ending support for Daydream VR in Android 11, this benchmark too has come to the end of its usefulness.

Source: UL
December 17, 2020
9:36
G.Skill Announces ENKI AIO Liquid Cooler Series
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Most people would associate G.Skill with its high performance memory, such as the TridentZ Royal DDR4 3600 CL14 32 GB kit that we recently reviewed, but it does offer other products as well, such as keyboards, mice, and headsets. Now the company has decided to enter the liquid cooling market with the ENKI series of all-in-one CPU coolers.

ENKI was the ancient Sumerian god of water, but there is nothing ancient about the design of this cooler. For starters the copper base plate has a convex shape to it that is to improve the contact between it and the CPU through the thermal paste. On the other side, the plate's micro-fins are densely packed and have a stair like shape to them. This shape is to help guide the flow of the coolant from the intake to the outflow, increasing the efficiency of the heat transfer to the radiator.

The ANKI series has 240 mm, 280 mm, and 360 mm versions. Connecting the base plate and pump to the radiators is tubing with an 8 mm inner diameter to enable a high flow rate. The tubing also features a thick rubber wall to prevent coolant from evaporating through it, and then a nylon-braided sleeve around it for added durability. The radiators also utilize a high density design, but not just to the fins; to the piping as well. G.Skill is claiming the 240 mm and 360 mm versions feature 3 or 4 more pipes than typical radiators while the 280 mm version has 6 more than those of other brands. By using additional pipes there will be more surface area between them and the fins, further improving heat transfer efficiency.

Paired with the radiators are 9-blade, high static pressure fans that will provide constant air flow. They are PWM controlled so they can change speed in response to the CPU temperature. The thermal paste G.Skill provides with the coolers they are labelling "server-grade" with an ultra-low thermal resistance. It does appear it will come in its own syringe rather than being pre-applied to the cooler.

Lastly, the ENKI AIO coolers do have a 3-pin ARGB connector so you can control its RGB lighting from the motherboard lighting software. Looking at the images, it appears the lighting is limited to just the cold plate as the fans are not RGB illuminated.

It will be interesting to see how the ENKI series compares to other AIO coolers from companies more established in the cooler market. Though G.Skill will be a newcomer with these coolers, it is hardly unfamiliar with high performance components and the desires of gamers. The series will be available through the company's distribution partners in 2021, so it may be a bit before we get exact performance numbers. When they release though, they will be backed by a 5-year warranty.

Source: G.Skill
9:36
G.Skill Announces ENKI AIO Liquid Cooler Series
» ‎ Overclockers Club news Feed

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Most people would associate G.Skill with its high performance memory, such as the TridentZ Royal DDR4 3600 CL14 32 GB kit that we recently reviewed, but it does offer other products as well, such as keyboards, mice, and headsets. Now the company has decided to enter the liquid cooling market with the ENKI series of all-in-one CPU coolers.

ENKI was the ancient Sumerian god of water, but there is nothing ancient about the design of this cooler. For starters the copper base plate has a convex shape to it that is to improve the contact between it and the CPU through the thermal paste. On the other side, the plate's micro-fins are densely packed and have a stair like shape to them. This shape is to help guide the flow of the coolant from the intake to the outflow, increasing the efficiency of the heat transfer to the radiator.

The ANKI series has 240 mm, 280 mm, and 360 mm versions. Connecting the base plate and pump to the radiators is tubing with an 8 mm inner diameter to enable a high flow rate. The tubing also features a thick rubber wall to prevent coolant from evaporating through it, and then a nylon-braided sleeve around it for added durability. The radiators also utilize a high density design, but not just to the fins; to the piping as well. G.Skill is claiming the 240 mm and 360 mm versions feature 3 or 4 more pipes than typical radiators while the 280 mm version has 6 more than those of other brands. By using additional pipes there will be more surface area between them and the fins, further improving heat transfer efficiency.

Paired with the radiators are 9-blade, high static pressure fans that will provide constant air flow. They are PWM controlled so they can change speed in response to the CPU temperature. The thermal paste G.Skill provides with the coolers they are labelling "server-grade" with an ultra-low thermal resistance. It does appear it will come in its own syringe rather than being pre-applied to the cooler.

Lastly, the ENKI AIO coolers do have a 3-pin ARGB connector so you can control its RGB lighting from the motherboard lighting software. Looking at the images, it appears the lighting is limited to just the cold plate as the fans are not RGB illuminated.

It will be interesting to see how the ENKI series compares to other AIO coolers from companies more established in the cooler market. Though G.Skill will be a newcomer with these coolers, it is hardly unfamiliar with high performance components and the desires of gamers. The series will be available through the company's distribution partners in 2021, so it may be a bit before we get exact performance numbers. When they release though, they will be backed by a 5-year warranty.

Source: G.Skill
December 11, 2020
11:35
Various Video Game Stories from the Week of December 7, 2020
» ‎ Overclockers Club news Feed

Tags: [edit]

Though this week has certainly been dominated by the release of Cyberpunk 2077, that has not been the only news this week. Going in order by publisher, we start with the news that F1 2020 has received a free update adding the F2 2020 season. This counterpart to the real-world races has 12 weekends of races, with each weekend having two races. The first is the Feature Race with all of the drivers and lined up based on their qualifying time, and points awarded to the top ten placings. The second is the Sprint Race and only has the top eight racers compete. It is also a shorter race rewarding few points to the top drivers.

Source: Codemasters

Now for some news from Devolver Digital, starting with Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout's Season 3 having a trailer release to show off the various things it will bring. The new season is winter themed and will include seven new levels and over 30 new costumes as well as new obstacles and emotes. It will be releasing on December 15, but until then you can check out the trailer below.

Source: Press Release (Devolver Digital)

That was not the only announcement from Devolver Digital this week, and this other one was made in a very Devolver Digital way. The publisher revealed its 2021 Game of the Year Award, to let us all know what the best game will be for the future 12 months. The winner was Loop Hero from developer Four Quarters, a game that this reward was used to announce. In other words, Devolver Digital made an announcement at The Game Awards in a very Devolver Digital way.

In Loop Hero you will find yourself in a world caught in a timeless loop, leaving its inhabitants in never ending chaos. By using your growing deck of mystical cards, position enemies, buildings, and terrain on the path of each expedition to finally put together your hero's memories and restore balance to the world. Naturally it will be releasing in 2021.

Source: Press Release (Devolver Digital)

Modus Games has shared from new information for Override 2: Super Mech League, including a new trailer looking at Leagues, the game's career mode. As part of this, players will get to join clubs to establish and build their reputation, ultimately to get sponsorship deals and new cosmetics to make sure your mech stands out from the others. The game is scheduled to release on December 22 for PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 5, and Nintendo Switch.

Source: Modus Games

Rebellion has some news to share as well with the release of new Zombie Army 4 content. More specifically, Alpine Blitz, the second mission of the Death from Above campaign is out now, taking players to the Alps where you must fight through a zombie-infested train while the airship is above, ready to stop your progress to an air field. The trailer is behind an age-gate, so here is the link: Zombie Army 4: Dead War – Alpine Blitz. The third mission for the Death from Above campaign is expected to release in the coming months.

In addition to the campaign mission, the game has received other content that is available separate from Season Pass Two. This new content includes the Holiday Season Headgear Bundle, Holiday Weapon Skins, Holiday Season Charm Pack, and the Berserker Boris Outfit.

Source: Press Release (Rebellion)

Next Square Enix released a couple trailers during The Game Awards, with both behind age-gates on YouTube. First is one for NieR Replicant ver.1.22474487139… that shows off battle gameplay as the protagonist slashes through groups of enemies on multiple battlefields: NieR Replicant ver.1.122474487139… The Game Awards Gameplay Trailer. NieR Replicant ver.1.22474487139… is scheduled to release on April 23, 2021 for PC, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4.

The second trailer is for Outriders, which is to release on February 2 for PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X/S, and PlayStation 5, with the Google Stadia release coming later. With this, players are introduced to the Mantras of Survival, guides that will help you to succeed on the game's world of Enoch. These are Cover is for Cowards, Powers on Tap, Kill to Heal, and Think Aggressive. Apparently all cover will be good for is buying some time, and not as a means to victory, but with the cooldowns to your powers being short, you can call on them frequently and not need to rely on bullets. When you do take damage you want to get into the fight and deal damage to your enemies, as that is how all Outriders heal. The Think Aggressive mantra seems to sum it all up nicely, as that is the playstyle that the challenges of Enoch will fall to. Here is the trailer so you can see these mantras put to use: Outriders: Mantras of Survival

Source: Press Releases (Square Enix)

THQ Nordic's turn, beginning with a free update to Desperados II that brings with it Bounty Mode, so you can choose which of the five desperados you want to play as in every major mission. Perhaps more significant is the addition of the newly activated "Level Editing Cheats" as these will allow players to create their own mission setups. These can then be shared with other players via the save games, effectively making it a "level editor light." Below is the trailer for the update, but if you check out the source link you can find links to videos on how to use the cheat commands for level editing.

Source: THQ Nordic [1] (Desperados III)

Another piece of news from THQ Nordic is the December Update for Wreckfest. The highlights are a new tournament, new track, and support for the Racing Heroes Car Pack DLC. There are also new racing themed reward bundles for Boomer RS and Nexus, and improvements to the handling of front-wheel drive cars. The source link has the full list of changes from this update.

Source: THQ Nordic [2] (Wreckfest)

Lastly for video games news, Ubisoft has shared the release date for Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World: The Game – Complete Edition and given an update on the Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time Remake release date. For those looking forward to returning to the 2010 beat 'em up, it will be releasing on January 14, 2021 for PC, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and Google Stadia, and will be playable on Xbox Series X/S, and PlayStation 5.

For those waiting for Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time Remake, you will have to wait a bit long as its release date has been pushed to March 28, 2021. With how complicated this year has been for many, it was decided that additional time to work on the game was necessary, and so the release date has been moved back some.

Source: Ubisoft [1] (Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World: The Game – Complete Edition and [2] (Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time Remake)

Ending this is some hardware news some might be happy to learn as Scott Herkelman, CVP and GM for AMD Radeon, has stated the reference design for the Radeon RX 6800(XT) graphics cards will continue to be produced. It is common for reference designs to cease production as most consumers will opt for AIB designs, but due to the popularity of the new reference design, the decision has been made to extend the reference design indefinitely. Of course as long as supply is low this may not matter much for many consumers, but there is one thing some have speculated about. The reference design will likely keep its price near the MSRP, which may help with pricing in the future, but again, this will matter most once supply has improved.

Source: Twitter @sherkelman
11:35
Various Video Game Stories from the Week of December 7, 2020
» ‎ Overclockers Club news Feed

Tags: [edit]

Though this week has certainly been dominated by the release of Cyberpunk 2077, that has not been the only news this week. Going in order by publisher, we start with the news that F1 2020 has received a free update adding the F2 2020 season. This counterpart to the real-world races has 12 weekends of races, with each weekend having two races. The first is the Feature Race with all of the drivers and lined up based on their qualifying time, and points awarded to the top ten placings. The second is the Sprint Race and only has the top eight racers compete. It is also a shorter race rewarding few points to the top drivers.

Source: Codemasters

Now for some news from Devolver Digital, starting with Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout's Season 3 having a trailer release to show off the various things it will bring. The new season is winter themed and will include seven new levels and over 30 new costumes as well as new obstacles and emotes. It will be releasing on December 15, but until then you can check out the trailer below.

Source: Press Release (Devolver Digital)

That was not the only announcement from Devolver Digital this week, and this other one was made in a very Devolver Digital way. The publisher revealed its 2021 Game of the Year Award, to let us all know what the best game will be for the future 12 months. The winner was Loop Hero from developer Four Quarters, a game that this reward was used to announce. In other words, Devolver Digital made an announcement at The Game Awards in a very Devolver Digital way.

In Loop Hero you will find yourself in a world caught in a timeless loop, leaving its inhabitants in never ending chaos. By using your growing deck of mystical cards, position enemies, buildings, and terrain on the path of each expedition to finally put together your hero's memories and restore balance to the world. Naturally it will be releasing in 2021.

Source: Press Release (Devolver Digital)

Modus Games has shared from new information for Override 2: Super Mech League, including a new trailer looking at Leagues, the game's career mode. As part of this, players will get to join clubs to establish and build their reputation, ultimately to get sponsorship deals and new cosmetics to make sure your mech stands out from the others. The game is scheduled to release on December 22 for PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 5, and Nintendo Switch.

Source: Modus Games

Rebellion has some news to share as well with the release of new Zombie Army 4 content. More specifically, Alpine Blitz, the second mission of the Death from Above campaign is out now, taking players to the Alps where you must fight through a zombie-infested train while the airship is above, ready to stop your progress to an air field. The trailer is behind an age-gate, so here is the link: Zombie Army 4: Dead War – Alpine Blitz. The third mission for the Death from Above campaign is expected to release in the coming months.

In addition to the campaign mission, the game has received other content that is available separate from Season Pass Two. This new content includes the Holiday Season Headgear Bundle, Holiday Weapon Skins, Holiday Season Charm Pack, and the Berserker Boris Outfit.

Source: Press Release (Rebellion)

Next Square Enix released a couple trailers during The Game Awards, with both behind age-gates on YouTube. First is one for NieR Replicant ver.1.22474487139… that shows off battle gameplay as the protagonist slashes through groups of enemies on multiple battlefields: NieR Replicant ver.1.122474487139… The Game Awards Gameplay Trailer. NieR Replicant ver.1.22474487139… is scheduled to release on April 23, 2021 for PC, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4.

The second trailer is for Outriders, which is to release on February 2 for PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X/S, and PlayStation 5, with the Google Stadia release coming later. With this, players are introduced to the Mantras of Survival, guides that will help you to succeed on the game's world of Enoch. These are Cover is for Cowards, Powers on Tap, Kill to Heal, and Think Aggressive. Apparently all cover will be good for is buying some time, and not as a means to victory, but with the cooldowns to your powers being short, you can call on them frequently and not need to rely on bullets. When you do take damage you want to get into the fight and deal damage to your enemies, as that is how all Outriders heal. The Think Aggressive mantra seems to sum it all up nicely, as that is the playstyle that the challenges of Enoch will fall to. Here is the trailer so you can see these mantras put to use: Outriders: Mantras of Survival

Source: Press Releases (Square Enix)

THQ Nordic's turn, beginning with a free update to Desperados II that brings with it Bounty Mode, so you can choose which of the five desperados you want to play as in every major mission. Perhaps more significant is the addition of the newly activated "Level Editing Cheats" as these will allow players to create their own mission setups. These can then be shared with other players via the save games, effectively making it a "level editor light." Below is the trailer for the update, but if you check out the source link you can find links to videos on how to use the cheat commands for level editing.

Source: THQ Nordic [1] (Desperados III)

Another piece of news from THQ Nordic is the December Update for Wreckfest. The highlights are a new tournament, new track, and support for the Racing Heroes Car Pack DLC. There are also new racing themed reward bundles for Boomer RS and Nexus, and improvements to the handling of front-wheel drive cars. The source link has the full list of changes from this update.

Source: THQ Nordic [2] (Wreckfest)

Lastly for video games news, Ubisoft has shared the release date for Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World: The Game – Complete Edition and given an update on the Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time Remake release date. For those looking forward to returning to the 2010 beat 'em up, it will be releasing on January 14, 2021 for PC, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and Google Stadia, and will be playable on Xbox Series X/S, and PlayStation 5.

For those waiting for Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time Remake, you will have to wait a bit long as its release date has been pushed to March 28, 2021. With how complicated this year has been for many, it was decided that additional time to work on the game was necessary, and so the release date has been moved back some.

Source: Ubisoft [1] (Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World: The Game – Complete Edition and [2] (Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time Remake)

Ending this is some hardware news some might be happy to learn as Scott Herkelman, CVP and GM for AMD Radeon, has stated the reference design for the Radeon RX 6800(XT) graphics cards will continue to be produced. It is common for reference designs to cease production as most consumers will opt for AIB designs, but due to the popularity of the new reference design, the decision has been made to extend the reference design indefinitely. Of course as long as supply is low this may not matter much for many consumers, but there is one thing some have speculated about. The reference design will likely keep its price near the MSRP, which may help with pricing in the future, but again, this will matter most once supply has improved.

Source: Twitter @sherkelman
December 04, 2020
11:15
Various Video Game Stories from the Week of November 30, 2020
» ‎ Overclockers Club news Feed

Tags: [edit]

Another week is coming to a close, so another collection of video game news to share, starting with what might be time sensitive, but I am not sure. GOG is making The Witcher: Enhanced Edition free to all those who sign up to receive news, updates, and offers from the DRM-free store front. To get it you do need to use GOG Galaxy and go to the Recent view. There should be a banner at the top and by clicking on the Giveaway button and by agreeing to receive the information listed earlier, the game should be added to your library. Perhaps because I already have a copy of the game on GOG I do not see this banner on. There is no timer or end date indicated for this offer, so it might be a permanent offer for signing up for the newsletter-type information, but if you want a copy of the first Witcher game, this might be a good way to get it.

Source: GOG

Coming to The Irregular Corporation now, the publisher has announced a partnership with White Owls Inc. to publish the freestyle RPG The Good Life. This game was successfully Kickstarted by over 12,000 fans and is to arrive in Summer 2021 for PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Nintendo Switch. In the game, the player takes on the role of Naomi, a New York-based photographer that has found herself in the rural English town of Rainy Woods. On first glance, the town seems to be the happiest place on Earth, but as she works as a photographer and does odd jobs to pay off debt, she finds there is much more going on.

Source: The Irregular Corporation

Motion Twin and Evil Empire have announced the second paid DLC for Dead Cells, which entered Steam Early Access back in 2017. Dubbed "Fatal Flaws," this DLC is expected to launch in 2021 Q1 and will be priced at $4.99, but if you cannot wait that long, a teaser trailer was released and it is embedded below. This teaser gives a quick look at a couple mid-game locations that will be arriving with the DLC next year. These biomes are The Fractured Shrines and The Undying Shores, along with a new boss are parallels to the Stilt Village, Clock Tower, and Time Keeper areas. We can also expect a new cache of weapons to come with the DLC, but details on those will be released later.

Besides this news, an update has also been released for the game, and you can check out the patch notes at the source link below.

Source: Press Release (Motion Twin) and Dead Cells Patch Notes

Rounding out the video game news, Rockstar Games has released Red Dead Online. If you want to get into the online component of Red Dead Redemption 2 without the single-player side of the game, you now can. It is available for PC through Steam, the Epic Games Store, and the Rockstar Games Launcher, and you can get it on console through the Microsoft Store and PlayStation Store, though for both consoles you will need the appropriate Xbox Live Gold and/or PlayStation Plus subscription to play. The versions for Xbox One and PlayStation 4 can be played on the new Xbox Series X/S and PlayStation 5 via backwards compatibility.

To celebrate this release, Red Dead Online is priced at $4.99, which is 75% off the regular price that will go into effect on February 15, 2021.

Source: Rockstar Games

Have one last piece of news you may find interesting, and it is a new benchmark released by UL. Instead of testing gaming performance like 3DMark, or general performance like PCMark, this new Procyon benchmark is targeting professional users. It will leverage Adobe software to determine how well a system can handle certain professional and creative tasks, with the first two tests focused on Photo Editing and Video Editing. The Photo Editing test uses Adobe Lightroom Classic and Adobe Photoshop to measure performance, which does mean you need to have that software installed and licensed for the benchmark to run. Specifically it wants Lightroom Classic 10.0 and Photoshop 22.0, or better for both pieces of software. For video editing it relies on Adobe Premiere Pro 14.5 or higher. It will test the speed of several GPU-accelerated effects as well as exporting at 1080p in h.264 and 2160p with h.265.

Both the Photo Editing and Video Editing benchmarks are priced at $995 for a single-seat, one-year license, so this is definitely targeting the professional market, but depending on what you are looking for in a system, it might be worth looking for UL Procyon benchmark results.

Source: UL
11:15
Various Video Game Stories from the Week of November 30, 2020
» ‎ Overclockers Club news Feed

Tags: [edit]

Another week is coming to a close, so another collection of video game news to share, starting with what might be time sensitive, but I am not sure. GOG is making The Witcher: Enhanced Edition free to all those who sign up to receive news, updates, and offers from the DRM-free store front. To get it you do need to use GOG Galaxy and go to the Recent view. There should be a banner at the top and by clicking on the Giveaway button and by agreeing to receive the information listed earlier, the game should be added to your library. Perhaps because I already have a copy of the game on GOG I do not see this banner on. There is no timer or end date indicated for this offer, so it might be a permanent offer for signing up for the newsletter-type information, but if you want a copy of the first Witcher game, this might be a good way to get it.

Source: GOG

Coming to The Irregular Corporation now, the publisher has announced a partnership with White Owls Inc. to publish the freestyle RPG The Good Life. This game was successfully Kickstarted by over 12,000 fans and is to arrive in Summer 2021 for PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Nintendo Switch. In the game, the player takes on the role of Naomi, a New York-based photographer that has found herself in the rural English town of Rainy Woods. On first glance, the town seems to be the happiest place on Earth, but as she works as a photographer and does odd jobs to pay off debt, she finds there is much more going on.

Source: The Irregular Corporation

Motion Twin and Evil Empire have announced the second paid DLC for Dead Cells, which entered Steam Early Access back in 2017. Dubbed "Fatal Flaws," this DLC is expected to launch in 2021 Q1 and will be priced at $4.99, but if you cannot wait that long, a teaser trailer was released and it is embedded below. This teaser gives a quick look at a couple mid-game locations that will be arriving with the DLC next year. These biomes are The Fractured Shrines and The Undying Shores, along with a new boss are parallels to the Stilt Village, Clock Tower, and Time Keeper areas. We can also expect a new cache of weapons to come with the DLC, but details on those will be released later.

Besides this news, an update has also been released for the game, and you can check out the patch notes at the source link below.

Source: Press Release (Motion Twin) and Dead Cells Patch Notes

Rounding out the video game news, Rockstar Games has released Red Dead Online. If you want to get into the online component of Red Dead Redemption 2 without the single-player side of the game, you now can. It is available for PC through Steam, the Epic Games Store, and the Rockstar Games Launcher, and you can get it on console through the Microsoft Store and PlayStation Store, though for both consoles you will need the appropriate Xbox Live Gold and/or PlayStation Plus subscription to play. The versions for Xbox One and PlayStation 4 can be played on the new Xbox Series X/S and PlayStation 5 via backwards compatibility.

To celebrate this release, Red Dead Online is priced at $4.99, which is 75% off the regular price that will go into effect on February 15, 2021.

Source: Rockstar Games

Have one last piece of news you may find interesting, and it is a new benchmark released by UL. Instead of testing gaming performance like 3DMark, or general performance like PCMark, this new Procyon benchmark is targeting professional users. It will leverage Adobe software to determine how well a system can handle certain professional and creative tasks, with the first two tests focused on Photo Editing and Video Editing. The Photo Editing test uses Adobe Lightroom Classic and Adobe Photoshop to measure performance, which does mean you need to have that software installed and licensed for the benchmark to run. Specifically it wants Lightroom Classic 10.0 and Photoshop 22.0, or better for both pieces of software. For video editing it relies on Adobe Premiere Pro 14.5 or higher. It will test the speed of several GPU-accelerated effects as well as exporting at 1080p in h.264 and 2160p with h.265.

Both the Photo Editing and Video Editing benchmarks are priced at $995 for a single-seat, one-year license, so this is definitely targeting the professional market, but depending on what you are looking for in a system, it might be worth looking for UL Procyon benchmark results.

Source: UL
November 27, 2020
11:22
Various Video Game Stories from the Week of November 23, 2020
» ‎ Overclockers Club news Feed

Tags: [edit]

Another week which means another collection of video game news, but as today is also Black Friday that means there are a lot of sales to check out. Epic Games Store, GOG, Humble Store, Origin, Stardock, Steam, and EKWB if you want some custom liquid cooling components are all holding sales. That also means you might expect some websites and clients to have issues loading for a bit. (The Epic Games Store client is only showing me my installed games at the moment, and not my complete library, but I am sure that will correct itself later in the day.)

It should also be noted that there might be special, limited time sales going on as well. GOG at least has some flash sales featured on its homepage with games like Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice, Age of Wonders: Planetfall, and Hollow Knight. It is also holding a sale on all Batman games as new games featuring this capped crusader have arrived in its library. If you are interested in any, or in having DRM-free versions of them, you may want to check that out too.

Source: Various

Coming to less time sensitive news, we have from Deep Silver that Gods Will Fall will release to PC, Xbox On, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, and Google Stadia on January 29, 2021. In this dark fantasy action game, players will leader a band of warriors as they fight against the gods of their world that demand blind faith and devotion despite the cruelty they show humanity.

Source: Deep Silver

Also from Deep Silver, we have some Metro announcements, including that Metro Exodus is being upgraded for the Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5 to improve visuals and performance on the new consoles. In addition to that announcement and to celebrate the series' 10^th anniversary, a special timeline trailer has been shared to cover the journey of these popular stories. That trailer is embedded below, but besides looking back on this success, 4A Games has also confirmed that it is working on a new Metro title for the future. Part of this work includes a complete overhaul to the engine and renderer, so as to take advantage of the new performance, storage, and accelerated ray tracing of the consoles. Thanks to the new partnership with Saber Interactive, the studio is also exploring how to bring a multiplayer experience to the Metro universe.

Source: Press Release (Deep Silver)

Coming to Devolver Digital now, we have an update to Blightbound, the co-op game that challenges players to enter the Blight and fight the monsters that have spawned from it. This Arcane Glamour update brings with it many additions and improvements, making it the largest update yet. It includes a new area to fight, as well as a new boss for this area. To helpful you fight the boss and other new enemies is the new playable hero Roland of Stendhall who can lock down enemies and score long-distance kills. This only makes sense for him as he refuses to allow the monsters to touch his perfection. Players can now also select any hero before matchmaking, to increase variety of tactical possibilities.

Source: Press Release (Devolver Digital – Blightbound)

Also being published by Devolver Digital is Olija, which it has been revealed will be launching in early 2021. In this game from Skeleton Crew Studio, you wash up in the mysterious land of Terraphage as Faraday, a man armed with a legendary harpoon and trying to get home, along with the other castaways. Originally announced during this summer's Devolver Direct, the developers have been using the extra development time to work on bringing the game to Xbox One and PlayStation 4, in addition to PC and Nintendo Switch.

Source: Press Release (Devolver Digital – Oljia)

Koch Media has announced it is working with Milestone and Feld Entertainment to create Monster Energy Supercross – The Official Videogame 4 and it will be launching March 11, 2021 for PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X/s, PlayStation 5, and Google Stadia. This new entry in the franchise will be the first to also feature a career mode structure, so players can work their way up the ladders to reach the 250SX and 450SX categories. It will still feature the Track Editor and support more customization modules for the community to experiment with.

Source: Press Release (Koch Media)

For those looking forward to Override 2: Super Mech League, the first gameplay trailer for Ultraman has been revealed. You can get a glimpse of what this hero will be capable of when the game releases on December 22, which can then also help you decide if you want to get the ULTRAMAN Edition of the game. With this edition you get all four ULTRAMAN characters as well as bonus cosmetics. The game is coming to PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 5, and Nintendo Switch.

Source: Modus Games

Rebellion has shared a new trailer for Evil Genius 2: World Domination, revealing new Red Ivan gameplay and featuring Brian Blessed as the Red Ivan villain. Beyond getting to see this character in action, the trailer also shows new traps, minions, henchman rooms, and contraptions. Evil Genius 2: World Domination is aiming for a release in the first half of 2021 and will feature four playable geniuses, including Red Ivan, with each having their own campaign to play.

Source: Press Release (Rebellion)

Rounding off the video games news is some from THQ Nordic as the publisher has shared an explanation trailer for Chronos: Before the Ashes. This action RPG releasing December 1 is a prequel to the 2019 game Remnant: From the Ashes and this trailer serves to help explain what we can expect in the new game where death is not the end. Success will require mastering the basics and learning your enemies' behaviors. Failure will see you return with your character older and wise, but perhaps weaker from your age. It will release on PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Nintendo Switch.

Source: THQ Nordic

Ending out this week is an update to 3DMark, as UL has redesigned the results screen to better show information, such as how your system compares to others with the same components. This way you can see if there is something wrong with your configuration, holding performance back, or if you are right where you expect to me. Also there is now a panel that provides estimated game performance for select games. If you are curious how your system might handle Apex Legends, Battlefield V, Fortnite, Grand Theft Auto V, or Red Dead Redemption 2, you can select them from the list as well as if you are interested in the 1080p Ultra or 1440p Ultra configuration. By Ultra, UL means the game at its highest visual quality settings, though with ray tracing options disabled. Of course these estimated performance values are only estimates based on testing performed by UL and so might not be completely accurate. Also performance can vary within a game depending on various things and game, driver, and system updates can impact the results as well, but this can still be a handy tool.

By the way, 3DMark is on sale at 85% off on Steam until December 1, so now might be a good time to pick it up, if you want a copy.

Source: UL Benchmarks
11:22
Various Video Game Stories from the Week of November 23, 2020
» ‎ Overclockers Club news Feed

Tags: [edit]

Another week which means another collection of video game news, but as today is also Black Friday that means there are a lot of sales to check out. Epic Games Store, GOG, Humble Store, Origin, Stardock, Steam, and EKWB if you want some custom liquid cooling components are all holding sales. That also means you might expect some websites and clients to have issues loading for a bit. (The Epic Games Store client is only showing me my installed games at the moment, and not my complete library, but I am sure that will correct itself later in the day.)

It should also be noted that there might be special, limited time sales going on as well. GOG at least has some flash sales featured on its homepage with games like Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice, Age of Wonders: Planetfall, and Hollow Knight. It is also holding a sale on all Batman games as new games featuring this capped crusader have arrived in its library. If you are interested in any, or in having DRM-free versions of them, you may want to check that out too.

Source: Various

Coming to less time sensitive news, we have from Deep Silver that Gods Will Fall will release to PC, Xbox On, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, and Google Stadia on January 29, 2021. In this dark fantasy action game, players will leader a band of warriors as they fight against the gods of their world that demand blind faith and devotion despite the cruelty they show humanity.

Source: Deep Silver

Also from Deep Silver, we have some Metro announcements, including that Metro Exodus is being upgraded for the Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5 to improve visuals and performance on the new consoles. In addition to that announcement and to celebrate the series' 10^th anniversary, a special timeline trailer has been shared to cover the journey of these popular stories. That trailer is embedded below, but besides looking back on this success, 4A Games has also confirmed that it is working on a new Metro title for the future. Part of this work includes a complete overhaul to the engine and renderer, so as to take advantage of the new performance, storage, and accelerated ray tracing of the consoles. Thanks to the new partnership with Saber Interactive, the studio is also exploring how to bring a multiplayer experience to the Metro universe.

Source: Press Release (Deep Silver)

Coming to Devolver Digital now, we have an update to Blightbound, the co-op game that challenges players to enter the Blight and fight the monsters that have spawned from it. This Arcane Glamour update brings with it many additions and improvements, making it the largest update yet. It includes a new area to fight, as well as a new boss for this area. To helpful you fight the boss and other new enemies is the new playable hero Roland of Stendhall who can lock down enemies and score long-distance kills. This only makes sense for him as he refuses to allow the monsters to touch his perfection. Players can now also select any hero before matchmaking, to increase variety of tactical possibilities.

Source: Press Release (Devolver Digital – Blightbound)

Also being published by Devolver Digital is Olija, which it has been revealed will be launching in early 2021. In this game from Skeleton Crew Studio, you wash up in the mysterious land of Terraphage as Faraday, a man armed with a legendary harpoon and trying to get home, along with the other castaways. Originally announced during this summer's Devolver Direct, the developers have been using the extra development time to work on bringing the game to Xbox One and PlayStation 4, in addition to PC and Nintendo Switch.

Source: Press Release (Devolver Digital – Oljia)

Koch Media has announced it is working with Milestone and Feld Entertainment to create Monster Energy Supercross – The Official Videogame 4 and it will be launching March 11, 2021 for PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X/s, PlayStation 5, and Google Stadia. This new entry in the franchise will be the first to also feature a career mode structure, so players can work their way up the ladders to reach the 250SX and 450SX categories. It will still feature the Track Editor and support more customization modules for the community to experiment with.

Source: Press Release (Koch Media)

For those looking forward to Override 2: Super Mech League, the first gameplay trailer for Ultraman has been revealed. You can get a glimpse of what this hero will be capable of when the game releases on December 22, which can then also help you decide if you want to get the ULTRAMAN Edition of the game. With this edition you get all four ULTRAMAN characters as well as bonus cosmetics. The game is coming to PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 5, and Nintendo Switch.

Source: Modus Games

Rebellion has shared a new trailer for Evil Genius 2: World Domination, revealing new Red Ivan gameplay and featuring Brian Blessed as the Red Ivan villain. Beyond getting to see this character in action, the trailer also shows new traps, minions, henchman rooms, and contraptions. Evil Genius 2: World Domination is aiming for a release in the first half of 2021 and will feature four playable geniuses, including Red Ivan, with each having their own campaign to play.

Source: Press Release (Rebellion)

Rounding off the video games news is some from THQ Nordic as the publisher has shared an explanation trailer for Chronos: Before the Ashes. This action RPG releasing December 1 is a prequel to the 2019 game Remnant: From the Ashes and this trailer serves to help explain what we can expect in the new game where death is not the end. Success will require mastering the basics and learning your enemies' behaviors. Failure will see you return with your character older and wise, but perhaps weaker from your age. It will release on PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Nintendo Switch.

Source: THQ Nordic

Ending out this week is an update to 3DMark, as UL has redesigned the results screen to better show information, such as how your system compares to others with the same components. This way you can see if there is something wrong with your configuration, holding performance back, or if you are right where you expect to me. Also there is now a panel that provides estimated game performance for select games. If you are curious how your system might handle Apex Legends, Battlefield V, Fortnite, Grand Theft Auto V, or Red Dead Redemption 2, you can select them from the list as well as if you are interested in the 1080p Ultra or 1440p Ultra configuration. By Ultra, UL means the game at its highest visual quality settings, though with ray tracing options disabled. Of course these estimated performance values are only estimates based on testing performed by UL and so might not be completely accurate. Also performance can vary within a game depending on various things and game, driver, and system updates can impact the results as well, but this can still be a handy tool.

By the way, 3DMark is on sale at 85% off on Steam until December 1, so now might be a good time to pick it up, if you want a copy.

Source: UL Benchmarks
November 20, 2020

Permalink for 'Various Video Game Stories from the Week of November 16, 2020'

12:37

Various Video Game Stories from the Week of November 16, 2020

» ‎ Overclockers Club news Feed

It is Friday again, so time to collect the different press releases I have missed during this rather busy week. As is my usual, I will be going in alphabetical order according to publisher, which means the first bit of news is from 2K that concerns Borderlands 3 and is somewhat time-sensitive as well. The game is holding a Golden Path mini-event from yesterday until December 3. As part of this event, select missions from the campaign will reward you with legendary weapons such as the Lyuda Legendary Dahl Pistol and Hellwalker Legendary Jakobs Shotgun.

Source: 2K (Borderlands 3)

Next we have CD Projekt Red with some news on the upcoming Cyberpunk 2077. This includes a new gameplay trailer and a new Night City Wire, but I want to start with the new system requirements for the game. From Minimum to Ultra and with a separate ray tracing section, we now have an up-to-date picture of what we can expect from our systems. For any wondering, the newly released Radeon RX 6000 series does appear in the table, but only NVIDIA RTX GPUs are listed in the ray tracing section. Perhaps CDPR is only recommending the NVIDIA GPUs for ray tracing or it has not had enough time to determine where the new AMD graphics cards should be when ray tracing is enabled.

	Minimum	Recommended	High	Ultra
Resolution	1080p	1080p	1440p	2160p
Graphics Settings	Low	High	Ultra	Ultra
OS	Windows 7 or Windows 10 (both 64-bit)	Windows 10 (64-bit)	Windows 10 (64-bit)	Windows 10 (64-bit)
CPU (AMD)	AMD FX-8310	Ryzen 3 3200G	Ryzen 3 3200G	Ryzen 5 3600
CPU (Intel)	Core i5-3570K	Core i7-4790	Core i7-4790	Core i7-4790
Memory	8 GB	12 GB	12 GB	16 GB
GPU (AMD)	RX 470	RX 590	RX 5700XT	RX 6800XT
GPU (NVIDIA)	GTX 780	GTX 1060 (6GB), GTX 1660 Super	RTX 2060	RTX 2080S, RTX 3070
VRAM	3 GB	6 GB	6 GB	8 GB
Storage	70 GB HDD	70 GB SSD	70 GB SSD	70 GB SSD

	RT Minimum	RT High	RT Ultra
Resolution	1080p	1440p	2160p
Graphics Settings	RT Medium	RT Ultra	RT Ultra
OS	Windows 10 (64-bit)	Windows 10 (64-bit)	Windows 10 (64-bit)
CPU (AMD)	Ryzen 3 3200G	Ryzen 5 3600	Ryzen 5 3600
CPU (Intel)	Core i7-4790	Core i7-6700	Core i7-6700
Memory	16 GB	16 GB	16 GB
GPU (AMD)
GPU (NVIDIA)	RTX 2060	RTX 3070	RTX 3080
VRAM	6 GB	8 GB	10 GB
Storage	70 GB SSD	70 GB SSD	70 GB SSD

Unfortunately I do not have the time to go through the latest Night City Wire video and all it reveals, but according to the press release it starts with a trailer that focuses on Johnny Silverhand. This is the character voiced by and designed to resemble Keanu Reeves that shares a unique connection with V, the game's protagonist. The score and music of the game also gets some focus as does some of the technology being used to power facial expressions and lip sync for the characters. Night City Wire: Episode 5.

The video ends with the new Official Gameplay Trailer, embedded below, that pass five minutes of video content:

Cyberpunk 2077 is scheduling to release on December 10, unless it gets delayed again.

Source: CD Projekt Red [1] (Cyberpunk 2077 Updated System Requirements) and Press Release (Night City Wire information)

Though it is certainly the most anticipated game from the studio, Cyberpunk 2077 is not the only game from CD Projekt Red and it was also revealed this week that Gwent would be receiving the new Way of the Witcher expansion on December 8. It will contain Witchers for slaying monsters, including some new ones, and the creator of the Witchers, Alzur.

Source: CD Projekt Red [2] (Gwent)

Deep Silver and KING Art Games have shared some news for the alternative-history, RTS Iron Harvest, including the new game mode it is receiving, called Drop Zone. In this mode players will need to collect stockpiles that have been airdropped across the map. The first play to collect enough Victory Points from them wins, but it will be tricky to protect them as multiple can drop and it takes time to secure them. The game mode will be available on all current skirmish maps and can be played in Skirmish, Ranked, Quick Match, and custom matches.

The game will also be receiving new story content that will show the Rusviet Revolution, when the people rose up against the Rusviet Tsar. With this DLC players will get to experience the content across four single player maps that will shed some light on the mysterious Rasputin. This DLC will be releasing on December 17 and is coming to all Kickstarter backers of the game and those who purchased the Digital Deluxe edition. It will also be available for purchase separately on Steam, GOG, and the Epic Games Store.

Lastly, for those interested in trying the game before buying, from November 25 to December 1 there will be a free public demo on Steam, GOG, and the Epic Games Store. With this demo, players will be able to take a sneak peek at the campaign missions, challenge the AI alone or with a friend on Skirmish and Challenge Maps, and will also be able to challenge each other in 1v1, 2v2, and 3v3 matches.

Source: Press Release (Deep Silver)

HandyGames has shared the release date for El Hijo – A Wild West Tale is December 3 for both PC and Stadia. In this game, you play as a six year old boy that needs to sneak through the desert to try to find his mother while also freeing other children that are being held by an evil syndicate. Being so young, stealth is critical to this hero's success, but he also has his slingshot for when he needs to knock out lamps to create the shadows to hide in. Fireworks and toy soldiers can also be used to distract your opponents in this non-violent, action-adventure title.

El Hijo – A Wild West Tale releases to Steam, GOG, and Google Stadia on December 3 for $19.99.

Source: HandyGames (El Hijo – A Wild West Tale)

Modus Games is up now and we have a few things from this publisher, starting with some Override 2: Super Mech League news. The game's open beta has launched now on PC, PlayStation 4, and PlayStation 5 and it goes until November 22. For this beta, plyaers will get to pilot the Maya, Vintage, Setesh, Watchbot, Sprinkles, Aura, Pescado, and Vidar mechs for Versus matches, training, and the tutorial if you want or need to learn how to best smash giant robots. The online multiplayer is using a random queue of several game modes currently, but at launch players will be able to queue for the modes separately.

Override 2: Super Mech League launches on December 22 for PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 5, and Nintendo Switch.

Source: Modus Games [1] (Override 2: Super Mech League)

The second announcement from Modus Games is its new partnership with Pixile Studios that will see the developer's popular Super Animal Royale game published by Modus. Already the game has over 500,000 players in its Steam Early Access form, and we can probably expect that number to grow as the game has transitioned to a fully free-to-play model. Now all players will be free to join their friends and take part in matches such as the new 32v32 S.A.W. (Super Animal World) vs Rebellion game mode. Naturally such an announcement comes with a new trailer, showing off what the super animals are capable of as they fight to reach the top of the food chain.

Source: Modus Games [2] (Super Animal Royale)

Lastly from Modus we have the release of Trine 4: Melody of Mystery, a six-level story expansion for Trine 4: The Nightmare Prince. The Astral Academy is again in trouble as the students are suffering from a curse, trapping them in an enchanted sleep. As a mysterious spirit is on the loose, the Heroes of the Trine are called in to do what they can. Besides the new levels, which feature full voice acting and localization, there are also new upgrades for the heroes' skills and new gameplay elements with ice, torches, magnets, and crystals.

It is priced at $7.99 on Steam, GOG, and the Humble Store. The expansion will be coming to the Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Nintendo Switch in Spring 2021.

Source: Modus Games [3] (Trine 4: Melody of Mystery)

Square Enix has announced the first new playable character for Marvel's Avengers will arrive on December 8 as part of Operation: Kate Bishop – Taking Aim. Naturally the new super hero is Kate Bishop who has emerged from her investigation into the disappearance of Nick Fury following A-Day, as she is now searching for her mentor, Hawkeye. She also uncovers mystery behind the time-warping Tachyon Rifts and a new plan from AIM that has pushed her to work with the Avengers again.

This Taking Aim story takes place after the conclusion of the Reassemble campaign and is also the first half of the two Hawkeyes' Story arc, with the Clint Barton Hawkeye arc coming in early 2021. This second half will also lay the groundwork for what we can expect of the Avengers Initiative going forward.

Source: Press Release (Square Enix)

THQ Nordic time and there are quite a few things here. For starters, the multiplayer portion of Comanche is now free, so everyone can download and enjoy this version of the game, which is the complete multiplayer experience. You can choose between two game modes, five versions of the Comanche attack helicopter, four combat drones, and fight on three large-scale maps. Those who have purchased the game already will be rewarded with a special skin to how off their veteran status.

The game, which is still in Early Access, is getting a new mission as well, as part of an update. Operation Fire Sale takes pilots to the Alps with the Horizon version of the Comanche, armed with long-range weapons. The mission is to scout the Kude Core military site and make use of the ranged weapons to devastate the enemy.

Source: THQ Nordic [1] (Comanche)

The other news concerning THQ Nordic is that it and parent company Embracer Group have purchased a number of studios. THQ Nordic itself has acquired Purple Lamp Studios GmbH, which has worked on titles such as SpongeBob Squarepants: Battle for Bikini Bottom – Rehydrated and Sea of Thieves, and is working on The Guild 3 and two not yet announced games.

Purple Lamp was hardly the only studio added to Embracer Group as another 12 acquisitions have also been announced. I have not looked at the press releases for each, but among them is Flying Wild Hog, the studio behind the new Shadow Warrior series. It will continue to be run independently by its management team within Koch Media but will also be able to take advantage of the benefits from being part of the larger Embracer Group. It is working on four projects currently with well reputable external publishers.

Source: THQ Nordic [2] (Purple Lamp Studios acquisition) and Embracer Group [1] (Flying Wild Hog), [2] (A Thinking Ape Entertainment), [3] (Zen Studios), [4] (Snapshot Games), [5] (Nimble Giant Entertainment), [6] (34BigThings), [7] (Man Head Games), [8] (Sandbox Strategies LLC), [9] (IUGO Mobile Entertainment), [10] (Quantic Lab SRL), [11] (Coffee Stain North), and [12] (Silent Games)

Rounding things off is some news from Ubisoft, starting with some for Assassin's Creed Valhalla. This latest entry in the long-running action-adventure series has sold more in its first week than any other Assassin's Creed game. Not only that, but for the PC it has surpassed any other Ubisoft game for its first week sales too. I am still working on the review for this, with Ubisoft Connect (formerly UPlay) reporting 94 hours of play. Like I said at the start, this has been a rather busy week for me. (For comparison, Assassin's Creed: Odyssey took me a bit more than 106 hours to complete.

Source: Ubisoft [1] (Assassin's Creed Valhalla)

For those who prefer Greco-Roman mythology to a Norse saga, Immortals Fenyx Rising has had some announcements this week, including the return of the demo to Google Stadia. In this demo, players will be sent on a quest to learn the Secret of the Cyclops. It takes place on an archipelago inspired by Aphrodite and contains a mix of combat, exploration, and puzzles.

Also revealed for the upcoming title are its post-launch plans, including free content as well as the three story-driven DLC we can expect. For free content we can expect in-game events such as a weekly dungeon challenge as well as daily quests. For those who get the Season Pass you will also receive the bonus quest When the Roads Get Rocky on launch day.

The three story-driven DLC are A New God, Myths of the Eastern Realm, and The Lost Gods. In A New God, Fenyx will visit Olympos to take the Trial of the Olympians. By passing the challenges, Fenyx will be proven worthy of joining the Inner Circle of the Pantheon. Myths of the Eastern Realm will bring Chinese Mythology to the game, as well as a new hero, Ku. Ku takes on a journey to rescue mortals in a new world while battling enemies with a fighting style based on Chinese martial arts. The Lost Gods will bring with it a new hero and new gameplay style as it will use a top-down view matched with brawler combat. This will be a return to Greek mythology as Ash, the new champion chosen by Fenyx, will have an adventure on a new island to bring back the lost gods and restore balance to the world.

Immortals Fenyx Rising is launching December 3 for PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch, and Amazon Luna.

Source: Ubisoft [2] (Immortals Fenyx Rising, Stadia Demo) and [3] (Immortals Fenyx Rising, Post-Launch Plans)

12:37

Various Video Game Stories from the Week of November 16, 2020

» ‎ Overclockers Club news Feed

Source: 2K (Borderlands 3)

	Minimum	Recommended	High	Ultra
Resolution	1080p	1080p	1440p	2160p
Graphics Settings	Low	High	Ultra	Ultra
OS	Windows 7 or Windows 10 (both 64-bit)	Windows 10 (64-bit)	Windows 10 (64-bit)	Windows 10 (64-bit)
CPU (AMD)	AMD FX-8310	Ryzen 3 3200G	Ryzen 3 3200G	Ryzen 5 3600
CPU (Intel)	Core i5-3570K	Core i7-4790	Core i7-4790	Core i7-4790
Memory	8 GB	12 GB	12 GB	16 GB
GPU (AMD)	RX 470	RX 590	RX 5700XT	RX 6800XT
GPU (NVIDIA)	GTX 780	GTX 1060 (6GB), GTX 1660 Super	RTX 2060	RTX 2080S, RTX 3070
VRAM	3 GB	6 GB	6 GB	8 GB
Storage	70 GB HDD	70 GB SSD	70 GB SSD	70 GB SSD

	RT Minimum	RT High	RT Ultra
Resolution	1080p	1440p	2160p
Graphics Settings	RT Medium	RT Ultra	RT Ultra
OS	Windows 10 (64-bit)	Windows 10 (64-bit)	Windows 10 (64-bit)
CPU (AMD)	Ryzen 3 3200G	Ryzen 5 3600	Ryzen 5 3600
CPU (Intel)	Core i7-4790	Core i7-6700	Core i7-6700
Memory	16 GB	16 GB	16 GB
GPU (AMD)
GPU (NVIDIA)	RTX 2060	RTX 3070	RTX 3080
VRAM	6 GB	8 GB	10 GB
Storage	70 GB SSD	70 GB SSD	70 GB SSD

The video ends with the new Official Gameplay Trailer, embedded below, that pass five minutes of video content:

Cyberpunk 2077 is scheduling to release on December 10, unless it gets delayed again.

Source: CD Projekt Red [1] (Cyberpunk 2077 Updated System Requirements) and Press Release (Night City Wire information)

Source: CD Projekt Red [2] (Gwent)

Source: Press Release (Deep Silver)

El Hijo – A Wild West Tale releases to Steam, GOG, and Google Stadia on December 3 for $19.99.

Source: HandyGames (El Hijo – A Wild West Tale)

Override 2: Super Mech League launches on December 22 for PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 5, and Nintendo Switch.

Source: Modus Games [1] (Override 2: Super Mech League)

Source: Modus Games [2] (Super Animal Royale)

It is priced at $7.99 on Steam, GOG, and the Humble Store. The expansion will be coming to the Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Nintendo Switch in Spring 2021.

Source: Modus Games [3] (Trine 4: Melody of Mystery)

Source: Press Release (Square Enix)

Source: THQ Nordic [1] (Comanche)

Source: Ubisoft [1] (Assassin's Creed Valhalla)

Immortals Fenyx Rising is launching December 3 for PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch, and Amazon Luna.

Source: Ubisoft [2] (Immortals Fenyx Rising, Stadia Demo) and [3] (Immortals Fenyx Rising, Post-Launch Plans)

November 13, 2020
11:32
Various Video Game Stories from the Week of November 9, 2020
» ‎ Overclockers Club news Feed

Tags: [edit]

Another week is coming to its close, which means I have some news to go over. First up is some from GOG as the DRM-free store as Teleglitch: Die More Edition has joined its catalogue, and to celebrate it is free until November 15. The game is a roguelike top-down shooter featuring pixel graphics and procedurally generated maps to keep the experience fresh, and with the Die More Edition, there are five bonus levels, more items and weapons, better enemies, and additional lore. Like most of GOG's giveaways, you can claim a copy by visiting the store's homepage.

If a roguelike experience is not what you are looking for, then you can also check out the Paradox Publisher Sale at GOG. Some games are as much as 80% off as part of this sale, and there are special collections for different franchises, such as the Stellaris and Age of Wonders series. If you purchase three or more from these collections, you will get an additional 10% off, and if you purchase a complete collection you will get 15% off. This sale ends on November 16.

Source: GOG [1] (Teleglitch: Die More Edition) and [2] (Paradox Publisher Sale)

Devolver Digital has released Season 2.5 for Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout, bringing with it new variations to rounds along with a new Big Fans round and various improvements. With Big Fans, players will be challenged to cross rotating fan blades, a design inspired by the See Saw round. You can check out the trailer below or the source link for more information.

The developers at Mediatonic have also opened a public issue tracker, so all players can see what the known issues are as well as what issues are being investigated.

Source: Devolver Digital

For news separate from releases this week, that is all I have for video games, but there is also some other news you might find interesting, starting with some from EK. The custom liquid cooling company has upgraded its EK-Classic Kits with a new Black Nickel Edition. Though they have a different finish and come with more fittings, this new edition is priced the same as the standard EK-Classic Kits. Those extra fittings prepare the kit for adding a liquid cooled GPU to the loop, as some are likely looking to get the most out of the latest graphics cards. They are already available for purchase at the EK Webshop and its network of resellers with shipping starting next week or in December, depending on the kit.

Also announced is something those interested in more extreme cooling and advanced technology; the EK-QuantumX Delta TEC water block. Built with Intel and using Intel Cryo Cooling Technology, this water block combines thermoelectric cooling with traditional liquid cooling to achieve sub-ambient temperatures in a fairly small package. While the TEC works to pull the heat away from a 10^th

The EK-QuantumX Delta TEC is only compatible with Intel's LGA1200 socket and you may want to check if your system is compatible anyway. It is also important to note that thermoelectric cooling takes power to work, sometimes a lot of it, and in this case the maximum power draw is 200 W. Besides powering the CPU as it boosts or is overclocked to higher frequencies, you will also need to be able to power the cooler as well. Basically, this is not a device everyone may want to use, but it is hard to deny the appeal of what it offers. It is expected to ship in early December and is priced at $359.99.

Source: EK Water Blocks [1] (EK-Classic Black Nickel Edition Kits) and [2] (QuantumX Delta TEC)

If you would prefer an AIO solution with the same Intel Cryo Cooling Technology, Cooler Master has announced the MasterLiquid ML360 Sub-Zero that combines the technology with a 360 mm radiator. The same LGA1200 limitation applies, but with this might be a more convenient design to install than a full custom loop.

Source: Cooler Master (MasterLiquid ML360 Sub-Zero)

Lastly, with these new ways to cool your CPU, you may want something to stress the thermal solution, and by coincidence, Maxon has released Cinebench R23. With this new version of the popular CPU benchmark, it uses the updated compilers and has a minimum runtime activated by default. Under Advanced benchmark users can also set it to run for a set length of time, at least, for stress testing a system, which is possibly a bit easier than going through the command-line interface. You can download Cinebench R23 from the Maxon website directly.

Source: Maxon (Cinebench R23)
November 06, 2020
11:13
Various Video Game Stories from the Week of November 2, 2020
» ‎ Overclockers Club news Feed

Tags: [edit]

Compared to others, this week has actually been somewhat light on video game news, but there is still some worth covering, starting with an announcement from Modus Games. Override 2: Super Mech League has received its release date of December 22 for all platforms, so whether you prefer PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, or have the new Xbox Series X/S or PlayStation 5, that is the day you can take control of massive robots to see which will win when they clash. Accompanying this announcement is a new video as a couple developers play the game to show off the combat and other features of the upcoming game.

Source: Modus Games (Override 2: Super Mech League)

Next up is technically console news, but as Rockstar Games titles are so popular, I thought it would be worth sharing regardless. The developer has stated the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 versions of Grand Theft Auto V, Red Dead Redemption II, and the most recent versions of L.A. Noire will be playable on the next generation consoles of the same family. Those with disc copies of the games will be able to insert the disc into the new console, assuming it has a disc drive, and get to playing while those with digital copies of the game will be able to download compatible titles via their respective PlayStation Network or Xbox Live accounts. Save files as well as the full games can be transferred by LAN cables, a wireless connection, or USB storage, or through cloud saves. Progress and accomplishments for GTA Online and Red Dead Online will also carry over, if you are using the same PSN or Xbox Live account.

In addition to these newer titles, all games previously backwards compatible for the Xbox One that released for the earlier two versions of the Xbox will also be compatible. This list includes Grand Theft Auto IV and Red Dead Redemption. The list of games for PlayStation 2 that are currently available on the PlayStation 4 via the PlayStation Store will also carry over. Check out the source link to see a more complete list of backwards compatible games.

Source: Rockstar Games (Backwards Compatibility)

Square Enix's turn now as this week it held Outriders Broadcast 4, revealing more of what we can expect from the RPG shooter scheduled to launch February 2, 2021. Here is a link to the video, as it is behind YouTube's age-gate: Outriders Broadcast #4: Expeditions. In the video the game's fourth class, the Technomancer received the spotlight, which received a mastery of all things technological from the anomaly that has empowered all of the Outriders. This enables them to apply status effects to enemies and then use gadgets to destroy and disrupt them, but the Technomancer also has powerful team skills, if you enjoy being the player that heals and supports allies. You can learn more about the skills from the source link, but there was more to broadcast than this one class.

Outriders will feature gear crafting and modding, but no microtransactions to feed those mechanics. When you dismantle a piece of gear, you will get its mod to then apply to another item. The two mod types are General and Skill, with General mods applying passives to the gear to change how they work, such as adding status effects to your gun. Some rare mods will even allow you to wield skills from other classes. Skill mods are class-specific as they change the way character abilities work, such increase the area of effect. Besides attaching mods to gear, you will also be able to craft weapons, so by spending the resources you gather during the gameplay, you can increase a weapon's stats, such as altering its firing rate.

The developers have answered the question of what the endgame content will be, once you have finished the campaign and side missions; Expeditions. These special activities have been crafted for those players with the best gear and understanding of their skills, and will be tough, targeting the most experienced and hardcore players. Expeditions will be set in new areas outside of the campaign, and are not coming from recycled content. The locations have been hand-crafted and feature their own mechanics, challenges, and storylines.

Completing Expeditions will increase your Challenge Tier, raising the difficulty and the reward. Higher level tiers also unlock new Expeditions, and eventually the final challenge if you get it all the way to the top. You will be able to lower your Challenge Tier though, if you want things to be a bit easier. Of course, you might not need to lower it as much as you may think because even when you fail an Expedition, you will still be rewarded with loot, just not as good as if you won. Another benefit to playing Expeditions is that while in the campaign the max level is 30, but once you enter these endgame activities, you can take your gear up to level 50, so you can face the greater challenges ahead of you.

Source: Square Enix (Outriders)

The finale for the "Money for the Vultures" adventure for Desperados III has been revealed by THQ Nordic. "Once More With Feeling" will have the player return to "Eagles Nest," the legendary bandit fortress from the previous games. You can see it in its glory with the trailer below. If all you want is this DLC, it can be purchased separately from the Season Pass for just $4.99, while the Season Pass is priced at $12.99.

Source: THQ Nordic (Desperados III)

Last up is some news from UL Benchmarks as 3DMark has gained a new feature test focused on real-time ray tracing. This test will push the acceleration offered by current NVIDIA RTX graphics cards and AMDs upcoming RX 6000 series as it is purely ray-traced, as opposed to using a hybrid approach as the Port Royal benchmark does. The entire scene is ray traced and drawn in a single pass, so there is no reliance on traditional rendering techniques. You can change the number of samples used for each pixel, to see the impact on image quality and performance and in the end have the average frame rate reported. The test also features an interactive mode, so you can fly the camera around to take screenshots and modify some of the camera characteristics, to see what their impacts are. The rendering resolution is 2560x1440.

The DirectX Ray tracing feature test is available as a free update for 3DMark Advanced Edition, for those who purchased it after January 8, 2019. Those with older copies will need to get the Port Royal upgrade DLC, which brings with it the Port Royal benchmark, this feature test and the NVIDIA DLSS feature test.

Source: UL Benchmarks (3DMark DXR Feature Test)
October 30, 2020
11:29
Various Video Game Stories from the Week of October 26, 2020
» ‎ Overclockers Club news Feed

Tags: [edit]

Friday has snuck up on us all again, so time to go over some of the video game news from the week. To start it off, Steam, the Epic Games Store, GOG, and the Humble Store are all holding their respective Halloween Sales. Steam, GOG, and the Humble Store are all ending their sales on November 2 while the Epic Games Store will go until November 5. For anyone still holding a Mega Coupon for the Epic Games Store ($10 off any purchase at or above $14.99), it expires on October 31, so this might be the best time to use it.

Source: Steam, The Epic Games Store, GOG, and The Humble Store

Though the sales are the extent of the time-sensitive news, not counting any special in-game Halloween events, I have also decided to collect the three game delays I have seen up here, instead of sorting them by publisher with the rest of the news. This week CD Projekt Red announced another delay for Cyberpunk 2077, and Ubisoft announced Far Cry 6 and Rainbow Six Quarantine have also been delayed.

The CDPR statement says Cyberpunk 2077 has been pushed back by twenty-one days, so the release is now December 10. The reason is that the developers are having to prepare and test nine versions of the games, as it will be releasing on so many different platforms, and doing this all from home. The statement also addresses the question of how this can be necessary, if the game has already "gone gold." While gong gold does mean the game is complete as it can be completed and has all of the content in it, there is still more work that can and will be done to improve it. Release day patches come from the work after a game goes gold, and as someone that has played games before and after these patches, the impact can be quite significant. Unfortunately, the time CDPR thought would be needed to complete this work was underestimated, and thus this delay is needed.

Because of the weight Cyberpunk 2077's release will have on the industry and on the attention other games will receive, Grinding Gear Games, the developers of Path of Exile had delayed the release of version 3.13, which went from being three weeks out from the AAA release to 24 hours. As it is not feasible to release that update earlier, it will likely release in January, after the holidays and when enough of the team has returned from vacations that they can provide support as might be necessary.

From Ubisoft, Far Cry 6 and Rainbow Six Quarantine have both been delayed, to give the teams more time with these large products, while also managing their well-being. They do want to get these games out, but with how situations of changed due to the global pandemic, the decision has been made to give the development teams additional time.

Source: CD Projekt Red @CyberpunkGame Twitter, Grinding Gear Games (Path of Exile delay), Ubisoft @FarCrygame Twitter, and Ubisoft (Rainbow Six Quarantine)

Now getting to the my normal and positive news, 2K has revealed some of what we can expect in the Borderlands 3 Designer's Cut DLC, releasing November 10, and announced the game's Ultimate Edition. Above the Super Deluxe Edition, the Borderlands 3 Ultimate Edition will include the Season Pass 2 content, such as the Designer's Cut DLC, as well as the Gold Weapon Skins Pack. It will be available to purchase on November 10.

The Arms Race game mode coming with Designer's Cut was revealed as a reality show hosted by Axton and Salvador of Borderlands 2, granting players a rogue-like experience as you try to survive after being stripped of your gear, passive abilities, and Action Skills before being placed in a new zone. There are respawn points to recover fallen allies, but if there is no one to pick you up, any loot you failed to extract will be lost. The Multiverse Final Form cosmetics packs were also revealed, showing off new character models for each Vault Hunter as they might appear in other universes if they had never become a Vault Hunter. This pack will be part of Season Pass 2, and thus also part of the Ultimate Edition, and as a thank you for early support, players who own Borderlands 3 Super Deluxe Edition or the original Season Pass will also receive the pack for free.

Source: 2K

The Arcade Crew has some news for the upcoming The Last Spell from developer CCCP as its prologue has been released on Steam as a multi-hour demo. In the game, players are challenged to save humanity by protecting those trying to cast a spell to defeat the evil that has all but destroyed civilization. With procedurally generated waves of enemies to deal with, the fight will be different each time, and in addition to the turn-based action moves, you will also need to manage your party and their injuries, as well construct defenses to assist in the defense.

In addition to the release of The Last Spell: Prologue, a new trailer has been released to show some of what you can expect.

Source: Press Release (The Arcade Crew) and The Last Spell Steam store page

Have some Deep Silver news now, starting with the launch trailer for DiRT 5, ahead of its November 6 release. It shows off the various ways you will get to play in the game, whether you are looking to just have some fun with friends, create courses to challenge others, or just want to race, you can see it there. For game modes there will be Career, Arcade, Time Trial, and Multiplayer, which you can enjoy offline thanks to split-screen for co-op and four player competitive play.

Source: Press Release (Deep Silver – DiRT 5)

Also from Deep Silver, it has been announced that Outward is receiving its second DLC pack, The Three Brothers, in December for PC while console players will see it in early 2021. In this DLC players will get to go to Caldera, a new region of Aurai with new adventures, dangers, and secrets to explore. You will get to join the rebuilding efforts for the Sirocco refugee camp by helping to find a new Sirocco for the struggling survivors. You can also expect plenty of new quests, skills, weapons, recipes, and pets.

Source: Deep Silver (Outward)

Still with Deep Silver as 5 Lives Studios has announced Windbound will be receiving free content updates starting today and through 2021 Q1. Today's update adds a new Witch Skin that enhances Kara's abilities as she tries to survive on the Forbidden Islands. It consists of three items with one extending the time potions last, one that will allow you to respawn nearby after you die, and the third is an unbreakable staff that sends out homing fireballs with each melee attack. The update also adds the Photo mode, allowing you to pause and adjust various things such as poses and time of day, and an endless mode called the Eternal Voyage. With this, you get to continue playing past Chapter 5 by going to progressively, but not endlessly larger levels that also become more varied and dangerous.

The 2020 Q4 update will add more skins for Kara, a Free-sailing mode, an improved Nautilus tower experience, and new towers for players to explore. The early 2021 Q1 update expands on the Nautilus tower experience even more by introducing new enemy types, combat moves, and gameplay mechanics though a corruption system. We can expect new details prior to release.

Lastly, the Ancestral Gear pack that was a pre-order bonus is now available for purchase on PC, console, and Google Stadia for $2.99.

Source: Press Release (Deep Silver – Windbound)

New we have Devolver Digital as Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout has received a new Godzilla skin, to celebrate Godzilla Day and the Godzilla Festival in Japan, which will be held on November 3, virtually, celebrating the release of "Godzilla". Working with Toho Co., LTD. this costume features three rows of dorsal fins, just like the king of monsters, which, according to Mediatonic's VP of Creative, has several things in common with the Fall Guys. For one thing, they are fiercely competitive, battle on an international stage, and always get back up after begin knocked down. I suspect some players might disagree with that last point. The costume will only be available for a limited time and will cost 10 crowns to purchase.

Source: Press Release (Devolver Digital)

In time for Halloween, The Evil DLC has released for Little Big Workshop from HandyGames. With this DLC, players will get to put some of their more sinister skills to use as they leverage sabotage and takeover mechanics to take on their competitors. With this DLC comes a new progression system, competing factories, the two features I mentioned in the previous sentence, and more such as new skills and workstations to create new products. There is also a new look for your desk, factory, and workers.

The Evil DLC will be available at 5 PM CET and priced at $9.99 on Steam.

Source: HandyGames

Modus Games has released a new trailer for upcoming psychological horror title In Sound Mind. From developer We Create Stuff, this game will put you in the shoes of Desmond, a psychologist trying to understand the events he has witnessed in Milton Haven. To find the answers, he must return to the archived sessions of his deceased patients, but the tapes are themselves vivid and surreal mysteries.

If the trailer is not enough for you, today a demo has been released on Steam, if you want to try this first-person horror experience on Halloween. The game itself will release on PC, Xbox Series X, and PlayStation 5 in 2021.

Source: Press Release (Modus Games – In Sound Mind) and In Sound mind Steam store page

Stardock has released v1.4 for The Political Machine 2020, just in time for Election Night 2020. With this update there are new features such as Randomization of Issues and State Data, to make the game a bit crazier. With these enabled you can see "Banning Soft Drinks" and "Giving Frogs the Right to Vote" being a state's top issues. There are also new achievements, actually doubling the number previously available, including some aimed at the hardcore players. Several new issues that have come up in the news have also been added, and others boosted to reflect reality. And of course, there are bug fixes that are listed out in the complete changelog, along with every other change.

Source: Stardock

THQ Nordic has a couple announcements for SpellForce 3, starting with the open beta for the Fallen God expansion. It has actually been open for a couple days now, and it will continue to be open until November 1. You can claim a key and get into this mix of RTS and CRPG by visiting beta.spellforce.com. The expansion releases on November 3, for those who would rather wait to see the final version, but the beta does control the six races and will let you try out the new ranked multiplayer mode on three maps.

The other news is the announcement of SpellForce 3: Versus, which I also releasing on November 3. This is actually a free-to-play version of SpellForce 3 that will allow players to engage in the ranked multiplayer and in skirmishes against AI opponents. You will get to play as the Humans, Orcs, or Elves but the race will be randomly chosen for you, and will get to face players with the Fallen God and Soul Harvest expansions, so it is the whole SpellForce 3 player-base you can challenge. There will be no micro-transactions, no advertisements, or any other free-to-play mechanic. If you want to send some money to the developers, you can purchase the game and the expansions, which is also how you can access the single-player campaigns.

Source: Press Release (THQ Nordic – SpellForce 3: Fallen God open beta) and THQ Nordic (SpellForce 3: Versus)

Now for some more positive Ubisoft news than the delays shared earlier as the company has partnered with Netflix to produce a live-action adaptation of Assassin's Creed. Actually the partnership will see adaptations arriving as live action, animated, and anime series, but live action will be the first series in development. With the first title having launched in 2007 and with so many sequels as well as additional games in the same universe, stories, and more derived from it, this is perhaps not the most surprising announcement.

Source: Ubisoft [1] (Netflix Assassin's Creed partnership)

If that partnership news is not enough to offset the delays, this week Ubisoft have also launched AGOS: A Game of Space and Watch Dogs: Legion for your enjoyment. You can visit space in VR as you try to help the last ship leaving Earth, or visit a dystopic London as you try to free it from the oppressive measures taken after an attack on the city, wrongfully blamed on the group. Whatever your choice, have fun.

Source: Ubisoft [2] (AGOS: A Game of Space) and [3] (Watch Dogs: Legion)
11:29
Various Video Game Stories from the Week of October 26, 2020
» ‎ Overclockers Club news Feed

Tags: [edit]

Friday has snuck up on us all again, so time to go over some of the video game news from the week. To start it off, Steam, the Epic Games Store, GOG, and the Humble Store are all holding their respective Halloween Sales. Steam, GOG, and the Humble Store are all ending their sales on November 2 while the Epic Games Store will go until November 5. For anyone still holding a Mega Coupon for the Epic Games Store ($10 off any purchase at or above $14.99), it expires on October 31, so this might be the best time to use it.

Source: Steam, The Epic Games Store, GOG, and The Humble Store

Though the sales are the extent of the time-sensitive news, not counting any special in-game Halloween events, I have also decided to collect the three game delays I have seen up here, instead of sorting them by publisher with the rest of the news. This week CD Projekt Red announced another delay for Cyberpunk 2077, and Ubisoft announced Far Cry 6 and Rainbow Six Quarantine have also been delayed.

The CDPR statement says Cyberpunk 2077 has been pushed back by twenty-one days, so the release is now December 10. The reason is that the developers are having to prepare and test nine versions of the games, as it will be releasing on so many different platforms, and doing this all from home. The statement also addresses the question of how this can be necessary, if the game has already "gone gold." While gong gold does mean the game is complete as it can be completed and has all of the content in it, there is still more work that can and will be done to improve it. Release day patches come from the work after a game goes gold, and as someone that has played games before and after these patches, the impact can be quite significant. Unfortunately, the time CDPR thought would be needed to complete this work was underestimated, and thus this delay is needed.

Because of the weight Cyberpunk 2077's release will have on the industry and on the attention other games will receive, Grinding Gear Games, the developers of Path of Exile had delayed the release of version 3.13, which went from being three weeks out from the AAA release to 24 hours. As it is not feasible to release that update earlier, it will likely release in January, after the holidays and when enough of the team has returned from vacations that they can provide support as might be necessary.

From Ubisoft, Far Cry 6 and Rainbow Six Quarantine have both been delayed, to give the teams more time with these large products, while also managing their well-being. They do want to get these games out, but with how situations of changed due to the global pandemic, the decision has been made to give the development teams additional time.

Source: CD Projekt Red @CyberpunkGame Twitter, Grinding Gear Games (Path of Exile delay), Ubisoft @FarCrygame Twitter, and Ubisoft (Rainbow Six Quarantine)

Now getting to the my normal and positive news, 2K has revealed some of what we can expect in the Borderlands 3 Designer's Cut DLC, releasing November 10, and announced the game's Ultimate Edition. Above the Super Deluxe Edition, the Borderlands 3 Ultimate Edition will include the Season Pass 2 content, such as the Designer's Cut DLC, as well as the Gold Weapon Skins Pack. It will be available to purchase on November 10.

The Arms Race game mode coming with Designer's Cut was revealed as a reality show hosted by Axton and Salvador of Borderlands 2, granting players a rogue-like experience as you try to survive after being stripped of your gear, passive abilities, and Action Skills before being placed in a new zone. There are respawn points to recover fallen allies, but if there is no one to pick you up, any loot you failed to extract will be lost. The Multiverse Final Form cosmetics packs were also revealed, showing off new character models for each Vault Hunter as they might appear in other universes if they had never become a Vault Hunter. This pack will be part of Season Pass 2, and thus also part of the Ultimate Edition, and as a thank you for early support, players who own Borderlands 3 Super Deluxe Edition or the original Season Pass will also receive the pack for free.

Source: 2K

The Arcade Crew has some news for the upcoming The Last Spell from developer CCCP as its prologue has been released on Steam as a multi-hour demo. In the game, players are challenged to save humanity by protecting those trying to cast a spell to defeat the evil that has all but destroyed civilization. With procedurally generated waves of enemies to deal with, the fight will be different each time, and in addition to the turn-based action moves, you will also need to manage your party and their injuries, as well construct defenses to assist in the defense.

In addition to the release of The Last Spell: Prologue, a new trailer has been released to show some of what you can expect.

Source: Press Release (The Arcade Crew) and The Last Spell Steam store page

Have some Deep Silver news now, starting with the launch trailer for DiRT 5, ahead of its November 6 release. It shows off the various ways you will get to play in the game, whether you are looking to just have some fun with friends, create courses to challenge others, or just want to race, you can see it there. For game modes there will be Career, Arcade, Time Trial, and Multiplayer, which you can enjoy offline thanks to split-screen for co-op and four player competitive play.

Source: Press Release (Deep Silver – DiRT 5)

Also from Deep Silver, it has been announced that Outward is receiving its second DLC pack, The Three Brothers, in December for PC while console players will see it in early 2021. In this DLC players will get to go to Caldera, a new region of Aurai with new adventures, dangers, and secrets to explore. You will get to join the rebuilding efforts for the Sirocco refugee camp by helping to find a new Sirocco for the struggling survivors. You can also expect plenty of new quests, skills, weapons, recipes, and pets.

Source: Deep Silver (Outward)

Still with Deep Silver as 5 Lives Studios has announced Windbound will be receiving free content updates starting today and through 2021 Q1. Today's update adds a new Witch Skin that enhances Kara's abilities as she tries to survive on the Forbidden Islands. It consists of three items with one extending the time potions last, one that will allow you to respawn nearby after you die, and the third is an unbreakable staff that sends out homing fireballs with each melee attack. The update also adds the Photo mode, allowing you to pause and adjust various things such as poses and time of day, and an endless mode called the Eternal Voyage. With this, you get to continue playing past Chapter 5 by going to progressively, but not endlessly larger levels that also become more varied and dangerous.

The 2020 Q4 update will add more skins for Kara, a Free-sailing mode, an improved Nautilus tower experience, and new towers for players to explore. The early 2021 Q1 update expands on the Nautilus tower experience even more by introducing new enemy types, combat moves, and gameplay mechanics though a corruption system. We can expect new details prior to release.

Lastly, the Ancestral Gear pack that was a pre-order bonus is now available for purchase on PC, console, and Google Stadia for $2.99.

Source: Press Release (Deep Silver – Windbound)

New we have Devolver Digital as Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout has received a new Godzilla skin, to celebrate Godzilla Day and the Godzilla Festival in Japan, which will be held on November 3, virtually, celebrating the release of "Godzilla". Working with Toho Co., LTD. this costume features three rows of dorsal fins, just like the king of monsters, which, according to Mediatonic's VP of Creative, has several things in common with the Fall Guys. For one thing, they are fiercely competitive, battle on an international stage, and always get back up after begin knocked down. I suspect some players might disagree with that last point. The costume will only be available for a limited time and will cost 10 crowns to purchase.

Source: Press Release (Devolver Digital)

In time for Halloween, The Evil DLC has released for Little Big Workshop from HandyGames. With this DLC, players will get to put some of their more sinister skills to use as they leverage sabotage and takeover mechanics to take on their competitors. With this DLC comes a new progression system, competing factories, the two features I mentioned in the previous sentence, and more such as new skills and workstations to create new products. There is also a new look for your desk, factory, and workers.

The Evil DLC will be available at 5 PM CET and priced at $9.99 on Steam.

Source: HandyGames

Modus Games has released a new trailer for upcoming psychological horror title In Sound Mind. From developer We Create Stuff, this game will put you in the shoes of Desmond, a psychologist trying to understand the events he has witnessed in Milton Haven. To find the answers, he must return to the archived sessions of his deceased patients, but the tapes are themselves vivid and surreal mysteries.

If the trailer is not enough for you, today a demo has been released on Steam, if you want to try this first-person horror experience on Halloween. The game itself will release on PC, Xbox Series X, and PlayStation 5 in 2021.

Source: Press Release (Modus Games – In Sound Mind) and In Sound mind Steam store page

Stardock has released v1.4 for The Political Machine 2020, just in time for Election Night 2020. With this update there are new features such as Randomization of Issues and State Data, to make the game a bit crazier. With these enabled you can see "Banning Soft Drinks" and "Giving Frogs the Right to Vote" being a state's top issues. There are also new achievements, actually doubling the number previously available, including some aimed at the hardcore players. Several new issues that have come up in the news have also been added, and others boosted to reflect reality. And of course, there are bug fixes that are listed out in the complete changelog, along with every other change.

Source: Stardock

THQ Nordic has a couple announcements for SpellForce 3, starting with the open beta for the Fallen God expansion. It has actually been open for a couple days now, and it will continue to be open until November 1. You can claim a key and get into this mix of RTS and CRPG by visiting beta.spellforce.com. The expansion releases on November 3, for those who would rather wait to see the final version, but the beta does control the six races and will let you try out the new ranked multiplayer mode on three maps.

The other news is the announcement of SpellForce 3: Versus, which I also releasing on November 3. This is actually a free-to-play version of SpellForce 3 that will allow players to engage in the ranked multiplayer and in skirmishes against AI opponents. You will get to play as the Humans, Orcs, or Elves but the race will be randomly chosen for you, and will get to face players with the Fallen God and Soul Harvest expansions, so it is the whole SpellForce 3 player-base you can challenge. There will be no micro-transactions, no advertisements, or any other free-to-play mechanic. If you want to send some money to the developers, you can purchase the game and the expansions, which is also how you can access the single-player campaigns.

Source: Press Release (THQ Nordic – SpellForce 3: Fallen God open beta) and THQ Nordic (SpellForce 3: Versus)

Now for some more positive Ubisoft news than the delays shared earlier as the company has partnered with Netflix to produce a live-action adaptation of Assassin's Creed. Actually the partnership will see adaptations arriving as live action, animated, and anime series, but live action will be the first series in development. With the first title having launched in 2007 and with so many sequels as well as additional games in the same universe, stories, and more derived from it, this is perhaps not the most surprising announcement.

Source: Ubisoft [1] (Netflix Assassin's Creed partnership)

If that partnership news is not enough to offset the delays, this week Ubisoft have also launched AGOS: A Game of Space and Watch Dogs: Legion for your enjoyment. You can visit space in VR as you try to help the last ship leaving Earth, or visit a dystopic London as you try to free it from the oppressive measures taken after an attack on the city, wrongfully blamed on the group. Whatever your choice, have fun.

Source: Ubisoft [2] (AGOS: A Game of Space) and [3] (Watch Dogs: Legion)
October 28, 2020
11:36
AMD Officially Announces Radeon RX 6000 Series, First GPUs Coming November 18
» ‎ Overclockers Club news Feed

Tags: [edit]

Earlier this month, AMD held an event to reveal the upcoming Ryzen 5000 series CPUs, based on the Zen 3 architecture. To close the event was a teaser of an upcoming Radeon RX 6000 series GPU and today, with the "Where Gaming Begins" event, the series has finally been revealed.

To start the event, a number of upcoming games were shown off, and later it was confirmed these games, including DiRT 5, Far Cry 6, and World of Warcraft: Shadowlands will feature AMD technologies and optimizations, including ray tracing, variable rate shading, and FidelityFX CAS. Before actually getting to any of the specific GPUs, AMD shared some interesting specifications about the new RDNA2-based GPUs, including that the design is 50% more efficient than RDNA1, which itself was 50% more efficient than the GCN-based GPUs before it. This achievement is coming without a node change, as the RX 6000 series will be produced on the same 7 nm process at TSMC as the current RX 5000 series. Later it was stated that 50% was the efficiency goal, but what was actually achieved was a 54% improvement, with that coming from frequency increase, holistic design optimization, and the performance per clock enhancement from the new Infinity Cache.

Design details will apparently be shared closer to the launch, but the Infinity Cache was likened to the L3 cache on the Ryzen CPUs, and in one of the graphs it was shown to more than double the bandwidth, even when paired with memory on a narrower bus. Specifically, the graph shows what GDDR6 memory on a 384-bit bus provides, and then the Infinity Cache paired with GDDR6 on a 256-bit bus being 2.17 times greater, while also using about 90% the power. It will be interesting to see the details on how Infinity Cache works when that information is released, but with the comparison to a CPU's L3 cache, it would seem it will serve to as a local buffer so the VRAM does not need to be called up as much. Being on the die this results in power savings and much increased bandwidth, as already mentioned

In addition to the innovation of the Infinity Cache, AMD also stated the compute units have been improved to be 30% more energy efficient. This was achieved with pervasive fine-grain clock gating, aggressive pipeline rebalancing, and redesigned data paths for efficient movement.

For feature support, we can expect full DirectX 12 Ultimate support with DirectX Ray Tracing, variable rate shading, Mesh shaders, and sampler feedback, but also support for the DirectStorage API. This is something that will be deployed on the Xbox Series X as a means for the assets in storage to be streamed directly to the GPU, with it decompresses the assets rather than waiting on it all to go through the CPU first.

There is some more of the technology to cover, but it is probably the graphics cards themselves we are most interested in. Starting off the hardware reveals was the RX 6800XT, which was the GPU used for the teaser earlier this month. It will feature 72 compute units, a Boost Clock of 2250 MHz and a Game Clock of 2015 MHz. As a quick reminder, the Game Clock is the average clock one can expect while gaming, but depending on the title it may be lower or higher. It will be paired with 16 GB of GDDR6 memory and 128 MB of Infinity Cache. The total board power for all of this is 300 W. The RX 6800XT is being positioned against NVIDIA's RTX 3080, which it trades blows with in the graphs of 4K, highest settings, best API performance. As AMD also notes in the graph, the RTX 3080 consumes 20 W more power for this comparable performance. The RX 6800XT is to launch on November 18 with a suggested price of $649.

Launching on the same day is the RX 6800 (non-XT), which is a cut-down version of the GPU with only 60 CUs and lower clock speeds of 2105 MHz for the Boost Clock and 1815 MHz for the Game Clock. There is still 16 GB of GDDR6 VRAM and 128 MB of Infinity Cache. With the fewer CUs and lower clock speeds the TBP is just 250 W. For comparing it against an NVIDIA GPU, AMD selected the RTX 2080 Ti, as it does not have access to an RTX 3070, but as was shown in our recent review, the two GPUs offer comparable performance. This makes it somewhat interesting then that in the ten games AMD compared the RX 6800 to the GTX 2080 Ti at 4K, the RX 6800 won significantly in eight of them, and it seems eked a victory in the other two. The RX 6800 did have the advantage of Smart Access Memory, but I will come back to that after covering the third GPU reveal. The RX 6800 will be priced at $579 come November 18.

If the performance of the RX 6800XT is not enough, and you have the money to spend, then there is the RX 6900XT sitting at the top of this new stack. Much of the specifications between the two GPUs are the same, including clock frequencies, but the RX 6900XT has a fully unlocked die with 80 CUs active. Despite the additional compute units and same frequencies, it still has a TBP of 300 W, making it a 65% performance per watt increase over RDNA1. With these specifications, its competition is the RTX 3090, and in the ten games tested at 4K, the two are trading blows with the RX 6900XT winning five, tying in one, and losing in the other four, but not by much. The RX 6900XT had the benefit of Smart Access Memory and Rage Mode to help it though, but first the launch details. The RX 6900XT is launching on December 8 at a price of $999, so just two-thirds the price of the RTX 3090.

Now to explain what Smart Access Memory is, as well as Rage Mode. Smart Access Memory is a platform-dependent technology that will allow an RX 6000 series GPU paired with a Ryzen 5000 CPU, allowing full access to the GPU's VRAM for the CPU. This enables improved performance, but it also requires using a 500 series chipset motherboard and the feature to be enabled in the BIOS. The performance improvements shown were without developers optimizing to take advantage of the technology.

Rage Mode is the name given to the one-click overclocking preset that will be built into the Radeon Software drivers. Looking at the image shown, this is a preset like Quiet or Balanced, which are shown alongside it. Looking at the software for my RX Vega 64, it has Turbo in the place of the Rage preset, and this is different from the automatic Undervolt GPU, Overclock GPU, and Overclock VRAM available under a different tab.

It will be interesting to see how the RX 6800 and RX 6900XT perform without these two technologies At least with Rage Mode, it appears it will be available to all users, regardless of their platform.

Some other technologies that were touched on are coming to the FidelityFX suite, where you already find FidelityFX CAS. These include a tool for variable rate shading based on luminance and motion, an optimized denoiser for DXR, and a "Super Resolution" feature that is still being worked on with game developers. Perhaps this last feature is AMD's response to NVIDIA's DLSS, but by being under FidelityFX that means it should be open source under the MIT license. In theory that will help with adoption, and potentially also innovation.

It is certainly looking like the GPU space is going to be more interesting than it has been in years, with AMD back in the high end.

Source: AMD Event, Anandtech [1] (Live blog), and t^h" target="_blank">[2] (RX 6000 Series article)
October 23, 2020
12:16
Various Video Game Stories from the Week of October 19, 2020
» ‎ Overclockers Club news Feed

Tags: [edit]

Another week and another batch of video games news stories to cover, with some time-limited sales to start things off. Going by alphabetical order means starting with the Epic Games Store, as it has begun its Halloween Sale 2020 and has a pretty decent select of games. Keeping to the terrifying titles, you can find the Metro Redux titles, Metro Exodus, Alan Wake, and Killing Floor 2. If you are not looking to be as frightened though, you can also find Saints Row: The Third Remastered, The Talos Principle, and The Outer Worlds on sale. If you still have a MEGA Sale Coupon that is still good for $10 off a game purchase of $14.99 or more until October 31. The sale runs until November 5.

Source: Epic Game Store

Coming to GOG now, we have a couple time-limited items here as you can still get Europa Universalis II from the homepage free, but that ends in less than 24 hours, so hurry if you want it. The other time-limited sale is 50% off The Outer Worlds, to celebrate its coming to the GOG catalog. Yes, the game is on sale at both the Epic Games Store and GOG, at the same price to, with the GOG sale ending on November 2 and Epic Games Sale ending November 5.

Source: GOG [1] (Europa Universalis II) and [2] (The Outer Worlds)

Now for some news that is not so time sensitive, we have some from 2K as the new skill trees coming to Borderlands 3 as part of the Designer's Cut have been revealed. Each of these new skill trees bring with them a new Action Skill for the Vault Hunters, as well as new passives to provide new ways to play. For Amara, she is getting the Phaseflare Action Skill, allowing her to summon a giant, controllable elemental orb. By combining this with the passives in her Enlightened Force Skill Tree, enhancing Cryo elemental effects, it will be harder for enemies to escape her Phaseflare.

FL4K is getting the new Gravity Snare Action Skill, which will throw enemies into the air and interrupt their attacks, before being slammed back into the ground. The Trapper Skill Tree improves his pet survivability by increasing shield bonuses and increasing critical hit damage.

Moze will gain the Bear Mother Skill Tree that will change out her pilotable mech, Iron Bear, for a smaller Iron Cub. Though it is smaller, the Iron Cub is fully autonomous, so as long as it has fuel, it can fight at her side, and many of the bonuses available for Iron Bear will also apply to Iron Cub.

Zane's new tree is called The Professional and allows him to equip the MNTIS Should Canon, a railgun with multiple charges that can even snipe enemies. With the No Way Out augment for the canon, it can pull enemies in with a grappling hook, so you can deal damage up close.

These new skill trees will be arriving with the Designer's Cut that launches on November 10 and is part of the Season Pass 2, along with the Director's Cut DLC that will arrive in Spring 2021.

Source: 2K [1] (Borderlands 3 Amara and FL4K Skill Trees) and [2] (Moze and Zane Skill Trees)

The Arcade Crew and developer 1P2P have released a new trailer for the upcoming Young Souls game. It shows the RPG co-op beat 'em up as the pair of misfit orphans fight across different realms to rescue a loved one. During the day, Jenn and Tristan will explore their neighborhood and do what they can to prepare for the night's adventures.

Along with this new trailer, it has also been revealed that, Young Souls will first be releasing on Google Stadia and then later coming to Steam.

Source: Press Release (The Arcade Crew)

Depending, this might not be the most surprising news of the week, but it is still quite significant as Croteam, the studio behind the Serious Sam series, including the recently released Serious Sam 4, has joined with Devolver Digital, its publisher for the past decade. The Devolver Digital press release on the announcement is, well, what you would expect from a Devolver Digital press release, but it also shares confirmation of something many are likely happy to see, The Talos Principle 2 is coming, along with more Serious Sam games and original IP from Croteam and the Croteam Incubator Studios. It also clearly states that Croteam will maintain creative freedom and get to continue ignoring the "dumb recommendations" Devolver Digital makes.

Source: Devolver Digital and Croteam

HandyGames has released the Cinematic Trailer for Chicken Police, an upcoming game featuring the once legendary detective-duo of Sonny Featherland and Marty MacChicken. They are now a washed-up wreck and a wannabe star-detective, but a new and mysterious case has crossed their desk, and as they investigate, things will only get weirder and weirder.

Chicken Police releases on November 5 for PC, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4 for $19.99, with the Nintendo Switch version coming later.

Source: HandyGames

Those interested in space-related games should be happy to learn that Mars Horizon from The Irregular Corporation has received its release date. This game that challenges the player to get a space agency through the space race to landing a manned mission on Mars will be coming to PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Nintendo Switch on November 17. You will get to build up your base with laboratories, training facilities, launch pads, and more as well as create your own vehicles by combining the various parts available. Satellites can be launched as well as crewed spacecraft for exploring the Solar System, and you can run mission control itself during the turn-based missions.

Source: The Irregular Corporation

Rebellion has released season two of its Zombie Army 4, bringing with it a new campaign mission, new free map, and some more cosmetics. With Damnation Valley, you and the other survivors will have to fight across the Alps to reach a Hell Storm that has been spotted over the mountains. This is the debut mission for the Death From Above three-part campaign, with the other two missions releasing in the coming months. Considering the content involves significant violence towards zombies, it is behind an age-gate on YouTube, so here is a link to it: Zombie Army 4: Dead War – Damnation Valley.

Source: Press Release (Rebellion)

Square Enix has released the opening movie for its Balan Wonderworld, a new action-platformer coming from the creators of Sonic the Hedgehog. This movie shows as the game's protagonists, Leo Craig and Emma Cole, enter a theater and encounter Balan, the maestro of Wonderworld. As you explore this fantastic carnival you will gain various abilities via costumes to help you restore the world's balance. Balan Wonderworld is coming to PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 5, and Nintendo Switch on March 26, 2021.

Source: Press Release (Square Enix)

Rounding things off, we have some Ubisoft news, starting with the Land of Lions DLC for Anno 1880, the largest content release for the game. With this players will get to visit Enbesa, a land inspired by Eastern-Africa that will challenge you with its arid weather conditions, making the Irrigation system a new necessity. The ten hours of story content are prompted by your coming to serve Ketema, the Emperor of Enbesa that seeks your help with creating a new capital city, while also fending off foreign influence. You will also find two new citizen tiers in Enbesa, one new tier in the Old World, new production chains for Hibiscus tea and telephones, 90 new buildings, three quest islands, 134 items, and more.

In addition to Land of Lions, which is part of the Season Pass 2, there is also the free Game Update 9, which is bringing with it many quality-of-life changes. These changes include giving players more relevant information and reducing the amount of clicking you need to do along the way. You will also get to set the destination harbor for ships going between sessions, find improvements to the trade route menu, and updates to the statistics overview and newspaper system.

Source: Ubisoft [1] (Anno 1800)

Though Assassin's Creed Valhalla does not release for a few weeks yet, Ubisoft has shared the game's post-launch plan, which includes the Season Pass content as well as free seasonal content, such as in-game events and festivals, as well as new settlement buildings. There will also be a new Discovery Tour based on the game, releasing in 2021.

The Season Pass will be included as part of the Gold, Ultimate, and Collector Editions of the game, or can be purchased for $39.99 separately. It will include the Legend of Beowulf quest that will be available on November 12 with the launch of the game. The first expansion then, Wrath of the Druids, will be releasing in Spring 2021 and allow players to travel to Ireland to learn the mysteries behind the druidic cult. As you explore Gaelic myths you will also find yourself fighting through haunted forests and impressive landscapes, all to gain influence with the Gaelic kings. The second expansion is The Siege of Paris and is coming in Summer 2021. With this, players will get to relive one of the greatest battles in Viking history as you infiltrate a fortified Paris and the River Seine to uncover enemy secrets and form alliances.

The first of the free seasonal content will launch in December 2020, and each season will last for three months. With Season 1, you will get a new settlement area, to continue your growth, and the Yule Festival to experience within the settlement. The River Raids game mode will also arrive, building on the core raiding mechanic of the game to provide a dynamic, challenging, and highly replayable experience. The Jomsviking will gain the ability to rank up, and you will be able to recruit them from your friends and the community. When a higher ranked Jomsviking lieutenant is recruited from another player, they will receive more player. Finally, there will also be new skills, abilities, weapons, gear, and cosmetic items for the settlement, longship, horse, and raven all coming with Season 1, as they will for other seasons too.

Season 2 will be arriving in March 2021 and will bring with it a new game mode that builds on Assassin's Creed Valhalla's core combat experience, another update for the Jomsviking, as well as new festivals for the settlement, and the new gear and cosmetics as mentioned above. There is a trailer for the post launch plans, but it is behind an age-gate, so here is a link to it: Assassin's Creed Valhalla Post Launch & Seasons Pass Trailer.

Source: [2] (Assassin's Creed Valhalla)

Lastly, Ubisoft announced Ubisoft Connect this week, which will be the new home for all of the publisher's in-game services, activities, and communities across every platform. That means everything Uplay and Ubisoft Club have been used for previously will be refreshed and brought into Ubisoft Connect when it releases on October 29, the same day as Watch Dogs: Legion. Besides creating a seamless experience for social features, in-game rewards, challenges, and activities for its games on all platforms, Ubisoft Connection will also enable cross-platform progression for games including Assassin's Creed Valhalla, Immortals Fenyx Rising, and Riders Republic. Another feature it will bring is called Smart Intel, as it is meant to provide personalized tips and video recommendations, determined by your current in-game activities. For example, it can help you improve at Rainbow Six Siege or learn how to recruit a beekeeper in Watch Dogs: Legion. If you like to monitor your progression or review personalized stats, it can help you there too, and allow another way to compete with your friends through its leaderboard system.

Ubisoft Connecting is launching on Windows, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Nintendo Switch, and will come to Xbox Series X/S on November 10 and PlayStation 5 on November 15. It will also arrive on Google Stadia, NVIDIA GeForce Now, and Amazon Luna later this year.

Source: [3] (Ubisoft Connect)
12:16
Various Video Game Stories from the Week of October 19, 2020
» ‎ Overclockers Club news Feed

Tags: [edit]

Another week and another batch of video games news stories to cover, with some time-limited sales to start things off. Going by alphabetical order means starting with the Epic Games Store, as it has begun its Halloween Sale 2020 and has a pretty decent select of games. Keeping to the terrifying titles, you can find the Metro Redux titles, Metro Exodus, Alan Wake, and Killing Floor 2. If you are not looking to be as frightened though, you can also find Saints Row: The Third Remastered, The Talos Principle, and The Outer Worlds on sale. If you still have a MEGA Sale Coupon that is still good for $10 off a game purchase of $14.99 or more until October 31. The sale runs until November 5.

Source: Epic Game Store

Coming to GOG now, we have a couple time-limited items here as you can still get Europa Universalis II from the homepage free, but that ends in less than 24 hours, so hurry if you want it. The other time-limited sale is 50% off The Outer Worlds, to celebrate its coming to the GOG catalog. Yes, the game is on sale at both the Epic Games Store and GOG, at the same price to, with the GOG sale ending on November 2 and Epic Games Sale ending November 5.

Source: GOG [1] (Europa Universalis II) and [2] (The Outer Worlds)

Now for some news that is not so time sensitive, we have some from 2K as the new skill trees coming to Borderlands 3 as part of the Designer's Cut have been revealed. Each of these new skill trees bring with them a new Action Skill for the Vault Hunters, as well as new passives to provide new ways to play. For Amara, she is getting the Phaseflare Action Skill, allowing her to summon a giant, controllable elemental orb. By combining this with the passives in her Enlightened Force Skill Tree, enhancing Cryo elemental effects, it will be harder for enemies to escape her Phaseflare.

FL4K is getting the new Gravity Snare Action Skill, which will throw enemies into the air and interrupt their attacks, before being slammed back into the ground. The Trapper Skill Tree improves his pet survivability by increasing shield bonuses and increasing critical hit damage.

Moze will gain the Bear Mother Skill Tree that will change out her pilotable mech, Iron Bear, for a smaller Iron Cub. Though it is smaller, the Iron Cub is fully autonomous, so as long as it has fuel, it can fight at her side, and many of the bonuses available for Iron Bear will also apply to Iron Cub.

Zane's new tree is called The Professional and allows him to equip the MNTIS Should Canon, a railgun with multiple charges that can even snipe enemies. With the No Way Out augment for the canon, it can pull enemies in with a grappling hook, so you can deal damage up close.

These new skill trees will be arriving with the Designer's Cut that launches on November 10 and is part of the Season Pass 2, along with the Director's Cut DLC that will arrive in Spring 2021.

Source: 2K [1] (Borderlands 3 Amara and FL4K Skill Trees) and [2] (Moze and Zane Skill Trees)

The Arcade Crew and developer 1P2P have released a new trailer for the upcoming Young Souls game. It shows the RPG co-op beat 'em up as the pair of misfit orphans fight across different realms to rescue a loved one. During the day, Jenn and Tristan will explore their neighborhood and do what they can to prepare for the night's adventures.

Along with this new trailer, it has also been revealed that, Young Souls will first be releasing on Google Stadia and then later coming to Steam.

Source: Press Release (The Arcade Crew)

Depending, this might not be the most surprising news of the week, but it is still quite significant as Croteam, the studio behind the Serious Sam series, including the recently released Serious Sam 4, has joined with Devolver Digital, its publisher for the past decade. The Devolver Digital press release on the announcement is, well, what you would expect from a Devolver Digital press release, but it also shares confirmation of something many are likely happy to see, The Talos Principle 2 is coming, along with more Serious Sam games and original IP from Croteam and the Croteam Incubator Studios. It also clearly states that Croteam will maintain creative freedom and get to continue ignoring the "dumb recommendations" Devolver Digital makes.

Source: Devolver Digital and Croteam

HandyGames has released the Cinematic Trailer for Chicken Police, an upcoming game featuring the once legendary detective-duo of Sonny Featherland and Marty MacChicken. They are now a washed-up wreck and a wannabe star-detective, but a new and mysterious case has crossed their desk, and as they investigate, things will only get weirder and weirder.

Chicken Police releases on November 5 for PC, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4 for $19.99, with the Nintendo Switch version coming later.

Source: HandyGames

Those interested in space-related games should be happy to learn that Mars Horizon from The Irregular Corporation has received its release date. This game that challenges the player to get a space agency through the space race to landing a manned mission on Mars will be coming to PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Nintendo Switch on November 17. You will get to build up your base with laboratories, training facilities, launch pads, and more as well as create your own vehicles by combining the various parts available. Satellites can be launched as well as crewed spacecraft for exploring the Solar System, and you can run mission control itself during the turn-based missions.

Source: The Irregular Corporation

Rebellion has released season two of its Zombie Army 4, bringing with it a new campaign mission, new free map, and some more cosmetics. With Damnation Valley, you and the other survivors will have to fight across the Alps to reach a Hell Storm that has been spotted over the mountains. This is the debut mission for the Death From Above three-part campaign, with the other two missions releasing in the coming months. Considering the content involves significant violence towards zombies, it is behind an age-gate on YouTube, so here is a link to it: Zombie Army 4: Dead War – Damnation Valley.

Source: Press Release (Rebellion)

Square Enix has released the opening movie for its Balan Wonderworld, a new action-platformer coming from the creators of Sonic the Hedgehog. This movie shows as the game's protagonists, Leo Craig and Emma Cole, enter a theater and encounter Balan, the maestro of Wonderworld. As you explore this fantastic carnival you will gain various abilities via costumes to help you restore the world's balance. Balan Wonderworld is coming to PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 5, and Nintendo Switch on March 26, 2021.

Source: Press Release (Square Enix)

Rounding things off, we have some Ubisoft news, starting with the Land of Lions DLC for Anno 1880, the largest content release for the game. With this players will get to visit Enbesa, a land inspired by Eastern-Africa that will challenge you with its arid weather conditions, making the Irrigation system a new necessity. The ten hours of story content are prompted by your coming to serve Ketema, the Emperor of Enbesa that seeks your help with creating a new capital city, while also fending off foreign influence. You will also find two new citizen tiers in Enbesa, one new tier in the Old World, new production chains for Hibiscus tea and telephones, 90 new buildings, three quest islands, 134 items, and more.

In addition to Land of Lions, which is part of the Season Pass 2, there is also the free Game Update 9, which is bringing with it many quality-of-life changes. These changes include giving players more relevant information and reducing the amount of clicking you need to do along the way. You will also get to set the destination harbor for ships going between sessions, find improvements to the trade route menu, and updates to the statistics overview and newspaper system.

Source: Ubisoft [1] (Anno 1800)

Though Assassin's Creed Valhalla does not release for a few weeks yet, Ubisoft has shared the game's post-launch plan, which includes the Season Pass content as well as free seasonal content, such as in-game events and festivals, as well as new settlement buildings. There will also be a new Discovery Tour based on the game, releasing in 2021.

The Season Pass will be included as part of the Gold, Ultimate, and Collector Editions of the game, or can be purchased for $39.99 separately. It will include the Legend of Beowulf quest that will be available on November 12 with the launch of the game. The first expansion then, Wrath of the Druids, will be releasing in Spring 2021 and allow players to travel to Ireland to learn the mysteries behind the druidic cult. As you explore Gaelic myths you will also find yourself fighting through haunted forests and impressive landscapes, all to gain influence with the Gaelic kings. The second expansion is The Siege of Paris and is coming in Summer 2021. With this, players will get to relive one of the greatest battles in Viking history as you infiltrate a fortified Paris and the River Seine to uncover enemy secrets and form alliances.

The first of the free seasonal content will launch in December 2020, and each season will last for three months. With Season 1, you will get a new settlement area, to continue your growth, and the Yule Festival to experience within the settlement. The River Raids game mode will also arrive, building on the core raiding mechanic of the game to provide a dynamic, challenging, and highly replayable experience. The Jomsviking will gain the ability to rank up, and you will be able to recruit them from your friends and the community. When a higher ranked Jomsviking lieutenant is recruited from another player, they will receive more player. Finally, there will also be new skills, abilities, weapons, gear, and cosmetic items for the settlement, longship, horse, and raven all coming with Season 1, as they will for other seasons too.

Season 2 will be arriving in March 2021 and will bring with it a new game mode that builds on Assassin's Creed Valhalla's core combat experience, another update for the Jomsviking, as well as new festivals for the settlement, and the new gear and cosmetics as mentioned above. There is a trailer for the post launch plans, but it is behind an age-gate, so here is a link to it: Assassin's Creed Valhalla Post Launch & Seasons Pass Trailer.

Source: [2] (Assassin's Creed Valhalla)

Lastly, Ubisoft announced Ubisoft Connect this week, which will be the new home for all of the publisher's in-game services, activities, and communities across every platform. That means everything Uplay and Ubisoft Club have been used for previously will be refreshed and brought into Ubisoft Connect when it releases on October 29, the same day as Watch Dogs: Legion. Besides creating a seamless experience for social features, in-game rewards, challenges, and activities for its games on all platforms, Ubisoft Connection will also enable cross-platform progression for games including Assassin's Creed Valhalla, Immortals Fenyx Rising, and Riders Republic. Another feature it will bring is called Smart Intel, as it is meant to provide personalized tips and video recommendations, determined by your current in-game activities. For example, it can help you improve at Rainbow Six Siege or learn how to recruit a beekeeper in Watch Dogs: Legion. If you like to monitor your progression or review personalized stats, it can help you there too, and allow another way to compete with your friends through its leaderboard system.

Ubisoft Connecting is launching on Windows, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Nintendo Switch, and will come to Xbox Series X/S on November 10 and PlayStation 5 on November 15. It will also arrive on Google Stadia, NVIDIA GeForce Now, and Amazon Luna later this year.

Source: [3] (Ubisoft Connect)
October 21, 2020
10:25
Next@Acer 2020 Press Conference Reveals Many New Products
» ‎ Overclockers Club news Feed

Tags: [edit]

Today Acer held its next@Acer 2020 press conference, where it showed off a variety of new products across its different brands, and revealed products from its new partnership with Porsche Design. The first products of this partnership is the Porsche Design Acer Book RS laptop with a compact all-metal chassis containing an 11^th Gen Intel Core i7 CPU paired with an NVIDIA GeForce MX350 GPU and 16 GB of RAM. Intel was also involved in the engineering of the laptop, as it is an Intel Evo verified design, meeting the requirements of that platform.

While the chassis of the Porsche Design Acer Book RS is all metal, it also features a carbon fiber cover, helping it stand out. The device is also weighs in and just 1.2 Kg (2.65 lbs) and is 15.99 mm (0.63 in) thick. The unibody hinge will slightly elevate the base of the laptop when opened, bringing the keyboard to a more ergonomic angle and supporting airflow to the different components. The keyboard also features backlighting and the glass touchpad has multi-gesture support. The display is a 14 in IPS touchscreen with a resolution of 1920x1080 and 100% sRGB coverage. Covering the display is a layer of Antimicrobial Corning Gorilla Glass and around it are ultra-narrow bezels, to produce a 90% screen-to-body ratio.

Coming back to the internals, it sports 17 hours of battery life and with just half an hour charging you can get four hours of use out of it. For wireless support it uses dual-band Intel Wi-Fi 6 and for wired connections, it has two USB-A ports, an HDMI port, and a USB-C, Thunderbolt 4 and USB 3.2 Gen 2 port. There is also a fingerprint scanner for Windows Hello support as well as Modern Standby and Wake on Voice to improve your experience

In addition to the laptop, there is also the Porsche Design Acer Travelpack RS made from ECCO Palermo XA Leather to keep its contents safe and magnetic clasps for the notebook sleeve. The Porsche Design Acer Mouse RS rounds it out with its carbon fiber reinforced left mouse button. It also uses carbon fiber on its bottom cover and there is a DPI switch to go between three preset sensitivity levels.

The Porsche Design Acer Book RS premium package consisting of all of three items will be priced at $1999.99 while the laptop will be available for $1399.99. The mouse will cost $109.99 and the travelpack, including the mouse, a mousepad, carrying pouch, and notebook sleeve, will be available at $329.99. These products are expected to launch in December.

Source: Acer [1] (Porsche Design and Acer Partnership)

Next we have some gaming-focused announcements as Acer showed off some new monitors, such as the Predator XB3 series. This series will include 1920x1080 and 2560x1440 displays with high refresh rates and VESA DisplayHDR certification. The different displays have been designed to satisfy certain criteria, such as the Predator XB273U NV that is part of the VisionCare series. It has been certified by Eyesafe as it filters out blue light to reduce eye strain, but does so without compromising the crispness and color quality of the image. It achieves this by using LightSense, AdaptiveLight, ColorSEnse, and ProxiSense so it can adapt its brightness and color temperature to the environmental and ambient light. The XB273U NV uses a 27in 2560x1440 display with a 170 Hz overclocked refresh rate that covers 95% of the DCI-P3 color space. It should be available in January 2021 priced at $549.99.

If you are looking for a high refresh rate display, the XB253Q GW offers that with a 280 Hz overclockable display with a 0.5 ms gray-to-gray response time. It is a 24.5 inch, 1920x1080 display and is NVIDIA G-Sync Compatible so refresh rate can match the frame rate of your system. It will be available in January as well, priced at $429.99.

The XB323U GX has a 32 inch 2560x1440 panel with an 270 Hz overclockable refresh rate that is also G-Sync compatible. It has 99% AdobeRGB color gamut coverage and is DisplayHDR 600 certified. It too will be available in January and will be priced at $899.99.

Lastly for the Predator branded monitors, there is the X34 GS, a 34 in curved monitor with a 3440x1440 ultra-wide panel. It can be overclocked to a 180 Hz refresh rate with 0.5 ms response time and supports DisplayHDR 400 with 98% DCI-P3 gamut coverage. It will be available a little sooner, as it arrives in December and will be priced at $999.99.

There are also two new Nitro gaming models, with both being 27 in designs. The XV272U KV is a 2560x1440 display with 95% coverage of DCI-P3 and its panel can be overclocked to 170 Hz with a 1 ms gray-to-gray response time. It sports LightSense, ColorSense, and ProxiSense technologies as well and is to be available in December, priced at $399.99.

The second Ntrio monitor is the XV272 LV that has a 1920x1080 display that can be overclocked to 165 Hz and covers 90% of the DCI-P3 gamut. It is to launch in December and will be priced at $279.99.

Source: [2] (Predator and Nitro Monitors)

Though I did not see them featured in the press conference video, Acer has also announced new projectors, if those might fit your needs better than new monitors. The VD6510i is a wireless, 3000 lumens LED projector that provides a 1080p image at 120 Hz and covers 125% of the REC.709 gamut. The PD15030i is a more business-focused projector with its ability to create a 100 inch screen from just 3 m away. It also has a 30,000 hour lifespan. The Acer XL series is home to some of the most energy-efficient 3100 lumens laser projectors you can find, and can produce up to a 1920x1080 image. They also have IP6X certification, making them dust-tight so you do not need to worry about dust and other fine particles entering the device.

Check out the source link for some more projectors, as well as their pricing and availability.

Source: [3] (Projectors)

Another reveal at the event was SigridWave, an in-game AI powered translator for its Planet9 eSports platform. It works by converting what players say to text and then running it through a Neural Machine Translation technology that has been trained with 10 million bilingual sentence pairs and 1000 hours of game-centric speech to produce text in a language other players can understand. It will enter a closed beta in Q4 2020, when it will be able to translate between English and Mandarin in various major FPS titles, including Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege.

The Planet9 eSports platform is receiving other updates as well, such as Clubs to help bring together players of common interests. Clubs have both a public home for followers of the page and a private lounge for its members.

Source: [4] (Planet9 and SigridWave)

For the creators out there, the ConceptD line of products received some updates, such as the ConceptD 7 and ConceptD7 Pro notebooks that were featured in the press conference. Both of these feature 10^th Gen Intel Core CPUs, paired with Intel Wi-Fi 6 connectivity, Thunderbolt 3, and 4K IPS displays. The ConceptD 7 pairs that GPU with a GeForce RTX GPU while the ConceptD 7 Pro goes with an NVIDIA Quadro RTX 5000 GPU. Both versions feature a custom-engineered thermal solution to keep the device quiet at less than 40 dBA while also keeping the components cool. Both will be available in North America in December with the ConceptD 7 starting at $3299.99 and the ConceptD 7 Pro starting at $3499.99.

Source: [5] (ConceptD computers)

Other notebooks announced were the new Swift 3^X and additions to the Spin and Aspire series. The Swift 3^X features an 11^th Gen Intel processor with Iris X^e graphics. It weighs in at 1.37 Kg (3.02 lbs) but still provides 17.5 hours of batter life and can achieve reach four hours of use from just half an hour charging. The display is a 14 inch 1920x1080 display with 72% NTSC gamut coverage and an 84% screen-to-body ratio. It will be available in December starting at $899.99.

The Acer Spin 5 laptop is a convertible laptop that weighs just 1.2 Kg and is 14.9 mm thin. Its touchscreen and touchpad can be covered by an option layer of Antimicrobial Corning Gorilla Glass. On the inside it contains an 11^th Gen Core i7 CPU with Iris X^e graphics driving the 3:2 IPS display. It sports up to 15 hours of battery life and multiple full-function USB Type-C ports with Thunderbolt 4. We can expect this to be available in February 2021 starting at $999.99.

Source: [6] (Swift 3^X and Spin laptops)

For those needing something a bit different, Aver announced new Chromebooks powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 7c platform. The Chromebook Spin 513 can provide up to 14 hours of battery life and support for 4G connectivity, so you can be prepared for work or school almost anywhere. It also has a 13.3 inch 1920x1080 IPS touchscreen display while weighing in at under 1.2 Kg, and its 360 degree hinges all for four use modes, depending on what you need.

The Chromebook Enterprise Spin 513 is aimed at business with its support for zero-touch enrollment, making it easier for IT departments to manage them. It can be drop shipped to the end user and will be automatically enrolled once the user connects to the internet.

Source: [7] (Chromebooks)

And here is the video of the next@Acer press conference, for those wanting to see the announcements, rather than just read about them. One thing I saw announced in the video but have not spotted in the press releases is that the Predator Frostblade fans will be available for purchase, so you can have those without needing to purchase an Acer Predator desktop.
10:25
Next@Acer 2020 Press Conference Reveals Many New Products
» ‎ Overclockers Club news Feed

Tags: [edit]

Today Acer held its next@Acer 2020 press conference, where it showed off a variety of new products across its different brands, and revealed products from its new partnership with Porsche Design. The first products of this partnership is the Porsche Design Acer Book RS laptop with a compact all-metal chassis containing an 11^th Gen Intel Core i7 CPU paired with an NVIDIA GeForce MX350 GPU and 16 GB of RAM. Intel was also involved in the engineering of the laptop, as it is an Intel Evo verified design, meeting the requirements of that platform.

While the chassis of the Porsche Design Acer Book RS is all metal, it also features a carbon fiber cover, helping it stand out. The device is also weighs in and just 1.2 Kg (2.65 lbs) and is 15.99 mm (0.63 in) thick. The unibody hinge will slightly elevate the base of the laptop when opened, bringing the keyboard to a more ergonomic angle and supporting airflow to the different components. The keyboard also features backlighting and the glass touchpad has multi-gesture support. The display is a 14 in IPS touchscreen with a resolution of 1920x1080 and 100% sRGB coverage. Covering the display is a layer of Antimicrobial Corning Gorilla Glass and around it are ultra-narrow bezels, to produce a 90% screen-to-body ratio.

Coming back to the internals, it sports 17 hours of battery life and with just half an hour charging you can get four hours of use out of it. For wireless support it uses dual-band Intel Wi-Fi 6 and for wired connections, it has two USB-A ports, an HDMI port, and a USB-C, Thunderbolt 4 and USB 3.2 Gen 2 port. There is also a fingerprint scanner for Windows Hello support as well as Modern Standby and Wake on Voice to improve your experience

In addition to the laptop, there is also the Porsche Design Acer Travelpack RS made from ECCO Palermo XA Leather to keep its contents safe and magnetic clasps for the notebook sleeve. The Porsche Design Acer Mouse RS rounds it out with its carbon fiber reinforced left mouse button. It also uses carbon fiber on its bottom cover and there is a DPI switch to go between three preset sensitivity levels.

The Porsche Design Acer Book RS premium package consisting of all of three items will be priced at $1999.99 while the laptop will be available for $1399.99. The mouse will cost $109.99 and the travelpack, including the mouse, a mousepad, carrying pouch, and notebook sleeve, will be available at $329.99. These products are expected to launch in December.

Source: Acer [1] (Porsche Design and Acer Partnership)

Next we have some gaming-focused announcements as Acer showed off some new monitors, such as the Predator XB3 series. This series will include 1920x1080 and 2560x1440 displays with high refresh rates and VESA DisplayHDR certification. The different displays have been designed to satisfy certain criteria, such as the Predator XB273U NV that is part of the VisionCare series. It has been certified by Eyesafe as it filters out blue light to reduce eye strain, but does so without compromising the crispness and color quality of the image. It achieves this by using LightSense, AdaptiveLight, ColorSEnse, and ProxiSense so it can adapt its brightness and color temperature to the environmental and ambient light. The XB273U NV uses a 27in 2560x1440 display with a 170 Hz overclocked refresh rate that covers 95% of the DCI-P3 color space. It should be available in January 2021 priced at $549.99.

If you are looking for a high refresh rate display, the XB253Q GW offers that with a 280 Hz overclockable display with a 0.5 ms gray-to-gray response time. It is a 24.5 inch, 1920x1080 display and is NVIDIA G-Sync Compatible so refresh rate can match the frame rate of your system. It will be available in January as well, priced at $429.99.

The XB323U GX has a 32 inch 2560x1440 panel with an 270 Hz overclockable refresh rate that is also G-Sync compatible. It has 99% AdobeRGB color gamut coverage and is DisplayHDR 600 certified. It too will be available in January and will be priced at $899.99.

Lastly for the Predator branded monitors, there is the X34 GS, a 34 in curved monitor with a 3440x1440 ultra-wide panel. It can be overclocked to a 180 Hz refresh rate with 0.5 ms response time and supports DisplayHDR 400 with 98% DCI-P3 gamut coverage. It will be available a little sooner, as it arrives in December and will be priced at $999.99.

There are also two new Nitro gaming models, with both being 27 in designs. The XV272U KV is a 2560x1440 display with 95% coverage of DCI-P3 and its panel can be overclocked to 170 Hz with a 1 ms gray-to-gray response time. It sports LightSense, ColorSense, and ProxiSense technologies as well and is to be available in December, priced at $399.99.

The second Ntrio monitor is the XV272 LV that has a 1920x1080 display that can be overclocked to 165 Hz and covers 90% of the DCI-P3 gamut. It is to launch in December and will be priced at $279.99.

Source: [2] (Predator and Nitro Monitors)

Though I did not see them featured in the press conference video, Acer has also announced new projectors, if those might fit your needs better than new monitors. The VD6510i is a wireless, 3000 lumens LED projector that provides a 1080p image at 120 Hz and covers 125% of the REC.709 gamut. The PD15030i is a more business-focused projector with its ability to create a 100 inch screen from just 3 m away. It also has a 30,000 hour lifespan. The Acer XL series is home to some of the most energy-efficient 3100 lumens laser projectors you can find, and can produce up to a 1920x1080 image. They also have IP6X certification, making them dust-tight so you do not need to worry about dust and other fine particles entering the device.

Check out the source link for some more projectors, as well as their pricing and availability.

Source: [3] (Projectors)

Another reveal at the event was SigridWave, an in-game AI powered translator for its Planet9 eSports platform. It works by converting what players say to text and then running it through a Neural Machine Translation technology that has been trained with 10 million bilingual sentence pairs and 1000 hours of game-centric speech to produce text in a language other players can understand. It will enter a closed beta in Q4 2020, when it will be able to translate between English and Mandarin in various major FPS titles, including Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege.

The Planet9 eSports platform is receiving other updates as well, such as Clubs to help bring together players of common interests. Clubs have both a public home for followers of the page and a private lounge for its members.

Source: [4] (Planet9 and SigridWave)

For the creators out there, the ConceptD line of products received some updates, such as the ConceptD 7 and ConceptD7 Pro notebooks that were featured in the press conference. Both of these feature 10^th Gen Intel Core CPUs, paired with Intel Wi-Fi 6 connectivity, Thunderbolt 3, and 4K IPS displays. The ConceptD 7 pairs that GPU with a GeForce RTX GPU while the ConceptD 7 Pro goes with an NVIDIA Quadro RTX 5000 GPU. Both versions feature a custom-engineered thermal solution to keep the device quiet at less than 40 dBA while also keeping the components cool. Both will be available in North America in December with the ConceptD 7 starting at $3299.99 and the ConceptD 7 Pro starting at $3499.99.

Source: [5] (ConceptD computers)

Other notebooks announced were the new Swift 3^X and additions to the Spin and Aspire series. The Swift 3^X features an 11^th Gen Intel processor with Iris X^e graphics. It weighs in at 1.37 Kg (3.02 lbs) but still provides 17.5 hours of batter life and can achieve reach four hours of use from just half an hour charging. The display is a 14 inch 1920x1080 display with 72% NTSC gamut coverage and an 84% screen-to-body ratio. It will be available in December starting at $899.99.

The Acer Spin 5 laptop is a convertible laptop that weighs just 1.2 Kg and is 14.9 mm thin. Its touchscreen and touchpad can be covered by an option layer of Antimicrobial Corning Gorilla Glass. On the inside it contains an 11^th Gen Core i7 CPU with Iris X^e graphics driving the 3:2 IPS display. It sports up to 15 hours of battery life and multiple full-function USB Type-C ports with Thunderbolt 4. We can expect this to be available in February 2021 starting at $999.99.

Source: [6] (Swift 3^X and Spin laptops)

For those needing something a bit different, Aver announced new Chromebooks powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 7c platform. The Chromebook Spin 513 can provide up to 14 hours of battery life and support for 4G connectivity, so you can be prepared for work or school almost anywhere. It also has a 13.3 inch 1920x1080 IPS touchscreen display while weighing in at under 1.2 Kg, and its 360 degree hinges all for four use modes, depending on what you need.

The Chromebook Enterprise Spin 513 is aimed at business with its support for zero-touch enrollment, making it easier for IT departments to manage them. It can be drop shipped to the end user and will be automatically enrolled once the user connects to the internet.

Source: [7] (Chromebooks)

And here is the video of the next@Acer press conference, for those wanting to see the announcements, rather than just read about them. One thing I saw announced in the video but have not spotted in the press releases is that the Predator Frostblade fans will be available for purchase, so you can have those without needing to purchase an Acer Predator desktop.
October 20, 2020
10:32
Intel Selling NAND Memory Business to SK Hynix
» ‎ Overclockers Club news Feed

Tags: [edit]

Though Intel is likely best known for its CPUs, the company has a presence in many other technologies sectors, such as wired and wireless networking and solid state memory, including NAND and Optane. Today it was announced the company has signed an agreement with SK Hynix that will see it transfer the NAND business to the South Korean memory manufacturer for what will total $9 billion. This transfer will include the NAND SSD business, NAND component and wafer business, and the Dalian NAND memory manufacturing facility in China, but will happen in two parts, with the first likely at the end of 2021 and the second expected in March 2025. This agreement only covers NAND, so Intel will keep its Optane business, a next-generation memory technology the company feels differentiates its products.

The companies expect the various government approvals for this transaction to be obtained in late 2021. It is at this point that SK Hynix will take over the NAND SSD business and Dalian facility from Intel, and transfer the first payment of $7 billion. The remaining assets, including the intellectual property concerning the manufacture and design of NAND flash wafers, R&D employees, and the Dalian workforce, will be transferred at the final closing, which is expected to be in March 2025, and at this time SK Hynix will pay the remaining $2 billion. Until the final closing, Intel will continue to produce NAND wafers at the Dalian facility, though it will have been acquired by SK Hynix, and keep all of the related IP related to the process as well. This also means Intel will continue on its roadmap and fulfilling its customer commitments.

The hope for this deal is to strengthen SK Hynix's competitiveness in storage solutions, including in enterprise SSDs. While Intel is a leader in NAND SSD technology, including quad-level cell, QLC, flash products, SK Hynix has developed technologies such as the first Charge Trap Flash-based, 96-layer 4D NAND flash in 2018, and then last year produced 128-layer 4D NAND flash. By combining the technologies and solutions, SK Hynix hopes to create a higher value-added 3D NAND solution portfolio for its variety of customers, including enterprise customers. Intel intends to invest the proceeds of the transaction into its long-term growth priorities, such as AI, 5G networking, and intelligent, autonomous edge computing.

For reference, in the first six months of the year, Intel's NAND businesses produced about $2.8 billion of revenue for the company's Non-volatile Memory Solutions Group, and contributed about $600 million to that group's operating income.

Source: Intel and SK Hynix
10:32
Intel Selling NAND Memory Business to SK Hynix
» ‎ Overclockers Club news Feed

Tags: [edit]

Though Intel is likely best known for its CPUs, the company has a presence in many other technologies sectors, such as wired and wireless networking and solid state memory, including NAND and Optane. Today it was announced the company has signed an agreement with SK Hynix that will see it transfer the NAND business to the South Korean memory manufacturer for what will total $9 billion. This transfer will include the NAND SSD business, NAND component and wafer business, and the Dalian NAND memory manufacturing facility in China, but will happen in two parts, with the first likely at the end of 2021 and the second expected in March 2025. This agreement only covers NAND, so Intel will keep its Optane business, a next-generation memory technology the company feels differentiates its products.

The companies expect the various government approvals for this transaction to be obtained in late 2021. It is at this point that SK Hynix will take over the NAND SSD business and Dalian facility from Intel, and transfer the first payment of $7 billion. The remaining assets, including the intellectual property concerning the manufacture and design of NAND flash wafers, R&D employees, and the Dalian workforce, will be transferred at the final closing, which is expected to be in March 2025, and at this time SK Hynix will pay the remaining $2 billion. Until the final closing, Intel will continue to produce NAND wafers at the Dalian facility, though it will have been acquired by SK Hynix, and keep all of the related IP related to the process as well. This also means Intel will continue on its roadmap and fulfilling its customer commitments.

The hope for this deal is to strengthen SK Hynix's competitiveness in storage solutions, including in enterprise SSDs. While Intel is a leader in NAND SSD technology, including quad-level cell, QLC, flash products, SK Hynix has developed technologies such as the first Charge Trap Flash-based, 96-layer 4D NAND flash in 2018, and then last year produced 128-layer 4D NAND flash. By combining the technologies and solutions, SK Hynix hopes to create a higher value-added 3D NAND solution portfolio for its variety of customers, including enterprise customers. Intel intends to invest the proceeds of the transaction into its long-term growth priorities, such as AI, 5G networking, and intelligent, autonomous edge computing.

For reference, in the first six months of the year, Intel's NAND businesses produced about $2.8 billion of revenue for the company's Non-volatile Memory Solutions Group, and contributed about $600 million to that group's operating income.

Source: Intel and SK Hynix
October 16, 2020

Permalink for 'Various Video Game Stories from the Week of October 12, 2020'

11:20

Various Video Game Stories from the Week of October 12, 2020

» ‎ Overclockers Club news Feed

Another week of news to cover, starting with something time sensitive from GOG as it has a special promotion going on with Visa currently. If a Visa card user spends $25 or more on GOG, with the details saved for future purchases and they register for this promotion, they can receive a copy of Children of Morta free. The catch is there are only 53,000 of the game codes to give out, so if you want to take advantage of it, you do not necessarily want to wait.

Source: GOG [1] (Visa Children of Morta promotion)

Though not subject to a limit, it was also revealed today that Cyberpunk 2077 will have an exclusive digital comic for those who purchase the game at GOG. Cyberpunk 2077: Big City Dreams is a 50 page digital comic that follows two scavengers, Tasha and Mirek, in Night City. While Tasha's desire is to become the most famous gangster in the city, Mirek's interests are less ambitious, and after experiencing a braindance of a happy family, he sees a chance for himself. With Cyberpunk 2077 priced at $59.99, that can be a way to potentially get a free copy of Children of Morta.

Though it would not get you all the way to the $25 amount, I also see Relicta has released on GOG and is on sale for $14.99. Though not perfect, I did find it to be a pretty fun and enjoyable physics-puzzle game.

Source: GOG [2] (Cyberpunk 2077 Digital Comic) and [3] (Relicta)

Coming to 2K now, we have some Borderlands 3 news as its Season Pass 2 has been announced. Available on November 10, this second pass will include two add-ons, Designer's Cut and Director's Cut as well as new looks for the four Vault Hunters. Designer's Cut will launch on November 10 and adds to the ways you can play the game with a new skill tree for each Vault Hunter as well as a new standalone mode called Arms Race. There are no details on what Director's Cut will bring, only that the current launch target is Spring 2021.

Also announced was that the next generation console upgrades for the game will be available on the day the consoles release. That means that on November 10, if you already own a copy of Borderlands 3 for Xbox One and get either an Xbox Series X or Xbox Series S, you will be able to enjoy the game with its improvements that day. The PlayStation 5 releases November 12, and if you already have a PlayStation 4 version of the game, you will be able to download and play in the upgraded PS5 version on that day as well. There are some limitations though, as these version upgrades are limited to the console family, and if you have a disc copy of the game on the current consoles, you will need a version of the next-gen console with a disc drive. Save games and DLC can carry over to the new consoles.

Source: 2K [1] (Borderlands 3 Seasons Pass 2) and [2] (Borderlands 3 Next-Gen Console Upgrade)

ScourgeBringer is a rogue-like title from Flying Oak Games and being published by Dear Villagers, that will be reaching full-release next week, so a new trailer for it has been released, as well as the Supporter Pack version. The trailer is embedded below and shows off some of the fast-paced action we can expect on October 21, assuming you do not just purchase into the Early Access version before then. The Supporter Pack will bring with it a 12-page prequel digital comic, artwork from the early prototypes, over ten 4K wallpapers, and on Steam the soundtrack can also be acquired with its 28 tracks by Joonas Turner. With its exit from Early Access, the game will receive a major content update including The Beyond a new secret realm with two new bosses, Chaos Roots post-game mode, revamps to the gun modification systems and item system, some reshaping to the story, new shops and NPCs, new content for previous worlds, and secret rooms you can try to find.

ScourgeBringer is in Early Access on Steam presently but on October 21 it will exit Early Access this and release on the Epic Games Store, GOG, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, andGame Pass for Console and PC.

Source: Press Release (Dear Villagers)

THQ Nordic releases Aquanox Deep Descent today, but earlier this week a new trailer was released to introduce new players to the series that first launched in 2001. The survivors of humanity have had to retreat underwater after the surface of Earth became uninhabitable, and now there are struggles to get the resources necessary to live in this new world of Aqua. You will be one of the pilots tasked with collecting these resources, as well as learning what the hidden agendas of Aqua's five factions.

Aquanox Deep Descent releases today and will be priced at $29.99.

Source: THQ Nordic [1] (Aquanox Deep Descent Explanation Trailer) and [2] (Aquanox Deep Descent Launch)

Ubisoft shared a lot this week concerning the upcoming Assassin's Creed Valhalla, including a Deep Dive Trailer, which is behind an age-gate, hence the link instead of embedding it. Also revealed are the PC specifications, which span from the AMD R9 380 and NVIDIA GTX 960 with the Ryzen 3 1200 and Intel i5-4460 to the RX 5700XT and RTX 2080 with a Ryzen 7 3700X or i7-9700K. Something I greatly appreciate is that these specifications also give the target performance and graphics preset. For those wanting to run it at the High preset at 1080p60, you will need at least an RX Vega64 or GTX 1080 paired with the Ryzen 7 1700 or i7-6700.

	Minimum	Recommended	High	Enthusiast	Ultra
Average Performance	1080p30	1080p30	1080p60	1440p60	2160p30
Graphics Setting	Low Preset	High Preset	High Preset	Very High Preset	Ultra High Preset
GPU (AMD)	R9 380 (4 GB)	RX 570 (8 GB)	RX Vega 64	RX 5700XT	RX 5700XT
GPU (NVIDIA)	GTX 960 (4 GB)	GTX 1060 (6 GB)	GTX 1080	RTX 2080 S	RTX 2080
CPU (AMD)	Ryzen 3 1200	Ryzen 5 1600	Ryzen 7 1700	Ryzen 5 3600X	Ryzen 7 3700X
CPU (Intel)	Core i5-4460	Core i7-4790	Core i7-6700	Core i7-8700K	Core i7-9700K
RAM	8 GB	8 GB	8 GB	16 GB	16 GB
OS	Windows 10 (64-bit)	Windows 10 (64-bit)	Windows 10 (64-bit)	Windows 10 (64-bit)	Windows 10 (64-bit)
Storage	50 GB HDD	50 GB SSD	50 GB SSD	50 GB SSD	50 GB SSD

Ubisoft is also putting special effort into making sure their games are accessible to as many as possible, and shared how they are working toward this goal in another piece. There will be a number of ways to change the controls to match whatever you prefer or need, including such things as remapping controls and support for left-handed mice. Both aim and the weapon wheel can be on toggles, and you and choose to use a two-step confirmation system instead of holding, and hold length can be adjusted as well. Quick time events can be set to take one-time presses, holding the button, or repeated presses, and there will be three levels to aim assistance with the bow. It is probably worth looking through this piece yourself, as the list of settings is rather extensive, and while they will help with accessibility, some might just be how you want to play the game. For example, the Guaranteed Assassinate setting will allow you to control whether you can assassinate higher-level enemies or not. When it is disabled, assassination attempts will only partially damage such enemies.

Assassin's Creed Valhalla is releasing November 10 on PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X/S, Uplay+, and Google Stadia, and on November 12 on PlayStation 5.

Source: Ubisoft [1] (Assassin's Creed Valhalla PC Specifications), [2] (Assassin's Creed Valhalla Deep Dive), and [3] (Assassin's Creed Valhalla Accesibility)

Lastly I have something that is not strictly game related, but it still might be of interest to see a new 3DMark benchmark. Named Wild Life, this is actually a cross-platform benchmark, so you will be able to compare graphics performance on Windows, Apple, and Android devices. It also offers two ways to test mobile devices; a quick benchmark for instant performance, as well as a long stress test, to see how the hardware holds up under sustained load. With the stress test you will be presented with more than just a single score, so you can see how the performance changed during the span of the test, which can be interesting to see.

As you might guess, being a cross-platform test it uses Vulkan, at least on Windows and Android devices, while on iOS deices it will use Metal. For Android it is available as a free update to the 3DMark Android app, while it is a free standalone app in the Apple App Store. For PC, it is a free update to 3DMark Advanced Edition.

Source: UL Benchmarks

11:20

Various Video Game Stories from the Week of October 12, 2020

» ‎ Overclockers Club news Feed

Source: GOG [1] (Visa Children of Morta promotion)

Source: GOG [2] (Cyberpunk 2077 Digital Comic) and [3] (Relicta)

Source: 2K [1] (Borderlands 3 Seasons Pass 2) and [2] (Borderlands 3 Next-Gen Console Upgrade)

Source: Press Release (Dear Villagers)

Aquanox Deep Descent releases today and will be priced at $29.99.

Source: THQ Nordic [1] (Aquanox Deep Descent Explanation Trailer) and [2] (Aquanox Deep Descent Launch)

	Minimum	Recommended	High	Enthusiast	Ultra
Average Performance	1080p30	1080p30	1080p60	1440p60	2160p30
Graphics Setting	Low Preset	High Preset	High Preset	Very High Preset	Ultra High Preset
GPU (AMD)	R9 380 (4 GB)	RX 570 (8 GB)	RX Vega 64	RX 5700XT	RX 5700XT
GPU (NVIDIA)	GTX 960 (4 GB)	GTX 1060 (6 GB)	GTX 1080	RTX 2080 S	RTX 2080
CPU (AMD)	Ryzen 3 1200	Ryzen 5 1600	Ryzen 7 1700	Ryzen 5 3600X	Ryzen 7 3700X
CPU (Intel)	Core i5-4460	Core i7-4790	Core i7-6700	Core i7-8700K	Core i7-9700K
RAM	8 GB	8 GB	8 GB	16 GB	16 GB
OS	Windows 10 (64-bit)	Windows 10 (64-bit)	Windows 10 (64-bit)	Windows 10 (64-bit)	Windows 10 (64-bit)
Storage	50 GB HDD	50 GB SSD	50 GB SSD	50 GB SSD	50 GB SSD

Assassin's Creed Valhalla is releasing November 10 on PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X/S, Uplay+, and Google Stadia, and on November 12 on PlayStation 5.

Source: Ubisoft [1] (Assassin's Creed Valhalla PC Specifications), [2] (Assassin's Creed Valhalla Deep Dive), and [3] (Assassin's Creed Valhalla Accesibility)

Source: UL Benchmarks

October 15, 2020
15:11
Cyberpunk 2077 Vehicles Revealed, Including Porsche 911 Turbo, and Stadia Launch Date Shared
» ‎ Overclockers Club news Feed

Tags: [edit]

Have some updates today on Cyberpunk 2077, the upcoming RPG from CD Projekt Red, the studio behind The Witcher series of games. As part of the lead up to the game, the studio has been sharing Night City Wire videos that reveal various aspects of the game, and the most recent run covered the vehicles and style of Night City, the game's futuristic and fictional setting.

Starting with the vehicles, there will be different classes such as Economy, Executive, Heavy Duty, Sport, and Hypercars. You can probably guess what sets the Economy and Hypercars classes apart, as the former is something anyone can afford and the latter are vehicles with the most advanced technology and most exclusive prices. If you are looking to impress others though, the Executive class can achieve that as no expense has been spared. Something a bit more practical, if practicality means brute force and being nigh-unstoppable, can be found in the Heavy Duty class with its collection of trucks and tanks to satisfy your needs. The last class discussed is the Sport class provides plenty of power and feature exchangeable parts, so you can get in there and tune them to meet your needs.

Though that part of the Night City Wire focused mostly on cars, there will of course be motorcycles in the game, including a special one. Keanu Reeves' involvement with the game, providing the likeness and voice for Johnny Silverhand was revealed quite some time ago, and it turns out this is not his only involvement, as he is one of the founders of Arch Motorcycle company. Thanks to collaboration between Arch Motorcycle and CDPR, a futuristic version of one of the company's motorcycles will also be present in the game, as will accurate sound for it as microphones recorded the various parts of an Arch motorcycle. Behind the Scenes: Arch Motorcycle with Keanu Reeves and Gard Hollinger.

While there will certainly be plenty of futuristic vehicles to drive in the game, there will also be some classics such as the Porsche 911 Turbo, which originally released back in 1974, making the design a century old to the game's setting. The CDPR team uses sketches, photographs, and photogrammetry to ensure the classic look of the vehicle is retained, but it will feature some upgrades. At the front of the car will be a LIDAR and there will be a set of sensors and elements so it can be identified from the air. On the inside you will find electronic mirrors and monitors. Just who would own one of these legendary vehicles? Naturally, the legendary Johnny Silverhand, but it will be you who gets to drive it around the streets of Night City.

Apparently unsatisfied with it existing just in the game, a special real-life version of the Johnny Silverhand Porsche 911 Turbo has been constructed and it is on display in Stuttgart, outside the Porsche Museum. It will only be on display from October 15 to October 22, but the fully operational vehicle can also be seen in a commercial shot on location, telling the story of a car that maintains a connection to is previous owner.

Besides all of the vehicles being shown off, the styles you can find in Night City's fashions were also revealed in the 2077 in Style trailer. Kitsch, Entropism, Neomilitarism, and Neokitsch are what you will encounter, providing a range from flash-over-function to the cold and practical with Kitsch and Neomilitarism respectively. Entropism came about after the fourth corporate war and is not about style but getting things done, while Neokitsch is worn by celebrities and others wanting to get back to the roots of the style, by being even less practical.

Lastly, CD Projekt Red has announced Cyberpunk 2077 will be arriving on Google Stadia on November 19, the same day it launches on PC, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4. Those who purchase on Stadia will receive a set of themed digital goodies, including the original score, art booklet, original Cyberpunk 2020 sourcebook, Cyberpunk 2077: Your Voice comic book, and a set of wallpapers for your devices.

Source: Press Releases
15:11
Cyberpunk 2077 Vehicles Revealed, Including Porsche 911 Turbo, and Stadia Launch Date Shared
» ‎ Overclockers Club news Feed

Tags: [edit]

Have some updates today on Cyberpunk 2077, the upcoming RPG from CD Projekt Red, the studio behind The Witcher series of games. As part of the lead up to the game, the studio has been sharing Night City Wire videos that reveal various aspects of the game, and the most recent run covered the vehicles and style of Night City, the game's futuristic and fictional setting.

Starting with the vehicles, there will be different classes such as Economy, Executive, Heavy Duty, Sport, and Hypercars. You can probably guess what sets the Economy and Hypercars classes apart, as the former is something anyone can afford and the latter are vehicles with the most advanced technology and most exclusive prices. If you are looking to impress others though, the Executive class can achieve that as no expense has been spared. Something a bit more practical, if practicality means brute force and being nigh-unstoppable, can be found in the Heavy Duty class with its collection of trucks and tanks to satisfy your needs. The last class discussed is the Sport class provides plenty of power and feature exchangeable parts, so you can get in there and tune them to meet your needs.

Though that part of the Night City Wire focused mostly on cars, there will of course be motorcycles in the game, including a special one. Keanu Reeves' involvement with the game, providing the likeness and voice for Johnny Silverhand was revealed quite some time ago, and it turns out this is not his only involvement, as he is one of the founders of Arch Motorcycle company. Thanks to collaboration between Arch Motorcycle and CDPR, a futuristic version of one of the company's motorcycles will also be present in the game, as will accurate sound for it as microphones recorded the various parts of an Arch motorcycle. Behind the Scenes: Arch Motorcycle with Keanu Reeves and Gard Hollinger.

While there will certainly be plenty of futuristic vehicles to drive in the game, there will also be some classics such as the Porsche 911 Turbo, which originally released back in 1974, making the design a century old to the game's setting. The CDPR team uses sketches, photographs, and photogrammetry to ensure the classic look of the vehicle is retained, but it will feature some upgrades. At the front of the car will be a LIDAR and there will be a set of sensors and elements so it can be identified from the air. On the inside you will find electronic mirrors and monitors. Just who would own one of these legendary vehicles? Naturally, the legendary Johnny Silverhand, but it will be you who gets to drive it around the streets of Night City.

Apparently unsatisfied with it existing just in the game, a special real-life version of the Johnny Silverhand Porsche 911 Turbo has been constructed and it is on display in Stuttgart, outside the Porsche Museum. It will only be on display from October 15 to October 22, but the fully operational vehicle can also be seen in a commercial shot on location, telling the story of a car that maintains a connection to is previous owner.

Besides all of the vehicles being shown off, the styles you can find in Night City's fashions were also revealed in the 2077 in Style trailer. Kitsch, Entropism, Neomilitarism, and Neokitsch are what you will encounter, providing a range from flash-over-function to the cold and practical with Kitsch and Neomilitarism respectively. Entropism came about after the fourth corporate war and is not about style but getting things done, while Neokitsch is worn by celebrities and others wanting to get back to the roots of the style, by being even less practical.

Lastly, CD Projekt Red has announced Cyberpunk 2077 will be arriving on Google Stadia on November 19, the same day it launches on PC, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4. Those who purchase on Stadia will receive a set of themed digital goodies, including the original score, art booklet, original Cyberpunk 2020 sourcebook, Cyberpunk 2077: Your Voice comic book, and a set of wallpapers for your devices.

Source: Press Releases
October 09, 2020
11:38
Various Video Game Stories from the Week of October 5, 2020
» ‎ Overclockers Club news Feed

Tags: [edit]

It seems Friday has snuck up on us again, or at least me, so here is a collection of different video game news stories from the week, starting with some news from 2K. Even though Halloween is still some weeks away, Borderlands 3 has begun its Bloody Harvest in-game event, which will run until November 5. During this event, which also ran last year, you will be able to fight Captain Haunt as well as his minions in an effort to collect some rewards that are only available during this event. To start the mission, you will want to visit Maurice as he desires Hecktoplasm from the ghosts that spawn after killing haunted enemies. Once he has enough, a portal will be opened to Heck so you can face Captain Haunt.

Among the rewards you can get are costumes and cosmetics that fit the upcoming holiday, and there is a chance the loot that drops will have Terror effects on them. Bloody Harvest is free for all Borderlands 3 players, but for those with the campaign add-ons, you can complete the event challenges in their locations if you wish.

Source: 2K [1] (Borderlands 3)

Also from 2K, Mafia: Definitive Edition has received its first post-launch update, and among the additions it brought was a new Noir Mode. When enabled, the gameplay and cinematics will be given a black-and-white look complete with film grain to match the mood of the game's Prohibition Era setting. The HUD also gets some new options so players can switch in-world main objectives on and off, enemy markers on the mini-map on and off, and the ability to enable or disable navigation features like turn-by-turn instructions. There is also a minimal HUD mode if you want to remove many elements like the mini-map, speedometer, and objective text.

Source: 2K [2] (Mafia: Definitive Edition)

Coming to Devolver Digital news now, Disc Room has received its release date for PC and Nintendo Switch. Those looking to enter rooms with discs will get the opportunity to on October 22. Sometimes there are few discs and sometimes there are many discs, but there will always be discs, and they will always be trying to kill you as you explore an alien disc that has appeared around Jupiter.

Source: Press Release (Devolver Digital [1] Disc Room)

From discs to beans now, Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout saw its Season 2 start yesterday, bringing with it new costumes. There are also four new levels coming where you can show off your costumes, and a Show Selector, that will place you and your costume on a themed playlist, for when you want to show off just on Gauntlet levels or Survival Showdowns. The four new levels are Hoopsie Legends, Knight Fever, Egg Siege, and Wall Guys. You can check out the costumes and those levels in the trailer embedded below.

Source: Press Release (Devolver Digital [2] Fall Guys)

HandyGames has released Neighbors back From Hell, where you play as Woody as he pranks his neighbors to keep the audience of a TV show entertained. The more chaos you cause, the better your ratings and you might even win some awards. If you get caught though, the neighbor will not take kindly to your actions and the show will be taken off the air.

Neighbors back From Hell is out now on PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Nintendo Switch, priced at $14.99.

Source: HandyGames (Neighbors back From Hell)

Outriders is an upcoming title from Square Enix and People Can Fly that has been getting a fair amount of attention since its announcement earlier this year. Now we know when we can expect to enter the world of this new RPG-shooter as it will be releasing on February 2, 2021. It will be available on PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X/S, and PlayStation 5 on that day, and come to Google Stadia later in 2021. Importantly, there will be full cross-play compatibility across all of these platforms, so if you and your friends have different preferences, you will still be able to play together. Also, those who purchase it for Xbox One or PlayStation 4 will be able to upgrade to the next-generation console version for free. This is for those who would prefer to wait a bit before upgrading, but of course the upgrade is limited to the same console family. It is also noted that those who get a disc copy of Outriders on PlayStation 4 will need a PlayStation 5 console with a disc drive as well.

Source: Square Enix

In just a week Aquanox: Deep Descent will be releasing, so this week THQ Nordic released a trailer to show off the weapons you will get to use in the underwater world of Aqua. As you try to collect the resources you need for your mission and your own survival, these are what will keep you alive by dispatching your enemies. Each ship can carry a selection and you will need to figure out which is best to use for the threats you encounter, such as torpedoes or projectiles.

Source: THQ Nordic [1] (Aquanox: Deep Descent)

If the wild west is more your thing, THQ Nordic has also released the second part of Desperados III's Season Pass. Titled "Money for the Vultures Part II: Five Steps Ahead," the gang comes back to Louisiana to face another member of the DeVitt family, explore a new location, and meet Isabelle for more Voodoo action. The Season Pass is available for $12.99 but this mssion can be purchased separately for $4.99 on PC or $5.99 on console.

Source: THQ Nordic [2] (Desperados III)

It is Ubisoft's turn now, starting with the news that characters from AMC's The Walking Dead will be arriving in Brawlhalla as part of Epic Crossovers. Michonne, Rick Grimes, and Daryl Dixon will be the crossovers for Koji, Barrazam and Ember respectively. Along with the crossover comes a new in-game event that will challenge players to fight off endless waves of walkers for as long as they can. This will take place on a new map based on the survivors' prison from seasons 3 and 4 of The Walking dead, as well as a new podium and new KO effect.

Source: Ubisoft [1] (Brawlhalla)

Watch Dogs: Legion is releasing on October 29, so some new information has been shared for it, including the Story Trailer and Post Launch Content Trailer, with both behind an age-gate. London is falling as the results of bombings that DedSec has been blamed for, and now you need to stop the one behind it, Zero-Day, in order to free the city from the oppressive forces that have taken over.

Among the post-launch plans is a free update arriving on December 3 that will enable Online mode. With this you will be able to free-roam the open-world in up-to four-player co-op. There will be new co-op missions added as well to take advantage of the mechanics of playing with others, and help you develop the perfect team. The first PvP mode will also arrive then, allowing four to eight players to control spiderbots in the Spiderbot Arena, a free-for-all deathmatch.

Free content for the single-player mode will arrive in 2021 and feature new characters with new abilities, new mission content, and a New Game Plus mode.

Those who get the game's Season Pass will also get access to Bloodline, a new storyline that features Aiden Pearce from the first game in the series, Wrench from the second, Darcy as an Assassin's Creed crossover, and Mina, a subject of transhuman experiments that can control the minds of others. These four characters will be playable in the single player campaign and online.

Source: Ubisoft [2] (Watch Dogs: Legion)
11:38
Various Video Game Stories from the Week of October 5, 2020
» ‎ Overclockers Club news Feed

Tags: [edit]

It seems Friday has snuck up on us again, or at least me, so here is a collection of different video game news stories from the week, starting with some news from 2K. Even though Halloween is still some weeks away, Borderlands 3 has begun its Bloody Harvest in-game event, which will run until November 5. During this event, which also ran last year, you will be able to fight Captain Haunt as well as his minions in an effort to collect some rewards that are only available during this event. To start the mission, you will want to visit Maurice as he desires Hecktoplasm from the ghosts that spawn after killing haunted enemies. Once he has enough, a portal will be opened to Heck so you can face Captain Haunt.

Among the rewards you can get are costumes and cosmetics that fit the upcoming holiday, and there is a chance the loot that drops will have Terror effects on them. Bloody Harvest is free for all Borderlands 3 players, but for those with the campaign add-ons, you can complete the event challenges in their locations if you wish.

Source: 2K [1] (Borderlands 3)

Also from 2K, Mafia: Definitive Edition has received its first post-launch update, and among the additions it brought was a new Noir Mode. When enabled, the gameplay and cinematics will be given a black-and-white look complete with film grain to match the mood of the game's Prohibition Era setting. The HUD also gets some new options so players can switch in-world main objectives on and off, enemy markers on the mini-map on and off, and the ability to enable or disable navigation features like turn-by-turn instructions. There is also a minimal HUD mode if you want to remove many elements like the mini-map, speedometer, and objective text.

Source: 2K [2] (Mafia: Definitive Edition)

Coming to Devolver Digital news now, Disc Room has received its release date for PC and Nintendo Switch. Those looking to enter rooms with discs will get the opportunity to on October 22. Sometimes there are few discs and sometimes there are many discs, but there will always be discs, and they will always be trying to kill you as you explore an alien disc that has appeared around Jupiter.

Source: Press Release (Devolver Digital [1] Disc Room)

From discs to beans now, Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout saw its Season 2 start yesterday, bringing with it new costumes. There are also four new levels coming where you can show off your costumes, and a Show Selector, that will place you and your costume on a themed playlist, for when you want to show off just on Gauntlet levels or Survival Showdowns. The four new levels are Hoopsie Legends, Knight Fever, Egg Siege, and Wall Guys. You can check out the costumes and those levels in the trailer embedded below.

Source: Press Release (Devolver Digital [2] Fall Guys)

HandyGames has released Neighbors back From Hell, where you play as Woody as he pranks his neighbors to keep the audience of a TV show entertained. The more chaos you cause, the better your ratings and you might even win some awards. If you get caught though, the neighbor will not take kindly to your actions and the show will be taken off the air.

Neighbors back From Hell is out now on PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Nintendo Switch, priced at $14.99.

Source: HandyGames (Neighbors back From Hell)

Outriders is an upcoming title from Square Enix and People Can Fly that has been getting a fair amount of attention since its announcement earlier this year. Now we know when we can expect to enter the world of this new RPG-shooter as it will be releasing on February 2, 2021. It will be available on PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X/S, and PlayStation 5 on that day, and come to Google Stadia later in 2021. Importantly, there will be full cross-play compatibility across all of these platforms, so if you and your friends have different preferences, you will still be able to play together. Also, those who purchase it for Xbox One or PlayStation 4 will be able to upgrade to the next-generation console version for free. This is for those who would prefer to wait a bit before upgrading, but of course the upgrade is limited to the same console family. It is also noted that those who get a disc copy of Outriders on PlayStation 4 will need a PlayStation 5 console with a disc drive as well.

Source: Square Enix

In just a week Aquanox: Deep Descent will be releasing, so this week THQ Nordic released a trailer to show off the weapons you will get to use in the underwater world of Aqua. As you try to collect the resources you need for your mission and your own survival, these are what will keep you alive by dispatching your enemies. Each ship can carry a selection and you will need to figure out which is best to use for the threats you encounter, such as torpedoes or projectiles.

Source: THQ Nordic [1] (Aquanox: Deep Descent)

If the wild west is more your thing, THQ Nordic has also released the second part of Desperados III's Season Pass. Titled "Money for the Vultures Part II: Five Steps Ahead," the gang comes back to Louisiana to face another member of the DeVitt family, explore a new location, and meet Isabelle for more Voodoo action. The Season Pass is available for $12.99 but this mssion can be purchased separately for $4.99 on PC or $5.99 on console.

Source: THQ Nordic [2] (Desperados III)

It is Ubisoft's turn now, starting with the news that characters from AMC's The Walking Dead will be arriving in Brawlhalla as part of Epic Crossovers. Michonne, Rick Grimes, and Daryl Dixon will be the crossovers for Koji, Barrazam and Ember respectively. Along with the crossover comes a new in-game event that will challenge players to fight off endless waves of walkers for as long as they can. This will take place on a new map based on the survivors' prison from seasons 3 and 4 of The Walking dead, as well as a new podium and new KO effect.

Source: Ubisoft [1] (Brawlhalla)

Watch Dogs: Legion is releasing on October 29, so some new information has been shared for it, including the Story Trailer and Post Launch Content Trailer, with both behind an age-gate. London is falling as the results of bombings that DedSec has been blamed for, and now you need to stop the one behind it, Zero-Day, in order to free the city from the oppressive forces that have taken over.

Among the post-launch plans is a free update arriving on December 3 that will enable Online mode. With this you will be able to free-roam the open-world in up-to four-player co-op. There will be new co-op missions added as well to take advantage of the mechanics of playing with others, and help you develop the perfect team. The first PvP mode will also arrive then, allowing four to eight players to control spiderbots in the Spiderbot Arena, a free-for-all deathmatch.

Free content for the single-player mode will arrive in 2021 and feature new characters with new abilities, new mission content, and a New Game Plus mode.

Those who get the game's Season Pass will also get access to Bloodline, a new storyline that features Aiden Pearce from the first game in the series, Wrench from the second, Darcy as an Assassin's Creed crossover, and Mina, a subject of transhuman experiments that can control the minds of others. These four characters will be playable in the single player campaign and online.

Source: Ubisoft [2] (Watch Dogs: Legion)
October 08, 2020
12:27
AMD Officially Announces Zen 3 Based Ryzen 5000 Series CPUs
» ‎ Overclockers Club news Feed

Tags: [edit]

If you have been contemplating building a new computer or possibly upgrading an old one, there have probably been a number of people telling you to wait a bit as there are still some hardware announcements to arrive this year. One of them was today as AMD officially announced its Ryzen 5000 series CPUs, using the Zen 3 architecture. Four CPUs were announced as part of the "Where Gaming Begins" event, taking you from 6 cores/12 threads up to 16 cores/32 threads, with all four to be available on November 5.

Of course the critical question is what kind of improvement can we expect, and according to AMD Zen 3 offers a 19% increase in IPC and a 24% improvement to efficiency over the currently available Ryzen 3000 series with Zen 2. The 19% number comes from internal testing and the geometric mean of 25 workloads between a Ryzen 7 3800XT and Ryzen 7 5800X, both 8 core processors with a fixed 4 GHz clock speed. For anyone wondering, it was stated the same process node is used for both, so these improvements are coming from the new Zen 3 design and its features. Likely the stand-out change from every previous Zen design is the new core complex, or CCX, as Zen 3 will have eight cores in each, instead of four. This is something many have been looking forward to as communication between CCXs suffers a latency penalty, but that will be removed with this design. Also, each core will have access to more L3 cache, as it is now a single 32 MB cache instead of two 16 MB caches, with a latency penalty to go between.

While the CCX change is certainly part of the IPC improvement, AMD is also crediting better cache prefetching, execution engine, branch predictor, micro-op cache, front end, and improvements to load/store.

For much of the presentation, the focus was on the Ryzen 9 5900X, a 12 core/24 thread CPU with a base frequency of 3.7 GHz and a boost of 4.8 GHz. Its TDP is 105 W, the same as the currently available 12 core Ryzen 9 3900XT, which is the other AMD CPU typically used for comparison. For gaming, the highlight was a 28% performance improvement from the 3900XT to the 5900X in Shadow of the Tomb Raider, as it went from 141 FPS to 181 FPS in the in-game benchmark. This was done at 1920x1080 using the High preset. Overall, the claim was about 26% improvement in games with the newer processor, but of course the comparison many will be interested in is with the 10900K. In the graph shown with ten games, the 5900X lost is only one, with seven of the other games showing a single digit lead, with the last two a double digit lead at around 20%. For these tests, both CPUs were paired with an RTX 2080 Ti, and while I do not see the GPU specified for the 3900XT to 5900X comparison, I think it might be reasonable to assume those tests were also done with the same GPU. With a 12 core/24 thread CPU, you are probably going to do more than gaming, and so some productivity and content creation benchmarks were shown, including the 5900X being the first CPU to beat 600 points in the CinebenchR20 Single Thread benchmark. It came in at 631 points while the 10900K achieved 544.

The Ryzen 9 5900X is priced at $549 and will not come with a cooler.

The Ryzen 7 5800X, used to arrive at the 19% IPC improvement, is an 8 core/16 thread CPU with a base clock of 3.8 GHz and a boost of 4.7 GHz. As it will only feature a single CCX, the total cache on the chip is just 36 MB. It will also feature a 105 W TDP and be available on November 5 at a suggested price of $449, but it too does not come with a cooler.

The Ryzen 5 5600X is the lowest CPU announced today being a 6 core/12 thread part with a base clock of 3.7 GHz and a boost of 4.6 GHz. Its TDP is down to 65 W and the total cache is only 35 MB, but it will come with the Wraith Stealth cooler. It will be priced at $299.

While the 5900X was the main focus of the event, it is not the top product in the stack. In that place is the Ryzen 9 5950X, a 16 core/32 thread CPU with a base frequency of 3.4 GHz and a boost of 4.9 GHz. While the 5900X achieved 631 in the CinebenchR20 1T test, the 5950X reached 640. It features 72 MB of total cache and a 105 W TDP. It will be priced at $799 and will also be available on November 5.

This is not the final hardware announcement for the year as AMD will be revealing its Radeon RX 6000 series GPUs on October 28. Rather than make everyone wait, the RX 6000 series was teased with one being held up and some performance numbers being shared. These numbers came from a pairing of a Ryzen 9 5950X with an RX 6000 series GPU, but which GPU was not shared, as there will be multiple. In Borderlands 3 at 4K and its Badass Quality configuration, the pairing averaged 61 FPS. In Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, an average of 88 FPS was reached at 4K and Ultra Quality. Gears of War 5 at 4K and Ultra Quality reached 73 FPS.

Unfortunately I do not see the AMD press release on the company's Newsroom webpage yet, but embedded below is the event and the source links are to Anandtech's live blog and article covering the new CPUs.

Source: Anandtech [1] (Event Live-blog) and [2] (Ryzen 5000 Series article)
October 06, 2020
19:38
Cisco to Pay $1.9 Billion and Royalties Following Patent Lawsuit
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Cisco, a company well known for its network switches, has been ordered by a Virginia court to pay approximately $1.9 billion to Centripetal Networks, the result of a patent infringement lawsuit filed by the later. Centripetal Networks had developed a network protection system, with the work partly funded by the US government, and patented parts of it that dealt with speed and scalability issues, as well as enabling live updates and automated workflows. The lawsuit claimed that through meetings with Cisco, the larger company gained enough information to incorporate it into its own products within a year. Centripetal Networks had outlined the technologies to Cisco as it had signed a non-disclosure agreement and appeared interested in purchasing the technology. Instead the technology was embedded into Cisco products within a year of these meetings.

The fine Cisco has been ordered to pay is $1,903,239,287.50, which is two and a half times $756 million, plus interest. The reason for the multiplication is because the judge felt the infringement was "willful and egregious." It likely did not help Cisco's arguments that it prevented its own engineers from answering questions concerning their own statements and documents, which included praise for Centripetal Networks for having "solved problems previously thought unsolvable." Cisco also tried to claim its cybersecurity features had been developed prior to even the founding of Centripetal Networks, but the judge felt its evidence the patents were invalid often contradicted the non-infringement evidence, in addition to failing to recognize the new functionality that resulted from copying Centripetal Network's work.

If this case needed another interesting point to it, it is that the case was held completely virtually, due to the current pandemic, and this led to some contention. Cisco had wanted its Webex video conferencing system to be used for the proceedings, but it was Zoom the court staff had been trained on. Ultimately Cisco relented on this point and that might have actually helped its side some, as the judge reduced the "enhanced damages" thanks to the "the professional performance of its trial counsel."

While the nearly $2 billion fine, with royalties of 10% for the next three years and 5% for the three years after that, is a large sum for most, The Register points out it represents about three months of profit for Cisco, and that company has about $30 billion in cash as well. Of course it might not end up paying this amount, or any amount depending on the result of the appeal the company has said it will file.

Source: The Register
October 02, 2020
11:45
Various Video Game Stories from the Week of September 28, 2020
» ‎ Overclockers Club news Feed

Tags: [edit]

Another week, and another collection of news to cover starting with some from GOG, including its 12^th Anniversary Sale. The DRM-free digital storefront has been around 12 years now, initially giving people a place to purchase older games but is now another place to find various indie and even some AAA titles besides those of CD Projekt Red, which owns the site.

To celebrate the anniversary, the store is having a one-week sale where you can find classic and modern titles on sale. The Ultimate RED Collection is also back, if you are interested in a collection with all of the games in the Witcher franchise as well as the upcoming Cyberpunk 2077. Just be warned that if you tried, I doubt you could play through the Witcher series before the November 19 Cyberpunk 2077 release unless you really focus on the games.

Also part of the celebration is the addition of some new titles to the catalog: Silent Hill 4: The Room; Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord, and The Talos Principle: Gold Edition. Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord is on sale at 20% off, and purchasing it during the sale will get you the original Mount & Blade for free, and The Talos Principle: Gold Edition is on sale at 90% off.

The sale ends on October 9.

Source: GOG [1] (12^th Anniversary Sale), [2] (Silent Hill 4: The Room, [3] (Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord), and [4] (The Talos Principle: Gold Edition)

Another piece of GOG news is an interesting update that is coming to the GOG Galaxy 2.0 client. Already this client is unique in its support for integration with other services, allowing you to view your library of games across GOG, Epic Games Store, and Xbox Live officially, with Steam, Origin, Uplay, and PlayStation Network all available through community integrations, but it will be receive a new store feature to support purchases from other platforms. Currently this is a quasi-internal feature only, meaning only the first group of gamers has been invited to try it out and provide feedback, but this is still a very interesting development.

For this initial form, the invited gamers will be able to purchase select Epic Games Store exclusives, in addition to the games in the GOG catalog. The purchases will all be covered by GOG's 30 day refund policy and 24/7 human support. Of course the testers will need an Epic Games Store account for this feature, but it appears this is the next step GOG is taking with integrations for its client.

Source: Press Release (GOG [5])

Though not directly GOG news, here is something from CD Projekt Red. The company has released the "Seize the Day" commercial for Cyberpunk 2077, featuring Keanu Reeves as he invites players to join his in-game character, Johnny Silverhand, on November 19.

Source: Press Release (CD Projekt Red)

Normally I put any non-game news at the end of these, but this is pretty significant. Following the launch of the GeForce RTX 3080 with its very limited availability, NVIDIA has decided to delay the release of the RTX 3070 to build up stock. The graphics card NVIDIA claims is as fast as the RTX 2080 Ti will release on October 29. Considering that performance claim and the $499 price, chances are it will sell out quickly regardless of the supply available, but this way your odds will be a bit better.

Something interesting about this timing though is that the day before is when AMD will be holding its press event for its next generation of graphics cards, based on RDNA 2. These Navi2x GPUs will be the first from AMD to feature dedicate hardware for accelerating ray tracing, a feature of all NVIDIA RTX cards, as well as support for variable rate shading, mesh shaders, and other advanced technologies. Before you buy an RTX 3070, it looks like we will all have first-party performance numbers as well as pricing for what may compete with it and the other products in NVIDIA's Ampere-based stack.

Source: NVIDIA

Returning to video game news, the October roadmap has been revealed by Deep Silver and KING Art games for Iron Harvest. According to the roadmap, we can expect a cosmetic collection update and healing and repairing allies in the first week. Week 2 will bring with it a new 3v3 map called City Outskirts. Week 3 will add multiplayer XP and a ping system. Ending the month, Week 4 will have a new challenge map for the game titled The Great War.

Source: Press Release (Deep Silver [1])

9 Monkeys of Shaolin is another game being published by Deep Silver and today its developers, Sobaka Studios, has released a new gameplay trailer. This trailer focuses on the narrative, combat and progression systems, weapons, enemies, and co-op mode for this beat-em-up game. You can check out the trailer to get a look at it or download 9 Monkeys of Shaolin: Prologue from Steam. This is an expanded demo to allow players to try the game out before it releases on October 16 for PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Nintendo Switch. It features the complete first campaign chapter and can be enjoyed both in single-player and in co-op, either online or with local two-player split-screen.

Source: Press Release (Deep Silver [2])

Devolver Digital is up now with the announcement of Blightbound's Helping Hands update. This update could make quite a difference for some players as it adds AI to the multiplayer experience. Now you will not always need to form a party of three human payers to venture out in search of the resources you need to survive as well as new heroes such as Seirinne. Seirinne was a thief but following an experience that brought her close to death, she has decided to make a change in her life and become a hero. With her Shadow Statue ability, a focused beam will focus on her and both stall and damage the enemies it crosses.

There are also new elite enemies, items, and localized texts with this update. French, German, Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, Russian, Korean, Japanese, Simplified Chinese, and Traditional Chinese all now have functional localizations. If the game sounds or looks interesting, or if you were waiting on an update like this one to try it, Blightbound is on sale at 20% off until October 4.

Source: Press Release (Devolver Digital)

Modus Games is another indie publisher and has announced a closed beta for Override 2: Super Mech League and released a trailer showing off some of the arena brawler action participants can look forward to. The beta is running from October 2 to October 4, so just this weekend, but the sign-up page is still live. This beta is just on Steam but the game is coming to Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X, PlayStation 5, and Nintendo Switch in December.

In the beta you can test out five of the game's 20 mech roster and fight in 1v1, 2v2, 4-player free for all Brawl, and King of the Hill game modes. Besides the enemies to fight you will also need to watch out for the arena as they will be filled with hazards such as lava pools and geysers, making it important to pay attention to your surroundings.

Source: Press Release (Modus Games [1])

Another game coming from Modus Games is Remothered: Broken Porcelain and with its release arriving on October 13, the publisher and the developer Sormind Games have released a synopsis trailer to get players up to speed. It is behind an age-gate on YouTube though, hence the link instead of an embed. The trailer covers the details of the disappearance of Celeste while also summarizing the events of Remothered: Tormented Fathers. You will get to see the troubling truths discovered by Rosemary Reed as she searched for answers, all setting the stage for the upcoming title that follows Jennifer after her arrival at the Ashmann Inn.

Source: Press Release (Modus Games [2])

THQ Nordic has shared a multiplayer trailer for the recently announced Aquanox Deep Descent, allowing players to see four players work together on a mission to collect needed resources. The game also features PvP multiplayer but this shows off the single-player campaign as players take advantage of the drop-in online co-op.

Aquanox Deep Descent releases on October 16 for PC, priced at $29.99.

Source: THQ Nordic [1] (Aquanox Deep Descent)

The second standalone expansion for SpellForce 3 has received its release date from THQ Nordic, so come November 3 we can see the fate of the Trolls change. Having been hunted and exploited as cheap labor, the noble race has decided to stop being prey for other species. With SpellForce 3: Fallen God, players will get to lead their tribe through a new campaign and you can see some of what you can expect in the gameplay trailer below.

Source: THQ Nordic [2] (SpellForce: Fallen God)

Finally we come to Ubisoft as the publisher has released a new trailer for Assassin's Creed: Valhalla, this one focused on the game's story. It is behind an age-gate though, so here is the link to for those curious for a new glimpse of Eivor: Assassin's Creed Valhalla: Story Trailer. Eivor will lead his clan from their home in Norway due to the endless wars there and scarce resources, hoping for a new and better future between the kingdoms of England. It will be difficult to achieve this, as he will face Saxon kings, warmongering sons of Ragnar Lothbrok, and a mysterious threat bound to England's destiny.

In addition to the trailer, Ubisoft has also announced the Echoes of Valhalla podcast documentary series that will cover the historical background of the game. The podcast can be found on Spotify and the game releases on November 10 for PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X, Google Stadia, and UPlay+. It will also be available on November 12 for the PlayStation 5, the console's launch date.

Source: Ubisoft [1] (Assassin's Creed Valhalla)

Finishing this week off is the announcement of Season 2 for Hyper Scape. Arriving on October 6, Ubisoft is adding a new weapon, hack, game modes, a new Battle Pass and more as part of "The Aftermath." The new weapon is the Atrax that bursts sticky explosives that will explode after a period of time while the hack, which will arrive in mid-season, is Platform and allows players to place a horizontal platform to help with navigation. The new game modes to arrive during the season include Crown Rush Duo and Floor is Lava, the latter of which will be the perfect place to use Platform. A new ranking system is arriving with the season, and Crown Rush Solo will be available as one of the Limited-Timed Modes with the twist of Second Chance, allowing players the opportunity to return to the battle after being eliminated. Players can also expect a new daily gift each day they play the game.

Source: Ubisoft [2] (Hyper Scape)
September 25, 2020
12:21
Various Video Game Stories from the Week of September 21, 2020
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This has been a busy week and while the announcement of Microsoft's deal to acquire Bethesda owner Zenimax is certainly the largest gaming news story, there have been other announcements this week as well. First up we have a new trailer for DiRT 5, showing off the game's dynamic weather system as a sandstorm engulfs the Moroccan circuit during the race. You can see the storm approaching and then force the racers to adapt if they want to win.

Source: Deep Silver Press Release [1] (DiRT 5)

Another Deep Silver published title is the recently released Iron Harvest that has received its Ranked Multiplayer Mode. Those players who have been enjoying the multiplayer action in the game can now compete with others to climb the ladder system and see who the best is.

Source: Deep Silver Press Release [2] (Iron Harvest)

Fans of some classic Konami games will be very happy to hear some have been added to the GOG catalog of DRM-free games. You can now get Metal Gear, Metal Gear Solid, Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance, and the Konami Collector's Series: Castlevania & Contra. Like every classic game on GOG, they have been updated to work on modern computers so you can take the latest and greater hardware back to when these famous franchises started.

Source: GOG

Coming to Modus Games now, the publisher has partnered with Tsuburaya Productions, the creator of the Japanese superhero ULTRAMAN Series to bring it to Override 2: Super Mech League. With the ULTRAMAN Deluxe Edition, players will receive the ULTRAMAN Season Pass that brings four iconic fighters from the ULTRAMAN Netflix anime to the game as well as additional ULTRMAN cosmetic items. Pre-orders are up now for $39.99 on PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X, PlayStation 5, and Nintendo Switch.

Source: Modus Games [1] (Override 2: Super Mech League)

That is not the only news from Modus Games as the publisher also announced Remothered: Broken Porcelain has had its release date moved up a week, to October 13. It does not happen often, but sometimes game releases actually come early, so now players will get to enjoy the horror sequel on PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Nintendo Switch one week early.

Source: Modus Games [2] (Remothered: Broken Porcelain)

It was back in early April when Square Enix announced it was working on NieR Replicant ver.1.22474487139…, a remake of the original NieR Replicant game the released ten years ago. Now the company has announced it will be releasing on PC, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4 on April 23, 2021. Fans of the franchise can now pre-order the "White Snow Edition" from the Square Enix Store which includes the "Lunar Tear" collector's box, Steelbook case, pin badge set, script set consisting of seven books, and soundtrack set for $159.99.

Source: Square Enix

THQ Nordic is up now with its announcement of Aquanox Deep Descent, a first person underwater vehicle shooter. Come November it will be 19 years since the release of Aquanox and players will once again get to visit the world of Aqua, where humanity has escaped the flooded surface of Earth by surviving beneath the oceans. The player will control a team of pilots as they try to cross war-torn and harsh environments, but will not have to be alone. The game supports up to four players with online drop-in co-op.

Aquanox Deep Descent releases on October 16 and is priced at $29.99.

Source: THQ Nordic

This last bit of news is not video game related, but for those doing custom liquid cooling builds, you might appreciate this. EK has announced the EK-Quantum Vector TUF RTX 3080/3090 F-RGB water block, which has been designed to work with the ASUS TUF RTX 3080 and RTX 3090 GPUs. It has been designed to actively cool the GPU, top-facing VRAM, MOSFETS, and PWM controller so every single inductor on the PCB is in contact with the block. The block itself is machined out of nickel-plated electrolytic copper with a top of either acrylic or black POM acetal. Naturally it includes an addressable RGB LED strip with six individually addressable LEDs.

Depending on whether you want the acrylic or acetal top, the block is priced at $174.99 or $169.99 with the black or nickel back plates priced at $45.99 or $52.99. These back plates will not only help complement the design of the block, but EK notes they will help to passively cool the backside of the card.

Also announced by EK is a new coolant that is focused on RGB lighting. Named EK-CryoFuel Mystic Fog, it is meant to help capture the lighting of your system's RGB LEDs while cooling the components. Naturally it sports all of the necessary additives to prevent corrosion and biological growth that you want in a liquid cooling coolant. It is also available as both a pre-mix and as a concentrate and has a two-year shelf life from the date of bottling. EK recommends replacing the coolant every six months for the best light dispersion effects.

There is also a limited edition version of the premixed coolant that comes in a rainbow unicorn bottle. If you decide to purchase one, you can then share a post on social media for a chance to win one of 50 Quantum Flow Indicators. You can check out the source link for more information on that. The Mystic Fog concentrate is priced at $14.99 and the limited edition pre-mix is priced at $19.99.

Source: EK [1] (RUF RTX 3080/3090 Water Block) and [2] (Mystic Fog Coolant)
September 21, 2020
9:47
Microsoft Acquiring ZeniMax Media, Parent of Bethesda, for $7.5 Billion
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I have a feeling few if anyone was expecting this bit of news, but Microsoft has reached a deal to acquire ZeniMax Media, the parent company of Bethesda, for $7.5 billion in cash. This means studios including Bethesda Softworks, Bethesda Game Studios, id Software, Arkane, and MachineGames are all joining the other studios under Microsoft, bringing the company's total from 15 to 23. For those who might be concerned, the structure and leadership of Bethesda will remain in place.

It will be interesting to see all of the impacts this acquisition will have going forward, but for now we know Microsoft intends to bring the many iconic Bethesda franchises to Xbox Game Pass. This includes future games such as Starfield, which will launch on Xbox Game Pass on the same days as the launch on Xbox or PC. As large as Bethesda, with its many studios and publishing capabilities, Microsoft is still larger and can offer it the developers resources they may not have possessed before.

Though the acquisition will give the various studios access to new resources, Bethesda and Microsoft have had a partnership going back many years. Originally Bethesda was a PC-only developer, but after learning more about the original Xbox, which was still in development at the time, the decision was made to bring the company's next game, The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind to the console. Being a hardcore RPG, there was considerable concern that it might not translate well to the console experience of using a controller and playing on a television, compared to keyboard, mouse, and monitor. The result was Morrowind being one of the best-selling games for the console, and the partnership continued. the Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion for the Xbox 360 was meant as more than just a PC port but a move toward the next generation of game, and Fallout 4 became the first console game with mods. With the upcoming Xbox Series X/S consoles and their many new and advanced technologies, Bethesda is giving their engine the largest overhaul it has received since Oblivion. This will allow the company's first new IP in 25 years, Starfield, and The Elder Scrolls VI to be powered by these new technologies.

Source: Microsoft, Xbox, and
September 18, 2020
11:12
Various Video Game Stories from the Week of September 14, 2020
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This has definitely been a busy week with the release of the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 (Founder's Edition and MSI Gaming X TRIO reviews), but there has been other news than that, and time to go through some of it. Starting things off is some time sensitive news from THQ Nordic as a Publisher Weekend has begun on Steam. The company has quite a portfolio so it might be worth checking out with such sale prices as $22.90 for the Darksiders Blades & Whip Franchise Pack that contains Darsiders Warmastered Edition, Darksiders II Deathinitive Edition, and Darksiders III Deluxe Edition, Red Faction Guerrilla Re-Mars-tered, Red Faction: Armageddon (note, links are to reviews of original/base versions of the games), Darsiders Genesis, Elex, and This Is The Police to name just a few.

Source: Steam (THQ Nordic Publisher Sale page)

Another piece of news from THQ Nordic is the start of Wreckfest's Season 2, bringing with it new features and challenges. Season 2 goes until March 2021 and with it comes free tracks, challenges, rewards, and four DLC car packs. All four packs are included as part of Season Pass 2 and the packs will be released separately as well.

To celebrate the start of the season, Season Pass 2 has a 10% discount on it, and as part of the publisher weekend, Wreckfest itself is 50% off, so just $14.99. You can also purchase the new Complete Edition of the game that includes both seasons passes at 44% off ($32.61).

Source: THQ Nordic [1] (Wreckfest Season 2 Announcement) and [2] (Season 2 Update notes)

Coming to 2K now, we have some news for Borderlands 3 from the Gearbox Digital Showcase at PAX Online 2020. At the event it was confirmed the game will be coming to both the Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5, and those who currently own it on the current-gen consoles will be able to upgrade their version for free, within the console family. Both next-gen consoles will offer 60 FPS at 4K and feature local co-op with four-player split-screen, and if you are playing with just one friend, you can choose between cutting the screen horizontally or vertically. The vertical split-screen option will also be coming to the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 versions of the game with a patch.

There is more add-on content to come later this year, but it will be something different from the campaign DLCs of the Season Pass that is now complete. This content will include a new game mode, new skill trees for each Vault Hunter, and, naturally, new Action Skills with those trees. It was FL4K's Trapper skill tree that was shown off at the event, with its emphasis on shields and survivability, as well as its Gravity Snare Action Skill that involves throwing a trap that hurls enemies in the air before slamming them into the ground again.

Source: 2K Games [1] (Borderlands 3)

Also from 2K, we have the list of licensed tracks for Mafia: Definitive Edition's soundtrack. It features 35 songs from such artists as Duke Ellington and Cab Calloway. You can check out the source link below to view the complete list. The game itself releases on September 25, so in just one week you can return to a completely rebuilt Lost Heaven.

Source: 2K Games [2] (Mafia: Definitive Edition)

Deep Silver and Codemasters are up now with the start of F1 2020's Podium Pass Series Two. It features 30 levels between the free and VIP content including new podium celebrations and poses as well as new liveries, race suits, helmets, gloves, and badges. Those who purchase the Podium Pass VIP can earn 10,000 credits of virtual currency that can go towards Series Three or other items in the in-game Store.

Source: Codemasters

Fans of Fall Guys will be pleased to see this announcement from Devolver Digital as the game has received a mid-season update. With this update comes Easy Anti-Cheat integration to stop at least some of the cheating that is occurring, as well as some changes to The Blunderdome. New obstacles have been added along with random rotations and tumbling fruit. There is also the Big Yeetus hammer that can send you flying across the map to potential victory.

Source: Devolver Digital Press Release [1] (Fall Guys)

Another piece of news from Devolver Digital is the release of Ragorium to Steam Early Access. This is a colonization simulation that sees you leading a group of cloned colonists as they attempt to journey across space to build a self-sustaining society and survive a coming Holy Crusade. In the Early Access version, players will be introduced to the base game process of creating cloned colonists, preparing dropships with cargo, and building out the colony with various materials and equipment from the first era of technology. New eras will bring with them new materials and equipment to deploy in your colony.

Source: Devolver Digital Press Release [2] (Ragnorium) and Steam Store Page

Publisher The Irregular Corporation and developer Fireart Games have announced TOHU, a new adventure game coming to PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Nintendo Switch later this year. With the announcement has come a seven-minute gameplay walkthrough so you can see some an early puzzle scenario you will get to encounter as you explore the game's world of weird and wonderful fish planets. As you progress you will learn the truth of a little girl and Cubus, her mechanical alter-ego. Players will be free to swap between The Girl and Cubus whenever they need to use the unique abilities of one or the other.

Source: The Irregular Corporation

Square Enix is up now and it has announced the release date for Balan Wonderworld, the upcoming action-platformer from the creators of Sonic the Hedgehog. On March 26, 2021 players will get to visit the fantastical Wonderworld on PC via Steam, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X, PlayStation 5, and Nintendo Switch. The player's goal in the game is to restore balance to Wonderworld by removing the Negati, the physical manifestation of worry and other negative emotions. Helping you on your quest will be Balan, the enigmatic maestro of Wonderworld, as well as the over 80 costumes you can collect, with each granting some special power.

Source: Square Enix Press Release [1] (Balan Wonderworld)

Lastly we have the announcement that Life is Strange 2: Episode 1 is now free to download on PC, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4. If you have ever been curious about the narrative-adventure, you can now try it yourself getting the first three hours of this story's gameplay. It starts after brothers Sean and Danial Diaz run away from home as they hope to escape to Mexico while dealing with Daniel's telekinetic power. Your decisions as Sean will impact how Daniel comes to recognize right from wrong, as well as everyone else around you.

Source: Square Enix Press Release [2] (Life is Strange 2: Episode 1)
September 17, 2020
10:14
Hardware Roundup: GeForce RTX 3080 Edition
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Update 9/17/2020: Additional reviews of the RTX 3080 are now live, with the MSI GeForce RTX 3080 Gaming X Trio officially launched. We've got a few reviews of this monster to check out, which just might offer more overclocking potential to get even more performance. Check out those ones below, as well as all the RTX 3080 reviews to see what NVIDIA has been able to do with the RTX 30 Series!

A new day is here, with a new video card release. Except this time it's NVIDIA's new GeForce RTX 3080 card. This absolute monster of a card is sure to dominate every game you can throw at it, with the even more monster RTX 3090 arriving next week. That one will be a test just to see what case it fits in, while the RTX 3080 is much more a typical video card size. The RTX 30 Series was unveiled just last month, with the RTX 3080 arriving officially tomorrow, the RTX 3090 on September 24, and then the RTX 3070 next month. Three huge upgrades to your system, as the RTX 3070 is projected to be similar performance to the previous RTX 2080 Ti, just for less than half the price of that card when it debuted. A lot of performance potential with these new cards, with many likely planning their upgrade or new PC around these. If the performance holds true, these will be the cards to get for now. There will, of course, be the new AMD cards along the way, but for now we've got NVIDIA and the RTX 30 Series.

This new RTX runs on an Ampere chip, bringing with it a whole host of features, not the least of which is the capability for 8K gaming. A new cooler design, new power delivery system, and even a new power connector are some of the physical features of it, while plenty more you'll notice while gaming. Could 60FPS at 4K with max settings for most games be a possibility? Is the 30% increase over the RTX 2080 Ti a true thing? Will this card, priced at just $700, be an absolute steal in terms of price/performance?

Well, just have to read on and find out from our review and the ones from our affiliates. So without any further, onward to all the RTX 3080 reviews!

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 FE @ OCC
MSI RTX 3080 Gaming X TRIO @ OCC

NVIDIA RTX 3080 Founders Edition @ LanOC Reviews
NVIDIA RTX 3080 Founder's Edition @ Neoseeker
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 @ TechSpot
MSI GeForce RTX 3080 Gaming X Trio @ ThinkComputers
MSI GeForce RTX 3080 Gaming X Trio 10G @ Neoseeker
September 14, 2020
9:43
NVIDIA Finalizes Deal to Acquire Arm for $40 Billion
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There have been rumors for a bit now that NVIDIA was looking to acquire Arm from Softbank, and yesterday it was announced the deal has been finalized. The transaction is valued at roughly $40 billion with part of it being paid in NVIDIA stock and part in cash. As Arm's designs are used in many devices, including most smartphones, there is obviously a concern of neutrality in how Arm will operate in the future, but NVIDIA has pledged to continue its open-licensing model. The company's IP will also remain registered in the UK, where Arm is based.

There is definitely great potential for what can come from the combined resources and technologies of these two companies, and one of them was shared in the press release from NVIDIA. The company intends to build up the Arm campus in Cambridge to create a center of excellence in AI research with an Arm-powered AI supercomputer at its heart. It will also feature training facilities and a startup incubator to attract talent from around the world and support innovation across many fields. Jensen Huang, NVIDIA's founder and CEO, stated he expects there to be trillion of computers running AI and powering the Internet-of-Things in the future, and he wants his company to be in an even stronger position for this age of AI.

Though the deal has been agreed upon, the transaction may not complete for another 18 months. Regulatory bodies in the UK, China, the EU, and the US will have to grant approval for it, especially as both companies are already very significant players in the technology industry. NVIDIA products can be found in myriad industries, from laptops and desktops to data centers and supercomputers, while Arm's designs have been the go-to for many devices that call for great power and thermal efficiency. It will definitely be interesting to see what comes of this combination of talents.

Source: NVIDIA
September 11, 2020
14:12
Various Video Game Stories from the Week of September 7, 2020
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Though the news from Ubisoft this week was the bulk of the press releases I have received, there is still some more to cover. Starting with publisher Deep Silver, the release date for DiRT 5 has been moved to November 6. The reason given for the move is to allow the release of all versions of the game in a shorter timeframe. This release will be for the PC, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4 versions while the Xbox Series X/S release will be just days later, as that console family launches on November 10.

Also shared this week was a new trailer, teasing gameplay as classic Ford and Peugeot rally cars take part in an Ice Breaker event. Set on New York's frozen East River, the players will be racing by Roosevelt Island in the dead of night, with lighting, atmosphere, and fireworks to make the experience all the more incredible. There can be up to 12 cars in an Ice Breaker event, and there are multiple layouts and locations available for these events as well.

Source: Press Releases

Turning to Devolver Digital now, on Monday Blightbound received its Wolfpack update, the Early Access game's second update. With it developers Ronimo Games has added a new area to explore, new loot to retrieve and craft, and new heroes to rescue and add to your roster.

The new dungeon is The Creeping Blight and it can be found beneath the oppressive Underhold and it holds new elite enemy champions such as Shelltor, Coward Osmund, and Havern the Deserter. With such threats there, only the boldest champions dare to enter it, but if they do they might find Wodania and Karrogh to rescue. Karrogh the Fearless Wolf will charge into battle and invigorate allies with his Warcry before using his mighty Lawbring. Wodania, the blind Matriarch, is his mother and she uses her Smokebomb to temporarily hide the party, before she cuts down the enemy hordes with Lightning Strikes and her Fan of Knives.

Source: Press Release

For its gamescom and Indie Arena Booth presence, HandyGames had shared demos for Spitlings, Chicken Police, Pile Up!, and Airhead. Because of how well received these demos were, the publisher has decided to keep them up on Steam so everyone can continue to try them as much as they wish. You can check out the source link for more information on each of the games, including trailers for each as well.

Source: HandyGames

THQ Nordic announced the next game from Gunfire Games and it is Chronos: Before the Ashes. This will be a prequel story to Remnant: From the Ashes and will allow players to take control of a young hero as he tries to save his home from an ancient evil. The chosen one is sent to a mysterious labyrinth, containing fearsome and mystic creatures as well as challenging puzzles. While combat will be unforgiving and brutal, death is not the end as you are cast out of the labyrinth for one year. During this year your character will age, so while the journey will start with it being easy to get stronger and quicker, you will find yourself relying more on wisdom and arcane powers as you age.

Chronos: Before the Ashes is scheduled to launch on December 1 for PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, and Google Stadia. While it is based on the VR-exclusive Chronos, this game has been optimized to work on all platforms, without the need for VR support.

Source: THQ Nordic

Lastly we have some non-gaming news as AMD has announced the dates for revealing Zen 3 and RDNA 2 products. The next generation of the company's CPUs will be shown off on October 8 while the upcoming GPUs will be shared on October 28. AMD says, "a new era of leadership performance across computing and graphics is coming," and it looks like it will be a month or two before finding out if the company will be able to prove that claim.

Source: Twitter @AMD
12:12
Ubisoft Forward 2020 News Stories
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Yesterday the Ubisoft Forward digital press conference was held, during which the developer/publisher made many announcements, covering previously revealed titles and some that were shown off for the first time. As this is going to be a collection of items, I will go through them in alphabetical order, which means we are starting with AGOS: A Game of Space.

In this game, players will have the challenge of guiding humanity from an abandoned Earth to a new home in another solar system as the AI for the ship carrying them there. You will need to build and pilot probes to upgrade the ship, scavenge resources, and unlock new technologies while facing the perils space presents.

AGOS: A Game of Space is a VR title and will be coming to Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, and Valve Index headset on October 28.

Source: Ubisoft [1] (AGOS: A Game of Space)

Though not part of the press conference, Assassin's Creed Valhalla had its release date announced. Fans of the series will be able to enjoy it on November 10 as a launch title for the Xbox Series X/S consoles. It will also be available on PC via the Epic Games Store and Ubisoft Store, the Xbox One, PlayStation 4, UPLAY+, and Google Stadia on the same day. The standard editions for each platform will be priced at $59.99. With the power of the Xbox Series X, the game should be playable at 4K 60FPS and both Xbox Series versions will feature higher resolution textures and increased clutter, thanks to the consoles' DirectStorage functionality for reduced load times.

Source: [2] (Assassin's Creed Valhalla)

Next we have some news for Ghost Recon: Breakpoint as it will be receiving Title Update 3.0.0 and Episode 3 this month. Titled Red Patriot, the new story adventure starts with Trey Stone asking the Russian separatist group, Raven's Rock, to plan an attack on US soil. Nomad's assignment is to take down everyone involved in the plan, including the Bodarks, the agents of Raven's Rock. All players will have access to the first two missions for free, but access to the full ten-mission adventure will require owning the Year 1 Pass.

Along with the new missions arrives the Pathfinder class, which will be exclusive to Year 1 Pass owners for one week. With this class, players will get to control a rogue Azrael drone via the Armaros interface. Recharging the skill gauge requires finding the Uplink Protocol special tool that is only in well-hidden tactical caches. Fortunately one of the class's passive skills is Tactical Cache Identification that will highlight them. The other two abilities are Scout Vision that gives white-hot thermal vision and Wild Metabolism that lengthens the effects of rations and makes them more powerful.

Title Update 3.0.0 also brings with it PvP updates and 65 new items to Maria's shop including weapons, vehicles, bundles, and more. It will be releasing on September 15 for PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Google Stadia, and UPLAY+.

Source: [3] (Ghost Recon: Breakpoint)

The Division 2 is also receiving a title update later this month, which will bring with it a new game mode for Warlords of New York, start Season 3 for the same, and bring major improvements for all players. Those with the Warlords of New York expansion, the new mode is The Summit that will challenge you with taking a high-rise building with 100 floors. By using Rally Points, which are permanent checkpoints, you can choose the sections to focus your efforts on, so the difficulty can match what you are comfortable with. At the top of the building will be a special battle, but you can expect each attempt to reach it to be different, giving the mode significant replayability.

Also for those with the expansion is the beginning of Season 3, which will start with a manhunt for Bardon Schaeffer, the leader of the Black Tusk who is trying to recruit disavowed agents.

For all players, Title Update 11 will bring with it appearance modes, or transmogrification, to the character menu, allowing you to change the appearance of your gear to match your preferred look. Rainbow loot is getting an update to how its first attribute is assigned, giving it a chance to roll the same as the core attribute, but at the same time players can expect to encounter rainbow loot less. Finally, with agnostic mod slots all gear pieces will change to accept any gear mod top, so you can add armor regen into a pure build without losing a mod slot.

Title Update 11 releases on September 22. Also, it was announced that the game will be backwards compatible on the Xbox Series X/S and PlayStation 5 consoles, and there will be cross-play compatibility across console generations of the same brand (Xbox One players with Xbox Series X/S and PS4 with PS5).

Source: [4] (The Division 2)

For Honor had some news too as Year 4 Season 3 Resistance was announced and it is launching on September 17. In the previous season, Warmongers created a regime of terror but now Rebellion has begun to restore hope and players will get to join the as part of the Resistance.

Also, the game is celebrating 25 million players, which is pretty impressive, and you can join them on PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Google Stadia, and UPLAY+.

Source: Press Release [5] (For Honor)

You might remember a game revealed a while ago called Gods & Monsters, but now its name has changed to Immortals Fenyx Rising and it is releasing on December 3. That release will be for the Epic Games Store, the Ubisoft Store, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, UPLAY+, the Xbox Series X/S, and the PlayStation 5 when that launches. You will also be able to upgrade copies on current-generation consoles to the upcoming next-generation for free.

In this game open world, action-adventure game, you get to play as Fenyx, a winged demigod with the mission of saving the Greek gods and their home, which will require fighting Typhon, the deadliest god in Greek mythology. You will need to master the powers of the gods, overcome heroic trials, and defeat beasts and monsters from the mythology to achieve your ultimate goal. With fast-paced aerial and melee combat, you will get to face off against the Cyclops, Minotaur, and Medusa while armed with the Sword of Achilles, Bow of Odysseus, and the Wings of Daidalos. Your equipment and potions can be enhanced by defeating enemies and opening chests while your health, stamina, and abilities can be upgraded at the Hall of the Gods, where progression is centered.

Immortals Fenyx Rising will be available with a Gold Edition that will include the Season Pass and additional in-game content.

Source: [6] (Immortals Fenyx Rising)

Fans of one classic game series should be happy to learn Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time Remake is coming. When the original released in 2003 it was praised for how it redefined action adventure gaming as well as for its innovative gameplay, story, and lovable characters. With the Remake, the whole game is being rebuilt from the ground up in the publisher's Anvil game engine. You will not have too long to wait to experience the game yourself, as it will be releasing on January 21, 2021 for the Epic Games Store, Ubisoft Store, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and UPLAY+.

Those who pre-order the game will get the Back to the Origins set that includes the original prince outfit from the 2003 game, the original weapon set, and a Classic Filter to change the look and feel of the game so it feels like you have gone back in time. Additionally, the Remake will include the original Prince of Persia game, released in 1989, as something all players can unlock on their journey.

Source: [7] (Prince of Persia: Sands of Time Remake)

There is also some news for Rainbow Six Siege as Operation Shadow Legacy, the third seasons of the game's Year 5, is now available, bringing Sam Fisher of the Splinter Cell series to the game. Owners of the Year 5 Pass can start playing with the new operator immediately while others will need to unlock him, starting on September 17.

Also, it has been announced the game will be coming to both the Xbox Series X/S and PlayStation 5 later this year. It will be available at the same price as the current-gen version, but do not worry, if you already own it on the current generation, you will be able to upgrade to the next-generation console of the same brand for free, with all progression and in-game content carrying over as well. There will also be cross-generation play, so players on the current and next-gen consoles of the same brand will be able to play together. With render scaling, the new consoles will be able to offer a 4K 120 FPS experience.

The company has also announced the first Rainbow Six World Cup, which will be held in Summer 2021. With this, players from 45 countries and regions will get to compete at the highest level to determine which time is the best and bring home the tournament's trophy.

Source: Press Releases [8] (Rainbow Six Siege)

Ubisoft announced the new game, Rider's Republic at the press conference as well. It is a massive multiplayer outdoor sports playground, inviting players on the Epic Games Store, Ubisoft Store, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 5, and UPLAY+ to push themselves for the thrill of extreme sports. You will get to connect, compete, and show off various tricks while biking, skiing, snowboarding, wing suiting, and rocket wing suiting. You will get to do this in such locations as the Bryce Canyon, Yosemite Valley, Sequoia Park, Zion, Canyonlands, Mammoth Mountain and Grand Teton American National Parks, as each have been faithfully recreated and mashed together to create a lively sports park.

The game will be available in a Gold and Ultimtae Edition, with both featuring the Year 1 Pass, but the Ultimate Edition also containing four exclusive cosmetic packs. Anyone who pre-orders though will receive the Bunny Pack with a custom cute bunny outfit.

Source: [9] (Riders Republic)

Together with Universal Games and Digital Platforms, Ubisoft announced the re-release of Scott Pilgrim vs. The World: The Game – Complete Edition to celebrate its 10-year anniversary. This complete edition will also include the Knives Chau and Wallace Wells DLC. It will be available Holiday 2020 for $14.99 on PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, UPLAY+, and Google Stadia.

Source: [9] (Scott Pilgrim vs. The World: The Game – Complete Edition)

Actually revealed prior to the press conference, there has been an update concerning Skull & Bones, which was not present at the event but the developers are working to present it in the future. They promise it will be worth the wait as their ambition for the project has grown, which led to greater challenges that called for the release to be pushed back. You can check out the full statement at the source link, but the short of it is, development continues and the developers want to show off their creation.

Source: [11] (Skull & Bones)

And now for the last bit of news, which is for Watch Dogs: Legion. A new member is joining the resistance as Stormzy, an award-winning British musician has arrived and debuted a video for his song "Rainfall" at the press conference. The music video for the song was created within the Watch Dogs: Legion game engine and the musician will appear in the mission "Fall On My Enemies," where players need to help him secure a broadcast of his track in Central London.

Also coming to the game, though as part of the post-launch plans, is Aiden Pearce, the protagonist of the original Watch Dogs game. With his return he will be fully playable and have his own dedicated story arc. To get Aiden you will need the Season Pass, which can be purchased separately but is also part of the Gold, Ultimate, and Collector editions of the game. The Season Pass also includes the Complete Edition of the original game as well as a new story expansion in two narrative arcs, more DedSec missions, and four unique agents, which include Aiden Pearce.

Source: [12] (Watch Dogs: Legion)
September 04, 2020
12:10
Various Video Game News Stories from the Week of August 31, 2020
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Tags: [edit]

Though not as busy as last week, still had some projects taking me away from the various video game related news stories I have received, so here they are now. First up is one from 2K Games as Mafia: Definitive Edition has received a new trailer. With the game launching on September 25, the publisher has four videos planned to highlight different aspects of the game, with this first "World of Lost Heaven" trailer showcasing the game's setting. Lost Heaven is a prohibition-era city in the Midwest that is filled with period-authentic details.

This trailer is behind an age-gate, which is why I do not have it embedded. We can expect the next video in this series of four to release on September 10, and the third on September 17. The second video will look at the shooting and driving mechanics that have been overhauled for this complete-game rebuild and are critical to the core gameplay experience. The third video shows us the missions we can expect Tommy to undertake on his journey. The fourth and final video of this series will release on September 23 and shares the game's orchestral score, which was created despite the global pandemic.

Source: 2K Games

This next piece of news is something I know I was happy to see appear in my inbox. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt was released back in 2015 but CD Projekt Red has announced it will be updated for the Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5, with such improvements as faster load times and ray tracing. Normally I do not cover console news, but thankfully this is not just console news as this version will available as a standalone purchase for PC, as well as the next-gen consoles, and will be a free update to current owners on PC, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4. I know it is Cyberpunk 2077 that we are supposed to be excited for from CDPR, but this has me pretty excited too since I did enjoy the game a great deal when I reviewed it at release.

Source: CD Projekt Red

Dear Villagers has announced the release window for Midgar Studio's Edge of Eternity, a JRPG currently in early access. We can expect the full release in Spring 2021 on PC, Xbox, and PlayStation 4. Fans in the US will also be able to purchase a physical version of the PlayStation 4 edition, with pre-orders already available at Best Buy.

Source: Press Release

From Deep Silver we have a couple pieces of news for Iron Harvest, which released on Tuesday. The first is the final Faction trailer, covering the Polania Faction and its very different design to mechs. The Republic of Polania has been caught in the middle of the conflict between Saxony and Rusviet, and while it lacks the ability to build the massive and imposing mechs of these two nations, its resistance cells are not without competent machines. The difference is these focus on speed, with one able to use a high-speed bayonet charge when caught in close range, and another able to fire its machine guns while it can move, making it rather devastating against enemy infantry.

The other piece of news is the content roadmap for September, which includes new maps in weeks two, three, and five. The Week Two releases include a 3v3 map and co-op for the campaigns. Week Three gets a 2v2 map and the addition of a glossary to the game. The Week Four content is ranked mode and auto cast abilities, which could prove useful in this RTS when managing various units. For Week Five a new 1v1 map will be added.

Iron Harvest launched earlier this week and is available on Steam and GOG for PC.

Source: Press Releases

This next piece of news is actually from last week, but arrived after the collection of video game news. It is from Devolver Digital and Croteam, the publisher and developer respectively of Serious Sam 4. The companies released a new gameplay trailer showing Sam getting the new and improved Popemobile so he can free the Vatican from the forces of Mental.

The game releases on September 24.

Source: Croteam

HandyGames has announced new DLC for Little Big Workshop that will see you join forces with former nemesis Bladh. With "The Evil DLC" you will get to run your factory like a supervillain as sabotage, interference, and destruction become your exports as you defeat your competition that rely on their simple-minded fairplay. It will be coming to Steam soon, but until then you can check out its trailer below.

Source: HandyGames

Modus Games had a few pieces of news from this past week, including another trailer that is actually from a week ago that I missed. This one is for Cris Tales, the JRPG that palces the past, present, and future all on the screen at once, with time travel utilized to solve puzzles and to achieve victory in combat. With this new trailer the player is given a better understanding of Crisbell's motivations in the game to explore these different time periods to create a future better than the one that appears to be coming.

Cris Tales is launching on November 17 for PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, and Google Stadia for $39.99.

Source: Modus Games [1] (Cris Tales)

Also being published by Modus Games is In Sound Mind, a psychological thriller game slated to release in 2021. At the Future Games Show a new trailer for the game was revealed, showing some of the gameplay and the horrors we can expect next year, when we get to explore troubled psyches. The demo on Steam has been updated for anyone interested in trying the game out now.

Source: Modus Games [2] (In Sound Mind)

The third and final piece of news I have from Modus Gams is a new trailer for Remothered: Broken Porcelain. Titled "Whispers", this trailer shows us how the game's protagonist, Jennifer, and her companion Lindsay came to support each other at the Ashmann Inn with its resident horrors.

Remothered: Broken Porcelain will be releasing on October 20 for PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Nintendo Switch for $29.99.

Source: Press Release

Now for some THQ Nordic news, starting with Desperados III as the first DLC of its Season Pass has released and adds a new mission to the game, "Late to the Party." This is the first part to "Money for the Vultures" and is set well after the events of the main game as Cooper brings the game back together to try for Vincent DeVitt's hidden vault. This mission is part of the Season Pass, but can also be purchased separately if preferred.

Besides the DLC, there has also been another free update to the game that adds another Baron's challenge. In this one you get to play as a young Cooper, after he has mastered his knife-throwing skills and before fighting through Devil's Canyon to face his nemesis, Frank, one last time.

For those interested in more than Windows support on PC, full Mac and Linux support has arrived on steam as part of the new patch update.

Source: THQ Nordic [1] (Desperados III)

Continuing with THQ Nordic, we have a couple new trailers for Kingdoms of Amalur: Re-Reckoning. Both of these show off other play styles, starting with the Path of Might. Becoming a true warrior means you will be wielding longsword, giant hammer, or even a massive greatsword to defeat your enemies. This path's abilities will provide even greater offensive power, allow you to wear the sturdiest armor and achieve the highest constitution. When the enemy is too far away for your melee attacks to reach, throw your harpoon to invite them in closer.

The second trailer features the Path of Sorcery, where you turn to arcane powers and the elements instead of stealth and steel. With staff, chakram, or scepter you are still quite powerful was you being down fire, lightning, or ice on your enemies. When in need, you can heal yourself, form an arcane shield, or summon a minion to attack your enemies

Kingdoms of Amalur: Re-Reckoning releases September 8 for PC, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4.

Source: THQ Nordic [2] (Kingdoms of Amalur: Re-Reckoning – Path of Might) and [3] (Path of Sorcery)
September 01, 2020
12:36
NVIDIA Reveals Next Generation RTX 30 Series GPUs
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The time many have been waiting for has finally arrived as NVIDIA held its special GeForce event to reveal the upcoming RTX 30 Series GPUs powered by the new Ampere architecture. The event showed off some new technologies and announced three upcoming GPUs; the RTX 3070, RTX 3080, and RTX 3090. It might be worth noting upfront the RTX 3090 was introduced as the successor of the Titan series while the RTX 3080 was described as the flagship for the line. The GPUs will be manufactured on a Samsung 9 nm NVIDIA custom process.

Starting with the RTX 3070, NVIDIA is claiming this GPU will beat the RTX 2080 Ti with its 20 shader TFLOPs, 40 ray tracing TFLOPS, and 163 tensor TFLOPS. The GPU is paired with 6 GB of GDDR6 and it does appear to use the special 12 pin power connector that has been leaked previously. Most importantly, the RTX 3070 is to be available in October and priced at $499. Hopefully it does live up to the claim of beating the RTX 2080 Ti, which has been priced at over one thousand dollars since it launched

The RTX 3080 was introduced as the flagship for the line and NVIDIA claims it will offer double the performance of the current RTX 2080. It is a little hard to tell if this is the RTX 2080 or RTX 2080 Super though as the text on a graph states "UP TO 2X 2080" while the point shown is for the RTX 2080 Super. Regardless, doubling either version of the RTX 2080 is an impressive leap and, very importantly, it will be priced the same at $699. Availability is September 17, so you do not have long to wait before you can try to get one. It offers 30 shader TFLOPS, 58 TFLOPS, and 238 tensor TFLOPS paired with 10 GB of GDDR6X memory, and one of its advancements is the use of PAM4 signaling, so instead of being limited to binary it can transmit four states, allowing double the bits to be sent per clock.

After the introduction of the two above graphics cards, a specific point was made that Ampere is something those on Pascal-based GTX 10-series GPUs can upgrade to, apparently acknowledging many of not upgraded to the RTX 20 series. Considering the better pricing of these RTX 30 series GPUs than the RTX 20 series graphics cards they will be replacing, it will likely make more sense to invest in an upgrade to Ampere.

The RTX 3090 was shown off and described as a "BFGPU", which is hardly surprising as it is a triple-slot card meant to succeed the current Titan RTX. Like the previous Titan graphics cards, it demands a greater price than the gaming-focused graphics cards at $1499. It offers 36 shader TFLOPS, 69 ray tracing TFLOPs, and 285 tensor TFLOPs and is paired with 24 GB of GDDR6X, which NVIDIA claims is enough for 8K gaming at 30 FPS. It will be available on September 24, so one week after the RTX 3080. Among its features besides its performance is HDMI 2.1 and AV1 decode.

A number of technologies contributing to the performance of these graphics cards were shown off, such as a redesign to the shader cores. This new design doubles the number of shader operations per clock compared to Turing. The second generation RT Core offers 1.7 times the performance of the first generation, and the new third generation Tensor cores are 2.7 times faster. The result of these redesigns is a 1.9x improvement to performance per watt, at least in Control when running at 4K with an i9 CPU.

The slide shown for the 2^nd Gen RT Cores states it is cable of doubling the ray/triangle intersection of Turing, and in the graph it shows this being achieved with Blender Cycles and Chaos V-Ray while the games listed keep more around the 1.7x mark. The footnote says the games and applications were run at 4K with an i9 CPU. The slide also states this deign supports concurrent ray tracing and graphics, and concurrent ray tracing and compute.

Other technologies shown off include RTX I/O, which may prove interesting depending on the impact the Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5 have on the loading of video game assets. By working with Microsoft and that company's DirectStorage on Windows, this technology will allow for assets to be decompressed on the GPU, instead of needing the CPU to first decompress the asset and hold it in system memory before sending it to the GPU VRAM. If the next-generation consoles also push computers to need storage bandwidth comparable to the PCIe 4.0 SSDs combined with data compression in the consoles, this could prove quite important.

Other technology announcements include NVIDIA Reflex, NVIDIA Broadcast, and NVIDIA Omniverse Machinima. Unfortunately I did not fully catch the purpose of the Omniverse Machinima, though it appears to be able to import various assets used in video games and then apply technologies, such as mapping characters to motion captured in a video, to make Machinima creation easier.

The NVIDIA Reflex technology is supposed to reduce the system latency between the GPU and CPU when enabled, and is to arrive in the drivers this month. Curiously the graphs shown for the impact in Valorant, Destiny 2, and Fortnite list the GTX 1050, GTX 1060, and GTX 1070 GPUs.

NVIDIA Broadcast is meant to be NVIDIA's one-stop solution for various broadcast-related tools. Some of these are available already by other applications, but NVIDIA has put its audio noise removal, background removal/replacement, and webcam auto frame tracking into the one application, and all apply AI for these features. The noise removal was demonstrated by having a hair drying being used in the same room be removed from audio, though the hair dryer did not sound that loud or annoying to me to begin with. The background effects include removing and replacing the background, as well as just blurring it out, if that is your preference. The auto frame feature is for combination with cropping the webcam frame. It looks to me that the feature will move the cropping frame around the image to track your movements, in case you move around while on video. NVIDIA Broadcast is coming this month and all RTX cars will be able to support it.

Also announced at the event is that Fortnite is gaining support for both RTX ray tracing for shadows and reflections (I believe that is what was stated) and Call of Duty: Cold War will also make use of NVIDIA RTX technologies.

Source: NVIDIA and Anandtech (event live-blog with slides)
August 28, 2020
13:05
A Lot of Video Game News Stories from the Week of August 24, 2020 and Some Liquid Cooling News
» ‎ Overclockers Club news Feed

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This has definitely not been the best week to have multiple projects pull my attention. Anyway, here is video game news from the week, starting with some time-sensitive news as GOG is holding its Harvest Sale. There are over 1500 games on sale, including titles like Metro Exodus at 50% off, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt GOTY at 70% off, and Outward at 50% off. The sale ends on August 31, so this is the last weekend to look through all of the offers.

Besides holding this sale, GOG also has a special deal for Iron Harvest as purchases made before September 8 will include a free copy of Sudden Strike 4. It has also been announced that Control Ultimate Edition is coming to the DRM-free storefront on September 10. GOG has also put together its own Indie Arena Booth Online as gamescom 2020 is going on, with this page featuring 45 indie games and 16 playable demos.

Source: GOG.com

If you are looking for a game to play If you are looking for games to add to your library but do not have much to spend, the free games at the Epic Games Store are HITMAN and the Shadowrun Collection. Both are free until September 3 and while I have not played a game from the Shadowrun series, I definitely enjoyed HITMAN and so can recommend picking it up.

Source: Epic Games Store (Free games page)

2K Games turn now, starting with some news for Borderlands 3 as its fourth campaign add-on, Psycho Krieg and the Fantastic Fustercluck has been given a release date of September 10. With this DLC, you get to enter the mind of a Psycho and learn why these classic Borderlands enemies are as deranged as they are. This is because Patricia Tannis believes the madness comes from knowledge of the mythical Vaulthalla, and only by entering the mind of Krieg can its location be discovered. And there is no need to worry, the legendary weapons and gear you get inside his mind will still function in the real game world.

Besides being the release of this DLC, September 10 is also when the next level cap increase will arrive for all Borderlands 3 players, allowing you and the gear you find to reach level 65. This is the last level cap increase planned for the foreseeable future.

Source: 2K Games [1] (Borderlands 3)

The other piece of news I have from 2K games is the release of the new narrative trailer for Mafia: Definitive Edition. Titled "A Life of Reward Too Big to Ignore," this trailer is behind an age-gate but it lets you see Tommy Angelo, the protagonist learn an important lesson. Despite the cost, loyalty to the Family can reap riches and power far beyond what a cab driver can achieve.

Mafia: Definitive Edition releases on September 25 and can be purchased separately or as part of the Mafia: Trilogy package that includes the Definitive Editions of the two other games in the series. Unlike the other titles though, this is a ground-up remake of the classic game in a new engine and with various non-technical updates, including an updated script with more content.

Source: 2K Games [2] (Mafia: Definitive Edition)

From publisher Dear Villagers comes the reveal of studio Nameless XIII's game Cendres: A Survival Journey. In this game, players will be challenged to survive in a harsh world lacking rules or judgment, as only your own choices will matter when faced with a moral dilemma. Set 200 years after the first geological disaster, the group of survivors known as The Section go out into the ravaged world to find a safe haven for their people, but will have to face the post-apocalyptic wasteland filled with ethical choices. Ultimately your decisions will bring you to one of 34 endings for this narrative survival sim.

Cendres: A Survival Journey is to come to Steam in 2021.

Source: Press Release

Deep Silver also made some reveals this week, including the reveal of the Gamescom Gameplay Teaser for CHORUS, a space-shooter with dual protagonists. Nara is a former cultist with a haunted past and ace pilot, and Forsaken is her sentient AI starfighter with a mysterious past to discover. As the two progress, they will uncover the truth and unlock devastating weapons and mind-bending abilities to help them free the galaxy for the Circle cult that demands subjugation.

CHORUS is arriving in 2021 on PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X, PlayStation 5, and Google Stadia.

Source: Press Release

Another upcoming Deep Silver published title is Codemaster's DiRT 5 and is Playground mode has been revealed. In a first for the series, this mode will allow players to create their own arenas within the iconic Cape Town Stadium or the Arizona desert. Bumps, kickers, ramps, loops, tunnels, and rings of fire can all be placed by the player as they build a course for one of three game modes: Gate Crasher; Gymkhana; or Smash Attack. Gate Crasher is a checkpoint dash, which may sound simple until you see the various obstacles placed by another player. Gymkhana will challenge you with drifts, donuts, and other trick objects as players try to show off their speed and style. Smash Attack has players search for and collect objects as quickly as possible. Once you have settled on your design, you can pick a vehicle, complete the event, make a thumbnail with the game's Photo mode and upload the challenge for other players to enjoy.

DiRT 5 is coming to PC, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4 on October 16 while the Xbox Series X, PlayStation 5, and Google Stadia releases will arrive in early 2021.

Source: Codemasters

Lastly for specific Deep Silver news, we have the release of a trailer that goes behind the music for Iron Harvest, the alternate-history RTS from KING Art Games releasing September 1. Composers Adam Skorupa and Michal Cieleki discuss the inspirations they had while working on this music, including artwork and visuals. By incorporating traditional choirs, instruments, and traditions, the composers worked to increase the immersion of the game by giving each faction is own sound.

A quick reminder of the GOG news above, purchasing this game from that storefront before September 8 will also get you a copy of Sudden Strike 4 for free.

Source: Deep Silver (Iron Harvest)

To find more information on the various announcements Deep Silver made at gamescom 2020, you can follow the next source link as it is to the publisher's gamescome page that links to the pages for the different games it brought to the show.

Source: Deep Silver/Koch Media gamescom 2020 Page

We now have some Devovler Digital news as Fall Guys Season 2 was revealed at gamescom. In this new season, players will have new courses to compete on and be able to put on medieval-themed costumes as they vie for victory. Season 2 will be coming in October.

Source: Press Release

Coming from publisher Dotemu and developer Triskell Interactive, Pharaoh: A New Eta has been announced and it is coming to PC in 2021. Pharaoh was originally released in 1999 and allowed players to be the ruler of ancient Egypt, trying to plan and execute on the construction and management of cities and settlements. For Pharaoh: A New Era, all new code is being written from the ground up as it will use new 2D graphics, new UI, and improve the mechanics of the game, which will include those from the 2000 expansion Cleopatra: Queen of the Nile. Offering over 100 hours of gameplay across 53 missions alongside a full map and mission editor, this remade classic certain has a great deal of promise.

Source: Dotemu

Modus Games revealed Override 2: Super Mech League this week, an arena showdown game where players take control of the most advanced and charismatic mechs as they fight to the last scrap. Modus Studios Brazil is the developer and is bringing significant upgrades to the balance of accessible design and rewarding combat the series is known for. Among these will be the game's Career Mode that will allow players to build the reputation of their own Club by fighting their way to the top of the Mech Leagues.

Scheduled to launch in December, this game will be coming to PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X, PlayStation 5, and Nintendo Switch. The standard edition will be available digitally for $29.99 while the Deluxe Edition, available both physically and digitally, will be priced at $39.99 and include a Season Pass. We can expect some IP crossover announcements to arrive in September.

Source: Modus Game

Square Enix announced the third Marvel's Avengers War Table will be premiering on September 1 at 10 AM PDT. It will contain many world-exclusive reveals, including an in depth look at the post-launch story season for the Avengers Initiative and the reveal of a post-launch playable hero. Information to get players up to speed on day one will also be shared, with special attention to be given to the progression system, information on the high-level content, and some tips for dealing with the over 50 enemy types in the game. It will be viewable at the PlayAvengers.com channel.

Marvel's Avengers will be releasing on September 4 for PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Google Stadia. It will be available on the Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5 when these new consoles launch in the holiday season, and upgrading from the current generation to these next-gen versions will be free.

Source: Press Release

The Outriders Broadcast 3 was this week and Square Enix revealed the final class for this upcoming game from People Can Fly. The Technomancer is a flexible class that can be built for crowd control or for high-powered artillery to devastate enemies with heavy amounts of damage. Though behind an age-gate, you can check out the broadcast here: Outriders: The Devastator.

Outriders will be releasing in Holiday 2020 for PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X, and PlayStation 5.

Source: Press Release

Turning to THQ Nordic, it has announced the Smallest Collector's Edition in the Whole Wild West. This is for Desperados III and includes such items as six unique miniature figurines, a tiny artbook, a tine USB drive shapped like a bullet containing the soundtrack, a John Cooper stamp, and a mini wanted poster with a Steam key on it. The whole thing comes to just 3.4 x 2.3 x 2.1 inches, as you can see in its trailer below.

This special Collector's Edition is not for sale though, it is for those who win the upcoming Speedrun Contest. From August 27 to August 30, anyone interest can participate and submit a video of them completing Eagle Falls on Normal as fast you can, without triggering any alarms and you need to have the dynamite blow up the bridge in the shooting range. The video must be uploaded to YouTube and include the Replay Screen and Mission Stats Screen after completing the mission, and then you send a link to it to speedrun@mimimi.games. You can check out the source link below for more information.

Source: THQ Nordic [1] (Desperados III)

Also from THQ Nordic, the first gameplay trailer for Kingdoms of Amalur: Re-Reckoning was revealed. In this trailer we see the Finesse path being used as stealth and silence is applied by a vicious rogue. With daggers, Fae-Blades, and bows you can precisely damage your enemies, or turn to traps, bombs, poison, or other elements to defeat the adversaries you encounter. It can be a nasty way to play as you allow you enemies to bleed to death or suffer from poison until they ultimately succumb to it.

Kingdoms of Amalur: Re-Reckoning is releasing on September 8 for PC, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4. In 2021 it will receive the brand new expansion Fatesworn, with details to follow on that later.

Source: THQ Nordic [2] (Kingdoms of Amalur: Re-Reckoning)

That is it for news concerning specific games, but there was also some news this week for what we can expect in the future. Microsoft has revealed what can be expected in DirectX Feature Level 12_2, the next collection of capabilities to be offered by the popular graphics API. DirectX feature levels are, as the name suggests, levels of features, with higher levels having more features to them. For example, DirectX 12 at launch had a feature level that was equal to DirectX 11, but offered the advantages of DX12's low-level design. This feature level was supported by a great many GPUs, while the level above it, with new features unique to DX12, had less support. The reason for the concept to exist is to easily identify the capabilities of GPUs, as an application can request what level a graphics card supports, and enable features accordingly.

If you are wondering how DirectX 12 Ultimate factors into this, it is a smaller group of features that will be included in feature level 12_2. DirectX Raytracing Tier 1.1, Mesh Shader Tier 1, Variable Shading Rate Tier 2, and Sampler Feedback Tier 0.9 are all part of the 12_2 minimum specification along with other features such as Tiled Resource Tier 3, Conservative Rasterization Tier 3, to name a couple. This feature level is described as a big deal in part because some of these are not also available through DirectX 11, which has been the case for many other DX12 features.

As far as compatibility is concerned, NVIDIA GeForce RTX and Quadro RTX GPUs support it, as will AMD's RDNA2-based GPUs and Intel's discrete GPUs. Through a collaboration with Qualcomm, Microsoft is working to bring the benefits of feature level 12_2 to Snapdragon platforms as well.

Source: Microsoft

Since this might as well be even longer, here is some liquid cooling news. Corsair has announced two new kits from its Hydro X Series; the XH305i RGB and XH303i RGB. These are hardline custom cooling kits, coming with an RGB CPU block, single 360 mm radiator, three RGB fans, PMMA clear hardline tubing, the accessories needed to cut and bend the tubing, fittings, adapters, and coolant. The difference between the kits is the pump-reservoir combo unit as the XH305i includes the XD5 RGB unit and the XH303i comes with the XD3 RGB unit. The water block in both kits is the XC7 RGB block that supports AMD AM4, Intel 1200, and Intel 115x sockets. The XH303i RGB kit has an MSRP of $479.99 while the XH305i RGB kit is priced at $549.99.

Source: Corsiar

If you are instead looking for a new water block or are not working from a kit, EK Water Blocks has announced the EK-Quantum Velocity D-RGB Nickel + Frosted Plexi block. This new Velocity water block features a frosted acrylic top piece that will help show off its 20 addressable RGB LEDs with better diffusion. There are two versions of the water block with on supporting AMD's AM4 socket and the other Intel LGA-115x, 1200, and 20xx sockets. Both are priced at $109.99.

Source: EKWB
August 21, 2020
12:34
Various Video Game News Stories from the Week of August 17, 2020
» ‎ Overclockers Club news Feed

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Time for another collection of video game stories from the week, starting with the time-sensitive item that Marvel's Avengers from Square Enix is holding an open beta this weekend. From today to August 23, anyone can enter the beta on PC, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4 to try out four single-player campaign Hero Missions it contains, three HARM room challenges, four War Zones, and five Drop Zones. Both War Zones and Drop Zones can be played alone with AI companions from your hero roster or in cooperative groups with up to four players. Those who take part on either console can link their Square Enix Members and Epic Games accounts. Doing so and completing the three HARM room challenges will get you the Hulk Smashers Pickaxe and Hulkbuster style in Fortnite.

Source: Press Release

Returning to alphabetical ordering, we have a couple trailers for Deep Silver published games. First is Iron Harvest as its story trailer has been shared. Developed by KING Art Games, Iron Harvest is an RTS set in an alternate history version of the 1920s' Europe, where the still rebuilding nations are vying for dominance with their powerful mechs. In this trailer we get a deeper look at some of the factions and the conflict that will grow over the course of the game's campaign. All three nations, Polania, Saxony, and Rusviet are all shown, as well as their unique heroes that can powerfully impact the battlefield.

Also revealed is the game's presence at gamescom 2020, which will be a digital-only event. Gamers will be able to visit the Koch Media section of gamescom.global to see the unique streaming content and information for the game. The page for Iron Harvest will be live starting August 27, which is also when the Iron Harvest eSports finals will begin.

Source: Press Release

The second Deep Silver published game that has gotten a fresh trailer this week is Windbound. This Mural Story Trailer provides an overview of the game's story and what Kara, the playable character can expect to encounter and endure. It is in the Forbidden Islands that Kara, separated from her people, will discover her destiny.

Along with the trailer, the pre-order bonuses have also been announced with those pre-ordering on Steam, Epic Games Store, or the Microsoft Store receiving Kara's Ancestral Gear bonus item. Purchases on the PlayStation Store, Nintendo Switch, and Google Stadia within two weeks of launch (before September 10) will also receive the Kara's Ancestral Gear DLC. The Ancestral Gear includes the Ancestral Attire, Oar, and Knife. The attire is fit for warriors and priests. The oar, the Oceanic Gyre is salt-treated wooded oar that is still functional, despite its age. The knife is made of Sea Shards that are luminous, durable, and still as sharp as it was a hundred years prior.

Windbound releases August 28 for PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, and Google Stadia.

Source: Press Release

Next we have a new game announcement from Devolver Digital and Nerial, the developers of Reigns. The game is Card Sharks and it will be arriving on PC and Nintendo Switch in 2021. Set in 18^th Century Europe, you will learn and apply card tricks to cheat your way to victory. These are real card tricks and manipulations that you will be using to reach the top of French society, and you must be careful as other tricksters do not like to be tricked themselves.

Source: Press Release

Now for some news from IO Interactive about HITMAN 3 as its England location, Darmoor, has been revealed, as well as where the game can be pre-ordered. This historic part of England is known not only for its landscape of grassy meadows and rocky hilltops, but also myths, legends, and mysteries with Thornbridge Manor living up to that. Agent 47 will play the part of detective in one of the location's Mission Stories as he tries to piece together a murder mystery. This is a bit of a twist as normally it is Agent 47 trying to commit the murder, but something IO Interactive has wanted to do for a while. Of course you will still have the goal of eliminating a target in the same mission, as that is what he does.

IO Interactive also shared that pre-orders should be going live later this month. The game is currently slated to release in January 2021 for PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X, PlayStation 5, and Google Stadia. For the first year though, it will be an Epic Games Store exclusive on PC, but do not worry as you will still be able to carryover progression from HITMAN 2 on Steam and to import locations from the previous two titles into HITMAN 3. The studio notes that its partnership with Epic is helping ensure its freedom to create the game as it has become an independent studio and this will be its first self-published title.

Source: IO Interactive

Another piece of news from Square Enix is that the third Outriders broadcast will be airing on August 25. In this broadcast, developers People Can Fly will reveal the game's fourth class, provide a look at the potential strategy in co-op play and class synergies, and give more information on the Devastator class. The broadcast will air at 9 AM PT, Tuesday at Twitch.tv/squareenix. Outriders is aiming for a Holiday 2020 release date for PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X, and PlayStation 5.

Source: Press Release

Lastly we come to THQ Nordic as Desperados III has received another free update, with this one adding new Baron's Challenges. With one challenge you will need to identify three specific guards in a crowd to kill, and in another you will have to hunt for a man that cheated the Baron. Once you find him in a crowded market, you will need to take him to the docks, dead or alive. Perhaps the most important challenge will be the one that tasks you to rescue Doc McCoy who is a prisoner in the Bayous. The thing is, you will be playing as Stella, Isabella's cat, the dog Agent Floofs, and Sergeant Cluckers, the chicken.

Source: THQ Nordic
August 14, 2020
14:49
Various Video Game News Stories from the Week of August 10, 2020
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It is Friday again, so here is another collection of video game news stories from the week. The first story this week comes from CD Projekt Red as it shared the second episode of Night City Wire for its upcoming Cyberpunk 2077. The game will not be launching until November 20, so if you need to see some of what it will offer, be sure to check out the 26 minute episode embedded below, or one of the three shorter videos that were featured in it: Lifepaths; Tools of Destruction; and Refused: Becoming SAMURAI.

If you want more than these videos, The World of Cyberpunk 2077 book is available for purchase now, having been published by Dark Horse Books.

Source: Press Release

Dear Villagers is up now and first we have that Edge of Eternity has received a massive update. In development by Midgar Studio, this JRPG has entered its beta phase with this update on Steam Early Access that adds a number of changes, including the new BattleCam for combat. There is also a new crafting system, reworked cutscenes, new quests, and updated character design. To celebrate this update, the game is on sale at 30% off until August 21 on Steam. The full release will also be coming to Xbox One and PlayStation 4 when the time comes.

Source: Press Release

The Dungeon of Naheulbeuk: The Amulet of Chaos is another game being published by Dear Villagers, and sadly the news is its release date has slipped. The tactical RPG will now be releasing on September 17 for PC on Steam, Epic Games Store, and GOG. With this delay, developer Artefacts Studio will be able to add more polish and "over 20 original, never-before-seen jokes to the game."

Along with this announcement, a new trailer has been released, sharing three more playable characters; the Paladin, Minstrel, and Priestess. You will get to see how they fight but also what kinds of personalities they have. For example, the Paladin is rude while the Priestess is arrogant. The Minstrel is annoying which I doubt will surprise many.

Source: Press Release

Coming to Deep Silver now, we have some news for DiRT 5 as it approaches its October 16 release. The reveal is the 40 songs comprising the game's soundtrack, and there is a Spotify playlist you can listen to if you want to hear the tracks you will be trying to keep traction to. By partnering with Globe and Universal Music UK, the soundtrack will feature some new music, exclusive to DiRT 5

Source: Codemasters

Another upcoming title from Deep Silver is the RTS Iron Harvest and the trailer showcasing its third playable faction has been shared. With this Saxony Faction Feature, players get a look at the Saxonian empire and its military forces. The Saxony Empire is proud as it has been one of the most influential nations in Europe, but after achieving a peace deal at the end of World War I, the elites and aristocrats feel humiliated by the emperor. This nation's mechs all take their names from dark fairy tales, but with this metal materialization, it will be the enemies of Saxony frightened instead of young children.

Source: Deep Silver

Turning to Devolver Digital now, Blightbound, the multiplayer dungeon crawler from Ronimo Games has received its first update in Steam Early Access. Titled Khuliath, this update games players a new area to explore when they venture into the Blight to recover supplies and heroes, including two new additions. Ezzouhn the Seeker is a warrior with a powerful punch but will also give magical followers the strength of his explosive rage. Nilbous Flann is a healer, but with a deep and fatal flaw. He will increase the effect of the mana orbs to help his allies and also twist the blight to dispatch his enemies. There are also new items to find and various other tweaks and additions that have arrived with this update.

Source: Press Release

Quite different from Blightbound is the recently released Fall Guys which set records for the publisher. In its first week it sold over 2 million copies on Steam, making it Devolver Digital's most successful launch ever. To celebrate the developers, Mediatonic, pulled together some other statistics. In the same time some 1.5 million crowns were grabbed in this battle royal game, and there were 23 million viewing hours on Twitch. Perhaps the most important statistic for that launch week though is the 60 million fallen Fall Guys. Considering they are like walking jelly beans, you would kind of expect that number to be much higher.

Source: Press Release

Remothered: Broken Porcelain from publisher Modus Games and developer Stormind Games has had a new trailer release that introduces us to the residents of the Ashmann Inn, human and otherwise. The rumor is the inn is haunted by a robed figure known as Porcelain, but there will be more than it that Jennifer will have to overcome. The game will be releasing on October 20 and sending chills down player's spins on PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Nintendo Switch.

Source: Press Release

Motion Twin and Evil Empire have released the newest free update for Dead Cells on Steam, titled Barrels o' Fun. This marks the 20^th update for the game and brings with it a new level, allowing players to enter an industrial playground of doom. Broken bottles, barrels, steam pipes, and other remnants fill the once-functioning distillery, as well as new enemies. Some are large enough to hurl explosive barrels at you, while new mimics will try to hide among the barrels in the corridors, waiting to self-destruct when you approach. Luckily you will have some new weapons to help your survival chances against these enemies, including the Barrel Launcher. Like a bazooka, this weapon will launch bouncing, exploding barrels to deal with your foes. You can check out the update's trailer below and the patch notes by following the source link.

Source: Dead Cells Website

Lastly, we come to Stardock as The Political Machine 2020 has received the new Founding Fathers DLC that will let you play as George Washington, John Adams, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison. We might be more than two centuries from when they founded this country, but some of their ideals and ideologies are still applicable and valued today. Two new ideology trees are coming with them too; Democratic Republican and Federalist. The Founding Fathers DLC is priced at $4.99.

Also arriving as part of the free update to version 1.3 are a couple new candidates to play as; Bill Clinton and Sarah Palin. You can also now upload and share your custom candidates to the Steam Workshop, so everyone can see your creation. The electoral map has been made more dynamic, to better inform you of the situation with a single glance, and the campaign events system, marked by a bouncing, yellow question mark has been changed as well. As losing an operative at a crucial moment could cost you a victory, any time a fixer gets rid of one, there will be a newspaper headline letting you know.

Source: Stardock
August 13, 2020
15:35
Intel Shares GPU, CPU Information at Architecture Day 2020
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Today Intel has held its Architecture Day 2020, where it showed off new technologies and details for some of the upcoming products we can expect from the company. Naturally the future of its CPUs were shown but we also got information on the upcoming Intel discrete GPUs, including some that will target gamers. A large part of why Intel has decided to develop its own dedicated GPUs is to sell products for servers, data centers, and supercomputers, but the company also wants to enter the consume space and upset the current duopoly between AMD Radeon and NVIDIA GeForce GPUs.

Looking first at the GPU information, we now know it is the Xe-HPG variant of the Xe graphics IP that will target gamers. Beneath it in the larger Xe stack is Xe-LP, designed for integrated and entry-level situations, and above it the Xe-HP variant for data center and AI use cases. At the top is the Xe-HPC for exascale applications. To serve the high-performance compute market, Intel is applying a number of advanced technologies into Xe-HPC and Xe-HP will take advantage of EMIB to connect the GPU's multiple tiles. For the Xe-HPG and Xe-LP versions though, standard packaging methods will be used. Interestingly, while Xe-LP will be manufactured by Intel, the company has shown Xe-HPG will actually be manufactured on an external process, so we could see coming from TSMC or Samsung nodes, for example. This could mean then that, at least for the first generation of the Intel GPU, it, AMD, and NVIDIA GPUs might all be produced on substantially similar processes. It is expected for Xe-HPG to ship in 2021 and it will feature support for new graphics technology, including ray tracing. Unfortunately it only says 2021, so we do not know when next year we can expect it, but there are plenty of more trade shows before then for such information to be announced.

The advanced technologies Intel is going to use in Xe-HPC include its new 10 nm SuperFin design that incorporates new SuperMIM capacitor and redefined FinFET designs. The new capacitor design enables a five times increase in metal-insulator-metal capacitance and reduces resistance across vias by 30% with a novel thin barrier. The new FinFET design features an improved gate process, additional gate pitch for higher drive current, and enhanced epitaxial source/drain, which should lower resistance and increase strain. Intel is claiming the application of its 10 nm SuperFin technology will grant it a performance improvement comparable to a full-node transition and is the largest single intranode enhancement in the company's history. It will be used in the Xe-LP and for the base tile of the Xe-HPC GPUs. Intel also working on Enhanced SuperFin and it will be used along with EMIB in the Xe-HP GPU and for the Rambo Cache tile in Xe-HPC, which is meant to give cores access to more data. The fourth tile to the Xe-HPC design is the Link I/O tile and it will be produced on an external process, with all four tiles then packaged together using Foveros and Co-EMIB.

Now coming to the CPUs, Tiger Lake, the next-generation mobile processor will be based on the 10 nm SuperFin technology. It is already in production and going to customers with OEM release expected in the holiday season. Tiger Lake will incorporate the Willow Core CPU microarchitecture and Xe graphics with up to 96 execution units. The Willow Cove design should provide large frequency and efficiency improvements, as it is built on the Sunny Cover architecture and will leverage the 10 nm SuperFin technology. It will also introduce a redesigned caching architecture and security enhancements with Intel Control Flow Enforcement Technology. The Tiger Lake design will feature Gaussian Network Accelerator 2.0, enabling low-power neural inferencing compared to running on the CPU, integrated PCIe 4 and ThunderBolt 4/USB 4 for low-latency, high-bandwidth access to memory.

Another technology teased is for chip packaging. Hybrid bonding offers an alternative to the traditional method of bonding in modern packaging technologies, with Intel suggesting it can enable aggressive bump pitches of 10 microns and smaller. For comparison, Intel states standard packaging had a bump pitch of 100 microns and its Foveros technology having a pitch between 50 and 25 microns. By achieving smaller bump pitches, the interconnect between chips can be much denser, enabling greater bandwidth while reducing power requirements. While Foveros enables energy usage of 0.15 pico-Joules per bit, Intel predicts this new technology will enable be less than 0.05 pico-Joules per bit.

Source: Intel
10:55
Embracer Group Acquires Multiple Studios, Including 4A Games
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Today it was announced Embracer Groups has acquired several new studios through its subsidiaries, including 4A Games, the developers of the Metro franchise. Previously the Embracer Group was known as THQ Nordic, but it changed its name as one of its subsidiaries is the publisher THQ Nordic. Another of the group's subsidiaries is Koch Media, the owner of Deep Silver and publisher of the Metro franchise since the original THQ went bankrupt.

It is not Koch Media/Deep Silver that is acquiring 4A Games but Saber Interactive, another wholly-owned subsidiary of Embracer Group that it only acquired in February. Saber Interactive is the developer of World War Z, another first-person shooter so with this acquisition a lot of additional talent will be available to both studios. While 4A Games brings with it the engine that has powered each of their games, Saber Interactive has experience with multiplayer and live operations technology. 4A Games will remain an independent studio under Saber Interactive, but already they are collaborating on a new project to combine 4A's AAA production values and technology with Saber's multiplayer experience. The press release also states 4A Games has begun development on a new AAA IP that will leverage its decade of experience with the Metro series.

The upfront cost of the 4A Games acquisition is approximately $45 million, with $25 million in cash and $20 million in newly issued shares in Embracer. Depending on the success of 4A Games after this acquisition, it can receive up to an additional $35 million in cash and shares if it achieves targets within five years.

This is not the only studio is acquiring, nor is it the only acquired through Saber Interactive as it has also purchased New World Interactive. This studio is also experienced with first-person shooters, being the developers behind Insurgency, Insurgency: Sandstorm, and Day of Infamy, and has a fan base of over 10 million players. These are PC titles and as part of this acquisition Saber Interactive will be providing resources to help being the Insurgency: Sandstorm to consoles in the first half of 2021. New World Interactive will remain an independent studio within Saber Interactive with the leadership team being retained.

Another subsidiary of Embracer Group is Amplifier Game Invest and it has acquired three new studios. Vermila Studios consists of just ten people and is currently working on Crisol: Theater of Idols, a first-person horror adventure and the studios first production. Rare Earth Games is another acquisition, bringing its experience with multiplayer titles for PC, consoles, and cloud services to Amplifier Game Invest. Rare Earth's first game is to provide a fresh take on online co-op survival action. The third studio being acquired by Amplifier Game Invest is Palindrome Interactive, a 14-person studio that was already partially owned by the company since 2017. Its first game is Immortal Realms: Vampire Wars and is slated to release on August 28 for PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Nintendo Switch. The studio is also working on its next title, a strategy game that is yet to be announced but has already been signed with Coffee Stain Publishing to publish it.

THQ Nordic is acquiring Pow Wow Entertainment, which currently employs 20 developers and is working on two unannounced games, with one being an for an existing THQ Nordic-owned IP. The other is a roguelike multiplayer platformer set in a constantly changing world, according to the press release. It will remain an independent studio under THQ Nordic and maintain full creative freedom.

Embracer Group itself is acquiring Deca Live Operations, a German company specializing in mobile asset care and live operations within the free-to-play games segment. With this acquisition, Embracer is growing into the mobile and free-to-play business, and Deca will benefit from the large IP catalog of Embracer as well as its capital and deal flow.

The last announced acquisition is Sola Media, through the wholly owned Koch Film subsidiary. It is a sales agent for international film and TV rights for distributing children and family films throughout the world.

Also shared today was the regulatory press release for the first fiscal quarter of the year, which is from April to June. Compared to last year, net sales increased by 81% for Embracer Group, with the games business seeing an increase of 153% thanks to several releases such as Saints Row: The Third – Remastered, Desperados 3, World War Z GOTY, and Satisfactory arriving on Steam Early Access. This is also the initial period since Saber Interactive was acquired and it has exceeded the expectations of Lars Wingefors, the Co-founder and CEO of Embracer Group. Going forward, there are some 125 projects in development with 73 of these yet to be announced. It appears we can also expect many more mergers and acquisitions in the future as the company is having "more discussions than ever" with potential joiners, with some being sizeable companies that could form new operative groups.

Source: Embracer Group [1] (4A Games), [2] (New World Interactive), [3] (Vermila Studios), [4] (Palindrome Interactive), [5] (Pow Wow Entertainment), [6] (Deca Live Operations), [7] (Sola Media), and [8] (Interim Q1 Report)

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