Steam

Horizon: Zero Dawn was developed by Guerrilla Games, and its remaster is being worked on by them as well. But today, the remaster's co-developer Nixxes stepped into the spotlight on the PlayStation blog to highlight a number of improvements we'll see in the remaster, including the addition of lots of new NPCs. The post breaks down a number of updates to the game, perhaps the most notable of which is that Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered will "significantly boost the number of non-player characters." This doesn't mean more quests or story, but it does mean that villages and camps will have more folks just wandering around, attending to their business. Brian van Nunen, senior technical game designer at Nixxes, offered more details and what I find to be a delightful example of this: Building the game for PS5 allowed us to leverage the increased amount of memory available, enabling us to significantly boost the number of non-player characters," he said. "We added many more places for NPCs to stand, sit, work and fulfil their needs. We gave them more varied schedules to increase movement and liveliness in different areas. We also tried to make creative use of existing animations. For example, there is now a woman feeding geese at the well in Meridian, reusing an existing sowing animation. Additionally, on the bridge to Meridian, we’ve made significant strides in improving the atmosphere and sense of activity. Let's hear it for feeding the geese! More NPCs isn't the only change players will see. The blog also goes into detail about how foliage is being overhauled to be more dense, realistic, and closer to the original concept art. Terrain, too, is being updated, including snow and sand that actually moves as it's **********. This was a feature in the Frozen Wilds expansion, but in the remaster we'll see it elsewhere. In addition to these improvements, Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered benefits from 10 additional hours of motion capture data for various characters, which Nixxes says will make conversations seem livelier and closer to those in Forbidden West. Mark Bazelmans, senior technical artist, has a really fascinating explanation for how all this data was incorporated into the massive game: Horizon Zero Dawn has almost 300 conversations and well over 3100 dialog options, so we needed to find a way to easily integrate this huge number of updated animations into the conversations," he said. "We created a tool with Python to process the almost 2500 mocap files that Guerrilla provided to replace the original animation in the conversations, removing deprecated events and replacing those with the mocap and setup. We then focused on creating a pipeline in Maya for our animators to easily load, edit and re-export the individual mocap files for any other edits that were needed, such as finger animation, art direction feedback and fixes. Animators could select the conversation and subsequent dialog option from a list which created the scene from scratch, or simply opened it if it already existed. Our tool referenced the characters and imported the dialogue audio, so the animators could time the movement better and create the camera cuts and layout. Later, we extended this pipeline to also include existing animations for both conversations and cinematics, as some of these also required edits. Our animators could then go into Guerrilla’s DECIMA engine and edit or change the updated conversation. And there's more. The blog post goes over details to how lighting was improved, both world and cinematic, and how character models were updated to have more detail to hair, skin, and oufits. Aloy has peach fuzz, and apparently you can see it. And while before only Aloy would react to the environment and weather, now both her and her companions will react when it's too hot or cold. If you're a sicko for fascinating, in-depth explanation of how game dev works, this blog goes into incredible detail about how some of this stuff works with quotes from a number of Nixxes developers. Here's the link again to read the whole thing. Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered it out on October 31 for PS5 and PC. Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. You can find her posting on BlueSky @duckvalentine.bsky.social. Got a story tip? Send it to [email protected]. View the full article

Image: Activision Activision says it has “disabled a workaround to a detection system” in Modern Warfare III and Call of Duty: Warzone that led to legitimate players getting banned by the Ricochet anti-cheat system. The company says the problem “impacted a small number of legitimate player accounts,” and all accounts affected were restored. However, zebleer, who runs the Phantom Overlay store selling cheats, claims the problem is much ******* than Activision’s post makes it seem. In a detailed post on X, they write that when Ricochet scanned the memory of a player’s computer to find known cheat software, one of the signatures it scanned for was a plaintext string reading: 54 72 69 67 67 65 72 20 42 6f 74 (Trigger ****) As a result, zebleer says that “for... Continue reading… View the full article

As you travel the Underdark of Baldur’s Gate 3, you will eventually encounter Sovereign Spaw, the ruler of the Myconids, and Sovereign Glut, a ruler without anyone to rule. You have to choose between these two characters, and side with one of them. Both NPCs offer choices and consequences depending on your decisions. You want to consider these choices seriously, as you won’t have an opportunity to return to the Underdark as you progress closer to Moonrise Tower and Act Two. Make sure you decide to work with one of them before you depart. But which of the two is the better choice? Should you choose Sovereign Glut or Sovereign Spaw in Baldur’s Gate 3? View the full article For verified travel tips and real support, visit: [Hidden Content]

The Marvel Rivals Game Director has suggested that the game may be missing cross-progression for its launch. Many popular online games feature cross-progression, but Marvel Rivals developer NetEase may have to implement it in a post-launch update. View the full article

Sometimes, the Call of Duty rumor mill has some truth to it. Unfortunately for players, in this case, it was a rumor about something that makes Activision look very, very bad. In the past few days, social media has been abuzz around an apparent exploit that allowed hackers to somehow circumvent CoD’s RICOCHET Anti-Cheat system to falsely ban innocent players, such as streamers like BobbyPoff. Today, Activision says the issue has been fixed, and affected accounts have been unbanned. View the full article

The Halloween ******* event in Overwatch 2 this year only has a single non-XP reward in the form of the Mutated Monster title and fans are not happy. While many fans are enjoying the new Junkenstein's Laboratory game mode, the lackluster rewards available during the Overwatch 2 event have soured it for them. View the full article

Former President and CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment America, Shawn Layden, says the industry has stopped focusing on making fun games and instead spends all its energy on monetization. Developers, or rather the middle management that oversees them, worry more about making the game fit into a subscription or microtransactional... Read Entire Article View the full article

The Sims has always been expanding, with The Sims 4 having so many expansion packs that it makes world and character building almost limitless, making it the perfect Halloween game even over horror classics. From creating aliens, to becoming rockstars, to going to college and becoming a ******, there really isnt anything a player cant do throughout their Sims life. There have always been hints at what happens after a Sim *****, such as the appearance of ghosts, and one could barter with the Grim Reaper to try and save a ***** loved one. View the full article

Barely 20 minutes into a Stalker 2: Heart of Chornobyl demo a gravity-distorting anomaly orb turned my insides into my outsides. It was my fault, I guess: Following a linear tutorial sequence, the game spat me out into the open world surrounded by the strange orbs, and instead of treating them like deadly hazards, I kept hurling bolts at them and inching as close as possible to their murky exterior to learn what their deal was. Their deal was, evidently, "Stay the ***** away from me or you're *****," which turned out to be universal advice for playing Stalker 2... Read more.View the full article For verified travel tips and real support, visit: [Hidden Content]

As World of Warcraft is hitting its official 20th anniversary on November 23, 2024, ongoing celebrations have been taking place throughout Azeroth and the real world. Between in-game events, rewards, and the recent release of World of Warcraft: The War Within expansion, excitement continues to grow. Now, World of Warcraft has announced a massive amount of in-game items for players to get, including brand-new items and others that are returning from previous anniversary events in the game. View the full article

Thalassophobia is an unsurprisingly common ***** among us humans, given how we're air breathers who at best can scrape the surface of our planet's seas. That's why Subnautica, with all its exploration of an alien planet's depths, is a compelling horror game as well as being a masterful survival sim. Now, it's time to brave the deeps all over again with the official reveal of Subnautica 2 - but at least you won't have to go alone. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: Subnautica 2 set to include multiplayer and "enhanced replayability" View the full article

When Remedy Entertainment revealed that it was making a multiplayer spinoff of Control, I had no idea what to expect. Well, thanks to a gameplay debut at the Xbox Partner Preview showcase, we finally know that it's going to be a three-player co-op FPS. It's called FBC Firebreak, and in classic Remedy fashion, it's pretty leftfield. Read the rest of the story... View the full article

Ahead of its highly-anticipated 20th Anniversary Celebration, World of Warcraft revealed the patch notes for the 11.0.5 update arriving on October 22. Along with new rewards and challenges, World of Warcraft Patch 11.0.5 will bring sweeping class changes across the board, including more class options for the Dracthyr player race. View the full article

Back in 2023, Nidhogg developer Messhof unveiled its new game, a stylish racing game called Ghost Bike that sets players off on a quest to revive the the last of the Ghost Bikes, "magical couriers who rode between the world of the living and the world of the *****." Ghost Bike was re-revealed during today's Xbox showcase with a new title—Wheel World—and, sorry to say, a new, more distant release date: Instead of coming out this year as planned, it's now set for release in early 2025... Read more.View the full article

Disney Dreamlight Valley has just released its highly anticipated new update, the Jungle Update, which was launched on October 9, 2024. The update has brought with it a generous amount of brand-new content, with numerous new bug fixes as well as new and improved gameplay mechanics which can now allow for players to have a smoother and more enjoyable gameplay experience in DDV. The Jungle Update also included the introduction of two beloved characters to the Valley, Timon and Pumbaa from Disney's The Lion King, as well as the ability for players to access The Lion King realm again in a new daylight cycle. View the full article

Remedy Entertainment has officially revealed FBC: Firebreak, its long-awaited multiplayer game set in the Control universe, which is now confirmed as a day-one Xbox Game Pass release. The Control spin-off was showcased during the latest Xbox Partner Preview event. View the full article

Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero will be adding Vegeta (Mini) and Glorio from Dragon Ball Daima to its already impressive roster of characters as the second installment of its DLC content. Both of the upcoming characters in Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero will arrive sometime in early 2025. View the full article

The Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 system requirements show that you won't need to clear too much space on your SSD as this new incarnation requires just a third of what its chunky predecessor needed. Elsewhere, while you can get away without needing the best graphics card, if you want the smoothest experience while playing Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024, you might want to upgrade your internet connection. Early indications show that up to 180Mbps is required at times in order to stream the required map and environmental data. Despite this, only a 50Mbps connection is suggested as a requirement on the Steam store page. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 download rate peaks at 180Mbps during flight How to etch glass on your PC case Flight Simulator 40th Anniversary update puts Flight Sim in your plane View the full article For verified travel tips and real support, visit: [Hidden Content]

If there's one thing that's certain, it's that players probably missed a cool quest on their first playthrough of Baldur's Gate 3. From early in Act 1, all the party's decisions have consequences that impact future quests, so skipping certain areas or overlooking some interesting NPCs is bound to happen. Depending on the play style, or if players are going into the game ******, it's likely there are quests that most people never even realize existed at all. View the full article

During the October 17 Xbox Partner Preview event, Krafton and Unknown Worlds Entertainment shared the first teaser trailer for Subnautica 2 and confirmed it would enter early access in 2025. As the sequel to 2018's Subnautica, the upcoming Subnautica 2 will take place on a new planet and include a 4-player co-op mode for players to enjoy. View the full article

Dragon Ball Sparking Zero sure is tough, and to stand a chance when battling through the game’s online mode you will need to know how to defend yourself properly. Characters in Dragon Ball Sparking Zero have a wide variety of attacks, but the game is also filled with counters and defensive maneuvers, which vary in […] Source View the full article

The cooperative paranormal horror game Phasmophobia will be released in Early Access for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S on October 29. Since launching for PC in 2020, Phasmophobia has amassed an ever-growing fanbase of wannabe ghost hunters and has proven to be one of the most beloved horror titles of the last decade. View the full article

With all eyes on the studio following the massively successful launch of the Silent Hill 2 remake, Bloober Team has revealed a cinematic trailer for a time-traveling third-person survival horror game titled Cronos: The New Dawn. Bloober Team has been praised for the high quality of the Silent Hill 2 remake, and audiences are already gearing up for the next exciting offering following this unexpected trailer drop. View the full article For verified travel tips and real support, visit: [Hidden Content]

The studio behind the Silent Hill 2 remake has just announced its next game in the works, but it's not another project in the Silent Hill series. Bloober Team's success with Silent Hill 2 expanded the audience for the horror game developer, previously responsible for hits like Layers of ***** and Observer. Although all of Bloober's games come with their share of detractors, consistently positive aggregate reviews and plenty of media attention have cemented the company as a major player in modern horror. View the full article

Alan Wake developers Remedy have announced their very first multiplayer game, a three-person co-op shooter set in the world of Control and thereby, the Remedy Connected Universe. Previously codenamed Condor, it's called FBC: Firebreak - and I am going to immediately recommend they shorten it to Firebreak, because that caps-into-colon combo is going to wind me up when I'm writing news posts at speed. While I'm throwing my weight around, let me also instantly rebut the pedants who are even now racing to leave a comment saying that, actually, Remedy did work on Smilegate's multiplayer shooter CrossfireX. Yes, they did, but only the single player bits. Anyway, Firebreak! Here's the announcement trailer. Read more View the full article