The Callisto Protocol Developer Talks About Dead Space Comparisons
Dead Space fans have been getting over the heartbreak of the franchise's (and its developer's) demise for some years now, but recently, we were treated to the announcement of a game that looks to be filling the void that it left behind. Striking Distance announced The Callisto Protocol at The Game Awards, with its development being led up by Dead Space co-creator Glen Schofield, and the team working on it being comprised of many former Dead Space developers. That, and the fact that the game has a sci-fi survival horror setting, has led to many comparisons between the two properties.
Speaking recently in an interview with VG247, Striking Distance's chief development officer Steve Papoutsis (who was also managing director at Dead Space developer Visceral Games) addressed the comparisons.
"It's not surprising given that a lot of the people that are working on the project also worked on the Dead Space series," Papoutsis said. "It's interesting that people are putting that together. We're passionate about the game we're working on and it's nice to hear people reminiscing about those games that many of us have fond memories around."
"There's just a passion here for horror games from me, Glen and some of the wonderful team we have assembled," Papoutsis said when asked about what formed the core of the game's idea at the outset of development. "We were hoping to do something that was single-player driven, story-focused that provided a lot of opportunities for scares. We had some cool ideas around the theme in terms of where it's going to take place – on a prison colony on Jupiter's dead moon, Callisto. That was literally the top-line lift pitch."
The Callisto Protocol is due out some time in 2022 for the PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC.
Mass Effect 4 Might Not be Abandoning the Andromeda Story, Project Director Hints
We've known for a while now that the next Mass Effect is in early development, but recently at The Game Awards, BioWare decided to formally confirm that with a teaser trailer. That trailer has gotten a lot of attention over the last couple of days, owing to just how many potential plotpoints it hints at for the sequel. Recently, project director on the game, Michael Gamble, took to Twitter to fire off another such hint.
The beginning of the trailer shows a shot with two different galaxies in view, which has led some people to wonder whether the Milky Way galaxy (the setting for the original trilogy) and the Andromeda galaxy (the setting for Mass Effect: Andromeda) might both factor into the next game's story somehow. Gamble suggests that that might be the case, stating on Twitter that the shot with both galaxies was put into the trailer intentionally. He added in a subsequent tweet that BioWare decided to show both "for a reason."
Mass Effect: Andromeda sets up a lot of really interesting things, but the future of that arc has been in question for a while now. It looked unlikely for a while that we'd get a direct sequel to that game, and with the next Mass Effect going back to a post-Mass Effect 3 Milky Way galaxy, those doubts were only compounded. It should be interesting to see how the sequel will bridge both arcs though.
intentional.
— Michael Gamble (@GambleMike) December 11, 2020
who knows. maybe not? but we show both for a reason
— Michael Gamble (@GambleMike) December 11, 2020
Marvel's Spider-Man Remastered Now Has a 60 FPS + Ray-Tracing Option Too
Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales recently received an update that added a third graphics option with 60 frames per second performance on top of ray-tracing being enabled. While earlier, the game had offered two options on the PS5 going with one or the other, the new option offers the best of both worlds with sacrifices in some other areas. As Insomniac promised not too long ago, now, that option has been added to Marvel's Spider-Man Remastered as well.
Called the Performance RT mode, similar to Miles Morales, it runs the game at 60 FPS with ray-tracing enabled, while scene resolution, reflection quality, and pedestrian density are adjusted to allow for those enhancements.
Marvel's Spider-Man Remastered is currently available exclusively on PS5, and is available exclusively as bonus download code with Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales' Ultimate Edition. In our review for the remaster, we said, "Spider-Man was one of the best games on the PS4, and it is now one of the best games in the PS5's burgeoning library." You can read our full review through here.
Elden Ring Could be Shown off in "A Month or Two" – Rumour
Elden Ring has been one of the most hotly anticipated people for millions since it was announced over a year ago, but since said announcement, there have been next to no updates on the game. FromSoftware have thanked fans for their patience, but as more opportunities for them to show the game pass by without any new updates – such as the recent The Game Awards – and those updates still don't come, fans are growing more impatient.
However, it seems it might not be too long before we get another look at Elden Ring. GamesBeat's Jeff Grubb recently spoke about FromSoftware's upcoming RPG in a podcast, and suggested that Elden Ring is far enough along in its development that the developer could have shown it off at The Game Awards if they had wanted to (which falls in line with recent reports). Grubb went on to say that FromSoftware will probably provide a proper update on Elden Ring before too long- perhaps even a month or two.
"They're obviously working on this game… they didn't show it here, but I think they probably could have if they wanted to," Grubb said (via VGC). "I think it's at that state. But let's just give it a month or two more."
"Here's one thing I've heard that I can say: have a little bit more patience, but just a little bit more," he said. "That doesn't mean days, and I don't think it quite means weeks, but it doesn't mean months and months and months."
Given the mystery surrounding the game's release window, it should be interesting to see what platforms the game launches for. It's likely that Elden Ring will end up being a cross-gen release- though of course, if Grubb's statements are anything to go by, we'll find out for sure soon enough. Stay tuned for more details.
The Next Mass Effect's Teaser Has Some Very Interesting Narrative Implications
After Mass Effect: Andromeda's critical and commercial failure, the future of the franchise looked to be in doubt, and the fact that several reports had claimed at the time that EA had put the series on ice didn't exactly make fans too hopeful about what lay ahead for the science fiction RPG series. Over the last year or so, however, BioWare have openly talked about the next step forward for Mass Effect, and on multiple times, have confirmed that the game is in early development.
At The Game Awards 2020, BioWare stole the spotlight when they premiered a teaser trailer for the next Mass Effect game. It was a completely unexpected showing, given the fact that the game is still very early in development, and the fact that BioWare had already shown a teaser trailer earlier in the show for Dragon Age 4 (which is also in early development at the time). And as you would expect from a teaser for a game that is so far away from launch (and that doesn't even have a name yet, apparently), it was more of a formal confirmation of the game's development than an actual reveal trailer.
But that doesn't mean that was all it was. This was no mere logo reveal, as has been the case with so many games that are announced years ahead of their intended launch. Though the highlight of this trailer was definitely the words it proclaimed at the end – promising that "Mass Effect will continue" – there was plenty that happened before that in the trailer that may have revealed some crucial details about the plot.
The most noteworthy and interesting thing the trailer is hinting at is the setting and chronological placement of the next Mass Effect – let's call it Mass Effect 4 for convenience's sake. After the launch of Mass Effect 3, BioWare were adamant that the game had no canon ending, and it was a position they have stuck with ever since then. Mass Effect: Andromeda cleverly sidestepped the problem of having to declare one of the endings as canon in spite of being set well after Mass Effect 3 by taking its characters to a different galaxy at the end of a journey that they had started before Mass Effect 3 even began.
With Mass Effect 4, however, it seems BioWare have finally picked a canon ending for the trilogy. We see a dead Reaper in the trailer, and the hooded Asari (who we will get to in a bit) can clearly be seen walking on the Reaper's remains in one scene. In other scenes, we can clearly see destroyed remains of Mass Relays. Based on those two tidbits alone, not only does it seem like BioWare are abandoning the Andromeda storyline in order to return back to the Milky Way galaxy, it it would seem like that have picked Mass Effect 3's Destroy ending as the canonical one, and the one that the next game will be following from.
In case you aren't aware (or have forgotten), the Destroy ending sees Shepard destroying all synthetic life in the galaxy in order to stop the Reapers, and this results in the destruction of things such as the Mass Relays and artificial intelligences as well. The Control ending sees Shepard's personality being imprinted onto an AI that then controls the Reapers as a galactic policing force, while the Synthezise ending sees Shepard making the decision to fuse all organic and synthetic life in the galaxy to bring about proper understanding and peace between the two sides.
If BioWare have indeed gone with the Destroy ending as the canonical one – and the teaser trailer very blatantly hints that they have – it would be an extremely interesting choice. Even though BioWare have never officially declared one of the endings as canon up until now, many have assumed for years that Synthesize is the likeliest one to be canonical. A Mass Effect 4 set in a Milky Way galaxy where all Reapers dead, all synthetic life like AIs and geth are gone, and all Mass Relays have been destroyed would be fascinating. Just as an example, in the absence of Mass Relays, how would interstellar travel – or at least interstellar travel as it has existed in Mass Effect thus far – even be possible?
Interestingly enough, it seems like the Milky Way galaxy isn't the only thing the Mass Effect franchise is going back to- beloved characters from the original trilogy might be making a comeback as well. One character that definitely is returning (at least based on the teaser trailer) is Asari scientist Liara T'Soni. In the final shots of the trailer, it is revealed that the hooded figure shown throughout the teaser is an Asari, and as anyone who's played the trilogy would tell you, that Asari is very obviously Liara.
The final thing Liara does in the trailer is something else that might hint at interesting things to come. After climbing up the remains of a dead reaper and navigating around heavy snow, Liara bends down to pick up a piece of what looks like rubble. Once she wipes the snow off of it though, that piece of rubble turns out to be a broken piece of armour with the N7 logo on it. And why is that important? Well, because you immediately associate N7 with Commander Shepard. But more importantly, once Liara sees it, she smiles.
Depending on your choices and actions in Mass Effect 3, a variation in one of its endings strongly suggests that Shepard may actually have survived. So is it possible that Mass Effect 4 sees Liara – and perhaps other members of the Normandy crew – going off to find Shepard and bring him back? While Liara is picking up the piece of the N7 armour, in the background, you can also see some more figures- presumably the people she has travelled to this icy planet with. One of them is clearly a Salarian, while the other is a Turian- could they be Mordin and Garrus? This, to be honest, is just a hopeful guess, and there's no way to be sure about them as we are about Liara, since we cannot clearly see any of them. But if Liara is coming back, there's no way Garrus Vakarian isn't. Mordin is a bit of a question mark, since most (though not all) of the endings to his specific arc in Mass Effect 3 result in his death.
These are all questions and theories that we are unlikely to get the answers and confirmations for any time soon. BioWare says the next Mass Effect is in pre-production, which means it's at least going to be three or four more years before it launches. With Dragon Age 4 presumably launching before Mass Effect 4, it also seems like the closer we get to the former's launch, the less BioWare and EA will focus on the latter, especially from a marketing standpoint. So concrete details on the next Mass Effect are a ways off. Even so, even with the brief and tantalizing teaser trailer BioWare have shown, it's clear that they seem to be headed in a different direction- and there might just be reason to be optimistic about Mass Effect's future once again.
PS5 and Xbox Series X Scalpers Have Been an Absolute Nuisance
There are many downsides of being an early adopter to a major gaming console. Usually when you buy a brand-new gaming console after it first launches, you're getting the buggiest version of that console before major quality of life patches are able to come out. It hasn't been out in the wild for very long so all of the initial bugs that haven't been discovered yet are still there. You also buy the console at its most expensive retail price it will ever be at, as sales and bundles generally come later as demand plateaus. You're also buying the console at the point of its life where it has the smallest library it will ever have, seeing as how development for the games has only been underway for a little while.
But perhaps none of these headaches even come close to the annoying power of scalpers and the shadow that they cast on every major consoles' launch. Buying up inventory while it's new and fairly scarce, jacking up the price as high as they can possibly get away with and selling them back out to the most impatient among us, raking in a good profit for themselves while taking advantage of others. Unfortunately, with advances in technology and a higher demand for gaming consoles generally the problem of scalping has without a doubt gotten demonstrably worse and more prevalent in recent years and most notably with the launch of the Xbox Series X in the PlayStation 5. It's a problem that most early adopters of major gaming consoles realize they'll be contending with to one degree or another, but with the launch of these newest consoles, has certainly reached new heights worthy of their own new level of scrutiny.
One of the basic tenets of business is that when supply goes down prices go up. At least assuming that demand is still there. With the PlayStation 5 and the Xbox Series X that demand has gone nowhere but up since the consoles have launched yet the supply has plummeted. no matter where you go you are hard-pressed to find any of these consoles and physical stores or on reputable websites at their regular retail price. Going on to eBay or social media to find people who already have the consoles but are selling them is a different story though. These folks are called scalpers. They benefit from the high demand and low supply of things as well as their ability to snatch those things up before the Supply runs dry.
As mentioned, we've seen a lot of that with this generation of consoles and they're able to pull this off in different ways. The most basic way is just people with lots of capital on hand ready to buy as many consoles as they can possibly get away with. Sure, they may want one for themselves and maybe even a couple as gifts for family members and friends, but what really makes them scalpers is that the majority of what they buy their planning to sell back out into the market at an elevated price so they can run away with that extra margin in their pocket. But the things that separate a respectable business model and a shameless scalper is the degree to which they game the system and the motive behind it. Selling a game console back out at a similar price isn't nearly as big of a deal as tripling the price and doing it about 50 times. Where exactly the line is between those two things is hard to say but generally people agree on when it's been crossed.
The scalpers that really crossed the line are the ones that mechanized the process of buying consoles and do it a ridiculous amount. Buying 100 consoles all at once when everyone knows there's going to be a shortage is not something somebody can just do on their computer with ease. In order to do it that way they would have to compete with everybody else and they would end up feeling a lot of the time. So for those who are willing to take their scalping to the next level they use bots or software that tricks whatever website they're buying from into thinking that the transactions are coming from different people and/or buy consoles from multiple different websites all at once within the amount of time that it takes to buy one.
This is the part of scalping that I think everyone agrees is problematic and it's hard to say what the solution really should be if the software that the scalpers are using is continuously more advanced than what the retailers are using to protect those transactions. At the end of the day this is just a game that will likely never end, and scalpers clearly have more of a financial interest in staying ahead of the retailers then the retailers do of staying ahead of the scalpers. Think about it: even if it is scalpers buying those systems from the retailers, as far as those retailers are concerned, it's still sales. So perhaps that's not really the solution here at least not the long-term one.
One facet of the situation that also deserves a closer look is the fact that scalpers are selling these $1,800 PS5s to somebody. It's not like they're just buying the consoles and then listing them at many times their price for the fun of it. Somebody is keeping this business model alive and it's not just the scalpers themselves. If there wasn't a lot of money to be made in this business, then it wouldn't exist. There's no reason to invest all the time and money in gaming the system to end up with a ton of Xbox Series Xs if there are not people out there willing to pay exorbitant prices for them.
So at the end of the day the only thing that would ever really put an end to scalping is if that customer base changed its mind about how they go about buying their consoles. Say what you want about the scalpers or the retailers who failed to stop them, surely there's plenty of blame to go around, but until people stop prioritizing their insatiable appetites to have the latest and greatest consoles at any cost over the general well-being of the marketplace in which those consoles exist, there will always be shady characters willing to step in and profit from their impatience.
Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.
Cyberpunk 2077 on PC Feels Like a 9th Gen Launch Title in All But Name
It's been eight years and two whole console generations since CD Projekt RED first announced Cyberpunk 2077. In the intervening time, we saw the CDPR transform into one of the most respected development houses in the videogame industry. CDPR's always aimed far beyond what their capabilities would lead to you to expect. Now, with the resources of a proper AAA studio, they've infused advanced tech, a remarkable degree of world-building and their signature storytelling to create the most significant 9th generation title till date. Cyberpunk 2077 is all kinds of achievements. But it stands tall, in particular, as a brilliant technical achievement. While it is a cross-generation title, much like Grand Theft Auto V, Cyberpunk 2077 on high-end PC and next-gen consoles offers us a glimpse of just what AAA developers could accomplish in the years to come once the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 are phased out. We've all been waiting for that next-gen "wow" moment, and that time is now. But what exactly makes Cyberpunk 2077 shine at a technical level? What kind of techniques are CDPR leveraging here, and how does the maxed-out PC version stack up to the sky-high expectations and hype? Let's take a look.
NVIDIA RTX: the complete suite
NVIDIA has been pushing hybrid ray-tracing heavily for the past two years. The entire Turing GPU generation saw prices rise and raster performance flatline because of NVIDIA's heavy investment into AI and ray-tracing hardware on Turing dies. These first-generation ray tracing parts were, in a word, inadequate. Even with DLSS upscaling, all but the most capable of RTX Turing cards managed to hit 60 FPS in intensive ray-traced titles like Control. Other games compromised by making frugal use of ray-traced effects but the performance penalty, combined with the meagre visual improvements made this a net loss.
Two years down the road, NVIDIA's Ampere cards are out, and while ray-tracing still quite isn't there in terms of raw performance, the RTX 3080 and RTX 3090 offer enough raw horsepower (and enhanced RT cores) for developers to seriously consider adding complex ray-traced effects to their games without utterly tanking framerates. Both the new ninth-generation consoles – the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X – support hardware ray-tracing, too, meaning that ray-traced effects are likely to become a standard part of the gaming featureset in years to come. It's worth keeping this context in mind when we talk about Cyberpunk 2077's ray-tracing effects. CDPR's latest opus features, without a doubt, the most complete implementation of RTX effects we've seen in a hybrid rendering game. Barring Quake II RTX and Minecraft RTX, both of which are pure path-traced titles, there's nothing out there that competes with Cyberpunk 2077's RTX implementation, barring Control, which delivers a much more linear gameplay experience. Let's take a look at some of the RTX effects on display here.
Cyberpunk 2077 makes excellent use of ray-traced reflections. Night City's gritty neon-soaked environs are a perfect match up, with lots of glass and highly reflective metals that really benefit from a reflection pass. Reflections are the most easily-noticeable ray-tracing improvement to the game and can completely transform the aesthetics of certain locations. The floors can go from a murky grey-black to a riot of color, accurately reflecting multiple light sources. One drawback to Cyberpunk 2077's ray-traced reflection implementation is that it appears to cut out the player model. This is especially jarring when driving past windows while riding a motorcycle: The motorcycle reflects off buildings but not V! We expect CDPR to patch this issue soon but, for the time being, this could be a potential deal breaker for some.
Ray-traced ambient occlusion and shadows are another key addition here. This isn't the first RTX title to sport a great ray-traced shadow implementation. Interestingly, another cyberpunk game, Ghostrunner, beat CDPR to the chase in this respect. But just like in that game, ray-traced shadows add immense depth, really situating character models and objects in the game world, instead of "flat" feeling most games give off. It can be hard to notice all the additional self shadows and fine detail here while in action, but suffice to know, we're not dealing with approximations anymore. At least at close range, every part of an object will cast accurate shadows, including self-shadows. With complex high-poly models, this adds immense depth to nooks and crannys, in armor and pockets for example. There is an LOD cutoff to ray-traced shadowing. However, it's generous enough that the switch isn't too jarring.
Cyberpunk 2077 also makes use of NVIDIA's DLSS 2.1 AI upscaling technology. DLSS runs on the tensor cores on Turing and Ampere graphics cards. It isn't a simple upscale of low-res imagery: the AI algorithm recreates missing pixel information and in quality and balanced modes are at least as detailed as native resolution rendering. The heavy performance hit of enabling RTX effects in Cyberpunk is largely ameliorated by DLSS. Without the upscaling technique enabled, even the RTX 3090 and RTX 3080 register dips below 30 FPS at times. DLSS has matured considerably: at this point, at least if you're sticking to the quality or balanced modes, there's no reason not to enable it and benefit from improved performance.
Animations and models: it's more than just the ray-tracing
While Cyberpunk's RTX effects are definite headliners, it's important to keep in mind that this is a AAA game that's been in development for over 8 years, with an eye towards next-gen platforms. While it does on everything from the Xbox One on up, high-end PC visuals give the distinct impression that CDPR was aiming to build a title that looked and played categorically better than just about anything on current-gen platforms. On a high-end PC, we see detail and fidelity that goes well beyond even next-gen "exclusive" titles.
Main character models, including V and Johnny Silverhand have poly-counts comparable to top-tier late gen PS4 exclusives: we expect this level of fidelity to become standard in ninth-gen open world titles. Character animations and behaviour scripting are, again, well beyond what we see in the likes of "cross-gen" titles. While Red Dead Redemption 2 arguably delivers more convincing AI routines, there's no surfeit of variety here. And compared to The Witcher 3, character animations themselves — especially in open-world sections are significantly more varied and blend better. CDPR's bespoke AI-powered lip-syncing tech makes character interactions significantly more convincing, too. What's particularly interesting here is that the AI-based approach means that different language dubs of the game all get accurate lip-syncing.
Particles and post-processing
Lastly, Cyberpunk 2077 doesn't disappoint in terms of particle and post-processing either. Night City calls for a post-FX heavy aesthetic. Cyberpunk has a great per-object motion blur implementation, alongside a high sample-count DoF. With DLSS enabled, anti-aliasing becomes a non-issue, too. Alpha effects like explosion and fire are high resolution and really benefit from ray-traced reflections. Dynamic alpha effects receive accurate reflections on surfaces like glass, adding an extra layer of immersion during combat scenes.
Conclusion
Cyberpunk 2077 is practically a ninth-gen launch title. But we get the feeling that the top-end version of this game on PC will remain something of a visual benchmark for ninth-gen console titles to aspire to, for years to come. If this is CDPR's vision ninth-gen gaming, we're in for a truly remarkable decade.
Cyberpunk 2077 Is Already Profitable, Per Developer
It should come as no surprise that Cyberpunk 2077 has been a smash hit as it's been one of the most hyped games for pretty much an entire console generation, so it running to the top to be the best selling PC game ever should be no surprise. It also seems the game is already in the black, despite its long development cycle.
Developer CD Projekt RED issued a statement to investors to say that the game already passed the point of profitability for both its marketing and development costs off the whooping 8 million pre-orders it already had. No doubt that was bolstered by the fact that 74% of that was digital, which helped big time to the bottom line I imagine. While it may not be surprising considering the amount of sales we're talking about here, you should keep in mind this was a game that was in some form of development since around 2012 and was at various huge events though that time period. That should give an idea of just how successful that made this initial push.
Cyberpunk 2077 is available now on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC and Stadia.
PS5 Sold Over 107,000 In France; Xbox Series X/S Moves Around 37,000
Last month saw the launch of new consoles from both Sony and Microsoft: the PS5 and the Xbox Series X/S, respectively. Despite the pandemic, both companies managed to move their machines to the market, and the PS5 has been setting records in various regions. We now know what they did in France, and they aren't too far off from what you'd expect, though Sony went up while Microsoft dipped a bit.
As reported by Ludostrie, Sony sold over 107,000 units in the region, which would make it the biggest console launch in French history, managing to just beat the Switch's previous record of 105,000 and handily was over Sony's last system, the PS4, which sold 90,000. Microsoft cleared just over 37,000 in the region, which was quite a bit down from the Xbox One, which sold around 50,000. The ratio and trend is in line with another European country, Spain, which saw a similar console split as well as Sony up and Microsoft down (big thanks to Juexvideo for the numbers on previous console launches).
The PlayStation brand has traditionally been stronger throughout Europe, so it's not a huge surprise to see it selling more there in general, and it's always worth keeping in mind that both systems saw stock and supply issues, this year more so than usual, so the numbers also would maybe be slightly different had this been a normal year, though I imagine the overall ratio split wouldn't be drastically different.
Persona 5 Strikers Gets Over 30 Minutes Of English Gameplay
The Persona series has always had a pretty good following, but with Persona 5 and its enhanced re-release of Royal, that popularity has soared. Much like previous titles in the series, it's also already spawned several follow ups and sequels, including Persona 5 Strikers. The game originally released in Japan in February of this year and one year later will make its western debut. In the meantime, we got some English gameplay, a good amount in fact.
Despite this being provided by the French outlet JVFrance, we have over 30 minutes of gameplay completely in English. Since the game has already been out in Japan for a full year, there's a lot of gameplay out there, but this is the first extended amount we have seen with both full English voice acting and text. On the off case you also missed Japanese footage, this is a good preview of what to expect of the mousu-style sequel.
Persona 5 Strikers will release February 23rd for PlayStation 4, Switch and PC.