Dungeons and Dragons: Dark Alliance Runs at 4K/60 FPS on Current-Gen Platforms

With Dungeons and Dragons: Dark Alliance releasing next week, lead mission designer Jean-François Champagne sat down with WCCF Tech to discuss various aspects about the action RPG. It was already revealed that there would be six Challenge Ratings or difficulty levels with rewards scaling accordingly. But what about the game's performance?

Jean-François confirmed 4K/60 FPS on Xbox Series X/S, PS5 and PC, though whether it would actually hit that on Xbox Series S remains to be seen. As for what's coming after launch, there will be "one playable magic-user." The first free DLC, out this Summer, isn't confirmed to include that but fans can expect two-player couch co-op to be added. Cross-platform play is unfortunately not on the table.

Furthermore, if you're planning on playing online co-op, then voice chat is the only available option. Jean-François didn't confirm whether text chat would be implemented later.

Dungeons and Dragons: Dark Alliance is out on June 22nd for PS5, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, PS4 and PC. It sees a band of heroes coming together to stop a dark alliance of monsters from stealing a powerful crystal. Each character has their own unique abilities and roles while everyone can access Ultimates for powerful techniques.

Steam Fest Next Launches, Includes Over 700 Free Game Demos

The Steam Next Fest, a week-long digital event that will offer players access to hundreds of free game demos, is now live. The event will run from June 16th – 22nd and offers "over 700 demos for the newest upcoming games across all genres from teams all over the world," according to Valve.

To promote Steam Next Fest, Valve has released several trailers showing off demos of some of the features games. These trailers are marked by genre, with a trailer for RPGs, Strategy titles, Puzzle games, Platformers, Adventure games, Action games, and so on.

The Steam Game Festival originally started as a spin-off of the 2019 Game Awards. It would return in March, June and October of 2020, and most recently, in February of this year. Xbox also has a similar offering, known as Xbox Summer Game Fest, which is running until June 21st.

You can watch the live stream for Steam Next Fest below:

Back 4 Blood Will Require Players to Always Be Online

Developer Turtle Rock Studios has confirmed that its upcoming co-op zombie shooter Back 4 Blood will always require players to be online. It should bed noted that Back 4 Blood's campaign can be played solo with three AI teammates, there will not be anyway to do so offline, at least not at launch.

The confirmation came via the company's Twitch account. When asked if Back 4 Blood could be played offline, Turtle Rock confirmed it was not possible. "We're looking into ways we could support offline for the future but you will need an internet connection to play at launch," the studio said.

The game will get a pair betas come August, so players will be able to test out the game and see if this is someting they're okay with before the game launches. Turtle Rock showed more of the game during E3, talked about ADS and split-screen co-op, and paid PvP and PvE content. Back 4 Blood will release on October 12 for Xbox Series X/S, PS5, Xbox One, PS4, and PC. It will also launch Day 1 on Game Pass.

Glitched, Existential RPG, Announced

Developer En House Studios and publisher Digerati have announced RPG Glitched will release on PC via Steam in Q3 2021. PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Switch releases will follow in 2022.

According to the publisher, "Glitched is a choice-heavy, fourth wall breaking, existential RPG. When a glitch appears in the video game world of Soren, an NPC named Gus becomes aware of you—the player. Travel together to solve the mystery of the glitch and save Gus's friends, hometown, and digital world."

The choices players make will chance Gus's essence, changing his personality, how other characters interact with him, and his abilities. In addition, the choices players make will also change the story. The game will feature a unique turn-based combat system, and will not have random encounters. There are also more than 20 potential party members in the game, a romance system, multiple endings, and most important of all, frogs.

You can watch a trailer for the game below:

 

Recompile Gets August Release Date

Developer Phigamesand publisher Dear Villagers have announced that Recompile, a "Metroidvania-inspired hacking adventure game" will release for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC via Steam in August. In an interesting twist, "the game's entire narrative takes place within 1 second of real time."

According to the publisher, "combining traditional Metroidvania mechanics with a dynamic branching narrative system, Recompile challenges players to explore, fight, hack and survive. Discover the many secrets beneath the ancient digital landscape, and prepare for system-wide reconfiguration."

The game promises several playstyle options, several critical paths in which the player's choices matter, a full compliment of weapons and abilities, and a system in which every game element is systemic and exploitable. "Logic gates can be freely inverted, overridden or disabled entirely, allowing puzzles or other threatening obstacles to be peacefully and safely bypassed. Even the inhabitants themselves can be tampered with, their programming changed to follow the player's commands."

You can watch a trailer of the game here, courtesy of GameSpot.

Starfield's Xbox Series X/S and PC Exclusivity Will "Make for a Better Product" – Todd Howard

Bethesda Game Studios' Todd Howard has stated that making games exclusively for Xbox indirectly makes for a better all-around experience. In a recent interview with The Telegraph, Todd Howard talked about how Microsoft and Xbox are doing more for players with forward-thinking strategies, like xCloud and Xbox Game Pass.

"You don't ever want to leave people out, right?" Howard said. "But at the end of the day, your ability to focus and say, this is the game I want to make, these are the platforms I want to make it on, and being able to really lean in on those is going to make for a better product."

"By focusing on those platforms, you really get to lean in a lot on making it the best it can be for those systems," he added. "And we're big believers in all of the avenues that Xbox and Microsoft are doing to get games to more people. Whether that's the integration with the PC, which is huge for us, the cloud streaming and all those things. So I think it's about taking a long term view. And our belief that those things are really fundamentally good. So we see it actually opening up more and more and more so that people's ability to play our games – via Game Pass and other things – their ability to play our games doesn't go down. It goes up dramatically."

In addition to this, Todd Howard also stated that disbanding a popular platform like PlayStation has its obvious flaws, and seemed to stop short of suggesting something that might give PS5 players some hope.

"Well, we're still…" he started, then said- "I will just say I want everybody to have the ability to play it in some fashion."

Starfield will be releasing exclusively for Xbox Series X/S and PC on November 11th, 2022, and Xbox Game Pass subscribers will have access to the game on launch day at no additional cost.

Xbox One Players Will be Able to Stream Xbox Series X/S Games Via the Cloud, Microsoft Confirms

In a recent blog post on the official Xbox website, Microsoft has confirmed that players still using the Xbox One will be able to play next-gen games with the use of Xbox Cloud Gaming in the future. Upcoming games like Microsoft Flight Simulator for console, Starfield, and Redfall will be playable on old-gen hardware via cloud gaming.

"We're excited to see developers realize their visions in ways that only next-gen hardware will allow them to do," the update reads. "For the millions of people who play on Xbox One consoles today, we are looking forward to sharing more about how we will bring many of these next-gen games, such as Microsoft Flight Simulator, to your console through Xbox Cloud Gaming, just like we do with mobile devices, tablets, and browsers."

Microsoft's next-gen exclusive announcements have certainly been interesting, especially in light of Sony making major upcoming releases like Horizon Forbidden West, God of War: Ragnarok, and Gran Turismo 7 exclusive. While it's still very early to say which approach is the best, Microsoft has certainly been making noteworthy strides of late thanks to its continued efforts to incorporate customer-friendly features on its platform with the biggest ace up its sleeve being Xbox Game Pass.

In addition to this, the aforementioned blog update also talks about the extended Xbox Games Showcase scheduled to go live on June 17 at 10:00 AM PT. It will will feature interviews with developers from Double Fine Studios, Ninja Theory, Rare among others.

Grand Theft Auto Online for PS3 and Xbox 360 is Shutting Down in December

Rockstar Games has recently announced that support for Grand Theft Auto 5's online component will be shutting down on PS3 and Xbox 360later this year. Announced via a blog post on Rockstar's official website, the developer confirms that support will be dropping on December 16 this year.

Players can, of course, play the single-player portion of GTA 5 even after servers shut down. While the move isn't surprising by any means, some fans seem to be curious about how many players actually play the game on these platforms at this point. Considering Sony itself tried to shut down PS3's digital storefront earlier this year, it's safe to say that not many people still play Grand Theft Auto 5, and thus, support dropping shouldn't have much of an impact.

Others are still clamoring about any potential updates on GTA 6, but no plausible rumors and reports seem to suggest anything substantial. However, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S versions of GTA 5 will be coming fall this year, so the game is only going to keep on growing in the coming months and years.

Bright Memory: Infinte Gets New Gameplay Trailer

Developer FYQD-Studio and publisher Playism released a new gameplay trailer for Bright Memory: Infinite today. The game is a "lightning-fast fusion of the first-person shooter and action genres" in which players will "combine a wide variety of skills and abilities to unleash dazzling combo attacks."

According to the publisher, "Bright Memory: Infinite is set in a sprawling, futuristic metropolis in the year 2036. A strange phenomenon for which scientists can find no explanation has occurred in the skies around the world. The Supernatural Science Research Organization (SRO) has sent agents out to various regions to investigate this phenomenon. It is soon discovered that these strange occurrences are connected to an archaic mystery – an as-of-yet unknown history of two worlds, about to come to light…"

Bright Memory: Infinite will release on Xbox Series X and PC via Steam later this year. A PlayStation 5 version will also release at a later, to-be-announced date.

You can watch a trailer for the game below, courtesy of GameSpot:

Redfall is "Doing a Lot of Things That Arkane is Well Known for," Says Bethesda's Pete Hines

Arkane Studios' Redfall was announced at the recent Xbox E3 event, and if you're concerned about them dropping the style they're known for because Redfall is an open world co-op title, don't be. Bethesda assures that it will require real cooperation, strategies, and tactics for success. In an interview with IGN, SVP of Global Marketing at Bethesda, Pete Hines confirms that players won't be able to tackle the game's missions if they go in guns blazing- or as Hines puts it, not a Leroy Jenkins game.

"It's not the same as just any four-player co-op shooter, it's doing a lot of things that Arkane is well known for and has spent the last 20+ years refining and honing and get really good at and I'm super excited for folks to see more of Redfall and what it's doing," he said. "To coin a phrase from another game publisher it is not a Leroy Jenkins game, this is not a game you're going to do very well if you just go running in guns blazing. It requires a bit more thoughtful approach especially dealing with some of these bosses like we show you in the trailer."

Arkane has consistently shown a penchant for allowing player freedom to be at the epicenter of its titles – be it low/high chaos in Dishonored or the myriad ways players can escape the loop in the hotly-anticipated time-bending Deathloop. With Redfall, the developers wanted to experiment with new things, and we really hope it turns out great.

Redfall is a co-op open-world title where vampires have taken over the town of well, Redfall. It releases exclusively for PC and Xbox Series X/S in Summer 2022.