New World has been popping off since it launched. The game's Steam concurrent player count set on the day of release has been toppled multiple times since, with the most recent count being 913,634 players just 12 hours ago.
To help manage this massive load, developer Amazon Game Studios has taken a few steps, including more recently starting work on a server transfer feature, which will allow players to move their characters to another server for free for a limited time.
But Amazon Game Studios is going a step further. The developer announced Saturday that the game will no longer let you create characters in servers that are already full. Full servers will now be greyed out, preventing players from accidentally picking them as a home for their new characters.
Nintendo's buoyant position in the video game market is good news for long-time fans of the Japanese company. After weathering the storm of the Wii U era, Nintendo's refocused 'hybrid' strategy has paid off handsomely, with Switch still one of the hottest tech products on the market, even after more than four years on sale. This week, the company releases the Switch OLED, an iterative update that should bolster hardware sales as we move into 2022.
However, a recent report by The Wall Street Journal puts Nintendo's success into perspective. According to the news outlet, figures released as part of Apple's recent antitrust trial reveal that in 2019, it made more operating profit from games than Nintendo, Microsoft, Sony and Activision Blizzard combined.
UK physical chart data is now in for the week ending 2nd October, revealing that Sonic Colors Ultimate has grabbed third place in its opening week on sale.
The game launched digitally on the eShop at the beginning of September, but a delayed physical launch means that it's only now started to make a dent in the official UK charts. The physical edition has sold best on Nintendo's platform thus far, with Switch accounting for 53% of the game's sales so far; 32% of sales came on PS4, with 15% on Xbox One.
Make your own adventure books were all the rage once upon a time, at least that's how this scribe remembers the late '80s and early '90s. With nothing but descriptive text, maybe a small number of illustrations, a dice and a good imagination, you would embark on journeys around the world, try to win the league as manager of a football / soccer team, or save the galaxy as Samus Aran. Yep, in Japan you didn't need a video game to experience the series thanks to the Metroid entry in the Famicom Adventure Game Book series - Metroid: Zebesian Incursion.
For those of you not clued in on this fun bit of publishing history, Did You Know Gaming has produced an entertaining look at how the book incorporated mechanics and ideas from the game, and even introduced ideas that would pop up in the games decades later - pretty standard sci-fi tropes, to be fair, but a fun coincidence.
The final character for the excellent Super Smash Bros Ultimate will finally be unveiled tomorrow and speculation is running wild online as to who it might be. The official Super Smash Bros Ultimate Twitter account has encouraged fans to let their imaginations run wild as to who the undisclosed character is. The account also revealed […]
The latest Doula Continent mobile game, Doula Continent: Soul Master Duel, is popular in China. It's getting a big PR push, and Jackie Chan even stars in a live-action trailer that claims Soul Master Duel is "exactly the same as the animation." But you know what also seems similar?
Steam's latest Next Fest has begun, and we're jumping in head first like we did last time by trying out a few demos to see what the future of strategy games has for us. Last time we brought you some early thoughts on Wartales, and now we're kicking things off with a brief look at Starship Troopers: Terran Command.
I'm a massive fan of the original '90s film (although the book was a bit highbrow for my sci-fi sensibilities), but even I recognise that its under-utilisation as an IP is mainly down to how unique that same film was. The bombastic score, the over-the-top characters and action, the fact that it didn't take itself too seriously… It's no wonder that subsequent attempts to bottle that magic have kind of fallen flat.
Enter Terran Command. It's the first Starship Troopers videogame since the 2012 mobile spin-off Starship Troopers: Invasion - Mobile Infantry, and before that there was the 2005 game simply called Starship Troopers. It's published by Slitherine and created by the same studio that brought you hardcore WWII war game Order of Battle. Let's set expectations early: based on the demo, this is easily the best Starship Troopers game ever, but that bar is pretty low, and this still may not tick all of the boxes.
You're probably well aware by now that New World, Amazon Games' just-launched fantasy MMORPG, is very popular. Since its September 28 debut, it's seen enormous player counts and some pretty hefty in-game queues as a result, with congestion-easing solutions like server transfers on the way soon. Now, the New World team has announced that it's bringing in some more changes to help address congestion from another angle - this time by cracking down on AFKing.
New World already has a built-in AFK timer which boots players out of the game after a period of inactivity. It's not clear how long this is set at, exactly, though sites like RPS report that it's thought to be around 25 minutes. However, in a new forum post, community manager HardcoreHenry reveals that the team has "seen a lot of frustration around individuals who may be artificially remaining active enough in servers to avoid the automatic AFK mitigation that is built into New World".
The community manager says that the MMO's devs "certainly agree that this is not acceptable behaviour, especially when there are droves of individuals who are waiting patiently to get into a world", and explains that the team has put together a new solution to "identify and action against bad faith AFK players".
Update - October 4, 2021: This story has been amended to reflect that the news was announced by publisher FNCPR Ltd, not Tanglewood Games.
No Time To Die - the last James Bond movie starring Daniel Craig - is out now in UK cinemas, and Bond's creator Ian Fleming is appearing in a game for the first time. Curiously enough, though, it'll be in next year's John Carter: Warlord of Mars rather than a Bond game - despite Fleming having no connection to the franchise.
John Carter: Warlord of Mars was announced earlier this year as a first-person action-adventure game and was supposed to get a Kickstarter in April, but that seems to have been postponed. The game is reportedly set to be released in May 2022.
The game will be mostly set on Mars, but will also contain opening sections set during World War 2 - as the story has been updated so John Carter is now a captain during WW2 rather than the American Civil War, and gets sent to Mars/Barsoom thanks to an experiment by the Nazis. The man in charge of the operation, publisher FNCPR Ltd has revealed, is none other than James Bond's creator Ian Fleming.
Four days before the start of their huge Dota 2 tournament, Valve have called off having a live audience at The International. This year's event in Romania was meant to be a glorious return after 2020's International was cancelled by the pandemic, but that pandemic is not yet over. With Covid-19 infection rates in Romania rising again, Valve will still hold the tournament but now without the audience. They're automatically refunding event tickets, obvs, but oof that'll be a lot of people out travel costs.
When I stepped up to become the new editor-in-chief of RPS after Graham ascended to the big corporate ship in the sky, I did so by leaving behind my throne of hardware boxes. Luckily, a new heir to the RPS tech chair has arisen, and his name is James Archer. Please come and say hello.
Intelligent Systems has unveiled a new Summoning Event for Fire Emblem Heroes, and it is available today. Check out the details on the new Summoning Focus, Heroes with Experience Skills, below the break. Here's a description of the event from the official Fire Emblem Heroes Twitter: Heroes with Experience skills are featured as part of a 5-star summoning focus! Heroes...
Seems like Valve can't catch a break with The International 2021 thanks to COVID-19. After having to move venues, they've now cancelled and refunded all live tickets. This is a pretty big blow to the biggest esports event of the year, with it having the biggest prize-pool ever for a single event at $40,018,195.
Valve said they had be watching rising COVID rates in Romania and were aware of new local restrictions, so it seems requiring attendees to be fully vaccinated and masked was just not enough as they said:
We wanted nothing more than to welcome fans live to the event, but we can no longer do so in a way that allows us to prioritize the health and well-being of both audience members and participants. Those who purchased tickets will be issued a full refund automatically.
There were also reports of members from multiple Dota 2 Pro teams (and their staff) testing positive for COVID-19, so nothing has really gone well for the event overall.
Thankfully the rest of the event will still be going ahead on October 7. These are the dates sticking as far as we know:
Group Stage will run October 7 - 10
Main Stage play starts October 12
The final will be on October 17
In other Dota 2 news, Valve recently announced they will remove 32bit support and OpenGL, with the Linux version bumping up the Vulkan version.
The saga continues for the GTA III and Vice City code that was reverse engineered and available on GitHub, as it has now been taken down once again from a DMCA request.
For the second time the code repository on GitHub is no more, with it linking to the public DMCA notice that shows Mitchell Silberberg & Knupp LLP acting for Take-Two Interactive Software. It requested a take down of all repositories (including forks) of the code and brings up the recent lawsuit filed against the developers involved in the code.
It's not exactly unexpected of course. They took it down once, counter-claims were filed to bring them back up and now with the lawsuit in progress it was only a matter of time until they vanished once again.
As we've mentioned before the other reason it's no surprise is that there's plenty of credible leaks out there showing that Take-Two are planning to release Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – The Definitive Edition which would include GTA 3, GTA Vice City and GTA San Andreas and so Take-Two are trying to protect the IP here (even though you needed to buy the actual games to work with these reverse engineered source ports).
Take-Two have a history of disliking mods for these and more modern games, issuing multiple take-down requests recently as it seems they want as much control as possible every the whole experience.
We don't expect the code to come back to GitHub given the lawsuit.
Into the Pit is a very stylish Lovecraftian retro FPS roguelite where you dive deep into a demonic portal in search of your missing cousin.
In Into the Pit you are part of a family of lore-hunting mystics who search the land for occult anomalies. Your cousin was investigating rumors of a demonic pit in a cursed village, but now she seems to have disappeared. … Read More
As the nights begin to draw in, the days get colder and the seasons change. But there are still some easy to grab Xbox achievements and Gamersore numbers to be unlocked. And as the big releases have ramped up through September, it's time to take a look at what delights those releases offered for Gamerscore hunters in the month just gone. A number of these games are available for free through Xbox Game Pass too, so you won't even need to open the wallet...
In development for Xbox Series X|S, PS5, Switch and PC, the out of this world sci-fi adventure racing of Red Goes Faster has now been confirmed with a little teaser trailer.
If you're in the market for a bone crushing, sci-fi based third person action adventure, you could certainly do worse than chuck Wanted: Dead onto your hit list.
Ready to go on a quest for revenge? One that will have you taking in some thrilling third-person mech combat action? Vengeance Is Mine is coming to Xbox Series X|S, PS5 and PC.
So the God of War Ragnarok trailer was officially introduced at the recent PlayStation Showcase event. Not hide her excitement when looked through the contents of the end of the era of Norse mythology of Kratos, 4freegame immediately observe and summarize the information contained in the trailer contain important information and interesting that readers may have missed when watching. Let's take a look at these interesting details.
Choosing the perfect staircase for residential purposes can contribute a lot to the safety and style of the overall project and further being clear about the comprehensive guide in this particular area is very much important. To choose the best possible staircase for the project there are several kinds of criteria to be taken into […]
