The Redmond-based giant made the largest splash when it announced the intention to acquire Activision Blizzard, the biggest Western third-party publisher, for nearly $70 billion. Never before had the gaming industry recorded such a massive deal. Earlier in January, Take-Two surprised everyone when they revealed their deal with Zynga for $12.7 billion in an effort to push into the ever-growing mobile market. Last but not least, Sony acquired Bungie, known as the original creators of Halo and Destiny, for $3....

The new footage, which can be watched below complete with English subtitles, is the second volume of the Summoners Guide series which provides details on the game’s story, characters and mechanics. Today’s video shows, among other things, dungeon exploration and combat. Soul Hackers 2 is the second entry in the Shin Megami Tensei spin-off series. The upcoming game, which will come with features inspired by the first entry in the series as well as brand new mechanics, is launching on consoles and PC this August....

Fast Charge Your Laptop, Phone and Tablet with the Spigen GaN Fast 45W USB-C Charger and Save 46% for a Limited Time As mentioned in the title of this deal, it comes with a USB-C cable, which means you will end up with a spare one and that’s a massive win. There are no discount codes or coupons needed in order to save 46%. It’s a straightforward deal. And if you are quick enough, you can get this charger today, too....

Spillover is described by the developers as the ultimate defense experience in Rainbow Six Extraction, putting an emphasis on properly preparing defenses (reinforcing walls, doors and windows, placing traps, etc.) just like in a Rainbow Six Siege match. These incursions, limited to a single submap, will feature nine so-called Sprawl Colonies to decontaminate with the new Dissolution Agent canisters in any order you want. When a canister is activated, players will need to defend it for 90 seconds from waves of Archæans assaults....

Alongside this expected news, though, we also learned of two additional Star Wars projects in the works at Respawn. One is a first-person shooter game whose development team is directed by Peter Hirschmann, previously VP of development at LucasArts and executive producer on the original Star Wars Battlefront games. The other is actually a strategy game made in collaboration with Bit Reactor, a new independent triple-A studio founded recently by former XCOM veterans such as Greg Foerstch....

Space Exploration Technologies Corporation’s (SpaceX) Starlink satellite internet constellation is the fastest satellite internet service in several regions of the world according to a fresh report from Ookla. Within a handful of years after opening its services, Starlink has rapidly built its low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite constellation by launching more than 2,000 satellites. In the process, it has managed to gain an upper hand over several rivals that will use similar spacecraft but are yet to launch the satellites....

As part of its orbital flight test for the Starship platform, SpaceX will use Starlink internet terminals to connect with its satellite constellation as both rockets are in the air. SpaceX is currently heading towards conducting the first orbital flight test of Starship from Boca Chica, Texas, with the rocket being the largest that the company has built to date. It will be powered by 33 engines and is designed to significantly increase the tonnage that the company can ship to low Earth orbit (LEO) ad provide it with a platform to send crewed and cargo missions to Mars....

Super Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto revealed the news via Twitter with the following message. The animated film is being made by Illumination, the studio behind Despicable Me, The Secret Life of Pets, Sing, and the adaptations of Dr. Seuss books like The Lorax and How the Grinch Stole Christmas. The Super Mario Bros. movie is directed by Aaron Horvath (Teen Titans Go!) and Michael Jelenic (The Batman), with Illumination’s Chris Meledandri and Nintendo’s Shigeru Miyamoto listed as producers....

The full patch notes are available below. NEW GAME+ Users who previously completed the game will have access to NewGame+ after the patch. Application restart may be required. Requires an active save file from game completion. GLOBAL Application restart may be required. Requires an active save file from game completion. Fixed an issue where some users were not correctly granted the “The Protocol is About Life” achievement Added New Game Plus....

It was important for us to achieve a physically consistent lighting and shadow model in the game. Contrast and occlusion make great horror. Using our corridor-based scale of around 20 meters, we found that around eight lights could be affecting a surface of the environment. Unfortunately, we found that UE4 was limited to four shadow-generating lights, so first we worked on modifying the engine so that we could support a higher number of lights at a lower cost per light....

The Chant is a brand-new project being announced today, and its premise is a simple one; enjoy your time on a remote island and seek peace, enlightenment, and tranquility; but not everything is as it seems. The announcement also comes with a brand-new teaser trailer, the first for this game, which you can watch below. The game’s basis is set on the darker side of spirituality and breaking the confines of normality....

dynamicSpot is Perhaps the Best Implementation of Dynamic Island on Android As expected, this Dynamic Island rib-off lets you access recent notifications or phone status changes through a floating island that sits on top of your screen. Once you have set it up, the app surrounds the front camera of your Android phone as Dynamic Island would work. You can actually adjust the position of this island. I tried the app on my Galaxy S22 Ultra, and even though the animations can still use some work, it worked just like the Dynamic Island would work on the iPhone 14 Pro....

In addition to the crossplay announcement, SNK revealed a bit more detail about the new Awakened Orochi Team coming as DLC. As the name implies, this team consists of alternate versions of the classic Orochi crew of Chris, Yashiro, and Shermie with new moves and strategies. Here’s a trailer for the Awakened Orochi Team, which launches next Monday (August 8). Ah, but the info didn’t stop with The King of Fighters XV!...

“Well, I’m not watching anything, so… Dr. Uckmann’s next game is THE LAST OF US PART III which is currently in production at Naughty Dog”, the scooper tweeted. The movie leaker also had something to say about his/her credibility when it comes to leaking games instead of movies. In addition, ViewerAnon claimed that the Uncharted series will be handled by another studio, although The Last of Us’ upcoming multiplayer mode, Factions, will be arriving first....

Lucid Group (NASDAQ:LCID), the EV manufacturer behind the Air electric sedan, recorded outsized gains yesterday when it announced that it would report its earnings for the fourth quarter of 2021 on the 28th of February 2022. As Lucid Group investors turn their attention toward the upcoming earnings call, the stock’s institutional holdings are in an interesting flux, based on the recent barrage of Form 13F filings with the US SEC....

The Sony Link Buds are nowhere near the conventional earbuds that you get to see in the market. Rather than getting a closed earbud design, these are comprised of a ring-style driver and an offset compartment that houses the rest of the internals. These also ship with Sony’s V1 integrated processor, however, these do not use Sony’s LDAC because they are made to reproduce the audio clearly and deliver it together with real life....

Earlier today, Intel announced that its XeSS technology would come to new titles. Intel also simultaneously released Game On driver support for three titles, which are are High On Life, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt’s next-gen update, and Conqueror’s Blade’s Scorpio update. Outside of that, there are some more release notes to sift through in today’s driver update. First off, other games and their performance. This part is kind of short, as the newest driver only really causes a small improvement in PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds compared to previously (4% general performance uplift)....

The Better Vanilla Fur Mod introduces improvements for animals and enemies fur, such as increased density, enhanced physics, and more. The mod only works with HairWorks active, so it does have a performance impact, which can be rather consistent on certain systems. Below, you will find the list of supported animals and enemies, as well as some comparison screenshots. The Witcher 3 Better Vanilla Fur Mod can be downloaded from Nexus Mods....

We previously reported on another The Witcher 3 mod called First Person Camera Reworked. However, the creator of that mod freely admits that Gervant First Person delivers a more complete first person experience in the open world action roleplaying game. That said, you should be warned there are several differences compared to the regular third person gameplay. This The Witcher 3 mod also comes with a few limitations, as outlined by its creator....

The good news is, the PS5 version of The Witcher 3 clearly looks much nicer than it did on PS4, with much better lighting, reflections, and various asset improvements. Load times are also almost 10x faster. That said, it comes at a heavier cost than you might think, with Ray-Tracing mode in particular offering a relatively low resolution and a sometimes-juddery 30fps. You can check out the full analysis below, provided you have around 15 minutes to spare....