#and these days games are getting rebooted and they typically come with a remaster too....

[emmavakarian-theirin]

[bursts back onto tumblr with a tin foil hat]

guys what if we're getting a remake

[wazafam]

The age of remakes and remasters has seemed to have entered a new surge in popularity and with good reason. Their contributions to game preservation are one such boon. Namely from Capcom, who's been surging themselves in a redemption arc over the last few years, as Resident Evil 2 was promptly critically acclaimed.

RELATED: Castlevania: 10 Reasons Why It's Time For A Symphony Of The Night Remake

RE3 was recently remade, and it's a poorly kept secret that 4 is in the works too. However, now's the time to dig up forgotten IPs and give them a modern makeover. Dino Crisis is prime for this and is under Capcom's control, and its well-received first two games are still fondly remembered. With the atmosphere around remakes positive and the publisher's rebuilt image, here are 10 reasons it's time for Capcom to remake Dino Crisis.

10 A Cult Classic

Despite Capcom being largely known for Resident Evil, Monster Hunter, Devil May Cry, and Street Fighter, Dino Crisis managed to establish itself as a '90s cult classic in its own right. Despite obvious RE cues, it proved an exciting survival-horror game with a new theme and was well-received on the original PlayStation. It's become a bit of a sad meme online with fans desperately wondering when Capcom will even acknowledge the franchise's existence.

There's speculation of a remake, with them renewing the trademark and claiming they're intending to revive some of their old IPs, but nothing concrete. A Dino Crisis remake under their brand name coupled with the goodwill reestablished among fans and bringing in new ones would be a worthwhile endeavor.

9 Resident Evil + Jurassic Park

The game(s) clearly took heavy inspiration from the successes of Resident Evil, but that's not a bad thing. The concept of mixing the survival-horror RE games with dinosaurs and Jurassic Park is a more than welcome "clone." It's a compelling formula, and the game did well in capturing some of the essence of Michael Crichton's novel too, as it delved heavily into gory, horror elements.

Pairing this project also under Capcom's supervision makes it better, as they have a clear experience in the genre thanks to their flagship horror franchise. With Resident Evil reestablishing its foothold and legendary reputation, Dino Crisis would excel with its inherent premise under modern-day Capcom.

8 Potential Of Current-Gen Exclusives

With the PlayStation 5 and the Xbox Series X, the power at developers' disposal is vast. Both consoles are incredibly powerful, firmly establishing 4K resolution, 60fps+, and lightning-fast SSD load times as the new standard. Capcom would have immense power in their hands with a Dino Crisis remake if they make it exclusive to current-gen hardware/software.

RELATED: 10 Horror Games With A Better Story Than Resident Evil 2

They're a big name in the gaming industry as publishers and developers, making it more than likely they'd be able to secure a sizeable and well-equipped, talented team. It'd still be a good notch above even if it was cross-gen, and certainly more accessible, but since no such remake is in the cards as far as we know, it would allow for time to pass, with PS5/XSX more accessible and a remake more powerful.

7 Simultaneous/Eventual PC Port

Of course, something as big as a hypothetical triple-A remake of Dino Crisis on PS5 and XSX would likely lead to a PC version as well. Capcom's Resident Evil 2 and 3 are both on PC, as well as the two recent mainline sequels. A PC version could either get a simultaneous release along with the two heavy-hitter consoles or get an eventual one down the line akin to Monster Hunter World and the Iceborne DLC expansion--as well as their most recent hit with MH Rise on Switch.

Especially if a Dino Crisis remake is exclusively current-gen, a PC version would be a visual and gameplay feast given the hardware available there. It may need to wait similarly to PS5/XSX given poor accessibility, but the RTX 30 series GPUs would present incredible performance opportunities.

6 Return Of Dinosaur-Themed Games

As fun and no-brainer of a concept dinosaur-themed games seem on paper, there has been next to nothing on that front in the mainstream space. The best players can hope for are indies, and while the indie scene has plenty of incredible games in general, good dinosaur games are tough to come by. They're typically either stuck in Steam Early Access or unbearably janky.

It's a thrilling concept, but it's unfortunately underused despite Dino Crisis presenting��a great formula to use. Capcom ushering in a triple-A dinosaur game with their development prowess would be a welcome return to dinosaurs in gaming.

5 The RE Engine

Something that would help power a potential Dino Crisis remake reach the gameplay and technical heights suggested earlier would be Capcom's own RE Engine. It's one of the most mouthwatering possibilities that come with the thought of the game being rebuilt from the ground up in the modern age. The RE Engine is the foundation for the RE2 and 3 remakes, and it shouldn't need to be said those games are visual marvels.

RELATED: Star Wars: 10 Reasons We Need A Game Focused On The Sith

Monster Hunter Rise is even built on the engine, working like witchcraft to make the game astoundingly beautiful in spite of the Switch's hardware limitations. With how Capcom made the two RE remakes look graphically, a Dino Crisis remake using the RE Engine would surely be stunning on PS5/XSX/PC, particularly in the dinosaurs--like Raptors and the "Mr. X/Nemesis" T-Rex--that would feature in the games.

4 Alien: Isolation Inspiration

Resident Evil aside, another ripe source of inspiration for a remake could be in the surprise hit Alien: Isolation. The game proved a great survival-horror romp in unsettling, claustrophobic settings and the terror of being persistently hunted by an apex predator. Fans have already clamored before online for a Jurassic Park-themed game influenced by Isolation, just replacing the alien with dinosaurs like Velociraptors.

Of course, more species would be a must, but this would serve as a good blueprint for a survival-horror game dealing with wild animals rather than zombies. Combine Isolation with the third-person perspective and combat mechanics of the RE remakes, and Capcom already has a rich recipe.

3 Similar Approach To Resident Evil 2

Though, going back to RE, the first game being remade could take a similar approach to the remake of Resident Evil 2. The original Dino Crisis took place in a single facility, akin to RE2 being largely set in the RPD during a zombie breakout. Regina is tasked with apprehending a scientist secretly leading a weapons project at the research facility, where dinosaurs are stalking in and around.

Being able to tastefully recreate the ominous, haunting and tense environments within the context of Dino Crisis's setting would be thrilling to adventure through. The threats present would give a whole new version of fear and heightened combat pacing and stealth, which also mean different gameplay styles.

2 Pave The Way For Dino Crisis 2

Naturally, should the first get its deserved resurrection and prove a critical and commercial success, it could pave the way for a Dino Crisis 2 remake. The second essentially improved upon the first in every way and upped the dinosaur species variety and a new, more open jungle wilderness setting.

RELATED: Star Wars: 5 Reasons To Be Excited For Ubisoft's Game (& 5 Why We're Nervous)

There's no need for an open-world genre mix, but an environment expansion similar to the RE3 remake could prove effective. As long as the groundwork is set and well executed in a remake for the original, remaking the sequel would be a sure-fire hit--as long as it doesn't gut too much content from the original like RE3.

1 Dino Crisis 3 Redemption

Dino Crisis 3 was the black sheep for the mainline games for good reason. For one, a PlayStation 2 version was canned in development and only ever featured on the original Xbox, plagued by painful camera and gameplay controls. It also featured a future sci-fi setting with a brand new cast and alien dinosaurs.

As far as the premise is concerned given RE's reputation for the weird, it's not bad but came at a bad time. Dino Crisis 3 could eventually be rebooted entirely to be a direct sequel to 2, or keep its premise and be remade as an offshoot/spinoff to be a more compelling and comfortable gameplay experience and redeem the mechanically clunky original.

NEXT: Alien Isolation: 5 Reasons It's The Perfect Alien Sequel (& 5 Where It Falls Short)

10 Reasons Capcom Needs To Remake Dino Crisis For PS5 & XSX from https://ift.tt/2SS4HRI

[britesparc]

Weekend Top Ten #483

Top Ten Non-Predictions About Not-Quite E3

So E3 is upon is at last! Nearly. Almost. Sort of. A bit. But after a year in which the world-famous videogame trailer convention and Keanu Reeves meme factory was sidelined by this virus thing (Google it), it’s nice to have a major entertainment landmark back in the calendar.

Last year was a bit frustrating, but also interesting. For a long time I’ve wondered about the need – as a consumer – for huge conventions such as E3. It makes sense for the industry, sure, the same way Sundance or something does for film: it’s a way for creators to showcase their wares and hopefully secure deals or employment. But as a way of showing to the public games that are in development, or announcing new things, it’s seemed old-fashioned for quite a while. It requires developers and executives to turn into PT Barnum or something, hawking their wares on elaborate stages, titivating their offerings with dances and celebrity appearances. Sure, sometimes it’s genuinely excellent and entertaining, but most often it’s memorable for all the wrong reasons. With many companies now engaging directly with fans by releasing curated videos that announce their games in their own way, in their own time, would that not have been better? If last year is anything to go by, then no, not really. What we got – and this may have been in large part due to 2020’s unique circumstances – was a long, long summer and autumn filled with rumour and conjecture, and occasional, uninspiring videos, often featuring CG trailers, often for games that were literally years away. On the one hand, lots was announced; on the other, it all felt vague and woolly, and the slow drip-feed did nothing but build anticipation to unrealistic proportions. Without E3 serving as some kind of anchor point – in time, if nothing else – then the spray-gun smattering of videos, trailers, and announcements felt disparate and a little disappointing.

And so it’s back! But not quite. Because, understandably, the huge convention aspect is gone, replaced by a wholly online event. And whilst this may be detrimental to people who want to secure a distribution deal for their game, it might actually make for better showcases for us, the unwashed masses. Instead of a ninety-minute stagebound light entertainment extravaganza that ends up feeling like a ten million dollar school play, we’ll (hopefully) get tightly edited videos that highlight the games, alongside trimmed-down and relevant talking head interviews from developers explaining what we can expect and just how many bumps they’ve managed to map this year. At least, that’s what I hope will happen.

Of course, exactly what E3 is nowadays is a bit weird anyway, and this year exacerbates that. Loads of companies seem to shun the show itself but schedule their presentations for the same week or thereabouts, giving us, what, a fortnight (with a “gh”) or so of things to look forward to. I mean, it feels a bit weird putting this list out a full week before E3 formally kicks off, but I wanted to try to pre-empt any interesting amusing reveals that might occur in the days preceding (at the time of writing, Nintendo haven’t announced a new Switch, despite everyone on Twitter saying it was due any minute now). To be honest, I always like to look for the random stuff anyway, as the huge games tend to be known about or heavily rumoured well in advance (it felt like an open secret for at least a year that Playground Games were developing a new Fable, for instance, and we were just waiting to see when Microsoft would announce that). So I’ve tried to make these predictions daft, wish-fulfilment, or at least offer some kind of personal spin on the sort of thing we might expect. And, of course, as someone who tends to prefer to play on Xbox or Nintendo, there will be a skew towards those companies (anyway, Sony don’t really have a presence at E3 nowadays). And like I’ve said before, the really personal wish-fulfilment stuff I always used to “predict” in these things have started to come true – we’ve got Fable and Perfect Dark on the way, and we had Crackdown 3 a couple of years ago. If it goes on like this I’m just going to have to start wishing for loads of old Amiga games to get rebooted.

You heard it here first: E3 2022 is when we get the third-person open world Ruff ‘n’ Tumble reboot we’ve all asked for.

Anyway, here are ten predictions for E3 that probably won’t happen.

Halo Infinite multiplayer beta: we know Halo will be there, because it’s front and centre of Microsoft’s little announcement picture thing (along with what appears to be a bit of the Starfield logo). As the image also seems to show multiplayer Spartans, I imagine this will be the focus rather than more campaign gameplay. I actually think this is a big risk, as the main criticism of Halo last year was that its graphics weren’t good enough; typically, I’d say, the campaign visuals are stronger than the multiplayer portion, which tends to focus on elegantly designed levels and fast-moving gameplay. I wonder if there’ll be another, longer look at the campaign sometime later in the summer, in a dedicated Halo presentation. Anyway, one thing I think MS will do to curry favour is announce an imminent multiplayer beta. Maybe there’ll be a sign-up, but I think it would be cool if it was available for anyone in Game Pass Ultimate. It’s a way to get people to sign up for the service, and that seems to be Microsoft’s main goal right now.

Games ready to play RIGHT NOW: Psychonauts 2, Age of Empire IV, and the Xbox version of Flight Simulator have all been given age ratings recently, something that only happens relatively close to a game’s release. I think that at least one of these – maybe all three! – will be shown at the Xbox presentation, and then declared to be available immediately on Game Pass. Again, it bigs up Microsoft’s service, and would also be a cool mic drop moment for games that might be anticipated but aren’t quite the triple-A behemoths of Halo, Fallout, or Gears.

All the rays, nicely traced: one thing that’s been a bit frustrating as an Xbox Series X owner is the lack of genuine next-gen feeling experiences. I’ve really enjoyed the upgrade from a base Xbox One, and playing a game like Gears 5 feels like a huge improvement (and it’s gorgeous too). But I want to see crazy stuff that the old box couldn’t do, and not just in higher resomolutions. One of the things that I’d love to see is more ray-tracing; this is a next-gen graphical treat that, to me, feels like when I first saw games with dynamic coloured lighting twenty-five years ago. So I hope we get a proper reveal/release date for the ray-traced Minecraft expansion, but I’d also love it – now that Xbox owns everything – if the ray-traced version of Quake 2 was announced for the console. Give me them rays, Microsoft!

Quaking: speaking of the Quake series, it’s the first game’s twenty-fifth anniversary this year, and I think it needs some love. Now, id are working on their Doom reboot trilogy thing, so I don’t expect to see a fully-fledged reimagining for a few years yet, but how about re-releasing the original game on modern consoles? Doesn’t need anything fancy, just like the ports of the first Doom that are ten a penny. Quake is a bit more complex to port, it’s true, but I still think it’d be amazing to see it on consoles before the end of its anniversary year.

Nothing but Star Wars: outside of the Xbox-Bethesda conference, I hope we see some lovely, lovely Star Wars goodies. There are a few projects in development, but I’m gonna stick my neck out and say that we’ll get a fairly long look at the Knights of the Old Republic remake/reboot, a very vague teaser trailer for Fallen Order 2 (maybe even just a title reveal), and a teaser for the open-world game from Ubisoft. I don’t, unfortunately, think we’ll see anything of Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga until the Lego livestream later this summer, but for what it’s worth I’m not expecting that game till Christmas now.

Old games on Switch: I think one of the things Nintendo is going to announce is a bunch of older games coming to the Switch. We already have Skyward Sword coming, but I think we’ll hear about other classic Zelda games coming in the anniversary year. Maybe remastered Metroid Prime games too? And I think they’ll do another one of those battle royale-style versions of their classics, maybe the first Donkey Kong?

New games on a new Switch: the sheer weight of “New Switch” rumours seems to suggest it is real, but when are they announcing it if their E3-ish Direct is all about software? I wonder if we’ll see some new games for Christmas ’21 going into ’22 that are then revealed to be enhanced by this mythical Super Switch. We’ll probably see a bit more of Breath of the Wild 2 (although I think there’ll be a bigger Zelda-focused Nintendo Direct later this year). I’m gonna predict Pikmin 4. And vague teasers for both a brand new Metroid Prime game, and also for Mario Kart 9. And all of these will be designed to run better on Switchy McSwitchface. Whenever that comes out.

Microsoft buys more companies: I just think this is inevitable, and I reckon we’ll get another announcement next week. Which companies? God knows. The Flight Sim guys maybe, or The Medium developers. Or, I dunno, Team 17. Probably not Sega, as funny as that would be. Maybe a medium-sized Japanese developer. So, yeah; Microsoft’s spending spree isn’t quite over.

Sony’s not-E3 announcements: Sony appears to be skipping E3 altogether, again. So when will they have their next big video presentation? I don’t think we’ll have to wait too long personally. So what will they talk about? I’d have thought we’d see the next Spider-Man revealed this year, but the big chitter-chatter at the moment is the whole “cross-gen” conversation (my opinion is: who cares?), and also when their games will come out. well, call me pessimistic, but I think Horizon: Forbidden West will end up being early 2022, with the new God of War and Gran Turismo ending up as late 2022 releases.

Crazy talk: I think this has ended up being a relatively straight and rational list, which just won’t do. So let’s get some wild ones out of the way here at the end. Sony announces remastered versions of Lemmings and Lemmings 2 for PC! Microsoft is making new games starring their Avatars! Double Fine release a PC version of Scurvy Scallywags for Game Pass! A brand new Duke Nukem! Lucasfilm bring Ron Gilbert back to oversee a reboot of Monkey Island! Nintendo announces Switch Sports! Gabe Newell announces VR support for Xbox Series X with an exclusive port of Half-Life: Alyx! Peggle 3! Phew, glad to get that out of my system.

[entergamingxp]

Call of Duty: Warzone declassified

When we look back at a console generation for its greatest hits, it’s invariably the first-party titles that dominate – but sometimes multi-platform technologies emerge that are truly exceptional, and the fact they need to accommodate four very different consoles plus myriad PC hardware configurations only adds to the scale of the achievement. Today, Season Four of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare arrives – and I’d suggest that the IW8 engine from Infinity Ward is one of the most impressive accomplishments of the generation.

Modern Warfare 2019 is the most complete COD package of the modern era. We’ve reported before on the key technologies that make it stand apart – an engine that renders in both visible, invisible and thermal spectrums (!) while also supporting volumetrics on every light source. IW8 shifts to a physically-based materials system, bringing COD into line with the most advanced engines in the business, and offering a beautiful level of realism from every authored asset in the game. Geometry is also massively improved, delivering an unprecedented level of detail to the Call of Duty franchise. All of this is achieved in a title targeting 60 frames per second.

IW8 also revamps the background streaming system, using a hybrid tile-based approach, opening the door to bigger, more detailed worlds. It’s the reason why the campaign is more detailed, but it’s also how Infinity Ward delivered the vast Ground War mode of the launch code – but battle royale takes this to another level, as I discovered when visiting Infinity Ward’s tech hub in Poland at the end of February. I spent the day with Principal Rendering Engineer Michal Drobot, who is also the studio head of the Polish arm of the developer.

To begin with, it’s true to say that Treyarch presented the first COD battle royale, using its own engine to deliver 2018’s Blackout – but aside from some initial tech sharing based on the Black Ops dev’s super terrain technology, Warzone was built independently. And what’s fascinating about it is that a whole slew of new techniques were deployed to make battle royale possible – but all of these systems integrate with the other game modes too. The optimisations that make Warzone possible feed back into every other mode, improving performance.

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Call of Duty Modern Warfare’s engine upgrades for battle royale revealed and explained with exclusive behind-the-scenes information and debug code access.

Infinity War’s objectives for Warzone were ambitious. The aim was to create a battle royale map that had the same level of fidelity and detail as the core multiplayer maps – and that’s precisely what’s been delivered. The multiplayer maps are the battle royale map. When the locations are authored, they are done so within the overall canvas of the Warzone map. This makes Warzone the largest map in the history of the Call of Duty franchise. Its basic structure is derived from satellite data – it’s shrunk down to a certain extent but its geography mirrors the landmarks of a real city, with the downtown section alone comprising of six districts. A Ground War map takes around four to five months to successfully execute and there are seven of them contained within the single Warzone map, along with other major multiplayer maps – and that’s before we factor in the connective areas of the map between these major blocks.

There’s also continuity too. If you’ve been playing Modern Warfare across its seasons, you’ll note that there’s been a consistent narrative emerging that spans across game modes – so the upshot of this is is that not only are the multiplayer maps contained within Warzone, if the content changes as we move between seasons, that should be reflected across all modes. I also like the way that the Infinity Ward taps into their own heritage – Modern Warfare 2019 is a reboot, but there are nods to the old continuity. The TV studio in Warzone is a remake of the map found in Call of Duty 4, the original Modern Warfare. The gulag essentially the same structure we saw in Modern Warfare 2 and its recent remaster.

Making all of this possible is the process of technology evolution within the IW8 engine. The hybrid tile streaming system that Modern Warfare 2019 shipped with has radically evolved. The fundamental idea is still the same: tiles or chunks are loaded into RAM based on an algorithm that determines the priority of data most likely to be needed as you look around the terrain and move through it. In the video above, you’ll see the debug tools Infinity Ward uses to visualise the streaming system. Environmental ‘chunks’ can be sub-divided into four smaller chunks, and they’re three levels deep. Streaming begins with what Infinity Ward calls transients, the foundations if you like, and on top of that is loose loading for meshes and textures.

The streaming system relies on three LOD levels. Click on the thumbnail here for a closer look.

Accommodating Ground War and Warzone’s needs for extreme visibility across big maps, the refined IW8 engine has a fascinating level of detail systems. LOD0 is, as you might expect, the full detail model authored by Infinity Ward’s artists. Further out, you get LOD1 – meshes and textures are distilled down and simplified into a single block. I got the chance to see the various LODs at close-range in a way that they were never meant to be seen, and it’s interesting how well LOD1 holds up. I also saw a LOD1 chunk in situ within the game, and again, I was hard-pressed to tell the difference at the range it was rendered at (which was closer to the player than I expected). The final level of detail is LOD2, which takes four LOD1 chunks and simplifies them again, collapsing them into a single chunk.

Also key to level of detail are the use of imposters. Elements like trees can be pretty difficult and costly to render and at range, you’re potentially paying a heavy cost for rendering something that’s really small and may only occupy a few pixels on-screen. Imposters are used fairly commonly now (Fortnite is a good example) and the idea is straightforward enough. When an object is far enough from the viewer, there’s no need to render a 3D model at all. You can use a 2D billboard – a flat texture, a single triangle – instead. Typically, each object has 36 billboard variations, designed to represent the 3D model viewed from various angles. Trees are the obvious example for the use of imposters but other elements get the billboard treatment too – vehicles, for example.

Streaming, memory management and accurately predicting what data is going to be needed and when is essential in making the larger scale Call of Duty work. It satisfies the design objectives in allowing artists to equal core multiplayer map quality and to run the game at 60 frames per second. The entire approach also allows Call of Duty to do things in battle royale that is competitors are struggling to match. For example, Warfare has internal access to pretty much every building there is and not only that, these interiors were properly modelled too, in a world where some titles use procedural generation to fill empty spaces with what looks like random clutter.

A debug view of Warzone in motion. On the bottom left, you can see the tile-based streaming system and a legend describing what’s happening in system memory on a per-chunk basis..

The latest Call of Duty engine does use procedural generation, however, mostly for incidental detail on the terrain: foliage, rocks and other random items. In fact, pretty much anything that doesn’t impact collision detection is procedurally generated and the nature of what you get depends on the surrounding biome. This is procedural generation and not random generation, so the same seed variable is used for all players on all systems. In practise what this means is that the nature of the environment is identical to all players on all systems, something we verified by capturing crossplay Warzone on PS4 Pro and Xbox One X, while spectating the same player. Procedural generation adds to processing time of course, but the bigger win comes from a reduction in the storage footprint: Infinity Ward reckons it saves around five to six gigabytes of data.

More instrumental to actual performance is the new shadow map caching system, which required a fundamental revamp, as shadow rendering is essentially incompatible with the chunk-based streaming system. Imagine the sun quite low in the sky, with light hitting a tall skyscraper. In theory, its shadow could cast across the entire map, way beyond the single chunk the building resides in. At the basic level, the new caching system brings in the most efficient shadow map based on the view frustum, with a level of detail system used.

Wavelet compression technology, used in video compression, is used to reduce the footprint of shadowmaps versus standard birmaps. In terms of what is actually streamed in and when, the new set-up is an efficient caching system with building blocks similar to those found in actual an actual physical CPU. Infinity Ward talks about building is own prefetcher and predictor – the same language used by Intel and AMD processor architects.

The shadow cascade streaming system is vastly more efficient and prevents larger scale game modes from becoming CPU-limited.

It’s all very clever but what fundamental difference does it make? Going back to the launch of Modern Warfare 2019, the closest thing we had to battle royale was Ground War, and there the tech team discovered that for pretty much the first time in COD history, they were CPU-limited. The new shadow caching system wasn’t devised solely for use by Warzone, it wasn’t a battle royale-specific piece of tech, it’s an optimisation in the truest sense of the word – taking something that already exists and making it better, meaning that it’s rolled out to all areas of Modern Warfare 2019. CPU-bound limitations in Ground War are therefore eliminated. A revamped shadow caching system is also in place for other shadows – those which are not cast by the sun. Especially for indoor locations illuminated with spot light, this system also caches in shadows. There are 64 slots of prefiltered shadow maps here with eight shadow updates per frame. Again, similar to the main system, it’s not something that runs on a per frame basis – and it doesn’t really need to.

Back in the day, Call of Duty shipped with two physical executables – one for the campaign, the other for multiplayer with both presumably optimised accordingly. A core change in philosophy has seen this approach binned in favour of a unified codebase that brings together all technology into a single package – but ongoing optimisation means that all parts of the game cumulatively benefit. The Pine level, for example, launched on PlayStation 4 Pro not quite hitting its performance target. It still maintained 60 frames per second, but it had to lean into the dynamic resolution scaler to reduce pixel count and ensure full frame-rate.

Multiplayer maps are authored within the battle royale map and always have been. It ensures continuity of content across the whole game – and despite the larger scale, Warzone is as detailed as core MP.

Foliage rendering has significantly improved since launch, so there’s an improvement in resolution. In fact although you won’t feel it in terms of frame-rate in this specific case, render times generally are improved by 10 to 20 per cent. Similarly, optimisation across the board with each new title update has also seen progressive improvements to overall performance. On a content level, Infinity Ward has targeted the multiplayer maps as a priority for improved performance because that’s the area of the game most players are accessing but the knock-on effect is that systems in campaign run faster too.

Speaking to Infinity Ward, I made a startling discovery. When you stand back and look at the four console platforms, there is a lot of commonality between them. All of them use the same core AMD Jaguar CPU technology and they all feature AMD’s GCN graphics architecture. While this may be more straightforward than the Xbox 360/PlayStation 3 set-up of the last generation, the tech team estimate that around 30 per cent of their time is spent addressing multi-platform development issues. Interestingly, Infinity Ward ranks PS4 Pro as the most challenging of the four current-gen consoles that Call of Duty is available for.

Put simply, the expectation from the user base is for 4K video output, but Sony only gifts developers an extra 512MB of RAM to play with. Meanwhile, the boost on Xbox One X is four gigabytes in total – eight times as much. This opens the door to higher resolution, but also gives the streaming system much more room to stretch its legs. Theoretically, this should result in less pop-in and less aggressive LODs over longer distances – but head-to-head video doesn’t provide much in the way of a noticeable advantage.

Warzone performance sees Xbox One X deliver more pixels with a slightly lower level of performance – but the gap has tightened since battle royale launched.

With consoles targeting 60 frames per second, Call of Duty has to cram the rendering for each frame into around 16ms, and this broken up into two distinct phases. First of all, the basics of the scene are calculated and lit – a process that takes around seven milliseconds. The next seven milliseconds is spent on basically everything else: volumetrics and post-processing, for example. Around 1.5 to 2.5 milliseconds is spent on temporal upsampling – integrating visual data from prior frames into the current one. The more detail rich a scene is, the heavier the cost in rendering terms. Asynchronous compute is used on all systems, including PC. It’s more heavily optimised on consoles though, providing performance uplifts of around 20 to 30 per cent in the expensive scenes. Systems like volumetrics and particles can run asynchronously.

All of this technology comes together to make Warzone possible – and even factoring out IW8’s application in campaign and core multiplayer, its deployment for battle royale alone sees a radical improvement in technology, visual fidelity and performance over other genre entries. Compare and contrast with the fortunes of PUBG that launched late in 2017 and it’s fascinating to see how colossal the improvement is in every regard in less than 2.5 years. Back in May 2019, I first visited Infinity Ward to get a breakdown on the technological leap delivered by IW8, and it was clear that this engine was designed to straddle the generations and to allow Infinity Ward and other COD studios to transition more seamlessly to PS5 and Xbox Series X. What we didn’t know was what hardware the developers would have access to.

While Infinity Ward itself wasn’t sharing specifics, it’s easy to see how the existing systems could transition across to next generation hardware. Extra graphics power means denser visuals, obviously, but the concept of the streaming systems we’ve discussed here backed up by a storage speed multiplier of 40x or 100x (depending on the console) opens the door to the kind of visual quality that exceeds the campaign being made possible in multiplayer. The streaming system also fits hand-in-glove with the fact that PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X do not deliver what we would typically consider to be a generational leap in memory allocation. Modern Warfare 2019 also saw some tentative experimentation with ray tracing support, which may be invaluable research when dealing with the hardware RT functionality baked into the new consoles.

In the meantime, it’s all about Season Four of Modern Warfare and the debut of a specific mode may put into practise a theoretical scenario I put forward to the developer: what if all of the battle royale players grouped together and one player stepped back to get all of the others into view – would the system be able to cope? According to the studio, they’ve witnessed legitimate scenarios where 50 to 100 players could be seen on-screen. Looking from one big city area to another via sniper scope, apparently up to 120 players could be observed. Season Four’s new 50 vs 50 mode should really allow us to stress test the massively multiplayer aspect of this remarkable engine in a way that Ground War never could – and we’ll be fascinated to see how it holds up.

from EnterGamingXP https://entergamingxp.com/2020/06/call-of-duty-warzone-declassified/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=call-of-duty-warzone-declassified

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Uncharted: A New Legacy

 Thanks to Sony and the CoronaVirus, I've decided to replay the Uncharted series. I'm currently racing through 1-4 in quick succession. Not only is it good timing and the right price (read: free), but Uncharted is a beloved gaming IP. I enjoyed Drake and Co. immensely during their heydey and it's a little bizarre I haven't returned them at all. It probably has something to do with raging on UC3s online multiplayer literally every day for about a year, but either way, I haven't touched Uncharted since The Lost Legacy dropped in 2017. And the only other Naughty Dog property I've engaged with since then is The Last of Us Remastered, which, if I'm being perfectly honest, I did not finish. I couldn't finish it. I was bored to death. The story is dull, the world is depressing and the gameplay is mediocre most of the time. So of course after diving back into Uncharted I'm more than a little surprised that a) it still rocks and b) I kinda just want more Drake in my life. 

We all knew our introduction to Nathan  wasn't that great. Drake's Fortune didn't garner much critical praise and I don't think I even knew a single person that had played it. But when Uncharted 2 dropped, heads started to turn. And that same transition is incredibly noticeable in 2020. Since we've progressed so far with gaming in terms of fidelity, control and presentation, the evolutionary leap made from UC 1 to 2 is nothing short of jaw dropping. Playing through the first entry is a bit of a slog; the mechanics can be frustrating at times (jet skis), the graphics are pretty dated (the remaster does a nice job up-resing though) and the motivations for Drake are limited at best (why is he a treasure hunter? why are we killing so many people?). However, the characters are there and the promise of lush, international locales could prove to be very promising in the future... 

Which... spoiler alert! It is. Uncharted 2 opens up with the infamous "train" scene and proves confidently it's not quite the same studio at the helm. Witnessing that "glow-up" is fascinating and great for your historical edification. We see the combat improve, the characters grow deeper together and overall UC 2 is a smashing success. My only real complaint is that it's a bit long in the tooth. Some scenes drag on just a little bit too long and the ever typical argument that Nate is just a psychopathic mass murderer feels hard to overlook. 

But then we enter UC3 and everything starts to feel a little more familiar. We start seeing the groundwork for The Last of Us, not only in assets, but in storytelling. Nate shoots far less and there's a lot more of an "experience" at hand. However, while it bowled me over at the time, it somewhat only frustrates me now. Going from 1, to 2, then 3, I had just played some kick ass treasure-hunting "shooters" only to have the story try and get far too involved for my liking. I was constantly fighting the camera trying to investigate various corners of the map only to have it draw my attention elsewhere. Scenes of great dramatic action, while remarkable, were far too scripted, making it seem like I simply had to push the joystick in a direction and hit X when appropriate. And as I push my way through UC4, something makes itself prevalent: Uncharted is a better game than an experience.

UC3, in my mind, is still the pinnacle of what Uncharted can and should be. Marry the Third's grand scope with its narrative and fluid gameplay to the Second's gameplay-focused presentation and we'd have one of the greatest serialized franchises ever. Can you imagine playing a new, nearly bite-sized Uncharted every year? Set in a different location? This brings me to The Lost Legacy. From what I remember it's exactly what I'm describing. All the polish and sheen from 4 blended with the pulpy action of 3 tossed into a shorter (cheaper) game. Because as of right now, Uncharted 4 isn't winning me over. It's too dark, too serious. It has lost sight, completely, of what makes Uncharted so enjoyable, likable even. While a lot of the graphical impressiveness truly does provide a sense of wonder, the story doesn't feel right, the characters aren't realized the same way as I've come to love them and its obvious Naughty Dog has moved on from Drake.

Yet not long after A Thief's End (UC4), the crowning achievement for Uncharted gets released in The Lost Legacy. And more wondrous than Uncharted is the Tomb Raider franchise. Rebooting itself shortly after Nate began making waves in the gaming community, I knew it then and I stand by it now: Tomb Raider is the better game. Crystal Dynamics absolutely ace what makes this "adventure thriller" genre exciting, wrapping in some RPG elements even, giving gamers a total feast of gaming excellence. However, its story is garbage. Okay, maybe not garbage, but it's essentially throw-away (like garbage) and impacts your actions little to none. In fact, after playing through Tomb Raider, I didn't mind the lack of story, but thought to myself, "I really hope this [aspect] improves." And after playing the sequel, I thought to myself again, "Man, still not a great story. That was a kick ass game, but can I really play the third?" Sure enough, when Shadow of the Tomb Raider came out not only did the community not seem to care, when I finally got around to playing it I also couldn't find any reason to dig deep and complete it. I even texted a buddy exclaiming how incredible the gameplay / presentation is. But after only a handful of hours I gave up because I asked myself, "Why am I playing the same game for the third time?"

There's hope for Uncharted yet. The Lost Legacy was a standout release, in my eyes, and can absolutely be the future blueprint. We've seen Drake's story executed in a few different manners thus far and if you toss in what can be learned from the Tomb Raider franchise, all signs point to more of The Lost Legacy. Because not only does that game understand what Uncharted is, it also recognizes that Drake does not need to be at the center. While I don't care for Nadine at all, Chloe is a bad ass protagonist. Elena, Sully-- they would be sweet too. And if the speculation proves correctly: why not give it to Nate and Elena's daughter?

It's amazing to me how the future seems so wide open for Uncharted even when the series is so lauded and realized. But in replaying all the mainline Uncharteds, it's even more amazing to me how disappointed I am by their legacy. In revisiting Drake's story I'm realizing now how much room for improvement there is and while I originally was glad to see Sony say goodbye to Uncharted... maybe it truly does need to be revisited.

Like any good treasure hunt, sometimes you need all the right pieces of the puzzle first. And with Uncharted, if anything, we've only begun to realize Drake's legacy. 

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PC Gaming Week: 7 best strategy games for PC and Mac you can play today

Games that just a COMPUTER can provide

Strategy video games make you assume. They're not such as most shooters that provide mindless gameplay, or the adventure game that has you leaping off cliffs as well as driving boats.

Strategy video games need your mind juices in any way times to prepare each move very carefully as well as assess just what the opponent will certainly do following-- promptly. They require you to establish militaries, build worlds and collect resources in the procedure.

But technique games aren't nearly the gameplay: they typically supply sprawling, geopolitical tales also that hook gamers and maintain them concentrated on the campaign. That stated, just what makes a technique video game excellent is just how it pulls gamers into its mythology as well as enables them to accomplish goals without overcomplicating it.

Here is a handful of strategy online games on the PC as well as Mac that attain this equilibrium perfectly.

1. StarCraft II

Blizzard Home entertainment launched the first StarCraft sci-fi armed forces strategy video game back in 1998, and also while it was incredibly prominent, the video game wasn't the mammoth item StarCraft II has actually come to be. With the sequel, Snowstorm has actually launched three installments that extend one substantial project: Wings of Freedom (2010), Heart of the Flock (2013) as well as Legacy of the Void (2015).

Each of these launches concentrate on a certain lead character team: human exiles called the Terrans in Wings of Freedom, the Borg-like insectoids called Zerg in Heart of the Throng, as well as the telepathic alien race referred to as the Protoss in Heritage of the Space. The overall campaign happens 4 years after the Brood Battle development pack for the original StarCraft, starting with Jim Raynor's quest to remove the high-handed Terran Dominion.

StarCraft II is successful by incorporating sharp tactical gameplay and also balance with an immersive story and also surroundings. The online game additionally includes its very own degree editor, enabling gamers to share their maps as well as mods through the Battle.net online neighborhood. Naturally, StarCraft II can be played online-- it's one of the widest-played eSports worldwide-- however presently it does not offer local LAN play. StarCraft II can just be bought from Snowstorm Entertainment digitally and in boxed versions.

2. Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos

Here's another prominent approach game from Snowstorm, though with a distinctly dream style. It was released back in 2002 as well as features a single-player campaign story that's informed with the eyes of 4 races: Humans, Orcs, the Undead, as well as the Evening Elves.

As with StarCraft, players are commonly confronted with a map covered in a black fog, which is gradually gotten rid of as you discovers the location (Diablo does this, also). You start by mining information, building settlements as well as developing soldiers in order to shield your assets as well as take control of other components of the map. A day/night pattern maintains players on their toes, too.

There are an overall of five campaigns in Warcraft III that center on a certain race: one for the Night Elves, one for the Undead, one for the People, as well as 2 for the Orcs. Objectives are labeled as 'missions' and are rolled out as the player checks out a map. The are both major quests an optional pursuits to carry out, the previous being called for in order to move the story forward-- natch.

Warcraft III additionally supplies a multiplayer component that can be played over neighborhood LAN. Snowstorm also released a growth pack called The Frozen Throne that was published back in 2003. Both the original video game and also the development could be purchased for the PC and also Mac through Blizzard's on the internet website, and also in a Battle Upper body retail box.

3. XCOM 2

This method online game is rather brand-new for the PC, Mac and also Linux channels, established by Firaxis Games and also published by 2K Gamings in February 2016. It occurs Twenty Years after XCOM: Opponent Unidentified (2012), and also sees the Planet taken control of by aliens-- just what else?-- in spite of XCOM's best efforts.

In this installation, XCOM is currently component of a resistance activity aimed to reclaim control of the planet.

In the single-player project, players assume command of XCOM, a former military company that is currently a simple resistance force. A new Avenger mobile base has been set up where from you provide commands while heading research study and engineering divisions to develop tools and also other tools that will certainly assist combat the hostile aliens.

What makes XCOM 2 stick out is its maps, which are lavish as well as abundant thoroughly, as well as it's strategy-rich, turn-based combat. They're likewise different each time you play them, maintaining the game fresh. Along with the single-player project, there's additionally a peer-to-peer multiplayer mode, pitting players versus each other making use of squads blended with alien and also XCOM units.

XCOM 2 could be purchased through Vapor, Amazon.com and also other sellers in boxed and also digital editions.

4. Cities: Skylines

If you were disappointed by the messy launch of the extensively frustrating SimCity reboot back in 2013, take relief in that 2 years later on an advancement group with a greater understanding of its target market took fee of the category in a much a lot more decent, and much less flagrant, manner.

Sacrificing all the always-online DLC traits in favor of holding larger cities and also Heavy steam Workshop support for mods, Cities: Horizons is every little thing classic SimCity players wanted, and would certainly have obtained if it just weren't for whatever the hell took place at Maxis.

Cities: Horizons preserves the appeal of early city building simulations with a handful of modern twists. An in-game social networks solution for example called Chirper allows citizens obtain in contact with you, the globe designer, to voice problems.

More noteworthy, however, is the thrill of handling traffic paths on an area to district basis. As a matter of fact, most of your administration in Cities: Skylines is separated by areas, making tax as real to the USA as developmentally possible.

5. Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War

Developed by Antique Amusement as well as published by THQ in 2004, this armed forces sci-fi video game is based on the Warhammer 40,000 tabletop wargame. The game occurs on the royal world of Tartarus that's presently overrun by Orks. Behind-the-scenes, the human-run Imperium remains in consistent battle with the Orks-- in addition to those human beings offering the demonic Turmoil and also the Eldar (room fairies)-- in a battle to maintain the human race alive.

That said, the game supplies 4 militaries the gamer can make use of throughout the single-player project: Area Militaries (extraordinary soldiers), Mayhem Marines (mutated marines), the psychic race of Eldars (once more, space elves), and also the savage Orks. Resources consist of power as well as appropriation, the latter which is generated by the military head office. Power is created by establishing generators that will degeneration in time, maintaining the player busy.

The game begins with you establishing your major headquarters and a number of fundamental systems. Then, you're routed to concentrate on recording and also holding tactical areas on the map that could later be utilized to harvest extra resources and also unlock nearby locations on said map. Battles are won by getting riding of bases inhabited by opponent forces, or by hanging on to areas for a duration of time.

There are 3 development packs for this RTS title currently offered: Winter season Assault (2005), Dark Crusade (2006) and also Soulstorm (2008). Every one of these, consisting of the base online game, can be acquired on Steam instead cheap.

6. Homeworld

This is an oldie however a goodie, created by Antique Entertainment and published by Sierra Entertainment in 1999. The primary protagonists are the Kushan, that at once were exiled to a nest of prison ships after losing a stellar war. Other races include the Taiidan, an interstellar realm that rules many of the galaxy, the Bentusi traders, the Kadeshi, the Turanic Raiders as well as the Galactic Council.

A essential component that divides Homeworld from the other video games in this article is that it's played in a 100% 3D area, hence its specialized following.

The usable races contain the Taiidan and also the Kushan. Each have their particular staminas and weaknesses, and also are at first entrusted to gather minerals from planets and also produce dust clouds using special spacecrafs, which bring these resources back to the gamer's information controller ship, carrier or mothership. Ultimately, the task handy is to keep the fleet to life as it completes objectives and compiles resources.

Ther things of the tale is to situate the homeworld of the Kushan, called Hiigara. This story spans sixteen missions across the single-player campaign, which sees the making it through ships of the fleet carried over to the next mission. There was an online multiplayer element to the game as well-- enabling players to helm either the Taiidan or Kushan.

Homeworld is readily available for Windows and Mac OS X in a Remastered collection by Transmission Software program on Heavy steam, which includes the remastered variations of Homeworld as well as Homeworld 2, timeless variations of both video games, and more.

7. The Banner Saga 2

Like the initial online game, The Banner Saga 2 reprises the Pick Your very own Adventure layout, however with a handful of necessary improvements to its auto mechanics.

While it's not a full-on video game sequel, but instead an episodic extension of the first video game, rather essentially beginning at Chapter 8, Banner Saga 2 handles to take the fight system from the initial as well as turn (base) it on its head.

By including brand-new personalities, classes, as well as by default, brand-new capabilities, the online game really feels a little much less like a two-year-late second episode and even more like a considerate follow-up to a beloved faux-nordic traditional approach video game. Also exclusive to the sequel are instances of even more easily integrated narration in-battle, all without overlooking the requirement for an increased range that'll make you seem like an ant contrasted to your combatants.