Author: Trafficblast

Mafia: Definitive Edition is coming to PS4, Xbox One, and PC on September 25, and once it’s out, developer Hanger 13 is going to move on to something entirely new–their own IP. GameSpot has a full interview with Haden Blackman, the game’s director, and he talks about the studio’s plans for the future.

Blackman says that after finishing the DLC for Mafia III, the team began work on a new IP. This could be a reference to Rhapsody, a Berlin-set spy game that was reportedly in the works at the developer (the game’s map was found inside Mafia III: Definitive Edition). It’s unclear whether Rhapsody is still being worked on, but something other than Mafia is definitely in the works.

While work was going on this IP, the team started to think about what to do next with Mafia, and eventually settled on a remake of the original. This came about because it was clear they were not ready to start on an entirely new project just yet. “When we started to wind down on Mafia III, we had already started kicking around ideas for our original IP,” Blackman recalls. “We knew that we were going to have a team, especially on the art and kind of media team side, that we wouldn’t be able to leverage right away.”

Asked if this new version of Mafia was a way of “putting a neat bow” on the franchise before moving onto this new IP, Blackman said that this is the case. ” I mean, I wouldn’t say that it’s a goal in the sense that we’re not going to return to the franchise,” he clarifies. “As you know, a lot of it will really depend on how successful the Definitive Edition is and what the reception is.”

Work on a new IP is happening right now, he says, calling Hanger 13 a “multi-project studio”. Beyond this, he says, “we’ve got a couple of other things in the works as well.”

“I wouldn’t say that Mafia: Definitive Edition means that we’re done with the franchise,” he continues. “I think that we’ve got some ideas kicking around, but a lot of it’s just really going to depend on what the reception is like and how well it does in the market.”

You can watch the Mafia: Definitive Edition extended gameplay reveal trailer above.

EA Sports UFC 4 will not feature the commentating talents of Joe Rogan, who is one of the league’s main commentators in real life. Creative director Brian Hayes tells GameSpot that Rogan has never enjoyed doing voiceover for the franchise, but this is the first time he won’t be in the series at all.

For EA Sports UFC 3, the developers at EA Sports had to splice together Rogan’s voice lines from real UFC fights to put in the game. But for this year’s game, Rogan is completely out.

“He hasn’t been shy about saying this on his own podcast; like, he hates doing it,” Hayes said. “If you’re not a person that [can] mentally get into that space, then I can see how it could be a very, you know, challenging, potentially mind-numbing experience for a certain type of individual.”

Hayes said the developers knew since the first EA Sports UFC game that Rogan felt this way about doing voiceover, because he expressed similar opinions about the work he did for other UFC games.

“He was open with us from from the very beginning that he hated his experience of doing voiceover on previous iterations of other UFC games, and things were no different for us,” Hayes said. “He hated doing voiceover on these games as well. That has nothing to do with with us in particular, or, you know, our games versus other games. He just does not like sitting in a booth reading lines for hours at a time.”

With Rogan out, the new commentary team in EA Sports UFC 4 is comprised of former light heavyweight and heavyweight champion Daniel “DC” Cormier and UFC’s Jon Anik.

EA Sports UFC 4 launches in August for PS4 and Xbox One. The game makes a number of major changes to the formula, and you can see some of the gameplay improvements in the video above. Check back soon with GameSpot for more from our conversation with Hayes.

While EA Sports UFC 4 will no longer feature the Ultimate Team mode, those who pre-order will be able to play as heavyweight boxing champions Anthony Joshua and Tyson Fury.

Crysis Remastered is coming to Switch very soon–its release date is set for July 23, despite the other versions being delayed–and many fans have been curious about how the game will run on the system. Crysis is a famously CPU-intensive game, and this represents the first mobile or handheld port the game has received. Considering that “Can It Run Crysis?” has become a meme in games culture, it’s more than reasonable to be curious.

Thankfully, tech specialists Digital Foundry are here with a tech review on the latest in a line of what they are calling the Switch’s “impossible” ports (previous examples include The Witcher 3 and Wolfenstein II). The verdict is in, and it’s mostly good news–the game looks and performs very well on the system.

The port has been handled by Saber Interactive, who previously handled the ports of The Witcher 3 and Vampyr. They’ve been very upfront about the tech running the game on Switch, and released a tech trailer showing off what it could do–and now Digital Foundry has dug in even deeper into what they call “a remarkable, fascinating port.”

The port is based on the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions of the game, albeit with enough improvements for Digital Foundry to declare this “undoubtedly the best console port” (upcoming PS4 and Xbox One versions notwithstanding). The game runs at 720P most of the time in docked mode, sometimes dropping to 540P or lower in “busy situations”, and the full dynamic resolution scaling ranges from 540P to 900P docked, and 400P to 700P undocked. “The main takeaway is that image quality isn’t bad,” the report states. “It’s not pristine, but it’s significantly better than the heavily blurred presentations seen in the likes of the id Tech 6 ports, The Witcher 3 and Warframe.”

The game also boasts significantly improved lighting, surpassing even the PC version in some places, thanks to the use of sparse voxel-based global illumination. This “delivers a real-time global illumination system that offers both ambient occlusion and indirect light bounce, delivering a standard of realism that easily eclipses the last-gen ports and indeed the lighting found in the PC original.”

The game’s frame rate is locked at 30, with occasional dips into the low-20s when there’s a lot of action on screen. There are some compromises in the vegetation destruction, too: “when you unload on a tree, it appears somewhat choppy,” the report says.

Here’s the full 27-minute video from Digital Foundry, digging into every aspect of the Switch port.

Crysis Remastered marks the first appearance of the Crysis series on a Nintendo system. Thankfully, we can put aside our fears for this port–it is not a Potato Mode situation.

Microsoft’s Xbox division is enjoying very strong results lately, due in part to the COVID-19 pandemic that’s keeping people at home playing games. Microsoft reported earnings on Wednesday, and the Xbox division saw its revenue rise by a massive 64 percent (up $1.3 billion).

The sales uptick was led by “growth in Xbox content and services.” Content and services revenue jumped by $1.2 billion (up 65 percent) due in part to “record engagement” as stay-at-home measures remain in place. Additionally, Microsoft said it enjoyed “strength” from third-party games, which pay Microsoft to be on their store.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said “it was simply a breakthrough quarter for gaming,” adding that Xbox Game Pass is seeing “record subscriber growth” on console and PC. However, he did not provide a new figure beyond the 10 million subscriber number that Microsoft announced earlier.

Not only did content and services revenue rise, but hardware also posted gains, rising by 49 percent thanks to more consoles sold than before. Microsoft just recently discontinued some Xbox models.

These results put Microsoft on a strong footing ahead of the Xbox Series X launch later this year, possibly in November. As you can see in the chart below, Xbox dominated all of Microsoft’s other major business categories when it comes to year-over-year revenue growth.

Xbox’s fortunes are due to grow further still with the release of the Xbox Series X and Halo Infinite this holiday. Microsoft will showcase Halo Infinite and other Xbox exclusives during an event on Thursday.

Adult Swim Games has announced a release date for Samurai Jack: Battle Through Time, and it’s not far away. The game will launch on August 21 for Switch, PS4, Xbox One, and PC through both Steam and the Epic Games Store. The game, which is developed by Soleil Games (Naruto to Boruto: Shinobi Striker) will retail for $40.

The game, which is writen by Darrick Bachman (head writer of the series), follows Jack after he’s trapped in an alternate timeline during their final battle. Jack has to return to his own time, which means teaming up with his friends in this other timeline and defeating enemies that series fans will likely recognize.

The release date trailer, below, shows Jack battling using a variety of different weapons, including a gun. There will be over a dozen weapons in the game. It also looks like you’ll be able to play as both the traditional, clean-shaven Jack and the more ragged version of the character from the show’s final season.

You’ll be able to unlock new combos and upgrade skill trees as you play. More of the game will be shown off during Adult Swim Con, which runs online from July 23 to 25.

Some new screenshots have been released too, showing off the game’s great cartoon aesthetic. You can check them out below.

The last Samurai Jack game released was 2004’s Samurai Jack: The Shadow of Aku, released for PS2 and GameCube. Samurai Jack ended in 2017, following a 13-year gap between Season 4 and Season 5.

new: sources tell me due to recent media coverage of fake giveaways and potentially unconstitutional bans, the US Army esports team has paused social activity, streaming on Twitch, and official activations with Twitch including participating in upcoming Twitch Rivals events

— Rod Breslau (@Slasher) July 22, 2020

Ahead of the studio’s next release, Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time, Toys for Bob has unleashed The Art of Spyro Reignited Trilogy, a thorough art book that also delves into the process of reimagining the classic trilogy of Spyro adventures.

Check out the gallery below for a selection of pages from the book, which features a look at the gorgeous character and world art from the Reignited Trilogy and is now available for purchase.

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“Making Spyro Reignited Trilogy was a leap of faith – full of exhilaration, hope, wonder, fear, and doubt,” art director Josh Nadelberg writes in the book’s introduction. “We had the most delightful source material to work from that anyone could possibly imagine, an amazingly talented team, and an organization who believed in us and supported us every step of the way. But more than anything, we knew that we were working on something that was going to mean so much to people whose memories of Spyro were formative and profound.”

The book is full of insights into character and world design choices, the process of creating Spyro himself, and explanation for many of the choices the artists made in adapting those PS One characters for a new life on modern consoles. Nadelberg, Nicholas Kole, Serina Mo, and more artists offer insight alongside the art, which spans across all three games in the Reignited Trilogy.

In our Spyro Reignited Trilogy review, I praised the artistry of the worlds, which in many ways brought characters and locations to life in unexpected ways. Every dragon Spyro rescues in the original Spyro the Dragon is now a unique character, while everything from the Summer Forest of Spyro 2: Ripto’s Rage to the Evening Lake of Spyro: Year of the Dragon has been modernized with a host of new details.

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For more on Toys for Bob’s latest, be sure to check out all the reveal info we learned about Crash Bandicoot 4’s gameplay and story, take a look at an extended bit of gameplay, and know that the developers have confirmed Crash Bandicoot 4 won’t have microtransactions.

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Jonathon Dornbush is IGN’s Senior News Editor and host of Podcast Beyond! Talk to him on Twitter @jmdornbush.

Balan Company, a new Square Enix studio focused on making action games, will reveal its first title tomorrow.

Announced on the studio’s website, the announcement will come on July 23 at 10am Pacific / 1pm Eastern / 9pm UK (that’s July 24 at 5am AEST). A follow-up tweet from Square Enix adds that the announcement will be a “new title”.

That timing is suspiciously close to when we’d expect the Xbox Games Showcase to be wrapping up, so it feels like we may see the game as part of Microsoft’s event.

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There are precious few details about Balan Company right now, aside from the kinds of games it’s aiming to make, and that it will bring together both in-house and external developers.

This will be one of the ‘several’ games Square Enix said it would be announcing between July and August. Earlier this year, Square revealed Project Athia, a new game made exclusively for PS5 and co-written by Rogue One: A Star Wars Story co-writer Gary Whitta.

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Joe Skrebels is IGN’s Executive Editor of News. Follow him on Twitter. Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to [email protected].