Category: Games

Publisher Curve has announced that The Ascent earned more than $5 million in sales on its opening weekend. Developed by the Swedish indie studio Neon Giant, The Ascent launched on PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S, with the game also being available as part of the Game Pass subscription service on PC, console, and cloud.

Curve added that The Ascent rose to the top of Steam’s global charts, while coverage of the game on YouTube and Twitch generated more than 10 million views.

“The Ascent is the first game out of Curve where our new team has been able to substantially make their mark, working closely with the developer and our platform partners,” Curve CEO John Clark said in a press statement. “This success is the result of a genuine team effort throughout the company, the arrival of new leadership and talent, and is truly reflective of our new approach of being developer and player-focused in all that we do.”

Curve added that positive word-of-mouth from gamers interested in the title–which blends cyberpunk themes with twin-stick shooter action and RPG elements–helped build awareness in the run-up to The Ascent‘s launch weekend. It’s also possible that launching on Game Pass in fact helped sales, despite conventional thinking that might suggest otherwise.

While the game has received plenty of positive critical reception, its grand design has been missing ray-tracing and DLSS features on the PC Game Pass version, which Neon Giant says that it currently working to fix alongside other lingering bugs.

With Battlefield 2042’s technical test arriving next week, it’s no surprise that some early PC requirements have made it out into the wild. Battlefield games are a staple of PC gaming, and as such, this one seems like it will be readily accessible to most.

Revealed by Tom Henderson, a reputable Battlefield leaker, Battlefield 2042’s minimum and recommended PC requirements aren’t exactly strenuous. However, it should be noted that these specs could change between now and the game’s launch, given that these requirements are specifically for 2042’s technical test.

Battlefield 2042 PC System Requirements

Minimum:

• OS: Windows 10 64-bit
• Processor: AMD FX-8350 / Intel Core i5 6600K
• Memory: 8GB
• Video Memory: 4GB
• Graphics Card: AMD Radeon RX 560 / Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 Ti

Recommended:

• OS: Windows 10 64-bit
• Processor: AMD Ryzen 5 3600 / Intel Core i7 4790
• Memory: 16GB
• Video Memory: 8GB
• Graphics Card: AMD Radeon RX 5600 XT / Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060

Naturally, these PC requirements haven’t been made available by EA just yet, so take them with a grain of salt. That being said, if these requirements stick around for the full release of Battlefield 2042, a majority of players should be able to at least run the game at minimum settings. According to Steam’s latest hardware survey results, Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 1060 is still the most used graphics card, with the 1050 Ti coming in a somewhat distant second.

In other Battlefield 2042 news, developer Ripple Effect recently revealed the game’s newest game mode, Battlefield Portal. Portal will let players create their own game modes using assets from multiple entries in the Battlefield franchise, like Battlefield: Bad Company 2 and Battlefield 1942.

The soundtrack for this year’s NBA 2K22 will be different compared to past entries in the professional basketball series. 2K Sports has announced that instead of having a set soundtrack with a defined list of songs, NBA 2K22’s soundtrack will unfold over time through a new feature called “First Fridays.”

This ties in to NBA 2K22’s new “Seasons” approach where the game grows and evolves over time with new content across its modes. For the music specifically, new songs will be added to NBA 2K22’s soundtrack on the first Friday of each new Season. The soundtrack updates will include “a mix of high-profile and up-and-coming artists,” according to 2K.

So far, 2K has confirmed a number of big-name artists will be on the NBA 2K22 soundtrack, including Nas, Travis Scott, Freddie Gibbs, Aitch, Megan Thee Stallion, and The Game, among others. Check out the image below to see more artists whose songs will appear in the game.

“NBA 2K has become a global platform for music discovery and that continues with NBA 2K22,” NBA 2K boss Alfie Brody said in a statement. “This year, we are creating a dynamic soundtrack, complete with early access to unreleased tracks, new artists, and opportunities for fans to become part of the experience and solidify their place in video game history.”

NBA 2K22’s connection to music goes even further, as the game itself will let you record verses over beats through a new system called the Producer Series. More details about this, and the soundtrack in general, will be announced later.

NBA 2K22 launches on September 10, and this is also the day that the official NBA 2K22 playlist will be available to listen to through the 2K Beats official site.

The game is headed to PS4, Xbox One, and PC, as well as PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and Nintendo Switch. There are some differences between the various editions of the game, and you can read up on this in GameSpot’s NBA 2K22 coverage. Preorders for NBA 2K22 are now available.

In other 2K news, PGA Tour 2K21 is helping to raise money for the St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital to fight childhood cancer with a special livestream today, August 4.

A year ago, developer Mediatonic introduced the world to its adorable and anatomically-horrifying beans in Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout. To celebrate the first anniversary of the game, the developer took to Twitter to announce that a number of its older game modes will be returning for a limited time.

As an added bonus, players can earn double Crowns after winning games and the addition of new celebratory cosmetics which include a new costume set that costs 10 Kudos in the game’s online store.

Fall Guys has gone from strength to strength since it arrived in 2020, which eventually resulted in Mediatonic being acquired by Epic Games earlier this year. While the Xbox and Nintendo Switch versions of the game were indefinitely delayed, Mediatonic did add that it’s working on cross-play for Fall Guys so that players can be connected in new ways.

Fall Guys regularly adds new licensed cosmetic content to its store, which has resulted in crossovers with Cuphead, Godzilla, Tron, and Doom Eternal to name a few.

The game is currently busy with its fifth season of content, which includes content based on PlayStation’s Ratchet & Clank series. While the Ratchet-centric event is already over, a Clank-focused event will take place from August 6-15, providing players another chance to unlock the new Ratchet and Clank outfits.

Today, we have the exclusive red band trailer for Don’t Breathe 2 and it showcases plenty of brutal badassery on the part of Stephen Lang’s returning protagonist, Norman Nordstrom.

You can watch the red band trailer via the player above or the video embed below. We also have a few brand new images from the film in the slideshow further down this page.

In this sequel to the 2016 hit film, Norman is a mentor and protector to 11-year-old Phoenix (Madelyn Grace), who’s essentially the daughter he’s long wanted. Taking place eight years after the horrific events of the first film, Norman hides his evil past from Phoenix as he commits himself to teach her survivalist skills. When a new threat comes to his home — intruders who are clearly coming after Phoenix — the monster inside Norman will be unleashed again.

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Picking things up several years later, Don’t Breathe 2 finds Norman somehow managing “to have a family again,” producer Fede Alvarez previously said. “The home invaders not only represent a physical threat to him and his daughter but also will force Norman to confront the unspeakable actions of his past.”

“In the first film, Norman had the upper hand,” Alvarez added, “but this time the tables are turned and the invaders totally outnumber him. And he’s the one that will have tIn Don’t Breathe 2, the blind and brutal Norman will face a near-impossible challenge. 

“Not only he is going to have to face much more skilled and deadly invaders, but also, they are going to force him to come out of his lair and engage in a battle on different and unknown turf,” Don’t Breathe 2 director Rodo Sayagues explained in a previous chat with IGN.

Check out these exclusive new photos from Don’t Breathe 2:

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Sayagues continued, “Against all odds, Norman is going to have to be on top of his game to be able to overcome unimaginable and seemingly impossible obstacles in order to prevail. He is going to be tested like never before. It’s the biggest ordeal of his life.”o fight for his life against all odds.”

In a separate interview that IGN recently did with Stephen Lang, the actor reflected on what he hopes the legacy of Norman and the Don’t Breathe films will be: “I hope that Norman [is remembered as] someone who, despite his history, was striving for some kind of redemption and that he’s always thought of not merely as sort of some despicable monster, but as an authentic kind of a human being. And I hope that people will remember the films that way or, you know,, always dig them. That’s all.”

Don’t Breathe 2 will be released exclusively in theaters nationwide on August 13.

3 weeks from today, get a new look at this holiday’s biggest upcoming video games and what lies beyond…@gamescom Opening Night Live
A live two hour showcase
Streaming & Co-Streaming Everywhere
Wednesday, August 25
11 am PT / 2 pm ET / 8 pm CET pic.twitter.com/h8C12vtvri

— Geoff Keighley (@geoffkeighley) August 4, 2021

Total PS+ subscribers was 46.3 million during the quarter, up from 45m at the same point last year, but down from 47.6m in the prior quarter.
Q1 usually sees a dip, which was more pronounced this year due to pandemic boost last year.
But this was offset by PS Now growth. pic.twitter.com/U53BPjJ0hu

— Daniel Ahmad (@ZhugeEX) August 4, 2021