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Luminous Productions aims for its upcoming game, Forspoken, to have the “highest quality visuals ever” in an open-world video game.

Talking as part of a video about AMD’s new FidelityFX Super Resolution technology, Luminous Production’s studio head and general manager, Takeshi Aramaki, said “With Forspoken, we are aiming to achieve the highest quality visuals ever seen in an open world game.”

“Our studio’s vision is ‘to create games unlike anything experienced before, fusing the world’s latest technologies with art.’,” he said. “Implementing cutting edge AMD technology in the development of Forspoken is an embodiment of that philosophy.”

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Aramaki notes that the new AMD technology has allowed a “significant performance boost when running Forspoken at 4K 60fps.”

The results of this can be seen in the video, which shows some new gameplay from Forspoken, running at 60 frames per second. While the gameplay is new, it sadly just shows off more things we’ve already seen, including the fluid movement and a fight with the large, golem-like creatures seen at the end of Forspoken’s previous trailer.

AMD’s FidelityFX Super Resolution technology is a new system that helps provide a performance boost to videogames. It works through supersampling, a system by which a lower-resolution image is upscaled to a larger resolution, meaning that the hardware only needs to render a smaller image. Because processing power is not being used to push resolution, it can instead be used to push performance, allowing 4K images at 60FPS to be more easily achieved. That’s the very simplified version, at least.

Forspoken was sadly missing from the Square Enix E3 2021 presentation. As such, the last we heard of it was at Square Enix Presents Spring 2021, where it was revealed that Project Athia is now Forspoken. The game is set to launch in 2022 on PC and PS5 as a console exclusive for at least two years.

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Matt Purslow is IGN’s UK News and Entertainment Writer.

Netflix has officially declared July 21 to this day forth be known as the premiere date for Sexy Beasts, an upcoming reality series that is sure to freak a lot of people out. Think Masked Singer meets Love is Blind, but then think of that pairing again as a million times weirder than you’d ever imagine.

In Sexy Beasts, singles head into blind dates after they have been transformed into animals and other mythical creatures via Hollywood movie prosthetics. Contestants will choose between three potential matches, and will only see the real face of their beloved after they have made their final decision. Check out the trailer recently shared on Netflix, which in a further twist at the end reveals that under the prosthetics, pretty much all the contestants look like models–really makes you think about checking your biases on judging a panda-book by the cover, huh?

Variety recently reported that the streaming service has picked up Sexy Beasts for two seasons, with comedian Rob Delaney (Catastrophe) serving as narrator. A six-episode Season 1 will release on July 21, with a second six-episode season to follow later this year. Across both seasons, 48 makeup designs were created by prosthetic artist Kristyan Mallet (Mission Impossible).

“Making Sexy Beasts for Netflix has been an incredibly exciting process,” says Simon Welton, creator and executive producer (via Variety). “With an international cast featuring some truly brilliant characters, a host of prosthetics which look extraordinary in 4K… viewers are in for a real treat. I hope the show puts a smile on peoples’ faces as they play along to discover who’ll fall in love with who, and what our cast all really look like.”

Scarlet Nexus launches this Friday on PC and console, and in typical fashion for any anime-related project, the game already has a live-action adaptation to watch. More specifically, there’s a cinematic trailer that mixes real actors with special effects and practical models to set the tone for Scarlet Nexus, as well as provide enough exposition to explain why monsters have fallen from the sky and are ravenous for human brains.

Reviews for the game are live now, with many outlets praising how Scarlet Nexus weaves action and style with an engaging story. On GameSpot’s sister site Metacritic, Scarlet Nexus currently has a Metascore of 79 on PlayStation 5.

In our Scarlet Nexus preview, critic Michael Higham wrote that the “potential for a high-quality action game with slick anime-stylings” has been seen before, but that the smaller gripes that accumulated throughout the experience made for an uneven game.

Scarlet Nexus–which definitely isn’t coming to Xbox Game Pass on day one–will be out on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S on June 25.

In the Week 3 Legendary Quests, Fortnite players will be performing a number of actions related to Sunny’s pro-alien movement. One of them is to place welcome signs in Pleasant Park and Lazy Lake. There are 10 welcome signs you can possibly place, but you’ll only need to do four total to complete this Week 3 challenge. Here are all the Fortnite welcome sign locations.

Pleasant Park Welcome Sign Locations

The nice thing about this challenge is the 10 welcome signs are split, with five in each location. That means if you do it well enough, you need not travel to the second location. If your Battle Bus trajectory is more conducive to a Pleasant Park visit, here’s where you can find each of the five welcome sign locations.

• Outside the northwestern house
• On the sidewalk along the northeast
• In the center of the location near the gathering area
• Along the southwest side of the soccer field
• In front of the biggest house along the western sidewalk

Lazy Lake Welcome Sign Locations

If instead you’re planning on dropping at Lazy Lake, there are five more available for you to still finish off this challenge in one go–assuming you can overcome other players or AI enemies as needed. Remember that you only need four in total, so even a single location has more than you’ll require. Here’s where to find all welcome signs in Lazy Lake.

• Near the lakeside garage in the far northwest
• On the sidewalk near the center north house
• Near the security office in the northeast corner
• On the sidewalk near a home on the southeast, before you go down the single lane driveway
• Near the pool to the south

Once you’ve placed five in total, no matter which five you pick, you’ll have completed your third Legendary Quest for Week 3. This season’s Legendary Quests lean into the story more than past seasons, with a lot more NPC dialogue to take note of. We have a sneaking suspicion it’s the IO, not the aliens, people should be worried about, but for now Epic and the characters in-universe continue to paint aliens as aggressive invaders.

Time will tell what’s really going on, but you can gather clues for yourself with the Fortnite 17.10 patch notes, which include a way aboard the alien Mothership for the first time this season. While you’re at it, don’t forget to look over the complete list of Week 3 challenges and the Week 3 Alien Artifacts.

Warner Bros. is selling its Playdemic Mobile Games studio to EA Games in an all-cash deal valued at $1.4 billion, the company announced today, but owner AT&T doesn’t have any plans to offload the rest. Questions about the future of Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment’s future had arisen in light of recent news that WarnerMedia is merging with Discovery to create a new entertainment company. 

Playdemic Mobile Games, which is best known for its Golf Clash series, is one of several games studios that AT&T and WarnerMedia own, including Rocksteady Studios, NetherRealm Studios, Monolith Productions, WB Games Boston, Avalanche Software, and WB Games Montréal among others. Unlike those studios, however, Playdemic Mobile Games doesn’t work on properties tied to some of WarnerMedia’s most popular franchises, including DC, Harry Potter, or Game of Thrones. 

Some had speculated that Playdemic’s sale was just the start of a wider sell-off of Warner Bros. gaming companies – particularly after AT&T had mooted selling the gaming division as recently as last year. However, it seems that won’t be the case:

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“The remaining Warner Bros. Games portfolio is included in the recently announced WarnerMedia-Discovery transaction and will become part of the combined media and entertainment company after the expected close of that transaction,” a press release states. 

For EA, which already owns a substantial amount of mobile game studios and is trying to navigate its way in the space, having access to a game like Golf Clash is complementary to its business. The game boasts more than 80 million downloads, with EA noting in the press release announcing the news that “Playdemic’s expertise in building mobile games beloved by players around the world, combined with EA’s industry-leading IP, presents opportunities to expand the clash mechanic to other franchises and for future growth in mobile experiences.”

What the future of Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment’s future looks like under the new Warner Bros. Discovery unit that’s being created is still unknown. But it’s apparent that they will have a continued place within the Warner Bros. family, as core franchises are built out across any and all mediums, from movies to gaming consoles. 

The Pokémon Go community is currently expressing anger at developer Niantic, in response to announced plans to roll back changes implemented into the game due to the COVID-19 pandemic. These changes, which increased the real-world distance across which players could interact with in-game elements to aid with social distancing, were well received by the community and they don’t want to see them removed.

Niantic announced the changes coming to Pokémon Go on June 21, which include the reduction of PokéStop and Gym interaction distances. These will be reset to the distances they were pre-pandemic. Additionally, during the pandemic Incense effectiveness was also increased, which allowed Pokémon to be attracted to your location and thus allow catching from home. The upcoming changes will reset this to the original standard effectiveness, but also provide a bonus for those moving.

The announcement of these changes have upset the Pokémon Go community, as the pandemic-response alterations to the game made it more accessible to its players.

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“I’ve known people who have been very grateful for the increased interaction range,” wrote Gabirele Russo, who has started a petition on Change.org. “People with physical disabilities were able to interact with PokéStops and Gyms that they were unable to before. The increase in the spawn rate of Incense also made it ten times better. Now people who had played more because of the special bonuses will no longer be able to play/won’t be as inclined to play. Less players = less money for Niantic, meaning that it would be a morally and financially bad decision to take away these bonuses.”

Russo’s petition is the smallest of three petitions on Change.org aimed at Niantic. Collectively, they have over 72,000 signatures.

One of those petitions was created by a member of the Pokémon Go subreddit community, and currently has the lion’s share of signatures at over 53,000. “Sign it to let Niantic know that they are breaking our trust by removing what they once said would be a permanent addition,” said user Amazon_UK. 

There are several more reddit threads dedicated to the same topics, with theories as to why Niantic would do this and general complaints about the situation. It’s clear the community is not happy, and wants Niantic to listen to their concerns. If Niantic will respond remains to be seen.  

In other Pokémon news, Pokémon Go Fest 2021 dates have been announced, there’s a brand new Pikachu-themed jet plane, and the final Eevee evolution has arrived in Pokémon Go.

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Matt Purslow is IGN’s UK News and Entertainment Writer.

AMD’s new FidelityFX Super Resolution trailer has gone live, and inside of the showreel for the company’s answer to Nvidia’s DLSS performance-enhancing graphics technology is new gameplay footage of Forspoken. You can see some new and extended footage in the trailer below at around the 14-second mark.

AMD’s new FSR technology is designed to enhance gameplay graphics without needing to tax the hardware too much, which Luminous Productions studio head Takeshi Aramaki says was implemented into Forspoken in just a single day.

“Implementing cutting-edge AMD technology in the development of Forspoken is an embodiment of that philosophy,” Aramaki explained in the video. “With Forspoken, we are aiming to achieve the highest quality visuals ever seen in an open-world game.”

Forspoken has received a “significant performance boost” when running the game at 4K and 60 frames per second according to Aramaki, with the developer adding that the game is meant to be experienced at that high resolution. AMD FSR launched this week, although it will still take a while for more developers to support the technology.

Forspoken–previously known as Square Enix’s Project Athia–got an extended trailer earlier this year. In case you missed it, the two-minute-long video showcases more gameplay and traversal mechanics with the protagonist Frey Holland. As for when the game will be out, Sony did mention back at CES 2021 that Forspoken would launch in January 2022, a month that would put it in direct competition with Elden Ring if it sticks to that release window.

Aliens: Fireteam Elite, the upcoming co-op shooter set 23 years after the original Alien trilogy, will support cross-gen play, but not cross-platform play, developer Cold Iron Studios told GameSpot. So, for example, if you play the game on PS4, you can play with your friends on PS5 but not those on Xbox or PC.

When asked, Cold Iron Studios CEO Craig Zinkievich added that “there is currently no plan for cross-play at this time.” So maybe it’s added down the line, but it’s looking like that’s not going to happen anytime soon.

Hopefully a cross-play feature is added one day though, as Fireteam Elite is designed to be played with your friends, repeatedly. Replaying missions allows you to track down the intel that pieces together Fireteam Elite’s story and additional lore for the Alien universe.

To encourage folks to keep coming back to the game with their friends after they’ve already beaten it, Cold Iron Studios has implemented several features.

“Each mission features alternate paths, random objectives, or varied enemy encounters to keep the missions fresh,” Zinkievich said. “There’s a series of technology and heuristics that modify the population of the mission as players play through.”

On top of this, Zinkievich added that players have access to a number of options for customizing the experience of playing Fireteam Elite. You can choose one of five different class kits (each possessing different perks and abilities) and outfit your loadout from a collection of 30 different weapons. There are also five different difficulties and options to change your HUD elements for additional challenge.

“And then there’s the ‘Challenge Card’ system: dozens of different ‘mission mutators’ that players can play at the beginning of a mission to really change up how the mission plays,” Zinkievich said. “Some are cosmetic in nature, but many greatly change up the gameplay by adding additional challenges or added difficulty. Complete a mission with a Challenge Card enabled and you’ll earn additional rewards.”

If you don’t have friends to play with, don’t worry. Zinkievich said that there is a public matchmaking system so that players can find others to play with online. And if someone in your party leaves (either on accident or on purpose), you won’t be penalized.

“There are no built-in penalties for leaving,” Zinkievich said. “If a player drops out or is disconnected, their place is taken by an AI teammate until the end of the mission.”

Aliens: Fireteam Elite is scheduled to launch for Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, PS5, PS4, and PC on August 24. Preordering the game nets you a pack of free cosmetic items.

Developer Cold Iron Studios has revealed that Aliens: Fireteam Elite will launch on August 24. The game is now available for preorder as well. The upcoming co-op shooter was originally revealed as Aliens: Fireteam. The “Elite” has been tacked on to the game’s title, revealed alongside the official release date. Why the name change? Don’t know, but GameSpot has reached out to ask if there’s a reason.

Alongside a standard edition ($40 USD), Aliens: Fireteam Elite will have a Deluxe Edition ($70) as well. The Deluxe Edition includes the Endeavor Pass (four cosmetic DLC bundles that will release alongside gameplay updates) and the Endeavor Veteran Pack (20 exclusive cosmetic items available at launch). Both the Endeavor Pass and Endeavor Veteran Pack can be purchased separately.

Preordering either edition of Aliens: Fireteam Elite will net you the Hardened Marine Pack for free. The pack contains several cosmetic items, such as the “Chestburster” emote, bandanna item, and digital red camo weapon skin.

Taking place 23 years after the events of the original Alien trilogy, Aliens: Fireteam Elite sees you play as a colonial marine aboard the USS Endeavor, which unfortunately finds itself invaded by a swarm of alien xenomorphs after responding to a distress call in the outer colonies.

Aliens: Fireteam Elite will launch for Xbox Series X|S, PS5, Xbox One, PS4, and PC. The game will feature cross-gen play, but no cross-play (so PS5 can play with PS4 but not Xbox or PC, for example).