Game Awards was the arguably biggest event of the past week. Besides numerous games receiving their due accolades, we were treated to a whole slew of new announcements as well. But, the past week also brought us some big Halo Infinite news, the release of Cyberpunk 2077, and much more.
Halo Infinite coming out at the tail end of 2021
A year-long wait for the Chief to get his time in the limelight
Halo Infinite is going to be the furthest thing possible from an Xbox launch title. 343 Industries has confirmed, in fact, that the game will be releasing sometime in Fall 2021. They were also surprisingly open and transparent about which areas of the game needed the most work. According to their blog post, most of the people who’ve either seen or played the game have to do with the game’s subpar visuals. They mention work on indirect lighting, material response, foliage and tree rendering, clouds, level-of-detail transitions, and character fidelity. So all the stuff many people will want to look great in the first next-gen Halo game. Hopefully, they make use of the time they have until release. For more information on this news and Halo Infinite, check out our original news coverage.
Spider-Man: Miles Morales now has a performance ray tracing mode
Miles Morales is prettier and faster than ever now
Spider-Man: Miles Morales has a new performance ray tracing mode for players wanting a slightly lower quality to enjoy 60 fps and the new lighting technology. You now have a lot of graphical fidelity and performance options to find something that’s the most appealing to you. There’s the 4K resolution with ray tracing at 30 fps, 60 fps at 1080p and now, a 60 fps, 1080p mode with ray tracing enabled. Insomniac, of course, had to do some magic to make this possible and they did it by adjusting the scene resolution, reflection quality, and pedestrian density. Still, the game can look exceptionally great at times which proves that the new consoles will be able to power through and deliver consistent 60 FPS with ray tracing in the foreseeable future. For more information, check out our original news coverage.Â
We have the winners of the virtually held Game Awards 2020
The Last of Us Part II brought home 7 awards!
Another year, another Game Awards. Switching from the Microsoft theater to a virtual event due to the COVID-19 pandemic didn’t take away from the joy felt by the many nominees and grateful winners of the event. Geoff Kingley and his team really delivered on the spectacle with game reveals, musical performances, and guest appearances from celebrities like Brie Larson, Gal Gadot, Nolan North, Keanu Reeves, Tom Holland and Christopher Nolan.Â
The Last of Us Part II was the big winner, claiming seven wins out of the thirty-one categories, including the big one, Game of the Year. Other notable winners were Hades in the best action and indie game categories, Ghost of Tsushima in the best art direction, No Man’s Sky for the best ongoing game, and Final Fantasy VII Remake in the best RPG and soundtrack categories. For the full list of winners, make sure to check out our original news coverage.
New Mass Effect and Dragon Age announced at the Game Awards 2020
Could Commander Shepard return?
Now for some announcements from this year’s Game Awards. The show has given us some insight into what’s coming around the bend. We saw games like the impressive Crimson Desert, Ark 2 with Vin Diesel but none got people more excited than the brief teasers for the new Mass Effect and Dragon Age games. According to Bioware, both trailers were full of hints about what they have planned so it’s up to those with a keen eye to dig them out. On the surface, Mass Effect teased a potential return of Commander Shepard while Dragon Age promised the continuation of the Dread Wolf storyline from DA: Inquisition. It’s all very exciting, but we’ll have to wait and see how everything pans out in the end. For more information and the full teasers, be sure to check out our original news coverage.
All Cyberpunk 2077 developers will get a bonus despite a bad launch
Employees at CDPR fully deserve this despite the rocky launch
While CD Projekt Red is a profit-driven company like any other, they at least try to do the right thing sometimes. Like in this instance, they ditched the original plan to give bonuses to all Cyberpunk 2077 developers only if the game reached a 90 score over on Metacritic. Seeing as the game had a relatively bad launch with not-so-stellar review scores, they decided on a new structure that will mean developers on the game will receive full bonuses no matter the score. The game reached that score only on the PC while other platforms remain highly problematic due to performance issues and numerous bugs. For more information on CDPR bonus structure as well as the rocky launch of Cyberpunk 2077, check out our original news coverage.
PlayStation 5 had the biggest console launch ever in the US
Sony had the best launch, Nintendo has the best raw sales
Anticipation for Sony’s console was through the roof but no one anticipated its launch would be so big. This was especially the case in the United States where the console shipped the most units in any console launch month history. As far as the competition goes, Microsoft wasn’t nearly as successful with Xbox Series X/S while Nintendo still trumps both with raw sales of Switch for the 24th consecutive month. Where Sony comes on the absolute top however is with sales of the DualSense controller which is selling like hotcakes due to all the haptic feedback doodads inside. For more information on the sales of each console, check out our original news coverage.
