KeenGamer weekly news is a series of articles designed to bring you the hottest gaming and pop culture related news. Each news is presented in a bite-sized format and will lead you to the original source of the news if you want to find out more details.
Unreal Engine 5 showcases the potential of next-gen hardware
Literally shut up and take my money
The new Summer Game Fest is well underway and one of the first showcases was that of Unreal Engine 5 from Epic Games. The demo, titled Lumen in the Land of Nanite, ran on a PS5 and showcased a photorealistic level of detail, dynamic and highly realistic lighting, no loading, and much more. The engine is expected to release sometime during 2021, and Epic continues its good guy streak by waiving royalty fees up to the first $1M in sales for titles developed with Unreal Engine. While the tech demo looked impressive, it, like demos of previous iterations of Unreal Engine merely shows the ultimate potential of games made using it. It’s still up to the studios and their technical and other expertise to fully utilize it and make the next-gen eye-candy into reality. To find out more details about Unreal Engine 5 and see the tech demo in full, please check out our original coverage.
Don’t hold your breath for a Titanfall game
Titanfall 2 had the best multiplayer experience
Ah, Titanfall. I have some extremely fond memories playing the second game of that franchise. I even booted it up recently to jump into its awesome multiplayer and had a blast. It’s too bad that we won’t see that evolve any time soon. Despite teasing it just last year, the co-founder of Respawn Entertainment, Vince Zampella told IGN in an interview that there’s nothing in development, suggesting the 2019 project has been canceled. It seems like the developer is all in on Apex Legends and the sequels for the Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order. It’s too bad really, as Titanfall had the potential to break into the territory of FPS greats if only EA hadn’t sandwiched its release between them back in 2016. For more details from the interview and info on the future of Titanfall, check out our original news coverage.
We’ll soon get a look at Halo Infinite
Fingers crossed for an open-world
343 Industries has confirmed that Halo: Infinite will be appearing at Microsoft’s July Xbox Series X event. So far, we’ve only seen cinematic trailers so fans are expecting a gameplay reveal this time around – especially after the Xbox Series X showcase that featured little to none. This showcase will be especially important both considering how previous 343 Halo games were received as well as the fact that it’s a flagship game for the next-gen console. The rumors are running wild and currently, the most prevalent ones are that Infinite will be either an open-world game or a game with dynamic storytelling and RPG elements. It could end up being a mixture of both. We’ll stay cautiously optimistic and luckily won’t need to wait for long to find out. In the meantime, for more information on Halo: Infinite and previous trailers, check out our news coverage for the game.
Even COVID-19 is no match against a badass samurai
This week Sony surprised the gaming industry with a State of Play showcasing the first extended gameplay of Sucker Punch’s Ghost of Tsushima. In the epic 18 minutes, we got to see several key aspects of the game including the ability to play it as either the honorable samurai or the dishonorable ninja ghost. Furthermore, the game seems to push the technical capabilities of the PlayStation 4 to its utmost limits.
We also found out that we were supposed to be treated to this exact gameplay video a month ago, back in April. However, COVID-19 struck and the staff of IGN, who were supposed to showcase it as a part of their IGN First series couldn’t fly over to the dev in order to try the game out for themselves. Luckily, the delay of both the showcase as well as the game in its entirety wasn’t so bad and we only have short two months before we begin dishing out samurai justice across the island of Tsushima. For the full gameplay video and more info on the delay, check out our original coverage.
PlayStation Now service is steadily getting more subscribers
The service only needed only more high-profile games
For those that don’t know, PlayStation Now is a cloud gaming subscription service that allows members to stream PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, and PlayStation 4 games on PlayStation 4 and PC. The service was started all the way back in 2014 and hasn’t been doing as well as its main competitor – the Xbox Game Pass. The massive lag behind it is mainly attributed to its limited availability, older games, and a higher monthly fee.
But, things have begun to improve. Just recently, the service started adding newer games like Spider-Man, Control, Just Cause 4 and more to the already substantial library of 650 games. Many gamers recognized this and the service has managed to garner over 2 million subscribers. While that’s still far behind Game Pass and its 10 million, the service is still relatively young and Sony seems to be taking it in the right direction. For more information on the PlayStation Now, the available games, and more, check out our original coverage.
Anthem 2.0 is still very far away
Only 30 people are working to improve Anthem
It would take some time for us to find out that the first reveal trailer for Anthem was fake. Nevertheless, like the reveal of the original Watch Dogs, it was permanently burned into our brain as a case of what could have been. When it ultimately released, Anthem didn’t sell as well as Bioware or EA would have hoped and the game received mixed reviews from numerous critics. It was basically a failure that didn’t deliver on the original vision and what it did deliver was extremely lackluster.
While many thought Bioware was going to abandon the game, they instead surprised us with the announcement that they are working on a complete revision of the game which was later nicknamed Anthem 2.0. Again, many thought this was an all hands on deck situation but unfortunately, only a small team appears to be actually working on the revision which is still in the so-called incubation phase where they are testing different ideas. Hopefully, it will be enough to ultimately make Anthem another No Man’s Sky success story. For more information on what’s going on behind the scenes at Bioware regarding Anthem, check out our original news coverage.
We got a huge surprise from the Mafia franchise
It will be like playing the Godfather
Just days ago, we were teased that the Mafia franchise is coming back. But, 2K decided to surprised everyone by suddenly releasing Mafia II: Definitive Edition as well as Mafia III: Definitive Edition with all previous DLC included. Not only that, but they surprised us with the news that the original game is getting the Final Fantasy VII treatment and is being remade from the ground-up. What’s more, they plan to have it ready for release in just a short three months, on August 28th. They left us only with screenshots of the remake and by the looks of things, the visuals seem to be on the level of Red Dead Redemption 2 with an insane level of detail. Be sure to check that out as well as the trailers for the definitive editions in our original news coverage.
