Bethesda at E3: new games, Fallout 76 battle royale, and much more

[Matrix]

 

 

 

Highly anticipated: The Bethesda that showed up to this year’s E3 had learned their lessons, and after acknowledging their failures with Fallout 76, introduced us to four major new games and five fantastic-looking updates that made the crowd go wild. But before you ask, no, there aren’t any new details on The Elder Scrolls VI nor Starfield, though Todd Howard says they’re working hard to perfect them both.

Fallout 76

Almost everything Bethesda said wouldn’t happen is about to happen. Coming in Spring, a free Wastelander update is introducing NPCs with dialogue trees, a new main quest and a 52-player Nuclear Winter battle royale mode. If that sounds appealing, you’ll be able to play the current version of the game plus the battle royale while the game is free from June 10-17.

Doom Eternal

Doom Eternal now has a release date: November 22. Judging by two new trailers, it appears to be adding a lot to the franchise, including a 2 v 1 mode, in which two players are demons and one is a slayer, and the option to slaughter things in heaven in addition to hell.

Deathloop

Deathloop is a new combat-heavy title from Arkane Lyon, the creator of Dishonored. Arkane promises to let players play the way they want to play, just like in Dishonored, but that strategy will take on new meaning when combined with the game’s time loop mechanic. It looks compelling, both from a visual and story standpoint.

Ghostwire: Tokyo

From Tango Gameworks, the creators of The Evil Within 1 & 2, Ghostwire: Tokyo is a new title set in a dystopian Tokyo where people are mysteriously disappearing from the streets. The protagonist must use their supernatural abilities to hunt down and “kill the unknown.” Apparently, it will be a new type of game, not simple survival horror (despite what the trailer might suggest) nor pure adventure, but a mixture.

Wolfenstein

Bethesda has filled us in on the details of two new Nazi-hunting titles, Wolfenstein: Cyberpilot and Wolfenstein: Young Blood. The former is a VR title, where the player takes on the role of a hacker working for the French resistance, coming out sometime in July. Young Blood is a co-op shooter where players take control of B.J. Blazcowicz’s twin daughters, Jess and Sophie, as they search for him in 1980s Paris. It’ll arrive on July 26.

The Elder Scrolls

Despite the disappointing fans with not a drop of information about TES VI, Bethesda was eager to share news about their other titles in the series. The Elder Scrolls: Blades is coming to Switch, free and with cross-progression and cross-play with the mobile version. There’s also a cool option to use the Joy-cons motion sensors to trigger combat actions. A new update coming shortly will also introduce a “new dragon questline.” The Elder Scrolls: Legends, meanwhile, is getting a Scalebreaker DLC filled with standard dungeon stuff, and The Elder Scrolls: Online will get the Moons of Elsweyr expansion on June 27.

Rage 2

Rage 2 will get an exciting Rise of the Ghost expansion later this year, with new vehicles, weapons, areas, modes, story, cheats, etc. It looks pretty exciting, though Bethesda is light on details at this point in time.

Commander Keen

Bethesda is delving back into the mobile world with a refresh of the classic side scroller Commander Keen. It’ll be a free, modern take on the side scroller with puzzle and pattern-based mechanics. It’ll soft launch this winter.

Project Orion

This one isn’t a game, but rather a new technology. Designed to be integrated into game engines by developers, it makes games easier to stream by reducing the required bandwidth by 40%, the encoding time by 30% and the computing power by 20%. In theory, this would decrease the bandwidth requirements and improve latency, two of game streaming’s biggest issues right now. The tech is platform agnostic, meaning it should work on Google’s Stadia and Microsoft’s xCloud with very little work from either company. Bethesda has already integrated it into Doom, which they showed running on a smartphone in a live demo. You’ll be able to test Orion in Doom yourself later this year if you sign up for Bethesda’s Doom Slayers Club.

 

 VIEW: Original Article.

[Karlston]

Bethesda says its Orion tech can make all cloud gaming better, faster

More efficient rendering/encoding leads to lower latency and bandwidth usage.

Enlarge / It's Doom, only streamed more efficiently to your phone thanks to Orion.

LOS ANGELES—Bethesda Softworks announced Sunday that it is getting involved in the increasingly competitive field of cloud gaming. But rather than announcing a service to compete with the likes of Google Stadia or Microsoft's Project Xcloud, Bethesda's Orion system is focused on improving streaming performance on the platforms that already exist.

 

While most cloud gaming efforts try to improve performance by throwing hardware at the problem—often in the form of prime data center locations loaded with high-end servers—Bethesda says Orion is instead incorporated "at the game engine level." The result of what Bethesda calls "years of research and development," the company says its group of patented Orion technologies can optimize frame rendering time by approximately 20% per frame. Improved compression also leads to streams that require 40% lower bandwidth for the same quality, reducing the potential costs for both users and streaming services, Bethesda said.

 

At a pre-E3 demonstration attended by GamesIndustry.biz, the 2016 edition of Doom running on a MacBook went from 7ms of combined GPU rendering and encoding time to 5.3ms. That may not sound like much, but when it comes to increasing streaming quality and reducing apparent latency, every little bit helps. Average bandwidth usage in a 10-minute gameplay test reportedly dropped from 23.43Mbps to 13.67Mbps at the demo, while GPU utilization on the server-side dropped from a high of 64 percent to a low of 55 percent.

 

To show off the Orion technology, players that sign up for the Doom Slayers Club will be able to try out a streaming demo on iOS11+ devices in a public trial later this year. Additional tests for PC and Android devices will come later.

 

Source: Bethesda says its Orion tech can make all cloud gaming better, faster (Ars Technica)

[Karlston]

Fallout 76 updates promise turnaround after “well-deserved criticism”

Battle royale mode, human NPCs, and free trial among coming changes.

 

 

LOS ANGELES—After what Bethesda's Todd Howard admitted on stage was some "well-deserved criticism" at the launch of Fallout 76, Bethesda rolled out the first phase of its turnaround plan for the game at its E3 press conference tonight.

 

That plan starts with Nuclear Winter, a 52-player Battle Royale mode that sees players fighting for the role of "overseer" using Fallout's usual lineup of guns, power armor, and some "exclusive perks" to upgrade your own abilities. That mode will be available as a "sneak peek" during a free trial of the full game starting June 10 and running through June 17.

 

Then, in the fall, a free update being called "Wastelanders" will introduce new elements including a full quest line, new rewards, full dialogue trees, and the much-requested return of human non-player characters. Players will also be able to choose between siding with two different factions: Settlers and Raiders.

 

"This is a long-term story we're telling," Bethesda said. "Year one of Fallout 76 was all about the opening of Vault 76 and players settling the Wasteland. In year two, other humans are returning to reclaim Appalachia."

 

The details of the new modes are part of a previously revealed 2019 Roadmap for the game's continued development this year. The company released Wild Appalachia, an update featuring new quests, events, and gameplay modes, in March.

 

 

 

Source: Fallout 76 updates promise turnaround after “well-deserved criticism” (Ars Technica)

[DKT27]

On 6/10/2019 at 7:04 PM, Mach1 said:

Commander Keen 

Bethesda is delving back into the mobile world with a refresh of the classic side scroller Commander Keen. It’ll be a free, modern take on the side scroller with puzzle and pattern-based mechanics.

 

 

Those memories playing it.