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Here's a fresh look at the Half-Life 2 RTX remaster

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We initially heard about a team modding an RTX remaster of Half-Life 2 last August. Today, NVIDIA released a trailer giving fans a behind-the-scenes look at Orbifold Studios' efforts to apply more modern graphics tools to the iconic title. The video highlights the RTX Remix engine and how the team is using it to make visual upgrades to a game with an engine two decades old. They have examples of how they're creating more dynamic light sources, volumetric fog in moody areas, and full 3D detail on the objects in the environment.

The crew at Orbifold still doesn't have a release date for their work, but as the 20th anniversary for Half-Life 2 approaches on November 16, it's possible that there may be something official in the works from Valve. No, not Half-Life 3. But YouTuber and veteran Valve reporter Tyler McVicker noticed that there is a new, password-protected branch of the game in Steam. Just based on the number of new test builds that have been pushed out on that branch, the new update seems more involved than the one the company released to mark the 25th anniversary of Half-Life 1 last year. So if you're itching to pick up the gravity gun again, this weekend might be the time to do it.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/pc/heres-a-fresh-look-at-the-half-life-2-rtx-remaster-221321847.html?src=rss



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Jagmas
43 seconds ago
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Round Rock, Texas
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LEGO Horizon Adventures is Out Today

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LEGO take on the Horizon universe may have seemed like a strange idea when it was first announced, but Sony’s attempt to continue broadening the franchise’s audience by not only expanding to new platforms like the Switch, but also appealing to a younger demographic, does make sense. Now, we’re seeing the first steps of that with LEGO Horizon Adventureswhich is out now. Check out its launch trailer below. 

Developed by Studio Gobo and Guerrilla Games, LEGO Horizon Adventures is a reimagined version of Horizon Zero Dawn, with the original 2017 title’s story more compactly retold for a more lighthearted experience. From a gameplay perspective, it simplifies things heavily, adopting straightforward action-driven mechanics in linear levels- though you can, of course, still expect to be fighting a variety of different mechanical monsters in lush and overgrown post-apocalyptic environments. 

In our review of the game, we awarded it a score of 8/10, saying, “LEGO Horizon Adventures successfully adapts and abridges Horizon Zero Dawn for a younger audience, delivering a fun, charming, and straightforward experience in a delightful post-apocalyptic world.” Read the full review through here.

LEGO Horizon Adventures is available on PS5, Nintendo Switch, and PC. The game doesn’t feature PS5 Pro enhancements

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Jagmas
9 minutes ago
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Round Rock, Texas
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Atomfall, Which Is Basically British Fallout, Gets Release Date And Trailer

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June's Xbox Showcase showed off the first look at Atomfall, a first-person survival-action title that seems to have a lot in common with the Fallout franchise. Now, Rebellion Developments' very British take on the post-apocalypse has a release date: March 27, 2025. A new teaser trailer accompanied that announcement, which sends the viewer into Casterfell Woods, a creepy and bizarre English forest.

If the eerie red telephone box reminds you of Doctor Who, that's not a coincidence. In a guest post on Xbox's official site, Rebellion's associate head of design, Ben Fisher, confirmed that the long-running British sci-fi series was an inspiration for Atomfall. Somewhat like Fallout, this game's alternate history diverges from our own in the 1950s. It also draws upon the real-life nuclear accident during the Windscale fire in 1957. Within the world of the game, the fallout from that incident charted the course for Atomfall's dark future.

One of the players' goals is to discover what really happened at Windscale, but survival is a more immediate concern. As shown in the video, the inhabitants of Casterfell Woods won't hesitate to put down the player's character. There's also an enigmatic voice on the other end of the phone that says, "Oberon must die." Oberon was the king of the fairies in medieval literature, and he was also a featured character in William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. While the Oberon in the Atomfall is probably not the same character, there's presumably a reason why that name was chosen.

Continue Reading at GameSpot

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Jagmas
10 minutes ago
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Round Rock, Texas
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Avowed Will Also be Available on Battle.net at Launch, Premium Edition Unveiled

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From Metaphor: ReFantazio and Dragon Age: The Veilguard to Mario and Luigi: Brothership and Dragon Quest 3 HD-2D Remakewe’ve seen several major RPG releases in quick succession, and though things are slowing down for the next couple of months, it won’t be too long before Obsidian Entertainment delivers another highly anticipated RPG adventure in the form of Avowed

In fact, with its launch now not terribly far away, Obsidian has announced that pre-orders for the game have now gone live. In addition to a $70 Standard Edition, players will also have the option to purchase a Digital Premium Edition for $89.99, which will also include a digital artbook and soundtrack, two premium in-game skin packs (one of which will be based on Obsidian’s own Pillars of Eternity), and up to five days of early access, starting February 13.

A Steelbook Premium Edition will also be available for $94.99 for those who wish to purchase it physically. In addition to everything included in the Digital Premium Edition, it will also include a map of the Living Lands and a steelbook. The game itself, however, will be included as a download code, rather than on a disc.

Additionally, Obsidian has also announced that on PC, in addition to Steam and the Windows Store, Avowed will also be available via Blizzard Entertainment’s launcher, Battle.net. The developer has also revealed details on the game’s accessibility features and its minimum system requirements on PC.

Avowed launches on February 18 for Xbox Series X/S and PC.

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Jagmas
11 minutes ago
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Round Rock, Texas
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Fortnite player wonders why there's a picture of 'mold' in their game: turns out it's a texture Tim Sweeney added to Unreal Engine in 1995

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There's a growing field that I like to call 'digital archeology': the excavation and analysis of weird artifacts that have become buried in decades-old software or only exist on archived websites. Sometimes those artifacts just rise to the surface on their own, as was the case with an image of "mold" spotted by a Fortnite player in the game's news feed.

It isn't a picture of mold, but a stock photo of "cave pearls, a kind of calcium carbonate deposit that forms in limestone caves," Epic Games founder and CEO Tim Sweeney said on X in response to the question from M1das.

Sweeney says he added the texture to the first version of Unreal Engine all the way back in 1995.

"This is Unreal Engine's default texture," he said. "I imported it into Unreal Engine 1 in 1995 while I was developing on a 90 MHz Pentium. It's still there and shows up when a programmer forgets to specify a texture."

I assume I must have seen these cave pearls many times: I've played a lot of Unreal Engine games, and whoever messed up Fortnite's news feed is hardly the first developer to ever forget a texture. But I don't recognize the image. Not like the Source engine's missing texture icon, that famous fuchsia checkerboard, or its giant red "ERROR" text.

Maybe Unreal's default texture just evaded my long term memory by being so ambiguous: blobs of an organic-looking something. It obviously hasn't evaded Unreal developers, though. "This image haunts my dreams," said an ILM Immersive artist last year.



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Jagmas
12 minutes ago
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Round Rock, Texas
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That slick Prince of Persia action roguelike from the Dead Cells co-dev is getting a huge update that throws out the old art style and doubles the content

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The Rogue Prince of Persia, the aptly named Prince of Persia roguelike from longtime Dead Cells steward Evil Empire, is gearing up for its Second Act update, and it's probably one of the biggest updates I've seen for any game all year. The "game content will double," Evil Empire says, and the core art style, which once rendered our titular hero as the glorious Prince of Purple, is getting an overhaul.

"We're giving The Rogue Prince of Persia a glow-up!" the developer says. The "big art upgrade" does more than de-purple the prince; environments are noticeably more detailed, and the whole world looks a bit sharper and higher-contrast. 

"The most obvious change of this update is the art direction where we've changed the color palettes. had much more detail added and just generally 'improved,'" a Steam post reads. "You'll also notice that the Prince is no longer purple - this change was made as the purple tone just didn't fit with the new direction. We'll go into more detail about why we made these changes next week, but we find that the art direction is now a much better fit with the game's genre, setting/story and the Prince of Persia series as a whole."

If you're gutted by the loss of the Prince of Purple, Evil Empire has good news: "there may or may not be skins coming in the future," per a YouTube comment. I'm down with both styles, personally, but I do agree with the fans pointing out that the new look is more recognizably Persian

The Second Act short list includes more biome, bosses, story content, enemies, and localization options. "This update will mark a point where we've effectively doubled the game's content from launch," Evil Empire clarifies. "All the roguelite markers are present - gameplay loop, metaprogression, builds, difficulty modifiers and more - and we're not finishing here with development continuing into 2025!" 

Our Rogue Prince of Persia review praised its slick combat at launch, but the game was crying out for updates and improvements, so it's good to see it chugging along. 

The Prince of Persia roguelike had to change its story because of the Prince of Persia Metroidvania - and was forbidden from using an iconic weapon



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Jagmas
12 minutes ago
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