Category: Industry News

Ubisoft Announces That Assassin’s Creed Will Have No New Game in 2016

It feels like one of the collective wishes of the Internet has been granted today as Ubisoft announced, hot on the heels of the release of the refreshingly good Assassin’s Creed Syndicate and ahead of the motion picture adaptation, that Assassin’s Creed will not have a new game in 2016.

In a blog post titled “A Message from the Assassin’s Creed team“, Ubisoft talks about how after the release of 2014’s less than critically acclaimed Unity the team wanted to step back from their schedule and reexamine the development pipeline for the series. Continue reading Ubisoft Announces That Assassin’s Creed Will Have No New Game in 2016

Oculus Rift Pre-Orders Are Now Open, Units Cost $599 USD

oculus rift

If you’ve been waiting to jump on what is sure to be 2016’s most cutting-edge trend, then I have good news for you. The Oculus Rift is now avaialble for pre-order with a shipping date of March 28 and an entry price of $599 USD.

For your money, you will receive the Rift headset, the sensor, an Xbox One controller and the Oculus Remote which can be used to navigate the Oculus Store. If you pre-order you will also get access to the Founder’s Pack in EVE Valkyrie, which includes some special content to be revealed later. According to the announcement, over 100 AAA titles will be avaialble for the Rift by the end of 2016, among which is everybody’s favorite game to buy on every platform they own, Minecraft. Continue reading Oculus Rift Pre-Orders Are Now Open, Units Cost $599 USD

Rise of the Tomb Raider Coming to PC on January 28

Rejoice, PC owners waiting to undertake Lara Croft’s new Crystal Dynamics developed adventure! According to a press release, Rise of the Tomb Raider will release for PC on Steam and Windows 10 (don’t worry it will still work on Windows 7) on January 28.

In The Know

Ahem! Is this thing on?

Don’t freak out or anything – GamerSushi is still stored in carbonite for the foreseeable future – but if you have a hankering for a little bit of that GS flavor, you might want to check out recent episodes of Rooster Teeth’s The Know.

Our own Eddy Rivas is using his wordsmithing skills to write two videos a day for their channel, which oftentimes requires spending way too much time on VGChartz.

Here are his first few videos:

(Eddy made a point of letting us know that his script did not call for Meg to do that with her tongue.)

Anyways, just wanted to share. How’s everybody doing? Still playing games? Good.

Get Wild With This New Trailer For The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

Just because nobody seems to even care about waiting for E3 anymore, CD Projekt RED drop a metric ton of info about the Witcher 3: Wild Hunt earlier today, including this awesome trailer. It’s actual in-game footage (albeit with fancy cuts) as opposed to the CG-only trailer from last year. It has everything you’d expect from a Witcher game and it also looks super rad. I know CD Projekt RED said they’re drawing some inspiration from Skyrim this time around and I can definitely see that. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt will come out on February 25, 2015 and will be available on the PlayStation 4, PC and Xbox One.

Battlefield 4 Getting “Netcode” Patch on All Platforms

After weeks of testing in the CTE (Community Test Environment) the Battlefield 4 “netcode” improvements are being rolled out to every version of the game today in a patch according to a new post on Battlelog. The “netcode” patch improves (among other things) the server tick-rate, or how often you computer receives new information from the server. Battlefield 4 previously had a tick-rate of 10hz, or ten updates a second (industry standard for FPS games is 30-60).

The Eternal War: A Look at the Repeating Console Cycle

Sega Logo

I’ve been reading Console Wars, a new book by Blake J. Harris that chronicles the rise of Sega during the 90’s. It’s a delightful book, full of endlessly fascinating details, such as how Target’s lenient return policy allowed customers to return years-old NES’s in order to get credit towards a SNES. Needless to say, this didn’t sit well with Nintendo and it led to Target pulling Nintendo products from the stores for a time. I lived through this era and reading the behind the scenes drama that went on has been very enjoyable. My nostalgia bones are all tingling right now. Continue reading The Eternal War: A Look at the Repeating Console Cycle

Battlefield: Hardline Revealed in Battlelog Update

battlefield hardline

Update: Yep, Battlefield: Hardline is real.

Battlelog, DICE’s browser-based interface that they’ve been forcing on the gaming public since Battlefield 3, received an update this morning. Instead of the assignments for the upcoming expansion pack Dragon’s Teeth, an entierly different kind of surprised was included.

While digging through the source code of Battlelog, denizen of the Internet Koen Vlaswinkel found a whole bunch of information about Battlefield: Hardline, including weapons, vehicles, classes, gamemodes and who’s developing it. From the images Battlefield: Hardline looks like it will be SWAT vs Thieves on a variety of urban maps with gamemodes such as Heist and Blood Money, giving it a very Payday feel. Continue reading Battlefield: Hardline Revealed in Battlelog Update

Halo 5: Guardians Announced, Hitting Fall 2015

halo 5 reveal

In what is probably the least exciting Halo game announcement of all time, Bonnie Ross, General Manager of 343 Industries, took over the Xbox Wire to reveal Halo 5: Guardians which will be coming to the Xbox One in the Fall of 2015.

Continuing the story of Master Chief from where we left him in Halo 4, Halo 5: Guardians is being built with a completely new engine and will deliver a 60 frame-per-second performance, a first for the series. A Halo TV series is also teased to be released in a similar time-frame to Halo 5: Guardians.

The Spartan on the top of the box art will apparently be a new character according to series Executive Producer Josh Holmes on Twitter.

Microsoft is certainly getting a lot out of the way for E3. Typically a Halo reveal is a big to-do and Bonnie Ross promises that more will be revealed at E3 this year, but I can’t help but feel a little deflated that a game series that once commanded attention is now relegated to blog post unveilings.

Source – Xbox Wire

Far Cry 4 Coming November 18 2014, Takes Place in the Himalayas

far cry 4 reveal

Do you know what the definition of insanity is? Not getting a sequel to 2012’s stellar hit Far Cry 3. In a surprise leak/announcement today, Ubisoft officially unveiled Far Cry 4 which will be coming to the (deep breath here) PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One on November 18, 2014.

Not much is currently known about Far Cry 4, other than that it takes place in a fictional region of the Himalayas called Kyrat and you’ll be fighting the reign of a self-appointed king. You can feast your peepers on the box art for Far Cry 4 by clicking the previous words. Looks more like a Pink King than a Yellow King to me, but maybe we’ll go to Carcosa in Far Cry 5.

Far Cry 3 was one of my favorite games of the last generation and if Ubisoft can turn around some of the less appealing aspects of that game (nonsensical “white savior” story and a rather bland second half) then we’ve got a huge hit on our hands. If the logical progression from flamethrower dubstep is elephant-riding RPG madness, then consider me sold.

Who’s on board for a little more Far Cry when it hits every consoles except the poor Wii U this November?

Source – UbiBlog

Microsoft Shipping a $399 Xbox One Without Kinect in June

Xbox One 399 no Kinect

Phil Spencer, Microsoft’s new head of all things Xbox, posted an update on the Xbox Wire about changes coming to the Xbox One in June, including a new $399 price point without a Kinect in the box and access to popular video apps like Netflix without requiring an Xbox Live Gold subscription.

This is another case of Microsoft backtracking on the Xbox One, which started out with a mandatory Kinect, an always-online Internet connection and aggressive DRM. With this most recent update, just about a year after its announcement, the Xbox One no longer requires any of these things. It’s a win for consumers, certainly, but not for Microsoft’s previous vision for the console.

The most curious aspect of this for me is that this makes the Xbox One cheaper in Canada than the PlayStation 4, which saw a $50 price bump earlier this year. The $399 Xbox One without Kinect will be available on June 9.

What do you guys think about this news? Does this new $399 Xbox One without a Kinect make the console more appealing to you?

Source – Xbox Wire

Nintendo’s Financial Slump and Pokemon Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire Announcement

pokemon omega ruby pokemon alpha sapphire

Today is a strange day to be a Nintendo stalwart and a Pokemon fan. Nintendo’s fiscal year ended on March 31, 2014 and the company is not looking good right now. Due to lower than expected sales numbers on both the Wii U and the 3DS, Nintendo has fallen below their projected income for the last fiscal year, and that’s even after taking into account the fact that they lowered their projections back in January of this year. With Nintendo once again skipping E3 and maintaining that they will not be showing off new hardware, one has to wonder what they plan on doing to right the ship.

Of course, if things are looking down a little Pokemon can always give you a nice bump. This morning, Nintendo announced Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire, updated versions of the classic Game Boy Advanced titles that released in 2003. Promising an “epic new story” in a “dramatic new world”, both games will be hitting the 3DS/2DS this November. Long-time series fans will recall that the original Ruby and Sapphire games took place in Hoenn, but speculation about the potential Mega Legendaries on the game’s cover art has pointed to the fact that this game might be in a new location.

What do you guys think about this news? Sad for Nintendo? Excited for more Pokemon? Sound off!

Source – GoNintendo, Nintendo, Eurogamer, Pokemon.com

Bungie’s Destiny Will Cost Activision $500 Million

bungie destiny

According to a story published by Reuters, Bungie’s upcoming sci-fi shooter RPG thing Destiny could wind up costing Activision Blizzard $500 million in development and promotional costs when all is said and done.

The next game out Bungie in their post-Halo days is no doubt a big deal, but I don’t think anyone’s leaning on its potential success quite as hard as Activision. With Call of Duty: Ghosts’ weak showing last year, Activision is no doubt hungry for their next hit shooter. $500 million could wind up making Destiny the most expensive video game in history, which is a significant gamble for a company that often seems like it likes to play it safe.

$500 million is quite an insane number to be spending on development and marketing, but a lot of that is going towards the development of Destiny’s next-gen engine (which is in-house, a tradition for Bungie) and a lot of back end infrastructure costs. I don’t know about you guys, but with $500 million behind it, Destiny’s servers better not crap out on launch day.

What do you guys think? Is Destiny worth this price tag? Are you going to pick up the game on September 9, and for what platform?

Source – Reuters

Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare Trailer Will Topple Your Expectations like a House of Cards

Originally the plan was for the newest Call of Duty game, made by Modern Warfare 3 collaborator Sledgehammer Games, to be revealed this coming Sunday, but you know how the Internet works. The official trailer for Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare is out now and it features Kevin Spacey (who is a Southern accent away from portraying Frank Underwood), drones, exoskeletons, hover bikes and much much more. If you thought Black Ops 2 was futuristic, wait until you get a load of this:

Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare certainly looks nice, but there are also a lot of signs that point to it being on an upgraded version of the same old engine (I swear, I’ve watched the same running animation for the soldiers in slow-mo since 2007). What do you guys think of this reveal? Back on the Call of Duty hype-train? Can Advanced Warfare pick up after the post-Ghosts slump? According to the trailer, the release date for Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare is November 4, 2014. No consoles were specifically listed, except for the Xbox One version which provided the footage for the trailer.

The GamerSushi Show, Ep 90: Alan, Please Add Title

gamersushi show ep 90

After an unexpected week break we’re back in your digital media player with an episode of the GamerSushi Show. I couldn’t think of a clever title this week, but Jeff, Anthony and I talk some video game news and give thoughts on what we’re playing. You know, the usual deal. We also find time to bust out a few impressions at the end.

Just in case you forgot, this is how it goes: listen, rate and we’ll catch you next time.

0:00 – 3:06 Intro
3:07 – 18:53 Watch Dogs multiplayer video (and other stuff)
18:54 – 30:10 Dark Souls 2 and Trials: Fusion
30:11 – 37:41 Marty O’Donnell terminated by Bungie
37:42 – 40:10 Snoop Dogg Call of Duty: Ghosts announcer pack
40:11 – 42:54 Outro

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Android | RSS

Watch Dogs Walkthrough Video Shows off Competitive Multiplayer

Watch Dogs will be upon us very soon, and as such Ubisoft is rolling out walkthorugh videos detailing what you’ll be doing in the game come May 27. The most recent video showcases the multiplayer modes, which range from asymmetrical mobile app versus in-game combat (which I saw at last year’s PAX Prime) to a four-on-four objective-oriented mode. Check out the multiplayer offerings of Watch Dogs below:

Is it just me or does Competitive Decryption Combat look like a ton of fun? What do you guys think about this glimpse at Watch Dogs’ multiplayer modes?

Halo and Destiny Composer Marty O’Donnell Terminated by Bungie

marty odonnelle terminated by bungie

Yesterday was a sad day for gaming soundtrack aficionados and Halo fans everywhere. Marty O’Donnell, the composer of the soundtracks for Halos Combat Evolved through Reach and the upcoming Destiny, was “terminated without cause” by the Bungie board of directors on April the 11, according to his Twitter account. Bungie released their own statement titled “There are those who said this day would never come” on Bungie.Net, saying that Marty had parted “as friends” and wished him luck in his future endeavors.

While we might never know the full story behind this, it’s a shame to see Marty let go from the company that made him a household name to millions. Marty’s score for the Halo games that Bungie developed will always have a place in my music collection and I’m sure that Destiny’s music will be just as iconic.

What do you guys think about this? Are you sad to see Marty go? Do you think he’ll land on his feet fairly quickly?

Sources – Marty O’Donnell’s Twitter, Bungie.Net

The GamerSushi Show, Ep 89: Super Sushi Bros.

gamersushi show ep 89

Fans of Patrick‘s last appearance in the days of yore of the GamerSushi Show (well, episode 83 actually) will be overjoyed to learn that the site’s most Easterly Canadian is back for another go.

Given Patrick’s stance as a Wii U supporter, it’s fortunate that we brought him in to discuss the massive Super Smash Bros. info-dump that came out this week. We also talk about out impressions of the Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number trailer and break down the beneficial changes Blizzard has brought to Diablo 3 for the new expansion, Reaper of Souls.

So listen, rate, give us five stars on Twitter and we’ll be back in your ear holes soon!

0:00 – 1:06 Intro
1:07 – 13:19 Super Smash Bros. Nintendo Direct
13:20 – 17:49 Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number trailer
17:50 – 26:07 What we’re playing
26:08 – 37:05 Diablo 3: Reaper of Souls
37:06 – 39:50 Jeff’s Titanfall obsession
39:51 – 42:10 Outro

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Android | RSS

The GamerSushi Show, Ep 87: You Got the Trollin’ in Me

gamersushi show ep 87

The break may have been a week longer than we intended, but a trio of GamerSushi editors took to the mic this week to bring you a new installment of your favorite podcast (or one of you favorites at any rate).

Because Eddy has a backlog of trolling he’s in fine form this episode, but despite that we still manage to yak about Titanfall and out experiences with the live version, Eddy’s dislike of InFamous: Second Son, some random bits of gaming news and the big deal of this week, Facebook buying Oculus.

I’m sure you know how it goes, but I’m going to remind you anyways: listen, rate and treat yo’self. See you next time!

0:00 – 2:03
2:04 – 20:52 Titanfall
20:53 – 27:46 InFamous: Second Son
27:47 – 29:51 Upcoming 2014 games
29:52 – 33:04 Assassin’s Creed: Unity
33:05 – 34:44 The Last of Us on PS4
34:45 – 37:44 EA giving Star Wars the “Batman Arkham” treatment/Telltale’s GoT game
37: 45 – 49:11 Facebook buys Oculus
49:11 – 52:12 Outro

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Android | RSS

Facebook Purchases Oculus

facebook oculus rift

I can guarantee that no one saw this coming. Social media giant Facebook has just purchased Oculus, the company behind the VR-device Oculus Rift, for two billion dollars. That’s billion with a “b”, folks.

The Oculus team posted an update to their Kickstarter page, outlining why they though Facebook would be a good fit with Oculus technology and their excitement to work with Mark Zuckerberg.

Of course there’s been an Internet backlash over this; Markus “Notch” Persson of Mojang has announced that he’s canceled the Oculus version of Minecraft because thinks Facebook is “creepy”. Original backers are flipping out, saying that the VR company has sold out and are requesting refunds.

What do you guys think of this news? It’s certainly out of left field, that’s for sure. Is everyone making mountains out of molehills here? Should Oculus have consulted with their backers in some form first, or is this their right as an independent company? Go!

Sources – Oculus Kickstater Notch’s Twitter