Today, we announced updates to Halo Infinite’s launch timing. Our vision at Xbox and 343 Industries has always been to deliver the most ambitious Halo game ever for our fans, while also balancing the team’s well-being. To do that, we will need some more time to finish the critical work necessary to launch Halo Infinite, which will come in 2021.

We have plenty to keep you busy until Chief arrives: There will be thousands of games to play, spanning four generations, when Xbox Series X launches globally this November and over 100 optimized for Xbox Series X titles, built to take full advantage of our most powerful console, are planned for this year. And with brand new console features like hardware-accelerated Direct X raytracing, frame rates up to 120 frames per second, faster loading times, and Quick Resume for multiple games, playing will look and feel better, no matter which games you choose to play on day one.

• More than 50 new games planned for this year across generations and optimized for Xbox Series X, including Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, DIRT 5, Gears Tactics, Yakuza: Like a Dragon, and Watch Dogs: Legion. With Smart Delivery you only have to buy these games once to play the best versions for your console, across generations.
• New games developed for Xbox Series X and launching with Xbox Game Pass, including exclusives like The Medium, Scorn, Tetris Effect: Connected, and more.
• More than 40 popular games newly optimized to take full advantage of Xbox Series X such as Destiny 2, Forza Horizon 4, Gears 5, Ori and the Will of the Wisps, Madden NFL 21, and more.

A Shared Library of Great Games through Xbox Game Pass

Hundreds of developers are at work on new games for Xbox Series X that will raise the bar for fidelity, speed and immersion; and the best way to discover new games will be with Xbox Game Pass. Game Pass delivers a curated library of content across console and PC, including all games from Xbox Game Studios the day they launch, for one low monthly price. Beginning September 15, Xbox Game Pass Ultimate members will also be able to play more than 100 games from the cloud on their Android phone or tablet, enabling them to take their console gaming on the go. Experiences you expect on Xbox consoles such as your friends list, achievements, controller settings and saved game progress all come with you when you play on mobile.

Play Thousands of Games Across Four Generations of Content

Playing your favorite games and franchises across four generations of Xbox was a key tenet for us in the next generation of console gaming. This commitment means that you will have access to thousands of titles across four generations of content–from Xbox, Xbox 360, and Xbox One.

Our backward compatibility team continues to develop new innovations that can be applied to a curated list of titles that will enhance them even further than was possible when they were originally created. These optimizations include the ability to render titles with increased resolutions up to 4K, delivering new HDR reconstruction techniques to games that were developed years before HDR came into existence, applying anisotropic filtering to improve image quality, and creating ways to increase or double the frame rate of certain titles.

Today I want to share an important Halo Infinite development update with the community. We have made the difficult decision to shift our release to 2021 to ensure the team has adequate time to deliver a Halo game experience that meets our vision.

The decision to shift our release is the result of multiple factors that have contributed to development challenges, including the ongoing COVID-related impacts affecting us all this year. I want to acknowledge the hard work from our team at 343 Industries, who have remained committed to making a great game and finding solutions to development challenges. However, it is not sustainable for the well-being of our team or the overall success of the game to ship it this holiday.

We know this will be disappointing to many of you and we all share in that sentiment. The passion and support the community has shown over the years has been incredible and inspiring. We wanted nothing more than to play our game with the community this holiday. The extra time will let us finish the critical work necessary to deliver the most ambitious Halo game ever at the quality we know our fans expect.

Thank you for your support and understanding.

Chris Lee
Studio Head, Halo Infinite

We are moving the launch of Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 to 2021.

Our goal has always been to deliver the best game possible, to immerse you into a Seattle re-imagined in the World of Darkness, and deliver a worthy successor to the original Bloodlines game. Due to the quality bar and ambitions we have set for ourselves, we have made the difficult decision that we need more time. This means that our goal to release in 2020 is no longer possible. Moving launch is one of the changes we are making to ensure the best player experience possible.

This is not a decision taken lightly nor is it the first option we considered. We will share more information in the coming months on launch timing and other organizational changes that will help us achieve this goal.

We understand that this will be a disappointment to many of you, but we also appreciate how our ambition is echoed through many parts of the community. We hope you understand that, while difficult, this is the right call.

We thank you all for your patience while we continue to build Bloodlines 2.

Andy Kipling, Hardsuit Labs and Jakob Munthe, Paradox Interactive

Broken Porcelain brings an abundance of welcome changes to the series, introducing new gameplay and storytelling elements that breathe new life into the characters and an unprecedented level of immersion in this haunting adventure—perfect for both new and returning fans to the series.

The truths buried in the Ashmann Inn will not be discovered easily—its many mysteries are intertwined and guarded by the looming threat of the stalkers, powerful hunters trapped in time and the confines of its walls. Survival will take more than just quick reactions as a strategic and resourceful approach will quickly become critical in this haunting adventure. Be smart—knowing the best time to sneak, flee or fight imminent dangers can quickly make the hunters become the hunted.

Key Features

• Thrilling Psychological Plot. The award-winning cult classic Remothered returns in Broken Porcelain, the perfect entry point for new fans discovering the franchise as well as series veterans craving additional lore surrounding the events and characters of Tormented Fathers.
• Realistic Survival Horror. The Ashmann Inn is as rich in resources as it is dangers. Cautiously scour the environment for items to aid your exploration of unsettling locations that hide grave secrets of a terrifying past.
• Intense Stealth Gameplay. Roam among the shadows of Ashmann Inn and use everything at your disposal to distract enemies for a resourceful escape.
  Investigate and Escape. Challenging puzzles, expanded lore, and a haunting soundtrack by composer Luca Balboni (Remothered: Tormented Fathers, Mine, Watch Them Fall) transforms the dark and gloomy atmosphere into a terrifying experience that will haunt players well after the game is over.
• Captivating Characters. The roster of charismatic characters grows as fan favorites return to meet all the new additions to the cast inspired by the protagonists of horror classics.
• Real-Time Cinematics. In a series first, fully animated real-time cinematics will breathe new life into the characters and world of Remothered for an unprecedented level of immersion.

Directed by Chris Darril of Darril Arts. Darril Arts is a digital arts entertainment company focused on stories designed with the aim of enriching the game and animation industry supply by offering a range of multimedia products that can be fully classified as seventh and eighth art.

The App Store was created to be a safe and trusted place for customers to discover and download apps, and a great business opportunity for all developers. Before they go on our store, all apps are reviewed against the same set of guidelines that are intended to protect customers and provide a fair and level playing field to developers.

Our customers enjoy great apps and games from millions of developers, and gaming services can absolutely launch on the App Store as long as they follow the same set of guidelines applicable to all developers, including submitting games individually for review, and appearing in charts and search. In addition to the App Store, developers can choose to reach all iPhone and iPad users over the web through Safari and other browsers on the App Store.

Our testing period for the Project xCloud preview app for iOS has expired. Unfortunately, we do not have a path to bring our vision of cloud gaming with Xbox Game Pass Ultimate to gamers on iOS via the Apple App Store. Apple stands alone as the only general purpose platform to deny consumers from cloud gaming and game subscription services like Xbox Game Pass. And it consistently treats gaming apps differently, applying more lenient rules to non-gaming apps even when they include interactive content. All games available in the Xbox Game Pass catalog are rated for content by independent industry ratings bodies such as the ESRB and regional equivalents. We are committed to finding a path to bring cloud gaming with Xbox Game Pass Ultimate to the iOS platform. We believe that the customer should be at the heart of the gaming experience and gamers tell us they want to play, connect and share anywhere, no matter where they are. We agree.

Horizon Zero Dawn AMD Tech Features

• AMD Radeon FreeSync Premium Pro. Gamers on any hardware can enjoy breathtaking gaming experiences with AMD’s leading adaptive sync technology, offering stutter- and tear-free gaming with stunning HDR rendering.
• AMD FidelityFX SPD. Optimized for RDNA architecture, SPD utilizes asynchronous compute to accelerate texture mapping for more efficient post-processing, driving effects like bloom and screen space reflections faster without sacrificing framerates.
  AMD TressFX. A true-to-life hair physics system taking high visual fidelity to a new level, enabling incredible photo-realistic hair effects with Radeon graphics cards – so much so, you may forget there’s even a screen in front of you.
  Asynchronous Compute. GPU multi-threading allowing Radeon GPUs to execute multiple tasks simultaneously, enabling graphics and visual effects workloads to be distributed efficiently for faster framerates and higher visual fidelity.

LAN Play:

As requested by the community over the course of the project, this update includes our official implementation of LAN Play. LAN Play allows players to enjoy Mod content in multiplayer, and should be an evergreen way to enjoy multiplayer far into the future. We did our best to test this feature amongst the Covid situation during development, along with attempting to get feedback from the community via Beta patches. But given the variety of ways people could play over VPN and with Mods, we expect there still to be some quirks in the system. Please continue to provide feedback so we can make any refinements going forward.

Balance Adjustments:

Over the past several weeks we’ve been collaborating with the community to tackle a few key balance items in the game. To see further context for these adjustments and read the full community discussion, please refer to my previous post here.

Community Maps:

A few weeks ago we announced the initiative of incorporating community made content into the actual game update so they can be officially utilized in Multiplayer and Quickmatch. We have decided to keep the first batch of Community maps as revealed, but have also made a few adjustments of the previous maps based on community feedback. The full details of these maps can be seen in the patch notes below.

Quickmatch Leaderboard Reset:

As mentioned in my previous post, we are getting ready to reset the Quickmatch ladder to get a fresh start on all these Quickmatch changes. This reset will likely happen in the next 48 hours if the patch launch here goes smoothly. In addition, one new feature of this patch is the ability to view the Leaderboard results of previous seasons (which should take a snapshot of the final results of this first season).

However, on this note I wanted to address a key topic with the leaderboard. We’ve seen reports, evidence, and even people admitting about “boosting” their leaderboard rank with alternate accounts. We feel this breaks the ethics of the Quickmatch landscape and undermines the leaderboard system. Being part of the C&C community should be a positive and fair experience for all players. So here’s the deal, we’re going to give a pass on this previous season, but this behavior will not be acceptable after the leaderboard reset. I respectfully ask everyone to please engage in ethical play behavior going forward, and if you are not sure what that means, I think reading our Positive Play Charter is a good place to start.

Mod Compatibility:

I’ll then reiterate this message from our previous Patch Notes. Because this patch includes updates to the TiberianDawn.dll and RedAlert.dll files, it’s likely that some previous mods will no longer be compatible with this updated version of the game. Modders will need to update their mods with the latest code and refresh their mods on the Steam Workshop.

Today, as part of the latest PlayStation State of Play, developer Young Horses has shown off the first ever gameplay trailer for their whimsical, narrative-driven adventure game Bugsnax.

Since its reveal, the mysterious half-bug, half-snack creatures have captured the imagination of curious players around the world, but many have wondered, “What actually is Bugsnax?” Today’s trailer showcases what players can expect when they first arrive on Snaktooth Island, and a glimpse at the mysteries it holds.

Use traps and sauces to capture Bugsnax

On top of being tasty, each of the 100 different species of Bugsnax have their own behaviors and patterns. Use that journalistic know-how! Observe and take notes to discover which handy traps, tasty sauces, and witty strategies can get the job done.

Meet and help out Grumpuses

You’re not alone on Snaktooth Island! Fuzzy and eccentric pioneers known as Grumpuses have also followed Elizabert Megafig in search of Bugsnax. They have created the cozy settlement of Snaxburg, but all is not well in this tasty paradise. Solve their Bugsnax related problems and personal drama to make Snaxburg a thriving community!

Break the biggest story of your career

Bugsnax themselves are not the only mystery on this island. Elizabert Megafig has gone missing! Interview the Grumpuses of Snaxburg to connect the dots and find out what happened. Perhaps Snaktooth Island is more than it seems.