Dying Light took place in the fictional Middle-Eastern city of Harran. The sun-soaked streets and dilapidated buildings made up a sprawling playground that was split into two distinct zones. Since using parkour to get around by climbing, jumping–and generally doing anything to avoid the zombie hordes–was the only form of traversal, the city felt a lot bigger than it actually was.

In Dying Light 2, the sequel’s fictional European metropolis is four times larger than all of the maps in its predecessor combined–including The Following DLC’s expansive farmland. “We are witnessing a lot of changes in the technology side,” said Pawel Rohleder, chief technology officer at developer Techland, in an interview on the Nvidia GeForce YouTube channel. “The game world will be four times bigger than the whole game before,” he continued. “Streaming technology allows us to make really huge worlds.”

On top of the sheer breadth of the map, Dying Light 2 will also be implementing ray tracing tech, too. “This is like the holy grail in computer graphics and photorealism,” Rohleder explained. Beyond this, Dying Light 2 places a large emphasis on story and the choices you make. Writer and designer Chris Avellon–who’s known for his work on the likes of Fallout 2, Pillars of Eternity, and Prey–is collaborating with Techland as a narrative designer. “This is one of the biggest challenges for us; every choice that you make may impact the world. For example, we have to have different versions of the map, and the map is huge so the challenge is even bigger,” Rohleder said. “The world combinations are a really huge number of possibilities.”

Techland recently released a 26-minute gameplay video showcasing how Dying Light 2’s map can change depending on the choices you make. After the player opts to turn on some water pumps, an underground city emerges from beneath the waves, giving you a new area to explore that also changes the direction of the narrative.

Dying Light 2 is due out Spring 2020 on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC.

from GameSpot – Game News https://www.gamespot.com/articles/dying-light-2s-world-is-four-times-bigger-than-pre/1100-6469713/

P.T. achieved legendary status in 2015 after Konami cancelled Silent Hills and subsequently delisted the experimental demo from the PlayStation Store. It was already incredibly popular–as evidenced by over a million downloads–and is widely regarded as one of the best horror games ever made. Throw in the involvement of Hideo Kojima, Guillermo del Toro, and Norman Reedus; the fact it’s still unavailable to download; and the incredible notion that people are still finding secrets within it, and P.T.’s legacy is easy to understand.

After all these years it’s also still finding ways to terrify us. Modder Lance McDonald, who’s responsible for a number of cool hacks in games like Bloodborne, Dark Souls, and Sekiro over on his YouTube channel, has now turned his considerable expertise to P.T., gleaning some horrifying new information about what was lurking just outside of view. By hacking and managing to unlock the camera, McDonald was able to move the player character forward while keeping the camera still, revealing that evil ghost Lisa is creeping behind you at nearly all times.

“I’ve been slowly working on looking for useful bits of code in P.T. for months, usually just messing around for a few hours a week and having no luck at all,” McDonald told VG247. “I finally found all the code that handles the ‘zoom in’ when the player clicks the R3 button. I removed all the code that adjusts the camera and replaced it with my own, and then patched the game so that it thinks you’re always holding R3, so it constantly injects my custom camera axis.”

His discovery is haunting, but there’s even more P.T. content on the way. “I only tweeted what I did because I’m confident I have enough other awesome stuff to save for a full video,” McDonald said. The prospect of seeing between more of P.T.’s seams is an exciting one and should lead to some intriguing footage. Kojima’s Silent Hills teaser may be gone from the PlayStation Store forever, but it’s still finding ways to infiltrate our nightmares all these years later.

from GameSpot – Game News https://www.gamespot.com/articles/pt-still-finds-new-ways-to-scare-us-years-after-be/1100-6469710/

Borderlands 3 marks a return to the loot shooter franchise that helped define the genre. The series is known for its gonzo humor and boasts of near-infinite permutations of guns is marking its debut on the current generation. While the series makes the bold leap forward with improved visual fidelity, it appears to be the same Borderlands you’ve come to know.

According to GameSpot’s Borderlands 3 review, it “carries forward many of the things that made the first two games special, but in doing so it also brings with it a few of the same stumbling blocks.”

Several outlets have published reviews for Borderlands 3. We’ve gathered a range of them below to give a look from around the industry. For an even broader view, check out GameSpot’s sister site Metacritic. If you’re thinking about picking it up, be sure to read up our Borderlands 3 pre-order guide.

• Game: Borderlands 3
• Platforms: PC, PS4, Xbox One
• Developer: Gearbox Software
• Release date: September 13
• Price: $60 / £60 / $68 AUD

See Borderlands 3 at Amazon

GameSpot — 8/10

“If you’ve never been a fan of the franchise, it’s unlikely Borderlands 3 does enough things differently to change your mind, as the game best excels at continuing what the series has always done: deliver a humorous tall tale of misfits looting and shooting their way to heroism.” — Jordan Ramee [Full review]

Forbes — 9/10

“Borderlands 3 was worth the wait and will be a fixture in this genre for years to come. And I think few fans of the last two will be disappointed when they get their hands on it at last.” — Paul Tassi [Full review]

Destructoid — 9/10

“Borderlands 3 takes most of the good bits of Borderlands 2 and either rolls with them or improves upon them. It didn’t need to reinvent the wheel either, as Gearbox pretty much had the formula figured out the second time around.” — Chris Carter [Full review]

Game Informer — 8/10

“Borderlands 3 is a love letter to its fans and a celebration of the style of play it first popularized. Filled with characters from previous installments, and unapologetic in its silly humor and bombastic action, it’s an amusing ride that seems hesitant to innovate. If more of what you loved before is your chief desire, Gearbox has granted that wish through a game of impressive scope that charts some very safe territory.” — Matt Miller [Full review]

US Gamer — 4/5

“Borderlands 3 is more Borderlands, and all the loot that entails. This proper sequel improves upon the formula with more guns, but more importantly, a stretch of unique planets to kill enemies on. The new planets offer more visual variety and a great evolution of enemy encounters. The tuning is clearly meant for more than one player, making a punitive experience at times for the solo Vault Hunter. Despite the formula growing a bit stale, Gearbox has expanded upon it in the right way, resulting in a great Borderlands experience.” — Mike Williams [Full review]

PC Gamer — 63/100

“An endless font of bad jokes and cool guns in the series’ most vapid story yet, Borderlands 3 skates by on watching numbers fly and goons explode.” — James Davenport [Full review]

The products discussed here were independently chosen by our editors. GameSpot may get a share of the revenue if you buy anything featured on our site.

from GameSpot – Game News https://www.gamespot.com/articles/borderlands-3-review-roundup/1100-6469712/

Note: This story contains minor, non-story spoilers for Control. If you’re looking to find everything yourself, you might want to stop reading now.

Check just about any corner, nook, or cranny in Control and there’s something interesting to find. There are tons of clues about the game’s story and its world in the form of memos and reports from the Federal Bureau of Control that hint at all sorts of supernatural situations the FBC has encountered. A few details call back past Remedy games like Max Payne and Quantum Break. And there’s a lot of material that links Control to Remedy’s 2010 game Alan Wake. But one of the coolest and most out-of-the-way Easter eggs has nothing to do with any of that.

In addition to being filled with references to its own games, Control also has a few fun musical Easter eggs. The Finnish studio has a longtime relationship with rock band and countrymen Poets of the Fall, whose music appears in Control, Alan Wake, and Max Payne 2. Control sneaks in another Easter egg related to a Finnish band: Socks and Ballerinas, posters about whom you might have seen scattered around a few places in The Oldest House.

The bigger Socks and Ballerinas Easter egg is located at the top of the big, tall room marked Central Research. In that area, you can find a room where the FBC was testing the “paranatural” effects of the Poets of the Fall song “My Dark Disquiet.” Climb and fly to the top of the room to find another lab (in true weird fiction fashion, you can’t actually get to this one by any staircase) to discover another sound lab, where a Socks and Ballerinas song is also being studied. Hit a button on a nearby control panel and the song starts playing in the lab and makes objects located within it fly to the ceiling.

As Reddit user Jedi-Outcast discovered, there’s a little something more to the room than just an opportunity to listen to the song. On a nearby chalkboard is a message in code, which Jedi-Outcast realized was an A1Z26–one in which a series of numbers correspond to the letters of the alphabet. Filling in the letters revealed the phrase “socksandballerinas.” Beside that is listed a chemical compound in molecular form: C17H35COON8. Jedi-Outcast used some chemistry knowledge to recognize it as a soap molecule.

Googling “Socks and Ballerinas Soap,” led to the Bandcamp page for the group and its album. Jedi-Outcast writes that they were at a loss as to what the codes at the bottom of the chalkboard referred to, until they discovered a “Redeem Code” link on the sidebar of the page.

Dropping in one of the codes from the chalkboard provided a free copy of the album–a reward for the first three people in the world to solve the puzzle. As a response from Socks and Ballerinas on the post notes, Jedi-Outcast was the second.

All the codes have been redeemed as of this writing, so that part of the puzzle is over. Still, as far as Easter eggs go, this is an interestingly elaborate one and a pretty cool nod to Remedy’s attention to music in its games and to Finnish bands in particular. While you can’t get it for free, you can still check out the Socks and Ballerinas album on Bandcamp and Soundcloud.

from GameSpot – Game News https://www.gamespot.com/articles/one-of-the-most-fascinating-control-easter-eggs-is/1100-6469718/

The wait is over. Borderlands 3 will be available for everyone on September 13, and we are doing an online giveaway to celebrate the launch. The grand prize package comes with Borderlands 3 Super Deluxe Edition and an Xbox One X console. The Super Deluxe Edition includes the Season Pass and Deluxe bonus content in a Steelbook case.

We also have one (1) first runner-up winner that will take home a Borderlands 3 Super Deluxe Edition and a PS4 Pro. And three (3) second runner-up winners will win the standard edition of the original shooter-looter.

What do you have to do to sign up for this giveaway? Fill out the form below after reading our official rules and accepting our terms and conditions. If you are a die hard fan of the franchise you can increase your chances of winning by doing extra actions in the form to obtain additional entries.

If you can’t see the form you can use this link.

Winners will receive an email once the giveaway is over, so be sure to set a reminder for September 20th to check your email (and junk folders). Potential winners have 48 hours to respond to receive the prize.

Head to our comments and tell us which playable character is your favorite and why? Good luck!

from GameSpot – Game News https://www.gamespot.com/articles/win-a-borderlands-3-super-deluxe-edition-bundle-an/1100-6469702/