Video Games | Page 545 of 1197

Vendetta Forever: PS VR2 features detailed

The wait is almost over and we’re beyond excited for PlayStation VR2 players to seize their Sense controllers and dive into the explosive world of Vendetta Forever on October 24. The debut game from visionary indie developer Meatspace Interactive, published by nDreams, this frenetic puzzle-shooter pays bombastic homage to classic action cinema, set to a pulsing synthetic soundtrack. Alongside what makes Vendetta Forever so special, today we want to show off some new PS VR2 gameplay and reveal the features players can enjoy when the title launches this Thursday on PS5.

Come on baby, do the Lo-Kill-Motion

Shoot to kill. Kill to move. Lo-Kill-Motion is the new mechanic that propels players acrobatically through Vendetta Forever’s maze-like arenas. Take down enemies, seize their weapons in mid-air, and take their place. Rinse, repeat, and reload. Each scene is loaded with iconic weaponry, spanning the all-time classics to the deviously improvised. Whether you’re scoped in with a sniper rifle or flinging a humble pencil (seriously), you’ll always have an outrageous arsenal at your disposal.

Harnessing the immersion of PS VR2

We loved digging into the possibilities of the PS VR2 hardware and Vendetta Forever is full of features to maximise your stylish shooting immersion. Feel subtle differences between some of the least subtle weapons in the business. Every weapon in the game – from agile silenced pistols to hefty rocket launchers – will handle differently thanks to the Sense controller’s adaptive triggers. Immersion is maximized through the Sense controller haptics and headset feedback, allowing you to feel incoming damage and death-defying explosions. PS VR2 players can enjoy a few visual perks as well. Your view is mirrored on the TV at 4K, with a stabilized camera for optimal spectating and streaming your wildest moments. In-game you can enjoy real-time shadows, dialed-up lighting, and post-processing.

A behind-the-scenes peek at some early scene compositions

Vendetta Forever comes from the idiosyncratic game design brain of MeatSpace Interactive’s founder and solo indie developer, Zander Dejah. Zander’s well familiar with the power of PlayStation hardware. Having worked on Star Wars: Tales from the Galaxy’s Edge and Vader Immortal: A Star Wars VR Series, he’s experienced at crafting immersive VR worlds. For Vendetta Forever, this is a labour of love that goes all-in on gunplay purity. It’s unapologetically the game this VR fanatic dreamt of making – focused entirely on making the player feel really damn good.

“From day one, the goal with Vendetta Forever was to craft all-action scenes that put player power at the centre of everything, rather than lengthy cinematics or dialogue scenes. This game is about fulfilling that ultimate player fantasy of starring in their own action movie show-stopping vignettes. It’s fast-paced, rewards strategic thinking on the fly, and achieves that sense of shooter flow state in VR.
After working on some narrative heavy hitters in the past, this game has really been the opportunity to make the hyperactive shooter experience I’ve always wanted to play. It’s VR-first and when it comes to immersion, ‘feel’ beats ‘real’ for me. I think it’s an experience frenetic shooter fans have been craving and I can’t wait for PS VR2 players to dive in.”
– Zander Dejah, MeatSpace Interactive

10% off pre-orders with PlayStation Plus

Get prepped for cult action paradise with a 10% pre-order discount, exclusively for PlayStation Plus members! Come launch acrobatically blast your way through 60 unique scenes with 20 modifiers, 50+ iconic weapons, and 50+ achievements to shoot for. Vendetta Forever launches on October 24 on PS VR2.

Kong: Survivor Instinct

If you’ve ever wondered what the arcade classic Rampage would be like if you had to play as a puny human rather than one of the skyscraper-smashing goliaths, then Kong: Survivor Instinct might be your answer. This 2.5D Metroidvania platformer takes place amidst a crumbling coastal cityscape while Kong and his kaiju combatants duke it out in the background, making it seem at first glance a bit like a Shadow Complex situated within Shadow of the Colossus. It’s a novel enough concept, but basic environmental puzzle design and uninspired combat mean that Survivor Instinct is unable to reach the towering heights of its ideas, and as I begrudgingly pushed crates and collected keys to make my way through each ruined urban rabbit hole I could never really shake the impression that Kong seemed to be having considerably more fun than I was.

Not that actually playing as Kong would be a guaranteed good time, of course – 2023’s Skull Island: Rise of Kong was such an unmitigated disaster that the aftermath of its self-destruction is probably still being studied by scientists from the Monarch organization. Kong: Survivor Instinct is a notably better game than that, but once the novelty of having the iconic angry ape messing about in the middle distance fades it just doesn’t have the level of creativity or player freedom that other superior games of this ilk released in recent years – such as Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown or Blasphemous 2 – have so expertly displayed.

It also doesn’t have much of a story beyond “Don’t get smashed by the monkey.” We play as David Martin, a single dad in search of his daughter who’s gone missing in the midst of the spectacular, city-ravaging royal rumble that’s currently sweeping along the west coast of the United States. The elevator pitch of David’s personality is basically a sort of middle-aged Nathan Drake who’s apparently forgotten how to be funny (almost every time he kills a labrador-sized spider he deadpans “I was never fond of spiders”), and the handful of survivors he meets along the way don’t even pretend to be real characters. There are also a couple of appearances from the villainous Alan Jonah, who was last seen in 2019’s Godzilla: King of the Monsters – there he was played by a typically cold and ruthless Charles Dance (AKA Tywin Lannister in Game of Thrones), but here he’s voiced by a somewhat subdued soundalike. None of these details really matter, though, since Kong: Survivor Instinct’s slight amount of story is stretched thin over its six-hour frame until it suddenly snaps apart during its jarringly abrupt and underwhelming conclusion.

Kong: Survivor Instinct’s slight amount of story is stretched thin over its six-hour frame until it suddenly snaps apart.

Surface Tension

The story may be weak, but the look and feel of its crumbling 2.5D environments is undoubtedly its strength. David’s quest leads him from smoldering suburban outskirts to devastated downtown areas and the mysterious subterranean facilities below, and each dilapidated diorama is rich with precise detail and convincing depth. Kong: Survivor Instinct does perhaps try a bit too hard to convince you that every structure you explore is an unstable one with the repetitive routine with which it collapses the floor beneath your feet or drops chunks of the ceiling onto your skull, and that does get old pretty fast. However, it also allows you to scamper along the roofs of cars suspended by the webs of a towering arachnid, and navigate your way through the slanted corridors of an apartment building that’s been violently upended by Kong, so there are some more interesting platforming sections among them.

It’s just a shame that so much of the exploration is built around the same pushing of crates and shooting of padlocked gates. The very best Metroidvanias – like Hollow Knight or Metroid Dread – gradually empower you with new tools and abilities that incentivise you to backtrack through the world and unlock previously unreachable areas, but Kong: Survivor Instinct is comparatively light-on when it comes to evolving the ways in which you interact with your surroundings. Here, by contrast, David is given a sledgehammer to smash through weakened walls and eventually a grappling hook to scale up to specific anchor points, but otherwise his progression is always painfully obvious and consists of the same rehashed circuit boxes to shoot or generators to repair, copied and pasted along the winding path towards each mission objective.

This general absence of ingenuity also drains the enjoyment out of its combat, which is primarily geared towards melee attacks since ammunition for David’s pistol is so scarce. There is some nuance to each scrap with Jonah’s soldiers – you can block or parry their blows to open them up for a counter attack or grab them to use them as a human shield when their more heavily armed comrades open fire, and I was pleased to discover that you can even shoot them in the leg to drop them to their knees so that you can deliver a series of finishing blows a la Resident Evil 4. At the same time, there’s a stiffness to each scrap, particularly when David finds himself surrounded, and since he’s unable to jump or climb while he’s locked in a combat stance there were times where I’d knock an enemy off a ledge, only to find myself unable to drop down and continue the fight. Annoyingly, the only way forward was to reload my save.

Furthermore, rather than introduce any interesting new enemy types that require you to adapt your methods of attack, Kong: Survivor Instinct just gradually ups the numbers of foes in each encounter while keeping your combat abilities exactly the same. David’s pistol can be upgraded to carry more rounds per magazine to help counter the swelling hordes, but there are no other firearms to find despite the fact that every other goon you come across in the story’s second half seems to be toting a pump-action shotgun. When you consider that outside of the human soldier types there are only a couple of small spider-like enemies to contend with – and absolutely no boss fights whatsoever – Kong: Survivor Instinct’s combat feels flatter than a kaiju’s couch cushion overall.

Raze the Roof

While there might not be any traditional boss fights, Kong: Survivor Instinct does feature a handful of sequences that could best be described as boss flights. At specific points during the story, Kong or one of his rival titans will spot you through the window of a structure and you’ll be suddenly forced to flee, with the monster punching wrecking ball-sized holes in your path that require some pinpoint platforming to evade. (Sadly, none of these titans is Godzilla.) These sections certainly inject a burst of excitement and urgency into the adventure, although they also involve a fair amount of trial and error to get around instant deaths, which did lead to some frustrating repeated checkpoint restarts at times. Still, watching one of these monolithic beasts unwrap the building you’re trapped inside of like a kaiju kid on Christmas morning is undoubtedly one of the most spectacular tricks that Kong: Survivor Instinct has up its sleeves – even despite the seismic impact these high-intensity moments seem to inflict on the frame rate while playing on PlayStation 5.

Unfortunately, those are the only times that Kong and company have a measurable impact on the action. Elsewhere, these goliaths are only ever glimpsed – either having an incidental tussle in the distant background, or when you summon one by collecting the requisite number of biowaves scattered around each level to clear a blocked path towards a level’s exit in a game of supersized simian Simon Says. It’s certainly a treat to watch Kong casually pick up a connected row of train carriages like they’re steel sausage links and violently wrench them apart, but the operative word here is “watch.” Once these path-clearing actions have been performed, it’s straight back to the same plodding puzzle-platforming and uninspired combat.

Tormenture takes the Inscryption meta-horror formula back to 8-bit gaming and the 1980s

I forgot about just-launched horror game Tormenture when ravelling together this week’s round-up of potent PC releases, but thankfully, Maw disciple Fachewachewa was on my case in the comments. It’s one of your ‘cursed video game’ videogames in the spirit of Inscryption and Pony Island, and based on a quick blast with the demo, it seems lush.

It’s set in the 1980s, a premise I now automatically find horrible because I was born in the 1980s and that was, like, a million years ago. You’re a kid who’s playing a legendary 8-bit game that’s said to be possessed by evil spirits. The experience sees you alternating between the surprisingly labyrinthine space of the game, and the increasingly threatening environment of your bedroom, where terrible toys abound. Did you have one of those phones on wheels with eyes as a kid? Whoever invented that deserves a spell in Arkham Asylum.

The Best Call of Duty: Black Ops Missions, According to the Devs

Call of Duty: Black Ops is often more overtly gung-ho and violent than Modern Warfare and other Call of Duty series. But for every Michael Bay-style blockbuster moment there are flashes of betrayal, psychological warfare, and plenty of undercover operations that skirt the grey zones of morality. But, of the 50-plus campaign missions across the Black Ops series, which is the best?

IGN sat down with senior Call of Duty Black Ops developers to ask them what their favorite campaigns are from across the entire Call of Duty: Black Ops franchise. Have your favorite missions made the cut?

Vorkuta (Call of Duty: Black Ops)

One of the most popular Call of Duty: Black Ops campaigns among the development team is Vorkuta. Three separate, senior Call of Duty devs named Vorkuta as their favorite campaign in the whole series, and for good reason.

A key mission in the very first Call of Duty: Black Ops, Vorkuta sees hero Mason attempt a daring escape from the Soviet labor camp of Vorkuta in 1963. The ensuing great escape sees Mason fleeing through the mines while fellow prisoners are dying alongside him and it culminates in an explosive motorcycle chase. As a single mission, it’s packed with action and heartbreak.

“It’s the great escape from the mine and the motorcycle chase,” says expert level designer and Nuketown creator Adam Hoggatt on why Vorkuta sticks with him after all these years.

“Vorkuta is an obvious choice,” says Raven Software lead audio designer Jake Harley. “It’s just an incredibly memorable map. Reznov leading you out from the mine, the sacrifices of the other Russian prisoners pushing the mine carts as you’re taking cover behind them. It was just an epic map that was full of a lot of action and big moments.”

“It had a lot of strong narrative and gameplay beat changes from beginning to end, especially the escape on the motorcycle. But I’m a big motorcycle guy…” adds Raven Software lead designer Damon Shubhastari.

Rebirth (Call of Duty: Black Ops)

Another popular campaign mission cited by multiple Call of Duty developers is Rebirth, also from the first Black Ops game. This mission, where a big plot twist reveals the character Reznov was actually a figment of your mind the entire time, highlighted Black Ops’ psychological thriller themes. The mission set the whole tone for the twisty, grimy world of the Black Ops in the years to come.

“That moment when you realize that Mason and Reznov are one and that Reznov was actually dead and in Mason’s mind is such an ‘Oh my god,’ moment,” says Treyarch associate creative director Miles Leslie. “It really cemented what Blacks Ops is internally, and you could feel that in the studio when we were developing it… I’d walk over to the team making it and we would talk [about Rebirth and I would just go], ‘you’re blowing my mind.’”

Judgment Day (Call of Duty: Black Ops 2)

Another of Leslie’s favorite missions is Judgment Day from Call of Duty: Black Ops 2. A tense assault on a secret Haitian facility led by Mason, this operation eventually culminates in a player choice on whether to kill the game’s primary antagonist — Menendez — or capture him alive. The player’s choice determines which ending the player gets.

“I have fond memories of people [asking me],’ Oh, you killed Menendez? How could you do that? That’s not the way,’” recalls Leslie who’d respond by adamantly explaining that Menendez “had to die.”

“It was really cool that even internally we would have these debates on the branching story,” Leslie adds.

Break on Through (Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War)

The branching paths would become a staple of the Black Ops series, with player choices leading to different scenarios. Take Break on Through, a mission from the recent Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War, as an example. Unable to get the location of a nuclear bomb, Russell Adler drugs the player in the hope psychoactive chemicals will uncover the hidden location. The drug trip that ensues forces Bell to either obey or disobey Adler through a series of drug-fueled scenarios.

While the drug-fuelled interrogation was an exhilarating experience, Treyarch lead game designer Joanna Leung says that the level’s repeated use of the red doors to teleport the player through different vision quests was a personal highlight, having worked on a similar mechanic for the multiplayer map, ‘Deprogram’.

In Darkness (Call of Duty: Black Ops 3)

Treyarch senior level designer Matt Coutras fondly remembers the first campaign he worked on when he joined the Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 development team.

“It was called ‘In Darkness’ and it takes place in Singapore during a bad storm. Singapore is partially destroyed and it was a cool location to go through,” he says. But as a designer, the real challenge with In Darkness for Coutras was how the map integrated the four-player co-op and how the large map allowed multiple players to explore different parts of Singapore. “You have a bunch of cool locations — from docs to a flooded subway to a downtown space.”

Brick in the Wall (Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War)

One of the first missions developed for Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War, and a favorite mission of audio designer Jake Harley, is Brick in the Wall, a spy-thriller stealth mission where Bell and his associates hunt down one of Perseus’ men in East Berlin, meeting with informants and sneaking past Stasi guards in the process.

“I love stealth missions to begin with and I really liked seeing how the team brought East Berlin to life and just sneaking through the ghost tunnels. It was a really cool experience.”

Karma (Call of Duty: Black Ops 2)

One mission in Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 called Karma sees the player entering an opulent club and fighting on the dance floor with dubstep blaring in the background.

“As an audio person, that was so cool to me and memorable,” says Harley, who says Karma is his second favorite campaign mission behind only the crowd favorite, Vorkuta.

Those are the favorite Call of Duty Black Ops campaigns according to the developers. Let us know what your favorite Call of Duty Black Ops campaigns are in the comments and keep an eye out for all the latest updates on Call of Duty Black Ops 6 right here on IGN.

Matt Kim is IGN’s Senior Features Editor. You can reach him @lawoftd.

How Sonar Shock became the boldest immersive sim of the year: “I don’t think a big game developer would have done it this way”

Not many people hit the refund button on Sonar Shock, the indie immersive sim that’s rated Very Positive on Steam. But those that do tend to complain they couldn’t get the hang of the controls. You can understand why. Try to strafe left to dodge an attack from a blubber monster, and you’ll instead rotate on the spot. Attempt to turn the camera with a flick of the mouse, and you’ll discover that your view remains fixed in place – the cursor moving across the screen as if searching for an icon on your desktop.

“The controls are actually one of the biggest points that make people bounce off the game,” developer Raphael Bossniak admits.

And yet they’re also a unique selling point. Where last year’s extraordinary System Shock remake embraced the interface and keyboard conventions of modern gaming, Sonar Shock leans into the experimentation of pre-Quake control schemes – long before WASD and mouselook became standardised for the sake of ease and sanity.

Smash Bros. Creator Masahiro Sakurai Quits YouTube With Final Video Teasing Mystery New Game

Smash Bros. creator Masahiro Sakurai has ended his popular YouTube channel by teasing the upcoming announcement of a mystery new game.

In the final video from the Masahiro Sakurai on Creating Games YouTube channel, Sakurai revealed that he received a video game development proposal in July 2021, as he was busy putting together the Super Smash Bros. Ultimate Kazuya reveal video as well as DLC character Sora.

Sakurai added that, assuming this video game gets made, it should be announced “sooner or later,” though didn’t say anything more specific.

“I received a request to write a game proposal, which I finished at lightning speed,” he said. “I’m sorry I can’t share more about this project, but assuming we’re able to get it made, it should be announced sooner or later.”

(Sakurai also revealed that until recently, all the footage of him for his channel was recorded two-and-a-half years ago, if you were wondering why he all of a sudden looks older.)

There’s little to go on, but it’s good news for Sakurai’s army of fans who had wondered what he’d do next having wrapped up work on Switch exclusive Super Smash Bros. Ultimate earlier this year. Some even speculated that Sakurai might have retired.

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate launched in 2018 and Sora arrived as its final expansion fighter in 2021. The Kingdom Hearts character wrapped up an 89 character roster for the game, which includes fighters from The Legend of Zelda, Pokémon, Banjo Kazooie, Dragon Quest, Persona, Mega Man, Final Fantasy, Metal Gear Solid, Minecraft, and many more.

Sakurai said in October 2023 he’s not sure where to take Super Smash Bros. next, because “it’s difficult to imagine an increase of this magnitude happening again.”

What might Sakurai’s next game be? Nintendo is preparing to announce its Switch successor console, and there will surely be more Smash Bros. games given the incredible success of Ultimate (34.66 million sales and counting). Perhaps yet another sequel is now in the works, but is Sakurai involved?

Image credit: Masahiro Sakurai on Creating Games: Finale Special / YouTube.

Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.

Dave The Diver’s creator wants to make games about Dave’s backstory and explore different genres

Dave The Diver is getting a story DLC and, possibly, more games set in the same universe. This comes from an interview with developer Mintrocket’s new CEO Jaeho Hwang, who spoke to VGC at Gamescom Asia about their plans to expand Dave and his diving. A future Dave may not even dive, but like, connive. Keep a beehive alive. Jive. Collect tithe.

Neo Geo Beat ‘Em Up ‘Vengeance Hunters’ Brings The Fight To Switch Next Week

A pretty pixel art punch up.

Developer Nalua Studio revealed its classic side-scrolling beat ’em up Vengeance Hunters earlier this year, and its Switch launch is right around the corner, with this one punching onto the eShop on 28th October.

Developed for the Neo Geo, this one will see you playing as one of three unique fighters — the blade-wielding brawler Candy, the mechanised menace Golem and the rocket-firing scientist Loony — as you make your way through five worlds packed with fearsome foes and bosses.

Read the full article on nintendolife.com

The Last of Us Part 1 and The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered Both Get PS5 Pro Support Patches

Naughty Dog has updated both The Last of Us Part 1 on PlayStation 5 and The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered to add PS5 Pro support ahead of the mid-gen console upgrade’s release next month.

PS5 Pro has an AI-powered upscaling feature called PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution (PSSR) that can automatically improve the image clarity of games, but PS5 Pro Enhanced games take particular advantage of the beefier console’s features.

Naughty Dog detailed The Last of Us Part 1 update 2.00 in patch notes published to its website. On PS5, the game has a new ‘Pro’ mode that renders at at 1440p, with PSSR upscaling output to 4K “while maintaining a target of 60fps.”

Elsewhere, on PS5 Pro The Last of Us Part 1’s Performance and Fidelity rendering modes are still available and “provide smoother experience and high framerates compared to the original PS5.” Naughty Dog failed to confirm what those framerates are, however.

The Last of Us Part 1 PS5 Update 2.00 Patch Notes

PlayStation 5 Pro

New rendering mode added that takes advantage of PlayStation® Spectral Super Resolution (PSSR)
- New “Pro” mode renders at 1440p, with PSSR upscaling output to 4K, while maintaining a target of 60 fps*
- Performance and Fidelity rendering modes are still available and provide smoother experience and high framerates compared to the original PS5*

*Enhanced features require a compatible display in addition to the PlayStation 5 Pro console.

General

Fixed issue where New Game+ mode wasn’t being applied when using Chapter Select
Fixed an issue where a player’s Artifact collection could become desynced with their Save Data, preventing trophy acquisition
Fixed an issue where game could be locked at 40 fps on boot up when using a 4K, VRR monitor

Gameplay

Fixed an issue where players could become unable to swim quickly due to rebinding conflicts with a Custom control scheme
Fixed an issue where the speedrun timer could revert to the most recent checkpoint’s time if the player quit or the game crashed
[Bill’s Town] Fixed an issue where Ellie and Bill would not follow the player as expected
[Lakeside Resort] Improved Ellie’s accuracy with the hunting rifle while crouched
[The University] Fixed issue with library generator that could affect progression
[Bus Depot] Fixed issue where Joel’s flashlight would turn on when inspecting certain artifacts despite being in direct sunlight

Accessibility

Added additional support so that more PlayStation 5 console Accessibility settings are now reflected in-game
[Pittsburgh] Fixed an issue where a generator could be pinged by ‘Enhanced Listening Mode’ before intended
[Tommy’s Dam] Fixed an issue on New Game+ where there was no prompt to turn the hand-wheel
[Left Behind – Back in a Flash] Fixed an issue where Navigation Assistance could become disabled unintentionally

Meanwhile, Naughty Dog has detailed The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered update 1.2.0, again in patch notes published to its website. The PS5 Pro features for Part 2 are the same as those for Part 1: a new Pro mode that renders at 1440p with PSSR upscaling output to 4K while maintaining a target of 60fps, with game’s Performance and Fidelity rendering modes providing a smoother experience and high framerates compared to the original PS5.

The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered Update 1.2.0 Patch Notes

PlayStation 5 Pro

New rendering mode added that takes advantage of PlayStation® Spectral Super Resolution (PSSR)
- New “Pro” mode renders at 1440p, with PSSR upscaling output to 4K, while maintaining a target of 60 fps*
- Performance and Fidelity rendering modes are still available and provide smoother experience and high framerates compared to the original PS5*

*Enhanced features require a compatible display in addition to the PlayStation 5 Pro console.

General

Fixed an issue where some trophies would not unlock after importing PS4 save data
Fixed an issue where Abby’s torso could disappear when switching between her bonus skins

Gameplay

[The Tunnels] Fixed an issue where Dina could be grabbed an additional time while escaping in the subway

No Return

Fixed an issue where the stun bomb was not being accurately counted toward the player’s “Stun” stats
Fixed an issue where some weapon kills were not accurately tracking toward player’s stats when performing stealth kills in between those weapon kills
Fixed an issue where shiv kills were not being accurately counted toward the player’s “Shiv” stats

Audio

[On Foot] Fixed an issue where music tracks would not progress as intended when speedrunning

Accessibility

Added additional support so more PlayStation 5 console Accessibility settings are now reflected in-game
[The Tunnels] Fixed an issue where code for the locked room could not be located using Enhanced Listen Mode
[No Return] Fixed an issue where enemies specified by a Gambit were not properly identified when using High Contrast Mode

Technical leads at various developers, including Naughty Dog, have already spoken about how on the base PS5 players would often have to choose between Fidelity mode, which offers better resolution at lower framerates, typically 30fps, or Performance mode, which raises the framerate to 60 at the expense of better graphical textures and ray tracing. That choice is no longer necessary on the PS5 Pro, which can run games combining better resolution with higher framerates.

Last month, Travis McIntosh, Naughty Dog’s head of technology, told IGN that the ability to play The Last of Us at 60fps in 4K is “a huge deal.” “It makes it so we don’t have to compromise, so you don’t have to pick between high fidelity and good performance.”

“The high fidelity mode on the base PS5 actually looks even better when you’re on Pro,” McIntosh added. “And there are some minor performance issues in performance mode on the PS5 base model that are also much better. Very solid 60 [fps], a lot less frame drops when you get to the Pro.”

This week, developer Remedy detailed its approach to Alan Wake 2’s PS5 Pro update, explaining that Quality mode adds ray tracing at the expense of running at 30fps, but the patch also includes big improvements to Performance mode.

The Last of Us games join the likes of Blizzard’s Diablo 4 and Sony Santa Monica’s God of War Ragnarok in a list of over 70 games with confirmed PS5 Pro Enhanced updates, according to eagle-eyed fans who’ve been keeping an eye on the PlayStation Store (IGN has a list of all the PS5 Pro Enhanced games so far).

PS5 Pro launches November 7 priced $700.

Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.

AMD’s Ryzen 9000X3D processors, with their fancy-pants cache, are launching November 7th

‘Tis the season for new gaming CPUs. While Intel gear up to release their efficiency-focused Core Ultra 200S chips, AMD have announced a November 7th launch date for their Ryzen 9000X3D series – the latest to use their framerate-juicing 3D V-Cache. No specific CPUs have been named, for some reason, but we can be reasonably sure from leaks and retail listing whoopsies that this launch will include at least one of the Ryzen 7 9800X3D, Ryzen 9 9900X3D, and Ryzen 9 9950X3D.