News Picks/Weekly Round-up from Auryn Cox @Ciaran’s Customs

Ubisoft to Develop an Open-World Star Wars game

Lucasfilm games announced this week that it’s entering a partnership with Ubisoft to create an open-world Star Wars game.

Development will be handled by the publisher’s Massive studio, best known for their online shooter, Tom Clancy’s The Division.

The game will use the Division’s Snowdrop engine and the project is being led by the Division 2 director Julian Gerighty.

The game is still in the early stages of development and no details have been released so far about the setting or characters in the game, or how the game will fit into the cinematic universe.

The announcement spells the end of the ten-year Star Wars exclusivity deal between Disney and EA.

When asked about that agreement, Lucasfilm Games declined to go into specifics.

"EA has been and will continue to be a very strategic and important partner for us now and going forward," Disney games exec Sean Shoptaw said. "But we did feel like there's room for others."

Bethesda Games are Working on an Indiana Jones Game

Lucasfilm Games also announced this week that a new Indiana Jones game is in the works.

The game will be developed by Machine games, the developers behind Wolfenstein and Bethesda games studio head Todd Howard is set to be executive producer of the project.

Bethesda has released a teaser trailer for the game online and they have also revealed via a short statement on their Twitter that it will be an original story not based on any of the films.

"It'll be some time before we have more to reveal," Bethesda wrote in their statement, "but we're very excited to share today's news".

The Teaser trailer which can be found on Bethesda’s Twitter and YouTube channel, gives some hints as to what we can expect from the game. The trailer pans across a desk covered with books, a camera and a plane ticket to Rome , before landing on the iconic fedora and whip of the titular character.

As Machine games is owned by Bethesda and its parent company Zenimax media, it remains to be seen whether the game will be an Xbox exclusive after Zenimax is bought out by Microsoft.

Over $2.7 Million Raised for Charity during Awesome Games Done Quick 2021

Awesome Games done quick, the video game speed running marathon managed to raise over $2.7 million this week for the Prevent Cancer Foundation.

The news was announced on the Games done quick Twitter account which thanked everyone involved. The Marathon which ran from January 3-10, saw 155 games completed and at one stage had 141,291 concurrent viewers.

Over 25 thousand people donated to AGDQ over the week. While it didn’t raise as much money as last years event its important to note that this years was entirely online.

Multiple Speed running world records were also broken during this year’s event. New records are rarely set during these type of events due to the constraints of a charity marathon and the expectation that runners and co-hosts will explain their methods and strategies.

Three runners, meatr0o, Heckson, and Whisperra played a cooperative speed run of Diablo 3, beating the game in 1:19:15. The trio not only managed to beat the 3-player co-op world record but also the four-player record.

MitchFlowerPower managed to set a new record for SuperOrbBros beating it in 18:58, beating the previous time by an impressive 100%

FlyingFox managed to set a new world record for the original Sonic game, finishing it in 20:03. Straight after that Zaxon96 managed to also break the world record for Sonic the Hedgehog 3: Angel Island Revisited beating it in 34:24.

The next games done quick charity event will be held in August and will hopefully be something similar to this one.

AMD Reveals Ryzen 5000 Mobile CPU’s

AMD revealed 3 new CPU’s in the new Ryzen 5000 mobile series during their CES 2021 showcase.

The Processors which are built with the same Zen 3 architecture that is used in the Ryzen 5000 desktop CPU’s will arrive in Laptops as soon as February.

As in previous generations the 5000 line will come in two categories. The H-series, which prioritizes performance will be found in Laptops intended for gaming and content creation. The U-series will on the other hand prioritise efficiency and performance having a longer battery life but lower clock speeds than its H series counterparts. The U-series will therefore be found in notebooks.

The processors will first arrive in laptop models from Asus, HP, and Lenovo. The company expects the Ryzen 5000 mobile CPUs to end up in over 150 consumer and commercial laptops models, a 50% increase over the last-generation Ryzen 4000 mobile chips.

Intel Officially unveils its Rocket Lake CPU’s

At CES 2021 Intel Unveiled their new Rocket Lake processors.

Built using the Cypress Cove CPU architecture and Xe GPU, the new 11th generation of processors features the first major architecture revamp since 2015.

This CPU won’t be beating the higher end Ryzens however, because actually goes backwards in terms of core count, dropping from the 10C20T on 10th Gen Comet Lake to 8C16T here.

PC gamer believes that the two biggest factors determining whether or not this chip will win out over AMD’s CPU’s will be its price and its stock availability over any performance benchmarks.

Nvidia Announce RTX 3060 12GB

During their CES 2021 press conference, Nvidia announced the RTX 3060 graphics card which will cost $329.

The card which will become available in late February will come equipped with 12GB of GDDR6 memory and will feature the latest Amphere architecture.

This latest entry in the RTX-30 series is definitely a little more affordable than previous cards in the series.

Still its hard to imagine that the stock scarcity issues that have plagued the RTX-30 series will have subsided by the cards release date, so getting your hands on one at retail price may be difficult.

This years Consumer Electronics show was definitely memorable and not just because it was the first ever virtual CES.

As per usual the electronic trade show gave us plenty of tech to keep our eyes on over the coming year, but here are the 5 things that really caught my attention.

La Vie Mini

The La Vie Mini is a concept gaming laptop/games console hybrid which Lenovo brought to show in cooperation with NEC.

The Switch like piece of hardware, if it were real would come with an 8-inch 1080p touchscreen, a controller and Dock accessories.

By itself, the LaVie Mini seems to be a reasonably powerful and compact computer and I think It would be very interesting to have the sheer volume of PC games available to a handheld device.

Also being able to use it for all the other things a laptop can do is an added bonus.

However Lenovo are not the first to bring this sort of concept forward. Alienware brought a similar concept to CES 2020 which never made it into production but who knows, maybe the LaVie Mini will prove more popular.

Gamer Gum

While XPG announced all sorts of Hardware this year the thing that caught my eye was their XPG Mana Chewing gum.

The chewing Gum targeted to gamers includes Caffeine and Lutein, which is supposedly beneficial for eye health.

XPG claims the gum will ‘give you a quick energy boost, improve concentration, and protect your eyes, especially during long gaming sessions.’

XPG is not actually the first tech company to offer gaming gum. Razer began selling their Respawn range of gaming gum last year.

There is currently no price tag or word on availability for XPG’s gum.

Moflin the AI Pet Robot

Definitely on the stranger side of products revealed during CES 2021 is Moflin, the little furry AI pet robot.

Created by Vanguard Industries following a successful Kickstarter campaign, Moflin is an AI pet robot with "emotional capabilities" that looks a bit like a fluffy slug.

According to the company each Moflin will develop its own unique personality dependent on its environment and how its treated by its owner. When its time for the bot to recharge, its placed in a wireless charging nest where it will continue to make sounds like a real sleeping pet.

Moflin also features Bluetooth connectivity and will come with an App for IOS and Android although the company hasn’t released any information on the app’s capabilities at the moment.

It costs around £290 and can be ordered already by backing the Kickstarter. Delivery is expected by June 2021. If you like the idea of a pet but not the idea of cleaning up and looking after it , maybe a Moflin is just what you need.

Rise Gardens Personal Garden

This Countertop sized smart garden from Rise Gardens wasn’t the only bit of hydroponics tech showcased at CES2021, but it was the one that I liked the most.

The compact smart garden can grow up to 8 plants at a time and uses state-of-the-art lights as well as a built-in watering system. It is also compatible with Amazon Alexa, so you can ask the virtual assistant to water your plants and provide “sunlight” via voice commands.

The Rise Garden company created its systems so anyone can have the ability to grow healthy food at their own home. The Rise Garden website explains, “We make it very simple for anyone even if you have little to no gardening experience. The app walks you through literally everything in the process from planting to harvest. That said, we do know that experienced gardeners also have a ton of fun exploring and experimenting with the system to grow different varieties.”

The Rise Gardens Personal Garden retails at $279 or around £205.

Air Taxi

General Motors went very Sci-fi this year with its new Cadillac eVTOL, a fully autonomous air taxi.

The flying car, which isn’t unlike a giant drone, utilizes electric propulsion via a 90kWh battery and four propellers. The flying taxi is capable of reaching speeds of up to 56 mph and is of course self-flying.

During the presentation, General Motors global design chief Michael Simcoe told viewers that GM were preparing for a world where technology has made personal air travel possible.

“It is a concept designed for the moment when time is of essence and convenience is everything. “he said.

GM provided few technical details and would not commit to a production time frame. So don’t expect to see these things flying around any time soon.

About the Author

Auryn is a student journalist and an avid gamer. He enjoys strategy games as well as all the new releases from 10 years ago. He also has a few hours on Overwatch.

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