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

EA announces the release date for the Mass Effect legendary edition

EA announced this week that the Mass Effect Legendary edition will release on the 14th of May.

The game, which is a remaster of the Mass effect trilogy will also include over 40 of the DLC’s that the three original games received over their lifetimes with upgraded graphics, character models and better customisation options.

However, the package is missing the Pinnacle Station DLC which added a small hub and combat simulator to the original Mass Effect. Developers Bioware were unable to add it into the legendary edition due to corrupted source code.

Speaking to Game Informer, Legendary Edition project director Mac Walters said he wished he could have added it into the game.

“this is meant to be everything that the team ever created, brought together again - all the single-player content. And so, leaving it all on the cutting-room floor, it was heart breaking.” he said.

Although the Legendary edition doesn’t add any additional content it strives to improve on the original games. Mass effect 1 in particular seems to have been revamped to play more like the sequels, with improved AI, rebalanced weapons and no more class restrictions on weapons.

The remaster will be available on PlayStation 4, Windows PC, and Xbox One. While it will be playable on the next gen consoles via backwards compatibility the game will not be getting a dedicated Ps5 or Xbox series X/S launch.

Google Stadia shuts down its internal game studio

Google is shutting down its internal game development studios tasked with making games for Stadia, the company’s game-streaming platform.

Stadia was launched in 2019 alongside SG&E, the company’s in-house development team which was tasked with making exclusive games for the platform.

In a blogpost from Phil Harrison, the general manager for Stadia explained that they were closing the studio due to the high costs of developing the quality of games which would attract users to the platform.

"Creating best-in-class games from the ground up takes many years and significant investment, and the cost is going up exponentially, “he said.

It was also announced in the blog post that Stadia Games and Entertainment vice president Jade Raymond, who previously worked for Ubisoft, would be leaving the company. It’s been estimated that 150 jobs will be affected by the news, however Harrison has said that “most of the SG&E team will be moving on to new roles. We’re committed to working with this talented team to find new roles and support them.”

An Update on the Garry’s Mod Successor S&box

Garry Newman, the creator of Garry’s Mod first announced S&box back in 2017 as a spiritual successor to Garry’s Mod which he was developing using Unreal engine 4.

Since then the game has moved to the Source 2 engine, presumably to make it easier to bring over tools from Garry’s mod. Over the last few months the developer has begun sharing progress reports on the game via blog posts on the company website.

“It's not going to be Garry's Mod 2,”said Newman in the games about section. “My hope is that it will eclipse what is possible in Garry's Mod rather than simply be a modern version of it.”

While there seems to be plenty of more work to be done on the game the studio aims to give players access to the game sometime in the second half of 2021.

Creative Assembly has announced Total War: Warhammer 3

Creative Assembly has announced the final entry in their Warhammer trilogy of strategy games will release later this year.

While possibly best known for their various historical strategy games, Creative Assembly’s Warhammer games have also proved popular with fans.

The strategy game revolves around the battle with Chaos, and will see a number of new races added, which weren’t in the previous games. The Kislev are a northern race whose ice queen you can see in the games trailer which was released on the companies YouTube channel.

The Cathay a civilisation of humans based in the far east is modelled on ancient China.

The games official blurb reads:

“Embarking on a new grand campaign, you will be tasked with saving or exploiting the power of a dying god. Each race offers a unique journey through the nightmarish Chaos Realm, culminating in an endgame that will determine the fate of the world.”

PS5 stock shortages likely to continue

The Ps5’s launch was plagued by stock shortages and that problem seems like it will persist well into 2021.

"It is difficult for us to increase production of the PS5 amid the shortage of semiconductors and other components," Sony CFO Hiroki Totoki said during a company briefing.

"We have not been able to fully meet the high level of demand from customers [but] we continue to do everything in our power to ship as many units as possible to customers who are waiting for a PS5,"he said.

Despite the stock shortages it was revealed during the meeting that Sony shipped 4.5 million PlayStation 5 consoles worldwide through the end of 2020.

Microsoft has also warned customers that stock shortages for the Xbox Series X and S would last until at least June, while chip maker AMD has suggested it will be the Autumn until any of the next gen consoles are readily available in stores.

The AMD RX 6700-series

During its CES 2021 presentation AMD made it clear that that new mainstream RDNA 2 graphics cards will arrive in the first half of this year and it sems like it could be the RX 6700 XT and RX 6700.

The next graphics cards out of the Radeon Technologies Group, the RX 6700-series—as it's likely to be called—will offer a more affordable alternative to the existing line-up, likely costing somewhere between $300–$400.

PC gamer reports that “All signs still point to a late-March release date, too, or Q1 by AMD's corporate calendar.”

However like all the other graphics card releases I imagine it will be hard to get your hands on the hardware as manufacturers simply can’t keep up with the demand.

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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