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

Every single Activision studio is now Working on Call of Duty

Crash Bandicoot 4 developer Toys for Bob has become the latest studio Activision has redirected to working on Call of Duty: Warzone.

Toys for Bob announced the news on Twitter and said it was "proud" to support development for Season 3 of Call of Duty Warzone.

The move means that all nine of the studios directly owned by Activision are now working on Call of Duty in some capacity.

The shift in focus seems to have resulted in some staff leaving Toys for Bob. Among them character designer and illustrator Nicholas Kole, who worked on Crash Bandicoot 4 and the Spyro Reignited Trilogy.

"it's the end of an era, but I wish my former co-workers still with TFB all the best with what's ahead!,” Kole said via Twitter.

The news comes not too long after Activision announced that Warzone has over 100 million players. It’s clear they are doing their best to edge their way to the top of the battle royale market.

Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart looks impressive

Fans got an extended look at the gameplay for Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart during Sony’s State of Play event.

The game wont be launching on PS5 until June, but the latest gameplay has certainly got fans excited for what will be the sixteenth instalment in the series.

Rift Apart will see Ratchet and Clank traversing across different worlds in multiple realities to stop their archenemy Doctor Nefarious on his mission to eliminate all organic life across the universes.

The game will also see players play as a new female Lombax named Rivet.

Disabled gamers have been praising the game after the showcase highlighted the wide range of accessibility features present within it.

The gameplay showcase can be found on the official PlayStation YouTube channel and is definitely worth checking out if you’re a fan of the Ratchet and Clank series.

New Pokémon Snap

A new Pokémon Snap game was released earlier this week.

The game, aptly named New Pokémon Snap sees players play as a Pokémon photographer, taking pictures of Pokémon as they travel across the various islands that make up the Lental region.

It has been almost 22 years since the last entry in the series which debuted back in 1999 on the N64.

The main storyline in New Pokémon should take players around 10 to 13 hours according to Eurogamer.

The game has been praised by fans and critics and has an average score of about 8/10.

Among us is heading to PlayStation

It was revealed during PlayStation’s Sate of Play event that Among Us will be arriving on PS4 and PS5 later this year.

Among Us was one of the most popular games of last year. The game is currently available on PC, IOS, Android and Nintendo Switch. An Xbox port is currently in development.

Crossplay will enable matches with people on any other platform and PlayStation Players will get an exclusive Ratchet and Clank skin, hat and pet.

While there’s no official word on price yet, it would be safe to assume it will cost something similar to the PC and Switch versions.

DDR5 memory modules in mass production for the first time

The Mass production of DDR5 memory modules are underway thanks to Chinese manufacturers Netac and Jiahe Jinwei, as reported by VideoCardz.

Going off of leaked benchmarks, TechRadar believes that the DDR5 will use less power than the DDR4 while bumping frequency to 4800MHz with a ceiling of 6400MHz.

The new DDR5 memory modules will have a capacity of 16GB RAM and it’s believed they’ll have compatibility with Intel’s currently unreleased 12th-gen Core processors, codenamed Alder Lake.

32GB variants of the DDR5 are also reportedly in development although it’s unlikely they’ll be needed for anything other than heavy workstations for people using things like graphic design and CGI.

The 16GB model will be plenty for PC gaming.

There’s no date yet, as to when we can expect to see these modules in our PC’s.

About the Author

Auryn is a student journalist and an avid gamer. Follow him on his Twitter account @auryncx.

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