In a recently published report, Windows Central’s Jez Corden has claimed that Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2, Gears of War: Ultimate Edition, and Age of Mythology: Retold are all headed for the PS5. That’s in addition to Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 and Halo: The Master Chief Collection. Corden says the latter two are also headed to the Nintendo’s Switch successor, but we don’t yet have word on whether that’s the case for the others (though he speculates it will be).

Currently, Microsoft only has one title officially confirmed for an upcoming multiplatform launch – Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, which launches for the PS5 this Spring.

As per a report published by TrueAchievments, which uses a sample size of over 2.4 million Xbox accounts, following Gears of War: E-Day’s announcement, Gears of War: Ultimate Edition saw an increase of 323 percent in player numbers on Xbox consoles. Though it was unable to break into the top 40 most played Xbox games for that week, Gears 5 did, climbing up to No. 34 following a 66 increase in player numbers.

Gears of War: E-Day is set to be a prequel to the series. Set 14 years before the events of the first game, it will be a fully linear game. The Coalition says the game will tell the origin story of the Chainsaw Lancer (among other things), while it is also set to return to the horror-esque tone of the original Gears of War.

Gears of War: E-Day is in development for Xbox Series X/S and PC. A release date is currently unknow, but reports have claimed it could internally be targeting a 2025 launch.

Gears of War debuted in November 2006 for the Xbox 360, developed by Epic Games. Following several sequels and a spin-off, it reportedly didn’t know what to do with the IP and sold it to Microsoft in 2014. The Coalition would form, developing Gears of War Ultimate Edition (a remaster of the original) and further sequels in Gears of War 4 and Gears 5. There was also the strategy spin-off Gears Tactics.

What’s next for the series? A job listing suggested that development is underway on the campaign for Gears 6. The Coalition also sought a motion capture technician specifically for the series, which could be further proof of the sequel being in development. Rumors have also suggested a Gears of War Collection to be in the works, though it hasn’t been officially announced.

Netflix has also stated that after the initially-planned adaptations, there is also the potential for more stories to be adapted from the Gears of War franchise.

Aside from this announcement, The Coalition has been relatively quiet about the future of the Gears of War franchise. However, earlier this year, Microsoft has discovered to have filed a new trademark surrounding Gears of War. Reports have also indicated that a remaster of the Gears of War franchise in the vein of Halo: The Master Chief Collection is in the works.

It is worth noting that more recent Gears of War games have largely only used the first word for their names, with games including Gears 5, Gears Tactics, and Gears POP!

Cliff Bleszinski also recently stated that Epic sold the Gears franchise to Microsoft because it didn’t know what to do with it.

Gears of War was released 16 years ago today and to mark the occasion, Netflix has partnered with The Coalition to adapt the @GearsofWar video game saga into a live action feature film, followed by an adult animated series — with the potential for more stories to follow! pic.twitter.com/3zInFSnUu4

— Netflix (@netflix) November 7, 2022

Sunset Overdrive

Sunset Overdrive’s vivid art-style would look absolutely phenomenal in 4K and 60 FPS. Currently, the game runs at 900p and 30 FPS and while the Xbox Series X’s Auto HDR makes it pop, a proper optimization patch would go a long way. Given that Sony owns the rights to the IP, this may seem like a pipe-dream – at least on Xbox consoles – but we can still hope.

]]> https://gamingbolt.com/top-xbox-one-games-that-need-xbox-series-x-patches/feed 0 470052 https://gamingbolt.com/xbox-series-x-can-add-hdr-to-backwards-compatible-games https://gamingbolt.com/xbox-series-x-can-add-hdr-to-backwards-compatible-games#respond Mon, 16 Mar 2020 14:05:41 +0000 https://gamingbolt.com/?p=435093

In a recent report on Digital Foundry that dove deep into the specifications for the Xbox Series X, Microsoft revealed some very interesting things about backwards compatibility. Xbox One titles would benefit from the full power of the Series X, allowing for significant boosts to visuals. Gears of War: Ultimate Edition was given as an example, running at native 4K.

However, the hardware could also add HDR to backwards compatible titles that don’t even support. It uses an algorithm derived from the HDR technology in Gears 5 and involves boosting an image’s peak brightness to up to 1000 nits. The end result is games like Halo 5: Guardians and Fusion Frenzy running in HDR.

Microsoft ATG principle software engineer Claude Marais stated that, “It can be applied to all games theoretically, technically, I guess we’re still working through user experiences and things like that but this is a technical demo. So this [Halo 5] is four years old, right, so let’s go to the extreme and jump to a game that is 19, 20 years old right now – and that is Fusion Frenzy. Back then there’s nothing known about HDR, no-one knew about HDR things. Games just used 8-bit back buffers.”

The feature works for pretty much every game in the Xbox line-up. But it also leads to other benefits. “Let’s look at accessibility. If you have people that cannot read well or see well, you probably want to enhance contrast when there’s a lot of text on-screen. We can easily do that. We talked to someone that’s colourblind this morning and that’s a great example. We just switch on the LUT and we can change colours for them to more easily experience the announcement there.”

It’s mighty impressive especially when used in conjunction with Smart Delivery which allows for owners of Xbox One titles to receive a free upgrade for playing on Xbox Series X. Microsoft has yet to reveal how many of its games will benefit from Smart Delivery but The Coalition’s Gears 5 was recently confirmed for the same. CD Projekt RED’s Cyberpunk 2077 has also been confirmed.

The Xbox Series X launches in holiday 2020. For a full breakdown of the specifications, head here.

Crackdown 3

Okay, so Crackdown 3 isn’t the greatest open world game out there. But it offers a decently sized city with plenty to blow up and lots of different things to do. The Skills for Kills system encourages taking down foes with a variety of weapons and abilities, and hunting down different crime bosses while laying waste to their businesses can be mindless fun. It’s Crackdown-rific, and that may work for certain people.

Note: This list is in random order.

Cuphead

The highly-praised, cup-tastic run and gun platformer Cuphead first earned notoriety for being exclusive to the Xbox One (later confirmed for Windows 10 and Steam as well). Its challenging gameplay would be another distinguishing factor but Cuphead stands out for many reasons. The Rubber hose animation style is unique and calls back to cartoons of the 40s while the boss design is great, actually leveraging the graphics to deliver compelling gameplay. If you haven’t, then Cuphead is definitely worth getting into despite its challenge.

The PC version of Gears of War: Ultimate Edition was an utter and complete mess when it launched, exemplifying all that is bad about Microsoft’s push for PC gaming via Windows 10 and the Universal Windows Platform. The PC version was so bad that it lacked some very basic options- such as a V-Sync toggle, or unlocked framerate. And owing to the closed down nature of UWP, there was no way for mods to fix the game, either.

Well, at least Microsoft themselves have added at least some of the missing functionality to the game. The new update comes in the wake of the new update for the OS itself, which allows UWP apps to gain the kind of functionality that legacy Win32 apps have had for years.

The full patch notes for the game’s update follow:

• Added v-sync toggle to video options. Toggle ‘off’ to not be limited by your monitors refresh rate.
• Added frame rate limit selector to video options. Use to reduce your frame rate if you are getting too much tearing, or choose unlimited to let the game render as fast as possible. Note: This option is best used with v-sync off. With v-sync on, it will force the game onto a refresh interval (render every refresh, every second refresh, etc.).
• Added anisotropic filtering setting to video options.
• Added FPS counter toggle to video options.
• Fixed a bug where post processing could become disabled.
• Fixed a bug where PSO’s could be created on the fly instead of read from the cache, causing hitches.

Gears of War: Ultimate Edition is available now on Windows 10 PCs and Xbox One.

Remember when The Coalition said it would deliver Gears of War 4 multiplayer beta codes in waves with those who played Gears of War: Ultimate Edition early receiving them early? That hasn’t exactly panned out and the developer revealed that there will be a ramp up in code distribution starting today.

On its official forums, the developer said, “Microsoft Operations had an issue [on April 18] with their code drop and unfortunately the codes will not be distributed in chronological order as originally messaged. We will be doing another code drop [evening of April 18] to help address some of the issues.

“As noted before, codes will be going out in waves as we ramp up our servers through the beta. We apologize for the confusion during this process and we are looking forward to seeing everyone in-game during the beta.”

Server problems for the beta will also be addressed in the meantime. Ultimate Edition players will receive priority access to the beta until April 24th after which all Xbox Live Gold members will be able to participate on April 25th.