Hell Let Loose is a multiplayer shooter set against the backdrop of World War II, and will be exclusive to PS5 owners. Mortal Kombat X is still one of the best fighting games available, although the game is already a part of the PS Plus Collection, which PS5 owners will have access to already (should they have a PS Plus subscription). Lastly, there’s PGA Tour 2K21, which is also a fine enough game.

As it turns out, leaks were right on point again. An interesting point worth noting about this month’s offerings is the fact that Sony was giving a month of PS Plus subscription for $1, as a part of its promotional offer in the US. The games will be available to download for subscribers from 5th October onwards.

According to the aforementioned report. PlayStation Plus subscribers will get free access to multiplayer World War 2 shooter Hell Let Loose, PGA Tour 2K21, and Mortal Kombat X. Hell Let Loose will be available only to PS5 players, and it’s worth noting that, according to the report, Mortal Kombat X’s base version (not XL), will be given away for free. That is, of course, a tad disappointing, but for someone who hasn’t played the game yet, it’s a really good deal nonetheless.

This isn’t confirmed yet, of course, but with September nearly over, it won’t be too long before Sony officially announces next month’s PS Plus lineup. Stay tuned, and we’ll keep you updated on any new details that come our way.

When EA lost the PGA license back in 2018, it was picked up instead by indie developer HB Studios, who, after making a couple of successful entries in their The Golf Club series, signed a publishing deal with 2K Sports for last year’s PGA Tour 2K21. The golf sim has done pretty well for itself since then, shipping nearly 2 million copies, and 2K has gone ahead and cemented its partnership with HB Studios even further.

It was announced recently that HB Studios has been acquired by 2K. At the same time, the publisher has also signed a multi-year deal with renowned golfer Tiger Woods. The specifics of the deal are unknown, and it hasn’t yet been confirmed whether this means that Woods will be the cover star for 2K’s yearly PGA Tour releases, but at the very least, it does mean that the player’s name and likeness will be featured in future entries of the series.

Any other golf games published by 2K while their deal with Woods is still in affect will also be able to make use of his name and likeness.

PGA Tour 2K21 is currently available on PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC.

Last year saw 2K Games bring a new sports franchise under their belt with PGA Tour 2K21. Or well, it’s somewhat new is probably fairer to say as the game was something of a rebranding for The Golf Club, a series that developer HB Studios had been working on for several years. It seems, though, that this rebranding was a success and 2K Games could be keen to keep it up.

In the latest quarterly financial conference call for Take-Two Interactive, President Karl Slatoff confirmed that the game had shipped “around 2 million units.” He called this initial kickoff a success, and while not announcing anything officially, said that he saw a future for the series at 2K and that the investment in it looks to be a good idea (thanks to Twinfinite for transcribing the call).

“We are incredibly excited about the performance of that title and I’d like to say that we’re not surprised, but I’m personally surprised.

“It has done fantastically well. We sold around 2 million units or so, which is a fantastic result and we’re just really getting started.

“We do think that there’s a future in this franchise for us. We haven’t really announced much what specifically that means, but without a doubt, this is something that we feel merits investment from our side and is something that we can really turn into a profitable and exciting franchise for us going forward for many years.”

PGA Tour 2K21 is available now on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Switch, PC and Stadia. You can read our full take on the game through here.

PGA 2K21 is the first game in this series to bear the 2K moniker. Originally self-published by developer HB Studios under the title The Golf Club, the series was acquired by 2K a couple of years ago. One might thing this would be a boon for the franchise. After all, 2K isn’t exactly a small publisher. They should be able to provide the resources necessary to make a truly state of the art golfing simulator.

"Unlike other sports games nowadays, which implement things like social media, training, and skill points to keep things interesting off the field, PGA Tour 2K21 simply moves you along from one game to the next, with little in between to keep you engaged."

Unfortunately though, despite 2K’s involvement, PGA Tour still feels distinctly low budget at times. Visually, the game is all over the place. The environments look decent enough. There’s some nice water and lighting effects, and the graphics are distinct enough to tell the fairway from the rough. Character models are well-animated, but the models themselves don’t hold up well, especially the faces. The eyes open too wide for too long, and the mouths are a frightening sight. This wouldn’t be a problem if the game didn’t do frequent close-ups after most holes. PGA Tour 2K21 also suffers from a serious antialiasing problem. Sometimes it gets so bad that objects actually appear to shimmer as a result of the artifacting.

In the audio department too, the game is a mixed bag. The music is pleasant enough, but short and repetitive. There’s only so many times I can hear the same soft, pseudo-jazz piano riffs before I start to get tired of them. The announcers, meanwhile, have good delivery, but their commentary can sometimes feel out of place. It seems like not enough lines were recorded to cover all the circumstances on the green. There were more than a few times where I would start a course with a poor performance, coming in at one or two over par. But I would manage to pull it together in the end, coming in well under par on the final holes.

At the end of the game, the commentators would talk as though I had been solidly under par for the entire course, making no mention of my rough start or of my comeback in the final few holes. Compared to other games I’ve reviewed this year, like MLB The Show and UFC 4, the commentary feels lacking. It repeats too often, and oftentimes doesn’t quite match up with the onscreen action.

"PGA Tour 2K21 seeks to step onto the green with a game that delivers on that experience. And while it succeeds, some technical issues and low production values hold the game back."

The game also suffers from some slow load times between matches. Their duration was pretty inconsistent. Sometimes a course would load fairly quickly. But after matches, it often took a very long time to return to the menu. I’m not quite sure why, but after the very opening match of the career mode, the game took over five full minutes to load the career mode menu after the match. The inconsistent load times are frustrating, and it’s actually made worse by the fact that you can’t count on them to at least always take a long time. Sometimes courses load quickly. Other times the game seems to slow to a snail’s pace.

It’s a shame that PGA Tour 2K21 still suffers so much on the technical side of things, despite 2K’s financial backing. It’s unfortunate because despite these issues, the game is actually a lot of fun to play. The experience out on the green is an absolute joy, and really nails the high-skill feeling of professional golf. The controls are smooth, fluid, and responsive. The game gives you plenty of options to help you fine-tune your approach, including a bird’s eye view that helps you to more precisely aim your shots. The swinging and putting mechanics are simple to grasp, and PGA Tour 2K21 does a great job of easing beginners into the experience without sacrificing the depth that more experienced players desire. There are also plenty of assists, including a one-time use aim assist during putts.

The game will also help you pick the clubs and stroke every time, meaning those with a more casual understanding of the sport can rely on the game’s assistance to help them get a decent performance. But those who want to can ignore or even disable these assists altogether. And if you do so, PGA Tour 2K21 has a well-made golf simulation. The physics are realistic, clear, and consistent. The ball always interacts with hills, wind, and other hazards exactly as you’d expect it to, and the game does a great job of simulating the differences between the fairway, rough, and bunker. Swinging in different situations actually feels different.

Unfortunately, while the experience out on the golf course is excellent across the board, even the rest of the career mode suffers from the same lack of polish as the rest of the game. There simply isn’t much here to keep you going if you aren’t totally invested in the actual experience of playing golf. The career mode is fairly barebones.

You start off in an amateur match, which serves as your proving grounds for entering the professional circuits. From there, you enter the PGA Tour, vying for the top spot on the leaderboards. Unfortunately, that’s really all there is too it. Unlike other sports games nowadays, which implement things like social media, training, and skill points to keep things interesting off the field, PGA Tour 2K21 simply moves you along from one game to the next, with little in between to keep you engaged.

"Unfortunately, while the experience out on the golf course is excellent across the board, even the rest of the career mode suffers from the same lack of polish as the rest of the game."

You earn cash after each game, and from optional mid-course challenges, but these rewards can only be used to purchase new clubs and outfits. The new clubs do have some mechanical differences, but not enough to really feel like they make a difference. I didn’t notice much of a difference between the default clubs and any of the unlockable ones.

The cosmetics, meanwhile, are just that- cosmetic. The quality is pretty hit or miss, and aside from changing how you look, they don’t do anything. This is a far cry from many other sports games, where your downtime can be spent training, upgrading your skills, and interacting with fans and rivals. There is a rival system, but even this feels dated. Unlike other games, where your rivalries grow organically based on your behavior on and off the field, in PGA 2K21 you simply progress through a series of predetermined rivals. You can actually look in the career mode and see your progress to unlocking the next rival. I suppose it adds a bit of a goal to strive for, but compared to the organic way rivalries operate in other sports games, this feels dated and uninteresting by comparison.

PGA Tour 2K21 offers a mechanically solid golfing experience that genuinely rewards skill and practice. The gameplay on the green is a lot of fun, and really makes you want to keep playing. Unfortunately, it’s really the only thing that drives you on, as the rest of the experience feels dated by several years. It’s a shame, because with some more polish put into the visuals and modes, PGA Tour 2K21 could have been a stand-out sports game. As it stands, it’s only a decent one.

This game was reviewed on the PlayStation 4.

Nintendo’s Animal Crossing: New Horizons may have released back in March but it’s still out-performing recent releases. According to the latest UK retail sales charts from Gfk, the Nintendo Switch title is on top once again. This is despite sales dropping by 2 percent week-on-week, as noted by GamesIndustry.biz.

This week has been rather slow in terms of new releases – the only other major launch was 2K Sports’ PGA Tour 2K21. It managed to debut in second place, which is impressive. Another sports title, EA Sports UFC 4, dropped to third place with sales falling by 38 percent week-on-week.

Interestingly enough, thanks to sales, Marvel’s Spider-Man on PS4 managed to re-enter the charts at ninth place. Sales increased by 75 percent week-on-week but it wasn’t enough to beat out games like Ghost of Tsushima, FIFA 20 and Mario Kart 8: Deluxe. Check out the top ten chart for the week ending August 22nd below. We’ll see how this week goes, especially with games like Wasteland 3, Project CARS 3 and more releasing.

1. Animal Crossing: New Horizons
2. PGA Tour 2K21
3. EA Sports UFC 4
4. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe
5. Ghost of Tsushima
6. Minecraft (Switch)
7. FIFA 20
8. Grand Theft Auto 5
9. Marvel’s Spider-Man
10. Ring Fit Adventure

Later this month, golf fans will get a chance to virtually master their swing with PGA Tour 2K21. The new game in the stable of sports titles from 2K Games will continue on the legacy HB Studios’ The Golf Club, with many different courses to play through. And we do mean many here. It will be coming to a variety of platforms, including PC, and the barrier of entry there isn’t too bad.

2K Games revealed the PC requirements for the game, and it takes a pretty modest rig to actually play. On the minimum, you’ll need an Intel Core i5-769 with 4GB of RAM and an AMD Radeon HD 5770 or NVIDIA GTX 650. Recommended only brings it up to an Intel Core i5-4670 with 8GB of RAM with an AMD Radeon HD 7850 or NVIDIA GTX 660. Both only need 12GB of storage. So, as you can see, you won’t need a whole lot.

PGA Tour 2K21 will launch August 21st for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Switch, PC and Stadia.

MINIMUM:

• Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
• OS: Windows 7×64 / Windows 8.1×64 / Windows 10×64
• Processor: Intel Core i5-769 @ 2.80GHz or equivalent
• Memory: 4 GB RAM
• Graphics: AMD Radeon HD 5770 or NVIDIA GTX 650 with 1GB Video RAM
• DirectX: Version 11
• Storage: 12 GB available space
• Sound Card: DirectX Compatible Sound Device

RECOMMENDED:

• Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
• OS: Windows 7×64 / Windows 8.1×64 / Windows 10×64
• Processor: Intel Core i5-4670 CPU @ 3.40GHz or equivalent
• Memory: 8 GB RAM
• Graphics: AMD Radeon HD 7850 or NVIDIA GTX 660 with 2GB video RAM
• DirectX: Version 11
• Storage: 12 GB available space
• Sound Card: DirectX Compatible Sound Device

We have seem some sports try to return and, well, it definitely is quite the different world when you look at sports with no live crowds. But virtual sports are largely going to stay the same to be your comfort food, so enter PGA Tour 2K21. The game will allow you to play through a Tour, and there’s not much point to golf without some courses, and today 2K and HB Studios show off 9 new courses you’ll be teeing off on.

In a series of brief trailers, we get the highlight to all these new courses you’ll get to enjoy. They are East Lake Golf Club, TPC Sawgrass, TPC Scottsdale, TPC Twin Cities, Riviera Country Club, TPC Boston, TPC Louisiana, TPC San Antonio, and TPC Southwind. You can check out all the trailers below, as well as a series of 5 other course that were shown in the past.

PGA Tour 2K21 will release on August 21st for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Switch, PC, and Stadia. You can see a full 8 minutes of gameplay through here.

As it stands right now, it’s not looking good for most sports to return this summer. The global COVID-19 outbreak has stifled many things, and live sports was one of the first to go. However, virtual sports are well on their way, with companies like 2K Games and EA bringing out their usual stable of sports titles, but in the case of 2K Games, they even have a new staple in the form of PGA Tour 2K21, and today they gave us a little hint at the green.

In a series of trailers, we get to see five different courses that many golf aficionados will probably recognize. Each video is a very brief overall of said courses, and they include Atlantic Beach Country Club, TPC Deere Run, Innisbrook’s Copperhead Course, TPC Summerlin, and TPC River Highlands. You can check out each clip below.

PGA Tour 2K21 will release on August 21st for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Switch, PC and Stadia. You can also check out some footage with almost 8 minutes of gameplay to see what you’re in for.

It’s hard to really tell where Google is on their grand Stadia experiment. The streaming service was unveiled as the next step in the evolution of gaming, but there seems to be little buzz for the service since it launched and with no real numbers to go off of, it’s a little up in the air as to what kind of business it’s been doing. But well, you can’t fault them for lack of games, as earlier today we got a truckload of them to dig into.

Via the recent Stadia Connect, we got several announcements about upcoming titles. Some of those were for exclusives, such as the fun-looking Outcasters from Splash Damage, or the exclusive titles that will come for the service from Supermassive Games and Harmonix. But it wasn’t just exclusives, as also some big names both released and soon to be released third parties. All three Hitman titles for instance are coming, with the third game coming day and date with other versions next year, as well as one of the first next gen games were were introduced to in Outriders. Though Outriders launches for consoles and PC this Holiday, it’ll come to Stadia some time next year. And, of course, one of the best games of last year in Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice.

You can see the full Stadia Connect event as well as the full list of all the third party titles it covers below. Those games will be available starting today and going into 2021.

• One Hand Clapping (available as of today)
• Serious Sam 4 (August 2020)
• PGA Tour 2K21 (August 21st)
• Super Bomberman R Online (Fall 2020)
• NBA 2K21 (September 4th)
• Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice (Fall 2020)
• Dead by Daylight (September 2020)
• Hitman (September 1st)
• Hitman 2 (September 1st)
• WWE 2K Battlegrounds (September 18th)
• Hello Neighbor (September 20th)
• Outriders (2021)
• Hello Neighbor: Hide & Seek (Holiday 2020)
• Hitman 3 (January 2021)

https://youtu.be/Dl8YpMo72VE