Top Story
Treyarch returns to cold war paranoia
It’s not exactly a secret that there will be a new Call of Duty this year, but that hasn’t stopped lots of speculation about what the new game will be called.
Eurogamer reports that the next game is called Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War. Treyarch started the Black Ops series – its alternate history and science-fiction take on the series – in 2010, and now the studio is going back to the series’ cold war roots.
Soft reboot: The last few Black Ops games were set in the near future, but the original storyline seems to have run its course. Treyarch seems to be soft-rebooting the series by turning back the clock and returning to cold war paranoia.
Bunker tease: Activision has yet to comment on the leaks, but the latest changes and revelations in Call of Duty Warzone has the community speculating that there will be some kind of cross-over in the near future. Keep an eye on those bunkers, they just might turn out to be from the cold war!
Time For A Quick Daily Quiz?
Which studio developed the original Destroy All Humans from 2005?
- The 3DO Company
- Pandemic Studios
- Sandblast Games
- Locomotive Games
The answer will be revealed at the bottom of today’s issue. Join up with our community on Twitter and Facebook to discuss what the answer could be.
Daily Fact
Is that a swastika on your forehead, or are you just happy to see me?
Konami’s Kid Dracula for GameBoy launched in Japan in 1993 before heading Westwards. Once on Western shores, one of the game’s bosses raised some eyebrows thanks to its prominent forehead tattoo.
To most people it looks suspiciously like a swastika, but fortunately it was a Buddhist symbol called a manji rather than the logo of a murderous European fascist regime. The symbol represents balance, and can mean love, mercy, strength and intelligence but Konami still decided to change the symbol to avoid any cross-cultural misunderstandings.
Join up with our community on Twitter and Facebook to discuss today’s fact.
Unreal Engine 5
Who’s developing in Unreal Engine 5?
Sony and Epic Games caused a bit of a stir when they jointly showcased an Unreal Engine 5 tech demo running on PlayStation 5.
The demo certainly dished out the eye candy, but the most outstanding feature was more subtle: The game world seemed to be streamed in throughout the demo, without any loading screens or obvious tricks to hide pop-in. Of course, the tech demo raised as many questions as it answered, the biggest being: Who is actually working on games using this new technology?
Tight-lipped: Epic will transition Fortnite to Unreal Engine 5 and are working on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X versions that will be released in 2021. Wasteland 3 developer inXile Entertainment – now pat of Microsoft’s Xbox Game Studios – just revealed that the studio will “indeed be using Unreal Engine 5 for our next project.” No-one has unveiled any games currently in development, however.
Beefier toolset: Epic boasts of loads of new features in Unreal Engine 5, such as their new and improved Niagara VFX system where “particles can talk to one another, and understand their environment”. The updated engine will feature improved animation, physics and destruction, as well as new lighting and audio solutions.
