Top Story
Rockstar Games’ co-founder Dan Houser leaves after “extended break”
Dan Houser, one of two brothers who founded Rockstar Games, is leaving the studio behind billion-dollar franchises like Grand Theft Auto. He’s already been on a break since early 2019, and will leave for good on March 11th.
Dan Houser founded Rockstar in 1998 with his brother Sam, and was instrumental in writing and producing games like Red Dead Redemption, Bully and Max Payne 3.
Housers among Time’s 100 most influential in 2009
“After an extended break beginning in the spring of 2019, Dan Houser, Vice President, Creative at Rockstar Games, will be leaving the company”, reads a filing posted on Take-Two’s investor relations website. Sam Houser will stick to his position as President of Rockstar Games.
The news comes right before Take-Two Interactive’s third quarter earnings report. Rockstar recently launched Red Dead Redemption 2 and its online service Red Dead Online on PC, first on Epic Games Store and shortly after on Steam.
Time For A Quick Daily Quiz?
Which Hollywood star played Vice City protagonist Tommy Vercetti?
- Samuel L. Jackson
- Ray Liotta
- Burt Reynolds
- Danny Trejo
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.
News Bits
Saints Row IV coming to Switch
Saints Row IV is bringing its brand of vulgar and insane action to Nintendo Switch. Saints Row IV: Re-Elected features the original game as well as all 25 DLC packs. Step into the stylish shoes of the ‘Super Hero-in-Chief’ and stop an alien invasion! Get ready to jump the shark on March 27th, 2020.
PlatinumGames “would love to return to” Scalebound if Microsoft lets them
PlatinumGames’ dragonlicious Scalebound was cancelled in January 2017 after nearly 4 years in development. The IP is wholly owned by Microsoft, but PlatinumGames “would love to return” to it “if the opportunity arises,”. The action-RPG was unveiled at Microsoft’s E3 press conference in 2014.
Daily Fact
Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm Generations “not a true sequel”
Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm Generations from developer CyberConnect2 and publisher Namco Bandai wasn’t exactly a sequel, according to studio CEO Hiroshi Matsuyama.
The clue was in the name, as ‘Generations’ was meant to cover “not only the Shippuden generation, but also the younger one as well.” Why? Apparently, fans were clamoring for characters like Zabuza and Haku, but they wouldn’t fit into a proper Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 3 sequel.
This also meant they had a harder time merging Part I and II of the series into a single cohesive and balanced game, and why they also decided to focus on ‘side stories’ rather than diverging from the anime and manga.
Join up with our community on Twitter and Facebook to discuss today’s fact.
Daily News
Bethesda launches Fallout 76’s free Wastelanders update April 7 with voiced NPCs
Bethesda’s troubled MMO Fallout 76 is getting updated again, this time introducing human NPCs with dialogue.
Since launch, the only humans in the game world have been players, but the Wastelanders update will add a “…brand-new main questline, new locations, new enemies, new weapons, a new reputation system and much more.”
West Virginia might finally have something to say
The new NPCs will be fully voiced, like in the earlier single-player games in the series. You won’t have to pay for the update, and Fallout 76 will also finally launch on Steam. Both the standard and deluxe version will become available on April 7th.
Nvidia’s GeForce Now PC streaming service exits Beta for wider launch
Remember Stadia? Neither do we, but Google’s floundering service has clearly not discouraged other companies hungry for a slice of the game streaming pie: GPU maker Nvidia is launching their own service called GeForce Now.
Nvidia is taking on Stadia and xCloud, allowing you to stream games to Windows, MacOS and mobile devices plus the Nvidia Shield. So what makes this different from the existing services?
Your games in the cloud, with ray-tracing
The service apparently hooks into existing game stores like Epic Games Store, Steam and UPlay, so you can play your own games on Nvidia’s servers rather than buying them again or being limited to a catalog. Hundreds of games are already supported, and all you need to get started is Nvidia’s 100MB app.
Only mouse and keyboard are supported for now, but controllers can be used ‘where it makes sense’. Sound too good to be true? Well, the service has been in beta for most of 2019 and 300,000 users have clocked 70 million hours of playtime already.
There’s a free subscription allowing you to play one-hour sessions, while a $4.99 monthly fee gives you priority access, longer play sessions and games rendered using a ray-tracing RTX GPU. Check out the official GeForce Now website for more.