Ubisoft has finally announced the release date of the pirate game Skull and Bones. This year you can go on a digital loot hunt. We summarize the most important information for you.
Five years have passed since Skull and Bones was first presented at E3. Now the release is imminent. Towards the end of the year you can finally set sail – on November 8th, 2022 to be precise. The game will be available for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, Stadia and PC. On the PC you have the choice between the Epic Games Store and Ubisoft’s in-house shop. Crossplay and cross-progression have already been officially confirmed.
The Premium Edition will include The Ballad of Bloody Bones Collection, a variety of ship and character cosmetic items, additional digital content including two extra missions, a digital art book and soundtrack, and a Letter of Marque token. Pre-orderers also get access to the High Seas Pack, which includes the Infamous Rift and Coronation Celebration Fireworks.
What game will it be?
Skull and Bones will be a pirate multiplayer game with survival elements. With up to two friends you can set sail together to search for treasure or to board enemy ships. “From accepting contracts and gathering resources to navigating important trade routes and attacking wealthy merchant ships, every choice will affect the player’s journey, with varying degrees of risk and reward,” the announcement reads.
In principle, the world of Skull and Bones can also be explored alone. However, Ubisoft emphasizes that the game would be more fun in multiplayer. Whether you prefer to forge alliances in the good old PvE manner or activate the PvP mode to compete with other players on the server is up to you. The video linked above gives us a first glimpse of what is happening in the game.
So that the gameplay doesn’t get boring in the long run, Ubisoft has come up with a few little things. The more adventures you complete with your crew, the more fame you gain. New items can be unlocked and little by little you can expand your own fleet and adapt it to your own playing style. In addition, a plan for the time after the release of the game has already been worked out. Regular free updates with new content, activities and challenges are designed to keep players happy.
Mobile cloud company Now.gg recently launched its Now.gg Fungible Games (NFG) mobile gaming platform. The NFG platform allows for “unbundling” of game assets such as game code, game events and game graphics, meaning that each asset can be owned by different people. The games are later reassembled via the cloud using “dynamic recomposition” and then delivered to the user.
Reasons for introducing NFG
“Games today are like movies. What if you could link them to matter, avatars, space and time,” says Now.gg Founder and CEO Rosen Sharma.
Matter means elements such as weapons in a game, avatars are the heroes we know, maps with portals act as space, for example, and time means the player’s time. With the computing power of the mobile cloud and the dynamic compositing of games, this is possible today.
Yang Guo, Founder and CEO of Heya added, “NFG is a groundbreaking new platform. It will change the way games are developed in the future and how games interact with their players. It also offers existing mobile developers a path to Web 3.0 that builds on their existing business. This would not have been possible without the mobile cloud.”
What does NFG bring to game developers?
Basically, NFG offers completely new possibilities in the development of games. For example, it becomes possible to split a game into different sectors such as code, events and graphics, whereby the ownership of these sectors can be divided among different people. In this way, existing games can be changed as desired, with the software querying individual sectors and reintegrating them in a modified form, supplementing them, or replacing them completely. The modified sectors can come from many different developers. In the end, it becomes the so-called fungible game.
There is also the possibility of a variety of new interactions between developers and players. For the latter it can e.g. For example, it can be very exciting to find new segments in games and integrate them into their gaming experience.
The mobile simulation game Heya is a current example of the use of NFG . The software can query the user’s wallet and in this context registers which assets he owns. He can then place these assets on the walls of a room and share the completely personalised, digital room with others. Experts view this merging of the real and virtual world with great fascination, as it offers undreamt-of possibilities for the future in the development of games that clearly stand out from what has been known and widespread up to now. In the future, the player will delve even deeper into the virtual world and the line between fiction and reality will continue to blur.
Recently, Yahaha Games secured a $50 million investment to build a metaverse with user-generated content that requires no programming skills from the user. So the future for gamer is going to be exciting.
These are the new laptops, monitors and PCs for 2022
At the Global Press Conference 2022, Acer presented a variety of new products such as laptops, convertibles, desktop PCs and monitors. In addition to technical updates of the individual model series, the manufacturer wants to focus primarily on sustainability and 3D screens without glasses.
Acer’s Vero series: Many new devices made from recycled materials
In its Global Press Conference for the second half of 2022, Acer presented a large number of new products. It is striking that the Vero series, which stands for recycled materials, is being expanded again. In addition to laptops, there will also be an all-in-one PC, monitors and a projector from the Vero series. In addition, a keyboard and a mouse are already in the starting blocks for the fourth quarter.
The laptops are 14 and 15 inch models, which should be available from the third quarter. Acer asks for the Aspire Vero (AV14-51) from 799 euros and the Acer Aspire Vero (AV15-52) should be available from 999 euros. Both feature 12th generation Intel Core processors. The housings are made of 30 percent PCR plastic. In addition, you should be able to carry out minor repairs or upgrades yourself.
The Veriton Vero all-in-one desktop computer (VVZ4694G) is also made from 30 percent recycled plastic and has a 24-inch display that can also be wall-mounted. The scope of delivery includes a mouse and keyboard, which are also made of PCR plastic. The computer is equipped with an Intel Corei9 processor of the twelfth generation, an Nvidia GeForce MX550 graphics processor and up to 64 GB of dual-channel DDR4 memory. It should be available from 919 euros in the third quarter.
The two new Vero monitors, the 27-inch Acer CB273 and the 24-inch Acer B247Y G offer Full HD resolution (1,920 x 1,080 pixels) and are made of 85 percent PCR plastic and 5 percent OBP plastic . The 27-inch model costs 39 euros, while the 24-inch model costs 269 euros.
Acer will also have the Vero PD2325W projector in its portfolio, which also consists of 35 percent recyclable plastic and whose LED lamp is said to last around 30,000 hours. It is said to consume around 50 percent less energy than a conventional projector. It offers WXGA resolution (1,280 x 800 pixels) and should be available in stores from the third quarter for around 549 euros.
Spatial Labs: 3D technology without glasses
The Acer Spatial Labs View Pro is a commercial 4K monitor that is supposed to enable glasses-free 3D. Image credit : Acer
tial Labs: 3D technology without glasses
In addition, Acer will expand its 3D lineup with two SpatialLabs View Series displays, with the standard version aimed at end users and the Pro version at business customers. Both screens are 15.6 inches and offer 4K resolution (3,840 x 2,160 pixels).
The SpatialLabs View has the so-called “SpatialLabs TrueGame”, which should be able to show games in stereoscopic 3D. At the start there should be preconfigured profiles for more than 50 games that support this AI feature. Gamers should be able to have a completely new gaming experience in real time even without VR glasses.
Another application that supports both displays is “SpatialLabs Go”. This AI solution is intended to create stereoscopic 3D content from two-dimensional screen content at the click of a mouse.
The “SpatialLabs Model Viewer” function that bears its name, on the other hand, is only available for the Acer SpatialLabs View Pro. It should enable 3D design software such as Maya, Blender or Cinema 4D to create stereoscopic 3D models.
It is not yet known when the devices will be available and how expensive they will be.
The new gaming products
The gaming highlight of the new Acer lineup is likely to be the Predator Helios 300 in the SpatialLabs Edition. Acer has installed the aforementioned 15.6-inch “SpatialLabs View” display in the notebook, which has a resolution of 4K with 3,840 x 2,160 pixels and whose technology should enable stereoscopic 3D images without VR glasses. It is equipped with a twelfth-generation Intel Core i9 processor, an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 in the laptop version and up to 32 GB of fast DDR5-4800 RAM. The device will probably be available from September at a starting price of 3,299 euros.
The slim Predator Triton 300 SE is a 14-inch laptop that is aimed not only at gamers but also at content creators. It is equipped with the latest 12th generation Intel Core CPUs and Nvidia GeForce RTX 30 laptop GPUs. Among other things, an OLED variant is available as a display. The device should already be available in June for a price starting at 1,499 euros.
In addition, two gaming monitors are in the starting blocks with the Predator XB273K LV and the Acer Nitro XV272U RV. The former is a 27-inch model and offers 4K resolution (3,840 x 2,160 pixels) at a frame rate of 160 Hz. It also supports HDR 600. It should be available from October for around 850 euros. The Acer Nitro, on the other hand, is a 27-inch monitor with WQHD resolution (2,560 x 1,440 pixels) and a refresh rate of 170 Hz, which has HDR 400 certification. This model should be in stores from October for 399 euros.
Minor upgrades from well-known brands
In addition, well-known model series will receive a technical upgrade. These include, for example, the Acer Swift 3 OLED (in July from 999 euros), the Acer Spin 5 (in July from 1,399 euros) and the Acer Spin 3 (in June from 999 euros).
The business line of the Tavelmate series will also be relaunched. Depending on the model, these will be available from August/September.
Acer will also continue the ConceptD notebook series: The ConceptD 5 notebook will probably be available from July for a price starting at 3,399 euros, the ConceptD 5 Pro probably from August at a starting price of 3,799 euros. Both are equipped with 12th generation Intel Core processors and powerful Nvidia RTX GPUs.
With the ConcetD series, Acer proves that desktop PCs are far from dead. Two new models will be launched here in September, the ConceptD 100 and ConceptD 500 desktop PCs. The 100 should start at 1,099 euros and the 500 at 2,199 euros.
Did you know that both the HD remaster of the Zelda classic Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword were not developed in Japan but in Australia ? At that time, Tantalus Media was commissioned by Nintendo to refresh the games and publish them for Wii U or, in the case of Skyward Sword , for Nintendo Switch . Almost all Wii U exclusive games have now been ported to the hybrid console, but the two Zelda HD remasters are still missing.
Tantalus CEO Tom Crago has now confirmed in an interview that the studio has not received a request from Nintendo to port The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess HD to Nintendo Switch. However, the Australian developers would jump at the opportunity if the Japanese company placed the order.Citation
No [we weren’t asked about porting the game], and of course we would, but that’s not a priority for Nintendo – at least not in the conversations they’ve had with us.
The way we work with our friends there is that we take every opportunity to work on one of their titles. There is a constant dialogue between our two companies. Oftentimes, a little time elapses between games and other ideas are discussed, but in the case of Skyward Sword, some time passed and then the email came: “Would you be interested in bringing Skyward Sword to the [Nintendo] Switch ?’ The answer, of course, was, ‘Yes, we would be.’ And then we talked to Nintendo about what that might look like, and finally we got going. So it was similar in many ways to how Twilight Princess (on Wii U) came about.
According to a recent report by Deadline , Netflix is said to be working on starting live streams for the first time. The streaming provider had already confirmed the development in the past.
Live streaming will initially be used on Netflix for some of the shows and stand-up comedy. The live transmissions would then also make it possible to carry out viewer votes. In general, this would give you the same options as in linear television.
Of course, Netflix might also get involved in sports rights and related broadcasts. But you should wait and see: sports rights are very expensive and recently Netflix had to accept a massive loss in share value.
When Netflix could start live streaming is still completely open. Internally, the experiments should just run. It is also conceivable that you will only get started in the USA before you go to work internationally.
