Month: September 2021

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  Fantastical effects and jaw-dropping art direction can be found at every turn in Kena: Bridge of Spirits. [credit: Ember Lab ]

What would a legitimate "dark" Legend of Zelda game look like? I don't mean a game made by another studio that copies Zelda concepts while adding violence, cursing, or gothic architecture—we've seen plenty of those. I'm more curious how Nintendo itself might craft a 3D, "E-10" rated adventure—full of magical melee combat, puzzles, charm, and meticulous art direction—that somehow takes the series into a more sinister direction.

My praise for this week's Kena: Bridge of Souls, the first-ever game from Ember Lab, is that it is as close to that pitch as I've seen since the Zelda series revolutionized the 3D adventure genre. This new, 15-hour series premiere is exhilarating, accessible, cute, gorgeous, ominous, and above all, touching.

K:BoS doesn't necessarily exceed what we got from Nintendo's 2017 classic Breath of the Wild, and its occasional slip-ups and issues are firm reminders that its creators are a bit green. But there's something special here, in a debut game that most studios would kill to launch as their third or fourth game.

Enlarge (credit: Aurich Lawson | Sony)

Sony's latest PS5 system firmware update makes some games run slightly faster, at least under certain scenarios. In a new Digital Foundry video, it was discovered that a performance bump—which affects both the console's 1000 series launch model and recently released 1100 series model revision—appears to make certain games run up to three percentage points faster.

Digital Foundry founder Richard Leadbetter compared performance tests in Control Ultimate Edition and Devil May Cry 5 Special Edition using previously released PS5 firmware as a benchmark against the now-current September system software update. The video's accompanying frame-graph footage showed DMC5SE cut scenes and Control's photo mode (which unlocks the game's frame rate, capped at 30 fps during gameplay) running at a fluctuating 1-2 frames per second higher on the PS5 using the newer firmware.

During his tests, Leadbetter said each game was running 1-3 percent faster with a 1 percent margin of error. He added that ray tracing and unlocked frame rates seemed to be a "common component" in their occurrence. Digital Foundry did not mention any other games that have unlocked frame rates below 60 fps, since the powerful PS5 console doesn't have many of those. This leaves to interpretation exactly how much power this firmware update is possibly opening up to PS5 games across the board.

Enlarge (credit: Aurich Lawson | Getty Images)

In video game parlance, longtime gaming publisher Activision Blizzard has jumped to "extreme" difficulty as of late, thanks to a wave of highly publicized lawsuits. On Monday, the company behind World of Warcraft, Diablo, and Call of Duty faced arguably its biggest test yet, this time from the federal government.

The Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating Activision Blizzard over how the video game publisher dealt with allegations of sexual misconduct and workplace discrimination—and whether related information was properly disclosed to shareholders by executives.

The federal regulator has subpoenaed the company as well several senior executives, including CEO Bobby Kotick, according to The Wall Street Journal. It has also requested a variety of documents, including Kotick’s communications with other executives regarding the matter, minutes from board meetings held since 2019, the personnel files of six former employees, and separation agreements written this year. Former employees also reportedly have been subpoenaed.