Respawn Entertainment, the Star Wars division at Electronic Arts and Lucasfilm Games have today released their first patch for the PC version of Star Wars Jedi: Survivor - some folks must have been working like mad over the weekend in order to address some of the problems encountered shortly after the game's launch last Friday (April 28). The EA Star Wars Twitter account issued a statement regarding the initial batch of patches for all platforms affected: "Today a patch has become available for the PC version of Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, and tomorrow (5/2) we'll also be issuing a patch for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S. We are hard at work on patches that will further improve performance and fix bugs across all platforms. There are more updates to come across all platforms, and we will share that timing when it is available."

The patch notes for today's PC update only mention "performance improvements for non-raytraced rendering" so it seems the developers have a lot more work to do over the coming weeks. The situation on current generation PlayStation and Xbox consoles looks to largely the same, and tomorrow's fix list is extensive (the same problems have already been addressed on PC with today's patch). TPU's own resident reviewer extraordinaire went in-depth and explored Star Wars Jedi: Survivor's technical issues this weekend - part of W1zzard's conclusion was very unkind: "We're now paying $70 to beta-test an unpolished turd that they call an AAA game—not the first time this year. I'm starting to wonder if these companies aren't slowly eroding their customer base by delivering broken products over and over again."

Respawn Entertainment boss Vince Zampella has been engaged in press duties for the Star Wars Jedi: Survivor marketing cycle this week, and is likely having to field questions about the sci-fi action adventure's poor technical performance on PC and consoles alike. In an interview conducted by Barron's Magazine a few days ago, Zampella was probably relieved to have the focus shift to a happier topic - the Titanfall franchise. He seemed to be quite open to the prospect of making a third game: "I hate to say yes, then people latch onto that, and then skewer you when it doesn't come. But I would love to see it happen is the real answer." His studio was founded in order to develop the (multiplayer only) first-person shooter Titanfall (2014), a platform exclusive on PC/Origin and Xbox One. Prior to starting Respawn Entertainment in 2010, Zampella and colleague Jason West were lead designers on the mainline Call of Duty series at Infinity Ward/Activision.

A sequel to the original Titanfall arrived in late 2016 to rave reviews from the press and hardcore fans of the series - the inclusion of a single player campaign was considered to be a highlight - this story campaign borrowed gameplay ideas (to the surprise of many) from Valve's Half Life series, and added time traveling elements to an already mind-bending mobility system. In an unfortunate move for Zampella and Respawn, publisher Electronic Arts decided to launch Titanfall 2 during a very busy release window - the main competition at the time being Activision's Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare and (EA's own) Battlefield 1. A mainstream crowd proceeded to ignore the Titanfall sequel thanks to poor marketing on EA's part and a crowded games market - sales figures were underwhelming, even with a PS4 version, and the game was heavily discounted within a couple of months of release. Respawn moved on to create a spin-off multiplayer shooter - the smash hit free-to-play battle royale Apex Legends, and the Star Wars Jedi series.

It appears that Electronic Arts' Star Wars Jedi: Survivor game will be yet another title that will need multiple patches to make it playable on the PC, as the game appears to have major CPU and GPU optimization issues. The situation is not better on either the PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series X consoles. As EA has lifted the review embargo, first details have started to show up online, including rather troubling information that the game can utilize up to 18 GB of VRAM at 1440p resolution.

Gamestar was running the game on AMD Ryzen 9 5900X with 32 GB of RAM and an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090, and it was not able to maintain 50 FPS at 1440p, let alone 4K/UHD resolution. What makes it strange is that the graphics card utilization was around 35 to 60 percent, which means the game has major CPU bottleneck issues. Star Wars Jedi: Survivor is officially launching tomorrow, April 28th, so hopefully, we won't have to wait long for EA to release a patch or two.

Immortals of Aveum just got a nice gameplay "first look" trailer, showing some impressive graphics and gameplay for this fantasy first-person magic shooter from Electronic Arts and Ascendant Studios. EA has also published a new blog post detailing the technology used in the game, as well as revealing first PC system requirements.

Immortals of Aveum will be one of the first AAA games developed on Unreal Engine 5.1, featuring some impressive lighting, video, and physics effects. It uses Nanite and Lumen features of the UE 5.1, new micropolygon geometry and global illumination and reflections systems. It also makes use of World Partition, UE 5's method of loading segments of the environment, which will allow for larger play areas.

Summon your power, stop the Everwar, save the realms. Immortals of Aveum is a groundbreaking new single-player, first-person magic shooter, created by Ascendant Studios and released by EA Originals. Experience the story of Jak as he joins an elite order of battlemages to save a world on the edge of abyss. Made by the creators of Call of Duty and Dead Space, Immortals of Aveum is set in an original fantasy universe engulfed in magic, rife with conflict, and on the verge of oblivion. Ascendant Studios is an independent team of veteran developers with BAFTA and Game of the Year award-winning experience, and EA Originals will release the studio's debut title.

Immortals of Aveum is a new single-player shooter with magic-based combat, set in a world ravaged by war. Rich lore meets intense combat in this narrative-driven FPS game, crafted for players who wish to immerse themselves in a daring adventure. Players will take control of the protagonist, Jak (played by Darren Barnett), who unexpectedly manifests magical abilities and is reluctantly thrust into mankind's endless war for the control of magic. Under the tutelage of Grand Magnus Kirkan (Gina Torres), Jak joins the elite battlemages of the Order of the Immortals, and fights to end the Everwar—a world-spanning conflict between the nations of Lucium and Rasharn, each seeking to control access to the magic flowing across the land.

American McGee has been busy (since 2017) with the pre-production phase of his proposed follow up to 2011's Alice: Madness Returns. The third game in the series was going to be called Alice: Asylum, but after recent interactions with Electronic Arts McGee has admitted that: "Alice had a good run but the dream is over." McGee and a team of collaborators (artists, writers, designers, modelers and producers) have contributed to a massive Alice: Asylum Design Bible, and it was hoped that after many years of negotiations with EA, that the large chunk of presentation material would provide enough motivation for the publisher to sign up for a push into full development. The Alice: Asylum Design Bible was financed via fan contributions, through the Patreon crowd funding platform.

The publisher has decided to not finance the Asylum project, and will pursue other routes with the Alice intellectual property. McGee provided an update on the game's Patreon page: "After several weeks of review, EA has come back with a response regarding funding and/or licensing for Alice: Asylum. On the question of funding, they have ultimately decided to pass on the project based on an internal analysis of the IP, market conditions, and details of the production proposal. On the question of licensing, they replied that "Alice" is an important part of EA's overall game catalog, and selling or licensing it isn't something they're prepared to do right now."

Although we have not heard about its since The Game Awards in December, EA's first-person magic shooter, Immortals of Aveum, could launch on July 20th. Developed by Ascendant Studios, and to be published under EA Originals, Immortals of Aveum is built with Unreal Engine 5, and will b e coming to PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and the PC.

The earlier trailer showcased a rather interesting single-player, first-person magic shooter experience in "an original fantasy universe engulfed in magic, rife with conflict, and on the verge of oblivion." The Ascendant is a new independent studio founded by Bret Robbins, who was behind Visceral Games' Dead Space and Sledgehammer's Call of Duty, including Modern Warfare 3, Advanced Warfare and World War 2. The studio managed to pick up some rather talented people that worked on some big AAA games.

Update: Ascendant Studios also added a countdown to the reveal trailer that will launch in two days, on April 13th.

Electronic Arts has updated the listings for PC system requirements for Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, and the gaming community has reacted to the refresh of the game's minimum installation storage requisite. It calls for a whopping 155 GB of disk space, for the base game alone, not including the expected routine of patches and extra story content (via DLC). The publisher suggests that an SSD is best used for an optimal in-game experience. The slightly older PC requirements specified a minimum of 150 GB for HDDs, and 130 GB for SSDs.

As it stands, the Respawn Entertainment developed action adventure game has one of the larger minimum storage requirements among modern titles - all the more surprising given that it will offer a relatively short and linear single player experience. Current installations of the PC version of Red Dead Redemption 2 will occupy 150 GB of disk space. Jedi: Fallen Order (2019), Survivor's preceding title in the series, demands a comparatively modest install base of 55 GB. It will be interesting to observe whether Jedi: Survivor will drive sales of larger storage solutions - in the recent past, gamers have scrambled to acquire higher capacity SSDs and HDDs in order to accommodate the ever-growing installations and content drops required to play the Call of Duty/Modern Warfare series.

Last May, Electronic Arts confirmed that its licensing deal with FIFA would be coming to an end by the summer of 2023. This week it has revealed the new branding for the EA Sport FC franchise, which is set to succeed the soon-to-be discontinued EA + FIFA series. Last year EA announced that it would be bringing its 30-year partnership with FIFA to a close. The computer game publishing giant could not agree on a new licensing deal with the association football/soccer governing body. EA Sports has unveiled the new logo and visual language that will feature atop their new flagship football game. It is widely rumored that FIFA are in the process of creating a new and distinct football games franchise with a yet to be revealed development partner.

The sports division has provided a breakdown of the design process: "The new brand takes its design inspiration from triangles, an ever-present shape in the sport and football culture that represents the game in multiple dimensions. From passing techniques to set-plays to formation design, triangles are a constant in the beautiful game. The shape is also woven into the DNA of EA Sports football experiences - from the isometric viewing angles of EA Sports' first football games and triangular polygons that make up every frame, to the chemistry triangles that exist in Ultimate Team or the iconic player indicator symbol that appears above athletes in every match."

Electronic Arts is getting ready to lay off upwards of six percent of its workforce, as the company restructures its game portfolio. The company had some 12,900 employees globally in March 2022 according to Games Industry.biz and should as such be laying off some 775 employees. This is far less than we've seen from other companies and it won't affect all of EA's subsidiaries equally. The EA CEO—Andew Wilson—sent out a memo to the company employees that have been posted publicly on EA's website. It seems like EA will make the cuts fairly quickly, as the company is expected to be done informing affected employees sometime early in its next fiscal year, which starts on April first.

It's unclear exactly where EA will be making the cuts and according to Games Industry.biz the company has already trimmed some 200 employees that were working in support, most of them specifically supporting Apex Legends. That said, Apex Legends, EA Sports FIFA 23 and The Sims are the only games mentioned in the announcement, so presumably those titles are safer than others. At the same time, TPU spoke to a contact at a different EA subsidiary and there had been no mention of any redundancies there and the person in question works on another successful series of games. We'll have to wait and see if EA drops any projects the company is working on or if some titles end up being discontinued earlier than expected, due to lack of support from the teams that built the games. Regardless, EA is about to re-focus on what should be its more successful titles, which may or may not be a successful strategy for the company.

As we close in on 15 years since the release of Battlefield 1943, and Bad Company 1 & 2, we are announcing that their journey is coming to an end. Starting April 28 2023, Battlefield 1943, and Battlefield: Bad Company 1 & 2 will be removed from digital storefronts and you will no longer be able to purchase them.

This is in preparation for the retirement of the online services for these titles which will happen on December 8 2023. For Bad Company 1 and 2, you can still continue playing them and use their respective offline features, such as the single player campaign. You can also read our FAQ and Service Updates for further information on the retirement of online services.

Update 14:17 UTC: EA updated their press release this morning, to clarify that the inclusion of Mirror's Edge was an error. They stated via Twitter: "We currently have no plans to remove Mirror's Edge from digital storefronts."

Electronic Arts has released the official story trailer for its upcoming Star Wars Jedi: Survivor game, that is scheduled to launch on April 28th. The new trailer not only shows the story behind the new Star Wars game but also has some in-game parts.

Developed by Respawn Entertainment in cooperation with Lucasfilm Games, Star Wars Jedi: Survivor is a third-person, action-adventure game, set five years after the events of Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, and puts the player again in the role of Cal Kestis, who has now grown into a powerful Jedi Knight.

This coming week's games have something of a horror theme with a remake of a horror game from 2005, which is also this week's AAA title. Two of the games are even in VR, which could cause some further excitement compared to a regular horror game. Overall it's not a super exciting week for new game releases, unless you're into horror themed games that is.

Resident Evil 4 / This week's Remake & AAA title / Thursday 24 March
Survival is just the beginning. Six years have passed since the biological disaster in Raccoon City. Leon S. Kennedy, one of the survivors, tracks the president's kidnapped daughter to a secluded European village, where there is something terribly wrong with the locals. And the curtain rises on this story of daring rescue and gruelling horror where life and death, terror and catharsis intersect.

It's a thrilling GFN Thursday with GRID Legends racing to the cloud this week. It leads a total of eight new games expanding the GeForce NOW library. New content for Rainbow Six Siege is also now streaming. Plus, two new cities are now online with GeForce RTX 4080 performance for cloud gaming. Chicago and Montreal have completed upgrades to RTX 4080 SuperPODs, delivering next-generation cloud streaming to GeForce NOW Ultimate members.

AMD has released its latest Adrenalin drivers for Radeon graphics cards. With support dating back to RX 400, the latest Adrenalin 23.3.1 WHQL drivers bring a lot of improvements to the table, as well as support for Halo Infinite Ray Tracing Update and Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty game. Most importantly, the new driver has a series of fixes, including intermittent driver timeout, system freeze, or BSOD, with the latest Radeon RX 7000 series. Problems in games such as Premium Gold Packs in EA SPORTS FIFA 23 and Dying Light 2 lighting effects corruption have been fixed. As far as Radeon RX 6000 series goes, this driver release manages to fix corruption in certain scenes with ray tracing enabled observed in the Returnal game. Check the list below for the entire set of changes.Download: AMD Radeon Graphics Drivers 23.3.1 WHQL here.

The PCI Resizable BAR feature can have a major impact on the performance of "Dead Space" (the 2023 reboot). sxKYLE on Reddit discovered that his GeForce RTX 4080 "Ada" experienced a major performance jump from 76 FPS up to 111 FPS (+46%) with resizable BAR enabled. NVIDIA Profile Inspector was used to enable resizable BAR for the game. The feature allows the CPU to see the graphics card's video memory as a single, continuously-addressable block, rather than through 256 MB apertures. We can imagine how "Dead Space" in particular could benefit from the feature, as the game's campaign is a single continuous action sequence with assets being constantly streamed to the GPU (and no level load screens).

The galaxy is more dangerous than ever as the next chapter in Cal Kestis' journey begins. Today at The Game Awards, Respawn Entertainment, Electronic Arts, and Lucasfilm Games revealed that Star Wars Jedi: Survivor will launch on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S and PC on March 17, 2023. During the annual awards show, a first look at gameplay was premiered in a new Official Reveal trailer showcasing Cal Kestis (Cameron Monaghan) as a stronger and more experienced Jedi Knight while setting up the threats that await him. The veteran team at Respawn Entertainment is developing Star Wars Jedi: Survivor for the latest generation of gaming hardware to deliver action-packed Jedi combat with the deepest exploration and cinematic gameplay in the series.

"Star Wars Jedi: Survivor evolves the gameplay, story, and exploration from Fallen Order in every way," said Stig Asmussen, game director, Respawn. "Responsive and powerful combat makes players feel like a true Jedi Knight, with new lightsaber skills and Force abilities that add additional layers of strategy to each enemy encounter, and worlds that are filled with environmental challenges that must be overcome to unveil the mysteries within."

Electronic Arts Inc. today announced it is collaborating with Marvel on a long-term deal to develop at least three new action adventure games that will be available for consoles and PC. Each of these games will be their own original story set in the Marvel universe with the first title in-development being a single player, third person, action-adventure Iron Man game coming out of Motive Studios.

"We have been long-time fans of Marvel and their impressive leadership, so this is a remarkable moment for our developers as well as our players and fans," said Laura Miele, COO at EA. "We look forward to welcoming Marvel into the EA family of creators and know this collaboration will produce exceptional experiences for our players. We can't wait to see players' reactions when they suit up as Iron Man and do the extraordinary things this Super Hero is known for."

Today, Electronic Arts Inc. and KOEI TECMO officially unveiled WILD HEARTS, a new kind of hunting game featuring unique crafting mechanics, coming February 17, 2023 to PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S and PC via Origin, Steam and Epic Game Store. Published under the EA Originals label and developed by Omega Force, the team behind the popular WARRIORS series, WILD HEARTSwhisks players away on an epic adventure set in fantasy feudal Japan. There, they'll battle against giant nature-infused beasts called Kemono with the help of Karakuri, sophisticated mechanisms crafted from a lost, ancient technology.

"WILD HEARTSopens up a vibrant fantasy world to players that's as untamed as it is beautiful," said Yosuke Hayashi, Executive Vice President of KOEI TECMO GAMES CO, LTD. "With WILD HEARTS, not only did we want to showcase the evolution, infusion and real threat caused by Kemono, but we also wanted to create a game where crafting was at the core of the experience, redefining what can be possible in a beast hunting game. We have placed great care in designing our Karakuri to fit within the combat, and we're excited for players to use these powerful mechanisms to fight giant beasts and traverse the world."

Motive, a studio of Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ: EA) today announced during their Crafting the Tension Art Developer Livestream that Dead Space will officially launch on January 27, 2023 for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S and PC. Dead Space is a remake of the classic sci-fi survival horror game that is being rebuilt from the ground up leveraging the Frostbite game engine. Still remaining true to the original game's thrilling vision, the remake offers enhanced audio and crisp, harrowing visuals that have been carefully reimagined to evoke a new level of immersion and quality.

"Developing this remake has been a lot of fun for us at Motive, as we're true fans of the franchise and want to treat it with the respect it deserves. It's been equally exciting to see players' reactions as we're taking them on this development journey with us," said Phillippe Ducharme, Senior Producer of Dead Space. "We're making great progress on our road to hitting Alpha and we're happy to announce that the game will be launching in January next year. We can't wait for players, both old and new, to see how we've elevated the original experience in the remake to be just as impactful for this generation."

Today, Electronic Arts Inc. announced its world-famous football games will move forward under a new EA SPORTS FC brand in 2023. The move will enable EA to deliver the world's biggest interactive sports experience for its growing community in collaboration with 300+ partners across the world of football. EA SPORTS FC will be the platform for EA to innovate, create, and grow new experiences. It will bring more areas of the sport to life, and harness the collective strength of more than 150 million players across EA SPORTS' global football games - and reach hundreds of millions of new fans in the years to come.

"Our vision for EA SPORTS FC is to create the largest and most impactful football club in the world, at the epicenter of football fandom," said Electronic Arts CEO Andrew Wilson. "For nearly 30 years, we've been building the world's biggest football community - with hundreds of millions of players, thousands of athlete partners, and hundreds of leagues, federations, and teams. EA SPORTS FC will be the club for every one of them, and for football fans everywhere." EA SPORTS FC brings the strength of more than 300 individual licensed partners, giving players access to more than 19,000 athletes across 700 teams, in 100 stadiums and over 30 leagues around the world. Through EA SPORTS FC, EA will further grow the reach and power of its football licensing portfolio by retaining and expanding the licensed football content, scaling to new experiences, and increasing access through more platforms. EA will also build on a foundation of inclusivity and innovate in new areas around both women's and grassroots football for the global community.

Codemasters and Electronic Arts Inc. today deliver GRID Legends, an all-action, edge-of-your-seat driving experience that gives players cross-platform multiplayer gameplay, story mode, deep career, and a faster route to connect with friends. Courtesy of the revolutionary hop-in gameplay mechanic, players can now jump to the action in seconds without waiting in lobbies. This function also extends to the expanded Career, with each player rewarded based on their performance. Further innovations include an intuitive Race Creator allowing players to build their ultimate racing match-ups, and 'Driven to Glory', an epic motorsport story with players competing for the GRID World Series against a formidable line-up of racing superstars.

GRID Legends revamped in-race choreographer means no race is ever the same. Unique AI driver personalities create unpredictable racing at every turn, so players must expect the unexpected. AI vehicles jostle for position and take risks to stay ahead. The living, breathing world can produce unpredictable moments such as crashes, engine blow-outs or cars flipping in front of you. GRID Legends also takes players to every corner of the globe across the 130 routes at launch, including real-life tracks such as Brands Hatch and Indianapolis, to iconic city circuits like Dubai and London.

MAINGEAR—an award-winning PC system integrator of custom gaming desktops, notebooks, and workstations—today announced that new NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 graphics cards are now available to configure within MAINGEAR's product line of award-winning custom gaming desktop PCs and workstations. Featuring support for real-time ray tracing effects and AI technologies, MAINGEAR PCs equipped with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 offer gamers next-generation ray-traced graphics and performance comparable to the latest consoles.

Powered by Ampere, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 features NVIDIA's 2nd gen Ray Tracing Cores and 3rd generation Tensor Cores. Combined with new streaming multiprocessors and high-speed G6 memory, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 can power the latest and greatest games. NVIDIA RTX on 30 Series GPUs deliver real-time ray tracing effects—including shadows, reflections, and Ambient Occlusion (AO). The groundbreaking NVIDIA DLSS (Deep Learning Super Sampling) 2.0 AI technology utilizes Tensor Core AI processors to boost frame rates while producing sharp, uncompromised visual fidelity comparable to high native resolutions.

Electronic Arts Inc. and Lucasfilm Games are joining forces to continue delivering all-new, world-class gaming experiences set within the beloved Star Wars galaxy. Respawn Entertainment, best known for their work on Apex Legends, Titanfall and Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, is leading the development and production of these new projects. Vince Zampella, Group GM and Founder of Respawn, will oversee this new phase of EA's relationship with Lucasfilm, building on Respawn's award-winning history in game development and expertise in telling compelling Star Wars stories.

Game Director Stig Asmussen and his team at the studio are already working on the next game in the action adventure Star Wars Jedi series, and are joined by two new teams working to deliver additional unique Star Wars gameplay experiences across multiple genres. Leading the development of Respawn's all-new Star Wars first-person shooter game is Peter Hirschmann, Game Director at Respawn, who has a long and accomplished history with the Star Wars franchise. The third title is a Star Wars strategy game developed through a production collaboration with the newly formed studio Bit Reactor, helmed by games industry veteran Greg Foerstch. Respawn will produce the new Star Wars strategy game while Bit Reactor leads on the development of the title.

Battlefield Portal is a community-driven platform within Battlefield 2042 that will let you create and find fantastic experiences made by the series' creative and passionate community. The creation suite includes Settings, custom modes, and a Logic Editor so you can build your own signature spin on Battlefield's sandbox; you'll be able to change team ratios, tweak victory conditions, restrict weapons, and even put different factions from different eras in Battlefield's history against one another. Those who want to focus on discovering what others have created will have easy access to an entire world of unexpected battles featuring some of the series' most famous eras mashed together in distinct, exciting experiences.

On top of the content available in Battlefield 2042, Battlefield Portal also lets you play with maps, weapons, vehicles, and more from some of Battlefield's greatest experiences, all reimagined at modern visuals. We're excited for you to be able to relive content from Battlefield 1942, Battlefield : Bad Company 2 and Battlefield 3.