GeForce NOW makes gamers' fantasies a reality by bringing top titles to the cloud. This week, the award-winning FINAL FANTASY XVI is available for members to stream at launch. Catch 11 bit studios' city-survival game Frostpunk 2 before it launches with early access on GeForce NOW. It's part of seven new games joining the expansive GeForce NOW library.

Eikonic Adventure
Dive into the richly crafted world of Valisthea in FINAL FANTASY XVI, the latest mainline entry in Square Enix's renowned role-playing game series. This epic action RPG unfolds in a once-glorious land blessed by the light of the Mothercrystals that's now slowly succumbing to the mysterious Blight. Play as Clive Rosfield as he navigates a dark fantasy filled with political intrigue and magical battles against Eikons, powerful manifestations of elemental forces. Eikons are wielded by Dominants, individuals who possess incredible strength and abilities. Featuring exhilarating real-time combat, the game allows players to unleash devastating moves by chaining together attack combos with seamless fluidity. With its gripping story, stunning visuals and intense gameplay, FINAL FANTASY XVI offers an unforgettable experience for new and longtime fans of the series alike.

Today Intel released its latest Arc GPU graphics drivers, with version 101.6077 beta hitting our servers. This latest version brings game-ready support for titles like Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster, Final Fantasy XVI, Frostpunk 2, and God of War Ragnarok. Besides adding support for latest titles, the 101.6077 beta drivers also fixed issues like corruption on certain reflective surfaces during gameplay of The Last of Us Part I (DX12), and corrupted lines on certain textures during gameplay of Age of Empires IV (DX12). Interestingly, few issues persist like Diablo IV (DX12) intermittently crashing while toggling Ray Tracing settings during gameplay, and Doom Eternal (VK) exhibiting intermittent flickering corruption in the game menu and during gameplay. Few more notes are included in the changelog and known issues, which can be seen below.

DOWNLOAD: Intel Arc GPU Graphics Drivers 101.6077 Beta.

AMD today released a preview driver that provides optimization for a couple of new games, and fixes a few issues. Preview Driver version 24.20.11.01 adds optimization for "God of War: Ragnarök," "Frostpunk 2," and the DirectX 11 mode of "Sims 4." It also extends Radeon Boost support for "Final Fantasy XVI." HYPR-Tune support is extended to "Black Myth: Wukong," "God of War Ragnarök," and "Creatures of Ava." HYPR-Tune now autoconfigures Anti-Lag 2 in "Ghost of Tsushima Directors Cut."

The drivers also address intermittent driver crashes when playing "Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2," including crashes when loading maps on RX 5000 series GPUs. Driver crashes on "Final Fantasy XVI" have also been fixed. The bug that causes overly dark shadows in "Black Myth: Wukong" with medium-high global illumination settings, has been fixed. AV falling out of sync during AV1 codec playback has been fixed.

DOWNLOAD: AMD Software Adrenalin Preview Driver 24.20.11.01

Welcome to the second half of September and what is nothing but a jam packed week of new game releases. The week kicks off with an almost two-year old PlayStation game that has something to do with Norse mythology gets launched on PC, although it does come with the DLC included and it's not capped at 60 FPS. As for the rest of this week's new games, we have a packed week starting with a lot of spell casting, another PlayStation game, but this time we're taking a JRPG of the highest rank, which is followed by a souls-like RPG game. Next up we have Dr Dr, which oddly enough isn't German at all, followed by another highly anticipated game that involves frozen punks. If there's nothing you like this week, you're most likely not a gamer.

God of War Ragnarök / This week's AAA release / Thursday 19 September
The sequel to the critically acclaimed God of War (2018), God of War Ragnarök picks up with Fimbulwinter well underway. Kratos and Atreus must journey to each of the Nine Realms in search of answers as Odin's forces in Asgard prepare for a prophesied battle that will end the world. Along the way, they will explore stunning, mythical landscapes, and face fearsome enemies in the form of Norse gods and monsters. As the threat of Ragnarök grows ever closer, Kratos and Atreus must choose between the safety of their family and the safety of the realms. Steam link

NVIDIA has released its latest GeForce WHQL Game Ready drivers, version 561.09, which brings optimizations for FINAL FANTASY XVI and God of War Ragnarök games, including support for DLSS 3 technology. It also adds launch support for EA SPORTS FC 25 and Frostpunk 2 games. The new GeForce 561.09 WHQL Game Ready drivers also add new GeForce Optimal Settings for Black Myth: Wukong, F1 Manager 2024, and Star Wars Outlaws games. Unfortunately, it does not fix any previously seen gaming bugs, but it does add several general bug fixes, including a fix for GeForce Experience where Performance Monitoring overlay could stop refreshing GPU information, a fix for NVIDIA App, where game filters may be missing when invoking the NVIDIA Overlay in-game, and a fix for performance issues in some workloads with Chaos V-Ray. Interestingly, there are no listed open issues with the latest driver either.

DOWNLOAD: NVIDIA GeForce 561.09 WHQL Game Ready

Straight out of Gamescom, NVIDIA introduced GeForce NOW support for Xbox automatic sign-in, as well as Black Myth: Wukong from Game Science and a demo for the PC launch of FINAL FANTASY XVI from Square Enix - all available in the cloud today. There are more triple-A games coming to the cloud this GFN Thursday: Civilization VI, Civilization V and Civilization: Beyond Earth - some of the first games from publisher 2K - are available today for members to stream with GeForce quality. And members can look forward to playing the highly anticipated Indiana Jones and the Great Circle from Bethesda when it joins the cloud later this year. Plus, GeForce NOW has added a data center in Warsaw, Poland, expanding low-latency, high-performance cloud gaming to members in the region. It's an action-packed GFN Thursday, with 25 new titles joining the cloud this week

Instant Play, Every Day
GeForce NOW is streamlining gaming convenience with Xbox account integration. Starting today, members can link their Xbox profile directly to the cloud service. After initial setup, members will be logged in automatically across all devices for future cloud gaming sessions, enabling them to dive straight into their favorite PC games. The new feature builds on existing support for Epic Games and Ubisoft automatic sign-in - and complements Xbox game sync, which adds supported PC Game Pass and Microsoft Store titles to members' cloud libraries. Gamers can enjoy a cohesive experience accessing over 140 PC Game Pass titles across devices without the need for repeated logins.

Final Fantasy XVI fans, great news: while Final Fantasy XVI launches in just under two weeks, you'll be able to commence your journey to Valisthea tomorrow as the game's demo launches today (June 12). The demo will give PlayStation 5 players a taste of the game's vibrant world and fast-paced action combat with two lengthy sections showcasing what you can expect from FFXVI. The first is the game's opening prologue, approximately a two and half hour slice of gameplay giving players insight into Clive Rosfield's past and the events that set him on his present day journey. Save data from this portion can be carried over to the main game when it launches next week.

Completing the prologue then unlocks a special battle demo, approximately a two-hour, action-heavy segment. This features an infiltration of a fort at night, with Clive supported on his mission by his faithful wolf Torgal and Cidolfus Telamon. You'll encounter various enemies and epic bosses. While you won't be able to save your progress in this segment of the demo, it will let you test out the fuller range of combat options by way of numerous unlocked abilities and accessories. This can be replayed as many times as you'd like, giving players a head start on experiencing Clive's full-fledged action battles. Need a primer? Get an idea of what to expect here.

Final Fantasy XVI is the all-new mainline entry in the Final Fantasy series, releasing on Thursday June 22. The launch trailer for Final Fantasy XVI, "Salvation," was revealed today as part of the PlayStation Showcase. With only around a month left until release, this outstanding trailer comes as we eagerly await the game!

The story of Final Fantasy XVI takes place in Valisthea, a land studded with Mothercrystals—glittering mountains of crystal that tower over the realms around them, blessing them with aether. People use the aether from the Mothercrystals to fuel the magicks they rely upon in their everyday lives, hailing Valisthea as "a land blessed in the light of the Mothercrystals." Yet now the aether begins to fade and the lifeless deadlands spread ever further. Such desperate conditions drive the nations towards conflict and strife.

Games journalists are delving into Final Fantasy XVI preview code at the moment, and Square Enix is firing up its publicity drive ahead of the game's launch on June 22. Game Informer has recently conducted an interview with members of "Creative Business Unit III," a very formal label for the development studio responsible put in charge of making a sixteenth entry in the mainline Final Fantasy series. FFXVI's director Hiroshi Takai and producer Naoki Yoshida fielded numerous questions for a feature-length cover story, and Game Informer has chosen to release several primer pieces - one article focuses on the studio's apparent cautious approach to creating (potential) DLC or extra campaigns for Final Fantasy XVI.

Takai and Yoshida state that the immediate focus is to simply get the game over the finishing line, and emphasize that there is already a sizable adventure contained within the base offering: "It's a one-off game. We're asking players to pay the full price for this experience, and so we want an experience that's going to equal the amount of money that players are going to be paying and we want them to have satisfaction equal to what they paid or even more than that." Previous Final Fantasy series installments have received a plethora of extra (paid and free) content, so plans could shift based on XVI's popularity and players' tastes - Yoshida states: "We have no idea if people are going to fall in love with Valisthea and fall in love with Clive's story and want to see more of the world and more of its characters...So while we always want to consider DLC or spinoffs or those types of things where you can learn more about the game, first we want to see if Valisthea and Clive are really things players around the world want to see more of and then make that decision."

Sony PlayStation and Square Enix are engaged in the process of hyping up blockbuster action role-player Final Fantasy XVI, set for a worldwide release on June 22, and have recently announced some visually striking accessories and interesting hardware bundles - as part of the promotional cycle and eventual release of the sixteenth (mainline) Final Fantasy game installment. Their Japanese marketing teams are collaborating on a custom design PlayStation 5 DualSense controller and console faceplate/cover bearing Final Fantasy XVI-based artwork. The controller's Midnight Black + gold accenting combo creates a very macho aesthetic, which stands in sharp contrast to some of the recent special edition Xbox controllers in terms of color and finish.

The special edition controller and console plate will be sold separately and are scheduled to launch alongside the game and related console bundles on June 22. These Final Fantasy XVI-themed accessories could be exclusive to the Japanese domestic market - Sony and Square Enix have issued information related to pricing in Yen (¥8980 & ¥7980 respectively), and their North American and European sites only make mention of the standard white PS5 console FFXVI bundle being available on the game's launch day.

In just over two months, players will finally get their hands on Final Fantasy XVI, the next mainline installment of the Final Fantasy series. The game follows Clive Rosfield as he harnesses powerful Eikons to overcome his tragic destiny. Today's State of Play not only explores intricate details of the story and world lore, but also gives a first glimpse into the game's party combat and colossal battles with new Eikons.

We hope today's broadcast was exciting for everyone, both for fans keeping up with Final Fantasy XVI updates, and those who are hearing about the game for the first time. Get a deeper look at combat, stunning Eikon battles, and the world of Valisthea before FFXVI arrives on PS5 June 22.