Bungie has announced its new collaboration with EA and BioWare to allow Guardians to join the crew of the Normandy with new cosmetics and in-game items, launching February 13, 2024. The Normandy Crew Bundle will be available at the Eververse store in-game and will include a Commander Shepard-inspired N7 armor set for Titans, a Garrus-inspired Vakarian set for Hunters, and a Liara-inspired Shadow Broker set for Warlocks. In celebration of the partnership, all players will be able to claim the Alliance Requisitions Bundle, including the Enhanced Defense Ghost Shell, Alliance Scout Frigate ship, and Alliance Drop Ship Sparrow, which will be available at no cost. Players can also get the Omni Strike finisher and Flux Dance emote for Silver.

Now released in Destiny 2, Riven's Wishes are new weekly quests open to all players from January 30 until March 12. During this period, Guardians will be tasked with completing a pursuit each week to earn a token redeemable for a treasure trove of rewards. Choose from the Wish for Strength to earn Last Wish raid Deepsight weapons, Wish for Protection to armor up with Exotic gear from the Lightfall year, or Wish for Beauty to collect event mementos and essential Ascendant crafting materials.

BioWare is working quietly on new entries in its long running Dragon Age and Mass Effect franchises, and not many details have been revealed about either game. Dragon Age: Dreadwolf was announced three years ago via a teaser trailer, but the gaming public knows little about the gameplay, lore or visual presentation. The Dreadwolf team has been expanded according to Gary McKay, general manager at BioWare - one of several details he divulged in a partially published interview conducted by GamesBeat. The game is in a post-production phase of development, and McKay confirmed via a blog update that Dreadwolf had reached an alpha milestone in September of 2022: "Now, for the first time, we can experience the entire game, from the opening scenes of the first mission to the very end. We can see, hear, feel, and play everything as a cohesive experience."

Select members of the Mass Effect team have been shifted over to help with late stage production on the fantasy RPG title: "Our studio is focused on creating the best Dragon Age: Dreadwolf while the core Mass Effect team continues their pre-production work." McKay also confirms that a former BioWare veteran has been re-introduced to the team, albeit in an external capacity: "We continue to iterate and polish Dreadwolf, focusing on the things that matter most to our fans. As we further connect this new experience with the series' legacy Mark Darrah will join the team as a consultant, bringing with him years of experience working on Dragon Age."

NZXT, a community-driven provider of PC hardware, software, and services today announces a new Puck in NZXT's CRFT series of fan-inspired licensed products based on the iconic space opera series, Mass Effect. This year NZXT is celebrating N7 Day in style. N7 day lands on November 7th each year and is aptly named after the Systems Alliance rank from the Mass Effect Trilogy.

The NZXT Mass Effect Puck features the seal of the N7 special forces and designates each Puck owner's achievement of completing the training program of the highly sought-after special class. Not only is this special edition Puck a great way to showcase N7 Day pride, it's also a stylish way to store headsets, VR headsets, or cables magnetically on a PC case.

The EA-announced, Bioware-developed love letter to the original Mass Effect trilogy will be seeing a remastered once-over that brings the games' graphics up to today's standards. As much as possible, of course, whilst keeping the "Remaster" tag instead of the "remake" one - it seems that the Legendary Edition of the original Mass Effect will still keep those long treks on scannable planets. The improved versions of the original trilogy of games will feature improved graphics, alongside higher resolution and refresh rate support. The Legendary Edition will further bring together all the pre and post-launch DLC for each release, bringing those together for a cohesive package.

The 12th march release date is derived from release dates online stores Shopitree and GSShop have attached to the game, and has since been confirmed by Eurogamer, whose site editor Tom Phillips added that "...barring any further delays, Eurogamer understands the above date to be currently accurate". It seems we won't have long to wait until we can vault through the stars against the Reapers once more.

BioWare has recently announced that a veteran team is in the early stages of creating the next Mass Effect title. The upcoming game appears to be a successor to the original Mass Effect trilogy. The new teaser trailer was released by BioWare during The Game Awards 2020 live stream and teases that the new title will follow the ending of Mass Effect 3 ignoring the spin-off entry "Andromeda". This new title is unlikely to launch anytime soon as the game is still in the early stages of pre-production however, gamers will be able to look forward to Mass Effect Legendary Edition releasing in 2021 for PC and consoles.

The Electronic Arts owned BioWare studio have recently announced the Mass Effect Legendary Edition during N7 day celebrations. The Mass Effect Legendary Edition includes a compilation of the first three Mass Effect titles released between 2007 and 2012. The remastered games have all single-player DLC and additional in-game content included. While the games will be optimized for 4K with updated textures, shaders, models, and effects they will not be receiving a full remake. Mass Effect Legendary Edition is now available for pre-order at 60 USD launching in Spring 2021 on Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC, with forward compatibility and targeted enhancements on Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5.

NZXT, a leading designer of computer hardware, software, and services for the PC gaming community, today announces the seventh entrant in NZXT's CRFT line--a series of licensed products that celebrate incredible games and the communities who love them--based on BioWare's landmark series Mass Effect. Designed around NZXT's award-winning H510i, NZXT CRFT 07 takes inspiration from the armor of the N7 to create a limited-run of 500 cases, designed for the Mass Effect community. The carbon fiber colorway and the red and white stripe mimics the iconic N7 armor from the game, so users can keep their build battle-ready. A limited-edition durable charm can be flipped to display either the Paragon or Renegade icon, allowing users to show their true colors.

"Mass Effect has made a profound impact on the imagination of the gaming community," says Johnny Hou, NZXT's founder and CEO. "To this day, we hear people recount the adventures of Commander Shepard and discuss their unique adventures. We are honored to partner with BioWare to bring this passionate fanbase a case that honors the legacy of this iconic franchise.".

There are news reports going around today about how physical sales of Bioware's Anthem is much worse than their previous title, Mass Effect Andromeda. Nearly all these reports are using the two UK sales metrics, as of February 23, to make this claim, stating that Anthem sold less than 50% the physical copies relative of ME Andromeda. This is a story no doubt, but not big enough to where people are claiming this to be the end of the studio by itself. For one, ME Andromeda had the luxury of being the new entry into the massively popular Mass Effect franchise, which many were desperate for more. Secondly, Anthem is a predominantly online game released in 2019 wherein such games tend to get more digital sales- especially on Origin for PC.

The good news for Anthem (and also EA as well as Bioware) is the game still topped both charts, as seen in the images below courtesy Metro UK. It sold more physical copies compared the other new entries last week- Far Cry: New Dawn and Metro Exodus- in the UK, which tends to be representative of the entire physical sales world too. Indeed, Anthem on the two major consoles were individually also the best sellers too, so there remains hope for the game. Despite mediocre reviews and interest online, perhaps this will be enough for continued support of the game post-release, and for Bioware to get enough momentum to push out more games in the future, and ideally more, better single-player games too.

Denuvo's impact on gaming performance has been spoken of immensely - as always has been the case for any and all DRM solution that finds its way into games. However, evidence always seemed to be somewhat anecdotal on whether or not Denuvo really impacted performance - for a while, the inability to test games with Denuvo implemented and officially removed (which, unsurprisingly, isn't the same as it being cracked) was a grand stopgap to any sort of serious testing.

Now, courtesy of Overlord's YouTube channel, we can see whether or not Denuvo impacts performance. In a total of seven games tested on a platform with an Intel Core i7 2600K stock CPU (for adequate testing of whether Denuvo really impacts more the CPU than any other system component) paired with a stock clocked 1080 ti. You really should take a look at the video; it's a short, informative one, but the gist of is this: Some games revealed performance improvements with Denuvo being removed: Mass Effect: Andromeda saw a huge boost from an average of 57 FPS all the way to 64 FPS due to the removal of the DRM solution; and Mad Max saw a more meager 54 to 60 FPS increase. The other games (which included Hitman, Abzu, and others, didn't see any performance difference.

BioWare today is reflecting on both the story and history of the Mass Effect franchise, through an event entitled #ten7. Fire-started by the celebration of ten years since release of the original Mass Effect, BioWare's celebration includes a throwback trailer, an invite for users to perusal The Archive with their in-game choices, and a suite of streaming events for all of the franchise entries, from the original Mass Effect all the way to the latest Mass Effect: Andromeda.

While this celebration of BioWare's IP accomplishments is a welcome sight, it doesn't exactly put to rest fears of an "iced" IP, which has been reported to be the case regarding the Mass Effect franchise. It's a shame that a publisher's pressures towards meeting launch deadlines sometimes goes ahead even at the cost of final product quality. Mass Effect: Andromeda is a perfect example of a good game that died, through massive effect, by word of mouth and a thousand cuts. Let's see where the future takes us in this universe, though I for one am eagerly awaiting for a new installment in this sci-fi setting. You can head over to the source link and scroll to the bottom of the page to take a look at a uber-resolution collage of what BioWare considers the Mass Effect franchise's best moments. You can also check out a 7-minute video, after the break.

Mass Effect: Andromeda was met with a lukewarm reception from reviewers and users alike (even if there was just a smidge of overblown issues,) and it would seem this has made EA cautious regarding this IP. Make no mistake: Mass Effect still lines up alongside EA's biggest franchises, and it's almost guaranteed the publisher will want to return to it at some point in time. It just so happens that its less than stellar reception has seemingly put further plans on the IP on hold. Bioware Montreal, the studio behind Andromeda's push, as apparently been relegated to a "support studio" role, with staff being channeled towards the new Star Wars Battlefront 2 game and other projects. Part of the staff will still be working on Mass Effect: Andromeda, looking to work through patches and multiplayer support, though it would seem that there are now no plans for eventual Andromeda DLC. This is a sad development, all in all, as Mass Effect counts one of the most interesting settings - and the most potential - among game franchises

On to Bioware's new original intellectual property, codenamed "Dylan", Electronic Arts CEO Andrew Wilson revealed during a recent call with investors that its launch has been postponed. Originally scheduled to launch by the end of March 2018, the not-yet-named title has been pushed back to EA's 2019 fiscal year (April 2018 through March 2019.) This game looks to be EA's take on the kind of "live" game that is Bungie's Destiny and upcoming Destiny 2 (under Activision's supervision), and Ubisoft's Tom Clancy's The Division, being built around a live service and a "disruptive" new social design which was, according to Andrew Wilson, the reason for the delay.

AMD today released Radeon Software Crimson ReLive 17.4.4, its fourth release for April. These drivers come with optimization for "Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War III," with up to 7 percent performance improvement seen on a machine powered by a Radeon RX 580. It also fixes display corruption seen on some machines with HDMI scaling, incorrect HDR colors on "Mass Effect: Andromeda," DirectX 11 mode stuttering on CrossFire machines in "Battlefield 1," a hang noted on Radeon RX 550 machines that haven't been rebooted for a long time, and some UI improvements with Radeon Settings. The drivers also add a curious looking shortcut to your desktop (check out the image below). Grab the driver from the link below.

Edit: In case you are wondering where that Quake Champions Beta shortcut on your desktop comes from, AMD's 17.4.4 driver installation stealth-adds that to your desktop, with a bit.ly tracking link, instead of directly to the official page. Looks like AMD is making some $$ from it, a referral id is included in the final URL destination, too.DOWNLOAD: AMD Radeon Software Crimson ReLive 17.4.4

Mass Effect Andromeda was one of the most awaited launches of 2017, though an argument can be made that the game is currently in beta. The Mass Effect trilogy was one of the best-realized trilogies in gaming - let down, in the eyes of some users, by its ending; but if the indoctrination theory has something to go for it, I think it's one of the best endings that ever took form in this media. The original trilogy really went to show how a universe steeped in narrative, with an overarching plan already aligned for its trio of games, could deliver an intense, high-quality sci-fi experience.

Taking on a whole new galaxy should have been a time to improve and rebuild old systems, not breaking what was so very well done before. Even if the game is a looker, with the Frostbite 3 engine bringing graphics to the forefront, some things have taken a turn for the worst in a bid to save development time and resources. Mass Effect: Andromeda came out in what is an almost universally agreed unfinished state, with facial animations and overall writing suffering in quality compared to the previous installments, and a plethora of bugs fitter to an early access release than a AAA game. Now, Bioware has come forward, committing to act on fans' feedback and making up for the deficits that have no place in a Bioware game.

NVIDIA today announced the G-SYNC HDR technology. An evolution of the company's proprietary adaptive display sync technology, which keeps the display's refresh-rates dynamically in-sync with the graphics card's frame-rates, G-SYNC HDR, as its name suggests, adds support for HDR (high dynamic range) displays. NVIDIA's partner display manufacturers such as Acer, and ASUS have each announced displays with this technology, which will will be available later this year.

NVIDIA worked with display panel maker AUOptronics to develop G-SYNC HDR. It leverages full 384-zone LED backlights, and a quantum-dot technology. The monitors rely on wide color gamuts, with 10-bit (1.07 billion color palettes) to bring HDR to life. G-SYNC HDR monitors come with support for the HDR10 standard. The year's most anticipated game, "Mass Effect: Andromeda," will come with support for G-SYNC HDR.

NVIDIA released the GeForce 304.48 Beta software suite, which include game-specific performance improvements, and fixes for bugs related to recently launched hardware. To begin with, GeForce 304.48 Beta claims performance improvements as high as 18%. The improvements are tested on GeForce GTX 680 and GeForce GTX 560, and are specific to game titles such as Batman Arkham City, Dragon Age 2, Lost Planet 2, STALKER: Call of Pripyat; SLI profiles were improved for games such as Battlefield 3 and The Witcher 2. The exact performance improvement numbers claimed by NVIDIA are charted below.

In addition to performance improvements, NVIDIA released fixes for outstanding issues, such as micro-stutter noted by some GeForce GTX 600 "Kepler" users in games with v-sync enabled; under-clocking of factory-overclocked graphics cards by certain manufacturers; and a performance issue with Total War: Shogun 2, with its latest patch enabled. NVIDIA also added and improved SLI profiles for a large selection of games.DOWNLOAD: NVIDIA GeForce 304.48 Beta

The complete change-log follows.

The games market went to Hell in May. Diablo III topping retail software sales for the month, according to the latest sales figures from NPD, and helped fuel a resurgence in the PC games space. Other top performers included Max Payne 3, which launched the same day as Diablo III, as well as Sniper Elite V2 and Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Future Soldier.
While action titles continued their dominance of the top 10, 2K Sports' NBA 2K12 held the fifth spot for the second straight week. Blizzard continued to show its impact in the PC market with Diablo III at number 1, the first time since July 2010 that a PC-only title has accomplished that feat. The game that did it in 2010? StarCraft 2, another Blizzard mainstay.

Total video game sales continued to shrink, down 28 percent from last year. However, the PC market jumped 230 percent from the same time last year to $80 million, fueled by Diablo III sales. The overall spend in May, including digital sales and microtransactions was estimated to be $1.17 billion.

BioWare, a Label of Electronic Arts Inc. announced Mass Effect 3: Extended Cut, a downloadable content pack that will expand upon the events at the end of the critically acclaimed Action RPG. Through additional cinematic sequences and epilogue scenes, the Mass Effect 3: Extended Cut will give fans seeking further clarity to the ending of Mass Effect 3 deeper insights into how their personal journey concludes. Coming this summer, the Mass Effect 3: Extended Cut will be available for download on the Xbox 360 videogame and entertainment system, PlayStation 3 computer entertainment system and PC for no extra charge (offer expires April 12, 2014).

"We are all incredibly proud of Mass Effect 3 and the work done by Casey Hudson and team," said Dr. Ray Muzyka, Co-Founder of BioWare and General Manager of EA's BioWare Label. "Since launch, we have had time to listen to the feedback from our most passionate fans and we are responding. With the Mass Effect 3: Extended Cut we think we have struck a good balance in delivering the answers players are looking for while maintaining the team's artistic vision for the end of this story arc in the Mass Effect universe."

The first blockbuster game of 2012 has arrived! Mass Effect 3 from BioWare, a Label of Electronic Arts Inc., is now available at retail stores in North America and will be launching in Europe on March 9. The highly anticipated game has been praised by critics for delivering, deep, interactive storytelling and adrenaline-pumping action on a huge scale. Mass Effect 3 has already received perfect scores from a wide variety of outlets around the world, including MSNBC, Game Informer, USA Today, G4 TV, Eurogamer (UK), The Guardian (UK), Official Xbox Magazine (UK), PlayStation Official Magazine (UK), Eurogamer (IT), Game Reactor (Sweden), Atomic Gamer (AUS) and more. Entertainment Weekly declared that "Mass Effect 3 isn't just one of the videogame events of the year. It's one of the pop-culture events of the year."

Award-winning developer BioWare, a label of Electronic Arts Inc. along with Razer, the world leader in high performance gaming hardware, reveal today peripherals and gear created for the highly anticipated Action RPG Mass Effect 3.

Fans of the Mass Effect series can arm themselves for the all-out galactic war with the Razer Mass Effect 3 Edition peripheral line which includes a Razer Imperator gaming mouse, Razer Vespula dual-sided gaming mouse mat, Razer BlackWidow Ultimate gaming keyboard, Razer Onza Tournament Edition Xbox 360 controller, and Razer Chimaera Xbox 360 gaming headset. The cutting-edge peripherals will give fans of the series a competitive advantage in the epic battle to save the galaxy from the ancient alien race known only as the Reapers.

NVIDIA today released version 197.13 of its GeForce system software. The suite includes drivers for all NVIDIA GeForce GPUs and IGPs since GeForce 6 series, NVIDIA ION platform, as well as system software for NVIDIA PhysX, NVIDIA 3D Vision technology, and drivers for the on-chip HDMI audio which the latest GeForce GPUs are shipping with. The WHQL-signed driver includes PhysX 9.10.0129 system software, updated HDMI audio driver to version 1.0.9.1, application-specific performance increments for several games, notably the following:

• Up to 13% performance increase in Crysis: Warhead with a single GPU, up to 30% performance increase in Crysis: Warhead with SLI technology
• Up to 13% performance increase in H.A.W.X with single GPU, up to 15% performance increase in H.A.W.X with SLI technology
• Up to 30% performance increase in Left 4 Dead with single GPU, up to 28% performance increase in Left 4 Dead with SLI technology

SLI profiles are added for the following applications: Assassin Creed II, Battlefield: Bad Company 2, Command and Conquer 4: Tiberium Twilight, Grand Theft Auto IV: Episodes from Liberty City, Mass Effect 2, Napoleon: Total War, and Zombie Driver. SLI support is improved for: Metro 2033, Supreme Commander 2, Unigine, and World of Warcraft
- Ambient Occlusion support for Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood, Need for Speed: Shift, Resident Evil 5, RUSE, and Street Fighter IV. Anti Aliasing can now be overridden for Mass Effect 2. As always, a number of new and existing bugs were fixed. For more information, refer to the Release Notes documents for Windows 7/Vista, Windows XP.

DOWNLOAD: NVIDIA GeForce 197.13 WHQL

Leading video game developer BioWare, a division of Electronic Arts Inc. today officially announced Mass Effect 2, the highly anticipated sequel to the multi award-winning 2007 hit, Mass Effect. The Mass Effect trilogy is a masterful science fiction adventure set in a vast universe filled with dangerous alien life forms and mysterious uncharted planets. In this dark second chapter, Saren's evil army of Geth soldiers has just been defeated, and humans, who are still struggling to make their mark on the galactic stage, are now faced with an even greater peril…

"We're going to surpass the extraordinary gaming experience we brought our fans in Mass Effect by delivering intensified combat and expanded weapon options as well as increased depth of planet exploration, all while delivering a powerful, emotionally engaging story," said Dr. Ray Muzyka, General Manager and CEO, BioWare and General Manager and Vice President, EA. "Mass Effect 2 is shaping up to be an unforgettable RPG-shooter experience, taking players on a non-stop roller-coaster ride filled with stunning plot twists and no-holds-barred action."

Mass Effect 2 is coming to PC and the Xbox 360 video game system in Early 2010. To see the exclusive new Mass Effect 2 teaser trailer check out the website here: masseffect.com

Valve today announced Spore, Spore Creepy & Cute Parts Pack, Mass Effect, Need for Speed Undercover and EA SPORTS FIFA Manager 2009 are available now to gamers in most of Europe, the United States and Canada via Steam, a leading platform for PC games and digital content with over 15 million accounts around the world. In the coming weeks, Mirror's Edge, Command & Conquer Red Alert 3, and Dead Space, will be added to the catalog of EA's titles available via Steam. For more information, please visit Steam Games.

After creating RPG masterpiece Mass Effect, author BioWare went on to win several awards for their work. Now, BioWare is confirming that they plan to spread the love: a PC version of the game is due out sometime in May 2008. The best part about BioWare being responsible for both writing and porting the game is that BioWare will fix many issues in porting. Among the most obvious tweaks...

• PC-centric controls (aiming with your mouse?), with customizable hotkeys
• Higher quality textures; PC version will be capable of higher resolutions
• New decryption mini-game (for hacking turrets, etc.)
• New GUI for the inventory system

You can check out some current screenshots here.

To the delight of gamers and science-fiction (sci-fi) fans alike, the wait is finally over as "Mass Effect," an award-winning action role-playing game (RPG) described by Game Informer Magazine as "One of the greatest science fiction stories ever told," hits retail shelves today, with a continued rollout to retailers worldwide planned.

BioWare's Mass Effect game, which was banned in Singapore on Thursday is now resurrected. Instead of ban, the space adventure game Mass Effect will be sold with an M18 label, meaning it can't be bought by anybody under the age of 18. Mass Effect is the first video game to be given a rating in the country, and the move follows a public outcry over the ban.