Playing Immortals of Aveum, you'd be forgiven for not realizing this is a studio's debut game. Walking onto a castle balcony, seeing bizarre science-fantasy architecture peppering the horizon, the scale of the magical battle happening beneath you, and the polish of it all shows a level of scale we don't typically associate with a first game.

That feeling is very deliberate. Founder and CEO of Ascendent Studios, Bret Robbins, has worked on some very big games in the past, and he didn't want to take a step back in his new venture: "I wanted to make a big game right from the beginning," he tells me. "I'd worked on a lot of big games - I'd worked on Call of Duty for nine years before I started Ascendent, I'd worked on Dead Space, I'd worked on Lord of the Rings, and James Bond. So I was comfortable trying to do something ambitious. I knew that games had gotten so great - so big - these days that, for us to be competitive, I needed to make something big."

At the Future Games Show we bestowed a deeper insight of the harrowing world that awaits you in Lords of the Fallen. Equip yourself for an adventure untold, horrific bosses lurking in all-encompassing environments, treasures beyond one's own desires, and haunting worlds that bridge between the known and unknown.

Embrace the duality of Mournstead
As witnessed in this latest trailer (below), Mournstead is split into two parallel worlds; Axiom, the realm of the living, and Umbral, the realm of the dead. As a lamp bearer, you alone have the ability to cross between these two expansive worlds; You may find that one dead-end in Axiom is actually a passageway that can be unveiled in Umbral with the use of your lamp. But head caution Crusaders, though you may find riches beyond your wildest dreams, prolonged trespass will undoubtedly raise the call of horrific sentinels of Umbral who will cull you from their world.

Electronic Arts and Ascendant Studios have released a new gameplay trailer for its upcoming fantasy first-person magic shooter, Immortals of Aveum. Based on Unreal Engine 5.1, this single-player FPS will put the player into role of Jak, an Immortal capable of using all three colors of magic. The game is set into original universe and the latest trailer shows what is said to be one of the epic battles in the game, and it surely looks impressive.

Immortals of Aveum could be the first Unreal Engine 5.1 game to be released as it is scheduled to launch on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X/S on July 20th. Previously, EA has released rather high PC system requirements, which included either a GeForce RTX 3080 Ti 12 GB or AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT 16 GB graphics card to run the game at 1440p at 60 FPS, and that is with medium to high game settings.

DLAA, or deep-learning anti-aliasing, is essentially DLSS without the image upscaling. The technology holds the rendering resolution at par with your display's, but uses AI to attempt to add detail to your game, particularly smoothing out edges and other forms in the raster graphics that could require anti-aliasing. The result is image quality that's visibly superior to even native-resolution, and other methods of anti-aliasing, such as TAA and MSAA. Since all this is happening at native resolution, there is zero performance gain, some performance loss, however not one that is comparable to MSAA. It's a wonderful technology, and any game that supports DLSS should naturally expose DLAA in its quality settings to end-users, however this isn't the case. DLAA is seeing sluggish adoption among game developers, and NVIDIA has taken it upon itself to fix this.

NVIDIA is working on updates to DLSS that essentially makes DLAA a quality preset. We know from an article from earlier this week that DLSS performance presets don't just linearly scale render resolution, but affect other algorithm features, such as Reflex. A unique "G" preset was found in an Unreal Engine 5.2 presentation by Epic. It turns out, that this preset is part of the updates NVIDIA is planning for not just DLSS 3, but also DLSS 2, which makes DLAA a quality preset for DLSS. When engaged, it renders the game at 100% display resolution, without upscaling, but applies much of the AI image reconstruction features of DLSS. With this, it is hoped that many more game developers will pick up on DLAA, and integrate it with practically any game that supports DLSS.

NVIDIA DLSS 3 Frame Generation technology comes with a certain number of reference performance presets by NVIDIA, which game developers can integrate into their game engines. These presets essentially trade quality for performance across tiers, and are lettered, as detailed in the screenshot below. DLSS 3 doesn't just built on the image upscaling technologies of DLSS 2, but adds the all-important Frame Generation component, which generates entire alternate frames using AI, and without the involvement of the raster graphics machinery. NVIDIA Reflex is also involved, to reduce the graphics latency cost this imposes.

A side-effect of frame-generation is that it can't predict when the scene is dramatically changing, which results in ghosting. Some of the presets by NVIDIA are designed to counter ghosting. It's important to note here, that unlike DLSS 2 presets, which were essentially tiers based on the actual rendering resolution; DLSS 3 presets cover a multitude of factors besides the rendering resolution and target resolution for upscaling; and not all presets are made available to games that support DLSS 3. Modders have, however, figured out ways to enable certain unavailable presets. It turns out, that NVIDIA is developing a new DLSS 3 preset exclusively for Unreal Engine 5, called Preset-G. A presentation by the Unreal Engine team detailing DLSS 3-related features in UE 5.2, inadvertently revealed this preset as they were presenting a DLSS 3 plugin, and a drop-down menu revealed the various presets, ranging from A thru G. At this point we don't really know what the G-preset includes, or what it's optimized for, but we should learn about it soon, as NVIDIA updates the public documentation for DLSS 3.

Each week, we're bringing you news of the latest DLSS and ray tracing integrations in games and apps. Last week, The Lord of the Rings: Gollum launched with DLSS 3 and ray tracing, and more DLSS 2 games were released. This week, at COMPUTEX 2023, we've announced that Ash Echoes, Honor of Kings: World, and Legend of Ymir will all launch with DLSS 3, and Party Animals with DLSS 2. And we're celebrating the release of Diablo IV with DLSS 3, and System Shock with DLSS 2.

NVIDIA DLSS Now Available In Over 300 Released Games and Apps
NVIDIA DLSS uses AI and GeForce RTX Tensor Cores to boost frame rates while maintaining great image quality. With DLSS 3, AI-powered frame generation creates new, high-quality frames for smoother gameplay. Combined with our Super Resolution technology, DLSS 3 can render seven out of every eight pixels in a scene with AI. Adoption continues to accelerate and NVIDIA DLSS is now delivering AI-accelerated performance in over 300 games and applications.

Two months ago French developer - 2:21 - announced plans for complete remasters of the quirky mid-to-late Nineties-era Little Big Adventure or Relentless: Twinsen's Adventure/Odyssey (titles were confusingly region dependent back then) games series. The team has paused work on a third entry/reboot, and development of spruced-up versions of the original games has since become the priority - both LBA Remasters are being rebuilt on the Unreal Engine 5 platform, and key members from the old Adeline Software outfit are involved in the remake process.

Ben Limare, the CEO at 2:21, has provided a small update this week - he mentions that a new teaser trailer was debuted at AG French Direct, and now the pre-alpha gameplay footage has been uploaded to YouTube and the company's social media accounts. The introduction states: "Discover the first video and images of the upcoming demo for Twinsen's Little Big Adventure Remastered! Built from the ground up, enjoy new breathtaking visuals, enhanced music and improved, deeper gameplay as Twinsen's Little Big Adventure - Remastered reignites the original TLBA game using the latest next-generation technology." The team reconfirms that a demo version of Twinsen's Little Big Adventure 1 Remastered will be playable in June.

The darkness has been unveiled. Lords of the Fallen unleashes from its shackles on Friday 13th October 2023 - pre-order now to receive three exclusive bronze, silver and gold armour tincts. To commemorate this momentous occasion, we've dropped a 4-minute Gameplay Reveal trailer, shedding all-new light on the shadows of Mournstead.

Underpinned by the Lords of Metal themselves, Iron Maiden, behold the new trailer below, showcasing our dark fantasy action-RPGs breathtaking environments, fast thrilling combat, and epic boss battles…

Bloober Team has delivered on its promised and has released a PC demo for Layers of Fear, Unreal Engine 5-powered horror game. Layers of Fear is one of the first Unreal Engine 5 games. This is a limited time demo and will be available until May 22.

Acting as a showcase for the recently launched Unreal Engine 5, Layers of Fear will feature Temporal Super Resolution, ray tracing effects, UE5's Lumen and Nanite, as well as support for HDR, volumetric lighting and Niagara. Recently, Bloober Team released first official PC system requirements, which are pretty decent, showing promise that Unreal Engine 5 will finally bring some optimized games.

We're excited to announce that Unreal Engine 5.2 is now available. With this release, we've further expanded UE5's groundbreaking toolset as it continues to deliver on the promise of making Unreal Engine the most open and advanced real-time 3D creation tool in the world. Alongside feature refinements and stability improvements, Unreal Engine 5.2 pushes the boundaries of what creators can expect out of the box, delivering innovative new functionality.

Procedural Content Generation framework
Unreal Engine 5.2 offers an early look at a Procedural Content Generation framework (PCG) that can be used directly inside Unreal Engine without relying on external packages. The framework includes both in-editor tools and a runtime component. The PCG tools enable you to define rules and parameters to populate large scenes with Unreal Engine assets of your choice, making the process of creating large worlds fast and efficient.

Hi gamers! I'm Samuel, the PD of Chrono Studio. To all who have been eagerly awaiting Chrono Odyssey, we are thrilled to finally unveil our second trailer giving you an in-depth look at the gameplay itself. At Chrono Studio, we are more than just developers - we are avid gamers who share a passion for epic titles and we believe that MMORPGs are more than just games - they are gateways to unforgettable experiences formed through shared adventures and challenges. Our vision for Chrono Odyssey is to continue the legacy of beloved MMORPGs that have stood the test of time.

At first glance Chrono Odyssey may seem like your typical MMORPG, but what sets Chrono Odyssey apart from the rest is its unparalleled graphics, made by the UE5 engine and our accumulated expertise. We have also elevated combat to new heights by incorporating the Chrono (time) element, which serves as the core of the game's universe, as well as the real-time MMO content enjoyed by hundreds of players to provide a dynamic social experience unlike any other.

Experience the visually stunning world of Layers of Fear, one of the first games to utilize the power of Unreal Engine 5 and advanced technological tools. Come with us on an immersive journey as we explore how we incorporated these cutting-edge features to bring you one of the most visually striking horror games out there. With the latest engine, we expedited the development process and introduced a host of technical novelties that make this game a spectacular visual treat. The Lumen, Ray Tracing, and Niagara effects helped us create visuals and effects that are beyond words and feel lifelike.

The canvas awaits its final brushstrokes. The stage calls for its lead actor. The novel needs its final chapter. It's time to face your fears. One. Last. Time. The series, which has left a mark on narrative-driven first-person psychological horror games, returns to tell its final spine-chilling story in Layers of Fear.. The series' crowning work is the definitive way to experience the critically acclaimed franchise as it features Layers of Fear and Layers of Fear 2, as well as all DLCs (including the new 'The Final Note' DLC that will give you a new perspective on the Layers of Fear storyline) and the never-before-told story of The Writer, which will tie everything together. Built on Unreal Engine 5, Layers of Fear supports Ray Tracing, HDR and 4K resolution to make the stunning visuals, and your nightmarish experience, as immersive and realistic as possible.

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.

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.

Dear players - thank you for the tremendous support we received so far on Atlas Fallen! From your enthusiastic comments on our video teasers online and in person at PAX EAST to the positive previews from critics, we're grateful and honored to have you excited to play our game. Our goal has always been to create a memorable RPG experience in a unique setting, with exciting gameplay and the option for fully playable seamless co-op with a friend.

We'd love to give the game some extra time which will allow us to deliver the best possible version of Atlas Fallen. To achieve this, we have made the difficult decision to delay the worldwide launch of Atlas Fallen to AUGUST 10, 2023.

Hexworks and CI Games have shown off their upcoming RPG, Lords of the Fallen, as part of the State of Unreal GDC Showcase. The trailer demonstrates the team's ambitions and the use of Unreal Engine 5 has allowed them "to create the most immersive game experience possible". The game's character customization system is a cumulation of UE5 generated geometry and 3D scans taken from real life human models. The development team states that this allows players to "create unique faces and bodies by dynamically morphing between a huge range of shapes before finessing the finer details."

Unreal Engine 5's Lumen Global Illumination has been put to good use by the team - the game's complex and rich environments are lit in dramatic and atmospheric fashion, all in real time, with an added layer of technical accomplishment due to the player being able to swap between two parallel worlds. Hexworks devised its own custom toolset to enable the seamless shift from Axiom, the realm of the living, to Umbral, the realm of the dead: "This means our artists and designers can ensure these worlds feel intrinsically linked, like two sides of the same coin... even if one side is decidedly more horrific than the other."

NCSOFT, a global premier game developer and publisher, unveiled its digital human technology together with Project M's trailer at the Game Developers Conference 2023 (GDC), currently being held in San Francisco, CA.

On March 22, NCSOFT revealed the video at State of Unreal, Epic Games' opening session at GDC held to introduce new Unreal Engine tools and technologies in collaboration with its partners. Here, Songyee Yoon, chief strategy officer (CSO) at NCSOFT, was on stage to introduce the company's latest project, Project M, and its trailer.

Arkane Studios will be working on the removal of the single-player always online restriction from its upcoming Redfall first-person shooter game. This follows significant backlash expressed by gamers, after the presence of this function was brought to light in February 2023. In an interview conducted by Eurogamer, game director Harvey Smith has revealed that the Austin, Texas-based branch has taken the negative feedback seriously. The development team is active in making changes to Redfall's underpinnings, so that an offline single-player experience becomes a possibility.

Smith acknowledged that modern games are intrinsically linked to online services, but these should offer functionality when offline circumstances occur. He imagined situations from the perspective of being a potential Redfall player: "They could say: 'Oh, my God, you're always online. If you get on your Steam, and it's not online, you freak out. If you get on your Xbox, and you can't get the latest patch, or see what your friends are doing, you freak out. You want to be always online!' But that response, I think, lacks empathy."

CD Projekt has admitted to writing off the development funds spent so far expended on Project Sirius - a codename for a satellite studio produced spin-off game in its best selling The Witcher series. The Polish development and publishing group is restarting Project Sirius from scratch, and it is not clear whether their East Coast USA-based outfit, Molasses Flood, will remain as part of the rebooted cycle. Within a recently released company financial report its reasoning was made clear: "The aforementioned decision is based on results of evaluation of the scope and commercial potential of the original concept of Project Sirius, and ongoing work on formulating a new framework for this project."

CD Projekt had spent over $7 million in 2022 on development costs for Project Sirius. More than $2.2 million has been spent in 2023, presumably right up until the decision to bin all currently completed work. Project Sirius was announced in the autumn of 2022, and at around that time Molasses Flood was undertaking a large scale recruitment drive. The game was in a pre-production phase by the end of the year, with over sixty members of staff confirmed to be working on it. Development was also being supported by members of CD Projekt RED's team at their Warsaw headquarters, and now it is very apparent that the overseers were not happy with what was going on in New England.

As promised and detailed earlier, NVIDIA has now released the first SDK for Path Tracing. Path Tracing, which should accurately re-create physics of all light sources in a scene, has been around and we already had a chance to see it in some demos like Quake RTX and Portal RTX, but now, thanks to some previously available NVIDIA tools and features, it could be finally coming to more games and not just tech demos.

According to NVIDIA, the thing that makes Path Tracing possible now, and more accessible to developers, is the combination of previously available NVIDIA technologies, as well as some new ones, including the new performance multiplier in DLSS 3, called the DLSS Frame Generation. The DLSS Frame Generation, working on GeForce 40 series cards and using the Optical Flow Accelerator, is what made real-time path tracing possible. The RTX Path Tracing SDK, according to NVIDIA, should re-create the physics of all light sources in a scene in order to reproduce what the eye sees in real life, and allows to build a reference path traces to ensure that lighting during production is true to life, while accelerating the iteration process; or build high-quality photo modes for RT-capable GPUs or real-time, ultra-quality modes that take advantage of the Ada Lovelace architecture.

French developer 2:21 this week announced its intentions to produce remastered versions of its Twinsen's Little Big Adventure games. A planned third game has been delayed beyond 2024, the original intention was to release this sequel in time for the 30th Anniversary of the series, but development has only reached a prototype phase. The remasters will serve as an interim proof of potential to prospective publishers of the third game. These updated versions have been assembled by a small team, with the Unreal Engine 5 serving as the technological base.

The original Little Big Adventure was released and published by Electronic Arts in 1994, and the second in 1997. Activision dealt with the latter's distribution in North America. Certain territories received retitled versions - Relentless: Twinsen's Adventure (1) and Twinsen's Odyssey (2) - this inconsistent branding by market departments caused much confusion during the nascent days of gaming discussion online. The 2:21 team has sought to hybridize the different titles, but the 'Relentless' moniker is no longer part of its new naming system, thankfully.

Atlas Fallen, the epic fantasy action-RPG from Focus Entertainment's studio Deck13 Interactive, is excited to open pre-orders following the recent announcement of its May 16 release date. Get a feel of the high sensations to come in the game where you battle legendary creatures in super-powered combat with today's captivating Gameplay Reveal Trailer.

Take on a heroic journey through a variety of breath-taking environments, swiftly gliding through the desert landscapes of a vast sand-covered world. Explore ancient ruins and unearth the mysteries and secrets of a fallen society. Fight a corrupt god and extraordinary beasts thanks to the divine power of your shape-shifting weapon. Unlock powerful skills and abilities to build a unique move-set and rise as the champion who will liberate the people of Atlas.

Get an exclusive first-look at the gameplay of Layers of Fear, the series' crowning work, in this 11-minute walkthrough. Follow the Painter from the original Layers of Fear, and join the Writer - a recently unveiled character - for a closer look at the latest installment in the Layers franchise.

As The Writer, enter the lone and ghastly Lighthouse - a newly-introduced location - and uncover an untold story that links all of the Layers' characters and events together. Unravel secrets, solve puzzles, and face the threats of the old Mansion that can only be solved with a lantern - a new and essential tool to confront the nightmares in the game!

NVIDIA DLSS has revolutionized graphics rendering, using AI to boost frame rates while delivering crisp, high quality images. GeForce RTX gamers can accelerate performance with DLSS in over 270 games and apps, with another 7 games adding support in March, and today, we are announcing that Diablo IV and Redfall will both launch with DLSS 3.

DLSS 3's Frame Generation multiplies performance in 28 released games and has been adopted 7X faster than DLSS 2 in the first 6 months. DLSS' groundbreaking features, exceptional performance, and ease of integration are key to its rapid adoption by developers. With the DLSS 3 Frame Generation plugin becoming publicly available at GDC for developers, and a DLSS 3 plugin coming soon for Unreal Engine 5.2, it will be even easier for developers to enhance the next generation of games. Keep reading for further details about the addition of NVIDIA DLSS to Deceive Inc., Diablo IV, Forza Horizon 5, Gripper, Redfall, Smalland: Survive the Wilds, and THE FINALS Closed Beta.

GSC Game World has released a defiant statement, in the face of threats of ransomed S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 data. It provides an update about one of its employee's accounts being compromised by hackers, and as a result of this, the studio is now threatened with blackmail. A statement was posted, March 12, on the GSC Game World's official Twitter account. The developer is urging that fans refrain from sharing leaked material and spoilers, and warns that the final product should not be pre-judged in a harsh light, based on any of the leaked work-in-progress material.

It is not unusual for hacker groups to threaten game developers and publishers. Rockstar Games was the victim of a leak in 2022, when videos of its in-development and upcoming video game Grand Theft Auto 6 were uploaded to forums. The in-game footage was spread across social media and the internet, and shortly thereafter, a hacker wanted to "negotiate a deal" with Rockstar Games. Source code for GTA 5 & 6 was used as leverage.