Assassin's Creed Shadows is seemingly not out of hot water with gamers just yet, although this time, the flak seems to have been mostly unwarranted. Earlier this week, rumors popped up on Reddit claiming to reveal the Assassin's Creed Shadows Animus Hub, which was supposedly the upcoming RPG's dedicated launcher, and a host of in-game season passes and rewards. The leak purports to detail the first free battle pass, which is referred to as "Eye in the Dark" and will consist of 20 reward tiers. Completing the battle pass allegedly rewards 9,050 Isu coins, which can be used to purchase various cosmetics in the form of character, weapon, and mount customization options. Somewhat comically, there appear to be in-game collaborations with the likes of VISA, Red Bull, Intel, BAPE Clothing and Sprecher, although how these will play out in the game is a mystery. This news made quite a stir when it was first announced, since Ubisoft was very clear when it confirmed the game's delay last month that there would be no season passes in Assassin's Creed Shadows.

As it turns out, though, the rumors were kicking up enough speculation about the return of paid subscriptions, battle passes, and season passes that Ubisoft took to its official Discord server to address the rumors directly. Although Ubisoft confirmed that the Animus Hub is a piece of software it has been working on, all the content and rewards offered in the Animus Hub will be free content. Ubisoft was, however, careful with its words, not denying the existence of season passes and battle passes, instead only commenting that those passes will not be paid. Additionally, Ubisoft confirmed that there will be additional in-game content available for free in the Animus Hub.

NVIDIA today announced incoming changes to its GeForce Now game streaming service, some of which are not likely to sit well with gamers. The biggest, and likely most controversial change coming to GeForce Now is the addition of monthly playtime caps for all GeForce Now users, regardless of which plan they're on. According to the blog post announcing the changes, GeForce Now gamers will be limited to 100 hours of gameplay per month in addition to the daily playtime caps. NVIDIA will allow gamers who don't use their whole monthly cap to roll 15 hours of game time into the following month.

It's not all bad news, however, as NVIDIA also announced that it will be increasing the resolution and image quality of the GeForce Now Performance tier—previously Priority—from 1080p to 1440p. The Ultimate and Basic tiers remain unchanged in both name and feature set. NVIDIA says the playtime limit was necessary in order "to continue providing exceptional quality and speed—as well as shorter queue times." Of course players can buy extra playtime at a rate of $2.99 for 15 hours of GeForce Now Performance and $5.99 for 15 hours of GeForce Now Ultimate. The playtime limits will come into effect on January 1, 2025, and anyone that signs up for a paid GeForce Now subscription before then won't be subjected to the new playtime limits until January 2026.

ASUS today announced an exclusive collaboration with Boosteroid, a global cloud gaming provider, to offer a 50% discount on the first month of a Boosteroid subscription, empowering gamers to level up their gaming experience at a fraction of the cost. The promotion will apply to selected ASUS and ROG gaming products, which includes routers, a range of motherboards, graphics cards, peripherals, displays, cases and power supplies in the Prime, TUF Gaming and ROG families, plus the ROG NUC. The offer runs from August 1 to December 31, 2024.

Beyond this bundle promotion, ASUS and Boosteroid share a deep-rooted partnership. Since 2019, ASUS has been a vital technology partner for Boosteroid, providing the high-performance server solutions that power the platform's infrastructure. The partnership ensures that Boosteroid can deliver smooth, low-lag gameplay for its users. "This partnership leverages our complementary strengths to propel gaming to new heights," states Ivan Shvaichenko, CEO of Boosteroid. "The ASUS dedication to cutting-edge hardware is a perfect match for Boosteroid's innovative cloud gaming solutions. Together, we empower the highest levels of performance and flexibility."

NZXT, a leader in PC gaming components, products and prebuilts, builds on its commitment to making PC gaming achievable to all of those with a passion for play with the introduction of NZXT Flex. A first of its kind gaming PC subscription service, Flex enables gamers to enjoy the benefits of a high performance gaming PC for a low monthly fee. The Flex subscription service features no hassle returns, no hidden fees and regular upgrades all without a long term commitment.

"At NZXT, we believe everyone should be able to play the games they love," said Bryan de Zayas, NZXT's Head of Marketing. "In the past, that meant buying a pre-built PC or building your own. Our new Flex subscription service offers gamers more flexibility and choice, so they can focus on what really matters - playing the games they love."

The United States Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has taken legal action against software giant Adobe and two of its top executives for allegedly deceiving consumers about the actual costs of its popular subscription services and deliberately obstructing cancellations. In a federal court complaint filed by the Department of Justice at the FTC's request, the commission accuses Adobe of obscuring hefty early termination fees and making it excessively difficult for customers to cancel their subscriptions. The complaint alleges that when signing up for subscriptions on Adobe's website, the company steers consumers toward the "annual paid monthly" option, pre-selecting it as the default while burying details about the 50% early termination fee for canceling within the first year. Customers have lodged numerous complaints, saying they were unaware the plan committed them for a full year.

According to the FTC, even when customers did attempt to cancel, Adobe forced them to navigate a bureaucratic maze of web pages, unhelpful customer service reps, dropped calls, and transfers. Some customers who thought they had successfully canceled continued to be charged. Samuel Levine, Director of the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection, noted, "Adobe trapped customers into year-long subscriptions through hidden early termination fees and numerous cancellation hurdles." The complaint charges that these deceptive "dark patterns" violate the Restore Online Shoppers' Confidence Act. It names Adobe's President of Digital Media, David Wadhwani, and Vice President Maninder Sawhney as co-defendants for their oversight roles in these shady business practices.

Ease into spring with the warm, cozy vibes of Palia, coming to the cloud this GFN Thursday. It's part of six new titles joining the GeForce NOW library of over 1,800 games. Welcome Home. Escape to a cozy world with Palia, a free-to-play massively multiplayer online game from Singularity 6 Corporation. The game, which has made its way onto more than 200,000 wishlists on Steam, has launched in the cloud this week.

Farm, fish, craft and explore with friendly villagers across a stunning variety of different biomes—from sprawling flower fields to hilly forests and rocky beaches—in the world of Palia. Inhabit the land, furnish a dream home, unravel ancient mysteries and interact with a vibrant online community. Get ready for a captivating adventure across devices by streaming Palia from the cloud. GeForce NOW Ultimate and Priority members get faster access to servers and longer gaming sessions over Free members.

Leaked Samsung PBSSD presentation material popped up online a couple of days prior to the kick-off day of NVIDIA's GTC 2024 conference (March 18)—reports (at the time) jumped on the potential introduction of a "petabyte (PB)-level SSD solution," alongside an enterprise subscription service for the US market. Tom's Hardware took the time to investigate this matter—in-person—on the showroom floor up in San Jose, California. It turns out that interpretations of pre-event information were slightly off—according to on-site investigations: "despite the name, PBSSD is not a petabyte-scale solid-state drive (Samsung's highest-capacity drive can store circa 240 TB), but rather a 'petascale' storage system that can scale-out all-flash storage capacity to petabytes."

Samsung showcased a Supermicro Petascale server design, but a lone unit is nowhere near capable of providing a petabyte of storage—the Tom's Hardware reporter found out that the demonstration model housed: "sixteen 15.36 TB SSDs, so for now the whole 1U unit can only pack up to 245.76 TB of 3D NAND storage (which is pretty far from a petabyte), so four of such units will be needed to store a petabyte of data." Company representatives also had another Supermicro product at their booth: "(an) H13 all-flash petascale system with CXL support that can house eight E3.S SSDs (with) four front-loading E3.S CXL bays for memory expansion."

This "coming soon" announcement we're going to many different places with Game Pass, including the Old West, the open road, the other roads meant for toy themed cars, and even going to hell. That's just a small taste of where Game Pass is taking us, so let's dive in!

Available Today
Lightyear Frontier (Game Preview) (Cloud, PC, and Xbox Series X|S)—Available on day one with Game Pass: Start your interstellar homestead in this peaceful open-world farming adventure! Build your sustainable exofarm, grow alien crops, customize your mech, and explore a new world full of mystery with up to three friends!

MLB The Show 24 (Cloud and Console) —Available on day one with Game Pass: Swing for the fences, experience game-deciding moments, become a legend and live out your baseball dreams in MLB The Show 24.

Samsung Electronics is all set to discuss the future of AI, alongside Jensen Huang, at NVIDIA's upcoming GTC 2024 conference. South Korean insiders have leaked the company's intentions, only days before the event's March 18 kickoff time. Their recently unveiled 36 GB HBM3E 12H DRAM product is expected to be the main focus of official presentations—additionally, a new storage subscription service is marked down for a possible live introduction. An overall "Redefining AI Infrastructure" presentation could include—according to BusinessKorea—a planned launch of: "petabyte (PB)-level SSD solution, dubbed 'PBSSD,' along with a subscription service in the US market within the second quarter (of 2024) to address the era of ultra-high-capacity data."

A Samsung statement—likely sourced from leaked material—summarized this business model: "the subscription service will help reduce initial investment costs in storage infrastructure for our customers and cut down on maintenance expenses." Under agreed upon conditions, customers are not required to purchasing ultra-high-capacity SSD solutions outright: "enterprises using the service can flexibly utilize SSD storage without the need to build separate infrastructure, while simultaneously receiving various services from Samsung Electronics related to storage management, security, and upgrades." A special session—"The Value of Storage as a Service for AI/ML and Data Analysis"—is alleged to be on the company's GTC schedule.

The stars align this GFN Thursday as more top titles from Ubisoft and Square Enix join the cloud. Star Wars Outlaws will be coming to the GeForce NOW library at launch later this year, while STAR OCEAN THE SECOND STORY R and PARANORMASIGHT: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo are part of eight new titles joining this week. Additionally, four other games are getting NVIDIA RTX enhancements, all arriving at next week's Game Developers Conference.

NARAKA: BLADEPOINT and Portal with RTX are adding full ray tracing and NVIDIA DLSS 3.5 Ray Reconstruction capabilities. This month's Diablo IV update will add ray tracing. And Sengoku Dynasty—available to stream today—was recently updated with DLSS 3 Frame Generation.

As part of our effort to make Battle.net more welcoming to more players, we routinely review which currencies we support and what new ones we should add. This can make submitting payments less difficult and may help reduce or eliminate fees you pay to your card issuer for foreign currency transactions. Subscriptions for Argentinian players will be canceled and not automatically renewed to avoid enrolling players into subscriptions that may see a price increase in Argentina after this currency update.

The new currencies we're rolling out include: United Arab Emirates dirham (AED), Colombian peso (COP), Costa Rican colon (CRC), Indonesian rupiah (IDR), Israeli new shekel (ILS), Malaysian ringgit (MYR), Peruvian sol (PEN), Qatari riyal (QAR), Serbian dinar (RSD), Saudi riyal (SAR), Singapore dollar (SGD), Thai baht (THB), and Uruguayan peso (UYU). We've put together a brief FAQ to provide you with more information on the coming changes.

In March last year, we announced a 10-year partnership with Boosteroid to bring Xbox PC games to more players around the world. In June, we brought the first batch of Xbox PC games to Boosteroid and today, we're taking another step in our partnership. We're bringing more high-quality, immersive PC games by giving players another option to stream select games purchased through Microsoft Store on Windows, or available with a Game Pass membership. Our partnership continues to accelerate access to players by letting them choose how and where they play their games.

Starting today, you can play Deathloop, Dishonored, Dishonored 2, Dishonored: Death of The Outsider, Gears 5, Gears Tactics, Ghostwire: Tokyo, and Pentiment. You can also enjoy cross-play and cross-save features with your Xbox console and Windows PC for these games. We'll continue to add more hits and fan favorites from our extensive catalog of PC games over time. To get started, you'll need to gain access to the game through the Microsoft Store—either via a PC Game Pass or Xbox Game Pass Ultimate membership, or by a direct purchase of the game through the Microsoft Store—long with a Boosteroid membership.

Batter up, friends! We've got the next round of games coming soon to your download and install queue. Whether you want to bend reality in Control, check out Bikini Bottom, or more, we have your bases covered… er… loaded! Let's play ball!!

Available Today
Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun (Cloud, Console, and PC)—Load up your Boltgun and unleash the awesome Space Marine arsenal to blast your way through an explosion of sprites, pixels and blood in a perfect blend of Warhammer 40,000, frenetic gameplay and the stylish visuals of '90s retro shooters.

GFN Thursday celebrates this leap day with the addition of a popular game store to the cloud. Stream the first titles from Blizzard Entertainment's Battle.net, including Diablo IV, Overwatch 2, Call of Duty HQ and Hearthstone, now playable across more devices than ever. They're all part of the 30 new games coming to GeForce NOW in March, with eight available this week. Plus, Day Passes, announced at CES, are coming to the cloud next week, enabling gamers to experience the benefits of GeForce NOW Ultimate and Priority memberships for 24 hours at a time.

Welcome to the Cloud
Battle.net is Blizzard's digital storefront, a gateway to adventures in the Blizzard universe and home to a vibrant gaming community. Members who own Diablo IV, Overwatch 2, Call of Duty HQ and Hearthstone on Battle.net can now stream these triple-A titles from NVIDIA GeForce RTX-powered servers in the cloud without worrying about hardware specs or long download times. Battle the forces of evil in the dark, treacherous world of Diablo IV's Sanctuary at up to 4K resolution and 120 frames per second with an Ultimate membership, even on under-powered devices. Assemble a deck to cast legendary spells in Hearthstone, and engage in epic firefights in Overwatch 2 and Call of Duty HQ at ultra-low latency thanks to the power of NVIDIA Reflex technology. Read this article and search for Hearthstone for more details on supported devices for this title.

NVIDIA is reported to have started distributing an email newsletter regarding "video sponsorship messages" for its GeForce NOW free-tier. Team Green's entry-level/no-payment-required cloud gaming service grants access to time limited sessions (1-hour) on their least powerful server hardware (AKA Basic Rigs). Free-tier members are required to queue up for online server availability, while paying customers get "Priority" access—starting at $9.99 per month. NVIDIA's latest newsletter outlines an upcoming deployment of video adverts (running up to two minutes in length) for queued free-tier customers. The Verge must have heard early rumors of said "modification"—yesterday's late night report opened with: "GeForce Now is about to be very slightly less of a deal—on Wednesday February 28th, users will start seeing ads."

Sean Hollister, a senior editor at The Verge, established contact with an NVIDIA representative and managed to get a comment on the free-tier adjustment. Company spokesperson Stephanie Ngo confirmed that: "free users will start to see up to two minutes of ads while waiting in queue to start a gaming session." Team Green proposed that advertising will "help pay for the free-tier of service." They also anticipate reduced average wait times "for free users over time," due to the implementation of sponsored video content. Naturally, the "Priority" and "Ultimate" GeForce NOW membership tiers are not affected.

For the second half of February, we have some surprise games, some not-so-surprise games, Perks, and a DLC—plenty to get you gaming now and to prime your pre-install buttons! Whether you boot up Bluey: The Videogame to play with the family, jump into Madden NFL 24 to try and recreate the big game how you would have played it, or just want to play Maneater to see what it'd be like to be an absolute menace as a shark, we have you covered. Let's get to the games!

Available Today:
Return to Grace (Cloud, Console, and PC)
A daring space archaeologist has just unearthed the ancient resting place of a long lost A.I. god known as Grace. Adventure with various fractured A.I. personalities as you uncover the great mystery of why she was shut down all those years ago in this first-person narrative adventure set in a visually stunning '60s retro sci-fi world.

Apple has just been hit with a massive €500 million fine by the European Union over a complaint filed by Spotify over anti-competitive practices. The crux of the complaint is that while Spotify subscriptions purchased on its website are competitive to those of Apple Music, subscriptions purchased on Apple devices via the App Store incur a 30% commission to Apple, which would result in Spotify having to increase its subscription prices, making Spotify lose competitiveness to Apple Music, which comes pre-installed on iOS devices, is deeply integrated with the operating system, and costs less. The Spotify complaint was filed with the European Commission way back in 2019, with the ruling coming out just now. Apple is already facing the EU's heat over barriers to App Store alternatives in the Epic Games case. The company is implementing several platform-level changes with the upcoming iOS 17.4 update scheduled for March 2024, as well as changes to its terms of service. Hopefully Spotify gets its due.

GFN keeps its fourth anniversary celebrations rolling by bringing Ubisoft's Skull and Bones and Microsoft's Halo Infinite to the cloud this week. They're part of five newly supported games, and thanks to the power of the cloud, members can play them at unrivaled quality across nearly any device. The Ultimate Upgrade, Instantly. When GeForce NOW launched in 2020, members flocked to take advantage of NVIDIA GeForce RTX 20 Series GPU-powered servers and experience real-time ray tracing on low-powered devices. For the first time, high-performance PC gaming was available to all.

Later, members gained access to the Ultimate upgrade, as NVIDIA cloud gaming servers brought GeForce RTX 3080-class power to users across the globe. Now, with the NVIDIA Ada Lovelace GPU architecture, cloud gaming has taken another leap forward, powered by the GeForce RTX 4080 SuperPOD.

GeForce NOW is celebrating its fourth anniversary all month—plus an extra day for leap year—during February's GFN Thursdays, with 2 new games joining the cloud. Keep an eye out for more new games and other announcements for members to come. Diablo IV and Overwatch 2 heat up the cloud this GFN Thursday to kick off the anniversary celebrations. They're the next Activision and Blizzard games to join GeForce NOW as part of the NVIDIA and Microsoft partnership, following Call of Duty.

The titles join the RAGE franchise as part of five new games joining the ever-expanding GeForce NOW library this week. Follow the #4YearsofGFN celebration and get the latest cloud gaming news on the newly launched GeForce NOW Instagram and Threads channels. Use #GFNShare and tag these accounts for a chance to be featured.

Late last year, Square Enix unveiled Visions of Mana—the Japanese publisher stated that they had set a general 2024 launch window for their colorful action role-playing sequel, with a planned release across PC, plus current and past generation console platforms. Microsoft's recent Xbox Developer_Direct presentation included a prominent slot for Visions of Mana and its development team—many news outlets started to speculate about the ongoing relationship between Square Enix and Xbox Game Studios. The game appears to be scheduled for a "Summer 2024" launch, although some leaked material alludes to a "Day One" release on the Xbox and PC Game Pass subscription service.

Square Enix is perceived—by the wider gaming community—to have close ties to the Sony PlayStation ecosystem, due to a regular rollout of exclusive titles. For example, the Final Fantasy franchise back catalog is not well represented on Xbox systems—this could change in 2024 and beyond; a port of Final Fantasy XIV Online was announced by Phil Spencer last year at a Fan Fest event. The embracing of Xbox platforms is certainly a novel concept at this point in time, but Microsoft's gaming division has been fighting hard to form new allegiances. Eurogamer has reported that references that tie Visions of Mana to a "Day One Game Pass launch" have been scrubbed from the internet: "There's no longer any mention of Game Pass when searching for the game and its entry on the Xbox website simply states "coming summer 2024" on both console and PC. As such, this could be a mistake. But many fans are hopeful of its Game Pass arrival."

Apple today announced changes to iOS, Safari, and the App Store impacting developers' apps in the European Union (EU) to comply with the Digital Markets Act (DMA). The changes include more than 600 new APIs, expanded app analytics, functionality for alternative browser engines, and options for processing app payments and distributing iOS apps. Across every change, Apple is introducing new safeguards that reduce—but don't eliminate—new risks the DMA poses to EU users. With these steps, Apple will continue to deliver the best, most secure experience possible for EU users.

The new options for processing payments and downloading apps on iOS open new avenues for malware, fraud and scams, illicit and harmful content, and other privacy and security threats. That's why Apple is introducing protections—including Notarization for iOS apps, an authorization for marketplace developers, and disclosures on alternative payments—to reduce risks and deliver the best, most secure experience possible for users in the EU. Even with these safeguards in place, many risks remain.

Kenichiro Yoshida—Sony Group Corporation Chairman, President And CEO—appeared as a guest on Norges Bank Investment Management's Good Company videocast late last year. News outlets have sluggishly picked up on some interesting tidbits from the November 2023 interview—the Sony boss has discussed his gaming division's ambitions in the recent past, but (host) Nicolai Tangen managed to pry out a clearer picture of PlayStation's ambitions for the future. Yoshida-san has an all-encompassing vision for the brand: "In short, it will be ubiquitous wherever there is computing users will be able to play their favorite games seamlessly, gamers will be able to find a place to play in different spaces, while PlayStation will remain our core product, we will expand our gaming experiences to PC, Mobile and Cloud." Gamers on the PC platform have to wait roughly two to three years for PlayStation exclusive titles to breakaway from home consoles origins—it is encouraging to hear that a greater number of conversions could be in the pipeline (with shorter lead times...hopefully).

The discussion moved onto game subscription services—a hotbed talking point as of late—Yoshida seemed to be happy with his company's normal mode of operation: "Well, we do subscription business model. At the same time, people usually play one game at the time, so an all-you-can-eat type of many games may not be so valuable compared with video streaming services. We have kind of balanced a hybrid service on PlayStation Network: subscription as well as paid content." Microsoft is a market leader with its Xbox and PC Game Pass services, now bolstered with a takeover of Activision Blizzard—the Sony CEO remained calm regarding his firm's main rival: "Healthy competition is necessary for the Games Industry to grow and at Sony we believe it is important to provide gamers with different options to play so we will continue our efforts to achieve this."

Hold on to your seats—this week's GFN update is unleashing dinosaurs, crowns and more in the cloud. Catch it all on Capcom's Exoprimal and Ubisoft's Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown, leading 10 new games joining the GeForce NOW library this week.

Suit Up, Adapt, Survive
Don cutting-edge exosuit technology and battle ferocious dinosaurs on an Earth overrun with waves of prehistoric predators. Capcom's online team-based action game Exoprimal is now supported in the cloud. Face velociraptors, T. rex and mutated variants called Neosaurs using the exosuit's unique weapons and abilities. Join other players in the game's main mode, Dino Survival, to unlock snippets and special missions from the original story, piecing together the origins of the dinosaur outbreak. Change exosuits on the fly, switching between Assault, Tank and Support roles to suit the situation. Catch the game in the cloud this week alongside the release of Title Update 3, which brings a new mission and special Monster Hunter collaboration content, a new map, new rigs, plus the start of the third season. Ultimate members can enjoy it all at up to 4K resolution and 120 frames per second, and new players can purchase the game on Steam at 50% off for a limited time.

Swen Vincke, the co-founder and CEO of Larian Studios, has reacted to Ubisoft's recent declarations about customers becoming increasingly comfortable with games subscription models. The discussion revolved around the French publisher's "evolved" tiers of Ubisoft+ services, but Vincke took great issue with (Director of Subscription) Philippe Tremblay's musings on the topic. Larian's leader has made it abundantly clear in the past that Baldur's Gate 3 will not be released outside of his preferred traditional distribution systems; he doubled down on this viewpoint with a barrage of Tweets: "Whatever the future of games looks like, content will always be king...But it's going to be a lot harder to get good content if subscription becomes the dominant model and a select group gets to decide what goes to market and what not. Direct from developer to players is the way."

Baldur's Gate 3 was a top seller in late 2023, and a critical darling in terms of reviews and awards—but Vincke is not prepared to compromise on his stance. It would be quite easy to reach a larger audience with BG3 getting an additional release on subscription platforms (e.g via Game Pass). He elaborated on this matter: "Getting a board to okay a project fueled by idealism is almost impossible and idealism needs room to exist, even if it can lead to disaster. Subscription models will always end up being cost/benefit analysis exercises intended to maximize profit."

Be it a big fancy car, a Brotato, a big ole boss, or a turnip (I couldn't find a way to make that one start with a "B") we've got characters for you to check out. Let's get ready to nail that pre-install button and get to the games!

Available Today
Those Who Remain (Cloud, Console, and PC)—As the lights go out, the embers of darkness are stoked in the sleepy town of Dormont. Confront uncomfortable horrors, keep your sanity in check, and survive the night in this story-driven, first-person psychological-thriller.