That was 20 years ago. As games evolve so do the processing demands that go with higher resolution, levels of interaction, and increased framerates. It’s suggested to play Halo Infinite on a Series X, Series S or older Xbox One if you can. But if you’re a PC gamer, not any old Windows box will do.

We’ve outlined the minimum and recommended specs found in the 343 Industries graphic below. Of course, you can always shoot for the stars and go for the “Ultra” setup to maximize the experience. The more powerful your system the better the framerate and response.

Halo Infinite PC Requirements

Minimum Requirements (or greater):

• OS: Windows 10 RS5 x64 (Oct. 2018 update)
• CPU: AMD 5 1600 or Intel i5-4440
• GPU: AMD RX 570 or NVIDIA GTX 1050 Ti
• VRAM: 4GB+
• RAM: 8GB+
• Storage: 50GB (30GB for just multiplayer)

Recommended (or greater):

• OS: Windows 10 19H2 x64 (Nov. 2019 update)
• CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 3700X or Intel i7-9700K
• GPU: AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT or NVIDIA RTX 2070
• VRAM: 8GB+
• RAM: 16GB+
• Storage: 50GB+ (30GB for just multiplayer)

Original publish date 11/16/2021

Titles now available include:

• The entire Max Payne series and the F.E.A.R. franchise are now playable on Xbox Series X|S and Xbox One consoles for the very first time.  
• The entire Skate franchise is now complete with the addition of Skate 2 and playable on both Xbox Series X|S and Xbox One consoles.  
• We also heard the desire for more original Xbox titles to be added to the catalog. We are pleased to announce we were able to bring more than 20+ original Xbox titles to an entire new generation of gamers, including Dead or Alive Ultimate, Star Wars: Jedi Knight II, Star Wars: Starfighter, and Otogi franchises.

Click on the graphic below to see the full list.   

Source: Xbox

Before its release on May 13th, I had been playing Deep Rock Galactic on and off during its Early Access phase. I chose not to spend too much time in it until the release was set so I could experience the final product. It’s a choice I like to make with most games that are developed this way and it has been a good one for me so far.

This was tough for me because Deep Rock had a lot of qualities I had been missing in my gaming experience. The fun of a four-person multiplayer co-op game against AI is a style of game that doesn’t come along too often. When it does, it’s not always great, or at least not great enough to hold the attention of an audience for very long. Deep Rock Galactic, however, maintained hundreds to thousands of active players throughout its Early Access. 

The 26 hours I put into it pre-launch were already enjoyable, but in the two weeks since then I’ve more than doubled that time. With 55 hours in the game, I can say I’m having just as much or even more fun than I did before the game released. Within that those hours, I’m not even halfway through the achievements and still have plenty of in-game content to unlock. The wealth of unlockable content and compelling gameplay makes every launch into the game fresh and exciting.

The thing Deep Rock Galactic does particularly well is making each mission feel distinct. Even with only a handful of different types, I seldom have a predictable experience. The procedural design of the caves and tunnels works exceptionally well since randomized natural formations seem authentic. The variety of biomes and their flora and fauna add to the mission diversity. These caves probably wouldn’t be nearly as interesting to explore, however, if not for the lighting system.

Every dwarf has a simple flashlight available that projects a weak circle of light in front of them. This leaves all but the narrowest passageway pitch black. Light management is one of the cornerstones of the gameplay. Each player has a set of four recharging flares they can toss that provide a larger, but still quite limited, bubble of light. This isn’t just necessary for finding your way around and avoiding pitfalls though. You also need it to see and engage the spider-like Glyphid enemies that swarm in throughout the mission.

Left 4 Dead pioneered their AI they called “The Director” that engineered masses of enemies in ways that would create the best experience. Deep Rock Galactic seems to use a similar principle within the spectrum of its difficulty settings to generate swarms of Glyphids that challenge the team. If you’re in a situation where you don’t have enough ammo or visibility, even smaller swarms can overtake you. The addition of special Glyphids that can snatch you up and carry you off to a swift death is also evocative of Left 4 Dead’s special infected – and are similarly effective.

The four distinct Dwarf classes add to the diversity of the experience. Each has a role they fill well, but never one so integral that the team can’t function without them. Scouts make it easy to get minerals high on cave walls and can provide high-intensity flares to light up rooms. Drillers can quickly dig passageways for easy navigation and have a powerful flamethrower. The Gunner has the always-handy zip line tool for extra maneuverability in addition to his massive minigun. Then the Engineer can make infinitely useful platforms while providing cover fire with his automated turret.

Leveling up each of these characters, unlocking their base gear, secondary gear, and forged gear augmentations make any one of them worth investing dozens of hours. Yet one of the most enjoyable parts is swapping between these unique characters to properly fill a role in the team. The creators of each server have the option to set character limitations to one each, but this happens probably less than half of the time. Yet the vast majority of missions I join have one of each class simply because it makes the mission better for everyone.

The single biggest reason I believe Deep Rock Galactic is worth playing is the community. I’ve played a lot of online games over the years from the biggest to the smallest and I’ve never encountered a community so thoroughly positive. They’re positive about the game, the developers, and nearly every in-game experience. In those 55 hours, there haven’t been any trolls or anyone griefing even though friendly fire is always on. Mentioning the game around the internet is often met with random cheers of “Rock and Stone” by fellow players. It’s remarkably foreign these days it astounds me with every positive interaction.

With its reasonable price ($30), near-limitless gameplay, and devoted developers, I can see Deep Rock Galactic being relevant for years. Just as it has been during its two-year Early Access phase. I can only hope that, as it continues to grow, the community maintains its quality. I’m glad I’ve found a game I can fall back on whenever I feel like having fun with friendly people. So many games require a committed group of friends to be enjoyable, but Deep Rock Galactic feels like you’re almost always with friends. Friends who want to have fun and succeed as a group to dig up those shiny minerals.

Rock and Stone!

In another classic “Jeff from the Overwatch team” video , an announcement and briefing about the new method for matchmaking in Overwatch shook the foundations of what the game has been for the past three years. Soon, rather than queuing up and trying to form a cogent team through varying levels of heated debate or outright rage, you’ll be queueing up as either a tank, support, or damage. Each of these will have their respective queue times depending on how many people are playing, but more interestingly, they’ll also have their own matchmaking rating. This means you could be the world’s greatest tank and the world’s worst support and get in matches that correspond to your skill level in each.

This is going to come with some upheaval to the way people put together their team structures. More coordinated teams, especially in competitive, use team setups that have a variety of different roles and hero use. Having to conform to the “2-2-2” (two tanks, two supports, and two healers) design will mean that individual character choice will have a larger impact than simply stacking healers or tanks. This also means some characters will need to be rebalanced. Some of the more recent characters that could be defined as “cross-role”, such as Brigitte, will be rebalanced to better fit into their primary roles. Brigitte will be shifted more toward healing and have less survivability in order to be better at keeping the team alive when only one other healer is available. This could extend to other characters as well and be a defining factor in those developed in the future.

What this means to me, and probably many other people who have moved on from a game that that seemed to get a bit stagnant, is that we finally have a new reason to get back into it. It has the potential to limit toxicity from reactions to what heroes players pick and will streamline the team forming experience as a whole. While it obviously will still be necessary to switch characters on the fly if things aren’t going well in a match, there’s now going to be less of those moments where you question how you ended up with four damage heroes. In addition, if you have a hero you enjoy playing and practice with a lot, you have a much better chance of playing them as much as you’d like. That’s a huge positive for people who don’t want just may not be into other types of gameplay. I am still curious about a couple of things, such as which characters are going to be rebalanced and how pro teams are going to adjust, but I’m excited nonetheless.

Will you be jumping back in Overwatch to try this out? Does it make it sound more appealing if you’ve never tried the game before? I’d like to hear how other players who have moved on are reacting to this change in the fundamental matchmaking process.

The obvious reason, and the one the proprietors of these services will gladly divulge, is that they actually drive people to buy the games they try. Some players use it as a cheaper “test drive” option so they can see if a game is worth the full price. Spending $5 or $15 to try a few games and determine if they’re worth the standard $60 price tag is a respectable way to go about being a consumer. Another reason for their growing popularity is that they allow multiplayer games to build and maintain a higher population. If a game is added to the service or available from launch, many more people are going to check it out. This is one of the reasons Sea of Thieves was able to stay relevant as improvements were made to its limited gameplay. Both of these are valid and certainly justify the existence of the programs to a degree, but I think there’s another goal in mind – and one which will ensure this isn’t the last game subscription service we see.

Anthem is a game as a service. The Division 2 and Sea of Thieves are as well. This means, briefly, that they are games players usually purchase in whole, but are rendered as a service to them. You can’t play them without EA or Microsoft’s servers, and there’s no way to run the servers yourself. These games strongly lean toward the idea of playing with other people online, but all of them feature gameplay that should be (and is) accessible by the solo player. However, without an internet connection, you can’t play at all. While the legality of this has come into question in many countries around the world, these publishers have a stake in building more of games of this type.

Games as a service allow companies to create games that entice you to keep playing over time. They regularly try to get you interacting with other players and spending as much time as possible in the game working toward long-term goals. Games as a service want you to build a connection so that, as new content is released for the service, you’re going to be more willing to spend money to access it faster, play it the way you want, or just look better doing it. It allows publishers to continue monetizing content with much smaller development teams and thus make them more profit. When the profit margin is too slim, they can shut down the game, move the developers on, and find a more profitable game to render as a service.

That’s where subscription services come in. When a game as a service is available in a subscription model, people will be more likely to try it – bolstering its online presence and allowing players to make more of a connection with the game and other players. Subscribers are also more likely to come back in and try new content giving the game more opportunities for a resurgence. It’s also easier to justify spending money on microtransactions when your price of admission is much lower than outright purchasing the game. Then, if a game does not “meet expectations” and is shut down, never to be played again, fewer people will be upset as they never purchased the game outright, but still had access to all of the features.

Don’t be surprised if, in the coming years, Microsoft and EA are joined by other major publishers and companies in subscription services. Google is expected to have a subscription service that goes along with their Stadia launch. These are going to be the routes through which games as a service are delivered – and they will be delivered. All the while, the least popular of these titles will get flushed down the drain with minimal protest from the public, lost forever because they couldn’t meet profit demands.

The Xbox One S 1TB All-Digital edition ($249) is $42 more than the same model with an Ultra HD Blu-ray Disc drive ($207.75).

Both versions are 1TB, white, include a white Xbox One wireless controller,  offer a 1-Month Xbox Live Gold subscription tryout, are sold and shipped by WorldWide Distributors through Walmart, and qualify for free 2-day shipping.

The All-Digital model, however, comes with three free digital games including Minecraft, Forza Horizon 3, and Sea of Thieves (although, Sea of Thieves requires an Xbox Live Gold subscription to play).

Which model would you purchase? Considering the Xbox One S with 4k Blu-ray player can also be used as an All-Digital console wouldn’t you just pick up the cheaper edition? Or, is $42 worth it for those three games?

Xbox One Assassin’s Creed Unity Bundle comes packaged with a 500GB hard drive console, one Xbox One wireless controller, and Xbox One chat headset, bundled with download copies of both Assassins’ Creed Unity and Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag.

The Microsoft Store is also offering a free game from a selection of titles including Dragon Age: Inquisition, FIFA 15, Halo: The Master Chief Collection, Kinect Sports Rivals and Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare among the choices.

The bundle can be purchased from the Microsoft Store, Amazon, and other retailers participating in the holiday promotion. Microsoft also sells the Xbox One Assassin’s Creed Unity Bundle packaged with Kinect for $449 (List: $499), but is currently out-of-stock.

Activision has revealed special collector’s editions of Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare for the Xbox One, Xbox 360, PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 3 consoles. The collector’s editions include the Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare Atlas Limited Edition with a list price of $79.99, and the Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare Atlas Pro Edition that sells for $119.99. Both of the editions are available pre-order from Amazon although in limited quantities. Check out the pics and details of each collector’s edition below.

Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare Atlas Limited Edition

• Atlas Gorge Bonus Multiplayer Map
• Atlas Digital Content Pack
• Welcome to Atlas Advanced Soldier Manual
• Collectible SteelBook
• Official Call of Duty Advanced Warfare Soundtrack

Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare Atlas Pro Edition

• The Call of Duty Advanced Warfare Season Pass
• Atlas Gorge Bonus Multiplayer Map
• Atlas Digital Content Pack
• Collectible SteelBook
• Official Call of Duty Advanced Warfare Soundtrack

There’s also an expanded Friends area on Home, with trending games and leaderboard to stay up-to-date with your friends scores. There’s also a last seen time on Friends list so you be able to see what games your friends played last.

Other updates include support for Blu-ray 3D with the Xbox One Blu-ray player app, the ability to disable notifications (a fan-requested feature), low battery notification for the Xbox One controller, and live TV listings via OneGuide expanded to Brazil, Mexico, Austria and Ireland.

Those Xbox One owners with early access will get the updates first, while the update will roll out to all consoles starting in August.

Xbox One August 2014 System Update Details:

• Activity feed updates: We’re adding new ways for you to interact with friends in the activity feed.  The interface will change to a single column scrolling list that is longer and includes more content. We’ll add the ability to post text to your feed, and to “like” and comment on feed items. You can share game clips and anything else in the feed with friends either publically (to your activity feed) or privately (as an attachment to a message). You’ll also be notified when anyone likes, comments on or shares your items. Each user will get a personal feed on their profile, so you can see what specific friends have been up to. And, with SmartGlass, you can see what your friends have shared to their activity feed and “like” specific posts (additional activity feed support coming in future SmartGlass updates).

• Expanded Friends area on Home: Right from Home, see what’s going on with your friends. Stay up-to-date with their current activity, the top trending games your friends are playing, and a leaderboard to see who has been working the hardest on their Gamerscore. We’re doing an extended preview on this, rolling it into the early access preview this month to a subset of our preview audience so we can refine it until it’s ready for the entire Xbox One market.

• Mobile purchase: One of the most requested features on Xbox Feedback. Using Xbox SmartGlass or on Xbox.com, you can remotely purchase games and Add-on content. No more waiting to begin downloading when you get home – if your console is set to automatically take updates, your console will begin downloading your purchase.

• Low battery notification: You asked for it, now a notification will pop up when your controller battery is getting low.

• Disable notifications during video: Adding the ability to turn off notifications based feedback we heard from you.

• Enabling 3D Blu-ray: An update to the Blu-ray player app will enable 3D Blu-ray functionality on Xbox One.

• OneGuide in Brazil, Mexico, Austria and Ireland: Live TV listings can be configured for four new countries as part of this month’s Preview program. And now there is an OneGuide Issue Reporter available under the TV & OneGuide settings, Troubleshooting section.

• Last seen time in Friends list: Direct from Xbox Feedback, the friends list will now show how long it’s been since a friend has been online. For example, “Last seen 20m ago: Forza Motorsport 5.”

Source: MajorNelson.com

Want to get an insider’s look at the sound design behind the upcoming release Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare? Activision has released a one-and-a-half minute production video lead by Sledgehammer Games’ Audio Director Don Veca. In the video, Veca explains the audio intelligence system that adds uniqueness to every impact and explosion. The sound for ‘Advanced Warfare’ was meant to be futuristic but believable, with the intention of making you feel as if you’re in a movie. Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare releases in the U.S. for PC, Xbox and PlayStation consoles on November 4, 2014.

Have you seen this trailer for Sherlock Holmes: Crimes and Punishments that was presented at this year’s E3 conference? The Sony PlayStation channel has posted the trailer for the upcoming game on YouTube, showing gameplay footage previously unseen. Sherlock Holmes: Crimes and Punishments will release in September, 2014 for PCs, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360 and Xbox One. The game comes from Focus Home Interactive and Frogwares, featuring the Unreal Engine.

Microsoft calls the controller the “best controller ever made,” with an improved D-pad, redesigned battery compartment, new ergonomic design, and offset analog sticks.

You can get the drivers here:

PC Drivers for Xbox One Controller (x86)

PC Drivers for Xbox One Controller (x64)

To use, download the drivers and connect your Xbox One controller to your computer through a micro USB cable.

The Xbox E3 2014 Media Briefing, Xbox: Game On, will take place Monday, June 9 at 12:30 p.m. ET / 9:30 a.m. PDT.

Microsoft has good reason to offer a lower priced Xbox One system. Sony’s PS4 (also released in Nov., 2013) has sold about 2 million more units than the Xbox One, even with the help of the exclusive title Titanfall which analysts said could sell 6 million copies by the end of 2014.

Microsoft also announced that Xbox Live members will no longer need a Gold membership to access entertainment apps such as Netflix, Amazon Instant Video, Hulu Plus, Twitch, Machinima, ESPN, MLB.tv, and others among the available choices at the Microsoft store.

Also today, Xbox Live added the GoPro Channel app for Xbox Live Gold members to stream and curate GoPro video content through the Xbox 360 console. Microsoft says the GoPro Channel app is being developed for Xbox One and will be launched this summer.

“The GoPro Channel app will bring the best of GoPro originally-produced and user-generated content into the homes of millions of Xbox Live Gold customers,” said Adam Dornbusch, Head of Content Distribution at GoPro.

You just have to sign in to Xbox Live and download the Call of Duty: Ghosts multiplayerdemo from either the Xbox dashboard or the Game Demos tab. You can then find a match against friends, family, or anyone else during demoweekend.

News broke early this morning that Microsoft Studios had purchased the rights to the “Gears of War” franchise from Epic Games, adding to the company’s list of exclusive titles. The acquisition includes rights to all existing and future games, as well as entertainment experiences and merchandise. Black Tusk Studios in Vancouver, BC will take over development of the franchise.

The acquisition is a smart one from Microsoft, who will keep “Gears of War” an Xbox-exclusive game along with other Microsoft Studios-published games such as Halo, Fable, and Forza.

Microsoft Studios also announced Rod Fergusson, former “Gears of War” Director of Production at Epic Games, will join Microsoft and play a lead role at Black Tusk.

The “Gears of War” games have sold over 22 million units worldwide, grossing over $1 billion dollars.

“[We have] reached an agreement to sell the ‘Gears of War’ intellectual property rights to Microsoft,” said Epic games in a statement. The company added, “Epic remains totally dedicated to supporting Xbox One and is licensing the Unreal Engine 4 technology to Microsoft in support of their future projects.”

Microsoft employees were given a special white edition of the Xbox One, a limited edition design apparently reserved only those working on the Xbox One product launch. An employee has posted quite a few photos of the white Xbox One, but clarifies he had nothing to do with the design. If you look closely, you’ll see an “I MADE THIS” label on the front of the box, underscored by “Launch Team 2013.” The white design is much slicker than one might have expected, and the white case is nicely incorporated with some of the Xbox One’s black elements such as the disc tray and side grill. The Xbox One Controller also looks really nice with the outer grip in flat white finish. Needless to say, we’re pretty jealous. But if you’re truly in love you might be able to pick a white Xbox One on eBay, currently listed for about $1900 by sellers who somehow acquired the limited edition.