Star Wars Archives

AppWizard

March 27, 2025

Best free-to-play action games on PS5, PC and Xbox Series X/S | Esports News – The Times of India

Fortnite, Call of Duty: Warzone 2, Warframe, Apex Legends, and Destiny 2 are five free-to-play games available on PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC. 1. Fortnite: - Publisher: Epic Games - Features: Fast-paced gunfights, building mechanics, collaborations with pop culture icons, no-build mode, accessible battle royale and creative modes. 2. Call of Duty: Warzone 2: - Publisher: Activision - Features: Immersive battle royale experience, expansive open-world environments, tactical squad play, vehicle combat, extensive maps, diverse weapons, Gulag 2.0, crossplay capabilities. 3. Warframe: - Publisher: Digital Extremes - Features: Sci-fi gameplay, parkour mechanics, melee combat, over 50 unique Warframes, engaging PvE gameplay, abundant loot. 4. Apex Legends: - Publisher: Electronic Arts (EA) - Features: Battle royale and hero shooter elements, unique Legends with special abilities, fast-paced matches, fluid movement mechanics. 5. Destiny 2: - Publisher: Bungie - Features: Shooter and MMORPG elements, role of a Guardian, stunning visuals, solo quests, team raids, competitive PvP battles, deep storyline, variety of gameplay modes.

AppWizard

March 26, 2025

Cards add Barbie, Minecraft to 2025 season theme giveaways

Cardinals fans will see a reduction in theme nights at Busch Stadium in 2025, with the team hosting 32 events compared to 60-65 in recent years. The team aims to enhance the quality of promotional items, with giveaways limited to 20,000 fans instead of 25,000. Returning theme nights include Star Wars, College Nights, and Pride Night, along with new events featuring Barbie and Minecraft. Planning for promotional items has been complicated by offseason discussions about player trades, particularly involving Nolan Arenado, Willson Contreras, and Sonny Gray.

AppWizard

March 23, 2025

Assassin’s Creed Shadows hits 2 million players, putting it on track to be the series’ most successful game yet

Assassin's Creed Shadows has gained over 2 million players just three days after its launch, surpassing the launches of AC Origins and Odyssey. It reached 1 million players within the first 24 hours, breaking the record previously held by AC Valhalla. Currently, Shadows has around 60,000 concurrent players, nearing Odyssey's record of 62,069. Ubisoft is in discussions with Tencent for a potential investment in a new intellectual property unit that includes the Assassin's Creed franchise. The game has received approximately 81.7% favorable reviews on Steam, with PC Gamer rating it at 80%.

AppWizard

March 22, 2025

Why McDonald’s Minecraft Movie Meal Is A Generational Block Party

McDonald’s Happy Meals have evolved into cultural artifacts, reflecting the interests of different eras, such as Beanie Babies in the '90s, Star Wars collectibles in the 2000s, and Pokémon trading cards in 2025. The introduction of the Minecraft Movie Meal highlights McDonald’s engagement with a cultural phenomenon that resonates with Millennials, Gen Z, and Gen Alpha. Food and gaming have become intertwined, with 56% of Gen Alpha spending weekends gaming, making it a key avenue for social interaction. Minecraft incorporates food as a vital gameplay component, emphasizing its role in community experiences. McDonald’s has successfully leveraged nostalgia and pop culture collaborations, with the Minecraft Movie Meal fostering intergenerational bonding similar to the Pokémon Happy Meal. This meal signifies the ongoing evolution of food, play, and nostalgia, reflecting the convergence of digital and physical play in contemporary culture.

AppWizard

March 19, 2025

Report: An Overwhelming Majority of PC Gamers Prefer Older Video Games

Players dedicated 15% of their total gaming time to newly released titles in 2024, 47% to games released within the last one to seven years, and 37% to titles released eight years ago or earlier. There is a perceived decline in the quality of AAA games released in 2024, with high-profile launches failing to excite many gamers.

AppWizard

March 18, 2025

Assassin’s Creed: Shadows PC Performance Analysis

Ubisoft has removed the review embargo for Assassin’s Creed: Shadows, which is powered by the AnvilNext Engine. Performance benchmarks were conducted using an AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D processor and 32GB of DDR5 RAM, testing various graphics cards including AMD Radeon RX 6900XT, RX 7900XTX, RX 9070XT, and NVIDIA RTX 2080Ti, RTX 3080, RTX 4090, RTX 5080, and RTX 5090. The game includes a built-in benchmark tool and offers a range of graphics settings, supporting technologies like NVIDIA DLSS 3 and 4, AMD FSR 3, and Intel XeSS, as well as Ray Tracing without requiring an RT GPU. To achieve 60FPS at 1080p with Ultra High Settings and no RT, players need an AMD Radeon RX 7900XTX, NVIDIA RTX 4090, or RTX 5090. At 1440p with Ultra High Settings and no RT, both the RX 7900XTX and RTX 4090 provide smooth performance, while the RTX 5090 is necessary for 60FPS. No GPU managed satisfactory performance at Native 4K with Ultra High Settings and no RT, with the RTX 5090 struggling to maintain frame rates above 50FPS. Lowering graphics settings did not yield significant performance improvements, raising questions about potential CPU bottlenecks. The game is visually appealing but lacks RTGI effects, making it appear flat at times compared to Unreal Engine 5 titles.

AppWizard

March 14, 2025

Another live service shooter is getting shut down, this time before it even launched on Steam

Star Wars: Hunters will not be released on PC as initially hoped, with the final content update scheduled for April 15th, and the game remaining playable until October 1st, 2025, when the online servers will shut down. The announcement did not address the delayed Steam release, which was initially set for January 2025. The game debuted in June 2024 after several delays and has received a lukewarm reception, holding a 57 aggregate score on Metacritic for the Nintendo Switch.

AppWizard

March 13, 2025

Rise of the Ronin is another crappy PC port, performance patch coming ‘soon’

Rise of the Ronin was released on Steam a year after its PlayStation 5 launch, but players are experiencing significant performance issues, including stuttering, low frame rates, crashes, and input delays. Koei Tecmo is investigating these problems and developing a patch. The game has received a "mixed" rating on Steam, with only 44% of user reviews being positive. Many users express disappointment with the game's graphical quality, and while some report satisfactory experiences, frustrations are prevalent. Koei Tecmo acknowledged issues with FPS drops and model rendering when using the Ultra graphics preset and suggested lowering the graphics settings and FPS limit as a temporary solution.

AppWizard

March 10, 2025

Report: Respawn cancels FPS project

Respawn Entertainment has decided to discontinue a multiplayer first-person shooter that was still in development, as reported by Insider Gaming and confirmed by IGN. The project was initiated by team members who had previously worked on a shelved Star Wars first-person shooter. The cancellation has resulted in some layoffs, though the number of affected employees is small. A former production coordinator involved in the project has expressed intentions to seek new opportunities in the gaming industry.

Winsage

March 3, 2025

A Windows 11 update has tanked performance on some Intel CPUs — Here’s what it means for you

Windows 11 version 24H2 has performance and compatibility issues, particularly affecting Intel 11th Gen processors due to a flaw in the Intel Smart Sound Technology driver, causing blue screen errors. Gaming performance concerns have also been noted but appear to have been addressed. Ubisoft titles like Star Wars Outlaws, Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, and Assassin's Creed: Valhalla experienced unresponsiveness, which has been resolved. A new bug affects users with the Intel Core Ultra 9 285K CPU, causing startup errors linked to a recent CPU or microcode update. Affected users report performance throttling when applications are minimized or out of focus, with significant drops in performance during benchmark tests. This issue seems limited to certain Intel CPUs, as other models like the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X and Intel Core i9 12900K are not affected. Users with Intel's Lunar or Arrow Lake CPUs may be vulnerable, and it is recommended to report issues via the Microsoft Feedback Hub.