Month: June 2020

With the Xbox Series X, Microsoft is going to be making very clear which games on its platform are making the most of its hardware with the “Optimized for Series X” label. What that means is support for features like ray-tracing, frame rates up to 120 FPS, and near-instant loading times, as explained in the latest Xbox blog post.

These three pillars make up the principle direction of optimization for the new Xbox, some of which stem off of the DirectX 12 Ultimate support. Having been released for PC hardware recently, DirectX 12 Ultimate further enhances the ability to deliver better visual fidelity, as well as better supported for hardware-powered ray-tracing. These enable developers to create more physically accurate worlds, especially when it comes to lighting.

With more powerful hardware also comes the possibility to produce games that support higher frame rates, something which has been a talking point during this current generation. Although it will also rely on the ability of your display to support it, Series X optimized games can support up to 120 FPS, with Dirt 5 being one of the first to confirm support for it specifically.

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To help soften the blow from Hulu’s recent announcement that Season Four of The Handmaid’s Tale has been pushed to 2021 due to COVID-19, a new teaser trailer for that upcoming season has been posted online.

In the video, a war is brewing and finally coming to a head in the dystopian, former United States. In it, Elizabeth Moss’ June/Offred proclaims, “Change never comes easy.” A building explodes, troops march, and tensions run high. Bradley Whitford’s Commander Joseph Lawrence warns, “What happens in the next few weeks will determine the future of this country.” Check out the season teaser below.

A release date for the season still hasn’t been given, but Canada, where The Handmaid’s Tale shoots, is starting to open up to production again and varying region by region.

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If you’re thinking about taking the plunge with a 49-inch, 32:9 ultrawide gaming monitor, then you’ve likely encountered two obstacles. The first is having the desk real estate to accommodate a curved and absurdly wide display. The second is having the funds for such a purchase. I can’t answer the first for you, but for the second, AOC has an attractive proposition with the Agon AG493UCX 49-inch ultrawide gaming monitor. It supplies a 5K resolution for less than $1,000. By comparison, the Samsung CRG9 costs half as much more at $1,500. The AOC Agon AG493UCX is missing a few features found on the Samsung, but can you do without them for the lower price? Let’s wade into the wrap-around, ultrawide waters and find out.

Design and Features

The first breed of 49-inch ultrawide monitors delivered 4K resolution – 3840 x 1080. The Agon AG493UCX bumps the pixel count up to 5K at 5120 x 1440, and the difference in resolution is noticeable. The first iteration of this type of monitor is like having a pair of 27-inch, 1920 x 1080 monitors side by side. The Agon AG493UCX looks like two 27-inch displays, each with a 2560 x 1440 resolution. With the 1800R curvature, sitting in front of the display feels overwhelmingly immersive. Its width and curve fill your field of vision, all the way out to the periphery.

One issue with such a wide display is finding a desk big enough to accommodate it. It is 47 inches wide (nearly 4 feet!), which is the exact width of the desk in this reviewer’s office. The problem I encountered is my desk is only 22 inches deep. With the display pushed back as far as possible, the middle of the display is only 13 inches from the front edge of my desk. Sitting within reach of my keyboard means my eyes are less than two feet away from the display.

With a deeper desk, I could push back a bit from the display to a more comfortable distance. Perched as close as I am, however, allowed me to appreciate the display’s 5K, 1440p resolution. When sitting at such a distance in front of a 49-inch ultrawide display with a 3840 x 1080 resolution you can make out the individual pixels – less so with games and more so during regular Windows use. Such pixelation is much less evident at 5120 x 1440.

The Agon AG493UCX is about as compact as can be, despite its sprawling size. The top and side bezels are razor thin, and the textured bottom bezel is only 0.75 inches wide. Branding is minimal with a small “AGON” badge centered on the bottom bezel. The matte-black cabinet does not scream “gamer” and could easily be used in an office setting without looking out of place. After all, the ultrawide, 32:9 aspect ratio is useful for multitasking in addition to creating an immersive gaming experience.

The display sits on a sturdy, metal stand. The tripod stand has two long front legs and a short back leg, and it creates an impressively effective anchor for the heavy, awkwardly wide display cabinet. The display stays in place with little screen wobble. And with height, swivel, and tilt adjustment, the display is also impressively flexible.

The ports, however, are difficult to reach. They are all located on the back panel (my kingdom for a side-mounted headphone jack!) and all face downward. Back-panel, downward-facing ports are difficult to access on any monitor and all the more so on such a huge, heavy display. You’ll most likely need to lay the display carefully on its back in order to get to the ports.

When you do get to the ports, you’ll find a useful selection. The display offers two HDMI 2.0 ports, two DisplayPort 1.4 ports, a USB-C port, three USB 3.2 Type-A downstream ports, one USB 3.2 upstream port, and an audio-out jack. One of the USB Type-A ports supports fast charging, and the USB-C port supports power delivery and DisplayPort so it can act as a data or video connection to a laptop and also charge it.

The display also includes integrated 5-watt stereo speakers. Their output is predictably limited; the speakers suffice for YouTube videos but gamers will need a pair of headphones or external speakers for full immersion in games.

The display’s OSD menu can be called up and navigated by a row of tiny buttons on the lower-right of the display. It is an exercise in frustration to navigate the OSD with these buttons, but thankfully AOC includes a remote control for controlling the OSD. And even with the remote, it’s not easy to find what you are looking for in the OSD menu. It is organized into six main categories – Game Setting, Luminance, Image Setup, Color Setup, Extra and OSD Setup – and it’s not clear why some settings are in one area and other settings are in other areas. And there is some confusing redundancy. For example, there are six game modes in Game Setting for FPS, RTS, Racing, and three customizable modes, and then you’ll also find additional modes under Eco Mode in the Luminance menu for Text, Internet, Game, Movie, Sports, and Reading.

Also, the OSD forces you to choose between using the motion blur reduction setting (labeled as MBR in the OSD) and AdaptiveSync. Motion blur reduction strobes the backlight to insert a black image between each frame of video and to reduce time each frame is displayed. The overall effect is the image on the display is significantly dimmer. You get 20 levels of motion blur reduction with the Agon AG493UCX, but I favor using the monitor’s AdaptiveSync. With its 120Hz refresh rate and rated 1ms MPRT response time, I did not encounter many blurred edges in games. With FreeSync 2 enabled manually for my Nvidia-based PC, I saw no tearing.

The Agon AG493UCX uses a VA panel with 1800R curvature that’s rated for 3,000:1 contrast ratio and 550-nit max brightness. It’s VESA-certified for HDR400 even though its max brightness ought to qualify it for HDR500. What’s likely keeping it back from the higher HDR rating is its lack of local dimming, which isn’t required for an HDR400 certification. Still, I found the monitor’s contrast to be above average even without local dimming.

I also found no stuck or dead pixels on my review unit, and AOC backs the display with a four-year warranty that comes with a Zero Dead Pixels Guarantee.

Performance and Gaming

Before I got to gaming, I found the Agon AG493UCX a boon for productivity. I was able to fit three windows side-by-side across the ultrawide 32:9 desktop. It took me a few hours to get used to the curvature of the display. Some windows looked distorted at first when stretched across the curved panel, but I grew accustomed to it by the end of the first afternoon of sitting in front of this massive display. And the move from a 1080p ultrawide to the 1440p picture of the AG493UCX was a clear improvement. Text and images looked so much crisper with none of the pixelated screen-door effect that was evident with a 1080p resolution on a display this size.

I used Lagom LCD monitor test pages to measure performance including gamma, black and white levels, color gradient, and response time. The Agon AG493UCX excelled throughout. On the black level test, 20 gray squares should be visible against the black background and I was able to see 19, a positive result. On the white saturation test, I was able to see 11 of the 12 light-gray checkerboard patterns against a white background, another great result. The good times continued on the gradient test; I saw no banding as the gradient pattern transitioned smoothly from black to white and vice versa. On the response time test, it showed slight flickering on 3 of the 8 test patterns when running at a 120Hz refresh rate. I had hoped to reduce the flickering by enabling the display’s overdrive setting but it did nothing to change the results of the test one way or the other. On the Blur Busters UFO test, the test patterns showed only the slightest blur at the 120fps test pattern, an impressive result.

After the Lagon tests, I played CS:GO, Fortnite, and Overwatch. The games exhibited smooth movement with little ghosting and no tearing with FreeSync enabled. CS:GO and Fortnite support the display’s ultrawide 32:9 aspect ratio, but Overwatch tops out at 21:9. Even at 21:9, Overwatch stretched into my peripheral vision and felt immersive. And given the frenetic nature of Overwatch, I had enough details to keep track of that I didn’t miss the extra width I was lacking and the black bars on either side of the game. Both CS:GO and Fortnite, however, can be played at the display’s full 32:9 aspect ratio and looked awesome doing so. CS:GO is a good test for contrast, and I was able to see details in dark scenes without bright areas being blown out. With its bright color palette, Fortnite is a good test for color accuracy and vibrancy, and the Agon AG493UCX excelled on both counts, exhibiting vivid color without looking oversaturated.

The best way I can describe the experience of playing a game at 32:9 is that it feels akin to VR gaming but without the motion sickness. The game fills your entire field of vision, though without the freedom of being able to move your head up and down as you can with a VR headset and stay totally immersed in the game. I did find myself, however, frequently turning my head from side to side in order to spot enemies before they found me.

Purchasing Guide

The AOC Agon AG493UCX is available on Amazon for its list price of $999.99.

Microsoft has provided a deeper explanation of its Optimized for Xbox Series X tag, explaining that games badged this way will have been specifically built for the next-gen console, with a variety of benefits.

In a new Xbox Wire blog post, it’s explained that games with the Optimized for Series X badge have to have been “either natively designed or fully rebuilt” for Xbox Series X. Brand new games built natively include Halo: Infinite and Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, while enhanced games include Gears 5.

IGN’s Bo Moore spoke to one of Xbox Series X’s lead engineers, Jason Ronald about the definition of the term, which you can watch below:

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The post breaks down a series of benefits to Optimized games, comprising raytracing, a performance target of 60 frames per second at 4K resolution (rising to 120 FPS in some games), and ‘virtually eliminated’ loading times.

However, Jason Ronald makes clear that these are not a “features checklist” that must be met to earn an Optimized badge. “We don’t dictate game design,” he explained. The badge can be earned, “as long as they’re designing the game and building the game on the Xbox Series X development platform, and really tailoring it to take advantage of it.”

DiRT 5 will be one of the games able to take advantage of a 120 FPS frame rate, with David Springate from Codemasters making clear that it’s including an option to toggle between 60 and 120 frames per second (presumably with a loss of resolution at the higher rate).

Meanwhile, adventure game Call of the Sea will be able to support a 4K resolution as well as raytracing to help bring its island setting to life. As mentioned previously, the new console’s SSD and Velocity Architecture allow Gears 5 to load four times faster on Series X than on Xbox One.

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Full List of Optimized for Xbox Series X Games

Xbox has provided a full list of Optimized Series X games, which you can see below. However, this list is evolving due to the number of new games not yet announced:

• Assassin’s Creed Valhalla
• Bright Memory Infinite
• Call of the Sea
• Chivalry 2
• Chorus
• Cyberpunk 2077
• Destiny 2
• DiRT 5
• FIFA 21
• Gears 5
• Halo Infinite
• Hitman 3
• Madden NFL 21
• Marvel’s Avengers
• Outriders
• Scarlet Nexus
• Scorn
• Second Extinction
• The Ascent
• The Medium
• Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2
• Yakuza: Like a Dragon

Last week, Xbox further explained the Smart Delivery program, which will allow for free upgrades between current-gen and next-gen games, including carrying your save data across consoles.

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Joe Skrebels is IGN’s Executive Editor of News. Follow him on Twitter. Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to newstips@ign.com.

Jordan Peele’s revival of The Twilight Zone enters its second season today — that’s the signpost up ahead! — and we’ve got some creepy posters and a clip from the new batch of episodes.

The CBS All Access series features 10 new episodes in Season 2, with Peele once again hosting and executive-producing the latest take on Rod Serling’s classic show. The new episodes will star the likes of Morena Baccarin, Kylie Bunbury, Jenna Elfman, Sky Ferreira, Tavi Gevinson, Topher Grace, Tony Hale, Gillian Jacobs, David Krumholtz, Thomas Lennon, Sophia Macy, Natalie Martinez, Joel McHale, Chris Meloni, Gretchen Mol, Paula Newsome, Jurnee Smollett, Billy Porter, Jimmi Simpson, Daniel Sunjata, Damon Wayans Jr., and more.

First up, check out this clip from the episode “Meet in the Middle,” where Westworld’s Jimmi Simpson is having a rough time during a dinner date when a third party enters the scene… in his head.

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Definitely not how you’d want a first date to go.

Next up, we have 10 episode-specific posters based on the new season. Check them all out in this slideshow:

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The episode “A Human Face,” starring Christopher Meloni and Jenna Elfman, also got a special motion poster. You can take a look a that below, featuring the very human faces of, yes, Meloni and Elfman, and also a third human-ish face too…

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The Twilight Zone Season 2’s episodes are:

• “Among the Untrodden,” starring Sophia Macy
• “The Who of You,” starring Billy Porter
• “A Human Face,” starring Christopher Meloni and Jenna Elfman
• “Downtime,” starring Morena Baccarin
• “8,” starring Joel McHale
• “Meet in the Middle,” starring Jimmi Simpson
• “Try, Try,” starring Topher Grace and Kylie Bunbury
• “A Small Town,” starring Damon Wayans, Jr.
• “You Might Also Like,” starring Gretchen Mol
• “Ovation,” starring Thomas Lennon and Jurnee Smollett

From CBS: “Executive producers Jordan Peele and Simon Kinberg’s modern re-imagining of the classic brings the original series’ legacy of socially conscious storytelling to new audiences, exploring the human condition and holding a lens up to the culture of our times. The series’ second season will use introspection and the exploration of self to usher viewers into a familiar dimension.”

For more on the CBS All Access series, check out our ranking of The Twilight Zone Season 1’s episodes or get a first look at photos from the new season.

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After the last few good-but-not-great expansions for Borderlands 3, it brings me great joy to tell you that Bounty of Blood: A Fistful of Redemption is, beyond a shadow of a doubt, my favorite Borderlands 3 DLC so far. In fact, I’d go so far as to say this might be my favorite Borderlands-anything since Borderlands 2 way back in 2012. A novel approach to storytelling, likable characters, an interesting new world to explore, and of course gobs and gobs of great loot all come together to cross the border into greatness.

The name led me to believe this was going to be some sort of satirical take on Red Dead Redemption 2, but its awkward title and its western themes are about the only dots you could connect between the two. Instead, this DLC takes place on the planet Gehenna, a blend of the American Wild West and feudal Japan. The unusual “East meets West” setting leans much more heavily on Western side for its tropes, but the Japanese-inspired architecture integrates incredibly well and makes Bounty of Blood the best looking Borderlands 3 expansion to date.

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It’s kind of funny to think Borderlands, a game whose origins drew inspiration from the fusion of the American frontier and science-fiction futurism, would come full-circle like this. Somewhere along the way, Borderlands felt like it shifted away from being about lands… on the border… so it’s great to have that old familiar feel back in a way, even if it’s explicit rather than implicit.

[poilib element=”quoteBox” parameters=”excerpt=The%20narrator%20%E2%80%93%20a%20grizzled%20cowpoke%20called%20%22The%20Liar%22%20%E2%80%93%20works%20wonderfully.”]The story, at first blush, seems like a cliche: quite literally, there’s a new sheriff in town. Your main objective is to retrieve the Obsidian Stone, a monument of sorts to the days when Gehenna was used to create biological weapons. The main antagonists are the Devil Riders, an outlaw gang whose name is also literal: they ride Devils, a new dinosaur-like enemy type first teased at PAX East 2020. I love their design, even if they don’t do much that hasn’t already been done with other Borderlands enemies.

On top of the usual unfolding of the story, there’s a narrator guiding your progress the entire way, and the narrator – a grizzled cowpoke called “The Liar” – works wonderfully. His lines were something I didn’t even know I wanted until I had it, and now I can’t get enough. The Liar will occasionally drop hints, too – When I was battling a boss, he made reference to its weakpoint’s location more than once, and it dawned on me that, oh yeah, if I go where he’s guiding me to I’ll have a better chance to dole out some damage.

Less is More

Another reason the narrator and the main story for Bounty of Blood as a whole work is that they practice some rare restraint when it comes to humor. That’s not to say there aren’t any jokes – far from it. They’re here, and they definitely fit the overall Borderlands 3 tone. But as far as the main quest, Gearbox has pumped the brakes on the humor and gone for a much mellower tone. It’s more Jeff Bridges in The Big Lebowski and less Jeff Daniels in Dumb & Dumber.

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One of my complaints with Borderlands 3 was it had too many jokes. I know, it sounds ridiculous to say, but hear me out. Comedy is all about timing, yet Borderlands 3 jams jokes into every nook and cranny, whether the situation calls for them or not, almost reaching the point of self-parody. There’s no buildup – it’s just punchline after punchline after punchline with no time for thoughtful buildup. Bounty of Blood, on the other hand, rations out the humor, doling it out in delicious servings that are neither too big nor too small. This Goldilocks Zone of jokes makes the comedy so much more effective – more akin to the original Borderlands.

[poilib element=”quoteBox” parameters=”excerpt=This%20Goldilocks%20Zone%20of%20jokes%20makes%20the%20comedy%20so%20much%20more%20effective.”]With each story mission flowing so expertly into the next over about six hours, I didn’t want to stop playing. The pacing is wonderful with none of the unnecessary filler that annoyed me in the main game and some of the previous DLC. There is one minor scene where I had to do the classic Borderlands 3 “walk 20 steps to find a shelf with an item requested by a story character, grab the item, walk back and give it to the character so they’ll continue their expositional dialogue.” Other than that, the story keeps moving right along with an assist from The Liar’s dialogue, which pops in at just the right times to keep you from being pulled out of the story while being conservative enough not to feel like a nuisance.

The one letdown is that the sidequests I’ve taken on since beating the main story are more of the same. The loot is good, but the missions are fetchy and uninspired, in stark contrast to the fun flow of the story quest. Think of the coffee fetch-quest mission from the main game to get an idea of the side-mission structure. They’re funny, at least, which somewhat makes up for the monotony of fetching and placing an item over and over again. I particularly enjoyed the mission where I had to battle a character named Soapy Steve, for the writing rather than the mission structure.

Say, You Like Loot?

Levels in Bounty of Blood are huge and beg for exploration. I was really impressed by how massive and well-planned each map is, and appreciated how, in spite of their size, Bounty of Blood’s areas feel easy to navigate. I stuck mostly to the path at hand for the main story, but when I noticed a place with an unusually placed rockface or conveniently located broken staircase, my curiosity paid off by way of hidden treasures. Being rewarded with loot exactly where decades of gaming logic told me I’d find loot seems so obvious, but it never stops being great.

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Speaking of treasures, the loot in Bounty of Blood is plentiful. I managed to score orange-rarity loot drops well before the end of the story, and letting me use those fancy new toys for the final battle was a nice touch. I absolutely adore my Bloom Jakobs pistol: charging it up unleashes all six powerful shots in a rapid, bloody flurry, often resulting in instant death for whatever or whoever is on the receiving end. I also came across a ton of new decorations for my room back on Sanctuary 3, including one item used when the main quest is beaten, that then becomes decorative after use. It’s a nice little trophy for completing the main story. I don’t remember getting so many in the previous DLC, and as a sucker for arbitrary in-game cosmetic items I was delighted.

[poilib element=”quoteBox” parameters=”excerpt=Once%20I%20completed%20the%20main%20mission%2C%20the%20payday%20was%20fantastic”]Once I completed the main mission, the payday was fantastic. Not only did the big baddie drop a hill of goodies after defeat, the immediate aftermath in the post-game introduced me to a cache of gear that nearly brought a tear to my eye. Right now, all my weapons slots are filled with incredible new orange-rarity weapons, along with an orange-rarity shield that makes me feel like a golden god, and I still have a bunch in my inventory waiting for me to experiment with them. Feels real good, is what I’m sayin.’

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Likewise, Boss fights in Bounty of Blood’s story are nicely paced and never feel overwhelming or beyond the realm of possibility to solo. There are a few fights, particularly the final boss, where it’s obvious the designers had co-op in mind (as they should!), but even then solo runs aren’t out of the question. I particularly appreciated the novel use of The Liar to gently nudge me in the right direction in one of the main fights. The narration didn’t beat me over the head, but it was enough to both help me while flowing seamlessly with the overall story.

I did venture off the beaten path a few times in search of hidden treasures, extending the playtime beyond a mere six hours. However, after beating the story, I’d still only explored 33% of what Bounty of Blood’s Gehanna has to offer, so there’s plenty more to do and see once the main story is done. That said, what I did explore of the post-story content hasn’t reached nearly the same heights as the main quest.

Tales of Arise, the next game in the long-running Tales series, has been delayed indefinitely. Bandai Namco explained the move, suggesting that it may be related to workflow changes due to the coronavirus.

Though the blog post from producer Yusuke Tomizawa doesn’t explicitly cite the pandemic as the reason for the delay, it goes straight from mentioning those development challenges into the studio needing more time to deliver on its vision. It says a new release date will be announced at a later time.

“While COVID-19 has affected some aspects of development, we’ve done our best to adapt to the situation and have implemented remote development capabilities for our team,” Tomizawa wrote. “However, we will need more time to achieve the quality and provide the gorgeous experience we envision for our players, and therefore we decided to delay the launch timing for Tales of Arise.”

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