Formed from the ashes of the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. team at GSC Game World, Vostok Games have built on that past by revisiting irradiated Russian wastelands, first with Survarium and now with Fear The Wolves. After a surprisingly short stretch in early access, the battle royale FPS today hit version 1.0 and launched. Fear The Wolves is a Plunkbut with twists including loot-rich radioactive zones, a neat finale, and AI-controlled wildlife trying to bite you. While I am sceptical because the initial early access version I played seemed far longer than five months from ready, it is launching with a free trial week for all to see.

(more…)

With the arrival of the RTX 2060, we now have four [cms-block] cards that can take advantage of the GPU giant’s cool new graphics features, such as their reflection-enhancing ray tracing magic and performance-boosting DLSS tech. But not all games can do both things at the same time, and many more still have no confirmed support for ray tracing and DLSS at all. So I thought I’d do the hard work for you and put everything in a nice, big list, detailing every ray tracing and DLSS game confirmed so far. The list is still quite small at the moment, but if you’re thinking about upgrading to either the RTX 2060, RTX 2070, RTX 2080 or RTX 2080 Ti, then these are the games that are going to get the most out of them.

(more…)

Last week, the first of three shiny new Nvidia Turing cards finally pitched up on shop shelves – the RTX 2080. You can head over to my Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 review to find out more on what I thought of the card as a general pixel pusher, but the long and short of it is that you’re probably not looking at much of a raw performance increase over the current Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080Ti.

That’s probably not the most ringing endorsement you’ve ever seen – especially when the RTX 2080 is currently more expensive than the GTX 1080Ti – but the main attraction of Nvidia’s new RTX 2080 graphics card is something I haven’t actually been able to test yet. Namely, its nifty real-time ray-tracing reflection tech and its clever AI-driven bits and bobs like DLSS (deep learning super sampling), which you can also read more about by clicking that there Nvidia Turing link above. This may well turn the tables in the RTX 2080’s favour once said ray-tracing and DLSS games actually come out or are updated to support said nifty and clever features, but right now all we have is a list of confirmed games that will, at some point, receive ray-tracing and DLSS updates in the future – which thankfully has just got a bit longer and, more importantly, more specific about exactly which features they’ll be taking advantage of.

(more…)

For stags and hens who want their last free nights more dangerous than a stay at Paradise Resort, Vostok Games today launched battle royale ’em up Fear The Wolves into early access. It follows the basic recipe of Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds but takes stags and hens to the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone with added radiation, anomalies, hungry mutated wolves, and a whole load of jank. Vostok’s claim to fame is being founded by some former S.T.A.L.K.E.R. folks from GSC Game World, but Vostok as a studio have only made Survarium and that’s no S.T.AL.K.E.R. I’ve had a quick go and this sure is no S.T.A.L.K.E.R. either.

(more…)

Your stag & hen weekend tour of the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone will have to wait, as Fear The Wolves isn’t ready yet. The battle royale FPS from Survarium devs (and virtuaChernobyl veterans) Vostok Games was due to launch today but Vostok and publishers Focus Home Interactive announced only last night that the game needs more time. Sounds like testers have grumbled about too many technical problems for it to launch in its current state. The early access launch is now pushed back “a few weeks” to an unstated time later this summer. (more…)

Battle royale FPS Fear The Wolves is the latest game to adopt the aesthetic and modern mythology of the nuclear-ravaged city of Chernobyl. In this case, using it as the backdrop for last man standing multiplayer fun.

Developed by Vostok Games (a team including some ex-S.T.A.L.K.E.R. folk, though their previous free-to-play FPS Survarium is a bit wonky), Fear The Wolves adds roaming packs of mutant animals and some deadly reality-warping anomalies into the otherwise familiar formula, and it’s hitting early access in just under two weeks.

(more…)