Battlefield V's long-delayed Firestorm mode arrives on March 25 for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC. Firestorm is a 64-player battle royale mode that places heavy emphasis on vehicles that give players advantages on land, sea, and in air. The series' trademark destruction is also present, allowing players to knock down houses and drive through walls. Like most battle royale games, Firestorm offers just one map, which is 10 times larger than Battlefield V's Hamada.

As the mode's name implies, the world is on fire, and that blaze creates a constricting circle that brings opponents closer together. When you set foot in this world, you'll need to scour the terrain for weapons and gear, and hopefully coordinate with your teammates, who you can revive should they be knocked down. The trailer below does a nice job of selling the Battlefield experience we've come to expect, and teases a few twists for the battle royale genre that could give it a slightly different flavor than we've seen before. Here's hoping the delay ends up being worth the wait.

This week, Oculus detailed the release date and price for its updated VR headset tech, the Rift S. You can Read our impressions here. However, Oculus’s other headset – the Oculus Quest – solves one problem the Rift doesn’t: you no longer have to worry about tangling yourself up in cords.

The Quest was announced last year, but this week we had another chance to go hands-on with the Quest at a GDC event, and I walked away impressed by the Quest’s comfort and the level of performance. The Rift S might be capable of displaying more demanding games (since it’s tied to your PC gaming rig), but the all-in-one Quest isn’t a total pushover.

The Oculus Quest features a Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 and provides a resolution of 1600x1440 per eye with a 72Hz refresh rate. The experiences I had on the Quest looked on par with most of the games on the VR market today. Oculus hasn’t announced all of the headset's 50 launch titles, but some of them include: Superhot VR, Dead and Buried II, Moss, Robo Recall, and, of course, Beat Saber.

This week, Oculus detailed the released date and price for its updated VR headset tech, the Rift S. You can Read our impressions here. However, Oculus’s other headset – the Oculus Quest – solves one problem the Rift doesn’t: you no longer have to worry about tangling yourself up in cords.

The Quest was announced last year, but this week we had another chance to go hands-on with the Quest at a GDC event, and I walked away impressed by the Quest’s comfort and the level of performance. The Rift S might be capable of displaying more demanding games (since it’s tied to your PC gaming rig), but the all-in-one Quest isn’t a total pushover.

The Oculus Quest features a Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 and provides a resolution of 1600x1440 per eye with a 72Hz refresh rate. The experiences I had on the Quest looked on par with most of the games on the VR market today. Oculus hasn’t announced all of the headsets 50 launch titles, but some of them include: Superhot VR, Dead and Buried II, Moss, Robo Recall, and, of course, Beat Saber.

This week, Oculus announced it would be phasing out the current Rift hardware for a new Rift S headset that features a significant number of benefits, including built-in audio, better room tracking, and the ability to see the room in front of you without removing the headset.

The Rift S looks a lot like the original Rift, but Oculus actually partnered with Lenovo to redesign how the system fits your head. The new headset feels snug, but comfortable. In total, the unit weights about a pound, and I quickly forgot it was even on my face. Games look a little better too, thanks to the new lens. Each eye now gets 1280 x 1440 pixels (up from 1200 x 1080) with an 80-Hertz refresh rate. There is still a tiny bit of grain, and I still want a wider field of view, but the upgrade is noticeable.

Users can still plug in a headset for the optimal audio output, but the Rift S also features the same integrated audio system features in the Oculus Quest and Oculus Go. This audio sounded a little thin to me, but it’s similar to the audio output of a standard TV, and it gets the job done.

This week, Oculus announced that it would be phasing out the current Rift hardware for a new Rift S headset that features a significant number of benefits, including built-in audio, better room tracking, and the ability to see the room in front of you without removing the headset.

The Rift S looks a lot like the original Rift, but Oculus actually partnered with Lenovo to redesign how the system fits your head. The new headset feels snug but comfortable. In total, the unit weights about a pound, and I quickly forgot it was even on my face. Games look a little better too, thanks to the new lens. Each eye now gets 1280 x 1440 pixels (up from 1200 x 1080) with an 80-Hertz refresh rate. There is still a tiny bit of grain, and I still want a wider field of view, but the upgrade is noticeable.

Users can still plug in a headset for the optimal audio output, but the Rift S also features the same integrated audio system features in the Oculus Quest and Oculus Go. This audio sounded a little thin to me, but it’s similar to the audio output of a standard TV, and it gets the job done.

This year at the IGF and GDC awards, held in San Francisco at the Game Developer's Conference, showed a number of games that have achieved prominence in the mainstream over the last year, but also some surprises that the industry recognized regardless of mainstream attention. You can find the nominees below, as well as the winners in bold.

Independent Games Festival Awards

Its Paper Guy! The Haunted Island, A Frog Detective Game
After Hours
En Garde!
Levedad
Sole

This year at the IGF and GDC awards, held in San Francisco at the Game Developer's Conference, showed a number of games that have achieved prominence in the mainstream over the last year, but also some surprises that the industry recognized regardless of mainstream attention. You can find the nominees below, as well as the winners in bold.

Independent Games Festival Awards

Its Paper Guy! The Haunted Island, A Frog Detective Game
After Hours
En Garde!
Levedad
Sole

Back in 1994, Sega and Sony both released new video game consoles in Japan. However, it was no secret that Sony’s PlayStation out-powered Sega’s Saturn in many ways. Even among Sega’s internal development teams, the PlayStation was a hot topic, and many development teams were worried Sony was going to eat Sega’s lunch.

During a classic postmortem on the Panzer Dragoon series at GDC, ex-Sega producer Yukio Futatsugi shared a story about how he snuck into a PlayStation developer showcase before the release of Sony’s console. Futatsugi was blown away by the 3D rendering capabilities of the PlayStation and in particular Namco’s racing game Ridge Racer.

“We rode the train home thinking, ‘What the hell are we going to do about this?’” says Futatsugi. “That’s how much we were thinking about the PlayStation at Sega.”

Back in 1994, Sega and Sony both released new video game consoles in Japan. However, it was no secret that Sony’s PlayStation outpowered Sega’s Saturn in many ways. Even among Sega’s internal development teams, the PlayStation was a hot topic, and many development teams were worried that Sony was going to eat Sega’s lunch.

During a classic postmortem on the Panzer Dragoon series at GDC, ex-Sega producer Yukio Futatsugi shared a story about how he snuck into a PlayStation developer showcase before the release of Sony’s console. Futatsugi was blown away by the 3D rendering capabilities of the PlayStation and in particular Namco’s racing game Ridge Racer.

“We rode the train home thinking, ‘What the hell are we going to do about this?’” says  Futatsugi. “That’s how much we were thinking about the PlayStation at Sega.”

When Google announced their new Stadia platform, an entirely cloud-based video game system that can be accessed from any device, there were a few immediate concerns. Chief among these is the problem of latency, an issue that has plagued cloud-based gaming in all its iterations from the days of Gaikai and OnLive to rumors of Microsoft's next consoles engaging in similar initiatives. While some genres and even some games lend themselves well to the inevitable delay between pressing a button and seeing an action performed, genres like fighting games and anything fast-paced make the problem way more noticeable.

This is why it was curious that Google decided to show off the Stadia with Doom, one of the most timing-sensitive modern shooters on the market. It was like a declaration from the tech company that they fully believe input lag is a non-factor on Stadia. The bad news is that they're wrong. The good news is that it probably won't matter after a while.

Doom and Assassin's Creed Odyssey were the two games with non-Stadia versions Google was demoing alongside a handful of tech demos. Assassin's Creed Odyssey on Stadia felt like Assassin's Creed Odyssey feels like on consoles. The game is far from instantly reactive in any of its forms, making it a perfect showcase for Google's promises of unnoticeable latency. This is not the case with Doom. Doom is noticeable.