In a never-ending clash of being the best battle royale game in the world, major game developers are entering the arena with their own Battle Royale versions of popular games. Call of Duty introduced the survival game mode to their franchise with Blackout in October 2018, and now there is another contender on the line. Battlefield V is adding Firestorm mode to the game which introduces some insane Battle Royale elements to the game.
Firestorm Features
While Battlefield may be late to the Battle Royale party, it sure did so in style. The trailer showcases all the necessary characteristics of a Battle Royale Game, and so much more. For starters, the game mode sports a map which is almost 10 times bigger than the BFV (Battlefield V) multiplayer map, Hamana. And Hamana as a map is very huge. The map is just one part of the whole experience.
Throughout the massive map, players will be able to contest objectives such as resupply points and upon successfully doing so, they will be rewarded with special safes that will contain upgraded equipment. Another intriguing feature added to the game includes the ability to use a pistol when a player is knocked down. Using the pistol, the downed player can defend himself/herself against approaching enemies and can even kill them off if they are low on health points.
Paying attention to the fact that the map takes forever to traverse, the developers have included a total of 17 different vehicles in the game, some of which are, let’s just say, “unconventional”. Players can find prototype helicopters with inbuilt miniguns, Schwimmwagens (which can function on the ground as well as in the water) and the bright coloured tractor which captured a lot of attention, and for the right reasons. Players can explore rare vehicle lockups to discover tanks on the battlefield, which are nearly unstoppable except for the fact that players can use anti-tank weaponry to tear them down
Price And Availability
Also Read: Call Of Duty Battle Royale Launching Soon For Android & iOS
Battle Royale is a hot genre right now, as mentioned before, so it will not be very difficult to turn attention towards this game. Battlefield already has a loyal player base, and those players will be more than eager to play the Firestorm game mode and show off their skills. As of now, it is not confirmed whether the game is free-to-play or not, but it will face some serious competition from games like PUBG, Fortnite and the recently released Apex Legends (which is also published by EA). Microsoft is giving away a free copy of the game with the purchase of the Xbox One Console. The game will be available on March 25.
Interestingly, Oculus has teamed up with Lenovo in order to formulate the design of the Rift S. The American technology company states that its new VR headset features better weight distribution around the head and improved light blocking. Furthermore, the Rift S is connected via a single cable to reduce clutter while using the headset. Users can use the integrated audio system on the Rift S, or connect their preferred headphones via the 3.5 mm headphone jack.
Additional features include Oculus Insight, which promises inside-out tracking for an improved experience. The company claims that the feature uses computer vision algorithms to help the headset capture, trace and navigate physical spaces in real time. All this is done with the help of five sensors. Moreover, Oculus has redesigned its Touch controllers for better gesture controls. Another interesting feature that Oculus has introduced is Passthrough+, which utilizes core runtime advancements to provide a comfortable session with the least amount of performance impact. This may help users when they see or step out of their playing space all of a sudden.
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The new AirPods feature the Apple-designed H1 chip with boosted power efficiency and much faster connection sequence. The AirPods also sport the hands-free “Hey Siri” feature to launch the Apple voice assistant, a characteristic that was missing in the previous generation. The new AirPods are available with a new wireless charging case in addition to the standard charging case. The new charging case will cater to the user’s convenience while charging the AirPods.
Stadia will launch in the latter part of 2019, with only four major countries targeted as of now: UK, Canada, US and Europe. The company will take advantage of the huge viewer base of Youtube to help improve Stadia and mainstream the service into streaming and gaming. Gamers will be able to play any game they want directly from Google’s data centres, without actually downloading the game. According to the company, it has successfully tested the high resource-demanding Assassin’s Creed Odyssey on Chrome Streaming with flawless results.
Google’s new platform is not limited to a single game, rather, players will be able to purchase games from a variety of stores affiliated with it. Amongst other interesting features, Stadia will allow users to share gaming clips from their favourite moments during the gameplay which other users can just click on the game to instantly play it. The platform makes use of Virtualization and Advanced Cloud computing to make this possible.
As mentioned previously, the games will be streamable across a multitude of devices. Laptops, desktops, TVs and smartphones will be able to run the games without any glitches, Google says. Moreover, the company claims that the gameplay can be transferred “seamlessly” across various Google devices as well. Of course, latency and data centre availability will play a huge role in keeping the experience smooth and stutter-free.
Following the software, Google also launched its new controller, known as the Stadia Controller. The controller sports Google’s signature minimalistic design and connects directly via Wi-Fi to the game that the user is playing, not to the device he/she’s playing it on. Google states that by doing so, it will eliminate response delays between the hardware and the software, thereby ensuring lag-free gameplay.
The controller also features a “Google Assistant” button, which lets users pull up the voice assistant during the game itself and ask it relevant questions. For instance, if the gamer is stuck on a level and needs some help, he/she can directly ask the assistant regarding the level and get instant tips to complete it. The other special button on the controller is the Capture button, which lets the user capture a screenshot or a gameplay video for personal use or sharing purposes. 
Regarding computing, Google stated that it is continuously updating its Data Centres for better ping across all areas. Gamers were ecstatic when the company announced that upon launch, Stadia will support 4K games at 60 fps, with support for 8K/120 fps in the future. For achieving this milestone, Google will partner with AMD to build custom GPUs which will deliver 10.7 TeraFlops of power to each machine. Each module of Stadia will run on a 2.7 GHz x86 processor with 16 GB of RAM. Furthermore, Google also announced that one of the first games supported by Stadia would be Doom: Eternal, which is a first-person shooter with a huge fanbase.
It also includes support for cross-play, where gamers can play the same game across different platforms. Stadia offers game developers a chance to use its machine-learning based transfer tool, which will let developers drop an image into each frame of the video/game to transform the entire game into the image’s style. Moreover, State Share will let gamers share the exact state of their game via a URL, which can be clicked by users to launch a similar instance of the game on their own device. For streamers, Google introduced Crowd Play, where an advanced lobby system will let viewers play with or against their favourite streamers/content creators on YouTube.
Towards the end, Google announced its new Stadia Games and Entertainment Studio to develop and design new games for the community. The American company also stated that more than 100 renowned studios already have devkits for Stadia, so more games should be added to the library really soon.
The Jetson Nano sports the CUDA-X AI computer, which brings accelerated computing to the platform. CUDA-X AI is a collection of software acceleration libraries designed on the NVIDIA’s programming model. The company claims that it delivers 472 GFLOPS of performance for AI-based computing. Remarkably, the CUDA-X consumes only 5 watts of power for operation.
The company also states that the chip has upgraded power management, clocking, memory and accessible input/outputs. It features Jetpack SDK, which is also designed on CUDA-X and has libraries for deep learning, computer vision, graphics and multimedia processing. It runs the Linux OS, which is fully compatible with NVIDIA’s AI platform. Moreover, NVIDIA includes a reference platform called JetBot to reduce the time taken for initial hardware assembly. All of the aforementioned source codes are available on Github, the company says.
The Jetson Nano runs on the quad-core ARM A57 CPU and a 128 core NVIDIA Maxwell based GPU. It supports 4K/60fps video modules. It has support for 4GB LPDDR4 memory with transfer rates of up to 25.6 Gbps, and a Gigabit Ethernet port for connectivity. As mentioned before, it runs Linux for Tegra. The module measures at 70mm x 45mm, whereas the whole devkit measures at 100mm x 80mm. 
