Announcements galore at NVIDIA’s Gamescom

NVIDIA’s Gamescom conference this week shook the gaming community to the core and lit the internet on fire! Square Enix walked out and announced that they will be bringing on one of the most played, loved and critically acclaimed games on the consoles of 2017 to the PC in early 2018. Yes, if you are getting hyped, you should be, because Final Fantasy XV is coming to the PC early next year for all of us who don’t have a console to enjoy and revel in JRPG madness.

Of course, since Square Enix has worked alongside NVIDIA to bring the title to the PC, it will support NVIDIA Ansel right off the gates. Moreover, a lot of other fancy NVIDIA only features will be packed into the Windows version of the game, namely HairWorks, ShadowWorks, Turf Effects and NVIDIA VXAO. Some of these have appeared in NVIDIA GameWorks games past like the Witcher 3, however, these effects do tend to obliterate your game’s frame rates, so hopefully, Final Fantasy XV is highly optimised to allow for a wide range of hardware to run it.

In another announcement NVIDA said that they will be tying up with Bluehole Inc., the masterminds behind the Early Access game that has taken Steam by storm, PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds. Riding the coat tails of the game’s success on Twitch and YouTube and other video sharing and streaming websites. NVIDIA has added the new Shadowplay Highlights feature to the game that automatically records kills, knock-downs and winning moments.

Another two big name games were announced for Ansel support on launch; Pro Evolution Soccer and Middle Earth: Shadow of War. Ansel is one of the most unique and interesting offerings from NVIDIA in recent times and I am glad more developers are embracing it to allow gamers to take and share their gaming experience at a whole new level. This is just the start of Gamescom week, hopefully we’ll have more big announcements to follow.