Daily Briefing: Thursday 15th July

Battlefield 2042 cross-play and cross-progression detailed

In a new official blog publisher earlier this week, developers DICE went into some detail on two of the Battlefield franchise's most requested features. DICE confirmed that both cross-play and cross-progression are features that they're "looking to build and test for Battlefield 2042." They also stated that they actually delayed a planned technical test from earlier in the month to "later this summer" in order to facilitate testing of the cross-play functionality.

• This new technical test will include "a few thousand participants" ahead of the actual open beta running before the game's October release. The technical test will only be available on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S and players who want to participate can register their interest on the EA Playtesting website. Cross-commerce will also be available as part of cross-progression, meaning purchase history will be shared across versions and platforms as well as actual progress.

Netflix are reportedly moving into games

That's according to a new report from the folks at Bloomberg, who suggest that the streaming service will be expanding to include games "in the next year." Netflix have hired former EA and Facebook executive Mike Verdu to facilitate this transition - Verdu has experience across franchises like The Sims, Plants vs. Zombies, and Star Wars so he's definitely a decent hire. Bloomberg say that Netflix hope to hire more people to its gaming division "in the coming months."

• Bloomberg's report backs up one from The Information in May that suggested that Netflix were after a gaming type to help expand their lineup - though at the time the belief was that Netflix's game offering would be confined to small "bundles" akin to Apple Arcade. However, Bloomberg's new report claims that games will be added alongside Netflix's current library - they won't even cost anything extra...yet.

Analysis confirms DRM impacts Resident Evil Village's performance

DRM is a true boogeyman of the current age of PC gaming thanks to the persistent belief that it severely impacts game performance. The latest game to have this belief entirely confirmed is Resident Evil Village which, according to new analysis from Digital Foundry, is subjected to "horrendous frame times and a collapse to frame rate on the original version."

• Resident Evil Village launched on PC to many complaints from players regarding performance - certain actions in the game cause severe stuttering and slowdown for no reason. This is seemingly due to the presence of DRM, with Digital Foundry's testing reporting "a gigantic improvement with the crack installed." So there you go.

Phil Spencer loves the DualSense controller

Speaking in a recent episode of the Kinda Funny Gamescast, the Xbox boss suggested that Microsoft may yet add a few features inspired by Sony's controller to future iterations of the Xbox gamepad. The Xbox probably won't be getting any major hardware accessories like VR (the ghost of Kinect likely still haunts Microsoft's main conference room) but they could play about with the controller.

• It makes a lot of sense that the Xbox team would be taking notice of the DualSense. The upgraded, haptic-enabled, controller is one of the PS5's standout features, while the Xbox Series X|S controller is essentially identical to the Xbox One controller some of us have been using since 2013. Haptics are certainly one area Microsoft may (and should) be looking at, but the DualSense also boasts adaptive triggers and a built-in microphone - either of which would be great additions to the next iteration of Xbox gamepads.