Daily Briefing, Thursday 26th November 2020

Hello, friends, and welcome to another issue of the Bellular Daily Briefing - gaming news that's built for scrolling.

Assassin's Creed: Valhalla patch introduces performance mode

The new patch is set to launch today and, alongside the addition of a 60fps "performance mode" on Xbox Series X|S and PS5, it also addresses a number of bugs and general issues - all of which are detailed in Ubisoft's patch notes for the game.

• While the Xbox Series X and PS5 already hit 60fps pretty consistently, the budget Xbox Series S will likely benefit the most from these performance upgrades. Additionally, players can choose a "quality mode" which runs the game at maximum resolution while maintaining a steady 30fps.

PS5 could be Sony's biggest ever launch

The, really rather vague, claim comes courtesy of the official PlayStation Twitter account - which this week thanked fans for the strong launch, and advised that more stock will be arriving in retailers before the end of the year.

• And that's about it for actual details, really. If we assume that Sony are talking about the PS5's first two weeks of sales, then that would mean the PS5 has broken the 2.1m units the PS4 shifted in 2013 - which Sony said was an industry record at the time.

Nicalis are on the warpath yet again

The venerable Metroidvania title was released as freeware in 2004 by solo-developer Daisuke "Pixel" Amaya, and Nicalis later developed updated versions for various platforms. The freeware version has spawned a number of fan projects, which Nicalis are now chasing with the DMCA hammer.

• Cave Story is an institution of indie gaming and the amount of influence it has had, whether directly or indirectly, really can't be underestimated. Nicalis are launching a very difficult, and very unpopular war here.

Speedrunner clears Demon's Souls remake in under 20 minutes

The baffling number relies on a technique called "wrong-warping", which relies on manipulating the small loading window when warping between areas, dying, and reloading to force the game to spawn you in a new area for massive skips.

• The time was set by runner Distortion2, who has been a prominent figure in the Souls community for a while now, but especially so since the Demon's Souls remake released. He was the one who recently opened the game's mysterious new door and identified the rare item within.

Microsoft acknowledge Xbox Series X performance issues, working on fixes

It has been identified by various outlets that certain games, like Assassin's Creed: Valhalla, Devil May Cry 5, and Dirt 5, run significantly better on PS5 than they do on Xbox Series X - something Microsoft has now acknowledged.

• Microsoft have stated that they recognise these "performance issues" and are working closely with developers to work out a fix. It's a rocky position for them to be in, with Xbox Series X boasting the more impressive tech specs and Microsoft throwing the word "optimised" around all over the place.

That's all for today - catch us back here tomorrow for another blast of daily news, and Happy Thanksgiving to our readers Stateside!