Dragon’s Dogma 2 Has An Uncapped Framerate, But No Visual Presets Or Modes On Consoles

Dragon’s Dogma 2 Has An Uncapped Framerate, But No Visual Presets Or Modes On Consoles

Dragon’s Dogma 2, the long-awaited sequel in Capcom’s fantasy RPG series, is right around the corner, hitting PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC on March 22. I visited Capcom last month to play the game for about three hours, and you can read Game Informer’s Dragon’s Dogma 2 preview impressions here, but I also spoke to director Hideaki Itsuno about how the game will run on consoles. 

Sitting in Capcom’s San Francisco, California, office, just 30 minutes to go until my interview with Itsuno, I saw that he tweeted about Dragon’s Dogma 2’s framerate. Specifically, he revealed on X (formerly Twitter) that Dragon’s Dogma 2 will release with an uncapped framerate. It was an interesting announcement, considering “uncapped framerate” is typically something I associate with PCs – not the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S. 

But, with that tweet out, I took my interview as an opportunity to learn more about what this means for console players. It turns out, Dragon’s Dogma 2 will not feature multiple visual modes – there won’t be a Graphics mode and a Performance mode, like what you might see in games like the recently released Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, for example. Instead, Capcom’s latest will feature one singular mode that’s on by default, and that mode also features uncapped framerate. 

“The game has an uncapped framerate,” Itsuno tells me through a translator. “We’re aiming to go at around or higher than 30 FPS. That is for consoles as well. There are some functions that you can turn on and off, but there aren’t multiple sets of options that you can change at once [likely alluding to visual presets seen in the options of other games on consoles today]. But yeah, the frame rate will come uncapped for all consoles.”

Just to be sure, I asked for clarification around the potential for multiple modes and was told Dragon’s Dogma 2 has just one visual mode, so don’t expect a preset that prioritizes performance over visual fidelity or vice versa. 

Dragon’s Dogma 2 hits PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC on March 22. 

For more, check out the latest Dragon’s Dogma 2 gameplay trailer, and then find out why it’s one of our most anticipated games of the year. After that, read about how Dragon’s Dogma 2’s main story campaign is about as long as the first game’s, and then read about Capcom’s decision to have just one save file in the game. 

How do you feel about Capcom’s approach to visual settings with Dragon’s Dogma 2? Let us know in the comments below!

“This MIT Bootcamp shook everything upside down and has given me the spirit of innovation”

A new MIT Bootcamps hybrid program recently convened 34 innovators to tackle substance use disorder from multiple perspectives. Together, they built and pitched new ventures with the goal of bringing life-saving innovations to the field.

The Substance Use Disorder (SUD) Ventures program featured workshops, case studies, and interactive sessions with researchers, entrepreneurs, and doctors who brought a multidisciplinary approach to tackling early detection, access to care and health equity, dual diagnosis, treatment, and relapse prevention. Through a rigorous selection process, the program cohort was chosen for their complementary, diverse backgrounds along with their passion for solving problems related to substance use.

Hybrid by design, the first three months of the program consisted of foundational work online, including a new asynchronous SUD 101 course led by Brown University Professor Carolina Haass-Koffler and live online sessions focused on topics like intellectual property and technology transfer. The program concluded with a five-day MIT Bootcamp on campus, where learners built and pitched a new venture to a panel of judges.

“Building a venture in the substance use disorder space is exceptionally challenging,” says Hanna Adeyema, director of MIT Bootcamps. “Our goal was not only to educate our learners but also to inspire and to ignite a sense of community. We achieved it by building relationships in a diverse group united by a shared vision to bring lifesaving products to market.”

“This MIT Bootcamp shook everything upside down and has given me the spirit of innovation”

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Substance Use Disorder (SUD) Ventures by MIT Bootcamps
Video: MIT Open Learning

Helping to solve an epidemic

In 2021, more than 46 million people suffered from substance use disorder in the United States. This means one out of every seven people in the U.S. can benefit from innovations in this field. In 2022, MIT Open Learning received a grant from the National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA) to create an entrepreneurship program for substance use disorder researchers. As the primary source of early-stage funding in this space, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and NIDA are focused on initiatives, like the MIT Bootcamps SUD Ventures program, to help bring innovation to the field. 

Armed with a deep expertise in innovation and immersive educational experiences, MIT Open Learning’s team, including MIT Bootcamps, hit the ground running to build the SUD Ventures program. Other team members included Cynthia Breazeal, Erdin Beshimov, Carolina Haass-Koffler, Aikaterini “Katerina” Bagiati, and Andrés Felipe Salazar-Gómez. 

“The program connected substance use disorder knowledge and resources, including funding opportunities, to entrepreneurial competences and multifaceted skills of the learners,” says Cynthia Breazeal, dean for digital learning at MIT Open Learning and principal investigator for the project. “We have delivered a dynamic learning experience, sensitive to the root causes behind the innovation deficit in this field.”  

Instilling the spirit of innovation  

With 10-hour days, the immersive program blended formal and informal instruction to deliver a holistic and practical educational experience on substance use disorder and innovation. Learners attended case studies with health care companies like Prapela, Invistics, and RTM Vital Signs, moderated by Erdin Beshimov, the founder of MIT Bootcamps. They also attended workshops by MIT faculty, lectures by members of the NIH and NIDA, and interactive sessions with local startup veterans and medical professionals. 

Learners walked away from the sessions motivated to solve problems, equipped with tangible next steps for their businesses. Bill Aulet inspired learners to leverage their own innovation ecosystems and shared how MIT is “raising the bar” of the quality of entrepreneurship education. Professor Eric von Hippel, a pioneer of user innovation, encouraged learners to tap into clinicians, nurses, and individuals with lived and living experiences as an important source of innovation within the health-care system. To give the clinical perspective from Massachusetts General Hospital, cardiac anesthesiologist Nathaniel Sims and former MGH Innovation Support Center director Harry DeMonaco energized learners with a personal story of successfully bringing medical device innovation to market and how to work with hospitals and early-stage adopters.

“This MIT Bootcamp shook everything upside down and has given me the spirit of innovation and what it looks like to be able to work in a big way, and to be able to think in an even bigger way,” says learner Melissa “Dr. Mo” Dittberner. A resident of Volin, South Dakota, Dittberner is the CEO and founder of Straight Up Care, a platform for peer specialists to help people with mental health and substance use disorders. As an entrepreneur in the substance use disorder space, Dittberner knows what it takes to bring a business to life.

Bridging disciplines to create impact

In the evenings, the cohort broke out into teams of five to collaborate on building a venture related to substance use disorder. Coaches provided guidance and the tough feedback teams need in order to build a venture that solves a real problem. With vast differences in age, background, industry, and how they came to make an impact on substance use disorder, each team had experts in many different verticals, ultimately leading learners to a more thoughtful and potent solution. 

“One of the things MIT Bootcamps does really well is bring multiple disciplines to innovate together,” says Smit Patel, a pharmacist and digital health strategist who participated in the program. “We have seen a lot of silo innovation happening [in health care]. We have also seen problems being solved in piecemeal. How can we come together as a collective force — clinician and entrepreneur, a technologist, someone who has gone through this experience themselves — to build a solution?”

Dittberner echoed Patel’s sentiment, emphasizing the strength of the MIT Bootcamps community. “They’ve all kind of brought this different flavor,” Dittberner says. “I have created friendships and bonds that will last forever, which is so crucial to being able to be successful in the [SUD] space.” 

Intent on building a community of domain expert entrepreneurs, the SUD Ventures program will continue to bring together innovators to solve acute problems in the substance use space. With another three years of funding for this program, Adeyema says MIT Bootcamps’ goal is to nurture the community of innovators brought together by this program, enabling them to bring their ventures to life and create meaningful impact to society.

This program and its research are supported by the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health. This award is subject to the Cooperative Agreement Terms and Conditions of Award as set forth in RFA DA-22-020, entitled “Growing Great Ideas: Research Education Course in Product Development and Entrepreneurship for Life Science Researchers.” The content of this publication is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the views of the National Institutes of Health. 

10 proven strategies for cultivating a security aware culture – CyberTalk

10 proven strategies for cultivating a security aware culture – CyberTalk

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:

A security aware culture is essential when it comes to ensuring both stronger cyber security and better business outcomes. As security awareness increases, the probability of a breach (and corresponding business fallout) declines.

But security aware cultures don’t create themselves – they don’t happen organically. Cyber security leaders need to invent the culture through strategic and measured initiatives.

Advance your cyber security. Keep your organization as secure as possible. Leverage the following insights to establish (or refine) your security aware culture.

Cultivating a security aware culture

1. Know your company. Aim to anchor a cyber security culture within the existing company culture. Ensure that corporate values serve as cornerstones of your security culture. Create tailored programs that engage employees and that lead the C-suite to perceive you as attuned to your unique workplace.

2. Start with a cultural assessment. In building a security aware culture, start by examining the congruence (or lack thereof) between the corporate culture and everyday actions around cyber security. In the vast majority of cases, there’s a disconnect between the two.

A cultural assessment will clarify the gaps between corporate cultural norms and security best practices. An assessment should include one-on-one interviews with people across all levels and functions of the organization, research regarding existing security practices, and group discussions.

3. Communicate effectively. Once you’ve determined where gaps exist between the corporate culture and the (ideal) security culture, develop means of gradually promoting employee habit change. From a video series, to phishing exercises, to workshops, cyber security leaders have numerous avenues available through which to communicate new messages and to (re)shape workplace practices.

4. Consider regulations. In building a security aware culture and designing new programming, consider which regulatory requirements the company must adhere to. Best practices that are communicated to employees should broadly align with and support regulatory requirements.

5. Strengthen rapport with stakeholders. Ensure that you introduce yourself to all appropriate individuals – either via email or in-person. Ask questions about existing projects and priorities, ensuring that you’re genuinely listening to their concerns. For new cyber security initiatives, get buy-in, as this helps show a united front across the company and can benefit campaigns.

6. Team up with the communications or marketing team. To build a security culture while remaining mindful of employees’ time and attention, collaborate with your internal communications or marketing team on messaging.

They will have a sense of how to create a regular messaging cadence without overwhelming employees. They can also potentially assist with launching surveys, analyzing metrics for you and ensuring messaging alignment with the organization’s brand.

7. Avoid imposing on employees. The security team should be seen as a helpful and supportive bunch. The security team should avoid coming across as a group that pesters, micromanages or intensely imposes on others in regards to security practices. (No one wants to be ambushed by a cyber security analyst about the fact that they’ve used the same password 3X.) Rather, in building a security aware culture, draw people in using welcoming and approachable tactics.

8. Leverage new hire orientations. See if your team can get some face time (the opportunity to run a 20 minute workshop) during new hire training. This allows you to make a positive impression on new employees at the very beginning of their tenure. Importantly, make sure that your Power Point presentation isn’t a snooze.

Explain how the cyber security team serves the organization. Talk about why employees are really the front-line of cyber defense. Provide a preview of what employees should expect in the way of cyber security-related communication and further education.

9. Empower through recognition. Acknowledge and reward employees who take cyber security seriously – those who report phishing incidents, exhibit excellent password hygiene…etc. Promoting positive behaviors among employees generally contributes to improved outcomes, strengthening cyber security measures overall.

10. Measure effectiveness. When you set up security aware culture initiatives, ensure that there is a way to measure the impact of your efforts. Be able to demonstrate a return on investment.

Further thoughts

In addition to elevating your security, a security aware culture can be presented as a competitive advantage. Touting a strong security strategy that includes a culture of security awareness can help position an organization as an industry leader.

It can also result in a ripple effect across other organizations, prompting them to establish security awareness programs. This ultimately strengthens your entire industry’s ecosystem.

For more high-impact articles like this, please see CyberTalk.org’s past coverage. Lastly, subscribe to the CyberTalk.org newsletter for timely insights, cutting-edge analyses and more, delivered straight to your inbox each week.

TMNT Co-creator Kevin Eastman On Why The Last Ronin Is Being Made Into A Game

In 1987, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles creators Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird developed a storyline for their creation that never came to fruition. Titled “The Last Ronin,” Eastman and Laird envisioned it as the final Turtles story set 30 years in the future. While Eastman and Laird never got around to creating that storyline in the original run of their comics under their company Mirage Studios, the idea stuck with Eastman through the years, and decades later, as part of the franchise’s new life with IDW Publishing, he worked with his longtime collaborator Tom Waltz to bring the idea to the pages of a five-issue miniseries that ran from 2020 to 2022.

The story is bleak and gritty, establishing a universe where the four beloved brothers have been taken out one by one. It’s set in an alternate future where New York has been ravaged by constant battles under the thumb of the fascist grandson of the Shredder, Oroku Hiroto. The last remaining Turtle, bearing the weapons of all four, goes on a quest to avenge his fallen brothers against Hiroto.

One of the central mysteries surrounding the storyline is in regards to which of the brothers is the sole survivor. As the miniseries ended in 2022, the answer is obviously readily available on the internet, but we won’t spoil that here, even though we don’t know if the game will follow the same path as the comic

TMNT Co-creator Kevin Eastman On Why The Last Ronin Is Being Made Into A Game

The Last Ronin was a surprise success and, according to Eastman, brought in fans of the franchise from all eras and walks of life. “It just opened up like a Pandora’s Box of a lot of original fans finding it or maybe fans that were fans back in the day but have not picked up a Turtle thing in years were coming back to it,” he says. “It just had the snowball effect that people that have never read Turtles or even some of the kids that were introduced to the Turtles in the 2012 series […] but have grown past that middle part of the animated series, but they still liked the Turtles but were looking for something older and edgier. It was just right place, right time, and it just clicked and jammed and worked, and we were all like, ‘Wow!'”

Paramount, which now owns the TMNT franchise, wanted to capitalize on the success and acclaim of The Last Ronin by taking it multimedia, but concerns emerged about conflicting with the 2023 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem film. “It was such a clever idea by Paramount and Nickelodeon in the surprising success of The Last Ronin,” Eastman says. “They were already well down the road with the incredible Mutant Mayhem project and everything they wanted to do there, and they said, ‘We’d love to do something with The Last Ronin, but we don’t want to battle each other and take away from [Mutant Mayhem].’ I’d describe Mutant Mayhem as a kids-of-all-ages movie, much like the first Turtle movie that Steve Barron and Jim Henson did. [Paramount] said, ‘Let’s go and adapt it as a video game because we can give it all the edge and all the attitude and intensity that you did in the comic series and even go a bit deeper.'”

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Officially revealed in 2023 through a cryptic teaser trailer, we know very little about TMNT: The Last Ronin. However, we do know that it is being developed by Black Forest Games and published by THQ Nordic for PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC. While Eastman readily admits he’s not the biggest gamer, he had a hand in many of the early games that many consider the pinnacle of the TMNT franchise in video games and is working with the developers on this title. When I ask him how TMNT: The Last Ronin is coming along, he’s not ready to spill any details, but he’s definitely positive about how the game is coming together.

“Everything I’ve seen – we’ve been interacting with the development crew – and it looks like some of the sets and some of the characters have literally walked right off the pages of the comic,” Eastman says. “So beautiful. So fantastic. And so pretty much every fan of Last Ronin that I’ve talked to is really, seriously pumped, like, ‘We get to have an older version of the Turtles just for us as a video game!'”

Closing out my conversation with Eastman, which was largely focused on the history of the TMNT video games, the co-creator once again circles back to how impressed he is with the progress of TMNT: The Last Ronin, but through the lens of the last several decades of video games. “Adapting The Last Ronin as a video game using the latest and the greatest artisans and writers and coders and technologies, it’s great to see the Turtles being able to adapt into that,” he says. “And if it’s done the way we all hope and the way it’s taking shape, then I think we’ll get to play in this arena for a long time to come, and that’s up to the fans to decide. We’re going to do the best job we can and hope for the best.”

If you’d like to read more from Eastman and others involved with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles video games over the years, be sure to check out the new issue of Game Informer, which includes a huge feature on the history of TMNT within video games. TMNT: The Last Ronin was officially revealed in 2023 and does not currently have a release window. However, we do know that it is slated to come to PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC. 

If you’d like to prepare for this game by reading the source material, TMNT: The Last Ronin is on sale now through IDW Publishing, and TMNT: The Last Ronin II – Re-Evolution issue #1 is available this week.

Exclusive First Details And Screenshots Of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutants Unleashed

Exclusive First Details And Screenshots Of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutants Unleashed

In August 2023, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem arrived in theaters, and, much to the delight of both longtime and newer fans, it was a terrific and fun watch. Just over a month after its theatrical debut, Paramount and Nickelodeon announced that publisher Outright Games and developer A Heartful of Games would be releasing a follow-up video game set in the Mutant Mayhem universe. While it hasn’t had a name to this point, Game Informer can now exclusively confirm that the title is Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutants Unleashed.

Warning: This article contains spoilers for the 2023 film Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem.

The 3D brawler/platformer picks up after the events of Mutant Mayhem; the Turtles have been accepted by society following their heroics against Superfly and his band of mutants. Unfortunately, their dream of attending high school as average, everyday students is suddenly interrupted by a new wave of mutants invading New York City. Featuring an all-original storyline, Mutants Unleashed aims to have the same brand of humor as the 2023 film.

Players take control of the four hero turtles, each with a unique playstyle, as they fight their way through the sewers and streets of New York. Outright Games touts how immersive both the world above and below ground is, as well as the cast of familiar faces for the brothers to meet and fight. As co-op is a massive piece of the history of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles video games, players can enjoy two-player local co-op in Mutants Unleashed. 

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutants Unleashed is set to arrive near the end of this year for PS5, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, Xbox One, Switch, and PC. For more info on the other big TMNT video game in development, The Last Ronin, head here for our exclusive interview with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles co-creator Kevin Eastman.