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Poker Club has been announced for PC, PS5, Xbox Series X, PS4, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch, with cross-platform and cross-generation online play.
Announced by Ripstone Games and coming this year, Poker Club aims to be a social experience, including 200-player tournaments, and online Career Mode that take splayers from back-room games to high-stakes tables, and many, many options for other modes.
The game will also feature private online games, and a full Poker 101 tutorial to help bed in new players. You can also create or join clubs in game, allowing players to work together to meet shared goals that unlock unique gear rewards for your customisable character.
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Current-gen owners of the game will be able to get a free upgrade to the next-gen versions. On PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X, the game will play at 4K / 60 FPS, and include ray tracing. On PS5, the game will even make use of the DualSense controller's haptic feedback technology.
Speaking to IGN, game director Phil Gaskell explained that next-gen SSDs have been a game-changer: "We've been working on the proprietary tech in the systems to reduce load times in the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X versions of Poker Club. Loading is now practically non-existent, it makes the whole experience feel seamless, you won’t ever want to go back!"
As for the addition of ray tracing, that too seems to have been a pleasant addition to the mix. "Ray tracing is a huge deal for us," explains Gaskell, "we knew we wanted to use it on PC, but weren’t sure how it would work on console. We were so impressed with how capable they are in that department. With ray traced lighting/shadows/reflections, Poker Club is brought to life. We’re happy to say It looks incredible on PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X."
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Gaskell makes clear the key benefit of both next-gen consoles - that compromises no longer have to be made to achieve the desired results: "Whereas before in game development you had to pick and choose your battles: are we going to target high frame rates / top-end visual features / high rendering resolution / etc. With the power of these new consoles, we can choose everything, it’s a no compromise experience."
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Joe Skrebels is IGN's Executive Editor of News. Follow him on Twitter. Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to newstips@ign.com.