Eight years after leaving the games industry, Gears of War creator Cliff Bleszinski is considering a full-time return to game development.

Bleszinski left the games industry in 2018 after the closure of his studio Boss Key Productions, caused by the commercial failure of its two games—the multiplayer arena shooter LawBreakers, and the '80s themed Battle Royale game Radical Heights. At the time, Bleszinski swore off making games forever.

Yet now, in a wide-ranging interview with 80 Level, Bleszinski explained that's considering coming back. In the chat, Bleszinski discussed the events of his life since leaving the games industry, during which he wrote an autobiography, produced a Tony award-winning musical, and faced up to a long struggle with alcoholism.

The latter resulted in Bleszinski being hospitalised in March this year, in the aftermath of which he gave up drinking. It's been during his sobriety that Bleszinski says he rediscovered his love for games—and the desire to make them:

"At the end of the day, I want to create characters and worlds," Bleszinski explained to journalist Brian Crecente. "I want to make stuff that people will cosplay and get tattooed on their bodies."

Bleszinski has already returned to game development in an advisory role—having consulted on a horror game called Soul Walker. This experience appears to have been positive for him, as he's now pondering a full-time comeback. "So maybe I'll eventually get my full foot back in the business and hopefully not get pushed into the pool."

Bleszinski didn't go into detail about what kind of game he wants to make during the interview. But he did discuss what he won't be making, namely PvP multiplayer games like those created by Boss Key:

"Good luck to anyone in that space," he said. "I'm more of a fan of PvE these days. Horde mode saved Gears 2, and I believe that space is evergreen because players just want to hop online with friends and shoot some stuff, no frills, no questions asked."

Nonetheless, it seems like Bleszinski has an idea he wants to pursue, even if he didn't vocalise it. "I'm nowhere near sharing anything specific (about a new game), beyond that, I can't walk into a Home Depot without seeing a full arsenal at every turn," he said, adding that "There's so much more than just chainsaws."

PvP or not, I'd certainly be up for playing a new Bleszinski-led game. While LawBreakers failed to find an audience, as a multiplayer shooter it was thoroughly entertaining. Radical Heights had promise too, though it never got a chance to develop into something substantial.

Of course, I'd be most interested in a spiritual successor to Gears. That space has been left fallow for a long time, and Pragmata recently showed there's a big appetite for that style of game. But all of this is contingent on whether Bleszinski actually comes back, which isn't guaranteed. In 2020, Bleszinski said he felt an urge to make "a little game". But for whatever reason that didn't transpire, at least not publicly.

I still remember cursing aloud when I was first sent to prison in GTA 5 roleplay.

You see, unlike in regular Grand Theft Auto—story mode or Online—getting arrested in RP has consequences. Sure, you face the same trigger-happy cops when you fall foul of the law, where you're pursued until either dead or in cuffs, and are then hit with the same 'Wasted' or 'Busted' mandates depending on the outcome of the chase. Assuming the latter transpires, however, you don't simply receive a fine and a reset wanted star meter—in the majority of GTA RP servers, you instead respawn in the Bolingbroke penitentiary.

The magnitude of your crime determines the length of your stay as you pace around the recreation ground doing everything you can to avoid contact with anyone else, lest you find yourself punching lumps out of one another and extending your stay. Now, XmanStudios has introduced the whole ordeal to GTA 5 singleplayer by way of their mod, Jailbreak.

"Jailbreak is a GTA 5 script that adds a prison sentence system to singleplayer," reads the mod's description. "If the player dies or gets arrested while wanted, they are transported to Bolingbroke Penitentiary and must serve a sentence based on the wanted level they had at the time.

"The current version includes prison bus transport, prison processing, prisoner outfits, sentence timers, cell entrance and exit markers, lockdown triggers, guard reactions, baton-based cell returns, and basic escape behaviour. During normal prison time, guards and prisoners roam around the prison. If the player causes trouble, enters restricted areas, or tries to escape, the prison can enter lockdown and guards will respond."

Through all of that, players can expect visible cell entrance and exit markers, a prison lockdown system, restricted area lockdown triggers and a brutally violent so-called 'baton-based return-to-cell system' which leaves very little to the imagination. Updates in recent weeks include basic jailbreaking features, such as Shawshank Redemption-style digging, bed dummies and stealth mechanics that only kick into gear after lights out.

A quick glance at the mod page's comments reveals the warm reception Jailbreak has received so far (a few weeks on from launch and it's cracked 3,000 downloads), however there is one that immediately caught my eye. Crazyboy4881 says: "GTA 6 NEEDS THIS." And, given the prominence of prison in the scant snatches we've seen so far of the next Grand Theft Auto adventure, I really couldn't agree more.

hen I played 007: First Light earlier this year, one element of it stood out to me as unusual—and that is the arc relating to Bond's fellow 00 trainees, Cressida Bright and Lennox Monroe. IO Interactive puts a huge amount of work into building these characters, successfully selling you on the inherently bizarre concept of James Bond having flatmates.

Yet just as you warm to these characters, they vanish from the story, and after MI6's failed operation to eliminate the rogue 009 in Slovakia, Bond primarily teams up with his mentor, Greenway.

All of this is well portrayed. But the cadence of it nonetheless struck me as odd while playing. It turns out there might be a reason for this. IO Interactive initially intended for First Light to be less squarely focused on Bond, while his pals would have played a much bigger role in the story.

Speaking to Eurogamer, First Light's lead writer Michael Vogt explained how the game's first act came together. "During the training sequence, we make a false promise," Vogt said. "Basically, we're saying 'This is going to be an ensemble piece, all the 00s working together, as they do in Slovakia'.

"And then we pull the rug out from under you when most of them die, and serendipitously, [Bond's], the last man standing. He could have died in that explosion but he doesn't, and so he emerges as the top agent. But in my very first pitch I think we were actually toying with the idea of making it an ensemble piece, that you had the different agents working together."

Logically, this makes sense. You're not going to put a newly trained agent out in the field on their own until you're certain they can handle it, which given Bond's roguish tendencies would probably take a while. But IO ultimately cut the ensemble concept short to kickstart Bond's character development.

"The story beat that it serves is of course that it goes from all fun and games for him—he's a young kid, he's on an adventure, and he's out globetrotting and playing secret agent—but after that explosion, he wakes up to the harsh reality. When M says that [00] life expectancy is very short, it's like 'Oh, right''. He gets it, and he matures from that, of course, and also from the guilt—maybe the survivor's guilt—of being the one who made it."

Vogt can't recall when exactly this change was made, but it would explain why Cressida and Monroe feel so much like companions who are going to accompany Bond through the entire game. For at least a part of the game's development, that was the plan.

The Palworld 1.0 update adds 72 new pals—most of which you can catch, while the remainder at least adds an updated entry to your Palpedia. That's a big undertaking with the expanded Palpagos map and the new World Tree region to explore, and referencing the in-game map can be a real pain, but that's where I come in to hopefully make the process a bit easier.

How to catch every new pal in Palworld 1.0

This list was made to highlight where you're most likely to encounter the new 1.0 pals for the first time, but some spawn in more than one region. Pals that pop up in multiple locations will have a note indicating other places you can find them, but are only listed once to keep the process simple.

The level recommendations don't account for bosses in the region, so keep that in mind before you go barreling into their arena. Some zones are harder or easier to catch new pals in depending on terrain obstacles and gear, so take them as loose guidelines—not hard and fast rules.

A few tips to start collecting all 72 new pals

• Make sure to catch five of every pal for bonus XP and a Mimog Effigy.
• Use the Pal Tamer's Glasses, Ring of Mercy, or a pal with Mercy Hit so wild pals don't drop below 1 HP before you can catch them.
• Think you have enough Pal Spheres? Wrong. Catching multiple of each pal for bonuses or better passives meant I never had enough, so keep stocking up.

Windswept Hills and Moonless Shore

Catching new pals in the early game

Recommended for Levels 1-30

You'll start Palworld in the Plateau of Beginnings on Windswept Island—where gradually heading north nets you a few new 1.0 pals. You should encounter Pupperai and Clovee first, while Tanzee Ignis and Wispaw spawn closer to the Autumn Rocks.

My next catch was an Amione floating over the water, and finally one of the scads of Mufflies in the Moonless Shore.

New pals in the Windswept Hills and Moonless Shore

Bamboo Groves and Twilight Dunes

The Bamboo Groves are easy, but be careful in the Dunes

Recommended for Levels 20-35

I caught the angry little lightning pup Puffolt in the Bamboo Groves first, and Elgrove is in the same area, so their spawns overlap in the map above. Then I wandered into the Twilight Dunes, and found Skutlass along the beaches while searching for Hardwood.

Just be careful here, I was a bit under leveled to be picking fights with the level 30+ pals in the desert, and I paid for it more than once.

New pals in the Bamboo Groves and Twilight Dunes

Frostbound Mountains and Verdant Brook

Grab your cold-weather gear and travel further north

Recommended for Levels 25-35

Leafan wasn't hard to catch in the Verdant Brook, but you'll have to craft cold-weather gear before going for Snugloo in the Frostbound Mountains. I found that the older pals lurking around here posed more of a challenge than either of the newcomers.

New pals in the Verdant Brook and Frostbound Mountains

Mount Obsidian

Defrost with a pitstop to catch Moldron

Recommended for Levels 35 - 45

New pals in Mount Obsidian

Desiccated Dunes and islets

New pals in the Desiccated Dunes

Recommended for Levels 30-40

Flamepulse Islet

Wildlife Sanctuary No. 3 and Islet of Circular Ruins

Astral Mountains

New pals in the Astral Mountains

Recommended for Levels 40-55

Sakurajima and Suncrest Islet

New pals in Sakurajima

Recommended for Levels 45-60

Suncrest Islet

Feybreak islets

Sandstone Gate, Glacial Memento, and Bicornis Islets

Recommended for Levels 60-70

Sunreach

New pals in the Sunreach Sky Islands

Recommended for Levels 65-70

The World Tree new pals

The Verdant Rootpath and Alluvion Lakefront

Recommended for Levels 75+

Gilded City Ruins, Lacrymal Shoal, and Shinespore Root

Dusty Ravine and Rotmist Root areas

Boreal Summit

Misc new Pals in 1.0

The limited releases of cards for Magic: The Gathering that are mostly reskins of existing cards with new art are called Secret Lair drops. They're infamous for selling out fast and being hard to get hold of at normal prices, and they're also infamous for having unusual themes. There's been a Monty Python one, a Dwarf Fortress one, and even a Garfield one. Next? Stardew Valley.

ConcernedApe's quirky farm-life sim has a legion of dedicated fans who have built their own mimetic lore on top of the actual story of the game, like Overwatch stans interpreting and shipping characters in ways Blizzard didn't intend. Take Elliott, for instance, a sentimental writer who lives on the beach and is among Stardew Valley's romanceable cast. According to fan artists, he's a willowy bishonen boy. According to ConcernedApe's own art for the Mermaid's Pendant card, a reskin of the existing Wedding Ring card, he's a square-jawed Chad.

The Stardew Valley subreddit is not taking it well. They've called him a "Habbo hotel looking mf" and roasted his "Sheriff Woody lookin’ ass". He's been compared to Matt Smith's character in House of the Dragon, Fabio, and a member of the famously inbred House of Hapsburg, while others declare "We have Elliot at home" and say "I might have to marry Alex now."

Other cards show Penny with ringlets rather than the buns players assumed she had based on the in-game art, and depict Leah as substantially thicker than you might have assumed she would be. To be fair, most players aren't complaining about the latter, or the glow-up Clint has received just in time to become a marriage candidate in the 1.7 update.

Personally, I like the way these cards look. Sword to Plowshares is a perfect Magic card to be given a Stardew makeover, and little details like the autopetter you can see inside the cave chest speak to a real affection for the, well, I guess it's the deep lore of Stardew Valley. There's even a card for the mayor's purple underpants.

ConcernedApe's illustrations in particular have always been a bit on the "programmer art" end of the spectrum, from the moment you see grandpa's odd-looking bed at the start of the game. These are exactly the kind of human imperfections that give art personality, and make Stardew Valley distinctive among all the copycats. But I thought Elliott's jaw seemed pretty robust even when seen in profile, so what do I know.

The Stardew Valley Magic cards will be on sale from 9 am on July 27 at the Secret Lair website. Meanwhile, Stardew Valley's 1.7 update will let players romance both Clint and Sandy, and add a new farm type.

In 2021, when The Life and Suffering of Sir Brante came out on Steam, our Shaun Prescott called it "a text heavy narrative RPG with a huge emphasis on gruelling decision making." Think of those decision-heavy simulations like Princess Maker, only in a grim-and-gritty fantasy setting that cranks up the George R. R. Martin dial to max.

"Step into the harsh world of the Blessed Arknian Empire and experience the life of Sir Brante," as the announcement puts it, "a man born into a rigid society where every choice matters and every decision carries consequences. Shape your destiny through years of struggle, ambition, sacrifice, and suffering in this narrative RPG, where your actions determine not only your own fate but also the fate of those around you."

The Life and Suffering of Sir Brante is free to keep on Steam until July 23 to promote the upcoming release of a new game in the same setting, The Life and Suffering of Prince Jerian, which casts you in the role of a crown prince, born to a life of political intrigue. A whole new flavor of suffering to enjoy.

I'll be playing Sir Brante to consider it for inclusion in the toughest choices in PC games listicle. If you can think of anything else that's missing from the list, shout it out in the comments and I'll consider it for addition in a future update.

Remember that photo which stirred all sorts of talk about Amazon's upcoming God of War TV series? Well, the show won't look like that anymore—the role of Kratos is set to be recast since actor Ryan Hurst tore a bicep on set, according to Deadline. Anonymous sources in that story claim Hurst has had surgery and is recovering.

As Deadline points out, this comes after Hurst "underwent a physical transformation" and put on 40 pounds of muscle specifically to play Kratos. But for such a physical role and with a child actor (who's in every scene with the character, one assumes) to consider, it seems starting over is the simplest way forward for Amazon.

Production paused right after the injury and is planned to restart by mid-October with someone new in the role. In other words, any scenes that have already been shot will have to be redone—with four episodes already wrapped, that's a huge reset. After a mixed reaction to that initial photo, Hurst won't get the chance to prove his naysayers wrong in the end.

Hurst is also in Christopher Nolan's new Odyssey movie as Mentor, and theater-avoidant gamers may know him as Thor in God of War: Ragnarok or Beta in AMC's Walking Dead series. It's not clear who will take his place, but given the reported production schedule, we won't be waiting long to find out.

Setbacks aside, at least the show will be easier to experience on your PC than God of War Laufey, which seems likely to forego the PC.

If hell is other people, heaven might just be Erenshor—assuming you like old-school MMOs in the style of EverQuest, anyway. It's very much that style of game, but in a simulated solo world where other 'players' are just computer-controlled NPCs called simplayers. You can even party up and form a guild with them, which will come in handy now that raids are live.

They arrived last Monday in the Planar March patch, and solo developer Brian of Burgee Media called it "the biggest day for Erenshor since its launch" in the Steam community release blog.

"When I promised raids I had no idea how the heck I was going to implement it. It sort of hung over my head like an intimidating shadow until I finally dove into it," he wrote. "With the help of the amazing community of testers, all of your feedback, and a few really late nights, it's here!"

There are four raid zones, as well as 21 new bosses to kill in exchange for fat loots. You can create raid teams in the guild menu and they'll automatically join when you start the instance—no stopping to wait for someone to pay the pizza guy or head back to a capital city so they can repair all their broken gear, I imagine.

As a lifelong MMO casual who struggles to make time for raid night, this sounds like a dream come true simply for the convenience factor. I do wonder how Erenshor will retain the difficulty and sense of scale you get in an online raid without making you wrangle several dozen real people's schedules and manually ensure they all know what their class does, but considering this is based on the pre-World of Warcraft world of MMOs, I'm sure there's plenty of glorious grinding and dying in store anyway.

It seems like Erenshor has found a hungry audience for its simulated world. You can buy it on Steam, where it sits at a "very positive" rating with 94% of user reviews recommending the game.

The country I lead is in uproar. My approval ratings have to be measured on entirely new axes to capture popular upset. The streets throng with rebels and malcontents. The only reason I have not been assassinated is that the sheer number of people who want to murder me cannot fit through the door at the same time.

The election takes place tomorrow. The situation is excellent.

The United Kingdom is in a parlous state (I'm talking about real life now). The current Labour prime minister—who I will not name because that's simply not information any of us will ever need again—has resigned and a new one, former Manchester mayor Andy Burnham, is imminent. Based largely on vibes and the fact Burnham has a northern accent, the British elite is girding itself for hyper-Bolshevism. How will the nation fare under our imminent war communist regime?

I can answer that. Using cutting edge models (a copy of political sim Democracy 4), I have exhaustively plotted out the trajectory of a radical premiership in an exacting replica of the UK in 2026. Friends, I've cracked it. My advanced technologies have revealed exactly what course Britain's prime minister should take. Join me as I walk you through it.

What is to be done?

Of course, to accurately foresee the possible political trajectories of the UK, my simulation needs to reflect the country as it is. The British Isles are a peculiar beast, and capturing them in simulation means I need to be able to make a variety of fine-tuned adjustments.

Fortunately, Democracy 4:

1. Lets you simply choose the UK as a country to run from a list of options.
2. Lets you tweak it a little bit before you hit the road.

Per YouGov polling, the British public considers itself +15% liberal-leaning and +3% socialist-leaning, which I duly reflected in Democracy's settings. The national debt—a made-up number the Treasury invents to give the chancellor something to talk about in meetings—is around £3 trillion. Into the simulator it goes.

But it wasn't quite enough. This might be my home country numerically, but the spirit wasn't there—I had detail without soul. The sine qua non of British politics was missing. Some subtle, herbal ingredient was absent.

It came to me. I named all three main parties The Fascists and gave them different-coloured rosettes.

Nationalised sausages

My UK simulacrum—simUKlacrum—was mostly perfect. The skies were grey, the people dour, the spending high, the income low, the bourgeois revolution frustratingly incomplete. The only thing that seemed off was that my party—the Burnham crew—inexplicably had 10 million members and climbing. If I woke up tomorrow and heard that 10 million people had joined any UK political party I would immediately flee the country.

Apart from that? All verisimilitudinous: a true-to-life canvas on which to etch the social revolution. I decided my first move would be to try to bring that debt down—bringing expenditure below spending by waging a merciless Red Terror on the City of London and military-industrial complex.

We started as we meant to go on: boldly. Democracy 4 tasks you with balancing ministers' loyalty and their capability when selecting your cabinet. You might have troops who would go to war for you, but who would be useless at implementing your policies, or vice versa. Both are important.

I completely disregarded this and filled every post with the most obedient stooges I had to hand. Then we got to work.

The UK nuclear arsenal? Abolished. The military? Reduced to five of England's reddest dads. Corporation tax went up, capital gains had their pockets turned out; the nation's wealthy were a tube of delicious tomato paste and I was the chef de partie.

Shark-infested waters

International capital was not happy with this turn of events. The UK credit rating tumbled down a cliff face and smashed its head into every rock along the way: AAA became AA became BB became CCC became C—the ruling class was mashing the keyboard to register its displeasure, as meanwhile rivals took advantage of our newly hamstrung defences.

Argentina planted a flag on the Falklands, Russian ships drifted alarmingly close to the coast. At one point pirates manifested. I had implemented socialism in one country with such forceful enthusiasm I had somehow returned us to the Age of Sail.

None of this particularly bothered me. Let credit agencies toss entire cans of alphabetti spaghetti at me, let Argentina call them Las Malvinas. If Russia wants to paddle menacingly in our waters I'll just add it to the yearly tourism stats. Pirates are fun!

What did bother me was that the British public wasn't too psyched about how things were going either. I had come into office with unenviable approval polling and my moves to reshape the national finances along more egalitarian lines had only made things worse. Though, hilariously, I never polled as badly as the actual, real-life Labour Party, things were nonetheless on a downward trend. Even more galling: expenditure still outpaced income to the tune of £15 billion or so.

I consulted my advisers—a YouTube clip of Limmy saying don't back down, double down—and decided the answer was to become even more radically communist than I had been previously.

The five-turn plan

We needed new policies, not just tweaks to the old one. I began by implementing city farms: new kolkhozes to feed a hungry people as their fortress weathers capitalist assault.

I went further. We banned cryptocurrency, subsidised healthy food, handed out university grants to anyone who showed interest in buying a book, and taxed employers who used AI. Inflation spiralled and expenditure climbed, but my polling stabilised. Britain did not love me, but its hatred stopped growing.

Then two things happened which turned things around. First, I legislated the right to die. Britain loved this. They went absolutely nuts for it, as though they had been waiting around for someone to tell them they could die for decades. My polling shot through the roof. By which I mean it entered the general vicinity of 43% or so.

Shortly after, the whole credit rating and inflation scenario got so bad that parliament declared a state of emergency. Paradoxically, this meant I—the guy who had very much caused all this—now had way more power and political capital than I did before. I went hogwild with it. I created a state postal service and dragged its slider all the way to the right: maximum postal service. State airlines got the same treatment, as did the NHS, which now had sufficient annual income to cure death.

I also embarked on a bold policy of 'giving everyone free money,' which was popular. All of this was well-timed: the election was now imminent.

All power to the soviets

Here we come full circle, right back to where I started this piece. Britain was a nation cut in two. Socialists, trade unionists, and the poor (all of which are actual, modelled voter groups in Democracy 4) loved me. Meanwhile, in the blue corner, religious conservatives and capitalists had become so outraged at my leadership they had begun to create armed paramilitaries with names like "The Angels of Heavenly Justice."

The question was: who could better mobilise at the ballot box? Also, could I make it to the election without some modern-day Fanny Kaplan taking my head off with a light machine gun?

I hit the campaign trail with the aim of infuriating my enemies even further. There would be no rapprochement, no outreach, no olive branch to my foes. I had no interest in winning over floating voters or in persuading anyone who was not firmly in the tank already. Every speech I gave had the goal of inciting my followers to a spittle-flecked fever pitch. Meanwhile, I focused my campaign on slandering my opponents.

Somehow, it worked. 70% of my base turned out to put an X next to my name, while my nearest competitors barely managed 46%. The result was that, on a nationwide turnout of 72%, I came away with 30 million votes (or 44.7% overall), completely blowing my reactionary foes out of the water.

Britain's credit was in the tank, Russia was on the verge of seizing Kent, and buying a loaf of bread required one of those duffel bags full of cash they have in Heat, but the people were with me. I had been re-elected. The red dawn brings a bright new day.

Feel the burn

What can we take from this? In real life, Britain will soon get its new prime minister, and the compromises have already begun. Many of the faces and ideas that surrounded the outgoing, now-despised PM are already reappearing.

Clearly, this is doomed. As my rigorous testing has proved, what 21st century Britain needs is a sweeping cavalcade of courageous policies. We need collective farms, punitive taxes, the immediate execution of anyone with a business studies qualification. Bold, radical action—this is what science says this green and pleasant land requires.

That is, if you want to win the next election. I guess if not then, hey, just keep doing whatever.

Mr Burnham, I'm just a phone call away.

I have occasionally been accused of cynicism. And by occasionally, I mean every damn day of my life. For this week's Dungeon Master column, however, I am choosing the path of optimism. Specifically, when it comes to Obsidian and its ability to make a great follow up to Fallout: New Vegas, despite everything.

Since 2004, the studio has crafted a litany of exceptional RPGs. Knights of the Old Republic 2, Neverwinter Nights 2, Alpha Protocol, Fallout: New Vegas, South Park: The Stick of Truth, Pillars of Eternity, Tyranny, Pillars of Eternity 2—what an incredible run.

Sure, sandwiched between that lot we got games like Armored Warfare and Skyforge—forgettable detours that kept the lights on—and I'm less enamoured with its later offerings, but Obsidian still has an enviable track record, and for 14 years it felt like it couldn't miss.

Over this period, Obsidian worked with a lot of different publishers, and it never seemed able to find its forever partner. Right from the get-go, things were rocky. LucasArts gave the KotOR 2 team a mere 15 months to develop the highly-anticipated sequel, which seems shocking now, but less so in the early 2000s. Unsurprisingly, it wasn't long enough. The game was delayed, cuts were made, and the game launched in a messy state.

But it was astonishing. Obsidian eschewed the well-trodden path to tell a story that completely recontextualised core Star Wars elements like the Force. If KotOR was Baldur's Gate, KotOR 2 was Planescape: Torment—philosophical, tragic, beautifully written.

It was a challenging beginning for the young studio, and the challenges just kept on coming.

Obsidian seemed to have an easier go of things with Atari and Neverwinter Nights 2. Atari pushed back the deadline to give the team more time, and there was support from BioWare as well. But at the same time it had a project canned by Disney, and then Sega, who Obsidian worked with again on Alpha Protocol, a game that struggled to come together thanks to both the studio and publisher.

Despite this, Alpha Protocol still ended up being pretty special. Sales were poor, but it still maintains a cult following—particularly among game journalists. Every year, when we're figuring out the Top 100, Alpha Protocol is in that discussion.

Fallout: New Vegas, arguably Obsidian's most celebrated game, had its fair share of troubles, too. Bethesda gave Obsidian only 18 months to develop the RPG—the studio's largest and most ambitious project to date. The tight deadline and the team's inexperience with Bethesda's tech, specifically the Gamebryo engine, led to an extremely janky game at launch—to the point where it was fundamentally broken in parts. There was also a significant amount of cut content.

Its success, then, was impressive. It's often touted as the best of the Bethesda-era Fallouts, or the best Fallout ever, which feels like a fair assessment. Its glaring flaws, however, could not be overlooked by everyone, netting the game a Metacritic score that wasn't quite high enough to earn the developers a bonus from Bethesda.

After failing to talk Atari into giving it enough money to make Baldur's Gate 3, Obsidian took matters into its own hands and Kickstarted Pillars of Eternity—an Infinity Engine love letter. It was make or break for the studio, which was close to bankruptcy. It pulled through. The campaign was a huge success, and Pillars lived up to the studio's promises.

Paradox Interactive was the publisher this time, and the pair would work on one more project together, Tyranny, before they had a slightly awkward breakup. Sadly, Tyranny's story remains incomplete. It wasn't designed to stand alone, but hopes of a sequel were swiftly crushed. Then we got Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire, another crowdfunded CRPG. It's Obsidian's best CRPG, hands down, but it sold poorly.

This led to some soul searching at Obsidian. Because both games in the series were crowdfunded, Obsidian was determined to give players what they said they wanted. Indeed, Josh Sawyer called Pillars of Eternity and its sequel "the most compromised games" he'd ever worked on, because backers wanted an Infinity Engine-style game, which meant he had to accept "bad designed decisions" in the name of nostalgia. And it worked for Pillars 1, so why not Deadfire?

Basically, Obsidian couldn't figure out what went wrong. Were CRPGs dead again? Did people just not care about sequels? The imminent arrival and astronomical success of Disco Elysium and Baldur's Gate 3 suggested this wasn't the case. One thing was clear, though: Obsidian needed to "re-examine the entire format" of the series.

Now we've arrived in the Microsoft era. Obsidian was acquired by Xbox—an incredibly weird fit—at the end of 2018. And then we got The Outer Worlds—a game that, despite its polish, felt a lot more stuck in the past than its isometric CRPGs. It was fine. It had all the ingredients one would expect from an Obsidian RPG. But it seemed to be missing the secret sauce. It didn't feel ambitious or weird, and storytelling-wise it was a massive step back.

Most of the people who made Obsidian this great studio were still around. Microsoft's massacre was still years away. But something had definitely changed. Avowed followed, and we finally got to see the product of Obsidian's re-examination of Pillars of Eternity.

Avowed's journey to launch is fascinating, and in hindsight feels like pretty clear evidence that Obsidian had lost confidence after Deadfire. Avowed was initially pitched as a multiplayer game: a first-person, open-world fantasy romp like The Elder Scrolls, but with a Destiny-style multiplayer component. Microsoft seemed to like it so much they bought the entire studio, but the multiplayer element was ditched.

If you cast your mind back to 2024, you might recall how worried Obsidian had become about the Skyrim comparisons. Basically, every single time someone from Obsidian discussed Avowed, they tried to make it very clear that it wasn't doing its own take on The Elder Scrolls (despite that being the initial pitch). Which was reasonable, in that Obsidian definitely did not make something that felt like Skyrim. But it was also hard not to read this as nervousness.

Instead, Obsidian said, it was a fantasy take on The Outer Worlds. Which probably seemed like a safe bet. The Outer Worlds has never garnered the love enjoyed by a lot of its earlier games, but it was a commercial success. Trying to fit a Pillars game into that mould probably sounded sensible, if conservative. Unfortunately, Avowed was neither a commercial success or a big hit critically—though it wasn't particularly badly received either. It did OK.

The Outer Worlds was popular enough to receive a sequel, and while Obsidian's second outing in that universe improved on the first, the writing, the characters, the world building—it all felt like a studio trying to copy Obsidian, and more specifically Fallout, but failing to capture what made its previous games special.

Somehow, a survival game, Grounded, and a narrative adventure, Pentiment, have ended up being the best games of the Microsoft era so far. Despite the genres not being in Obsidian's traditional wheelhouse, they still seemed to capture the old magic.

With Grounded, it was the world building, and the setting in general—not only was it fun and inventive, it tied everything together beautifully. And with Pentiment, it was all about the characters and writing. Sharp, funny, starting from a point where there's an assumption that players are smart enough to vibe with a wordy ecclesiastical mystery.

These games were evidence that Obsidian was still full of talented designers. So what went wrong with the RPGs? The Outer Worlds in particular should have been an unmitigated slam dunk. Tim Cain and Leonard Boyarsky had returned, and there'd been this hope that RPG fans would be dining on something just as brilliant as Fallout. But it never happened.

Is Microsoft to blame? That would be an easy answer, but one that doesn't hold up to much scrutiny. The Outer Worlds was already in development when the acquisition began. Was it the team's lack of familiarity with Unreal Engine 4? Probably not. Obsidian's last few RPGs have been a lot more polished than its usual fare, and by Avowed and The Outer Worlds 2, both Unreal Engine 5 games, it had plenty of experience.

I'm increasingly convinced that it's a rut brought on by the studio's inability to figure out why Deadfire didn't set the world ablaze. It's certainly what led to Avowed, but it sure seems like The Outer Worlds is a product of the studio's growing doubts. There's also the hint of a midlife crisis. Obsidian is pretty old, remember. It was founded 23 years ago, but really it's even older than that, spawning as it did out of Black Isle.

So how does it get out of this rut? Condensing its 23-year-history into an article like this, it does look a bit like bouncing from project to project, skirting bankruptcy, and navigating the weird demands and expectations of myriad publishers pushed Obsidian into making its best games. But this explanation—that Obsidian does its best work when everything is on fire—leaves a bad taste in the mouth.

I want to make one thing very clear: Microsoft's apocalyptic ravaging of the videogame industry is reprehensible. It swallowed up a bunch of studios it had no idea what to do with, and now the devs are being punished for Microsoft's mismanagement. I hate that Obsidian staff got a tiny taste of job security and then had it mercilessly snatched away. It absolutely sucks.

If this was any other studio, I'm not sure it could survive losing a quarter of its employees before being tasked with developing a sequel to its most ambitious and celebrated RPG. But this is Obsidian. For 23 years, it's been relentlessly screwed over by publishers and still managed to put out some of the best RPGs ever made.

So it would be ghoulish to suggest that the layoffs and instability will improve Obsidian. And bullshit, too. You don't make a good game by firing a bunch of talent. But Obsidian is a survivor. It takes shitty situations and makes gold.

And I'm pretty sure New Vegas 2 is its best chance of doing that. It's got the talent and the experience, and for most of the last decade it's essentially been trying to do its own Fallout with The Outer Worlds. And while there are a lot of things I dislike about The Outer Worlds and its sequel, I think it really boils down to one thing: these games want to be Fallout, but they're not. It's like the uncanny valley effect—their proximity to Fallout showed up all the ways in which they weren't as good as Fallout.

Obsidian has earned grace and faith. As critical as I am regarding its last trio of RPGs, how can I not feel at least somewhat confident that it can knock New Vegas 2 out of the park?

So I truly think the studio will rise to the occasion. Obsidian knows how to make a good Fallout, Josh Sawyer knows how to make a good Fallout. It's trapped in a relationship with one of the scummiest publishers around, it's lost a lot of talent, and after this month's massacre I think everything Xbox-related will be irrevocably tainted. But Obsidian has been set up to fail several times before, and it frequently manages to surprise us.

PC games have been foisting tricky decisions on players since back in 1985 when Ultima 4 made us navigate a moral compass with eight different spokes to prove we were Britannia's best boy. But the Big Decision Era really kicked off in 2003 when Knights of the Old Republic made us pick between the light side and the dark, and every videogame was stuffed with choices people could fill their blogs arguing about. (We all had a blog in 2003. It was the law.)

Those obligatory Big Decisions didn't always come off as tricky as they were supposed to. Fable's cartoonish morality was more of a toy to play with than a series of dilemmas to wrestle with, and BioShock making you choose between being a child murderer and a child non-murderer wasn't really a choice at all. Especially since the good playthrough offered even more rewards, albeit slightly delayed. And let's not even talk about the daft ending choice of Far Cry 3.

Other developers nailed it, though. BioWare and Telltale in particular made Big Decisions their calling card, and we kept coming back for more. While some didn't land, or didn't have the impactful consequences we were hoping for, they still felt difficult in the moment.

Here are the toughest choices we've ever made in PC games. Watch out for spoilers, especially if you haven't played The Walking Dead, Life is Strange, Dishonored, or the Mass Effect trilogy.

Prey

Blow up a shuttle full of civilians to stop the infestation?

Mimics in D&D are kind of annoying. You think you're going to get some sweet loot out of a treasure chest or sit on a comfy chair, then suddenly it's got teeth and it wants to eat your hand and/or your bottom.

Mimics in Prey are even worse. They're aliens who can disguise themselves as any object, and they're the leading edge of an infestation of beings called typhon. If a single one makes it to Earth the whole planet is screwed. They've already taken over the Talos I space station you're trapped on in Prey, and your mission is to explore the station until you get access to the self-destruct controls to prevent the typhon's spread.

Partway through, you find out that a shuttle called the Advent left Talos I on a routine trip to Earth half an hour before the infestation was discovered. Maybe the Advent's free of mimics, maybe it's not. You've got no way of telling, but fortunately it hasn't reached Earth yet and you can blow it up before it does at the press of a button.

There's no reward or punishment for either decision, though you can do some research and find out just enough details about the passengers to make you feel real bad about obliterating them. Prey opens with a psychological test where you're presented with the classic trolley problem, then makes you follow through on it when you know the names of the people on the tracks.

The Walking Dead

Who do you feed?

The Walking Dead is the poster child for difficult choices in videogames, and Clementine is the poster child for children in videogames. When you jam a pitchfork into a bad man's chest, she's there, and has been watching the whole time with her big remembering eyes. Decisions you might have made without thinking become fraught because now you know an eight-year-old girl is watching you like a hawk, learning how to survive the zombie apocalypse based on what you do.

While there are plenty of choices about who to save and whether to hack off an infected limb, the one that'll probably keep you agonizing the longest seems less immediately fraught. There are 10 survivors and you've only got four food items. Who do you give them to?

Some of the survivors are kids, and some of them are adults who need the energy to keep working on your makeshift base's defenses. Some of them are friends who've earned your trust, and others are jerks you may dislike but could win over so they have your back in the future. It's a string of tough calls, and once you've handed out the first three items you're faced with another choice. Do you keep the last meal for yourself, or give it away too? For this choice Clementine isn't the only one watching. The whole group has their eyes on you, and they will remember this.

The Banner Saga

Defend the bridge, destroy the bridge, or flee?

The Banner Saga begins as it means to go on. It tells you to make sure this nice boy named Egil stays alive, then pops him on the battlefield, and after you've struggled to protect him there, it presents a narrative choice where he can immediately drop dead if you select the wrong option.

Throughout this cross between Oregon Trail, Final Fantasy Tactics, and that one Tom Cardy song about how much walking there is in The Lord of the Rings, you'll face plenty of difficult decisions for the caravan of refugees you're trying to protect and the named characters who protect them in turn-based battles. Those decisions pile up toward the end of the first game in a climactic siege in the city of Einartoft.

The last city of the varl (horned Viking giants slowly going extinct), Einartoft is pretty special to its people and their king. Especially the bridge that leads into it, a feat of varl engineering the king is protective of. That bridge is unfortunately being flooded by your enemies, the dredge, and your life would be a lot easier if you could just demolish the thing.

So begins a siege presented as several days of exhausting decision points. You can march onto the bridge to help defend it, tell your wizard it's time to blow the supports, or just book it out of town. Maybe today you can march up to the Great Hall to try to talk the king into letting you destroy it without having to fight through a bunch of varl, or maybe today you can help the defenders without having to fight alongside them. Maybe today is the day one of those choices results in Egil dying, even if you shepherded him all the way here through hours of other events where the poor boy can pop his clogs.

Dishonored

Kill your targets, or make them suffer a fate worse than death?

Making "high chaos" choices in Dishonored, like murdering your political opponents, is discouraged in several ways. The higher the chaos the further the plague spreads, resulting in more rats in the street and more guards too. Given that you can possess rats as a convenient way to get around, and killing guards with your cool Outsider powers is the most fun part of the game, maybe that's not such a huge discouragement. However, the higher the chaos gets, the more disturbing the pictures your daughter Emily draws of you become. And that's why I backed down from a high-chaos playthrough.

What makes it tough is that the low-chaos ways of dealing with your opponents are often worse than just assassinating them. In one case you leave a man with his head shaved and tongue severed, forced to serve as a slave in the salt mine he used to own. Then there's Lady Boyle. If you choose not to murder her ladyship, the alternative is to kidnap her and hand her over to the stalker who is obsessed with her, and will take her to his private island where he believes she'll learn to love him. Eventually.

You know what, maybe Emily's portraits could stand to get a little disturbed. It's normal for kids to go through a bit of a Tim Burton phase, right?

Mass Effect 2

Destroy or reprogram the heretic geth?

In the first Mass Effect it's pretty easy to stick to the Paragon path. If you make Renegade choices Commander Shepherd is just as likely to act like a xenophobic nutbar as the rulebreaking badass we want them to be. BioWare learned its lesson by Mass Effect 2, where some of the choices become properly nailbiting. For instance, what do you do with the reaper-aligned heretic geth?

These sentient robots have found themselves fighting for the species-deleting reapers because of a bug in their programming, but one that cannot be completely removed. Once you figure this out, the Paragon choice is to temporarily rewrite their programming to make them peaceful, knowing that as soon as another reaper comes along they'll be just as susceptible to its commands and resume being murderbots.

Destroying the heretic geth is the Renegade choice, but it's also much more practical. Let them live and you'll just have to fight them again later after they've attacked your friends the quarians again. In the long run, the Paragon choice results in more death. But hey, at least you earned some blue points for it.

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

Kill or free the tree spirit?

Geralt hates being forced to pick the lesser of two evils, which is why The Witcher games love making him do exactly that. The Whispering Hillock quest is a perfect example. First, it introduces a crew of cheeky orphans who live in a swamp with their "Gran". (Their line, "Gran! Gran! Bumblebee bit Yagna in the arse!" is one of the funniest things in the entire game.) Gran's also a servant of the three creepy crones, the Ladies of the Wood, who might be able to tell you where Ciri is.

The crones demand a boon before sharing what they know, sending you to help Downwarren, a village where the locals cut a deal with the crones in return for protection and "a giant pot of boiled meat" once a year. Downwarren's ealdorman wants you to kill a tree spirit under a hill because it's been slaughtering villagers. (Villagers who started clearing the hill's trees on behalf of the crone, of course.)

Travel under the hill and the tree spirit will beg for its life, saying it was imprisoned here by the crones in the first place. It also tells you those loveable orphans have been kidnapped by the crones for a feast. That giant pot of boiled meat starts to seem a bit more sinister. If you free the tree spirit, it promises to rescue the orphans.

It's true to its word if you do, though it does also have its revenge on the people of Downwarren. And the crones take their revenge by cursing Gran, which is a problem because she's the Bloody Baron's estranged wife, and when the curse kills her he takes his life. As a final knock-on effect, without him around to control them, the Bloody Baron's men go on a rampage harassing the area's peasants. If you kill the tree spirit instead the people of Downwarren and Gran get to live, though the trauma sends her mad, and all those mischievous orphans end up in the pot. This is why Geralt hates having to choose.

Batman: The Telltale Series

Is it worth owing a favor to the Joker?

Telltale's Batman is set early in his career, which means your decisions about whether to play a brutal Dark Knight or a compassionate Caped Crusader also shape your villains. You meet characters like Two-Face and Catwoman before their relationships with you have solidified, and get to choose how they play out.

This version of Bruce Wayne has never even heard of the Joker, so when his political opponents have him declared insane and locked in Arkham Asylum, with his only ally as a mysterious guy named "John Doe" who just happens to have chalk-white skin and green hair, how do you treat him? Do you stay in character, grateful for the help as Bruce would be in the situation, or does your knowledge of who John Doe will become shape how you react? What if that distrust and mistreatment makes him even worse in the future?

John Doe is basically Brad Pitt in Twelve Monkeys to your Bruce Willis, helping you survive and ultimately escape the asylum. He just wants one thing in return: an unspecified favor, at some undetermined point in the future. In the moment it doesn't matter whether you admit you owe the guy or let him down, but in the long run you'll have it hanging over your head.

According to Telltale's stats screen, 49.5% of players choose to owe the favor, while 50.5% don't. It's not as life-or-death as many of the other choices Telltale put in front of us, but it's one of the clearest splits down the middle in their entire catalogue.

Dragon Age: Origins

Who becomes king of the dwarves?

Fight, fight, intractable moral quandary, fight, fight. That's Dragon Age: Origins pretty much from beginning to end, interspersing combat with such knuckle-gnawing choices as what to do with a guard whose entire happy family life is a succubus hallucination, whether to kill or spare Flemeth, the ultimate fate of the Architect in the Awakening expansion, and who rules Orzammar.

When you arrive in the dwarven kingdom of Orzammar, you find a realm divided. You need the dwarves' help fighting the Blight, but they're in no position to assist until they have a new king. The quests you undertake in Orzammar influence the standing of either the honorable traditionalist Harrowmont or the scheming progressive Bhelen, and in the end it's up to you who wears the crown.

Bhelen's support for lower-class casteless dwarves may be to your liking, especially if you played the Dwarf Commoner origin and come from humble beginnings yourself. His being a murdering bastard may not be to your liking, especially if you played the Dwarf Noble (one of the best origins), which makes him your brother and betrayer. But while Harrowmont is a more decent chap, his staid conservative outlook will lock Orzammar into isolationism and division, a long-term negative that impacts the entire world.

Frostpunk

Child labor, yea or nay?

It's pretty easy to be broadly anti-child labor in your day-to-day life. It doesn't come up real often, you know? And then Frostpunk puts you in charge of a bunch of Victorian-era Brits facing a new Ice Age and points out that if you don't enact child labor laws, a third of your population will be idle when they could be shoveling coal into the machines that keep everyone alive.

If you don't crack open the Book of Laws to enforce the one that says Little Timmy needs to work the furnace, you'll have to build a bunch of space-consuming shelters for the kids instead. If you do pass the child labor law, you'll have to face the consequences once they start being injured at work. Their parents aren't going to be too happy about Little Timmy being mangled by the machinery.

Like every decision in Frostpunk it's lose-lose, and yet we keep coming back for more. Just like Oliver Twist famously did—at least, until the incident.

Fallout 3

Leave the Wasteland to wither, or force a man to live as a tree?

Harold's a recurring character across the early Fallout games, an irascible mutant you meet in the first Fallout, Fallout 2, and Fallout 3. (He's also in Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel, but we don't talk about that.) In the second game his mutation's progressed to the point a twig starts growing out his head, which he calls Bob. By Fallout 3 he's more plant than man, rooted to the ground and surrounded by trees that have grown from his seeds in a settlement called Oasis.

The treeminders who live around Bob have a pretty decent life by Wasteland standards. Some of them want to spread that bounty even further, with a special sap that will make Bob grow faster and turn the desert green. Others are concerned about drawing attention, worried that Harold might be experimented on by unscrupulous sorts, arguing that his growth should be slowed instead. Meanwhile, Harold is sick of being trapped inside a tree, and begs for death.

So what do you do? Grant Harold his wish, dooming Oasis and the one chance the Capital Wasteland has of becoming something more than radioactive ash? Or ignore the crusty old coot's demand and make him blossom at the risk of drawing the Enclave's attention? Or try to walk the line down the middle, keeping Harold trapped inside Bob and Oasis safe, at the cost of putting off the Wasteland's regeneration for even longer?

One prevailing bit of industry wisdom about MMOs is the idea that they're a little grey in the beard—and so are their players, too. We can see a little of that in design philosophies for the modern MMORPG, which have leant more towards seasonal structures over long-term grinds, alongside more stuff to do for "midcore" players, who might be decently competent, but lack the time for organised play.

There's also the point that most popular MMOs themselves are old—World of Warcraft's past its 20th year, FF14 is past its 10th. Newer games, like Amazon's New World, don't last long. Even Guild Wars 2, which I could've sworn was spritely, came out in 2012. Where the hell does the time even go?

But I'm curious as to how that translates to you, dear reader. I myself have been playing MMOs since middle school—and while I did indeed beg my parents for a World of Warcraft subscription back in vanilla, I was playing RuneScape and bragging about my Granite Maul long before that.

Which does put me in the category of "I've got a 9/5 now and bills to pay". No longer shall I stay up until three in the morning, questing in the barrens—my CPAP calls to me and my eyes grow heavy if I stay up past midnight. Truly tragic scenes.

Thus it's incumbent upon me to discover if I am indeed preaching to the choir when I talk about the good old days, or whether I need to try and fit in with the youth of today a little more. Perhaps I shall purloin a skateboard and a backwards cap to become 'cool' and 'relatable'.

Or perhaps you're all decade+ veterans like me. Either way, go and have a gander at the poll below, and if you feel like sharing some war stories from your MMO heyday (or just want to call the rest of us… chopped? Is that the word for old? I can't keep up), feel free to drop a comment below, as well.

Survival games are obsessed with the grind. Need a better axe? You've got to spend an hour collecting stone. Want to build a bigger base? Time to manually ferry hundreds of logs from one storage chest to another. Somewhere along the line, the genre started confusing friction with depth.

But there are only so many trees I'm prepared to punch, so when Palworld originally came to Steam's early access platform, I dismissed it as "Pokémon with guns", a novelty that happened to explode, but would undoubtedly fade into obscurity as people looked for the next survival game to dig into.

With the massively successful 1.0 release, it seemed like it was finally time to give it a proper go. After spending some hours with Palworld, I've discovered the thing that makes it special has almost nothing to do with the Pokémon bits, but everything to do with the way its "Pals" hack away at the busywork that's become synonymous with the survival genre.

Sure, you're catching creatures that look like copyright-infringement claims waiting to happen, in the shape of cats, llamas, and manta rays, and while it is satisfying to pick up a fox and use it like a flamethrower, the best use for these pets is getting them to do all of the hard work for you.

It doesn't happen immediately. You'll still spend your first few hours punching trees, mining rocks, and cobbling together a shelter that looks like it'll collapse if someone sneezes too hard. But before long, something changes. You catch a handful of Pals with useful work skills and your little campsite starts looking less like a collection of crafting benches and more like a functioning ecosystem.

One Pal is chopping wood. Another is watering crops. Someone's hauling resources into storage while another plants and harvests. You stop thinking about your base as somewhere you have to constantly maintain, and instead start treating it like a place that works without you.

When I began to run out of resources building my new beachfront property, I found I could nip back to my first base where my little Pals had been diligently harvesting stone, wood, and berries, and hoover up their hard work, even if it was going towards building a base that would eventually supplant them.

It's easy to get started, too, you just have to make sure your Pals have a good mix of skills and they'll largely get on with it. This feels like a magic trick, because in most survival games leaving your base is irresponsible at best. If you want to go out and find adventure, your progress back home grinds to a halt as crops don't grow and supplies dwindle.

Here, though, that equation gets flipped upside down, and you have a team of mostly happy helpers to keep things organised without you.

The best part is that this changes how you spend your time. Instead of standing around waiting for ore to turn into ingots, you're climbing mountains looking for Alpha Pals. Instead of spending half an hour harvesting, you're trying to sneak into an oil rig that's almost certainly above your level because you spotted it on the horizon.

The world keeps moving while you're out experiencing it, and this means you're spending a lot less time playing with your phone out, holding down the button to mine. It does happen, but automation isn't there so you can do nothing—it's there so you can spend more time doing fun stuff, whatever fun stuff means for you.

It's also one of the smartest uses of creature collecting I've seen. Most monster-catching games ask whether a creature is good in combat, but Palworld also asks you what they're good at around the home. It's about whether they're better at logging than your current workforce, whether they'll keep your production chain ticking over, or whether they're exactly what's missing from the increasingly elaborate Pal pyramid scheme that runs your base while you doss about looking for treasure chests.

Of course, Palworld hasn't removed survival mechanics altogether, nor should it. You're still unlocking technologies, expanding your base, and making decisions about how to optimise production. There's still resource gathering, crafting, and all the systems you'd expect from the genre. The difference is that once you've proven you understand those systems, the game doesn't make you perform every repetitive task by hand.

That feels surprisingly rare in modern survival games. Too many titles seem terrified that players will run out of things to do if they aren't constantly feeding another crafting queue or collecting another stack of wood.

Palworld recognises that the reason most people pick up an open-world survival game isn't because they dream of optimising a production chain. Well, unless you're playing Satisfactory. No, it's that the most exciting part has never been the chores—it's everything waiting just beyond the edge of your base.

I'd completely forgotten Valve is working on an update for Team Fortress 2's cooperative Mann vs. Machine mode, though in my defence, it's been a long time since we last heard about it. The prospective patch was announced in June last year, via a blog post on TF2's official website that requested map and mission submissions from the community in time for this update—with a "fictional deadline" of August 27.

After that deadline passed, a brief progress report was provided in September. But for the past ten months there's been radio silence. Now though, Valve has provided another snippet of info on the patch's status on its blog. "We wanted to give everyone an update on the update we already gave on the update we're working on, and here it is: We're still working on the MvM update."

That isn't everything Valve had to say on the matter. But it is about half of it. Valve elaborated that "it's taking a lot longer to sort through the new content and changes that we'd originally planned, but we promise we're making progress. Thanks for being patient!"

This tracks with the progress report Valve gave back in September, where it explained that its request for community contributions resulted in "way more" submissions than it expected. At the time, Valve admitted it didn't "have a release date for the update yet" but it would be "going through the submissions and working on it".

Obviously, Valve could allocate more resources to getting this update out of the door if it wanted to, given that Steam alone has raked in an estimated $11.1 billion in revenue this year—not to mention the money Valve makes from Counter-Strike 2, Dota 2, and the tens of thousands of players still involved with TF2.

But that isn't how Valve operates. The company's flat structure means staff tend to drift between projects through a blend of desire and demand, and there's been a lot happening this year that is likely to be of higher priority than updating TF2. This includes the launch of the Steam Machine and the upcoming release of the Steam Frame, alongside the ongoing development of Deadlock.

Yet while major updates for TF2 are sporadic, with the last arriving in 2023 and pushing player counts to an all-time high, the game does get minor patches on a regular basis. Earlier this month, TF2 received an update that added a bunch of community maps, cosmetics, taunts and so forth, with a flurry of smaller patches following to fix bugs and tweak parameters related to that update.

I'm known around the PC Gamer streets as a bit of a mouse pad nerd. Though that's just because I take the surface my little rodent skates across seriously, as you should. If you're playing a game that requires good aim, a good pad can be just as important for your gameplay experience as high fps, up to a certain point.

Naturally, then, I fell under the spell of glass mouse pads for a while. With glass, there's the promise of a very slippery glide, if that's your thing, but more important is the promise of consistency and longevity. Cloth pads collect dust and dirt that can't just be wiped away, and the fibres change over time. That's why pros switch them out so often.

Glass pads aren't like this, though. They do have irregularities etched into their surface to help with friction and sensor tracking, but these don't wear down because they're harder than your mouse skates. Your skates, on the other hand, do wear down quicker, but these are easily replaceable, and a cheap pack of dot skates can last a very long time.

Glass pads do require more maintenance, but not as much as I initially thought. When I first started using one—a QPAD Obsidian—I would wipe it down with a microfibre cloth between almost every two-minute Counter-Strike round, just in case something had gotten on it that could cause the skates to feel horribly scratchy when they ran over it. This does happen, but nowhere near as frequently as I initially thought. But eventually, when using a glass pad, I just wiped it down once or twice every 45-minute game, or if I noticed scratchiness.

There's one other bit of maintenance required, too. Unless you're in a cold climate and have dry skin all the time, you'll probably want to use a gamer sleeve so your arm glides consistently over the pad while you aim, whatever the conditions.

I got used to this maintenance and started using a glass pad, and for a while I was hooked. There's just something about having very little static or dynamic friction and having an incredibly consistent glide that makes you feel like you're in the driver's seat. Every little movement is in your control, as is how smoothly you make those movements.

That seemed fantastic at first, but over time I've found I often don't want that much control. Somewhat paradoxically, I gain control over my aim by giving up some control of my mouse. That shouldn't really be a surprise, though, because 'control' pads are designed to be slower, i.e., providing more resistance to your movements, giving you less free control over your mouse movements. That's the opposite of a glide-y glass pad.

There's definitely a place for glass pads, but I just don't think I'm the target market. They're great if you don't need pinpoint aim and love a smooth glide, or if you need the kind of pinpoint aim that benefits from smooth, consistent tracking with a long time-to-kill (TTK). Games such as Quake Champions or The Finals, for instance.

However, in tactical shooters like Counter-Strike 2 (my go-to game), I find I play much better when using a control cloth pad. I'm able to hold angles better and keep my gun very still, and I can make the small adjustments needed when peeking or occasionally flicking thanks to the increased stopping power and static friction.

I know that over time I could develop finer control over my aim with a glass pad, and maybe then I'd find them to be better. But I did try. I've put dozens of hours in on different glass pads, and I still feel a little relief when going back to a control pad like the Razer Gigantus V2 Pro or Zowie HSR-III, or even a smooth cloth pad like the SteelSeries QcK Performance Speed.

I've even tried a glass mouse pad that's designed to offer a bit more control: the Wallhack CR-005. And this did feel better to begin with, to the extent that I wondered whether it could be my endgame pad. But that control feeling seemed to wear off a little over many hours of gameplay (perhaps, very speculatively, due to skate debris getting stuck between the micro surface bumps), and regardless I still felt on more solid ground, so to speak, when I whapped a cloth pad back on the desk.

I could have stuck it out with glass, but I ask myself: why? If pro players are able to reach their heights on cloth, then I see little incentive to switch to glass over the long-term, and there's little incentive to try and stick it out when I'm not getting the benefit in the short-term, either.

So, unless I ditch Counter-Strike and pick up Quake Champions once again (I'll be holding out for that fabled arena shooter genre comeback until the day I die), I'll be sticking with cloth, I think.

There is one thing that using glass pads has given me which I will continue to use, however: the gamer sleeve.

As I mentioned earlier, in most cases, using a sleeve with a glass pad is essential if you want to keep your arm moving across its surface consistently every time. But a couple of months ago, I heard someone say somewhere (I can't remember where) that a gamer sleeve can even be of benefit when using a cloth pad. So I tried it, and now I can't go back.

Yes, whenever I boot up Counter-Strike, I sleeve up too. Even though I play on cloth. I felt a little sheepish the first few times, but I kept reminding myself that some pro players use them and that nobody is here watching me anyway. But now, it feels as natural as putting on my coat before I go outside in the winter.

And if I forget? It's just as noticeable as forgetting my coat. Without my gamer sleeve on, moving my arm around the mouse pad—aiming with low sensitivity, as you do in Counter-Strike—feels inconsistent at best, and downright slow at worst. But with my trusty half-palm-and-forearm sheath properly donned, my arm scoots around deftly, in exactly the same way every time I boot up the game, whatever the weather.

So thank you, glass pads, for opening my eyes to the wonders of the humble sleeve. You might not have won me over for playing my tactical shooters on your slippery surfaces, but you've given me that.

If you missed out on this year's Steam summer sale, there are still opportunities to grab great games on the cheap. 2K has paired up with Humble for a 2026 'Megahits' bundle that offers 15 games for $15. I'd quibble with that title slightly, but there are numerous must-haves for your Steam library in this bundle, plus one of my personal all-time favourite shooters.

But let's start with the three headline games, which are Risk of Rain 2, Borderlands 3, and Mafia 2. Risk of Rain 2 is the one game from this bundle that I haven't personally played. But Wes Fenlon gave it a very respectable score of 84 in our Risk of Rain 2 review, and there's no question that it's a monstrously popular game.

Borderlands 3 is generally regarded as the weakest entry in the series. Yet while I found its tone grating at times, I enjoyed blasting around its multiple planets with my billions of guns. As for Mafia 2, I don't think it's as strong as the original (or its 2021 remake). But it's still a decent crime caper, well worth running through at least once.

The best games in this bundle, though, are XCOM: Enemy Unknown, Homeworld: Remastered Collection, and Bioshock Infinite. XCOM, of course, brilliantly rebooted Julian Gollop's tactical strategy game about defending the Earth from alien invasion. As it happens, Gollop's XCOM: UFO Defence is included too, and is a superb game in its own right. These days, though, I'd recommend playing Firaxis' version first as it's better at showing you the ropes.

Homeworld and its sequel are both beautiful, unique RTS games, and the remaster does a fine job of polishing them up. As for Bioshock Infinite, I've waxed and waned on it over the years. But while it disappears up its own dimensional rift sometimes, it's still a rollicking FPS adventure.

Also included in the Bundle is Tales from The Borderlands, one of the best latter-day Telltale games, The Quarry, which is basically Until Dawn but slightly worse, ye olde tactical shooters Hidden and Dangerous 1 and 2, Tiny Tina's Wonderlands, Duke Nukem 3D: 20^th Anniversary World Tour, Tribes of Midgard, and The Darkness 2.

Finally, there's the sickos' pick, Bulletstorm: Full Clip Edition. People Can Fly's foul-mouthed, anarchic FPS is genuinely one of my favourite games. Its skillshot system is enormous fun to mess around with, and while it presents as being dumb as rocks, its sci-fi story is surprisingly inventive and delivers some spectacular set-pieces. I'd love to see Bulletstorm get a sequel, even though it'll never happen because the original sold so poorly.

All in all, a mixture of stone-cold classics and quite good sequels and successors—with a combined value of $465. The minimum you can pay is $15—though you can pay more if you choose—with a portion of your payment going to Covenant House, a charity that provides aid to homeless and trafficked young people across North and South America.

As the AI boom gobbles up graphics cards, SSDs, memory sticks, and more, building a gaming PC has become eye-wateringly expensive (and it's never exactly been cheap). If, like me, you've been holding out in the hope those prices will drop to more sensible levels soon, I'm sorry to say that's looking unlikely.

Earlier this month, research showed that memory prices are predicted to rise sharply between now and 2027, with no reductions expected until 2028. Now, Valve has shared its own view of the hardware market, and it's equally glum. Speaking to Bloomberg's Jason Schreier about the company's long road to the Steam Machine, Valve engineer Yazan Aldehayyat said the company only sees prices going up in the short to medium term:

"Honestly, it's still getting worse," Aldehayyat explained. "Just in case people are not aware. What people are seeing on retail shelves right now, from our observations, is lagging what we're seeing from a bulk supply by at least three to six months."

Oof. Valve also provided some insight into how the memory crises affected the Steam Machine's launch. Unsurprisingly, initial supply of the Steam Machine was impacted by memory availability. "We're basically building everything we can," fellow engineer Pierre-Loup Griffais explained. "We're limited by memory capacity, for sure."

Valve didn't go into detail about how many Steam Machines have been produced or sold up to this point. But according to Bloomberg, Valve does not view the success of the device in terms of raw sales figures. Rather, it's about providing players with a viable option for open-source PC gaming in their living rooms.

"We suspect that the Steam Machine is a really good way to solve a very real problem that people have," Aldehayyat said. "If that's borne out to be true, from our opinion, it's a success."

In addition, Griffais said the memory crisis hasn't altered Valve's plans for the future of the device. "Users are getting their machines," he said. "For a lot of the experience, the work starts. We'll be doing that for years to come."

The memory crisis wasn't the only subject Valve addressed during the chat. The company also discussed why it opted against launching an exclusive game for the Steam Machine. I had vaguely hoped the launch of new Steam hardware might coincide with the reveal of a certain Half-Life sequel, but Valve said that it's much more interested in "having the whole PC catalog" as its "'launch exclusive'".

Bethesda's gone and done it again. It's reconfirmed that Fallout 5 is in development even though it's still years away from Reclamation Day. As we once knew about the next Elder Scrolls' place in the development pipes relative to Starfield, Fallout 5 will launch after TES6, and this time we've not even got a logo on a mysterious unidentified bit of scenery to obsess over.

I can't gloss over how Bethesda firehosed out an announcement of pretty much every single thing it's working on right now as either a distraction from, or refutation of, the impact that the massive Microsoft layoffs will have on its projects. Fallout 5 certainly is in development, but we don't know what its plans were prior to the layoffs and how they'll inevitably change the scope or direction of Fallout 5 after.

When might the Fallout 5 release date be?

What we know for sure is that Fallout 5 will release after The Elder Scrolls 6, which we still don't know even a release year for. Maybe it won't be as long as the still-widening gap between Starfield and TES6, though.

In its July 2026 announcement, Bethesda said that TES6 and Fallout 5 are both being developed in Creation Engine 3, "a shared technology platform" it's been building since Starfield's launch. "It allows our teams to support multiple projects simultaneously," Bethesda also said. So there shouldn't be any reinventing the wheel between releases this time.

Fallout 5 setting speculation

What's been (mostly) confirmed about the Fallout 5 setting:

• "Fallout 5 will be existing in a world where the stories and events of the show happened or are happening," Todd Howard said of the Amazon TV show
• "Our plan is to predominantly keep it in the US," Howard told Kinda Funny when speculating about Fallout series locales

At this point, any specifics on when and where Fallout 5 will be set are total speculation. Todd Howard has said that the "Fallout schtick" is intertwined with "Americana naivete," so any official Fallout London probably isn't on the table, though jaunts up into Canada (in Fallout lore, it was annexed as the 51st state before the war) maybe could be.

Where in the post-nukes US might Fallout 5 be set though? Honestly I just don't want it to be Florida since I'm going to get enough of that from GTA 6 (and there's already a Fallout 4 mod in the works set in Miami). Say what you will about Fallout 76, it certainly has a vibe in chasing the Appalachian geography, folklore, and history. I'd bet on Fallout 5 attempting an equally strong pitch with a location that's really easy to sell the spectacle (or maybe just the accents) of.

Having already been to some iconic east coast and west coast locations, maybe Fallout 5 could take us into the midwest. Somewhere like Detroit would have a lot of potential for classic Fallout storylines about corporate industry tomfoolery. Somewhere up north like Montana would allow for some really striking scenery just like West Virginia did for Fallout 76.

How long has Fallout 5 been in development?

Fallout 5 hasn't been in development long, but what Bethesda has said so far makes it sound like it hopes to drastically cut down on the years between its major RPG releases.

Way back in 2021, Todd Howard said Bethesda has a "one-pager" on Fallout 5 and what it wants to do. Fallout 5 has likely been some excited scribbles on a whiteboard for most of the five years since then, honestly.

As of July 2026, Bethesda says "Fallout 5 is currently in preproduction" which means it's more than a twinkle in Todd's eye but still probably far out from any kind of playable version.

"Our teams are now developing The Elder Scrolls 6 and Fallout 5 on Creation Engine 3, a shared technology platform we've been building since Starfield's launch," Bethesda also said in July.

Even a few months after it launched, we still haven't gotten tired of seeing the wild stuff you come up with in Crimson Desert's sprawling sandbox. That's why our latest monthly winner of PC Gamer Clips is yet another great Crimson Desert video—and that's why the person who sent us that clip just won $500 in Amazon gift cards.

If this is the first you're hearing about PC Gamer Clips, it's a snap: just record yourself playing a PC game, send us the clip, and each month we'll pick our favorite and award its creator a $500 prize. Visit our PC Gamer Clips page to find the submission form and prize restrictions (you need to be a US or UK citizen to be eligible).

Below you can check out our most recent winner demonstrating a pretty slick way to swap a horse for a wyvern:

Pretty smooth moves… though I would have liked to have seen the dragonrider make a dive to catch the unfortunate horse they just leapt off. Did it just go splat at the bottom of the cliff? Ah, well, these things happen.

That's not the only Crimson Desert clip we've received. Here, check out some more of our favorites:

And we'd love to see clips from any of the great PC games you're playing these days: Marathon, Counter-Strike 2, GTA 5, Assassin's Creed: Black Flag Resynched… as long as your clips are funny, exciting, surprising, or a showcase of your impressive gaming skills, please send 'em our way.

Need some inspiration? Just visit PC Gamer Clips to watch all the great videos our readers have sent in so far.

I was born in the early '90s, and thanks to a life marked by periodic socioeconomic turmoil, I've come to accept—as any reasonable person would—that blatant dysfunction is the hallmark of a healthy and developed economy. The free market doesn't have seatbelts or brakes, and that's why it works. If there's any wreckage that might say otherwise, we're driving too fast to see it.

But even though I've learned that business success looks indistinguishable from a runaway vehicle, the games industry's current course feels like it's careening so close to a cliff's edge that I can't help but wonder: Are we sure anyone actually remembers how to drive this thing? Are we sure anyone remembers how to drive anything?

I know it's impertinent of me to question those most devoted to their civic duty of delivering shareholder value, but I mean, can you blame me? Being engaged in videogames over the last decade has meant watching a cohort of publisher executives inherit an industry of products, professionals, and consumers they seem to actively resent for failing to produce instant, infinite profits—profits they only ever had a vague notion how to create.

Faulty service

Take Sony, for example. It committed years to abortive attempts at bottling live-service lightning: Concord burnt hundreds of millions of dollars just to suffer a launch-week euthanization. Blue Point, a studio that built its reputation on remasters, was placed on a live-service God of War spinoff project—a notion that should have been declared doomed before it left the board room, but instead dragged the developer into a February 2026 shuttering once Sony lost patience with its own plans.

And yet, even after cancelling eight of the 12 live-service projects it said it would launch by 2025, Sony's spectacular streak of misguided endeavors somehow hasn't dimmed its live-service ambitions. Last month, Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO and president Hideaki Nishino said the publisher wants to "continue to take on" live-service projects.

That commitment that would have been baffling enough to hear on its own, but it was made farcical by the fact that just days earlier, Sony laid off almost the entirety of Bungie's Destiny 2 team after pulling the plug on its ongoing content development. Yes, years of studio mismanagement had taken a toll on Destiny 2's output. But even though it was well past its peak, Destiny's rank-and-file developers had just drawn in a massive surge of returning players for a final update, closing out almost a decade as one of the longest-running games in a market where most competitors, including Sony's, suffer near-instant collapses.

If I wanted to give my next live-service swings the best chance of survival, having access to the Bungie engineers, designers, and artists who maintained one of the most successful games in the field seems like it would be a blessing. Instead, Sony culled that collective expertise to save on costs, investing Bungie's remaining staff on Marathon, which—though it brings me no joy to say so—doesn't seem to be thriving. (Its game director just quit.)

Meanwhile, Sony has announced the approaching end of its physical disc production, marking 2028 as the year it'll start releasing new PlayStation games exclusively through digital distribution. And while that undoubtedly looks good on its quarterly balance sheet, it's a decision that could quietly damage its future prospects: While the percentage of players buying discs has steadily decreased, ending their production means strangling whatever viability remains for reselling used games. Even among PC users who haven't handled a game disc in years, some of us—myself included—would never have maintained the gaming hobby if reselling pieces of our used console libraries hadn't been an option.

Maybe that won't be an issue. But if Sony ever decides it's dealt lasting harm to its user base—well, who knows whether the leadership responsible will still be around? That's a problem for whoever happens to be answering the investor questions at the earnings call.

Bad reset

And then, of course, there's Microsoft. In an industry that's seemingly lost its ability to place any bets but bad ones, Xbox has spent the 2020s making the worst. With Phil Spencer at the helm, Microsoft's gaming division sank tens of billions of dollars on an acquisition spree that put a sizable portion of the games industry under the Xbox umbrella, staking the futures of those studios as collateral for its all-in gamble on Game Pass.

That gamble failed. Hard. With Game Pass attracting tens of millions fewer subscribers than it needed to sustain itself, Microsoft floundered through misguided marketing campaigns, mismanaged release strategies, and recurring mass layoffs, studio closures, and project cancellations.

The developers it had diligently collected were tossed, even as the company boasted about their work: Tango Gameworks was axed during a mass downsizing in 2024, a year after Microsoft said the studio's Hi-Fi Rush had exceeded "all key measurements and expectations." In 2025, Spencer insisted that Xbox's "platform, hardware, and game roadmap have never looked stronger" in the same memo that informed employees of another wave of Microsoft layoffs and closures. Those cuts included a ZeniMax team that spent seven years developing an MMO which Spencer reportedly enjoyed so much that the controller had to be physically removed from his hands during an internal demo.

Given Xbox leadership's bold strategy of achieving very little as expensively as possible, some amount of continuing fallout seemed inevitable even after Spencer's departure in February. The havoc unleashed this month under the regime of new CEO Asha Sharma, however, is an abandonment of any pretense of good-faith stewardship over the fiefdom Microsoft claimed within the industry.

On July 6, 1,600 Xbox employees were put out of work, with the axe still looming over another 1,600 workers set to lose their jobs before the end of Microsoft's 2027 fiscal year. The cuts are borderline nonsensical in scope and intent, hitting Bethesda, ZeniMax, Blizzard, King, Mojang, and Xbox Game Studios alike, with King and Mojang now reporting directly to Sharma as part of an organizational restructuring meant to help Xbox become "one of the few companies that entertains more than a billion people each day."

Any number of self-assured finance guys will happily tell you that all Xbox did was cut unprofitable employees from its payroll, but it isn't obvious that these cuts are cunning and calculated to any greater degree than the acquisitions that led to them. ZeniMax Online Studios has been gutted of 213 employees, calling into question its ability to maintain The Elder Scrolls Online—a game which, as of 2024, had generated $2 billion in revenue across its lifetime, and had just been gaining promising momentum in the months leading up to the layoffs as it transitioned to a seasonal model.

Maybe most galling are the heavy cuts to id Software, which slashed 136 employees from a studio with one of the most storied legacies in the history of videogames that had just delivered a record-breaking launch last year. Despite assurances to the contrary from Microsoft and id Software's Hugo Martin, some of its laid off staff insist that even the studio's proprietary id Tech engine—a technical achievement that powers not only id's own games but also its sister studio's projects at MachineGames—has been left with an uncertain future.

If Microsoft does have a coherent vision for its bloodletting beyond, potentially, improving Xbox's books in advance of a spin-off or sale, I doubt it's one we'll like. Its new chief strategist, Matthew Ball, is a true believer in the metaverse and the co-founder of a "UGC game studio." The company clearly has Roblox on its mind.

ZeniMax Online Studios founder Matt Firor, who left the company after Microsoft cancelled the studio's upcoming MMO, said this year that "a giant successful videogame" is "not that stimulating" to Microsoft, which seeks a greater scale of profit. What it saw in the project, he reckons, was cost and risk: "We're a number on a ledger, and if that number is large, it is ripe for analysis, shall we say."

For now, Microsoft is making a show of doubling down on big series like Fallout and The Elder Scrolls, even as it lays off many of the veteran developers making them. The confirmation that there's a new Fallout in the works is slim consolation when it's in the hands of an executive culture that's so clearly disinterested in properly supporting the studios making its games and willing to toss out years of work when it decides to change course.

Deep cuts

Launching a successful game isn't as simple as providing game developers with job security; I won't dispute that. But it's been made abundantly, repeatedly clear that layoffs and employment uncertainty during a game's development don't help.

Whatever short-term gains those layoffs provide only intensify the long-standing difficulties driving the industry towards an existential crisis. Overlong production cycles and exponential budget increases are worsened every time a studio is forced to reassemble its detonated workflow to account for the institutional knowledge lost whenever a dev is cut loose. Even if a replacement is eventually hired, proficiency with studio-specific tools, conventions, and workplace dynamics doesn't come immediately—and that lost time isn't free.

The trend isn't hard to identify: Destiny 2's downward slide of expansion delays and disappointing launches followed back-to-back waves of layoffs as Bungie, under its new Sony ownership, tried to stem the bleeding of its leadership's overexpansion. The prolonged and turbulent development of Dragon Age: Veilguard included a layoff of roughly 50 BioWare employees in 2023. In 2024, Ubisoft launched the infamously troubled Skull and Bones, the ill-fated XDefiant, and the underperforming Star Wars: Outlaws—three games whose development cycles coincided with company-wide cost-cutting measures the publisher initiated in 2022, which let it shed 2,000 jobs over the next two years through hiring freezes, redundancies, and studio closures.

Life is Strange: Double Exposure—multiple layoffs before launch. Civilization 7—30 layoffs in 2023 as part of a wider 2K restructuring. Name a game that didn't have a stellar launch, and there's a good chance there were layoffs at its studio or publisher that left its developers with damage to rebuild or doubts about their livelihoods.

Is it any surprise, then, that Capcom's currently enjoying a multi-year hit streak after avoiding mass layoffs since 2018? Or that Larian, a studio with a strong history of employee retention, pulled off a generational breakout hit like Baldur's Gate 3?

Crash course

Acknowledging the long-term damage that layoffs are causing, however, would mean returning to a framework the industry's current leadership has largely abandoned since the ascent of games as services, as platforms, as forever games. Cost-cutting has been the primary economic activity of the games industry for years.

The industry's giants perform so many layoffs for short-term gains that the success of any traditional game launch feels like an oversight. And I'll admit it's not without reason: Data reported by analyst firms like Newzoo indicates that gamers are spending as much as two thirds of their collective playtime on games more than six years old, with a concentration on platforms like Roblox and Fortnite.

But sales successes like Helldivers 2, Arc Raiders, Meccha Chameleon, and Resident Evil Requiem are proof that there remains a lasting hunger for quality, novelty, and variety in traditional, purchasable games. How many more games like those might players have enjoyed had industry giants not maintained a myopic obsession with creating an ex nihilo Roblox of their own? Why would you stop playing Fortnite when it's felt like all anyone's done in the last six years is try to gouge you for the privilege of playing Worse Fortnite?

Roblox and Fortnite didn't become Roblox and Fortnite by choosing to become Roblox and Fortnite. Roblox and Fortnite happened. Neither was an overnight juggernaut: Roblox's original launch was in 2006, almost three years earlier than the first public alpha release of Minecraft in 2009, and it steadily ballooned over two decades. Fortnite as we know it today was cobbled together in 2017 from the six-year-old bones of an entirely different product concept to offer a free-to-play alternative that could capitalize on the ascendant PUBG zeitgeist.

The Roblox and Fortnite we recognize today were created through the years-long accretion of strategic decisions unique to their time-and-date contexts. A major game publisher can't simply choose to make their own Roblox because it's not possible to choose to become a phenomenon.

But these attempts to conjure perpetual revenue platforms continue as companies seek to make more money with fewer employees, build new gig economies, and lobby the public to please, please just accept AI-generated art already. Just making good games isn't an exponential growth opportunity—and those are the only growth opportunities we're meant to care about.

And maybe they're right. Maybe we can finally believe that something can be made without its makers. Maybe you can give the keys to someone who knows they won't be harmed either way, no matter how close they get to the cliff. Maybe the line can keep going up.

Or maybe we could put someone else back in the driver's seat before there's a crash.

Two months after the release of Zero Parades: For Dead Spies, the followup to its stunning detective RPG Disco Elysium, Studio ZA/UM says the game hasn't sold as well as needed, and as a result it's laying off employees.

"While Zero Parades: For Dead Spies was released to critical acclaim, its commercial performance has not enabled us to sustain a studio of our current size," ZA/UM wrote in a message shared on social media. "We have served redundancy or at-risk notices impacting up to 32 of our colleagues across all departments at ZA/UM Studio. Their work has made a lasting difference and left its mark on Zero Parades: For Dead Spies, and the studio has a whole."

Zero Parades is not as universally beloved as Disco Elysium: Some reviewers found it outstanding, but others, including our own, felt it didn't quite come together. "No matter how fun or well-designed individual aspects of the game are, they all swirl around Hershel's fundamentally nonsensical approach to international espionage," Maddi Chilton wrote in her 66% review.

"Unfortunately, it seems like a consequence of transplanting Disco Elysium's structure directly onto Zero Parades without considering how it actually plays. It's jarring to have little sister spy walking around rambling and blustering in exactly the same way as big brother cop."

Some on social media have also pointed out Studio ZA/UM's unfortunate history of layoffs and firings, which meant that most of the key figures behind Disco Elysium were gone by the time Zero Parades launched. Some of those splits have been bitterly acrimonious, and that made things tougher for Zero Parades: As our Studio ZA/UM expert Ted Litchfield said in 2025 ahead of the game's full reveal, "it will have to be spectacular to win back a hostile fanbase."

He wasn't wrong. Some of the reactions to the layoff announcement on social media are less sympathetic than you might expect, although the vitriol is clearly directed at the studio's leadership, which managed to shatter the team behind one of the most groundbreaking RPGs of all time after releasing just one game. Some also shared speculation similar to Ted's: that Zero Parades' failure to sell better was at least partially the result of that fallout.

Imagine deciding to stick with ZA/UM because you genuinely believe in the team and it's artistic vision only to be among 32 people rewarded with layoffs after managing to make a game that stands on its own feet despite looming shadow of Disco Elysium Every dev from Zero Parades deserves better

— @bestyoutuber69.bsky.social (@bestyoutuber69.bsky.social.bsky.social) 2026-07-17T21:56:25.707Z

zero parades likely failed to perform to their desired financial standards because the key audience that would've given it a chance were disco elysium fans - an audience already primed to hate za/um and too principled to give them money for a game that is built on what was stolen from disco elysium

— @gnarlyanimal.bsky.social (@gnarlyanimal.bsky.social.bsky.social) 2026-07-17T21:56:25.600Z

The way Zero Parades exists culturally not as a video game but as a signifier of specific industry practices and drama and is engaged with exclusively through that lens is incredibly disheartening to me.

— @errant-signal.com (@errant-signal.com.bsky.social) 2026-07-17T21:56:25.787Z

Remember Hytale? The sandbox RPG blew up big when it launched into early access back in January, making so much in preorders that it secured funding for two more years of development. It was a real triumph because the game had been canceled by Riot after nearly 10 years in development, but was saved from the jaws of death by its creator, Simon Collins-Laflamme, who bought the rights to the game and continued to work on it.

Yet after such a strong launch, I pretty quickly drifted from Hytale because it's still in very early development and is far from feature complete. Even Collins-Laflamme said the adventure sandbox 'isn't good yet' in November of 2025, warning players not to buy it if they were expecting anything resembling a complete game.

Well, my interest in Hytale has quickly been rekindled because the team at Hypixel Studios just dropped a massive blog to show off some of its plans for Hytale's future. How massive? The new devblog contains about 4,000 words and features 22 new videos, with a few dozen new screenshots to boot. Wow.

But before you launch the game wide-eyed and breathless, a reality check:

"To be transparent, there aren't many reasons to come back and play Hytale right now," Collins-Laflamme said in the devblog. "We have a lot of work to do to realize the game's potential, and this is just the start of that journey."

The journey looks like a big one, though. The devblog gives players a look at all the new stuff coming in Chapter 1, like a new handcrafted dungeon, a bossfight with a goblin chieftain, new varieties for the goblin faction, and a world event called a Goblin Breach where players can enter a portal into a new realm to battle monsters and collect loot.

There's also tease for other upcoming world events: "We're starting with a small set: predators you can track and trap, Void assassins that hunt you down, treasure chests that spawn enemy waves when you go for the loot, puzzles that lock off places you can't just dig into, and more," Collins-Laflamme said. "We'll grow that list over time, keep iterating each chapter, and start tying these systems together!"

A overhauled UI is also planned, along with a new mod browser, spectator and hardcore modes, and a rework of the crafting system. Additional cosmetics will be added, and an improved player model is in the works as well. Minigames and party games are also being developed for Hytale, over a dozen at the moment, that you'll be able to jump into with your pals anytime you want.

Look, folks, there's tons more in the blog and me giving a brief mention to a mere few of the dozens and dozens of additions coming to Hytale probably isn't serving much of a purpose. You can read (or skim) the devlog yourself, and there's a somewhat vague release timeline for all of Hytale's new features below:

• Chapter 1: within the next 2-3 months
• Spectator and Hardcore: 2-3 weeks (Update 6)
• Mod Browser: 2-3 weeks (Update 6)
• Moving platforms: 2-3 weeks (Update 6)
• Real transparency: scheduled for Chapter 1 but might land the tech and content before
• Minigames: within the next 2-3 months
• New server-side Custom UI based on NoesisGUI: within the next 1-2 months
• Carryable objects: within the next 2-3 months but tech might get shipped before
• Cubic chunks: the tech is getting implemented on a weekly basis (already in pre-release schedule for Update 6), but actual content using it from us will take a bit more time
• Machinima: within the next 2-3 months, maybe sooner because we will use it to record a teaser/trailer for Chapter 1
• Crafting Rework: Chapter 2
• Volumetric clouds: TBD
• Runeforging: TBD
• Hytale Asset Editor rework: TBD

Programmer Christopher Green has had a long career in the games industry, with a development history that included Amiga's Flight Simulators, Ultima Underworld, and Magic: The Gathering Online before ultimately working at and retiring from Valve—twice. Green had previously made a six-year attempt at retirement starting in 2017, but returned to Valve for another go in 2023.

Earlier this week, Green announced on his blog that he's once again had the "epiphany" that he "might actually enjoy some of those things that I hear retired people do," and is giving the whole end-of-career thing another go—for keeps this time. To mark the occasion, Green hosted a pair of AMAs on Reddit to share some of his thoughts on 45 years in game dev and a Valve tenure stretching all the way back to Half-Life 2.

Answering one redditor's question about what it was like to witness some of Valve's earliest years, Green said leaving his previous job in 2004 "was a huge transition"—particularly because Valve's finances were looking somewhat grim at the time. Previously, he'd worked at independent developer Leaping Lizard Software, where he did the initial rules and card coding for Magic The Gathering Online—something he elsewhere called his dream project, as he remains an MTG fan to this day.

"I had some misgivings at first as Valve was losing money finishing HL2 while my company that I left was profitable and MTGO was generating more revenue than Valve," Green said. "But things got better really quickly."

On his blog, Green says he worked on "a lot of things" during his combined 16 years at Valve: Both Source engines, Day of Defeat: Source, The Orange Box, both Portals, and more. And yes, that entailed "hundreds" of encounters with Valve co-founder and president Gabe Newell, who Green described as "a little inscrutable honestly."

Evidently, however, Valve's mythical self-directed work structure—in which its employees are ostensibly free to pursue projects according to their own interests and discretion—might not be quite as self-directed as even Valve's own employee handbook would indicate. Asked whether Valve staff are really free to work on their own projects until it aligns with other work at the studio, Green said that's only "sort of" true.

"Especially if you are new, you'll encounter a lot of pushback if what you think you should work on is too far off in the weeds," Green said. "At least one successful loved game mode was made semi-undercover by a single programmer who was the only one who believed in it."

That game mode, he revealed, was the beloved HL2DM. How different—and devoid of sawblade kills—the world could have been had things gone otherwise.

PC Gamer's Chris Livingston called Half-Life 2 Deathmatch "the best multiplayer mode ever" in a 2024 retrospective, though he admitted "There wasn't anything particularly special about Half-Life 2: Deathmatch: it was just a bunch of arenas built from hunks of Half-Life 2 campaign maps with a few weapons scattered around them." (Chris also admitted he mostly loved it because he won a lot). All HL2DM needed was the gravity gun to stand out from everything else at the time.

It's not the first time we've heard that Valve's flat work structure can present some issues. In 2023, People Make Games released a report including interviews with current and former studio employees, who claimed that the organizational structure can warp workplace dynamics and reinforce Valve's lack of diversity.

Green's second retirement from Valve means he's once again relinquishing his employee privilege of full access to every game on Steam. Still, from his description, it sounds like he'll be computing in comfort:

"My home office has a 100GB ethernet cluster with >512 cores, a bunch of GPUs, a large format fine-art printer, and a serious set of electronic and mechanical tools," said in his retirement announcement. "So I do have plenty of ideas for things I want to work on, and people to collaborate with, but they are more likely to show up on github, or one-off personal projects than commercial games."

Would that we could all be so lucky. And here I'm hoping I get to have even the one retirement.

If there's one thing we know about Todd Howard, it's that he doesn't hate Obsidian. We know this because he keeps telling us. He keeps telling us because Fallout fans won't stop speculating that secretly, deep down in his heart of hearts, Todd Howard hates Obsidian.

How often has he denied hating Obsidian? A quick and non-comprehensive list:

• 2024: Todd Howard says Fallout: New Vegas "is a very, very important game to us."
• 2025: Todd Howard expresses "huge respect to the folks at Obsidian."
• 2026: Todd Howard says that when it came time for someone else to make a Fallout game, Obsidian was "the only choice."
• And in case you think this is an entirely new phenomenon, 2018: Todd Howard says "the Obsidian guys did a fabulous job" on Fallout: New Vegas.

Now, with a new Obsidian-led Fallout officially underway, he's back to say it again.

"I appreciate some of the fan chatter, but behind the scenes, there's a huge amount of mutual respect [between Bethesda and Obsidian]," Howard told Windows Central. "We're always kind of wondering if we could find a way to work together in the right way. And when those things come up, I … look at the franchise all up, as you see in the note, everything that's happening with Fallout [and] say, is there a way or a window or a pocket where we could do something together that really, really made sense? And so we're super excited about the opportunity, working together."

"The note" Howard mentioned is the sprawling infodump Bethesda put out today that lays out its plans for the future, which despite the recent, sweeping layoffs at Xbox includes a lot of Fallout. The Obsidian partnership was made official, as were long-awaited remasters of Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas, and Fallout 5 is in pre-production.

It is amusing how often Howard finds himself delivering some variation of this message—initially because some Fallout fans speculated that he's envious of the much-loved New Vegas, and later over even wilder speculation that he was using the Fallout TV show on Amazon to retcon New Vegas out of existence. Howard actually brought Obsidian developers onto the set of Fallout season 2 so they could see the show's take on New Vegas for themselves, but did that settle the matter once and for all? Apparently not.

I like to think, though, that Howard is in on the joke too, as he seemed to suggest with his remark about appreciating "fan chatter." It's a fine line to walk, because there is a tendency sometimes, among some people, to take things more seriously than they should. But it can be fun to play up an obvious exaggeration or misconception, and the more ridiculous, the better. I'm sure at some point in the past it was a genuine concern for Howard, but at this point I really do hope he's just rolling with it for kicks.

Windows Central. "We're always kind of wondering if we could find a way to work together in the right way. And when those things come up, I … look at the franchise all up, as you see in the note, everything that's happening with Fallout [and] say, is there a way or a window or a pocket where we could do something together that really, really made sense? And so we're super excited about the opportunity, working together."

"The note" Howard mentioned is the sprawling infodump Bethesda put out today that lays out its plans for the future, which despite the recent, sweeping layoffs at Xbox includes a lot of Fallout. The Obsidian partnership was made official, as were long-awaited remasters of Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas, and Fallout 5 is in pre-production.

It is amusing how often Howard finds himself delivering some variation of this message—initially because some Fallout fans speculated that he's envious of the much-loved New Vegas, and later over even wilder speculation that he was using the Fallout TV show on Amazon to retcon New Vegas out of existence. Howard actually brought Obsidian developers onto the set of Fallout season 2 so they could see the show's take on New Vegas for themselves, but did that settle the matter once and for all? Apparently not.

I like to think, though, that Howard is in on the joke too, as he seemed to suggest with his remark about appreciating "fan chatter." It's a fine line to walk, because there is a tendency sometimes, among some people, to take things more seriously than they should. But it can be fun to play up an obvious exaggeration or misconception, and the more ridiculous, the better. I'm sure at some point in the past it was a genuine concern for Howard, but at this point I really do hope he's just rolling with it for kicks.

What's the name for that phenomenon when you learn about something for the first time and then start seeing it everywhere? Ah, the frequency illusion! I was frequently illused while scanning through these July 1996, 2006 and 2016 issues of PC Gamer magazine, because they just keep talking about RAM. And given our current RAMpocalypse, well, it all just seems very timely.

I guess the other explanation is that PC gamers are always talking about RAM.

It's wild in hindsight that a photograph of a beige desktop would take priority over a review of Civilization 2 as the cover of the July 1996 issue. Was that really moving copies on the newsstand!? The 2006 and 2016 issues are a lot more striking. Pour one out for LawBreakers, which current PC Gamer US Editor-in-Chief Tyler Wilde previewed at the time and liked. "Whenever it's out, I'm confident LawBreakers can challenge all its cute and colorful competition. Not so much with blood or cursing, but with grappling hooks, afterburners, and zero-g no-look behind-the-back headshots," he wrote.

LawBreakers! Was!! Good!!! But the tone was just all wrong for the time it came out, and as we've seen from a number of failed attempts to launch a new multiplayer FPS since, it's incredibly hard to get people to latch onto a game in that more arena shooter style.

What was on the cover?

July 1996: The Ultimate Gaming Machine (US, issue #26)

Cover story: "The Ultimate Gaming Machine" by Dan Bennett

There's no magazine feature destined to age more poorly than one highlighting the very best in computer hardware at that very moment. Then again, in this era of AI-driven pricing madness, a great PC from a few years ago (at the prices of a few years ago, too) actually does look mighty compelling today. As for a $3000 PC in 1996? Well, nostalgia's got to do a bit more heavy lifting here.

For the money, the July 1996 PC Gamer cover feature was recommending a 166 MHz Pentium with 16 whole megabytes of RAM, a 1GB HDD, a Super VGA card with 2-4 MB of VRAM, the ever-reliable SoundBlaster 16, and a 17-inch CRT monitor. The screen is probably the bit we'd still get some use out of today.

The other hotness in the ultimate rig included an 8x CD-ROM drive (we weren't even talkin' burners, at this point) and a 28.8 kbps modem; I guess 56k wasn't an option just yet. "Even at 28.8k, some of the fancier web pages will take a minute or more to download," Bennett warned.

Cover hits:

• Duke Nukem 3D, Civilization 2, and Zork Nemesis reviewed
• Flight sims scrutinized
• On CD: The Pandora Directive

July 2006: 150th issue (US, issue #150)

Cover story: "The 150 best moments from PC Gamer history"

This tour down memory lane focuses on the US issue of the magazine, naturally, as the UK and US productions were split back in those days. It leads off with a look back at the US mag's very first cover feature, for Origin's BioForge, and goes on to mention some other key moments: The mag's 15% review of Battlecruiser 3000 A.D., Daikatana's infamous ad, a compliment from South Park co-creator (and PCG reader) Trey Parker, and some wise called shots, including this one:

"Baldur's Gate is the next step in the roleplaying revolution."

Some notable milestones: Announcing Star Wars: Dark Forces, a world-exclusive first look at Quake 2, and December 1997's 456-page issue. The Game Gods and The Next Game Gods issues get quite a bit of attention.

Cover hits: Nada

• On DVD: Auto Assault free trial, Hereos of Might & Magic 5

July 2016: Dishonored 2 (UK, issue #293)

Cover story: Dishonored 2 "Long Shadows" by Chris Thursten

Did Chris Thursten know he was playing one of the best PC games of the decade when he got his hands on an early build of Dishonored 2?

C'mon, you know he did.

"Dishonored has helped establish a new future for the immersive sim, one where it can enjoy commercial success and critical acclaim and expand the industry’s sense of who games might be for. Heir to a rich legacy, Dishonored 2 finds itself in a good position to exceed its ancestors later this year," he wrote.

It's a great feature, full of designer Harvey Smith and art director Sébastien Mitton saying smart things.

Cover hits:

• Battlefield 1, Lawbreakers, Mafia 3 previews
• Oculus Rift vs. HTC Vive VR headset verdict
• 10 games that changed PC gaming

In the news

July 1996

• A CyberAuthor Speaks: "Stephenson himself is certainly no stranger to computer games. 'The two computer games I've spent a lot of time with have been Myst and Marathon,' he says."
• "The PC is starting to invade the living room, and one of hte first of the new wave of family PCs is the Gateway Destination 2000"
• BeBox highlighted as a "new rival to the PC"
• DreamWorks Interactive, a "joint venture between Microsoft and Steven Spielberg's company" is making The Neverhood Chronicles
• Online RPG Merdian 59 launches. It's still alive today.

July 2006

• Ubisoft ditches anti-piracy tech StarForce after a class action lawsuit
• Viacom buys XFire chat program for $102 million
• The writer behind famous "EA Spouse" blog is revealed
• Cult classic Another World gets an XP-friendly re-release for its 15th anniversary

July 2016

• Respawn, Dice, and Visceral are all making new Star Wars games
• Lionhead shuttered
• Eric Barone talks Stardew Valley: "My wildest dreams have come true and I'm in this whole new world."

The hottest hardware

July 1996

In addition to the "ultimate" rig featured on the cover, in this issue's "Tim's Tech Shop" column we learn that RAM prices have "finally started dropping." Ahh... a better time, huh?

The whole feature is dedicated to the ins and outs of the memory industry and the misleading promise of programs like RAM Doubler and SoftRAM that people turned to when they couldn't afford more physical RAM. Maybe we're destined to see a repeat, there...

July 2006

PC Gamer's Logan Decker reviews a desktop PC by defunct system builder Vigor Gaming, the Force Recon Axe. $3300 in 2006 got you a 78%-scoring system using thermo-electric cooling to chill an AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+ and dual GeForce 7900 GTX graphics cards. Plus two whole gigs of DDR RAM.

Also featured in this issue: Configuration tips for the then-new Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion. Bethesda itself provided tips to increasing the amount of blood or grass, upping shadow resolution, and skipping the intro cutscenes.

July 2016

Nvidia revealed the GTX 1000 series, hyping up the new GTX 1080 and 1070. The 1080, especially, would prove to be a monster hit with its 8GB GDDR5X VRAM.

Yours truly also reviewed both the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive VR headsets, after testing both across several industry events in the two years prior. I scored the Vive higher, 85 vs. 76, for its better tracking and specialized controllers, which the Rift didn't have at launch.

This was the peak of VR excitement. While some great games have been released in the years since, the technology has never come close to supplanting our day-to-day gaming or general computer use.

Our highest and lowest review scores

July 1996

• Civilization 2 - 97% - "An immensely addictive and playable strategy game that's the rightful heir to the Civilization crown."
• Duke Nukem 3D - 93% - "There's no subtle way to put it—Duke kicks ass."
• AH-64D Longbow - 94% - "AH-64D Longbow isn't just the best chopper sim ever—it's one of the best flight sims, period."
• TacOps - 90% - "All the detail and authenticity you could ask for, plus tremendous replayability."
• Zork Nemesis - 89% - "It's pretty, it's spooky, and it's immensely entertaining."
• CrossWorld - 30% - "There's nothing new here; for crossword fanatics and cheaters only."
• Star Trek: Klingon - 35% - "Even die-hard Trekkers will find their faith tested by this sorry cash-in."

July 2006

• Tomb Raider: Legend - 90% - "Luscious to look at and a thrill to play, Tomb Raider: Legend is a welcome comeback."
• Space Rangers 2: Rise of the Dominators - 92% - "Space Rangers 2 is an endlessly replayable, always thrilling romp through space."
• Rise of Nations: Rise of Legends - 89% - "One of the year's stand-outs in what is an increasingly crowded and competitive genre."
• RF Online - 35% - "RF Online fails as a PvE game, and its PvP gameplay isn't engaging enough to make up for that fatal flaw."
• American Conquest: Divided Nation - 40% - "Recommended only for history buffs on a budget."

July 2016

• Total War: Warhammer - 86% - "If you find real history a bit bland compared to glorious nonsense made up by British people, this is the Total War for you."
• Offworld Trading Company - 88% - "Master its complex systems and Offworld Trading Company is ruthless, immediate and thoroughly rewarding."
• The Banner Saga 2 - 86% - "A handsome and brutal strategy sequel that benefits from a range of intelligent improvements to the game."
• Democracy 3: Africa - 65% - "New setting, same old intrigues. Democracy 3: Africa is a clever simulation but plays it far too safe."

The back page

July 1996: The Fall preview with Into the Shadows and Star Trek: Generations

July 2006: Gary Whitta's Pride Parade

July 2016: Battlefield 1

The living room PC is a certified thing now, and not just for those of us with extra long HDMI cables. The Steam Machine is "out" for the dozens of people who've picked up the $1,000 cube, but before that, folks were already making their own living room machines that run SteamOS.

Anyone can make a Steam Machine, which is exactly how Valve likes it. That's one reason it priced its GabeCube roughly at cost (which has skyrocketed thanks to the AI-driven memory crisis), and why it has no interest in making games exclusively for its Linux-based devices.

"We want it to still be viable for other hardware manufacturers to offer things like the Steam Machine either with higher performance or a different feature set," Valve engineer Yazan Aldehayyat recently told Bloomberg's Jason Schreier in an interview.

Valve is capable of selling its hardware at a loss to boost its adoption, but its goal is to grow the PC platform as a whole by maintaining an open spirit.

"We look at it from a long-term perspective,” Valve engineer Loup Griffais told Bloomberg. "Someone that is creating one of those PCs might actually create some meaningful innovation that is really important for things to come on PC that becomes so universal and brings the experience forward by that much that now the experience is better for everyone and then people might buy more games."

To that end, Valve also sees no need to fight the 'exclusives' war that Sony and Microsoft have recently recommitted to.

"We're much more interested in having the whole PC catalog as our 'launch exclusive,'" Giraffes said. "Restricting where people can play a game I don't think is a great model, at least for us."

I had to check to make sure, but even the Steam Deck's free pack-in game, Aperture Desk Job, doesn't require the device to play it (just a controller).

While Valve's hardware is good, it's the freely available SteamOS, with its console-like interface and relative ease of use, that has truly legitimized the category. Last year, we scored a Lenovo Legion Go handheld that runs SteamOS instead of Windows higher than the Steam Deck itself—an example of Valve embracing other companies making a better Steam machine.

But it's also the savvy business call for Valve, whose marketplace dominance and sizable 30% cut from all sales on the platform (with some exceptions) means it shares in the profits no matter what.

In what feels like an inevitable move to combat an avalanche of criticism over the new Diablo 4 season, Blizzard has dropped an emergency patch that alleviates all the frustrations at the cost of undoing the entire point of it.

The Season of Death Awakening has the usual stuff you'd expect from a Diablo 4 season, including a new boss and new mini activities that reward buckets of loot. But it also introduced a controversial change to the most powerful items in the game: Mythic Uniques.

Instead of having a handful of these Mythic Uniques available to drop from the toughest bosses, Blizzard decided to expand the definition to include any upgraded normal Unique. On paper, it seemed like a way to broaden Mythic Uniques into a category of items rather than a select few that might not even work for your character build.

The problem was that you'd almost never see Mythic Uniques because the drop rates were abysmally low, and even when you did it wouldn't always be an upgrade. Fishing for one or two specific items in a pool of a hundred is a lot to ask in a game that has historically required much less time to gather perfect items compared to other action RPGs.

Blizzard seemingly predicted that this would be a problem before the season went live—although I think that should've been the first red flag that maybe this was a bad idea altogether—and allowed you to craft your own Mythic Unique with a new seasonal currency. But the problems continued: Despite the recipe saying you could "upgrade" a Unique, the resulting item would be random but of the same type (confusing everyone), and you could only equip one crafted Mythic Unique. Diablo 4 has three ways to make Mythic Uniques and all of them counted as crafted, meaning there was no real reason to keep grinding the seasonal activities once you had one equipped.

For the past few weeks, all of this drove Diablo 4 players mad. Blizzard increased the Mythic drop rates earlier this week, which was a welcome change, but it wasn't enough to reduce the grind it would take to find a Mythic you actually wanted. Many players were begging Blizzard to just drop the crafted Mythic limit and let everyone have fun.

On Thursday, Blizzard caved and did just that.

Patch 3.1.1a is Blizzard throwing in the towel on Season 14. Mythic drop rates? Considerably buffed. The crafted Mythic limit? Gone. Players are already reporting that Mythic Uniques are pouring out of the new seasonal boss, and are celebrating the fact that you can just make your own and use them all at once.

"Seasons are where we experiment with new ideas and push Diablo 4 in new directions," live service design director Dan Tanguay wrote in a forum post. "Not every idea lands exactly as intended, but we'll continue listening to your feedback, addressing what's not working, and applying those lessons to future seasonal updates."

Blizzard has also said that another patch will come in the near future that will increase the drop rates from other sources too and that it'll consider bringing back the crafted limit only for Mythics made in the Horadric Cube in the next season.

One of the biggest questions left in the aftermath of the Xbox layoffs earlier this month is the state of legendary Doom and Quake studio id Software. Some have claimed the cuts ran so deep that the studio's ability to make new games and support its proprietary idTech engine are in question, while id Software itself published a statement, later echoed using almost identical language by TESO studio ZeniMax Online, that it's merely been reduced to a headcount comparable to what it had a decade ago, when it developed the 2016 Doom reboot—so, basically, everything's fine.

Now studio director Hugo Martin has weighed in, and unsurprisingly he's in the 'all is well' camp. Speaking in a new Slayers Club Live stream, Martin said "reports that we've been nerfed into the ground and gutted and we have 50 people [remaining]" are not true.

"We're the size we were when we made Doom 2016, and idTech is very much alive and well. You have to understand, we have idTech engineers both in Frankfurt and at MachineGames. We collaborate quite a bit. So the idTech is there, the Doom team is here, and we're excited to share with you guys more of what we're working on in the future when it is appropriate and approved."

According to an Aftermath report, id's office in Frankfurt—quite small to begin with—was also cut in half by the Xbox layoffs, being reduced from 12 employees to six.

That statement from Martin was fairly safe and anodyne, obviously intended to calm the nervous crowds without committing to anything specific, and I think the truth is that we're not going to know the true impact of the cuts until we know what id Software gets up to next.

But he had more to say, and Martin's subsequent comments struck me as considerably more tone deaf. "The fact that we made a game that people like and is critically and commercially successful ... that's good for everyone. For the people at the studio, for the people who unfortunately we had to say goodbye to, I think that helps everyone, and we really appreciate your support.

"What matters the most is that the games are good, and I'm so happy that people—it's just a good thing for everybody."

As someone who likes and appreciates it when the games are good, I have to say that I'm not sure that's really the most important thing at all, at least not compared to the long-term health of the industry that makes them—which of course means the people who make them. Technology advances at a sometimes alarming pace, it's true, but the headlong rush to embrace those advances, heedless of any consideration beyond the bottom line, is not going to lead us to a better place—or to better games. Pretending that everything is fine as long as the games are good is a quick way to end up in our list of "25 foolproof ways to get laid off in the videogame industry"—which, yes, includes making an acclaimed and commercially successful game.

Martin isn't the only one looking to reassure gamers that everything is a-okay. Earlier today Bethesda dropped a massive infodump on its plans for the future, including confirmation of a new Fallout game being made by Obsidian, remasters of Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas, and word that Fallout 5 is in pre-production.

Just four months after the release of Marathon, game director Joe Ziegler has announced that he's leaving the game, and Bungie, effective today. His role will be filled by Del Chafe III, previously the assistant game director, who along with creative director Julia Nardin will "guide Marathon into the next chapter with an even better and brighter future."

"As for me, I'll be heading to something new, somewhere else, and will update you on where and what soon," Ziegler wrote on X. "I just want to say a deeply heartfelt thank you to all of you for supporting me and Marathon in our windy mission to bring a dark and terrifying space survival frontier to your screen.

"The mission will continue in new and surprising ways so stay tuned for what this team has in store for you! It's been a pleasure seeing all the stories you've created, all the clever ways you've found ways to murder robots and one another. Hopefully as I move onto new things, you'll join me for those adventures as well."

Ziegler's departure, coming so soon after Marathon's release and while it's still struggling to find its footing, is a shock. Bungie is rolling out big changes to Marathon, including an embrace of PvE gameplay in the upcoming Vault Breaker mode, which will debut—temporarily—next week and then roll out in full sometime in season 3.

It's the worst possible time for instability at the top, in other words, particularly given that a turnaround for Marathon is essential. It isn't a Concord-esque disaster, but Marathon's concurrent player counts on Steam are nowhere near what Destiny 2 was (or is even currently) putting up, even when it was in its deepest doldrums.

With the studio gutted and no other releases imminent, Marathon is an existential game for Bungie. Even just as a matter of public perception, losing Ziegler—a highly-regarded developer who only joined Bungie in 2022 and took the reins on Marathon just two years ago—is a major blow: The more it looks like you're in a spiral, the tougher it is to pull out of it.

Compounding Bungie's troubles, Ziegler isn't the only high-profile Bungie employee to leave in recent weeks: Former Marathon design lead Lars Bakken, a storied Bungie developer in his own right, left in June after more than 20 years at the studio and is now "retired from the videogame industry."

Well what a silly goose I am. Only a few days ago I was hyping up some new Windows (Insider) updates for actually looking like they might be decent for a change, and now I'm tearing my hair out trying to fix whatever the latest update (KB5101650) seems to have done to my PC. And yes, this is the first Windows update that Microsoft has used AI for, to help it discover a bunch more security fixes. It actually included a record 570 patches.

To be clear, it doesn't sound like Microsoft is saying AI is going to be used in fixes a lot more from now on, rather that it's going to be discovering a bunch more vulnerabilities thanks to AI, and then pushing out more fixes for them in each update. But a bunch more fixes each update, to my ears, just sounds like a higher likelihood of one or more of them breaking something.

And it seems like more than a coincidence that I ran into issues with my monitor the morning after the update.

My 400 Hz monitor will not run at 400 Hz anymore, at least not without cutting to black and re-connecting every second or two. Put it down to 360 Hz and that's every three or four seconds; down to 300 Hz and it's even more infrequent (but still terribly frequent). Put it down to 240 Hz, though, and I'm fine.

Peculiar.

I don't seem to be the only one struggling since the latest update, either, especially for those with an AMD card.

Judging by some Reddit threads, it seems like there are a few others struggling with display and graphics issues since the update dropped. Some of these problems could be coincidental—not everyone is linking their issues to the Windows update—but I doubt all of them are, given my own experience.

Microsoft has also had to pause the update for some Dell PCs due to a compatibility issue leading, in some cases, to "changes in performance, power consumption, or system behavior."

At any rate, I've not seen any word from Microsoft or AMD about the specific display issue I've encountered or other similar display and graphics issues I've seen some others reporting. I'll have to try reverting the update again, as my system didn't seem to want to get rid of the whole thing when I tried last night.

Whatever the case may be here, human or AI error, someone needs to get on it, pronto, because dropping from 400 Hz to 240 Hz is not pretty. Kidding, it's fine, I just don't like being forced into it from an update, if that is indeed what has happened.

When I heard the that Team 4 would be stopping work on Overwatch's Stadium, I didn't feel very surprised. Then when I learned that only 6% of the playerbase actually engaged with the game mode, and I was even less so. But that doesn't mean I'm not really sad to hear the news.

I didn't take to Stadium at first, I found its third person perspective to be a bit jarring, and its huge number of items were something of a hurdle to get over. But that quickly changed after some time spent in the mode, figuring out its intricacies.

I spent 100 hours in Stadium—even with its ridiculously long support queues—it became something more than just a game mode I'd dip into when I was bored of the regular queue. I appreciated how it offered something else for players to enjoy, and how it showcased all the creative and innovative ideas that Team 4 has to offer, but didn't have a chance to add to the game.

See, much of Stadium was made from ideas Team 4 had been mulling over for years before it was announced. There were even elements included which were initially meant to be a part of Overwatch's now controversial PvE mode. I was just happy to have these fun and creative ideas recycled into something fans could appreciate and experience, but it seems like history is repeating itself.

I didn't mourn the loss of PvE as much as others. I always preferred the competitive side, so I didn't give much thought to the story modes—playing against bots just wasn't as fun. But I was sad to see it go, because I saw it as one less area of experimentation and opportunity the devs could use to better showcase the great attributes of Overwatch—in this case, its story and characters.

But it's easier not to miss something we never really had, which is why I feel that this is an even bigger fumble—Stadium got much further than PvE ever did, and it had proven traction. It became Overwatch's most popular mode with 2.3 million matches played during launch week. Even with scaled back involvement, I think a different approach to balancing and more time would've been good for Stadium as extra heroes (aka reasons to play) would be added and players got a better feel for it.

More leeway may have also given the devs time to iron out some of its discrepancies, namely how bloody long a match takes. Team 4 did change the format a few seasons ago to be first to three, but switched it back to best of seven quite quickly after the change.

I'd love to see Team 4 build on what it's created over the last 10 years, and not just be tied to the same old modes. But that's a wish that isn't realistic, especially given that there's been so much pressure on Xbox-owned studios, especially over the last few weeks, to capitalise off the best areas on the game. I'd wager it'd be harder to justify hard work on such a small area of the game now more than ever.

It's the loss of this creativity and innovation that I'm sad to see dialled down, more so than the game mode itself. I also don't think this kind of experimentation can be undervalued, not at a time when Overwatch has more competition to deal with and players to keep engaged. But I'm sure we'll still see it in other areas of the game, not least the Hacked Quickplays, the most recent of which carries the promise of a new kind of 6v6.

Acerbic activism group Everyone Hates Elon (EHE) don't just aim their ire at Mr. Musk. The group's latest guerilla effort involves two bus stop ads lampooning Meta's latest smart glasses offering, taking aim at the wearables' capacity for covert surveillance.

The first ad was unveiled last week, and describes Meta's AI glasses as "The biggest advance in pervert technology since the trenchcoat." The most head turning of these guerilla marketing stunts cropped up a few days ago: Co-opting an image from Kylie Jenner's recent collaboration with Meta AI, a lenticular design is leveraged to give Jenner a They Live makeover when viewed from certain angles, complete with the words 'Meta: We're always Watching' (via Hyperallergic).

The activism group has pulled similarly pointed stunts on both sides of the Atlantic, though these two ads were unveiled in the UK. Kylie Jenner's They Live transformation was specifically erected "down the road from Meta's London HQ".

I'll spare you a former print professional raving about lenticulars, and instead explain the reference for the young'uns. They Live was written, directed, and scored by John Carpenter back in 1988. It stars late pro-wrestler "Rowdy" Roddy Piper as a drifter who, with the help of a pair of sunglasses, uncovers the subliminal messages hidden within advertising and that the world is being controlled by camouflaged aliens (hence Kylie Jenner's sci-fi makeover).

It is, as the kids say, 'a wild ride' that features one of the greatest fight scenes ever committed to film.

EHE's latest stunt was inspired by news that Meta is prototyping ‘super sensing’ AI glasses that record the wearer's every waking moment over video and audio. A little LED light usually denotes when Meta's already released smart glasses are recording, but sources say the prototyped 'super sensing' feature won't trigger this. Criticism centres on the fact that, not unlike a Ring doorbell, folks passing by won't necessarily know they're being recorded.

A report earlier this year revealed that footage captured by Meta's AI smart glasses is reviewed by human contractors who see far more than they bargained for. However, in one proposed system for the 'super sensing' feature, Meta wouldn't hold on to the footage captured and it wouldn't be available to the user either—instead, the metadata of recorded images and audio would be fed to Meta’s AI. It's argued this approach would sidestep a number of privacy concerns.

However, I still wouldn't be comfortable allowing an AI model to absorb even this personal data, especially since security researchers were able to leverage bad maths to get AI agents to cough up user personal data. Considering AI safety guard rails can also be bypassed with 'adversarial poetry,' I'm not eager to trust Meta's AI with even vaguely sensitive information.

Certain questions keep me awake at night. What is the purpose of consciousness? What will the world look like for our children? Which keyboard, exactly, is Samuel L Jackson's character in Jurassic Park using when he attempts to access the systems and prevent more dinosaur escapes?

Luckily, the last one now has an answer: it's the SGI Granite Keyboard (Indigo Style), of course! This fossilised piece of tech is listed on the website of Fabien Sanglard, someone who's taken it upon themselves to go through the original film and describe all the computers and related components in "excruciating detail."

God bless you, that's all I can say. Where else can I find the information that everyone's favourite super nerd, Dennis Nedry, primarily uses two Macs and one SGI Iris Crimson at his control room desk, alongside a Motorola Envoy personal digital assistant?

In fact, Sanglard has even brought some official reference material into the equation. Quoting from the book "The Making of Jurassic Park":

"Everything in the set was real. We couldn't fake any of it, because audiences are so sophisticated now in their knowledge of computers. All told, $875,000 worth of computer hardware loaned by Silicon Graphics, $350,000 worth from Apple and some $500,000 in additional hardware and software went into equipping both the set and off-stage control room."

Now try this one on for size. The hurricane graphic seemingly operating in real-time on one of the computer screens was in fact created by Earthwatch, a piece of software developed for TV meteorologists. This trivia tidbit was revealed by an email from Gregory Gosson, who states:

"It was fantastic-looking stuff for the day, but the render times were very slow. The meteorologists would start the render sequence and then go to lunch. It could play the resulting animations in real-time, but could not render in real-time."

Next you'll be telling me the dinosaurs weren't real either.

Sanglard's dedication to the bit is impressive, as is the realisation that so much of the tech on screen appears to be authentic. I assumed at least one of the under-desk PCs was a spray-painted cardboard box, but apparently not.

One last fact before you go? The main control room screen has five machines underneath it, each with thousands of blinking red LEDs on the front. As Sanglard points out, given the massive loans of expensive computing hardware, these are quite possibly five genuine Thinking Machines CM-5 computers [PDF], priced at the time at $46,000 per unit.

Pretty rawr-some, no? Sorry, I had to. Please don't fire me, Dave [you're lucky, if it wasn't late on a Friday and I didn't mind dealing with the paperwork... -Ed.]

Update: A24 has confirmed on social media via a Backrooms film account that it "makes no claim of ownership over the yellow wallpaper, the original post referencing it, or any of the community works that have since been built around it." And explains that the takedown was an automated claim and "we immediately began the process to reverse it and reinstate the listings."

Kane Parsons' The Backrooms film was a huge success, which wasn't surprising given his history with self-made backrooms projects released on YouTube. But even so, it was fantastic to see a story which was born on the internet and celebrated by so many indie games get its moment in the limelight. Unfortunately, A24 is taking a hammer to all that good grace.

First reported by Reddit user GnarlyNet, A24 has apparently been going around and requesting takedowns of backrooms-inspired artwork, in this case a wallpaper pattern. A24 did release a special edition wallpaper for fans to buy which matched that inside the backrooms to celebrate the film release, but the problem is that much of the artwork being taken down is inspired by the original backrooms image that appeared on the internet years ago, before the film.

Creators, beware: A24 requested that my backrooms-inspired artwork be taken down from r/backrooms

"It is a recreation of the pattern from the well-known 2019 image who started the whole backrooms lore," GnarlyNet explains. "I find it disappointing to see a company attempt to claim such a broad connection to a concept that has been developed, shared, and loved by an online community for years. I would have hoped that A24 would celebrate that creative history rather than take action against independent artists who were, just like them, inspired by it.

"I respect the rights attached to any specific film adaptation, but those rights should not be treated as ownership of the entire Backrooms concept, its broader visual language, or the community lore surrounding it. I am sharing this because I think it raises an important question about what happens when large companies adapt community-created internet culture."

Apparently, the specific complaint was submitted "on behalf of 'A24 Films LLC'" but GnarlyNet cannot "independently confirm who submitted the complaint" beyond what information Redbubble provided them.

Regardless of the reason why the artwork has been taken down, John Backrooms himself, Kane Parsons has stepped in and confirmed that he will be looking into the matter: "I'm looking into this. Should not be happening." He said in reply to the initial Reddit post.

I very much hope this is an unfortunate misunderstanding. The backrooms has always been a community-led project which has massively benefited from all the numerous and varied contributions from fans. It would be a shame for a big company to step in and tread all over that tradition.

Asus isn't the immediately obvious pick when it comes to value-orientated PC hardware. But its mainstream Strix sub-brand does occasionally deliver some pretty sweet deals. Enter, therefore, the new Asus ROG Strix OLED XG32UQWMS.

It's a 32-inch, 4K gaming monitor based on LG's latest Tandem Primary RGB OLED panel tech, the specifics of which we'll come to shortly. And it's yours for $899, which is a pretty punchy price for a 32-inch 4K OLED with the very newest panel tech.

However, as a Strix model, the XG32UQWMS doesn't throw everything at the wall when it comes to features. Well, that's the theory. In practice, the XG32UQWMS has an awful lot of the stuff you'd want from a gaming display.

The one obvious omission is USB-C connectivity. But then that's not an unambiguously gaming-adjacent feature, albeit it is desirable for use with a gaming laptop and likewise if you're planning on sharing this monitor between a gaming rig and, perhaps, a work laptop.

Anyway, apart from the LG-supplied OLED panel itself, there's one little extra that's worth mentioning first. Along with the 240 Hz available at the OLED panel's native 4K resolution, there's also a 1080p dual mode running at fully 480 Hz.

Yes, these kinds of dual mode features are increasingly common on 4K gaming monitors. But given the Strix branding and relatively competitive pricing, not to mention the fact that not many OLED 4K monitors have yet offered it, you still might not have expected it on this particular model.

As for other specifications, this Asus represents a step up in terms of brightness compared with previous 32-inch 4K monitors with LG OLED models. The full-screen rating is now 330 nits, up from 275 nits on earlier models.

Asus is also quoting fully 1,500 nits for peak HDR brightness in a small window. Notably, both of those figures are well up on the 300 nits and 1,000 nits, respectively, that MSI claims for the MPG 322UR X24.

That MSI model uses the latest QD-OLED 32-inch 4K panel from Samsung. So, on paper at least, this new LG panel tech seems to have the edge over Samsung. For what it's worth, both this new Asus and the MSI get VESA DisplayHDR True Black 500 certification. Despite all that, the MSI is quite a bit more expensive, at $1,099.

There are a few other upsides beyond mere brightness that come with this latest LG Tandem OLED generation. First, there's a glossy panel coating. That's not to everyone's taste, but it certainly heightens one of the main strengths of OLED tech, namely contrast.

There's also more colour performance, now up to 99.5% of the DCI-P3 gamut and much more competitive in that regard with Samsung QD-OLED. Asus also says this generation of LG OLED panel tech is 60% more durable in terms of light-emitting lifespan and so should resist burn-in even more robustly, an issue which is covered in any case by the three-year warranty.

What you don't get, however, is true RGB-stripe sub-pixel structure. Confusingly, the "Primary RGB" nomenclature LG applies to this new panel tech refers to the layers of emissive material actually within each subpixel.

The sub-pixel structure itself remains the RGWB or red, green, white, and blue layout seen in many recent OLED panels. Strictly speaking, pure RGB and without the white sub pixel LG adds to boost brightness offers both better rendering precision and superior colour fidelity. For the record, Asus has announced a monitor with LG's new Tandem OLED panel that does have pure RGB-stripe subpixels, the ROG Swift OLED PG32UCWM. But that monitor is not this monitor, and the Swift models always command a much higher price.

Whatever, as is usual for all these OLED panels, response is rated at a startlingly scant 0.03 ms. In short, pixel response is essentially a solved problem with modern OLED panel tech. Rounding out the main features are dual HDMI 2.1 inputs, DisplayPort 1.4, a USB hub and support for G-Sync adaptive refresh technology on Nvidia GPUs and FreeSync on AMD GPUs.

Incidentally, this may be an Asus Strix model and therefore not its most premium offering, but the build quality is still decent. Okay, you miss out on pivoting the panel into portrait mode. But all the other adjustments, including tilt, height and swivel are included and, frankly, it's every bit as well put together as an 8K Asus monitor I happen to have in at the moment that sells for an incredible $8,800.

With all those details covered off, well, it's time to get to the main event. How good does this new LG Tandem OLED panel tech look in 32-inch 4K format and, likewise, how does it stack up against the Samsung QD-OLED competition as represented by the MSI MPG 322UR X24?

Out of the box, it's immediately apparent that this new panel has both more punch and more colour vibrancy that the previous LG-sourced 32-inch 4K OLED panel. But there are caveats.

Subjectively, the full screen brightness is a little disappointing. With a large proportion of the panel being driven hard, it's definitely duller looking, subjectively, than the MSI. If that seems to contradict the paper specs, well, this Asus monitor has to rely on LG's additional white subpixel to hit that 330 nits full-screen figure.

In practice, the white subpixel doesn't automatically boost brightness for colours as opposed to pure white. So, much of the time, that 330 nits rating is a bit notional. As with most OLEDs, you can boost the brightness by disabling the ABL or automatic brightness limiter, which Asus refers to as the Uniform Brightness setting.

However, more than with QD-OLED panels, the overall panel brightness varies substantially depending on how much of the panel is being lit up. It only requires a disappointingly small application window, such as a web browser, showing a predominantly white image, to have the panel dimming quite noticeably.

Even using dark mode for most apps, the panel will quite often dim in a manner that the QD-OLED competition doesn't, not quite. That said, this monitor can still deliver some spectacular visuals for HDR content.

It's at its best when rendering small bright details on a dark background. That's when you'll get the full 1,500 nits and a truly eye-popping experience. That's not the reality for most games, most of the time of course. And for day-to-day gaming I'd give the subjective edge to the MSI monitor and its Samsung panel. It's that little bit more vibrant, that little bit more immersive.

Of course one thing the MSI lacks is a 1080p dual mode. So, how does that factor into the equation? Certainly, this Asus Strix is lightning fast running at 480 Hz. The motion clarity is pretty stupendous ripping your mouse around in an online shooter like Counter-Strike 2, ditto the lack of latency.

The image quality at 1080p is also among the best I've seen in terms of pixel definition on a 32-inch 4K panel running in dual mode. But the thing is, if you're really serious about esports, do you really want to be playing on a 32-inch monitor?

I suppose you could mimic the apparent size of the preferred 24-inch monitor by pushing this thing further away. But I'm not totally convinced that's a satisfactory solution for someone who plays loads of online shooters. And if you don't, I can't see you using the dual mode much.

What I can say for sure is that I still give the slight edge to Samsung's QD-OLED tech. Yes, even the latest QD-OLEDs have a slight purple tint in bright ambient light that you entirely sidestep with LG's Tandem OLED panels.

But, overall, QD-OLED still feels noticeably more vibrant and colour rich. Moreover, the variable brightness on this Asus's LG panel when you disable uniform brightness in order to get the best performance is also more noticeable and more distracting.

All that said, there's a price differential to take into account. This Asus goes for $899 to the MSI's $1,099. Personally, I think the MSI is worth the extra $200 for a bit more subjective pop and USB-C connectivity. But the value proposition is certainly very tight between the two. And if you don't care about USB-C but would like the 1080p 480 Hz dual-mode feature, well, the Asus ROG Strix OLED XG32UQWMS is pretty compelling.

Less than two weeks out from massive Xbox layoffs that will put 3,200 people out of work, Bethesda Softworks has laid out its plans for the future, including confirmation of a new Fallout game from Obsidian and that remasters of both Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas are happening.

The full message covers pretty much everything Bethesda does, including a confirmation that Starfield, despite a middling reception and flagging player numbers, will continue to receive updates. There's also a nod to "more planned for the future" for The Elder Scrolls Online, even though the game and the studio making it both look pretty rocky right now.

But Fallout is the focus, and there is a lot going on. "Fallout is one of our biggest priorities today," Bethesda wrote. "Fallout 5 remains our long-range destination, and we have multiple Fallout projects in active development right now."

Included among those projects is a Fallout 76 expansion scheduled for 2027 called Raven Rock, which will serve as a prequel to Fallout 3, and as mentioned, the Fallout 3 and New Vegas remasters—no dates were revealed, but simple confirmation that they're both in development is long overdue.

The previously reported Obsidian collaboration is also confirmed in the announcement, and to my reading at least, it sounds like it will be another non-numbered entry to the series, as New Vegas was. Following the mention of Fallout 5, Bethesda seemed to reference the Obsidian game as an entirely separate thing: "The wasteland continues to expand as we team up once again with our longtime friends at Obsidian Entertainment. We're happy to confirm they're working with us on a new Fallout project. We'll have more to share in the future."

It also sounds like Fallout 5 is much further out than the Obsidian joint: Bethesda said that game is currently in pre-production, while the majority of the studio is focused on The Elder Scrolls 6. There's still no date on that either, although Bethesda at least acknowledged that "we know it’s been a very long wait for the sequel."

While the layoffs aren't referenced directly, Bethesda said it will be "bringing our teams closer together so we can get our games into your hands sooner," although to me it sounds more like a straightforward consolidation of studios that were hit hard by layoffs: "ZeniMax Online Studios will partner closely with Bethesda Game Studios on The Elder Scrolls franchise, while continuing to deliver incredible new experiences for The Elder Scrolls Online."

All told, it's quite the infodump, despite being short on specifics, and clearly aimed at reassuring fans that the wounds suffered by Bethesda in the Xbox cuts are not mortal, or even seriously damaging—beyond the hundreds of people who find themselves out of work, that is. How it all actually works out, we'll just have to wait and see.

In an attempt to fix the bloated Gunsmith system of recent Call of Duty games, Modern Warfare 4 is introducing a new feature, Gunny. It's a little widget in the bottom right of the loadout screen that you can use to create loadouts for you. For example, it'll say "Hello, I can help you build a weapon when you have more attachments unlocked. Keep levelling your weapon," if you've got a brand-new weapon.

Naturally sceptical of a weird widget that communicates with you, Infinity Ward has been accused of using AI for this new system. In a post which instigated a lot of the uproar, retired Call of Duty leaker TheGhostofHope said: "They got an AI chat bot in the game now to help mfs with their loadouts as if it’s not the same shit used every year."

Infinity Ward fired back, saying "Wrong (again.) Gunny is handcrafted by our developers, not AI. It recommends builds based on the attachments you’ve unlocked for each weapon. It helps make quick loadout changes between matches. Give it a shot in the Beta." For those out of the loop, that snarky 'again' refers to various incorrect leaks made by Hope which Activision has called out in the past. There's history.

I, for one, am glad that Gunny isn't an AI chatbot that can't play Call of Duty, telling me how to play Call of Duty. Instead, it's effectively just a personified auto-equip button that collates dev-made weapon builds for those players who don't want to create their own, or even search online for player-made setups.

However, it's not the first time that Call of Duty has been accused of using AI. Players had suspected Activision was using AI to generate cosmetics back in Modern Warfare 3 and Black Ops 6, and this was confirmed last year once Valve's mandated AI disclosure appeared on the Call of Duty Steam page. Later that year, Black Ops 7 also came under fire after players found what looked like AI-generated art.

So these calling cards are DEFINITELY AI generated right? from r/CODBlackOps7

In fact, as reported by Destructoid from a group presentation, Infinity Ward co-studio head Mark Grigsby confirmed that the team is using AI in MW4. “We use whatever tools we have to enhance and help our developers to complete [tasks] on time,” explained Grigsby. “For the game, there’s developmental things. We use whatever we can, whatever tools we can [in development].”

This is backed up by the game's Steam page, which has an AI usage disclosure, reading "Our team uses generative AI tools to help develop some in-game assets."

So, while Gunny thankfully isn't an AI chatbot despite the vibes, its developer certainly is using this maligned tech elsewhere in its creation. I would not be surprised to see more shoddy AI-generated calling cards popping up in premium bundles once again.

Is this the monitor cashed-up PC gamers have been waiting for? At last, a 39-inch ultrawide with decent pixel density thanks to its 5K2K resolution, plus the latest LG OLED panel knowhow? The new LG UltraGear Evo GX9 39GX950B certainly sounds pretty sweet, even if it also costs a pretty penny at $1,799 or £1,549.

The sordid matter of money aside, there's just one snag. The Ultragear 39GX950B does indeed offer LG's hot new Tandem OLED technology. But there's another otherwise almost identical 39-inch 5K2K panel from LG Display that has one notable advantage over this monitor, the inclusion of true RGB-stripe subpixel structure.

It turns out Alienware has announced a monitor using that LG panel, the Alienware AW3926QW, and, to be frank, it looms large over this new model from LG itself. However good it is, you'd really want to see how that Alienware shapes up before pulling the trigger.

Still, the LG Ultragear Evo 39GX950B does look epic on paper. We're talking 5,120 by 2,160 pixels across that 39-inch diagonal. To provide a little context and to define this panel in terms of pixel density and vertical screen size, this is essentially a 32-inch 4K 16:9 monitor taken out to 21:9 aspect and 39 inches.

For many fans of high-end gaming displays, the basic proposition here is just about perfect. The 143 DPI pixel density is enough for crisp fonts and lots of space for day-to-day computing and multitasking while also delivering oodles of in-game image detail.

At the same time, the ultrawide aspect and huge 39-inch panel size makes for epic immersion. Then add in the latest LG Tandem OLED panel tech and, well, you get the idea. This thing promises to be a bit special.

Beyond the basic form factor, of course, there are plenty of other details to absorb. In terms of brightness, ever a key OLED metric, LG claims 335 nits full screen and 1,500 peak HDR in a small window. Those figures are as good as PC OLED monitors currently get.

Speaking of HDR, the 39GX950B has VESA DisplayHDR True Black 500 certification, which is a hallmark of the latest LG Tandem OLED panels. Response comes in at 0.03 ms, which is standard for pretty much all current OLED panels and miles faster than any LCD-based monitor.

As for refresh, at the 5K2K native the 39GX950B tops out at 165 Hz. However, it supports various dual-mode alternative resolutions, the fastest of which can achieve 330 Hz. That's fairly nippy by any sensible measure, though it's pretty hard to imagine anyone really serious about esports and online shooters going for a huge ultrawide like this.

Having said that, the 39GX950B does offer the option of running at 1080p and 330 Hz in a 24.5-inch window, which pretty neatly mimics the preferred form factor for esports. The image quality is pretty clunky and pixellated, as it is in all of the dual modes. And I'm not totally convinced that many esports fans will actually want to play like that.

It certainly looks pretty odd to have a small 24.5-inch section of the huge panel active and rest fully blacked out. But there's no question it works and means this monitor is a thoroughly versatile gaming tool.

If the downscaling support is comprehensive with this panel, so too is the upscaling. Obviously, some kind of upscaling is now pretty much standard with any remotely recent graphics card, in the form of Nvidia's DLSS, AMD's FSR or even Intel's XeSS. But LG has included its own "AI" upscaling functionality with the 39GX950B via an integrated image processor. But hold that thought, we'll come back to how effective it is and how it might compare with GPU scaling in a moment.

Rounding out the speeds and feeds, you get HDMI 2.1, DisplayPort 2.1 and USB-C connectivity, the latter with 90 W of power delivery for single-cable connectivity to a laptop, albeit a gaming laptop will typically need rather more than that.

Last and certainly not least on the specs, the panel has a matte anti-glare coating rather than glossy and a mercifully gentle 1500R curve. Most people know if they are glossy or matte fans, but suffice to say that the heavy majority of current OLED gaming monitors are glossy.

One further detail involves the warranty. Where most big monitor brands offer three-year cover, including burn-in, LG is only offering two years. That's disappointing on several levels. For starters, LG Display, the subsidiary of the sprawling LG empire that makes the actual OLED panel (as opposed to LG Electronics, which makes this monitor), says its new Tandem OLED panel tech is more durable than previous generations. So, why not back it with a three-year warranty?

Moreover, given the hefty asking price of around $1,799 or £1,549, the thought of being on your own when it comes to burn-in after just two years is pretty off putting. That alone makes this monitor tricky to recommend.

But let's park that caveat for a moment and consider this monitor's performance. What's it actually like? Well, it's definitely punchier than monitors based on LG's previous WOLED panel generations. Oddly, it's also a more consistent performer than the Asus ROG Strix XG32UQWMS I reviewed recently.

I say "odd" because that Asus uses essentially a 32-inch 4K version of the same LG Tandem OLED panel tech. But I found the brightness variability on the Asus to be awfully distracting if you disabled the uniform brightness feature in order to maximise performance.

The Ultragear 39GX950B does still suffer from that issue, and probably more than comparable OLED monitors based on Samsung QD-OLED tech. But not enough for it to be a major flaw. Overall, the full-screen brightness is pretty decent and this panel can actually be too bright if, for instance, you tend to run most applications in dark mode and then have a third of the screen lit up by a bright browser window.

Of course, that's a good problem to have. Turning brightness down is simple. There's not much you can do, on the other hand, if max brightness isn't good enough.

So, as a desktop general computing panel running in SDR mode, this LG is pretty sweet. Fonts are sharp and crisp, there's loads of desktop space for multitasking, and the panel is plenty bright enough. If you really want to split hairs, I think the latest Samsung QD-OLED panels still look a touch more vibrant and saturated. But it's not a huge delta.

For HDR content, meanwhile, it's likewise mostly good news. LG's OSD menu is a bit baffling, but once you've got everything properly set up, the results can be spectacular, especially on a panel this size.

As ever with an OLED panel, it's at its best showing small bright details on a dark background. Neon lights in a nightclub scene, fireworks in the night sky, a large flame burning in the inky darkness, that kind of thing. Then the full impact of the 1,500 nit peak HDR brightness really hits home.

It's a touch less impressive for outdoor daytime video and game scenes, where the full-screen brightness limitations can leave it looking just a tiny bit underwhelming. To be clear, it's far better than earlier LG OLED panel generations in that regard. But, again, my preference for that kind of rendering remains Samsung QD-OLED.

That said, it's an open question just how good LG's new RGB-stripe panel as used by the aforementioned Alienware will be by comparison. In theory, and because it doesn't rely on an additional white subpixel to boost brightness, that RGB-stripe panel should have superior colour saturation and look more vibrant. Exactly how that pans out, well, we'll have to wait and see.

While we're talking HDR visuals, the SDR calibration in the best HDR mode is pretty wonky to the point where you'd never leave it in that mode, day-to-day. You can actually get decent SDR visuals in one of the other HDR modes. But then that compromises HDR performance. Long story short, you're going to have to switch monitor modes depending on the kind of content you are viewing, which is a bit of an annoyance.

As for the AI upscaling feature, it's awfully hit and miss. For instance, it doesn't work at all at 3,440 by 1,440, which you'd think would be the ideal alternative setting to 5,120 by 2,160 native in terms of knocking the res down to release some performance.

At other resolutions like 1080p, meanwhile, it only works at certain refresh rates. Once enabled, yes it does make things a bit crisper, but it's really not comparable to DLSS or FSR. In short, in its current form the built-in AI upscaling feels pretty underbaked.

Still, if you add panel speed to this monitor's other qualities, the overall experience is frankly epic. It's so huge and so super sharp and so immersive and just so awesome. And yet I can't help having a few reservations.

First, I'd love to see the latest Samsung QD-OLED tech applied to a panel this size and resolution. I'd likewise like to see this monitor with a glossy coating. That could be fantastic in terms of heightening the sense of visual pop and contrast.

And, again, I'd really want to see that upcoming Alienware with its LG Tandem OLED RGB-stripe panel before pulling the trigger, especially as the Alienware looks like it could be as much as $600 cheaper.

Then there's the disappointing two-year warranty. It really is hard to look past that at this price point. All of which leaves me in a state of cognitive dissonance with this monitor. In some ways, it's the best gaming monitor I've ever seen. And yet it's ultimately impossible to issue a strong buy recommendation. At the very least, anyone considering the LG UltraGear Evo GX9 39GX950B really has to wait and see how that cheaper RGB-stirpe Alienware turns out.

It took nine months, but Battlefield 6 is about to get its most requested feature. Naval warfare returns to the series on July 21 with the introduction of Tsuru Reef—BF6's new biggest map—a pair of boats, and more guns.

Perhaps more interesting is what's coming in phase 2 of Season 4 on August 18: OG Battlefield map Wake Island gets a modern update, complete with its aircraft carrier spawn points and beach assaults. At the same time, Battlefield 6 is hosting a Top Gun crossover that adds a new two-seater jet (styled like the films) and brings back a mode that first debuted in 2006's Battlefield 2142.

Top Gun: Carrier Strike—based on Battlefield 4's Carrier Assault, which is based on 2142's Titan mode—tasks two teams with sinking the other guy's aircraft carrier through the language of Conquest. Capture flags to launch missile barrages at the enemy carrier, culminating in an on-foot boarding assault on the carriers themselves. At least, that's how it worked in the old games. BF Studios says Carrier Strike has been reworked for BF6, which could mean anything from "it takes fewer missiles to win" to "there's no boarding phase anymore," which would be a shame.

It's funny and a little sad that old features are being reintroduced as brand crossovers, as if the only way to justify making a cool mode is to get Paramount to sponsor it, but at least Top Gun is an aesthetic match for Battlefield. It already makes more sense than when Battlefield 6 had an (admittedly fun) motocross course sponsored by Red Bull a few months back.

One other Top Gun-themed mode is coming as well, though this one's on the Redsec side. Top Gun: Fighter Sweep is a jets-only Gauntlet mission that takes place on a "modified Tsuru Reef." If you find Redsec as tedious as I do, the jets will also be usable on jet-only servers in Portal.

EA's press release has more quotes from Top Gun: Maverick actors (sans Cruise) than details about Carrier Strike. Miles "Rooster" Teller says it's "a huge honor to appear in a long-running franchise like Battlefield with its millions of fans, and talented people working on it," adding that "with Top Gun, it's like two titans meeting."

There's a zero percent chance Teller meant to reference the relevant name of the 2142 mode right? Battlefield's Top Gun festivities don't start until August, but the return of naval warfare next week should be a pretty big deal.

It's always interested me what people will accept as a playable frame rate for their games. It's almost an intrinsic part of being a PC gamer, because most of us have had to live with compromise for our entire gaming lives. If you're Scrooge McDuck, swimming through piles of cash and can drop five grand on a gaming PC, sure, you don't have to worry about digging around in the settings screen to find a balance of frame rate and fidelity you will accept. But for the rest of us, that's just the way of things.

And so each of us has to decide where they make that compromise, knowing our hardware is not going to be able to nail 4K/240 on the regular. For a long time, it was 30 fps as the target sweet spot for PC gaming, but that's because I'm an old man, and then it shifted to 60 fps with the advent of more modern console generations. But hell, I'm so old I keenly remember playing through Operation Flashpoint on a weakheart PC at maybe 18 fps max and loving it.

So, I wanted to know what that level was now, and is even 60 fps considered too low a frame rate to be comfortable? For the past week, we've been asking: What is the minimum frame rate you consider actually playable for your games?

What is the minimum frame rate you consider actually playable for your games?

Votes (%)

60 fps

50

30 fps

20

45 fps

12

120 fps

11

24 fps like da movies

4

240 fps + cos I'm super competitive

2

Votes (%) Data

Product	Value
60 fps	50
30 fps	20
45 fps	12
120 fps	11
24 fps like da movies	4
240 fps + cos I'm super competitive	2

And the results are that, yes, 60 fps is still widely considered the gold standard for whether a game is running at a playable level or not. With a solid 50% of PC Gamer readers putting that down as the minimum performance they will accept from their games and their gaming rig.

It's still interesting that 36% of readers—more than a third—are happy to accept a lower frame rate, sometimes much lower. Talk to any console developer right now, and there's a good chance they'll tell you that 30 fps is fine, and so will 20% of readers.

But I wouldn't be surprised if a good portion of the 12% citing 45 fps as their minimum are people coming from Steam Deck or handheld gaming PCs, or even sporting high-performing iGPUs in their laptops. There has become far greater acceptance of lower frame rates in return for the convenience of a mobile, gaming-capable platform.

Then you have the elites. Those with the gaming monitors and raw graphical grunt in their PCs to be able to say that 120 fps is their line in the sand, or even 240 fps. What a world to live in.

Where do you stand in the minimum frame rate debate? Are you in the high frame rate or be damned crew, or willing to compromise on 45 fps? Let us know in the comments below.

This week we're interested in your ship of Theseus: what's inside your PC and just how old is the oldest part inside it. So, we're asking: What is the oldest component inside your current gaming PC?

I like a little doohickie. You know, a thingamabob. A little extra device sitting on your desk that you probably won't use very much, but the design made you buy one anyway.

Which is why something deep in my soul yearns for this Codex Micro mini keyboard, even though I have little interest in OpenAI's coding assistant (via Ars Technica). It's been designed in collaboration with Work Louder, and looks a lot like one of the company's Creator Micro range of customisable mini keebs.

The device is regarded as OpenAI's first venture into branded hardware, and while rumours swirl that the company may be about to launch an AI-powered smart speaker, the Codex Micro instead allows users to interact with (and monitor) multiple Codex threads at once, complete with light up keys indicating their individual status.

The little dial in the top right can be used to "control how deeply your agent thinks," according to the product page. Turn it down for quick tasks, and dial it up "when the work needs to be more considered." Excellent. I function mostly the same, except based on caffeine level.

Look, if we must be forced into our "AI agents are amazing, no really" future, at least we should get some custom, agent-controlling hardware to lust over. Then I can pretend I'm living in a sci-fi dreamscape, rather than literally the worst sort of corporate dystopia I can think of.

Speaking of terrible things, the device also comes with 32 swappable keycaps, two of which are labelled "yolo" and "yeet." Yes, it's 2014 all over again, and we are very much down with the kids here at OpenAI. Yaaaasss, bae. Etc, etc.

Unfortunately, the Codex Micro is a limited launch—so if you're the sort of person that thinks Sam Altman might be on to something, you'll need to pick one up quick.

Or, you could consider the Creator Micro 2, which looks very much like the same product (minus the Codex-specific features) and comes in a rather handsome black finish—without the OpenAI branding plastered on the box.

I know which I prefer, but the lack of an included yeet button? Hardly on fleek, if you ask me.

Ever since Overwatch let the 5v5 cat out of the bag in 2022, it's spent most of its time trying to get it back in. The format has been met with a lot of backlash over the last four years from those who don't see it as a good alternative to the classic 6v6. It's a problem Team 4 has tried to solve by bringing in 6v6 open queue as an alternative mode. But that hasn't stopped the developer from trying to find a compromise between the two modes.

The latest attempt at compromise falls in the current Quickplay Hacked Event, a limited time mode where Team 4 trials ideas to make the game better and looks to the community for feedback.

For those who want to test it out, you can now play a new form of 6v6 which attempts to utilise certain characteristics from 5v5—it's the 1-3-2 flex mode where teams can have one tank, three DPS, and two supports with the catch that one of the DPS can also flex to the tank role if they want to.

I get what it's trying to do. With there only technically being one tank needed for a game you'd keep the shorter queue times that 5v5 promises while also adding an extra person into the mix for more team-based and chaotic skirmishes that 6v6 offers. On paper it seems like a good fix, but in practice it just feels like a bad compromise.

I only played this hacked mode last night and after the first few games a trend emerged: teams that had two tanks stomped those that only had one—who'd a thought? Me, and honestly most players.

Because there's a capacity to have two tanks on a team, it means the role is balanced on the side of a 6v6 game with the tanks having slightly less health and abilities which are tuned down (aka Zarya having one bubble not two). This is okay if you have two tanks, but painfully weak if you only have one.

In one match where my team had two tanks and the enemy team only had one, we rolled through them, pushing the payload to the first two checkpoints with no issue. But the enemy team flexed to two tanks right before the final objective and managed to stall the point from there. I played games where I was the solo tank against two tanks and it sucked—every time one of the enemy tanks made a mistake the other one would correct it before I could capitalise off of it. The only way to win against a 2-2-2 comp with a 1-3-2 comp is to have vastly better players, which isn't a reliable option. Without fail the team with one less tank lost.

This makes the 1-3-2 flex mode completely redundant, no matter the tweaks or balances it will almost always be better to have two tanks rather than one. And if that's the case having a 1-3-2 option is entirely redundant, with its only use being it may make for shorter queue times.

Needless to say I don't think this is the answer to the 5v5 or 6v6 debate. Unfortunately, these two formats are just too different to find any useful common ground. I play both formats, and I like them for different reasons—the chaos of 6v6 can be fun to navigate and manage but I prefer the 5v5 matches because you can make more of an impact on games and it rewards a more deliberate and skilful approach to fights as mistakes are easier to capitalise on.

So, I'll say the same thing I always do when it comes to the 5v5 vs 6v6 debate: I think Overwatch should prioritise 5v5, its new direction is better for what the game is now. 6v6 certainly has a place and should still be an option for those who want it. But, a compromise between the two—at least in how this hacked mode frames it—should not be on the table, it is just the worst of both modes.

One of the reasons I love wireless gaming headsets is for the range of movement they allow. If my other half yelps about a big bad bug situation, I can hit pause and spring into action while keeping my RGB kitty ears on. However, the one thing I don't love about wireless gaming headsets, like my beloved Razer Kraken Kitty V3 Pro, is how often this bit of kit needs to become wired in order to charge.

We've not seen many gaming headsets with hot swappable battery systems, but trust me when I tell you it's a game changer. The SteelSeries Arctis Nova Pro is one wireless gaming headset that leverages hot swappable batteries for a truly untethered experience. You can ditch the wires for even less now, as it's enjoying a 34% discount and now going for $250 from Amazon.

As snazzy as those two, 30-hour battery packs are, that's still a pretty premium asking price. Thankfully, the SteelSeries Arctis Nova Pro offers plenty of premium features to go along with it. For one thing, it certainly feels premium; in her SteelSeries Arctis Nova Pro review, our Katie admits "I've hardly had a reason to take the Arctis Nova Pro off my head other than to admire it. I've been taking it to bed, for crying out loud."

The Nova Pro also enjoys some seriously impressive active noise cancelling. Katie writes, "When I finally slip the thing off to wear (rather comfortably) around my neck as the most expensive jewellery I've ever owned, there's a shock as I remember how much ambient noise stuff in the real world generates. After being treated to the Nova Pro's active, 'four-mic hybrid system' for noise cancelling, complete with three hear-through levels, I'd almost forgotten how loud my Razer Blackwidow X Chroma's clicky green switches are."

Hot swappable batteries, plus comfort, plus amazing ANC creates a premium bubble you'll have little reason to surface from. Add to that a little Sonar software tweaking and the 40 mm drivers only reinforce your pleasant little audio bubble. On top of that, you also enjoy the rare ability to connect to two devices simultaneously over a Bluetooth and 2.4 GHz wireless connection for the most maximal audio experience (ie, listening to a podcast while you game).

Adding to the premium feature set, the Nova Pro also comes with a DAC. This contains the dock you use to charge the hot swappable batteries, but it also offers so much more. For instance, Katie writes, "The DAC serves as an 96kHz/24-bit amplifier, similar to that of the Arctis Pro + which also touts a wide 10-40kHz frequency response. Coupled with the Sonar equaliser, the quality of the newly designed drivers becomes immensely clear."

Don't get me wrong, a price tag of $250 is still steep and definitely won't make sense for all budgets. But if you're big on audio—and you don't want to quite push the budget boat all the way out for the best audiophile headsets—the SteelSeries Arctis Nova Pro might just tick all the right boxes for you.

👉 Check out the rest of Amazon's gaming headset deals 👈

According to 404 Media, a hacker has breached the company database of Suno, an online AI music generation tool. The hack is said to reveal multiple references to the training data it scraped from YouTube Music, Deezer, Genius, and others.

Suno has previously admitted that its tool was trained on "essentially all music files of reasonable quality that are accessible on the open internet" as part of court proceedings back in 2024.

The company has argued that it's allowed to train on copyrighted works under fair use protections, while the Recording Industry of America has accused it of unlawfully scraping tracks from YouTube specifically, among other complaints.

And looking at the details, it appears YouTube Music was indeed a primary target. A file entitled "youtube_music" reportedly contains a note that over two million music clips were scraped, while another dataset file notes a figure of "113,879 hours of youtube_music." Alongside "17,615 hours of genius_hq," "12,287 hours of Deezer", and "152,162 hours of ytm_tagged."

These figures, among others, amount to at least a decades worth of music ingested by Suno. The code also suggests that Suno used third-party proxies to scrape songs and other audio media, with PodcastIndex, an open online tool that creates lists of podcast media files, used to identify hundreds of thousand of different podcasts for potential scraping.

A Suno spokesperson said: "As we have stated in public filings and disclosures, Suno’s AI models have been trained on publicly available music files and related metadata accessible on third-party websites on the open internet."

"In November of 2025, we determined that Suno had been the subject of a limited security incident that was quickly contained," the statement continues. "At the time, we immediately conducted an investigation and verified that the incident primarily involved outdated source code that is no longer in use at Suno, and that no sensitive personal information was compromised."

The fair use argument has been made in relation to AI training data before. In June of last year, a US judge ruled that Anthropic's use of copyrighted content to train its AI models fell under fair use protections, but stopped short in regards to claims it used pirated material.

Meta won a similar case later that month, after a judge ruled in favour of the company over claims it trained its AI tools on 13 authors' books without permission.

All of which is to say, there's precedent to suggest this data-scraping behaviour is acceptable under US law. For Suno's part, the company has argued that its tool outputs songs that are significantly different from original works .

"We believe artists deserve both new opportunities and strong protections," a company spokesperson told 404. "That's why we've invested in safeguards designed to help prevent impersonation, and other forms of misuse, while continuing to develop technologies for AI identification."

As for those in the music industry, there is widespread concern around platforms like Suno—and AI's influence on music as a whole. Speaking to The Guardian, Catherine Anne Davies, a musician on the board of directors for the Featured Artists Coalition, said: "Most people don’t even want their work to be used for training AI.

"I’m interested in the way that AI can be assistive in the creative process—if it can make us more efficient, if it can streamline our processes. But generative AI for me, in terms of creative output, is a big no-no at the moment. I’m yet to be convinced"

Before Modern Warfare 4's official hands-on gameplay premiere yesterday, Infinity Ward had to clear the air regarding visual recoil. Effectively, it's aware of the concerns it's buck wild, and will be monitoring feedback during the beta before launch. So what I wasn't expecting soon after was to get blinded by a severe case of muzzle flash every trigger pull while watching the new gameplay yesterday.

Several content creators were invited to play and livestream an early MW4 alpha build, including the new Kill Block mode. But what's gotten more attention online has been the over-the-top effects whenever you shoot: a bright flash and a big puff of smoke that covers the entire screen, almost warranting sunglasses. It was especially prevalent on high-power weapons like snipers, though it was visible on other weapons too, especially in darker environments. It's hilariously distracting in the clip below, where it feels like it would light up my face like Ben Starr at The Game Awards if I were playing in a dimly lit room.

After a clip of Skyrroz showcasing it spread around, Infinity Ward once again had to step in to confirm that, no, this isn't intentional. But it sure is a shame that it's marred the first proper hands-on gameplay the community's been privy to.

"These are pre-release Alpha builds and are still very much a work in progress," the post reads. "The muzzle flash VFX issue in today's Alpha gameplay is a bug that will be fixed for Beta."

This is backed up by previous behind-closed-doors hands-on, including by our own Morgan Park, who played it earlier this year. CoD content creator JGOD also had this to say about that same clip being shared around: "What happened to the version I played and why is he getting flash-banged with every shot?".

Infinity Ward followed up today with more details, confirming that this issue was specifically caused by a bugged suppressor attachment. After the feedback, however, it has also decided to reduce the muzzle smoke opacity for all weapons.

Combined with the already controversial visual recoil, this unfortunate bug has quickly given people the wrong impression. "Nice, need an epilepsy warning to come on every time you shoot a gun," one commenter wrote. "Bruh…..WHAT THE F*CK is that muzzle smoke," said another. Similarly, "That muzzle flash lmfao what im getting flashbanged each shot wtf." You get the picture.

Hopefully the beta, expected to begin in September, won't suffer any other heinous bugs to further sour the mood. Though that's what a beta's for, I suppose.

Over 4,500 Google workers have signed a petition calling for layoff protections in response to tech giant workforce cuts over the past few months. According to The Guardian, the union-led petition calls for guaranteed severance, buyouts before mandatory layoffs, and the option to take severance as extended paid leave.

Employees reportedly chanted "Google, Google, you can't hide, we can see your greedy side" at a Thursday press conference. The workers referenced Google parent company Alphabet's mass layoffs in 2023, while reports indicate the company has been quietly laying off staff in certain divisions this year.

After delivering the petition to the office of CEO Sundar Pichai, Parul Koul, the president of the Alphabet Workers Union, said: "This is a company enjoying massive, unprecedented success... these layoffs and cuts are not difficult decisions, but simply profit being put over the people that make this company run."

The petition was left with a staff member at Pichai's office, and Koul states that the workers were "greeted with closed doors and no response for the most part." However, the staff member said they would deliver it to the Google and Alphabet chief, and that it was "the largest piece of employee feedback that Google had received about job security."

The petition also calls for an end to performance ratings of employees, which workers say relies on quotas hit, rather than being based on individual merit.

The protections call comes directly after mass layoffs at Microsoft, where 3,200 employees were announced to be put out of work, 1,600 at the time of announcement and 1,600 set to follow over the next financial year. Meta, meanwhile, laid off 8,000 employees earlier this year, while Oracle laid off 21,000 of its staff over a 12-month period.

Many job cuts across the tech industry are attributed to gains in efficiency from AI, with Oracle's annual report stating that "deployment of AI technologies across our operations [has] resulted, and may continue to result, in reductions to our workforce."

Google's market cap valuation has quadrupled over the past six years, and currently sits at an estimated $4.3 trillion. The company, like just about all tech giants at this point, is thoroughly invested in AI—although Demis Hassabis, the CEO of Google DeepMind, seems convinced that AI-related job cuts are not inevitable.

"From my point of view, from DeepMind and Google's point of view, if engineers are becoming three or four times more productive, then we just [want to] do three or four times more stuff," the DeepMind chief said earlier this year, criticizing companies looking to replace engineers with AI as having "a lack of imagination".

Imagination or not, it seems the Alphabet Workers Union is taking no chances.

EA announced it'd be creating a whole new platform for advertising last month, something I'm sure has you so excited you're jumping out of your seat and clicking your heels. You might be potentially doing a little dance and saying 'yipee!' Personally speaking, the very thought exhausts me, though Alexander Dao, EA's vice president of advertising and sponsorship, at least has somewhat of a measured stance towards it.

That's via an interview with The Game Business. In it, Dao says that ads in games are "a huge opportunity, not just for EA but broadly, because most of the games that have been around for a while, building the advertising experience is really retrofitting it in."

He uses the example of the most recent Skate, a game that hit the industry like a corporate brick and, as our own Kara Phillips said, feels like it was made by people in suits. Still, Dao maintains that if "you actually design them with the right advertising and brand experience in there from the get-go, it just makes it easier. It makes it feel more native and it creates more flexibility in the types of brands that can come in and out."

As for what the new platform means for videogames, Dao says that they're trying to "standardize some of this." Mainly in terms of viewability standards and the ability to share reports back to the company they're advertising for, so they're "seeing consistency." Basically, justifying the obscene amount of cash that gets spent in routine advertisements each year.

But that standardization presents a problem, because "it has to make sense for the game" says Dao. A statement that both gives me some relief, and a little bit of anxiety—like watching a vampire figure out that it needs to be polite in order to get invited in. Not that I'm comparing advertising executives to vampires. I would never do that.

"It’s easier to imagine what that looks like with sports because what you’re really trying to do is mirror the real-world experience. But if we pull on the thread of… how do we actually understand what the players want? The progression? And can brands be a part of that experience?"

The example Dao uses is in The Sims, which had a collaboration with Coach that involved nine free items with Coach branding on them: "We did some surveys to understand what type of brands they would actually want to see in the game. Where is there good overlap in audience? And if a brand were to come in, what’s the right way for them to do it? And what we did with Coach was democratize access to their products to The Sims community."

And, listen. I am dangerously close to giving Dao kudos here, because in the interest of fairness—if I were a Sims player that was into fashion, I'd probably be pretty happy to be given free clothes and accessories in exchange for the understanding I was being advertised to. Is it worse than, say, being asked to shell out money for a collab between games? I dunno, man.

But when Dao says eminently reasonable things like "it is a bit nuanced title-by-title to make sure that you’re getting it right and it doesn’t feel random", I do still feel like a frog being boiled in a pot. Mostly because advertising—as shown by, say, subscription-based streaming services having the gall to put ads in when you're already paying a sub—has a way of escalating things.

Making money in GTA Online has basically always been a game of whack-a-mole, with players finding the latest and greatest trick, and Rockstar promptly shutting the loophole down. With Grand Theft Auto 6 on the horizon, Rockstar has decided to nerf heists, which were one of the most popular ways to make a good buck in Los Santos.

The latest update added the Kortz Center heist where you're tasked with stealing an art collection. The first hurdle is that it costs at least $16.2 million to get a mansion and art studio upgrade you need to unlock it, and it only pays out a measly $2 million per completion for all your hard work—lower than most existing, easier-to-access heists. If you don't already have a mansion at least, it's not worth the investment.

Compare this to the Doomsday Heist, which can be started by purchasing the cheapest facility, worth $1.2 million, and then a low $25,000 setup fee for Act 1, which previously paid out $975,000. By the time you'd beaten the Acts 2 and 3, you'd be raking in the money.

Alongside this, Rockstar has nerfed multiple other heists' payouts and introduced a weekly bonus to compensate, which I assume is to encourage players to engage with a more diverse array of activities. For example, completing the Kortz Center will only reward you with a bafflingly low $400,000 on your second run of the week. The Diamond Casino's maximum $3.3 million reward has been cut to $2.3 million, and it now goes as low as $1.4 million.

Sure, if you're completing each of the heists every week to earn the first-time bonuses, then it's technically a buff, but most players don't have the resources to do this given the high setup fees. And if you're doing every heist every week, then chances are you're not a casual player anyhow.

Unsurprisingly, these sweeping nerfs haven't gone over well with the community. "Prices go up, paychecks go down. I thought a game would let us escape the world a bit," one player wrote on Reddit. And it's true, all the sought-after vehicles cost a couple of million bucks each, steadily increasing over the past few years, and since Rockstar capped most vehicle resales at $500,000 earlier this year to combat duplication exploits, it's tough to recoup any cash. The new Grotti Veleno GT costs $3 million alone. Buying property is similarly pricey. While payouts have, in practice, been slashed for most players, flashy new rides and facilities are as expensive as ever.

"Wtf are they doing?" another player said. "This will not encourage people to do these heists more. It does the opposite."

Likewise, "If people want to grind the same heist, let them, why discourage it?," said yet another frustrated player. "If it's to make players change up what content they do, maybe change the unpopular heists. Weekly bonus is cool but not enough to make up for the nerfs. Definitely feel like nerfs just to try and push as many players as possible towards GTA 6."

And they make a good point. We still don't know what Rockstar has planned for GTA Online when GTA 6 arrives. Is it to be replaced by a brand-new, completely separate online mode for the long-awaited sequel? Is the current GTA 5 online mode simply going to continue like it is now? Will it be updated for the new era in a similar fashion to Call of Duty's battle royale mode, Warzone? If it's the latter, perhaps these economy tweaks are to set the stage for what's to come. Only Rockstar knows, and it's rarely one to tell.

When Konami revealed back in February that it's finally making a new Castlevania, the teaser trailer's art and color palette was so reminiscent of the Netflix anime series that it seemed possible the game was actually using the show's designs, or at least had gotten a little love from the folks at Powerhouse Animation. In a recent interview with PC Gamer, Konami confirmed there's no explicit continuity between the show and the new game, but the similarity was certainly intentional.

"We know that there are so many fans of the anime series who’ve never played the games before. So even though obviously we wanted to put the game at the forefront of our ideas when we were directing, we really did want to make sure that everyone felt welcome, especially the anime fans who’ve never played the games," said series producer Tsutomu Taniguchi.

Creative director Emmanuel Nouaille from development studio Evil Empire said that there's no "specific reference" to the anime in Belmont's Curse, but the art style of the Netflix show did serve as inspiration.

"Through the art direction and through the music and the story, I think we are very close to the cinematographic aspect of the series," Nouaille said. "This is what we want to capture and want to replicate. I think cinematography is more important than a specific reference to the game."

Unfortunately neither developer mentioned if the Castlevania series is kaput at Netflix—it's been a year-and-a-half since the most recent season's release with nary a peep. My bet is we get a surprise new season based on Symphony of the Night at some point, but for now, we'll just have to make do with the first game to follow in Symphony's footsteps since 2008.

"There’s not a wall between the game and the anime," Taniguchi added. "We’re really hoping that people who’ve only watched the anime also enjoy the game."

Aaand relax.

Having fought the first three bosses, slain a familiar parade of public domain monsters, and enjoyed many a crack of Castlevania's new whip, I can confirm that Evil Empire hasn't followed up The Rogue Prince of Persia with its first bad game. If you've been longing for this series to confidently get back to its Symphony of the Night-era glory days, you're in luck. Frankly, I'm happy just to see Castlevania finally back from the dead.

"It was completely crazy," says Emmanuel Nouaille, creative director at Evil Empire, when I ask how it feels to make a new Castlevania game. "It was a blast of course. Just a dream come true." Tsutomu Taniguchi, the game's producer at Konami also assures us that he's happy to be making the first new Castlevania after 12 years of coffin rest.

"But at the same time, I feel a lot of pressure," he says. "It's a happy pressure." Tanighuchi's translator urges us to look at his smiling face so we know he's telling the truth.

Putting on a brave face? No, there's plenty to smile about here. Belmont's Curse introduces Rose Belmont, daughter of Trevor 'star-of-ancient-Vania-games' Belmont. Let's hope Rose hasn't read her game's subtitle, eh? Father and daughter arrive in the ruins of Paris, which has been overtaken by the forces of darkness, naturally. Trevor goes off to make his own investigations while Rose starts exploring Paris and smacking monsters around, occasionally taking a break to cryptically refer to her unnamed mother.

Intriguing…

A dull, tedious part of me will always want my 2D Vanias to be pixel art affairs, but I'll begrudgingly concede Belmont's Curse is a looker. Backgrounds pack so much detail into its far-too-on-fire take on Paris that often it's borderline 2.5D. Castlevania has also never felt smoother to play, and certainly never this welcoming. You start off with three health potions, and can even stack more on top of that. Floor slide and wall jump platforming techniques are available right from the start instead of being stingy unlocks. Enemies drop health-restoring food infrequently, but not as ridiculously rarely as in the earliest games, where you could easily forget they contained a food system at all.

Blasphemy? Possibly, but from the first boss onwards, Belmont's Curse grows a fine set of fangs.

Kid Dracula?

As in '80s and early '90s Castlevania bosses hit suddenly and hard, punishing even the most minor mistakes by snapping your health bar over their knee. Fights outside these behemoth bouts scale up quickly, too: Belmont's Curse loves needling cowards by having threats constantly pursue you across the screen. Fail to deal with some flying gargoyles and they'll stalk you right into your next battle with a big flame shooting horror, multiple harpies, and bats so irritating they must have flapped right out of Pokémon's caves.

For the first time since Order of Ecclesia way back in 2008, a year so distant it might predate Dracula, the series is finally a proper metroidvania again. Given that Evil Empire has never made one and is known for roguelikes, surely the studio must have considered giving Castlevania a similar spin? "It's the first Castlevania we've released in quite some time, so we really did want to give homage to the 2D action exploration games," explains Taniguchi. He stresses that Konami still gave Evil Empire plenty of autonomy, but it looks like everyone aligned on making a metroidvania pretty swiftly.

"We had a lot of discussions at the beginning as to what makes Castlevania special," says Nouaille. "We have a lot of different gameplay styles in the history of Castlevania." But the team decided it had to be what Konami officially calls a "2D action-exploration game" early on. "We didn't talk a lot at the beginning about doing another style of gameplay."

Belmont's curse hits all the metroidvania staples with gusto. Weird hooks in the walls and other progress blockers have you covering the map screen in reminders to make a return trip. There's a vast amount of secrets to discover, with a pleasing frequency of surprisingly smashable walls. Best of all, it rewards you for taking the time to examine its map screen properly, connecting routes in your head and then whipping and swinging your way to the treasures they're hiding.

There's no waypoints or guide arrows here (now that would be blasphemy). Instead, ghosts tell morbid stories that offer clues as to where you should go next. One spirit tells us a tragic yarn about seeing someone dragged under the roots of a cursed tree. Aha, so there's a route beneath those roots! Score! Oh, and, er, sorry for your loss. It's nice to know that if we're completely stuck we can scroll through these hints, even if some are a little patronising. It's not a good idea to look Medusa in the eyes, you say? Hope you didn't notice how hard I just rolled mine…

Old rope

Only Indiana Jones rivals this series for most iconic whip, and Evil Empire has probably given us its best incarnation yet. This whip lets you swing over gaps and yank yourself towards enemies, the latter obviously being something of a mixed blessing. "The whip is not just a tool for traversal," explains Nouaille. "It's used for both combat and traversal. We focused on having something simple to use with a lot of responsive aspects. We like to create a movement like a dance." The idea was to give the player a whip that they actually "use like wings."

Staying airborne as long as possible by whipping from enemy to enemy is like playing the Spider-Man: Vampire Hunter game I never knew I wanted. Swinging off enemies gets steadily more vital in the increasingly cruel platforming sections, too, pairing beautifully with another power that can morph certain platforms and walls in and out of existence.

Leap-whip-whip-morph-whip-morph-slice-leap is incoherent gibberish to you now, but trust me; that's exactly what'll be playing through your head just a few powers in.

The game constantly chucks new weapons at you. I thought I was committed to the fast swipes of the basic sword, until I cheated on it with the lovely chuckable spear. Each weapon and spell has criteria you can fulfill to upgrade it, too. At the most basic this is simply a case of killing enough enemies, but more interesting challenges stand in the way of the bigger unlocks.

These pair nicely with unlockable talismans that offer boons, like more damage delivered when you're airborne, gently pushing you into trying different playstyles. Evil Empire can't simply smash up your toys each run like it could in Dead Cells and Rogue Prince. But it's great to see the team still knows how to encourage you to experiment regardless.

My only issue so far is that, in the nearly two decades since Order of Ecclesia, metroidvanias have been through about five renaissances. The whip is a fine weapon, but it doesn't challenge Nine Sols' revelatory talisman-slapping or even Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown's sublime swordplay (at least, not yet). Getting turned to stone by Medusa's flying heads raises a smile of recognition, but I instantly know to waggle the analogue stick to break free.

Should an epic battle against the forces of darkness feel this much like slipping into a favourite pair of comfy slippers?

At least one of the bosses being Joan of Arc is new, and certainly a novel way to try to butter up a British games journalist.

After three hours of play, Belmont's Curse is a very good metroidvania, and full of potential to be an outstanding one. If it's 'merely' a greatest hits collection then that'll only be a mild disappointment. But I'd be delighted if Evil Empire has some more tricks up its sleeve and whackier weapons worthy of Dead Cells' almighty arsenal. I've got everything crossed for something as sublimely silly as Aria of Sorrow's soul-sucking vacuum cleaner.

If Belmont's Curse can deliver on that, then never mind Dracula; this could well be the entry that finally dethrones the almighty Symphony of the Night.