Carzy Zarx’s PC Gaming Emporium - Catch Up on All the Latest PC Gaming Related News

[JEMC]

These are the Thursday news:

SALES /PLAYER COUNT & DEALS

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge sells over a million in its first week
https://www.pcgamer.com/teenage-mutant-ninja-turtles-shredders-revenge-sells-over-a-million-in-its-first-week/
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge picked up a handsome 79% in our review, not bad for what is essentially a '90s arcade brawler in 2022, and any shellhead will probably want to add a few points onto that for the warm fuzzies of seeing the boys back in action. If you're of a certain age, this game's like a '90s kid's fever dream come true.
The audience clearly thinks so too. Turtles may be an enormous franchise but that doesn't mean the games always do gangbusters numbers (RIP in pepperoni, Mutants in Manhattan). Shredder's Revenge has done very well, with developer Tribute Games announcing that the game sold over one million copies in its first week on sale.

The Epic Store gives away two titles:

• Idle Champions of the Forgotten Realms: https://store.epicgames.com/en-US/p/idle-champions-of-the-forgotten-realms
• Wonder Boy: The Dragon's Trap: https://store.epicgames.com/en-US/p/wonder-boy-the-dragons-trap

Next week, the free game will be "Shop Titans" and "Tannenberg".

GOG has a new Deal of the Day: SOMA will be 90% off during 22 hours: https://www.gog.com/en/game/soma.

Steam has two daily deals:

• The first one is Trigon: Space Story, 30% off: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1226510/Trigon_Space_Story/
• The second one is Baldur's Gate II: Enhanced Edition, 85% off: https://store.steampowered.com/app/257350/Baldurs_Gate_II_Enhanced_Edition/

There's a new Humble Bundle: the Focus Entertainment: Legends & Visions, featuring 7 games to get during the next 13 days: https://www.humblebundle.com/games/focus-entertainment-legends-and-visions.

And Fanatical has a bunch of new sales and deals:

• The Star Deal is MONSTER HUNTER RISE, 57% off during 24 hours: https://www.fanatical.com/en/game/monster-hunter-rise
• The former deal is part of a Capcom Sale with up to 85% discounts during 6 days: https://www.fanatical.com/en/publishers/capcom
• Warner Bros also puts its games on sale, up to 86% off during 10 days: https://www.fanatical.com/en/publishers/warner-bros-games-inc
• The Gaming Legends Sale features legendary franchises on sale. Check them out here: https://www.fanatical.com/en/collections/gaming-legends-sale
• The new bundle with Rimworld with all expansions, 3 items in total, will be 12% off during 10 days: https://www.fanatical.com/en/bundle/rimworld-with-all-expansions
• And the Batman: Arkham Collection, with 3 games, has a 86% discount during 10 days: https://www.fanatical.com/en/bundle/batman-arkham-collection

SOFTWARE & DRIVERS

Unity is merging with a company who made a malware installer
https://www.pcgamer.com/unity-is-merging-with-a-company-who-made-a-malware-installer/
Unity, the company behind the multiplatform game engine of the same name, announced it has entered into an agreement to merge with IronSource. "If you don't know ironSource," Unity's statement reads, "they bring a proven record of helping creators focus on what creators do best – bringing great apps and user experiences to life – while enabling business expansion in the app economy."
IronSource is also well-known for another reason. It developed InstallCore, a wrapper for bundling software installations. If you've searched for a popular program and seen a link to a third-party site with a URL that ended in something like "downloadb.net" or "hdownload.net" it may well have been InstallCore. If you made the mistake of downloading it, you'd be offered the kind of extras with generic names like RegClean Pro and DriverSupport an unsophisticated user might click OK on, which is how you end up with a PC full of toolbars and junk that's as slow as your parents' is. InstallCore was obnoxious enough Windows Defender will stop it running, and Malwarebytes too.
(...)
Game developers who use Unity are less than thrilled about the merger. Andreia Gaita (opens in new tab), who runs game porting studio Spoiled Cat, tweeted that, "A game engine is the thing that you use to build and distribute games to devices. The vendors of those devices, like Apple, need to trust that the engine is not bundling bad things along with the game. Merging with a company that specializes in bundling malware is… WTF". Or as Maddy Thorson (opens in new tab) of Celeste fame succinctly put it, "Man, fuck Unity".
>> First they lay off a lot of people and now this. I guess that Unity's days are numbered.

MODS, EMULATORS & FAN PROJECTS

Elden Ring gets an impressive Halo Mod, allowing you to play as Master Chief
https://www.dsogaming.com/mods/elden-ring-gets-an-impressive-halo-mod-allowing-you-to-play-as-master-chief/
NexusMods’ member ‘asmartcowmods’ has shared a pretty cool Halo Mod for FromSoftware’s latest title, Elden Ring. As the title suggests, this mod allows you to play as Master Chief from the Halo games.
Now what’s really cool here is that this isn’t just a character swap mod. Instead, this mod includes the Gunnery Mod which allows you to handle guns in Elden Ring. Additionally, it replaces the m16 with the Battle Rifle from the Halo games.

Here is how you can enable AMD FSR 2.0 in Diablo 2 Resurrected (and other DLSS-powered games)
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/here-is-how-you-can-enable-amd-fsr-2-0-in-diablo-2-resurrected-and-other-dlss-powered-games/
In June 2022, we informed you about a mod that introduced AMD’s latest upscaling tech, FSR 2.0, to Cyberpunk 2077. By using this code as a base, we then got AMD FSR 2.0 mods for other games like Dying Light 2 and Red Dead Redemption 2. However, it appears that you can tweak any game that has DLSS 2.0 to enable FSR 2.0 yourselves, and below we’ll show you how you can do it..
Theoretically, this method should work in all games that support DLSS 2.0. From what we’ve seen, this method works in Diablo 2 Resurrected and Metro Exodus.

Halo 3: ODST Fan Remake/Demo in Unreal Engine 5 available for download
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/halo-3-odst-fan-remake-demo-in-unreal-engine-5-available-for-download/
Gearshift Media has shared a demo of their Halo 3: ODST Fan Remake in Unreal Engine 5 that everyone can download. Titled Dropzone, this demo offers a 15-30 minute narrative and exploration experience that allows you to explore a piece of New Mombasa.

This 1GB Mod for Valheim brings realistic HD textures to the game
https://www.dsogaming.com/mods/this-1gb-mod-for-valheim-brings-realistic-hd-textures-to-the-game/
Last month, we shared an HD Texture Pack for Valheim that added new HD textures to it. And today, we are bringing you another HD Texture Pack, this time adding some more realistic textures to the game.
Created by OneSingleKnee, this HD Texture Pack attempts to make Valheim a bit more realistic. However, and as you may have guessed, this pack will most likely have compatibility issues with other HD Texture Packs. In other words, you may not be able to use it alongside the other packs we’ve already shared.

GAMING NEWS

RENNSPORT is a new sim racing game using Unreal Engine 5, first gameplay footage
https://www.dsogaming.com/videotrailer-news/rennsport-is-a-new-sim-racing-game-using-unreal-engine-5-first-gameplay-footage/
Competition Company has shared the first gameplay video for its upcoming sim racing game that will be using Unreal Engine 5, RENNSPORT.