The Friday news!

SALES /PLAYER COUNT & DEALS

Fanatical has two new deals:

• The new Star Deal is Dragon Star Varnir - Complete Deluxe Edition Bundle, 75% off during the next 48 hours: https://www.fanatical.com/en/bundle/dragon-star-varnir-complete-deluxe-edition-bundle
• The new Guardian Bundle 5 comes with 9 games split into three tiers of 2, 7 and 9 games ,with up to 96% discounts: https://www.fanatical.com/en/bundle/guardian-bundle-5

SOFTWARE & DRIVERS

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MODS, EMULATORS & FAN PROJECTS

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GAMING NEWS

Crysis 2/3 Remastered Patch 2 released, featuring over 500 fixes & improvements
https://www.dsogaming.com/patches/crysis-2-3-remastered-patch-2-released-featuring-over-500-fixes-improvements/
Crytek has just released the second major PC patch for Crysis 2 Remastered and Crysis 3 Remastered. According to the team, this patch features over 500 fixes and improvements.

Snowdrop-powered The Settlers will officially release on March 17th
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/snowdrop-powered-the-settlers-will-officially-release-on-march-17th/
Ubisoft has just announced that The Settlers will release on March 17th, 2022. In order to celebrate this announcement, the publisher released a new gameplay trailer that you can find below.

Launch trailer and co-op gameplay footage revealed for Dying Light 2
https://www.dsogaming.com/videotrailer-news/launch-trailer-and-co-op-gameplay-footage-revealed-for-dying-light-2/
Techland has released the launch trailer for Dying Light 2: Stay Human. In addition, the team revealed some co-op gameplay footage from the game during the final episode of Dying 2 Know, the behind-the-scenes web series diving deep into the game’s world.

Pre-alpha gameplay video shows off Company of Heroes 3’s destruction system
https://www.dsogaming.com/videotrailer-news/pre-alpha-gameplay-video-shows-off-company-of-heroes-3s-destruction-system/
SEGA and Relic have released a new gameplay video for Company of Heroes 3, showing off its new destruction system. In this video, we get to see an infantry squad completely destroying a big building.

New gameplay trailer for Rugby 22 shows off improved in-game controls & AI behavior
https://www.dsogaming.com/videotrailer-news/new-gameplay-trailer-for-rugby-22-shows-off-improved-in-game-controls-ai-behavior/
NACON and Eko Software have unveiled a new gameplay video of their upcoming Rugby game, Rugby 22. This new Rugby game will release on January 27th, and you can also find below its official PC system requirements.

SOEDESCO will release the Unreal Engine 4-powered 16-bit Zelda-inspired game, Airoheart
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/soedesco-will-release-the-unreal-engine-4-powered-16-bit-zelda-inspired-game-airoheart/
SOEDESCO has announced a partnership with Pixel Heart Studio to publish the upcoming Zelda-inspired Airoheart; a pixel art adventure with classic real-time combat created in Unreal Engine 4. The game has been in development since 2018 and was successfully funded on Kickstarter in 2020.

Friday news, part two:

Hitman 3 is getting a new roguelike game mode
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/hitman-3-is-getting-a-new-roguelike-game-mode/
IO Interactive has unveiled upcoming goodies for Hitman 3 as part of its Year 2 update and us PC gamers have been spoiled rotten.
As revealed in a stream, Hitman 3 is coming to Steam on January 20 after its year of exclusivity on the Epic Game Store, plus a trilogy bundle arriving on both platforms along with being available to Game Pass for PC members. Ray tracing is being added and Hitman VR—which was previously exclusive to PlayStation 4—is being made available for PC.

God of War PC's new accessibility features 'laid the groundwork' for God of War Ragnarok
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/god-of-war-pcs-new-accessibility-features-laid-the-groundwork-for-god-of-war-ragnarok/
God of War's PC port arrives on Friday, and it's a good one: in our review, staff writer Morgan Park praised its DLSS support enabling framerates well above 60 fps. For God of War's developers, the PC port was an opportunity to add ultrawide support and dial up a few settings beyond what they could pull off on the PlayStation 4, but it was also a chance to rethink how they approach accessibility while building games.

Huge changes coming to Destiny 2's masterwork armor and weapons
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/huge-changes-coming-to-destiny-2s-masterwork-armor-and-weapons/
As an avid reader of the This Week at Bungie blog, I have long since made my peace with the way Destiny 2 balance changes tend to be a mixture of 'giveth' and 'confusingly taketh away'. Today's entry, which focuses on changes to how masterwork armor and weapons function, is a perfect example of the form. On the one hand we're getting some much-requested quality of life stuff. On the other it's going to become more fiddly to generate Orbs of Light.

Final claim in CS:GO skin gambling lawsuit dismissed because plaintiffs never actually used Steam
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/final-claim-in-csgo-skin-gambling-lawsuit-dismissed-because-plaintiffs-never-actually-used-steam/
On January 7, a US federal court dismissed one last claim against Valve in a years-old lawsuit over CS:GO skin gambling. The case was part of a series of 2016 lawsuits that accused Valve of facilitating unregulated gambling on third-party websites where people could wager CS:GO skins, some of which sell for more than $1,000 on the Steam Marketplace. All of those suits have now been dismissed.

Analysts think GTA 6 likely to launch in the fiscal year 2024
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/analysts-think-gta-6-likely-to-launch-in-the-fiscal-year-2024/
When Take-Two Interactive recently made a deal to buy mobile game company Zynga for $12.7 billion, it was announced with a press release that included a section on "Strategic Rationale and Stockholder Value Creation". Within that was the note, "Looking ahead, the combined company is expected to deliver a 14% compound annual growth rate… over the three-year period from Take-Two's Fiscal Years 2021 through 2024."
According to an analyst from investment banking firm Jefferies, quoted by Stephen Totilo of Axios, "there are only a handful of titles that can...provide management with the confidence to put out such a strong guidance; we believe there is at least one Rockstar IP set to be released by FY24". That was followed up by a quote from research analyst Doug Creutz of Cowen, who thinks this points to "a likely GTA 6 launch in FY24." If true, that could put the Grand Theft Auto 6 release date anywhere between the beginning of April 2023 and the end of March 2024.

Final Fantasy 14 will return to sale soon as director Yoshida chides abusive fans
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/final-fantasy-14-will-return-to-sale-soon-as-director-yoshida-chides-abusive-fans/
(...)
Producer and director Naoki Yoshida has written a new blogpost addressing what's been going on, and explaining what the developers are doing about it: The short version is, opening up a tonne of new servers across the globe. Over the next year there will be new data centers dedicated to the game opening in Europe, Japan, North America and Oceania, which Yoshida believes will "fundamentally address the problem." Some are basically ready to go, while others are scheduled for later in the year.

And now, the GOG and Steam deals during the weekend:

+GOG

• The Weekly Sale features up to 90% discounts: https://www.gog.com/promo/20220110_weekly_sale
• The new Midweek Sale brings up to 80% discounts during another 22 hours: https://www.gog.com/promo/20211208_midweek_sale
• The first of the two flash deals is Ankh - Anniversary Edition, 70% off during the next 70 hours: https://www.gog.com/en/game/ankh_anniversary_edition
• The second flash deal is Spelunky, 83% off until Monday: https://www.gog.com/en/game/spelunky
• The Weekend Sale is full of games from EA up to 75% off: https://www.gog.com/promo/20220114_ea_weekend
• The three S.T.A.L.K.E.R. games are on sale with a 70% discount until Monday: https://www.gog.com/promo/20220114_stalker
• And the JAST Publisher Week Sale brings up to 50% discounts until January 21: https://www.gog.com/partner/jast

+Steam

• The new daily deal is OMSI 2: Steam Edition, 40% off: https://store.steampowered.com/app/252530/OMSI_2_Steam_Edition/
• The first Weekend Deal is Slime Rancher, 70% off until the 17th: https://store.steampowered.com/app/433340/Slime_Rancher/
• Publisher Games Operators puts its games up to 90% off until Monday: https://store.steampowered.com/sale/gamesoperatorspublishersale
• ASTRONEER is going to be 50% off until January 20: https://store.steampowered.com/app/361420/ASTRONEER/
• And the Freedom Games Publisher Sale features up to 80% discounts during the next 13 days: https://store.steampowered.com/publisher/freedomgames/sale/freedomgames
• Of course, we can't forget about the weeklong deals, right?.

And that's it. Until next time, I wish you a happy and gaming weekend.

BF2042 not even worth developing cheats for:

NVIDIA asks board partners to halt GeForce RTX 3090Ti production, citing BIOS & hardware issues

https://videocardz.com/newz/nvidia-asks-board-partners-to-halt-geforce-rtx-3090ti-production-citing-bios-hardware-issues

Not that anyone could buy them in the first place

Intel Core i9-12900HK “Alder Lake-H” CPU performance demonstrated during PCWorld’s podcast

https://videocardz.com/newz/intel-core-i9-12900hk-alder-lake-h-cpu-performance-demonstrated-during-pcworlds-podcast

AMD Ryzen Accelerated Memory Profile (RAMP) technology for DDR5 memory set to compete with Intel XMP 3.0

https://videocardz.com/newz/amd-ryzen-accelerated-memory-profile-ramp-technology-for-ddr5-memory-set-to-compete-with-intel-xmp3

ASUS and Gigabyte confirm GeForce RTX 3070Ti 16GB graphics cards

https://videocardz.com/newz/asus-and-gigabyte-confirm-geforce-rtx-3070ti-16gb-graphics-cards#disqus_thread

The way this one should have launched but I am guessing the price is gonna be cringe

I think the main issue is that these games are developed for 30fps in mind and because of that, it takes a significantly more powerful GPU to push these frames any further. Even on PS5 it's meh. With Sonys new games having 60fps options, I can see the next one running better overall ironically.

I did buy it from cdkeys which has a nice discount and no tax since overall, it sounds like a good port even if not a fantastic one. Plus it doesn't have Denavo which is always a plus.

But yea, as time goes on, Pascal and such will continue to underperform as a lot of new games are being developed for Turing or later.

If there's one thing this video shows, it's why a lot of PC gamers didn't like upscaling during the "Checkerboard" era vs why a lot of PC gamers like upscaling when using DLSS. The differences around 7-8 minutes in the video is insane!

After looking at the DF and some images, I'm honestly having a hard time trying to see the big differences with texture detail and SSR. Shadows are easy and obviously night/day, as are LoD's and no ghosting, but texture detail and SSR still look muddy to me, even in the 3 side by side vids/shots. 

It just seems crazy to me how a 1080ti is considered the min for this kind of game, even for HZD, when both of those were originally on a closed system that paled in comparison to that GPU. Looking at that 3080 chart and I'm even more surprised, because that GPU atm is rare af, expensive af, and only 81fps, which again, just seems so...low?.

I hope the ports going forward do better perf/visual wise, because as I said to Hinch, I had a tough time trying to spot the differences between texture detail and SSR (and we've seen since the past gen, that pubs have been playing texture parity with PC, especially ubisoft). 

My standards are pretty high, but that's only primarily down to the fact that these are ports from 2 of the big 3, who are exceedingly wealthy and can foot the bill. 60fps is and should be the standard on PC, then going forward, texture detail and the rest should naturally be boosted to being an obvious night/day difference, then we'll see the differences in demands.

The port itself isn't bad, not anywhere near what HZD was it started out, but I just find the hw demands vs perf metrics a bit off. Not saying it has to be a crysis style world of difference, but it would have been nicer to see something closer to what the latest higher GPU's are to accomplish.

@Captain_Yuri Yeah big differences in image quality and why smart upscaling is going required more for a good gaming experiences on PC. Particularly when we (as PC gamers) sit closer to a screen you can easily see faults over typically gaming on a TV. Plus, motion has always been a issue with checkerboard and in that it nearly always ends in a way inferior experience compared to native - like see RE: Village checkerboard, its horrible. Even spacial upscaling is kinda meh.

DLSS and the like (XeSS) will be more important as we push tech forward and I see it becoming a standard eventually as manufacturers come towards one solution (at lease I hope so).

One thing to note is after watching DFs video, the specs seems to be a lie. The specs said you needed a 1060 to achieve ps4 quality at 1080p 30fps but with DFs video, a 1060 runs at 50+ fps. If you are interested in the game, I would buy the game and try it out in the two hour refund window with the game ready driver and day 1 patch as the benchmark that I posted was pre-release which didn't have either.

I personally don't think the issue is the port. The port itself imo is pretty well done. But I do think the issue is overall is the game wasn't built with PC in mind initially so the improvements compared to the ps4 version seem subtle. There's quite a lot of differences in the video that you may not notice at first glace, but they do make a pretty big difference overall.

I do agree that PC ports should have more of a difference, especially when you look at the difference in a game like Cyberpunk. But overall, I can forgive them as originally the game wasn't made with PCs in mind and even then, they did put in the effort to include things like DLSS/Reflex/FSR and giving us higher quality settings in several areas that really looked yikes on the ps4/ps5BC version. I'll probably be more critical for the next one though.

Yea pretty much. If Sony continues to make ports like Days Gone and God of War, then I am pretty excited about their future PC iterations. Especially considering how Halo Infinite, a game made by Microsoft, ran like arse while God of War, a game made by Sony, runs pretty well and has DLSS and etc.

It will be interesting to see how these two publishers continue with their future ports cause we may one day have a "console war" on with these publishers on PC lol.

I'm def gonna be buying it, but a lot later on, maybe next yr when the price gets cut, since I managed to nab Days Gone/HZD on sale last year. 

Yea I get what you mean. It's like when MS ports with both in mind, PC still has some overhead to make use of, but when Sony ports later, the port can be decent, but there is less overhead room to get some extra juice from your hw. I'm hoping they change this in the coming years, since I'll eventually be upgrading, and I don't really want to go for a 4080 and find myself getting less perf/visual detail with their future ports (MS had that journey and I know Sony has to take it too if they want to improve themselves). 

It's kinda funny, since 2077 wasn't overall a stellar game, but visually it looked different on PC vs console. I imagine the "next gen" update will bring things closer, but I'd still naturally expect beefed up hw on PC to still pull ahead, visually speaking. 

I wonder how long MS is gonna take with Halo's perf though, since we had to wait some yrs for them to go back and fix some gun audio issues with MCC.

They'll likely reach a console-war themed pointed on PC eventually, but I reckon by then, EGS is gonna jump in like the court jester and go all "lookit me, I got exclusivity cash!", and try to act like the 4th wheel that no one asked for.