The Thursday news, all in one post:

SALES /PLAYER COUNT & DEALS

Yu-Gi-Oh Master Duel is kicking ass on Steam
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/yu-gi-oh-master-duel-is-kicking-ass-on-steam/
Yu-Gi-Oh Master Duel has launched on Steam and, as what developer Konami calls the definitive digital edition of the trading card game, seems to have landed big-time. The free-to-play card-shuffler has been riding high in various Steam charts, most notably hitting a peak of 262,333 concurrent players (over the last 24 hours, the peak was 233,099), and boasts mostly positive reviews.

The Epic Store is going to give DAEMON X MACHINA during this week: https://www.epicgames.com/store/en-US/p/daemon-x-machina
And next week, they'll give away Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair.

GOG has announced that new titles from Bethesda, Devolver and Paradox have joined their Lunar New Year Sale. Check them out from here: https://www.gog.com/en/news/welcome_the_newcomers_to_gogs_new_year_sale

While we wait for the big sale to start later today, Steam has a new daily deal: The Invisible Hand, that has a demo and it's 50% off: https://store.steampowered.com/app/628200/The_Invisible_Hand/.

SOFTWARE & DRIVERS

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MODS, EMULATORS & FAN PROJECTS

This mod lets you play Dark Souls as Hidetaka Miyazaki
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/this-mod-lets-you-play-dark-souls-as-hidetaka-miyazaki/
The enormous success of the Souls series has led elements of the community to somewhat deify one of the key creative forces behind it, Hidetaka Miyazaki. While these games are worked on by hundreds of coders and artists, Miyazaki's stamp on the final product is always unmistakable, from his deeply melancholy and oft-grim tales of heroism to the sense of slapstick humour that pervades these bleak and deadly landscapes.
Miyazaki himself remains something of an enigmatic figure: He gives great interviews without ever really saying much, and part of the games' magic is that their surprises are kept hidden from players until release. I guess all this preamble leads up to a very silly thing, which is that now you can bum around in Dark Souls as the director of Dark Souls.
The Miyazaki as Dragon mod replaces human and hollow player characters in dragonform with a pretty spectacular likeness of the man himself ('dragonform' is a transformation that comes with one of the game's covenants). The mod comes in both Dark Souls and Dark Souls Remastered flavours, and the 3D model is the same one previously used to put Miyazaki in Sekiro, which you can see below.

Resident Evil 4 HD Project releases next week after 8 years of work
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/resident-evil-4-hd-project-releases-next-week-after-8-years-of-work/
The Resident Evil 4 HD project began in 2014 and, eight years or so down the line, is finally complete and will release February 2nd. You may well be wondering why this project exists at all, given that developer Capcom has re-released Resident Evil 4 itself in several HD versions, and the answer is: They weren't so good.

GAMING NEWS

FF14's new Oceania server is free real estate for the best and worst usernames imaginable
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/ff14s-new-oceania-server-is-free-real-estate-for-the-best-and-worst-usernames-imaginable/
Final Fantasy 14 launched its new Oceania data center yesterday, finally providing our friends down under with good ping and good vibes. But there was something else I hadn't considered with a new server launch—it's prime real estate for all the common and meme names that are usually nabbed by veteran players.

Half-Life 2's UI is being quietly redesigned
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/half-life-2s-ui-is-being-quietly-redesigned/
As preparations for the imminent Steam Deck launch continue apace, Valve has quietly released a beta update for Half-Life 2 that rejuvenates its interface to make it more accessible on the upcoming handheld—and on modern desktop displays.

Taiko no Tatsujin is finally out on PC, but it's currently unplayable
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/taiko-no-tatsujin-is-finally-out-on-pc-but-its-currently-unplayable/
Taiko no Tatsujin got its first official PC release today on PC Game Pass and the Microsoft Store—not that anyone would know thanks to Bandai Namco's shocking lack of marketing. It's a fantastic rhythm game series and one of my personal favourites. Don't be rushing to your desks to give it a whirl just yet though, as the game is currently unplayable for those on PC.

Hello Games returns to Joe Danger for the ultimate feelgood moment
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/hello-games-returns-to-joe-danger-for-the-ultimate-feelgood-moment/
These days, Hello Games is known mostly for No Man's Sky. An over-reaching procgen galaxy jaunt that was almost toppled by its own ambition, before one of the great comeback stories saw it over many years evolve into the experience it is now. Before No Man's Sky, however, Hello Games started off with a smaller project: Joe Danger.
(...)
Out of nowhere, a remastered Joe Danger appeared yesterday sporting improved visuals, a higher frame rate, multitouch improvements, ProMotion and Gamepad support, and even localisation updates. It caught most folk by surprise, and the reason why it happened is that Hello itself got caught off-guard by a message from a big fan.

I remove the MS/Sony part and just putt ALL in it's place since everything launches with a massively inflated price these days and drops like a rock not long after launch I just scour the bargain bin and pick up 3 for the price of one 6 months later when the next big Steam or key reseller has their big Summer/Winter sale.

So now that the 3050 has been released, that basically ends the battle between Ampere vs RDNA 2. Here's the summary of the results based on techpowerup and a few other sites:

>> = noticeable gap

Raster:

3090 > 3080 Ti > 6900XT > 6800XT > 3080 >> 6800 > 3070 Ti > 3070 > 6700XT > 3060 Ti >> 6600 XT > 3060 > 6600 > 3050 >> 6500XT PCI-e Gen 4 >> 6500XT PCI-e Gen 3

Ray Tracing Medium Titles (Like Metro Exodus) :

3090 > 3080 Ti >> 3080 >> 6900XT > 6800XT > 3070 Ti > 3070 > 6800 > 3060 Ti >> 6700 XT > 3060 > 6600 XT > 6600 > 3050 >>>>> 6500XT (Unplayable)

Ray Tracing Ultra Titles (Like Cyberpunk):

3090 > 3080 Ti >> 3080 >> 3070 Ti > (Anything beyond is Unplayable without DLSS/FSR above 1080p) > 3070 > 6900XT > 6800XT > 3060 Ti > 6800 > 3060 > 6700XT > 3050 > 6600XT > 6600 >>>>>> 6500XT (Unplayable regardless of FSR)

https://www.techpowerup.com/review/evga-geforce-rtx-3050-xc-black/31.html

I think overall, this generation had the potential to be fap worthy but ultimately got killed by scalpers and miners. We used to joke before Ampere launched where the prices would be worse than Turing, then Ampere got announced and the prices were insanely good, then it launched and while for a few months, the prices were steady, it only really shot up to insanity in early 2021 starting with the Tariff increase.

But ignoring all that, overall it was rather disappointing showing from AMD. I know I have overall been negative towards AMD for the past year or so but if you looked at my posting history, I do used to say positive things about their CPUs. Granted not so much about their GPUs because if you were to have bought Nvidia's Turing instead of AMD's 5000 series, you would enjoy the benefits of Ray Tracing and DLSS. And this is ultimately the issue with RDNA 2 as well with 6700XT and up. Yes they are competitive products in Raster but Nvidia is not only as good if not better in Raster in many cases for similar pricing, you get all of the next gen benefits like way better Ray Tracing performance and DLSS. RDNA 2 just feels like a beta product in the PC space similar to how RDNA 1 felt like an Alpha product from AMD.

But the biggest issue from AMD this gen is how they treat their budget gamers. 6600XT and below have all been trash tier cards even if you forget about Ray Tracing. We see the scaling issues of RDNA 2 and their infinity cache. As they put low amounts of Infinity Cache with a crippled memory bus and gimped PCI-e lanes, it's truly shameful showing from a brand that were once "Hunting Titans." Hopefully RDNA 3 will be their Zen 3 moment but as we have seen with Zen 3, that means budget gamers get even more screwed.

All in all, Ampere vs RDNA 2 should have been a return to the glory days of PC gaming after Turing was largely sleep as Ray Tracing/DLSS were not fully ready until half way through. Instead they will be remembered as the "No Availability" generation cause most people just couldn't find one at a reasonable price.

I am not quite as patient depending on the game so I generally use cdkeys or greenmangaming to get 20-30% off pre-orders/launches.

Idk if I'd ever actually buy AoE IV after playing it on gamepass. It lacks the spark of AoE 2. It looks too off beat stylistically but the FMV sequences can be neat in the campaign.

Submerged: Hidden Depths Coming to PC and Consoles
https://techraptor.net/gaming/news/submerged-hidden-depths-coming-to-pc-and-consoles
Submerged: Hidden Depths, a relaxploration adventure, has been announced to be emerging from the watery grip of Stadia exclusivity. It's now arriving on Steam, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S consoles. Players will be taken to a submerged city to discover its secrets, perhaps uncovering the reasons why anyone thought it was a good idea to make games exclusive on Stadia. It's also the sequel to a first game that we didn't really like, although we did like the sequel's original release.

The chip shortage didn’t stop Intel from having its ‘best year ever’
https://www.theverge.com/2022/1/26/22903138/intel-q4-2021-january-2022-earnings-best-year
Intel is still feeling the burn from the chip shortage. It’s struggling to fully capitalize on tremendous pandemic-fueled demand for new PCs, because you can’t make a laptop with Intel chips alone. And yet that didn’t stop Intel from having its best financial year ever — in today’s Q4 2021 earnings, it’s reporting its highest quarterly and highest yearly revenue ever, at $19.5 billion and $74.7 billion, respectively — and four other revenue records as well. Profits weren’t nearly as rosy: net income went down 21 percent in the quarter and 5 percent year over year to $4.6 billion and $19.9 billion, respectively.

Galactic Civilizations IV Enters Beta
https://www.galciv4.com/article/509780/galactic-civilizations-iv-is-now-in-beta
Seek out new star systems and discover the exciting potential of the subspace realm in Galactic Civilizations IV! You are the all-powerful leader of a spacefaring civilizations and will discover thousands of worlds and dozens of civilizations - both old and new - as you explore the galaxy and try to build a civilization that will withstand the tests of time.

Unseen Star Wars 1313 Boba Fett gameplay revealed by lead animator
https://www.cgmagonline.com/news/cancelled-star-wars-1313-footage-released/
Previously unseen gameplay footage of the canceled third-person shooter Star Wars 1313 has been uploaded online by the game’s former lead gameplay animator, James Zachary.

ioi will offer free upgrades for owners of Hitman 3
https://ioisupport.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4418445781521
Our HITMAN 3 launch on Steam didn’t go as planned. We were excited to bring HITMAN 3 to Steam with new content and we knew that anticipation and excitement levels amongst our Steam players was high, especially as the game had been an Epic exclusive for a year.

Free DLC for Neon Abyss - Chrono Trap

The main problem isn't that they are expensive, new games have kept the same price for years, until they decided to raise prices this gen, but that they're incomplete. 

Pre-order bonuses, DLCs, season passes, etc. have been used for so long by publishers to make more money that now, buying a game day one when you know full well that more content is coming, doesn't feel right.

It could have been a great game (even if that chasing scene was heavily scripted). It's such a shame that they decided to cancel it.

Yeah, ngl, I saw some of the day 1 footage and saw that physics for projectiles were tied to something other than where the unit is standing, and how they home in like darts on any sort of unit no matter the distance and that will forever be etched into my mind.

The other fact that the game looks a bit more cartoony/mobile-like and the too clean UI (reminds me instantly of DoW III and not AoE II) put me off for the most part. The lack of other civs atm makes me not wanna touch it. The only time I'm ever likely to buy this is at a probable deep discount, and since it's not on a must have list for me, I'm fine waiting for years till it goes cheap.

Hopefully there will be more RTS's in the next few years, that might spark MS to actually do a bit more with the genre, since EA just did the remaster C&C collection of two games and then stopped caring after that (no known plans to do with the franchise since that collection's release). I don't see SC 3 being a thing for at least another 5 or more years either, so I'm gonna hope Homeworld 3 does something great, as well as that RTS from Ex Blizz devs are supposed to be working on rn. 

I still don't think AAA pubs/devs are into full on effort for the genre just yet. Prob gonna be another one of those jobs for indie devs to prove that the genre is still viable (I mean it should be, every genre should be viable and treated with respect). 

Ubisoft is shutting down Hyper Scare, its battle royale game
https://www.ubisoft.com/en-us/game/hyper-scape/news-updates/37U6BBTVWevDWEZHY48x3g/the-future-of-hyper-scape
We have made the difficult decision to end development of Hyper Scape and shut the game down as of April 28th. We set out to create a vertical, close-quarters, and fast-paced shooter experience and we are extremely grateful to our community for joining us on our journey. We will be taking key learnings from this game into future products.

Death Stranding Director's Cut PC Release Date Revealed
https://techraptor.net/gaming/news/death-stranding-directors-cut-pc-release-date-revealed
After a few weeks of waiting, the Death Stranding Director's Cut PC release date has been revealed -- you'll be able to play this upgraded Kojima Productions game in late March 2022.
>>30 March

Yea it's pretty annoying the state of RTS games. The only ones that are worth buying these days are Total War series and 4X Civ games but neither of them are really the style of games that I enjoy all that much.

I like games that are more so Starcraft, C&C, AoE and Battle for Middle Earth. But sadly, it will be a long while before we get a proper sequel if ever. With some hope, maybe MS will do a sequel to Starcraft/Warcraft but who knows if they will be done properly. Especially as Blizzard would rather make a survival game in an era where we have too many survival/battle royal games.

It's annoying because I am only 29 but it feels like the games that I am interested in are continuously shrinking. The obscured sales expectations of publishers are continuing to lead them to the path where games feel more generic than anything. And the insane development times of modern games are ensuring that we get less and less games coming out like GTA. And I haven't really seen indies pick up the slack but it would be easy to miss in a sea of artsy games that come out daily.

All in all, we will see what happens but man, I give anything to have a proper sequel to one of my favorite RTS games.