Yuri went full John Goodman in Arachnophobia XD.

I can just picture you with the can of buy spray as soon as Google told you what to do.

Good morning, guys. How's your Monday going? I hope this makes it go better (to those eligible, of course)

*** NEW CONTEST ***

Win one of two ASRock Intel 12th Gen motherboards
https://www.club386.com/win-one-of-two-asrock-intel-12th-gen-motherboards/
OR https://gleam.io/T516g/win-one-of-two-asrock-intel-12th-gen-motherboards

• 1st prize: Z690 Taichi Razer Edition
• 2nd prize: B660 Steel Legend

This contest is limited to those of UK and Europe.

The Monday news:

SALES /PLAYER COUNT & DEALS

Steam's Top 10

GOG has four new deals:

• The new flash deal is DUSK, 55% off until Wednesday: https://www.gog.com/en/game/dusk
• The Special Sale from Bethesda, with up to 80% discounts, will also last until Wednesday: https://www.gog.com/promo/20220324_special_promo_bethesda
• The Weekly Sale features up to 80% discounts: https://www.gog.com/promo/20220404_weekly_sale
• And the last one is a GSC Sale in support of Ukraine, featuring 80% discounts during the next 7 days: https://www.gog.com/promo/20220404_gsc_for_ukraine

Steam has two new daily deals:

• The first one is GRAVEN, 20% off: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1371690/GRAVEN/
• The second daily deal is Model Builder, still in Early Access and also 20% off: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1164250/Model_Builder/

There are new deals at Humble:

• There's a new Humble Bundle: The Killing Floor Collection, including up to 20 itams to get during the next 18 days: https://www.humblebundle.com/games/killing-floor-collection
• At the Humble Store, there are three new sales:
  • Idea Factory puts its games up to 75% off during the next 4 days. All the keys are for Steam: https://www.humblebundle.com/store/promo/idea-factory-publisher-sale/
  • The Arc System Works Publisher Sale brings up to 85% discounts during 4 days. All the keys are for Steam: https://www.humblebundle.com/store/promo/arc-system-works-publisher-sale/
  • And the Greatest Hits Sale, with up to 90% discounts, will also last another 4 days. There are keys for Steam, GOG, EGS, UPlay and the Rockstar thing: https://www.humblebundle.com/store/promo/greatest-hits-sale/

And Fanatical

• The new Star Deal is Days Gone, 59% off during the next 48 hours: https://www.fanatical.com/en/game/days-gone
• The GSC for Ukraine Charity Sale, with up to 80% discounts, will last 7 days: https://www.fanatical.com/en/publishers/gsc-game-world
• And publisher Playstation PC LLC Games puts its games on sale during the next 13 days: https://www.fanatical.com/en/publishers/playstation-pc-llc

SOFTWARE & DRIVERS

-Empty-

MODS, EMULATORS & FAN PROJECTS

These mods bring Next-Gen NPCs to The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
https://www.dsogaming.com/mods/these-mods-introduce-next-gen-npcs-to-the-elder-scrolls-v-skyrim/
Modder ‘Truceacred’ has released a high-polygon mod for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Special Edition that replaces the headpart of every single humanoid NPC. Thus, and alongside this mod, we’ve decided to share some additional mods that will greatly improve the appearance of NPCs.

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Special Edition gets an RTS/City Building Mod
https://www.dsogaming.com/mods/the-elder-scrolls-v-skyrim-special-edition-gets-an-rts-city-building-mod/
Modder ‘Mattski123’ has ported an amazing RTS/City Building Mod to The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Special Edition. Originally created by ripvanwinkle111 for Skyrim Legacy Edition, this mod introduces city building mechanics to Bethesda’s RPG.
Going into more details, this mod allows you to build a house, store or village. Additionally, they can dynamically place objects, walls, plants and furniture. Moreover, players can recruit villagers and merchants. Not only that, but players can expect random bandit raids or animal attacks.
Everything you place in the game world is paid for with gold or firewood. The default is to pay with firewood and if you don’t have enough, you can use gold.
There are three classes of Merchant; blacksmith, General store and Apothecary. There are also five merchant inventories for each class. Players can recruit up to 200 individually named NPCs, and there are four Militia Squads.

This 45GB Final Fantasy 7 Remake Mod overhauls over 6150 textures
https://www.dsogaming.com/mods/this-45gb-final-fantasy-7-remake-mod-overhauls-over-6150-textures/
Last month, we shared a must-have HD Texture Pack for Final Fantasy 7 Remake. Created by modder ‘Alezein’, that pack overhauled all of the textures of the Sector 7 Slums section. And today, we are presenting you a new version of it that overhauls over 6150 environmental textures.
As the modder noted, this HD Texture Pack takes all the textures below 4K (4096×4096), and replaces them with AI upscaled versions of both C textures (color maps) and N textures (detail maps).

Half-Life Alyx: LEVITATION is a new mod, featuring 5 hours of gameplay
https://www.dsogaming.com/videotrailer-news/half-life-alyx-levitation-is-a-new-mod-featuring-5-hours-of-gameplay/
YouTube’s CoreyLaddo has shared a video for an upcoming mod for Half-Life Alyx, called LEVITATION. Half-Life Alyx: LEVITATION will feature around 4-5 hours of gameplay, and will release in Q3 2022.
Naturally, and as with all mods, LEVITATION will be available for free to all owners of Half-Life Alyx. From the looks of it, this mod will feature new environments (though I’m not sure whether there are any new enemies). Nevertheless, this is something that will excite a lot of Half-Life Alyx owners.

This mod brings The Witcher 3’s Triss Merigold & Yennefer to Monster Hunter World
https://www.dsogaming.com/mods/mod-the-witcher-3-triss-merigold-yennefer-monster-hunter-world/
While Monster Hunter Rise has been a huge commercial success on PC, we haven’t really gotten a lot of mods for it. On the other hand, Monster Hunter World received numerous mods, and here is another one for it.
As the title implies, this mod brings Triss Merigold and Yennefer from The Witcher 3 to Capcom’s monster hunting title. Triss will replace the Commission and Rot armor, whereas Yennefer will replace the Brigade armor.

Relaxing walking game A Short Hike has a 99 person multiplayer mod now
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/relaxing-walking-game-a-short-hike-has-a-99-person-multiplayer-mod-now/
A Short Hike was one of the hidden gems of PC Gaming in 2019, a relaxing indie about a bird going on a walk/glide/swim around a nice big park to find all kinds of neat, pretty things as they go. A super-chilled exploration and adventure game with a few puzzles to figure out and all kinds of collectables to amass.
(...)
You can find A Short Hike 99 on itch.io, along with instructions on how to install it if you're using itch, GOG, or Epic. If you're on Steam, you can use the Betas function to switch to a branch called "ashorthike99_mod." To do that, right click on the game, go to "Properties," click "Betas" on the right hand side, and use the drop down menu to select the mod.

Massive Game of Thrones mod for Mount and Blade 2 gets early access release
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/massive-game-of-thrones-mod-for-mount-and-blade-2-gets-early-access-release/
Game of Thrones and Mount and Blade go together like a Stark and an untimely death. We've already had A World of Ice and Fire, which brought George R.R. Martin's grim fantasy saga into Mount and Blade: Warband. It was inevitable that some ambitious modder would attempts to bring the treacherous lands of Westeros into the sequel to TaleWorlds' medieval life sim.
But that inevitability doesn't make Realm of Thrones any less impressive as a project. Released into Early Access yesterday, the total conversion offers a meticulous Thrones-themed overhaul of Bannerlord. Specifically, the mod transposes Bannerlord into the A Song of Ice and Fire universe around the time of the War of the Five Kings. In other words, the point in the story where all the major factions are in play.

Voxel Violence mod adds Minecraft blocks and building to Doom
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/voxel-violence-mod-adds-minecraft-blocks-and-building-to-doom/
It's a running joke that Doom can run on anything, from player-pianos to pregnancy tests. But it's becoming equally true that anything can run on Doom. In the last few years we've seen Doom total conversions that replicate Sonic, Castlevania, even a dystopian version of Thatcher's Britain. Now, some modding mad scientist has Frankenstein-ed Minecraft into id Software's totemic shooter.
Specifically a mod for Doom II, Voxel Violence adds Minecraft-style blocks and a building system into the classic FPS sequel. It functions pretty much exactly like Minecraft's system, letting you stack various types of block onto one another to create structures, obstacles—come on, you know how Minecraft works!

GAMING NEWS

New in-game screenshots leaked from Starfield’s 2018 build
https://www.dsogaming.com/screenshot-news/new-in-game-screenshots-leaked-from-starfields-2018-build/
It appears that a new set of in-game screenshots have been leaked from Starfield’s 2018 build. These screenshots showcase some of its assets. However, and since this is a really old WIP build, they do not represent the quality of the final product. Still, they can give you a glimpse at what Bethesda aims to create.

Elden Ring Patch 1.03.3 released, fixes balance issue with Starscourge Radahn
https://www.dsogaming.com/patches/elden-ring-patch-1-03-3-released-fixes-balance-issue-with-starscourge-radahn/
FromSoftware has released a brand new update for Elden Ring. This patch will update your game’s version to 1.03.3, and will fix a bug in the balance adjustment of the boss “Starscourge Radahn” in update 1.03, in which the power of some attacks was unintentionally reduced.

Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Breakpoint Title Update 4.5.0 releases tomorrow, full patch notes
https://www.dsogaming.com/patches/tom-clancys-ghost-recon-breakpoint-title-update-4-5-0-releases-tomorrow-full-patch-notes/
Ubisoft has announced that the Title Update 4.5.0 for Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Breakpoint will release tomorrow, April 5th. In addition, the French company has revealed its full patch notes, so go ahead and take a look.

Monday news, part two:

This FPS is basically Bejeweled with guns (and it has a story)
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/this-fps-is-basically-bejeweled-with-guns-and-it-has-a-story/
Alien invasion! First-person combat! Wallrunning! Drama! Match-3 gameplay! One of these things, as Sesame Street taught us, is not like the others, but they all come together in a single, kind of weird-looking package called Matcho, a "match-3 FPS" coming to Steam later this year.

State of Decay studio Undead Labs faces allegations of sexism and bullying
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/state-of-decay-studio-undead-labs-faces-allegations-of-sexism-and-bullying/
The open-world zombie survival game State of Decay 3 was announced in July 2020, yet according to a Kotaku report yesterday the game remains stuck in pre-production as the studio has struggled with mismanagement, burnout, and workplace toxicity following its 2018 acquisition by Microsoft.

Silent Hill-like horror game Abandoned is not cancelled, developer says
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/silent-hill-like-horror-game-abandoned-is-not-cancelled-developer-says/
Blue Box Studios says reports that its Silent Hill-like horror game Abandoned has been cancelled are false, and that it has simply had to push back its plans to fully reveal the game and release a prologue chapter.
Concern about a possible cancellation surfaced earlier this week, when fans noticed that Blue Box had deleted most of its tweets detailing plans for Abandoned, including that a playable demo would soon be released. That led to speculation that the project was really a scam of some sort, and that the game didn't actually exist.

Graphical Dwarf Fortress keeps looking better with new character sheets
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/graphical-dwarf-fortress-keeps-looking-better-with-new-character-sheets/
Ever since we first got a look at the upcoming version of Dwarf Fortress which, for the first time ever, will have pixel graphics rather than indecipherable ASCII, I've been hankering to see how they'll give a proper UI to characters. The new version coming to Steam has been powering along for a few years now and we've got a proper look at what makes a Dwarf a Dwarf.

Activision Blizzard ends, then quickly reinstates employee vaccination requirement
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/activision-blizzard-ends-then-quickly-reinstates-employee-vaccination-requirement/
Activision Blizzard has reversed its decision to no longer require proof of vaccination from employees as part of its return-to-office plan. The company had announced its initial plan to employees on Thursday according to tweets from employees and reporting from Jason Schreier for Bloomberg.

Patrick's Parabox is your new indie puzzle darling
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/patricks-parabox-is-your-new-indie-puzzle-darling/
So many indie puzzlers start with a pretty simple premise, like "what if you could put boxes inside of other boxes," and end with absolute mind-bending madness like "I have seven layers of boxes and they seem to have started infinitely recurring."

Building is back in Fortnite
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/building-is-back-in-fortnite/
Two weeks after it was removed—or to put it another way, a fortnight after it was removed—building is back in Fortnite: Battle Royale. Play any of the regular modes and you'll once again be susceptible to someone who has mastered the editing tools instantly putting you in a box then deleting a wall just long enough to shotgun your face off.

Nightmare Reaper is a pretty dang cool roguelite looter-shooter retro FPS
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/nightmare-reaper-is-a-pretty-dang-cool-roguelite-looter-shooter-retro-fps/
Sitting somewhere between a modern roguelite and a retro FPS, Nightmare Reaper is a recent release from indie studio Blazing Bit Games that combines familiar elements into a formula that feels quite fresh. Putting you up against hordes of monsters that explode into fountains of gore, Nightmare Reaper takes open-ended levels both procedural and handmade and lets you tackle them however you please—as long as however you please involves using 80-some weapons with all kinds of weird random modifiers to blow everything up.

World of Warcraft's next expansion may be dragon-focused according to a leak
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/world-of-warcrafts-next-expansion-may-be-dragon-focused-according-to-a-leak/
The name of World of Warcraft's next expansion may have leaked through the source code of the game's official website. According to Wowhead, the site contains product IDs for something called "Dragonflight" in "base," "epic," and "heroic" forms, matching the product tiers used in previous expansions.

Bandai Namco may collaborate with another American fantasy novelist after George R. R. Martin
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/bandai-namco-may-collaborate-with-another-american-fantasy-novelist-after-george-r-r-martin/
Brandon Sanderson, author of the popular Mistborn series, the continuation and conclusion of the Wheel of Time, and many other fantasy novels, may be pursuing a future project with Elden Ring publisher, Bandai Namco.

Court documents may explain the disappearance of Paranoia: Happiness is Mandatory
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/court-documents-may-explain-the-disappearance-of-paranoia-happiness-is-mandatory/
Two years ago, Orwellian sci-fi RPG Paranoia: Happiness is Mandatory was removed from sale within weeks of its release. The reason for its delisting has remained a mystery, but a set of court documents unearthed by Gamekult shed light on the situation.

Here's when Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga unlocks in your time zone
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/lego-star-wars-the-skywalker-saga-unlock-times/
The wait to play Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga is almost over and console players who have pre-ordered it should be able to pre-load it now. In The Skywalker Saga, you'll be able to play as various characters from all nine films, including the best one: The Phantom Menace. No, I will not be taking any questions at this time.

AMD’s 53W entry-level Radeon RX 6400 card quietly goes on sale, slightly cheaper than GTX 1050 Ti and RX 6500 XT

https://videocardz.com/newz/amds-53w-entry-level-radeon-rx-6400-card-quietly-goes-on-sale-slightly-cheaper-than-gtx-1050-ti-and-rx-6500-xt

AMD Radeon RX 6950XT, RX 6750XT and RX 6650XT pictured, release date moved to May 10th

https://videocardz.com/newz/amd-radeon-rx-6950x-rx-6750xt-and-rx-6650-xt-pictured-release-date-moved-to-may-10th

AMD expands its data center solutions by acquiring Pensando for $1.9 billion

https://videocardz.com/press-release/amd-expands-its-data-center-solutions-by-acquiring-pensando-for-1-9-billion

AMD Ryzen 7 5700X, Ryzen 5 5600 and 5500 Review Roundup

https://videocardz.com/127008/amd-ryzen-7-5700x-ryzen-5-5600-and-5500-review-roundup

AMD finally releases their real budget CPUs now that Intel has beaten Zen 3. Unlike their G series, 5600 isn't heavily gimped so you get those nice caches and pci-e gen 4, least for the 5600. 5500 gets pcie 3.0 gimp vs 12100 but you do get more cores. Feels a little late but if you are coming from an older AM4 motherboard including X370, it will certainly save you money than doing a full platform switch. One thing to be aware though is I have seen the X series go for about the same price on sale as some of these non X CPUs. So keep an eye out.

Hopefully going forward, AMD won't be so stingy with their budget CPUs but I have a feeling AMD's new found greed isn't going away anytime soon.

Intel launches Blockscale ASIC processor delivering up to 580 GH/s hash rate, ships in Q3 2022

https://videocardz.com/press-release/intel-launches-blockscale-asic-processor-delivering-up-to-580-gh-s-hash-rate-ships-in-q3-2022

I think this is the one case in a long while, that's really interested me:

I did the design in general, as well as it's ventilation, but what I don't dig so much is the angle the GPU has to be placed at, and the lack of drive slots (like Jay says, the build is expecting users to go with more NVME slots than SSD's/HDD's, and I've got 5 SSD's and 1 HDD).

I guess if I'm to go for a new build, I'll have to go for bigger size NVME's and two large SSD's, but either way I like the case and airflow design. 

Also gonna toss in Paul's HW take on the case, which includes some benchmarking and game testing for perf/thermals:

Even though he's using a 3080ti (known along with the 3090 for being power hungry and a bit hotter), the temps for gaming aren't really that bad at all.

Here are a couple of hardware related news that may interest some of you. And one is for Steam Deck owners...

Intel inadvertently leaks the details of its flagship Arc GPU
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/intel-inadvertently-leaks-the-details-of-its-flagship-arc-gpu/
Intel recently released a video to demonstrate the features of it's Arc Control Software. However, it was particularly interesting due to the specs of an unknown discrete desktop GPU being shown for a split second during the presentation.

Arc Control is the name of the software that Intel is set to introduce to support Arc GPUs. The Arc Control software includes GPU monitoring capabilities, which was the source of the information.

The info comes via the eagle eyes at 3DCenter. For a brief moment at the 29 second point of the video above, the software appears to show monitoring data from an as yet unreleased GPU. It's speculated that the info comes from a high end discrete GPU as the clocks and power consumption are simply too high to come from a mobile part. The screenshot shows the GPU utilization is over 99% with a 2250MHz GPU clock, and GPU power at 175W.

This Steam Deck app pulls major game launchers into a single library
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/this-steam-deck-app-pulls-major-game-launchers-into-a-single-library/
Adding alternative game launchers to the Steam Deck is no easy task in a lot of cases. Generally, the process requires or a whole lot of faffing around in desktop mode, as we found trying to install Epic launcher on the Steam Deck.

Thankfully, coming in with an open source solution, the Lutris games manager's latest update makes it possible to launch a bunch of top game platforms straight from your Steam Deck, under a simple, unified UI.

Computer Base reports, the app makes it possible to get runtime environments and compatibility layers such as Wine working via a subsystem, using proprietary scripts. These scripts—also known as runners—allow support for the Epic Games Store, Humble Bundle, Dolphins emulator, GOG launcher, and of course Steam. It even works with Steam for Windows, as well as Steam for Linux.

Monkey Island returns in Return to Monkey Island
https://www.pcgamer.com/return-to-monkey-island-announced/
The legendary Lucasarts adventure series Monkey Island will return later this year with an all new game, appropriately entitled Return to Monkey Island, headed up by original series creator Ron Gilbert.

World of Tanks & Warships Developer Wargaming Is Leaving Russia & Belarus
https://twinfinite.net/2022/04/wargaming-leaves-russia-world-warships-tanks/
Today popular developer Wargaming has announced that it’s completely exiting the Russian and Belarusian markets.

Everybody is excited about the new Monkey Island game. I get it, specially because the original creators are on board, but I'd keep my expectations in check, just in case.

And I take my hat off to Wargaming. It's a brave decision that I'm sure will have an impact in their business.