The news, part two:

Two Point Campus is going into space
https://www.pcgamer.com/two-point-campus-is-going-into-space/
Two Point Campus is going into space next week, sort of, with the release of Space Academy, the first major DLC release for the not-entirely-serious school management sim. The expansion will add three new campus locations to the game, along with six new student archetypes, six courses and classrooms, and other new features.

New World is jamming a bunch of legacy servers together after players flock to 'fresh start' options
https://www.pcgamer.com/new-world-is-jamming-a-bunch-of-legacy-servers-together-after-players-flock-to-fresh-start-options/
Amazon's New World MMO celebrated its reworked beginning by opening a bunch of "fresh start" servers earlier this month, and it's caused a bit of a population crisis. The game's legacy servers aren't quite as bustling as they used to be now that so many people have departed for the green and fertile lands of the new ones. So Amazon's gonna mash a bunch of them together.

Todd Howard says Bethesda's Indiana Jones game is 'a definite love letter' dating from 2009
https://www.pcgamer.com/todd-howard-says-bethesdas-indiana-jones-game-is-a-definite-love-letter-dating-from-2009/
Todd Howard has given a lengthy and wide-ranging interview on the popular Lex Fridman podcast, during which the Bethesda director and executive producer waxes lyrical about the company's history and his own personal journey in games. If you ever wondered what his favourite movie is, wonder no more: "Raiders [of the Lost Ark] is still my favourite movie of all time, no debate, best movie ever," said Howard. "I saw it when I was younger and I believed it, I believed this happened, and when they found this Ark I couldn't believe they'd found it."
(...)
"I had pitched Lucas," said Howard. "Met some people there and pitched them back in '09 this Indiana Jones concept, and kinda the deal fell apart". LucasArts wanted to publish any Indiana Jones game: Bethesda saw itself as the publisher. "I didn't really have the team to do [it] and you know we made Skyrim so I guess it worked out."
Howard goes on to say that this time around he still didn't think it was the right fit for Bethesda to do internally but Wolfenstein developer Machine Games "is the perfect fit for this game with storytelling and how to record it: if you like Indiana Jones it is a definite love letter to Indiana Jones."

Todd Howard says you'll never run out of fuel in Starfield because it's a 'fun killer'
https://www.pcgamer.com/todd-howard-says-youll-never-run-out-of-fuel-in-starfield-because-its-a-fun-killer/
Todd Howard has given a wide-ranging interview on the Lex Fridman podcast, during which he talked a little more about Bethesda's upcoming Starfield, which following a delay is set for release early next year. I'm still just expecting this to be Skyrim in space, and I'll play the hell out of it, but Howard gives a little more detail on how the star systems will be structured and some of the things that were "dialled back" for being too hardcore.

Surprise queue: There's a line to play Warhammer 40K: Darktide
https://www.pcgamer.com/surprise-queue-theres-a-line-to-play-warhammer-40k-darktide/
(...)
Fatshark's last two co-op brawlers, Vermintide and Vermintide 2, both ran on peer-to-peer networking. For Darktide, Fatshark has switched to dedicated servers, and aims to make its hub world a more populated space for players to mingle in. That change will hopefully pay off with smoother live play and a more flexible live service model for adding new quests and items to the game. But at least on launch day, it also means a login queue.

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide's launch day patch is a big 'un
https://www.pcgamer.com/warhammer-40000-darktide-day-one-patch/
Today is the official release day for Warhammer 40,000: Darktide, and that means it's also the day for the launch-day patch. It's a big one—"Ogryn sized," as developer Fatshark put it, and in case you're not familiar with the term that's an ogryn in the image above—with changes aimed at both improving stability and bringing in a number of new features.

The Witcher remake won't be out until sometime after The Witcher 4, and we have no idea when that will be
https://www.pcgamer.com/the-witcher-remake-wont-be-out-until-sometime-after-the-witcher-4-and-we-have-no-idea-when-that-will-be/
CD Projekt announced in October that The Witcher, the studio's first game, will be getting a full remake. Fans eager to see how Geralt's videogame adventures got started will have to be more patient than they likely expected, though, as the studio said in its recent financial results Q&A that the remake won't be out until sometime after the launch of The Witcher 4.
>> In other words: don't expect it until the end of the decade.

'Unhinged' World of Warcraft: Dragonflight rogue PVP build instantly sends you to the spirit realm
https://www.pcgamer.com/unhinged-world-of-warcraft-dragonflight-rogue-pvp-build-instantly-sends-you-to-the-spirit-realm/
Clever World of Warcraft: Dragonflight PVPers have found a rogue talent build that assassinates enemies before they can even move.
A new rogue PVP build in World of Warcraft: Dragonflight denies your enemy any chance of responding before they're dead. The rotation of abilities in this build require you to be a max level rogue using the subtlety specialization and have a PVP trinket to buff your stats. Subtlety is all about slipping into stealth and surprise-attacking your foes with loads of burst damage. Usually that damage isn't lethal, but it forces enemies to respond with healing and damage reduction abilities.

The PC's most hardcore city-builder just got even harder
https://www.pcgamer.com/the-pcs-most-hardcore-city-builder-just-got-even-harder/
As if it wasn't already hard enough, the most recent update for early access city-builder Workers & Resources: Soviet Republic has made running a planned economy even more of a headache. Yesterday's content update added a "super realistic mode" to the already pretty realistic game, meaning you'll need to manage your various resources even more carefully as you build your way to superpower status.

Street Fighter 6 is back for another beta, but don't expect to buy your way in this time
https://www.pcgamer.com/street-fighter-6-is-back-for-another-beta-but-dont-expect-to-buy-your-way-in-this-time/
Two months after its first closed beta, Capcom is offering access to Street Fighter 6 once more. The game's second beta launches on December 16 and runs until December 19.
If you were one of the lucky few who managed to snag a spot last time—or handed over some cash for a key—you'll be able to check out the new beta without applying again. For newcomers or those who weren't able to get in last time, you'll have to go through the application process

Sonic Frontiers is adding 4 playable characters, new modes and more in 2023
https://www.pcgamer.com/sonic-frontiers-is-adding-4-playable-characters-new-modes-and-more-in-2023/
Sega has unveiled what the future of Sonic Frontiers will look like across three updates arriving next year.
They'll all be free and vary from small features to entirely new story and playable characters. The first update will introduce a jukebox and photo mode, which hopefully lets you constantly jam out to One Ok Rock while snapping all your action shots. It'll also include new challenge modes, though bar a few vague screenshots there isn't any more info on what those will be.

Portal writer says Valve has 'a starting point that we like a ton' for Portal 3
https://www.pcgamer.com/portal-writer-says-valve-has-a-starting-point-that-we-like-a-ton-for-portal-3/
(...) A new video from YouTuber DidYouKnowGaming interviews some of the key creatives behind the series and, while there's a lot across the videos to unpick, the standout is that Jay Pinkerton and Erik Wolpaw, largely responsible for the exceptional scripts, have a firm idea for the third: and not only that, it's been shopped-around internally a little.

AMD Ryzen 7000 Series CPUs Get Box Art Redesign, Discounted Holiday Pricing Is Still Live!

https://wccftech.com/amd-ryzen-7000-series-cpus-get-box-art-redesign-discounted-holiday-pricing-is-still-live/

Unlikely it will get most of the buyers to upgrade until Motherboard prices come down. If you want cheap, you go with AM4. If you want best all around, you go with Raptor Lake. If you want longevity, you go with Zen 4 but the motherboard prices are still so high that you could get two Z690 motherboards for the price of one X670E depending on which one you are looking at.

AMD EPYC Bergamo ‘Zen 4C’ CPUs Being Deployed In 1H 2023 To Tackle Arm CPUs, Instinct MI300 APU Back In Labs

https://wccftech.com/amd-epyc-bergamo-zen-4c-cpus-being-deployed-in-1h-2023-tackle-arm-instinct-mi300-apu-back-in-labs/

AMD Ryzen 7 7730U ‘Barcelo Refresh’ CPU Spotted: 8 Cores, 16 Threads, 16 MB L3 Cache & Radeon Vega GPU

https://wccftech.com/amd-ryzen-7-7730u-barcelo-refresh-cpu-spotted-8-cores-16-threads-16-mb-l3-cache-radeon-vega-gpu/

Vega in 2023 facepalm

NVIDIA confirms DLSS3 & DLSS2 game updates for December

https://videocardz.com/newz/nvidia-confirms-dlss3-dlss2-game-updates-for-december

DLSS 3 Updates:

• Need for Speed Unbound (out now with DLSS 3)
• Warhammer 40,000 Darktide (out now with DLSS 3 and ray tracing)
• Portal with RTX (launches Dec. 8th with DLSS 3 and full ray tracing)
• Jurassic World Evolution 2 (updates to DLSS 3 on Dec. 8th)
• The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (updates to DLSS 3 and ray tracing on Dec. 14th)

NVIDIA is also confirming DLSS2 updates for 5 games. The Marvel’s Midnight Suns has just received a dedicated Game Ready driver with graphics optimizations.

DLSS 2 Updates:

• Firefighting Simulator (out now with DLSS 2)
• Marvel’s Midnight Suns (launching Dec. 2nd with DLSS 2 and ray tracing
• Choo-Choo Charles (launches Dec 9th with DLSS 2)
• Blacktail (launches Dec. 15th with DLSS 2)

(Remember that any game that has DLSS 3 automatically has DLSS 2 + Reflex)

It's interesting how we still have no comparisons against the 4080 or 4090 or Ampere from Radeon despite the 4080 being in stock and being out for a while. The difference in confidence with RDNA 2 vs RDNA 3 is quite staggering.

Well, silence isn't neither good or bad. It could either mean that the comparison is worse than they wanted, so they're hiding it, or that they don't need to do anything because the 4090 is too far away and no one is buying the 4080 right now, so it's not worth the effort.

Also, those comparison charts are usually shown .during the announcement of the product, not weeks later.

But well, at least the lack of info is creating some tension, some uncertainty in what's gonna happen.

Personally I think it's a bad thing because while 4080s are not selling as much as say a 4090, it is still selling. We have had articles in the past where the 4080s did go out of stock least in the US/Canada. In fact if we check newegg right now, we would see some models of the 4080 being out of stock while some others being in stock:

And the thing is, the 7900XTX/XT launch is nearly a month away from the 4080 release and it would be outside of the return window. So I think them not showing anything has a higher chance of being a lost sale than if they showed the 7900XTX beating the 4080 for less money which would make people consider waiting before putting their money down.

Intel, Frore Systems Want to Move Beyond Fans With Solid-State Cooling Chip
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/ultrasonic-solild-state-cooling-system
Cooling manufacturer Frore Systems has reportedly announced the world's first solid state cooling system, designed to cool CPUs, GPUs and SoCs operating inside devices such as laptops, handheld consoles tablets and more. The cooler design, called the AirJet, does not require any fans, instead using ultrasonic waves to push air through the cooling device. As a result, the device is incredible thin, and is capable of dissipating the same amount of heat as fan-based coolers, while maintaining very low power consumption and a silent footprint.

Yogscast Jingle Jam 2022 is live, featuring a bundle that has 86 Steam items for £35.

Cool tech, but it kind of feels too good to be true.

Still, it will be interesting to see where it goes.

The Callisto Protocol High-End PC Requirements Shared, Ultra Demands an RTX 3080/RX 6900 XT

https://wccftech.com/the-callisto-protocol-high-end-max-ultra-pc-requirements/

Max (Could be a typo for High)

• OS: Windows 10/11
• Processor: AMD Ryzen 7 2700x or Intel Core i7-9700k
• Memory: 16 GB RAM
• GPU: AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT or NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070
• DirectX: Version 12
• Storage: 75 GB available (SSD recommended)

Ultra

• OS: Windows 10/11
• Processor: AMD Ryzen 9 3900x or Intel Core i9-9900k
• Memory: 16 GB RAM
• GPU: AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT or NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080
• DirectX: Version 12
• Storage: 75 GB available (SSD recommended)

Certainly one of my more anticipated games of the year. What's interesting is that despite being an AMD sponsored game, there's enough RT to make a 6700XT perform similarly to a 2070. I think now that RDNA 3 has Ampere level Ray Tracing, we will continue to see RDNA 2 age poorly more and more for RT titles. But with the current prices, it shouldn't matter too much.

So probably just a refresh (and possibly shrink to 6nm) of the 5800U

It's not like 95% of us can afford Nvidia atm anyway, so yea, comparing to those two cards feels moot at this point.

Also new vid from Alex with PC salt this time no less: