Monday news, part two:

I'm beyond excited that Ghost Trick, one of the greatest DS games, is finally coming to PC on June 30
https://www.pcgamer.com/im-beyond-excited-that-ghost-trick-one-of-the-greatest-ds-games-is-finally-coming-to-pc-on-june-30/
The Nintendo DS was a treasure trove of wonderful surprises that never made it over to PC, but thankfully one of its greatest games is finally heading to Steam this summer. Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective has just been slapped with a June 30 release date, and I'm absolutely giddy.

Fatal Frame director talks about all the ghosts he's seen: 'spirits have been a frightening presence in my life since I was young'
https://www.pcgamer.com/fatal-frame-director-talks-about-all-the-ghosts-hes-seen-spirits-have-been-a-frightening-presence-in-my-life-since-i-was-young/
Fatal Frame series creator Makoto Shibata has been working on the spooky horror games since 2001 and, to coincide with the re-release of Fatal Frame: Mask of the Lunar Eclipse has written an extraordinary blogpost on Xbox Wire. It's all about how the ghosts and spirits in the games, and specific examples from this one, are "actually inspired by spirits that I've seen (and even touched!) in real life."

United 1944 is a WW2 shooter where you make your own guns
https://www.pcgamer.com/united-1944-is-a-ww2-shooter-where-you-make-your-own-guns/
Killsquad studio Novarama has revealed its new project, a multiplayer FPS set in the Second World War. It's called United 1944, and promises to blend shooter action with strategy and crafting.

I thought I was a Resident Evil pro until I tried the max-difficulty hell mode hidden in RE4's demo
https://www.pcgamer.com/i-thought-i-was-a-resident-evil-pro-until-i-tried-the-max-difficulty-hell-mode-hidden-in-re4s-demo/
Game devs always love giving their "very hard" mode some kind of goofy name. You know: "Insanity," "Nightmare," "I am Death incarnate!," "Hell Bastard Apocalypse," something cute like that. The ultra-difficult "Mad Chainsaw Mode" hidden in the Resident Evil 4 demo is one of the first to truly feel like it deserves its epithet, though.

Fortnite drops Windows 7 and 8 support
https://www.pcgamer.com/fortnite-drops-windows-7-and-8-support/
Back in December 2022, Fortnite became a "graphical powerhouse overnight" with a move to Unreal Engine 5.1. Epic described the shift as "a generational leap in visual fidelity," which of course required a bit of an adjustment to the game's hardware requirements. Epic also warned that, with the release of Fortnite Chapter 4 Season 2, Windows 10 would become a requirement.
It wasn't kidding: Chapter 4 Season 2 went live today, and Windows 7 and 8 are now officially out.

I'm convinced World of Warcraft is about to surprise us with its first ranged support class
https://www.pcgamer.com/im-convinced-world-of-warcraft-is-about-to-surprise-us-with-its-first-ranged-support-class/
For years World of Warcraft players have wanted a non-healer class that can help allies from afar, a mix of support and DPS. Recent datamining from the game's upcoming patch 10.1 suggests that the wait might almost be over.

The Outlast Trials will finally launch into early access in May
https://www.pcgamer.com/the-outlast-trials-will-finally-launch-into-early-access-in-may/
(...)
Anyway, following a closed beta test in October 2022 that attracted nearly one million sign-ups, Red Barrels announced today that The Outlast Trials will finally launch into early access on May 18.

Square Enix says Forspoken reception was 'challenging', sales 'lacklustre'
https://www.pcgamer.com/square-enix-says-forspoken-reception-was-challenging-sales-lacklustre/
Forspoken was a divisive game, one of those that felt a little half-baked: There was lots to love, and an abundance of ideas, but it ultimately left many players unsatisfied and feeling like the whole thing didn't hang together. The game's reception unfortunately led to its developer, Luminous, being unceremoniously snuffed-out and absorbed into the larger body of Square Enix, and in a new financial presentation by the publisher it's clear why.

There's only a few months left before time loop FPS Lemnis Gate becomes unplayable on PC forever
https://www.pcgamer.com/theres-only-a-few-months-left-before-time-loop-fps-lemnis-gate-becomes-unplayable-on-pc-forever/
Time-bending multiplayer FPS Lemnis Gate won't reach its second birthday. An update from Ratloop Games and Frontier Foundry, posted yesterday, has informed the game's players that the game will be removed from sale on April 11 pending the final shutdown of its multiplayer servers on July 11, a few months short of September 28, the would-be second anniversary of its release.

Cliff Bleszinski once considered making Gears of War 4 an FPS: 'Can you imagine chainsawing a Locust in first person?'
https://www.pcgamer.com/cliff-bleszinski-once-considered-making-gears-of-war-4-an-fps-can-you-imagine-chainsawing-a-locust-in-first-person/
As reported by VGC, original Gears of War lead designer Cliff Bleszinski made a recent appearance on the XboxEra podcast to talk about his long career in videogames. They touched on a wide variety of subjects, but one of the most interesting tidbits was that Bleszinski was particularly keen on making Gears of War 4 a first person shooter before he left Epic Games and the company sold the Gears franchise to Microsoft.

Atomic Heart patch adds FOV slider, removes mouse acceleration
https://www.pcgamer.com/atomic-heart-patch-adds-fov-slider-removes-mouse-acceleration/
Atomic Heart, the FPS with the lustful fridge, launched with no field-of-view controls in the options menu. The usual wailing and gnashing of teeth followed. Once Atomic Heart mods appeared, a custom FOV slider mod quickly became the most popular, being downloaded over 19,000 times. For the sake of comparison, even the NSFW Nude Twins mod has only been downloaded 5,800 times so far.
As of the latest patch, that FOV mod is no longer necessary. (Whether the nude mod is necessary I leave up to the individual reader reader.) Patch 1.3.4.0 has added FOV settings as well as ultrawide fixes, and disabled mouse acceleration. The full patch notes go into more detail, and you can read them below.
>> I can't believe they've added the link to the nude mod.

Total War: Warhammer 3 will get more Legendary Heroes and expand Cathay
https://www.pcgamer.com/total-war-warhammer-3-will-get-more-legendary-heroes-and-expand-cathay/
In the Total War: Warhammer games, some of your armies have procedurally generated lords with randomized names and perks, while others are led by Legendary Lords, bespoke characters often drawn from the setting's history. (...)
Since then, a handful of Legendary Heroes have made their way into the games, most notably Felix and Gotrek from the popular series of books, but also the wood elf mage-queen Ariel, Venerable Lord Kroak on the lizardmen side, and several others. That trend is set to continue in Total War: Warhammer 3, according to Creative Assembly principal writer and narrative designer Andy Hall in an interview with The Rookery, though we should expect plenty more "Warhammer celebrities" to appear as lord choices too.

Kill monstrous hordes until you can delete magic forever in tactics RPG The Last Spell
https://www.pcgamer.com/kill-monstrous-hordes-until-you-can-delete-magic-forever-in-tactics-rpg-the-last-spell/
So, as we all knew they would, wizards broke the world and now there's purple hell mist filled with monsters that come for us each night. To fix this, they're making the wizards do a spell that deletes magic from existence forever. Now you just have to keep them alive for the days of uninterrupted casting it'll take to pull it off.
>> It reminds me of They Are Billions.

The king of beat 'em ups gets huge patch with over 300 tweaks and changes
https://www.pcgamer.com/the-king-of-beat-em-ups-gets-huge-patch-with-over-300-tweaks-and-changes/
Classic beat-'em-up revival Streets of Rage 4 has gotten a "long-awaited major update" that brings over 300 tweaks, fixes, and balance changes to the side-scrolling brawler. Released last Friday, the update makes some merciful changes to the game's combo counter, tweaks the game's characters in various subtle and not-so-subtle ways, and finally, finally lets you hurl your co-op partner at enemies like some kind of meat-and-bone ballistic missile. Teamwork makes the dream work.

This management sim is basically Theme Hospital in space
https://www.pcgamer.com/this-management-sim-is-basically-theme-hospital-in-space/
2018's Two Point Hospital was a worthy spiritual successor to management sim classic Theme Hospital, but I'll tell you something it didn't have: aliens. Thankfully, Galacticare is here to fix that tragic and obvious misstep.

Saw this on Steam at the weekend it does looks rather interesting.

Let's do some hardware news;

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 reportedly launches on April 13th
https://videocardz.com/newz/nvidia-geforce-rtx-4070-reportedly-launches-on-april-13th
>> It comes from a reliable leaker.

Intel Arc A380, A750 and A770 8GB GPUs price slashed, A380 now listed for $120
https://videocardz.com/newz/intel-arc-a380-a750-and-a770-8gb-gpus-price-slashed-a380-now-listed-for-120
The 6GB version of Arc GPU based on Alchemist architecture is getting some major price cuts around the globe, not even a year since it was first available. In China, GUNNIR offered its A380 GPU at just 799 RMB (115 USD), during a limited time sale. That’s significantly lower than the initial price of 1149 RMB ($165).
Importantly, Intel Arc fans in the United States may not need to look that far to find an A380 GPU at the same price. The ASRock Challenger model is currently the lowest price for this entry-level card. It costs $120 after a recent $20 discount.

Some AMD Radeon users may experience lower 3DMark Time Spy scores, AMD/UL confirm
https://videocardz.com/newz/some-amd-radeon-users-may-experience-lower-3dmark-time-spy-scores-amd-ul-confirm
The issue has been reported Osvaldo Doederlein (Software Engineer at Google), who noticed a drop in performance when using the latest Radeon drivers for his RX 7900 XTX GPU. The issue reportedly affects TimeSpy benchmarking software by rendering much lower results.

The UL/3DMark developer confirms that around 3% of the users may be impacted. Probably because only such a small number of affected systems is reported, the company was unable to reproduce this issue internally. However, the AMD driver team had more success in doing so, although the issue has not yet been added to the ‘known issues’ list for the latest driver.

The 12VHPWR connection finally gets an explicit recommendation for plug contacts in the standardization
https://www.igorslab.de/en/the-12vhpwr-connection-gets-in-standardization-finally-an-explicit-recommendation-for-plug-in-contacts/

>> You'll only need a new cable.

AMD's First Official Ryzen 7 7800X3D Gaming Benchmarks vs Core i9-13900K, Up To 24% Faster
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-shares-first-official-ryzen-7-7800x3d-vs-core-i9-13900k-gaming-benchmarks-wins-by-up-to-24
AMD has finally shared its own official gaming benchmarks of the hotly-anticipated $449 Ryzen 7 7800X3D going toe-to-toe with Intel's flagship $589 Core i9-13900K and winning by an average of 20%, and up to 24% in one title - but for $150 less. The new benchmarks also give us a limited comparison of the Ryzen 7 7800X3D with the Ryzen 9 7950X3D, too, implying that the less expensive chip offers nearly the same level of gaming performance as the pricey flagship - but for $250 less.

As a none-native English speaker nor a person that follows what words are allowed or not to say, I have no idea what word was Linus talking about with that "hard R". Was it retarded?

I also have no idea what word was the one all the others feared and, to be honest, I don't care that much.

I sounds fun, as long as it's well balanced.

It's 'retarded' but they thought he was talking about 'nigger' (hard r = hard racist).

Never heard about 'hard r' being used to refer to that particular slur, though. It's always just 'the n-word'.

Ok, thank you.

I find it the "hard r" expression quite silly, but we live in a time where everything has to be simplified or reduced for God knows what reason.

Hard R means the way of pronouncing it.

-gger rather than -gga. The hard R is supposedly more offensive. Honestly I couldn't tell the difference between the pronunciations anyway.

Could it be really just the rhotics? So it's less of a slur in the UK? Or when you use very stereotypical 'ebonics'? Crazy Americans :D

Anyway, we're getting a bit off topic here. Glad that Linus was able to sail off that one haha.

Speaking of the devil, he recently reviewed the Moore Threads Chinese GPU.

It's GT 1030 bad. That's more or less GTX 460 levels of performance but with 70% more power consumption for $400 (twice the launch price of the 460, but at least you get more VRAM...)

I don't know which manufacturing node is this GPU but this seems around or behind the GTX 8800 in terms of architectural sophistication (DX9 only, no tesselation). Even if better drivers eventually double the performance of this GPU, they've still got a long way to go.

Linus should be giving Luke a raise after that save. If Luke didn't ask for clarification, it would have been career ending.