The Thursday news:

SALES /PLAYER COUNT & DEALS

The Epic Store gives away two games:

• MORDHAU: https://store.epicgames.com/en-US/p/mordhau
• Second Extinction (still in Early Access): https://store.epicgames.com/en-US/p/second-extinction

Next week, they'll give away Beyond Blue and Never Alone (Kisima Ingitchuna).

GOG has two new sales:

• The City Builder Sale features up to 90% discounts during the next 7 days: https://www.gog.com/en/promo/2023_city_builders
• And the Plug In and Friends Publisher Sale comes with up to 90% discounts until April 28th: https://www.gog.com/en/promo/2023_plug_in_digital_and_friends

Steam has two new deals:

• Curse of the Dead Gods will be 60% off until the 19th: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1123770/Curse_of_the_Dead_Gods/
• Wolcen: Lords of Mayhem is going to be 75% off during 6 days: https://store.steampowered.com/app/424370/Wolcen_Lords_of_Mayhem/

There's a new Humble Bundle: the Shared Screen Time: Family Game Night Bundle, with 10 games during the next 13 days: https://www.humblebundle.com/games/shared-screen-time-family-game-night.

And Fanatical has three new deals:

• The new Star Deal is Far Cry 6, 78% off during 24 hours. The keys is for UbiConnect: https://www.fanatical.com/en/game/far-cry-6
• The Plug In Digital Publisher Sale will bring up to 91% discounts during 7 days: https://www.fanatical.com/en/publishers/plug-in-digital
• And the HandyGames Anniversary BYOB features 39 titles to choose from for your 3, 7 or 15 games bundle: https://www.fanatical.com/en/pick-and-mix/build-your-own-handygames-anniversary-bundle

SOFTWARE & DRIVERS

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MODS, EMULATORS & FAN PROJECTS

Half-Life 2 Path Tracing looks incredible in these first screenshots
https://www.dsogaming.com/screenshot-news/half-life-2-path-tracing-looks-incredible-in-these-first-screenshots/
Modder ‘Igor Zdrowowicz‘ has been experimenting with NVIDIA RTX Remix, and shared some screenshots from Half-Life 2 with Path Tracing. These screenshots showcase what modders can achieve with the NVIDIA RTX Remix Runtime that NVIDIA released yesterday.
Half-Life 2 Path Tracing looks amazing. The way the lighting now interacts with the environment is incredible. And yes, almost all light sources can now cast shadows.
Alongside the following screenshots, Zdrowowicz also shared a gameplay video. This video is from a WIP version of the Path Tracing Mod (based on Portal RTX). Thus, it’s not as polished as we’d like it to be. Nevertheless, it can give you a glimpse at how the game looks in motion with Path Tracing.

Resident Evil 4 Remake Ada Wong Nude Mod available for download
https://www.dsogaming.com/mods/resident-evil-4-remake-ada-wong-nude-mod-available-for-download/
Following the Nude Mod for Ashley, here comes a similar mod for Resident Evil 4 Remake’s femme fatale, Ada Wong. This mod is compatible and works alongside the nude mods for Ashley, Luis, and Leon.
Going into more details, this nude mod is based on TrieuPham’s Bikini mod. The original Bikini version, which you can download from here, features proper breast and butt physics. However, the nude mod seems to be lacking those physics.
>> As always, no screenshots nor videos of the mod.

Beloved Game of Thrones mod for Crusader Kings 3 releases tomorrow, so you can finally give the series a decent ending
https://www.pcgamer.com/beloved-game-of-thrones-mod-for-crusader-kings-3-releases-tomorrow-so-you-can-finally-give-the-series-a-decent-ending/
George RR Martin might be too busy winning Golden Globes and owning a literal railroad to write The Winds of Winter (and fair play to him, honestly), but that doesn't mean we can't get our Game of Thrones fix elsewhere. AGOT, a highly popular Game of Thrones mod for the Crusader Kings games, is finally getting its CK3 edition, so you can just author your own conclusion to the A Song of Ice and Fire story.
Going by the less-than-catchy title CK3AGOT (Crusader Kings 3: A Game of Thrones), the mod will launch into open beta tomorrow, April 14. The details the creators have already put out look great: expect a detailed recreation of Westeros in the CK3 engine, with all sorts of opportunities for intrigue, skulduggery, and crimes against gods and men alike. So all the things you usually do in a game of CK3, but Ned Stark is there.
>> There's a 6 minutes video of the mod.

GAMING NEWS

The Outer Worlds: Spacer’s Choice Edition Update 1.2 released, full patch notes
https://www.dsogaming.com/patches/the-outer-worlds-spacer-choice-edition-update-1-2-released-full-patch-notes/
Private Division has released the second major update for The Outer Worlds: Spacer’s Choice Edition. According to the release notes, Update 1.2 aims to reduce hitching and stutters on PC.

Amnesia: The Bunker has been delayed until May 23rd
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/amnesia-the-bunker-has-been-delayed-until-may-23rd/
Frictional Games has announced the strategic rescheduling of its highly anticipated title, Amnesia: The Bunker, now set to launch on May 23rd.

Atomic Heart Patch 1.5.0.0 released and here is its complete changelog
https://www.dsogaming.com/patches/atomic-heart-patch-1-5-0-0-released-and-here-is-its-complete-changelog/
Mundfish has released Patch 1.5.0.0 for Atomic Heart. According to the release notes, this update adds Japanese voices to the game. Moreover, it packs a number of fixes that we’ll detail below.

WILD HEARTS April 13th Patch brings balance tweaks & bug fixes
https://www.dsogaming.com/patches/wild-hearts-april-13th-patch-brings-balance-tweaks-bug-fixes/
Omega Force has released the April 13th Patch for its latest hunting game, WILD HEARTS. According to the release notes, this new update brings numerous balance tweaks and bug fixes.

Thursday news, the quite short second part:

Diablo 4 borrows from MMOs but is still about 'overpowered builds' and 'blowing up screens of monsters'
https://www.pcgamer.com/diablo-4-borrows-from-mmos-but-is-still-about-overpowered-builds-and-blowing-up-screens-of-monsters/
Diablo 4's endgame might look a lot like an MMO, but it won't mirror the genre's endless climb for power, nor will it betray the series' history as an action RPG, Blizzard says.

Endless Dungeon is delayed into October
https://www.pcgamer.com/endless-dungeon-is-delayed-into-october/
Just a month before it was set to go live, Endless Dungeon developer Amplitude Studios has decided that "there's still more work for us to do," and so it's delayed the release to October 19.

You're a cyberpunk T. Rex using your tiny arms to fix electronics in this 'ironic' retro adventure about customer service, time travel, and true love
https://www.pcgamer.com/youre-a-cyberpunk-t-rex-using-your-tiny-arms-to-fix-electronics-in-this-ironic-retro-adventure-about-customer-service-time-travel-and-true-love/
Some game concepts immediately grab my attention, because they're really good, really bad, or just really weird. Dynopunk is definitely on that list and you can probably guess why: You play as Chris, a T-rex who moves to the neon metropolis of Synth City to open an electronics repair shop so he can fix broken gadgets with his little tiny arms.
>> Does this headline beat yesterday's one about the prison and the rats? Maybe.

Oops, Overwatch 2's new hero is actually a giant slingshot
https://www.pcgamer.com/oops-overwatch-2s-new-hero-is-actually-a-giant-slingshot/
Overwatch 2's new support hero has the unique ability to pull allies toward him, but an apparent glitch causes it to do the very opposite, making it one of the fastest modes of transportation in Blizzard's FPS.

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Graphics Card Now Available For $599, Here’s Where You Can Buy It

https://wccftech.com/nvidia-geforce-rtx-4070-graphics-card-now-available-599-usd-heres-where-to-buy-it/

Checking stock at newegg, lots of them in stock at $600 MSRP with the overwatch 2 battlepass promo included

AMD Radeon RX 6950 XT 16 GB Drops To $610 US, 6800 XT 16 GB To $540 US To Tackle NVIDIA RTX 4070 12 GB Launch

https://wccftech.com/amd-radeon-rx-6950-xt-16-gb-drops-to-610-us-6800-xt-16-gb-to-540-us-to-tackle-nvidia-rtx-4070-12-gb-launch/

Really good alternatives

Intel Meteor Lake CPUs To Feature L4 Cache To Assist Integrated Arc Xe-LPG GPUs

https://wccftech.com/intel-meteor-lake-cpus-to-feature-l4-cache-to-assist-integrated-arc-xe-lpg-gpus/

Checked on Mindfactory in Europe, and non is available at the advertised price, the cheapest one being 639€ and quickly rising up to 739€ with 9 cards available. Alternate.de has more models, but also here the starting price is 639€ and it goes up to 819€ for the ASUS TUF version. At the latter's price tag, you're probably much better off with a 7900XT.

The price range is more or less the same as the one for the 3070Ti, which gets even more obsolete than it already was beforehand.

I mean, that sounds normal for Europe... The 7900XT at mindfactory reference from powercolor for example is € 968,98 which is above the $900 MSRP

https://www.mindfactory.de/product_info.php/20GB-PowerColor-Radeon-RX-7900-XT-AMD-Edition-Aktiv-PCIe-4-0-x16--Retai_1474341.html

Powercolor hell hound is also €929,22

https://www.mindfactory.de/product_info.php/20GB-Powercolor-Radeon-RX-7900XT-OC-Hellhound-DDR6-retail_1476111.html

Its never exact conversion in Europe afaik.

True, but the Powercolor are really bad examples here, as for just 10€ more than the ASUS TUF you can get a 7900XT on Mindfactory, hence my remark it would be a better buy:

https://www.mindfactory.de/product_info.php/20GB-XFX-Radeon-RX-7900-XT-AMD-Edition-Aktiv-PCIe-4-0-x16--Retail-_1474342.html

4070Ti only start at around 900€ on both sites, so there's quite a gap in between the cards

Yea but Asus is Asus. They charge $1550 for the 4080 Strix model lol

Steam Deck owners and others eyeing other similar devices, here's something for you:

Valve is about to slash the file sizes of the Steam Deck's SSD-hogging shader caches in half
https://www.pcgamer.com/valve-is-about-to-slash-the-file-sizes-of-the-steam-decks-ssd-hogging-shader-caches-in-half/
Here's some exciting news for those of us with smaller Steam Deck SSDs or choice paralysis over what games to uninstall. A forthcoming update to the Steam Deck's open source video driver will shrink the gaming handheld's shader cache files by approximately 60%, Valve has confirmed to PC Gamer.

A recent report on Phoronix highlighted an update coming in Mesa 23.1, which "re-implements the RADV pipeline cache based on the common vk_pipeline_cache." There are probably a whole bunch of words in that sentence that don't mean much to you—most importantly, Mesa is an OpenGL and Vulkan video driver that Valve, AMD, Intel, Microsoft, and others contribute to in a rare act of unity, and this change affects how the now widely used Vulkan driver caches files.

In the Steam Deck's case, Valve has created big shader cache files for individual games that are delivered during the installation process, improving performance and helping avoid the dreaded shader compilation stutter. The downside to these shader caches is how much space they take up: potentially multiple gigabytes for larger games. With the new Vulkan pipeline cache, however, they're about to get a lot smaller.

Steam Deck-friendly Windows Handheld Mode shown off in leaked Microsoft Hackathon vid
https://www.pcgamer.com/steam-deck-friendly-windows-handheld-mode-shown-off-in-leaked-microsoft-hackathon-vid/
A recent video leak shows Microsoft has been working on ways to improve Windows functionality on handheld PC devices such as the Steam Deck. At least, it has been encouraging developers to come up with experimental ways to get Windows to play nice on handheld devices (via Windows Central). 

There are a few reasons we've been sticking with SteamOS when it comes to the Steam Deck, not least due to the lack of full driver support for Microsoft OS. There are weird little bugs that crop up when using Windows on a handheld, too, not to mention the gaming performance on Windows is hardly comparable to playing through the SteamOS. Still, it looks like Microsoft is on the case, at least when it comes to the UI side of things.

This last piece could be important for the Rog's Ally.

How about coming up with a sleep mode similar to Steam Deck for Windows MS? That would greatly benefit laptop gamers everywhere! No? Fuck you too

Also In Europe they usually advertise the full price with tax included. In America the they advertise the price before tax. Here if something is advertise as 900 i end up paying around 963. Somebody in California or New York will pay more wile somebody in Virginia will pay less because different states have different tax rates.

Edit: here is a tax Map