Friday news, part two and last:

Befriend a behemoth and build a custom tarot deck to escape exile in Deconstructeam's next narrative adventure
https://www.pcgamer.com/befriend-a-behemoth-and-build-a-custom-tarot-deck-to-escape-exile-in-deconstructeams-next-narrative-adventure/
The developers of The Red Strings Club and Gods Will Be Watching are summoning forth another narrative-led adventure full of witty characters beholden to the questionable decisions I make for them. The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood starts out with quite the setup for its tangle of choices: A witch exiled to an asteroid and stripped of her tarot deck after foretelling the doom of her coven decides to perform a forbidden ritual to summon a millenia-old Behemoth. Two hundred years of exile got a bit lonely, turns out.

Gobsmacked Microsoft president says UK's regulator blocking the Activision deal is company's 'darkest day'
https://www.pcgamer.com/gobsmacked-microsoft-president-says-uks-regulator-blocking-the-activision-deal-is-companys-darkest-day/
Microsoft president Brad Smith is not a happy bunny. Yesterday the UK's Competition and Markets Authority, in a move that took almost everyone by surprise, blocked Microsoft's proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard. It's a decision that could scupper the entire deal, though no-one's yet sure of the ramifications. And so Smith is on the warpath about what a boneheaded, plain wrong, backwards-ass move the CMA has made.

My favorite detective game of 2022 has more cases to solve this May
https://www.pcgamer.com/my-favorite-detective-game-of-2022-has-more-cases-to-solve-this-may/
The Case of the Golden Idol, our favorite story of 2022 and my personal favorite detective game, will return with three more cases to solve in its expansion, The Spider of Lanka, on May 4. Master detective Chris Livingston sleuthed out the expansion last week, but now we have the full details.

Dotemu's next classic resurrection is the secret best Might & Magic game
https://www.pcgamer.com/dotemus-next-classic-resurrection-is-the-secret-best-might-and-magic-game/
Canada's Capybara Games is a special developer. Its early history may have been work-for-hire but it's now probably best known for the magical Superbrothers: Swords and Sworcery EP, and most recently 2018's Below (opens in new tab). Before those two, though, Capybara made the best Might & Magic game I've ever played: Clash of Heroes on the Nintendo DS.
(...)
This gem is now getting a definitive edition from the retro specialists over at DotEmu, whose most recent project was the well-received Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge. It's not too far away, either, and will launch this summer on Steam and the Ubisoft store, as well as consoles.

Wow, one of the PS2's great puzzle games just came out on Steam
https://www.pcgamer.com/wow-one-of-the-ps2s-great-puzzle-games-just-came-out-on-steam/
Of all the remakes, remasters, and revivals we've been showered with recently, from the sublime polish of Resident Evil 4 to the more uneven ports of various ancient arcade games, I don't think anyone ever expected to see everyone's—or at least my—favourite launch day PlayStation 2 firework 'em up, Fantavision, to pop up on Steam today. It's a delightful deep cut.

No, you won't have to wait until the endgame for Diablo 4's mounts
https://www.pcgamer.com/no-you-wont-have-to-wait-until-the-endgame-for-diablo-4s-mounts/
A blog post earlier this week incorrectly said that you won't be able to ride a mount in Diablo 4 until you finish the main questline, a mistake that confused players and press alike.

The woods are filled with suffering and Slavic horrors in this survival city builder's new gameplay trailer
https://www.pcgamer.com/the-woods-are-filled-with-suffering-and-slavic-horrors-in-this-survival-city-builders-new-gameplay-trailer/
To me, Gord will never not be a very weird name for a videogame. But that doesn't necessarily mean it's a bad videogame, and in fact based on the new gameplay trailer released today, Gord looks like it might be very cool—if not entirely pleasant.

Star Wars Jedi: Survivor's first performance patch helped, but it still needs serious work on PC
https://www.pcgamer.com/star-wars-jedi-survivors-first-performance-patch-helped-but-it-still-needs-serious-work-on-pc/
Star Wars Jedi: Survivor releases tomorrow. I started playing it over a week ago, and while it's undeniably a great game (read my review), it ran like crap on both PCs I tried it on. As Wes remarked earlier this year, we're living in a new age of bad PC ports. Jedi: Survivor is just the latest of a string of releases that struggle to hit a minimum 60 fps mark and slow to a crawl at an alarming frequency.
()
There's clearly something deeply wrong with Jedi: Survivor's PC version in the run-up to release, but interestingly, the version that I and other reviewers played won't necessarily be the one you experience when it comes out tomorrow.
>> Here you'll find when it releases in your timezone.

Star Wars Jedi: Survivor Steam reviews hit 'mostly negative' as players slam performance issues—'F*** us PC gamers right?'
https://www.pcgamer.com/star-wars-jedi-survivor-steam-reviews-hit-mostly-negative-as-players-slam-performance-issuesf-us-pc-gamers-right/
Another month, another big game release, another shitty PC port (opens in new tab). Star Wars Jedi: Survivor hit shelves yesterday and for all the tweaks, enhancements, and additional beards it boasts over its predecessor, its performance is leaving a lot to be desired. In Morgan Park's Star Wars Jedi: Survivor review for PCG, he lamented its "unacceptable performance" but hoped a promised pre-release patch would improve things. If Steam reviews and social media are anything to go by, it hasn't.

Age of Empires 2's next DLC makes a fan-favourite game mode official and brings over all the first game's civs
https://www.pcgamer.com/age-of-empires-2s-next-dlc-makes-a-fan-favourite-game-mode-official-and-brings-over-all-the-first-games-civs/
Age of Empires 2 is set to go back in time with its next DLC, but, like, in a different way than usual. Return of Rome is a "completely new type of expansion pack" that will bring AOE 1 into AOE 2 when it releases on May 16, adding all 16 civilisations from the first game and its Rise of Rome expansion pack to the second game's roster.

Ingenious Counter-Strike players are exploiting Steam's new notes function to score noscopes
https://www.pcgamer.com/ingenious-counter-strike-players-are-exploiting-steams-new-notes-function-to-score-noscopes/
Valve put out a beta client update for Steam yesterday that aims to significantly expand the usefulness of its overlay functionality. (...)
One assumes that Valve's intention with the tool was to let players jot down reminders and door codes and the like, but cunning CS:GO players have discovered another use for it. Spotted by TheGamer, Counter-Strike players have taken to sticking a period or asterisk in the notepad, centring it on their screen, and using it as an ad-hoc crosshair for ordinarily crosshair-less sniper rifles.
>> Brilliant!

And now it's time to check the GOG and Steam deals for the weekend:

+GOG

• Let's start with the best stuff: a new GIVEAWAY: Under The Moon will be free during 70 hours: https://www.gog.com/game/under_the_moon
• There are six new Deals of the Day, available during 70 hours:
  • The first one is Grim Dawn - Ashes of Malmouth, a DLC, 40% off: https://www.gog.com/en/game/grim_dawn_ashes_of_malmouth
  • Sir Whoopass™: Immortal Death gets a 55% discount: https://www.gog.com/en/game/sir_whoopass_immortal_death
  • Shadow Tactics: Anniversary Bundle is 80% off: https://www.gog.com/en/game/shadow_tactics_anniversary_bundle
  • SPACE ACCIDENT will be 90% off: https://www.gog.com/en/game/space_accident
  • Synthwave Burnout, still in development, also gets a 90% discount: https://www.gog.com/en/game/synthwave_burnout
  • The last one is The Divine Invasion, 92% off: https://www.gog.com/en/game/the_divine_invasion
• The Weekend Sale puts a lot of games on sale with up to 90% discounts during 3 days: https://www.gog.com/en/promo/20230428_weekend_sale
• And the Good Old Games Week Sale comes with up to 90% discounts during 10 days: https://www.gog.com/en/promo/2023_good_old_games_week

+Steam

• The first one is NARAKA: BLADEPOINT, free to try during the weekend and 50% off until Wednesday: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1203220/NARAKA_BLADEPOINT/
• Deceive Inc. will also be free to try during the next 3 days, and will have a 20% discount until the 4th: https://store.steampowered.com/app/820520/Deceive_Inc/
• RimWorld will also be 20% off until the 4th: https://store.steampowered.com/app/294100/RimWorld/
• TerraTech will also be free to try during the weekend, and gets a 50% discount until Thursday: https://store.steampowered.com/app/285920/TerraTech/
• Black Book will be 55% off until Thursday, the 4th: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1138660/Black_Book/
• The Tom Clancy franchise Sale features up to 80% discounts until the 4th of May: https://store.steampowered.com/sale/clancy
• Don't Starve Together gets a 90% deal until May, the 4th: https://store.steampowered.com/app/322330/Dont_Starve_Together/
• Yes, Steam also has the Star Wars May the 4th Sale, with up to 85% discounts until May, 5th: https://store.steampowered.com/sale/starwarsday2023
• And Devolver Digital puts its games up to 90% off until the next 8th of May: https://store.steampowered.com/sale/DevolverDigital2023

And done! Until next time, I wish you a happy and gaming long weekend.

AMD Ryzen 7000 & Ryzen 7000X3D CPUs Show Very High Power Draw When Running Idle

https://wccftech.com/amd-ryzen-7000-ryzen-7000x3d-cpus-show-very-high-power-draw-when-running-idle/

Ryzen and launch problems, name a better duo!

AMD GPUOpen Is Prepped For Upcoming Radeon RX 7700 & 7600 Graphics Cards

https://wccftech.com/amd-gpuopen-prepped-upcoming-radeon-rx-7700-7600-rdna-3-navi-33-graphics-cards/

AMD Desktop Roadmap: Ryzen 8000 “Granite Ridge” CPUs In Late 2024 & Threadripper “Shimada Peak” In 2025

https://wccftech.com/amd-ryzen-8000-granite-ridge-late-2024-threadripper-8000-shamida-peak-2025-zen-5-cpus/

Can we find some way to blame this on Denuvo.

Wasn't Intel supposed to raise the prices of the 12th and 13th gen processors? They announced that they would do it last year.

In any case, raising the price of your product is a double edged sword. You'll earn more money per unit, but you can see your sales reduced. You win some, you lose some.

The game is a real mess, but trying to link that to planned obsolescence from Nvidia and AMD is ridiculous.

It's a joke relating to the current trend of people blaming the lack of vram to poor game performance when in fact the games aren't optimized to begin with and realistically shouldn't actually require as much vram as they are asking since they don't do anything visually spectacular. Cause if we go by that logic, all GPUs outside of a 7900XTX and 4090/3090 are obsolete cause they clearly weren't forwarding thinking enough. But we all know that's not the case.

Like my 1080ti has 11gb VRAM, and I'm still able to play games at 1440p, like ppl banking all bets on it being VRAM is like the console wars all over again (remember when they were arguing about VRAM only a few years ago?). 

What gets me, is how this seems to happen every single console cycle, where devs release ports to PC in the worst of conditions (only now they're asking for higher prices and less content), then by the time consoles reach their middle to late life cycles, devs magically get better with PC ports and we all have a grand old time, rinse and repeat.

Where's the part where devs actually git gud at the start and learn from past mistakes?, because I'd pay real money to see that in real time. This seems to happen every cycle, and I'm getting mighty tired of seeing the same issues (this time it's DX 12 and UE, which we may as well brutally chalk up to Epic/MS for this, when they could have released both far later on when they were more refined and waaaaaay easier for devs to grasp). 

The recent trend of games really makes it feel like 7th gen all over again. I remember how awful GTA IV was where you couldn't stop those stutters regardless of how beast of a PC you had. These days it feels the same but the problems that PC is having is also leaking into consoles to some extent. Least those days, people can be like, well PC doesn't have market share or consoles architecture was wildy different so you had poor port jobs. These days it's all effectively the same. Sure there are some custom SoCs in consoles but like 90% of console hardware is the same as pc.

And what really gets me is this shader comp and UE4 stutter nonsense. Like why is it that a ton of games including Cyberpunk or Spiderman doesn't need shader compilation pass and haven't needed them in the past yet in modern gaming, they all effectively need it. And even when games have shader compilation, it doesn't fix the traversal stutters like with Jedi Survivor is having on every platform. Does no one test games anymore or are publishers/developers so contend with ship now fix later stupidity?

I see. It's hard to appreciate irony when it's written.

I agree, but when operating profits are this low that's usually the most viable remedy. They've already cut down hard on R&D projects.

Edit - also kudos to Yuri for foreseeing the mess the SW game would be on PC :D