I've heard Final Fantasy XIV has over a hundred hours of content basically for free nowadays.

That also reminds me Baldur's Gate 3 is about to launch and God only knows when I'll find time to play that shit. I'm not finding the time to beat Axiom Verge and that's a Metroidvania of all things :(

I wish AMD would release the 7900 GRE world wide, it's a very very solid GPU, price permitting... It needs to come under the 4070's price, not above.

My second Steam Deck is now transparent purple... just like my first handheld:

Got an Anbernic in Atomic purple which is perfect for SNES games in their original (4:3) aspect ratios with no black bars... Then I just use integer scaling, looks brilliant.


Got an N64 atomic purple original controller too.


Going to buy another Anbernic variant in Gamecube purple with a 3:2 aspect just for Gameboy advance titles.

One day I will get a decent N64 handheld, when low-end budget SoC's can manage it.

The Thursday news:

SALES /PLAYER COUNT & DEALS

This week, the Epic Store gives away

• Bloons TD 6: https://store.epicgames.com/en-US/p/bloons-td-6
• Loop Hero: https://store.epicgames.com/en-US/p/loop-hero

Next week, they'll give away Europa Universalis IV

GOG has launched the RPG Sale, with up to 90% discounts during 10 days: https://www.gog.com/en/promo/2023_august_rpg_sale.

Steam has two new deals:

• 9 Years of Shadows is going to be 30% off until August 8th: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1402120/9_Years_of_Shadows/
• Gloria Victis: Medieval MMORPG gets a 50% deal until the 8th: https://store.steampowered.com/app/327070/Gloria_Victis_Medieval_MMORPG/

The Humble Store has also launched a Quakecon Sale, featuring up to 85% discounts during 13 days. The keys are for Steam: https://www.humblebundle.com/store/promo/quakecon-sale-2023/

And Fanatical has launched the Platinum Collection BYOB for August, with 16 titles to choose from for your 3, 5 or 7 games bundle: https://www.fanatical.com/en/pick-and-mix/platinum-collection-build-your-own-bundle.

SOFTWARE & DRIVERS

INTEL Arc & Iris Graphics 31.0.101.4578
https://videocardz.com/driver/intel-arc-iris-graphics-31-0-101-4578
Highlights
Game On Driver for Intel® Arc™ Graphics for Baldur’s Gate 3!
Intel® Game On Drivers deliver the best experience for gamers playing on Intel Graphics with optimized launch-day patches and performance updates as new games release.

MODS, EMULATORS & FAN PROJECTS

-Empty-

GAMING NEWS

EXP: War Trauma is a new Unreal Engine 5-powered horror game, demo available for download
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/exp-war-trauma-is-a-new-unreal-engine-5-powered-horror-game-demo-available-for-download/
Cortez Productions has announced a new first-person psychological horror game that will be powered by Unreal Engine 5, called EXP: War Trauma.

Lost Soul Aside will support NVIDIA DLSS 3 & Ray Tracing on PC
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/lost-soul-aside-will-support-nvidia-dlss-3-ray-tracing-on-pc/
NVIDIA has confirmed that UltiZeroGames’ upcoming action RPG, Lost Soul Aside, will support DLSS 3 and Ray Tracing effects on PC. In addition, the green team shared a new PC trailer that you can find below.

Thursday news, part two:

Remnant 2 devs revealed a secret class only datamining could uncover, only for a guy with no coding experience to find it in less than a week with AI and 15 cans of Red Bull
https://www.pcgamer.com/remnant-2-devs-revealed-a-secret-class-only-datamining-could-uncover-only-for-a-guy-with-no-coding-experience-to-find-it-in-less-than-a-week-with-ai-and-15-cans-of-red-bull/
As reported by IGN Oliver Nikolic, who goes by Barut on Discord, has cracked the code to Remnant 2's super-secret archetype—one that required datamining to find.

Modern Warfare 2 now canonically features an indestructible dog named Merlin who lives on your belt
https://www.pcgamer.com/modern-warfare-2-now-canonically-features-an-indestructible-dog-named-merlin-who-lives-on-your-belt/
Activision have truly let the dogs out with the reveal of their new operator, Arthur, who arrives to Warzone 2 and Modern Warfare 2 with the release of Season 5. He's a gritty "warrior to the core" with no face, whose mysterious past is classified intel. I don't care about Arthur, though, I care about the canonically indestructible dog he wears like a fanny pack on his belt.

The Callisto Protocol studio lays off 32 employees
https://www.pcgamer.com/the-callisto-protocol-studio-lays-off-32-employees/
Less than two months after releasing The Callisto Protocol's first (and last) story expansion DLC, developer Striking Distance Studios has laid off 32 employees.
As noted by VGC, the layoffs first came to light after numerous employees reported being let go by the studio. Striking Distance parent company Krafton later confirmed with IGN that a total of 32 employees had been terminated. That's a not-insignificant percentage of the studio's total headcount, which according to Striking Distance's "about us" page currently sits as 144 employees in all.

Diablo 4's next patch ignores what Sorcerers and Barbarians needed most and targets their weakest builds instead
https://www.pcgamer.com/diablo-4s-next-patch-ignores-what-sorcerers-and-barbarians-needed-most-and-targets-their-weakest-builds-instead/
Diablo 4's Sorcerer class is the star of patch 1.1.1, which is set to drop next week, but the big list of changes doesn't exactly fix their worst problems.
In the Campfire Chat stream last week and in today's patch notes, Blizzard says it wants to directly address the Sorcerer's late-game survivability and skills with fussy requirements that effectively hurt your overall power. Greater Chain Lightning, for example, used to deal 5% extra damage when it bounced off of your character, but now it will do that when it bounces off of anyone.

Bungie warns Destiny 2 cheat makers: Your days of operating 'without fear of consequences are over'
https://www.pcgamer.com/bungie-warns-destiny-2-cheat-makers-your-days-of-operating-without-fear-of-consequences-are-over/
Bungie has in recent years been very aggressive in its pursuit of Destiny 2 cheat makers, and not at all shy about saying so. Based on the opening line of its most recent legal action (via Torrentfreak), filed against the makers and sellers of the Ring-1 cheat, it has no intention of stopping anytime soon.

Baldur's Gate 3 issues a 6-step pre-launch to-do list for early access players, and is once again strongly recommending you put it on an SSD
https://www.pcgamer.com/baldurs-gate-3-issues-a-6-step-pre-launch-to-do-list-for-early-access-players-and-is-once-again-strongly-recommending-you-put-it-on-an-ssd/
Baldur's Gate 3 is hours away and I've already written off my weekend as a total loss. But if you too are about to spend the next several hundred hours of your life in Faerûn, Larian says there are some things you should know before going in, especially if you've been playing the game's early access version up to now.

Potential Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl 2 leak shows Plankton piloting a giant mech Ratatouille-style and I'm obsessed
https://www.pcgamer.com/potential-nickelodeon-all-star-brawl-2-leak-shows-plankton-piloting-a-giant-mech-ratatouille-style-and-im-obsessed/
Second chances are rare in gaming, but now that Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl 2 might be including a giant Plankton mecha ripped straight from Evangeleon, I'm willing to give it one.

NVIDIA’s GeForce RTX 4090 Is 4 Times More Popular Than AMD’s Radeon RX 7900 XTX According To Steam

https://wccftech.com/nvidia-geforce-rtx-4090-is-4-times-more-popular-than-amd-radeon-rx-7900-xtx-steam/

Crazy but expected

Intel Brings Support For Meteor Lake CPUs In Latest Media Driver Update

https://wccftech.com/intel-brings-support-for-meteor-lake-cpus-in-latest-media-driver-update/

Intel Arc A580 GPU Benchmarks Leak Out: 2.4 GHz Clocks, On Par With AMD’s Radeon RX 7600

https://wccftech.com/intel-arc-a580-gpu-benchmarks-leak-2-4-ghz-clocks-on-par-amd-radeon-rx-7600/

In geekbench that is. In reality, it's a lot slower

Much better product at $750 than at $900.

I had no idea this game existed (I don't pay attenton to mobile games), so this is a welcome surprise. We'll have to see if it's the full game and how they handle the PC port, but it's worth keeping an eye on it.

Besides, this game look more like a Final Fantasy game than the recent Final Fantasy games.

Hot damn! Baldur's Gate 3 just surpassed 230,000 players on Steam! Huge congrats to Larian. They're deserving of all the praise and success can't wait to play tonight!