Tuesday news, part two:

Gearbox rumored to be up for sale as Embracer continues to try to bounce back from a failed $2B deal
https://www.pcgamer.com/gearbox-rumored-to-be-up-for-sale-as-embracer-continues-to-try-to-bounce-back-from-a-failed-dollar2b-deal/
Less than two weeks after the surprise closure of Saints Row studio Volition, a Reuters report says Embracer Group is now looking to rid itself of Borderlands studio Gearbox Entertainment—not through a shutdown this time, but a sale.

Pinocchio-meets-Dark Souls game Lies of P cut 'ACAB' reference to avoid controversy: 'We respect everyone who might want to play this game'
https://www.pcgamer.com/pinocchio-meets-dark-souls-game-lies-of-p-cut-acab-reference-to-avoid-controversy-we-respect-everyone-who-might-want-to-play-this-game/
(...)
An early Lies of P alpha gameplay trailer set the tone with all sorts of unpleasant imagery, including one bit that sees our man P striding across a bridge with a decapitated figure—an automaton of some sort, presumably—strung up in its arches. More important, though, is a large sign hanging from the body, with four letters scrawled across it: APAB.
(...)
That APAB message didn't seem to turn up in future Lies of P promotional materials, though, and in fact a recent playthrough video by Solear Gaming indicates that the message has actually changed: In what looks to be the same scene otherwise, the message hanging off the beheaded marionette now reads, "Purge Puppets."
In an interview with Video Games on Sports Illustrated, Lies of P director Ji-Won Choi confirmed that the message did in fact stand for All Puppets Are Bastards, and that it was removed in order to avoid controversy.

Star Destroyers in Starfield are cool and all, but Star Wars fans recreating their less-obvious faves is far more exciting
https://www.pcgamer.com/star-destroyers-in-starfield-are-cool-and-all-but-star-wars-fans-recreating-their-less-obvious-faves-is-far-more-exciting/
I like a good Star Destroyer or X-Wing as much as the next guy, and while there've been great renditions of them in Starfield's ship builder—some which we've highlighted already—I'm endlessly curious about which obscure rust buckets people love enough to recreate.
>> Still no word on Warhammer 40K battleships like kirby wants, but hey, here's a F1.

Cheating out of my ship to do a spacewalk in Starfield left me wishing there was something to do out here
https://www.pcgamer.com/cheating-out-of-my-ship-to-do-a-spacewalk-in-starfield-left-me-wishing-there-was-something-to-do-out-here/
First noticed by user WeirdConcern4666 on the Starfield subreddit, it's actually pretty easy to dip out of your ship and do a spacewalk thanks to two quick Starfield console commands. There's not much to do out there in the void at the moment, but doing a cheeky extravehicular activity (EVA) lends itself to some nice screenshots, and I'm excited for the modding potential here.

Starfield NPCs have those uncanny smiles because they're not using every face muscle
https://www.pcgamer.com/starfield-npcs-have-those-uncanny-smiles-because-theyre-not-using-every-face-muscle/
Something has always felt off about Starfield's characters. Apart from the fact that they spend entire conversations staring directly into your soul, they don't always emote in a believable way. At moments, character faces move like animatronics, which makes it hard to read what kind of emotion they're trying to express.
(...)
One common expression that doesn't quite look right from an animation standpoint are smiles. Videogame character artist Delaney King says they look wrong because they neglect some important face muscles. In their thread on X (Twitter), King explains how the orbicularis oculi (a muscle around your eyes that allows you to close your eyelids) should contract as you make a smile, almost like you're squinting a bit. If you don't, it tends to look like you're faking it or are mimicking the "dead inside" meme of the stock image guy, András Arató.

Can't shoot in Starfield? Cure this bug with some plastic surgery
https://www.pcgamer.com/starfield-cant-shoot-bug-fix/
It's every astronaut's nightmare: you're in deep space facing down a pack of serpent-worshipping fanatics, but when you pull out your favorite gun and squeeze the trigger, nothing happens. You've got plenty of ammo, the gun is loaded, and you're not in scanning mode. But for some reason, you just can't shoot.
Like a few other bugs we've seen, the Starfield 'can't shoot' bug may be a holdover from Fallout 4. Strangely enough, the best way to get your guns spitting lead and lasers again is to visit… a plastic surgeon.

Baldur's Gate 3 has a secret, brutal game over scene for players who somehow overcome every safeguard to permanently lose a critical item
https://www.pcgamer.com/baldurs-gate-3-has-a-secret-brutal-game-over-scene-for-players-who-somehow-overcome-every-safeguard-to-permanently-lose-a-critical-item/
Baldur's Gate 3 might be the new king of RPG attention to detail, as well as champion of the sentiment, "Well, well, well, if it isn't the consequences of my own actions." Case and point: there's a hidden game over scene for losing a late game plot critical item, one Larian went out of its way to keep you from misplacing. Spoilers up to the beginning of Act 3 ahead.

Starfield's space map has a handy UI element it never tells you about for unknowable reasons
https://www.pcgamer.com/starfields-space-map-has-a-handy-ui-element-it-never-tells-you-about-for-unknowable-reasons/
There's lots of little mechanics that Starfield doesn't bother to explain. While this is sometimes neat, leading to interesting discoveries from mucking around and finding out, some of it has me tilting my head as to why there wasn't even like a note or something. Initially spotted on the Starfield Reddit by Gamesradar, user raging_pastafarian gave a helpful rundown of the game's interstellar map.
>> And here's another bit of info: you have nothing to fear from CO2 in Starfield.

AMD says it's aware of Starfield's Ain't No Sunshine bug but currently has no timeline for a fix
https://www.pcgamer.com/in-starfield-the-sun-literally-doesnt-shine-on-amd-gpu-users/
If you're playing Starfield on an AMD graphics card, there's a good chance you've missed one of the most glaring bugs in the game, because you just won't have seen anything. The AMD-sponsored Bethesda game simply doesn't render a local star from any planet without an atmosphere on an AMD card.
Update, September 12, 2023: An AMD representative has been in touch to assure us that it is aware of the bug, but unfortunately doesn't have any update about whether we might see a patch incoming, or even whether the driver team has a fix in mind.

Ubisoft's sweatier Call of Duty-like has been pushed to an uncertain date after failing console certification: 'Like a lot of things with this game, we have not chosen the typical route'
https://www.pcgamer.com/ubisofts-sweatier-call-of-duty-like-has-been-pushed-to-an-uncertain-date-after-failing-console-certification-like-a-lot-of-things-with-this-game-we-have-not-chosen-the-typical-route/
XDefiant, Ubisoft's upcoming multiplayer shooter that some have hailed as the return of a more old-school, more 2010s-style, perhaps more try-hard Call of Duty-esque experience, has been delayed for an indeterminate amount of time. Why? Because it somehow offended the console gods: failing to pass the certification process for at least one of either PlayStation or Xbox, which means we all have to wait to get our hands on it until Ubisoft can rectify the problems that cropped up and try to get XDefiant certified again.

Blizzard bans 250,000 Overwatch 2 cheaters, says its AI that analyses voice chat is warning naughty players and can often 'correct negative behaviour immediately'
https://www.pcgamer.com/blizzard-bans-250000-overwatch-2-cheaters-says-its-ai-that-analyses-voice-chat-is-warning-naughty-players-and-can-often-correct-negative-behaviour-immediately/
Overwatch 2 has not been having a good time of it in 2023. (...)
(... far, far below...)
Ah, and some real meat: "Since Overwatch 2’s launch, we’ve detected and banned over 250,000 accounts for cheating." Blizzard adds that it's also been identifying accounts that notably group with cheaters, and has banned thousands of these.

Possible NVIDIA Ampere-Powered SOC For Next-Gen Nintendo Switch 2 Handheld Spotted

https://wccftech.com/nvidia-ampere-powered-soc-for-next-gen-nintendo-switch-2-handheld-spotted/

Makes sense if it's Ampere based as I am sure Samsung is begging for someone to keep their foundries alive as majority are going for TSMC.

Intel Unveils Thunderbolt 5 Solution: Up to 120 Gbps Bandwidth, 240W Charging, 8K 540Hz

https://wccftech.com/intel-unveils-thunderbolt-5-solution-up-to-120-gbps-bandwidth-240w-charging-8k-540hz/

Finally a good uplift. TB3 vs TB4 barely had any differences

AMD Radeon RX 7600 XT to feature 10GB and 12GB memory configs, according to PowerColor EEC filing

https://videocardz.com/newz/amd-radeon-rx-7600-xt-to-feature-10gb-and-12gb-memory-configs-according-to-powercolor-eec-filing

Very interesting and weird. Maybe AMD is getting their combative spirit back.

Intel Gaudi2 Accelerator MLPerf Benchmarks Show A Viable AI Alternative To NVIDIA’s GPUs

https://wccftech.com/intel-gaudi2-accelerator-mlperf-benchmarks-show-a-viable-ai-alternative-to-nvidia-gpus/

AMD’s Next-Gen Zen 5 CPUs Get Improved Support Within AIDA64

https://wccftech.com/amds-next-gen-zen-5-cpus-get-improved-support-within-aida64/

Hearts of Iron IV has ~45k mods in the Steam Workshop:

All Fallout games together have over 90k mods in the Nexus:

That's Nintendo's best choice given that Ada is too new for them. Still, there are so many unknows: type and number of CPU cores, memory bandwidth, real amount of RAM and type (it will be LPDDR5, but running at what frequency?), ...

In any case, going with Samsung will make the SoC cheaper than going with TSMC, but we'll have to see what kind of impact it has on its efficieny.

It's interesting how AMD says that there are no more ASICs to launch, but they still find a way to make new products.

Well, the gap between the 7600 and the 7700XT in both performance and price was too big and needed to be filled with something else, probably a further cut down Navi32. After all, the 54CUs of the 7700XT was more generous than anyone thought, so there's room for a new chip.

Besides, that would explain the memory, either keeping the same 192-bit bus or cutting it down a bit to 160-bit.

what kind of nude mods does HOI have?

Hopefully none. Watching that Douglas Dauntless without the plate armour could be too much for some people.

How kind of Apple to willingly replace their own connector with the common one everyone else uses.

More like EU forced them to change it unless that's sarcasm lol

Yes, it was sarcasm. I guess not adding some quotation marks has been a mistake.