Friday news, part two:

Disney Dreamlight Valley's next free update, Jungle Getaway, will introduce two new characters
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/life-sim/disney-dreamlight-valleys-next-free-update-jungle-getaway-will-introduce-two-new-characters/
Disney Dreamlight Valley's upcoming Jungle Getaway update is scheduled for October 9, and it'll let players experience an old realm inspired by The Lion King in a new way. This also means some familiar faces are making an appearance. 

Solo dev says he's bucking against the survival 'formula' that makes them stale, and if you want to actually make an axe from scratch does he have the game for you
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/survival-crafting/solo-dev-says-hes-bucking-against-the-survival-formula-that-makes-them-stale-and-if-you-want-to-actually-make-an-axe-from-scratch-does-he-have-the-game-for-you/
(...)
I'm not really a survival game guy, and there are multiple reasons for that. First and foremost: I find it difficult enough to survive in real life without the stress of keeping some kind of digital homunculus going too. But also, I find them all a bit samey. You start out on an island, probably nude, and have to punch trees and rocks until the dialectic of quantity and quality tips over and lets you do the industrial revolution. This takes approximately 400 hours.
Sergei Bezborodko, solo dev behind The Last Plague: Blight, agrees with me. "I feel like a lot of the survival games coming out these days follow a fairly specific formula that has shown to have success time and time again," he says. "Things like crafting, inventory management, base building, hunger and/or thirst management, etc, seem fairly similar in a lot of games."
Bezborodko is trying to avoid that in The Last Plague "I tried to be very conscious of these commonly seen elements in the genre and avoid them in my game," he says. "For the elements I can't avoid, I've tried to at least change them up to be a bit different." That means no "simplistic" crafting, no "generic" resources, and no zombies. It also means, for better or worse, crafting that's as laborious as it is in real life. "For example, being able to make bronze blades or objects requires you to make a mold first and then pour molten bronze into the molds to make the desired item, rather than just clicking something to convert bronze ore into an axe."
>> It has a demo on Steam, if you want to give it a try.

Kvark is a Sovietcore boomer shooter that looks like Half Life if it happened in early '80s Czechoslovakia, and it's somehow become my favorite FPS of the month
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/fps/kvark-is-a-sovietcore-boomer-shooter-that-looks-like-half-life-if-it-happened-in-early-80s-czechoslovakia-and-its-somehow-become-my-favorite-fps-of-the-month/
When I first laid eyes on Kvark, my mind immediately flashed to Sovietcore boomer shooter Hrot—which, for the record, I enjoyed every bit as much as PC Gamer comrade Ted Litchfield. Playing it, though, I found something quite different: A boomer shooter, yes, and very much an ironic take on the grim fatalism of life in a grubby Soviet satellite state. But the feel of the game is really much more in line with the original Half-Life.

The Sims 4's Life and Death expansion is indeed adding that Grim Reaper career everyone wanted
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/the-sims/the-sims-4s-life-and-death-expansion-is-indeed-adding-that-grim-reaper-career-everyone-wanted/
The Sims 4's season of "To be continued" is, indeed, continuing with a reveal trailer for the upcoming Life and Death expansion pack. The pack seems less about life and death than it does death and life after death, with a focus on funerals, bucket lists, the grim reaper, and lots of post-life options.

Counter-Strike 2 gives the people what they want: tiny sausages hanging from their guns
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/fps/counter-strike-2-gives-the-people-what-they-want-tiny-sausages-hanging-from-their-guns/
Counter-Strike 2 has received its first big addition via The Armory Update, which adds a new battle pass to the game, alongside a slew of items and brand-new weapon charms. Well: new for Counter-Strike. Rainbow Six: Siege popularised these little animated tchotchkes, and they can now be found swinging around in everything from Call of Duty to Valorant. So what, you may ask, is the differentiating factor Valve has come up with for Counter-Strike?
Sausages. Don't ask why because Valve is quite above explaining such things but, for whatever reason, Counter-Strike 2's first major addition over CS:GO goes all-in on tiny sausage men. I'm just going to shake my head slightly and hand over to the CS2 team.

Paradox scrupulously avoids saying 'Nazis' in the new Hearts of Iron 4 expansion announcement, which is all about Nazis
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/strategy/paradox-scrupulously-avoids-saying-nazis-in-the-new-hearts-of-iron-4-expansion-announcement-which-is-all-about-nazis/
Paradox Interactive has unveiled the next major expansion to its grand strategy wargame Hearts of Iron 4 as Gotterdammerung, a "German-themed" add-on that "aims to tie together existing research systems with a new experimental research mechanic" that enables the pursuit of both historical projects and more fanciful, "less historical" wunderwaffe.

This bowhunting game created by a Bethesda veteran plays like if you made a whole game out of Skyrim's stealth archer playstyle
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/fps/this-bowhunting-game-created-by-a-bethesda-veteran-plays-like-if-you-made-a-whole-game-out-of-skyrims-stealth-archer-playstyle/
The Axis Unseen is a very different sort of game to The Elder Scrolls' decadent, sprawling slices of fantasy life, but it also kind of feels like Skyrim stripped to the studs, an entire game made out of one strand of The Elder Scrolls series' DNA. No townsfolk, guilds, or celebrity voice cameos⁠—just you, a bow, a crouch-walk button, and a world full of skeleton-strewn alpine vistas and vaguely Norse creatures to hunt.

'Game development doesn't proceed at a constant pace': Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater's devs explain why there are 2 difficulty settings but won't say a word about a possible release date
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/action/game-development-doesnt-proceed-at-a-constant-pace-metal-gear-solid-delta-snake-eaters-devs-explain-why-there-are-2-difficulty-settings-but-wont-say-a-word-about-a-possible-release-date/
Every now and then, Konami dishes out a small nugget of information about the upcoming Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater game, and while the developers have successfully avoided any questions as to when this game may be released, we do now know a bit more about its unique difficulty system. 

Gaming is a good thing for the workplace, apparently—so if you'll excuse me, I'm off to 'do some extensive training'
https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/gaming-is-a-good-thing-for-the-workplace-apparently-so-if-youll-excuse-me-im-off-to-do-some-extensive-training/
One of the big myths about working in gaming is that we spend all our days playing games non-stop. Of course, that'll be the case if you're reviewing a new release, but otherwise we spend a lot of our time looking at blinking cursors, spreadsheets, and all that terribly interesting work-related stuff. 
Good news though—several studies say that gaming improves skills needed in the workplace, so we can all petition our bosses to allocate some time for a bit of R&R.
The findings range from tabletop gaming encouraging creativity, empathy and teamwork, to video games building cognitive skills and contributing to stress management (via Harvard Business Review). Those all sound like things us gamers already knew, but it's nice to have some science to back it up, isn't it?

Let’s see what do GOG and Steam have for us this weekend:

+GOG

• The Warhammer Days bring up to 90% discounts during the weekend: https://www.gog.com/en/promo/2024_warhammer_days
• Coincidentally, or not, the Autumn Sale will also end in 3 days: https://www.gog.com/en/promo/autumn_sale_2024
• And Rimworld celebrates its 11th anniversary with… up to 20% discounts. At least they’ll last 14 days, meaning that you’ll have time to think about getting them or not: https://www.gog.com/en/promo/20241004_rimworld_anniversary

+Steam

• Diablo IV is gong to be 40% off until Monday: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2344520/Diablo_IV/
• SOUTH PARK: SNOW DAY! Will be 50% off until the 10th of October: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1214650/SOUTH_PARK_SNOW_DAY/
• The Dark Souls franchise is also 50% off until the 10th: https://store.steampowered.com/sale/DarkSoulsFranchise
• Studio/Publisher Motion Twin puts Dead Cells, its DLCs and bundles on sale with up to 52% discounts until October, the 10th: https://store.steampowered.com/sale/lamotionweek
• The Animal Week Sale, in partnership with WWF, features games with animals and has demos and up to 80% discounts. In theory, the sale lasts until the 10th, but I’ve seen deals ending as soon as the 7th while others lasted until the 17th so, check it out soon: https://store.steampowered.com/developer/GamesIncubator/sale/animalweek
• The Warhammer Day also comes to Steam, obviously, with games up to 95% off. As with other sales, the lengths of the deals vary, with some ending Monday and others lasting until next Sunday, the 13th: https://store.steampowered.com/sale/warhammerday
• The Melbourne International Games Week is taking place right now and has a Steam Festival to go along with it, featuring not only a chance to see upcoming games, but also demos and up to 90% deals on lots of titles. As some of the above sales, the length of the deals vary, with some ending the 7th and others lasting until (at least, the 16th: https://store.steampowered.com/sale/migw2024
• Old Market Simulator has a 40% discount until the 17th of October: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2878420/Old_Market_Simulator/
• And the BIT.TRIP RUNNER MEGA BUNDLE is on sale, 85% off. No word on when it will end, but the individual games are 75% off until the 17th: https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/34881/BITTRIP_RUNNER_MEGA_BUNDLE/

And that's it. Until the next time, I wish you a happy and gaming weekend.

LEGO Horizon Adventures PC Requirements

Minimum:

• • Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
  • OS: Windows 10
  • Processor: Intel Core i5-8400 / AMD Ryzen 5 2600
  • Memory: 16 GB RAM
  • Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 / AMD Radeon RX 580

I doubt these minimum specs. A Steam Deck will be more than enough if it also runs on Switch.

So apparently TSMC will charge $30,000 per N2 wafer... which is double the price of the already expensive N5/N4.

Yea I'll just keep my pc till 2028 lol

Are they really the only manufacturer on the planet?.

This is just getting silly now. I get "line must go up", but "price must go up" is just a nasty ass combo. Nvidia can afford that due to their endeavours, but what about AMD?. 

Canon says they can do the equivalent to a 5 nanometer process while being 10x cheaper. They also say that with updates to the same technology they will in the future do the equivalent to a 2 nanometer process.

• The latest “nanoimprint lithography” system is Canon’s challenge to Dutch firm ASML, which dominates the extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography machine space.
• Canon said its latest machine, called the FPA-1200NZ2C, will be able to make semiconductors equivalent to a 5 nanometer process, and go as small as 2nm.

I think at some point, you just gotta pull the trigger. It's why I got a 4090 even though in my life time, I never spent anywhere close to this much for a GPU. You can get a 7800XT for $500 and be happy for 4-6 years but I'd wait for RDNA 4 at this point since I think the RDNA 3 oversupply rumours are legit based on AMDs track record of RDNA 2 oversupply.

For me there really isn't much point in upgrading till post next gen console launch. I am sure Nvidia will push whatever the next big thing is around 2027-2028. So I'll skip both cpu and gpu upgrades for some time.

TSMC is to litography what Sony is to camera lenses or SpaceX to rockets, they're years ahead of the competition.

Besides, this will be bought 100% by Apple in the first two years or so. The initial libraries are usually not suitable for high-performance applications, so there will be no bidding wars for AMD or Nvidia to get involved in anyway.

And nanoimprint lithography is even more years behind, Toshiba being the last unfortunate soul willing to take a go. The technical challenges are massive, so whatever Canon says isn't worth the paper they printed it on, no pun intended.

Yeah, TSMC can do basically whateer they want. Samsung, with all their money, can't keep up with them and Intel has fallen so far behind that it's embarrassing.

They must have done something like this, which is how they approached the 3DS hackers back in the day.

Now, you're right Nintendo couldn't have done anything. Even if they tried, lawyers here are cheap, massive teams don't count for much given the way legal procedures work, and you can't get buried for life in a civil lawsuit.

Still, I can see how a layman could be scared into complying, especially if a little bit of carrot was supplied along with the stick.