The second part of the gaming news:

This Final Fantasy Tactics-like RPG from former Octopath and Destiny devs lets you do the best thing a videogame can: Make a town look cooler while you rebuild it
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/rpg/this-final-fantasy-tactics-like-rpg-from-former-octopath-and-destiny-devs-lets-you-do-the-best-thing-a-videogame-can-make-a-town-look-cooler-while-you-rebuild-it/
When I approach a videogame, all I'm looking for is one thing: the ability to construct a small hamlet. This is why I still, in stray moments, catch myself reflecting with a wistful sigh on my time rebuilding Monteriggioni in Assassin's Creed 2 or that one village you build in Breath of the Wild. This is it; this is what it's all about, man.
So my eyes quite naturally bulged out of my head when I saw what looks alarmingly like someone rebuilding a village in the trailer for upcoming tactical RPG Never's End, coming from a gaggle of devs whose previous work includes stuff like Destiny, Triangle Strategy, Octopath Traveller, Enter the Gungeon, and Gang Beasts.

This Russian fishing sim is bizarrely popular on Steam but players hate the monetisation, and to be fair it has a $2000 microtransaction
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/this-russian-fishing-sim-is-bizarrely-popular-on-steam-but-players-cant-decide-if-they-love-or-hate-it-perhaps-because-of-the-usd2000-microtransaction/
I hadn't heard of Russian Fishing 4 until PCG's Wes Fenlon noticed it was weirdly popular on Steam. The game's been available since 2018, launching on Steam in November 2021, and since then it's steadily built a considerable audience over time: per SteamDB's three year charts, it was pulling in around 7,000 concurrent players after launch, and three years later averages just over 20,000 concurrent players every day.

RuneScape studio Jagex confirms layoffs 'to reduce complexity, increase agility, and ensure we are fully focused on the areas that matter most'
https://www.pcgamer.com/gaming-industry/runescape-studio-jagex-confirms-layoffs-to-reduce-complexity-increase-agility-and-ensure-we-are-fully-focused-on-the-areas-that-matter-most/
Less than two months after releasing the open-world survival game RuneScape: Dragonwilds into early access on Steam, Jagex has laid off an unspecified number of employees. The studio says the vast majority of cuts are being made in "non-game development roles," and won't have any impact on the future development.
>> And they’ve also paused the development of private servers.

Here's when Dune: Awakening pre-loads and unlocks in your time zone
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/survival-crafting/dune-awakening-preload-time-release-date/
Dune: Awakening is almost here! After a slight delay from a planned May release, Funcom's new survival MMO set in the Dune universe is now set to launch in June, giving players the chance to build bases, harvest spice, engage in politics and PvP (there's a difference?), and get swallowed whole by massive sandworms.

Smite developer Hi-Rez Studios cuts 'senior management positions' because after all the other layoffs, 'the company had a lot of senior management in relation to our current size'
https://www.pcgamer.com/gaming-industry/smite-developer-hi-rez-studios-cuts-senior-management-positions-because-after-all-the-other-layoffs-the-company-had-a-lot-of-senior-management-in-relation-to-our-current-size/
Less than six months after laying off an estimated 70 people, Smite 2 developer Hi-Rez Studios has made another round of cuts. But this time, rather than rank-and-file employees, the layoffs are focused on "senior management positions" near the top of the company's food chain.

MindsEye is set to launch next week, so it's probably not great that the studio's chief financial officer and chief legal officer have both resigned
https://www.pcgamer.com/gaming-industry/mindseye-is-set-to-launch-next-week-so-its-probably-not-great-that-the-studios-chief-financial-officer-and-chief-legal-officer-have-both-resigned/
The pre-release saga of MindsEye, the debut game from former Rockstar Games stalwart Leslie Benzies and his Build a Rocket Boy studio, has taken another strange twist. As noticed today by Eurogamer, Build a Rocket Boy's chief financial officer and chief legal officer have both left the company, just a week ahead of MindsEye's release.
>> I’m curious about the game, but there are so many red flags around it.

Remedy announces very friendly minimum specs for its co-op Control spinoff, FBC: Firebreak. You only need a GTX 1070 for 1080 60 fps play
https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/remedy-announces-very-friendly-minimum-specs-for-its-control-spinoff-fbc-firebreak-you-only-need-a-gtx-1070-for-1080-60-fps-play/
I've been hanging out for Remedy's next game after falling head over heels in love with the developer's last big hit, Control. So when FBC: Firebreak was announced by the brand last year, I was delighted to see the team is bringing a cooperative shooter into this twisted world. Control resonated with me so intensely that it's in my top ten games of all time. This is in no small part thanks to how deeply weird the game can be, and FBC: Firebreak is looking to ramp this right up for some silly fire-zombie shenanigans.
With any new game release, there's always the question of hardware. And given how much of a ray tracing demon Control was for its time, I was a little worried about how demanding FBC might end up. There's not much reason to get excited for a game that my machine can't even run. Well, thankfully, Remedy recently announced the required specs over on BlueSky, and this is looking like a game that will still run, even on a fairly dated rig.

'I want you to have the confidence to give it a try': Elden Ring Nightreign's combat director politely tells you to git gud, says he's beat all the game's bosses, solo, without relics
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/rpg/i-want-you-to-have-the-confidence-to-give-it-a-try-elden-ring-nightreigns-combat-director-politely-tells-you-to-git-gud-says-hes-beat-all-the-games-bosses-solo-without-relics/
Elden Ring Nightreign is a hard game—no, not just hard, sometimes downright unfair. It's in a way that's incredibly charming, mind, but as our own Ted Litchfield wrote last week, it's "player hostile" or, in other words, occasionally "such bullshit". I had my own taste of this recently as, while playing with a couple of other PCG folks, we got a boss down to around 2% HP, decided to try and finish it off, and got insta-gibbed by a muddily-telegraphed AoE. Nightreign'd.
However, combat director Junya Ishizaki wants you to believe in yourself, especially in the face of a capricious game that mostly hates and wants to murder you. That's per an interview with CNET, wherein Ishizaki says:

'Why are they so greedy': Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 players are in disbelief to find bundle ads but Activision claims it's simply a 'UI feature test' that was published 'in error'
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/call-of-duty/why-are-they-so-greedy-call-of-duty-black-ops-6-players-are-in-disbelief-to-find-bundle-ads-but-activision-claims-its-simply-a-ui-feature-test-that-was-published-in-error/
Over the weekend a Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 player noticed something different about the weapon select menu: for some reason there were bundle ads embedded into it. This feature has since been taken down by Activision, which claims it was just a mistake, but even just a glimpse of these ads was enough to infuriate players.

'The problem isn't necessarily the yellow paint', says the Witcher 4 design lead, but its overuse: 'People see through the smoke and mirrors'
https://www.pcgamer.com/gaming-industry/game-development/the-problem-isnt-necessarily-the-yellow-paint-says-the-witcher-4-design-lead-but-its-overuse-people-see-through-the-smoke-and-mirrors/
One of the more surface-level discourses in videogames in recent memory has been the hullabaloo over yellow paint—gamers the world over decrying games with obvious sunshine climbables as being patronising slop for little babies (I'm exaggerating, a little). But Miles Tost, the level design lead for The Witcher 4, tells PCG's Joshua Wolens that it's a little more complicated than yellow paint good or yellow paint bad.

So, what's the veredict? The 16GB 9060XT or the 7800XT?

Not an amazing card but, in a gen of so many dull releases, this meh card stands out from the rest.

It's really impressive to see it beat the 7900XT in ray tracing games, tho.

$2000 dollars is not a microtransaction. Micro means small. 2k is a big transation not micro.

Indeed. Calling this insane type of deal microtransaction is extremely misleading.

Sadly, it's not the only game with such ridiculous add-ons (like Star Citizen, for example), and then there's people paying hundreds and even thousands of dollars for rare skins for their free to play games.

The world is going insane.

Waiting on real world pricing, should appear sometime today. PC Case Gear think around 11PM Australian time.

In Oblivion Remastered (The main reason I want to upgrade outside of A.I upscaling) it's a 7x performance increase over my 6600XT at 1440P Ultra and only 8fps behind the 7800XT.

I find it also amazing that it beat the 7700XT in raster despite the latter having 54 CU vs 32 CU and a higher TBP.

I argued on Youtube that beating the 7900XT in RT to be amazing too, but then some guys bashed it by saying that the 7900XT couldn't to RT anyway, so nothing impressive there. So I looked up GN's results and it's right between the 3070Ti and 3080 in RT, which could maybe be considered even more impressive.

Sure AMD isn't quite at NVidia's level yet, but the gap is much smaller now than it was the generations before.

Hm, not feeling it for 9060XT 16GB - 5060Ti 16GB is bit faster, has widely more supported DLSS and it can be found for $429 in US.

AMD Radeon RX 9060 XT is now available

https://videocardz.com/newz/amd-radeon-rx-9060-xt-is-now-available

AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT listed below MSRP in Germany

https://videocardz.com/newz/amd-radeon-rx-9070-xt-listed-below-msrp-in-germany

NVIDIA reportedly preparing GeForce RTX 5050 desktop GPU for July release

https://videocardz.com/newz/nvidia-reportedly-preparing-geforce-rtx-5050-desktop-gpu-for-july-release

ASRock Korea hints on “next-gen” CPU support with new BIOS

https://videocardz.com/newz/asrock-korea-hints-on-next-gen-cpu-support-with-new-bios

NVIDIA’s official website now listing “GeForce RTX 4040 BRICK Edition”

https://videocardz.com/pixel/nvidias-official-website-now-listing-geforce-rtx-4040-brick-edition

Nintendo Switch 2 Is Here, And For Some Players, Their Consoles Are Already Damaged, Thanks To Stores Stapling Holes Into The Switch 2 Screen

https://wccftech.com/nintendo-switch-2-is-here-and-for-some-players-their-consoles-are-already-damaged-thanks-to-stores-stapling-holes-into-the-switch-2-screen/

Not feeling it for the 9060XT either.

But it is the cheapest 16GB card and is $120 cheaper than the Radeon 7800XT... So it got my purchase.

$630 for a mid-range GPU that should be $400 AUD tops, sucks... The RX 9000 series is what the RX 7000 series SHOULD have been, the 7600XT was only 5% better than the GPU it replaced. (6600XT)
Should tie me over for a few years anyway.

Can't use it until the 16th when I fly back home anyway (Along with my Switch 2 console that got delivered today), but can't wait to see how much time it cuts down in my A.I upscaling for DVD's on my NAS.

The Thursday news, the beginning of the flood we’ll get these next days:

SALES/PLAYER COUNTS & DEALS

Elden Ring Nightreign hits 3.5 million copies sold in just 5 days, with 7.5% of players already managing to beat all the Nightlords
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/rpg/elden-ring-nightreign-hits-3-5-million-copies-sold-in-just-5-days-with-7-5-percent-of-players-already-managing-to-beat-all-the-nightlords/
Elden Ring Nightreign may have gotten off to a bumpy start with mostly Mixed reviews on Steam at launch, but it's since crawled out of that rut with an impressive first major update that has helped it on its way to a Mostly Positive overall rating. And now there's even more to celebrate as FromSoftware announces that 3.5 million copies of Nightreign have been sold.
"On the dawn of the fifth day, 3.5 million Nightfarers took up arms against the Night in Elden Ring Nightreign," FromSoftware says in a social media post. "We are ever grateful for your passion."
3.5 million copies sold is undoubtedly a monumental shift but given how well Nightreign performed at launch the number is hardly surprising: 2 million people bought and played Nightreign in its first 24 hours. It also clocked in at over 300,000 concurrent players on its first day, according to SteamDB, and since then it's sat between 100,000 to 300,000 players consistently.

Deltarune shoots to the top of the Steam best-seller chart as chapters 3 and 4 finally go live
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/adventure/deltarune-shoots-to-the-stop-of-the-steam-best-seller-chart-as-chapters-3-and-4-finally-go-live/
As was foretold, Deltarune chapters 3 and 4 are now live, and in case there was any doubt, yes, it remains a massively popular game—at this moment, it's the top-selling game on Steam, and amongst the top-ten most played, too.
While the release date was known, having been announced in April (although there was apparently a bit of a mixup there—the Nintendo Switch 2 edition trailer that initially nailed down the date pegs it at June 5, but somewhere along the line it became June 4), but the actual launch was a very quiet affair. There's not even a notification on Steam—in fact, right now the page still lists chapters 3 and 4 as "coming soon." But there's no mistaking the enthusiasm of fans in the Deltarune subreddit.
And yes, the Steam charts: Deltarune currently holds three spots in Steam's top-ten best-selling list, an impressive accomplishment by any measure.
>> It’s still at the top, 18 hours after this article was written.

This week, the Epic Store gives away

• DEATHLOOP: https://store.epicgames.com/en-US/p/deathloop
• Ogu and the Secret Forest: https://store.epicgames.com/en-US/p/ogu-and-the-secret-forest-ffc421

Next week they’ll give away Two Point Hospital .

GOG has two new promos:

• The Open World Promo has games up to 95% off during 6 days: https://www.gog.com/en/promo/20250605_open_world_promo
• Hot Indie Promo also features up to 95% discounts, but during 10 days: https://www.gog.com/en/promo/20250605_hot_indie_promo

Steam has four new deals and two sales/events:

• CODE VEIN, that has a demo, gets an 85% discount until the 11th of June: https://store.steampowered.com/app/678960/CODE_VEIN/
• GOD EATER 3 will be 90% off until the same 11th: https://store.steampowered.com/app/899440/GOD_EATER_3/
• The Early Access title Lightyear Frontier will have a 40% discount until the 18th of June: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1677110/Lightyear_Frontier/
• Railroad Corporation is going to be 85% off until June 18: https://store.steampowered.com/app/797400/Railroad_Corporation/
• And these are the sales/events:
  • The Wholesome Direct 2025 will take place on June 7 and this page has a lot of upcoming games, some with demos: https://store.steampowered.com/sale/wholesomedirect2025
  • Publisher/Developer Hyperstrange puts its games on sale with up to 80% discounts. From what I’ve seen, most, but not all, deals will end on June 18: https://store.steampowered.com/sale/HyperstrangePublisherSale2025

It looks like the Humble Store has two sales that, for some unknown reason, didn’t show up when making this posts. One will end in less than 2 hours so I won’t mention it, but the other, the Arc System Works Publisher Sale with games up to 90% off, will last another 3 days: https://www.humblebundle.com/store/promo/arcs-spring-sale/.

And Fanatical has a new sale and bundle:

• The Tomb Raider Franchise is on sale with up to 85% discounts during 8 days: https://www.fanatical.com/en/franchises/tomb-raider
• The Platinum Collection - Build your own Bundle (June 2025) has 15 titles to choose from for your bundles of 3+, 5+ or 7+ games during the next 27 days: https://www.fanatical.com/en/pick-and-mix/platinum-collection-build-your-own-bundle

SOFTWARE & DRIVERS

AMD Radeon Software Adrenalin 25.6.1 driver
https://videocardz.com/driver/amd-radeon-software-adrenalin-25-6-1

HIGHLIGHTS
New Product Support

• AMD Radeon™ RX 9060 XT
• AMD Radeon™ AI PRO R9700

New Game Support

• Onimusha 2: Samurai’s Destiny Remaster

New Game Support for AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution 4 (FSR 4)

• Deadzone: Rogue
• F1 25
• Frostpunk 2
• Legacy: Steel & Sorcery
• Lords of the Fallen
• Planetaries
• QANGA
• Rem Survival
• Runescape: Dragonwilds
• Star Wars Outlaws
• Steel Seed
• Stellar Blade
• Virtua Fighter 5 R.E.V.O
• Wild Assault

FIXED ISSUES

• Quality and Performance selections may be reversed in the user interface for AMD Radeon™ Boost.
• Lower than expected performance may be observed while playing Le Mans Ultimate with Radeon™ RX 9070 series graphics products.

MODS, EMULATORS & FAN PROJECTS

-Empty-

GAMING NEWS

EA SPORTS Madden NFL 26 uses Denuvo, gets PC requirements
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/ea-sports-madden-nfl-26-uses-denuvo-gets-pc-requirements/
Electronic Arts has just announced the next part in its Madden NFL series, EA SPORTS Madden NFL 26. The game will be using the Denuvo anti-tamper tech on PC, and you can also find below its official PC system requirements.

Capcom’s Pragmata has been re-revealed, coming out in 2026
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/capcoms-pragmata-has-been-re-revealed-coming-out-in-2026/
At the State of Play June 2025, Capcom re-revealed Pragmata. The game will now target a 2026 release date, and below you can find a new trailer for it.
>> Alex_The_Hedgehog has made a thread about it.

Silent Hill f releases on September 25th, gets first gameplay trailer
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/silent-hill-f-releases-on-september-25th-gets-first-gameplay-trailer/
Konami has just released the first gameplay trailer for its new Silent Hill game, Silent Hill f. Silent Hill f promises to blend psychological horror with a haunting Japanese setting. So, let’s take a look at it, shall we?
>> Alex_The_Hedgehog has also made a thread about it.

Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater State of Play June 2025 Trailer
https://www.dsogaming.com/videotrailer-news/metal-gear-solid-delta-snake-eater-state-of-play-june-2025-trailer/
Konami has released a new trailer for Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater. This trailer shows off the game’s beautiful graphics. It also packs some gameplay sequences. So, if you are a fan of MGS, you should definitely check it out.

Nioh 3 has been announced with a gameplay trailer
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/nioh-3-has-been-announced-with-a-gameplay-trailer/
KOEI Tecmo has announced the next part in its Nioh series, Nioh 3. The publisher has also shared the game’s first gameplay trailer, which you can find below.

IO Interactive’s 007 First Light revealed with a gameplay trailer
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/io-interactives-007-first-light-revealed-with-a-gameplay-trailer/
IO Interactive has just revealed its James Bond game, which will now be officially called 007 First Light. 007 First Light will be using the Glacier Engine, it will come out in 2026, and below you can find its debut trailer.
>> This time it’s curl-6 the one to make a thread about it.

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection brings, for the first time, Mortal Kombat 4 Arcade to PCs and consoles
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/mortal-kombat-legacy-kollection-brings-for-the-first-time-mortal-kombat-4-arcade-to-pcs-and-consoles/
Digital Eclipse has just announced Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection will feature the first four main MK games, as well as some special handheld versions of them. So, let’s take a look at it.

First Patch for The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered Released
https://www.dsogaming.com/patches/first-patch-for-the-elder-scrolls-iv-oblivion-remastered-released/
Bethesda released today the first post-launch update for The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered, and shared its full patch notes. So, let’s see what this first update brings to the table.

ROMEO IS A DEAD MAN is officially coming to PC in 2026
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/romeo-is-a-dead-man-is-officially-coming-to-pc-in-2026/
Grasshopper Manufacture has revealed that ROMEO IS A DEAD MAN will be officially coming to PC in 2026. Moreover, the team shared a gameplay trailer that you can find below.
>> The trailer, at least the beginning, is… something else. But hey, it’s a Grasshopper/Suda51 game so what else could you expect?