With Arl you mean Redcliffe, right?

You really need to do all the side missions to get everyone on board and upgrade their equipment, otherwise that battle will get difficult for sure.

Also, little hint:

I found Redcliffe to be relatively easy back then, but I also naturally made all the sidequests up to that point and was maybe a bit more balanced than your team. Also, like Pemalite says, abuse the pause button to adjust your tactics.

I'm playing both Origins and Baldur's Gate 1 right now side by side and found that both had a similar difficulty - At least for my current characters (Human noble thief in Origins and Undead Hunter in Baldur's Gate. Though I have to admit I made a superb roll for my undead hunter, which certainly helps making it feel easier:

How are you playing Origins? Are using the tactical mode? The later Dragon Age games shifted to more action based combat but Origins was played better in tactical mode. 

I don't know - I haven't found BG1 to be that hard, neither back in 90s, nor year or two ago when I finally replayed it. But I vividly remember after completing Origins back in days that I loaded up my old save of BG1 and kept dying constantly. It really felt to me like a tier above Origins in difficulty back then. I haven't replayed Origins since then, so can't really tell if it was that just my perception of it, or is it really the case.

They have 3 difficulty modes in the game - Squire (Easy), Knight (Normal) and Tactical (Hard).

Tactical (Hard) is the default difficulty from the original PS1 version so Knight (Normal) and Squire (Easy) are new to the game.

I was playing on Knight but I changed it to Tactical after the first battle because it was too easy for me since I'm used to playing the regular difficulty from having played the PS1 version multiple playthroughs in the past.

I'm thinking about trying out Dragon Age Origins, only bioware games I played are the original Mass Effect trilogy.

Did you get Alan Wake 2 from the humble bundle? They had Alan Wake remaster and Alan Wake 2 in the bundle. 

I never played any of them but I'll try it out in the future too lol

Nah, I got it from Green Man Gaming a bit before the bundle. The bundle seemed pretty great though, except that I already owned everything else from it (aside from FBC: Firebreak, which only had a discount coupon in the bundle).

In theory you can, but you would need to waste clockcycles on emulating.

For instance, there is about a 10x performance penalty emulating 3D Now! instructions verses doing it on the SIMD units, but it doesn't matter much when a modern CPU operates at 17x the frequency of the early AMD K6-2 300's with probably just as much IPC increase.

But the biggest issue is that modern PC's have simply moved on, we don't run ISA or even PCI slots anymore, we don't use EDO Ram, we don't even have Sound Blaster! Compatible audio anymore (Creative emulates it these days), we don't have COM, LPT1/Parallel ports anymore... And old 286/386/486 software actually relied on the CPU's clockspeed to determine the "tick rate" aka. Running speed of software and games. (Hence why they added a Turbo button to older computers.)

So it's just easier to virtualize all that stuff in a software environment... Or for industrial applications you can go out and grab a PC/104 system which has a 286/386 or 486 clone CPU (From the likes of SGS-Thomson) or grab an Vortex86SX system... Which are great for Win95/98 stuff.

Alexa, Are You There? Massive AWS Outage Takes Down ChatGPT, Fortnite, And Half The Internet

https://wccftech.com/aws-outage-snaps-chatgpt-fortnite-down/

AMD Krackan Point Is Reportedly Coming To AM5; New AGESA BIOS Adds Support For Zen 5 APUs

https://wccftech.com/amd-krackan-point-is-reportedly-coming-to-am5-new-agesa-bios-adds-support-for-zen-5-apus/

NVIDIA’s ‘Cutting-Edge’ Vera Rubin AI Servers Are Already in Development by Foxconn; Mass Production to Begin in H2 2026

https://wccftech.com/nvidia-vera-rubin-ai-servers-are-already-in-development-by-foxconn/

MSI 16-Pin Adapter Keeps Killing More GPUs; One More Case Reported, Showing GPU Connector Turning Yellow

https://wccftech.com/msi-16-pin-adapter-keeps-killing-more-gpus-one-more-case-reported/

Xbox President says ASUS set ROG Xbox Ally prices, confirms next-gen Xbox with AMD in development

https://videocardz.com/newz/xbox-president-says-asus-set-rog-xbox-ally-prices-confirms-next-gen-xbox-with-amd-in-development

Prototype GeForce GTX 2080 Ti card spotted with 12GB VRAM

https://videocardz.com/newz/prototype-geforce-gtx-2080-ti-card-spotted-with-12gb-vram

Intel Arc A-Series turns three: from Alchemist to Battlemage and uncertain future

https://videocardz.com/newz/intel-arc-a-series-turns-three-from-alchemist-to-battlemage-and-uncertain-future

First NVIDIA Blackwell wafer has been produced at TSMC’s Arizona fab

https://videocardz.com/newz/first-nvidia-blackwell-wafer-has-been-produced-at-tsmcs-arizona-fab

The Monday gaming news:

SALES/PLAYER COUNTS & DEALS

Arc Raiders playtest slams past 185,000 concurrent players on Steam alone
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/third-person-shooter/arc-raiders-playtest-slams-past-185-000-concurrent-players-on-steam-alone/
The Arc Raiders server slam playtest kicked off today, offering one last free weekend testing session before the game launches on October 30. And it's putting up serious numbers, with more than 185,000 people playing right now—on Steam alone.
That number, courtesy of SteamDB, is good enough to put Arc Raiders in the number four spot on Steam's most played list, ahead of PUBG, Rust, and Bongo Cat. It's even more impressive when you consider that the server slam is also available on the Epic Games Store as well as PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S consoles, meaning the actual number of people playing is higher—likely much higher.

GOG starts the week with two promos:

• Build & Manage Promo features games with up to 90% discounts during 7 days: https://www.gog.com/en/promo/20251020_build_and_manage_promo
• Dark Settings Promo has games up to 95% off during the same 7 days: https://www.gog.com/en/promo/20251020_dark_settings_promo

Steam has two new deals and two new sales/events:

• The Chef's Shift , that has a demo, is going to be 20% off until the 26th of October: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2390230/The_Chefs_Shift
• Warside will have a 50% discount until the 2nd of November: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2368300/Warside
• Since Friday, there’s been 6 new Sales/Events, but I’ll only list the ones that started yesterday:
  • DreamHack Atlanta 2025 Indie Playground is full of upcoming titles, some with demos, and two games on sale. One of the deals will end later today and the other is “Emperor of the Fading Suns Enhanced”, that has a demo and a 20% discount until the 2nd of November: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2799350/Emperor_of_the_Fading_Suns_Enhanced
  • Indies Chile Week is similar to the former, with upcoming titles and some demos, but with several more games on sale, with some deals also ending today and others being up to 80% off and ending on November the 2nd: https://store.steampowered.com/curator/45770525/sale/IndiesChileWeek

Humble Bundle has two new collections for us:

• Life is Strange: True Colors Bundle features up to 4 items to get (3 games + 1 DLC) during 18 days: https://www.humblebundle.com/games/square-enix-life-is-strange-true-colors-bundle
• Momcore – Games For a Busy Life has up to 12 items to get (games and DLCs) during the same 18 days: https://www.humblebundle.com/games/momcore-games-for-busy-life

And Fanatical has these:

• The Star Deal is Age of Mythology: Retold, with a 57% discount. It started yesterday and will last another 24 hours or until they run out of the 52% remaining keys: https://www.fanatical.com/en/game/age-of-mythology-retold
• BYO Crimson Bundle has 18 games to choose for your 1+, 5+ or 10+ bundles during 34 days: https://www.fanatical.com/en/pick-and-mix/build-your-own-crimson-bundle?v=5835

SOFTWARE & DRIVERS

Just in case you thought reviving dead games seemed easy enough, GOG had to hire a private investigator to find an IP holder living off the grid for its preservation program
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/just-in-case-you-thought-reviving-dead-games-seemed-easy-enough-gog-had-to-hire-a-private-investigator-to-find-an-ip-holder-living-off-the-grid-for-its-preservation-program/
It's certainly not an absence of demand that keeps "dead" games like Black & White or the original Civilization off the market. It's usually red tape and nebulous barriers involving copyright law and intellectual property ownership-flavored headaches that get in the way. And even though GOG has a team working on its preservation program full time, senior bizdev manager Marcin Paczynski said they found the process of digital necromancy "harder than we thought it would be," on a recent episode of The Game Business Show.
He added that the strange stories involved were enough to fill a book, and served up some examples that make me really want to read that book. One tidbit involved someone in the UK who had unwittingly inherited rights to several games, but was "nowhere to be found."

MODS, EMULATORS & FAN PROJECTS

Bloodborne PC Remaster Mod V0.93 Available for Download
https://www.dsogaming.com/pc-performance-analyses/bloodborne-pc-remaster-mod-v0-93-available-for-download
Modder ‘fromsoftserve’ has released a new version of his amazing remaster mod for Bloodborne that PC gamers can currently enjoy. This mod aims to overhaul the visuals of the game. As such, you can experience an unofficial remastered version of this PS4-only title.
For those wondering, you can run Bloodborne on PC via the shadPS4 emulator. With this emulator, you can also enable this mod to remaster it. Plus, you can use another mod that unlocks its framerate. These two mods are essential for those who want to play Bloodborne on PC.
The Bloodborne Remaster Mod adds dynamic shadows throughout the entire game. It also improves how far shadows can be seen and makes them look better. The mod adds more ambient lighting by changing the game’s settings. It also improves texture quality, so objects look clearer. On top of that, it adds realistic lighting for things like street lamps, wall lamps, candles, and torches.
And that’s not all. The modder has added Parallax Occlusion Mapping to surfaces throughout the game. This is a WIP feature, meaning that not all surfaces have POM yet.
In version 0.93, fromsoftserve has restored the baked lighting. He also enabled alternate colorgrades for most areas. As he pointed out, these were created by FromSoftware itself, but for some reason, they weren’t used.
It’s also worth noting that a future version will replace the low-quality distant meshes that Bloodborne often used. These lower-quality models made sense on the PS4. However, they are not that necessary on PC. With higher-quality distant models, PC players will get a much better-looking game. And that’s the whole purpose of this mod.
>> The article has an over 20 minutes video.

Take a look at Grand Theft Auto 4 with RTX Remix Path Tracing
https://www.dsogaming.com/pc-performance-analyses/take-a-look-at-grand-theft-auto-4-with-rtx-remix-path-tracing
Modder ‘xoxor4d ‘ is currently working on an RTX Remix Path Tracing Mod for Grand Theft Auto 4. While there is no ETA on when the mod will come out, we have some screenshots from it, shared by Resetera’s gabdeg. And, as you will see, it already looks incredible.
This RTX Remix Mod will add real-time Path Tracing to this classic GTA game. Path Tracing will handle pretty much everything, from reflections to shadows and lighting. In my opinion, this is how you remaster a game. Hear that, dear devs?
What’s also incredible here is that these screenshots are with the vanilla assets. There aren’t any new textures or PBR materials. So, in theory, the game can look even better than this.
As I said, there’s no ETA on when the mod will come out. From what I know, xoxor4d’s Patreon members currently have access to a test build. My guess is that we’ll see a public version once the modder has polished it further. So, maybe we’ll get it around Christmas?

New The Witcher 3 DLC-Sized Expansion Mod Adds New Map, Upgradeable Camp, and Unique Gameplay Mechanics
https://www.dsogaming.com/pc-performance-analyses/new-the-witcher-3-dlc-sized-expansion-mod-adds-new-map-upgradeable-camp-and-unique-gameplay-mechanics
Modder ‘Aeltoth’ has released a must-have mod for all The Witcher 3 fans. The Wild Monster Hunt DLC-sized expansion mod adds a new map to the game, a camp where you can upgrade your gear, and unique gameplay mechanics. So, let’s take a closer look at it.
Wild Monster Hunt is a new game mode where you can start a fresh playthrough made just for this experience. You’ll have your own camp, which you can upgrade. It’s similar to Corvo Bianco, but focused on helping you hunt monsters. You can explore a brand-new map about the same size as Toussaint from the Blood & Wine DLC. From your camp, you can pick and complete randomly generated monster contracts to earn gear and money. As you play, you can craft better equipment and take on stronger monsters. You can also unlock special items and use a unique forge found only on this new map to create powerful builds.
Wild Monster Hunt revolves around two deeply interconnected systems. The first element is your Witcher camp, it is your safe place to take care of your gear and to prepare for the coming hunts. In there, you will occasionally find skilled people who will help you turn this humid place into your modest home. The second element is everything around the camp. As soon as you leave its walls, you enter the “Hunting mode“. Containers are filled with new loot, herbs have grown back, and new creatures are roaming the wild lands. You are then free to explore as you please or as long as your gear allows, after which you can go back to the camp in order to prepare for the next hunt.
>> The article has three videos.

'GZDoom is basically dead' modders proclaim as contributors split from Doom's most popular sourceport, with tensions boiling over after its creator adds AI-generated code to the project
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/fps/gzdoom-is-basically-dead-modders-proclaim-as-contributors-split-from-dooms-most-popular-sourceport-with-tensions-boiling-over-after-its-creator-adds-ai-generated-code-to-the-project/
Numerous contributors to GZDoom, Doom's most popular sourceport and the basis for countless mods and several entire games, have split from the project and revealed plans to build their own version, after long-running tensions with GZDoom's creator came to a head earlier this week.
As reported by Techspot, the schism within GZDoom's community arose through a thread on the project's Github page, beginning with GZDoom contributor the-phinet (real name Marcus Minhorst) listing several issues regarding recent updates posted to the project by its creator, Cristoph "Graf Zahl" Oleckers. Among multiple complaints, Minhorst claimed Oleckers had "pushed untested code" and made "use of an LLM to write your code for you" which Minhorst pointed out likely violated GitHub's licensing agreement.
These grievances arrived on top of other, longer standing complaints from GZDoom contributors regarding other updates to the sourceport, such as its controversial texture-filter that blurs Doom's pixels. The changes highlighted by Minhorst appear to have come as an unpleasant surprise to GZDoom's contributors, with Oleckers having seemingly taken a back seat on the project over the previous year.
"I understand that this is your project, and you can do whatever you like," Minhorst wrote. "Please instead of pushing directly, open PRs and wait for a maintainer to [acknowledge] them. This would set a good example, allowing time for maintainers and other developers to review your work."
Oleckers' issued a short response to Minhorst's post, stating simply that he should "Feel free to fork the project". 'Forking' refers to the creation of a separate code repository from the original, allowing users to make changes independent of the base version. GZDoom is itself a fork of another Doom sourceport, ZDoom.
This, it seems, was the last straw for much of the GZDoom community, prompting several more contributors to accuse Oleckers of poor management and not working in the interests of the sourceport.
"What the hell is your problem, Graf? You disappear for a year, come back to send a bunch of work to the curb, use generative AI bullshit to solve an easily searchable problem, and then tell people to kick rocks when they raise a valid concern for it?" wrote GZDoom contributor Kaelan Evans. Fellow community member Boondorl, meanwhile, pointed out that "so much was getting done on GZDoom that we decided to upgrade to a 5.0, a move you agreed to because so many amazing features had managed to get in. Days after you decided to come back out of no where, the project is now completely bricked and everyone is abandoning ship."
Indeed, it seems the community has taken Oleckers' advice to heart, creating a new fork of ZDoom called UZDoom that they can work on without Oleckers acting as de-facto head of the project. As a sourceport, UZDoom aims to be a straight continuation of the plans made for GZDoom 5.0, which included better netcode and support for ray tracing. "Other than rebranding, nothing has changed roadmap-wise," wrote UZDoom contributor Ricardo Luís Vaz Silva in response to questions regarding UZDoom's plans.
>> What a mess.

If emulating classic DOS games seems like a pain, there's a DOSBox fork 'aiming for simplicity and ease of use', now standalone for the first time
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/if-emulating-classic-dos-games-seems-like-a-pain-theres-a-dosbox-fork-aiming-for-simplicity-and-ease-of-use-now-standalone-for-the-first-time/
Our medium has a rich history that stretches far back into the days of DOS gaming, but the further back in time you go, the more it's a pain to get these games running on modern systems. Even if I have the right media, what the hell am I supposed to do with a floppy disk image in 2025? The long-running answer has been to try out DOSBox and its modern "forks," or modified versions, but it can be a bit of a pain to get started if you're new to emulation.
Enter DOSBox Pure, once an impressive core for the open-source emulation frontend RetroArch—if that sounds like gibberish, it just means you go outside enough—now a standalone app that can easily load ZIP files, mounted CD and floppy disk images, DOS exes, and so on. It's a pay-what-you-want download on developer Schelling's itch.io page, and after giving it a quick look myself, the app is slick and straightforward right out of the box.
There's step-by-step use instructions on that page as well if you have any trouble getting your games running⁠—you'll have to bring your own files, with storefronts like GOG being one potential source. From there it's got plenty of modern settings to tweak and soup up your DOS games of choice: rebindable keys, gamepad and joystick support, save states, a CRT video filter, and even a touchpad mode.
The itch.io page notes there's automatic controller button assignments if the program successfully detects your game and gamepad, but everything can be customized to your liking—something Steam Deck users might find tantalizing

This wild mod for Metal Gear Solid 5 massively expands its Subsistence system and makes enemies learn new tactics within missions rather than across them
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/action/this-wild-mod-for-metal-gear-solid-5-massively-expands-its-subsistence-system-and-makes-enemies-learn-new-tactics-within-missions-rather-than-across-them/
Metal Gear Solid 5 isn't exactly short of options for approaching its open-ended stealth scenarios. But encouraging players to use every tool at their disposal can be difficult once they've found a loadout that they like. Its Subsistence rule was one of Kojima's solutions to this, allowing players to re-enter previous missions without a specific loadout and forcing them to scavenge weapons and equipment on the fly.
But this solution didn't go far enough, at least according to MGS 5 modder mohtalgear. And to celebrate the sequel's tenth anniversary, they decided to do something about it, resulting in the Definitive Subsistence Update.
The Definitive Subsistence Update aims to be the equivalent of the Substance and Subsistence updates for MGS 2 and 3. "Definitive Subsistence adds new content and new meaningful gameplay mechanics that'll make you feel like you're playing MGSV for the first time," mohtalgear says in its Nexus Mods description. It does this by layering in substantially more detail to the Subsistence system, as well as several other mechanics central to how Metal Gear Solid 5 functions.
This starts with a complete overhaul to on-site procurement, with the mod folding in significantly more variety to the weapons you can collect in Subsistence mode. If you interrogate an enemy, for example, they'll now drop a random support weapon, plus a support item if you question them a second time. You can also collect an enemy's sidearm by holding them up, pick up tranquilizer guns in the field, while enemies can also wield "every base gun" including weapons that were previously unavailable to them like grenade launchers.
In addition to this, the mod adjusts The Phantom Pain's innovative dynamic revenge system so that instead of evolving across the whole game, those evolutions happen during each mission with the system resetting at the end. So if, say, you go in guns blazing at the first checkpoint you spot, the next convoy you encounter might be armed and armoured to the teeth. Alternatively, if you get spotted while sneaking and guards raise the alarm, subsequent outposts you explore will have a higher level of awareness.
The mod's end goal is to unlock The Phantom Pain's full emergent potential, to make every mission different and surprising and avoid players falling into the same patterns of play. There's a YouTube video by mohtalgear showing the mod in action, and as you can see, it's transformative.

Total conversion mod for The Simpsons: Hit & Run turns it into the Futurama game of our dreams
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/action/total-conversion-mod-for-the-simpsons-hit-and-run-turns-it-into-the-futurama-game-of-our-dreams/
Well-remembered GTA-like The Simpsons: Hit & Run may never get those four sequels the developers were hoping for, but it's being kept alive by modders nonetheless. There's a mod to stitch its three zones together into a seamless open world, for instance. And now there's Futurama: Hit & Run.
The delightfully named Slurm Team has turned Springfield into New New York in the year 3,000, complete with pneumatic transportation tubes and sewers full of mutation-inducing ooze. The 3D models are made "fully from scratch" and and the team's hope is that it'll feel like "an intended expansion pack for the game." The trailer's great, though honestly you could play the Futurama theme tune over anything and I'd be excited.
Joe McGinn, who was senior game designer, gave it his seal of approval in the comments beneath the trailer. "As the lead designer of the original game, I can only say ... this looks awesome! I want to play it", he wrote.
A demo of Futurama: Hit & Run will be available from October 19. You'll be able to download it from Mod Bakery, and you'll need a copy of Lucas' Simpsons: Hit & Run Mod Launcher to run it, as well as the original game. The Simpsons: Hit & Run subreddit has full instructions if you need them.

GAMING NEWS

None, DSOG didn't have any article that fit this category

Monday gaming news, part two:

World of Warcraft's adding player housing in December, so naturally there's an add-on to let players earn as much furniture as possible in advance
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/world-of-warcraft/world-of-warcrafts-adding-player-housing-in-december-so-naturally-theres-an-add-on-to-let-players-earn-as-much-furniture-as-possible-in-advance/
The next World of Warcraft expansion, Midnight, will finally add player housing to the venerable MMO. It arrives December 3 and the early signs are very positive: Blizzard may well have dragged its feet over adding a feature that much of the competition already has but, as PCG's Harvey Randall points out, it's also been able to learn from two decades of others' mistakes.
Needless to say, part of this new housing system is furniture. When the housing system launches, players will earn decor relating to achievements and existing in-game content: but this will also work retroactively, so achievements earned now will count toward furniture when housing goes live. The housing system is already live on WoW's Public Test Realm for the early birds, so players know what these achievements are.
I'm sure you can see where this is going. A new add-on called Home Bound by Bettiold (available on CurseForge) essentially tells players which achievements they should be gunning for in the runup to the release of the full housing system, whereupon they'll be showered with all their hard-earned furniture.
>> On another note, Turtle Wow has asked for a fan server license to solve its legal problems with Blizzard (link).

Football Manager 26 announces partnership with FIFA, so get ready to take the mighty Scotland to glory in World Cup 26
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/sports/football-manager-26-announces-partnership-with-fifa-so-get-ready-to-take-the-mighty-scotland-to-glory-in-world-cup-26/
A whole lot is riding on Football Manager 26 which, after the late cancellation of FM 25, has to deliver a major leap forward for the beloved management sim. The early signs are positive, with showcases of the new-look match engine, overhauled tactics, a reimagined UI and the debut of the women's game all going down well with fans.
One other reason to get excited is Sports Interactive's deal with the English Premier League, arguably the greatest club league in the world, and now it has announced another biggie: a multi-year deal with FIFA, football's world governing body, that gives FM 26 and its successors the license to multiple international competitions, most notably FIFA World Cup 26.

So, uh, why are there suddenly at least 4 sinister convenience store simulators on Steam at once?
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/sim/so-uh-why-are-there-suddenly-at-least-4-sinister-convenience-store-simulators-on-steam-at-once/
In 2024, we witnessed the rise of the retail sim: games like Supermarket Simulator, Supermarket Together, and TCG Card Shop Simulator that lured players, streamers, and YouTubers with the unparalleled power fantasy of putting stuff on shelves. While the genre's overnight emergence was surprising, its success makes sense. There's joy to be found in mundane retail work when your real-life livelihood doesn't depend on enduring its regular horrors.
While surveying the top demos of this month's Next Fest, however, I couldn't help but notice that there's a sudden rash of upcoming games all intent on making simulated retail work worse. By my count, there are currently at least four different games in development about operating convenience stores while surviving—or in some cases, facilitating—a variety of interplanetary, unholy, and undead terrors.

Sony accuses Tencent of playing a 'shell game' with its Horizon-like survival game, seeks a preliminary injunction against it
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/sony-accuses-tencent-of-playing-a-shell-game-with-its-horizon-like-survival-game-seeks-a-preliminary-injunction-against-it/
When Tencent unveiled its upcoming Light of Motiram survival game in late 2024, we (and a lot of other places and people) called out its many similarities to Sony's Horizon series, and idly wondered whether it was tempting fate and SIE's legal team.
The answer came in July 2025 when Sony filed suit, shortly after which Tencent did something unusual: It purged most of the Horizon-like content from the game's Steam page, and delayed its launch target from late 2025 to late 2027—all without saying a word about why, or even acknowledging it was being done at all.
The "why" seemed obvious enough: Light of Motiram really did look an awful lot like Horizon: Zero Dawn, in some very overt ways. Despite Tencent's lack of comment, I assumed the store page changes, and the huge two-year delay, represented a fairly complete walkback and rework. But it seems that Sony isn't buying it: As reported by Games Fray, Sony has now filed for a preliminary injunction against Tencent's use of any material "copied or derived" from the Horizon games.

My new most anticipated game is about a lonely house who can roll, jump, fish and go on dates
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/adventure/my-new-most-anticipated-game-is-about-a-lonely-house-who-can-roll-jump-fish-and-go-on-dates/
Building Relationships is a game about roaming an island and meeting potential romantic partners. But that's not all: You're a building. Specifically, you're a house who eats furniture, loves fishing, and even knows how to jump. As a house, you roll around this island at sometimes ridiculous speeds, chatting with different buildings and going on dates with them.

Doom: The Dark Ages gets Steam Deck verification and a bunch of portable optimisations, just in time for the launch of Microsoft's new handheld
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/fps/doom-the-dark-ages-gets-steam-deck-verification-and-a-bunch-of-portable-optimisations-just-in-time-for-the-launch-of-microsofts-new-handheld/
Doom: The Dark Ages is officially Steam Deck verified, which is surprising only in how long it took considering id Software's history delivering shooters that are not just visually impressive, but exceedingly well optimised. The studio has worked minor miracles with handheld ports too, most notably the Nintendo Switch version of 2020's Doom Eternal.
That said, The Dark Ages was the first Doom game to be fully and constantly ray-traced, making it a less obvious candidate for handheld gaming when it launched. While it ran well enough on most PC hardware and could even deliver reasonable framerates on a cheap gaming laptop, as Andy Edser noted in his PC performance analysis, the Steam Deck nonetheless struggled to meet its minimum requirements, and as such performance was underwhelming.
But that's all changed, apparently. Update 2.2 introduces several handheld-centric optimisations and quality-of-life features. This includes general performance improvements and advanced optimisation settings for handheld devices, as well as more performant SFX and VFX when gaming on the go.

Drive a truck filled with explosives across horrible terrain in this gnarly mix of Snowrunner and Baby Steps—inspired by one of Hollywood's most misunderstood films
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/sim/drive-a-truck-filled-with-explosives-across-horrible-terrain-in-this-gnarly-mix-of-snowrunner-and-baby-steps-inspired-by-one-of-hollywoods-most-misunderstood-films/
Film sickos will instantly recognise the inspiration behind Nitroglyerine! which sees you drive a truck filled with volatile explosives across terrain more rugged than Glen Powell's chin. Its rough and ready demo oozes with the same the lo-fi tension of William Friedkin's Sorcerer, a nihilistic thriller that was critically panned and buried at the box office by the runaway success of Star Wars, but has been (rightly) reappraised in subsequent years.
If you haven't seen Sorcerer, I strongly recommend you check it out. But in the meantime, you can think of Nitroglycerine! as a mix of Snowrunner and Baby Steps. The playable demo skips the surprisingly long setup of Friedkin's film, planting your straight in the cabin of a snorting, grunting '70s flatbed loaded with a single crate of pure liquid concussion. You're then tasked with navigating a twisting morass of slippery, crumbling dirt tracks with nothing but a crude map and nerves of steel.
>> I haven’t seen Sorcerer, but I’ve seen the French film that came earlier.

Expect to serve up 'floor chicken casserole' in the new Two Point Museum update—a crossover with, of all things, Vampire Survivors
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/sim/expect-to-serve-up-floor-chicken-casserole-in-the-new-two-point-museum-update-a-crossover-with-of-all-things-vampire-survivors/
I loved my time with Two Point Museum, which reviewer and PC Gamer features producer Mollie Taylor and I agree may be Two Point Studios' best game yet. I took a break from it to let the updates roll in, so imagine my puzzled delight when I returned to find the latest update for this cozy museum tycoon game is a sizable crossover with horde-pummeling powerhouse Vampire Survivors.

'Remember Beach': Arrowhead has awarded thousands of 'inexplicably dedicated' Helldivers 2 players with a commemorative 'Avengement Day' after they ignored High Command to save a planet reminiscent of Halo Reach
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/third-person-shooter/remember-beach-arrowhead-has-awarded-thousands-of-inexplicably-dedicated-helldivers-2-players-with-a-commemorative-avengement-day-after-they-ignored-high-command-to-save-a-planet-reminiscent-of-halo-reach/
Despite major orders to go and spend their lives elsewhere, an estimated 30,000 Helldivers 2 players took a liking to a planet with some oblique Halo references—Seyshel Beach—and decided to finish the fight. The socials team at Arrowhead congratulated the "small but inexplicably dedicated group of Helldivers" with, as befits a bloodthirsty star-spanning democracy, a post on X.

The sleeper hit of the Fall might be this mad lad's hyper realistic traffic management sim that uses real census data and a 'distance-based gravity model' to produce millions of NPC commuters
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/city-builder/the-sleeper-hit-of-the-fall-might-be-this-mad-lads-hyper-realistic-traffic-management-sim-that-uses-real-census-data-and-a-distance-based-gravity-model-to-produce-millions-of-npc-commuters/
SimCity 4 is one of the most pleasant games I own—I can experience all the splendor of a modern metropolis with a fraction of the nuance, and for the first time in my life, feel what it's like to drive on American roads that don't piss me off. Up-and-coming "hyperrealistic" transit sim Subway Builder offers a terrifying proposition: that same satisfaction in real US cities, assuming I'm up to the challenge.

Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth director says all that timewasting filler was good actually
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/rpg/final-fantasy-7-rebirth-director-says-all-that-timewasting-filler-was-good-actually/
Final Fantasy 7 Remake took the first eight or so hours of Final Fantasy 7 and expanded them into a 30-hour prestige RPG that, while it contained some quite skippable sidequests, added to the story in ways that made it even more impactful. The additions deepened character relationships and made you feel more attached to the setting. By contrast, Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth took the original's second act and bloated it into 50+ hours of open world RPG filler.
(...)
Screenrant recently spoke to Naoki Hamaguchi, director of the Final Fantasy 7 Remake trilogy, and brought up some of these complaints. "Regarding time management in certain sections," he replied, "especially in FF7 Rebirth, I honestly don't believe that they were longer than necessary. I feel like nowadays, players just have too much to do and too much to play; so they often feel the urge that something has to be concluded quickly."

Techland reveals an 11-week roadmap for Dying Light: The Beast, the gaming equivalent of a hastily-drawn sketch showing the way to the nearest post office
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/survival-crafting/techland-reveals-an-11-week-roadmap-for-dying-light-the-beast-the-gaming-equivalent-of-a-hastily-drawn-sketch-showing-the-way-to-the-nearest-post-office/
Techland has released its post-launch roadmap for its free-running, zombie-dropkicking spinoff Dying Light: The Beast. As gaming roadmaps go, it's closer to what you'd scribble on the back of a packet of ciggies than the cartographical masterpieces produced by Ordnance Survey, with Techland's plans stretching over just 11 weeks. But this pencil-scrawl to your local newsagent nonetheless has a few landmarks worth visiting between now and the end of the year.

The third and last gaming news post. At least for today:

After 6 years, fantasy survive 'em up Necesse leaves early access with 'infinite seamless biomes', an end to its endgame, and a half-price discount
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/survival-crafting/after-6-years-fantasy-survive-em-up-necesse-leaves-early-access-with-infinite-seamless-biomes-an-end-to-its-endgame-and-a-half-price-discount/
While by no means the longest-running early access project on Steam (that honour belongs to the perennial alpha juggernaut that is Project Zomboid) top-down survival RPG Necesse has been in development for quite some time. Fair Games' pixel-y fantasy romp first stepped onto the road back in 2019, and only revealed it was prepping for a 1.0 launch during this year's PC Gaming Show.
Now, Necesse is not done, exactly, but feature-complete as far as Fair Games' main plans for it went. The 1.0 update introduces multiple significant changes to its fantasy world, the biggest of which is, well, the world.

Surviving Mars: Relaunched arrives in orbit next month, bringing a whole new political system and every DLC from the get-go
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/strategy/surviving-mars-relaunched-arrives-in-orbit-next-month-bringing-a-whole-new-political-system-and-every-dlc-from-the-get-go/
When I first saw that city-builder Surviving Mars is getting a remaster, my first thought was "Isn't that a bit soon? It only launched recently." It turns out 'recently' was seven flipping years ago. That's a shorter period than between the original Resident Evil and its 2002 HD edition. Truly, my ability to measure the passage of time has been destroyed since 2020.
Anyhow, Surviving Mars: Relaunched goes a little further than your standard visual overhaul. It aims to upgrade the game's tech and refresh the UI like most projects of its ilk, but it also introduces a whole new system to your Martian colony—politics.

Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun's free typing spinoff doubles its wordcount with 3 new levels and over 400 extra phrases
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/fps/warhammer-40-000-boltguns-free-typing-spinoff-doubles-its-wordcount-with-3-new-levels-and-over-400-extra-phrases/
Warhammer 40,000 Boltgun: Words of Vengeance originally launched as a stopgap/marketing gimmick to coincide with the announcement of Boltgun 2. But it appears to have gone down swimmingly with the Boltgun playerbase in its own right, having accrued a 'Very Positive' Steam rating out of 1,700 reviews. The 2.5D blaster's free-to-play spinoff swaps out clicking on enemy heads to kill them in traditional shooter fashion for keyboard-based mass murder a-la The Typing of The Dead.
Words of Vengeance is deeply silly and entirely disposable, but a far more entertaining way to test your WPM than Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing. There is one recurring complaint developer Auroch Digital has received, however. (…)
The actual complaint was that there wasn't enough of Words of Vengeance, from both a structural and lexical standpoint. In response, the developer has released a new update that effectively doubles the spinoff's size.

Shovel Knight dev's next game doesn't have a single parry, pulling from Castlevania and Bloodborne instead of Sekiro: 'Every game has a parry now … even Doom has Dark Souls stuff in it'
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/adventure/shovel-knight-devs-next-game-doesnt-have-a-single-parry-pulling-from-castlevania-and-bloodborne-instead-of-sekiro-every-game-has-a-parry-now-even-doom-has-dark-souls-stuff-in-it/
It's no secret that parries are en vogue right now—they've broken their just containment in character action games and spectacle fighters and wormed their way into roguelikes, horror games, JRPGs, and FPSes, all while properly taking over the Soulslike in the wake of Sekiro.
If you long for the simpler times back when enemies just smoked you and got it over with, you might take a shine to Classicvania and Zelda-inspired adventure game Mina the Hollower, the next game from Shovel Knight developer Yacht Club Games. Speaking with Knowledge, Yacht Club co-founder Sean Velasco highlighted the game's simple control setup intended to "take something old and rejig it," as reported by GamesRadar.

Don't count on Arc Raiders ever getting a first-person mode: 'Once you start being able to put your face right up against an asset, it kind of falls apart'
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/third-person-shooter/dont-count-on-arc-raiders-ever-getting-a-first-person-mode-once-you-start-being-able-to-put-your-face-right-up-against-an-asset-it-kind-of-falls-apart/
Arc Raiders looks great: My pals at PC Gamer think it's the most exciting thing to happen to the extraction genre in a long time, and the huge numbers the server slam playtest is putting up at this very moment prove that they're not alone in thinking so. For me, though, there's just one problem: It's a third-person shooter, and I don't like third-person shooters.
That leads me to a second problem: The odds of Arc Raiders ever getting a first-person mode are basically zero.

Arc Raiders designer says Marathon's reception'was a great A/B test': 'They made decisions that we didn't, and vice versa … we could compare and contrast how some of those things shook out'
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/third-person-shooter/arc-raiders-designer-says-marathons-receptionwas-a-great-a-b-test-they-made-decisions-that-we-didnt-and-vice-versa-we-could-compare-and-contrast-how-some-of-those-things-shook-out/
It might feel like there's been a shedload of extraction shooters lately, but the genre still seems to crackle with untapped potential. Two heavy hitters—the reboot of Bungie's venerable shooter Marathon and Embark's fresh up-and-comer Arc Raiders—are nearly here, and both have had a chance to gear up with playtests. Speaking with PC Gamer US editor-in-chief Tyler Wilde, Arc Raiders design director Virgil Watkins said the shared timing made for a fortuitous opportunity.
>> Watkins also said that the game was nowhere near ready for launch during that playtest, with the game having some “bad bugs” (link).

Hearthstone and Warcraft Rumble devs join the over 1900 Blizzard workers to unionize: 'We deserve to be heard and respected'
https://www.pcgamer.com/gaming-industry/hearthstone-and-warcraft-rumble-devs-join-the-over-1900-blizzard-workers-to-unionize-we-deserve-to-be-heard-and-respected/
Only a few months after most of the Warcraft Rumble team was laid off as all future development was canceled, a majority of the remaining workers therein and the Hearthstone team have voted to organize—joining over 1,900 Blizzard workers now in a union under the Communications Workers of America.

A Nintendo DS horror game first pitched as a Silent Hill sequel is coming to Steam
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/horror/a-nintendo-ds-horror-game-first-pitched-as-a-silent-hill-sequel-is-coming-to-steam/
Dementium: The Ward is a cult-classic survival horror game first released on the Nintendo DS in 2007. There weren't a lot of horror games on Nintendo's handheld, which is most of the reason for Dementium's cult reputation. It cast you as an amnesiac trapped in a hospital full of zombies and giant worms you had to defeat with various guns and a nightstick. Nintendogs this ain't.
(...)
The trailer sure makes Dementium look a lot more like Doom 3 than Silent Hill 2, so I can't say I'm disappointed Renegade Kid had to come up with their own mythos rather than borrowing Silent Hill's. And while there wasn't anything else like it on the DS back in 2007, it does look like a textbook horror game in 2025. Maybe playing it on Steam Deck will bring back some of those handheld-horror vibes?

AWS outage affecting Fortnite, Roblox, Reddit, and many others is close to fixed, with Amazon saying services are showing 'significant signs of recovery'
https://www.pcgamer.com/software/aws-outage-affecting-fortnite-roblox-reddit-and-many-others-is-close-to-fixed-with-amazon-saying-services-are-showing-significant-signs-of-recovery/
Even if you're not much of a digital dweller, you might have noticed some of your favourite websites, apps, and even games have been, well, just not working today. This is because there's been an Amazon Web Services (AWS) outage across all regions, including the US, EU, and even over here in the currently very dreary UK. It looks like this might be clearing up already, though, after a couple of hours of downtime.

Marvel Rivals is getting a PvE zombies mode, so you can finally know what it feels like to cleave through hordes of the undead as a cute little shark guy
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/third-person-shooter/marvel-rivals-is-getting-a-pve-zombies-mode-so-you-can-finally-know-what-it-feels-like-to-cleave-through-hordes-of-the-undead-as-a-cute-little-shark-guy/
Marvel Rivals is finally getting its first PvE mode—and in true shooter fashion, it's zombies. Zombies is the mode. Now, to be fair, it's based on the Marvel Zombies TV show (which is, itself, based on the Marvel Zombies comic, an AU storyline that first made its debut in the halcyon days of 2005), so there's precedent.