Wow, one day without coming over and lots of posts to reply.

For me, the Coconut song was the point when I fully realized that whatever was happening was bigger than I thought and it affected the whole town and not just your character, with those two old rock’n’roll musicians in the cafe talking about the song.

I didn’t know the Herald of Darkness song, I cared too little about the game and franchise at that point. But let me tell you that as someone that suffers from what in Spanish we say “vergûenza ajena” (kind of cringe, being embarrassed for what someone else does) that video was hard to watch. The song is great, tho.

I’m not used to the genre so, to me, there’s another step of difficulty compared to the experience some of you may have had.

Yes, the Arl of Radcliffe.

I survived the night with the monsters/possessed/whatever. It took me three attempts, but I managed (I tried to make all my characters survive, which let me to restart it a couple of times).

My problem is once you enter the castle, because you enter one room or corridor and the fight will be fair, and then enter another one and be completely obliterated (I was traumatized by a room with four or five hounds. that ripped me appart in no time).

When it comes to the other mission I tried, the Circle of Mages, I managed to beat the first two or three floors with relative ease, but then you have a secret monster hidden in a fallen column that beats me every time, and if you skip that monster there's a room with a succubus and a knight that, if you decide to fight (as one should!), are way to strong.

Not having the equiment at the right level may one of my problems, but I no longer remember what I did with it.

When you talk about side quests, what do you mean? Because in both the camp while trainign to be a Grey Warden and then the city of Lothering, I did all the side quests available, recruiting the two companions in the city. Do you mean those of the ones that you get after leaving Lothering, with the dwarfs and the human asking you to do certain things? Because I didn't do those thinking that my level wouldn't be enough.

I used the tactical mode. Both at the beginning of the fights to tell each of my characters who they shoiuld attack, but also during battle either to direct them to a new enemy once they had killed the one they were fighting, and to use some of the spells/habilities.

I may not be the most efficient player with it, but playing the game without using it feels like a really, really bad idea.

I have to be honest, it was very long ago, so while I remember that on overall I quite liked it, I've never replayed it...so my memories of it are kinda vague, but I do remember that I used standard choke point tactics in lot of encounters.

Oh, it's absolutely cringe. I kind of like the video(s), but at the same time not really. I think it makes for a great show, but it's quite uneasy still. Considering where it's in the game, I guess that kind of makes sense though.

I tend to replay it ever few years. Game deserves a proper remake/remaster, such a banging title.
If you are playing on normal or hard, you need to use tactics...

But you can adjust difficulty settings in the menu if you wish to play the game for the epic story that it has, rather than grind the battles... Dragon Age 2, Inquisition and Veilguard are much easier games and require less thinking and tactics to play.

AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 CPU To Feature Dual X3D CCDs For Up To 192 MB Cache, Ryzen 7 9850X3D Gets Boosted 5.6 GHz Clocks

https://wccftech.com/amd-ryzen-9-9950x3d2-cpu-dual-x3d-ccds-192-mb-ryzen-7-9850x3d-5-6-ghz-clocks/

Rumour so take it with salt of course

Intel Core Ultra X7 358H “Panther Lake” CPU Leaked: 12 Xe3 Cores Up To 92% Faster Than 8 Xe2 Cores

https://wccftech.com/intel-core-ultra-x7-358h-panther-lake-cpu-leak-12-xe3-cores-92-percent-faster-8-xe2/

NVIDIA’s CEO Jensen Huang ‘Scrambled’ To Rescue a Stalled Deal From Collapse With OpenAI After the AI Giant Considered Turning to Google TPU Chips

https://wccftech.com/nvidia-ceo-scrambled-to-rescue-a-stalled-deal-from-collapse-with-openai/

A YouTuber Tried His Luck With a Used Intel ‘Raptor Lake’ Core i9-13900K for €240 — Only to Be Plagued by Instability Issues on Day One

https://wccftech.com/a-youtuber-tried-his-luck-with-a-used-intel-raptor-lake-core-i9-13900k/

JEDEC nearing completion of SOCAMM2 LPDDR5X memory standard

https://videocardz.com/newz/jedec-nearing-completion-of-socamm2-lpddr5x-memory-standard

The Tuesday gaming news:

SALES/PLAYER COUNTS & DEALS

Steam’s Top 10

(Click here for the Top 100)

Duck-themed extraction shooter Escape From Duckov sold 500,000 Steam copies in its first 3 days
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/action/duck-themed-extraction-shooter-escape-from-duckov-sold-500-000-steam-copies-in-its-first-3-days/
If you'd asked me a couple weeks ago, I'd have said the extraction shooter craze was starting to slow down. The last few days have proved how wrong I'd have been. Over the weekend, as metric boatloads of players swarmed the Arc Raiders server slam, a singleplayer extraction shooter was drawing its own crowds: Escape From Duckov, a top-down game of looting and shooting with warfighting waterfowl that sold more than 500,000 Steam copies in its first 72 hours.
"What an exciting weekend for all ducks! More than 500,000 Ducklings have now joined the world of Duckov! At this moment, the entire dev team is quacking with joy and flapping our wings in excitement," Duckov developer Team Soda said in a Steam news post announcing the successful launch figure. "A heartfelt thank-you to every single Duckling for your incredible support—together, we've reached this truly meaningful Duckov milestone! We'll keep working hard to make sure every update lives up to your expectations!"
Just three hours before time of writing, Escape From Duckov reached a peak Steam player count of 182,000—nearing the Arc Raiders playtest's weekend concurrent peak of 189,000. That's notable for a few reasons. One: it's ducks. Two: Unlike Arc Raiders, Duckov—developed by an internal gamedev studio of Chinese media platform Bilibili—is a singleplayer game, which doesn't often lend itself to high concurrent player counts.

Ball-bouncing, city-building, off-the-wall roguelike Ball X Pit is a huge hit, selling 300,000 copies in just its first five days on sale
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/roguelike/ball-bouncing-city-building-off-the-wall-roguelike-ball-x-pit-is-a-huge-hit-selling-300-000-copies-in-just-its-first-five-days-on-sale/
I really enjoyed surreal roguelike Ball X Pit when I reviewed it earlier this month—so it's great to hear that it's since gone on to be a huge hit.
According to a post by the developer on Bluesky, it's already sold 300,000 copies just in the first five days of being on sale. For context, that's comparable numbers to indie mega-hit Balatro, which sold 500,000 in its first 10 days and has since gone on to sell in the millions.
In that time, it's also hit a peak concurrent player count of nearly 35,000—again, within spitting distance of Balatro's 45,000, and in less than a week.

GOG has new Weekly Deals, with up to 90% discounts during 7 days (Note: the link may not work): https://www.gog.com/promo/20251021_weekly_deals_3_october

Steam has a fairly long list of new deals and also new sales/events:

• Chants of Sennaar , with a demo, is going to be 40% off until this Saturday: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1931770/Chants_of_Sennaar
• Chains of Freedom , that also has a demo, features a 30% discount until the 27th: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2994010/Chains_of_Freedom
• Rivals of Aether II will be 40% off until Monday: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2217000/Rivals_of_Aether_II
• Somber Echoes will have a 75% discount until Monday, the 27th: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1299290/Somber_Echoes
• To Pixelia has a demo and a 40% discount until the 3rd of November: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1954160/To_Pixelia
• DEVOUR is going to be 50% off until November, the 3rd: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1274570/DEVOUR
• Endzone 2 will be 60% off until November 3: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2144640/Endzone_2
• Car Mechanic Simulator 2018 will have a 90% discount until the 3rd of November: https://store.steampowered.com/app/645630/Car_Mechanic_Simulator_2018
• These are the three new Sales/Events:
  • Mass Effect franchise Sale puts the games on sale with between 80 and 92% discounts until the 27th of October: https://store.steampowered.com/sale/MassEffectFranchiseSale
  • Publisher 2P Games puts its titles on sale, up to 90% off. The deals wil end between the 27th of October and November 3rd: https://store.steampowered.com/sale/2PGamesSale2025
  • TellTale’s The Walking Dead franchise is going to be on sale, with the games being between 86 and 90% off until the 3rd November: https://store.steampowered.com/sale/TWDFranchisesale2025
• For some strange reason, this week there are no weeklong deals. You can check it out by yourselves here

Fanatical’s new Star Deal is RPG MAKER UNITE, 90% off during 48 hours: https://www.fanatical.com/en/game/rpg-maker-unite.

SOFTWARE & DRIVERS

-Empty-

MODS, EMULATORS & FAN PROJECTS

Unreal RTX Remix Path Tracing Mod Fully Released
https://www.dsogaming.com/pc-performance-analyses/unreal-rtx-remix-path-tracing-mod-fully-released
In August 2025, we informed you about a demo for the RTX Remix Mod for the first Unreal game. And today, I’m happy to report that the full version of this mod has been released. With this new version, you can play the entire single-player campaign with Path Tracing.
Created by mstewart401, this mod adds real-time Path Tracing to the classic Unreal game. It includes fully ray-traced lighting, dynamic shadows, and amazing emisive effects. It also adds PBR materials. As such, surfaces will now react to light more realistically with better metals, roughness, and depth. Some world objects and props have also been replaced to make the game look even more detailed and modern.
What’s also great here is that you don’t even have to buy the game. Since Epic made Unreal freeware, you can simply download it from GitHub. Then, you can apply the mod, and you will be good to go. Without paying a single dollar, you can enjoy a modern remaster of this classic Unreal game.
>> The article has some screenshots.

Morrowind mega-mod Tamriel Rebuilt is adding 'one of the holy grails' that players have wanted 'for more than 20 years' in its next mammoth expansion
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/the-elder-scrolls/morrowind-mega-mod-tamriel-rebuilt-is-adding-one-of-the-holy-grails-that-players-have-wanted-for-more-than-20-years-in-its-next-mammoth-expansion/
I've said it before and I'll say it again: Tamriel Rebuilt is one of the most impressive mod projects of all time. Its quest is to build every part of The Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind's titular province that Bethesda didn't get to, and it's been doing that for literal decades. Earlier this year it released its ninth expansion, Grasping Fortune, and now it's gearing up for number 10: Poison Song.
This is a big one. Well, they're all big ones, but this is a big one for a new reason. Poison Song means players are finally getting "one of the holy grails that TR players [have] been waiting for more than twenty years—the ability to join House Indoril."
This is either the most hype-inducing sentence you've ever heard, or completely meaningless (if you are normal), so let me try to break it down.
Base Morrowind let you join any of three different Houses—Morrowind-native political factions that, conveniently, pretty much mapped to each corner of the Fighter-Mage-Thief triad. There was Hlaalu, the Empire-sympathetic merchant guild; Redoran, the traditionalist fighter sect; and Telvanni, dickhead wizards who live in mushrooms.
Missing from this lineup were House Indoril—the house of the legendary Indoril Nerevar himself—and House Dres, whose whole thing is somehow loving slavery even more than the Telvanni. So with Poison Song, it means we finally get a chance to sign up to Nerevar's own house, which is a pretty big deal considering a lot of Morrowind's main quest revolves around people proclaiming you the guy's literal reincarnation.
>> The article has a couple of screenshots.

GAMING NEWS

BLACKWOOD Is A New Third-Person John Wick-like Action Thriller
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/blackwood-is-a-new-third-person-john-wick-like-action-thriller
AttritoM7 Productions is working on a new gritty third-person action thriller that is heavily inspired by John Wick, called BLACKWOOD. BLACKWOOD targets a Q3 2026 release date, and below you can find its debut gameplay trailer.

Tuesday gaming news, the second part:

Exclusive: Monster Train 2: Echoes From the Void first details
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/card-games/monster-train-2-echoes-from-the-void-interview/
Monster Train 2 continues to chug along as one of 2025's best games, a highly-replayable deckbuilder with an ingenious clan combination system. After adding 15 new cards in September's The Lost Arsenal update, the game continues to deliver on its promised roadmap. The second payload of post-launch content is called Echoes From the Void, and it will be arriving November 5.
I spoke with Shiny Shoe game designer Colin Krausnick about the two new bosses arriving in the update, what new artifacts are on the way, and how these new threats will complicate existing strategies.
>> While they’ve posted it in the news section, inside the article you’ll find the interview.

Fellowship just solved a UI problem that's plagued MMOs like WoW for literal years
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/rpg/fellowship-just-solved-a-ui-problem-thats-plagued-mmos-like-wow-for-literal-years/
I've been enjoying Fellowship more than I expected over the weekend—at first, I thought "WoW's Mythic+ without the MMO" would be a glorified daycare for World of Warcraft players who are too old to keep up with newfangled grinds. And I was right (partially because I'm one of them), but also, it's just a really clever little game.

Our most anticipated 13th-century Mongolian horse game had such a popular Next Fest demo the developers have decided to delay it
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/action/our-most-anticipated-13th-century-mongolian-horse-game-had-such-a-popular-next-fest-demo-the-developers-have-decided-to-delay-it/
The Legend of Khiimori, which according to our very own Joshua Wolens is basically Death Stranding but you get to ride a 13th-century Mongolian horse instead of Norman Reedus, was meant to launch into early access in a couple weeks following a triumphant showing in the recently-concluded Steam Next Fest. I'm sorry to say that's not going to happen: The Next Fest demo went so well that the development team has decided to give it a few more months in the oven.
>> A victim of its own success.

Dead Cells studio opted to make a new game despite 'super strong' pressure for a sequel because 'we are driven by what we want to make'
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/roguelike/dead-cells-studio-opted-to-make-a-new-game-despite-super-strong-pressure-for-a-sequel-because-we-are-driven-by-what-we-want-to-make/
Dead Cells, released in 2018, is one of the best roguelikes ever—"a stellar action platformer with gorgeous presentation and excellent combat," we said in our 90% review, a reputation that only grew over seven years of further development, 35 updates, and a whole spin-off studio. You might think that Dead Cells 2 would inevitably follow, but no: Developer Motion Twin instead opted to go for an entirely new game called Windblown.
The reason, co-creative director and game designer Yannick Berthier recently told PCGamesN, is simple: Motion Twin is a nine-person team, nearly all of them are partners in the studio, and they aren't beholden to anyone else. "We are driven by what we want to make," Berthier said.

Battlefield 6 players are ragging on its 'useless' smoke mortar and its pitiful little plumes: 'I've seen 13 year olds rip vape clouds bigger than this outside of Target'
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/fps/battlefield-6-players-are-ragging-on-its-useless-smoke-mortar-and-its-pitiful-little-plumes-ive-seen-13-year-olds-rip-vape-clouds-bigger-than-this-outside-of-target/
Now that Battlefield Studios has eased the pace of multiplayer unlock progression, more Battlefield 6 players are unlocking and experimenting with its cornucopia of combat gadgets. From New Sobek City to Liberation Peak, fighters are fielding ever-increasing numbers of deploy beacons, thermal grenade launchers, C4 charges, and slam mines.
You'll find very few who'll be willing to use the portable mortar's smoke shells, however, and that's because they're bad.
>> And, in case you haven’t heard about it already, here’s a tweak to make aiming with your mouse more precise (link).

Former God of War exec says the blockbuster games industry needs to steer away from spectacle and focus on what matters: 'if it's not fun, it's not worth the investment'
https://www.pcgamer.com/gaming-industry/god-of-war-producer-says-the-blockbuster-games-industry-needs-to-steer-away-from-spectacle-and-focus-on-what-matters-if-its-not-fun-its-not-worth-the-investment/
It's no secret that Western games development is in the doldrums: the industry has laid off over 45,000 jobs since the COVID bubble burst in 2022, and publishers and studios are scrambling for ways to adapt to rising costs and shifting player priorities. Meanwhile, viral hits from smaller teams—ranging from Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 through to Peak—make those billion-dollar companies look old hat, almost like dinosaurs (though it's also true that neither were made by a company whose CEO makes more than $29,000,000 in a year).
But will the major Western publishers—the likes of EA, Activision and Ubisoft—shift towards making games on a smaller scale, with lower costs and more modest production? According to Meghan Morgan Juinio, former Santa Monica Studios director of product development, the answer is obvious.

The best modern platformer I've played is getting a huge 10-year anniversary update, and the devs reckon there's 'no way anyone 100%s it'
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/action/the-best-modern-platformer-ive-played-is-getting-a-huge-10-year-anniversary-update-and-the-devs-reckon-theres-no-way-anyone-100-percent-s-it/
N++ released as a PS4 exclusive in 2015 before hitting PC a year later. It's a platformer focused on fluid, momentum-based motion through stylish one-screen levels, and I can't recommend it enough: nothing else feels like this game. In my 92/100 review I practiced no restraint at all. "In some ways N++ feels like the end of the action platformer," I wrote, "like an exhaustive final document, a catalogue of its emotional highs and lows."
I stand by those words mostly because, ten years later, I still play N++ occasionally. There's nothing else that scratches the same itch. And with over 4,000 levels—not including user-made levels—It's so big that I doubt I'll ever finish it. But that doesn't mean I'm not excited for Ten++, which is a sizeable new update adding even more levels I doubt I'll ever finish.

Congratulations to Victoria 3 players on causing 860,000,000,000,000,000 deaths by famine in a single year, enough to depopulate Earth 107,000,000 times
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/strategy/congratulations-to-victoria-3-players-on-causing-860-000-000-000-000-000-deaths-by-famine-in-a-single-year-enough-to-depopulate-earth-107-000-000-times/
Every great leader knows it: you can't make an omelette without breaking some eggs. Sometimes you have to do bad things in order to achieve good things. Sometimes you have to spill a little blood. Sometimes you have to, let's see here, kill 806 quadrillion people via famine in the space of a single year. Well okay then!
This and other vital lessons come courtesy of Victoria 3, which is celebrating its third birthday with a few statistics, as has become fashionable. Turns out players are either incredibly bad farmers or incredibly efficient murderers, because in the last 12 months they've starved enough people to death to denude real-life Earth of humans 107 million times over.
>> I’m not sure congratulations is the best choice here. I’d have gone with WTF?

I tried to install DA Inquisition (a giveaway from the EGS) only to discover that you need to link your Epic and EA accounts to even be able to download the game. I was baffled and tried to install the only other EA game I have on the Epic Store, Star Wars Squadrons, only to see the same message. Since I have no interest to link both accounts, those are two EGS games I own that I won't play.

Actually no, it's three. I wanted to play Two Point Hospital and it gave me a strange message about disabling off-line browsing or something like that and, despite going to my settings and fixing it as the game required, it refused to work.

Who knows how many more will end added to the list. 

It could be a mid-cycle refresh of sorts, but it kind of sounds too good to be true.

I could see the 9950X3D2 being real, with AMD using it to test the watters, see how people react to it and get more data from reviewers and users to fix the problems that having the extra cache split into the two CCDs will bring.

I don't see a good reason, at least for AMD, not consumers) to launch a faster 980X3D.

I couldn't agree more. I've tried to playing recently and it's a PITA to get to run properly. Mods give an idea of what a remaster could be like though. Loading those requires a specifc installion order. Given my experience installing mods on vanilla ME3 on PC, I didn't think it would such a pain. Modded Original ME3 > unmodded Legendary Edition. Although I'm glad for LE because the 3GB RAM limit on the original PC release of ME3 was the only real roadblock on mods. Too bad the mods had to be re-done for LE...and I've gone on an off topic tangent. Sorry guys..the perils of getting old. 

I somehow missed it, but DOSBox got forked due to it's hibernation and this new fork just came out with an absolute banger of a new DOSBox version, called Dosbox Pure:

New features include loading games directly from zip files or disk images, switching out games on the fly, save states, recording footage, fast-forward and slow down the action, better midi audio, adjustable CRT filters? Hell yes! But what's this?

Really, that's not an upgrade or a simple fork, that's a reinvention!

You can get it here: https://schelling.itch.io/dosbox-pure