These are the Tuesday gaming news:
SALES/PLAYER COUNTS & DEALS
Steam’s Top 10
(Click here for the Top 100)
Larian's nine-year-old RPG has just had its best month since launch: 'Sales for both BG3 and D:OS 2 have been incredible' thanks to Divinity
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/rpg/larians-nine-year-old-rpg-has-just-had-its-best-month-since-launch-sales-for-both-bg3-and-d-os-2-have-been-incredible-thanks-to-divinity/
Of all the things that amaze me about Larian Studios' RPGs, it's undoubtedly their longevity that's the most surprising. Pulling in over 875k concurrent players on Steam alone, Baldur's Gate 3 was a massive success at launch, and close to three years later, it's still one of the most played games on PC, routinely hitting peaks of 50-80k concurrent players.
Larian's previous game, Divinity: Original Sin 2, by no means caught on like wildfire, but it achieved nearly 94k concurrent players back when it launched in September 2017. Since then, it's been seeing 10-20k player peaks every month.
(...)
That's all to say that Larian's games hang around like almost no other single-player RPGs do, even competing with live-service titles intentionally designed to maintain a consistently strong playerbase.
And just when I thought it surely couldn't keep this up, both BG3 and D:OS2 have started to pick up steam once again. Larian CEO Swen Vincke claims, "Sales for both BG3 and D:OS 2 have been incredible since the announcement of Divinity," revealed at The Game Awards in December 2025.
"D:OS 2 really surprised us by having its best month since release in 2017," Vincke goes on to say.
You can see this in action by looking at the data on Steam charts. BG3's daily average concurrent players has risen to over 100k, and that's more than likely backed up by similarly strong numbers on console.
Much more impressive is Original Sin 2, which currently has an average of over 27k concurrents on Steam so far in January, well on its way to beat its March 2020 post-launch high of 30k players.
Steam has several new deals and one new sale:
Fanatical has the new BYO Titanium Collection (Jan 2026), with 21 games to choose from for your bundles of 3+ or 5+ games during 34 days: https://www.fanatical.com/en/pick-and-mix/build-your-own-titanium-collection
SOFTWARE & DRIVERS
Steam now lets you gift 'complete the set' bundles to your pals, including relevant discounts
https://www.pcgamer.com/software/platforms/steam-now-lets-you-gift-complete-the-set-bundles-to-your-pals-including-relevant-discounts/
These days, the only time I recapture the sheer rush of Steam sales of olde ("I can buy every Quake game for £5? I'd be a fool not to!") is when I find one of those 'complete your collection' sets some games have.
You know the ones: they combine a bunch of games in a series, subtract the prices of the ones you already own, then slap a little discount on the remainder to tempt you into splashing out to complete the set. When you find one of those in the midst of an already-ongoing sale, making it all even cheaper? Baby, that's the good stuff.
Well, joyous news: you can now share that glee with your Steam pals. As spotted by SteamDB, Valve has recently pushed a change through that means you can now purchase these kinds of bundles as gifts.
The discounting feature works as it should: if you buy a bundle for someone who already has some of the games featured in it, it'll cost you less overall. I've tested this myself with some Steam friends and this Ghost Recon bundle—for those who don't have any of the games, it would cost me £43 to gift it. For those who already have some of them, it's cheaper.
MODS, EMULATORS & FAN PROJECTS
Nexus Mods kills its multiplatform mod manager in favour of its Windows-only Vortex app: 'We were competing with ourselves instead of solving the actual problems'
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/nexus-mods-kills-its-multiplatform-mod-manager-in-favour-of-its-windows-only-vortex-app-we-were-competing-with-ourselves-instead-of-solving-the-actual-problems/
Nexus Mods—the biggest mod site on the planet and almost certainly the first place you went the last time you installed New Vegas—has put the kibosh on its plans for a multiplatform manager: the Nexus Mods App. Instead, it's refocusing all its efforts on Vortex, its Windows-only mod manager that first hit alpha all the way back in 2018 (it's fully out now, mind you).
Nexus announced the news on its site last week (via GamingOnLinux), writing that it has stopped making sense—if indeed it ever did—to divide its development efforts between two separate mod managers that aimed to do the same thing (uh, manage mods).
"Instead of moving forward together, we were splitting our focus. Every feature built twice. Every bug fixed in two places. Every conversation about 'which one should I use' was a reminder that we were competing with ourselves instead of solving the actual problems in front of us." The short and the tall of it is that "We're stopping development on the Nexus Mods App and focusing all our efforts on Vortex."
Which, sure, makes sense. It is an odd move to develop two separate apps that try to do the exact same thing, but the death of the Nexus Mods App means the death of its multiplatform nature. When it first hit the scene last year, the pitch was very much that there'd be a mod manager you could get going on your Steam Deck or, if you were really cool, your Linux gaming desktop.
>> Good on them for realizing their mistake and fixing it, but they could/should have kept the multiplatform too to reach the most users.
Unofficial GoldenEye 007 Remaster PC Port Is Finally Happening
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/unofficial-goldeneye-007-remaster-pc-port-is-finally-happening/
Now here is something cool. It appears that modders are currently working on an unofficial native PC port of the canceled GoldenEye 007 Remaster. This unofficial port will let you experience this canceled game on PC.
For those who did not know, back in 2008, Nintendo, Activision, and Microsoft agreed to remaster the classic Nintendo 64 game, Goldeneye 007, for Xbox 360. Activision was planning to release the game via XBLA. However, at the last minute, the publisher decided to cancel it.
The team behind it is currently setting up the basic recompilation infrastructure. It is also implementing PPC register handling and memory access, and will convert all the PowerPC instructions to x86 equivalents. They will also resolve compilation issues and macro definitions.
There is currently no ETA on when this PC port of GoldenEye 007 Remaster will come out. However, if you can’t wait and want to play it, you can do so with the Xenia emulator. As we reported in February 2021, it is already possible to run this game on Xenia.
Now, the main benefit of a native PC port is that it will run way better than the emulated version. Moreover, it should be possible to add support for both mouse and keyboard. It will also open the doors to mods. So, we might get an HD Texture Pack or a Ray Tracing Mod.
>> The article has a 10 minutes video.
Starfield got a new Akila-like town with lots of quests and enemies
https://www.dsogaming.com/mods/starfield-got-a-new-akila-like-town-with-lots-of-quests-and-enemies/
Modder ‘vmroche’ has released a new mod that adds new free content to Bethesda’s latest space RPG, Starfield. This is a must for everyone who still plays Starfield. So, let’s take a closer look at it.
The Lakin-Ik Mod adds a Western/Akila-type town located in Zeta Ophiuchi I. This town comes with lots of quests and enemies to fight. It also has a home you can decorate, as well as other homes that are already furnished.
Players can travel to Lakin-Ik and talk to the Mayor, Victor Balam. He will send them into a cave to recover a book for him. They can also open an account at LakinBank and earn interest on the money they put in their savings. Players can even take out a loan and buy a house or a custom-made ship (which is very powerful).
There are plenty of things to do in town. Players can help the locals and earn Affinity points. They can visit the cantina to listen to country music. Or, if they want action, they can fight a group of pirates who have been attacking the bank’s ships.
In short, this appears to be a simple but cool mod. Since it adds new free content to the game, I highly recommend trying it. You can go ahead and download it from this link.
>> Sadly, the article has no media.
Cyberpunk 2077 VR mod disappears after mod maker decides he'd rather take it down than make it free
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/vr/cyberpunk-2077-vr-mod-disappears-after-mod-maker-decides-hed-rather-take-it-down-than-make-it-free/
The maker of the popular R.E.A.L. VR mod for Cyberpunk 2077 has accused CD Projekt of "iron-clad corpo logic" after the studio issued a DMCA demanding the mod's removal.
"Many of you have noticed that two of my recent posts disappeared about a week ago," mod maker Luke Ross wrote over the weekend on his Patreon. "I apologize that I could not comment personally about the fact, because there was an ongoing legal exchange.
"Now that the dust has settled, I'm even more sorry to announce that we are leaving behind an adventure that so many of you deeply loved and enjoyed. CD Projekt SA decided that they would follow in Take-Two Interactive Software's steps and issued a DMCA notice against me for the removal of the Cyberpunk 2077 VR mod."
Ross is the maker of R.E.A.L. VR, which is essentially a mod framework that brings VR support numerous games, including Elden Ring, Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, Far Cry 4-6, Marvel's Spider-Man, Star Wars Outlaws, and others. All very cool: The problem is that if you want the mod, you have to subscribe to his Patreon, and charging money for mods is something that most big publishers—including CD Projekt—take issue with. The Take-Two comparison in Ross' message arises from that company's DMCA claims against the R.E.A.L. VR mod for Grand Theft Auto 5, Red Dead Redemption 2, and the Mafia trilogy in 2022.
"In the end it amounted to the same iron-clad corpo logic: every little action that a company takes is in the name of money, but everything that modders do must be absolutely for free," Ross wrote.
"As usual they stretch the concept of 'derivative work' until it's paper-thin, as though a system that allows visualizing 40+ games in fully immersive 3D VR was somehow built making use of their intellectual property. And as usual they give absolutely zero f***s about how playing their game in VR made people happy, and they cannot just be grateful about the extra copies of the title they sold because of that—without ever having to pour money into producing an official conversion (no, they're not planning to release their own VR port, in case you were wondering)."
For the record, the R.E.A.L. VR mod is popular and apparently very lucrative: A 2022 report by The Verge said Ross (not his real name) was earning more than $20,000 per month from the mod.
Some of the responses to Ross' post on his Patreon page are critical of CD Projekt, and urge followers to write the company and ask that the takedown request be lifted. Others point out that he could simply release the Cyberpunk 2077 mod standalone, for free, with an optional button for donations.
There appears to be even stronger pushback on the Virtualreality subreddit. "This is not the first mod the modder had taken down because he tried to make a live service out of it," Frraksurred wrote. "He knew he was outside the ToS and just chose to get away with it as long as he could. Now he's trying to play the victim."
>> Well, at least it’s clear that, by taking it down rather than for free, the modder proves that does it for the money, not to “make gamers happy”.
GAMING NEWS
Here are the official PC requirements for Bungie’s Marathon
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/here-are-the-official-pc-requirements-for-bungies-marathon/
Bungie has shared the official PC system requirements for its upcoming extraction shooter, Marathon. Moreover, Bungie confirmed that the game will come out on March 5th. To celebrate this announcement, the team has also released a new trailer that you can find below.
>> We’ve also learned about who provide voices to the game (link).
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