Let’s go with the Thursday gaming news:
SALES/PLAYER COUNTS & DEALS
S&box makes nearly $1 million on launch day, and yes there are problems but that's okay: 'We love it when things break because then we get to fix them'
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/s-and-box-makes-nearly-usd1-million-on-launch-day-and-yes-there-are-problems-but-thats-okay-we-love-it-when-things-break-because-then-we-get-to-fix-them/
It's the day after the release of S&box, the successor to the legendary sandbox game Garry's Mod: Reviews are mixed, complaints are plentiful, player numbers are a fraction of Garry's Mod, and Facepunch Studios says in a post-release update that everything is going "pretty much exactly as expected."
(...)
Facepunch also "made a bunch of money" off of S&box's launch day—you can see the detailed breakdown on the studio's finance page, but the headline number is nearly $1 million in one day—and so it's doubling the Play Fund, which is paid out to community developers based on engagement, to $1 million.
The next seven days, the Epic Store gives away the following:
Next week, the free game will be Arranger: A Role-Puzzling Adventure .
GOG has new promos, two of them:
Steam has new deals and a bunch of sales/events:
Humble Bundle has two new bundles:
SOFTWARE & DRIVERS
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MODS, EMULATORS & FAN PROJECTS
Quake 3 Arena RTX Remix Mod Now Features 27 Fully Remastered Levels
https://www.dsogaming.com/mods/quake-3-arena-rtx-remix-mod-now-features-27-fully-remastered-levels/
Modder ‘woodboy90’ has released a brand new version of his amazing RTX Remix Path Tracing Mod for Quake 3 Arena. Version 0.7 remasters 12 new levels, which means that the mod has fully overhauled 27 levels.
Version 0.7 has also transitioned from a demo to an Early Access version. Moreover, it has remastered all of the “Default” player model skins, and it adds a new Rocket launcher model.
Woodboy90 was criticized heavily when he released the first version of this RTX Remix Mod. The modder took the criticism to heart and tried his best to fix the visual issues that have been reported.
You can go ahead and download the latest version of Quake 3 Arena RTX from this link. At the end of the article, you can also find a new trailer for it. This trailer shows off some of the newly remastered maps. So, be sure to check it out.
Super Smash Bros Unofficial PC Port Available for Download
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/super-smash-bros-unofficial-pc-port-available-for-download/
And the time has finally come, dear Super Smash Bros fans. The first beta version of an unofficial native PC port of the Nintendo 64 game, Super Smash Bros, has just come out, and you can download it right now.
Titled Battleship, this is built on top of the VetriTheRetri/ssb-decomp-re decompilation, using libultraship for PC-native rendering/audio/input and Torch for extracting assets out of the ROM at build time.
What’s interesting is that this PC port was created using AI tools. JRickey used Opus 4.6, Opus 4.7, and GPT 5.5 as the sole contributors in its development. This was mainly done as a proof of concept to show that AI can be used for a project of this scale.
As JRickey said, he did not give AI an N64 cartridge and got a PC port out of it. Years of work from many people went into the decomp, the 3D engine, asset extraction, and everything else this port stands on.
Right now, this native PC port of Super Smash Bros is in a beta phase. The game will run and launch, and the Classic Mode should work fine. Since this is a beta release, you may encounter various bugs and issues. So, don’t expect a 100% bug-free experience. Still, even at this point, you can enjoy Super Smash Bros with 60FPS on PC.
You can go ahead and download it from this link. To run it, you will need the NTSC-U v1.0 ROM file. Needless to say, we won’t share any download links for it. Also, if you share a download link to the ROM in the Comment section, your comment will be deleted. So, consider this your warning.
>> The article has a 10 minutes video.
Cyberpunk 2077 Mod Fixes Immersion-Breaking Quest Bugs
https://www.dsogaming.com/mods/cyberpunk-2077-mod-fixes-immersion-breaking-quest-bugs/
Modder ‘anygoodname’ has released a new mod for Cyberpunk 2077 that fixes immersion-breaking bugs in main story-related quests. This is a relatively simple mod as it currently fixes issues in four quests. Still, I’m certain that some CP2077 users will want to use it so that they can resolve the following bugs.
As anygoodname stated, the mod focuses on the most major immersion-breaking issues rather than trying to make everything perfect. Many quest details were designed years ago and no longer fully align with later game updates. Restoring full consistency would require significant effort and could be undone by future updates, as quest logic, world details, and game mechanics change between versions.
Going into more details, the mod patches the electric discharge sound effects, becoming “sticky” and continuing to play indefinitely after leaving the power plant control room. This could disrupt immersion in subsequent scenes with mismatched and noisy audio. This is something that the devs should have fixed years ago. So, I don’t know how they have missed it.
The mod also fixes Takemura’s small-talk dialogue choices appearing all in yellow (suggesting no-return options), when those that lead to looping dialogue should be blue.
For the “Backs Against the Wall” quest, the mod fixes Cpl. Hare’s animations so he no longer slides across the room after selecting one of the dialogue options in a peaceful resolution scenario. It also improves the alignment of Cpl. Hare’s chair with the NPC idle animations so it no longer stands out so ostentatiously, like it was floating.
Finally, for the “Talent Academy” quest, the mod fixes an issue where the quest does not stop music upon completion. Moreover, it fixes an issue where the quest music continued playing after quest completion, even after saving and reloading the game.
>> The article doesn’t have any media.
Easy Anti-Cheat arrives in Rocket League and marks the end of the game's most popular mod: 'The right time to bring things to a close'
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/easy-anti-cheat-arrives-in-rocket-league-and-marks-the-end-of-the-games-most-popular-mod-the-right-time-to-bring-things-to-a-close/
Epic has made Easy Anti-Cheat a requirement to play Rocket League online, hopefully bringing an end to the era of bots whizzing around in high rank matches and endlessly XP farming. The software comes as part of the game's latest update, and does include an option to play the game offline without EAC running.
The majority of players probably won't notice much difference, but one big change for the more committed Rocketeers out there is the end of Bakkesmod. Bakkesmod is a kind of all-in-one bolt-on that adds a tonne of useful quality of life features to Rocket League: things like automatic replay saves, a more varied training mode, stats during matches, fan-made items, and support for an even wider range of community plugins.
EAC does not play nice with mods, and the main man behind the project has announced that this feels like a natural endpoint. "It is absolutely incredible to see how well liked and commonly used BakkesMod is to this day," writes Bakkes. "There have been over 800 published community submitted plugins in the last few years. Over 750,000 people use the mod on a daily basis, and over 1.5 million of you use it every week!
"With that being said, I've made the decision to stop actively updating the mod. The introduction of EAC feels like the right time to bring things to a close. Both I and the team of core contributors who have helped over the years have moved on from the game, and while we've kept things running, the passion and drive to properly support the project just aren't there anymore. This means that BakkesMod will not work on game versions released on April 28th and later."
Older versions will remain available on GitHub, while the Patreon that has supported the mod is closing. Over on the Rocket League subreddit, the reaction is just sadness: alongside a feeling that maybe, just maybe, Psyonix and Epic could have done a better job at stealing some of BakkesMod's most popular ideas.
>> No media in this article either.
This mod brings concussions back into Madden 26, including symptoms like blurred vision, dizziness, and slower reaction times
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/sports/this-mod-brings-concussions-back-into-madden-26-including-symptoms-like-blurred-vision-dizziness-and-slower-reaction-times/
The NFL has an extremely ugly history with concussions. I won't rehash it all here, but in broad strokes, the American football organization spent years denying a link between head injuries sustained by players and the devastating long-term effects, was eventually sued by more than 4,500 players for negligence and fraudulent concealment, and settled the suit for nearly a billion dollars in 2013.
The Madden football series, for their part, included concussions in the games for a few years (in part due to John Madden's insistence), though a less-specific description of "head injury" replaced the term in Madden 13.
It's obvious the NFL and the Madden games want to distance themselves from the word "concussion," but now a mod called Modden 26, created by a non-profit foundation dedicated to increasing awareness of sports-related brain injuries, is bringing concussions back into the game—along with their effects.
While using the mod for Madden NFL 26, if your player sustains a head injury in the game, you'll begin experiencing some of the commonly reported effects of a concussion, which could be headaches (the screen will throb with a reddish color), shortness of breath (you'll hear the player's ragged breathing), tinnitus (a ringing sound), light sensitivity, nausea, dizziness, and other symptoms, which you'll see and hear manifested onscreen while you play.
The mod is meant to be an educational tool, because pro football players aren't the only ones who need to be worried about concussions. According to the American Medical Society, "It is estimated that as many as 3.8 million concussions occur in the USA per year during competitive sports and recreational activities; however, as many as 50% of the concussions may go unreported."
If a pro athlete is hurt during a football game he'll be immediately surrounded by medical experts who will (hopefully) pull them from the game if they suspect they're concussed, but for teens and kids playing football at school or in the neighborhood, it's helpful to know the warning signs themselves—especially since young athletes are so often told to brush it off and get back into the game.
The mod was created by The Derek Sheely Foundation: Derek was a 22-year-old college student who suffered a head injury during football practice and died soon after. His parents believe Derek was already suffering from an earlier concussion at the time of his fatal injury—his death was preventable, in other words, and the Foundation now works to educate others in an effort to prevent similar tragedies. You can download the Modden 26 mod here.
>> Sadly, this article also lacks any media.
GAMING NEWS
Death Stranding 2 Update 1.6 Released – Full Patch Notes
https://www.dsogaming.com/patches/death-stranding-2-update-1-6-released-full-patch-notes/
Nixxes Software and Kojima Productions have released Title Update 1.6 for Death Stranding 2 and shared its full patch notes. So, let’s see what this new patch brings to the table.
Star Wars: Galactic Racer is officially coming to PC on October 6, but it will use Denuvo
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/star-wars-galactic-racer-is-officially-coming-to-pc-on-october-6-but-it-will-use-denuvo/
Secret Mode has officially announced that Star Wars: Galactic Racer will be released on October 6. To celebrate this announcement, the publisher has also shared a new trailer that you can find below.
