Wednesday news, part two:

A Total War Saga: Troy says screw it, have mythological monsters after all
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/a-total-war-saga-troy-says-screw-it-have-mythological-monsters-after-all/
In the most recently announced piece of DLC for A Total War Saga: Troy (titled Mythos), the strategy game about the Trojan War takes an unexpected turn: we get mythical monsters now.

A Total War Saga: Troy Linux port dropped because Valve's Proton means 'less demand for native titles'
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/a-total-war-saga-troy-linux-port-dropped-because-valves-proton-means-less-demand-for-native-titles/
Feral Interactive is a studio that specializes in porting games to MacOS and other platforms. Earlier today, following the announcement of the Mythos DLC for A Total War Saga: Troy, it announced on Twitter that it is bringing both the base game and the DLC to MacOS on Steam after the Windows release. At the same time, however, it also said that work on a previously-announced Linux port will not be resumed, because Valve has effectively killed the market for it.

Blizzard quietly reveals all the new cards in the Hearthstone: United in Stormwind expansion
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/blizzard-quietly-reveals-all-the-new-cards-in-the-hearthstone-united-in-stormwind-expansion/
Under normal circumstances, the launch of a new Hearthstone expansion is preceded by days of card reveals on gaming sites and YouTube channels, followed by a final Blizzard livestream in which the remainder are 'dumped' en masse in the form of some fun games.
But with Activision Blizzard facing serious allegations of discrimination, sexual harassment, and a pervasive "frat boy" culture, Team 5 has decided to forgo the usual fanfare for the upcoming United in Stormwind expansion, and instead have quietly released all the new cards at playhearthstone.com.

PAX West announces attendees now require vaccinations or negative Covid-19 tests
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/pax-west-announces-attendees-now-require-vaccinations-or-negative-covid-19-tests/
On June 24 events company Reedpop confirmed that PAX West will be held in Seattle this year, over September 3-6, but one part of the announcement had folk troubled. The event had a laundry list of health and safety precautions and new practices for the (hopefully) post-pandemic era of live events, but one thing it did not do was require attendees to be vaccinated against the coronavirus.

Mass Effect: Legendary Edition brought out the basic Paragon Shepards
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/mass-effect-legendary-edition-brought-out-the-basic-paragon-shepards/
No judgment, especially because all this data comes without any supporting info, but the basic Shepards are out in full force in Mass Effect: Legendary Edition, according to player stats released by BioWare. There's no way to know how many players are on their first run or their fifteenth, so I'll ignore the lack of context and carry on with the psychoanalysis anyway.

World of Warcraft developers pledge to remove in-game references that are 'not appropriate' following sexual harassment lawsuit
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/world-of-warcraft-developers-pledge-to-remove-in-game-references-that-are-not-appropriate-following-sexual-harassment-lawsuit/
In the wake of Activision Blizzard's lawsuit for alleged widespread sexual harassment and discrimination, World of Warcraft's developers issued a statement that said it will be stripping out in-game references that are "not appropriate for [the game]"—most likely meaning NPCs and items related to former creative director Alex Afrasiabi who was directly named in the lawsuit as an alleged sexual abuser. Since the lawsuit became public, other women have also come forward to accuse Afrasiabi, who left the company in 2020, of sexual assault and harassment.

Fuse and Caustic will get major buffs in Apex Legends Season 10
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/fuse-and-caustic-will-get-major-buffs-in-apex-legends-season-10/
Apex Legends Season 10 is close on the horizon with a new legend (the stealthy tracker Seer), new LMG, a bundle of new Arenas maps as well as Ranked mode, and a World's Edge map update that drowns even more of the landscape in hazardous lava pools. Beyond these flashy additions, Respawn is also preparing a few major buffs to underperforming legends that could finally inspire me to play Fuse and Caustic more often.

Activision Blizzard employees are planning a walkout on Wednesday
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/activision-blizzard-employees-are-planning-a-walkout-on-wednesday/
Activision Blizzard employees have announced plans to stage a walkout on July 28 to protest the company's response to a lawsuit alleging discrimination, sexual harassment, and a "frat boy" culture at the company. The call for a work stoppage comes as an open letter condemning company leadership and calling for "compassion for victims" has now surpassed 3,000 signatures.
Update: Blizzard senior software engineer Valentine Powell says the World of Warcraft leadership team will pay employees for the time they spend participating in Thursday's walkout.

Bobby Kotick finally responds to Activision Blizzard employees: our initial response was 'tone deaf'
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/bobby-kotick-finally-responds-to-activision-blizzard-employees-our-initial-response-was-tone-deaf/
Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick has issued a letter to all employees in the wake of a lawsuit alleging widespread sexual harassment and discrimination at the company. In the letter Kotick describes the company's initial responses to the lawsuit as "quite frankly tone deaf," and promises that leadership is "immediately evaluating managers and leaders across the company." The letter comes the evening before a planned walkout by Activision Blizzard employees.

Time-looping murder mystery The Forgotten City is out today
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/time-looping-murder-mystery-the-forgotten-city-is-out-today/
The Forgotten City is a murder mystery for an entire city: when one person sins, in this ancient Roman town, everybody dies. And it's out today, if you want that weight on your shoulders.

Guild Wars 2's End of Dragons expansion introduces a siege turtle and fishing
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/guild-wars-2s-end-of-dragons-expansion-introduces-a-siege-turtle-and-fishing/
The pandemic has caused problems for lots of developers, and ArenaNet among them: last year it delayed the long-anticipated launch of Guild Wars 2 on Steam, in order to focus on the major End of Dragons expansion due by the end of this year. Then that got delayed until early next year too. Things are getting back on-track, however, and now we've got our first look at what's coming.

New blockbuster studio That's No Moon boasts an embarrassment of talent
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/new-blockbuster-studio-thats-no-moon-boasts-an-embarrassment-of-talent/
New game development studio That's No Moon is opening across Los Angeles and San Diego, led by game development veterans from across some of the largest studios in the industry. That's No Moon intends to create narrative-driven experiences across both interactive and linear media.

Dull Grey looks anything but
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/dull-grey-looks-anything-but/
Free will vs determinism is one of the more hashed-out philosophical debates. It's an easy one to see in action, too: how often is the answer to oversimplified advice, "it's not that easy—I don't really have that choice". It might technically be there, but there's a web of other factors involved.
This is what the trailer for upcoming visual novel Dull Grey highlights, as it drifts over the landscapes of its setting. (...)

DF Direct Weekly #21: Unreal Engine 5 Coalition Demo, Intel CPU + Graphics GDC 2021

So the Coalition switched to UE5 and they had a few things to say about it which are interesting as this will affect a lot of games being made by UE5 including on PC. So DF goes over some of the key points and I noted a few of them here:

- 1080p TSR UE5 > 1440p TAA Upscaling UE4
- Their Demo runs at minimum 1080p to 1440p at average of 46FPS on the Series X
- UE5's bigger features are architected around 30fps
- Still early access so it could get better
- UE5 is still highly customizable
- Expect 30fps games initially for games that use the big features of UE5

There was also a segment regarding developing for Intel GPUs/CPUs of the future:

- Full Direct X 12 Ultimate support
- Hardware Ray Tracing: Intel Recommends to use DXR 1.0 for upcoming Intel GPUs and not DXR 1.1 while AMD recommends DXR 1.1 for RDNA 2. DXR 1.1 apparently has certain limitations that DXR 1.0 doesn't have.
- Using Texture Space Shading with Sampler Feedback Streaming and Direct Storage can have 23% workload benefit
- Their hardware Sampler Feedback implementation was 3.1x faster than their software version
- For Intel CPUs, Intel is recommending for devs to change the way they think:

To me, it sounds like there's going to be some janky situations with Alder Lake S. Especially on it's early days with big.LITTLE.

AMD Bathes In Dollars As It Posts 99% Revenue Growth In Second Quarter 2021

https://wccftech.com/amd-bathes-in-dollars-as-it-posts-99-revenue-growth-in-second-quarter-2021/

Crazy numbers!


AMD & NVIDIA Rumored To Refresh Their Radeon RX & GeForce RTX Mobility GPUs Early Next Year

https://wccftech.com/amd-nvidia-to-refresh-radeon-rx-geforce-rtx-mobility-gpus-early-next-year-rumor/


AMD Next-Gen Zen 4 Ryzen CPUs & RDNA 3 Radeon RX GPUs On Track For 2022 Launch

https://wccftech.com/amd-next-gen-zen-4-ryzen-cpus-rdna-3-radeon-rx-gpus-on-track-for-2022-launch/

Good to have confirmation from the CEO herself


[Rumour] Intel only to launch Alder Lake K(F) series and Z690 chipset this year, the rest coming at CES 2022

https://videocardz.com/newz/intel-only-to-launch-alder-lake-kf-series-and-z690-chipset-this-year-the-rest-coming-at-ces-2022

One interesting thing:

"There have been reports that motherboard vendors are not eager to implement Intel’s new ATX 12V standard, which by principle would reduce the size of the existing 24V connector and power the consumption in certain scenarios. What those reports do not mention is that Intel is actually selling 600-series chips at a lower price, but only if the motherboard maker is willing to adopt it for the 12VO version. Most of the Z690 24V motherboards have already been finalized, but there are plans to launch some sub-variants with ATX12VO support."

Big numbers from AMD indeed! Zen 3 was a big hit for them and a great product and their mobile CPU and APU's in laptops are decent. Well deserved. I just hope Alderlake hits it out of the park from Intel. Competition is greatly needed on the CPU side of things as prices are ever looming higher. Also will be interesting next year with Alderlake and Zen 4 battling it out. And lol at Intel and TDP rating still 125W - not happening

Also looking forward to RNDA 3 next year. Decided to skip this gen altogether due to silly GPU prices and availability. Would be great if out by Q2.

Ngl I'd triple dip for an Uncharted collection and UC4 lol.

Yeah I'm also going to have to wait for the new refresh GPU's or new gen at this point. Scalpers and miners have pretty much made that choice for with without my way.

I just hope we don't get screwed over with the new gen/refresh.

Yea with all the early impressions that devs are giving with UE5, I think we really gonna need next gen GPUs for a true 60fps experience at 1440p or above. Series X according to DF can sometimes go down to 1080p 30fps depending on the scene. That's like a 2080/3060 Ti. While there will be further optimizations, we really gonna need that crazy performance uplift to really get that 1440p 60fps or 4k 60fps UE5 experience.

Apparently the internal resolution of the Series S was so bad when running the UE5 demo that they weren't happy with it at all.

This is me. AiB's decided to take the piss and AMD and Nvidia making it near impossible to get their reference cards without being glued to the PC (here in the UK). And scalper/mining bots sucking up supply, and prohibitive costs and its a like a big nope I'll just hang onto my current graphics card and turn down some settings.

I guess it was my fault for sitting on my hands with the 30XX series cards, though won't be making the mistake of that next year - where we're going to see huge gains in performance.

Great interview so far, and it's nice to know the origins of the Deck.

My fave part was them coming up with names for the device, early into it's conception (names like "Steam ugly baby" - Gabe, lol)

They do definitely expect the device to sell somewhat decently, and going by the pre-order numbers, their expectations aren't exactly wrong. 

Watched a bit of it and its quite refreshing that the CEO is so open, talking about their product. Even going as far as talking positively about the Deck being able to run competing services on it (it is a PC after all). Like some companies would like to skit around the subject but they're like nope we don't want to lock people down and we're PC gamers as well xD

The thing should sell quite sell and be a relative success for them. Now get on Half Life 3 Gaben!