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Need a little help with today's Wordle? Whether you're looking for the answer to the October 4 (472) puzzle or just need a handy clue designed to set you on the right path, you'll find everything you need and plenty more right here.
I got the dreaded double grey anti-jackpot opener today—two whole rows of nothing I could use. Although there is another way of looking at it: I'd efficiently ruled out almost half the alphabet in just two guesses, and between logic and luck could rapidly turn my luck around and celebrate a straightforward win.
Wordle hint
Today's Wordle: A hint for Tuesday, October 4
Today's word is a homophone: a word that sounds just like another but has a completely different spelling and meaning. In its five-letter form—the one you're looking for today—the term refers to a large tree branch, but in its three-letter variant the same sound would be used to describe a respectful bend of the head or body.
Wordle help: 3 tips for beating Wordle every day
If there's one thing better than playing Wordle, it's playing Wordle well, which is why I'm going to share a few quick tips to help set you on the path to success:
- A good opener contains a balanced mix of unique vowels and consonants.
- A tactical second guess helps to narrow down the pool of letters quickly.
- The solution may contain repeat letters.
There's no time pressure beyond making sure it's done by midnight. So there's no reason to not treat the game like a casual newspaper crossword and come back to it later if you're coming up blank.
Wordle answer
(Image credit: Josh Wardle)
What is the Wordle 472 answer?
Not sure? Let me help. The answer to the October 4 (472) Wordle is BOUGH.
Previous answers
Wordle archive: Which words have been used
The more past Wordle answers you can cram into your memory banks, the better your chances of guessing today's Wordle answer without accidentally picking a solution that's already been used. Past Wordle answers can also give you some excellent ideas for fun starting words that keep your daily puzzle solving fresh.
Here are some recent Wordle solutions:
- October 3: STING
- October 2: TWINE
- October 1: LEAVE
- September 30: SCORN
- September 29: SCALD
- September 28: USURP
- September 27: SOGGY
- September 26: BRISK
- September 25: ADMIT
- September 24: GRATE
Learn more about Wordle
Every day Wordle presents you with six rows of five boxes, and it's up to you to work out which secret five-letter word is hiding inside them.
You'll want to start with a strong word like ALERT—something containing multiple vowels, common consonants, and no repeat letters. Hit Enter and the boxes will show you which letters you've got right or wrong. If a box turns
️, it means that letter isn't in the secret word at all. 
means the letter is in the word, but not in that position. 
means you've got the right letter in the right spot.You'll want your second go to compliment the first, using another "good" word to cover any common letters you missed last time while also trying to avoid any letter you now know for a fact isn't present in today's answer.
After that it's just a case of using what you've learned to narrow your guesses down to the right word. You have six tries in total and can only use real words (so no filling the boxes with EEEEE to see if there's an E). Don't forget letters can repeat too (ex: BOOKS).
If you need any further advice feel free to check out our Wordle tips, and if you'd like to find out which words have already been used you'll find those below.
Originally, Wordle was dreamed up by software engineer Josh Wardle, as a surprise for his partner who loves word games. From there it spread to his family, and finally got released to the public. The word puzzle game has since inspired tons of games like Wordle, refocusing the daily gimmick around music or math or geography. It wasn't long before Wordle became so popular it was sold to the New York Times for seven figures. Surely it's only a matter of time before we all solely communicate in tricolor boxes.
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Hey you! You with the short keyboard! Look how short your keyboard is! Look and weep. - Google, probably.
Google has released a new keyboard with a unique take on ergonomic design. Rather than group the keys up in stacked rows like we're used to, this keyboard cleverly places all the keys in a line from left to right. It makes for a stick shaped board that's 1,650 mm long, sporting all the keys you'd see on a normal keyboard positioned in series.
In a delightful video from Google Japan, (spotted by Tom's Hardware) you can see this new design in action as well as have the rational explained to you in increasingly unhinged methods. First it explains that it's far easier to find the key you're looking for when they're all lined up, as you only have to look along one axis instead of two, but it just gets weirder from there. You see, not only can this new board serve as a keyboard, but it also gives you a very handy stick that can be useful in a wide range of scenarios.
The GBoard stick is described as "wide enough for a cat to walk across," but also explains that a cat is far less likely to snooze on this long contraption, and that its form makes it far easier to clean in one swipe. The height is also noted to be a "comfortable thickness." and it can support up to three t-shirts if supported at both ends, all of which is equally important to note. Though it does make me wary about using it as a walking stick as shown in the video.
Perfect peripherals(Image credit: Colorwave)Best gaming mouse: the top rodents for gaming
Best gaming keyboard: your PC's best friend...
Best gaming headset: don't ignore in-game audioA wonderful whimsical joke though this may be, you can actually get your hands on this extra lengthy board. Google isn't selling it, but instead has uploaded the DIY project to Github so anyone can have a go and looking at the listing it's immediately clear that way too much thought was put into this project. You'll need a 3D printer and some know-how, but you can soon have your very own stick keyboard, specifically designed for catching development bugs with net attachment.
It also may not be an entirely silly thing in its own way. While ridiculous in the video and on the official website right down to the URL, a shared keyboard for coding or gaming purposes isn't exactly a bad idea. There might be merit to a keyboard that's spread out enough to get people moving at their desks, have more than one person use it at a time, or just in shaking up a prevalent design.
That being said, I'm not sure if laying them out quite like this is the way to go about it, but I'm down to try some typing duets. After all, they say that heaven and hell for writers are the same. All of us are given metre long keyboards, but in heaven we work together to use them, and in hell we are set on fire and repeatedly beaten.
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People have been adding crazy cool boot screens to their Steam Decks. We've seen super cute animation start up screens mimicking favourite TV shows like Frasier, Cowboy Bebop, and Futurama.
Monkey Island has been given a fan-made nod as a Steam Deck boot screen timed perfectly with the release of the new game. There are already so many lovely fan-made boot screens for the Steam Deck you're easily spoiled for choice, it's just the implementation that's been a bit tricky.
Previously, if you wanted to add your custom boot screen to the Steam Deck you'd have to follow a guide, like the one put together by Gaming on Linux. It wasn't too difficult, but Valve has kindly made it much easier in the latest Steam Deck client beta update. Hopefully they'll make it much easier to buy one soon too.
After seeing the communities love for custom boot scenes, the team has tweaked the Steam Deck so it will automatically look for these files. This means all you have to do is create a steamui/overrides/movies/folder on your Steam Deck and throw any boot or suspend animation video files you want to use in there.
Steam in your hands(Image credit: Future, FromSoftware)Steam Deck review: Our verdict on Valve's handheld PC.
Steam Deck availability: How to get one.
Steam Deck battery life: What's the real battery life of the new device?
How loud is the Steam Deck? And will it pass the Significant Other test?
Steam Deck - The emulation dream machine: Using Valve's handheld hardware as the ultimate emulator.This makes adding your own custom boot animations far easier than before, because you don't have to also tell the Steam Deck to go looking for and then implement them. It also means they won't be wiped when you update the Steam Deck. But you'll still have to opt in to the Steam Deck beta channel by navigating to the settings, then system, and selecting the Steam Update Channel.
Once you've done this it's a good time to head on over to the SteamDeckBootVids Reddit and peruse the offerings. We covered some of our favourites in the previous article, which included a bunch made by Mat Paget on Twitter who is still adding to his collection with this new Neon Genesis Evangelion boot.Shinji, you must pilot the Steam Deck! New boot up video: pic.twitter.com/eajNlAV0jFSeptember 28, 2022
See moreSince then plenty more boot screens are being dreamed up and made real, like this fresh Star Wars intro by Redditor jaidek. The coloured light shift across the helmets then mimicked on the model of a Steam Deck is a really nice touch, that's a bit more modern than many we've seen so far.
disney_star_wars_intro_with_steam_deck_cameo from r/SteamDeckBootVids
Instead, nostalgia is still flowing fresh and fast. People are making intros that pay homage to Back to the Future, The Real Ghost Busters (yes, the cartoon), and even the Neo Geo. Plus there's still that megalist of all console boot screens that's being worked on, so you can shuffle through your old gaming nostalgia on a whim.
my_updated_neogeo_boot_video_with_a_sleeker_home from r/SteamDeckBootVids
But perhaps more importantly, this is a cool move from Valve. The community was having fun with a modded feature, and rather than try to lock it out, the devs have made it even easier to add to. I bet we're only going to see even cooler boot screens being created because of this, and it's always great to see companies foster creativity rather than quash it.
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On an average day about a dozen new games are released on Steam. And while we think that's a good thing, it can be understandably hard to keep up with. Potentially exciting gems are sure to be lost in the deluge of new things to play unless you sort through every single game that is released on Steam. So that’s exactly what we’ve done. If nothing catches your fancy this week, we've gathered the best PC games you can play right now and a running list of the 2022 games that are launching this year.
Moonscars
Steam page
Release: September 28
Developer: Black Mermaid
Launch price: $20 | £16 | AU$29.95Moonscars is a Metroidvania with a decidely Soulsborne bent, but in the context of its genre it's better to think of it as Blasphemous meets Hollow Knight. Protagonist Irma is on a mission to "unravel the mystery of her existence," and the story unfolds in as cryptic a manner as you'd expect, but what matters most is that the 2D pixel world she explores is breathtakingly, beautifully miserable, making Blasphemous look like Ghosts 'n Goblins. The combat is brilliant too, with a heavy emphasis on powerful parries (don't worry, the window is unusually forgiving). It's a tough game, but the difficulty curve levels out after five hours or so, all the better to understand some of its more impenetrable aspects which seem inspired by Demon's Souls' World Tendency system.
Destroyer: The U-Boat Hunter
Steam page
Release: September 29
Developer: Iron Wolf Studio S.A.
Launch price: $27 | £23.39 | AU$41.35Nothing screams "PC gaming" louder to me than a complicated military sim, and Destroyer resembles one of those ye olde Microprose games that came with 60 page instruction manuals. Launched into Early Access last week, you'll be operating a "Fletcher-class destroyer", in other words, a big 'donkey' warship with complicated controls and unfathomable fire power. Battle conditions, such as weather and enemy behavior, are procedurally generated across five locations, and there are a variety of captain profiles too, all with their own temperaments, to really aid the roleplay experience. The game will get more features and polish during its "6 to 8 month" Early Access period, but Iron Wolf Studio claims the current game offers a "stable and polished core experience".
Click To Sail
Steam page
Release: September 30
Developer: EdFarage
Launch price: $1.49 | £1.26 | AU$2.21If the stress of controlling an authentic U-Boat is too much for you, Click to Sail is a deliberately simple game that requires one input (a mouse click) to play. It seems to basically be an autobattler: you'll configure your squad, and then send them into one of the game's beautiful blocky battle arenas to wreak havoc and steal treasure. Various items will trigger various effects, buffs and debuffs, but the most important thing is to get that gold, all the better to keep paying units to fight for you. Click to Sail is in Early Access, and will stay there "for a few months" while more features such as classes, maps and cards are added to the game.
Funtasia
Steam page
Release: September 30
Developer: Fantastico Studio
Launch price: $9 | £6.83 | AU$12.90The most immediately striking thing about Funtasia is its art style, which is extremely a lot. That's probably by design though: this 2D sidescrolling racer is set in "a colorful paradise being polluted by airborne garbage", and it looks like a sickly, psychedelic take on Trials. Except unlike in Trials, you can't stop, so the wacky physics engine really gets a work out, especially with the presence of some truly diabolical obstacles. There are 40 cars, 10 tracks, global leaderboards, and even a local cooperative mode, which can work online using Remote Play Together. Italian artist Emanuele Olives worked on the art style, which is inspired by Adventure Time and Troma, the latter responsible for The Toxic Avenger, among other truly sick films.
Bad Writer
Steam page
Release: October 1
Developer: Riddle Fox Games, Paul Jessup
Launch price: $5.39 | £4.31 | AU$7.65If you've ever had the aspiration to become a writer of fiction in the 21st century, you'll probably have learned quickly that it's a mug's game. Bad Writer is a life sim that seems determined to demonstrate this: as Emily, it's your job to submit short stories to various fiction journals. Don't worry, you don't have to actually write in this game, because it's more about managing Emily's happiness meter as she tries to succeed at something that rarely rewards real world gratification. Emily will roam her house accruing short story ideas, before finally sitting at her computer to turn them into little masterpieces. But watch out! Computers have distractions, like social media, and we all know that writers are among the worst social media characters out there (with the huge exception, of course, of Joyce Carol Oates). If Emily's happiness meter depletes entirely, it's game over, and a real job.
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Spooky season is already showering us with stuff to play thanks to the week-long Steam Next Fest demo event, which runs from October 3-7. The Overwatch 2 launch hits early in October, too, and then there's a string of notable PC game releases: A new tactical RPG, a long awaited horror game, a former PlayStation exclusive, the long-delayed Gotham Knights, the new Modern Warfare 2, and more.
For a broader look at what's still ahead this year, visit our big guide to 2022 games. Below, I've catalogued October's PC game release highlights, plus a few updates and events such as Meta Connect, which will include another "unscripted" talk from John Carmack. (Whatever your view on "the metaverse" may be, you know a Carmack VR thought leadership jam session will have a highlight or two. Last year he commented on adult entertainment in the metaverse and told a story about playing Beat Saber with arm weights.)
October events and game updates
- Steam Next Fest— October 3-10
- Apex Legends: Fight or Fright — October 4 - November 1
- TwitchCon San Diego 2022 — October 7-9
- PAX Australia 2022 — October 7-9
- Meta Connect 2022 — October 11
- Minecraft Live — October 15
- The Dota 2 International 2022 — Throughout October, finals on Oct 29-30
- League of Legends Worlds — Throughout October, semifinals on Oct 29-30
- Hunt Showdown 1.10 Update — TBA October
- Halloween — October 31 — Only a few in-game Halloween events have been announced so far, but expect some spookiness from the usuals.
More October game releases
- Marvel Snap — October 8
- Asterigos: Curse of the Stars — October 11
- No More Heroes 3 — October 11
- LEGO Bricktales — October 12
- Cultic — October 13
- Fueled Up — October 13
- Dragon Ball: The Breakers — October 14
- Potionomics — October 17
- Persona 5 Royal —October 21
- Victoria 3 — October 25
- Sackboy: A Big Adventure — October 27
- Signalis — October 27
- Butterfly Soup 2 — October 29
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I thought I was hot 'frack' for clearing Withering Rooms' first floor. The tutorial covers the basics of hiding under tables to avoid flesh monsters, but I was having more fun with the back and forth of its melee combat, doing an impressive turn as a bloodthirsty axe murder despite playing as a forsaken Victorian child.
Then I descend into the basement of the manor, lantern in hand. The cozy interiors give way to a dank cellar where I only have a few feet of visibility. After an illuminating conversation with a Sigmund Freud lookalike at the center of the mystery, my exploration is brought to a swift and grizzly end by a gangly Silent Hill abomination patrolling the halls. She's way too fast and aggressive for me to outmaneuver. I get got, caught mid-dodge and beaten to a pulp, and wake up back in my first floor bedroom. Time to give it another go.
Withering Rooms is a distinctly PS2-era throwback, calling to mind Japanese survival horror like the Resident Evil Remake or Clock Tower 3. It nails the melancholy, washed out look of a PS2 horror game, and evokes the slow paced intensity of tank control combat despite its novel (for the genre) 2.5D presentation. Withering Rooms' Resident Evil-style menu sounds really seal the deal for me on the homage, while its Thief-y sound design, baroque sitting rooms, and harpsichord-forward soundtrack contribute to a great sense of atmosphere.
You take control of a little girl committed to a Welsh asylum in the 19th century, only she's done and gotten herself trapped in a dream version of the repurposed manor house, waking back up to the nightmare every time she's killed by the revenant of a cholera patient or cursed groundskeeper. Salvation seems to lie in uncovering the history of the manor, as well as divining the nefarious ends of the shifty psychiatrist and witches' coven running things.
There's a slight roguelite element to your exploration of the manor. Its main hallways stay in the same configuration, but their rooms (and the hazards and power-ups within) are subject to change. On death you wake up on the first floor, having lost most items save some permanent fixtures like the lantern, or tools you spend currency to "remember" night to night.
Our protagonist is quite capable. In addition to sneaking about and ducking under tables, she can dish out melee damage, dodge, cast magic spells, and craft consumable weapons like jars of acid. Withering Rooms is much less about pure stealth horror, and instead embodies that Resident Evil style of accumulating tools and cleverly deploying your resources. I really enjoyed the process of acclimating to its combat system, and Withering Rooms offers similar nerve-wracking thrills to juking zombies with Resident Evil's tank controls.
Image 1 of 4(Image credit: Moonless Formless)Image 2 of 4(Image credit: Moonless Formless)Image 3 of 4(Image credit: Moonless Formless)Image 4 of 4(Image credit: Moonless Formless)Clearly I've got room for improvement though. The warrior spirit that compelled me to spend an hour and a half going toe-to-toe with the Tree Sentinel first thing in Elden Ring took over with that basement abomination I mentioned earlier. I've tried going pure melee (failure), whittling it down with crafted throwables (I missed all my shots), and luring it into a doorway-mounted trap (I sprung it myself). I might have to opt for stealth until I find the right tools for the job.
And I will be coming back to Withering Rooms, not only to master its mechanics, but also to enjoy more of that killer, nostalgic atmosphere. Withering Rooms is launching into Early Access on October 4, and you can wishlist it on Steam.
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Fortnite's servers are down for a lengthy maintenance period on Monday, October 3, according to the official Fortnite Status Twitter account.
The server outage for the battle royale was intentional, prepping the game for its next update: Update 22.10. But it hasn't quite gone to plan. Maintenance downtime was set to begin at 4 am EST on October 4. Instead, it began nearly 12 hours early, around 5 pm EST.
"Due to an issue, we are entering downtime early," Fortnite Status tweeted. "Update 22.10 will still release tomorrow October 4th."
Epic didn't provide an estimate for how long Fortnite will be offline, but did say it'll let players know when the downtime has ended. With the update still planned for Tuesday, the maintenance may last until at least midnight EST, or even through its originally planned window.
Normally, we'd expect Fortnite server maintenance to last 2-4 hours, though downtime can be longer for big updates. It's unclear why exactly Epic initiated this downtime earlier than planned. Servers should be back online sometime on Tuesday, October 4.
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Ask at least a few members of the PC Gamer team, and Resident Evil 4 is one of the best videogames of all time. RE4's B-movie banter and over-the-shoulder shooting made it the first Resident Evil to feel like a true action game, an approach that held up a decade later when we reviewed it in 2014. It’s definitely still frightening, though—with ravening hordes of definitely-not-zombies, creepy castles and chainsaw surprises in kitchens, RE4 has its fair share of scares.
So why remake one of the best games ever? After almost 20 years, Capcom is ready to make some changes. The developer appears to be leaning into Resident Evil 4's horror moments for the remake. We don’t have any gameplay footage just yet, but the Resident Evil 4 remake was announced alongside a teaser trailer at this June’s PlayStation State of Play. It’s darker, and Leon’s mood in what we see of the opening cinematic makes me think it’s going to take itself a bit more seriously.
What is the Resident Evil 4 Remake release date?
The Resident Evil 4 Remake is slated to release on March 24, 2023.
There were rumors Capcom was working on this remake for some time, and they were confirmed at the very beginning of Sony's June 2022 State of Play broadcast. The first thing shown on the broadcast was the RE4 announcement trailer with the release date overlaying some flamenco guitar, a slick reference to the unnamed rural Spanish town the game takes place in.
Here's the 2 minutes of RE4 Remake we've seen so far
We see a bit of Leon’s backstory in the opening of the trailer. The President claps him on the shoulder and we see him accept the mission with a bit of resignation. Hopefully this means we get a bit more nuance and depth in the storytelling here, as the ominous Umbrella Corporation from the previous games was essentially killed offscreen prior to RE4. The official site for the game says it has a ‘reimagined storyline,’ and if the other RE remakes are any indication we could definitely see some changes.
Other things that are changed for sure are the looks of the characters. Leon and Ashley have updated outfits that bear striking resemblance to those found in beta versions of RE4. With multiple full rebuilds, two of which went on to spawn their own games (Devil May Cry and Haunting Ground), the development road to finishing Resident Evil 4 is legendary. This little hat-tip to the hardcore fans gives me the warm and fuzzies, and makes me think this reimagining is in good hands.
Some other neat stuff I noticed in the trailer:
- There’s a bear trap in the foreground of the shot with Leon entering the village, which makes me think we may get a photorealistic visit from everyone’s favorite doggo, Hewie.
- We see Leon curled up in the tiny dinghy we fought Del Lago in, with some greenish water below him. Ten bucks if you shoot the water… I’m sure nothing bad will happen.
- A quick frame also confirms the presence of Mendez, another early boss.
- Luis is back, with a sweet leather jacket replacing his foppish shirt from the original. He’s also holding the Red9 pistol!
- The inimitable Ada Wong also makes an appearance, with a shoulder holster over a red… sweater dress? Maybe an update to her iconic look.
The trailer’s just over two minutes long, but boy is it packed with stuff to scrutinize. (Best I can tell, the layout of the village looks exactly the same!). It’s also basically all we have to go on until Capcom’s Resident Evil Showcase, which will be in October of this year.
What systems will Resident Evil 4 Remake release on?
The game will be available for PS4, PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC. Surprisingly, despite releasing a VR version of the game just last year, Capcom also announced it's developing "PSVR2 content" for this remake. That seems to imply the full game won't be playable in VR, but we'll have to wait and see.
How will the Resident Evil 4 Remake be different?
(Image credit: Capcom)It's hard to offer a complete answer here with what we know so far; even when RE4 Remake is out, players will probably be finding tons of minute differences. Keep an eye on this space for updates as more becomes clear. However, these are the things I’m thinking about as I imagine taking my first tentative footsteps back into the village.
- With the darker tone, are we still gonna get those solid gold Leon one-liners or did Capcom say ‘No thanks, bro!’?
- Will Ashley’s updated look mean we no longer have to deal with horrible, skeezy references to upskirts? Please?
- Am I still going to be able to flashbang crows? Do they still carry shinies?
- Now that the merchant from RE4 has inspired a million references and easter eggs in other games, will he return the favor? Maybe he has a son named Xur or something.
- Are we gonna be able to move and shoot? The official site says that controls have been ‘refined to a modern standard’ so… hopefully?
- Roundhouse kicks and suplexes?
- What about executions for downed Ganados? Surely 17 years later we don’t have to spend any more time crouching down and slashing them with a knife. Also, did you know ganado is Spanish for livestock? Creepy.
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An unusual lawsuit between tattoo artist Catherine Alexander and Take-Two Interactive has concluded with a victory for Alexander, who argued successfully that WWE 2K16, WWE 2K17 and WWE 2K18 reproduced her work without her permission.
The roots of the case go way back to 2009, when Alexander attempted to negotiate a licensing deal with game publisher Take-Two Interactive for the tattoos she'd inked on pro wrestler Randy Orton between 2002 and 2008. Take-Two rejected the proposal, but offered her $450 for the right to use the images; she refused, but Take-Two went ahead and used them anyway.
Alexander pursued the matter in court, winning a small victory in 2020 when a judge rejected a request for a summary judgment in Take-Two's favor and instead ruled that the publisher and WWE did in fact copy her work, and that she may have suffered damages as a result. The judge in the case declared that "authenticity" is a major selling point for the WWE games, and that "WWE would have rejected Orton’s videogame persona if it appeared without his tattoos or appeared with tattoos that were different than Orton’s actual tattoos."
In a ruling issued on September 30 (via VGC), the US District Court for the Southern District of Illinois came down firmly in Alexander's favor, although for a relatively small amount. The appearance of the tattoos in the game do not qualify as fair use, according to the ruling, which awarded $3,750 to Alexander. The amount wasn't greater because the court found that none of the profits earned by sales of the game could be attributed to the presence of the tattoos.
Still, while the award is relatively paltry, it could compel other game publishers to take licensing negotiations with other tattoo artists more seriously in the future. (And, likewise, could convince tattoo artists to more aggressively pursue such deals, too.)
(Image credit: Take-Two Interactive)This isn't the first time that Take-Two has been sued over tattoos in its videogames. In 2016 it was sued by Solid Oak Sketches over work that appeared on Lebron James, Kenyon Martin, and Eric Bledsoe in the NBA 2K games. But in that case, as noted by The Hollywood Reporter, it won, because the players had granted a license to use their likeness to the NBA, which in turn licensed them to Take-Two.
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Disney Dreamlight Valley has a meta, and it's pumpkins. More ominously, cunning players have found a way to trap and exploit Dreamlight Valley's iconic citizens in order to score increased harvest margins on their cash crops.
This kind of ruthless economic efficiency is inevitable in farm sims, but still feels slightly surprising in the context of a Disney game. Anyone who's gotten way into the weeds in Animal Crossing or Stardew Valley knows there's an inflection point past which they stop being "casual" and turn into dystopian optimization nightmares.
Confession: I have a dark history with ancient fruit wine distilleries and turnip stocks and I can see the plump profits of the pumpkin trade in my future.
In the early hours of Dreamlight Valley, planting and harvesting carrots is the way to make money, but as players have realized, pumpkins are the true endgame. They take quite a while to buy, sold at Goofy's stall in the Forgotten Lands biome past the Sunlit Plateau, which both take a hunk of Dreamlight to unlock. Pumpkin seeds cost a steep 275 coins, but each fully grown pumpkin sells for 664 coins. That's a sale that would make Scrooge himself proud.
So naturally everyone is stuffing their village with super-profitable pumpkins.
my_first_pumpkin_harvest from r/DreamlightValley
pumpkin_spice_season_13_million_every_4_hours from r/DreamlightValley
Disney Dreamlight Valley guidesSeriously, you can't escape pumpkins rights now, and not just because it's spiced coffee season. I've been innocently seeking out build inspirations for my village and I'm inundated with gourd screenshots. Not that I'm mad: Obsessive crop schemes are also valid build inspo. This really is peak farm sim behavior. (Do yourself a favor and read about fellow PC Gamer writer Chris Livingston's great pumpkin disaster of 2017.)
One pumpkin defender's rather detailed spreadsheet alleges that the total growth time (four hours) makes them technically less profit per hour than planting asparagus, but that the profit per minute you're actively tending them by planting or watering actually makes them superior. Also, a patch full of pumpkins is just way more satisfying to reap than silly asparagus.
You can max your cash investment even further by cooking three pumpkins into a grilled veggie platter in your kitchen, but that too is a pretty steep increase in active button pressing. Better to just sell the dang things to Goofy who apparently doesn't mind getting totally price gouged on gourd turnaround.
The big pumpkin exploit
Serious grinders are pushing the pumpkin meta to the max with a handy exploit. It turns out you can really abuse the hangout feature—the one where a tagalong character can reward you with bonus items while you mine, dig, or farm seaweed. If you invite along whichever character you've designated as a farming friend, trap them inside a tiny square of fences, and then harvest a ton of crops in front of their face, then free them, they'll burst into a fountain of sparkling pumpkins to pick up.
@rogue_bui ♬ Mad at Disney - salem ilese
A ruler exploiting their subjects as magical profit conduits? Why, I never.
Disney Dreamlight Valley launched in early access at the beginning of September and is planned for full launch sometime in 2023. It's definitely possible that the farming exploit and the shocking profit margins on pumpkins will both get fixed in the meantime. Not least because of the huge frame rate drop when receiving all those bountiful bonus pumpkins. For now though, ring in October with as many pumpkins as you please. Those house upgrades won't pay for themselves.
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Intercept Games was founded in early 2020 to assume control of the development of Kerbal Space Program 2, which up to that point had been in development at original Kerbal studio Star Theory Games. At the time, it seemed almost like a straight name change, as "key members" of the Kerbal 2 team including former Star Theory studio head Jeremy Ables, creative director Nate Simpson, and lead producer Nate Robinson all moved to Intercept to continue working on the game.
The process hasn't gone perfectly smoothly since then, however. At the time, Kerbal Space Program 2 was slated to be out sometime before March 31, 2021, but after multiple delays it's now not expected until early 2023. It also recently came to light that while Intercept Games was formed specifically to work on Kerbal 2, it's also got another game on the go.
That project, according to a Take Two job listing, is "an unannounced stylized science-based adventure game." The listing says applicants should have a "passion for space exploration, rocketry, worldbuilding, and related entertainment media," and will be responsible for (among other things) "translat[ing] the game's visual design language into explorable worlds." Experience creating or working on "fully spherical planets," and with Unreal Engine, Gaea (which is a terrain design tool), World Creator, or World Machine, are good bonus skills to have.
Those details sound a lot like they're for a role working on KSP2, and it's possible that's the job—the listing doesn't specify. Some of the other Private Division job listings do specify that they're for KSP2, though, which could be taken as a sign that this one is for something else.
Regardless, what's noteworthy is simply that Intercept is working on something else—perhaps a Kerbal spinoff of some sort ("stylized science-based adventure" would certainly fit that bill) or possibly something completely original. And that, naturally, could lead one to wonder what impact, if any, this new project has on Kerbal 2.
One user in this September thread in the Kerbal forums, where the listing was first noticed, speculated that the listing could indicate that Kerbal 2 is far enough along that Intercept can afford to start moving developers to other things; another suggested that it might have played a role in Intercept's struggles to finish the game it was formed to create.
I've reached out to Private Division for comment and will update if I receive a reply.
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The day without Overwatch is almost over. The Overwatch 2 launch brings a free-to-play sequel today, replacing the original game with a revitalized hero shooter and battle pass full of goodies.
There are plenty of changes to the original game's team-based tactics, including reworked heroes, new maps, and a new mode. And it's all free with an optional $40 Watchpoint Pack to get a few skins, 2,000 Overwatch Coins (its new premium currency), and the first season's premium battle pass—which comes with new support hero Kiriko.
Overwatch 2 isn't quite the game that was initially announced in 2019. The PvE side of the game won't arrive until next year. Blizzard promised wildly different abilities than you get in the PvP and a whole talent tree system, but all of that will have to wait for now.
The PvP side of the game, however, has been updated with three new heroes: Sojourn (damage), Junker Queen (tank), and Kiriko (support). The battle pass and in-game shop also have a variety of new cosmetics, like the Mythic Cyber Demon Genji skin that lets you customize parts of his armor. Blizzard plans to drop new seasons (and themed battle passes) every nine weeks. A new tank hero is coming in season 2, and then each season will flip flop between a new map and a new character.
Overwatch 2 launch time
Overwatch 2 launches as a free-to-play game for everyone on Tuesday, October 4 at 12 pm PDT. Here's how those times translate in other parts of the world:
- PDT: 12 pm, October 4
- EDT: 3 pm, October 4
- BST: 8 pm, October 4
- CET: 9 pm, October 4
- AEST: 6 am, October 5
At those times, Overwatch 2 will launch globally on PC, PlayStation 4/5, Xbox One, Xbox Series S/X, and Nintendo Switch.
You can preload the 50GB game in advance of the launch. PC players only need to click "pre-release content download" below the play button for Overwatch in the Battle.net launcher.
If you owned the first Overwatch, you can log in before the end of season two and receive a Founder's Pack that lets you unlock Sojourn, Junker Queen, and Kiriko immediately. Non-Overwatch 1 owners who log in during the first season will get Sojourn and Junker Queen for free too. They will also have to unlock most of the original game's roster of heroes by completing around 100 games.
Overwatch 2 also requires a phone number tied to your Battle.net account to enable SMS verification. Blizzard has a blog post about how to add SMS Protection to your account and it also explains how to merge your Overwatch accounts into one so that cross-progression is enabled. Cricket and other prepaid phone users have reported that their numbers don't work and thus they won't be able to play the game. Blizzard hasn't said if there's a change to this rule coming yet, which is a huge bummer for those who can't get their numbers to work.
If all goes well for you though, Overwatch 2 juices up the game that changed the shape of FPS games. I hope you've practiced your mouse dexterity because everyone is going to try to lock in the new heroes before you.
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The latest Steam Next Fest event is now underway, bringing hundreds of game demos, developer chats, and livestreams to the platform along with something new: Next Fest badges.
For the Steam badge collectors out there, the Steam Next Fest: October Edition will offer a profile badge for blasting through your discovery queue—essentially Steam's personalized recommendation center. You can quickly roll through it multiple times to level it all the way up.
My exciting new badge! (Image credit: Valve)It's worth taking it slowly, though, at least if you have any interest at all in the games themselves, because there are hundreds of demos of upcoming games available for the duration of the event. How many hundreds? I don't know, but it's a lot, and covers every Steam category from your basic action-adventure and strategy to controller-based games and VR.
(There were roughly 700 demos in the October 2021 Next Fest, and I'd expect at least that much this time around. So, y'know, get ready to do some digging.)
Acknowledging again that there are literally hundreds of demos in this event and we can't possibly talk about them all, here are handful that we've taken notice of recently:
- Aquatico
- Warhammer 40,000: Warpforge
- Forever Skies
- Thirsty Suitors
- Storyteller
- Terror: Endless Night
- RomanceIvania
- Atone: Heart of the Elder Tree
- Season: A Letter to the Future
- Dredge
The broadcast schedule is likewise overloaded, with multiple events set to take place every hour, almost around the clock: The final show of the first day is a Space Menace livestream that begins at 1 am ET, and then the action resumes at 5 am ET with a Q&A with the developers of Hello Neighbor 2, a Mask of the Rose livestream, and something called Hijack Overdrive—all happening at the same time.
The Steam Next Fest: October Edition is live now and runs until October 10.
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Gadget accessory maker Dbrand has temporarily suspended sales of its Project Killswitch Steam Deck case due to concerns over the case's magnetic kickstand.
In a Reddit post titled "Our Million-Dollar Mistake" (spotted by GamingOnLinux), Dbrand points to a recent report from The Verge which says that the magnetic kickstand reduces fan speeds on certain Steam Decks.
Steam Decks contain fans from one of two possible producers, Delta or Huaying. The interference from the magnetic kickstand seems only affect the Delta fans, though the only way to find out is by opening up your Steam Deck. The company says it cracked open the Steam Decks it used for testing and found that they contained Huaying fans, which is why it didn't know about the problem until it received an email from The Verge. Killswitch owners who aren't sure which fan type their Steam Deck contains should avoid using the kickstand until replacements are sent out, Dbrand says.
"This 11th-hour curveball is what prompted us to pull the public launch last night and suspend sales," wrote Dbrand. "We didn't want any more Killswitch orders to be placed until we had a plan in place to overcome this challenge."
The company plans to replace the magnetic mount with a mechanical interlock system that will be compatible with all of its accessories, but the revision is "expected to take some time."
Project Killswitch will not launch for the general public tonight. All existing orders are shipping as planned. More info tomorrow. In the meantime, enjoy this video. pic.twitter.com/t2A7h749A4September 27, 2022
See moreEvery customer who ordered a magnetic Killswitch will get a free replacement, and Dbrand isn't requiring that customers ship back the magnetic version. The company jokes that owners should "keep it on your fridge as a memento of our failure."
If you have received a Killswitch from a private launch and want a refund, you can email Dbrand to start the refund process. Dbrand has also opened up orders for the updated Project Killswitch that will ship out in Q1 2023. -
Overwatch is gone. Today Blizzard pulled the plug on the servers of the original Overwatch to make way for Overwatch 2, and my goodness am I sad about it. This morning I threw on a t-shirt, only to realise it was merchandise from the 2019 Overwatch League finals—a fitting outfit for today's farewell.
I've been ping-ponging emotionally between the excitement of a new Overwatch revival and the fear of what Overwatch has become. I've been concerned about the way Overwatch 2 has monetised itself, changed the sounds and the dynamics of the heroes I played thousands of games with, and how it intends to capture the attention of new players. And I'm concerned, not because I'm an Overwatch hater, but because I love it more dearly than almost any other game. So though it's time to say goodbye, I just want to reflect with some of the PC Gamer team on what made Overwatch special.
Overwatch was my first proper online game. The beta was being played all over YouTube by many gaming creators and though I had a fear of playing games with comms, I couldn't help but want to try it out. I bought a physical copy for the PlayStation 4, and it's been a constant in my life since 2016. I had so many mains over the years: Reinhardt, Symmetra (pre-rework of course), Lucio, D.Va, and then Widowmaker, with a sprinkle of Moira and Ashe here and there. Widowmaker was the one who really stuck: I have hundreds of hours of play time with her. Clicking heads never felt any better than when I was launching myself around a map with her grappling hook and picking off enemies in midair.
(Image credit: Blizzard)What made Overwatch special to me was how it adapted constantly—in-game and outside of it. Character reworks, hero swaps, the brief 3-2-1 meta discussions, and role queue. Overwatch felt like it was trying to be the best version of itself for years, until the announcement of Overwatch 2. Then it stagnated. Even then I played and played and played. Every hero ability cooldown, map, and voiceline was embedded into my brain. Running around Overwatch was almost like a second home.
My first internet friends came from Overwatch. I have several pieces of Overwatch merch, from a Secret Lab chair to a ridiculous D.Va onesie. For many years I wore a green jacket with a bronzed Overwatch logo on the pocket, and when I kept adding patches to a jean jacket, Tracer's patch was among them.
I've loved Overwatch. I loved what it inspired me to play, and how many highs and lows it's given me. I don't know if I'll ever love a game in the same way and it's hard to let go of something I consider so formative to my gaming experiences. Thanks for everything Overwatch, you've been swell. And Overwatch 2: you've got the biggest boots to fill, buddy. I just hope you can step up to the challenge.
(Image credit: Blizzard)Mercy Mercy Me
Ted Litchfield, Associate Editor: God damn, this game meant so much to me at one point. In a game full of exciting movement options, I love walk-and-shoot man Cole Cassidy, just clicking on heads all day was enough for me. I first got really into it on launch, and I was so excited about this game where everyone seemed to chill and collaborate and have a good time. Then they introduced ranked play.
Over the course of four seasons in 2017 I tried to crawl my way out of Platinum into Diamond, making it to 28 or 2900 ranked points each time before sliding back down into the pits, with the meanest strangers I've ever played videogames with yelling at me the whole time. That latter experience usually overtakes the wonder of the early days in my recollections, and I've never been too jazzed to go back and fall into an old obsession.
I would like to shout out the most surreal experience I've ever had in an online game, one that haunts me to this day. In quickplay, I was matched with an entire premade opposing team in matching "Houston Outlaws" Overwatch League skins. I asked them if they were from Texas.
"No," one of them replied. "We just really support the Outlaws."
(Image credit: Blizzard)Morgan Park, Staff Writer: Bye Overwatch 1. I played you a lot on PS4 until I got a PC and never had to stoop so low again. I'm not as sad about its leaving as others I've seen, but I do resent the way Blizzard is handling the transition. It feels weird to watch Overwatch 1 disappear in real time like this, especially because it doesn't really have to. It's like Blizzard is moving in a new tenant and painting right over the walls. Overwatch 2 is largely the same game, but the original is distinct enough to deserve a stay of execution. I guess it's partly an expectations thing—when Fortnite hits the reset button and nukes a beloved map forever, players get over it quick. That's always been what that game does, but it's new territory for folks that have been playing the same Overwatch for six years (and before that, maybe not playing many shooters at all). Overwatch has that effect on people.
Robin Valentine, Print Editor: How badly do you have to screw up a PR campaign for the overwhelming atmosphere around the launch of your new game to be one of mourning for the previous one? I've not been a fan of Overwatch for a while—for my money it's basically gotten steadily worse every update since it came out—but I'm just grimly fascinated by how badly Blizzard has fumbled the ball here. It certainly proves they couldn't have had both games running simultaneously, at least, as clearly there's so much affection still for the first entry that it would have been a genuine rival for the sequel going forward. But there are so many better ways they could've handled this.
The end of Overwatch 1. pic.twitter.com/IhHjmVPZiWOctober 3, 2022
See moreI'll sorely miss the first shooter I ever properly got into.
Mollie Taylor, News Writer: I fell in love with one of Overwatch's late betas prior to launch. Blizzard managed to do something no developer had ever achieved: it made me care about shooters. I picked up the game up day one, chose D.Va and Zenyatta as my mains and never looked back. I took some long breaks in my time with Overwatch, but whenever I dove back in with friends I always had a whale of a time. Overwatch 2's betas have failed to click with me in the way the original's did—I'm not vibing with the whole solo tank situation and hero shooters aren't the new, exciting thing like they were in 2016. I've only played a handful of matches in the past year and I'm not sure how much time I'll give to its sorta-sequel, but I'll sorely miss the first shooter I ever properly got into.
Wes Fenlon, Senior Editor: I only stuck with Overwatch for a couple months, so I can't write about it as passionately as many members of our team. But I want to thank Overwatch for making objective games the big thing in the FPS world again for a year or two. I'm a diehard CTF lover and had to spend so many years of Halo multiplayer searching for CTF and Assault matches in meagerly populated objective playlists while the majority of players stuck to boring Slayer. Why would you want to just sit there shooting each other when you could be shooting each other and making a thrilling escape with a flag at the same time? Lunacy.
Overwatch didn't let players make that boring choice. It said: This is an objective game, and that's how you're gonna play it. And everybody did. Well, kind of.
I think it's fair to say that its heroes wouldn't be nearly as interesting and creative if they'd been designed just for Deathmatch—so many of Overwatch's cool skills and hero interplay come from how you use them when the enemy team is trying to push the payload or you're desperately defending a control point. Thanks for showing everyone the light, Overwatch.
Overwatch is officially no longer playable. GG Overwatch, GG. 🫡 pic.twitter.com/aYdSBKSEZCOctober 3, 2022
See moreI'm glad the pieces of what made it great are still in there
Tyler Colp, Associate Editor: A few days ago I saw my Overwatch hour count hit almost 1,000 hours on all three roles. I've done all there is to do in Overwatch. I've lived in this game like it was World of Warcraft, the Blizzard game I devoted my life to before it. And like WoW, I met tons of people along the way, including my best friend Nico. I liked Overwatch before her, but learned to love it as we spent so much time discussing what made it so distinct in the FPS space and playing for hours and hours with our friend Celine.
That Overwatch died a few years ago for me. We had largely stopped playing as much as we used to. A steady decline in updates and antithetical balance changes made the game harder and less satisfying to play. The servers shutting down today is almost a courtesy for what the game had become. But Blizzard can't kill those memories. It can't erase how important Overwatch was to gaming and how important it was to me. I might not be so optimistic about the next game (and still sour that it's deleting the old one), but I'm glad the pieces of what made it great are still in there, if only as a reminder of the tremendous game that changed my life.
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Fallout: A Post-Nuclear Role Playing Game was released on October 10, 1997—25 years ago, minus a week. That's the silver anniversary, which is a big one as these milestones go, and to mark the moment Bethesda is—among other things—making Fallout 76 free for the week.
Fallout 76 is very different from the original Fallout, an isometric RPG with turn-based combat set in a grim post-war world. I won't get into which one is "better"—I like old Fallout, I like new Fallout—but the current iteration of the series, a multiplayer-first-person game that focuses on action over roleplaying in a somewhat more lighthearted setting, is definitely a different sort of experience. It was very okay at launch, earning a 60% in our 2018 review as "a beautifully crafted but ultimately repetitive world," but it's come a long way since, racking up a reported 13 million players so far, and earlier this year Bethesda announced a "five-year roadmap" for the future.
While we're celebrating 25 years of Fallout all month long, take a look at everything that's coming this week: https://t.co/kS1XxrT3W3#Fallout25 pic.twitter.com/A9XENFItdBOctober 3, 2022
See moreThe free week of Fallout 76 will begin October 4 and run until October 11. To help newcomers get started, Bethesda will also put out a Post-Apocalypse Loyalty Simulator (PALS) questionnaire intended to help players find a faction that fits them. There will also be bonuses for Prime Gaming and Xbox Game Pass subscribers, a seasonal event called Invaders From Beyond, and an anniversary livestream on Twitch set for October 7.
Fans of the management side of nuclear holocaust survival are also in for a nice surprise: An update to Fallout Shelter will add new content to the game for the first time in more than four years. Full details on Bethesda's Fallout anniversary plans are up at fallout25th.com.
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Amazon Prime Early Access deals 2022(Image credit: Future)
Jump straight to the deals you want...
1. Gaming laptop deals
2. Gaming PC deals
3. Graphics card deals
4. Monitor deals
5. TV deals
6. Storage deals
7. Component deals
8. Gaming chair deals
9. Peripherals deals
10. Networking dealsPrepare yourself for Prime Day 2, or Amazon Prime Early Access as it's officially dubbed. The upcoming Early Access sale is an all new event, designed so that Amazon can sink its teeth into deals season before most mortals have even begun prepping for Halloween. As the name suggests, it'll benefit Amazon Prime members, and the focus is for Amazon to shift Fire and Echo devices, though we may yet see some PC gaming deals popping up.
Prime Early Access will run from 8am BST on Tuesday October 11 to the same time on Thursday October 13. We understand those aren't the easiest days to carve out time to go deal hunting, so for your convenience we've employed a bunch of bots to scour the web for the best PC gaming deals. Come October 11, when the Early Access deals start to land, we'll be collating the worthy few here for your attention—so you can get on with whatever it is you do best.
For those 48 hours, this page will become a veritable cornucopia of all the best deals we've spotted for PC gamers. And while we don't expect too many earth shattering PC gaming deals, we're likely to see some discounts on smart 4K OLED TVs, gaming monitors, SSDs, gaming headsets, and other PC peripherals. Retailers other than Amazon are likely to want in on the action, too, so expect to see deals from the usual collection of storefronts.
Although, while Newegg, Scan, Box, Ebuyer, Overclockers and many others could have something to offer, we're not expecting massive savings on full gaming PCs, laptops, or graphics cards. Big discounts on expensive tech are likely to be reserved for when Black Friday rolls around at the end of November. Still, you never know. We'll keep our fingers crossed, and our bots on the look-out.
Maybe retailers will surprise us with some tasty PC gaming deals.
When is Amazon Prime Early Access 2022?
Amazon Prime Early Access will begin at 8 am BST, Tuesday October 11, and will run all the way through to 07.59 am on Thursday October 13. Expect 48 hours of potential PC gaming deals, before we get into the meatier discounts expected to drop on Black Friday—that's November 25 for anyone willing to wait that long. Truly, Amazon isn't messing around when it says Early Access.
In fact, let's just have a deal event every month on the lead up to Christmas, shall we?
Where are the best UK Amazon Prime Early Access PC gaming deals?
Other retailers are likely to take advantage of Amazon's own sale to get their own summer sales events kickstarted.
- Amazon UK - deals on everything from laptops, to processors, to graphics cards
- Scan - save on components and gaming PCs
- Box - bargains on parts and full PCs
- Ebuyer - £100+ off gaming PCs
- Cyberpower - get £200 off RTX 3060 Ti gaming PCs
- Dell - save over £100 on Alienware gaming monitors and over £500 on gaming laptops
- Overclockers - save £400 on RTX 3070/3080 gaming PCs
- HP - save up to £300 on the latest HP tech
- Corsair - Corsair gaming chairs, RAM, and peripherals discounted at Amazon
- Razer - save on the latest Razer laptops
- Laptops Direct - get up to £300 off gaming laptops
- PC Specialist - custom laptops and gaming PCs
Amazon Prime Early Access gaming laptop deals
Amazon Prime Early Access gaming PC deals
Amazon Prime Early Access graphics card deals
Amazon Prime Early Access Gaming Monitor deals
Amazon Prime Early Access TV deals
Amazon Prime Early Access storage deals
Amazon Prime Early Access Component deals
Amazon Prime Early Access Gaming Chair deals
Amazon Prime Early Access Peripherals deals
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Phasmophobia is probably the best ghost game ever made, retains a considerable playerbase, and this year has been dealing with a community scandal that, over the last week, blew up. The furore centres around an administrator for the game's Discord, who goes by the handle of Charcoal Salamander, who is accused of both offering to share nude photographs with another community member, and making racist comments. What happened with these accusations, or didn't, is what's brought this to a head.
The controversy began in January when Charcoal was accused of sexually harassing another community member on the 25th. Developer Kinetic Games suspended them while investigating, before accepting Charcoal's evidence on 30 January with other admins spending "around two weeks" before concluding Charcoal "never did anything wrong nor did he harass people." Charcoal was subsequently reinstated to their position.
Things subsequently went quiet until August 15, when the studio received a further email about the allegations. As it did not contain any additional evidence, and had previously been 'resolved', lead developer DK decided the studio would not investigate itself.
On 27 August, things began to happen. The allegations began to re-acquire traction within Phasmophobia communities on places like Discord and reddit, while a new account on the latter began messaging Kinetic Games' lead artist Corey 'CJ 'Dixon about them (CJ from hereon in).
Charcoal is accused of using racist language on at least two occasions, with video of scrolling screencaps showing them talking about "squinting" in the context of Chinese people, before going on to tell a racist joke about Japanese people. The second accusation is that Charcoal received nude pictures from someone else, and offered to share them with a friend in DMs. There's no indication as to whether he did share the pictures or not, only that the offer was made. There are screenshots of exchanges that appear to back up these claims. Other claims, which don't seem to have any proof associated with them, I'm going to leave aside.
CJ's responses to this reddit account's concerns about Charcoal were not good. In DMs that were later made public, the developer writes: "The whole sharing nudes thing, he's explicitly said he didn't ask for them, she sent them anyway at own risk. So if he wanted to give them to a mate thats fair game imo. I dont agree with it, but its not punishable as in removing them from the team. But I can have a convo with them."
Phrases such as "fair game imo" in the context of sharing nude pictures should have anyone with a bit of decency cringing, and is probably as bad as responses get. Lord knows that the internet and wider society has issues with this stuff, but it's not normal and never 'fair game' to share nude pictures without consent: it is a criminal act under various pieces of UK legislation, and can be described as revenge porn.
When CJ's comments were made public it triggered a community explosion, with no shortage of people condemning the developer's response. To be absolutely clear about where we are at this point: people believe Charcoal should be stripped of their responsibilities and banned for these alleged past acts; people are further incensed by developer CJ's comments, which are widely seen as downplaying the allegations and representing some unpleasant strain of 'bro' culture.
The controversy reached such a pitch that Kinetic Games belatedly realised it had made a mistake in its handling of this situation. It issued a statement on Saturday saying that "we would like to apologise for the way we have handled the situation, keeping the admin on as long as we did and for the slow response, he should have been removed from his position and banned sooner."
Our response to recent events. pic.twitter.com/3nihbzau4bOctober 1, 2022
See moreIt says that upon the allegations being freshly re-surfaced with these new screencaps it began an investigation in conjunction with its Discord admins. "We came to the conclusion that the admin involved needed to be banned from our discord server, he will no longer have any involvement with the Phasmophobia community and there is no opportunity for him to be involved in the future."
Recognising that CJ had also become part of the story, the statement goes on to "apologise for the way one of our developers approached the situation, he has since apologised for his words and will learn from this experience in the future [...] This will not happen again going forward."
This did not settle things. People were angry about what Charcoal has been accused of doing, they were angry about Kinetic Games seeming to be dismissive of the allegations for a long time, and they were furious about how CJ had attempted to handle matters.
I have omitted elements of this brouhaha because, honestly, it's a big old mess. But it is worth saying that, as well as the bad stuff, CJ did engage with the account making these allegations and pressed for proof that could be acted upon. This contradicts the idea he was outright dismissive of the claims. He's also clearly realised he's made a mistake and, albeit after his responses were exposed, issued a fulsome apology on social media.
But in a sign of how fraught things had become around his and its involvement, Kinetic Games has now issued a further statement clarifying elements of the initial statement.
We wanted to clarify our version of events and the reason we took the actions we did and to further apologise for how we handled the situation. pic.twitter.com/RTr37DJq10October 2, 2022
See moreI wouldn't blame you for skipping that wall of text. It gives a timeline of events from the developer's point-of-view, admits this matter was handled poorly, and emphasises that CJ has issued an apology and wrote like they did because of "misinformation" about what had gone down. It ends (emphasis theirs):
"None of the Kinetic Games development team condones sharing private images of any kind without consent. We would also like to emphasise that we do not condone the racist remarks that Charcoal had posted, and they do not reflect the views and values of the rest of the team.
"We will be restructuring the official Phasmophobia Discord's staff. We will be vigilant of any future misconduct, and we will react firmly and appropriately. Finally, we will make sure to be involved personally with any investigations in the future, should they occur.
"We sincerely apologise for how we handled this situation, we recognise the mistakes we have all made, and we will do better."
This is on one level a sadly all-too-common story on the internet, one that allegedly involves sharing nudes and racism in nested-away spaces. On another, it's an unusually messy example of the problems contemporary developers face when things like community management and semi-official Discord channels aren't treated with the professionalism that these areas often require.
As will no doubt be clear by now to Kinetic Games, it doesn't matter to most people that the developer didn't really run its own Discord channel, preferring instead to use it for announcements, the occasional dev drop in, and leaving the day-to-day management to volunteer community members and admins. That may seem an ideal solution but, then again, most island utopias have a tendency to end up like Lord of the Flies.
This is an object lesson for developers in how one bad apple can eventually rot the whole barrel. By leaving this matter in community hands for so long, and trusting that the right conclusions had been drawn, Kinetic Games left itself open to the charge of, essentially, not caring about some pretty unpleasant stuff that was going on in what I'd regard as an official channel for the game: perhaps the main one.
The studio has, albeit belatedly, done the right thing. One of its developers has learned a tough lesson about how to respond to serious allegations. And Charcoal has been smoked. It feels like things are now cooling down, though the stench may yet linger for a while. Ironic, of course, that a game about mostly unseen horrors should come unstuck for refusing to take the real-world ones seriously enough.
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The 15-year journey of Beyond Good and Evil 2 has wearily passed another milestone: it's been in development even longer than Duke Nukem Forever, the game which still holds (though presumably not for long) the Guinness World Record for "Longest development period for a videogame".
Well, actually, BG&E2 officially crossed that threshold about a hundred days ago, it's just taken us all this long to notice. As originally pointed out by GamesIndustry.biz editor Brendan Sinclair, the painful labour that brought us Duke Nukem Forever lasted 5,156 days. BG&E 2's first trailer came out on May 30, 2008: 5,239 days ago. Heck, the game had already been in development for a year or so when that trailer dropped, so it's actually been even longer.
A few people have pointed out that the original description and trailer for BG&E 2 bear little resemblance to the version of the game that trailered at E3 2018, suggesting the comparison with Duke Nukem might be unfair. To be honest, though, a quick scan through the many and varied trailers that came out for Duke Nukem Forever over the years shows a game that kept shifting in size, scope, and staff. We even saw an unreleased build of it earlier this year that bore little resemblance to the Duke Nukem we got in 2011. For my money, the comparison is a fair one.
It's a dubious honour, to say the least. Ubisoft continues to insist—to our astonishment—that the game is still in the works, and it was only two months ago that BG&E 2 got a new lead writer, so presumably something is still happening with the project. Still, after 15 years, and with the series' creator (if you can call it a series) leaving Ubisoft amid accusations of toxic mismanagement, it's very, very hard to maintain optimism for the game even for die-hard nostalgics like me.
I maintain that we will, one day, see the release of a game with 'Beyond Good and Evil' in its title, though I might be in my dotage when it happens. In the meantime, I suppose I'll sit and wait for the BG&E movie that Netflix announced two years ago, and reflect on rosy childhood memories of roaming the waters of Hillys.
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The 40th Golden Joystick Awards presented by GamesRadar+ will take place on Tuesday, November 22. The event is run by PC Gamer's parent company, Future.
The Golden Joysticks are the longest-running videogame awards show, where the awards are determined by public vote, in history. Every year sees millions of votes cast across a wide range of categories, with an additional three 'Critics Choice Awards' determined by Future's senior editorial staff.
This year's 40th anniversary show will be a bonanza of gaming goodness, and fans will vote across 18 categories including 'Best Studio' and the much-coveted 'Ultimate Game of the Year'. The public voting opens here on Friday October 7.
There are two new voting categories this year, to better-reflect the changing landscape of gaming. One is 'Best Game Trailer', while with the other it was felt long overdue that the Golden Joysticks recognise a unique element of contemporary PC gaming. So there's now the 'Best Early Access Launch’ award: it's a year too late for Valheim to scoop it up, but this is intended to give some love to the many brilliant games that now choose this route for development and launch.
The winners will be revealed in an all-digital extravaganza on November 22 and broadcast on all streaming platforms. As well as the gongs, the show will feature new trailers and exclusive content throughout. To keep up with the Golden Joysticks 2022, follow the Twitter or Facebook accounts, and the full list of categories this year follows:
- Studio of the Year
- PC Game of the Year
- PlayStation Game of the Year
- Xbox Game of the Year
- Nintendo Game of the Year
- Best Multiplayer Game
- Still Playing
- Best Audio
- Best Storytelling
- Best Visual Design
- Best Indie Game
- Best Game Expansion
- Best Game Community
- Best Gaming Hardware
- Best Early Access Launch
- Best Game Trailer
- Most Wanted
- Ultimate Game of the Year (voting opens separately, for this award only, on November 7)
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Dream, one of the world's best known Minecraft players, finally revealed his face to the internet yesterday. The content creator has been known online for many years as a wide smiling drawing of a face, attached to a body wearing a green hoodie, which of course raised many questions about his true identity. That was Dream's thing for many years, and even friends he collaborated with didn't know the true identity of their mate. Now that's all changed.
Over a million people on YouTube waited to see what Dream looked like. In the 48 hours leading up to the reveal, Dream called content creators who filmed their reactions to seeing his face for the first time. From TinaKitten to HasanAbi, hundreds of thousands of people liked and reacted to these teasing promo videos, each one hinting at what he might look like. Hasan did this live on stream and said he thought he was going to be "worse looking". KSI joked that Dream was actually Black though we all knew that wasn't the case from Dream showing at least small amounts of his body over the years. Wilbur Soot laughed about how good his hair looked. Big content creators got calls from Dream, elevating this from just a face reveal to the YouTube event of the year.
Millions of likes in total, hundreds of thousands of retweets and piles of comments waiting to see what this YouTuber looked like. The pressure mounted, and fans waited with bated breath. This man with millions and millions of views on every Minecraft video, known for both the good and the bad (specifically his Minecraft cheating scandal), was about to show everyone what he looked like finally. The video went up, and people pressed play.
And Dream was just a normal dude.
Anonymity made Dream. Anonymity gave this perfectly normal guy a reason to be mysterious and distant when his appearance would never have suggested that. He's got brown hair, green eyes, and a pleasant demeanour. Actually, and probably predictably, his camera presence is awkward. In this video he sits kind of tilting his face in a way that looks uncomfortable to the camera. Who amongst us wouldn't be trying to make sure our best angle was shown on screen after years of hiding, especially when people want you to be attractive because of all the fanart viewers have created.
Dream is just a dude who made it big through creating original, interesting content on one of the biggest games of all time. That's it! He's physically a normal human like anyone else, like you or me. Good for him that he's out there but his success has driven home a point for me. Anonymity, not just for Dream, but for other content creators, is one of the most powerful tools out there.
Quite recently, a lesser known (but still extremely successful creator) called ShrodingerLee did a face reveal too. He was known for his Valorant content, good voice, and even jokingly flirting with creators he played which made this another guy that the internet had to know the face of. He recently revealed he was also just a decently attractive dude who liked games, and had made it big by (among other things) being mysterious and coy.
DREAM!!!!! pic.twitter.com/iOZtFq3g4tOctober 2, 2022
See moreAnd who can forget CorpseHusband. The music artist suddenly found himself in the middle of the Among Us content creation infatuation because his voice was unlike anything anyone had ever heard. Deep and sexy, his music and all his content hinged on his low vocal range and quietly aloof attitude. He is yet to do a face reveal but that hasn't stopped the internet trying to discover his identity and, with Dream's reveal, memes about Corpse doing one next arose.
Another creator, by the name of Technoblade, was also anonymous during his career. Like Dream, Technoblade was a Minecraft YouTuber but sadly he passed away at the age of only 23. His real name and identity was only revealed in his farewell message to his fans and, in that case, it felt like Technoblade's parting gift to those who supported him and his videos. Though the circumstances couldn't have been worse, showing who he was to his fans finally let them in on what felt like the streamer's master plan, and allowed his family to celebrate his successes publicly. On the other hand, when Technoblade was diagnosed with cancer and it affected his life, he had the privacy to deal with that in his own time away from the ever watchful eyes of the internet.
Really the best thing a creator can now be is anonymous. Perhaps it's more of a male content creator thing, as fan girls seem to often perpetuate the mystery with fanart, unapologetic stanning videos, and fantasy situations. But the point stands that no one knowing what you look like can be one of the most advantageous things about certain content creators right now. And that's both a great thing for those who don't want to be seen, and kind of terrible for Dream right now.
Met @Dream today and saw his face. Nice guy
(Pardon the quality. But also lowkey he's in the middle of one of the most interesting social media campaigns I've ever seen) pic.twitter.com/HZOEa9lCZ3October 2, 2022See moreHe wanted to live his life a little more normally, which is why he did the reveal. Content he wanted to film with friends wasn't possible without the reveal happening so he finally relented and showed everyone who he really was. And I can't lie, I'd hate to be in his position right now. Lots of people who want those tasty Twitter interactions are making fun of his appearance, even going so far as to joke about him putting the mask back on—undoing the reveal.
Dream is a normal dude when his online persona was so much more than just normal. The illusion of him being a supermodel, unusual, or perhaps a god amongst men is gone. He really is just a guy you'd see on the street. And that's exactly what everyone should have expected.
Anonymity has given a select handful of creators the ability to be one of the best-known names on the internet while living a normal life. Their talent and work can be appreciated by the masses without being inconvenienced by the fame. I can imagine it's not always great, as there are lots of opportunities you have to turn down as a result but eventually, like Dream, people can reveal themselves when they're ready.
It's probably harder to become a successful content creator without using your face. Human brains like to see faces so, without them in thumbnails looking wide-eyed and shocked as most do, it can be hard to get noticed. But once a creator has some traction, the mystery of anonymity has the power to skyrocket an ordinary person to incredible heights of internet fame and intrigue. You can theoretically be whatever the audience wants you to be, for however long you want. And that may be the most powerful thing a content creator can offer.
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Six years after its launch, No Man's Sky has nearly reached another milestone, version 4.0. This comes as Hello Games' galactic sandbox prepares to expand onto yet another platform, Nintendo Switch, on October 7.
A Switch debut may not feel planet-shaking to longtime players on PC, but the 4.0 update will bring a number of changes to No Man's Sky no matter what platform you play on. And while this update might not look as dramatic as the addition of living ships or ridable sandworms or cosmic whales, there's still a lot to it.
"People are arriving, new players, and we sort of want to tidy up our house," Sean Murray said when we chatted over Zoom about the 4.0 update last week. One of the concerns for Hello Games was not just how the game will appear to new players on Switch but to returning players on PC who may have been away for a while, potentially even years.
"Something I see online occasionally, people will say, 'I like the game, but it feels overwhelming to come back,'" said Murray. "And I want [both new and returning players] to say 'This makes sense. This feels cohesive, and it doesn't feel like a bunch of disparate updates.'
"And so we dug into that a lot. If you come back to the game [in 4.0] there's actually a log where you have a summary of the story so far," Murray said. "We have an info portal that will collect together everything that you've done so far, everything you've unlocked, all of that, and give you more info on it, so that you can dig into it."
Longtime players who may feel like they've accomplished everything will find a new source of motivation in update 4.0. While No Man's Sky doesn't have level caps, it does have features like journey milestones that track everything from alien encounters to combat stats to time spent on planets with extreme weather. These milestones have been expanded in 4.0, giving players new goals to aim for. Inventory has been "streamlined" to make it easier for new players, but Murray said it's "also massively increased," so players who have unlocked the maximum amount of storage slots will be able to acquire even more.
And there's a new game mode in 4.0, called "relaxed" mode, which will give players the sandbox experience of No Man's Sky but with less of a focus on survival. Murray thinks it will be a good mode for new players to start with but he also hopes it appeals to longtime players who have played in normal or survival extensively but "just want to chill out" while continuing to progress forward. Relaxed mode won't have the challenge of normal or survival mode, but it won't unlock everything the way creative mode does.
"I don't want to oversell it and say it's a reimagining of the game or anything like that. But it is a different balance of survival sandbox," Murray said. Players will be able to swap existing saves into the new mode, and swap back if they decide they don't like it.
Survival mode itself, meanwhile, has been revisited to provide a greater challenge. "Over time, as you got better at the game and leveled up, it stopped being as difficult, so we've also revisited that and actually crank the survival element way higher."
Maybe most importantly, No Man's Sky 4.0 will give players control over the balance of the game themselves. "If you want to dial [the challenge] slightly differently, if you want to have permadeath in relaxed game mode, or whatever it is, you can do those things," Murray said. "You can change a ton of things to do with controls, a ton of things to do with difficulty, survival, crafting, you know, you can balance those your own way."
No Man's Sky update 4.0 will coincide with the game's launch on Nintendo Switch, which is happening later this week on October 7.
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MissMikkaa is an absolute machine. While most spend their time trying to beat Elden Ring under ordinary circumstances, she's been doing things differently. Not only has she previously beaten the game with one hand and started a level one run of the game with a goddamn dance pad, but she's also now managed to use it to defeat one of the game's most formidable foes.
Yep, MissMikkaa has taken down Malenia with a level one character, using nothing more than a dance pad and occasionally the keyboard to recentre the camera. She posted a snippet of the moment to Twitter, saying it took 553 tries over the course of 15 hours.
I DID IT! I killed Malenia LEVEL 1 with a DANCE PAD! It took me 553 tries and over 15 hours. I only used 4 healing flasks on the kill. I CAN'T BELIEVE IT! W pic.twitter.com/Z8jNMUQcXYOctober 2, 2022
See moreThe level of commitment is mighty impressive, and some have even pointed out that it took the streamer fewer attempts on a dance pad than it did for other players using a controller or keyboard and mouse.
As if the kill already wasn't impressive enough, she also revealed that she only needed to use four healing flasks during that attempt. Next on the list is defeating Maliketh, which MissMikkaa spent the rest of her stream heading towards.
As someone who has too little patience and skill to persist with FromSoft's library, I can't help but be in total awe and admiration of MissMikkaa's skills. It's always fun to see the wild peripherals people use to make a game more challenging or entertaining. Earlier this year we saw SuperLouis64—a streamer who is always conjuring up silly and themed controllers—defeat Godrick with a controller made from bananas. My personal favourite of his is perhaps when he played Dark Souls 3 with a Ring Fit controller, and had to jog on the spot to get his character to move.
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World of Warcraft: Dragonflight is set for release on November 28, 2022, and it brings along with it an overhaul to the nearly 18-year-old user interface.
WoW's UI might have looked pretty good when the MMO first launched back in 2004 but it's become a bit of an eyesore in recent years. Of course, this can be easily remedied with the use of WoW addons but these need to be updated often and they can add significant loading times, as well as a drop in performance if you're not careful.
With the introduction of the new—and much more customisable—UI in Dragonflight, it's possible you won't need as many addons to get the look you're after. And as most of the updates are now present in the Dragonflight beta, it seemed like a good idea to find out what it can do.
Move with the times
You notice the UI changes the moment you log in to Dragonflight. Everything looks much cleaner and more compact than it has in the past. Perhaps one of the most obvious differences is the player health bar—it's moved from the upper-left corner to its new home just to the right of your character. This has become the preferred position for players over the years as it lets you keep an eye on your health without having to take your eyes off your character during hectic fights. But up until now, you've needed an addon to move it. The size of the health bar has increased too, which is much better than the tiny sliver of green we're used to seeing with the default UI.
The default Dragonflight UI now shows two action bars stacked, rather than having them run side-by-side across the bottom of the screen. The "bar art" has also been updated and other options such as bags, quest log, character sheet are housed in a far more subtle group in the bottom-right corner.
Image 1 of 3Dragonflight's default UI (Image credit: Blizzard)Image 2 of 3WoW Classic UI. (Image credit: Blizzard)Image 3 of 3Current Shadowlands UI with no addons. (Image credit: Blizzard)You can move pretty much everything you can see using the Edit Mode in the main menu. Some of the individual elements have additional options for resizing too, or the ability to access additional menu options straight from the edit window. You can toggle various elements, such as raid and party frames to adjust their placement and there's even a grid so you can make sure everything lines up. Once you're done moving everything around and have it to your liking, you can save the layout as a profile which can be applied to all characters or just your current one.
That's not all of it though: there is also a fair amount of customisation that isn't immediately obvious. For example, you can consolidate your bags into one large container, and set up a modifier key so you can cast spells on mouseover instead of having to target them directly. You can also make adjustments to the way combat works. "Press and hold casting" lets you continually cast the same spell with one keypress instead of having to repeatedly tap the same key, and the "action combat" option automatically targets enemies in front of you. Pretty neat, huh?
It all adds up
So now that we have an idea of what the Dragonflight UI can do, I decided to see how close I could get it to my current Shadowlands set-up. The results are actually pretty close as you can see in the comparison below.
The most obvious difference between the two is the player health bar. In the Shadowlands version, I'm using ElvUI—that's also what's giving me the Titan Panel-style bar at the top. In the third screenshot, I've added the Weakauras and Plater addons to the Dragonflight UI.
Image 1 of 3Dragonflight UI (no addons). (Image credit: Blizzard)Image 2 of 3My current Shadowlands UI with addons. (Image credit: Blizzard)Image 3 of 3Dragonflight UI with Plater and Weakauras installed. (Image credit: Blizzard)As far as looks go, the new UI is pretty sleek but there are still plenty of addons that either work behind the scenes or have become accepted as part of a good set-up. To name the most obvious, Deadly Boss Mods, Weakauras, or a damage meter aren't likely to be replaced any time soon, and if you really like the customisation that ElvUI offers, there's nothing saying you have to get rid of that either.
Of course, your addon usage will come down to how you like to spend your time in Azeroth—if you regularly raid or run mythic plus dungeons, then you're likely to use a lot more than someone that collects mounts. Even so, I don't think we'll be moving away from addons anytime soon, but Dragonflight's big UI update certainly gives us more options for customisation than we've ever had before.
Dragonflight feels like a great time to take stock of the addons you use and cut out the ones that really aren't pulling their weight. Even if you cut one or two of them, you'll give more breathing space to those that you do rely on—not to mention it will be better for your overall load times. If you think addons don't have much of an impact on that, try disabling them before logging into the game and see how much faster you load in. You might be surprised.
DDR5-7600 XMP memory is coming to Intel's 13th Gen platform
in Gaming News
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It seems like just about every other day we get word of ever higher DDR5 memory speeds. Less than two weeks back I wrote about G.Skill’s upcoming Trident Z5 DDR5-6800 CL32 memory. Impressive though that kit may be, it’s looking like it’s just a tease for what Intel’s 13th Gen CPUs will ultimately be capable of.
Intel has expanded its list of XMP 3.0 supporting memory kits (via Benchlife). The latest kits go all the way up to 7600MHz. Yep, DDR5-7600. The kit in question is made by G.Skill, and validated on Asus’ upcoming Maximus Z790 Apex motherboard. There’s also a 7466MHz kit, also made by G.Skill but this time its been validated on the more worldly Z790 Hero as well as the Apex.
Several other high-speed kits are listed, with Teamgroup, Kingston and Adata all having kits at 7000MHz or beyond. It’s interesting to note that not all of them have 2x16GB capacities. There are several 2x32GB sets that run at a stunning 7200MHz. That’s a good indicator that the 13th Gen memory controller has received an upgrade. None of the fastest kits are validated (not yet at least) on 12th Gen processors.
These very fast modules are likely to make use of second-generation Hynix A-die chips. First generation Micron and Samsung based memory can’t hit those speeds, while the best currently available kits in the 6400MHz to 6600MHz range use Hynix M-die. DDR5 is really getting better all the time. And, it's got many years of development ahead of it.
As the speeds of DDR5 increase, any remaining latency concerns fade into the rear-view mirror. With exceptions, gaming tends to be latency sensitive which is why a good quality DDR4 kit is still perfectly viable, even if it runs at half the speed of DDR5. But as speeds cross the 7000MHz threshold, 7200MHz at C34 all but matches a top spec 3600 C14 set. Though secondary and tertiary timings are still above those of the best DDR4 kits, the real-world differences should be irrelevant. Plus, you get the advantage of having double the bandwidth.
Best DDR5 RAM: the latest and greatest
Best DDR4 RAM: affordable and fast
What we don’t know is the price of these mega kits. DDR5 still carries a price premium over DDR4, and these very fast kits are sure to be very expensive. The 7000MHz+ 2x32GB kits are going to cost a ridiculous amount. Hopefully that won’t last forever as production ramps up, especially with demand set to spike as Ryzen 7000 and 13th Gen upgraders enter the market.
I’m personally looking forward to getting my hands on some of this second generation DDR5. I might not need it, but I sure do want it.
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