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September 22, 2022

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September 22, 2022

Logitech has made a name for itself in affordable PC racing wheels over the years, no more so than with the G29. You might also know its G920. Or the G923. Admittedly, there have been many cranks of the wheel for what's all but the same product over the years—"if it ain't broke, don't fix it"—but I promise you the new driving gear on my desk today are anything but the same old thing respun with a different number attached to it.

The Logitech Pro Racing Wheel and Pro Racing Pedals are a frightfully powerful combination for sim racing. The gear-driven motor system so often found in Logitech's racing wheels is gone. In its stead, the Pro Racing Wheel comes with a direct drive motor that will shake you all the way down to your little racing booties.

Need proof of that? Logitech's Pro Racing Wheel delivers a staggering 11Nm (Newton metres) of torque. That's a massive amount of power to throw behind a racing wheel for a PC. If I hadn't already rigorously stress tested my largely cardboard Ikea desk by standing on it multiple times to reach for something dangerously high up, I'd have suspected it would've ripped it in two by the sheer strength of the wheelbase motor. At the very least, it's more than enough power to ignite that feeling of being behind the wheel of a race car as you throw it nose-first into a corner at high-speed (or perhaps into a barrier).

While there are direct drive wheelbases that can deliver torque in excess of 25Nm, the Logitech Pro Racing Wheel is comparatively powerful in its price bracket. Compared to the Fanatec CSL DD I have to hand, the Logitech's 11Nm appears practically immense next to the Fanatec's baseline 5Nm. However, the Fanatec wheelbase is capable of delivering up to 8Nm torque with a secondary adapter for extra dosh.

Pro Racing specs

Motor: direct drive
Paddles: magnetic gear shift paddles, dual clutch paddles
Wheel: 300mm diameter, removable
Compatibility: PC + PlayStation | PC + Xbox
Mounting: table clamp included, bolt holes for more secure fitting
Pedals: 3-pedal, load-cell brake, hall effect gas/clutch
Price: Pro Racing Wheel - $1,000 / £849| Pro Racing Pedals - $350 / £299

In regards to price, the Fanatec CSL DD 5nm kit is a little cheaper than the Logitech Pro Racing Wheel at $700, or $850 with the beefed up 8Nm boost kit, and it also comes with pedals. Whereas the Logitech G Pro Racing Wheel will set you back $1000, and if you want its excellent pedals as well, you'll have to buy them separately for $350.

I certainly prefer to set up my racing wheel knowing that I'm going to be able to extract all the performance out of it right out of the box, though the Logitech does appear the less flexible option of the two considering its premium cost. There's more wiggle room in the cost of a Fanatec package, depending on what you want out of it.

There are other reasons you might want to consider Logitech beyond a raw power advantage, however.

For starters, the Pro Racing Pedal set is absolutely superb. Yes, it is sold separately, and no it's not exactly cheap. But it's actually quite a good offer for the price. This is a three-pedal set, including two metal plated brake and clutch pedals and a large gas pedal. That's not the best bit, though the inclusion of a clutch pedal as standard is much appreciated. The best bit is that the brake is a load-cell brake, which is something of a must-have feature for a racing sim fan that wants to really mimic the feeling of a race car's brake system. Where a cheaper pedal might measure through travel, alongside a spring to add resistance, a load-cell brake measures via pressure. For that, it is a far closer match to real-life. Trust me, you can feel the difference in action.

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(Image credit: Future)

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(Image credit: Future)

Not only does the Pro Racing Pedals come with a load-cell brake but it also feels superb under foot. The construction of the pedal set is unlike anything else I've used. It's very smartly designed to hide away any cables and make it so it's a simple and quick job to shift the location of each pedal to your preference. You just need to loosen a handful of bolts and you can shift the pedals side to side, which amounts to a quicker and more granular adjustment process than on the Fanatec CSL pedal set.

As I mentioned before, the load cell is the ideal brake system for replicating the feel of a real race car's braking system, but it does come with a stipulation in order to use it effectively: you need to fix or butt it against something to make sure it's secure, as a load-cell brake will require you to hoof the pedal with all your might to engage it.

Why can nobody make it around the first corner?!

While relatively stable by comparison to many of the racing wheels I've tested lately—including those from Thrustmaster, Logitech, and Fanatec—there's really no getting away from the gradual slipping that will happen in some capacity when you put your full weight on the brake pedal. For better results, you'll want to butt the pedal set up against the wall or install it within a larger frame. I went for the former and it worked a treat, though I'm eyeing up a more permanent racing rig solution. Just need to find somewhere to put it first.

Upwards from the pedals, Logitech has paid similar attention to detail in crafting the racing wheel itself. The wheel is fully removable and comes with a quick release so you can feel like the real deal as you disembark your machine at the end of a long and tiring race. Or if you want to throw your wheel away in pure rage because someone smashed into the back of your car for the upteenth time in an online F1 22 lobby and you can't actually believe it's happened again. Why can nobody make it around the first corner?!

Sorry, but it seems even the best racing wheel in the world won't teach you to back off and fight another day.

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(Image credit: Future)

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Anyways, the wheel is available in either PlayStation or Xbox livery. There are only small differences, namely button labels, so you're free to pick your poison. Both work just fine on PC, so PC gamers needn't worry about compatibility, but I've opted for the PlayStation version for this review.

The Pro Racing Wheel comes in at 300mm in diameter, which is on the larger side, though I have found it to be a good fit for a wide range of racing games despite its size. It's certainly very comfortable to use over long periods and for relatively disparate driving experiences: I've been testing across F1 22 and WRC 10, two racing games that couldn't be further from one another, and the wheel is accurate and responsive in both. Though they are actually seeing the wheel as two fundamentally different things.

You see, one of the strengths of buying one of Logitech's more popular racing wheels is that, as they're so popular, they're very widely supported in racing games. With a new wheel like the Pro, there's no longer a fully-functioning preset for your wheel ready and raring to go as you boot a game. That can sometimes mean you just have to make one yourself, as is the case with F1 22, and Logitech has created a very handy webpage that will guide you through the best way to go about it. But in other games, like WRC 10, you will need to engage compatibility mode, or essentially, G923 mode.

A compatibility mode isn't exactly a wild new idea in the world of racing wheels, many wheels offer them, but they are a handy technique to ensure functionality with a wider range of games. Those games that may have once been a complete nightmare to add wheel support to. You're already thinking of Forza, but I'm not going to say it.

I mention compatibility mode because when you read this next part, you should bear in mind that some of the functionality isn't available in G923 mode, though most of the important stuff is.

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The G Pro Wheel is highly customisable. Either through the Logitech G app, or, as I found myself doing most often, via the display on the wheel base itself. From here, it's easy to adjust settings on a per-game basis. You can even set up multiple profiles to keep track of these settings for each game, including options to adjust force feedback, Trueforce feedback, maximum wheel rotation, brake pedal sensitivity, and even what you want to use the second set of paddles on the rear of the wheel. These are stored on the wheel base too.

Speaking of which, this is another of the features that is worth talking about on the Pro Racing Wheel. You have your traditional paddle shifters on the rear of the Pro Racing Wheel but also dual clutch paddles beneath. The gear shifters use a magnetic actuation, which makes for incredibly swift and tactile response, however, the dual clutch paddles are a more gentle actuation. Though that's handy for nailing smoother starts off the line. Though that's only half the story. Via the aforementioned settings on the wheel base, you can set these dual clutch paddles to act as different functions. Perhaps the best use I've found for it is using the clutch paddle as a handbrake in games where that might be required. For someone like me without a dedicated handbrake accessory, this feature is great for nailing drifts (or trying to).

The Logitech Pro Racing kit feels as much a high-end offering in power and performance as it should for the price.

Though as I said before, that awesome customisable paddle functionality is only available if you're opting to run in Pro mode, and not G923 mode. And unfortunately games like Forza and WRC, which I find myself trying to drift in, are better suited to G923 mode. You can try and program your own controls in these games using the Pro mode if you don't mind tinkering for 20 minutes before gaming, however, so don't completely discount your favourite racing games if they're only recommended with G923 mode.

There is so much customisation on offer with the Logitech G Pro Racing Wheel and Pedals and it's all within easy reach. Even the impressive force feedback can be adjusted to better take advantage of the information available to it on a per-game basis, and I'm talking about Logitech's own Trueforce rumble feedback feature here, too.

Trueforce isn't necessarily a reason to buy a racing wheel, but I'll take it when offered. It's effectively a way in which minor, let's say, atmospheric rumbles are picked up from the game engine and translated through the wheel into your hands and arms. It'll change how you perceive driving on a gravel road to smooth asphalt, or if you lose control and veer into grass becoming a very expensive, high-speed lawnmower. You'll feel the difference, and it's a neat effect.

Race on

(Image credit: Future)

Best PC racing wheels : perfect for any circuit.
Best VR headset: which set is right for trackdays?

But I'm impressed with the Logitech G Pro Racing Wheel and Pedals. Not only because of the serious step up in performance that this set offers over Logitech's more popular G923-style models, but also that a direct drive wheelbase and high-quality wheel feels a very obvious step forward for Logitech's racing wheels if done correctly, and Logitech has absolutely done it correctly here. I have no qualms about recommending the Pro Racing Wheel and Pedals for the racing rookie looking to level up their sim experience, or indeed even a more seasoned racer with ageing kit that needs a lick more power.

However, I will say there's still absolutely a place for more modular kits, such as those from the likes of Fanatec. The ability to piece together a racing sim rig over time, starting off with a cheaper, upgradeable unit, does appeal to me on a more practical level, and there's no getting away from the complete Logitech solution's $1,350 price tag all-in. That's a lot of money to drop in one lump sum.

But I wouldn't say you would come away disappointed had you spent that money on this racing wheel. The Logitech Pro Racing kit feels as much a high-end offering in power and performance as it should for the price, and it'll come as no surprise that every detail and every material screams premium, long-lasting quality as we've come to expect from Logitech over the years.

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September 22, 2022

Ever wonder what happens after an action-packed shootout in a movie? Assuming the police don't get there first, you'd have to think that someone gets sent over to clean up the mess, right? Shell casings, dead bodies, bloodstains, you name it—it's all got to go, and in Serial Cleaners it's your job to take care of it.

The game throws you into all kinds of high-intensity scenarios where you need to sort out a crime scene while avoiding the patrolling authorities and other undesirables. The story is depicted through flashback, as the titular cleaners recount their 'glory days' through a filter of 90s cult movie nostalgia. Taking place across iconic era-appropriate settings like old-school arcades, live-audience sitcom sets, and grimy urban locales evoking 90s New York City, Serial Cleaners is a love letter to films from directors like Martin Scorsese, Quentin Tarantino, and the Coen Brothers.

(Image credit: 505 Games)

The homages start on the very first mission, which is set in a drug den inspired by Scorsese's relatively unknown (by the director's lofty standards) Bringing Out the Dead, starring Nicolas Cage. Other stages will give you flashbacks too, such as a certain convenience store that's reminiscent of Kevin Smith's slacker comedy Clerks, and a train station where you need to extract a mobster who's in the process of bleeding out (which may trigger memories of a certain Al Pacino flick that rhymes with 'Crime Don't Pay.')

Wander through the arcade level, meanwhile, and you'll see arcade cabinets adorned with legendary quotes from mistranslated 90s Japanese Arcade games.

'All your attention are belong to us?' Good, then let's proceed.

(Image credit: 505 Games)

It's not just the references that make Serial Cleaners an ode to all that was great about 90s cinema, but the tone of the game. Most of the levels are drenched in moody lighting, splattered with graffiti in the style of Jean-Michel Basquiat, and accompanied by a soundtrack that evokes classic music moments, like the rave in vampiric Wesley Snipes vehicle Blade, or Nine Inch Nails' number in Brandon Lee's The Crow.

Maybe to distance the Cleaners from their grisly night job, or maybe simply because it's fun, the game bases its 90s settings not on reality, but in the super-stylised way we remember them through the golden era of gritty, sharp-talking crime films that existed at this time. To that end, each character in the game is a cool '90s archetype (with the 'Psycho' character Hal being a riff on the hitman Mr. Wrench from Coens' crime caper Fargo).

(Image credit: 505 Games)

Serial Cleaners is almost ready to rewind us back to its faithfully fictionalised version of the 90s. It's not all style without substance either, as at its core this is a stealth game that will push your skills in subtlety to the limit.

Its story, we're told, will be something quite special too, with the kind of twist that would throw even Keyser Soze into a loop. You can grab Serial Cleaners from September 22 on Steam, Epic Games Store, and GOG, as well as all major console platforms. Meanwhile, check out the game's official site and Steam page, and keep up with the latest goings-on at 505 Games through their Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram pages.

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September 22, 2022

She Hulk is the only part of the MCU I'm currently remotely invested in at the moment. Aside from WandaVision, it's one of the few things Marvel Studios has produced that actually reflects how broad superhero comics can be. They are so much more than banter and big monster fights, but that's largely all we get from the MCU. While She Hulk does dabble in these things, it's more Ally McBeal than Avengers, and the result is immensely entertaining. Developers thinking of pitching a superhero game should take note.

As much as I had a hoot web-slinging my way through New-York in Spider-Man and Miles Morales, there's not much to get excited about when it comes to superhero games these days. Crystal Dynamic's take on the Avengers ended up being a disappointing live service affair, and there have been few other notable releases. There are plenty of very simple mobile games filled to the brim with microtransactions, I guess, and the Lego Marvel and DC games continue to be a laugh, though they have settled into a very familiar groove.

(Image credit: Marvel)

Even if we were inundated with them, however, I'm not convinced I'd be that interested. Let's face it: they'd almost all be open-world action games. Like Marvel Studios, game devs and publishers also seem to have a myopic vision of what superheroes are all about. And it's mostly punching stuff. That's why She Hulk is a gift. In the comics, She Hulk does her fair share of superheroics, but the best stuff is always just her being a giant green lawyer. Thankfully, that's also what the show focuses on.

Her lawyer shenanigans are elevated by the fact that she specifically deals with superhuman cases—like an elf scamming another lawyer by pretending to be Megan Thee Stallion—that serve as excellent comedy fodder. The MCU's heroes might spit out a lot of jokes, but the movies and shows still take themselves pretty seriously, which isn't an issue for She Hulk. Last week, her depressing dates with a series of awful dudes became a key component of a legal battle. It's incredibly dumb and it revels in it. Her dating profile, by the way, includes this incredible line: "Mean, green and straight poured into these jeans."

Amid the gags, She Hulk also explores what it's like to simply live as a superhero: what it's like to date, to go out for drinks with friends, to hold down a regular job. Mundane stuff made infinitely more novel because of gamma radiation. These are all fun scenarios that don't involve a giant monster knocking down skyscrapers. And I'm convinced they'd be just as fun to experience in a game—especially when games about driving through mud and snow or unpacking boxes have proved to be so riveting.

(Image credit: Capcom)

The Ace Attorney series serves as a good framework for what a She Hulk game could be like—and not just because there's a dearth of lawyer protagonists in videogames. Part visual novel, part adventure game, and full of courtroom battles, they're exactly the sort of games that fit She Hulk's MO. And like She Hulk, they're far more interested in human drama than the ins and outs of the legal system. I can already see Jen Walters hulked out and screaming "Objection!" or defending superheroes—maybe Squirrel Girl has been accused of robbing supermarkets of all their nuts.

Ace Attorney already has all the ingredients waiting to be lifted, but there are plenty of other genres that could serve as inspiration. The love lives of superheroes is well-trodden territory, but the romances of Captain America, Iron Man and Scarlet Witch are all high drama, doomed affairs. She Hulk's grounded tone, however, gives us dating disasters that are tragic for more relatable reasons, while also exploring what it's like to simply exist as a larger-than-life public figure with a not-remotely-secret dual identity. A dating sim that's really more about the civilian lives of superheroes than finding romance might be a welcome contrast to the usual superpowered brawls.

Since I can't go a day without craving a management game, I'd be up for running a law firm as She Hulk as well. Her comic counterpart's already done it, drumming up business to keep the lights on while occasionally being interrupted by Howard the Duck. I'm not convinced running a regular law firm would be very exciting, but one in a world where alien invasions, time travel and space gods are passé is bound to be a bit more compelling.

(Image credit: Marvel)

There's a lot to work with here that doesn't involve putting on a costume and tangoing with a supervillain, but that doesn't need to be excluded entirely, and could even complement the legal fights or management wrinkles. Someone from her rogues' gallery is bound to make a nuisance out of themselves at some point, kicking down the door right as she's reading out a will. It just doesn't need to be the character's sole dimension.

She Hulk is perfect for an unconventional superhero game because, at least in the show, she's specifically trying to live a mostly normal life and not join Avengers or get involved in cataclysmic battles over the fate of the planet. If superhero games are to be liberated from the shackles of open-world punchfests, she's the hero to do it.

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September 22, 2022

This week the emote that started it all turns 40. Scott Fahlman, a professor at Carnegie Mellon, explains how the emoticon came to be on September 19, 1982. Unsurprisingly, it was because people were getting into fights online.

According to his post on the university website, in the early '80s, the Carnegie Mellon Computer Science community was really into bulletin boards—what would be referred to these days as internet forums—to talk to each other about a wide range of topics. Falman noticed that some sarcastic or humorous posts would be taken seriously and lead to lengthy angry exchanges, which would deviate from the original topic.

Of course, nothing like that ever happens on the internet of today. Never. =/

This led the professor and others to figure out ways "to explicitly mark posts that were not to be taken seriously." Anyone who has ever gotten into an argument online with someone who fails to pick up on a joke could probably sympathize.

As Fahlman puts it, "After all when using text-based online communication, we lack the body language or tone-of-voice cues that convey this information when we talk in person or on the phone."

So this is what he came up with:

I propose that the following character sequence for joke makers:

:-)

Read it sideways. Actually, it is probably more economical to mark things that are NOT jokes, given the current trends. For this, use

:-(

happy birthday :-) pic.twitter.com/ArUfGZqjinSeptember 19, 2022

From then on, users on the bulletin boards started posting their own text-based variations of the smiley face, like a smiley face with glasses or a Santa Clause. Since this was the '80s, this was all these ASCII-based computers could handle. This would then evolve into the smiley faces emojis we use daily when we talk to each other over the years. As it turns out, Falman isn't the biggest fan of current-day emojis, calling them "ugly" in an interview with HuffPost.

Some would argue that using emoticons has harmed how we communicate with each other despite being around forever. To some extent, Falhman agrees but points out that "not all people who post on boards have the literary skill of Shakespeare or Twain, and even those luminaries had bad days" and that "we’re talking here about casual writing on the Internet, not great works printed in one-way media that relatively inaccessible to the general public."

So the next time you use =p at the end of a sarcastic text. You now know who to thank.

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September 22, 2022

The latest great documentary from BBC Earth is Frozen Planet 2, focusing on how life survives and even thrives in the coldest parts of Earth. As has been the case with BBC Earth's documentaries for many years now, it examines how climate change is upsetting the existing balance in these fragile ecosystems, the damage humanity has already done to such environments, and how nature is adapting (or not) to such conditions.

As you can probably tell I'm a bit of a junkie for BBC Earth shows: they're the best-of-the-best when it comes to showing the extraordinary beauty and extremes of our home. Part of BBC Earth's drive now is spreading the message of its shows, and so to coincide with the weekly release of Frozen Planet 2 episodes, it has collaborated with the Minecraft Education Edition team to produce five Minecraft 'episodes' that will release alongside the shows.

Minecraft is a neat fit for this not only because of its enormous reach, but because it's fundamentally a survival game. Available now is the Frozen Worlds map, in which players can take on the role of three creatures featured in the first episode of Frozen Planet 2: a polar bear, a killer whale, and the Lapland bumblebee.

"Submerge yourself in icy waters and learn how killer whales hunt as a pack for their prey as you play as their matriarch," writes Mojang's Sophie Austin. "Take to the skies as a special Lapland bumblebee, and discover how these resilient creatures gather nectar in such a harsh landscape. You can even play as a polar bear protecting her cubs across swathes of thick ice!"

The content shows players some of the challenges such magnificent animals face, albeit through the blocky and cute lens of Minecraft. Four more maps are releasing weekly until October 18, which will feature forest and mountainous biomes as well as one simply described as "vast continents of ice". Other creatures coming include a walrus, an Amur leopard, a golden eagle, a chinstrap penguin and… a human being. Yep, at one point you'll get to roleplay as a member of the BBC Earth documentary crew.

The maps are of course free, and can be downloaded from the marketplace here.

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September 22, 2022

After years of making fans suffer, Ubisoft finally announced in December 2021 that Splinter Cell is, seriously and for real, coming back in a full remake that it promised will accommodate the "refined palate" of modern gamers. Courtesy of a Ubisoft Toronto job listing spotted by PlayStation Universe, we've now got a slightly better idea of what that means.

Rather than a straight-up remaster of the original Splinter Cell, producer Matt West said when the remake was announced that developers are "[re]building it from the ground up" while trying to ensure that "the spirit of the early games remains intact." A visual overhaul is obviously in the cards—sorry to tell you this but Splinter Cell is 20 years old—and some design elements are also being redone "to match player comfort and expectations."

"We’re going to be straddling the line between the spirit of the old and the comfort of the new, so that we can excite and surprise new players but also make sure that when our returning players pick up the controller, they have that sigh of relief, saying, 'Ahhh, they got it'," West said at the time.

But along with updates to technology and accessibility, the job listing for a Splinter Cell scriptwriter indicates that the story is also going to be extensively rejiggered.

"Using the first Splinter Cell game as our foundation we are rewriting and updating the story for a modern-day audience," it states. "We want to keep the spirit and themes of the original game while exploring our characters and the world to make them more authentic and believable. As a Scriptwriter at Ubisoft Toronto, you will join the Narrative team and help create a cohesive and compelling narrative experience for a new audience of Splinter Cell fans."

It's been a long time since I played Splinter Cell so I can't say I recall any aspect of the game that leaps out as being in immediate need of change. But the world itself has changed over the past couple of decades, and Splinter Cell's complicated mix of ex-Soviet strongmen and Chinese renegades (and the inherent jingoism of Tom Clancy's worldview in general) probably wouldn't go over with a broad audience of gamers now as well as it did in 2002. Nor, for that matter, would it make a hell of a lot of sense: Georgia, the country at the center of Splinter Cell, was an independent nation in 2002 but has been under partial Russian occupation since a 2008 invasion.

An updated story is fine by me. I don't consider the original Splinter Cell narrative to be such a classic of storytelling that it needs to be preserved in amber for all eternity. What I am somewhat hung up on is the possibility (likelihood?) of a new voice actor for the lead character. Michael Ironside embodied Sam Fisher to perfection in my ears, and I'm just not sure I can accept anyone else in the role. (And yes, I brought this up when the remake was announced, too. I am very serious about it.)

But that's a far-off concern for now. There's still no indication of a release date, and if Ubisoft is still in the process of nailing down the story, I expect it'll be quite a while yet before we hear anything solid.

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September 22, 2022

Cyberpunk 2077 will soon get an update that will push its ray tracing to the next level with the introduction of a new Ray Tracing: Overdrive setting. This was announced as part of Nvidia's RTX 40-series launch, as Nvidia used the new mode to show off the frame rate capabilities of its new DLSS 3 tech. That's good news for anyone that enjoys rampaging through Night City, although it's potentially bad news for your graphics card if the native frame rates are anything to go by.

In a video showing off the improvements that DLSS 3 can make to the performance of the game, the native frame rate can be seen hovering just over 20fps. DLSS 3 does make a massive difference here, boosting this up to 98fps, but that still paints a worrying picture if the mighty RTX 4090 barely gets out of the mid-20s without the magic of AI-powered upscaling.

(Image credit: Nvidia)

On the graph showing off the performance of the new cards, Nvidia appears to suggest that the RTX 3090 Ti, you know, the current fastest card around, managed a quarter of the frame rate of the RTX 4090. Yup, you're back at that 21–23fps again. And according to the blurb at the bottom of that graph, that's whilst using DLSS. Gulp.

So what has Nvidia and CD Projekt Red done to punish our graphics cards in this way? They've turned everything up a notch in the ray tracing rendering pipeline. Specifically, you're looking at:

Nvidia RTX Direct Illumination (RTXDI) gives each neon sign, street lamp, car headlight, LED billboard and TV accurate ray-traced lighting and shadows, bathing objects, walls, passing cars and pedestrians in accurate colored lighting.
Ray-traced indirect lighting and reflections now bounce multiple times, compared to the previous solution’s single bounce. The result is even more accurate, realistic and immersive global illumination, reflections, and self-reflections
Ray-traced reflections are now rendered at full resolution, further improving their quality
Improved, more physically-based lighting removes the need for any other occlusion techniques

The full-resolution ray-traced reflections are particularly welcome, as that's something that is obvious and jarring even using the psycho rendering mode in the current game. From the short video at the top of the story, it certainly looks like an impressive update.

Hopefully, this will arrive before the Phantom Liberty expansion drops as well, although that isn't due until some time in 2023. We'd imagine the Overdrive patch will launch close to the GeForce RTX 4090 being unleashed on October 12.

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September 22, 2022

Solium Infernum was a turn-based strategy phenomenon back in the early 2010s. Instead of taking the fight to the usual strategy arenas—historical battlefields, high fantasy landscapes, intergalactic colonies—it had a gaggle of archfiends vying for supremacy in a John Milton/Dante-inspired Hell. It was developed in Adobe Director by Vic Davis, a legend of the tabletop scene whose primary work is with board games, and who has since retired from game development. In an interview with Game Developer in 2010, Davis bravely announced that he wanted to "make games that drive away 90 percent of the player base out there."

An extremely noble undertaking, and one that has seen his legend grow among fans of richly complicated political strategy sims. Now, 12 years later, Armello studio League of Geeks has announced a ground-up "re-imagining" of Solium Infernum. In addition to throwing off the shackles of Adobe Director graphical austerity, the League of Geeks project will "take some liberties" while also adding much more modern multiplayer functionality.

Here's how it used to look: