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Domina has been delisted from Steam after its developer—Dolphin Barn Incorporated—once again used the game's patch notes as a political soapbox, this time to post a transphobic screed. Visitors to Domina's Steam page will find a notice stating, "At the request of the publisher, Domina is no longer available for sale on Steam" in place of the usual option to purchase the game.
Judging by SteamDB records, Domina was removed sale about 12 hours ago, seemingly in response to the game's 1.3.25 patch notes titled, "We're Out of Ideas, Mentally Unstable, Totally Degenerate, & Desperate for Clout - Lets Pretend We're A Completely Different Game to Regain Relevance!" The notes are, in essence, an extended joke about deadnaming: the transphobic act of referring to a trans person who has changed their name by the name they were assigned at birth.
It seems that this was the final straw for Valve, which had already banned Domina's dev from the game's Steam forums once before. In a post on Gab, a Twitter alternative popular with neo-Nazis, QAnon conspiracy theorists, and other members of the far-right, Domina's creator posted a screenshot which appeared to show a message from Valve terminating its relationship with the game and its developer.
Valve's message read, "A recent announcement posted to the Domina community hub includes insults targeting another person," referring to allegations and insults the dev made toward Keffals, a trans Twitch streamer who is currently in hiding from a harassment campaign which recently had her swatted. The message stated that Valve had previously made it clear to the developer that future rule violations would "jeopardize [the] future relationship" between Dolphin Barn and Valve. With that in mind, Valve concluded that it would be "ending [its] business relationship with 'Dolphin Barn Incorporated' and removing all associated products from sale".
I've reached out to Valve for comment and will update if I hear back.
In the post accompanying the screenshot, Domina's creator denounced the game's delisting using a homophobic slur, and accused Valve of placing him in poverty immediately before saying Domina brought Valve founder Gabe Newell "millions in revenue". The dev has not said if he has any further plans for the game; later posts on his Gab are dedicated to attacking Valve and non-binary journalist and streamer James Stephanie Sterling, who recently made a video about this whole situation.
Ideally, this would be the end to this too-long and sorry saga. Domina was once a fairly well-regarded game with a decent user review score, but ever since its creator began using its patch notes as a platform to rant against "weak men," masturbation, and later masks and trans people, its fall into ignominy has been swift. It feels unlikely that this is the last we'll hear of Domina's developer, though, he appears to have too much of a taste for the spotlight.
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Everyone wants to know when Fortnite Chapter 3 Season 4 is set to release, and by everyone, I mean people who play Fortnite. This past Vibin' season has been a pretty chill time, with some fun crossovers with Dragon Ball and more recently with Destiny 2. But with only a few weeks left until the new season, players are wondering what's in store.
As stuff shifts across the island, thanks to the Reality Tree, chances are we might see things come to a head with a big event and the map changing into something fresh for Season 4. While there's no official news, there are a few details that can be drummed up through leaks and rumoured crossovers. Here are all the Season 4 rumours so far.
Fortnite Chapter 3 Season 4: When is it likely to release?
While Epic have yet to announce an official release date, the Season 3 battle pass is set to end on September 17, which makes it likely that the Fortnite Season 4 battle pass will launch just after. This should make the Fortnite season 4 release date September 18, but that's not for certain right now. There could be delays or events that push the date back, but make sure to check back soon for updates.
Fortnite Chapter 3 Season 4: What to expect
(Image credit: Epic)
Fortnite Season 4 is still largely a mystery, but a few details have surfaced around what's on the way. One of the biggest is that, according to multiple leakers, Spider-Gwen is coming to the Season 4 battle pass. It'd make sense considering the recent Marvel x Fortnite: Zero War comic book series and the continuing crossovers that they are working on together. Apparently, Miles Morales will also be available later in the season. Hopefully, he brings his little orange cat buddy with him.
BREAKING: GWEN WILL BE IN THE SEASON 4 BATTLE PASS!This information was posted independently by multiple leakers such as @HYPEX, @FNBRintel, and @MidaRado.After investigating this rumor, I can also confirm that she will be in the Battle Pass. pic.twitter.com/vuBmMiSy0BSeptember 1, 2022
See moreThe second leak, shared by iFireMonkey, comes in the form of a promo image that was added to the eShop version of Fortnite. The teaser shows a hand reaching out of what looks to be some kind of metallic liquid. iFireMonkey confirms below the initial tweet that the hand seems to belong to a remixed version of the character The Paradigm—one of The Seven whose identities have largely remained a mystery.
Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson was revealed as the first of the Seven, The Foundation, and it's been rumoured that Brie Larson is likely to appear as The Paradigm, lending her likeness and voice to the character in much the same way. We don't know much about the character, but it seems like the new season will involve her heavily.
As spotted by you guys, the hand in the image Nintendo posted is the same hand design as the remixed Paradigm. pic.twitter.com/yzBnKthIxsSeptember 1, 2022
See moreFinally, there are rumours that a Lady Gaga in-game concert is on the way. The speculation started a long while back due to leaked court documents that revealed Ariana Grande, Naruto, and Lady Gaga were coming to the game. The rumour has resurfaced due to the leak of a new synced emote featuring her song Poker Face being added in a future patch. Lady Gaga is also featured as part of the upcoming Rainbow Royale LGBTQIA+ event, and her songs will play on in-game radios. A future concert might arrive in Season 4, but there's no way to be certain right now.
A new "synced emote" featuring Lady Gaga's "Poker Face" will be added to FORTNITE in the upcoming patch. pic.twitter.com/ie9VNEaswNAugust 30, 2022
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There is a picture posted on Twitter showing an alleged RTX 4080 graphics card, which looks for all the world like it's sporting the oversized shroud of the RTX 3090 Founders Edition. That means it's big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to the RTX 3090.
I remember this happening prior to the release of the RTX 30-series cards—where pictures of the FE cards spilled out of the factories where they were being put together, and Jacob and I spent hours poring over them trying to discern whether they were Photoshopped or not. They looked so damned big they couldn't be real.
But it was the RTX 3090 design that was pictured and, when it finally landed on my doorstep ahead of launch, it really did look for all the world like some novelty sized graphics card. And it still does. Every time I look inside my PC it makes me giggle at the absurdity of its scale.
And now the RTX 4080 is supposedly running to the same size. I can't quite make out whether the bracket is for a dual- or triple-slot card, but other than that they look exactly the same scale.
So, if this is indeed a genuine image of a new RTX 4080 retail-ready card then we're going to need some bigger PC cases to cope with the scale of the new cards.
I dread to think just how vast the RTX 4090 might end up being. It's also going to mean the small form factor gaming PC crowd is going to be completely left behind by Nvidia's top RTX 40-series cards.
As I said, I scoffed at the leaked RTX 30-series cards, and thankfully the enormous triple slot Founders Edition shroud was limited to the RTX 3090, and the RTX 3080 came out as a far more svelte design. And I'm really hoping this leaked image is either a fake, or some test platform for the RTX 40-series that's been created to provide the new Ada Lovelace GPUs as much cooling as they could need while they're being put through their paces, and the specs finalised.
RTX 3090FEによく似ている。 pic.twitter.com/Q8vq7c7FJ6September 1, 2022
See moreYour next upgrade(Image credit: Future)Best CPU for gaming: The top chips from Intel and AMD
Best gaming motherboard: The right boards
Best graphics card: Your perfect pixel-pusher awaits
Best SSD for gaming: Get into the game ahead of the restWe've seen rumoured specs change month-by-month and if Nvidia is playing around with different configurations it makes sense to use an existing shroud that has ample thermal performance to cope with a wide range of different power and temperature demands. It would also make sense, given the inevitability of such leaked images, to have these test cards in non-release designs.
We still don't have any concrete news about the new Nvidia RTX 40-series cards, with the expectation that Jen-Hsun is going to reveal something official at the GTC keynote on September 20. That may just be the launch timing of the flagship RTX 4090 card, as rumours suggest team green is holding back the full suite of cards until next year while it tries to clear out the excess inventory in the channel.
I've still got to hope that isn't the case and that we get more than just the RTX 4090 and a single Navi 31 GPU from AMD this side of the new year. But that hope is getting fainter by the day.
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I credit the original Assassin's Creed games as one of the series that really got me into gaming. I had dabbled in all sorts of titles previously but when I started taking gaming seriously, I turned to the preowned section of UK retailer GAME. It was here that I could buy quite a few titles with the little pocket money I was getting, and the AC series was readily available so I binged them all up to Assassin's Creed 3 pretty quickly.
I loved these games. They had great stories, just enough collectables to keep me entertained and eventually even a multiplayer mode which I still mourn the loss of. But now, Assassin's Creed isn't really Assassin's Creed, is it? Those with the knowledge of the series will understand what I mean, as the games underwent quite the transformation after Syndicate. The games up until then were stealth games with action elements. Syndicate tested out the brawling style of combat with Jacob Frye, while Evie's style was more traditionally assassin-like, and then Ubisoft went off the deep end with combat systems. The next three games Origins, Odyssey, and Valhalla are almost indistinguishable from their stealthy cousins. Loud and angry, running into a fight screaming was basically encouraged.
There is a bit of a divide within fans (and even within PC Gamer) of which version of Assassin's Creed is better and I'm firmly on the side of stealth. Origins, Odyssey, and Valhalla are all good games but to me they're not really Assassin's Creed games. And that means I feel like I haven't had a proper AC experience in years. I miss being an assassin, and Ubisoft's unfortunate leaks and subsequent reveal of Mirage is giving me so much hope that I can be a sneaky little 'frack' once again.
Assassin's Creed Mirage is the next Assassin's Creed game.We can't wait to tell you more on September 10 at Ubisoft Forward: 9PM CEST | 12PM PT. #AssassinsCreed pic.twitter.com/92LoEcrrWsSeptember 1, 2022
See moreUbisoft has confirmed that the next Assassin's Creed will be Mirage, a game set in Baghdad starring Basim Ibn Ishaq, a character we meet in AC Valhalla. It's rumoured to have originally started as Valhalla DLC but obviously has been spun out into its own experience, with old AC flavourings. Just one official image has been released by Ubisoft but it's already so much more reminiscent of the original games as Basim launches himself and his hidden blade at an unsuspecting group of guards.
Alongside the rumours of Mirage, before the confirmation of the new game from Ubisoft, came whispers of an Assassin's Creed 1 remake. I'm harsh on that game now as it's a slog but to give it credit, it was the blueprint for what the series became. I've been hoping for a remake and there is quite a lot of evidence to suggest it could arrive with Assassin's Creed Infinite, Ubisoft's big upcoming release which will probably act as a portal to all its AC experiences. And I cannot wait for Assassin's Creed to be Assassin's Creed again.
Pretending to be a religious man by slowly tailing a group of monks through heavily monitored areas. Hay stacks proving the best cover and the best place to hide a body. Slinking up to an enemy as if you're just another person in the crowd before one flick of your wrist ends their life while they're still standing up.
(Image credit: Ubisoft)Lauren Aitken's take(Image credit: Ubisoft)I am a big fan of running into a fight screaming, especially as Eivor, bashing anyone in my path with a hammer. I fell out of love with Assassin's Creed after 3, with the pirate game being such a janky mess on my PS3 that I stopped playing any AC games completely. Odyssey lured me back in with Kassandra, but it still wasn't clicking with me properly until Valhalla. I'll be honest: all I wanted was a viking game and Valhalla delivers exactly that. And playing Valhalla made me realise that all the actual Assassin's Creed lore—the modern day stuff, not the historical settings—was what I truly loathed about the series. Admittedly, I am not thrilled that we'll be playing as Basim in the next game as he was a proper wee dick, but he's one hell of an assassin. I have to echo Imogen's words here and agree that, even roleplaying as a sexy viking lady, sneaking up and stabbing people in the neck with my hidden blade was almost as much fun as spartan kicking them off walls. Also, yeah: 'frell' using a bird to scope things out.
Being an assassin felt so incredibly powerful, elegant and almost effortless. If you ended up having to engage with a lot of combat, it wasn't because the game was forcing it on you—you probably just messed up your sneaky plan. You keep your eyes out for options, opportunities, the cycles of NPCs leaving you a gap to get where you want, when you want.
Assassin's Creed was at its best when it was you holding your breath in a crowded room, trying to make your way to your intended target without drawing attention. It was at its best when you really had to think of the best way through a stately home or out of a prison. Assassin's Creed was at its best when you didn't rely on a flipping hawk. Like I said, I think the more recent games are great but they're so removed from the original concept I'm missing the old games like an old friend.
Mirage, I hope, is a return to form. I don't need the world to be huge and sprawling. I know people like PCG's Lauren Aitken are far more into that version of the series, but I want compact nail biting adventures instead.
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It's pretty much tradition at this point that every new FromSoft game has to be beaten by ever more absurd means. Bongos, bananas, a guitar: any device capable of being hooked up to a PC and sending inputs will eventually be put to use fighting the Nameless King. This is an iron law of the universe.
Elden Ring is no exception: recently we heard of a streamer—MissMikkaa—completing a level one All Remembrance run using just one hand. Well, Eurogamer alerts us that she's now graduated to playing the entire game on a dance pad, thereby proving that most of the limbs we have dangling off our bodies are surplus to requirements.
It's not a perfect setup. Inexplicably, FromSoft didn't design Elden Ring to be played this way, so MissMikka occasionally has to intervene with her hands to recentre the camera, but all in all it seems to be going quite smoothly. It might actually be easier to play the game this way than with just the one hand, since at least you can multitask when you have two legs to work with.
MissMikkaa has already beaten a rogue's gallery of the game's bosses and made her way deep into the world map, so it seems unlikely that anything will end the run apart from the Elden Beast meets ignominious defeat in a series of foot-taps. If you want to be present when that happens, you can find MissMikkaa's run over on her Twitch page.
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You'll find today's Wordle answer right here, safely tucked away behind a handcrafted hint for the September 2 (440) challenge and accompanied by a range of general tips and tricks to help make sure your daily puzzling goes as smoothly as possible.
Finding just one yellow in two guesses is…not great. But it's also a good reminder that knowing what isn't in the answer can be—if I stop panicking for a minute and really think about this—just as helpful as knowing what is in the answer too.
Wordle hint
Today's Wordle: A hint for Friday, September 2
Today's answer can be a feeling as well as a solid object. In the first case it's a certain nonspecific sensation that makes you feel attracted in a positive way towards someone or something. In the second, these are small decorative accessories often found on bracelets, or some sort of token designed to bring good luck.
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 440 answer?
Let me save your win streak. The answer to the September 2 (440) Wordle is CHARM.
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:
- September 1: FUNGI
- August 31: PRIZE
- August 30: ONSET
- August 29: CHIEF
- August 28: GAUZE
- August 27: RUDER
- August 26: IRONY
- August 25: CLOWN
- August 24: NEEDY
- August 23: WOVEN
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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Welcome to September, a month favored by songwriters and people who like school. It's another fairly chill month for videogames: there are some potential bangers on the release schedule, but nothing with such a broad appeal that it's likely to get everyone talking about it at the same time. September is a month for niches.
Gloomwood is exciting—we sure do love our immersive sims—and Disney Dreamlight Valley is a potential crowdpleaser (Lauren's already spent an hour messing with the character creator). And in fighting games, don't count out Lego Brawls. It may not have the star power of MultiVersus, but it could surprise us. What smashes better than Legos?
Gamescom is over and E3 ended over two months ago, but there are no rules anymore, so this month also comes with a reveal event: Ubisoft Forward, where we're going to see the next Assassin's Creed game, a Valhalla spin-off set in Baghdad called Assassin's Creed Mirage.
More September games
- September 1 — Chenso Club
- September 1 — JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: All Star Battle R
- September 1 — Ooblets
- September 2 — Lego Brawls
- September 6 — Rainbow Six Siege: Operation Brutal Swarm
- September 7 — Trail Out
- September 8 — Roadwarden
- September 8 — Justice Sucks: Tactical Vacuum Action
- September 13 — SCP: Secret Files
- September 15 — Metal: Hellsinger
- September 16 — Melatonin
- September 20 — Soulstice
- September 22 — The DioField Chronicle
- September 22 — Potion Permit
- September 22 — Serial Cleaners
- September 22 — Slime Rancher 2 (early access)
- September 22 — Beacon Pines
- September 22 — Grounded (leaving early access)
- September 27 — Dual Universe
- September 29 — Moonbreaker (early access)
- September ?? — Betrayal at Club Low
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Cleaning up the mess in stealth games can be a real hassle. Nobody wants to waste a precious water arrow washing away blood when you could be using it to put out a torch so you can stab the next guard. Plus you gotta dump the body somewhere it won't be found, and the bathtub already has five corpses in it. Here's the solution: be a vacuum cleaner.
That's the concept of Justice Sucks: Tactical Vacuum Action, an upcoming stealth game where you're a roomba who is also an assassin. Building on a small experimental game developers Samurai Punk released as Roombo: First Blood back in 2019, it combines the sneak-murdering fun of Dishonored with the satisfaction of tidying up.
After you've drenched its pastel-colored world in blood, you can glide across the pools of glistening red gore to wipe them away as effectively as they do on TV. You can even mulch bodies, probably with some kind of attachment that costs an extra $9.99, though it seems to spread even more gore around when you do.
The plot of Justice Sucks is that you're trapped in "the TV dimension", presumably during a marathon of the kind of 1990s action movies where Bruce Willis brutalizes a whole bunch of toughs one at a time. To help you murder your way back to reality, you can summon "your fighting spirit, Sexy McClean", who takes the form of a muscleman from an anime series about hitting people. You can also befriend animals. I've seen plenty of cute videos where a cat rides a roomba, and in Justice Sucks you can weaponize those cats to dismember dudes.
Justice Sucks: Tactical Vacuum Action will be coming to Steam on September 8. The mature content description says it contains "Cartoon Violence", which seems to be another way of saying "you can reduce people to steaks, then eat them".
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Every few months, someone points out that videogame lamps use real electricity, and another round of people go "huh, I guess that's true, isn't it?" It shouldn't be a surprising observation, because of course displaying 3D light sources requires electricity (with caveats), and yet there's an eeriness to the idea. It's slightly strange when virtual worlds seem to cross into the physical world like that. I don't know if there's a term for the phenomenon, so I'll call it "glure," which stands for "game lamps use real electricity." (Be glad I didn't go with "ludolūcēs consonance.")
Battlefield 2042's second season introduces another common glure effect. The culprit is another light source: concussion grenades. Like similar grenades in other games (stun grenades, flashbangs, etc), they turn the screen white to simulate exposure to a bright flash. What makes it a glure is that the brightness of the white screen can over-stimulate the actual player's eyes, causing the virtual flashbang to act like a real flashbang, albeit an extremely weak one. (All you need to know about the real deal is that their brightness is measured in "megacandelas.")
Most things are weak compared to tactical assault weapons, though. A white screen can sting anyone who's playing in a dark room, and sensitivity to light varies. Bright lights can also trigger migraines. For those reasons and I'm sure more, DICE also added a setting to Battlefield 2042's accessibility menu which lets you change the concussion grenades' white light to a black field. It's dark mode for flashbangs, basically. You can see the setting in action in the clip above.
I like it. The whole "videogame lamps use real electricity" thing is hard to avoid, but otherwise, I don't think videogames should be allowed to synchronize with reality too much. Examples of glure may feel like harmless novelties right now, but for how long will that last? We started making fun of "Press F to pay respects" by pressing F to pay our respects to things, and now people unironically press F to pay respects, so if you go back and play Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare today, that scene probably feels more sincere than it used to, which is kind of funny—until one day you sacrifice a fleet of videogame spaceships to win an interplanetary war and all the military commanders start cheering because it turns out it was all real. Not so funny anymore.
The concussion grenades and new setting are among the smallest aspects of Battlefield 2042's second season I could've fixated on, so I appreciate whoever at DICE captured the demonstration clip I asked for. (I'm afraid I didn't have time to unlock the grenade for myself this week.) Aside from a grenade type, the season adds a new map, specialist, guns, and other stuff that I wrote more about here.
A concussion grenade in dark mode. Surprise: it's a black screen. (Image credit: EA) -
Tokyo Game Show is two weeks away, and it may be Konami's most exciting showing at a big gaming event in years. According to Konami's TGS schedule, it has a reveal of a new game planned for September 16. There's a long list of Konami series that deserve a comeback—Metal Gear, Silent Hill, Castlevania, Contra, Suikoden—and according to a report by VGC, we might see one of them on stage at the event.
"One publishing source told VGC that the reveal is likely to be related to a smaller project, rather than Konami’s larger planned revivals for Castlevania, Silent Hill and Metal Gear Solid (the first of which is understood to be furthest along in development)," wrote VGC. Maybe Metal Gear won't be at this show—but accumulating evidence points to Metal Gear's return being a matter of when, not if.
The first three Metal Gear Solid games are almost certainly getting remasters for PC and current consoles. VGC's Andy Robinson first reported in October 2021 that MGS 1-3 are being remastered for release ahead of a full-on remake of Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater. The remasters have been corroborated by Silent Hill leaker Dusk Golem, who wrote on ResetEra this Wednesday:
"The thing I've been a bit teasing of, and I know is 100% true, is Metal Gear Solid 1-3 are getting new Remasters, planned to come to everything, including Steam and consoles. The plan is new remastered versions of Metal Gear Solid 1-3, can buy them separately, but if [you] buy them together as a collection also get Metal Gear 1+2's MSX versions. I've had this confirmed to me more than once from more than one reliable source."
Even if these remasters don't appear at Tokyo Game Show, an announcement seems likely before the end of the year because Konami has essentially teased them already. Last November Konami had to remove Metal Gear Solid 2 and 3 from digital storefronts due to licensing issues with historical archival footage they included. They're still gone, but on July 13 of this year, Konami tweeted "Today marks the 35th anniversary of the #METALGEAR series! Thank you to everyone that enjoyed and celebrated the series so far. We ask for your patience as preparations are underway to make the temporarily removed titles available again."
(Image credit: Konami)Given how long it's taken for Konami to bring back MGS2 and 3, it would make sense to hold off on selling them again until the remastered versions are complete. Both games were originally released for the PlayStation 2 and remastered for consoles in the 2011 HD Collection. A remaster would mark the first time MGS3 has been released on PC.
According to VGC Metal Gear Solid 3 will also be getting a ground-up remake from Virtuos, a Singaporean game company with 15 offices and 3000+ employees across the world. Virtuos has an extensive list of credits for contributions to triple-A games and has contributed to Switch ports for Dark Souls Remastered, Dying Light, and The Outer Worlds, among others.
"Konami’s Japanese bosses are understood to have historically pushed back against most pitches to outsource its key games brands," VGC wrote in 2021. "However, following the disappointing performance of recent in-house titles Metal Gear Survive and Contra: Rogue Corps, VGC’s sources said the company has become more willing to contract outside studios for its major franchises."
Even if you love MGS1's PS1 aesthetic, its PC port could use some modern niceties. (Image credit: Konami)Supposedly a new Castlevania, as well as Bloober Team's Silent Hill, are both in development thanks to Konami's increased willingness to work with more external studios. Given the smoke around Silent Hill earlier this year, it may be the one destined for the TGS stage this month. But in Konami's own words, Metal Gear Solid's coming back. We don't know exactly when or exactly how, but after more than a decade since the (ironically 720p) HD Collection, a new round of remasters feels like as safe a bet as bets come.
Once the first three games are all properly playable on PC, I hope Konami tackles a trickier challenge: figuring out how to extricate Metal Gear Solid 4 from the PlayStation 3's Cell processor and making it playable on hardware from this decade.
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The good news: We've got a new trailer for Men of War 2, the upcoming sequel to the 2009 WW2 RTS Men of War, and it looks pretty good. The bad news: The trailer is here to let us know that the release has been delayed until 2023.
Ironically, given the trailer's focus on the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, developer Best Way said the delay was caused by the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
"The Ukrainian studio Best Way was based in Severodonetsk and had to help its staff and their families relocate after the events of February 24th, 2022, during which period the development was put on hold," the studio said. "Despite this, the Best Way team has eagerly returned to development in the last several months, and with the help of the supportive community of fans surrounding the franchise, already ran several rounds of closed playtests and the participants were satisfied with the combination of classic Men of War gameplay and new features like the Frontline, Direct Control, and much more."
Severodonetsk is located in the Luhansk Oblast, the easternmost region of Ukraine, and was captured by Russian forces in June after being heavily damaged during the battle for control of the Donbas.
Best Way said that player feedback during the tests gave the team ideas to make Men of War 2 "bigger and better than anyone originally imagined," including a standalone campaign for Germany, new missions for the other factions, and an upgraded interface. But it won't be possible to get it done within the original time frame.
"We believe that meeting a deadline should never compromise quality and we are happy that Fulqrum Publishing agreed to give us the time we need to produce a truly great game," Men of War 2 producer Maxim Kamensky said. "Also, this delay provides us with enough time for all the polishing and balancing phases, much needed for a game the scope of Men of War 2. Thanks to our great community for their positive feedback during closed tests—this is very valuable. This extra time will give us a chance to deliver an exceptional experience to the players."
Unfortunately, there's currently not a more specific new launch target than 2023, so we could end up waiting more or less than a year before Men of War 2 arrives—we'll just have to wait and see how it works out. For now, you can follow along with what's happening on the Men of War 2 Discord.
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One of the most successful Twitch streamers has decided that she's not that into it anymore.
In her first video after a month-long break, Imane "Pokimane" Anys said that she will stream less often on Twitch than she has in the past and will focus on posting non-gaming content on other social media platforms like Twitter, TikTok and Instagram. "I feel like other platforms fit into my lifestyle nowadays a little bit better," she said.
The 26-year-old streamer, who started streaming League of Legends in 2013 and is now one of the biggest creators on Twitch, said she's lost her passion for the platform. "I hope it doesn't sound big-headed of me to say, but nowadays when I see things on Twitch, it kinda feels like 'been there, done that,'" she said.
"There's such a pressure on streamers to follow every trend, to capitalize on viewership, to stream longer than the guy next to them…" Pokimane explained. "It's just a hyper-competitive industry. But ultimately, the reason I say this is because I'm just at a point in my life that it doesn't feel creatively fulfilling to feed into that anymore."
It's unclear how the 9.2-million-follower streamer's recently renewed exclusivity contract with Twitch will be affected by her new schedule, but it's probably not a massive hit to her bottom line: In addition to streamer, Pokimane is also the co-founder of successful creator collective OfflineTV, the chief creative officer of the company that co-owns fighting game tournament EVO, and was financially comfortable enough to turn down a $3 million sponsorship deal in 2020.
Pokimane still wants Twitch "to be a part of my arsenal" but wants to avoid the "pressures" of being a full-time streamer. "When I wake up nowadays, I don't want to run to my PC and game for eight hours straight," she said, a sentiment that resembles comments from other career Twitch streamers who cited the struggles of the daily grind when they moved to other platforms.
Twitch recently lifted the ban on streaming to YouTube and TikTok for partnered Twitch streamers, possibly an acknowledgement that creators have to stretch themselves across the multiple platforms to increase their odds of success. According to data leaked from Twitch's internal records last year, only the top 0.015% of its streamers make a livable wage on the platform.
Burnout and waning passion are common reasons for Twitch's most popular streamers taking breaks. Pokimane is fortunate to be able to step back from full-time streaming without fear of losing her audience, but for the millions of people who yearn to reach even a fraction of her success and turn Twitch into a meaningful job, the grind continues.
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Paradox has announced a new species DLC coming to Stellaris on September 20: the Toxoids. The teaser trailer for the new add-on ends with the tagline "The End Justifies the Ruins," and playing as them looks to give bonuses for high-risk, aggressive play that destroys planetary environments for the sake of industry. Basically, you're playing as the bad guys from every sci-fi story. Environmentalist parables? Who needs 'em, we have heavy industry and Toxic Baths.
"Empires featuring the Toxoids species can grow and adapt faster than most creatures," Paradox's announcement reads, "but tend to make life unpleasant for their neighbors—and often for themselves." I can't help but think of the smog-choked Harkonnen homeworld of Giedi Prime from Dune. The species' full mechanical offerings are as follows:
New Origins
- Knights of the Toxic God: In the depths of your homeworld, rumors rumble of a true power buried under the toxic sludge. Do you dare to dredge up the secrets of your past and potentially unleash them upon the galaxy?
- Overtuned: The candle that burns the brightest, burns itself into the galaxy’s memory! Play as a species that can gain more and more traits at the cost of its own lifespan, and live for today without worrying about sticking around for tomorrow!
New Civics
- Toxic Baths: Grow your population fast with a fresh infusion of mutagenic sludge so long as you’re willing to tolerate the costs to your planet and your people!
- Scavengers: One empire’s trash is your empire’s treasure! Don’t be too proud to harvest debris and destruction for quick construction projects of your own.
- Relentless Industrialists: If you’re going to keep up with demand, you’re going to have to learn to ignore all of those petty regulations and negative opinions. The surviving population will thank you for all of the resources you gain!
New Traits
- Incubator: Repopulate quickly when your planet is empty, but those growth facilities can fill up fast!
- Inorganic Breath: Your own people are a source of valuable exotic gasses! It’s a shame the respirators are so expensive.
- Noxious: Other species can’t stand being around you, and it seems like your mere existence is making your planets awful places to live. On the other hand, other empires have a very difficult time wanting to fight or subjugate you, and it’s hilarious to see the look on their faces when you’re in the room!
- Exotic Metabolism: You’ve adapted to ask “are you going to eat that?” where other species would be calling the hazmat team. Eat faster, live longer, and enjoy a terrifying rainbow of flavors!
- New Cosmetics: Species portraits, ship models, and cityscapes that only a mother could love.
- New Advisor: Grow your empire alongside a relentless source of noxious sarcasm!
I'm a sucker for that first origin, Knights of the Toxic God. It sounds like it should be an album by British extreme metal band Slugdge. I also like the sound of "Species portraits, ship models, and cityscapes that only a mother could love." We are leaning fully into the Stinky Empire fantasy. Sometimes you just look at the endless expanse of the cosmos and the goody two shoes Federation types exploring it and want to cover it all in industrial runoff.
The Toxoids species pack is available for pre-order now on Steam, GOG, and the Microsoft Store for $10, and you will be able to destroy all that is beautiful and good in the universe come September 20.
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Ukrainian development studio Frogwares is wrapping up its Kickstarter for Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened with an unusual and controversial promotion: A raffle to have a personalized message written on an artillery shell that will be fired at invading Russian forces in Ukraine.
The Kickstarter campaign, which ends on September 3, is already a runaway success, having raised nearly €230,000 on a €70,000 goal. To help give it a final push, fans of the studio currently serving with the 24th Separate Assault Battalion of the Ukrainian Ground Forces reached out with the idea of giving three fans a shot at having a message of their choice written on a 152mm howitzer shell, just for liking and sharing a link to the campaign on Twitter.
Message can be anything you want, but subject to our team's approval.Winners will each get a photo of their message on a shell, proudly presented by our troops. pic.twitter.com/b7vAYEui4NSeptember 1, 2022
See moreThe tradition of putting messages on munitions goes way back. Task and Purpose notes that it's been common practice in the US military since the WWII, but you can go even farther back than that, all the way to the days of ancient Greeks and Romans. Despite that, several responses on Twitter to Frogwares' message are critical of the offering, accusing the studio of glorifying violence and gamifying real war.
"Talk about being tone deaf," Twitter user MrInspirer wrote. "That shell has a non zero chance to land next to a civilian, that's an unfortunate nature of artillery. So go a head folks, donate your money to write some cringe text on something that will kill some kid."
Another Twitter user, Brutal1ty512, replied, "You are animals and all your games should be pulled of the shelves worldwide if this is your idea of PR. Worst of luck to you and your joke of a country."
tell me this is a joke? This isn't to be used to potentially KILL and MAIM people?September 1, 2022
See moreThis is a terrible idea. No matter who's right or wrong in this conflict, you are incentivizing gamers to be a part of the violence.September 1, 2022
See moreIn a message sent to PC Gamer responding to those accusations, Frogwares was unapologetic.
"Please understand we as a team are literally in the centre of this war," the studio said. "We have people on our team who have had their homes bombed into rubble. Some of us have lost relatives. Some of us are in occupied areas like Kherson where they are trying to annex the city [to] say it is now a Russian city. We have team members who lived near Bucha. We have team members who fled their homes in Donbas in 2014 and then had to flee again in 2022. Others are actively fighting. Others have been forced to flee to countries around the EU and leave behind their families who couldn’t come with them.
"We are angry. We are hurt. Our entire lives were thrown into hell because of Putin who used the term 'Nazi' as a dog whistle against our entire population and sent his troops in."
The soldiers in the video who suggested the promotion "are actual friends of ours," Frogwares added. "Six months ago they were normal people living in Kyiv having normal day jobs, homes and families. After February 24th they decided they had to leave all that behind and signed up to defend their homes and families."
We are angry. We are hurt. Our entire lives were thrown into hell because of Putin who used the term 'Nazi' as a dog whistle against our entire population and sent his troops in."
Frogwares also addressed questions about the 24 Separate Assault Battalion itself. Also known as the Aidar Battalion, the unit was originally formed as a volunteer unit following the first Russian invasion of Ukraine in March 2014. Within months, the unit faced accusations of war crimes leveled by both Amnesty International and the OCSE; multiple members of the battalion were also charged with criminal offenses by the Ukrainian military. Aidar was disbanded in 2015 and then reconstituted around a selection of former members as the 24th Separate Assault Battalion, under the 10th Mountain Assault Brigade—part of the regular (and, presumably, more disciplined) Ukrainian military.
"Where they got assigned is where they were told to go," Frogwares said of the soldiers in the video. "They didn’t get a list of units they could pick from. But more important, whatever history and command structure the unit has from when it was formed by volunteers back in 2014 is gone. That unit was disbanded in 2015 and under the watch of the armed forces was rebuilt and integrated into the actual armed forces."
Kickstarter prohibits projects from raising funds toward a charity or "cause," and it also prohibits projects under the subject matter of "Weapons, replicas of weapons, and weapon accessories." The Sherlock Holmes game is neither a weapon nor a cause, so running a promotion adjacent to its Kickstarter campaign skirts these rules. Kickstarter confirmed to me via email that the promotion does not violate its rules.
(Image credit: Frogwares)From Frogwares' perspective, the company is using a videogame to remind the world that Ukraine—its home country—is still waging full-scale war for its very existence. And the Ukrainian military has leaned heavily into crowdfunding since the beginning of the second invasion earlier this year—in fact, it's been possible to pay to have messages written on Ukrainian munitions and military hardware for some time now.
As for Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened, the Kickstarter campaign will end on September 3, and Frogwares said that it hopes to have the game ready for launch in February 2023. "But we want people to understand that anything could change, be it in the country as a whole or just internally with our own team to force us to release later," producer Denys Chebotarov said. "The priority will always need to be the safety and ability of our team to work above all other choices on when to release."
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When you've been playing for a decade, Minecraft shaders are probably the second quickest way to fall back in love with its voxel worlds—right behind picking a new Minecraft texture pack. Whenever my latest build is starting to feel a little dull, or I'm plagued by a lack of inspiration, turning on a great set of shaders and staring directly into the god rays is a surefire cure. With that in mind, I'm going to help you get set up with some of the best Minecraft shaders out there. As with everything else in Minecraft modding, installing them is easier than ever.
Best of Minecraft(Image credit: Mojang)Minecraft update: What's new?
Minecraft skins: New looks
Minecraft mods: Beyond vanilla
Minecraft shaders: Spotlight
Minecraft seeds: Fresh new worlds
Minecraft texture packs: Pixelated
Minecraft servers: Online worlds
Minecraft commands: All cheatsBefore you keep scrolling though, here are the general prerequisites for installing Minecraft shaders that you'll need to know: First off, these currently only work with the Java Edition of Minecraft. Now that all players own both versions of the game through the launcher, that shouldn't be an issue though. If you're attached to Bedrock Edition, you'll want to look into Minecraft RTX to get similar lovely lighting effects.
All of these shader packs also require that you first install a graphics mod called Optifine (or, in a couple cases, one called Iris). If this is all old news to you, carry on. If you need a quick explainer on installing Optifine and individual shader packs, head down to the bottom of the page.
As another quick aside, most of these shader packs offer tons of customization options (the speed that water animates, the amount of ambient fog, or the exact RGB values of lighting for each time of day). If you know what you're about, you can do a lot with any of these shaders, so I'll be focusing on how they look and feel to those who just want to install and play right away.
The best Minecraft Shaders
What are the best Minecraft shaders in 2022?
Sildur's Vibrant Shaders, SEUS Renewed, and BSL Shaders are the best Minecraft shaders right now.
You can read more about our top Minecraft shader picks down below along with several other really great options.
Sildur's Shaders
(Image credit: Mojang, modded by SildurFX)(Image credit: Mojang)Download from: Curseforge
If you want your Minecraft world to look gorgeous right this second, don't even keep scrolling. Sildur's shaders look amazing right out of the box with bright colors, soft shadows, god rays, and everything else you'd want, whether it's your first time installing shaders for Minecraft or you're coming back to see what's hot.
Sildur does recommend using Iris (explained below), but as of 2022 the Vibrant shaders also look great through Optifine with no immediate settings changes needed. For those without quite as much a powerhouse PC, the Sildur's Enhanced Default shaders will soup up your game with shadows and god rays without straining your machine.
BSL Shaders
(Image credit: Mojang, modded by BitsLabLab)(Image credit: Mojang)Download from: BSL's website
BSL is my personal favorite shader pack. I prefer its softer look to Sildur's super powerful colors. It's great for build screenshots and easy on the eyes while playing. BSL is still getting regular fixes and updates as of 2022, so you can be sure this one will stay relevant for a while to come. BSL works well for me with a fresh install, but you can find solutions to common questions and issues in BSL's FAQ section.
SEUS Renewed
(Image credit: Mojang, modded by Sonic Ether)(Image credit: Mojang)Download from: Sonic Ether's website
SEUS shaders are a long time favorite for Minecraft players and for good reason. Sonic Ether's shader pack is bright and clear by default, and not quite as color saturated as Sildur's. SEUS has a great realistic feel with crisp days and dark nights.
Tip: If everything on the ground looks weirdly shadowy, open your Options > Video Settings > Shaders and make sure Normal Map is toggled on.
Complementary Shaders
(Image credit: Mojang)Download from: Curseforge
Complementary is based on BSL shaders, and its creator says it aims to "provide you with the most issueless experience possible." True enough, I didn't feel the need to tweak any of Complementary settings. You can spot that it has a realistic vibe, maybe even more so than SEUS.
Chocapic's Shaders
(Image credit: Mojang, modded by Chocapic13)(Image credit: Mojang)Download from: Curseforge
Chocapic's shaders attempt to maintain high quality even at low settings and comes with different files for Low, Medium, High, Extreme, and Ultra. I'm using the Medium pack in my screenshots, and you can spot that it does still look great but doesn't have as intense lighting effects on torches as some of the above options, for instance.
Tip: If you're seeing a wild amount of bright white light in the sky, go to Options > Video Settings > Details and toggle clouds off.
Project LUMA
(Image credit: Mojang, modded by dedelner)(Image credit: Mojang)Download from: Curseforge
Project LUMA is the successor to formerly popular shader pack KUDA, which says its aim is "playing Minecraft without the effects distracting you from the gameplay." I felt this most in how clear LUMA plays while underwater or in the rain. Other shader packs heap on a lot of atmosphere and fog effects for a moodier underwater experience but LUMA maintains a lot of clarity. If you enjoy playing underwater, this may be the way to go. LUMA hasn't been updated since 2019 but still players well in 2022.
Sora Shaders
(Image credit: Mojang)Download from: Curseforge
The Sora shader pack bills itself as another gameplay focused pack that isn't super high contrast. You can definitely get that feel in this screenshot, which has brighter shadows than other popular packs. Sora also advertises its many color profile settings, which you can toggle between really easily in its settings to get a different look.
Vanilla Plus
(Image credit: Mojang, modded by RRe36)(Image credit: Mojang)Download from: Curseforge
Vanilla Plus is a pack that really pares the shader experience down to shadows and god rays. No realistic clouds or water here. This is vanilla Minecraft but just slightly prettier. The bonus is that the fewer effects are much easier on your machine than some of these shader packs. PC gamers without fancy rigs deserve a beautiful mining experience too. If you're up to it, Vanilla Plus does have a "Fancy" profile in its settings that includes pretty, reflective water.
How to install Minecraft shaders
How to install Minecraft shaders
Fortunately, installing shaders is pretty easy these days. Almost all of these packs require the graphics mod Optifine, which you can download from its website. Some recommend a recent mod called Iris instead, but right now most of these packs don't support Iris.
- In your Minecraft launcher, run the version of Minecraft you're planning to play at least once.
- Download the corresponding version from Optifine's site.
- Double-click the .jar file, which will automatically install Optifine.
- Back in your launcher, select "Optifine" as the installation you'd like to play.
- In your Minecraft menu, select Options > Video Settings > Shaders > Shaders Folder
- Alternatively, you can find this folder manually at C:\Users\[Yourname]\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\shaderpacks
- Put the .zip file shader pack you've downloaded into this "shaderpacks" folder
- Select any of your added shader packs from the Shaders menu
You don't often need to worry about version compatibility for the shaderpacks you're using. Although new game versions may sometimes introduce issues, you're more bound by the version of Optifine you're using, which fortunately usually updates quite quickly after major Minecraft version changes.
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Obviously we're all PC gamers here, but plenty of our team enjoy a balanced gaming diet. I've always felt a Switch makes the perfect accompaniment to a desktop, there are still some PlayStation exclusives that haven't made their way over, and I'm obsessively checking my email for that Steam Deck reservation notification.
In an effort to know our audience better, we'd appreciate your feedback via survey about your gaming habits and purchases. Thinking of grabbing a PS5 or Series X console? Are you looking at a whole-PC revamp for your next build, or swapping new components in piecemeal like a Rig of Theseus? Let us know!
I know many people aren't dedicated survey-heads like me, filling out forms simply for the sheer delight of it, but there's an actual incentive with this one: the chance to win a $250 voucher for Amazon, perhaps to help you fulfill some of those gaming plans, or maybe you'll just use it to get a 15-17 lbs cured Serrano ham bone with ham stand from Spain. You have until September 23 to enter.
Our full terms and conditions apply, and remember: we're accepting new entries no later than September 23.
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Four years after being delisted from Steam, multiplayer sidescrolling action game The Showdown Effect is back in a completely fan-made resurrection that's been given official approval by Paradox Interactive.Paradox released The Showdown Effect in 2013 to decent reviews—we called it "a cheap and cheerful action game that won't win any awards but provides solid knockabout laughs" in our 70% assessment—but it didn't really go anywhere. Player counts tailed off quickly after launch, and in 2018 Paradox pulled the plug and removed it from Steam.
That was the end of it until a couple of years later, when GiuseppeIII (who asked that we not use his real name) got involved. He was a player from the early days, but ironically came into it almost entirely by accident: He ended up with a copy of The Showdown Effect by way of a Humble Bundle that came out a few months after the game did.
"A little while later when looking for stuff to play and scrolling through my Steam library I noticed the game, and remembering the trailer from when I got the Humble Bundle I decided to check it out," GiuseppeIII told me in a recent chat. "At this time the game was already on the decline user-wise and the bump it had gotten from the Humble Bundle had mostly gone away.
"While a low-player count is usually a death knell to a multiplayer game, it is actually one of the things that attracted me to the game and kept me playing. The welcoming tight-knit community and seeing the same names week after week was something that kept me playing."
One of those community members, who goes by the name Deathaxe, reached out to GiuseppeIII in 2020 with the idea of getting the old gang back together. They set up a Discord to welcome players back, but they couldn't do anything about growing the community because the game was no longer available for purchase, so it was effectively impossible to bring in new players.
Amusingly, The Showdown Effect's removal from Steam was seemingly the result of a mistake. GiuseppeIII said that, based on his talks with Paradox and original developer Arrowhead Game Studios, Paradox removed the game from Steam after shutting down its microtransaction store server as part of a cleanup operation. Someone at Paradox apparently assumed that the shutdown would kill the entire network infrastructure and render the game unplayable—thus the Steam removal—but The Showdown Effect actually makes use of peer-to-peer networking to connect players, and so it continued to run just fine. The problem was that while old players could continue to beat each other senseless in violent cartoon action, newcomers could only get in if they found an old key lying around (say, in a Humble Bundle) or purchased one from a third-party reseller.
The welcoming tight-knit community and seeing the same names week after week was something that kept me playing."
TESR creator GuiseppeIIITo help bulk up the player base, GiuseppeIII first got about 100 old keys from Arrowhead and gave them away. He then reached out to Paradox, which was sympathetic but not inclined to make The Showdown Effect, which had already failed once, a priority. So he took a more aggressive approach to the problem by eliminating Steam from the equation.
"Starting in late December of 2021, I was able to unpack and decompile the game’s source files," explained GiuseppeIII—who, in case there's any doubt, is a programmer, although his real job is unrelated to games. "Then, with some consultation with the team at Magicka Wizard Wars Reborn (shoutout to Alias, Rat, and Neon) who were doing a similar project for a different Paradox title which used the same game engine, I was able to create a lua DLL injector, which along with the decompiled source allowed me to freely change the game’s code."
After getting that far he contacted Paradox again, which after some discussion granted him a non-commercial license to develop and release the game for free. With that secured, he continued to work on the project as time allowed before launching The Showdown Effect: Reloaded on August 20.
The updated game includes a brand-new launcher, bug fixes and balance improvements, new features (including new levels, a ranked mode, and new gameplay settings), and the ability to access old real-money characters and skins through the standard experience system. It still uses Steam as a backend for its "networking stuff" and will automatically install a Steam-based wrapper to make it work, but all of the actual game files are only available through GiuseppeIII's site.
Since going live in August, The Showdown Effect: Reloaded has signed up about 150 players, and GiuseppeIII hopes that number will grow as word of the revived game spreads. He's not finished working on it, either: He wants to use the new leaderboards and Elo rankings to organize tournaments with in-game rewards, and also plans to incorporate a new "weekly challenge" feature.
"Looking out to the future, anything is possible," he said. "I know a planned feature a lot of people are excited for is bots. TSER is semi open-source (I give access after vetting), so if people are interested it is easy and straightforward to contribute!"
I tried The Showdown Effect: Reloaded myself last night, and it works very well. The installation process is quick and smooth (the installer automatically sets up what it needs from Steam) and the game itself runs perfectly. The gameplay basics are simple, but there are complexities to movement and combat that clearly take time and practice to pick up: GiuseppeIII repeatedly owned me in our 1v1 showdown, until I finally stumbled upon a strategy that enabled me to score a kill: I asked him a question and then pasted him while he was typing a response.
I am not too proud to take it where I can get it. (Image credit: GIII Holdings LLC/Paradox Interactive)Regardless of where it goes from here, The Showdown Effect: Reloaded is entirely GiuseppeIII's project. "Paradox doesn’t play a huge ongoing role in terms of development but allowing the project to happen in the first place (through their license) shows their amazing commitment and relationship with fans of their properties (even those as niche as TSE)," he said. "It's been super nice how supportive Paradox has been with everything, when it would have been super easy to just ignore my requests!"
The Showdown Effect: Reloaded, and a link to the community Discord (which is handy for setting up matches), are up at theshowdowneffectreloaded.com.
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The phrase "monster dating sim" kinda just washes over me at this point like "roguelike'' or "live service game," but Pararomantic, first spotted by Alpha Beta Gamer, is something special. This game's first person exploration and chunky retro visuals got me in the door but its development origins are quite surprising: Pararomantic is a class project by a group of game design students at the University of Lapland in Finland.
Pararomantic sees you trapped in a mysterious inn, avoiding a supernatural storm, and you have the chance to get to know, and perhaps para-romance the establishment's strange residents. Think a more quirky and less horrifying take on The Thing or The Hateful Eight and you're 75% of the way there.
While the free demo on Itch.io doesn't give you a ton of time to get to know its cast, the designs are fun and creative. One is a "biblically accurate angel" (floating orb ringed with eyes, unknowable form, that jazz) who's got an "uwu shy" thing going on. My favorite is a skeleton or skeletons hiding in a trench coat who seem to be some kind of gestalt Marxist philosopher.
The real stars are the inn itself and the demo's first person exploration. It's a simultaneously unnerving and very cozy environment, with the sound of rain and crashing thunder coming in from outside. I love the little touches too, like the clutter on the tables or the shelves of multicolored bottles behind the bar. It reminds me of great RPG inns like the ones from Dragon Quest or the Elder Scrolls.
By far the most intriguing thing for me was a discovery in the bathroom. One of the stalls opens up to reveal a passageway underground. Pushing on leads to a stilted and surreal conversation with a cutesy onion creature followed by an assuredly deliberate hard crash to desktop. I'm a sucker for Undertale/Pony Island-style interface gags like this, and I'm curious to see what secrets await underground in a more full version of the game.
This student project has a lot to love, and the 15 minute or so demo is well-worth your time. The students comprising developer Vabajaba haven't said much about their future plans, but I hope they find time to flesh out Pararomantic into a more full experience some day soon.
Image 1 of 6(Image credit: vabajaba)Image 2 of 6(Image credit: vabajaba)Image 3 of 6(Image credit: vabajaba)Image 4 of 6(Image credit: vabajaba)Image 5 of 6(Image credit: vabajaba)Image 6 of 6(Image credit: vabajaba) -
Details about a new Assassin's Creed game leaked in February, when Bloomberg reported that Ubisoft was working on a smaller, stealth-focused Assassin's Creed game alongside its bigger Assassin's Creed Infinity project (which we don't know a lot about, but is likely a big live service game). The other day, another leaker purported to reveal that this second upcoming Assassin's Creed game will be called Assassin's Creed Mirage. Now we know that's true.
Ubisoft confirmed the leak today with an image posted to Twitter and a sentence that it's hard not to read without adding an exasperated sigh: "Assassin's Creed Mirage is the next Assassin's Creed game."
They always leak, and this one happened with just over a week until Ubisoft Forward, the livestream event where the proper Assassin's Creed Mirage reveal will take place. That's happening on Saturday, September 10.
Bloomberg's Jason Schreier says his source isn't in complete agreement about the details in the latest leak, but we can safely say that Assassin's Creed Mirage is set in Baghdad and stars Basim Ibn Ishaq, and probably did start as Valhalla DLC, as Schreier reported in February.
The two reports also agree on the idea that Mirage will be a "return to basics" for Assassin's Creed: a game focused on stealth, not RPG-style leveling and dialogue choices. The classic hooded assassin look in the teaser image fits the part.
We'll learn more at Ubisoft Forward.
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Factori is a lovely little logic puzzle game that made me feel as smug as a bug in a rug. Wait I think that's supposed to be snug but you get the point. It's currently available on Itch.io but with the announcement that it was coming to Steam, I decided to give it a try and it made my morning so much more satisfying than my now-cold cup of coffee.
Factori centres around the letter I. The best letter in my opinion, as it's the one my name begins with. With a variety of distortions, merges, and rotation machines, Factori allows you to make the letter I into any other letter in the alphabet. And then once you've got a hang of these letters you can begin to make words which is the ultimate aim of the game. From Ox to Dragon, the game sets up some challenges, and then you can input your own words when the game's complete to give yourself more variety.
The game is simple but getting through these words elegantly can get tricky. At first you start out easy with two Is becoming a V, introducing merges. Then you can bend Is into Cs, rotate them, and combine them until you've got the entire alphabet. There are various ways you can make some letters. It's up to your imagination of how shapes can come together to make something new, but once you're down manipulating the shapes to your will, stats make the game competitive.
You could get through every word the game gives you within an hour or two. Once I understood the logic of Factori, I got very quick at making new letters but the end-of-level stats are what intrigued me most. How did anyone complete this level with only 8 buildings? I needed 10! Or how have you made it through with only a few letters overflowing? I've got 60 Ls still on screen for every P I could produce. The logic gets even better when it challenges you against how well other players built their alphabet factories.
And this is where the game weaves in multiple ways to construct the same letter. Some will need less steps than others while adding more factories for another may actually help you overflow less letters. It's all ingenious resource management.
Factori is small but mighty. It's currently available on Itch.io and I'd encourage you to try it out yourself as a nice breath of fresh air between other games, or you can wait until it gets to Steam next year for some logical fun.
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Halo developer 343 Industries has posted a new update about the shooter's future, a roundtable discussion between three of its developers over the areas they're focusing on. The good news is that Forge finally has a release date of November 8, and the bad news is that Halo Infinite will no longer be receiving the option to play the campaign in local split-screen co-op.
The latter news may not seem all that unusual, but for anyone who's followed this series from the start Halo always had that additional selling point of a local splitscreen campaign. The Bungie games all had it, and I played through most of those with mates hunched around the TV. It's not exactly a killer feature in 2022, but it is sad that something which was once part of the Halo 'package' is being left behind.
"In order to improve and accelerate ongoing live service development, and to better address player feedback and quality of life updates, we have reallocated studio resources and are no longer working on local campaign split-screen co-op," 343 Industries said in a statement.
Oh well. To be clear, Halo Infinite will still add online campaign co-op. It arrives as part of the Winter Update on November 8 and, as well as Forge and network co-op, will include two new maps showing what Forge is capable of, a free 30-tier battle pass for all players, one new competitive mode called 'Covert One Flag', and in-game events scheduled over the winter months. Oh and a tonne of cosmetics, because that's what we all want developers to spend their time making.
343 Industries is choosing to call the Forge release a beta, though given that Halo Infinite will have been out for a year by the time it arrives that feels like over-caveating.
The winter update takes Halo Infinite through to March 7 2023, at which point season 3, rather grandly titled 'Echoes Within', will kick off. This promises Arena and Big Team Battle maps, a custom game browser, a "new narrative event", and a whole lot of minor additions like a new weapon and equipment.
Here's the roadmap:
(Image credit: 343 Industries)Halo Infinite is a pretty fun game, and it's definitely my favourite entry by 343 Industries. With this one the studio felt like it had finally really cracked the moment-to-moment feel that competitive Halo should have. When it came out I was excited for its prospects.
Unfortunately the pace of updates has been slow, and elements like Forge are badly needed, because the overall experience, that Halo 'package' I mentioned, feels anaemic. There was a time when Halo was the most forward-thinking and comprehensive shooter on the planet, each new entry setting the pace for the competition. Now it feels, sadly, like the Master Chief is struggling to keep pace himself.
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In this week's Fortnite challenges, you're going to be using Junk Rifts to add more random trash to some of the island's areas, namely Wreck Ravine or Rocky Wreckage. While not quite as simple as getting inside the Cuddle Team Leader head and dancing, this challenge shouldn't take too much time, since it's basically about grabbing a specific item and finding where to use it.
Junk Rifts are a lot of fun, though, spawning random giant objects that fall from the sky and crush anyone or anything that happens to be underneath. In this Junk Rift challenge guide, I'll explain how to get the junk jars you need, and where to hurl them.
How to get a Junk Rift
(Image credit: Epic)Junk Rifts look like jars with rockets strapped to them, and once you throw one, it'll create a car or even a dinosaur which will flatten whatever happens to be in proximity. You can find these items as floor loot or in supply chests including the ones around Rocky Wreckage, so don't worry about farming up loads before you head to either location. If you need some around Wreck Ravine, you might want to try the gas station to the east of it.
Where to find Wreck Ravine and Rocky Wreckage
Image 1 of 2You just need to throw a Junk Rift in one of the areas (Image credit: Epic)Image 2 of 2Tracking the quest will show you where both locations are (Image credit: Epic)If you select to track the weekly quest in the quests menu, it'll give you the location of both Wreck Ravine and Rocky Wreckage. The first is west of Logjam Junction and the gas station, north past the Rave Cave. Rocky Wreckage, on the other hand, is near the centre of the island, to the west of Rocky Reels.
Either location is pretty easy to find since they are both essentially junk piles. If you're tracking the quest you can tag either with a visible waypoint when you drop in. You can also use one of the handy Fortnite interactive maps that displays weekly quests, such as Fortnite.gg.
Once you get to either, you just need to pull out your Junk Rift and throw it on the ground nearby. As mentioned, this will spawn some big falling object above that location, so don't stand nearby and accidentally get crushed, which totally didn't happen to me. Do that at either location and you'll get that 15,000 XP from the weekly quest.
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On Wednesday, US officials ordered Nvidia to halt sales of two of its chips to China. This means that Nvidia won't be allowed to sell its A100 and H100-powered data center super-GPUs to China.
Nvidia told Reuters that US officials claim this new rule "will address the risk that products may be used in, or diverted to, a 'military end use' or 'military end user' in China."
According to the SEC filings, Nvidia stands to lose $400 million in sales from the two chips being banned, potentially hurting China's advanced computing capabilities for civilian and military applications.
"We are working with our customers in China to satisfy their planned or future purchases with alternative products and may seek licenses where replacements aren’t sufficient," an Nvidia representative told me. "The only current products that the new licensing requirement applies to are A100, H100, and systems such as DGX that include them."Outside of the order, the US Department of Commerce has not explained what prompted the decision, outside of keeping "advanced technologies out of the wrong hands."
Your next upgrade(Image credit: Future)Best CPU for gaming: The top chips from Intel and AMD
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Best SSD for gaming: Get into the game ahead of the restThe Chinese foreign ministry responded in state media on Thursday by accusing the US of imposing a "tech blockade" that would affect the stability of global supply chains. The Chinese commerce ministry says the US "continues to abuse export control measures to restrict semiconductor-related items to China."
Nvidia will be applying for a license to continue some exports to China, but hasn't said if it expects the US will grant the exemption. The SEC filing also noted that Nvidia does not currently sell any of its chips to Russia.This isn't the first time the US has stopped chipmakers from selling to China. In 2019, the US government put smartphone maker Huawei on an export blacklist, citing national security concerns. This prevented US suppliers from selling to the world's largest telecommunications equipment maker at the time.
AMD has also stated that it will prevent its MI250 AI chips from being exported to China, although the company told Reuters that it believes the new rules will not affect business. Regardless, these new bans won't help the already tense relationship between the US and China.
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The best mechanical keyboard offers a sublime typing experience. You won't just find them sleek to use, you'll actually want to type on these keyboards. They feel good and happen to sound pretty great too. Mechanical switches are in another league to even the best membrane options, and of course they'll be great for gaming, too.
You may find you have to sacrifice some of the bells and whistles that the best gaming keyboards have if you want to save monto type on these keyboards. They feel good and happen to sound pretty great too. Mechanical switches are in another league to even the best membrane options, and of course they'll be great for gaming, too in a store. Most mechanical keyboards are on display in the computer section for you to test out, and see what all the fuss is about.
The supreme feel of mechanical keyboards comes down to their key switches. There are tons of different types of mechanical switches. The key switch spectrum is vast and caters to a variety of tastes. From loud and tactile, to quiet and spongy, each has a different feel. Our guide can help you determine which might suit you best, and you can often find keyboard switch samples if you're invested but want to check them out first.
In the meantime feel free to peruse the list below, where we've jammed the best mechanical keyboards we've tested over the years. These made us feel super productive, and many are the keyboards the PC Gamer hardware team uses in the office today. If you find that price is a barrier, and it will be with the more premium mechanical keyboards, our best cheap gaming keyboards guide has some great options for those on a budget.
Best mechanical keyboards
Image 1 of 7(Image credit: Future)Image 2 of 7(Image credit: Future)Image 3 of 7(Image credit: Future)Image 4 of 7(Image credit: Future)Image 5 of 7(Image credit: Future)Image 6 of 7(Image credit: Future)Image 7 of 7(Image credit: Future)1. Ducky One 3
The best mechanical keyboard for typing
Switch: Cherry MX | Size: Full size | Backlight: None | Passthrough: None | Media Controls: Volume controls | Wristrest: None
BeautifulBuilt to a very high standardWill outlive most PC buildsColour-matched cablePBT keycapsNo Play/Pause/Skip keysDIP switches don't work on mineLook elsewhere for RGB backlightingDucky has one helluva reputation in the mechanical gaming keyboard world. Even in an age of dazzling keyboards plastered in flashing lights, it's kept up its no nonsense design philosophy (which it calls "Quack Mechanics"—no joke). But even dear ol' Ducky is also leaning into the weird and wonderful a little more; the Ducky One 3 Fuji is prime example of a more stylised and vibrant Ducky at its best.
Look no further than the One 3's wonderfully colourful design for proof. This is Ducky's latest flagship keyboard and it comes in many different colours and styles, but this one is called Fuji. Every key you see in my images of the One 3 is included in the standard Fuji design, which makes it feel like I've received a keyboard with a custom keycap set pre-installed.
Every keycap on the Ducky is made from strong PBT plastic. Unlike ABS plastic, PBT tends to last a little longer, reject stains, and keep its colour-matched legends from rubbing away.
The One 3 looks absolutely stunning and it's a dream to type on.
From the superb quality keycaps to the rest of the board the Ducky continues to impress. The blue underbelly of the Ducky contains cable runs for the included (and removable) braided USB Type-C to Type-A cable. The cable on the One 3 Fuji is a perfectly matched shade of pink to the rest of it, of course.
There are also four DIP switches that offer a couple of hard-coded shortcuts for various keyboard modes, however, I couldn't get them to work. I tried unplugging and waiting a little while before trying again, but couldn't get them to do anything at all.
That aside, the One 3 is build like a tank and there's absolutely no flex to it whatsoever. Perhaps it wouldn't love a drop from a high place, but I don't dare to try it with this gorgeous review unit.
You have a wide choice of Cherry MX switches to choose from with the Ducky, depending on where you buy it from. I opted for Cherry MX Speed Silver switches, which are some of Cherry's finest for gaming. They offer a smooth press with only 1.2mm of travel before actuation and a total distance of 3.4mm. The swift actuation helps with the sort of snappy response I want while gaming, while the linear press without a tactile bump or click makes for moderately low-noise operation.
The Ducky barely rattles whatsoever as I'm tapping away at its positively pink caps. The spacebar and enter keys have a certain tell-tale thud to them, but beyond that the switches, including those with stabilisers, are impressively uniform in sound. There's a whole lot of sound dampening going on with the Ducky under the surface, and that satisfying mechanical thud as a result is amicable to my ears for a day's worth of constant typing, or gaming with a microphone nearby.
You can pluck switches out of the Ducky at will. (Image credit: Future)But I haven't mentioned the best bit yet: the Ducky One 3 is hot-swappable. A key switch breaks? Swap it out for another. You bought some new key switches online because they looked nice even thought you'll never really see them once they're installed? Just pull the old ones out and slot the new ones in.
Plenty of gaming keyboards are hot-swappable nowadays, but this particular inclusion with the Ducky One 3 really feels like a win overall. You do have to forgo RGB lighting, or backlighting of any sort, with the Ducky. But honestly I don't mind that. The One 3 looks absolutely stunning and it's a dream to type on. Plus it's a bit cheaper than some other flagship boards of this high standard today.
Read our full Ducky One 3 review.
Best gaming keyboard | Best graphics cards| Best gaming chair
Best VR headset | Best wireless gaming mouse | Best wireless gaming keyboardImage 1 of 2(Image credit: DAS)Image 2 of 2(Image credit: DAS)2. Das Keyboard 4 Professional
An iconic mechanical keyboard design
Switch: Cherry MX Blue, Brown | Size: Full size | Backlights: No | Passthroughs: Yes | Media controls: Dedicated | Wrist rest: No
Attractive modern designLots of featuresSimple and straightforwardProven Cherry MX switchesNo backlightsFeet aren't very grippyOnly two switches to choose fromProductivity doesn't have to be all doom and gloom. Neither do you have to put up with a budget membrane that came free with your work PC just to look professional in the office. Those who want a bit more style and a few more features from an otherwise down-to-earth keyboard can opt for the Das Keyboard 4 Professional.
Das Keyboard devices have been floating around the best mechanical keyboard lists for ages, and for good reason. Stylistically speaking, the Das Keyboard 4 Professional strikes a delicate balance between professional and flashy. Its weighty metal front plate helps function and form, planting the keyboard firmly on your desk while keeping it looking sharp. Where other keyboards use small volume rollers, the Das includes a large tactile volume knob decorated with eye-catching red chrome accents.
The Das Keyboard 4 Professional strikes a delicate balance between professional and flashy.
But aesthetics aren't what put Das on the list. Performance did. Designed for typists first, the Das only comes with the clicky Cherry MX Blue or the tactile Cherry MX Brown, two of the most popular switches for typing. Cherry MX Brown is especially favored as a great all-around switch for typing and gaming, thanks to its silent actuation and tactile bump.
Though we'd recommend the Cherry MX Blue switch if you don't need to keep your keyboard clacking down to a minimum. The Blue switch is loud as heck, but it's so responsive and feels great under finger for typing quickly and accurately. We love it, and Brown switches are a bit hot or cold; some people love them, others find it a bit grainy. Blue it is, then.
You get all these goodies for $169, but don't expect premium keycaps, backlights, or stable elevator feet. The elevator feet are especially irritating since they don't grip as well as they should—otherwise, the Das Keyboard 4 blends essential features and excellent typing performance into a stylish package. It's by no means as fully featured as what we'd expect from a gaming keyboard, but we're here for mechanical operation and construction. The Das Keyboard 4 has that in swathes.
Image 1 of 2(Image credit: Filco)Image 2 of 2(Image credit: Flico)3. Filco Majestouch 2
A barebones, reliable typist's keyboard
Switch: Cherry MX Black, Blue, Brown, Red | Size: Full size | Backlights: No | Passthroughs: No | Media controls: No | Wrist rest: No
No-nonsense designGood selection of Cherry MX switchesThe absolute basics and not much elseThe Majestouch 2 is to typing as water is to thirst: they both represent the most straightforward solutions to an underlying problem and are equally bland. It's boring, but it is still one of the best mechanical keyboards for pure typing. That's because it's a purely mechanical upgrade to your bog standard office board, so if you're used to one of those and want something mechanically better but not much different, the Majestouch 2 is it.
Even against the next most boring keyboard on this list, the Filco Majestouch 2 seems lifeless in comparison. It doesn't have any fancy features to boast of, nor does it have a unique trick. Customization is limited to picking your preferred Cherry MX switch from a roster of Black, Brown, Blue, and Red. What you see here is what you get.
The Majestouch 2 is a great starter board or dependable backup.
This simplicity, however, also explains its popularity. As it turns out, some people love no-frills keyboards. Filco stuffed 104 Cherry MX switches into a durable chassis and sold it at $139, establishing the Majestouch 2 as a great starter board or dependable backup. You can find some pretty great gaming keyboards for that price nowadays, however. Or simply more modern offerings.
The Majestouch 2's monotony may be a bit too mundane for even the strictest of typists, and its lack of backlighting can work against it in a dimly lit room. Some users have also complained that the key legends fade too quickly. Still, we're happy recommending the Majestouch 2 for those users that care little for excess or excitement, and instead want a workhorse that will dependably keep typing for years to come. It's simple, straightforward, and doesn't ask too much of your wallet.
Image 1 of 2(Image credit: Topre)Image 2 of 2(Image credit: Topre)4. Fujitsu Realforce R2 RGB
One-of-a-kind Topre switches
Switch: Topre | Size: TKL or Full | Backlights: RGB | Passthroughs: No | Media controls: Dedicated volume keys | Wrist rest: No
Smooth as butter Topre switchesAdjustable actuation pointExcellently builtBetter for touch typistsSwitch feel isn't for everyoneNot always widely available outside JapanRevered by ardent keyboard fans as the ultimate typing switch, the Topre switch (pronounced toe-prey, as it stands for Tokyo Press) rarely appears in gaming keyboards due to its high cost. The Topre is a mechanical switch for typists first and foremost. It takes some getting used to, but once you get up to speed it is rapid and responsive to type on in a way quite unlike any other mechanical switch available.
Fujitsu is one of the few manufacturers with a catalog of Topre keyboards. We picked the Realforce R2 RGB to represent one of the best typing switches around, but it's also a good form factor for a spot of gaming in either its full-size or tenkeyless form. Though we'd usually recommend other keyboards for gaming alone.
The Topre switch for typing is firm and allows for a rapid typing speed thanks to its quick key return. The switch is sometimes likened to a fancy membrane switch, which is understandable but undersells what the Topre is able to offer. It's squishy like a membrane, but it's not imprecise or sluggish as a result. If this is like a membrane switch, think of it more like the ultimate version of a membrane with few, if any, of the downsides.
You can set the actuation distance for every key individually through the optional driver software.
To please both gamer and typist, the Realforce R2 RGB can toggle between 1.5mm, 2mm, and 3mm actuation distances—the first for fast-paced gaming and the latter two for typing and general use. Fujitsu even reserved a key to cycle through them on the fly. Moreover, you can set the actuation distance for every key individually through the optional driver software. That's not something you can do with most mechanical keyboards, at least not without optical switches like those on the Wooting Two HE.
Aside from bright RGB backlights, the Realforce R2 has excellent ABS keycaps with double-shot legends. The benefit of the R2 RGB model is that the stems on the Topre switches, which usually require bespoke keycaps, also offer compatibility with the far more popular and widely available Cross Stem design used with Cherry MX and compatible boards. That opens up this Topre board to the wonderful world of custom keycaps.
Unfortunately, Topre's prestige and novelty have a matching price tag. You'd be hard-pressed to find a Topre keyboard for under $200. The Fujitsu Realforce R2 RGB costs $250 or more, and that still won't net you a metal case or braided cables. For die-hard fans, that's a fair price to pay for their favorite switch. Everyone else should try it in person before swiping their credit card. You either love it or think it's just fine. At least that's our experience in the office getting people to try out a Topre for the first time.
Image 1 of 7(Image credit: Future)Image 2 of 7(Image credit: Future)Image 3 of 7(Image credit: Future)Image 4 of 7(Image credit: Future)Image 5 of 7(Image credit: Future)Image 6 of 7(Image credit: Future)Image 7 of 7(Image credit: Future)5. Mountain Everest 60
The best 60% mechanical keyboard
Switch: Mountain Tactile 55, Linear 45, Linear 45 Speed | Size: 60% | Backlights: Per-key RGB | Passthroughs: No | Media controls: No | Wrist rest: No
Great typing feelReassuringly robustResponsiveOptional modular numpad is greatBase Camp software remains a minor weak pointOverall package gets expensiveBest gaming keyboard(Image credit: Corsair)Primarily in the market for a keyboard to fulfil your WASD needs? Look no further than our best gaming keyboard guide.
The Mountain Everest 60 is just as ickle as the other 60% competition, just as cute, and has all the enthusiast keyboard extras you could want, but crucially has the total utility to be your daily driver of a keeb.
the Everest 60 isn't modular like its bigger sibling, the Mountain Everest Max, but there is a dedicated numpad that can be purchased separately, and it's hot-swappable. Crucially, for me, it will also attach to either side of the board.
If you're still rocking a numpad on the right-hand side of your gaming keyboard then you're just plain doing it wrong. The key benefit of a smaller keeb is that your mouse and WSAD hands are closer together, and switching the numpad to the left means you still get to use the extra buttons and the extra desktop real estate for your gaming rodent. And, hell, it's also way more convenient when thrashing your way through a good spreadsheet, too. Those benchmark numbers don't enter themselves, you know.
That extra mouse space is the main reason 60% boards can have a place in gaming, but, at least for me, the traditional lack of cursor keys makes them incredibly frustrating to use full-time. Mountain obviously thinks so, too, and has squeezed them into the right-hand side of the board, squishing down the right shift key and adding in a del key as well.
It's easily the best typing experience I've ever had.
The original Everest Max is reassuringly solid, and feels good to type on. But the Everest 60 feels sooo much better. It's easily the best typing experience I've ever had, and is a real joy to use. The base of the keyboard has a layer of silicone inside it, to add weight and dampen the sound, but then there are also two layers of foam, on either side of the PCB, to again improve the aural experience. Mountain has used genuine Cherry stabilisers on the board, too, but has made sure they're fitted and lubed properly for the Everest 60 to ensure there's no rattle on even the broad spacebar.
So the Mountain Everest 60 meets our needs as gamers and as gamers with jobs, which is what we want out of a mini 60% mechanical keyboard.
The Everest 60 package isn't completely perfect, however. The main thing that lets it down is—as always seems to be the case with peripherals—the software. It's mostly fine. Mostly. But there are quirks, and the odd little bug I've experienced both in early review testing of the Everest 60, and in my time using the Base Camp software day-to-day with the Everest Max. Thankfully, once you've set your preferred RGB lighting layout, and maybe picked a few macros, you can pretty much just ignore it and get on with enjoying the experience of an outstanding gaming keyboard.
All this good keeb stuff does come at a price. However, the modular nature also means you don't have to go for everything right away. Pick the base board, then grab a numpad some other time if you find it makes sense for you. And then later on maybe pick a mineral PBT keycap set, or some new switches if you feel the need for a change. Because if there's one thing I'm confident of, this board will be with you for many, many years to come, it's certainly earned a place on my desktop.
Read our full Mountain Everest 60 review.
Image 1 of 3(Image credit: Future)Image 2 of 3(Image credit: Future)Image 3 of 3(Image credit: Wooting)6. Wooting Two HE
The best analog gaming keyboard
Switch: Lekker (Gateron) | Size: Full size | Backlight: RGB LED | Passthrough: None | Media Controls: Function shortcuts | Wristrest: Sold separately
Analogue switchesHigh reliabilityHot swappable switchesAdjustable actuationSolid app with easy to navigate menus and featuresGames don't always play nice with analogue switchesAnalogue control takes some getting used toThe Wooting Two HE is the best gaming keyboard, so unsurprisingly it's also great for typists. Many of its awesome analog features are gaming-centric, but not all, and you'll find a great deal of use in its adjustable actuations and clever macros to level up your typing.
Essentially, the Wooting works like this: if you depress a key, say the W key, rather than send a simple on/off signal to your PC, the keyboard will measure the full range of that key's motion. This is especially useful in games that blend gameplay that best suits both analog and digital inputs on a regular basis, such as Red Dead Redemption 2, GTA V, or Mass Effect.
The Wooting measures the entire key press. (Image credit: Wooting)Wooting helped usher in the analog age of gaming keyboards, and it's still ruling the roost with every new keyboard it designs. The latest, the Wooting Two HE, uses magnets and the Hall effect to achieve what is an incredibly accurate analog movement across every key on the keyboard. And because every key is analog, you can use the analog functionality to your advantage in heaps of interesting ways.
The Wooting Two HE differs from the Wooting One and Wooting Two in how it measures analogue input, however. Where the older Wooting boards relied on optical Flaretech switches, the newer HE board uses the Lekker switch, made by Wooting with popular switch maker Gateron, and relies on the Hall effect (hence Wooting Two 'HE') to achieve analogue input.
In the Wootility v4 software (amazing), a game will need to register this switch actuation as either DirectInput or Xinput. That means you'll largely want to set your left analogue stick up, down, left, right to your WASD keys on the Wooting, in order to replicate the best bits of analogue controller movement.
Of all the peripheral-specific applications out there, and boy are there a lot of them, I don't mind the Wootility one bit, either. It's simple, well put together, and has only improved since I last used it. It puts some other larger manufacturers to shame with how easy and smart-looking it is, in fact.
If you want heaps of customisability, this is the gaming keyboard for you.
Do you want to have your entire moveset mapped to a single power key in-game? It's certainly possible. You could chain skills, moves, or spells in-game by applying them all to a single keypress. Or if you're really accurate, have a key do two different things depending on how far you press it.
The keyboard is solid, well-built, and comes with a two-year warranty. If a switch breaks, you can swap it out, as the board itself is hot-swappable. That's one benefit of there not really being all that many mechanical moving parts with a magnetic Lekker switch, and another is that there's less to break in the first place.
The Wooting Two HE is analog at its very best, and if you want heaps of customisability, this is the gaming keyboard for you. There's also the superb Wooting HE60, which we're big fans of but it is admittedly not for everyone due to its compact size.
Read our full Wooting Two HE review.
Best mechanical keyboards FAQ
Which keyboard switch type should I choose?
It's entirely up to personal preference with keyboard switches. If you love a noisy keyboard, go for the clicky kind. If you like a spongier feel, go for linear switches. Or, if you prefer some feedback with your keypresses, go for a tactile switch.
It's possible to order keyboard switch tester packs from some suppliers, so if you want to try some out before you fork out, it might be a good idea to grab one of those.
Check out our mechanical keyboard switch guide for a more in-depth look.
Jargon buster - keyboard terminology
Actuation Point
The height to which a key needs to be pressed before it actuates and sends an input signal to a device.Clicky
A switch that delivers an audible click every time it's pressed, generally right around the point of actuation.Debounce
A technique to ensure that only one input registers every time a key is pressed.Housing
The shell that surrounds the internal components of a switch.Hysteresis
The result of the actuation point and reset point in a switch being misaligned. This generally means you need to release the key further than usual would before it can be actuated again.Linear
A switch that moves directly up and down, generally delivering smooth keystrokes without noise or tactile feedback.Mechanical Keyboard
A keyboard built around individual switches for each key rather than a membrane sheath mounted on a PCB.Membrane Keyboard
A keyboard on which all the keycaps are mounted on a membrane sheath; when a key is pressed, a rubber dome depresses and pushes against the sheath and PCB beneath, actuating the key.Stem
The component of a switch on which the keycaps are mounted on a mechanical keyboard.Switch
The physical component of a mechanical keyboard beneath the keycaps on a mechanical keyboard. The switch determines how a key is actuated, whether or not it provides audible or tactile feedback with each press, and more. You can read a detailed explanation in our complete guide to mechanical keyboard switches.Tactile
A switch that provides a 'bump' of feedback every time it's pushed.Tenkeyless
A keyboard that lacks the right-hand number pad.
Dall-E 2 AI image generator is a surprisingly great fashion designer
in Gaming News
Posted
Karen Cheng is one of many creatives utilising AI as part of their idea generation process. Her recent fashion design project combines a few different AI models to get a smooth, automatic outfit switching catwalk video, and it's a true testament to how AI can benefit artists in such an immense way.
Her process first involved using Dall-E 2 to generate a whole bunch of designs over the top of some stills. By indicating the intended design area with the brush and feeding it a brief for each type of clothing, i.e. white overalls, Cheng was able to get some really interesting generated outfits. It even did an alright job of matching the lighting, though she did have to sift through a good deal of bad designs, like the "dress inspired by MC Escher" below.
So, the AI still isn't perfect for idea generation, but it got there in the end.
After the initial generation stage, Cheng ran the frames through EbSynth to make it work with video, and then through Depth-Aware Video Frame Interpolation software (DAIN) to smooth the frames out.
The final video came out spiffingly, and almost matches the professional level of Paul Trillo and Shyama Golden's incredible sci-fi fashion design project Cheng references in a later tweet.
As usual the comments are filled with the expected barrage of AI worriers concerned that robots will displace humans, and put them out of creative jobs. A concern I must confess I briefly prescribed to myself.
When I spoke to David Holz, the founder of the Midjourney AI image generating Discord bot, he had some pretty positive view on how the rise of AI is affecting creatives:
"When we invented cars, and all of a sudden cars could go faster than we could walk, we didn't chop our legs off, you know. And there are still professional people who move things around," he says.
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"It's like this thing that amplifies people, but it doesn't replace people. Cars didn't really replace people, aeroplanes didn't replace people, boats didn't replace people. These are things that just kind of amplify society. They make us stronger and better, and let us do more."
I'm with Holz on this one, and as long as AI is still unable to hold rights, we creatives are probably quite safe. Just remember to start integrating AI into your workflow so the overlords can recognise you as an ally.
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