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I never expected to like the new Roccat Kone XP. Especially not as much as I do. With greater concerns over environmental change, pandemics, and rising inflation, news of yet another over-the-top RGB gaming mouse from Roccat is not exactly what I think the world really needs right now. Gosh darn it though, Roccat has managed to make one of the best gaming mice you can buy and thanks to a few tricks, it's also a great productivity mouse too. Let’s start with the price—$75 (£80, AU$150) classifies the Kone XP as a mid-range mouse but I can assure you there’s much more to this mouse than its absurdly cool 3D RGB lighting. Roccat has managed to craft one of the most ergonomic rodents I’ve ever used. Granted, that really depends on the size of your mitts and grip style but for me at least, nothing has felt this good in hand for a very long time. I found that whether I use a claw or palm grip when playing Destiny 2 or mindlessly scrolling Twitter, the Kone XP feels just right. At 102g, it's far from lightweight but the overall feel in hand is light enough for quick flicks but heavy enough for precise movements outside of gaming. The Kone XP's back arches just high enough to fill out the cradle of your palm while the textured thumb well and its flared-out "Easy-Shift" paddle gives the right support. The Kone Pro has plenty of buttons—15 to be exact and they're all programmable. There are four thumb buttons positioned perfectly where I don’t have to contort my thumb painfully just to use them. The same goes for the two DPI buttons embedded into the left mouse button which are surprisingly easy to use and potentially more so than the thumb buttons. The brilliantly lit and tactile Krystal 4D Wheel is translucent, which is great for RGB but also allows you to click it left, right, or down for additional functions. Behind the wheel is a profile switch to cycle through the custom profiles you’ve created and saved in the Roccat Swarm software. Lastly, and most importantly, are the main left and right mouse buttons that sit on top of Roccat’s Titan Optical switches. They are crisp, clicky, and responsive with no distracting key wobble. Roccat Kone XP specs (Image credit: Future)DPI: 19,000 Sensor: Roccat Eye-Owl Interface: USB Buttons: 11 Ergonomic: Right-handed Weight: 102g Price: $75 | £80 | AU$150 Roccat says you can map 29 possible functions to the Kone XP and that’s largely thanks to the Easy-Shift functionality. Press your thumb down on the paddle and it acts as a shift key that doubles all the button functions. It's really up to your imagination how you set this up and the Swarm software makes it very easy to do. I loved having my media controls available on Easy-Shift so that scrolling adjusted volume, clicking skipped tracks, and the DPI buttons on the front made quick work of copy and paste. It’s no Logitech MX Master 3 but with patience, you can get the Kone XP almost there. Complimenting the versatile button functionality is an excellent 19K DPI Roccat Owl-Eye optical sensor with 50G acceleration. It’s not the highest number in the mouse world today, but let’s be real, can you really tell the difference? I certainly can’t. The PTFE feet on the bottom let the mouse glide effortlessly on most surfaces while the lightweight PhantomFlex cable never gets in the way of speedy flicks and swipes. But of course, the biggest showstopper of the Kone XP is without a doubt the 3D RGB AIMO Lighting. The whole top of the shell is made of translucent plastic which is perfect for showing off what the insane 22 individual LEDs can do. These are grouped into 8 guidelines, four on each side, allowing for some truly mesmerizing RGB light shows. I’ve seen a lot of gaming mice but nothing comes remotely close. Image 1 of 8 Roccat Kone XP gaming mouse (Image credit: Future)Image 2 of 8 Roccat Kone XP gaming mouse (Image credit: Future)Image 3 of 8 Roccat Kone XP gaming mouse (Image credit: Future)Image 4 of 8 Roccat Kone XP gaming mouse (Image credit: Future)Image 5 of 8 Roccat Kone XP gaming mouse (Image credit: Future)Image 6 of 8 Roccat Kone XP gaming mouse (Image credit: Future)Image 7 of 8 Roccat Kone XP gaming mouse (Image credit: Future)Image 8 of 8 Roccat Kone XP gaming mouse (Image credit: Future) While the lighting might be a bit much for some, you can always change things up in the Swarm software but you don’t have too many options and you can’t create your own effects from scratch. That said, whatever you choose, the lighting is bold and bright thanks to the never-ending power supply from your PC or laptop. Putting it all together, the Roccat Kone XP is a fantastic wired gaming mouse and an easy recommendation. It ever so slightly bests the Razer Basilisk V3 but undoubtedly trumps it in the RGB department. It's great for fast-paced shooters or complex MOBA while still being perfect for productivity work. The build quality is excellent and the 3D RGB lighting looks way better in person than you'd think. There’s only one reason why you shouldn’t buy it and that's the new wireless Kone XP Air. However, if you don’t want the bother of dongles, battery lives, and the added weight, then this wired Kone XP is hard to beat. View the full article

Riot has announced that it has entered a longterm partnership with the luxury jeweller Tiffany & Co. to make the League of Legends World Championship Trophy. The Summoner's Cup, as it is called, has been redesigned by the venerable New York firm, and will be fully shown off for the first time on August 29 on various Riot social channels (you can see a partial image below). Tiffany & Co. is a famous longstanding jewellery brand, headquartered in New York City and founded in 1837 by the jeweller Charles Lewis Tiffany. Over its history the company has not only flogged a lot of diamond engagement rings, but branched-out into other high-end goods and operates hundreds of stores worldwide. Tiffany & Co. has an old-world cachet as well as having designed plenty of more traditional sporting trophies, and first worked with Riot on something of a trial run in redesigning the Chinese LoL league's Silver Dragon Cup last year. "The Summoner’s Cup is a symbol of greatness in esports and the crowning achievement in League of Legends," says Riot's LoL esports lead Naz Aletaha. "[...] Tiffany & Co is a storied brand and the preeminent designer of the world's greatest sports trophies. We’re honored to partner with them to celebrate our past, present, and future World Champions.” The press release also has numbers! The new Summoner's Cup is made of sterling silver, weighs 44 pounds and stands at around 27 inches tall. Tiffany's designers spent four months working on it and 'expert artisans' spent 277 hours crafting it at a hollowware workshop in Cumberland, Rhode Island. "We are excited to continue our partnership with League of Legends esports" said Tiffany's Alexandre Arnault, while thumbing through a wad of hundred-dollar bills. I made up the bills. "Creating the Summoner’s Cup is another important moment for Tiffany in the world of esports and an exciting new chapter in our 160-year legacy handcrafting sports trophies." (Image credit: Riot) The League of Legends World Championship returns to North America this Autumn for the first time since 2016, with a multi-city tour format. Qualifying rounds begin in late September with the Worlds Final taking place on November 5 in San Francisco. The Worlds event is serious business, and grows its enormous audience every year: the 2021 Finals match averaging more than 30 million viewers a minute and over 73 million peak concurrents. In the wider LoL landscape, Riot is still working on a long-term goal to "slow the pace of combat" in the game, and also recently added all League champions and Valorant agents to Game Pass. The future for Riot looks incredibly bright, and things like this trophy are a bit of well-deserved showing off. View the full article

More top Genshin Impact builds (Image credit: miHoYo)Genshin Impact Heizou build: Brawling detective Genshin Impact Klee build: Little red bomber Genshin Impact Kazuha build: Anemo ronin Genshin Impact Yelan build: Hydro spy Genshin Impact Kuki build: Loyal lieutenant Looking for the best Genshin Impact Zhongli build before his rerun in version 3.0? This is the third time that the Geo Archon is returning to Genshin Impact. Even eight months after his last banner, he's pretty much one of the best shielders in the game, and his Planet Befall burst can still do decent damage, while also hurling a literal asteroid at enemies. Zhongli is still the linchpin of many Geo teams due to his Stone Stele Geo construct and how it resonates with others, like Ningguang's Jade Screen, Albedo's Solar Isotoma, and even Itto's little bull friend, Ushi. All in all, this can create some incredibly powerful Geo character combinations. So if you're on the prowl for a good Genshin Impact Zhongli build, as well as info about abilities and ascension materials, look no further. Builds The best Genshin Impact Zhongli build Zhongli is the best shielder in Genshin Impact. The Jade Shield he creates with his elemental skill scales with his HP in terms of strength, but also Fortifies when hit by up to 25% strength once you unlock his Resonant Waves passive. His Dominance of Earth passive also boosts damage output based on his max HP, making him a pretty amazing hybrid support/DPS. Support/sub-DPS Weapon: Staff of Homa Sadly, Zhongli's signature weapon, Vortex Vanquisher, isn't actually very good for him. However, Hu Tao's polearm is pretty much perfect. The Staff of Homa boosts HP by 20% and grants an attack boost based on 0.8% of the wielder's max HP. If their health ever drops below 50%, that boost is increased by 1%. As you'd imagine, the HP boost increases Zhongli's damage and shield strength, and the attack boost based on HP stacks nicely with what he already gets from his Dominance of Earth passive. Artifacts: (2) Archaic Petra (2) Noblesse Oblige Two-pieces of Archaic Petra buffs Geo damage by 15%, which strengthens Zhongli's burst and skill. Speaking of bursts, two-pieces of Noblesse Oblige increase burst damage by 20%. This allows Zhongli to be more of an all round damage-dealer. In terms of substats, you'll want to prioritise HP due to that shield strength and damage increase, and also Geo damage bonus if you have an artifact with the relevant stat. How to unlock (Image credit: miHoYo) How to get Zhongli in Genshin Impact Zhongli is returning for a banner rerun in phase one of version 3.0 on August 24, with one of the new Dendro characters, Collei as a boosted four-star alternative. The Geo Archon originally released back in version 1.1 on the Gentry of Hermitage banner, before returning in version 1.5 alongside the release of the Azhdaha boss. Then Zhongli was available during his third rerun back in January, where you could wish for him alongside Ganyu to celebrate the return of the Liyue Lantern Rite event. Abilities Zhongli's abilities Here are Zhongli's abilities, passives, and Constellations: Normal attack: Rain of Stone Normal Attack: Zhongli performs six rapid strikes in quick succession.Charged Attack:Zhongli lurches forwards, causing stone spears to drop behind him. Costs some stamina.Plunging Attack:Zhongli slams down with a strong attack. Elemental Skill Dominus LapidisZhongli forms a stone stele, dealing AoE Geo damage. This attack becomes stronger if other Geo elements are nearby. If charged, this skill creates a jade shield, which absorbs damage, with better absorption for Geo damage. Elemental Burst Planet BefallZhongli summons a meteor, dealing Geo damage and applying Petrification. Gets stronger as Zhongli’s health increases. Passives Resonant Waves:Jade shield will Fortify when damaged, gaining a 5% increase in shield strength. Can stack five times.Dominance Of Earth:Planet Befall gets a damage boost equal to 33% of Zhongli’s max HP.Arcanum Of Crystal:Refunds 15% ore when crafting Polearms. Constellations Rock, the Backbone of Earth:Allows Zhongli to create two stone stele’s at once.Stone, the Cradle of Jade:Planet Befall grants nearby allies a jade shield.Jade, Shimmering through Darkness:Increases Dominus Lapidis’ level by 3.Topaz, Unbreakable and Fearless:Increases Planet Befall’s AoE damage by 20%, and increases Petrification’s duration by two seconds.Lazuil, Herald of the Order:Increases Planet Befall’s level by 3.Chyros, Bounty of Dominator:40% of damage taken by jade shield becomes health regeneration for active party members. Ascension materials (Image credit: miHoYo) Zhongli's Ascension materials Character You're going to need Prithava Topaz, the Geo character ascension material, in order to upgrade Zhongli's level cap. You can get this from any Geo boss, but you'll want to fight the Geo Hypostatis in the Guyun Stone Forest in Liyue, as this will also give you the Basalt Pillars he needs. On top of this, you'll need a couple of world materials: Cor LapisSlime materials You can get Cor Lapis all across Liyue, though particularly on Mt. Hulao and all across Jueyun Karst. There's a complete location list on the official Genshin Impact map. Slime materials, on the other hand, come from fighting Slimes and you should already have lots of them. If not, you can find them everywhere, or fight them as part of Mondstadt's Blossoms of Wealth and Wisdom if you want to farm Mora and EXP materials at the same time. Talent Here's what you're going to need to ascend Zhongli's talents: Gold scrollsSlime materialsTusk of Monoceros CaeliCrown of Insight You can get Gold scrolls from the Taishan Mansion Domain on Wednesdays, Saturdays, and Sundays. Slime materials, as mentioned, come from Slimes. The Tusk of Monoceros Caeli is dropped by the Childe boss, or crafted from his other boss materials at the Alchemy Bench with Dream Solvent. Finally, Crowns of Insight come from upgrading the Frostbearing Tree in Dragonspine, the Sacred Sakura in Inazuma, or doing seasonal events such as 'Fleeting Colours in Flight' in version 2.4. View the full article

What would superhero universes look like if the superheroes... well, lost? It's an avenue not often explored, but it's what the team behind deckbuilder Hand of Fate is looking to do with its newest game Capes. The tactical RPG looks at the bleak world of supervillain supremacy, where they managed to wipe out the good guys two decades prior and have since wreaked a fair bit of havoc. But now the new generation of superheroes are all grown up, ready to reclaim the city from the various baddies that have set up shop. It's a fun premise, and I'd be interested to see how a band of green champions can stand up against veteran ne'er-do-wells. The trailer gives a good glimpse of what can be expected. There'll be a whole slew of superheroes to recruit, with the developer promising some neat diversity in powers as well as "ethnicities, genders, hopes, and dreams." The turn-based combat will have the heroes rescuing civilians from debris and taking on the bad guys throughout a series of missions. You'll be able to combine powers to create new and deadly attacks as well as upgrade stats and efficiencies to make your team even more powerful. If you're a fan of XCOM or Divinity, Capes may be right up your alley. Capes is set to release on Steam in early 2023. View the full article

The Xbox Adaptive Controller has proven itself a tremendously useful device for anyone with limited mobility to game without compromise. So much so that Nintendo may have been eyeing up its own version of the accessibility controller, with a view to making it platform agnostic. Former Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aimé has spoken about the possibility of such a controller in an interview with Inverse (via TechRadar). "Imagine an adaptive controller that you could play with your latest Xbox, PlayStation, or Nintendo platform. That's what we were working on three years ago." Fils-Aimé left Nintendo in 2019 and cannot say for sure whether Nintendo still has hopes of creating such a controller. He notes that he would like to see it reach the market sooner rather than later, however. "My hope is that the effort has continued. I'm not sure if it has or has not," Fils-Aimé says. "But also, my hope is that controller, and the ability for that controller to connect with all of the various systems, is launched and shared with consumers as quickly as possible." There is a XAC-like device that works with Nintendo Switch already: the Hori Flex Assistive Controller pictured above. The device isn't quite as cheap as the $99 XAC, though it will also function with a PC, so it's another option for owners of either platform. While initially available solely in Japan, it now appears available elsewhere, too. The Hori Flex is actually an officially licensed Nintendo product, though whether that means anything for the development of an accessibility controller from Nintendo itself, I can't say. Meanwhile, the Xbox Adaptive Controller has been well-received for its role in simplifying bespoke controller setups on PC and Xbox since its release in 2018. Though Microsoft told us last year that it is still "figuring out the benefits" of the controller and where to go next to improve accessibility in gaming. That includes working with developers to improve in-game accessibility options, and there's still plenty of work to do. It now appears the XAC is headed to Linux, too. So that's one more potential platform where it can do some good. View the full article

Elden Ring was released on February 25 this year and, just under six months later, publisher Bandai Namco has announced it's sold a staggering 16.6 million copies of the game. This makes it by far the biggest individual success in developer FromSoft's history: the Dark Souls series has sold a combined total of around 27 million, while the most recent figure for Sekiro was 5 million copies sold as of summer 2020. Clearly the mass market loves some demigod runes and a bit of body grafting. The news came as part of Bandai Namco's financial results (thanks, Gamebiz.jp) for the first financial quarter of 2023 (meaning April through June 2022), which show that the Japanese giant is in rude health: it reported videogame sales totalling ¥40.5 billion yen, a roughly 55% year-on-year increase, with 11,444,000 units sold over these three months. Despite such sales, the publisher forecasts an overall drop in profit over this financial year. This is explained by both ongoing development investments and the lack of 'big' game launches it has over this time. Though, if Elden Ring continues to sell like this, the final picture may be a lot rosier. Investors certainly seem to think so, with the publisher's stock having risen to and held its highest-ever level (¥11,200 a share) since these results were published. Sadly, the dry-as-dust numbers report didn't contain anything more juicy like, I don't know, a hint about the inevitable Elden Ring DLC. The game may be enormous but folk are slavering at the chops for a bit more of that Lands Between goodness: to the extent we've even seen a few fake 'leaks' of DLC titles and logo art. FromSoftware has developed some of the best DLC I've ever had the privilege to play (hello, The Old Hunters) and, with 17-odd million players and counting, the question with Elden Ring DLC is not if, but when. View the full article

With a name like a long-lost Japanese tokusatsu series and a slavish dedication to a 16-bit aesthetic, Blazing Chrome developers JoyMasher are at it again. They've just announced their fourth game, Vengeful Guardian: Moonrider, an action platformer the the kind of 16-bit style that would have been right at home on the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive, or even the glowing backlit screen of a Game Gear. In Vengeful Guardian: Moonrider you'll play the eponymous Moonrider, a super soldier who turns against the evil government that created it and fights for its overthrow. It's an action platformer that draws from the classic era of action platforming, with the creators citing Ninja Gaiden and Shinobi as inspirations. Like Blazing Chrome, JoyMasher will partner with indie publisher The Arcade Crew to help Vengeful Guardian: Moonrider along. Yes, I'm going to type out the entire title Vengeful Guardian: Moonrider as many times as I can because 1) I think it's an evocative title with some nice words in it and 2) while they're badass words it's still really unwieldy as a phrase. Vengeful Guardian: Moonrider (I didn't lie) will be a bit more than you might expect from the precise inspirations, though. As you fight through its stages you'll be able to find hidden modifier chips that customize your Moonrider's fighting style to get new or upgraded abilities, promising more advanced gameplay than the older action platformers it draws on and mimics. That'll help your unlikely hero succeed, I hope, in their "relentless battle for vengeance against its creators and fellow super soldiers." Which is kind of the draw here as well, isn't it? Vengeful Guardian: Moonrider looks nice. At the very least it definitely has the gorgeous, deep pixel art that characterized Blazing Chrome's world—though here's it's applied to a much bleaker, quite literally darker setting. The cutscenes wouldn't be amiss in a Robocop game, invoking as they do a world where "authoritarians have built super soldiers as weapons of war, but their creators have sealed their fate by bringing the warrior known as Moonrider online." Image 1 of 9 I don't normally put the logo cards in galleries but COME ON that one rules. (Image credit: JoyMasher and The Arcade Crew)Image 2 of 9 (Image credit: JoyMasher and The Arcade Crew)Image 3 of 9 (Image credit: JoyMasher and The Arcade Crew)Image 4 of 9 (Image credit: JoyMasher and The Arcade Crew)Image 5 of 9 (Image credit: JoyMasher and The Arcade Crew)Image 6 of 9 (Image credit: JoyMasher and The Arcade Crew)Image 7 of 9 (Image credit: JoyMasher and The Arcade Crew)Image 8 of 9 (Image credit: JoyMasher and The Arcade Crew)Image 9 of 9 (Image credit: JoyMasher and The Arcade Crew) JoyMasher has pulled off this retro inspiration before, building on and elevating the games it's drawing from to make something wholly modern. Our Austin Wood called Blazing Chrome "a perfect successor to Contra and Metal Slug" back in 2018, and the cooperative shoot-em-up didn't disappoint with fans on release, holding 90% positive reviews on Steam. You can find Vengeful Guardian: Moonrider on Steam, though Blazing Chrome made its way to Humble and GOG as well so you can probably expect that. You can learn more about Vengeful Guardian: Moonrider developers JoyMasher on their website, joymasher.com. One last time, ok? Vengeful Guardian: Moonrider. View the full article

PC cases or even fully built PCs. That’s the stuff for which we know NZXT best. But monitors? Not so much. Enter the new NZXT Canvas 32Q Curved. It’s a 32-inch, 1440p and 165Hz panel that begs an immediate question. When it comes to gaming monitors, is it better to have something from a screen specialist, for instance LG, that’s then been optimised for gaming? Or can a gaming specialist apply their know-how to screens? Time to find out. In terms of headline specs, the NZXT Canvas 32Q Curved is nothing exceptional. It’s good, to be sure. But a 32-inch VA panel with 1440p resolution, 165Hz refresh, 1ms response, and 300nits of brightness is not setting new standards. Instead, it’s joining the fray with competitive but not world-beating specs. Speaking of specs, NZXT’s own numbers rate this VA panel at a mere 1,000:1 static contrast. You’d normally expect at least 2,000:1 if not 3,000:1 from a modern VA panel. The 1ms response claim is also said to be via the grey-to-grey metric rather than MPRT. Only Samsung has previously managed a VA monitor with 1ms GT rather than MPRT, previously. Curious. For the record, the NZXT Canvas 32Q Curved does support HDR10 signal processing. But with that 300nits maximum brightness and no local dimming, well, you know the drill. This isn’t true HDR or even close to it. Nor is the panel hugely colour accurate. NZXT rates the 32Q at 89% of the DCI-P3 gamut and 99% of sRGB. Both numbers are a little off the pace compared to a decent IPS panel. But in a gaming context, that’s not a huge issue. What the Canvas 32Q is, however, is curved to the tune of 1500R which is a fairly substantial bend. Curved screens are subjective at the best of times. But we think most people would agree they make more sense with ultrawide panels than a more conventional 16:9 monitor like this. For sure it doesn’t detract from the experience much. But nor does curvature unambiguously improve this display. NZXT Canvas 32Q Curved specs (Image credit: Future)Screen size: 32-inch Panel type: VA Resolution: 2,560 x 1,440 Brightness: 300nits Contrast: 1,000:1 Response time: 1ms Refresh rate: 165Hz Colour coverage: 89% DCI-P3 HDR support: HDR10 Adaptive sync: FreeSync Premium, G-Sync Compatible Connectivity: DisplayPort 1.2 x1, HDMI 2.0 x2, USB Type-C Price: $429 | £469 Anyway, if the Canvas 32Q Curved mostly seems pretty mainstream, where does the NZXT goodness come in? First, there’s the design. This is a fantastic looking display. And it’s beautifully built, too. The main enclosure is high-quality white plastic while the metal stand is very nicely engineered. The stand adjusts for swivel, tilt, and height, but not rotation into portrait. It’s also, strictly speaking, an optional extra. In the US the NZXT Canvas 32Q Curved clocks in at a fairly competitive $379 without the stand and $429 with it, while in the UK it’s £429 without and £469 with, which is a little pricey. Anyway, it’s an interesting twist, being able to option the stand. Forgo it and the screen offers VESA 100mm by 100mm mounting support and indeed NZXT will also sell you single and double-mount VESA arms to that end as an alternative to the factory stand. Beyond that, the other obvious NZXT-specific feature is the CAM software. Essentially, it’s a Windows app alternative to clunky monitor OSD menus. Not that NZXT’s OSD is particularly clunky. It’s actually quite slick, as OSD’s go. But the CAM app is more powerful and configurable, allowing you to control the various features and settings without needing to use the OSD, including making settings profiles on a per-app basis. Inputs wise, you get HDMI, DisplayPort and USB Type-C with DisplayPort alt mode. Just note that the latter does not support power delivery. So you can’t have single cable connectivity to a laptop and both drive the display and charge the lappy. That said, the 165Hz is available over the USB, in case you were wondering. (Image credit: Future) Anywho, what to make of the actual image quality? Obviously, you need to be comfortable with the fairly fat pixels that come with a 32-inch panel and 1440p native resolution. A crispy 4K monitor this is not. That’s much more of an issue on the Windows desktop than it is in-game. But it does compromise the appeal in all-around, multi-usage terms. Moreover, this is not a monitor that immediately socks it to you. For a VA panel, it’s not hugely contrasty, the viewing angles are OK rather than great. Moreover, as you would expect from a maximum brightness of 300 nits, it’s simply not massively punchy in outright terms. Dare we say it, it has a slightly old-fashioned feel and lacks the saturation and zing of the very best current panels. As for pixel response, there are three levels of overdrive available and even the fastest setting is very usable, with little by way of visible overshoot or inverse ghosting. Perhaps not altogether surprisingly, as a consequence of the relatively restrained overdrive the 32Q doesn’t look as sharp and zippy as the best current IPS panels. It’s just that little bit softer with fast motion. Image 1 of 11 (Image credit: Future)Image 2 of 11 (Image credit: Future)Image 3 of 11 (Image credit: Future)Image 4 of 11 (Image credit: Future)Image 5 of 11 (Image credit: Future)Image 6 of 11 (Image credit: Future)Image 7 of 11 (Image credit: Future)Image 8 of 11 (Image credit: Future)Image 9 of 11 (Image credit: Future)Image 10 of 11 (Image credit: Future)Image 11 of 11 (Image credit: Future) Inevitably, HDR performance is not a highlight either. This panel lacks the brightness and backlight modulation required for that. It’s also worth noting that the gamma of SDR content is a bit wonky with the panel running in HDR mode in Windows. So, you absolutely wouldn’t want it in HDR mode unless you were specifically watching or playing HDR content. Not that we would bother with HDR mode in general. Compare an HDR-heavy title like Cyberpunk 2077 in SDR and HDR mode on this display and you’d be hard pressed to say which was which. All of which probably seems rather negative. But this is not a bad monitor. For the most part, it performs pretty much as you would expect given the specs. It’s a 300nit, 165Hz, 1440p (essentially) SDR gaming panel. It’s probably not as contrasty as you might expect from a VA monitor. The response isn’t quite as good as the best IPS screens. But it is by no means a smeary mess. It’s pretty quick. And it looks great and is built very nicely. So, it’s not a bargain, the NZXT Canvas 32Q Curved. Nor is it flawless or a world-beater. But it is a solid option in this part of the market. If we were shopping 32-inch, 165Hz, 1440p, SDR panels, it would be a case of deciding whether we thought the styling and engineering upsides of this NZXT offset the slightly more vibrant image quality of some of the alternatives. So, yeah, there are definitely some things that NZXT is doing better than the established monitor makers. But the company also has a little more to learn before it has the full measure of the big brands. View the full article

China's Sichuan province has had to make some tough decisions in face of the most intense heatwave in 60 years. The three-level power supply control measures now in place have seen giants like Intel closing factories in order for the province to keep up with its rising air conditioner usage. What does that mean for us? Higher chip prices in the future, potentially. For now, though, the important thing is trying to keep the Chinese population alive. Already one of the warmest regions, Sichuan is now competing with soaring 40°C (104°F) temperatures, as well as the least rain recorded in decades. It's meant a frightening lack of water in reservoirs for hydropower. As such, China's having a hard time keeping up with the demand coming from the power grid, especially since usage has spiked so violently as its inhabitants' try to keep cool in the heat. "The power supply situation in the province is extremely tense," Sichuan Daily reports. And they've dubbed it not a shortage, but a "double shortage" (machine translated). In response, all high-capacity factories in Sichuan—including that of Foxconn Technology (a major tech manufacturing and Apple supplier), Volkswagen, Onsemi, Tesla, and the company we're most concerned about: Intel—have been told to halt production until August 20, The Verge notes. Both Intel's CD1 and CD6 Assembly Test Manufacturing plants are situated in Chengdu, Sichuan, which in the last quarter of 2021 used 60.46 million kWh of energy. According to a Quartz article (updated July 2022) air con makes up for around 10% of the globe's estimated 2,000 terawatt hours energy use. And on the top end of the equation sits China, which "uses 68 times more energy on cooling than it did in 1990." Your 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 rest It's really no wonder China has had to close factories to accommodate it. The whole situation feels like watching a noob playing a city builder on hard mode, and utterly faceplant trying to balance all their resources. The implication for us PC gamers is that Intel may end up having to hike CPU prices in the future, to make up for factory closures. So, not only are we witness to some severe, economy-swaying disaster prevention measures in China right now, Intel might have to scramble to make up for any losses the egregious shutdowns might cause. View the full article

Bad news came for Marvel fans yesterday when we learnt that Avalanche Studios—the maker of Just Cause—was working on an Iron Man game ten years ago, but it ended up being canned due to "company politics". The news came as part of a MinnMax interview with Avalanche co-founder Christofer Sundberg, who revealed that the developer's Stockholm studio worked with Disney on an Iron Man game for two years before it ended up cancelled. "It was a mess by the end," said Sundberg, noting that the game's shortening development time and ballooning budget would have required Avalanche to hire an extra "70, 80 people to the team" in order to finish the game to Disney's specifications. "It would have broken the company completely" to do that, he added, pointing out that there wouldn't be a new project for all the extra hires to work on after Iron Man was concluded. Sundberg didn't go into much detail about how the game would have played, but he did say that a lot of attention was given to the game's melee combat, with a focus on Iron Man's repulsor gloves and the ability to do things like knock enemies through walls. It sounds very much like an Arkham Asylum-style combat system with a bigger focus on destructibility, which is incredibly on-brand for the studio behind Just Cause. The early 2010s were a heady time for superhero games. In the wake of the success of the first couple of Iron Man films, Sega worked with multiple developers (including the company that would later become Behaviour Interactive, maker of Dead By Daylight) to put out some profoundly terrible tie-in games. Given that Sega was also working with Avalanche on Renegade Ops around that time, it could be the case that the publisher tried to get Avalanche on board to try to salvage whatever goodwill remained for the Iron Man franchise after several ugly misses. Sundberg said that it was hard to see two years of work go "down the toilet," but does note that at least the project's termination didn't necessitate any layoffs, as had happened to the company before in 2008. "So much time and energy had been spent on it, and it looked absolutely amazing," said Sundberg, adding that he hopes the game sees the light of day at some point. I wouldn't hold my breath, though, unless a former member of the team finds an old build on their hard drive and puts it out there, it seems unlikely that a decade-old Iron Man game is going to rise from the dead. An Iron Man game from the people responsible for Just Cause's ludicrous destructivity would hopefully have been pretty interesting, but I won't pretend I'm not totally overfed on Marvel's snarky superheroes by this point. Back in 2012 it might still have felt novel to play Iron Man in an Arkham-style action game, but for now I just want that field to lie fallow. View the full article

I'm a nosy gal, so I can't exactly blame Guybrush for being a bit salty that it's been three goddamn decades and he still doesn't have a clue what Monkey Island's secret is. But hey, anything can happen—after all, Return to Monkey Island is a thing that's actually releasing. This month, we're chatting to Ron Gilbert about the sequel that was never supposed to exist. The old Monkey Island team has a new perspective, from evolving its art style to modernising the point-and-click style of gameplay. What exactly is the plan for our dear Guybrush Threepwood all these years later? Monkey Island fans are in for a treat with the subscriber cover too, featuring gorgeous art of Guybrush's favourite zombie pirate pal LeChuck. We also got to sit down with director and producer of Final Fantasy 14 Naoki Yoshida, looking back on what's been a phenomenal 12 months for the critically-acclaimed MMORPG and seeing what's in store for Yoshida and our Warriors of Light in the years to come. (Image credit: Future) It's also that time of the year once again: our PC Gamer Top 100 is here. Blood was spilled, hair was pulled and tears were shed as we battled it out to determine the best 100 games on PC that you can play right now. There were some mighty tough choices to make this year—we bumped a few classics and others skyrocketed to the cream of the crop. We think the list is pretty rad though, a reflection of our current team and where PC gaming is today. For reviews, this month you can peep what we thought of everybody's new favourite four-legged friend in Stray. If spiders are more your thing (first of all, why?) then we've also got the lowdown on Spider-Man Remastered now that it's finally hit PC, as well as seeing what it takes to run a university in Two Point Campus. Over on our hardware pages, we're discussing if RGB has begun to die a colourful, flashy death as cases and peripherals mature and leave behind their rainbow lightshow days of old. With money getting tighter for many of us, we also took a look at some budget cases that can help keep us in touch with our hobby while saving a few quid. Issue 374 is on shelves now and available on all your digital devices from the App Store(opens in new tab) and Zinio(opens in new tab). You can also order directly from Magazines Direct(opens in new tab) or purchase a subscription(opens in new tab) to save yourself some cash, receive monthly deliveries, and nab super stylish subscriber-exclusive covers. This month: How do you develop a sequel that was never supposed to happen? Ron Gilbert stories his journey in how Return to Monkey Island came to be.2021 saw Final Fantasy 14 find its feet and end up suffering from its own success in the process. What did Naoki Yoshida make of it all, and what's in store for the game's future?Digital Extremes is going all fantasy on us with Soulframe.Reviews for games big and small including Stray, Two Point Campus and Spider-Man Remastered.Handy ways to be a PC gamer on a budget.Plus a whole lot more! View the full article

The music video embedded above has the power to crash computers. Back in the hazy days of Windows XP, a major computer manufacturer discovered that playing the music video for Janet Jackson's 'Rhythm Nation' would crash some models of laptops. And not just its own laptops in some quirky coding error: it was affecting competitors' laptops, too. This is a tale taken from Raymond Chen's blog and book 'The Old New Thing', and it recounts a bug fix story told to Chen by a colleague in Windows XP product support. "And then they discovered something extremely weird," Chen says. "Playing the music video on one laptop caused a laptop sitting nearby to crash, even though that other laptop wasn’t playing the video!" Now Rhythm Nation goes hard, but there was something else going on here. "It turns out that the song contained one of the natural resonant frequencies for the model of 5400 rpm laptop hard drives that they and other manufacturers used." Luckily there was a sort-of easy fix, which involved programming a custom filter to remove the frequencies causing the crash on impacted laptops. That would take care of most unexpected crashes, though does leave these laptops open to crashing if the sound is played from an unpatched external audio source. Or perhaps some sort of audio-based low-key cyberattack. The Register has spotted that this 'fun' flaw has been registered as a Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) by The Mitre Corporation in 2022. Yes, Microsoft resurfacing this fun story and its fix has actually led to a new vulnerability being registered, as it's still technically exposable. Your next machine (Image credit: Future)Best gaming PC: The top pre-built machines from the pros Best gaming laptop: Perfect notebooks for mobile gaming It's listed as CVE-2022-38392, and is described as: "A certain 5400 RPM OEM hard drive, as shipped with laptop PCs in approximately 2005, allows physically proximate attackers to cause a denial of service (device malfunction and system crash) via a resonant-frequency attack with the audio signal from the Rhythm Nation music video." Janet Jackson's Rhythm Nation is an actual method of cyber attack—albeit for some very old laptops with slow-spinning hard drives. But it just goes to show you can't necessarily rule anything out when debugging a computer. Intermittent screen flickering? Could be from your neighbour whistling. Blue Screen of Death? Cosmic rays could be to blame. No seriously, it really could be cosmic rays. A tiny stray radiation particle whizzing through space could alter your PC just enough to change how it behaves in a moment. View the full article

Early pricing for AMD's upcoming X670E and X670 motherboards briefly appeared on a German reseller's site suggesting that upgrading to Zen 4 is going to be a very costly affair. This was already expected to some extent due to the shift to DDR5 and the fact that the first motherboard chipsets are high-end offerings. If the pricing for the Asus motherboards on the site are real, you're looking at paying up to €1,475 ($1,499) for the top Asus ROG Crosshair X670E Extreme motherboard and €483 ($490) for the most affordable Asus Prime X670-P offering. Gulp. ｱｻｽ pic.twitter.com/b8PZmORvcCAugust 16, 2022 See more This pricing was spotted by eagle-eyed hardware leaker @momomo_us, who posted a shot of the listings on ipc-computer.de on Twitter. These listings have since been taken down, which could suggest the pricing is correct, although it's not a given either way. This is just one reseller of course, and the pricing could change when the boards are officially released. More info on Zen 4 and the AM5 platform is expected on August 29 with a livestream, and we'd assume that this is when we'll get the official launch date. Hopefully, we'll get some official pricing at that time too. AMD recently showed off some of the AM5 motherboards that are on the way, focusing on the high-end offerings from Asrock, Asus, Gigabyte, and MSI. This included the Asus ROG Crosshair X670E Extreme, which does have an impressive feature list, although I'm not convinced it can really justify that $1,499 price tag. Even so, it's the fact that the most affordable board is so expensive that is more shocking. If you're wondering about the difference in the core chipset specifications, then the main difference between the X670E and X670 is the underlying PCIe 5.0 support. The top-end "Extreme" chipset has PCIe 5.0 everywhere, while the X670 leave graphics card PCIe 5.0 support as an option, but does offer PCIe 5.0 storage support. There's also a difference in overclocking support, with the X670E offering "Extreme Overclocking" with the X670 making do with "Enthusiast Overclocking" which doesn't sound too different. There is a third chipset on the way though, and that's the B650 which has PCIe 5.0 storage support and is aimed at "Mainstream price points". This isn't in the initial salvo of boards, but if that leaked pricing is accurate, it's probably going to be the one worth waiting for the vast majority of builders. The only notable downside with B650 motherboards is the lack of overclocking support, but we'll have to see how well the Ryzen 7000-series overclocks before that becomes a real factor. View the full article

In 2018, developer Two Point Studios brought silliness back into simulation with Two Point Hospital. In the spirit of Bullfrog classics like Theme Park and Theme Hospital, they infused the game with an irreverent cartoon quality that means that you were playing with a smile on your face even as everything was falling apart and people were relieving themselves in your corridors (Rule No. 1 of Two Point games: you can never have enough toilets). Two Point Campus takes that formula to University (or College, depending which side of the Atlantic you're looking at it from). As you'd expect, throw a bunch of students and absurd classes into the Two Point mix, and you end up with a management game that's the right kind of ridiculous. There are over a dozen courses to choose from across multiple colleges, and we played around with some of the most eye-catching ones on offer. If a student has culinary ambitions that go beyond stir-in pasta sauces and beans on toast, then they should try their hand at Gastronomy, where they can concoct bubbling plunge pools of stew, flip giant burgers, and create pizzas adorned with head-sized pepperoni slices. Once your students are far enough along in their studies, get them to compete in Two Point County cook-offs, where they can prove themselves a true Gastrono-Master on the big stage. Of course, this will ultimately serve you, as all these successes contribute to the reputation of your illustrious institution. For students who prefer cauldrons over cooking pots, there's the Wizardry course, but there's more to the study of magic than bubbling cauldrons. You'll need to create a Spells Room too, where students test their wand-waving skills against each other in one-on-one duels. Be warned that students may come away from this with pumpkin heads, so have a Medical Room nearby to set them right. (Image credit: SEGA) Some students are more gifted in the ways of athletics and cheese-grating than they are in academic pursuits, which is why the noble sport of Cheeseball exists. Find a patch of grass big enough, plonk down a Cheeseball pitch, then watch as your team trains up, and eventually competes in the County Cheeseball Championships. Watching this sport up close is quite something, as students chuck cheese wheels like frisbees towards a goal guarded by students with a giant grater. It really lets you appreciate the fine animation work the devs have put into Two Point Campus, and showcases the special quality that's made these games such a breath of fresh air in a management genre that can sometimes take itself far too seriously. At Knight School, students will learn codes of chivalry, hone their sword skills, and master the Mediaeval Martial Art of jousting (with the caveat that instead of using actual horses, they simply sprint at their opponent with a horse costume around their waist). Again, it's classic quirky Two Point. (Image credit: SEGA) Even the more 'sensible' degrees—the kind that parents would push their children into - have that cheeky twist. If you have an influx of 'Posh' students who wish to sell their souls in exchange for a lifetime of ill-gained wealth, then take their parents' money, build a Computer Lab and get them on the Money Wangling course. Pop down a Science Lab, meanwhile, and students can create strange cubes of glowing matter in Scientography, or learn to understand the nature of humour by studying a little Funny Business. Two Point Campus may look like all fun and games on the surface, and it's a joy on the eyes to watch these classes in motion, but don't get carried away. There's a deceptively deep management game lurking just below the surface, and—like a diligent College Administrator—it won't suffer laziness lightly. View the full article

If you're having some trouble with today's Wordle, you can find the answer to the daily challenge right here. And if you're just after a few clues or some general tips on how to play everyone's favourite online word game then you'll be pleased to know I've got all of that covered too. Today's answer just hit me like a bolt of lightning out of the blue, possibly as some sort of cosmic apology for yesterday's sorry efforts. I'll take the win, even though I'm not entirely sure where it came from. Wordle hint Today's Wordle: A hint for Thursday, August 18 Bow strings, bed springs, and even classical harps can make today's word; the special sort of sound that only comes when something taut is pulled, plucked, or suddenly released after being squashed down. 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 425 answer? Let's keep your win streak going. The answer to the August 18 (425) Wordle is TWANG. 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: August 17: TWICEAugust 16: GRUELAugust 15: POKERAugust 14: KHAKIAugust 13: HUNKYAugust 12: LABELAugust 11: GLEANAugust 10: CLINGAugust 9: PATTYAugust 8: UNFIT 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. View the full article

Embracer Group, the parent company for a vast and expanding roster of studios and publishers including THQ Nordic, Gearbox, Plaion (formerly Koch Media) and Saber Interactive, has announced it will acquire Middle-earth Enterprises, which basically means it owns IP rights for The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, and a bunch of other Middle-earth related stuff the company doesn't even know about, yet. The purchase price is undisclosed "due to commercial reasons". To be clear: the acquisition won't mean Embracer Group will own J.R.R. Tolkien's actual literary works, which remain the property of the Tolkien Estate. It means Embracer Group will own the company which owns the rights to adapt those books into films, videogames, stage plays, placemats, Funko Pops… that sort of thing. If the acquisition is successful, Embracer will adopt Middle-earth Enterprises from The Saul Zaentz Company. Embracer Group made the agreement through its new Freemode subsidiary, which will provide "a global strategic, operational, and financial support ecosystem for its collective of small to midsize companies to achieve operational efficiency". Less impenetrably corporate is its goal to "expand its operating activities in the retro, classic, and heritage gaming category." That doesn't seem like quite the right place for Lord of the Rings, which will presumably keep spawning new game adaptations until the fiery heat death of the earth, but don't ask me, I'm not a Swedish billionaire. In addition to buying one of the biggest entertainment names of all time, Embracer also announced a bunch of other acquisitions today. It will acquire Killing Floor studio Tripwire Interactive, as well as Limited Run Games, which specialises in lush physical editions of otherwise digital indie games. Oh, and Tuxedo Labs, the studio responsible for Teardown, is also now an Embracer Group studio under the Saber Interactive subsidiary. All purchases prices remain undisclosed for the same vague "commercial reasons". Finally, LA-based studio Singtrix will also join the Embracer Group fold—they specialise in karaoke systems. Embracer Group wants to own everything, it seems, and in addition to those five announcements there's another top secret one, which won't be announced today due to—wait for it—"commercial reasons". According to Embracer the acquisition will be "in the range of being among either third or fourth largest of the Transactions". View the full article

Home internet is a wonderful thing, connecting people around the world to limitless information from the comfort of their couch. That is, when it works. If you live somewhere with a shoddy connection, bad providers, or even just thick walls you can run into problems from either your ISP or just your Wi-Fi, whatever that stands for. For many, solving the in-home Wi-Fi solution can end up costing big bucks, and involve a lot of trial and error. There are so many things that could potentially be getting in the way of your signal, it can often be difficult to nail down one single cause. This is one of the reasons there are so many different kinds of routers and other products to help get people connected in the home. Wi-Fi range extenders have become increasingly popular, as even small apartments can run into problems where devices connect just fine in one room and not in another. Another solution is to try dealing with some of the interferences, rather than boosting the Wi-Fi signal. However, when that interference is something permanent like a wall, that can be a problem. The good news is the folks at the Vienna University of Technology and the University of Rennes have found an interesting solution. Your 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 rest A paper published on Nature.com (spotted by NewsWeek) shows the work of scientists who have designed an anti-reflective Wi-Fi solution. It works by using calculations to set up a series of obstacles for the signals, so rather than being reflected immediately by the surface they are sort of ushered through. It does sound a bit pie in the sky for now, but the team has proven success with a calculated model and has even had success in experiments. Plus, because the calculations can be determined via algorithms, they could have other potential uses. "You first have to simply send certain waves through the medium and measure exactly how these waves are reflected by the material," said co-author Michael Horodynski. "We were able to show that, with this information, a corresponding compensating medium can be calculated for any medium that scatters waves in a complex way, so that the combination of both media allows the wave to pass completely. The key to this is a mathematical method that can be used to calculate the exact shape of this anti-reflective coating" said Horodynski. We're not saying you should throw away your fancy mesh Wi-Fi system or slew of extenders just yet, but we are looking forward to a future in which they might no longer be needed. View the full article

Chrome users may want to get on the latest update as it includes 11 security fixes for the browser. This update may not be as fun as one that has a new logo or improves your RAM, but for anyone with safety in mind it's a pretty important rollout. According to SecurityWeek, one of the security fixes in the 104.0.5112.101/102 update is for zero-day vulnerabilities—ones that are found by malicious parties before the vendor or owner of the software is aware of them. In the case of Chrome's latest update, only one out of the 11 fixes appears to be for a zero-day vulnerability, but this is the fifth such exploit patched by Chrome this year. This marks a surge in zero-day exploits that Google has had to cover for. Other bug fixes in the patch repair several different vulnerabilities regarding use-after-free. This usually refers to programs not clearing memory after use, leaving a pointer that can be exploited by attackers. Given they make up the lion's share of the fixes, it seems these floating points have been a real problem for Chrome. Perfect peripherals (Image credit: Colorwave)Best gaming mouse: the top rodents for gaming Best gaming keyboard: your PC's best friend... Best gaming headset: don't ignore in-game audio You can get a look at all the fixes in this patch on Google's official Chrome Releases page. Not only does it tell you what each fix addresses, but also gives credit to those who reported the issue in the first place. Sometimes these are Google employees, but can often include free agents who are looking to help. What's pretty neat about this list is you can also see what compensation was awarded to the reporters by Google. For example, one use-after-free bug was reported by an anonymous source (to us anyway) and we can see they were paid $5,000 for their troubles. It's nice to see that hunting down exploits in Chrome is at least a little bit rewarding for those looking to do good as well as evil. View the full article

Nine years after its initial reveal, Dead Island 2 will release on February 3, according to a listing for the PS4 version on Amazon. That's naturally subject to change and could just be placeholder—this being Dead Island 2, I wouldn't be surprised—but it does line up with recent hints by Embracer Group's CEO that the open world zombie game will be released in the company's 2023 fiscal year. The Amazon listing reiterates some of the points we've known about the game during its long stint in development hell. It's set in a version of Los Angeles "stained with horror", which means you'll get to bludgeon zombies in "the verdant suburbia of Beverly Hills" and "the quirky promenade of Venice Beach". Combat is "visceral and gory", naturally, and there will be "dozens" of different kinds of zombie to eviscerate, all with an LA theme, of course. It's been confirmed since 2014 that Dead Island 2 will have at least four playable characters, but the Amazon listing bumps that up to six. "You can fully customize the abilities of each Slayer, with our brand-new skill system allowing you to re-spec instantly and try out the craziest builds," reads the Amazon blurb. On that note, here's the full product description: A deadly virus is spreading across Los Angeles, California, turning its inhabitants into ravenous zombies. The city is in quarantine and the military have retreated. Bitten, infected, but more than just immune, you learn to harness the zombie inside. Only you, and the handful of other swaggering fellows who happen to be resistant to the pathogen, holds the future of LA (and humanity), in the balance. As you uncover the truth behind the outbreak you’ll discover who – or what – you are. Survive, evolve, save the world – just another day in LA! The much-loved zombie saga is back with a unique formula of horror, dark humor and over the top zombie-slaying, spanning an epic pulp adventure. Dead Island 2 is a thrilling First-Person Action RPG that takes players across a brand-new playground. Stylish, vibrant and flooded with zombie infection, explore iconic, gore-drenched Los Angeles. Meet larger-than-life characters. Slay countless foes in exquisitely bloody detail. And evolve to become the ultimate Zombie Slayer. See you in HELL-A! The listing is for the Day One edition, which comes with a bunch of cosmetics, a baseball bat (an in-game one, for violencing undead) and a weapon perk. Here are the screenshots attached to the listing: Image 1 of 4 (Image credit: Deep Silver)Image 2 of 4 (Image credit: Deep Silver)Image 3 of 4 (Image credit: Deep Silver)Image 4 of 4 (Image credit: Deep Silver) …and here's the PS4 box art: (Image credit: Deep Silver) Dead Island 2 has already been confirmed as an Epic Store exclusive, and chances are the PC version won't even receive a physical boxed copy, so whether those Day One perks apply to us is hard to tell. The game is in development at Dambuster Studios, after changing hands from Yager and then Sumo Digital. View the full article

Earlier this week, Twitch streamer and VTuber Shylily was banned for three days and given no clear reason why. Her story mirrors those of many other high-profile streamers who, due to Twitch's policy against explaining its reasons for issuing bans, are left guessing what they did wrong. "I find it absolutely wild that you sign a contract with this company but they hold the right to basically throw you off their platform without needing to let you know why specifically," Shylily told me. Shylily, who has about 20,000 subscribers and averages around 8,000 viewers per day, isn't sure what part of her most recent VRChat streams, or any of her streams from the last few months, could have provoked the ban. She received an email from Twitch that simply said she broke the terms of service on a live broadcast or a VOD. According to Twitch's suspension policy, it will issue warnings to streamers depending on the type of violation, but it can also suspend anyone immediately, even mid-stream in some cases. Twitch uses a three-strike system for DMCA warnings, but Shylily says she has only received one before, so it seems unlikely that copyrighted material was the issue. I emailed Twitch about Shylily's ban and didn't receive a response before publishing this article. Shylily's streams regularly include what she calls "bro" and "lewd" humor, and have shown suggestive fan art. She's also a VTuber, which means she exclusively represents herself as a 3D avatar. In its guidelines for nudity and sexual content, Twitch says that "augmented reality avatars" must abide by the same rules as everyone else. Shylily thinks her new VRChat model could be the problem. Guessing game Shylily's new VRChat model, which she says she paid around $8,000 for and "was gonna build future content based on it," lets her remove her outer layer of clothes and only show the tiny bikini underneath. It gives her a similar look to streamers who go live from their pools or hot tubs, but viewers suspect the revealing outfit and her suggestive antics on one of her most recent streams could have triggered the ban. The archive of the stream is unavailable, but Reddit user ReddishCat posted a clip where you can see her dancing in the outfit while on a beach. Shylily said it's possible that it wasn't "blatantly obvious enough that we were at the beach despite the water and sand everywhere" and therefore "the bikini toggle might have been against [Twitch's terms of service]." She told me it could also be a number of things she talked about on the stream, including a joke about pegging or referring to PornHub as "orange YouTube", which she says could make Twitch think she's promoting NSFW content. But it's still unclear if the violation was in her most recent stream or one of the many others. "I'm always under the impression that, as long as you don’t make things sensual or straight up sexual without context and just have fun and laugh and enjoy your time, you’ll be fine," she said. Streamers who make a living on the platform are frustrated with Twitch's lack of communication. "IRL streamers are allowed to paint their full nude bodies with nothing but their nipples covered, take showers in string bikinis exposing their entire behinds, rub themselves with body wash and bath bubbles all over their body in a sensual manner with every sub on a 4K viewer count stream as they proceed to chat for hours sitting in a bathtub," she said in her defense. Shylily used Twitch's ban appeal system, but was denied. She also opened a ticket, and that too was denied. "Not knowing what caused the ban makes it very difficult to avoid in the future," she said. Twitch Partner "Shylily" has been banned! https://t.co/qBDCTvE73W#twitch #ban #firstban #partner #twitchpartner August 15, 2022 See more The three-day ban, while brief compared to some of Twitch's stronger punishments, has left Shylily locked out of her account, unable to view her Twitch Partner contract, and restricted from streaming on YouTube as an alternative (per her contract). She says the break will lose her the hundreds of subscriptions she expected to receive in that period, but that she'll be fine. "But I can very well imagine streamers who barely make months end, without any savings to put aside, having a very tough and frustrating time!" she said. Shylily and the many other streamers who make a living on the platform are frustrated with Twitch's lack of communication when it comes to abrupt suspensions. In May, the streaming site said it was looking into providing more context with the bans it sends out, but hasn't made any further announcements about implementing this policy. At the time, Twitch said it stood by the accuracy of 99% of its suspension decisions. Communication problem In 2020, Dr Disrespect was permanently banned for a reason that he says Twitch never explained to him. His lawsuit against the platform fizzled out in March when he posted a message to Twitter that read: "No party admits to any wrongdoing." That same month, controversial Just Chatting streamer Destiny was indefinitely banned and was also given no reason from Twitch. Although both streamers had offensive clips to point to, Twitch's refusal to communicate means it never has to defend its decisions. Many see Twitch's silence as intentional obfuscation so that it can do whatever it wants. Clara "Keffals" Sorrenti, a trans streamer who was recently banned from Twitch for 28 days, said she was mass reported by users for planning to show and discuss examples of the harassment she receives. Her ban appeal was rejected by Twitch and the company didn't respond. Many see Twitch's silence as intentional obfuscation so it can do whatever it wants. As a result, bans to popular streamers, however short, spark debates over what the violation could have been and whether or not the platform has a double standard for different types of streams and streamers. Last year, a Twitch data breach revealed that it used to keep a 'do not ban' list of big streamers to prevent undue bans, so it's clear the company was willing to selectively deploy its rules when desired. As the streaming juggernaut grows—Twitch says over 15 million new people went live in 2021—there's a lot of pressure for the platform to better support the users who put it on top and to prevent the spread of hate toward its marginalized community members. Several of the biggest streamers, including LilyPichu, Myth, DrLupo and TimTheTatman, have left Twitch to sign exclusivity deals with YouTube. While their absence hasn't left much of a dent in Twitch's streaming dominance, its most successful streamers don't appear to be as committed to the platform as it would probably like. Shylily will return to Twitch on Thursday, but will likely stay off VRChat. She posted a tweet with the hashtag "#FreeLily" and a video that jokingly promises a start to her "seiso," or pure, era while a series of raunchy clips play. UNBAN ANNOUNCEMENTPlease come witness my seiso Era!https://t.co/Q3DH9CbWvq August 18th 4:29PM CESTBe there or be squarepeepeepoopoo#FreeLilywomp womp pic.twitter.com/24ly9jmrmHAugust 17, 2022 See more "I really do want Twitch to be a good place. Really," she said. "I enjoy Twitch culture a lot more than YouTube's," she said, but she also feels that YouTube is "a lot safer" than Twitch, and suggests that's why YouTube is able to lure big streamers away from the platform. View the full article

Untamed Isles, a "monster-taming turn-based MMORPG" that found major success on Kickstarter, has been put "on hiatus" because of the crypto crash—Kickstarter backers are being told that there's no money left for refunds. The 2021 Kickstarter campaign for Untamed Isles rang up a remarkable $527,000 in backing—more than four times its initial goal. It promised a fully open world with "unique areas for friends to gather, practice PVP, trade, breed monsters, clear dungeons, and play through the story of untamed isles socially with open voice proximity communications." It also boasted a "play to earn" model in partnership with Direwolf, which would enable most of the items and all of the monsters in the game to be "tokenized" and bought, sold, or traded in various marketplaces or the in-game auction house. Unfortunately, the commitment to crypto is where it all went wrong. "To work on this project we brought more than 70 staff members on board and we were working relentlessly for more than 2 years to build the game we all were dreaming about," developer Phat Loot Studios wrote on Steam. "The truth is that the cost of development is high and there were lots of bumps on our way to this moment. Since we started the journey in 2020, the economic landscape has changed dramatically both generally and specifically for cryptocurrency, and we are not confident in the current market. We ran out of financial resources and we can’t carry on the development at this moment." Phat Loot said it "leaned into the crypto market and expanded rapidly off the back of the positive interest," which left it in an untenable position when the crash came. Untamed Isles is not primarily a crypto-based game, it added, but funding from crypto investors is necessary to get the game finished and launched. "Unlike many of the projects that have floundered in the storm, we actually have a great game design that could stand on its own two feet," the studio said. "But until the crypto situation is resolved—and we're confident it will be at some stage—then we have to hibernate development on this project." The "crypto situation" is an understated description of the market collapse that has sunk cryptocurrencies to their lowest values in years. External factors ranging from general global economic malaise to the Russian invasion of Ukraine have had an impact, but the bigger issue is the inherently risky and unstable nature of cryptocurrency. Millions of dollars have been lost in hacks that, as we said following the $200 million Nomad heist in July, are starting to feel like weekly events. Even when criminality isn't involved, the basic ethics of crypto are iffy at best: Last week, for instance, Riot Blockchain (unrelated to League of Legends studio Riot Games, for the record) was able to mine $7 million in Bitcoin effectively for free by taking advantage of state subsidies in Texas, despite the fact that Texas is in the midst of an ongoing energy crisis. There's also a growing backlash against cryptocurrencies and NFTs among wider audiences: Free-to-play autobattler Storybook Brawl was review-bombed in March after the developer was bought by a cryptocurrency exchange, and in May Wikipedia announced that it will no longer accept cryptocurrency donations. Phat Loot explained in a livestream last week that things started to go sideways when MMOByte posted a video in July apologizing for supporting Untamed Isles and disavowing crypto games in general: Host Stix said in the video that he is "very strongly against those specific types of games." Another blow was suffered when 2016 Pokemon World Champion Wolfe Glick, who had been hired to help design the Untamed Isles combat system, appeared to speak out against the NFT aspect on Twitter. Originally the game intended to implement NFTs, but after I spoke with the team (and some external factors) they decided to move away from it. There are no crypto or NFT features implemented into the game itself - the only remnant is an (optional) external marketplaceAugust 5, 2022 See more Phat Loot said those events triggered a cascade effect that caused other mainstream media companies to cancel planned coverage; influencers who had been lined up to push the game also started to pull out. Pre-sales fell well short of anticipated levels—just 50 presales were made, rather than the hoped-for 2,000-3,000. The more significant long-term issue, though, was the impact of the crypto crash. "We had some fantastic investors lined up to inject several more million dollars into the project through a variety of equity raising and selling of the Phat Loot Token which we were working on in the background," the studio said during the stream. "It was all going really really well. Then the crypto crash occurred and we lost that funding very very quickly. The investors pulled out as they watched the market crashing—and to be fair, they're right to do so because these are very uncertain times in the global economy." Phat Loot had decided to launch Untamed Isles in a more bare-bones state in October, ahead of its original schedule, in order to get it out (and start generating revenue) as soon as possible. But the studio was burning through "close to NZ$100,000 ($62,700) per week" in wages and costs, and developers realized that they were "likely not going to be able to make the revenue from our launch to keep the lights on." Unfortunately, while investors were able to dodge the bullet and people who pre-purchased the game and Phat Loot Tokens will be given refunds, individual backers on Kickstarter and Backerkit are out of luck. The Kickstarter campaign promised that full refunds would be issued to all backers if Untamed Isles failed to launch—and numerous backers have asked for one—but an FAQ at untamedisles.com says that refunds will not be available because, well, there's no money. That's gone over about as well as you might expect (which is to say, not well at all) and there's also quite a few backers upset that the project was based on cryptocurrency in the first place. "Why on earth would you invest in cryptocurrency?" one backer wrote. "It's fake money! It's all a scam! If I knew that was where you were leaning, I never would have joined. If refunds are happening, I want mine please. Ye gods, when will people realize crypto is a huge scam?" "Refund ta. Didn't back this for my money to be involved with crypto," another wrote. That confusion about Untamed Isle's reliance on cryptocurrency apparently arose from the fact that no mention is made of it until more than halfway through the Kickstarter campaign description—it's there, but minimized. Kickstarter backers aren't the only ones who complained about that lack of transparency. Stix of MMOByte made the same complaint in his video, saying that he wasn't aware of the crypto integration because "it isn't until you scroll about 60% down the page that they even mention 'play to earn.'" Image 1 of 9 (Image credit: Phat Loot Studios)Image 2 of 9 (Image credit: Phat Loot Studios)Image 3 of 9 (Image credit: Phat Loot Studios)Image 4 of 9 (Image credit: Phat Loot Studios)Image 5 of 9 (Image credit: Phat Loot Studios)Image 6 of 9 (Image credit: Phat Loot Studios)Image 7 of 9 (Image credit: Phat Loot Studios)Image 8 of 9 (Image credit: Phat Loot Studios)Image 9 of 9 (Image credit: Phat Loot Studios) The presence of the game on Steam may also contribute to the confusion, because Valve banned all games incorporating NFTs or cryptocurrency from Steam last year. Its presence could be explained by the fact that the Steam listing makes absolutely no mention of the cryptocurrency integration: Hiding that aspect of the game doesn't seem great for its long-term future on the storefront, but gamers coming to the project through Steam would be given no indication of the presence of cryptocurrency integration. In a statement released today, Phat Loot said that it did not invest money raised through crowdfunding and "traditional investment" into cryptocurrencies, but that it was forced to stop development because of the withdrawal of investors spooked by the crypto crash and "the negative sentiment associated with web3-integrated games." But to my thinking, that opens the door to questions about the timing of the announcement: We wrote about the cryptocurrency market "experiencing an unprecedented crash" back in May, yet Phat Loot launched the preorder campaign on August 1, just ten days before putting it all on hold, providing no indication that the game was in trouble. Phat Loot founders said they are now "looking at ways to salvage both the core studio and the game so that it can be completed and released down the track along with other possible titles." There's no sign of when that might happen, however: The studio said in its most recent livestream that conventional publishers are put off by the crypto, while crypto investors aren't doing anything because of the crumbled state of the market. Interestingly, Phat Loot said that it likely could have raised enough money to get Untamed Isles to launch—the problem is what happens after that. "We can't get the traction or following through marketing and there's no revenue in crypto right now," the team said. "How much money can you raise until you launch the game and it ends up burning a hole in our team, and we lose it?" I've reached out to Phat Loot for more information on the state of Untamed Isles, and will update if I receive a reply. View the full article

It looks like Death Stranding is coming to PC Game Pass. The addition hasn't been announced officially, but the PC Game Pass account on Twitter changed its avatar to an image of a Death Stranding vista and posted a tweet that says "sometimes we just like a good landscape picture." Oh you guys. There's some doubt in the tweet's replies as to whether the screenshot was from Death Stranding or another game, but then someone found the rock pictured in the PC Game Pass avatar and posted a screenshot of Norman Reedus pissing on it. So, yeah, I think Death Stranding is coming to PC Game Pass at some point. A related but superfluous thought: Last year, Microsoft renamed the PC version of Game Pass, which used to be called "Xbox Game Pass for PC." The old name was bad, but now I'm wondering if this scenario was a consideration, too. Game Pass has always offered certain games on PC only, but Death Stranding is a special case: Microsoft can't offer it on the Xbox version of Game Pass because the console version was published by Sony exclusively for PlayStation consoles. (The PC version was published by 505 Games.) Neither Sony nor Microsoft would benefit from causing confusion by putting the words "Death Stranding" next to "Xbox"—they'd both have to field questions about a non-existent Xbox version of Death Stranding. Hence the PC Game Pass name change, maybe? I'm speculating. The console wars have gotten awfully complicated, though, eh? It used to be simple: Mario vs Sonic, Halo vs Killzone. Now the PC has become a weird central territory where the divisions between console factions are blurred. We've benefitted as PC gamers, but I'm a little nostalgic for an old-fashioned motion controller arms race. Found it pic.twitter.com/xlHwrqz0qDAugust 16, 2022 See more Aside from the Death Stranding tease, Xbox recently announced the games coming to PC Game Pass this month, and the games leaving it. A highlight in the coming-soon category is Her Story creator Sam Barlow's new FMV game, Immortality. Some bad news is that Hades is leaving Game Pass at the end of August, along with some other well-liked games. Here's the full list of August PC Game Pass arrivals and departures: Games coming to Game Pass in August Available now Coffee Talk (PC, console, and cloud) August 23 Midnight Fight Express (PC, console, and cloud) August 25 Exapunks (PC)Opus: Echo of Starsong – Full Bloom Edition (PC and console) August 30 Commandos 3 HD Remaster (PC, console, and cloud)Immortals Fenyx Rising (PC, console, and cloud)Tinykin (PC and console)Immortality (PC, Xbox Series X/S, and cloud) ???? Death Stranding (PC, not officially announced) Games leaving Game Pass on August 31 Elite Dangerous (Console and cloud)Hades (PC, console, and cloud)Myst (PC, console, and cloud)NBA 2K22 (Console and cloud)Signs of the Sojourner (PC, console, and cloud)Spiritfarer (PC, console, and cloud)Twelve Minutes (PC, console, and cloud)Two Point Hospital (PC, console, and cloud)What Remains of Edith Finch (PC, console, and cloud)World War Z (PC, console, and cloud) View the full article

In MultiVersus' debut season, its meta is hardly set in stone. Player First Games is regularly deploying patches and hotfixes that shake up the power dynamic of its characters, including recent tweaks to Finn's cheesy backpack attack. We're sharing our tier list of its diverse 17-character roster, but expect these rankings to change regularly. We're also getting four new characters throughout the season, including one half of the Rick and Morty duo arriving very soon. This list is written from the perspective of an average player, but high-level and professional play has been considered. MultiVersus tier list Season 1 S-Tier (Image credit: Warner Bros. Interactive) Bugs Bunny The king of cheese. Whether you're climbing the top 30 leaderboards or floating in the mid-ranks like me, encountering a Bugs in 2v2 is scary, but predictable. The snarky wabbit has proven to be the most popular pick among the best MultiVersus players because he can do it all: smash your face up close with a bat, send screen-filling ACME rockets across the stage, punt airborne foes to the depths of cartoon hell, and summon pies at will. He's the whole package, but probably not for long: his entire suite of air attacks got nerfed in the Season 1 patch, and at this rate, more tweaks could follow. Finn The crowned prince of cheese. Finn is a lot less cerebral than Bugs, but that's exactly what makes him dangerous. His sword gives his basic attacks longer reach than the numerous fist-punchers on the MultiVersus roster. He can also charge attacks while moving, useful for baiting out dodges from a nervous Superman no matter where he goes. And of course, spamming his high-priority, hard-hitting, easy-to-land backpack attack remains an easy technique. (Image credit: Warner Bros. Games) A-Tier Batman I've yet to see players who are better at getting in my face and staying in my face than Batman mains. Played casually, he can land fun combos that apply Weaken to enemies. Get a little more serious, and he'll be grappling across the stage every few seconds to deliver a swift kick to the face. Despite his Batarang's increased cooldown, he excels at poking from range and closing the distance with decisive strikes. Superman You'd think Superman would derive his MultiVersus power from his super strength, rapid punches, or ice breath, but when it comes to the Man of Steel, it's all about that side-special grab. If you see a blue man in red underpants flying toward you, run for the hills: his grab will connect, and if you're anywhere near the edge of the stage, it's already over. Yes, it's a cheesy strat that rings a bit cheap to this casual platform fighter fan, but it's a reliable way to punish overaggressive players who miss the dodge. Shaggy EVO champion Nakat said it best when he dubbed Shaggy the "Mario of MultiVersus." He's an all-arounder: a dependable brawler at close-range with some seriously powerful moves (his neutral attack, down air, and side special are all easy finishers against even sub-100 damage enemies), and that's before he charges up his Ultra Instinct form, which boosts his attacks and applies a full stack of Weaken. In my book, he has the best ratio of fun to play and easy to win, but don't expect experienced players to get caught in his slower attacks. (Image credit: Warner Bros. Interactive) B-Tier Velma Velma's dominance at EVO spoke for itself, but at the middle tiers, her inherent difficulty as a ranged support character becomes clear. Her unique ability to shoot lock-on word bubbles from anywhere on the stage is notable (and annoying), but unless she's expertly supported by an aggressive teammate, her limited melee options make her easy to bully. Velma is hard to solo queue with, but gets stronger with a partner connected in voice chat. Harley Quinn Harley Quinn plays like the Assassin equivalent of Shaggy: simple to pick up with hard-hitting combos, but just simple enough to easily counter. It's a tough life for Assassin characters who aren't named Finn. The extra 14% damage received means there's less room for mistakes, and besides the fact that her confetti blaster and pop gun are super satisfying to land, there are more reliable, less squishy characters that hit just as hard. Iron Giant Speaking of easy to bully, Iron Giant is in a similar boat. Against a team that isn't tailoring its playstyle to counter him, the gentle giant gets to step all over the dueling duo with monster special attacks, craterous butt stomps, and a scrap ball projectile that doubles as melee. His size works against him as soon as enemies realize his massive hitbox is an all-access pass to hitstun him so often he can never land a meaningful blow. (Image credit: Player First Games) Jake This stretchy doughball may just be the most versatile close-range brawler of the bunch, but you wouldn't know it because he's not as annoying as Finn. Jake's sweeping neutral attacks are slow and easy to dodge when he tries to charge them, but he also swings in a wide radius that makes him especially good at punishing both enemies at in a single blow (his neutral up, for example, is an axe shop that swings a full 180-degrees around him). And then there are his air moves: a stretchy air punch that crosses one-third of the screen and can be aimed, and his neutral-down skateboard that let's him literally style on foes desperate to leap up to safety. He has trouble against some characters higher on this list, but a good Jake can work around it. LeBron James I did not expect LeBron James, a guy who plays basketball, to sport one of the most diverse, difficult to master movesets in MultiVersus. His entire deal hinges on keeping hold of his basketball, and though it can be tempting to pass the rock to a buddy or bounce it off an enemy for a quick rebound, the punishment for becoming ball-less is huge. LeBron loses most of his might and has to land a hit with some of the slowest moves in the game to get it back. He's one of my favorites, but not who I pick when I'm itching to win. Garnet With her feet planted firmly on the ground, Garnet's punches can instill the fear of god. Similar to Iron Giant, you need a few things to go right to enjoy her in an average matche, and similar to Jake, she's slow. She struggles at chasing down popular characters like Finn or Bugs and has few options to close the distance. (Image credit: Warner Brothers) C-Tier Tom & Jerry The hardest character(s) to play in MultiVersus also happen to be the coolest. To seriously play Tom and Jerry is to always be thinking about future attack setups. A fully-charged tennis ball can snipe enemies into oblivion from across the map, but that can only happen once you've deployed Jerry, passed him a ball, and timed his return lob perfectly. Laying one of these elaborate mouse traps is satisfying, but not recommended for casual players who just want to punch dudes. T&J are one of the few characters with both a high skill floor and even higher skill ceiling. EVO co-champion Void made it work against the dominant Bugs/Velma combo. Arya Stark As a fellow Assassin, Arya has the same 14% health debuff as Harley with a harder moveset to get acquainted with. True to the character, Arya is a precise, pokey fighter who lives and dies by her ability to dodge and land backstabs for bonus damage. She has little to worry about in a 1v1, but her single-target attacks become a hindrance when she gets ganged up on. There's clearly a high skill ceiling here and the average player simply isn't there yet. Wonder Woman A Tank that truly delivers on the role, Wonder Woman relies on her teammate to bring the pain while she supplies the armor. Nakat made great use of her armor at EVO 2022, but without a solid team dynamic, there's not much going for MultiVersus' default free unlock. With no particularly flashy combos and weight class that makes her easy to ringout early, it's no wonder she's not popular. Reindog One of MultiVersus' few true support characters, Reindog isn't usually a smart pick. He's all about keeping distance and supporting his ally with tractor beams and fireballs, but enemies in the know won't let him slip away. There simply isn't anywhere to run on MultiVersus' flat, featureless arenas, leaving Reindog on the backfoot by default. That said, he does hit hard (if slowly) and is particularly good at ringing out enemies who are already beat to a pulp. Taz I was one of the launch-week MultiVersus players calling for Taz's nerf, and I got my wish. He remains a fun and easy character to pick up, but without the pre-nerf bite of his tornado spin, the rest of his kit isn't impressive. D-Tier Steven Universe Steven has similar struggles as Reindog. He's a lover-not-a-fighter who can't really avoid a fight. He also has these tiny, short-range punches that I find particularly hard to land compared to more experienced butt-kickers like Batman. The best that Steven can do right now is give both himself and his teammate an instant bubble shield (on cooldown), which can really turn a fight around in the hands of an expert. But in the hands of most players, Steven's a liability just asking to get four-stocked. EVO 2022 Winners What won at EVO 2022 First place: Wonder Woman (Nakat) / Tom & Jerry (Void) Second place: Bugs Bunny (Mirrorman) / Velma (RoseJ) Third place: Batman (Synume) / Shaggy (Leviathan) Fourth place: Velma (T1FF4NY) / Superman (Stahly) (Image credit: Player First Games) Unreleased characters to be added to our MultiVersus tier list We don't know where these new fighters will fit in, but Rick and Morty (separate characters, not a unified pair like Tom & Jerry) are the most imminent, with the latter arriving on August 23. Player First Games has been dropping hints here and there about Morty's moveset (apparently he's the first "Plumbus-wielding character"), but we imagine one of the duo will make use of the show's iconic portal gun, especially as it's visible in Rick's hand in promotional art released by the studio. RickMortyBlack Adam (DC Comics)Stripe (Gremlins) View the full article

Religious buildings are a common feature of medieval-themed city builders. Games like Banished, Anno 1404, Patron, Foundation, and others include churches, chapels, monasteries, cathedrals (and in Anno's case, mosques), and other religious buildings which typically provide a happiness bonus or fulfill a 'faith need' for citizens and residences built nearby. But you won't find religious buildings in Farthest Frontier, the new medieval-themed early access survival city builder from Crate Software, maker of Grim Dawn. In fact, there's no religion in the game at all. While it includes public amenities like theaters, markets, pubs, and hospitals, there are no churches or chapels to build and citizens have no faith requirements that need to be met. (There is a shrine, but more on that in a bit.) Some players are curious about the absence of religious buildings, while others seem downright annoyed by the omission. "Where is the church?" is the title of a thread on the official forum, where the lack of a church is called "a shortcoming" (translated from French). "I totally agree that churches are a must have and could be a basic need of the settlers," says another commenter. Another player in the thread states that "churches are an absolute must" and expresses disbelief that the "dev's didn't realize this." "Well mosques/temples/etc also existed in that era. I’m sure everyone shocked we didn’t add churches would be just as satisfied by the addition of those instead, right?" responded Zantai, a designer at Crate Software. "We’ve intentionally left faith ambiguous in [Farthest Frontier] even if churches are a 'staple' of medieval Europe, which is another thing we’ve deliberately left vague," Zantai continued. "The setting for the game is inspired by certain time periods and places, but it is not set in those places. The player can decide whatever suits them." This doesn't mean Crate Software is opposed to the idea of some sort of religion in the game, which is still in early access. It just doesn't want any actual religions represented. "If we ever incorporate a faith system of some kind, I think it would be best if it was a customizable system where you name the faith and decide its bonuses/features. There’s way too much baggage and drama around real world religions," said Zantai. Farthest Frontier isn't the first city builder to sidestep the potentially messy topic of religion. Cities: Skylines, the biggest city builder of the past decade, only has a single cathedral as a landmark but no churches or other religious buildings, something player-made mods have added for those who want them. Other city builders, like Ostriv, make religion a requirement: A church is necessary for a city to grow beyond a population of a few hundred. But Ostriv is specifically set in 18th century Ukraine, whereas Farthest Frontier isn't set in any particular time or place. (As one example, the game includes dire wolves, which went extinct roughly 10,000 years ago, long before the medieval period.) The closest thing to a religious structure currently in Farthest Frontier is a shrine, which can be upgraded to an altar, but there's no specific religious designation for either of the structures. Shrines and altars provide "a desirability bonus to nearby residences," is all the flavor text says. Nothing else. (A house's desirability score, if high enough, will allow it to upgrade into a nicer building.) (Image credit: Crate Entertainment) Another commenter in the thread asked if the drama around religion kept churches out of the game, what about resource extraction or the very idea of colonization? Shouldn't those historically contentious elements be removed from the game, too? In other words, they were (rather unhelpfully) suggesting that the entire game shouldn't exist. "I’ll happily draw the line at religion any day," Zantai said. "And I think that’s all the remains to be said on this subject." Other players commenting in the thread are perfectly happy with a lack of religion, or with the potential inclusion of nonspecific religious structures. "I’m an atheist so normally loathe to push for any kind of religious inclusion in games… but it does seem strangely odd there’s no 'temple' buildings in the game. I think something should be added: doesn’t have to be called a church. Could just be called an 'elders gathering place' or similar," one commenter said. "I like how the shrine is vague but serves a purpose, I think it would be fitting to have a building that serves a similar purpose," another player added. "It could just be a building with smaller shrines that adds desirability and requires a worker for upkeep." "Personally I’m glad that there’s no religion mechanic, but a generic temple or something to celebrate the dead would be cool," said another. I think it's refreshing to rethink the norms of city builders (or any game genre for that matter), and just because something is traditional and expected doesn't mean it should automatically be a requirement. At the same time, I also wouldn't mind something nonspecific when it comes to religious buildings in the game. Not that my citizens have much time to visit a shrine or temple anyway. All those bees aren't going to farm themselves. I've reached out to the Farthest Frontier development team for more details, and I'll update this story if I receive a response. View the full article

There's no shortage of characters to romance in the Mass Effect trilogy. Depending on which version of Commander Shepard you're playing, you can enjoy deep relationships and clunky cutscene coitus with Ashley Williams, Liara T'Soni, Kaidan Whatsisname, Miranda, Jack, Garrus, Tali, Javik, that weird fish guy everyone stans, that non-fish guy everyone hates, and a handful of others. But when you're horny in space, is that really enough? How about one more? Thanks to The Hatboy Project mod, you can now add Jeff "Joker" Moreau to your seemingly endless list of intimate conquests in Mass Effect 3. The mod "creates an all-new romantic narrative for the player to explore" with the quick-witted and endearing pilot of the SSV Normandy. There are new branches of dialogue, custom-written romantic versions of conversations, new ambient voice lines, the option to go from flirting to a committed relationship, and yes, even a "romance scene that is in keeping with the other vanilla options." A traditionally awkward Mass Effect sex-cutscene, in other words. How is this possible? According to modder SpaceD0lphin, the mod required lots of "patience, technology, duct-tape and prayers." You can see a bit of the mod in the launch trailer below, including new voice lines for Joker that seem to be a mixture of spliced existing dialogue and AI voice acting software (xVASynth is credited on the mod's page). It's pretty convincing—that really does sound like Joker's voice actor Seth Green, and only occasionally is there a tiny bit of awkward inflection that doesn't quite land. Still, it's extremely impressive. If you want to see more, there's tons of video clips at The Hatboy Project's YouTube Channel, and you can learn how the mod came together at the devblog here (a good place to start is with this deep-dive on some particularly tricky dialogue). Joker isn't available to romance for both versions of Commander Shepard, unfortunately. "BroShep," as I'm just learning he's called, can't knock boots with Joker, only the Jennifer Hale "FemShep" version of Shepard. The mod is also only compatible with the original Mass Effect 3, though a Legendary Edition version is in the works. You can find it here at Nexus Mods. View the full article