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Destiny's a game with great feeling weapons, ones you're willing to spend hours of time grinding for, but the recently introduced and incredibly anime-assed Mechabre sniper rifle has made an especially big splash. Bungie sound designer Juan Pablo Uribe highlighted his work for the gun on Twitter, and was kind enough to explain some more of that process to us via email. As part of this year's Festival of the Lost Halloween event, Bungie's gone full Gundam with some delightfully mecha-inspired skins and weapons. The Mechabre sniper rifle, with its killer PvP potential and knockout sound design, has been one of the most sought-after additions to this year's event. If you're not in a position to listen to Uribe's video we embedded below, you're missing out. There's no mistaking the brzoom as you look down the scope, nor the pakeeew of firing the thing. This is pure, unadulterated Toonamicore. This gun embodies the spirit of staying up too late on a Saturday in 2001 and catching the good 'frack'. "The moment I saw the concept art for the Mechabre Sniper Rifle I knew it had to have sounds that fit its aesthetics. For Festival of the Lost, we normally don’t do a fully-custom pass on weapon audio," Uribe told us, contrasting Mechabre with other Festival of the Lost additions like the Jurassic Green pulse rifle or Braytech Werewolf auto rifle. "But this one was just screaming to get that anime treatment, so I worked with the team to uncover appropriate reference material to nail the sound. As a lover of anime sounds, I just couldn’t pass on the opportunity to have some fun and give it the treatment it deserved!" #gameaudio I am so proud of this one! All the years I've spent honing my anime sound skills on the side pay off in this amazing Gundam sniper. My favorites are the more subtle sounds of the scope, readys and the reloads. The fire assets I had mostly made like 4 years ago haha pic.twitter.com/ksY2DYD2mvOctober 20, 2022 See more Uribe also explained how some elements of Mechabre's unique sound were years in the making. "I love sound design, so outside of my work on Destiny I also spend time just doing fun sound design stuff, and one of the things I love is exploring and refining how to make classic anime sounds. So, I spend a lot of time creating sounds without an end goal and stash them in my library, hoping that one day they will get their time to shine." This extracurricular work ultimately paid off with Mechabre's signature retort. "That was the case with the Mechabre Sniper Rifle! Several years ago, I created a suite of sounds that felt really close to the classic anime sounds of the 80's and 90's and they were waiting patiently to one day be used in the best way possible." It's little touches like this that really make Destiny's massive arsenal sing. After all, you have to have that secret sauce if you want people to keep grinding for guns after hundreds or even thousands of hours. Destiny's recent anime turn is certainly tempting me to reignite my old dalliance with the original looter shooter. If you're hunting down a killer Mechabre roll yourself, check out our guide on how to farm Spectral Pages in Destiny 2's Season of the Lost. (Image credit: Bungie) View the full article

The game industry has suffered a devastating loss. Rieko Kodama, the legendary Sega developer also known as Phoenix Rie, has died at 58. Her cause of death has not been specified. As reported by IGN, Kodama died sometime back in May of this year, but her death wasn't made public until this week. Rumours began when a memorial message was spotted in the credits of Mega Drive Mini 2, before Sega producer Yosuke Okunari confirmed that she had died earlier this year. "As you understand it," Okunari replied to a tweet asking if Kodama had died. "We respected her." Sega declined to share any further details out of respect for the family, with a translation from IGN Japan reading: "We pray that the deceased will rest in peace, and we offer our gratitude for her enormous contributions to Sega." Kodama was a renowned developer at Sega, and a pioneer in the roleplaying game space. She began her career in 1984, getting her start as an artist on iconic classics like Alex Kidd and Fantasy Zone. She later contributed to games like Sonic the Hedgehog 2 and Skies of Arcadia, but is perhaps best known for her work on the Phantasy Star series, working her way up to director by Phantasy Star 4. As you understand it. We respected her.October 27, 2022 See more Rieko Kodama passed away on May 9, 2022. I have very fond memories of her because we were Sega colleagues and created Phantasy Star and Sonic together. I wasn't sure about the funeral pictures, but I wanted everyone to remember her. May she rest in peace. Rieko Kodama, forever. pic.twitter.com/lw9UTxLXbSOctober 27, 2022 See more Kodama was also widely regarded for being one of the first prolific female developers, earning her the title 'The First Lady of RPGs.' Her character designs were vibrant and eclectic, creating heroes designed for everyone. "As a woman myself, when I make games, I try not to just have them be male fantasy figures, as people needing to be rescued," she once said in an interview. "I like to make female characters people of both genders can relate to. But we are seeing more strong-willed women in games geared towards female audiences." Sonic co-creator Yuji Naka paid tribute to Kodama on Twitter. "It has finally been announced that Rieko Kodama has passed away. I have fond memories of working with her on Phantasy Star and Sonic. I went to the wake and funeral and could not believe how sudden it was. I pray for your soul rest in peace." Fellow Sonic co-creator, Hirokazu Yasuhara, said he was "proud" to have worked with Kodama, adding: "I still can't believe it, it's so sad." Spelunky designer Derek Yu called her "a pioneering artist and designer of videogames," while 8-4 creator John Ricciardi said she was "always very kind" and "a true legend in Japanese game dev." Necrosoft director Brandon Sheffield, who was part of the jury that gave Kodama her Pioneer Award at GDC 2019, said "she was, and remains, one of the greatest," and recalled her award. "When we gave her a lifetime achievement award at GDC, she couldn't attend due to illness. I'm glad at least that she received it during her lifetime. Hopefully she knew how much her work meant to everyone worldwide!" View the full article

Fortnite jack-o-lanterns are part of one of the seasonal challenges in the battle royale this October. You need to find and destroy jack-o-lanterns with a ranged weapon to tick this quest off your Halloween list. First though, you'll need to locate these decorations—and you need five of them to complete the challenge. If you've been participating in the other activities during Fortnitemares, you've probably seen jack-o-lanterns when you've been out and about. Making jelly bean shields and throwing candy from a vehicle has likely brought you into close proximity to these Halloween squashes, so you should be able to find them easily. That said, it never hurts to have a reminder of where to look. Here's where to find Fortnite jack-o-lanterns so you can destroy them with a ranged weapon. (Image credit: Epic Games/Fortnite.gg) Fortnite jack-o-lantern locations Jack-o-lanterns are found in various places throughout the Fortnite map, though, like their real-life counterparts, you can generally spot them decorating the doorways of houses and other buildings. You can check the map above—via Fortnite.gg—for every jack-o-lantern location. I'll also list the areas with the highest concentrations below. Just be aware that others will be on the lookout for these seasonal pumpkins: Greasy GroveTilted TowersFort JonesyShiny Sound Destroy jack-o-lanterns with a ranged weapon You need to destroy five jack-o-lanterns in total with a ranged weapon, and thankfully, this is the easy part. Any ranged weapon will do, whether it's a gun like an SMG, an Assault Rifle, or any other weapon that shoots projectiles. Once you've got the jack-o-lantern in your sights, destroy it with a quick shot, then move on to the next. After you've eliminated five, the quest will be complete. Good job. View the full article

In The Brothers War, Magic: the Gathering is setting aside planeswalking and instead time walking back to its very first storyline. Way back in the earliest days of Magic: The Gathering, it broke all kinds of new ground and invented the collectible card game. The idea of dueling planeswalking wizards was pretty fantastical already, but with Magic's second expansion Antiquities—released in March, 1994—the team at Wizards of the Coast stepped their game up by having the new set tell a story. The brothers Urza and Mishra—each a powerful wizard—fought over possession of two powerful stones, while the first appearance of the Phyrexians loomed as a consequence of their actions. With the recent set Dominaria United setting up another climactic showdown with the evil bodysculpting Phyrexians in the upcoming Phyrexia: All Will Be One and March of the Machines sets, it's time to revisit the origin of Magic's longest running story. You'll get your first chance to step back in time into The Brothers War with the prerelease weekend from November 11 in paper ahead of the full release on November 18. It'll also be arriving in full on Magic: The Gathering Arena on November 15, with an early access on November 10 for those of us more keen for digital cardboard. What's the story behind The Brothers War? At the end of the twisting betrayals of Dominaria United, Teferi and his allies Kaya and Saheeli are left desperately trying to figure out how to defeat the cockroach villainy of the Phyrexians. Casting about for solutions, they decide to craft a temporal anchor—a device that will allow Teferi to peer back into Dominaria's past for any clues to how Urza defeated the Phyrexians during his war against his corrupted brother Mishra. The Brothers War takes an in depth look at the lives of Mishra, Urza, Ashnod, Tawnos, and those around them. Teferi follows the brothers from their younger years and the splitting of the powerstone that gave them power and sparked their rivalry, to the Phyrexian Praetor Gix and his corruption of Mishra, and then to the cataclysmic end of their fratricidal war. Teferi going back in time to discover how Urza destroyed the world with the Golgothian Sylex definitely gives off big Red Alert vibes, so hopefully he's smart enough not to make the same 'nuke the world' mistakes as Urza. What new and old card mechanics will we see? Image 1 of 22 (Image credit: Wizards of the Coast)Image 2 of 22 (Image credit: Wizards of the Coast)Image 3 of 22 (Image credit: Wizards of the Coast)Image 4 of 22 (Image credit: Wizards of the Coast)Image 5 of 22 (Image credit: Wizards of the Coast)Image 6 of 22 (Image credit: Wizards of the Coast)Image 7 of 22 (Image credit: Wizards of the Coast)Image 8 of 22 (Image credit: Wizards of the Coast)Image 9 of 22 (Image credit: Wizards of the Coast)Image 10 of 22 (Image credit: Wizards of the Coast)Image 11 of 22 (Image credit: Wizards of the Coast)Image 12 of 22 (Image credit: Wizards of the Coast)Image 13 of 22 (Image credit: Wizards of the Coast)Image 14 of 22 (Image credit: Wizards of the Coast)Image 15 of 22 (Image credit: Wizards of the Coast)Image 16 of 22 (Image credit: Wizards of the Coast)Image 17 of 22 (Image credit: Wizards of the Coast)Image 18 of 22 (Image credit: Wizards of the Coast)Image 19 of 22 (Image credit: Wizards of the Coast)Image 20 of 22 (Image credit: Wizards of the Coast)Image 21 of 22 (Image credit: Wizards of the Coast)Image 22 of 22 (Image credit: Wizards of the Coast) There aren't too many band new mechanics, but you'll find the Powerstone mechanic—which creates artifact tokens you can tap to fuel activated abilities or cast artifacts—first revealed on Karn, Living Legacy coming back in a big way. While this Karn was correctly regarded as one of the weaker planeswalker cards initially, a flood of new cards that create or rely on Powerstone tokens could bolster his power level. Most of the strength in the mechanic will depend on how good the cards the mechanic appears on are. On the more reliable side of things, the new Prototype mechanic will let you play a less expensive version of creatures that have a smaller power and toughness. Versatility has always been a staple of great cards in Magic, giving you different options in a single card has resulted in some of the most powerful and format defining cards, from spells with multiple modes to creatures once considered the best for their flexibility. Phyrexian Fleshgorger is already a powerful example, and it's easy to see how other cards from Brothers War could tip the scale on the Prototype mechanic even further when revealed. The main returning mechanic is Unearth, which lets you temporarily reanimate permanents from your graveyard. Magic hasn't seen much use of the Unearth mechanic since it was on the plane of Alara, and it's got the potential to bring a lot of power in aggressive creature-based strategies. Giving you the chance to re-use your creatures to chip in for extra damage can give an edge to decks that grind value out over a longer game—or just let the fastest decks chip in the last few points of damage through waves of removal spells. To a lesser degree, The Brothers War also sees the return of the unusual Meld mechanic, where two cards can be combined to form a more powerful card that has its halves printed on the back of its component cards. It's an awkward mechanic, and hasn't often been very good—but some of the cards we've seen for it already, like Argoth, Sanctum of Nature and Titania, Voice of Gaea make a strong case for slipping into decks with their low mana cost. What showcase card frames and alternate frames are in The Brothers War? Image 1 of 18 (Image credit: Wizards of the Coast)Image 2 of 18 (Image credit: Wizards of the Coast)Image 3 of 18 (Image credit: Wizards of the Coast)Image 4 of 18 (Image credit: Wizards of the Coast)Image 5 of 18 (Image credit: Wizards of the Coast)Image 6 of 18 (Image credit: Wizards of the Coast)Image 7 of 18 (Image credit: Wizards of the Coast)Image 8 of 18 (Image credit: Wizards of the Coast)Image 9 of 18 (Image credit: Wizards of the Coast)Image 10 of 18 (Image credit: Wizards of the Coast)Image 11 of 18 (Image credit: Wizards of the Coast)Image 12 of 18 (Image credit: Wizards of the Coast)Image 13 of 18 (Image credit: Wizards of the Coast)Image 14 of 18 (Image credit: Wizards of the Coast)Image 15 of 18 (Image credit: Wizards of the Coast)Image 16 of 18 (Image credit: Wizards of the Coast)Image 17 of 18 (Image credit: Wizards of the Coast)Image 18 of 18 (Image credit: Wizards of the Coast) With The Brothers War, Magic is bringing back some old favorites, quite literally as we're seeing the return of retro borders, which apply to 63 different artifacts from Magic's history. You'll have a shot at these with every pack, as there's one showing up in every Set, Draft, and Collector booster. In addition, these retro artifacts can show up as a schematic, which is a new art that portrays blueprints of the artifact. Maybe the absolute coolest thing about the retro frame coming back is keyed into Brothers War commander, where both commander decks—one for Mishra and one for Urza, of course—will be entirely retro frame, every single one of their 99 cards a buffet of old school framing. To add to this, Magic is stealing an old idea from the realms of sports cards and late-night shopping channel collectible plates. Schematic showcase cards can show up in collector boosters as a serialized print—which is a double rainbow foil that's numbered out of 500. What this means is that for each of the 63 different schematic artifacts, there are 500 copies out there each individually numbered (for a total of 31,500 in total). While there's nothing distinct about the mechanics of serialized cards, they're certain to be highly sought after collector items and likely to fetch hefty prices on the secondary market. Piling onto the glut of options, there will also be some tie-in cards, similar to the Dracula cards released in Crimson Vow. Matching up with the giant robots of the Brothers War storyline, the Transformers will be sneaking into set and collector booster packs. There are 15 different cards in the sub-set, all mythic rarity and mechanically unique—unlike the Dracula cards, which were just normal Crimson Vow cards given alternate names and art. There are also alternate universe 'shattered glass' versions of the Transformers sprinkled into collector boosters, which are mechanically identical to their normal versions, but feature different art and frames. As usual, there will also be extended art and borderless cards, so you can expect to see that pesky black border disappearing once again. Is MTG Arena getting anything special? (Image credit: Wizards of the Coast) While the usual assortment of avatars and cosmetics are showing up with The Brothers War, something far more important is coming along in the form of the new golden booster. When purchasing booster packs of The Brothers War, Every 10 boosters you purchase will net you a single golden booster, regardless of whether you purchased the pack with gems or gold. What's so special about golden boosters? Well, they come with six rares or mythic rares from the current standard set, and won't include anything from Alchemy. While this isn't as massive a change to Arena's economy as many would like to see, it's good to see an increase in the quantity of rares and mythics being earned through regular play, since this effectively puts about an additional half a rare in each pack over time. View the full article

Moonbreaker, the next project from Subnautica devs Unknown Worlds, got its first content patch today, and it's a doozy. In response to community feedback, Unknown Worlds has "completely overhauled the business model" of the game to remove all monetisation and in-game purchases. "Based on your ongoing feedback, we are re-aligning to make Moonbreaker better reflect our Early Access goals," read the patch notes, before going on to add that the game will be completely disabling its in-game store, and that players who have bought Pulsars—the purchasable in-game currency—will have their purchases automatically refunded to their Steam wallets. Blanks and Merits, the game's non-purchasable currencies, are being converted into a currency called Sparks, which can be used to upgrade your units' rarity (which is itself only a cosmetic effect). Booster boxes, purchasable items that would let you unlock more miniatures, are also gone for good. Units will now unlock automatically with Moonbreaker's base game, and units added as part of new seasons will unlock automatically, too. Honestly, even if you're not opposed to in-game purchases, it sounds like the new system will give you way less to keep track of. I can't help but think a single, easy-to-understand currency is better than a system of three currencies of varying applications, regardless of whether you're forking over real-life cash for it. Moonbreaker's Founder's Pack DLC—a bundle of skins and currencies you can pick up for real money—isn't going away, but its Pulsar component is being replaced. Rather than Pulsars, buyers will now get an extra skin for Zax and Slopper, and if that doesn't satisfy people who have already bought the Founder's Pack, Unknown Worlds will provide refunds on request. As for why the devs are undertaking such a drastic change to the game? Unknown Worlds says it's because "Early Access is a time for us to experiment and improve the game," and, as it stood, "the monetization in its current form was affecting that goal". That's quite a level of determination: I can't imagine wiping your game clean of basically everything that was going to generate ongoing revenue is a decision you make lightly. Here's hoping it pans out well for players and devs both. View the full article

Hardware enthusiasts are always looking for ways to bring down temperatures to raise the performance of their processors. Some would even go to extreme lengths, such as grinding down the heat spreader on a Ryzen 7000 CPU on a belt sander. I'm serious. TikToker, Mryeester, when he's not doing weird thermal paste designs, wanted to see if adding salt to thermal paste would be the secret ingredient to unlocking supercooling. Spoilers: It was not. His theory is that since iodized salt's thermal conductivity is higher than some thermal pastes, mixing the two would produce a miracle gloop with better heat transfer. Though Mryeester points out in his video, testing showed that temperatures spiked at 20 degrees above normal. The issue is that the salt rocks are thick, which creates a small gap between the CPU and the cooler, where you ideally want as much contact as possible. For more insight on the experiment from the people that know cooling best, I reached out to Noctua. A hardware manufacturer that knows a thing or two about CPU cooling; it explained to me why introducing salt (or any other foreign substance while we are at it) into your thermal paste is such a bad idea. After initially wondering if I were serious, which is a reasonable response since my day-to-day consists of asking hardware professionals if doing a ridiculous PC mod I saw online is a good idea or not, the company said that it "definitely doesn't recommend doing anything like that," then gave several reasons as to why salt should not be mixed with your thermal paste. "The thermal conductivity of salt is much lower than that of traditional filler materials such as aluminum oxide or other metal oxides," a rep tells me. "Also, salt particles keep the cooler from making good contact with the CPU, so that thermal performance will be poor due to poor contact. Last but not least, there's a high risk of corrosion issues." A part of me was hoping that salt would have been a cheap and easy way to improve CPU cooling, so you can imagine my disappointment that it wasn't. I'm glad there are still adventurous hardware people willing to risk their precious PC gaming components in these wild experiments, anyways, so I don't have to. View the full article

PC Gamer and Magic Design Studios are teaming up to celebrate Halloween in style with a giveaway so good it’s scary! With Have a Nice Death releasing its latest Early Access update at 10am PT on October 27, 2022, the studio is giving away three prize bundles that include a Steam key for the highly regarded game and a gorgeous, custom headset by HyperX (pictured above). The latest update for Have a Nice Death, which is a 2D action roguelike where you play as an overworked grim reaper, adds a new Renovator feature that enables players to give a new look to the break room and lobby of Death Inc. You can also redecorate the lobby of Death Inc., the game's main hub, and play through a new murder mystery-like quest called “The Ritual” that's filled with lore. The HyperX headset is decked out with adorably spooky art from Have a Nice Death. It normally sells for $129 and comes with a mic for gaming. Residents of the UK, Europe, and the USA are eligible to win the Grand Prize, while 50 runner’s up will win a Steam Code for Have a Nice Death (currently in early access) with a Very Positive rating based on thousands of reviews. Here's how to enter: Create an account on the PC Gamer forums and sign in.Comment on our official giveaway thread and share your favourite Halloween tradition.Sign up using our giveaway widget to confirm your entry and you're done!If selected, please provide your best shipping address and phone number.You can only enter once and the giveaway runs until 11:59 pm ET November 8 / 4:59 am BST. The winners will be randomly selected and reached via email, so keep an eye on your inbox! (Shipping of the headset may take 3-5 weeks to arrive) Please read the full terms and conditions listed at the bottom of the thread before you enter. Good luck! View the full article

After an elongated courtship period, earlier this month it became official: Elon Musk is going to buy Twitter after all. And he means it this time. As well as giving the world's richest man an excuse to cart a sink into Twitter reception, this has inevitably led to questions about what his stewardship might mean for one of the world's biggest social platforms. For all of Twitter's problems, and the distinction between what goes on there and the real world, Musk's designation of it as a de facto "public square" has some merit. Given some of Musk's past behaviour, and this seemingly impulsive buyout being one part of it, there's understandable curiosity about what he may choose to do with the platform. He's not been shy in the past of critiquing what he sees as a bot problem, and has been open about the platform's value being in advertising. Now Musk has taken to Twitter, where else, to share some of his thoughts about the platform's future. Dear Twitter Advertisers pic.twitter.com/GMwHmInPASOctober 27, 2022 See more "I wanted to reach out personally" writes Musk over three big blocks of text addressed to no-one. "To share my motivation in acquiring Twitter. There has been much speculation about why I bought Twitter and what I think about advertising. Most of it has been wrong." Musk says he acquired the company because "it is important to the future of civilisation to have a common digital town square, where a wide range of beliefs can be debated in a healthy manner, without resorting to violence." It does seem hard to inflict actual violence on a digital communications platform, but what do I know. Musk bemoans the splintering "into far right and far left wing echo chambers that generate more hate and divide our society." The "traditional media" is blamed for this ecosystem, with the greatest hits of "pursuit of clicks" and "bring[ing] in the money". Here comes our hero. Musk bought Twitter, Musk says, "to try to help humanity, whom I love." Doesn't that sound like something a non-human would say? "And I do so with humility, recognising that failure in pursuing this goal, despite our best efforts, is a very real possibility." Musk says the future goal is to allow users to "choose your desired experience according to your preferences", comparing it to choosing a movie or a videogame. I'm not quite sure of that comparison to social media spaces, but he's the billionaire. There's then a quick swerve into American-style dystopia, when Musk says advertising may "delight, entertain and inform" users by, for example, showing you "a medical treatment you never knew existed, but is right for you." Paul Verhoeven was right about absolutely everything. "Low relevancy ads are spam, but highly relevant ads are actually content!" writes Musk. Pass the sick bag please. Musk ends with a bromide towards how great advertisers are, and signs off saying "let us build something extraordinary together." This tweet is of a piece with what Musk has been saying about Twitter over the last few days. He seems to have signed up to the notion of it somehow empowering citizen journalism, which seems wildly optimistic, and I'm still not sold on the notion that traditional media is somehow to blame for Twitter's problematic dynamics. One interesting follow-up came from a reply guy who raised the prospect of Twitter paying individual content creators, who they claim produce the majority of the platform's popular content but don't benefit from it. "Absolutely," said Musk, so he can look forward to his own version of Twitch's ongoing rev split drama. Either way, Musk's stewardship of Twitter is clearly going to bring some changes. Whether better-targeted advertising and allowing users to customise what they see will be changes for the positive remain to be seen: But at least we'll get an 'edit' button. View the full article

In terms of games that hit the brief, Alien: Isolation is right up there. All you need for the best Alien game ever is a massive atmospheric space station, a few humans and androids, and one very deadly Alien hunting you from start-to-finish. With all that said, after the first movie the problem of a sequel came up and, as urban legend has it, James Cameron's solution was to go to the ideas board and simply add an "s" to "Alien". Such is the way with Aliens: Isolation, by modder Zyr0511, a package of mods that pretty much does the same thing (thanks, PCGN). It aims to make the game even more terrifying and difficult than it already is, as well as adding a bunch of visual and AI mods that further enhance the pant-wetting potential. It has three ways to play, which seem to range from "very deadly" to "you're gonna die chum". The lite setting only adds 2-3 more aliens. The standard setting adds 2-5 more aliens with enhanced senses, which now spawn in rare zones, search for you in ducts, follow you more effectively when you flee, with the only saving grace being you can make them retreat with gunfire. We're all here for true nightmare mode, obviously, which increases the alien AI to its maximum level, adds 2-5 at any given time, further amps up the xenomorphs' senses, makes them generally react faster and able to stalk you more effectively, and they do greater damage. Most amazingly, this mode adds an even bigger threat than the aliens: the working joe androids can now run and, per the notes, "Alerting them will be worse than facing 5 aliens". Y'know, I think I'd probably rather be killed by an alien than a working joe. Feels less humiliating. Alien: Isolation remains one of the best licensed games ever made and, sadly, we'll never get a sequel to it: much of the key talent left Creative Assembly following its completion, and the studio's now beavering away on its own sci-fi project. As for the Alien series, sadly the recent videogames have returned to type, the most recent example being Aliens: Fireteam, which was alright but nothing next to Isolation's take. View the full article

I've been playing with the AI art tool, Stable Diffusion, a lot since the Automatic1111 web UI version first launched. I'm not much of a command line kinda guy, so having a simple mouseable interface is much more up my street. And it's a fun plaything for a man without a visual artistic bone in his body. I've pictured the hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy, a Monet painting of Boris Johnson sitting on the toilet in the middle of a pond, and Donald Trump reading my beloved PC Format. But nothing has affected me so much as hammering the Nvidia RTX 4090 for eight and a half hours straight, training it to paint like my great uncle Hermann. You won't know the name Hermann Kahn. I would also be incredibly surprised if you recognised him by the name he was actually more widely known by, Aharon Kahana. Honestly, I didn't know him either; sadly he died well before I was born. But I have heard so many stories, so much talk about Uncle Hermann from both my mother and late grandmother as I grew up, that I feel like I do kind of know him. At least part of him anyway. Kahana's art style is distinctive, and a distinct feature of my childhood. The familial bond is strong, ever more so since travelling to Tel Aviv just before the birth of my three-year-old son. It was the place my gran, Inge, and great grandmother, Rosa Kahn fled to from a pre-Kristallnacht Germany in the mid '30s. And the place Hermann Khan settled after meeting his wife while studying art in Berlin. I walked the streets they walked, passed the apartment my gran grew up in, travelled the road to Haifa Rosa took each morning for work, and visited Hermann's home in Ramat Gan. Image 1 of 3 (Image credit: Dave James)Image 2 of 3 (Image credit: Dave James)Image 3 of 3 (Image credit: Dave James) That home he shared with his wife, Mideh, has become a museum to his art and while it was closed when I visited, and clearly had been for some time, it has seemingly since re-opened and is hosting exhibitions again. Kahana's art style is distinctive, and a distinct feature of my childhood. I was surrounded by his ceramics and both early and late style paintings in my parents' and grandparents' homes. Even as a child I was drawn to them. There's a particular vase that I could never not see as the starship Enterprise, thanks to its Trek-like saucer section. An entirely abstract geometric image of what I always assumed was a loving couple adorned our chimney breast, an image of Parisian rooftops and a stormy looking beach scene in thick oil paint ran up our stairs. But inevitably this early 20th century German-Israeli painter and ceramicist has not been included as one of Stable Diffusion's listed artists. And although I experimented with detailed prompts, messed around with X/Y plots to try and find levers to pull to get a close approximation of the abstract paintings he produced, I never really got there. The Stable Diffusion checkpoint file simply doesn't have the necessary reference points. But there are ways to encourage the AI to understand different, related images, and build from those specifically. They're called embeddings and people have used them to train the tool to recognise their own faces. That way you can include yourself in all the wild furry AI-painted fantasies you could ever desire. But I wanted to train it to recognise and understand—as best a relatively simple AI could—the art of Aharon Kahana. It's a surprisingly powerful tool, especially given the caveats in the embeddings explanation that "the feature is very raw, use at own risk". Thanks to the latest release of the web UI app on Github, however, it can all be done through a browser. Image 1 of 3 Stable Diffusion running on an RTX 4090 generating images (Image credit: Future)Image 2 of 3 'photorealistic caricature of Donald Trump reading PC Format magazine, HD, 4K, cinematic, ominous, portrait' (Image credit: Future)Image 3 of 3 'abstract portrait of donald trump, charcoal line drawing by aharon_kahana' (Image credit: Future) You'll need Stable Diffusion, and therefore Python, already up and running on your machine, but you can then pull together a folder of images under a particular name, and it will thrash your GPU to 100% load, and 50% of your CPU, for hours to create reference points that Stable Diffusion can use when prompted with the exact name of the embedding. I wanted to train it to recognise and understand—as best a relatively simple AI could—the art of Aharon Kahana. Sounds relatively simple, but it certainly took some trial and error on my part. Not least after the realisation that once I'd downloaded 70-odd images of my great uncle's work, from various auction sites around the world, that I actually had to label them with something vaguely detailed in order for the training to have any impact. That queued up a lot of time figuring out the medium and subjects of each of the pieces I'd downloaded, and then renaming each file by hand. And when you're working with sometimes seriously abstract imagery that's not always so easy. I then pointed the RTX 4090 and my Core i9 10900K at the relevant folder, created the embedding wrapper, and left it beavering away for over eight and a half hours to come to terms with what I'd fed it. All 16,432 cores and a healthy chunk of the 24GB of memory in the new Nvidia card, as well as half my 10th Gen Core i9, were employed on this task. I'm not going to pretend to be smart enough to truly understand what I'd tasked the most powerful consumer GPU in the world with, but when I checked in with it over the evening I could see it had been taking the input images and making its own approximations. Image 1 of 2 Original images on the left, AI training doodles on the right (Image credit: Future)Image 2 of 2 (Image credit: Future) It was like some teaching from beyond the grave, like my PC had spent the night learning from Hermann, doodling away in some homage to his style to try and figure out how to do it without the artist's help. By the morning the embedding was finished and I could boot up the web UI again—now listed with one textual inversion embedding—and affix the 'by aharon_kahana' text to the end of any prompt and see what the AI had learned overnight. And it was remarkable. My computer was creating homage after homage to my great uncle, more fascinating still when it was making images of things Kahana would never hit. I'm an absolute novice when it comes to the mystic art of the prompt, but even my basic requests delivered images that evoked the memory of the artist. Where it lacked the pure soul and understanding of what it was actually doing, it made up for in strange digital creativity and GPU-backed effort. Certainly, it was all recognisably and inextricably linked to his art style. Image 1 of 5 'abstract paiting of a dancer, on a metallic background, oil on canvas by aharon_kahana' (Image credit: Future)Image 2 of 5 'landscape image of the bath city skyline, 4K, cinematic, oil on canvas by aharon_kahana' (Image credit: Future)Image 3 of 5 'abstract painting of a woman walking a dog on a beach at sunset oil on canvas by aharon_kahana' (Image credit: Future)Image 4 of 5 'abstract paiting of a dancer, on a metallic background, oil on canvas by aharon_kahana' (Image credit: Future)Image 5 of 5 'image of an nvidia graphics card, oil on canvas by aharon_kahana' (Image credit: Future) I know a lot of modern artists are railing against the AI art development, frustrated at the glut of pictures of fantasy women created by people with no artistic talent—along with said furry fantasies—and I don't pretend to know exactly how Aharon Kahana would have felt, but I can't help but feel he would have embraced this new tool. And that's what it is, a tool. As much as I've been impressed by how close Stable Diffusion has come to recreating his art style, that's all it can really do: recreate. It's not really going to evolve the style on its own; it's still going to take a human artist to take the art any further. And it still needs detailed human input to give it enough of a subject to build from. Rather than something that's going to replace artists, it's just another tool—like high resolution SLRs and Photoshop has become for landscape painters—that will slot into the arsenal of artists interested in taking the technology to new, interesting places. AI art then, at its current level, feels like a starting point rather than something capable of truly creating the finished product. But that's probably not going to stop me from filling my PC with a million colourful, endlessly abstract images. All inspired by part of my family I've never really known yet still hope to embrace. View the full article

Gotham Knights has arrived with, well, a bit of a whimper. The spinoff of the Arkham series, which casts you as four of Batman's sidekicks in the aftermath of the Dark Knight's apparent demise, is just generally underwhelming, but that certainly wasn't helped by a bunch of ongoing performance issues on PC. The first patch for the game has arrived, which does not address these, but makes a bunch of tweaks and for reasons unknown removes Denuvo, the anti-piracy tech beloved of gamers everywhere. This seems odd but is something we've seen before with other titles, which launch running Denuvo (or one of the equivalents) then gets rid of it once that initial sales period has passed. Other fixes include graphical glitches, control issues, and rather amazingly "Invincible enemies playing a 'meditating' animation will no longer appear in crimes." I mean, I'd have loved to have seen that: might've improved the experience. The full patch notes are below: Invincible enemies playing a “meditating” animation will no longer appear in crimes.Various UI issue fixes.Fixed issues caused by graphical settings not being applied properly.Various localization fixes.Fixed various Keyboard/Mouse specific input issues.Co-op: Fixed an issue that was preventing being able to join friends through invites.Stability: Various crash fixes throughout the title, most notably during the S.T.A.R. Labs “free the scientists” fight and the Harley Quinn Hospital Boss Fight.Fixed an AMD specific crash related to shadows.Known Issues: There may be some compatibility issues with Nvidia Ansel that we are still investigating for this patch. In regards to the performance issues, the official account says only that "The team is hard at work on a larger Patch to improve performance overall and give you the best possible experience." There's more to come from Gotham Knights, with the big promise being the arrival of four player co-op at some point. Whether that's capable of saving this version of Gotham is a cliffhanger that we can probably already guess at the answer to. View the full article

The Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 campaign missions list will give you a good idea of how long the latest game is or indicate how far you have to go if you've already started. Maybe you always make a point of completing the campaign before jumping into multiplayer. Whatever the reason, this guide has you covered. The Modern Warfare 2 mission names are listed below, so click away now if you'd rather avoid any potential spoilers—everyone else, with me. Here's the Call of Duty: MW2 missions list, as well as roughly how long it might take to finish the campaign. Call of Duty: MW2 campaign missions list Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 may have the same name as your favourite CoD game but this one is actually a direct sequel to the 2019 Modern Warfare reboot. As such the campaign is set in the year 2022, follows Task Force 141, and has 17 missions to work through. Here's the MW2 missions list: StrikeKill or CaptureWetworkTradecraftBorderlineCartel ProtectionClose AirHardpointRecon By FireViolence And TimingEl Sin NombreDark WaterAlonePrison BreakHindsightGhost TeamCountdown Depending on your playstyle and whether you go after extras during your playthrough, you can finish the Modern Warfare 2 campaign in around six hours. If you're more of a completionist, you should expect to take closer to 12 hours to finish everything. View the full article

Need to knowWhat is it? A Castlevania-themed roguelike where you try to outlast waves of draculas, wolfmen, and skeletons. Expect to pay $5/£4 Release date October 20, 2022 Developer poncle Publisher poncle Reviewed on Steam Deck, Core i5 12600K, RTX 3070, 32 GB RAM Multiplayer? No Link Steam Like a lot of PC gamers, I've gotten a bit spoiled spending single-digit dollars for games on Steam after all these years. I managed to snag Deus Ex: Invisible War for 40 cents, which I'm pretty sure is what videogames cost during the Great Depression. Never played it, but still, the value. It's with that exposure to cheapo gaming in mind that I say Vampire Survivors is one of the best deals you can get on PC. It's an inventive, surprising bullet hell roguelike, one that'll run on anything and had me muttering the disastrous "one more run" mantra at one in the morning after everyone in the house was asleep. As PC Gamer editor Robin Valentine put it on Twitter the other day, "It's dangerous to have on your hard drive." Vampire Survivors is built around a horde mode in simple, sprawling maps. You pick a character from a selection of Belmont-alikes as you try to outlast a horde of ghoulies and ghosties, growing in power and number over a 30-minute timer. Vampire Survivor's first great curveball is how it handles shooting. Each weapon is mechanically unique, with different AoEs, fire rates, and damage profiles. Instead of directly targeting enemies, the weapons have a timed firing pattern influenced by you and your enemies' positioning. Take my go-to character, Arca Ladonna. He starts with a relatively unforgiving early game weapon: a wand that shoots fireballs in the direction of a random enemy on screen once every second or so. I have no say in where these fireballs go, so I have to follow their lead in whatever direction they clear through the already claustrophobic throngs of enemies, grabbing level-up gems in their wake. Contrast this with a different hero, Imelda Belpase (the vampire names are Castlevaniaworthy). She starts with a magic wand that fires at the closest enemy. Imelda can more directly target her foes from the get-go, allowing for a more immediately familiar, aggressive style of play. I still prefer the high risk, high reward randomization afforded by Arca⁠ as it's something unique to Vampire Survivors, but you've got a lot of options from the get go. The closest thing I can compare it to is when you whip up a deathball of units in an RTS or more tactical RPG. I enjoy the way these pre-set firing patterns encourage me to build a complementary arsenal. For example, unwieldy but powerful fireballs pair well with something more consistent and precise like Imelda's wand or the boomerang crosses. This measured build crafting in the early game pays off in an explosive, self-perpetuating power fantasy in the last third of a run, and I think this gets at Vampire Survivors' secret sauce. (Image credit: poncle) With six weapons maximally upgraded and at least a few of them evolved through item combos, your character just lets out a constant torrent of projectiles pushing back an endless wave of foes. It practically plays itself at this point, but that's part of the fun. The closest thing I can compare it to is when you whip up a deathball of units in an RTS or more tactical RPG. It pokes that same lizard brain pleasure center for me as when I drag to select a doomstack of Battlecruisers in StarCraft or a partyful of mages with Melf's Minute Meteors in Baldur's Gate, click on an enemy, and watch the sparks fly. That does risk getting boring, and the handful of times I've lucked into an easy early game that transitions into a steamroll late game have been when Vampire Survivors has dragged. Luckily, there are game speed and enemy challenge modifiers to ratchet things up, and Vampire Survivors' bevvy of hidden characters, challenges, and levels revived the fun for me after entering a doldrums. It reminds me of the great iceberg of Binding of Isaac's sequential final levels or the mind blowing secret levels and bosses in Ultrakill and Cruelty Squad. Vampire Survivors' secrets help it feel generous and surprising. Bonus round (Image credit: poncle) One challenge that just blew me away requires you to kill a seemingly invulnerable boss, one that seems more like a rule of the game than something you can actually overcome. It requires hustling to far-flung corners of the map to collect special items. These items, when fully upgraded alongside two specific armaments afforded on level-up, unlock a pair of uber weapons that enable you to kill that juggernaut, unlocking a hidden character. I made two attempts at this run to no avail before lucking into both portions of the RNG side of the build during some casual play a day later. I frantically altered course to run the gauntlet, picking up everything I needed and fully upgrading it with only two minutes to spare. It felt awesome to finally bring everything together, though you could also just cheese the fight by standing in one place for 30 minutes with this novelty exploit build. I think it's a distinct strength of Vampire Survivors that it allows such tomfoolery. Image 1 of 4 (Image credit: poncle)Image 2 of 4 (Image credit: poncle)Image 3 of 4 (Image credit: poncle)Image 4 of 4 (Image credit: poncle) I certainly enjoy Vampire Survivors on my desktop, but I think it really sings on Steam Deck (or, failing that, a thin and light laptop). I got most of my gameplay for this review in on my couch or out on the porch. Untethered from a desktop-grade CPU, Vampire does start to chug a bit in those late run steamroll sequences, but the game doesn't really demand twitch reflexes and I honestly kind of like the effect⁠—it feels like my Deck is straining under the weight of all those meteors. Creator Poncle does have plans to transition it to a new, hopefully more stable engine by year's end. Vampire Survivors is a killer little game, a fun roguelike that absolutely hooked me, a guy who's pretty fatigued of the genre at this point. It'll also only kill your free time, not your wallet. With its current $4 sale until November 1, you've got your pick of either this fantastic indie game, or one of the three cheapest beers on tap at my old job. View the full article

With over 15 million sold since its inception, the Razer Deathadder has certainly earned its place in the best gaming mouse hall of fame and at the top of our best gaming mouse guide. There’ve been so many iterations and variants of the legendary mouse and with the newest one, the Deathadder V3 Pro, Razer isn’t really messing with a winning formula. In fact, it has doubled down on everything that earned the Deathadder its name: excellent ergonomics and pro-level performance. Razer has taken the Deathadder to the gym, cut down the fat, shed weight, and ripped the muscles to create a lean, mean, clicking machine. The design changes are reasonably subtle but enough to offend some Deathadder diehards. Gone are the massively flared-out mouse buttons and smooth shell in favour of a slimmer, less aggressive profile that has more in common with the Viper Ultimate than previous Deathadders. It’s still very much a right-hander's mouse thanks to the slanted curve of the mouse’s hump that leans ever so comfortably into your palm. The shell has a new micro-texture coating instead of smooth plastic. It helps keep the now 63g mouse (a 25% drop from the previous Deathadder) from flying out of your hand in the heat of battle. The large PTFE skates on the bottom allow the Deathadder to glide across surfaces with the same grace as Natasha Romanov a.k.a Blackwidow. Even with my unconscionable habit of not using a mousepad, the V3 Pro performed beautifully on my desk. Razer says it will work just as well on those new-fangled glass mouse pads too, as long as they're at least 4mm thick. As a clicker aimed at the highest echelon of esports professionals, Razer has put only its finest tech inside the V3 Pro. First up, it features Razer’s fastest-ever sensor: the new Focus Pro 30K Optical sensor with a 70G acceleration and a maximum speed of 750 inches per second for 99.8% accuracy. No one will play at such a ludicrous DPI but combined with a few tricks like Asymmetric cut-off, Motion sync, and Smart tracking, you’ll never claim that the mouse is why you lost that match. For the main clickers, the Deathadder gets third-generation Razer optical mouse switches with a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it 0.2ms response time and long life of 90 million clicks. Deathadder V3 Pro Specs (Image credit: Future)Sensor: Focus Pro 30K Optical DPI: 30,000DPI Polling Rate: 1,000Hz Size: 128 x 64 x 48mm Connectivity: Razer Hyperspeed Wireless, USB Type-C Buttons: 5 Battery: 90 hrs Ergonomic: Right-handed Weight: 63g Price: $150 | £150 | AU$260 Of course, none of this matters if you have a bad connection between you and your game. Enter Razer HyperSpeed, the de facto gold standard of wireless protocols. Don’t believe me? Just ask TUV SUD PSB, a globally recognized certification institute that says HyperSpeed Wireless is three times faster than any other wireless tech. That’s probably why the V3 Pro costs so much—to help cover the cost of that certification. Regardless, to me, there’s no distinguishable difference between using the V3 Pro wireless or wired. But if you have doubts, Razer also has a special 4,000Hz Hyperpolling dongle that you can buy as an add-on, but I reckon most folks would simply use the bundled Speedflex USB cable to assuage their latency fears. The new Deathadder, like its predecessors, is light on buttons, having only five which is laughable compared to the 11 you'll find on the Basilisk V3. I like how chunky and accessible the side buttons are since I don’t have to awkwardly contort my thumb just to use them. I’m not too enamoured with the scroll wheel though. Sure it’s tactile with steps that are great for weapon switching in-game, but it gets very tedious to do lots of scrolling with this mouse. Image 1 of 8 (Image credit: Future)Image 2 of 8 (Image credit: Future)Image 3 of 8 (Image credit: Future)Image 4 of 8 (Image credit: Future)Image 5 of 8 (Image credit: Future)Image 6 of 8 (Image credit: Future)Image 7 of 8 (Image credit: Future)Image 8 of 8 (Image credit: Future) Razer’s new Hyperscroll Tilt wheel would have been welcome here. It’s little things like this and the simplicity in button configuration that works great for FPS gamers but not so much for other game genres or work. I wager more gamers are like me; we need a mouse that’s as great for Doom slaying as it is for navigating dense Excel sheets. However, if your job is playing twitch shooters, then this is just perfect. However, there’s no denying that such simplicity has its perks. Most obviously when it comes to the battery life on the Deathadder V3 Pro. Razer claims 90 hours and since unboxing it about three weeks ago, I’ve only charged it once. I’ve been exclusively using this as my primary mouse for at least 8 hours a day. So no complaints there. It charges via USB Type-and you can keep using the mouse wired as it charges too. The new Deathadder V3 Pro is a worthy successor to the family name. It’s fast, comfortable, has excellent battery life, and is very deadly in the right hands. Very few gamers can lay claims to such hands though. For most of us, the $149 being asked for the Deathadder V3 Pro is simply too much, and it feels somewhat akin to owning an F1 car and using it for grocery shopping and school runs. Still, if you fancy yourself an esports pro who needs a no-nonsense, hyper-focused slaying machine, the V3 Pro lives up to the legends of old. View the full article

George RR Martin, nemesis of the deadline, graced television screens recently to chat about his latest book. In the process, the Song of Ice and Fire author let slip that, on top of being a one-time addict of games like Homeworld and Master of Orion, he hasn't even touched Elden Ring because "people seem to want this Winds of Winter book". Martin spoke a little about the work he did on Elden Ring in an interview with Stephen Colbert, after the host prodded him to talk about his experience constructing the game's cosmology and background lore. Martin's answer was fairly boilerplate—though he was apparently surprised that games take as long to make as major motion pictures—but when Colbert asked if he'd actually played the game, Martin said that his "totally addictive personality" meant that if he tried, our chances of ever seeing The Winds of Winter would become even more remote than they already are. "I did play video games a long, loooong time ago," said Martin, "I played games like Railroad Tycoon, Master of Orion, and Homeworld". "I would get sucked into it: weeks, months would go by, and I'd be sitting there in my red flannel bathrobe saying 'One more game! One more game!'". Putting aside how very relatable that is, and whether I too could be a millionaire fantasy author if I'd never picked up a controller, it sounds like it's probably for the best that Martin hasn't touched FromSoft's opus, even if it really is very good indeed. It's especially good news because, in the same interview, Martin revealed that, 11 years into writing The Winds of Winter, he's apparently only "three quarters" of the way done with the next book, which isn't even meant to be the final part of the Song of Ice and Fire series. So settle in, folks, and hope Martin doesn't realise how cheap you can get Railroad Tycoon on GOG these days. Elden Ring is far from the first time that Martin's work has overlapped with the video game world. There's a digital Game of Thrones board game, a pretty average Telltale game, an RPG, and more Game of Thrones mods than you can shake a stick at. There's also a mildly successful TV show, but you're better off pretending they stopped making that after season 4. View the full article

Ever fancied your own personalised gaming chair? If the masses of game and superhero themed chairs aren't quite curing that itch, then you will be pleased to learn that Overclockers has paired with Noblechairs to bring us custom Epic, Icon and Hero gaming chairs. The Hero is the one I picked to test our own design, since it's one of our favourite gaming chairs of 2022, and I have to say it looks pretty stunning. Despite the design we chose being a little tongue-in-cheek, we've had a lot of compliments from other teams in the office. Even when it's sat next to the Thermaltake's Porsche gaming chair we've been testing, most eyes are trained on this one. (Image credit: Noblechairs) That's partly down to the fantastic printing, and perhaps partly down to the reference we made to bottoms in the design. Honestly, though, we're probably not going to be the last to push the limits of what Noblechairs is willing to print on its chairs. I dread to think of some of the designs Overclockers is going to get through and I'm not sure where the line stands on that one. What I do know is that unfortunately for our overseas friends, "the service is by Overclockers UK so the printing is currently done in the UK. But they accept orders from all over the world, it may cost them a lot in shipping, but technically anyone can buy one." Just a heads up in case you've never tried to lift a gaming chair in its box: these things are not light. The Noblechairs Hero is 150kg (330lbs), so don't expect oversea shipping to be cheap. If you're desperate to get a gaming chair plastered with your favourite meme or wonderful waifu, and you're willing to spend out on shipping, as well as £30 for printing on the back of the headrest and £100 for the full back (£130 for both sections) then it may be time to get creative. Just remember that's on top of the price of the chair. You can get get your own design printed today, so don't let your memes be dreams, folks. View the full article

AI image generation tools are catching the eye of developers across the globe right now, and it was only a matter of time before someone managed to pair the magic of AI image generation with the immersion of VR. That's exactly what Scottie Fox has brought to life with Stable Diffusion VR, an immersive experience that brings AI image generation into a 360° space. It does so without the need to rent gigantic servers to process everything, instead relying on consumer PC hardware, and it brings the user right into the middle of a continually shifting dreamworld powered by the Stable Diffusion image generator. Although it's a long way from completion, even in the experimentation stage it's looking fantastic. I've been speaking to Scottie about what it's like to work on a cutting edge project at the intersection of technology and art. Not only has he given us an insight into the project around how he overcame certain hurdles, and where his inspiration came from, he's also given a sprinkle of insight into the future of AI image generation when it comes to gaming. Scottie tells me how the muses decided to strike him in the middle of the night with the inspiration for the project. When asked to elaborate, he speaks all about the awkwardness presented by a night-time eureka moment. "Unfortunately that 'light bulb' over your head, that 'Eureka' moment, can happen at any time. For me, I was hitting a brick wall during the late-night conception of this project and powered down my PC and shut off my office lights for the evening," he says. "After an hour of restless sleep, I literally was awoken with a very simple and promising solution to the battle I fought all day with. In my night attire, I returned to my office, fired everything up and tested my theory in practice. 'EUREKA!' indeed. It wasn't just a passing dream." Only recently has consumer grade hardware been able to perform tasks that are as resource intensive as real-time rendering. Scottie Fox It's great to see devs acting on their passing fancies; it's kind of frightening how many great concepts are likely left by the wayside because people put things like sleep ahead of progress. Thankfully, Scottie isn't one of those people, and has been experimenting fervently on the project ever since. When I ask about the iterations his Stable Diffusion VR project had been through he notes that, "Over the years, I've focused on the spectacle of 'real-time visual effects.' Only recently has consumer grade hardware been able to perform tasks that are as resource intensive as real-time rendering." (Image credit: Scottie Fox) The hardware he's been using for the development of Stable Diffusion VR includes an RTX 2080 Ti graphics card, backed by an AMD Threadripper 1950X. That's a lot of computing power, and although you may be shrugging your shoulders at a 20-series graphics card, remember this was not long ago the best GPU money could buy. All things considered, it's amazing to see consumer grade hardware handling the high loads that both artificial intelligence and virtual reality entail. As Scottie explains, "Whether it be particle simulation, or motion capture interaction, a lot goes into creating a smooth, vivid, immersion experience. "One of the biggest challenges I faced in this project was trying to diffuse content (a heavy task) in a seamless, continuous fashion in such a way that immersive environments could be visualised. That's exactly what I wanted; to be able to render a 360° environment, completely diffused with iterated content. "Even with current cloud-based GPU systems, and high-end commercial runtimes, attempting to 'render' a single frame takes many seconds or minutes—unacceptable for real-time display. But that's exactly what I wanted; to be able to render a 360° environment, completely diffused with iterated content. That was the first goal—the very one that I struggled with the most." As we've seen in many of the project vids, it's clear Scottie has managed to overcome the hurdle of processing power with flying colours. He's been able to bring all this fancy software to us without needing to rent out a bunch of server space in order to process everything—something that can get pretty costly. In order to do this, Scottie had to "break the entire process into small pieces, scheduled to be diffused." Each of the blue squares you see in the below video is a section being queued up in order to be processed in the background. Stable Diffusion VRReal-time immersive latent space. ️Adding debug functionality via TouchDesigner.Diffusing small pieces into the environment saves on resources. Tools used:https://t.co/UrbdGfvdRd https://t.co/DnWVFZdppT#aiart #vr #stablediffusionart #touchdesigner pic.twitter.com/TQZGvvA5tHOctober 13, 2022 See more "These pieces are sampled from the main environmental sphere, and once complete, are queued back into the main view through blending," Scottie notes. "This saves time by not having to render and diffuse the entire environment at once. The result is a view that seems to slowly evolve, seamlessly, while in the background a lot of processing is taking place." It's a super elegant solution, the effect of which is fascinating and potentially less overwhelming than shifting the entire scene at once. Although this is a much more efficient approach, Scottie's next steps "revolve around practical use in consumer grade hardware, as well as modular functions for integration with other softwares and applications." Speaking of integrations, Scottie talks of his journey in connecting with different developers at summits and the like, something that's really important for anyone looking to develop projects like this one. In learning about, and testing different approaches other developers have tried, Scottie has been able to form a strong basis for his Stable Diffusion VR project. "As a creator that has explored many 3D rendering and modeling softwares, I grew hungry for more. I finally arrived at Derivative and their product TouchDesigner. For interactive and art installations, this platform has become an industry standard, among other tools. It has the incredible ability to transliterate between protocols and development languages which helps with integrating the many different formats and styles of parallel software." WILD! Working to achieve my goals! Lot's of test effort today. Stable Diffusion in VR + touchdesigner = realtime immersive latent space. This proof of concept is the FUTURE! #aiart #vr #stablediffusion #touchdesigner #deforum pic.twitter.com/Qn5XWJAO7ZOctober 7, 2022 See more "The other half of my inspiration comes from Deforum—an incredible community of artists, developers, and supporters of art generated by datasets." There, he says, "You can share your struggles, celebrate successes, and be inspired in ways that you can't simply do privately." The next biggest challenge for anyone wanting to work with Stable Diffusion comes in the form of copyright issues. "Currently, there's a lot of licensing and legal aspects of tapping into a dataset and creating art from it. While those licences are public, I don't have the right to redistribute them as my own." It's a worrying concept, one that's causing companies like Getty to ban AI generated imagery, though Shutterstock seems to be taking steps in a different direction by looking to pay artists for their contribution to training material for an upcoming AI image generation tool. (Image credit: Scottie Fox) Scottie makes it clear that "A lot of testing and publishing would need to take place in order for me to bring it from my own PC in my office, into the hands of those that will really enjoy something more than just a demo." I'm sure there will be no shortage of businesses, artists and devs willing to work with Scottie, as he notes "I have been approached by an incredibly diverse amount of development companies that are interested in my project." Some of the more wild ones include "a crime scene reconstruction tool where a witness could dictate and 'build' their visual recollection to be used as evidence in a court of law. In another case, a therapeutic environment where a trained healthcare provider could custom tailor an experience for their patient based on the treatment they sit fit." Lots of potential for the project to go in directions other than gaming, then. (Image credit: Scottie Fox) Companies will combine their current technologies with AI content to create a hybrid game genre. Scottie feels that when working with AI in the future, "successful companies will combine their current technologies with AI content to create a hybrid game genre. They will have the fluidity of their familiar technology with the added functionality of AI assisted environments." He considers the potential for AI in games to be used in bug testing, in personalised escape room experiences, and in horror or RPG monsters that evolve on a per game basis. On that terrifying note, I'll leave you with some inspirational words from the man himself. Should you be considering a project like this, remember, "Sometimes the longest journey occurs between the canvas and the paintbrush." As an ex art student, I concur. As well, it's important to know that "Even the most creative of minds will hit an obstacle," so keep on developing. And don't ignore the muses when they strike in the middle of the night. View the full article

If you're looking for Fortnite jelly beans, or if you're wondering what you're supposed to do with them once you find some, you're not alone. The latest Fortnitemares challenge asks you to "Gain shields with jelly beans" and if you're a little confused by the wording of this quest, you'll be pleased to learn that it's actually not as complicated as it sounds. Fornitemares has introduced many Halloween-themed challenges and quests including destroying haunted furniture and taking on the Inkquisitor boss. For this particular quest, the toughest part is locating the candy so I'll explain how to find it in this guide. Here's how to gain shields with jelly beans in Fortnite. Fortnite jelly bean locations Jelly beans in Fortnite are found inside the candy buckets that are dotted around the map. These seasonal goodies are generally found next to the doors of buildings so areas like Tilted Towers or Chrome Crossroads are good options when you start looking. Once you've found a candy bucket, interact with it to grab the goodies inside. You shouldn't have any trouble finding jelly beans this way, though be aware that other players will have the same idea so be careful. How to gain shields with jelly beans Once you've found three jelly beans, the rest of this challenge is easy. Each candy consumable in Fortnite gives you a buff when eaten and jelly beans are no different. In fact, they recover ten points of your shield when consumed. This challenge is starting to make sense now, right? Consume jelly beans to fill up your shield—you'll see your progress in the top left of your screen—but three should do it. Good job. View the full article

Bad news, MultiVersus fans. DC Comics antihero Black Adam has been delayed, with Player First Games saying he's "not quite ready" to join the platform fighter yet. He was initially revealed in August—though he'd already made an appearance on the list of leaked MultiVersus characters before that—alongside Gremlins' Stripe. He's been knocking around since 1945, originally touted as a wildly powerful supervillain to Shazam. In more recent times, he's pivoted towards more of an antihero, but could still serve a beatdown to Superman. Black Adam was supposed to release this week, presumably loosely tying in with the Dwayne Johnson movie that came out on October 21. Unfortunately, his release has been delayed at the last minute. "The Gods have spoken and Black Adam is not quite ready to change the hierarchy of MultiVersus," the developers say in a tweet. "Stay tuned and thank you for your patience, Mortals." Technical systems designer Devin "Reslived" Gajewski said the choice to delay was "rough," but added "we needed the time. I think this patch more than any other will be worth the wait. Just gotta get there." The Gods have spoken and Black Adam is not quite ready to change the hierarchy of #MultiVersus. Stay tuned and thank you for your patience, Mortals. pic.twitter.com/4jhstiKfP3October 26, 2022 See more There's no rescheduled release date for Black Adam yet. He was supposed to land alongside a new arcade mode, though Player First hasn't mentioned if that's also been delayed. With MultiVersus season one concluding on November 15, hopefully, we'll be seeing Black Adam and Superman duke it out before then. Beyond Black Adam and Stripe, who released on October 12, it's unknown who is set to join the roster next. Leaked datamining has pointed towards Joker being on the way soon, and even more excitingly voiced by the legendary Mark Hamill. Outside of more DC fighters, there's a chance we may see Lord of the Rings or even Mortal Kombat characters joining the fray in the near future. View the full article

The Callisto Protocol, the fleshy, goopy space horror game from former Dead Space devs, has been cancelled in Japan following a thumbs-down from the country's Computer Entertainment Rating Organisation (CERO). In a statement posted to Twitter, the game's team says that it's going to cancel the game's Japanese release entirely rather than make the changes necessary to mollify the ratings board. pic.twitter.com/fXtsIY4Fz3October 26, 2022 See more The statement is, understandably, in Japanese, but we can provide a basic translation. It reads, "The Callisto Protocol's Japanese version has been discontinued. At present, it cannot pass the CERO rating," before going on to say that the team decided that making CERO's required changes would "not provide the experience players expect," so the game won't release in Japan at all. As you'd hope, Japanese players who pre-ordered the game will be getting refunds, but it's a shame the game has reached this impasse with Japan's ratings board. The statement doesn't get into the reasons CERO turned its nose up at the game, but it wouldn't be too surprising if the game's gratuitous violence disturbed regulators. CERO is notorious for its sensitivity to gore and dismemberment, and The Callisto Protocol has both in spades. Whatever CERO's reasoning, the replies to the tweet announcing the cancellation are filled with Japanese players upset at the news and dissatisfied with CERO. More than a few are slyly asking if the game's overseas releases still have Japanese language options, which would be one, slightly laborious way for dedicated fans to still get their hands on the game despite CERO's rejection. They'll get their answer when The Callisto Protocol releases a little over a month from now, on December 2, via Steam and the Epic Games Store. Until then, you'll just have to somehow cope with living a life where you aren't pursued everywhere you go by tenacious mounds of shambling flesh. Actually, now that I think about it, maybe CERO has the right idea. View the full article

Meta's CEO Mark Zuckerberg has said that the company plans to launch its next-generation Meta Quest headset, tentatively known as the Meta Quest 3, for consumers sometime next year. In a comment made during Meta's Q3 earnings call, Zuckerberg confirmed the headset's arrival next year, as a way to set expectations for ever-increasing costs for Meta's Reality Labs. "We expect Reality Labs expenses will increase meaningfully again in 2023, with the biggest drivers of that being the launch of the next generation of our consumer Quest headset and hiring that has been done in 2022, but for which we are going to be paying the first full year of salaries next year," Zuckerberg said (via Seeking Alpha). The launch of the next-gen headset is also mentioned in the press release for the earnings report on Meta's investor website. It's cited alongside comments by the company's CFO, Dave Wehner, regarding potential increased expenses due to hardware costs for the upcoming headset. "Our growth in cost of revenue is expected to accelerate, driven by infrastructure-related expenses and, to a lesser extent, Reality Labs hardware costs driven by the launch of our next generation of our consumer Quest headset later next year," Wehner said. The Meta Quest 2, once the Oculus Quest 2, is our pick for the best VR headset for PC gaming today. The more premium Valve Index is a close second. A recent $100 price increase for the Quest 2 has made it less of a must-buy, however, and the newly-launched Meta Quest Pro isn't a direct replacement due to its high cost. The Meta Quest Pro promises a much improved mixed reality experience. Though its $1,500 price tag means it's much more of a premium headset than the Quest 2 if you hope to hook it up to your PC. That's not its intended audience, anyways. It'll be the Quest 3 that's the true successor to the budget champion of VR gaming when it arrives next year. And Meta is pumping money into Reality Labs right now for its future headsets. The VR and AR division made $285 million in the past three months but that was far from offsetting its total cost. In total, the division lost Meta $3.672 billion over the same time period. That means Meta is spending over a billion dollars a month on Reality Labs. That's a mighty investment. Virtual reality (Image credit: Valve)Best VR headset: which kit should you choose? Best graphics card: you need serious GPU power for VR Best gaming laptop: don't get tied to your desktop in VR It seems Zuckerberg and Wehner might be softening up Meta's shareholders with the promise of what's to come of all that investment. I imagine even a multi-billion dollar corporation like Meta will be under pressure to ditch what some might consider a metaverse money sink and focus on its core business instead. More generally, Meta is down in terms of cash versus this same time last year. Overall revenue is down 4% year-over-year—$27.7 billion versus $29 billion—and total costs and expenses were also up 19%—from $18.5 billion to $22 billion. View the full article

Whether you're hoping to read a few tips and tricks for today's Wordle or you'd just like someone to give you the answer to the October 27 (495) puzzle as quickly as possible, you'll find all that as well as fresh clues and links to our helpful guides on this very page. Wordle didn't start coming together for me until the third guess today. That's when I finally had a couple of key greens show up, and those gave the word enough shape to then take some meaningful guesses. I still nearly managed to trip myself up in the latter half, but I did at least squeak through with a win. Wordle hint Wordle today: A hint for Thursday, October 27 You'd usually use today's answer when talking about picking up and then moving something from one place to another, but it can also refer to the number of people a vehicle can transport at once, or in gaming when a disproportionate amount of effort is used to drag one member of a team across the finish line. There's a repeating consonant today. 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. Previous answers Wordle archive: Which words have been used The more past Wordle answers you can cram into your memory banks, the better your chances of guessing today's Wordle answer without accidentally picking a solution that's already been used. Past Wordle answers can also give you some excellent ideas for fun starting words that keep your daily puzzle solving fresh. Here are some recent Wordle solutions: October 26: FLOUTOctober 25: FOGGYOctober 24: FAULTOctober 23: MUMMYOctober 22: SPIELOctober 21: GROVEOctober 20: DENIMOctober 19: QUIRKOctober 18: EXISTOctober 17: STEIN Today's Wordle answer (Image credit: Josh Wardle) What is the Wordle 495 answer? Everyone needs a little help from time to time. The answer to the October 27 (495) Wordle is CARRY. 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

Sometimes I think about how many scientists I've watched get killed by monsters on the other side of unbreakable glass. In games like Half-Life and System Shock 2, I've spent a lot of time listening to eggheads screaming, running, and being dragged into vents to die terrible deaths, just so I'll be properly cautious when the monsters are on the same side of the glass as me. Abiotic Factor points at those poindexters and asks, "Do you want to be them for a change?" That's half the idea, and it sounds like a fun one. A co-op game where, like the Ghostbusters, you're a bunch of academics who are out of their depth, clutching scientific gadgets as the greeblies rush in. Watch the first minute or so of the announcement trailer and you'd think that's all there is to Abiotic Factor—but keep watching. Suddenly those scientists are harvesting the corpses of green-blooded aliens and cooking them on a stove. When they're not eating aliens they're using those things that look like proton throwers to gather scrap from demolished desks, then looking at blueprints to build a better variety of weird science gear. The other half of Abiotic Factor is that it's actually a survival-crafting game, a kind of underground bunker Valheim. "Survival games have a lot of fun elements," says Geoff Keene, design director at Abiotic Factor studio Deep Field Games. "But the settings are getting very similar and repetitive. They're always like: chop down trees, build a cabin. I think people want something new there. They want to do something different." There are no trees to punch in Abiotic Factor. Instead, trapped in the offices of the GATE Cascade Research Facility post-disaster, you wade in with pipe in hand to turn office furniture into valuable scrap. "We have entire cubicle farms that you basically harvest for supplies," Keene says, "so you're going around smashing computers and stuff, which I'm sure is cathartic for some office workers." Thinking of the scene from Office Space where they absolutely demolish a printer, I agree. (Image credit: Deep Field Games) Office Space is actually a decent point of reference. Half-Life has a vein of 1990s workplace humor running through it, with the break-room microwave and so on, and Abiotic Factor (which is set in 1993) follows in its footsteps. For instance, there's a series of promotional shorts in the form of watercooler conversations between two employees named Abe and Janet, and in-game customization is limited by the GATE Cascade Facility's strict dress code. "You can customize your pants in various beige colors, we don't give players RGB sliders," Keene says. "But ties can get pretty wild." He explains this will be called "your tie-dentity" in the menu, then winces at his own glorious pun. It's handcrafted. We are building every sector by hand just to create a really nice, very set experience. Geoff Keene, creative director As well as choosing a loud tie to accessorize with, characters are defined by skills, traits, and perks. "We've taken a lot of inspiration from RPGs and also other survival crafting games like Zomboid and things like that," Keene says. "We have character traits so when you start off the game you actually get to pick your PhD." You also pick positive and negative traits that can be traded off, and Keene gives examples like a character who is sleepy all the time and needs to regularly lie down on the couch, but also gets hungry less often. So yes, there will be hunger meters. "As far as survival mechanics go, there is hunger, thirst, sanity, there is fatigue," Keene says. Fatigue can be relieved slowly by sitting on the floor, he explains, or quickly by sitting on a couch, or turning one of the longer couches into a bed. "We've got continence systems," he adds, "so you have to go to the toilet. After you eat it fills another bar, that's your time-to-poop essentially. You can actually use that for fertilizer." (Image credit: Deep Field Games) Another way Abiotic Factor differentiates itself from other survival games is via scale. You're trapped in a research and containment facility after a transdimensional boo-boo occurs; there's no roaming across the wilderness. "Games like Valheim, Minecraft, The Forest they're very expansive," Keene says, "but we're kind of doing this closed open world. It's in a facility so you're limited by the hallways and the rooms and the buildings, space that you can actually explore. You can't go outside really—there's larger caverns and things that feel more outdoorsy, and there's of course nice office plants to make you feel like you're not underground in a concrete bunker." The best open world games aren't always the biggest, and I've played plenty that relied on procedural generation to fill out a space, only to repeat themselves and feel less real because of it. There's no worry of that with Abiotic Factor, however. "It's handcrafted," Keene says. "We are building every sector by hand just to create a really nice, very set experience." It's a kind of underground open world, as he puts it, one where you won't be able to run from one end to the other. "You can range all over a sector, then there's various doors that might block you that you have to hack or unlock or circumvent—sometimes actually through vents." That means the facility will always be the same, no matter which server you're playing on (characters will be per-server, letting you choose different traits and level-up different skills, though customization will be shared if you don't want to lose your tie-dentity). It'll be finite too, with a set amount of resources in it. Enough that you'll be able to make it to the end of Abiotic Factor's story, and continue playing after that point if you want. Toward its end, the trailer suggests a way to get even more resources, with the scientists seeming to travel to another world. (Image credit: Deep Field Games) "You can actually find these portals that take you to other places," Keene says, "not just alien worlds, but other universes or other places on the planet that might have something going on. There's one that takes you to a foggy town." Each of them resets after a certain amount of time, meaning that "we have these renewable resource dungeons you can go into and come back out of with a bunch of cool loot." We want the whole game to be playable solo, it's just gonna be harder, right? Geoff Keene, creative director Don't be fooled by the glimpse of a purple alien landscape. As that hint about a place resembling Silent Hill suggests, Abiotic Factor draws from a wider pool of influences for its threats. "At first glance some people see we've got some alien world stuff and they're like, 'oh, that must be like Xen from Half-Life,'" Keene says. "But we're actually pulling from a lot of different mythological places, and supernatural and anomalous things as well. The facility that does all this science is also containing a lot of weird things, anomalous entities and things like that and some of these get loose during this event. You're not only dealing with alien species from portal worlds." He says we should expect a bit of horror alongside the sci-fi. "What we really did with our roster of enemies is tried to get a lot of variety in there." Keene says the most exciting part of the game for him is the gadgets you can craft. At the low-tech tier, lab coats can be tied together to make ropes. Then there are jump pads, and the vacuum. "It's a problem in games, you have all your stuff all over the floor and you have to go around mashing E to pick them all up. We've got a tool you can make that literally just vacuums stuff into your inventory, it's quite fun. You can even vacuum up the smaller creatures and launch them out of it like a cannon." (Image credit: Deep Field Games) More high-tech gear, like spinning fan-blade traps, will need to be powered by pulling cords from the walls and chaining power strips together in the way you're not supposed to but everybody does. There are Tesla coils and science guns, though Keene explains that whenever the developers got too into guns they tried to rein it in, preferring more inventive tools. "We have a BOB principle," as he puts it, "Brains Over Brawn." Finally, and this is important for a misanthrope like me, though Deep Field Games focuses on co-op experiences, Abiotic Factor doesn't have to be one. "You can absolutely play it solo," Keene says. "We want the whole game to be playable solo, it's just gonna be harder, right? Like any survival game is harder when you don't have someone else building something for you. When I play survival games with my friends I just stand around and watch them do everything. It's great! But when I play solo, I have to actually, like, try." Abiotic Factor is currently scheduled for release in 2023. You can find more information and add it to your wishlist on Steam. View the full article

Microsoft has made a few choices over recent years that have really pushed the idea of "gaming for everyone". Game Pass is one of the cheapest ways to instantly get a library full of great games, including our 2021 GOTY Valheim, and more recently Persona 5 Royal. The Microsoft Adaptive controller is another great example of how the company is working to make gaming more accessible to all, and it almost never happened. As reported by The Verge, Microsoft nearly cut the Adaptive Controller during development. When funding cuts were being made to projects, the now widely acclaimed Adaptive Controller was close to the chopping block. The only reason it ended up seeing the light of day was because of how hard people working within the company fought for it to stick around. "There was a point in time when the Xbox controller that was designed for accessibility was on the cut list," Microsoft's COO and CVP for Windows and Devices Robin Seiler told The Verge. "Across teams, Xbox and Surface, we said, 'No this is actually important for the world. This isn't about revenue or brand positioning; it’s just important for people to be able to play games if they want to'". Given the concept rose from a hackathon project within Microsoft, it's clear the Adaptive Controller was important to people. Pushing to keep it going despite budget cuts is a great effort to ensure that more people can interact more efficiently with their devices, for gaming and other projects. 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 It's notable that Microsoft has since leaned pretty hard on the marketing with the Adaptive Controller, and has won multiple awards for innovation since. Hopefully we won't see any more big-wig attempts to stop this accessibility train in the interest of cost-cutting. That doesn't seem to be where the next big hurdle for Microsoft's Adaptive tech is coming from. Instead, it's ideas. We recently spoke to the Adaptive Controller's inventor, Bryce Johnson, who although happy with the direction of the tech isn't too sure what to do next. It's led to some weird products coming out that claim to be accessible, but don't really offer much use just trying to cash in on the market. Still, it's great to see accessibility come to the forefront of thinking when it comes to developing new hardware. Microsoft has already expanded into general computing devices with the Surface Adaptive Accessories and even Nintendo was revealed to be looking into its own adaptive controller. There's also a way you can help 3D print controller mods for people who need them. View the full article

I'm always on the lookout for the next great city builder, and there are more of them in development now than ever before. Like Fraser noted earlier this year, no one out there is really making a play for the big urban city builder market these days, but just because Cities: Skylines is the uncontested king doesn't mean there aren't lots of smaller and more niche builders being made, many with survival systems, historical themes, or sci-fi settings. 2022 has already been an exciting year for city builders, with lots of new games to challenge our building and management skills. There's The Wandering Village, where you build on the back of a giant, lumbering dinosaur that carries your city through the world, Farthest Frontier, the excellent medieval-themed survival city builder from the makers of Grim Dawn, and Frozenheim, a Viking city builder that includes raids and RTS combat. And just this week, Banished-inspired city builder Settlement Survival left early access for a full 1.0 release. It's a great time to build! But it's worth looking down the road at what's coming, because there are lots of exciting-looking city builders on the near horizon. I know a lot of us are waiting for Manor Lords, though developer Slavic Magic hasn't announced a release date for it yet, and we still don't know when Frostpunk 2 is coming out, but it probably won't be until 2023. In the meantime, there are a bunch of city builders due out before the end of 2022. Here are the games coming out before the end of the year that every city builder fan should know about. Land of the Vikings Publisher: Iceberg Interactive Release date: November 8 I mentioned Frozenheim earlier, but here's another Viking city builder coming to early access in November. Land of the Vikings sets you up as Jarl of a growing Viking community from the humble beginnings of mining and fishing to trading with—or raiding—other villages. With a gridless building system your settlement will feel more natural and organic, and you can construct monuments to Odin or Freya to make your citizens happy. There's a bit of an RPG in there too, since each of your Viking villagers has their own characteristics and abilities you'll need to consider when assigning them jobs. Ballads of Hongye Publisher: Amazing Seasun Release date: Autumn 2022 I'll be straight-up: I'm not entirely sure what's going on in Ballads of Hongye. The original trailer looked like the most beautiful and serene city builder I'd ever seen, but more recent videos (and comments from a few that have played a demo) have shown it to be more of a fast-paced strategy city builder with flying airships and combat. It certainly looks interesting and I'm curious to try it when it launches, which is supposed to be sometime this year. Aquatico Publisher: Overseer Games Release date: Q4 2022 I got to play a demo of Aquatico recently, the survival city builder set at the bottom of the ocean after the planet's surface becomes uninhabitable. Despite taking place underwater, there are plenty of familiar city building systems, including farming: I was able to grow crops of sea cucumbers and kelp, which were tended by undersea drones. Naturally survival is tricky, as your human colonists need more than just food and comfort but oxygen and heat to protect them from the dark, icy water. I had fun with the demo, especially taking a break from building domes and resource pipelines to watch my busy little drones and automated submarines hard at work. Floodland Publisher: Ravenscourt Release date: November 15 There's a lot going on in Floodland. A climate crisis brought on rising sea levels that washed entire cities away, and it's your job to lead a small group of survivors to rebuild civilization. It's not just a matter of gathering resources, constructing homes and production buildings, and keeping people fed and healthy. You also need to create laws for your new society which can involve rules about water consumption, recycling, and food quality control, and when disease strikes you'll have to enact policies dealing with mask-wearing, social distancing, and even lockdowns. Sounds eerily familiar, no? Ixion Publisher: Kasedo Games Release date: December 7 Talk about catastrophes, Ixion's got a big one. While testing an interstellar drive on a spaceship the moon was blown to pieces, which of course meant returning to Earth was a non-starter. Now you'll build a small city within your space station as you travel the galaxy, managing your resources and human workers, and looking for survivors of other galactic expeditions. There's a storyline running through Ixion as you search the cosmos for a new planet to call home, but keeping your city growing and healthy in deep space is going to be a major challenge. Against the Storm Publisher: Hooded Horse Release date: November 1 (Steam) Got room for a sixth on this list of five? Against the Storm is an unusual roguelite fantasy city builder that was an Epic Games Store exclusive and actually launched in 2021, but it's finally having a Steam release next week so I thought I'd include it. There's a free demo to play in the meantime, where you can get a taste of managing a settlement inhabited by humans, lizards, and beavers in service of the Scorched Queen in a world of unending rain. Yeah, it's weird as city builders go, but the scores on its Epic page show an extremely positive response, so if you'd prefer to buy it on Steam you don't have much longer to wait. View the full article