PC Gaming

Want to make the combat in The Witcher 3 Next-Gen harder? This The Witcher 3 Next-Gen Combat Redux mod does just that.

Created by 'modder' suaohoward', the Combat Redux mod for the next-gen version of The Witcher 3 on PC introduces Souls-like combat difficulty. In order to make the game's combat more challenging, the modder has made 'Igni' and 'Quen' less effective. This applies to parry and countering as well. Also, attacking and dodging consume stamina when using this mod. Also, being hit reduces stamina. The enemy dodge indicator has been removed as well, and stamina regenerates slower when injured. Luckily, this also applies to opponents. It's an interesting modification for the next-gen version of The Witcher 3, and one that fans of the game will likely appreciate. As such, be sure to check it out if you're into Souls-like combat difficulty.

Before using this mod, it should be noted that other mods likely aren't compatible with this mod. As such, we suggest deactivating all other mods when trying out this new combat mod. The Witcher 3 Next-Gen Combat Redux Mod can be downloaded from Nexusmods here.

The Silent Hill 2 remake may be shown again very soon, judging from some recent findings discovered by fans on Steam.

As spotted by Reddit user Werewald, the game's Steam page features a Tokyo Game Show 2023, which leads to another page featuring deals meant to celebrate the event, which will be held next week, from September 21st to September 24th. Interestingly enough, no other Konami game, with the exception of Yu-Gi-Oh! Master Duel shows the same banner on its Steam page, suggesting that the highly anticipated remake could be shown during the event.

Thanks to the latest report from Phoronix, we know that Intel is working on supporting the latest "Xe2" graphics architecture for their upcoming Lunar Lake processors. Today, the latest enablement comes in the Mesa Linux drivers. By employing a new technique that allows for importing prior-generation XML files within the Intel Mesa driver code, Intel engineers have managed to streamline the overall file size. This is significant not just for the efficiency it brings but also because it signifies the beginning of work on enabling Xe2 graphics support. It suggests a thoughtful approach to building upon existing architectures, making it easier to adapt and evolve the software support for each new generation of Intel graphics.

It's time, Helldivers. Katherine from Arrowhead Game Studios bringing you the biggest announcement yet: Helldivers 2 launches on PS5 and Steam on February 8, 2024! February will be here before we know it, which means we've got to get you officially enlisted! We start taking pre-orders for both the Standard Edition and the Super Citizen Edition of Helldivers 2 on September 22, 2023. It won't be long before you and 3 recruits can team up for online cooperative multiplayer with large-scale destructive power through stratagems, explore unique planets and complete objectives together, and upgrade your equipment through the deep progression system of Helldivers 2. Collect natural resources of alien origin and use them to enhance and unlock new stratagems aboard your ship.

YouTube Video

ASUS has been teasing their first-ever ROG-aligned liquid metal thermal compound-cooled solution since the start of summer, in the form of a truly flagship Matrix GeForce RTX 4090 24 GB graphics card. Their late May reveal boasted about the importance of bleeding edge technology and a continuation of their Matrix product line's "special" legacy. A third quarter 2023 launch window was outlined—today they have narrowed that timeline down to a specific date—September 19. The ASUS ROG North American branch posted on its socials: "The wait is almost over!😎 Count down to the official launch of our flagship graphics card - the ROG Matrix GeForce RTX 4090. 🔥" A live stream has been organized to coincide with the headliner's retail debut (Sept 19th, 9:00 AM | New York and Sept 19th, 9:00 PM | Taipei).

This is our last (for now) Starfield benchmark installation! This one compares Starfield's graphics settings with in-depth benchmarks, visual comparisons, and even some mod packs to modify the .ini files for Starfield's settings. In our benchmarking, we'll look at how you can optimize Starfield settings to achieve the best graphics quality to performance. We're providing you with all the relative scaling tools to determine which graphics options scale the most, how much they visually affect the game, and then we're testing some DLSS, DLSS Frame Generation, Optimization, and FOV mods for the game. We also tested Bethesda's brand new patch in a quick A/B comparison benchmark, finding ultimately that there was no difference with our test hardware (although NVIDIA's recent ReBAR profile update helped).

It is now being reported that the highly anticipated "ray-tracing" revamp made in RADV "Radeon Vulkan" drivers previously has been finally merged for "monolithic pipelines", taking RT performance on AMD Radeon GPUs to a whole new level.

AMD's developments on Linux have reached an all-time high, with improvements being made all across the board. Not only is the company focused on providing early next-gen support, but existing products have also witnessed significant advancements. A prime example of this is the recent patches implemented on open-source Mesa RADV Vulkan drivers, which brought in uplifted ray-tracing performance on the platform.

Phoronix discloses that the merge request has been pending for 5 months now, initially uploaded by the open-source developer Konstantin Seurer. While we haven't seen a graphical representation of the performance gains, Seurer has revealed some figures after the driver update, which shows almost a 20% uplift in titles such as Quake II and DOOM Eternal.

Quake II RTX:

Before: 81fps
After: 98fps

Control:

Before: 66fps
After: 69fps

DOOM Eternal:

Before: 127fps
After: 130fps

GitHub via Phoronix

"Today, we are heartbroken as we part ways with friends and colleagues at Ascendant Studios – about 45% of our team. This was a painfully difficult, but necessary decision that was not made lightly; nevertheless, we have to make this adjustment now that Immortals of Aveum has shipped. We are supporting those affected in every way we can, including comprehensive severance packages and job placement assistance, as well as support services for those who remain. If your studio is looking for proven UE5 artists and engineers, please reach out and let us know so we can introduce you to some incredibly talented game devs. "I am so proud of what our independent development team has accomplished with Immortals of Aveum. Together we've created a new AAA studio, a new IP, on new technology, during an era of our industry when that is exceedingly rare. We've poured our passion into Immortals, while wearing our hearts on our sleeves. The studio will continue to work that way as we support the development of this game and our Immortals IP moving forward with future updates and offers. "To my team reading this message, especially those leaving us, thank you from the bottom of my heart for your invaluable contributions to Ascendant's culture and your tremendous impact on bringing Immortals of Aveum to life. We wish you nothing but success in the next chapter of your careers. Please stay in touch."

A game developer has to be pretty brave to attempt a Soulslike, I feel. Just the fact that they’re still called Soulslikes, nearly a decade and a half on (and surely longer than it took for "Doom clones" to turn into first-person shooters), is probably a sign. FromSoftware just keeps banging out top notch examples of a genre they created, and follow-ups, in Bloodborne, Sekiro and Elden Ring, that all have their own distinct variances from the core template, so plucky pretenders to the throne really need a unique selling point. The Surge has its near-future sci-fi stylings, Nioh leans into character action game combat, and Jedis Fallen Order and Survivor combine Uncharted-esque traversal with a little movie licence from the seventies. New contender Lies of P has, umm, puppets.

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Lies of P is consistently weakest where it cleaves too strongly to the From Software formula and strongest where it innovates. Weapons for instance can be broken down into two components: a blade (or equivalent bashy/stabby bit) and a handle, which can then be recombined however you like. The blade dictates the type and amount of damage done, while the stat scaling and move set are attached to the handle.

Resident Evil 4's Separate Ways campaign and Mercenaries mode update are coming to this year's acclaimed Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 5, and PC remake on 21st September - and the main game's long-awaited VR mode will hit PSVR2 this "winter".

Separate Ways, if you're unfamiliar, was introduced to Resident Evil 4 when the game made the jump from GameCube to PlayStation 2 in 2005. It focuses on enigmatic spy Ada Wong, who briefly pops up in the Leon S. Kennedy-starring main campaign - filling in the blanks of her whereabouts over the course of the story.

I wouldn’t be alive if it wasn’t for you. Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty arrives on September 26th on Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5, and PC.

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"The year isn’t quite over but so far we’ve released a huge Steam Client update, Counter-Strike 2 entered into beta (and launches soon) and there are now more than 11,000 titles verified or playable on Steam Deck."

Now, what Valve means by "soon" could mean next week, next month, or next year. I mean, look at what it did to my boy "summer" here: is it really still summer halfway through December? I guess in certain parts of Seattle the answer is yes.

... In case you didn't catch the official explainer, Update 2.0 is separate from the Phantom Liberty expansion. The expansion, which costs $30, includes a new questline, gigs, city district, guns, cars, and an additional perk tree. We'll have a review of all that on September 20. Update 2.0 is a free patch that reworks large parts of the vanilla game, releasing a few days ahead of Phantom Liberty on September 21. Here's an abridged change list for the update:

• New perk trees
• Reworked stats
• Reworked cyberware
• Car combat (including cars with guns)
• Dynamic police

Baldur’s Gate 3’s third major patch launches September 21, developer Larian has announced. Patch 3 launches alongside full support for Baldur’s Gate 3 on Mac.

The hope with Patch 3 is Larian is able to address ongoing performance issues, particularly with Act 3, across PC and console now the sprawling Dungeons and Dragons-themed role-playing game is out on PlayStation 5.

As IGN reported, Baldur's Gate 3’s split-screen mostly works fine, but performance tanks when two characters explore different parts of a city, with the frames per second fluctuating especially in the densely populated Act 3.

A new Star Ocean The Second Story R gameplay trailer was shared online today, providing a new look at the remake of the second entry in the series developed by tri-Ace.

The new trailer, which can be watched below, highlights some of the remake's new features, such as Flavor Text, dialogues with party members that happen while exploring the field, raid enemies, more powerful enemies that drop special weapons when defeated, new fishing mechanics, and more.

Gameplay Trailer

... we already talked about this a year ago, when Bungie had its initial suit against Aimjunkies dismissed after Judge Thomas Zilly rejected the claims on the grounds that Bungie had failed to offer any evidence of copyright infringement. That dismissal did leave room for Bungie to re-file, though, which Bungie did, this time promising it had solid evidence to bring before the court. Judge Zilly once again fielded Bungie’s request for summary judgment. And, once again, Judge Zilly has handed Bungie a loss, denying summary judgment, due to a lack of evidence.

“Notably, Dr. Kaiser is not certain that Defendants copied portions of Destiny 2’s copyrighted software code to create the Aimjunkies cheat software, and he explained during his deposition that, based on the available evidence, his opinion is merely ‘the most likely conclusion’,” Judge Zilly writes.

“Defendants deny that they copied any portions of Destiny 2’s software code, and contend that a non-party developer created the Aimjunkies cheat software,” the Judge adds, concluding that the motion for summary judgment on the copyright claims is denied.

As Call of Duty nears its 20th anniversary, veteran fans could have over 100 potential answers to that question, and that's not including the 16 Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 Multiplayer maps that debuted in 2009 - one of the greatest Day One Multiplayer offerings of all time. Afghan. Derail. Estate. Favela. Karachi. Highrise. Invasion. Quarry. Rundown. Rust. Scrapyard. Skidrow. Sub Base. Terminal. Underpass. Wasteland.

As previously revealed, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III will launch with meticulously crafted, modernized versions of these 16 Core Modern Warfare 2 (2009) maps, constructed to maintain the authenticity and accuracy of the originals. Sledgehammer Games' Art Director Matt Abbott and Design Director Zach Hodson detail what that means in the latest Intel Drop.

ASRock has rather silently introduced a low-profile Arc A310 graphics card. This entry-level Intel Arc graphics card is based on the ACM-G11 GPU with 6 Xe Cores. Interestingly, it uses the same low-profile dual-slot cooler with two small fans, just as the previously introduced low-profile Arc A380 graphics card.

Obviously aimed at entry-level small form factor configurations, as well as any other scenario when you need a low-profile graphics card, the ASRock Arc A310 comes with 4 GB of 15.5 Gbps GDDR6 memory on a 64-bit memory interface.

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GFN Thursday is downright demonic, as Devil May Cry 5 comes to GeForce NOW. Capcom's action-packed third-person brawler leads 15 titles joining the GeForce NOW library this week, including Gears Tactics and The Crew Motorfest. It's also the last week to take on the Ultimate KovaaK's Challenge. Get on the leaderboard today for a chance to win a 240 Hz gaming monitor, a gaming Chromebook, GeForce NOW memberships or other prizes. The challenge ends on Thursday, Sept. 21.

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With GeForce NOW, there's always something new to play. Here's what's hitting the playlist this week:

• Tavernacle! (New release on Steam, Sept. 11)
• Gunbrella (New release on Steam, Sept. 13)
• The Crew Motorfest (New release on Ubisoft Connect, Sept. 14)
• Amnesia: The Bunker (Xbox, available on PC Game Pass)
• Descenders (Xbox, available on PC Game Pass)
• Devil May Cry 5 (Steam)
• Gears Tactics (Steam and Xbox, available on PC Game Pass)
• Last Call BBS (Xbox)
• The Matchless Kungfu (Steam)
• Mega City Police (Steam)
• Opus Magnum (Xbox)
• Remnant II (Epic Games Store)
• Space Hulk: Deathwing - Enhanced Edition (Xbox)
• Superhot (Xbox)
• Vampyr (Xbox)

NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 4070 12 GB graphics card finds itself embattled against the recently launched AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT, and board partners from NVIDIA's ecosystem plan to do something about it, reports Moore's Law is Dead. A GIGABYTE custom-design RTX 4070 Gaming OC graphics card saw a $549 listing on the web, deviating from the $599 MSRP for the SKU, which hints at what the new pricing for the RTX 4070 could generally look like. At $549, the RTX 4070 would still sell for a $50 premium over the RX 7800 XT, probably banking on better energy efficiency and features such as DLSS 3. NVIDIA partners could take turns to price their baseline custom-design RTX 4070 product below the MSRP on popular online retail platforms, and we don't predict an official price-cut that applies across all brands, forcing them all to lower their prices to $549. We could also see NVIDIA partners review pricing for the RTX 4060 Ti, which faces stiff competition from the RX 7700 XT.

Stig Asmussen, the director behind the acclaimed Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order and Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, is leaving Respawn Entertainment and EA to "pursue other adventures".

Asmussen, whose career in the games industry spans close to 25 years, worked on all three original God of War titles at Santa Monica Studio prior to his move to Respawn - serving as lead environment artist, then art director, and, finally, creative director on God of War 3.

Developer Drop Bear Bytes has announced its post-apocalyptic RPG Broken Roads will be out on 14th November.

We got our first look at Broken Roads a couple of years ago, when it was aiming for a 2022 release. The game's launch was pushed back a year, during which Drop Bear Bytes partnered with publisher Versus Evil.

Inspired by classic single-player CRPGs, Broken Roads follows a group of companions as they make their way across a post-apocalyptic imagining of Australia.

A fresh report into Unity's hugely-controversial decision to start charging developers when their games are downloaded has thrown fresh light on the situation.

MobileGamer sources say Unity has already offered some studios a 100% fee waiver - if they switch over to Unity's own LevelPlay ad platform.

The report quotes industry consultants that say this move is an "attempt to destroy" Unity's main competitior in this field: AppLovin.

A look at Wargroove 2, the turn-based tactics game that is out this year.

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The main campaign itself has been a treat so far. It's been mice against wood folk, but while I like the Faahri's new commanders and their Grooves - one can fling enemy units around, another can chain electricity and the third gets a boost to movement, strength and defence - I'm mostly struck by the degree of freedom in the missions. A lot of levels start off with a choice of which units to begin with - do I want extra cavalry or extra pikemen, say - and most missions also include two or even three victory conditions to flit between. None of this stuff is wildly inventive, but it allows me to head out onto the battlefield and keep my options open.

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It's here I first saw the new tiered Groove system too. Each hero unit can use its special attack when it reaches 100 percent on a gauge which is built up by your army doing good stuff - killing enemy units and taking villages, for example. But if you hold on and take it to 200 percent, you can unleash massive Groove attacks. I love this, because it's just the kind of feature I tend to forget about in the midst of battle, remembering only at the last minute and giving me that feeling of having just gotten away with stuff.

Yesterday we published details of Unity pricing changes and stated that successful indie Unity developers would be the hardest hit. There have been a number of reactions across Twitter from successful Unity developers and suffice to say, we weren’t wrong. Unity developers are not happy.