Month: September 2024

This month PC Gamer gets world-exclusive access to the greatest MOBA of all time, League of Legends, with its maker Riot Games revealing just why the game’s epic new update is its most dramatic yet. LoL is one of PC gaming’s most played games, with over 150 million players enjoying the game at its peak last year, so this is a must-read for any established League of Legends fan, or anyone looking to jump into its vibrant world for the first time.

In addition, this issue of PC Gamer also features a detailed deep-dive into the history of Grand Theft Auto on PC, looking back on how the violent crime series has thrived and evolved, as well as what we can likely expect from GTA 6.

The top features don’t stop there, either, as this issue also comes loaded with a fantastic narrative adventure in the world of Total War: Warhammer III. Can the Warhammer dwarfs rewrite their own tragic and bloody history and emerge triumphant?

This issue is stuffed with top previews, too, including a detailed hands-on of the exciting new first-person driving survival game, Pacific Drive, explosive new military shooter, Escape from Tarkov: Arena, as well as Solium …

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It seems that “secret international discussions” have led to an export ban for quantum computers of a certain level of power, despite scientists around the world being unable to actually explain why.

Quantum computers might seem to be a work of science fiction, but they do exist and are used by academic institutions and computing businesses around the world. Even though they’re very limited in capability right now, it hasn’t stopped multiple governments from secretly agreeing to limit the export of them to other countries, leaving computer scientists puzzled over the logic behind the decision.

That’s according to New Scientist and it contacted the UK government for an explanation for export restriction, only to be told that the request was denied on the grounds of security. You might think that this is a very sensible decision because quantum computers are supposed to be able to crack any encryption in the blink of an eye.

However, while that’s theoretically possible, quantum computers right now are too basic and error-prone to be able to do this. In fact, such machines are so far off achieving this kind of computing zenith that there’s no logical reas…

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The war against the bots has been going shockingly well in Helldivers 2, despite the best efforts of the Automaton scourge. Gunships and giant walkers have barely stopped the march of liberty from rolling over the machine worlds—there was a minor speedbump via the major order to free Tibit, but things have been going great otherwise.

Great enough, in fact, that players have a chance to clean up that galactic scrapheap for good. The Automatons have been cornered in a tiny slice of the Severin sector, holding onto the piddly bastions of Maia, Durgen, and Tibit.

“All Helldivers are ordered to make an all-out push to completely destroy the Automaton Legion. Despite the enemy’s losses, Automaton messages still include references to ‘The Reclamation’. They must be annihilated before this plan can be carried out,” reads an in-game dispatch.

It’ll be a tall order, though. Helldivers only have, at the time of writing, three days to liberate those planets. The first push has ramped Maia up to 43% liberation, and while Helldivers.io projects it’ll be captured in a far-too-slow 15 hours, it’s a sure thing that the liberation rate will ramp up as brave soldiers pour i…

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As a former StarCraft pro and current PC Gaming Show host, Sean “Day9” Plott is well known for playing games and talking about games. And now he’s getting into the business of making games: Plott announced on Twitter that he’s founded a new game studio called—and, honestly, I’m not sure if this is permanent or what, but it’s what it says on the website—Day9’s Game Studio.

“I founded a game studio, we’re funded, and we’re hiring!” Plott tweeted. “If you have interest in working with me on a multiplayer PC strategy game, we have job openings for a Technical Director & Art Director.”

This actually won’t be Plott’s first foray into the world of making games: He spent several years at Artillery Games as a designer on the MOBA-RTS hybrid Guardians of Atlas, before departing the studio in 2017.

Neither job listing says anything about the nature of Plott’s game, but they do reveal that it will be built using Unreal Engine and, more interestingly, that Plott and a number of presumably hand-picked associates have been “quietly prototyping a multiplayer PC strategy game for a few years.” Despite our contractually-enforceable closeness, Plott al…

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The Last of Us Part 1 on PC has not gone well, to put it mildly. Eyebrows Joel was fun for a while but it’s been a month now, and Naughty Dog is still struggling to get it right. Sony’s overall strategy of putting out more of its first-party games on PC, on the other hand, seems to be going very well indeed.

The sign of Sony’s healthy PC strategy emerged from the company’s FY2022 financial report, specifically under the “Others” category in the Game and Network Services Segment Supplemental Information section. 

The document defines “Others” as “revenue from peripherals including PlayStationVR and revenue from sales of first-party titles on platforms other than PlayStation consoles.” And the numbers over the past two fiscal years are pretty remarkable.

Fiscal year 2021 was fairly flat (all numbers are in millions of yen, and the USD conversions are at today’s yen-to-dollar ratio):

• Q1 FY21 – ¥47,161 ($385.8 million)
• Q2 FY21 – ¥41,356 ($303.2 million)
• Q3 FY21 – ¥47,351 ($347.2 million)
• Q4 FY21 – ¥51,702 ($379.1 million)

2022 was a different story, however, and ended up almost doubling the sales o…

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The WD Black SN850X is the best NVMe SSD you can buy right now, and both the 4TB and 2TB models are on sale. Walmart’s got the chunky 4TB drive for the all-time low price of only $341; the 2TB version is just $155 at Newegg. There are many SSD deals daily, but a sale on our favorite NVMe? That’s too good to be true! (It is true, though. Promise.)

The SN850X is pretty much the best Gen 4 SSD on the block, solving a major issue with its impressive predecessor, the SN850, by running so much cooler. Some might say that it’s the SN850X’s ‘X’ factor. I’m sorry. 

The 4TB and 2TB SN850X manage a speedy 7,300MB/s read and 6,600MB/s write speed. As for performance, they’re both a great all-around drive that would make a killer upgrade for your storage. For gaming, this means you’re looking at quicker load times and a generous amount of storage for even your biggest games.

According to our WD Black SN850X review, the SN850X isn’t the best step forward from the SN850 though it still manages to sit at the top of the very crowded field of lightning-quick SSDs. 

If you want to maximize your savings, you could instead pick up two 2TB SN850X SSDs for $310. Make …

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Flying Terminids are a myth no longer in Helldivers 2—that’s according to an official in-game dispatch that hit the servers yesterday, along with horrifying towers that spawn soaring insectoids. 

The current major order to liberate Zagon and Fori Prime is proceeding apace, with Fori Prime on the cusp of liberation at the time of writing. However, there’s been a snag—our brave soldiers are reporting an insectoid menace previously thought a fascist myth: Shriekers.  

Recovered footage from the ongoing battle in Fori Prime, viewer discretion advised. from r/Helldivers

Previously dismissed as enemy propaganda by Arrowhead Games’ CEO Johan Pilestedt himself, nests of these buggers form a new mission objective on the soon-to-be liberated planets. This was also confirmed via an in-game dispatch, which states the following:

“A new strain of flying Terminids has suddenly appeared across all Terminid planets, with no prior warning or indication of any kind. While the Ministry of Intelligence has always known this was a possibility, the abruptness of the evolution indicates a high possibility of dissident c…

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We’re big fans of the latest OLED gaming monitors, but they do share one obvious issue. They’re all a bit short on pixels. But new roadmaps from the two big noises in OLED panel production, LG and Samsung, reportedly fix that with both 27-inch and 32-inch high-refresh 4K options incoming.

Of course, you can currently buy OLED gaming monitors and indeed TVs with the full 4K. But they’re all 42-inch and up models, so arguably oversized for desktop use. At that panel size, the pixel density isn’t all that either.

Salvation comes in the form of TFT Central’s latest OLED roadmap update. Happily, a number of new OLED panels are in the works that look absolutely ideal. 

For starters, both LG and Samsung have some new actually-monitor-sized 4K OLED panels in the works. Both are working on 27-inch and 32-inch models and they’re all set to offer full 240Hz refresh.

True to existing form, LG’s will use its WOLED tech while Samsung’s will be QD-OLED. Another intriguing differentiator is that LG’s 32-inch effort will offer a new DFR or Dynamic Frequency and Resolution feature.

The key attraction here is the ability to use integer scale or pixel doubling to …

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As noted by SteamDB creator Pavel Djundik, Valve has requested that all Dota 2 custom game makers cease real-money monetization in their creations by August 17. A number of popular modes for the juggernaut MOBA have already gone offline in response.

The custom game tools in Dota 2 gave rise to a vibrant modding scene, with the most notable example being autobattler genre progenitor Dota Auto Chess. Auto Chess was a straight-up phenomenon when it landed in 2019, and though a bit diminished these days, the genre it spawned is still chugging along.

Some custom games in the Dota 2 arcade possess real money monetization through third party platforms like Paypal or Patreon. Paying the developers outside the game earns you access to the usual microtransactions for cosmetics or, more contentiously, in-game advantages, as well as full-blown battle passes.

Dota 2 Arcade games fall under a non-commercial license, but the characteristically hands-off and laissez faire Valve did not act on the proliferation of real money transactions in the Dota 2 Arcade until now. It seems like a pretty easy call for Valve though, which has had to contend with similar grey market economies…

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There’s a hint for today’s Wordle waiting just below if you’d like a helping hand with your daily game, as well as a selection of general tips designed to improve every guess you make, too. Need something a little more direct? I’ve got it covered. The answer to the October 2 (835) Wordle is never more than a quick click away.

I do love it when I get to kick off my Wordle week with a quick game, everything falling into the right places before I’ve even had a chance to rush off down all the wrong rabbit holes with far too many wasted guesses. With a bit of luck I’ll be able to say the same tomorrow—fingers crossed.

Wordle today: A hint

Wordle today: A hint for Monday, October 2

Thinking of cheerful celebrations and happy feelings will help you solve this one. You’re most likely to see this word on Christmas cards, but you might also remember this as the name of one of The Lord of the Ring’s hobbits. 

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Is there a double letter in Wordle today? 

Yes, there is a double letter in today’s puzzle. 

Wordle help: 3 tips for beating Wordle every day 

If you’ve decided to play Wordl…

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Microsoft’s newest AI tool, Recall, has been hitting the headlines that the Redmond software giant perhaps hasn’t quite intended. Part of a collection of features that only Copilot+ PCs sport, Recall also demands that the processor running the software has an NPU. However, one ingenious coder has already got it to work perfectly well on a basic PC that doesn’t have an NPU whatsoever.

The NPU, or neural processing unit, is the latest hardware bandwagon, with AMD, Intel, and Qualcomm all fighting to take ownership of the reins. Core Ultra, Ryzen 8040, and Snapdragon X processors all play host to a system of circuits that can handle the common operations used in AI routines.

One such application is Microsoft’s Recall feature in Copilot+ and it needs an NPU capable of 45 TOPs (trillions of operations per second).

At the moment, the only chip with that level of NPU is Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X series, but it turns out that Recall doesn’t need that kind of performance at all. In fact, it doesn’t even need an NPU. As reported by Neowin, X-user Albacore claims to have ported the application to run on a PC with just 4GB of RAM and a Snapdragon 7c+ Gen 3 processor.

S…

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Update: 02/10/2023: Subsequent to publication, the ban on St4ck’s account has been lifted. 

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Valve has banned a prominent and somewhat controversial Counter-Strike skin trader, St4ck, whose account boasts one of the most high-value inventories you’ll ever see: by some estimates it is the third most-valuable CS skin haul out there. Pricing stuff in CS is always a bit of a guessing game, because when we’re talking about rare items you’re relying on middlemen and third party vendors for valuations, but PriceEmpire values St4ck’s inventory at $1.45 million and lists items including a Souvenir Factory New AWP Dragon Lore ($400K), five Katowice 2014 foil stickers ($90K apiece), and a metric ton of guns and knives that go for between $5K to $40K. 

Don’t your heart break? The reason for the ban is unclear, with some saying it’s an automated ban triggered by the user saying something nasty in a Steam comment, but there’s no evidence of this. Others have speculated that it may relate to St4ck’s reputation as an alleged scammer, and you don’t have to go too far back to find a multitude of videos about how this user…

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American McGee’s Alice is a series that saw two games released roughly a decade apart: the eponymous original came out in 2000 on PC, and Alice: Madness Returns followed in 2011. The games were published by Electronic Arts and, over the last few years, McGee has been trying to drum up interest from both EA and fans in a third entry to be called Alice: Asylum (another mooted entry, Alice: Otherlands, was the subject of a Kickstarter but was never released).

It didn’t seem like things were going too well. In February this year McGee posted a video basically asking EA to fund Asylum while simultaneously acknowledging the publisher was showing a distinct lack of interest in any continuation. That’s not entirely surprising from contemporary EA, which is too busy diving through swimming pools of EA Sports dollars to be enormously bothered about the continuation of a cult favourite. The problem is that, without EA’s involvement, the whole thing is scuppered: the publisher owns the rights to American McGee’s Alice, and American McGee doesn’t.

The writing was on the wall and in April McGee took to Youtube to say EA was out and it was time to move on. He a…

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Microsoft’s April security updates for Windows 11 and Windows 10, KB5036893 and KB5036892 respectively, were previously identified by the company as causing VPN disconnection issues for some users, leaving some without a way to hide their IP address or change locations. Now Microsoft has released security update KB5037771 for Windows 11, which is said to fix the issue alongside some other known bugs.

In a post detailing the changes made in the May 14 update, Microsoft notes that the VPN issue was resolved and recommends users install the latest security update for all Windows devices, which to be honest is just good advice in general even if you’ve not been experiencing any VPN problems yourself.

For Windows 10 users, update KB5037768 appears to fix the same issue.

The bug was originally said to affect Windows 11 (versions 23H2, 22H2 and 21H2) and Windows 10 (versions 22H2 and 21H2), although looking at the Windows forums and subreddits it didn’t appear to be a particularly widespread problem. 

However, it wouldn’t be a surprise if most users didn’t notice that Windows may be the cause for frequent VPN disconnects, as some VPN providers can often exp…

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