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I am no galaxy-brained Armored Core 6 theorycrafter. Much of my time the game’s been spent crafting dumb bumper stickers, cobbling together mechs, and praying at the altar of the pile bunker. But even I’ve heard of the Zimmerman.

Armored Core 6’s latest patch has been raising some eyebrows. Aside from balance tweaks to certain pain-point bosses—Balteus, the Sea Spider, and Cel240—the juicy stuff lies in the weapon buffs. Assault rifles and SMGs like the Ludlow and Turner have received a tuneup—as well as the linear rifle Curtis, which is great news for me since it’s one of my go-tos. Most players, however, are wondering how the hell the Zimmerman shotgun came out unscathed. 

Patch 1.02 community reaction from r/armoredcore

The Zimmerman is a shotgun you unlock after scrapping the Sea Spider—and it’s gnarly. Our friends over at Gamesradar put together a great rundown of why these things are busted, and there’s been an onslaught of community memes surrounding them, including a tsundere anime girl with Zimmerman pigtails. Simply put—they slap, and they slap hard. 

In Armored Core 6…

If you fancy a change from the glut of fantasy RPGs we’ve been treated to recently, then the story-driven, open-world Kingdom Come: Deliverance is well worth a look in my opinion, as instead of dealing with dragons and sorcerers, you’re instead invited to inhabit an impressively realistic and reactive medieval world devoid of magic. 

This RPG’s world is one where Henry, the protagonist, must take up arms to both avenge the murder of his family and to survive a civil war that has plunged 15th century Bohemia into chaos. And doing that is a dangerous as it sounds. Hero you may be to some, but there are no special powers bestowed by an otherworldly patron here. Henry is just a normal guy, and that’s largely what makes this deep medieval RPG so good.

I mean, don’t just take my word for it, but that of PC Gamer’s own Kingdom Come: Deliverance review, in which Andy Kelly says it is ‘a seriously satisfying role-playing experience set in a rich, reactive world’ and bestows an impressive score of 84% upon it. Kingdom Come currently has over 93,000 “Very Positive” reviews on Steam, too, so this is a game that is pretty universally rated very well.

Which is why when …

Though we’d known for some time that Disney Dreamlight Valley had plans to incorporate multiplayer in its cozy social sim, Gameloft has been quite tight-lipped on the details—until now. In its digital showcase today, Dreamlight Valley unveiled all sorts of updates coming to the game over the next year: a first game expansion, lots more free realms and villagers, and those long-awaited multiplayer details. And, as promised in the original 2023 roadmap, multiplayer is landing before the end of this year.

Don’t let the name “ValleyVerse” scare you off with its odd metaverse-adjacent implications though. Dreamlight Valley’s multiplayer plans sound pretty in line with what you may expect if you’ve played Animal Crossing: New Horizons, for instance. 

Gameloft says you’ll be able to visit one another’s islands, homes, and Scrooge McDuck’s store. So if your store selection for the day isn’t fab, you can check in to see what Scrooge is peddling on your friend’s world. You’ll also be able to trade items with friends by dropping them on the ground for one another, so you can help a friend out on their quests by dropping off piles of resources and meals. You’ll…

As the Star Citizen crowdfunding machine somehow continues to grind ahead—the game has now surpassed a staggering $600 million in funding—developer Cloud Imperium Games says reports of widespread layoffs at the studio are false.

The $600 million mark, visible on the Roberts Space Industries funding goals page, was passed earlier this week, less than one year after the $500 million milestone was achieved. 

But it came alongside a LinkedIn message posted by Theodore Hirschfeld, a former Cloud Imperium QA tester, who said he was “recently affected by the layoffs that are transpiring at the moment.”

That sparked speculation and conversation about the state of affairs at Cloud Imperium on the Starfield subreddit, including a lengthy post from someone claiming to be a former long-time ClG employee who accused the studio of financial mismanagement—although they acknowledged that they weren’t actually aware of a wave of layoffs at the studio. 

Similar claims of cuts were shared anonymously on the Pipeline Discord, a server dedicated to Star Citizen leaks and discussion:

But support for the layoff claims never solidified: No other…

Survival game Nightingale just delivered a feature players have been asking for since the game debuted in early access in February: offline mode. As of today, solo survival fans will no longer be at the whims of servers in order to jump into the fae realms of the gaslamp fantasy base-builder.

Offline mode isn’t the only new feature in Nightingale version 0.3.0. Players will also now be able to build from storage, another highly requested feature that means resources can be used for construction even if they’re not in your inventory. It’s proximity-based and togglable, too, meaning you can earmark containers not to be used in construction if you’re saving resources for a different purpose or don’t want to accidentally use a friend’s stash while building.

There are new monsters to encounter in the world as well, and apex creatures will now come in three tiers, with higher tiers delivering higher quality drops. New NPCs have also appeared, including some major historical celebrities like Edgar Allan Poe and Joan of Arc. Help them out with their quests and you’ll gain access to new gear like Poe’s writing desk and J of A’s sword. (Is it okay to call her J of A? Probably …

Friends, the prophets spoke true. Mere hours after rumours began to spread that Rockstar was gearing up for an official Grand Theft Auto 6 announcement ahead of a proper trailer in December, Rockstar has gone and made an official GTA 6 announcement ahead of a proper trailer in December.

In a post on the Rockstar blog marking the studio’s 25th anniversary, company president Sam Houser announced that “in early December, we will release the first trailer for the next Grand Theft Auto,” before letting us know that the studio looks forward to “many more years of sharing these experiences with you.”

And, well, that’s it. No, really. The post announcing the reveal for perhaps one of the most massively hyped games of this decade and the previous one consisted of zero images and 142 words on a black background, almost 12 years to the day after the original 2011 announcement for GTA 5. It’s a level of cocky corporate nonchalance that Rockstar is very good at, even if the stylish mystery of the whole thing is undermined slightly by the absolutely gargantuan GTA 6 leak that took place last year.

Still, even despite that leak, there’s still plenty we don’t know about the ne…

It’s official: at nearly $678 million in takings so far, The Super Mario Bros Movie is the biggest grossing videogame movie adaptation of all time (as well as the biggest grossing movie of 2023)—as reported by The Numbers. And given that it’s only been out a couple of weeks so far, you can expect that number to climb to even more unassailable heights before its run is over.

That’s a very healthy lead over its closest competitors, including former number one Warcraft at $439 million (despite a very lukewarm reception in the US, that one was a huge success overseas) and Detective Pikachu at $433 million. You’d think the number four spot would be one of the Sonic movies, but no—it’s Rampage at $428 million, a movie I’m convinced no one on earth could recall the plot of in 2023, but another that was a big winner overseas.

The Super Mario Bros Movie hasn’t been especially well received critically, with only a 58% critic score on Rotten Tomatoes, but movie-goers both domestic and international have turned out in their droves to see it. A very aggressive marketing campaign, bolstered by the viral appeal of Jack Black and his wonderful new earworm from the film, …

A young swordsman is caught up in a feud between rival martial arts families, and must take to the road in order to improve his skills and become a hero. It’s the delightful plot of so many fantasical wuxia stories, and Wandering Sword, a forthcoming tactical RPG from Chinese developer The Swordman Studio looks to create that rich world in beautifully-lit 2.5d style.

Wandering Sword will be an open-world game about exploring, making friends, and learning mystical kung-fu techniques in a fantastical world reminiscent of ancient China. Building friendships with NPCs will be a key way of both recruiting new characters to your party and learning new martial arts. In true wuxia style, of course, the developers say that you “may even fall in love!”

We first saw Wandering Sword back in early 2022, when it was announced, but it has definitely come a long way since then. The demo, released as part of the current Steam Next Fest, has a lot to recommend it if you’re skeptical of the aesthetic and premise.

For my part it has the diversity and strange techniques you expect from the genre. There are planned to be hundreds of martial arts forms and weapons to master and wield…

After the less than perfect launch of Intel’s first generation Arc Alchemist graphics cards, work on the second generation Xe2 Battlemage architecture appears to be coming along nicely. That’s according to comments made during an interview at CES 2024 by Tom Petersen, a current Intel Fellow.

The interview was conducted by PC World. Petersen revealed that Battlemage is up and running in Intel’s labs, with development shifting to the software side of things. The hardware team has already shifted its focus to the third generation Celestial architecture.

In a quote from the PC World interview, Petersen says: “It’s coming, I am excited about it, and all our engineers, you know how they are constantly doing their engineering things. I’d say about 30% of our engineers are working on Battlemage, mostly on the software side because our hardware team is on the next thing (Celestial). So, think about it as the Battlemage has already has its first silicon in the labs which is very exciting and there’s more good news coming which I can’t talk about right now. We hope we are going to see it before CES ’25.”

Petersen is known for his openness and candor, and this is a good in…

You can spend a long time trying to nail down the exact parts required for a full custom loop build. In a way, that’s a part of it. You really come to appreciate the PC you’ve built by the end of the process, as it’s one you’ve created from the ground up. 

But if you’re less sentimental, you might just want someone else to put together a parts list for you. EZ PZ. That’s what EK does with its ‘Loop’ builds, and right now everything on its store is 24% off, which makes such a build that little bit more affordable.

Alright, affordable these builds ain’t, but every little helps when investing in something as expensive as a fully liquid-looped build. You’re looking at spending anything from $1,284 for the cheapest all-inclusive kit to around $2,628 for the so-called “Golden Sample”. Nice name, lovely build.

These kits include all the big bits, such as your CPU and GPU blocks, pump, radiators, and distro plate. Though it also includes the more finicky bits that can be admittedly the worst to track down when planning which ways your loop will go.

There is a degree of losing that ‘custom’ side of the loop here, as you’re stuck with the pre-planned layout ch…

Whatever help you need to solve today’s Wordle, you’ll find it right here. There are general tips that’ll give every guess a little lift, a brand new clue especially for the January 12 (937) game, and today’s answer if you need to turn a tough game around. 

After two guesses I was sure I was in trouble today, thanks to a stubborn yellow letter that refused to turn green in either of the most obvious places. After three guesses, I was just one letter away from winning today’s Wordle. I do love how dramatic the swings in this game can be.

Today’s Wordle hint

Wordle today: A hint for Friday, January 12

Today’s answer describes a specific set of directions used to get someone from one place to another. The quickest _____ might avoid a particular street, for example. Sometimes this word refers to the path someone might take towards a specific career or desired outcome.

ViewViewViewView

Is there a double letter in Wordle today? 

No, there is no double letter in today’s puzzle. 

Wordle help: 3 tips for beating Wordle every day 

A good starting word can be the difference between victory and defeat wi…

It’s been nearly four years since Nvidia’s original GeForce RTX 3060 first launched and despite the extra technology advancements brought in by the Ada Lovelace architecture, the evergreen mid-range card is still a popular choice. And now it looks like third-party vendors will keep on churning out new RTX 3060 models, with lower prices, thanks to a continued stream of chips from Nvidia.

The news that Nvidia is committed to shipping RTX 3060 chips through to the first quarter of next year, at the very least, was reported by Videocardz, and I have to say that’s not a big surprise. The entire RTX 40-series has battled against constant criticism of being too expensive, not to mention that in the case of the RTX 4060, it wasn’t massively faster than its predecessor.

At $299, its MSRP is better than the RTX 3060’s $329 launch price, but that was during the pandemic, when everything PC-based was significantly more expensive than it should have been.

However, a quick search on Amazon will show you RTX 3060s as cheap as $289, whereas the newer RTX 4060 starts at the $300 mark. So if there’s only an $11 difference between the two, why are third-party vendors still intere…

Friends, here is my story: Coming home to the UK from Summer Game Fest, hungry and heatstruck, I arrived at one of Los Angeles International Airport’s many food and coffee stands. Blearily, I ordered a latte and some kind of egg salad sandwich composed mostly of bread. The cashier told me that this humble repast would somehow be $21, in violation both of the social contract and mankind’s covenant with the Lord God.

Being an assertive and self-confident type, I said absolutely nothing and meekly paid up. But I shouldn’t have, because if I still had that $21 I could have bought the entire Dragon Age trilogy—base games and all the DLC—twice over in the currently ongoing Dragon Age Steam sale. In place of a thin film of egg smeared on a loaf of wholewheat and a latte that tasted of nothing and which I eventually tipped down a new shirt, I’d have 300 hours of quite excellent fantasy RPG. Yes, Dragon Age 2 included: 94%, baby.

Until June 24 at 10 am PDT / 1 pm EDT / 6 pm BST, you can acquire Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2, and Dragon Age: Inquisition on Steam for a mere $10 (£8.50). The first two games cost $3 (£…

After 20 years at Microsoft, much of it spent as the public face of Xbox consoles, Larry Hryb, better known to gamers around the world as Major Nelson, is leaving the company and moving on to other things.

“After 20 incredible years, I have decided to take a step back and work on the next chapter of my career,” Hryb tweeted. “As I take a moment and think about all we have done together, I want to thank the millions of gamers around the world who have included me as part of their lives.

“I want you to all know that every moment I was able to interact with you the community—here on Twitter, Instagram, Twitch, Mixer or at the many events I attended around the world, I cherished every single moment. Every hand shake, every time I got stopped on the streets around a convention (happened a lot), every discussion we had about games and every photo we took together. The real magic in gaming is the community who makes, plays, enjoys and celebrates video games TOGETHER. Xbox, PlayStation, Nintendo, PC, mobile—I don’t care where or how you play—we are ALL one community.”

Hryb joined Microsoft in 2001 as the editor-in-chief of MSN Music, but moved to the …