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Last March, Sega sold off Company Of Heroes and Warhammer 40,000: Dawn Of War developers Relic Entertainment in the course of wider “restructuring”, “realigning” and lay-offening at the house of Sonic. Relic’s new corporate partners are a holding company established by the UK investment firm Emona Capital LLP – an arrangement that apparently lets them operate like an independent studio, though I’m fuzzy on the moving parts.
Take-Two Interactive CEO Strauss Zelnick has hailed PC gaming’s “increasing share of the market”, in what you could optimistically interpret as the prelude to a GTA 6 PC release date announcement, and less optimistically, as a simple reassurance to investors who are fretting about the decline of console game sales.
Cheery mom-and-pop computer game business Valve have created a new Steamworks page for their policy about in-game adverts and advertising in general, with a troubleshooter’s list of dos and don’ts for developers.
As Graham pointed out to me just now, Valve’s handling of such things hasn’t really changed over the past few years, but I can’t pass up the opportunity to chew the fat a little about the intriguingly murky, slippery-slope business of turning your virtual world into an ad platform. Also, I had already written this article by the time he pointed that out to me, and I can’t bear to send all my precious words to the abyss.
Better get yer cigar chompin’ mouth muscles warmed up. Second world war sabotage ’em up Commandos: Origins now has a release date, and it’s fairly soon. Good news for people who enjoy sniping fascists from across the map while commanding a barrel-armed Irishmen to simultaneously slit a throat. And equally good news for those who lament the loss of Shadow Tactics: Blades Of The Shogun developer Mimimi Games.
The RPS review of Firaxis’ grand strategy Civilisation 7 is currently in progress. We didn’t get early code, and our usual method of sidestepping this issue by rapidly entering the numbers and letters spelled out by our extensive collection of longhorn beetles bore no fruit. Rest assured: it’s coming. Sin reviewed it for EuroVega though, awarding it two out of a possible five beetles. While she found it largely dull, she did mention that “its UI has enough potential to make some of my complaints feel patchable”. Firaxis seem to agree, putting out a statement last Friday following feedback from the game’s advanced access period.
Would you like the good or the bad news first? Obviously I can’t actually respond to that, so I’ll just do the bad news first and if you chose differently you can always tip your monitor upside down, hang from the ceiling, or just work your way up the article from the bottom: tributary horror demake Bloodborne PSX is no more. As reported by The Verge (thanks PC Gamer), LW Media’s Lilith Walther has received a copyright takedown notice from firm MarkScan on behalf of Sony Interactive, accusing Bloodborne PSX of ‘digital piracy’. The game was previously available on Itch for three years without issue.
This follows a recent DMCA takedown of a YouTube video promoting Bloodborne PSX, as chronicled by noted good modsman Lance McDonald below. As McDonald mentions, MarkScan were also responsible for another recent strike against his own 60fps Bloodborne mod, which had been available without issue since 2021.
Roguelike deckbuilders need to do something pretty special to stand out nowadays, what with the Slay The Spileup of bangers over the past few years. Cobalt Core, Wildfrost, Samurai Showdown (if you squint). All excellent, but Diceomancer stands out above even those, thanks to a clever gimmick and a hefty dose of chutzpah. It’s there in the strapline, you know the deal, but to emphasise: you can reroll ANY number on your screen.
Your health, enemy health, attacks, blocks, buffs, mana, gold – all fair game. The numbers in encounters. On Relics. Have at ‘em! Heck, and that’s before you start scribbling in the rulebook.
Path tracing has been back on the PC hardware agenda recently, with Nvidia’s sales pitch for the GeForce RTX 5080 and RTX 5090 more than lightly based on how good they are at shotgunning this premium graphics tech down your eye stalks. Yet beyond the sparkling glamour of marketing slides, however, path tracing remains exceptionally niche: nearly six years since Quake II RTX served as the tech’s de facto gaming debut, you can still count the number of compatible games on your fingers. Compare and contrast with the dozens upon dozens of games that have embraced ray tracing, path tracing’s less demanding nephew, and you’ll likely start wondering why more game devs don’t go for it.
We’re not here to answer that, though. This is Should You Bother With, here to investigate whether you should start using path traced effects to give your games – some of them, anyway – the full maxed-out-visuals treatment. Even if it takes a graphics card upgrade to do so.
The Nvidia RTX 5080 is out! Kind of. In theory. If you can find one. But here’s the thing: it’s basically just an expensive RTX 4080 Super in disguise (in my opinion). Performance is near-identical, stock is non-existent, and unless you’re willing to shell out over $2,500 for a prebuilt system, good luck getting one.
Running out of space on your Steam Deck or ROG Ally X again? Sitting there, deleting games like it’s some emotional farewell? Stop that. Your least favorite RPS writer found a ridiculous Amazon deal on our favorite microSD card for Steam Deck, the Samsung Pro Plus.
