Yep, the Steam Deck OLED going out of stock is due to the AI-fuelled RAM and storage shortages, Valve confirm

As feared, the recent uptick in Steam Decks being noted as out of stock is down to the ongoing memory crisis. RAM prices have been driven through the roof by AI companies gobbling up memory sticks en-masse, with the other downside of that being the tech’s very scarce at the moment. Cue companies like Valve stuggling to keep on securing as much as they need to make and sell hardware without interruption.

Read more

It’s “hard to push innovation” in racing games compared to other genres, reckons Star Wars: Galactic Racer creative director

Star Wars: Galactic Racer, Fuse Games’ take on offroad speeder rushes in a galaxy far, far, away, sounds more and more up my alley every time I hear about it. That’s no different in a freshly published interview with Fuse founder Matt Webster and creative director Kieran Crimmins, which sees the pair chat about boost mechanics which sound a lot like the environmental temperature-sensitive system from PS3 racer Motorstorm: Pacific Rift.

The pair also made some interesting points when asked why they went for a more traditional track racer rather than an open world one with this game, and whether the latter’s reached a point where it’s a bit of a stale concept.

Read more

Good news, UK Discord users, we’re part of a Peter Thiel-linked data collection “experiment”

Discord have belatedly confirmed that they’re working with Persona, an identity detection firm backed by a fund directed by Palantir chairman Peter Thiel, as part of Discord’s new global age verification system rollout. The collaboration is described as an “experiment” involving people in the UK specifically, whereby Persona will store user information on their servers for up to seven days.

Read more

Silent Hill 2 remake devs Bloober Team reveal Layers of Fear 3 via creepy poetry reading

There’s nothing more spooky than having to neatly get your message across in a limited number of words which may or may not have to rhyme or stick to iambic pentameter. That’s something Polish horror devs Bloober Team clearly understand, since they whipped out some William Blake poetry over the weekend, in order to reveal that Layers of Fear 3 will be a thing.

Read more

RPS verdict: The Fallout TV Show season 2

The second series of Amazon’s Fallout adaptation has now fully emerged from the vault, its eight episodes having been plinked out gradually, rather than whipped out in one fell swoop. Naturally, one of us has taken in the show how its distributors intended, injecting a stimpak a week in calm and measured fashion. The other waited until all the episodes were out, and then injected them all at once like an unhinged adventurer blowing through half their chem stash in a mid-fight panic. I’ll let you try to work out which is which, here’s our verdict.

Major spoilers for season 2 of the Fallout TV Show lie ahead.

Read more

Despite being “a significant change”, Legacy of Kain: Ascendance’s devs insist it’ll still appeal to clapped-out Soul Reaver enthusiasts

Edwin, come look at this! Seriously, come look at this! It’s that thing from your site bio. They’re doing a new one. Edw-0h wait, he’s on holiday today. Ah well, I guess I’ll have to aim my distictly non-Soul Reaver enthusiast eyes at Legacy of Kain: Ascendance. Ooh, Edwin, this nice marketing person claims it’ll appeal to veteran Kainers like you, despite being a bit of a new direction for the series.

Read more

No AI tricks here – G-Sync Pulsar’s clarity boosting monitor tech looks like the real deal

Nvidia’s relationship with PC gaming doesn’t always feel like a loving one. Sometimes they’re gifting us a useful new version of DLSS, sometimes they’re helping drive RAM prices up to £300 a stick. Even so, it’s hard not to look at G-Sync Pulsar – a new bit of monitor cleverness that seeks to remove unwanted motion blur from its LCD panels – and see some goodness still inside that big, green eye. After trying it out at a demo event this week, I’m hopeful that Pulsar can clean up how games look in motion as well as anything since the original G-Sync.

Read more