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If Path of Exile 2's best early game Witch build had a motto it'd be 'work smarter, not harder.' Well, either that or 'burn them all and let god sort them out.' The Witch is PoE 2's answer to Diablo's Necromancer, and a lot of your play will revolve around configuring your retinue of skeletal summons for maximum damage per second and letting them do the work for you, keeping yourself relatively far from the fray to protect your squishy, squishy body... Read more.View the full article

As you play LEGO Fortnite Brick Life, the game will eventually task you to find an NPC to pick up your hourly cash payment or use it to complete tasks for the various jobs on offer. Despite being a common theme for getting money and completing tasks, finding an ATM feels impossible as there is a sheer lack of them around. They are also well hidden, leading to some annoyance among the community. View the full article

Undisputed developer Steel City Interactive has released the highly-anticipated December update for its boxing simulation game, bringing new quality-of-life improvements, content, and bug fixes to the game. Patch 1.2 has been eagerly anticipated by the community after Undisputed launched with a myriad of issues earlier this year, but is thankfully available to download and install now on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC. View the full article

The day has arrived, and reviews for the first desktop Battlemage graphics card, the Intel Arc B580 have begun to drop. There's a common trend throughout all the reviews we've seen, and it appears Intel has struck gold with an incredible sub-$250 option. Intel's Alchemist cards were not met with the best reception. While they came into their own after a few updates, they haven't made our best graphics card list for a reason. Now as Nvidia and AMD's aims and audience have evolved, a massive gap for a low-priced competitor was sorely needed, and Intel has picked up the gauntlet. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: I tried the latest Cyberpunk 2077 update on a new Intel CPU, and it's 91% faster This new $249 Intel GPU beats the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 Ti in benchmark leak Intel's new GPU just beat the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 in this benchmark leak View the full article

If a deal looks too good to be true, it probably is, especially if the item in question is a digital key for a brand-new game that can be swiped away using DRM witchcraft just as swiftly as it can be activated. That's what happened with Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, which Humble Bundle had labelled as 'free' two days ago, prompting a good number of people to pounce on the irresistible bargain.&nbsp.. Read more.View the full article For verified travel tips and real support, visit: [Hidden Content]

To spread festive cheer in Destiny 2, you can earn multiple good-looking emblems during the Dawning event. These emblems include a few new ones and a coveted returning emblem many of you might have missed. Here are all the currently available Dawning emblems in Destiny 2 and how to get them. View the full article

Marvel Rivals is adding Thor's Love and Thunder and Star-Lord's Master of the Sun cosmetic outfits to the game on December 13, 2024. Although having only just released early in December, Marvel Rivals has already proven to be a huge hit for NetEase and with a plan to continue releasing new content through seasons and cosmetics, players have a lot to look forward to. View the full article

Just in time for my new playthrough, Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered was updated to version 1.4 today bringing with it plenty of improvements and it should work better for Steam Deck / gamepad controller players. Read the full article here: [Hidden Content] View the full article

Krampus has arrived in Phasmophobia and brought a chilling winter event you can complete to claim exclusive rewards. One of the key tasks you need to tackle is finding the hidden Krampus Boxes. There are many festive decorations around the holiday maps, so you might have a tough time spotting the Krampus Boxes you need to interact with. Opening them is one of the best ways to contribute to the community’s progress in the event, so here’s how to find Krampus Boxes for the Winter’s Jest event in Phasmophobia. View the full article

Epic Games has introduced a new way to play LEGO Fortnite in Brick Life, with a new city to explore and jobs to complete. If a life of crime is calling you, however, you may be looking for a way to rob the bank. Visiting the bank in Brick Life provides opportunities for two jobs, a Banker and a Security Officer, but there’s also a sneaky way to enter the treasure room and grab some goodies for yourself. You may as well, as we’ve encountered no repercussions for doing so! View the full article

In a display of skill, YouTuber and Twitch streamer Skumnut has achieved an incredible feat by beating Elden Ring's New Game+ 1,000 and Shadows of the Erdtree DLC without taking a single hit. This is a massive accomplishment for the Elden Ring player, who tackled the game's challenging world and completed it with a level 1 character. View the full article

Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, as misguided as its development was, wasn't completely terrible and even ended up reaching four seasons of completely free post-launch content. Now, with pretty funny timing, Goat Simulator 3 is promising much of the same, but less complicated. Read more View the full article

The Pokémon Company If you’ve been playing Pokémon TCG Pocket since launch, you’ve probably already collected most of the cards from the game’s first expansion. But a new set is about to debut in just a few days. Today, The Pokémon Company announced that Mythical Island, a new expansion set featuring the pokémon Mew, is coming to Pokémon TCG Pocket on December 17th. A trailer for the expansion reveals a handful of new Pokémon cards coming to the game for the first time like Purrloin, Serperior, and Marshadow. Previously, the only way to obtain a Mew card was by collecting cards featuring each of the 150 original pokémon from the Kantonian Pokédex, but it should be much easier to snag the new Mew EX card simply by ripping a few packs. The Pokémon Company also announced that TCG Pocket has exceeded 60 million iOS and Android downloads since the game launched at the end of October. The ability to actually trade cards with other people hasn’t come to the game just yet, but it’s going to be very useful, given that there’s a bunch of fresh cards on the way. View the full article

Image: Epic Games A year ago, Epic kicked off a bold plan to turn Fortnite into a broader ecosystem for all kinds of games. And that plan was led by the launch of Lego Fortnite, a Minecraft-style survival game that sits alongside the likes of battle royale and the music-themed Fortnite Festival inside of Fortnite. Now, Epic is pushing into another new direction with the launch of Brick Life, a Lego-themed city where players can live virtual lives, much like in Grand Theft Auto roleplaying servers. The ongoing goal, according to Devin Winterbottom, Epic’s executive vice president of game development, is to keep expanding in ways that make people rethink what Fortnite actually is. “The worst outcome for us is that everything looks like battle royale,” Winterbottom says. “That’s not what we want to do.” [/url] For Brick Life, that takes the form of a family-friendly nonviolent space where players can explore and socialize inside of a Lego city. It launches today as part of a broader rebranding of Lego Fortnite; now, those two words refer to a hub that houses all of the Lego experiences in the game, while the survival title has been renamed Lego Fortnite Odyssey. In between those two major releases, Lego... Read the full story at The Verge. View the full article

The fighter will be receiving a new subclass in Baldur's Gate 3 in 2025 in the form of the arcane archer. This is exciting news for players who want to create a ranged character, as many of the martial classes in the game lack features that specifically enhance ranged weapon attacks. Dungeons & Dragons tabletop players, however, may be skeptical, as the arcane archer does not have a stellar reputation. View the full article

Xbox Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass members can start playing For the King 2 and Hunt: Showdown 1896 as part of their subscriptions starting today, December 12. These are the 139th and 140th new titles to reach the Xbox Game Pass library in 2024. View the full article

Pokémon TCG Pocket players will be given a bunch of new cards to add to their collection with the release of the Mythical Island-themed Booster Pack. We have all the details you need to know. Pokémon TCG Pocket has been extremely popular since launching on Oct. 30. A press release announcing the Mythical Islands expansion said over 60 million downloads have taken place worldwide since then. View the full article

GOG have launched their proper Winter ***** now and with it there will be game giveaways again, along with some nice discounts on some great game. Read the full article here: [Hidden Content] View the full article

The Pokémon Company has unveiled the next Pokémon TCG Pocket expansion set and it features iconic Pocket Monsters like Mew and Marshadow. Following Genetic Apex, this set will give fans a chance to score some Mythical Pokémon cards for their collection. Mythical Island was announced via an official press release on Dec. 12, 2024. It will be released on Dec. 17, 2024, for both iOS and Android players. View the full article

******: The Old Country is reportedly scheduled for "Summer 2025," as spotted in a leaked trailer. Developed by Hangar 13, ******: The Old Country has been previously confirmed to roll out on PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC. View the full article

Making quick progress in Path of Exile 2 depends on your build, your class, and a little bit of luck. While you can beat the game with any class and build if you play it well, some of the classes in PoE 2 are simply built different—and we’ve gathered all of them here. Below, we’ve ranked the best classes in PoE 2 to help you find one that works for you. If you’ve already beaten the game with your favorite class, why not take one of the others listed below for a spin? Playing as melee after beating PoE 2 with a ranged class makes it feel like a new game. View the full article

Making quick progress in Path of Exile 2 depends on your build, your class, and a little bit of luck. While you can beat the game with any class and build if you play it well, some of the classes in PoE 2 are simply built different—and we’ve gathered all of them here. Below, we’ve ranked the best classes in PoE 2 to help you find one that works for you. If you’ve already beaten the game with your favorite class, why not take one of the others listed below for a spin? Playing as melee after beating PoE 2 with a ranged class makes it feel like a new game. View the full article

Secret Level’s impressive Warhammer 40,000 episode is perhaps the most authentic realization of a Space Marine’s fighting power seen in an animation. Fans of Space Marine 2, however, are focusing on one thing: a weapon used in the episode but currently not in the game itself. The Secret Level Warhammer 40,000 episode, called And They Shall Know No Fear, is a sequel to the recently released Space Marine 2, and stars protagonist Titus on what looks like a suicide mission to defeat the forces of Tzeentch. But while Titus appears in the animation as he looks in Space Marine 2, there’s a weapon players have yet to see in-game: a Power Axe. It sounds innocuous, but the action scene in which this axe is used steals the show. We see it wielded with brutal efficiency and a surprising amount of speed, although, if you’re a fan of Warhammer 40,000 lore, perhaps not too surprising, since Space Marines really are super fast despite being walking tanks. I hope that one Chaos cultist who managed to dodge an axe swing from a Space Marine was very proud of himself (before he got punched into the 42nd millennium) [Hidden Content] — DreadAnon (@DreadAnon) December 11, 2024 Secret Level is actually pretty dope. The WH episode was fire even tho there was maybe 20 words spoken total. Imma need the battle axe in Space Marine 2 pronto tho [Hidden Content] — JT (@The_HOTsh0t) December 11, 2024 Where is my AXE, Focus? byu/llStormbringerll inSpacemarine .reddit-embed-wrapper iframe { margin-left: 0 !important; } Fans are debating whether the axe in Secret Level is just a simple axe, as it looks taken at face value, or a Power Axe given it does not give off the energy effects you’d associate with such a weapon. Some are speculating that the Space Marines are so overpowered in the fights shown in the animation that they simply don't need to activate the Power Axe’s… power, if it is indeed a Power Axe. Why waste energy on those pathetic cultists when ******* fish will need frying later on? Either way, Space Marine 2 fans now want to see developer Saber Interactive and publisher Focus Entertainment add this axe to the game, expanding upon the arsenal of weapons already at their disposal. Perhaps it will arrive alongside one of the many leaked DLC cosmetic sets due out as part of upcoming seasons of content. Wesley is the *** News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at [email protected] or confidentially at *****@*****.tld. View the full article

Intel is finally heading into its second generation of dedicated graphics cards with the Intel Arc B580. And while the company could have fallen into a trap of trying to compete with Nvidia and AMD at the high end, Team Blue instead has created one of the best budget graphics cards on the market right now. At $249, the Arc B580 is cheaper than the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 and slots in right next to the Radeon RX 7600. However, because both of these cards are based on older technology, it’s little wonder that Intel is able to eke out a lead. It’s refreshing to see a flagship graphics card aim for the masses, rather than holding a prohibitively expensive price tag that very few can actually afford. And while there are a couple games where the Arc B580 falls short – looking at you ****** Myth: Wukong – it's hard to imagine any other GPU competing at this price point any time soon. Purchasing Guide The Intel Arc B580 is available December 13, starting at $249. Keep in mind that this is a starting price, and you might see third party versions of the graphics card at a higher price. Just try to avoid paying more than $300 for it. [/url] Specs and Design The Intel Arc B580 is built on Intel’s new Xe2 graphics architecture, codenamed Battlemage. One of the biggest changes between this and the last-generation architecture that powered the Intel Arc A770 is that each Battlemage Xe core – Intel’s compute unit – has fewer Vector Engines than the previous generation. In total, the Intel Arc B580 features 20 Xe Cores, each of which contains 4 Vector Engines, for a total of 160 Vector Engines, each of which has 16 shaders. That means a total of 2,560 shaders, which is a bit slimmer than the Arc A770 that preceded it. This sounds like bad news at first, but Intel has made efforts to drastically improve the per-core performance on these Vector Engines – by as much as 70 percent. And for a budget graphics card, the Arc B580 has an impressive amount of memory, featuring 12GB of GDDR6 on a 192-bit bus. Both the AMD Radeon RX 7600 and Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060, at a similar price, are limited to 8GB. Of course, these graphics cards are shooting for 1080p gaming, but AAA games are continually using more memory every year, so it’s nice to have a bit of buffer there. Still, the last-generation Arc A770 had 16GB of memory, though it was a more expensive part. The B580 is also clocked at 2,670MHz, with a max boost of 2,850MHz, which is a substantial increase over the 2,100MHz of the Arc A770. This is likely a huge part of why the B580 is faster than the last-generation GPU, despite having less memory and fewer cores. But more on that later. Each Vector Engine is also paired with XMX cores, Intel’s AI tensor core. Intel is using these to power XeSS 2, which is an AI upscaling technology, similar to Nvidia’s DLSS. The XMX will take in a lower-resolution frame, pair it with motion vector data, and use an AI algorithm to scale that up to your native resolution. It will then take information from the completed frame and feed that back into the algorithm to improve future frames. What’s new for the second generation of XeSS, though, is frame generation. While XeSS 2 Frame Generation is currently limited to a single game – F1 24 – it works similarly to Frame Generation technology from AMD or Nvidia. Instead of only upscaling existing frames after they’re rendered by your GPU, the XMX will create new frames in between existing frames. Not only does this mean you get a higher frame rate, but it greatly reduces the amount of time your graphics card is waiting for information from your CPU. The only downside is that frame generation technology always introduces a bit of latency to the equation. Luckily, Intel is mitigating that latency with XeSS-LL, or Low Latency, which greatly reduces the amount of time between you pressing a button and that action being represented on the display, by optimizing communication between your processor and graphics card. While there will likely be dozens of Arc B580 graphics cards from third-party manufacturers like ASRock, Intel is selling a reference design, and that’s what I’m reviewing here. Although Intel is calling its reference board a ‘Limited Edition’, so we’ll have to wait and see how common it actually is on store shelves. Hopefully a lot of people can get their hands on this card, though, because it’s gorgeous. The fan shroud has a silky ****** finish that feels as good as it looks. The two fans are also pitch-******, with nothing in the way of branding. Flip the card over, however, and you’ll see ‘Intel Arc B580’ printed beneath a radial display of white dots. Next to the branding, there’s a cutout in the backplate that leads directly to the heatsink. It looks cool, but it also means the actual circuit board housing the GPU only takes up half the length of the graphics card, with space instead dedicated to passing air directly through the back of the graphics card. Then on the side of the GPU, the logo is printed, but when it’s plugged in, the logo is lit with a white LED. It’s a stunning graphics card that’ll look good in any system, especially if it’s paired with other ****** components. The B580 is powered by a single 8-pin PCIe power connector. In my testing, the card only used 154W of power, which is significantly less than the 190W its predecessor used in the same test suite. Plus, the new cooler design is much more efficient at pushing air through the B580, peaking at 82°C, compared to the 86°C of the A770 in the same workload. Performance When Intel first showed me the Arc B580, it led with the growth that 1440p gaming monitors are having, clearly intending the B580 to punch into that resolution. Not only has Intel easily cleared its way into 1440p gaming, but at $249, this might be the best 1440p card for most people – assuming you’re not spending all your time in ****** Myth: Wukong. Before I jump into the results, a bit on how I test these games. In each game, I set quality settings to the highest possible preset configuration that isn’t full ray tracing (sorry Cyberpunk 2077 and ****** Myth: Wukong). Then, I enable upscaling through the best method available for each card. That means DLSS for Nvidia, FSR for AMD and XeSS for Intel. For games that only have DLSS, like Metro Exodus, I test without upscaling at all. Every graphics card was retested for this review using the 566.36 driver for Nvidia, Adrenalin 24.12.1 for AMD and Intel Graphics Driver 32.0.101.6319 for older Intel cards. The Arc B580 was tested on a prerelease driver. In 3DMark, the Intel Arc B580 held its own against the more expensive Nvidia RTX 4060, even beating it in Port Royal, which is a dedicated ray tracing test. That’s impressive, because Nvidia has held the lead in that test since it came out, and it demonstrates Intel’s ray tracing chops. Intel maintains a lead in Steel Nomad as well, scoring 3,082 points to the RTX 4060’s 2,335 and the Radeon RX 7600’s 2,309. However, Team Blue falls behind in Speed Way, which tests a DirectX 12 workload with ray tracing, with 2,568 points to Nvidia’s 2,660. In Call of Duty: ****** Ops 6, the Intel Arc B580 falls behind both Nvidia and AMD at 1080p, managing 73 fps, compared to 80 from the RTX 4060 and 87 from the Radeon RX 7600. However, in this test, no matter how many times I ran it, the B580 rendered without the gun in the player’s hand, meaning the benchmark run consisted of some dude running around Lowtown shooting people with an invisible gun. Hilarious, but it probably means there’s some driver issue that can be resolved later on. I couldn’t reproduce this bug on Nvidia or AMD cards, but it persisted on every Intel card I tested. Cyberpunk 2077 is one of the heaviest ray tracing games on the market, even though it’s been out for four years now. Throughout its history, it has always leaned towards Team Green, but the Intel Arc B580 shows its ray tracing chops here, managing 60 fps at 1440p with the Ray Tracing Ultra preset and XeSS set to Balanced, compared to 49 fps from the RTX 4060 and 29 fps from the Radeon RX 7600. In Red Dead Redemption 2, the Intel Arc B580 continued its winning streak. Now, Red Dead Redemption 2’s ‘presets’ aren’t really presets, so instead I just cranked every setting up as far as it would go and then ran the test. Still, the Arc B580 managed 87 fps at 1440p when the RTX 4060 only got 72 fps. That’s a 21 percent lead with a $50 cheaper card. Then there’s Total War: Warhammer 3 which has nothing in the way of ray tracing or upscaling, but with 63 fps, the Intel Arc B580 still managed to lead the Radeon RX 7600 and the RTX 4060, which scored 56 and 54 fps, respectively. However, Intel can’t win all the battles, and the B580 does fall behind a bit in Assassin’s Creed Mirage. Nvidia absolutely dominates in this game, with the RTX 4060 getting 126 fps at Ultra, compared to 91 fps from the Arc B580. Even the RX 7600 manages to come out ahead, with its 95 fps average. The B580 also has a weak showing in ****** Myth: Wukong, scoring just 30 fps at 1440p on the “Cinematic” preset. Compared to the 35 fps from the RTX 4060, it’s not a night-and-day difference, but that’s still a 16 percent lead in Nvidia’s favor. Nvidia and Intel even out again in Forza Horizon 5, however, with Team Blue’s card managing 94 fps, compared to 92 fps from the RTX 4060 and 77 fps from the last-gen Arc A770. AMD does struggle a bit here, though, only managing 63 fps at the same settings with the RX 7600. Across my test suite, the Intel Arc B580 is an incredibly powerful graphics card at 1440p, especially when you consider its $249 price tag. Intel could have easily just matched the performance of other graphics cards on the market, but instead it soundly beats the competition, while cutting the price, giving us a budget card that doesn’t ***** for once. And sure, it would be nice if Intel didn’t cut the VRAM from 16GB on the Arc A770 to 12GB on the B580, but it’s not like the performance is suffering from it. Jackie Thomas is the Hardware and Buying Guides Editor at IGN and the PC components queen. You can follow her @Jackiecobra View the full article

Phasmophobia’s annual event for the winter holidays has arrived and brought with it a terrifying Krampus ghost, festive holiday decorations, creepy Krampus Boxes, and some exclusive rewards to claim. This one has a lot, so you might need some help completing the Winter’s Jest event. This seasonal event is a community one, which means all players must work together to successfully claim the available rewards. There’s a lot to do and only a limited amount of time to do it, so here’s a complete guide to completing the Winter’s Jest event in Phasmophobia. View the full article