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A good gaming chair is essential for a comfortable setup, but the top models can be expensive. Good news, then, because Secretlab's Titan Evo gaming chair is currently on *****, with up to $100 off certain colorways. And, it's not just this chair that's discounted. Secret Lab has a massive Independence Day ***** lasting another 5 days, including $89 off its mighty metal gaming desks like the Magnus Pro. We can't recommend the Titan Evo chair enough if you're looking for one of the best gaming chairs on the market, thanks to its high-quality design that's both durable and comfortable. We don't often see Secretlab chairs on *****, so if you're considering splashing out on a new seat, now could be the time to buy. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: New Steam survey shows gamers are finally upgrading to Windows 11 Win a 1TB Steam Deck OLED and HyperX gaming gear bundle Lian Li just revolutionized PC PSU design, and we're here for it View the full article

There are few games that have had a redemption arc as thorough as Fallout 76. From an empty sandbox with little to do and even less of a reason to be there, it's become one of the best multiplayer survival games out there. It's now got a compelling set of quests, tons of activities, a thriving playerbase, one of the best maps for sheer exploration in gaming, and some of the best storytelling and lore seen in a Fallout game since New Vegas. Bethesda isn't prepared to stop tinkering with it, however, with a new update promising to overhaul legendary crafting. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: Fallout 76 was bad, but Bethesda and the community have made it great Fallout 76 is about to get the one feature we've always wanted Aliens return to Fallout 76 to harvest your brainwaves View the full article

A brand new promotional video posted on social media for XDefiant is taking some *******-in-cheek shots at other popular shooters. The video, asking fans why they play XDefiant, is brief and makes references to titles such as Call of Duty, Fortnite, and Overwatch. View the full article

Genshin Impact has given players their first official look at three Natlan characters. It's been weeks since Genshin Impact released the first images of Natlan's environment and Saurian beasts, but a new teaser trailer reveals more of the Nation of War's scenery, fauna, and enemies. View the full article

The Legend of Heroes: Trails through Daybreak from Nihon Falcom, PH3 GmbH and NIS America, Inc. hit Steam back in March 2023. However, it was only supported for the ********* language, now it's been updated in a big way with English language support and Steam Deck improvements too. Read the full article here: [Hidden Content] View the full article

A lead developer working on Avowed, Obsidian Entertainment's upcoming action RPG, has revealed that negative feedback regarding the game's combat mechanics resulted in major improvements being made to its gameplay systems. Although reception towards Avowed has been mostly positive so far, not everyone has been pleased, with many voicing their opinions about what they've seen of the fantasy role-playing game on social media. Fortunately, it seems Obsidian has taken a lot of this feedback to heart and adjusted Avowed accordingly, signifying the developer's willingness to listen to the demands of players. View the full article

One of the best S-tier characters to roll for in Zenless Zone Zero is Ellen Joe, a half-shark half-human who works for the Victoria Housekeeping Co. while also chopping down monsters in your various team compositions. Ellen uses her powerful attacks to apply Ice damage with a plethora of her skills, whether she’s zipping around the battlefield with her Roaming Hunt movement, bringing the pain with her Flash Freeze passive, or raining down frozen destruction with her ultimate, Endless Winter. View the full article

You’ll be hunting for a lot of resources and items in The First Descendant, and they’re all important to help improve your characters. Some of the tougher ones to track down are Energy Activators, which you won’t have to worry about until later in the game. There are a few ways you can go about finding Energy Activators. You won’t have to worry about them until you progress further in The First Descendant, but as you get closer to needing stronger characters, Energy Activators become much more vital. Here’s what you need to know about getting Energy Activators and using them in The First Descendant. View the full article

It's no secret that PC gamers can get a little bit precious about operating systems. As a case and point, almost three years after the release of Windows 11, it's only just started to come close to overtaking Windows 10 in the Steam Hardware Survey, despite the free upgrade path. While Windows 11 is still just short of Windows 10 in terms of its percentage share of Steam users, it's clear that Windows in general is still the preferred operating system, with a dominant 96.61% share of all systems. This news comes as we also learn that PC gamers are using controllers far more often than in recent years. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: Secretlab's best gaming chair is $100 cheaper, but not for long Win a 1TB Steam Deck OLED and HyperX gaming gear bundle Lian Li just revolutionized PC PSU design, and we're here for it View the full article

The Diablo 4 Season 5 PTR is over, and the full launch is still a month away. Last Epoch's second cycle ******** a few days out, and Path of Exile 2 has been pushed back out of sight for now. So what's an APRG lover to do? The answer may lie with Torchlight Infinite, the free-to-play Steam game that's just launched its fifth season, Clockwork Ballet. Boasting its biggest update yet, there are plenty of reasons to jump in - and a lot of players already have. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: Free Diablo rival Torchlight Infinite unleashes "biggest update ever" Free Diablo rival sees big uptick on Steam as anniversary update lands Waiting for Diablo 4? Torchlight Infinite aims to fill the gap in May View the full article

Live service games are defined by their communities. So many come and go without as much as a whisper, but the ones that endure do so because their fans share their favorite moments and create intricate stories around them. While Zenless Zone Zero has only just launched, and hasn't had time to capture people's hearts just yet, HoYoverse's previous game Honkai Star Rail did, and the new game contains a fun easter egg suggesting a link to its predecessor. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: How to increase ZZZ Inter-Knot level fast How to get Zenless Zone Zero Polychrome Best ZZZ Bangboo ranked, their skills, and their leveling materials View the full article

After a good bit of silence, 3 Minutes to Midnight is pretty much done now with the developers noting they're reading it for release in August. Read the full article here: [Hidden Content] View the full article

Final Fantasy 14 producer and director Naoki Yoshida has released a statement explaining that players will be compensated with game time as an apology for Dawntrail's launch issues. Yoshida stated that Final Fantasy 14 players on Xbox Series X/S will receive ten days of game time, while players on all other platforms will get two days of game time. View the full article

Humble Choice has another fresh set of games available and it is once again a nice varied selection of titles. Here's your usual monthly run over the compatibly to see on Linux desktop and Steam Deck. Read the full article here: [Hidden Content] View the full article

The drive supports PCIe Gen4 using the familiar U.2 form factor but is also available in an E3.S form factor to leverage a PCIe Gen5 interface. The first models afford 61.44 TB of capacity, although Samsung teased that future iterations could push that to 122.88 TB – double the capacity... Read Entire Article View the full article

Factory building sim Factorio is getting a huge expansion with Factorio: Space Age set for release on October 21st along with a big free 2.0 update for everyone. Read the full article here: [Hidden Content] View the full article

Shadow of the Erdtree has been out for a couple of weeks now, and while some of us (read: me) are still struggling through it, others have powered through and are twiddling their thumbs, waiting for the next challenge Elden Ring has to offer. While developer FromSoftware has said no more DLC will be coming, a new mod looks like it will overhaul the game to such a degree it may as well be a sequel. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: The best Elden Ring armor sets Best Elden Ring summons and spirit ashes locations The best Elden Ring builds View the full article

Fortnite developer Epic Games has referred Apple to the ********* Commission over its rejection in bringing its game store to the EU, Epic said in a statement on X/Twitter on Friday. In the X/Twitter thread, which you can read below, Epic says Apple has rejected the notarization submission of its game store twice. The reason given by Apple, Epic says, is similarities between the Epic Game Store's "Install" and "In-app purchases" buttons and Apple's "Get" and "In-App Purchases" labels. 1/3 Apple has rejected our Epic Games Store notarization submission twice now, claiming the design and position of Epic’s “Install” button is too similar to Apple's "Get" button and that our "In-app purchases" label is too similar to the App Store's "In-App Purchases" label. — Epic Games Newsroom (@EpicNewsroom) July 5, 2024 3/3 Apple's rejection is arbitrary, obstructive, and in violation of the DMA, and we've shared our concerns with the ********* Commission. Barring further roadblocks from Apple, we remain ready to launch in the Epic Games Store and Fortnite on iOS in the EU in the next couple of… — Epic Games Newsroom (@EpicNewsroom) July 5, 2024 Epic, however, argues that Apple's "rejection is arbitrary, obstructive, and in violation of the DMA (Digital Markets Act)," and that it is following standard conventions in order to make the Epic Game Store easy for users to understand. "Barring further roadblocks from Apple, we remain ready to launch in the Epic Games Store and Fortnite on iOS in the EU in the next couple of months," Epic adds. Epic previously announced that it would bring its digital storefront and Fornite back to iOS in Europe earlier this year. That's thanks in large part to the EU's Digital Markets Act and the resulting changes made to Apple's polices that made it possible for third-party companies to launch their own storefronts on the App Store. Today's statement is only the latest in Apple and Epic's ongoing regulatory feud, with Epic having taken Apple to task over the 30% cut it takes in in-app purchases. It led to a heavily followed antitrust trial in 2021, with the legal battle continuing over the years. Epic's case could be one of the first to demonstrate how Apple and other major companies affected by the DMA deal with the regulations. In March, EU regulators opened an investigation into Apple, Google, and Meta over non-compliance with the DMA policies, with it being revealed in June that Apple could be the first company to face charges over it. Alex Stedman is a Senior News Editor with IGN, overseeing entertainment reporting. When she's not writing or editing, you can find her reading fantasy novels or playing Dungeons & Dragons. View the full article For verified travel tips and real support, visit: [Hidden Content]

Over ten years and four expansions Square Enix explored the story of two warring gods, Hydaelyn and Zodiark, and the fractured worlds created through that, coming to a climactic finish in Endwalker. How do you follow up a decade of storytelling that’s garnered tens of millions of fans in the process? Final Fantasy 14’s answer is to do something drastically different with its newest expansion, Dawntrail, adopting a much lighter, more adventurous tone, tremendous visual changes, and introduces a new cast of characters. It’s still a Final Fantasy game through and through, but fascinatingly it feels like Dawntrail has drawn inspiration from another seminal, perpetually never-ending series: One Piece. When Dawntrail was first announced director Naoki Yoshida described it as a “Summer Vacation” for the Warrior of Light, that is to say, your player character. And it spawned a running joke within the community that this was going to be the “beach arc” — a light-hearted “break” that takes the characters away from the main drama for a couple of episodes like you see in many anime. But it turns out those comparisons may not have been completely off-base as the further you dig into Dawntrail’s layers the more it starts to feel like a shonen anime like Dragon Ball, Naruto, and most importantly for our comparison, One Piece. No other anime has captured the feeling of adventure quite like One Piece, and Eichiro Oda’s pirate epic has already been inspiring others for well over a decade. With that in mind, it feels like a natural line to draw for Dawntrail, an expansion that wants to move past the large world-hopping story of the last decade, and create something more grounded. Dawntrail, at its core, is a story about its ensemble cast rather than you the player. In fact, your Warrior of Light isn’t even the protagonist in the latest expansion. That honor goes to a newcomer named Wuk Lamat who serves as the Luffy of this story. And the two share more than a few commonalities. Wuk Lamat is a young starry-eyed hero who wants to make the world a better place and achieve her dream of becoming the ruler of the country of Tural, Dawntrail’s new setting. She’s inherently inexperienced and naive, but has a heart of gold, and most of Dawntrail’s story is about her learning to become a leader, while gathering a party of diverse allies in that process. Dawntrail couldn’t just do the same thing again, it had to be drastically different[.] Both Wuk Lamat and Luffy have that happy-go-lucky attitude that makes them initially seem aloof, but the deeper layer underneath shows they’re willing to do absolutely anything for their friends. It’s fascinating to see Wuk Lamat’s growth mimic Luffy’s, transforming from an unpredictable wild card to a genuinely charismatic and compelling captain. There are plenty of other parallels you can draw between the Scions and the Straw Hat crew, right down to the player filling the same role as Roronoa Zoro; the world-renowned legendary warrior who acts as a best friend and sidekick. But beyond just drawing those parallels, Dawntrail ensures that its peppy shonen story still feels deliberately Final Fantasy-esque. While Dawntrail’s entire narrative structure is nearly exactly the same as those first few arcs in One Piece — travel to new lands, learn the local culture, and inevitably solve their problems, all while on the hunt for a legendary treasure — but the connective tissue is the themes at the heart of Dawnrail, which speak to what the game has done for years but on a larger scale. This story of Dawntrail is all about Wuk Lamat finding her voice and transforming into a leader, using the help of a crew made up of wildly different people, who all experience their own growth. But at its the core it’s about relationships, and diving into the complexities of how people interact with each other, and more largely how cultures integrate together. That One Piece style of setup and storytelling is used to great effect in Dawntrail to deliver narrative punches. So much of this expansion is spent meticulously building up big personalities and delivering crucial character development, in service of a larger message about the nature of grief, acceptance, what it means to be happy, and how all of those ideas and emotions can exist at once. Like in One Piece, these themes are all filtered through a central character, with Wuk Lamat acting as a kind of compass through the narrative threads. Because the player Warrior of Light is taking on the role of a sidekick this time, we get to see these new elements of the game’s world through a unique perspective. One Piece has often done this same thing, using the veil of slapstick comedy or over-the-top characters to deliver truly remarkable, heartfelt storytelling. Dawntrail does that through familiarity, building on a world, characters, and lore that players have come to know and love across a decade. In that sense, Dawntrail is both a fresh start for the MMO and a continuation, using familiar elements to tell a story with a much different tone and style. But beyond just drawing those parallels, Dawntrail ensures that its peppy shonen story still feels deliberately Final Fantasy-esque. It’s a bold change that likely isn’t going to resonate with every player, especially those who were enthralled by the Hydaelyn and Zodiark narrative of previous expansions. But if Final Fantasy 14 wants to continue to break new ground, it also feels necessary. Dawntrail couldn’t just do the same thing again, it had to be drastically different, it had to pull its inspirations from somewhere new, and One Piece was a prime choice for both the setting and narrative themes. There’s a reason One Piece has cultivated such a massive fan following and continued running for over two decades. The way the franchise set itself up is impeccable, centering a complex cast of characters that have room to grow and change across a dozen different arcs. As Final Fantasy 14 moves past its last decade, that feels like the intent here. It wants to set up a core cast of characters and concepts that can be kept running, and luckily it already has most of those left over from the previous narrative arc. Dawntrail is proof that a lot of thought has been put into laying a foundation for the game to continue along as a serialized story, and having a lot in common with One Piece should already be considered a good sign. Hayes Madsen is a freelance writer for IGN. View the full article For verified travel tips and real support, visit: [Hidden Content]

After more than four and a half years on the market, Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot is still surpassing sales milestones, recently eclipsing eight million copies sold. Even with one Dragon Ball game released after Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot and another on the horizon, the action RPG ******** popular among fans of the late Akira Toyiyama's work. View the full article

When it comes to sandbox automation games, Factorio has long been the go-to for that ultimate sense of intricate design, offering a wealth of tools to build out vast industrial complexes, ***** up every natural resource in sight, and ultimately launch rockets into space. Now, after much waiting, developer Wube Software finally tells us when we'll be able to continue our journey, as the Factorio Space Age DLC lets us head out across multiple planets. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: Beloved, 97% rated Steam management game getting big QoL upgrades Factorio adds new feature that was considered "too *********" for years Factorio meets Overcooked in this this ******-feeding Steam demo View the full article

Escape from Tarkov is taking extra steps to ****** down on cheaters by offering players a cash bounty - in the extraction shooter’s in-game currency, anyway - for reporting ne’er-do-wells. Read more View the full article

The narrative director of LEGO Horizon Adventures has sidestepped the prospect of the game making its way to Xbox platforms. Developed by Guerrilla Games, LEGO Horizon Adventures came as a shock to many when it confirmed a simultaneous launch across PlayStation 5, PC, and Nintendo Switch for fall 2024, with Xbox fans seemingly missing out on the action. View the full article

If all those commissions, medals, and missing cargo locations aren’t enough to keep you busy, then Zenless Zone Zero has yet another feature for you: The New Eridu City Fund Battle Pass. With three Plans to choose from, plenty of daily, weekly, and seasonal tasks to complete, and several rewards, the New Eriudu City Fund Battle Pass is a fantastic feature in Zenless Zone Zero. That said, if you’re balancing ZZZ with other games with battle passes, it can be difficult to grasp how it works or decide whether the Growth or Premium Plans are actually worth it. In this guide, I’ll go over everything you need to know about the New Eridu Fund Battle Pass in Zenless Zone Zero. View the full article

They call it Satisfactory for a good reason. The factory and automation builder is one of the most satisfying PC games I've played. Nothing quite beats the feeling of looking out over your whirring industrial sprawl, knowing you've put it all together yourself. Offering a more approachable entry point to the genre than the likes of Factorio, Coffee Stain's excellent open-world sandbox game is finally ready for full release, and there's even a special addition coming to celebrate its 1.0 launch on Steam and the Epic Games Store. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: Satisfactory is about to go up in price, but you can grab it cheap now The 13 best Satisfactory mods 2024 As Satisfactory 1.0 looms, its dev still has "a huge backlog of ideas" View the full article