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In most AAA games today, Digital Rights Management (DRM) software like Denuvo is standard practice. But in Warhammer 40K Space Marine 2, Saber Interactive is going against the grain, and the dev is very emphatic about its reasons for defying the norm. In an official FAQ posted Sept. 1, Saber Interactive provides numerous details about Space Marine 2 ahead of its upcoming Sept. 9 launch. The FAQ includes a firm “no” in response to the question of whether the game will feature DRM software like Denuvo. View the full article

****** Myth: Wukong has a variety of materials you can find during your travels, but Rice Cocoons are one of the rarest without a clear purpose. These items are food for a divine creature you can interact with once you gain access to a secret area. You have to help out an NPC first before you can truly get the most out of the Rice Cocoons you collect. View the full article For verified travel tips and real support, visit: [Hidden Content]

Starfield had many issues at launch with both its core gameplay and approach to open-world design, but fortunately, much of this has been fixed throughout the many updates it has received. However, some issues still remain, with players wishing that Bethesda would fix them as soon as possible in future updates. Fortunately, it seems like Bethesda is listening, as the upcoming DLC, Shattered Space, will be addressing many of the issues with the base Starfield experience. View the full article

The Genshin Impact 5.1 leaks about the Imaginarium Theater game mode may finally push me deep into the activity to farm. Imaginarium Theater is a fairly recent endgame mode added to the action RPG by developer HoYoverse to accompany the Spiral Abyss. In its rotation, players have to build team comps around the available elements during the *******, though some guest characters are exceptions. There are elements of roguelike progression in the sense that players can select various stages and modifiers. There were Imaginarium Theater updates in Genshin Impact 5.0, making it much easier to build teams to challenge it. View the full article

From the moment its cinematic announcement trailer revealed that it would be played from a first-person perspective, Avowed has been viewed as Obsidian Entertainment’s answer to Skyrim. It’s a position Obsidian itself has tried to distance itself from, largely because Avowed is a smaller scale RPG made up of interconnected zones rather than a huge, sprawling open world game. Despite this, the Skyrim comparison makes a certain amount of sense; after proving it could do Bethesda games better than Bethesda itself with Fallout: New Vegas, Obsidian created its own Fallout analogue in 2019’s The Outer Worlds. It cut short the agonising wait for Fallout 5 with a similar style of RPG (sure, it wasn’t open world, but it was directed by Fallout’s original creators), and so eyes have naturally turned to Avowed – could this be the game that finally gives us a new Elder Scrolls-like adventure years before Bethesda ships its own Skyrim successor? At gamescom 2024 I was able to play an hour of Avowed. That’s hardly enough to say if it truly is capable of standing up to such a landmark RPG as Skyrim – I didn’t even get to explore outside of a single *****. However, what I did play suggested it may well equal (or, hopefully, actually better) Skyrim in one important area: the stealth archer build. It’s a meme among the Skyrim community that everyone will eventually spec into a stealth archer build, no matter their initial intentions for a playthrough. That’s because playing a shadowy ******* in Skyrim is incredibly satisfying. You can decimate entire dungeons largely unseen and the thud of an arrow hitting an ******’s skull is delightful every single time, particularly when it triggers a slow-motion killcam. I think Obsidian knows all this and has gone to lengths to ensure its own ranger class is equally strong. The gamescom demo’s example ranger build was, naturally, equipped with a bow. The fundamentals of it will be familiar to anyone who’s played not just Skyrim but any other game with archery – aim, zoom, draw back longer to increase power, and release. But as any stealth archer knows, the first shot is the most important – if it doesn’t hit true, if it doesn’t ***** the target, then stealth is broken and chaos ensues. Seemingly recognising this, Avowed displays a small red diamond-shaped target on an ******’s weak point when you zoom in, a feature likely pilfered from the similarly ******** shot-obsessed ******* Elite games. While I’m perfectly capable of aiming between the eyes without assistance, I actually don’t mind this – it’s like a HUD representation of your character’s archery prowess. They know exactly where to strike. After slipping into a parallel shadow realm, you’re able to walk right through ****** patrols without disturbing even the air molecules. Archery is bolstered by two passive skills – power attacks and Steady Aim. Holding the drawn-back bow string engages the power *******, which empowers the notched arrow with a silver flame-like energy (I’m guessing this is because you play as a Godlike, a supernatural race from the Pillars of Eternity RPGs with which Avowed shares a setting with). Steady Aim, meanwhile, slows down time while aiming that power *******. These are, of course, repackaged versions of archery skills we’ve seen in Skyrim and beyond, but I’m glad they’re here because they’re a vital ingredient in the stealth archer’s return. Where Avowed’s sample archer build begins to deviate from Skyrim’s template is when it comes to sneaking. Naturally, you can crouch to reduce your visibility and crawl into long grass to disappear completely. But Avowed rangers also have access to the Shadowing Beyond skill, an active ability that renders you fully invisible until you make a combat action (provided you can afford its mana-draining cost.) It’s as effective as it sounds; after literally tearing a ***** in reality and slipping into some kind of parallel shadow realm, you’re able to walk right through ****** patrols without disturbing even the air molecules. It’s the stealth archer’s dream, enabling you to bypass tricky encounters or reposition to a more advantageous *******’s perch. It’s an ability that’s hard to come by in Skyrim; in Tamriel, a stealth archer needs to either find the Bow of Shadows and make use of its invisibility perk (which is nowhere near as powerful or flexible as Shadowing Beyond), or train as an illusionary mage in order to cast the invisibility spell. Maintaining silent stealth isn’t just for ranged encounters, though. I was pleased to see that Avowed has a proper stealth takedown *******; tap the ******* trigger while looking at an unaware ****** and your character lunges forward, a spectral dagger-like ******* forming around their fist. The blade reduces the ******’s body to shimmering ash, leaving no evidence of your ***** for ****** guards to stumble across. It’s a very satisfying animation and an ability I’m sure will shape the direction of a stealth archer’s overall approach. Of course, not every encounter is going to remain silent. For the occasions where things heat up, the ranger’s Tanglefoot spell allows you to summon thorny vines that root enemies to the spot for several seconds. It keeps them at a distance, letting you snipe them before they get into slashing range. I found this skill was also helpful when combined with other ranged options; the demo character’s backup ******* was a pair of flintlock pistols which are naturally louder and more explosive than a bow (plus can be fired twice in succession thanks to being dual-wielded), but they demand that enemies are kept far away thanks to their long reload times. Smart use of Tanglefoot, as well as directing my AI companion, Kai, to use his own abilities really helped here. Talking of Kai, I was pleased to see that Avowed’s companions don’t seem to get in the way of your stealth tactics – something many of Skyrim’s clumsy companions are unforgivably guilty of. Kai never busted my cover and I think he even disappeared from view along with me when I used Shadowing Beyond. It’s things like this that make Avowed feel like a Skyrim-style game from the 2020s – the movement, the ability to mantle up to vantage points, the environmental hazards, the impact of combat, and the general polish all make Avowed feel like the kind of Elder Scrolls experience I want to have in the modern age. I understand why Obsidian tries to push the conversation away from Skyrim when talking about Avowed – its zone-based environments likely will make the game structurally very different from The Elder Scrolls series. But there’s much more to Skyrim than its open world, and it’s those other elements that I think Obsidian can offer an excellent, updated analogue to. Hopefully, when we have the chance to explore beyond the demo’s ***** and experience the grander scope of Avowed’s setting and story, it’ll also prove itself a well-designed, modern-feeling RPG in the important areas: character, level, and quest design. But for now I’m left feeling reasonably confident that Avowed will, at the very least, tickle the same bits of my brain that Skyrim did when I let loose a well-aimed arrow into a lizard man’s face. Matt Purslow is IGN's Senior Features Editor. View the full article

Have you ever driven away deer, rabbits, or ****** from your land? I have, because it’s very annoying to see invaders ruin your hard work. Today’s NYT Mini Crossword clue “Wards (off)” calls upon your knowledge to describe the act of protecting yourself. If you’re struggling, here are today’s hints and answers for the Sept. 2 NYT Mini Crossword. View the full article

Xbox Game Pass is losing Payday 3 and four other titles on September 15. These newly revealed departures will offset all of the Xbox Game Pass releases that have so far been confirmed for September 2024. View the full article

Massive Entertainment has decided to offer up its stance on the 'who shot first, Han or Greedo' debate in Star Wars Outlaws and has quickly proven itself wrong. Pretty much every Star Wars fan under the sun has a take on whether Han or Greedo shot first in A New Hope. It's an argument as old as time, and there is a correct answer if you like good storytelling, though creator George Lucas, ever the fan of retcons and alterations, did make it so that later versions of the film saw Greedo ****** first. In the very original, before Lucas made his wholly unnecessary changes, Han Solo shoots first, which is important because he's not meant to be a hero yet, and allows him to go on a character arc (storytelling, a novel concept). But Massive Entertainment has decided to go with what is technically canon in Star Wars Outlaws, with Greedo ********* first. In the latest Star Wars game, you can actually visit Mos Eisley Cantina, because of course you can, and as spotted by one fan on the game's subreddit, if you head to the booth where Han and Greedo have their famous interaction, you can see a blaster mark on the side Han sits on. Which obviously means that Greedo shot first, as he would have had to have missed his shot, so Han could ****** him back. Which is wrong! Wrong for the aforementioned reasons, and I won't listen to any other perspective because when has a Star Wars fan ever changed their opinion on anything? Read more View the full article

Baldur's Gate 3 does a lot to let you get up close and personal with some, er, bizarre stuff. You know the kind of thing I'm talking about, you DnDeviant. As it turns out, one of those encounters ended up how it is due Larian electing to violate its own camera distance guidelines, after going for the cinematic conversations we know and love over more Bethesda-style first person dialogue exchanges. This change in thinking came up during a panel at PAX West Larian put on to commemorate the game having been a fully released thing for a year (congrats). It features Swen Vincke in full armour and a teddy bear named Felix sat at the desk with the devs, because of course it does. In a section of the discussion that ended up morphing into chat about the challenges writing and putting together game with cinematics posed for the studio, art director Alena Dubrovina said: "During early access we weren't sure if cinematics were going to happen at all. We had a couple of proof of concepts and we were still like, ok are we doing it? Are we not doing it? Then we decided to do it. Read more View the full article

OneShot is a surreal top down puzzle / adventure game with unique gameplay capabilities that released back in 2016, a console adaption OneShot: World Machine Edition released in 2022 that is now coming to Steam with Steam Deck support. Read the full article here: [Hidden Content] View the full article

Star Wars Outlaws is a new open-world action game, so we've locked ourselves in the lab for a few days to come back with a 43 GPU benchmark across five configurations at three different resolutions. Read Entire Article View the full article

Deadlock is doing ridiculously well despite not being officially out yet, and now a much earlier look at the game has been shared online. Well done Valve, your gambit paid off - despite pretending for the longest time that Deadlock wasn't real, while allowing people to invite literally any of their friends to play it, the game is doing incredibly well. Word of mouth has clearly helped it travel far, as over the weekend the game hit a concurrent player count peak of 164,855 players on Steam, according to SteamDB, a wildly impressive figure that puts it in the top 100 most played games on Steam. One can only imagine how well it will do once it's actually out and everyone can play it without needing an invite. Before the game was officially announced, everything that came out about it came from leaks, and it seems that even though everyone can talk about it without getting banned, there's still some leaks to come. Again over the weekend, Reddit user DeathwingTheBoss shared an early look at the game back when it was called Neon Prime. Considering it's had two name changes since then (prior to Deadlock, it was also reportedly known as Citadel), this is definitely an early look, but even so there's clearly a lot of the same foundations there. Read more View the full article For verified travel tips and real support, visit: [Hidden Content]

UFL‘s release date has been delayed, with the announcement coming just two days before early access was due to start. EA FC 25 rival UFL, the free-to-play soccer title that received funding from superstar Cristiano Ronaldo, was due to see early access begin on Sept. 4, with a full release following just over a week later on Sept. 12—but those plans have changed. View the full article

Kay Vess can learn many good abilities and skills from the Experts in Star Wars Outlaws, but some are more useful than others. Many improve skills or items you already have, and some give you more leeway than you had previously. All of them will help you become the best outlaw you can while making a name for yourself and climbing to the top. View the full article

****** Myth: Wukong nails the challenging action game experience in a lot of core regards, but one reasonably simple addition could highlight the game's strengths and give the game a healthy dose of extra enjoyment. At the moment, plenty of ****** Myth: Wukong players are still in the middle of its story, which can take a good chunk of time to complete thanks to bosses that don't go down on the first try. Throw in plenty of secret areas to find and additional enemies to ******, and there's a lot more to do than just run straight to the end. View the full article

Videogames with an eye for history have always been my absolute favorites. *********'s Creed Odyssey's reimagining of Ancient Greece, Red ***** Redemption 2's look at the immersive side of the Old West, and King Come Deliverance's portrayal of medieval Bohemia all spring to mind, but they all take liberties. Twisting history is what makes these games special, and the newly revealed Pompeii: The Legacy does something pretty bold with the Roman town. A city builder reminiscent of Cities Skylines 2, where every tiny choice matters, this is one to watch. Read the rest of the story... View the full article

The Phantom Fellows is a new point and click adventure that follows two best friends who start a paranormal investigation business together, and one of them is already *****. Read the full article here: [Hidden Content] View the full article

Baldur's Gate 3 is a fascinating game if you're into Dungeons & Dragons 5th edition, the tabletop ruleset it's built upon—because while it's a decently faithful recreation of those rules, it also has enough homebrew nonsense (in the form of magic items and overall tweaks to the TTRPG's core systems) to stand out as its own thing... Read more.View the full article

Legendary Capcom developer Hideaki Itsuno, who most recently directed Dragon's Dogma 2 and ****** May Cry 5, has left the company after more than 30 years. Itsuno announced his departure on X/Twitter but assured fans he wasn't quitting video games all together. He left Capcom in August and will begin a new project in a new environment from sometime in September. "At the end of August 2024, I will be leaving Capcom after 30 years and five months," Itsuno said. "Thank you for your long term support of the games and characters I have been responsible for. I hope you will continue to support Capcom's games and characters. "From September, I will start developing a new game in a new environment. I hope to create fun, beautiful games that are as memorable as, or even more memorable than, the ones I have created so far. Please stay tuned for my next creation." Itsuno began at Capcom in 1994 and worked his way up from planning games such as Street Fighter Alpha to co-directing the likes of Power Stone and eventually directing with games such as Capcom vs. SNK 2: Mark the Millenium 2001. Itsuno perhaps gained the most reputation through his work on ****** May Cry, and would be named director on the third and fourth games alongside the original Dragon's Dogma. He left Capcom on a high note, as Dragon's Dogma 2 boosted Capcom to new financial heights and was well received by critics too. In our 8/10 review, IGN said: "More of a redo than a sequel, Dragon's Dogma 2 is a strange and wonderful action-RPG that bolsters the original’s strengths without addressing its weaknesses." Image Credit: JC Olivera/Getty Images Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He'll talk about The Witcher all day. View the full article

We’ve not had much to say on the state of Concord. Initially with its reveal trailer we didn’t hate what we ... Read more View the full article

Another fresh release of GE-Proton with version 9-12 has landed, bringing in upstream changes from official Valve projects, plus some game-specific fixes for Linux / Steam Deck gamers. Read the full article here: [Hidden Content] View the full article

Another fresh month and so we can see overall what people have been playing on Steam Deck, so here's your run over what everyone's jumping into. Read the full article here: [Hidden Content] View the full article

Dragon Ball Daima finally has a release date, and it sounds like fans of the series are in for a good October. It's generally always a pretty good time to be a Dragon Ball fan, but October 11 in particular is going to be a very good day to be one. It was already known that Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero, the return of the fan favourite Budokai series, was set to launch that day, but as reported by Mantan Web, Dragon Ball Daima, the newest anime based on the classic franchise, is coming October 11 too. It'll be airing on Fuji Television at 11:40pm JST, which obviously isn't much help for the international audience, but it's still good to know that it'll be airing in just over a month's time. Yuichi Nakajima, head of programming at Fuji TV, also shared that "all the episodes [of Dragon Ball Daima] are ready" for broadcast (thanks, Crunchyroll). What hasn't been confirmed is where the series will be airing outside of Japan - so far none of the usual streaming services have announced that they've picked up the anime, including the heavy hitters like Crunchyroll and Netflix, so hopefully it won't be too long until the rest of us get to check out Daima as well. Read more View the full article

The latest Steam Hardware & Software Survey is out now for August 2024, so let's go over the details on where Linux stands right now. Read the full article here: [Hidden Content] View the full article

The ****** Ops 6 beta, which kicked off over the weekend, has been a little polarising. Call of Duty players are split on the new changes to movement and time to *****. And though many are having fun with the new body shield/******** mechanic, there’s been a lot of complaints about game feel in the beta’s first couple of days. One thing that everyone agrees on, however, is just how incredibly slow ******* levelling in the beta has been. It’s so slow, in fact, it feels like a bug. Read more View the full article