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Funcom, the developer of survival MMO Dune: Awakening, has detailed a number of upcoming changes to the game's high-level endgame designed to address player complaints and diversify the experience. Dune: Awakening launched early in June 2025, impressing players with its free-form desert gameplay with elements of competitive PVP. View the full article

Juggling games across Steam, the Epic Games Store, GOG, the Xbox app, and other clients has long frustrated users. Some launchers, like GOG Galaxy, have tried to solve the problem by syncing accounts across services. However, the only workaround with anything close to broad acceptance is manually adding shortcuts to... Read Entire Article View the full article

There are quite a few amazing horror games out there that either defined or redefined what was possible, such as Dead Space or Silent Hill 2, and it's amazing to see how the genre has evolved over time. The games included on this list have totally reshaped the horror video game space and have introduced features that new horror games have tried to emulate in multiple ways. Horror games don't come down to how many jump scares are involved, but are ultimately about building suspense and forcing the player into tense situations with unexpected twists and turns that truly set them on edge. View the full article

Although it's only been out for two weeks, there are dedicated Dune Awakening players who have already reached the MMO's endgame, and despite the allure of an immense challenge, there have been complaints about the unfair treatment of PvE and solo players when compared to those that love PvP. A Reddit AMA last week addressed some of these complaints, but the answers weren't enough to satisfy most. In response, Funcom has outlined some big changes that are in the works. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: Is Dune Awakening down? Server status right now Does Dune Awakening support mods? New Dune Awakening update removes the most annoying and embarrassing way to die View the full article

Players in the global English server will have to wait until the next version update, slated for around August. View the full article

We have just shipped an updated Steam Deck Client to the Preview/Beta channel. Steam Input Fixed thumbstick centering range for Nintendo Switch Pro controllers View the full article

The Steam Client Beta has been updated with the following changes: In-Game Overlay Fixed Mhz/Ghz conversion for CPU speed values in Performance Monitor so values are not 2.4% lower than expected. Fixed overlay UI restart taking HDR screenshots on older CPUs on Windows Steam Input Fixed thumbstick centering range for Nintendo Switch Pro controllers View the full article

The game was originally slated to launch on the PC platform the day following this announcement. View the full article

Clear the digital cobwebs off your wishlist and stretch those thumbs because some absolute gems are on ***** across every major platform this week. Whether you're chasing a retro-style indie for loose change or something AAA to chew on until tax returns hit, there’s something to tempt just about everyone. Enough talk, though. Let's get amongst some bargains! This Day in Gaming In retro news, I'm celebrating the 28th birthday of my personal favourite moustache racer, Mario Kart 64. What sold me was its first-in-series 4P multi, and probably about a hundred hours spent doing "winner plays on" 150cc VS. Mode and Block Fort balloon battles at a mate's house. When the surf was crap in Kiama, his headland-based abode basically became the local youth drop in centre—just a constant state of shoulder-to-shoulder competition and trash talk. Truly, some of the best gaming years of my life. Aussie birthdays for notable games - Mario Kart 64 (N64) 1997. Get - Destroy All Humans! (PS2,XB) 2005. Get - Tekken 5 (PS2) 2005. eBay - Guitar Hero Smash Hits (PS3,Wii,X360) 2009. eBay Contents NintendoXboxPlayStationPCPC GearLEGOHeadphonesTVsNice Savings for Nintendo Switch Nintendo gets weird and wonderful with Inside for under three bucks. This eerie side-scroller was developed in near-total secrecy by Playdead, with its wordless storytelling spawning more fan theories than a late-season Lost episode. Also up is Sonic x Shadow Generations, a return of the “edgiest” hedgehog, whose original design notes included motorbikes and guns because… 2005. Pokémon Legends: Z-A (-13%) - A$78Sonic x Shadow Generations (-35%) - A$49Inside (-90%) - A$2.90Front Mission 1st: Rem. (-66%) - A$17.80Sniper Elite 3 Ult. Ed. (-80%) - A$10.50Overcooked! All You Can Eat (-66%) - A$19.30 Expiring Recent Deals Super Mario RPG (-18%) - A$65.90Persona 5 Royal (-33%) - A$66.80Burnout Paradise Rem. (-27%) - A$29EA Sports FC 25 (-62%) - A$34Expeditions: A MudRunner Game (-48%) - A$44What Remains of Edith Finch (-75%) - A$7.40 Or gift a Nintendo eShop Card. Switch Console Prices How much to Switch it up? [/url] Back to top Exciting Bargains for Xbox Xbox owners should look to Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2, where the devs consulted actual military veterans to nail the weight and motion of the titular walking tanks. Or, for something less lore-heavy but equally punchy, there’s Tekken 8, a brilliant sequel I still play to death. Seagate Storage Expansion (1TB) (-40%) - A$209.50Warhammer: Space Marine 2 (-54%) - A$49.90Tekken 8 (-53%) - A$39.90Monster Hunter Wilds (-36%) - A$74Sonic x Shadow Generations (-35%) - A$49 Xbox One BioShock: The Col. (-80%) - A$17.90Octopath Traveler (-60%) - A$35.90Disco Elysium - The Final Cut (-70%) - A$17.90Borderlands Leg. Col. (-80%) - A$17.90 Expiring Recent Deals Diablo IV (-73%) - A$29.90Resident Evil 4 (-48%) - A$31Tekken 8 (-53%) - A$39.90Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League (-91%) - A$9.90****** Myth: Wukong (-20%) - A$79.90Doom (-80%) - A$6.90Borderlands Leg. Col. (-80%) - A$17.90Spyro Reignited Trilogy (-65%) - A$24.40Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy (-85%) - A$14.90 Or just invest in an Xbox Card. Xbox Console Prices How many bucks for a 'Box? [/url] Back to top Pure Scores for PlayStation PlayStation players can grab Gran Turismo 7, whose devs laser-scan every car for obsessive detail—right down to tyre treads. Or if you fancy some anime melodrama, Tales of Arise blends fast combat with storytelling so earnest it could make a mecha blush. Gran Turismo 7 (-57%) - A$54Death Stranding 2 (-21%) - A$99Tales of Arise (-68%) - A$32.10Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree Ed. (-31%) - A$79Monster Hunter Wilds (-36%) - A$74Resident Evil Village (-19%) - A$44.40Sonic x Shadow Generations (-35%) - A$49 PS4 Final Fantasy X/X-2 HD Rem. (-35%) - A$25.90The Last of Us Part II (-17%) - A$49.90The Yakuza Rem. Col. (-29%) - A$39 Expiring Recent Deals Borderlands 4 (-17%) - A$99Elden Ring (-51%) - A$49Astro Bot (-31%) - A$75.60Grand Theft Auto V (-60%) - A$24Call of Duty: ****** Ops 6 (-28%) - A$79God of War Ragnarök (-60%) - A$44Red Dead Redemption 2 (-78%) - A$20Firewatch (-80%) - A$5.90The Outer Worlds (-67%) - A$13.10 PS+ Monthly Freebies Yours to keep from Jun 1 with this subscription NBA 2K25 | PS5, PS4Alone in the Dark (2024) | PS5Bomb Rush Cyberfunk | PS5, PS4Destiny 2: The Final Shape | PS5, PS4 Or purchase a PS Store Card. What you'll pay to 'Station. [/url] Back to top Purchase Cheap for PC PC has Horizon Forbidden West at 40% off, with wide monitor support so glorious you’ll wish the real world had ultrawide FOV. And for loose change, SteamWorld Dig 2 offers a charmingly chunky Metroidvania that was partly prototyped on paper before going digital. Horizon Forbidden West Comp. Ed. (-40%) - A$56.90Tekken 8 (-50%) - A$42.40SteamWorld Dig 2 (-94%) - A$1.70Civilization VI (-95%) - A$4.40Bravely Default II (-60%) - A$35.90Deathloop (-80%) - A$19.90 Expiring Recent Deals EA Steam Summer Sales (-85%) - A$0Star Wars Jedi: Survivor (-80%) - A$19.90It Takes Two (-75%) - A$12.40Command & Conquer Ult. Col. (-70%) - A$8.90Battlefront II Celebration (-90%) - A$4.90****** Myth: Wukong (-20%) - A$71.90Yooka-Laylee (-80%) - A$5.90 Or just get a Steam Wallet Card PC Hardware Prices Slay your pile of shame. [/url]Laptop DealsApple 2024 MacBook Air 15-inch (-12%) – A$2,197HP Laptop 15.6" 15-fd0233TU (-20%) – A$799Lenovo ThinkPad E14 Gen 5 (-36%) – A$849Lenovo Yoga 7i 2-in-1 14", Gen 9 (-41%) – A$1,229Desktop DealsLenovo neo 50a G5 27" AIO (-47%) – A$1,379Lenovo neo 50q G4 Tiny (-35%) – A$639Lenovo neo 50t G5 Tower (-20%) – A$871.20Legion Tower 5i G8 (-29%) – A$1,899Monitor DealsSamsung QE50T 50" (-31%) – A$596ARZOPA 16.1" 144Hz (-55%) – A$159.99Z-Edge 27" 240Hz (-15%) – A$237.99Gawfolk 34" WQHD (-28%) – A$359LG 27" Ultragear (-42%) – A$349Component DealsMSI PRO B650M-A WiFi Motherboard (-41%) – A$229AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D (-7%) – A$876Corsair Vengeance 32GB (-35%) – A$82Kingston FURY Beast 16GB (-30%) – A$48Storage DealsSeagate One Touch Portable HDD (-24%) – A$228Kingston 1TB USB 3.2 SSD (-17%) – A$115SanDisk 128GB Extreme PRO (-63%) – A$29SanDisk 32GB Ultra SDHC (-53%) – A$9.90 Back to top Legit LEGO Deals Expiring Recent Deals Dots Designer Toolkit (-60%) - A$40Botanicals Daffodils (-48%) - A$12JP Fossils: Triceratops Skull (-29%) - A$50Star Wars Millenium Falcon Set (-27%) - A$110 Back to top Hot Headphones Deals Audiophilia for less Bose QuietComfort Ultra Wireless (-38%) – A$399.95Soundcore by Anker Q20i (-43%) – A$68.79Sony MDR7506 Professional (-30%) – A$169Technics Premium (-46%) – A$299Bose SoundLink Flex (-31%) – A$171JBL Charge 5 - Portable Speaker (-28%) – A$144JBL Flip Essential 2 Waterproof Speaker (-26%) – A$96Sony SRS-XB100 Travel Speaker (-41%) – A$84.15Ultimate Ears ***** 3 Portable Speaker (-41%) – A$134.95Samsung Galaxy Buds2 Pro (-26%) – A$259.29Sennheiser Momentum 4 Wireless (-46%) – A$275 Back to top Terrific TV Deals Do right by your console, upgrade your telly LG 43" UT80 4K (-24%) – A$635Kogan 65" QLED 4K (-50%) – A$699Kogan 55" QLED 4K (-45%) – A$549LG 55" UT80 4K (-28%) – A$866Prism+ Q75 Ultra 75" 4K QLED (-47%) – A$1,229Gaimoo Mini Projector 1080p w/ 4K (-33%) – A$119.99GooDee 4K Projector (-58%) – A$169.99VOPLLS Mini Projector 4K (-19%) – A$168.99XuanPad Mini Projector (-36%) – A$128.99LG S70TY Q Series Sound Barn*-22%) – A$546Sony HTG700 Atmos Soundbar (-15%) – A$594Yamaha NS-SW050 Subwoofer (-13%) – A$270Smart Home DealsArlo Video Doorbell 2K (-53%) – A$107.76Google Nest Doorbell (-44%) – A$183Ring Battery Video Doorbell Plus (-40%) – A$149TP-Link Tapo Smart Doorbell (-20%) – A$183XTU Doorbell Camera Doorbell (-40%) – A$59.99D-Link DCS-8302LH Wi-Fi Cam (-62%) – A$75Google Nest Cam (-25%) – A$247Ring Spotlight Cam Pro Battery (-43%) – A$187Swann 4 Channel DVR with 4 x 4K Cams (-34%) – A$399WUUK 2K Outdoor Cam (-32%) – A$249.99PS VR2 PC adapter - $94.95TP Link Bluetooth 5.0 adapter - $12UGREEN Display Port 1.4 2m (-17%) - $19.94 Back to top Adam Mathew is our Aussie deals wrangler. He plays practically everything, often on YouTube. View the full article For verified travel tips and real support, visit: [Hidden Content]

Get your phone ready and put your tactical thinking cap on, because Sunderfolk is finally on ***** - and you can check out a free trial on Steam now, before you buy. Although Steam's Summer ***** hasn't quite arrived yet (it's currently scheduled to begin on the 26th), deals and discounts abound on the digital storefront. Those include a great deal on an excellent tactical game that came out just earlier this year. View the full article For verified travel tips and real support, visit: [Hidden Content]

Because it's PeakView the full article

Tucked into a corner of Summer Games Fest, Spine is definitely the kind of game meant to turn heads and grab attention. There is a decidedly late-’90s arcade style to the third-person action title that compels players to grab a controller and see what is going on for themselves. While it’s still early, in my hands-on demo with Spine, I can safely say that it’s absolutely something I’m excited to see evolve as it develops. Aesthetically, Spine fits the cyberpunk-Blade Runner mold of an overcrowded dystopian city with profuse neon-yet-dark corners everywhere. The player assumes the role of a street artist named Redline who, in the demo, has been accused of a crime she did not commit and quickly finds herself surrounded by thugs at a bar. Redline fights off the enemies with deadly force and keeps going while punching and shooting everything that gets in her way. Players familiar with Sifu will notice an immediate resemblance to that game in the form of the quick jabs, special attacks, and parry-driven finishing moves, but the developer shies away from that particular comparison. Instead, they insist it is a little bit more like Rocksteady’s Arkham series of Batman titles, with a heavy focus on reading tells more than predicting enemy movements. Rather than comparing combat to Sifu, Spine's developers insist it is a little bit more like Rocksteady’s Arkham series. Regardless of inspiration, the true carnival-game feel of Spine comes from the flashy and over-the-top finishers that are earned by parrying enemy attacks. Not for the squeamish or meek at heart, Redline will often force enemies to ******** a bullet with a gun shoved between their teeth or spin around them like John Wick with a well-placed shot to the back of the skull. The camera zooms, spins, and pans around the finishers to showcase the most dramatic and cinematic angles for her gunkata before Redline quickly moves on to the next goon coming her way. Parrying also works at enemies throwing things or shooting at her as well, allowing her to spot-dodge the incoming projectile with a quick lean or turn that feels immensely satisfying, regardless of the ease to pull off. Occasionally, Redline will pick up another weapon with limited ammo, such as a shotgun, and blow enemies away in one hit. These sections feel more like Hotline Miami than anything Batman has ever done, and sometimes even adopt that overhead camera angle to complete the allusion, intentional or otherwise. There is some degree of ***** Genesis vibe going on with Spine that I cannot quite put my finger on, but it absolutely evokes an alternate reality where beat-‘em-ups became the biggest genre in the world in the ‘90s and iterated on that formula for decades. While there is a lot more to see before deciding where in that storied hierarchy Spine will land, I am more than interested in watching it get there. View the full article

Reach is one of the coolest VR games I’ve played in a long time. Chasing the high of classic cinematic action games like Tomb Raider or Uncharted, I had a blast climbing ledges, jumping between buildings, and popping enemies while dual-wielding pistols in NDreams' latest. With dynamic movement and a surprisingly accurate sense of full-body awareness, I can’t wait to see more from this one, even if I got a little dizzy jumping as I platformed my way through the first level. VR games often need to tow a delicate balance. Moving in a 3D space with stick-based movement is a surefire way to cause motion sickness for a lot of players, so a majority of VR games are designed in a way that takes both point-and-teleport-based movement and stick-based movement into account. But after a demo that featured a lot of running, jumping, and platforming, I’m pleased to say that I didn’t feel that creeping, bottom-of-the-stomach sensation I sometimes feel in VR. A majority of the demo I played focused on platforming; I scaled up walls and grabbed onto ledges like in The Climb or Horizon: Call of the Mountain. Combined with sprinting, jumping, and even jumping between holds while climbing, the movement here felt surprisingly smooth and dynamic. Before long, I felt like an acrobatic action star pulling off the kinds of stunts only Tom Cruise could accomplish. Multiple times in my demo, I nearly bungled a jump but managed to snag a ledge in the nick of time, swinging in in a way that felt far more real and natural than I could’ve imagined in VR. Before long, I felt like an acrobatic action star pulling off the kinds of stunts only Tom Cruise could accomplish. Moreso than any kind of cool action setpiece or stealth encounter, this kind of little detail – snagging a ledge just in time, saving myself from falling to certain doom – helps break free from the often on-rails feeling VR games can have. In sections where I wasn’t so lucky and wound up replaying a few times, I found myself skipping jumps and getting from point A to B in new ways each time. I love finding ways to maximize the tools in my toolkit to improve my movement in any game I play, but that kind of drive is rarely satisfied in VR. Reach answered that question in spades. Exploring Reach’s first level wasn’t all running and climbing, though. I wound up in a handful of shootouts with generic militia guys as I made my way to rescue some hostages. There’s a bow with unlimited ammo strapped to your shoulder. With just a reach over your shoulder, you can snipe away at enemies from a safe distance before climbing, jumping, or running to where you need to go. While the section I saw didn’t really focus on stealth, I did run guns-blazing into what was probably supposed to be a stealth segment set in an office space. There seemed to be some kind of enemy alert system, though by the time I realized what that little bubble above my targets’ heads meant, the arrow destined for my last enemy’s chest cavity had whistled off my bowstring. After that, there were a few more shootouts, though they didn’t task me with navigating an enclosed space in quite the same way. Instead, they took the shape of more traditional shooting gallery-style encounters like you’d find in plenty of other VR games with guns. Bad guys popped out of shutters and stood on balconies, with conveniently placed pistols littering the level for me to grab and unload. These were considerably less fun and interesting than that stealth segment. As anyone who’s spent even a little time in VR will tell you, plenty of VR games make their bones in these shooting galleries – they have for nearly a decade at this point. So going from a more open, interactive design to a handful of moments I’d already seen before in a handful of other VR shooters was pretty disappointing. But after I cleared them, I went right back to platforming, exploring the very ledges my victims fell off of. The shooting-gallery parts were considerably less fun and interesting than that stealth segment. After one last shootout, things escalated. A helicopter started firing at me as I clambered my way to safety after a truck barreled through and propped open a gate, letting me scurry up a high wall. This little extra jolt of danger and tension, with walls exploding and ceilings collapsing behind me as the helicopter closed in on my location set off a last-ditch moment of platforming madness. Blazing through Reach’s first level was the most fun I’ve had in VR in months, capped off with a charming way to end a demo like this. I can’t wait to see the rest of what NDreams cooks up when it eventually releases sometime later this year on Meta Quest 3, PlayStation VR2, and SteamVR. View the full article

A reliable source has shared a detailed overview of Genshin Impact characters coming out in Nod-Krai, revealing their gender, element, and faction. With Natlan coming to an end with Version 5.8, Genshin Impact fans have turned their full attention to Nod-Krai. From a lore standpoint, the upcoming region will attempt to tie together any lingering plot threads and slowly set the stage for the Traveler's confrontation with the Tsaritsa. From a gameplay standpoint, Nod-Krai will introduce Lunar Reactions, a way to hopefully improve upon underwhelming Elemental Reactions such as Superconduct and Crystallize. View the full article For verified travel tips and real support, visit: [Hidden Content]

Dune: Awakening has amassed a total of one million players since launch, becoming the fastest-selling title developed by Funcom. Giving the highly popular sci-fi franchise, Dune, a survival game spin, Dune: Awakening rolled out to a positive reception on PC on June 10. View the full article

There's a lot going on in a 5v5 game of virtual football, but the thing I have to keep reminding myself to do is breathe. It's easy to forget when you're playing goalie a minute-and-a-half into overtime and three opponents are trading the ball in front of your net as they gear up for shot, but you'll need a lungful of air so you can rejoice or curse in a way the neighbors can hear when you make or don't make the big save. I've rarely thought of a sports game as immersive, but here I can practically feel the sonic ***** of the crowd, the ball rocketing past a sliding tackle, and the turf whizzing by as I kick it up... Read more.View the full article

Funcom announces a sales milestone for Dune: Awakening alongside a game infographic. View the full article

Note: This update is for the Steam Deck Beta and Preview channels, and includes new features that are still being tested. You can opt into this in Settings > System > System Update Channel. Screen Reader Fixed an issue with screen reader announcements for screen reader settings not being interruptible View the full article

The findings come from tests by the YouTube channel MxBenchmarkPC (above), which put the Paris tech demo by Scans Factory (below) through its paces. Running on a system equipped with an RTX 5080 GPU and a Core i7-14700F CPU at multiple resolutions, the demo provided direct, side-by-side comparisons between versions... Read Entire Article View the full article

The Harbour Masters collective has once again achieved the impossible. The team of developers that brought The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time and Star Fox 64 to PC has now unveiled its latest effort in code decompilation and reverse engineering: SpaghettiKart, an unofficial PC port of Mario Kart 64. Read Entire Article View the full article

Bring it onView the full article

Sometimes, a story finds you at the right time, hits you in the right place, speaks to a part of you you’ve kept buried, deep down. When we find a connection with a piece of art, much of that connection is forged because of when we find it, not just what it has to say. I stumbled onto Ambrosia Sky at the right time, and it spoke to me. No game at Summer Game Fest hit me harder, but I like to think that Ambrosia Sky would have resonated with me no matter when I found it, which is a testament to how developer Soft Rains has crafted this world. Part of this is the conceit, which is unlike anything else I’ve seen in a video game. Ambrosia Sky follows Dalia, a deep-space disaster specialist known as a Scarab. Scarabs are mystical field scientists whose job revolves around the dead. They’re not soldiers; a Scarab can’t save you. Their job is to catalogue a space, restore it, and say goodbye to the dead. They’re a loose-knit organization of scientists with one purpose: they seek death to understand what kills us, so they can prevent it. They believe that in understanding death among the stars, they can find the key to preventing cellular death and decay. The Ambrosia Project is their attempt at finding immortality. Dalia doesn’t believe in the spiritual side of being a Scarab (for many, it’s a religion, not just a job), but she’s good at it and enjoys the work. But at the same time, this isn’t just a scientific exercise for Dalia. Ambrosia Sky sends her to the Cluster, an agricultural colony on Saturn’s rings. Once paramount in humanity’s voyage of discovery and expansion among the stars, it’s now little more than a relic of a previous age, a crucial but forgotten fixture of an age long past. Time has literally passed it by. But it’s where Dalia grew up and escaped from in her own search for something more. And now she’s returning to investigate a crisis that killed almost everyone she knew. It’s hardly a happy homecoming, and it’s forcing her to come to terms with both her own choices and the relationships she left behind, as well as her guilt for surviving what killed most of the people she knew. My goal was simple: find out what happened to Gerald Parker, and if he was dead, take a sample of his DNA to send back to the Ambrosia Project, then perform a “bioremediation” on the body. It’s a lot of setup, I know. But that’s what you have to understand to get where my demo started. I played two levels of Ambrosia Sky (one at SGF, one at home; both are accessible in the Steam demo available now), but I want to focus on the one I played at SGF. My goal was simple: find out what happened to Gerald Parker, and if he was dead, take a sample of his DNA to send back to the Ambrosia Project, then perform a “bioremediation” on the body. See, Sacarbs can only perform death rituals on people who have consented to having their DNA included in the project; even then, getting a viable sample is tricky. You’ll only get one if the person in question has been dead for less than 48 hours. I entered the area armed with a chemical sprayer and a couple of upgrades built from the ******* Dalia was studying on the Cluster. One essential made my chemical sprayer into a flamethrower – perfect for cleaning out pesky contamination. The other essentially served as an electrical conduit, allowing me to power things like doors by connecting them to anything else that uses electricity. Handy. From the moment I entered, the environment felt hostile. I found bodies that had been overgrown by *******, killed by a disease called clusterlung. Contamination was everywhere. Energized roots charged with electricity covered the walls, spread out like the limbs of an overgrown tree, short-circuiting any electronics they touched. The thick, bulbous roots of the exploder *******, which does exactly what its name implies, wouldn’t hurt me unless I triggered it, but it did block my path. I had to be careful. Spraying indiscriminately risked a lot of things exploding. If I wasn’t careful where I stepped, I’d get zapped for my trouble. I even saw a small alien life form (Dalia muses that she was told all the aliens were wiped out before she was born) that can transform into a small turret and shoot at me. I had to stay alert. But there are other reasons to be careful, too. Dalia is a scientist first and foremost, and like any good scientist, she needs to take samples of the ******* here to understand what it is. That means harvesting it carefully. And that means detaching the fungal fruit (think a mushroom fruit vs. its roots) from the stalk safely, which means precision. I didn’t wanna use my sprayer on the fruit itself. I wanted to sever it from the stalk and then collect it. And the samples I got could be used to upgrade my sprayer later on. The samples I got could be used to upgrade my sprayer later on. As I cleaned and collected samples, I learned more about the cluster and the people who lived there. I read messages from Dalia’s former best friend, Maeve, and notes from Gerald. He sounds rude, perhaps condescending. But Dalia knew him. She was one of the only people he seemed to like. One terminal houses an ominous warning from an anonymous sender, sent to Dalia’s stepmother, Hale, who was in a leadership position on the Cluster. “It sleeps but does not dream,” they write. “If it dreams, its dream will end all of time.” What is it? The *******? Is it true? Neither I nor Dalia know, but we push forward. We are patient. We are careful. I come across an unpowered door. Remembering my sprayer-as-electrical-conduit, I clean out the electrical contamination and connect from a monitor to the door, opening a room with the area’s gravity controls. I switch them off. That opens up the way forward. In zero-gravity, time seems to slow down. I can move more freely, access places blocked by the *******, get into position, and more easily sever the explosive fruit from its stalk without burning everything down. It also allows me to get the most out of Dalia’s tether, which can pull me from place to place or snag fruit out of the air. It’s a nifty tool with the gravity off, but with it on? I’m zoomin’. The farther I get, the more dire the messages on the terminals get. Gerald sends a message to his friend Lorrie telling her to stop the whispering at night. Lorrie tells him it’s not her, it’s the food they’re growing. “It knows we eat it,” she says. As things get worse, and the contamination spreads, I learn Lorrie asked Gerald to leave with her. He refused, and stayed to tend the crops alone. Eventually, I find his unit. The door is open. It’s a small apartment with two floors. As I explore it, I see the remnants of a life. Little decorations, placed with care, that tell me so much in a sparsely furnished space. I find Gerald’s personal terminal. There’s a message from Dalia there that’s fifteen years old, explaining why she had to leave, thanking him for letting her hide in the fields. Dalia can scarcely believe that he saved it. But you never know how what you say or do will resonate with someone else. At last, I meet Gerald. His body is slumped in a chair, overtaken by *******. And the weight of what I’m doing comes back to me. I am retrieving a corpse, someone she knew. And when she greets him, there’s a sadness, an acceptance, in the writing that haunts me. She reads his Last Will, his consent to be part of the Ambrosia Project. He tells us he’s recording this because he has to, and that he doesn’t care what happens to his body because he’ll be dead. “Make moonshine or save humanity. It’s yours now,” he says. We see what happened to him as a series of beautifully illustrated panels that look like they were plucked from a comic book. And then Dalia performs his Death Rite, an organic act of cremation that spreads out from the panels and his body, until everything is covered, and then falls away. It looks like a time-lapse of a tree sprouting leaves after a long winter. It’s beautiful, in a way. Rebirth. Dalia tells Gerald she was able to do this last thing for him. And then she collects his DNA, and I have to leave. I could tell you about the trip back, about how the ******* sprouted at random and hindered my progress and I saw another little alien slug. But my mind, and Dalia’s, I like to think, was still in that room, with Gerald. I knew the way back, but it wasn’t where I was. As I played Ambrosia Sky, the words “thoughtful” and “intimate” came to mind often. It’s a game about a crisis on an agricultural colony, yes, but the stakes are deeply personal, and every part of its design feels grounded in who Dalia is, the work she does, and her personal history. The more I spoke to Soft Rains studio head Joel Burgess and art director Adam Volker during and after my demo, the more I realized how intentional all of it was, and how much work it’s taken to create. The title, Ambrosia Sky, evokes ancient myth. Ambrosia, the food of the gods. In this case, the mushrooms that would allow us to sustain life beyond Earth. Even the title tells part of the story. Burgess told me that he hopes players don’t notice all the work it has taken to put it all together, at least at first. “You want that work to feel invisible. But I hope we make a world and a game that people want to think about, want to spend time in, that lives in their brains well beyond the time that it lives on their screens, to where they then do appreciate the depth, the extra effort that we've put in to make sure that systems work and interact with each other, as well as the characters and their motivations in the world and the setting, and things that exist well beyond the frame of this game,” he said. Based on my time with Ambrosia Sky, I think they may have succeeded. I played a lot of games at Summer Game Fest. But few of them stuck with me like Ambrosia Sky, and none hit me quite as hard in such a short time. I am excited to see what else Soft Rains has in store for us on the Cluster, but one thing is clear: their ambition is great. Like the humanity of Ambrosia Sky, they reach skyward, pursuing a lofty ideal. And I can’t wait to see what else they have to show us among the stars. 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One of the most incredible things about Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is that there are almost endless options for how to play each character. It's been widely accepted among players that certain weapons are better than others, however, and often, some weapons get lost in the woodwork because of the hype around these popular choices. A perfect example of this is related to Maelle's most-used weapon, the Medalum, which has become a topic of great debate among experienced players in terms of Maelle's best weapon in the game. View the full article

On June 23, Call of Duty announced that Mike Judge's Beavis and Butt-Head would appear in the upcoming Season 4 Reloaded update. The teenage duo will seemingly be available as Call of Duty skins that can be used in both ****** Ops 6 and Warzone multiplayer matches, starting with the mid-season refresh. View the full article

Just like in real life, reaching the top of the mountain in PEAK requires some help and some direction. A variety of items in the new co-op climbing indie game can help you reach the mountaintop (or peak, so to speak) such as ropes, food to keep you energized, or a compass to give you a nudge in the right direction. The Pirate's Compass is one of these items, and it's a good one to take with you if you ever come across it in your journey to the peak whether in solo play or co-op play with friends. But first, you need to find it to utilize its usefulness. Here's everything we know so far about the Pirate's Compass in PEAK, what it does, and how to find it. What is Pirate's Compass in PEAK? Screenshot by Destructoid Pirate's Compass is a special item you can find in PEAK that will point you in the direction of the nearest closed luggage bag, which contains loot inside for you to use on your expedition up the mountain. This is a very useful item since it makes searching for luggage bags and their corresponding loot very easy, so if you need to find items like food or any other useful resources, the Pirate's Compass will show you the way. If you find it while scavenging, pick it up to use it and keep on looting to increase your chances of reaching the peak. How to get Pirate's Compass in PEAK Pirate's Compass is a very rare spawn item that can be found within luggage on the map. This means that you need to get lucky within luggage to find it, and then it will help you find more luggage, so you definitely need some good fortune. Since it's an item that spawns rarely because it's so useful, make sure you or a friend picks it up and uses it whenever you find it. Pirate's Compass is just one of many compass types in PEAK. Check out our list here for more information. The post What Pirate’s Compass does in PEAK and how to get it appeared first on Destructoid. View the full article