Laysara: Summit Kingdom”

I’ve almost lost count of all the interesting-looking city builders coming in 2023: medieval strategy Manor Lords, urban city builder Cities: Skylines 2, and dark fantasy colony sim Gord are all due out later this year—and maybe (hopefully?) societal city builder Frostpunk 2 will join them too, though we haven’t gotten official word on that yet. 

Then there’s Laysara: Summit Kingdom, which is maybe the most interesting of the bunch because it just looks so cool. The city builder has an exceedingly neat twist: you’re building your city on the steep cliffs of a mountaintop rising out of the clouds. Along with hazards like avalanches that can bury your town Read more

So, this is a weird one. Tucked away near the bottom of today’s Destiny 2 weapon changes preview is a note about scout rifles. It reads: “Long Arm was inadvertently receiving the damage bonus vs minors for Exotics, so we’ve addressed that.” Doesn’t sound like a big deal unless you’re familiar with the nitty gritty of Destiny 2 damage values, but the upshot is that Long Arm was getting a free 40% bonus against all rank and file enemies in the game, which should have made it an easy meta pick in hard activities where even minor mobs have thick health bars.

[Update: I asked Bungie how long the bug has been in place, and they told me it’s been there since the start of Season 19, which means December 9 when the gun became available as part of the Spire of the Watcher loot table.…

Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine has resulted in an exodus of foreign industries from the country, as Western nations unite in applying sanctions on the Putin regime. The games industry is one of the more prominent, with almost every major player now having withdrawn from Russia and closed any regional offices there. What’s an ordinary Russian to do when they can’t get their gaming fix? Pirate it, comrade.

This is an area where accurate figures are close to impossible, but it’s fair to say that Russia more generally has a reputation for software piracy, one established long before the current war in Ukraine. A new study by the Russian game development collective and college School XYZ suggests that it’s getting worse as companies withdraw from the market, with seven out…

I don’t know if we’ll ever get another Sekiro game, but FromSoftware’s 2019 ninja sim lives on in everybody cribbing off its notes. We’ve already seen fellow soulslikes Wo Long and Lies of P borrow its signature moves, and the Resident Evil 4 Remake used a Sekiro-style parry system to great effect. But it feels like a whole new frontier altogether to see RPG old guards BioWare and Obsidian spice up their upcoming games with some of Sekiro’s signature moves.

For a quick rundown of what I’m talking about, I’d say Sekiro’s big innovations over Dark Souls were its emphasis on parrying over dodging, and its stagger meter in parallel to player and enemy HP. The former lent this wonderfully crisp, satisfying cadence to the combat (and was critically more forgiving than Dark Souls’ parrie…

For the most part, Windows 11 isn’t a bad operating system, even if its adoption rate is slower than Microsoft would like. Its system demands means it requires a relatively beefy system to run, and it comes with more than its fair share of bloatware crap.

Thanks to the release of a new version of Tiny11 builder, it’s possible to create a de-bloated Windows 11 image from any Windows 11 release, allowing you to free up system resources for the apps you actually want to use.

Tiny11 Builder is a free tool created by NTDEV. It’s been around for some time, but was limited to specific Windows builds. The new version (spotted by Neowin) allows you to use it with any Windows 11 version, as well as any language or architecture. This ability to take control of your Windows comes as a r…

 Pathfinder’s answer to the Open Gaming License, dubbed the Open RPG Creative License or ORC License, has been completed and released for public use. Created in direct response to Wizards of the Coast’s pretty nefarious attempts to clamp down on the use of its Open Gaming License to its own profit, the ORC license is designed to be “a system-agnostic, perpetual, and irrevocable open gaming license” that allows any game to create a safe environment for collaboration.  

 The Dungeons & Dragons OGL controversy

• For over 20 years, the Open Gaming License has allowed other companies to make D&D-based products freely.  
• In January, Wizards of the Coast tried to introduce a new OGL that gave them royalties and greater control, and revoke th…
  Read more

Watch On

The Fable reboot is getting closer: A new trailer released during today’s Xbox Games Showcase revealed that it’s finally set to arrive sometime in 2025.

It’s been a long way for the new Fable. It was first announced in 2020, and we got a story-focused trailer in 2023 with a barebones setup: “With a dark threat looming, and in a world where your reputation precedes you, your choices will change Albion forever.” 

Aside from that, though, it’s been pretty much radio silence from Microsoft and new developer Playground Games, the studio behind the Forza Horizon series.

Xbox boss Phil Spencer did say in 2021 that we’ll be playing the new Fable before The Elder Scrolls 6, but let’s be honest, that’s a pretty low bar.

The trailer revealed today has a simila…

Let’s get Friday’s Wordle sorted. Give yourself the best start possible with our clue for the July 26 (1133) puzzle, and then use our tips to squeeze every last drop out of your follow-up guesses. Need something a little more direct? That’s exactly what today’s answer is for. Just give it a click, and enjoy your win.

It didn’t take too long to uncover a useful core set of green letters today, the only problem was working out what the heck to do with them. Nothing I tried seemed to fit, and I ended up going through the entire alphabet before I finally found the Wordle answer I’d been looking for.

Today’s Wordle hint

Wordle today: A hint for Friday, July 26

Anything that is completely covered or flooded with something could be called today’s answ…

Let’s make finding those green Wordle letters easy. Feel free to use our general tips if you’d like to improve your daily puzzle-solving, or take a look at today’s hint if you need something more direct. And if those winning letters still aren’t showing up, don’t be afraid to click through to the August 13 (1151) Wordle answer.

Picture the scene: I’m two guesses down the board, and I have enough clues to win. I’ve got a great green in place, and two strong yellow letters waiting to take their correct spots. The third go left me with the last two letters to find. Perfect. And then… nothing. My head emptied, and it took a heck of a lot of brow-furrowing before I spotted the answer right in front of me. Oops.

Today’s Wordle hint

Wordle today: A hint…

Read more