Instead, you should only really consider the RTX 3090 if you’re a professional media type who needs their graphics card to do more than just play games, as the actual benefit you’re getting over the RTX 3080 when it comes to gaming is surprisingly small. It’s certainly not enough to warrant the eye-watering jump in price right now - and that’s if you can find one that’s even on sale right now, as Nvidia’s ongoing stock shortages for both the RTX 3090 and RTX 3080 don’t show any signs of abating....

I say Octopath Traveler 2 was a surprise announcement, but it’d actually leaked on ResetEra just before the Nintendo Direct stream began earlier this afternoon. The leaked image, taken from a GreenManGaming store page, showed pre-purchase options for Steam versions of Octopath Traveler 2. It’s not yet clear whether it will be available from other PC storefronts just yet, though, as Squeenix only mention Steam in their official blog post....

Despite the variety, it’s a slight game - but hey, it’s also free. Here’s how it works: every gun you pick up with have a set of properties. A gun with the “Spider-Queen” trait will launch spiders, while a gun with the “Editorial” trait will launch words - actual text - at enemies. “Spelunking” makes it dark, “Big” just means the gun model is very large, “Golden” means it kills in one hit, and so on....

Whether it’s been though software updates or the discovery of hitherto unseen capabilities, the Steam Deck is already a more versatile and user-friendly device than it was a few short weeks ago. At the same time, I’ve been getting more familiar with the hardware’s limits, and finding out how to make the most of what’s there. There’s still a months-long waiting list to buy one, but if you’re weighing up whether to order yourself a Steam Deck, here are the lessons I’ve learnt from my time with it....

Note: All the articles in this guide series refer to specific boss fights and other secrets hidden within. You have been warned. Contents Ori And The Will Of The Wisps guide Tips for exploring Spirit shard skill tips Combat tips Ori And The Will Of The Wisps guides series Ori And The Will Of The Wisps guide Ori And The Will Of The Wisps is a singleplayer 2D platformer where there’s a massive world to explore with secrets hidden within, you must fight or flee from massive monsters, and undergo a fair bit of backtracking to old areas to uncover new routes....

But even so, for each of the 35 heroes on offer, they’ll have a harder time against certain enemies than others. And while it’s possible to defeat any hero no matter who you play as, changing your hero on the fly to combat the enemy’s team composition is a very important skill to learn if you want to consistently win matches in Overwatch 2. Below you can take a look at our very own Overwatch 2 counters chart, which shows you which heroes you should pick to give you the best chance against any of the 35 characters in the roster....

Overwatch: Cities And Countries is being released on several streaming platforms throughout various regions today - though so far I’ve only seen it on Spotify and YouTube. Blizzard are a bit vague as to where else it’ll pop up, but say to keep an eye on this for info. Overwatch is never a game I think of when I’m looking for game soundtracks to have on in the background, but listening to this it’s just dawned on me how good the OST really is....

The Treasure Of The Midnight Isles can be taken on as a standalone roguelike experience or played as part of the game’s campaign, Owlcat say. The expansion is set in an archipelago rammed to the gills with booty to loot. Just keep that one un-patched eye out for monsters who’ll try to stop you pillaging it. To get to the Midnight Isles, you’ll have to board a weird osteological nightmare of a sailing vessel that may just be cursed....

But what is DirectStorage really, and how does it differ from Nvidia’s recently announced RTX IO, which promises a very similar thing for the new RTX 3070, RTX 3080 and RTX 3090 cards? Read on below for everything you need to know. If, like me, you’ve been wondering why SSDs are apparently going to do so much more for the PS5 and Xbox Series X than what they’ve currently done for us in PC land so far, it’s all to do with the state of our current storage APIs....

On this page: The shop with the red sign Where to get compression sleeve materials Where to get compression sleeve materials How to complete Ryuji’s ramen request Ryuji can be found in Sapporo’s town hanging out with Ann. He’ll be super excited to go to Migoku and get that legendary ramen, but apparently it’s sold out already! Damn. It must be good. Not to worry though - there’s an alternative way to get meal tickets, and here’s how....

[jump scare] Damn otters! The new map has been teased on Twitter by developer KineticGames, using images so dark that you could lose your mind staring into them. But if you squint, you can see a mess hall, an exercise yard, a visiting room, and an infirmary. I’ve enhanced them a little for your viewing pleasure. You’re welcome. I’ve only played on the small maps so far, but this one is going to be medium sized and looks rather open....

Get a Gigabyte RX 6900 XT for £899 (£100 below RRP) The RX 6900 XT was recently eclipsed by the RX 6950 XT*, but it still offers better value than the new card and RTX 3090-level performance in many rasterised games - you ought to be targeting high refresh rate 1440p gaming or 4K monitors with this level of graphics performance. As usual, ray tracing performance is not as strong as on its closest Nvidia equivalent, but the recent addition of FSR 2....

Nate can’t actually be here for this write-up, because he is very selfishly on holiday. Don’t worry, I’ll do the voices. As usual, we’ve got five attempts. We’re off! I’m so eager to embrace the skies that I wind up plunging directly into the whirring blades of a helicopter, which someone has already managed to start spinning up beneath me. Nate fares a little better, actually managing to make contact with the ground - for about two seconds, before the helicopter pilot pops out and shoots him....

The rest of the update is mostly bug fixes, fixing issues with the Model Viewer and Face Poser not opening, and demo playback not working for Workshop maps, among others. But lifting the file size limit is a good thing. Portal 2 has received a bunch of substantial mods over the years, including last month’s Portal Reloaded, which added a time travel portal (!) and 25 new puzzles. I am up for anything which encourages mod makers to increase their ambitions even further....

If you missed its reveal during the Nvidia GeForce RTX 40 series launch event, Portal with RTX is free DLC for Portal that adds both fully ray traced lighting/reflection effects and DLSS upscaling support. The latter includes DLSS 3, so if you’ve early-adopted an RTX 4090 or RTX 4080, you’ll also be able to use the latest version’s new frame generation function to boost framerates even higher. And that’s rarely a bad thing when demanding RT effects are having the opposite effect....

Behaviour Interactive first revealed Meet Your Maker last August, and it’s something of a departure for the developer best known for Dead By Daylight. Set in a sci-fi world where every living thing that’s still left is after “pure genetic material” – whatever that actually means – you have to nab said resource to give to your pet Chimera. Chimeras are experiments created to save life on Earth, so that’s your motivation right there....

So there you are, a fella in a straitjacket, who wakes in a terrible carnival that’s home to a woman who keeps throwing herself down a bottomless well, strange folks including a telepathic starfish and a living mermaid, and a terrible darkness. Sounds like a place for some story-o-puzzling alright. As Primordia did, Strangeland will have multiple endings and multiple puzzle solutions. The store blurb explains, “one player might win a carnival game with sharpshooting, another by electrical engineering; one player might unravel a strange prophet’s wordplay while another gathers visual clues scattered throughout the environment....

Here’s that trailer with the, admittedly, pretty cool song he’s done for it: The inside of Jack Black’s brain is more psychedelic than I thought it would be. He isn’t just a musician for the game, though. The devs say he actually plays “a mysterious ball of light” that helps the player on their mission. That’s a good one for the ol’ CV. Jack Black has been pally with Double Fine since starring in Brutal Legend....

There’s still some time before Yakuza: Like A Dragon punches an RPG-shaped hole in the series proper this November. Until then, though, there’s a slightly more pixellated Yakuza game to tide you over, in the form of side-scrolling beat ’em up Streets Of Kamurocho. Developed by Empty Clip Studios (who have form on this stuff, creating a similar demake for Dead Island) Kamurocho reimagines Yakuza as a Streets Of Rage 2 inspired punch up....

After a brief tease last week, Ubisoft delivered the full dossier on Team Rainbow’s newest recruits. He’s Oryx, a living battering-ram with a heart of cold. She’s Iana, an out-of-this-world gal who can’t be pinned down. Together, they’re Operation: Void Edge’s regular odd-couple. New defender Oryx (not the Destiny lad) is an athletic powerhouse from Jordan. His main gadget, if you can call it that, is “Rebar Bash” - a brutal dash that can tear through barricades, unreinforced walls and knock opponents to the ground....