According to the blog post, the update will bring new “items, maps, taunts, unusual effects, war paints and who knows what else?!” The past few summer updates have primarily been focused on items, so fans can sink their teeth into something a bit more chunky this time. Valve were quick to point out that this isn’t a “summer-themed” update though - unless you want it to be. Yes, Valve also requested submissions from Steam Workshop creators to have their work considered for the “as-yet-unnamed” update....

Let’s start with the Nuzlocke game mode because I like Pokémon and think it’s cool. The Nuzlocke Challenge is a player-created set of rules whereby every time one of your monsters gets knocked out in battle, you have to consider them dead and release them back into the wild. It’s basically like a super hard version of the game. For Temtem, the Nuzlocke mode will be on a different instance of the server, so you’ll only play amongst other Nuzlockers on your journey....

Temtem Valash guide By reading this Valash Temtem guide, we will tell you when you get Valash as a gift and show you the exact location for hunting down more of this powerful Temtem. There will also be some descriptions about this creature’s base stats, and the complete move set as of the Early Access period. There are quite a few Crystal other types in the area you find this Temtem, including one of the starters, so be sure to check out the rest of the Temtem list to see what else is available....

We all love the physical quality of board games, but there are lots of reasons why digital board games are sometimes better. First of all, you don’t have to spend ages setting it all up, everything is already set for you - meeples, tokens, dice, and all. Another benefit is the price. Dropping a bunch of cash on a board game you’re not sure you’ll like will make your wallet cry, so digital games are a great way to play for cheap but also a way of testing the waters....

I honestly don’t know if we can top this part of our road trip, because so much gosh darned stuff happens. It was very exciting. Sometimes a little scary (BB may have let off more than a few worry farts in the shape of hearts along the way), but we got through it. So without further ado, please enjoy Part IV of my BB Boys Road Trip.

There’s a fair amount of complexity to armor and gear sets in The Witcher 3. Below we’ve laid out all the essential information to get you up to speed on the basic ideas behind gear sets, before walking you through our rankings for each set. The Witcher 3 best armor and gear explained Before we get stuck into the details of each of the best armor sets in The Witcher 3, here are the essential need-to-know facts about how armor and gear works:...

The above trailer was shown during this evening’s Xbox showcase at Gamescom 2021. (You can find a roundup of all of the games shown here.) It shows glimpses of exploration starring the game’s protagonist, Rani, as she explores an alient planet being overrun by a substance that looks like black lava lamp slime. You’ll be hoovering it up as you move through the planet’s different biomes, and restoring the ecosystem in the process....

Currently, over 500 games, animations and toys have been collected in The Internet Archive’s software collection, and archivist Jason Scott reckons there’ll be more than 1000 over the next day or so. The Internet Archive isn’t the first or only project trying to collect as much Flash content as possible. The Flash Game Archive and Flashpoint launcher are both saving as many games and animations as they can, too. With those, however, you’ll need to download software to be able to access their libraries, whereas The Internet Archive lets you do it all right from your browser....

Who are the enthusiasts who wade into the secrets of a game on behalf of other players? What are their motivations and expectations? And how do developers feel about the short-work illumination of their years of work? To see how the dynamic between an active community and a game’s developers can play out, I decided to speak to the principal creator of this year’s brilliant “sad tamagotchi” game The Longing, as well as the two creators of its most visited guides....

The developers really were vague about technovisual changes as they announced the Xbox Xeries X and PlayStation 5 releases: Okay. No word yet on when the next-gen version is arriving either. But they are clear that this fancied-up next-gen release will come as a standalone game “as well as a free update for everyone who already owns the game on PC, Xbox One and PlayStation 4.” I’d expect visual improvements to carry over to PC (hell, even Fortnite is adding ray tracing), though might be a bit warier of seeing the same load time improvements cos next-gen consoles have fancy bespoke drive setups....

Get the MSI Optix MAG272CQR for £299 (was £379) So why is this spec - and this particular monitor - so good? Well, for years the ‘default’ monitor was pretty straightforward - around 24 inches, 1080p and 60Hz. Now, you get a fair bit more for your money: a slightly larger 27-in screen, a higher 1440p resolution and a faster refresh rate of 165Hz. That means, assuming your computer is up to the task, you’ll get an image that’s larger, has better spatial resolution and better temporal resolution - or to say it another way, it’ll be bigger, sharper and smoother....

A lot of Valve’s recent marketing seems to be following a single directorial note - “louder” - but this got a couple of laughs from me, and it’s Gabe who, mostly without saying anything, steals the show. The Cave Johnson Announcer Pack will release on November 3rd as part of Battle Pass: Part 2. The battle pass, as always, is a reward track you can buy into and then progress along through play or purchases....

“The idea of this mod is to bring a little more life to a game I love,” Gervig91 says on the mod page for Animated Furniture and Stuff. They say that so far they’ve mostly animated the items that they personally prefer using but will consider creating additions by popular request. Seriously, look at the golden pumpkin. I just want to put it on a pedestal in my house now....

Get the Samsung CRG9 ultrawide for £699 (was £1099) When Katharine reviewed the Odyssey G9 earlier this year, she noted that while the new monitor was impressive, she actually preferred the HDR experience she got from the earlier CRG9 - the topic of today’s deals post. There’s actually very little to separate the two monitors, with the main difference being a refresh rate of 240Hz on the new model and 120Hz on the old....

Get the Lenovo Legion 5 for $1269 Lenovo have been making excellent gaming laptops for the past few years, as Katharine found out when she tested the desktop replacement Legion 7i last year. She said “everything about this laptop just feels perfectly matched, which deserves to be celebrated when so many of its rivals tend to fall prey to needless excess… the RGB lighting might be a tad over the top, admittedly, but the rest of its design feels sleek and modern and pleasingly low-key....

Get a Palit RTX 3080 graphics card for £860 (save £740) The RTX 3080 is likely a card you’re already familiar with if you clicked on this post, but it’s worth bearing in mind exactly where this card stacks up compared to the RTX 3080 Ti, which is available at Scan for £1049. Katharine’s RTX 3080 Ti review showed results around 10% ahead for the Ti over the vanilla 3080, so you’d expect to pay around 10% more for it....

A viking by the name of “KodaichiZero” has created a Valheim mod aptly titled, “Give ‘Em The Boot”, which imbues your foot “with the power of a true warrior”. Namely, it gives your unarmed kick increased and scaling knockback, alongside an upwards trajectory. Before you get too excited, this mod isn’t going to give you Final Boss Wayne Rooney levels of leg strength. You won’t be able to send trolls shooting into the stratosphere, or boars into the sun....

Get the Samsung 980 NVMe SSD for £89.54 (£27 off) It was only recently that 1TB NVMe SSDs broke under the £100 barrier, so it’s a treat to see one £10 below that threshold while still being capable of 3500MB/s read speeds and 3300MB/s write speeds - much faster sequential speeds than the first crop of budget NVMe SSDs which were in the 2000-2400MB/s range. Katharine liked the Samsung 980 when she tested it earlier this year, pointing out that it very much did well in terms of performance, but it was priced a little bit too high to strongly recommend....

The trick was first performed by a deaf skater named Chris Weddle in 1981, who, at the time, was referred to by some as the “quiet, mute guy”. But deaf and mute and two very different things, so to better honour his legacy, it’ll now be known as the “Weddle grab”. Tony Hawk himself took to Instagram to explain the story, touching on the importance of deaf representation in games and skating....

In this guide, we’ll break down how to defeat the Librarian in Tunic, so that you can get the green key and complete the Ruined Atoll. How to defeat the Librarian in Tunic The Librarian mostly hovers around the edge of the arena, and tends to use the 5 attacks listed below: Energy wave: The Librarian raises their sword into the air before slashing in the direction of the player....