It seems like everything these days is moving towards a subscriber model, rather than owning outright. From endless streaming subscriptions to coffee, printer ink, and perhaps even a gaming mouse, it seems like it’s in a company’s best interests to nickel and dime your bank account—rather than gobbling big chunks of it when you make a substantial purchase.

NZXT’s Flex subscription program allows you to rent that most hallowed of objects, a decently-well-specced gaming pc, in exchange for delicious monthly instalments (via The Verge). According to NZXT’s newly-announced specs, for $59 a month (plus a $50 setup and shipping fee), you can be the proud not-really owner of a Player: One Core i5 14400F equipped gaming PC with an RTX 4060 handling the graphics duties.

That eq…

Info unearthed by SteamDB’s Pavel Djundik in March pointed to a significant Steam update in the works, one that would include a way for players to take their own “game notes” as well as changing the way notifications work. Valve has now officially announced those features, and several more, pushing them live in the current Steam client beta.

As Valve’s Steam desktop update explains, the in-game overlay has been overhauled “completely”. The thing that pops up when you press shift-tab to check what that achievement you just earned was about (or have a cheeky look at a guide), now has a toolbar with separate sections for “friends chat, achievements progress, guides, discussions, a browser, and more.” You can pin any of those windows so they remain visible while you’re playing too, ju…

The famed dwarf-em-up dynasties sim Dwarf Fortress has been enjoying something of a second wind ever since its release on Steam, with its creators finally receiving plenty of richly deserved mountain gold and hunkering down to a regular update cycle for the ‘new’ release. Dwarf Fortress being Dwarf Fortress, it gets some pretty good patch notes. And today’s theme is babies.

The baby update brings “sprites for children and babies for many of the creatures and outdoor plants. This also includes dragon hatchings!” So I’m guessing that capturing then raising your own dragon will be the sign of a true baller fortress now. It is undeniably neat, and completely in-keeping with how this game is designed, that the plants get their own babies too, with crops now sprouting before they…

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Stalker 2’s long journey to launch has once again been extended, unfortunately. The last delay pushed it back to September, and while GSC Game World seemed pretty confident that it could hit that at the time, technical issues have necessitated another one, this time to November 20. 

“We know you might be tired of waiting, and we truly appreciate your patience,” says Yevhen Grygorovych, GSC CEO and game director. “These two additional months will give us the chance to fix more ‘unexpected anomalies’ (or simply ‘bugs’, as you call them). We are always grateful for your ongoing support and understanding—it means the world to us. We’re just as eager as you are to finally release the game and for you to experience it for yourself.”

The reasoning is simi…

Sony confirmed in December 2022 that the previously-PS5 exclusive Returnal would be released for PC in early 2023, and it wasn’t kidding: Today it announced that the sci-fi roguelike will finally come our way on February 15.

The Returnal launch date comes alongside more information about a range of PC-specific features that have been added to the game, including support for Nvidia DLSS and AMD FSR, and Nvidia Image Scaling. Returnal on PC will also support ray traced reflections (the original PS5 version that released in 2021 only supports ray traced shadows), and 21:9 (ultrawide) and 32:9 (super ultrawide) display resolutions. Controllers are recommended but keyboard and mouse are fully supported, “with a wide range of customisation options to tailor the controls to whatever suit…