Around two years ago, a wise council of sages, artificers, and mages from across the realm (a collection of people sometimes called a “game development studio”) met in an officious chamber to discuss how to finish Baldur’s Gate 3, a game that would go on to steal about 200 hours of my life—and gain one of PC Gamer’s highest review scores, period.

That’s according to Larian CEO and co-founder Swen Vincke himself, as per a recent post to Twitter. In it, Vincke shows the hallowed halls in which the game developer held a summit yesterday: “2 years ago we came to this exact place to discuss how to finish BG3. This time around it’s to discuss lift off. Spirits are high, morale is good, expecting a flooding any minute now.”

As for exactly what that game is, we’re only a…

Myst is a divisive game, to put it mildly. It helped drive widespread adoption of CD-ROM drives and for years reigned as the best-selling videogame of all time, but it’s also widely derided for its static vistas and obtuse puzzles. I loved it; PC Gamer contributor Richard Cobbett, on the other hand, once described it as the videogame equivalent of chugging a big mouthful of orange juice right after brushing your teeth.

If you’re not sure where you fall on that particular love-it-or-hate-it spectrum, here’s a great chance to find out: the Myst and More Redux collection from Humble Bundle, which includes just about every Myst game ever made, plus a few others from developer Cyan Worlds. For a minimum of $10, you get:

• Myst: Masterpiece Edition
• realMyst: Mastesrpiec…
  

Even in the wake of its sequel, Crusader Kings 2 remains my most-played game on Steam, having swallowed a full 585 hours of my life since it released all the way back in 2012. To be honest? It’s a bit of a cakewalk these days. I’m so familiar with the game and all its systems that it’s not long in any campaign before I’m ruling over all of Europe with some kind of semi-immortal dynasty of genetically perfect demigods. 

Is there anyone out there who can help add some challenge back into one of my favourite games of all time? Can anything be done to make the trials and travails of ruling Europe a bit more trialling and travailing?

Introducing Leper Roulette, a crime from CK2 modder Gembleton. 

Gembleton is relatively taciturn in the description for Leper Roulet…

There’s no way you’re going to lose Wordle on a Friday, not now you’re here. Skip straight to today’s answer if you’ve got no time for games, or take your time with our hint for the August 23 (1161) puzzle if you just need to make those first few guesses really count. It’s your game—enjoy it your way.

Wait, where did the Wordle go? I seemed to solve today’s game so fast that the letters tumbled off my keyboard before I’d even really thought them through. I think I’m about as shocked as I am pleased with myself for that. Hopefully, you’ve had a similar experience—or are about to, thanks to our help.

Today’s Wordle hint

Wordle today: A hint for Friday, August 23

Today’s answer describes a squishy bloodsucking parasite, or someone who ac…

AI has been getting all up in our search results for a while now, with dubious results. While Google’s AI Overviews feature had a rocky reception—what with it recommending you drink urine and all—it’s not the only search engine that’s been experimenting with a good dose of AI on its search pages.

Microsoft introduced LLM-powered chat answers to Bing early last year, and now it’s started experimenting with a “new generative search experience” for a small percentage of user queries (via The Verge). Some users searching for the query “What is a spaghetti western”, for example, are now greeted with a page that not only puts an AI box front and center, but adds sourcing information for the AI result underneath, squeezing the more traditional search results list off to the s…

Ultrawide gaming monitors can be found for very reasonable prices these days, but you still need to be careful with the specs sheets when looking for the best deal. Ideally you want to pick a trusted brand with a good refresh rate, some useful features, and excellent specs before laying down your cash, even on a budget.

Which makes this LG UltraGear QHD 34-inch ultrawide a bit of a stunner, as it ticks all the right boxes for a great budget curved gaming monitor and you can pick one up right now for $250 on Amazon as part of its gaming week sale.

Specs wise, it’s got a lot going for it. With a 160 Hz refresh rate (overclocked), a 3440 x 1440 resolution and FreeSync Premium for VRR support, it’s got the ability to rapidly fire quality frames at your eyeballs across that 34-in…

The Instagram account shared by miniatures game designer Bryan Ansell and his wife Diane has announced that he died at home with his family on December 30, 2023. He was 68 years old.

Ansell is known as the founder of Citadel, the miniatures arm of Games Workshop, which he created in 1978. At the time Games Workshop distributed and supported roleplaying games in Europe, as well as documenting them in its magazine White Dwarf. The creation of Citadel was followed by the wargame Warhammer Fantasy Battle, designed to make use of its line of miniatures. Warhammer’s success led to Ansell becoming managing director of Games Workshop and eventually shifting its focus entirely onto the tabletop wargaming hobby, which it still dominates today.

As a designer, Ansell was responsible for…

A couple of years back I had the pleasure of being part of the judging panel for Cooler Master’s Case Mod World Series (CMWS), a PC building contest that, frankly, blew my humble PC building sensibilities out of the water. Since then, the company has been working on bringing a couple of gaming PC designs to market based on design entries from the contest.

The results are the Cooling X and Sneaker X systems, both of which really seem to capture the wild and wonderful essence of the CMWS.

Both coming in as compact designs, the Sneaker X is a literal shoe design with high-end components packed into a Mini-ITX case that’s just 650 x 306 x 651mm / 25.6 x 12.0 x 25.6 inches in size. 

The Cooling X is a little larger at 266 x 149.4 x 371.6 mm / 10.5 x 5.9 x 14.6 inches, …

We recently got to see a full 20-minute quest walkthrough from Skywind, the mod recreating Morrowind in Skyrim. Earlier in the year, we saw four hours of Skyblivion, the mod recreating Oblivion in Skyrim, which is due out in 2025. But did you know about Skygerfall?

As the name suggests, Skygerfall is a recreation of Daggerfall, the second mainline Elder Scrolls RPG, which was originally released in 1996. Unlike the mods bringing back more recent games it’s been finalized, with a small patch earlier this year to fix some meshes bringing it up to version 1.10.

Skygerfall is a more modest mod than either Skywind or Skyblivion. It’s not aiming to bring the entirety of Daggerfall into Skyrim’s engine, just the main questline. Which is still significant—a 20-hour romp across…