The voice actors behind Baldur’s Gate 3‘s origin characters—Astarion, Gale, Karlach, Shadowheart, Wyll, and Lae’zel—gathered for a two-episode D&D game that was livestreamed this past weekend. An hour into the first 160-minute episode, I can confidently recommend it to fans of our favorite new RPG. I don’t know if I’ll make get to the end of the whole session anytime soon, but it’s a charming bit of fan service. Replays are available on YouTube, Twitch, and as podcasts.

After calling on Baldur’s Gate 3’s narrator, Amelia Tyler, to set up the scenario with an uncannily-good script read, DM Mark Hulmes smoothly introduces the actors to the game, keeping things snappy by prompting them with ideas for actions without overdirecting, and succinctly expla…

When I meet with Jonathan Knight, Head of Games for the New York Times, I have one big, burning question:

“What’s your Wordle streak?”

He takes out his phone to check. “I’m at 184 right now,” says Knight, who before joining the New York Times worked as a producer at EA, Activision, Zynga, and Warner Bros. “Every day for me, it gets more and more stressful. I’ve been stressed out lately playing Wordle.”

I know the stress of trying to keep a streak alive, and I lament that my own Wordle streak was recently up to 87, but I blew it—not because I got a word wrong but because one day I completely forgot to open the app. Miss a day, and your streak resets to zero.

“I know the feeling,” Knight tells me. “That’s why I’m only at 184 even though I’ve been playing it f…

4/1/2024: It looks like Super Earth celebrated too soon. Reports of massive, cloaked gunships in the skies of Automaton planets are appearing online. I’ve seen them for myself. Liberty help us all. 4/2/2024: They’re here, and it’s even worse than we imagined. Gigantic AT-AT walkers and swarming gunships have arrived on Automaton planets.

Victory is ours… already? Just hours after Super Earth initiated a major order to finally, once and for all, liberate community-favorite planet Malevalon Creek, Helldivers 2 players have delivered. Our greatest defeat can now be celebrated as one of our greatest achievements. The news became official with an in-game dispatch, as well as a rare Twitter announcement from the official Helldiv…

For those of you still trucking on with 8GB of RAM, I have some potentially bad news. According to a TrendForce report (via TechPowerUp) Microsoft has set a new baseline for RAM requirements in AI PCs at 16GB, which likely means that 8GB users may finally have to upgrade if they want to keep up with the latest Copilot features. 

This looks like good news for DRAM manufacturers at the very least, but for those of you that have been content to run on 8GB up until now and might be thinking to yourselves that you don’t really care for Copilot or AI features anyway, may I suggest that now might be the time to upgrade regardless?

While you might be content to let the integration of AI features in your OS pass you by (and to be honest, given the utility as things stand I would…

Mini PCs have a dedicated following. Count me among them! When news came that Intel was handing over the reins of its NUC (Next Unit of Computing) business to Asus, I was definitely intrigued by the possibilities. Consumers aren’t the only market for NUCs though, as Asus is courting commercial and enterprise clients with custom NUC devices designed for a wide variety of use cases.

The Register spoke with Asus senior vice president Jacky Hsu, who outlined plans Asus has to develop custom machines for various commercial customers. This includes embedded, industrial and application specific use cases across such diverse roles as digital signage, point-of-sale, cloud, AI or warehouse and factory applications, each of which have their own environmental considerations.

When we thi…

One of my biggest trivial complaints in life is that there’s a severe lack of fashionable gaming merch. Shapeless t-shirts with a design slapped on the front of them have their place, of course, but I’ve always longed for something a little more. Like Final Fantasy 14 fat cat sneakers, perhaps? Or even a fat cat hoodie? Well, an upcoming Puma collection is doing just that.

The sportswear brand is teaming up with the critically acclaimed MMORPG, putting its own panther-y spin on some classic motifs from across Eorzea. The collection’s been made to honour the game’s upcoming 10th anniversary—of its re-release, anyway—and has been aptly named A Wardrobe Reborn. There’s a little bit of everything here—sneakers, sweatpants, hoodies, hats and more. 

Most of …

It’s been a rough few weeks for Workers and Resources: Soviet Republic, the hardcore Soviet city builder from Slovak studio 3Division. Back in mid-February, the studio announced that the game had been removed from Steam after a former “respected member of the community” filed a DMCA request against the game. His reason? He was convinced that the devs had ripped off a guide he had written for the game—Cosmonaut Mode—when they added a “realistic mode” to the game in December last year.

The fan—reportedly a lawyer—began to make legal threats to the team, as well as copyright strikes against Workers and Resources’ YouTube channel. After that didn’t get his desired response, he simply filed a DMCA request against the game itself on Steam. 3Division said the take…

Turn your daily Wordle game into a sure thing with our extensive range of tips and guides. Make the most of every guess with our general advice, take a peek at the May 14 (694) clue if you’d like a little pointer in the right direction, or secure your win with today’s Wordle answer—it’s entirely up to you.

Three greens, two gaps—how hard could it be? Well. This turned out to be one of the most nerve-wracking games I’ve had all week. The letters kept falling, and not a single new green or yellow was in sight. I finally got there on the very last go, but I’m still not sure how I managed to win at today’s Wordle.  

Today’s Wordle hint

A Wordle hint for Sunday, May 14

Often (but not always) made of wool, this length of mater…

The UK government has issued a response to a petition filed by the Stop Killing Games campaign, and it’s probably not what organizers were hoping to hear. The Department of Culture, Media and Sport said videogame companies must comply with existing consumer laws, but also noted that there is no law compelling them to support older versions of their products.

Stop Killing Games came together earlier this year, catalyzed by Ubisoft’s decision to end online support for The Crew, rendering the 10-year-old racing game unplayable because of its online requirements. Founder Ross Scott is hoping that pressure from gamers will convince governments to impose laws requiring game makers to ensure games are left in a playable state when online support is ended, very generally by removing any d…