But Shroud man, Shroud is different. [Twitch chat is] trying to make you laugh, or they’re trying to piss you off. And if they’re trying to piss you off, you should laugh. They’re trying to make you laugh, or they’re trying to piss you off. And if they’re trying to piss you off, you should laugh.”

With the failure of the arena shooter LawBreakers behind it and Radical Heights apparently unable to gain a sizable enough playerbase, Cliff Bleszinski has announced that Boss Key Productions is being closed. “Four years ago I set out to make a world-class videogame studio and I hired some of the best talent in the videogame industry. They worked tirelessly to produce quality products and, while we had our ups and downs, I’d like to think we had fun doing it,” Bleszinski wrote. Bleszinski said h

(Image: © Intel)Over the years, Intel has insisted that Moore’s Law is alive and well, even when others have declared it dead. This notion was echoed two years ago when Intel CEO Brian Krzanich talked about how Moore’s Law was still driving the company’s efforts as it worked towards increasingly smaller manufacturing processes. “In my 34 years in the semiconductor industry, I have witnessed the advertised death of Moore’s Law no less than four times. “Intel’s industry leadership of Moore’s Law r

A company called Wasabi Mango has released the world’s first commercially available 4K monitor with a 120Hz resolution, beating some established players to the punch, including Acer, Asus, LG, and Samsung. It’s a large size 43-inch monitor with a simple ‘UHD430’ model name. It has two DisplayPort 1.4 connectors, which support 4K at 120Hz (the DisplayPort 1.4 spec also supports 8K at 60Hz), plus three HDMI 2.0 ports, a Toslink optical audio output, and a USB port. It also lacks G-Sync support. If

When AMD launched its second generation Ryzen processors, we said there would probably be some good deals on first-gen parts as vendors look to make room for the new stuff. Sure enough, today you can score a Ryzen 7 1700 at Rakuten (formerly Buy.com) for just $192.09. However, applying coupon code SAVE15 at checking knocks 15 percent off, which gets you to the $192.09 price point with free shipping. The Ryzen 7 1700 is an 8-core/16-thread processor with a 3GHz base clock and 3.7GHz turbo clock,

One of them is a curved 34-inch all-in-one, which HP pitches as the world’s widest AIO. HP isn’t sharing too many detailed specs just yet, basically only revealing that it features Intel’s 8th generation Core T-series processor lineup and up to GeForce GTX 1050 graphics. Beyond the new AIO, HP also introduced several new EliteBook and Envy laptops. The EliteBook 1050 G1, for example, is being billed as “the world’s first ultra-slim business notebook with Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 graphics.” HP is

11-11: Memories Retold is an “artistic, story-driven narrative adventure” set during the First World War. Its latest short stars art director Bram Ttwheam, who explains how he and his team are teaching a game engine how to paint. Over to him:The above is filled with interesting glimpses of 11-11: Memories Retold’s early artwork, as well as other imagery that’s inspired it. Besides talking to its art, though, Ttwheam also offers a wee bit more on the game’s story. “Both characters will change dur

The Overwatch Anniversary Event that leaked yesterday is now official. Deathmatch is also getting a new “Competitive Mode” for the anniversary event, complete with placement matches, skill rating tiers, and leaderboards. All previous seasonal loot will be included in loot boxes during the event, and everyone who logs in to Overwatch during the second anniversary celebration will receive a free Legendary Anniversary loot box. And of course there will be a free weekend in there too. Any progress e

In preparation for Dark Souls Remastered, I’ve spent the last several weeks tinkering with mods that up the original game’s difficulty. Renowned Souls person Illusorywall reckons the remaster’s extra summon slot (three against bosses, six in co-op all told) could make its bosses harder than ever—with up to 250 percent extra health. Alongside Souls chums HollowInvasion Deadhand and Betty Bea, Illusorywall tested this idea against one of the game’s earliest bosses, the Bell Gargoyles. As long as y

Role-playing in a game like Pillars of Eternity 2 is important, and I’ve decided that my Watcher is as devoted to rescuing the Deadfire’s neglected pets as he is chasing Eothas. As you explore the ports, cities, and villages of the archipelago you’ll find stray animals with names like ‘forsaken cat’ or ‘abandoned dog’ who can be adopted. Honestly, this is one of my favourite features in Pillars of Eternity 2. You can’t wander far in the game without finding animals to adopt. On a terrace in the

Heroes in Slay the Spire are themed card decks full of powers unique to that character. A lightning orb will zap a random enemy for extra damage, for example, and an activated frost orb will give you extra block. Slay the Spire has fairly basic art, but moving these glittering balls of energy around is satisfying and surprisingly beautiful. If you can get five or six lightning orbs into the air, that’s a lot of ongoing automatic damage every turn. The Defect’s relic gives him an automatic lightn

GSC Game World’s Stalker: Call of Pripyat, the series’ third entry, is again difficult to define. With ABR’s self-titled visual overhaul mod, the latter genre is brought to the fore with terrifying results. Released earlier this month, here’s ABR Mod’s launch trailer. And while Stalker boasts a wide variety of aesthetic-altering mods, ABR is the most sophisticated visual overhaul I’ve seen yet. Here’s some in-game footage of the journey between Jupiter and Pripyat:More information on Stalker: Ca

File this in your Pleasant Monday Morning Surprises folder: Superhot is getting a Japan-inspired standalone, codenamed Superhot JP. In this FAQ, the developer says Superhot JP will contain 15-18 standard levels and 3-4 endless bouts, alongside the original game’s modes—and new weapons include a bow and arrow. “With the innovative time-moves-only-when-you-move fps game play, SuperHot JP (not the real title) is a new game set in the Superhot universe,” says the Superhot JP site. Battle the red guy

The best Fallout 4 cheats and console commands can make you giant and invincible, and give you access to every item in the game. player.additem [item ID] [number] — You may have noticed a pattern in the last two commands. How to change factions with Fallout 4 console commandsplayer.AddToFaction [faction id] [0 or 1] — Become allied with a faction. setally [faction id] [faction id] [0 or 1] [0 or 1] — Make two factions friendly (0) or allied (1). setenemy [faction id] [faction id] [0 or 1] [0 or

Does Rage 2 exist, or does it not? That’s the bloody rule, and that’s clearly what’s scheduled to happen tomorrow, according to a new Tweet from the official Rage Twitter account. Following a Walmart leak early last week, Bethesda has issued a bunch of inscrutable images on its Twitter account, most with an overt purple theme. There was an image of London’s Big Ben with purple paint on it, an image of a rocket ship with purple paint on it, and… an image of what appears to be a Rage cosplayer (

Great moments in PC gaming are short, bite-sized celebrations of some of our favorite gaming memories. X-COM: UFO Defense Developer: Mythos GamesYear: 1994 Designer Julian Gollop’s X-COM debuted the same year PC Gamer magazine launched in the US, and won a Best Strategy game award. Its legacy lives on in the recent, also excellent XCOM: Enemy Unknown and XCOM 2. One of the great things about the original X-COM, or UFO: Enemy Unknown as it was called in the UK, was that it wasn’t afraid to be abo

In January, it said it was developing two self-published games that would sit somewhere between AAA and indie titles, and this week designer Hideki Kamiya gave another hint about the studio’s future plans, saying he’s working on a game that will “turn the action genre on its head”. The unannounced title is still a close-guarded secret: a lot of staff at the developer don’t even know about it yet, he said at Japanese indie game conference BitSummit. Inaba said that his team never intends to build

Rocket League will introduce a new tiered item unlock system this summer in which players earn cosmetics for leveling up. The “Rocket Pass” will have both free and paid-for paths. The free version will offer cosmetics—decals, wheels, toppers and the like—as well as decryptors that open crates. The premium pass will be unlocked for a one-off fee and, presumably, will offer better, more regular gear as you progress. It sounds an awful lot like the Battle Passes you can buy in Fortnite, which rewar

But you might not remember that the campaign also promised a smaller, 8-bit prequel as one of its stretch goals. That game, called Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon, was announced this week, and it’ll be with us later this month. While Ritual of the Night harks back to Symphony of the Night and later Castlevania games, Curse of the Moon looks back further into the series’ history for inspiration, with trippy music, a limited colour palette and a small set of animations. It’ll be more linear than R

Overwatch’s second birthday party will begin on May 22 and will bring back skins and brawls from previous events, a leak from the Brazilian Overwatch Twitter account has revealed. The video above was posted and quickly removed, but not before it was captured by fans on Reddit. It shows Junkrat and Roadhog dancing in a variety of skins, all but one of which we’ve seen before. Last year’s anniversary event added new maps and 11 legendary skins, among other goodies. Players weren’t happy with the c