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• Halo Infinite is getting campaign, anti-cheat improvements this week
• The best Oculus Quest 2 games in 2022
• Elden Ring system requirements
• Ten classic Capcom fighters are hitting PC for the first time
• The best Samurai games on PC in 2022
• Lapsed Destiny 2 players are getting a lifeline for The Witch Queen
• Skyrim’s forests are glorious with this mod that adds “over 100” meshes
• Intel Raptor Lake may be up to 40% faster than Alder Lake CPUs
• Nvidia could spend $10 billion to secure RTX 4000 components
• Lost Ark devs working on a fix for EU matchmaking issues
• Street Fighter 6 is real and it’s coming… sometime
• The best Automaton loadout in Warzone Pacific
• League of Legends patch 12.5 notes – Bees! champion skins, Elise VFX update
• Warhammer 3 is the second most popular Total War game on Steam, ever
• Steam Next Fest start time – February 2022 demo festival begins
• Here’s the Rainbow Six Siege Year 7 roadmap
• Vampire Survivors gets a new player count record right before its next Stage
• It looks like Fortnite’s Tilted Towers could be destroyed yet again
• FIFA 22 is free to play right now, if you’re quick
• Dota 2 7.31 patch release date – Techies Demolitions rework coming soon
• How to unlock secret characters in Vampire Survivors

Halo Infinite is getting campaign, anti-cheat improvements this week Posted: 21 Feb 2022 06:41 AM PST Halo Infinite is getting a big patch this week to alleviate some of the community's biggest bugbears. Alongside some general quality-of-life improvements for the campaign mode, 343 Industries is introducing a bevy of anti-cheat improvements and much more. Senior community manager John Junyszek explains in a post on the game's forums that the campaign will see several improvements. We don't know all of them just yet, though the patch will address issues with achievements unlocking and returning to the game through the quick resume option. You can expect that and more sometime this week. Junyszek also shares that previously announced anti-cheat improvements will be coming to the FPS game this week, too. Once again, though, details are slim. The senior community manager says that there will be "multiple improvements" to anti-cheat systems and that the team will have "even more" to share about its cheat-prevention software in the future. Expect fewer suspicious kills in the short-term future, basically. View the full site RELATED LINKS: Halo Infinite release date, Halo Infinite system requirements, Halo Infinite ranks

The best Oculus Quest 2 games in 2022 Posted: 21 Feb 2022 06:22 AM PST The best Oculus Quest 2 games are the ones that draws you into the world and lets you swim in the joys of VR. There are a staggering amount of games on the Oculus Quest 2, and it's also one of the best VR headsets when it comes to the cost to performance ratio. When you factor in the lack of wires, it's easy to understand why so many people have been delving into digital worlds using this device. However, as there is so much choice, navigating the store to find the best Oculus Quest 2 games can be a bit of a chore. It helps to have a rough idea of what you should be looking for whenever you're in the mood to buy a new game, whether that be FPS games or a story-driven adventure. Thankfully for you, we've made a list of the best Oculus Quest 2 games. We've covered a lot of bases with these games, and it should mean that you'll be able to experience the most exciting games VR has to offer. View the full site

Elden Ring system requirements Posted: 21 Feb 2022 06:33 AM PST The next Soulsborne game hits shelves on February 25, and publisher Bandai Namco's finally lifted the lid on the Elden Ring system requirements. The bad news is that it might tax lower-end or aging systems by asking for 12GB of RAM. The good news is that it isn't quite as demanding on graphics cards. Elden Ring will support a maximum resolution of native 4K, HDR, and frame rates of up to 60fps. Unfortunately, it appears that FromSoftware has implemented a frame rate cap, as it did previously with its previous game, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice. It's likely that this will be circumvented through mods, if previous games from the developer are anything to go by. While it won't be available at launch, ray tracing support should add another layer of gross incandescence to Elden Ring's world. Currently, there's no indication that AMD FSR or Nvidia DLSS will be available to help boost fps, but we'll update this page if and when that changes. View the full site RELATED LINKS: Best SSD for gaming, How to build a gaming PC, Best gaming CPU

Ten classic Capcom fighters are hitting PC for the first time Posted: 21 Feb 2022 05:03 AM PST Capcom is bringing ten classic fighting games to PC for the first time ever, including a few that haven't seen a release outside of Japan. The Capcom Fighting Collection includes Hyper Street Fighter II, Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo, and "all five" games from the popular Darkstalkers series. Alongside the big announcement of Street Fighter 6, Capcom also revealed a new collection of classic fighting games. The Capcom Fighting Collection features a mix of entries, ranging from popular names - such as Street Fighter and Darkstalkers - to some of the more obscure beat-'em-ups in the publisher's catalogue, such as Red Earth and Cyberbots. Capcom notes that the collection includes "all five titles from the Darkstalkers series", including two of the Vampire series of games that never made it out of Japan. While Capcom has stated previously that it had planned to "revive dormant franchises" such as Darkstalkers, the series has remained untouched apart from occasional cameos of characters such as bat-lady Morrigan in games like Tekken 7. View the full site

The best Samurai games on PC in 2022 Posted: 21 Feb 2022 04:51 AM PST Looking for a good samurai game on PC? Samurai are the subject of ceaseless fascination for many gamers thanks to their ornate armour, razor-sharp weaponry, and the stories that have been told about them in other media thanks to directors like Akira Kurosawa and Yôji Yamada. Unfortunately, there are surprisingly few dedicated samurai games, especially here on the best platform of all: PC. To right that wrong, we've dug through every digital store and upcoming release in search of the very best samurai games around. With few options to choose from, we've had to get a bit creative with our choices, so expect some games that only feature samurai in limited roles, games with characters like samurai, ronin games, and heaps of different genres. Everything from hack-and-slash games and strategy behemoths to action-adventure games and multiplayer brawlers is on the cards for this samurai games list. Join us as we break down eight of the top samurai games on PC, from old games classics to new samurai games. View the full site RELATED LINKS: For Honor PC review, For Honor PC tech review, For Honor patch

Lapsed Destiny 2 players are getting a lifeline for The Witch Queen Posted: 21 Feb 2022 04:42 AM PST Bungie is tossing a lifeline to Destiny 2's myriad of lapsed players when its next major update lands. Even if you haven't got your Guardian power level ready yet, you'll still be able to jump into Destiny 2's The Witch Queen expansion right away. Senior community manager Dylan Gafner explains on Twitter that the power level floor will be raised to 1350 when the expansion launches on February 22. That means anyone who signs on will be at the required level to start the Witch Queen update, even if you haven't played the space game for some time now. You could catch up fairly quickly in previous patches as loot drops tend to be more generous when you're behind, though giving people a boost from the word go is a new one for Bungie. Alongside the usual offerings of new areas, duds, and high-level activities, Destiny 2 is also getting weapon crafting, a revamp for void classes, and a Gambit rework after The Witch Queen launches. While there's no shortage of things to do and systems to engage with in Destiny 2, it can become a tad overwhelming if you don't have the time to sink into RPG. Offering lapsed players a quick route back in may help nudge a few people into trying the new expansion out. View the full site RELATED LINKS: Destiny 2: Beyond Light review, Destiny 2 exotics, Play Destiny 2

Skyrim’s forests are glorious with this mod that adds “over 100” meshes Posted: 21 Feb 2022 04:20 AM PST While it's a decade old now, Skyrim is iconic for its sprawling, often stunning landscapes, which have been given an extra boost over the years thanks to a bunch of great fan-made Skyrim mods. Now, a new community creation looks to make the fantasy game's forests to a new level with "over 100" new meshes. Modder fxckthisworld's Nature of the Wild Lands - Forest Improvement mod overhauls several of the game's many wooded areas and aims to "make forests diverse and dense" as well as "more diverse and beautiful". From the images and video clips of the mod, it certainly seems the modder's achieved this. The trees, grasses, and other vegetation are all far richer and denser (density is more than five times higher, according to the modder), and the woodland looks bursting with natural fullness. If I sound like I'm waxing a little lyrical, that's because the results really do look impressive - you can get a glimpse below. The good news is that the modder's decided to keep a balance between how pretty it all looks and how it plays in mind, so introducing the more fleshed out forests shouldn't tank your game's performance. They say the tree models have an average of 5,000 tris, so should be "relatively good for performance". View the full site RELATED LINKS: Skyrim mods, Play Skyrim, Games like Skyrim

Intel Raptor Lake may be up to 40% faster than Alder Lake CPUs Posted: 21 Feb 2022 04:19 AM PST Alder Lake processors may be some of the best gaming CPUs around, but it looks like Intel is already preparing even faster Raptor Lake chips. Having showcased the components for the first time as part of its Investors Meeting 2022 event, newly obtained performance metrics place 13th Gen Intel Core processors up 40% ahead of their 12th gen counterparts. According to Moore's Law Is Dead, some Raptor Lake processors will offer performance increases of 30-40% in multi-threaded workloads, compared to Alder Lake. This double digit increase extends to single-threaded tasks too, with a reported 8-15% increase, which should boost fps in the best PC games. Considering that 12th Gen Intel Core processors, like the Intel Core i9-12900K, already tend to beat Ryzen 5000 chips in terms of gaming performance, the pressure is on AMD to deliver something spectacular with its Zen 4 CPUs. Thankfully, you shouldn't have to wait too much longer to see whether you build your next gaming PC with team blue or team red in mind. View the full site RELATED LINKS: Intel Core i9 9900K review, Intel Core i7 9700K review, Best CPU for gaming

Nvidia could spend $10 billion to secure RTX 4000 components Posted: 21 Feb 2022 04:10 AM PST Fabricating the best graphics cards is tricky in 2022, but reports suggest that Nvidia is spending at least $10 billion USD to secure GeForce RTX 4000 series components. According to Hardware Times, the GPU giant will use the funds to grab a share of TSMC's 5nm chips, alongside competitors like Apple, AMD, and Qualcomm. Specifics related to Nvidia's expenditure are sparse, but Hardware Times says the green team spent $9 billion USD on procuring future inventory in Q3 alone. This aligns with previous reports of factories gearing up to produce RTX 4000 graphics cards back in November and adds clout to previous Lovelace production rumours. By opting for a 5nm process, future RTX 4070, RTX 4080, and RTX 4090 cards will boast enhanced clock speeds and power efficiency. However, shrinking process nodes could also help Nvidia cash in by reducing the number of wafers required during production. View the full site RELATED LINKS: RTX 2070 Super review, RTX 2060 Super review, Best graphics card

Lost Ark devs working on a fix for EU matchmaking issues Posted: 21 Feb 2022 06:43 AM PST While Lost Ark's congestion problems on European servers eased following the Europe West data centre launch last week, issues with queues and matchmaking remain. Amazon Games and Smilegate RPG have addressed the hot topics in an update post, explaining that fixes for matchmaking are underway, though queues remain a trickier puzzle to solve. The devs restarted Europe Central servers at 3pm PST / 6pm EST / 11pm GMT on February 20, which was followed by two hours of downtime. It's a short-term fix for now, though, as Smilegate is already working on something longer term. Aside from mentioning a "matchmaking errors" fix, though, we don't know what that tweak will entail. In a separate post, a community manager called Roxx explained that the matchmaking issue relates to the "ongoing stability issues surrounding EU servers". Queues, unfortunately, are a trickier one to solve. "We know that players are still experiencing long queues in Europe," Amazon Games and Smilegate RPG say. "The Europe Central region is at capacity and unfortunately there is no way to increase the number of players per world in Europe Central. Adding more servers is not possible based on the complexity of all the systems that need to work together." View the full site RELATED LINKS: Best MMOS and MMORPGs on PC, Upcoming PC games, Best fantasy games on PC

Street Fighter 6 is real and it’s coming… sometime Posted: 21 Feb 2022 03:10 AM PST It's official: Street Fighter 6 is real, confirmed, and has a trailer. Capcom has long teased the next instalment in the fighting game franchise, so a follow-up to Street Fighter V is certainly welcome. As for what the release date will be, that's another matter. A week ago, Capcom launched a mysterious countdown website that was hinting at some sort of special announcement, which was counting down to just a few hours ago. The main two fan theories were a Resident Evil Village DLC reveal and the long-awaited announcement of Street Fighter 6 - the latter mostly because of the Street Fighter V Pro Tour 2022 event, which concluded yesterday. Well, fans who guessed a new Street Fighter were correct, as Capcom has revealed Street Fighter 6 in a short CG teaser trailer which you can see below. It features an older, bearded, sandal-wearing Ryu facing off against Luke – who Capcom previously highlighted as being "featured in the next Street Fighter project". View the full site

The best Automaton loadout in Warzone Pacific Posted: 21 Feb 2022 02:38 AM PST Want to know what the best Automaton Warzone Pacific loadout is? Call of Duty Vanguard and Warzone Season 2 is here, introducing several new weapons and a host of balance changes to the battle royale game. A lot of the best assault rifles in Warzone have been knocked down a peg, allowing the Automaton to finally have its time in the sun. While the Automaton isn't as powerful and precise as the Warzone Cooper Carbine, it ranks highly among the other assault rifles thanks to its steady recoil control, making it a beginner-friendly gun. The best Warzone Automaton loadout increases its already rock-solid recoil control, gives a boost to its accuracy, and kits you out with as many bullets in the chamber as possible - a deadly option when pairing it with a decent sniper rifle such as the Kar98k. That said, this gun may not be for everyone, so we also have the best STG 44 loadout you can use to see how it fares. View the full site

League of Legends patch 12.5 notes – Bees! champion skins, Elise VFX update Posted: 21 Feb 2022 02:36 AM PST The updates keep on coming, LoL fans. League of Legends patch 12.4 has made its way to the live Rift, bringing a raft of new skins, champion balance changes, and - of course - steely new Champon Renata Glasc. That means it's now time to see what's headed our way with its follow-up update. While the latest round of skins gave Kassadin, Shen, and Qiyana some dazzling new Shockblade styles, this fortnight's offerings are fare more whimsical. Let's take a look. The new skins coming with League of Legends patch 12.5 add more champions to the game's Bees! alternate universe, with four new looks on the way. As you'd expect, the names are pun-tastic, with Heimerstinger, Nunu and Beelump, Orbeeanna, and BZZZiggs joining the skin line. You can check out the in-game clips of these in action and their splash art in the skins section below. As is very often the case when a fresh patch hits the PBE, there aren't any balance changes up for testing just yet, but we can probably expect a bunch to arrive there soon for a test drive. So, keep an eye on these notes as we'll update them with everything you need to know ahead of the patch's launch. View the full site RELATED LINKS: Best LoL Champions , League of Legends patch 12.4 notes, LoL tier list

Warhammer 3 is the second most popular Total War game on Steam, ever Posted: 20 Feb 2022 10:35 AM PST It's only been out a few days but Total War: Warhammer 3 has the second-highest concurrent player count peak on Steam in the entire Total War RTS game series - despite the game being subject to review bombing and facing opposition from the "free" PC Game Pass release. Over four years after the release of Total War: Warhammer 2, which is still one of the best strategy games on PC, Warhammer 3 is finally here to conclude the trilogy of Total War fantasy games. It's an unusual release, certainly, as it's the first time a Total War game has launched on Steam alongside a PC Game Pass release - which, for anyone subscribed to the service, effectively means they get the game for free. Nevertheless, according to SteamDB Total War: Warhammer 3 has still done incredibly well on Steam, racking up a peak concurrent player count of 166,754 on its first day - nearly twice as many as Total War: Warhammer 2, and the second-highest in the series after 2019's Total War: Three Kingdoms with a huge 192,298 record. View the full site RELATED LINKS: Total War: Warhammer 3 DLC, Total War: Warhammer 3 races, Total War: Warhammer 3 review

Steam Next Fest start time – February 2022 demo festival begins Posted: 20 Feb 2022 09:42 AM PST The Steam Next Fest start time has been revealed for the eagerly anticipated event that will allow people to try "hundreds" of some of the best indie games on PC - many of which may not be out for a while. Steam Next Fest February 2022 kicks off tomorrow, so it's not too far away at all. The indie event previously known as the Steam Game Festival usually pops up at least twice annually and returns this month after the highly successful Next Fest in October 2021 - which featured hundreds of demos, including the likes city builder Settlement Survival and the next game from the creators of No Man's Sky. Some of the hundreds of games available to play include Doom meets Trackmania FPS-platformer Warstride Challenges, Neon White from Donut County creator Ben Esposito, turn-based tactical roguelike Oaken, retro throwback RPG 8-Bit Adventures 2, open-world survival sandbox game Occupy Mars, and ultra-cute racing game Hamster Playground. Expect a few more surprises once the event kicks off, so when will that be? View the full site RELATED LINKS: Steam FAQ, Steam family sharing, Steam in-home streaming

Here’s the Rainbow Six Siege Year 7 roadmap Posted: 20 Feb 2022 09:00 AM PST Rainbow Six Siege's seventh year of seasonal content has been unveiled in full at the Six Invitational 2022, so we now know every key addition that's coming to the tactical FPS game over the next 12 months. Year 7 follows a similar format to the past couple of years of Siege content, with four new operators rather than eight, and only a couple of new maps. We already met the first new operator, Azami, during yesterday's Operation Demon Veil reveal, but now we know that Year 7 will be heading to Belgium, Singapore, and Columbia to collect the next three members of Team Rainbow. As for maps, you can expect three brand-new maps during Year 7, but one of them will only be available for the upcoming team deathmatch mode. The rest of the key content changes concern quality of life changes and gameplay reworks. Season 2 will add a shooting range where players can practice their recoil control and get a feel for their favourite weapons and optics. Ubisoft is also adding an in-match menu of operator tips to help new players learn about their character's kit and role without tabbing out. View the full site RELATED LINKS: Rainbow Six Siege Year 5 operators, Best Rainbow Six Siege operators, Play Rainbow Six Siege

Vampire Survivors gets a new player count record right before its next Stage Posted: 20 Feb 2022 08:26 AM PST It may be a casual indie game and a retro one at that, but Vampire Survivors is proving enormously popular since its release on Steam in December. In fact, it just hit a new player count record - right before the release of Vampire Survivors patch 0.2.13 and the release of a brand new stage later this week. Vampire Survivors is an inexpensive indie game that's only been out in Steam early access for a couple of months, but it's already proving itself to be one of the best vampire games on PC. The bullet hell shooter gives the player control over their character's movement but not the shooting, so it's more about staying alive than spamming the attack button. The "gothic horror casual game" became a hit for developer Poncle very quickly, and Vampire Survivors has now it a new concurrent player count peak on Steam - 77,061, which is up by around 6,000 players from its last record from a week ago, suggesting it could go up even higher. View the full site

It looks like Fortnite’s Tilted Towers could be destroyed yet again Posted: 20 Feb 2022 07:04 AM PST Just last month players finally saw the return of Fortnite's Tilted Towers landmark to Epic's insanely popular battle royale game after nearly three years. However, dataminers have uncovered evidence to suggest that Epic is planning on destroying Tilted Towers once again. Tilted Towers was introduced to Fortnite in Season 2 and quickly became known as the unluckiest point-of-interest in one of the best multiplayer games on PC. It's been hit by earthquakes, meteors, a volcano, and even an attack by a homicidal purple cube. It has been replaced with futuristic and historical versions, or just buried under sand or snow. After a number of teases, the original Tilted Towers finally returned last month - but if leakers and dataminers are correct (via Fortnite News), the landmark may get hit by another Roland Emmerich-level disaster very soon. Fortnite fans such as @koooooomar have datamined that a new series of earthquakes will hit the island, thanks to the digging efforts of the Imagined Order, and multiple craters and sinkholes will appear around the map. View the full site RELATED LINKS: Fortnite V-Bucks, Fortnite Skins, Fortnite Creative Codes

FIFA 22 is free to play right now, if you’re quick Posted: 20 Feb 2022 10:46 AM PST The latest entry in the most popular football game series in the world is currently free to play on PC, but you'll have to be quick. The Steam version of FIFA 22 is running a free trial of the entire game this weekend - but it's only available for just over 24 hours at the time of writing, so go play. It's one of the best sports games on PC, and now FIFA 22 - the most recent game in the popular football franchise - is completely free-to-play on Steam. This is despite it being less than six months after the game's release - FIFA 22 came out on October 1, 2021, so it's interesting that EA is already giving it a free trial on Steam outside of its own EA Play program. EA has actually been doing a lot of free weekend trials for its games in the last few weeks. One of the best recent Star Wars games on PC, space sim Star Wars Squadrons, was made free-to-play for a weekend on Steam last month. That came out in 2020, though, and isn't nearly as popular as FIFA 22. View the full site

Dota 2 7.31 patch release date – Techies Demolitions rework coming soon Posted: 20 Feb 2022 03:30 AM PST Valve has announced that the Dota 2 7.31 patch is due out this week, and the highlight will apparently be a redo of everyone's least favourite trio of goblins - the Techies Demolitions pack. A lot of players will be happy to hear that the popular MOBA game is getting a Techies rework at last, but Valve still hasn't revealed what form it will take. Arguably the best MOBA game on PC, the arrival of the Techies goblins into Dota 2 was both long-awaited and celebrated when it happened all the way back in 2014 - in fact, the Techies were met with massive cheers and literal explosions when they were first revealed. Since then, the Techies have fallen into either the love-them-or-hate-them camp, with even Valve's own tweet about the new update referring to the group as "contentious". They're almost entirely trap-based, and they can make matches go on for a long time as opponents are forced to avoid or disable them. As of this week, however, they're getting a rework. View the full site RELATED LINKS: Dota 2 heroes, Dota 2 custom games, Which MOBA is best?

How to unlock secret characters in Vampire Survivors Posted: 19 Feb 2022 07:02 PM PST Want to know how to unlock secret characters in Vampire Survivors? When you start your first run you only have a handful of characters and a few weapons available. However, on each playthrough, more items, weapons, and characters unlock for you to use in future attempts. These items are vital if you wish to use Vampire Survivor weapon evolutions to maximise a weapon's damage output. The game also locks new characters behind requirements, such as leveling up your gear to a certain threshold, finding items in a level, or slaying a quota of monsters. Some of these unlock conditions are somewhat vague, so we thought we'd list how you can get all of the Vampire Survivors characters, weapons, items, and levels. We also have a cheat code that you need to type to get another hidden vampire slayer and steps to access a secret character that requires you to tinker with the game's code. View the full site

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