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In their official announcement, Google explain that they’ll be changing strategies for the Stadia platform. According to Kotaku, the closure of Google’s two game studios in Montreal and Los Angeles will impact around 150 employees who Google will attempt to find new roles for elsewhere in the company. According to Kotaku’s sources, this also means the cancellation of multiple projects that these studios had in development. A year ago, Katharine reviewed cloud gaming services that were currently available, saying “Stadia still needs a lot of work and a bigger game library to be a success, but the 1080p ‘Base’ experience could be the start of something great....

That’s the lowest price I’ve seen yet for Persona 4 Golden, taking it down to £13.09 in the UK and $16.39 in the US. And, because you’re spending more than £10, you’ll also get a free copy of Iron Galaxy Studio’s Attack On Titan-alike Extinction with it as well. What’s not to like? Persona 4 Golden - £13.09 / $16.39 from Fanatical (18% off) Alas, the same 18% off deal doesn’t currently apply to Persona 4 Golden’s Deluxe Edition, which also gets you a digital artbook and a digital soundtrack, but the good news is that this is still 15% off its usual price, going for £16....

GTA V should be free for keepsies from here, from 4pm (8am Pacific) today through to Thursday the 21st. How do we know when that page only says “MYSTERY GAME” right now? Because Epic tweeted it and couldn’t delete the mistake before people captured it. Released on PC in 2015, GTA V is still hugely impressive as a sandbox murder simulator. The story campaign is pretty fun but ah, I’m always so happy even just cycling around the city, spying on NPCs, and watching the world turn....

Grounded’s multiplayer has captured something special. Even after several hours (which flew by for all of us), we found it hard to pin down exactly what about it was so… likeable. In its current state of development, I can’t quite recommend it as wholeheartedly as I want to. We had too many technical problems. But if it can overcome those during its early access period, it may well be game of the year material....

Here’s a typical alien encounter, one early in this latest craze: That’s broadly how it goes. They roll up in a van, leap out, beat you to death, then hop back in the van and peel out. Maybe they’ll pay to hide themselves from the radar, for extra surprise, then stop your car: Or lurk outside a shop: Or wait outside the casino, parked inconspicuously by a pile of corpses: Or catch you waiting for a car delivery, run you down, and punch you in the virtuadick: Though it seems they’re still adjusting to Earth’s gravity: I adore this foolishness....

There’s plenty more to like in that trailer, from the colourful pixel art, to the enemy design, to what I’m hoping is a structure based around a train. I like trains. The real star is obviously the umbrella, however, which is your weapon, your shield, allows you to hover, and might even be supporting some sort of double jump or short-term jetpack move. Gunbrella casts you as a “gruff woodsman on a quest for revenge,” according to the game’s Steam page....

Big Team Battle mode pitches two teams of 12 players against each other - or at least it’s meant to. Most of its issues are with its matchmaking, which fails to find matches for larger strike teams, causes players to drop, or places them in games with mismatched team sizes. It reportedly still works some of the time and Halo Infinite has continued to assign players Challenges which rely on BTB mode - irking those that can’t play further....

“Our previous Multiplayer Technical Previews went a long way to battle-testing our services and infrastructure,” developers 343 Industries explain. “But as we prepare for a significant increase in the number of players jumping into Halo Infinite on launch day, December 8th, we want to ensure all our systems are good-to-go. While you may experience some bumps and bugs during this beta period, it does mark the official start of Halo Infinite Season 1, with all day-one maps and modes enabled as well as the full Season 1 Battle Pass....

They’re tucked away in the Fate Of Atlantis DLC, I’m afraid. The fields of Elysium are peppered with colossal pillars of stone, usually topped with fortresses. They eclipse the mountains and buildings you’ll find elsewhere, not just in stature, but jumpability. Elysium is not a realm of gentle inclines. It’s all sharp drops from sharp rocks, usually with lovely water at the bottom. If you miss, no bother. You can never die from fall damage, and won’t take any at all if you’ve levelled up enough....

Set in a near-future version of Seattle where werewolves, orcs, humans, elves and other assorted mythical creatures are all upstanding members of society, you play as the owner of a late-night coffee shop that only ever opens from midnight until the early hours of the morning. Think Netflix’s Midnight Diner: Tokyo Stories, but high fantasy and only about making drinks rather than delicious Japanese dishes. It’s very relaxing, and the conversations you have with regulars and newcomers alike feel very cosy and amiable against the low-fi beats of its exquisite soundtrack (which you can also pick yourself using the in-game music player)....

Everyone loves card games, but Kardboard Kings isn’t a deckbuilder. You facilitate other people building their decks, running a shop that sells individual cards for a Magic: The Gathering-esque trading card game. You order stock, new and used, from different traders online, so every day starts with opening your post to unpack them. It’s very cute. There’s quite a complex internal economy involved, with new sets coming out that affect the value of old cards, and news stories that will drive the price up or down of certain colours or types of cards in a few days time....

You’ll need to skip to the 1.40 mark to get to The Last Of Us segment, but yep, that sure looks like some grim zombie-ing! Alas, there’s only about 20 seconds of footage in total - the rest is taken up by other HBO shows coming up over the next few months, but judging by various comparison videos that have sprung up in the intervening hours, it looks like it will be following the events of the game (and its plentiful supply of cutscenes) pretty closely....

What, then, are some of the very best games to play on the Steam Deck? Personally I’ve most enjoyed the ones designed with thumbstick controls in mind (like Horizon Zero Dawn and Death’s Door) but since I was interviewing Gabe Newell and members of the Deck dev team in the run-up to the Steam Deck’s launch today, I took the chance to ask them if they had any suggestions. Here’s what they’ve been playing....

And here’s a gameplay vid from a few days ago which actually shows what it is: So there you see a round-based where you can items and upgrades at the start of the round, then head out to attack or defend two bomb sites. Then each character has their own active ability, everyone is dodge-rolling around, you can revive downed folks, and it looks a bit arcadier than CS in general....

Whilst this may not be as impactful as the original Reno’s ‘heal to full’ effect, the anti-aggro effect is very similar. A lot of Beast Hunter decks would cower in fear at such a strong board clear that leaves a 4/6 body on the board. Mage has a lot of strong cards too, so there are numerous ways to keep your enemies guessing when it comes to playing a Relicologist deck....

Io Interactive have told GamesIndustryBiz “As the developer and publisher, we are immensely proud that we can say Hitman 3 is already profitable. We have recouped the total project costs in less than a week. That puts us in a really good place and allows us to confidently move forward with our ambitious plans for future projects.” Io elaborate, saying that this is the first full game in the series that the company has self-published....

However, it’s clear that a lot of people are still playing Diablo Immortal, which, despite the various controversies surrounding its release, has become one of the most popular new games this June. And I can understand it. Finances are tight for a lot of people right now, and an F2P game that runs well on mobile devices and relatively low-end PCs can feel like a lifeline to gamers who can’t currently afford to put a lot of money into their hobby....

That trailer really is something. From a quiet start that seems to suggest the update’s key feature is a new desert biome, it builds into a crescendo in which pipes explode out from inky infinity. It’s a wonderful thing, a celebration of something which seems on the face of it ridiculously mundane. Pipes. And yet pipes are, remarkably, worth the fuss. Getting them running in your factory marks a rite of passage....

Some motherboards let you connect to the internet within the BIOS to enable a built-in update tool, and some might have Quick BIOS Flash buttons that can speed up the process. But these aren’t present on all mobos, and even in the latter’s case you still need to do the bulk of the legwork by finding and downloading the update yourself. This guide, then, will keep things simple but also explain the process as it can be applied to any motherboard - new or old, fancy or entry-level....

Enter Humankind’s new 100-turn demo, available now. Here’s a trailer Amplitude - also developes of the Endless games - put out to mark the Humankind demo’s release, with lots of praise: Humankind is reportedly excellent, if the reporter you’re listening to is Nate Crowley (RPS in peace). In his Humankind review, Nate praised it back to the stone age, but also pointed out that it’s a strange beast of a game....