برچسب: despite

  • Despite its past DLC disasters, Risk of Rain 2 unveils its next expansion

    Despite its past DLC disasters, Risk of Rain 2 unveils its next expansion


    Risk of Rain 2‘s second DLC was the first to be produced entirely by Gearbox Software after it acquired the rights to the beloved roguelike, and it’s safe to say that it launched in a torrid state. However, after working hard to right the ship, it’s now ready to unveil the game’s third DLC, Alloyed Collective – and it’s apparently roped in help from Risk of Rain experts.

    Risk of Rain 2 is one of the best roguelikes around, there’s no denying that. But what also can’t be denied is that its second expansion, Seekers of the Storm, may go down as one of the most disappointing DLC launches ever, putting the game’s reputation in real jeopardy. However, just this week, it rolled out a transformational ‘2.0’ update for the DLC that brings it up to the quality bar fans expected. With that redemption arc pretty much complete, it’s now revealing RoR 2’s third expansion, and we’re all hoping that Gearbox doesn’t make the same mistake twice.

    Alloyed Collective will be of a similar scale to its previous expansions, and Gearbox says that while it’s still tying up a few loose ends with Seekers of the Storm, it’s “also brought in some additional folks that are familiar with Risk of Rain to help us build out the next DLC.”

    The new expansion will feature six stages, all based deep within Solus territory, which range from “cliffside scrapyards to machinery-choked fortresses and buried caverns.” Seven new types of Solus enemies will also give you fresh threats to take on, alongside new bosses that include a final boss that “reshapes the endgame.” Sounds ominous.

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    As for you, you’ll get access to seven new types of drone, and two new survivors – one of them is totally original, but one returns from the original Risk of Rain. The loot pool expands too, with 15 new items set to be added.

    Gearbox admits that DLC 3 is “still a ways out from launch” and has a few more updates left to come for Seekers of the Storm, despite already being “really happy with where DLC 2’s quality has landed” after all the patches it’s put out so far. Still, it’s nice to see that the fiasco with the expansion hasn’t deterred it from supporting this wonderful roguelike even further into the future.

    For more, check out the best co-op games and best space games on PC right now.

    You can follow us on Google News for daily PC games news, reviews, and guides. We’ve also got a vibrant community Discord server, where you can chat about this story with members of the team and fellow readers.



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  • Steam Deck gamers are playing Oblivion Remastered in droves, despite controversy

    Steam Deck gamers are playing Oblivion Remastered in droves, despite controversy



    As a new month dawns, we’re taking a look at the most played Steam Deck games for April 2025, and it’s surprising to see Oblivion Remastered storm up the charts despite having become a bit of a meme for its poor performance. In the monthly data, however, Balatro still reigns supreme.

    Each month, it’s fun to look at which games are performing well on the best handheld gaming PC and look for any surprises. The chart of top played games on Steam Deck lists, quite simply, the games with the most hours played from one to 100, and there are some big debuts in this month’s list.

    In April, while it’s no great surprise to see indie games such as Schedule 1 and R.E.P.O continue to climb the rankings, the inclusion of Oblivion Remastered is somewhat puzzling. This is because of the ongoing performance issues affecting the game on the Steam Deck. It’s even become a meme, with players posting to Reddit saying they’ve finally got Oblivion to run well on the Deck, before posting a screenshot of the original game.

    While players were always going to try to get Oblivion Remastered running on the Steam Deck, the controversy comes from Valve’s decision to give it a Verified rating, despite it failing on the core criteria that a game needs to earn this status.

    We already tested the best Oblivion Remastered settings and found that, on the Steam Deck, you need to at least consider changing the upscaling method, as well as the level of upscaling from balanced to performance. This crucial change alone should relegate Oblivion to a Playable rating, but this hasn’t happened.

    Despite the Oblivion Remastered system requirements suggesting that the game would be difficult for the Steam Deck to run, players are clearly just pushing through and running the game however they see fit. Given that the game only released late in the month, the fact that it’s already the number two game on Steam Deck is quite the achievement. It didn’t have quite enough plays to dethrone Balatro for the monthly stats, but it is currently the most played game over the last week.

    Other notable inclusions on this month’s top-played list are Clair Obscur Expedition 33 at 26, a game that launched as Unsupported but has already been upgraded to Playable. The Last of Us Part 2 has debuted at 41 while the first game has reappeared at 60, likely due to renewed interest thanks to season two of the TV show.

    Finally, there was another strong indie debut in the list as Blue Prince, the intriguing roguelike puzzle game, debuted at 16 for the monthly list, although it did appear inside the top 10 briefly during its release week.

    If you want to read more about some of the Steam Deck’s biggest competition, check out our Ayaeno 3 review and Asus ROG Ally X review to see where they Windows handhelds stack up.

    You can follow us on Google News for daily PC games news, reviews, and guides. We’ve also got a vibrant community Discord server, where you can chat about this story with members of the team and fellow readers.



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  • Todd Howard acknowledges The Elder Scrolls 6 is actually still alive, despite the year-long radio silence since we last heard about it

    Todd Howard acknowledges The Elder Scrolls 6 is actually still alive, despite the year-long radio silence since we last heard about it


    While all the old and busted Elder Scrolls fans (all my coworkers) are excited and popping bottles around today’s The Elder Scrolls Oblivion Remake stream and shadow drop, those with an eye for the future may be happy to learn that Todd Howard took time to acknowledge that The Elder Scrolls 6 still exists! He was even so bold as to state that the team was working on it.

    The full quote, stated ahead of a plentiful feast of Oblivion Remaster news and footage, is as follows: “obviously we’re working on the 6th chapter here”.

    Wow. Fantastic. This is the biggest info drop we’ve had for The Elder Scrolls 6 since March 2024, when Bethesda confirmed that early builds of ES6 were out in the wild for testers to mess around with. They were even so generous as to hint at the game being fun, which y’know, you’d certainly hope so.

    Before that, of course, we had the scorching update courtesy of a former Skyrim designer, who said that we shouldn’t expect an update on ES6 until six months before release. That was in October 2023. Only a month before that Phil Spencer said that he believed ES6 was within five years of it’s release date! This sounded a touch comical at the time, but lo and behold, we’re nearing two years since he said it and there’s still precious little to go on.

    It’s worth noting that in terms of actual, concrete updates from Bethesda, there’s been crickets for years. Back in August 2023, the company confirmed development had started, roughly five years after the announcement during E3. I may be going out on a limb here, and feel free to call me nuts for suggesting as much, but do you reckon they may have announced the game a touch too early?

    Listen, all joking and snark aside, it’s good to see at least a faint sign of life from Elder Scrolls 6. It’s been so long. I was still at school when Elder Scrolls 6 was announced, and now I’m an adult with bills and bad habits and dating apps on my phone. Bethesda, probably still the most acclaimed first person RPG developer out there, I’m sure will do a cracking job at it. Just like, release some art or something? Liam Neeson had more concrete proof his daughter was alive in Taken than Elder Scrolls fans have for this game being real.

    Let us know below if you feel anything anymore, and how much student loan debt I’ll have by the time Elder Scrolls 6 comes out!





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