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Less than 24 hours after the start of its early access release, the first Diablo 4 hotfix is live. The update makes minor nerfs to the Sorcerer and Rogue classes, and makes life more difficult for everyone by increasing the health of monsters at higher World Tiers.

Diablo 4 World Tiers are essentially difficulty levels. But the system is a little more restrictive than many other games: To begin, you only have access to two levels, Adventurer and Veteran—basically your “easy” and “normal” levels. World Tier 3 (Nightmare) and World Tier 4 (Torment) don’t become available until after you’ve completed the campaign.

Moving to higher World Tiers increases both the challenge and the reward: At World Tier 3, for instance, you’ll get a 100% XP bonus, but your non-physical resistances are reduced by 20% and the difficulty of enemies is increased. But apparently not quite enough, as Blizzard has now given them a bit of a health boost.

Rogues have been very slightly dialled back in the hotfix, as there will now be a brief delay in marking enemies after their Inner Sight’s unlimited energy expires, while the sorcerer’s Flame Shield will be put on full cooldown when it…

I actually miss the days when I thought Half-Life 3 was being worked on in secret, release was just around the corner, and if only we internet sleuths could unscramble Valve’s copious hints we would solve The Mystery and be back in the arms of Gordon. It was something to believe in. Now I’m old, weary, the psychological scars are too much, I can’t hold out hope any m… wait there’s a Half-Life reference in Valve’s brand new Counter-Strike 2?!?

Yep: Valve’s decided to tease us all again. Spotted by youtuber and Valve specialist RichterOvertime, the Easter Egg is found on the dual Berettas that can be bought in Counter-Strike’s pistols menu.

The lettering on the barrel reads “PIETA BARDOTTA. GORDON. F. MADE IN ITALY”. The first two words are an intentional misspelling of the name Pietro Beretta, in tribute to the Italian weapon manufacturer Fabbrica d’Armi Pietro Beretta. But we’re not interested in that!

Gordon F[reeman]. Now there’s a name I haven’t heard since the last Half-Life 3 rumour. Amazingly enough there is even a more direct link to Half-Life with this particular weapon model: Gordon never used a Beretta in Half-Life or the sequel, but the…

The upcoming Core i9 14900KS CPU has shown up at several European retailers. Intel’s latest binned KS model is sure to be its fastest gaming chip. Though it’s likely to use a lot of power and pump out volcanic amounts of heat, the price looks to be within expectations, if only going by i9 13900KS pricing.

The listings were spotted by the ever-sleuthing @momomo_us. They show both boxed and tray versions of the monster chip at French retailer PC21 for €768 and €752 respectively. That’s likely on the high side, but with a roughly 1:1 USD to Euro price conversion plus tax, a price tag of $699 for the 14900KS seems plausible.

Just a few days ago, our man Jacob wrote about some leaked performance numbers and speculated the 14900KS would launch sometime in the next few months. But with retailer listings starting to pop up, it’s looking more like weeks at this point. Some grain-of-salty rumors suggest a launch as soon as mid-March. That’s firming up now, as stocks have to be shipped out to distributors and retailers ahead of a hard launch.

Given we know the 14900KS is a binned 14900K, there won’t be any surprises in store. It’ll have higher clocks, higher pow…

First spotted by Insider Gaming, Watchful Wolf, a member of the hotly anticipated H2M mod project to remaster the original Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2’s multiplayer by way of the Modern Warfare 1 remaster, has released a video elaborating on Activision’s cease and desist order. According to Watchful Wolf, the mega publisher didn’t want the potential competition with Black Ops 6 on the way.

The move gained a lot of ire by coming just before H2M’s release⁠—and conveniently after the end of a Modern Warfare Remastered sale that was seriously juiced by hype for the mod. According to Watchful Wolf, things were even more stressful and last minute than they appeared: “We were within a few hours before releasing it,” the modder said. “I decided to check my email and that’s when I saw the cease and desist. Immediately, we just dropped everything, turned off all our servers, website, and everything we could.”

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Aggressive copyright enforcement is nothing new in the industry, but according to Watchful Wolf, there was a particularly galling tidbit in the C&D explaining why Activision made the move: The multi-billion dollar mega corporation was afraid of…

Having just dropped a new, totally net-zero flash drive, TeamGroup steps in as yet another tech company taking steps to reduce the use of new plastics, and tackle some of the issues that come along with the inevitable evil that is e-waste.

From the same company that brought us the first PCIe 5.0 storage made for non-server use, the C175 ECO is TeamGroup’s new, eco-friendly USB 3.2 Gen 1 flash drive. It comes in 64GB, 128GB, 256GB, and 512GB capacities, and you’re looking at read speeds of up to 100MB/s. Most importantly, though, it’s made from 75% post-consumer recycled (PCR) plastics, and TeamGroup claims that it’s managed to reduce 69% of carbon emissions in the manufacturing process, without the recycled plastic ending up an inviable mess.

Right now there’s more than 347Mt (million metric tonnes) of e-waste piling up across the globe. 57.4Mt was generated in 2021 alone, and that number is on the up, increasing on average by a couple of Mt per year since then. And while it’s not clear how much of that is made up of flash drives, I’d guess it’s a lot just from the sheer number of flash drives being handed out free.

It’s not always easy to know what to do with …

Valve hasn’t responded to our emails about Deadlock, an alleged unannounced Valve hero shooter which is leaking all over the internet. That’s pretty typical for Valve, which tends to say nothing about leaks or rumors before one day dropping a casual blog post announcement. We’ll see if that’s how they play it this time.

For now, we can’t say for sure whether or not Deadlock is really Valve’s next game, but we can be sure that someone has created a very Valve-like hero shooter prototype, at the least. First some screenshots leaked, and now there’s gameplay video out there via PlayerIGN on X (who is not the website IGN, to be clear). Watch below:

If it’s real and still looks like this, Deadlock will be Valve’s first third-person shooter (unless you count Alien Swarm, but it’s not really the same). Valve-watcher Gabe Follower described it this way last week: “6 vs 6 battling on huge maps with 4 lanes. Usable abilities and items. Tower defense mechanics. Fantasy setting mixed with steampunk. Magicians, weird creatures and robots. Fast travel using floating rails, similar to Bioshock Infinite.”

The BioShock Infinite comparison is on point. Watching the vide…

It’s clear that artificial intelligence is developing at an incredible rate. As we speak, algorithms across the globe are writing code to better themselves. And though we marvel at the rate of machine learning innovation today, a technological singularity may be closer than we ever anticipated.

That’s according to AI translation startup, Translated, which has been studying how artificial intelligence approaches language models, in order to predict how fast we’re hurtling toward a tech singularity (Translated, via Popular Mechanics).

So we’re all on the same page, a technological singularity describes the moment after which technology will begin to replicate itself uncontrollably. It’s the point at which sci-fi writers and scientists alike conclude that the human race will become essentially obsolete. In the same way a black hole’s event horizon obscures a singularity in physics, it’s been notoriously difficult to predict when and where the exact technological singularity might occur, or even what it could look like.

Watching AI evolve over the past year has been a rollercoaster, with a big fear being worker displacement across countless industries. When it come…

Netflix sure did sound excited about its BioShock movie back when it announced it in 2022, but it seems like passions have cooled. In a recent chat at San Diego Comic Con (via Variety), the film’s producer Roy Lee informed fans that Netflix’s “new regime has lowered the budgets… so we’re doing a much smaller version” than was originally planned.

That “new regime” is Dan Lin, chairman of Netflix Films as of April this year. Back in the heady days of 2022, that responsibility (under a different name) was the purview of executive Scott Stuber, who was apparently far more bullish on Netflix’s homegrown movie-making efforts. It looks like Lin’s ambitions are more modest, and BioShock is being scaled back as a result.

Lee says the film’s gonna be from “a more personal point of view” instead of a “grander, big project.” Hunger Games director Francis Lawrence is still on-board, though. 

I do wonder what’s become of the film’s first version. Two years ago, Lawrence said that Blade Runner 2049 writer Michael Green was “in the middle of writing it,” and that the crew “already have our take, outline, and all that kind of stuff, so that’s all done.” He even tipp…

We’re just a few days away from Satisfactory’s fifth anniversary, and to celebrate, the community has decided to put together a tournament. Everyone’s invited to join, including the developers. 

The tournament will include a special version of the Satlympics, which involves teams from the Netherlands, France, Germany, USA, UK, and Coffee Stain Studios. All of these teams will compete head-to-head in three games: an extreme version of parkour, solving complex puzzles to build a radar tower (and parachuting off said tower), and replicating a QR code—the first with a successful scan wins. 

Talking to NME about the event, a community member and organiser who goes by Barry reflects on how much fun it is to have some of the developers join in: “[it] really strengthens the bond between Coffee Stain and the Satisfactory community.”

It’s not all sunshine and rainbows, though. While this event looks incredible, it’s taken a lot of hard work: “I am surprised I’ve not gone grey!” Barry says. It’s important that this event looks as professional as possible—after all, the fifth anniversary and 1.0 release, which will come later in the year, are si…

Noctua had expected to release its next-gen 140mm fans by the end of 2022, however, that’s come and gone. Today, the PC cooling company famed for its brown colour palette has said we’ll have to wait quite a bit longer for these next-gen units. Almost a year, in fact.

In a statement, the company noted that it had run into an “unexpected production level issue” that it had to investigate. It says due to this, it needs to rerun the accelerated lifetime tests that it usually would to make sure its products, which are known for being very high quality, remain as such. These tests can take several months.

With all that factored in, Noctua expects its next-gen 140mm fans to launch sometime in Q4, 2023.

What this means is that the products relying on this next-gen fan for their own upgraded versions, namely the new NH-D15 air cooler, will also be delayed as a result. You can scope out the updated roadmap over on Noctua’s website.

The NH D15 is one of my personal favourite air coolers in its existing design, though it is a shame to see that pushed back. That said, I’d much rather a company was upfront and honest about this stuff as Noctua has been here, and ultima…

Update: AMD has confirmed it is investigating reports of damaged Ryzen CPUs, and also that it’s working with its partners to ensure BIOS limits are in place to keep voltages within spec.

Here’s the statement in full (via Anandtech):

“We are aware of a limited number of reports online claiming that excess voltage while overclocking may have damaged the motherboard socket and pin pads. We are actively investigating the situation and are working with our ODM partners to ensure voltages applied to Ryzen 7000X3D CPUs via motherboard BIOS settings are within product specifications. Anyone whose CPU may have been impacted by this issue should contact AMD customer support.”

Original story: Following initial reports of Ryzen 7000-series processors burning out under certain conditions, we now have a little more information on what might be causing these chips’ untimely deaths. 

In a statement to Der8auer, Asus notes that it has added new thermal monitoring mechanisms to protect chips. The statement goes on to mention AMD Expo and SoC voltage, which appears to suggest these may have some connection with the issues reported …

We’ve already reported on AMD’s new 16-core mobile monster, the Ryzen 7045 Series. But it’s arguably AMD’s new laptop APU that’s more interesting. May we introduce the AMD Ryzen 7040 Series, otherwise known as the Phoenix APU, and decked out with AMD’s brand new and very intriguing “XDNA” AI engine.

AMD’s naming conventions for the new Ryzen 7000 Series mobile chips as a whole may be a bit confusing, but bear with it because there’s some exciting technology in this particular variant. The Ryzen 7040 Series is a more direct replacement for the old AMD Ryzen 6000 mobile chip, being a monolithic APU designed expressly for mobile where the Ryzen 7045 16-core monster is more of a repackaged desktop chip.

Like the old 6000 Series, the new 7040 Series tops out at eight CPU cores, but this time they’re Zen 4 spec. AMD says the Phoenix APU is built on TSMC’s 4nm node, where the 7045 Series’ desktop-derived cores are on 5nm.

TSMC 4nm is closely related to its 5nm node, but does offer some efficiency advantages, which bodes well for battery life. How well, you ask? AMD is claiming up to 30 hours.

In practice, battery life depends on an awful lot of disparate element…

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Right on schedule, the 2024 Steam Summer Sale is here, with big discounts on thousands of games and daily digital stickers to collect.

There’s a whole lot of deals to dig through, so we’ll have a proper deals roundup once we’ve had a chance to properly root through the bargain bins. In the meantime, here are a few personal favorites you might dig:

• Subnautica – $10/£8/€10 (67% off)
• Forza Horizon 4 – $12/£11/€14 (80% off, and don’t forget it’s being delisted in December)
• Left 4 Dead 2 – $1/£1/€1 (90% off)
• Deep Rock Galactic – $10/£8/€10 (67% off)
• Sea of Thieves: 2024 Edition – $20/£20/€20 (50% off)
• Manor Lords – $30/£26/€30 (25% off)

This year’s big event also features something new: A “Deep Discounts” section promising “especially great deals on some of the all-time greats.” That means 90% off games including Batman: Arkham Knight, Disco Elysium, Civilization 6, and a bunch more. 

Along with the markdowns on games, the Summer S…

Stig Asmussen, the director of Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, is leaving Respawn Entertainment “to pursue other adventures”.

Originally reported by Bloomberg, Asmussen’s departure was later confirmed by EA in a statement, explaining “Stig Asmussen has decided to leave Respawn to pursue other adventures, and we wish him the best of luck.”

Asmussen joined Respawn Entertainment in 2014, where he oversaw development of Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order before helming its superior sequel. Prior to that, he spent a decade at Sony America, where he worked on the first three God of War games, serving as Creative Director on God of War 3.

Asmussen’s departure from Respawn is an interesting turn of events. Earlier this year, Asmussen expressed his desire to make the Star Wars Jedi series into a trilogy, an idea that was being discussed before Jedi: Fallen Order launched in 2019. “We were already talking about the second game,” Asmussen said in an interview with IGN. “Frankly, we were talking beyond. And these are conversations that, when we’re breaking the story with Lucasfilm, it’s like: ‘Well, where are we going with the second game.”

He went on to add “I always wanted to …