The biggest PC gaming stories of the week
By Baldur’s Gate 3 is looking great, GOG has a new refund policy, and Rockstar might have something new on the way.
It was Baldur’s Gate 3 reveal week. In short, Larian’s take on the RPG series looks a lot like Divinity: Original Sin 2, but with a modified turn-based combat system, improved character models, and lots of adapted D&D rules—so, pretty exciting! Here’s our in depth look, and you can watch the full reveal stream here. And now for all the other things that happened this week:
GDC 2020 has been postponed due to coronavirus concerns
As more and more companies announced that they were backing out of the yearly industry convention, it was only a matter of time before its organizers at the Entertainment Software Association would have to give up on hosting GDC in March. Refunds will be issued, and a new event is being planned for sometime in the summer.
Stardew Valley is getting another free content update
The 1.5 update is in the works now, according to creator Eric Barone. This was our most popular story of the week, and it isn’t like nothing else happened this week, so “more Stardew Valley” is clearly on a lot of wish lists.
Horizon: Zero Dawn for PC appears on Amazon
After rumors of its existence last month, a listing for a PC port of PlayStation 4 exclusive Horizon: Zero Dawn has appeared on Amazon France. It’s starting to feel likely that there’s something to all the whispers.
Players are preventing fall damage in Red Dead Redemption 2 by puking
And why not? See this important technique below:
Rainbow Six Siege may go free-to-play someday, but first Ubisoft wants to solve smurfing
‘Smurfing’ is when experienced players fool a game into matching them with beginners, usually by making new accounts. The key to stopping it is to quickly detect a player’s relative skill regardless of their win-rate, so that throwing matches won’t keep them at the wrong rank and let them stomp new players. It’s easier said than done, and if Siege ever goes free-to-play, it’s a problem devs want to have solved first.
On paper, the GPU in the Xbox Series X is faster than a GeForce RTX 2080 Super
The new consoles will have some impressive custom AMD tech in them, though we’ll need to know more before we can tell exactly what kind of processing capabilities they’ll offer compared to the typical gaming PC or laptop.
GOG’s new refund policy is way more generous than Steam’s
“We’re monitoring the effects of the current update to make sure no one is using this policy to hurt the developers that put their time and heart into making great games,” says GOG. “We may refuse refunds in such individual cases. We’d also let you know about any future adjustments in the voluntary Refund Policy in advance.”
Baldur’s Gate 3 will feature turn-based combat rather than the real-time-with-pause combat system from the old games. Andy Kelly thinks that sucks. Fraser thinks that rules. People on Twitter are divided almost down the middle over which combat system they prefer. Personally, I hate real-time-with-pause and would’ve lost a ton of interest in Baldur’s Gate 3 if it weren’t turn-based, so clearly Larian made the right choice—catering to me, the center of all things.
