Steam Deck / Gaming News #21
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wrote last edited by [email protected]
As ever and always, I’m back with a week’s worth of gaming news I’ve spotted and thought I should share with you all!
This week is slightly less than is typical (1,000-ish words less than my last week’s I can tell you!) for a few reasons:
- I’ve cashed in some of my crypto and bought a cabin. Which makes me sound like an actress in a Stephen King movie
- I’ve had some odd health hiccups lately – nerve damage in my hip which means I feel nothing when touching a small patch of skin, but it also feels like it is on fire
So I’ve been a little distracted, but I do pinkie-swear next week’s will be back to my normal output!
So what are these posts?
My aim for these News Posts in general is to make them a more clearly not a professional, but someone who cares about gaming manner than most gaming sites do now. I see so many sites, even the independent ones, bombarding with ads, banners and reminders to support them. I get it, I really do, but it’s an unpleasant experience to me.
My ever-lasting inspo is the old, old video game sites, blogs and magazines that I never had the privilege of being alive for:
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Image/gif/link heavy (though once again this week I have few of these, so this dot-point’s a bit needless)
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Personal voice (I can’t help rambling, send help – this won’t be even slightly professionally written)
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Mostly news or articles or points which you won’t find on normal gaming sites. These are the smaller, lesser things that I’m drawn to. I know you’ll have spotted the big news articles, so I’m hoping some of these smaller ones might have been missed by you.
A mixed bag of what I’ve considered news this week, so there really is a bit of everything ahead.
General Gaming News:
A New PS2 Emulator – Iris:
After 7-8 months of working on it, Lycoder (also goes by Allkern) has released their PS2 emulator called Iris. While games are running with very low/low/unplayable frames at the moment, they want to reassure people that this is constantly in development and improvements are being made regularly.
Windows, Linux and MacOS are supported.
The GitHub page is here, if you’d like to read a little more!
...and here is the link to the 0.10-alpha build of Iris
Funnily enough, it was only very recently that I fixed a DMAC bug that was keeping a lot of games from booting, and now this opens up a ton of potential to further debug and fix other issues, which may lead to even more games to boot. There's still a lot of work to be done, especially in the optimization department. I'm really looking forward to continue working on this project and advancing PlayStation 2 emulation!
It’s lovely to have another player in the scene, particularly with PS2 emulation.
And, naturally, here’s some pictures:
System Shock 2: 25th Anniversary Remaster Delay:
...sorry, don’t want to make you panic if you’re a PC gamer – no delays on that front, but if you’re a console gamer then it has been delayed for now:
Knowing the publishers, I’d say you’re in good hands without having to wait too long to play it, and I’m so excited to play through myself.
How to Fix Xbox’s Stupid Update:
I can’t even be bothered taking picture to illustrate this one, but if you’re on Xbox you’ll have seen it. Select a game and then you’re presented with a new screen giving you another step before you can select it again to play the game. And half that screen is taken up with their hopeful promotions of DLC and micro-transactions.
Shitty.
Anyway:
Settings / General / Personalization / Games & Apps / Choose whether game huds open automatically from the following places -
- Recently played list
- Groups
- Installed games
Grounded 2 Hype:
With the announcement of Obsidian’s Grounded 2, the numbers of the first game (Honey, I Shrunk The Kids meets Arrietty have exploded, bring a 193.8 boost to current players. The game shot up the Xbox charts from #88 to #23 (overtaking Halo: MCC and Elden Ring)
The game was announced two weeks ago, and the trailer is here for those curious
The first game on Steam holds a ‘Very Positive’ rating with 66,596 all-time ratings.
Lies of P:
I’m sure you’ve read this in at least four other places by now, but it still warms my heart. I couldn’t really make it through Lies of P – the souls-like and even souls-adjacent genre is not my cup of stressful tea. What I did love though was the atmosphere and setting, reminding me for no particular reason of Drood, the novel by Dan Simmons about the last five years of Charles Dickens and how spooky it could get.
Anyway, the devs behind Lies of P and Overture (the DLC) got a bonus for their efforts, with the two selling over 3m copies combined. They got a bonus, two weeks vacation and a free Nintendo Switch 2. IDK, a nice rarity in today’s gaming world!
Still Wakes The Deep:
The Chinese Room - Developers behind the BAFTA-winning-game Still Wakes The Deep have laid off some of their team, just after the release of their DLC – Siren’s Rest.
At a glance, around 10 staff with the studio listed as their current employer have the 'looking for work' label on their LinkedIn profiles – though this is not a reliable metric by itself.
However, The Chinese Room will share news on changes for the studio in the coming weeks so more will come out, I suppose. Sad news for those who worked on the rather amazing game.
Subnautica 2 Dev Vlog:
The latest dev vlog for the game has come out, titles ‘Building Unknown Worlds’
Join senior narrative designer Seth Dickinson, level designer Artyom O’Rielly, environment artist James Stout, and senior environment artist (and rock connoisseur) Ben Hale as they walk you through the incredible work that goes into building out the world of Subnautica 2.
My fav comment on the video is this one:
I have never been so excited over rocks
LEGO Island in Browser:
As the title says, the game is now available to play in your browser. I’m way too young for this game to have any impact in my life, but I think the older members here might remember it. Released in 1997, it’s certainly got a rabid following.
The link to the site is here, try it out!
And one more thing, I found the fact the devs created a physical island in actual LEGO when making the game, and this is ancient and adorable:
Auto-Shutdown after game download:
A gamer by the username of Avaneesh13 has created a Python-based application when they saw room for it – shutting their PC down for them after a big game download completed (rather than having their PC on all night)
This application is called SteamDown, and the link to the GitHub page is here for you to read through if you’d like.
SteamDown:
- Monitors your Steam download activity in real-time
- When downloads go inactive for a set period (you choose how long), it automatically performs an action of your choice
- Actions include: shutdown PC, sleep mode, stop Steam, or other custom actions
- Completely free and open-source
I kept starting massive game downloads (looking at you, Call of Duty) before going to bed, only to wake up and find my PC had been running idle for 6 hours after the download finished at 3 AM. Felt wasteful and probably wasn't great for my electricity bill either. Now I just set it to wait 5-10 minutes after downloads stop, then shut down my system automatically. Much better for power savings and peace of mind.
How it is different from other solutions:
*Generic system monitors that don't understand Steam's download behaviour specifically
- Command-line tools that require technical setup and aren't user-friendly
- Part of a larger system suite with bloatware I didn't want
- Paid solutions for what should be a simple utility
Technical details:
- Written in Python and built it as a standalone .exe (no installation needed)
- Works on Windows primarily, though I might explore macOS/Linux support
- Planning to add support for other launchers like Epic, GOG, etc. in future updates.
- Codebase clean and modular in case anyone wants to contribute or fork it
The functionality should be working as expected - it reliably monitors Steam and performs the shutdown actions. The UI could use a bit of work though (I'm more of a backend person), so if anyone has suggestions or wants to contribute on the interface side, I'd welcome the help!
Again, the GitHub link is at the start of this section, so take a look if you’re curious!
Epic reaches 500:
When Epic officially started their free games each week, all the way back in 2018, no one anticipated it would go for as long or be filled with the quality titles it has today. Starting with Subnautica (though unofficially giving away Shadow Complex Remastered before this in an effort to get users to install the launcher), we’re now up to 502 PC games given away.
Now they’re even expanding on this, with mobile phone games given away free each week. This coming week’s giveaway will be Sable (more on that later!).
...though be warned, it might make you sad to see what you’ve missed out on.
And what is this free games each week on Epic thing I mention? Well, there’s a tiny chance you don’t know:
The Epic Games Store gives away free games every week (to keep forever) as part of its strategy to attract new users and keep existing ones engaged. Anyone with a free Epic account can "claim" these games during the giveaway period (usually one week), and once claimed, the games are permanently added to the user’s library—no strings attached. This initiative started in 2018 and is funded by Epic to build its user base. The games are often high-quality indie titles big-budget releases, and you don’t need a subscription—just an account.
If you’re a Linux gamer you can use methods such as Heroic Games Launcher or Junk Store to play these games without requiring Epic’s own launcher (Epic’s CEO Tim Sweeney is famously anti-Linux).
Warhammer 40,000 DLC:
Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader, the incredibly well regarded cRPG made by Owlcat Games has released their next DLC – Lex Imperialis.
(...the YouTube link for the trailer is here)
Lex Imperialis, the second major expansion for Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader, offers a new 15-hour storyline and introduces the Adeptus Arbites — a faction of incorruptible enforcers — alongside a new companion: the grim and relentless Solomorne Anthar. Featuring battle familiars like cybernetic eagles and cyber-mastiffs, this DLC is AVAILABLE NOW to all players.
Rogue Trader holds ‘Very Positive’ ratings on Steam, with 22,120 reviews on Steam. I own the game on GOG, and I enjoyed it far more than I expected to. There’s a lovely gothic/space setting, kinda unsettling, and a deep game behind the Warhammer branding.
While releasing this DLC, Owlcat games is also working on two more games (both ‘coming soon’
Become an acolyte of the Inquisition in this grim dark, party-based, story-driven cRPG. Lead investigations, uncover grand conspiracies, master tactical combat, and wage a secret war against heresy. Make tough choices as a conduit of the God-Emperor’s will.
The Expanse: Osiris Reborn is a third-person Action RPG set in The Expanse universe. You’re no hero — just a merc caught in the wrong place at the wrong time, trying to hold your crew together and keep the ship up and running. Your choices will shape your story.
One thing is for sure with Owlcat (aside from the initial release of their games tending to need a patch or two!), they care about their games and support them for the long haul.
Crosswind – MORE PIRATES!!!
Since you’re reading this, you’ll probably know by now that I cry about the lack of games set in the golden age of piracy. It’s a setting I like to think is popular but just...kinda ignored. AC: IV Black Flag is still in my opinion the best-of-the-best, but we’ve got another to add to the collection. Crosswind!
Crosswind is a survival adventure in the Age of Piracy. Explore procedural open world, gather, build and craft. Overcome challenging bosses in soulslite combat. Sail your ship, fight on land and sea, play solo or with friends. Live your swashbuckling life in PvE or rise to power in optional PvP.
They’re calling it a ‘pirate survival adventure’, and they devs known as Crosswind Crew have released a statement along with the trailer, which is as follows, in their words:
Crosswind is our dream pirate game. Heavily inspired by great titles like Valheim or Enshrouded, it also feautres naval combat similar to AC: Black Flag and soulslite bossfights. The upcoming Alpha is a big milestone -- with playtesters live feedback we will be able to thoroughly verify a lot of work and designs. It's not gonna be perfect, but we hope it will move in the right direction, and we are absolutely willing to complete this journey whatever it takes.
The Alpha will feature:
- Basic survival gameplay (building, crafting, upgrading);
- 3 unique biomes scattered across a big archipelago - each with unique resources, enemies and bosses;
- 3 playable ships and one NPC merchant (of course to plunder it!);
- Land combat, basic naval combat and early version of boarding actions;
- Very basic Tortuga social hub.
All in all we hope it will provide 30-40 hours of a survival adventure, but of course some parts of the game will be much less polished then others.
For those interested in playtesting: we start small, and have very limited server slots for the test, but for those willing to try the game -- the signups are open on Steam page. We will be gradually letting people in starting tomorrow; Steam picks people randomly. There will be other tests in the future, so even if you want to try Crosswind and don't make it in the first wave, you may get luckly later.
The Crosswind Steam page is here, for you to check it out
The Crosswind trailer on YouTube is here, via this link
Jurassic World Evolution 3:
After some people got (rightly) angry at Jurassic World Evolution 3 using A.I. generated assets for scientist portraits, the devs realized they’re being stupid and released a statement:
Thanks for your feedback on this topic. We have opted to remove the use of generative AI for scientist portraits within Jurassic World Evolution 3.
...you can read their statement here on the Steam community page
Meh, I’m hardly going to celebrate devs for doing the bare minimum here.
Major Mod - Black Orchestra:
...admittedly a game and gigantic mod I’ve never heard of before, but Black Orchestra Worldfront: 37-54 is coming. Made for Rising Storm 2 Vietnam, it adds the Pacific, Western, Mediterranean and Eastern Fronts of World War II to the game.
The mod is deemed feature complete now,
GOG Library Price Checker:
Someone has made a site which checks your GOG games library and gives you an estimate on the value of the total games. Or, it makes you feel awful about seeing a cold number stating you’ve spent way too much.
It’s wonky, and makes mistakes, and doesn’t seem to register all games. I can also see GPT everywhere in this, which as someone who enjoys writing kinda makes me feel icky. But whatever, if it helps people get an idea across then that’s the better of the A.I. uses these days.
I guess all-in-all, it’s still a fun idea in theory. One I should note I have not done or checked myself.
In their own words:
So I wanted to check how much my GOG games library is actually worth — like how SteamDB does it for Steam users — but turns out… there’s nothing like that for GOG.
And if there was anything, it either asked you to log in or paste your cookies... which to me instantly screamed obvious scam
So I thought: why not just make something myself?
Here's what I did:- You just grab a list of your games from GOG (don’t worry, I explain how to do this — since GOG gives no easy export option, had to get creative).
- Upload that CSV to my site.
- It fetches current prices from GOG, calculates your total value, base prices, and savings.
- You get to download the results as a CSV or as a cool little trading card-style badge image.
I'm a CS student (cooked ), and this is kinda my first real utility site — so I’d love feedback, suggestions, criticism, anything really.
Will try to make a video walkthrough soon for those who need visual instructions.
Let me know if anything breaks, or if there's something you'd want to see added.yes It’s hosted on Vercel for now because, well… it’s free and I’m broke
The ads are just me playing around with how a “real” implementation might look — not trying to cash out or anything, just testing stuff in the wild.
Where is your Q&A?
You might remember in my last news post I shared I mentioned that I have been chatting to the lead dev of a program which makes piracy on a jailbroken (Custom Firmware or CFW) Nintendo Switch. The program works as a replica to the official Nintndo eShop except...it’s not filled with shit, ironically. And it doesn’t slow to a crawl to search through.
Anyway, it’s a piracy portal. I wanted to interview them with the idea of getting a glimpse behind why they do it, how they do it, how they justify doing it. All without sharing the name of this program, or the name of the dev.
Anyway, they’ve been a little busy, I’ve shared my side with them and am still waiting on their responses before I format it up and add some pictures, generally make it fit to view on Lemmy here.
Anyway, it’s coming soon, just to let you know!
Switch 2 Compatibility Tracker:
Speaking of Switch, someone has made a webpage which tracks Switch 2 compatibility with Switch 1 games:
*I saw that the lists here don't update regularly (last updated June 5), and that Nintendo says to check individual eShop pages for updated information. So, I made a webpage that scrapes the eShop for up-to-date information. Check it out! Feedback is welcome!
The GitHub page for the tracker is here and updates twice daily!
Junk Store’s Pricing Revealed:
The next iteration of Junk Store is close to launching. Promising emulation, more store-fronts and even (planned, not there yet!) cloud saves. Currently Junk Store works as a plugin via Decky Loader on your Steam Deck – install the plugin and from the gaming mode on your Steam Deck you can enjoy Epic Games titles. With a paid extension to that (a one-off purchase of $6) you can also enjoy GOG games.
The next iteration will be a subscription model, and I’ll share Junk Store’s own words on their announcement below:
Tldr:
Junk Store is almost ready. It’s a full rebuild — faster, more stable, no Decky required, and packed with new features. Pricing is USD$40/year with a 7-day free trial, and you keep everything released during your subscription.
The open-source version remains available. Early supporters get a discount, and we’re rolling out in waves to keep things sustainable.
The Longer Version
We’re close to launching the new version of Junk Store — rebuilt from the ground up after over a year of work. It’s faster, more stable, and adds major features like Amazon support, a download queue, and simplified extension generation (no coding needed). This version is fully standalone — no more Decky required — and is based on everything we learned from the original.
We know pricing will be a sticking point for some, so here’s the plan:- $40 (USD) for 12 months of updates
- Includes all extension presets (currently GOG, Epic, Amazon — more to come)
- You keep everything released during your subscription
- Renewal is $40/year
- 7-day free trial — cancel anytime (Stripe handles billing)
To keep things sustainable, we’ll be rolling out in waves. Hosting and bandwidth aren’t free — and based on the original version’s download volume, opening the gates all at once would sink us. Existing supporters will be onboarded first and get a discount that reflects their earlier contributions.
We also want to clear up a few things:- This version does not share code with the open-source one.
- The free, open-source version will remain available.
- Junk Store does not handle any credentials except its own.
We expect a few bumps early on — this is new code, and no software survives first contact with the public. But it’s already been battle-tested internally and testers.
What’s Next?If all goes well, we’re planning:
- Itch.io support (and possibly EA, Ubisoft, Battle.net)
- Cloud saves (done right)
- Game-specific presets
- Better extension creation tools
- Full localisation
- Community extension sharing
- Automated updates
For a more detailed breakdown head [to this link] here
Thanks again to everyone who’s supported this journey. We’re almost there.
Game on.So, what do you think? Will you be trying Junk Store out? I think Gardiner is planning a video showcasing what it does and how it does it, closer to the date if that helps you visualize what it’s capable of!
Retro Gaming Finds:
I’ve just come across a few fun retro gaming-centric things, so while they’re not at all news-worthy in the hard news sense, they’re amazing in every way and I’d be remiss to not add them to their own section here. If you’ve interest in older games (by my sense because I am so young what is ‘old’ might make you cringe), so settle back and enjoy these ones:
Underwater:
Just someone’s custom bathroom efforts, which seems totally appropriate here:
PS1 Concept Logos:
PC-88:
The PC88 was an 8-bit computer that was dominant in Japan in the 1980s, and has a bit of a reputation for very pixel-y blocky boxy graphics. What comes out beautifully though are the city-scapes in the games. The images will follow, but in order they appear from the following games:
- Tien Gow Pia Special (1989)
- Can Can Bunny (1989)
- Snatcher (1988)
- Misty Blue (1990)
- Burning Point (1989)
- Imitation wa Aisenai (1989)
- Can Can Bunny Superior (1990)
- Paragon Sexa Doll (1989)
Costanza:
Yep, George owned a Virtual Boy. I also think it’s pretty funny that the series has him as the fat one and by today’s standards he’s honestly pretty trim. Weird. Sad about our society now, I think. Anyway, Virtual Boy here:
Wall Art:
It’s amazing, but if you wanna be totally accurate to the time:
- DK has a tie on, whereas the original does not
- ‘jumpman’ should have red overalls and a blue shirt
- Peach is used instead of Pauline
Michael Jackson:
Keen eyes may spot that it is GoldenEye in the N64 there, next to his throne.
That’s that for this week!
Sorry again that it’s been a little smaller than as is typical, I have a lot on my plate right now but I do plan the next to resume my typical way-too-many-words standard I seem to have set for myself!
Previous Posts:
If you’d like to read my previous Gaming News posts (they’re mounting up in number now!), then you can find them here:
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #2
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #3
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #4
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #5
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #6
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #7
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #8
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #9
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #10
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #11
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #12
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #13
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #14
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #15
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #16
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #17
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #18
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #19
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #20
Mastodon:
I do tend to post there each and every day, 99.99% gaming nonsense. If you want more of this, then come drop by!
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As ever and always, I’m back with a week’s worth of gaming news I’ve spotted and thought I should share with you all!
This week is slightly less than is typical (1,000-ish words less than my last week’s I can tell you!) for a few reasons:
- I’ve cashed in some of my crypto and bought a cabin. Which makes me sound like an actress in a Stephen King movie
- I’ve had some odd health hiccups lately – nerve damage in my hip which means I feel nothing when touching a small patch of skin, but it also feels like it is on fire
So I’ve been a little distracted, but I do pinkie-swear next week’s will be back to my normal output!
So what are these posts?
My aim for these News Posts in general is to make them a more clearly not a professional, but someone who cares about gaming manner than most gaming sites do now. I see so many sites, even the independent ones, bombarding with ads, banners and reminders to support them. I get it, I really do, but it’s an unpleasant experience to me.
My ever-lasting inspo is the old, old video game sites, blogs and magazines that I never had the privilege of being alive for:
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Image/gif/link heavy (though once again this week I have few of these, so this dot-point’s a bit needless)
-
Personal voice (I can’t help rambling, send help – this won’t be even slightly professionally written)
-
Mostly news or articles or points which you won’t find on normal gaming sites. These are the smaller, lesser things that I’m drawn to. I know you’ll have spotted the big news articles, so I’m hoping some of these smaller ones might have been missed by you.
A mixed bag of what I’ve considered news this week, so there really is a bit of everything ahead.
General Gaming News:
A New PS2 Emulator – Iris:
After 7-8 months of working on it, Lycoder (also goes by Allkern) has released their PS2 emulator called Iris. While games are running with very low/low/unplayable frames at the moment, they want to reassure people that this is constantly in development and improvements are being made regularly.
Windows, Linux and MacOS are supported.
The GitHub page is here, if you’d like to read a little more!
...and here is the link to the 0.10-alpha build of Iris
Funnily enough, it was only very recently that I fixed a DMAC bug that was keeping a lot of games from booting, and now this opens up a ton of potential to further debug and fix other issues, which may lead to even more games to boot. There's still a lot of work to be done, especially in the optimization department. I'm really looking forward to continue working on this project and advancing PlayStation 2 emulation!
It’s lovely to have another player in the scene, particularly with PS2 emulation.
And, naturally, here’s some pictures:
System Shock 2: 25th Anniversary Remaster Delay:
...sorry, don’t want to make you panic if you’re a PC gamer – no delays on that front, but if you’re a console gamer then it has been delayed for now:
Knowing the publishers, I’d say you’re in good hands without having to wait too long to play it, and I’m so excited to play through myself.
How to Fix Xbox’s Stupid Update:
I can’t even be bothered taking picture to illustrate this one, but if you’re on Xbox you’ll have seen it. Select a game and then you’re presented with a new screen giving you another step before you can select it again to play the game. And half that screen is taken up with their hopeful promotions of DLC and micro-transactions.
Shitty.
Anyway:
Settings / General / Personalization / Games & Apps / Choose whether game huds open automatically from the following places -
- Recently played list
- Groups
- Installed games
Grounded 2 Hype:
With the announcement of Obsidian’s Grounded 2, the numbers of the first game (Honey, I Shrunk The Kids meets Arrietty have exploded, bring a 193.8 boost to current players. The game shot up the Xbox charts from #88 to #23 (overtaking Halo: MCC and Elden Ring)
The game was announced two weeks ago, and the trailer is here for those curious
The first game on Steam holds a ‘Very Positive’ rating with 66,596 all-time ratings.
Lies of P:
I’m sure you’ve read this in at least four other places by now, but it still warms my heart. I couldn’t really make it through Lies of P – the souls-like and even souls-adjacent genre is not my cup of stressful tea. What I did love though was the atmosphere and setting, reminding me for no particular reason of Drood, the novel by Dan Simmons about the last five years of Charles Dickens and how spooky it could get.
Anyway, the devs behind Lies of P and Overture (the DLC) got a bonus for their efforts, with the two selling over 3m copies combined. They got a bonus, two weeks vacation and a free Nintendo Switch 2. IDK, a nice rarity in today’s gaming world!
Still Wakes The Deep:
The Chinese Room - Developers behind the BAFTA-winning-game Still Wakes The Deep have laid off some of their team, just after the release of their DLC – Siren’s Rest.
At a glance, around 10 staff with the studio listed as their current employer have the 'looking for work' label on their LinkedIn profiles – though this is not a reliable metric by itself.
However, The Chinese Room will share news on changes for the studio in the coming weeks so more will come out, I suppose. Sad news for those who worked on the rather amazing game.
Subnautica 2 Dev Vlog:
The latest dev vlog for the game has come out, titles ‘Building Unknown Worlds’
Join senior narrative designer Seth Dickinson, level designer Artyom O’Rielly, environment artist James Stout, and senior environment artist (and rock connoisseur) Ben Hale as they walk you through the incredible work that goes into building out the world of Subnautica 2.
My fav comment on the video is this one:
I have never been so excited over rocks
LEGO Island in Browser:
As the title says, the game is now available to play in your browser. I’m way too young for this game to have any impact in my life, but I think the older members here might remember it. Released in 1997, it’s certainly got a rabid following.
The link to the site is here, try it out!
And one more thing, I found the fact the devs created a physical island in actual LEGO when making the game, and this is ancient and adorable:
Auto-Shutdown after game download:
A gamer by the username of Avaneesh13 has created a Python-based application when they saw room for it – shutting their PC down for them after a big game download completed (rather than having their PC on all night)
This application is called SteamDown, and the link to the GitHub page is here for you to read through if you’d like.
SteamDown:
- Monitors your Steam download activity in real-time
- When downloads go inactive for a set period (you choose how long), it automatically performs an action of your choice
- Actions include: shutdown PC, sleep mode, stop Steam, or other custom actions
- Completely free and open-source
I kept starting massive game downloads (looking at you, Call of Duty) before going to bed, only to wake up and find my PC had been running idle for 6 hours after the download finished at 3 AM. Felt wasteful and probably wasn't great for my electricity bill either. Now I just set it to wait 5-10 minutes after downloads stop, then shut down my system automatically. Much better for power savings and peace of mind.
How it is different from other solutions:
*Generic system monitors that don't understand Steam's download behaviour specifically
- Command-line tools that require technical setup and aren't user-friendly
- Part of a larger system suite with bloatware I didn't want
- Paid solutions for what should be a simple utility
Technical details:
- Written in Python and built it as a standalone .exe (no installation needed)
- Works on Windows primarily, though I might explore macOS/Linux support
- Planning to add support for other launchers like Epic, GOG, etc. in future updates.
- Codebase clean and modular in case anyone wants to contribute or fork it
The functionality should be working as expected - it reliably monitors Steam and performs the shutdown actions. The UI could use a bit of work though (I'm more of a backend person), so if anyone has suggestions or wants to contribute on the interface side, I'd welcome the help!
Again, the GitHub link is at the start of this section, so take a look if you’re curious!
Epic reaches 500:
When Epic officially started their free games each week, all the way back in 2018, no one anticipated it would go for as long or be filled with the quality titles it has today. Starting with Subnautica (though unofficially giving away Shadow Complex Remastered before this in an effort to get users to install the launcher), we’re now up to 502 PC games given away.
Now they’re even expanding on this, with mobile phone games given away free each week. This coming week’s giveaway will be Sable (more on that later!).
...though be warned, it might make you sad to see what you’ve missed out on.
And what is this free games each week on Epic thing I mention? Well, there’s a tiny chance you don’t know:
The Epic Games Store gives away free games every week (to keep forever) as part of its strategy to attract new users and keep existing ones engaged. Anyone with a free Epic account can "claim" these games during the giveaway period (usually one week), and once claimed, the games are permanently added to the user’s library—no strings attached. This initiative started in 2018 and is funded by Epic to build its user base. The games are often high-quality indie titles big-budget releases, and you don’t need a subscription—just an account.
If you’re a Linux gamer you can use methods such as Heroic Games Launcher or Junk Store to play these games without requiring Epic’s own launcher (Epic’s CEO Tim Sweeney is famously anti-Linux).
Warhammer 40,000 DLC:
Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader, the incredibly well regarded cRPG made by Owlcat Games has released their next DLC – Lex Imperialis.
(...the YouTube link for the trailer is here)
Lex Imperialis, the second major expansion for Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader, offers a new 15-hour storyline and introduces the Adeptus Arbites — a faction of incorruptible enforcers — alongside a new companion: the grim and relentless Solomorne Anthar. Featuring battle familiars like cybernetic eagles and cyber-mastiffs, this DLC is AVAILABLE NOW to all players.
Rogue Trader holds ‘Very Positive’ ratings on Steam, with 22,120 reviews on Steam. I own the game on GOG, and I enjoyed it far more than I expected to. There’s a lovely gothic/space setting, kinda unsettling, and a deep game behind the Warhammer branding.
While releasing this DLC, Owlcat games is also working on two more games (both ‘coming soon’
Become an acolyte of the Inquisition in this grim dark, party-based, story-driven cRPG. Lead investigations, uncover grand conspiracies, master tactical combat, and wage a secret war against heresy. Make tough choices as a conduit of the God-Emperor’s will.
The Expanse: Osiris Reborn is a third-person Action RPG set in The Expanse universe. You’re no hero — just a merc caught in the wrong place at the wrong time, trying to hold your crew together and keep the ship up and running. Your choices will shape your story.
One thing is for sure with Owlcat (aside from the initial release of their games tending to need a patch or two!), they care about their games and support them for the long haul.
Crosswind – MORE PIRATES!!!
Since you’re reading this, you’ll probably know by now that I cry about the lack of games set in the golden age of piracy. It’s a setting I like to think is popular but just...kinda ignored. AC: IV Black Flag is still in my opinion the best-of-the-best, but we’ve got another to add to the collection. Crosswind!
Crosswind is a survival adventure in the Age of Piracy. Explore procedural open world, gather, build and craft. Overcome challenging bosses in soulslite combat. Sail your ship, fight on land and sea, play solo or with friends. Live your swashbuckling life in PvE or rise to power in optional PvP.
They’re calling it a ‘pirate survival adventure’, and they devs known as Crosswind Crew have released a statement along with the trailer, which is as follows, in their words:
Crosswind is our dream pirate game. Heavily inspired by great titles like Valheim or Enshrouded, it also feautres naval combat similar to AC: Black Flag and soulslite bossfights. The upcoming Alpha is a big milestone -- with playtesters live feedback we will be able to thoroughly verify a lot of work and designs. It's not gonna be perfect, but we hope it will move in the right direction, and we are absolutely willing to complete this journey whatever it takes.
The Alpha will feature:
- Basic survival gameplay (building, crafting, upgrading);
- 3 unique biomes scattered across a big archipelago - each with unique resources, enemies and bosses;
- 3 playable ships and one NPC merchant (of course to plunder it!);
- Land combat, basic naval combat and early version of boarding actions;
- Very basic Tortuga social hub.
All in all we hope it will provide 30-40 hours of a survival adventure, but of course some parts of the game will be much less polished then others.
For those interested in playtesting: we start small, and have very limited server slots for the test, but for those willing to try the game -- the signups are open on Steam page. We will be gradually letting people in starting tomorrow; Steam picks people randomly. There will be other tests in the future, so even if you want to try Crosswind and don't make it in the first wave, you may get luckly later.
The Crosswind Steam page is here, for you to check it out
The Crosswind trailer on YouTube is here, via this link
Jurassic World Evolution 3:
After some people got (rightly) angry at Jurassic World Evolution 3 using A.I. generated assets for scientist portraits, the devs realized they’re being stupid and released a statement:
Thanks for your feedback on this topic. We have opted to remove the use of generative AI for scientist portraits within Jurassic World Evolution 3.
...you can read their statement here on the Steam community page
Meh, I’m hardly going to celebrate devs for doing the bare minimum here.
Major Mod - Black Orchestra:
...admittedly a game and gigantic mod I’ve never heard of before, but Black Orchestra Worldfront: 37-54 is coming. Made for Rising Storm 2 Vietnam, it adds the Pacific, Western, Mediterranean and Eastern Fronts of World War II to the game.
The mod is deemed feature complete now,
GOG Library Price Checker:
Someone has made a site which checks your GOG games library and gives you an estimate on the value of the total games. Or, it makes you feel awful about seeing a cold number stating you’ve spent way too much.
It’s wonky, and makes mistakes, and doesn’t seem to register all games. I can also see GPT everywhere in this, which as someone who enjoys writing kinda makes me feel icky. But whatever, if it helps people get an idea across then that’s the better of the A.I. uses these days.
I guess all-in-all, it’s still a fun idea in theory. One I should note I have not done or checked myself.
In their own words:
So I wanted to check how much my GOG games library is actually worth — like how SteamDB does it for Steam users — but turns out… there’s nothing like that for GOG.
And if there was anything, it either asked you to log in or paste your cookies... which to me instantly screamed obvious scam
So I thought: why not just make something myself?
Here's what I did:- You just grab a list of your games from GOG (don’t worry, I explain how to do this — since GOG gives no easy export option, had to get creative).
- Upload that CSV to my site.
- It fetches current prices from GOG, calculates your total value, base prices, and savings.
- You get to download the results as a CSV or as a cool little trading card-style badge image.
I'm a CS student (cooked ), and this is kinda my first real utility site — so I’d love feedback, suggestions, criticism, anything really.
Will try to make a video walkthrough soon for those who need visual instructions.
Let me know if anything breaks, or if there's something you'd want to see added.yes It’s hosted on Vercel for now because, well… it’s free and I’m broke
The ads are just me playing around with how a “real” implementation might look — not trying to cash out or anything, just testing stuff in the wild.
Where is your Q&A?
You might remember in my last news post I shared I mentioned that I have been chatting to the lead dev of a program which makes piracy on a jailbroken (Custom Firmware or CFW) Nintendo Switch. The program works as a replica to the official Nintndo eShop except...it’s not filled with shit, ironically. And it doesn’t slow to a crawl to search through.
Anyway, it’s a piracy portal. I wanted to interview them with the idea of getting a glimpse behind why they do it, how they do it, how they justify doing it. All without sharing the name of this program, or the name of the dev.
Anyway, they’ve been a little busy, I’ve shared my side with them and am still waiting on their responses before I format it up and add some pictures, generally make it fit to view on Lemmy here.
Anyway, it’s coming soon, just to let you know!
Switch 2 Compatibility Tracker:
Speaking of Switch, someone has made a webpage which tracks Switch 2 compatibility with Switch 1 games:
*I saw that the lists here don't update regularly (last updated June 5), and that Nintendo says to check individual eShop pages for updated information. So, I made a webpage that scrapes the eShop for up-to-date information. Check it out! Feedback is welcome!
The GitHub page for the tracker is here and updates twice daily!
Junk Store’s Pricing Revealed:
The next iteration of Junk Store is close to launching. Promising emulation, more store-fronts and even (planned, not there yet!) cloud saves. Currently Junk Store works as a plugin via Decky Loader on your Steam Deck – install the plugin and from the gaming mode on your Steam Deck you can enjoy Epic Games titles. With a paid extension to that (a one-off purchase of $6) you can also enjoy GOG games.
The next iteration will be a subscription model, and I’ll share Junk Store’s own words on their announcement below:
Tldr:
Junk Store is almost ready. It’s a full rebuild — faster, more stable, no Decky required, and packed with new features. Pricing is USD$40/year with a 7-day free trial, and you keep everything released during your subscription.
The open-source version remains available. Early supporters get a discount, and we’re rolling out in waves to keep things sustainable.
The Longer Version
We’re close to launching the new version of Junk Store — rebuilt from the ground up after over a year of work. It’s faster, more stable, and adds major features like Amazon support, a download queue, and simplified extension generation (no coding needed). This version is fully standalone — no more Decky required — and is based on everything we learned from the original.
We know pricing will be a sticking point for some, so here’s the plan:- $40 (USD) for 12 months of updates
- Includes all extension presets (currently GOG, Epic, Amazon — more to come)
- You keep everything released during your subscription
- Renewal is $40/year
- 7-day free trial — cancel anytime (Stripe handles billing)
To keep things sustainable, we’ll be rolling out in waves. Hosting and bandwidth aren’t free — and based on the original version’s download volume, opening the gates all at once would sink us. Existing supporters will be onboarded first and get a discount that reflects their earlier contributions.
We also want to clear up a few things:- This version does not share code with the open-source one.
- The free, open-source version will remain available.
- Junk Store does not handle any credentials except its own.
We expect a few bumps early on — this is new code, and no software survives first contact with the public. But it’s already been battle-tested internally and testers.
What’s Next?If all goes well, we’re planning:
- Itch.io support (and possibly EA, Ubisoft, Battle.net)
- Cloud saves (done right)
- Game-specific presets
- Better extension creation tools
- Full localisation
- Community extension sharing
- Automated updates
For a more detailed breakdown head [to this link] here
Thanks again to everyone who’s supported this journey. We’re almost there.
Game on.So, what do you think? Will you be trying Junk Store out? I think Gardiner is planning a video showcasing what it does and how it does it, closer to the date if that helps you visualize what it’s capable of!
Retro Gaming Finds:
I’ve just come across a few fun retro gaming-centric things, so while they’re not at all news-worthy in the hard news sense, they’re amazing in every way and I’d be remiss to not add them to their own section here. If you’ve interest in older games (by my sense because I am so young what is ‘old’ might make you cringe), so settle back and enjoy these ones:
Underwater:
Just someone’s custom bathroom efforts, which seems totally appropriate here:
PS1 Concept Logos:
PC-88:
The PC88 was an 8-bit computer that was dominant in Japan in the 1980s, and has a bit of a reputation for very pixel-y blocky boxy graphics. What comes out beautifully though are the city-scapes in the games. The images will follow, but in order they appear from the following games:
- Tien Gow Pia Special (1989)
- Can Can Bunny (1989)
- Snatcher (1988)
- Misty Blue (1990)
- Burning Point (1989)
- Imitation wa Aisenai (1989)
- Can Can Bunny Superior (1990)
- Paragon Sexa Doll (1989)
Costanza:
Yep, George owned a Virtual Boy. I also think it’s pretty funny that the series has him as the fat one and by today’s standards he’s honestly pretty trim. Weird. Sad about our society now, I think. Anyway, Virtual Boy here:
Wall Art:
It’s amazing, but if you wanna be totally accurate to the time:
- DK has a tie on, whereas the original does not
- ‘jumpman’ should have red overalls and a blue shirt
- Peach is used instead of Pauline
Michael Jackson:
Keen eyes may spot that it is GoldenEye in the N64 there, next to his throne.
That’s that for this week!
Sorry again that it’s been a little smaller than as is typical, I have a lot on my plate right now but I do plan the next to resume my typical way-too-many-words standard I seem to have set for myself!
Previous Posts:
If you’d like to read my previous Gaming News posts (they’re mounting up in number now!), then you can find them here:
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #2
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #3
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #4
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #5
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #6
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #7
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #8
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #9
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #10
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #11
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #12
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #13
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #14
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #15
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #16
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #17
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #18
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #19
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #20
Mastodon:
I do tend to post there each and every day, 99.99% gaming nonsense. If you want more of this, then come drop by!
Junk Store really pisses me off. Like, what the ever loving fuck justifies paying them that much money for a software suite that is done for free using Heroic Launcher?
Tangent; i can't wait for Subnautica 2
Great post!
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As ever and always, I’m back with a week’s worth of gaming news I’ve spotted and thought I should share with you all!
This week is slightly less than is typical (1,000-ish words less than my last week’s I can tell you!) for a few reasons:
- I’ve cashed in some of my crypto and bought a cabin. Which makes me sound like an actress in a Stephen King movie
- I’ve had some odd health hiccups lately – nerve damage in my hip which means I feel nothing when touching a small patch of skin, but it also feels like it is on fire
So I’ve been a little distracted, but I do pinkie-swear next week’s will be back to my normal output!
So what are these posts?
My aim for these News Posts in general is to make them a more clearly not a professional, but someone who cares about gaming manner than most gaming sites do now. I see so many sites, even the independent ones, bombarding with ads, banners and reminders to support them. I get it, I really do, but it’s an unpleasant experience to me.
My ever-lasting inspo is the old, old video game sites, blogs and magazines that I never had the privilege of being alive for:
-
Image/gif/link heavy (though once again this week I have few of these, so this dot-point’s a bit needless)
-
Personal voice (I can’t help rambling, send help – this won’t be even slightly professionally written)
-
Mostly news or articles or points which you won’t find on normal gaming sites. These are the smaller, lesser things that I’m drawn to. I know you’ll have spotted the big news articles, so I’m hoping some of these smaller ones might have been missed by you.
A mixed bag of what I’ve considered news this week, so there really is a bit of everything ahead.
General Gaming News:
A New PS2 Emulator – Iris:
After 7-8 months of working on it, Lycoder (also goes by Allkern) has released their PS2 emulator called Iris. While games are running with very low/low/unplayable frames at the moment, they want to reassure people that this is constantly in development and improvements are being made regularly.
Windows, Linux and MacOS are supported.
The GitHub page is here, if you’d like to read a little more!
...and here is the link to the 0.10-alpha build of Iris
Funnily enough, it was only very recently that I fixed a DMAC bug that was keeping a lot of games from booting, and now this opens up a ton of potential to further debug and fix other issues, which may lead to even more games to boot. There's still a lot of work to be done, especially in the optimization department. I'm really looking forward to continue working on this project and advancing PlayStation 2 emulation!
It’s lovely to have another player in the scene, particularly with PS2 emulation.
And, naturally, here’s some pictures:
System Shock 2: 25th Anniversary Remaster Delay:
...sorry, don’t want to make you panic if you’re a PC gamer – no delays on that front, but if you’re a console gamer then it has been delayed for now:
Knowing the publishers, I’d say you’re in good hands without having to wait too long to play it, and I’m so excited to play through myself.
How to Fix Xbox’s Stupid Update:
I can’t even be bothered taking picture to illustrate this one, but if you’re on Xbox you’ll have seen it. Select a game and then you’re presented with a new screen giving you another step before you can select it again to play the game. And half that screen is taken up with their hopeful promotions of DLC and micro-transactions.
Shitty.
Anyway:
Settings / General / Personalization / Games & Apps / Choose whether game huds open automatically from the following places -
- Recently played list
- Groups
- Installed games
Grounded 2 Hype:
With the announcement of Obsidian’s Grounded 2, the numbers of the first game (Honey, I Shrunk The Kids meets Arrietty have exploded, bring a 193.8 boost to current players. The game shot up the Xbox charts from #88 to #23 (overtaking Halo: MCC and Elden Ring)
The game was announced two weeks ago, and the trailer is here for those curious
The first game on Steam holds a ‘Very Positive’ rating with 66,596 all-time ratings.
Lies of P:
I’m sure you’ve read this in at least four other places by now, but it still warms my heart. I couldn’t really make it through Lies of P – the souls-like and even souls-adjacent genre is not my cup of stressful tea. What I did love though was the atmosphere and setting, reminding me for no particular reason of Drood, the novel by Dan Simmons about the last five years of Charles Dickens and how spooky it could get.
Anyway, the devs behind Lies of P and Overture (the DLC) got a bonus for their efforts, with the two selling over 3m copies combined. They got a bonus, two weeks vacation and a free Nintendo Switch 2. IDK, a nice rarity in today’s gaming world!
Still Wakes The Deep:
The Chinese Room - Developers behind the BAFTA-winning-game Still Wakes The Deep have laid off some of their team, just after the release of their DLC – Siren’s Rest.
At a glance, around 10 staff with the studio listed as their current employer have the 'looking for work' label on their LinkedIn profiles – though this is not a reliable metric by itself.
However, The Chinese Room will share news on changes for the studio in the coming weeks so more will come out, I suppose. Sad news for those who worked on the rather amazing game.
Subnautica 2 Dev Vlog:
The latest dev vlog for the game has come out, titles ‘Building Unknown Worlds’
Join senior narrative designer Seth Dickinson, level designer Artyom O’Rielly, environment artist James Stout, and senior environment artist (and rock connoisseur) Ben Hale as they walk you through the incredible work that goes into building out the world of Subnautica 2.
My fav comment on the video is this one:
I have never been so excited over rocks
LEGO Island in Browser:
As the title says, the game is now available to play in your browser. I’m way too young for this game to have any impact in my life, but I think the older members here might remember it. Released in 1997, it’s certainly got a rabid following.
The link to the site is here, try it out!
And one more thing, I found the fact the devs created a physical island in actual LEGO when making the game, and this is ancient and adorable:
Auto-Shutdown after game download:
A gamer by the username of Avaneesh13 has created a Python-based application when they saw room for it – shutting their PC down for them after a big game download completed (rather than having their PC on all night)
This application is called SteamDown, and the link to the GitHub page is here for you to read through if you’d like.
SteamDown:
- Monitors your Steam download activity in real-time
- When downloads go inactive for a set period (you choose how long), it automatically performs an action of your choice
- Actions include: shutdown PC, sleep mode, stop Steam, or other custom actions
- Completely free and open-source
I kept starting massive game downloads (looking at you, Call of Duty) before going to bed, only to wake up and find my PC had been running idle for 6 hours after the download finished at 3 AM. Felt wasteful and probably wasn't great for my electricity bill either. Now I just set it to wait 5-10 minutes after downloads stop, then shut down my system automatically. Much better for power savings and peace of mind.
How it is different from other solutions:
*Generic system monitors that don't understand Steam's download behaviour specifically
- Command-line tools that require technical setup and aren't user-friendly
- Part of a larger system suite with bloatware I didn't want
- Paid solutions for what should be a simple utility
Technical details:
- Written in Python and built it as a standalone .exe (no installation needed)
- Works on Windows primarily, though I might explore macOS/Linux support
- Planning to add support for other launchers like Epic, GOG, etc. in future updates.
- Codebase clean and modular in case anyone wants to contribute or fork it
The functionality should be working as expected - it reliably monitors Steam and performs the shutdown actions. The UI could use a bit of work though (I'm more of a backend person), so if anyone has suggestions or wants to contribute on the interface side, I'd welcome the help!
Again, the GitHub link is at the start of this section, so take a look if you’re curious!
Epic reaches 500:
When Epic officially started their free games each week, all the way back in 2018, no one anticipated it would go for as long or be filled with the quality titles it has today. Starting with Subnautica (though unofficially giving away Shadow Complex Remastered before this in an effort to get users to install the launcher), we’re now up to 502 PC games given away.
Now they’re even expanding on this, with mobile phone games given away free each week. This coming week’s giveaway will be Sable (more on that later!).
...though be warned, it might make you sad to see what you’ve missed out on.
And what is this free games each week on Epic thing I mention? Well, there’s a tiny chance you don’t know:
The Epic Games Store gives away free games every week (to keep forever) as part of its strategy to attract new users and keep existing ones engaged. Anyone with a free Epic account can "claim" these games during the giveaway period (usually one week), and once claimed, the games are permanently added to the user’s library—no strings attached. This initiative started in 2018 and is funded by Epic to build its user base. The games are often high-quality indie titles big-budget releases, and you don’t need a subscription—just an account.
If you’re a Linux gamer you can use methods such as Heroic Games Launcher or Junk Store to play these games without requiring Epic’s own launcher (Epic’s CEO Tim Sweeney is famously anti-Linux).
Warhammer 40,000 DLC:
Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader, the incredibly well regarded cRPG made by Owlcat Games has released their next DLC – Lex Imperialis.
(...the YouTube link for the trailer is here)
Lex Imperialis, the second major expansion for Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader, offers a new 15-hour storyline and introduces the Adeptus Arbites — a faction of incorruptible enforcers — alongside a new companion: the grim and relentless Solomorne Anthar. Featuring battle familiars like cybernetic eagles and cyber-mastiffs, this DLC is AVAILABLE NOW to all players.
Rogue Trader holds ‘Very Positive’ ratings on Steam, with 22,120 reviews on Steam. I own the game on GOG, and I enjoyed it far more than I expected to. There’s a lovely gothic/space setting, kinda unsettling, and a deep game behind the Warhammer branding.
While releasing this DLC, Owlcat games is also working on two more games (both ‘coming soon’
Become an acolyte of the Inquisition in this grim dark, party-based, story-driven cRPG. Lead investigations, uncover grand conspiracies, master tactical combat, and wage a secret war against heresy. Make tough choices as a conduit of the God-Emperor’s will.
The Expanse: Osiris Reborn is a third-person Action RPG set in The Expanse universe. You’re no hero — just a merc caught in the wrong place at the wrong time, trying to hold your crew together and keep the ship up and running. Your choices will shape your story.
One thing is for sure with Owlcat (aside from the initial release of their games tending to need a patch or two!), they care about their games and support them for the long haul.
Crosswind – MORE PIRATES!!!
Since you’re reading this, you’ll probably know by now that I cry about the lack of games set in the golden age of piracy. It’s a setting I like to think is popular but just...kinda ignored. AC: IV Black Flag is still in my opinion the best-of-the-best, but we’ve got another to add to the collection. Crosswind!
Crosswind is a survival adventure in the Age of Piracy. Explore procedural open world, gather, build and craft. Overcome challenging bosses in soulslite combat. Sail your ship, fight on land and sea, play solo or with friends. Live your swashbuckling life in PvE or rise to power in optional PvP.
They’re calling it a ‘pirate survival adventure’, and they devs known as Crosswind Crew have released a statement along with the trailer, which is as follows, in their words:
Crosswind is our dream pirate game. Heavily inspired by great titles like Valheim or Enshrouded, it also feautres naval combat similar to AC: Black Flag and soulslite bossfights. The upcoming Alpha is a big milestone -- with playtesters live feedback we will be able to thoroughly verify a lot of work and designs. It's not gonna be perfect, but we hope it will move in the right direction, and we are absolutely willing to complete this journey whatever it takes.
The Alpha will feature:
- Basic survival gameplay (building, crafting, upgrading);
- 3 unique biomes scattered across a big archipelago - each with unique resources, enemies and bosses;
- 3 playable ships and one NPC merchant (of course to plunder it!);
- Land combat, basic naval combat and early version of boarding actions;
- Very basic Tortuga social hub.
All in all we hope it will provide 30-40 hours of a survival adventure, but of course some parts of the game will be much less polished then others.
For those interested in playtesting: we start small, and have very limited server slots for the test, but for those willing to try the game -- the signups are open on Steam page. We will be gradually letting people in starting tomorrow; Steam picks people randomly. There will be other tests in the future, so even if you want to try Crosswind and don't make it in the first wave, you may get luckly later.
The Crosswind Steam page is here, for you to check it out
The Crosswind trailer on YouTube is here, via this link
Jurassic World Evolution 3:
After some people got (rightly) angry at Jurassic World Evolution 3 using A.I. generated assets for scientist portraits, the devs realized they’re being stupid and released a statement:
Thanks for your feedback on this topic. We have opted to remove the use of generative AI for scientist portraits within Jurassic World Evolution 3.
...you can read their statement here on the Steam community page
Meh, I’m hardly going to celebrate devs for doing the bare minimum here.
Major Mod - Black Orchestra:
...admittedly a game and gigantic mod I’ve never heard of before, but Black Orchestra Worldfront: 37-54 is coming. Made for Rising Storm 2 Vietnam, it adds the Pacific, Western, Mediterranean and Eastern Fronts of World War II to the game.
The mod is deemed feature complete now,
GOG Library Price Checker:
Someone has made a site which checks your GOG games library and gives you an estimate on the value of the total games. Or, it makes you feel awful about seeing a cold number stating you’ve spent way too much.
It’s wonky, and makes mistakes, and doesn’t seem to register all games. I can also see GPT everywhere in this, which as someone who enjoys writing kinda makes me feel icky. But whatever, if it helps people get an idea across then that’s the better of the A.I. uses these days.
I guess all-in-all, it’s still a fun idea in theory. One I should note I have not done or checked myself.
In their own words:
So I wanted to check how much my GOG games library is actually worth — like how SteamDB does it for Steam users — but turns out… there’s nothing like that for GOG.
And if there was anything, it either asked you to log in or paste your cookies... which to me instantly screamed obvious scam
So I thought: why not just make something myself?
Here's what I did:- You just grab a list of your games from GOG (don’t worry, I explain how to do this — since GOG gives no easy export option, had to get creative).
- Upload that CSV to my site.
- It fetches current prices from GOG, calculates your total value, base prices, and savings.
- You get to download the results as a CSV or as a cool little trading card-style badge image.
I'm a CS student (cooked ), and this is kinda my first real utility site — so I’d love feedback, suggestions, criticism, anything really.
Will try to make a video walkthrough soon for those who need visual instructions.
Let me know if anything breaks, or if there's something you'd want to see added.yes It’s hosted on Vercel for now because, well… it’s free and I’m broke
The ads are just me playing around with how a “real” implementation might look — not trying to cash out or anything, just testing stuff in the wild.
Where is your Q&A?
You might remember in my last news post I shared I mentioned that I have been chatting to the lead dev of a program which makes piracy on a jailbroken (Custom Firmware or CFW) Nintendo Switch. The program works as a replica to the official Nintndo eShop except...it’s not filled with shit, ironically. And it doesn’t slow to a crawl to search through.
Anyway, it’s a piracy portal. I wanted to interview them with the idea of getting a glimpse behind why they do it, how they do it, how they justify doing it. All without sharing the name of this program, or the name of the dev.
Anyway, they’ve been a little busy, I’ve shared my side with them and am still waiting on their responses before I format it up and add some pictures, generally make it fit to view on Lemmy here.
Anyway, it’s coming soon, just to let you know!
Switch 2 Compatibility Tracker:
Speaking of Switch, someone has made a webpage which tracks Switch 2 compatibility with Switch 1 games:
*I saw that the lists here don't update regularly (last updated June 5), and that Nintendo says to check individual eShop pages for updated information. So, I made a webpage that scrapes the eShop for up-to-date information. Check it out! Feedback is welcome!
The GitHub page for the tracker is here and updates twice daily!
Junk Store’s Pricing Revealed:
The next iteration of Junk Store is close to launching. Promising emulation, more store-fronts and even (planned, not there yet!) cloud saves. Currently Junk Store works as a plugin via Decky Loader on your Steam Deck – install the plugin and from the gaming mode on your Steam Deck you can enjoy Epic Games titles. With a paid extension to that (a one-off purchase of $6) you can also enjoy GOG games.
The next iteration will be a subscription model, and I’ll share Junk Store’s own words on their announcement below:
Tldr:
Junk Store is almost ready. It’s a full rebuild — faster, more stable, no Decky required, and packed with new features. Pricing is USD$40/year with a 7-day free trial, and you keep everything released during your subscription.
The open-source version remains available. Early supporters get a discount, and we’re rolling out in waves to keep things sustainable.
The Longer Version
We’re close to launching the new version of Junk Store — rebuilt from the ground up after over a year of work. It’s faster, more stable, and adds major features like Amazon support, a download queue, and simplified extension generation (no coding needed). This version is fully standalone — no more Decky required — and is based on everything we learned from the original.
We know pricing will be a sticking point for some, so here’s the plan:- $40 (USD) for 12 months of updates
- Includes all extension presets (currently GOG, Epic, Amazon — more to come)
- You keep everything released during your subscription
- Renewal is $40/year
- 7-day free trial — cancel anytime (Stripe handles billing)
To keep things sustainable, we’ll be rolling out in waves. Hosting and bandwidth aren’t free — and based on the original version’s download volume, opening the gates all at once would sink us. Existing supporters will be onboarded first and get a discount that reflects their earlier contributions.
We also want to clear up a few things:- This version does not share code with the open-source one.
- The free, open-source version will remain available.
- Junk Store does not handle any credentials except its own.
We expect a few bumps early on — this is new code, and no software survives first contact with the public. But it’s already been battle-tested internally and testers.
What’s Next?If all goes well, we’re planning:
- Itch.io support (and possibly EA, Ubisoft, Battle.net)
- Cloud saves (done right)
- Game-specific presets
- Better extension creation tools
- Full localisation
- Community extension sharing
- Automated updates
For a more detailed breakdown head [to this link] here
Thanks again to everyone who’s supported this journey. We’re almost there.
Game on.So, what do you think? Will you be trying Junk Store out? I think Gardiner is planning a video showcasing what it does and how it does it, closer to the date if that helps you visualize what it’s capable of!
Retro Gaming Finds:
I’ve just come across a few fun retro gaming-centric things, so while they’re not at all news-worthy in the hard news sense, they’re amazing in every way and I’d be remiss to not add them to their own section here. If you’ve interest in older games (by my sense because I am so young what is ‘old’ might make you cringe), so settle back and enjoy these ones:
Underwater:
Just someone’s custom bathroom efforts, which seems totally appropriate here:
PS1 Concept Logos:
PC-88:
The PC88 was an 8-bit computer that was dominant in Japan in the 1980s, and has a bit of a reputation for very pixel-y blocky boxy graphics. What comes out beautifully though are the city-scapes in the games. The images will follow, but in order they appear from the following games:
- Tien Gow Pia Special (1989)
- Can Can Bunny (1989)
- Snatcher (1988)
- Misty Blue (1990)
- Burning Point (1989)
- Imitation wa Aisenai (1989)
- Can Can Bunny Superior (1990)
- Paragon Sexa Doll (1989)
Costanza:
Yep, George owned a Virtual Boy. I also think it’s pretty funny that the series has him as the fat one and by today’s standards he’s honestly pretty trim. Weird. Sad about our society now, I think. Anyway, Virtual Boy here:
Wall Art:
It’s amazing, but if you wanna be totally accurate to the time:
- DK has a tie on, whereas the original does not
- ‘jumpman’ should have red overalls and a blue shirt
- Peach is used instead of Pauline
Michael Jackson:
Keen eyes may spot that it is GoldenEye in the N64 there, next to his throne.
That’s that for this week!
Sorry again that it’s been a little smaller than as is typical, I have a lot on my plate right now but I do plan the next to resume my typical way-too-many-words standard I seem to have set for myself!
Previous Posts:
If you’d like to read my previous Gaming News posts (they’re mounting up in number now!), then you can find them here:
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #2
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #3
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #4
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #5
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #6
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #7
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #8
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #9
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #10
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #11
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #12
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #13
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #14
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #15
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #16
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #17
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #18
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #19
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #20
Mastodon:
I do tend to post there each and every day, 99.99% gaming nonsense. If you want more of this, then come drop by!
Those PC-88 pics look really cool. Just goes to show that you don't need a cutting edge PC for good graphics (or even a GPU at all in this case).
Also speaking of Michael Jackson, his Sega Genesis game Moonwalker is definitely a hidden gem worth checking out. Smooth gameplay and criminally underrated
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As ever and always, I’m back with a week’s worth of gaming news I’ve spotted and thought I should share with you all!
This week is slightly less than is typical (1,000-ish words less than my last week’s I can tell you!) for a few reasons:
- I’ve cashed in some of my crypto and bought a cabin. Which makes me sound like an actress in a Stephen King movie
- I’ve had some odd health hiccups lately – nerve damage in my hip which means I feel nothing when touching a small patch of skin, but it also feels like it is on fire
So I’ve been a little distracted, but I do pinkie-swear next week’s will be back to my normal output!
So what are these posts?
My aim for these News Posts in general is to make them a more clearly not a professional, but someone who cares about gaming manner than most gaming sites do now. I see so many sites, even the independent ones, bombarding with ads, banners and reminders to support them. I get it, I really do, but it’s an unpleasant experience to me.
My ever-lasting inspo is the old, old video game sites, blogs and magazines that I never had the privilege of being alive for:
-
Image/gif/link heavy (though once again this week I have few of these, so this dot-point’s a bit needless)
-
Personal voice (I can’t help rambling, send help – this won’t be even slightly professionally written)
-
Mostly news or articles or points which you won’t find on normal gaming sites. These are the smaller, lesser things that I’m drawn to. I know you’ll have spotted the big news articles, so I’m hoping some of these smaller ones might have been missed by you.
A mixed bag of what I’ve considered news this week, so there really is a bit of everything ahead.
General Gaming News:
A New PS2 Emulator – Iris:
After 7-8 months of working on it, Lycoder (also goes by Allkern) has released their PS2 emulator called Iris. While games are running with very low/low/unplayable frames at the moment, they want to reassure people that this is constantly in development and improvements are being made regularly.
Windows, Linux and MacOS are supported.
The GitHub page is here, if you’d like to read a little more!
...and here is the link to the 0.10-alpha build of Iris
Funnily enough, it was only very recently that I fixed a DMAC bug that was keeping a lot of games from booting, and now this opens up a ton of potential to further debug and fix other issues, which may lead to even more games to boot. There's still a lot of work to be done, especially in the optimization department. I'm really looking forward to continue working on this project and advancing PlayStation 2 emulation!
It’s lovely to have another player in the scene, particularly with PS2 emulation.
And, naturally, here’s some pictures:
System Shock 2: 25th Anniversary Remaster Delay:
...sorry, don’t want to make you panic if you’re a PC gamer – no delays on that front, but if you’re a console gamer then it has been delayed for now:
Knowing the publishers, I’d say you’re in good hands without having to wait too long to play it, and I’m so excited to play through myself.
How to Fix Xbox’s Stupid Update:
I can’t even be bothered taking picture to illustrate this one, but if you’re on Xbox you’ll have seen it. Select a game and then you’re presented with a new screen giving you another step before you can select it again to play the game. And half that screen is taken up with their hopeful promotions of DLC and micro-transactions.
Shitty.
Anyway:
Settings / General / Personalization / Games & Apps / Choose whether game huds open automatically from the following places -
- Recently played list
- Groups
- Installed games
Grounded 2 Hype:
With the announcement of Obsidian’s Grounded 2, the numbers of the first game (Honey, I Shrunk The Kids meets Arrietty have exploded, bring a 193.8 boost to current players. The game shot up the Xbox charts from #88 to #23 (overtaking Halo: MCC and Elden Ring)
The game was announced two weeks ago, and the trailer is here for those curious
The first game on Steam holds a ‘Very Positive’ rating with 66,596 all-time ratings.
Lies of P:
I’m sure you’ve read this in at least four other places by now, but it still warms my heart. I couldn’t really make it through Lies of P – the souls-like and even souls-adjacent genre is not my cup of stressful tea. What I did love though was the atmosphere and setting, reminding me for no particular reason of Drood, the novel by Dan Simmons about the last five years of Charles Dickens and how spooky it could get.
Anyway, the devs behind Lies of P and Overture (the DLC) got a bonus for their efforts, with the two selling over 3m copies combined. They got a bonus, two weeks vacation and a free Nintendo Switch 2. IDK, a nice rarity in today’s gaming world!
Still Wakes The Deep:
The Chinese Room - Developers behind the BAFTA-winning-game Still Wakes The Deep have laid off some of their team, just after the release of their DLC – Siren’s Rest.
At a glance, around 10 staff with the studio listed as their current employer have the 'looking for work' label on their LinkedIn profiles – though this is not a reliable metric by itself.
However, The Chinese Room will share news on changes for the studio in the coming weeks so more will come out, I suppose. Sad news for those who worked on the rather amazing game.
Subnautica 2 Dev Vlog:
The latest dev vlog for the game has come out, titles ‘Building Unknown Worlds’
Join senior narrative designer Seth Dickinson, level designer Artyom O’Rielly, environment artist James Stout, and senior environment artist (and rock connoisseur) Ben Hale as they walk you through the incredible work that goes into building out the world of Subnautica 2.
My fav comment on the video is this one:
I have never been so excited over rocks
LEGO Island in Browser:
As the title says, the game is now available to play in your browser. I’m way too young for this game to have any impact in my life, but I think the older members here might remember it. Released in 1997, it’s certainly got a rabid following.
The link to the site is here, try it out!
And one more thing, I found the fact the devs created a physical island in actual LEGO when making the game, and this is ancient and adorable:
Auto-Shutdown after game download:
A gamer by the username of Avaneesh13 has created a Python-based application when they saw room for it – shutting their PC down for them after a big game download completed (rather than having their PC on all night)
This application is called SteamDown, and the link to the GitHub page is here for you to read through if you’d like.
SteamDown:
- Monitors your Steam download activity in real-time
- When downloads go inactive for a set period (you choose how long), it automatically performs an action of your choice
- Actions include: shutdown PC, sleep mode, stop Steam, or other custom actions
- Completely free and open-source
I kept starting massive game downloads (looking at you, Call of Duty) before going to bed, only to wake up and find my PC had been running idle for 6 hours after the download finished at 3 AM. Felt wasteful and probably wasn't great for my electricity bill either. Now I just set it to wait 5-10 minutes after downloads stop, then shut down my system automatically. Much better for power savings and peace of mind.
How it is different from other solutions:
*Generic system monitors that don't understand Steam's download behaviour specifically
- Command-line tools that require technical setup and aren't user-friendly
- Part of a larger system suite with bloatware I didn't want
- Paid solutions for what should be a simple utility
Technical details:
- Written in Python and built it as a standalone .exe (no installation needed)
- Works on Windows primarily, though I might explore macOS/Linux support
- Planning to add support for other launchers like Epic, GOG, etc. in future updates.
- Codebase clean and modular in case anyone wants to contribute or fork it
The functionality should be working as expected - it reliably monitors Steam and performs the shutdown actions. The UI could use a bit of work though (I'm more of a backend person), so if anyone has suggestions or wants to contribute on the interface side, I'd welcome the help!
Again, the GitHub link is at the start of this section, so take a look if you’re curious!
Epic reaches 500:
When Epic officially started their free games each week, all the way back in 2018, no one anticipated it would go for as long or be filled with the quality titles it has today. Starting with Subnautica (though unofficially giving away Shadow Complex Remastered before this in an effort to get users to install the launcher), we’re now up to 502 PC games given away.
Now they’re even expanding on this, with mobile phone games given away free each week. This coming week’s giveaway will be Sable (more on that later!).
...though be warned, it might make you sad to see what you’ve missed out on.
And what is this free games each week on Epic thing I mention? Well, there’s a tiny chance you don’t know:
The Epic Games Store gives away free games every week (to keep forever) as part of its strategy to attract new users and keep existing ones engaged. Anyone with a free Epic account can "claim" these games during the giveaway period (usually one week), and once claimed, the games are permanently added to the user’s library—no strings attached. This initiative started in 2018 and is funded by Epic to build its user base. The games are often high-quality indie titles big-budget releases, and you don’t need a subscription—just an account.
If you’re a Linux gamer you can use methods such as Heroic Games Launcher or Junk Store to play these games without requiring Epic’s own launcher (Epic’s CEO Tim Sweeney is famously anti-Linux).
Warhammer 40,000 DLC:
Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader, the incredibly well regarded cRPG made by Owlcat Games has released their next DLC – Lex Imperialis.
(...the YouTube link for the trailer is here)
Lex Imperialis, the second major expansion for Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader, offers a new 15-hour storyline and introduces the Adeptus Arbites — a faction of incorruptible enforcers — alongside a new companion: the grim and relentless Solomorne Anthar. Featuring battle familiars like cybernetic eagles and cyber-mastiffs, this DLC is AVAILABLE NOW to all players.
Rogue Trader holds ‘Very Positive’ ratings on Steam, with 22,120 reviews on Steam. I own the game on GOG, and I enjoyed it far more than I expected to. There’s a lovely gothic/space setting, kinda unsettling, and a deep game behind the Warhammer branding.
While releasing this DLC, Owlcat games is also working on two more games (both ‘coming soon’
Become an acolyte of the Inquisition in this grim dark, party-based, story-driven cRPG. Lead investigations, uncover grand conspiracies, master tactical combat, and wage a secret war against heresy. Make tough choices as a conduit of the God-Emperor’s will.
The Expanse: Osiris Reborn is a third-person Action RPG set in The Expanse universe. You’re no hero — just a merc caught in the wrong place at the wrong time, trying to hold your crew together and keep the ship up and running. Your choices will shape your story.
One thing is for sure with Owlcat (aside from the initial release of their games tending to need a patch or two!), they care about their games and support them for the long haul.
Crosswind – MORE PIRATES!!!
Since you’re reading this, you’ll probably know by now that I cry about the lack of games set in the golden age of piracy. It’s a setting I like to think is popular but just...kinda ignored. AC: IV Black Flag is still in my opinion the best-of-the-best, but we’ve got another to add to the collection. Crosswind!
Crosswind is a survival adventure in the Age of Piracy. Explore procedural open world, gather, build and craft. Overcome challenging bosses in soulslite combat. Sail your ship, fight on land and sea, play solo or with friends. Live your swashbuckling life in PvE or rise to power in optional PvP.
They’re calling it a ‘pirate survival adventure’, and they devs known as Crosswind Crew have released a statement along with the trailer, which is as follows, in their words:
Crosswind is our dream pirate game. Heavily inspired by great titles like Valheim or Enshrouded, it also feautres naval combat similar to AC: Black Flag and soulslite bossfights. The upcoming Alpha is a big milestone -- with playtesters live feedback we will be able to thoroughly verify a lot of work and designs. It's not gonna be perfect, but we hope it will move in the right direction, and we are absolutely willing to complete this journey whatever it takes.
The Alpha will feature:
- Basic survival gameplay (building, crafting, upgrading);
- 3 unique biomes scattered across a big archipelago - each with unique resources, enemies and bosses;
- 3 playable ships and one NPC merchant (of course to plunder it!);
- Land combat, basic naval combat and early version of boarding actions;
- Very basic Tortuga social hub.
All in all we hope it will provide 30-40 hours of a survival adventure, but of course some parts of the game will be much less polished then others.
For those interested in playtesting: we start small, and have very limited server slots for the test, but for those willing to try the game -- the signups are open on Steam page. We will be gradually letting people in starting tomorrow; Steam picks people randomly. There will be other tests in the future, so even if you want to try Crosswind and don't make it in the first wave, you may get luckly later.
The Crosswind Steam page is here, for you to check it out
The Crosswind trailer on YouTube is here, via this link
Jurassic World Evolution 3:
After some people got (rightly) angry at Jurassic World Evolution 3 using A.I. generated assets for scientist portraits, the devs realized they’re being stupid and released a statement:
Thanks for your feedback on this topic. We have opted to remove the use of generative AI for scientist portraits within Jurassic World Evolution 3.
...you can read their statement here on the Steam community page
Meh, I’m hardly going to celebrate devs for doing the bare minimum here.
Major Mod - Black Orchestra:
...admittedly a game and gigantic mod I’ve never heard of before, but Black Orchestra Worldfront: 37-54 is coming. Made for Rising Storm 2 Vietnam, it adds the Pacific, Western, Mediterranean and Eastern Fronts of World War II to the game.
The mod is deemed feature complete now,
GOG Library Price Checker:
Someone has made a site which checks your GOG games library and gives you an estimate on the value of the total games. Or, it makes you feel awful about seeing a cold number stating you’ve spent way too much.
It’s wonky, and makes mistakes, and doesn’t seem to register all games. I can also see GPT everywhere in this, which as someone who enjoys writing kinda makes me feel icky. But whatever, if it helps people get an idea across then that’s the better of the A.I. uses these days.
I guess all-in-all, it’s still a fun idea in theory. One I should note I have not done or checked myself.
In their own words:
So I wanted to check how much my GOG games library is actually worth — like how SteamDB does it for Steam users — but turns out… there’s nothing like that for GOG.
And if there was anything, it either asked you to log in or paste your cookies... which to me instantly screamed obvious scam
So I thought: why not just make something myself?
Here's what I did:- You just grab a list of your games from GOG (don’t worry, I explain how to do this — since GOG gives no easy export option, had to get creative).
- Upload that CSV to my site.
- It fetches current prices from GOG, calculates your total value, base prices, and savings.
- You get to download the results as a CSV or as a cool little trading card-style badge image.
I'm a CS student (cooked ), and this is kinda my first real utility site — so I’d love feedback, suggestions, criticism, anything really.
Will try to make a video walkthrough soon for those who need visual instructions.
Let me know if anything breaks, or if there's something you'd want to see added.yes It’s hosted on Vercel for now because, well… it’s free and I’m broke
The ads are just me playing around with how a “real” implementation might look — not trying to cash out or anything, just testing stuff in the wild.
Where is your Q&A?
You might remember in my last news post I shared I mentioned that I have been chatting to the lead dev of a program which makes piracy on a jailbroken (Custom Firmware or CFW) Nintendo Switch. The program works as a replica to the official Nintndo eShop except...it’s not filled with shit, ironically. And it doesn’t slow to a crawl to search through.
Anyway, it’s a piracy portal. I wanted to interview them with the idea of getting a glimpse behind why they do it, how they do it, how they justify doing it. All without sharing the name of this program, or the name of the dev.
Anyway, they’ve been a little busy, I’ve shared my side with them and am still waiting on their responses before I format it up and add some pictures, generally make it fit to view on Lemmy here.
Anyway, it’s coming soon, just to let you know!
Switch 2 Compatibility Tracker:
Speaking of Switch, someone has made a webpage which tracks Switch 2 compatibility with Switch 1 games:
*I saw that the lists here don't update regularly (last updated June 5), and that Nintendo says to check individual eShop pages for updated information. So, I made a webpage that scrapes the eShop for up-to-date information. Check it out! Feedback is welcome!
The GitHub page for the tracker is here and updates twice daily!
Junk Store’s Pricing Revealed:
The next iteration of Junk Store is close to launching. Promising emulation, more store-fronts and even (planned, not there yet!) cloud saves. Currently Junk Store works as a plugin via Decky Loader on your Steam Deck – install the plugin and from the gaming mode on your Steam Deck you can enjoy Epic Games titles. With a paid extension to that (a one-off purchase of $6) you can also enjoy GOG games.
The next iteration will be a subscription model, and I’ll share Junk Store’s own words on their announcement below:
Tldr:
Junk Store is almost ready. It’s a full rebuild — faster, more stable, no Decky required, and packed with new features. Pricing is USD$40/year with a 7-day free trial, and you keep everything released during your subscription.
The open-source version remains available. Early supporters get a discount, and we’re rolling out in waves to keep things sustainable.
The Longer Version
We’re close to launching the new version of Junk Store — rebuilt from the ground up after over a year of work. It’s faster, more stable, and adds major features like Amazon support, a download queue, and simplified extension generation (no coding needed). This version is fully standalone — no more Decky required — and is based on everything we learned from the original.
We know pricing will be a sticking point for some, so here’s the plan:- $40 (USD) for 12 months of updates
- Includes all extension presets (currently GOG, Epic, Amazon — more to come)
- You keep everything released during your subscription
- Renewal is $40/year
- 7-day free trial — cancel anytime (Stripe handles billing)
To keep things sustainable, we’ll be rolling out in waves. Hosting and bandwidth aren’t free — and based on the original version’s download volume, opening the gates all at once would sink us. Existing supporters will be onboarded first and get a discount that reflects their earlier contributions.
We also want to clear up a few things:- This version does not share code with the open-source one.
- The free, open-source version will remain available.
- Junk Store does not handle any credentials except its own.
We expect a few bumps early on — this is new code, and no software survives first contact with the public. But it’s already been battle-tested internally and testers.
What’s Next?If all goes well, we’re planning:
- Itch.io support (and possibly EA, Ubisoft, Battle.net)
- Cloud saves (done right)
- Game-specific presets
- Better extension creation tools
- Full localisation
- Community extension sharing
- Automated updates
For a more detailed breakdown head [to this link] here
Thanks again to everyone who’s supported this journey. We’re almost there.
Game on.So, what do you think? Will you be trying Junk Store out? I think Gardiner is planning a video showcasing what it does and how it does it, closer to the date if that helps you visualize what it’s capable of!
Retro Gaming Finds:
I’ve just come across a few fun retro gaming-centric things, so while they’re not at all news-worthy in the hard news sense, they’re amazing in every way and I’d be remiss to not add them to their own section here. If you’ve interest in older games (by my sense because I am so young what is ‘old’ might make you cringe), so settle back and enjoy these ones:
Underwater:
Just someone’s custom bathroom efforts, which seems totally appropriate here:
PS1 Concept Logos:
PC-88:
The PC88 was an 8-bit computer that was dominant in Japan in the 1980s, and has a bit of a reputation for very pixel-y blocky boxy graphics. What comes out beautifully though are the city-scapes in the games. The images will follow, but in order they appear from the following games:
- Tien Gow Pia Special (1989)
- Can Can Bunny (1989)
- Snatcher (1988)
- Misty Blue (1990)
- Burning Point (1989)
- Imitation wa Aisenai (1989)
- Can Can Bunny Superior (1990)
- Paragon Sexa Doll (1989)
Costanza:
Yep, George owned a Virtual Boy. I also think it’s pretty funny that the series has him as the fat one and by today’s standards he’s honestly pretty trim. Weird. Sad about our society now, I think. Anyway, Virtual Boy here:
Wall Art:
It’s amazing, but if you wanna be totally accurate to the time:
- DK has a tie on, whereas the original does not
- ‘jumpman’ should have red overalls and a blue shirt
- Peach is used instead of Pauline
Michael Jackson:
Keen eyes may spot that it is GoldenEye in the N64 there, next to his throne.
That’s that for this week!
Sorry again that it’s been a little smaller than as is typical, I have a lot on my plate right now but I do plan the next to resume my typical way-too-many-words standard I seem to have set for myself!
Previous Posts:
If you’d like to read my previous Gaming News posts (they’re mounting up in number now!), then you can find them here:
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #2
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #3
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #4
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #5
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #6
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #7
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #8
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #9
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #10
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #11
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #12
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #13
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #14
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #15
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #16
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #17
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #18
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #19
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #20
Mastodon:
I do tend to post there each and every day, 99.99% gaming nonsense. If you want more of this, then come drop by!
wrote last edited by [email protected]$40 for junk store is an insane price, even more insane that its a yearly subscription
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As ever and always, I’m back with a week’s worth of gaming news I’ve spotted and thought I should share with you all!
This week is slightly less than is typical (1,000-ish words less than my last week’s I can tell you!) for a few reasons:
- I’ve cashed in some of my crypto and bought a cabin. Which makes me sound like an actress in a Stephen King movie
- I’ve had some odd health hiccups lately – nerve damage in my hip which means I feel nothing when touching a small patch of skin, but it also feels like it is on fire
So I’ve been a little distracted, but I do pinkie-swear next week’s will be back to my normal output!
So what are these posts?
My aim for these News Posts in general is to make them a more clearly not a professional, but someone who cares about gaming manner than most gaming sites do now. I see so many sites, even the independent ones, bombarding with ads, banners and reminders to support them. I get it, I really do, but it’s an unpleasant experience to me.
My ever-lasting inspo is the old, old video game sites, blogs and magazines that I never had the privilege of being alive for:
-
Image/gif/link heavy (though once again this week I have few of these, so this dot-point’s a bit needless)
-
Personal voice (I can’t help rambling, send help – this won’t be even slightly professionally written)
-
Mostly news or articles or points which you won’t find on normal gaming sites. These are the smaller, lesser things that I’m drawn to. I know you’ll have spotted the big news articles, so I’m hoping some of these smaller ones might have been missed by you.
A mixed bag of what I’ve considered news this week, so there really is a bit of everything ahead.
General Gaming News:
A New PS2 Emulator – Iris:
After 7-8 months of working on it, Lycoder (also goes by Allkern) has released their PS2 emulator called Iris. While games are running with very low/low/unplayable frames at the moment, they want to reassure people that this is constantly in development and improvements are being made regularly.
Windows, Linux and MacOS are supported.
The GitHub page is here, if you’d like to read a little more!
...and here is the link to the 0.10-alpha build of Iris
Funnily enough, it was only very recently that I fixed a DMAC bug that was keeping a lot of games from booting, and now this opens up a ton of potential to further debug and fix other issues, which may lead to even more games to boot. There's still a lot of work to be done, especially in the optimization department. I'm really looking forward to continue working on this project and advancing PlayStation 2 emulation!
It’s lovely to have another player in the scene, particularly with PS2 emulation.
And, naturally, here’s some pictures:
System Shock 2: 25th Anniversary Remaster Delay:
...sorry, don’t want to make you panic if you’re a PC gamer – no delays on that front, but if you’re a console gamer then it has been delayed for now:
Knowing the publishers, I’d say you’re in good hands without having to wait too long to play it, and I’m so excited to play through myself.
How to Fix Xbox’s Stupid Update:
I can’t even be bothered taking picture to illustrate this one, but if you’re on Xbox you’ll have seen it. Select a game and then you’re presented with a new screen giving you another step before you can select it again to play the game. And half that screen is taken up with their hopeful promotions of DLC and micro-transactions.
Shitty.
Anyway:
Settings / General / Personalization / Games & Apps / Choose whether game huds open automatically from the following places -
- Recently played list
- Groups
- Installed games
Grounded 2 Hype:
With the announcement of Obsidian’s Grounded 2, the numbers of the first game (Honey, I Shrunk The Kids meets Arrietty have exploded, bring a 193.8 boost to current players. The game shot up the Xbox charts from #88 to #23 (overtaking Halo: MCC and Elden Ring)
The game was announced two weeks ago, and the trailer is here for those curious
The first game on Steam holds a ‘Very Positive’ rating with 66,596 all-time ratings.
Lies of P:
I’m sure you’ve read this in at least four other places by now, but it still warms my heart. I couldn’t really make it through Lies of P – the souls-like and even souls-adjacent genre is not my cup of stressful tea. What I did love though was the atmosphere and setting, reminding me for no particular reason of Drood, the novel by Dan Simmons about the last five years of Charles Dickens and how spooky it could get.
Anyway, the devs behind Lies of P and Overture (the DLC) got a bonus for their efforts, with the two selling over 3m copies combined. They got a bonus, two weeks vacation and a free Nintendo Switch 2. IDK, a nice rarity in today’s gaming world!
Still Wakes The Deep:
The Chinese Room - Developers behind the BAFTA-winning-game Still Wakes The Deep have laid off some of their team, just after the release of their DLC – Siren’s Rest.
At a glance, around 10 staff with the studio listed as their current employer have the 'looking for work' label on their LinkedIn profiles – though this is not a reliable metric by itself.
However, The Chinese Room will share news on changes for the studio in the coming weeks so more will come out, I suppose. Sad news for those who worked on the rather amazing game.
Subnautica 2 Dev Vlog:
The latest dev vlog for the game has come out, titles ‘Building Unknown Worlds’
Join senior narrative designer Seth Dickinson, level designer Artyom O’Rielly, environment artist James Stout, and senior environment artist (and rock connoisseur) Ben Hale as they walk you through the incredible work that goes into building out the world of Subnautica 2.
My fav comment on the video is this one:
I have never been so excited over rocks
LEGO Island in Browser:
As the title says, the game is now available to play in your browser. I’m way too young for this game to have any impact in my life, but I think the older members here might remember it. Released in 1997, it’s certainly got a rabid following.
The link to the site is here, try it out!
And one more thing, I found the fact the devs created a physical island in actual LEGO when making the game, and this is ancient and adorable:
Auto-Shutdown after game download:
A gamer by the username of Avaneesh13 has created a Python-based application when they saw room for it – shutting their PC down for them after a big game download completed (rather than having their PC on all night)
This application is called SteamDown, and the link to the GitHub page is here for you to read through if you’d like.
SteamDown:
- Monitors your Steam download activity in real-time
- When downloads go inactive for a set period (you choose how long), it automatically performs an action of your choice
- Actions include: shutdown PC, sleep mode, stop Steam, or other custom actions
- Completely free and open-source
I kept starting massive game downloads (looking at you, Call of Duty) before going to bed, only to wake up and find my PC had been running idle for 6 hours after the download finished at 3 AM. Felt wasteful and probably wasn't great for my electricity bill either. Now I just set it to wait 5-10 minutes after downloads stop, then shut down my system automatically. Much better for power savings and peace of mind.
How it is different from other solutions:
*Generic system monitors that don't understand Steam's download behaviour specifically
- Command-line tools that require technical setup and aren't user-friendly
- Part of a larger system suite with bloatware I didn't want
- Paid solutions for what should be a simple utility
Technical details:
- Written in Python and built it as a standalone .exe (no installation needed)
- Works on Windows primarily, though I might explore macOS/Linux support
- Planning to add support for other launchers like Epic, GOG, etc. in future updates.
- Codebase clean and modular in case anyone wants to contribute or fork it
The functionality should be working as expected - it reliably monitors Steam and performs the shutdown actions. The UI could use a bit of work though (I'm more of a backend person), so if anyone has suggestions or wants to contribute on the interface side, I'd welcome the help!
Again, the GitHub link is at the start of this section, so take a look if you’re curious!
Epic reaches 500:
When Epic officially started their free games each week, all the way back in 2018, no one anticipated it would go for as long or be filled with the quality titles it has today. Starting with Subnautica (though unofficially giving away Shadow Complex Remastered before this in an effort to get users to install the launcher), we’re now up to 502 PC games given away.
Now they’re even expanding on this, with mobile phone games given away free each week. This coming week’s giveaway will be Sable (more on that later!).
...though be warned, it might make you sad to see what you’ve missed out on.
And what is this free games each week on Epic thing I mention? Well, there’s a tiny chance you don’t know:
The Epic Games Store gives away free games every week (to keep forever) as part of its strategy to attract new users and keep existing ones engaged. Anyone with a free Epic account can "claim" these games during the giveaway period (usually one week), and once claimed, the games are permanently added to the user’s library—no strings attached. This initiative started in 2018 and is funded by Epic to build its user base. The games are often high-quality indie titles big-budget releases, and you don’t need a subscription—just an account.
If you’re a Linux gamer you can use methods such as Heroic Games Launcher or Junk Store to play these games without requiring Epic’s own launcher (Epic’s CEO Tim Sweeney is famously anti-Linux).
Warhammer 40,000 DLC:
Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader, the incredibly well regarded cRPG made by Owlcat Games has released their next DLC – Lex Imperialis.
(...the YouTube link for the trailer is here)
Lex Imperialis, the second major expansion for Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader, offers a new 15-hour storyline and introduces the Adeptus Arbites — a faction of incorruptible enforcers — alongside a new companion: the grim and relentless Solomorne Anthar. Featuring battle familiars like cybernetic eagles and cyber-mastiffs, this DLC is AVAILABLE NOW to all players.
Rogue Trader holds ‘Very Positive’ ratings on Steam, with 22,120 reviews on Steam. I own the game on GOG, and I enjoyed it far more than I expected to. There’s a lovely gothic/space setting, kinda unsettling, and a deep game behind the Warhammer branding.
While releasing this DLC, Owlcat games is also working on two more games (both ‘coming soon’
Become an acolyte of the Inquisition in this grim dark, party-based, story-driven cRPG. Lead investigations, uncover grand conspiracies, master tactical combat, and wage a secret war against heresy. Make tough choices as a conduit of the God-Emperor’s will.
The Expanse: Osiris Reborn is a third-person Action RPG set in The Expanse universe. You’re no hero — just a merc caught in the wrong place at the wrong time, trying to hold your crew together and keep the ship up and running. Your choices will shape your story.
One thing is for sure with Owlcat (aside from the initial release of their games tending to need a patch or two!), they care about their games and support them for the long haul.
Crosswind – MORE PIRATES!!!
Since you’re reading this, you’ll probably know by now that I cry about the lack of games set in the golden age of piracy. It’s a setting I like to think is popular but just...kinda ignored. AC: IV Black Flag is still in my opinion the best-of-the-best, but we’ve got another to add to the collection. Crosswind!
Crosswind is a survival adventure in the Age of Piracy. Explore procedural open world, gather, build and craft. Overcome challenging bosses in soulslite combat. Sail your ship, fight on land and sea, play solo or with friends. Live your swashbuckling life in PvE or rise to power in optional PvP.
They’re calling it a ‘pirate survival adventure’, and they devs known as Crosswind Crew have released a statement along with the trailer, which is as follows, in their words:
Crosswind is our dream pirate game. Heavily inspired by great titles like Valheim or Enshrouded, it also feautres naval combat similar to AC: Black Flag and soulslite bossfights. The upcoming Alpha is a big milestone -- with playtesters live feedback we will be able to thoroughly verify a lot of work and designs. It's not gonna be perfect, but we hope it will move in the right direction, and we are absolutely willing to complete this journey whatever it takes.
The Alpha will feature:
- Basic survival gameplay (building, crafting, upgrading);
- 3 unique biomes scattered across a big archipelago - each with unique resources, enemies and bosses;
- 3 playable ships and one NPC merchant (of course to plunder it!);
- Land combat, basic naval combat and early version of boarding actions;
- Very basic Tortuga social hub.
All in all we hope it will provide 30-40 hours of a survival adventure, but of course some parts of the game will be much less polished then others.
For those interested in playtesting: we start small, and have very limited server slots for the test, but for those willing to try the game -- the signups are open on Steam page. We will be gradually letting people in starting tomorrow; Steam picks people randomly. There will be other tests in the future, so even if you want to try Crosswind and don't make it in the first wave, you may get luckly later.
The Crosswind Steam page is here, for you to check it out
The Crosswind trailer on YouTube is here, via this link
Jurassic World Evolution 3:
After some people got (rightly) angry at Jurassic World Evolution 3 using A.I. generated assets for scientist portraits, the devs realized they’re being stupid and released a statement:
Thanks for your feedback on this topic. We have opted to remove the use of generative AI for scientist portraits within Jurassic World Evolution 3.
...you can read their statement here on the Steam community page
Meh, I’m hardly going to celebrate devs for doing the bare minimum here.
Major Mod - Black Orchestra:
...admittedly a game and gigantic mod I’ve never heard of before, but Black Orchestra Worldfront: 37-54 is coming. Made for Rising Storm 2 Vietnam, it adds the Pacific, Western, Mediterranean and Eastern Fronts of World War II to the game.
The mod is deemed feature complete now,
GOG Library Price Checker:
Someone has made a site which checks your GOG games library and gives you an estimate on the value of the total games. Or, it makes you feel awful about seeing a cold number stating you’ve spent way too much.
It’s wonky, and makes mistakes, and doesn’t seem to register all games. I can also see GPT everywhere in this, which as someone who enjoys writing kinda makes me feel icky. But whatever, if it helps people get an idea across then that’s the better of the A.I. uses these days.
I guess all-in-all, it’s still a fun idea in theory. One I should note I have not done or checked myself.
In their own words:
So I wanted to check how much my GOG games library is actually worth — like how SteamDB does it for Steam users — but turns out… there’s nothing like that for GOG.
And if there was anything, it either asked you to log in or paste your cookies... which to me instantly screamed obvious scam
So I thought: why not just make something myself?
Here's what I did:- You just grab a list of your games from GOG (don’t worry, I explain how to do this — since GOG gives no easy export option, had to get creative).
- Upload that CSV to my site.
- It fetches current prices from GOG, calculates your total value, base prices, and savings.
- You get to download the results as a CSV or as a cool little trading card-style badge image.
I'm a CS student (cooked ), and this is kinda my first real utility site — so I’d love feedback, suggestions, criticism, anything really.
Will try to make a video walkthrough soon for those who need visual instructions.
Let me know if anything breaks, or if there's something you'd want to see added.yes It’s hosted on Vercel for now because, well… it’s free and I’m broke
The ads are just me playing around with how a “real” implementation might look — not trying to cash out or anything, just testing stuff in the wild.
Where is your Q&A?
You might remember in my last news post I shared I mentioned that I have been chatting to the lead dev of a program which makes piracy on a jailbroken (Custom Firmware or CFW) Nintendo Switch. The program works as a replica to the official Nintndo eShop except...it’s not filled with shit, ironically. And it doesn’t slow to a crawl to search through.
Anyway, it’s a piracy portal. I wanted to interview them with the idea of getting a glimpse behind why they do it, how they do it, how they justify doing it. All without sharing the name of this program, or the name of the dev.
Anyway, they’ve been a little busy, I’ve shared my side with them and am still waiting on their responses before I format it up and add some pictures, generally make it fit to view on Lemmy here.
Anyway, it’s coming soon, just to let you know!
Switch 2 Compatibility Tracker:
Speaking of Switch, someone has made a webpage which tracks Switch 2 compatibility with Switch 1 games:
*I saw that the lists here don't update regularly (last updated June 5), and that Nintendo says to check individual eShop pages for updated information. So, I made a webpage that scrapes the eShop for up-to-date information. Check it out! Feedback is welcome!
The GitHub page for the tracker is here and updates twice daily!
Junk Store’s Pricing Revealed:
The next iteration of Junk Store is close to launching. Promising emulation, more store-fronts and even (planned, not there yet!) cloud saves. Currently Junk Store works as a plugin via Decky Loader on your Steam Deck – install the plugin and from the gaming mode on your Steam Deck you can enjoy Epic Games titles. With a paid extension to that (a one-off purchase of $6) you can also enjoy GOG games.
The next iteration will be a subscription model, and I’ll share Junk Store’s own words on their announcement below:
Tldr:
Junk Store is almost ready. It’s a full rebuild — faster, more stable, no Decky required, and packed with new features. Pricing is USD$40/year with a 7-day free trial, and you keep everything released during your subscription.
The open-source version remains available. Early supporters get a discount, and we’re rolling out in waves to keep things sustainable.
The Longer Version
We’re close to launching the new version of Junk Store — rebuilt from the ground up after over a year of work. It’s faster, more stable, and adds major features like Amazon support, a download queue, and simplified extension generation (no coding needed). This version is fully standalone — no more Decky required — and is based on everything we learned from the original.
We know pricing will be a sticking point for some, so here’s the plan:- $40 (USD) for 12 months of updates
- Includes all extension presets (currently GOG, Epic, Amazon — more to come)
- You keep everything released during your subscription
- Renewal is $40/year
- 7-day free trial — cancel anytime (Stripe handles billing)
To keep things sustainable, we’ll be rolling out in waves. Hosting and bandwidth aren’t free — and based on the original version’s download volume, opening the gates all at once would sink us. Existing supporters will be onboarded first and get a discount that reflects their earlier contributions.
We also want to clear up a few things:- This version does not share code with the open-source one.
- The free, open-source version will remain available.
- Junk Store does not handle any credentials except its own.
We expect a few bumps early on — this is new code, and no software survives first contact with the public. But it’s already been battle-tested internally and testers.
What’s Next?If all goes well, we’re planning:
- Itch.io support (and possibly EA, Ubisoft, Battle.net)
- Cloud saves (done right)
- Game-specific presets
- Better extension creation tools
- Full localisation
- Community extension sharing
- Automated updates
For a more detailed breakdown head [to this link] here
Thanks again to everyone who’s supported this journey. We’re almost there.
Game on.So, what do you think? Will you be trying Junk Store out? I think Gardiner is planning a video showcasing what it does and how it does it, closer to the date if that helps you visualize what it’s capable of!
Retro Gaming Finds:
I’ve just come across a few fun retro gaming-centric things, so while they’re not at all news-worthy in the hard news sense, they’re amazing in every way and I’d be remiss to not add them to their own section here. If you’ve interest in older games (by my sense because I am so young what is ‘old’ might make you cringe), so settle back and enjoy these ones:
Underwater:
Just someone’s custom bathroom efforts, which seems totally appropriate here:
PS1 Concept Logos:
PC-88:
The PC88 was an 8-bit computer that was dominant in Japan in the 1980s, and has a bit of a reputation for very pixel-y blocky boxy graphics. What comes out beautifully though are the city-scapes in the games. The images will follow, but in order they appear from the following games:
- Tien Gow Pia Special (1989)
- Can Can Bunny (1989)
- Snatcher (1988)
- Misty Blue (1990)
- Burning Point (1989)
- Imitation wa Aisenai (1989)
- Can Can Bunny Superior (1990)
- Paragon Sexa Doll (1989)
Costanza:
Yep, George owned a Virtual Boy. I also think it’s pretty funny that the series has him as the fat one and by today’s standards he’s honestly pretty trim. Weird. Sad about our society now, I think. Anyway, Virtual Boy here:
Wall Art:
It’s amazing, but if you wanna be totally accurate to the time:
- DK has a tie on, whereas the original does not
- ‘jumpman’ should have red overalls and a blue shirt
- Peach is used instead of Pauline
Michael Jackson:
Keen eyes may spot that it is GoldenEye in the N64 there, next to his throne.
That’s that for this week!
Sorry again that it’s been a little smaller than as is typical, I have a lot on my plate right now but I do plan the next to resume my typical way-too-many-words standard I seem to have set for myself!
Previous Posts:
If you’d like to read my previous Gaming News posts (they’re mounting up in number now!), then you can find them here:
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #2
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #3
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #4
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #5
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #6
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #7
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #8
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #9
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #10
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #11
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #12
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #13
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #14
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #15
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #16
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #17
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #18
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #19
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #20
Mastodon:
I do tend to post there each and every day, 99.99% gaming nonsense. If you want more of this, then come drop by!
As always, thank you very much, i still love reading these posts.
And you dont have to apologize, get well soon
-
As ever and always, I’m back with a week’s worth of gaming news I’ve spotted and thought I should share with you all!
This week is slightly less than is typical (1,000-ish words less than my last week’s I can tell you!) for a few reasons:
- I’ve cashed in some of my crypto and bought a cabin. Which makes me sound like an actress in a Stephen King movie
- I’ve had some odd health hiccups lately – nerve damage in my hip which means I feel nothing when touching a small patch of skin, but it also feels like it is on fire
So I’ve been a little distracted, but I do pinkie-swear next week’s will be back to my normal output!
So what are these posts?
My aim for these News Posts in general is to make them a more clearly not a professional, but someone who cares about gaming manner than most gaming sites do now. I see so many sites, even the independent ones, bombarding with ads, banners and reminders to support them. I get it, I really do, but it’s an unpleasant experience to me.
My ever-lasting inspo is the old, old video game sites, blogs and magazines that I never had the privilege of being alive for:
-
Image/gif/link heavy (though once again this week I have few of these, so this dot-point’s a bit needless)
-
Personal voice (I can’t help rambling, send help – this won’t be even slightly professionally written)
-
Mostly news or articles or points which you won’t find on normal gaming sites. These are the smaller, lesser things that I’m drawn to. I know you’ll have spotted the big news articles, so I’m hoping some of these smaller ones might have been missed by you.
A mixed bag of what I’ve considered news this week, so there really is a bit of everything ahead.
General Gaming News:
A New PS2 Emulator – Iris:
After 7-8 months of working on it, Lycoder (also goes by Allkern) has released their PS2 emulator called Iris. While games are running with very low/low/unplayable frames at the moment, they want to reassure people that this is constantly in development and improvements are being made regularly.
Windows, Linux and MacOS are supported.
The GitHub page is here, if you’d like to read a little more!
...and here is the link to the 0.10-alpha build of Iris
Funnily enough, it was only very recently that I fixed a DMAC bug that was keeping a lot of games from booting, and now this opens up a ton of potential to further debug and fix other issues, which may lead to even more games to boot. There's still a lot of work to be done, especially in the optimization department. I'm really looking forward to continue working on this project and advancing PlayStation 2 emulation!
It’s lovely to have another player in the scene, particularly with PS2 emulation.
And, naturally, here’s some pictures:
System Shock 2: 25th Anniversary Remaster Delay:
...sorry, don’t want to make you panic if you’re a PC gamer – no delays on that front, but if you’re a console gamer then it has been delayed for now:
Knowing the publishers, I’d say you’re in good hands without having to wait too long to play it, and I’m so excited to play through myself.
How to Fix Xbox’s Stupid Update:
I can’t even be bothered taking picture to illustrate this one, but if you’re on Xbox you’ll have seen it. Select a game and then you’re presented with a new screen giving you another step before you can select it again to play the game. And half that screen is taken up with their hopeful promotions of DLC and micro-transactions.
Shitty.
Anyway:
Settings / General / Personalization / Games & Apps / Choose whether game huds open automatically from the following places -
- Recently played list
- Groups
- Installed games
Grounded 2 Hype:
With the announcement of Obsidian’s Grounded 2, the numbers of the first game (Honey, I Shrunk The Kids meets Arrietty have exploded, bring a 193.8 boost to current players. The game shot up the Xbox charts from #88 to #23 (overtaking Halo: MCC and Elden Ring)
The game was announced two weeks ago, and the trailer is here for those curious
The first game on Steam holds a ‘Very Positive’ rating with 66,596 all-time ratings.
Lies of P:
I’m sure you’ve read this in at least four other places by now, but it still warms my heart. I couldn’t really make it through Lies of P – the souls-like and even souls-adjacent genre is not my cup of stressful tea. What I did love though was the atmosphere and setting, reminding me for no particular reason of Drood, the novel by Dan Simmons about the last five years of Charles Dickens and how spooky it could get.
Anyway, the devs behind Lies of P and Overture (the DLC) got a bonus for their efforts, with the two selling over 3m copies combined. They got a bonus, two weeks vacation and a free Nintendo Switch 2. IDK, a nice rarity in today’s gaming world!
Still Wakes The Deep:
The Chinese Room - Developers behind the BAFTA-winning-game Still Wakes The Deep have laid off some of their team, just after the release of their DLC – Siren’s Rest.
At a glance, around 10 staff with the studio listed as their current employer have the 'looking for work' label on their LinkedIn profiles – though this is not a reliable metric by itself.
However, The Chinese Room will share news on changes for the studio in the coming weeks so more will come out, I suppose. Sad news for those who worked on the rather amazing game.
Subnautica 2 Dev Vlog:
The latest dev vlog for the game has come out, titles ‘Building Unknown Worlds’
Join senior narrative designer Seth Dickinson, level designer Artyom O’Rielly, environment artist James Stout, and senior environment artist (and rock connoisseur) Ben Hale as they walk you through the incredible work that goes into building out the world of Subnautica 2.
My fav comment on the video is this one:
I have never been so excited over rocks
LEGO Island in Browser:
As the title says, the game is now available to play in your browser. I’m way too young for this game to have any impact in my life, but I think the older members here might remember it. Released in 1997, it’s certainly got a rabid following.
The link to the site is here, try it out!
And one more thing, I found the fact the devs created a physical island in actual LEGO when making the game, and this is ancient and adorable:
Auto-Shutdown after game download:
A gamer by the username of Avaneesh13 has created a Python-based application when they saw room for it – shutting their PC down for them after a big game download completed (rather than having their PC on all night)
This application is called SteamDown, and the link to the GitHub page is here for you to read through if you’d like.
SteamDown:
- Monitors your Steam download activity in real-time
- When downloads go inactive for a set period (you choose how long), it automatically performs an action of your choice
- Actions include: shutdown PC, sleep mode, stop Steam, or other custom actions
- Completely free and open-source
I kept starting massive game downloads (looking at you, Call of Duty) before going to bed, only to wake up and find my PC had been running idle for 6 hours after the download finished at 3 AM. Felt wasteful and probably wasn't great for my electricity bill either. Now I just set it to wait 5-10 minutes after downloads stop, then shut down my system automatically. Much better for power savings and peace of mind.
How it is different from other solutions:
*Generic system monitors that don't understand Steam's download behaviour specifically
- Command-line tools that require technical setup and aren't user-friendly
- Part of a larger system suite with bloatware I didn't want
- Paid solutions for what should be a simple utility
Technical details:
- Written in Python and built it as a standalone .exe (no installation needed)
- Works on Windows primarily, though I might explore macOS/Linux support
- Planning to add support for other launchers like Epic, GOG, etc. in future updates.
- Codebase clean and modular in case anyone wants to contribute or fork it
The functionality should be working as expected - it reliably monitors Steam and performs the shutdown actions. The UI could use a bit of work though (I'm more of a backend person), so if anyone has suggestions or wants to contribute on the interface side, I'd welcome the help!
Again, the GitHub link is at the start of this section, so take a look if you’re curious!
Epic reaches 500:
When Epic officially started their free games each week, all the way back in 2018, no one anticipated it would go for as long or be filled with the quality titles it has today. Starting with Subnautica (though unofficially giving away Shadow Complex Remastered before this in an effort to get users to install the launcher), we’re now up to 502 PC games given away.
Now they’re even expanding on this, with mobile phone games given away free each week. This coming week’s giveaway will be Sable (more on that later!).
...though be warned, it might make you sad to see what you’ve missed out on.
And what is this free games each week on Epic thing I mention? Well, there’s a tiny chance you don’t know:
The Epic Games Store gives away free games every week (to keep forever) as part of its strategy to attract new users and keep existing ones engaged. Anyone with a free Epic account can "claim" these games during the giveaway period (usually one week), and once claimed, the games are permanently added to the user’s library—no strings attached. This initiative started in 2018 and is funded by Epic to build its user base. The games are often high-quality indie titles big-budget releases, and you don’t need a subscription—just an account.
If you’re a Linux gamer you can use methods such as Heroic Games Launcher or Junk Store to play these games without requiring Epic’s own launcher (Epic’s CEO Tim Sweeney is famously anti-Linux).
Warhammer 40,000 DLC:
Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader, the incredibly well regarded cRPG made by Owlcat Games has released their next DLC – Lex Imperialis.
(...the YouTube link for the trailer is here)
Lex Imperialis, the second major expansion for Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader, offers a new 15-hour storyline and introduces the Adeptus Arbites — a faction of incorruptible enforcers — alongside a new companion: the grim and relentless Solomorne Anthar. Featuring battle familiars like cybernetic eagles and cyber-mastiffs, this DLC is AVAILABLE NOW to all players.
Rogue Trader holds ‘Very Positive’ ratings on Steam, with 22,120 reviews on Steam. I own the game on GOG, and I enjoyed it far more than I expected to. There’s a lovely gothic/space setting, kinda unsettling, and a deep game behind the Warhammer branding.
While releasing this DLC, Owlcat games is also working on two more games (both ‘coming soon’
Become an acolyte of the Inquisition in this grim dark, party-based, story-driven cRPG. Lead investigations, uncover grand conspiracies, master tactical combat, and wage a secret war against heresy. Make tough choices as a conduit of the God-Emperor’s will.
The Expanse: Osiris Reborn is a third-person Action RPG set in The Expanse universe. You’re no hero — just a merc caught in the wrong place at the wrong time, trying to hold your crew together and keep the ship up and running. Your choices will shape your story.
One thing is for sure with Owlcat (aside from the initial release of their games tending to need a patch or two!), they care about their games and support them for the long haul.
Crosswind – MORE PIRATES!!!
Since you’re reading this, you’ll probably know by now that I cry about the lack of games set in the golden age of piracy. It’s a setting I like to think is popular but just...kinda ignored. AC: IV Black Flag is still in my opinion the best-of-the-best, but we’ve got another to add to the collection. Crosswind!
Crosswind is a survival adventure in the Age of Piracy. Explore procedural open world, gather, build and craft. Overcome challenging bosses in soulslite combat. Sail your ship, fight on land and sea, play solo or with friends. Live your swashbuckling life in PvE or rise to power in optional PvP.
They’re calling it a ‘pirate survival adventure’, and they devs known as Crosswind Crew have released a statement along with the trailer, which is as follows, in their words:
Crosswind is our dream pirate game. Heavily inspired by great titles like Valheim or Enshrouded, it also feautres naval combat similar to AC: Black Flag and soulslite bossfights. The upcoming Alpha is a big milestone -- with playtesters live feedback we will be able to thoroughly verify a lot of work and designs. It's not gonna be perfect, but we hope it will move in the right direction, and we are absolutely willing to complete this journey whatever it takes.
The Alpha will feature:
- Basic survival gameplay (building, crafting, upgrading);
- 3 unique biomes scattered across a big archipelago - each with unique resources, enemies and bosses;
- 3 playable ships and one NPC merchant (of course to plunder it!);
- Land combat, basic naval combat and early version of boarding actions;
- Very basic Tortuga social hub.
All in all we hope it will provide 30-40 hours of a survival adventure, but of course some parts of the game will be much less polished then others.
For those interested in playtesting: we start small, and have very limited server slots for the test, but for those willing to try the game -- the signups are open on Steam page. We will be gradually letting people in starting tomorrow; Steam picks people randomly. There will be other tests in the future, so even if you want to try Crosswind and don't make it in the first wave, you may get luckly later.
The Crosswind Steam page is here, for you to check it out
The Crosswind trailer on YouTube is here, via this link
Jurassic World Evolution 3:
After some people got (rightly) angry at Jurassic World Evolution 3 using A.I. generated assets for scientist portraits, the devs realized they’re being stupid and released a statement:
Thanks for your feedback on this topic. We have opted to remove the use of generative AI for scientist portraits within Jurassic World Evolution 3.
...you can read their statement here on the Steam community page
Meh, I’m hardly going to celebrate devs for doing the bare minimum here.
Major Mod - Black Orchestra:
...admittedly a game and gigantic mod I’ve never heard of before, but Black Orchestra Worldfront: 37-54 is coming. Made for Rising Storm 2 Vietnam, it adds the Pacific, Western, Mediterranean and Eastern Fronts of World War II to the game.
The mod is deemed feature complete now,
GOG Library Price Checker:
Someone has made a site which checks your GOG games library and gives you an estimate on the value of the total games. Or, it makes you feel awful about seeing a cold number stating you’ve spent way too much.
It’s wonky, and makes mistakes, and doesn’t seem to register all games. I can also see GPT everywhere in this, which as someone who enjoys writing kinda makes me feel icky. But whatever, if it helps people get an idea across then that’s the better of the A.I. uses these days.
I guess all-in-all, it’s still a fun idea in theory. One I should note I have not done or checked myself.
In their own words:
So I wanted to check how much my GOG games library is actually worth — like how SteamDB does it for Steam users — but turns out… there’s nothing like that for GOG.
And if there was anything, it either asked you to log in or paste your cookies... which to me instantly screamed obvious scam
So I thought: why not just make something myself?
Here's what I did:- You just grab a list of your games from GOG (don’t worry, I explain how to do this — since GOG gives no easy export option, had to get creative).
- Upload that CSV to my site.
- It fetches current prices from GOG, calculates your total value, base prices, and savings.
- You get to download the results as a CSV or as a cool little trading card-style badge image.
I'm a CS student (cooked ), and this is kinda my first real utility site — so I’d love feedback, suggestions, criticism, anything really.
Will try to make a video walkthrough soon for those who need visual instructions.
Let me know if anything breaks, or if there's something you'd want to see added.yes It’s hosted on Vercel for now because, well… it’s free and I’m broke
The ads are just me playing around with how a “real” implementation might look — not trying to cash out or anything, just testing stuff in the wild.
Where is your Q&A?
You might remember in my last news post I shared I mentioned that I have been chatting to the lead dev of a program which makes piracy on a jailbroken (Custom Firmware or CFW) Nintendo Switch. The program works as a replica to the official Nintndo eShop except...it’s not filled with shit, ironically. And it doesn’t slow to a crawl to search through.
Anyway, it’s a piracy portal. I wanted to interview them with the idea of getting a glimpse behind why they do it, how they do it, how they justify doing it. All without sharing the name of this program, or the name of the dev.
Anyway, they’ve been a little busy, I’ve shared my side with them and am still waiting on their responses before I format it up and add some pictures, generally make it fit to view on Lemmy here.
Anyway, it’s coming soon, just to let you know!
Switch 2 Compatibility Tracker:
Speaking of Switch, someone has made a webpage which tracks Switch 2 compatibility with Switch 1 games:
*I saw that the lists here don't update regularly (last updated June 5), and that Nintendo says to check individual eShop pages for updated information. So, I made a webpage that scrapes the eShop for up-to-date information. Check it out! Feedback is welcome!
The GitHub page for the tracker is here and updates twice daily!
Junk Store’s Pricing Revealed:
The next iteration of Junk Store is close to launching. Promising emulation, more store-fronts and even (planned, not there yet!) cloud saves. Currently Junk Store works as a plugin via Decky Loader on your Steam Deck – install the plugin and from the gaming mode on your Steam Deck you can enjoy Epic Games titles. With a paid extension to that (a one-off purchase of $6) you can also enjoy GOG games.
The next iteration will be a subscription model, and I’ll share Junk Store’s own words on their announcement below:
Tldr:
Junk Store is almost ready. It’s a full rebuild — faster, more stable, no Decky required, and packed with new features. Pricing is USD$40/year with a 7-day free trial, and you keep everything released during your subscription.
The open-source version remains available. Early supporters get a discount, and we’re rolling out in waves to keep things sustainable.
The Longer Version
We’re close to launching the new version of Junk Store — rebuilt from the ground up after over a year of work. It’s faster, more stable, and adds major features like Amazon support, a download queue, and simplified extension generation (no coding needed). This version is fully standalone — no more Decky required — and is based on everything we learned from the original.
We know pricing will be a sticking point for some, so here’s the plan:- $40 (USD) for 12 months of updates
- Includes all extension presets (currently GOG, Epic, Amazon — more to come)
- You keep everything released during your subscription
- Renewal is $40/year
- 7-day free trial — cancel anytime (Stripe handles billing)
To keep things sustainable, we’ll be rolling out in waves. Hosting and bandwidth aren’t free — and based on the original version’s download volume, opening the gates all at once would sink us. Existing supporters will be onboarded first and get a discount that reflects their earlier contributions.
We also want to clear up a few things:- This version does not share code with the open-source one.
- The free, open-source version will remain available.
- Junk Store does not handle any credentials except its own.
We expect a few bumps early on — this is new code, and no software survives first contact with the public. But it’s already been battle-tested internally and testers.
What’s Next?If all goes well, we’re planning:
- Itch.io support (and possibly EA, Ubisoft, Battle.net)
- Cloud saves (done right)
- Game-specific presets
- Better extension creation tools
- Full localisation
- Community extension sharing
- Automated updates
For a more detailed breakdown head [to this link] here
Thanks again to everyone who’s supported this journey. We’re almost there.
Game on.So, what do you think? Will you be trying Junk Store out? I think Gardiner is planning a video showcasing what it does and how it does it, closer to the date if that helps you visualize what it’s capable of!
Retro Gaming Finds:
I’ve just come across a few fun retro gaming-centric things, so while they’re not at all news-worthy in the hard news sense, they’re amazing in every way and I’d be remiss to not add them to their own section here. If you’ve interest in older games (by my sense because I am so young what is ‘old’ might make you cringe), so settle back and enjoy these ones:
Underwater:
Just someone’s custom bathroom efforts, which seems totally appropriate here:
PS1 Concept Logos:
PC-88:
The PC88 was an 8-bit computer that was dominant in Japan in the 1980s, and has a bit of a reputation for very pixel-y blocky boxy graphics. What comes out beautifully though are the city-scapes in the games. The images will follow, but in order they appear from the following games:
- Tien Gow Pia Special (1989)
- Can Can Bunny (1989)
- Snatcher (1988)
- Misty Blue (1990)
- Burning Point (1989)
- Imitation wa Aisenai (1989)
- Can Can Bunny Superior (1990)
- Paragon Sexa Doll (1989)
Costanza:
Yep, George owned a Virtual Boy. I also think it’s pretty funny that the series has him as the fat one and by today’s standards he’s honestly pretty trim. Weird. Sad about our society now, I think. Anyway, Virtual Boy here:
Wall Art:
It’s amazing, but if you wanna be totally accurate to the time:
- DK has a tie on, whereas the original does not
- ‘jumpman’ should have red overalls and a blue shirt
- Peach is used instead of Pauline
Michael Jackson:
Keen eyes may spot that it is GoldenEye in the N64 there, next to his throne.
That’s that for this week!
Sorry again that it’s been a little smaller than as is typical, I have a lot on my plate right now but I do plan the next to resume my typical way-too-many-words standard I seem to have set for myself!
Previous Posts:
If you’d like to read my previous Gaming News posts (they’re mounting up in number now!), then you can find them here:
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #2
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #3
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #4
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #5
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #6
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #7
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #8
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #9
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #10
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #11
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #12
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #13
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #14
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #15
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #16
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #17
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #18
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #19
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #20
Mastodon:
I do tend to post there each and every day, 99.99% gaming nonsense. If you want more of this, then come drop by!
Hi, the Lego island link is not working.
Change
[The link to the site is here, try it out!](isle.pizza)To
[The link to the site is here, try it out!](https://isle.pizza/)And it should work
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$40 for junk store is an insane price, even more insane that its a yearly subscription
Yeah I am pretty disapointed as I bought the GoG extension. I really liked the UX for my ChimeraOS and SteamDeck devices but it's not worth a subscription in my opinion even at a discount...
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As ever and always, I’m back with a week’s worth of gaming news I’ve spotted and thought I should share with you all!
This week is slightly less than is typical (1,000-ish words less than my last week’s I can tell you!) for a few reasons:
- I’ve cashed in some of my crypto and bought a cabin. Which makes me sound like an actress in a Stephen King movie
- I’ve had some odd health hiccups lately – nerve damage in my hip which means I feel nothing when touching a small patch of skin, but it also feels like it is on fire
So I’ve been a little distracted, but I do pinkie-swear next week’s will be back to my normal output!
So what are these posts?
My aim for these News Posts in general is to make them a more clearly not a professional, but someone who cares about gaming manner than most gaming sites do now. I see so many sites, even the independent ones, bombarding with ads, banners and reminders to support them. I get it, I really do, but it’s an unpleasant experience to me.
My ever-lasting inspo is the old, old video game sites, blogs and magazines that I never had the privilege of being alive for:
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Image/gif/link heavy (though once again this week I have few of these, so this dot-point’s a bit needless)
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Personal voice (I can’t help rambling, send help – this won’t be even slightly professionally written)
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Mostly news or articles or points which you won’t find on normal gaming sites. These are the smaller, lesser things that I’m drawn to. I know you’ll have spotted the big news articles, so I’m hoping some of these smaller ones might have been missed by you.
A mixed bag of what I’ve considered news this week, so there really is a bit of everything ahead.
General Gaming News:
A New PS2 Emulator – Iris:
After 7-8 months of working on it, Lycoder (also goes by Allkern) has released their PS2 emulator called Iris. While games are running with very low/low/unplayable frames at the moment, they want to reassure people that this is constantly in development and improvements are being made regularly.
Windows, Linux and MacOS are supported.
The GitHub page is here, if you’d like to read a little more!
...and here is the link to the 0.10-alpha build of Iris
Funnily enough, it was only very recently that I fixed a DMAC bug that was keeping a lot of games from booting, and now this opens up a ton of potential to further debug and fix other issues, which may lead to even more games to boot. There's still a lot of work to be done, especially in the optimization department. I'm really looking forward to continue working on this project and advancing PlayStation 2 emulation!
It’s lovely to have another player in the scene, particularly with PS2 emulation.
And, naturally, here’s some pictures:
System Shock 2: 25th Anniversary Remaster Delay:
...sorry, don’t want to make you panic if you’re a PC gamer – no delays on that front, but if you’re a console gamer then it has been delayed for now:
Knowing the publishers, I’d say you’re in good hands without having to wait too long to play it, and I’m so excited to play through myself.
How to Fix Xbox’s Stupid Update:
I can’t even be bothered taking picture to illustrate this one, but if you’re on Xbox you’ll have seen it. Select a game and then you’re presented with a new screen giving you another step before you can select it again to play the game. And half that screen is taken up with their hopeful promotions of DLC and micro-transactions.
Shitty.
Anyway:
Settings / General / Personalization / Games & Apps / Choose whether game huds open automatically from the following places -
- Recently played list
- Groups
- Installed games
Grounded 2 Hype:
With the announcement of Obsidian’s Grounded 2, the numbers of the first game (Honey, I Shrunk The Kids meets Arrietty have exploded, bring a 193.8 boost to current players. The game shot up the Xbox charts from #88 to #23 (overtaking Halo: MCC and Elden Ring)
The game was announced two weeks ago, and the trailer is here for those curious
The first game on Steam holds a ‘Very Positive’ rating with 66,596 all-time ratings.
Lies of P:
I’m sure you’ve read this in at least four other places by now, but it still warms my heart. I couldn’t really make it through Lies of P – the souls-like and even souls-adjacent genre is not my cup of stressful tea. What I did love though was the atmosphere and setting, reminding me for no particular reason of Drood, the novel by Dan Simmons about the last five years of Charles Dickens and how spooky it could get.
Anyway, the devs behind Lies of P and Overture (the DLC) got a bonus for their efforts, with the two selling over 3m copies combined. They got a bonus, two weeks vacation and a free Nintendo Switch 2. IDK, a nice rarity in today’s gaming world!
Still Wakes The Deep:
The Chinese Room - Developers behind the BAFTA-winning-game Still Wakes The Deep have laid off some of their team, just after the release of their DLC – Siren’s Rest.
At a glance, around 10 staff with the studio listed as their current employer have the 'looking for work' label on their LinkedIn profiles – though this is not a reliable metric by itself.
However, The Chinese Room will share news on changes for the studio in the coming weeks so more will come out, I suppose. Sad news for those who worked on the rather amazing game.
Subnautica 2 Dev Vlog:
The latest dev vlog for the game has come out, titles ‘Building Unknown Worlds’
Join senior narrative designer Seth Dickinson, level designer Artyom O’Rielly, environment artist James Stout, and senior environment artist (and rock connoisseur) Ben Hale as they walk you through the incredible work that goes into building out the world of Subnautica 2.
My fav comment on the video is this one:
I have never been so excited over rocks
LEGO Island in Browser:
As the title says, the game is now available to play in your browser. I’m way too young for this game to have any impact in my life, but I think the older members here might remember it. Released in 1997, it’s certainly got a rabid following.
The link to the site is here, try it out!
And one more thing, I found the fact the devs created a physical island in actual LEGO when making the game, and this is ancient and adorable:
Auto-Shutdown after game download:
A gamer by the username of Avaneesh13 has created a Python-based application when they saw room for it – shutting their PC down for them after a big game download completed (rather than having their PC on all night)
This application is called SteamDown, and the link to the GitHub page is here for you to read through if you’d like.
SteamDown:
- Monitors your Steam download activity in real-time
- When downloads go inactive for a set period (you choose how long), it automatically performs an action of your choice
- Actions include: shutdown PC, sleep mode, stop Steam, or other custom actions
- Completely free and open-source
I kept starting massive game downloads (looking at you, Call of Duty) before going to bed, only to wake up and find my PC had been running idle for 6 hours after the download finished at 3 AM. Felt wasteful and probably wasn't great for my electricity bill either. Now I just set it to wait 5-10 minutes after downloads stop, then shut down my system automatically. Much better for power savings and peace of mind.
How it is different from other solutions:
*Generic system monitors that don't understand Steam's download behaviour specifically
- Command-line tools that require technical setup and aren't user-friendly
- Part of a larger system suite with bloatware I didn't want
- Paid solutions for what should be a simple utility
Technical details:
- Written in Python and built it as a standalone .exe (no installation needed)
- Works on Windows primarily, though I might explore macOS/Linux support
- Planning to add support for other launchers like Epic, GOG, etc. in future updates.
- Codebase clean and modular in case anyone wants to contribute or fork it
The functionality should be working as expected - it reliably monitors Steam and performs the shutdown actions. The UI could use a bit of work though (I'm more of a backend person), so if anyone has suggestions or wants to contribute on the interface side, I'd welcome the help!
Again, the GitHub link is at the start of this section, so take a look if you’re curious!
Epic reaches 500:
When Epic officially started their free games each week, all the way back in 2018, no one anticipated it would go for as long or be filled with the quality titles it has today. Starting with Subnautica (though unofficially giving away Shadow Complex Remastered before this in an effort to get users to install the launcher), we’re now up to 502 PC games given away.
Now they’re even expanding on this, with mobile phone games given away free each week. This coming week’s giveaway will be Sable (more on that later!).
...though be warned, it might make you sad to see what you’ve missed out on.
And what is this free games each week on Epic thing I mention? Well, there’s a tiny chance you don’t know:
The Epic Games Store gives away free games every week (to keep forever) as part of its strategy to attract new users and keep existing ones engaged. Anyone with a free Epic account can "claim" these games during the giveaway period (usually one week), and once claimed, the games are permanently added to the user’s library—no strings attached. This initiative started in 2018 and is funded by Epic to build its user base. The games are often high-quality indie titles big-budget releases, and you don’t need a subscription—just an account.
If you’re a Linux gamer you can use methods such as Heroic Games Launcher or Junk Store to play these games without requiring Epic’s own launcher (Epic’s CEO Tim Sweeney is famously anti-Linux).
Warhammer 40,000 DLC:
Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader, the incredibly well regarded cRPG made by Owlcat Games has released their next DLC – Lex Imperialis.
(...the YouTube link for the trailer is here)
Lex Imperialis, the second major expansion for Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader, offers a new 15-hour storyline and introduces the Adeptus Arbites — a faction of incorruptible enforcers — alongside a new companion: the grim and relentless Solomorne Anthar. Featuring battle familiars like cybernetic eagles and cyber-mastiffs, this DLC is AVAILABLE NOW to all players.
Rogue Trader holds ‘Very Positive’ ratings on Steam, with 22,120 reviews on Steam. I own the game on GOG, and I enjoyed it far more than I expected to. There’s a lovely gothic/space setting, kinda unsettling, and a deep game behind the Warhammer branding.
While releasing this DLC, Owlcat games is also working on two more games (both ‘coming soon’
Become an acolyte of the Inquisition in this grim dark, party-based, story-driven cRPG. Lead investigations, uncover grand conspiracies, master tactical combat, and wage a secret war against heresy. Make tough choices as a conduit of the God-Emperor’s will.
The Expanse: Osiris Reborn is a third-person Action RPG set in The Expanse universe. You’re no hero — just a merc caught in the wrong place at the wrong time, trying to hold your crew together and keep the ship up and running. Your choices will shape your story.
One thing is for sure with Owlcat (aside from the initial release of their games tending to need a patch or two!), they care about their games and support them for the long haul.
Crosswind – MORE PIRATES!!!
Since you’re reading this, you’ll probably know by now that I cry about the lack of games set in the golden age of piracy. It’s a setting I like to think is popular but just...kinda ignored. AC: IV Black Flag is still in my opinion the best-of-the-best, but we’ve got another to add to the collection. Crosswind!
Crosswind is a survival adventure in the Age of Piracy. Explore procedural open world, gather, build and craft. Overcome challenging bosses in soulslite combat. Sail your ship, fight on land and sea, play solo or with friends. Live your swashbuckling life in PvE or rise to power in optional PvP.
They’re calling it a ‘pirate survival adventure’, and they devs known as Crosswind Crew have released a statement along with the trailer, which is as follows, in their words:
Crosswind is our dream pirate game. Heavily inspired by great titles like Valheim or Enshrouded, it also feautres naval combat similar to AC: Black Flag and soulslite bossfights. The upcoming Alpha is a big milestone -- with playtesters live feedback we will be able to thoroughly verify a lot of work and designs. It's not gonna be perfect, but we hope it will move in the right direction, and we are absolutely willing to complete this journey whatever it takes.
The Alpha will feature:
- Basic survival gameplay (building, crafting, upgrading);
- 3 unique biomes scattered across a big archipelago - each with unique resources, enemies and bosses;
- 3 playable ships and one NPC merchant (of course to plunder it!);
- Land combat, basic naval combat and early version of boarding actions;
- Very basic Tortuga social hub.
All in all we hope it will provide 30-40 hours of a survival adventure, but of course some parts of the game will be much less polished then others.
For those interested in playtesting: we start small, and have very limited server slots for the test, but for those willing to try the game -- the signups are open on Steam page. We will be gradually letting people in starting tomorrow; Steam picks people randomly. There will be other tests in the future, so even if you want to try Crosswind and don't make it in the first wave, you may get luckly later.
The Crosswind Steam page is here, for you to check it out
The Crosswind trailer on YouTube is here, via this link
Jurassic World Evolution 3:
After some people got (rightly) angry at Jurassic World Evolution 3 using A.I. generated assets for scientist portraits, the devs realized they’re being stupid and released a statement:
Thanks for your feedback on this topic. We have opted to remove the use of generative AI for scientist portraits within Jurassic World Evolution 3.
...you can read their statement here on the Steam community page
Meh, I’m hardly going to celebrate devs for doing the bare minimum here.
Major Mod - Black Orchestra:
...admittedly a game and gigantic mod I’ve never heard of before, but Black Orchestra Worldfront: 37-54 is coming. Made for Rising Storm 2 Vietnam, it adds the Pacific, Western, Mediterranean and Eastern Fronts of World War II to the game.
The mod is deemed feature complete now,
GOG Library Price Checker:
Someone has made a site which checks your GOG games library and gives you an estimate on the value of the total games. Or, it makes you feel awful about seeing a cold number stating you’ve spent way too much.
It’s wonky, and makes mistakes, and doesn’t seem to register all games. I can also see GPT everywhere in this, which as someone who enjoys writing kinda makes me feel icky. But whatever, if it helps people get an idea across then that’s the better of the A.I. uses these days.
I guess all-in-all, it’s still a fun idea in theory. One I should note I have not done or checked myself.
In their own words:
So I wanted to check how much my GOG games library is actually worth — like how SteamDB does it for Steam users — but turns out… there’s nothing like that for GOG.
And if there was anything, it either asked you to log in or paste your cookies... which to me instantly screamed obvious scam
So I thought: why not just make something myself?
Here's what I did:- You just grab a list of your games from GOG (don’t worry, I explain how to do this — since GOG gives no easy export option, had to get creative).
- Upload that CSV to my site.
- It fetches current prices from GOG, calculates your total value, base prices, and savings.
- You get to download the results as a CSV or as a cool little trading card-style badge image.
I'm a CS student (cooked ), and this is kinda my first real utility site — so I’d love feedback, suggestions, criticism, anything really.
Will try to make a video walkthrough soon for those who need visual instructions.
Let me know if anything breaks, or if there's something you'd want to see added.yes It’s hosted on Vercel for now because, well… it’s free and I’m broke
The ads are just me playing around with how a “real” implementation might look — not trying to cash out or anything, just testing stuff in the wild.
Where is your Q&A?
You might remember in my last news post I shared I mentioned that I have been chatting to the lead dev of a program which makes piracy on a jailbroken (Custom Firmware or CFW) Nintendo Switch. The program works as a replica to the official Nintndo eShop except...it’s not filled with shit, ironically. And it doesn’t slow to a crawl to search through.
Anyway, it’s a piracy portal. I wanted to interview them with the idea of getting a glimpse behind why they do it, how they do it, how they justify doing it. All without sharing the name of this program, or the name of the dev.
Anyway, they’ve been a little busy, I’ve shared my side with them and am still waiting on their responses before I format it up and add some pictures, generally make it fit to view on Lemmy here.
Anyway, it’s coming soon, just to let you know!
Switch 2 Compatibility Tracker:
Speaking of Switch, someone has made a webpage which tracks Switch 2 compatibility with Switch 1 games:
*I saw that the lists here don't update regularly (last updated June 5), and that Nintendo says to check individual eShop pages for updated information. So, I made a webpage that scrapes the eShop for up-to-date information. Check it out! Feedback is welcome!
The GitHub page for the tracker is here and updates twice daily!
Junk Store’s Pricing Revealed:
The next iteration of Junk Store is close to launching. Promising emulation, more store-fronts and even (planned, not there yet!) cloud saves. Currently Junk Store works as a plugin via Decky Loader on your Steam Deck – install the plugin and from the gaming mode on your Steam Deck you can enjoy Epic Games titles. With a paid extension to that (a one-off purchase of $6) you can also enjoy GOG games.
The next iteration will be a subscription model, and I’ll share Junk Store’s own words on their announcement below:
Tldr:
Junk Store is almost ready. It’s a full rebuild — faster, more stable, no Decky required, and packed with new features. Pricing is USD$40/year with a 7-day free trial, and you keep everything released during your subscription.
The open-source version remains available. Early supporters get a discount, and we’re rolling out in waves to keep things sustainable.
The Longer Version
We’re close to launching the new version of Junk Store — rebuilt from the ground up after over a year of work. It’s faster, more stable, and adds major features like Amazon support, a download queue, and simplified extension generation (no coding needed). This version is fully standalone — no more Decky required — and is based on everything we learned from the original.
We know pricing will be a sticking point for some, so here’s the plan:- $40 (USD) for 12 months of updates
- Includes all extension presets (currently GOG, Epic, Amazon — more to come)
- You keep everything released during your subscription
- Renewal is $40/year
- 7-day free trial — cancel anytime (Stripe handles billing)
To keep things sustainable, we’ll be rolling out in waves. Hosting and bandwidth aren’t free — and based on the original version’s download volume, opening the gates all at once would sink us. Existing supporters will be onboarded first and get a discount that reflects their earlier contributions.
We also want to clear up a few things:- This version does not share code with the open-source one.
- The free, open-source version will remain available.
- Junk Store does not handle any credentials except its own.
We expect a few bumps early on — this is new code, and no software survives first contact with the public. But it’s already been battle-tested internally and testers.
What’s Next?If all goes well, we’re planning:
- Itch.io support (and possibly EA, Ubisoft, Battle.net)
- Cloud saves (done right)
- Game-specific presets
- Better extension creation tools
- Full localisation
- Community extension sharing
- Automated updates
For a more detailed breakdown head [to this link] here
Thanks again to everyone who’s supported this journey. We’re almost there.
Game on.So, what do you think? Will you be trying Junk Store out? I think Gardiner is planning a video showcasing what it does and how it does it, closer to the date if that helps you visualize what it’s capable of!
Retro Gaming Finds:
I’ve just come across a few fun retro gaming-centric things, so while they’re not at all news-worthy in the hard news sense, they’re amazing in every way and I’d be remiss to not add them to their own section here. If you’ve interest in older games (by my sense because I am so young what is ‘old’ might make you cringe), so settle back and enjoy these ones:
Underwater:
Just someone’s custom bathroom efforts, which seems totally appropriate here:
PS1 Concept Logos:
PC-88:
The PC88 was an 8-bit computer that was dominant in Japan in the 1980s, and has a bit of a reputation for very pixel-y blocky boxy graphics. What comes out beautifully though are the city-scapes in the games. The images will follow, but in order they appear from the following games:
- Tien Gow Pia Special (1989)
- Can Can Bunny (1989)
- Snatcher (1988)
- Misty Blue (1990)
- Burning Point (1989)
- Imitation wa Aisenai (1989)
- Can Can Bunny Superior (1990)
- Paragon Sexa Doll (1989)
Costanza:
Yep, George owned a Virtual Boy. I also think it’s pretty funny that the series has him as the fat one and by today’s standards he’s honestly pretty trim. Weird. Sad about our society now, I think. Anyway, Virtual Boy here:
Wall Art:
It’s amazing, but if you wanna be totally accurate to the time:
- DK has a tie on, whereas the original does not
- ‘jumpman’ should have red overalls and a blue shirt
- Peach is used instead of Pauline
Michael Jackson:
Keen eyes may spot that it is GoldenEye in the N64 there, next to his throne.
That’s that for this week!
Sorry again that it’s been a little smaller than as is typical, I have a lot on my plate right now but I do plan the next to resume my typical way-too-many-words standard I seem to have set for myself!
Previous Posts:
If you’d like to read my previous Gaming News posts (they’re mounting up in number now!), then you can find them here:
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #2
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #3
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #4
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #5
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #6
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #7
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #8
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #9
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #10
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #11
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #12
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #13
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #14
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #15
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #16
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #17
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #18
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #19
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #20
Mastodon:
I do tend to post there each and every day, 99.99% gaming nonsense. If you want more of this, then come drop by!
I noticed that the way it goes for me these days is that whenever your weekly post arrives I'm grabbing my coffee in the morning and looking forward to have a very enjoyable time with a good read. Makes me feel like an old/senior man in a coffee shop with newspaper in the morning
Thank you very much for your work
It's very good. I at least would 10/10 times prefer writes like yours, made with care and passion, over so called professional articles, who often lack that care.And of course, take care of your health and yourself
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As ever and always, I’m back with a week’s worth of gaming news I’ve spotted and thought I should share with you all!
This week is slightly less than is typical (1,000-ish words less than my last week’s I can tell you!) for a few reasons:
- I’ve cashed in some of my crypto and bought a cabin. Which makes me sound like an actress in a Stephen King movie
- I’ve had some odd health hiccups lately – nerve damage in my hip which means I feel nothing when touching a small patch of skin, but it also feels like it is on fire
So I’ve been a little distracted, but I do pinkie-swear next week’s will be back to my normal output!
So what are these posts?
My aim for these News Posts in general is to make them a more clearly not a professional, but someone who cares about gaming manner than most gaming sites do now. I see so many sites, even the independent ones, bombarding with ads, banners and reminders to support them. I get it, I really do, but it’s an unpleasant experience to me.
My ever-lasting inspo is the old, old video game sites, blogs and magazines that I never had the privilege of being alive for:
-
Image/gif/link heavy (though once again this week I have few of these, so this dot-point’s a bit needless)
-
Personal voice (I can’t help rambling, send help – this won’t be even slightly professionally written)
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Mostly news or articles or points which you won’t find on normal gaming sites. These are the smaller, lesser things that I’m drawn to. I know you’ll have spotted the big news articles, so I’m hoping some of these smaller ones might have been missed by you.
A mixed bag of what I’ve considered news this week, so there really is a bit of everything ahead.
General Gaming News:
A New PS2 Emulator – Iris:
After 7-8 months of working on it, Lycoder (also goes by Allkern) has released their PS2 emulator called Iris. While games are running with very low/low/unplayable frames at the moment, they want to reassure people that this is constantly in development and improvements are being made regularly.
Windows, Linux and MacOS are supported.
The GitHub page is here, if you’d like to read a little more!
...and here is the link to the 0.10-alpha build of Iris
Funnily enough, it was only very recently that I fixed a DMAC bug that was keeping a lot of games from booting, and now this opens up a ton of potential to further debug and fix other issues, which may lead to even more games to boot. There's still a lot of work to be done, especially in the optimization department. I'm really looking forward to continue working on this project and advancing PlayStation 2 emulation!
It’s lovely to have another player in the scene, particularly with PS2 emulation.
And, naturally, here’s some pictures:
System Shock 2: 25th Anniversary Remaster Delay:
...sorry, don’t want to make you panic if you’re a PC gamer – no delays on that front, but if you’re a console gamer then it has been delayed for now:
Knowing the publishers, I’d say you’re in good hands without having to wait too long to play it, and I’m so excited to play through myself.
How to Fix Xbox’s Stupid Update:
I can’t even be bothered taking picture to illustrate this one, but if you’re on Xbox you’ll have seen it. Select a game and then you’re presented with a new screen giving you another step before you can select it again to play the game. And half that screen is taken up with their hopeful promotions of DLC and micro-transactions.
Shitty.
Anyway:
Settings / General / Personalization / Games & Apps / Choose whether game huds open automatically from the following places -
- Recently played list
- Groups
- Installed games
Grounded 2 Hype:
With the announcement of Obsidian’s Grounded 2, the numbers of the first game (Honey, I Shrunk The Kids meets Arrietty have exploded, bring a 193.8 boost to current players. The game shot up the Xbox charts from #88 to #23 (overtaking Halo: MCC and Elden Ring)
The game was announced two weeks ago, and the trailer is here for those curious
The first game on Steam holds a ‘Very Positive’ rating with 66,596 all-time ratings.
Lies of P:
I’m sure you’ve read this in at least four other places by now, but it still warms my heart. I couldn’t really make it through Lies of P – the souls-like and even souls-adjacent genre is not my cup of stressful tea. What I did love though was the atmosphere and setting, reminding me for no particular reason of Drood, the novel by Dan Simmons about the last five years of Charles Dickens and how spooky it could get.
Anyway, the devs behind Lies of P and Overture (the DLC) got a bonus for their efforts, with the two selling over 3m copies combined. They got a bonus, two weeks vacation and a free Nintendo Switch 2. IDK, a nice rarity in today’s gaming world!
Still Wakes The Deep:
The Chinese Room - Developers behind the BAFTA-winning-game Still Wakes The Deep have laid off some of their team, just after the release of their DLC – Siren’s Rest.
At a glance, around 10 staff with the studio listed as their current employer have the 'looking for work' label on their LinkedIn profiles – though this is not a reliable metric by itself.
However, The Chinese Room will share news on changes for the studio in the coming weeks so more will come out, I suppose. Sad news for those who worked on the rather amazing game.
Subnautica 2 Dev Vlog:
The latest dev vlog for the game has come out, titles ‘Building Unknown Worlds’
Join senior narrative designer Seth Dickinson, level designer Artyom O’Rielly, environment artist James Stout, and senior environment artist (and rock connoisseur) Ben Hale as they walk you through the incredible work that goes into building out the world of Subnautica 2.
My fav comment on the video is this one:
I have never been so excited over rocks
LEGO Island in Browser:
As the title says, the game is now available to play in your browser. I’m way too young for this game to have any impact in my life, but I think the older members here might remember it. Released in 1997, it’s certainly got a rabid following.
The link to the site is here, try it out!
And one more thing, I found the fact the devs created a physical island in actual LEGO when making the game, and this is ancient and adorable:
Auto-Shutdown after game download:
A gamer by the username of Avaneesh13 has created a Python-based application when they saw room for it – shutting their PC down for them after a big game download completed (rather than having their PC on all night)
This application is called SteamDown, and the link to the GitHub page is here for you to read through if you’d like.
SteamDown:
- Monitors your Steam download activity in real-time
- When downloads go inactive for a set period (you choose how long), it automatically performs an action of your choice
- Actions include: shutdown PC, sleep mode, stop Steam, or other custom actions
- Completely free and open-source
I kept starting massive game downloads (looking at you, Call of Duty) before going to bed, only to wake up and find my PC had been running idle for 6 hours after the download finished at 3 AM. Felt wasteful and probably wasn't great for my electricity bill either. Now I just set it to wait 5-10 minutes after downloads stop, then shut down my system automatically. Much better for power savings and peace of mind.
How it is different from other solutions:
*Generic system monitors that don't understand Steam's download behaviour specifically
- Command-line tools that require technical setup and aren't user-friendly
- Part of a larger system suite with bloatware I didn't want
- Paid solutions for what should be a simple utility
Technical details:
- Written in Python and built it as a standalone .exe (no installation needed)
- Works on Windows primarily, though I might explore macOS/Linux support
- Planning to add support for other launchers like Epic, GOG, etc. in future updates.
- Codebase clean and modular in case anyone wants to contribute or fork it
The functionality should be working as expected - it reliably monitors Steam and performs the shutdown actions. The UI could use a bit of work though (I'm more of a backend person), so if anyone has suggestions or wants to contribute on the interface side, I'd welcome the help!
Again, the GitHub link is at the start of this section, so take a look if you’re curious!
Epic reaches 500:
When Epic officially started their free games each week, all the way back in 2018, no one anticipated it would go for as long or be filled with the quality titles it has today. Starting with Subnautica (though unofficially giving away Shadow Complex Remastered before this in an effort to get users to install the launcher), we’re now up to 502 PC games given away.
Now they’re even expanding on this, with mobile phone games given away free each week. This coming week’s giveaway will be Sable (more on that later!).
...though be warned, it might make you sad to see what you’ve missed out on.
And what is this free games each week on Epic thing I mention? Well, there’s a tiny chance you don’t know:
The Epic Games Store gives away free games every week (to keep forever) as part of its strategy to attract new users and keep existing ones engaged. Anyone with a free Epic account can "claim" these games during the giveaway period (usually one week), and once claimed, the games are permanently added to the user’s library—no strings attached. This initiative started in 2018 and is funded by Epic to build its user base. The games are often high-quality indie titles big-budget releases, and you don’t need a subscription—just an account.
If you’re a Linux gamer you can use methods such as Heroic Games Launcher or Junk Store to play these games without requiring Epic’s own launcher (Epic’s CEO Tim Sweeney is famously anti-Linux).
Warhammer 40,000 DLC:
Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader, the incredibly well regarded cRPG made by Owlcat Games has released their next DLC – Lex Imperialis.
(...the YouTube link for the trailer is here)
Lex Imperialis, the second major expansion for Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader, offers a new 15-hour storyline and introduces the Adeptus Arbites — a faction of incorruptible enforcers — alongside a new companion: the grim and relentless Solomorne Anthar. Featuring battle familiars like cybernetic eagles and cyber-mastiffs, this DLC is AVAILABLE NOW to all players.
Rogue Trader holds ‘Very Positive’ ratings on Steam, with 22,120 reviews on Steam. I own the game on GOG, and I enjoyed it far more than I expected to. There’s a lovely gothic/space setting, kinda unsettling, and a deep game behind the Warhammer branding.
While releasing this DLC, Owlcat games is also working on two more games (both ‘coming soon’
Become an acolyte of the Inquisition in this grim dark, party-based, story-driven cRPG. Lead investigations, uncover grand conspiracies, master tactical combat, and wage a secret war against heresy. Make tough choices as a conduit of the God-Emperor’s will.
The Expanse: Osiris Reborn is a third-person Action RPG set in The Expanse universe. You’re no hero — just a merc caught in the wrong place at the wrong time, trying to hold your crew together and keep the ship up and running. Your choices will shape your story.
One thing is for sure with Owlcat (aside from the initial release of their games tending to need a patch or two!), they care about their games and support them for the long haul.
Crosswind – MORE PIRATES!!!
Since you’re reading this, you’ll probably know by now that I cry about the lack of games set in the golden age of piracy. It’s a setting I like to think is popular but just...kinda ignored. AC: IV Black Flag is still in my opinion the best-of-the-best, but we’ve got another to add to the collection. Crosswind!
Crosswind is a survival adventure in the Age of Piracy. Explore procedural open world, gather, build and craft. Overcome challenging bosses in soulslite combat. Sail your ship, fight on land and sea, play solo or with friends. Live your swashbuckling life in PvE or rise to power in optional PvP.
They’re calling it a ‘pirate survival adventure’, and they devs known as Crosswind Crew have released a statement along with the trailer, which is as follows, in their words:
Crosswind is our dream pirate game. Heavily inspired by great titles like Valheim or Enshrouded, it also feautres naval combat similar to AC: Black Flag and soulslite bossfights. The upcoming Alpha is a big milestone -- with playtesters live feedback we will be able to thoroughly verify a lot of work and designs. It's not gonna be perfect, but we hope it will move in the right direction, and we are absolutely willing to complete this journey whatever it takes.
The Alpha will feature:
- Basic survival gameplay (building, crafting, upgrading);
- 3 unique biomes scattered across a big archipelago - each with unique resources, enemies and bosses;
- 3 playable ships and one NPC merchant (of course to plunder it!);
- Land combat, basic naval combat and early version of boarding actions;
- Very basic Tortuga social hub.
All in all we hope it will provide 30-40 hours of a survival adventure, but of course some parts of the game will be much less polished then others.
For those interested in playtesting: we start small, and have very limited server slots for the test, but for those willing to try the game -- the signups are open on Steam page. We will be gradually letting people in starting tomorrow; Steam picks people randomly. There will be other tests in the future, so even if you want to try Crosswind and don't make it in the first wave, you may get luckly later.
The Crosswind Steam page is here, for you to check it out
The Crosswind trailer on YouTube is here, via this link
Jurassic World Evolution 3:
After some people got (rightly) angry at Jurassic World Evolution 3 using A.I. generated assets for scientist portraits, the devs realized they’re being stupid and released a statement:
Thanks for your feedback on this topic. We have opted to remove the use of generative AI for scientist portraits within Jurassic World Evolution 3.
...you can read their statement here on the Steam community page
Meh, I’m hardly going to celebrate devs for doing the bare minimum here.
Major Mod - Black Orchestra:
...admittedly a game and gigantic mod I’ve never heard of before, but Black Orchestra Worldfront: 37-54 is coming. Made for Rising Storm 2 Vietnam, it adds the Pacific, Western, Mediterranean and Eastern Fronts of World War II to the game.
The mod is deemed feature complete now,
GOG Library Price Checker:
Someone has made a site which checks your GOG games library and gives you an estimate on the value of the total games. Or, it makes you feel awful about seeing a cold number stating you’ve spent way too much.
It’s wonky, and makes mistakes, and doesn’t seem to register all games. I can also see GPT everywhere in this, which as someone who enjoys writing kinda makes me feel icky. But whatever, if it helps people get an idea across then that’s the better of the A.I. uses these days.
I guess all-in-all, it’s still a fun idea in theory. One I should note I have not done or checked myself.
In their own words:
So I wanted to check how much my GOG games library is actually worth — like how SteamDB does it for Steam users — but turns out… there’s nothing like that for GOG.
And if there was anything, it either asked you to log in or paste your cookies... which to me instantly screamed obvious scam
So I thought: why not just make something myself?
Here's what I did:- You just grab a list of your games from GOG (don’t worry, I explain how to do this — since GOG gives no easy export option, had to get creative).
- Upload that CSV to my site.
- It fetches current prices from GOG, calculates your total value, base prices, and savings.
- You get to download the results as a CSV or as a cool little trading card-style badge image.
I'm a CS student (cooked ), and this is kinda my first real utility site — so I’d love feedback, suggestions, criticism, anything really.
Will try to make a video walkthrough soon for those who need visual instructions.
Let me know if anything breaks, or if there's something you'd want to see added.yes It’s hosted on Vercel for now because, well… it’s free and I’m broke
The ads are just me playing around with how a “real” implementation might look — not trying to cash out or anything, just testing stuff in the wild.
Where is your Q&A?
You might remember in my last news post I shared I mentioned that I have been chatting to the lead dev of a program which makes piracy on a jailbroken (Custom Firmware or CFW) Nintendo Switch. The program works as a replica to the official Nintndo eShop except...it’s not filled with shit, ironically. And it doesn’t slow to a crawl to search through.
Anyway, it’s a piracy portal. I wanted to interview them with the idea of getting a glimpse behind why they do it, how they do it, how they justify doing it. All without sharing the name of this program, or the name of the dev.
Anyway, they’ve been a little busy, I’ve shared my side with them and am still waiting on their responses before I format it up and add some pictures, generally make it fit to view on Lemmy here.
Anyway, it’s coming soon, just to let you know!
Switch 2 Compatibility Tracker:
Speaking of Switch, someone has made a webpage which tracks Switch 2 compatibility with Switch 1 games:
*I saw that the lists here don't update regularly (last updated June 5), and that Nintendo says to check individual eShop pages for updated information. So, I made a webpage that scrapes the eShop for up-to-date information. Check it out! Feedback is welcome!
The GitHub page for the tracker is here and updates twice daily!
Junk Store’s Pricing Revealed:
The next iteration of Junk Store is close to launching. Promising emulation, more store-fronts and even (planned, not there yet!) cloud saves. Currently Junk Store works as a plugin via Decky Loader on your Steam Deck – install the plugin and from the gaming mode on your Steam Deck you can enjoy Epic Games titles. With a paid extension to that (a one-off purchase of $6) you can also enjoy GOG games.
The next iteration will be a subscription model, and I’ll share Junk Store’s own words on their announcement below:
Tldr:
Junk Store is almost ready. It’s a full rebuild — faster, more stable, no Decky required, and packed with new features. Pricing is USD$40/year with a 7-day free trial, and you keep everything released during your subscription.
The open-source version remains available. Early supporters get a discount, and we’re rolling out in waves to keep things sustainable.
The Longer Version
We’re close to launching the new version of Junk Store — rebuilt from the ground up after over a year of work. It’s faster, more stable, and adds major features like Amazon support, a download queue, and simplified extension generation (no coding needed). This version is fully standalone — no more Decky required — and is based on everything we learned from the original.
We know pricing will be a sticking point for some, so here’s the plan:- $40 (USD) for 12 months of updates
- Includes all extension presets (currently GOG, Epic, Amazon — more to come)
- You keep everything released during your subscription
- Renewal is $40/year
- 7-day free trial — cancel anytime (Stripe handles billing)
To keep things sustainable, we’ll be rolling out in waves. Hosting and bandwidth aren’t free — and based on the original version’s download volume, opening the gates all at once would sink us. Existing supporters will be onboarded first and get a discount that reflects their earlier contributions.
We also want to clear up a few things:- This version does not share code with the open-source one.
- The free, open-source version will remain available.
- Junk Store does not handle any credentials except its own.
We expect a few bumps early on — this is new code, and no software survives first contact with the public. But it’s already been battle-tested internally and testers.
What’s Next?If all goes well, we’re planning:
- Itch.io support (and possibly EA, Ubisoft, Battle.net)
- Cloud saves (done right)
- Game-specific presets
- Better extension creation tools
- Full localisation
- Community extension sharing
- Automated updates
For a more detailed breakdown head [to this link] here
Thanks again to everyone who’s supported this journey. We’re almost there.
Game on.So, what do you think? Will you be trying Junk Store out? I think Gardiner is planning a video showcasing what it does and how it does it, closer to the date if that helps you visualize what it’s capable of!
Retro Gaming Finds:
I’ve just come across a few fun retro gaming-centric things, so while they’re not at all news-worthy in the hard news sense, they’re amazing in every way and I’d be remiss to not add them to their own section here. If you’ve interest in older games (by my sense because I am so young what is ‘old’ might make you cringe), so settle back and enjoy these ones:
Underwater:
Just someone’s custom bathroom efforts, which seems totally appropriate here:
PS1 Concept Logos:
PC-88:
The PC88 was an 8-bit computer that was dominant in Japan in the 1980s, and has a bit of a reputation for very pixel-y blocky boxy graphics. What comes out beautifully though are the city-scapes in the games. The images will follow, but in order they appear from the following games:
- Tien Gow Pia Special (1989)
- Can Can Bunny (1989)
- Snatcher (1988)
- Misty Blue (1990)
- Burning Point (1989)
- Imitation wa Aisenai (1989)
- Can Can Bunny Superior (1990)
- Paragon Sexa Doll (1989)
Costanza:
Yep, George owned a Virtual Boy. I also think it’s pretty funny that the series has him as the fat one and by today’s standards he’s honestly pretty trim. Weird. Sad about our society now, I think. Anyway, Virtual Boy here:
Wall Art:
It’s amazing, but if you wanna be totally accurate to the time:
- DK has a tie on, whereas the original does not
- ‘jumpman’ should have red overalls and a blue shirt
- Peach is used instead of Pauline
Michael Jackson:
Keen eyes may spot that it is GoldenEye in the N64 there, next to his throne.
That’s that for this week!
Sorry again that it’s been a little smaller than as is typical, I have a lot on my plate right now but I do plan the next to resume my typical way-too-many-words standard I seem to have set for myself!
Previous Posts:
If you’d like to read my previous Gaming News posts (they’re mounting up in number now!), then you can find them here:
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #2
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #3
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #4
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #5
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #6
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #7
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #8
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #9
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #10
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #11
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #12
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #13
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #14
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #15
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #16
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #17
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #18
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #19
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #20
Mastodon:
I do tend to post there each and every day, 99.99% gaming nonsense. If you want more of this, then come drop by!
No way am I ever going to pay a subscription for a games launcher, especially when alternatives exist
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As ever and always, I’m back with a week’s worth of gaming news I’ve spotted and thought I should share with you all!
This week is slightly less than is typical (1,000-ish words less than my last week’s I can tell you!) for a few reasons:
- I’ve cashed in some of my crypto and bought a cabin. Which makes me sound like an actress in a Stephen King movie
- I’ve had some odd health hiccups lately – nerve damage in my hip which means I feel nothing when touching a small patch of skin, but it also feels like it is on fire
So I’ve been a little distracted, but I do pinkie-swear next week’s will be back to my normal output!
So what are these posts?
My aim for these News Posts in general is to make them a more clearly not a professional, but someone who cares about gaming manner than most gaming sites do now. I see so many sites, even the independent ones, bombarding with ads, banners and reminders to support them. I get it, I really do, but it’s an unpleasant experience to me.
My ever-lasting inspo is the old, old video game sites, blogs and magazines that I never had the privilege of being alive for:
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Image/gif/link heavy (though once again this week I have few of these, so this dot-point’s a bit needless)
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Personal voice (I can’t help rambling, send help – this won’t be even slightly professionally written)
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Mostly news or articles or points which you won’t find on normal gaming sites. These are the smaller, lesser things that I’m drawn to. I know you’ll have spotted the big news articles, so I’m hoping some of these smaller ones might have been missed by you.
A mixed bag of what I’ve considered news this week, so there really is a bit of everything ahead.
General Gaming News:
A New PS2 Emulator – Iris:
After 7-8 months of working on it, Lycoder (also goes by Allkern) has released their PS2 emulator called Iris. While games are running with very low/low/unplayable frames at the moment, they want to reassure people that this is constantly in development and improvements are being made regularly.
Windows, Linux and MacOS are supported.
The GitHub page is here, if you’d like to read a little more!
...and here is the link to the 0.10-alpha build of Iris
Funnily enough, it was only very recently that I fixed a DMAC bug that was keeping a lot of games from booting, and now this opens up a ton of potential to further debug and fix other issues, which may lead to even more games to boot. There's still a lot of work to be done, especially in the optimization department. I'm really looking forward to continue working on this project and advancing PlayStation 2 emulation!
It’s lovely to have another player in the scene, particularly with PS2 emulation.
And, naturally, here’s some pictures:
System Shock 2: 25th Anniversary Remaster Delay:
...sorry, don’t want to make you panic if you’re a PC gamer – no delays on that front, but if you’re a console gamer then it has been delayed for now:
Knowing the publishers, I’d say you’re in good hands without having to wait too long to play it, and I’m so excited to play through myself.
How to Fix Xbox’s Stupid Update:
I can’t even be bothered taking picture to illustrate this one, but if you’re on Xbox you’ll have seen it. Select a game and then you’re presented with a new screen giving you another step before you can select it again to play the game. And half that screen is taken up with their hopeful promotions of DLC and micro-transactions.
Shitty.
Anyway:
Settings / General / Personalization / Games & Apps / Choose whether game huds open automatically from the following places -
- Recently played list
- Groups
- Installed games
Grounded 2 Hype:
With the announcement of Obsidian’s Grounded 2, the numbers of the first game (Honey, I Shrunk The Kids meets Arrietty have exploded, bring a 193.8 boost to current players. The game shot up the Xbox charts from #88 to #23 (overtaking Halo: MCC and Elden Ring)
The game was announced two weeks ago, and the trailer is here for those curious
The first game on Steam holds a ‘Very Positive’ rating with 66,596 all-time ratings.
Lies of P:
I’m sure you’ve read this in at least four other places by now, but it still warms my heart. I couldn’t really make it through Lies of P – the souls-like and even souls-adjacent genre is not my cup of stressful tea. What I did love though was the atmosphere and setting, reminding me for no particular reason of Drood, the novel by Dan Simmons about the last five years of Charles Dickens and how spooky it could get.
Anyway, the devs behind Lies of P and Overture (the DLC) got a bonus for their efforts, with the two selling over 3m copies combined. They got a bonus, two weeks vacation and a free Nintendo Switch 2. IDK, a nice rarity in today’s gaming world!
Still Wakes The Deep:
The Chinese Room - Developers behind the BAFTA-winning-game Still Wakes The Deep have laid off some of their team, just after the release of their DLC – Siren’s Rest.
At a glance, around 10 staff with the studio listed as their current employer have the 'looking for work' label on their LinkedIn profiles – though this is not a reliable metric by itself.
However, The Chinese Room will share news on changes for the studio in the coming weeks so more will come out, I suppose. Sad news for those who worked on the rather amazing game.
Subnautica 2 Dev Vlog:
The latest dev vlog for the game has come out, titles ‘Building Unknown Worlds’
Join senior narrative designer Seth Dickinson, level designer Artyom O’Rielly, environment artist James Stout, and senior environment artist (and rock connoisseur) Ben Hale as they walk you through the incredible work that goes into building out the world of Subnautica 2.
My fav comment on the video is this one:
I have never been so excited over rocks
LEGO Island in Browser:
As the title says, the game is now available to play in your browser. I’m way too young for this game to have any impact in my life, but I think the older members here might remember it. Released in 1997, it’s certainly got a rabid following.
The link to the site is here, try it out!
And one more thing, I found the fact the devs created a physical island in actual LEGO when making the game, and this is ancient and adorable:
Auto-Shutdown after game download:
A gamer by the username of Avaneesh13 has created a Python-based application when they saw room for it – shutting their PC down for them after a big game download completed (rather than having their PC on all night)
This application is called SteamDown, and the link to the GitHub page is here for you to read through if you’d like.
SteamDown:
- Monitors your Steam download activity in real-time
- When downloads go inactive for a set period (you choose how long), it automatically performs an action of your choice
- Actions include: shutdown PC, sleep mode, stop Steam, or other custom actions
- Completely free and open-source
I kept starting massive game downloads (looking at you, Call of Duty) before going to bed, only to wake up and find my PC had been running idle for 6 hours after the download finished at 3 AM. Felt wasteful and probably wasn't great for my electricity bill either. Now I just set it to wait 5-10 minutes after downloads stop, then shut down my system automatically. Much better for power savings and peace of mind.
How it is different from other solutions:
*Generic system monitors that don't understand Steam's download behaviour specifically
- Command-line tools that require technical setup and aren't user-friendly
- Part of a larger system suite with bloatware I didn't want
- Paid solutions for what should be a simple utility
Technical details:
- Written in Python and built it as a standalone .exe (no installation needed)
- Works on Windows primarily, though I might explore macOS/Linux support
- Planning to add support for other launchers like Epic, GOG, etc. in future updates.
- Codebase clean and modular in case anyone wants to contribute or fork it
The functionality should be working as expected - it reliably monitors Steam and performs the shutdown actions. The UI could use a bit of work though (I'm more of a backend person), so if anyone has suggestions or wants to contribute on the interface side, I'd welcome the help!
Again, the GitHub link is at the start of this section, so take a look if you’re curious!
Epic reaches 500:
When Epic officially started their free games each week, all the way back in 2018, no one anticipated it would go for as long or be filled with the quality titles it has today. Starting with Subnautica (though unofficially giving away Shadow Complex Remastered before this in an effort to get users to install the launcher), we’re now up to 502 PC games given away.
Now they’re even expanding on this, with mobile phone games given away free each week. This coming week’s giveaway will be Sable (more on that later!).
...though be warned, it might make you sad to see what you’ve missed out on.
And what is this free games each week on Epic thing I mention? Well, there’s a tiny chance you don’t know:
The Epic Games Store gives away free games every week (to keep forever) as part of its strategy to attract new users and keep existing ones engaged. Anyone with a free Epic account can "claim" these games during the giveaway period (usually one week), and once claimed, the games are permanently added to the user’s library—no strings attached. This initiative started in 2018 and is funded by Epic to build its user base. The games are often high-quality indie titles big-budget releases, and you don’t need a subscription—just an account.
If you’re a Linux gamer you can use methods such as Heroic Games Launcher or Junk Store to play these games without requiring Epic’s own launcher (Epic’s CEO Tim Sweeney is famously anti-Linux).
Warhammer 40,000 DLC:
Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader, the incredibly well regarded cRPG made by Owlcat Games has released their next DLC – Lex Imperialis.
(...the YouTube link for the trailer is here)
Lex Imperialis, the second major expansion for Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader, offers a new 15-hour storyline and introduces the Adeptus Arbites — a faction of incorruptible enforcers — alongside a new companion: the grim and relentless Solomorne Anthar. Featuring battle familiars like cybernetic eagles and cyber-mastiffs, this DLC is AVAILABLE NOW to all players.
Rogue Trader holds ‘Very Positive’ ratings on Steam, with 22,120 reviews on Steam. I own the game on GOG, and I enjoyed it far more than I expected to. There’s a lovely gothic/space setting, kinda unsettling, and a deep game behind the Warhammer branding.
While releasing this DLC, Owlcat games is also working on two more games (both ‘coming soon’
Become an acolyte of the Inquisition in this grim dark, party-based, story-driven cRPG. Lead investigations, uncover grand conspiracies, master tactical combat, and wage a secret war against heresy. Make tough choices as a conduit of the God-Emperor’s will.
The Expanse: Osiris Reborn is a third-person Action RPG set in The Expanse universe. You’re no hero — just a merc caught in the wrong place at the wrong time, trying to hold your crew together and keep the ship up and running. Your choices will shape your story.
One thing is for sure with Owlcat (aside from the initial release of their games tending to need a patch or two!), they care about their games and support them for the long haul.
Crosswind – MORE PIRATES!!!
Since you’re reading this, you’ll probably know by now that I cry about the lack of games set in the golden age of piracy. It’s a setting I like to think is popular but just...kinda ignored. AC: IV Black Flag is still in my opinion the best-of-the-best, but we’ve got another to add to the collection. Crosswind!
Crosswind is a survival adventure in the Age of Piracy. Explore procedural open world, gather, build and craft. Overcome challenging bosses in soulslite combat. Sail your ship, fight on land and sea, play solo or with friends. Live your swashbuckling life in PvE or rise to power in optional PvP.
They’re calling it a ‘pirate survival adventure’, and they devs known as Crosswind Crew have released a statement along with the trailer, which is as follows, in their words:
Crosswind is our dream pirate game. Heavily inspired by great titles like Valheim or Enshrouded, it also feautres naval combat similar to AC: Black Flag and soulslite bossfights. The upcoming Alpha is a big milestone -- with playtesters live feedback we will be able to thoroughly verify a lot of work and designs. It's not gonna be perfect, but we hope it will move in the right direction, and we are absolutely willing to complete this journey whatever it takes.
The Alpha will feature:
- Basic survival gameplay (building, crafting, upgrading);
- 3 unique biomes scattered across a big archipelago - each with unique resources, enemies and bosses;
- 3 playable ships and one NPC merchant (of course to plunder it!);
- Land combat, basic naval combat and early version of boarding actions;
- Very basic Tortuga social hub.
All in all we hope it will provide 30-40 hours of a survival adventure, but of course some parts of the game will be much less polished then others.
For those interested in playtesting: we start small, and have very limited server slots for the test, but for those willing to try the game -- the signups are open on Steam page. We will be gradually letting people in starting tomorrow; Steam picks people randomly. There will be other tests in the future, so even if you want to try Crosswind and don't make it in the first wave, you may get luckly later.
The Crosswind Steam page is here, for you to check it out
The Crosswind trailer on YouTube is here, via this link
Jurassic World Evolution 3:
After some people got (rightly) angry at Jurassic World Evolution 3 using A.I. generated assets for scientist portraits, the devs realized they’re being stupid and released a statement:
Thanks for your feedback on this topic. We have opted to remove the use of generative AI for scientist portraits within Jurassic World Evolution 3.
...you can read their statement here on the Steam community page
Meh, I’m hardly going to celebrate devs for doing the bare minimum here.
Major Mod - Black Orchestra:
...admittedly a game and gigantic mod I’ve never heard of before, but Black Orchestra Worldfront: 37-54 is coming. Made for Rising Storm 2 Vietnam, it adds the Pacific, Western, Mediterranean and Eastern Fronts of World War II to the game.
The mod is deemed feature complete now,
GOG Library Price Checker:
Someone has made a site which checks your GOG games library and gives you an estimate on the value of the total games. Or, it makes you feel awful about seeing a cold number stating you’ve spent way too much.
It’s wonky, and makes mistakes, and doesn’t seem to register all games. I can also see GPT everywhere in this, which as someone who enjoys writing kinda makes me feel icky. But whatever, if it helps people get an idea across then that’s the better of the A.I. uses these days.
I guess all-in-all, it’s still a fun idea in theory. One I should note I have not done or checked myself.
In their own words:
So I wanted to check how much my GOG games library is actually worth — like how SteamDB does it for Steam users — but turns out… there’s nothing like that for GOG.
And if there was anything, it either asked you to log in or paste your cookies... which to me instantly screamed obvious scam
So I thought: why not just make something myself?
Here's what I did:- You just grab a list of your games from GOG (don’t worry, I explain how to do this — since GOG gives no easy export option, had to get creative).
- Upload that CSV to my site.
- It fetches current prices from GOG, calculates your total value, base prices, and savings.
- You get to download the results as a CSV or as a cool little trading card-style badge image.
I'm a CS student (cooked ), and this is kinda my first real utility site — so I’d love feedback, suggestions, criticism, anything really.
Will try to make a video walkthrough soon for those who need visual instructions.
Let me know if anything breaks, or if there's something you'd want to see added.yes It’s hosted on Vercel for now because, well… it’s free and I’m broke
The ads are just me playing around with how a “real” implementation might look — not trying to cash out or anything, just testing stuff in the wild.
Where is your Q&A?
You might remember in my last news post I shared I mentioned that I have been chatting to the lead dev of a program which makes piracy on a jailbroken (Custom Firmware or CFW) Nintendo Switch. The program works as a replica to the official Nintndo eShop except...it’s not filled with shit, ironically. And it doesn’t slow to a crawl to search through.
Anyway, it’s a piracy portal. I wanted to interview them with the idea of getting a glimpse behind why they do it, how they do it, how they justify doing it. All without sharing the name of this program, or the name of the dev.
Anyway, they’ve been a little busy, I’ve shared my side with them and am still waiting on their responses before I format it up and add some pictures, generally make it fit to view on Lemmy here.
Anyway, it’s coming soon, just to let you know!
Switch 2 Compatibility Tracker:
Speaking of Switch, someone has made a webpage which tracks Switch 2 compatibility with Switch 1 games:
*I saw that the lists here don't update regularly (last updated June 5), and that Nintendo says to check individual eShop pages for updated information. So, I made a webpage that scrapes the eShop for up-to-date information. Check it out! Feedback is welcome!
The GitHub page for the tracker is here and updates twice daily!
Junk Store’s Pricing Revealed:
The next iteration of Junk Store is close to launching. Promising emulation, more store-fronts and even (planned, not there yet!) cloud saves. Currently Junk Store works as a plugin via Decky Loader on your Steam Deck – install the plugin and from the gaming mode on your Steam Deck you can enjoy Epic Games titles. With a paid extension to that (a one-off purchase of $6) you can also enjoy GOG games.
The next iteration will be a subscription model, and I’ll share Junk Store’s own words on their announcement below:
Tldr:
Junk Store is almost ready. It’s a full rebuild — faster, more stable, no Decky required, and packed with new features. Pricing is USD$40/year with a 7-day free trial, and you keep everything released during your subscription.
The open-source version remains available. Early supporters get a discount, and we’re rolling out in waves to keep things sustainable.
The Longer Version
We’re close to launching the new version of Junk Store — rebuilt from the ground up after over a year of work. It’s faster, more stable, and adds major features like Amazon support, a download queue, and simplified extension generation (no coding needed). This version is fully standalone — no more Decky required — and is based on everything we learned from the original.
We know pricing will be a sticking point for some, so here’s the plan:- $40 (USD) for 12 months of updates
- Includes all extension presets (currently GOG, Epic, Amazon — more to come)
- You keep everything released during your subscription
- Renewal is $40/year
- 7-day free trial — cancel anytime (Stripe handles billing)
To keep things sustainable, we’ll be rolling out in waves. Hosting and bandwidth aren’t free — and based on the original version’s download volume, opening the gates all at once would sink us. Existing supporters will be onboarded first and get a discount that reflects their earlier contributions.
We also want to clear up a few things:- This version does not share code with the open-source one.
- The free, open-source version will remain available.
- Junk Store does not handle any credentials except its own.
We expect a few bumps early on — this is new code, and no software survives first contact with the public. But it’s already been battle-tested internally and testers.
What’s Next?If all goes well, we’re planning:
- Itch.io support (and possibly EA, Ubisoft, Battle.net)
- Cloud saves (done right)
- Game-specific presets
- Better extension creation tools
- Full localisation
- Community extension sharing
- Automated updates
For a more detailed breakdown head [to this link] here
Thanks again to everyone who’s supported this journey. We’re almost there.
Game on.So, what do you think? Will you be trying Junk Store out? I think Gardiner is planning a video showcasing what it does and how it does it, closer to the date if that helps you visualize what it’s capable of!
Retro Gaming Finds:
I’ve just come across a few fun retro gaming-centric things, so while they’re not at all news-worthy in the hard news sense, they’re amazing in every way and I’d be remiss to not add them to their own section here. If you’ve interest in older games (by my sense because I am so young what is ‘old’ might make you cringe), so settle back and enjoy these ones:
Underwater:
Just someone’s custom bathroom efforts, which seems totally appropriate here:
PS1 Concept Logos:
PC-88:
The PC88 was an 8-bit computer that was dominant in Japan in the 1980s, and has a bit of a reputation for very pixel-y blocky boxy graphics. What comes out beautifully though are the city-scapes in the games. The images will follow, but in order they appear from the following games:
- Tien Gow Pia Special (1989)
- Can Can Bunny (1989)
- Snatcher (1988)
- Misty Blue (1990)
- Burning Point (1989)
- Imitation wa Aisenai (1989)
- Can Can Bunny Superior (1990)
- Paragon Sexa Doll (1989)
Costanza:
Yep, George owned a Virtual Boy. I also think it’s pretty funny that the series has him as the fat one and by today’s standards he’s honestly pretty trim. Weird. Sad about our society now, I think. Anyway, Virtual Boy here:
Wall Art:
It’s amazing, but if you wanna be totally accurate to the time:
- DK has a tie on, whereas the original does not
- ‘jumpman’ should have red overalls and a blue shirt
- Peach is used instead of Pauline
Michael Jackson:
Keen eyes may spot that it is GoldenEye in the N64 there, next to his throne.
That’s that for this week!
Sorry again that it’s been a little smaller than as is typical, I have a lot on my plate right now but I do plan the next to resume my typical way-too-many-words standard I seem to have set for myself!
Previous Posts:
If you’d like to read my previous Gaming News posts (they’re mounting up in number now!), then you can find them here:
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #2
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #3
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #4
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #5
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #6
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #7
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #8
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #9
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #10
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #11
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #12
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #13
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #14
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #15
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #16
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #17
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #18
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #19
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #20
Mastodon:
I do tend to post there each and every day, 99.99% gaming nonsense. If you want more of this, then come drop by!
I am extremely ready for System Shock 2!
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As ever and always, I’m back with a week’s worth of gaming news I’ve spotted and thought I should share with you all!
This week is slightly less than is typical (1,000-ish words less than my last week’s I can tell you!) for a few reasons:
- I’ve cashed in some of my crypto and bought a cabin. Which makes me sound like an actress in a Stephen King movie
- I’ve had some odd health hiccups lately – nerve damage in my hip which means I feel nothing when touching a small patch of skin, but it also feels like it is on fire
So I’ve been a little distracted, but I do pinkie-swear next week’s will be back to my normal output!
So what are these posts?
My aim for these News Posts in general is to make them a more clearly not a professional, but someone who cares about gaming manner than most gaming sites do now. I see so many sites, even the independent ones, bombarding with ads, banners and reminders to support them. I get it, I really do, but it’s an unpleasant experience to me.
My ever-lasting inspo is the old, old video game sites, blogs and magazines that I never had the privilege of being alive for:
-
Image/gif/link heavy (though once again this week I have few of these, so this dot-point’s a bit needless)
-
Personal voice (I can’t help rambling, send help – this won’t be even slightly professionally written)
-
Mostly news or articles or points which you won’t find on normal gaming sites. These are the smaller, lesser things that I’m drawn to. I know you’ll have spotted the big news articles, so I’m hoping some of these smaller ones might have been missed by you.
A mixed bag of what I’ve considered news this week, so there really is a bit of everything ahead.
General Gaming News:
A New PS2 Emulator – Iris:
After 7-8 months of working on it, Lycoder (also goes by Allkern) has released their PS2 emulator called Iris. While games are running with very low/low/unplayable frames at the moment, they want to reassure people that this is constantly in development and improvements are being made regularly.
Windows, Linux and MacOS are supported.
The GitHub page is here, if you’d like to read a little more!
...and here is the link to the 0.10-alpha build of Iris
Funnily enough, it was only very recently that I fixed a DMAC bug that was keeping a lot of games from booting, and now this opens up a ton of potential to further debug and fix other issues, which may lead to even more games to boot. There's still a lot of work to be done, especially in the optimization department. I'm really looking forward to continue working on this project and advancing PlayStation 2 emulation!
It’s lovely to have another player in the scene, particularly with PS2 emulation.
And, naturally, here’s some pictures:
System Shock 2: 25th Anniversary Remaster Delay:
...sorry, don’t want to make you panic if you’re a PC gamer – no delays on that front, but if you’re a console gamer then it has been delayed for now:
Knowing the publishers, I’d say you’re in good hands without having to wait too long to play it, and I’m so excited to play through myself.
How to Fix Xbox’s Stupid Update:
I can’t even be bothered taking picture to illustrate this one, but if you’re on Xbox you’ll have seen it. Select a game and then you’re presented with a new screen giving you another step before you can select it again to play the game. And half that screen is taken up with their hopeful promotions of DLC and micro-transactions.
Shitty.
Anyway:
Settings / General / Personalization / Games & Apps / Choose whether game huds open automatically from the following places -
- Recently played list
- Groups
- Installed games
Grounded 2 Hype:
With the announcement of Obsidian’s Grounded 2, the numbers of the first game (Honey, I Shrunk The Kids meets Arrietty have exploded, bring a 193.8 boost to current players. The game shot up the Xbox charts from #88 to #23 (overtaking Halo: MCC and Elden Ring)
The game was announced two weeks ago, and the trailer is here for those curious
The first game on Steam holds a ‘Very Positive’ rating with 66,596 all-time ratings.
Lies of P:
I’m sure you’ve read this in at least four other places by now, but it still warms my heart. I couldn’t really make it through Lies of P – the souls-like and even souls-adjacent genre is not my cup of stressful tea. What I did love though was the atmosphere and setting, reminding me for no particular reason of Drood, the novel by Dan Simmons about the last five years of Charles Dickens and how spooky it could get.
Anyway, the devs behind Lies of P and Overture (the DLC) got a bonus for their efforts, with the two selling over 3m copies combined. They got a bonus, two weeks vacation and a free Nintendo Switch 2. IDK, a nice rarity in today’s gaming world!
Still Wakes The Deep:
The Chinese Room - Developers behind the BAFTA-winning-game Still Wakes The Deep have laid off some of their team, just after the release of their DLC – Siren’s Rest.
At a glance, around 10 staff with the studio listed as their current employer have the 'looking for work' label on their LinkedIn profiles – though this is not a reliable metric by itself.
However, The Chinese Room will share news on changes for the studio in the coming weeks so more will come out, I suppose. Sad news for those who worked on the rather amazing game.
Subnautica 2 Dev Vlog:
The latest dev vlog for the game has come out, titles ‘Building Unknown Worlds’
Join senior narrative designer Seth Dickinson, level designer Artyom O’Rielly, environment artist James Stout, and senior environment artist (and rock connoisseur) Ben Hale as they walk you through the incredible work that goes into building out the world of Subnautica 2.
My fav comment on the video is this one:
I have never been so excited over rocks
LEGO Island in Browser:
As the title says, the game is now available to play in your browser. I’m way too young for this game to have any impact in my life, but I think the older members here might remember it. Released in 1997, it’s certainly got a rabid following.
The link to the site is here, try it out!
And one more thing, I found the fact the devs created a physical island in actual LEGO when making the game, and this is ancient and adorable:
Auto-Shutdown after game download:
A gamer by the username of Avaneesh13 has created a Python-based application when they saw room for it – shutting their PC down for them after a big game download completed (rather than having their PC on all night)
This application is called SteamDown, and the link to the GitHub page is here for you to read through if you’d like.
SteamDown:
- Monitors your Steam download activity in real-time
- When downloads go inactive for a set period (you choose how long), it automatically performs an action of your choice
- Actions include: shutdown PC, sleep mode, stop Steam, or other custom actions
- Completely free and open-source
I kept starting massive game downloads (looking at you, Call of Duty) before going to bed, only to wake up and find my PC had been running idle for 6 hours after the download finished at 3 AM. Felt wasteful and probably wasn't great for my electricity bill either. Now I just set it to wait 5-10 minutes after downloads stop, then shut down my system automatically. Much better for power savings and peace of mind.
How it is different from other solutions:
*Generic system monitors that don't understand Steam's download behaviour specifically
- Command-line tools that require technical setup and aren't user-friendly
- Part of a larger system suite with bloatware I didn't want
- Paid solutions for what should be a simple utility
Technical details:
- Written in Python and built it as a standalone .exe (no installation needed)
- Works on Windows primarily, though I might explore macOS/Linux support
- Planning to add support for other launchers like Epic, GOG, etc. in future updates.
- Codebase clean and modular in case anyone wants to contribute or fork it
The functionality should be working as expected - it reliably monitors Steam and performs the shutdown actions. The UI could use a bit of work though (I'm more of a backend person), so if anyone has suggestions or wants to contribute on the interface side, I'd welcome the help!
Again, the GitHub link is at the start of this section, so take a look if you’re curious!
Epic reaches 500:
When Epic officially started their free games each week, all the way back in 2018, no one anticipated it would go for as long or be filled with the quality titles it has today. Starting with Subnautica (though unofficially giving away Shadow Complex Remastered before this in an effort to get users to install the launcher), we’re now up to 502 PC games given away.
Now they’re even expanding on this, with mobile phone games given away free each week. This coming week’s giveaway will be Sable (more on that later!).
...though be warned, it might make you sad to see what you’ve missed out on.
And what is this free games each week on Epic thing I mention? Well, there’s a tiny chance you don’t know:
The Epic Games Store gives away free games every week (to keep forever) as part of its strategy to attract new users and keep existing ones engaged. Anyone with a free Epic account can "claim" these games during the giveaway period (usually one week), and once claimed, the games are permanently added to the user’s library—no strings attached. This initiative started in 2018 and is funded by Epic to build its user base. The games are often high-quality indie titles big-budget releases, and you don’t need a subscription—just an account.
If you’re a Linux gamer you can use methods such as Heroic Games Launcher or Junk Store to play these games without requiring Epic’s own launcher (Epic’s CEO Tim Sweeney is famously anti-Linux).
Warhammer 40,000 DLC:
Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader, the incredibly well regarded cRPG made by Owlcat Games has released their next DLC – Lex Imperialis.
(...the YouTube link for the trailer is here)
Lex Imperialis, the second major expansion for Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader, offers a new 15-hour storyline and introduces the Adeptus Arbites — a faction of incorruptible enforcers — alongside a new companion: the grim and relentless Solomorne Anthar. Featuring battle familiars like cybernetic eagles and cyber-mastiffs, this DLC is AVAILABLE NOW to all players.
Rogue Trader holds ‘Very Positive’ ratings on Steam, with 22,120 reviews on Steam. I own the game on GOG, and I enjoyed it far more than I expected to. There’s a lovely gothic/space setting, kinda unsettling, and a deep game behind the Warhammer branding.
While releasing this DLC, Owlcat games is also working on two more games (both ‘coming soon’
Become an acolyte of the Inquisition in this grim dark, party-based, story-driven cRPG. Lead investigations, uncover grand conspiracies, master tactical combat, and wage a secret war against heresy. Make tough choices as a conduit of the God-Emperor’s will.
The Expanse: Osiris Reborn is a third-person Action RPG set in The Expanse universe. You’re no hero — just a merc caught in the wrong place at the wrong time, trying to hold your crew together and keep the ship up and running. Your choices will shape your story.
One thing is for sure with Owlcat (aside from the initial release of their games tending to need a patch or two!), they care about their games and support them for the long haul.
Crosswind – MORE PIRATES!!!
Since you’re reading this, you’ll probably know by now that I cry about the lack of games set in the golden age of piracy. It’s a setting I like to think is popular but just...kinda ignored. AC: IV Black Flag is still in my opinion the best-of-the-best, but we’ve got another to add to the collection. Crosswind!
Crosswind is a survival adventure in the Age of Piracy. Explore procedural open world, gather, build and craft. Overcome challenging bosses in soulslite combat. Sail your ship, fight on land and sea, play solo or with friends. Live your swashbuckling life in PvE or rise to power in optional PvP.
They’re calling it a ‘pirate survival adventure’, and they devs known as Crosswind Crew have released a statement along with the trailer, which is as follows, in their words:
Crosswind is our dream pirate game. Heavily inspired by great titles like Valheim or Enshrouded, it also feautres naval combat similar to AC: Black Flag and soulslite bossfights. The upcoming Alpha is a big milestone -- with playtesters live feedback we will be able to thoroughly verify a lot of work and designs. It's not gonna be perfect, but we hope it will move in the right direction, and we are absolutely willing to complete this journey whatever it takes.
The Alpha will feature:
- Basic survival gameplay (building, crafting, upgrading);
- 3 unique biomes scattered across a big archipelago - each with unique resources, enemies and bosses;
- 3 playable ships and one NPC merchant (of course to plunder it!);
- Land combat, basic naval combat and early version of boarding actions;
- Very basic Tortuga social hub.
All in all we hope it will provide 30-40 hours of a survival adventure, but of course some parts of the game will be much less polished then others.
For those interested in playtesting: we start small, and have very limited server slots for the test, but for those willing to try the game -- the signups are open on Steam page. We will be gradually letting people in starting tomorrow; Steam picks people randomly. There will be other tests in the future, so even if you want to try Crosswind and don't make it in the first wave, you may get luckly later.
The Crosswind Steam page is here, for you to check it out
The Crosswind trailer on YouTube is here, via this link
Jurassic World Evolution 3:
After some people got (rightly) angry at Jurassic World Evolution 3 using A.I. generated assets for scientist portraits, the devs realized they’re being stupid and released a statement:
Thanks for your feedback on this topic. We have opted to remove the use of generative AI for scientist portraits within Jurassic World Evolution 3.
...you can read their statement here on the Steam community page
Meh, I’m hardly going to celebrate devs for doing the bare minimum here.
Major Mod - Black Orchestra:
...admittedly a game and gigantic mod I’ve never heard of before, but Black Orchestra Worldfront: 37-54 is coming. Made for Rising Storm 2 Vietnam, it adds the Pacific, Western, Mediterranean and Eastern Fronts of World War II to the game.
The mod is deemed feature complete now,
GOG Library Price Checker:
Someone has made a site which checks your GOG games library and gives you an estimate on the value of the total games. Or, it makes you feel awful about seeing a cold number stating you’ve spent way too much.
It’s wonky, and makes mistakes, and doesn’t seem to register all games. I can also see GPT everywhere in this, which as someone who enjoys writing kinda makes me feel icky. But whatever, if it helps people get an idea across then that’s the better of the A.I. uses these days.
I guess all-in-all, it’s still a fun idea in theory. One I should note I have not done or checked myself.
In their own words:
So I wanted to check how much my GOG games library is actually worth — like how SteamDB does it for Steam users — but turns out… there’s nothing like that for GOG.
And if there was anything, it either asked you to log in or paste your cookies... which to me instantly screamed obvious scam
So I thought: why not just make something myself?
Here's what I did:- You just grab a list of your games from GOG (don’t worry, I explain how to do this — since GOG gives no easy export option, had to get creative).
- Upload that CSV to my site.
- It fetches current prices from GOG, calculates your total value, base prices, and savings.
- You get to download the results as a CSV or as a cool little trading card-style badge image.
I'm a CS student (cooked ), and this is kinda my first real utility site — so I’d love feedback, suggestions, criticism, anything really.
Will try to make a video walkthrough soon for those who need visual instructions.
Let me know if anything breaks, or if there's something you'd want to see added.yes It’s hosted on Vercel for now because, well… it’s free and I’m broke
The ads are just me playing around with how a “real” implementation might look — not trying to cash out or anything, just testing stuff in the wild.
Where is your Q&A?
You might remember in my last news post I shared I mentioned that I have been chatting to the lead dev of a program which makes piracy on a jailbroken (Custom Firmware or CFW) Nintendo Switch. The program works as a replica to the official Nintndo eShop except...it’s not filled with shit, ironically. And it doesn’t slow to a crawl to search through.
Anyway, it’s a piracy portal. I wanted to interview them with the idea of getting a glimpse behind why they do it, how they do it, how they justify doing it. All without sharing the name of this program, or the name of the dev.
Anyway, they’ve been a little busy, I’ve shared my side with them and am still waiting on their responses before I format it up and add some pictures, generally make it fit to view on Lemmy here.
Anyway, it’s coming soon, just to let you know!
Switch 2 Compatibility Tracker:
Speaking of Switch, someone has made a webpage which tracks Switch 2 compatibility with Switch 1 games:
*I saw that the lists here don't update regularly (last updated June 5), and that Nintendo says to check individual eShop pages for updated information. So, I made a webpage that scrapes the eShop for up-to-date information. Check it out! Feedback is welcome!
The GitHub page for the tracker is here and updates twice daily!
Junk Store’s Pricing Revealed:
The next iteration of Junk Store is close to launching. Promising emulation, more store-fronts and even (planned, not there yet!) cloud saves. Currently Junk Store works as a plugin via Decky Loader on your Steam Deck – install the plugin and from the gaming mode on your Steam Deck you can enjoy Epic Games titles. With a paid extension to that (a one-off purchase of $6) you can also enjoy GOG games.
The next iteration will be a subscription model, and I’ll share Junk Store’s own words on their announcement below:
Tldr:
Junk Store is almost ready. It’s a full rebuild — faster, more stable, no Decky required, and packed with new features. Pricing is USD$40/year with a 7-day free trial, and you keep everything released during your subscription.
The open-source version remains available. Early supporters get a discount, and we’re rolling out in waves to keep things sustainable.
The Longer Version
We’re close to launching the new version of Junk Store — rebuilt from the ground up after over a year of work. It’s faster, more stable, and adds major features like Amazon support, a download queue, and simplified extension generation (no coding needed). This version is fully standalone — no more Decky required — and is based on everything we learned from the original.
We know pricing will be a sticking point for some, so here’s the plan:- $40 (USD) for 12 months of updates
- Includes all extension presets (currently GOG, Epic, Amazon — more to come)
- You keep everything released during your subscription
- Renewal is $40/year
- 7-day free trial — cancel anytime (Stripe handles billing)
To keep things sustainable, we’ll be rolling out in waves. Hosting and bandwidth aren’t free — and based on the original version’s download volume, opening the gates all at once would sink us. Existing supporters will be onboarded first and get a discount that reflects their earlier contributions.
We also want to clear up a few things:- This version does not share code with the open-source one.
- The free, open-source version will remain available.
- Junk Store does not handle any credentials except its own.
We expect a few bumps early on — this is new code, and no software survives first contact with the public. But it’s already been battle-tested internally and testers.
What’s Next?If all goes well, we’re planning:
- Itch.io support (and possibly EA, Ubisoft, Battle.net)
- Cloud saves (done right)
- Game-specific presets
- Better extension creation tools
- Full localisation
- Community extension sharing
- Automated updates
For a more detailed breakdown head [to this link] here
Thanks again to everyone who’s supported this journey. We’re almost there.
Game on.So, what do you think? Will you be trying Junk Store out? I think Gardiner is planning a video showcasing what it does and how it does it, closer to the date if that helps you visualize what it’s capable of!
Retro Gaming Finds:
I’ve just come across a few fun retro gaming-centric things, so while they’re not at all news-worthy in the hard news sense, they’re amazing in every way and I’d be remiss to not add them to their own section here. If you’ve interest in older games (by my sense because I am so young what is ‘old’ might make you cringe), so settle back and enjoy these ones:
Underwater:
Just someone’s custom bathroom efforts, which seems totally appropriate here:
PS1 Concept Logos:
PC-88:
The PC88 was an 8-bit computer that was dominant in Japan in the 1980s, and has a bit of a reputation for very pixel-y blocky boxy graphics. What comes out beautifully though are the city-scapes in the games. The images will follow, but in order they appear from the following games:
- Tien Gow Pia Special (1989)
- Can Can Bunny (1989)
- Snatcher (1988)
- Misty Blue (1990)
- Burning Point (1989)
- Imitation wa Aisenai (1989)
- Can Can Bunny Superior (1990)
- Paragon Sexa Doll (1989)
Costanza:
Yep, George owned a Virtual Boy. I also think it’s pretty funny that the series has him as the fat one and by today’s standards he’s honestly pretty trim. Weird. Sad about our society now, I think. Anyway, Virtual Boy here:
Wall Art:
It’s amazing, but if you wanna be totally accurate to the time:
- DK has a tie on, whereas the original does not
- ‘jumpman’ should have red overalls and a blue shirt
- Peach is used instead of Pauline
Michael Jackson:
Keen eyes may spot that it is GoldenEye in the N64 there, next to his throne.
That’s that for this week!
Sorry again that it’s been a little smaller than as is typical, I have a lot on my plate right now but I do plan the next to resume my typical way-too-many-words standard I seem to have set for myself!
Previous Posts:
If you’d like to read my previous Gaming News posts (they’re mounting up in number now!), then you can find them here:
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #2
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #3
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #4
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #5
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #6
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #7
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #8
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #9
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #10
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #11
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #12
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #13
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #14
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #15
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #16
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #17
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #18
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #19
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #20
Mastodon:
I do tend to post there each and every day, 99.99% gaming nonsense. If you want more of this, then come drop by!
The funny thing about the Epic store giveaways is that i still often buy the games elsewhere so that I don't have to bother with Epic's stupid login. This stupid service forces me to re-login every month or so. It's so annoying.
So, good luck converting me to a paying customer.
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Yeah I am pretty disapointed as I bought the GoG extension. I really liked the UX for my ChimeraOS and SteamDeck devices but it's not worth a subscription in my opinion even at a discount...
wrote last edited by [email protected]Feedback in their discord seems overwhelmingly negative. Personally, them putting the GoG extension behind a paywall already left a sour taste in my mouth. Lack of GOG and Amazon support in Junk Store was always a big inconvenience that required use of heroic anyways, so for me it was more convenient to just stick to heroic alltogether. And I will keep using Heroic launcher, instead, their $40 p/a price certainly didn't win me over.
I don't wish junk store bad luck in their endevour, but I strongly believe if they actually pull through with this, it is going to crash and burn. Hard. It wont generate enough revenue to sustain long term development and will be either partially or fully abandoned within 18 months. The concept of Junk Store is too niché to not be a FOSS community driven project.
They try to make it sound like it is not a subscription model: you pay $40 for 12 months of updates and support and keep using the software afterwards without receiving updates. But in practice, this wont work for very long. Store APIs are gonna change, backends are going to break, etc., making updates be a necessity. Software as a Service.
One thing I found to be a particular slap in the face for current supporters was a FAQ regarding the future of the GOG extension for the Decky plugin:
Q: Since GOG addon support is going to be bug-fix only, will it be added to the public domain?
A: We’re using the GOG addon as a canary in the coal mine. If enough people continue to support it by purchasing, that sends a clear signal we should keep investing time into both the GOG addon and maintaining the open-source code. However, if sales drop off significantly, it will indicate we can safely scale back or stop work on the open-source version without jeopardizing the project’s sustainability.It'll be self fullfilling. People are going to stop buying the GOG extension for the current decky plugin, because future updates are not guaranteed. That reduction in sales is going to indicate to them, that there is no longer demand for it and every current supported is SOL. They are not even guaranteing a fixed ammount of support for the current extension here, they keep it vague and open.
If I had paid for the GOG extension, this FAQ would make me mad. -
The funny thing about the Epic store giveaways is that i still often buy the games elsewhere so that I don't have to bother with Epic's stupid login. This stupid service forces me to re-login every month or so. It's so annoying.
So, good luck converting me to a paying customer.
Epic games is pretty anti consumer as far as things go anyway
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$40 for junk store is an insane price, even more insane that its a yearly subscription
Please correct me if I'm wrong but isn't this cheaper than their existing patreon subscription which is $5 a month? That would be $60 annually.
I'm still not going to pay for it when because I don't think it's a good practice in the open source scene but just want to put it in perspective.
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Please correct me if I'm wrong but isn't this cheaper than their existing patreon subscription which is $5 a month? That would be $60 annually.
I'm still not going to pay for it when because I don't think it's a good practice in the open source scene but just want to put it in perspective.
wrote last edited by [email protected]Fair question.
AFAIU, the GOG extension was a perk that you received for a one-time payment ($6 iirc), and I believe there were two different ways to make that payment. Continous membership/subscription to patreon was not necessary.Unfortunately, they seem to have completely wiped information regarding this from their website, I can't find it there anymore.
EDIT: used archive.org to look up their old, pre-v2-announcement website:
It was a one-time purchase via Ko-Fi or patreon.
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Fair question.
AFAIU, the GOG extension was a perk that you received for a one-time payment ($6 iirc), and I believe there were two different ways to make that payment. Continous membership/subscription to patreon was not necessary.Unfortunately, they seem to have completely wiped information regarding this from their website, I can't find it there anymore.
EDIT: used archive.org to look up their old, pre-v2-announcement website:
It was a one-time purchase via Ko-Fi or patreon.
Thanks for clarifying. Even more baffling why they're doing this
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As ever and always, I’m back with a week’s worth of gaming news I’ve spotted and thought I should share with you all!
This week is slightly less than is typical (1,000-ish words less than my last week’s I can tell you!) for a few reasons:
- I’ve cashed in some of my crypto and bought a cabin. Which makes me sound like an actress in a Stephen King movie
- I’ve had some odd health hiccups lately – nerve damage in my hip which means I feel nothing when touching a small patch of skin, but it also feels like it is on fire
So I’ve been a little distracted, but I do pinkie-swear next week’s will be back to my normal output!
So what are these posts?
My aim for these News Posts in general is to make them a more clearly not a professional, but someone who cares about gaming manner than most gaming sites do now. I see so many sites, even the independent ones, bombarding with ads, banners and reminders to support them. I get it, I really do, but it’s an unpleasant experience to me.
My ever-lasting inspo is the old, old video game sites, blogs and magazines that I never had the privilege of being alive for:
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Image/gif/link heavy (though once again this week I have few of these, so this dot-point’s a bit needless)
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Personal voice (I can’t help rambling, send help – this won’t be even slightly professionally written)
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Mostly news or articles or points which you won’t find on normal gaming sites. These are the smaller, lesser things that I’m drawn to. I know you’ll have spotted the big news articles, so I’m hoping some of these smaller ones might have been missed by you.
A mixed bag of what I’ve considered news this week, so there really is a bit of everything ahead.
General Gaming News:
A New PS2 Emulator – Iris:
After 7-8 months of working on it, Lycoder (also goes by Allkern) has released their PS2 emulator called Iris. While games are running with very low/low/unplayable frames at the moment, they want to reassure people that this is constantly in development and improvements are being made regularly.
Windows, Linux and MacOS are supported.
The GitHub page is here, if you’d like to read a little more!
...and here is the link to the 0.10-alpha build of Iris
Funnily enough, it was only very recently that I fixed a DMAC bug that was keeping a lot of games from booting, and now this opens up a ton of potential to further debug and fix other issues, which may lead to even more games to boot. There's still a lot of work to be done, especially in the optimization department. I'm really looking forward to continue working on this project and advancing PlayStation 2 emulation!
It’s lovely to have another player in the scene, particularly with PS2 emulation.
And, naturally, here’s some pictures:
System Shock 2: 25th Anniversary Remaster Delay:
...sorry, don’t want to make you panic if you’re a PC gamer – no delays on that front, but if you’re a console gamer then it has been delayed for now:
Knowing the publishers, I’d say you’re in good hands without having to wait too long to play it, and I’m so excited to play through myself.
How to Fix Xbox’s Stupid Update:
I can’t even be bothered taking picture to illustrate this one, but if you’re on Xbox you’ll have seen it. Select a game and then you’re presented with a new screen giving you another step before you can select it again to play the game. And half that screen is taken up with their hopeful promotions of DLC and micro-transactions.
Shitty.
Anyway:
Settings / General / Personalization / Games & Apps / Choose whether game huds open automatically from the following places -
- Recently played list
- Groups
- Installed games
Grounded 2 Hype:
With the announcement of Obsidian’s Grounded 2, the numbers of the first game (Honey, I Shrunk The Kids meets Arrietty have exploded, bring a 193.8 boost to current players. The game shot up the Xbox charts from #88 to #23 (overtaking Halo: MCC and Elden Ring)
The game was announced two weeks ago, and the trailer is here for those curious
The first game on Steam holds a ‘Very Positive’ rating with 66,596 all-time ratings.
Lies of P:
I’m sure you’ve read this in at least four other places by now, but it still warms my heart. I couldn’t really make it through Lies of P – the souls-like and even souls-adjacent genre is not my cup of stressful tea. What I did love though was the atmosphere and setting, reminding me for no particular reason of Drood, the novel by Dan Simmons about the last five years of Charles Dickens and how spooky it could get.
Anyway, the devs behind Lies of P and Overture (the DLC) got a bonus for their efforts, with the two selling over 3m copies combined. They got a bonus, two weeks vacation and a free Nintendo Switch 2. IDK, a nice rarity in today’s gaming world!
Still Wakes The Deep:
The Chinese Room - Developers behind the BAFTA-winning-game Still Wakes The Deep have laid off some of their team, just after the release of their DLC – Siren’s Rest.
At a glance, around 10 staff with the studio listed as their current employer have the 'looking for work' label on their LinkedIn profiles – though this is not a reliable metric by itself.
However, The Chinese Room will share news on changes for the studio in the coming weeks so more will come out, I suppose. Sad news for those who worked on the rather amazing game.
Subnautica 2 Dev Vlog:
The latest dev vlog for the game has come out, titles ‘Building Unknown Worlds’
Join senior narrative designer Seth Dickinson, level designer Artyom O’Rielly, environment artist James Stout, and senior environment artist (and rock connoisseur) Ben Hale as they walk you through the incredible work that goes into building out the world of Subnautica 2.
My fav comment on the video is this one:
I have never been so excited over rocks
LEGO Island in Browser:
As the title says, the game is now available to play in your browser. I’m way too young for this game to have any impact in my life, but I think the older members here might remember it. Released in 1997, it’s certainly got a rabid following.
The link to the site is here, try it out!
And one more thing, I found the fact the devs created a physical island in actual LEGO when making the game, and this is ancient and adorable:
Auto-Shutdown after game download:
A gamer by the username of Avaneesh13 has created a Python-based application when they saw room for it – shutting their PC down for them after a big game download completed (rather than having their PC on all night)
This application is called SteamDown, and the link to the GitHub page is here for you to read through if you’d like.
SteamDown:
- Monitors your Steam download activity in real-time
- When downloads go inactive for a set period (you choose how long), it automatically performs an action of your choice
- Actions include: shutdown PC, sleep mode, stop Steam, or other custom actions
- Completely free and open-source
I kept starting massive game downloads (looking at you, Call of Duty) before going to bed, only to wake up and find my PC had been running idle for 6 hours after the download finished at 3 AM. Felt wasteful and probably wasn't great for my electricity bill either. Now I just set it to wait 5-10 minutes after downloads stop, then shut down my system automatically. Much better for power savings and peace of mind.
How it is different from other solutions:
*Generic system monitors that don't understand Steam's download behaviour specifically
- Command-line tools that require technical setup and aren't user-friendly
- Part of a larger system suite with bloatware I didn't want
- Paid solutions for what should be a simple utility
Technical details:
- Written in Python and built it as a standalone .exe (no installation needed)
- Works on Windows primarily, though I might explore macOS/Linux support
- Planning to add support for other launchers like Epic, GOG, etc. in future updates.
- Codebase clean and modular in case anyone wants to contribute or fork it
The functionality should be working as expected - it reliably monitors Steam and performs the shutdown actions. The UI could use a bit of work though (I'm more of a backend person), so if anyone has suggestions or wants to contribute on the interface side, I'd welcome the help!
Again, the GitHub link is at the start of this section, so take a look if you’re curious!
Epic reaches 500:
When Epic officially started their free games each week, all the way back in 2018, no one anticipated it would go for as long or be filled with the quality titles it has today. Starting with Subnautica (though unofficially giving away Shadow Complex Remastered before this in an effort to get users to install the launcher), we’re now up to 502 PC games given away.
Now they’re even expanding on this, with mobile phone games given away free each week. This coming week’s giveaway will be Sable (more on that later!).
...though be warned, it might make you sad to see what you’ve missed out on.
And what is this free games each week on Epic thing I mention? Well, there’s a tiny chance you don’t know:
The Epic Games Store gives away free games every week (to keep forever) as part of its strategy to attract new users and keep existing ones engaged. Anyone with a free Epic account can "claim" these games during the giveaway period (usually one week), and once claimed, the games are permanently added to the user’s library—no strings attached. This initiative started in 2018 and is funded by Epic to build its user base. The games are often high-quality indie titles big-budget releases, and you don’t need a subscription—just an account.
If you’re a Linux gamer you can use methods such as Heroic Games Launcher or Junk Store to play these games without requiring Epic’s own launcher (Epic’s CEO Tim Sweeney is famously anti-Linux).
Warhammer 40,000 DLC:
Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader, the incredibly well regarded cRPG made by Owlcat Games has released their next DLC – Lex Imperialis.
(...the YouTube link for the trailer is here)
Lex Imperialis, the second major expansion for Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader, offers a new 15-hour storyline and introduces the Adeptus Arbites — a faction of incorruptible enforcers — alongside a new companion: the grim and relentless Solomorne Anthar. Featuring battle familiars like cybernetic eagles and cyber-mastiffs, this DLC is AVAILABLE NOW to all players.
Rogue Trader holds ‘Very Positive’ ratings on Steam, with 22,120 reviews on Steam. I own the game on GOG, and I enjoyed it far more than I expected to. There’s a lovely gothic/space setting, kinda unsettling, and a deep game behind the Warhammer branding.
While releasing this DLC, Owlcat games is also working on two more games (both ‘coming soon’
Become an acolyte of the Inquisition in this grim dark, party-based, story-driven cRPG. Lead investigations, uncover grand conspiracies, master tactical combat, and wage a secret war against heresy. Make tough choices as a conduit of the God-Emperor’s will.
The Expanse: Osiris Reborn is a third-person Action RPG set in The Expanse universe. You’re no hero — just a merc caught in the wrong place at the wrong time, trying to hold your crew together and keep the ship up and running. Your choices will shape your story.
One thing is for sure with Owlcat (aside from the initial release of their games tending to need a patch or two!), they care about their games and support them for the long haul.
Crosswind – MORE PIRATES!!!
Since you’re reading this, you’ll probably know by now that I cry about the lack of games set in the golden age of piracy. It’s a setting I like to think is popular but just...kinda ignored. AC: IV Black Flag is still in my opinion the best-of-the-best, but we’ve got another to add to the collection. Crosswind!
Crosswind is a survival adventure in the Age of Piracy. Explore procedural open world, gather, build and craft. Overcome challenging bosses in soulslite combat. Sail your ship, fight on land and sea, play solo or with friends. Live your swashbuckling life in PvE or rise to power in optional PvP.
They’re calling it a ‘pirate survival adventure’, and they devs known as Crosswind Crew have released a statement along with the trailer, which is as follows, in their words:
Crosswind is our dream pirate game. Heavily inspired by great titles like Valheim or Enshrouded, it also feautres naval combat similar to AC: Black Flag and soulslite bossfights. The upcoming Alpha is a big milestone -- with playtesters live feedback we will be able to thoroughly verify a lot of work and designs. It's not gonna be perfect, but we hope it will move in the right direction, and we are absolutely willing to complete this journey whatever it takes.
The Alpha will feature:
- Basic survival gameplay (building, crafting, upgrading);
- 3 unique biomes scattered across a big archipelago - each with unique resources, enemies and bosses;
- 3 playable ships and one NPC merchant (of course to plunder it!);
- Land combat, basic naval combat and early version of boarding actions;
- Very basic Tortuga social hub.
All in all we hope it will provide 30-40 hours of a survival adventure, but of course some parts of the game will be much less polished then others.
For those interested in playtesting: we start small, and have very limited server slots for the test, but for those willing to try the game -- the signups are open on Steam page. We will be gradually letting people in starting tomorrow; Steam picks people randomly. There will be other tests in the future, so even if you want to try Crosswind and don't make it in the first wave, you may get luckly later.
The Crosswind Steam page is here, for you to check it out
The Crosswind trailer on YouTube is here, via this link
Jurassic World Evolution 3:
After some people got (rightly) angry at Jurassic World Evolution 3 using A.I. generated assets for scientist portraits, the devs realized they’re being stupid and released a statement:
Thanks for your feedback on this topic. We have opted to remove the use of generative AI for scientist portraits within Jurassic World Evolution 3.
...you can read their statement here on the Steam community page
Meh, I’m hardly going to celebrate devs for doing the bare minimum here.
Major Mod - Black Orchestra:
...admittedly a game and gigantic mod I’ve never heard of before, but Black Orchestra Worldfront: 37-54 is coming. Made for Rising Storm 2 Vietnam, it adds the Pacific, Western, Mediterranean and Eastern Fronts of World War II to the game.
The mod is deemed feature complete now,
GOG Library Price Checker:
Someone has made a site which checks your GOG games library and gives you an estimate on the value of the total games. Or, it makes you feel awful about seeing a cold number stating you’ve spent way too much.
It’s wonky, and makes mistakes, and doesn’t seem to register all games. I can also see GPT everywhere in this, which as someone who enjoys writing kinda makes me feel icky. But whatever, if it helps people get an idea across then that’s the better of the A.I. uses these days.
I guess all-in-all, it’s still a fun idea in theory. One I should note I have not done or checked myself.
In their own words:
So I wanted to check how much my GOG games library is actually worth — like how SteamDB does it for Steam users — but turns out… there’s nothing like that for GOG.
And if there was anything, it either asked you to log in or paste your cookies... which to me instantly screamed obvious scam
So I thought: why not just make something myself?
Here's what I did:- You just grab a list of your games from GOG (don’t worry, I explain how to do this — since GOG gives no easy export option, had to get creative).
- Upload that CSV to my site.
- It fetches current prices from GOG, calculates your total value, base prices, and savings.
- You get to download the results as a CSV or as a cool little trading card-style badge image.
I'm a CS student (cooked ), and this is kinda my first real utility site — so I’d love feedback, suggestions, criticism, anything really.
Will try to make a video walkthrough soon for those who need visual instructions.
Let me know if anything breaks, or if there's something you'd want to see added.yes It’s hosted on Vercel for now because, well… it’s free and I’m broke
The ads are just me playing around with how a “real” implementation might look — not trying to cash out or anything, just testing stuff in the wild.
Where is your Q&A?
You might remember in my last news post I shared I mentioned that I have been chatting to the lead dev of a program which makes piracy on a jailbroken (Custom Firmware or CFW) Nintendo Switch. The program works as a replica to the official Nintndo eShop except...it’s not filled with shit, ironically. And it doesn’t slow to a crawl to search through.
Anyway, it’s a piracy portal. I wanted to interview them with the idea of getting a glimpse behind why they do it, how they do it, how they justify doing it. All without sharing the name of this program, or the name of the dev.
Anyway, they’ve been a little busy, I’ve shared my side with them and am still waiting on their responses before I format it up and add some pictures, generally make it fit to view on Lemmy here.
Anyway, it’s coming soon, just to let you know!
Switch 2 Compatibility Tracker:
Speaking of Switch, someone has made a webpage which tracks Switch 2 compatibility with Switch 1 games:
*I saw that the lists here don't update regularly (last updated June 5), and that Nintendo says to check individual eShop pages for updated information. So, I made a webpage that scrapes the eShop for up-to-date information. Check it out! Feedback is welcome!
The GitHub page for the tracker is here and updates twice daily!
Junk Store’s Pricing Revealed:
The next iteration of Junk Store is close to launching. Promising emulation, more store-fronts and even (planned, not there yet!) cloud saves. Currently Junk Store works as a plugin via Decky Loader on your Steam Deck – install the plugin and from the gaming mode on your Steam Deck you can enjoy Epic Games titles. With a paid extension to that (a one-off purchase of $6) you can also enjoy GOG games.
The next iteration will be a subscription model, and I’ll share Junk Store’s own words on their announcement below:
Tldr:
Junk Store is almost ready. It’s a full rebuild — faster, more stable, no Decky required, and packed with new features. Pricing is USD$40/year with a 7-day free trial, and you keep everything released during your subscription.
The open-source version remains available. Early supporters get a discount, and we’re rolling out in waves to keep things sustainable.
The Longer Version
We’re close to launching the new version of Junk Store — rebuilt from the ground up after over a year of work. It’s faster, more stable, and adds major features like Amazon support, a download queue, and simplified extension generation (no coding needed). This version is fully standalone — no more Decky required — and is based on everything we learned from the original.
We know pricing will be a sticking point for some, so here’s the plan:- $40 (USD) for 12 months of updates
- Includes all extension presets (currently GOG, Epic, Amazon — more to come)
- You keep everything released during your subscription
- Renewal is $40/year
- 7-day free trial — cancel anytime (Stripe handles billing)
To keep things sustainable, we’ll be rolling out in waves. Hosting and bandwidth aren’t free — and based on the original version’s download volume, opening the gates all at once would sink us. Existing supporters will be onboarded first and get a discount that reflects their earlier contributions.
We also want to clear up a few things:- This version does not share code with the open-source one.
- The free, open-source version will remain available.
- Junk Store does not handle any credentials except its own.
We expect a few bumps early on — this is new code, and no software survives first contact with the public. But it’s already been battle-tested internally and testers.
What’s Next?If all goes well, we’re planning:
- Itch.io support (and possibly EA, Ubisoft, Battle.net)
- Cloud saves (done right)
- Game-specific presets
- Better extension creation tools
- Full localisation
- Community extension sharing
- Automated updates
For a more detailed breakdown head [to this link] here
Thanks again to everyone who’s supported this journey. We’re almost there.
Game on.So, what do you think? Will you be trying Junk Store out? I think Gardiner is planning a video showcasing what it does and how it does it, closer to the date if that helps you visualize what it’s capable of!
Retro Gaming Finds:
I’ve just come across a few fun retro gaming-centric things, so while they’re not at all news-worthy in the hard news sense, they’re amazing in every way and I’d be remiss to not add them to their own section here. If you’ve interest in older games (by my sense because I am so young what is ‘old’ might make you cringe), so settle back and enjoy these ones:
Underwater:
Just someone’s custom bathroom efforts, which seems totally appropriate here:
PS1 Concept Logos:
PC-88:
The PC88 was an 8-bit computer that was dominant in Japan in the 1980s, and has a bit of a reputation for very pixel-y blocky boxy graphics. What comes out beautifully though are the city-scapes in the games. The images will follow, but in order they appear from the following games:
- Tien Gow Pia Special (1989)
- Can Can Bunny (1989)
- Snatcher (1988)
- Misty Blue (1990)
- Burning Point (1989)
- Imitation wa Aisenai (1989)
- Can Can Bunny Superior (1990)
- Paragon Sexa Doll (1989)
Costanza:
Yep, George owned a Virtual Boy. I also think it’s pretty funny that the series has him as the fat one and by today’s standards he’s honestly pretty trim. Weird. Sad about our society now, I think. Anyway, Virtual Boy here:
Wall Art:
It’s amazing, but if you wanna be totally accurate to the time:
- DK has a tie on, whereas the original does not
- ‘jumpman’ should have red overalls and a blue shirt
- Peach is used instead of Pauline
Michael Jackson:
Keen eyes may spot that it is GoldenEye in the N64 there, next to his throne.
That’s that for this week!
Sorry again that it’s been a little smaller than as is typical, I have a lot on my plate right now but I do plan the next to resume my typical way-too-many-words standard I seem to have set for myself!
Previous Posts:
If you’d like to read my previous Gaming News posts (they’re mounting up in number now!), then you can find them here:
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #2
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #3
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #4
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #5
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #6
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #7
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #8
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #9
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #10
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #11
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #12
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #13
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #14
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #15
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #16
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #17
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #18
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #19
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #20
Mastodon:
I do tend to post there each and every day, 99.99% gaming nonsense. If you want more of this, then come drop by!
Thanks again for the great read.
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The funny thing about the Epic store giveaways is that i still often buy the games elsewhere so that I don't have to bother with Epic's stupid login. This stupid service forces me to re-login every month or so. It's so annoying.
So, good luck converting me to a paying customer.
honestly, it's mostly the same for me, as well. I might play a game on epic, give it a whirl and if I like it, put it on my wishlist, hoping it'll appear in a bundle anytime soon.
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The funny thing about the Epic store giveaways is that i still often buy the games elsewhere so that I don't have to bother with Epic's stupid login. This stupid service forces me to re-login every month or so. It's so annoying.
So, good luck converting me to a paying customer.
wrote last edited by [email protected]Before you do that, try replacing the EOSSDK-Win64-Shipping.dll file with an emulator (in the flavour of Goldberg).
Fun fact - Nemirtingas made exactly such a thing, but it's really hard to find a copy! I ended up finding it in "Nucleus Co-op". Get the zip, don't bother installing it, just yoink it out of the utils folder.
I can personally attest that "it hasn't cryptolockered me as of this moment", for what that's worth.
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Epic games is pretty anti consumer as far as things go anyway
wrote last edited by [email protected]Epic hasn't gone out of their way to make life hard for Legendary/Heroic, yet. I guess that is a kind of support.
My biggest regret with Epic is buying Eastward there, and then whoops the DLC sidestory is available on every store but there. I can only read that as meaning "nobody makes money selling games, to the end user, on EGS. The only money you'll make is from selling directly to Tim Epic for a giveaway or an exclusive."
Am I going to put any more money in Epic? No. Am I going to take the freebies? Sure.
