Starfield Steam Deck performance report: a frontier too far

She can’t take much more, cap’n One SteamOS patch and a reinstall later, and I’ve overcome my initial launching woes to properly playStarfieldon theSteam Deck. Though perhaps it was better off breaking in the atmosphere, and while I’m enjoyingStarfield’s spacey adventures in a general sense, itspunishing technical requirementsare making the Deck’s usually-plucky hardware look like a pile of Old Earth scrap. All is not lost for the portable PC, asGame Pass Ultimate subscribers can stream Starfieldto their Steam Decks with much slicker performance....

September 6, 2023 · 3 min · 623 words · Joseph Lam

Starfield timeline: What year is Starfield set?

Discover the year in which Starfield takes place What year is Starfield set in?Starfieldtakes place in a futuristic sci-fi version of the universe, in which humans frequent in interstellar travel and theEarthhas become a barren desert. That begs the question, though, of when exactlyStarfieldtakes place. If you’re seeking such answers, then you’re in the right place. In this guide, we’ll explain when Starfield takes place, including the year in which Starfield is set....

September 6, 2023 · 2 min · 223 words · Luis Maldonado

Starfield’s Potato Mode mod looks like a sci-fi Morrowind you could run on a 20-year-old PC

Perhaps this might help you play it on Steam Deck, at least Starfieldis asurprisingly demanding PC game, requiring a fairly hefty GPU and CPU to run it smoothly at anything approaching max specs even at 1080p. And, alas,it’s just a bit much for the Steam Deck to handleunless you’re happy to sacrifice visual fidelity, framerate or - in most cases - both if you plan on spending your time doing anything except browsing menus (though there’ll be plenty of that)....

September 6, 2023 · 2 min · 245 words · Garrett Blackwell

Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader is Warhammer Mass Effect, and you can own planets

Plus, visit Commorragh for the first time in a game In the grim darkness of the far future, the galaxy is your oyster. Or at least it will be, once you’ve played 100 hours ofWarhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader, anRPGfromPathfinderdeveloper Owlcat in which you can buy planets, configure your genocidal Dark Eldar friend to strike ten times a turn, and gaze on ruefully as a demon explodes out of your Psyker’s head....

September 6, 2023 · 8 min · 1616 words · Jay Schmidt

What's better: Fast travel, or upgrading cards?

Vote now! You’ve travelled to the far end of the open world, through unknown valleys and deep forests, discovering villages and cities and temples and dungeons and treasures along the way, and finally you are done. Your task is complete. You’ve found the doodad. And. Oh. Now you need to take it back to the starting town. No worries! Open up the map and fast-travel back. No hour spent running back....

September 6, 2023 · 4 min · 648 words · Thomas Anderson

Why not try out this blissful oceanic Zelda-style puzzler

New wave Friend, are you weary of talk of blockbuster space-faring RPGs and blockbuster D&D adaptations and blockbusters in general? Do you yearn for the older, simpler days before the great Unrealification and the invention of sex scenes, when people called a spike pit a spike pit, and you could count all the different colours in a screenshot on your fingers? Do you, in fact, reject this framing of retro-styled 2D pixelart games as “older” and “simpler”, regarding it as condescending and false?...

September 6, 2023 · 2 min · 386 words · Justin Nichols

Wordle hints and answer (#809): How to solve the Wednesday September 6 Wordle

Stuck on the Wordle word for September 6? Read our hint or find the answer below! Need a hint for today’s Wordle answer?Every day,Wordlepresents its legions of players with a deviously simple quandary: can you guess the right five-letter word within just six guesses? All you have to help you in finding the Wordle answer are the contextual clues you gain from each guess - but often, that’s not enough. Wordle can be tricky, you see, and it’s not unusual to look for a little bit of help if you want to preserve your year-long winstreak....

September 6, 2023 · 6 min · 1228 words · Mary Dyer

Baldur's Gate 3 hotfix #5 is live now, with fixed Minthara dialogue and additional nipple covers

For when the nudity filter is on Baldur’s Gate 3released with plenty of bugs, but to their credit Larian have been releasing plenty of patches in the weeks since its launch. The most recent, hotfix #5, is live now - and it resolves several game-breaking bugs, a particular romance blocker, improves performance in multiplayer, and much more. “Minthara lovers, your ship has come in. This hotfix takes care of a bug that blocked access to some of Minthara’s lines of dialogue, including some hot takes from your companions about your decision to date the ruthless Oath of Vengeance Paladin,” saysthe patch notes postover on Steam....

September 5, 2023 · 2 min · 268 words · Robert Ross

Game developers shed light on why Starfield didn't use Unreal Engine

Re-Creation You’ll find a lot of the discussion belowthis post from Digital Foundry boffin John Linneman on Twxter, which has attracted both gloating PlayStation fans (remember,Starfieldis Xbox-only in console land) and a number of thoughtful replies from some fairly senior game developers. This conversation goes back a fair way, of course - people have been ragging on Bethesda for using “the same engine” for years. And there’s a definite air of world-weariness to some of the developer responses....

September 5, 2023 · 3 min · 542 words · Colleen Jackson

Google, Netflix, Apple and Amazon are the "barbarians at the gate" of the games industry, says ex-Sony boss

Consolidation and rising costs also bad news Former chairman of PlayStation Studios Shawn Layden has Thoughts and somewhat dire warnings about the videogame industry’s future, though what exactly he means by “the videogame industry” is a little open to guesswork. Speaking on stage with GamesIndustry.biz head Christopher Dring at GI’s Investment Summit in Seattle, Laydenlisted three challenges the aforesaid industry must face. “First, consolidation can be an enemy of creativity,” he said, referring to recent mass acquisitions and studio closures such asVolition’s demise at the hands of Embracer Group, who have scooped up developer after developer in recent years, apparently more with a view to attracting investment than developing games....

September 5, 2023 · 3 min · 430 words · Jodi Bass

How to remove traits in Starfield

Here’s how to remove Kid Stuff, Adoring Fan, Dream Home, and every other trait in Starfield How do you remove traits in Starfield?There are 17 different traits to choose from inStarfield, and with each trait offering both a positiveanda negative effect, there can often be a lot of regret and disappointment later on in your playthrough when you realise you wish you’d never picked that trait. Thankfully, there’s a way to remove every single trait in the game, although it’s not thesamemethod for every trait....

September 5, 2023 · 2 min · 395 words · Madeline Patel

How to rename your Starfield ship

Follow these steps to change the name of any ship you own in Starfield How do you rename your ship in Starfield?When Bethesda create a massive space-basedRPG, they certainly don’t skimp on the ship customization.Starfieldgives you the tools early on to build just about any ship you can imagine. But what if you want to put your own stamp on it and give it a custom name? It is indeed possible to renameall ships in Starfield- but Bethesda have done a good job of hiding the option behind layers of menus....

September 5, 2023 · 3 min · 481 words · Tina Roman

People are modding Armored Cores into Elden Ring, and now I want a Souls game where you play a giant

Scaling up Among the feats a new player of FromSoftware’s Souls or Souls-adjacent fantasy games must perform is conquering your fear of giants. From the Stray Demons ofDark SoulsthroughBloodborne’s Cleric Beast to the dragons of Elden Ring, you must learn not to be awed by creatures who look they could kill you with a sneeze. You must learn to runtowardsthat titanic knight with the enormous shield, rolling between its colossal ankles, using its stature against it....

September 5, 2023 · 3 min · 465 words · Michael Page