Tag: Steam

Steam Summer Sale 2023: Best roguelike games to play again and again

The Steam Summer Sale 2023 is here, with discounts on some of the best roguelike games on PC, and we’ve rounded up 15 of the top picks

The Steam Summer Sale 2023 is here, with discounts on some of the best roguelike games on PC. The idea might be the same – try your best, fail, and try again – but the roguelike scene features some exceptional creativity and innovation. Whether you’re after deep, story-driven adventures like Hades, quirky horror with survival elements, or classic platforming, there’s probably something for you – and maybe even a few surprises as well. Better still, most of them work on Steam Deck.

These Steam Summer Sale discounts last until July 13, 2023.

 

Steam Summer Sale 2023: Best Metroidvania games on sale

The Steam Summer Sale 2023 includes discounts on plenty of Metroidvania games on PC and we’ve sorted through to pick out the best ones.

The Steam Summer Sale 2023 includes discounts on some of the best Metroidvania games on PC, and the genre’s popularity in the last decade means there’s much more than just your usual Metroid and Castlevania-style games to choose from. Whether you’re after a challenging adventure with tinges of Dark Souls flavor, a story-driven journey, or a massive world crammed with secrets to uncover, chances are, there’s a Metroidvania for you on sale – and probably a few more you didn’t know you wanted. Most of the picks on our list work wonderfully on Steam Deck as well.

These Steam Summer Sale discounts last until July 13, 2023.

The 23 best Steam Summer Sale deals you won’t want to miss

Valve kicked off its Steam Summer Sale, and we’ve rounded up some of the best PC game deals on indies and AAA games alike

Valve kicked off its Steam Summer Sale, with steep discounts on hundreds of PC games. The sale runs until July 13, 2023, at 10 a.m. Pacific Time and features a healthy mix of big-name AAA games, including Assassin’s Creed, Star Wars, and Cyberpunk 2077; smaller hits like Victoria 3 and Octopath Traveler 2; and popular indie games, such as Stardew Valley, Cassette Beasts, and Hades.

There’s a staggering amount of games to trawl through, some with demos and some you have to just try on faith. We’ve rounded up roughly two dozen of the best deals going, ranging from heavy hitters to niche RPGs and a few indie gems as well.

The 13 Steam Next Fest demos you need to try

Steam Next Fest 2023 brings with it 100 indie game demos to try, and we’ve combed through and picked out the best you need to try

Steam Next Fest 2023 brings with it 100 indie game demos to try, and while there’s something for everyone, there’s also nowhere near enough time to try every demo. We’ve combed through them and sorted out what we think are some of the best – some of them have a unique premise, some with fantastic style, and some that are just plain fun.

These Steam Next Fest demos are only available until June 26, 2023, though they’ll likely come around again before their respective full games launch.

 

Nexon’s Apex Legends-alike multiplayer game enters early access soon

Nexon is releasing its FPS game Veiled Experts in early access on Steam soon, with multiple modes and flexible playstyles

Nexon is releasing its FPS game Veiled Experts in early access on Steam soon, promising multiple modes and flexible playstyles. Veiled Experts releases on May 18, 2023, though if you played any of the earlier versions, bear in mind that your data will not carry over to the early access version.

Veiled Experts is a team-based shooter where groups of five face off in a secret war between governments, spies, terrorists, and megacorporations. These heroes come from all walks and, in Apex Legends style, have a range of abilities. Some might toss radar bombs that reveal enemy locations. Others have fancy movement skills. And they all have lots and lots of guns, explosives, and other deadly weapons to get the job done.

While the story behind Veiled Experts involves a race to extract a certain item, the game features several modes that aren’t extraction based. There’s the usual deathmatch mode common in multiplayer games like this one, along with bomb defusal, and the option to play deathmatch against AI-controlled teams.

One thing Nexon says sets Veiled Experts apart from others in the genre is the map. It changes over the course of a match, usually after a bomb explodes and turns key fixtures, including central buildings, to rubble.

If you’re keen to try it yourself, Veiled Experts is a free-to-play game, so you can add it to your Steam library for absolutely nothing.

Written by Josh Broadwell on behalf of GLHF

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Next Lost Ark update adds new class and faster leveling

The next Lost Ark update is coming up fast, and it’s bringing a new class and a chance to level up faster – for a limited time

The next Lost Ark update is coming up fast, and it’s bringing a new class and a chance to level up faster – for a limited time. The update goes live on May 10, 2023, and it adds the Slayer class to the MMO’s roster, a gender-locked female version of the Berserker class that specializes in powerful melee combos.

The Slayer has a broad range of skills that keep enemies close, launch them, knock them down, and generally make life pretty miserable for them. The downside is, of course, that you have to be near foes to use most of these abilities, which is fine during the main story or leveling, but rather more difficult in raids and endgame content. A mixed party with ranged attackers and a bard is a good idea to keep yourself alive longer.

A new Punika Powerpass and leveling event will be available for the update’s duration, from May 10, 2023, through Aug. 9, 2023. It pushes your character to Item Level 1340, but there’s a catch. New players who created their account for the free-to-play game after December 2022 have to earn trusted account status to prove they aren’t just bots farming gold. The process is straightforward – you can just use Steam Mobile Guard, for example – but just bear that in mind if you’ve got your eye on the Powerpass.

The new Hyper Express event helps take one character to the next milestone, Item Level 1460, and gives them plenty of refinement materials to keep leveling after that. Finally is a new engraving system that gives one character four engravings in the Hyper Express event. Normally, you only get two.

Amazon promised a bundle of QoL updates and new events as well, though the team is still keeping details under wraps on those for now.

Written by Josh Broadwell on behalf of GLHF

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Steam Deck vs Asus ROG Ally: Which is the better handheld gaming PC?

If you’re wondering whether the Asus ROG Ally or Steam Deck is better for you, here’s how they both stack up in terms of specs

ASUS is gearing up to release the ROG Ally, a handheld gaming PC that looks – and likely performs – like a rival for Valve’s Steam Deck. The Steam Deck has been wildly successful as gamers are turning to portables to get their gaming fix. The Steam Deck proved an instant hit with fans who wanted to play their PC games without actually being at their PC, but the platform certainly has its share of issues, including battery life and performance.

Here’s how they both stack up based on the ROG Ally’s official speculations.

Digital investigators caught the Pentagon leaker with a Steam account

The FBI arrested a 21-year-old suspect in the Pentagon Discord leak, and investigators used Steam and a kitchen counter to do it

The FBI arrested a 21-year-old suspect in the Pentagon Discord leak, using Steam and a kitchen counter to do it. The New York Times said National Guard IT specialist Jack Teixeira was arrested on April 13, 2023, for allegedly leaking sensitive military documents, including some pertaining to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

The documents were contained on Discord until March 2023, when the FBI was made aware of the leaks after some appeared on a Minecraft server. It was a team of New York Times investigators who identified Teixeira as the alleged culprit.

“A breakthrough in our investigation came when the team identified a Steam profile in Airman Teixeira’s name that led to an Instagram profile with photos of the exact location where leaked docs were photographed — a kitchen countertop in his childhood home,” New York Times visual investigator Christiaan Triebert said on Twitter.

The New York Times says Teixeira ran a Discord server called Thug Shaker Central, where he reportedly discussed “guns, racist memes, and video games” with its 20-30 members. An unnamed member of that server told The Washington Post that Teixeira began sharing classified information in 2022 in an attempt to educate Thug Shaker members about the U.S. government’s actions. Teixeira may have shared hundreds of documents in the server, all while playing games.

“He’s a smart person,” the member said. “He knew what he was doing when he posted these documents, of course. These weren’t accidental leaks of any kind.”

Another member told The New York Times that Teixeira wasn’t a whistleblower motivated by a sense of moral outrage, but that he wanted to show them “what war really is.” Teixeira is currently detained, pending a hearing on April 19, 2023, where he faces two counts of violating the espionage act.

Written by Josh Broadwell on behalf of GLHF.

Classic SNES RPG is finally coming to Steam and PlayStation

Square Enix’s classic RPG Live A Live is making its debut on Steam and PlayStation soon, after a period of Switch exclusivity

Square Enix’s classic RPG Live A Live is making its debut on Steam and PlayStation soon, after a period of Switch exclusivity, the publisher announced in a press release. Live A Live will launch on April 27, 2023, for PS4, PS5, and PC via Steam. Pre-orders are open now on digital storefronts, and you can download a free demo that lets you play three of Live A Live’s opening chapters and transfers your progress to the full game.

Live A Live’s adventure unfolds across the centuries and follows eight heroes – a warrior from pre-history, a futuristic robot, a samurai from Edo-period Japan, and a gunslinger from the wild west, among others. Each tale gradually weaves itself into a broader story, but what ending you get depends on the actions you take.

Live A Live originally released on Super Famicom in Japan, but was never localized until the HD-2D remaster launched in 2022. Octopath Traveler’s Team Asano developed the Live A Live remaster, with Takashi Tokito, the original director, as producer and a revised score created under the supervision of Yoko Shimomura, the game’s original composer who later penned the scores for Final Fantasy XV and the Kingdom Hearts series.

PlayStation Plus subscribers who pre-order the game will get a 20 percent discount. Square Enix is offering the same discount on Steam, but it runs until May 11, 2023. 

Written by Josh Broadwell on behalf of GLHF

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The Last of Us Part 1 on Steam has so many bugs

The Last of Us Part 1 made its PC debut on Steam, but it seems like Naughty Dog’s survival horror remake needed a bit more time

The Last of Us Part 1 made its PC debut on Steam, but it seems like Naughty Dog’s survival horror remake needed a bit more time. The game received mostly negative Steam reviews within hours of its release, with players citing crashes, poor framerates, strange graphics glitches, and horrible Steam Deck optimization – despite series co-creator Neil Druckmann suggesting it would work on Valve’s handheld platform.

The game has high minimum and recommended specifications, though many of the negative reports are coming from users with high-end PCs that meet or exceed these requirements.

The launch comes after PlayStation ported several of its first-party games to PC with far fewer issues. Horizon Zero Dawn, Marvel’s Spider-Man, and God of War launched with few or no substantial problems, though Returnal suffered from a series of random “fatal error” messages.

When The Last of Us Part 1 does run, it’s not exactly at its best.

Several players reported Joel looking odd in different ways thanks to what seems like a problem with light rendering. The Steam Deck takes several hours just to load the shaders, which it has to do every time it launches the game, and once it does start, some players reported only getting framerates in the single digits – before it crashed completely.

One user said you can fix the shader loading issue by installing an older version of Oodle decompression library to bypass the bugged, newer version the game ships with. That seemingly won’t fix the framerate, graphics, and crashing issues, though.

Naughty Dog said on Twitter that the team is aware of the game’s issues and will work on addressing them in a series of patches. The studio didn’t mention a timeline for when these updates might launch or what problems will receive higher priority.

Written by Josh Broadwell on behalf of GLHF

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