Sometimes a bargains haul comes along that perfectly aligns with my bad habit of adding more to my backlog than I clear. This idle Tuesday's mix is an irresistible blend of heavy hitters and cult curios that deserve a spot in anyone’s library. As per always, I’ve found myself revisiting old favourites and even picking up a few oddities I’d somehow missed.

This Day in Gaming 🎂

In retro news, I'm celebrating the 42nd birthday of Mario Bros., the arcade cabinet that launched a plumbing empire. Partially inspired by some of Joust's mechanics (and an Italian-American landlord hounding Nintendo for rent), Mario Bros. was a non-scrolling arena affair that was quite addictive, especially in simultaneous two-player. Interestingly, it was made by a tiny team of just five people, all of whom were credited in its great, great, great, (great) grandchild, Super Mario Bros. Wonder. Sadly, we rarely see such a lineage occur in modern game development, given how lay off happy this bloody industry has become.

Aussie birthdays for notable games.

This Day in Gaming

Aussie birthdays for notable games.

- Mario Bros. (ARC) 1983. Get

- Warlords III (PC) 1997. Get

- Trials HD (X360) 2009. Sequel

- Hacknet (PC) 2015. Get

Beats' flagship headphone is on sale at a steep discount today. Amazon is offering the Beats Studio Pro wireless noise canceling headphones for just $179.95, nearly 50% off the $350 list price. Six color options are available at this price. The Studio Pro is the highest end Beats headphone currently available. We deemed it one of the best over-ear headphones and a more affordable, more stylish alternative to the popular Sony and Bose models.

Beats Studio Pro Headphones for $179.95

Lenovo is offering up one of its new 2025 gaming PCs equipped with an Nvidia Blackwell GPU for under $1,000. As part of the Lenovo Back to School Sale, you can pick up the Lenovo Legion Tower 5 Gen 10 RTX 5060 gaming PC for just $985.99 after you apply two stackable coupon codes "BUYMORELENOVO" and "EXTRAFIVE". Total savings including the instant discount is $385. Free delivery is included. This is the newest 2025 Lenovo Legion desktop model, which has undergone a radical facelift and, more importantly, updated with the latest and greatest components like the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5000 series Blackwell graphics cards. The RTX 5060 graphics card is a solid option for 1080p gaming.

Lenovo Legion RTX 5060 Gaming PC for $986

Apply both codes: "BUYMORELENOVO" and "EXTRAFIVE"

Walmart is offering the best price I've seen on a new MacBook laptop. Right now you can pick up an Apple MacBook Air 13" with M1 Chip for just $599 with free delivery. This is a brand new, retail packaged laptop that is sold by Walmart directly, not by a marketplace vendor, and comes with a 1 year Apple warranty. This older generation MacBook is still a very capable laptop for general productivity use and an affordable option for anyone heading back to school.

Macbook Air 13" M1 (8GB/256GB) for $599

Available in Gold and Silver

The Magic Puzzle Company is one of our favorite jigsaw puzzle brands on the market. Each puzzle features beautiful original artwork from independent artists and a delightful surprise ending. At 1,000 pieces each, every Magic Puzzle Company puzzle is as fun to put together as it is to complete.

These puzzles got their start on Kickstarter, garnering an astonishing amount of support to produce the first series of puzzles. Since then, there have been a total of twelve Magic Company puzzles across four series releases. The most recent Series Four puzzles were released on Amazon last year after a two-year hiatus, and I hadn't been able to find any mention of a Series Five since then.

And yet seemingly out of nowhere, a listing for the first Series Five Magic Puzzle Company Puzzle appeared at Amazon and you can already buy it.

The Magic Puzzle Company - Series Five - The Drippy Trip Is Now Available

These little details are really what makes The Magic Puzzle Company puzzles worth getting. As an avid Adventure Time fan, that connection alone is almost enough to get me to purchase this one on the spot.

More Magic Puzzle Company puzzles

For a full list of what other puzzles are available from this brand, you'll need to check out their Amazon store page. The Magic Puzzle Company website only features Series one through Three, but Amazon has all four there. I've gathered some of the more popular options below:

Channing Tatum and Rebecca Wang have joined the English dub cast for the upcoming Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba Infinity Castle arc.

Crunchyroll and Aniplex announced the news today, confirming the two stars will lend their voice talents to the upcoming movie continuation alongside returning cast members, including Zach Aguilar as Tanjiro Kamado, Abby Trott as Nezuko Kamado, Aleks Le as Zenitsu Agatsuma, and Bryce Papenbrook as Inosuke Hashibira.

Tatum (Deadpool and Wolverine) will provide English voice work for Keizo, with Wang (Blue Eye Samurai, Solo Leveling) tapped to play Koyuki.

Ravensburger is one of the best puzzle brands out there in terms of quality, price, and overall selection. I own quite a few Ravensburger puzzles and can absolutely attest to that. The pieces are always nice and sturdy and there's never any weird dust in the box. Unfortunately, that level of quality comes at a higher price than a lot of other brands out there.

Thankfully, Amazon is having a pretty good sale on these puzzles this week. The last time we saw discounts like this was back in May of this year, but that was for 1,000-piece puzzles only. This time around there's a nice mix of jigsaw options for both adults and kids. If you're a chronic puzzler like me, I definitely recommend you check out these deals while they're available.

Ravensburger Puzzle Sale at Amazon Today

Almost all of the puzzles in this sale are considered Amazon lightning deals. That means there is a limit to how much stock each one of these has available at the discount listed. So the more popular a puzzle is, the more likely it is to have the discount fully claimed before time runs out on the sale. After covering these sales a few times, however, I've found that the "limit" on the discount is almost never reached.

As for what's worth checking out in this sale, I've gathered all of the best options available above. There's a nice mix of puzzles for kids here mixed in with some more adult-oriented options. The very popular Disney Toy Store 1000-piece puzzle, while not directly included in the sale, has also reached its lowest price in months. It's filled with all kinds of details from the Pixar movies while offering a similar vibe to The Craft Cupboard puzzle Ravensburger is discounting right now too.

If you're looking for some new puzzles to do with your kids or grandkids, there are also a few good options in this sale. For really little kids, The Animals of the World Puzzle pack is bright, fun, and comes with two 12-piece puzzles designed for three-year olds. For older kids I'd also recommend checking out the Horse Dreams 100-piece puzzle or the 150-piece Cosmic Connection.

What's the best piece count for kids?

There is no direct line between what piece count is good for kids vs. adults, so it really depends on the kid. The earliest age you'll likely see on the puzzle packaging is 3+, but some kids will be ready before that. I bought a four-pack of 12-piece Spider-Man puzzles for my two-year-old nephew this year and he had no problem figuring it out on his own. So if you're buying for a toddler that has already shown an interest, that 3+ age rating is worth looking out for. This will usually include 12- or 24-piece puzzles.

For older kids who have shown a more of an interest in puzzling already, you'll probably want to keep the piece count at 300 or lower. If you plan on working on the puzzle with them, a higher piece count is doable, but 500 and 1,000+ puzzles are usually reserved for adults and teens.

A puzzle storage is a great gift for adults

If you're looking for a good puzzle gift to give yourself or someone else, I would definitely recommend a dedicated table or puzzle board. Larger puzzles just flat out take longer to put together, and if you don't have a place to leave it or the option to put it away, it can be hard to ever actually finish a puzzle. Thankfully, there are plenty of products that solve these specific problems.

I'm looking at a map of my city, Kansas City, right now, and wondering what I should do for fun this coming weekend. Should I visit the giant purple Zoroark stomping over downtown? If I want to see the Superman with the glowing red eyes in the suburbs to the south, I first have to pass Ralsei Deltarune sitting atop the highway, smoking an enormous blunt. I could go visit the Northland, but there is an enormous United Airlines plane straddling the Missouri River, which might make transit a bit confusing. Hmm. Options, options.

That probably sounded like nonsense if you're not aware of wplace, a delightful new time waster in the form of a world map where users can draw a single pixel in a color of their choice, wherever they like, once every 30 seconds. If that sounds familiar, you're probably thinking of one of its main inspirations: /r/place, the Reddit game with a blank canvas that let users similarly place one pixel at a time. Though /r/place closed a few years ago, wplace has rapidly gained popularly in the last few days, to the point where just about wherever you live or wherever you look, you can find detailed collaborative drawings, silly graffiti, inside jokes, and more doodled all over the map. And unshockingly, a lot of those doodles are gaming references.

Like most people, I checked out my own city first before exploring wplace more widely. Kansas City is indeed covered with gaming characters. At a glance, I can see several Pokemon, characters from Rain World, Deltarune, OneShot, Metroid, Final Fantasy, Mario, Earthbound, Among Us, Angry Birds, and plenty more can be spotted amid the city's roadways and rivers. There are also lots of other pop culture icons, like SpongeBob and various Transformers, sprinkled in with political messages, sports team logos, various flags, location-specific graffiti, and other random doodles. Some people just wrote their names.

The city of Waterdeep just can’t catch a break. Despite the various adventurers that call it home and stop to rest at the Yawning Portal Inn, the city and its citizenry find themselves under assault by dangerous and powerful monsters, leaving everyone Horrified.

The latest rendition of Ravensburger's popular cooperative series, Horrified: Dungeons & Dragons, crosses over with Wizards of the Coast's legendary tabletop RPG. The result is a game that my friends and I thoroughly enjoyed and were eager to play again, despite a few stumbling blocks.

The original Horrified was released back in 2019, and this new Dungeons & Dragons edition is the series’ sixth iteration. The basic premise each game shares is that up to five players work together to vanquish a selection of monsters by racing around the map, collecting resources, escorting civilians to safety, and beating back the monsters.

To win, each monster has to be dealt with. But players will lose if the monster deck is depleted or if the terror track ever hits seven (it's raised whenever a citizen is killed, hero is knocked out, or an effect triggers it). The extra fun part is taking out the monsters. How you deal with each monster is unique, with each one having its own sort of mini-game associated with it that players have to work through before they are gone for good.

Being Dungeons & Dragons themed, this version of Horrified features some of the most recognizable creatures from its pantheon, including the Displacer Beast, a Mimic, the Beholder, and of course, a big red dragon. As a longtime fan and player of D&D, I was instantly intrigued by the box art and the board – but it was the monsters and how they operate that really drew my friends and me in. The developers really managed to work in how these creatures behave according to D&D lore when designing their challenges.

The Red Dragon, for instance, has a treasure you have to claim before you can vanquish it upon its treasure horde. The Mimic, for its part, is hidden and off the board until the party manages to finally reveal it. My favorite, by far, was the Beholder, which requires you to take out its 10 eye tendrils first, before going after its large central eye, each with a unique and powerful effect they could hit you with, dictated by a die roll. And yes, of course, there are dice rolls here; you can’t have Dungeons & Dragons without some sort of dice-rolling goodness involved, and it doesn’t stop with just eye lasers either.

Players assume the roles of staple D&D classes, including the Fighter, Rogue, Cleric, Bard, or Wizard. For the most part, each character plays identically, with the exception of their special actions, which require you to roll a 20-sided die (one is included with the game in case you don’t have a small dice horde like yours truly).

That’s just how it goes when you’re rolling d20s.

Taking your special action can result in one of five possible outcomes, with the various classes behaving differently. For instance, bards can allure other players and citizens towards themselves. The fighter can rush to the nearest monster to do battle, and the cleric helps during monster attacks by letting you re-roll dice. We had some especially funny moments where our resident Wizard teleported the Beholder monster straight to the spot where our cleric just so happened to be – twice in a row. We had a good laugh about that (at least most of us), but that’s just how it goes when you’re rolling d20s.

Admittedly, we did homebrew and tweak the cleric a bit, however, allowing her to “stock” her special actions (basically using actions on her turn to hold rolls for actions), allowing her to use her beneficial skills during any monster phase up until her next turn. This lets the character feel more cleric-y, helping her teammates, as opposed to the as-written rules, which only let her use those skills on her turn’s monster phase.

Horrified, in general, isn’t an overly complex board game. In my testing, first-time players were usually able to grasp the flow of the game within a turn or two. Taking actions is straightforward, and the monster cards that dictate how many new items are spawned, any events that take place, citizens that appear, and what monsters activate, are equally so.

Some of the wording on how monsters behave caused some confusion and debate, such as whether the mimic monster moved the number of spaces indicacted on the monster card’s movement space, or just a single space when it is activated. But overall, we figured it out (whether our decision was correct or not) and it worked out for us.

Unique to this version of Horrified is the ability to reduce the terror track, which gives players a hand, pushing them further back from defeat. This is done whenever a monster is defeated, and I found it to be a great addition to use – especially when first introducing new players to the game, as Horrified games can be a bit challenging and require strategy to win. I also appreciate that it is easy enough not to use, so Horrified veterans can simply ignore this feature if they find it lessens the challenge too much.

One aspect that I am a bit disappointed by with Horrified: Dungeons & Dragons is its small pool of monsters you can pick from. With “easy” games asking players to pick from two monsters and the standard challenge requiring three, it means you'll be replaying these monsters frequently.

Other versions featured six or seven monsters, with only the Cthulu-themed Horrified offering just four monsters. And with so many other classic D&D monsters left on the table, it’s a shame we couldn’t have gotten a couple more in the box. Where are my Gelatinous Cubes and Owlbears, or heck, throw something wild like Vecna, the terrifying Lich, into the mix. I can only hope that Ravensburger adds more monsters or classes with future expansions.

Where to Buy

• Get it at Target

Universal and DreamWorks Animation have announced a delay for Shrek 5, pushing its release date to June 30, 2027.

The companies announced the schedule shift today, confirming the long-awaited fantasy follow-up will finally step out of the swamp in about two more years (via Variety). It’s a six-month delay from the previously announced December 23, 2026, release date and about one year removed from the original July 1, 2026, premiere plan.

DreamWorks and Universal refrained from sharing the reason behind their decision to push Shrek 5 to its new June 2027 release date. The change also comes with a new date for an Untitled Illumination Event Film, which is moving up from Shrek 5’s late June spot to April 16, 2027.

Shrek 5 was formally announced with a summer 2026 release date last year. Its reveal promised the first mainline Shrek entry since 2010’s Shrek Forever After but kept story details under wraps as DreamWorks and Universal plotted how to bring Mike Myers’ iconic green ogre back to the big screen. Outside of the occasional Puss in Boots spinoff, it’s been 15 years since audiences last saw Shrek, Donkey, and Fiona in their own movie.

We’ve since learned a few details about how Shrek 5 will shake up the tongue-in-cheek fairy tale universe it originally introduced in 2001. Earlier this year, DreamWorks and Universal announced that Spider-Man and Dune veteran Zendaya had joined the film’s cast as Shrek and Fiona’s daughter, with Myers, Eddie Murphy, and Cameron Diaz all back, too. A 30-second Shrek 5 trailer released in March revealed its fresh new art style, as well as a sneak peek at Zendaya’s character.

The long wait for Shrek 5 will continue for a few more years before it finally stomps its way into theaters June 30, 2027. While we wait, be sure to read up on how the internet – and Sonic the Hedgehog – reacted to Shrek’s updated animation style.

Michael Cripe is a freelance writer with IGN. He's best known for his work at sites like The Pitch, The Escapist, and OnlySP. Be sure to give him a follow on Bluesky (@mikecripe.bsky.social) and Twitter (@MikeCripe).

NVIDIA RTX Remix is a modding platform for RTX AI PCs that allows modders to remaster classic games by adding full raytracing, enhancing textures, adjusting lighting, moving environmental objects, and adding DLSS 4 to improve image quality and performance. RTX Remix released in March this year, and there are already more than 350 active projects using it and more than 100 released mods.

To showcase the improvements this technology makes possible, NVIDIA is hosting a competition featuring 23 user-created mods for a wide range of classic titles, including BioShock, Portal 2, and multiple Need for Speed, Star Wars, and Call of Duty games. These mods will face off in four categories with a grand total of $50,000 up for grabs, with winners announced at gamescom on August 18. The categories are: Community Choice RTX Mod, Most Complete RTX Mod, Best Use of RTX in a Mod, and Best Overall RTX Mod.

• Community Choice will be determined by fan vote, and the winner will get $10,000. Fan voting has concluded, but the winner will be announced on August 18.
• Most Complete is for the most fully playable remaster with high quality throughout. The winner will get $10,000.
• Best Use of RTX is for the most impressive visual improvement, using effects like atmospheric fog, smoke, shadows, and dynamic lighting. The winner will get $10,000.
• Best Overall is what it sounds like, the mod that combines everything — impressive visuals while also being an excellent playable experience — into the best package. The winner of this category will get $20,000.

The categories are not mutually exclusive, so one mod can take home multiple wins. You can see the competition listings for all 23 entries here, and we’ll include a brief description for each below. Each entry will be linked to its individual page, where you can find detailed information, images, videos, and reviews:

Call of Duty 2 RTX Remix of Carenten by tadpole3159

This is a complete remake of the Carenten map from Call of Duty 2, with basically every asset and surface redone. And creator tadpole3159 went above and beyond to do it, photo scanning real World War 2 combat clothing and kits and putting them in the game via a process called photogrammetry. You can hear him discuss the improvements he made and the process he used to accomplish them in this video. The mod also adds dynamic lighting changes as the sun moves across the sky, as well as six player-controlled weather conditions that you can change with the press of a button in the middle of a match.

Star Wars Republic Commando RTX by automata.

This is a hybrid Star Wars: Republic Commando mod that uses RTX Remix for its path-traced renderer while also modding the underlying game to expand the use of RTX Remix. Blaster bolts have become shadow-casting lights, the commandos and their arsenal have been rebuilt with 4K physical-based rendering (PBR) textures, and lighting has been redone to bring the game more in line with the look of the rest of the Star Wars universe. You can see the result of the mod team's work in this comparison video.

Skurtyy’s Portal 2 RTX PBR Pack by skurtyyskirts

Dramatic lighting improvements are the name of the game for this mod, which updates 2011’s Portal 2 using RTX Remix’s volumetric system. The dilapidated test chambers have been enhanced with customizable fog effects, floating dust bunnies, and precisely controlled lighting. Sunbeams now shine through broken ceilings without dampening other light sources.

Fallout: New Vegas RTX by skurtyyskirts

This is a full graphical overhaul of 2010’s Fallout: New Vegas with full raytracing, PBR materials, and enhanced assets without sacrificing the game’s original aesthetic. Everything from the desert sun to the neon-soaked New Vegas Strip to interiors of abandoned Vaults have been redone to provide accurate shadows, reflections, and global illumination. Weapons, armor, and terminals have been remastered, and there are new high-fidelity details like irradiated water puddles.

Need for Speed: Underground RTX by alessandro893

One of two mods on this list for the Need for Speed: Underground series, this one is a transformative reimagining of the original. A lot went into this one, including a full rework of China Town and the Lock Up sprint race track. There are 500 new textures, 30 new high-poly 3D models, 26 original meshes, new vegetation, and terrain smoothing. You can see the improvements in action in this video.

Manhunt Remixed by gabdeg

This mod remasters all 20 levels of 2003’s Manhunt, adding fully path-traced lighting and high-resolution environmental and character textures. Since the original game’s lights weren’t compatible with path-tracing, they were all removed and manually replaced. Emissive graphic effects and reflections have also been added on things like windows, monitors, and signs. You can see what a difference these made in the mod's release trailer.

Need for Speed: Underground 2 Remix by UncleBurrito and team

This is a massive overhaul of 2004’s Need for Speed: Underground 2, with everything handmade by the mod’s creator. That includes new models for vehicles, extensive texture replacements, remade traffic signals and street signs, tons of lighting changes, and a completely remade skybox. The most recent video details the latest updates and shows the progress mod creator UncleBurrito and their team have made.

Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines - RTX Remaster by Safemilk

This is Part 1 of what will be a full, asset-by-asset remodel of 2004’s Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines. That means everything is being re-created, all the way down to carpets and the labels of snacks on store shelves. And that’s in addition to sweeping changes to the lighting and reflective surfaces. It’s a huge undertaking.

Painkiller RTX Remix by Binq_Adams and team

This mod retextures, relights, and rebuilds large portions of 2004’s Painkiller from the ground up while keeping its original gothic horror aesthetic. Lighting effects have been dramatically improved, textures of surfaces look much more detailed, and 2D environmental objects have been replaced with detailed 3D models. The latest trailer shows off how much improvement has been made in the mod's most recent update.

Black Mesa Remixed - POC - Inbound by xoxor4d and team

2020’s Black Mesa originally started as a fan-made remake of Half Life, so what better way to update it than with a fan-made mod? This features dramatic improvements to lighting and textures, particularly on the inbound tram ride. There are also more than 40 materials built from the ground up and 100 materials created from the original colormap. The trailer shows off these improvements, and the level of detail is impressive.

Codename Atlantis RTX by xoxor4d

This mod shakes things up a bit by essentially adding a new minigame to Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare in addition to custom-made weapons and interactable objects. The standout new custom weapon has a built-in eye that looks around realistically, and the new minigame tasks you with finding 20 Suzannes (named for the Blender “mascot”) before time runs out while water slowly rises. The water effects are new additions and can slow you down and decrease gravity depending on how high the water has risen. You can see the new weapon and gameplay from the minigame in this video.

Max Payne: Remix by Noodle

The current version of this mod is the first step in a larger plan to fully modernize 2001’s Max Payne. As of now, Roscoe Street Station has been remodeled with hand-crafted PBR materials, and hand-placed RTX lighting has been added to most of the game. In the future, it is expected to expand the PBR materials to the rest of the game, improve models and assets, and fix bugs.

SCP Containment Breach RTX Remaster by Inward 3D and team

A visual remaster of 2012 indie horror game SCP – Containment Breach, this mod adds raytraced lighting, shadows, and PBR materials. Rooms have been relit, there are AI upscaled and remastered textures, and character models have been improved. You can see the improved look and updated character models in this video, which features more than 8 minutes of gameplay.

BioShock RTX by skurtyyskirts and team

A ground-up restoration of the 2007 classic BioShock made by two people, this mod adds full real-time path tracing and a total PBR asset revamp. More impressively, it also solves engine issues that plagued the original game, making everything run more smoothly while also looking prettier.

Morro RTX by 3DNomad

This mod updates 2002’s Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, improving light sources in the Imperial prison ship, Seyda Neen, and Balmora. It also adds PBR materials based on the original textures and updates the geometry of more than 300 models. You can get details on these improvements from the mod's creator, 3DNomad, in this summary video.

DuoPrincess Remixed by Etokapa and team

Perhaps the most niche title on the list, this mod remixes the textures, lighting, and meshes of every level in 2003’s Duo Princess. Every 3D texture has been upscaled and retouched, and the lighting has been completely redone. The original lights have been replaced, new lights have been added, and there are new emission maps and dust particles. This video summarizes the improvements and shows some side-by-side gameplay with RTX on and off so you can see the difference.

Return to Castle Wolfenstein QHD by LuciansDiner

This mod shows some love to 2001’s Return to Castle Wolfenstein, improving weapon models, lighting, and textures. High-res texture replacements take advantage of the displacement provided by parallax occlusion mapping, while emissive lighting has been added to torches, light bulbs, and stage lights. You can see those enhancements in this video.

UnrealRTX by mstewart401

This mod modernizes the 1998 classic Unreal with improved lighting, PBR materials, and environmental models. It adds full raytraced global illumination, dynamic shadows, volumetric lighting, and emissive effects. Vegetation has been replaced and grass added to outdoor areas to enhance fidelity, and surfaces now respond to light. This video gives you nearly an hour of gameplay to see the mod in action.

Star Wars Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast RTX REMIX by ArjaanAuinger

This mod is listed as a tech demo for Jedi Knight II with one playable level. That level has been relit, its textures have been upscaled, and there’s a mix of generated and hand-crafted PBR materials. The lightsaber has also been improved and now actually emits light. This video shows several minutes of gameplay, along with commentary from creator ArjaanAuinger, who walks you through the mod's features and how to install it.

I-Ninja Remixed by g.i.george333

Platformer I-Ninja gets a facelift with this mod that’s designed to enhance the visuals while keeping the original stylized look. There are a total of 2,000 new textures, thanks to a combination of newly created ones and upscaled originals. Volumetric fog and dust particles have been added, and surfaces have been updated with added geometric detail. The mod's trailer includes gameplay and video comparing scenes with RTX on and off, and the difference is obvious.

Sonic Adventure RTX Legacy Version by Ver11

This mod is an update to Sonic Adventure DX: Director’s Cut, the enhanced port of the original Dreamcast game Sonic Adventure. It adds brand-new lighting, remastered PBR materials, new water effects, and grass to almost all levels. This video includes 10 minutes of gameplay that showcases the improved look.

Colin McRae Rally 3 RTX Remix Mod by budgiegamesindie

This mod is largely focused on UK Special Stage 1 and the Ford Focus car in 2002’s Colin McRae Rally 3. Retopology has been used on the car’s windows, wheels, and hood, and its textures have been upscaled with AI. The stage has new lighting, a new skybox, volumetric fog, and higher-quality trees. This trailer shows the massive difference this mod makes when RTX is on vs. off.

Star Wars: Republic Commando RTX by Chaos007

Not to be confused with the previous mod of Star Wars: Republic Commando, this one is an early demo build that covers the intro cinematic, prologue, and first level of the Geonosis campaign. It introduces full raytraced lighting, enhanced textures, upgraded models, new structures, particle improvements, and UI enhancements. This video showcases just how significant the improvements are.

Oh no, the latest World of Warcraft patch has us teaming up with an evil cosmic void being who has tried to kill us many times already and will definitely stab us in the back later...but we're all kind of okay with it? Partially because we have no choice but also because she's hot and sarcastic?

I'm talking about Xal'atath. You know, this lady. Heads up, I'm going to talk in this article about spoilers for World of Warcraft: The War Within leading up to the events in Patch 11.2, Ghosts of K'aresh that dropped last Tuesday. If you haven't started playing the patch yet and don't want to know what's happening, maybe don't keep reading.

Even if you're a lapsed World of Warcraft player, you might know this lady if you've dipped in as recently as World of Warcraft: Legion. Xal'atath first appeared in that expansion in the form of a dagger artifact weapon wielded by Shadow Priests, which would occasionally whisper creepy evil stuff to them about N'Zoth and the Old Gods and all that malarky. At the time, some folks grew rather fond of her unsettling whispers, even affectionately referring to her as "knaifu". The dagger, with the rest of the expansion's artifact weapons, was used to drain the corruption from the giant sword that Sargeras stuck in the planet at the end of the expansion. Normal stuff.

While we naively thought we wouldn't hear from Xal'atath ever again, what was once one weapon among a giant stack of them turned out to be hugely plot-relevant. Xal'atath was passed around from place to place in the interim expansions, finally regaining her power and emerging from the dagger in the form of a void-infused high elf, all the better to corrupt people with. She bopped around Azeroth for a while, manipulating the underground giant bug people and some dragons before she finally made herself known as something called the "Harbinger of Dimensius," basically a herald of a super powerful void lord bent on destroying reality. Again, normal stuff.

At the start of our current expansion, The War Within, Xal'atath appears to be the main villain. She opens the expansion by causing the destruction of Dalaran (again), and she's responsible for the events that lead us to fighting both the Nerubians and the goblin Gallywix. She's spent a lot of time popping up here and there and taunting our ally Alleria Windrunner, she nearly kills Khadgar, and she's obsessed with this void artifact she's been carrying around called the Dark Heart, which she keeps using to corrupt and empower and manipulate. All of this is to say, she seems pretty evil to me! She serves the void and is clearly very interested in destroying us, our buddies, and probably all of Azeroth! Nothing she has done so far seems good, at all!

And yet.

In patch 11.2, Xal'atath joins us. The short explanation is that she actually betrayed Dimensius in the past, but he's coming back, and he's probably pissed off at her. If he shows up, she's done for. Out of a sense of self-preservation, she's been trying to beef up the Dark Heart to stop his return rather than accelerate it, and was messing around with the Nerubians and the Goblins in an effort to get that done. But at the end of patch 11.1, she accidentally (and sort of stupidly) loses the Dark Heart, forcing her to team up with Alleria and the player as a back-up plan.

What this actually means, in practice, is that Xal'atath follows us around while questing and occasionally proposes we do things that sound horrible and dangerous, like turn ourselves into an energy being and fill someone with void energy so they can hear the planet sing to them (normal stuff!). But, you know, we can't stop Dimensius without her. She knows his weaknesses, and is pretty much the only path to getting close enough to him to do something about his encroachment. So the murdery knife-elf gets to come along.

Need a backup wall charger for your Apple iPhone 16 or Nintendo Switch 2? Target just dropped the price on the Anker Ace 45W USB Type-C wall charger to just $11.99 (it's normally $20). Target offers free shipping on orders over $35, or you can simply buy online and pickup in-store for free. This is a very inexpensive price for an Anker branded charging brick with enough power output to fast charge most portable electronics. Note that no cables are included.

Anker Ace 45W USB Wall Charger for $11.99