As Blizzard evolves as a studio, inside and out, one of the ideas pushing us forward is meeting players around the world where they are and making our games as easy as possible to access and play. We want to give everyone a chance to experience our universes with old friends while making new ones, no matter how they choose to play.

Battle.net is the home of all our PC players, and over the years, we've evolved our platform to support updated technologies, capabilities, and our communities' expectations. But as we've evolved, the industry has evolved too-gaming is no longer just for specific communities as it was when Battle.net launched over two decades ago, gaming is for everyone-and though we remain committed to continually investing in and supporting Battle.net, we want to break down the barriers to make it easier for players everywhere to find and enjoy our games. Which is why we're trying something new...

The invasion has arrived! Greetings, Commanders! It's finally time to defeat the alien invasion - Xenonauts 2 is AVAILABLE NOW in Steam Early Access! Wage a global war of resistance against an alien invasion. Command turn-based tactical battles, build a network of covert bases, directly control your fighter wings, and achieve strategic victory in a simulation of asymmetric warfare against a technologically superior foe.

Xenonauts 2 is a strategy game that puts you in charge of a multinational military organization tasked with eliminating an extraterrestrial threat. Working from the shadows, you must seek out and engage the growing alien presence wherever it appears. Expand and manage a covert network of bases across the globe. Pursue research and development to bridge the technological gap with the alien invaders. Train, arm, and command your ground troops wherever the alien threat emerges.

Exoprimal's official service has begun! We are happy to announce that the final mission selection feature is now functional! This feature was a direct result of exofighter feedback from the open beta tests. Refer to the "Announcing Exoprimal's Final Mission Selection Feature" article for more information.

Seasons
Exoprimal will feature in-game seasons that are around three months long. There will also be Title Updates that bring new content and more fun! Season 1 began on release day. Friday, July 14 - Wednesday, October 11, 11:00 PM EDT. Note: Date and time are subject to change.

Players come to Xbox to build friendships, be competitive, and to experience incredible games - and they expect to be treated fairly, for interactions to be free of hate or harassment. Our investments in safety have helped players feel safer across text, video, and image - and our new voice reporting experience is the latest addition to our robust suite of family and online safety features.

Starting this week, we are releasing a new platform-wide voice reporting feature to Alpha and Alpha Skip-Ahead Xbox Insiders, that gives players the option to capture and report inappropriate in-game voice chats. More specifically, this feature equips Xbox Series X|S and Xbox One players with the ability to capture a 60-second video clip of an in-game voice incident that they believe violates our Community Standards and submit it as evidence to our Xbox Safety Team for review. This feature is purpose-built to support the broadest arena of in-game interactions between players and works across thousands of games that offer in-game multiplayer voice chat, including Xbox 360 backward-compatible titles.

We know that out of our Framework Laptop 16 Deep Dive series, this is some of the information you're most eager to hear. We read every Framework Laptop review, browse the Community and subreddit, and run regular post-purchase feedback surveys to learn what you want, and we use that to inform how we build products. Some of the most frequent asks on the Framework Laptop 13 were around improving speaker loudness and extending battery life, both of which we've delivered on this year. With the increased space we have inside the Framework Laptop 16, we advanced these areas even further, with a new high capacity 85Wh battery and excellent quad speakers powered by a smart amp.

We custom designed both the battery pack and cell, working with ATL, one of the biggest battery makers in the world and the maker of the 55Wh and 61Wh packs for Framework Laptop 13. The pack has a 4S1P architecture, meaning there are four lithium ion cells placed in series to reach the 15.48 V nominal pack voltage. A major improvement we've made based on feedback from the Framework Laptop 13 is on the battery connector. A connector on a short cable was one of the more finicky parts to handle, so we've switched to an integrated blade-type connector that makes battery swaps much easier. Finally, we've made sure that the battery has a long usage lifetime, supporting 80% capacity typically after 1,000 cycles.

There appears to be a faction of hardcore PC gamers within the Microsoft Windows software engineering team—as evidenced in a developer blog post from late May. The section relating to "Reduced game stutter with high report rate mice" provided an early preview for improvements recently rolled out in a Windows 11 update (KB5028185 issued on July 11th). This week's fix "improves your computer's performance when you use a mouse that has a high report rate for gaming." Gamers running PCs on Windows 10 (or earlier) are—unfortunately—missing out on this latest and greatest feature.

Microsoft's blog stated: We know gamers hate stutter, and we're fixing issues throughout Windows so that an untimely frame-freeze won't take gamers out of their immersive experiences. Gamers love to push their systems to the limit in search of the best experiences in-game. Many also use sensitive, high DPI, high report rate mice to shave milliseconds off their response times and increase precision. At the same time, the world of gaming is more connected than ever with gamers relying on an increasing number of background apps while playing, like voice chat, streaming, apps for configuring your keyboard, mouse, or graphics card, and more. The Windows input stack was being pushed to its limits with high report rate mice and their input being delivered to not just the game, but also multiple background processes. In turn, that caused a significant amount of time processing input rather than providing as many cycles as possible for rendering the game experience."

Hello everyone! Today I'm happy to announce that we're putting the next update for Age of Wonders 4 into Open Beta! This previews some of the improvements that are part of the Watcher update, due later this summer. This coming update focuses on what we feel are the issues which are most important to you, and we'd love to get your feedback on what we've managed to do so far.

It's important to remember that this is a work in progress patch. This means that it may be unstable or imbalanced, and that the features we've added may not work entirely as we want them to. It also means that we may revert certain changes later if we feel that they aren't achieving what we want them to or if we're inspired to replace them with something better! Instructions, Patch Notes and F.A.Q. are provided below...

Irdeto is the current owner of Denuvo Software Solutions—the Austrian development team behind the infamous anti-tamper technology and digital rights management (DRM) system. According to Ars Technica neither of these organizations have made great efforts (in the past) to engage in discussion about the controversial anti-piracy and anti-cheat suites—but Steeve Huin, Irdeto's Chief Operating Officer of Video Games—agreed to grant the publication an exclusive interview. The article is titled "Denuvo wants to convince you its DRM isn't evil," which sums up a lot of the public perception regarding Denuvo technologies—having received plenty of flak for high CPU usage and causing excessive activity within storage components. Some users propose that the latter scenario has resulted in shorter lifespans for their solid-state drives. Ars Technica has a long history of Denuvo-related coverage, so a company representative has been sent in for some damage control.

Off the bat, Huin acknowledges that he and his colleagues are aware of Denuvo's reputation: "In the pirating/cracking community, we're seen as evil because we're helping DRM exist and we're ensuring people make money out of games." He considers the technology to be a positive force: "Anti-piracy technologies is to the benefit of the game publishers, [but also] is of benefit to the players in that it protects the [publisher's] investment and it means the publishers can then invest in the next game...But people typically don't think enough of that...Whether people want to believe it or not, we are all gamers, we love gaming, we love being part of it. We develop technologies with the intent to make the industry better and stronger."

Hello Razer Community, we've come a long way together and 2023 is no exception. Over the last year, we've unveiled four top-tier Razer mice - Viper V2 Pro, DeathAdder V3 Pro, Basilisk V3 Pro, and Naga V2 Pro. Each of these stellar mice were meticulously crafted to cater to unique preferences and gaming styles, such as our MMO-tailored Naga V2 Pro renowned for its multi-button swappable side plate design.

Last week marked another exciting milestone in our ongoing journey - the completion of our full mouse lineup with the launch of the Razer Cobra line. These innovative additions have already sparked a wave of discussion and received multiple accolades including the Editors Choice award from CGMag, and awarded "The Best" from WindowsCentral.

Dears Twinsunians, we [2.21] are thrilled to announce the opening of our pre-alpha of Twinsen's Little Big Adventure Remastered! The aim of this playtest is to gather your valuable insights and feedback on the game, helping us to fine-tune it and create a gaming experience that truly resonates with our player community. This is your chance to contribute directly to the game's development process and to help shape its future.

To participate, click on "Request access" on the Steam page and you will be granted access automatically. Once in, you'll be able to explore our game in its early stages, discover new features, and contribute to its improvement.

Gather your forces because the Realms of Ruin Open Beta is now LIVE! The time has come to venture forth to tame the Realm of Beasts in the Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Realms of Ruin Open Beta, right here on Steam. By participating in the Open Beta, you will have the chance to become an integral part of the development process, providing valuable thoughts and feedback to ensure a smooth and stable experience for players at the game's full launch.

It's not too late to join!
The Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Realms of Ruin Open Beta is now available to download and play today, running from July 7-10. A Frontier account is required to access the Open Beta. You can create one on our Frontier website if you don't currently have an account here. Simply navigate to the Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Realms of Ruin store page, here on Steam and follow the link there to download.

We're back! What's summer without new game demos to entertain you during those hot days and nights? Starting July 11 and running until July 17, you'll be able to experience over 40 game demos on your Xbox console.

A few things to keep in mind—these demos will only be up on the Xbox Dashboard for a week. Some might be re-published to the Demo channel later, but many will simply disappear at the end of the week, so check them out while you can! The developers would love to hear what you think. Hit them up on social media or through their websites. If you like the game - tell them! If you have constructive criticism, they would love to hear that too.

Greetings everyone! I'm Jovan, Technical Artist at Ebb Software. The whole team here found joy in bringing you nightmarish experiences that will fully immerse you into somber tapestries. And today we're excited to reveal that our first game, Scorn, will come to PlayStation 5 later this year. Many of you here may be new to Scorn, so for those less familiar with the game, you are about to experience a horrific adventure like no other. Trapped and stranded in a strange biomechanical world, you must make your way through a civilization in decay, now inhabited with twisted and grotesque creatures. While you will be able to wield various weapons in the game, Scorn is not a shooter, and each encounter can quickly turn deadly. Ammo and life are scarce, and your wits will often advise you to avoid direct confrontation. Instead, to progress through this mesmerizing labyrinth, you will have to revive and activate abandoned contraptions, part machine, part flesh, all horror.

We like to compare it to the experience of a nightmare. Most often, nightmares are described as strong subjective experiences that can be intensely distressing and frightening, eliciting emotional responses in dreamers, and causing feelings of fear, anxiety, and terror. Scorn tries to offer these emotions to its players in a very subtle manner through a somber atmosphere and its gloomy corridors.

A member of the amusingly named and low populated r/4090Burning subreddit has reported a strange incident where the PSU side of his 12VHPWR connector had melted. Shiftyeyes67k shared his equipment's plight two days ago and included two photos with his story: "Started noticing a smell coming from my PSU (be quiet! Dark Power 13 1000 W) recently that smelled like burnt plastic. Decided to swap it out and noticed that the 12VHPWR cable was burned...From everything I've read this generally happens to the connector on the GPU side so I'm wondering if anyone has seen this yet?" His feedback shows that the relatively new connection standard has ongoing reliability issues, even though most 16-pin connector problem cases have affected beastly GPUs such as NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 4090.

The be quiet! Dark Power 13 1000 W PSU has native support for the 16-pin cable standard, and no type of adapter was used in Shiftyeyes67k's example. Tom's Hardware reported on this sole incident recently, and a be quiet! representative responded to the article's content (updated today): "This is a unique case and we already have reached out to the customer to learn more." The company statement continues: "As our brand is known for highest quality standards, we treat this seriously and have initiated an investigation." be quiet! recommends that any customers experiencing similar issues should contact their support team directly. Tom's Hardware has attempted to get a comment from NVIDIA about the latest problem, but "an Nvidia spokesperson said we may not hear back for a few days due to a company closure."

Hello! We're excited to announce that we've just shipped a new version of the Steam Client to everyone. This update includes all the new Steam Desktop features that have been tested and fine-tuned in the beta branch. Before we get into the details, we want to thank our beta testers really quick - we couldn't have shipped without all of your invaluable feedback and bug reports!

New framework, new foundation
The most impactful changes in this update aren't immediately visible; much of the work went into changing how we share code across the Steam Desktop Client, Big Picture mode, and Steam Deck. These changes also means quicker implementation and iteration of new features. For example, many of the features in this update (like Notes in the overlay) are simultaneously shipping on Steam Deck because of the shared codebase.

Mark Liu, the executive Chairman of TSMC, has responded to recent reports released by the North American media about supposedly challenging workplace conditions. Current and former employees of the company's U.S operation have taken anonymously to Glassdoor to complain about "brutal" treatment on behalf of TSMC leadership—resulting in a 27% overall approval rating, which sits unfavorably next to the scores of nearby competitors—for example Intel gets 85%, albeit from far more user submissions. Liu has made comments to a Taiwanese news outlet (Focus Taiwan) where he suggests that: "those who are unwilling to take shifts should not enter the industry, since this field isn't just about lucrative wages but rather a passion for (semiconductors)."

TSMC is trying to meet staffing targets for its Phoenix, Arizona operation, but early feedback and difficult residential living could stifle this recruitment drive. Liu thinks that his North American division will offer potential employees a workplace culture that is unlike the one set for crew back in Taiwan. He told the local reporter that American TSMC team members will have an easier time, relative to how things are run at the company's native facilities. He also states that leadership is open to discussions with NA workers, as long as company values are followed (to a tee).

A huge thank you to all of our Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition players for your record-setting support and to everyone who has played Return of Rome so far! This is the biggest DLC launch in Age of Empires II history! We've been listening to your feedback and would like to share our plan to address the concerns regarding your in-game experience and your desire to see Age of Empires campaigns in Return of Rome.

We are actively monitoring the issues you're reporting and will address them as soon as possible. This includes disruptions to your hotkey settings, issues preventing UI mods from loading in correctly, and games failing to load. The hotkey disruption was a one-time adjustment. You can visit our support page if you need help getting them reconfigured. Our teams are paying close attention to the reports you make and are thankful for your continued trust.

Intel has published a highly involved and extensive whitepaper on the topic of streamlining its CPU architectures, most notably by focusing on a purely 64-bit specification, and consequently dropping legacy 32-bit operating modes (as well as 16-bit!). Team Blue's key proposal states: "This whitepaper details the architectural enhancements and modifications that Intel is currently investigating for a 64-bit mode-only architecture referred to as x86S (for simplification). Intel is publishing this paper to solicit feedback from the ecosystem while exploring the benefits of extending the ISA transition to a 64-bit mode-only solution."

The paper provides a bit of background context: "Since its introduction over 20 years ago, the Intel 64 architecture became the dominant operating mode. As an example of this evolution, Microsoft stopped shipping the 32-bit version of their Windows 11 operating system. Intel firmware no longer supports non UEFI64 operating systems natively. 64-bit operating systems are the de facto standard today. They retain the ability to run 32-bit applications but have stopped supporting 16-bit applications natively. With this evolution, Intel believes there are opportunities for simplification in our hardware and software ecosystem."

Store Quick-Search now includes developer pages and tags, also it will be better at handling of misspelled words. Today, we rolled out an update to the Steam store search to add more ways for players to search. Recently we've noticed more players searching for particular store hubs, tags, or developers so we've updated Steam store search to handle those destinations. For these new results, we'll show a new format with a subtle background generated from images of the most popular games in that result. Let's take a quick look at all the recent search updates...

Search for Developers, Publishers, and Franchises
Additionally, players can now search directly for your developer or publisher if you have set up a homepage. For more about developer and publisher homepages, please see: partner.steamgames.com/doc/store/creator_homepage. Looking for a particular developer or publisher on Steam? Excited about a specific gaming franchise? Now those appear in the quick search results too. Looking for "Bethesda" games? Or perhaps you want to browse all the "Star Wars" or "Final Fantasy" games. Now you can!

The Steamworks Development team has announced some welcome changes to how game trailers get displayed on product pages - users have provided feedback about the frustrating process of having to navigate through lots of videos (as many as 12!) before reaching game screenshots. Valve's storefront UI designers introduced the adjusted system yesterday: "These changes include new logic that determines the order of trailers and screenshots, plus the ability to specify a category for each trailer to show to players." Game developers will face a brand new restriction: "Starting today, a maximum of two trailers can appear in the row of thumbnails to the left of screenshots. Any remaining trailers will be displayed after the screenshots, resulting in a default view for players that always has a mix of screenshots and trailers in view." This a welcome change and effectively ends the frontloaded spamming of trailers in screenshot galleries.

Product page managers will need to be more selective with their choices of headlining footage: "You are welcome to upload as many trailers for your game as you wish, but it is important to select the order of your trailers to prioritize the ones you think will be most useful to potential new customers. You can specify the order of your trailers in the 'Edit Store Page' section of Steamworks, on the 'Trailers' tab...Ideally you'll want to give players a good look at the gameplay of your game in as short a time as possible. We recommend that your first trailer be one that features primarily gameplay, clearly demonstrating what the player will be doing in the game and how they will be interacting with the world you've built. Save your company logos or narrative storylines for further into your trailer once you've gotten the interest of a player.

Hello everyone, Antoine here, those who recognize me know that I used to work on Humankind during the last few years. I'm now working as a Producer on Endless Dungeon, which means I'm helping to coordinate the Endless Dungeon team to make sure we can deliver a high-quality experience for you. We have some news to share regarding the release date of ENDLESS Dungeon.

We have decided to delay the release of the game to the 19th of October of this year, this includes all the versions: PC, PlayStation 4/5, Xbox One, and Xbox X/S. The Nintendo Switch version will have a release date announced later. After all the feedback we've received we believe that it's important to spend extra time working on the game. We hope that you understand that decisions like this are never easy to make.

Microsoft's Window Defender engineering team has finally found the time to address a long term bug within its anti-malware software - relating to performance issues with Mozilla's Firefox web browser. User feedback stretching back to five years ago indicates extremely sluggish web surfing experiences, caused by a Windows "Anti-malware Service Executable" occupying significant chunks of CPU utilization (more than 30%). The combination of Firefox and Windows Defender running in parallel would guarantee a butting of (software) heads - up until last week's bug fix. A Microsoft issued update has reduced the "MsMpEng.exe" Defender component's CPU usage by a maximum of 75%.

Microsoft and Mozilla developers have collaborated on addressing the disharmonious relationship between Defender and Firefox. A plucky member of the latter's softwareengineering team has been very transparent about the sluggish browser experience. Yannis Juglaret has provided a string of project updates via Mozilla's Bugzilla tracking system - one of his latest entries provide details about the fix: "You may read online that Defender was making too many calls to VirtualProtect, and that global CPU usage will now go down by 75% when browsing with Firefox. This is absolutely wrong! The impact of this fix is that on all computers that rely on Microsoft Defender's Real-time Protection feature (which is enabled by default in Windows), MsMpEng.exe will consume much less CPU than before when monitoring the dynamic behavior of any program through Event Tracing for Windows (ETW). Nothing less, nothing more."

Apple's yet to be announced hybrid VR/AR headset is facing another setback and industry insiders are reckoning that the first iteration of the device will not be unveiled at the WWDC 2023 keynote - starting June 5. An industry analyst has been posting their theories via social media, and based on insider information believes that Apple is delaying production of the hybrid headset to late 2023. Ming-Chi Kuo's proposes this situation: "Apple isn't very optimistic about the AR/MR headset announcement recreating the astounding "iPhone moment," the mass production schedule for assembly has been pushed back by another 1-2 months to mid-to-late 3Q23. The delay also adds uncertainty to whether the new device will appear at WWDC 2023, as the market widely expects. Furthermore, due to the delay in mass production for assembly, the shipment forecast this year is only 200,000 to 300,000 units, lower than the market consensus of 500,000 units or more."

Internal hands-on sessions at Apple HQ have apparently brought to light major user issues with the mixed reality headset, and that feedback has caused a loss in confidence in launching the product in a "ready enough" state, especially in time for summer. Kuo concludes his theory: "The main concerns for Apple not being very optimistic regarding the market feedback to the AR/MR headset announcement include the economic downturn, compromises on some hardware specifications for mass production (such as weight), the readiness of the ecosystem and applications, a high selling price (USD 3,000-4,000 or even higher)."

Arkane Studios will be working on the removal of the single-player always online restriction from its upcoming Redfall first-person shooter game. This follows significant backlash expressed by gamers, after the presence of this function was brought to light in February 2023. In an interview conducted by Eurogamer, game director Harvey Smith has revealed that the Austin, Texas-based branch has taken the negative feedback seriously. The development team is active in making changes to Redfall's underpinnings, so that an offline single-player experience becomes a possibility.

Smith acknowledged that modern games are intrinsically linked to online services, but these should offer functionality when offline circumstances occur. He imagined situations from the perspective of being a potential Redfall player: "They could say: 'Oh, my God, you're always online. If you get on your Steam, and it's not online, you freak out. If you get on your Xbox, and you can't get the latest patch, or see what your friends are doing, you freak out. You want to be always online!' But that response, I think, lacks empathy."

We're starting to open access to Bard, an early experiment that lets you collaborate with generative AI. We're beginning with the U.S. and the U.K., and will expand to more countries and languages over time. Today we're starting to open access to Bard, an early experiment that lets you collaborate with generative AI. This follows our announcements from last week as we continue to bring helpful AI experiences to people, businesses and communities.

You can use Bard to boost your productivity, accelerate your ideas and fuel your curiosity. You might ask Bard to give you tips to reach your goal of reading more books this year, explain quantum physics in simple terms or spark your creativity by outlining a blog post. We've learned a lot so far by testing Bard, and the next critical step in improving it is to get feedback from more people.