Hello gang! We heard you like Baldur's Gate 3 and breaking things. Well, we have good news for you: The Patch 8 Stress Test is now live and available to all Xbox Insiders who own the game! Not into breaking things but still want to know what this is all about? Read to the end to find out what's coming in Patch 8.

Patch 8 Stress Test
The final major patch for Baldur's Gate 3 is right around the corner, but with an update so packed full of bug fixes, new features, and additions, we're enlisting your help to go beyond our internal testing and help us catch things before release. Patch 8 is bringing cross-play to Baldur's Gate 3, allowing players on all platforms to join each other in multiplayer sessions! So grab your friends on other platforms and get ready to fight… over who will romance each companion.

GeForce NOW is expanding mod support for hit game Baldur's Gate 3 in collaboration with Larian Studios and mod.io for Ultimate and Performance members. This expanded mod support arrives alongside seven new games joining the cloud this week.

Level Up Gaming
Time to roll for initiative—adventurers in the Forgotten Realms can now enjoy a range of curated mods uploaded to mod.io for Baldur's Gate 3. Ultimate and Performance members can enhance their Baldur's Gate 3 journeys across realms and devices with a wide array of customization options. Stay tuned to GFN Thursday for more information on expanding mod support for more of the game's PC mods at a later time.

Steam has set a new record of over 39 million concurrent players, breaking its earlier record of over 38 million set back in September. Some of the recently launched games like S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl, Marvel Rivals, and Path of Exile 2 are doing quite well.

As spotted by DSOGaming, the newest Steam record for concurrent players is set at 39,205,447. It took around three months to break the previous record of over 38 million concurrent players set back in September. When it comes to the list of most played games in the last 24 hours, Counter-Strike 2 and Dota 2 are still holding the top two places, but some recently launched games are also doing quite well.

Steam has officially launched its Summer Sale, and there are plenty of good game titles to be found across all genres. In addition, Steam is also doing a neat promotion on Steam Deck LCD models.

We had a quick look through the list and picked out a few that have caught our eye, but there are a lot of titles so we might have missed a few. As said, Steam is also running a promotion for its Steam Deck LCD models, the 64 GB and 512 GB one, which are 15 percent off during Steam Summer Sale. This year, Steam also launched a list of "extra-deep discounts", which is a selection of games that you just might not want to miss.

Qualcomm claimed that most Windows games will run (via emulation) on its upcoming series of ARM-based Snapdragon X Elite processors—during a "Windows on Snapdragon, a Platform Ready for your PC Games" presentation at the recently concluded GDC 2024 event. Issam Khalil (principal engineer) did not mention specific titles, but divulged that the Snapdragon Studios division has spent time working through "top games" on Steam. Qualcomm laptop-oriented Adreno GPU design is being hyped up as demonstrating an "80% performance uplift versus AMD's Radeon 780M iGPU," but the overall Snapdragon X Elite package is often compared to Apple's M3 chipsets (also ARM-based).

Reference laptops—running early Snapdragon X Elite silicon—have been distributed to favored partners. A semi-public showcase—recorded by Devin Arthur—revealed some promising gaming performance credentials on one of these devices. The self-proclaimed "Snapdragon Insider" was invited to the company's San Diego, California headquarters—Arthur happily reported that a red "23 W Snapdragon X Elite model" was demoing: "Baldur's Gate 3 running at 1080p hovering around 30 FPS, which is perfectly playable!" Specific visual settings were not listed in Arthur's substack article, or showcased during his brief video recording—but Qualcomm's claims about the Adreno GPU beating Team Red's best iGPU could be valid. Windows Central reckons that Control and Redout 2 have been demoed on Snapdragon X Elite devices.

Stolen Realm is a game that's been partly inspired by the work of Larian Studios, via the fantastic Divinity: Original Sin games, so while we've been finishing up Stolen Realm over the last few months, it's been fantastic to see Baldur's Gate 3 explode and show there is a huge appetite for games like ours. If you're one of those Xbox fans looking for a new game to scratch that Baldur's Gate 3 itch, we hope Stolen Realm will do that for you. However, we also want to tell you about the unique twists our game has that helps speed up combat, keeps you making fun choices and makes it perfect for co-op.

Stolen Realm has a synchronous turn system. This means that all the players on your team can all take their turns at the same time, the enemies likewise. With this system, our game offers the same kind of tactical combat you'd expect from the likes of Baldur's Gate 3 and Divinity: Original Sun, but with combat encounters that move at a far quicker pace. This means that when you're playing co-op with your friends, there's no waiting around for your turn while your buddy ponders his next move. You'll be onto the next step of your adventure in no time, so you can spend less time waiting and more time having friendly argument about whether you should go for another combat encounter, a special event, or some treasure as you move through our games diverse fantasy environments.

Top-tier games from publishing partners Bandai Namco Entertainment and Inflexion Games are joining GeForce NOW this week as the cloud streaming service's fourth-anniversary celebrations continue. Eleven new titles join the over 1,800 supported games in the GeForce NOW library, including Nightingale from Inflexion Games and Bandai Namco Entertainment's Tales of Arise, Katamari Damacy REROLL and Klonoa Phantasy Reverie Series.

"Happy fourth anniversary, GeForce NOW!" cheered Jarrett Lee, head of publishing at Inflexion Games. "The platform's ease of access and seamless performance comprise a winning combination, and we're excited to see how cloud gaming evolves."

Swen Vincke, the co-founder and CEO of Larian Studios, has reacted to Ubisoft's recent declarations about customers becoming increasingly comfortable with games subscription models. The discussion revolved around the French publisher's "evolved" tiers of Ubisoft+ services, but Vincke took great issue with (Director of Subscription) Philippe Tremblay's musings on the topic. Larian's leader has made it abundantly clear in the past that Baldur's Gate 3 will not be released outside of his preferred traditional distribution systems; he doubled down on this viewpoint with a barrage of Tweets: "Whatever the future of games looks like, content will always be king...But it's going to be a lot harder to get good content if subscription becomes the dominant model and a select group gets to decide what goes to market and what not. Direct from developer to players is the way."

Baldur's Gate 3 was a top seller in late 2023, and a critical darling in terms of reviews and awards—but Vincke is not prepared to compromise on his stance. It would be quite easy to reach a larger audience with BG3 getting an additional release on subscription platforms (e.g via Game Pass). He elaborated on this matter: "Getting a board to okay a project fueled by idealism is almost impossible and idealism needs room to exist, even if it can lead to disaster. Subscription models will always end up being cost/benefit analysis exercises intended to maximize profit."

Steam has announced the full list of Best of Steam games for this year across several categories. The list does not include a lot of big surprises but it is nice to see that some indie games also made it to the list. Categories include Top Sellers, New Releases, Most Played, Early Access, Steam Deck, Controller, and VR.

The Top Seller list include Baldur's Gate 3 from Larian Studios, which is also the Game of the Year winner, Hogwarts Legacy, which was a big game this year, DOTA 2 and Counter Strike 2, Cyberpunk 2077, Starfield, Lost Ark, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III, Apex Legends, PUBG Battlegrounds, Destiny 2, and Sons of the Forest. Some of the Top New Releases category, which is measured by gross revenue, include Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon, Cities: Skylines II, Resident Evil 4, Payday 3, Remnant II, Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, FC 24, as well as a few titles that are also top sellers like Starfield, Baldur's Gate 3, Hogwarts Legacy. and Sons of the Forest.

Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) today announced the PlayStation 5 console (PS5) has surpassed 50 million units sold through to consumers, three years since its Nov. 2020 launch. Thanks to the support of PlayStation fans globally, the PS5 console has experienced strong momentum this year, driven by a slate of highly popular games and SIE's continued focus on bringing innovation to the gaming experience, including PS5 game streaming for PlayStation Plus Premium members.

"Achieving this PS5 sales milestone is a testament to the unwavering support of the global PlayStation community and their passion for the incredible experiences created by the talented developers from PlayStation Studios and our partners," said Jim Ryan, President and CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment. "We're grateful for all of our players who have joined the PS5 journey so far, and we're thrilled that this is the first holiday season since launch that we have a full supply of PS5 consoles—so anyone who wants to get one can get one."

Michael Douse, the director of publishing at Larian Studios, has confirmed to Eurogamer that cross-play functionality is being worked on, although the team was not able to get it ready in time for release day code on PC (August 5) and PlayStation 5 (out today!): "It was always in the planning, but we knew it wouldn't be for launch. It's in the roadmap, and though we have an idea of when we'd like to get it ready for, we don't want to put a date on it until we're sure." Larian and the BG3 fan base are hoping to see players united in online multiplayer across PC and console platforms in the near future, with the Xbox version due to arrive at some point before the end of the year.

Technical and performance issues are present in the PlayStation 5 version—reviewers have noted that split-screen performance on Sony's console is choppy, with local multiplayer sessions forcing a 30 frames per second "Quality" visual mode. This perhaps provides a small insight into the problems encountered when developing split-screen mode for Xbox Series X and S platforms, with the latter proving to be the largest headache. Eurogamer's journalists were also privy to Larian highlighting: "in a pre-launch note to PS5 reviewers, problems with performance in the game's climactic final act in the city of Baldur's Gate. It said it was working hard to fix it. Remember, the studio has had issues with this area on PC too."

AMD today released the latest version of the Adrenalin software for Radeon RX GPUs. Version 23.8.2 WHQL comes with optimization for "Starfield" almost a week ahead of its September 6 release. This is probably because "Starfield" has a brand partnership with AMD, which includes the game being optimized for Radeon GPUs and Ryzen processors, as well as AMD selling or giving away special editions of its Radeon RX 7000 series and Ryzen 7000 series products. In terms of numbers Adrenalin 23.8.2 WHQL offers up to 16% increase for "Starfield" at 4K Ultra HD over the previous version, as tested using the RX 7900 XTX and RX 7900 XT GPUs. With this release, AMD has addressed just the one issue—an application crash or driver timeout when playing "Baldur's Gate 3" with DirectX 11 renderer on certain Radeon RX 7000 series GPUs.

DOWNLOAD: AMD Software Adrenalin 23.8.2 WHQL

The Xbox Series version of Baldur's Gate 3 was at risk of being delayed into 2024, thanks to Microsoft enforcing a policy of feature parity across S and X consoles. Larian Studios is reportedly still struggling to get split-screen co-operative mode running on Xbox Series S hardware, even with deployment of first party assistance. Swen Vincke, founder and CEO of Larian Studios, discussed these technical issues with Microsoft Gaming's head honcho at Gamescom last week—their tête-à-tête resulted in a positive outcome: "Super happy to confirm that after meeting Phil Spencer yesterday, we've found a solution that allows us to bring Baldur's Gate 3 to Xbox players this year still, something we've been working towards for quite some time." The game is due to launch—feature complete—on PlayStation 5 in early September, so Team Xbox appears keen to play catch up with its arch rival.

Vincke elaborated on the compromise: "All improvements will be there, with split-screen coop on Series X. Series S will not feature split-screen co-op, but will also include cross-save progression between Steam and Xbox Series." A firm release date has not been confirmed yet, but the official Xbox Twitter account later revealed that Microsoft engineers are committed to collaborating with the game's development team and resolve technical hurdles: "To answer some questions we're getting, we'll continue to work with Larian to explore the addition of split-screen on Series S post launch."

Hello everyone, we have released our first major patch for Baldur's Gate 3, addressing over 1000 bugs, balancing, flow issues and much, much more. So what can you expect from this update? Well, we've eliminated issues like NPCs who sometimes spot you when they really shouldn't be able to, floating items like mugs and newspapers that should abide the laws of gravity, and the conclusion to Shadowheart's romance scene not triggering for some players, among others. With expansive systems come many unknowns, so our support team continues to work with you to relay any issues to us. Please don't hesitate to reach out with further reports. Patch 1 also tackles a few visual bugs, and sprinkles on more post-launch polish. We're bringing back Short King Summer with better kissing contact for short races!

You won't be waiting long for Patch 2, which is right around the corner. This update will feature significant performance improvements - but we'll go into more detail about that closer to its release. In the meantime, did you know that collectively you've played over 200,000,000 hours of Baldur's Gate 3 since launch? That's over 22,000 years! The most popular class choice is currently Paladin, followed by Sorcerer, while the award for least popular class goes to Cleric. Human and Elf characters reign supreme in Faerûn, followed swiftly and unsurprisingly by Half-Elf. On the opposite end of the spectrum we find Dwarf, Gnome, Githyanki, and Halfling. We get it, they're not exactly the most ethereal beauties of the Realms but they'd still form a rad metal band. For now, as we focus on fixes, thank you for playing Baldur's Gate 3 and continuing to share this adventure with us.

Rise and shine, it's time to quake up - the GeForce NOW Ultimate KovaaK's challenge kicks off at the QuakeCon gaming festival today, giving gamers everywhere the chance to play to their ultimate potential with ultra-high 240 frames per second streaming. On top of bragging rights, top scorers can win some sweet prizes - including a 240 Hz gaming monitor.

Bethesda's award-winning titles Doom Eternal, Quake, Wolfenstein: The New Order, Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus and Wolfenstein: Youngblood heat up the cloud this week, leading 21 new games joining the GeForce NOW library. Plus, Baldur's Gate 3 has been a hit with members. Make sure to upgrade to Ultimate and Priority memberships today to skip the waiting lines over free members and get into gaming faster.

NVIDIA late Tuesday released the latest version of its GeForce Game Ready drivers. Version 536.99 WHQL adds optimization for "Baldur's Gate 3," besides "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre," and "Gord." Among the issues fixed with this release include screen-tearing and jitter noticed in cut-scenes of "Control," game stability issues with "Battlefield 2042" when applying GeForce Freestyle filters; general game stability issues when Freestyle filters are used with DLSS 3 enabled; stability issues with "Dead Space," and audio issues for Elgato Wave Link. Grab the drivers from the link below.

DOWNLOAD: NVIDIA GeForce 536.99 WHQL

An epic RPG six years in the making and more than twenty years in the waiting, Baldur's Gate 3 is out today on PC via Steam, GOG, and NVIDIA GeForce Now. The game releases at 8am PDT - see the attached map for the release time in your region. Baldur's Gate 3 is a next-generation RPG from the creators of Divinity: Original Sin 2, set in the world of Dungeons & Dragons and providing a level of breadth and depth unprecedented in a modern RPG.

More than twenty years after the release of Baldur's Gate 2, it's finally time to return to the Forgotten Realms. Your choices shape this tale of fellowship and betrayal, sacrifice and survival, and the lure of absolute power.

The Ultimate upgrade is complete - GeForce NOW Ultimate performance is now streaming all throughout North America and Europe, delivering RTX 4080-class power for gamers across these regions. Celebrate this month with 41 new games, on top of the full release of Baldur's Gate 3 and the first Bethesda titles coming to the cloud as the NVIDIA and Microsoft partnership benefits gamers everywhere.

And catch GeForce NOW at QuakeCon - the popular bring-your-own-PC mega-event running Aug. 10-13 - where the in-person and digital GeForce NOW Ultimate challenge will kick off. Plus, game on with gaming peripherals and accessories company SteelSeries, which will be giving away codes for three-day GeForce NOW Ultimate and Priority memberships, along with popular GeForce NOW games and in-game goodies.

Intel Graphics late Wednesday released the Arc GPU Graphics Software 101.4578 beta. These drivers come with Game On (day-zero) optimization for the hottest game release of this Summer, "Baldur's Gate 3." Intel beat both AMD and NVIDIA to be the first with optimized drivers for the game. The fantasy RPG releases later today. Given that the game is very easy on system requirements, you can expect the entire span of Intel Arc "Alchemist" graphics card to be perfectly suited to the game. The Arc A380 should be able to max out the game at resolutions of 1080p, while the A750 and A770 should max it out at 1440p and 4K Ultra HD.

DOWNLOAD: Intel Arc GPU Graphics Drivers 101.4578 beta

Happy launch week, folks! We hope you've printed out your lawyer-approved special dispensation form to explain your mysterious absence from work on August 3rd to your boss, because there are only two days to go before release. After six years in the making, Baldur's Gate 3's PC launch is right around the corner and we couldn't have gotten here without you. So let's have one last Community Update before then to wrap things up, answer some of your biggest questions, and reveal a few final surprises before you finally get stuck in.

Launch Day
So just how big is this game, anyhow? What time should you expect the game to release? And where did I put my keys? The answers to most of these questions can be found below.

Each week, we bring you news of the latest DLSS and ray tracing integrations in games and apps. Last week, Remnant II launched with DLSS 2, new DLSS 3 integrations were revealed, and Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart launched with NVIDIA DLSS 3, NVIDIA DLAA, NVIDIA Reflex, and NVIDIA RTX IO. August looks to be another great month for DLSS and RTX, headlined by the official launch of Baldur's Gate 3, enhanced with DLSS 2 and DLAA.

Additionally, DLSS 3 has been added to DESORDRE: A Puzzle Game Adventure and Remnant II, and will be available at the launch of Lost Soul Aside. And as for DLSS 2, Grand Emprise: Time Travel Survival has just launched with support for frame rate accelerating technology. For gamers with GeForce RTX GPUs, DLSS ensures you receive the definitive experience in each title, and thanks to GeForce RTX Ray Tracing Cores, you'll enjoy the highest possible frame rates when enabling ray-traced effects in DESORDRE: A Puzzle Game Adventure and Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart.

A seasoned wizard who infects her foes with the irresistible urge to dance. A high-level sorcerer who sows the seeds of chaos in battle with strategically placed portals. A bard that wields the psionic powers of a mindflayer (a.k.a illithid). Who will you become at the pinnacle of your power in Baldur's Gate 3? That's completely up to you. In Baldur's Gate 3, your late-game build can be as varied as you want it to be and can be changed at any time, giving you an opportunity to experiment with different spells and discover the class that complements your playstyle best.

Introducing illithid powers
In Baldur's Gate 3, you and your companions each carry the burden of a parasite that dwells within you, a tadpole placed deep inside your brain that poses a constant looming threat of illithid transformation. But as dangerous as these creatures may be, they are also a source of great power. For those who wish to experience their power, you need only to surrender to the tadpole within you and consume the parasites you find in jars and skulls throughout the Forgotten Realms.

As we enter the month of August, July still has a couple of new gaming titles to offer of which both obviously are launching on the same day. That said, August starts with a bang and brings a highly anticipated AAA title. The rest of this week's releases is as always a mix of games that will hopefully appeal to at least one of you, since the past polls suggest that the TPU readership is a picky crowd to please when it comes to games.

Baldur's Gate 3 / This week's AAA title / Thursday 3 August
Gather your party and return to the Forgotten Realms in a tale of fellowship and betrayal, sacrifice and survival, and the lure of absolute power. Mysterious abilities are awakening inside you, drawn from a mind flayer parasite planted in your brain. Resist, and turn darkness against itself. Or embrace corruption, and become ultimate evil. From the creators of Divinity: Original Sin 2 comes a next-generation RPG, set in the world of Dungeons & Dragons.

The Summer's most hotly anticipated game release, Baldur's Gate 3, is playable from August 3. The game's minimum- and recommended system requirements lists have been put out by its developer Larian Studios. We're happy to report that as expected, Baldur's Gate is light on the system requirements, to cater to as broad an audience as Diablo 3, the Spring's hottest RPG release.

Perhaps the steepest system requirement of Baldur's Gate is its disk space. The game calls for 150 GB of SSD storage space, which means it will be packed to the gills with content. The rest of the specs should please you. The minimum system requirements ask for an Intel Core i5-4690 or AMD FX 8350 processor, 8 GB of RAM, a GeForce GTX 970 or Radeon RX 480 graphics card, and Windows 10; so a 10-year old PC should meet the specs. The recommended requirements talk of either an Intel Core i7-8700K or AMD Ryzen 5 3600 processor, 16 GB of RAM, and either an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER or AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT graphics card—so a 4-year old rig should be enough to max out the game.

Everything you do in your playthrough of Baldur's Gate 3 affects the course of your journey. And it starts at the character creation screen. Each class, race, background, and Origin character has rippling effects on the world around you, triggering subtle permutations that change the Forgotten Realms in big, small, good, bad, exciting, and sometimes very bad ways. What is an Origin character? They're essentially playable heroes, each with their own stories, desires, and attitudes toward the world around you. If you don't play as them, they each become companions, who you may (or may not) recruit throughout your journey. You may have already met Shadowheart, Wyll, Gale, Astarion, Lae'zel, and Karlach - heroes with their own tales to tell, driven by your choices as the player. Of course, you can also customize your character and create an entirely new avatar, weaving their story through your actions with the same amount of depth & reactivity.

Today, however, we're looking at an entirely new way to play Baldur's Gate 3. The Dark Urge. A completely new customizable Origin, The Dark Urge can be created as any of the 11 races you'd like, but with their own Origin-like Dark Urge story as the backbone of your adventure. Bringing forth a trove of malevolent reactivity to Baldur's Gate, let's talk about The Dark Urge.