"This just in, over one thousand officers have pledged to assist the ACPD in the BIGGEST city clean-up Averno has ever seen"—Bree Bookman, ACTV. We wanted to take a moment to say a huge thank you to all of the players who have helped support us during what has been, dare we say it, a criminally good launch for us! We've been blown away by all of the positive comments we've received, and all of the useful bug reports and feedback that you have sent our way. We want to assure you that, even though we may not respond to every single review or report, we are looking at all of them and incorporating them into our future strategy. What strategy is that? Read on to find out more about what the future holds for The Precinct.

Together with Kwalee, we've been tracking your most urgent and requested fixes. Our programming team is already hard at work tackling the biggest issues. This is what we're focusing on in the short-term, but in the mid-to-long-term we're also compiling suggestions from your feedback to decide what extra features and content we can add to The Precinct in the future. We are committed to adding more content to the game, but we haven't decided yet exactly what that will be.

Hey everyone, Mafia Game Director Alex Cox here. On behalf of the team at Hangar 13, we were thrilled to unveil our Gameplay Trailer for Mafia: The Old Country. With so many in-game details to pore over, I wanted to take this opportunity to offer some extra insights into all of the exciting action we just revealed. Here's a breakdown on some of the finer details we've packed into each scene of the trailer. As our protagonist, Enzo Favara, rides out after receiving orders from Don Torrisi, you may notice the striking contrasts between the various environments of 1900s Sicily on display. From dirt roads flanked by rural villages to dark catacombs, ornate mansions, and more, the game's distinctive setting includes a wide variety of richly detailed locales—all authentically overlapping in a way unique to this rapidly changing time period. We were spoiled for choice when deciding which visually stunning vistas would serve as the lifelike backdrop for our gritty crime drama.

Following Enzo as he descends into an ancient cistern, you'll get a closer look at Mafia: The Old Country's grounded, era-appropriate combat - including a brutal showcase of Enzo's stiletto blade in action. After quietly dispatching the guard outside, Enzo distracts the next patrolling enemy before burying a knife in his neck. Spotting another guard nearby, he hurls his blade, silently killing him from range - a moment too late as others are alerted. Even as the situation erupts into a tense firefight, this encounter highlights how gameplay blends stealth with guns-blazing combat. Each approach complements the other, creating a scrappier, more resource-strapped experience. Enzo may have missed two shots, but with the help of his knife and an explosive lantern, he clears the room using only four bullets. A core pillar of Mafia: The Old Country's combat design is the idea that "every bullet counts"—so think twice about relying solely on your firearms!

The Cleanest Launch Ever! Hey Cleaners! What a launch! We're incredibly grateful for the support you've shown us—your reviews, your Discord messages, your bug reports, and your amazing vibes. Thanks to your quick feedback, we were able to jump on a few issues right away and already pushed out a hotfix. Welcome to the most satisfying job simulator you never knew you wanted! Grab your gloves, turn up the music, and get ready to clean, sort, and pack stacks of dirty money. It's part oddly satisfying cleaning sim, part fever dream. And yes, every single banknote is physics-simulated, because why not?

But that's not all
We're already working on a new patch coming next week! And once again, it's based entirely on your feedback. So if you spot something weird or have a cool idea, now's a great time to share it. Every message helps! Also…you've already left 300 reviews on Steam. That's HUGE. Early reviews make a big difference in visibility. They help new players find the game through "New & Trending" and other Steam features. If you haven't posted review yet and feel like supporting us, just a few words go a long way. You can always edit it later too. We read everything! That includes the comments under your reviews. Your voice matters and truly helps shape the game's future. Thank you.

Welcome to the second to last full week of the year of 2024 and hopefully the last week in the office for most of you. This week's major release revolves around Xenomorphs, but unfortunately requires a VR-headset, but if you've been nice, maybe Santa will bring you one? The rest of this week's new releases turns you into an animal detective, being in charge of a pirate ship, being a young car mechanic in Poland in the 90's, a viking adventure in the netherworld and finally trying to solve some late night crimes in the Victorian era.

Alien: Rogue Incursion / This week's major release / Thursday 19 December / VR Game
Experience the universe of the Alien films like never before: in terrifyingly immersive single-player VR. An all-new action-horror entry into the classic franchise, Alien: Rogue Incursion transforms you into Zula Hendricks-the ex-Colonial Marine hellbent on exposing Weyland-Yutani's black-site experiments-on an extremely dangerous mission to the uncharted planet Purdan. With her synth companion Davis 01 for guidance, Zula must infiltrate the infested Gemini Exoplanet Solutions research facility and survive the ever-present threat of the most cunning Xenomorphs ever encountered, with both skilled stealth and serious firepower at her disposal. And when the threat she discovers has extinction-level consequences, Zula suddenly finds herself with humanity's fate on her shoulders. Steam link

At the turn of the 1980s, most PC adventure games were played using only the keyboard. In those days, adventure games didn't use action menus like more modern games, but simply presented the player with a command line where they could freely input text to decide the actions that characters would take and proceed through the story. Free text input systems like these allowed players to feel a great deal of freedom. However, they did come with one common source of frustration: players knowing what action they wanted to perform but being unable to do so because they could not find the right wording. This problem was caused by the limitations of PC performance and NLP technology of the time.

40 years have passed since then, and PC performance has drastically improved, as have the capabilities of NLP technology. Using "The Portopia Serial Murder Case" as a test case, we'd like to show you the capabilities of modern NLP and the impact it can have on adventure games, as well as deepen your understanding of NLP technologies.

The FBI has recently issued a Public Service Announcement (PSA) from the agency's Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3), the division responsible for receiving, collating and categorizing digital threats. According to the PSA, the bureau has seen a relevant increase in the number of complaints surrounding the usage of deepfake technology: actors are now combining deepfake videos with stolen citizen credentials in order to apply to remote jobs.

Deepfakes (AI-generated or AI-assisted videos falsifying human beings) are a relatively known quantity even in mainstream media - particularly due to screenwriter and director Jordan Peele's 2018 showcase of how believable the technology was in animating an otherwise digital ex-president, Barack Obama. While the tech first made forays in the Internet's underground, the increasing ease with which bad actors can weaponize the technology is raising alarms throughout most sectors - or at the very least, they should be.

Members form the UK Parliament are apparently preparing to introduce a bill that would regulate the scalping phenomenon that's being witnessed worldwide. According to Scottish politician Douglas Chapman, in an interview to IGN, "The issue of scalping first came up with constituents contacting me to explain their frustration about being unable to get hold of certain games consoles or computer components pre-Christmas." He then expanded on that by adding that "On investigation, we uncovered more details of the unscrupulous practice of 'scalping' by automated bots to bulk buy these goods and sell them on at inflated prices." Oh, and this bill is unlikely to pass, by the way.

Scalping, however, isn't done only in the UK; it's a pervasive international issue that crosses borders. And scalping, as it is known, is nothing but a form of speculation, which some might say is part of the backbone that keeps the world's capitalist blood pumping through the economy - some might even argue that scalping occurs directly due to mechanisms of supply and demand, and thus, isn't an unlawful activity in and of itself. Companies, corporations, and all other legal entities, however, have to adhere to strict anti-monopoly/anti-cartelization laws, which deal with the same base issue, although in another facet of it. The problem is that it appears that in some countries, speculation is regulated at the enterprise level, but not at the citizen level. And herein lies the crux of it.

MySpace has gotten quite a bad reputation. It was put off as a "dates-r-us" for pedophiles at one point, at another it was seen as a distraction to minors, but now it seems like MySpace got a crown for the pile of dirt on their doorstep. Police departments all around America are confirming that criminal gangs (mostly local) are recruiting on social networking sites, especially MySpace. What's worse still is that gang fights will start on the internet, and then people will take them to the street. Some gangs will even post a form of propaganda, just for the purpose of getting children to join their gangs. In response to this story, some social networking sites have already declared that anything illegal or gang-related is immediately deleted and cause for an on-the-spot ban.