Today, AMD invades PC Building Simulator 2, as the Ryzen and Radeon brands get the star treatment in their very own AMD-themed workshop for the hit game from Epic Games. Available now on the Epic Games Store, you can grow your empire as you learn to repair, build and customize PCs at the next level. Experience deeper simulation, an upgraded career mode, and powerful new customization features. Use realistic parts from 40+ hardware brands to bring your ultimate PC to life.

In today's v1.6 update, developer Spiral House is sharpening up their peripheral options, unpacking some of the latest cases, adding two much anticipated graphics cards, and seeing a knight about a shovel. But even better? In today's update, players can give their workshop a "Red Team" makeover with the all-new AMD Workshop Theme. Check out PC Building Simulator 2 here.

Introducing Epic First Run, our opt-in exclusivity program for third-party developers and publishers on the Epic Games Store. Registration is open through our self-publishing flow in the Epic Developer portal. Additionally, we are kicking off Now On Epic: a new back catalog incentive program for developers and publishers to bring their previously released products to the Epic Games Store. Now On Epic gives participants the opportunity to boost their net revenue from user spending on eligible products from 88% to 100% in their first six months on the store on all payments processed by Epic Games. After this initial six-month run, participating titles will continue to benefit from Epic's industry-leading 88% / 12% revenue split.

The Epic Games Store is home to a global audience with over 230 million players and 68 million monthly active users. Releasing back-catalog content on the Epic Games Store helps reach new, incremental audiences and ensures that the content that our players are looking for can be consistently discovered. Participants can leverage publisher and franchise sale opportunities to maximize this unique opportunity during their participating titles' first six months on the Epic Games Store.

GeForce NOW brings expanded support for PC Game Pass to members this week. Members can stream eight more games from Microsoft's subscription service, including four titles from hit publisher Focus Entertainment.Play A Plague Tale: Requiem, Atomic Heart and more from the GeForce NOW library at up to 4K resolution and 120 frames per second with a GeForce NOW Ultimate membership. Plus, time's almost up to take on the Ultimate KovaaK's Challenge. Get on the leaderboard today - the challenge ends on Thursday, Sept. 21.

Laser-Focused
Four games from Focus Entertainment's PC Game Pass catalog join GeForce NOW this week. Members signed up with Microsoft's subscription service can now stream titles like A Plague Tale: Requiem, Atomic Heart and more titles at stunning quality across their devices - without additional purchases. Embark on a heartrending journey into a brutal, breathtaking world in the critically acclaimed A Plague Tale: Requiem or explore an alternate history of the 1950s Soviet Union in Atomic Heart. Go off road in SnowRunner or salvage among the stars in Hardspace: Shipbreaker. Members can even bring the squad together for military battles in Insurgency: Sandstorm. There's something for everyone. Experience it all with a PC Game Pass subscription, best paired with a GeForce NOW Ultimate membership, which provides up to 4K streaming or up to 240 FPS for the ultimate cloud gaming experience.

Today, we're introducing the Epic First Run program: an opt-in exclusivity program for third-party developers on the Epic Games Store. The new Epic First Run program gives participants the opportunity to boost their net revenue from user spending on eligible products from 88% to 100% in their first six months on the Epic Games Store. After their six-month run, participants will continue to benefit from Epic's 88%/12% revenue split.

The Epic Games Store is home to a huge, rapidly growing global audience with over 230 million players and 68 million monthly active users. Participating products in the Epic First Run program will be presented to those users on-store with new exclusive badging, homepage placements, and dedicated collections. In addition, products will be featured in relevant store campaigns including sales, events, and editorial as applicable. Once a product joins the program, it will benefit from continued exposure throughout its Epic First Run.

NVIDIA joined Pixar, Adobe, Apple and Autodesk today to found the Alliance for OpenUSD, a major leap toward unlocking the next era of 3D graphics, design and simulation. The group will standardize and extend OpenUSD, the open-source Universal Scene Description framework that's the foundation of interoperable 3D applications and projects ranging from visual effects to industrial digital twins.

Several leading companies in the 3D ecosystem already signed on as the alliance's first general members—Cesium, Epic Games, Foundry, Hexagon, IKEA, SideFX and Unity. Standardizing OpenUSD will accelerate its adoption, creating a foundational technology that will help today's 2D internet evolve into a 3D web. Many companies are already working with NVIDIA to pioneer this future.

Yesterday, Epic Games released a preview version of Unreal Engine 5.3—users can now try out the latest batch of improvements, as well as some new features. Epic's blurb Lumen boasts that their software engineers have refined "the workflows and capabilities of core features"—namely Nanite, and Path Tracing. Optimizations have resulted in "more control over performance" and overall better-looking visuals. Epic's own Fortnite, Layers of Fear (Bloober Team) and Remnant 2 (Gunfire Games) are the only currently released games running on Unreal Engine 5. Epic first showcased this technology back in 2020, with plenty of game development studios signing up to use it—but they have been slow in adapting to the feature-rich engine. In Remnant 2's case, Gunfire chose to not implement Lumen at launch.

Newly introduced experimental features include an upgraded particle rendering system—users are granted access to tool that can "create volumetrics such as smoke and fire directly inside Unreal." Epic's notes also mention that a Skeletal Editor has been added, for in-engine character weight and skinning work. Preview version 5.3 grants full support for Orthographic Rendering—useful in the fields of "architecture plus manufacturing visualizations, and stylistic games projects." Users will also see improvements in the Panel Cloth Editor and ML Cloth simulation system.

Get ready for Gunfire Games and Gearbox Publishing's highly anticipated Remnant II, available for members to stream on GeForce NOW at launch. It leads eight new games coming to the cloud gaming platform. Ultimate and Priority members, make sure to grab the Guild Wars 2 rewards, available now through Thursday, Aug. 31. Visit the GeForce NOW Rewards portal and opt in to rewards.

Kick off the weekend with one of the hottest new games in the cloud. Remnant II from Gunfire Games and Gearbox Publishing, sequel to the hit game Remnant: From the Ashes, is newly launched in the cloud for members to stream. Go head to head against new deadly creatures and god-like bosses while exploring terrifying new worlds with different types of creatures, weapons and items. With various stories woven throughout, each playthrough will be different from the last, making each experience unique for endless replayability.

Apple and Epic Games have been locked in a bitter legal feud for two years, relating to an antitrust case started by the latter company. The iPhone and Mac computer giant has made an appeal to the US Supreme Court—as demonstrated in a court filing that was released to the public on Monday (June 3). They request that justices take up its appeal of a ruling for tomorrow (June 7) by the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court (of Appeals). A 2021 verdict determined that Apple had to cease anti-steering practices. Apparently game developers were restricted to certain payment practices (imposing of fees) within the iOS App store. Epic Games sued Apple for anti-competitive practices back in 2020, with the US district court of California rejecting nine of out Epic's ten claims the following year—only the aforementioned anti-steering case was allowed to proceed.

The Ninth Circuit rejected petitions from Apple and Epic late last week—both companies urged that the court reconsider an April 2023 decision about the Californian law violation. Epic thinks that certain legal decisions have been made in Apple's favor, and the latter continues to rile against the App Store order. It argues that Epic was the sole "non-representative" plaintiff, yet the injunction applies to all iOS developers and US states outside of California. Apple believes that the ruling "raises far-reaching and important questions" about the federal court's limited authority to issue injunctions that apply to organizations not directly involved in the case.

Remedy Entertainment announced last month, via a FAQ, that it plans to keep Alan Wake 2 exclusive to digital platforms for an October 17 (this year) release, with no consideration given to customers demanding physical copies. Eurogamer questioned the game's creative director Sam Lake, and director Kyle Rowley at Summer Games Fest (earlier this month)—the site's reporter demanded a more detailed explanation regarding the long-anticipated sequel's eschewing of physical media. Lake responded first: "Yeah, it is digital only, and kind of coming to this idea, both from Remedy and Epic's perspective, that's our current thinking. It just felt it makes sense for this, and the timing felt right." His colleague, Rowley added further insight: "As creatives obviously, by going digital-only it does allow us more time to polish the game. Like, a significant number of weeks actually. Because otherwise, the game that goes on the disc, obviously it has to be playable without a patch. We didn't want to release something that we weren't proud of basically, and that we didn't want players to play. So hopefully this way we can give you a better version of the game."

The gaming community has debated at length about the temporary nature of digital releases—termination of online services and changes in ownership rights have resulted in certain titles becoming completely inaccessible to players/fans. Preservationists have fought hard for the continued release of physical media, but some publishers have resorted to bundling a download code in a disc-less retail box. Remedy Entertainment's FAQ proposes that digital platforms provide a more cost effective option for customers: "There are many reasons for this. For one, a large number of players have shifted to digital only. You can buy a Sony PlayStation 5 without a disc drive and Microsoft's Xbox Series S is a digital only console. It is not uncommon to release modern games as digital-only...Secondly, not releasing a disc helps keep the price of the game at $59.99 / €59.99 and the PC version at $49.99 / €49.99...Finally, we did not want to ship a disc product and have it require a download for the game - we do not think this would make for a great experience either."

Get into your favorite games faster by linking GeForce NOW to Steam, Epic Games Store and Ubisoft accounts. And get a peek at more games coming to GeForce NOW later this year by tuning in to Ubisoft Forward on Monday, June 12, when the game publisher will reveal its latest news and announcements. Plus, two new games are available to stream from the cloud this week, as well as the newest season for Tom Clancy's The Division 2 from Ubisoft. GeForce NOW makes gaming convenient and easy for members by enabling them to link their accounts from Steam, Epic and, most recently, Ubisoft, directly to the service. Instead of signing into their accounts for each play session, members can be automatically signed in across their devices after linking them up just once.

Starting today, launching Ubisoft Connect games requires members to link their Ubisoft accounts in the app. Once that's completed, members can effortlessly play hit Ubisoft games, including Rainbow Six Siege, Far Cry 6 and The Division 2. Members also have the benefit of library account syncing, which automatically syncs supported GeForce NOW games from Ubisoft Connect and Steam libraries - helping members find their Ubisoft games instantly. For an even more streamlined experience, upgrade to an Ultimate or Priority membership to skip the waiting lines over free members and get into gaming faster.

The doors of The Vault have ker-chunked open once again, revealing Epic MEGA Sale's week three highlights. Inside, you'll find asymmetrical multiplayer spook hunting game Midnight Ghost Hunt desperate to escape into your games library, and a fancy, free Fall Guys' Costume to look good in the Blunderdome.

This is also the first week you can start redeeming your Epic Rewards, and we've highlighted some brand-new games you can spend them on. Spend lots and prosper.

The Vault is open again, and inside we have … more vaults! Our free game this week is Fallout: New Vegas Ultimate Edition, which is famously full of vaults. You can grab the classic post-apocalyptic RPG from 11 AM May 25, 2023 to 11 AM, June 1.

For this week's giveaway, we have one free month of Discord Nitro, letting you access the awesome app's subscription-only features for a limited time.

Yesterday, at The PlayStation Showcase event, Remedy Entertainment and Epic Games unveiled a brand new gameplay trailer and announced that Alan Wake 2, the long-awaited and highly anticipated sequel to the studio's award-winning psychological thriller will launch on October 17. Alan Wake 2 will be available digitally for PC on the Epic Games Store, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S. Pre-orders for Alan Wake 2 are now available.

The trailer introduces Saga Anderson (played by Melanie Liburd), an accomplished FBI agent with a reputation for solving impossible cases, who arrives to investigate murders in the small town community of Bright Falls in the Pacific Northwest. Anderson's case spirals into a nightmare when she discovers pages of a horror story that starts to come true and questions how it may be connected to missing writer Alan Wake, whose own dark story eerily mirrors her own.

It's time! The Vault is open, and the Epic MEGA Sale 2023 starts…. Now! There are more opportunities to save than ever in one of the biggest sales we've ever had. We have enormous discounts of up to 75% off select titles. The Epic Coupon returns, with additional savings of 25% on eligible games. And we just launched a brand new Epic Rewards program that lets you earn 5% of your purchase back to spend on your next eligible Epic Game Store transaction.

There's more! Over the next four weeks, four free games and four giveaways will be up for grabs during the sale. Check in every Thursday, between May 18, 2023 (11 AM ET) to June 15, 2023 (11 AM ET), to see what's new. If you're reading this, the sale has already begun. It's live from May 18, 2023 (11 AM ET) to June 15, 2023 (11 AM ET). Go, go, go!

We're excited to announce that Unreal Engine 5.2 is now available. With this release, we've further expanded UE5's groundbreaking toolset as it continues to deliver on the promise of making Unreal Engine the most open and advanced real-time 3D creation tool in the world. Alongside feature refinements and stability improvements, Unreal Engine 5.2 pushes the boundaries of what creators can expect out of the box, delivering innovative new functionality.

Procedural Content Generation framework
Unreal Engine 5.2 offers an early look at a Procedural Content Generation framework (PCG) that can be used directly inside Unreal Engine without relying on external packages. The framework includes both in-editor tools and a runtime component. The PCG tools enable you to define rules and parameters to populate large scenes with Unreal Engine assets of your choice, making the process of creating large worlds fast and efficient.

Ubisoft is slowly migrating availability of its flagship games over to the Steam store, and gaming fans will be happy to find out about this move. A lot of the French video game publisher's popular titles (on PC) have been locked to their own Connect service and the Epic Games Store. Far Cry-series fans on the PC platform having been shouting and complaining about one particular entry being tied to the pair of e-shops since launching back in October 2021. That timed deal between Ubisoft and Epic Games is soon to expire, and Far Cry 6 will become available via Steam on May 11.

Ubisoft implemented a reversal of releasing games on Steam back in 2019, a decision that attracted almost instant negative feedback from PC Gamers. The Division 2 was announced as being the 2019 headliner for release on Ubisoft Connect and Epic Games Store, and (at the time) other upcoming titles would follow the same path. Murmurs of a possible return to Steam emerged in late 2022, and shortly thereafter Ubisoft proceeded to rollout big franchise titles on that platform, including Assassin's Creed Valhalla and Immortals Fenyx Rising. The latest batch to get the Steam store release day treatment are (the aforementioned) Far Cry 6 on May 11th, Riders Republic on June 8th, Rainbow Six Extraction on June 15th, and finally Monopoly Madness on June 22nd.

Paradox Interactive today revealed more details about Life by You, created to be the most moddable and open life simulator from the Berkeley, CA based Paradox Tectonic. In Life by You, players will create humans and live out their lives without loading screens. Paradox Tectonic is led by Rod Humble, a games industry veteran known for his pioneering work on the life simulation genre. Life by You will be available in Early Access on September 12, eager players can pre-order today on the Epic Games Store for a suggested retail price of 39.99USD / 39.99 EUR / 34.99 GBP, wishlisting will also be available on Steam.

Life by You allows players to design and live out the lives of the humans that they create in an open game world where everything is customizable. Players create their households, build their homes and tell life's many stories. With real language conversation and the ability to switch from third-person to direct control gameplay, players will connect with their humans on an emotional level. A wide variety of Creator Tools and Editors will allow players to tweak every aspect of their experience, giving them the ability to live life to the fullest - or break the rules, as they see fit.

On Tuesday, Microsoft and NVIDIA announced the companies have agreed to a 10-year partnership to bring Xbox PC games to the NVIDIA GeForce NOW cloud gaming service, which has more than 25 million members in over 100 countries. The agreement will enable gamers to stream Xbox PC titles from GeForce NOW to PCs, macOS, Chromebooks, smartphones and other devices. It will also enable Activision Blizzard PC titles, such as Call of Duty, to be streamed on GeForce NOW after Microsoft's acquisition of Activision closes.

"Xbox remains committed to giving people more choice and finding ways to expand how people play," said Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer. "This partnership will help grow NVIDIA's catalog of titles to include games like Call of Duty, while giving developers more ways to offer streaming games. We are excited to offer gamers more ways to play the games they love."

Fortnite maker, Epic Games, has on Monday reached a settlement in court in an investigation by the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC), to pay a total of 520 million US Dollars in fines. This fine is because Epic deployed shady tactics of manipulating children into purchasing Fortnite V-bucks, skins, etc., without proper consent forms and purchase order confirmations. Even with millions of complaints from parents, Epic decided to proceed with its tactics and used dark patterns that deceived the original intent. Thus, the FTC has made a case that this violates the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) rule, and Epic Games will have to pay the fine.

The fine is consists of two separate causes. The $275 million monetary penalty for violating the COPPA Rule—the largest penalty ever obtained for violating an FTC rule, and the $245 million to refund consumers for its dark patterns and billing practices. The refund fine is FTC's most considerable refund amount in a gaming case and its most significant administrative order in history. Epic said, "Over the past few years, we've been making changes to ensure our ecosystem meets the expectations of our players and regulators, which we hope will be a helpful guide for others in our industry. " The official statement is far longer, and you can read about it here.

Epic Games is excited to announce that Unreal Engine 5.1 is now available. With this release, we've built upon the groundbreaking feature set introduced in UE5, making it more robust, efficient, and versatile for creators across all industries. As part of this effort, we've been stress-testing the engine against different workflows, making it applicable to more sectors. We've laid the groundwork for the Lumen dynamic global illumination and reflections system, the Nanite virtualized micropolygon geometry system, and Virtual Shadow Maps (VSM) to support games and experiences running at 60 FPS on next-gen consoles and capable PCs, enabling fast-paced competitive games and detailed simulations to run without latency.

Meanwhile, Nanite has also been updated with a Programmable Rasterizer to allow for material-driven animations and deformations via World Position Offset, as well as opacity masks. This exciting development paves the way for artists to use Nanite to program specific objects' behavior, for example Nanite-based foliage with leaves blowing in the wind. This release adds a number of features to improve efficiency for developers of games and other large-scale interactive projects, helping teams be more productive.

Atari—one of the world's most iconic consumer brands and interactive entertainment producers—today launches its new title, Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration, commemorating 50 years of success, growth, and progress in the video game industry. Available now on Nintendo Switch, Xbox One and Series X|S, PlayStation 4|5, and Windows PC, Atari 50 functions as an interactive trek through Atari's historic past, featuring a selection of the publisher's most iconic games, and brands, as well as showcasing the creative individuals who launched the video game industry.

A mix of video game collection-meets-anthology, Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration showcases the history of Atari through a combination of retro and modern playable games, short videos, never-before-seen interviews, early development diaries, and more. Emulating seven separate console platforms, and containing titles spanning five decades, the library-styled interface presents over 100 video games sorted by era in an intuitive linear timeline. Other files and materials are also part of the package, including early development sketches, hardware schematics, internal memos, pictures, films, and other "artifacts," the majority of which have never been made public.

SOEDESCO launches first-person horror mystery game Charon's Staircase on Steam, Epic Games Store, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and Nintendo Switch. In order to announce the news, SOEDESCO and Indigo Studios released an exciting launch trailer, available in multiple languages.

Uncover the dark secrets that lie beneath Oack Grove
In Charon's Staircase, you set out to bury the horrible past of an institution called "The Ministry" by retrieving and destroying classified documents. Venture through nightmarish landscapes, solve puzzles, decipher codes, and avoid dangers to unravel the macabre events that took place years ago in the experimental facility of Oack Grove. Charon's Staircase is a story filled with mystery while telling a dark and dramatic narrative through its ominous environments, chilling details and fully-voiced narration. Will you discover the terrifying truth and find your way out?

Verizon, the Network America relies on, together with Razer, the leading global lifestyle brand for gamers, today unveiled the Razer Edge 5G, the ultimate 5G handheld gaming device during the keynote address of RazerCon 2022. This groundbreaking collaboration will bring to market the world's first dedicated 5G handheld console—equipped with the world's most advanced display of any gaming handheld, powered by the latest Snapdragon G3xFort Gen 1 Gaming Platform, and running on Verizon 5G Ultra Wideband, the 5G network for gaming. It is specifically engineered to provide the best gaming performance while on the go.

"The core concept of every product we put out always boils down to one thing, our 'For Gamers. By Gamers.' motto," said Richard Hashim, Head of Razer's Mobile & Console Division. "With the Razer Edge, we've created the ultimate handheld gaming platform. Together with Verizon and Qualcomm, we designed the Razer Edge 5G to be a true gamer device, capable of supporting gamers' entire catalogs of AAA games or allowing them to stream endlessly online, taking their gaming experience on the go with low latency."

Western Digital Corp., an industry-leading provider of storage technologies and solutions, today announced a new partnership with Epic Games and Nintendo to deliver the first officially licensed Fortnite SanDisk microSDXC card for Nintendo Switch. The exclusive Fortnite branded memory card for Nintendo Switch is designed to provide players with consistent and reliable storage as they drop into Fortnite, no matter how they play. The card has also been tested and approved for use with all Nintendo Switch Systems and is backed by a limited lifetime warranty to give gamers the peace of mind needed to land in command.

Inspired by the epic Skull Trooper (128 GB) and legendary Cuddle Team Leader (256 GB) Outfits, the exterior design of the cards pay homage to some of the most rare and popular Outfits in the game. As a bonus, fans who purchase the card will receive a code to redeem the rare Angular Flow Wrap, sure to mesmerize any squadmate.

Ghostbusters: Spirits Unleashed, a 4v1 hunt or haunt action-packed asymmetrical multiplayer is available for pre-order, August 18, 2022, 8 a.m. PT. The latest game from IllFonic, Inc. will be playable Tuesday, October 18, 2022, on PC via Epic Games Store, PlayStation 4|5, Xbox Series X|S and Xbox One. Form a team with up to three other Ghostbusters to track down Ghosts haunting a number of locales. Sniff out paranormal activity with the P.K.E. Meter and charge it to unleash a short-range pulse disabling Ghost movement. Unveil hidden rifts acting as the Ghost's spawn points and teleportation portals, and destroy them. Use the powerful Particle Throwers to capture the Ghost, deploy a trap, and wrangle them into it before they escape!

Meanwhile, the Ghost works alone, roaming around stages like the Museum, an abandoned Prison, and other spooky locations, including a new one to be revealed at Gamescom. Frighten civilians to scare them away. Possess objects to raise the overall Global Haunt percentage, to regain ghost power, or just cause mass hysteria. Use slime to temporarily stun Ghostbusters. Move the rifts to keep them guessing, summon minions to make an escape, and show the Ghostbusters they should be afraid of this Ghost!