Amazon Game Studio's Crucible is a free-to-play team-based action shooter that's set for release on Steam May 20th. Crucible is an interesting-looking game with MOBA and hero shooter elements where you fight enemy players and AI enemies with your team while adapting to the map. When playing the game you gather Essence the in-game currency to help level up your character. The game will come with three game modes at launch Heart of the Hives a two teams of four first to three game, Alpha Hunters a eight teams of two last team standing game, and Harvester Command a two teams of eight game. You can view the gameplay trailers and more information below.

SteamDB developer Pavel Djundik has uncovered evidence of a Steam loyalty scheme in some recent code strings. The developer detailed how the scheme may consist of a points system where users can redeem points for badge levels and possibly game discounts. This discovery comes just as the dates for the next Steam sale were leaked to be the 25th June - 9th July so this new loyalty scheme may launch alongside the sale and replace previous sale schemes.

Djundik has also discovered potential changes to the Steam review system with the introduction of user reactions. These reactions include deep thoughts, heartwarming, hilarious, hot take, poetry, and helpful. Djundik has an excellent track record for leaks regarding Steam just last week predicting the announcement of Yakuza: Like a Dragon, so it will be interesting to see if this new loyalty scheme gets released.

As revealed during Microsoft's Inside Xbox show, Codemasters is delighted to announce DIRT 5, launching from October 2020 on Xbox Series X, PlayStation 5, Windows PC (via Steam) and the current generation of Xbox and PlayStation consoles. A Google Stadia version will be released in early 2021. Whilst respecting the heritage and retaining the DNA of the franchise, DIRT 5 writes a new chapter in the legacy of DIRT - bolder and braver than ever before. DIRT 5 is more than relentless rallying, more than suspension-shaking jumps, more than hairpins and handbrakes. Join an energised world of off-road racing, and be part of a vibe that delivers big on epic action, pure expression, and unbridled style.

MSI has announced that it is running an upgrade program for its Z490 motherboards. The program is valid for motherboards purchased from May 6th through June 15th. This program will essentially see you being rewarded with a Steam wallet code worth $50 should you purchase a new MSI Z490 motherboard to replace the old (or maybe just last-generation) motherboard you own from Intel. To this effect, MSI is requiring users to register their new motherboard online, take a picture of the boards' serial number, and upload another picture with your new motherboard and old one side by side - the ultimate shame towards your old, trusty piece of hardware.

The promotion applies to select MSI motherboards, with rewards being tiered according to the expense you had on the new MSI board. As such, users who acquired MSI's MEG Z490 GODLIKE or MEG Z490 ACE will be rewarded with $50 back. Users who purchased the cheapest Z490 motherboard, the MPG Z490
GAMING PLUS, however, will only see a $10 credit. Interestingly, MSI has included both its own, pre-Z490 motherboards as eligible for the upgrade program... As well as ASUS'. And that's it. No other manufacturers' boards are being accepted. Make of that what you will.

Valve has announced that SteamVR will drop support for the macOS platform so that development teams can focus on Windows and Linux support. SteamVR users running macOS who wish to continue using SteamVR will need to opt-in for legacy macOS builds from the "Beta" tab under SteamVR properties. This measure will probably stop functioning relatively quickly as new hardware and software changes appear. This move doesn't come as much of a surprise as the macOS platform isn't known for its VR activity, in the long-term macOS users will have to migrate to an alternate operating system or dual boot if they wish to continue accessing SteamVR.

The Epic Games store has seen continuous updates since its launch in 2018 adding various additional features, now surpassing many other game launchers such as Origin, Uplay, and battle.net in terms of features and hot on the heels of Steam. In the latest update to the platform Epic has added support for five new local currencies, users in Canada, Australia, Sweden, Denmark, and Norway can now pay for games on the launcher in their native currencies. This addition is one of many Epic have been releasing from their public roadmap which lists trending pages, mod support, and offline sign-in all as features coming soon.

Within the #stayhome initiative, free games are one of the best ways for us techies to pass our time whilst giving our computers time to rest in-between Folding@Home calculations. If you're looking to get your PC to render beautiful 2D and 3D scenarios set in feudal Japan, one of the best entries in recent years in the Total War series of PC strategy games, SHOGUN 2, is now available for free until may 1st on Steam. Just navigate to the store page for the game to download it.

SHOGUN 2 has been very well received by the PC gaming community, sitting currently with a 90 Metascore based on critic reviews and a 8.4 average user score. It's widely considered to be the best entry in the series after the legendary Medieval Total War 2, and that's saying a lot for this genre of games. Have some hundred hours to spare? This is the free game to get. And if you're looking at other Total War entries, Creative Assembly is currently holding a sale on Steam that brings prices down for select titles in the franchise.

Source Code of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and Team Fortress 2 got leaked today. It seems like Valve hasn't been careful with control of its output, and a few leaks came out. All of the licensees of the Source Engine, a multi-platform game engine used in all Valve's games like Dota 2, Half-Life, and CS: GO, have been empowered by Valve with access to the source code of 2017/2018 versions of CS: GO and Team Fortress 2. Someone down the line, however, took that opportunity and access to leak the source code. The original news source is the SteamDB Twitter account, so we don't have any link to the actual source code.

This pretty big news since CS: GO can be considered as the most popular game on the Steam platform, and IP that Valve holds on it is very valuable. The 2017/2018 version that is leaked is probably outdated by a mile now, but it still represents an act of theft and should be treated as such. We are yet to see the response from Valve and how they will handle this situation.

Project Proton is a tool developed by Valve Software which allows Windows games to run on Linux through Steam. The project was launched in 2018 as a forked version of WINE with some additional features such as DirectX over Vulkan. According to ProtonDB a fan page which reports game compatibility there are now over 6,500 games which work flawlessly without any modifications on Linux.

This is an amazing achievement for the Linux gaming community and outshines the work of any porting company, at the current rate over 100 games are gaining complete compatibility each month and the average quality of games has also increased. Out of the top 1000 Steam games 67% run perfectly after minor tweaks.

Valve may be working on a new Steam Controller with swappable components like those found on the Xbox Elite Controller according to recently published patents. While this patent doesn't guarantee we will see a next generation steam controller it does highlight Valve's internal efforts in developing a new controller. The original steam controller wasn't the success many had hoped for and was discontinued in late 2019 after a myriad of issues.

The patent was filed in late 2018 but was only published last month and reveals several interesting abilities of the controller, the new version while maintaining the distinctive steam controller design would swap the joystick for a D-pad. The patent also includes information about a feature that would introduce more customization options for button and trigger mapping depending on the game or software. These ideas build on the original premise of the steam controller and presents a vast array of modding options.

Steam has just released its hardware survey for March 2020, and it paints an interesting picture on the overall Steam user market. First of all, a disclaimer: Steam's survey's don't refer to the entirety of the systems that are running its digital distribution platform; it hails from only a part of the connected machines which are randomly selected - ideally, in such as way so as for its hardware data to be representative of the overall Steam ecosystem.

The March 2020 hardware survey shows Intel CPUs gaining traction over AMD's, albeit in a very limited fashion (a 0.24% increase in total number of machines running with GenuineIntel CPUs). Cross referencing this increase with the average clockspeeds of Intel CPUs, though, paints an interesting picture: the higher clockspeeds in the 3.3 to 3.8 GHz range (which can relatively cleanly be associated with the company's higher-performance products), saw a decline in usage (contrary to AMD, which saw the reverse happening).

Steam, an online platform for gaming, has seen some incredible numbers in terms of usage last night. Thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic and the fact that many people are in quarantine/self-isolation mode, the number of concurrent users of the platform has skyrocketed. Beating all the previous records of 18 million and 20 million concurrent users, Steam saw as much as 23 million concurrent users last night. Precisely 23,572,311 of users online, setting a new record-high number. The most played games were Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, Dota 2, and PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds. For more statistics, please see here.

Valve's Half Life: Alyx has been finally released, after the company first teased, and then unwrapped the game back in November 2019. Half Life: Alyx has been completely developed for the VR gaming crown, with a focus on execution that meant for it to finally be VR's killer app - much like Halo was for the original Xbox. Valve describes the game as a full-length release in the Half Life universe, slotting in the 20-year time gap between the events of the original Half Life and Half Life 2.

Of course, to play this game, you need a PC-based VR headset to play the game through Steam. The game has received rave reviews already, featuring a 93 Metacritic score based on 24 critic reviews, and an 8.2 user score. Give it some time before actually looking for guidance in that user review score, though. Valve founder Gabe Newell had this to say: "Half-Life: Alyx represents the culmination of Valve's technological advancement over the past few years. We have built SteamVR, our game engine, our tools, and VR hardware specifically to enable us to ship the best content we know how to create. Today, as we ship Alyx remotely from our homes, we are hoping that everyone stays safe and has a great time playing the game. Please let us know what you think."

Steam experienced its highest ever service load over the weekend, with over 20.3 million users concurrently logged in. Of these over 6.4 million were actively playing a game. Its previous service load record was a little over 19 million users, hit just last month (February 2020). This is particularly interesting because the week of 9th March didn't particularly have any big game releases, and according a report by The Verge, most of the 6.4 million gaming were hooked to old favorites, such as CS:GO (>1.02 million), PUBG (>700k), and Dota 2 (>500k).

This record could be just as temporary, with big releases such as "Doom Eternal" lined up for the upcoming weekend. A spike in online gaming and other forms of on-demand entertainment shouldn't surprise anyone in the middle of a global pandemic. The COVID-19 outbreak has forced most governments quarantine large populations, forcing businesses to have their employees work from home. Steam remains the leading game digital distribution and DRM platform.

CD Projekt Red has to be the most renowned games developer in the world, due to its consumer-friendly policies and overall posture when it comes to creating and maintaining their game worlds. The company has always given gamers more than the average company, with free DLCs being delivered throughout the first year of support for a given title (looking at you, The Witcher III: Wild Hunt), and added goodies to packages that from most other companies usually only feature the plastic packaging around the game disk. Their GOG games platform is also one of the most well-established out there, and has helped build the company's image due to its DRM-free approach.

All of this, alongside the fact that The Witcher series has seen a resurgence with the release of the Netflix series, and expectations on their upcoming Cyberpunk 2077 title, have led the company towards tremendous growth, with it now ranking as second largest European gaming company, second only to Ubisoft - and the difference is still tremendous. Ubisoft has around 16,000 employees (as of 2019), and is home to some of the world's most historic franchises, while CD Projekt Red counts more than 900 employees (as of 2018), with that number having certainly increasing in size in preparation for, and in continued development, of the upcoming Cyberpunk 2077.

NVIDIA's GeForce NOW game streaming service has recently suffered a big blow coming from Activision Blizzard, as the company has pulled its entire game library from the GeForce NOW platform. However, there is some good news for GeForce NOW coming. In its announcement blog, NVIDIA shared that upcoming game that is perhaps the most anticipated release of 2020, Cyberpunk 2077, will be available on its game streaming service. One of the NVIDIA staff shared that "GeForce NOW members will be able to grab their copy on Steam and play the game the moment it's available. GeForce NOW Founders members can explore the streets of Night City with RTX ON, fully optimized and instantly available, even on your Mac laptop."

A tiny 21-megabyte patch of "Devil May Cry 5," pushed through Steam, allegedly removed the game's Denuvo DRM component. There's no record of the patch in the list of updates for the game, although some Redditors comment that removal of the DRM has improved their game load times. Denuvo is a sophisticated DRM solution that can be implemented in a number of ways by game developers. A best-case implementation has negligible performance impact, but if done poorly, Denuvo could have a noticeable performance impact. Our comprehensive article on Denuvo dives deeper into the tech. Game publishers prefer implementing a DRM solution to not, despite the fact that pirates are able to crack it weeks or months following the release. They are content with making most of their revenues through pre-orders or purchases made while the game isn't cracked. Game publishers eventually voluntarily remove DRM solutions to improve game performance. DMC5's DRM removal comes about 11 months into its release.

NVIDIA today has finally launched its GeForce Now streaming gaming service, and users can enjoy partial amounts of free gaming under the business model. There are two tiers of users on offer: Free, and Founders. The free tier, which you may give a go to check the streaming infrastructure and if it's something you would enjoy paying for, is limited to 60-minute play sessions. This means that after the clock has stopped ticking (with potentially intrusive pop-up notifications reminding you of how much time you have left every 10 minutes), you'll be forced to quit the game, and submit yourself to a playing queue until your next 60-minute window is up. RTX isn't available in this tier, though - so if you also wanted to see for yourself what the raytracing talk is all about, you'll have to pay $5 (monthly subscription) to cross that particular river.

Founder-tier members, however, will be able to enjoy the latest RTX-enabled games. The only ones listed on the service, for now, are Wolfenstein: Youngblood, Call of Duty: modern Warfare, Metro Exodus, and Deliver Us the Moon, which NVIDIA has recently started bundling with select RTX graphics cards). There is still a catch though: play sessions will be limited to 6 hours, after which time you'll be brought back to a gaming queue (though you'll have precedence over Free tier accounts, should there be many Founders-tier players in the queue, you might have to wait a while). There's a limited-time 90-day introductory period of which you can take advantage while subscribing for the Founders tier right now, which means you will only be billed after that 90-day grace period is over. Remember - you have to own a digital copy of the game you want to play in any of the more popular storefronts, such as EPIC and Steam, before you can game - but it's still a nice way to experience RTX should you currently own a non-RTX-enabled graphics card.

Steam today stated another round of sales on their digital storefront. Dubbed the "Lunar New Year" sale, it is being held in celebration of the Chinese new year, with hundreds of games with discounts that can go anywhere from 10% up to 90% off. You can grab TPU's game of the year, Red Dead Redemption 2, with 20% off. Another (this time, personal) suggestion is to try out Disco Elysium. If you like isometric RPGs, this one, for me, takes the gameof the year for 2020 award, with truly incredible writing, and a true RPG experience that isn't bogged down by the need to include a combat system (and its connected writing requirements and such).

Other offerings are Gears V, available 50% off, Frostpunk (60% off), The Witcher III (if you don't already own it, of course, it's 70% off), Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice (-35%), and various others - likely more than you have money to purchase even at their discounted rates.

Cut from the digital storefront cloth as you will, the EPIC Games Store has come to stay. EPIC has just announce that its digital distribution platform has achieved over 100 M subscribed users (which is different from active users, so mind the gap). That is still a success by any metric, since the digital games storefront was such a one-sided market before EPIC entered the fray - you'd be forgiven for describing the PC games distribution platform network as being composed of "Steam and the others".

Through platform exclusivity deals for new PC launches, a more enticing profit split between developers and games that are available through its store (with its headline and exclusive-grabbing 88-12 percent revenue split), monthly game giveaways and the power of Fortnite, EPIC has said that the EPIC Games Store alone generated $680 million in revenue thus far. Of that amount, Epic says $251 million represents sales of third-party games. part of that revenue has been channeled back at gamers - $23 million has been distributed in coupons and discounts toward game sales. According to EPIC, the nine most successful games in its platform are World War Z, Borderlands 3, Untitled Goose Game, Metro Exodus, Control, The Outer Worlds, The Division 2, Dauntless, and Satisfactory.

Steam has revealed the games that sold the most on the platform for this year of 2019. While Steam's own numbers don't represent the entirety of the PC market - considering other digital storefronts such as GOG, EPIC Games Store and publisher-exclusive stores like Origin also have a relevant market share - this does let us take a considered peek at the PC gaming landscape. Steam's top sellers also includes top grossing, where games that have store-bound skins or extras are also taken into account).

Steam's Platinum lineup includes all the hallmarks of PC gaming: online experiences such as Warframe, DOTA 2, PUBG, and the Elder Scrolls Online, through strategy experiences such as Civilization VI and Total War: Three Kingdoms. Considering that Destiny 2 also made it in the platform, many gamers actually enjoy that experience - it is unclear if Steam considers every redeem from the Blizzard store into the Steam Store a sale, but if not, it's mighty impressive that a game that released on October 1st.

The Annual Steam Winter Sale is on now thru January 2, 2020 at 10 am Pacific. In addition to finding massive savings on thousands of titles, gamers may earn Festivity Tokens when they shop on Steam and/or when they complete Holiday Quests. Earned Festivity Tokens may be spent in the Holiday Market, where players will find The Steam Winter Sale Coupon, new Chat Stickers, new Chat Room Effects, and more. The initial Holiday Quests are on now, with new Quests being added throughout the sale.

Halo: Reach for PC is going live today, as per confirmations from game developer 343 Industries. The game is supposed to go live tonight at 10 AM PST / 1 PM EST when it will be released on PC and Xbox One. The PC port is going to be available for purchase on three platforms: Game Pass, Steam, and the Windows Store. The PC port currently contains some bugs, however, 343 Industries is working to iron them out before the game launches. Features like uncapped FPS will be mostly unstable during the launch period and might cause the game to crash, so it's better to turn it off for now. Latency issues could also be present in the beginning but 343i is working hard to remove it before the game drops tonight. For all Steam users, you can pre-purchase the game here.

Steam may be losing some luster in the digital game distribution arena with the quantity and quality of heavy players that have appeared since its inception - I'm looking at GOG and the EPIC Games Store especially. However, Steam continues to be the service that offers the largest library of purchasable titles. As such, if you don't have a backlog of games to play already (don't lie, you do have them, but we won't judge if you buy some more), now is the time to make the jump.

The biggest discount percentage I've seen, so far, is that for Rise of the Tomb Raider, which cuts a total of 85% from its listing price. Discounts range from 20% through to that (apparent) ceiling, with franchises such as the Dark Souls Series (Dark Souls 3 for $15 (75% off), Dark Souls 2 for $9.99 (75% off), and Dark Souls Remastered going for $23.99 (40% off). The Dishonored franchise also sees massive cuts from their list prices, at 70% for the original and 75% for Dishonored 2 and its Death of the Outsider expansion (how I love these games). The Master Chief Collection, however, isn't on sale - it's still in pre order, you know how it is. But maybe one of these days you'll get that one (though it already is a steal at its launch price for the quality of games you're getting). Go on, feast your eyes and murder your wallet. We're cheering for you.

Well, that headline must've been met with both a warm fuzzy feeling of nostalgia, and a sudden, stab-like wound on the back of many readers. The usage of Valve and Half-Life together in the same sentence has been the victim of multiple memes and disappointments over the years, with the studio being seemingly unable to keep up with the mantle of great games it has released before in the Half-Life universe. Half-Life 3 is already so much of a failed expectation that the game could (likely) never live up to the expectations set on it at this point in time. It seems valve is shrugging the game away with a Half-Life set VR game, though, in the form of Half-Life: Alyx.

Valve itself have posted a teaser image on Twitter, announcing it as a flagship VR game available for SteamVR. To be unveiled on November 21st, nothing much is known about the game by now; but it's expected it will be a VR-exclusive experience. The game started out as a single-player exploration experience for VR, and it seems to have found its way developed into a full-fledged game. Apparently, this Half-Life: Alyx game is the first in Valve's plans of releasing more VR games in the future, which may or may not be set in the Half-Life universe. This could actually be an interesting experience for VR, if you can get beyond the usual betrayal of not seeing an announcement for Half-Life 3. Who knows - this could even be the killer app for VR, or an Half-Life renaissance in the minds of gamers and Valve themselves. At the very least, we know it will induce nostalgia.