When Valve first released the Steam Controller, it had a hidden, latent gyroscope inside it that Valve switched on later to get it extra hardware functionality. Alas, anyone hoping for similar technological surprises inside their upcoming portable Steam Deck PC are going to be disappointed, as Valve designer Greg Coomer has assured me there "isn't something secret embedded in the Steam Deck that we're going to turn on later" (if only because it already has a gyro built-in). It will, however, continue to get plenty of additional post-launch updates that will give it new features on the software side, he said, including a bunch of nifty cloud capabilities.

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Back in June, Syndicate and Ultima Underworld I & II disappeared from GOG.com at EA's request. Then they returned to the digital storefront earlier this month without much explanation, and are being given away for free for a period of four weeks by way of apology.

Now EA have said they'll have a "process in place" in future so things like this don't happen.

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Whoa, this is kind of crazy. Normally we see sales on older, more budget NVMe SSDs, but today we have a scorching hot deal on one of the very fastest drives on the market. The XPG Gammix Gaming S70 is a PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD, capable of ludicrous sequential speeds - up to 7000MB/s reads and 6400MB/s writes. The 2TB model is down from $499.99 to $269.99 on Newegg right now - and it comes with a free $30 gift card, bringing the effective price to $239.99. That's an incredible value for a drive of this size and speed.

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Patron looks to me like The Settlers: a peaceful medieval citybuilder about laying down paths and watching your peeps trundle between farmstead and market. It is, according to its Steam reviews, more akin to Banished: a survival citybuilder about both outlasting winter and appeasing the social simulation of your town.

In either case, Patron feels worthy of further patronage. It came out a week ago and there's a demo available.

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The Dell S2522HG is a solid 240Hz gaming monitor based around a 25-in IPS panel, making it an ideal choice for both competitive gaming and content creation - and now it's reached a new low price thanks to a code available at Dell's UK store. Use code DELLNJMON103 to knock £26 off the listed sale price, dropping the monitor from £260 to £234 - a great value.

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Fortnite now has a new mode called Fortnite Impostors. I'll give you two guesses as to what it is, and if you get the first one wrong I'm going to assume you're the impostor. I mean, it's in the headline>.

The mode is Among Us, more or less, and there's a trailer for the backstab royale below.

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Last week I wrote that best-game-of-last-year Hades was coming to Xbox Game Pass in August, alongside some other fine games such as Curse Of The Dead Gods and Katamari Damacy.

This was apparently insufficient, since Microsoft have just laid out more games coming to their game subscription service in the Month Of Aug, including Humankind, 12 Minutes and Psychonauts 2.

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Yes, another Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla DLC has been released. And, again, it’s a tad like the base game. But, not totally, because Ubisoft have remembered to put some sneaking in this one. It still has a pebble-stacking minigame, though. You can’t have it all, I guess.

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Today has brought the launch of a new 4X strategy game from Amplitude Studios, the makers of the Endless Space and Endless Legend games, and it's a good'un. Humankind is their take on a Civilization-sorta historical strategy game, growing a nation and its culture across the aeons - with inevitable conflict. This is demonstrated in the launch trailer, where a jaunt to the Moon turns frankly very illustrative of humankind.

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Wondering how Adventure Rank works in Genshin Impact? Adventure Rank is Genshin Impact's main levelling system. Your Adventure Rank spans your entire account and determines how high you can increase the World Level and level up your individual characters and weapons, as well as giving you access to rank-locked quests and events.

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