Update, and a rather important one at that: The crashing issues I’ve had with Baldur’s Gate 3 on the Steam Deck have been, as far as I can tell, fully fixed. No more collapsing back to the Steam library on startup, and no forcing the use of Proton Experimental – it should launch and work straight away. Valve have even upgraded Baldur’s Gate 3 from Playable to Verified for Steam Deck play, reflecting its newfound handheld-readiness.

This means you can safely ignore the first part of this article, where I whinge about software instability as if it’s the the most heinous atrocity humankind has ever inflicted on itself. All the stuff on general performance, settings, and battery life still applies.

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Hello folks. It sure has been a while, hasn't it? Huge apologies for that. I would say it's been an unusually busy year, but then again, it's always a busy year>, so I really have no excuse. Sorry about that. But! After some much appreciated feedback on how I can improve these Letters From The Editor, I return to you today with some notes and thoughts about how we're going to cover Baldur's Gate 3. I'll tell you now, it's going to be a while before you see our review, as review code only arrived a couple of days ago.

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The distance from the roof of the Counting House to the nearest building in Baldur’s Gate is vast, by design. The waterfront bank where the city’s great, good and gangster store their gold stands with its back to the sea, while a long and well-guarded bridge extends from its maw, like a money-hungry tongue. Legend says its top two floors are entirely without windows, the House an eyeless god to the citizens who reside on the hillside that slopes down toward the docks. So how was Gale, the wizard prodigy, able to bound from a faraway balcony to the brim of the bank, as if stepping lazily out onto his porch with a mug of coffee? Some say strange sorcery was afoot, but I’ve seen his character sheet, and so can be more specific.

Upon levelling up, Gale multiclassed as a sorcerer - an odd choice, but one that allowed him to unlock the ability to throw magic from a great range. Suddenly, while casting a teleport spell, this hybrid mage was able to reach across the wide moat of the Counting House and land safely on a high ledge. It’s one of many obscure class synergies via which, Larian imagines, you’ll be able to break their level design in unexpected and entertaining ways.

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Guess what? James and I, and a lot of other folk at RPS, are all learning the importance of rolling for initiative this week, because we're playing Baldur's Gate 3! Larian's take on what is essentially the official cRPG version of Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition is out of early access today and boy, is it a doozy. So we answer your questions and Nates, and talk about animal forms and rolling for initiative and why the DM is a git. Plus, James has been struggling to get the game working on Steam Deck. Sometimes it does!

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If you’ve been resisting Baldur’s Gate 3’s early access run to save yourself for the full release, there’s good news for both of us: you can fill your knowledge boots with this guide to the launch build’s PC performance and best settings, and I get to avoid feeling like I’m just giving advice to people who’ve been playing this gigantic RPG for two years longer than me. Hell yeah.

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Portal 2 is obviously brilliant, in part because each of its chapters possesses a distinct charm. GLaDOS’ return, for instance, is a stretch of pure puzzling with just a dash of dread, while your first steps into the abandoned 1960s Aperture facility interrupt a fairly hopeless tone with an upbeat sense of discovery. For me, though, Portal 2 peaks late. So late that by the time it begins, your journey through the 'true' puzzle chambers are essentially over, leaving you as little more than a loose end in the big glowing eye of a former buddy. It’s Chapter 9: The Part Where He Kills You! Mmm, love that part.

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I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve recommended people play Return Of The Obra Dinn. It's the one game I'm confident recommending to anyone to folks who play games frequently, but also to those who don't. My biggest triumph was recommending it to my dad, a 62-year-old retired manufacturing manager from Wales, who loved it so much he not only recommended it to a friend (who also loved it) but also said my mum should try it too - and I agree! It’s all subjective of course, but for me, its banger of a story, accessible it is, and how you can practically run it on a potato make it a wonderful gateway into gaming in general.

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Logitech makes a ton of good PC stuff, but their HD webcams have been a cheap-and-cheerful go-to for years. One older model that sits on top of a bunch of monitors is the C270, an HD webcam that normally retails for $25. Today though, a $5 coupon on Amazon brings this webcam down to $13 and change, making it a sensible pickup for anyone that needs a webcam for streaming or video calls.

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Striking Distance, the studio behind last year’s alien horror stomp ‘em up The Callisto Protocol, have suffered layoffs affecting 32 employees in what their publisher calls an effort to “realign the studio’s priorities to better position its current and future projects.”

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Return Of The Obra Dinn is, quite rightly, one of the greatest video games of all time. It's certainly one of my personal favourites, and as this year's RPS 100 has proven, it's also greatly beloved by the rest of the RPS Treehouse. A brilliantly conceived murder mystery puzzle box (boat?) that not only has you working out whodunnit, but howdunnit, Obra Dinn is one of those detective games that really thrusts you into the thick of its deduction process. As you set about working out the identities and causes of death for each of the 60 souls onboard, it places you firmly in front of the ship's wheel before giving you free rein to steer its hull of supernatural horrors into whatever port of judgment you deem fit.

There are no truly wrong answers in Obra Dinn, but due to the nature of how you go about solving it, it's also one of those games I can't play too often without feeling like I know all the answers already. It's only now, five years later, that I feel like I could probably go back to Lucas Pope's nautical masterpiece and marvel at it afresh on a second playthrough, but there's one particular set of crew unmaskings that even its time-travelling stopwatch can't erase from my memory banks. Spoilers to follow obviously, but if you know, you know. I'm talking about the shoe and hammock revelation.

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