The Cyberpunk 2077 modder behind a bunch of the game's most popular romance mods is set to make NPC showering an optional extra in two of their works, with the hopes that these "non-sexy mods" will no longer be "hidden unnecessarily".

Their decision comes as a response to recent changes Nexus Mods have made regarding creations that're classed as "adult", something the modding site's done as a result of the Online Safety Act coming into force in the UK. The legislation's seen the likes of social media and porn sites also have to adopt new age verification checks before allowing users to access a range of content deemed unsuitable for children.

Read more

Valve have released a revamped Steam store menu in beta, so folks can give a number of changes a whirl and offer feedback ahead of the full rollout.

As the pipe-themed company wrote in a news post about the menu emerging from the labs for this testing, the main goal of its changes is to offer "easier access to the places Steam users most frequently visit". Insert joke about the sorts of weird stuff one can have lurking in their Steam library here.

Read more

This week's big news is that Graham is leaving RPS. Graham, the rock upon which all of our bullshit is built. Graham, the last link to Treehouses gone by. We shall not see his like again. Expect supernatural calamities in keeping with such a terrible loss: rains of frogs, Atari reinventing Pong as a 100 hour gacha RPG, mass hysteria. Still, the wheel of releasing cranks on. Here's what's new in PC games this week.

Read more

What pressure! As I mentioned last week, this is my last ever Sunday Papers as I'm leaving Rock Paper Shotgun (and Gamer Network) this coming Wednesday. I'm not sure how to meaningfully summarise twelve years on this site or twenty years in the field, but after several aborted essays I rediscovered the columnist's crutch: bullet points.

You'll have to forgive the indulgence, because I present here just some of the values - and the personal taste, clearly - that I've tried to express through the site during my time here. Many of the values were instilled in me by my excellent colleagues (particularly the unimpeachable Alice O), and I only hope I lived by them more often than not.

Read more

Graham doesn’t want a big fuss about his last WAWAPTW, which is just as well, because I’m writing this at 4pm on a Friday and don’t have the energy to make one. Let’s save the goodbyes for a few days more, and in the meantime, simply share what we’re all playing this weekend.

Read more

Alienware’s Aurora mid‑range x16 laptop deal is the highlight today, coming in at the same price as the entry‑level model but with a stronger CPU. It’s effectively a free upgrade for anyone shopping smart. To round things out we’ve pulled together some of the best gaming keyboards and mice currently discounted and ready for headshots. Let's get into it.

Read more

"You OK babe? You've barely touched your boost?" mentions a helpful fish in the trailer for roguelike racer Reality Drift, thus setting the new standard for all reminder pop-ups going forward. I tabbed this one because the phrase "racing game where your choices matter" intrigued me. I was unaware of the helpful fish at this point. Or the road signs that offer you a choice between 'space' 'cat land', and 'hell'. Here's a visual compilation of suchlike images, with added movement.

Read more

Microsoft have published a memo recently sent to staff by CEO Sayta Nadella, which addresses the strange fact of Microsoft reporting net income in the ultrabillions while laying off thousands of supposedly "treasured colleagues". Most of the blog is a gusty, jargony paean to generative AI technology, in which Microsoft have made vast investments, and how it is going to "empower everyone to create their own tools" and create a "local surplus" of Ability To Do Stuff in Microsoft dominions worldwide.

Read more