PC Gaming

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 has had a pretty rough launch, and now Microsoft has put out a hotfix aimed at addressing some of the performance and stability issues. “We will continue to investigate any issues and keep the community informed,” says game lead Jorg Neumann.

Based on a trailer, a lot of great games are getting discounts — might be time for me to finally pick up Animal Well.

The sale runs from 1PM ET on November 27th to 1PM ET on December 4th.

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 launches on Xbox and PC today, and in addition to hot air balloons and firefighting planes, Joby Aviation has announced that its electric air taxi will also be available to fly in the game.

Joby worked with the game’s developers to digitally recreate its air taxi, including its interior, exterior, and unique vertical take-off capabilities.

You can buy it starting at 6PM ET /  3PM PT. It will be available “everywhere Steam Deck ships,” Valve says, though at $679, it’s $30 more expensive than the highest-end OLED in black. The white version comes with a special white carrying case, too.

Ratatan doesn’t just look and sound like Patapon, it even has Hiroyuki Kotani, the designer of the PSP original, working on it.

Oh, and it’s a four-player co-op roguelike? Okay, that’s it — I’m dead. Someone please res me when this launches in 2025.

Epic spokesperson Brian Sharon confirmed to The Verge via email that “people are free to independently link to and play these versions” of Unreal and Unreal Tournament, as Game Developer reported. (You may want Old Unreal’s custom installers to get them running, though.)

Between this and the Half-Life 2 update, it’s a good week for classic FPS fans.

At the bottom of the page, there’s a gravity gun that you can pick up with your mouse — and actually use. Have fun!

Half-Life 2 will be 20 years-old on November 16th, and Nvidia’s new trailer for its Half-Life 2 RTX project is part visual showcase, part tribute — with testimonials from the remake’s lead developers at Obifold Studios.

Half-Life 2 RTX now has a Steam store page, where it’s listed as “Coming soon.”

From Nvidia’s FAQ:

No, Founders memberships will still have unlimited playtime hours for life, as long as there is no lapse in their membership. 

Also:

Founders can upgrade to Ultimate and return to their prior Founders benefits at any time without penalty, as long as there is no lapse in their payments. 

At 10am AEDT specifically, according to Valve. The company recently announced a November launch date in the country for the handheld gaming PC, but didn’t provide a specific date.

There were reasons to be skeptical of the turnkey, emulator-centric Steam Machine idea, and reasons to root for it too — but in the end, Sedano tells me he only got around 40 orders, and that he needed closer to 100.

He says he’s already refunded every backer, and did produce these two cases before shutting the project down:

Valve:

Going forward, when you submit a new game to Steam, if your game installs a client side, kernel mode anti-cheat, you will need to fill out this new field. We will be going through old games and contacting partners with games that fall into this category.

Kernel level anti-cheat is divisive, to say the least; now you’ll know before you buy.

The Stealth Pivot has a different approach from other modular controllers — you depress and swivel the front plates to get a mini arcade stick or extra buttons on the fly.

It’s wired only on Xbox and works wirelessly with PCs, mobile devices, and smart TVs. Turtle Beach is accepting preorders today for $129.99 ahead of its November 24th release.

Apple’s smallest computer is about to get way smaller, if all the rumors about an almost Apple TV-sized M4 refresh in the coming week of Mac announcements are to be believed.

It might also be a gaming powerhouse, as the diminutive machine will get ray-tracing capability, according to Mark Gurman’s Power On newsletter for Bloomberg today.

A tiny $1200 laptop that doubles as a gaming handheld, with an incredible array of ports. Surprisingly easy to type on, plays games as well or better than a Legion Go, supports two kinds of eGPUs. Keyboard and touchpad make navigating Windows way easier than most handhelds.

But you might not enjoy holding its stiff metal frame, and it’s better paired with a mouse!