We learned in November that Valve was working on a new feature that will enable Steam users to mark individual games in their games as “private,” preventing everyone else in the world from knowing it’s there. That feature has now gone live in the latest Steam client beta, which also includes changes to the Steam shopping cart that will make purchasing gifts for other people a whole lot easier.

Steam already offers three different privacy options—public, friends only, or private—but those settings are account-wide: The ability to cover up a particular game or three that you might want to keep out of the public eye has been lacking until now.

“Starting today you’ll be able to mark specific games as private and they’ll disappear from anywhere they’d be viewed by someone other than you,” Valve wrote. “That includes: your ownership, in-game status, playtime, and activity in that game. This additional control allows you to keep most of your Steam …

We’ve come a long way from the first at-home Oculus Rift, which was an exercise in motion sickness and screen-dooring. Now we have great no-strings-attached portable headsets like the Quest 2, full field of view high-res offerings like the Pimax 8k, and even cool VR treadmills to use them on like the Kat VR C2+. There’s always something new coming in VR, be it headsets, glasses, or a rumour that Meta and Apple are working together.

As reported by The Verge, a new roadmap was shared by Meta’s Reality Labs division laying out the planned future of AR and VR at the company. With the Meta Quest Pro not really being a gaming device, and the strong push towards the metaverse workplace, even if it loses Meta $4 billion a quarter, it’s nice to see the company’s future of VR has room for games in it.

The roadmap confirmed that Meta is looking to launch a new flagship Quest 3, codenamed “Stinson”, later this year. It’s likely this headset is looking to take the current Quest 2’s p…

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Not many of us had the time to study the face of Logur the Beast Claw as he took swipes at us in the beginning of Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree, but if you were to get a good look at his face, you’d see that he is indeed a reference to X-Men’s Wolverine: He’s shirtless, fights with claw weapons, and seems to come at you in a rage. It’s too specific, and FromSoft is already prone to putting popular references in NPC invaders.

Zullie the Witch, a regular FromSoft dataminer, recently dropped a video with a number of Shadow of the Erdtree NPCs unmasked—as she did previously with the original game. Logur’s scruffy face isn’t the only surprise from the video; we also get a peek under the hoods (and helmets) of Lady Leda, Freyja, Hornsent, Ansbach, Thiollier, and Moore—members of the crew who recruit you at the start of the DLC.

Hornsent, for example, wears a mask with horns protruding out of it, but just looks like a guy who hasn’t showered in months un…

There are other games hogging the spotlight at the moment, but Remnant 2 looks like something of a dark horse that, among its devotees at least, is one of 2023’s unique and most polished experiences. The game is a (deep breath) third person roguelike Soulslike shooter with a heavy focus on procedural generation, which can be played solo or co-op, and is one of those designed for multiple playthroughs, all of which in theory are wildly different. It is also a brutally difficult game and, on the highest difficulty (Apocalypse), has some players whining a little too much as they lick their wounds. 

How tough is Apocalypse? Bosses and tougher enemies will one-shot your character, while even weaker enemies will take you down in a couple of hits. It probably needs emphasising that this is not the default experience, but the game’s toughest challenge for those who reckon they’re the bees’ knees and want the shiniest rewards the game can offer. The near-certainty with Apocalypse …

Japan is looking to become a player in the semiconductor industry again after 20 years. Rapidus Corp., a newly-formed Japanese chip maker, plans to compete with Samsung and TSMC by producing 2-nanometer chips in just four years.

Bloomberg reports that Rapidus is spending billions of dollars on building a domestic chip plant by 2027 with state backing. The newly formed chip maker has also gotten huge investments from Japanese equipment manufacturers like Sony and Toyota. The Japanese government already has plans to earmark over $2.4 billion (¥330 billion) yearly for the future semiconductor manufacturer. 

Rapidus chairman Tetsuro Higashi tells Bloomberg, “Huge opportunities are ahead of us if we can become first in the market and if we focus on making chips for specific areas, such as AI.”

Rapidus likely won’t be the first to 2-nanometer production, but it won’t be far behind. TSMC plans to fire 2nm chips by late 2025, as is Samsung. So it’ll be interestin…

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The tough thing about making a Transformers game is that you can’t just make an action game about giant robots. You’ve also got to be able to handle the vehicle side of things, and there aren’t a lot of studios out there who are equally adept at making racing games or flight sims as they are at making big robot action games. 

Transformers: Galactic Trials, in development from 3DClouds, seems to be leaning more heavily on the racing side of things. The singleplayer mode has you traversing “battle-race circuits” that consist of both combat and driving challenges you have to face in the relevant forms, while collecting Prime Relics that can be spent to improve skills as well as unlocking more characters and skills. The press release says it has a “rogue-lite combat elements”, which presumably means permadeath but with persistent level-ups.

You can play as a bunch of different Autobots and Decepticons, including Optimus Prime, Bumblebee, Arcee, Wheeljack, Elita…

“Our game is like if Dark Souls had a baby with God of War,” The marketing guy insists to you. “It is as though The Sims had sex with Neverwinter Nights,” He raves, fingers digging into your arm. His eyes dilate, “Our game is reminiscent of a theoretical scenario where Twisted Metal was the illicit court paramour of Barbie Horse Adventures, and they produced a royal bastard capable of upending this kingdom’s fragile politics.” 

I’ve heard this shtick before, is what I’m saying, but it’s definitely way more believable when the guy saying it actually helped make both of the copulating games in question. “With deep world building, compelling narrative, crunchy RPG systems, engaging gameplay, and massive reactivity,” Wrote Chad Moore, project director on inXile’s Clockwork Revolution, “I’ve always described [Clockwork Revolution] as the love child of [Arcanum] and [Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines]”

In another life, Moore was a developer at Troika Gam…

Short-form video content creators have an interesting challenge to overcome: In a never-ending feed of videos, how do you grab someone’s attention long enough to keep them watching yours? Increasingly, the answer appears to be to simply make something up, and the more salacious, conspiratorial, or outrageous, the better. Add in some AI-generated imagery, subtitles, and an AI voice-over, and thanks to some creator incentive programs, big bucks may follow.

Media Matters has released a YouTube video featuring its senior video producer Abbie Richards performing a deep-dive on exactly why conspiracy theory videos are popping up all over platforms like TikTok and YouTube Shorts, and just how easy they are to create thanks to, you guessed it, the power of AI. 

Endeavouring to create its very own short-form conspiracy content, based on the idea that a scientist eating Play-Doh in a lab recorded themselves growing in height, losing 60 lbs in weight, and curing cancer, the ch…

Sink into a comfy chair, take a good sip of your favourite morning brew, and spend exactly as much or as little of your week-worn brain on today’s Wordle as you wish, because we’re here to help. Mull over a hint for today’s puzzle if you like, offering a little nudge without instantly giving the answer away. Or click through to the March 30 (1015) solution if you’d prefer.

I got caught up in a strangely helpful tangle of yellow letters after a few guesses today, not really knowing what the answer was, but at least able to see what it definitely wasn’t. That strange situation turned out to be just what I needed, today’s winning word was the only possible option left… after several failed attempts at rearranging what I had.

Today’s Wordle hint

Wordle today: A hint for Saturday, March 30

Making something happen whether the person or object on the receiving end wants it to or not is the defining act behind today’s Wordle. To use your stren…