There’s been quite a bit of speculation and confusion about Baldur’s Gate 3’s preload situation, and Larian hasn’t been forthcoming on that front. In an interview just last week with itmeJP, Larian boss Swen Vincke said he actually didn’t know how preloading would be handled.

“I imagine that they’re going to do something, but I actually don’t know,” Vincke said. “It’s very large, so it would be cool. Obviously the game has changed tremendously versus early access, versus what’s out there now … so we will see.”

Unfortunately, the final answer to that question is a very simple “no.”

“Baldur’s Gate 3 will launch on August 3rd at 5pm Gent time, or your non-Belgian timezone equivalent as shown [below],” Larian said today on Steam. “There will be no pre-loading of the game before then.

“The full release of the game weighs in at approximately 122 GB. Please note that your early access save games will not be compatible at launch; however, so much has changed that it’s really worth it to start afresh.”

Vincke said essentially the same thing in the itmeJP interview, warning that there’s no point in getting into the early access version of Baldur’s Gate 3 now because you’re effectively going to have to start over from scratch in a few days anyway. “There might be a few bytes that are the same but basically it’s going to be a full reinstall,” he said.

Not being able to preload a game of this size is not great, especially for people (like me) with slow or unreliable internet connections. But the problem appears to be a limitation of Steam. Simply put, preloading a game downloads the files but keeps them encrypted until go time, but because Baldur’s Gate 3 has already been out for nearly three years in early access, Steam can’t do that—thus, no preload. Others have noted that GOG also isn’t offering preloads, however, which muddies the waters somewhat, although the game is available in early access there as well. I’ve reached out to Larian for more information in the preload situation and will update if I receive a reply. 

Regardless of the reason, the lack of a preload option sucks—122GB is a big download—but while there are a few unhappy responses to be seen, for the most part people fans don’t seem too bothered by it. Maybe they’re all too excited by the prospect of cramming more illithid tadpoles up their noses to care.

Baldur’s Gate 3 unlocks in full at 8 am PT/11 am ET/4 pm BST on August 3.

They are like if HR Giger was obsessed with technology from the early 2000s. They’re the blocky, toaster-sized projector on the ceiling of the school classroom that nobody has tried to use since 2005, the same year it was installed. I am here for the VRmin.

Samurai Unicorn will be an action horror game, something that I’m guessing is a little punchier and fightier than early Resident Evil games, but still has the story pacing of those games. Detective Klo will  hunt through the streets of Sydney3 to unravel the schemes and secrets of the monolithic cyberpunk corporate bureaucracy of the Goliath corporation. 

For my part I’m really interested in the eponymous Samurai Unicorn, which probably resides in that aforementioned parasitic gauntlet and apparently allows Klo to deliver  “devastating melee attacks” and to “Face off against monstrous Dream Eaters in challenging boss fights.” I kind of love the idea of transitioning from tense horror combat to weird cyberverse battles! I don’t know if that’s what they mean, but I love it.

The more traditional third person shooting seems pretty neat to boot, with a focus on enemies that react to where they’re shot and limb dismemberment allowing you to disable or limit their range of attack. Shotguns will be involved.

Samurai Unicorn also promises to have diverse and interesting characters to meet, including “intimately crafted hub areas” that I hope play into the detective-work and mystery solving parts of the narrative.

You can find Samurai Unicorn on Steam and its website, samuraiunicornps1.com.

During a press conference at the 2023 Final Fantasy 14 Fan Festival, director and producer Naoki Yoshida was asked if players could ever expect to see older Final Fantasy games available in the MMO. It’s an idea similar to games like Animal Crossing, where you can play old Nintendo classics in your home with special items. Not only has Yoshida thought about this, but he’s talked the idea over with his team. 

“We’ve been trying or attempting this since about a year and a half ago,” Yoshida said. “With the Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster series coming out, we also thought that wouldn’t it be cool if we can play that in Gold Saucer or have it in our estate to play with?”

Yoshida explained the team got as far as testing this idea, but putting the Pixel Remasters inside FF14 got complicated. “We realized the Pixel Remasters are running on a middleware,” he went on. “Because it’s running on a middleware, if you want to implement that into 14 you’d have to build another system that can play that middleware inside of the game. So it’s like.. building a system of a game to play a system of a game inside… it’s just this weird configuration. Our Final Fantasy 14 team is—I love them, but they’re crazy—though I don’t think they’re that crazy.”

Yoshida, seemingly only half-joking, went on to say if he could get a couple more super genius programmers they may have a path forward when it comes to adding playable Final Fantasy classics inside of your FF14 house or the Gold Saucer amusement park. He went as far as to ask for résumés, just in case there are any Warriors of Light out there that may have a suggestion. 

Though if you were hoping the feature would come with no strings attached, Yoshida noted it’s got to work as a business somehow. He highlighted how the question asked if even the Cash Shop could be an option for arcade cabinet-style features, and it’s one he’s pondered.

“We could probably consider maybe Final Fantasy 1 through 3 might be free, but we can’t give them all away. So maybe 4, though we might have to think of how it would become a business.”

Path of Exile 2, shown off in detail today at ExileCon, also has meta gems, but they’re part of a revamped skill system that throws away item links in lieu of skill gems that you socket into… more gems.

Gemception, if you will.

PoE 2’s meta gems are capable of all sorts of nonsense. The spell totem meta, for example, can be used to equip multiple skills into your totems that will cast intelligently. For example, they could be arranged so that you immobilize enemies first, then curse them to debuff, and finally hit them with a huge damage spell. The cast on shock meta gem can be used to link multiple attack skills, resulting in a huge cacophony of destruction once you’ve zapped some mobs a few times.

With Path of Exile 2 being announced as a fresh start, I wondered if it might present an opportunity for a bit of simplification—Path of Exile is notoriously difficult for new players to pick up, and I joke that it requires an advanced math degree to come up with a build for it. What did the game director Jonathan Rogers have to say about that during a press briefing?

“Simplicity is not a goal of ours.”

He expanded on that, of course, to say that the skill gem system in Path of Exile 2 has some improvements to be more user friendly despite not actually paring down the available options, sort of a ‘have your cake and eat it too’ situation. And honestly, I was relieved to hear him say that. Path of Exile is great largely because of the absolute craziness involved in building and customizing your character, not in spite of it.

There are plenty of great ARPGs for players who don’t want to dig through a 1500 node skill tree, and hearing that Path of Exile 2 wasn’t going to sacrifice the craziness on the altar of a largely imaginary ‘appeal to a larger audience’ made me even more excited for its release.

I managed to solve this one in four but it felt like a real fight the whole way down, rather than a comfortable amble to today’s Wordle answer. The key for me was remembering to stay flexible and not panic too much when a potential letter turned up grey (again).

Today’s Wordle hint

A Wordle hint for Friday, July 28

The answer to today’s Wordle is the word used to describe the nature of someone’s character, or the core beliefs of a group. No, not pathos or logos—the other one. There are two different vowels tucked away in this word. 

Is there a double letter in today’s Wordle? 

No letters are used twice in today’s puzzle. 

Wordle help: 3 tips for beating Wordle every day 

A good starting word can be the difference between victory and defeat with the daily puzzle, but once you’ve got the basics, it’s much easier to nail down those Wordle wins. And as there’s nothing quite like a small victory to set you up for the rest of the day, here are a few tips to help set you on the right path: 

• A good opening guess should contain a mix of unique consonants and vowels. 
• Narrow down the pool of letters quickly with a tactical second guess.
• Watch out for letters appearing more than once in the answer.

There’s no racing against the clock with Wordle so you don’t need to rush for the answer. Treating the game like a casual newspaper crossword can be a good tactic; that way, you can come back to it later if you’re coming up blank. Stepping away for a while might mean the difference between a win and a line of grey squares. 

Today’s Wordle answer

What is the #769 Wordle answer?

What could be better than another win? The answer to the July 28 (769) Wordle is ETHOS. 

Previous Wordle answers

The last 10 Wordle answers 

Past Wordle answers can give you some excellent ideas for fun starting words that keep your daily puzzle-solving fresh. They are also a good way to eliminate guesses for today’s Wordle, as the answer is unlikely to be repeated. 

Here are some recent Wordle answers:

• July 27: DISCO
• July 26: HEART
• July 25: WHEEL
• July 24: HOBBY
• July 23: WHALE
• July 22: FROZE
• July 21: BURLY
• July 20: FLANK
• July 19: TONIC
• July 18: FLYER

Learn more about Wordle

Wordle gives you six rows of five boxes each day, and you’ll need to work out which secret five-letter word is hiding inside them to keep up your winning streak.

You should start with a strong word like ARISE, or any other word that contains a good mix of common consonants and multiple vowels. You’ll also want to avoid starting words with repeating letters, as you’re wasting the chance to potentially eliminate or confirm an extra letter. Once you hit Enter, you’ll see which ones you’ve got right or wrong. If a box turns ⬛️, it means that letter isn’t in the secret word at all. 🟨 means the letter is in the word, but not in that position. 🟩 means you’ve got the right letter in the right spot.

Your second guess should compliment the starting word, using another “good” word to cover any common letters you missed last time while also trying to avoid any letter you now know for a fact isn’t present in today’s answer. With a bit of luck, you should have some coloured squares to work with and set you on the right path.

After that, it’s just a case of using what you’ve learned to narrow your guesses down to the right word. You have six tries in total and can only use real words (so no filling the boxes with EEEEE to see if there’s an E). Don’t forget letters can repeat too (ex: BOOKS).

If you need any further advice feel free to check out our Wordle tips, and if you’d like to find out which words have already been used you can scroll to the relevant section above. 

Originally, Wordle was dreamed up by software engineer Josh Wardle, as a surprise for his partner who loves word games. From there it spread to his family, and finally got released to the public. The word puzzle game has since inspired tons of games like Wordle, refocusing the daily gimmick around music or math or geography. It wasn’t long before Wordle became so popular it was sold to the New York Times for seven figures. Surely it’s only a matter of time before we all solely communicate in tricolor boxes.