Overwatch 2 debuted on Steam last week and was immediately hit with so many negative user reviews that it’s now the lowest-scoring game on the platform.

Right now, Blizzard’s first PC release outside the Battle.net launcher has over 140,000 Steam reviews, which Steam summarizes as “Overwhelmingly Negative”. While there are plenty of users criticizing the FPS for understandable reasons, many of the reviewers are simply there to add memes and ASCII art to the pile.

Those are the Trinity Pack, a collection of three new suits which, sure, you can buy if you’re really into Hitman’s dress-up aspect, and The Sarajevo Six Campaign Pack, a collection of six bonus missions for the maps from Hitman 1 that have been exclusive to that game’s PS4 version for the last seven years.

“This six-mission campaign tells a self-contained story that revolves around former members of a paramilitary unit known as CICADA,” who all got up to some very unpleasant stuff during the Siege of Sarajevo. It’s up to you to sort them out, in a set of six missions across Paris, Sapienza, Marrakesh, Bangkok, Colorado, and Hokkaido. You know, if I ever thought I was at risk of being murdered by Agent 47, I’d just go on holiday to a location that hadn’t featured in any of the games he’s in. These guys are clueless. You can pick up the pack right now for $5/£4.29.

But new DLC isn’t the only news fit to print from the August patch. There’s also a few tweaks to the game’s Freelancer mode that are well-worth mentioning. First up, IO has completely disabled the Perfect Run prestige objective from the mode, “like, straight up removed it from the game,” they say, because it keeps registering as failed for players who successfully complete it. Like me. I always successfully complete it. All those failures I have clocked in are the unjust interventions of a fickle god.

Good news for other players like me, then, that IO says it’s actually restored an exploit that was letting players quit out of a Freelancer run without it registering as a failure (costing you your gear and potentially killing your streak). The studio has “reverted the removal of the Alt+F4 exploit for Freelancer,” which I’m pretty sure means you’ll be able to nope out of a Freelancer mission without the game dinging you with a mission failed screen when you log back in. “You should now expect the same behaviour from those buttons that existed at Freelancer’s launch in January.” Truly, this is the age of the savescummer, my friends.

Anyway, that’s what leaps out at me. Here are the patch notes in full:

Technology / PC Specific

• Intel XeSS: We’ve updated from version 1.0 to 1.1 and this new version fixes a small GPU memory leak.
• Ray Tracing: We’ve resolved an issue where Ray Tracing settings between the Launcher and Game Options (in-game) would not always be aligned and could inadvertently overwrite each other.
• DLSS Frame Generation: We’ve resolved an issue where the DLSS Frame Generation option would be greyed out in the Launcher on the Nvidia RTX 40 series.
• Hantu Port: We’ve resolved a specific issue on the Hantu Port Sniper Assassin map, where certain textures would appear pixelated with many jagged edges for players that had enabled FSR 2 or XeSS.
• Stability Improvements: Yes, this is always here. In addition to general stability improvements, this patch includes specific fixes for a crash on the Landslide Bonus Mission, as well as common crashes that were occurring on all platforms.

Freelance Improvements

• Perfect Run: We’ve disabled this objective in Freelancer. Like, straight up removed it from the game. For now. We’re hopeful that it’s a temporary measure and we’re looking into a permanent fix for it. Unfortunately, we don’t have a definitive reason for why this objective is acting like it is and registering as failed despite all the criteria being completed. We are able to see an extended delay in Perfect Run from being evaluated, to it resulting in a failed state. Even though we’re talking milliseconds, that delay is just over three times longer than other ‘complete on exit’ objectives. Until we can get a better grip on resolving this, we’re removing this objective from the game to avoid player frustration.
• Alt F-14,000,606: There’s always an alternative. And we’ve reverted the removal of the Alt+F4 exploit for Freelancer. You should now expect the same behaviour from those buttons that existed at Freelancer’s launch in January.
• Undercover UI: We’ve removed a rogue UI element that could show up in a Storage Room in Miami when playing Freelancer. Similar story for a UI icon that could appear on the Intel Wall in the Safehouse.
• Black Winter Mirror: We’ve resolved an issue where the Winter Suit and Black Winter Suit didn’t look too good in the Upstairs Bathroom or Gym mirrors in the Safehouse. The reason was a mismatch between the level of detail (LOD) setup on the suits and these particular mirrors.
• Chloroform Ban: We’ve made dropping a chloroform flask an illegal action. This was deemed to be a little too overpowered, especially during Showdown missions.
• Safehouse Hanger: We’ve resolved an issue in the Freelancer Hitmansion where the Mastery Level 24 Basement Bathroom cosmetic wasn’t displaying properly.

World of Assassination Fixes

• General Texture Check: We’ve done a general sweep of textures across all locations and fixed a whole bunch (approx. 35) of different texture issues, including flickering, pop-in, lens flares, seeing oow, etc.
• Over-sized Subtitles: We’ve enabled a new upper limit on the font size of our in-game subtitles (from 46 to 48).
• Obtuse Gas Grenade Glow: We’ve dialled back the emissive settings of the Gas Grenade. That thing was set to an extremely high level and was outputting some extreme light, which was especially visible in darker areas of the game.
• Difficult Cameras: We’ve resolved an issue where throwable items would lock-on to ‘invisible’ security cameras on Casual Difficulty. These particular cameras were the ones present on Professional difficulty.
• Bathroom Break: We’ve resolved an issue where a guard in the Voltaire Suite in Paris would react to the radio in the Sheikh’s bathroom. That’s way too far, even for game logic, so we’ve prevented him from investigating in the future.
• Yet Another Disappearance: We’ve resolved an issue where Dino Bosco would immediately depart the world (of assassination) by the quickest possible route (through the floor) if 47 snapped his neck in his trailer.
• Escape Room: We’ve resolved an issue where Agent 47 could get stuck in a box in Colorado, after subduing an NPC from cover. There wasn’t much real estate to move things around here, but we’ve made a nearby cover slightly smaller and rotated a crate. Those two changes should give 47 a little more room to manoeuvre.
• Clean View: We’ve resolved an issue where Agent 47 could get spotted through a wall in Hokkaido whilst performing agility moves next to the Sushi Restaurant.
• Look at the Shine: We’re resolved an issue where Nolan Cassidy’s jacket could look way too shiny, compared to how it was supposed to look. There’s nothing wrong with shiny jackets, but it’s not the right look for Nolan.
• Even Game Makers Don’t Hate You: We’ve resolved an issue in Miami where it was possible to clip through a box and vault over the stairs near the track bridge.
• More Fortuna: We’ve resolved an issue where an inaccessible door in Santa Fortuna near the Warehouse can be shot open, which causes it to clip into the environment. Now, the door is bulletproof and it has nothing to lose.
• Extensive Indoor Flora: We’ve resolved an issue where branches from a nearby tree can be seen venturing through the concrete roof of the Delgado Mansion Garage in Santa Fortuna. We’ve fixed this issue in a surprisingly simple way; we’ve rotated the tree a little bit so that the angles line up and keep the branches out of the garage.
• No More X-Ray: We’ve resolved an issue on the Isle of Sgail, where 47 could be spotted through the wall of the Gatehouse bathroom.
• Surprise Death Wall: We’ve resolved an issue where NPC’s (not 47) would be insta-killed when they got too close to a specific wall in Isle of Sgail. Ironically enough, the death wall is located in the Morgue and would kill any NPC who was right up against it. To remedy this, we added some extra collision along the wall – but that didn’t work. We could see that NPCs were able to step *just* outside of the navmesh bounds (basically the area that they are allowed to be) and although we tried a few other changes, the Death Wall kept on claiming victims. Now, we have fixed the issue by adding a bunch of boxes and stuff right next to the wall, to keep the NPCs away. Despite the fix, DEATH WALL™ is still there and waiting to claim more lives. Stay Frosty.
• Dirty Money: We’ve resolved an issue where a floating ‘dirt’ texture in the New York Bank was visible in the west corridor.
• Bulldog Bedroom Balcony: We’ve resolved an issue where Agent 47 could drop down from a ledge in Dartmoor by using an agility setup from cover.
• Eats, shoots and leaves: We’ve resolved an issue in Dartmoor where some leaves on the ground were not displaying properly, and instead would appear as small black squares. Also in Dartmoor, we’re resolved several instances where textures would flicker.
• Cover Up: We’ve resolved a few issues in Berlin with several redundant covers being present, both near the gas station and the rooftop stairs
• Glow Sticks: We’ve resolved an issue in Berlin where certain climbable pipes weren’t visible in Instinct. We’ve added the traversal glow to these now.
• From Homing to Disappearing: We’ve resolved an issue in Chongqing where retrieving a large weapon from a briefcase in certain rooms could result in the briefcase disappearing into the floor. It turns out that the issue was caused by the setup a specific type of door in this location.
• Dirty Laundry: We’ve tweaked the properties of the garbage can / rubbish bin in the Chongqing Laundromat so that it is no longer used by NPCs as a ‘sickspot’. Now, they will vomit / throw up outside of the building.
• Electrapcity: We’ve resolved an issue where 47 could accidentally create an elaborate accident kill on himself. He’s just that good. On Level 5 of the facility in Chongqing, it was possible for 47 to expose a wire and create a water leak, but turning on the fusebox would see 47 caught in his own trap. Whilst it was possible to turn on the fusebox before the water spread to where the fusebox was located, it was tricky. So, we’ve reduced how far the water will spread and delayed it a bit to make it more flexible. It’s still a small room and players need to be aware of where they step, but this change will make it less of an insta-kill.
• Agent Parkour Seven: We’ve tweaked the agility setup near to the ICA Apartment in Chongqing to make it more reliable and less likely to get stuck or fall out of the playable game space.
• Floored: We’ve resolved an issue in Ambrose Island where NPC’s could see 47 through the floor when he was standing in a hut above them.
• Live Fixes: Since our last patch in May, we resolved a handful of issues in the game without the need for a patch. We’ve listed them here for posterity.
• Freelancer XP: An issue was resolved where players would not receive the expected bonus XP after reaching Prestige level 2 (or higher) and completing missions.
• ET Challenges: We resolved separate issues where the Deceivers and Appraiser Elusive Target contracts were activated without the accompanying completion challenges. When this happens, we typically release the challenges immediately to improve the experience for anyone playing the mission after that point. We then wait until the end of the ET duration and retroactively award the challenges to players who should have got them. Even then, this fix process can only be applied to a players profile, when they are not currently playing Online, which means that some players may see their progression displayed accurately whilst others don’t. We continue to roll out the fix process until all affected players are seeing correct progression on their profile.
• Japanese Xbox Store: We’ve resolved a store-side issue for Xbox players in Japan who were unable to install some content from the World of Assassination.

Battlemage, of course, is the follow up to the Alchemist GPU architecture in Intel’s current Arc GPUs including the A770 and A750. It’s generally expected to appear next year. The precise timings aren’t clear, but obviously the sooner the better for both gamers and Intel itself.

Anyway, the new data dump as communicated by Tom’s Hardware and originally unearthed by Twitter user Harukaze5719 involves the test tools Intel supplies for partners preparing to produce graphics cards based on its upcoming GPUs. To cut a long story short, it’s an interposer that’s related to the chip package mounting on the graphics card PCB.

And here’s the thing. The interposer for the high performance Battlemage GPU is larger than the equivalent for Alchemist. Now, this doesn’t say anything directly about the die size of the highest performance Battlemage GPU. But it does strongly imply that it’s a pretty decent size.

Moreover, the interposer for the lower performing of the two upcoming Battlemage dies is much smaller. Because the chip package is smaller and so will be the die size of a lower performing GPU.

The larger Battlemage interposer is only slightly bigger than big Alchemists. 2.5 per cent larger, apparently. Intel has also said that Battlemage will be built on TSMC’s N4 process, which is effectively the same as Nvidia has used on its RTX 40-series cards. And when you take all that information together, it implies very hopeful things about Battlemage.

That’s because the current big Alchemist GPU clocks in at 406mm² and 22 billion transistors. It’s not possible to say for sure how big Battlemage will be based on the interposer size. But the fact that it’s slightly bigger than Alchemists strongly implies that it will at least be a chip on a similar scale even if it isn’t actually larger.

Alchemist is built on TSMC’s N6 process. So an N4 chip of a similar physical size will contain far more transistors. For context, Nvidia’s AD103 GPU as used in the RTX 4080 is 379mm² and contains 46 billion transistors.

The point is that if the big Battlemage GPU is physically about the same size as the big Alchemist GPU, it will contain roughly 50 billion transistors and be comparable with an RTX 4080 for sheer complexity.

That doesn’t guarantee it will match an RTX 4080 for actual gaming performance. After all, big Alchemist is roughly on par with the RTX 3070 Ti’s GA104 GPU for size and complexity but can’t match its performance.

But this information about Battlemage definitely does imply Intel has not scaled back its ambitions. If anything, on die size and complexity, it looks to be positioned a little higher versus Nvidia GPUs than Alchemist.

We’ll only know for sure when Battlemage finally arrives next year. But, Lordy, are we hoping that it can indeed get close to the RTX 4080 for performance. That would be such an enormous boost for the GPU market as a whole. 

It might also be particularly important if rumours that AMD, in turn, is scaling back its plans for its own next-gen RDNA 4 graphics architecture—if those rumours are true, which is impossible to say for now.

I can’t help but feel a twinge of envy, however, for the steam deck adopters and controller players. I would never dream of using the game’s radial menus for combat, since I have so many skills to on my bar to contend with (this is totally the game’s fault, and not mine for making a bunch of fiddly multiclass builds). 

For the purposes of running around and chatting to people, though? The near-seamless analog movement and immersive camera angle’s enough to make me go green as a Gith with envy. It’s also left me slightly confused as to why this perspective on the Sword Coast is barred from PC players without a controller.

Thankfully, modders are here to save the day. A mod by Nexus user Ch4nKyy has added WASD movement to the game—and, combined with Ershin’s “Native Camera Tweaks“, the Forgotten Realms can now be explored on foot from the comfort of your four favourite letters. You can see a video example, provided courtesy of the Youtube channel dimetequiero, below:

It all seems to work flawlessly, letting you navigate third-person action style with your keyboard, but still interact with your mouse—then, whenever you want, you can simply zoom back out to the isometric view and assume direct control over your pawns. The best of both worlds, and an obvious quality of life improvement over the game’s current sky-locked control scheme.

I’m excited to take it for a whirl myself soon, as a later portion of the game—the titular Baldur’s Gate—is rammed with lovely environmental details I’m completely missing with my god’s-eye view.

As you can guess, a lot of that timeline is taken up by humans killing each other. War never changes, and this time it’s in space.

The timeline shows that after landing on Mars it would take humankind another century to reach Alpha Centauri, our nearest neighboring star system, in 2156. Humans begin colonizing the heck out of it, so much so that the United Colonies are established just a few years later. In 2188 another alliance of colonies is made, the cowboy-ish Starfield faction called the Freestar Collective, which goes to war with the United Colonies in 2196 (this might be the war with those mechs we saw).

That war lasts a whopping 20 years. Shortly after, the Freestar Rangers is established as an “elite protective and investigative force.” Cowboys and detectives? They’re the Space Pinkertons, essentially.

Apparently nothing of note happens for another 50 years or so until exploration group Constellation is formed in 2275 by Sebastian Banks, whose name you will probably memorize because I assume you’ll be hearing it quite a bit. (Gotta be some sort of holotapes with Banks on ’em at Constellation headquarters.) Another war kicks off as the Freestar Collective violates a treaty in 2308. That’s the Colony War we’ll probably hear referenced in Starfield plenty, though it only lasted a few years. While the UC and FC are duking it out, Constellation discovers a mysterious artifact and… apparently just sticks it in a drawer. Huh.

Ever wonder why any old citizen in Starfield can have a spaceship with weapons on it, instead of just the military? Well, the United Colonies got their ass handed to them by the Freestar Collective’s use of civilian ships and pilots in the last war, so it formed its own civilian navy. That’s why you can fly around blasting other ships—official military ships and pilots just can’t get the job done by themselves.

As we’re nearing the time Starfield begins, we start hearing about some of the people we’ll actually meet, like Sarah Morgan, one of the Starfield companions who joins Constellation as a navigator after getting laid off from the UC. Walter Stroud begins financing Constellation, and since he’s an incredibly rich dude I’m sure his motives aren’t entirely benevolent. Finally in 2326 Barrett (another companion) finds the artifact in Constellation’s archives and the group begins searching for more of them. That’s where you come in, at the beginning of Starfield in the year 2330, having stumbled on another artifact while mining on Mars.

If you want to skim this timeline for yourself, I can’t link to it, exactly: it’s on the official website’s main page but you have to scroll way down until you see the words “The Story So Far…” You won’t have to wait long to continue that story: Starfield launches on September 6, or on September 1 if you have Starfield early access.