Win today’s Wordle in an instant, just click or scroll your way straight to the answer. If you like the thought of taking your time but hate losing, spend a few moments with a helpful clue for the February 25 (981) puzzle, or have a look at our handy range of general tips and advice instead.
That’s more like it—who doesn’t want to solve Sunday’s Wordle in two quick guesses? I have the placement of the two greens I uncovered to thank for today’s speedy win. The first one gave me a great anchor to work with, and the location of the second immediately ruled out a huge chunk of possibilities. Now then, what do I do until tomorrow?
Wordle today: A hint
(Image credit: Josh Wardle)
Wordle today: A hint for Sunday, February 25
Someone who crafts or repairs metal items—anything from delicate jewellery to iron locks—would be called one of these. Tools of the trade include anvils, forges, and tongs.
Is there a double letter in Wordle today?
No letters are used twice in today’s puzzle.
Wordle help: 3 tips for beating Wordle every day
Anyone can pick up and play Wordle, but if you want to do it well and make all of your guesses count, these quick tips will help get you started on your Wordle winning streak:
Choose an opener with a balanced mix of unique vowels and consonants.
The answer may contain the same letter, multiple times.
Try not to use guesses that contain letters you’ve already eliminated.
Thankfully, there’s no time limit beyond ensuring it’s done by midnight. So there’s no reason not to treat the game like a casual newspaper crossword and come back to it later if you’re coming up blank. Sometimes stepping away for a while means you can come back with a fresh perspective.
Wordle today: The answer
(Image credit: Future)
What is today’s Wordle answer?
Need a hand with your game? The answer to the February 25 (981) Wordle is SMITH.
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 solutions:
February 24: PIPER
February 23: APART
February 22: HEAVY
February 21: BUILD
February 20: MATCH
February 19: PRICE
February 18: RIDGE
February 17: PSALM
February 16: STASH
February 15: ASCOT
Learn more about Wordle
(Image credit: Nurphoto via Getty)
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.
You’ll want your next guess to compliment the first, using another “good” word to cover any common letters you might have missed last time while also trying to avoid any letter you now know for a fact isn’t present in today’s answer. After that, it’s simply a case of using what you’ve learned to narrow your guesses down to the correct word. You have six tries in total and can only use real words and don’t forget letters can repeat too (eg: 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.
Surely everyone knows this extremely specific frustration: a game expects you to accompany an NPC while they lead you to the next part of the quest, talking the whole way, but they travel slower than your running speed and faster than your walking speed. You have to alternate awkwardly between a stroll and a jog the whole way, instead of just being able to walk alongside them like a normal person.
While some games let you match the pace of NPCs when you need to, Skyrim does not. Which can be a real hassle when Esbern or some other mouthy plot-related character has to guide you to the next bit of story. Here’s modder wSkeever with the solution: Simplicity of Stalking—Automatically Follow NPCs.
It’s a straightforward mod. Simply hold shift and mouse over an NPC to make the “follow” option appear. Press E to activate it, and you’ll follow them wherever they go—even through loading screens—whether they’re a quest NPC or a courier you just feel like following to see where they go. I tested it by doing exactly that, and it worked like a charm. To stop following them, press any movement key or attack.
If you’re wondering about the unusual name, it’s part of a series of extremely specific mods with names that abbreviate to “SOS”. It began with Schlongs of Skyrim, but going out of your way to name your mod so it has the same abbreviation has been a trend among Skyrim modders for a while now. Just looking at wSkeever’s work, there’s Security Overhaul SKSE, Sidequests of Skyrim, Sweeping Organizes Stuff, and Subtypes of Snowberries, among many others.
https://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/1708877556_Skyrim-mod-lets-you-match-the-pace-of-NPCs-so.jpg6751200Carlos Pachecohttps://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Website-Logo-300x74.pngCarlos Pacheco2024-02-25 03:45:132024-02-25 03:45:13Skyrim mod lets you match the pace of NPCs so you can more easily follow them around
PCG associate editor Tyler Colp and I have devoted an embarrassing amount of our brain power to Elden Ring over the past two years—precious memories of family road trips and childhood friendships eagerly ejected to make room for more deep lore. Well, it’s time for all that brain rot to pay off: join us as we speculate, make connections, and give our best guesses about what’s going on in Shadow of the Erdtree’s first trailer. If you want more than that, well, you’ll have to come over so I can show you my personal cork board and string setup—or we can watch the 40-minute VaatiVidya deep dive that just dropped together.
This Messmer guy has a lot cooking
(Image credit: FromSoftware)
Ted Litchfield, Associate Editor: With Messmer coming out of nowhere to take on the role of expansion mascot and Superhard Megaboss Apparent, there’s a risk of a kind of “Itchy and Scratchy and Poochie” thing here: “Who the hell is this new guy, and why should I care?”
But Messmer might have been hidden in plain sight all along. As pointed out by lauchherz on the Elden Ring subreddit, there are three butterfly items that seem to correspond to Marika and Radagon’s children: the Nascent Butterfly to Miquella, the Aeonian Butterfly to Malenia, and a Smoldering Butterfly that implied the existence of a third sibling.
Many players took this to be Melina, your helper throughout the game, but with the reveal of the fire-themed Messmer, I’m willing to bet that he’s the one, and Shadow of the Erdtree is a sibling drama playing out between the two surviving children of Radagon and Marika. Also, his having one eye lost or shut gives us a connection to both Ranni and Melina.
Tyler Colp, Associate Editor: Those are some compelling theories, especially because I could never quite square the Smoldering Butterfly representing Melina. But that’s another topic. I want to know what Mr. Messmer is even doing in the realm of shadow. His full title is Messmer The Impaler and there’s actually an NPC who talks about an “unwanted child” near the Impaler’s (Impaler!) catacombs. He also looks like he has one eye closed. I’m not sure what any of this means but I do like the idea that maybe he’s the one who impaled Marika and then got punished for it.
We’re clearly dealing with a guy who was cast out by Marika though, maybe at the height of her allegiance to The Golden Order. Some of the enemies in the trailer also look like Omen, the people you find dumped below the capital because none of their noble parents wanted them. So that makes me wonder about his relationship to them and why Miquella is hanging out there. Are they friends? I need to know!
What’s Miquella up to?
(Image credit: FromSoftware)
Tyler: Honestly, I don’t have any smart theories to offer here other than what’s been hinted at in the trailer. Miquella may want power, but I don’t understand why. Miquella’s Needle suggests he had the power to “ward away the meddling of outer gods,” and we know he wanted to help his sister and anyone discarded by the Golden Order. Other than that, I have no idea why he’d ever want to gain power in a world with nothing to rule or fight unless it’s simply to save what’s left of the world.
Ted: I’m curious about all the more sinister things cooking with Miquella. The cruel tragedy around Malenia, the egalitarian promise of the Haligtree, and the fact that they might have been able to fix the world had their siblings not interfered all paints him in a sympathetic light, but that might not be the full story.
“He wields love to shrive clean the hearts of men—there is nothing more terrifying.” That doesn’t sound too nice! The boy genius superstar of Elden Ring’s lore has worn a lot of hats, including an all- but- confirmed assumed identity as St. Trina, a knight of sleep and dreams. I wonder how much of this story will be us saving him from the pocket dimension hidden in his egg, or trying to stop some plot he’s put in motion there.
What the heck is a “Realm of Shadow”
(Image credit: FromSoftware)
Tyler: I think this has to be a Painted World from Dark Souls situation—a safe haven for creatures spurned by the rest of the world. Messmer is an unwanted child of Marika and there are Omen there. Sounds heretical to me! But the comparison doesn’t tell us much about what they’re doing there and why. This DLC takes place before the end of the game, presumably, but FromSoft loves to play with dreams and time, so who knows where and when anything is.
My crackpot theory is that this could be how The Lands Between existed before the Greater Will got interested in it. It’s a realm of shadow because it mirrors the world we already know but maybe has been warped over time. I don’t subscribe to “the Erdtree is actually a parasite” theories, but I wonder if this place essentially fell apart as the topside flourished. Or maybe this is just me wanting to visit a dark Leyndell and a third Roundtable Hold.
Ted: One thing that’s gotten my mind overheating is the ghost you find at Castle Sol, after defeating Commander Niall in the base game: “Lord Miquella, forgive me. The sun has not been swallowed. Our prayers were lacking. Your comrade remains soulless… I will never set my eyes upon it now. Your divine Haligtree.” Castle Sol and its apparently failed metaphysical eclipse seem to have been central to Miquella’s plan somehow, and the Realm of Shadow looks to be in some kind of perpetual twilight, like its sun has been eclipsed.
I’ll leave off with a particularly juicy Miyazaki quote about the new zone from his Famitsu interview:
“In fact, the shadow lands are where Marika became a god and where the Erdtree was born. Of course there was a culture there before the Erdtree, and that lion dance comes from this culture.”
What are we trying to accomplish here?
(Image credit: FromSoftware)
Ted: I have no idea! In his massive interview with Famitsu, Miyazaki stated that the DLC won’t unlock a new ending to the base game—we’ve already taken the Elden Throne and become Elden Lord, so why are we touching the god egg and transporting to the shadow place? On the flip side, Dark Souls 3’s Ringed City offered this impactful, parallel ending to the main game that served as a meta send off to the entire series—maybe we don’t need to muck with the main endings for this to be a great conclusion to Elden Ring’s story.
Tyler: I have no idea either, but maybe we’ll meet an NPC that wants something in the realm of shadow, kind of like Gael in Dark Souls 3. Whoever it is would know that touching the egg is the secret, which is an odd piece of knowledge to have. It is weird that it won’t change any endings, though. I’m extremely curious what prompts us to dip into the shadow lands when it wouldn’t result in hurting the Erdtree in any way.
Ted: I keep catching on the requirement for accessing the DLC: according to Miyazaki, you have to beat both Mohg, Lord of Blood and Starscorge Radahn. Mohg makes sense—he’s the beefy devil boy camped right in front of the creepy egg we’ll use to reach the DLC, but why Radahn, who’s over on the other side of the map and can actually be skipped on your way to Mohg? My guess is that Radahn’s defeat will trigger the appearance of that Gael-style gatekeeper/plot hook NPC
The kindly old portrait man to nasty centipede guy pipeline
(Image credit: FromSoft)
Tyler: Everyone seems convinced the old man in the portrait from the trailer is the guy pulling the sword out of his skull. The pendant certainly looks the same. But yeah, what’s up with this guy’s body? What is happening with those bones? Or are they some kind of growth? If we’re dealing with opposites, it could be some form of root-based necromancy from a shadow version of the tree. We really haven’t seen stuff that looks like that before—it doesn’t quite look like deathroot or the new spiky incantation. I will say this though: the framing makes it look like a boss fight cutscene.
Ted: He was maybe my second favorite enemy design behind the freaky grafted omen lion dance guy. I hope he pulls that big splinter out of his eye and fights us with it, and I’m really curious to know more about that sinister hooded lady standing behind him in the portrait—is she responsible for his nasty bisected thorny state? Could this even be Marika or Miquella in the painting?
References to real world history and mythology
(Image credit: FromSoftware)
Ted: One of the real standout characters from the trailer for me was the animated kaiju burning Wicker Man—famous from the movie, but also an echo of ancient Celtic culture—who seems to be a field boss best fought atop Torrent. That’s a “hell yes” from me, but it’s also an example of one of my favorite things FromSoft does on the art front: pulling from all different cultures and eras to inform its fantasies—it’s the kind of sensibility that delivered us Angkor Wat half-sunk in a lava lake.
Messmer’s whole ensemble and equipment (Berserk reference helmet aside) reminds me most of a mythic Chinese hero, like Guan Yu from Romance of the Three Kingdoms (or Dynasty Warriors, I guess), while the hoplite standing at attention towards the beginning of the trailer is wearing a face plate that reminded PC Gamer contributor Noa Smith of ancient Chinese bronzework. The new weapons also show FromSoft dipping into a deep well of historical oddities: I love the “dueling shield” wielded by the player facing Messmer in the trailer.
Tyler: I caught this post by Reddit user Ramps_ who points out something real unsettling but cool about that lion boss in the trailer. It’s a puppet of some sort, apparently, and it resembles the kind of costume you’d see in a Chinese lion dance. As the post points out, you can see arms holding up the costume as it jumps into the air. It looks like two people controlling it and then at some point they’re able to wield lightning like the dragons. It’s a neat, horrifying twist on something familiar that, as you said, is very FromSoft.
Other callbacks/connections to the main game
(Image credit: FromSoftware)
Tyler: There are plenty of callbacks to the main game, but my favorite might be the Carian stuff. That man with the big hat looks familiar and, if this really is a place for heretics, what did he do that was worse than the rest of the academy? The guy is sitting alone surrounded by bird cages and looks almost impressed that you’ve shown up. I don’t trust any of these sorcerers but maybe he’ll help us out.
Ted: Zullie the Witch pointed out that the Caria-looking magic man has a suspicious resemblance to the Carian Inverted Statue you have to use in Liurnia’s tower in the main game as well. Another weird one Zullie and others have pointed out: the silken veils hanging from the sky in the Realm of Shadow look an awful lot like the ones in Marika’s bedchamber, before you cross the bridge to fight Morgott in the main game.
How big is this thing?
(Image credit: FromSoftware)
Ted: I’ve noticed some commenters bemoaning how Miyazaki described Shadow of the Erdtree as being a bit bigger than the base game’s zone of Limgrave—whether that’s some kind of understatement, or belies a new density of design remains to be seen, but I trust that it’s going to be big. This is the same designer who quoted Elden Ring as being 30 hours long in one interview, after all, and as PCG news writer Joshua Wolens pointed out, it’s weirdly thrilling that Shadow of the Erdtree is twice the price of any previous FromSoft DLC. 40 bucks is a promise.
Tyler: I think Limgrave as an example makes sense because anyone who even played the game a little bit would understand what that means. But it’s also one of the most dense areas in the game, which is another thing Miyazaki has mentioned about the new area in recent interviews. I think it may be surprising how dense it is and I’m still crossing my fingers that we may have a new underground area to visit that mirrors the forgotten city below the capital.
Ted: Does “Limgrave” also include the Weeping Peninsula, which is not actually a peninsula but an island? Sound off in the comments!
https://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/1708805536_We-put-our-humanity-on-the-line-analyzing-every-scrap.jpg6751200Carlos Pachecohttps://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Website-Logo-300x74.pngCarlos Pacheco2024-02-24 19:54:042024-02-24 19:54:04We put our humanity on the line analyzing every scrap of Deep Lore in Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree’s trailer
Enjoy Wordle in your own way, this weekend. It’s time to sit back, relax, and take a look at our general tips if you’d like to give your daily game a boost. Make sure you start on the right foot with a directed hint for the February 24 (980) game. Or guarantee yourself a win with a cheeky peek at today’s Wordle answer. It’s entirely up to you.
Wow, that was a close call. It took me a few rows to get started today, my yellows refusing to turn green no matter what I did with them. And after that? Greens with strange, stubborn, gaps. Even on the last row I wasn’t entirely sure if I was going to win today—I’m glad that’s over.
Today’s Wordle hint
(Image credit: Josh Wardle)
Wordle today: A hint for Saturday, February 24
According to legend, a pied one of these rid the town of Hamelin of rats. Paying one of these is another way of saying it’s time to face the unpleasant consequences of your actions.
Is there a double letter in Wordle today?
Yes, there is a double letter in today’s puzzle.
Wordle help: 3 tips for beating Wordle every day
If there’s one thing better than playing Wordle, it’s playing Wordle well, which is why I’m going to share a few quick tips to help set you on the path to success:
A good opener contains a balanced mix of unique vowels and consonants.
A tactical second guess helps to narrow down the pool of letters quickly.
The solution may contain repeat letters.
There’s no time pressure beyond making sure it’s done by midnight. So there’s no reason not to treat the game like a casual newspaper crossword and come back to it later if you’re coming up blank.
Today’s Wordle answer
(Image credit: Future)
What is today’s Wordle answer?
Just in case you need it. The answer to the February 24 (980) Wordle is PIPER.
Previous answers
The last 10 Wordle answers
The more past Wordle answers you can cram into your memory banks, the better your chances of guessing today’s Wordle answer without accidentally picking a solution that’s already been used. Past Wordle answers can also give you some excellent ideas for fun starting words that keep your daily puzzle solving fresh.
Here are some recent Wordle solutions:
February 23: APART
February 22: HEAVY
February 21: BUILD
February 20: MATCH
February 19: PRICE
February 18: RIDGE
February 17: PSALM
February 16: STASH
February 15: ASCOT
February 14: TALON
Learn more about Wordle
(Image credit: Nurphoto via Getty)
Every day Wordle presents you with six rows of five boxes, and it’s up to you to work out which secret five-letter word is hiding inside them.
You’ll want to start with a strong word like ALERT—something containing multiple vowels, common consonants, and no repeat letters. Hit Enter and the boxes will show you which letters 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.
You’ll want your second go to compliment the first, 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.
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.
I’m a big fan of Croteam’s 2014 puzzle game The Talos Principle, and so I think the new Mind-Bending Masterpieces collection at Humble Bundle is well worth some attention. It includes The Talos Principle and an impressive collection of other hit puzzle games including The Witness and Superliminal for just $10.
The Talos Principle is set in humanity’s far future, except humanity has wiped itself out and all that remains are the robots we left behind to carry on our legacy. First, though, they must undergo a gauntlet of puzzles, the idea being that “play” is a universal element of the human experience, all while learning about the last days of organic human life on Earth and hopefully absorbing the lessons therein.
It’s a very clever way to tie together an otherwise disparate collection of physics and logic puzzles, and I enjoyed the way the narrative unfolded as much as I liked solving the brainteasers—The Talos Principle strikes just the right balance of making me feel smart without requiring me to actually be smart.
It normally goes for $30 on Steam, so the $10 price for this Humble Bundle is a solid deal even without the other games it contains. But it does contain them—you’ll also get Superliminal, Manifold Garden, The Pedestrian, and The Witness, all standout puzzlers in their own right.
For $5 more, you can add a couple more games to the mix: Patrick’s Parabox, a wonderful Sokoban-style box pusher, and Taiji, which I haven’t played and so can’t comment on—but it’s got 93% positive reviews on Steam, so that’s definitely a good reference.
The Talos Principle is the big hook in this bundle for me, in case that wasn’t clear already, but all of the games in it go for more than $15 at regular price, so it’s hard to go wrong no matter which one you dig the most. Consider it a two-thumbs-up recommendation from me, and you’ve got one week to pick it up: The Mind-Bending Masterpieces Humble Bundle will be live until March 1.
https://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/1708733295_Get-The-Talos-Principle-The-Witness-Superliminal-and-other-mind-bending.jpg6761200Carlos Pachecohttps://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Website-Logo-300x74.pngCarlos Pacheco2024-02-23 23:27:122024-02-23 23:27:12Get The Talos Principle, The Witness, Superliminal, and other ‘mind-bending masterpieces’ for just $10
It can be difficult to find a really good deal on many SSD drives right now, although for our part we’re still plugging away finding the best cheap SSD deals for gaming on a regular basis. Despite the difficulties in the market, thanks to a ramping down of production, we’re still finding some good discounts on great drives, and right now one of the best we’ve spotted is this Nextorage Japan 1TB Gen 4 NVMe drive down to $75 at Newegg.
Nextorage is a name that still might be unfamiliar to many of you, so a quick history lesson: Nextorage was originally created by none other than Sony, with a specific mission to create very fast SSDs for its PlayStation series of consoles.
However, industry heavyweight Phison eventually bought a controlling stake in the company, and it started developing drives using the now legendary Phison E18 controller, the very same chip used in some of the fastest Gen 4 drives we’ve tested to date.
As a result, the Nextorage Japan 1TB NVMe drive is an extremely speedy SSD indeed, although it’s not just the controller that makes it desirable. It’s also been imbued with a quad-lane PCIe 4.0 interface, good quality TLC NAND memory and 1GB of DDR4 cache, which means that when it comes to performance this drive is absolutely no slouch.
We reviewed the 2TB version last year and came away very impressed, and while the rated read speeds of the 1TB model are slightly slower than the drive we tested, in real world usage you’re still going to find it as quick as you would realistically need for an install, gaming or storage drive. With 7,300MB/s reads and 6,000MB/s writes it’s still a barnstormer of a performer that’ll load your games in double-quick time, and should be a reliable stalwart in your machine for some time to come.
If there’s one real drawback here, it’s the overall capacity. 1TB makes for a decent chunk of storage, but what with game installs seemingly ever increasing in size it might be worth taking a look at the 2TB version if you’re looking for one drive to rule them all. In which case, Newegg has the 2TB option for just $130, which while it isn’t technically a discount is still an excellent price for such a fast and capacious SSD.
See, told you we were good at finding the best prices. Anyway, enough braggadocio. Either model will provide pretty much all the SSD performance you could realistically want from a Gen 4 drive, and you’d struggle to find better for the money.
It might not have the brand recognition of some, but Nextorage drives make for a great way to add super-fast NVMe storage to your system, for less than you might expect right now.
https://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/1708697224_Think-great-SSD-deals-are-a-thing-of-the-past.jpg6751200Carlos Pachecohttps://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Website-Logo-300x74.pngCarlos Pacheco2024-02-23 13:03:592024-02-23 13:03:59Think great SSD deals are a thing of the past? We’ve spotted this speedy Nextorage 1TB drive for $75
Like bugs bursting through the planet’s surface, four games came out of nowhere this year and they’re all exploding in popularity.
This week, it’s Last Epoch, a Diablo-style action RPG that’s currently being crushed under the weight of over 160,000 concurrent players on Steam. Its server issues are being worked on, but its offline mode seems to be keeping players fed.
It couldn’t have hit at a better time. Diablo 4’s third season is a little muted as Blizzard preps for a massive overhaul to its loot, and Path of Exile 2 is still months away. People wanted a loot game and they got one, made by a small team that met each other on Reddit, no less.
Steam reviews are mixed as people struggle to log in and stay connected, however. The developers have been posting constant updates about what they’re working on via every public channel available, but that hasn’t quelled the thousands of players enticed by its $34.99 price who expected it to just work. Five years of early access only really earns you trust with the people who stuck around, and yet, there are enough players still in it to keep it locked in the top 10 most played Steam games this week, even above Baldur’s Gate 3.
Last Epoch hasn’t exploded like Palworld did last month, but committed action RPG fans argue that its extensive item crafting system and satisfying build variety put it in direct competition with Diablo 4, a hugely popular game you’d think would’ve had all that figured out. As Diablo 4 players wait for Blizzard to address some of its long-standing issues next season, an alternative that has years of community-driven development already under its belt looks pretty enticing.
But Last Epoch was just one of four games that went big this year. These three other games continue to thrive.
Helldivers 2 celebrates the perseverance of players
(Image credit: Arrowhead Game Studios)
Helldivers 2 is in a similar situation as Last Epoch when it comes to server instability threatening to drag down its explosive success. Over the weekend, the co-op shooter for Starship Troopers fans surged in popularity. My X feed was filled with memes and clips of players getting squished by friendly supply drops. The fun was too contagious and the servers buckled as people rushed to enlist in Super Earth’s most expendable army. Much like Last Epoch’s Steam reviews, Helldivers 2 was hit with negative comments like “Great game. Wish I could play it,” all while steadily climbing up the most played chart.
It turns out players love a game with a strong focus, backed by a development team who is vocal about its dislike of pay-to-win, FOMO-driven live service monetization. Helldivers 2 is live service like an MMO, where individual actions slowly make an impact on the world: People share war stories and tips on social media as they take part in a global effort to sweep the galaxy clean of alien threats. And that progress is reflected in the game as different planets cycle out of rotation. For what is ostensibly just a co-op shooter, Helldivers feels like a saga everyone has a hand in writing.
Enshrouded fills an open world with everything you’d ever want
(Image credit: Keen Games)
Enshrouded may not have the big concurrent player count like Last Epoch and Helldivers 2, but over two million players have picked up the early access fantasy, multiplayer survival game since it launched last month. Perhaps they were lured in by all the castles and hobbit holes players have been building in it. Or maybe it’s just a sign of how hungry people are for survival games right now.
Chris described Enshrouded as “Valheim crossed with Zelda,” an open world game with secrets and quests and NPCs hidden throughout. The Steam reviewers agree: Players praise it for its mix of exploration, building and storytelling, and just the fact that it’s even able to wield all three at once so well. Studio Keen Games says it’ll be in early access for about a year, and given the staggering level of interest it already has, it might go toe-to-toe with Helldivers 2 and Last Epoch soon enough.
Palworld breaks the rules and lets you break them too
(Image credit: Pocketpair)
None of these games made as big of a splash as Palworld. The Pokémon-like survival game didn’t quite come out of nowhere. It’s always been “the survival game with guns and Pokémon” since it was announced in 2021. Now, three years later, it’s the survival game with guns and Pokémon that has completely taken over the world.
In two months Palworld has brought in over 25 million players on Steam and Xbox. The game where you catch, recruit, and butcher cute creatures is unstoppable at this point. I still scroll by clips of it on TikTok and catch YouTube videos about efficient breeding techniques for your Pals. It’s a phenomenon that nobody could’ve predicted and even if its Steam concurrents have fallen off a bit, it has a whole roadmap of features coming to keep players hooked.
It didn’t matter how egregious some of its creature designs were or how wonky some of its systems felt, Palworld gave people the kind of open world survival game experience that Nintendo probably never will. It’s absurd and compelling and honest about what it is, which I think is what truly resonated in a sea of bigger releases that keep trying to push tired live service models built on generations of systems from similar games. Palworld, like 2024’s other surprise hits, nailed a simple goal: take a familiar genre and hone in on exactly what players want within seconds of booting it up.
https://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/1708661235_Last-Epoch-is-the-fourth-breakout-game-of-2024.jpg6751200Carlos Pachecohttps://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Website-Logo-300x74.pngCarlos Pacheco2024-02-23 00:54:152024-02-23 00:54:15Last Epoch is the fourth breakout game of 2024
One would hope that, when reading a recipe, a human being has at some point crafted it personally, adjusting the ingredients and techniques inside over a process of elimination and careful adjustment to create a delicious result. Or, if you’re receiving a recipe from grocery delivery service Instacart, you could hope that the app’s AI-generated recipes would lead to something delectable.
Sometimes, sure. And others? Might be best to give it a miss.
Instacart announced in May of last year they they would be partnering with OpenAI to launch an AI-powered “Food Inspiration Search Tool” and AI-generated recipes, which given AI’s tendency to go slightly off the rails on occasion strikes as a dubious idea right from the off. However, it was users of the Instacart subreddit that were first to notice that something odd was happening with the accompanying images.
Those scanning the photos (via Business Insider) without paying too much attention may have let them pass, but more than a cursory glance reveals some ingredients that look entirely made up. From conjoined chickens to hotdogs with the interior of a tomato, it’s a telling indicator of what looks like the sometimes horrifying output created by an AI image generation tool. And while some are slightly stomach churning, others are downright hilarious.
My favourite thus far is a photo for a “Microwave Mug Chocolate Chip Cookie a la Mode” which shows a perfectly reasonable looking cup of presumably delicious dessert, if not for the chocolate chip cookie welded onto the side of the mug. Good try, AI, but you’ve failed to pass detection once again.
And as for the recipes themselves, the AI experiment doesn’t seem to have gone all that well here either. 404 media found that, when asking the AI to create a recipe with tomatoes, cucumbers, ground beef, onions, lemons, and chocolate—a heady mix we think you’ll agree—the AI created a “citrus beef salad” that seemed somewhat plausible until a step requiring the user to “sprinkle the shaved chocolate on top as a surprising twist”. Mmmm.
We told Instacart that their impossible and often gross AI-generated recipes had obviously AI-generated images to go along with them, so they replaced them with other AI-generated images. @emanuelmaiberg still trying to figure out what “monito sauce” ishttps://t.co/7DwqufH1lEFebruary 21, 2024
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More than that, recipes have been reported calling for 3 1/5 teaspoon’s worth of an ingredient, or one cup of “Monito sauce”, which sounds delicious except, well, it doesn’t exist. Boo. Someone really should invent it though. I’d order it in a heartbeat. Sounds yum.
For what it’s worth, Instacart does make it clear that the AI-generated recipes should be taken with a pinch of salt, stating in the accompanying text that “This recipe is powered by the magic of AI, so that means it may not be perfect. Check temperatures, taste, and season as you go. Or totally switch things up — you’re the head chef now. Consult product packaging to confirm any dietary or nutritional information which is provided here for convenience only. Make sure to follow recommended food safety guidelines.”
Well, all this AI chat has made me hungry, but if its alright with y’all, I think I’ll leave the recipes to an actual chef. Or me, a man who has made worse things than these AI creations, sometimes after one too many at my local pub.
That’s my excuse anyway, and I’ll have you know I’m sticking to it.
https://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/1708625128_Grocery-delivery-service-Instacart-has-been-using-AI-to-make.jpg6751200Carlos Pachecohttps://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Website-Logo-300x74.pngCarlos Pacheco2024-02-22 17:27:252024-02-22 17:27:25Grocery delivery service Instacart has been using AI to make up impossible recipes and generate images of horrifying and hilarious food
Many people—myself included— have had to deal with the woe of a wet phone. My experience came during the Songkran festival in Thailand. If you’ve ever experienced it, it means you get wet. Very wet. Some water got into my supposedly sealed phone pouch, and yes—I actually used rice to dry it out. It turns out that’s not the best thing to do, at least according to an Apple support document.
Apple released an official advisory on the subject of drying your phone, as spotted by Macworld (via the Guardian). The advisory lays out what you should and should not do if your phone gets wet. It says ‘Don’t put your iPhone in a bag of rice. Doing so could allow small particles of rice to damage your iPhone.’
I don’t actually have an iPhone, but It’s safe to say that dunking one in rice is something plenty of people have done over the years. Without ever paying much attention to the subject, I have always assumed the rice submersion method was a sound way of absorbing water from electronics. Did I fall for an unproven urban myth?
Apparently so. Honestly I never thought about little bits of rice getting into the nooks and crannies of my phone.
The iPhone actually has a decent liquid detection function that tells you not to connect your cable if it detects moisture. A short is the worst that can happen, but the pins can corrode which could turn your phone into an overpriced doorstop.
I won’t risk saying iPhones are overpriced anyway. Oops. I just did. Yep, I’m an Android guy.
The general advice for drying out your phone is to sit it with the connector facing down to allow any excess liquid to drain out, while directing some natural airflow over it. The same advice goes for any phone or electrical device. Apple wisely suggests you should not direct heat or compressed air at your phone, and not to go inserting stuff like cotton swabs or a bit of paper towel in there.
The iPhone 12 and later models are built to be water resistant, as is the case for many modern phones. Some will even survive full submersion. But when it comes to drying it out afterwards, leave the rice in the bag.
Now if i was to drop my phone into the toilet, I wouldn’t even bother. I’d be on the lookout for a new phone.
https://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/1708589067_Apple-issues-rice-advice-saying-its-not-the-way-you.jpg6751200Carlos Pachecohttps://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Website-Logo-300x74.pngCarlos Pacheco2024-02-22 06:02:342024-02-22 06:02:34Apple issues rice advice, saying its not the way you should dry out your wet iPhone
The alt-Victorian survival game Nightingale launched yesterday, and after a full day of release on Steam it’s now laboring under a less-than-stellar “mixed” user rating. Reasons for the complaints are varied, but the main culprit seems to be one we’re all familiar with by now: the servers.
The frustrations with Nightingale are exacerbated by the need to be connected to play, even if you’re going solo. Quite a few user reviews on Steam are actually positive about the game overall, but throw it a thumbs-down anyway because of server wonkiness.
“I REALLY like a lot of this game so far, but this is getting a negative for one giant issue,” one Steam user wrote. “Being always online, even when playing solo, is absolute nonsense. There is no reason a game like this has to be online at all times. Which is only compounded by the servers being a trash fire currently.”
“Absolutely no need for a survival crafting game to be online only,” another wrote. “Once again we’re all at the mercy of server stability and an inability to pause… Fantastic. Why even have ‘played solo or cooperatively’ or ‘alone or with friends’ written anywhere, it’s misleading to the point where I can only think it’s intentional.”
Nightingale is off to a fairly strong start: Just over 37,000 people are playing right now, according to Steam Charts, and its current peak player count is more than 47,500. That’s nowhere near the infuriatingly-impossible-to-get-into Helldivers 2, but it’s not too far off the other big survival game of the moment, Enshrouded, which launched into early access in January and currently has about 46,000 people playing.
That’s good news for developer Inflexion Games, but how those numbers hold up over the coming days and weeks will depend an awful lot on how quickly the studio can rectify Nightingale’s server headaches and offer players a smooth, stable experience. It brings to mind the obvious example of Payday 3, which suffered a disastrous launch driven in part by its requirement for an online connection even for solo play: It still doesn’t have an offline mode (although developer Starbreeze finally announced that one is coming, eventually) and the concurrent player count is now mired in low triple-digits.
Server issues are hardly an uncommon problem for games these days, especially when they first roll out, and neither is blowback from unhappy players. Payday 3 may be the most notable example of everything going wrong in the worst way possible, but full-on hits can suffer from it. Helldivers 2 is a prime example of that. Like Nightingale, it’s got a “mixed” user rating on Steam, largely because servers can’t handle the load, but it’s also tremendously popular: At any given moment there are hundreds of thousands of people playing it.
As to whether an offline mode will come to Nightingale at any point, it seems like a bit of a long shot right now. Nightingale’s shared world is essentially a series of “Realms” and portals that players access using Realm Cards, all of it hosted on Inflexion’s own servers. Inflexion CEO Aaryn Flynn allowed for the possibility of an offline mode in a recent interview with Screen Rant, if developers can figure out how to make it work.
“When we engineered the always-online backend, it was in service of this vision of being able to always explore new realms, and we didn’t know how to do that without a server being able to help manage all the data and stuff,” Flynn said. “But if we can do it for someone who just wants to play strictly solo, I’m very open to it.”
Earlier today, Inflexion completed a round of server maintenance for Nightingale and rolled out a hotfix tackling a trio of issues:
Should address most instances of “Running out of GPU memory” error on graphic cards that exceed min spec
Players should be able to rebind inputs to the arrow keys, you may receive a warning to rebind camera controls which are bound to the arrow keys by default
Pressing Tab + I together should no longer crash the game
For now, if you’re struggling with a high ping in Nightingale, or connection to inappropriate regional servers, you can get some advice on what to do on Inflexion’s support page.
https://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/1708553023_Nightingale-is-off-to-a-strong-start-but-its-also.jpg6751200Carlos Pachecohttps://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Website-Logo-300x74.pngCarlos Pacheco2024-02-21 21:01:082024-02-21 21:01:08Nightingale is off to a strong start but it’s also got a ‘mixed’ user rating on Steam, and once again server problems are largely to blame
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