On an average day about a dozen new games are released on Steam. And while we think that’s a good thing, it can be understandably hard to keep up with. Potentially exciting gems are sure to be lost in the deluge of new things to play unless you sort through every single game that is released on Steam. So that’s exactly what we’ve done. If nothing catches your fancy this week, we’ve gathered the best PC games you can play right now and a running list of the 2024 games that are launching this year. 

Copycat

Copycat – Official Trailer – YouTube

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Steam ‌page‌ ‌
Release:‌ September 20
Developer:‌ Spoonful of Wonder

Relic Entertainment’s 2004 and 2009 real-time strategy magnum opuses, Dawn of War and Dawn of War 2, have been re-released as anniversary editions for their 15th and 20th years of real-time-strategerizing. The new anniversary editions, available on Steam, include all the DLC and extras released for the two games over the years. That’s especially nice for Dawn of War 2, which had a metric ton of DLC and skins and codes and wargear and exclusive bonuses by the end of its life cycle.

Both games are also on sale, at 80% off—or $7 and $10 respectively.

Solve Saturday’s Wordle as smoothly as you like using our helpful range of tips and tricks. There’s some general advice just below if you need to brush up your guess-making, a brand new hint written especially for the September 21 (1190) puzzle if you’d like a prod towards the winning word, and even today’s answer if you want to skip straight to the best bit. 

I don’t think I could’ve wished for a more perfect start to my Wordle weekend. It wasn’t the quickest clear of the week, but I really enjoyed the way every single row brought me just that little bit closer to the answer, like a trail of clues someone had personally left just for me. Fantastic. 

Today’s Wordle hint

Wordle today: A hint for Saturday, September 21

If you’re looking forward to finally stepping into the cockpit of Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024, the official X account has put out a handy chart for the system requirements to run it, and it seems surprisingly well optomized. If you wanted to, you could technically run the game on a rig bought almost a decade ago, which could mean your old graphics card and CPU might be worth less than the $200 Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 Aviator Edition bundle. 

For its minimum requirements, a build with an Intel Core i7-6800K and GeForce GTX 960 could run the game, so long as you have 16 GB of RAM. Recommended requirements swap that 16 GB of RAM for 32 GB and suggest grabbing either an RTX 2080 or Radeon RX 5700XT as your GPU. Once again, these aren’t incredibly intensive specs given how impressive Flight Simulator 2024 is looking. The 2024 refresh, launching November 19, comes with new mission types, new aircraft to use, pilots with actual legs, and even has an improved physics engine intended to give greater degrees of control to prospective pilots. 

Yesterday, Nintendo announced that it had finally turned its baleful gaze on Palworld, and would be pursuing legal action in the Tokyo District Court against developer Pocketpair over alleged patent infringement. But which patents? Nintendo’s press release accuses Palworld of infringing on “multiple patent rights,” but Pocketpair says it doesn’t know which patents it’s supposed to have violated, and Nintendo hasn’t elaborated. While we wait for more specifics on the lawsuit, I’ve been digging into patents held by Nintendo and The Pokémon Company to see where Mario’s lawyers might be anchoring their case. After a crash course in patent research, I’ve got a strong suspicion that Nintendo’s bringing Pocketpair to court over Poké Balls.

One point of clarification before we continue: It’s definitely not about Palworld’s monsters looking similar to Pokémon. If you caught wind of the many conversations about Palworld’s arguable (or arguably blatant) imitation of Pokémon designs, you might assume that’d be the basis of Nintendo’s lawsuit. That, however, would be a dispute over copyright, which protects original creative works of authorship, like books, music, and artistic designs. While Nintendo announced back in January that it intended to “investigate and take appropriate measures to address any acts that infringe on intellectual property rights related to the Pokémon,” an eventual copyright suit seemed unlikely, even for a company with such an infamously itchy legal trigger finger. Because the claims of copyright suits are so subjective, they’re notoriously difficult to pull off; chances are, even Nintendo’s nuclear-grade legal armory wouldn’t guarantee success if it brought Pocketpair to court over knockoff Fauxkémon.