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World of Warcraft’s latest patch is a bugstravaganza the likes of which I haven’t seen in my 21 years playing WoW

World of Warcraft’s latest patch launched Tuesday in North America, and players are still encountering massive, gamebreaking delays and bugs in nearly every aspect of the update more than 48 hours later.

Originally, the 11.1.5 content update appeared to be packed with new features:

A new faction to grind and related rewards to earn
The return of Battle for Azeroth’s Horrific Visions scenarios, and their massive power-boosting Corruptions in the form of a new helm enchant
A new version of bad-luck protection
Dastardly Duos, a two-bosses-at-a-time group challenge
A new Cooldown Manager UI update that is intended to offer a built-in alternative to some popular player mods
And a leveling event with some fun twists.

Unfortunately some of those features are delayed, nearly all of those left weren’t functional, and additional tweaks and bugfixes that went live over the past couple of weeks were reverted with the patch. In addition, a whole crop of bugs not related to the new content popped up.

That new Flame’s Radiance faction? Players were still reporting bugs preventing servers from finishing its activities two full days after launch. I delayed writing my own detailed impressions of this patch as a result—there’s simply too much of it I can’t even test out yet.

Horrific Visions are timegated until May 20. Their helm enchants have been oddly tuned down so far they will have a negligible effect on players’ output (less than 1% by most estimates). Dastardly Duos has also been timegated, to release on June 3 and lasting for six weeks, though the bugged in-game calendar suggests they were also available two weeks ago (??).

“Is it me, or Patch 11.1.5 is officially releasing in a month?” asked one player on Reddit this week.

“Day two of patch 11.1.5 and I still have no idea how the main event of this patch works. It’s stuck on 00:00 since the patch released,” wrote a second.

The Cooldown Manager launched without any abilities for players to customize what was on those bars, or even what order they’re arranged, and it took away previous functionality that put some items on players’ personal resource bars. (Blizzard has declared that last effect to be a bug that will be fixed.)

World of Warcraft: The War Within

(Image credit: Blizzard)

Amusingly, considering the Manager was supposed to replace mods, a Cooldown Manager Customizer add-on has already been developed by players as a band-aid.

The new bad luck protection was delayed, with promises to announce the new plan Soon™. The new solution was finally posted in a Blizzard forums post Wednesday afternoon—but it won’t take effect until May 13.

Originally the first piece of gear wouldn’t have been available until May 27, and would include two items. After community uproar, a change was posted Wednesday night to increase to three items, with the first available on May 13.

In addition to the patch’s disappointing debut, odd tweaks and the return of old issues and new plagued the release.

Problems on problems

The Liberation of Undermine raid’s penultimate boss, Mug’Zee, was so much harder than the end boss that some guilds paid a reported 85 million gold ($6,835 in WoW tokens at the time this article was written) to get their hands on a raid lockout that already had him dead on Mythic difficulty, so they could just kill the end boss Gallywix instead, to receive credit in the Hall of Fame.

Blizzard swiftly made it necessary to kill all of the last three bosses to get listed in the Hall of Fame. But then guilds who legitimately killed Gallywix after having killed those bosses and using their own Mug’Zee lockouts didn’t receive credit, and had to rekill him after the patch, putting them dozens of places lower in the Hall of Fame. Mug’Zee was nerfed multiple times, including one time that was reverted after the patch, then replaced with another new nerf Wednesday.

Dizzy yet?

World of Warcraft: The War Within

(Image credit: Blizzard)

The title awarded to guilds who killed Mythic Gallywix was also bugged and fixed this week.

Simultaneously, a recently added skip to the One-Armed Bandit, the first of those three bosses, was inadvertently removed in the patch. It was later added back.

The raid’s reputation track was bugged by the patch, so that players logging in on multiple lower-level characters were automatically awarded massive reputation, in some cases maxing them out and giving them additional power in the raid plus many other rewards. The raid power was rolled back, but the other rewards appear to remain for those players.

Undercoin, one of WoW’s many currencies that buys goodies from running the game’s single-player Delves dungeons, was changed to be shared across players’ characters in a previous update. That update was reverted with this patch, apparently in error. Some players reported losing coins as a result.

The weekly Great Vault, which awards players gear options to choose from for completing dungeons, raids and delves over the previous week, bugged out. It broke a longstanding feature that prevented players from getting the same gear item in multiple slots. Players who were affected by the bug were informed that they were just out of luck for this week, though a fix for the issue (for those who hadn’t yet opened their Vaults) went through yesterday.

And somehow the problems keep getting weirder.

Some players found their video settings had randomly been changed. The game’s own AddOn Profiler, which affects performance for some players, could no longer be turned off as of 11.1.5.

Monks’ Zen Flight, a slow-moving levitation ability, was randomly nerfed so they can no longer mine or pick herbs while using it, another likely bug. Demon Hunters’ major Aldrachi Reaver talent suddenly stopped working. (A fix Wednesday finally attempted to put that one to bed.)

World of Warcraft: The War Within

(Image credit: Blizzard)

I’ve been playing WoW since six months before its original release, and I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a patch launch with so many delays, version control issues and major bugs, and certainly none that lasted so long.

“Dear devs: We do not need patches every eight weeks, if it means the patches have to be timegated across seven weeks and the content we do have on launch is bugged and broken more than half the time,” said another Reddit commenter. They might be on to something.

Many of these issues didn’t crop up on the Public Test Realm (though some did); it’s unclear what’s causing them to arise now. Servers were shut down Thursday morning for the third time this week as developers attempted to fix the issues.

Blizzard’s teams have their work cut out for them. In the meantime, players just become more frustrated.

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Credit where it’s due: Bethesda is being admirably normal by letting modders carry on with their competing Oblivion remaster

If you’re reading this, I’m sure I don’t need to explain to you that modding and PC gaming go hand in hand. Likewise, I’m sure I don’t need to explain that the lively culture of games modding has provoked an equally lively culture of IP litigation. Every year, we publish countless stories about modders finding themselves on the receiving end of DMCA takedowns from territorial licenseholders, even when the vast majority of those modders—like the creator of last month’s embattled Baldur’s Village mod—aren’t charging a penny.

It’s noteworthy, then, that Bethesda is being remarkably chill about Oblivion Remastered.

Skyblivion evil character — (Image credit: Bethesda, modded by Skyblivion team)

If you and I were major Microsoft shareholders, it’s easy to imagine a logic that might lead us to object to projects like Skyblivion, the massive mod-in-progress aiming to recreate Oblivion in Skyrim’s more recent engine that’s planned to release this year. We’re releasing our own refreshed Oblivion, you and I. If people don’t want to spend the $50, or if they’re joining the BDS movement’s boycott of Microsoft gaming products in support of Palestine, they can just wait for someone else’s Nublivion that they can get for free. We can’t make money off free!

Usually, on a substantial revival mod in any proximity to a franchise launch is a DMCA death sentence.

And then we’d probably slam our fists on the conference room table and demand our esteemed colleagues consider the quarterly projections, or whatever it is you do when you’re in a fit of capital. Yet despite whatever fractional peril the mod might represent to shareholder profits, Skyblivion hasn’t been forced to close up shop. Instead, Bethesda rewarded the entire Skyblivion team with free Oblivion Remastered keys.

It’s a rare act of benevolence in a business where other publishers have such itchy trigger fingers. Usually, on a substantial revival mod in any proximity to a franchise launch is a DMCA death sentence.

h2m modern warfare 2

(Image credit: Activision Blizzard)

Last year, Activision axed the substantial H2M Modern Warfare 2 mod one day before its release out of fear that it might peel players away from contributing to its yearly quintillions—give or take—of Call of Duty revenue. In August 2020, MGM forced a fan-made GoldenEye remake offline. It wasn’t shocking, but it became even less so when three months later IO Interactive announced Project 007 three months later. Whether that was a bullet point in negotiations leading up to Amazon’s March 2021 acquisition of MGM, we can only guess.

Take Two launched a particularly intensive mod bloodbath throughout 2021, hunting conversion mods, remakes, and overhauls—some of which were well over a decade old—so it could clear the board for its GTA Trilogy reveal. But hey, at least the remastered trilogy was good when it came out, right?

It was not. And yet that culling is still somehow less maddening than Sony’s continued purge of Bloodborne-related material from PCs, despite its apparent conviction that it would rather be destroyed than attempt to sell Bloodborne on a computer.

BloodbornePSX boss fight

(Image credit: Lilith Walther)

ZeniMax, Bethesda’s parent-company-within-a-parent-company, hasn’t always been a friendly comrade with its modder fanbase. In 2019, ZeniMax issued a cease and desist order to the creator of the Doom Remake 4 mod, an attempt to modernize the original Doom with current day graphics and gameplay standards. Oh, and it apparently doesn’t like when Doomguy kills Margaret Thatcher.

In other words, it’s not exactly benevolence: It’s canny business practice.

So what’s the deal? Why hasn’t Bethesda tried to scour Skyblivion off the face of the earth? Well, it might share a philosophy with Larian CEO Swen Vincke, who spoke out against Wizards of the Coast for its now-retracted takedown of the BG3 Stardew Valley mod.

“Free quality fan mods highlighting your characters in other game genres are proof your work resonates and a unique form of word of mouth,” Vincke said on X. “Imho they shouldn’t be treated like commercial ventures that infringe on your property.”

In other words, it’s not exactly benevolence: It’s canny business practice. If modders get people to fall in love with your games deeply enough that they’ll want to buy the next one, that’s free real estate.

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Oblivion Remastered kept the acting gaffe where its master speech trainer says ‘Let me do that one again’ and repeats their line—It’s even lip-synced now

I was convinced Oblivion Remastered would satisfy my childhood nostalgia when, in the middle of its official reveal, Todd Howard declared with a slight grimace that the devs had made sure to preserve its “charm.” That is to say, those baffling bits of jank and strange NPC behaviours that still make the original one of the funniest games ever made.

But even I’m pleasantly surprised by just how much jank Virtuos and Bethesda left in. Fans have been very excited to find that the devs have even left in a now-legendary flubbed take, where High Elf actor Linda Kenyon speaks, says “Wait a minute, let me do that one again,” and then delivers the line a second time. Bonus irony: the line comes from Tandilwe, the Imperial City’s master speechcraft trainer.

Oblivion Remastered “Let me do that one again” – YouTube

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Which is, frankly, great. It’s one of those little testaments to the original Oblivion’s ambitions and limitations from all the way back in 2006. Before TES 4, Bethesda had used voice acting in its games pretty sparingly—in Morrowind NPCs just had a few barks (mostly people just being tremendously xenophobic at you) and only a few important scenes were voiced. Oblivion’s dialogue was all spoken.

Problem was, Bethesda hadn’t quite figured out the best practices for that kind of thing in the early 2000s, so the game’s limited pool of actors were just given a load of practically context-free lines in alphabetical order, which goes a way to explaining why some of the game’s acting is so uncanny.

After that the devs had to cut all that dialogue up and insert it, and sometimes they accidentally left re-takes in. Tandilwe’s flubbed line is far from the only one in the game, too. Here’s a compilation of iffy reads from the original game that I’d bet my bottom dollar are still in the remaster (I can’t check for myself yet because I haven’t gotten far enough in for these lines to trigger).

I love it, and not even in an ironic way. That the devs went so far to leave the basic weirdness of Oblivion untouched is excellent. That game is defined by the oddities that emerged when Bethesda’s ambition ran up against the limits of technology and game design in 2006. Taking them out would give you something that, well, just wouldn’t be Oblivion.

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Oblivion Remastered is ‘verified’ for Steam Deck, but the original with mods is a far superior handheld experience

I recently spent an afternoon getting the original Oblivion to work optimally on Steam Deck. Despite being “playable” out of the box, it’s kinda not: the vanilla PC version of Oblivion lacks gamepad support, meaning gamepad glyphs aren’t present. While the Steam Deck’s community controller layouts tab is a godsend for situations like this, it still means having to adapt to the disconnect between keyboard or mouse prompts and the Steam Deck’s Xbox-style glyphs.

Or, of course, installing mods. After an hour or so spent installing mods, OG Oblivion transformed from a dubiously “playable” Steam Deck RPG into something that rivals Skyrim in terms of a brilliantly optimised handheld experience. It’s just perfect. But now that Oblivion Remastered is out, and with a Steam Deck “Verified” status to boot, is any of that hassle worth it anymore?

Part of the reason I dropped an Oblivion replay on Steam Deck is because of all the rumours of the remaster, but I probably shouldn’t have waited: Steam Deck can definitely run the remaster, but—and hear me out—I’d still recommend going with a modded version of the original.

But who knows, you may feel differently. If you like a locked 60 fps framerate and crisp albeit slightly antiquated graphics on ultra settings, with over a decade worth of mods to draw from, OG is the clear winner. If you prefer modern UE5 graphics at a framerate that struggles to keep 30 fps in most outdoor areas, and with that low-spec vaseline quality that also affects other “Verified” titles like Kingdom Come Deliverance 2, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth and The Last of Us Pt. 1, then sure, preference the remaster.

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An NPC holds forth in the original Oblivion, running on Steam Deck — (Image credit: Bethesda)

I don’t expect Steam Deck to run these aforementioned games perfectly: it’s a small miracle that a handheld manages them at all, especially one that released three years ago. But it is increasingly the case that one should not mistake the “Verified” category to mean “this is a brilliant experience on Steam Deck”. Remaster definitely runs on Steam Deck with no fuss, but it doesn’t look good or run particularly well.

The starter dungeon can mostly keep to a solid 30 fps, but as you’d expect, the open world proves patchy at best. Using the automatic “low” quality graphic settings, traversing the open world around the sewer exit will occasionally drop to around 21 fps, but it’s mid-combat when things get shaky. During a prickly encounter with two dogs and a goblin on a grand hillside overlooking the Imperial City, the combination of smudgy image quality and an average 25 fps (dipping lower occasionally) made combat a real drag.

It gets worse, too: west of Lake Rumore I experienced drops to 15 fps at times, though I suspect this occurs when the game is loading in a new part of the map: it tends to coincide with the UI prompt announcing a new area. Which probably explains why the tomato plants at Odill Farm caused my Steam Deck to grind to a fleeting halt, likewise when I discovered Weynon Priory. The area around the first Oblivion gate, near Kvatch, would bring me down to 10 fps at times, seemingly thanks to the fancy modern thunder effects.

Drops like this are fine, I guess, when there’s not an imp throwing fireballs at me, or a dog taking chunks out of my rear. But combat in the open world against more than one foe, with a detailed vista in the background, just feels terrible. When I lower all settings from “low” to “lowest” and toggle from XeSS “performance” to “ultra-performance” mode, the frame rate around Lake Rumore varies from around 25 to 50, while in the less detailed area around Kvatch, it can actually hold to 60 fps most of the time, though the image quality is, frankly, pretty shit.

To summarise (and this applies to the Steam Deck OLED, where a difference in battery life will probably be the biggest difference):

Swipe to scroll horizontally

Steam Deck OLED	Oblivion OG	Oblivion Remastered
Average FPS	Locked 60 fps	Hovers around 30 fps
Battery life	Up to six hours, but realistically, five hours	Up to three hours at best
Average battery draw	Rarely above 8w	Between 15 and 22w
Price	$15 / £15 / AU$20	$50 / £50 / AU$85

Some visual comparisons:

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An image showing a country house in the original Elder Scrolls Oblivion — The original Oblivion on Steam Deck, with the Northern UI mod installed(Image credit: Bethesda)

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An image of the interior of the Imperial City from the original Oblivion, running on Steam Deck — Inside the Imperial City in the original Oblivion, running on Steam Deck with the Northern UI mod(Image credit: Bethesda)

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An Oblivion gate, from the original Oblivion running on Steam Deck — An Oblivion gate in the original version of Oblivion, running on Steam Deck with the Northern UI mod(Image credit: Bethesda)

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An image of a vista outside the Imperial City in Oblivion, running on a Steam Deck — Gorgeous vistas in the original version of Oblivion, running on Steam Deck with the Northern UI mod(Image credit: Bethesda)

Is any of this a dealbreaker? I played Skyrim at launch on the PlayStation 3, so it depends on your perspective. Playing Oblivion Remastered actually made me nostalgic for the days of substandard console ports. If this was the only way to play Oblivion on Steam Deck, we’d all have to make do. But ye olde Oblivion is just sitting there, and it’s perfect on Deck.

Priming Oblivion for modding on Steam Deck is an easy process and will work with the version of Oblivion you can buy on Steam and probably already own. I followed these helpful instructions from user halycon8 on the Steam Deck subreddit and they held me in good stead; it takes about an hour all up. To summarise, it’s a matter of downloading and installing the Oblivion Script Extender in desktop mode, which is essential for most mods, and then eventually downloading the Northern UI mod, which not only adds controller glyphs but also reskins the UI to mirror Skyrim’s cleaner, controller-first approach. Don’t worry: If you prefer the quaint high fantasy approach of the original Oblivion’s UI, there’s a version of the mod that doesn’t include the reskin.

Follow the afore-linked instructions and you’ll have a silky smooth version of Oblivion running on your Steam Deck that will run at ultra settings and—though this may depend on how many mods you end up using—will run on battery for a projected six hours. Not only that, but Oblivion: Game of the Year Edition costs $15 on Steam compared to the $50 price of the remaster.

To be clear: I’m not being a crank. I’m not saying you shouldn’t play Remastered. If you game across both desktop and handheld, but predominantly the former, it’s probably worth getting the newer and shinier version if you like newer and shinier graphics. If you’re in the habit of streaming from your desktop to your Deck, the same holds true. I just think the original Oblivion is a far better native experience on Deck, and since it’s essentially the same game (albeit with some quality of life improvements) you might as well opt for the version that runs better on handheld.

Since we’re here, I should point out that Daggerfall is also a brilliant Steam Deck experience after a bit of work, even though its official Steam Deck compatibility status is “unsupported”. Just grab the original game on Steam (it’s free) and install the Daggerfall Unity mod, which, as the name suggests, transplants Bethesda’s gargantuan fantasy life sim into the Unity engine. Full installation instructions are in this tidy video below:

How to Play Daggerfall On Your Steam Deck In 2024 – YouTube

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The new Monster Hunter Wilds cherry blossom festival brings some of its best-looking armor sets yet

Monster Hunter Wilds kicked off April with Title Update 1, adding new monster hunts, challenge quests, and a new Grand Hub as a central base of operations and socializing space for hunters to hang out between quests. It’s also the venue for Blossomdance, the first Monster Hunter Wilds seasonal event, which kicked off last night in a blizzard of cherry blossom petals and sakura-themed armor sets.

When you first enter the Grand Hub during Blossomdance, you’ll be greeted by a lot of pink. It’s Monster Hunter’s own hanami festival, covering the Hub with cherry blossoms and spring pastel streamers. The main attraction, however, are the event’s sakura-themed armor sets. The Sakuratide armor sets are easily among the prettiest outfits in Wild, and I’m sure they’ll be frequent features in layered armor getups for years to come.

Two hunters wearing Sakuratide armor sets during Monster Hunter Wilds' Blossomdance festival. — (Image credit: Capcom)

Do I feel like my weeb levels are getting a little unsustainable while wearing them? Yes. But look at them. It’s good stuff. (And yes, you can tone the pink down by changing the armor pigment if you want.)

To craft the Sakuratide sets, you’ll need Blossomdance Tickets, which you’ll get as login bonuses and limited bounty rewards during the event’s two-week duration. One week’s bounties will only get you enough tickets for one of the armor sets, but you’re in luck: Wearing pieces of Sakuratide armor will give you the Blossomdance Boon skill, giving you a chance to earn additional Blossomdance Tickets whenever you complete a quest. Just throw on your new duds, run some hunts, and you’ll have enough materials for both sets in no time.

You can also use Blossomdance Tickets to craft a—frankly unsettling—papier mache bobblehead getup for your palico. There’s also a new event quest to hunt a Tempered Xu Wu to earn yet another form of ticket that you can use to craft a cool new eyepatch. It’s a big week for building out your Monster Hunter Wilds aesthetic options.

And there are still more goodies on offer. After accepting your login bonus during the event, you’ll automatically unlock a new Seikret decoration, a petal-tossing gesture, sakura-themed pop-up camp gear, and more. You can also talk to one of the Support Deck palico NPCs and select Claim Content to get a free weapon pendant. A veritable bounty of freebies.

All those armor sets and cosmetics will only be available while the event lasts, so jump in-game and grab them if you want them. You’ve got until Blossomdance ends on May 7.

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Today’s Wordle answer for Wednesday, April 23

We’re here to help with your daily Wordle, with everything from quick tips designed to supercharge every line to a fresh hint for the April 23 (1404) game ready to go. And if those green letters don’t turn up, your yellows refuse to behave, or you’re just running out of rows, feel free to scroll down to today’s answer and enjoy an instant win.

Seeing three greens tidily grouped together on my second line should’ve surely felt like a gift, but instead it threw a spanner in the works. That word? No. This one, then? Also no. Well if not those then… what? It was only after a serious comb of the remaining letters (and a bit of time spent staring blankly into space) that I finally uncovered the answer.

Today’s Wordle hint

Wordle hint - a grid with yellow, grey, and green letters — (Image credit: Josh Wardle)

Wordle today: A hint for Wednesday, April 23

A pleasant smell near the sea or after a storm, as well as a protective layer around the planet.

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

Playing Wordle well is like achieving a small victory every day—who doesn’t like a well-earned winning streak in a game you enjoy? If you’re new to the daily word game, or just want a refresher, I’m going to share a few quick tips to help set you on the path to success:

You want a balanced mix of unique consonants and vowels in your opening word.
A solid second guess helps to narrow down the pool of letters quickly.
The answer could contain letters more than once.

There’s no time pressure beyond making sure it’s done by the end of the day. If you’re struggling to find the answer or a tactical word for your next guess, there’s no harm in coming back to it later on.

Today’s Wordle answer

Wordle answers

(Image credit: Future)

What is today’s Wordle answer?

Let’s win Wordle. The answer to the April 23 (1404) Wordle is OZONE.

Previous Wordle answers

The last 10 Wordle answers

Knowing previous Wordle solutions can be helpful in eliminating current possibilities. It’s unlikely a word will be repeated and you can find inspiration for guesses or starting words that may be eluding you.

Here are some recent Wordle answers:

April 22: ARTSY
April 21: SPATE
April 20: PATCH
April 19: INBOX
April 18: DIRGE
April 17: STOOD
April 16: MORAL
April 15: ASHEN
April 14: CREST
April 13: LAUGH

Learn more about Wordle

Today's Wordle being played on a phone

(Image credit: Nurphoto via Getty)

Wordle gives you six rows of five boxes each day, and it’s your job to work out which five-letter word is hiding by eliminating or confirming the letters it contains.

Starting with a strong word like LEASH—something containing multiple vowels, common consonants, and no repeat letters—is a good place to start. Once you hit Enter, 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.

Your second go should compliment the starting word, using another “good” guess 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.

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If you’re getting Oblivion Remastered, save $9 by grabbing a Steam key from Fanatical’s day-one sale

The not-so-secret shadow drop of Oblivion Remastered finally happened, and at this point, the only genuine surprise for some is the price. Bethesda is selling the 19-year-old RPG glow-up for $50, which I consider on the cusp of reasonable. Yesterday, I said I’d be on board if the price was closer to $30 than $70, so of course Bethesda chose the exact middle point.

I was ready to hold out for a sale, but then I learned there already is one: Fanatical is selling the Steam version of Oblivion Remastered at a decent 17% discount, which brings the tag down to a palatable $41.50.

If it’s your first time buying through Fanatical, rest assured it’s one of the legit PC game vendors. The site regularly runs sales on brand new games like this one with no downside—unless you consider the extra step of receiving a Steam key through email and then redeeming it a huge pain.

But for $9 off Oblivion on launch day, it’s worth the extra 30 seconds. The Steam codes Fanatical sells are typically global, but if you want to confirm the code will work in your country before buying, there’s a dropdown menu under the Add To Cart.

Fanatical is also running the same discount on the $60 Deluxe Edition, down to $49.79, so you’re basically snagging that new horse armor at no additional cost.

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AI becoming increasingly central to China’s education reform with plans to bring AI into classes soon

If there’s one thing we should have learned by now, it’s that technology is a tool. It can be used for both good, bad, and every weird state of morality humans can dream up inbetween. The same is true for AI, though often it’s used as an entity in itself, rather than as tools in most cases. Still in the right situations, such as doing complex computations, sorting through lots of data, and precise controls, the right AI can be great. It seems the next logical step in machine learning is to see how it can be used to help human learning, and China is about to put it to the test.

According to Reuters, China is set to start rolling out AI in efforts to improve its teaching and textbooks across all levels of school education. This is a part of a larger plan by the country to help bolster the education system as well as looking for new paths of innovation. China is hoping to reach what it calls a “strong-education nation” by 2035

China’s education ministry believes using AI to these ends will help “cultivate the basic abilities of teachers and students,” as well as help shape the “core competitiveness of innovative talents.” An example is helping to develop basic skills for students starting with things like communication and cooperation to more complex tasks independent thinking and problem solving.

AI in schools might sound horrifying, but if we go back to thinking of AI as a tool it could be pretty great. Even America is considering it, though they keep calling it “A one” for some reason. As long as we use AI for the tasks it was made for, in these instances AI could help make learning more individualised. With AI’s ability to wade through large piles of data and find working patterns and pathways forward, it could lead to a much more limber education system that’s ready to shift to the accommodation of its students.

When AI is used poorly is often tied to creative tasks, or when there’s not enough oversight. With most AI’s in the wild being language models they’re mostly designed to pick the most likely word in a sentence, rather than provide valuable information, and they’re known to be wrong. Confidently wrong. This could also be fine and a useful tool but people trust these results, and that’s where we end up with a lot of confusing garbled information.

So if we are going to use AI in schools it needs to be bespoke and transparent. A purpose built AI trained by educators that is constantly open to scrutiny and adjustment could be a wonderful addition to schools. I just don’t know if I necessarily trust China or the United States of America to deliver such an AI any time soon.

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Marvel Rivals’ hero gallery UI used to look a lot cooler—but also a lot harder to use

I’m a comic book nut, but I stay away from Marvel Rivals to keep my blood pressure in check. I do love the radical, supremely over-the-top character designs that NetEase landed on for Marvel’s coterie of costumed heroes, though. You might be surprised to learn that the game used to be even more stylized—so much so that finding a hero before a match was borderline obnoxious.

In the debut for a new web series about the game’s visual identity, Art Vision, a former take on the hero gallery UI was briefly shown off, with some exceptional concept art and a radial menu that displayed each hero in a wheel. Take a look below:

An early draft of Marvel Rivals' hero gallery UI. — (Image credit: NetEase)

It’s got some exceptional 2D art, but the design definitely reads like a placeholder. The Hulk hero description has the energy of a Wikipedia entry, dryly clarifying that he’s a “fictional superhero.” Spinning this menu back and forth in search of any particular character seem like it’d be cumbersome, to say the least. Sure looks slick, though.

Art director Dino explained in the video that the game’s UI aesthetics are meant to be “modern and adaptable while also being simple and clear … incorporating comic, structural, and geometric sensibilities.” They might have gone a mite too far with this particular design, as the final game has a more traditional grid for its hero gallery. But the radial “arc” did make it to the pre-battle hero select menu.

Dino goes on to say that the hero select interface “presents an artistic immersive experience” which I suppose is true, though it’s kind of a pain in the ass to drag it to and fro so I can find and lock in a healer as quickly as possible. There’s a reason we don’t use rotary phones anymore, right? The concept shown off is even more dynamic and eye-catching, but a great example of how something boring and functional is usually preferable to a beautiful hassle.

It’s nice to get a look at the iteration process for such a popular game; the journalist in me lives to hear game developers pontificate about this and that, even if this video doesn’t show off a ton that players haven’t seen before. Marvel Rivals has come a long way since it was nearly cancelled, so hopefully we’ll hear more about the road getting there in the future.

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One of classic Doom’s most brutal challenge runs is finally conquered after thirteen years of mega-scale demon slaughter

Few names can terrify classic Doom fans more than Okuplok, an obscure mapper who’s only surfaced a few times on the Doomworld forums, usually to release something painful before slinking off into the shadows. They’re best known for unleashing one of the most nightmarish levels in the history of Doom upon the world: The humble-sounding ‘untitled2’, better known to the community as the ‘Okuplok Slaughter Map’, is one of the most gruelling combat challenges in Doom history—a colossal series of arena battles against ungodly 23,211 demons where even the tiniest mistake spells instant death.

The map has always been beatable. With sufficient quicksaves, or the slow-motion inhuman precision of a tool-assisted speedrun, it was always theoretically possible to ascend this mountain of demon corpses. But to do it without dying? Without saves? And without leaving a single monster alive? That’s the real challenge. And for thirteen years, players have thrown themselves into this meat-grinder, aiming to be the first to record themselves clearing it under the community’s standard UV-Max challenge rules.

Doom’s Hardest Map – Okuplok Strategy Guide – YouTube Doom's Hardest Map - Okuplok Strategy Guide - YouTube

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In a gruelling six hour struggle on Easter Sunday, pro Doomer ‘Coincident’ finally did it, and I watched it happen live. Check out the recording of the record-breaking run here, but before you dive into that, check out the video below for a brief introduction of the hell that is to come, and why even surviving the first few seconds of this map is a challenge that only a rare hero can handle.

Coincident has been fighting tooth and nail against Okuplok’s creation for some time now. Two years ago, he managed a one-life run on Doom’s lowest difficulty. This evens the odds somewhat, halving the damage done to the player and doubling the contents of every ammo pick-up but leaving enemy placements otherwise unchanged. Even with those advantages, it’s a challenge very few could overcome, especially as the sheer volume of oncoming fire means that even with twice the health and ammo, you can still die in a blink of an eye.

Unsatisfied with that partial victory, Coincident set out to surgically dissect the level, developing new strategies to make a true Ultra Violence difficulty run possible. He even went so far as to publish a whole series of videos picking apart its individual encounters and devising the most survivable approaches to get through it. A useful aid, but without patience and precision, it still won’t get you very far.

Due to the highly random and unpredictable nature of Doom’s combat (including some enemies capable of doing absurd damage with a single hit if the game’s under-the-hood damage dice decide you deserve to suffer), any successful run is going to be a mixture of endurance, precision and luck, and you can hear the stress and tension in Coincident’s voice as he ventures deeper and deeper into the map. All that tension comes unraveled and replaced by adrenaline-drenched catharsis as he brings down the final artillery emplacement of Arch-vile snipers in the final arena. It was six hours of the highest-level Doom gameplay ever recorded, and a feat that will be remembered in the community for years.

So, Nightmare mode next, right?

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