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Firaxis celebrates Civilization 7’s launch with the Civ World Summit, a live streamed five-way strategy showdown with ‘an exciting announcement’ planned

We’re weeks away from the launch of Civilization VII, officially PC Gamer’s Most Wanted game of 2025. We all intend to celebrate the game’s release in our own way. Personally, I’m thinking about conquering a small nation. Luxembourg perhaps, or possibly Andorra.

Firaxis’ own plans for marking the occasion are less megalomaniacal, though conquest will likely still feature heavily. On February 8, the studio will host the Civ World Summit—a live Civilization VII tournament that will be streamed online.

Announced on the Civilization website, the Civ world summit will be hosted at the Xperion gaming zone in Hamburg, and involve a multiplayer showdown in Civilization VII between “five prominent members of the Civ community”. Firaxis doesn’t explain who these prominent community members are, but does specify who will be hosting it—namely Firaxis’ community manager Sarah Engel and “famed Civ creator” PotatoMcWhiskey, in partnership with Rocket Beans TV (there’s a collection of nouns for you).

For viewers on Twitch, Firaxis has arranged a Twitch drop to “commemorate” the event, in the form of a ‘cavalry charge banner’ cosmetic for players’ in-game profiles. This can be earned by “watching the Firaxis Games channel or one of the partnered channels”. Apparently, Firaxis also has “an exciting announcement” planned for the livestream. I haven’t the slightest idea what this could be. It seems a tad early to reveal Civilization VIII, so perhaps it relates to post-launch plans for Civ VII.

Firaxis will provide more information about the Civ World Summit in the “upcoming weeks”, though I doubt we’ll have to wait too long since we’re only three weeks out from the event itself. In any case, if you’re in or around Hamburg and you fancy attending the event in person, tickets can be purchased here for the princely sum of five Euros. Otherwise, the event can be viewed on the Firaxis Games Twitch Channel, the Civilization YouTube Channel, or the Civilization Facebook page.

Civilization VII launches three days after the event on February11. Early impressions on Firaxis’ latest alt-history generator suggest a pretty transformative entry. Robert Zak recently played 20 hours of it, and described its age transitions as “the series’ most radical and disruptive mechanic yet”.

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Today’s Wordle answer for Sunday, January 26

Cut straight to the best bit by clicking through to the answer to the January 26 (1317) Wordle. If that’s all a bit too much all at once for a Sunday puzzle session, feel free to sit a while with our hint for today’s game instead, designed to help without handing you today’s winning word on a plate.

No green or yellow letters at all, Wordle? Fine, have it your way. Today’s game was the sort that offered up more misses than hits for a long time, although I’d say that it only made my eventual win feel even better than it would have otherwise. Still, I wouldn’t mind if tomorrow’s game didn’t chew through quite as many rows.

Wordle today: A hint

Wordle hint — (Image credit: Josh Wardle)

Wordle today: A hint for Sunday, January 26

This word’s a type of weather, as well as a positive disposition. Imagine blue skies and happy smiles, and you’ll get it.

Is there a double letter in Wordle today?

Yes, a letter is used twice in today’s puzzle.

Wordle help: 3 tips for beating Wordle every day

If you’ve decided to play Wordle but you’re not sure where to start, I’ll help set you on the path to your first winning streak. Make all your guesses count and become a Wordle winner with these quick tips:

A good opener has a mix of common vowels and consonants.
The answer could contain the same letter, repeated.
Avoid words that include letters you’ve already eliminated.

You’re not racing against the clock so there’s no reason to rush. In fact, it’s not a bad idea 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.

Today’s Wordle answer

Wordle answers

(Image credit: Future)

What is today’s Wordle answer?

Here, for you. The answer to the January 26 (1317) Wordle is SUNNY.

Previous Wordle answers

The last 10 Wordle answers

Previous Wordle solutions can help to eliminate guesses for today’s Wordle, as the answer isn’t likely to be repeated. They can also give you some solid ideas for starting words that keep your daily puzzle-solving fresh.

Here are some recent Wordle answers:

January 25: CRISP
January 24: CREPE
January 23: UPPER
January 22: REACH
January 21: ICING
January 20: SQUID
January 19: ROWER
January 18: SILLY
January 17: PROSE
January 16: FLINT

Learn more about Wordle

Today's Wordle being played on a phone

(Image credit: Nurphoto via Getty)

There are six rows of five boxes presented to you by Wordle each day, and you’ll need to work out which five-letter word is hiding among them to win the daily puzzle.

Start with a strong word like ALIVE—or any other word with a good mix of common consonants and multiple vowels. You should also avoid starting words with repeating letters, so you don’t waste the chance to confirm or eliminate an extra letter. Once you’ve typed your guess and hit Enter, you’ll see 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 guess should compliment the first, using another “good” word to cover any common letters you might have missed on the first row—just don’t forget 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 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.

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Vermintide 2’s still getting free maps added to it, with the latest being an elven temple and a warpstone nuke factory

While the big Vermintide 2 news last year was the addition of PVP in Versus mode, the PVE side of things is still being catered for. Its latest addition is Verminous Dreams, a campaign of linked maps that pits the Ubersreik Five against their old enemies the skaven once again.

The first two of its three maps are available now. The Forsaken Temple sends you to Athel Lithri, a mythical elven holy site that’s been overrun by the filthy ratmen, and which contains a shattered waystone you have to reassemble while the horde pours in. It’s a more open map than you might be used to, with a whole dried-up lakebed to cross.

Part two, Devious Delvings, carries on from there with a laboratory where the skaven are working on the biggest bomb the Warhammer World has ever seen, or so its creator thinks. Of course it’s your job to smash the thing, though you’ll have to catch it first. And there’s a rather large rat ogre named Gnawtooth’s Pet in the way.

The latest update also added a suite of custom settings for Versus mode, letting hosts toggle options like friendly fire and hero bots, as well as tweaking the distance the Pactsworn spawn at, the rate of respawns, how much health knocked-down heroes have, and so on. So PVP heads aren’t being left out.

There’s still one more map to come in the Verminous Dreams campaign, but until it arrives there’s been a bunch of challenges and rewards added for the new maps, meaning there’s reason to replay them if you collect portrait frames and cosmetics.

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‘That’s why they call me the Elden Ring sicko’ proclaims streamer as he beats FromSoft’s RPG at NG+1000 without taking a single hit

As someone who struggled to beat Elden Ring on its standard difficulty, I’m constantly amazed by the streaming community’s ability to wrestle FromSoftware’s RPG to the ground with a reality-defying number of limbs tied behind its back. Whether that’s MissMikkaa beating the game all the way through to NG+7 with a level 1 character, or Ainrun smashing through Shadows of the Erdtree with just one health, faith, and stamina point.

Yet, as reported by GamesRadar, streamer and Elden Ring maestro Skumnut has recently taken the collective embarrassment of FromSoftware‘s RPG to a whole new level. Earlier this week, Skumnut beat Elden Ring without taking a single hit, which wouldn’t normally be much to shout about in the world of high-level Elden Ringing, save for the fact Skumnut was playing at NG+1000.

If you’re sat there thinking, “I didn’t know Elden Ring could be played at NG+1000”, that’s because it can’t. Normally, new-game plus runs of Elden Ring are capped at the +7 mark. Skumnut, however, was playing a modified version of the game that unshackles it from this limitation, beefing-up its difficulty to the equivalent of NG+1000.

This means every boss in the game has over 500,000 HP, with similarly scaled damage and resistances. To give you an idea of how absurd that is, Elden Ring’s final boss, the Elden Beast, has 22,127 HP on a standard run of the game. Consequently, Skumnut had to whittle down every one of those monstrously inflated health bars without being hit once. If he got so much as his toes tickled by an AOE attack, he’d have to restart the run.

Needless to say, this took a few attempts—115, to be precise. Yet even that was constrained to a three-week period, less time than it took me to beat Elden Ring on the first go. Skumnut’s strategy involved using abilities like Black Flame Tornado, which deals percentage damage to enemy health rather than a fixed number. You can see an example of this in the video below, showing the final moments of Skumnut’s run when he felled the Elden Beast.

ELDEN RING NG+1000 with UNCAPPED NG+ scaling NO HIT has been achieved. Every boss 500k+ HP. First in the world, probably the last. Attempt 115 was always the chosen one. Only took 3 weeks. GG.Thats why they call me the Elden Ring sicko. pic.twitter.com/X0gh5igNDsJanuary 19, 2025

“That’s why they call me the Elden Ring sicko”, boasted Skumnut of his run, which he also stated is the “first in the world” and “probably the last.” While it certainly seems the former is true—nobody has arisen to challenge Skumnut’s claim—I’ve learned never to doubt the Elden Ring community’s ability to exceed itself, and I’m sure there are numerous Beast-bashing whizzkids gazing upon Skumnut’s achievement with envious eyes.

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I missed this co-op open world base-builder when it first came out, but it’s got over 10,000 positive Steam reviews and it’s free to play all weekend

I know base-builder fans are always on the lookout for a new open world co-op game to dive into with their pals… and while I don’t have a new one to tempt you with today, there is one from a few years ago that you might not have heard of. I hadn’t, and I play a lot of these sorts of games. You can check it out for the next few days without paying a dime.

It’s called Necesse, and if you missed it when it launched (or wishlisted it but never bought it) this is a great chance to finally dabble. Necesse has a free weekend on Steam that’s already underway, and it comes with a perk: if you enjoy it and want to buy it, it’s on sale for 35% off until February 3, meaning it’ll cost you less than 10 bucks. Plus, any progress you make during the free weekend will be saved for when you unlock the full game. That’s a good deal! Check out the new trailer and tell me Necesse doesn’t look like a lot of fun:

Necesse Steam Free Weekend! – YouTube Necesse Steam Free Weekend! - YouTube

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I’m going to be jumping in myself tonight: Necesse is verified for Steam Deck and it looks like a good one to play while chilling on the couch and mostly ignoring a movie playing in the background. There’s an infinite world to explore, monsters to battle, bases to build, and even if you’re going solo you’ll still have plenty of company: there are NPC settlers to recruit “that can work your fields, tend to your animals, and acquire resources without needing your constant attention and supervision.”

If you’ve already got Necesse, then this seems like a great opportunity to jump back in and convince your friends to come along for some co-op adventuring and building, especially since its most recent update added new weapons, many of them themed for cooperative play. There are several new staves that provide buffs to your allies, and if you’re playing solo you can still give them to your NPC pals. The world has gotten a bit more dangerous in this update with new environmental hazards you’ll encounter when exploring caves, but that’s balanced out with a new subterranean crop so you won’t starve to death quite as often down there.

And don’t just take my word for it: Necesse, even if it’s not well known, has a ‘Very Positive” Steam rating, with over 10,000 reviews giving it a healthy 94% approval rating. Wait, why am I still trying to convince you? It’s completely free until Sunday.

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Fortnite has 58 creators that got paid over $1 million in 2024, and 7 of those made over $10 million

Epic has released a 2024 “Year in Review” of the Fortnite creator ecosystem and, surprise surprise, there are a lot of big numbers to be had. As well as an overview of the year just gone, the publisher also took the opportunity to share some of the future plans for Fortnite which, going by these figures, is simply bigger than ever.

The number of Fortnite creators tripled over the year, from around 24,000 in 2023 to 70,000 in 2024. The number of islands created is 198,000 and on average 60,000 creator-made islands are played every single day, with 70% of the playerbase enjoying both Epic-made and creator-authored content.

Then the money. Epic says it paid out a total of $352M to creators in 2024, but then comes possibly the most interesting breakdown in the review. Just under 30,000 creators received payouts of $100-$999; Around 5,400 made $1,000 to $9,999; 1,728 made between $10,000 and $99,999, and then we get into the people who are really making bank.

418 Fortnite creators made between $100,000 and $300,000. 154 made between $300,000 and $1 million.

37 people made between $1 million and $3 million from Fortnite’s creator program in 2024. 14 people made over $3 million but less than $10 million. Then right at the top, there are seven individuals who made over $10 million from their Fortnite creations. In a single year.

That’s 58 people who’ve made more than $1 million from Fortnite in 2024, with many making a lot more. The fact that Fortnite is so big that Epic is now paying out roughly a third of a billion dollars to community creators in a single year is almost impossible to wrap your head around.

Other stats: Players spent 5.23 billion hours playing games made by creators, which represents “36.5% of total Fortnite playtime and continues to rise.” Epic notes that these numbers are increasingly boosted by non-combat creations such as “social roleplay, party games, deathruns, and horror.”

This has no doubt been helped by Fortnite’s ongoing mission to get every brand ever into the game, with creators able to use these official tie-ins, which is pretty remarkable when you think about it. Assets from brands like LEGO and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles can be used and Epic says this allows creators to “develop authentic commercial games using world class IP without getting lost in contracts or negotiations.”

Epic lists some of the creator highlights of the year, one of which shows the above perfectly: Pizza Shop Tycoon Boss Fight used Fortnite’s assets to create “an authentic and engaging Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles experience” that has proven wildly popular, and is officially licensed.

As for the future, Epic says it will be “moving Scene Graph into Beta, introducing custom items, and launching additional tools to help you build deeper, more complex games with UEFN in new and popular genres.” On top of this it’s committing to improving the insight tools for developers, improving the Discover experience where players explore the range of what’s available, and promises a roadmap by the end of the month with more details.

Well, it’s probably no wonder that Epic CEO Tim Sweeney says the company has spent billions fighting Apple and Google, and fully intends to keep doing so. And even if a certain buzzword has fallen out of favour, he still thinks Fortnite is at the forefront of gaming’s future:

“Some people call it the Metaverse and some people call it just games, but it is real,” says Sweeney. “And you find hundreds of millions of players who are highly engaged in immersive 3D games together with their friends. And we think that if we are successful with this, then someday there will be billions of users of this kind of game. And we think we’re in an awesome position to be a leading company or perhaps the leading company in that world if the shackles are removed that prevent us and all developers from actually competing on our own and becoming first class companies in the industry.”

With numbers like these, it’s hard to argue.

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Today’s Wordle answer for Friday, January 24

Win Friday’s Wordle with our help. Feel free to use our tips to boost your general tactics, or spend some time with our clue for the January 24 (1315) puzzle if you’d like something more specific that doesn’t spoil all of the fun. And if you just need today’s answer right now? You’ve got it. Click or scroll down to it and enjoy another win.

First letter? Sorted. Last letter? Same. Now then, what to put between them? Which is of course Wordle’s daily problem, but today it was taunting me with its nice green bookends and vast expanse of grey between them. I had to dig deep to strike the right letters today, but I got there in the end.

Today’s Wordle hint

Wordle today: A hint for Friday, January 24

In paper or fabric, this word refers to a light and slightly wrinkled material. Also a type of thin pancake too.

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

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

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

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

Today’s Wordle answer

Wordle answer

(Image credit: Future)

What is today’s Wordle answer?

You’ve got this. The answer to the January 24 (1315) Wordle is CREPE.

Previous Wordle answers

The last 10 Wordle answers

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

Here are some recent Wordle answers:

January 23: UPPER
January 22: REACH
January 21: ICING
January 20: SQUID
January 19: ROWER
January 18: SILLY
January 17: PROSE
January 16: FLINT
January 15: KNACK
January 14: FANCY

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 you’ll need to work out which secret five-letter word is hiding inside them to keep up your winning streak.

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

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

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

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

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

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Cyberpunk 2077’s new patch arrives the day after I finally finished the game, and of course it fixes the one late-game bug that really annoyed me

I finally finished Cyberpunk 2077 last night, and so today’s 2.21 patch is just a wee little bit annoying because CD Projekt has finally fixed a small but irritating bug in the Phantom Liberty expansion that forced me into a fight I really didn’t want.

Minor spoiler follows, so skip this bit and scroll straight down the patch notes if you’re concerned about such things. The bug occurs fairly late into Phantom Liberty, when V dresses up as a notorious Cuban hitman for a little tête-à-tête with an NPC. You can talk it out or shoot it out—but talking it out exposes you to a bug that prevents you from changing out of the disguise at the end of the encounter. Worse, the game refuses to let you leave the area until you do, so you’re stuck in a grungy back alley until the end of time. It’s a fairly common bug, going by the number of complaints on Reddit and elsewhere, and the only surefire workaround is to load an older save and start blasting.

It’s not an especially difficult fight, but it pulled me out of the story because the rush to violence is not how my V rolls. There’s no meaningful impact on the game—everything resolves the same way whether you fight or not—but it’s the principle of the thing that bothered me: I negotiated a deal and now all I want to do is change my outfit! (I also sunk a stupid amount of time into trying to figure some other way out before I finally gave up and started spitting lead.)

Anyway, that’s not the most important fix in this patch, but it is fixed and that’s good news for anyone who’s hit the bug and hasn’t yet finished the game. Bigger news is the addition of DLSS 4 support with multiframe generation for Nvidia RTX 50-series GPUs, which promises to use the magic of AI to boost framerates significantly. Those cards won’t be available for purchase until January 30, but RTX 40-series cards will also see an improvement through faster single Frame Generation with reduced memory usage.

On top of that, there’s a slew of fixes and adjustments to the game’s photo mode, character creation and vehicle customization fixes, a couple tweaks to Johnny Shotgun (which honestly is my favorite late-stage addition to Cyberpunk 2077—I never get tired of him yelling at me to slow down), and a whole bunch more.

Slow DoWn TurBo #cyberpunk2077 #gaming – YouTube

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Cyberpunk 2077’s 2.21 patch is out now, and the full patch notes are below.

Photo Mode

Nibbles and Adam Smasher can now be spawned while V is in the air or in water.
Fixed the Facial Expression option for Adam Smasher.
Fixed an issue where Adam Smasher’s glowing chest cyberware was missing.
Fixed an issue where, if Johnny’s Alternate Appearance was enabled, both options to spawn him (default and alternate) resulted in the alternate look.
Characters spawned while V is in the air or in water will no longer snap to the ground.
Characters will now be properly saved in presets.
Spawned characters will now be visible after adding a background.
V’s rotation and position will now be properly saved in presets.
Fixed an issue where adjusting the Up/Down slider for V wouldn’t change their position between certain values.
NPCs that turn invisible after disabling the Surrounding NPCs option will no longer have collision.
Fixed an issue where loading a preset could cause additional light sources to appear even when disabled, or spawn them in incorrect positions.
Fixed an issue where the camera could get stuck on walls after setting Full Collision to ON.
Fixed an issue where camera settings would only apply after loading a saved preset twice.
Enabling a background will no longer change camera position.
Rotating the camera will now work properly with a background enabled.
Fixed an issue where the prompts for Move Camera and Rotate Camera would appear when the camera cannot be moved (e.g. when using the First-Person Perspective camera).
Fixed an issue where it wasn’t possible to move the camera after spawning a character while highlighting the Edit Character option.
Disabling Chromatic Aberration in the Graphics settings will no longer affect the ability to adjust it.
Fixed an issue where some items in scenes disappeared after setting the Surrounding NPCs option to OFF.
Fixed an issue where enabling PhysX Cloth would unfreeze NCPD vehicles.
The rule of thirds grid will now properly adapt to the selected aspect ratio.
Fixed an issue where the image in a SmartFrame wouldn’t be visible if accessed while V was not facing it.
Fixed an issue where opening Photo Mode simultaneously with Wardrobe or Stash caused the game to become unresponsive.
Fixed an issue where it was possible to access Photo Mode before a save file fully loaded, causing it to open without UI and block any further action.
Fixed other minor Photo Mode issues related to spawned characters, camera movement, controls, and more.
Fixed various UI issues in Photo Mode, SmartFrames and Gallery menus, including slider inconsistencies, localization errors, missing sound effects, incorrect behavior when interacting with certain features, and more.

Vehicle Color Customization

Fixed several texture and color inconsistencies for vehicles that have CrystalCoat applied.
Fixed an issue where the explanation of the spray paint icon was missing in the Autofixer tutorial pop-up after a vehicle contract was completed.
Fixed several minor UI issues in the CrystalCoat and TwinTone menus.

Character Creation

Randomizer settings in Character Creation will now be preserved after advancing to the Customize Attributes step.
Fixed an issue where the Piercing Color option would not be available in Character Creation after enabling piercings if V initially had none.
Fixed other minor issues in Character Creation, including appearance options not applying correctly, visual clipping, inconsistent UI behavior, functionality issues after using the randomizer, and more.

Miscellaneous

Run This Town – Fixed an issue where, under certain circumstances, it wasn’t possible to deactivate the Aguilar imprint after meeting with Bennett.
Fixed several instances where Johnny could appear duplicated in the passenger seat during some quests when he was already present in the scene.
Fixed an issue where Johnny did not appear as a passenger often enough.
Introduced several fixes to NPC and vehicle behavior for various small events throughout Night City.
Fixed an issue where some vendors were not interactable as intended.
Fixed an issue where voiceovers on TV news channels could be missing or too quiet.
Fixed an issue where the Quadra Turbo-R V-Tech used a description of Quadra Turbo-R 740 instead of its own unique one.
Fixed the missing 2.2 “check what’s new” pop-up in the main menu.

Console-specific

Fixed an issue where screenshots appeared as blank in the Gallery on Xbox if they were taken with HDR10 enabled.
Added a pop-up in the Gallery to notify players when access to screenshots is blocked by the console’s privacy settings on Xbox.
Screenshots deleted on Xbox outside the Gallery UI will now be correctly marked in the Gallery and will disappear from occupied slots after reopening the Gallery.
Fixed an issue where the Graphics Mode on Xbox Series S could be set to Quality instead of Performance by default.

PC-specific

Added support for DLSS 4 with Multi Frame Generation for GeForce RTX 50 Series graphics cards, which boosts FPS by using AI to generate up to three times per traditionally rendered frame – enabled with GeForce RTX 50 Series on January 30th. DLSS 4 also introduces faster single Frame Generation with reduced memory usage for RTX 50 and 40 Series. Additionally, you can now choose between the CNN model or the new Transformer model for DLSS Ray Reconstruction, DLSS Super Resolution, and DLAA on all GeForce RTX graphics cards today. The new Transformer model enhances stability, lighting, and detail in motion.
Fixed artifacts and smudging on in-game screens when using DLSS Ray Reconstruction.
The Frame Generation field in Graphics settings will now properly reset after switching Resolution Scaling to OFF.

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Today’s Wordle answer for Thursday, January 23

We’ve got a clue written especially for today’s Wordle ready and waiting to help you win, and a great selection of top tips to polish up your guesses. You’ve got this in three easy-breezy rows for sure. Want to see what a win in one looks like? We can help with that, just scroll down until you see the January 23 (1314) answer.

With two yellow letters and one very awkward green showing up on my opening line, I had nowhere else to go but straight to today’s answer. It looks like a win in two, and I’m feeling pleased with myself about it—I’ll just not mention the yawning chasm of time between them as I scratched my head and wondered how the heck I was supposed to rearrange them into a winning word.

Today’s Wordle hint

Wordle today: A hint for Thursday, January 23

This word distinguishes some sort of higher part, component, or place from whatever’s below it.

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 you’re new to the daily Wordle puzzle or you just want a refresher after taking a break, I’ll share some quick tips to help you win. There’s nothing quite like a small victory to set you up for the rest of the day.

A mix of unique consonants and vowels makes for a solid opening word.
A tactical second guess should let you narrow down the pool of letters quickly.
There may be a repeat letter in the answer.

You’re not up against a timer, so you’ve got all the time in the world—well, until midnight—to find the winning word. If you’re stuck, there’s no shame in coming back to the puzzle later in the day and finishing it up when you’ve cleared your head.

Today’s Wordle answer

Wordle answers

(Image credit: Future)

What is today’s Wordle answer?

Need a little help? The answer to the January 23 (1314) Wordle is UPPER.

Previous Wordle answers

The last 10 Wordle answers

Keeping track of the last handful of Wordle answers can help to eliminate current possibilities. It’s also handy for inspiring opening words or subsequent guesses if you’re short on ideas for the day.

Here are the last 10 Wordle answers:

January 22: REACH
January 21: ICING
January 20: SQUID
January 19: ROWER
January 18: SILLY
January 17: PROSE
January 16: FLINT
January 15: KNACK
January 14: FANCY
January 13: CLOAK

Learn more about Wordle

Today's Wordle being played on a phone

(Image credit: Nurphoto via Getty)

Wordle presents you with six rows of five boxes every day and the aim is to figure out the correct five-letter word by entering guesses and eliminating or confirming individual letters.

Getting off to a good start with a strong word like ARISE—something containing multiple vowels, common consonants, and no repeat letters—is a good tactic. 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 guess should compliment the starting word, using another “good” word to cover any common letters you missed last time while also trying to avoid any letter you now know for a fact isn’t present in today’s answer. With a bit of luck, you should have some coloured squares to work with and set you on the right path.

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

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

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

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Of all the Balatro-likes on Steam, I think I’m enjoying this Mahjong version best

Aotenjo: Infinite Hands Official Launch Trailer – YouTube

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Every so often I’ll be sitting on my couch playing Balatro on Steam Deck and have an unwanted thought: I should really play something other than Balatro once in a while. So, I take a look through Steam to see what other games aren’t Balatro but are still pretty much Balatro so I don’t have to stop playing Balatro even when I’m not playing Balatro.

And there are quite a few! Balatro introduced us all to the magic of a poker roguelike last year, and since then we’ve seen a bunch of other efforts to combine a traditional game with the deckbuilder formula. There’s Balatro but it’s blackjack, Balatro but it’s pachinko, Balatro but it’s solitaire, even Balatro but it’s Scrabble.

And arriving on Steam this week in early access, it’s Balatro but it’s Mahjong—and it has an actual name, too: Aotenjo: Infinite Hands. Of the various Balatro-likes I’ve played so far, I think I like it best. It’s not trying to be Balatro in the most obvious ways: it’s not slick or flashy, there’s not a ton of animation, and visually it looks like it’d be right at home next to Solitaire on Windows 95. But I’m into that low-key vibe, free of exploding booster packs and flying tiles.

I should point out here that I’m not much of a Mahjong guy: I know I’ve learned to play it multiple times in my life, and I’ve had to do that because once I learn it I don’t play it again until I’ve forgotten how to play it. But there’s a nice tutorial in Aotenjo that reacquainted me with the basics, and it wasn’t long before I was playing comfortably and diving into the Balatro-ness of it all.

Once again you’re building hands against an ever-rising point total, and taking on intermittent bosses who do tricksy things like disabling certain suits. Between rounds you spend the coins earned from wins to enchant your tiles. There are all sorts of clever ways to change your hands, like swapping their numbers using a little set of tweezers, or even hiding a dot on a tile by using a grain of rice to change its value. You can also apply various buffs, increase your multipliers, and make the ever satisfying number-go-up happen. It doesn’t give me quite the casino-like high Balatro does, but there’s still an understated pleasure in putting together an enchanted hand that racks up megapoints.

Is it going to replace Balatro on my Deck most evenings? I doubt it. But Aotenjo has been a quiet pleasure so far and I think it’ll only get better as I get a bit better at understanding the ins and outs of mahjong in general. You’ll find it right here on Steam in early access, where it’s 12% off until February 2.

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