In YouTuber SlimX‘s accounting of Baldur’s Gate 3’s behind-the-scenes secrets, he hit me with one that sent my jaw through the floor: You can summon a magical sheep who can cast endgame spells by killing a minor NPC and ringing both of Act 3’s bell tower bells.
You may have encountered Harvard Willoughby in normal play: This monocole-wearing, mustachioed comedian will challenge you to a duel of wits at the Elfsong Tavern’s open mic night. Kill him, and your initiation to the Dark Brotherhood will be complete you’ll have taken your first step to meeting the real Harvard Willoughby.
What Secrets Are Hiding Out Of Sight In BG3 (FULL GAME MOVIE) – YouTube
Next, you have to climb the Lower City guard tower, then the Church of the Open Hand belfry in Rivington and ring their respective church bells in that order. There won’t be any pop-up or acknowledgement from the game, but a “Mysterious egg” will show up in your party camp.
I found it by the chicken coop in the Rivington bivouac, but I would imagine it has a corresponding location at the Lower City docks and in the Elfsong Tavern.
Click on the egg, and you’ll receive Harvard Willoughby, “Nature’s Fury,” as a summoned helper. This Harvard only has 29-54 HP depending on your difficulty, but he can cast an impressive array of high-level spells, including Call Lighting and Wall of Thorns.
Image 1 of 9
(Image credit: Larian)
(Image credit: Larian)
(Image credit: Larian)
(Image credit: Larian)
(Image credit: Larian)
(Image credit: Larian)
(Image credit: Larian)
(Image credit: Larian)
(Image credit: Larian)
He also lights on fire at the beginning of combat encounters, and has a chance of exploding at the beginning of each round that increases as the fight drags on. If Harvard Willoughby dies by this or any other means, he’ll be gone for good.
A developer comment in BG3’s code describes the human Harvard as “a tribute to our favorite sheep,” so this summoned Harvard is presumably the original—accept no substitutes.
Keep up to date with the most important stories and the best deals, as picked by the PC Gamer team.
I just love this: A good, well-hidden easter egg no normal person would find in a million years. I’m reminded of Diablo 2’s legendary Cow Level, which requires you to combine a dead NPC’s peg leg with a town portal scroll to enter a dimension of “Hell Bovines.”
There’s also The Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind’s Eltonbrand, an upgraded version of the daedric katana, Goldbrand. To get Eltonbrand, you have to be a vampire with the standard sword, a specific key, and 11,171 gold in your inventory when you talk to a certain quest giver.
It’s all a confounding reference to former Duke and Chicago Bulls basketball player, Elton Brand, whose legacy on the court may wind up outlived by his one in CRPGs. As for Baldur’s Gate 3, I hope this game never stops surprising me.
https://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/1747515705_Baldurs-Gate-3-has-a-secret-like-Diablos-Cow-Level.jpg14402560Carlos Pachecohttps://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Website-Logo-300x74.pngCarlos Pacheco2025-05-17 19:02:262025-05-17 19:02:26Baldur’s Gate 3 has a secret like Diablo’s Cow Level I never saw after 460 hours: A magical sheep companion named ‘Harvard Willoughby’ you summon by killing a comedian and ringing two bells
Slitherine revealed the games would be leaving Steam earlier this week. “We want to inform you that the Warhammer 40,000: Sanctus Reach and Warhammer 40,000: Armageddon franchises will soon be removed from Steam and our website,” the publisher wrote in a brief blog post. “Starting May 19th, the games and their DLCs will no longer be available for purchase on these platforms.”
No reason was given for why the games are being pulled from Steam, though the most likely explanation is that the publisher’s licensing agreement with Games Workshop for these games has expired. Slitherine did point out that both games will still be purchasable via GoG, while players who already own the game on Steam will “still be able to download and play as usual.”
With two days left to pick up these games on Steam, one question remains: should you? Well, both games take inspiration from the classic turn-based wargame Panzer General. Armageddon is a 2D, top-down affair, while Sanctus Reach sees you manoeuvring units across 3D, grid-based battlefields. Both games have a ‘Very Positive’ rating on Steam, though the number of reviews for each isn’t enormous. Armageddon has almost 900 reviews, while Sanctus Reach has just over 1,100.
(Image credit: Slitherine)
In PC Gamer’s ranking of every Warhammer 40,000 game, Sanctus Reach placed at 36 out of 51 games. “It’s not bad, but it is basic” wrote Jody MacGregor in his summary of Sanctus Reach, highlighting that everything from the presentation to the scenario objectives are built to do the job and not much else. “Other games do this identical thing better,” he concluded.
One of those games is Armageddon, which ranks much higher on the list at 17. Despite its 2D visuals, Armageddon better represents the scale and ferocity of a 40k conflict. Set on a hive world devastated by pollution, it provides broader, chewier tactical scenarios as Jody explains. “Each scenario is a puzzle where you’ll have to decide whether to split your battlegroups or unite them in a single wedge, lock down the bridges or move into the bombed-out buildings, scout ahead with walkers or fliers, and so on.”
Armageddon and its various DLCs are also available at a 90% discount for what time they remain available on Steam. This means can pick up the base game for $4 (£3.35), while adding in all the DLCs will set you back $9.89 (£8.43). Out of the two, then, it’s clear that Armageddon is the superior game and the better deal.
Keep up to date with the most important stories and the best deals, as picked by the PC Gamer team.
It’s a shame these games are leaving Steam, but on the plus side, we don’t have long to find out what 40k goodness will be coming to the platform in the near future. Games Workshop recently revealed that its annual Warhammer Skulls event returns next week, and that usually brings with it an announcement or two. Moreover, there’s the small matter that Space Marine 3 is officially in development, though don’t expect to be stepping into Titus’ power armour again for at least another few years.
https://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/1747479626_Two-Warhammer-40000-games-will-be-delisted-from-Steam-on.jpg10801920Carlos Pachecohttps://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Website-Logo-300x74.pngCarlos Pacheco2025-05-17 11:11:122025-05-17 11:11:12Two Warhammer 40,000 games will be delisted from Steam on Monday, and one of them is currently on a 90% discount
A year out from its initial early access launch, I can finally see what Moon Studios wants to make with No Rest for the Wicked. It’s big in scope and scale, mashing conventions and mechanics of several genres into one world folded in on itself like its own intricately layered levels. And it invites much comparison: to Dark Souls and Diablo, namely.
And also fighting games. Monster Hunter Wilds. Even Animal Crossing. It’s an RPG with the action elements of an open world adventure like Elden Ring but an isometric perspective and emphasis on random loot. It’s a game about resource gathering and managing inventories and maybe farming, eventually. It’s a game about throwing yourself at the boss for days at a time as the shadows drift with the sun into night and back to day again.
Following the new Breach update, it’s more a game about making big combos and managing poise and stamina and focus, almost like Sekiro.
Not all the changes in the update have gone over well with fans, and negative reviews on Steam have prompted the game’s developers to speak out against the public criticism. In doing so, they have manufactured a controversy that implicates journalists, an imagined leftist coalition, and, of course, the usual minority scapegoats we are all tired of hearing about in every conversation. This has made finishing The Breach—and writing about it—an unwinnable proposition.
Which is all a shame, because No Rest for the Wicked has charmed me over the past year with its relentless focus on nuanced animation, a prime example being the way my sorcerer holds her staff out in front of her chest to balance when crossing a narrow beam over the gap. Every weapon has its own pose for such occasions, just as each reveals unique combos with bespoke flourishes to bring life to this stormy outpost of a great, shining kingdom on the mainland, a heart of darkness called Sacra.
In The Breach
(Image credit: Moon Studios)
Something is rotten on the island of Sacra. Survival, rebellion, inquisition, and pilgrimage collide in this world of sword and sorcery with vistas pulled from Friedrich’s canvas, ruins from Giger’s airbrush, and monsters from Bosch’s hellscapes. Its epic dark fantasy quests would be at home in Game of Thrones, but the art direction often reminds me of Princess Mononoke: The breeze through the painted grass, flowers swaying so gently before the screen—the whole world—erupts in violence and bloodshed.
In a new questline, I travel south of Sacrament, a day’s journey to the massacre at Hunters Vale. I follow the river to the dell, haunted by the cries that echo across the lowland meadows. Save me! Please! Help me!
Keep up to date with the most important stories and the best deals, as picked by the PC Gamer team.
And then I see her. The Lost Huntress: the corpse of a girl reaching clit-like from the gaping, ribbed mouth of a wolfish beast. My halberd rings with each swing. She wails with regret, trapped by the monster she could not stop in life or death. Then the flame at the end of my polearm catches matted fur and a warm blaze brings light to dark.
Each quest in The Breach becomes a memorable journey thanks to the music, the lighting, the sound design, the environmental exploration. But by the time I could play and write about the update, another boss was staring me down.
Moon Studios earned the status of indie darling with its Xbox exclusive Ori and the Blind Forest and cemented itself with its sequel. Then in a 2022 GamesBeat report, former employees accused studio co-founders Thomas Mahler and Gennadiy Korol of creating an “oppressive” workplace. With a pivot to a dark fantasy game unlike Ori in almost every way, the studio perhaps could’ve left some of the baggage behind and declared reinvention, but Mahler could not.
(Image credit: Moon Studios)
Mahler has implied in tweets that the fallout from the report was cancel culture and continues to echo GamerGate talking points about ethics in journalism to this day, all of which makes it hard to take his most recent posts as anything but revisionist history.
Last weekend, Mahler claimed on the game’s public Discord server that Moon was in danger of closing due to the growing number of negative reviews on No Rest for the Wicked’s Steam page. He then picked a fight with a journalist who wrote about his posts while walking back the suggestion that Moon was in a financial crisis, suggested the negative reviews were the result of an organized backlash by an imagined group of leftists.
(Image credit: Moon Studio)
He has since claimed that he used incorrect wording in his initial post because English is not his first language, while also saying he can “sometimes be impulsive and emotional.”
And yet he continues to post.
He continues to post about how unfair the game’s negative reviews on Steam are to the studio. He compared himself to Italian philosopher Giordano Bruno, who was burned at the stake by the Catholic church’s inquisition for challenging geocentric doctrine. Considering the recent conservative response to an American pope that has tepidly rejected the Trump regime’s anti-immigrant policies, the invocation feels loaded. (In before the claim I am reading too much into it and Mahler is Austrian anyways.)
After following him for a few years, I don’t think Mahler is himself a reactionary, but a populist. He wants to be “cancelled” for the cultural clout it has brought figures he relates himself to. But the same rhetoric he has used to court gamers has attracted a vitriolic following seeking adrenaline and titillation.
So, yes, an unfun balance change in an early access title will lead to more negative reviews. We’ve seen this blowback before.
Mahler has made himself the final boss of No Rest for the Wicked, turning a compelling ARPG that I want to play more of into an unwinnable game for us both. I can only assume after an offhand comment about trans people in his screed that Mahler will dismiss whatever I have to say; perhaps he will even suggest I am organizing my own campaign to undermine the studio. But for him, and for Moon, there are few bridges left to burn, let alone cross, and he has surrounded himself with torch bearers.
https://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/1747443567_You-cannot-beat-the-final-boss-of-No-Rest-for.jpg8861575Carlos Pachecohttps://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Website-Logo-300x74.pngCarlos Pacheco2025-05-17 00:44:222025-05-17 00:44:22You cannot beat the final boss of No Rest for Wicked’s latest saga
As a 31 year old, I think constantly about my imminent death. After being assassinated by terrorists while rescuing a baby who is also the president from a burning building, how do I want people to remember me?
Fortunately, my contract stipulates that I will be embalmed and lie in state like Lenin in the centre of the PC Gamer offices until the end of time, but others don’t have that luxury (we’re short on desk space as it is). Hideo Kojima, for instance, is achieving immortality by cramming a USB stick full of ideas for his staff to use after he concludes his tenancy on Earth.
In a chat with our comrades at Edge magazine, Kojima said a serious illness during the Covid-19 pandemic reminded him of his mortality: “Until then, I didn’t think I was old, you know? I just didn’t feel my age, and I assumed I would be able to create for as long as I live.” Sickness disillusioned him of that. “I couldn’t create anything. And I saw lots of people around me passing away at that time. I was confronted with death.”
Though Kojima recovered and is now full-swing on putting out Death Stranding 2, the experience stayed with him. He began to wonder how long he had left to keep doing creative work—”Perhaps I would have 10 years?”
It’s that confrontation with mortality, says Kojima, that produced the pitch for Physint, but it produced something else, too: a USB stick filled with Kojima-brand ideas for his staff to pore through after he’s gone. “I gave a USB stick with all my ideas on it to my personal assistant,” said the man himself, “kind of like a will.
“Perhaps they could continue to make things after I’m gone, here at Kojima Productions… This is a fear for me—what happens to Kojima Productions after I’m gone. I don’t want them to just manage our existing IP.”
To be honest, I can’t think of anything more Kojima than games still coming out with his name over the title sometime in 2150. If anyone deserves this kind of intellectual preservation, it’s the guy who got a Game Boy Advance game made with a solar sensor built into the cartridge. You reckon the idea for a game where you get old, die, and forget how to move is on there? Hopefully Kojima’s assistant backed it up, in any case.
Keep up to date with the most important stories and the best deals, as picked by the PC Gamer team.
https://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/1747407500_Kojima-has-a-mind-tomb-a-USB-stick-filled-with.jpg11512046Carlos Pachecohttps://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Website-Logo-300x74.pngCarlos Pacheco2025-05-16 15:07:022025-05-16 15:07:02Kojima has a mind tomb: a USB stick filled with ideas for his staff to use after he dies ‘kind of like a will’
Use our tips and hints for the May 16 (1427) Wordle to skip through your daily Wordle game with ease. Rush straight for them if you like: they’ll help get your game off to a perfect start. Or you could keep them to one side, something to check back with if those green letters aren’t turning up fast enough later on. Whatever happens, we’ve got your back. As always, today’s answer is here if you need it.
Today’s Wordle was more like an argument than a puzzle. Yellow letters turned up reluctantly, and hoping for anything more than that seemed impossible. And then, just to make sure things were as difficult as possible, the greens I did find sat in odd and unhelpful places. Here’s hoping tomorrow’s game is a little less stubborn.
Today’s Wordle hint
(Image credit: Josh Wardle)
Wordle today: A hint for Friday, May 16
This word refers to a specific number in a sequence, or the place someone could come in a race. Not in the top three, but not too far off.
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
(Image credit: Future)
What is today’s Wordle answer?
One more win. The answer to the May 16 (1427) Wordle is FIFTH.
Keep up to date with the most important stories and the best deals, as picked by the PC Gamer team.
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:
May 15: EAGER
May 14: BONGO
May 13: AWARE
May 12: BICEP
May 11: DOWEL
May 10: YEAST
May 9: TRIPE
May 8: BALMY
May 7: MACHO
May 6: SUITE
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.
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.
Stellar Blade, the action game where if you squint it will look like Nier: Automata, is finally coming to PC on June 11.
Actually, you don’t even have to squint to make it look like Nier: Automata because the DLC that lets main character Eve wear 2B’s outfit comes with it. It’s a complete edition, after all, so everything PlayStation 5 players got a year ago will be included, like the Nikke DLC and whatever other jiggly outfits were released for Eve.
If you pre-order it, however, you can get something even more ridiculous: ear armor. At least that’s what the trailer calls it. It’s a curved piece of metal that will protect Eve’s precious ears from the sci-fi horrors of Stellar Blade. Horse armor was so 2006—we live in an ear armor era now.
Given that this is a third-person action game, I’m not sure about the value of a handful of pixels on an ear versus, you know, a whole outfit, but I guess there had to be something to convince you to pay for it early. The only use I can think of is the game’s photo mode, which makes the other pre-order bonus, a pair of glasses, make a little more sense. The selfies will go wild.
The PC release will support Nvidia DLSS 4 and AMD FSR 3 upscaling and will let you fully unlock the frame rate. It’ll also support 21:9 ultrawide and 32:9 super ultrawide resolutions. You won’t need beefy hardware to run it either, according to the PC requirements. Anyone with a Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 or newer will be fine.
(Image credit: Shift Up)
There’s a new boss to fight and an outfit to earn from it, and fully-supported Chinese and Japanese voiceovers and facial animations for the cutscenes.
You will also be investing in what will probably be a very popular game for modders, if you’re into that sort of thing. (I will be like Wes and will avoid the NexusMods page at all costs.)
https://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/1747335391_Stellar-Blade-comes-to-PC-next-month-with-new-armor.jpg10801920Carlos Pachecohttps://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Website-Logo-300x74.pngCarlos Pacheco2025-05-15 19:51:112025-05-15 19:51:11Stellar Blade comes to PC next month with new armor to cover up Eve’s woefully exposed ears
Ransomware is already a horrible blight on the tech world. These insidious programs are specifically designed to hold your computer and its data hostage. Criminal hackers and the likes will then use this to extort money or further information from the victims. Of course security protections against things like ransomware are always being worked on, but that’s because ransomware also continues to develop in more complex and terrifying ways.
Some of the latest developments in ransomware are all around microcode found on CPUs. This is the code just one step up from the hardware that tells the processor how to function and order its tasks. Ideally microcode shouldn’t be touched, let alone altered by anyone other than the manufacturer, but in recent days we’re seeing that this isn’t the case anymore.
Recently we saw a BIOS exploit reveal the potential for editing AMD’s microcode in some of its older CPUs. Now, inspired by these kinds of developments, Security researcher and Rapid7 analyst, Christiaan Beek, has come up with a way to hijack microcode updates and use them to install ransomware onto your central processor.
“Coming from a background in firmware security, I was like, woah, I think I can write some CPU ransomware,” Beek told The Register.
And apparently Beek has done just that. While for the good of everyone they’re not planning to release the ransomware to the public, Beek claims to have successfully created a ransomware that hides in a CPU processor.
“Of course, we won’t release that, but it’s fascinating, right?” says Beek. “Ransomware at the CPU level, microcode alteration, and if you are in the CPU or the firmware, you will bypass every freaking traditional technology we have out there.”
The thing with ransomware installed directly into the microcode of a CPU is that it bypasses most aspects of security we already have set up. In previous examples, such as the AMD exploit, you’d also require access to the machine, but of course Beek is keeping tight-lipped on those details.
Keep up to date with the most important stories and the best deals, as picked by the PC Gamer team.
He seems rightly more worried that we are still even having to deal with things like ransomware in the capacity that we do. As most cybersecurity folk will tell you, our cyber hygiene is pretty disgusting, and most problems are caused by user error or inaction.
“We should not be talking about ransomware in 2025—and that fault falls on everyone: the vendors, the end users, cyber insurers,” says Beek. “Twelve years later, we’re still fighting the battle,” he says, “while we’re still seeing a lot of technological evolution, everybody’s shouting agentic, AI, ML. And if we’re bloody honest, we still haven’t fixed our foundations.”
https://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/1747299325_It-sounds-like-a-six-word-horror-story-but-Ransomware-running.jpg10801920Carlos Pachecohttps://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Website-Logo-300x74.pngCarlos Pacheco2025-05-15 06:38:452025-05-15 06:38:45It sounds like a six-word horror story, but ‘Ransomware running directly from your CPU’ is now a real thing
The history of Star Wars is the history of visual effects. For decades, Lucasfilm and its effects division Industrial Light & Magic have—through innovations in camera technology, miniature techniques, practical effects, and computer-generated imagery—charted the course of Hollywood film production, establishing a visual canon that resonates so strongly with its fans that many of them idolize a guy who hacked up a bunch of younglings with a laser sword purely because of how cool his armor looks.
To celebrate that legacy of cutting-edge craftsmanship, former ILM chief creative officer and current senior vice president of creative innovation at Lucasfilm Rob Bredow got on a TED stage in April to share a vision of what he called “a new era of technology” (via 404 Media). That vision was a two-minute AI-generated video of blue lions and chimpanzees with zebra stripes, not to mention the ungodly outcome of snail and peacock interbreeding.
Star Wars Changed Visual Effects — AI Is Doing It Again | Rob Bredow | TED – YouTube
Bredow began his talk with a summary of ILM’s history, founded 50 years ago to “solve the visual storytelling challenges” in Star Wars. As Bredow describes it, ILM’s success came from artists and engineers working in tandem, blending aesthetic sensibility with technical innovation. He shared anecdotes from the production histories of Jurassic Park, Indiana Jones, and the Mandalorian—moments where artists elevated what could be achieved with new technology, rather than be replaced by it.
I can safely say that if I sent a probe down to a Star Wars planet and got back images of alligator heads crudely spliced onto turtle bodies, I’d be pretty bummed.
“That’s blending the old and new—how tech and creativity working hand in hand create things we just love,” Bredow said. “So what happens when you put the latest AI tools in the hands of talented artists, both to see how good these tools are these days, and what does it do to our artists’ imagination?”
Unfortunately, I don’t think tech and creativity were particularly aligned on this one.
Bredow then moved on to his premiere of Star Wars: Field Guide, a short film created by an ILM artist over the course of two weeks using AI generation to “explore what it would feel like if you sent a probe droid out to a brand new Star Wars planet.” And I can safely say that if I sent a probe down to a Star Wars planet and got back images of alligator heads crudely spliced onto turtle bodies, I’d be pretty bummed.
Image 1 of 5
(Image credit: TED/Lucasfilm)
(Image credit: TED/Lucasfilm)
(Image credit: TED/Lucasfilm)
(Image credit: TED/Lucasfilm)
(Image credit: TED/Lucasfilm)
Field Guide is, to be frank, embarrassing. Despite the triumphant Star Wars score, ILM’s foray into AI generation didn’t produce anything remotely compelling—or even particularly alien. It made a mostly normal sloth with bits of rock sticking out of its fur. It put a peacock head on a snail. There’s a bear with tiger stripes. There’s a blue gazelle, and also a blue lion, and a pink iguana, and a couple walruses with octopus bits stuck on there, and none of it makes me feel anything because why would I care about a barely-fake creature—essentially just two existing animals smushed together—which nobody bothered to make themselves?
Keep up to date with the most important stories and the best deals, as picked by the PC Gamer team.
“It’s pretty fun to see artist expression leveraging the latest new tools,” Bredow said as the film ended to perhaps the most generous applause anyone has ever given, and I have to ask: Is it? The AI-generated imagery doesn’t have any glaring errors, but what was fun here? What’s being expressed by a person typing “what if a hyena had an ape’s face” for two weeks?
(Image credit: YouTube)
Bredow closed out his talk as though he had illustrated a point—that his two minutes of animated creature collage is a stepping stone towards, as he said, “that next Star Destroyer moment that’s going to light up screens around the world.”
https://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/1747263330_Lucasfilm-declares-creative-bankruptcy-with-an-AI-generated-Star-Wars-film.png10801920Carlos Pachecohttps://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Website-Logo-300x74.pngCarlos Pacheco2025-05-14 23:37:122025-05-14 23:37:12Lucasfilm declares creative bankruptcy with an AI-generated Star Wars film that’s just 2 minutes of mostly-normal animals jumbled together
After being first announced in April 2024, Tales of the Shire has already made quite a name for itself in the cozy gaming space even a few months away from its scheduled release. Within that year and a bit, we’ve seen a handful of trailers and videos that give us a brief look into the life of a hobbit.
Things like cooking, decorating, and foraging have all been spotlighted across the videos shared to social media by Weta Workshop, making us more prepared than ever to start our new life in Bywater. If you want a little more insight though, here’s everything you need to know before you take on your career as a hobbit, alongside when the game will release.
Tales of the Shire release date
Tales of the Shire will be released on Tuesday, July 29, 2025. across all platforms too, so no one will have to wait around for their turn at being a hobbit.
Originally, Tales of the Shire was scheduled to be released toward the end of 2024, but it was met with a handful of delays. In a statement published to social media in February, Weta Workshop explained that “a lot more work is going to need to be done between now and its launch.”
Tales of the Shire trailers
Tales of the Shire | Official Announcement Trailer – YouTube
Outside of an initial announcement trailer, followed by a separate release date reveal, Tales of the Shire hasn’t had a huge amount of trailers. With that said, there have been a number of “inside look” videos and shorts shared to social media and the Tales of the Shire YouTube channel.
These videos give a better look at what to actually expect from the game, alongside Bywater as a whole, and have often featured the team behind the game explaining mechanics or elements of the game in more detail. We’ve already had videos about foraging, cooking, decorating, and hosting dinner parties. All of which seem to be core mechanics in the game.
The Fellowship Behind Tales of the Shire | Inside Look – YouTube
The most recent “Inside Look” uploaded to YouTube talks about multiple features of the game, like the work that’s gone into character creation so players can make the most accurate hobbit version of themselves, the wayfinding system, and explains the introduction to the game. Most importantly, a whole section of the video is dedicated to decorating your hobbit hole and the reasoning behind the decision to make it as open as possible, so you can decorate every possible inch of your home in Bywater.
Tales of the Shire gameplay
A lot of the content in Tales of the Shire is made up of traditional life-sim elements like farming, foraging, fishing, and decorating your own hobbit hole. But, to keep you on your toes, you’ll also complete quests for the hobbits around Bywater to progress through a very laid-back story.
Rather than these quests sending you on epic quests to slay dragons and take down monstrous spiders, you can expect to run between locations delivering items to hobbits and lending a helping hand where needed. Basically, your main aim in Tales of the Shire is to develop a comfortable and relaxing life as a hobbit, so as you can imagine the story is by no means intense.
Cooking also plays a huge role in the game, which is unsurprising given how much hobbits eat. With the ingredients you’ve foraged and farmed you’ll have the opportunity to invite your fellow hobbits over for a meal too. This will help you develop and maintain friendships with any character you want to, rather than relying on some sort of gifting mechanic which so many other life sims are keen on.
From what we’ve seen in trailers, customization is another significant part of the experience. Your entire house, or hole, can be decorated from ceiling to floor with whatever aesthetic you fancy. This was designed to help players “express themselves within the game” according to UX designer Jordan Peat. Weta Workshop shared in an “inside look” video for the game that decorating features a grid-free approach, meaning you can place furniture and items around your house wherever you want for that ultimate cozy experience Tales of the Shire promises.
https://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/1747227199_Tales-of-the-Shire-everything-we-know-about-the-cozy-scaled.jpg14402560Carlos Pachecohttps://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Website-Logo-300x74.pngCarlos Pacheco2025-05-14 12:44:262025-05-14 12:44:26Tales of the Shire: everything we know about the cozy hobbit life sim
Most PC users can agree that as Windows progresses, Microsoft forces more integration with its other products and services onto the user. One of the worst culprits for this has to be OneDrive, Microsoft’s cloud storage service, which Windows basically tricks people into using on install. While normally just frustrating for consumers, this could become a huge security risk when Microsoft’s planned June update goes ahead.
The update, spotted by Techzine, adds a new feature called “Prompt to Add Personal Account to OneDrive Sync,” that asks users to add their personal data to a business account running the device. This will come up as a prompt on any business device that detects a personal account, asking if the user would like to synchronise their files. Ticking yes will automatically add these files to the business OneDrive account, potentially bypassing a bunch of security features.
It also means business files can be copied to the personal account by default. So unless the IT department has specifically put their own safeguards in place for this, data can go back and forth between a user’s business and personal account.
This would be fine if the world was full of super savvy tech users, but given this will roll out on work-from-home laptops all over the globe, that’s just not going to be the case. A helpful looking message asking users to synchronise accounts isn’t going to get a second look from most who’ll simply tick “yes”. Maybe this is the real reason Microsoft is also laying off 3% of it’s workforce.
Then you can combine that with the fact that half the users out there don’t even realise they’re using OneDrive. I’ve recently had the pleasure of setting up a very capable Razer Blade 2024 model laptop and it reminded me just how pervasive and sneaky Microsoft can be. Even after declining setting up OneDrive during the initialisation, all my default files and save locations were OneDrive folders. It’s really not the easiest thing to get rid of, especially in Windows 11.
And frankly, it’s an insidious piece of money grabbing deception. It brought me back to the days of working tech support and finding many customers didn’t even realise they were using the service they were supposedly out of memory for. Having confused elderly folks asking why they need to pay for more storage for whatever “this cloud thing is” only to find their laptop drives empty is infuriating.
For anyone really worried, it’s probably a good idea to contact your IT department and make sure they’re ready for this update. They can use the DisableNewAccountDetection policy, to stop the popup from coming up on computers asking for syncrhonisation or better yet, enable the DisablePersonalSync policy all together.
Keep up to date with the most important stories and the best deals, as picked by the PC Gamer team.
https://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/1747191143_Microsofts-upcoming-OneDrive-update-bypasses-security-protocols-between-business-and.jpg10801920Carlos Pachecohttps://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Website-Logo-300x74.pngCarlos Pacheco2025-05-14 03:06:092025-05-14 03:06:09Microsoft’s upcoming OneDrive update bypasses security protocols between business and personal files
We may request cookies to be set on your device. We use cookies to let us know when you visit our websites, how you interact with us, to enrich your user experience, and to customize your relationship with our website.
Click on the different category headings to find out more. You can also change some of your preferences. Note that blocking some types of cookies may impact your experience on our websites and the services we are able to offer.
Essential Website Cookies
These cookies are strictly necessary to provide you with services available through our website and to use some of its features.
Because these cookies are strictly necessary to deliver the website, refusing them will have impact how our site functions. You always can block or delete cookies by changing your browser settings and force blocking all cookies on this website. But this will always prompt you to accept/refuse cookies when revisiting our site.
We fully respect if you want to refuse cookies but to avoid asking you again and again kindly allow us to store a cookie for that. You are free to opt out any time or opt in for other cookies to get a better experience. If you refuse cookies we will remove all set cookies in our domain.
We provide you with a list of stored cookies on your computer in our domain so you can check what we stored. Due to security reasons we are not able to show or modify cookies from other domains. You can check these in your browser security settings.
Google Analytics Cookies
These cookies collect information that is used either in aggregate form to help us understand how our website is being used or how effective our marketing campaigns are, or to help us customize our website and application for you in order to enhance your experience.
If you do not want that we track your visit to our site you can disable tracking in your browser here:
Other external services
We also use different external services like Google Webfonts, Google Maps, and external Video providers. Since these providers may collect personal data like your IP address we allow you to block them here. Please be aware that this might heavily reduce the functionality and appearance of our site. Changes will take effect once you reload the page.
Google Webfont Settings:
Google Map Settings:
Google reCaptcha Settings:
Vimeo and Youtube video embeds:
Other cookies
The following cookies are also needed - You can choose if you want to allow them:
Privacy Policy
You can read about our cookies and privacy settings in detail on our Privacy Policy Page.
