May 30, 2024 – The Sims 4’s events system has launched today. We’ve updated this story to reflect the official info provided by EA.

Our Sims 4 main menu experience is crowded enough already, but it’s now gotten more packed. Just ahead of its official announcement this week, players managed to dig up proof of the new “events” system that will dole out free rewards for logging in regularly. The first event is called “Happy At Home” and runs for the next 35 days with a total of 8 in-game rewards to unlock.

It sure looks and feels like a battle pass. It’s located on the main menu screen with a horizontal track of rewards that you can claim for logging in a certain number of days during the given event period. Rewards are things like new hair and jewelry for Create-A-Sim, new furniture and objects for Build Mode, and a new Sim trait as well. It looks like you aren’t asked to log in every day, with a set of three rewards possibl…

Warner Bros Games has announced that Simon Pegg, he of Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, Star Trek, and probably a bunch of newer stuff I haven’t seen, will portray the headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry in the upcoming open-world wizarding game Hogwarts Legacy.

Pegg will give voice to Phineas Nigellus Black in the game, the great-great-grandfather of Sirius Black, portrayed in the films by Gary Oldman. Unlike that popular character, however, or the wise and compassionate Dumbledore who headed up Hogwarts in the novels and movies, Phineas Nigellus Black is pretty much a complete dick—the students don’t like him, and he doesn’t like the students.

“Phineas Nigellus Black is the least popular headmaster in the history of Hogwarts,” Pegg explains in the new trailer. “He is a sort of pompous, disinterested—he’s not a good teacher or headmaster in any way. I think he would’ve taken the role of headmaster because of the gig. You know, it’s a prestig…

Puzzle nerds, rejoice, for veteran picross makers Jupiter Corporation have finally released a picross game on PC. Logiart Grimoire, released this past week, is a cute little narrative-driven picross game about a magic book that somebody messed up by casting the spells wrong, so now you and weird buddy Emil need to untangle it by solving picross puzzles.

The only downside here is that you might have wanted a proper main-line Picross game from Jupiter, but beggars can’t be choosers.

Picross, which Jupiter describes as a “Picture Logic Puzzle,” is a puzzle genre where you use numerical clues to solve a visual puzzle: Numbers tell you how many cells are filled in each row or column, and you use logic to figure out which cells they are. They’re simple, easy-to-understand puzzle rules for some pretty fun puzzlin.

Logiart Grimoire has a pretty fat stack of puzzle types unlocked over the course of the game by combining materials gained from finishing earlier puzzles. It’s …

Spend a little time looking over our Wordle tips, take a quick peek at a clue written especially for the August 23 (795) puzzle, or cut through the word-fog and click your way to today’s Wordle answer. However you want to play, PC Gamer’s got it covered.

Somehow today’s puzzle came and went without much trouble for me. Looking back at my guesses, I can see I made a few unusual choices that just happened to work in my favour—I’ll have to remember to be a little braver the next time I’m struggling.

Today’s Wordle hint

A Wordle hint for Wednesday, August 23

The word you need to find today is another way of describing enthusiasm or positive energy, an exciting or animated reaction or display. ’90s music fans might find it helpful to remember the name of the band behind the song Bitter Sweet Symphony. 

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Is there a double letter in today’s Wordle? 

 Yes, there are two lots of double letters in today…

The Tekken 8 rumour mill has been popping off ever since dataminers began digging into the game’s files from July’s closed network test. There have been plenty of alleged character leaks, including one that found six unannounced characters tucked away in the files. 

Yet another leak sprung earlier this week when an image alleged to be Tekken 8’s base roster began circulating, and countless arguments around its legitimacy ensued. Well, this weekend’s EVO reveal appears to have proved that it’s very much real.

tekken from r/Tekken

Those who were fortunate enough to be a part of the EVO hype train were treated to two brand-new Tekken 8 character trailers on August 6. We’ve got the return of Raven—the much-loved Wesley Snipes-esque version, not the one we got in Tekken 7—and an entirely new character called Azucena. Both made an appearance in the roster leak, with their roster images being identical to their render…

Star Citizen has just updated its minimum system requirements and they appear rather easy-going: a quad-core CPU of unspecified age, a GPU with 4GB of VRAM, and 16GB of system memory. Many modern systems quite happily conform to that specification, especially with the developers noting a few examples of graphics cards that meet the requirement, including the GTX 1060, RX 460, and Arc A380. 

That’s the absolute bare minimum hardware required to run the game, as per the developers (via KitGuru). Though you probably won’t get far even if you do meet them. Take a look at the Star Citizen subreddit and recent threads would suggest anyone with a similar specification PC may run into some performance issues. In a thread noting the need for updated system requirements, you’ll find multiple mentions of how 32GB of speedy RAM is much more a requirement to enjoy the game with a modicum of performance than anything else.

The Star Citizen developers have addressed that with the …

We got our first look at Mouse back in May, and it was immediately intriguing: How could you not be at least a little curious about an M-rated FPS with a visual style clipped straight out of 1930s Disney animations? It was very barebones at the time, just some concept art and early animation clips, but now we’ve got a better look at what’s coming courtesy of IGN, and I am no longer just intrigued—I am interested.

Mouse, as described on its Steam page, is “a gritty and noir-fueled FPS shooter that draws inspiration from classic cartoons of the 1930s.” Players will take on the role of a private detective in a noir city riddled with corruption, and embark upon a quest for justice that will of course lean heavily on guns, explosives, and the occasional head-popping uppercut.

That sounds like a good time, but what really sells Mouse at this point is how it looks: It’s basically Steamboat Willie with a Tommy gun and some TNT. Cuphead is the obvious comparison but I’d say…

Ubisoft announced earlier today that Skull and Bones is delayed yet again, and naturally we took the opportunity to have some fun with it. But word of the delay came as part of a much larger update reflecting real trouble at the company: Ubisoft is struggling, and has opted to cancel three more unannounced projects in order to focus on its existing brands and live services.

The game industry in recent years has shifted toward “mega-brands and long-lasting titles that can reach players across the globe, across platforms and business models,” Ubisoft said in the update. Over the past four years, Ubisoft has attempted to do the same with its own major properties, including Assassin’s Creed, Far Cry, Ghost Recon, Rainbow Six, and The Division. But it hasn’t paid off: Games announced during the “investment phase” of this strategic shift have yet to come out, and its most recent releases have not met expectations.

“We are clearly disappointed by our recent performance,” Ubisof…

The UK government has reiterated its commitment to the country becoming a world crypto hub, and is considering the introduction of a “digital pound”. The BBC reports that Andrew Griffith, the economic secretary to the treasury, told MPs that a public consultation on the proposed national currency will launch within weeks.

The current government is Conservative but it doesn’t seem very conservative about this, with Griffith telling the Treasury Select Committee: “I want to see us establish a regime, and this is within the [Financial Services and Markets Bill], for the wholesale use for payment purposes of stablecoins”.

Stablecoins are a crypto asset designed to have a value fixed to that of traditional currencies or other assets. It should be pointed out that stablecoins, as with every crypto asset, are capable of spectacular collapse: as we saw last year with Terra USD.

“Central banks around the world are developing or exploring digital currencies,” said Gri…