To the surprise of absolutely no one, Baldur’s Gate 3 has claimed the Game of the Year award in the 2023 Steam Awards, along with the crown for Outstanding Story-Rich Game. It probably would have won even more, but the Steam Awards rules limit games to nominations in a maximum of two categories, presumably to avoid any across-the-board ass-kickings.

The Steam Awards win comes on top of Game of the Year titles at The Game Awards and the Golden Joysticks, giving Baldur’s Gate 3 a proper Game of the Year trifecta—a GOAT of GOTYs, you might say. I never imagined when a new Baldur’s Gate was announced back in 2019 that the oddball little RPG studio from Ghent would end up so thoroughly dominating the videogame scene on PC and console alike, but here we are: If there was a trophy in sight anywhere in 2023, Larian Studios carried it home.

“After more than 40 million votes, we’re delighted that Baldur’s Gate 3 has won Game of the Year AND Outstanding Story…

When it comes to training large language models, the usual refrain is that the problem is a GPU shortage. Nvidia’s dominant chips, of course, are the ones all the various AI outfits beat each other up to acquire.

But everyone’s favourite billionaire and tech prognosticator sees a different problem: We might not have enough power. Musk says the next Grok 3 generation of the AI model from his start up xAI is going to need around 100,000 of Nvidia’s H100 GPUs to train the model.

For sure, getting hold of 100,000 H100s isn’t going to be easy. Or cheap. But here’s the thing. Each H100 eats up a peak of 700W of power. So, that’s a peak of 70 megawatts for 100,000 of the things. OK, you’re probably not going to have all 100,000 running at 100% load at the same time. But then there’s more to an AI setup than just the GPUs. There’s all kinds of supporting hardware and infrastructure involved.

So, with 100,000 H100s, you’re looking at in excess of 100 megawatts or about the …

TennoCon is upon us once again, and the Digital Extremes fan event’s brought us an extended gameplay demo for Warframe: 1999, Warframe’s next major story update. When Warframe: 1999 was first teased last year, I’ll admit I was skeptical about how on-board I’d be for the space ninja game’s dabbling in CRT-era nostalgia. But when this year’s TennoCon gameplay demo kicked off with an original single from On-lyne, an alt-universe NSYNC knockoff, I knew I was wrong to doubt.

Warframe: 1999 will pluck players out of Warframe’s far future setting and place them in an episode from its history: the final New Year’s Eve of an alternate 20th century, where they’ll hunt named Albrecht Entrati as an outbreak of a biomechanical Techrot infestation is corrupting the world’s computers and machinery. While hunting Entrati, you’ll get to explore city streets littered with alt-history ’90s ephemera and Techrot monsters, drive high tech motorcycles, and—prepare yourselves—dabble in Wa…

Find a fresh perspective for your daily Wordle with our help. Skip straight to the August 17 (789) answer if you need a win in a hurry, or sit for a while and mull over the clue written especially for today’s game—however you want to win, I’ve got your back.

In many ways today’s game went brilliantly for me. I had a seriously productive opener, and that soon led to four greens. Then that led to another four greens. And then… and then, after missing the most obvious answer twice, I finally got today’s Wordle answer right. 

Today’s Wordle hint

A Wordle hint for Thursday, August 17

Anything that’s not quite right, or hasn’t hit its mark in some way, whether that’s an emotional problem or a physical fault, could be described using today’s answer—although the term is more likely to be found in classic romance novels than modern conversation. 

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Is there a double letter in today’s …

The humble data center is not so humble. According to the International Atomic Energy Agency, data centers and data transmission networks consume between 2-3% of global power consumption, and as global internet traffic grows, and demand for things like AI explodes, 3% is a number that will surely increase in the years ahead.

Microsoft knows a thing or two about big data, and I shudder to think what its monthly power bill looks like. Heck, I’d be shocked at its hourly power bills. How do you minimize the cost of power, and do it sustainably? The answer might be nuclear. Specifically, small modular reactors (SMR). 

Microsoft is certainly giving it some serious thought as it’s looking to hire a “Principal Program Manager Nuclear Technology” (reported by DCD’s Sebastian Moss). The job description calls for someone “who will be responsible for maturing and implementing a global Small Modular Reactor (SMR) and microreactor energy strategy.”

According to the IAEA, SM…

Valve is currently embroiled in a US antitrust lawsuit with Wolfire, a developer that alleges the Steam platform holder uses its position to unfairly crowd-out rivals and control game prices. Valve tried to have the suit dismissed, but in May 2022 the court ruled it could go ahead with some changes and enter the discovery phase: the juiciest part of the legal process where, among other things, plenty of internal correspondence from the companies involved is made public.

Among these documents are a couple of spicy exchanges between Epic CEO Tim Sweeney, and Valve’s CEO Gabe Newell, COO Scott Lynch, and project manager Erik Johnson (first spotted by Simon Carless at GameDiscoverCo). The context for both exchanges is broadly speaking store pricing and specifically the commission that Valve takes on Steam sales, which are some of Sweeney’s favourite topics. The first chain in 2017 is sparked specifically by a leaked comment from Steam’s developer forum, in which Valve’s Sea…

In a world where music isn’t just counterculture but is downright illegal, being in a band really is the most punk rock way of life. That’s the story, or at least part of it, in the upcoming “narrative focused rhythm-action RPG” Unbeatable, the debut project from D-Cell Games. Unbeatable debuted a new trailer and plans for its 2025 launch during today’s PC Gaming Show. 

Unbeatable clearly isn’t your typical rhythm game at all. D-Cell says the five chapter story takes place in an open world with rhythm minigames and an original soundtrack. The new trailer is heavy on the animation and alt rock soundtrack but you can catch some of its rhythm segments too. 

The main character Beat—which probably won’t be confusing; it’s fine—leaps, kicks, and blocks to the music in a way that looks a lot like a 2D fighting game as much as it does a rhythm game. There’s some over-the shoulder rhythmic fighting here too as Beat fights off enemies inside a railcar. Oh, an…

The AI revolution is coming. There’s nothing we can do about it, one day everything we do will be replaced by some collection of digital logic supplanting us. That day is not today, and the Tom’s Guide’s deals bot might just be the latest evidence that we’re still a little way off being ditched just yet.

Using the OpenAI ChatGPT 3.5 API, Tom’s Guide has deployed its own wee chatbot, scraping through the entirety of Future PLC’s content to dig out the best deals it thinks worth your time.

It’s even been casting its gaze over PC Gamer’s content and is intent on bringing you it’s own thoughts on what we write. Well, I say ‘thoughts’, but it’s just a large language model (LLM) regurgitating our content in a form relating to the natural language input you give it.

• BTW, we’re MANUALLY curating all the best Amazon Prime Day PC gaming deals right here.

You can check out how effective it is at delivering yo…

Vampire: The Masquerade’s blueblood vamps, the Ventrue, are the fourth and final clan being unveiled for Bloodlines 2. Unlike the unexpected addition of the Banu Haqim, shown off during the PC Gaming Show, the Ventrue reveal has been easier to predict: these vamps are VTM’s aristocracy, heavy hitters that often have important positions in the Camarilla, ruling vampire society. They were playable in the first Bloodlines and had been announced for the original version of Bloodlines 2. 

Footage of a Ventrue vampire in action will have to wait until next year, but if you choose to play as one you can expect to mesmerise mortals and vamps, forcing them to obey your commands. And if someone’s willpower is strong enough to resist your powers, you can build up your fortitude by feeding, allowing you to take more damage if it comes to a brawl.

As someone who prefers to talk their way out of trouble in RPGs, the Ventrue are pretty appealing. In my first Bloodlines playthrough…