The biggest PC gaming stories of the week

It was Baldur's Gate 3 reveal week. In short, Larian's take on the RPG series looks a lot like Divinity: Original Sin 2, but with a modified turn-based combat system, improved character models, and lots of adapted D&D rules—so, pretty exciting! Here's our in depth look, and you can watch the full reveal stream here. And now for all the other things that happened this week:

GDC 2020 has been postponed due to coronavirus concerns

As more and more companies announced that they were backing out of the yearly industry convention, it was only a matter of time before its organizers at the Entertainment Software Association would have to give up on hosting GDC in March. Refunds will be issued, and a new event is being planned for sometime in the summer.

Stardew Valley is getting another free content update

The 1.5 update is in the works now, according to creator Eric Barone. This was our most popular story of the week, and it isn't like nothing else happened this week, so "more Stardew Valley" is clearly on a lot of wish lists. 

Horizon: Zero Dawn for PC appears on Amazon

After rumors of its existence last month, a listing for a PC port of PlayStation 4 exclusive Horizon: Zero Dawn has appeared on Amazon France. It's starting to feel likely that there's something to all the whispers.

Players are preventing fall damage in Red Dead Redemption 2 by puking

And why not? See this important technique below:

Rainbow Six Siege may go free-to-play someday, but first Ubisoft wants to solve smurfing

'Smurfing' is when experienced players fool a game into matching them with beginners, usually by making new accounts. The key to stopping it is to quickly detect a player's relative skill regardless of their win-rate, so that throwing matches won't keep them at the wrong rank and let them stomp new players. It's easier said than done, and if Siege ever goes free-to-play, it's a problem devs want to have solved first.

On paper, the GPU in the Xbox Series X is faster than a GeForce RTX 2080 Super

The new consoles will have some impressive custom AMD tech in them, though we'll need to know more before we can tell exactly what kind of processing capabilities they'll offer compared to the typical gaming PC or laptop.

GOG's new refund policy is way more generous than Steam's

"We're monitoring the effects of the current update to make sure no one is using this policy to hurt the developers that put their time and heart into making great games," says GOG. "We may refuse refunds in such individual cases. We'd also let you know about any future adjustments in the voluntary Refund Policy in advance."

More things we wrote

• Baldur's Gate 3 Early Access will launch with 6 classes and 5 origin characters
• Plague Inc. has been removed from the China App Store
• Diablo 4 developer update showcases UI changes and 'darker, more gritty' monsters
• How Rob McElhenney's Minecraft movie fell apart
• Finally! American Truck Simulator is getting openable truck windows
• A Resident Evil 3 Remake demo is coming
• A 25-year-old strategy game just got new DLC and a Steam release
• Dragons have arrived in Hearthstone Battlegrounds' biggest update yet
• Star Wars Battlefront 2's Age of Rebellion update adds more maps, weapons, ewoks
• New Rockstar logos have fans speculating about an announcement

Around the office

Baldur's Gate 3 will feature turn-based combat rather than the real-time-with-pause combat system from the old games. Andy Kelly thinks that sucks. Fraser thinks that rules. People on Twitter are divided almost down the middle over which combat system they prefer. Personally, I hate real-time-with-pause and would've lost a ton of interest in Baldur's Gate 3 if it weren't turn-based, so clearly Larian made the right choice—catering to me, the center of all things.

It's fun to argue about combat systems. It's also fun to meet Shirley "Skyrim Grandma" Curry, who James ran into at PAX. Lucky James!

Speaking of PAX East, James is over there livestreaming, so follow our Twitch channel to see when he's live from Boston. Meanwhile, Chris revisited his brief college experience in The Sims and did a bit of sobbing alone in bed (in The Sims), Harry wondered why he's still playing Skyrim (to be more like Shirley Curry, probably), and Wes got to play Ori and the Will of the Wisps, which is looking excellent.

Now that GDC has been postponed, we'll have more time in March to play Ori and the Will of the Wisps, as well as Doom Eternal, Half-Life: Alyx, and Mount and Blade 2. It's an exciting month for releases, and it starts as soon as we get this leap day out of the way.

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