GAME OVER - NEWS

Fallout: London at launch will not support Fallout 4 for Epic Games Store, but a real British politician has joined the mod's voice cast The portal VG247 shared two pieces of news about the ambitious Fallout: London mod for the role-playing shooter Fallout 4. The first concerns its distribution, and the second — the voice cast. Previously, it was reported that due to its size (30-40 GB), Fallout: London would not be released on the Nexus Mods platform, would be hosted on GOG, and would be available to all Fallout 4 owners on GOG, Steam, and potentially even EGS. A GOG representative clarified to VG247 that at launch, Fallout: London will not be compatible with copies of Fallout 4 purchased from the Epic Games Store, while support for the Steam version is currently “in the process” of debugging. The issue is that Fallout: London will require an outdated version of Fallout 4 for installation, and EGS, unlike GOG, does not allow rollback to previous builds. Work on a "downgrader" for the Steam edition is ongoing. As for the voice cast, John Bercow — a British politician and former Speaker of the House of Commons — has joined. In the mod, he will play the role of a robotic version of the Speaker of the House. Before Bercow, Neil Newbon, known for his role as Astarion in Baldur’s Gate 3, and two Doctors from the series "Doctor Who" — Sylvester McCoy and Colin Baker — confirmed their participation in Fallout: London. The release of Fallout: London is imminent — the mod, the size of an add-on, is already undergoing final checks by specialists from GOG. The events will unfold in London in the year 2237. Unique factions and storylines, weapons, creatures, and more are promised. You can find all our projects on our Official website. With love, NSWTL.INFO

«TES VI won't even come close to being this good»: Artist impresses players with the grim beauty of Morthal from Skyrim on Unreal Engine 5 Australian 3D artist Leo Torres continues to share impressive videos showcasing locations from The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim on the Unreal Engine 5. In the new video from the series The Real Scale, the artist presented his version of Morthal — the capital of the swampy region of Hjaalmarch. Despite its status, the city is almost cut off from other settlements and resembles more of a village — it has only a few buildings (including an alchemist's shop and a tavern) and almost no fortifications. Morthal's Jarl, Idgrod Ravencrone, supports the Empire. Material on YouTube According to Torres, Morthal “isn't liked by anyone” — it's just a “dull and depressing town in the swamps.” It suffers from the same problem as Falkreath — it lacks a distinct visual identity. The artist addressed this in his own way — he tried to enhance the atmosphere of a “Viking settlement in the swamps” as much as possible. The author used Unreal Engine 5.4 with Nanite micropolygonal geometry (all models and vegetation) and Lumen global illumination. He created and textured some models himself in Blender and Mixer, while others were borrowed from other enthusiasts. The scene was run on a PC with an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3090 graphics card. As always, users highly appreciated the artist's work and expressed hope to one day see a full remake. “I want these videos to turn into a game,” — wrote anon78747. — “A major project at the level of this remaster would be the release of the decade”. “What saddens me is that TES VI (which will come out in five years or later) won't even come close to being as good as this video”, — noted seankew8021. As part of the project The Real Scale, the author creates “remakes” of Tamriel locations, reproducing them in a realistic scale and modifying them to better fit the characteristics of the game universe. In the past, he has published demonstrations of Dawnstar, Markarth, Blackreach, Whiterun, Solitude, Winterhold, and Falkreath. Currently, work is underway on the Imperial City — the capital of Cyrodiil. Riften is also on the list for the future projects. Torres creates scenes for his portfolio and does not plan to release them publicly. Playing such a version of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is also not possible, but the graphics in the original can be significantly improved with a huge set of more than 3100 mods — as recently shown by the owner of the YouTube channel Digital Dreams. In June, user Unorthodogg released a series of mods for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, restoring cut content. You can find all our projects on our Official website. With love, NSWTL.INFO

Engineer Created a Disk Defragmentation Simulator for Windows 98 — with the Same Interface and HDD Sounds Although the era of Windows 98 is long gone, a new project by engineer Dennis Morello allows you to relive memories of one of the most recognizable elements of the 26-year-old operating system. The project is an application for disk defragmentation, a process in Windows 98 that was accompanied by a visual representation (changing dark blue cells to light blue) and the sounds of a hard disk drive (HDD) at work. Morello's Windows 98 Disk Defrag Simulator, created specifically for browsers, accurately mimics the disk defragmentation process on the 26-year-old operating system down to the mentioned details. According to Morello, one of the most challenging aspects was creating an authentic defragmentation algorithm: his solution allocates a random number of cells for processing and adjusts the speed depending on the selected disk. As for the audio, Morello recorded and edited the sounds of a real hard disk drive and synchronized the effects with the visualizer and the speed of the respective disk. Material on YouTube Morello positions the Windows 98 Disk Defrag Simulator as an experiment in exploring new web development methods. The engineer utilized a range of tools, including React, Next.js, Zustand, TailwindCSS, Radix UI Primitives, and Vercel. Anyone nostalgic for the Windows 98 era can try the Windows 98 Disk Defrag for free on the website defrag98.com. Morello added that he is ready to further develop the simulator, improving and expanding it with new features. You can find all our projects on our Official website. With love, NSWTL.INFO

The Flip Side of Success: Baldur’s Gate 3 Won So Many Awards That It Started to Hinder Development The fantasy role-playing game Baldur’s Gate 3 from Larian Studios continues to collect awards even 11 months after its release. The studio is pleased with the attention to the project, but such success has turned into an unusual problem. In a conversation with Edge magazine, Larian Studios head and Baldur's Gate 3 director Swen Vincke revealed that the game's success at numerous award ceremonies began to disrupt the studio's workflow. The awards won by Baldur's Gate 3 need to be collected by someone, and to minimize the negative impact on production, Larian had to rotate teams to attend the ceremonies on behalf of the studio. Vincke lamented that attending award ceremonies has become a real problem for the studio: “It would be great if all [award organizers] held them at the same time because it’s surprisingly exhausting”. Despite the fatigue, Larian Studios still has ceremonies they plan to attend. Vincke emphasized that “they are important, and we greatly appreciate” the success Baldur’s Gate 3 has achieved. According to Vincke, the unrelenting attention to Baldur’s Gate 3 prevents the studio and players from saying goodbye to the project. Larian is already tired of talking about the game in public and is preparing its final major update (to be released in September). Recently, Larian has been working on “two extremely ambitious RPGs” (Baldur’s Gate 4 is definitely not among them), for which they recently opened a new European division in Warsaw. You can find all our projects on our Official website. With love, NSWTL.INFO

Creators of the retro-futuristic thriller The Invincible based on the novel "The Invincible" reveal game sales for the first time Polish studio Starward Industries, founded by former developers of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt and Dying Light, addressed players with information about the success of their retro-futuristic thriller The Invincible. Let us recall, The Invincible had a less than stellar start and disappointed its publisher 11 bit studios, but by early 2024, it managed to recoup Starward Industries' production costs. As it became known, in the eight months since the release of The Invincible, total game sales reached 123 thousand copies. The developers thanked the players for their faith in the team and interest in the project. "Without your endless and immense support, we would not be able to work on future improvements for The Invincible and a new exciting project", noted Starward Industries. After laying off 15 of its 34 employees, including the head of the studio and director of The Invincible Marek Markuszewski, Starward planned to release 12 updates for the game — the third one was released at the end of June. As for the new project, 80% of the studio is working on it. It is a game set in a different universe than The Invincible, but the management does not rule out the possibility of releasing a sequel. The Invincible was released on November 6, 2023, on PC, PS5, Xbox Series X, and S. The game is based on the novel "The Invincible" by writer Stanislaw Lem. The project earned 89% on Steam ("very positive" reviews) and 74% on OpenCritic. You can find all our projects on our Official website. With love, NSWTL.INFO