Category: Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Path tracing has been back on the PC hardware agenda recently, with Nvidia’s sales pitch for the GeForce RTX 5080 and RTX 5090 more than lightly based on how good they are at shotgunning this premium graphics tech down your eye stalks. Yet beyond the sparkling glamour of marketing slides, however, path tracing remains exceptionally niche: nearly six years since Quake II RTX served as the tech’s de facto gaming debut, you can still count the number of compatible games on your fingers. Compare and contrast with the dozens upon dozens of games that have embraced ray tracing, path tracing’s less demanding nephew, and you’ll likely start wondering why more game devs don’t go for it.

We’re not here to answer that, though. This is Should You Bother With, here to investigate whether you should start using path traced effects to give your games – some of them, anyway – the full maxed-out-visuals treatment. Even if it takes a graphics card upgrade to do so.

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The Nvidia RTX 5080 is out! Kind of. In theory. If you can find one. But here’s the thing: it’s basically just an expensive RTX 4080 Super in disguise (in my opinion). Performance is near-identical, stock is non-existent, and unless you’re willing to shell out over $2,500 for a prebuilt system, good luck getting one.

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Running out of space on your Steam Deck or ROG Ally X again? Sitting there, deleting games like it’s some emotional farewell? Stop that. Your least favorite RPS writer found a ridiculous Amazon deal on our favorite microSD card for Steam Deck, the Samsung Pro Plus.

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“Kept you waiting, huh?” says Snake. Uh, no, not really. You’re actually a bit early this time, mate. The release date for Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater was spotted this week, hiding in the long grass of the PlayStation Store. The fancy-schmancy MGS3 remake is coming out in August, according to the store page. And you can also catch sight of a camouflaged trailer if you go looking under the right rocks.

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Hi-Rez Studios have laid off an unknown number of the studio’s employees, only one month after launching MOBA sequel Smite 2 as a free-to-play beta. It looks like management has cut at least 20-30 jobs and the full number is likely higher. As a result, three other games that have been long-running staples of the studio will no longer get any updates. Smite, Paladins, and Rogue Company will have nobody to man the code cannons, so they’re being left to gather cobwebs from now on. Although they will remain playable.

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What great hopes I had for the Christmas holidays. Finally, I thought, I would have time for some of the recent blockbusters I’d not yet played: Indiana Jones And The Great Circle, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 and more would fill those dusty days and nights in the taint of 2024.

Then I mentioned in a review that I liked Picross games, which for me can dissolve hours or entire weekends like sugar in water. “I don’t know if that means I should recommend Mark Ffrench’s games Proverbs and Mega Mosaic to you, or warn you to steer clear and avoid flowing away forever,” responded commenter SeekerX.

You see where this is going. Friends, I played Proverbs for 36 hours over Christmas.

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Put your red and white scarf back on the coat rack, football friends. The match has been called off. The entire season, in fact. Football Manager 25 has been cancelled because it has not met a high enough standard in time for its intended release next month, according to developers Sports Interactive. Anyone who pre-ordered the game will be given a refund, they say.

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Oh no, it’s a pre-order article for Civ VII, get down! Well, it’s also just a friendly PSA, in case you’re looking for the best deal right now. The game is launching on February 11, and if you’ve been waiting to carve your place in history again, we’ve found a solid discount going right now for PC gamers.

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Resident Evil Re:Verse, the multiplayer spin-off announced alongside Resident Evil Village, is being shut down. Capcom say that the game and its DLC will be delisted from stores next month and its servers will go offline in June.

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True to the word of Capcom’s German social media marketing, Monster Hunter Wilds has a new, generally less extravagant set of PC system requirements ahead of its February 28th launch. There’s also a standalone benchmark tool that you can download from the game’s Steam page, so you can see for yourself how the beast-biffing RPG will run on your hardware.

In theory, these are great developments. Lower requirements mean a more widely accessible game, and the benchmark tool – which covers a good six minutes of combined cinematics and simulated free roaming – brings reassurance and accountability to this otherwise hype-reliant prerelease period. Sadly, there are two problems. One, the benchmark confirms outright that Monster Hunter Wilds will run like stagnant goulash on low-end PCs, and two, it does so to the extent that I’m not sure that the revised minimum specs are even reliable.

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