GoKawiil
Tech News
A gaming writer continues a critique of city-builder aesthetics, focusing specifically on Cities: Skylines 2's flat, overly clean surfaces where sidewalks, buildings, and grass meet without natural transitions. The author contrasts in-game screenshots with more organic real-world or modded examples, arguing the base game looks lifeless without extensive manual decoration.
A developer named Roady has launched a Show HN project described as a Factorio-like game where in-game components can be unreliable, requiring players to build networks to verify trustworthy information. The creator says the game uses AI-assisted coding and frames the mechanic as a metaphor for determining who or what to trust amid conflicting claims.
A German gamer bought a secondhand AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D and was banned from Valorant because Riot's Vanguard anti-cheat had blacklisted the chip's hardware ID in August 2026 over a prior owner's cheating. Riot support told the buyer the ban couldn't be reversed, though Riot anti-cheat specialist Phillip Koskinas later clarified on X that such hardware bans are game-specific and last a maximum of four months, and that only the flagged component—not the whole PC—gets denylisted.
At Capcom Open Conference RE: 2026, programmer Satoshi Ishida presented plans to integrate AI technology into RE Engine development workflows, describing a gradual transformation toward what he called an 'AI-generation game engine.' Ishida said the goal is building toward 'a future where we create games together with AI,' according to IGN's translation of the talk.
Secret Mode, which split from Sumo Group last year, is publishing Star Wars: Galactic Racer, a roguelite racing game from new studio Fuse Games, staffed partly by former Burnout and Need for Speed developers. The game lets players race across Star Wars planets using speeders and podracers, with permanent upgrades, ship damage effects, and a narrative campaign woven through runs.
Realme has released a Harry Potter-themed version of its 16 Pro 5G phone, made in collaboration with Warner Bros. The special edition keeps the standard model's core hardware but adds Hogwarts-inspired exterior styling, a trunk-shaped box, a themed phone case, SIM-ejector tool, postcards, a Hogwarts acceptance letter, bookmarks and other collectible extras.
A Reddit user says Valorant banned him immediately after installing a used AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D CPU, claiming Riot found the chip's serial number already blacklisted and that the motherboard and storage drive were also flagged. Riot's Phillip Koskinas disputes several details, saying Vanguard does not blacklist an entire system over one flagged part and that bans are game-specific rather than applying across all Riot titles.
An engineering sample of AMD's never-released Ryzen 9 5900X3D has appeared on the Chiphell forums, showing 128MB of L3 cache from 64MB of 3D V-Cache stacked on one of its two core complex dies. CPU-Z data also shows a clock speed near 4.65GHz, suggesting the chip could have nearly matched the retail Ryzen 9 5900X's boost clock. AMD had teased a 12-core '3D Chiplet Prototype' at Computex 2021 claiming up to 15% faster gaming performance than the standard 5900X.
A co-founder of Kingdom Come: Deliverance developer Warhorse Studios has publicly said he hopes Grand Theft Auto 6's pricing will lead to higher game prices across the industry. The comment was made amid ongoing debate over rising AAA game costs and development budgets.
A Reddit user reported being banned from Valorant and other Riot Games titles after installing a secondhand AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D processor. Riot support confirmed the chip was blacklisted because its previous owner had cheated, and said such entries are not removed manually, meaning the ban carried over to the new buyer.
A new survey reports that a growing share of American sports fans now favor celebrating game day at home rather than tailgating at stadiums. Respondents cited comfort as the leading reason for the shift away from the traditional pregame ritual.
By the early 2000s LEGO had diversified into theme parks, an in-house game studio, clothing and TV content, and by 2003 it had lost nearly a third of its revenue in one year, reportedly coming within about 18 months of running out of cash. New CEO Jørgen Vig Knudstorp, appointed in 2004, didn't scrap those ventures but restructured how LEGO ran them: selling majority ownership of its theme parks to Merlin Entertainments while retaining licensing rights, and closing its internal game studio in favor of licensing deals with outside developers, which produced titles like Lego Star Wars and Lego Batman.