GoKawiil
Tech News
IKEA has released a free official mod for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Special Edition that adds a walking, talking Kallax shelving unit as a companion character, voiced by actor Matt Berry. Players unlock it through a questline at a Dwemer furniture store, where they must defeat a 'Clutter Golem' before gaining the companion, plus bonus items like a weapon, themed armor, and a helmet.
A personal essay published September 1, 2026 argues against the negative connotation of being called an 'NPC,' comparing it instead to video game characters like Skyrim's blacksmith who remain unbothered by the player's actions. The author suggests that embracing an NPC mindset—focusing on one's own routine rather than comparing oneself to others—offers a form of freedom rather than a loss of autonomy.
Code for Nvidia's unreleased DLSS 5 upscaling technology was discovered inside an early-access build of NBA 2K27, and modders on the RenoDX Discord channel extracted its 'Neural Rendering' files to run in other titles. They've since applied the unofficial mod to Control, GTA: San Andreas, Skyrim, Cyberpunk 2077, Palworld and Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, altering facial detail, shadows and lighting tone.
A developer created Varkos, an AI-driven companion mod for Skyrim that can fight, loot, fetch items, and carry out multi-step commands in real time using local inference instead of cloud-based LLM calls. The project aims to fix the latency and weak world-interaction problems common in existing AI NPC dialogue systems, while giving Varkos a persistent personality that evolves with shared gameplay experiences.