Special treatment

Start Your Engines 🏎️. While beating Starfield probably won’t lead to you becoming an astronaut, Gran Turismo releases in theaters today, telling the real-life story of Jann Mardenborough’s journey from sim racing to being a professional race car driver.

If that doesn’t have you racing to the nearest AMC, did you know Sunday is National Cinema Day? Over 3000 movie theaters around the US will be offering $4 tickets to celebrate, meaning you don’t have to feel bad about treating yourself to the large popcorn (extra butter).🍿

— Jason Liu, Derek Neville, Tim Rhyne

HEADLINES

Xbox relents on key Baldur’s Gate 3 requirement. Looks like deals still get done at conventions. After meeting with Xbox head Phil Spencer, Larian announces that BG3 will be coming to Xbox after all. We previously reported that BG3 devs were struggling to make split-screen work on the Series S, which offers lower specs compared to the X. Unfortunately, there won’t be feature parity between the two variants as split-screen will have to be dropped from the S. Will this set a precedent that undermines the value of the Series S?

Sony acquiring audio tech brand Audeze. Sony aims to use the company’s expertise to build on the PlayStation’s audio experience. Meanwhile, Audeze will continue to operate independently and develop multi-platform products. No further details on the terms of the acquisition were released at this time.

Cult classic claims top spot on Steam. The Armored Core franchise is back with AC 6: Fires of Rubicon. The game is currently #1 on Steam by revenue. It seems like FromSoftware picked an extremely strategic release window — right after BG3 normalized and before Starfield drops. How ‘bout a big mecha game to tide things over?

HUD

• 📆 While Gamescom is dominating the headlines this week, we are officially one week out from the start of PAX West.

• 🛟 Following the recent announcement of the impending closure of the Xbox 360 store, Phil Spencer said Xbox would "love to find solutions" to save the 220 non-backward compatible games set to be lost.

• 📱 Dark and Darker, the FPS dungeon PvPvE extraction game from Ironmace, will be coming to mobile as the South Korean studio has signed a partnership with PUBG publisher Krafton to develop the mobile version.

MAJOR W

• 🔎 Fan theorizes that Detective Pikachu may be a new upcoming Amiibo — Tim would be proud.

• 🏜 56 mini-games that require only one button! But, did you read their Steam page about section?

• 😇 Zack Snyder enjoys the Halo Franchise.

F IN THE CHAT

• 🛎 Amazon Fire Stick + Hotel Room + “an attacker” = Rockstar Games Hacks and GTA VI Leaks

• 🐒 Most new games fail the Money Island test — “Adjusted for inflation”

THIS DAY IN GAMING HISTORY

• 🦇 Batman: Arkham Asylum was released in 2009, going on to hold the Guinness World Record for "Most Critically Acclaimed Superhero Game Ever".

PATCH NOTES

• 🔨 Fortnite Chapter 4 Season 4 goes live this morning — It will bring at least 3 new POIs, Ahsoka Tano skin, 5 new weapons, and, of course, a new Battle Pass.

• 🚀 No Man's Sky released their Echos Update, their biggest update of the year. Interesting timing with Starfield’s early access beginning next week.

• 📉 Valorant patch 7.04 comes with nerfs to half of its agents.

HIVE MIND

Relevant

While GIF was Oxford’s US Word of the Year in 2012, animations can become even more realistic when you learn that Dead Island 2 used motion capture of a cat to help create Rick Furry.

CREATOR SPOTLIGHT

GamerDad — “The Bronze Father”

Mike is a college professor and his long-time gaming experience dates back to the OG arcade days. He mainly plays League of Legends, but will drop into anything he thinks would be fun for his viewers to watch. If you are simply looking for classic dad vibes, jokes included, then definitely drop into his chat on Twitch.

Shoutout to all the gaming parents out there!

—Tim

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