Atmosphere News, Tips, Tricks & Ideas

Starfield's big. Real big. Over 1,000 planets big. However that illusion of bigness really vanishes when the game reuses particular prefabs. You can only go through the exact same space base so many times before you start feeling like you're on the Truman Show.

When Fractal Space launched in 2019 it joined Portal, the Talos Principle, The Room, and a select few others in an elite circle of universally acclaimed first-person puzzlers. 

When it comes to the topic of the best horror games of the last PlayStation era, Alien: Isolation typically ranks high. And why wouldn’t it? With its terrifying atmosphere, deadly antagonist, and choo-choo train, its horror is as memorable as it is intense.

 It's been 30 years since a group of scientists led by Carl Sagan found evidence for life on Earth using data from instruments on board the Nasa Galileo robotic spacecraft. Yes, you read that correctly.

You might raise your eyebrow at me posting about tabletop RPG bundles two days in a row, and I wouldn't blame you. But I'm afraid I can't just ignore a deal this good on not one but three great Warhammer RPGs. 

Lunar eclipse October 2023: In a year marked by celestial wonders, skywatchers around the world are in for a treat with the upcoming lunar eclipse and it is promising to be a captivating event. The lunar eclipse follows on the heels of the earlier annular solar eclipse in October, creating a celestial double feature that has stirred excitement among astronomy enthusiasts.

NASA's Juno spacecraft was designed to explore the wonders of the giant planet Jupiter. Over the years, the spacecraft has given us some interesting facts about the planet and its moons and now it captured a mesmarizing image of Jupiter's fourth moon called Io during a flyby. The image showed traces of massive volcanic activities and lava-like surfaces.

The upcoming Lord of the Rings survival game, set in the ruined mines of Moria, has finally gone gold - or, as the development team states, it's gone "mithril."

Two weeks after the previous narrative-focused blog post, the developers of Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 have now discussed their artistic approach, sharing a few new good-looking screenshots for good measure.

Who had ‘playable remake of Alan Wake inside Fortnite’ on their 2023 bingo card? Nobody? Well, nevermind: either way, you can now relive the events of Remedy’s battery-powered horror game before its sequel comes out later this month.

Sker Ritual is the Aliens to Maid of Sker’s Alien. Following on from the evil ending to the excellent, atmospheric 2020 horror game, this is a more high-octane co-op FPS game that doesn’t let up on the terror. The Quiet Ones are back and joined by even more powerful foes, but you and your teammates will have access to some rather powerful gear to help you survive. This is Call of Duty Zombies reimagined as an intense, atmospheric thriller, and you can play it now via Steam Early Access with a full release date set for April 2024.

Online lobbies you can run around in are all the rage in fighting games these days. There’s the Tower and Park from Guilty Gear Strive, the Battle Hub from Street Fighter 6, and so on. Tekken 8 joins the craze with the Tekken Fighting Lounge, and it’s got a little bit of everything. In fact, it might be the fighting game genre’s best online lobby yet.

Starfield. BioShock. Dishonored. Some of the greatest PC games of the last two decades owe their inspiration to the Thief series. Originally developed by Looking Glass Studios, of System Shock and Ultima fame, the third Thief, Deadly Shadows, would move to Ion Storm Austin, shortly after it shipped another stone-cold classic, the first Deus Ex. The team that helped build Thief 3 would eventually work on some of the most-beloved games of the modern era, including Skyrim, BioShock, and Starfield. Renowned for its superlative Shalebridge Cradle level, Thief Deadly Shadows is now all yours for less than $1.

Doom is the gift that keeps on giving. Between Doom Eternal and the 2016 reboot, id Software’s epochal PC shooter feels just as alive as ever, but even the 1993 original is still thrilling and thriving in equal measure, as total conversion Doom mods provide a steady stream of nostalgic but modernized boomer shooters. Now it’s the turn of FEAR, the terrific, bullet-time horror FPS from Shadows of Mordor and Blood creator Monolith, to get the unofficial, spiritual successor treatment. Also incorporating the claustrophobic horror style of Aliens, it feels like we just got a brand-new FEAR game, courtesy of an enormous and stunning Doom total conversion.

A group of Just Stop Oil protestors made a scene at EGX yesterday, and interrupted a Tekken esports tournament.

During Halloween, your Animal Crossing island should be filled with spine-tingling, pumpkin-themed items. Pumpkins are in abundance on your farm, ready for your DIY Halloween creations. But with a limited pumpkin supply, your decorating options are finite.

The UK’s biggest gaming event has been interrupted by protestors from Just Stop Oil.

Skygazers across the Americas are in for a celestial treat on Saturday: an annular solar eclipse.

The Lord of the Rings: Gollum will live long in infamy as a terrible game, but as is often the case, it seems there was more to the story than simple mismanagement. An investigative report into the title's chaotic development from German outlet Game Two describes «an atmosphere of fear» at Daedalic Entertainment. It claims the studio enforced uncompensated overtime and attempted to pay staff below minimum wage, as well as creating a toxic workplace environment.

GTA Online has embraced the eerie and supernatural with the introduction of the Albany Brigham and a host of spooktacular activities. As darkness descends upon Los Santos, and ghostly sightings become more frequent, the world of Grand Theft Auto Online is turning sinister and thrilling.

In the span of just four films (along with a few graphic novels and an underrated Netflix cartoon about King Kong), the “Monsterverse” has evolved quite a bit. What began as a pseudo-Spielbergian attempt at finally making a competent American Godzilla film quickly morphed into a more studio-driven extended universe. As such, the 2014 Godzilla stands in stark contrast against all that came after it; its atmospheric restraint was quickly replaced by a “dumping all the action figures out of the toy box” approach in later sequels.

Yesterday, it was reported that a co-rotating interaction region (CIR) was forming near the magnetosphere of the Earth due to the intermixing of slow and fast-moving solar winds. The situation is set to worsen today, October 13, as fresh solar winds escaping from a worm-like coronal hole will soon strike the Earth and trigger a powerful solar storm event. This event is expected to take place just before the annular solar eclipse occurs in the early hours of October 14.

Horror has played a key part in my upbringing (“that explains a lot,” says the funniest person in the room). These days, it’s mainly through games that I get my scares, which is why I was quite excited when Steam Next Fest rolled around again.

Steam Next Fest is upon us, giving us access to a slew of demos for upcoming games. It’s a good idea to check it out if you’re curious about what’s bubbling in the PC gaming world. One of the demos present in the fest is Jusant, which is an odd title by Life is Strange developer Don’t Nod.

Graveyard Shift is an upcoming atmospheric psychological horror title from DarkPhobia Games.

The Earth this month has seen quite a few impacts due to the solar activities on the Sun, including a couple of solar flare eruptions and consequent radio blackouts, but so far we have not seen any solar storm events. But that is expected to change later today, October 12, as a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) forecast has revealed that our planet is likely to be hit by a co-rotating interaction region (CIR) that can spark a solar storm event. Know the likely impact of this solar storm, and why events like CIR occur.

SpaceX is attacking an FAA report for claiming Starlink risks creating dangerous falling debris that could slam back into the planet. 

Paradox Interactive has called its recent The Lamplighters League a «big disappointment» from a commercial perspective, admitting — just seven days after its release — the pulp strategy game is unlikely to recoup its development costs, resulting in a $22.7m USD write-down.

If you miss Resident Evil’s classic fixed-camera games, the new Echoes of the Living demo that’s part of Steam Next Fest this week is 100% for you. After playing the first demo at the start of this year and revisiting the upcoming survival horror game as a part of Steam’s demo festival, I can safely say that developer Moonglint has made a handful of brilliant improvements, creating a game that is truly worth trying for fans of Capcom’s classic series.

The Halloween season is finally here, and that means we’ve got a whole slew of new movies and television to watch — spooktacular or otherwise. Whether you’re following along with our yearly countdown calendar or looking for the best horror movies on Netflix or other streaming services, we’ve got you covered. Aside from those, there’s a ton of exciting new films arriving on streaming this month.

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is all set for its upcoming missions Shukrayaan to Venus and the X-Ray Polarimeter Satellite (XPoSat). These missions come after the successful Chandrayaan-3 and Aditya L-1 missions. Let's take a closer look at what ISRO has in store.

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Amazon’s prototypes for Project Kuiper successfully lifted off into space on Friday, setting the stage for the first space-based tests of the satellite internet service. 

Netflix has added two new games to its slate for the spooky season in October: Slayaway Camp 2: Netflix & Kill and Dead Cells, rebuilt for Netflix. Both games join sometime in October, though neither has a release date yet.

2022 was a great year for video game releases — so great, in fact, that a game like Ghostwire: Tokyo, an altogether good game brimming with character and compelling ideas, may have been relegated to many players’ backlogs. I know that was the case for me. However, I spent much of the 2022 holiday season exploring Tango Gameworks’ ghost-infested facsimile of Japan’s bustling metropolis, and I had a blast. And until Nov. 2, you can download the game for free on PC, provided you have an Amazon Prime subscription.

For a long time, no matter how hard I tried, and no matter how much of a performance hit my framerate took in Cyberpunk 2077, I just couldn't bring myself to play without real-time ray tracing toggled on.

Following the unveiling of the new version of Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 in development at The Chinese Room, the developer has started posting regular developer diaries.

A Liberation report (Google translated) says five former Ubisoft employees, including former chief creative officer Serge Hascoët and vice president of editorial and creative services Tommy François, have been arrested in France for questioning about allegations of sexual harassment and abuse while at the company. 

Five former members of Ubisoft staff have been detained and questioned in the wake of an investigation into harassment at the company.

I make no secret of my love for 1996’s Duke Nukem 3D. I’d go as far as saying it’s the best first-person shooter ever created and has never been matched. Aided by Ken Silverman’s legendary 2.5D Build Engine, it contains some of the best level designs to ever grace the genre.

The Cyberpunk 2077 Phantom Liberty can almost look like a new entry in the Fallout series thanks to a new visual overhaul mod that was released online this week.

Microsoft has announced the next wave of titles coming to its Xbox Game Pass subscription service.

While the Earth has escaped solar storms lately, it has been riddled with radio blackouts owing to solar flare eruptions that send extreme ultraviolet radiation toward our planet. Just yesterday, an M2.5-class solar flare erupted, but as it was not Earth-directed, the current predictions do not reveal any threat. However, this is set to change as an unstable sunspot named AR3450 has now appeared directly in front of our planet, and is crackling with solar flares. Space weather researchers believe any explosions now will be geoeffective. On top of that, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) forecast models have predicted a chance for a solar flare eruption today, October 3, that can lead to powerful solar storm activity on Earth.

Scorn was announced by Ebb Software way back in 2014, so we've been waiting a while. After a successful (if critically mixed) launch on Game Pass last year, the game is ready for PS5, but is that a good thing?

Hunt: Showdown is getting a native PS5 version in April 2024, developer Crytek has announced, along with an engine upgrade in line with the next CryEngine update. These technical ambitions and more were revealed in a lengthy roadmap video outlining the changes to come, which includes the cessation of support for the PS4 iteration of the game. Previously, a 60 frames-per-second patch was released for PS4; this new version would allow 4K visuals, along with enhanced controller support and input upgrades.

The FCC has issued its first-ever fine geared toward preventing space debris. 

Envision Entertainment has revealed that medieval-fantasy city builder Pioneers of Pagonia will be released in Early Access on December 13. To celebrate the news, Envision has also released a free demo that is available now on Steam. In the demo, players will have the opportunity to build a thriving medieval community of thousands of inhabitants. The demo is available in many languages including German, English, Spanish, French, and Polish.

In 1997, when Ultima Online first released, Tess (known online as “TessPhyreForge”) didn’t own a computer. She didn’t know anything about computers. But she was dating a guy at the time who was really, really into Ultima Online. “He made me a character and sat me down and said, ‘This is what you do.’ Then after two hours I was hooked, and I've been playing ever since.”

Microsoft has revealed six additional games leaving Xbox and PC Game Pass in October 2023 including fan favourite Trek to Yomi.

XCOM 2 is a classic strategy sim for dozens of reasons. It looks great. It sounds great. The story and atmosphere are incredibly strong. But what I love most – and what sets the Firaxis squad shooter apart from the likes of Civilization, Crusader Kings, Total War, and others – is the overwhelming sense of consequences. It’s a game design cliche – ‘every choice matters’ – but in XCOM 2, it’s absolutely true. Combined with how it engineers and facilitates organic stories, XCOM 2 is one of the best strategy sims of all time, and now it’s all yours for little more than $2.

Yet again a new mission is being planned by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) after the successful Chandrayaan-3 mission to the Moon and another ongoing mission Aditya-L1. In the year 2014, the space agency successfully completed its first Mars mission, now after 9 years, it is planning the Mangalyaan-2 mission with greater objectives and strategies. The Mangalyaan-1 mission aimed to enter the Mars orbit and now the second mission has more to discover. Know more about ISRO Mangalyaan-2 mission.

A new Red Dead Redemption 2 mod that is now available for download makes the game look outright stunning with improved weather conditions, lighting, shadows, and much more.

Obsessed with – or need more practice at – Starfield's lockpicking mini-game? Then I have good news – you can now Digipick to your heart's content courtesy of a new Digipick simulator browser game.

Destiny 2 is known for its dynamic action, longstanding narrative, and impressive weaponry, but it’s also one of the best multiplayer Warhammer 40K experiences around. While there are plenty of surface differences between the franchises, Destiny 2 is built from the same stuff that has kept 40K fans loyal since the 80s. Of course, it’s by no means a perfect translation. There are legitimate Warhammer 40K games out there that incorporate actual lore and characters. But if players want to engage in an immersive grimdark future where super-powered protectors of humanity confront galaxy-wide conflict against alien factions and supernatural entities, Destiny is the place to be.

Cocoon is already available in a Steam sale and via PC Game Pass, as the debut puzzler from a studio founded by Limbo and Inside developers offers a short but provocative experience that critics and players are celebrating.

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is on the move again! After the successful landing of Chandrayaan-3 on the Moon and the launching of India's first solar mission, Aditya-L1, ISRO is now setting its sights on Venus, Earth's neighboring planet. ISRO Chairman S Somanath shared this exciting news, revealing that the Venus mission is making steady progress. ISRO is gearing up for its next big adventure, informally known as Shukrayaan-1 mission.

Dredge was one of this year’s more surprising gems, an unexpectedly winning combination of spooky Lovecraftian atmosphere, open-world exploration and compelling fishing sim that lay somewhere on the ocean-wide spectrum between the chill management of Stardew Valley and the existential dread of Sunless Sea.

Do you want to play hide-and-seek? Well, you can hide in these games, and attack enemies from the shadows! We have gathered some of the best stealth games that are available right now on the newest console from Sony, PlayStation 5. Hold your breath and lurk from the unknown, sneak past enemies or take them out silently. Just remember, rule number one: never get caught.

By now, we're all accustomed to looking for Easter eggs in our favorite franchises. Despite being well-trained by the likes of Marvel, upcoming horror Five Nights at Freddy's – based on the jumpscare-heavy video game series of the same name – will seemingly up the ante further. But director Emma Tammi has no intention of giving the game away.

It's time to suspend reality and travel to the World of Darkness Universe with the Vampire The Masquerade: New York Bundle. Launched last year in digital-only format, the bundle – that pairs two games: Coteries of New York and Shadows of New York – now has its first-ever physical release on PS4 and Nintendo Switch. Better still, there is a limited Collector’s Edition that will be released at the same time that packs more punch than a wooden stake through the heart.  

The mobile port of Little Nightmares now has an official release date! On December 12, Little Nightmares will be available to play on your Android device, just in time for Christmas. 

One Starfield player has discovered the perfect location for a vacation home after nearly 200 hours of exploration, and the resort world is now getting an influx of settlers looking to build their own idyllic outposts.

Netflix’sSex Education captivated me from the first episode I saw nearly four years ago. It was fun, heartwarming, and frank about all things sex and relationships. And unlike other TV shows, its supporting characters — especially the Black characters, like Eric (Ncuti Gatwa), Vivienne (Chinenye Ezeudu), Jackson (Kedar Williams-Stirling), and Cal (Dua Saleh) — were fully fleshed-out and engaging. But, like all classic teen rom-coms and coming-of-age stories, there was a central love interest between the main characters: Maeve (Emma Mackey) and Otis (Asa Butterfield).

Jump into PS VR2 and smack some monsters around, then sit yourself down and play with a controller on your PS5 while you cool off. The Foglands will release with an FPS-mode on PS5 alongside PS VR2 at launch October 31. So no headset required! Either way you play, the fate of the Hold is in your hands.

PlayStation Studios' FireSprite is known to be working on a dark horror game for PlayStation 5, and we know might have a release year.

The scene in which Link gets the Master Sword is a significant part in every game in which the great sword makes an appearance; however, in some, it is treated with incredibly touching and even poignant reverence. The Master Sword is an icon of the series, close to the recognizability and widespread approbation of even Link himself. Although these scenes are all exceptionally executed, some games go above and beyond when reuniting Link with his most legendary blade.

A team of researchers at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Canada discovered a simple and cheap way to extend battery life in smartphone and laptop batteries.

Exploring Starfield's planets was previously a lot harder, Bethesda has revealed, before the developer decided to dial back some «very punitive» atmosphere effects.

NeoWiz Games and Round8 Studio have rolled out Lies of P update 1.2.0.0, packing numerous balance and system changes, bug fixes, and DualSense/DualShock controller support.

If you land and go exploring on one of Starfield's many planets, you might become afflicted with a status effect. It won't bother you too much, though, and you can cure the effect with an item or a quick trip to a doctor.

I've walked on nearly 200 different planets in Starfield in environments ranging from frozen tundra to baking infernos to toxic atmospheres. And in all that time I've only suffered one affliction that I felt a need to rush to a doctor to fix: I contracted a lung condition that eventually got so bad it made sprinting consume my oxygen supply in a matter of seconds, and I didn't have the meds to cure it myself.

If you are bummed that planet exploration in Starfield is not as challenging as expected, Bethesda originally planned to make the system much more punitive, according to the game's director.

Starfield director Todd Howard has revealed that exploring planets was originally a lot harder before Bethesda «nerfed the hell out of it.»

The world is filled with languages, each on binding together a culture, providing a common link between its peoples. At the same time languages can divide us, the specific rules, unique quirks and idioms making it difficult for people of different regions and backgrounds to communicate. Chants of Sennaar is a game about languages and how they can cause these divides.

Shadowheart's actor has suffered the ultimate betrayal recently during a stream of Baldur's Gate 3.

Starfield is the biggest Bethesda RPG to date, so of course features, mechanics, and ideas either got cut, reduced, or changed during development. This natural part of the development has been highlighted by Starfield director Todd Howard, who’s explained why a more in-depth planetary affliction system was cut down in favor of other mechanics.

Starfield's planets were originally supposed to be much more punishing for players, that is until Bethesda "nerfed the hell out of it," reveals Todd Howard.