Hey, just wanted to say I appreciate your posts. They give me the vibes of cracking open an old EGM. It’s nice to have a nice curated newsletter that doesn’t read like the SEO garbage that’s all over the web.
this post was submitted on 29 Apr 2025
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I’m here for another little post to share the interesting things I’ve spotted in gaming! Be it Steam Deck, Linux, general gaming or probably-not-relevant-at-all! And I know, it’s been 2 days since my last of these posts:
...but that was a dedicated GOG-specific one, so I reserve the right to inundate you all, if you’ll let me.
M aim is to phrase this in a more personal manner than most gaming sites do now. My ever-lasting inspo is the old, old video game sites, blogs and magazines that I never had the privilege of being alive for:
- image/gif/link heavy (I’m a big GIF fan – and I pronounce it with a hard ‘g’)
- personal voice (no 1930’s nasal radio presenter voice here!)
- mostly news or articles or points you won’t find on the ‘big’ gaming sites, these are the smaller, lesser things that I’m drawn to. I figure you’ll have spotted the big news posts elsewhere!
So grab a coffee? Or a tea? Or a tequila? And enjoy <3
Winlator:
What is Winlator?
Winlator is an Android application that lets you to run Windows (x86_64) applications with Wine and Box86/Box64. It’s been very much the hot ticket in the last few months, with the Android emulation scene being deeply invested. I vaguely remember some handheld being developed that even uses this in their marketing (though for the life of me I can’t remember which?!)
Games like GTA V, The Witcher 3, Tomb Raider 2013 run perfectly fine depending on the device. It’s kinda like the new ‘what’s next in gaming’ for phones.
What’s happened?
The Android scene has a reputation for having some rather rabid fans. Then there’s a breakaway group of those fans who are just shitty people. Harassing the devs of these projects is far-too-common in that scene, and it seems it has finally hit Winlator also. So we’ve seen a hefty amount of that in the last two or three days, but also the developer has been accused of virus activity being found.
So...dev stumbles, fans harass, and the project is dead.
Goodbye Winlator...for now?
Elden Ring
I’ve tried. Maybe 4 times now I’ve tried to like Elden Ring? I adore the fantasy settings, and this one has a grim Gothic edge to it which should really appeal to me...but I can’t take being killed 48 times before I can figure out a pattern.
Ironically, I love Death’s Door and Tunic (I know, Tunic is not souls-y, but it still has some of those elements to it)
Anyway, Elden Ring has now sold over 30 million copies. So I know for a fact I am in the minority, so I suppose if you’re tarnished – celebrate?
BTW, are you excited for the upcoming Elden Ring-y multiplayer game Nightreign? The specs required have been released, too:
Early Access:
I think I’ve got one E.A. game, because I love the ocean and any underwater settings (Leviathan and Deep Star Six, anyone?), which actually equates to 2.38% of my Steam Library (I’m an avid GOG buyer, not Steam!) – called Ocean Keeper (an underwater rogue-lite game).
Typically, I’ve no interest in Early Access, I don’t think I should pay to have a dev push an unfinished game on me, I get to deal with the bugs, and then have a shit time. But, it seems everyone else kinda loves it.
This graph shows you just how popular this has gotten, and is getting over the years. It’s a sad new state of gaming, but its showing no signs of slowing down:
Blacklist:
Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Blacklist now has achievements!
Agents,
We are pleased to announce that Steam Achievements are now available for Splinter Cell: Blacklist!
As a heads up, achievements will be retroactively earned for the accomplishments already completed in your game. For the sync to happen, you need to launch the game once. Once synced, the previously unlocked Ubisoft Connect achievements will be automatically unlocked on Steam.
To ensure that you can complete 100% of the Steam Achievements for Splinter Cell: Blacklist, we've removed 19 achievements that required online services that are no longer available for the game.
Nightdive:
Nightdive Studios uploaded an interesting video to YouTube.
In this special Deep Dive bonus interview, Nightdive's Locke Vincent and Larry Kuperman sit down with Bartosz Kwietniewski (Head of Business Development) and Marcin Paczyński (Senior Business Development Manager) at GOG.com to explore Nightdive's relationship with GOG, how GOG has grown and evolved over the years, the importance of game preservation, and more!
At 29:30 it’s got a nice little length to it, and if you’re like me and love YouTube but hate ads, I’m going to recommend either uBlock Origin on your desktop browser, or something like NewPipe on Android to watch it without a trillion shitty annoying ads. And I know, there’s probably no one here on Lemmy who doesn’t know how to circumvent ads but...better to warn for that possibility!
Anyway, here’s the video’s link, really worth a watch!
Nightdive Again:
There’s also an interview with Stephen Kick (Nightdive CEO) on Epic Games’ blog site. It’s really interesting – I’ve found so many interviews with big names behind the big games on Epic’s blog, irrespective of your (no doubt negative) opinion on their company – so I really encourage you to read this one!
It makes me very excited for the upcoming System Shock 2 25th Anniversary Remaster.
You can find that interview on Epic’s site by following this link!
Front-ends:
I’m not even sure if that’s something I should hyphenate or not. Is it a single word? Does it matter?
I’m just curious whether anyone here uses them, and if so what they do use?!
I just wondered what people might use, and what they think of them! There’s certainly a lot of options these days for desktop gaming :)
GOG & Pix:
Exciting news for our Brazilian gamers!
Pix payment is now fully available on the GOG store
Starting now, you can choose this popular instant payment method provided by the Central Bank of Brazil at checkout to grab any title you want – fast, simple, hassle-free, and yours to keep forever
Thank you for being a part of the GOG community – you rock!
As to what Pix is, you can find that out here
They already had an option called "Bank Transfer" for Brazil, which was actually paid with PIX through BoaCompra. The new method is listed directly as PIX on the cart. Its been tested and it's basically the same, only through other payment processor. Only real difference was that is hasn’t given an e-mail confirmation from the payment processor, only the standard GOG receipt.
Star Wars:
AND some more nice GOG news (they've been so busy lately!):
With Star Wars Day approaching, we want to honor this amazing franchise in the best way we can: by adding iconic classics from a galaxy far, far away to the GOG Preservation Program!
- STAR WARS™ Dark Forces (Classic, 1995)
- STAR WARS™: X-Wing Special Edition
- STAR WARS™ Battlefront (Classic, 2004)
- Star Wars™: Rebel Assault 1 + 2
- STAR WARS™: TIE Fighter Special Edition
General consensus is that KOTOR would have been a nice one to have added to the program, but this is still amazing news to read.
You can find the latest games added to the program here with this link to GOG’s site
Junk Store turns one:
This was their own announcement, it’s just easier for me to just copy and paste their announcement straight-up here for you to read:
Today marks one year since we launched version 1.0 of Junk Store — and what a year it's been.
Version 1.0 was met with a lot of enthusiasm, with over 250,000 downloads to date. We also released a GOG extension, which has seen solid uptake. Since then, we’ve made countless updates and improvements to both.
Along the way, we rewrote Junk Store into a standalone version and even got it accepted onto the Steam Store — briefly. While that was a setback, it pushed us to build something even better.
Instead of relying on Steam, we created our own infrastructure: a full web portal, a storefront, new build and delivery pipelines, and a much-improved Junk Store. All the work we did preparing for Steam wasn’t wasted — it made Junk Store stronger and more flexible than it ever could have been tied to Valve’s systems.
We built our own installers, downloaders, and streamlined extension management (it’s now a single button click). We added support for Amazon, Epic, GOG, and any emulator you can call from the command line. There's even a global download queue — which, not joking, probably cost over 1,000 hours of blood, sweat, and code over the last year.
Now, we're closing in on a major launch. We'll have more details soon, including what the final release will look like and what the cost will be.
We know not everyone will be thrilled that the next version isn't free — but the original open-source version will remain available for those who want it. We're aiming for a model that’s both fair and sustainable, so we can keep building and supporting Junk Store for the long haul.
Thanks to everyone who's been with us on this ride. We truly appreciate your support, without you we wouldn't have made it this far.
The best is still ahead.
As always,
The Junk Store Team
Expedition 33:
Made by a small team of just 30 members, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 has now sold over one million copies (as of three days after their launch). They also boast a nice fact that they reached over 120,000 concurrent players on Steam, too.
One thing is for sure, this is a beautiful game, and if you haven’t played it yet its so worth your time!
It’s also:
8BitDo:
Known for their 3rd party controllers for like...everything, which also happen to be quite high quality, 8BitDo has announced it is no longer shipping to the US from China. The 145% tariffs are once again to blame, as is the removal of exemptions for shipments under $800.
Last News Post I listed other companies in the same space (like Anbernic and Retroid) who have stopped shipping to the US after these dumb tariffs.
(you can see here the estimated tariff charge on the Retroid Pocket 5 from AliExpress – I found this image a user (No_Clock) posted which helps illustrate the cost you might expect)
U.S. buyers can still order items from *8BitDo’s U.S. warehouse, but the website doesn’t clearly indicate stock availability—only the checkout process reveals which products can’t be shipped. Popular items like the Ultimate 2 Bluetooth Controller, N64 mod kit, and mini Xbox controller are some of those currently unavailable.
The tariffs classify video game consoles and accessories as toys (not tech), making them subject to high costs. This has caused panic (which is my understatement of the century) in the gaming world, leading to layoffs and halted operations for some companies.
MAME:
Have you been wondering what MAME 0.277 will bring? Well, now you can find out! First of all, we’ve added support for compiling on 64-bit ARM-based systems running Windows 11 using the MSYS2 CLANGARM64 environment. Updates to included third-party libraries should resolve some issues people were having with new compilers and development environments.
In improvements that you can see, Konami GX blending effects are now looking much nicer, Sega Model 2 3D geometry is behaving better, and some remaining issues with Philips CD-i graphics decoding have been fixed. You may be able to hear improved sound emulation in some Famicom, WonderSwan, and Game Boy games, too. If that’s too subtle, you should be able to hear the difference in the DMX and LinnDrum percussion synthesisers.
There’s a big update for the Apple II and Macintosh floppy disk software lists this month. A lot of Macintosh NuBus cards have been overhauled as well, so let us know if we’ve inadvertently broken your virtual Macintosh setup. There are plenty of other software list additions, including a batch of tapes for Sinclair computers.
That’s all we’re going to cover here, but much more has happened this month in MAME development. You can read all about it in the whatsnew.txt file
Epic Games:
Teased a free game coming soon, in-line with other Star Wars announcements, it looks like you’ll get a free-to-claim Star Wars title!
Delta Force:
If you were hoping Delta Force might be supported on Linux, then don’t hold your breath:
La Quimera:
...has been quietly delayed. Worth noting is that this happened on their release day, with no official announcement as to why, or when to expect it to arrive. More odd is that it was posted by the devs to their discussion board on Steam, but it was quickly deleted. So...who knows.
Custom GameBoy:
I’ve shared MaSaKee’s work before, but this is a user who hacks hardware and creates their own ‘versions’ of handheld consoles.
This time they have GBA built into a Wii Classic Controller! Images as follows:
Game Pass:
Seven games have been announced for Game Pass for May 2025 (so far!):
- Anno 1800 (May 1)
- Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (May 1)
- Dredge (May 6) one of my fav games of all time!!!
- Revenge of the Savage Planet (May 8)
- DOOM: The Dark Ages (May 15)
- To A T (May 28)
- Spray Paint Simulator (May TBD)
Wizordum:
Wizordum is finally out of early access!
The Ancient Seal of Terrabruma has shattered, unleashing the forces of Chaos once more. As one of the last Mages of Wizordum sanctuary, you must embark on a quest to find the source of this corruption and push the Chaos back before they consume the kingdom in a speedrun-friendly fantasy FPS tearing a page from the spellbooks of ‘90s fantasy FPS classics like Hexen and Heretic.
You can read their announcement here on Steam!
GOG error:
Have you seen the cute lil GOG display? I adore it!
Coming Soon:
I’ve been asking my friends if they’ll agree to me ‘interviewing’ them (this is a very loose term, it’s just going to be a question-and-answer which might be the least professional thing you’ll ever see) and posting those here.
I’ve done this before in the past (back when I was on Reddit), but I suppose I want to expand the idea and post them here.
I like the idea of getting to know the people – the devs, support and community managers behind the projects you use on Steam Deck and Linux. I feel like sometimes those people are forgotten, and its the end product you see, not those behind it.
A peep behind the curtains, so to speak.
To start with I’m organizing this with Lazorne (and the RetroDECK team), but will also be doing this with AA (of Decky Loader), the Junk Store team, two YouTubers who create content on Linux and the Steam Deck...and so on.
Hopefully this will be fun, at least it’s something unique to Lemmy, and again – I think the people who spend countless hours behind the projects get the least attention, I’d like to change that a little
Finally?
Any thoughts on my posts? I get asked a lot if I have a site for these, and for now the answer is ‘no’, but I will heed the advice and back these up somewhere. Unsure why exactly, but that’ll be less-than-little effort to do, so I’ll get to it eventually!
But what do you think? Have you any suggestions? This will be the 13th of these I’ve posted, and I’d love to hear if you’d want me to do something (anything) differently!
& any errors on here are all my own. There's always at least one. So...forgive me!
One reminder:, since this is the 13th of these, and here are the others:
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #2
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #3
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #4
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #5
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #6
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #7
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #8
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #9
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #10
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #11
- Steam Deck / Gaming News #12
p.s. if you wanna find me on Mastodon because I'm constantly sharing nonsense - you can find me here:
Ahhh thank you so much!!!
Exactly what I am going for, since I wasn't alive for the old blogs and newsletters and old gaming sites. I'm tired of sites begging for Patreon members, and using ads, and its all such a drain.
Thanks for saying so, it makes me so happy seeing anyone read these damn things!
I read all of these too and I love them so much!!! I don’t have to close 2 separate video players playing ads, one taking up the top half of the screen and the other taking up almost the entire bottom left or right..which pop back up after like 2 minutes.
There’s also no agenda or weird outrage- just pure gaming news and neat little oddities that I enjoy reading about.
You should definitely look into starting a website as well as a career in journalism because you are amazing at creating this here little ‘zine and I’d love to see it flourish into a career if it’s something you enjoy doing :)
As an alternate perspective, early access isn't some sad, new state of gaming. Done right, it's a way to hone in on perfecting a systems-driven game that probably doesn't really have an end. It's been used to great effect in roguelikes, Kerbal Space Program, and Baldur's Gate 3. If anything, the problem with the program now is that there are so many finished games to choose from that it's a harder sell to try out an early access game.
They sell to gaming junkies like me. I am always looking for a new thrill and never finish any games :(
I love these updates so much! Thanks for all of the time and effort!
I'm so glad you do!
I feel lucky in that I just love writing these, it makes me feel cozy and happy. So I'm so glad you're enjoying them!!!
I started playing Islets after hearing anout it from your posts, and I really enjoy it! Thank you!
I'm so glad!!!
It's SO bright and colorful and pretty, and it really is a lovely combination of genres. I think I got it from GOG, maybe it was redeemed on Epic, but I played it a few months ago and fell head over heels for it. Feels perfect on a handheld, too!
As someone who loves JRPGs as a genre but has generally grown out of their anime phase, Expedition 33 looks really interesting. I've been eyeing it since the announcement trailer and its recent success got me curious. A co-worker told me that it's just 20-30 hours to beat, which is a huge plus for me (don't have the patience to clear 100-200 hrs games anymore - looking at you, Persona 5).
I'll probably get it this summer as soon as I manage to get some free time from work.
Everything but the combat looks amazing to me. The was a Steven universe mobile game that was this same kinda turn based with timed actions. Didn't really like it. I feel like I'd rather have turn based or real fine. It seems kinda gimmicky. But who knows maybe I'd enjoy it in actual gameplay
Funny you mention Persona 5!
Its the one game I'm sucked in to on my CFW Switch at the moment!
So...dev stumbles, fans harass, and the project is dead.
Goodbye Winlator...for now?
Ugh, another amazing one-person project killed by harassment. The internet makes it so trivial to bombard someone with hate-mail, and I doubt many of us have been through the "media training" necessary to deal with it. I only have the tiniest of projects going and if the people I thought I was making a nice thing for suddenly turned on me then I think I'd be saying "fuck it then" too.
Couldn't agree more with your take on Early Access bullshittery. I too refuse to pay for anything that is "released" and described as much. It is just another thing after micro transactions that have further ruined gaming and despite a personal boycott of these practice's still gets ever more common :(
I recently tried both the last beserker as well as lies of P, and I just couldn't really get into either of them. I think maybe full blown souls games are just done for me. Death's door was great though, I really liked that one! I never got into Tunic, but definitely have been eyeballing it for quite a while now...
The developer interviews sound neat, can't wait!
I reaaaally tried Lies of P. I have one book I really, really adore called Drood - which is about Dickens and the setting to that beautiful and terrifying book feels pretty close to Lies of P.
But...just like Elden Ring, while I love the setting and atmosphere, the combat is just not for me! I even keep a little notebook with games I've played, games I want to play, etc. In that I have written very prominently to not bother trying Elden Ring again (even with mods to make it 'easy').
Its funny though how the vast majority of gamers are the opposite, and just can't get enough!
And thanks! Can't wait to share them!
Hyperion is insanity! Loved that series. Dan Simmons has a warped imagination
Sekiro is what did it for me in terms of Souls-like games. That's the one that "clicked" with me, and I still consider it perhaps my favorite game of all time.
I'm still not sure what to think of early access. On the one hand, it is too often an excuse to push a buggy mess. That shit is seriously annoying.
But if it's done right, it can allow developers to make games that are way larger than they otherwise could. In the end development costs money, so with only X million dollars of upfront investment you will run out at some point. With early access they can extend the money pile further, and therefore they can keep extending the scope of the game way beyond what would otherwise be possible as long as the game is popular enough. But then the focus should be on delivering a mostly stable core experience instead of a buggy unbalanced mess.
Imo it worked quite well for games like Factorio, Valheim, Satisfactory. I had like 80 hours in Satisfactory way before the official release, and then another 100 hours or so with friends a bit later (also before the final release). While there were definitely some bugs, the experience overall was worth my money and I was happy to be able to play it already.
This was a really awesome read. I appreciate the work you do. This brings me back to some of the older days when k actually enjoyed checking out game journalism. Do let me know if there's something I could do to support your work :)
Oh my gosh, that's very kind of you!!! I'm just glad you enjoyed it, because I love writing these!
It's far too kind of you to even refer to this in the same sentence as game journalism :P
Since you love underwater settings, you probably know already, but Subnautica 2's Early Access was announced not long ago. I'll wait until it's complete, but given their track record, I feel it's a game many people will be comfortable buying in EA to give feedback.
Anyone know if there's a way to get junk store for bazzite desktop?
It would be great for my partner who has bazzite but doesn't touch the gaming mode because she has an nvidia card at the moment and it runs like dog shit.
This is her first Linux experience so it would be nice to have something really simple for her to use.
Hey PerfectDark alerted us to your query. We use it on vanilla Arch in Big Picture Mode on our laptops. But we know people use it with Bazzite and some other distros. We also test on Bazzite in a VM.
If you want to set your partner up with it, you'll have to download/install Decky and then Junk Store. Then to open up the QAM to get to Junk Store you would need to push ctrl+2.
If you have any other questions, queries or need help/guidance please feel free to find us in out discord server (that's one of two places we regulary patrol). Discrod Invite Link: https://discord.gg/HS9QtX5kXW
That means having to use big picture mode though right?
Yes but you don't have to be in game mode.
Big picture has the same performance issues as gaming mode on nvidia though doesn't it?
I remember my partner trying it when we first built her pc and it was awful. Although at the time she was on a 1050 Ti temporarily, which also had other issues on the OS. She's now on a 3050 so maybe it's better now?
We don't think so but we don't have any nvidia machines to veryfi this.
We suggest testing it to see, it might be better with updated hardware. Testing it out will be the only way to verify for yourself.
Maybe someone else who reads this and has more experiece/knowledge around this can chime in to offer advice.
Yeah I'll hop on her machine when I get a chance and she's not too busy playing oblivion to have a mess around.
I'll ask Eben for you!
Always a great read! Thank you so much for doing these!!
These posts are top notch content, I don't even have a Steam Deck but I love the way it is formatted, this is peak Lemmy, congrats OP.
EDIT: I am following you in Mastodon now!
Oh that's lovely!!!
If you're interested, I'm also in a fun Revolt server, where you can find me lurking most days too (if you wanna join Linux, FOSS, gaming chats and the like!!!)
You can find a link to a discussion post here on Lemmy about that server, if you wanna read more!
But even if not, I'm so glad you enjoyed this :) :) :)
Expedition 33 works on the steam deck?
Yes please to the interviews! And as always, thank you so much for these! I always get a happy bounce when I see your banner appear in my feed.