As you’re most probably used to by now, this is just my initial warning that what follows is my ranting and rambling about both Steam Deck-specific(ish) news, and general gaming news I’ve spotted and seems interesting to me.

This time around though, if you’ll indulge me I might highlight some of my favorite people? Alongside news that is, of course.

Grab a cup of coffee, settle in and poke holes in my mistakes and formatting (or, idk, just enjoy this)!

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What have you been playing?

This one’s just…me asking some of my friends what they’ve been playing and enjoying lately on Steam Deck or otherwise. You’ll maybe recognize some of them, so if you’ll indulge me:

imLinguin (Heroic Games Launcher)

Eben Bruyns (Junk-Store)

AA (Decky Loader)

Gardiner Bryant (YouTube)

Noah (SteamDeckHQ)

Lazorne (RetroDECK)

This is…a bit of ‘fluff’ I know, but at least to me it’s interesting to see what the people behind the channels, sites and programs you love are playing. Sadly lots who answer tell me that there’s little time to actually play the games, but also that the coding itself can become a game to them. Anyway, thought you might be interested in these!

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GOG + Control

Easily one of my favorite games of the last few years: Control: Ultimate Edition has a new significant update:

https://controlgame.com/control-march-2025-update-notes-pc/

But…as per usual, GOG users do not get the update at the same time as other platforms like Steam and EpicGames do.

And…sad to say, if at all. No word yet on the ‘when’. GOG has a reputation for being ‘second-class citizens’ with updates from publishers.

There is a thread on GOG’s forum showing just how second-class GOG users can be treated - with updates being either delayed or never released on the platform. Again, this is not GOG’s doing, but those responsible for the games. Here’s a link to the latest page on that thread here

Despite this, I am 𝘴𝘰 excited to revisit one of my fav games on SteamDeck!!

Fingers crossed this update once it hits GOG will sort out one very annoying program, the propensity for the game to crash with the Anchor boss. It’s been known and complained about for an eternity here, but we can hope!

(actually, ironically there is a way to pass that as it stands, in the least polished way possible:

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Notable GOG games updates:

There’s some recent updates (since we’ve last spoken), which will be the least interesting thing possible to read, but I somehow find it very fun to share.

I like to keep track what I have installed, and what I think there’s a good chance others may also, and note their updates. The following is also an embedded link to their GOG store page:

• Traveller’s Rest - currently also on sale with -33% off on GOG!

• Tunguska: The Visitation

• Mark of the Deep (a kinda fun Metroidvania-ish game)

• Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector

• Coridden (one of my fav recent ARPG’s!)

• Caves of Qud (which took like 10 years to get its 1.0 release!

• Star Trucker (which I got way into on Game Pass, the devs are also posting regularly, everywhere, it’s nice to see them so happy with their hit!

• S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chernobyl

• A TON of LEGO games I’m just way too lazy to create individual links for, but here’s a recent Mastodon post I did on this very topic

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Emulation News

Citra:

Switch emulation on Android just got multiplayer for the very first time! This is for multiplayer with multiple devices (somewhat similar to what we saw with Citra), using the Citron emulator.

Have you tried this, flw? …no. But I find it interesting!

Should I emulate BoTW on Switch, Flw? No! Emulate the Wii U version, it is SO much better!!!

The interesting thing to me is that Android Authority published a story on this. Its interesting to me to see a mainline site like this is reporting on what a couple of years ago was a very niche subject! This link is to the article, if you wanna check it out

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Campho Advance:

The Campho Advance is a special Game Boy Advance cartridge that allowed users to make video phonecalls via landlines. It was released in 2004 by a Japanese company called Digital Act. Although it may seem strange and bizarre to have such a device on a portable gaming console, the GBA helped reduce cost and provide a simple user-interface. It’s one of the rarer peripherals out there, with only about 10,000 units produced (and less likely ever actually sold).

Additionally, the Campho Advance was formerly one of the last officially licensed cartridges that had remained completely undumped. Previously, there was simply no information whatsoever about its ROM anywhere, meaning it hadn’t been preserved at all. Thankfully, last year I was able to make a homebrew program that extracts data from the cartridge. I still need to make some tweaks to the homebrew dumper, but hopefully others will finally be able to make their own dumps too.

Without the ROM, it wouldn’t have been possible to emulate the Campho Advance. Support has been added to GBE+ so that now everyone can virtually recreate the Campho Advance experience. What once started as a humble Game Boy emulator a decade ago today functions as a real-time videochat program. And if you think that’s crazy, just wait until you see GBE+ start emulating TV stations…

Link to full article, and you really should read up on this! is here

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Cemu:

A new release is out for Cemu, for Android: 0.1 (known as the experimental release). With Cemu coming along and RPCS3 on the horizon, the people who enjoy emulating on their Android phones must be very happy!

Here’s a link to the GitHub page, if you’re curious!

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The Steam Deck and Emulation

This is just…a great and detailed video I spotted getting shared about earlier by ‘TechCravers’. I’ve never watched any of their content before, but this was a great spot to start. This is just…copied straight from their video description:

In this video, I break down why the Steam Deck is STILL the king of emulation in 2025! From Game Boy to Wii U, this handheld can do it all—better than any other device on the market. With amazing community support, constant software updates, and unmatched performance for the price, no other handheld even comes close

If you’re interested in what is a great deep-dive into Steam Deck emulation as a whole, then the YouTube link is here!

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RetroDECK new update - 0.9.1b:

If you know me at all, or even if you’ve just skimmed my words here or on Mastodon (or…if there might be some of you who remember my Reddit days), you’ll know I adore RetroDECK. It’s been my emulationer (totally a word) of choice for such a very long time now.

Their new update’s patch notes are here in this link, but I’ll brutalize them and try trim the more note-worthy bits here in some dot points:

• New folder: retrodeck/cheats/ for easier cheat file updates (MAME, RetroArch, PCSX2, PPSSPP, MelonDS)

• Added CLI arguments in RetroENGINE: --set, --open, --factory-reset, and improved --reset.

• Steam integration: RetroDECK can now auto-add to Steam with preconfigured gridart and inputs.

• RetroAchievements support added for PPSSPP and Dolphin.

Flw, why should I opt for RetroDECK over EmuDeck? …I hear you ask

Luckily, the team answered that themselves, leaving me to be luxuriantly lazy and just screenshotting it to paste here:

…but personally, I just love how it gives me two options: an all-in-one emulation suite, where all my games are within their various emulators within RetroDECK from the homescreen on my Steam Deck, and if I add some to ‘favorites’ then I get them added individually to my games library.

I love how it stores my emulators, bios, ROMs, mods, files…all of it on my SD card (how I choose to have it run).

I love that it only has stable releases. This means you won’t get each emulator’s updates as they update, but I’ve seen EmuDeck break too many times to think that’s a good idea.

IDK. I just love it. Try it out!!!

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Square Enix staff + a old game cache:

“Members of Square Enix recently made a remarkable discovery upon opening an old storage container at work that had been shut for close to 20 years: a cache of pristine, retro games that includes titles released for the Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum, Atari ST, DOS computers, N-Gage, Nintendo Wii, and Amstrad CPC, among other platforms.”

I literally ripped that paragraph from their article, the full thing is here but…that’s basically the best of it!

This following link is better though, since you get a video of them showing off what is there:

And this is the link (a LinkedIn link

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FF VII: Rebirth

Got a update specific to the Steam Deck (always lovely to see!) which made the download size smaller than before. Another few fixes are included, but to me this is the focus, going from 144.2GB to 88.1GB (phew, at least it’s not at God of War: Ragnarok’s 177GB -_-)

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Path of Exile 2:

An update was also seen for this one recently:

• Fixed Steam Deck and other Linux Wine-based clients being incorrectly warned for modifying the client.

Nice to see Grinding Gear Games is supporting Steam Deck, but…it still looks awful on said Steam Deck, so…that didn’t change I guess

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Maxima:

This is just a…brief teaser for something you can’t see yet. Maxima is on its way, being a replacement for EA’s Origin launcher, made so you can skip using it and just enjoy the games yourself.

One of the devs has shared this link for the GitHub, but it’s one to keep an eye on and not live yet:

https://github.com/ArmchairDevelopers/Maxima/

“Maxima - It’s the farthest you can get from the Origin”

Yay!

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XenonRecomp - the 360 games tool

This one might be of interest to the more technical-minded (which, on Lemmy…seems to be everyone?) but here’s the ‘about’ (and follow it the GitHub)

*XenonRecomp is a tool that converts Xbox 360 executables into C++ code, which can then be recompiled for any platform. Currently, it only supports x86 platforms due to the use of x86 intrinsics.

This project was heavily inspired by N64: Recompiled, a similar tool for N64 executables.*

And the link to the GitHub for it is here!

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Acclaim Entertainment:

Acclaim has been ‘reborn’ as a new kind of publisher. They’re now focusing on retro games titles. Reviving classic franchises specifically

The link to a article about the announcement is here!

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Ubisoft execs on trial:

No better time to boycott Ubisoft, if you’re not already, as former Ubisoft bosses go on trial in France over alleged harassment.

***Thomas François is alleged to have habitually watched pornographic films in the open-plan office and commented on the appearance of female employees, whom he routinely insulted.

François is being prosecuted for an attempted sexual assault when he tried to forcibly kiss a young employee during a Christmas party as she was held by other colleagues.***

Full article here, which is a sobering view of what people have to deal with, and how disgusting people in power can be over others

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The Ori Series:

The two Ori games have now sold over more than 15 million copies!!!

“Not too shabby for a Metrodvania and a genre we were told is dead when we started to work on it!”

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Selaco + testers:

One of my fav efforts of programming in a game in recent times has been Selaco which was made using the GZDoom engine. The way they made that game look on that engine is absolute magic.

A kind of beautiful mix of modern style, and the obvious (now I learn is called ‘boomer shooters’) retro game-play mechanics - and I tell everyone I know to play it!

The launch trailer, which was 9 months ago, is here, I recommend you all watch it if you don’t already know Selaco!

The developers are currently getting an engine upgrade: 𝘎𝘡𝘋𝘰𝘰𝘮 𝟦.𝟣𝟥; 𝘳𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩𝘭𝘺 𝘧𝘪𝘷𝘦 𝘺𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘴 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘵𝘩 𝘰𝘧 𝘪𝘮𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘴

The link where they announce looking for play-testers is here, and will take you to their Steam announcement of such

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Death Stranding 2

You’ve no doubt seen the (in true Kojima style!) 20875073456045 hours long trailer which just came out for the game, but most fun for me was seeing this post by Kojima on Bluesky sharing some of the merch:

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Revolt

There’s a server my friend Gardiner Bryant started only a few days ago. You’ll find it’s small, with few people there, but we’re all rather lovely (if I do say so myself). All of the names from the beginning are some of the users in this server, if you want to drop by and say anything. But otherwise it deals with:

• Steam Deck
• Linux
• Gaming
• General chat

If you’d like to join us, then the link is here:

https://rvlt.gg/dqJT3rJH

Yes, it is on Revolt. There is two options available for Android users, the official one and a community-built one. Neither of which I’ve even tried yet, I just access it via the website!

If you want, you can check out a recent post I made on it here on Lemmy to read more!

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I think this might be it?

…as ever, formatting, spelling and general crazy errors are all mine. I do hope you enjoy this. This was 2,317 words up to that last sentence, so…clearly I can’t edit myself at all.

If you’ve any suggestions, criticisms (I see you, anonymous down-voters -_-) or anything to share, the comments under here are a great place to do it!

Hope you enjoy! <3