The Sims 4 Businesses & Hobbies expansion announcement includes a ton of cross-pack play that I'm pretty psyched for - Related to baldur's, europe, some, announcement, developer

Baldur's Gate 3 Patch 8 Update Hammers Out Some Of The Bugs

Baldur's Gate 3 may be a work of art, but Patch 8 remains a work in progress. A select group of players were invited to take part in Larian Studios' stress test for Patch 8, which is still ongoing. However, Larian has already put together an upgrade that addresses some of the bugs that have been uncovered in Patch 8.

As laid out in a new post by Larian Studios, there don't appear to be any game-breaking bugs in Patch 8. But there are issues that have come up in several areas, including the newly added Photo Mode. Now, creatures will supposedly obey the "look at the camera" command, and dragonborn won't lose their tails in the pictures.

Cross-play is another big addition of Patch 8, which is meant to connect players from consoles and PCs. This enhancement only has a small number of fixes, but Larian notes that "we are still investigating instances of cross-play not working as intended." Other changes are meant to smooth out unintended effects, including an "issue causing the Flaming Fist armor to clip and generally freak out a bit."

Patch 8 enhancement 1 is expected to go live later today, but only for Baldur's Gate 3 players who were invited to take part in the stress test. Everyone else will get the complete Patch 8 after it receives refinement from Larian. After Larian wraps up its work on Patch 8, the studio will turn its full attention to its next project, codenamed Excalibur. Baldur's Gate 3 is almost certainly going to get a sequel, which will be developed by another studio.

You can find the Patch 8 improvement 1 notes below.

Fixed containers inside inventories not scattering their contents when they get destroyed, which could potentially lead to key quest items getting lost for good.

Fixed a bug causing Oath of the Crown paladins to lose spell slots instead of gaining them when levelling up.

Fixed an issue where picking up items from the ground in multiplayer could then block movement via the controller stick.

Fixed the Wild Shape: Panther's Prowl action and Prowling condition not working correctly.

Fixed a bug where items getting added to the inventory would lose their conditions. This could cause, for example, the Elemental Cleaver buff to disappear when the imbued weapon is thrown.

Shadow Blade will now retain the behavior of being locked to the caster when upcast.

Added an in-game pop-up for Photo Mode that triggers at the beach at the start of the game and can be found in the Journal.

Updated Photo Mode's screenshot function on Steam Deck so that it uses Steam's proprietary screenshot function, so you can access your photos more readily from the Steam Screenshots page.

Prevented characters from being able to pop into private cutscenes while activating Photo Mode when playing in multiplayer.

Hid the 'Toggle Photo Preview' legend while taking screenshots via Steam's screenshot function.

Fixed Photo Mode making the screen go blurry when opened on split screen.

Added camera shutter SFX when taking a photo in Photo Mode.

Fixed the Attacking and Jumping poses for wolves.

Fixed a cross appearing in the middle of the screen when the Vignette is at its thickest setting.

Fixed some creatures not listening when you select the 'Look At Camera' option.

Fixed the game sometimes freezing when switching quickly between tabs in Photo Mode.

Improved the Depth of Field sliders so the strength and distance scale in proportion to the slider itself.

Fixed an issue causing dragonborn tails to appear detached from the body.

The Grasping Vine's poses now work correctly.

Fixed some of the PS5 splashscreens not showing up when they should.

Updated Toll the Dead and Bursting Sinew to work with Potent Cantrip and deal half damage on saves.

Fixed Pact of the Blade's Extra Attack being added to Deepened Pact even if you didn't choose Pact of the Blade.

Fixed an issue causing the Flaming Fist armor to clip and generally freak out a bit.

Fixed a bug with Gale's donation UI preventing you from feeding him magical items.

All of the Hexblade's class actions and subclass elements are now shown correctly in Character Creation.

Fixed button or keyboard shortcut inputs in the UI sometimes not working.

Fixed some Reaction tooltips like Divine Allegiance not showing some values correctly in the description.

Fixed a bug causing the UI to lock up when rapidly switching between keyboard and mouse input and controller input.

Fixed a bug where opening the Main Menu on controller wouldn't automatically select the 'Resume' option at the top of the menu.

Fixed the condition icons on the party line getting duplicated when transitioning between acts during cross-play.

Fixed some settings that were missing their wrap-around navigation functionality on controller, preventing you from looping from the last option back to the first option with the same button input.

Fixed a bug that caused the toggleable Illithid Powers to disappear from the Character Sheet and be uninteractable in the Illithid Powers UI.

Fixed player avatars not showing up in the multiplayer/cross-play lobby.

With 12 new subclasses arriving in Patch 8, we’ve rechecked some achievements, including ensuring the armed version of Stunning Strike no longer counts as an unarmed attack for the Fists of Fury achievement, and its unarmed variant now does.

Monks' Unarmed Strike bonus action now also correctly counts toward the Action Surge achievement.

Fixed a crash when trying to start a game from a lobby multiple times.

Fixed several crashes and freezes related to the UI.

Fixed a crash on Vulkan when taking a photo in Photo Mode.

The developers of free-to-play monster hunting game Dauntless have laid off.

Larian has 's Gate 3 Patch 8, which isn't actually out yet and is still in stress testing. The ......

Lest there be any doubt, the medieval RPG Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 is a hit, selling more than one million copies in its first day of release.

The Sims 4 Businesses & Hobbies expansion announcement includes a ton of cross-pack play that I'm pretty psyched for

The Sims 4 is now well into its nostalgia-fueled "Motherlode season" celebrating the series' 25th anniversary and also revealing the next Sims 4 expansion pack: Businesses & Hobbies. After the Life & Death pack at the end of last year we're apparently in a double word plus ampersand expansion era—who do I have to pander to to get a pun around here?

The new expansion pack is all about the rise and grind lifestyle of turning your hobbies into small business hustles. It now has its first look trailer—after the requisite leaks and trailers that preceded it, of course—so we've got a decent overview of what exactly is coming in this pack.

The Sims 4: Businesses & Hobbies release date is on March 6, 2025. The new Motherlode season roadmap now says that we can also expect a bigger gameplay reveal for the expansion on February 18.

There's an unknown reveal for February 25, which is the week before the expansion release. I'd bet that's the drop date for a free game enhancement related to the expansion. As in past expansions, we can probably expect a couple related game aspects to get added to the base game.

Check out the Businesses & Hobbies first look trailer.

The Sims™ 4 Businesses & Hobbies Expansion Pack | Official Reveal Trailer - YouTube Watch On.

The first reveal trailer for the Businesses & Hobbies expansion confirms a lot of the broad details about the new tattooing and pottery skills. It also gives a quick look at the new menus for running small businesses and building multi-purpose lots—more on those below where I'll cover all the details gleaned from the Businesses & Hobbies announcement post.

Own businesses and run them from dual-purpose commercial/residential lots.

New pottery and tattooing skills with custom tattoos.

The two new skills fueling your small business aspirations in this pack are tattooing and pottery, both of which look like pretty involved skills that let you go hands-on instead of just letting the skill bar slowly tick up.

With tattooing you'll be able to custom create tattoos in a Create-A-Sim menu. You can pick lots of new pre-made designs but also create your own by layering elements and choosing colors or just drawing directly on your sim's body. It's not far off from how painting custom coats for pets in the Cats & Dogs expansion works. You'll also be able to share and download tattoo designs from the gallery.

As for pottery, it looks like it has a lot in common with the jewelry making skill from the Crystal Creations pack. You'll choose a ceramic shape from a list for your sim to create on a pottery wheel and then choose whether to glaze it with a color or leave it unglazed in the kiln.

One pretty neat part of Businesses & Hobbies is how much cross-pack play it's going to support. The ability to run your own shop won't just be restricted to the ones existing in current packs and the new tattooing and pottery skills. You'll also be able to open businesses related to other expansion packs—and some game packs and stuff packs—that you own:

After creating your business, you'll also have a menu where you can set a name and logo as well as entrance fees and the kinds of individuals you'd like to attract.

The part I'm psyched about, as a Build Mode enjoyer, is that the Businesses & Hobbies expansion is going to expand the multi-unit lot features we got in the For Rent expansion to now handle multi-purpose lots which are both residential and commercial. Instead of creating a new "Small Business Venue Lot" you can instead add a small business on an existing residential zoned lot.

Like in For Rent, you can designate entry permissions by room. In this case it's public, residential, or employees only. That means your enterprising sims can have a private loft with their family built on top of their tattoo parlor, for instance. Oh, here's a freebie idea: building a dance club with the Get Together pack beneath your sim's ground floor home in the style of a speakeasy.

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Outside The Blocks is a gorgeous diorama sculptor that had its developer travel Europe for architectural references

Outside The Blocks is a diorama building game so beautiful I was initially distrustful of it, as if it was some sort of dazzling carnivorous plant trying to lure me in to munch on my hands. I've had a play of the Steam demo now, and am happy to investigation that it's still very beautiful, and also that I still have hands: an incredible victory on all counts.

Outside The Blocks touts itself as "the ultimate playground for builders and creators who want to express their artistic side in a relaxing, stress-free environment. Forget about objectives and pressure—immerse yourself in the pure joy of creation". You're free to construct lovely buildings using either granular block-plonking or a tool that lets you manipulate big chunks. Once you've finished with your buildings, you can pop down tufts, streams, pigs, and whatever else you fancy. Or, you could just mess around sculpting foliage for ages, which is what I did.

I'd also recommend the Steam logs, like this one where developer Michał Kubas charts his visit to the small French town of Troyes "renowned for its beautifully preserved timber-framed buildings", all to gather references for modular building blocks. "I gathered 1,750 references of interesting buildings, which I meticulously analyzed and broke down into appropriate modules," writes Kubas. "I can confidently say that the vast majority of them could easily be reconstructed in my game!"

Some elements. Terrain elements, if you will:

Bases & Glass Domes: Frame your masterpiece in style.

Nature Elements & Organic Objects: Add life and vibrancy to your scenes.

Advanced Terrain Editing: Shape the ground to match your imagination.

Epoxy Resin: Easily add water levels for stunning aquatic effects.

Weather Conditions & Lighting Schemes: Set the perfect mood and atmosphere.

I especially love the recreation of epoxy resin techniques - an old modelling trick for creating realistic-looking bodies of water complete with surf I'm familiar with through Warham. This one's TBA for a full release date. And, yep, it includes a photo mode.

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