The Call of Duty Blog has more on the plan to unveil Call of Duty: Vanguard that first slipped out this morning along with an Official Teaser that confirms the World War II setting. Also Tom Henderson tweets a confirmation that Treyarch is working on the game. Here's word on plans to officially announce Vanguard on Thursday at 1:30 pm EDT:

At 10:30 AM PT on August 19, the Battle of Verdansk will begin in Call of Duty®: WarzoneTM.

Join the battle and experience the worldwide reveal of Call of Duty: Vanguard live in-game.

Be the first to the fight and be rewarded – report to Warzone and play in any playlist between 9:30 AM and 10:29 AM PT and prepare to participate in a limited-time Double XP, Double Weapon XP, and Double Battle Pass XP event before the battle begins.

More information to follow.

Continue here to read the full story.

Day O! Publisher Kalypso Media announces it turns 15 years old today. The celebration extends to the Kalypso Store, where games are on sale for up to 80% off between now and August 25th. There's a 15 Years of Kalypso feature on the Kalypso Media Blog taking a stroll down memory lane. Here's more on the occasion:

With steady growth since its inception in 2006, Kalypso Media has gone from strength to strength – even after a bank employee, when asked for a start-up loan, stated, "There's no economic future in computer games.” This has long been a source of many smiles and in the last 15 years, clearly disproven.

With more than 150 employees at 10 locations throughout 5 countries (Germany, UK, USA, Japan and France), a healthy turnover and a bevy of successful series such as Tropico, Dungeons, Railway Empire and Patrician, Kalypso Media has made a name for itself as a strategy and simulation specialist in the international games industry.

Continue here to read the full story.

Capcom announces that Oro and Akira have arrived in Street Fighter V, adding to the roster of combatants in the fighting game sequel. Here's an Oro GameplayTrailer and an Akira Gameplay Trailer showing each in action. They come alongside the announcement that the promised tournament mode is now in place. Here's a video introducing that along with an overview:

With the arrival of Oro and Akira also comes the long awaited Online Tournament Mode! This free mode is now available to all Street Fighter V players and will allow you to participate in player-created tournaments and even host your own! In this blog, we’ll go over the details on how to join or start your own tournament.

First up, we have a video that highlights the main features of this mode:

Continue here to read the full story.

Fire Tonight is out for Windows, macOS, and Switch, with the PC edition available on Steam with a 20% launch discount. Word is: "A narrative puzzle game about two people trying to find their way back together in a city on fire." This is part of the Fire Tonight media empire, as the game is based on the song of the same name by Information Society. Here's a Launch Trailer and the hot word:

Maya and Devin are separated in a city on fire. In the year 1990, before cell phones or Internet. They’re on their own, wondering about the choices that brought them here, how they met, and what the future might hold.

Inspired by Information Society's song of the same name, Fire Tonight is a lighthearted but thoughtful walk through the story of a relationship. A story about believing in each other when the whole world tries to keep them apart.

Continue here to read the full story.

• Humble Book Bundle: Math Statistics, & Game Theory Toolkit by Morgan Claypool (pay what you want and help charity).*
• Save 50% on The House of Da Vinci 2 on Steam.
• Save 35% on KingSim on Steam.
• Save 20% on LEGO Builder's Journey on Steam.

*Blue's News may receive a commission on sales of this item.

• Call of Duty: Warzone Season Five Patch Notes.

• BAIKEN｜SAMURAI SHODOWN × GUILTY GEAR –DLC Character.

↑ Official trailers. ↓ Content creator videos.

• Black Mesa Is Genius, And Here's Why. Thanks RedEye9.

• Samsung Display Announces Polarizer-less OLED With 25% Less Power.
• Why You Should Think Twice About a Gaming Laptop for School. Thanks Neutronbeam.

• Colorful Launches Two White Mini-ITX Motherboards For Intel Rocket Lake.
• ASUS Unveils N5105I-IM-A, Intel Jasper Lake in Mini-ITX Form.

Thanks Ant.

• Amazon will monitor workers' keystrokes to 'combat data theft'. Thanks DSLReports.
• Hospitals hamstrung by ransomware are turning away patients.
• Colonial Pipeline sends breach letters to more than 5,000 after ransomware group accessed SSNs, more.
• Vulnerability Summary for the Week of August 9, 2021 - CISA.
• About the security content of iCloud for Windows 12.5.

• T-Mobile apparently lied to government to get Sprint merger approval, ruling says.

Last Link of the Day: Ace of Spades - Torenfestival Weert. Thanks Digg.

Tom Henderson tweets an image of the PlayStation Store showing that the official reveal of Call of Duty: Vanguard will be Thursday at 1:00 pm EDT. Word is the unveiling of the next installment in Activision's military shooter series will take place within Call of Duty: Warzone:

WORLDWIDE REVEAL OF
CALL OF DUTY
VANGUARD
AUGUST 19, 0830 PM BST
IN CALL OF DUTY: WARZONE™

Intel reveals its new discrete GPUs are now known as Intel Arc, and that new Arc graphics cards should start arriving in Q1 of next year. Word is: "Intel Arc graphics products built on gaming-first Codename Alchemist SoCs will be available in desktops and notebooks from global partners in Q1 2022." In the meantime you can get an Arc t-shirt to prove your unbridled enthusiasm over the prospect.

A tweet from Friday by Phil Spenser has word from the head of Xbox that Valve's upcoming Steam Deck mobile PCs will support Xbox cloud gaming (thanks Gadgets 360). Word is:

Was @valvesoftware this week talking w/ Scott, Erik, Gabe about Steam Deck. After having mine most of the week I can say it's a really nice device. Games with me on the go, screen size, controls all great. Playing Halo and Age feels good, xCloud works well. Congrats SD team.

With Humankind set to arrive tomorrow, reviews are showing up how this stacks up against Civilization, the juggernaut of the genre:

• Humankind review: "Refreshes the 4X genre" - GamesRadar+.
• Huamnkind Review - Culture-hopping Across the Ages - GameWatcher.
• Humankind Review - IGN.
• ‘Humankind’ review- war never changes - NME.
• Humankind review - PC Gamer.
• Humankind review – does Civilization’s challenger measure up? - PCGamesN.
• Humankind review -- A 4X strategy journey through history - PC Invasion.
• Humankind review: a heavyweight alternative to Civilization - Rock Paper Shotgun.

Ubisoft unveils Crystal Guard, the third season of year six for Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege. This will go live tomorrow on the test server for the tactical shooter, and Osa, the game's first trans operator, will be added on Wednesday. There's a lot of supporting material for this on the Ubisoft Website, including Year Six Season Three Preseason Designer's Notes and several videos, including a Crystal Guard Reveal. Here are some details:

In Crystal Guard, players will discover a brand-new attacker, Osa, equipped with Talon-8 Clear Shield: a transparent bulletproof shield that she can deploy on the ground, in doorframes, or in window frames. She can navigate with the shield in her hands if needed, albeit with certain restrictions (weapon stored, no sprint, no prone). Osa is a medium speed, medium armor Operator, equipped with 556 Xl or PDW9 as primary weapon and the PMM as a secondary weapon.

In addition, the Bank, Coastline, and Clubhouse maps have been rebuilt from the ground up to enhance balancing, environmental destruction, sound propagation, and lighting. Crystal Guard introduces numerous balancing adjustments to these maps including a 1F Reception bomb site replacing the 1F Service Entrance site on Coastline, new locations, and more entryways – for example, a new alleyway in Bank and a new path in Clubhouse have been edited. In terms of environmental destruction, the Bank and Coastline maps feature new destroyable walls: on Bank, the Railing on 2F Skyline and on Coastline, the exterior wall in 2F VIP lounge.

Continue here to read the full story.

Succubus has suffered another delay, and your chance to step into the nearly naked skin of the protagonist in this action/RPG spin-off of Agony will now come to GOG.com and Steam on October 5th. Just six weeks ago the game carried a September 8th release date, which was a setback from a previously announced July release. Word is the extra time will be used to fix bugs and further optimize the game. Here's a new Official Story Trailer which is probably still NSFW despite the effort to blur out boobies. Here's word:

The reason for postponing the release date is the need to fine-tune the game and bug fixing. To make sure that the players get a bug-free and well-optimized production, we decided to perform additional external tests and consulted the reviewers of well-known gaming services who completed the game and shared their thoughts and suggestions with us. We decided to spend the extra time on introducing a few improvements that will give the players a better and more satisfying production.

Ziggurat Interactive announces September 9th as the official release date for BloodRayne Betrayal: Fresh Bites, the remake for Windows, PlayStation, Xbox, and Switch. Ten years ago the original Betrayal took the BloodRayne formula back to the past for a platformer installment. Now Fresh Blood moves that idea into the future, with enhanced graphics and gameplay. Here's a new trailer and a rundown:

BloodRayne Betrayal: Fresh Bites Features:

• All-New Voice Acting: Originally released without any spoken dialog, the new BloodRayne Betrayal will feature AAA-quality voice acting by Laura Bailey and Troy Baker reprising their roles as Rayne and Kagan. Patrick Seitz and Todd Haberkorn are also featured as voice actors in the game, bringing more of its characters to life.
• Enhanced Edition: Higher resolution character sprites and support for HD displays (up to 4K) are just a few new details added to the game that help Rayne strut her stuff on modern PCs and consoles.
• Advanced Controller Support: Fresh Bites brings improved support for haptic features on modern console controllers.
• Modern Console Release: Rayne returns to console including a first-ever release on Nintendo Switch.
• Physical Edition: Collectors rejoice! Fresh Bites will receive an exclusive physical edition release for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, and Nintendo Switch through Limited Run Games.

Indie French developer DigixArt is announces that Road 96 is now available for Windows via the Epic Games Store, GOG.com, and Steam, as well as for Switch. There is also a Road 96 Hitchhiker Bundle on Steam with some extra goodies and a bundle discount. The Release Date Trailer offers a look at this procedurally generated road trip. This starts off with optimism but quickly takes a dark turn. Here's more on your chance to get your kicks on Road 96:

Road 96 is a procedural ever-evolving story-driven adventure game with survival elements in which players must escape a country ruled by an authoritarian regime that's on the brink of collapse. Road 96 has an ever-evolving story that unveils more and more on each run to escape the country, inspired by road trip movies from the 90s from directors like Tarantino, The Coen Brothers and Bong Joon-ho. The game soundtrack features tracks from bands like Survive (Stranger Things).

Continue here to read the full story.

• Special Sale: games for all tastes up to 90% off - GOG.com.

• 343 Swears Halo Infinite Bots Aren't Teabagging Players, It's A Bug Not A Feature.

• The Frosts: First Ones - Launch Trailer.
• GRAVEN Early Access Update 2. Shows off an upcoming co-op support update.

↑ Official trailers. ↓ Content creator videos.

• Every RPG Store. Thanks Ant.

• TinyBuild: We're just not seeing a post-lockdown slump - GamesIndustry.biz.

• Stardeus by Neon Bedlam — Kickstarter. "A space colony management game releasing on Steam and GOG." Here's a Kickstarter Trailer.

• How to watch $100k Warzone ROKKR Royale- Stream, schedule, teams.
• Metal Gear Solid speedrunning community in a frenzy after streamer accidentally discovers huge skip.

• What’s new in Night City: [Cyberpunk 2077 Patch 1.3 development insight] - CD PROJEKT RED.
• From Paradise Island to the Fortnite Island - Wonder Woman Arrives in Fortnite.

• Introducing Tandem: A Tale of Shadows, out October 21 on PS4.
• Fairytale Puzzle Game Tetragon Available Now for Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S.

• How to use the iPhone Apple logo as a secret button. Thanks Ant.
• The "Smartphone for Snapdragon Insiders" vs ROG5 Preview: Branded vs Original.

• Would you let a robot lawyer defend you?
• When robots screw up, how can they regain human trust? By singing Sidewalks of New York?
• ROCCAT’s Studio-Grade Torch Microphone for Gamers, Streamers, and Aspiring Creators Now Available Worldwide.
• The Best Old-School PC Cases. No beige, no sale.
• DVDFab version 12.0.4.3. Thanks Console General.

• NHTSA launches investigation into Tesla Autopilot crashes.
• T-Mobile Investigating Claims of Massive Customer Data Breach.
• Dallas cops lost 8TB of criminal case data during bungled migration, says the DA... four months later.

• Social media fraud: The influencers promoting criminal scams. Would that be all of them?
• Man reportedly arrested while playing League of Legends at internet café after his rank was announced to off-duty officer.

• Only does one thing but does it well - Descent Vector- Space Runner - Indie Showcase (video).
• Road 96 Review - IGN.
• Road 96 review- fun and high jinks on the campaign trail '96 - Rock Paper Shotgun.

• Misc: Patriot Supersonic Rage Prime 1TB Review - APH Networks.
• Monitor: Eve Spectrum 4K gaming monitor review - PC Gamer. Thanks Neutronbeam.
• Motherboard: EVGA Z590 Dark Motherboard Review - TweakTown.
• Mouse: SteelSeries Prime Wireless Lightweight Ultra-fast FPS Gaming Mouse - Mad Shrimps.
• SSD: Neo Forza ZION NFP075 2TB M.2 NVMe SSD - Nikk Tech.
• SSD: 16TB Sabrent Rocket XTRM-Q SSD Review- Twice the Storage, Twice the Price - Tom's Hardware.

Thanks Max.

• China's youth react to gaming curbs with anguish and cunning…
• Game (voice)over: actors turn to video game work during pandemic…
• Why your old video games may be worth millions. Except, of course, they aren't. Thanks Neutronbeam…
• Super Woden GP - An arcade racing game as a throwback to the 90's gets a 1st Sept release date…
• Roblox Acquires Guilded, a Platform to Connect Gaming Communities…

So I'm unsure what I am supposed to share about my busted elbow, so I'll hold off on a progress report until I have more clarity about that. In the meantime, the good health news is that despite how my accident hindered my mobility, I've still managed to take off most of the excess weight I added during the lockdown. My "normal weight is around 145-150 lbs, and I went into it right around 150. But a lack of activity and a newfound love for cooking had me topping 170 before long. That may seem pretty normal for someone who's 5'10" like me, but I have a very slight frame, and all the extra weight just sat around my midsection looking awful. I finally faced reality, and between adding on some activity and cutting some calories, I'm back down to 153. I technically still have a couple of pounds to go, but I'm back to looking and feeling a lot more like my normal skinny self again.

Svelte Round-up
Thanks Ant and Neutronbeam.

Breakfast Link

• This Is the Worst Cheap Beer in America, Customers Say in New SurveyBest Life.

Science
Thanks Max.

• Interoception: the hidden sense that shapes wellbeing.
• Eating ‘fast carbs’ does not make you gain weight more than ‘slow carbs,’ new study says.
• Scientists show how blocking opioid receptors in specific neurons can restore breathing during an overdose.

Media

• Foo Fighters - Monkey Wrench w/ fan playing guitar Live Bonner Springs, KS (NSFW). Thanks Digg.
• World's First 3D Printed Rocket.
• Methane Zombie Fire in Yakutia, Russia.