Excited for the huge Caves & Cliffs upgrade coming to Minecraft? Even though it's being split in half , we certainly are and you can get a little more behind the scenes info in a new video.

Caves are one of the most unloved areas in Minecraft, so to see Mojang put some effort into sprucing them up a bit is quite exciting. Digging deep for riches should be much more enticing than it currently is and there's a lot of new goodies coming. What about the mobs though? There's plenty of new there too.

Interested in knowing more? Watch the below video:

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As a reminder the first part of Caves & Cliffs arrives "mid-2021" bringing with it the new blocks, mobs, copper and more with the second part due towards the end of the year to include the expanded world generation for new caves, increases to the height and depth world limits, new mountain generation, new biomes and so on. There's a seriously huge amount to look forward to for Minecraft this year.

Valve / CodeWeavers have releases another update to the current stable Proton series with the 6.3-4 release.

If you're not clear on what Proton and Steam Play are, be sure to check out our constantly updated dedicated page . It's a special compatibility layer for running Windows games and apps from Steam on Linux.

Proton 6.3-4 is a small update that just focuses on fixing up a few annoyances including:

After a long time of waiting with the last proper release in 2018, the Unvanquished team have managed to do it! The next version 0.52 Beta is officially out now and waiting to be played.

What is it? A free and open source first-person shooter with strategy elements, that puts humans vs aliens. It's a fork of the classic Tremulous, think of it like the well-known Natural Selection series with both sides providing very different gameplay overall.

This marks the first Beta release too, as the team explained they "think the engine and the game experience are polished enough to remove the alpha flag and wear the beta one". The game engine used, the Dæmon engine, also saw its own dedicated blog post to explain all the advances over the last two years - as expected there's been a huge amount of changes, including a "single rounding error that was the cause of many bugs" - oops. The amount of work that went into the underlying game engine is simply marvellous, with it being more bug free and advanced than ever.

As for the game itself, the list of what's changed is just as ridiculously long. The new player experience is much improved, there's new presets for different keyboard layouts, the UI now scales with your screen resolution, there's now graphics presets to easily switch between modes, many graphics improvements and the list goes on. It's pretty safe to say that Unvanquished 0.52 Beta is like a different game.

Check it out on the Unvanquished website .

Ready for more epic Sonic fan games? Following on from the Doom-powered Sonic Robo Blast 2, we also have Sonic 3 A.I.R (Angel Island Revisited) which has a big new release.

This has been in development for 9+ months, during which Linux support was hooked up in a previous preview version which is now properly live for everyone. So now Linux users can enjoy one of the best Sonic fan games around. As a reminder, we spoke to the developer of this previously who mentioned they built it "directly on top of SDL2, OpenGL and Ogg Vorbis".

I gave it a run myself today for the first time and it's absolutely brilliant:

Watch video on YouTube.com

As for what's actually new in this version (apart from Linux support), some highlights include:

- Added support for directly loading zipped mods (also including multiple mods in one zip file)
- Added HQ3x and HQ4x filters as options
- Changed the two Soft upscalers to adapt better to the actual screen resolution
- Smoother filtering for rotated sprites
- Added options for V-Sync and performance display
- Added option for muffled sound when underwater
- Added an option for the (faster) Sonic 3 version of the continue screen music
- Now using actual emulation for almost all sound effects and emulated music tracks, not just the continuous sound effects as previously
- Added an option to display the lives counter in the upper right corner
- Added a manual game controller selection
- Supporting more keys for custom keyboard bindings (see the Manual for a complete list)
- Reduced LRZ 2 boss hit points down to 8, going back to the original value of 14 is an option
- Larger parts of the cutscenes in HPZ and the start of SSZ are now skippable
- Ported over missing code for a continue screen from S&K when playing as Sonic alone
- Rendering performance optimizations, especially for OpenGL Software rendering (though Hardware is still faster)
- Script / game simulation performance optimizations
- Added support for modded Tails' tails sprites in Time Attack ghosts
- Added support for modded Discord Rich Presence texts
- Modding: Added function "Renderer.drawCustomSpriteWithTransform" for script modding
- Modding: Added function "System.hasPlatformFlag" to differentiate between mobile and desktop versions, and also "PlatformFlags" override in config.json
- Modding: Added support for preprocessor conditions like "#if GAMEAPP >= 0x21050800" so a mod can use newer update's script functions but still stay compatible with the previous update
- Modding: Added support for SMPS audio file playback via S3&K sound driver emulation

Plus quite a lot of bug fixes.

For those curious about how SEGA view fan games, the official Social Media + Influencer Manager for Sonic at SEGA mentioned on Twitter :

Hey Sonic fans - I appreciate you all reaching out with concerns over fan games and monetization! So long as no profit is involved, there is usually* no issue with y'all using our blue boy to hone your art and dev skills. *((for legal reasons I can't promise all content is ok))

Sonic 3 A.I.R. is closed-source freeware and it does require a copy of Sonic 3 & Knuckles from Steam .

Not a big fan of permadeath? Good news for you as Caves of Qud, the awesome science fantasy roguelike epic, now has new game modes in Beta.

While the traditional and normal mode of the game remains as permanent death, the current opt-in Beta on Steam now has new options available which should help people explore its truly wonderful and bizarre world. Here's the modes it has now:

• Classic - nothing changes.
• Roleplay - checkpoints and settlements enabling you to reload when you die from the last one.
• Wander - checkpoints at settlements, most creatures start neutral to you, no XP for kills, more XP for discoveries, completing quests, and performing the water ritual.

Never played Qud? Here's just some of what to expect from it:

• Assemble your character from over 70 mutations and defects and 24 castes and kits—outfit yourself with wings, two heads, quills, four arms, flaming hands, or the power to clone yourself—it's all the character diversity you could want.
• Explore procedurally-generated regions with some familiar locations—each world is nearly 1 million maps large.

• Dig through everything—don't like the wall blocking your way? Dig through it with a pickaxe, or eat through it with your corrosive gas mutation, or melt it to lava. Yes, every wall has a melting point.
• Hack the limbs off monsters—every monster and NPC is as fully simulated as the player. That means they have levels, skills, equipment, faction allegiances, and body parts. So if you have a mutation that lets you, say, psionically dominate a spider, you can traipse through the world as a spider, laying webs and eating things.
• Pursue allegiances with over 60 factions—apes, crabs, robots, and highly entropic beings—just to name a few.
• Follow the plot to Barathrum the Old, a sentient cave bear who leads a sect of tinkers intent on restoring technological splendor to Qud.

It is absolutely one of the wildest roguelikes I've ever played. What other game can you claim to be a mutated human with a beak that generates corrosive gas? While also having horns, multiple legs and you're cold blooded? Not many other games I bet, probably not any in fact. Caves of Qud is just brilliant.

You can grab a copy now from GOG , itch.io and Steam .

Wine, that glorious bit of tasty open source software has a new 6.8 development release now available.

For newer readers and Linux users here's a refresher - Wine is a compatibility layer built for operating systems like Linux, macOS and BSD. The idea is to allow other platforms to run games and applications only built and supported for Windows. It's also part of what makes up Steam Play Proton . Once a year or so, a new stable release is made.

Here's the highlights of what's new in this release:

• Libraries installed into architecture-specific subdirectories.
• Secur32 library converted to PE.
• Support for Map object in JavaScript.
• Various bug fixes.

Also of note are 35 bugs marked as solved. As per usual: some are bugs being fixed now, some were fixed a while ago and recently got noticed as actually being sorted. Some of the improved items include: Crysis Wars, The Sims Complete Collection, Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion, FIFA 11, Age of Empires II, Sacred Gold, Diablo 1, Star Citizen and more.

For the full bottle ingredients see the release notes .

Like a good bottle of wine - software and my puns improve with time. I never miss my winedow of opportunity. Please email all complaints to winepuns@gamingonlinux.com.

Nepos Games have announced the next big update for their isometric Pharaoh-like city-bulder Nebuchadnezzar.

After launching with Linux support back in February, it seems a lot of people really loved the style but there wasn't enough substance to it. Thankfully the first update addressed some of the issues adding in big freeplay maps, new difficulty modes and a tax/wages mechanic too. Now they've teased the 1.2 update with no current release date which will bring in Fire, Crime and Diseases to add a little more challenge to it.

Watch video on YouTube.com

Once they mention a release date for this exciting version 1.2 we will let you know. Seems they're managing to turn it around, with the most recent user reviews on Steam being "Very Positive". Going over some of the user reviews, it seems it lacking a good challenge is what has put a number of players off so perhaps these new systems coming in will bring more players back.

Buy it now on GOG and Steam .

Return of Them: Eye of The Storm is the final update of the season for Don't Starve Together and so it's going off with quite a big bang along with a good discount too.

"With the three lunar altars now complete, the truth at the center of this ancient mystery will finally come to light...
They've been here all along. Don't Starve Together: Return of Them - Eye of the Storm is now available for all players. With this conclusion of the Return of them Story Arc, worlds collide as old threats and familiar faces make themselves known."

Check out the update animation short below:

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They're not actually giving away too much about the update either. Here's all they announced:

Major Changes:

• Added Moonstorm Event
• You're just going to have to see for yourself

Bug Fixes

• Fixed a bug causing stuff to drop off boats during lag or an autosave.
• Lichen can now be fed to beefalo, pigs, ect.
• Fixed a bug causing a crash if you hovered over the mole trail fx while holding the beefalo bell.
• Fixed a bug causing the spawning time to not queue for a number of things (Wobster Den, Splumonkey Pods, ect) if they were offscreen when the spawn time finished.
• Fixed a bug causing the Celestial Sanctum to have no mini map icon.
• Greatly improved performance for worlds with lots of lights in the world.

We're going to see plenty of updates to DST after this. Klei would be crazy not to keep pushing it, considering it's still extremely popular. They said their team has been working hard on the next set with next month getting "a couple of cool updates" and there's going to be a new Summer event named "The Midsummer Cawnival", plus another character is being refreshed soon too.

A fantastic time to get into a thoroughly enjoyable co-op survival game, from Klei Entertainment who have been a very Linux-friendly developer.

Buy it now on Steam with 66% off until May 10.

Thunder Lotus appear to have done well with Spiritfarer, their unique management game with a rather cozy atmosphere and a theme based around looking after the dead.

For those who haven't played it yet: you build a boat to explore the world, then befriend and care for spirits before finally releasing them into the afterlife. During the game you build, farm, mine, fish, talk to lots of different people and travel across the seas and eventually say goodbye to spirits you've looked after. In a press release they noted that three separate updates are coming that will "notably expand upon the game’s main story, as well as adding additional characters, locations, and quality of life improvements" and all will be free.

Watch video on YouTube.com

“We’re tremendously happy with the praise Spiritfarer has received since launch” says Spiritfarer Creative Director Nicolas Guérin. “It’s attracted a very passionate group of fans too, which is great because the team is excited to keep supporting the game with new content this year! I’d be remiss if I didn’t thank our fans for their crucial input as we explored various ideas for new Spiritfarer content. Your feedback definitely helped us zero in on the best path forward for the project!”

Additionally, they shared that Spiritfarer has become the most successful game Thunder Lotus has launched to date. Not without some controversy though. Overall, it is an absolutely lovely game and well worth spending some time with. If you want to see their new roadmap it's up here .

You can buy Spiritfarer on GOG , Steam and Stadia .