We owe Skyrim’s beloved Stealth Archer to one of the designers of an all-time classic PC stealth game, who wrote Todd Howard ‘a big document of stealth in 20 different games’

I love stealth games, and I love playing a sneaky guy in bigger RPGs: Fallout, The Elder Scrolls, Cyberpunk. You best believe that, when given the option, I’m crouch walking for 80 hours straight. I’m not alone in that preference either: The Stealth Archer in Skyrim, which plays exactly how it sounds, is a memetic,…

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GTA 5’s character-swapping system was a stroke of genius that was supposed to feature in San Andreas 9 years earlier—this masterclass mod makes that dream a reality

As I flitted between Peter Parker and Miles Morales boroughs-apart in Spider-Man 2’s New York City, I thought: why haven’t more games copied the character-swapping system from GTA 5? Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 first swung onto PS5 consoles towards the end of 2023, and breached the shores of Steam at the beginning of this year. Grand…

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A former Valve dev revealed how, while a VR version of Half-Life 2 was being made, a single metro cop’s toe created a ‘time-travelling’ bug that softlocked all versions of the game

One of the coolest things about Half-Life 2 is its physics engine, but as anyone who has played a physics-based game will know, even the best-in-class tech is prone to quirks here and there. Valve’s legendary narrative shooter was no exception, as former Valve developer Tom Forsyth shared in a thread on Mastodon. In the…

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STERN OF THE UNION ADDRESS – NOVEMBER 2025

The Stern of the Union Address, your monthly resource for news, information and highlights on all things Stern Pinball. Without further ado my fellow pinheads: The Walking Dead Remastered: There’s a Horde coming with a technologically advanced version of one of the most beloved pinball games of all time… The Walking Dead Remastered! Stay tuned…

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Tavern Keeper’s early access is already a crunchy management sim, a cosy blanket, an interior decor game, and a furniture designer all at once

Tavern Keeper’s a game with a bit of a history—taking Greenheart Games a whopping 11 years to make, it finally released into Early Access earlier this month after a series of solid, but limited demos, expanding the scope of what we could mess around with from one tavern to three. And despite not being in…

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