History
fromOpen Culture
2 days agoHow Everything in a Medieval Castle Worked, from Its Moats to Its Dungeons
Medieval castles were complex structures designed for defense, featuring elements like barbicans, moats, and parapets.
Square Enix is partnering with Google to integrate its AI large language model Gemini into Dragon Quest X, creating a Slime character that players can chat with. This character will respond with AI-generated text, offering tips, tricks, and advice as players navigate the game.
The Assassins and the Knights Templar have become two of the most iconic groups of fighters from the period of the Crusades. In recent times, they have been popularised through the video game and movie franchise, Assassin's Creed. But who were they really and how did they interact in the Holy Land? It's an intriguing story that Dr Steve Tibble and Tony McMahon investigate in the first episode of their new podcast series, Talking Templars.
Currently, the Game of Thrones universe is defined by Targaryen family. House of the Dragon follows the Dance of the Dragons succession battle between Rhaenyra Targaryen and Aegon II. A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms follows Rhaenyra's great-great-great-great-great-grandson Maekar and his sons Aerion and Aegon, and then Game of Thrones picks up with Aegon's great-granddaughter Daenerys. However, that's not the only family connection between the different shows.
We don't know much about Dunk's beginnings, but to be fair, he didn't know much either. He grew up an orphan in Flea Bottom, the slum near King's Landing. He had no idea who his parents were, but figured he was an orphan and probably a bastard. (Some fans suggest he could be related to Brienne of Tarth, since he was tall just like her, but that's still unconfirmed.) He made a life by scavenging all kinds of meat for establishments that made "bowls of brown," the go-to food of Flea Bottom.
A blink-and-you-miss-it detail from episode five, "In the Name of the Mother," draws a subtle throughline between Dunk and another prominent knight from Westerosi history: Brienne of Tarth, who appears a century later in the "Game of Thrones" timeline. In a flashback scene, a young Dunk is shown walking down the kingsroad with his childhood friend, Rafe, returning to their home in King's Landing. This route runs for thousands of miles across Westeros, easing travel to and from the capital.
At long last, the secret behind Egg has been revealed. A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is now half over, but now viewers have learned the squire's true identity, something readers of the original Tales of Dunk and Egg books have known from the start. But what does this new secret mean for the future of the show - and the future of Westeros itself? The answer is a lot more complicated than you may think.
From Software has released a new Nightreign Version 1.03.2 update that re-balances some of the weaker Nightfarers into more formidable heroes across all consoles and PC versions of the game. As laid out on the official page for Elden Ring, Guardians received a damage negation buff as well as an increase to the Guard Boost ability. Raiders now have faster attacks with the exception of jump attacks of dual-wield attacks. Additionally, Raiders' attack range is extended when using the Ultimate Art "Totem Stela."
Baldur's Gate 3 was the kind of game that could take hours to get started, thanks in part to a rich character customization suite that allowed players to fine-tune everything from their race to several minute details.
As you probably know, we weren't connecting with Wyll's Early Access recruitment and initial questing, so we started over at a point when most of the other companion stories were fairly solid. A lot of decisions came later in development than was ideal - and there was a key situation near Baldur's Gate that I intended to heavily involve Wyll in (the Red War College) that got cut.
In 2017, in the lead-up to the launch of Kingdom Come: Deliverance, developer Warhorse Studios was criticized by some online for not including people of color in the game. The studio defended this by claiming it was historically accurate that in early 15th-century Bohemia, especially in the countryside where the game was set, it was rare to see non-white people. Some scholars agreed, others weren't sure, and people online yelled about it, with some right-leaning gamers very invested in protecting the studio from the "woke agenda."