Another big Steam event is underway with the Steam Digital Tabletop Fest RPG Edition. A chance for you to pick up some cheap games and more.

Much like previous events there's a number of livestreams going on, so you can watch and listen to developers doing talks and streaming their games which Valve teamed up with Auroch Digital and friends for. You can watch these streams on Steam , YouTube and Twitch . You can catch it easily with our YouTube embed below:

Watch video on YouTube.com

On the subject of sales there's obviously a lot. The easiest way to see all the deals is probably the SteamDB list .

Do let us and your fellow readers in the comments know if you find a deal that is particularly good. With so many thousands of games on Steam it's often far too tough to decide between them all. Always a good idea to stock up on your Steam Wishlist for events like this.

Seems like Valve can't catch a break with The International 2021 thanks to COVID-19. After having to move venues, they've now cancelled and refunded all live tickets. This is a pretty big blow to the biggest esports event of the year, with it having the biggest prize-pool ever for a single event at $40,018,195.

Valve said they had be watching rising COVID rates in Romania and were aware of new local restrictions, so it seems requiring attendees to be fully vaccinated and masked was just not enough as they said:

We wanted nothing more than to welcome fans live to the event, but we can no longer do so in a way that allows us to prioritize the health and well-being of both audience members and participants. Those who purchased tickets will be issued a full refund automatically.

There were also reports of members from multiple Dota 2 Pro teams (and their staff) testing positive for COVID-19, so nothing has really gone well for the event overall.

Thankfully the rest of the event will still be going ahead on October 7. These are the dates sticking as far as we know:

• Group Stage will run October 7 - 10
• Main Stage play starts October 12
• The final will be on October 17

In other Dota 2 news, Valve recently announced they will remove 32bit support and OpenGL, with the Linux version bumping up the Vulkan version.

It's that time again! From now until October 7 you get to try out various new demos on Steam, watch developer livestreams and much more.

This is another wonderful chance to test out various games before they see a full release. For the games included in the event, they are supposed to be releasing somewhere between October 7, 2021 and May 1, 2022 so even if you find something you like it might be a while before you get to see the full complete thing.

As for what to check out? There's plenty — obviously. For some of our own quick-picks we can suggest a few that actually have Linux demo builds up:

You can watch the official livestream below:

SpecialEffect is a charity that uses specialist technology to help people of all ages who have severe physical challenges and their One Special Day 2021 event is going on right now.

The idea is that people across the gaming industry come together to raise vital funds for these amazing charities, so they can show how games can help change and improve lives. A cause very much worth getting involved with.

Watch video on YouTube.com

How to get involved?

• Right now there's a Steam Sale ongoing until October 4 where a list of ~70 games will be donating all or some of their proceeds towards the charity. Some of the deals include 70% off Slime Rancher, 90% off The Talos Principle, 66% off For The King and many more.
• You can buy merchandise from their partners at Insert Coin.
• And more you can find out here .

While today will see the Steam Next Fest arrive, Valve have more plans as the digital Tabletop Fest returns to Steam between October 21 - 25 and this time around it's all about the RPGs.

Kicking off at 10 AM PST / 5 PM UTC it will see a big sale with hundreds of titles discounted, so you might want to start filling up your wishlist. There will also be around 18 hours of streaming from developers, which is being done in partnership with Auroch Digital. Starting off with Robert Kurvitz, lead writer and designer on Disco Elysium.

Check out their teaser trailer:

Watch video on YouTube.com

See more on the event page .

Is there any particular game you're hoping to pick up discounted? Let us know!

Operation Riptide is the 11th "season" for Valve's free to play shooter Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. It brings with it new maps, an overhauled mission system, new ways to play various modes and more content to unlock like new agents, weapon collections, stickers and patches.

Like previous operations, while CS:GO is free to play the event pass does cost monies at £10.89 / $14.99 / €12.75. It also came with two short cinematics:

Watch video on YouTube.com

What's actually new? Quite a lot! Including a whole new queue system to allow you to play special private matches on Valve servers, which come with special queue codes. There's also a way to now play with a Steam Group in these matches too.

The mission system has been tweaked this time around too. You now get given a more varied set of missions. Some need to be done in a specific order, while others give you a series of thing to do in whatever order you fancy doing them in. It's a nice blend compared to how they've previously done it.

One thing that might help pull in more people is a change to how long competitive games can be. With this update you now get to choose what you prefer between short matches (score 9 rounds) and long matches (score 16 rounds - the classic mode). Deathmatch also got updates to let you pick between different modes of Team vs Team, Free For All and lastly Team vs Team with your individual score counting (the classic way for CS:GO).

There's plenty more that's new like grenades can be dropped, a new map for Danger Zone and various map tweaks. See the full details on the event page .

I do wish they would look to speed up the loading time. Seems to always take forever to load to the menu on Linux.

You can play CS:GO free on Steam .

Steam Next Fest is fast approaching with it set to go live on October 1 so Valve has made a fresh trailer to give a little tease on what to expect from it.

What is Steam Next Fest? From October 1 - 7 hundreds of demos will be unleashed on Steam for upcoming games. A great chance to get a taste of something you've perhaps had your eye on. Not only that but there will also be a livestream from Valve and developers will also be able to livestream to their store pages, so you can have a chat with teams and ask questions too.

Watch video on YouTube.com

If you want to set a reminder you can do so on the official event page .

Let us know in the comments if there's anything in particular you're hoping to try.

With The International 2021 tournament fast approaching Valve has given an update on the future of Dota 2 with some major underlying tech changes planned to come in.

For most players you won't see many issues, since the vast majority of machines are already 64bit and support Vulkan. Valve say they're making changes to " keep the game and the Source 2 engine fresh". For Linux it means Vulkan by default, no 32bit and they're also swapping from XAudio over to SDL Audio. Windows will also be bumped up to DirectX 11.

There's no date set on when other than in the coming months.

As for the upcoming TI 2021, tickets will go on sale on September 22 and will require attendees to by fully vaccinated against COVID-19 and you will need to bring a mask too. There's more outlined in the FAQ . When open, tickets will be available from this link .

The International Dota 2 Championships at National Arena begin with Group Stage October 7 - 10, with the Main Event at National Arena October 12 -17.

Some other in-game changes are coming too with free access as of now to the The International 2021 Compendium, allowing everyone to collect Player Cards and check out the Talent roster, with more of it unlocking as the event gets closer plus there will be some special event items too. On top of that Valve also updated the Spectator HUD, the Camera, some improvements were also made to Graphs as well.