Disney Dreamlight Valley is rolling out its Whispers of the Wind update on April 8, adding Pocahontas and a bunch of new friendship quests to work your way through. If you want to make your way through these quests as quickly as possible and invite Pocahontas to your valley, then a little preparation goes a long way. Without knowing what quests we'll be sent on, it's hard to know the most efficient way to prepare, but using the information we've received on the update, there are a few things I'll be doing at the very least.

This time around though, unlike the majority of Disney Dreamlight Valley updates, you don't need to work on saving up your Dreamlight to unlock a new realm in the Dream Castle. Instead, you'll visit a new mysterious island off the coast, which is where the journey to unlock Pocahontas begins.

How to prepare for the Whispers of the Wind update in Disney Dreamlight Valley

As always, there's nothing you strictly need to do to prepare for the update. Once it's released, every player will be able to access it and make their way through Pocahontas' friendship quests. Since it's her debut in Disney Dreamlight Valley, there are no friendships you need to work on with other villagers in advance either. But there are a few things you can do to prepare in advance.

Gather gemstones

Even though we don't know what friendship quests we will be sent on with Pocahontas, we do know that we'll be preparing a "celestial celebration" as shared in the trailer for the update. If there's one thing that screams celestial to me, it's glittering gemstones. So, to save yourself the stress of having to gather gemstones once you reach the quest, gather some which are harder to find, like tourmaline or diamonds.

Befriend raccoons

If there's one thing that screams Pocahontas to me, it's raccoons. So, I'm going to spend some time befriending the raccoons in the Forest of Valor. If you're yet to befriend these masked bandits, then forage for some blueberries and approach them slowly. They're quite quick, nervous critters and you need to feed them for at least three days to unlock them as a companion too. With that said, we do know that you'll unlock Meeko, Pocahontas' raccoon companion, as part of her quests.

Gather hardwood

I've always found that hardwood is one of the most frustrating materials to gather in Disney Dreamlight Valley, even though it spawns in the Sunlit Plateau, Forest of Valor, Frosted Heights, and Glade of Trust. That's largely because it always spawns in fixed numbers and takes a while to respawn once you've gathered it.

Since it's always used for crafting bigger structures, it's one of those essential materials you just have to gather too. We don't know how we'll get to Pocahontas' mysterious new island, but if we need to craft a raft or anything like that, we'll no doubt need hardwood.

I've always been a fan of the idea of Cyberpunk 2077's ripperdocs and their many counterparts across fictional cyberpunk dystopias. It's a lovely bit of backwards-working worldbuilding: you want every thug and gangster on the street to have a metal limb and robot eyes because it looks rad, but how do you explain where they're getting it all? Back alley black market cybernetics doctors performing elaborate surgeries on the cheap, of course!

I was delighted, then, when I saw that upcoming sim Steel Soul Shaper is giving these unsung heroes of the violent crime community the spotlight. Putting you in the shoes of a cyberware surgeon opening a new shop in an unfamiliar district, it goes in-depth on both the nitty gritty of repairing and modifying a customer's implants, and the tribulations of running a small business in a techno-hellscape.

Trying out an early build of the game, I found myself quickly drawn in. A major portion of each day is spent simply chatting to the visitors to your shop, and Steel Soul Shaper does a very efficient job of getting you invested in all their little stories.

Pit fighter Komarov, for example, is the kind of underdog I can't help but root for. He comes in for a tune up on his cybernetic combat arms before a big fight, and though it's laid on a little thick (showing me a photo of the adorable little daughter he's fighting to feed isn't so much tugging at my heartstrings as yanking them with both robotic hands) he's lovable right from the off.

Others are less pleasant but no less interesting. At one point, a local gang member comes in to inform me he'll be collecting protection money from now on, adding some financial pressure but also fleshing out this grim new district I've found myself in. Then an irritating government-sponsored robot quizzes me on my devotion to the local authorities, injecting a fun bit of political satire into the day. Here and there, new customers come in for quick fixes and mods, lingering just long enough to show off their endearing quirks.

And then a rather well-to-do lady arrives, reeking of trouble, and lets me know she manages Komarov's opponent in the upcoming fight. If I sabotage his arms before the match, she'll give me a big payout. If I don't… well, she won't be very happy. With that protection racket hanging over my head, I won't deny an easy payday is tempting.

Big moral choices like these seem to be a key part of Steel Soul Shaper, and I really like that it's not just picking dialogue options, it affects the more mechanical side of the game too.

When you're tweaking and fiddling with a customer's cyberware, the item is laid out on your table to be dissected into parts. Removing a casing to get at a microchip or burnt out motor inside is pleasingly tactile, and the more I play the more options I unlock, from applying spray paints and decals to scrubbing viruses out of on-board software.

That means that sabotaging Komarov's arms isn't just a button I can press, it's a physical act—I have to actually insert a rogue module while I'm pulling his limbs apart to clean up the parts and weld over the cracks. Somehow, that makes it feel far more nefarious.

And there are more subtle moral complexities to the job, too. Completing a particular customer's request only requires doing the bare minimum, and with a choice of different parts to use, it's very possible to send someone off with a cheap second-hand battery ready to fail in a few weeks, or equally to cut into your own profits by installing custom improvements instead. How much impact this actually has down the line I'm not yet sure, but the quiet implications were enough to invest emotional meaning in all this tinkering and bean-counting.

In the end, I send Komarov off not with an unwanted part, but with fully upgraded arms at no extra charge, more invested than ever in the outcome of his bout. It leaves me worryingly low on funds for the next time the gangs come to collect, and potentially with a powerful new enemy when his opponent's manager finds out, but in the world of cybernetics I figure you've got to embrace humanity where you find it.

How that all shakes out… well, I wouldn't want to spoil, but needless to say I'm left keen to play more and find out exactly how deep both the storyline and the repair work can get over the course of a full game.

If you're intrigued, you can try the game for yourself right now too. Though it doesn't yet have a demo, it does have a playtest you can opt into on its Steam page, which seems to cover much the same ground as the build I played. There's no application process or waitlist or anything—just click the button and you can install it. And what better way to get into the right mindset for Steel Soul Shaper than feeling like you're messing around with a piece of unfinished software?

If you'd asked me yesterday how I felt about Pierre in Stardew Valley, I think I would have said "fine." I don't particularly like him but I don't have any specific gripes against him, either. My biggest issue is probably that he opens his store at 9 am and I'm up at 6 am every day, so if I head straight to his shop I have to hang around a while for him to open his doors. That can be a bit annoying.

But I was wrong. I clearly have some deep-seated seething hatred of Pierre, because when I saw that there's a mod that lets you open your own shop in Stardew Valley, my first thought was: revenge. I will fill my shop with my seeds and make Pierre come and buy them from me! Then we'll see who is shopping in whose store! Mwah-ha-ha-ha!

OK, it's not the most diabolical revenge plot in history—and may not even qualify as revenge at all—but the mod, called Merchant—Become a Shopkeeper is pretty cool anyway. You purchase a cash register from Robin, place it inside a building on your farm (shed, barn, etc), and that building becomes a shop. Set up tables and place items on top of them, then open your store and villagers will pop in to buy something.

It's genuinely delightful: for once, you're not the one running all over the place to find people, they're all coming to you, and seeing folks like the Wizard or the Bookseller (who will visit if you're selling books the day he's in town) show up in your store is really satisfying. Typically, only a few shoppers will visit at once, but there are special days where there's a big buying rush and you'll see a whole bunch of people come to your store on the same day.

There's a haggling minigame when someone buys something, so you can try to squeeze a few extra coins out of them, and another mod I installed, called Customer Add-On for Merchant, gives villagers' store-based dialogue a touch more personality. For instance, when I tried to jack up the price on a jar of honey for Robin, she said "What do you think this is, a house upgrade?" When the Wizard visited my shop, he said "Ah, Goat Cheese… I foresaw this transaction." Pretty cute.

Anything you can put on a table you can sell (no shade, but Pam immediately bought a bottle of wine) and there are a few things you can do to improve your profit margins. Decorating your shop will make it more appealing and you can purchase increasingly expensive marketing campaigns to drum up business. Your convenience store can be made quite convenient for you, too: one upgrade will re-stock your shelves with items you've placed in a chest, cutting down on some manual labor.

And yes, I eventually replaced everything in my shelves with blueberry seeds I'd generated from my own seed maker and lay in wait for Pierre. He eventually came in and bought a pack. He offered me 32, but I haggled him up to 35, then checked the wiki for what I already suspected: he sells them for 80 in his store. My revenge plot fizzled, sure, but it's still lots of fun to finally have my own store.

Games like Dungeon Keeper and Evil Genius cast you as the villain repelling heroes as they break on your defences like waves on the shore. Grove Keeper is different. You play a noble god of the forest protecting trees from old-timey woodcutters and hunters who have come to cut down Old Man Willow and shoot all the wildlife. Fortunately, you can build an army of mythical creatures including satyrs and half-naked giants who rend and stomp loggers with abandon. Maybe you are a bit villain-adjacent.

The demo I played at PAX Australia gave me a home tree and a single hut to protect, but let me grow more trees each night to produce the resources I needed to summon defenders. Willows are expensive and finicky about being planted near water, while the spruce don't give a damn where they grow, but produce less of the magic juice I need to cast spells and summon goblins and vodyanoy.

Once I'm done with a night's planting and summoning I press the button to begin the day, and waves of humans with axes and bows start marching in. As well as just selecting a blob of monsters and right-clicking on them, I have access to a handful of spells. Meteors crush enemies, runes heal my guys, and kelpies come out of the water to demolish units crossing the river, or would if I remembered to use them more than once.

At the end of each day, as the final human falls, Grove Keeper zooms in from a godlike birdseye view to give you an up-close shot of some poor sucker being gored by a satyr or kicked into the sky by a giant. They ragdoll deliciously, and land on their heads often enough to make me cackle like an idiot. Grove Keeper may be a tactical game of population-limit balancing and resource management, but it understands the reason we like Skyrim's giants is because they can launch you into orbit.

At the end of each day I was offered a couple of options for a power-up. Did I want to boost the population limit, or increase my damage? Gain some free magic points, or increase production? It's just enough strategic decision-making to make you think, even if it is largely a game of clicking your blobs on the enemy and watching those damn humans get what they deserve. The jerks.

Grove Keeper is currently in development at indie studio Steep Summit, and you can check it out on Steam.

Two years after the release of Cities: Skylines 2, and more than a year after it was originally supposed to arrive, the big Bridges and Ports expansion is finally almost here. Paradox and Colossal Order announced today that the big, twice-delayed DLC will finally go live on October 29.

Bridges and Ports was originally expected to launch in mid-2024, a few months after the release of the Beach Properties asset pack earlier that year. But Beach Properties was such a mess that Paradox eventually apologized for the whole thing and just gave it to everyone for free, and ultimately delayed the expansion into the second quarter of 2025 so it could focus on the main game, which was also a mess. Then it delayed Bridges and Ports again, to near the end of 2025, because everything was a mess.

But apparently now that's all been sorted, at least enough that the expansion can be unleashed on the public. The Bridges and Ports expansion will add 20 new drawbridges and lift bridges, customizable ports, a new Ferry Transport System, "expanded maritime industries"—fishing, offshore oil rigs, that sort of thing—and three new maps, more than 100 assets, and new achievements.

Paradox and Colossal Order really need to get this one right. After two years of work, Cities: Skylines 2 remains mired in a "mixed" rating on Steam, with just over half of the user reviews, both recent and overall, coming in positive. Concurrent player numbers also continue to lag behind those of the 10-year-old Cities Skylines.

It's a state of affairs reflected in the reaction to the Bridges and Ports release date announcement on Steam, which at this point is dominated by complaints about the game. The absolute last thing Cities: Skylines 2 needs right now is yet another whiff—even something that's just kind of half-assed will be very bad news, I think.

We'll see how it goes in a couple weeks. Cities: Skylines 2 – Bridges and Ports is set to roll out on October 29 and will go for $20/£17/€20. Also coming that day is the Cold Wave Channel radio station, "with minimalist beats and icy vibes," which you can pick up bundled with Bridges and Ports for $22.49/£18.89/€22.49, or separately for $5/£4.49/€5 if you want the chill tracks without all the added infrastructure.

The Sims 4 Adventure Awaits expansion takes the hassle out of micromanaging households by introducing its new Getaway system, which adds custom venues, daily schedules, and roles tailored to each Sim. It makes it easy to set 'em and forget 'em, and just like brainstorming small business ideas in Businesses & Hobbies, so much of the fun here stems from getting creative with your Sims 4 custom venue ideas.

Think of getaways as an extra layer of customization that merges travel and generic lots, but instead of trusting your sims to roam free, you can give them a to-do list that they'll (usually) follow. Your sims can fill roles you design and specify, or the game can supplement gaps with random assignments.

I like using it to send child sims off to camp for a weekend while knowing they'll come home better for it, or for keeping bigger households busy and on-task so I can focus elsewhere. If you're struggling with the who, what, when, and where details, I've got a list of Sims 4 custom venue ideas to help plan your next getaway.

Private music academy custom venue

My first, more adventurous custom venue started as a boarding school, but I decided to try something a little more personal, so I made a little cottage where a music legend taught young prodigies. A little bougie, I know, but getting creative with the roles was a blast. I made the teacher a stern older woman and music snob who spent most of the day critiquing her students, but at night, she always sat down with them for a warm heart-to-heart and home-cooked meal.

Typically I ran this setup with just three students and their mentor, but later added an assistant to help with meals and cleaning. It was a fun venue to watch the day-to-day events unfold at, or I could leave my child sims there and trust they would return with new talents.

Roles: Mentor (x1), Assistant (x1), Student (x3)

Haunted forest custom venue

I have a witchy sisterhood of spellcasters and vampires, so I wanted to create a haunted forest uniquely tailored to occult sims. The objects from the Life & Death expansions are some of my favorites, so I incorporated a ton into my design for a dark, wooded area with a small cabin and crypt.

You'll need The Sims 4 Vampires and Realm of Magic game packs to make occult sims, along with Paranormal stuff if you want to hold seances. I suppose you could remove those requirements if you're just creating something spooky to explore with regular households, but that's a lot to replace from the activity schedule if that's the direction you choose.

Roles: Head Witch (x1), Chaotic Witch (x1), Witch (x7)

Music festival custom venue

When I first got into Sims 4 mods, I downloaded a concert venue to try recreating some of my favorite bands. I remember being heartbroken that it wouldn't work, but I've finally made up for it years later by making my own music festival as a Sims 4 custom venue—complete with a stage, outdoor bar, overnight camping space, and even rows of food stands.

The vendors mostly came from City Living and I added a ton of camping goodies from the Outdoor Retreat pack to set up tents and outdoor restrooms. I also used all twenty role slots just to keep the festival looking busy, though it does get a little chaotic. You can make the band a solo act if you want more attendees, and make sure you include festival staff to keep the place running.

Roles: Singer Songwriter (x2), Venue Staff (x1), Bartender (x1), Food Vendor (x2), Roadie (x2), Super Fan (x2), Attendee (x8)

Pet training custom venue

In a true act of simulating my fantasy life, I created a reality where my pets are well-behaved angels that listen to everything I say—or at least one where it's easier to teach them. Instead of the typical board-and-train facilities I see in real life, I created a Sims 4 custom venue where dog owners can visit with their pups for days to work on shared skills. After all, what good is dog training if the owner doesn't learn with them?

You can send pets along for getaways, so I created a few roles for trainers and groundskeepers, then left the rest for pet parents and their dogs. It's cute screenshot city, and an excuse to make not only a dog park, but a whole pup-themed experience. I wouldn't dream of telling my cat what to do, but I'm sure you could make something like a cat show work.

Roles: Trainer (x2), Vet (x1), Groundskeeper (x1), Pet Owners (x5), Pets (x5)

Family reunion custom venue

It's basic compared to the rest, but planning and designing a custom venue for a family reunion getaway was easily my favorite of the bunch. I set it up to run out of a fancy Victorian home with a chef and housekeepers, making sure there was ample room for gatherings in the dining room and private gardens, and then designed a schedule for maximum emotional chaos.

I scheduled time for stirring up disagreements at the dinner table, sitting through unnecessary family criticism, and causing general mischief. My first schedule damaged a few too many relationships though, so I toned it down in the evenings and made time for family bonding and drinks.

After using this for a regular family get-together, I think I'll plan more of these around specific holidays. It's a nice way to avoid remodeling homes when I get the seasonal Christmas or Halloween bug, and orchestrating a week of feuding with extended relatives is more entertaining than I'd like to admit.

Roles: Chef (x1), Housekeeper (x2), Immediate Family (x4), Extended Family (x6)

Space Camp custom venue

Camp Gibi Gibi is cute and all, but I've got a permanent chip on my shoulder from seeing Space Camp advertisements as a kid and never going. I made my own space-themed learning center to compensate, complete with ridiculous spaceship walls from the Get Famous expansion. Those props are so large that I had to use Sims 4 cheats to clip them through walls and save space.

Anyway, that's not something you absolutely need, but I found the Get Famous props helpful for setting the tone. I also added things like the Retro Rocketship for a camp leader to use, a little cluster of telescopes with an observatory, and a cosmic-themed crafting project from the Parenthood pack

Roles: Camp Leader (x1), Camp Mentor (x3), Camp Cook (x1), Campers (x8)