FlashFeed

Full text

In a rare reversal of live service demise, a beloved but "dead" live service FPS will not shut down, but instead receive custom server support that ensures it'll be playable forever. Long live Deceive Inc.

The story of Deceive Inc. played out like countless other live service games. The PvP Hitman-like shooter launched to good reviews, was beloved by a modest community (including yours truly ), and received substantial seasonal updates for over a year. Then in 2024, the updates suddenly ceased and its developer, Sweet Bandits, closed its doors.

"After a long and difficult road of trying to get Deceive Inc. in a state where it could thrive, we have reached the breaking point for the studio," Sweet Bandits wrote in a December 2024 Steam update .

At the time, Sweet Bandits said it was "exploring options" for maintaining the game long term, but noted that the path would be "charted by our partners at Tripwire Interactive." Servers remained online, but for how long was anybody's guess.

That was a year and a half ago, which is why I was surprised to find a fresh Deceive Inc. update on my Steam home page dated July 16.

"Although Sweet Bandits had to close their doors, we don't believe Deceive Inc. should quietly disappear because the services behind it aren’t sustainable forever," the unsigned post reads . "We're actively rebuilding Deceive Inc.’s backend to be sustainable indefinitely and support community-hosted dedicated servers.

Behold, a beautiful server browser. (Image credit: Sweet Bandits) "When this work is complete, you'll be able to host your own servers using a dedicated server application, browse community servers directly from within the game, and join community-hosted matches just as you do today."

Once upon a time, most multiplayer games were built with a flexible server infrastructure that made custom lobbies a natural fit, but today's standard practice of dedicated server stacks and integrated matchmaking means redoing a lot of backend work. The effort is extensive, but worth it.

"Replacing the backend for a live multiplayer game means rebuilding much of the technology that players never normally see. This touches nearly every part of how players find matches, join servers, manage progression, unlock content, and more," the post reads. "Our goal is that when everything is finished, all of your account progress, unlocks, and stats are maintained—even though much of what's happening behind the scenes has changed."

(Image credit: Sweet Bandits Studios) The post shares screenshots of the rudimentary custom server tools coming in the update, and also sets expectations accordingly. "Right now, our priority is completing this migration successfully. Because of that, we have very little room to incorporate extra feedback or requests while this work is underway."

The cherry on top? The new version of Deceive Inc. will also remove "as many technical barriers to modding as we reasonably can," which could open the door to long-term fan updates down the road.

It's a feel-good development for a brilliant game. Deceive Inc. was never going to rake in millions of players—it's too strange for the mainstream, yet too skillful and complex to qualify as "frienslop"—so this is the best case scenario.

"This work is ultimately about one thing: making sure the future of Deceive Inc. is in the hands of the community that continues to play it," the post concludes.

Full text

Archaeologists in Spain have discovered the remains of a 2,400-year-old bronze chariot that was used to honor the gods and may have had links to the ancient Etruscans, who lived in what is now Italy. ‪The discovery is "without known parallels" in Iberia, according to the research team.

The roughly 24-inch-long (60 centimeters) chariot was designed with a flat, table-like top that people would have used as a surface for burning incense as a divine offering, according to a translated statement .

The side of the chariot showcases a face sticking out its tongue. This face appears to be an unusual fusion of a gorgon , an ancient protective symbol associated with Medusa ; and Achelous , a powerful river god in Greek mythology who could turn into a bull, Guiomar Pulido González , an archaeologist at the Mérida Institute of Archaeology (part of the Spanish National Research Council) who was involved with the discovery, told Live Science.

Archaeologists unearthed part of the chariot, including two legs and two wheels, at an archaeological site called Casas del Turuñuelo (Spanish for "Houses of Turuñuelo") in Spain's Badajoz province, close to the border with Portugal. The two legs look like two people holding up the table part of the chariot.

A face on the chariot appears to be an unusual fusion of a gorgon and Achelous, a river god in Greek mythology who could turn into a bull. (Image credit: Construyendo Tarteso Project ) Both of the short sides of the chariot feature a mythical creature associated with safeguarding: a lion with wings and an eagle head, called a griffin . "All the figurative parts of the chariots point to protective divinities," Pulido explained, though "we are not sure what they are protecting ‪—‬ maybe the content of the chariot, or the viewers looking at them."

Archaeologists have previously discovered similar chariots made by the Etruscans , a pre-Roman people who lived in Italy from about 900 to 100 B.C. However, the newfound one is the first known chariot to feature a gorgon-Achelous face mashup, and the first of its kind to be found in the Iberian Peninsula, according to Pulido, who is also a doctoral student at the Autonomous University of Madrid studying ancient Mediterranean imports throughout the Iberian Peninsula.

Both of the short sides of the chariot feature a griffin, a mythical creature associated with safeguarding. (Image credit: Construyendo Tarteso Project ) Restorers working on the artifact noticed that the two people holding the chariot are wearing skirts, which would be unusual for an Etruscan chariot; typically, Etruscan-crafted bronze figures are naked, Pulido said. Despite this anomaly, the theory is that the chariot was made by the Etruscans and arrived in modern-day Spain via trade routes.

The chariot was found in a layer suggesting it was discarded around the end of the fifth century B.C., though the design of the gorgon-Achelou face's iconography indicates that it could have been made as early as the sixth century B.C.

The humanlike figures on the chariot are clothed, which is unusual because other Etruscan-crafted bronze figures are naked. (Image credit: Construyendo Tarteso Project) An enigmatic people

The archaeological site that yielded the bronze chariot is in an area known as the Middle Guadiana River Valley, which has 14 known sites left behind by an enigmatic people that completely disappeared from the archaeological record around 400 B.C., Pulido noted. They were probably local populations that were heavily influenced by or mixed with the Tartessians , a civilization that settled in the Iberian Peninsula around the eighth century B.C. and was known for its elaborate writing system .

Each of the 14 sites holds the remains of burnt buildings that were subsequently filled in with soil and fragmented objects, Pulido said. The recently discovered chariot had been intentionally broken — it has no other damage besides being halved — and included in the debris.

Construyendo Tarteso Project Construyendo Tarteso Project Related stories

Pristine Etruscan tomb discovered in Italy contains more than 100 untouched artifacts

2,500-year-old tomb of a 'warrior prince' with chariot and helmet discovered on Italy's Adriatic coast

'Nailed-head ritual' in Iron Age Spain was more 'complex than initially thought,' severed skulls reveal

The current leading theory regarding these ruins is that, for some unknown reason and around the same time, the inhabitants of these centers burned down their buildings, filled them in and then abandoned the sites. The burning and filling seem to have been too intentional for it to have happened in the context of an enemy attack, according to Pulido. "Instead, they may have formed part of a carefully planned ritual of closure, a symbolic farewell to buildings that were intentionally decommissioned," she said.

Then, this culture "disappeared from the archaeological record," Pulido said. But other evidence, including imported pottery from Greece and other Etruscan bronze objects, suggests that whoever these people were, they participated in the ancient trade networks stretching across the Mediterranean, with their elite having enough wealth to afford imported objects, she said.

See if you know what these mysterious artifacts are with our archaeological fragments quiz!