PC Gamer

Audio player loading… Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodhunt (opens in new tab) is a very solid battle royale: I enjoyed it more than I expected to when I horsed around with it in the early days of its Early Access release, and more recently Morgan said he’s “really impressed with how well developer Sharkmob has nailed the basics” in the full release. But it hasn’t been entirely without problems, and today Sharkmob announced that ranked play will be paused until the launch of the next update. “After careful evaluation, we have decided to pause Ranked mode temporarily until the new…

Audio player loading… A real-life Witcher school in Poland has had its license pulled by CD Projekt Red—a move that the organisation’s co-founders claim is related to a former staff member’s employment by the ultra-conservative organisation Ordo Iuris. 5 Żywiołów (5 Elements) launched its Witcher school LARP in 2015, conducting 40 events over seven years with around 3,000 participants. But in February, co-founders Dominik and Dastin Wawrzyniak announced in a lengthy Facebook post (opens in new tab) that CDPR had revoked the Witcher license (thanks, Eurogamer). The two claim that the reason is due to Dastin’s wife, Ania Wawrzyniak, and…

Audio player loading… There’s something big coming to No Man’s Sky. Quite big. Space whales? Yes, space whales. A new No Man’s Sky expedition has added an alien leviathan colloquially referred to as a space whale, which some eagle-eyed players have already predicted due to Hello Games founder Sean Murray Tweeting a whale emoji a few days ago. But these aren’t the type of space whales that paddle around in space oceans. They float through the sky like blimps and soar through outer space like starships. You can catch a glimpse of a few in the trailer above and the…

Audio player loading… With same-sex relationships a possibility since the first game in the series back in 2000, The Sims spearheaded queer representation in gaming. It’s not always been perfect, with same-sex couples restricted to “joined unions” rather than marriages in The Sims 2 for instance, but it’s been there. One area where it was still lacking in terms of representation is gender, with default pronouns applied based on players’ chosen body type. That’s changed as of an update (opens in new tab) adding customizable pronouns to The Sims 4. With this update, a brand new or existing Sim can…

This June, the games industry will stand in the big hole where E3 used to be and start firing off game announcements like nobody’s business. According to the “E3” Summer Games Fest calendar (opens in new tab) so far, most livestreams will be happening over the course of a single weekend: June 9-12. While it’s still not clear if some of the biggest publishers will have anything to show this year, Microsoft is coming out swinging with the Xbox & Bethesda Showcase. As you’ve probably noticed, Microsoft has been on a spending streak lately. Earlier this year it began the…

Audio player loading… While Warhammer 40,000: Chaos Gate – Daemonhunters certainly seems to have given players the XCOM-but-with-space-marines experience they were looking for, those players have been critical of its performance, even on quite high-end rigs. They’ve also complained about how long your Grey Knight marines can stay wounded for. An unlucky start can lead to a death spiral as you’re forced to send suboptimal squads on missions, who then get wounded themselves and join the lengthening infirmary queue. Daemonhunters’ latest patch, Update V (opens in new tab), should alleviate some of those issues. It includes an optimization pass on…

Audio player loading… It’s that time of year again: Farming Simulator esports time. I wrote about the Farming Simulator League finals last year, just in case anyone wasn’t aware there was an actual esport where players competitively harvest wheat and transport bales at breakneck speeds in the hopes of winning a €100,000 prize pool. And once again I’m asking you to watch FSL because, genuinely, it’s a lot of fun! Season 4 of Farming Simulator League kicked off last week as teams jockey to become the fastest virtual farmers and make it to the finals. Here are some recent highlights:…

Audio player loading… Season of the Haunted goes live in Destiny 2 in just under an hour, and thanks to a leak from the Japanese arm of Bungie’s new paymasters at Sony, we now know quite a bit about it. What had been missing from the splurge last night, though, was details of the rework to the Solar subclasses. That’s now here in the form of a developer insight video in which Bungie’s designers showcase some of the fiery new abilities the guardians will be wielding.  Internally, the work on Solar 3.0 was dubbed ‘Operation Caliente’, because the goal was…

My first workplace accident was a doozy. I’d cut my teeth on enough Mackerel-class ships to know ’em like the back of my hand, stripping them bare in seconds. But confidence breeds overconfidence, and in forgetting to decompress the engine room before removing the thruster, I took a 360kg thruster cap to the forehead at 50mph. Flattened my skull like a pancake. Shipbreaking’s good, honest work—but it pays to remember that in space, nobody can hear workplace safety violations. Two years ago, Blackbird Interactive (developer of Homeworld Remastered Collection and Deserts of Kharak) took a step away from warring empires…

SteelSeries’ Arctis Nova Pro wireless gaming headset comes in with an entirely new design, a far cry from previous Arctis models. That’s not just in terms of audio and quality of life features, but also style and overall craftsmanship. The Nova nomenclature comes from the Latin novus, meaning new. Appropriate for a gaming headset that manages to branch out into somewhat uncharted territory, though you’ll be paying a premium for the privilege of gaming at the cutting edge. Think in the region of $350 (£330).  In order to make that price worth it, SteelSeries’ plan is to make the Arctis…

Have you been searching around online for the Wordle May 24 (339) answer? It was warm and SUNNY (repeat letter, not great) this morning, the BIRDS (that’s better) hopping over the STONEs (useful) and GRASS (less so) as my mind failed to appreciate the visual Wordle clues just outside my window. I suppose today’s personal lesson is two-fold: One, look around for helpful suggestions. Two, realise a Wordle hint could be staring me in the face at any time. Perhaps you’ve had no such trouble today, and came by to browse our Wordle archive (opens in new tab) instead? Whatever…

Audio player loading… The keynote for Nvidia’s Computex presentation this year largely focused on AI and Cloud solutions, but there were still a few interesting announcements for gamers. One of these was a list of games soon to achieve the RTX On treatment. The first to newly join the RTX club is Hitman 3. By all reports that support has already been out for a few weeks, but it’s good to hear that it’s officially supported for both RTX and DLSS. That means some users who struggled to run the game on might have a better shot now, and those…

Audio player loading… Released in 2012, Dragon’s Dogma was a brilliant, rough around the edges RPG with some really interesting ideas. Chief among those was the Pawn system, which let you customize party companions and then share them online to be levelled up by other players, and vice versa. Oh, and you could climb enemies mid-combat, Shadow of the Colossus-style. Oh, and you could also pick people up and throw them off cliffs. A great game all round, and one hugely overdue for a sequel. The recent Netflix anime was proof enough that Capcom has plans for the series, but…

Audio player loading… “Jesus did not die on the cross, but came down and unleashed vengeance on all the nonbelievers,” begins I, The Inquisitor’s description on Steam. “1500 years later, an army of Inquisitors brutally enforce the faith.” Alright, I’m in. I, The Inquisitor is based on a dark fantasy, alternate history novel series by Jacek Piekara started in 2008. There don’t seem to be English translations of his works yet, but I trust developer The Dust S.A.’s assertion that they’re bestsellers in Poland—they really know their dark fantasy over there. What really excites me about I, The Inquisitor is…

Audio player loading… Update 5/23/2022: iFixit’s selection of Steam Deck replacement parts is now fully live alongside an overview of the device’s repairability. I was surprised at iFixit’s repair score of 7/10 for the deck, but the company cites some problem areas like the thumbsticks, which require some disassembly and desoldering if you don’t want to just buy an entirely new housing, as well as the battery, which lacks easy pull tabs and requires heat application and a pry tool to overcome its strong adhesive. Ultimately though, iFixit notes that the device is still way ahead of its competition in…

Looking for some starter tips in V Rising? The newly launched survival-crafter may not be the most fulfilling vampire game around, depending on whom you ask, but it’s still pretty fun to establish your spooky castle, and turn unwary humans into your undying thralls. The game is really well-tutorialized for an Early Access game, walking you through a series of steps that’ll show you how most things work. But when jumping into a new crafting game, it’s always useful to know what resources you should prioritise so you can establish a base and upgrade your equipment most efficiently. That’s certainly…

Destiny 2’s 17th season begins this week and we’ll find out even more lore about the Witch Queen. Bungie has kept quiet about the new season so there’s not a tonne of info out there—we don’t know what the season is called yet, either—but here’s everything we know about it so far.  Destiny 2 Season 17 start time Season 17 begins on May 24 at the weekly reset. As with all seasonal changes, there will be a few hours of downtime before you’ll be able to hop in and play. If you need a refresher, the reset time is 1 pm…

Have you been looking for the Wordle May 23 (338) answer? Sometimes I like to take a run-up to my daily Wordle, my fingers ready to unleash a barrage of educated guesses in the first half before stopping to carefully consider my remaining three goes. The change of speed can help me see a fresh angle—and if it doesn’t at least I’ve still got a few guesses left to sort it out.  Maybe you stopped by to take a look through our Wordle archive instead? No matter why you’re here, I know I can help. I’ve got a handy hint…

Audio player loading… Windows 11 preview updates have been bringing plenty of new features to test on the platform. Some are great like HDR sliders, and others not so much, like when it recently broke some Microsoft Store apps. But that’s what preview updates are for, allowing Microsoft to test out ideas to see what works and what doesn’t in front of a small batch of consumers. The current insider build holds one such feature, which many users are hoping doesn’t make it to the official release. According to The Register, Microsoft has kindly added a search box widget to…

Audio player loading… The Indie Live Expo, a two-day digital showcase for indie games broadcast in English, Japanese, and Chinese, just wrapped up. Over 400 games were shown, including some we’d seen before and some that were totally new. Among the new games was the latest from Team Ladybug, developer of Touhou Luna Nights and Record of Lodoss War: Deedlit in Wonder Labyrinth.  The metroidvania studio has branched out for their latest title, a sidescrolling shmup in the vein of R-Type, which was released on Steam as it was announced. Drainus—yes, it’s a terrible name—is both the game and the…