Carzy Zarx’s PC Gaming Emporium - Catch Up on All the Latest PC Gaming Related News

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Monday news, part two:

Lair of the Clockwork God mixes platforming with a point-and-click adventure in February
https://www.pcgamer.com/lair-of-the-clockwork-god-mixes-platforming-with-a-point-and-click-adventure-in-february/
Size Five Games' Lair of the Clockwork God, the long-awaited follow up to indie point-and-clicks Ben There, Dan that and Time Gentlemen, Please!, has finally got a launch date: February 21, 2020.

Taipei Game Show postponed over coronavirus emergency
https://www.pcgamer.com/taipei-game-show-postponed-over-coronavirus-emergency/
The 2020 Taipei Game Show, scheduled to take place February 6-9 (and also where we were expecting to finally get a look at From Software's upcoming Elden Ring) has been postponed until the summer due to the ongoing outbreak of the Wuhan coronavirus.

80 Days studio Inkle reveals more about its next game: 'Camelot has fallen'
https://www.pcgamer.com/80-days-studio-inkle-reveals-more-about-its-next-game-camelot-has-fallen/
Earlier this month, 80 Days and Heaven's Vault studio Inkle teased its next project with a tweeted list of seven words: Swords, Anguish, Britain, Unrequited, Forests, Hope, and Revenge. I immediately suggested that it sounded like something Arthurian was in the works, as the list seemed like a good fit for both the legend of the Round Table and Inkle's particular style of illustrated storytelling.

Black Book trailer reveals a shadowy world of Slavic myths and card-based combat
https://www.pcgamer.com/black-book-trailer-reveals-a-shadowy-world-of-slavic-myths-and-card-based-combat/
Black Book is a card-based adventure-RPG about a young girl named Vasilisa, who is destined to become a witch. That sounds like a fairly straightforward setup for a tale of excitement and adventure, but Black Book is also set in the rural Russian countryside, and based on Slavic myths and folktales, and so things very quickly get darker than you might expect.

Fallout 76 Wastelanders reputation system has seven levels of trust
https://www.pcgamer.com/fallout-76-wastelanders-reputation-system-has-seven-levels-of-trust/
Bethesda has revealed some more information about the new reputation system headed to Fallout 76 when the Wastelanders expansion arrives (though we still don't know exactly when that will be). The reputation system, as outlined, doesn't feel particularly groundbreaking, but the idea of factions being introduced to Fallout 76 that aren't just robots and monsters you shoot on sight is, frankly, quite welcome at this point.

BB-8 and its evil, droid-ball twin brother are coming to Star Wars Battlefront 2
https://www.pcgamer.com/bb-8-and-its-evil-droid-ball-twin-brother-are-coming-to-star-wars-battlefront-2/
In December, Electronic Arts said that the Weeble-esque droid BB-8 and his bad-guy counterpart would, for some reason, be coming to Star Wars Battlefront 2 as a playable character. In a Community Transmission update posted today, the developers revealed more about what players can look forward to from their arrival (after a slight delay), and also that the game will be returning to the original trilogy in February with the Age of Rebellion.

Legends of Runeterra already has several card expansions 'nearly done'
https://www.pcgamer.com/legends-of-runeterra-already-has-several-card-expansions-nearly-done/
Legends of Runeterra only launched in open beta last week, but Riot Games is already working on a roadmap that will lead them to 2022, according to executive producer Jeff Jew. In our big interview, which you can read here, Jew talks a great deal about Riot's plans for the future, including new sets of cards and ways to play them.

Gorgeous sci-fi roguelike shooter Beacon has got some fresh new updates
https://www.pcgamer.com/gorgeous-sci-fi-roguelike-shooter-beacon-has-got-some-fresh-new-updates/
Crash-landed on an alien world lately? No? Well, that’s convenient, because Beacon has gotten a lot of new guns and weird body parts recently. Beacon is a gorgeous sci-fi shooter with a stylish aesthetic that can’t be beat. In the last week Beacon got its big 2.5 “Pathfinder” update, bringing the game to its Early Access content close in preparation for launch later this year. With this update, Beacon now has 100 weapons and I can assure you that they are all extremely fun and good except for the flare gun. I get killed every time I pick it up so I can only assume it is the flare gun's fault and not mine. The Pathfinder update also overhauled the game's pickup items, adding neat new passive pickups if you’re bad and forget to use the active ones. (Like me.)

Coffee Talk is a wholesome game about a barista for orcs and elves
https://www.pcgamer.com/coffee-talk-is-a-wholesome-game-about-a-barista-for-orcs-and-elves/
Sometimes you want a game that's a warm bath, something that just washes over you and tells a simple story of an elf and a succubus who are very much in love. Or like a warm drink. Or both at the same time. So, here's Coffee Talk, a "coffee brewing and heart-to-heart talking simulator" where you serve as barista and also therapist to the needy people of a fantasy Seattle. That is to say, your customers are Orcs and Elves and Succubi and Mermaids, among other things. They come in, they ask for a coffee, you listen to some lo-fi, jazzy beats, you give out some advice. There's also a free demo on offer.

Dota Underlords gets a scrappy little monster and a release date
https://www.pcgamer.com/dota-underlords-gets-a-scrappy-little-monster-and-a-release-date/
Dota Underlords is set to release from Early Access on February 25, alongside its first battle pass, per an announcement from Valve. The update also adds the game's fourth Underlord, Enno, the agility counterpart to the three others. The Underlords team is now going to go dark until release, polishing and finishing its launch features. Speaking of launch features, we’ve got a whole one on Underlords that I wrote for you. I spoke with designers Adrian Finol, Brad Muir, and Lawrence Yang about what it's like to work at Valve, the development of the game, and how they learned to stop worrying and defeat Valve time.

Mike Laidlaw, creative director of the Dragon Age sequels, leaves Ubisoft
https://www.pcgamer.com/mike-laidlaw-creative-director-of-the-dragon-age-sequels-leaves-ubisoft/
In December 2018 Mike Laidlaw announced that he'd joined Ubisoft Quebec, the studio behind Assassin's Creed Odyssey and For Honor, currently working on the light-hearted open world game Gods and Monsters. Now, just over a year later, he's leaving, wishing them "all the best of luck with future ventures including the upcoming Gods and Monsters."

Anime action MMO Blue Protocol may get an English-language release
https://www.pcgamer.com/anime-action-mmo-blue-protocol-may-get-an-english-localization/
Bandai Namco has made a job listing that hints at a possible English release for action MMO Blue Protocol. The job posting, for an English language localization manager, likely means that Bandai Namco is planning on a release in the US, UK, and Australia. While there's no guarantee that this is the case, the job posting does ask for someone proficient in English to localize, including cultural changes, the UI, text, and cutscene voices. We've reached out to Bandai Namco for comment and will update if we get a response. (The job posting, here, is entirely in Japanese.)

Lead mutants across a dark fantasy wasteland in tactics RPG Urtuk: The Desolation
https://www.pcgamer.com/lead-mutants-across-a-dark-fantasy-wasteland-in-tactics-rpg-urtuk-the-desolation/
Urtuk: The Desolation has a solid intro: After being experimented on for ages, you break out of an evil underground laboratory and into the light of day. You then have to figure out what was done to you before it gets worse—or even kills you. It’s a tactical RPG with a grim art style, something like a cross between Battle Brothers and Darkest Dungeon. As you play through the game, expanding your party and defeating enemies, you uncover more of the story of the title character. It has some cool twists.

Thousands of old Flash games have been saved from obsolescence
https://www.pcgamer.com/thousands-of-old-flash-games-have-been-saved-from-obsolescence/
We've known since 2017 that Adobe intends to kill off Flash at the end of 2020. Few will likely miss it, but the announcement didn't bode well for the countless Flash games that proliferated online throughout the 2000s. Others have already acknowledged and moved to preserve this facet of gaming history, but there's now a new launcher that emulates over 36,000 ye olde games - all free and individually downloadable.

Warcraft 3 Reforged has the lowest user score for a game on Metacritic
https://www.pcgamer.com/warcraft-3-reforged-has-the-lowest-user-score-for-a-game-on-metacritic/
Warcraft 3 Reforged has the lowest user score of any game on Metacritic, currently sitting on a 0.5. While this dubious record was previously held by Day One: Garry's Incident, a number of drive-by 10 out of 10s have pushed it up into second place, inflating its user score from 0.4 to 0.7. For comparison's sake, even Metal Gear Survive has a user rating of 1.2.

Camelot Unchained developer announces a second online game before finishing the first
https://www.pcgamer.com/camelot-unchained-developer-announces-a-second-online-game-before-finishing-the-first/
Camelot Unchained, an MMO from the lead designer of Dark Age of Camelot, had a successful Kickstarter campaign back in 2013, but it looks no closer to launching than it did six years ago. The first beta, initially planned for 2015, didn't appear until 2018 and there's still no word on a release date. In the meantime, City State Entertainment has been working on a second game, Colossus, due out by the end of the year. Oh dear.

PlatinumGames is teasing something on a new site
https://www.pcgamer.com/platinumgames-is-teasing-something-on-a-new-site/
Nier Automata developer PlatinumGames seems to be poised to announce something today. This morning, the Platinum Twitter account posted a link to a new site with the hashtag Platinum4. The mystery number is all we've got to go on, so far.
>> You can join Leynos' thread and make your prediction as to what this is for.