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

[JEMC]

Monday news, part two:

Fortnite's Infinity Blade has been Vaulted
https://www.pcgamer.com/fortnites-infinity-blade-is-getting-nerfed/
Fortnite’s Infinity Blade is a mythic weapon that was introduced this season, and it’s been causing chaos.
Update: The Infinity Blade has been vaulted, and Epic released the following statement explaining why, and what to expect in its future approach to mythical items.

Free Dishonored 2 DLC makes the world black and white
https://www.pcgamer.com/free-dishonored-2-dlc-makes-the-world-black-and-white/
I am just on the cusp of diving into Dishonored: Death of the Outsider, so the arrival of a couple of free modes is rather timely. For the price of making a Bethesda.net account, you can get your hands on the new Black and White mode and Mission+ mode, along with the original pre-order bonus for Dishonored 2: the Imperial Assassin’s Pack. They’re available for both Dishonored 2 and Death of the Outsider.

Game Workers Unite UK becomes the country's first games industry union
https://www.pcgamer.com/game-workers-unite-uk-becomes-the-countrys-first-games-industry-union/
The Independent Workers Union of Great Britain has become the first trade union to represent members of the games industry. The UK chapter of Game Workers Unite, the international pro-union activist group, has joined the IWGB as its games industry branch and will hold its first meeting this weekend.

Stellaris director is moving on to a new 'secret project' at Paradox
https://www.pcgamer.com/stellaris-director-is-moving-on-to-a-new-secret-project-at-paradox/
The Stellaris: Megacorp expansion came out a week ago and Fraser seemed to like it quite a bit, if you can call being appalled by the bottomless depths of your own rapacious corporate excesses "liking it," and I guess he does. Anyway, it turns out that it will be game director Martin Anward's last bit of work on the game, as he announced yesterday that he's moving on to something else.

Heroes of the Storm director says 'all is not lost,' despite development cutbacks
https://www.pcgamer.com/blizzard-moving-developers-away-from-heroes-of-the-storm-cancels-hots-esports/
Blizzard is moving developers away from Heroes of the Storm, and is cancelling the game's official esports structures going forward. The announcement was made in a blog post today from new Blizzard president J. Allen Brack and chief development officer Ray Gresko.

Activision forced Al Lowe to cancel his Leisure Suit Larry source code auctions
https://www.pcgamer.com/activision-forced-al-lowe-to-cancel-his-leisure-suit-larry-source-code-auctions/
Leisure Suit Larry creator Al Lowe put a number of interesting artifacts from his Sierra days up for auction a couple of weeks ago, including the source code for the original Leisure Suit Larry on 5.25" diskettes. Bidding quickly skyrocketed, but shortly after the auction went live it was canceled, as did a separate auction for the LSL2 code.

Stardew Valley creator puts his new game on hold to make more Stardew Valley
https://www.pcgamer.com/stardew-valley-creator-puts-his-new-game-on-hold-to-make-more-stardew-valley/
Stardew Valley creator Eric "ConcernedApe" Barone announced earlier this month that he was parting ways with publisher Chucklefish and going it alone as a self-published indie. But it turns out that he's not really "going it alone" in the strictest sense at all. In fact, he's putting a team together to help him continue to work on Stardew Valley.

Treyarch explains why Black Ops 4 updates on PC take longer than consoles
https://www.pcgamer.com/treyarch-explains-why-black-ops-4-updates-on-pc-take-longer-than-consoles/
"Because we’ve made PC a priority this year with a dedicated studio team and more support for PC-exclusive options and features than ever before, we’re committed to taking the time to make sure each update is thoroughly tuned and tested before we release each update on PC," Treyarch explained. "This will typically require a later release time for PC compared to its console counterparts, and we’ll always target a release window of within 24 hours of a console patch."

Black Ops 4's Blackout mode getting camos and custom games next week
https://www.pcgamer.com/custom-games-coming-to-black-ops-4s-battle-royale-mode-next-week/
Custom games and weapon camos will arrive in Call of Duty: Black Ops 4's battle royale mode next week, Treyarch has announced.
You'll be able to launch a private Blackout match for you and your friends, competing in solo, duos or squads. To begin with the maximum player count will be 12, but that will increase over time, the developer said in a Reddit post.

Pillars of Eternity 2's final DLC is a dungeon on the flesh of a god, out now
https://www.pcgamer.com/pillars-of-eternity-2s-final-dlc-is-a-dungeon-on-the-flesh-of-a-god-out-now/
Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire's final DLC, called Forgotten Sanctum, is an expansive dungeon set on the flesh of a sleeping god, and it's out now alongside a big, free update that adds 11 new subclasses to the RPG.

WW1 shooter Verdun gets new map, mode and weapons in free update
https://www.pcgamer.com/ww1-shooter-verdun-gets-new-map-mode-and-weapons-in-free-update/
WW1 shooter Verdun has added a 64-player mode, a new map, new weapons, and a new squad of soldiers to control in its latest free update.
The new squad are the Tirailleurs Sénégalese, troops recruited to fight for France from French West Africa. They carry Mle 1907 rifles, OF1 and petard grenades, and machetes.

Capybara's dark, violent roguelike Below is out now
https://www.pcgamer.com/capybaras-dark-violent-roguelike-below-is-out-now/
Capybara's Zelda-inspired roguelike Below, which Lauren spent some time with earlier this year, is out now after five years of development.
It looks beautiful: I particularly like the way your tiny hero's lantern lights up the cavernous depths of its procedurally-generated labyrinths in the launch trailer, above. You'll delve into a giant underworld full of interconnected passageways, fighting enemies and exploring hidden areas, and when you die (which you'll do a lot) you'll be booted back to the start to do it all over again.

Battlefield 5 will add more 'core' playlists with old TTK values next week
https://www.pcgamer.com/battlefield-5-will-add-more-core-playlists-with-old-ttk-values-next-week/
DICE's recent changes to Time to Kill [TTK] and Time to Death [TTD] in Battlefield 5, which were designed to make the shooter more enjoyable for new players, have been a "big talking point and caused a divide in the community", according to the developer. Lots of players preferred the old values, so DICE will add "Core" versions of every playlist, complete with the original TTK and TTD values, next week, it has announced.

Dungeon-crawling deck builder Book of Demons leaves Early Access
https://www.pcgamer.com/dungeon-crawling-deck-builder-book-of-demons-leaves-early-access/
Book of Demons has attracted lots of praise for its mix of deck building and hack-and-slashing during two years in Early Access. A whopping 93% of its 2,400 user reviews are positive—and this week developer Thing Trunk released the full 1.0 version, complete with a new set of magic cards to play with.

Fallout and Wasteland-inspired RPG Atom leaves Early Access next week
https://www.pcgamer.com/fallout-and-wasteland-inspired-rpg-atom-leaves-early-access-next-week/
Post-apocalyptic RPG Atom, an indie game inspired by Fallout, Baldur's Gate and Wasteland, will leave Early Access next week, developer AtomTeam has announced.

Invisible washing machines and squirrel timers: developers reveal their weirdest game dev tricks
https://www.pcgamer.com/invisible-washing-machines-and-squirrel-timers-developers-reveal-their-weirdest-game-dev-workarounds/
Sometimes, a game's development will go largely as planned—but sometimes, you have no choice but to build game logic around invisible washing machines in the sky, apparently. That's just one of the stories to come out of a call for the "most embarrassing game dev crimes" from Steve Gaynor, co-founder of Gone Home developer The Fullbright Company, on Twitter.

Platinum's PS4 RPG Granblue Fantasy Relink might end up on PC
https://www.pcgamer.com/platinums-ps4-rpg-granblue-fantasy-relink-could-well-end-up-on-pc/
Bayonetta and Nier: Automata developer Platinum Games may bring its upcoming action RPG Granblue Fantasy Relink to Steam, publisher Cygames has announced.

Fallout 76's lunch boxes sure sound like the loot boxes it was never going to have
https://www.pcgamer.com/fallout-76s-lunch-boxes-sure-sound-like-the-loot-boxes-it-was-never-going-to-have/
Lunch boxes are innocuous things—what could possibly be menacing about a box designed to keep sandwiches nice and safe? Games always find a way. In Fallout Shelter, players can unlock or purchase lunch boxes containing a random assortment of sometimes game-changing bonuses and items. They’re loot boxes with a cute name, essentially. Now it looks like they’re coming to Fallout 76 in some form.

A World of Warcraft potion makes cross-faction chat possible
https://www.pcgamer.com/a-world-of-warcraft-potion-makes-cross-faction-chat-possible/
Are you a night elf curious about what orcs chat about? Maybe you’re a tauren who’d love to hear some dwarven poetry. Good news, xenophiles! A recent World of Warcraft hotfix introduced a potion that lets you understand members of the opposing faction, hopefully showing us that we’re all really quite similar, so we should put down our giant axes and massive shoulder pads and give Sylvanas a timeout.

War Thunder goes faster with its massive Supersonic update
https://www.pcgamer.com/war-thunder-goes-faster-with-its-massive-supersonic-update/
War Thunder has introduced its first supersonic jet, letting pilots hurtle through the skies until they throw up their breakfast. It’s part of the MMO’s largest expansion of the year, Supersonic, which chucks 50 new vehicles into the eternal war, including ground and naval vehicles. Check out the trailer above.