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

[JEMC]

Monday news, part two:

Vermintide 2 celebrates its first birthday with an in-game pub crawl
https://www.pcgamer.com/vermintide-2-anniversary-level-quiet-drink/
It’s Warhammer: Vermintide 2’s first birthday, and to mark the occasion, there’s a special Event Level that has the Ubersreik Five (or Four? Doesn’t matter) head out on the town on good, old fashioned bender.
The new Event Level, called A Quiet Drink, is available now in the Keep. It begins with our rat-smashing heroes on the prowl for some ale. There’s plenty of that scattered throughout the streets, but this being the End Times, there are also plenty of clanrats, zombies, and Chaos Warriors catching the evening air as well. As these things so often do, it culminates with an all-out tavern brawl at a charming little pub called the Obese Megalodon, followed by a mad dash out through some subterranean tunnels.

Phase 1 of Warframe’s melee overhaul has arrived
https://www.pcgamer.com/phase-1-of-warframes-melee-overhaul-has-arrived/
Being a space ninja just got cooler than it already was: Warframe has rolled out the first phase of its much-anticipated melee combat overhaul along with Operation: Buried Debts.
Buried Debts is Warframe’s first community event of the year, and it’s introducing the new chonky Hildryn warframe. She’s an interesting frame, using her shield pool rather than energy to perform her abilities while hefting a huge archwing firearm.

Subnautica: Below Zero update adds seatruck and cheeky monkeys
https://www.pcgamer.com/subnautica-below-zero-update-adds-seatruck-and-cheeky-monkeys/
The latest Early Access update for Subnautica's standalone expansion Below Zero is here. It's called the seatruck update because that's the main thing it adds: A new vehicle you can build by constructing a cab and then choosing modules to add to it. There's a storage container, a fabricator, and an aquarium that you can use to bring fish home or maybe take your pets out for an underwater road trip.

Path of Exile: Synthesis expansion is live
https://www.pcgamer.com/path-of-exile-synthesis-expansion-is-live/
Path of Exile: Synthesis adds a new Challenge League to the popular free action-RPG. Synthesis is all about exploring lost memories and its dungeons are made by players, assembled from fragments of the decaying memories of an NPC named Cavas. It's an intriguing high concept for a game that's often a bit generic in its theming.

Hitman 2's latest elusive target is a politician with a body double
https://www.pcgamer.com/hitman-2s-latest-elusive-target-is-a-politician-with-a-body-double/
From March 8 to March 18 an elusive target will be available in Hitman 2's Hawke's Bay level—that's the New Zealand beach house from the tutorial. Dame Barbra Elizabeth Keating is a corrupt politician who has dodged a scandal and is about to embark on a PR tour with a body double for safety. If you manage to complete the contract without killing the double, you'll get a higher rating. Which is nice.

Artifact designer Richard Garfield among those not working at Valve any more
https://www.pcgamer.com/richard-garfield-among-those-not-working-at-valve-any-more/
In February, Valve laid off 13 of its full-time employees and an unknown number of its contractors. "It’s an unfortunate part of business, but does not represent any major changes at the company," Valve said in a statement.
Artifact fan blog Artibuff reached out to Richard Garfield, who served as that game's designer under contract, to see if he was one of those terminated. Garfield replied, and explained that both members of the 3 Donkeys design team—himself and Skaff Elias, former vice president of Wizards of the Coast—were no longer under contract at Valve.

Dark Souls creator would 'love to' make a battle royale game
https://www.pcgamer.com/dark-souls-creator-would-love-to-make-a-battle-royale-game/
Hidetaka Miyazaki, the creator of Dark Souls and president of developer From Software, has said he would "love to take a crack at" making both a battle royale and a regularly-updated "live service" game, a la Destiny and Anthem.

Rainbow Six Siege's next operator will be invisible to cameras, leak suggests
https://www.pcgamer.com/rainbow-six-sieges-next-operator-will-be-invisible-to-cameras-leak-suggests/
The next season of Rainbow Six Siege will add two new operators: one Danish, one from the United States Secret Service. We don't know much about them yet but a new leak, from a seemingly reputable source, might have revealed some of their abilities.

Grim Dawn's Forgotten Gods expansion now has a release date
https://www.pcgamer.com/grim-dawns-forgotten-gods-expansion-gets-release-date/
Action-RPG Grim Dawn's long-awaited Forgotten Gods expansion—which will add a new story chapter, an endless game mode and hundreds of items—will be out on March 27, developer Crate Entertainment has revealed.

The Case of the Invisible Wizard is a forthcoming frog detective adventure
https://www.pcgamer.com/the-case-of-the-invisible-wizard-is-a-forthcoming-frog-detective-adventure/
The Haunted Island: A Frog Detective Adventure was a short and adorable experience that made our list of underrated games from 2018. It was all about talking to animal people and solving simple puzzles while chilling to piano tunes and generally having a nice time. Now its creator, indie dev Grace Bruxner, has announced a sequel. Frog Detective 2: The Case of the Invisible Wizard, will be out later this year.

Blade Symphony goes free-to-play, gets flooded with negative reviews
https://www.pcgamer.com/blade-symphony-goes-free-to-play-gets-flooded-with-negative-reviews/
Multiplayer swordfighting game Blade Symphony has gone free-to-play.
The move was announced in 2017 and follows the massive Harmonious Prelude update, which upgraded the game engine and added new modes on top of the standard 1v1 arena duels. Developer Puny Human said in a Steam post on Friday that the change was not a money grab, and that only four items would be for sale through an in-game store—all it wanted was to make the game "more accessible, and have a longer life", it said.

Improbable to open two game studios, one headed by former Bioware exec
https://www.pcgamer.com/improbable-to-open-two-game-studios-one-headed-by-former-bioware-exec/
Improbable, the creator of multiplayer-focused cloud platform SpatialOS, has opened two game studios to build its own online multiplayer games. One studio is based in London, UK and the other is in Edmonton, Canada.

Scum expands map with coal mine and 24 new islands
https://www.pcgamer.com/scum-patch-expands-map-with-coal-mine-and-24-new-islands/
The latest patch for open-world survival game Scum adds new areas to the world map, including an extensive underground coal mine and 24 islands off the coast of the main island.

Ashes of Creation MMO alpha delayed following battle royale test
https://www.pcgamer.com/ashes-of-creation-mmo-alpha-delayed-following-battle-royale-test/
The first alpha for ambitious MMO Ashes of Creation, which has plans for huge cities and a player-led government, has been delayed past this summer, developer Intrepid Studios has announced.

Nanotale is an RPG in which you kill enemies by typing, out later this year
https://www.pcgamer.com/nanotale-is-an-rpg-in-which-you-kill-enemies-by-typing-out-later-this-year/
The developers of typing game/RPG hybrid Epistory have announced that the sequel, called Nanotale, will be out on PC in the second half of this year.
You'll take control of a novice archivist called Rosalind, who's collecting plant samples and cataloging mysterious goings-on to try and saving a dying planet. Everything is controlled via your keyboard, and most of the puzzles and combat will require you to type words as fast as you can: each on-screen enemy has a word assigned to them, and you have to type it to deal damage, for example.

Vignettes is a beautiful shape-shifting puzzler out now on PC
https://www.pcgamer.com/vignettes-is-a-beautiful-shape-shifting-puzzler-out-now-on-pc/
Vignettes, one of my favorite mobile games, is now out on PC—and it's a "reworked" version of the original with "numerous improvements and previously unreleased content".

Fallout 76's first seasonal event will add spooky masks, burning effigies
https://www.pcgamer.com/fallout-76s-first-seasonal-event-will-add-spooky-masks-burning-effigies/
Beginning on March 19 and lasting for a week, Fallout 76 players will get to experience its first seasonal event. Called Fasnacht, it's a parade held in the town of Helvetia, and a repeatable quest associated with it will involve helping the town's robot shopkeepers set up for the march. Enemies will need to be cleared from the route, decorations chosen, and music played.

Over 355,000 Apex Legends cheaters have been banned
https://www.pcgamer.com/over-355000-apex-legends-cheaters-have-been-banned/
Over on the Apex Legends subreddit, Respawn have posted their latest "check-in". It notes a few things they're looking at, but the most interesting is that using Easy-Anti-Cheat has led to over 355,000 cheaters being banned on PC. "The service works but the fight against cheaters is an ongoing war that we’ll need to continue to adapt to and be very vigilant about fighting", they write. "We take cheating very seriously and care deeply about the health of Apex Legends for all players."

Apex Legends datamines uncover wall running, NPCs and flamethrowers
https://www.pcgamer.com/apex-legends-datamines-uncover-wall-running-npcs-and-flamethrowers/
Last week's Apex Legends update has been keeping the game's diligent dataminers extremely busy. The fruits of their recent labours are numerous, from the possible addition of wall running to more evidence of NPCs.

Fortnite dance lawsuits have been dropped, but only for now
https://www.pcgamer.com/fortnite-dance-lawsuits-have-been-dropped-but-only-for-now/
Several Fortnite lawsuits have been dropped, but seemingly only temporarily. The law firm representing 2 Milly, Backpack Kid and Orange Shirt Kid, among others, announced that their clients were dismissing their current lawsuits, but only so they can refile them.

Forward is an elegant, free roguelike where everything is cards
https://www.pcgamer.com/forward-is-an-elegant-free-roguelike-where-everything-is-cards/
This year's 7-Day Roguelike Challenge has just come to an end, meaning that 125 new, free roguelikes (and a few unfinished ones) have been suddenly dumped on our laps, like an unseasonal Christmas treat. I've had a nosey around on the submissions page, and I've already found a great freebie in Citron Curieux's Forward, which is a roguelike but where everything is made out of cards.