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

[JEMC]

Tuesday news, part two:

Battlefield 5 Firestorm map is 10 times larger than the game's biggest map
https://www.pcgamer.com/battlefield-5-firestorm-map-is-10-times-larger-than-the-games-biggest-map/
Battlefield 5's Firestorm battle royale mode, which was announced last week, takes place on the largest map in the series. Halvøy isn't just massive; it's a whopping ten times larger than Hamada, previously the largest map in Battlefield 5.

Fortnite's giant hamster ball has been temporarily removed
https://www.pcgamer.com/fortnites-giant-hamster-ball-has-been-temporarily-removed/
Fortnite's latest injection of whimsy, a giant hamster ball with a grappling gun, has been temporarily removed from the game. The Baller was disabled earlier today, with Epic saying that it was investigating a stability issue via Twitter. There's no word on when it will return.

Apex Legends Season 1 begins tomorrow, Battle Pass details revealed (Updated)
https://www.pcgamer.com/apex-legends-battle-pass-start-time-battle-pass-details/
Electronic Arts has confirmed that Apex Legends Season 1, Wild Frontier, will go live at 10 am PT/1 pm ET tomorrow, March 19, and has also (finally) dropped the details on the Season 1 Battle Pass.
>> And here's what you can get from that Battle Pass.

Octane is the newest Apex Legends character
https://www.pcgamer.com/apex-legends-octane-abilities/
Octane is officially the first new character to join the cast of Apex Legends. After much speculation, data mining, and mysterious jump pads, Respawn confirmed today that Octane will be added to Apex Legends with the Season 1 Battle Pass, which launches tomorrow.

Doom Eternal and more will be shown off at Bethesda's E3 conference
https://www.pcgamer.com/doom-eternal-and-more-will-be-shown-off-at-bethesdas-e3-conference/
Bethesda will be hosting its fifth E3 conference this year. The publisher's announcement comes when others are stepping back a bit from the gargantuan show. EA isn't doing a press conference this year, for instance, and Sony won't be on the floor at all.

The latest legendary from Hearthstone's Rise of Shadows expansion has a horrifying effect
https://www.pcgamer.com/the-latest-legendary-revealed-from-hearthstones-rise-of-shadows-expansion-has-a-horrifying-effect/
Next month's Rise of Shadow's expansion will see former Hearthstone villains teaming up to create the League of E.V.I.L., and Hagatha the Witch is among the founding members. The character, who was first introduced as the only Hero card in The Witchwood set, is returning in Rise of Shadows as a Legendary minion with a particularly spicy Battlecry effect.

Deus Ex art director joins Mordheim: City of the Damned studio for a new project
https://www.pcgamer.com/deus-ex-art-director-joins-mordheim-city-of-the-damned-studio-for-a-new-project/
Jonathan-Jacques Belletête brought a very distinct visual style to Deus Ex: Human Revolution and Mankind Divided as the art director at developer Eidos Montreal. He won't be around for the final game in the trilogy (which I continue to resolutely believe it will be) however, because he is now working as creative director on a brand new project at Mordheim: City of the Damned studio Rogue Factor.

Portal writer and Riot Games senior designer launch a new studio focused on co-op games
https://www.pcgamer.com/portal-writer-and-riot-games-senior-designer-launch-a-new-studio-focused-on-co-op-games/
Portal and Left 4 Dead writer Chet Faliszek and Riot Games senior technical designer Kimberly Voll have launched a new studio called Stray Bombay Company that will focus on the development of AI-driven "collaborative gaming experiences."

Battle royale game The Culling: Origins is closing in May
https://www.pcgamer.com/battle-royale-game-the-culling-origins-is-closing-in-may/
The Culling: Origins, the free-to-play do-over of The Culling that went live in September 2018, will be closed in May. Developer Xaviant said in a farewell message that it had hoped in-app purchased would generate enough revenue to support the battle royale game, but it hasn't worked out.

Halo: The Master Chief Collection for PC probably won't support Xbox Play Anywhere
https://www.pcgamer.com/halo-the-master-chief-collection-for-pc-probably-wont-support-xbox-play-anywhere/
Since it was confirmed for PC last week, many have wondered whether Halo: The Master Chief Collection will support Xbox Play Anywhere, which effectively grants owners of a Microsoft-published Xbox One game a free copy on PC. That initiative was first announced in 2016, and the company has supported all first-party Microsoft games since. But unfortunately, it doesn't look like the forthcoming Halo port won't be among them.

If you finish Getting Over It, a very awesome ending awaits
https://www.pcgamer.com/if-you-finish-getting-over-it-a-very-awesome-ending-awaits/
Getting Over It By Bennett Foddy is an infuriating game. As a man stuck in a cauldron, one must reach the apex of a bizarre mountain strewn with even more bizarre objects. And that has to be achieved using only a Yosemite hammer.
It's the stuff of nightmares, but it's also weirdly moreish: once you start it's hard to put it down. At GDC 2019, during a panel entitled 'Put Your Name on Your Game, a Talk by Bennett Foddy and Zach Gage', Foddy brought attention to one of the game's cleverest twists. Some players will already know about this, but for the vast majority (including me) who lack the patience to complete the game it's fascinating.

Gearbox issues another tease, this time for Duke Nukem or Bulletstorm
https://www.pcgamer.com/gearbox-issues-another-tease-this-time-for-duke-nukem-or-bulletstorm/
Gearbox has a lot going on, enough to sustain a week's worth of near constant social media teases. The company will give a keynote address at PAX East next week, and after already hinting at a bunch of Borderlands-related stuff (including Borderlands 3), a new Penn & Teller game, and something else that we don't recognize, there's yet another announcement on the cards.

World of Warcraft is free for returning players this weekend
https://www.pcgamer.com/world-of-warcraft-is-free-for-returning-players-this-weekend/
If you've got a World of Warcraft account and you've not checked into Azeroth for a while, Blizzard is inviting you back for a few days. From March 21 through March 24, all inactive accounts will be upgraded, letting you return for free this weekend. And with WoW's lightning-fast progression, you can get a lot done in three days.

The Division 2's distressing skills bug has been fixed
https://www.pcgamer.com/the-division-2s-distressing-skills-bug-has-been-fixed/
Ubisoft has patched a bug in The Division 2 that's been plaguing players since the weekend. Certain skills—that is, your abilities in the game, like turrets, or the robot bee-spitting hive—were vanishing after deployment, before replenishing in the player's inventory 15 seconds later. It was annoying enough that I mentioned it in my review, and since I'm pretty deep into the endgame's World Tier 4, it was adding an extra layer of challenge to open world activities where I didn't really need any more hassle.

Anthem's original story sounded amazing (and much more interesting)
https://www.pcgamer.com/anthems-original-story-sounded-amazing-and-much-more-interesting/
Unfortunately for EA and BioWare, Anthem has taken a real kicking since it launched at the end of February. Criticism over its plot, structure, and mission design arguably isn't the worst of it, though—the kicker is how much better the original story might have been.
>> Indeed, they should have gone with the original idea.