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

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Monday news, part two:

Vampire: The Masquerade—Bloodlines 2 pitch was a 'tremendous risk'
https://www.pcgamer.com/vampire-the-masqueradebloodlines-2-devs-say-the-pitch-was-a-tremendous-risk/
When Paradox Interactive acquired White Wolf, hope of a Vampire: The Masquerade—Bloodlines sequel surged again, including at Hardsuit Labs. The studio that was last week revealed to be developing Bloodlines 2 wasn't approached by Paradox, however, and the publisher already had its own plans.
>> And here they speculate about the clans.

Researcher warns of incoming regulations if the games industry isn't more transparent
https://www.pcgamer.com/researcher-warns-of-incoming-regulations-if-the-games-industry-isnt-more-transparent/
Oxford Internet Institute director of research Andrew Przybylski predicts that the videogame industry will face sanctions including increased regulation, taxation, and fines, and says some of the responsibility for that lies with the Entertainment Software Association.

Divinity: Fallen Heroes is a story-driven tactics game with choices and consequences
https://www.pcgamer.com/divinity-fallen-heroes-is-a-story-driven-tactics-game-with-choices-and-consequences/
The next Divinity game, though it features a lot of returning Original Sin 2 characters, isn't a freewheeling, sandboxy RPG. Divinity: Fallen Heroes is a tactics game, but it retains a lot of RPG sensibilities, including being driven by a story with plenty of choices and consequences. It's going to be just as important here as it was in Original Sin 2.
>> And it will bring back one combat feature: surfaces.

Borderlands 3 fans think they've found the release date in the trailer
https://www.pcgamer.com/borderlands-3-fans-think-theyve-found-the-release-date-in-the-trailer/
The Borderlands "Mask of Mayhem" teaser was filled with references, Easter eggs, and other half-hidden bits of information. Some of it was simple, like images of popular characters that will presumably be back for the new game, but other stuff, including broken-up shift codes, morse code, and even braille, was really well-buried. It was a veritable cornucopia of references. Would we expect any less from the full Borderlands 3 reveal trailer?

Large-scale World War 2 shooter Hell Let Loose releases in June
https://www.pcgamer.com/large-scale-world-war-2-shooter-hell-let-loose-releases-in-june/
Hell Let Loose, the WW2-based multiplayer shooter that pulled in more than double its $100,000 Kickstarter goal in 2017, will launch on Steam Early Access on June 6. Ahead of that, a beta test will run over the weekend of April 5, followed by two more that haven't yet been dated.

Skyrim Grandma Shirley Curry will be in The Elder Scrolls 6
https://www.pcgamer.com/skyrim-grandma-shirley-curry-will-be-in-the-elder-scrolls-6/
YouTube sensation Shirley Curry, also known as 'Skyrim Grandma', will be immortalized in The Elder Scrolls 6, Bethesda has announced. Curry will appear in the game as an NPC as the result of a fan petition, as revealed during The Elder Scrolls 25th anniversary stream. The petition recorded over 45,000 signatures (and is still getting more by the hour) and Bethesda clearly took notice.

Valve wants a do-over with Artifact
https://www.pcgamer.com/valve-wants-a-do-over-with-artifact/
Things have not gone well for Valve's much-publicized CCG Artifact since its November 2018 release. The player count began tumbling almost immediately, from a peak of more than 60,000 players to a concurrent count, according to Steam Charts, of just over 200. It's a remarkable decline, particularly for Valve, which had positioned Artifact as the vanguard of its return to game development.

Todd Howard: Fallout 76 had 'a lot of difficulties' during development
https://www.pcgamer.com/todd-howard-fallout-76-had-a-lot-of-difficulties-during-development/
Fallout 76's launch was a disaster—one of the worst in PC gaming history, by our reckoning. Its quests were boring and repetitive, the PC version was missing basic features such as text chat, and bugs were making players invincible. This week, Bethesda Game Studios executive producer Todd Howard spoke out on the subject, admitting the developer had "a lot of difficulties during development".

Deep Silver deactivates Metro Exodus Steam keys stolen from factory
https://www.pcgamer.com/deep-silver-deactivates-metro-exodus-steam-keys-stolen-from-factory/
Metro Exodus publisher Deep Silver has deactivated a batch of Metro Exodus Steam keys that it says were stolen from a factory and sold by an "unofficial key reseller".
>> Careful if you find it cheap somewhere.

Super Meat Boy Forever will have 'ridiculously hard' DLC, says designer
https://www.pcgamer.com/super-meat-boy-forever-will-have-ridiculously-hard-dlc-says-designer/
Autorunner Super Meat Boy Forever, due to release next month on the Epic Games Store, will have"ridiculously hard" DLC post-launch, designer Tommy Refenes has confirmed.

The Division 2 in-game posters hint at return to New York City
https://www.pcgamer.com/the-division-2-in-game-poster-hints-at-return-to-new-york-city/
Last month, Ubisoft revealed that The Division 2's first year of updates would be organised into three "episodes". We know the names and locations of the first two—DC: Outskirts Expeditions and Pentagon: The Last Castle respectively—but the third remains a mystery. Thanks to multiple posters throughout the game, players reckon the third episode will involve a return to New York City, the location of the original game.

A former Rainbow Six Siege developer explains why players think hitreg is broken
https://www.pcgamer.com/a-former-rainbow-six-siege-developer-explains-why-players-think-hitreg-is-broken/
When something goes wrong in Rainbow Six Siege, it’s easy to blame the game. And sometimes it really is the game’s fault. But there are many misconceptions about the factors that we often pin our shortcomings on—stuff like server lag, “bad” hitboxes, or ping abuse. That’s where a new video explainer by former Siege developer Dominic Clement may be able to help.

Summer Games Done Quick announces 2019 lineup
https://www.pcgamer.com/summer-games-done-quick-announces-2019-lineup/
This year's Summer Games Done Quick, an annual speedrunning charity event, will be taking place from June 23 to June 30. It'll be raising money for Doctors Without Borders and if you're not in Bloomington for the actual event you'll still be able to watch the livestream, as well as catch up with the highlights when they're inevitably uploaded.

Heroes of the Storm has gone cyberpunk
https://www.pcgamer.com/heroes-of-the-storm-has-gone-cyberpunk/
Blizzard may have cancelled Heroes of the Storm's competition circuit and removed the option to buy loot chests with real money, but they are still updating it. The latest update is a cyberpunk-themed spring event, which is currently live. It gives Heroes of the Storm a neon makeover that makes it look like a Shadowrun game, and tells the story of a conflict in the Caldeum Acropolis in the year 2013. Rival gangs the Azure Dragons and Onyx Turtles have combined forces to take down the Jigoku Cybernetics Corporation and their elite CyberOni.

Epic responds to claim of stolen Fortnite character skin (update)
https://www.pcgamer.com/epic-games-respond-to-claim-of-stolen-fortnite-character-skin/
Taro is a new Fortnite skin added to the game's store on November 14. Yesterday, an artist named Ruby Ramirez wrote a post on Facebook showing Taro side by side with a character design uploaded to DeviantArt more than two months earlier. The similarity between the two is striking. The horned mask, the belt, the hair, the shoulderpads, even the overall color scheme resemble each other. Update: DeviantArt user Pyro-Zombie and DingDongVG on Twitter have both declared the accusation of plagiarism by Epic Games to be false. Using Google cache, they say they've found a different image was originally posted to DeviantArt and was only recently replaced with one resembling the Fortnite skin. Here's Pyro-Zombie's blog post explaining the situation.

Assassin's Creed 3 has been removed from Steam and Uplay
https://www.pcgamer.com/assassins-creed-3-has-been-removed-from-steam-and-uplay/
Search for Assassin's Creed 3 on the Uplay store and you'll only see the new remaster. The same is true on Steam but the original version's store page still exists. However, the purchase button has been removed and this text has been added: "Notice: At the request of the publisher, Assassin’s Creed® III is no longer available for sale on Steam." If you already own the game on either service you should still be able to download and play it. (I tested it on Uplay today and it worked fine.)

Devil May Cry 5 update adds Bloody Palace
https://www.pcgamer.com/devil-may-cry-5-bloody-palace/
In a rare bit of useful, actual games news on this April Fools' Day, Capcom has added Bloody Palace mode to Devil May Cry 5. In case you were worried Capcom was somehow staging a double-bluff April Fools' gag and it wasn't really in the game yet, PC Gamer's Tom Senior is actually playing it in the office right now, so it's real.

Totally Accurate Battle Simulator makes a sneak attack on Early Access
https://www.pcgamer.com/totally-accurate-battle-simulator-makes-a-sneak-attack-on-early-access/
If, like me, you've been following Landfall Games CEO Wilhelm Nylund on Twitter, you've been subjected to perhaps hundreds of amusing gifs from Totally Accurate Battle Simulator. But when is it coming out, you may have cried, desperate to make your own gifs of wacky (yet totally accurate) physics-based battles.

Final Fantasy 14 director's next-gen project has finished early development
https://www.pcgamer.com/final-fantasy-14-directors-next-gen-project-has-finished-early-development/
Final Fantasy 14 director Naoki Yoshida is working on a "next generation" project at Square Enix's new 3rd Development Headquarters. Large-scale development has kicked off, and the team's now looking for new designers and programmers.

Type Dreams is a laudanum-fuelled Victorian typing game
https://www.pcgamer.com/type-dreams-is-a-laudanum-fuelled-victorian-typing-game/
A Victorian typing game was not what I would have predicted as the next game from Cart Life developer Richard Hofmeier. Cart Life, which Hofmeier removed from Steam and made open source, is a minimalist simulation that charts the bleak lives of three street vendors trapped in poverty. It's quietly brutal, juxtaposing the mundane with a constant supply of tiny tragedies. Type Dreams is very much not like this at all.

By the way, PCGamer has compiled some of the April Fools jokes, if you want to give it a look. By the way, at least one is not a prank but an actual game mode, albeit temporal.