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

[JEMC]

Tuesday news:

SALES & DEALS

Total War: Three Kingdoms is a massive hit in China
https://www.pcgamer.com/total-war-three-kingdoms-is-a-massive-hit-in-china/
The day it launched, Total War: Three Kingdoms smashed the series record for concurrent players, and over the weekend that number has climbed to more than 190,000. That’s in no small part thanks to the game’s popularity in China, a trend that has peaked with the series’ turn to the nation’s Three Kingdoms era.
Rob Bartholomew, Creative Assembly’s chief product officer, spoke with GamesIndustry.biz about Three Kingdom’s success, and said that the Chinese market has “kind of gone crazy for us” with this latest Total War entry.

At Steam, there are two daily deals (one of them fake) as well as the weeklong deals:

• The real daily deal is a LEGO Marvel franchise sale, with discounts that range from 50 to 75%: https://store.steampowered.com/sale/legomarvel/
• The fake daily deal, that will last one week, is a sale from publisher Playism, with up to 80% discounts: https://store.steampowered.com/sale/playism
• When it comes to the weeklong deals, here are a selection of five of them, starting with SUPERHOT VR, 25% off (the regular game is 50% off): https://store.steampowered.com/app/617830/SUPERHOT_VR/
• WAR PARTY gets a 33% discount: https://store.steampowered.com/app/777770/WAR_PARTY/
• 3030 Deathwar Redux - A Space Odyssey is half its usual price: https://store.steampowered.com/app/464360/3030_Deathwar_Redux__A_Space_Odyssey/
• Yooka-Laylee is 70% off: https://store.steampowered.com/app/360830/YookaLaylee/
• And Hard Reset Redux is 90% off: https://store.steampowered.com/app/407810/Hard_Reset_Redux/

On the Humble Store, the Spring Sale is over, but the new Table-Flipping Tabletop games sale has taken its place, with up to 85% discounts for the next 6 days: https://www.humblebundle.com/store/promo/tableflipping-tabletop-sale/

And at Fanatical, there are a bunch new sales:

• The Star Deal is Valkyria Chronicles 4, 69% off for the next 24 hours: https://www.fanatical.com/en/game/valkyria-chronicles-4
• There's a new Pick & Mix bundle with Idea Factory games, featuring 17 games to pick bundles of 1, 3 or 5: https://www.fanatical.com/en/pick-and-mix/idea-factory-pick-and-mix
• The Anime Week sale brings lots of discounts to a wide variety of games. Be careful, tho, as not every game will be on sale the whole "week", some will be on sale for only one day: https://www.fanatical.com/en/genres/anime

SOFTWARE & DRIVERS

NVIDIA GeForce 430.86 WHQL driver is optimized Quake 2 RTX and Assetto Corsa Competizione
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/nvidia-geforce-430-86-whql-driver-is-optimized-quake-2-rtx-and-assetto-corsa-competizione/
NVIDIA has released a brand new driver for its graphics cards. According to the release notes, the NVIDIA GeForce 430.86 WHQL driver offer the optimal gaming experience and is optimized Quake 2 RTX and Assetto Corsa Competizione.
Furthermore, this new driver adds support for three new G-SYNC compatible monitors (Dell S2419HGF, HP X25, and LG 27GL850) as well as support for Oculus Rift S and HTC VIVE Pro Eye HMDs.
It’s also worth pointing out that the NVIDIA GeForce 430.86 WHQL driver addresses the an issues that detected World of Warships as a supported game when using GeForce Experience Freestyle, an application crash or TDR events on some systems when using Adobe Premier Pro, and the reported slow performance issues in Resolume Arena 6 when using dual 4k output on the GeForced RTX 2080 Notebook.
>> Available from here.

New Reshade version is available for download, offering experimental support for DX12 games
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/new-reshade-version-is-available-for-download-offering-experimental-support-for-dx12-games/
And the time has finally come. In case you weren’t aware of, all these past years Reshade was not compatible with the latest DirectX API, DX12. However, this is about to change as a new version has been released that offers experimental compatibility with Microsoft’s latest API.
For those not knowing, ReShade is a generic post-processing injector for games and video software developed by crosire. Reshade allows you to brute-force ambient occlusion, real depth of field effects, color correction and more. According to its desctiption, ReShade exposes an automated and generic way to access both frame color and depth information (latter is automatically disabled during multiplayer to prevent exploitation) and all the tools to make it happen.
Among other things, Reshade version 4.3 adds experimental support for D3D12 and for saving preprocessor definitions to preset aside from config file, new D3D9 depth buffer detection techniques by thalixte, new “list” GUI widget, as well as a workaround for OpenGL games that use fixed texture names.

Ubisoft store leak suggests that an Origin Access-style service may be coming
https://www.pcgamer.com/ubisoft-store-leak-suggests-that-an-origin-access-style-service-may-be-coming/
A leak out of the Ubisoft Store suggests that the publisher may be about to announce a subscription-based service through its digital storefront that could be similar to Electronic Arts' Origin Access program. As noticed by users on Resetera, a placeholder for a "Ubisoft Pass Premium" recently appeared on the store, before being quickly yoinked away.
Interestingly, even after the image was taken down, a "Ubisoft subscription" category remained available on the store, according to VG247, even though no subscription-based services are currently being offered. That's since been taken down as well.
>> cycycychris made a thread about this yesterday.

MODS/EMULATORS

Someone is working on ARX Fatalis Remaster in Unreal Engine 4 with DirectX 12 & Ray Tracing support
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/someone-is-working-on-arx-fatalis-remaster-in-unreal-engine-4-with-directx-12-ray-tracing-support/
BlackcatGameStudio, a one-man studio, is working on a fan remaster of ARX Fatalist in Unreal Engine 4. This fan remake will support both DirectX 12 and real-time ray tracing, and the modder has released two videos showing the visuals of the current/latest version.
In case you weren’t aware of, Arx Fatalis is a role-playing game that came out on November 12th 2002 and was developed by Arkane Studios (the studio responsible for Dishonored). The game uses a first-person perspective and – according to Wikipedia – is set on a world whose sun has failed, forcing the above-ground creatures to take refuge in subterranean caverns. The game takes place in one of these large caves, where inhabitants from all races such as Trolls, Goblins, Dwarves, Humans, etc. have made their homes on various levels of the cave.
In its current WIP version, the modder has ported numerous levels, has made the dialogue for the Level 11 (Human Kingdom village), allows players to talk with the NPC and lets them fight the guards.

A modder is remaking Mario Odyssey inside of Mario 64, hat tricks included
https://www.pcgamer.com/a-modder-is-remaking-mario-odyssey-inside-of-mario-64-hat-tricks-included/
The older I get the more I realize that modders will never be satisfied until they've combined every game with every other game. One modder in particular, Kaze Emanuar, is spending his time building Super Mario Odyssey into Mario 64 but with all the fancy features you'd expect like Mario's new hat moves, the ability to possess different enemies by tossing your hat onto them, and even the levels themselves. It's an enormously impressive bit of work, and you can see Emanuar's progress in his latest video above.

You can pet the dog in this Doom mod
https://www.pcgamer.com/you-can-pet-the-dog-in-this-doom-mod/
Doom Eternal XP is a mod that, among other things, is transforming Doom 2 into its latest successor. It's a mod collection that initially started out as a XP mod before its creator Officer_D started collecting and tweaking Eternal mods and putting them all in one place. It now has a dog.
The dog, who you'll have to name yourself as it doesn't seem to have one, can be summoned from a sphere, like a Pokémon, and will follow you around levels. Watch out, however, as enemies and stray bullets can prove fatal. It's a handy hound, however, as it will leap into battle and snap at demons. What a brave boy!
Despite Doomguy's tough exterior, he does have time to pet his little killer. And between killing demons, he's also taught the little guy to sit and heel. It's a little island of pleasantness amid all the gore and carnage and flamethrowers.

GAMING NEWS

Doom Megawad from John Romero, SIGIL, will be available for free on May 31st
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/doom-megawad-from-john-romero-sigil-will-be-available-for-free-on-may-31st/
John Romero has announced that his Doom megawad, SIGIL, will be made available for free to everyone on May 31st. The SIGIL Megawad is the spiritual successor to the fourth episode of Doom, and picks up where the original left off.

Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom PC demo is now available on Steam
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/monster-boy-and-the-cursed-kingdom-pc-demo-is-now-available-on-steam/
Game Atelier and FDG Entertainment have released the PC demo for Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom. As the developers noted, in the demo you’ll be playing the human form of Jin, you will experience the very beginning of the game and learn your first spell.

Wolfenstein: Youngblood – Real-time Ray Tracing versus Vanilla/Console video comparison
https://www.dsogaming.com/videotrailer-news/wolfenstein-youngblood-real-time-ray-tracing-versus-vanilla-console-video-comparison/
Yesterday, NVIDIA and Bethesda announced that Wolfenstein: Youngblood will support real-time ray tracing effects. Although the publisher did not reveal the effects for which ray tracing will be used, it released a new trailer that featured scenes with ray tracing enabled.

Kingdom Come: Deliverance Patch 1.9; performance optimizations, mods improvements, new features & more
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/kingdom-come-deliverance-patch-1-9-performance-optimizations-mods-improvements-new-features-more/
Warhorse Studios has released a brand new update for Kingdom Come: Deliverance. Update 1.9 improves all tutorials, improves the environment and NPC positions for most of the events and adds better fast travel description to every event type, and makes some improvements to how the mods are handled.