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

[JEMC]

Monday news, part two:

Bungie admits 'rewards not where we want it to be', promises to dial down Destiny 2's microtransactions
https://www.pcgamer.com/bungie-admits-rewards-not-where-we-want-it-to-be-promises-to-dial-down-destiny-2s-microtransactions/
Destiny 2 is all about action and reward: You do the shoot, you get the loot. "However, in today’s Destiny 2, the balance of the game’s rewards is not where we want it to be," game director Luke Smith said in new This Week at Bungie update. "To be blunt, there isn’t enough pursuit out in the world." For players who've long been waiting for Bungie to address the perceived over-aggressiveness of the game's Eververse microtransaction store, these were welcome, if overdue, words.

Doom Eternal story DLC teased with two screenshots
https://www.pcgamer.com/doom-eternal-story-dlc-teased-with-two-screenshots/
You enjoyed Doom Eternal? Oh, OK, maybe not the Marauder then. But you'd be up for more old-school demon-slaying? Good, great even, as id Software has teased its "first upcoming campaign DLC" with two screenshots over on Twitter.

Online Town is like a Zoom meeting set inside a JRPG scene
https://www.pcgamer.com/online-town-is-like-a-zoom-meeting-set-inside-a-jrpg-scene/
The thing I miss most about pre-pandemic life is hovering at the edge of conversations, waiting for a moment to crack the perfect one-liner only to surprise and deter everyone involved from ever wanting to talk to me again as I slowly slink away and pretend to text near the snack table. Big sigh.
Zoom meetings, Discord servers, and Google Hangouts just aren't the same, so coding collective Siempre made a web utility that does a pretty good job mimicking the real deal. Online Town is a video conferencing tool that pairs the usual webcam and microphone setup with a top-down JRPG-esque room, where every participant is assigned a little sprite person they can move around freely. The kicker is that webcam clarity and microphone volume increase or decrease based on how close everyone's sprites are to one another.

Apex Legends' new quests will feature PvE battles and a hunt for lost artifacts
https://www.pcgamer.com/apex-legends-new-quests-will-feature-pve-battles-and-a-hunt-for-lost-artifacts/
Electronic Arts has previously revealed that "quests" will be coming to Apex Legends in its fifth season, Fortune's Favor, although it hasn't been entirely forthcoming about how they'll actually work. Today that changed, with the release of a new gameplay trailer for season 5, and more importantly a breakdown of the first quest, a search for a mysterious artifact called The Broken Ghost.

Here's a look at Dwarf Fortress's new world maps
https://www.pcgamer.com/heres-a-look-at-dwarf-fortress-new-world-maps/
Dwarf Fortress, the father of every survival strategy or colony building or base building game you've ever played, is looking prettier and prettier as it builds toward a graphical release on Steam. (Previously, the game has only had ASCII characters for graphics.) Creator Tarn Adams has shared the look of Dwarf Fortress' new world maps, one of the game's greatest features, in a development update. Where previously Dwarf Fortress worlds were hard to parse unless you were a professional, they're now obviously maps rather than assortments of ASCII characters—and quite nice looking to boot. Here's an old medium-sized world map, then the same map in the new style.

Doom Eternal is getting super-demons that murdered other players
https://www.pcgamer.com/doom-eternal-is-getting-super-demons-that-murdered-other-players/
In a move which is hilarious to me, id Software is adding a feature to Doom Eternal in the upcoming Update 1: Empowered Demons. When another player dies, the demon that killed them can now be made stronger and transported into your game. It's another piece in the strategic-tactical puzzles that make up Doom Eternal's combat arenas, and can add some variance to the experience for those who get their thrills from blasting through the campaign mode multiple times.

Counterinsurgency game Rebel Inc now has a campaign mode
https://www.pcgamer.com/counterinsurgency-game-rebel-inc-now-has-a-campaign-mode/
Rebel Inc: Escalation's newest update introduces a campaign mode, shifting the game's focus from single playable scenarios to an interconnected campaign. The new campaigns add an adapting insurgency and new tactics for the counterinsurgents as you progress from region to region. For example, they might learn to ford rivers, which if you have played Rebel Inc is a terrifying prospect. There are also new narrative events, like economic downturns or coups, which can affect multiple regions rather than just one.

Cannibal Cuisine is Overcooked with human flesh
https://www.pcgamer.com/cannibal-cuisine-is-overcooked-with-human-flesh/
The Overcooked games are great, especially if you enjoy being yelled at by your friends and loved ones because there are few things more stressful than running a restaurant kitchen together. Indie studio Rocket Vulture have a new game coming to Steam that looks like it hits all the same buttons as Overcooked, only it's called Cannibal Cuisine and instead of making burritos and soup you have to murder tourists to feed them to a god called "Hoochooboo". Also you have "voodoo powers" like the ability to breathe fire, or dash.

Rumor: Diablo 2 remaster coming this year
https://www.pcgamer.com/rumor-diablo-2-remaster-coming-this-year/
Back when StarCraft: Remastered was announced, Blizzard fans began asking for a remastered version of Diablo 2. At the time, the original game's project and design lead David Brevik suggested it might be difficult for Blizzard to do. "They have their work cut out for them," he said. "I don’t believe a lot of the assets survived."
However, according to sources cited by French site Actugaming, a subsidiary of Activision called Vicarious Visions is working on a remaster scheduled for the fourth quarter of this year called Diablo 2 Resurrected. Actugaming's editor previously called the Diablo 4, Shadowlands, and Overwatch 2 announcements shortly before they were made public at Blizzcon last year, so they're slightly more reliable than the average leaker. And Vicarious Visions worked on the PC port of Destiny 2 as well as the Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy remasters, which makes that a believable detail. Still, nothing official has come from Blizzard yet.

Here's when Halo 2 on PC unlocks in your time zone
https://www.pcgamer.com/halo-2-unlock-time/
Halo 2: Anniversary, the next part of The Master Chief Collection, unlocks on Tuesday, May 12. According to 343 Industries' community manager John Junyszek it will be released during off-peak hours "Due to current bandwidth concerns across the globe", which is fair enough. If you're wondering when it will unlock in your timezone, Junyszek laid it out for me on Twitter,

There’s a new, free Thimbleweed Park adventure
https://www.pcgamer.com/theres-a-new-free-thimbleweed-park-adventure/
Have you always wanted to be a game developer who is also an amateur photojournalist in a funny, surreal small town where someone did a murder? Well, have I got the free game for you. Classic adventure game designer Ron Gilbert has released a free standalone chapter of Thimbleweed Park, his 2017 "wacky x-files murder mystery packed with dad jokes." The short game focuses on Delores, a character from the original game, and takes place a year after the first one. It's free on Steam.

Take your commies nuclear in the new Workers & Resources update
https://www.pcgamer.com/take-your-commies-nuclear-in-the-new-workers-and-resources-update/
The game with more absolute bangers in its soundtrack than any other city simulator has a new update adding a nuclear power industry to the game. Workers & Resources: Soviet Republic now has a nuclear power industry and all the trappings that go with it. There's uranium mines, which feed into processing plants, which feed into conversion plants, which feed into nuclear fuel plants, and then you can actually put those into a nuclear power plant! It is exactly as complicated as fans of this game—and of detailed simulations in general—might want. The update also includes new higher-voltage power lines and spent fuel dumps for all that new nuclear energy and/or radioactive waste.

Meet John Romero's gangster great-grandma in a new Empire of Sin trailer
https://www.pcgamer.com/meet-john-romeros-gangster-great-grandma-in-a-new-empire-of-sin-trailer/
Here's a nice thing. You may know that tactical simulation of 1920s Chicago Empire of Sin features a playable gang boss based on John Romero's real brothel-owning great-grandmother Elvira, because we told you that last year and you were definitely paying attention. Now, to celebrate Mother's Day, Empire of Sin's game director Brenda Romero and also John Romero, who says he is "working on Empire of Sin in a lot of different areas," have made a video about what a badass old lady Elvira Morales was.

Indie run-and-gun platformer Fury Unleashed has left Early Access
https://www.pcgamer.com/indie-run-and-gun-platformer-fury-unleashed-has-left-early-access/
Fury Unleashed was formerly known as Badass Hero, a name the developers say they changed "because it was called Badass Hero." It's a permadeath action-platformer that's a bit like Comix Zone in that it's a fourth-wall-eroding story about a character who is aware they're in a comic, but also a bit like Rogue Legacy in that they keep dying and being replaced by a different hero who inherits all their best stuff. It's also a bit like Metal Slug or Contra in that it's a 2D arcade platformer where you have a big gun. If you hate comparisons, this paragraph probably just gave you hives.

Legend of Beowulf mission revealed as part of the Assassin's Creed Valhalla season pass
https://www.pcgamer.com/legend-of-beowulf-mission-revealed-as-part-of-the-assassins-creed-valhalla-season-pass/
Assassin's Creed Valhalla will include a story mission involving the mythical hero Beowulf—albeit only for players who buy the game's season pass. He'll be the subject of The Legend of Beowulf DLC mission, where players will "discover the cruel truth" behind the hero.