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

[JEMC]

The Monday news:

SALES /PLAYER COUNT & DEALS

Steam's Top 10

1. NieR Replicant ver.1.2
2. It Takes Two
3. Valve Index VR Kit
4. NieR Replicant ver.1.2
5. Counter-Strike: Global Offensive - Operation Broken Fang
6. Titanfall 2
7. Battlefield V
8. Valheim
9. OUTRIDERS
10. The Forest

It Takes Two has sold over a million copies
https://www.pcgamer.com/it-takes-two-has-sold-over-a-million-copies/
It Takes Two is a co-op romantic comedy where two people are transformed into dolls by a magic book so they can work out their marital issues. It's not what you'd call a guaranteed seller, and yet it seems to have hit its mark. Hazelight Studios, developer of It Takes Two, tweeted that it "has sold over 1 million copies and is still going strong! Thank you so much for all the love you’ve shown our game, it means the world to us".

Swords and parkour battle royale Naraka: Bladepoint draws 120k players in test
https://www.pcgamer.com/swords-and-parkour-battle-royale-naraka-bladepoint-draws-120k-players-in-test/
The open beta for Naraka: Bladepoint that went live this week racked up 120,000 concurrent players earlier today during test, a pretty promising start for the character-driven battle royale game all about leaping, climbing, stabbing, and transforming into a six-armed god.

Titanfall 2 hit a record player count on Steam thanks to Apex Legends and a sale
https://www.pcgamer.com/titanfall-2-hit-a-record-player-count-on-steam-thanks-to-apex-legends-and-a-sale/
In the last 24 hours, Titanfall 2 hit a new peak player count of 16,958 on Steam. Back at its launch on the store in June of 2020 it peaked at 13,427 players and had steadily dropped down to just a few thousand until midway through April. That leap is thanks in part to a Steam sale that saw the price drop to $7.50, but Respawn's previous shooter has also seen a resurgence in interest thanks to their current shooter, Apex Legends.

Alien: Isolation DLC is free this time as well
https://www.pcgamer.com/alien-isolation-and-hand-of-fate-2-are-free-on-the-epic-games-store/
Last time Alien: Isolation was given away on the Epic Store, it was just the base game. This time, the Last Survivor DLC is bundled with it. That's the one where you play as Ellen Ripley, with Sigourney Weaver returning to voice the role, and get to relive the finale of the original movie—racing to set the Nostromo's self-destruct and escape the doomed ship.
Even if you already own Alien: Isolation on Epic, you can go to its page on the store and grab it again. This time, you'll get the DLC for free.

GOG starts the week with three sales:

• The new Weekly Sale is a Kalypso Sale, with up to 80% discounts: https://www.gog.com/promo/kalypso_week
• There's a Special 505 Games Sale, with up to 85% discounts during the next 7 days: https://www.gog.com/promo/505_games
• And the Atari-Infogrames Sale, with up to 75% discounts on its classics, will last another 22 hours: https://www.gog.com/promo/20210420_atari_infogrames

Steam has two daily deals:

• The first one is, careful with the record long name, Ranch Simulator - The Realistic Multiplayer Agriculture Management Sandbox; Farm, Harvest, Hunt & Build, still in Early Access and 20% off: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1119730/Ranch_Simulator__The_Realistic_Multiplayer_Agriculture_Management_Sandbox_Farm_Harvest_Hunt__Build/
• The second one is EMERGENCY 20, 33% off: https://store.steampowered.com/app/735280/EMERGENCY_20/

The new Humble LEGO Build it Bundle features up to 6 games to grab during the next 11 days: https://www.humblebundle.com/games/lego-built-to-bundle

And Fanatical has three new deals:

• The new Star Deal is The eXceed Collection: Aural Brutality Edition that includes 6 items. It will be 92% off during the next 48 hours: https://www.fanatical.com/en/game/the-exceed-collection-aural-brutality-edition
• The Dovetail Games Sale comes with up to 82% discounts during the next 11 days: https://www.fanatical.com/en/publishers/dovetail-games
• And the new VR Discovery Bundle packs 6 games split into three tiers of 2, 4 and 6 products: https://www.fanatical.com/en/bundle/vr-discovery-bundle

SOFTWARE & DRIVERS

Microsoft has fixed the recent Windows 10 gaming performance issues
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/microsoft-has-fixed-the-recent-windows-10-gaming-performance-issues/
Last month, Microsoft issued an update for Windows 10 that reportedly degraded performance on a number of PC systems. And a few days ago, the company released another update that resolves those gaming performance issues.
As Microsoft noted, a small subset of users has reported lower than expected performance in games after installing this update. Most users that suffered from this issue were running games full screen or borderless window modes and using two or more monitors.
In order to resolve this issue, Microsoft is using Known Issue Rollback (KIR). This solution enables Microsoft to “quickly revert a single, targeted fix to a previously released behavior if a critical regression is discovered “.

MODS, EMULATORS & FAN PROJECTS

The community is already fixing issues with Nier Replicant's port
https://www.pcgamer.com/the-community-is-already-fixing-issues-with-the-nier-replicant-pc-port/
While the PC version of Nier Replicant may not be as disappointing as Nier Automata's port, it still has some problems. As Julie Muncy said in her review, "The technical aspects are much improved over the original, which struggled to maintain 30 fps, but they're not quite up to contemporary standards." She experienced technical problems including "serious frame drops when I accidentally unplugged my controller, or a persistent issue where my mouse point kept reappearing on my screen during cutscenes, which was not great for the game's sense of gravitas."
(...)
Thankfully, the modding and tweaking community has already stepped in and begun repairing Replicant. First there's the Special K injectable by old mate Kaldaien, which will let you get rid of the mouse cursor showing up when you're playing with gamepad, cut down on stuttering by disabling the PS4 HID input, set your own framerate limit, and turn off the internal v-sync. Then there's the Nier Replicant High FPS Fix, one of the first things for the game available on its brand new Nexusmods section. It'll let you run Nier Replicant over 60 fps without borking the animations—except for when you're slow-walking, which might leave you facing the wrong way.

GAMING NEWS

Hood: Outlaws & Legends will support Ray Tracing and DLSS
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/hood-outlaws-legends-will-support-ray-tracing-and-dlss/
Hood: Outlaws & Legends is a new PvPvE heist game from Sumo Digital that uses Unreal Engine 4. And, in an interview with WCCFTech, Sumo Newcastle Game Director Andrew Willans revealed that the game will support Ray Tracing and DLSS.
>> Here's the link to the interview, in case you want to read it.

Agony spin-off, SUCCUBUS, releases on July 21st, gets new Steam demo
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/agony-spin-off-succubus-releases-on-july-21st-gets-new-steam-demo/
Madmind Studio has announced that its Agony spin-off, SUCCUBUS, will release on July 21st. In order to celebrate this announcement, the team has released a new trailer, as well as a new demo on Steam.