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

[JEMC]

Monday news, part two:

Here's how to sign up for Overwatch 2's next beta
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/heres-how-to-sign-up-for-overwatch-2s-next-beta/
Blizzard has opened sign ups for Overwatch 2's next beta. Players have until June 28, or when Blizzard's server capacity is reached, to sign up and the beta will go live on June 28 as well. Additionally, Blizzard plans to provide access to this beta to anyone who has signed up for it by July 14 at the latest. If you're really jonesin' to try the hero shooter's next iteration for yourself and don't want to shell out for a preorder of the "Watchpoint Pack," there's really no downside to opting in.

Dataminer discovers 2 major Elden Ring bosses may have once had their own questlines
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/dataminer-discovers-2-major-elden-ring-bosses-may-have-once-had-their-own-questlines/
Souls series dataminer Sekiro Dubi has released two videos detailing unused Elden Ring quests related to some late-game bosses: Vyke, Knight of the Roundtable, and Mohg, the Lord of Blood.

Lost Japanese adventure game from 1999 resurfaces on Steam, and it's so weird I can't describe it in a headline
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/lost-japanese-adventure-game-from-1999-resurfaces-on-steam-and-its-so-weird-i-cant-describe-it-in-a-headline/
I'll kick off with a notice that some of what you're about to see is decidedly NSFW. It's for adults.
In the 1990s, Japanese surrealist artist Tomomi Sakuba realized that he could make a game with the free HyperCard software on his Mac. After a few prototypes, he started working on what would eventually become Garage: Bad Dream Adventure, a bizarre and disturbing point-and-click adventure about a fetal biomechanical creature navigating a parapsychological and disturbingly sexualized, but not explicitly sexy, world.

The Legend of Heroes: Trails from Zero is going hard on features for the PC port
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/the-legend-of-heroes-trails-from-zero-is-going-hard-on-features-for-the-pc-port/
The upcoming port of The Legend of Heroes: Trails from Zero looks to be going out of its way to accommodate the broad range of PC hardware fans are using. To be frank, it's not really the kind of game anyone expects to have a robust port, but the developers are working pretty hard at it. Harder, in fact, than anyone might expect.

Controversial tactical shooter Ready or Not returns to Steam after brief removal
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/controversial-tactical-shooter-ready-or-not-removed-from-steam-without-explanation/
As reported by NME, tactical FPS Ready or Not was removed from the Steam store without warning on June 16, with the developers claiming it was a backend error that will soon be addressed.
Update 6/18/22: Ready or Not is once again available on Steam. According to a tweet from Void Interactive, the developer removed Ready or Not due to a copyright claim regarding trademarked material in a nightclub level added on June 12, the sixth anniversary of the deadly mass shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida. According to the developer's statement, it willingly removed the potentially copyright-infringing content from the game as a "show of good faith," rather than dispute the claim. The removal was not, as some speculated, any form of moderation by Steam or Void in response to the level's release on the mass shooting's anniversary.

Check out the demo for stylish, dynamic deckbuilder Beneath Oresa
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/check-out-the-demo-for-stylish-dynamic-deckbuilder-beneath-oresa/
As this month's Steam Next Fest rolls on, a demo that's worth your time is Beneath Oresa, a roguelike deckbuilding game that adds some nice positional twists to the standard formula—as well as a heck of a lot of stylish animation. I rarely recommend games in this genre, which has exploded in popularity since Slay the Spire, but I think that Beneath Oresa might have what it takes to join Monster Train alongside Slay the Spire as a great.

Rob the town blind and cheat gods in Dread Delusion's Early Access
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/rob-the-town-blind-and-cheat-gods-in-dread-delusions-early-access/
Dread Delusion's first town of Hallow, built into an asteroid suspended above an unforgiving countryside, fulfilled a craving I wasn't even fully aware I'd had: one for the dense, multilayered urban areas of Deus Ex and Vampire: the Masquerade—Bloodlines. Elder Scrolls towns come close for me, but don't quite have the intricacy and depth of their more immersive sim-y cousins. Hallow, with its secret tunnels, hidden doors, and vertical exploration, gives a bite-sized reprisal of Deus Ex and VtMB's game-long exercises in breaking into peoples' apartments and reading their emails.

Mecha armada stomps kaiju all the way out of Early Access
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/mecha-armada-stomps-kaiju-all-the-way-out-of-early-access/
Mech Armada looked pretty neat last year when it first revealed, but the 10 months since its Early Access debut has really been kind to the game. It's a tactics roguelite about your army of customized mechs taking on an equally-endless swarm of monstrosities. Its unique twist is that each mech is customized from a set of parts, transport, torso, and guns.
>> The article has a video that, for some reason, doesn't go above 480p.

An easter egg in Unpacking has revealed the developer's next game
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/an-easter-egg-in-unpacking-has-revealed-the-developers-next-game/
Earlier this month, Australian indie studio Witch Beam posted a blog that mentioned an unfound easter egg in its game Unpacking. "A pixel art rendition of the key art for our next game exists somewhere inside Unpacking," the blog said, "and no one has found it yet!"
A couple of days later, easter egg-hunting YouTuber xGarbett turned up that easter egg. As some players had already figured out, you can turn on the game consoles in Unpacking and see fictional games Cactus Carts, Witch Sports, Android Cold War III, and Lash N' Dash. But turning on the Wii in the second apartment level revealed a game that may not exist yet, but isn't fictional: TemPoPo.

According to a report, The Quarry and High On Life were almost Stadia games
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/according-to-a-report-the-quarry-and-high-on-life-were-almost-stadia-games/
According to Axios Gaming newsletter sources, both recently released horror game The Quarry and the upcoming FPS from Justin Roiland's Squanch Games High On Life were initially being developed with Google's assistance, and intended to launch on Stadia. Until Google shifted its focus away from game development, that is.

Alice: Madness Returns has been taken off Steam again
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/alice-madness-returns-has-been-taken-off-steam-again/
Alice: Madness Returns, the sequel to American McGee's Alice, hasn't had a great time of it on Steam. After being delisted in late 2016 due to problems with the DRM publisher Electronic Arts saddled it with, Madness Returns returned in late February this year. It managed to stay on Steam for less than four months before being removed again. As the boilerplate text on its Steam page currently says, "At the request of the publisher, Alice: Madness Returns is no longer available for sale on Steam."

The Looker is a free puzzle parody of other, much more serious, puzzlers
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/the-looker-is-a-free-puzzle-parody-of-other-very-serious-puzzlers/
If you enjoyed The Witness, but kind of wish you could play a game that's filled with toilet humor, strong language, and general goofs, I have great news. That game both exists and is free: It's called The Looker. In the grand tradition of games making fun of other games, it's not the top, and it's not the bottom either: It sure is an entry.

Unused Elden Ring quest would have tied an early NPC to the game's darkest secrets
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/unused-elden-ring-quest-would-have-tied-an-early-npc-to-the-games-darkest-secrets/
Continuing a banner week of investigating unused content left in Elden Ring's files, dataminer Sekiro Dubi has successfully reimplemented a game-spanning, multi-part quest involving the early game merchant, Kalé.
In the released game, Kalé never moves from Limgrave's Church of Elleh. He sells some essential early game gear like the spyglass and crafting kit, and will also direct you toward Blaidd the Half-Wolf. Kalé is the only named member of the nomadic merchants in the game, and the group's lore and connection to the sinister Three Fingers is only implied.

Call of Duty now makes cheaters' weapons vanish
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/call-of-duty-now-makes-cheaters-weapons-vanish/
Call of Duty is such a huge series that it faces a never-ending war against cheaters. In recent times this has led to the creation of its proprietary Ricochet software, a kernel-level anti-cheat that runs across all its games.
A new blog post from the Ricochet developers summarises the team's findings since launch, and outlines some of the major anti-cheating measures they've put in place. Since Ricochet launched last year, "we’ve seen both significant drops in cheaters invading our games as well as some unfortunate increases—an expected ebb and flow that is a frustrating reality in game security."

RIP Heroes of Newerth, once LoL's biggest competitor
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/rip-heroes-of-newerth-once-lols-biggest-competitor/
In April 2009, two lane-pushing games entered beta in the same month. Heroes of Newerth and League of Legends competed for more-or-less the same audience of Dota fans. (...)
"The Heroes of Newerth team regrets to announce that Heroes of Newerth’s service will officially come to an end on June 20, 2022."