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

[JEMC]

Tuesday news, part two:

Legendary Japanese studio Treasure is on the comeback trail
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/legendary-japanese-studio-treasure-is-on-the-comeback-trail/
If you're of a certain age and inclination, then the Tokyo-based Treasure is a name that always retains its lustre. Founded in 1992 by Konami veterans that were sick of working on sequels, the studio focused on original designs and over the 90s and 00s produced a string of all-time great shoot-em-ups including Gunstar Heroes, Radiant Silvergun, Bangai-O, Sin & Punishment, and Ikaruga.
As the requirements for high-end development increased, the more boutique Treasure began to focus its resources on Nintendo's portable platforms. Its last game was Gaist Crusher God in 2014, after which it mainly went quiet (although it did re-release Ikaruga on the Epic Games Store a few weeks ago). The studio's 30th anniversary was June 19, 2022, and this was greeted by an announcement from Treasure's social media accounts.
>> Xxain made a thread about this announcement.

Makers of The Hunter: Call of the Wild announce new open world fishing game
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/call-of-the-wild-the-angler-fishing-game-trailer/
Fans of fishing games on PC should dust off their tackle boxes and stock up on bait because they have a big new open world filled with lakes and rivers to cast their hopes and dreams into. Expansive Worlds, makers of The Hunter: Call of the Wild, have announced a new freshwater fishing sim you can play solo or with friends. Check out the trailer for Call of the Wild: The Angler above.

Dune early access update spices things up with multiplayer
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/dune-early-access-update-spices-things-up-with-multiplayer/
Dune: Spice Wars received its first big early access update today, pitting players against each other as they fight over the spice and try to avoid becoming lunch for some big worms.

Riot brings back LoL's magical anime troupe, fans go bananas
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/riot-brings-back-lols-magical-anime-troupe-fans-go-bananas/
Riot has announced that it's bringing the Star Guardian theme back to League of Legends, which a colleague explained to me thus: "a line of skins that’s basically ‘What if LoL characters were in a Sailor Moon-style magical girl anime?’" Clearly this appeals enormously to elements of LoL's playerbase, because the reaction to this skin collection is somewhat over-the-top euphoria.

All that chanting in the Elden Ring soundtrack is gibberish
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/all-that-chanting-in-the-elden-ring-soundtrack-is-gibberish/
Playing Elden Ring, you might be forgiven for thinking, "Wow! Some of these soundtracks have super cool chanting. I bet that's some amazing Latin or some other ancient, dead language and the meaning really adds to what's going on." You'd be wrong, however, as one student of languages has discovered: It's just gibberish manipulated to sound like real words in an ancient tongue.

This indie strategy game is like a tiny Total War that only takes an hour
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/this-indie-strategy-game-is-like-a-tiny-total-war-that-only-takes-an-hour/
I like an indie strategy game, especially if it only takes about an hour to wrap up a campaign. Indie Roma Invicta hits that sweet spot with a game of little pixel art Romans fighting little pixel art Gauls and marching all over a little pixel art Europe eating little pixelated bushels of pixel art wheat.

Watery survival hit Raft splashes out of Early Access with its largest update ever
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/watery-survival-hit-raft-splashes-out-of-early-access-with-its-largest-update-ever/
Soon after launching in 2018, cooperative survival adventure Raft got real popular real fast. It came as a surprise to the three-person development team at the time, who were really just making a game for their university course, but they shook that off and parlayed their unexpected success into a whole development career as Redbeet Interactive.
(...)
Now, four years later, Raft is a much bigger game with a more to offer than when it first won some hearts: It's even finished! Launching today with the largest update in Raft's history, Version 1.0: The Final Chapter adds the last pieces of Raft's slowly-evolving storyline spread across three new locations to explore. One's a highrise building poking above the waves, another an arctic research station, and the third is a secret until you find it. To make all the new pieces fit, the developers have overhauled the existing story to be sure it's smoother than it was.

Outriders is free to play on Steam until Thursday
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/outriders-is-free-to-play-on-steam-until-thursday/
I liked People Can Fly's third-person shooter Outriders well enough when I played around with it last year, although I can't disagree too much with Morgan's assessment in his 63% review that it pales in comparison to the studio's previous games, Bulletstorm and Painkiller. I didn't stick with it after launch though, and plenty of others fell away with it: Its Steam numbers fell off from a peak concurrent player count of more than 125,000 in April 2021 to a little shy of 2,600 over the past 30 days.
Despite that decline (and that doesn't account for console and Game Pass players, don't forget), Outriders is still out there and still growing: In fact, the Worldslayer expansion, with new locations, gear, weapons, and endgame content, is set to go live on June 30. And because Square Enix would very much like new players to give it a shot (and lapsed players to come back), it's made Outriders fully free to play for the next three days on Steam: Until 10 am PT/1 pm ET on June 23, you can just pop over to the store page, punch the "play game" button, and, well, play the game.
>> And it's also 45% off.

Crytek warns against using revolver glitch in Hunt: Showdown, says fix is coming soon
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/crytek-warns-against-using-revolver-glitch-in-hunt-showdown-says-fix-is-coming-soon/
Crytek has warned that Hunt: Showdown players who take advantage of a glitch that gives the LeMat Mark 2 revolver an unintended power boost could face serious consequences for their actions.
The LeMat is a nine-round revolver that also packs a secondary barrel capable of firing shotgun shells. What this means, basically, is that it has the relatively accuracy of a pistol (or high rate of fire, if you're fanning), and can also absolutely ruin your day up close. The problem, as explained by PCGamesN, is that the gun can be glitched so that when the shotgun is fired, each pellet is treated as a full metal jacket pistol round, without the usual spread of a shotgun shell. That means it hits like an absolute truck, way above and beyond what it's meant to, as you can see in the video below.

More Tony Hawk remakes were planned, but then shelved
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/more-tony-hawk-remakes-were-planned-but-then-shelved/
For those with fingers crossed that the third and fourth instalments of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater might get a remake, there's bad news. According to Tony Hawk himself, speaking on a Twitch livestream, remakes for both were still planned as late as the release date of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1+2, but due to the merging of remake studio Vicarious Visions with Blizzard, the project was shelved.

Fall Guys now free on Epic but de-listed from Steam
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/fall-guys-now-free-on-epic-and-de-listed-from-steam/
Last month it was announced that Fall Guys would be going free-to-play today, June 21, as well as coming to the Epic Games Store. Squirrelled-away at the bottom of the press release was the minor detail that it would also be disappearing from Steam: Although those who already own a Steam copy will continue to receive the same updates as Epic Store players.
It has come to pass, and you can now download Fall Guys for free on EGS. It's also making its debut on several consoles, which I mention because the game now has cross-play and cross-progression across all platforms. So if you enjoy the game, and it's a lot of fun in small doses, there's likely to be be a huge crowd of people trying it out for the next few weeks.