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

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Tuesday news, part two:

Roll up for the 40th anniversary of the Golden Joystick Awards
https://www.pcgamer.com/roll-up-for-the-40th-anniversary-of-the-golden-joystick-awards/
The 40th Golden Joystick Awards presented by GamesRadar+ will take place on Tuesday, November 22. The event is run by PC Gamer's parent company, Future.
The Golden Joysticks are the longest-running videogame awards show, where the awards are determined by public vote, in history. Every year sees millions of votes cast across a wide range of categories, with an additional three 'Critics Choice Awards' determined by Future's senior editorial staff.
This year's 40th anniversary show will be a bonanza of gaming goodness, and fans will vote across 18 categories including 'Best Studio' and the much-coveted 'Ultimate Game of the Year'. The public voting opens here on Friday October 7.

Beyond Good and Evil 2 has broken Duke Nukem Forever's record for longest game development time
https://www.pcgamer.com/beyond-good-and-evil-2-has-broken-duke-nukem-forevers-record-for-longest-game-development-time/
The 15-year journey of Beyond Good and Evil 2 has wearily passed another milestone: it's been in development even longer than Duke Nukem Forever, the game which still holds (though presumably not for long) the Guinness World Record for "Longest development period for a videogame".
Well, actually, BG&E2 officially crossed that threshold about a hundred days ago, it's just taken us all this long to notice. As originally pointed out by GamesIndustry.biz editor Brendan Sinclair, the painful labour that brought us Duke Nukem Forever lasted 5,156 days. BG&E 2's first trailer came out on May 30, 2008: 5,239 days ago. Heck, the game had already been in development for a year or so when that trailer dropped, so it's actually been even longer.
>> This is one of those record no one should break, but here we are. And who knows how long it will take until the game launches, if at all.

Phasmophobia dev apologises and belatedly bans Discord admin after messy nude pics scandal
https://www.pcgamer.com/phasmophobia-studio-apologises-and-belatedly-bans-discord-admin-after-messy-nude-pics-scandal/
Phasmophobia is probably the best ghost game ever made, retains a considerable playerbase, and this year has been dealing with a community scandal that, over the last week, blew up. The furore centres around an administrator for the game's Discord, who goes by the handle of Charcoal Salamander, who is accused of both offering to share nude photographs with another community member, and making racist comments. What happened with these accusations, or didn't, is what's brought this to a head.

Fallout 76 is free this week to celebrate a big series birthday
https://www.pcgamer.com/fallout-76-is-free-this-week-to-celebrate-a-big-series-birthday/
Fallout: A Post-Nuclear Role Playing Game was released on October 10, 1997—25 years ago, minus a week. That's the silver anniversary, which is a big one as these milestones go, and to mark the moment Bethesda is—among other things—making Fallout 76 free for the week.

Overwatch 2 launch time: when does it actually release?
https://www.pcgamer.com/overwatch-2-launch-time/
The day without Overwatch is almost over. The free-to-play Overwatch 2 launch on October 4 will replace the original game with an updated design and a new, contentious battle pass.
>> We'll see how well it does.

Kerbal Space Program studio is working on something new
https://www.pcgamer.com/kerbal-space-program-studio-is-working-on-something-new/
Intercept Games was founded in early 2020 to assume control of the development of Kerbal Space Program 2, which up to that point had been in development at original Kerbal studio Star Theory Games. At the time, it seemed almost like a straight name change, as "key members" of the Kerbal 2 team including former Star Theory studio head Jeremy Ables, creative director Nate Simpson, and lead producer Nate Robinson all moved to Intercept to continue working on the game.
The process hasn't gone perfectly smoothly since then, however. At the time, Kerbal Space Program 2 was slated to be out sometime before March 31, 2021, but after multiple delays it's now not expected until early 2023. It also recently came to light that while Intercept Games was formed specifically to work on Kerbal 2, it's also got another game on the go.

The pumpkin meta is now dominating Disney Dreamlight Valley
https://www.pcgamer.com/disney-dreamlight-valley-pumpkins-farming-exploit/
Disney Dreamlight Valley has a meta, and it's pumpkins. More ominously, cunning players have found a way to trap and exploit Dreamlight Valley's iconic citizens in order to score increased harvest margins on their cash crops.

Tattoo artist lays a legal RKO on Take-Two over Randy Orton's ink in WWE 2K games
https://www.pcgamer.com/tattoo-artist-lays-a-legal-rko-on-take-two-over-randy-ortons-ink-in-wwe-2k-games/
An unusual lawsuit between tattoo artist Catherine Alexander and Take-Two Interactive has concluded with a victory for Alexander, who argued successfully that WWE 2K16, WWE 2K17 and WWE 2K18 reproduced her work without her permission.

Fortnite is down for extended maintenance
https://www.pcgamer.com/is-fortnite-down-maintenance-october-3/
Fortnite's servers are down for a lengthy maintenance period on Monday, October 3, according to the official Fortnite Status Twitter account.
The server outage for the battle royale was intentional, prepping the game for its next update: Update 22.10. But it hasn't quite gone to plan. Maintenance downtime was set to begin at 4 am EST on October 4. Instead, it began nearly 12 hours early, around 5 pm EST.

Activision Blizzard withheld raises to retaliate against unionising staff, US Labor Relations Board finds
https://www.pcgamer.com/activision-blizzard-withheld-raises-to-retaliate-against-unionising-staff-us-labor-relations-board-finds/
The USA's National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has found that Activision Blizzard withheld pay raises from Raven Software quality assurance staff because of their union organising activity, the Washington Post reports.
>> F*cking twats.

Sony remains frustratingly vague on future PC plans
https://www.pcgamer.com/sony-remains-frustratingly-vague-on-future-pc-plans/
The past two years have seen Sony begin to stake its claim on the PC platform, porting over some of its greatest hits like God of War, Horizon Zero Dawn, and Spider-Man. The ports have (for the most part) been pretty darn good too, so it looks like the publisher is serious about PC as a vector for PlayStation's finest.
On the other hand, it continues to remain pretty damn vague about what its future plans actually are. Hermen Hulst, head of PlayStation Studios, kept his cards close to his chest in a brief interview with Reuters when speaking about continuing its push to PC and mobile. "Further investments in areas that will strengthen the expansion on to PC, onto mobile and into live services, that's definitely a possibility for us," he said.
>> Given the leaked document from the DSOG news, it's more than a possibility.

The prototype for Black's sequel sounds unsurprisingly amazing
https://www.pcgamer.com/the-prototype-for-blacks-sequel-sounds-unsurprisingly-amazing/
Criterion's Black is a product of its time: which is to say that, if you were there, it's simply one of the best shooter experiences there was. I say 'experience' because that's what Black felt like: a game that almost blew back the wallpaper as your ludicrously boombastic weapons chewed through enemies and scenery alike on the CRT. The studio, then and now known best for the Burnout series, had managed to pivot into the FPS genre and make an insta-classic.
(...)
Several figures involved in Black recently spoke to ThatHitbox for a retrospective on the game, which is well worth a read (if, like me, you miss shotguns that sound like backfiring trucks). Criterion figures have in the past mentioned a mooted sequel to Black, but here we finally get a firmer idea of what it looked like, and where the team intended to take the series.

Company of Heroes 3 has been delayed to early next year
https://www.pcgamer.com/company-of-heroes-3-has-been-delayed-to-early-next-year/
World War 2 has been postponed. Company of Heroes 3, the next entry in Relic's totemic RTS series, has been hit by a delay with barely a month to go until its original release date. Instead of releasing on November 17, Company of Heroes 3 will come out on February 23, 2023, around four months from now.