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

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Monday news, the long part two:

Already-massive Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous adds new class, quests, companion
https://www.pcgamer.com/already-massive-pathfinder-wrath-of-the-righteous-adds-new-class-quests-companion/
Owlcat has revealed a trailer and release date for the first installment of its second season of DLC add-ons for Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous. The Last Sarkorians adds a new class, Shifter, as well as a Shifter companion and his associated questlines.

The Bored Apes NFT game is literally about chasing shit
https://www.pcgamer.com/the-bored-apes-nft-game-is-literally-about-chasing-shit/
After a couple of years of successfully selling ugly scribbles of silly apes for obscene prices to people with too much money, Bored Ape Yacht Club parent company Yuga Labs is moving into game development. And it's doing so exactly as you'd expect: Dookey Dash is a game about swimming through a sewer in pursuit of magical monkey poop.

Psyonix unleashes 'banwave' against the Rocket League bot menace
https://www.pcgamer.com/psyonix-unleashes-banwave-against-the-rocket-league-bot-menace/
A few weeks ago we reported on a new trend in Rocket League: A bot that had been built for fun and learning, Nexto, had been reconfigured by bad actors and used in widespread cheating. Player clips of the bots in action abound, and all show a preternatural command of the ball, as well as a suspicious tendency to stay on the ground most of the time.
At the time, Psyonix told us it was "actively investigating solutions" and now it looks like Nexto's time is up. In an update posted to the Rocket League subreddit, the studio posted a statement acknowledging that this was "a very active topic" around the community, and what it's done about it.

Sea of Thieves greets 2023 with a new, limited-time adventure and shorter PvP queues
https://www.pcgamer.com/sea-of-thieves-greets-2023-with-a-new-limited-time-adventure-and-shorter-pvp-queues/
Rare released the first Sea of Thieves news bulletin of 2023 on January 18, showing off the first bit of new content added to the game this year. There's a new PvE adventure, The Secret Wilds, which will run until February 2, as well as a host of cosmetics and some welcome PvP changes.

Wait, again? War Thunder fans just can't help themselves when it comes to posting sensitive military documents
https://www.pcgamer.com/wait-again-war-thunder-fans-just-cant-help-themselves-when-it-comes-to-posting-sensitive-military-documents/
As reported by Aerotime, on January 18 user RanchSauce39 on the War Thunder forums shared scans of an operations manual for the F-15 Eagle fighter jet, data that is potentially against US law to disseminate, in the course of a long forum thread about the history of the vehicle and its performance in the long-running military simulator.

Factorio is getting a price increase in response to inflation
https://www.pcgamer.com/factorio-is-getting-a-price-increase-in-response-to-inflation/
Games usually get cheaper as they age, but in a rare reversal, beloved factory management game Factorio will get a price bump on January 26, going from $30 to $35.
"This is an adjustment to account for the level of inflation since the Steam release in 2016," Factorio's developer announced on Twitter today (spotted by Kotaku). We reviewed Factorio after it shed its early access label in 2020, awarding it a very positive 91%.

Xbox boss Phil Spencer says layoffs were 'painful' but necessary for 'long-term success'
https://www.pcgamer.com/xbox-boss-phil-spencer-says-layoffs-were-painful-but-necessary-for-long-term-success/
In an email sent to employees in Microsoft's gaming division and shared by an employee with Kotaku, Xbox boss Phil Spencer said it "hurts" when people get laid off, but that in the long run it's the best thing for the company.

Phantom Liberty will be the biggest add-on CD Projekt has ever made⁠—by budget
https://www.pcgamer.com/phantom-liberty-will-be-the-biggest-add-on-cd-projekt-has-ever-madeby-budget/
First reported on in English by Wccftech, CD Projekt investor relations manager Marek Bugdoł told the Polish outlet Parkiet that Cyberpunk's Phantom Liberty expansion would be the studio's largest post-launch add-on to date⁠—in terms of budget. CD Projekt global PR director Radek Grabowski was quick to emphasize this point on Twitter, cooling a rush of speculation that the long-awaited expansion would surpass The Witcher 3's highly regarded Blood and Wine in size and scope.

Elder Scrolls Online teases involvement of immortal Lovecraft crab tentacle demon in this year's expansion
https://www.pcgamer.com/elder-scrolls-online-teases-involvement-of-immortal-lovecraft-crab-tentacle-demon-in-this-years-expansion/
As reported by Eurogamer, Zenimax Online has started up the hype machine for the coming year's storyline in The Elder Scrolls Online. Various influencers and members of the press received a mysterious letter that, when viewed under blacklight, contains the symbol of the Daedric prince, Hermaeus Mora, The Demon of Knowledge, Master of the Tides of Fate, The Gardener of Men, Lord of Secrets, the… you know what, you get it. He was one of the main characters in Skyrim's Dragonborn expansion, and you may remember harvesting some souls for him to get a skill book in Oblivion.

Cool Water Alert: Watch water drain from fish tank bullet holes in Phantom Fury
https://www.pcgamer.com/cool-water-alert-watch-water-drain-from-fish-tank-bullet-holes-in-phantom-fury/
Every once in a while PC Gamer's Chris Livingston will post something in the site's slack channel with the tagline "COOL WATER ALERT" and I love it when I'm around for those posts. Why, you might ask? Because cool water is always good. It is good when a videogame does something cool with water.
So it is in Phantom Fury, which Slipgate Ironworks CEO Frederik Schreiber has revealed includes the absolutely delightful ability to put bullet holes in fish tanks and then the water drains out.
>> Things like this one were common in older games, like Splinter Cell. Nowadays, not so much.

Endless Dungeon has a release date, and you can get Dungeon of the Endless for free
https://www.pcgamer.com/endless-dungeon-has-a-release-date-and-you-can-get-dungeon-of-the-endless-for-free/
The next game in Amplitude's Endless series will be Endless Dungeon, a follow-up to 2014's Dungeon of the Endless, which is my equivocating way of saying it's not actually a sequel. Where that was a roguelike tactical RPG with a bit of tower defense thrown in, the new game seems more like a twin-stick shooter with a bit of tower defense thrown in. And it'll be available on Steam and the Epic Games Store from May 14.

GTA Online has its own Dark Souls-style critical security vulnerability on PC
https://www.pcgamer.com/grand-theft-auto-online-has-its-own-dark-souls-style-critical-security-vulnerability-on-pc/
The Rockstar Games-focused account Tez2 recently shared evidence of security vulnerabilities in Grand Theft Auto Online. A number of players have reported account progress being reversed, as well as being kicked or blocked from joining games on PC. There is a pinned post on the GTA Online subreddit dedicated to the issue and bringing it to Rockstar's attention, and the developer Speyedr, who created the custom GTA 5 firewall tool Guardian, warns that modders using the exploit are on the verge of remote code execution through GTA Online, meaning that hackers could remotely activate malware on PCs running the game.

The neon cities of Industries of Titan rise from the depths to full release this month
https://www.pcgamer.com/the-neon-cities-of-industries-of-titan-rise-from-the-depths-to-full-release-this-month/
The dilapidated cityscapes and epic spaceship battles of Jovian moon Titan are finally getting a proper release this month, as Industries of Titan will rise from beneath the surface and out of Early Access on January 31st, 2023.

Ready your cyberbike and tear out a robot's guts with a grappling hook in Gripper
https://www.pcgamer.com/ready-your-cyberbike-and-tear-out-a-robots-guts-with-a-grappling-hook-in-gripper/
You ever want to roar across the dystopian wasteland of the future's wastelands and cities on your incredibly slick-looking cyberpunk motorcycle? Yeah, me neither, but I'd love to do that in a videogame, and that's what we're here for.
Gripper is an upcoming action indie all about taking down tough bosses, ripping out their hearts, and using those to customize your absolutely enviable ride. Yeah, it's a boss rush game, one of those where the whole point of the thing is throwing yourself up against tough bosses and figuring out how to tear them to pieces.

The Dead Space remake is too scary for its own technical director
https://www.pcgamer.com/the-dead-space-remake-is-too-scary-for-its-own-technical-director/
The real test of a great horror game is playing it in the dark. Things that don't seem too bad while friendly Mr. Daystar is shining through the window become worrying at night. The last time I got so creeped out I needed to save my game and do something else before bed was Signalis, and I remember doing the same thing in the scarier levels of Thief: The Dark Project. With luck, the Dead Space remake might be another for that list.

This rhythm game just became one of Steam's worst games of all time
https://www.pcgamer.com/this-rhythm-game-just-became-one-of-steams-worst-games-of-all-time/
It's very rare for a game to be so dire that it earns a single-digit rating on Steam. It certainly happens, though, as proven by O2Jam Online's release last week. The rhythm game is currently sitting on a 4% rating, with only around 41 of its 1,000+ reviews recommending it.
>> It may be bad, but it also looks to be quite popular given the number of reviews.