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:

Xbox boss on Redfall studio Arkane Austin staying open: 'That is the plan right now'
https://www.pcgamer.com/xbox-boss-on-redfall-studio-arkane-austin-staying-open-that-is-the-plan-right-now/
Redfall's launch back on May 1 was a disaster. It was panned by audiences and critics (including our own Tyler Colp, who scored it 44% in his Redfall review) and riddled with performance issues. The game's situation is so dire that, when it got its first major patch earlier this week, there were under 100 people still playing to see it, a shocking number for a major release from a big studio.
(...)
Responding to a question about fan concerns regarding Arkane Austin staying open, Booty said "That is the plan right now". The studio is "hard at work on updates and continued content for Redfall," and it sounds like Microsoft doesn't want to upend that work with a sudden closure.

Skyrim Grandma shoots down rumors of Starfield NPC appearance: 'I'm not in the game'
https://www.pcgamer.com/skyrim-grandma-shoots-down-rumors-of-starfield-npc-appearance-im-not-in-the-game/
Shirley Curry, better known to gamers as Skyrim Grandma, said in a new video that despite the apparent Easter egg in the recent Starfield Direct showcase, she's not going to appear in Starfield as an NPC. She's also not going to play Starfield, because she's "too angry" that she (and the rest of us) are still waiting for Elder Scrolls 6.

Diablo 4 gems will be moved out of the inventory
https://www.pcgamer.com/diablo-4-gems-will-be-moved-out-of-the-inventory/
"Pleas give us a gem pouch," pleads a highly-upvoted Diablo 4 subreddit post from January, and a gem pouch we will get.
During the first Diablo 4 Campfire Chat stream today, game director Joe Shely acknowledged that Diablo 4 gems, which can be refined and slotted into gear as upgrades, cause "inventory tension"—they take up a lot of space, more or less—and said that they will be removed from the inventory in a future update.

Diablo 4 director: 'It is time for the buffs'
https://www.pcgamer.com/diablo-4-director-it-is-time-for-the-buffs/
The Druid and Necromancer have gotten some buffs, but otherwise Diablo 4's first two weeks have been characterized by big nerfs as Blizzard weakened builds that were outside its "bounds for what is reasonable" and downgraded the best XP farming sites with hotfixes. Now it sounds like things will be swinging the other direction.
>> And there will be changes to the endgame as well.

Overwatch 2's bad times continue as it's forced to disable two new maps
https://www.pcgamer.com/overwatch-2s-bad-times-continue-as-its-forced-to-disable-two-new-maps/
"We have disabled the Paríaso and Antarctica: Pennesula [sic] map as we investigate an issue with performance when certain heroes are played," says a relatively staid line from this week's Overwatch 2 Known Issues post.

Kigndoms and Castles gets a nice update as devs announce new Rome-based city builder
https://www.pcgamer.com/kigndoms-and-castles-gets-a-nice-update-as-devs-announce-new-rome-based-city-builder/
It might be six years old, but indie city builder Kingdoms and Castles has gotten regular updates since it released in 2017, and this year's apparently going to be no exception. Just today an update released, the Infrastructure & Industry update, adding all manner of community-requested buildings to streamline the making and supplying in your kingdom.

One of the best shooters around finally has a mondo creepy first look at its final act
https://www.pcgamer.com/one-of-the-best-shooters-around-finally-has-a-mondo-creepy-first-look-at-its-final-act/
Developer Arsi "Hakita" Patal has finally shown off some of New Blood shooter Ultrakill's final act with a brief, unnerving peek at "The Garden of Forking Paths," the first of its final sequence of 10 levels.

A free Vermintide 2 update adds three dwarven delights from the first game
https://www.pcgamer.com/a-free-vermintide-2-update-adds-three-dwarven-delights-from-the-first-game/
A free update has remastered an entire DLC from the first Vermintide and released it (again, for free) for every Warhammer: Vermintide 2 owner to enjoy. The three remastered levels are Karak Azgaraz, a dwarven fortress under siege and occupation by villainous Skaven rat-men.

Here are the updates coming to Valorant's progression system
https://www.pcgamer.com/here-are-the-updates-coming-to-valorants-progression-system/
Valorant's Episode 7 release on June 27th will come with a bunch of changes to how you earn and unlock in-game rewards. Riot says they're pretty simple stuff that you'll figure out as you go, but if you like me want to understand things before you try them here's the short story on what's changing.

Fallout 76 looks like it's chasing New Vegas vibes in its next big addon
https://www.pcgamer.com/fallout-76-looks-like-its-chasing-new-vegas-vibes-in-its-next-big-addon/
In a teaser at the 2023 Xbox Games Showcase, Bethesda revealed that Fallout 76's next Expedition will take vault dwellers on a vacation to the Atlantic City boardwalk. Bethesda only showed off a small slice of what Atlantic City has in store as part of a commemorative video celebrating Fallout 76 crossing the 15 million player mark, a figure likely helped a great deal by the game's addition to Xbox and PC Game Pass.

World of Horror will actually finally release in October
https://www.pcgamer.com/world-of-horror-will-actually-finally-release-in-october/
Honestly I should know better by now than to publish stories with titles like "World of Horror will finally release in Summer 2023" because that is a guarantee that the game in question will not finally release at whatever time or date I have said. This is a tempting opportunity that the universe will use to humble me, something I have failed to learn after ten years of writing about games.
Anyway, cult-hit indie survival horror RPG World of Horror will release on October 19th, 2023, says publisher Ysbryd Games. October being in, of course, the fall.

Gunpowder soulslike Flintlock delayed into 2024
https://www.pcgamer.com/gunpowder-soulslike-flintlock-delayed-into-2024/
Developer A44 has delayed Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn to a 2024 launch date, which means you'll have to wait until next year to make some flintlock devices and use them to blow up the gods and their undead army in a soulslike open world. That's a delay of a year from the previous release date of "early 2023" on Steam, Epic Games Store, and Game Pass.

Here's space corporations doing things they shouldn't in the Aliens: Dark Descent story trailer
https://www.pcgamer.com/heres-space-corporations-doing-things-they-shouldnt-in-the-aliens-dark-descent-story-trailer/
Aliens: Dark Descent has released a story trailer with a couple minutes of teasing as to what we're going to be getting up to on our squad-based RTS adventures on the planet Lethe. I bet it's a nice vacation and everyone's going home happy.

A departed Rockstar cofounder is finally teasing what's next with a music video and a big ole' creepy eyeball
https://www.pcgamer.com/one-of-rockstars-cofounders-is-finally-teasing-whats-next-with-a-music-video-and-a-big-ole-creepy-eyeball/
Two years since Rockstar games co-founder Dan Houser filed a UK trademark for "Absurd Ventures in Games", the company has launched a website with the tagline "Storytelling. Philanthropy. Ultraviolence." There's an accompanying promotional reel that's currently selling vibes in place of products, with a promise to "polute minds and damage souls in every medium imaginable.

Players claim to have worked out the hellish details underpinning Diablo 4's timed events
https://www.pcgamer.com/players-claim-to-have-worked-out-the-hellish-details-underpinning-diablo-4s-timed-events/
Diablo 4's nature as a live service game means that players have since launch been trying to work out how it handles recurring events: when and where the world bosses spawn, when helltides are due to occur, and the same for legion events. A rough consensus formed pretty early, but now they've only gone and blown the bloody doors off.
>> And they've also find a way to overcome the limited character creation tools.

Blizzard says Overwatch matches sometimes turn into 'stomps' because that's, like, just the nature of things
https://www.pcgamer.com/blizzard-says-overwatch-matches-sometimes-turn-into-stomps-because-thats-like-just-the-nature-of-things/
Make no mistake about it, Blizzard is in triage mode on Overwatch 2. The seasonal announcements come-and-go with smooth regularity but beneath the surface this is a game paddling madly away from its original concept, much of which has now been cancelled, towards an uncertain future of mini events and trying to reinvent itself on-the-fly.

One million people have checked out Lies of P's mash-up of Pinocchio and Bloodborne thanks to its demo
https://www.pcgamer.com/one-million-people-have-checked-out-lies-of-ps-mash-up-of-pinocchio-and-bloodborne-thanks-to-its-demo/
Round8 Studio's Lies of P demo has hit one million downloads, as per the Lies of P official twitter account. This shows a surprising amount of interest for a game that initially seemed a bit of a clone—and having played the demo myself, the studio hasn't done a huge amount of tinkering to FromSoftware's formula. They have, however, capitalised spectacularly on the lack of a PC Bloodborne port, a barrier-to-entry that's kept me from playing the Lovecraftian death grinder to this very day.