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

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The news, the sequel:

After 2,000 hours in Stardew Valley, one player has the earth-shattering realisation: they can tuck their plushies into bed
https://www.pcgamer.com/after-2000-hours-in-stardew-valley-one-player-has-the-earth-shattering-realisation-they-can-tuck-their-plushies-into-bed/
Code red, code red: you might have been keeping your Stardew plushies cold for no good reason. In a thread that hit over 7,000 upvotes on the Stardew subreddit, user youkaymelis writes: "I have over 2,000+ hours in this game and just accidently found out you can tuck in your plushies," accompanied by a picture of their discovery.

PUBG dev says it bans up to 100,000 accounts a week, and now it's deploying AI models to hunt the cheats
https://www.pcgamer.com/pubg-dev-says-it-bans-up-to-100000-accounts-a-week-and-now-its-deploying-ai-models-to-hunt-the-cheats/
PUBG developer Krafton has a new blogpost from its anti-cheat team, discussing the omnipresent problem of cheating in the game and what it's doing to tackle the villains. It begins with a pretty astonishing demonstration of the scale of the problem: "Every week, the PUBG: Battlegrounds Anti-Cheat Team identifies and imposes permanent bans on an average of 60,000 to a maximum of about 100,000 accounts involved in the use, distribution, or sale of illegal software."

7 years after hitting it big on Kickstarter, Battalion 1944 developers are offering full refunds for everyone
https://www.pcgamer.com/7-years-after-hitting-it-big-on-kickstarter-battalion-1944-developers-are-offering-full-refunds-for-everyone/
More than seven years after finding major success on Kickstarter, Battalion 1944 studio Bulkhead Interactive is offering full refunds to backers, regardless of their platform or pledge tier.

Diablo 4 players are doing literally billions of points of damage in single shots with bonkers 'Shred Druid' builds
https://www.pcgamer.com/diablo-4-players-are-doing-literally-billions-of-points-of-damage-in-single-shots-with-bonkers-shred-druid-builds/
Diablo 4 is all about builds: How your class, stats, skills, and equipment come together to enable you to kick the most demon ass in the least amount of time. Some builds are very powerful, others not so much, but one—the "Lightning Shred Druid 2.0," as streamer Moxsy calls it—is doing so much damage, it might as well be broken.

Ultima Online is grilling, chilling, and still thriving all these years later
https://www.pcgamer.com/ultima-online-is-grilling-chilling-and-still-thriving-all-these-years-later/
Classic MMO Ultima Online's scribe-and-abacus-driven official servers were pushed to their limits on July 7 to host a celebratory Summer Solstice cookout boasting games, prizes, and "a nice cold root beer drink".

Co-president of Naughty Dog, Evan Wells, announces retirement after 25 years
https://www.pcgamer.com/co-president-of-naughty-dog-evan-wells-announces-retirement-after-25-years/
Evan Wells is stepping down as co-president of Naughty Dog—creators of The Last of Us and Uncharted series—after 25 years, according to a blog post on the Naughty Dog website yesterday.

Baldur's Gate 3 will let you treat your companions terribly, including biting off their limbs
https://www.pcgamer.com/baldurs-gate-3-will-let-you-treat-your-companions-terribly-including-biting-off-their-limbs/
(...)
We recently sent mag editor Robert Jones to the current home of Baldur's Gate, in Ghent, Belgium, to see just how reactive the RPG actually is. He got to play with The Dark Urge, a newly announced potential companion who, like all of them, you can also play as. Choosing this background means you'll spend the game as a dragonborn with voices in their head compelling them to do rather nasty things, which in Rob's playthrough was bad news for magical companion Gale.

Here's an up-close look at Vampire Survivors' chaotic couch co-op mode, set to arrive in August
https://www.pcgamer.com/heres-an-up-close-look-at-vampire-survivors-chaotic-couch-co-op-mode-set-to-arrive-in-august/
In June, poncle announced that the reverse bullet hell Vampire Survivors will finally be getting a couch co-op mode in August. Today we got a closer look at how it will work, along with the surprise announcement of new Steam-specific features that are actually live today.

Vampire Survivors set for hefty FPS boost as its new engine finally gets a release date: 'It's like a completely different game'
https://www.pcgamer.com/vampire-survivors-set-for-hefty-fps-boost-as-its-new-engine-finally-gets-a-release-date-its-like-a-completely-different-game/
I'll be honest: I don't think of Vampire Survivors as much of a resource hog, given that it consists mostly of lightly-animated sprites roaming a 2D plane, but that might just be because I'm not very good at it. As rounds drag on, sprites pile up and the weapon effects grow ever-more vivacious, meaning even a game as elegant and humble as this can start chugging. Good news, then, that Vampire Survivors has finally put a firm date on its switch to Unity almost a year after it was first announced.

Respawn's recruiting for a third game in its Star Wars Jedi series
https://www.pcgamer.com/respawns-recruiting-for-a-third-game-in-its-star-wars-jedi-series/
Respawn Entertainment has put up several job ads relating to a new entry in its Star Wars Jedi series, following the well-received Star Wars Jedi: Survivor. It's currently looking for a principal game writer, senior VFX artist, and audio engineer, all of which roles are listed specifically as being for Star Wars Jedi.

A coalition of Halo modders and developers have been digging up the series' forgotten history—including an adorable set of RTS vehicles
https://www.pcgamer.com/a-coalition-of-halo-modders-and-developers-have-been-digging-up-the-series-forgotten-historyincluding-an-adorable-set-of-rts-vehicles/
Last year, it was announced on the Halo: Waypoint website that 343 Industries would be working with a coalition of modders from the community to dive into "the darkest depths of ancient folders" and salvage what they could from the cutting room floor of 2001's Halo: Combat Evolved, then bring those scraps to the Master Chief Collection, which came to PC in 2019.
They released a three-part blog series: "Cutting Room Floor", "Cutting Room Corps" and "Cutting Room Lore", then went dark until last week, tinkering away with what community writer Alex Wakeford calls "the secret tenth circle of Hell (the cutting room floor of game development)". Fortunately they survived Cortana's Inferno, and came out with some real gems.