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

[JEMC]

It's Thursday, and these are the news:

SALES /PLAYER COUNT & DEALS

Diablo 4 is Blizzard's fastest-selling game of all time
https://www.pcgamer.com/diablo-4-is-blizzards-fastest-selling-game-of-all-time/
In case there was any doubt (and I'm pretty sure there wasn't, but just in case), Activision Blizzard said in its latest financial report that Diablo 4 is Blizzard's fastest-selling game of all time, and helped the company reach $1 billion in net bookings (that's total sales, basically) in a single quarter for the first time ever.

The Epic Store gives away two games:

• Murder by Numbers: https://store.epicgames.com/en-US/p/murder-by-numbers
• The Elder Scrolls Online: https://store.epicgames.com/en-US/p/the-elder-scrolls-online

Next week they'll give away Homeworld Remastered Collection & Severed Steel.

GOG goes steamy with a new NSFW Sale featuring over 200 games at up to 90% discounts until July, 31st: https://www.gog.com/en/promo.

Steam has two new deals:

• Abalon (formerly Summoners Fate), that has a demo, is going to be 40% off until July, 26th: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1681840/Abalon_formerly_Summoners_Fate/
• And the Crashlands Franchise Sale features an 80% discount until next Wednesday: https://store.steampowered.com/sale/crashlands_franchise

Humble Bundle has launched the new Whimsy & Wonder, a Cozy Games Collection Bundle, with up to 9 items to get during the next 20 days: https://www.humblebundle.com/games/cozy-games.

Fanatical hosts a Frontier Developments Sale, with up to 83% discounts during another 5 days (it may have started yesterday): https://www.fanatical.com/en/publishers/frontier-developments.

SOFTWARE & DRIVERS

-Empty-

MODS, EMULATORS & FAN PROJECTS

Mass Effect 2 Legendary Edition gets a new HD Texture Pack
https://www.dsogaming.com/mods/mass-effect-2-legendary-edition-gets-a-new-hd-texture-pack/
Last month, we shared an HD Texture Pack for the first Mass Effect game of the Legendary Edition Trilogy. And today, we present you a brand new lore-friendly HD Texture Pack for Mass Effect 2 Legendary Edition.
Created by modder ‘Catachrism’, this pack contains many LE-specific bug fixes including resolving upscaling artifacts left over in vanilla LE2 textures, UV mapping issues, unaligned character teeth, specular channel miss-mapping, normal map miss-mapping, Asari color correction (removes the neon blue), environmental texture enhancements and more.
Going into more details, the modder upscaled all textures at stage 1 manually or via Cupscale to remove DXT artifacts. Then, Catachrism handcrafted and painted the textures using promotional art as references, his personal texture detail libraries, and manual touch-ups. The modder attempted to preserve the specular channels and normal map details of the original textures in addition to the diffuse maps. Moreover, he added new details and features ensuring the new textures work in any lighting scenario.
>> The article has some screenshots.

GAMING NEWS

PC is currently more profitable to Activision Blizzard than consoles
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/pc-is-more-profitable-to-activision-blizzard-than-next-gen-consoles/
During its Second Quarter 2023 Financial Report, Activision Blizzard stated that PC is currently a more profitable platform than both Xbox Series X and PS5.
According to the publisher, for the 6 months of the year, PC made $1.25 billion. For comparison purposes, all consoles combined made $1.19 billion in that same period. However, even the PC platform was no match for mobile. Mobile is currently the golden cow of Activision Blizzard as it brought in $1.9 billion.

Here are 17 minutes of gameplay from The Crew Motorfest
https://www.dsogaming.com/videotrailer-news/here-are-17-minutes-of-gameplay-from-the-crew-motorfest/
GameInformer has released a new video, showcasing 17 minutes of gameplay footage from Ubisoft’s The Crew Motorfest. This new The Crew game feels like a new Forza Horizon game, and this gameplay video can give you a glimpse at its vehicle driving mechanics.

First screenshots for Skull Island: Rise of Kong leaked online
https://www.dsogaming.com/screenshot-news/first-screenshots-for-skull-island-rise-of-kong-leaked/
It appears that Amazon Spain has leaked a new Kong game, called Skull Island: Rise of Kong. Skull Island: Rise of Kong will be published by GameMill Entertainment, and you can find below its first screenshots.

Bandai Namco shuts down GUNDAM EVOLUTION in just a year
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/bandai-namco-shuts-down-gundam-evolution-in-just-a-year/
And another one bites the dust. Bandai Namco has just announced that it will shut down the servers of GUNDAM EVOLUTION on November 29th, 2023.
GUNDAM EVOLUTION was a team-based FPS in which you pilot Mobile Suits from the smash hit Gundam anime. This was another “Games as a Service” product that had lots of microtransactions and forced players to grind so that they could upgrade their mechs. Thus, we’re not that surprised by this news.