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

[JEMC]

The second part of the Monday news:

I bet Baldur's Gate 3's shapeshifting latest villain is going to murder and impersonate one of your party members at some point
https://www.pcgamer.com/baldurs-gate-3s-shapeshifting-final-villain-is-definitely-going-to-murder-and-impersonate-one-of-your-party-members-at-some-point/
Baldur's Gate 3 is, wait, let me check… 144 hours away, and Larian has just formally introduced the third and final villain of the game's "unholy triumvirate" of bad guys. Orin the Red is a nefarious knife-loving lady voiced by Maggie Robertson—of RE8's Lady Dimitrescu fame—and I think she's going to do a lot of deeply undesirable things to me and the people I love.
>> Those 144 hours were three days ago. Now it's around 70 hours.

MMO releases the sequel to an 18-year-old quest that features such rare drops the developer has to step in and reassure players: 'No need to put nan in the cage as the clock chimes midnight, just kill bosses'
https://www.pcgamer.com/mmo-releases-the-sequel-to-an-18-year-old-quest-that-features-such-rare-drops-the-developer-has-to-step-in-and-reassure-players-no-need-to-put-nan-in-the-cage-as-the-clock-chimes-midnight-just-kill-bosses/
Old School RuneScape has released a sequel to an 18 year-old quest, spotted by GamesRadar+, one which has immediately caused confusion as players rushed to bag the new loot it comes with… and in most cases, didn't get it. Desert Treasure 2: The Fallen Empire is the MMO's first Grandmaster quest since 2019 and is a sequel to, you guessed it, Desert Treasure (released in 2005). It sees players returning to the Kharidian Desert to explore a big old vault and take on the lich-like Mahjarrat.

Dwarf Fortress's publisher is now helping the best early access roguelike across the finish line after 8 years on Steam
https://www.pcgamer.com/dwarf-fortresss-publisher-is-now-helping-the-best-early-access-roguelike-across-the-finish-line-after-8-years-on-steam/
After an 8-year stint in early access, the brilliant Caves of Qud is due to hit 1.0 next year with the help of Dwarf Fortress publisher Kitfox Games. It seems like a good match, with Dwarf Fortress being a big source of inspiration for the indie roguelike sim.

Destiny 2 composer reveals Paul McCartney's tunes are making a comeback
https://www.pcgamer.com/destiny-2-composer-reveals-paul-mccartneys-tunes-are-making-a-comeback/
Bungie composer Ella Feingold, who has been orchestrating Destiny since 2015, has posted an image on Instagram of a score sheet with a notable name on it: P. McCartney (spotted by VGC). The title of the composition has been obscured, while the orchestration is credited to Feingold and Jordan Cox, and lest there were any doubt, Feingold's caption reads "Yeah that P. McCartney. That's all I can say for now."

Creature collecting game wants you to shoot 'em all, catch 'em all, work 'em all to death, dispose of 'em all in a huge corpse pile
https://www.pcgamer.com/creature-collecting-game-wants-you-to-shoot-em-all-catch-em-all-work-em-all-to-death-dispose-of-em-all-in-a-huge-corpse-pile/
Every fresh look we get at Palworld makes it appear more fun and yet more disturbing than it did before. Palworld is a cartoony open world creature-collecting and battling game that is heavily inspired by Pokémon, but it's also filled with machine guns and rocket launchers.

Amid Evil's expansion has magical spiked gauntlets that look absolutely bananas and I can't wait to punch somebody in the face with them
https://www.pcgamer.com/amid-evils-expansion-has-magical-spiked-gauntlets-that-look-absolutely-bananas-and-i-cant-wait-to-punch-somebody-in-the-face-with-them/
Back in 2021, New Blood Interactive said The Black Labyrinth, the prequel to its most excellent Hexen-esque fantasy FPS Amid Evil, would be out—as usual—"Soon™." Two years later, it actually is going to happen soon: New Blood announced today that the long-awaited expansion will finally go live on August 18.

Instead of 'getting rid of a game that people love for no reason,' Path of Exile 2 will now be a standalone release
https://www.pcgamer.com/path-of-exile-2-standalone-game-announcement-2023/
When Path of Exile 2 was announced four years ago, it was going to expand on and overtake Path of Exile 1. The original action RPG's campaign was still going to be playable, but PoE's transformation into Path of Exile 2 would add in a new campaign and alter the endgame—sort of like how Overwatch 2 replaced Overwatch. Well, plans change.
During this year's ExileCon keynote, developer Grinding Gear Games revealed that it has changed its mind, and Path of Exile 2 will now be a separate game that runs in its own client.
>> For those wroyying about the purchased content, it will be both forward and backwards compatible.

Path of Exile 2 pushes action RPG technology to the absolute limit with 'meta gems' that you socket other gems into
https://www.pcgamer.com/path-of-exile-2-pushes-action-rpg-technology-to-the-absolute-limit-with-meta-gems-that-you-socket-other-gems-into/
World of Warcraft has a category of items called meta gems, which go in special gem slots and can only be equipped if you have a specific number of other gems already slotted into your gear. They can have powerful bonuses, but in practice they mostly just make me frustrated enough to yell at my computer as I trek to the auction house to buy another round of color coordinated gold sinks.
Path of Exile 2, shown off in detail today at ExileCon, also has meta gems, but they're part of a revamped skill system that throws away item links in lieu of skill gems that you socket into… more gems.

Build a base to escape an alien world, all while browsing the internet in this quarter-screen idler
https://www.pcgamer.com/build-a-base-to-escape-an-alien-world-all-while-browsing-the-internet-in-this-quarter-screen-idler/
Clickers, idlers, and the like exist for a reason: That reason is many of us want to do two things at a time. We want to stimulate more than one bit of our brain. I'm sure that by now you know at least one person, or are that person, who combines in some way watching shows, listening to podcasts, reading social media, and videogames at once.
This is an urge as old as the first person who was like "we should put a radio in this car."
Enter The Evergloom Team, who're now showing off their second game: Deskape, stylized dEskape, is purpose-built to fit along a band at the bottom of your screen. Crashed on an alien world, your job is to build up infrastructure so you can escape while defending yourself from attacks by an alien hive. It's explicitly designed as a base-building game "allowing you to work, browse, or watch something else while you play. It's idle when you like and active when you want," according to the developers.

Final Fantasy 14's next expansion has a name and a new job
https://www.pcgamer.com/final-fantasy-14s-next-expansion-has-a-name-and-a-new-job/
Final Fantasy 14's next expansion will be titled Dawntrail and the trailer seems to hint at a new job plucked out of the other Final Fantasy MMO, Final Fantasy 11.
At Fan Fest today, Square Enix showed a trailer for FF14's fifth expansion, following up 2021's Endwalker. Along with a bunch of familiar faces, the trailer shows the player character stand-in taking a ship toward what looks like an island. He fights with a one-handed sword and is wearing a cloak over garb that looks a lot like the pirate-themed Final Fantasy job, the Corsair—a job that debuted in Final Fantasy 11.

Want some Final Fantasy in your Final Fantasy? The FF14 team wants to put old FF games in player housing
https://www.pcgamer.com/want-some-final-fantasy-in-your-final-fantasy-the-ff14-team-wants-to-put-old-ff-games-in-player-housing/
The Pixel Remaster series brought Final Fantasy classics to Steam with a modern rework and an updated look, but the Final Fantasy 14 team wants to add another way for players to go back to the series' roots. If you’ve ever wanted to play a Final Fantasy inside of your Final Fantasy, Yoshida’s got your back—maybe.

This factory game RTS uses programmable drones instead of conveyor belts
https://www.pcgamer.com/this-factory-game-rts-uses-programmable-drones-instead-of-conveyor-belts/
Look, I love a good conveyor belt, but every factory game has them now. What if we had a fleet of programmable drones, instead? Ones we could set behaviors and automatic decision trees for based on the growing needs of our automated empire? That's the goal in Desynced, an upcoming Early Access game that wants to take the best bits of a few genres and mash 'em together

Diablo 4 players are using a trick from 1997 to kill The Butcher
https://www.pcgamer.com/diablo-4-players-are-using-a-trick-from-1997-to-kill-the-butcher/
The return of The Butcher, for me, is one of Diablo 4's high points. His randomized attacks are surprising, terrifying, and yes, frustrating for an awful lot of players. The good news for those having trouble taking him on is that there does appear to be one fairly reliable way to do it—it's called cheese.

Diablo 4's next patch will finally give Sorcerers and Barbarians the buffs they need
https://www.pcgamer.com/diablo-4-patch-1-1-1-notes-buff-sorcerer-barbarian/
During a Campfire Chat stream today, the Diablo 4 team explained the changes coming in patch 1.1.1 when it drops on August 8. The massive patch follows the game’s controversial pre-season patch, which made substantial nerfs to player survivability and damage output and left Sorcerers and Barbarians weaker than the other three classes.

One of Diablo 4's season blessings is actually more of a season curse
https://www.pcgamer.com/one-of-diablo-4-season-blessings-is-actually-more-of-a-season-curse/
As part of the Season of the Malignant, AKA Diablo 4 Season 1, players can choose to purchase a season blessing. These are boosts that come in urns, like the Urn of Aggression, which increases xp earned from kills, and the Urn of Malignance, which increases the rate of Malignant Heart drops. Then there's the Urn of Bargaining, which is supposed to increase the amount of gold you earn by selling gear to vendors. And that's where the problem comes in.
You want to be careful not to waste gold in Diablo 4, as it becomes more valuable later on when you'll need to pay the Occultist to shift aspects from one piece of legendary gear to another. That's the source of the first problem with the Urn of Bargaining, which is that it increases the cost of vendor services. You'll end up spending more gold on enchantments at the Occultist, and on repairs at the Blacksmith, and on every other service offered by Sanctuary's shopkeepers.