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

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Monday news, part two:

Final Fantasy 14's first shapeshifting mount will let you blow yourself up, and it's free until October
https://www.pcgamer.com/final-fantasy-14s-first-shapeshifting-mount-will-let-you-blow-yourself-up-and-its-free-until-october/
Final Fantasy 14 has a lot of cool mounts up for grabs—there's a cosmic jellyfish that makes your character tiny, the Regalia from FF15, a tiny fluffy sheep, and even one where your character gets trapped in a T.V. They all share one thing in common, though: your character's there, either riding them or caged inside them like the victim of some cautionary fairy tale.
(...)
This year you'll be able to claim the Rising Phoenix mount. Instead of keeping your poor warrior of light trapped in some digital prison, though, it'll turn just straight-up turn you into a bird. All traces of your adventurer vanished, consigned to a feathery fate. The implications are somehow more concerning than being locked behind a T.V screen.

Bandai Namco reckons Armored Core 6 will do well because after Elden Ring, FromSoftware's name is 'a guarantee of quality'
https://www.pcgamer.com/bandai-namco-reckons-armored-core-6-will-do-well-because-after-elden-ring-fromsoftwares-name-is-a-guarantee-of-quality/
FromSoftware's upward trajectory with first the Souls series and now Elden Ring has publisher Bandai Namco feeling bullish about its return to Armored Core, a mech series that began in 1997 but had been dormant since 2013's Armored Core: Verdict Day. It may be on to something, because our own Wes Fenlon described Armored Core 6: Fires of Rubicon as "Top Gun: Maverick for anime nerds like me who grew up enraptured by Mobile Suit Gundam instead of F-14s" on the way to awarding a shining 87 score. I mean, that sounds pretty great.
Bandai Namco Europe CEO Arnaud Muller has been doing the rounds at Gamescom, and told GamesIndustry.biz he thinks the shift in audience expectations for the publisher and "a new dimension" for the game itself will see Armored Core break through to the mainstream.

7 years after launch, No Man's Sky adds its first new race in its biggest update of the year
https://www.pcgamer.com/7-years-after-launch-no-mans-sky-adds-its-first-new-race-in-its-biggest-update-of-the-year/
Two years before Starfield was announced, the sprawling sci-fi epic No Man's Sky launched to a decidedly mixed reaction: It really wasn't quite what was promised by the pre-release hype. Seven years later, Starfield is just a week away from release, and No Man's Sky has evolved into a genuine hit, and has now dropped yet another major update, Echoes, that adds an all-new race of robots to the game with "rich new story content" for players to explore.

Baldur's Gate 3 players continue to find little surprises: Astarion the vampire has rare voice lines if you nuke him with a sun ray
https://www.pcgamer.com/baldurs-gate-3-players-continue-to-find-little-surprises-astarion-the-vampire-has-rare-voice-lines-if-you-nuke-him-with-a-sun-ray/
We all know by now that Baldur's Gate 3 is a huge game, but weeks after release I'm still surprised not just by how much good stuff I've seen, but how equally much I've missed. It speaks to Larian's confidence in its breadth of stories that it's so easy to choose dialogue or take routes that lock off entire chunks of the game, not least of which the stories of its six core companions.
>> By the way, Larian used motion capture on 248 actors.

Starfield leaker who tried to sell multiple copies of the game online has been arrested and charged with theft and possession of marijuana
https://www.pcgamer.com/starfield-leaker-who-tried-to-sell-multiple-copies-of-the-game-online-has-been-arrested-and-charged-with-theft-and-possession-of-marijuana/
A Tennessee man who leaked 45 minutes of Starfield gameplay earlier this week, and was selling copies of the game online more than a week before its release date, has been arrested and charged with possession of marijuana and possession of stolen property.

This Wordle-like game makes you catch and guess Stardew Valley's fish
https://www.pcgamer.com/this-wordle-like-game-makes-you-catch-and-guess-stardew-valleys-fish/
If you thought every variation on Wordle had already been done, well you didn't have enough faith in the internet or videogames because there's now a Wordle-like for Stardew Valley. Specifically, it's Pufferdle, in which you guess the fish in Stardew Valley. Oh, and it makes you actually play Stardew's fishing minigame too.

Killing Floor 3's gruesome art was inspired in part by a Thanksgiving dinner: 'My wife was like, please just cook the turkey already'
https://www.pcgamer.com/killing-floor-3s-gruesome-art-was-inspired-in-part-by-a-thanksgiving-dinner-my-wife-was-like-please-just-cook-the-turkey-already/
It's funny now to think about the hysteria that followed Scorpion cartoonishly ripping someone's spine out in the original Mortal Kombat, but as graphical fidelity in games continues to improve, the line between simulated gore and the real thing can get blurry. Some developers embrace those advances—developers on The Callisto Protocol reportedly studied "real-life examples of horror and gore"—but Tripwire Interactive is taking a different sort of approach with the upcoming zombie shooter Killing Floor 3.

Now here's a Gamescom trailer no one will accuse of looking like other Gamescom trailers
https://www.pcgamer.com/dome-king-cabbage-gamescom-trailer/
One trailer at this week's Future Games Show (embedded above, or on YouTube) was not like the others. Outside of some obvious throwbacks to classic game genres, particularly retro RPGs, Dome-King Cabbage bears little resemblance to the other games we've seen at Gamescom so far. It's described on its Steam page as "a visual novel set in the world of a monster-collecting RPG," but that phrase does little to indicate the surreal mixed media variety show the trailer makes it out to be.

The Starfield Constellation Edition came with a nifty little smartwatch, and people seem to dig it
https://www.pcgamer.com/the-starfield-constellation-edition-came-with-a-nifty-little-smartwatch-and-people-seem-to-dig-it/
I forever live in the shadow of pain and regret over my purchase of the Dragon Age: Inquisition - Inquisitor's Edition. For well-north of a hundred clams I got a cheap plastic box full of cheap plastic crap, as well as a download code for a pretty good follow-up to Dragon Age 2.
I've been burned by collector's editions before, but it helps heal my soul when other people have better luck, and the $300 Starfield Constellation edition seems to be treating people well.

That stylish-looking Hellboy roguelike will release on October 4th
https://www.pcgamer.com/that-stylish-looking-hellboy-roguelike-will-release-on-october-4th/
Get ready for action brawling in the shoes of the big red guy himself, Hellboy, as Hellboy Web of Wyrd has a proper release date: October 4, 2023. The release date trailer dropped this week from developer Upstream Arcade and publisher Good Shepherd Entertainment, and frankly that's pretty dang exciting.