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

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Tuesday news, the second part:

Indie dev behind beloved boomerang shooter shuts down because 'we are out of money'
https://www.pcgamer.com/indie-dev-behind-beloved-boomerang-shooter-shuts-down-because-we-are-out-of-money/
The New York-based indie studio Dang is closing after releasing only one game, but what a game. The hyper-fast and movement-focused Boomerang X released in 2021 and was notable among other things for supporting an experimental type of gyro controller, the Flick Stick, as well as mouse-and-keyboard, so that players could whizz its deadly shuriken-boomerang around in the fanciest of patterns. The game sits with around 800 "Overwhelmingly Positive" reviews on Steam though, judging by this announcement, that sadly didn't translate to sales.

Check out mindbending puzzles in The Talos Principle 2's specially made demo
https://www.pcgamer.com/check-out-mindbending-puzzles-in-the-talos-principle-2s-specially-made-demo/
The demo for The Talos Principle 2 is out now, building steam in the hype engine for what will probably be the premier first-person puzzler of 2023. Developers Croteam have made it special for you, standalone and set apart from the final game's flow and puzzles.

Daedalic's bizarre Gollum apology was apparently written by ChatGPT and the studio didn't even get approval on it
https://www.pcgamer.com/daedelics-bizarre-gollum-apology-was-apparently-written-by-chatgpt-and-the-studio-didnt-even-get-approval-on-it/
One of 2023's big disappointments was The Lord of the Rings: Gollum, a stealth-action adventure from the established German studio Daedalic. (...)
(...far, far below...)
Such things contributed to the reaction being so negative (the argument system had been a part of trailers), which soon acquired such fervour that Daedalic issued a bizarre apology for the game. Except it turns out this wasn't from the studio at all.
Daedelic says that this apology was not from Daedalic but from Nacon, the game's publisher and owner of Daedalic, which had clearly been spooked. Even at the time people picked up on some of the apology's wording as being meaningless and noted things like the game's name being misspelled: turns out that's almost certainly because it was written by ChatGPT (timestamp), and Daedalic didn't even get pre-approval on its own apology.

Build some sick castles in the demo for fantasy survival game Enshrouded
https://www.pcgamer.com/build-some-sick-castles-in-the-demo-for-fantasy-survival-game-enshrouded/
A demo for fantasy survival game Enshrouded has hit for this October's Steam Next Fest, and the action-RPG survival adventure is looking pretty good for fans of having cool fights, surviving the wilds, and building sick castles.

RuneScape fans chalk up 'a small victory for the players' as developer chucks new and hated battle pass in the trash
https://www.pcgamer.com/runescape-fans-chalk-up-a-small-victory-for-the-players-as-developer-chucks-new-and-hated-battle-pass-in-the-trash/
RuneScape has announced that it's ditching its new battle pass system barely a month after it debuted, calling it "not reflective of a direction we're taking RuneScape in" following widespread player uproar.

Ubisoft's XDefiant was supposed to launch this month, but is delayed (again)
https://www.pcgamer.com/ubisofts-xdefiant-was-supposed-to-launch-this-month-but-is-delayed-again/
Ubisoft's free-to-play competitive FPS XDefiant, surely a contender for the silliest game name in history (sorry Warface), has announced another delay following a recent public playtest. The game was due to launch with a "Preseason" this month but, following what the developers describe as "inconsistencies in the game experience", has been delayed to an unspecified date.

Activision reminds fans they'll need to get their wallets out for Modern Warfare 3, says its games won't hit Game Pass until next year at the earliest
https://www.pcgamer.com/activision-reminds-fans-theyll-need-to-get-their-wallets-out-for-modern-warfare-3-says-its-games-wont-hit-game-pass-until-next-year-at-the-earliest/
Unless the FTC's Lina Khan runs in at the last minute to physically tackle Bobby Kotick before he can sign anything, it's looking very likely that Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard will close in the very near future. I mean very near, you understand, as in possibly this Friday, pending word from the UK market regulator. But if you think that heralds the imminent arrival of games like Modern Warfare 3 and Diablo 4 on Microsoft's Game Pass service, Activision has news for you: It doesn't.

Counter-Strike 2 fixes hitbox issues with crouchers, and more importantly makes knife spinning feel a bit faster
https://www.pcgamer.com/counter-strike-2-fixes-hitbox-issues-with-crouchers-and-more-importantly-makes-knife-spinning-feel-a-bit-faster/
Valve has achieved something remarkable with Counter-Strike 2, and has done it almost under-the-radar. The developer has managed to transition one of the largest and most change-averse competitive playerbases around from CS:GO to CS2 without any significant pushback, large-scale complaining, or splitting that playerbase. (...)
CS2 is still not the finished product, of course, and never will be: support for this game can be expected to last over the next decade. And there are various small glitches that somehow made it through, prime among which is a hitbox alignment issue around crouching in particular. In CS2 this has tended to occur when a player defuses the bomb, because the CT character model crouches over the object, and something funky happens with the head hitboxes (...)
A new patch fixes "several hitbox alignment bugs", so precision AK shots on a defuser are back on the menu, though as ever with Valve there's no further detail on the specifics of the bugs. This comes alongside various minor fixes to glitches with weapon inspections and certain skins not displaying correctly, though the funniest element of this patch is a cosmetic tweak: players had been complaining about how fast the knives spin.