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

[JEMC]

Thursday news, part two:

The next Planetary Annihilation game is half Factorio, half RTS, all 'Tsar Bomba level annihilation'
https://www.pcgamer.com/the-next-planetary-annihilation-game-is-half-factorio-half-rts-all-tsar-bomba-level-annihilation/
Real-time strategy games can be pretty complex, but you generally don't have to concern yourself too much with the economic particulars of whatever war you're fighting. (...)
But Industrial Annihilation—which starts its crowdfunding today on StartEngine and can be preordered on its official site—is chucking all that out the window. Mashing up a factory sim and an RTS, the latest game in the Planetary Annihilation series promises to have you laying out an achingly efficient supply chain for your various wars at the same time as fighting them.

Stay frosty: Call of Duty Warzone's Halloween event has jump scares that will take you back to 2006 YouTube
https://www.pcgamer.com/stay-frosty-call-of-duty-warzones-halloween-event-has-jump-scares-that-will-take-you-back-to-2006-youtube/
As much as I enjoyed unloading magazines into Warzone's rendition of King Kong that one time, Call of Duty's limited-time events don't usually pique my interest until October comes around. This year is no different—Warzone's "The Haunting" event kicked off this week and there's a ton going on. New boss fights are littered across the map (including The Butcher from Diablo 4), enemies drop souls that unlock Halloween-themed goodies, and loot boxes will randomly trigger a jumpscare that makes you die a little on the inside.

Why is the internet ripping a new King Kong game to shreds?
https://www.pcgamer.com/why-is-the-internet-ripping-a-new-king-kong-game-to-shreds/
Skull Island: Rise of Kong was released on Steam on October 17, and if you use any of the various social media platforms you've probably already seen clips and stills from it. The various algorithms have all reached the same conclusion: this thing is comedy gold, and people are revelling in a dunkfest at its expense. In particular, it's being compared to Daedalic's Lord of the Rings: Gollum, which has been unfairly labelled by some as the worst game of the year (it's not great, but such a label is ludicrous).
But what exactly is it about this King Kong game that's inspired such a collective reaction? (...)
>> I'll leave it here so you can find it for yourselves, in case you don't know already.

Diablo 4 has ditched the lifeless grind and entered a new loot-filled era in season 2
https://www.pcgamer.com/diablo-4-has-ditched-the-lifeless-grind-and-entered-a-new-loot-filled-era-in-season-2/
Anyone who played the Diablo 4's betas will know how disappointing it was to see how much the action RPG slowed to a crawl when it came out a few months later. Gear upgrades and XP became a grind and experimenting with your build was way more expensive than it was worth. Level scaling enemies meant that you never felt very powerful and there was no value in doing anything but dungeons.
Diablo 4 season 2 is like playing the beta again, but better.

This Baldur's Gate 3 NPC has brutal, tailor-made taunts to wreck the psyche of every companion character
https://www.pcgamer.com/this-baldurs-gate-3-npc-has-brutal-tailor-made-taunts-to-wreck-the-psyche-of-every-companion-character/
Vicious Mockery might just be one of the best spells in Baldur's Gate 3, even Dungeons & Dragons proper. Not because of its power, mind you. While giving an enemy disadvantage on their next attack roll is useful, psychic damage is often resisted by foes—and its damage isn't anything to write home about.
No, what makes Vicious Mockery great is its theme. It's an excuse to throw verbal dirt at your enemies with lethal consequences. What other game lets you smack-talk a goblin to death? That's especially fun in tabletop D&D, where you can tailor your dunks to whoever you're fighting. Sadly you can't import custom lines to Baldur's Gate 3 without some serious modding know-how, but Larian Studios have sorted the next best thing.

Embracer reportedly guts another studio in the wake of its dead-in-the-water $2 billion deal
https://www.pcgamer.com/embracer-reportedly-guts-another-studio-in-the-wake-of-its-dead-in-the-water-dollar2-billion-deal/
Embracer's scythe continues to swing in the wake of a collapsed $2 billion deal, and the latest victim, reportedly, is Zen Studios. According to Videogamelayoffs, one of its sources at the Hungarian studio told it that 32 staffers at the Pinball FX studio were laid off last Friday.
>> That sucks.

Slay the Spire dev releases free groovy autobattler where your deck is dance moves and gives Unity the finger on the way out: 'That is how badly you f***ed up'
https://www.pcgamer.com/slay-the-spire-dev-releases-free-groovy-autobattler-where-your-deck-is-dance-moves-and-thats-the-tea-sis/
Slay the Spire developer Mega Crit has released a new autobattler card game called Dancing Duelists. The game is available for free on itch.io and features a cast of different characters, all with their own decks, who you level up between dance-offs with new cards and abilities. It's way better than it has any right to be.

Blizzard just casually gave players the key to one of WoW's classic dungeons—the original four-wing Scarlet Monastery—in a Halloween event
https://www.pcgamer.com/blizzard-just-casually-gave-players-the-key-to-one-of-wows-classic-dungeonsthe-original-four-wing-scarlet-monasteryin-a-halloween-event/
World of Warcraft's shaken up its dungeons a lot over the years. One such victim to the wheels of time is the Scarlet Monastery. This dungeon (or these dungeons, I should say, each is their own separate instance) consists of the Armory, the Library, the Cathedral, and the Graveyard.
In patch 5.0.4, these dungeons got rolled into two new revamped dungeons—the Halls and the confusingly-named Monastery. They were forever consigned to the annals of history (at least until World of Warcraft Classic came along). Well, it turns out you can get back to all four of these Classic dungeons right now.