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

[JEMC]

Monday news, part two:

Ubisoft is on the NFT sauce again: A new partnership with Web3 platform Immutable aims to create 'a fresh new experience that players will love'
https://www.pcgamer.com/ubisoft-is-on-the-nft-sauce-again-a-new-partnership-with-web3-platform-immutable-aims-to-create-a-fresh-new-experience-that-players-will-love/
A year ago it looked like Ubisoft's ardor for NFTs was cooling, but now it seems that the heat is back on. The Assassin's Creed publisher has entered into a new partnership with blockchain gaming platform Immutable "to create a new gaming experience that will further unlock the potential of Web3."
>> Some people never learn.

Call of Duty goes Final Destination on cheaters by pancaking them straight into the map
https://www.pcgamer.com/call-of-duty-goes-final-destination-on-cheaters-by-pancaking-them-straight-into-the-map/
Call of Duty, just like any competitive game that achieves success, has a cheating problem. Some players will always want to cheat, cheat sellers will always sell cheats, and developers fight to stop such behaviour ruining things for everyone else. So back in 2021 publisher Activision announced it was getting serious about anti-cheat: kernel-level serious.
(...)
Activision says it has "developed a new trick for cheaters" in Warzone, "we call it Splat", and here's what it does:
"With Splat, if a cheater is discovered, we may randomly, and for fun, disable their parachute, sending them careening into the ground after they deploy.
"But what if we catch them after they’ve deployed? Well, Splat can also adjust player velocity, which transforms a bunny hop into a 10,000-foot drop taking them out instantly."

Skip the grind: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 Zombies lets you unlock any multiplayer gun in minutes
https://www.pcgamer.com/call-of-duty-modern-warfare-3-unlock-guns-zombies-exploit/
For all the ways that Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 feels like an add-on for last year's game, it deserves some credit for shaking up the standard 1-55 progression system in a major way. Instead of unlocking every gun, throwable, and gadget just by leveling up, a huge chunk of MW3 items are locked behind new Armory Challenges.
(...)
Modern Warfare Zombies, it turns out, offers an alternative method for unlocking darn near every gun and throwable in the game. MWZ being built off Modern Warfare 2's DMZ mode means it shares one very generous rule: Whatever guns or grenades you can extract from the map are permanently unlocked in multiplayer.

Samwise Didier, who 'helped build Blizzard's signature art style,' is retiring after more than 30 years at the company
https://www.pcgamer.com/samwise-didier-who-helped-build-blizzards-signature-art-style-is-retiring-after-more-than-30-years-at-the-company/
After a career spanning more than 32 years and just about every game Blizzard ever made, senior art director Samwise Didier is calling it quits. Didier announced on Twitter that he is retiring, and that today is his last day at his "beloved Blizzard Entertainment."

Warcraft’s game director explains why Blizzard debuted three expansions at once: 'Speaking it out loud makes it real'
https://www.pcgamer.com/warcrafts-game-director-explains-why-blizzard-debuted-three-expansions-at-once-speaking-it-out-loud-makes-it-real/
Most Warcraft fans expected an expansion announcement for the massively multiplayer RPG at last weekend’s BlizzCon 2023. But to hear Warcraft game director Ion Hazzikostas tell it, Blizzard Entertainment’s bold decision to debut the next three expansions at once made even its own leaders nervous.

Deus Ex protagonist Adam Jensen's signature voice actor also wanted to do his motion capture, but was rejected for being too short: 'apparently, it was a lot of work to stretch me a couple inches'
https://www.pcgamer.com/deus-ex-protagonist-adam-jensens-signature-voice-actor-also-wanted-to-do-his-motion-capture-but-was-rejected-for-being-too-short-apparently-it-was-a-lot-of-work-to-stretch-me-a-couple-inches/
Don't let insecure boys on the internet or mean people on dating apps tell you different: it's not that big of a gap between 5'11" and 6'1". However, actor Elias Toufexis recently revealed that it may as well have been a yawning chasm during the making 2011's Deus Ex: Human Revolution.

Rainbow Six Siege is getting a skin marketplace in the style of Counter-Strike
https://www.pcgamer.com/rainbow-six-siege-is-getting-a-skin-marketplace-in-the-style-of-counter-strike/
It used to be the case that comparisons between Rainbow Six Siege and Counter-Strike ended at their 5v5 team sizes and bomb rulesets, but Ubisoft is cooking up its own version of a feature that's become synonymous with Valve's tactical FPS: the skin marketplace.
>> Seeing the money it moves, it's no wonder Ubi wants to come up with something similar.

Rainbow Six Siege's next operator has the intimidating ability to press pause on nearly every gadget in the game
https://www.pcgamer.com/rainbow-six-sieges-next-operator-has-the-intimidating-ability-to-press-pause-on-nearly-every-gadget-in-the-game/
Eight years, 32 seasons, 70 operators. In all that time, Rainbow Six Siege players can point to only a few moments where the cornerstone of its meta—breaching—saw upheaval. In 2015 the Bandit trick proved Thatcher could be countered, in 2018 Maverick offered an unstoppable (but risky) option to brute force a wall, then Kaid offered protection for hatches. Alternate options for breaching charges and EMPs have slotted nicely into the meta since then, but I'm not sure anyone is ready for Tubarão.
Tubarão is the new defender of Operation Deep Freeze, entering testing this week and releasing in early December. He's a 2-speed, 2-armor operator packing the Zoto canister—a throwable sticky bomb that freezes everything in a few-meter radius. Operators who walk in the frozen area of effect are slowed and leave footprints that linger for several seconds, but that's only the half of it. All gadgets in the fro-zone are deactivated with very few exceptions.

Darkest Dungeon 2's first DLC is finally bringing back one of the original's strongest heroes
https://www.pcgamer.com/darkest-dungeon-2s-first-dlc-is-finally-bringing-back-one-of-the-originals-strongest-heroes/
Red Hook Studios has unveiled the first paid DLC pack for Darkest Dungeon 2: The Binding Blade, not to be confused with the Fire Emblem game that had Roy from Smash Bros. in it. The DLC is coming some time in December, and will add two new playable characters: the all-new Duelist, and the long-awaited return of Darkest Dungeon 1's Crusader.

After nearly 10 years, Australian developer Samurai Punk is shutting down
https://www.pcgamer.com/after-nearly-10-years-australian-developer-samurai-punk-is-shutting-down/
Melbourne-based developer Samurai Punk has announced that it will cease operations after almost ten years of making games. The company's statement, attributed to studio directors Winston Tang and Nicholas McDonnell, does not provide a specific reason for the decision, but it comes amid a wave of studio closures and layoffs in the industry.