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

[JEMC]

And here's the second part of this "sad" Monday:

Starfield data miner uncovers fossilized remains of a much cooler, more hardcore game tucked away in its files: 'We had a washed version of the game'
https://www.pcgamer.com/starfield-data-miners-uncover-fossilized-remains-of-a-much-cooler-more-hardcore-game-tucked-away-in-its-files-we-had-a-washed-version-of-the-game/
Space travel in Starfield is pretty easy. Remarkably easy, actually. You just bring up the map, click a dot and go. Sure, some things might be out of immediate jump range, but if all the yawning void of the cosmos has to threaten me with is "mild inconvenience," then I'm gonna complain that documentaries like Event Horizon really overhyped the horrors that lie in the great beyond.
Things weren't always that way. For one thing, Todd Howard himself has spoken about versions of the game where it was possible to run out of fuel and find yourself stranded among the stars, a feature which ended up getting yanked out because it was a "fun killer". But now a player on Reddit (spotted by GamesRadar) has found evidence lurking in Starfield's files of a much crunchier, and riskier, kind of space travel.

The 'biggest Starfield update yet' is coming to Steam beta next week, but it actually looks pretty small
https://www.pcgamer.com/the-biggest-starfield-update-yet-is-coming-to-steam-beta-next-week-but-it-actually-looks-pretty-small/
Bethesda announced on Twitter today that the "biggest Starfield update yet" is headed to beta testing on Steam next week. This isn't the start of the big gameplay updates Bethesda promised in December, though: Instead it looks to be a pretty standard patch, making "more than 100 fixes and improvements" to graphics, gameplay issues, and quest bugs.

Blizzard is taking a sledgehammer to the way Overwatch 2 is played by letting everyone heal themselves
https://www.pcgamer.com/blizzard-is-taking-a-sledgehammer-to-the-way-overwatch-2-is-played-by-letting-everyone-heal-themselves/
Blizzard is about to take a sledgehammer to the way Overwatch 2 is played. The change will take effect when season 9 launches later this month.
For the first time in the hero shooter's history, every tank and DPS hero will heal themselves, loosening their reliance on support in a match. Through a new passive ability, tanks and DPS will gradually regain their health outside of active combat. It will be a "tuned-down version of the support self-healing passive," game director Aaron Keller wrote in a blog post today. In addition to this, more changes to reduce "damage spikes in combat" will be detailed in another blog post closer to the season's launch.

Final Fantasy 14's director loves the game so much, he says he'd start over from the bottom as a contractor on it if he got fired from Square Enix
https://www.pcgamer.com/final-fantasy-14s-director-loves-the-game-so-much-he-says-hed-start-over-from-the-bottom-as-a-contractor-on-it-if-he-got-fired-from-square-enix/
It's clear that Final Fantasy 14's producer and director, Naoki Yoshida, is in it for the love of the game. As reported by Automaton and GamesRadar, in a recent joint interview at the Final Fantasy 14 Fan Festival in Tokyo, Yoshida went so far as to contemplate what would happen to the game in the event of his firing from Square Enix, or even his death.

This stunning platformer about the only human awake on a terraformed moon has been cooking for 6+ years, and its first demo does not disappoint
https://www.pcgamer.com/this-stunning-platformer-about-the-only-human-awake-on-a-terraformed-moon-has-been-cooking-for-6-years-and-its-first-demo-does-not-disappoint/
The beautiful, mysterious platformer Europa has been at the back of my mind ever since I saw one of its trailers, so I was excited to try its first public demo available on Steam. The game seems to offer a more meditative, relaxed take on the exploration-heavy 3D platformers of the '90s, and I'm more excited than ever to get my hands on the full game when it arrives April 16.

Sins of the Flesh, Cult of the Lamb's 'sex update', is coming out this month
https://www.pcgamer.com/sins-of-the-flesh-cult-of-the-lambs-sex-update-is-coming-out-this-month/
First, they said Sins of the Flesh wouldn't be "the sex update". Then they said, fine, since you weird little freaks seem to want it so bad, if Cult of the Lamb gets 300,000 followers on Twitter before the end of 2023, "we will add sex to the game". And when that happened with unseemly haste, the developers at Massive Monster stuck to their guns and now the free expansion for their spooky-cute action roguelite management sim is almost here.

Spinoff of cute little Factory Town turns it into a sprawling spreadsheet exercise
https://www.pcgamer.com/spinoff-of-cute-little-factory-town-turns-it-into-a-sprawling-spreadsheet-exercise/
The industrially-inspired town building game Factory Town has a spinoff as of this week, packing the entire experience of building up and expanding an oddly factory-like society into a series of oddly spreadsheet-like screens. All of which depict the details of an oddly factory-like society. I think you get my drift.

Factorio 2.0 will let items on conveyor belts stack, something long thought impossible
https://www.pcgamer.com/factorio-20-will-let-items-on-conveyor-belts-stack-something-long-thought-impossible/
Friends in factory-building, a day has come which I thought I would never see. Wube Software has announced that, in the upcoming Factorio 2.0 release, objects on conveyor belts will be allowed to stack upon each other, and a new bulk inserter type will pick up and drop entire piles of objects at once. It's a change that the developers of Factorio have said was impractical to add for years now.

A new trailer for this psychedelic metroidvania confirms that cosmic womb gardening is very good videogame subject matter
https://www.pcgamer.com/a-new-trailer-for-this-psychedelic-metroidvania-confirms-that-yes-this-is-unhinged-in-the-best-way/
A new trailer for psychedelic action-platformer Ultros has me freshly excited to see what's going on in its bizarre world of plants and space demons when it releases on February 13, 2024. The game attracted our attention last year not just because of its colorful visuals, but because of its interesting looking dash, slash, and dodge combat.

Turns out that farming is a pretty compelling addition to the horde survival roguelite formula
https://www.pcgamer.com/turns-out-that-farming-is-a-pretty-compelling-addition-to-the-horde-survival-roguelite-formula/
The horde survival genre grows weekly and a recent entrant is Pesticide Not Required, which tosses in familiar tropes from the ever-popular farm and life sim genres: Don't craft or pick up your weapons, grow them instead. Defeat enemies for money, then buy seeds, plant crops, and harvest them for experience—or go mining and fishing, like you do.

After Nebraska and Arkansas, American Truck Simulator is going to show me Missouri
https://www.pcgamer.com/after-nebraska-and-arkansas-american-truck-simulator-is-going-to-show-me-missouri/
American Truck Simulator is looking at an extremely busy 2024, with three new states on the way for the wildly popular simulation game about driving a truck around the mostly western bits of the Continental United States. Except, here in 2024, it's pushing quite far East, isn't it?
As announced last summer, Nebraska and Arkansas are on the way this year, and SCS Software has now announced they'll be joined by the Show-Me State: Missouri.

Baldur's Gate 3 player finds an edge case the game doesn't account for: Reverse-pickpocketing a dead wizard into the devil's inventory like a Trojan nuke
https://www.pcgamer.com/baldurs-gate-3-player-finds-an-edge-case-the-game-doesnt-account-for-reverse-pickpocketing-a-dead-wizard-into-the-devils-inventory-like-a-trojan-nuke/
Baldur's Gate 3 has choices—oodles of 'em. Choices that Larian's accounted for, for the most part. In my recent playthrough, instead of taking a certain character to a certain body for a story quest, I picked up the corpse and dumped it back in camp like a cat bringing their owner a dead bird. The dialogue still worked (though I had to have them in my party) besides one or two out-of-context lines.
However, one player has found an edge-case scenario that the game doesn't account for at all, and it's honestly pretty reasonable when you break it down. Spoilers for Act 1 and Gale's storyline to follow, as well as a minor Act 3 spoiler.