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

[JEMC]

The second part of the news:

Hearts of Iron 4 beefs up Brazil and invites you to save South America from fascism in its latest DLC
https://www.pcgamer.com/hearts-of-iron-4-beefs-up-brazil-and-invites-you-to-save-south-america-from-fascism-in-its-latest-dlc/
Hearts of Iron 4, a kind of Midnight Suns game where you make Mohammad Reza Shah and Mao Zedong best friends instead of Blade and Spider-Man, has announced its next DLC. It's heading down to South America in Hearts of Iron 4: Trial of Allegiance, a new country pack that aims to round out the experience of playing Brazil, Argentina, and Chile.

Another bunch of game studios have laid off employees, and we're not even out of January yet
https://www.pcgamer.com/another-bunch-of-game-studios-have-laid-off-employees-and-were-not-even-out-of-january-yet/
2024 continues to be an awful year for employees of the game industry, as another three studios have reportedly laid off employees this week. People Can Fly, the developer of games including Painkiller, Bulletstorm, and Outriders, has confirmed that "layoffs have happened," while a Kotaku report says Destroy All Humans! studio Black Forest Games and Ruiner developer Reikon Games have also made significant cuts to staffing.

Hogwarts Legacy's PlayStation-exclusive content is coming to other platforms this summer along with 'additional updates and features'
https://www.pcgamer.com/hogwarts-legacys-playstation-exclusive-content-is-coming-to-other-platforms-this-summer-along-with-additional-updates-and-features/
People like Hogwarts Legacy an awful lot—it was the biggest game of 2023—but one thing they didn't like (and by "they" I mean associate editor Ted Litchfield) was the inclusion of PlayStation-exclusive content. "How will we live without an exclusive quest and a Felix Felicis Potion Recipe?" he asked, in what I am certain was sincere and deeply-felt anguish. But Ted, and no doubt lots of other people, will be happy to know that content is coming to other platforms later this year.

Stardew Valley creator Eric Barone says he's 'done adding major new content' to the 1.6 update, promises it will 'absolutely' be out this year
https://www.pcgamer.com/stardew-valley-creator-eric-barone-says-hes-done-adding-major-new-content-to-the-16-update-promises-it-will-absolutely-be-out-this-year/
The Stardew Valley 1.6 update is done! Done having new content added to it, that is. Creator Eric "ConcernedApe" Barone said on Twitter today that the long-awaited update is now content-complete, and now he's focused on polish and bugs.

Palworld creator Pocketpair has another game in the works, and it looks like Hollow Knight with co-op and base building
https://www.pcgamer.com/palworld-creator-pocketpair-has-another-game-in-the-works-and-it-looks-like-hollow-knight-with-co-op-and-base-building/
Palworld has absolutely taken the real, non-pal world by storm, but no matter how big the survival crafting Pokémon brutality engine gets, I'm staying in my bunker to play crusty CRPGs from 1998 until the storm clears. Studio Pocketpair's next game, Never Grave: The Witch and the Curse, might be a little bit more my speed though.

Enjoy the punchy, colorful combat of action platformer Anomaly Agent
https://www.pcgamer.com/enjoy-the-punchy-colorful-combat-of-action-platformer-anomaly-agent/
Indie action platformer Anomaly Agent released this week, giving players a chance to be a funky-fresh secret agent battling his way through a cyberpunk world. It's the kind of slick and quick and smooth, yet very methodical, action that has gotten pretty popular in the last few years.

Twin stick crafter-shooter-basebuilder The Riftbreaker aims for a very ambitious 2024 roadmap
https://www.pcgamer.com/twin-stick-crafter-shooter-basebuilder-the-riftbreaker-aims-for-a-very-ambitious-2024-roadmap/
We haven't posted much about twin-stick shooter slash base-building survival game The Riftbreaker since its 2021 launch, but fans of butchering hordes of bad bugs and nasty monsters with either a carefully-constructed network of defensive guns and/or your giant mobile killer mech suit have enjoyed a few years of expansions and major updates since then.
Now developers Exor Studios are working on the third big expansion to The Riftbreaker's world, bringing the story of a stompy mech and its pilot to a new biome, the swamp. They're also working on much-requested multiplayer co-op, enabled by its broad success even though they didn't design the game for co-op at all.

Trap-dodging first person runner Phantom Abyss has escaped early access
https://www.pcgamer.com/trap-dodging-first-person-runner-phantom-abyss-has-escaped-early-access/
First person whip-based treasure-looting platformer Phantom Abyss has released from early access, bringing its fusion of roguelike and runner to a complete version 1.0 with three separate game modes to play. In Phantom Abyss players are a tomb-delving adventurer challenged to reach the end of incredibly deadly trap-filled dungeons and retrieve precious treasures from the end.

Enlisted, the 100-person shooter where everyone has a squad of NPCs, is coming to Steam
https://www.pcgamer.com/enlisted-the-100-person-shooter-where-everyone-has-a-squad-of-npcs-is-coming-to-steam/
Large-scale shooter Enlisted is coming to Steam this quarter of 2024, bringing its particular flavor of FPS where you're in charge of a whole squad out from the umbrella of a standalone launcher. The free-to-play game has picked up a following over the years because its approach makes the battles much bigger, but also lets you jump between members of your squad should you lose a soldier, easing the sting of death on big FPS maps.

Suicide Squad devs say despite being a live-service game it'll respect players' time because 'We all love playing games, but we also have lives'
https://www.pcgamer.com/suicide-squad-devs-say-despite-being-a-live-service-game-itll-respect-players-time-because-we-all-love-playing-games-but-we-also-have-lives/
It feels like the internet's already made up its mind about Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, to the degree that I can't imagine it receiving any kind of fair response when it launches on February 2. It's become a symbol of everything wrong with live-service games, which is a reputation I imagine Rocksteady is eager to get ahead of.