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

[JEMC]

And yes, today there's also a third part:

Cozy MMO Palia is threatening players with an increasingly enormous stuffed frog if they keep wishlisting it on Steam
https://www.pcgamer.com/cozy-mmo-palia-is-threatening-players-with-an-increasingly-enormous-stuffed-frog-if-they-keep-wishlisting-it-on-steam/
Cozy life and farming sim MMO Palia launched in open beta last year as a free-to-play game with its own launcher on PC (and also on the Nintendo Switch and Epic Store). After a bit of a wait, it's launching on Steam next month too, and to incentivize players to wishlist it there, Singularity 6 has devised a community campaign with a slightly threatening aura: a frog plushie of yet-to-be-determined size.

Shin Megami Tensei 5 breaks Switch exclusivity for an expanded PC release
https://www.pcgamer.com/shin-megami-tensei-5-breaks-switch-exclusivity-for-an-expanded-pc-release/
The fifth mainline instalment in the gargantuan, offshoot-laden Shin Megami Tensei series released for Nintendo Switch in 2021, marking the series' first dalliance with open world design. In typical Atlus style, SMT 5 is getting a new edition in June called Shin Megami Tensei 5: Vengeance. It has a new main story running parallel with the original, big changes to the core combat, and a comprehensive range of other tweaks. The good news is it's coming to PC too.

Helldivers 2 was built on an obscure Swedish engine discontinued in 2018: 'Our crazy engineers had to do everything with no support'
https://www.pcgamer.com/helldivers-2-engine-bitsquid-autodesk-stingray/
You've heard of Unreal Engine and Unity, two engine juggernauts that power most of your Steam library, but you've probably never heard of Bitsquid. It was an obscure game engine used in a handful of notable Swedish indies of the early 2010s. In 2014, Autodesk bought Bitsquid, renamed it Autodesk Stingray, then discontinued it in 2018.
One of the last games released using Stingray was Fatshark's Warhammer 40,000: Darktide in 2022. The newest Stingray game is Helldivers 2.
Responding to an article on game development blog 80 Level, Arrowhead Game Studios CEO Johan Pilestedt confirmed that their smash hit, PlayStation-published co-op shooter is running on abandonware.

Helldivers 2 finally adds a much-requested AFK kick timer, stopping undemocratic glory hounds from twiddling their thumbs in perpetuity
https://www.pcgamer.com/helldivers-2-finally-adds-a-much-requested-afk-kick-timer-stopping-undemocratic-glory-hounds-from-twiddling-their-thumbs-in-perpetuity/
Helldivers 2 continues to slowly grease the wheels on its war against bloated servers (...)
Patch 1.000.11 reads: "Implemented a functionality that will kick players who remain idle for 15 minutes back to the title screen." That's a harsh time limit, though extreme times cause for extreme measures—and it could be something that's lifted when capacity is improved, which is definitely happening. Arrowhead Games' CEO wrote on Twitter earlier this week that the team's engineers were doing the equivalent of "tuning a Vespa to compete in F1".

Deep Rock Galactic auto-battler nixes upsetting 'die like your mother did' voice line so as to not 'remind some players of tragic events in their life'
https://www.pcgamer.com/deep-rock-galactic-auto-battler-nixes-upsetting-die-like-your-mother-did-voice-line-so-as-to-not-remind-some-players-of-tragic-events-in-their-life/
Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor—DRG's dwarf-themed Vampire Survivors-like—is yanking out one of its more ah, questionable voice lines. In patch notes for the game's 0.2.146d hotfix, released Tuesday, the gang at Funday Games announced they'd be nixing the "Die like your mother did!" line that dwarves sometimes shout as they mow down enemies.

Amidst dire industry layoffs, FromSoftware's Miyazaki says his studio is 'very blessed' to have long-term hires now taking director roles: 'games can be directed by others, not only myself'
https://www.pcgamer.com/amidst-dire-industry-layoffs-fromsoftwares-miyazaki-says-his-studio-is-very-blessed-to-have-long-term-hires-now-taking-director-roles-games-can-be-directed-by-others-not-only-myself/
(...)
In a recent interview with IGN (thanks, GamesRadar), Elden Ring's director Hidetaka Miyazaki touched on how dire things have been for game developers in 2023—a trend that is mercilessly continuing into early 2024.
"I'm aware of the situation in the games industry, [it's] quite harrowing," Miyazaki says—though despite some murmurings of underpay, FromSoftware appears to have kept cold-blooded layoffs at arm's length. "I think it's difficult for me to understand the exact circumstances there. I won't speak to those in specifics," he says.

Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree is over double the price of previous FromSoft DLCs, and is it weird that excites me?
https://www.pcgamer.com/elden-ring-shadow-of-the-erdtree-is-over-double-the-price-of-previous-fromsoft-dlcs-and-is-it-weird-that-excites-me/
Shadow of the Erdtree is dazzlingly, blisteringly real in the wake of yesterday's three-minute reveal trailer, and we now have more info about the expansion to 2022's game of the year than ever before. Its price, for instance. Unlike previous add-ons for FromSoft games, Erdtree is a whopping $40 (£35) over on Steam right now, $20 off the price of Elden Ring itself.
>> The answer to the headline is an obvious yes. And it's not only weird, but also wrong.

This co-op looter shooter where you scavenge from corpses 'under the shadow of terrifying and gargantuan war machines' looks rad as heck
https://www.pcgamer.com/this-co-op-looter-shooter-where-you-scavenge-from-corpses-under-the-shadow-of-terrifying-and-gargantuan-war-machines-looks-rad-as-heck/
Helldivers 2 has really given me a taste for relentless wars and hordes of killer machines, and it looks like Fun Dog Studios' The Forever Winter is going to help me keep scratching that itch—albeit in a very different way.

*Edited to fix the link*

Last edited by JEMC - on 22 February 2024