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

[JEMC]

The news, the second part. A bit longer than usual to save us from a third post:

Call of Duty's new Godzilla X Kong B.E.A.S.T. Glove costs $80 worth of in-game points, and it won't even corpse-launch your enemies
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/call-of-duty/call-of-dutys-new-godzilla-x-kong-beast-glove-costs-dollar80-worth-of-in-game-points-and-it-wont-even-corpse-launch-your-enemies/
Activision has released a new melee weapon as part of a collaboration between  Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, and Warzone. However, players are finding out the hard way that this glove isn't worth its price tag. 

Destiny 2 is so back? The Final Shape stream just showed a completely OP new subclass, an entirely new race of enemies, and a wild new type of exotic armor
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/fps/destiny-2-is-so-back-the-final-shape-stream-just-showed-a-completely-op-new-subclass-an-entirely-new-race-of-enemies-and-a-wild-new-type-of-exotic-armor/
Going into today's livestream showcase of new gameplay from The Final Shape, most players were expecting a retread of the new Light subclass powers revealed last year, and maybe a walkthrough of a campaign mission.
What we just got was nothing like that. With Bungie's backs against the wall amidst layoffs, pressure from Sony, and missed financial targets, the Destiny 2 studio needed to come out all guns blazing in order to reignite interest in the climactic expansion of its decades long saga. What it actually did was nuke expectations from orbit.

Soulslike shooter Witchfire gets massive early access update: New classes, content, events, and they finally fixed Calamities
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/fps/soulslike-shooter-witchfire-gets-massive-early-access-update-new-classes-content-events-and-they-finally-fixed-calamities/
Rather than going off on a tangent about how good Painkiller is (it's really good), I will open by simply saying that Witchfire, the new shooter from The Astronauts—founded in 2012 by the co-founders of People Can Fly—is really good too, but also very different: Studio co-founder and creative director Adrian Chmielarz said in 2023 that Witchfire is "much closer to Souls" than straight-up shooters like Doom, and having played it a good bit myself, I can say that's absolutely correct.
Witchfire has been in early access on the Epic Games Store since September 2023, and today it got its first major update, which adds a pile of new content and aims to address a couple of the biggest complaints about the game, difficulty scaling and "Calamities."

Total War: Warhammer 3's Thrones of Decay reveal has finally made me excited about the game again
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/strategy/total-war-warhammer-3s-thrones-of-decay-reveal-has-finally-made-me-excited-about-the-game-again/
Total War: Warhammer 3 has been in a weird place for a while, with 2023's experimental Shadows of Change DLC being so poorly received that Creative Assembly ended up reworking the whole thing and giving out freebies in the form of new lords. Things have been steadily improving, though, and with the reveal of Thrones of Decay they're poised to get even better—if CA sticks the landing. 

EA's Iron Man game is making 'excellent progress' but still sounds like it's a long way off
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/action/eas-iron-man-game-is-making-excellent-progress-but-still-sounds-like-its-a-long-way-off/
EA Motive studio director Patrick Klaus has written about what's going on at the studio in an update post that touches on both the studio's upcoming Iron Man game and the wider situation with the Battlefield series. What we already know about the Iron Man game is what you'd expect. EA calls it a "third-person, action adventure" featuring "an original narrative that taps into the rich history of Iron Man, channeling the complexity, charisma, and creative genius of Tony Stark, and enabling players to feel what it's like to truly play as Iron Man."

World of Warcraft Classic continues to speedrun history with Cataclysm launching next month
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/world-of-warcraft/world-of-warcraft-classic-continues-to-speedrun-history-with-cataclysm-launching-next-month/
World of Warcraft Classic has officially looped all the way back around to the very expansion that, in many ways, sparked the desire for it to exist in the first place. On May 20, Cataclysm Classic will release and move WoW Classic into a new era that is ironically similar to the live version of WoW.

A year and a half after its bitter breakup with NetEase, Blizzard has made a new deal to bring its games back to China—with NetEase
https://www.pcgamer.com/gaming-industry/a-year-and-a-half-after-its-bitter-breakup-with-netease-blizzard-has-reportedly-made-a-new-deal-to-bring-its-games-back-to-chinawith-netease/
After being gone for more than a year, Blizzard's biggest games will soon return to China. Blizzard confirmed tonight that it has struck a new deal with NetEase to bring all the games covered by the previous publishing agreement, including World of Warcraft, Hearthstone, "and other titles in the Warcraft, Overwatch, Diablo, and StarCraft universes," back to the Chinese market. The new deal will take effect this summer.

Tekken 8's Steam rating takes a dive as fans lament 'scummy' monetisation and battle pass
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/fighting/tekken-8s-steam-rating-takes-a-dive-as-fans-lament-scummy-monetisation-and-battle-pass/
After a roaring start, rave reviews and a microtransaction-free launch, Tekken 8's honeymoon phase appears to be over. Steam reviews have slumped in the last few weeks, bringing the recent score down to a measly 'Mixed' rating of 54% as of writing, quite the difference from the game's overall rating of 80%. The culprit? Microtransactions, mostly.

Helldivers 2 reward system will get an 'overhaul' because right now it's 'about as reliable as a solar-powered watch in Malevelon Creek'
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/third-person-shooter/helldivers-2-reward-system-will-get-an-overhaul-because-right-now-its-about-as-reliable-as-a-solar-powered-watch-in-malevelon-creek/
In response to complaints from players about slow or missing medals, Helldivers 2 community manager Twinbeard said the game's reward system will get an "overhaul" in the future that should make the awarding of medals for completed major orders faster and more reliable.
>> And here’s a behind the scenes video of how the intro was made.

Helldivers 2's new mission type is the glorious Helm's Deep holdout defense that I've dreamed of for months
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/third-person-shooter/helldivers-2s-new-mission-type-is-the-glorious-helms-deep-holdout-defense-that-ive-dreamed-of-for-months/
Helldivers 2 is, generally, a game about taking the fight to the enemy by destroying nests, factories, and launching ICBMs. On the rare occasion that Super Earth is put on defense, it hasn't always gone over well with players. During the first Automaton invasion in February, players quickly got tired of special escort missions that required protecting fragile civilians while they ran across a battlefield. The next defense assignment came with Termicide towers that had to be protected from bugs who'd relentlessly charge toward them.
Those missions were a lot more fun, but they weren't what I had in mind. A simple, straight-laced wave defense mode seemed like a natural fit in Helldivers 2. Turns out I just had to wait a little longer. Today's surprise re-invasion of Cyberstan by the Automatons brought another special defense assignment: "Evacuate High-Value Assets" by guarding a missile silo from concentrated waves of robots. You'll recognize the mission type by their shield insignia.

Epic removes the item rarity system from Fortnite but some fans ain't happy, and think it's 'trying to gouge players'
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/battle-royale/epic-removes-the-item-rarity-system-from-fortnite-but-some-fans-aint-happy-and-think-its-trying-to-gouge-players/
Fortnite's latest v29.20 patch has added Aang and the gang from Avatar: The Last Airbender, as well as five new tracks for Fortnite Rocket Racing: Neon Rush, but many players seem to be hung up on one update concerning how the locker works. 

Star Trek: Infinite reviews crater as Paradox announces it's dead, Jim
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/strategy/star-trek-infinite-reviews-crater-as-paradox-announces-its-dead-jim/
It was meant to go boldly where no man has gone before, but instead, Star Trek: Infinite is going quietly into that good night. The Paradox-published space 4X—developed by Nimble Giant—has announced that it will no longer be receiving updates (via RPS).
Actually, it's been dead (Jim) for some time. The announcement came via a dev diary posted on the Paradox forums two weeks ago, on March 27, but it's taken a while for anyone but ardent fans of the game to notice. 

The Elder Scrolls Online dev says the Metaverse is sinking because it ignored 20 years of games doing the exact same thing: 'it's not new, and they should stop treating it like it's new'
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/the-elder-scrolls/the-elder-scrolls-online-dev-says-the-metaverse-is-sinking-because-it-ignored-20-years-of-games-doing-the-exact-same-thing-its-not-new-and-they-should-stop-treating-it-like-its-new/
When the Metaverse's sales pitch did the rounds in 2022 and 2023, anyone who has been playing MMOs like The Elder Scrolls Online likely had the same thought: "Hold on, I can already do this in a game that lets me have legs."
(...)
That's a sentiment (the MMO thing, not the furry thing) echoed by The Elder Scrolls Online's creative director Matt Firor in an interview with Gamesindustry.biz: "[The Metaverse] was last year's buzzword, right? This year it's all about AI and nobody's talking about the Metaverse anymore … My earliest games were text-based, with no graphics at all, and they were very much virtual worlds where people got together, chatted, and had fun."

Rat smashers stay winning as Warhammer: Vermintide 2 gets another free update—a whole new map and enemy type
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/action/rat-smashers-stay-winning-as-warhammer-vermintide-2-gets-another-free-updatea-whole-new-map-and-enemy-type/
Warhammer: Vermintide 2 might be seven years old, but it's still getting free content updates. There's that long-awaited versus mode, of course, though that's still in testing—in the meantime, says Fatshark, here's a free map and a new enemy type, because why not?