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

[JEMC]

The ***check again to be sure*** second part of the Thursday news:

The Sims 4 latest patch notes open the doors to polyamorous relationships and a life free of jealousy
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/the-sims/the-sims-4-latest-patch-notes-open-the-doors-to-polyamorous-relationships-and-a-life-free-of-jealousy/
One of the new base game features in The Sims 4 called Romantic Boundaries is attempting to mimic real relationships that are "nuanced and complex" by letting players tweak their Sims' preferences around exclusivity and jealousy. 

The First Descendant executes total U-turn on the promise of endless loot caves, blames 'mistranslation' and weirdly insists 'there have been no reversals'
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/action/the-first-descendant-executes-total-u-turn-on-the-promise-of-endless-loot-caves-blames-mistranslation-and-weirdly-insists-there-have-been-no-reversals/
Earlier this week players of Nexon's new looter-shooter The First Descendant made a wonderful discovery: The game has its own Destiny-style loot cave. Soon christened "the Valby Run", this area features mobs that respawn infinitely and at a high rate, which can be farmed endlessly for oodles of the game's currencies and gear. And the big surprise was that the developers didn't seem all that bothered, and indeed said they were going to lean-in and basically make other areas more like the Valby Run.
This all sounded very exciting, and certainly got the attention of the playerbase. But sadly Nexon has now walked back this statement, apologising and saying that the announcement from the game's director had been "mistranslated". See, when he said they were going to make all farming spots as good as the Valby Run, what he meant was they were going to make the Valby Run less good. Got it?

I cannot get enough of the swarming tyranids in Space Marine 2 videos
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/action/i-cannot-get-enough-of-the-space-marine-2-videos-with-all-them-swarming-tyranids/
Hello, yes, I really like these videos with lots of evil space bugs getting squashed by the giant space zealots. Every time I see one I watch it because Space Marine 2 is creeping up on us and  the giant swarms of monsters to chew through are really, really delightful tech to look at—as evinced by this supercut of swarming monster footage that popped up on the Warhammer Community website this week.

The strangest game I've played this year can confuse and horrify you, too, in September
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/horror/the-strangest-game-ive-played-this-year-can-confuse-and-horrify-you-too-in-september/
Zoochosis bills itself as a "bodycam horror simulation game," and I'm not going to say that's inaccurate. But at Summer Game Fest last month I played most of the opening hour of Zoochosis and had no idea what to make of it, because it was far more bizarre and awkward than horrifying.

The worst part of the new Apex Legends battle pass plan is being reversed
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/battle-royale/the-worst-part-of-the-new-apex-legends-battle-pass-plan-is-being-reversed/
You can see it coming a million light years away: A game developer announces something that its players are obviously going to be infuriated by, and then a week or two later posts a black jpg with white text that says, one way or another, 'Oops! Our bad.'
So it has gone for Apex Legends, which today reversed the most unpopular aspect of the new battle pass structure it announced two weeks ago.

Sony hero shooter Concord will not have a battle pass: 'You own Concord, Concord doesn't own you'
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/fps/sony-hero-shooter-concord-will-not-have-a-battle-pass-you-own-concord-concord-doesnt-own-you/
Upcoming hero shooter Concord will not have a battle pass and doesn't plan to charge for one in the future, say developers Firewalk. The announcement was made via Concord's social media in response to player questions about what the game will be like after launch.

Blizzard's World of Warcraft team has unionized
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/mmo/blizzards-world-of-warcraft-team-has-unionized/
The World of Warcraft team at Blizzard is unionizing, reports Bloomberg. Like a number of other games industry unions, the approximately 500 workers are joining up with the Communication Workers of America. The new union will be "wall-to-wall," meaning it covers the entirety of the development team rather than just one division, like QA, and includes both the larger Irvine, California team and the smaller team in Massachusetts. It'll be called the World of Warcraft Game Makers Guild, or WoWGG.

Dungeons and Kingdoms is an upcoming game that's about exactly what it sounds like: dungeon crawling and kingdom management
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/sim/dungeons-and-kingdoms-is-an-upcoming-game-thats-about-exactly-what-it-sounds-like-dungeon-crawling-and-kingdom-management/
The upcoming Dungeons and Kingdoms—which releases in early access on Steam soon—falls into the genre mashup category for me. Like Mount and Blade and Crypt of the Necrodancer, it takes two great tastes and sees if they taste great together. This time around we've got a medieval kingdom sim mashed up with soulslike dungeon delving, and it looks promising.

Phantom Blade Zero devs say its interconnected world is 'like the Souls games before Elden Ring'—which has turned my interest into attention
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/action/phantom-blade-zero-devs-say-its-interconnected-world-is-like-the-souls-games-before-elden-ring-which-has-turned-my-interest-into-attention/
Described by PC Gamer's own Richard Stanton as "Sekiro on a drunken night out", Phantom Blade Zero looks pretty dang intriguing. Developed by S-Game (and making its debut in the PlayStation Showcase last year) Phantom Blade Zero does indeed look absolutely slammed with high-octane nonsense—and I mean this affectionately. I like nonsense a lot.
Its jet fuel combat had my interest, but a recent interview by our friends at GamesRadar with director "Soulframe" Liang doubles down on a similar sentiment shared in a PlayStation blog last year, and that has my attention: "It's just like the old Souls games … You move around and explore in a seamless map, it's just not a huge open-world map. But every region is connected together seamlessly."

Tekken 8 director spends months insisting 'Heihachi Mishima is completely dead' before giggling and unveiling him as the newest DLC character anyway
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/fighting/tekken-8-director-spends-months-insisting-heihachi-mishima-is-completely-dead-before-giggling-and-unveiling-him-as-the-newest-dlc-character-anyway/
"Heihachi Mishima… is dead." The line Tekken fans have now heard in-game twice, along with director Katsuhiro Harada spending the last few months insisting that The King of Iron Fist was well and truly gone. 
(...)
That is, until Tekken 8's finals happened at Evo Las Vegas this weekend. Footage of Raven spreading misinformation—seriously, it's happened twice now, how has this guy not been fired yet?—is interspersed with Harada's own devious claims of Heihachi's demise before the man emerges from what appears to be the same volcano we left him in.

Bleak report alleges that Activision already has an AI-generated cosmetic in Call of Duty—with artists reportedly 'forced to use AI to aid in their work' and pushed into outsourcing
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/call-of-duty/bleak-report-alleges-that-activision-already-has-an-ai-generated-cosmetic-in-call-of-duty-with-artists-reportedly-forced-to-use-ai-to-aid-in-their-work-and-pushed-into-outsourcing/
AI—that is, specifically, generative AI—is a bit of a nightmare for just about any creative industry. While I've personally seen no compelling evidence that AI-generated sludge comes even close to replacing the people-made stuff (and is inherently fuelled by that hard work, anyway) that doesn't mean crap under the weight of hype-huffing execs who've spied an opportunity to pay fewer people less money.
As a recent, in-depth report by Wired's Brian Merchant has revealed, the other shoe has already dropped. Historic layoffs aside, an anonymous artist operating under the pseudonym Noah "because he fears retribution" alleged to Wired that Activision has, in fact, already been selling you AI-slop in the form of Yokai's Wrath, which is currently priced at 1,500 COD Points.