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

[JEMC]

The Tuesday news, all in one post:

SALES /PLAYER COUNT & DEALS

Steam’s Top 10

(Click here for the Top 100)

Steam has new deals, a theme sale and new weeklong deals:

• Core Keeper will be 20% off until the 5th of September: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1621690/Core_Keeper/
• The KINGDOM HEARTS INTEGRUM MASTERPIECE bundle, with the three games, gets a 31% discount until the 9th of September. The individual games also get a 31% discount: https://store.steampowered.com/sub/1000794
• The Games From Croatia Sale features up to 90% discounts. Most deals will end on the 9th, but some will last longer than that, until the 14th: https://store.steampowered.com/sale/GamesfromCroatia
• The Space Exploration Fest will let you find the perfect game to live your Sci-Fi dreams with new demos and up to 90% deals until September 9: https://store.steampowered.com/category/space_exploration/
• Hell Pie will be 75% off until September 13: https://store.steampowered.com/app/889910/Hell_Pie/
• And here are some of the weeklong deals:
  • Jack Holmes : Master of Puppets is 35% off: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2235820/Jack_Holmes__Master_of_Puppets/
  • Aidan in Danger gets a 40% discount: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2924650/Aidan_in_Danger/
  • art of rally is half its current price: https://store.steampowered.com/app/550320/art_of_rally/
  • Per Aspera gets a 67% deal: https://store.steampowered.com/app/803050/Per_Aspera/
  • ScourgeBringer features a 75% discount: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1037020/ScourgeBringer/
  • And White Night will be 9% off: https://store.steampowered.com/app/301560/White_Night/

The Humble Store presents the Kepler Interactive Publisher Sale, with up to 75% deals during 6 days: https://www.humblebundle.com/store/promo/kepler-publisher-sale/.

Fanatical’s new Star Deal is Street Fighter™ 6 - Ultimate Edition, 60% off during 48 hours: https://www.fanatical.com/en/game/street-fighter-6-ultimate-edition.

SOFTWARE & DRIVERS

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MODS, EMULATORS & FAN PROJECTS

Bethesda bans Doom mod about a resurrected mech-demon Margaret Thatcher because it's apparently a bit close to 'real-world politics'
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/fps/bethesda-bans-doom-mod-about-a-resurrected-mech-demon-margaret-thatcher-because-its-apparently-a-bit-close-to-real-world-politics/
Bethesda has removed the Doom mod Thatcher's Techbase from its certified mod listings, apparently following a complaint from a user or users about the mod's subject matter being political. Thatcher's Techbase is built around attacking the hellish alt-universe lair of former UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who was in office from 1979 to 1990 and died in 2013, but has now been resurrected in "The Tenth Circle of Hell: The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland."
Thatcher's Techbase has been around for years, but the problem is Bethesda's recent re-release of a "definitive" bundle of Doom 1 and 2, which incorporates a boatload of new features and official map packs alongside tools that allow modders to easily share their work in-game. This created a kind of semi-official status for popular mods, which are now being distributed directly through Bethesda's game, and it turns out that this might be an issue when said mod allows you to piss on the grave of a dead politician.

GAMING NEWS

'The Beatles had a 25% hit rate': Randy Pitchford reassures fans that he'll carry on 'making stuff' even after a disastrous Risk of Rain 2 expansion and the Borderlands movie
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/fps/the-beatles-had-a-25-hit-rate-randy-pitchford-reassures-fans-that-hell-carry-on-making-stuff-even-after-a-disastrous-risk-of-rain-2-expansion-and-the-borderlands-movie/
Randy Pitchford, Gearbox boss, has continued his odd yet entertaining thread of replying to just about anyone online who doesn't like what he has to say with long, confusing responses. 
This time around, after someone pointed out the recent failures of both the Borderlands movie, which crashed and burned at the box office, and a Risk of Rain 2 expansion, which ended up being a bit of a train wreck, Pitchford decided to defend himself by comparing Gearbox to—and I'm completely serious here—The Beatles.

WoW's auction house broke for nearly a week, thanks to a code change that made a database table go from roughly 40,000 rows to 'tens of millions'
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/world-of-warcraft/wow-s-auction-house-broke-for-nearly-a-week-thanks-to-a-code-change-that-made-a-database-table-go-from-roughly-40-000-rows-to-tens-of-millions/
World of Warcraft: The War Within is off to a decent start (...)
Most players, it seems, have been having a good time. Unless they want to use the auction house, that is. Late last week, the in-game auction house—which players use to buy and sell important goods for things like crafting items—was busted on certain regional servers for an appreciable amount of players.
Blizzard called attention to the issue on the forums August 29, though according to some players, the bug had been persisting far longer, as far back as Wednesday in the same week.

Satisfactory's top-tier quantum tech will let you transmute metals like an alchemist
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/satisfactorys-top-tier-quantum-tech-will-let-you-transmute-metals-like-an-alchemist/
Not too long ago Coffee Stain Studios posted a nice, quiet video flying over the "Quantum" machines that'll make up the final tier of technology in their first-person factory-building survival crafting game Satisfactory. Now, a second 20-minute video has explained almost everything about what that tech will do in-game.

Check out the PSX vibes on spooky, lo-fi horror mystery Pinnacle Point
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/horror/check-out-the-psx-vibes-on-spooky-lo-fi-horror-mystery-pinnacle-point/
An upcoming indie horror game has pretty promising vibes and the look that I know some of us love to see in a horror title. Pinnacle Point by solo developer Robin Shen, aka Ready2Run, is all kinds of fog and neon and blocky polygons that encapsulate the lo-fi vibe of the PSX era of gaming.

Rocksteady reportedly begins a round of layoffs after Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League's shortcomings, slashes its QA team's numbers in half
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/third-person-shooter/rocksteady-reportedly-begins-a-round-of-layoffs-after-suicide-squad-kill-the-justice-league-s-shortcomings-slashes-its-qa-team-s-numbers-in-half/
Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League didn't, by most metrics, do what it was supposed to. (...)
In practice, it fell short of expectations, lost Warner Bros Entertainment $200 million, and struggles even now to gather more than 200 concurrents on Steam. As I write, only 56 people are playing it on Valve's platform (though doubtless there are more elsewhere).
Things have gone from bad to worse. As reported by Eurogamer, Rocksteady has begun to lay off over half of its QA department with, as the report states, "poor sales of Suicide Squad directly cited as a reason". This would bring the department down from 33 members to 15.

Xbox boss Phil Spencer says he's made the 'worst game choice decisions,' letting exclusives like Destiny slip through his fingers
https://www.pcgamer.com/gaming-industry/xbox-boss-phil-spencer-says-hes-made-the-worst-game-choice-decisions-letting-exclusives-like-destiny-slip-through-his-fingers/
CEOs have to make some tough decisions. Sure, mostly it's a matter of 'What shall I spend my seven-figure salary on this month?' and 'How many employees should we lay off for choices that had nothing to do with them?' But sometimes you have to make some executive calls that can massively impact the fortunes of the company you command.
Take, for instance, Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer, who revealed at a recent PAX Panel (via GamesRadar) that he's made more than a couple of bad calls when it comes to signing games for Xbox. Spencer says he's made some of the "worst game choice decisions" during his tenure at the company. For instance, he passed on picking up both Guitar Hero and Destiny as Xbox exclusives. 

Stalker 2: Heart of Chernobyl is downright gorgeous, and feels like it's using modern tech to fully realise the atmosphere the first game strove for
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/fps/stalker-2-heart-of-chernobyl-is-downright-gorgeous-using-modern-tech-to-further-draw-its-player-into-the-atmosphere-the-first-game-wanted-to-create/
I am, unfortunately, a bit of a hypocrite when it comes to videogames—especially ones like Stalker. In my heart, I know that atmosphere has precious little to do with graphical fidelity, that a skilled artist can make a deeply immersive game with naught but a few pixels, some shillings, cardboard, and elbow grease.
But there's a reason I've never properly sunk my teeth into Stalker: Shadow of Chernobyl despite all the praise it's gotten—and I have to admit it has quite a lot to do with presentation. The game never looked bad for its time, and its immersive atmosphere is rightfully lauded—but its visuals have had a short half life. It was developed in the X-Ray engine, but it gives me a source-engine smell that's impossible to disconnect from my misspent youth in Garry's Mod.
This is a personal failing. However, after sitting down and playing a hands-on demo of the game at Gamescom, I'm happy to report that developer GSC Game World has excelled in the areas it was already strong at, and is on its way to create a game that rivals the first's legendary texture with all the new modern toys in the studio's toolbox.
>> Very reassuring.

The win rates for Deadlock heroes have been revealed, and in the last 11 days, one character has been played over 2.5 million times
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/moba/the-win-rates-for-deadlock-heroes-have-been-revealed-and-in-the-last-11-days-one-character-has-been-played-over-25-million-times/
It's not been long since Deadlock officially launched into closed beta, but even still, some players are starting to figure out which heroes they really click with and which are simply too overpowered to ignore. 

'I want to incorporate more changes, I don't want to take a conservative approach': Final Fantasy 14 game director Yoshi-P expresses a desire to shake things up in the future
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/final-fantasy/i-want-to-incorporate-more-changes-i-don-t-want-to-take-a-conservative-approach-final-fantasy-14-game-director-yoshi-p-expresses-a-desire-to-shake-things-up-in-the-future/
(...)
FF14, simply put, innovates pretty slowly. That's not to say we haven't had new ideas come into the ecosystem, but they also had their own share of issues—Island Sanctuaries were cute at first, but wound up becoming a largely passive spreadsheet simulator. Variant Dungeons, meanwhile, were a ton of fun to play the first go around, but they suffered due to poor reward structures.
I sat down and spoke with the game's director, Naoki Yoshida (Yoshi-P) during Gamescom, and while we talked about the story's overall reception, and what to do with the Scions of the Seventh Dawn, something he said towards the tail-end of our interview also surprised me: It looks like Yoshi-P really does want to shake things up.