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

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The second part of the Friday news:

Fallout Tactics lead on exploring the 'bigotry' of the Brotherhood of Steel long before Bethesda got there: 'I really enjoyed killing off the nobility of them'
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/fallout/fallout-tactics-lead-on-exploring-the-bigotry-of-the-brotherhood-of-steel-long-before-bethesda-got-there-i-really-enjoyed-killing-off-the-nobility-of-them/
Almost every Fallout game has its stalwart defenders: People who will swear til they're blue in the face that New Vegas, or 3, or 2, or 1 is the best game in the series and, just maybe, the best game of all time. There's something about the Wasteland that inspires fanatical devotion. Usually.
Fallout Tactics is one of the few games you'd struggle to find a ride-or-die fan for. A combat-focused follow-up to Fallout 2, the game's blend of tactics and RPG elements didn't quite find purchase with fans of either genre. And who knows—maybe Fallout fans bristled at its depiction of the Brotherhood of Steel.
"I really enjoyed killing off the nobility of them," Fallout Tactics lead designer Ed Orman told PCG in a recent interview. In Tactics, players took on the role of a squad of Brotherhood soldiers, giving what was—at that point—one of the deepest looks yet at the faction in the series (though they had featured heavily in both the first and second games, naturally).

Satisfactory's developers had no idea how popular its 1.0 launch was going to be: 'We try not to focus too much on that stuff and just make it as big as we possibly can'
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/sim/satisfactorys-developers-had-no-idea-how-popular-its-10-launch-was-going-to-be-we-try-not-to-focus-too-much-on-that-stuff-stuff-and-be-like-lets-just-make-it-as-big-as-we-possibly-can/
I felt like I was late to the party when I started playing Satisfactory like mad in 2020, more than a year after the building game first released in early access on the Epic Games Store. Another four years later Satisfactory has finally arrived at its 1.0 release and proven just how off base I was. It peaked at close to 200,000 players the weekend after launch, more than four times its previous record. Apparently developer Coffee Stain was just as surprised as I was.
"I think I've finally gained my sleep cycle, but the last week has been insane," community manager Snutt Treptow said in an interview with PC Gamer. "I really thought once we dropped the game on release day, I'd be able to breathe, but no, it totally exploded, and we're super stoked. We broke all our records. I think our previous current player record was like 34,000 concurrent players. That weekend [after 1.0's launch] we got 186,000. Our YouTube channel had like 90,000 people watching the release stream concurrently. It's crazy."
>> And they won’t stop working on the game, as they were already thinking what to add after the 1,0 launch.

Videogame IP lawyer says Nintendo could've been planning its Pocketpair lawsuit before Palworld even released: 'If you know who you're going to go sue, you can draft claims to target them'
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/survival-crafting/videogame-ip-lawyer-says-nintendo-couldve-been-planning-its-pocketpair-lawsuit-before-palworld-even-released-if-you-know-who-youre-going-to-go-sue-you-can-draft-claims-to-target-them/
Last week, Nintendo released a statement announcing a patent lawsuit against Palworld developer Pocketpair. Given Nintendo's infamous reputation for applying overwhelming legal pressure, the announcement led plenty of us to wonder when in the eight months since Palworld's release Nintendo might've started setting its litigation gears in motion. According to patent lawyer Kirk Sigmon, Nintendo might've been planning its patent lawsuit before Palworld even launched.
While Nintendo hasn't publicized which patents it's accusing Pocketpair of infringing, the generally-held assumption is that Nintendo's basing its lawsuit around patents it filed on creature-capturing and riding mechanics during the development of 2022 Switch game Pokemon Legends: Arceus. During an interview with PC Gamer covering the Palworld lawsuit, I asked Sigmon to explain the amendments, continuations, and divisional applications that those patents had received, according to US and Japanese patent databases.

This unique action-platformer lets you shapeshift into animal forms—but I just got obsessed with being a flat piece of paper
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/action/this-unique-action-platformer-lets-you-shapeshift-into-animal-forms-but-i-just-got-obsessed-with-being-a-flat-piece-of-paper/
Things are tough out there these days, and smaller developers are having to do whatever it takes to survive. Poor old Gyaar Studio—it's had to try and save money by making a whole game out of paper.
Hirogami, announced at the Tokyo Games Show 2024, takes place in a mystical, origami world. The earth is paper, the trees are paper, and, yes, our protagonist is paper. But that does have its advantages—he's able to unfold himself into a flat page, and then refold into animal forms that give him powerful new abilities.

Space Marine 2's latest patch adds ultrawide support, private co-op lobbies, and battle buddies who will actually be useful for something
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/third-person-shooter/space-marine-2s-latest-patch-finally-adds-ultrawide-support-private-co-op-lobbies-and-battle-buddies-who-will-actually-be-useful-for-something/
It took the better part of a month but Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2, the tale of a boy and his buddies discovering a shared love of entomology, finally has support for ultrawide displays. And that's not all: Private lobbies for the co-op Operations mode are also live and there's a new Sparring Arena in the Battle Barge that lets players "compete in friendly PvP with the players in their squad." Players who like to fiddle with their look will be happy to hear that a convenient option to reset custom armor and color presets to their default settings has been added to the customization menu.

The Day Before studio returns from the dead and asks for a 'second chance': 'From now on, our development and marketing will be based on the principle of honesty'
https://www.pcgamer.com/gaming-industry/the-day-before-developer-comes-back-from-the-dead-and-asks-for-a-second-chance-from-now-on-our-development-and-marketing-will-be-based-on-the-principle-of-honesty/
Infamous open world survival game The Day Before bombed when it released late last year, and developer Fntastic shut its doors just four days later. "The Day Before has failed financially, and we lack the funds to continue," the studio said at the time—but now Fntastic has returned, saying it's going to do things differently this time and asking gamers to fund its next project on Kickstarter.
Given its reputation, the reanimated studio (which also made the once popular, now defunct Propnight) might have a hard time reaching even its modest $15,535 goal for Escape Factory, a "physics-based multiplayer co-op escape game." Kickstarter users once pledged $55,492 to fund a potato salad, though, so anything's possible.
>> The article has the link to the Kickstarter page, but I refuse to copy it here.

'There's a lot of psychological hurdles': Why Mossmouth charged $25 for 50 games
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/action/theres-a-lot-of-psychological-hurdles-why-mossmouth-charged-dollar25-for-50-games/
When Mossmouth announced the price for UFO 50 it came as a pleasant surprise. The game famously contains 50 games—hence the name—so it's reasonable to expect a higher price than average for a new release indie game, especially one that's been in development for eight years. But no: it's priced at $25. 
I noticed a lot of people in forums and on social media were pleased and surprised about this, so I figured I'd ask the team during a recent interview what the thinking behind the price was. There had clearly been a lot of thinking behind it, ranging from the potential difficulty of selling it for more, through to the team's desire to surprise the player with unexpected depth—in the same way Hollow Knight perhaps did back in 2017, or Elden Ring in 2022.

Final Fantasy 14's developer band confirms one of Endwalker's most emotional songs, Close in the Distance, is from one specific character to your Warrior of Light
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/final-fantasy/final-fantasy-14-s-developer-band-confirms-one-of-endwalker-s-most-emotional-songs-close-in-the-distance-is-from-one-specific-character-to-your-warrior-of-light/
Final Fantasy 14 has a developer band, led by the game's sound director, Masayoshi Soken. Playing tunes from the game itself, The Primals are genuinely really popular with the fanbase, considering the long-standing MMO has plenty of bangers to choose from. It also has some tear-wrenching songs, too, such as Close in the Distance, an uplifting plea that plays during the finale of Endwalker. Spoilers for that expansion, as well as every expansion before it, to follow.

Blizzard is reportedly 'incubating' a StarCraft shooter again, which would be the developer's 3rd attempt at the accursed concept
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/action/blizzard-is-reportedly-incubating-a-starcraft-shooter-again-which-would-be-the-developer-s-3rd-attempt-at-the-accursed-concept/
Blizzard is reportedly making a shooter in the StarCraft universe again—no, not StarCraft Ghost, which was cancelled in 2014. It's also not Ares, which was, according to sources who spoke to Kotaku back in 2019, also canned. This one's a third, secret thing.

Valve is punishing Deadlock cheaters in the best way possible, turning them into helpless frogs
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/moba/valve-is-punishing-deadlock-cheaters-in-the-best-way-possible-turning-them-into-helpless-frogs/
Deadlock has had a few issues with cheaters since it entered its closed beta test, as some players found ways to give them an unfair advantage over their opponents. But now we have a way to fight back—frogs. No, I didn't misspell 'frags'.
A recent Deadlock update, shared by Valve dev Yoshi, has given players a new way to combat cheaters: "When a user is detected as cheating during the game session, the opponents will be given a choice between banning the user immediately and ending the match or turning the cheater into a frog for the rest of the game and then banning them afterward," Yoshi says in a forum post.