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

[JEMC]

Tuesday news, part two:

It looks like Ubisoft's finally had it with the Assassin's Creed Shadows outrage mill: 'When we self-censor in the face of threats, we hand over our power'
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/assassins-creed/it-looks-like-ubisofts-finally-had-it-with-the-assassins-creed-shadows-outrage-mill-when-we-self-censor-in-the-face-of-threats-we-hand-over-our-power/
If you've been following the general discussions around Assassin's Creed Shadows, you'll have probably noticed—if you've had the stomach for it—a great deal of fury about the game's lead characters. From Elon Musk taking swings for some unfathomable reason, to over-placating apologies from the company itself, to the game's subreddit having to instate new rules to get people to please shut up about it, it's been a headache and a half.
Speaking at a BAFTA event (thanks, Eurogamer) in London, franchise head Marc-Alexis Coté has given Ubisoft's biggest outright condemnation of this behaviour so far. (...)

One player has finally solved the Silent Hill 2 remake photos secret, and the devs couldn't be happier: 'There was a theory in our company that the puzzle might be too hard'
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/horror/one-player-has-finally-solved-the-silent-hill-2-remake-photos-secret-and-the-devs-couldnt-be-happier-there-was-a-theory-in-our-company-that-the-puzzle-might-be-too-hard/
Silent Hill 2's remake is full of new puzzles that players have had to tackle since launch, and it turns out that the most important one of them all has only just been solved by a dedicated fan.

Square Enix honcho Yoshi-P pledges more simultaneous releases as the company realises people don't like waiting years for its games
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/square-enix-honcho-yoshi-p-pledges-more-simultaneous-releases-as-the-company-realises-people-dont-like-waiting-years-for-its-games/
It's the year 2024 and some games companies are still a bit weird about release dates. Rockstar hung about for a year after putting out Red Dead Redemption 1 on Switch and PS4 before remembering to put it on PC (and who knows what it's gonna do with GTA 6), and Square Enix kept dancing around the Final Fantasy 16 PC port we all knew was coming while it was still in its year-long 'only on PS5' phase.
The good news is we might have to put up with a bit less of that from the second of those two corporations in the near future (Rockstar is beyond help). In a chat with 4gamer, FF14 director and the most tired man in Monster Hunter Naoki "Yoshi-P" Yoshida said (all following quotes are machine-translated): "In the future, Square Enix titles will be released simultaneously on each platform more and more."

Star Wars Outlaws has a new creative director, promises more work on three 'key areas': Combat, stealth, and controls
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/action/star-wars-outlaws-has-a-new-creative-director-promises-more-work-on-three-key-areas-combat-stealth-and-controls/
As part of its ongoing effort to turn Star Wars Outlaws into a game that more people might actually want to buy, Ubisoft has rolled out its first developer update, revealing that creative director Julian Gerighty has been replaced as creative director by The Division and Avatar veteran Drew Rechner.
>> Hey, at least they don’t have to touch the story or exploration...

Not content with finally getting Stardew Valley 1.6 live on all platforms, Eric Barone has piled a bunch of other new stuff on top of it in yet another big update
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/life-sim/not-content-with-finally-getting-stardew-valley-1-6-live-on-all-platforms-eric-barone-has-piled-a-bunch-of-other-new-stuff-on-top-of-it-in-yet-another-big-update/
"I have this problem where once I start, I can't stop," Eric Barone said in an interview earlier this year, and boy, he wasn't kidding. Case in point: Stardew Valley, which Barone started in 2012, released in 2016, and has relentlessly hammered away on since, despite having plenty of other things he's supposed to be doing.
(...)
Console and mobile players unfortunately had to wait for the update, as Barone said in May that those versions "require extra work," but the ports are finally out today—and it turns out that Barone was working on even more stuff to pile on top of it in the 1.6.9 patch, which is also now live on all platforms. Guess he didn't want PC players to feel left out today.
>> Sadly, tho, there’s a bug that makes chickens disappear.

Treyarch has nerfed Call of Duty: Black Ops 6's loathed Recon perk, meaning your wallhacks won't last quite as long after respawning
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/fps/treyarch-has-nerfed-call-of-duty-black-ops-6s-loathed-recon-perk-meaning-your-wallhacks-wont-last-quite-as-long-after-respawning/
In the 10 days since Call of Duty: Black Ops 6's release, one perk has quickly become a focus for the player base's contempt: Recon. It's one of Black Ops 6's "combat specialties," which reward players for equipping a full set of perks with the same color-coded theme. Equip a set of blue perks, and you get Recon, which—to the confusion of anyone who's played a round of a competitive FPS—briefly lets you see enemies through walls whenever you respawn.
(...)
Luckily, Treyarch's heard those calls. In a Black Ops 6 patch that arrived earlier today with a series of balancing adjustments, the duration during which Recon highlights enemies through walls after respawning has been reduced from 2 seconds to 1.5 seconds. Frankly, that half-second reduction seems a little light, but Treyarch says "an additional reduction will be coming before Season 01."

Dragon Age boss says a Legendary Edition-style remaster of the old games in the series is unlikely because there's 'maybe 20 people left at BioWare' who know how their engine works
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/rpg/dragon-age-boss-says-a-legendary-edition-style-remaster-of-the-old-games-in-the-series-is-unlikely-because-theres-maybe-20-people-left-at-bioware-who-know-how-their-engine-works/
Dragon Age: The Veilguard is a hit, but creative director John Epler recently said that BioWare currently has "no plans for downloadable expansions" to carry the story beyond its big finish. Sadly for fans who are new to the Dragon Age series, it's also very unlikely that the older games in the series will ever get a treatment similar to the Mass Effect: Legendary Edition remasters.
In that same interview with Rolling Stone, Dragon Age creative director John Epler said he'd like to see a remastered Dragon Age collection happen, but warned that it's unlikely because of the technology they were built on. Dragon Age: Origins is actually newer than Mass Effect—it dropped in 2009, two years after Mass Effect effected debuted on Xbox 360—but it uses the proprietary Eclipse engine, as does Dragon Age 2. After that, BioWare switched to Frostbite for Dragon Age: Inquisition, and knowledge of the Eclipse engine slowly drifted away, like magic smoke in a stiff breeze.
"I think I’m one of about maybe 20 people left at BioWare who’s actually used Eclipse," Epler said. "It’s something that’s not going to be as easy as Mass Effect, but we do love the original games. Never say never, I guess that’s what it comes down to."
>> Well, then. Forget the remaster and go for a remake instead.

The fix to Destiny 2's 'Weightgate' scandal will be rolled out tomorrow, Bungie is going to say sorry by giving away god-roll guns to everyone
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/fps/the-fix-to-destiny-2s-weightgate-scandal-will-be-rolled-out-tomorrow-bungie-is-going-to-say-sorry-by-giving-away-god-roll-guns-to-everyone/
A little over a week after Destiny 2 players proved that "Weightgate" is real, Bungie has announced an upcoming fix and a way of saying sorry: They're going to sell a bunch of god-roll guns in the game.
You can read the detailed lowdown on the problem in our detailed Weightgate analysis, but the crash course version is that Destiny 2 players began to suspect that some weapon perk combos were dropping substantially less than they should. Bungie insisted that there was no "intentional perk weighting" in Destiny 2's code, but after deep analysis—the kind that only true nerds can deliver—the community proved that something funky was definitely going on. After its own internal investigation, Bungie confirmed "an issue in perk pool RNG" was indeed throwing things off.

This chill puzzle game is so good I bought its prequel before I even finished it
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/puzzle/this-chill-puzzle-game-is-so-good-i-bought-its-prequel-before-i-even-finished-it/
There's a great feeling you get when you read a book you like or watch a film you enjoy, and it turns out the writer or director has done some other stuff that also looks promising. "Yes! I liked this stuff! And now there's the potential to like more stuff!"
That's the long way around saying I played Wilmot Works It Out this weekend and I like it so much that even though I haven't even finished it, I already bought the previous Wilmot game, Wilmot's Warehouse. I'm going all-in on Wilmot after just a couple hours with Wilmot.

Ubisoft's NFT dumpster fire flares up as a matchmaking bug leaves every player connecting and losing to the same confused, unkillable guy
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/strategy/ubisofts-nft-dumpster-fire-flares-up-as-a-matchmaking-bug-leaves-every-player-connecting-and-losing-to-the-same-confused-unkillable-guy/
Last week, Ubisoft baffled us all by launching Champions Tactics: Grimoria Chronicles, an NFT tactics game, in the year of our lord 2024. Its characters cost as much as $63,000 in cryptocurrency, despite the fact that I'm not entirely sure what you can do with them once you own them. Mostly, it seems like they're good for, well, playing Champions Tactics—unless you wanted to play over the weekend, when every player found themselves connecting and immediately losing to the same guy, at the same time.