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

[JEMC]

The news, the second part:

The Finals flies to Mexico next season with a new map and a Heavy rifle with 'immense stopping power'
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/fps/the-finals-flies-to-mexico-next-season-with-a-new-map-and-a-heavy-rifle-with-immense-stopping-power/
This time last year, The Finals made its big debut at The Game Awards with a surprise launch that catapulted it among the most-played games on Steam for a time. Now, developer Embark is celebrating The Finals' first anniversary in style: A new map, more toys to play with, a clan system, and visual refreshes for existing maps.

Atlyss is a considerately horny RPG where you can play the thickest furry this side of the internet, but I'm in it for the fun action and oldschool MMO nostalgia, I swear
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/rpg/atlyss-is-a-considerately-horny-rpg-where-you-can-play-the-thickest-furry-this-side-of-the-internet-but-im-in-it-for-the-fun-action-and-oldschool-mmo-nostalgia-i-swear/
Dear reader, I want to entreat you to read the rest of this spotlight with an open mind. I have a bit of a history on this site for advocating for the underdog—or the horndog, one might say. I do this because I think it's funnier to try and empathise with the abyss than it is to point and laugh at it. Anyone can poke fun, but to try and genuinely understand something that strikes you as 'weird' is always going to be more interesting than taking cheap shots. It's with this approach in mind that I cautiously approached Atlyss, a pseudo-MMO developed by lone developer Kiseff.

Stalker 2 devs say the scrubbed mentions of anticipated NPC code A-Life 2.0 (which is busted, but there) were due to a marketing guy going rogue
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/fps/stalker-2-devs-say-the-scrubbed-mentions-of-anticipated-npc-code-a-life-2-0-which-is-busted-but-there-was-due-to-a-marketing-guy-going-rogue/
Stalker 2 is out, and while I'm not exactly a big Stalker-head like our own Joshua Wolens, who gave it a 83 in his Stalker 2 review, I do know one thing about it through sheer cultural osmosis. (...)
One of the things its predecessor was lauded for, aside from a charmingly janky personality, was its A-Life system. This is a fancy term which, boiled down, essentially means that developers GSC nailed a sense of cause and effect with its NPC AI—something our Josh praises in his review when a pack of wild dogs run headfirst into an objective, and the game permits them to simply solve the military checkpoint for him.
As the devs mentioned late last month, A-Life 2.0 is still definitely in Stalker 2, it's just busted right now. But the bugs, combined with the sudden removal of A-Life's mention from the Steam page prompted a flurry of conspiracy theories, particularly on the game's subreddit. The idea being that GSC had simply abandoned the feature entirely. Turns out, it was just because some marketing guy got a little big for his boots at the worst possible moment.

Monster Hunter Wilds game director says the beta's missing hitstop has already been tweaked, thanks to 'very positive feedback' from hitstop-hungry veteran hunters
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/rpg/monster-hunter-wilds-game-director-says-the-betas-missing-hitstop-has-already-been-tweaked-thanks-to-very-positive-feedback-from-hitstop-hungry-veteran-hunters/
Back in the Monster Hunter Wilds open beta, something felt off. No, I don't mean the inconsistent framerates or the outbreak of polygonal origami monsters. I mean the baffling decrease in hitstop—an animation technique that intentionally pauses combat animations at the frame where an attack makes contact to add an additional sense of impact. Luckily, Capcom's already been readjusting the amount of hitstop for Wilds's launch in February, according to game director Yuya Tokuda.

Mass Effect boss may have dropped a hint about the next game: 'Make sure you play Lair of the Shadow Broker'
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/rpg/mass-effect-boss-may-have-dropped-a-hint-about-the-next-game-make-sure-you-play-lair-of-the-shadow-broker/
We don't know much about the next Mass Effect game yet, except that it's happening and Liara T'Soni will be in it. That's left fans of the series eager for whatever scraps of information they can get their hands on, and BioWare's Michael Gamble, who's heading up work on Mass Effect 4, might have just thrown them a bone.

I'm afraid there's a Helldivers 2 sex game, and yes it is called Sexdivers
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/third-person-shooter/im-afraid-theres-a-helldivers-2-sex-game-and-yes-it-is-called-sexdivers/
A decent metric to judge when a game has truly hit the mainstream is when Steam's active sex game scene sees fit to make a parody. Congrats Helldivers 2, meet SEXDIVERS 🔞, an "intense survival shooter" releasing sometime in 2025. Yes, the emoji is in the title—I didn't know you could do that on Steam either.
>> Two NSFW games in the same days? That’s a first.

StarCraft 2's impossible mission has been beaten after 14 years by a guy who turned the 'Archon Toilet' into an 'Archon Bidet'
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/rts/starcraft-2s-impossible-mission-has-been-beaten-after-14-years-by-a-guy-who-turned-the-archon-toilet-into-an-archon-bidet/
In Utter Darkness is a mission in StarCraft 2: Wings of Liberty that you're destined to lose. The protoss are making a last stand against zerg forces: The goal isn't victory, but to protect the construction of an archive that might aid some future species in their own war against the zerg. Hold the line, kill enough zerg, and you win—even though, y'know, you lose. But what if you could beat back destiny—what if you didn't lose?
YouTuber Davey Gunface set himself to the impossible task, and 14 years after StarCraft 2 launched, he's managed to pull it off. He didn't win, strictly speaking, because there is no win condition, but he didn't lose, either. By employing very high-level StarCraft 2 strategies, and taking advantage of some weaknesses in the enemy AI, he was able to lock the zerg into an effective stalemate.

Fortnite's drastically diminished Save the World XP rewards was a bug, Epic says, but now it's fixed
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/battle-royale/fortnites-drastically-diminished-save-the-world-xp-rewards-is-a-bug-epic-says/
Epic Games says a recent change to Fortnite Save the World that drastically cut back on the XP players could earn was in fact a bug, and the issue is being fixed. Update: Several hours after acknowledging the problems with XP rewards in Fortnite, Epic now says they've been fixed. "We've made several adjustments and fixes to XP across Fortnite!" Epic posted on X. "Daily bonus goal rewards are now higher. Lego Fortnite quest XP has been fixed (now rewarding 25,000 instead of 700). Increased weekly XP earnable in Save The World, Lego Fortnite, Reload, and Creative experiences. "We’ll continue to monitor and ensure that players can earn similar amounts of XP regardless of their game mode and will make further adjustments as needed." The amount of the increases has not been specified.

Ubisoft loses faith in free-to-play CoD competitor XDefiant, will shut it down in 2025: 'Many free-to-play games take a long time to find their footing and become profitable'
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/fps/ubisoft-loses-faith-in-free-to-play-cod-competitor-xdefiant-will-shut-it-down-in-2025-many-free-to-play-games-take-a-long-time-to-find-their-footing-and-become-profitable/
XDefiant, Ubisoft's free-to-play CoD-like, will close by June next year, the game's official X account has confirmed. According to the announcement the "sunsetting" process will begin today, though the promised Season 3 content will still be rolled out ahead of the game's June 3, 2025 D-Day.

Helldivers 2 hits 'Overwhelmingly Positive' recent reviews on Steam, losing 2,225 negative reviews and gaining over 29,000 positive ones in the past month
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/third-person-shooter/helldivers-2-hits-overwhelmingly-positive-recent-reviews-on-steam-losing-2-225-negative-reviews-and-gaining-over-29-000-positive-ones-in-the-past-month/
Helldivers 2 really does appear to have won its playerbase's enthusiasm back, recent snafus with the Democracy Space Station aside. Its recent reviews are now "Overwhelmingly Positive" on Steam, meaning that over 95% of recent reviewers have been left with a good impression while fighting for Super Earth.

PlayStation co-CEO spits out a bizarre prediction about the future of AI and gaming—one I pray never happens
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/playstation-co-ceo-spits-out-a-bizarre-prediction-about-the-future-of-ai-and-gaming-one-i-pray-never-happens/
The concept of AI-driven game development is a largely untested, pie in the sky dream mostly supported by people who don't actually make games, including Diablo fan Elon Musk, but that hasn't stopped PlayStation co-CEO Hermen Hulst from predicting that it will become the norm.

GSC says it couldn't delay Stalker 2 to fix bugs because 'one more marathon' might have destroyed the devs: 'It has some problems, but it's a game! It's a game with soul'
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/fps/gsc-says-it-couldnt-delay-stalker-2-to-fix-bugs-because-one-more-marathon-might-have-destroyed-the-devs-it-has-some-problems-but-its-a-game-its-a-game-with-soul/
Stalker 2 is great. Heck, it's my game of the year, and I said as much in my Stalker 2 review. But it also launched with a hell of a lot of bugs. To its credit, developer GSC Game World is cranking out patches at a dizzying pace, and they seem to be making a difference, but it does raise the question: why didn't the studio just delay the game?
In a chat with Eurogamer, GSC boss Ievgen Grygorovych said the reason was simple: it might have finally, totally broken the devs. "You're in a very intensive work process for many months until release, and you're working over, over, over what you usually can do and in the highest possible stress… You have no energy at all and you decide—should we take one more marathon?"