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

[JEMC]

First Monday news of the year:

SALES/PLAYER COUNTS & DEALS

Marvel Rivals starts 2025 by clobberin' the most played charts, hitting over 640,000 players on Steam alone
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/third-person-shooter/marvel-rivals-starts-2025-by-clobberin-the-most-played-charts-hitting-over-640-000-players-on-steam-alone/
If I had a nickel for every time a recently-released live service third-person shooter gained hundreds of thousands of players at the start of the year, I'd have two nickels. Which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it's happened twice. As the headline suggests, Marvel Rivals is doing very well for itself—garnering a whopping 644,269 players on Steam at its all-time high as of January 11.
That, as per SteamDB's leaderboards, puts it at a downright respectful number 14 at the time of writing, placing it below other such videogame giants as Baldur's Gate 3 (which had around 40.6% more players at its peak) and above heavy hitters like Path of Exile 2, Valheim, and Helldivers 2.
That's more than enough to be classified as a phenomenon, considering Arrowhead's flagship shooter pulled in 458,700 bug-shooting super patriots at launch. And that's not taking into account its players on other platforms such as PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S.

Steam starts the week with two new deals:

• Battle Talent, that has a VR only demo, will be 25% off until January 26: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1331510/Battle_Talent/
• The Operator also gets a 25% discount until the same 26th: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1771980/The_Operator/

Humble Bundle presents the Monster Hunter New Year Hunting Collection, featuring up to 10 items to get (games, DLCs and coupons) during 11 days: https://www.humblebundle.com/games/monster-hunter-new-year-hunting-collection.

And Fanatical’s Star Deal is Monster Sanctuary, with an 85% deal. It started yesterday and will last another 24 hours: https://www.fanatical.com/en/game/monster-sanctuary.

SOFTWARE & DRIVERS

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MODS, EMULATORS & FAN PROJECTS

Half-Life fan game, Black Mesa: Military, has been fully released
https://www.dsogaming.com/mods/half-life-fan-game-black-mesa-military-has-been-fully-released/
Half Life fans, here is something for you today. The Black Mesa: Military Development Group has released the full version of Black Mesa: Military. This is a mod for Black Mesa that lets you experience the events of Half-Life from the point of view of a marine.
In this mod, you and your squad have to secure the Black Mesa Research Facility and eliminate any hostile forces. You’ll see the whole disaster from the villains’ side and even come face-to-face with Gordon Freeman himself.
In a way, this project is similar to Half-Life: Opposing Force. Opposing Force portrayed the events of Half-Life from the perspective of a U.S. Marine, one of the enemy characters in the original game. Of course, you don’t control the same marine. Still, both this mod and Opposing Force share the same concept.
>> The article has a slightly over 2 minutes trailer.

An ambitious Counter-Strike mod to emulate the OG 1.6 experience in Global Offensive has been rejected by Valve after 8 years of development
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/fps/an-ambitious-counter-strike-mod-to-emulate-the-og-1-6-experience-in-global-offensive-has-been-rejected-by-valve-after-8-years-of-development/
The authors of the long-in-development Classic Offensive mod for Counter-Strike: Global Offensive have shared a message to Twitter that it has been rejected from release on Steam and its app retired after eight years of development. I have sent a request for comment from Valve and will update this story if I hear back, but the rejection may be due to Source engine workarounds used by the team when creating the mod.
In a post on December 29, the Classic Offensive team wrote that they had submitted a build of the mod for review in October, and that they were still waiting to hear from Steamworks despite a usual turnaround of three to five business days. On January 11, the Classic Offensive team shared a longform message stating that Valve "retired our app without any reason explained. This is devastating as we've worked on the project for almost eight years."

Modders have recreated Icewind Dale’s prologue in Skyrim
https://www.dsogaming.com/mods/modders-have-recreated-icewind-dales-prologue-in-skyrim/
Skyrim and Icewind Dale fans, here is something for you today. Modders have recreated the prologue from the classic 2D isometric RPG: Icewind Dale in Skyrim. As such, you will be able to explore this location in 3D. Not only that but the mod comes with a number of quests to complete.
Going into more details, The Elder Scrolls V: Kuldahar lets you explore the quiet fishing village of Easthaven and the scenic druidic settlement of Kuldahar located in the northernmost regions of the D&D world of Faerun.
As said, the mod comes complete with new areas to explore and a plethora of unique NPCs to talk to across multiple small quests. Players will also find over 15 new weapons/weapon varieties to use. Plus, there are some unique enchanted items to find. Oh, and there is also a functional class system lightly inspired by old DnD rulesets.
Do note that this is NOT a remake of the entire Icewind Dale game in Skyrim. So, don’t expect anything as complex as that. Instead, consider this a lite demo of what Icewind Dale could look like in Skyrim’s engine.
>> There is an almost 3 minutes trailer in the article.

This mod brings Fallout 76’s survey area mechanics to Fallout 4
https://www.dsogaming.com/mods/this-mod-brings-fallout-76s-survey-area-mechanics-to-fallout-4/
Modder ‘bp42s’ has released a pretty cool mod for Fallout 4 that brings to it the survey area, watchtowers, mechanics from Fallout 76. As such, players will now be able to survey their surroundings and gain XP.
All you have to do is climb a minutemen watchtower and look out from the balcony to survey the nearby area. Surveying an area will reveal up to 6 undiscovered map markers in a set distance from your current position. You can survey the surrounding area once per watchtower.
Optionally, you can receive a small amount of experience, and/or a temporary bonus to location discovery experience. This can be enabled or disabled in the MCM.
>> The article has no media.

Marvel Rivals' latest update quietly killed the game's burgeoning mod scene
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/third-person-shooter/marvel-rivals-latest-update-quietly-killed-the-games-burgeoning-mod-scene/
First reported by IGN, it appears that Marvel Rivals' season one update has disabled mods in the game. Until now, there was actually a surprisingly lively scene of modders creating skins and other cosmetic additions for the NetEase hero shooter.
Users in the Marvel Rivals Discord have said that the update has introduced asset hash checking to prevent client-side modification of the game's files. There was no mention of this change in the season one patch notes, but that's probably because NetEase never saw modding as a legitimate player behavior: Modding is verboten according to the game's terms of use, and NetEase told IGN that players who mod their Marvel Rivals installations risk being banned.
It's kind of a bummer to see, but this felt inevitable⁠—it was far more weird to see a free-to-play, cosmetics-driven, live service multiplayer game allow cosmetic mods in the first place. Client-side skin mods are largely harmless, but competitive games are understandably skittish about any backdoor to creating an unfair advantage. It takes me back to a more innocent time though: I remember when weapon skins were something you downloaded for free in Counter-Strike Source, as opposed to gaudy, multi-thousand dollar proto-NFTs.
>> Don’t be too upset. Modders have found a way to bring back mods.

When 2K removed its annoying launcher it broke a bunch of XCOM 2 mods
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/strategy/when-2k-removed-its-annoying-launcher-it-broke-a-bunch-of-xcom-2-mods/
Late in 2024, 2K removed its launcher and everybody cheered. This was not just another bit of obnoxious corporate bloatware, but one that prevented Linux users from playing BioShock and affected Midnight Suns' performance. Unfortunately, it's not all been good news.
Look on the Steam forum for XCOM 2 and you'll see threads noting that some mods no longer work, and having them installed can result in consistent crashing. Similar complaints have appeared on Reddit. Using the Alternative Mod Launcher, a community project that helped players get around the 2K launcher, doesn't help either.
Testing it myself, I found that XCOM 2 would only launch with certain mods enabled, and fail no matter which launcher I tried—both the old and new options provided by Steam and the Alternative Mod Launcher. The unifying factor seemed to be that mods with the War of the Chosen expansion as a hard requirement worked, while those without it did not. Mods like the Armory Camera Tweak, which prevents oversized characters from blocking the UI, were fine, while mods like the Imperial Guard Voice Pack, which lets you give your squaddies voice lines ripped from Dawn of War, did not.
I did find a fix for this, however. (...)
>> I’ve decided to not post the fix. Given that the author has gone through all the work to find a fix, the least you can do is check the article.

GAMING NEWS

Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 reportedly runs with 60FPS at Native 4K/Ultra on NVIDIA RTX 4090
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/kingdom-come-deliverance-2-reportedly-runs-with-60fps-at-native-4k-ultra-on-nvidia-rtx-4090/
Deep Silver has lifted the preview embargo for Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, and some first benchmarks have surfaced for it. According to them, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 can run it at Native 4K/Ultra Settings with 60FPS.
>> You know what you’ll need now, a 5070.

Atomfall gets an official gameplay overview trailer
https://www.dsogaming.com/videotrailer-news/atomfall-gets-an-official-gameplay-overview-trailer/
Rebellion has released the official gameplay overview trailer for its upcoming first-person survival-action game, Atomfall. In this trailer, the devs unveil the dangers and mysteries awaiting you in the game. So, let’s take a look at it.

DEFICIT is a new indie FPS, inspired by Half-Life & Condemned
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/deficit-is-a-new-indie-fps-inspired-by-half-life-condemned/
ITEM42 has announced a new first-person action game, called DEFICIT. DEFICIT is said to be inspired by Half-Life, featuring a Condemned-style combat system. And, below, you can find its debut gameplay trailer.

Titan Quest 2 Dev Build & Gameplay Footage Leaked Online
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/titan-quest-2-dev-build-gameplay-footage-leaked-online/
It appears that a dev build for Titan Quest 2 has been leaked online. Not only that but people have captured footage from it and have shared it on YouTube. As such, you can take a look at it (well, at least until THQ Nordic takes everything down).

The House of the Dead 2: Remake Gets PC Requirements & First Screenshots
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/the-house-of-the-dead-2-remake-gets-pc-requirements-first-screenshots/
Forever Entertainment has revealed an official remake for The House of the Dead 2 which will come out on PC in Spring 2025. Moreover, the publisher shared its official PC system requirements, as well as its first screenshots. So, let’s take a look at them.