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

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The news, the sequel:

The OG Dying Light is giving away its first DLC in more than 4 years for free, and it's very shiny
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/action/the-og-dying-light-is-giving-away-its-first-dlc-in-more-than-4-years-for-free-and-its-very-shiny/
Zombies are among the most relentless monsters, whether they are of the classic shambling variety or the modern breed of sprinting corpses. They never give up—not until their brains are smashed in. And Dying Light developer Techland is seemingly no different, doggedly supporting the first game—now a decade old—even as it gears up to launch standalone follow-up Dying Light: The Beast.
To celebrate the series' 10th anniversary, Techland's giving some love to both the OG Dying Light and Dying Light 2, with four weeks of events and freebies. The first week has kicked off with a doozy, too, with the launch of the first DLC for Dying Light in more than four years, which is also being given away for free until February 10.

Baldur's Gate 3 Patch 8 stress test is now live for real
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/rpg/baldurs-gate-3-patch-8-stress-test-is-now-live-for-real/
After an awkward false start that saw it rolled out prematurely on PlayStation 5 consoles (and then quickly rolled back), the Baldur's Gate 3 patch 8 stress test is now officially live on all platforms.
>> If you want to know what it brings to the game, check this other article based on the leaked PS5 build from yesterday.

'The moon haunts you': Moon Knight's ultimate is killing Marvel Rivals players twice as fast as it should
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/third-person-shooter/its-not-just-you-moon-knights-ultimate-is-killing-marvel-rivals-players-twice-as-fast-as-it-should/
"The moon haunts you!" No other words in Marvel Rivals inspire hopelessness like the heralding cry of Moon Knight's ultimate, Hand of Khonshu. The lunar duelist's signature ult shares a lot of properties with other duelist ults in Rivals, casting an AoE circle that kills enemies inside, but Khanshu's barrage is particularly brutal. No ability like it kills as quickly, and if you're caught in the circle for even a second with 300-250 health (most of the roster), you're almost surely dead.
Moon Knight's ult has contributed to him becoming one of the most feared, reviled, and downright deadly heroes in Quickplay, but now it looks like Hand of Khonshu's unique kill rate can be explained by a bug. As discovered by Reddit user Sidewaysgts (and shared by Polygon), Hand of Khonshu currently deals twice as much damage per hit as its listed value on the official Marvel Rivals website.

Destiny 2's new episode hits next week, sending players back into the giant, haunted spaceship where the first game had its finest moments
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/fps/destiny-2s-new-episode-hits-next-week-sending-players-back-into-the-giant-haunted-spaceship-where-the-first-game-had-its-finest-moments/
Long before Destiny 2 hit the high points of Forsaken, The Witch Queen, or The Final Shape—hell, before there was even a Destiny 2—The Taken King was peak Destiny. Aboard the Dreadnought, the titanic flagship spacecraft of the Hive God Oryx, the first game finally hit its stride, providing a compelling villain, an imminently repeatable public event in the Court of Oryx, and the Book of Sorrows: An in-game lore tome that turned Destiny's melange of proper nouns into a proper mythology.
Eventually, Destiny moved on. Oryx was defeated, sequels were released, free-to-play models were adopted, publishing agreements shifted, and the Dreadnought was left in space: neglected, but perhaps not entirely abandoned. In a lengthy developer livestream that aired earlier today, Bungie detailed what's coming in next week's launch of Destiny 2's Heresy episode, which finally sends players back into the Dreadnought to face new horrors churning in its depths.
>> There’ll be also new Star Wars based cosmetics.

Total War: Warhammer 3 hotfix makes a dwarf who longs for death slightly less likely to die
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/strategy/total-war-warhammer-3-hotfix-makes-a-dwarf-who-longs-for-death-slightly-less-likely-to-die/
The word "iconic" is so overused it makes me wince when I see it, but in the world of Warhammer it can be fairly applied to two characters: Gotrek and Felix, who sum up the duality of the setting. (...)
The two can be recruited in Total War: Warhammer 3 (Gotrek voiced by the perfectly cast Brian Blessed) if you win their quest battle, racing to the rescue to keep them alive when they're about to be overwhelmed by the daemonic hordes of Slaanesh. This is fairly achievable if you're fielding an army with some heavy cavalry who can charge into the middle of the battlefield in time to make a difference, but if you're playing poor stunty dwarfs—who thematically speaking, are one of the armies most likely to recruit the duo—you're kind of boned. Felix would probably break and flee, while Gotrek's suicide wish would be granted before you had time to help them.
Thank goodness for hotfix 6.0.4 then, which addresses this and many other issues. Near the bottom of a list of minor tweaks and fixes is a note that made my day: "Improved Gotrek and Felix’s initial survivability in 'The Adventures of Gotrek and Felix' quest battle (to Gotrek's dismay)."

Age of Empires 3: Definitive Edition DLC promised last year is cancelled: 'We announced content before it had been built, and we now feel that announcement was premature'
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/rts/age-of-empires-3-definitive-edition-dlc-promised-last-year-is-cancelled-we-announced-content-before-it-had-been-built-and-we-now-feel-that-announcement-was-premature/
In February 2024, World's Edge announced new DLC for Age of Empires 3: Definitive Edition that was slated to be out at the end of 2024. In October of that year, however, the DLC was delayed to an unspecified "future date," and today the studio announced that "after serious consideration," it's been cancelled entirely.

After falling victim to the recent US TikTok ban, Marvel Snap switches to a new US-based publisher
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/card-games/after-falling-victim-to-the-recent-us-tiktok-ban-marvel-snap-switches-to-a-new-us-based-publisher/
Last week Marvel Snap went offline during the United States' short-lived TikTok ban. The superhero CCG was swept up in the diplomatic spat due to its publisher Nuverse, which is a subsidiary of TikTok owner Bytedance. At the time, Marvel Snap studio Second Dinner indicated it would move away from Nuverse, and it looks like that's already happening.
In an X post published today, Second Dinner announced it will be handling most "operational and publishing" duties in-house with the support of Skystone Games, a small US-based publisher founded in 2020 by former Blizzard luminary David Brevik.

For COD’s sake: One player’s 763-day legal quest to make Activision unban their account ends in total success: ‘Worth the effort’
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/call-of-duty/for-cods-sake-one-players-763-day-legal-quest-to-make-activision-unban-their-account-ends-in-total-success-worth-the-effort/
I've never been banned from a videogame or even got a single warning before. But sometimes, simply playing by the book isn't enough to avoid a ban. Maybe you've run into a few too many salty players who've reported you out of spite, or maybe you got a message in-game telling you that third-party software has been found on your PC, even though that's not true. I can't imagine what I would do in this situation, but one player known as b00lin decided that he wasn't going to stand for it.
(...)
This short message from Activision Support was the start of a long and arduous process of using the legal system to get his account unbanned and receive a refund for his initial purchase of Modern Warfare 2—all of this would take two years.

No Man's Sky is getting 'trillions of new planets,' some with oceans 'several kilometers deep,' plus explorable 'end-game' gas giants
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/survival-crafting/no-mans-sky-is-getting-trillions-of-new-planets-some-with-oceans-several-kilometers-deep-plus-explorable-end-game-gas-giants/
If you thought 2025 would be any different from the last nine years of No Man's Sky updates… why would you think that? That would be a weird thought to have. Stop having weird thoughts.
That's my way of saying there's a big new No Man's Sky update landing today, and once again it's free, and once again it's packed with interesting stuff for the ever-expanding space sandbox from Hello Games. It's also being delivered alongside a missive from Sean Murray, who also wants to reassure everyone that, yes, Light No Fire is being worked on. In fact, the development of Light No Fire is one of the reasons we're getting new No Man's Sky stuff today.

Monster Hunter Wilds director is proud of his horrible, oily giant octopus son that belches flame and writhes in the muck, says it's a technical challenge he's 'finally getting to attempt'
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/rpg/monster-hunter-wilds-director-is-proud-of-his-horrible-oily-giant-octopus-son-that-belches-flame-and-writhes-in-the-muck-says-its-a-technical-challenge-hes-finally-getting-to-attempt/
Yuya Tokuda, director of the upcoming slay-a-thon Monster Hunter Wilds, is very proud of the terrifying Oilwell Basin and the critters within it. The basin itself is styled as a 'what if we made the deep ocean on land and then set it all on fire' zone. For context, it's home to that horrible "affront to god" fans were yelping about last year.

Arrowhead CEO reassures Helldivers 2 players in the wake of Johan Pilestedt's sabbatical that if they can keep the game 'going for 10 years, we will'
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/third-person-shooter/arrowhead-ceo-reassures-helldivers-2-players-in-the-wake-of-johan-pilestedts-sabbatical-that-if-they-can-keep-the-game-going-for-10-years-we-will/
Helldiver's 2's former CEO, now CCO, made headlines earlier this week—including ours—by announcing he'd be on a sabbatical following years of hard work.
(...)
Essentially, he's become a bit of a central figure in the fanbase, and folks are sad to see him go, even on a temporary basis. The game's current CEO, Shams Jorjani, has been quick to reassure players that it's not going to be forever, responding to players on the game's Discord server (thanks, GamesRadar).