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

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Thursday news, the second part (spoiler alert, there’ll be a third one):

Designed in just a few weeks, this $5 indie game about digging a hole has journeyed to the centre of Steam's top sellers chart
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/survival-crafting/designed-in-just-a-few-weeks-this-usd5-indie-game-about-digging-a-hole-has-journeyed-to-the-centre-of-steams-top-sellers-chart/
Many aspects of game development are variable and subjective, but there is one universal truth: games take ages to make. The average turnaround for a big-budget video game used to be four years, but lately that has grown to five, maybe even six years as games have ballooned in size, budget and visual complexity. Even for smaller indie projects, you're generally looking at two years as a minimum baseline, and I imagine there are a few exhausted indie devs who would roll their panda eyes at that.
Hence, the idea of a developer making a game and launching a game in a matter of weeks would seem utterly absurd. And that's before you ponder the brain-exploding notion of it selling by the bucketload. Yet that's exactly what German studio Cyberwave has done, with the release of A Game About Digging a Hole.
(...)
How was this miracle achieved? Well, AGADAH (I'm not sure if that's better or worse than writing out the entire name) was designed by Cyberwave's artist, known by the community simply as Ben. Ben's full-time job is working on the survival game Solarpunk, but according to AGADAH's first Steam update, he took a holiday and spent the bulk of it making this new game. "Instead of taking a break, he created this game entirely in his spare time-–in just 14 days," Cyberwave writes.
>> And people like it!

Overwatch 2 is getting radical changes that might finally help that '2' make sense, starting with a third-person mode and over 160 hero perks
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/fps/overwatch-2-is-getting-radical-changes-that-might-finally-help-that-2-make-sense-starting-with-a-third-person-mode-and-over-160-hero-perks/
Two months ago, the internet gathered around and informally crowned Marvel Rivals as the new popular hero shooter of note. I'm having lots of fun with it, but its rule-breaking heroes and experimental abilities have kept a question nagging in my noggin: Why isn't Overwatch 2 trying anything like this?
Well, now it is. In a 34-minute Overwatch 2 "Spotlight" video that premiered today, Blizzard laid out the next year of Overwatch, which includes the biggest shakeups and additions the FPS has seen since Blizzard slapped a '2' on it. It's safe to say this is a bigger deal than 5v5 ever was.
>> One of the new things is a new third-person Stadium mode, and also ...

Overwatch 2 is bringing loot boxes back from the dead
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/fps/overwatch-2-is-bringing-loot-boxes-back-from-the-dead/
It's a big week for Overwatch 2 fans, new and old—there's a ton of new content to sift through, including hero perks, a new third-person game mode, and the return of loot boxes, something I'm particularly excited about.
"Season 15 also features the return of loot boxes," a press release says. "You will be able to earn a variety of cosmetics when collecting loot boxes. They will be available from weekly and event rewards." You'll also be able to earn one loot box via the free battle pass and an additional two in the Premium battle pass.

The Alters is altered again: 11 Bit Studios' survival game about creating alt-universe versions of yourself on a hostile alien world is delayed
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/survival-crafting/the-alters-is-altered-again-11-bit-studios-survival-game-about-creating-alt-universe-versions-of-yourself-on-a-hostile-alien-world-is-delayed/
The Alters, 11 Bit Studios' weird-looking game about recruiting alt-universe versions of yourself to survive on a hostile alien world, has been altered again. Following a delay in 2024 that pushed it into the first quarter of 2025, it's now been delayed again to an unspecified 2025 release.

With Adventure mode squared away, Dwarf Fortress is entering a 'new era of development' as its devs shift focus toward future features
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/sim/with-adventure-mode-squared-away-dwarf-fortress-is-entering-a-new-era-of-development-as-its-devs-shift-focus-toward-future-features/
Last month, the Steam version of Dwarf Fortress received the long-awaited addition of its absentee roguelike Adventure Mode after a lengthy beta period. The fan-favorite feature from the game's ASCII era allows players to venture the vast, procedural wilderness as a lone, probably doomed wanderer. Today, Dwarf Fortress publisher Kitfox Games announced via a Steam news post that Adventure Mode's return signalled a "new era of development," detailing the plans that Dwarf Fortress's creators have for its future now that they've brought its past to the present.

Jeff Minter is remaking another Atari classic, and yeah, it is definitely a Jeff Minter game
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/action/jeff-minter-is-remaking-another-atari-classic-and-yeah-it-is-definitely-a-jeff-minter-game/
Jeff Minter, the legendary indie developer who's been doing his own weird thing since the early 1980s, has a new weird thing in the works: a remake of I, Robot, an arcade shooter originally released by Atari in 1984.

Diablo 4's second expansion won't be out until 2026
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/rpg/diablo-4s-second-expansion-wont-be-out-until-2026/
Diablo 4's plan for annual expansions seems to have gone mildly awry, as franchise general manager Rod Fergusson said during a DICE panel today that the game's second expansion won't be out until sometime in 2026.

Civilization 7 patch 1.0.1 addresses 'key areas of player-reported issues' including UI and tooltip improvements
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/strategy/civilization-7-patch-1-0-1-addresses-key-areas-of-player-reported-issues-including-ui-and-tooltip-improvements/
It's not the strongest start for the seventh game in the most celebrated PC series in history. Civ 7 hasn't exactly received glowing reviews from critics and is currently struggling to shake off its "Mixed" user rating on Steam: only 51% of its 14,000 Steam reviews are positive. A lot of people are playing Civ in its first week of global release, but only about half of them are enjoying it.
Firaxis has heard the complaints and is working to address them. The third post-launch patch arrived today, and it "focuses on addressing key areas of player-reported issues that we can act on most quickly," Firaxis says.

Nvidia didn't send the Monster Hunter Wilds devs any RTX 5000 cards before their CES reveal, so official DLSS 4 support is still in progress
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/action/nvidia-didnt-send-the-monster-hunter-wilds-devs-any-rtx-5000-cards-before-their-ces-reveal-so-official-dlss-4-support-is-still-in-progress/
With Monster Hunter Wilds likely to be one of the biggest new games of 2025, I thought there was a chance that Capcom and Nvidia would be teaming up to ensure that the PC version of Wilds was an absolute showstopper. Typically Nvidia and AMD collaborate with developers to test games before release and ensure that their drivers are ready for launch day; surely they also sometimes seed their new hardware with major developers ahead of release too, right? When I spoke with Monster Hunter Wilds director Yuya Tokuda back in January, just a week after the announcement of the RTX 5000 series, I asked if his team had gotten to play with the new hardware yet—and if we could expect to see DLSS 4 support in Wilds on day one.
Somewhat surprisingly, no and no.
>> The 5000 series cards are so rare that Nvidia can’t even send them to developers.

Monster Hunter Wilds' first free title update DLC will add Mizutsune and 'additional updates' and event quests
https://www.pcgamer.com/monster-hunter-wilds-roadmap-dlc-title-update/
During Sony's State of Play livestream on Wednesday, Capcom debuted the final launch trailer for Monster Hunter Wilds, which ends with a tease of what we can expect after launch. We now know the first monster we'll get to face after greatswording our way through high rank: Mizutsune, a serpentine leviathan that debuted back in 2015 in Monster Hunter: Generations. Mizutsune skipped Monster Hunter World, but did make an appearance in 2021's Monster Hunter Rise.