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:

The first Monster Hunter Wilds event quests let you wear an adorable forest creature as a helmet, which means my headgear is locked in for the next few months
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/action/monster-hunter-wilds-event-quest-mimiphyta-helm-news/
Event quests, limited time hunts that offer special rewards, are a mainstay of Monster Hunter replayability. They're usually available for a week at a time, and completing them can provide materials for event-exclusive armor sets, farmable upgrade materials, and more. Capcom just rolled out the first event quests for Monster Hunter Wilds, and as far as I'm concerned, one of the rewards is a definite must-get: materials for crafting a Mimiphyta helmet, which lets you run around with a precious woodland creature clinging to your scalp.
>> And here’s a new attempt to fix the performance: making sure everything is updated (windows, GPU drivers and even CPU microcode)

Early backers of game decry 'bait and switch' after it backtracks on monetisation promises, dev chooses to stir the pot: 'Seeing Reddit lose it today lets me breathe a huge sigh of relief'
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/card-games/early-backers-of-game-decry-bait-and-switch-after-it-backtracks-on-monetisation-promises-dev-chooses-to-stir-the-pot-seeing-reddit-lose-it-lets-me-breathe-a-huge-sigh-of-relief/
The Bazaar, after seven long years, is finally entering into open beta with a F2P package—and it's, uh, not going great.
>> I can’t really summarize the whole thing in two or three paragraphs, so you’ll have to check it out. But I won’t be surprised if there’s another article about this game in six months saying that it has ceased development.

Epic's war against the Fortnite fraudsters sees it simultaneously name and shame alleged ne'er-do-wells as its high-powered lawyers sue them
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/battle-royale/epics-war-against-the-fortnite-fraudsters-sees-it-simultaneously-name-and-shame-alleged-neer-do-wells-as-its-high-powered-lawyers-sue-them/
Epic Games has announced it is suing an individual from Illinois, named in its suit as one Isaac Strock, for allegedly stealing hundreds of Fortnite accounts which he then re-sold through Telegram.

Ubisoft reveals Assassin's Creed Shadows preload and unlock times
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/assassins-creed/ubisoft-reveals-assassins-creed-shadows-preload-and-unlock-times/
In what I think we can all take as final confirmation that Assassin's Creed Shadows is not going to be hit with one more super-last-second delay, Ubisoft has revealed a somewhat complicated rundown of the game's global preload and unlock times.
>> And here’s a reminder that you’ll be able to customize your hideout.

Cities: Skylines 2's asset editor remains a distant dream: Colossal Order is still working on it but says it's 'proven more technically challenging than initially anticipated'
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/sim/cities-skylines-2s-asset-editor-remains-a-distant-dream-colossal-order-is-still-working-on-it-but-says-its-proven-more-technically-challenging-than-initially-anticipated/
Colossal Order said in November 2024 that an update on the long-awaited Cities: Skylines 2 asset editor would be shared "once the remaining issues are ironed out." As it turns out, that promise was a bit off the mark: The studio posted an update on the asset editor today, and those remaining issues remained unironed.
>> Man, Colossal Order really dropped the ball with this game.

The Hand of Fate devs are back with a bullet heaven called Hordes of Fate
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/roguelike/the-hand-of-fate-devs-are-back-with-a-bullet-heaven-called-hordes-of-fate/
Bullet heaven is what we're apparently calling the Vampire Survivors-like genre, because the only decent competing name was "auto shooter survival" and unfortunately the acronym for that is "ass". Spitfire Interactive, the developers of Hordes of Fate, are splitting the difference with "bullet heaven auto shooter", but you know what kind of game it is: a roguelike where you gear up a hero then set them loose to auto-attack endless monsters, upgrading as you go.

Firaxis says it's 'entering our Sukritact Age' as it hires popular modder to work on Civilization 7
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/strategy/firaxis-says-its-entering-our-sukritact-age-as-it-hires-popular-modder-to-work-on-civilization-7/
It's fair to say that the release of Civilization 7 has not gone quite according to plan. It's good but not great, and the resulting letdown—people expect big things from new Civ games—has manifested in a straight 50/50 split between positive and negative user ratings on Steam and concurrent player numbers that continue to lag behind those of Civilization 6.
But a recent announcement spotted by VG247 has a lot of fans excited for the future: Firaxis has hired noted Civilization modder Sukrit "Act" Tan to work on the game in an official capacity.

A demo for a lost videogame based on George Orwell's 1984 has emerged from the memory hole
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/puzzle/a-demo-for-a-lost-videogame-based-on-george-orwells-1984-has-emerged-from-the-memory-hole/
George Orwell's 1984. It was called Big Brother, and you played a member of the resistance called Eric Blair (which was Orwell's real name), breaking into and sabotaging government installations across 12 levels with hundreds of puzzles. Yes, they were turning Orwell's classic dystopian novel into an adventure game.
MediaX's Big Brother was canceled in 1999 or 2000, possibly because the licence had expired before the game could be completed. It had been shown at E3 in 1998, with a release date of September that year and a $30 price tag, but at some point after that it was delayed and subsequently thrown down the memory hole.
A demo from January of 1999 has recently surfaced on the Internet Archive, though before you race to download it I'd take a watch of the video embedded above. It's an adventure game of the "find wrench" and "turn valve to adjust water pressure" variety, only in first-person, as if someone remade Myst with Quake's graphics. Apart from the posters declaring WAR IS PEACE and HATRED IS POWER it doesn't feel particularly Orwellian, nor does it look like a particularly interesting videogame.

Nintendo wins major French piracy case with EU-wide consequences: 'Significant not only for Nintendo, but for the entire games industry'
https://www.pcgamer.com/gaming-industry/nintendo-wins-major-french-piracy-case-with-eu-wide-consequences-significant-not-only-for-nintendo-but-for-the-entire-games-industry/
Nintendo has won a lengthy legal battle in the French Supreme Court against the company Dstorage, which owns and operates the file-sharing website 1fichier.com, in a judgement which the Japanese giant trumpets as a victory "for the entire games industry."
The verdict follows years of hearings and appeals, and means that any file-sharing company based in Europe must remove illegal copies of games when asked to do so by the copyright holder. If they don't they can now be held accountable for the content, and face huge fines.