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

[JEMC]

Wednesday gaming news, part two:

Schedule 1 just got its 5th patch, teaching its blackjack dealers to no longer let you look at their cards and promising a full-on '1st content update' this weekend
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/sim/schedule-1-just-got-its-5th-patch-teaching-its-blackjack-dealers-to-no-longer-let-you-look-at-their-cards-and-promising-a-full-on-1st-content-update-this-weekend/
The great thing about videogames is that they let me live out my lifelong dream of being a middle-class, British Pablo Escobar without getting shot to death on a rooftop. So it is that Schedule 1 is tearing up the Steam charts, as legions of thwarted Heisenbergs flock to the game to slang yayo and what-have-you.
Developer TVGS has been handling its meteoric rise with aplomb, putting out patch after patch to make sure you stay a street CEO with five digits clenched on the .45, and so on. In fact, we got a new one less than 12 hours ago: post-launch patch 5, which takes aim at a load of "employee bugs, multiplayer bugs, and casino bugs" as well as some pathfinding issues to hopefully stop you crashing quite so often.
>> And here’s the roadmap of the game, so you can see what’s coming.

Ex-Payday 2 devs think they've solved the problem of player in-fighting for their next co-op heist game: 'The bar is low'
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/fps/ex-payday-2-devs-think-theyve-solved-the-problem-of-player-in-fighting-for-their-next-co-op-heist-game-the-bar-is-low/
Payday 2's co-op heists always seem to trigger an argument. Which bank entrance do we use? Do we go stealth or go loud? Why did you just go into that room and trip an alarm when I told you to go into that other room and be quiet!? But thankfully, the ex-Payday devs working on upcoming sci-fi heist game Den of Wolves reckon they've figured out a way to avoid all that bickering, or at the very least, it won't be so tough for players to get along with one another.
>> Maybe not having to talk with your teammates helps.

Inzoi hotfix stops your zois from dying too young, as long as nothing awful happens to them
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/life-sim/inzoi-hotfix-stops-your-zois-from-dying-too-young-as-long-as-nothing-awful-happens-to-them/
Remember that brief moment immediately after Inzoi's release when we could turn children into tire pizza? Good times. Krafton quickly patched out that little oversight, but it turns out that David Carradine cosplay wasn't the only way young 'uns could check out early, so now developers have done something about that too.
Today's new hotfix, which I'm reasonably certain is not an April Fools gag, makes changes to Inzoi's "lifespan rules" so that only oldzois (described in the announcement as "Zois in senior age groups" but I think my way is catchier) can die of natural causes.
>> And he wants to prove that it’s ”not another Early Access game”. By the way, one of those April Fools jokes in the link is intoday’s news, and there was another yesterday.

Mecha Break competitor Steel Hunters releases in early access on Steam this week, offering a slower, more tactical free-to-play mech game
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/sim/mecha-break-competitor-steel-hunters-releases-in-early-access-on-steam-this-week-offering-a-slower-more-tactical-free-to-play-mech-game/
Steel Hunters takes the the spark-filled clashes between Megatron and Optimus Prime and slows them down to create a methodic, tactical experience with familiar hero shooter and extraction elements. The mech battler from World of Tanks developer Wargaming releases in early access on Steam this week, on April 2.

'The original Tetris was a survival game': The man who prised Tetris out of the Soviet system recalls how different it once was
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/the-original-tetris-was-a-survival-game-the-man-who-prised-tetris-out-of-the-soviet-system-recalls-how-different-it-once-was/
Today sees the publication of Henk Rogers' memoir, The Perfect Game—Tetris: From Russia With Love. Rogers has had a long and storied career in the games industry, but he will undoubtedly always be best-known for his association with Tetris, and in particular his leading role in extricating it from the Soviet bureaucracy and getting the game's creator, Alexey Pajitnov, the credit and money he deserved.
The book is a rollicking read, with the Soviet sections in the 1980s almost veering into John Le Carre territory at points, and I'll be writing up some thoughts on it soon. But the publication also gave PCG the chance to sit down with Rogers and discuss his career, the many gaming luminaries he's known and, of course, Tetris.

One year after surprise launching viral hit Content Warning, Landfall does it again with lightspeed running roguelike Haste
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/action/one-year-after-surprise-launching-viral-hit-content-warning-landfall-does-it-again-with-lightspeed-running-roguelike-haste/
To the masses, April 1 is April Fools' Day. To the studio behind Totally Accurate Battle Simulator, Clustertruck, and last year's viral hit Content Warning, today is Landfall Day. Every Landfall Day, Landfall Games does something big, like put out a new DLC pack for TABS or surprise drop a totally new game. Last year's surprise was Content Warning, a neat little spin on Lethal Company about becoming horror influencers in the post-post-apocalypse.
This year, Landfall has outdone itself by surprise dropping the full version of Haste, its 'lightspeed running' roguelike whose demo caught fire during February's Steam Next Fest. That vertical slice has grown into an entire entree of gnarly jumps, high-speed obstacle avoidance, and a kickin' soundtrack. Haste is the sort of game that you'll know you're going to play after watching a single clip, so here is that clip (...)

ZeniMax workers union votes to authorize a strike against Microsoft over stalled contract negotiations
https://www.pcgamer.com/gaming-industry/zenimax-workers-union-votes-to-authorize-a-strike-against-microsoft-over-stalled-contract-negotiations/
The ZeniMax Workers United-CWA union has voted "overwhelmingly" to authorize union leadership to call for a strike if contract negotiations with Microsoft continue to drag on without resolution.

Another disappointing-looking Project Rene leak makes me wish EA would finally step in and say anything at all to Sims fans
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/the-sims/another-disappointing-looking-project-rene-leak-makes-me-wish-ea-would-finally-step-in-and-say-anything-at-all-to-sims-fans/
It's happened again: Screenshots and footage from a playtest allegedly for Project Rene have leaked and fans are disappointed. It's me. I'm fans. The cross-platform, online Sims game is still so totally shrouded in mystery and each new playtest leak just makes me wish that Electronic Arts would say anything to its players.

Call of Duty will finally let console players turn off crossplay to dodge PC cheaters, which is potentially terrible news for all the legit PC players
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/fps/call-of-duty-will-finally-let-console-players-turn-off-crossplay-to-dodge-pc-cheaters-which-is-potentially-terrible-news-for-all-the-legit-pc-players/
In a win for console players fed up with Call of Duty's cheating problem, Activision will finally let players turn off crossplay in regular unranked matches starting in Black Ops 6 Season 3. The long-requested feature comes six years after crossplay became a core feature of Call of Duty in the 2019 Modern Warfare reboot.

Details about the canceled Disco Elysium spin-off codenamed X7 have leaked, and it would have let us play as Cuno and Cunoesse
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/rpg/details-about-the-canceled-disco-elysium-spin-off-codenamed-x7-have-leaked-and-it-would-have-let-us-play-as-cuno-and-cunoesse/
Earlier this year we found out about Project X7, a standalone Disco Elysium expansion canceled in February. At the same time ZA/UM laid off 24 employees, including Argo Tuulik, the final writer from the original game's credits remaining at the shell of the studio responsible for one of the greatest videogames of all time. It was, to put it lightly, a bummer.
Now a Disco Elysium YouTuber called Jamrock Hobo has uploaded almost 15 minutes of an internal presentation about Project X7 showing where it was at nine months before it was canceled. Given the date of uploading, you'd be forgiven for assuming this is a cruel prank, but you can clearly hear the voice of Dora Klindžić, the now ex-ZA/UM writer working on Summer Eternal, just minutes in. It's obviously real, and heartbreaking.

Hollow Knight: Silksong returns as the #1 wishlisted game on Steam after Inzoi's release—but is it just keeping the seat warm after 6 years of slowly-gathered hype?
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/action/hollow-knight-silksong-returns-as-the-1-wishlisted-game-on-steam-after-inzois-release-but-is-it-just-keeping-the-seat-warm-after-6-years-of-slowly-gathered-hype/
I've somehow ended up in the unenviable position, dear reader, of being PC Gamer's resident 'the Silksong community's having a bad time' writer—which is a beat I didn't know existed, but hey, I'm here, aren't I? Whenever I have to crack the lid open on said community, like checking in on an ant farm, I sometimes think to myself: 'Is it just us? Are we the only ones who care?'
Turns out: Not by a longshot. At the time of writing, Hollow Knight: Silksong is once more the most wishlisted game on Steam, after Inzoi temporarily hopped onto its throne for a minute. This means it's beating out Valve's own Deadlock and Elden Ring: Nightreign, which take second and third place, respectively.
>> Well, thanks to the Nintendo Direct, we’ve had a whole 3 second of footage and a 2025 release date.