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

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Monday news, part two:

The Breach update for No Rest for the Wicked is an overhaul so massive that old save files just won't cut it
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/rpg/the-breach-update-for-no-rest-for-the-wicked-is-an-overhaul-so-massive-that-old-save-files-just-wont-cut-it/
No Rest for the Wicked has had a bumpy ride through early access so far. While I thought the initial release was an impressive overhead blend of Diablo-ish action RPG systems and Souls-like tropes, it was held back by performance issues and limited scope, and only saw one major update after release (the Crucible patch) before developer Moon Studios fell largely silent.
I'm chalking most of that quiet spell up to behind-the-scenes shenanigans, as Moon Studios have now successfully reclaimed the rights to the game from publisher Take-Two, making this a fully independent production. And now, in what feels like a publisher-free relaunch (and first anniversary celebration), No Rest for the Wicked has gone through a bit of a growth spurt, roughly doubling the size of its world and overhauling a lot of the underlying systems in what the studio are calling the Breach update.

Elden Ring Nightreign's overview trailer lays it all out for the quirky co-op spinoff
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/dark-souls/elden-ring-nightreigns-overview-trailer-lays-it-all-out-for-the-quirky-co-op-spinoff/
For all the trailers and articles dedicated to it, unless you got in on the 'network test' open beta event back in January, it can be surprisingly hard to pin down exactly what Elden Ring's upcoming co-op spinoff Nightreign actually is. A glorified boss rush? Some weird Fortnite-esque live-service Forever Game? Or is it an official replacement for Elden Ring's seamless co-op mod? None of the above, really, and the latest trailer aims to dispel some of those myths and explain exactly what players are getting into through ten minutes of soothingly infomercial-esque narration.

Lead Diablo artists say the best way to design endless spiky armor sets is to go look at anything that isn't Diablo: 'You can come back with a fresh mind and create new things'
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/rpg/lead-diablo-artists-say-the-best-way-to-design-endless-spiky-armor-sets-is-to-go-look-at-anything-that-isnt-diablo-you-can-come-back-with-a-fresh-mind-and-create-new-things/
In April, I had a chance to ask lead Diablo 4 developers how tough it is for their dev teams to continue coming up with ominous names for gameplay activities when they've spent 30 years exhausting every thesaurus in the demonic lexicon. Their answer: Pretty tough.
Last week, PC Gamer spoke to the lead artists in the Diablo franchise, and we took the opportunity to pitch a similar question. After designing thousands of barbed, demonic armor pieces, how do they stay inspired when they have to design new Diablo gear pieces and ghouls—whether for Berserk collaborations or otherwise?

This 'narrative simulator' about a delivery driver in deeply rural Russia is giving me serious Mudrunner meets Disco Elysium vibes
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/sim/this-narrative-simulator-about-a-delivery-driver-in-deeply-rural-russia-is-giving-me-serious-mudrunner-meets-disco-elysium-vibes/
Mudrunner in the style of Disco Elysium is maybe not the most obvious videogame mashup imaginable, but that's pretty much what seems to be going on with Zarya, an upcoming "narrative simulator" about a guy named Vasily who's just trying to earn a living and do the occasional solid for his friends in a deeply rural post-Soviet backwater.

Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 actor celebrates the Grand Theft Auto 6 delay: 'WE'RE IN WITH A SHOT! GOTY!'
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/kingdom-come-deliverance-2-actor-celebrates-the-grand-theft-auto-6-delay-were-in-with-a-shot-goty/
The big news of the day is, without question, the Grand Theft Auto 6 delay from fall 2025 to May 26, 2026. Despite the reassuring words of Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick, who said the company is still going to make a great many truckloads of money this year, just about everybody was unhappy to hear the news: Gamers, analysts, Take-Two shareholders, and PC Gamer senior editor Rich Stanton are all taking it quite poorly.
In fact, I'd go so far as to say pretty much everyone is unhappy about it—except for, as noticed by GamesRadar, one guy. And that one guy, well, he's thrilled.

Sea Of Stars' 8-hour epilogue expansion won't cost you a penny when the circus comes to town on May 20th
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/rpg/sea-of-stars-8-hour-epilogue-expansion-wont-cost-you-a-penny-when-the-circus-comes-to-town-on-may-20th/
Whether it's reworked old classics you're after or fresh picks inspired by '90s gems, you don't have to look far for a good JRPG these days. While Clair Obscur might be stirring up discourse on whether a French game can carry the genre name, let's not forget the powerfully Québécois Sea Of Stars, which dropped back in 2023. It's gearing up and winding the clocks for an encore performance this month, and surprisingly, this hefty self-contained epilogue adventure is coming as a free update.

Once hidden in a Friday Night Funkin' fangame, surreal free exploration sandbox Garn47 gets a major makeover with the 'Glorgle update'
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/action/once-hidden-in-a-friday-night-funkin-fangame-surreal-free-exploration-sandbox-garn47-gets-a-major-makeover-with-the-glorgle-update/
Oh dear, I'm writing a news story about Garn47, which means I now have to explain Garn47.
Okay, so hear me out: Garn47, developed by the largely mysterious solo developer/artist/musician Floombo (she wears many hats), is a very strange open world exploration sandbox that started out hidden in a Friday Night Funkin' fangame, but you can get it now direct on Itch free. It is deeply strange and you should try it. Ideally figure it out yourself. And if not, watch one of the many youtube videos trying to explain just what the hell is going on.
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However it happened, Garn47 caught on and has been a regular fixture across many big Youtube channels. With development now Patreon-funded, major updates expand its strangely dreamlike story, giving a hungry community more secrets to hunt for and ARG-adjacent puzzles to solve. The latest release—the 'Glorgle Update', whatever that means—feels more like an overhaul. A new, more polished, slightly more accessible Garn.

Blizzard accidentally left a placeholder item in Diablo 4 and a couple of lucky players went god mode with it
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/rpg/blizzard-accidentally-left-a-placeholder-item-in-diablo-4-and-a-couple-of-lucky-players-went-god-mode-with-them/
It wouldn't be a new Diablo 4 season without someone figuring out how to deal so much damage the game can't compute it anymore. A couple of lucky players looted a pair of placeholder gloves and proceeded to go god mode with them, crushing the action RPG's hardest dungeons before Blizzard disabled them in an emergency patch.

Fallout 1 and 2's source code isn't lost after all, thanks to one hero programmer: 'I made it a quest to snapshot everything'
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/rpg/fallout-1-and-2s-source-code-isnt-lost-after-all-thanks-to-one-hero-programmer-i-made-it-a-quest-to-snapshot-everything/
Tim Cain, lead developer of the original Fallout, recently lamented the loss of Fallout's earliest development materials. When he left Interplay he was told to delete his copies of early builds and even his notes from development meetings, and apparently Interplay has since lost not only the source code but also the original Fallout artwork and the clay models that were scanned to make the 3D talking heads some of its NPCs are blessed with.
Fortunately, it turns out Interplay cofounder and programmer Rebecca Heineman kept copies of the source code for Fallout 1 and 2, as she told VideoGamer.

Bungie's attempt to dismiss the Destiny 2 copyright case using YouTube videos describing 'vaulted' elements of the game has been shut down by a judge who is not going to sit through a 10-hour lore explainer
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/fps/bungies-attempt-to-dismiss-the-destiny-2-copyright-case-using-youtube-videos-describing-vaulted-elements-of-the-game-has-been-shut-down-by-a-judge-who-is-not-going-to-sit-through-a-10-hour-lore-explainer/
In October of 2024 science-fiction writer Matthew Kelsey Martineau accused Bungie of lifting ideas for its first Destiny 2 campaign from a story published on his blog under the pseudonym Caspar Cole. While some of the ideas in question are fairly generic sci-fi elements, like consciousness transfer and the use of emergency failsafes to prevent disasters, both storylines involve groups called the "Red Legion" who use flamethrowers and trained hounds of war. It's entirely possible that's a coincidence, but Bungie is struggling to prove it since all the relevant parts of Destiny 2 are now unplayable and tucked away in the 'vault'.
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While Bungie's always maintained that old Destiny 2 material is just sitting in the vault for now, when the lawsuit was filed it suddenly turned out that material in the vault couldn't be restored. The engine had been updated, and it simply wasn't possible to restore the Red War. Instead, Bungie insisted "the attached videos are the best possible way for the Court to review the accused work." The videos in question included, as Exhibit B, a 10-hour lore video put together by YouTuber MynameisByf. Exhibit C is a cutscene compilation, again put together by a fan, that's a mere two hours and 40 minutes long. As The Game Post reports, Judge Susie Morgan does not have time for that nonsense. When Bungie filed a motion to dismiss the case using only citations from the Destinypedia fan wiki and ridiculously long YouTube videos, the judge disregarded it.
"The Court will not consider the exhibits attached to Defendant's motion to dismiss and will not convert the Defendant's motion to dismiss to a motion for summary judgment," the decision went. "There has not been sufficient time for discovery, and the attachments are admittedly of third-party origination. Their authenticity has not been established."