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

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Wednesday gaming news, part two:

Activision finally acknowledges Call of Duty skins problem, decides cosmetics won't carry forward in Black Ops 7: 'Some of you have said we’ve drifted from what made Call of Duty unique in the first place. That feedback hits home'
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/fps/activision-finally-acknowledges-call-of-duty-skins-problem-decides-cosmetics-wont-carry-forward-in-black-ops-7-some-of-you-have-said-weve-drifted-from-what-made-call-of-duty-unique-in-the-first-place-that-feedback-hits-home/
The improbable has happened. Following a lukewarm reception to Call of Duty: Black Ops 7's reveal, Activision is walking back its decision to carry forward all Black Ops 6 weapons and skins into the new game.
While forward compatibility is generally a popular feature, this is really about Call of Duty's uglification problem: Many weren't excited that a year's worth of gaudy crossover skins, cel-shaded operators, and anime bundles from Black Ops 6 would immediately tarnish Black Ops 7's near-future art style. Now, it will have a clean break.
In a blog post published today that also addressed anti-cheat, Activision engaged with its cosmetic criticisms.
>> Can you smell it? It’s fear.

You can accidentally doom your Elden Ring Nightreign team by attacking its newest enhanced boss at the wrong time
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/rpg/you-can-accidentally-doom-your-elden-ring-nightreign-team-by-attacking-its-newest-enhanced-boss-at-the-wrong-time/
I've been playing Elden Ring Nightreign since it came out. I've killed ice dragons, flying centaurs, and a jellyfish god. What could be so hard about fighting a three-headed dog?
Quite a lot, it turns out. The enhanced version of Nightreign's first boss is easily one of the hardest fights in the game. When he's not waving a sword around, he's splitting into three angry dogs and chasing you around the arena. And if you're not careful, hitting him at the wrong time can make him stronger.

EA's Skate reboot will finally launch into early access in September
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/sports/eas-skate-reboot-will-finally-launch-into-early-access-in-september/
PC Gamer's Lincoln Carpenter said last year that Skate, the reboot of EA's long-in-the-tooth skateboarding series, would "frontside pop shuvit" into early access in 2025. This annoyed me slightly, as he knew it would, because I didn't know what a frontside pop shuvit is, or even if it was just something he made up to mess with me. Whatever the case (I never looked it up, let me preserve a little mystery in the world), he was correct: It is now 2025, and EA has announced that Skate is set to launch into early access on September 16.

Chris Roberts hopes Star Citizen's launch will be 'almost as big an event' as Grand Theft Auto 6, still targeting 2026 for its Squadron 42 singleplayer campaign
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/sim/chris-roberts-hopes-star-citizens-launch-will-be-almost-as-big-an-event-as-grand-theft-auto-6-still-targeting-2026-for-its-squadron-42-singleplayer-campaign/
Star Citizen is unique among videogames. It's been in development for well over a decade—hell, it was a decade ago that Gary Oldman, Gillian Anderson, and Mark Hamill got on board—yet still has no release date. It's also raised more than $858 million in crowdfunding (yeah, you read that right), yet the money is still flooding in: It only surpassed the $800 million mark in April of this year. Some people are adamant that the whole thing is some sort of scam, but plenty of others are playing the alpha and seemingly enjoying it.
A recent La Presse interview (Google translated) with Star Citizen director Chris Roberts doesn't shed a whole lot more light on what exactly is going on over there, but it does provide a hint—very vague and unspecific, but a hint—of when this unique beast will finally hit the 1.0 finish line. The report says Star Citizen is now set for a full release sometime in 2027 or 2028 (I told you it was vague), preceded by Squadron 42, the singleplayer part of the game, which is targeting a launch sometime in 2026.
>> The game has been in development for so long, that the Gillian Anderson screenshot in the article that looked amazing when Squadron 42 was announced, now looks meh.

Haunted Chocolatier has fishing, books, and a new screenshot so pretty I want to live in it
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/life-sim/haunted-chocolatier-has-fishing-books-and-a-new-screenshot-so-pretty-i-want-to-live-in-it/
Every couple of weeks my daughter asks if Haunted Chocolatier is out yet. I always have to say no, but at least next time I'll be able to confirm that Haunted Chocolatier will have fishing, and also show her a new screenshot, which is embedded above.

Vermintide 2 just got another annual event with its own level and rewards
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/action/vermintide-2-just-got-another-annual-event-with-its-own-level-and-rewards/
Every year Vermintide 2 players get to enjoy limited-duration events like A Quiet Drink, a special pub crawl level that takes them from the Hungry Troll Tavern to the Obese Megalodon, and the Halloween-themed Geheimnisnacht, based on the Warhammer world's own night of mystery. This year a new event's been added to the calendar, and it's already begun.

Atari now owns the rights to five Ubisoft games: Cold Fear, I Am Alive, Child of Eden, Grow Home, and Grow Up
https://www.pcgamer.com/gaming-industry/atari-now-owns-the-rights-to-five-ubisoft-games-cold-fear-i-am-alive-child-of-eden-grow-home-and-grow-up/
Ubisoft has reached into the back of the cupboard, grabbed the intellectual property rights for five games it wasn't doing anything with, and sold them to Atari. The five games are Cold Fear (which is basically Resident Evil on a boat), I Am Alive (a post-apocalyptic survival platformer), Child of Eden (a psychedelic rhythm game), and both Grow Home and its sequel Grow Up (which are physics-based climbing games where you're a cute robot).
>> A new Cold Fear could work well, if given to a good studio and with enough budget.

Metal Gear Solid Delta devs would love Kojima to see how 'respectful' their remake is, but the big man himself has already said he's not touching it
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/action/metal-gear-solid-delta-devs-would-love-kojima-to-see-how-respectful-their-remake-is-but-the-big-man-himself-has-already-said-hes-not-touching-it/
Konami sure is an odd company. On the one hand, it seems almost desperate to assure Metal Gear fans that—no, really—it has nothing but love and worship for the Metal Gears of old, and that it can be trusted to steward the series into the future. On the other, it's pathologically averse to ever saying the name of series creator Hideo Kojima, to the extent that it put out a whole Metal Gear retrospective without uttering his name even once. It's like the entire corporation is undergoing some weird form of de-Stalinisation.
But while the suits seem loath to say Kojima's name, the same can't be said for Noriaki Okamura and Yuji Korekado, lead devs on Metal Gear Solid Delta. In a recent chat with Inverse (via GamesRadar), the pair were only too happy to chat about Kojima, saying they'd love it if ol' Hideo set aside some time to try their remake of MGS 3.

WoW devs want to 'step back' from the 'world-ending' stakes where you get called a pitiful mortal lots, and back to quests like 'oats for Blanchy'—presumably without sending the horse to hell afterwards
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/world-of-warcraft/wow-devs-want-to-step-back-from-the-world-ending-stakes-where-you-get-called-a-pitiful-mortal-lots-and-back-to-quests-like-oats-for-blanchy-presumably-without-sending-the-horse-to-hell-afterwards/
World of Warcraft's Worldsoul Saga is gonna be a big'un—in case phrases like "Midnight", "The Last Titan", or, indeed, "Worldsoul" were any indication, this trio of expansion packs are focusing on some pretty intense story beats. The void wielded by Xal'atath, harbinger of the old gods; the Sunwell, a font of incredible power, under threat. It's all very endgame.
Spectacle creep has been something WoW's struggled with for some time, so much so that Dragonflight was a much-needed reset button. For example, the expansion preceding it, Shadowlands, saw you going to the actual afterlife—and it mostly lost people when a big guy in armour said "pitiful mortal" several dozen times.
Speaking to PC Gamer's own Elie Gould at Gamescom this year, art director Ely Cannon and technical director Frank Kowalkowski have both shared an eagerness to get back to the local stories that really stick with players; using the Worldsoul Saga as a means to tie off all the epic fantasy stuff with a neat bow.

FF14 director Yoshi-P is 'kind of glad and relieved' that Dawntrail's story is over, because players will have 'the fate of the world on their shoulders' again—but that was never the expansion's problem
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/mmo/ff14-director-yoshi-p-is-kind-of-glad-and-relieved-that-dawntrails-story-is-over-because-players-will-have-the-fate-of-the-world-on-their-shoulders-again-but-that-was-never-the-expansions-problem/
Final Fantasy 14's going to be moving on from Dawntrail… uh, eventually, given the MMO's recent troubles with patch cadence. But still, having played through 7.3, I'm genuinely quite hopeful for the game's storyline to kick up again. I had an uncomplicated good time pushing Calyx's stupid mug in, and it feels like Square's slowly getting back to narrative form.
A recent Gamescom interview with director Naoki Yoshida (Yoshi-P) by our friends over at GamesRadar+, however, has me scratching my head a tad—to be clear, when Yoshi-P speaks to English journalists, it's often live-translated by an interpreter, as was the case with me last year. As such, Yoshi-P's statements simply could be coloured by language barriers. Spoilers for Dawntrail to follow.
>> What aren’t a spoiler are the dates of the new Fan Fest.