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

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The second part of the Wednesday gaming news:

Pax Dei, the fantasy alternative to EVE Online, is leaving early access and introducing a subscription model that sounds a lot like paying a landlord
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/mmo/pax-dei-the-fantasy-alternative-to-eve-online-is-leaving-early-access-and-introducing-a-subscription-model-that-sounds-a-lot-like-paying-a-landlord/
When Pax Dei launched in early access last year, I was pretty excited. Developer Mainframe Industries painted a vivid picture of clashing kingdoms, a player-run economy, and even the ability to become, essentially, the Pope. What we got initially was a pretty generic survival crafting game where simply making a pair of trousers took almost as long as it would in real life.
Since then, the team's introduced player-to-player trading, a magic system, an expanded PvP area and a variety of tweaks and changes—including the world itself being transformed, to better facilitate more players and building projects. And now it's gearing up to leave early access, with the 1.0 launch set for October 16.
>> Sadly, as the article explains later, the game is almost dead.

After months of complaining that Monster Hunter Wilds is too easy, Omega Planetes is here to tip every hunter upside down and shake out all their lunch money
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/action/after-months-of-complaining-that-monster-hunter-wilds-is-too-easy-omega-planetes-is-here-to-tip-every-hunter-upside-down-and-shake-out-all-their-lunch-money/
I was not expecting Monster Hunter Wilds' most challenging fight to date to come from a Final Fantasy 14 collaboration of all places, but as someone who is an absolute sicko for both games it's perhaps the most fun I've had repeatedly carting over and over again.
At first I thought it was the fact I hadn't touched Wilds in a few months and I was rusty as hell—tunnel-visioning in on my Hunting Horn songs and eating just about every damn hit I could—but it turns out Omega Planetes is actually just kinda freaking hard.

Battlefield 6 season 1 roadmap finally tells us how big its Call of Duty-like seasons will be: two maps, five guns, modes, and attachments
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/fps/battlefield-6-season-1-roadmap-finally-tells-us-how-big-its-call-of-duty-like-seasons-will-be-two-maps-five-guns-modes-and-attachments/
It's the nature of big-budget shooters these days that, as soon as they're out, folks start immediately asking what's next. Seasons are still how we experience multiplayer games at the moment, and Battlefield 6 is finally sharing its roadmap details as launch approaches.
Battlefield 6 season 1 is coming October 28, just two weeks and change after its October 10 launch, and it's packing what you'd expect from an FPS challenging Call of Duty for the throne: two new maps, a handful of guns, a couple of modes, and an event.

Cities: Skylines 2 latest region pack heads to the Netherlands, 'the land of windmills, clogs, and stroopwafel,' and includes new hospitals, fire stations, and hyperrealistic cemeteries
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/city-builder/cities-skylines-2-latest-region-pack-heads-to-the-netherlands-the-land-of-windmills-clogs-and-stroopwafel-and-includes-new-hospitals-fire-stations-and-hyperrealistic-cemeteries/
Cities: Skylines 2 just got a free content update in the form of the Netherlands Region Pack. This will provide Netherland-loving players the opportunity to build up a Dutch-inspired city with a bunch of new service buildings and an eerily realistic cemetery.

The Star Trek: Voyager survival game will let you murder Tuvix all over again—so I don't really care that it looks a little rough
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/survival-crafting/the-star-trek-voyager-survival-game-will-let-you-murder-tuvix-all-over-again-so-i-dont-really-care-that-it-looks-a-little-rough/
Star Trek: Voyager – Across the Unknown, the upcoming survival strategy game, just peeled back the curtain a wee bit more, giving us a new trailer that shows off the sci-fi romp's main pillars, like exploration, combat and 'what if?' scenarios.

Ken Levine says Judas might look a bit like Bioshock, but it's 'really radically different'
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/fps/ken-levine-says-judas-might-look-a-bit-like-bioshock-but-its-really-radically-different/
It sure feels like Judas isn't all that far away. Three years after the game's announcement, Ghost Story Games' main man Ken Levine is suddenly popping up all over the place to drop tidbits about the upcoming shooter, and last month brought the game's first dev log and a promise to "communicate more frequently." So you're going to be hearing the phrase "narrative legos" an awful lot.
Expectations are high for Judas, but it also has to be said that it looks a hell of a lot like another Bioshock game. In a new interview with YouTuber MrMattyPlays, Levine talks a little more about Judas and the similarities to his previous work: but insists it's got a whole lot more going on than plasmids and wrenches.

'Survival-climber' Cairn is delayed into 2026, but the demo on Steam is getting a cool new feature in October
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/adventure/survival-climber-cairn-is-delayed-into-2026-but-the-demo-on-steam-is-getting-a-cool-new-feature-in-october/
Cairn made quite a splash when it debuted at the Summer Game Fest in 2024: PC Gamer's Mollie Taylor said that despite her distaste for "verticality," the reveal trailer left her with an immediate urge to grab a carabiner and go climbing. She's going to have to wait a bit to embark on that particular adventure, though, as developer The Game Bakers announced today that instead of arriving on November 5 as planned, Cairn needs a little more time in the oven and will show up in early 2026 instead.

2 months after halting work on its latest project, Just Cause developer Avalanche is closing its Liverpool studio and laying off employees in Malmö and Stockholm
https://www.pcgamer.com/gaming-industry/2-months-after-halting-work-on-its-latest-project-just-cause-developer-avalanche-is-closing-its-liverpool-studio-and-laying-off-employees-in-malmo-and-stockholm/
Not quite two months after Avalanche halted work on its 1970s smuggling sim Contraband, seemingly fallout from the massive wave of layoffs and cancellations imposed by Microsoft earlier in the year, Avalanche has announced the upcoming closure of its studio in Liverpool, and layoffs at its remaining operations.

A surprise Steam update for Prototype broke the mods making the 16-year old game playable on modern systems—but could hint at a potential remaster
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/action/a-surprise-steam-update-for-prototype-broke-the-mods-making-the-16-year-old-game-playable-on-modern-systems-but-could-hint-at-a-potential-remaster/
Prototype was a landmark release in videogame sweatshirts, featuring a permanently hooded, perpetually grumpy man harboring a mutagenic virus and powerful 2009-era angst. Admittedly, I'd be pretty cheesed off if I was left filled to the brim with bioweaponry against my will—until my nasty meat tentacles could fling helicopters around, anyway. All of life's troubles seem small when your meat tentacles can fling helicopters around.
The higher powers at Activision never saw fit to grant Prototype and its sequel any further follow-ups, leaving the series to live on solely in the brief recollections of kicking enemies into low earth orbit. Until this week, that is. 24 hours ago, Prototype and Prototype 2 both received unprompted Steam updates, each around 600 MB.

The Witcher author Andrzej Sapkowski says one of CD Projekt's big story points is actually based on a mistake, but 'videogame people have clung to the idea with remarkable tenacity'
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/rpg/the-witcher-author-andrzej-sapkowski-says-one-of-cd-projekts-big-story-points-is-actually-based-on-a-mistake-but-videogame-people-have-clung-to-the-idea-with-remarkable-tenacity/
The first tease for The Witcher 4, back in 2022, was nothing but an image of a snow-covered Witcher medallion—but not a wolf. That led to an immediate question: Which school did it represent? There are several in the world of The Witcher, after all: Geralt's School of the Wolf is the one we know best, but there are also schools dedicated to the Viper, the Bear, the Manticore, and others, each with different attitudes and approaches to their profession.
That's true of the games, anyway, but apparently it's not the case in the books they're based on. In a new AMA on Reddit, Witcher author Andrzej Sapkowski said the whole idea of individual Witcher schools is based on a mistake, and it hasn't gone away because "videogame people" won't let it go.