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

[JEMC]

Here come the Friday gaming news;

SALES/PLAYER COUNTS & DEALS

Vampire Survivors-like Megabonk makes megabucks, selling a million copies in 2 weeks, and currently has more daily players than Borderlands 4 on Steam: 'I'll be eating spaghetti with EXTRA sauce tonight'
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/roguelike/vampire-survivors-like-megabonk-makes-megabucks-selling-a-million-copies-in-2-weeks-and-currently-has-more-daily-players-than-borderlands-4-on-steam-ill-be-eating-spaghetti-with-extra-sauce-tonight/
Our appetite for games like Vampire Survivors—dropping you into reverse bullet hells where your very existence is enough to slaughter wave after wave of enemies—has so far been unquenchable.
We've slurped down Brotato, Halls of Torment, Soulstone Survivors, Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor, but it doesn't sound like we're even close to done. The good news is that there's always another one, ready to usher us into more maps where we can saunter around slaughtering everything with a face—and some things without—with our increasingly ridiculous screen-clearing attacks.
Right now that would be Megabonk, which launched a couple of weeks ago and has been bounding up Steam's top-selling games list. It's a goofy, 3D Vampire Survivors-like with sword-surfing (which seems to be having a moment, judging by Metaphor Re:Fantazio and Sword of the Sea), cool skeletons and wild builds.
This week saw it climb into the seventh spot in the global chart, significantly higher than last month's major releases: Borderlands 4, Dying Light: The Beast and Hollow Knight: Silksong. Its daily player count is not to be sniffed at, either. On Thursday it reached a new peak of 88,581, with only Silksong and the free-to-play stalwarts drawing in more players.
This coincided with another milestone, announced on X by Megabonk's developer Vedinad. In two weeks, Megabonk has sold a million copies.

Amazon's giving away one great Fallout game and one bad one this October
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/fallout/amazons-giving-away-one-great-fallout-game-and-one-bad-one-this-october/
In a moment of incredible strength earlier this year, I actually cancelled my Amazon Prime subscription. The incredible strength didn't lie in cancelling it—I can live without free delivery on my pantaloons and draining racks and whatever else it was I bought on there—but in remembering I had it in the first place.
Well, maybe now I regret that, because Big Jeff Bezos is taking some time away from making the Washington Post worse to dole out some very good games this October via Prime Gaming. Who says the capitalist class never does anything for you?
You can find the full list below, but the big-ticket items here as far as I'm concerned are Fallout: New Vegas (either the best or second-best Fallout game, depending on what day you catch me) and Fallout 3 (slightly worse than Fallout 4; come at me). The former will be available on October 16, the latter on October 23.
>> The full list has 14 games.

The Humble Store has the new Month of TERROR Kickoff Sale, with up to 94% discounts during 6 days: https://www.humblebundle.com/store/promo/month-of-terror-kickoff.

Fanatical’s new Star Deal is BLEACH Rebirth of Souls, 50% off during 48 hours: https://www.fanatical.com/en/game/bleach-rebirth-of-souls.

SOFTWARE & DRIVERS

GeForce 581.47 Hotfix driver download
https://www.guru3d.com/download/geforce-58147-hotfix-driver-download
NVIDIA has pushed out an urgent 581.47 hotfix driver update after reports that the previous 581.42 release was causing certain games to crash. The issue turned up most clearly in Genshin Impact, where some players couldn’t even launch the game. Instead, the launcher or the game itself would crash immediately, making it unplayable. According to NVIDIA, the bug was tied to a very specific set of conditions. If the game’s folder path contained Chinese characters and AI interpolation was enabled, the driver could trigger a crash on startup. That combination was enough to break things for a large group of users, especially those playing MiHoYo’s Genshin Impact.

Unity has found a security vulnerability that has sat dormant for almost a decade: 'Take immediate action to protect your games & apps'
https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/unity-has-found-a-security-vulnerability-that-has-sat-dormant-for-almost-a-decade-take-immediate-action-to-protect-your-games-and-apps/
Any games or applications using Unity will need to be patched, the game engine company says, following the discovery of a new vulnerability.
Unity is urging users to update their software as a new security vulnerability has been spotted in Unity versions 2017.1 and later. It's present across versions for Android, Windows, Linux, and macOS operating systems.
Discovered back on June 4 this year, and patched on October 2, this vulnerability meant that users were "susceptible to an unsafe file loading and local file inclusion attack depending on the operating system." This means someone could enable local code execution or grab information at "the privilege level of the vulnerable application".
It was given a high severity score by Unity and a CVSS score of 8.4. With 10 being the most severe, this vulnerability is quite significant. Unity does clarify that "there is no evidence of any exploitation of the vulnerability nor has there been any impact on users or customers."

Holy cow, the Epic Games Store supports preloading now
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/holy-cow-the-epic-games-store-supports-preloading-now/
It's hard to believe I'm writing this in the year 2025 CE, but I've double-checked and it sure seems to be right so here we go: The Epic Games Store now supports preloading.
"Preloading is now available for PC pre-purchase products on the Epic Games Store!" developer Local Bald wrote in the Epic Games Store forums (via Reddit). "This new feature allows players to download titles they have pre-purchased up to five days (120 hours) prior to release via an encrypted build. Preloading ensures that players can jump into the game quickly on day one, which is especially beneficial for titles with large downloads."

MODS, EMULATORS & FAN PROJECTS

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GAMING NEWS

One of the coolest rhythm games I've ever played—with distraction mechanics straight out of those fake mobile ads—is finally coming out of early access
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/rhythm/one-of-the-coolest-rhythm-games-ive-ever-played-with-distraction-mechanics-straight-out-of-those-fake-mobile-ads-is-finally-coming-out-of-early-access/
I was having a scroll through my Steam library this week, hunting out games I hadn’t played in a hot sec to fill my night. I’m glad I did, because otherwise I would have missed a very exciting piece of news: one of the coolest, most innovative rhythm games on PC is finally coming out of early access.
Rhythm Doctor is unlike any rhythm game I’ve played before—while I’m used to four, five, or even eight-button spreads, Rhythm Doctor only requires one finger and the humble spacebar. Notes skirt along an EKG to different rhythms, sometimes throwing multiple notes for me to keep track of each beat.

Starbreeze lays off a bunch more people as it cancels its co-op D&D game and shifts focus to building Payday 3 into a 'modern live-engagement game'
https://www.pcgamer.com/gaming-industry/starbreeze-lays-off-a-bunch-more-people-as-it-cancels-its-co-op-d-and-d-game-and-shifts-focus-to-building-payday-3-into-a-modern-live-engagement-game/
Starbreeze has cancelled the co-op Dungeons and Dragons game it announced in 2023 in order to focus its resources on the Payday franchise—and also reduce its resources, because yes, the cancellation of the game also means layoffs.

Capcom legend tackles Palworld-Nintendo battle and manages to annoy almost everyone: 'It's a game that transcends the boundaries of war'
https://www.pcgamer.com/gaming-industry/capcom-legend-tackles-palworld-nintendo-battle-and-manages-to-annoy-almost-everyone-its-a-game-that-transcends-the-boundaries-of-war/
Pocketpair’s Palworld has certainly found an audience since release: even if, unfortunately, those interested include Nintendo's lawyers. The ongoing copyright lawsuit between the indie studio and the most venerable company in gaming is the subject of great interest worldwide, but of particular fascination in Japan, where the suit is filed and where both companies are based.
A genuine Capcom legend has now waded into the debate with a strident take on the situation, and one that seems to have angered more people than it's won over. Yoshiki Okamoto is now the chairman of the Japan Game Culture Foundation, but had a stellar career in games including golden age arcade titles like 1942, Final Fight, and Street Fighter 2, alongside working on the original Resident Evil and later the mobile smash Monster Strike. There are dozens of other games to mention (and one in particular we'll flag later), but suffice to say Okamoto is the real deal.

'Now you've got no excuses': Palworld is teaming up with Core Keeper for a Steam Autumn sale bundle because the folks over at Pocketpair are 'just big fans'
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/survival-crafting/now-youve-got-no-excuses-palworld-is-teaming-up-with-core-keeper-for-a-steam-autumn-sale-bundle-because-the-folks-over-at-pocketpair-are-just-big-fans/
Palworld developer Pocketpair has proved time and again that it's no stranger to supporting other indie games, whether that be by setting up shop as a publisher to help struggling devs or by simply giving others the shout-out that they deserve.
This time, Palworld's devs are seeking to spread the good word of Core Keeper, another survival and crafting indie game that they think players should get to know. "Gamers, I’m worried many of you haven’t played Core Keeper yet," community manager Bucky says in a social media post (via GamesRadar). "It’s one of the best games on Steam, so we put it in a bundle with Palworld. Now you’ve got no excuses. Go play!"