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

[JEMC]

The second part of the gaming news:

Vampire Survivors devs say online co-op mode is 'coming soon'—along with the answer to 'a burning question that has been asked thousands of times'
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/roguelike/vampire-survivors-devs-say-online-co-op-mode-is-coming-soon-along-with-the-answer-to-a-burning-question-that-has-been-asked-thousands-of-times/
Vampire Survivors is aptly named—because of all the vampire stuff, sure, but more because it stubbornly refuses to die. With an announcement trailer released this morning, Vampire Survivors developer Poncle began a weeks-long teaser rollout to preview the additions of the upcoming 1.14 update, starting with the long-awaited online co-op mode.

As Destiny 2 hits its lowest ever daily peak for Steam concurrent players, Bungie U-turns on controversial plan to reset player power next season
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/fps/as-destiny-2-hits-is-lowest-ever-daily-peak-for-steam-concurrent-players-bungie-u-turns-controversial-plan-to-reset-player-power-next-season/
All is not well in Destiny 2. Last month I detailed my many issues with the Edge of Fate expansion's new Portal—the disastrous replacement for the game's seasonal update model. Since then, nothing about the recent Ash & Iron update has persuaded me to return. And it's not just me: Bungie's recent moves have done nothing to stop players from leaving, at least if Steam's data is considered representative of the playerbase at large.
(...)
For me it seems obvious—both from my own anecdotal experiences and the larger mood among the community—that the Portal in its current form is putting players off. As for how Bungie is responding to the downturn in both player numbers and morale, from the outside it appears to be scrambling. The most recent attempt to earn some goodwill is an announcement made yesterday that the extremely controversial plan to reset seasonal power when Renegades launches in December is now being deferred.

The first gameplay footage from Astroneer studio's next space game looks like co-op chaos on colorful planets, but I'm not crazy about the idea of timed missions in a hangout game
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/action/the-first-gameplay-footage-from-astroneer-studios-next-space-game-looks-like-co-op-chaos-on-colorful-planets-but-im-not-crazy-about-the-idea-of-timed-missions-in-a-hangout-game/
Today we got our first look at gameplay from Starseeker: Astroneer Expeditions, the next game from Astroneer developer System Era Softworks and published by Devolver Digital. It looks like a lot of fun, though I do have a couple reservations right out of the gate.

Diablo 4 is gearing up for another major loot overhaul before its next expansion arrives next year
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/rpg/diablo-4-is-gearing-up-for-another-major-loot-overhaul-before-its-next-expansion-arrives-next-year/
It's almost hard to believe that a little over a year ago Diablo 4 looked like a completely different game. Blizzard pried it open and rearranged how loot works, giving the action RPG a solid foundation to build off of over the following seasons.
The constantly evolving nature of live service games, however, means that enough stuff has been added over the last year that some of those older changes have grown a little stale in comparison. And now Blizzard has turned its attention back towards them as Diablo 4's second expansion is on the horizon.

Battlefield 6 dev says its destruction tech is so delicious for one simple reason: 'The only magic trick is that we're not on the PS4 or Xbox One any more'
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/fps/battlefield-6-dev-says-its-destruction-tech-is-so-delicious-for-one-simple-reason-the-only-magic-trick-is-that-were-not-on-the-ps4-or-xbox-one-any-more/
Battlefield 6 launches this Friday, the first entry in four years for a once-bombastic series that never got bad, exactly, but maybe lost a bit of its identity in chasing the all-conquering Call of Duty. The die-hards will tell you that Battlefield 2042 is a great game now, after years of post-launch support, but Battlefield 6 needs to be a classic, a game so good that it can carve out space in the most cut-throat and quality-packed shooter landscape there has ever been.
>> They’re also confident that the servers should be ready for it’s release on Friday (link).

Today's Steam outage may have been part of a massive DDoS attack targeting Xbox, PlayStation, Riot, and other game companies
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/todays-steam-outage-may-have-been-part-of-a-massive-ddos-attack-targeting-xbox-playstation-riot-and-other-game-companies/
Steam went offline earlier today in an odd but thankfully brief hitch that may have been a small part of a much bigger thing: Xbox, PlayStation, Riot Games, and Epic all suffered a very sudden spike in outage reports at around the same time last night, and that's led to speculation that it might be part of a massive DDoS targeting online game services.
As seen in outage reports on Downdetector, the timing is awfully coincidental.

The original System Shock 2 is being removed from sale on Steam later this week
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/rpg/the-original-system-shock-2-is-being-removed-from-sale-on-steam-later-this-week/
I can't say I'm entirely surprised, but it's still a little disappointing: The original 1999 edition of System Shock 2 will be removed from Steam on October 10.
"System Shock 2 (1999) will be delisted from PC platforms on October 10, 2025," Nightdive parent Atari says in the delisting announcement. "Existing owners of System Shock 2 (1999) will still be able to re-download and play it from their library, but new users will no longer be able to purchase System Shock 2 (1999) as a standalone product."
You'll still be able to access the old version of the classic immsim: The 1999 edition of System Shock 2 will be given to all current and future owners of the System Shock 2: 25th Anniversary Remastered edition that arrived earlier this year.

Founder of Dwarf Fortress and Caves of Qud publisher Kitfox Games says its procgen sims for sickos are 'giving storytelling tools back to the people when games and passive media took them away'
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/founder-of-dwarf-fortress-and-caves-of-qud-publisher-kitfox-games-says-its-procgen-sims-for-sickos-are-giving-storytelling-tools-back-to-the-people-when-games-and-passive-media-took-them-away/
Kitfox Games was founded in 2013 by a group of four acquaintances. They had almost no shared history, varying levels of experience, different tastes in games, and—despite their hopes of being a PC-first studio—an obligation to their incubator investor to release a mobile game.
(...)
Kitfox founder, creative director, and head of publishing Tanya X. Short told PC Gamer that while its reputation for sprawling, arcane simulations has taken prominence in recent years, Kitfox remains a game developer at heart. Even while finding breakout publishing successes with Dwarf Fortress and Caves of Qud, Kitfox has been hard at work on Streets of Fortuna, its upcoming entry in the lineage of systems-dense sims.

Shai Hulud defanged: In Dune: Awakening, your vehicles are no longer permanently lost if a sandworm eats them
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/mmo/shai-hulud-defanged-in-dune-awakening-your-vehicles-are-no-longer-permanently-lost-if-a-sandworm-eats-them/
I never overcame my fear of sandworms in Dune: Awakening, no matter how many times I crossed the desert. Getting swallowed by a sandworm once and losing everything permanently—my armor, my weapons, my loot, and my vehicle—was enough to make me tread the dunes of Dune as carefully as possible from then on.
But that punishing permadeath for everything the sandworm swallows has been de-fanged, at least a little bit: a new patch for Funcom's survival MMO means that you don't have to lose your vehicle forever even if it goes down a sandworm's gullet. There's a catch, however.

It's literally impossible to pick the 'real' murderer in Pentiment because Obsidian never considered having one: 'You're not a detective, you're a f***ing artist'
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/adventure/its-literally-impossible-to-pick-the-real-murderer-in-pentiment-because-obsidian-never-considered-having-one-youre-not-a-detective-youre-a-f-ing-artist/
Obsidian's Pentiment is one of the most interesting games of the last several years. Set in 16th-century Bavaria, the game tasks you—journeyman artist Andreas Maler—with figuring out who keeps doin' murders in the town of Tassing. There are plenty of potential suspects you can point the finger at, and you have to choose one whether you've got damning evidence or not.
Spoiler: you will never have damning evidence. Regardless of who you send under the headsman's axe, you'll always have a queasy feeling that they might not be the one who did it.
In a chat with PCG at this year's GDC, Pentiment director Josh Sawyer said that's entirely the point. "From the very beginning I said, 'I think that for this to be compelling in the way that I want it to be, there cannot be a right answer'". In fact, it sounds like Sawyer himself doesn't have a clear culprit in mind for the game's evildoings. "People on the team would ask me [who the culprit is], then people at Xbox would ask me, and I'm like, 'No! There isn't!' And I will say that there are people who, in retrospect… seem more likely to have done it, but that doesn't mean they did it."