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

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The Tuesday gaming news:

SALES/PLAYER COUNTS & DEALS

Steam’s Top 10

(Click here for the Top 100)

Duck-themed extraction shooter Escape From Duckov sold 500,000 Steam copies in its first 3 days
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/action/duck-themed-extraction-shooter-escape-from-duckov-sold-500-000-steam-copies-in-its-first-3-days/
If you'd asked me a couple weeks ago, I'd have said the extraction shooter craze was starting to slow down. The last few days have proved how wrong I'd have been. Over the weekend, as metric boatloads of players swarmed the Arc Raiders server slam, a singleplayer extraction shooter was drawing its own crowds: Escape From Duckov, a top-down game of looting and shooting with warfighting waterfowl that sold more than 500,000 Steam copies in its first 72 hours.
"What an exciting weekend for all ducks! More than 500,000 Ducklings have now joined the world of Duckov! At this moment, the entire dev team is quacking with joy and flapping our wings in excitement," Duckov developer Team Soda said in a Steam news post announcing the successful launch figure. "A heartfelt thank-you to every single Duckling for your incredible support—together, we've reached this truly meaningful Duckov milestone! We'll keep working hard to make sure every update lives up to your expectations!"
Just three hours before time of writing, Escape From Duckov reached a peak Steam player count of 182,000—nearing the Arc Raiders playtest's weekend concurrent peak of 189,000. That's notable for a few reasons. One: it's ducks. Two: Unlike Arc Raiders, Duckov—developed by an internal gamedev studio of Chinese media platform Bilibili—is a singleplayer game, which doesn't often lend itself to high concurrent player counts.

Ball-bouncing, city-building, off-the-wall roguelike Ball X Pit is a huge hit, selling 300,000 copies in just its first five days on sale
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/roguelike/ball-bouncing-city-building-off-the-wall-roguelike-ball-x-pit-is-a-huge-hit-selling-300-000-copies-in-just-its-first-five-days-on-sale/
I really enjoyed surreal roguelike Ball X Pit when I reviewed it earlier this month—so it's great to hear that it's since gone on to be a huge hit.
According to a post by the developer on Bluesky, it's already sold 300,000 copies just in the first five days of being on sale. For context, that's comparable numbers to indie mega-hit Balatro, which sold 500,000 in its first 10 days and has since gone on to sell in the millions.
In that time, it's also hit a peak concurrent player count of nearly 35,000—again, within spitting distance of Balatro's 45,000, and in less than a week.

GOG has new Weekly Deals, with up to 90% discounts during 7 days (Note: the link may not work): https://www.gog.com/promo/20251021_weekly_deals_3_october

Steam has a fairly long list of new deals and also new sales/events:

• Chants of Sennaar , with a demo, is going to be 40% off until this Saturday: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1931770/Chants_of_Sennaar
• Chains of Freedom , that also has a demo, features a 30% discount until the 27th: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2994010/Chains_of_Freedom
• Rivals of Aether II will be 40% off until Monday: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2217000/Rivals_of_Aether_II
• Somber Echoes will have a 75% discount until Monday, the 27th: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1299290/Somber_Echoes
• To Pixelia has a demo and a 40% discount until the 3rd of November: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1954160/To_Pixelia
• DEVOUR is going to be 50% off until November, the 3rd: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1274570/DEVOUR
• Endzone 2 will be 60% off until November 3: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2144640/Endzone_2
• Car Mechanic Simulator 2018 will have a 90% discount until the 3rd of November: https://store.steampowered.com/app/645630/Car_Mechanic_Simulator_2018
• These are the three new Sales/Events:
  • Mass Effect franchise Sale puts the games on sale with between 80 and 92% discounts until the 27th of October: https://store.steampowered.com/sale/MassEffectFranchiseSale
  • Publisher 2P Games puts its titles on sale, up to 90% off. The deals wil end between the 27th of October and November 3rd: https://store.steampowered.com/sale/2PGamesSale2025
  • TellTale’s The Walking Dead franchise is going to be on sale, with the games being between 86 and 90% off until the 3rd November: https://store.steampowered.com/sale/TWDFranchisesale2025
• For some strange reason, this week there are no weeklong deals. You can check it out by yourselves here

Fanatical’s new Star Deal is RPG MAKER UNITE, 90% off during 48 hours: https://www.fanatical.com/en/game/rpg-maker-unite.

SOFTWARE & DRIVERS

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MODS, EMULATORS & FAN PROJECTS

Unreal RTX Remix Path Tracing Mod Fully Released
https://www.dsogaming.com/pc-performance-analyses/unreal-rtx-remix-path-tracing-mod-fully-released
In August 2025, we informed you about a demo for the RTX Remix Mod for the first Unreal game. And today, I’m happy to report that the full version of this mod has been released. With this new version, you can play the entire single-player campaign with Path Tracing.
Created by mstewart401, this mod adds real-time Path Tracing to the classic Unreal game. It includes fully ray-traced lighting, dynamic shadows, and amazing emisive effects. It also adds PBR materials. As such, surfaces will now react to light more realistically with better metals, roughness, and depth. Some world objects and props have also been replaced to make the game look even more detailed and modern.
What’s also great here is that you don’t even have to buy the game. Since Epic made Unreal freeware, you can simply download it from GitHub. Then, you can apply the mod, and you will be good to go. Without paying a single dollar, you can enjoy a modern remaster of this classic Unreal game.
>> The article has some screenshots.

Morrowind mega-mod Tamriel Rebuilt is adding 'one of the holy grails' that players have wanted 'for more than 20 years' in its next mammoth expansion
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/the-elder-scrolls/morrowind-mega-mod-tamriel-rebuilt-is-adding-one-of-the-holy-grails-that-players-have-wanted-for-more-than-20-years-in-its-next-mammoth-expansion/
I've said it before and I'll say it again: Tamriel Rebuilt is one of the most impressive mod projects of all time. Its quest is to build every part of The Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind's titular province that Bethesda didn't get to, and it's been doing that for literal decades. Earlier this year it released its ninth expansion, Grasping Fortune, and now it's gearing up for number 10: Poison Song.
This is a big one. Well, they're all big ones, but this is a big one for a new reason. Poison Song means players are finally getting "one of the holy grails that TR players [have] been waiting for more than twenty years—the ability to join House Indoril."
This is either the most hype-inducing sentence you've ever heard, or completely meaningless (if you are normal), so let me try to break it down.
Base Morrowind let you join any of three different Houses—Morrowind-native political factions that, conveniently, pretty much mapped to each corner of the Fighter-Mage-Thief triad. There was Hlaalu, the Empire-sympathetic merchant guild; Redoran, the traditionalist fighter sect; and Telvanni, dickhead wizards who live in mushrooms.
Missing from this lineup were House Indoril—the house of the legendary Indoril Nerevar himself—and House Dres, whose whole thing is somehow loving slavery even more than the Telvanni. So with Poison Song, it means we finally get a chance to sign up to Nerevar's own house, which is a pretty big deal considering a lot of Morrowind's main quest revolves around people proclaiming you the guy's literal reincarnation.
>> The article has a couple of screenshots.

GAMING NEWS

BLACKWOOD Is A New Third-Person John Wick-like Action Thriller
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/blackwood-is-a-new-third-person-john-wick-like-action-thriller
AttritoM7 Productions is working on a new gritty third-person action thriller that is heavily inspired by John Wick, called BLACKWOOD. BLACKWOOD targets a Q3 2026 release date, and below you can find its debut gameplay trailer.