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

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And the third, and thankfully last, part of the gaming news:

Wuxia MMO Where Winds Meet is full of AI chatbot NPCs, and people are doing all the standard obscene stuff to them: 'I made him think that my character was pregnant with his child'
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/rpg/wuxia-mmo-where-winds-meet-is-full-of-ai-chatbot-npcs-and-people-are-doing-all-the-standard-obscene-stuff-to-them-i-made-him-think-that-my-character-was-pregnant-with-his-child/
Where Winds Meet, the wuxia-themed soulslite multiplayer ARPG, is more than a little popular with around 190,000 concurrent players on Steam as I write this. It's also got more than a little of everybody's favorite novel-but-ruinous technology, as some of its NPCs appear to be powered by LLM chatbots. That means you can converse with them via written response or with your microphone, and just stop me if you've heard this one before.
Granted, I haven't seen anything so bad as Fortnite's Darth Vader fiasco just yet. These NPCs don't involve any legendary dead actors, and I've yet to see them utter a slur. Still, players are having their fun inducing hallucinations and making a mockery of the game's canon.

Ubisoft touches up AI art 'placeholder' that slipped into Anno 117, but fans are not happy it was there to begin with: 'Of all the video games, not Anno'
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/city-builder/ubisoft-touches-up-ai-art-placeholder-that-slipped-into-anno-117-but-fans-are-not-happy-it-was-there-to-begin-with-of-all-the-video-games-not-anno/
Ubisoft has been caught with its hand in the generative AI jar again, continuing a multi-year streak of formal insistence by the publishing giant that AI and game development are destined to be together. Anno 117: Pax Romana is the first Ubisoft game to appear on Steam with an AI content disclosure, though the statement notes "the final product reflects our team’s craft and creative vision." It seems that vision includes some pretty janky background characters with nubs for hands, as players are spotting on Reddit.

The Blood of Dawnwalker's latest gameplay trailer starts out looking like a Witcher spinoff, then the main character starts walking on walls
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/rpg/the-blood-of-dawnwalkers-latest-gameplay-trailer-starts-out-looking-like-a-witcher-spinoff-then-the-main-character-starts-walking-on-walls/
The Blood of Dawnwalker⁠—a new vampire RPG from former CD Projekt devs⁠—has been half on my radar, but its latest gameplay trailer (following a first one in June) really has the sauce: There's a lot of very apparent Witcher 3 DNA on display, but that just seems to be a comfortable starting point for a very different kind of RPG.

XDefiant was originally going to be a new Splinter Cell, according to former Ubisoft devs who went on to make Dispatch, but the publisher changed plans to chase those big Call of Duty bucks
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/fps/xdefiant-was-originally-going-to-be-a-new-splinter-cell-according-to-former-ubisoft-devs-who-went-on-to-make-dispatch-but-the-publisher-changed-plans-to-chase-those-big-call-of-duty-bucks/
XDefiant may not have been as spectacular a flop as Concord, but it was another stark example of how ephemeral online gaming can be in today's industry. Ubisoft's multiplayer shooter released in 2024 to not-insignificant critical acclaim, with PC Gamer's Jake Tucker calling it "a breath of fresh air" in a sphere dominated by Call of Duty. But it shut down less than a year later as its initially strong player count slid away all too quickly.
I always thought it a shame that XDefiant never got a proper chance to thrive, but I'm especially sad now that I've learned what XDefiant's failure cost us. Before they ended up making a live-service multiplayer shooter (and more recently, the superhero phenomenon Dispatch), the founding members of AdHoc Studio were originally working on a new Splinter Cell game.

Resident Evil Requiem didn't just start life out as an online multiplayer game, but still retains 'some remaining elements' to ensure it's fun to play
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/horror/resident-evil-requiem-didnt-just-start-life-out-as-an-online-multiplayer-game-but-still-retains-some-remaining-elements-to-ensure-its-fun-to-play/
Resident Evil Requiem developers have made it abundantly clear that this game will be terrifying; no punches have been pulled. Taking its inspiration from Resident Evil 2, Requiem will put players in the unenviable blood-soaked shoes of Grace Ashcroft, but it wasn't always meant to be like this.
The first hint that Requiem was first intended to be an entirely different game came from producer Masato Kumazawa (via Press Start): "So looking back on the online multiplayer game, it’s been in development for around six years or so."
>> He also repeated that it will be a horror game, not an action one (link) and Capcom has said that it will run better than MH Wilds (link).

FF14 director Naoki Yoshida has big plans for the MMO after Dawntrail's roughspots—hinting at A Realm Reborn-style overhaul
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/mmo/ff14-director-naoki-yoshida-has-big-plans-for-the-mmo-after-dawntrails-roughspots-hinting-at-a-realm-reborn-style-overhaul/
Final Fantasy 14 has been in a bit of a weird state. Endwalker's post-launch patches failed to hit the ground running, despite the main expansion absolutely nailing the climax of its 10-year story. Dawntrail carried these problems forward, and with a lukewarm main quest, it couldn't rest on that good ol' patch story hype to keep folks enthused.
Things have been improving, slowly but surely, with Creative Studio 3 seemingly keen to experiment and shake things up after years of a stale, sluggish formula—and it looks like those efforts are continuing.

2005 survival horror shooter ups and vanishes from Steam suspiciously soon after entering Nightdive's orbit
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/horror/2005-survival-horror-shooter-ups-and-vanishes-from-steam-suspiciously-soon-after-entering-nightdives-orbit/
Bad news for the presumable legions of you that were just about to pick up 2005 survival horror shooter Cold Fear on Steam. You can't. It's gone. Vanished. Disappeared and absconded without so much as a how'd-you-do.
As of November 11 (per SteamDB), Cold Fear has been yoinked from Steam. The timing here is notable: back in August, the game slipped out of Ubisoft's hands and into Atari's, along with four other titles—I Am Alive, Child of Eden, Grow Home, and Grow Up. "We're excited to reintroduce these titles while also exploring ways to expand and evolve these franchises," Atari head honcho Wade Rosen said at the time.
Those other games are still available (save Child of Eden, which was never on PC). An obvious question arises: with Nightdive in Atari's embrace, has the studio been put to work on some kind of gussied-up version of the two-decade-old shooter?