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

[JEMC]

The second part of today’s gaming news:

Arc Raiders roadmap: All upcoming content and updates
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/third-person-shooter/arc-raiders-2025-roadmap/
Despite how successful Arc Raiders has been so far, as any seasoned scavenger knows, scrounging for scrap through the same old crates and cabinets can only satisfy for so long. Inevitably, even the most accomplished raider will yearn for more. And more is exactly what Embark Studios has planned with its Arc Raiders roadmap.

Mount & Blade 2: Bannerlord gets free patch alongside War Sails DLC that's so big, the 17,000 word update run more than twice the length of Age of Empires 2's 'legendarily long' patch notes
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/rpg/mount-and-blade-2-bannerlord-gets-free-patch-alongside-war-sails-dlc-thats-so-big-the-17-000-word-update-run-more-than-twice-the-length-of-age-of-empires-2s-legendarily-long-patch-notes/
Mount & Blade 2: Bannerlord's War Sails expansion landed on the base game's unassuming shores earlier today, adding fully simulated naval battles to Taleworld's medieval RPG. Yet even if you're not interested in crewing a longship with a raiding party to terrorise the coastlines, there's plenty of reason to consider diving back into Mount & Blade 2. War Sails' launch coincides with a truly enormous patch for the base game, one that sneaks in a hoard of additional mechanics to play with.

The fantasy RPG that started as a viral AI-made video is 'free of AI-generated content,' pledges its maker
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/rpg/the-fantasy-rpg-that-started-as-a-viral-ai-made-video-is-free-of-ai-generated-content-pledges-its-maker/
Can I make a confession? I love those clips of 'AI-generated games' people post on social media. Not because they're good (they're very bad), or because I love dumping water into the gaping maw of a data centre (I like it a moderate amount). I love them because it's pure 'the emperor has no clothes' stuff: cadres of soi-disant tech visionaries desperately trying to gas themselves and everyone else up into not seeing what is clearly in front of them— something which could never be a game at all.
Usually, anyway. It turns out that at least one of those viral AI-generated game clips is now being made into, uh, an actual game (via PCGamesN). But here's the weird part: its creator says it doesn't have any AI-generated stuff in it.
>> Speaking of AI...

Epic boss Tim Sweeney thinks stores like Steam should stop labelling games as being made with AI: 'It makes no sense,' he says, because 'AI will be involved in nearly all future production'
https://www.pcgamer.com/software/ai/epic-boss-tim-sweeney-thinks-stores-like-steam-should-stop-labelling-games-as-being-made-with-ai-it-makes-no-sense-he-says-because-ai-will-be-involved-in-nearly-all-future-production/
Look at any of a number of Steam store pages—Arc Raiders, for instance—and you'll see a fairly prominent "AI generated content disclosure" laying out which parts of the game make use of AI generated content. Go to the Epic Games Store, however, and you'll see nothing of the sort. And that's a difference that's not likely to change, for one simple reason: Epic boss Tim Sweeney thinks AI disclosures are a waste of time.
>> Not surprising coming from the store that has no problem allowing games with NFTs and crypto content in them. Anyway, it’s because of things like this that consumers prefer Steam to EGS.

Galaxy Princess Zorana is like if you made BG3 passive checks into a whole game, a great tale of political intrigue, and will give you like 4,000 ways to die embarrassingly
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/visual-novel/galaxy-princess-zorana-is-like-if-you-made-bg3-passive-checks-into-a-whole-game-a-great-tale-of-political-intrigue-and-will-give-you-like-4-000-ways-to-die-embarrassingly/
The reign of Galaxy Princess Zorana was unhappy and unproductive. Fortunately, it was also short—ended in its infancy when Her Imperial Highness took a javelin straight through the skull in some kind of space-football game organised by the Pope. The people of her interplanetary demesne were presumably quite relieved, once they'd recovered from the initial shock of seeing her brainstem kebabbed on live television.
Galaxy Princess Zorana is a distant sequel to Long Live The Queen, the 2013 choose-your-own visual novel that I very much enjoyed back in the day. Like its forebear, Zorana puts you in the shoes of, uh, Zorana, the heir to an empire whose previous ruler, your dad, has suddenly (perhaps suspiciously) carked it. She's young, naive, unprepared, surrounded by snakes, and all she can do about any of it is go to school.

World of Warcraft: Midnight might be the MMO's biggest expansion yet, and it's coming out in March
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/world-of-warcraft/world-of-warcraft-midnight-might-be-the-mmos-biggest-expansion-yet-and-its-coming-out-in-march/
It's a momentous time for World of Warcraft. The next expansion, Midnight, will shift how the game is played for everyone with sweeping changes to the most popular combat mods and the long-awaited introduction of player housing.
This new era for the MMO will begin when Midnight launches on March 2.

An outage briefly affected Fortnite, Arc Raiders, Battle.net, PSN, and more, but now appears to be resolved
https://www.pcgamer.com/software/platforms/online-service-outage-nov-2025-games/
We first noticed that the Arc Raiders servers were down this morning at around 10:30 am Pacific time, but wasn't the end of it. Downdetector has seen a spike in reports from users who are having trouble accessing Fortnite, the Epic Games Store, Rocket League, Dead by Daylight, PSN, Xbox Live, Elden Ring, Battle.net, and many other games and web services.
The reports are now declining, but if you were having trouble logging into any of these services today, you're not alone.
Recent updates
Arc Raiders is working for us now, I was able to connect to the Epic Games Store, and Fortnite players on social media are saying that it's back up, so it looks like this was just a hiccup.

Despite getting delayed, Paralives looks like it's avoiding Inzoi's biggest flaw
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/life-sim/despite-getting-delayed-paralives-looks-like-its-avoiding-inzois-biggest-flaw/
The big renaissance for life sims that I was expecting this year hasn't happened, thanks in part to a sudden delay for Paralives that was announced a couple weeks back. To ease the sting of delaying just a few weeks ahead of its intended launch, the Paralives team did show off 45 minutes of new, uncut gameplay this week. And you know what? It convinced me that Paralives is going to avoid the biggest flaw in Inzoi's early access: a lifeless Live Mode.

2 months after being acquired by private equity, Splash Damage is making major layoffs so it can 'remain agile,' even though it hasn't released a game since 2020
https://www.pcgamer.com/gaming-industry/2-months-after-being-acquired-by-private-equity-splash-damage-is-making-major-layoffs-so-it-can-remain-agile-even-though-it-hasnt-released-a-game-since-2020/
Two months ago, storied shooter studio Splash Damage parted ways with Tencent and ended up in the hands of private equity investors. I said at the time that it probably wasn't a good development, and I wish I'd been wrong but I was right: The studio said today that it is "entering a studio-wide consultation process affecting all roles."

'Child labor is unbeatable': Baldur's Gate 3 players discover how to build an army of unkillable kids through the power of polymorph and German media laws
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/baldurs-gate/child-labor-is-unbeatable-baldurs-gate-3-players-discover-how-to-build-an-army-of-unkillable-kids-through-the-power-of-polymorph-and-german-media-laws/
Baldur's Gate 3 is well over two years old and its developer is no longer making major content additions, but its players are still finding fresh and exciting ways to crack open its ruleset towards their own gamebreaking ends. This week, as spotted by GamesRadar, BG3 players have found a way to recruit a fighting force of the most powerful beings in Larian's version of Faerun.
It's children. They're building armies of children.