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

[JEMC]

Let’s go with the Friday gaming news:

SALES/PLAYER COUNTS & DEALS

The Humble Store has two new sales:

• Destiny 2 Spotlight Sale features up to 90% discounts during 6 days: https://www.humblebundle.com/store/promo/destiny-2-spotlight-sale/
• Chilling Thrills Sale has games up to 93% off during the next 6 days: https://www.humblebundle.com/store/promo/chilling-thrills-sale/

Fanatical has a new Star Deal: DOOM: The Dark Ages will be58% off during 48 hours or until they run out of keys: https://www.fanatical.com/en/game/doom-the-dark-ages

SOFTWARE & DRIVERS

Valve warms up for the Steam Machine with a client update bristling with gamepad fixes and, oh, the betas UI is fancier now if you're into that
https://www.pcgamer.com/software/platforms/valve-warms-up-for-the-steam-machine-with-a-client-update-bristling-with-gamepad-fixes-and-oh-the-betas-ui-is-fancier-now-if-youre-into-that/
We are an alarming way into 2026 already, and you know what that means: the precipitous decline of all of our institutions and the environment. Also, the soonish release of the Steam Machine, which will probably make all that other stuff go down a lot easier.
The Steam Machine's actual release date isn't known yet, but Valve's said it wants to get its living-room Linux box out in early 2026, so I reckon it's reasonable to say it's due out in the next few months. Anyway, this is all to say that I think the most recent update to the Steam client—itself essentially a packaging of a bunch of fixes that have been pushed to Steam's beta branch recently—is, stealthily, very much about prepping for Valve's black box.
I say this because Steam's January 21 client update practically vibrates with controller fixes and updates. Support for the Nintendo Switch 2 wired controller has been re-enabled, there are new settings for joystick responses, fixes for gyro aiming, and plenty else besides (find the full list down below).

MODS, EMULATORS & FAN PROJECTS

After killing its multiplatform mod manager, Nexus revives its spirit with an announcement that its Windows-only app will support SteamOS in future
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/after-killing-its-multiplatform-mod-manager-nexus-revives-its-spirit-with-an-announcement-that-its-windows-only-app-will-support-steamos-in-future/
Cast your mind back to Monday, and you might remember me telling you that the Nexus Mods App—Nexus Mods' skunkworks mod manager that supported both Windows and Linux/SteamOS—was being Old Yeller'd so the site's devs could focus entirely on Vortex, its venerable, Windows-only mod wrangler. Nexus promised that it would look into supporting Linux for Vortex at some indeterminate point in the future, but I wasn't too optimistic.
Well, sceptical past-me was clearly a clown, because Nexus yesterday put out another announcement, this time fully committing to SteamOS support for Vortex. "We’ll be targeting vanilla Steam hardware like the Steam Deck and Steam Machine," says Nexus general manager Iluviel. "We won’t be officially supporting any other configurations, but as Vortex is an open source project, community developers will be free to extend support for their preferred Linux distros as they please."
SteamOS, if you've forgotten, is just a Valve-ified flavour of Arch Linux, so this is a de facto commitment to Linux support on Vortex. It might be a little bit more of a faff on non-SteamOS distros—you'll likely have to rely on third-party repos not maintained by Nexus itself—but hey, it's a lot better than keeping Vortex indefatigably Windows-exclusive.

The Sims 4's most notorious sex mod gets launched 400,000 times a day, which is more people than I realized were even playing The Sims every day
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/the-sims/the-sims-4s-most-notorious-sex-mod-gets-launched-400-000-times-a-day-which-is-more-people-than-i-realized-were-even-playing-the-sims-every-day/
Boldly I will log onto the internet today and admit I am boring. I've never installed Wicked Whims. The notorious adult content addon is one of the biggest Sims 4 mods out there, quickly updated after every official patch as fans lament they can't bear to play without it. It sure feels like everyone but me is Wicked-pilled, which may not be far from the truth: The mod's creator says that it gets launched an astonishing 400,000 times per day.
German news site Taz (Die Tageszeitung) published an interview this week with Turbodriver, the modder behind Wicked Whims and its less naughty equivalent Wonderful Whims. It's a bit of a drive-by in which Turbodriver only briefly touches on topics like being compensated for modding, access to adult content online, and whether he finds his mods controversial.

GAMING NEWS

Forza Horizon 6 Gets Release Date, First Gameplay Footage & PC Minimum Requirements
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/forza-horizon-6-gets-release-date-first-gameplay-footage-pc-minimum-requirements/
Microsoft has revealed the first gameplay footage and the release date of Forza Horizon 6. The game is available for pre-order right now, and below you can also find its official PC system requirements.

New Beast of Reincarnation Gameplay Revealed — Action RPG From Pokemon Developers
https://www.dsogaming.com/videotrailer-news/new-beast-of-reincarnation-gameplay-revealed-action-rpg-from-pokemon-developers/
At its latest Xbox Developer Direct, Fictions shared a new gameplay video for Beast of Reincarnation. Beast of Reincarnation is a new action RPG from GAME FREAK, the developers of the Nintendo Pokemon games.
>> This game shows that Game Freak can actually do games with good visuals, just not when it comes to Pokemon games.