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

[JEMC]

Thursday gaming news, part two:

Mewgenics' latest update makes one of its most unpredictable fights a bit fairer, and includes maybe the best patch note of all time: 'Fixed case where a non-binary cat with dwarfism would crash the game if playing in Brazilian Portuguese'
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/roguelike/mewgenics-latest-update-makes-one-of-its-most-unpredictable-fights-a-bit-fairer-and-includes-maybe-the-best-patch-note-of-all-time-fixed-case-where-a-non-binary-cat-with-dwarfism-would-crash-the-game-if-playing-in-brazilian-portuguese/
The stream of post-launch patches for Mewgenics has been pretty constant since its release last month. With a game this big and full of overlapping systems, unleashing it on the general public was always going to reveal an explosion of bugs and issues, and it seems like developers Edmund McMillen and Tyler Glaiel have been busy trying to catch them all.
The latest patch, 1.0.20870, is largely just more of the usual bug fixes and tweaks, but does have the honour of including one of the best patch notes of all time: "Fixed case where a non-binary cat with dwarfism would crash the game if playing in Brazilian Portugese [sic]."
>> A weird bug that brings the longest headline in a long time.

Lost Ark fans fear the worst as Amazon lays off more employees 'as part of broader organizational decisions'
https://www.pcgamer.com/gaming-industry/lost-ark-fans-fear-the-worst-as-amazon-lays-off-more-employees-as-part-of-broader-organizational-decisions/
Some high-profile layoffs at Amazon Game Studios has Lost Ark fans worried that the game is approaching its end of days, despite still putting up decent player numbers on Steam. In a message posted on its website, the Lost Ark dev team acknowledged that cuts have happened, but said it will "keep working to improve the game and move Lost Ark forward with every update."

After this game dev shared her prototype online, it took less than 5 hours for someone to post their vibecoded knockoff
https://www.pcgamer.com/gaming-industry/after-this-game-dev-shared-her-prototype-online-it-took-less-than-5-hours-for-someone-to-post-their-vibecoded-knockoff/
Yesterday, game developer and technical artist Freya Holmér shared a glimpse at a side-project she'd been toying with: a rotational twist on Tetris, where dropping a piece into place rotates the screen 90 degrees towards the side where your blocks landed. "Been feeling kinda stressed lately so I made a little prototype," she said. "Is this anything?"
The response confirmed that it was, indeed, something. At time of writing, the clip of Holmér's prototype has already been viewed on X more than 2 million times, while Bluesky users insist they "need to spend hours playing this." There's something mesmerizing about it: The brain yearns to rotate blocks that rotate other blocks. Hell, even Tim Schafer thinks it looks sick.
It took less than a day for someone to post a knockoff.
"Someone already vibecoded (a bad clone of) this and shared it online because we live in the worst timeline," Holmér said today on Bluesky. "Y'know it kinda disincentivizes me from sharing progress when there are slop ghouls around every corner, AI or otherwise."
>> I hope it becomes a full game. Also, f*ck that talent-less moron for the knockoff.

Cities: Skylines 2 boss says they 'completely overestimated' the Unity engine's capabilities
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/sim/cities-skylines-2-boss-says-they-completely-overestimated-the-unity-engines-capabilities/
In the wake of Cities: Skylines 2's shaky launch and mixed reception, developer Colossal Order and publisher Paradox Interactive have parted ways, with a new dev, Iceflake Studios, stepping in to continue patching the city builder.
(...)
At least some of Skylines 2's struggles both during development and post-launch were due to the Unity engine the game is built on, according to Colossal Order CEO Mariina Hallikainen. "We completely overestimated the engine's capabilities at the beginning of the project," Hallikainen said when we talked earlier this month.

Tomb Raider Remastered studio denies using generative AI in latest update, says fixes for bugs and 'texture issues' are on the way
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/action/tomb-raider-remastered-studio-denies-using-generative-ai-in-latest-update-says-fixes-for-bugs-and-texture-issues-are-on-the-way/
Tomb Raider Remastered developer Aspyr has issued a statement saying that its "top priority" is to fix bugs and texture issues in the recently released Challenge Mode update for Tomb Raider 1-3 Remastered, but it also denied accusations that the new outfits included in the update were created with generative AI.

You're laughing—Thomas the Tank Engine is being brutalized by Unreal Engine physics, and you're laughing
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/sim/youre-laughing-thomas-the-tank-engine-is-being-brutalized-by-unreal-engine-physics-and-youre-laughing/
Oh, Thomas the Tank Engine, you delightful locomotive: How we love you and your haunting homunculi visage, your community of animate rail engines, your diligent adherence to the tasks of Sir Topham Hatt, your habit of getting launched with incredible violence by an inscrutable malfunction of physical law.
Okay, so that last bit is a new addition to the Tank Engine canon, and we have Thomas & Friends: Wonders of Sodor to thank for it. Released on Steam this week, Wonders of Sodor casts Thomas and his troublingly faced peers in a train sim where players navigate the many duties of the North Western Railway—duties that have a tendency to punt these sentient traincars into the upper stratosphere with no discernible cause.
Wonders of Sodor has been enjoying a bit of a viral launch, in large part thanks to the sheer number of videos showing unpredictable physics bugs that forcefully jettison Thomas & Co. off the railroad tracks. Thomas will be comfortably tooting along in pleasant, picturesque comfort before he's suddenly brutally repulsed by gravity, as though being punished by some unseen and vindictive higher power who has, at last, deemed that the world should no longer suffer the living horror of the Man-Train.

Dead by Daylight's new K-pop chapter doesn't add a new killer, but it does sound like one more step towards a healthier game: 'It's a bit of a trial'
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/horror/dead-by-daylights-new-k-pop-chapter-doesnt-add-a-new-killer-but-it-does-sound-like-one-more-step-towards-a-healthier-game-its-a-bit-of-a-trial/
The Dead by Daylight roster of horror baddies grows a little longer every year, and up until 2025, the asymmetrical horror arena maintained a (mostly) regular update schedule by adding one major chapter every three months. Those DLC add-ons typically came with a new killer, survivor, and occasional map, but Behaviour adjusted its schedule last year.
Instead of four new killers for the year, Dead by Daylight's Year 10 Roadmap outlined plans for three. The game still received its four major chapters, but one dropped the extra killer. At the time, it sounded like players were getting fewer new toys overall, but that's not the case. Behaviour is filling gaps elsewhere with hefty reworks, quality of life initiatives, and other Dead by Daylight features.

An indie asking for $250,000 is 'a drop in the bucket' says Tunic's publisher, but indies are in a 'survival' era because companies think that 'isn't profitable enough' to fund
https://www.pcgamer.com/gaming-industry/an-indie-asking-for-usd250-000-is-a-drop-in-the-bucket-says-tunics-publisher-but-indies-are-in-a-survival-era-because-companies-think-that-isnt-profitable-enough-to-fund/
Indie games survived the theoretical "indiepocalypse" of 10 years ago and they survived the influx of AAA escapees of five years ago, and if we were going to coin a new era of indie games right now, it's "survival," says the CEO of indie developer and publisher Finji, Rebekah Saltsman, and not in the fun crafting-survival way either.

Capcom and Ubisoft developers surprised by DLSS 5 announcement: “We found out at the same time as the public"
https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/graphics-cards/capcom-and-ubisoft-developers-surprised-by-dlss-5-announcement-we-found-out-at-the-same-time-as-the-public/
Among the many debates surrounding Nvidia's DLSS 5 announcement is one about artist autonomy and creative freedom. Effectively, the question is 'do these tools hinder or contribute to artistic direction?', and developers are pretty mixed on that one, to put it lightly. Where the likes of Bethesda boss Todd Howard and Capcom executive Jun Takeuchi seem to be in support of it, many developers are anxious, disgusted, or even blindsided by it.
According to Insider Gaming, a Ubisoft developer said, “We found out at the same time as the public”.
It's not clear who this developer is, which department they work in, or how widespread that secrecy is at Ubisoft, but Assassin's Creed Shadows was one of the games used to showcase DLSS 5 during its reveal earlier this week.
As well as Ubisoft, developers at Capcom reportedly told Insider Gaming they were shocked by the announcement, as Capcom had historically been "anti-AI". Resident Evil Requiem's shot of Grace Ashcroft is among the most highly criticised from the DLSS 5 reveal, with our own Tyler Wilde arguing it 'clearly overwrites game characters with AI beauty standards.'
>>***Slow clap*** (not just to Nvidia, but also the higher ups at Ubisoft and Capcom that didn't bother to tell anything about it to the teams behind those games)