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

[JEMC]

It’s time for the Friday gaming news:

SALES/PLAYER COUNTS & DEALS

Crimson Desert launches to 239,000 players on Steam but 'Mixed' reviews, and it's mostly because of how dense and cryptic the whole thing is
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/action/crimson-desert-launches-to-239-000-players-on-steam-but-mixed-reviews-and-its-mostly-because-of-how-dense-and-cryptic-the-whole-thing-is/
Crimson Desert has finally arrived and, upon contact with the gaming public writ large, appears to be a mixed bag—we gave it an 80 in our Crimson Desert review, with our own Mollie Taylor dubbing it both "a game for the sickos" and "full of archaic design choices that only make sense when you remember Pearl Abyss has been maintaining an MMO for 12 years."
This is a game bloated to bursting with systems, which both lends it its own form of madcap charm and bogs it down—and to support the grist of said systems, Pearl Abyss has constructed a control scheme from the pages of an ancient wizard's spellbook, married with some occasional moon logic that expects you to just intuit a 12-step program to solve a puzzle, or get a pet dog or something.
That unwieldiness seems to be the driving factor behind a mixed reception on Steam, despite launching to a 24-hour peak of around 239,000 players at the time of writing. Taking a peek at the negative reviews, we can see the controls and systems bloat crop up time and time again:
>> There are more articles about this game later.

Capcom proudly announces 2025 was its 12th straight year of growth, and it has PC to thank for it
https://www.pcgamer.com/gaming-industry/capcom-proudly-announces-2025-was-its-12th-straight-year-of-growth-and-it-has-pc-to-thank-for-it/
Capcom CEO Kenzo Tsujimoto says PC will soon surpass consoles as "the world's leading gaming platform", and that it is already driving most of the publisher's own game sales. The company's latest annual report features some truly world-class management speak about things like Capcom's "value creation strategy", more charts than you can shake a stick at, and a not-unjustified pride in the publisher's 12th straight year of growth.
"In the fiscal year ended March 31, 2025, Capcom achieved its 12th consecutive year of increased operating profit, 10th consecutive year of 10%-or-better operating profit growth, and 8th consecutive year of record highs across all profit indicators," reads the report.

The best Fallout game is 99 cents right now
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/rpg/the-best-fallout-game-is-99-cents-right-now/
Steam kicked off its Spring sale today and as usual, so much of my wishlist is on sale that I'm paralysed by choice. I probably won't buy anything. But I do know for certain that if I didn't already own Fallout: New Vegas I'd definitely be buying that, because it's going for a measly 99 cents.
>> It’s for the base game. There are other games with record discounts, like Civ V (again, base game), Metro: Last Light Redux or Resident Evil 3 remake, among others.

The guys at Humble have been busy:

• Humble Bundle presents the Humble Heroines: Echoes, Voids and Visions Bundle, with 6 games to get during 20 days: https://www.humblebundle.com/games/humble-heroines-echoes-voids-and-visions
• Humble Store has five new sales:
  • The Build/Make Your Own Luck has games up to 75% off and will give you an extra discount the more games you buy, and extra 5% for 2 games, 10% for three and 15% for four. It will last 6 days: https://www.humblebundle.com/store/promo/build-your-own-luck/
  • Koei Tecmo’s Spring Sale features up to 80% discounts during 6 days: https://www.humblebundle.com/store/promo/koei-tecmo-spring-sale/
  • SEGA St. Patty’s Day Sale comes late, but comes with games up to 85% off during 6 days: https://www.humblebundle.com/store/promo/sega-st-patricks-day-sale/
  • Spring Sims Sale has mi games with up to 90% discounts and will last 6 days: https://www.humblebundle.com/store/promo/spring-sims-sale/
  • Finally, there’s the Bandai Namco March Sale/u>, with games up to 90% off during the next 13 days: https://www.humblebundle.com/store/promo/bandai-namco-publisher-sale/

Fanatical has new Flash Deal and a bundle:

• The 24h Flash Deals are:
  • Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds has a 47% discount: https://www.fanatical.com/en/game/sonic-racing-crossworlds
  • Tyrant's Realm is 55% off: https://www.fanatical.com/en/game/tyrants-realm
  • Tales of Graces™f Remastered gets a 57% discount: https://www.fanatical.com/en/game/tales-of-gracesf-remastered
• BYO Very Positive Bundle (March 2026) includes 15 games for your 3+, 7+ or 10+ game bundles and will last 34 days: https://www.fanatical.com/en/pick-and-mix/build-your-own-very-positive-bundle

SOFTWARE & DRIVERS

AMD Radeon Software Adrenalin 26.3.1
https://videocardz.com/driver/amd-radeon-software-adrenalin-26-3-1

HIGHLIGHTS
New Game Support

• Crimson Desert
• Death Stranding 2

New Technology Support

• FSR Upscaling 4.1 for Radeon RX 9000 series graphics cards.

FIXED ISSUES

• Intermittent application crash or driver timeout may be observed while loading a saved game in Cyberpunk 2077 with Path Tracing enabled.
• Users may experience intermittent loss of mouse and keyboard functionality both in-game and on the desktop when interacting with AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition.
• System crash may occur when repeatedly changing in-game AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition settings or when alt-tabbing on Radeon™ RX 7000 and above series graphics products.
• Failure to enable AMD Noise Suppression in AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition on Radeon™ RX 6000 and above series graphics products.

MODS, EMULATORS & FAN PROJECTS

New Version of Doom 3 Hi-Def 2K Texture Pack Released
https://www.dsogaming.com/mods/new-version-of-doom-3-hi-def-2k-texture-pack-released/
Here is something for our Doom 3 fans. Modder ‘y2keeth’ has just released a brand new version of his Hi-Def 2K Texture Pack for Doom 3. This pack takes advantage of Dhewm3 engine’s BC7 support, bringing to the game 2K AI-enhanced textures and skins.
For those who did not know, Dhewm3 is a source port of the original Doom 3. Compared to the original version of Doom3, dhewm3 has many bugfixes, supports EAX-like sound effects on all operating systems and hardware (via OpenAL Soft’s EFX support), has much better support for widescreen resolutions, and has 64-bit support.
You can download this new 2K Texture Pack from this link. As said, you’ll also need the latest version of Dhewm3, which you can download from here. At the end of the article, you can also find some screenshots from it. These screenshots will give you a glimpse at the new textures.

GAMING NEWS

Crimson Desert Day-1 Update Is 3.1GB – Full Patch Notes
https://www.dsogaming.com/patches/crimson-desert-day-1-update-is-3-1gb-full-patch-notes/
Pearl Abyss has just released Crimson Desert on all platforms, which includes its day-1 patch. This day-1 update is 3.1GB in size, and the devs have shared its full release notes. So, let’s see what this day-1 patch brings to the table.

Here’s Resident Evil Requiem with Path Tracing on AMD GPUs
https://www.dsogaming.com/videotrailer-news/heres-resident-evil-requiem-with-path-tracing-on-amd-gpus/
Last month, Capcom released Resident Evil Requiem on PC. The game is using the RE Engine, and it supports Path Tracing on PC. However, Path Tracing is only available for NVIDIA users. But AMD users have figured out a way to run Path Tracing on AMD GPUs. So, here’s your first look at Path Tracing on AMD GPUs.
To enable Path Tracing on AMD GPUs, you had to do a simple edit to the config file. Once you had opened it, you could set the RayTracingSetting to “PathTracing_Standard”. And that was it.
Sadly, this trick no longer works with the latest version of Resident Evil Requiem. However, you can find a video below that shows off the previous version of the game with it.
As you will see, there are some visual issues with this trick on the AMD GPUs. Still, it’s quite cool to see RE: Requiem running on the AMD hardware with Path Tracing.

Life is Strange: Reunion Gets Official PC Requirements
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/life-is-strange-reunion-gets-official-pc-requirements/
Square Enix has shared the official PC system requirements for Life is Strange: Reunion. So, let’s see what PC system you’ll need in order to run it.