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

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Here are the gaming news:

SALES/PLAYER COUNTS & DEALS

There are dozens of us! The best third-person shooter of all time sees HUGE* player spike on Steam after Capcom's Pragmata
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/third-person-shooter/there-are-dozens-of-us-the-best-third-person-shooter-of-all-time-sees-huge-player-spike-on-steam-after-capcoms-pragmata/
PC Gamer Editor-in-Chief Phil Savage is a man of impeccable taste, but I still hold a tiny grudge against him for not breaking the seal on PC Gamer's 98% review threshold to award Vanquish, the Xbox 360-era PlatinumGames shooter brought to PC in 2017, an unprecedented perfect score. "Beyond the laser-focused core loop, there isn't much to Vanquish. You start with knee-sliding acrobatics, and end the same way—around six or so hours later," Phil wrote in his 80% review when Vanquish arrived on PC.
True enough, past Phil. But also: the Vanquish knee slide is the sickest move ever programmed into a videogame, followed closely by the second sickest move ever programmed into a videogame, in which at the press of a button Vanquish hero Sam Gideon pops off the helmet of his super suit, blasts a cig, and then flicks it away. There's an achievement for distracting robots with a cigarette before you shoot them. Only the Pope could do it better.
I'm afraid the math is clearly on my side here: that's a 100/100 right there.
On a superficial level, I've seen some chatter in the last couple weeks that Capcom's excellent Pragmata has a bit of a Vanquish vibe to it. I get the comparison, in that it's a pretty straightforward third-person shooter made by a Japanese developer, also starring a guy in a white astronaut-style space suit. You can do little jet-powered dashes in Pragmata, though nothing as prolonged or flashy as Sam's rocket knee slides in Vanquish.
(...)
Whatever the reason, I'm excited to report Vanquish's numbers on Steam in the wake of Pragmata's release are up. Way up. If, uh, you go by percentages and only look at the last couple months of activity. According to Vanquish's SteamDB page, it's up an impressive 34.8% in peak players over the last 30 days, for a gain of 16 whole people knee sliding in simultaneous bliss. Meanwhile, the average player count is up even more, at a 52.9% increase—that's 26 more people playing Vanquish every day on Steam, on average! Twenty six people whose lives are for certain better this month than they were in March.

It’s Wednesday and GOG still hasn’t launched a new promo/sale. They’re cooking something, but I don’t know what it is.

Steam has four new deals and one sale:

• Artifact Seeker: Resurrection has a demo and a 60% discount that will last until the 5th of May: https://store.steampowered.com/app/3054610/Artifact_Seeker_Resurrection/
• MEMORIAPOLIS will be 30% off until May 12: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2228280/MEMORIAPOLIS/
• Pro Cycling Manager 25 gets a 90% discount until the 12th of May: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2511310/Pro_Cycling_Manager_25/
• If one isn’t enough, Tour de France 2025 is also going to be 90% off until the 12th of May: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2511320/Tour_de_France_2025/
• You may be surprised, but the two previous cyclists games are from the same developer and publisher, and you can get them both in this bundle that is also 90% off: https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/54512/Cycling_Bundle_2025/
• And Publisher tinyBuild celebrates its 15th Anniversary, and they do it by putting its games on sale with up to 80% discounts. The deals will end between the 4th and the 12th of May, but most will last until the 5th: https://store.steampowered.com/curator/6858705/sale/anniversary

And Fanatical has a new Star Deal and bundle deals:

• The new Star Deal is Sniper Elite 5 , 93% off during 48 hours: https://www.fanatical.com/en/game/sniper-elite-5
• BYO Capcom Masters Bundle has 11 games to choose from for your 2+, 3+ or 4+ bundles. It’s shorter than usual, as it will last 25 days: https://www.fanatical.com/en/pick-and-mix/build-your-own-capcom-masters-bundle

SOFTWARE & DRIVERS

NVIDIA GeForce Game Ready 596.36
https://videocardz.com/driver/nvidia-geforce-game-ready-596-36

HIGHLIGHTS
Game Ready for Conan Exiles Enhanced
This new Game Ready Driver provides the best gaming experience for the latest new games supporting DLSS 4.5 technology including Conan Exiles Enhanced.

Gaming Technology
Adds support for the GeForce RTX 5070 Laptop GPU (12GB)

FIXED ISSUES
Fixed Gaming Bugs

• God of War: Ragnarok: Certain textures may intermittently flash white during gameplay. [5856704]
• Assassins Creed Shadows: Flickering on character model clothing [5987951]
• The Crew Motorfest: Grass and vegetation flickering [5950261]

Fixed General Bugs

• Blocky artifacts when playing back H.264 content with DXVA 2.0 [6058551]
• Blender 5.0.1 EEVEE: Non-shader nodes connected to the material output rendered as black (zero value) [5965763]

MODS, EMULATORS & FAN PROJECTS

We may be one step closer to a Doom 3 Path Tracing Mod
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/we-may-be-one-step-closer-to-a-doom-3-path-tracing-mod/
The one game that came to my mind when NVIDIA announced the RTX Remix tool was Doom 3. Sadly, though, this game uses OpenGL and RTX Remix has a lot of trouble overhauling those games. However, we may be one step closer to a Path Tracing Mod as Justin Marshall was able to implement DX12 and DXR to the official level editor of Doom 3.
The modder has integrated Direct3D 12 and real-time raytracing (DXR) directly into the Doom 3 editor. As such, it allows full in-editor raytraced preview while building levels.
To prove those claims, Marshall shared the following video. In this video, we get a glimpse at a simple ray-traced level for Doom 3.
As said, this DX12 and DXR support is only available for the level editor of Doom 3. It does not allow you to play the entire single-player campaign. In fact, you can’t even download this mod yet as there isn’t any release yet on its Github. Still, this may open up the doors for a proper Path Tracing Mod.
>> The video is short, not even 30 second long.

GAMING NEWS

The Blood of Dawnwalker Gets PC Requirements, Release Date & Story Trailer
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/the-blood-of-dawnwalker-gets-pc-requirements-release-date-story-trailer/
Bandai Namco has revealed the official PC system requirements, the release date, and a new story trailer for The Blood of Dawnwalker. So, let’s dive in.

Dev diaries released for Thick as Thieves and Clive Barker’s Hellraiser: Revival
https://www.dsogaming.com/videotrailer-news/dev-diaries-released-for-thick-as-thieves-and-clive-barkers-hellraiser-revival/
Megabit Publishing and Saber Interactive have released new dev diaries for Thick as Thieves and Clive Barker’s Hellraiser: Revival. So, if you have been waiting for them, you should check them out.