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

[JEMC]

While it’s festive here, I’ve decided to do part of the gaming news, mostly because doing it all tomorrow would be a pain the in you know where. But I’ll only cover the news coming from PCGamer published between Friday and Sunday. Nothing else.

So, without further delay, here are your partial Monday gaming news:

SALES/PLAYER COUNTS & DEALS

Forza Horizon 6 speeds into Steam's top 5 most played games with over 300k concurrent players
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/racing/forza-horizon-6-speeds-into-steams-top-5-most-played-games-with-over-300k-concurrent-players/
Forza Horizon 6 might be more of the same—in his 84% review, PC Gamer EIC Phil Savage said it was "riding a well-worn track"—but throw in some giant mechs, kei trucks, and Babymetal, and it turns out the world's biggest open world racing series still sells like hotcakes.
As I write this, it's sailing comfortably past the 300,000 concurrent players mark on Steam, according to SteamDB. That brings it into the top 5 most played games right now, past big dogs like Apex Legends and Slay the Spire 2 and only beat out by Dota 2, PUBG, and the eternal champion, Counter-Strike 2.

SOFTWARE & DRIVERS

A game developer compared Godot and Unity by making the same game in both engines, and he's found a clear winner
https://www.pcgamer.com/gaming-industry/game-development/a-game-developer-compared-godot-and-unity-by-making-the-same-game-in-both-engines-and-hes-found-a-clear-winner/
For well over a decade, Unity has been one of, if not the primary engine for indie game development, and has powered some massively successful games like Hollow Knight, Among Us, and the original Subnautica. But over the last few years, a growing number of developers have switched to Godot, an open-source engine that is similar to Unity in its scope and functionality.
For those developers who have switched, the reasons have often been ethical or financial, with various shenanigans from Unity putting developers off using the company's tech. But placing that aside, how do the two engines compare as tools? One game developer decided to find out, by making exactly the same game in both engines.
That designer is Thomas Grové, who runs the Japanese co-production developer Studio Interrupt. Grové was making a survival horror game with his son, and decided to use the project to test out both engines.
>> You’ll have to read the article to find out what he found.

Epic reveals first Unreal Engine 6 game, and it's not Fortnite
https://www.pcgamer.com/gaming-industry/epic-reveals-first-unreal-engine-6-game-and-its-not-fortnite/
As reported by TheGamer, Epic Games has announced Unreal Engine 6, the next iteration of its ubiquitous videogame and CGI middleware. The announcement came during the Paris Major of the Rocket League Championship Series.
DiscussingFilm shared a brief clip of the announcement on X, "The Everything App." It shows some snippets of shinier cars and cinematic angles of in-engine gameplay. The trailer declares a "new era" and "new engine" for the venerable vehicular sci-fi soccer sim, before revealing a first look at the Unreal Engine 6 logo.
>> konnichiwa made a thread about it yesterday.

MODS, EMULATORS & FAN PROJECTS

Keep your GTA 6, the news I can finally play the console-exclusive DLC for Saints Row 2 from 2009 on PC is what I've been waiting for
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/action/keep-your-gta-6-the-news-i-can-finally-play-the-console-exclusive-dlc-for-saints-row-2-from-2009-on-pc-is-what-ive-been-waiting-for/
In 2009, three DLC packs were released for Saints Row 2. The first two, Ultor Exposed and Corporate Warfare, added a string of missions about taking down Ultor, the evil corporation shared by Saints Row and Volition's other series, Red Faction. They also added more vehicles, a bunch of clothing and hairstyles, and an NPC homie voiced by pornstar Tera Patrick. It was, need I remind you, 2009. The third, the Unkut Pack, added over 60 extra customization options.
However, they were only released on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. And if you bought them on 360, you had to pay with Microsoft Points. If you owned the Windows port of Saints Row 2 released earlier that year, you were shit out of luck. You had a buggier version of the game, and you didn't even have access to the Balding Mullet hairstyle.
Until now. The modding team responsible for the Juiced Patch, which fixes a huge amount of the port's issues, have compiled all the singleplayer components of the DLC into a single mod. The DLC also added some multiplayer maps and such, which the modders says "might come at a later date", but right now the focus is on the singleplayer content. Though that said, the new missions can also be played in co-op.
To install the Saints Row 2 DLC mod, you'll need to have a clean save and the Juiced Patch 9.0.0+. While simple mods like the ones that tweak radio stations should apparently be OK, other overhauls like Gentlemen of the Row unfortunately aren't compatible, and neither are older versions of the Juiced Patch. Then you'll need to download the PC DLC and unzip the DLC folder into the Saints Row 2 root folder. See you in Stilwater.
>> The article has a trailer of the mod. The Juiced Patch is available though Github, but the mod is from Nexus Mods.

GAMING NEWS

Last Flag studio lays off half its employees as it puts 'the future of the game in the hands of our players'
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/fps/last-flag-studio-lays-off-half-its-employees-as-it-puts-the-future-of-the-game-in-the-hands-of-our-players/
The CTF shooter Last Flag initially caught our eye because of the co-founders of developer Night Street Games: Mac and Dan Reynolds, better known to the world as, respectively, the manager and lead singer of Imagine Dragons. But it turned out to be a pretty good shooter too: PC Gamer editor Tyler Wilde, who's no slouch in the field of shooting and capturing, spent some time with it in 2025 and "found a lot to like about it."
But as is so often the case these days, Last Flag struggled to find an audience. In April, Night Street Games said it would make the game free to play every weekend until its first update came out, but just a week later it pulled the plug, saying that "our player count is not currently where we need it to be to support additional development beyond our upcoming planned patches."
Last week, executive producer Jonathan Jelinek confirmed the all-but-inevitable "reduction in our team," and in a new statement provided to Game Developer, Mac Reynolds, the CEO of Night Street Games, confirmed that "about a dozen employees" were let go in the layoffs, and that 13 remain to pursue new game ideas.

As it rapidly approaches $1 billion in player funding, Star Citizen goes free to play until May 27
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/sim/as-it-rapidly-approaches-usd1-billion-in-player-funding-star-citizen-goes-free-to-play-until-may-27/
While there's a lot of speculation about when, if ever, Star Citizen will actually be finished, Cloud Imperium Games' massively ambitious space sim has been in a steadily-growing playable alpha for a long time. And if you want to check out how far along the game is without investing hundreds of dollars in virtual spaceships, the game is free to play until Wednesday.
This is all part of Star Citizen's annual DefenseCon event, a very normal virtual military convention which allows both new and existing players to try out the biggest ships in Star Citizen's fleet. For regular Joes like myself, this means we can cut about in ships that would normally be available to only the most dedicated players, while also checking out what Star Citizen's galaxy has in store.
>> This article is from Saturday, and Videocardz has an article today about how it has already crossed the $1 billion funding bar (link)... after 14 years. Back then, the Xbox 360 and PS3 consoles where the fastest consoles available.

You can help save the whales by buying this reef-building game written by the scribe of the Tomb Raider reboot
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/city-builder/you-can-help-save-the-whales-by-buying-this-reef-building-game-written-by-the-scribe-of-the-tomb-raider-reboot/
If you're a fan of city-builders, Life Below should already be on your radar. It's a very different take on the art of metropolis construction that swaps out the tenements and skyscrapers of your standard SimCity-likes for constructing glittering coral reefs as you attempt to revive collapsing marine ecosystems. It looks utterly beautiful, is developed with input from actual marine biologists, and has a story written by Rhianna Pratchett, whose other credits include Mirror's Edge and the excellent 2013 reboot of Tomb Raider.
>> Obviously, not everybody agrees with that last sentence...

A 23-year-old D&D CRPG just got patched to add achievements and fix a bug that stopped you from earning XP
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/rpg/a-23-year-old-d-and-d-crpg-just-got-patched-to-add-achievements-and-fix-a-bug-that-stopped-you-from-earning-xp/
Troika's Temple of Elemental Evil came out in 2003, adapting an old school tabletop adventure into videogame form while being remarkably true to the then-current third edition of the Dungeons & Dragons rules. It's pretty good! I like the bits where you doss around the village of Hommlet and the piratical cove of Nulb more than the temple of the title, but having a too-large dungeon at the end is just another way The Temple of Elemental Evil is true to the typical experience of a D&D adventure.
SNEG revived The T of EE and brought it to Steam last year, with a few refinements and updates. One much-requested addition was achievements, because modern players demand our motivational trophies I guess. SNEG gave in and added them in a recent update, along with some bug fixes.
>> That title is certainly missleading. The game may be 23 years old, but not the Steam port this fix is for.

Jackbox's first externally published game looks like the shot in the arm the stealth genre needs, and it'll be out this year
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/adventure/jackboxs-first-externally-published-game-looks-like-the-shot-in-the-arm-the-stealth-genre-needs-and-itll-be-out-this-year/
I played a demo of My Arms Are Longer Now at PAX Australia and it was a real good time. It's a stealth-comedy game, though not in the sense that you're surprised to find out it's funny. It's funny from the first second you twist your upsettingly wiggly arm across the floor of a train carriage then get caught trying to steal someone's bike right in front of them.
But it is a stealth-comedy game in the sense that it's a stealth game as well as a comedy one, with a detective who apparently learns of your bizarre wiggly crimes, and witnesses who will notice when you try to, say, pinch their bike right in front of them.
>> There’s another article down below that puts somelight (pun intended) on why there are so few stealth games nowadays.

I can't wait to get murdered by flowers in this rad-looking survival horror game
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/horror/i-cant-wait-to-get-murdered-by-flowers-in-this-rad-looking-survival-horror-game/
Flowers and survival horror might seem like a weird combination, but there's a surprisingly strong tradition of blending flora with scares in video games. The original Resident Evil had players fight a giant plant monster, and the whole premise of The Last of Us is basically "what if mushrooms were hostile?"
The Florist takes things to another level, however. The debut title from Unclear Games looks like something you might get if Jeff VanderMeer gave up the whole 'writing acclaimed novels' business and took a sudden and powerful interest in fixed-cameras and deliberately awkward combat. The debut title from Unclear Games puts plants at the front of centre of its survival horror experience, and the results look pretty darn interesting, at least going by its latest trailer.

Space Marine 2 gets a steep discount, a free trial and an update that adds a 'major revamp' of Siege Mode, as its multiplayer continues to outpace games like Marathon
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/action/space-marine-2-gets-a-steep-discount-a-free-trial-and-an-update-that-adds-a-major-revamp-of-siege-mode-as-its-multiplayer-continues-to-outpace-games-like-marathon/
Alongside being a colossal sales success for Saber Interactive, Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 has demonstrated an impressive amount of sticking power as a multiplayer game. Its most recent daily peak concurrent was over 21,000 players, higher than numerous big-swing multiplayer games released in the last 12 months like Dune Awakening and Marathon.
Not a bad performance for a game that led as a traditional linear action experience, and a large amount of credit must be given to Saber's impressive update schedule. (...)
Those updates show no signs of slowing, either. The recent Warhammer Skulls event brought another beefy patch for Space Marine 2. Patch 13.0 adds yet another mission to the game's Operations mode—Purgation—in which your squad must reclaim a Mechanicus facility located in the Kadaku swamps. It also adds a battle simulator where you can practice ripping apart enemies before heading out on missions for real, as well as the ability to swap perk loadouts during a session and expanded customisation options.
The biggest changes, however, are made to siege mode, the horde scenario added in June last year. Dubbed Siege 2.0, the patch implements a "major revamp" for the mode. For starters, it adds a new blessings and atonements system, which gives players extra perks every five waves while also throwing modifiers into the mix. The overall difficulty has been adjusted to make the experience more challenging, with new bosses cropping up every five waves.

PC gaming's very own indie-themed Smash Bros. just added the guy from Spelunky, who I now know is named Guy Spelunky
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/fighting/pc-gamings-very-own-indie-themed-smash-bros-just-added-the-guy-from-spelunky-who-i-now-know-is-named-guy-spelunky/
My favorite part of Smash Bros. isn't even really the fighting. It's seeing how in the hell you take characters like Minecraft Steve, Pac-Man, and that scum bastard dog from Duck Hunt and turn them into viable fighting game characters. If you feel the same way but wish there was more PC gaming representation in the platform fighting genre, I have great news for you: Guy Spelunky is here.
If you don't know Guy Spelunky, he's the guy from Spelunky. If you don't know Spelunky, it's the game that Guy Spelunky is from. Sorry, I meant to say that it's the universally acclaimed roguelike platformer we dubbed one of the best platformers on PC—and the guy from that game is now in Fraymakers, an indie take on Smash Bros. with a PC-centric roster. Developer Team Fray first formed while working on the browser game Super Smash Flash 2. Guy's joining the likes of Octodad, the Impostor from Among Us, and Hat Kid from A Hat in Time.