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

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Thursday gaming news, part two:

No Man's Sky now has its own Death Star with a laser so big it can 'destroy space station sized objects'
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/survival-crafting/no-mans-sky-now-has-its-own-death-star-with-a-laser-so-big-it-can-destroy-space-station-sized-objects/
Who says you need a mouth-breathing psychopath in black armor and a gross, pale old ghoul in a hood to have a Death Star? No Man's Sky continues its seemingly endless parade of free updates today with The Swarm, which introduces a new threat to the universe: a massive space station called the Hive of Glass that controls an army of angry drones.
And yeah, like the Death Star, the Hive's got a really big laser, too. Here, I'll let Sean Murray tell you about it.

Zenless Zone Zero 'copied my puzzle game,' indie dev says, posts a pretty convincing video to prove it
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/puzzle/zenless-zone-zero-copied-my-puzzle-game-indie-dev-says-posts-a-pretty-convincing-video-to-prove-it/
You probably haven't heard of the indie puzzle game Ouros before now, but you may have seen it and possibly even played it in an altogether different game. That's because, according to Ouros developer Michael Kamm, MiHoYo "copied" the game and put it into Zenless Zone Zero, a claim he backed up with some solid video evidence.

Indie dev earns Reddit love after telling people not to buy their game because it's going on sale soon
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/battle-royale/indie-dev-earns-reddit-love-after-telling-people-not-to-buy-their-game-because-its-going-on-sale-soon/
Final Sentence is a "battle royale typing game," which is a weird idea but also one that sounds like it might be kind of fun, at least if you can type reasonably well. We first heard about it in 2025, when PC Gamer keyboard showboat Harvey Randall took it for a spin, finding potential but also that it was "a tad undercooked" at the time.
(...)
Six months after Harvey tried his hand at that pre-release build, Final Sentence launched on Steam, and while it hasn't been a huge hit, it's amassed a respectable "very positive" rating across nearly 800 user reviews. And now developer Button Mash is urging players not to buy the game—right now, that is.
"I want to make a short announcement about the upcoming sale so those who haven't bought the game yet can save a couple bucks for a coffee or a compressed air duster for your keyboard," the studio wrote (via GamesRadar). "Seriously, that thing is worth buying to clean years of dust and food crumbs out of your keyboard."

Marathon season 2 is kicking off with a free week so new players can try Bungie's extraction shooter out on a 'clean slate'
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/fps/marathon-season-2-is-kicking-off-with-a-free-week-so-new-players-can-try-bungies-extraction-shooter-out-on-a-clean-slate/
Marathon's second season is just days away from kicking off, and amid all the changes and hype its devs are spreading the word that its first week will be free to play for those prospective players who've been too stingy to try it out so far (me).

Victims of cheaters in Marvel Rivals will be refunded all the ranked points they lost if they report them thanks to NetEase's new Anti-Cheat Rank Compensation System
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/third-person-shooter/victims-of-cheaters-in-marvel-rivals-will-be-refunded-all-the-ranked-points-they-lost-if-they-report-them-thanks-to-neteases-new-anti-cheat-rank-compensation-system/
Being surprised at seeing cheating in online competitive multiplayer games is like being surprised at seeing a fish in the ocean, you're going to encounter some every now and then, that's just how it goes. But Marvel Rivals has had a particularly rough time with cheaters as of late. To stretch out the above analogy as far as it'll go, it feels like the salmon rush right now.
It got so bad even, with cheaters boasting about exploits, streaming and posting their crimes, alongside bad mouthing high elo players for their lack of skill that NetEase stepped in with a ban wave and confirmation that its anti-cheat system will be getting a hefty update. But some didn't think that was enough, and to be fair, it didn't massively address the issue many players are having in-game right now.
So to help ease things just a bit, NetEase announced a new anti-cheat rank compensation system that will rollout later this week: "We're sending the TVA to prune the cheaters! Our new Anti-Cheat Rank Compensation System will begin its trial run this week. If you encounter a cheater in your match, successfully report them, and the system verifies the cheat, you will be fully refunded ALL Ranked Points lost during that match. (Note: Placement Matches do not award points and are therefore excluded from this compensation)."

Paralives received 'over 100,000 big reports' in less than a week, as its creator reminds us that life sims are really hard to make
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/life-sim/paralives-received-over-100-000-big-reports-in-less-than-a-week-as-its-creator-reminds-us-that-life-sims-are-really-hard-to-make/
There's a reason that we're in 2026 and still see so few life sims on the market: they're incredibly freakin' hard to make. That's not just me spouting my opinion, it's something that the developers behind games like The Sims, Inzoi, and prematurely cancelled Life by You have said in the past. There are so many moving parts in the ways life sim characters interact with the world, their peers, and themselves. Making something functional, believable, and fun? It is not an easy task.
It's a sentiment that has now also been echoed by Alex Massé—creator of the newest life sim to hit our Steam libraries, Paralives. During a recent Q&A, the head of Paralives Studio delved a little bit into just how much goes on behind the scenes in an interaction as simple as instructing a Parafolk currently holding a baby to go to sleep.

Grim Dawn's gigantic final expansion will be out in July
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/rpg/grim-dawns-gigantic-final-expansion-will-be-out-in-july/
Fangs of Asterkarn was already shaping up to be Grim Dawn's biggest expansion last time I wrote about it, with designer Kamil 'Zantai' Marczewski boasting it would have "54 new bosses" and "cover approximately 3.55sq. km, which makes it roughly 110% as big as Ashes of Malmouth." That had grown to "up to 170% as big" when we got an update as part of Grim Dawn's 10th anniversary earlier this year, and it's turned out to be even bigger now that it's time for the release date to be revealed.