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

[JEMC]

Monday gaming news, the second part:

WoW's quest to add variable difficulty to just about everything continues in Midnight patch 12.1's Mythic world bosses, though there's a catch
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/world-of-warcraft/wows-quest-to-add-variable-difficulty-to-just-about-everything-continues-in-midnight-patch-12-1s-mythic-world-bosses-though-theres-a-catch/
Patch 12.1 is on the horizon, and it looks like we were right—that ominous monologue Zul'jan had during World of Warcraft: Midnight's main story quests was absolutely a setup for the next major patch. Curse of Ula'tek is going to take us to The Coiled Isle, where we'll be digging further into the troubled history of the Amani trolls.
One surprise from the patch is the inclusion of Mythic+ world bosses via lairs, as explained in the overview video below.

Guild Wars 3 is 'significantly more' of an MMO than the first game, but that doesn't mean it's like GW2: 'All three of our games can coexist as different experiences'
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/mmo/guild-wars-3-is-significantly-more-of-an-mmo-than-the-first-game-but-that-doesnt-mean-its-like-gw2-all-three-of-our-games-can-coexist-as-different-experiences/
Guild Wars 2 is one of the biggest MMOs going, but it's a sequel to a game that's just barely an MMO—the original Guild Wars is more of a mission-based ARPG with shared town hubs that feels like an MMO due to its huge roster of character classes and /dance emotes. When a game like Guild Wars 3 gets announced, an obvious question follows: will it be an MMO or not?
According to a blog post from ArenaNet studio head Colin Johanson that went up earlier this week, the answer is yes, but with an asterisk. In the post, he lays out the studio's taxonomy for the first two games. The first Guild Wars game, Johanson reckons, was a "cooperative online RPG," but when everyone started calling it an MMO, ArenaNet followed suit. The second is a true-blue MMO that was always intended to toy with the genre's conventions.
As for the third? It "lands near the middle of the MMO spectrum … While it fits the definition of an MMORPG significantly more than Guild Wars Reforged does, it doesn't try to replicate the large-scale gameplay pillars that so uniquely define Guild Wars 2."

Guild Wars 3 isn't the only new Guild Wars on the way: ArenaNet just announced a Guild Wars card game
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/card-games/not-content-with-guild-wars-3-arenanet-and-ncsoft-just-announced-a-guild-wars-card-game/
The endless online battle of Guild Wars is about to spill over the borders of the MMO genre. Having only just announced Guild Wars 3 earlier this month, ArenaNet and its parent NC has revealed that it's also taking the series into an entirely new genre, through an official Guild Wars card game called Mistbound.
Mistbound is licensed by ArenaNet and developed by NC with the involvement of bilibili—the Chinese equivalent of YouTube.

The creator of Ultima is reportedly reclaiming the series' rights back from EA, and it could happen as soon as next year
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/rpg/the-creator-of-ultima-is-reportedly-reclaiming-the-series-rights-back-from-ea-and-it-could-happen-as-soon-as-next-year/
Ultima is one of PC gaming's most important cultural touchstones, with Richard 'Lord British' Garriot's roleplaying series blazing trails across numerous genres. The mainline CRPGs received critical acclaim for their rich, dynamic worlds, while spinoffs like Ultima Underworld and Ultima Online were key texts in the evolution of immersive sims and MMOs. Ultima's influence still echoes through to today, with Ultima 7 being a major inspiration for Larian Studios when developing Divinity: Original Sin and Baldur's Gate 3.
Yet it's been a long time since Ultima itself was a going concern. The keys to the series have been in the pocket of Electronic Arts since 1992, when Garriott sold developer Origin Systems to the publisher. While some good Ultima games were developed afterwards—most notably Ultima Online—the series has largely been left dormant by EA, barring a couple of ill-fated experiments like 2010's Lord of Ultima and 2013's Ultima Forever. But it's possible that may soon change, as control of the series could return to Garriott in the near future.

The team behind bullet hell FPS Luna Abyss just got laid off, less than a month after the game's release
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/fps/the-team-behind-bullet-hell-fps-luna-abyss-just-got-laid-off-less-than-a-month-after-the-games-release/
When PC Gamer senior editor Wes Fenlon wrote about Luna Abyss last month, he said it left him "already hoping for more of its kind." Sadly, it doesn't look like that will happen—the entire team that made it has just been laid off.
The news came in the form of a LinkedIn post from Kwalee Labs CEO Hollie Emery posted June 16. "The entire team has been made redundant; a decision that was completely outside of our control," Emery said.

Marathon players are amassing way too much loot in Season 2, and the primary cause is a mystery: 'We're still unravelling the source'
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/fps/marathon-players-are-amassing-way-too-much-loot-in-season-2-and-the-primary-cause-is-a-mystery-were-still-unravelling-the-source/
Season 2 of Marathon kicked off earlier this month, and thus far it's been a season of ups and downs. Things started badly, with Bungie's traditional launch woes undermining its free-to-play week. But new features like the Night-time Dire Marsh map and its Sponsored Survival quickly proved hits popular with the community.
A few weeks in, however, new problems have emerged. Basically, progression in Marathon has become too easy, which is ironic considering the game's formidable reputation. Where you felt lucky to extract with anything of value in Season 1, Season 2 players have apparently been hoovering up so much loot that their vaults are overflowing with goodies, throwing the game's economy into disarray.

RPG studio Obsidian faces class action lawsuit alleging violations of state wage laws
https://www.pcgamer.com/gaming-industry/rpg-studio-obsidian-faces-class-action-lawsuit-alleging-violations-of-state-wage-laws/
Obsidian Entertainment, developer of Fallout: New Vegas, Avowed, and The Outer Worlds, is being sued in a class action lawsuit that alleges it "engaged in a systematic pattern of wage and hour violations under the California Labor Code and Industrial Welfare Commission ('IWC') Wage Orders."

Persona 4 Revival's overhauled combat looks splashier and easier than ever, though I'm a little worried about those dungeons
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/rpg/persona-4-revivals-overhauled-combat-looks-splashier-and-easier-than-ever-though-im-a-little-worried-about-those-dungeons/
When Atlus announced its remake of Persona 4 (or more accurately, of Persona 4 Golden), a cry went up around the land. Mostly, I think people were rightly excited about Kanji Tatsumi in 4K, but there are a few peccadilloes in the original game's design that some folk—including here at PC Gamer—were eager to see Atlus iron out. Namely, those dungeons, which in P4 and P4G were quite the slog: a series of procgen corridors that went on for around 10 floors each.
"I think Persona 4 Revival should veer off from Reload's changes," wrote our Mollie Taylor last year. "Each of its dungeons are the perfect vessel to go full Persona 5 style. Palaces that serve as grand setpieces for each character, handcrafted to get real into the weeds of their insecurities and internal conflict."
I'm not sure Atlus has gone quite that far. From the snippets we see in its recent Persona 4 Revival Broadcast, Yukiko's Castle and the Bathhouse both look to be the many-floors-of-corridors affairs of the original games, though I don't doubt Atlus has put in more events and NPC dialogue to spice up the grind, much as it did before in Persona 3 Reload. To be fair, we only get a brief glimpse, so perhaps the studio has something more up its sleeve, but that design looks very familiar to me as someone who has experienced a lot of Persona 4 over the years.