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

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The Monday gaming news, the long part two:

Battlefield 6 is overhauling its gunplay next week, and it's adding one thing we've all asked for years on end
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/fps/battlefield-6-is-overhauling-its-gunplay-next-week-and-its-adding-one-thing-weve-all-asked-for-years-on-end/
EA's had a hard time juggling Battlefield 6 since launch. It was a record-breaking release for the series, but it quickly dropped off amid frustrations over map design, gunplay, and its seasonal structure.
Six months later, the team was hit with layoffs. Since then, we've been living in the 'we've heard your feedback' era, with Battlefield Studios promising seven new maps in 2026, including the remakes of your old favourites. While the playerbase seemingly hasn't recovered (at least looking at Steam concurrents), the community has perked up.
And the developers have just announced one of the biggest changes yet: overhauls to gunplay coming in update 1.3.3 on Tuesday, June 30. It's looking to address all of the complaints we've had with Battlefield 6 since launch. "Growing a game like this means more than just adding content: it’s about revisiting your initial vision and having honest conversations about how it should change," the blog reads.

As its much newer sequel struggles, the 13-year-old Payday 2 is getting a 'massive engine upgrade' that improves performance and cuts the install size in half
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/fps/as-its-much-newer-sequel-struggles-the-13-year-old-payday-2-is-getting-a-massive-engine-upgrade-that-improves-performance-and-cuts-the-install-size-in-half/
Back in 2025, Starbreeze turned its venerable heist-shooter Payday 2 over to a new studio, Sidetrack Games, so it could focus exclusively on trying to salvage the still-struggling Payday 3. Today we got our first look at the fruits of those efforts, and it's big news—not for Payday 3, to be clear, but for Payday 2, which is getting a major overhaul to its game engine.

Embark switches up Arc Raiders expeditions again, and this time it's giving away paid currency and precious blueprints
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/third-person-shooter/embark-switches-up-arc-raiders-expeditions-again-and-this-time-its-giving-away-paid-currency-and-precious-blueprints/
You can tell Embark is still figuring out what to do with Arc Raiders expedition wipes, because they keep changing every season.
The studio announced this week that the fourth expedition is completely changing the main incentive for wiping from permanent extra skill points to a mixture of premium currency and blueprints.

The game formerly known as Operation Flashpoint is getting a remaster, while developer Bohemia Interactive has released its engine source code
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/fps/the-game-formerly-known-as-operation-flashpoint-is-getting-a-remaster-while-developer-bohemia-interactive-has-released-its-engine-source-code/
When Operation Flashpoint launched in June 2001, it was one of the most ambitious games I'd ever played. One of the earliest military simulators, for me it was significant for being an open world game before the concept of open world games really existed.
(...)
Now, Operation Flashpoint is 25 years old. It's no longer called Operation Flashpoint of course, as that license is lying dead in a ditch somewhere near the Codemasters office. Nonetheless, beneath its new title, ArmA: Cold War Assault remains the same game it ever was, and developer Bohemia Interactive has a bunch of plans to celebrate.

The next game from the director of Blood West is a frozen survival shooter where you scratch a living off the decaying corpse of a god
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/survival-crafting/the-next-game-from-the-director-of-blood-west-is-a-frozen-survival-shooter-where-you-scratch-a-living-off-the-decaying-corpse-of-a-god/
Blood West is one of the better indie shooters to emerge in recent years, a dark Western spin on Stalker in which you roam dusty Badlands fighting eldritch horrors. The game's been well supported since its release in 2023, too, with developer Hyperstrange releasing a bunch of expansions, including the recent roguelike themed Scavengers DLC.
Yet while Hyperstrange continued to support Blood West, the game's director has been busy working on a new project. That was revealed earlier this week as Bloodwoven, and it looks to be something of a spiritual successor to Blood West, albeit much, much weirder.

Helldivers 2's next warbond is delayed, as Arrowhead says it 'needs more time to cook' following the shooter's massive progression rework
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/action/helldivers-2s-next-warbond-is-delayed-as-arrowhead-says-it-needs-more-time-to-cook-following-the-shooters-massive-progression-rework/
Big changes have been happening within Helldivers 2 of late. After tension within the community saw Steam reviews plummet to Mostly Negative, Arrowhead issued a statement promising a whole bunch of alterations to how the game works. Technical improvements! New red stratagems! And most importantly of all, a complete rework of how objectives and player progression functions.
Many of these changes have now been implemented, and they seem to have gone down well, with recent Steam reviews now at the upper end of 'Mixed'. But all that retooling may have had some knock-on effects for the game, as Arrowhead has announced that its next warbond is delayed.

Riot teases League of Legends Classic, with a full reveal coming in two weeks
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/moba/riot-teases-league-of-legends-classic-with-a-full-reveal-coming-in-two-weeks/
After a bunch of decidedly low-poly character models started leaking from League of Legends's public test servers, Riot decided to pull the ripcord: League of Legends Classic is real, though when exactly it will harken back to is yet to be seen.

Riot delays 'last hit indicators' in League of Legends ranked mode after fan response: 'We want to get more data and feedback'
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/moba/riot-delays-last-hit-indicators-in-league-of-legends-ranked-mode-after-fan-response-we-want-to-get-more-data-and-feedback/
Once you've lost a few thousand hours to a MOBA, it's easy to forget how hard it was to learn. A game like League of Legends has well over a hundred playable characters, all sorts of items and jungle monsters, and even the basics can be fussy. One of the most crucial is the zen practice of "last hitting," or swinging at a hostile creep right as it's about to die to get credit and gold for the kill.
While it's hard to get the hang of, Riot has been toying with a way to make last hitting easier for new players: last hit indicators. These indicators show the threshold at which a creep will be killed by one of your hero's autoattacks, making it easier to score kills if you don't have an intuitive sense of how much damage you're doing. While it's been quarantined in the game's casual modes for the last few months, patch notes from earlier this week stated the feature would be coming to normal draft and ranked play.
(...)
In response to the feedback, Riot announced in a post on X that it would pump the brakes on last hit assistance: "We want to get more data and feedback to decide if we should make them an option for ranked before making that call. So we’ll keep them enabled, but off by default, for swiftplay, co-op vs AI, and normal draft, to collect data and iterate." In other words, it may still come to ranked play, but it's no longer certain.

Palworld 1.0 update has '27 pdf pages of changes and additions,' says publishing lead
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/survival-crafting/palworld-1-0-update-has-27-pdf-pages-of-changes-and-additions-says-publishing-lead/
Palworld just keeps moving. It's postured to more or less shrug off its prominent legal battle with Nintendo, and it's reaching that glorious threshold any survival-craft game hopes to eventually cross: actually being done. Or if not done, complete enough to call it version 1.0 when it finally releases July 10.
It seems like it will be much more than a formality, too, according to a post from Pocketpair's communications and publishing head, John "Bucky" Buckley. "Losing my mind trying to make nice patch notes for Palworld 1.0," he wrote. "Who'd have thought that, *checks notes*, 27 pdf pages of changes and additions would be hard to make neat?"

As we stare down more $80 games, it rules that Star Wars Zero Company is $50
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/strategy/as-we-stare-down-more-usd80-games-it-rules-that-star-wars-zero-company-is-usd50/
Amid Star Wars Zero Company's gameplay and release date reveal at the 2026 Summer Game Fest, it somehow slipped by me that the squad tactics game from XCOM veterans also got an official price tag: $50. What year is it, 2005? Not only is this what Firaxis charged for XCOM: Enemy Unknown in 2012, it's less than the beloved XCOM 2's launch price of $60 a decade ago.

Quantic Dream's Star Wars: Eclipse is struggling: 'We're understaffed,' say devs
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/rpg/quantic-dreams-star-wars-eclipse-is-struggling-were-understaffed-say-devs/
You're forgiven if you'd forgotten about Star Wars: Eclipse. After being revealed with a flashy cinematic trailer in 2021, all we heard about Quantic Dreams' Star Wars game was the briefest of mentions in a blog post by studio founder and CEO David Cage last year, in which he said, "Of course, development of Star Wars: Eclipse continues, and we are eager to share more with you in the future."
Quantic Dream was also working on a live-service game at the same time, a MOBA called Spellcaster Chronicles, which suffered a fate all too common in the genre when the plug was pulled on it back in May. 115 staff who worked on it came in line for the inevitable layoffs.
As reported by French outlet Gamekult, Quantic Dream's employees say those staff are needed to help with a struggling Star Wars: Eclipse, and laying them off will hurt its chances of ever being finished. They went on strike during a studio visit by LucasFilm to get their point across.

Creative Assembly wants to know which factions you wish to play as in Total War: Medieval 3, but whatever you do, don't ask to play as the Pope
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/strategy/creative-assembly-wants-to-know-which-factions-you-wish-to-play-as-in-total-war-medieval-3-but-whatever-you-do-dont-ask-to-play-as-the-pope/
All eyes may currently be fixed upon Total War: Warhammer 40,000, Creative Assembly's ferociously ambitious foray into the 40k universe. But it's worth remembering that the more traditional side of Total War is looking pretty exciting too, as CA is returning to one of Total War's best settings in Medieval 3.
Medieval 3 is much earlier in development than ol' Total Warty K, but the CA has been surprisingly open with the community about its development thus far, regularly showing the game off in preproduction livestreams. Now, it's also fielding opinion on which factions should be playable in Medieval 3, asking fans to complete a survey about which nations, dynasties, and city-states they want to control the destinies of.

Invincible VS devs would like to have guest characters like Spider-Man and Sub Zero: 'If we have that opportunity, we will definitely take it'
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/fighting/invincible-vs-devs-would-like-to-have-guest-characters-like-spider-man-and-sub-zero-if-we-have-that-opportunity-we-will-definitely-take-it/
Whether you're talking about multiverse-upending event comics or that time Shadow the Hedgehog called Darkseid "pathetic," comic book stories love taking unrelated groups of characters and smashing them together. The same is true of traditional fighting games, where Ryu is as likely to be seen throwing fireballs at the Hulk or Minecraft Steve as he is at Guile.
Currently, superhero tag battler Invincible VS is limited to the world of Robert Kirkman's acclaimed Image comic—but let's say I'm tired of watching Battle Beast smash other Invincible characters into gore. I want to watch him smash my friendly neighborhood Spider-Man into gore. In an interview with MMORPG.com, game director Dave Hall and lead combat designer Bau Bautista agreed that sounds pretty neat.

Mina the Hollower will make her fighting game debut in a crossover next year
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/fighting/mina-the-hollower-will-make-her-fighting-game-debut-in-a-crossover-next-year/
Rivals of Aether 2 isn't the only Smash Bros.-esque fighting game on Steam, but it might just be the best—unlike the first game, though, it hasn't included any guest characters just yet. Even Shovel Knight, who appeared in the first Rivals of Aether game, was effectively succeeded by an alarmingly sexy shark man earlier this year (listen, I'm just reporting the facts). But next year, Yacht Club's newest retro-inspired icon, Mina the Hollower, will join the game's roster.

Sony games boss says company will bravely keep sending live services over the top, despite cancelling 8 of the 12 ones planned for 2025 and wiping out most of Destiny 2's developers
https://www.pcgamer.com/gaming-industry/sony-games-boss-says-company-will-bravely-keep-sending-live-services-over-the-top-despite-cancelling-8-of-the-12-ones-planned-for-2025-and-wiping-out-most-of-destiny-2s-developers/
Sony had a rough track record last year. As one of our contributors Rick Lane pointed out, the company had cancelled eight out of 12 live service games that were originally planned for 2025, including the trainwreck that was Concord—fast-forward to 2026, and it's called curtains on Destiny 2, a game just years prior I would've considered one of the most successful live service games on the market.
You'd be forgiven for thinking that Sony might intend to make less live service games. Forgiven, but also wrong.
That's per a recent Famitsu interview with Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO and president Hideaki Nishino, who told the site (the following quote is machine-translated): "We believe that live service games are content that attracts users on a global level, so we want to continue to revitalize the market through both first-party and third-party content.
>> And of course, those will be the games they’ll bring to PC.

CD Projekt rebrand makes things simultaneously simpler and more confusing
https://www.pcgamer.com/gaming-industry/cd-projekt-has-rebranded-to-make-things-simultaneously-simpler-and-more-confusing/
I confess, even after several years writing about videogames for money, I still have to pause sometimes and remember which CD Projekt is which. I use this handy mnemonic rhyme: If CD Projekt Red you see, that's the folks who made The Witcher 3. If CD Projekt alone you view, that's the parent company. Doo bee doo.
But I guess it's time for me to throw that rhyme out, because CD Projekt is rebranding itself as CD Projekt Red, bringing the whole enchilada under the same brand. "In the opinion of the Management Board, the new company name will ensure full brand consistency and facilitate the identification of the Company with its products on the global market," quoth the company in the relevant resolution.