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

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The second part of the Monday gaming news:

Battlefield 6 is resurrecting a 20-year-old mode for a Top Gun crossover
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/fps/battlefield-6-is-resurrecting-a-20-year-old-mode-for-a-top-gun-crossover/
It took nine months, but Battlefield 6 is about to get its most requested feature. Naval warfare returns to the series on July 21 with the introduction of Tsuru Reef—BF6's new biggest map—a pair of boats, and more guns.
Perhaps more interesting is what's coming in phase 2 of Season 4 on August 18: OG Battlefield map Wake Island gets a modern update, complete with its aircraft carrier spawn points and beach assaults. At the same time, Battlefield 6 is hosting a Top Gun crossover that adds a new two-seater jet (styled like the films) and brings back a mode that first debuted in 2006's Battlefield 2142.

No, Modern Warfare 4's Gunny loadout assistant isn't a chatbot, but its developer is using AI elsewhere
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/call-of-duty/no-modern-warfare-4s-gunny-loadout-assistant-isnt-a-chatbot-but-its-developer-is-using-ai-elsewhere/
In an attempt to fix the bloated Gunsmith system of recent Call of Duty games, Modern Warfare 4 is introducing a new feature, Gunny. It's a little widget in the bottom right of the loadout screen that you can use to create loadouts for you. For example, it'll say "Hello, I can help you build a weapon when you have more attachments unlocked. Keep levelling your weapon," if you've got a brand-new weapon.
Naturally sceptical of a weird widget that communicates with you, Infinity Ward has been accused of using AI for this new system. (...)
Infinity Ward fired back, saying "Wrong (again.) Gunny is handcrafted by our developers, not AI. It recommends builds based on the attachments you’ve unlocked for each weapon. It helps make quick loadout changes between matches. Give it a shot in the Beta." For those out of the loop, that snarky 'again' refers to various incorrect leaks made by Hope which Activision has called out in the past. There's history.

Bethesda confirms Fallout 3 and New Vegas remasters, makes Obsidian collaboration official, and says Fallout 5 is in 'pre-production'
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/fallout/bethesda-confirms-fallout-3-and-new-vegas-remasters-makes-obsidian-collaboration-official-and-says-fallout-5-is-in-pre-production/
Less than two weeks out from massive Xbox layoffs that will put 3,200 people out of work, Bethesda Softworks has laid out its plans for the future, including confirmation of a new Fallout game from Obsidian and that remasters of both Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas are happening.
>> This news, of course, has prompted the traditional Todd Howard tells again that he doesn't have a grudge against Obsidian article (link).

Marathon game director leaves Bungie just 4 months after launch: 'I'll be heading to something new, somewhere else'
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/fps/marathon-game-director-leaves-bungie-just-4-months-after-launch-ill-be-heading-to-something-new-somewhere-else/
Just four months after the release of Marathon, game director Joe Ziegler has announced that he's leaving the game, and Bungie, effective today. His role will be filled by Del Chafe III, previously the assistant game director, who along with creative director Julia Nardin will "guide Marathon into the next chapter with an even better and brighter future."

Blizzard finally caved on Diablo 4's disastrous new season with a patch that reverts almost everything players hated: 'Not every idea lands exactly as intended'
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/rpg/blizzard-finally-caved-on-diablo-4s-disastrous-new-season-with-a-patch-that-reverts-almost-everything-players-hated-not-every-idea-lands-exactly-as-intended/
In what feels like an inevitable move to combat an avalanche of criticism over the new Diablo 4 season, Blizzard has dropped an emergency patch that alleviates all the frustrations at the cost of undoing the entire point of it.

Hytale releases massive preview of upcoming content including 22 videos and 37 new images
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/survival-crafting/hytale-releases-massive-preview-of-upcoming-content-including-22-videos-and-37-new-images/
Remember Hytale? The sandbox RPG blew up big when it launched into early access back in January, making so much in preorders that it secured funding for two more years of development. It was a real triumph because the game had been canceled by Riot after nearly 10 years in development, but was saved from the jaws of death by its creator, Simon Collins-Laflamme, who bought the rights to the game and continued to work on it.
Yet after such a strong launch, I pretty quickly drifted from Hytale because it's still in very early development and is far from feature complete. Even Collins-Laflamme said the adventure sandbox 'isn't good yet' in November of 2025, warning players not to buy it if they were expecting anything resembling a complete game.
Well, my interest in Hytale has quickly been rekindled because the team at Hypixel Studios just dropped a massive blog to show off some of its plans for Hytale's future. How massive? The new devblog contains about 4,000 words and features 22 new videos, with a few dozen new screenshots to boot. Wow.

Valve reassures Team Fortress 2 players that it's still working on the Mann vs Machine update it announced last year: 'We promise we're making progress'
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/fps/valve-reassures-team-fortress-2-players-that-its-still-working-on-the-mann-vs-machine-update-it-announced-last-year-we-promise-were-making-progress/
I'd completely forgotten Valve is working on an update for Team Fortress 2's cooperative Mann vs. Machine mode, though in my defence, it's been a long time since we last heard about it. The prospective patch was announced in June last year, via a blog post on TF2's official website that requested map and mission submissions from the community in time for this update—with a "fictional deadline" of August 27.
After that deadline passed, a brief progress report was provided in September. But for the past ten months there's been radio silence. Now though, Valve has provided another snippet of info on the patch's status on its blog. "We wanted to give everyone an update on the update we already gave on the update we're working on, and here it is: We're still working on the MvM update."

Raids just landed in solo 'simulated MMO' Erenshor
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/mmo/raids-just-landed-in-solo-simulated-mmo-erenshor/
If hell is other people, heaven might just be Erenshor—assuming you like old-school MMOs in the style of EverQuest, anyway. It's very much that style of game, but in a simulated solo world where other 'players' are just computer-controlled NPCs called simplayers. You can even party up and form a guild with them, which will come in handy now that raids are live.
They arrived last Monday in the Planar March patch, and solo developer Brian of Burgee Media called it "the biggest day for Erenshor since its launch" in the Steam community release blog.

007: First Light was originally going to be less about James Bond and more of 'an ensemble piece', with 'all the 00s working together, as they do in Slovakia'
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/action/007-first-light-was-originally-going-to-be-less-about-james-bond-and-more-of-an-ensemble-piece-with-all-the-00s-working-together-as-they-do-in-slovakia/
When I played 007: First Light earlier this year, one element of it stood out to me as unusual—and that is the arc relating to Bond's fellow 00 trainees, Cressida Bright and Lennox Monroe. IO Interactive puts a huge amount of work into building these characters, successfully selling you on the inherently bizarre concept of James Bond having flatmates.
Yet just as you warm to these characters, they vanish from the story, and after MI6's failed operation to eliminate the rogue 009 in Slovakia, Bond primarily teams up with his mentor, Greenway.
All of this is well portrayed. But the cadence of it nonetheless struck me as odd while playing. It turns out there might be a reason for this. IO Interactive initially intended for First Light to be less squarely focused on Bond, while his pals would have played a much bigger role in the story.
>> C’mon, IO. You get the license to make a James Bond game and your first plan is to make a game where he’s not the focus? Really?

Riot quickly backpedals on paid old-school skins in League of Legends Classic after backlash
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/moba/riot-quickly-backpedals-on-paid-old-school-skins-in-league-of-legends-classic-after-backlash/
League of Legends Classic, the new mode which remixes the MOBA by deleting most of the roster and restoring all sorts of old builds and character kits from 2013 and prior, has hit Riot's public test environment.
It's been met with mixed reception since then, in part due to its approach to old visuals—when the PBE version launched, players had modern character models, voice work, and spell effects by default, with "classic skins" unlockable with earned tokens or real money. A thread from user prime_desire with over 6,000 upvotes on the League of Legends subreddit called the mode "League 'not so' Classic," saying "honestly I would be embarrassed to release something like this. Charging for Classic Skins is genuinely wild."
That was reversed within a few days, with Riot's Brian "FeralPony" Feeney addressing feedback concerning the skins and more in a video blog July 16. "Feedback received," he said. "If you're on PBE, you probably already noticed that all classic skins are unlocked for all champions that have one." They've since been made the default option, replacing their respective champions' modern appearances.

The FMV game where you're a hamster being doted on by three Japanese sisters was inspired by its creator's job as an animal mascot, and Grand Theft Auto 5
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/visual-novel/the-fmv-game-where-youre-a-hamster-being-doted-on-by-three-japanese-sisters-was-inspired-by-its-creators-job-as-an-animal-mascot-and-grand-theft-auto-5/
Sweet Hamster Days was initially rejected by Steam, perhaps because Valve is more restrictive of games that feature sexually explicit images of real people, or possibly for some other reason we'll never know. As a designer called Oda told Automaton, "We still don’t know exactly how the platform saw things, but after revising details such as the age rating settings and re-submitting the game, it was eventually approved."
This is an FMV game where you die and are reincarnated as a hamster named Hamta, the pet of three sisters who seem to spend most of their time gazing lovingly into the camera while pretending to pat you on the head. "We're calling it a completely unprecedented genre," Oda said, "a kind of 'being-taken-care-of adventure game.'"

That Game of Thrones RTS is still coming, still very HBO, but no longer due out this year
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/rts/that-game-of-thrones-rts-is-still-coming-still-very-hbo-but-no-longer-due-out-this-year/
Game of Thrones: War for Westeros—the upcoming RTS from PlaySide emerging from the blasted wreckage of HBO's once-water-cooler-dominating fantasy TV series—would like you to know it still exists and is still coming out. Just, you know, a little later than it originally had planned.