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

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Tuesday gaming news, part two:

Modern Warfare 4 beta dates set for August, and this year Game Pass subscribers get no special treatment
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/call-of-duty/modern-warfare-4-beta-dates-set-for-august-and-this-year-game-pass-subscribers-get-no-special-treatment/
It's that time of year again: The next Call of Duty is on deck, and Activision's got the beta dates to prove it. Modern Warfare 4 won't hit the streets until late October, but the multiplayer beta begins a full two months ahead of time.
As usual, Activision is holding two beta weekends: One for those who pre-order the game and one for everyone else.

Path of Exile devs want it to be easier for new players, but still won't let you skip its 20-hour campaign every league—at least not yet: 'It feels very wrong to me'
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/rpg/path-of-exile-devs-want-it-to-be-easier-for-new-players-but-still-wont-let-you-skip-its-20-hour-campaign-every-league-at-least-not-yet-it-feels-very-wrong-to-me/
This week, Path of Exile will ditch a system that defined it for over a decade, making the action RPG considerably easier to approach for new players. The developers at Grinding Gear Games told PC Gamer that they're questioning everything that's sacred going forward, but apparently some things are still off the table—at least for now.
A major roadblock for new and returning players is PoE's lengthy campaign. Every new league, or season, you have to clear 10 acts before you enter the endgame, like a 20-hour tutorial. Veteran players can race through it in five or six hours, but most people need at least double that.

There's a dinosaur soulslike launching on Steam this week where you're a spinosaurus swinging a greatsword with your mouth who just might be able to parry the meteor
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/action/theres-a-dinosaur-soulslike-launching-on-steam-this-week-where-youre-a-spinosaurus-swinging-a-greatsword-with-your-mouth-who-just-might-be-able-to-parry-the-meteor/
It's taken centuries of human advancement, but soulslikes and demanding third-person action games have finally reached a level of cultural proliferation where we as a society can ask the all important question: What if the dinosaurs could have simply parried the meteor?
That's the tantalizing possibility suggested by Dinoblade, a probably paleontologically accurate soulslike launching on Steam later this week that portrays dinosaurs just as the fossil record tells us they lived: As big lizards getting into sick as hell swordfights by swinging around weapons they're holding in their teeth.
>> The article has a trailer, in case you want to give it a look.

Ubisoft promises Ghost Recon news in August, and if you're hoping that means an update on the Splinter Cell remake then I admire your optimism but sorry, no
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/third-person-shooter/ubisoft-promises-ghost-recon-news-in-august-and-if-youre-hoping-that-means-an-update-on-the-splinter-cell-remake-then-i-admire-your-optimism-but-sorry-no/
Less than a week after Ubisoft promised that a new Ghost Recon game is coming but probably not anytime soon, the company says it will mark the series' 25th anniversary in August with some proper news on what's coming next.
"It’s been a while Ghosts!" the announcement excitedly states. "We know some of you saw some updates, we’ll have more to say on the 6th of August when we celebrate the 25th Anniversary of Ghost Recon. Intel coming soon."

I'm very into this Papers, Please-esque puzzle game about identifying traitors to the socialist motherland
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/puzzle/im-very-into-this-papers-please-esque-puzzle-game-about-identifying-traitors-to-the-socialist-motherland/
Citizens! We live in times of unprecedented danger! We are beset on all sides by traitors and saboteurs. Reactionaries whisper treason in dimly lit rooms. Their mouths spew poison and lies that eat away at the foundations of the worker-peasant revolution, at the root of the world revolution itself.
And, worst of all, no one gave me a desk big enough to deal with it.
What Awaits, Aleksey? is a clever mystery/puzzle game that caters to all my specific obsessions. It's a Stasi simulator, more or less—you are Aleksey Lutomski, a recent hire at the security service of a fictional 20th-century communist state, tasked with identifying the members of an underground cell of dissidents who are going around saying mean things about the motherland.

The Witcher 3's expansion reveal is scheduled for next month
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/the-witcher/the-witcher-3s-expansion-reveal-is-scheduled-for-next-month/
CD Projekt Red sent us all scurrying for our calendars when it announced, last May, that 2015's The Witcher 3 would be getting a brand-new expansion in the year of our lord 2027. It's called Songs of the Past, it's set to be "a little bit closer to Blood and Wine" in terms of size, and it's being co-developed alongside Fool's Theory, the studio that's also remaking the first Witcher.
And that, for now, is pretty much all we know. But take heart, because 'knowing perhaps a small amount more' is just around the corner. In a post on X, CDPR announced that Songs of the Past would show its face as part of Gamescom's Opening Night Live event—the secret third Geoff Keighley annual thing which I forget about every year—on August 25.