The slightly longer than usual second part of the news:
Spelunky creator comes out against god modes in brutal games like his because 'The amount of satisfaction one gets from succeeding eventually is incredible'
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/roguelike/spelunky-creator-comes-out-against-god-modes-in-brutal-games-like-his-because-the-amount-of-satisfaction-one-gets-from-succeeding-eventually-is-incredible/
The question of difficulty is a bizarrely high-voltage third rail in videogame discourse. You can barely mention finding an Elden Ring boss a bit tough on social media without sparking some sort of global diplomatic crisis: Fathers denounce sons, sons denounce brothers, daggers are drawn and before you know it everyone is intensely angry and accusing one another of trying to kill videogames forever.
So I salute the bravery of Spelunky creator Derek Yu, who's been musing about the issue of videogame difficulty—specifically, whether it's a good idea for games to include easy-to-access god modes for players who get stuck—over on Twitter (via GamesRadar).
The First Descendant's tutorial robot is talking so fast, players are having to screenshot its dialogue just to learn about the game
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/third-person-shooter/the-first-descendant-s-tutorial-robot-is-talking-so-fast-players-are-having-to-screenshot-its-dialogue-just-to-learn-about-the-game/
The First Descendant (TFD), Nexon's take on Warframe-slash-Destiny, has been doing pretty well in terms of raw numbers. Hitting a mightily-impressive all time peak of around 260,000 players, the game does look a little derivative of Bungie's live-service giant—to the point where both games went to the same pool of free-to-use icons, an entire wasp's nest fellow PC Gamer writer Andy Chalk appears to have stubbed his toe on yesterday.
(...)
The consensus appears to be that it's "Nexon makes Warframe", which has all of the baggage and boons you might expect out of that summary. Annoying free-to-play practices abound, with players alleging that the game's also got quite a few bugs under the hood.
The funniest one, at present? The tutorial is also a reading speed test—at least, in the English translation. As displayed by user Yellowexz on the game's subreddit, the "Descendant Instructor", a robot meant to convey vital info about TFD and its mechanics, seems entirely unwilling to actually let you learn anything:
The Helldivers smash their latest MO and for some reason have taken against anti-tank mines, but 'can finally go back to killing bugs in good conscience'
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/action/the-helldivers-smash-their-latest-mo-and-for-some-reason-have-taken-against-anti-tank-mines-but-can-finally-go-back-to-killing-bugs-in-good-conscience/
Helldivers 2 may have slowed the pace of updates after a breakneck launch period, but that hasn't meant a pause in the ongoing galactic war and the major orders that herd these overarmed cats around their target planets. The latest focused on liberating X-45, apparently home to a mysterious "interplanetary battle station", with over half the player base at any given time pouring in there to give the Automatons a bullet buffet—and we did it.
>> By the way, the CEO wants to keep the fall damage bug I posted about yesterday.
Overwatch 2's Transformers collaboration is a dream come true for Blizzard Korea's lead concept artist: 'The coolest gift I could give my childhood self'
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/fps/overwatch-2s-transformers-collaboration-is-a-dream-come-true-for-blizzard-koreas-lead-concept-artist-the-coolest-gift-i-could-give-my-childhood-self/
Overwatch 2 has been on a bit of a roll lately with its IP collaborations. After transforming some of the heroes into beloved characters from Cowboy Bebop and harnessing the dread power of K-Pop, the next item on the agenda is a Transformers crossover that'll see a few Overwatch heroes take the shape of iconic Autobots and one fearsome Decepticon.
Konami releases Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance on GOG but bizarrely stops the Japanese game being sold in Japan
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/action/konami-releases-metal-gear-rising-revengeance-on-gog-but-bizarrely-stops-the-japanese-game-being-sold-in-japan/
(*** a long intro***)
(…) The GOG version of MGR: Revengeance launched on July 4 and was available for purchase in Japan, but removed shortly afterwards. Konami subsequently issued a statement to Japanese outlet Game*Spark saying: "There was a setting error on the GOG side, so the game was temporarily available for purchase in some Asian regions. We apologize for any confusion."
>> The game can’t be bought in Japan on Steam either.
Bungie is making a drastic change in response to player complaints about timegating in Destiny 2
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/fps/bungie-is-making-a-drastic-change-in-response-to-player-complaints-about-timegating-in-destiny-2/
Once again, Bungie has listened to the fans and heard the feedback, and as a result it's making a pretty big change to how it delivers story content in the second Episode of Destiny 2's Final Shape expansion: Instead of spacing out major story beats on a weekly cadence, it's going to drop all them at once at the start of each act, so players can take on the narrative content "at whatever pace they want to play it."
Apex Legends gets the ol' Steam review bomb treatment
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/battle-royale/apex-legends-gets-the-ol-steam-review-bomb-treatment/
The new Apex Legends battle pass scheme isn't going over well.
(…)
Apex players are now expressing their dissatisfaction using the standard method: dumping negative Steam reviews on the game. The battle royale shooter has accrued over 1,300 negative reviews so far today, dropping its recent review score average to "Mixed."
>> A more appropriate response would be stop playing the game for good, but whatever.
Somehow, Suicide Squad biffs it again: Just 2 days before it was set to go live, season 2 is delayed
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/action/somehow-suicide-squad-biffs-it-again-just-2-days-before-it-was-set-to-go-live-season-2-is-delayed/
Back in 2016, Paul Lilly wrote one of my favorite PC Gamer headlines ever: "Watch this guy biff it in real life while rock climbing in VR." It came to mind again earlier today, not in regards to virtual rock climbing but Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, which at the very last minute has slammed the brakes on the launch of its second season.
'It's time to rebuild some foundations': Shadowlands forced Blizzard to rethink World of Warcraft's oldest ideas to make it a better MMO, director says
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/world-of-warcraft/its-time-to-rebuild-some-foundations-shadowlands-forced-blizzard-to-rethink-world-of-warcrafts-oldest-ideas-to-make-a-better-mmo-director-says/
World of Warcraft's developers did an abrupt about-face after largely refusing to acknowledge player feedback during the Shadowlands expansion that nearly killed the game. With the MMO's 10th expansion, The War Within, on the horizon, game director Ion Hazzikostas told PC Gamer that Blizzard is more willing than ever to re-examine WoW's basic systems to stay in tune with what players want.
New free-to-play survival game Once Human isn't basking in praise, but it does have an unnecessarily granular character creator with no guard rails
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/survival-crafting/once-human-character-creator/
Free-to-play survival game Once Human launched on Steam today, and after playing the NetEase production for an hour, my main observation is that the feeling of uncertainty and discovery that the survival genre used to be all about has lately been replaced with tutorial screens and boring exposition—the price of popularity, I guess! It's possible that Once Human opens up after you get past the copper ingot crafting lessons, and I've seen some cool monster designs so far, so that's a positive. Some of them were even of my own making.
In Dragon Age: The Veilguard, your companions earn skill points as you rank up their 'Relationship Level'
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/rpg/in-dragon-age-the-veilguard-your-companions-earn-skill-points-as-you-rank-up-their-relationship-level/
The great Dragon Age drip-feed of mid-2024 continues. Recent revelations have included the fact the long-awaited fourth game in the series will be entirely offline and won't have microtransactions, will be mission-based rather than open world, and will have difficulty options granular enough you'll be able to turn off death entirely.
The latest note via Game Informer explains that each recruitable companion will have a "Relationship Level" that can be leveled up, and each time you do they'll earn a skill point. That level isn't just for measuring the strength of romantic relationships either, and can be improved by helping characters overcome difficulties and solving their personal quests.
Baldur's Gate 3's spell tooltips have been lying to you for (potentially) months, though if you've been running off the % chance to hit, you're just fine
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/baldurs-gate/baldur-s-gate-3-s-spell-tooltips-have-been-lying-to-you-for-potentially-months-though-if-you-ve-been-running-off-the-chance-to-hit-you-re-just-fine/
If there's one thing Baldur's Gate 3 players know, it's that Sacred Flame, Shadowheart's starting offensive cantrip, almost never actually lands. Players have been trying to figure out the arcane maths behind this most accursed of spells which, by all accounts, should probably hit some of the time—but it remains a mystery.
This morning, however, I stumbled upon a thread on the game's subreddit that appears to have found the culprit, decrying Sacred Flame's lack of accuracy as a mirage. The conclusions drawn don't appear to be exactly right, but in investigating this myself, I've confirmed that Baldur's Gate 3's spell tooltips are indeed bugged—and may have even been this way for months.
'Our artists draw thousands of sketches': Palworld's CEO, seemingly exhausted by AI art accusations, once more tries to put them to bed
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/survival-crafting/our-artists-draw-thousands-of-sketches-palworld-s-ceo-seemingly-exhausted-by-ai-art-accusations-once-more-tries-to-put-them-to-bed/
It's been a while since Palworld was taking, well, the world by storm. A rip-roaring 2 million concurrent players has simmered down to a humble-but-hearty 30,000 on average, with a recent leap to 90,000 at the time of writing owing to its recent major update. A continued success by any metric.
Still, part of that initial hullabaloo involved anger over Palworld's pals—who were, if you listened to the peanut gallery, either direct rip-offs of Pokémon or AI-generated slop. As I mentioned back in January, though, these were mostly based on sheer vibes and Pocketpair CEO Takuro Mizobe being really excited about AI pokemon back in 2021 (which, in fairness, is pretty suspicious—but raised eyebrows aren't evidence).
As you might have noticed, though, it's 2024 now—and Mizobe seems to have a dimmer attitude towards the tech writ large, as hinted by a recent tweet (translated and spotted by Automaton).
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