The second part of the Tuesday gaming news:
Monster Hunter Wilds' Steam reviews absolutely tank as players lose patience with its technical woes: 'Every time the game gets updated my performance decreases'
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/action/monster-hunter-wilds-steam-reviews-absolutely-tank-as-players-lose-patience-with-its-technical-woes-every-time-the-game-gets-updated-my-performance-decreases/
Monster Hunter Wilds recently added a new raid boss from Final Fantasy 14, but all this seems to have done is brought some long-running player grievances to the surface. The game's Steam reviews have been absolutely tanking and the reason will surprise no-one who's played it: performance. I'm a Monster Hunter megafan and, when it released, Wilds ran so poorly for those opening weeks that it pretty much put me off.
The crossover update launched on September 29, 2025, and since then there have been just over 5,000 reviews posted, with just under 80% of those negative. The Steam reviews make for some grim reading, and what's especially notable is how many of them begin by talking about the reviewer's love for the Monster Hunter series, with the obvious comparison point of MH: World frequently used. The game's overall reviews are just about treading water at "Mixed" but those 5,000 "mostly negative" recent reviews are taking a toll. .
This 2025 shooter made in a decades-old Doom engine is gorgeous, fun, and tough as nails
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/fps/this-2025-shooter-made-in-a-decades-old-doom-engine-is-gorgeous-fun-and-tough-as-nails/
The best games ask big questions. Planescape: Torment asked what could change the nature of a man. Disco Elysium asked if, in dark times, the stars should also go out. Today, Mala Petaka asks: what if Doom was a gumdrop-sweet game they made in Japan in 1992?
Metal: Hellsinger studio The Outsiders is closing as part of Funcom's post-Dune: Awakening layoffs
https://www.pcgamer.com/gaming-industry/metal-hellsinger-studio-the-outsiders-is-closing-as-part-of-funcoms-post-dune-awakening-layoffs/
Ten years after it was founded, Metal: Hellsinger studio The Outsiders is closing. The news was delivered by studio founder and creative director David Goldfarb, who said in a message posted to Bluesky that the studio has fallen victim to the Funcom layoffs announced last week.
This 'brutally honest' city builder features greedy landlords, cutthroat corporations, and a newspaper that gives you 'a constant reminder that your citizens' bad luck is perhaps your fault'
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/city-builder/this-brutally-honest-city-builder-features-greedy-landlords-cutthroat-corporations-and-a-newspaper-that-gives-you-a-constant-reminder-that-your-citizens-bad-luck-is-perhaps-your-fault/
Oh, a new city builder? I know exactly how to get started. I'll drag a bunch of long roads across the map, slam in a ton of residential and commercial zones, slap down a fire house, a cop shop, and a few schools, then sit back and watch the virtual bucks roll in.
That approach usually works in city builders, but it's not gonna fly in Microlandia. This city builder, as described by its developer, explodi, is aiming to be "brutally honest" with its simulation, so it looks like my usual slapdash approach isn't gonna work.
In Microlandia, roads, usually the cheapest things to build in games, cost "thousands of dollars" per kilometer and represent "a huge investment for the city." Traffic jams aren't just a nuisance: citizens will literally get fired if they can't make it to work on time. And if someone can't pay their rent, they won't just conveniently skip town: they'll become unhoused, giving you a new problem to deal with.
Bungie shows Marathon proof of life with the announcement of another closed playtest
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/fps/bungie-shows-marathon-proof-of-life-with-the-announcement-of-another-closed-playtest/
Bungie has announced the next playtest dates for Marathon, the extraction shooter reboot of its pre-Halo scifi series. But while we might've expected an open beta after April's closed (but shareable) alpha test, Marathon's next technical test is once again running behind closed doors, and you'll need to apply for a slot.
Co-op dino survival horror game Deathground prepares to launch with one final reminder that, no, 'you won't be able to play as a dinosaur'
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/survival-crafting/co-op-dino-survival-horror-game-deathground-prepares-to-launch-with-one-final-reminder-that-no-you-wont-be-able-to-play-as-a-dinosaur/
I've taken a few peeks at Deathground since it was announced back in 2020: it's a co-op survival horror game where up to four players sneak and creep through an abandoned research facility, being stalked by ravenous dinosaurs every step of the way.
(...)
I'm not sure why, but at some point I started assuming Deathground was a bit like Dead By Daylight, and that in addition to playing as humans trying to survive the facility, players could also take on the role of one of the dinosaurs for a bit of asynchronous PvP.
I'm not alone in that misconception: it's apparently come up so often that the developers of Deathground put out a FAQ video before the game's early access launch Tuesday to dispel that myth. One of the first questions in the video is "Can I play as a dinosaur?" And the answer, unequivocally, is no.
Alien Isolation is way too long because its Xenomorph got way too smart: 'At the time it didn't seem that long'
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/horror/alien-isolation-is-way-too-long-because-its-xenomorph-got-way-too-smart-at-the-time-it-didnt-seem-that-long/
Alien Isolation is my favourite horror game, but it's too long and I think that opinion is near unanimous. When it feels like it's drawing to an end it just keeps going, and its protracted runtime is exacerbated by the fact that it's an unbearably tense experience. I adore this game, I swear I do, but boy could it have used a trim.
It turns out at least one member of the original dev team agrees. In a conversation with FRVR, Alien Isolation writer Dion Lay demonstrates that the outsize length of the game wasn't deliberate at all: it was because the Xenomorph AI got way too good.
Telltale-esque superhero management sim Dispatch was originally going to be a live-action TV show before it became a videogame, but then 'a thing called Covid hit'
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/adventure/telltale-esque-superhero-management-sim-dispatch-was-originally-going-to-be-a-live-action-tv-show-before-it-became-a-videogame-but-then-a-thing-called-covid-hit/
Dispatch is a game I'm genuinely quite excited for. Made by AdHoc studios, which contains quite a few former Telltale employees, Dispatch is a gorgeously-animated comedy about a washed-up Superhero managing a telephone dispatch for a bunch of reformed crooks and losers.
Aside from having a solid setup, it's also got a fun management sim tucked inside, which is a nice twist on the usual Telltale gambit of 'this is basically a choose-your-own-adventure book with quicktime events'. Speaking to PCG's Ian Evenden for our upcoming issue 415, however, creative director Dennis Lenart says it was originally designed to be a live-action series.
Peter Molyneux says 'We never took a penny of money from people' with his cursed cube game, contradicting Peter Molyneux who said it had made 'a few tens of thousands' in 2013
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/puzzle/peter-molyneux-says-we-never-took-a-penny-from-people-with-his-cursed-cube-game-contradicting-peter-molyneux-who-said-it-had-made-a-few-tens-of-thousands-in-2012/
Peter Molyneux, founder of Bullfrog and Lionhead Studios, is notorious for overhyping his games. Back in the day, when I was a lot younger than I am now, this was considered a kind of adorable foible—the guy just got so excited about the stuff he was making he couldn't help but make wild, unfulfillable promises about them.
That perception dramatically changed, I reckon, around the time of massively multiplayer Curiosity: What's Inside The Cube. It was a game in which, well, a lot of players all tapped on a cube, removing layer after layer until they eventually hit the centre. Molyneux promised the prize for the single player who reached that centre would be "life-changing".
>> I tried to reach the part in the headline, but it’s way too down in the article and there are too many paragraphs needed to quote for it to make sense.
Activision says 'Arc Raiders' censorship in Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 lobbies was unintentional and will be fixed
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/call-of-duty/activision-angles-for-the-most-petty-corporation-prize-by-censoring-the-name-arc-raiders-in-black-ops-7s-lobbies/
Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 is currently in an early access beta period, with the full release slated for 14 November. Activision's annualised treadmill is such a feature of the landscape now you forget it ever had serious competition, though this year EA's taking yet another crack at it with Battlefield 6.
The game that seems to worry Activision, though? Going by the chat function in Black Ops 7, it's Arc Raiders (due out on October 30).
The words "Arc Raiders" are censored in Black Ops 7 chat. PCG's Elie Gould tested it out, and when you try to type those words you just get a load of asterisks. Neither "Arc" nor "Raiders" is picked up like this, only the two words together.
Update: Activision says the block of "Arc Raiders" in Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 beta test lobbies was the result of text filter error. How exactly a mistake of that very specific nature happened was not shared, but the company said the error will be fixed soon, and may well be by the time you read this. (...)
Currently Online 
