Thursday gaming news, part two:
Arc Raiders design director says players 'never worked together' in testing, but the emergence of care bear lobbies 'encourages us to lean toward giving opportunities to have friendly interactions'
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/third-person-shooter/arc-raiders-design-director-says-players-never-worked-together-in-testing-but-the-emergence-of-care-bear-lobbies-encourages-us-to-lean-toward-giving-opportunities-to-have-friendly-interactions/
Arc Raiders is a fascinating social experiment, and also occasionally a videogame. Even as someone on the outskirts, I've sunk hours into watching social interactions play out between rats and good guys, chucked into a pressure cooker where you can kill each other, but are never forced to.
Speaking to PC Gamer's own Tim Clark, design director Virgil Watkins says that the presence of these peace-loving raiders was a surprise even to the development team: "It is not at all how it was working in our tests, either for ourselves or the previous tests. It was hyper, hyper aggressive in those tests, people never worked together."
>> More Arc Raiders articles from that interview: matchmaking isn’t binary (link); the bosses die too fast because they’re not supposed to be fought by all the players in a server (link) and the machines aren’t actually learning (link).
DICE has 'heard the message very clear' and is now prioritizing larger maps for Battlefield 6, but 'it takes a really long time'
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/fps/dice-has-heard-the-message-very-clear-and-is-now-prioritizing-larger-maps-for-battlefield-6-but-it-takes-a-really-long-time/
Talk to anyone playing Battlefield 6 about what they'd like in the game right about now, and maps will certainly come up. Folks want more maps in Battlefield 6, but not just any will do—they want large ones with open space, lots of capture points, and support for air vehicles.
Too few of BF6's launch maps checked those boxes, and after months of vaguely saying it's listening to that feedback, DICE is finally saying it will also act on that feedback.
Todd Howard says there's no Starfield 2.0 coming: The next big update is for people who already love Starfield, and if you don't, 'I don't think this is going to change that'
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/rpg/todd-howard-says-theres-no-starfield-2-0-coming-the-next-big-update-is-for-people-who-already-love-starfield-and-if-you-dont-i-dont-think-this-is-going-to-change-that/
The concept of 'Starfield 2.0,' essentially a major update/overhaul of Bethesda's less-than-stellar sci-fi RPG, has been kicking around for quite a while now. Fans have been huffing the copium since at least the middle of 2025, and started hitting the pipe extra hard at the end of last year when it came to light that Bethesda had given content creators a behind-closed-doors look at what's coming next. But you should probably dial back your expectations: In a new interview with Kinda Funny, Todd Howard said the next update "is not Starfield 2.0," and warned that if you don't like the game now, that's probably not going to change.
>> Also from that interview, Howard said that Elder Scrolls 6 will return to 'that classic style' (link)
As Destiny 2's player count continues to tank, Bungie announces that the next major update is delayed until June and getting a new name
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/fps/as-destiny-2s-player-count-continues-to-tank-bungie-announces-that-the-next-major-update-is-delayed-until-june-and-getting-a-new-name/
With less than two weeks until the planned launch of the next major Destiny 2 update, Shadow and Order, it seemed a little odd that no one outside of Bungie had seen or heard a single thing about it. That silence, coupled with the update's proximity to Marathon—set to launch just two days later—led some fans to expect that a delay was inevitable. Sure enough, it's happened: Bungie has finally confirmed that Shadow and Order has been pushed back to June 9, and for some reason it's being renamed, too.
Devil Daggers 2 is in development, as its creator confirms fewer than 1,500 people survived longer than 8 minutes in the original
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/fps/devil-daggers-2-is-in-development-as-its-creator-confirms-fewer-than-1-500-people-survived-longer-than-8-minutes-in-the-original/
This time 10 years ago most of my PC Gamer colleagues were addicted to Devil Daggers, a lo-fi survival FPS whose grimy low-poly art style beat the current early 3D nostalgia wave by at least four years. It's pretty simple: you stand in a flat and featureless arena and fend off increasingly nasty waves of eldritch foes with magical daggers. The object is to stay alive for as long as possible.
(...)
For Devil Daggers' 10th birthday, creator Sorath has revealed that 1,472 people have survived 500 seconds in Devil Daggers without dying. More than 350,000 people have played the game in total, Sorath also confirms, so surviving that long is quite the achievement.
Sorath also confirmed that Devil Daggers 2 is currently in development. "Today seems like a good day to announce that we are working hard on Devil Daggers II," they wrote.
Avowed's massive anniversary update adds new playable races, but they don't get any unique dialogue because there were 'no dedicated narrative people available'
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/rpg/avoweds-massive-anniversary-update-adds-new-playable-races-but-they-dont-get-any-unique-dialogue-because-there-were-no-dedicated-narrative-people-available/
Avowed's 2.0 update, also known as the anniversary update, is a meaty one. New stat bonuses, custom difficulty modifiers, NG+, the new staff weapon type, a photo mode—it's a lot. The most significant new addition, though, is undoubtedly the arrival of three new playable races.
>> And Obsidian was surprised that people “bounced off one of the RPG's most important systems” (link).
WoW's classes were pruned for Midnight because many were 'built in a world' where its devs assumed they'd be using addons
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/world-of-warcraft/wows-classes-were-pruned-for-midnight-because-many-were-built-in-a-world-where-its-devs-assumed-theyd-be-using-addons/
World of Warcraft recently embarked on the massive undertaking of redesigning all of its many specialisations to work without the assistance of UI mods (addons) for Midnight—mods which previously automated a ton of the complexity of its classes.
(...)
I recently got to speak with associate game director Paul Kubit about all things Midnight but, in particular, this simplification—and I'm assured it's a constant work in progress.
I romanced a hunky British man with a shotgun for a head in a game that lets me have 'US government approved pronouns' like Jamestown, grits, and freedom
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/visual-novel/i-romanced-a-hunky-british-man-with-a-shotgun-for-a-head-in-a-game-that-lets-me-have-us-government-approved-pronouns-like-jamestown-grits-and-freedom/
Developer Scope Creeps warns me as I boot up gun dating simulator Polyarmory: High Calibre Love that it is a team very much dedicated to the bit, and I didn't have to go any further than its options menu to figure that out.
For starters, there's a toggle for BDSM clowns—much appreciated for those of us more fearful of the circus—but there's also options for those oh-so-scary pronouns. You can turn them off, if you like, and Polyarmory will helpfully cross out anything that comes close to assigning you a gender. Or, if you're a true patriot, you can turn on USA pronouns and experience the entire game with handy substitutes like BOSTON, APPLE PIE, EAGLE, and PROSECUTE FAUCI.
Understandable AI paranoia has inspired a developer to change the handcrafted character art in its upcoming sim: 'They look a bit AI'
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/sim/understandable-ai-paranoia-has-inspired-a-developer-to-change-the-handcrafted-character-art-in-its-upcoming-sim-they-look-a-bit-ai/
Generative AI sucks for so many reasons, from its impact on the environment to the skyrocketing cost of RAM, but in my day-to-day life the most frustrating side effect is that whenever I look at an image online, a piece of art, or even a video, I have to wonder if someone's trying to pull the wool over my eyes.
We've had to become extra vigilant, paranoid even, to keep out AI slop. There's even a subreddit dedicated to people asking, "Is this AI?" And this is why Transport Fever 3 developer Urban Games is making some changes to its sim's character art.
Currently Online 
