The second part of the gaming news:
3 months after the release of Directive 8020, Supermassive Games is laying off even more people
https://www.pcgamer.com/gaming-industry/3-months-after-the-release-of-directive-8020-supermassive-games-is-laying-off-even-more-people/
Three months after the release of Directive 8020, Supermassive Games is laying off employees. In a brief message posted on X, the studio said it has begun a redundancy process that will see up to 75 of its people put out of work.
A long-lost Lord of the Rings action RPG makes a surprise return to Steam
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/action/a-long-lost-lord-of-the-rings-action-rpg-makes-a-surprise-return-to-steam/
16 years ago, we used a trailer for the then-upcoming action RPG Lord of the Rings: War in the North to drop a sick burn on people who maybe take their Tolkien a little too seriously. The game launched a year later, in 2011, to middling reviews and disappointing sales, and there it sat until the delisting process began in late 2018; SteamDB indicates it got the axe on Steam the following February.
But now it's back, which you already knew because you read the headline, in a Legacy Edition version, with enhancements including hot-swappable characters, refined enemy-target locking, an improved interface, new autosave feature, and numerous bug fixes.
Saber Interactive denies replacing writer with ChatGPT on its new driving game, but says it will use AI for dialog 'as the number of passengers in the game is infinite'
https://www.pcgamer.com/software/ai/saber-interactive-denies-replacing-writer-with-chatgpt-on-its-new-driving-game-but-says-it-will-use-ai-as-the-number-of-passengers-in-the-game-is-infinite/
Saber Interactive's upcoming Rideshare "Stimulator" drew some eyeballs today when Saber CEO Matthew Karch confirmed that its trailer includes a hidden jab at Gearbox boss Randy Pitchford. But that same trailer sparked a grimmer reaction from former lead writer Stella Sacco, who said on Bluesky that she was replaced on the project by ChatGPT. Saber, however, denies the claim, saying that no writers were replaced with AI "for Rideshare or any other game."
This week's most compelling new Steam game is Horse Magnifier, which is about magnifying horses
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/puzzle/this-weeks-most-compelling-new-steam-game-is-horse-magnifier-which-is-about-magnifying-horses/
If you scroll down to Popular New Releases on Steam right now, you'll find a quintessentially 2026 list of games. There's Shelves & Sorcery, a new entry in the burgeoning sortslop genre. There's Landscaper Simulator, which is a simulator about landscaping. The War in the North reissue is there, and there are at least two incremental games, which is not a lot compared to normal.
Possibly that's because Horse Magnifier: The Full Horse landed on Steam this week, throwing all norms into disarray. As the name implies, it's a game about magnifying horses. The trailer bears this out: horses are shown being magnified or else distorted—not what I came here for!—alongside a '90s evoking drum 'n' bass soundtrack.
>> The article has a screenshot and the trailer, and the only thing that came to my mind after seeing them was this: Why?
Lego shut down a Bionicle fangame 8 years in the making—1 year later, its developers are back with something legally distinct and arguably cooler
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/action/lego-shut-down-a-bionicle-fangame-8-years-in-the-making-1-year-later-its-developers-are-back-with-something-legally-distinct-and-arguably-cooler/
It's always heartbreaking when fan projects get axed—but one sorrow from last year was Bionicle: Masks of Power, which was shut down by Lego after it had peacefully co-existed with it for eight whole years. The project, a fully-fledged third-person action game by Team Kanohi, had attempted to thread the needle by playing nice with Lego's rules on fan-made media.
Unfortunately, eight years is a long time—and as Kanohi said back then, "the Lego Group's stance on fan-created media has changed." It was some genuinely impressive work, and you can see a full two-hour gameplay walkthrough of what could have been below.
But there's still hope for that original vision. Team Kanohi has rebranded to the appropriately-titled "Unmasked Games", a studio that's working on something called Rustbound.
As the site reads: "Rustbound is an upcoming third person action-adventure game from Unmasked Games set in an entirely original world," in other words, it's likely that Unmasked Games has hit its eight years of prior work with the legally-distinctification beam, a feat that's likely taking a ton of work to pull off—but will at least preserve the skeleton of what was there before.
>> The article has both the 2 hour video of the former project and a teaser trailer of the new game.
After giving it 2 patches and dropping it like a stone, Bethesda promises to bring Switch 2 optimisations to Oblivion Remastered on other platforms
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/the-elder-scrolls/after-giving-it-2-patches-and-dropping-it-like-a-stone-bethesda-promises-to-bring-switch-2-optimisations-to-oblivion-remastered-on-other-platforms/
Oblivion Remastered has led a rather odd post-release life. The closest we've got to a new Elder Scrolls since 2011 released in April last year, received a fair amount of acclaim, then essentially went silent. It twitched into activity a couple of times in the months following its release for patches 1.1 and 1.2, but since then? Nada, and the game still has its fair share of performance woes and missing quality-of-life features.
But take heart, because a year after its last patch, Bethesda has remembered it released an Elder Scrolls game. In the wake of Oblivion Remastered's Switch 2 release—which reportedly runs rather well—the studio took to X to promise players that it's working on getting the improvements it made for the game's Switch version ported over to other platforms.
Marvel Tōkon's first big PC patch has mostly fixed performance woes, though it hasn't done much for its Steam reviews
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/fighting/marvel-tokons-first-big-pc-patch-has-mostly-fixed-performance-woes-though-it-hasnt-done-much-for-its-steam-reviews/
Marvel Tōkon—the all-out 4v4 tag fighter from 2D fighting game veteran ArcSystem Works—didn't get off on the best foot with PC players. Forced PSN logins and frame drops that were leading to a whopping eight frames of rollback in online modes saw the game launch to "Mixed" reviews, before eventually tanking to "Mostly Negative" over the weekend.
And while there's zero chance of the PSN stuff going away, ArcSys has at least been speedy about trying to tackle those pesky frame drops. A patch earlier this week has done the bulk of the work on optimising performance, leaving the game a helluva lot smoother for it.
Crimson Desert has done so well it'll be getting a DLC this year, with more details coming sooner than I expected given Pearl Abyss' breakneck pace
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/action/crimson-desert-has-done-so-well-itll-be-getting-a-dlc-this-year-with-more-details-coming-sooner-than-i-expected-given-pearl-abyss-breakneck-pace/
Crimson Desert, while often a chaotic, systems-drowned game—is also rather good, if you're into chaotic and messy things. Its brand of delightfully irreverent overstimulation charmed my pants off when I went to see it pre-release, and it's certainly captured the hearts of a few of us here at PC Gamer.
(… some talk about sales and money made by the game…)
Anyway, if you're one of the people who made up that number, you've got some DLC to look forward to, as the letter reads: "Crimson Desert is preparing key initiatives, including DLC, strategic pricing, and platform expansion, to ensure long-term success … The DLC is currently under development scheduled for release this year while we refine its content direction and overall quality. Specific details regarding pricing, content composition, and launch timing will be officially announced in 3Q26."
Since there's only one short format article, I'll also post it here:
In a fascinating use of free will, Old School RuneScape player spent 4,304 hours catching 275,196 shrimp and 257,064 anchovies to max out his fishing skill in the worst way possible
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/mmo/in-a-fascinating-use-of-free-will-old-school-runescape-player-spent-4-304-hours-catching-catching-275-196-shrimp-and-257-064-anchovies-to-max-out-his-fishing-skill-in-the-worst-way-possible/
>> In case you’re like me and are wondering how much is 4.304 hours, I’ve made the numbers: it’s 179 days and 8 hours.
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