Innholdsfortegnelse for May 2019 i PC Gamer (US Edition)

You don’t know what success feels like until you’ve tanked the biggest internet pipeline into San Diego for a week minimum. Sure, most online games have network issues on day one, but in 1999 EverQuest wasn’t just coughing out innocuous error codes. It was so popular that the internet provider hosting its servers had to physically run more cables to Los Angeles just to accommodate the tens of thousands of players dying to explore its cutting-edge 3D world. “We used it all,” laughs John Smedley, one of EverQuest’s creators. “All of it. It was the largest internet connection into San Diego, and it was constantly going down. It messed up internet here in San Diego for a good solid week.” During that seven-day nightmare, every corporation on that network had their online operations…

The joy of a singleplayer card game like Slay the Spire is that it puts absolutely and utterly brilliant broken combos within your grasp. It feels good to deal 50 poison damage to something. But it feels even better when you drop a series of cards that sextuples that amount of poison, kills an enemy, and triggers a corpse explosion that cascades splash damage to all of the other things that are trying to kill you. Slay the Spire has zeroed-in on this feeling of linking cards together to produce avalanches of damage, defense, or utility. Plenty of games put this domino-effect sensation at the center of their gameplay loop, like when you collect enough Diablo gear to unlock some obscene damage multiplier, or when you Call enough Duty to temporarily become…

Around 200m away is an Interesting Hole. I know this because I put a beacon in it and labelled it “Interesting Hole”. This is because when I found the interesting hole—actually a promising series of openings leading further into in a biome of beautifully twisting rock formations—I was low on food, water, and health. I needed to swim back to the safety of my little survival pod and sort myself out before braving an interesting hole. Below Zero is the spawn of 2018’s success story, Subnautica. Subnautica is a spectacular alien underwater survival sandbox from Unknown Worlds. Below Zero is one of those “expandalone” projects where the developers can work on ideas related to the main game, but in a separate space, so without the same constraints and without the…

No offence to Sweden (lovely country; fantastic meatballs), but the place is pricey. I once spent a week there on someone else’s dollar, and even then wound up wincing every time I ordered some smörgås or toast Skagen, let alone an extortionately taxed beer. In the penniless post-Christmas slump, it’s fairly safe to say that I won’t be jetting off on a Scandi vacation. Or any other type of vacation, to be honest. Thankfully, I have a solution—Skyrim, aka gaming’s greatest holiday resort. I mean, the cart ride to the executioner’s block is arguably a far more promising start to a trip than the scrum of boarding a budget flight. Once you’re free to go your own way, this expansive swathe of north Tamriel has all you might need to mentally…

I’ve never played a videogame quite like Broken Reality. Set in a virtual world that reminds me of the primitive 3D chat rooms I used to frequent in the early 2000s, with a slathering of vaporwave, it’s hard to pin down exactly what it is. It has puzzles, quests, dialogue, exploration… but, really, it’s its own thing. One of those games that’s impossible to pigeonhole—and I’m immediately smitten by its surreal, subversive spirit. If you’re a fan of the vaporwave aesthetic, you’ll feel right at home here. This is a world of jagged polygons, chequerboard floors, Roman columns, Win95 error messages, and lots of hot pink and teal. But while vaporwave is often clumsily appropriated by people who don’t really understand it, it’s clear the people behind Broken Reality do. And…

HOLLOW KNIGHT www.hollowknight.com I’m bad at Hollow Knight. Actively terrible at it, in fact. But I still go back time and time again because its underground bugscape is so eerily beautiful. Hollow Knight 2 has now been announced, so perhaps that’s the impetus I need to finally get to the end. And if not, it’ll be more stunning locations and foes to enjoy as I die. OPUS MAGNUM www.zachtronics.com/opus-magnum Do you know the quickest way to find a more efficient solution to one of Opus Magnum’s alchemy-themed puzzles? Post a gif of your solution online, and wait. You will immediately find out what you did wrong whether you like it or not. Whether you learn from that feedback or throw the internet in the bin is up to you. DARK…

BATMAN: ARKHAM ASYLUM/CITY/KNIGHT The Batman: Arkham series created a distinctly gritty version of the character and his rogue’s gallery, to the point that new media was able to be licensed from Rocksteady’s twist on the franchise. MIDDLE-EARTH: SHADOW OF WAR Taking liberties with the Lord of the Rings canon brought change to a familiar universe, for better (playable black badass Baranor) and worse (human Shelob). ALIEN: ISOLATION Treated like a valid addition to the Alien mythology and disconnected from the schedule of any other media, Alien: Isolation injects a gorgeous, sprawling, and terrifying interactive experience into the margins of the Aliens universe. THE DARKNESS An adaptation of comics published by Top Cow, games about The Darkness ditch much of the wider supernatural machinations of its world in favor of grounded,…

Warhammer Vermintide II: Winds of Magic WARHAMMER: VERMINTIDE II WAS SO SUCCESSFUL THAT IT TOOK ITS SMALL SWEDISH DEVELOPER BY SURPRISE. AFTER THE STRONG SALES AND CRITICAL ACCLAIM CAME BUG REPORTS AND COMPLAINTS, MISSTEPS, AND DEMANDS. ITS COMMUNITY IS HUNGRY FOR MORE, AND—AFTER A YEAR OF MAKING ADJUSTMENTS AND LAYING INFRASTRUCTURE—FATSHARK IS READY TO DELIVER. WITH VERMINTIDE II: WINDS OF MAGIC, THE ENDGAME HAS ARRIVED. It’s easy to get carried away,” says CEO Martin Wahlund. “You’re proud of the game, you’re proud of the reviews, and then suddenly you get scared as well. People are playing it!” After Vermintide II’s release, Wahlund found himself reacting to every bug report and complaint. At one point he messaged the team late at night because of an error report that, upon investigation, was down…

Sure, a tactics games starring mecha and kaiju being PC Gamer's 2018 Game of the Year. Who could have seen that coming? Beyond the minute to learn, lifetime to master gameplay, Into the Breach's composer Ben Prunty wanted to evoke those Pacific Rim vibes while avoiding cliches or having the music be all awkward by coming in at the wrong moment. EXAMPLE: Early on in development, Into the Breach had music playing almost constantly. The intense guitar strings of Prunty's soundtrack originally played over the section where players place their mechs on the battlefield, which felt wrong. Prunty changed it so the game would stay silent until your last mech dropped, the tension released, and the music signaled the drama of a new fight. READING MATERIAL: https://bit.ly/2BNxaN HOMEWORK: When composing…

We have a Marvel Cinematic Universe, so why not a Failbetter Interactive Universe? The third game in the world of Fallen London also has its share of daring heroics in the face of impending doom, but instead of saving the world you’re usually trying to save yourself. In a place where time comes in barrels and souls in jars, where the horrors of the skies can cause you to lose your marbles, it’s probably easier to lapse into villainy. Not least when food supplies run out, and your crewmates begin to look awfully tasty. The follow-up to Sunless Sea is in keeping with Failbetter Games’ fondness for putting players into crisis management mode from minute one. As second in command to a dying captain, you’ve got to guide your tired locomotive into…

Welcome back to Kamurocho, the city district where nearly every problem can be solved by punching. A conman tries to scam you out of money? You can punch your way through that. A retired judo pro requests a tour of local nightlife? Yet more punching. An eccentric gangster engineers a series of increasingly elaborate attacks in an attempt to provoke you into fighting him? You get the idea. Your oath brother murders the head of your crime family? That’s a slightly trickier problem to solve. Instead, series protagonist Kazuma Kiryu decides to take the fall, resulting in a ten-year prison sentence and his expulsion from the Tojo Clan. Kiryu returns to Kamurocho in 2005, only to learn that Nishikiyama—the man he willingly gave up a decade of his freedom for—has…

Civilization VI: Gathering Storm turns climate change into an end boss. After thousands of years of progress and expansion, the surviving civilizations have another hurdle to jump over, one that’s ostensibly greater and more complex than any they’ve encountered before. It throws plans into disarray, transforms the map and can’t be overcome by armies or culture. It’s the most exciting Civilization has been in ages. For most of history, civs have barely any impact on the climate. It’s not until resources like coal and oil start being exploited that CO2 emissions start to increase and transform the map, mostly through rising sea levels. Bad weather, earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions, however, can interfere with your empirebuilding plans whenever, so nature is a persistent adversary. The very first choice you make after picking a civ—there…

Going back to this game is bittersweet, like finding a lost hamster between the cushions of your sofa. Yes, it’s been dead for years—but by God, you loved it while it was alive. It’s nice having all those happy half-memories creep back, even if they are accompanied by the wistful realization we’re unlikely to see the likes of Crimes and Punishments again. The culprit in this case is an awkward sequel. Sherlock Holmes: The Devil’s Daughter stripped away much of what was lovable about Frogwares’ detective game, turning Watson into a latte-art version of himself, and adding edge where none was needed, like a Pomeranian in plate armor. Crimes and Punishments, however, still feels like the cosiest adaptation of Conan Doyle. Holmes is crisp and aloof, like a digitized Jeremy Brett. Watson…

So far I have accidentally chopped off half my bonsai tree, accidentally landed myself with a horrible pot for my bonsai tree, and accidentally transformed it into a completely different bonsai tree after spending nearly an in-game decade getting the first one to grow in pleasing directions. I’d say this is about 25 percent Tree.Bonsai’s fault and 75 percent my fault. Looking at it from the outside, you’d think Tree.Bonsai is a relaxing game. A slow progression through seasons as you choose which branches of a plum tree to prune and which to encourage as you shape your plant. From the inside it’s a battle of wills. On the one hand there is you, the benevolent gardener who only wants to relax in nature. On the other is a tree seemingly…

Believe it or not, learning Dota 2 is easy. Not in the sense that it is straightforward, comprehensible, or painless. I mean easy in the sense that it is slightly less angry at you for wanting to know what’s going on. I mean easy in the sense that people like me will tell you that you’ve never had it so good. We had to walk two miles in the Frostivus snow to find a match, and whittle our own Force Staff by hand, and no one had even heard of Purge and his useful video tutorials. Dota Auto Chess—a spectacularly popular custom game mode by Drodo Studio—is a return to that initial bafflement. “You can pick dota heros as your chesses,” says the blurb, “and they will automatically fight for you on…

1 SOCIAL STRUCTURE NPCs are divided into different classes, guards, civilians, witches etc. 2 RELEVANCE When the player points the heart at a character, it plays a random phrase from the appropriate class. 3 UNIQUENESS It then checks off that NPC, so it won’t play two phrases for a character. 4 GENERALITIES If the heart is pressed without pointing it at an NPC, it instead provides a more general phrase about the world.…

Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers Always being the goody two-shoes hero in Final Fantasy XIV is getting a little tiresome. The Warriors of Light have spent five years and two expansions defending Eorzea from the evil Garlean Empire. But with Shadowbringers, it’s time to fight fire with fire. The future of the world depends on it. FIRST LOOK PEOPLE SCREAM WHEN FAN FAVORITE CHARACTER Y’SHTOLA TAKES THE SCREEN At least, that’s what I think is happening. The story of Shadowbringers, Final Fantasy XIV’s third expansion that launches on July 2, 2019, is wrapped up in a maddening blanket of riddles that I can only speculate over. What happened in the interim between the current Stormblood expansion and Shadowbringers to bring about a calamity that threatens to destroy the world? Why does that calamity necessitate…

Making video games has never been more accessible, but it still comes with plenty of challenges. You'll I need to learn how to implement your grand ideas, how to tell your story effectively, and for most of you, work well with others. Thankfully, no budding developer is forced to go alone in this big, scary world of programmers, artists, and designers. That's where these amazing schools come in. The only thing better than having someone help you achieve your dreams is havingthat person be someone who's got all the expertise and wisdom you'll need to take your first steps. More and more schools are offering game design programs, and The Princet on eview has done all the heavy lifting of stacking them up against each other to see which will fit…

We press H to pay respects now. My good friend JohnnyBadNews, who I’ve never met, just let me know they found a level-three scope for my Longbow DMR. The selflessness—they found it in a dead player’s inventory, noted that I was using a Longbow, and let me know it was there—all without saying a word. I pick it up and a prompt appears on my screen, “Press H to thank JohnnyBadNews.” My index finger hits that H with the firm yet gentle assurance of a hug. I think we all now know what the H stands for. I shouldn’t be feeling this nice. Apex Legends is a lot like most battle royale games. You drop from the sky onto an island, sweep the floor for weapons and gear, and scramble…

After two games spent in the claustrophobic gloom of the Moscow Metro, it’s a strange sensation, at least for a Metro game, to be suddenly staring across a vast, sun-bleached desert. Exodus is a post-apocalyptic road trip through a nuke-blasted Russia, and an arid expanse of what was once the Caspian Sea is one of a number of locations visited by Artyom and his band of survivors. But even with blue skies and the closest thing you can get to clean air in this grim, dead world, survival is still an everyday struggle. I say road trip, but your primary mode of transport in Metro Exodus is an old Soviet era steam train called the Aurora. The game begins in familiar surroundings—the shattered, radioactive ruins of Moscow, and the labyrinth of tunnels beneath it.…

You’d think a nuke being dropped on Montana would have changed it somewhat, but Far Cry New Dawn’s postapocalyptic version of Hope County is essentially the same one we know from Far Cry 5. New Dawn adds a couple of new twists to the series’ formula, but nothing to make it feel like a wholly different game. This is Far Cry 5 again, just on a smaller scale, and with a lot more pink flowers. It’s years after the nukes fell at the end of Far Cry 5, and your nameless character has been traveling the country by rail, helping survivors rebuild the post-apocalyptic United States. A group of highwaymen (not that cleverly called the ‘Highwaymen’) derail your train, and leave you stranded. After making your way to a small community called Prosperity, you venture out…

After the honking awfulness of The Quiet Man, it seems sensible to revisit Square Enix’s second most famous misstep. It starts well enough. A tidy montage during the intro tells you everything you need to know about spookcop protagonist Ronan O’Connor—he did Bad Crimes when he was younger, but reformed and became a police officer. He dresses like he browses YouTube offering unsolicited critiques on bean roasting videos, and his wife is already dead, which saves everyone the trouble of her almost certainly getting fridged later on. Murdered: Soul Suspect is a very serious game, then, and it’s determined to show us at every opportunity. Despite this, I don’t hate it. Salem is the ideal location for a spooky detective story (let’s be honest, it was there or New Orleans). And…

I’ve broken back into old habits. One particularly old habit, to be exact. Going into the new year, it’s not been Overwatch rounds that fill the time between shifts. I’m not chasing my usual high scores in Nuclear Throne or sailing through No Man’s Sky’s stars. I’m not proud, but for the last two months, my go to game has been Team Fortress 2. I’m knee deep in the hats. Lets Plays and live commentaries dominate my YouTube feed, and I’ve cracked open the old Source mapping tools for the first time in years. It’s time to party like it’s 2009—I’m going to find the fortress time forgot. That first night begins with the basics. A lot has changed in the half-decade since I played this game regularly. These days, you can check off some boxes—maps,…

GET THE RIGHT GEAR 1 Good aim doesn’t require the latest hardware, but it helps to have at least a decent mouse and mousepad. Don’t break the bank, you can get a solid mouse for less than $70 (find the best ones at bit.ly/pcgmouse), and a mousepad for $15. SIT COMFORTABLY 2 To aim properly you’ll need to be relaxed, and have space to move both your arm and wrist freely. Sit with a straight back and ensure your elbow is roughly level with your mouse and mousepad, or a little bit higher. IDENTIFY YOUR WEAKNESSES 3 You need to know where to focus your efforts. Record some gameplay (instructions at bit.ly/pcgrecorder) and watch it to identify what you’re doing wrong. Overshooting your targets? Panicking under pressure? It’s important to…