Innholdsfortegnelse for Holiday 2021 i PC Gamer (US Edition)

HIGHS Cookie monster Cookie Clicker has come to Steam, and immediately topped the charts. Furry friend A hamster picking buying and selling crypto at random has made a 20% return on his investments. Runescape reversal Runescape developer Jagex tried to shut down the Runelite HD mod. After a fan outcry it later announced it would help out the creator instead. LOWS The settlers Activision has settled for $18 million over allegations of workplace discrimination. Opaque Windows With bizarre error messages and a muddled response from Microsoft, Windows 11 launch has been a mess. Crikey New Zealander Charles Upham is ‘reimagined’ as Australian Lucas Riggs by Call of Duty: Vanguard. Kiwis aren’t happy.…

For many game developers, becoming a quest designer on the Witcher series would be a dream come true. For Pawel Miechowski, however, it was a sign he was in the wrong place. The Polish writer had been working on a smaller project, which was cancelled as CD Projekt piled as many bodies as it could onto the franchise that would make its name. “I’m a big fan of The Witcher, but being a quest designer is totally not my thing,” he says. “I felt kind of lost. I decided to quit.” A bunch of Miechowski’s friends found themselves in a similar boat, and quickly founded 11 Bit Studios. “Bits are always even, 2-bit, 4-bit, 8-bit,” Miechowski points out. “Beginning with the name, we wanted to make unconventional connections.” That approach…

NEED TO KNOW RELEASE February 22, 2022 DEVELOPER Sloclap PUBLISHER In-house LINK sifugame.com Kung fu brawler Sifu is about “mastery through practice”, and after watching a gameplay demonstration, I can confirm that beating up an entire apartment building like Iko Uwais is going to take more than button mashing. But make too many mistakes on this singleplayer revenge journey, and you’ll age into dust before gaining satisfaction. NEW INFO Sifu looks and sounds similar to Absolver, developer Sloclap’s previous game—those thwap thwap thwap hit effects are still super satisfying—but its fighting system isn’t a copy. Absolver’s combat involved a cool moveset customization menu where players could mix-and-match combat styles and build combos that flowed between stances, and Sifu doesn’t have an equivalent. All of Sifu’s moves are inspired by Pak…

NEED TO KNOW RELEASE October 26, 2021 DEVELOPER Eidos Montreal PUBLISHER Square Enix LINK bit.ly/39FDczI My family holidays have a lot of chaotic energy. My memories of childhood trips abroad are always of arguments, getting lost, someone storming off and not being seen for a whole day, getting assaulted by local wildlife, and that one time a cowboy proposed to my gran. Playing Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy is just like going on a Brown family holiday. HANDS ON Marvel’s cosmic heroes are in a bit of trouble with the space cops—this is around five hours into the game—otherwise known as the Nova Corps, and must take a detour to a precinct to pay a fine. When we arrive, naturally things go awry. It’s deserted, our ship gets impounded, and…

The Mongols were a fascinating civilization, spreading in all directions from the barren plains of the Steppe in a dust cloud of horses, yurt encampments, and a whole lot of pillaging. Yes, the Mongols killed an unthinkable number of people, but they were also brutal pragmatists who would much rather their enemies capitulate so they could recruit their finest generals, thinkers, and troops to their cause. And if you refuse to surrender? Well, don’t say they didn’t warn you… This meant that by the late 13th century, with much of the world from China to Hungary under its control, the Mongol empire was incredibly diverse—religious freedom, a super-squad of international generals, and prestigious scientific institutions that attracted scholars from Persia, China, even Greece. Beyond Genghis Khan’s marauding years, the Mongol…

Kena: Bridge of Spirits is a looker, and the Pixar comparisons that have been flying around are justified. The lush world and its inhabitants radiate with personality. Even the bulbs of corruption that plague the land are oddly attractive. Kena’s got the Hollywood looks down, but it’s also got the Hollywood determination to play it safe. It’s a well-made but conventional action adventure game that does nothing you haven’t seen before. Kena is a spirit guide who helps souls move on from the mortal plane. This means searching three areas for relics, clearing corruption, and defeating lesser unfriendly spirits on the way. Seeking out relics to gently move a soul on, I can understand, but repeatedly hitting them in the face with a stick? That seems rather unorthodox. Shows what…

Set in a world where humanity is clinging on in pockets of civilization, Eastward follows the exploits of John—a silent miner who uses a frying pan for both cooking and hitting people—and Sam. They develop a father-daughter-like relationship as they eke out a living in the underground town of Potrock Isle, however they’re soon exiled to the wastelands of the surface world after causing a bit too much trouble. And the world above isn’t what The game takes a lot of inspiration from retro RPGs and the likes of Earthbound, Zelda, and Studio Ghibli, and features a mix of puzzles and action-based combat across beautifully desolate locations. You’ll explore the world via stops on a strange train track as you uncover the dark secrets plaguing this charming pixelated world. There…

There’s a moment in Life is Strange: True Colors where protagonist Alex angrily throws a bottle across a room, and it smashes against a wall. Her rage is white-hot, and only lasts an instant before melting away. Her brother, the only family she has, is dead, and she’s now just discovering his death might not have been an accident. The pain is too much, and it overwhelms her. True Colors is about the power of emotions—both good and bad. Where the series has previously dabbled in time travel and telekinesis, Alex’s superpower is that she can see people’s heightened emotions, and even absorb them into her body, relieving them of their anger, sadness, and anxiety if she chooses. If a person is feeling an overwhelming emotion, she can see their…

Look lively! The British have arrived. Among other geopolitical transgressions, we’re here to pilfer your treasures and store them for safekeeping in the British Museum. The good news? Entry is free, and you can buy a commemorative pencil-with-eraser on the way out. Much easier than storing priceless relics in your own country. We’ll even deal with any supernatural threats while we’re at it, just so long as you let us keep the valuables. Tally ho! This isn’t the exact premise of Strange Brigade—there’s more emphasis on defeating unspeakable forces than burglary, and it’s softened by the presence of Malai warrior Nalangu—but it speaks to how utterly daft it all is. An already farcical premise becomes funnier with historical context. A team of gun-toting, predominantly-British treasure hunters travel to distant lands,…

If Stanley Tucci was a game, he’d be Grim Fandango: a smart, erudite puzzler that somehow manages to combine hard-boiled 1930s fantasy and Día de los Muertos into one compelling package. It shouldn’t work. And in the wrong hands it could have ended up eel-flavored ice cream. But work it does, combining into something classy and intoxicating, like a negroni mixed by a Hollywood bartender. In Manny Calavera we have a genuinely compelling PC hero: Flawed, funny, and engaging. And as well as looking and sounding sharper, this version even has tweaked controls to make it more manageable for modern hands. 88…

As an XCOM obsessive currently on a Marvel kick, I couldn’t be more excited for Firaxis’ upcoming Midnight Suns. But with the game still months off, I’m having to find other ways to satisfy my lust for turn-based tactics. I never really gave spin-off Chimera Squad a chance back when it surprise-launched. The more substantial Gears Tactics launched around the same time, and sucked me in with its novel premise and chunky gunfights. By the time I’d finished that, global protests against police brutality were in full swing, making the game’s flippant approach to gunning down alien criminals feel distasteful. I couldn’t get through a level without cringing, and quickly put it down. Coming back to it now, it feels like a stepping stone between XCOM and Midnight Suns, with…

ALBION Yes, it’s a primitive, gloomy land of perpetual drizzle and barbarians. But also: henges! ESTALLIA Warm weather, abundant seafood, cheap housing… and a major rat problem. BRETONNIAN Perhaps Archaon came to the land of knightly virtue for a sampling of its fine wines? THE MOOT Basically the Shire. Why make war when you can have second breakfast and smoke pipeweed? THE FALLEN GATES Don’t bother, pal. Surly locals, horrible climate. It’s honestly not worth the trip.…

One of the most wonderful things about the evolution of esports is that these days, any game can be a contest. Long gone are the days where ultracompetitive ventures like Dota 2 or Counter-Strike are the only ways to enjoy high-level gaming. This was evident when at the beginning of August, Stardew Valley creator Eric Barone announced the first-ever Stardew Valley Cup—a tournament that would pit four teams against each other for a $40,000 prize pot, donated by Barone himself. The objective was to take on 100 challenges within three hours and to try to complete as many as possible, with each challenge offering a different number of points depending on its difficulty. Small things like naming a chicken after Barone would net a team ten points, while more difficult…

NEED TO KNOW RELEASE October 26 DEVELOPER Heart Machine PUBLISHER Annapurna Interactive LINK heartmachine.com There’s a moment, near the end of my recent hands-off preview of Solar Ash, where an inky black monster clambers over the moon and utterly fills the screen. Our protagonist, a Voidrunner named Rei, dashes over the shells that make up its hide, skating between weak spots like the boss was a level itself. NEW INFO It’s at this point that Heart Machine founder Alx Preston says, “This is the smallest boss by an order of magnitude.” Solar Ash shares plenty with Preston’s previous work, the beautiful and singular Hyper Light Drifter. Both feature dream-like pastel worlds, a haunting Disasterpeace soundtrack, and a fashion sense that heavily favors masks. But over the course of our demo,…

NEED TO KNOW EXPET TO PAY £11.40 DEVELOPER niceplay games PUBLISHER tinyBuild LINK potioncraft.com Potion Craft is all about alchemy. You run a medieval potion store, brewing and selling an array of powerful beverages, ointments, and other arcane liquids. You’ve rocked up to a new town hoping to get your business up off the ground, all the while experimenting with different elixirs as you go. PLAYED IT It’s a humble job, but one Potion Craft makes incredibly fun. It’s a game that will bring out your inner merchant, whether you’re a proud artisan only making the finest products, a scoundrel who cons customers with overpriced goods, or—if you’re like me—a mischievous hag with an evil cackle who drives a hard bargain. The abandoned wizard’s hut you’ve moved into has everything…

AGE OF EMPIRES II: AGE OF KINGS (PS2) Sony’s obelisk isn’t something you immediately associate with Age of Empires. Get around the UI which occupies about 70% of the screen, and it’s a functional port of the game that you could play with a friend via the i-Link cable. AGE OF EMPIRES: AGE OF KINGS (NINTENDO DS) The DS proved its worth as a strategy platform with Advance Wars, so Age of Empires wisely mimicked that formula, going turn-based and doing a great job of it. There were five civs with five campaigns, and even a multiplayer mode. AGE OF EMPIRES III (NOKIA N-GAGE) Sadly, we were unable to contact anyone who owned an N-Gage to find out if this was any good. What we do know is that it…

Arkane Studios is calling me out. It knows how I played Dishonored 2—quickloading away any mistake in pursuit of a perfect stealth playthrough. And given that almost 30% of Steam players have the achievement for finishing a mission without being spotted, I suspect I’m not alone. Despite having a suite of tools, we ignored them in favor of the most OP button on our keyboard: F9. With Deathloop, quicksave is gone. Deathloop is all about what happens when things don’t go to plan; about panic and improvisation; about learning from a mistake, and taking those lessons forward. Trapped in a time loop, it doesn’t matter if you botch your way through combat encounter after combat encounter—it doesn’t even matter if you die and get kicked back to the beginning of…

Diablo II: Resurrected moves at two speeds: You are either carving through swathes of undead with impunity, or you’re navigating each fork in the road with taut reluctance, nursing the small puddle of red in the bottom left corner of the screen. Action-RPGs are a known quantity in 2021, so what I most appreciated about my return to Blizzard’s classic was the way it made me fear the dark again, with no friendly checkpoints to save me. Diablo II came out in 2000, and Resurrected represents the first new game in the franchise since the release of its sequel in 2012. The basics are all in place. You will take control of a lonely warrior—picked from one of seven different classes—who are condemned to wander Blizzard’s arid, Old Testament wasteland.…

Don’t let Dice Legacy deceive you, as it did me. It’s not a chill city builder, with a couple of quirky features and nascent roguelike elements. No, it’s a pitched battle for survival, pitting your dicey tribe against the winter and, eventually, a rival settlement. You’re not (just) building a cute medieval town by plonking dice down on a dizzying ringworld planet—you’re building a machine to take your enemies, The Others, down. You’d be forgiven for thinking otherwise, given how sedately Dice Legacy starts. Parking your ship by a curved landmass, you soon go about the usual colony stuff: Building a house and assigning workers to essential tasks. Food needs to be hunted, wood gathered, and so on. But here, your people are represented by colorful dice. Exploiting the land…

Francis Vendetti is in a bit of an artistic rut. He’s a teenage musical prodigy given the opportunity to continue the legacy of his dead uncle, a legendary folk singer who could spin poetry from a few guitar twangs. But Francis’ musical ambitions lie in a different type of music—the cosmic kind. He dreams of rock and roll riffs so epic they’ll traverse dimensions, and jams so extreme they’ll create rifts across the galaxy. The Artful Escape is a story-driven platform adventure about Francis’ journey to guitar stardom. In his quiet Colorado hometown, the community is expecting him to continue his uncle’s musical tradition and have planned a debut show that will kick start his career. But on the night of the performance, he gets whisked away on a strange…

The Asian palm civet is a type of small mammal native to native to Southeast Asia. It’s notable for its role in the production of kopi luwak, a tremendously expensive luxury beverage. The shy, cat-like civet ventures forth from the jungle and feasts on the finest coffee cherries. But it can’t digest the coffee bean, so it craps them out, imparting a smoothness to the roasted coffee that connoisseurs celebrate, and the resultant brew is sold for exorbitant prices. And there’s something about this long, unlikely, decadent process that reminds me of Cuphead. Every time I down one of the game’s elegant enemies I feel a shudder of guilt, like I’m knocking back kopi luwak as if it were lukewarm Maxwell House with two sweeteners. Luckily, Cuphead is hard as…

Rounding off our 1930s theme is a Nancy Drew mystery that feels like it’s set inside an animatronic seaside attraction. It’s expansive for an elderly puzzle game, but it’s still adorably basic. In a world of mouse-and-keyboard shooters it feels odd going back to a game where a 360° turn is like rotating a shipping container. It’s the quintessential Drew game, packed with mild peril and the suggestion of supernatural mystery. Two points for the pie puzzle. 64…

Total War was my retirement game. I’m sure we all have a series like it. I was going to sit around in a cardigan, reading classic detective novels, and pinching castles in Medieval II. When I had the time, I was going to spend it getting into strategy games. But, having grabbed Total War: Warhammer II cheap in a sale, I thought I’d get ahead of myself, and carpe the diem. The series has always seemed daunting, but maybe a bit more approachable now it has ratmen and undead ancient Egyptians in it. And besides, there is now an industry of YouTubers telling me how to be good at it. So I watched the tutorial videos, read the getting started guides, and spent hours tinkering with my gaming laptop so…

We are, as a society, addicted to many things. Tiktok, Squid Game, the easy and free dissemination of information, and the purchase and fetishization of PC parts (just us?) But there’s one thing that, if it vanished overnight, would put us back into the stone age (or at least the 1980s, which is more or less the same thing). We’re talking about the lithium battery. They power our smartphones, our earbuds, our laptops, and increasingly our cars. We use them because of their high energy density, and the fact that the chemical reaction that pumps out the volts is reversible, so they can be recharged, but there are a few issues with them—they’re not great for the environment, for one thing, as its extraction involves mining salt flats. Up to…

Harry McCracken is not the name of a Cold War superspy, but a man who was once a developer for Radio Shack’s TRS-80 microcomputer. McCracken recently went back to have a look at his first game, Arctic Adventure, which he wrote when he was 16 around 1980-81—a text adventure inspired by the work of Scott Adams, a pioneering designer of the Adventure series. As was common, Arctic Adventure was distributed in The Captain 80 Book of BASIC Adventures: Pages of type-it-yourself BASIC code, each entry its own adventure game. Despite the emulators and swathes of TRS-80 software available online, however, McCracken couldn’t find Arctic Adventure. “I know of only a couple of contemporary mentions of it on the internet, and no evidence that anyone has played it since the first…

CRAFT A MINI JUKEBOX Take your music anywhere, but first befriend a tiny barman and harvest some lightning bolts to do it. FIND THE SECRET FURNITURE Placing objects in their corresponding locations around Pelican Town rewards some strange cursed statues. WEAR A DINOSAUR OUTFIT If you’ve got the dino eggs on hand, you can fashion a nifty prehistoric costume from them. GET A NEW LOOK Befriend the wizard and he’ll allow you to change your appearance whenever you please. What sort of w… oh, wait.…

FALLOUT The original ’50s future postapocalypse. FALLOUT 2 A tad too wacky, but a solid sequel. VAN BUREN The original and canned Fallout 3. FALLOUT: NEW VEGAS Recycled factions and characters planned for Van Buren. BALDUR’S GATE Birthed the Infinity Engine, and the modern RPG. ICEWIND DALE A puzzle box of D&D combat. ICEWIND DALE II Great canvas for high concept adventuring parties. BALDUR’S GATE III: THE BLACK HOUND Referenced in Pillars of Eternity. PLANESCAPE: TORMENT More interactive book than RPG. TORN Unreleased. A new setting, starring a cursed wanderer. KEY Black Isle Studios Bioware Obsidian…

NEED TO KNOW RELEASE 2022 DEVELOPER Jump Over the Age PUBLISHER Fellow Traveller LINK fellowtraveller.games As your AI character in Citizen Sleeper, you don’t remember much since sealing yourself in a container and being shot into space. The only thing you do know is that you’re an escaped digitized consciousness in an artificial body called a Sleeper, owned by a corporation that desperately wants you back. PLAYED IT So, it’s a pretty dire situation, but thankfully, your shipping container washed up on an abandoned space station named Erlin’s Eye, a lawless interstellar society living on the brink of civilization in the far reaches of the galaxy. Citizen Sleeper is all about beginning your new life as a runaway in this strange, often hostile city. You experience the world of the…

NEED TO KNOW EXPET TO PAY $25 DEVELOPER Mechanistry PUBLISHER In-house LINK mechanistry.com When the main thing a game has to distinguish itself from all the other city builders is its cast of beavers, what you really want is for it to fully lean into that. Timberborn doesn’t quite put enough of its personality up front, but even at this point in Early Access it’s a remarkably pleasant time. PLAYED IT Tasked with building an ever expanding settlement for your adorable little population of beavers, the game falls into a steady rhythm of unlocking new technologies while dealing with environmental changes such as droughts. As in the best management games, succeeding in Timberborn is all about a good juggling act. You have to ensure there’s a steady supply of wood…

1 The Yervha machine asks you trivia questions about the island. Does a great prize await you if you answer them all? No. 2 This is better: At night, Charlie runs a game that asks you to find explosive boxes for… reasons. There’s a new gun for doing so. 3 Oh no, Julianna has invaded, and the tunnels have been locked, blocking your escape. Hack the antenna to flee the area. 4 There’s a lad on this cliff playing the guitar throughout the day. I like to just leave him be. He’s not hurting anyone. 5 This hangar is where Harriett gives a sermon to her cult. Since Harriett is one of your targets, you’ll visit a lot.…

Every part of my bike tells a story. Stabilizers powered by crystals foraged from a storm-swept plateau; the hood a slick piece of kit picked up in the markets at Eccria; a pristine, ancient engine scavenged from a spaceship older than history. It handles like a dream, but it’s also a living record—one I can imagine my Sable looking at fondly, even when her adventures are a distant memory, and a thick layer of dust covers the old bike’s chassis. A stunning debut work from developer Shedworks, Sable is an open-world RPG styled heavily after The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. In fact, Sable carries a lot of Zelda’s influence—from the stamina bar and free-climbing, to a passing similarity in musical cues. But Shedworks has pointedly rejected combat…

Ididn’t take Naraka: Bladepoint seriously at first, and it didn’t give me many reasons to. In its tutorial, the melee-focused battle royale game teaches you to combo by clicking repeatedly, and then introduces its countering system without really explaining it. After that, it matches you against bots for your first game. The bots behave like mosquitos whose brains were just transplanted into human bodies, so of course my trio won easily. A few matches later, however, the true nature of 60-player martial arts battle royale showed itself. One moment you’re Donnie Yen, and the next you’re scrambling to find the ‘pick up’ prompt for the sword that just flew out of your hands in a whirl of particle effects. It’s too late, though. As Fist of the North Star’s Kenshiro…

Nobody here has the energy to interrogate why the fourth Indiana Jones film was such a turd necklace. Instead, let’s just agree that The Emperor’s Tomb would be a more-than adequate replacement. It’s the secret best Indiana Jones game. It’s worth your time for the fighting system alone: a cinematic mix of slaps, chops, backhands, and shattered chairs that recalls the golden era of Hollywood fight scenes, before Jason Bourne and Doug Liman decided that all action scenes had to be shakier than a foal on stilts. On top of this, there are quips, whips, traps, treasures, and beautiful ladies: Everything an Indy game needs and more. 72…

While the WarioWare series has never come to our platform (er, understandably), its microgame formula has had its influence on indie PC devs—including Beeswax Games, creators of Spookware, a horror-themed collection of bite-sized silliness. The team originally released a smaller version on itch. io, but since then, they’ve developed their parade of spooky vignettes into a fully-fledged game, with a full story and cast of characters. The game kicks off with a trio of skeletons watching TV as you play through an introductory string of rapid-fire minigames on its screen. To progress you need to successfully beat nine of them in a row—and with each one only lasting a few seconds, you have to be quick on the draw. I had to manically cut someone’s head off with a rusty…

NOW PLAYING UPDATE MOD SPOTLIGHT HOW TO DIARY WHY LOVE REINSTALL MUST PLAY There was a pub in Bath called The Hobgoblin that closed in 2017. It was a grungy bar with rock music on the jukebox, and it was the PC Gamer post-deadline haunt for the whole time I edited the magazine. These days, it’s been replaced by an upmarket hotel with a craft beer bar. No thanks. I’ve started to feel similarly protective about the virtual hangout spaces that have replaced my real ones. Apex Legends was my big lockdown game in 2020, and my map of choice in this battle royale was World’s Edge, a volcanic island on the brink of being destroyed by climate change. From the sky, it looked like a theme park: You could…

1 Production of nickel at the PT Vale nickel plant, in Sorowako, South sulawesi, Indonesia. Nickel’s atomic number is 28 by the way. 2 A child and a woman break rocks extracted from a cobalt mine at a copper quarry and cobalt pit in Lubumbashi, DRC. 3 Lithium mine at Bolivia’s Uyuni Salt Flat, the highest and largest salt flat in the world, seen from the CBERS4 satellite. 4 Lithium is a silvery metal soft enough to cut with a knife at room temperature. It rapidly tarnishes in contact with water, or even moist air.…