Innholdsfortegnelse for May 2022 i PC Gamer (US Edition)

HIGHS Announcement storm Blizzard’s announced two new ‘unannounced’ projects (don’t ask). ARM & a leg Nvidia is no longer buying Arm from SoftBank, following resistance to its proposed $40 billion takeover. Resi 4 HD HD A Resident Evil 4 HD fan mod that was eight years in the making has finally been released. Hero to Zero Guitar Hero record-setter Schmooey admitted he’s a fake following heroic internet detective work. MineScam One of the latest NFT rug-pulls involved Blockverse. It raised over $1 million: Then disappeared… Battlefailed 2042 EA is down on Battlefield 2042 and developer DICE has gone into salvage mode on a game that feels like it didn’t launch in a good state. LOWS…

One of the tensions throughout my career is that the stuff I want to be making is on the edges of commercial viability,” says Johnnemann Nordhagen. “They’re the sort of thing that, if you get the right niche interested in them, they may pay for themselves—but they’re never going to make a billion dollars.” It’s not as lonely a position as you might think. Nordhagen spent a formative part of his career at Bioshock 2 developer 2K Marin, surrounded by people who loved immersive sims like Thief and Deus Ex. The genre has always teetered on the boundary of commercial viability—requiring big budgets, but rarely getting large audiences. At times, it’s seen as indulgent—more for game designers than players. “Most people were there because they were excited about games being…

Turn-based tactics games have been cursed with comparisons to Firaxis’ indomitable XCOM for almost a decade, which the Grey Knights of Warhammer 40,000: Chaos Gate—Daemonhunters are about to learn. Sorry, lads, but Warhammer 40,000: XCOM is just easier to remember. The Grey Knights, if you’re not au fait with 40K’s many Space Marine chapters, get their rocks off by hunting daemons, which they also happen to be very good at. These special boys were engineered from the gene-seed of the Emperor, and while they’re designed to be the ultimate weapon against the forces of Chaos, most people don’t know they exist. So they’re black-ops super soldiers with an important daddy. Like XCOM, you’ll be putting together squads of these Grey Knights, customizing them with equipment suited to the task at…

Who are OFK? The answer is slightly complicated. They’re a sort of virtual band, starring in a game about how they got together and started making introspective indie pop. Imagine a low key, achingly hip, hyper progressive Gorillaz, and you’re… probably a bit lost. But that’s OK, because in chapter one of this narrative-driven experience, OFK are a bit lost too. PLAYED IT Pianist Itsumi and singer/songwriter Luca are adrift, living in LA but struggling to figure out their dreams, let alone follow them. That is, until a chance encounter with a disarmingly confident music producer sets them on a new path. The drama is almost comically low in stakes. There’s anxiety, and heartbreak, and creative burnout, but no real threat or conflict. The characters live laid-back lives, enjoying a…

There’s going to be a whole cottage industry of Steam Deck accessories—the versatile USB-C dock, the fastest micro SD card, the most convenient travel keyboard and mouse—but I’m here to tell you that the single best Steam Deck accessory is a throw pillow. It turns out that the small, overly firm decorative pillows have been on our couches all this time just waiting for a higher calling: a Steam Deck to plop down on top of them. After hours of gaming on Valve’s new handheld PC, I’m amazed by how capable it is, but that power comes at a heavy price. As in, like, the Steam Deck is really heavy. It’s inescapably a bulky device, weighing 68% more than the Nintendo Switch and 38% more than an iPad. Holding it…

1UNIVERSITY OF CENTRAL FLORIA 2021 Grads Hired: 87% 2021 Grads Mean Salary: $73.100 Faculty: Benjamin Noel (VP, EA Tiburon). Thomas Carbone (director, Iron Galaxy) Graduates: Billy Bramer (lead programmer. Epic Games), Dennis Branvall (design director, Star Wars Battlefront) 2 NEW YORKL UNIVERSITY 2021 Grads Hired: 72% 2021 Grads Mean Salary: $73,263 Faculty: Winnie Song (Square Enix Montreal). Matt Boch (Rockband VR) Graduates: Atlas Chen (that gamecompany). Noelle Mazurek (Games for Change) 3 SOUTHEREN METHODIST UNIVERISITY Total Courses: 160 2021 Grads Hired: 87% Faculty: Elizabeth Stringer (developmentdirector, Atari). Michael Porter (Sierra. Bungie) 4 UNIVERISITY OF SOTHERN CALIFORNIA 2021 Grads Hired: 90% 2021 Grads Mean Salary: $65,000 Graduates: Brandon Beck (CEO, Riot Games). Alex Beachum (Outer Wilds) 5. UNIVERISITY OF UTAH 2021 Grads Mean Salary: $91,312 Graduates: Doug Bowser(COO. Nintendo OfAmerica). Ed Catmull…

I land a flying kick into a bandit and send him screaming off the edge of a roof and onto the zombie-filled streets below. In Dying Light 2 this has become my singular goal: Kick dudes off roofs. The city is in peril, I have a half-dozen unfinished sidequests in my journal, and my map is littered with icons imploring me to scavenge resources, discover new locations, and undertake parkour challenges. Apologies. I can’t actually deal with any of that right now. Somewhere in the city, another bandit is standing too close to the edge of another rooftop and he needs booting off it. And reaching that rooftop is just as much fun as kicking someone off it. To get there I slide down ziplines and bounce off jump-pads, swing like Spider-Man…

Lost Ark is a game with zero chill. A Korean hybrid of ARPG and MMO, it embodies the best and the worst traits of both genres. Ambitious to a fault, it offers a vast and spectacular fantasy adventure elevated by a stunning combat system and an astonishing sense of scale, although its grand plans are hindered by hackneyed storytelling and a repetitive quest structure. Right from the off, Lost Ark’s mantra is ‘why fight one enemy when you can fight 20?’ and it gives you the combat skills to facilitate this. You start the game at level ten, with five abilities already unlocked. For the Paladin—the class I spent most of my time with—this includes powers like Spin Slash, a powerful one-two punch of an attack that puts a massive…

Rainbow Six Extraction was announced in a world we no longer live in: The world of 2019. Back then, the co-op Siege spinoff was called Rainbow Six Quarantine (ha!). It was an unlucky time to be making a game about a virus, but a great time to bring back the co-op zombie shooter. Siege’s Outbreak event was an excellent taste of what Left 4 Siege could be, and I hoped Extraction would blow that mode out into a collection of campaigns. Three years later, and not only is Extraction one of many co-op shooters on the block, but it’s hardly recognizable from the original Outbreak campaign. It’s the anti-Left 4 Dead—a precise, gruelling survival game about keeping your head down and never poking the bear. If you do, Extraction’s sadistic…

It would be easy to be massively cynical about Ori and the Blind Forest, with its withered trees and forest spirits and tragic coming-of-age narrative. It’s achingly sincere. And it wastes no time before stamping on your worthless human heart, crafting vulnerable, loving protagonists who are immediately ripped apart. But raising even a slightly questioning eyebrow at such a wholesome game feels wrong, like armpit-farting cover versions of Enya songs. Ori deserves better. We probably don’t need to talk about how beautiful it all is, although it’s worth pointing out that screenshots barely do it justice. There’s a glowing, heartfelt warmth to it all that’s like ASMR for the eyes. The arresting presentation is deceptive, too—it looks and sounds like the sort of game where you hold right and a…

The Telltale formula is so established it’s almost a modern fable itself, distilled and retold until little remains in our collective consciousness beyond the memes. But it’s a system of interactive storytelling that still works, especially in a setting as compelling as Fabletown. The QTE fights feel slightly unsatisfying and some choices lack meaning, but everything else here has aged with dignity—the art style, in particular, still gels brilliantly with the noir-ish comic book setting. 80…

Intel’s 12th Gen processors are stuffed with loads of new features, but they’re also fit to burst last generation’s motherboards, courtesy of their larger footprint. That means you need a new 600-series motherboard to put Alder Lake to use in your gaming PC, and we’ve tested the latest and greatest to help you narrow down your search. You have a few motherboard chipsets to choose from: Z690, H670, H610, and B660. The most fully-featured of the lot are the Z690s, though they’re also likely to be the most expensive. If you find they’re out of your budget, you may want to look towards more gaming-focused B660 boards. These offer a tighter specification but maintain PCIe 4.0 support from the chipset, which means you can still utilize fast PCIe 4.0 NVMe…

Once or twice a decade we get one of my favorite treats: a new game engine tech demo. These are not actual games. They’re better: They’re promises of what games could be, pure spectacle showcases for the majesty of a million more polygons on screen and bumpy tessellated surfaces and lifelike ray-traced lighting. Tech demos are raw power and unhinged artistry mashed together, gleefully disregarding pesky problems like ‘writing’ and ‘design’ that have to go into proper videogames. Maybe the best of them was 2011’s Unreal Engine 3 Samaritan demo, a three minute slice of gritty sci-fi (still more evocative today than playing Cyberpunk 2077 in 2021 turned out to be). In 2005 Square Enix created a tech demo of Final Fantasy VII for the PlayStation 3 that ended up…

Horror isn’t my thing. A game about ghosts isn’t especially appealing to me—let alone one with headless spirit children. However, a hands-off demo of Ghostwire: Tokyo changed my mind. It’s more like a Japanese ghost-hunting Watch Dogs 2 than a city wide PT, and it looks brilliant. Though developer Tango Gameworks made the dark and scary The Evil Within series, Ghostwire isn’t trying to terrify you in the same way. This early look set my mind at relative ease. I’m not sure that’s entirely a good thing for those who might be searching for a disturbing horror experience, but for me a neondrenched action game with a ghostly garnish is far more exciting. You play Akito, a man on a mission to save Tokyo, and by extension, your family. The…

Although still in its alpha stages, farming sim Roots of Pacha already has the potential to overtake its genre counterparts. At first glance, it’s easy to assume another duplicate of the much-adored Stardew Valley, but with more intuitive tool systems and a welcome, communal approach to farming, it has enough new ideas to stand out. Studio Soda Den, after a successful Kickstarter run and heaps of attentive tweaking, has begun to cultivate a serene setting and a wholesome, captivating narrative—one that even can be shared with friends in multiplayer mode. Through it, we follow the traditions, innovations and foibles of the peaceful, prehistoric settlement of Pacha—a fictional village inspired by a diverse range of cultures. In a genre where most games are set in the modern world, with refrigerators and…

Setup The Deck can swap over to a Linux desktop, which includes a handy app store that can install loads of up-to-date emulators with a click—no terminal fuss! It makes the process of setting up emulators remarkably simple. I used desktop Steam to add them to my library for easier access and controller mapping, then just copied the games I wanted over on a USB-C flash drive. PCSX2 Detected controller mapping out of the box, so I jumped right into the infamously bizarre Mister Mosquito before playing five hours of Persona 3 FES with a widescreen hack enabled. The Deck never dipped from 60fps and projected six hours of battery life. KEY SETTINGS: 2X INTERNAL RESOLUTION, MTVU MULTITHREADING Dolphin I told myself I’d use the Deck to finally finish Paper…

I’VE PLAYED RESIDENT EVIL VILLAGE ON THE BUS INTO THE PC GAMER OFFICE, THEN PLUGGED THE DECK INTO MY MONITOR 1 Plug and play Plug the Deck into a dock, connect a keyboard, mouse, and monitor, and you’ve got yourself a whole gaming rig ready to roll. You can go with the standard SteamOS UI, like a modded version of Big Picture Mode, but there is also a desktop mode. This operates like a normal Linux desktop, and functions a lot like the Windows OS you’re used to. USB devices are plug and play, and most of your favorite apps can be loaded from its Discover software center. The only issue I’ve had so far is lack of DisplayPort support and a complete refusal to output at the 21:9 ratio…

If the last couple of years of games has taught us anything, it’s that time loop mysteries are really hot right now. The Forgotten Qty throws you into a mysterious ancient Roman city that’s living under the rule of some unseen force threatening to turn everybody into gold statues if even one person commits a sin. The catch is that someone has figured out howto create a time loop, thus allowing you to escape certain doom and continue on with your investigation, at the cost of having to reintroduce yourself to everyone in town. So how do you escape tedium when your game hinges on repeating the same day? EXAMPLE: The first person you meet in each loop in The Forgotten City is Galerius, a kind farmer with a heart…

Unpacking is a game about, you guessed it, taking your stuff out of moving boxes and organizing it into a new home. The game charts different stages of a person’s life, from youth to adulthood, as told through the items you drag out of boxes: A stuffed animal, a family picture, or maybe a knock-off GameCube. Two of the developers, creative director Wren Brier and technical director Tim Dawson, are a married couple who were inspired by the process of moving in together. EXAMPLE: So how can such a seemingly dull and daunting task translate into a chill game that tells a compelling story? One level asks you to move back into your parent's home aftera bad breakup. How does the game communicate your breakup was less-than-great? The final item,…

OlliOlli World isn’t like other skaters. It’s not shredding lines down some asphalt concourse, pissing off security guards and scaring passing shoppers as it slams a 50-50 into the kerb. Roll7’s series of sidescrolling skaters has instead travelled to the far-off shores of Radlandia, a skater’s paradise where the rails are always polished and aspiring shredders compete for the chance to become the next Skate Wizard. OlliOlli World is weirder and wilder than those who Olli’d before it—and it’s all the better for it. The third game in the series follows the template laid out by OlliOlli 1 and 2. You’re tasked with skating a line down a sidescrolling course, using A to push and the left stick to launch into kickflips and the like. As you go on you…

Much like the weird, irresistible draw of Scandi interior design, certain games just have a pull. Sometimes all it takes to get me invested is an axe, some runes, and a mellifluous Northern European accent regaling me with tales of gods and giants and sacred wells. Jotun provides all these things and more, feeding me Norse myths while I hack roots and thump rocks. It’s not taxing stuff—and the puzzles feel like they’re dragging things out when I’d rather be bothering monsters—but there’s a pleasantness to Jotun that’s like the perfect minimalist chair in the corner of a neutral room. Simple but clean, like hygge for your eyes, fingers, and thumbs. 68…

It’s two years into the pandemic and I must have lost it, because I decided to finally play A Plague Tale: Innocence. I’m not a fan of children or plagues, so I’m not sure what inspired me to fire up this stealth romp, but I’m actually glad I did. For all the flesh-eating rats, inquisitors, and, yes, magic, A Plague Tale is really about a pair of siblings who don’t know each other coming together after their lives are upturned. Maybe my nephews have softened me up, because I did not hate spending a couple of days with Amicia and her wee brother Hugo. Amicia is a capable kid with a streak of hotheadedness, and the game’s protagonist, charged to look after a brother she’s hardly ever seen. Hugo is…

At so many points, my main response to Space Warlord Organ Trading Simulator is, “Thanks! I hate it.” It’s that moment of recognizing something presented to you is awful and compelling. There’s a touch of the archaic definition of the word ‘awful’, straddling both reverence and dread. Like Strange Scaffold’s previous An Airport for Aliens Currently Run by Dogs, the premise of Space Warlord Organ Trading Simulator is stated upfront. As your mentor lays out at the start of the game, “Everyone has organs, everyone wants organs, and everyone needs organs, which means THEY NEED YOU.” Even with its visceral stakes firmly set, I wasn’t quite prepared for one of the first things I saw to be a counter ticking up the number of breaths I’d taken. Not from an…

GeForce Now actually works. Let’s just take a second for that statement to permeate: After a decade of embarrassing showings from cloud gaming services like OnLive and Gaikai that always showed us games smeared in vaseline and with the reaction speeds of a tectonic plate, there’s now one that really does let you play top-end PC games using the strength of your internet connection alone. Well, that and a server farm full of RTX 3080s, which we’ve had a famously hard time getting our hands on at consumer level since release. Still, it’s a profound achievement on technological terms—the two-way transfer of data that can manage precisely timed inputs and high resolution rendered frames at the same time, producing an experience that feels like something close to PC gaming. Though…

Before 2022 had even really began, Microsoft shocked the games industry by announcing it would acquire Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion. The scale of the buyout is staggering, and will give Microsoft control of some of the biggest game series around, including Call of Duty and Overwatch, and overnight make it the third-largest game company in the world by revenue. It’s not a done deal, and the US Federal Trade Commission will be investigating, but the general consensus among business and legal specialists is that it will go through. Microsoft has said that it expects to complete the takeover by July 2023. The deal raised questions about Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick, who has recently faced strong criticism accusing the company of ignoring or mishandling allegations of workplace harassment. There have…

FINAL FANTASY VI: THE INTERACTIVE CG GAME 1995 This Silicon Graphics demo seemed like a precursor to a Nintendo 64 Final Fantasy. FINAL FANTASY VII TECHNICAL DEMO 2005 Square recreated FFVII’s opening to show off what the PS3 would be capable of. UNREAL ENGINE 3: SAMARITAN 2011 Epic made Samaritan to show the power of new DirectX 11 tech. THE MATRIX AWAKENS 2021 This staggeringly detailed city environment shows off the potential of UE5’s Nanite geometry system.…

PORSCHE CHALLENGE PlayStation racer with mo-capped drivers. THE GETAWAY Meticulously rendered London simulator. THE GETAWAY: BLACK MONDAY Started as an expansion pack. Feels like one. LA NOIRE Lavish detective game embedded in a GTA-style city. WHORE OF THE ORIENT Cancelled 1930s Shanghai story. LA NOIRE: THE VR CASE FILES One of the best VR games on PC. ‘AAA OPEN WORLD VR GAME’ Mystery project with Rockstar. KEY Team Bondi Team Soho Video Games Deluxe…

Arrakis. Dune. Desert Planet. We’ve seen it before in books, movies and games, but the desert planet of Shiro Games’ upcoming Dune: Spice Wars takes its own approach to the world. While Spice remains key to gameplay, Shiro’s approach tackles the broader galaxy of Dune in a way that most prior games haven’t attempted. I got to see Spice Wars’ blend of 4X and RTS gameplay in a hands-off gameplay demo, and it’s looking very promising. It included the broad outline of the start of a singleplayer Dune campaigni as House Atreides, as the player ventured out from their single starting territory to explore the surface of Arrakis. Dune: Spice Wars shares a lot of design basics with Shiro’s critically acclaimed Northgard, an RTS cantered on capturing and controlling territories…

Steam Deck specs APU: AMD Aerith Process: 7nm CPU architecture: AMD Zen 2 CPU clock speed: 2.4 - 3.5GHz Cores: 4-core / 8-thread GPU architecture: AMD RDNA 2 GPU clock speed: 1 – 1.6GHz Stream processors: 512 RAM: 16GB quad channel LPDDR5 @5,500MT/s Storage: 64GB eMMC / 256GB NVMe SSD / 512GB NVMe SSD Display: 7-inch touchscreen Native resolution: 1280 x 800 Refresh rate: 60Hz Audio: Stereo speakers, 3.5mm jack, dual mics Connectivity: Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, USB Type-C with DisplayPort 1.4 support Battery: 40Whr Size: 11.7 x 4.6 x 1.8-inch (298 x 117 x 49mm) Price: $399 (64GB) /$529 (256GB) /$649 (512GB)…

The Steam Deck is one of the most versatile, most intriguing gaming PCs I’ve ever played with. It’s a handheld device that will draw immediate, probably unfair comparisons with Nintendo’s Switch, but is 100% PC in both the best and worst ways. It’s important to note I’m writing this before launch, with a 512GB version of the Steam Deck that still has to be considered unfinished. But that’s only in relation to the software side of the equation and, while that is absolutely vital to the smooth running of the device, the hardware itself is final. And really impressive. Core to the whole thing, and the piece of the puzzle most responsible for the Deck actually being a genuine gaming PC, is the AMD silicon sizzling away at its heart.…

In this rapidly changing world, we thankfully always have videogames to comfort and challenge us. Who can forget discovering secret corners of Skellige, or triumphing over a towering boss in Dark Souls? Of course, it takes a lot of incredibly talented people to make games, and they all get their start somewhere. That’s why Princeton Review has worked to rank all the major videogame design college programs in North America and beyond. Whether you're a fresh-faced high school graduate or looking to change up your already-established career, you'll want to know what each school has to offer. Maybe it’s inventive class styles, valuable internship programs, or even teachers who worked on your favorite games. It’s tough to go alone, so take this guide as your ultimate tool to game design…

NARRATIVE DESIGNER "A game writer creates pieces of narrative that a game player assembles into their story of playing the game and then shares with others when he talks about how they played," said Professor Stephen Jacobs, citing Red Storm Games writer Richard Dansky. Rather than strictly working on the "story" of a game, a narrative designer may work to build background details, a meta-story, and world design. A narrative designer can also impactgameplay, such as when ProfessorJacobs worked on "The Original Mobile Games," a collaborative project that charted the history of the first handheld games from the 1800s to the early 1900s. "Here we were telling the story of original, hand-held pocket games from the mid-1800s to early 1900s, and showing how the gameplay mechanics were the same between…

Was Sifu’s final cutscene worth the frustration I endured to see it? Not really, but at risk of sounding like I’m quoting some misattributed kung fu aphorism, the experience of mastering Sifu’s combat is what mattered and I couldn’t get enough of it. That’s down to some of the most enjoyable melee combat ever—fluid, funny, improvisational—and a devilish structure that taunted me with its contemptible fairness. Sifu is a singleplayer-only brawler with just five levels, each of which ends in a two-stage boss fight. Except for the final boss’ annoying immunity to certain attacks, there are no tricks. The bosses can all be defeated just like any other opponent, and the opening credits even show you how to fight them. When you make it to the second phase of a…

This is the best detective game I’ve played in years, and it’s mostly about staring at plants. As the new owner of a small shop in a quaint little town, I’ve only got three things at my disposal: a small collection of unusual and unidentified plants, an aging botany book with a handful of entries, and my wits. With them I manage to solve dozens of wonderful little mysteries, untangle a few major ones, and even save the world. Then I played through it again and didn’t save the world, but I did unleash an unspeakable horror upon it. Also, this one time? I straight-up poisoned a guy with some plants because he was a little bit rude to me. Strange Horticulture takes place almost entirely behind the counter of…

It’s been said countless times before, but there’s something weird about playing HD remasters of old games and some incorrect part of your brain deciding they look and feel the same as the originals. It’s especially deranged in the case of Fable Anniversary, with its god rays, wafting leaves, and upgraded faces, which now no longer resemble manhandled plasticine. But there’s a very good reason why returning to Albion feels so cosily familiar. It’s a lot to do with sound. It helps that everything is cued up by Danny Elfman’s sweeping opening theme. Hearing it stirs up all sorts of buried memories, like smelling the same flavor of Axe you wore on your first date with the person who shattered your heart. These small moments help it feel special. The…

There was a period during the late ’90s when it was near-impossible to buy a T-shirt that didn’t have a bold Japanese design emblazoned on the front. We rarely knew what they said. And we never looked as cool as we hoped. But revisiting the gorgeous, sumi-e artwork of Okami is a reminder of why we got obsessed in the first place. Much like this review, Okami has a languid start, but it’s deeply compelling once you get into it—the sort of game where you’ll want to paint over every maligned element with your magic brush just to get that sense of refreshing completion. And, unlike a shirt from 1997, Okami feels authentic, artistic, and pleasing to revisit. 82…

Wheels Turn your Steam Deck into a skateboard deck, and make yourself more portable than ever! May void the warranty. Hats Honestly, how long is Valve going to be able to resist selling headgear for their hardware? Games for Windows Live Emulator Relive the magic of Microsoft’s lost gaming platform! Come on Gabe, you know you loved it. Bungee Cord Perfect for Elden Ring players—every time you throw your Deck at the wall, it’ll bounce back to your hand! Portable Crowbar A miniature tool that snaps onto your Deck! Perfect for prying open tiny crates, or killing ant-sized Antlions. VR Conversion Kit Strap the Steam Deck to your face for a cheap alternative to a VR headset! The perfect way to play Half-Life: Alyx. … UNTIL APRIL 19…