Innholdsfortegnelse for June 2023 i PC Gamer (US Edition)

HIGHS Baldur’s Gate III Baldur’s Gate III is finally confirmed for an August 31 release. Overwatch 2 Mercy player Gladowl hid in a bush to buy time for their team to return and then win the game. Tim Schafer Tim Schafer of Double Fine Productions was inducted into the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences’ Hall of Fame. LOWS Diablo Blizzard and Han Kjøbenhavn partnered to produce Diablo themed clothing for Milan Fashion Week. Dragon Age: Origins Lead writer David Gaider wants a remaster with ‘extra-realistic slimy nipple textures’ for the Darkspawn broodmother. Kerbal Space Program 2 Missing features and bugs have led gamers to say KSP2 is ‘too Early Access for Early Access’.…

As well as being a producer, Harriet Frayling is also a freelance games accessibility consultant. In addition to helping developers make their games more accessible, she also worked with Scope to develop its 2021 Power Up and Play event, has spoken in an EGX Disability in Videogames panel, and much more. When I ask how she got into the industry, her immediate answer is “with great difficulty”. Her first job did not go well. “There’s a lot of stigma around being disabled, especially in the games industry.” Frayling is autistic, has been diagnosed with ADHD, and also has fibromyalgia and non-epileptic attack disorder. “I didn’t feel comfortable disclosing the needs that I had. I wasn’t very confident at the time either,” she continues. “I think it’s important that people know…

One of the best things about being a fan of survival games is that they’re not all about chopping down trees and hunting rabbits with a bow and arrow. Survival games span all sorts of different genres – horror games, shooters, crafting sandboxes, city builders, colony sims. So… how about a driving game? If there’s a single upcoming survival game that’s really captured my interest by swerving into another genre, it’s Pacific Drive, the first-person ‘driving survival game’ from Ironwood Studios due out later this year. In Pacific Drive your car is your best friend and your only companion, and you steer it deep into a restricted area of the Pacific Northwest known as the exclusion zone, which has fallen into chaos due to bizarre government experiments. Since the first…

For some, the post-TNG era of Star Trek feels overused. There were several excellent films (no questions, please) and new iterations of Star Trek set in the years following the end of Captain Picard’s story—including an eponymous show of his own. There are also at least a dozen games set in the TNG and post-TNG universe, including the massively successful Star Trek Online, but none of them really captured the true spirit of Starfleet. It seems fitting, then, that as the cinematic universe closes on the story of Picard and the rest of the Enterprise D’s crew, a new game carrying on the lore from my favorite era emerges. Launching in May, Star Trek: Resurgence is set in 2380, right after the events of Star Trek: Nemesis and roughly 16…

Honkai: Star Rail arrived right on time. Everything anime has exploded in the last few quarantine-locked years, especially in the West. People are recreating JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure poses on TikTok, posting edits of Chainsaw Man characters and streaming as anime girls on Twitch. Free-to-play anime gacha games have massively grown too. It only took six short months for Genshin Impact to make $1 billion in revenue after it launched in 2020, cementing its status as one of the most successful mobile games around. It blends the charm of a big open world with the detailed combat systems of action RPGs. It’s a Breath of the Wild that never ends. And with every new update, it expands its map and its roster of playable anime people. To me, and I suspect…

Four or five hours into Atomic Heart, it swings into one of many seamless first-person cutscenes. A man points a gun at you, babbles something about a giant plant, and your protagonist gruffly swears, complains and sets about fetching the thing to blow up the thing. You return with explosives, which are ignited by a cigarette while your character calls the plant a “fuckbag”, and the scientist dies afterwards. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. A lot of Atomic Heart will leave you grasping for purchase, as it freewheelingly veers from enormous set pieces to endless fetch quests, as critiques of Russian exceptionalism rub up against a protagonist who calls robots “fat turds” and a script written with the help of a swearing thesaurus. You’ll gaze into the…

The Yakuza series (now Like A Dragon, matching its Japanese naming) has always had a flair for the dramatic, featuring digitized actors, expressive facial capture and stories befitting a good mid-budget TV thriller. With the release of Like A Dragon: Ishin!, the series doubles down on its inspirations with a period drama spinoff, recasting Kiryu and crew in a 1860s samurai story and delivering a fresh theme, but perhaps over-familiar fun. There’s been some buzz surrounding Ishin, most of it from fans who were sure it would never come to the West. Originally a 2014 PS3 Japanese-exclusive, the version arriving now on PC (and simultaneously worldwide) is a largely-faithful remake, making some mechanical tweaks, re-casting some roles and giving it a graphical touch-up but not making any sweeping changes. This…

You can go anywhere in a dream, making them rich settings for a game. Particularly a horror game, where their unreal, uncanny quality fits like a glove. Feet in the Snow has horror elements, but at its beating heart it’s an adventure game, containing simple puzzles in a bizarre, uneasy dreamscape. The overall atmosphere reminds me of Silent Hill, particularly Shattered Memories, which similarly featured frequent interruptions by a psychiatrist. Well, I’m guessing it’s a psychiatrist here, as their probing questions intrude on the screen, asking the player what they did next in the dream. Did they go this way or that? Most importantly, did they follow the mysterious footsteps? There is one big branching moment, where you decide to follow the tracks or veer off-course, and it decides the…

This month’s theme might not be immediately obvious from the selection of games, so I’ll allow my character choice in Divinity: Original Sin 2 to remove any ambiguity. I’m playing as Fane and we’re all about skeletons. One of the greatest things about Original Sin 2 is how many bad decisions I can make. Picking an undead character isn’t necessarily one of them, but it does have some interesting effects: healing spells hurt you, for instance, and poison revives you. Elsewhere, the game is as close as you’ll likely get to having a smart, reactive DM, with the added bonus that all your RPing takes place in private, without the need for performance anxiety or other people. It’s possible, for example, to kill any NPC, although the thought of that…

RTX 40-series graphics cards are impressive. They offer excellent performance, cutting edge features, and power efficiency. But their pricing has received some fair criticism. But considering their intergenerational performance uplifts, improved ray tracing, upscaling magic, mostly low noise levels and operating temperatures, these are still some desirable graphics cards. We’ve tested two of each of the RTX 40-series cards released to date, led by the flagship RTX 4090. It’s the fastest graphics card ever released but it comes at a steep cost that’s unpalatable to say the least. Next up is the high performing and power efficient RTX 4080. The RTX 4070 Ti is the latest out of team green. It isn’t quite the mainstream hero that we’ve been waiting for, but it’s a bit of a step towards it. If…

As a cutting-edge AI language model, ChatGPT has the potential to revolutionize game development by providing new tools and resources for developers. With the ability to generate natural language responses and learn from a vast array of data, ChatGPT can be used to create dynamic and responsive non-player characters (NPCs), generate narrative storylines and even provide personalized game recommendations to players. Moreover, by facilitating more streamlined communication and collaboration between developers, ChatGPT could help reduce development time and improve the quality of games. As the technology behind ChatGPT continues to improve and evolve, it could play a significant role in shaping the future of gaming, creating more immersive and engaging gameplay experiences for players. Hopefully you thought there was something slightly off about that opening paragraph. Or at least that…

The top-voted Steam review for monster battler Wild Hearts, the day after it was released in February, was a thumbs down: one of approximately 1,700 negative reviews posted in 24 hours, earning it a ‘mostly negative’ summary. “The price is higher than the fps you will be able to pull in this game,” the review reads. 571 people marked it helpful. Five people reacted with a slow clap emoji. This cratering of Wild Hearts’ reviews reminds me of what happened to Warhammer 40K: Darktide in December (currently mixed, with nearly 30,000 negative reviews). It reminds me of Final Fantasy VII Remake’s barebones port from late 2021. It reminds me of when Nier: Automata was review bombed because Square Enix left it unpatched for four years, then released a better version…

Arriving to play 90 minutes of Redfall, I’m surprised to find out I won’t be getting to try it out in co-op. Everything leading up to launch seems to have emphasized this as an experience to be shared, your team of four combining their vampire-hunting abilities and specialties to fight back against the forces of darkness. Before I start, however, creative director Harvey Smith assures me that it’s designed as much for solo as multiplayer—you can play it however you want. It’s just a different experience, he explains: alone or as a pair, it’s a little slower and more strategic, whereas with three or four it’s fast-paced and chaotic. But by the end of my session, I’m left worried that that doesn’t ring true. I think the unfortunate reality may…

The last time you heroically rampaged through a dungeon, killing goblins and looting treasure chests of every last gold coin, did you even give a moment’s thought to the unfortunate, hard-working evil Overlord who spent ages building and managing that dungeon? I doubt it. Heroes rarely do. Well, this year you’ll gain a new perspective on those underground lairs filled with orcs, ogres and scrabbling imps. Try being the boss in Dungeons 4, with all the management decisions and hordes of creatures to direct and gold-hungry invaders, and you’re bound to start sympathizing with the darker side. It’s been nearly six years since you last ruled the underworld with a floating fist in Dungeons 3, building and managing a labyrinthine lair and leading an assortment of monsters into the overworld…

Wanted: Dead would have totally banged in the late 2000s. It’s a no-nonsense hack-and-slash with some sickeningly wicked dismemberment, B-tier voice acting, and heaps of jank. It’s exactly what developer Soleil was aiming for, backed by several ex-Ninja Gaiden and Dead or Alive workers. But in the year of our lord 2023, its unapologetic vision isn’t going to sit right with everybody. Unfortunately, I’m one of those people. I’m a huge Team Ninja lover and a regular Dead or Alive defender, so I was excited to dive into the Hong Kong Police Department’s Zombie Squad, a group of former criminals. You take on the role of Hannah Stone, and Wanted: Dead’s flimsy narrative is played out across a number of missions. They’re linear, which I dig. But the structure of…

World War II looms large at all times. Even when we’re looking for some videogame escapism, it’s there, deafening us with the cacophony of artillery and exploding tanks. For Company of Heroes 3, however, Relic has taken us further south, to Italy and the desert of North Africa. And a lot has changed since the previous games, with the studio’s ambition and desire for experimentation growing. This is something new, but it’s not the novelties that have impressed me the most. It’s a beast of a game, cramming in two campaigns and four factions. Its proportions are fitting for this massive conflict. The main course, ostensibly, is the Italian campaign—promising something akin to a World War II Total War. From Sicily to Rome, you’ll push your way north, fighting the…

Remember Magic Eye puzzles? Those trippy plaques of static that—if you could only convince your eyes to see them—would reveal hidden 3D pictures within. Well they’re back, in game form, in Daniel Linssen’s Stereogram—one of those rare games that made me appreciatively mutter, “Bloody hell,” out loud. Because, bloody hell. How is this Magic Eye suddenly interactive, taking the form of a pretty good platform game? This is a properly 3D platformer, with the unfortunate drawback that you can only look at it in bursts, as it exhausts the eyes. I’m curious whether the Magic Eye-ness will be intact in these screenshots, because Stereogram is very specific in how it should be set up. The window has to be a certain size, and there are various display tweaks to aid…

Rounding up this month’s They’re Back is Fran Bow, a game that merits inclusion because of Itward: Fran’s dapper, skeletal associate and friend to mentally-ill children everywhere. You’ll likely have gleaned from that opening that Fran Bow is darker than Tim Burton’s coal shed. The Steam blurb describes it as ‘creepy’, which is something of an understatement: child beauty pageants are ‘creepy’; Fran Bow’s tale of dismembered parents, medical malpractice and psychological trauma is something sterner. The setup is horrible enough, but Fran’s ability to phase into a shadow world after taking her medication provides the opportunity to make things even bleaker. The game’s cast of damaged children would be heartbreaking enough without the occult knowledge that they’re being harassed by demons in another realm. Yet despite this, there’s something…

If you’d asked me at the start of the year, I’d have told you I was pretty good at Hitman. I’ve earned Silent Assassin ratings on all main missions, and even have a couple of suit-only runs under my well-tailored belt. I once competed in an ad-hoc speedrunning rivalry with some friends—pushing us all to find the fastest routes while still achieving the perfect kill. I’m far from the best player, but I’ve mastered enough of the series’ systems to at least be competent. Then I played Freelancer, and discovered that, no, actually, I suck at this. Here’s the problem: Freelancer takes away everything that makes Hitman comfortable, and leaves you to fend for yourself. If you die during a Freelancer mission you lose any equipment or weapons you took…

Scour the mainstream media for images of ‘gamers’ and even today you’ll generally find 100 or so variants of Matthew Broderick in WarGames—unathletic, unkempt and occasionally bespectacled too for good measure. It’s a vastly outdated trope that belies the most visible figures in modern gaming. The infuriatingly gorgeous YouTubers who make a living shouting at FUT packs. The shredded influencers doing boxing matches to promote their upcoming trap song or energy drink. But somewhere in that broadly drawn stereotype of the gamer, there’s a grain of truth. PC gaming is a lot of things: mentally and emotionally stimulating and nourishing, stress-relieving and effective in combating loneliness. What it is not, however, is physically active. As someone who once raced for 24 straight hours in Gran Turismo as a young and…

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE HARRY POTTER Unofficial Potter written by a predictive AI. “Ron’s Ron shirt was just as bad as he was.” Genius. BRIAN ENO — REFLECTION The legendary ambient composer’s 26th album uses AI to generate infinite variations of itself. It slaps. THAT SILLY LENSA PORTRAIT YOU SHARED Like any artist, it really captured your essence. Translation: made you 200% more attractive. NUMEROUS ADOBE AFTER EFFECTS PLUGINS Designers have already stockpiled plugins for AE that have been authored entirely by ChatGPT.…

Survival game The Forest has almost 400,000 ‘Overwhelmingly Positive’ reviews on Steam at the time of writing, so maybe it wasn’t actually very surprising that its follow-up, Sons of the Forest, was highly anticipated by the fans. However, when the new Endnight Games title surpassed even Bethesda’s Starfield to become the most-wishlisted game on Steam and then, upon release, had more people playing it even than Hogwarts Legacy, it was extremely clear that PC gaming had a massive hit on its hands. Sons of the Forest sold more than 2 million copies in its first 24 hours on sale, a number that, by the time you read this, will have increased even more. Endnight Games, a studio that initially was composed of just four people, has hit gold and, based…

STREET FIGHTER II 1993 The backgrounds in this DOS port were static images, the speed was all wrong, and dear god, the music. Butchered! SPIDER-MAN 2 2004 The console game’s web swinging was legendary. The PC version made you point and click at web icons. DARK SOULS 2012 Prepare to Die Edition was locked at 30fps, 1024x720, had busted mouse controls and Games For Windows Live. ARKHAM KNIGHT 2015 Batman’s swansong ran so poorly at launch it was pulled from sale… and was still rough when it came back.…

Stop me if you’ve heard this before: you’re stranded on a mysterious island… but you’re not alone. Usually that statement is meant to spark fear, but in Sons of the Forest it’s actually good news. The Early Access survival game has a killer feature: it comes packaged with a best friend. I never played much of 2014’s The Forest – I like survival games, but I’m not a big fan of horror, and The Forest’s creepy cannibals and their deep, dark caves felt like a nightmare. “No thanks,” I thought the first time one clubbed me unconscious and dragged me into the pitch-blackness of their subterranean lair. I’ll stick with survival games where bears and wolves and stomach parasites are trying to kill me, rather than ones where weird, loin…

Triumph Studios’ 4X can’t help but generate fun fantasy adventures. My 4X obsession has left me a little burned out when it comes to the genre’s four big pillars, but I keep coming back for more to feed a single, specific fantasy: crafting a society and watching it grow. So far, Age of Wonders 4 is doing a great job of feeding this hunger. Triumph Studio’s fantasy 4X has a little bit of Stellaris in it. The shared DNA is seen most clearly at the start, when you fashion your baby empire. Like Age of Wonders 3, you’ll create a heroic or villainous avatar to lead your forces, selecting their race, fiddling with aesthetics and picking their starting loadout, but you’ll also build the society they rule. First off is…

US FORCES A versatile faction that lets you make surprise attacks from above thanks to strong air support, and paratroopers who charge in under the cover of smokescreens. WEHRMACHT The Luftwaffe gives the Wehrmacht air support comparable to the US Forces’ Airborne battlegroup, but this faction’s big hook is that it is heavily mechanized. BRITISH FORCES This is a flexible faction that brings in units from around the world, like the Gurkhas and Indian artillery. The strong infantry, weapon teams and heavy tanks are also very welcome. AFRIKAKORPS With a mix of German and Italian units, the Deutsches Afrikakorps is an agile, mechanized force with a bounty of tanks and vehicles, the pinnacle of which is the ridiculously tough Tiger tank.…

I’m up for any game set in a brutalist cityscape, so it’s almost a shame that the goal of Babbdi is to escape one. Babbdi is a city of looming tower blocks, endless concrete, and not a lot of grass, and I thoroughly enjoyed scouring its oppressive nooks and crannies, as I searched for the train ticket that would take me out of there—loathe as I was to leave it. At its core, Babbdi is an exploration game, set in a surreal and downcast world that brings to mind Pathologic, Half-Life 2, and a neglected council block. You might call it a walking sim, but to see everything you’ll need to do more than walk—you’ll need to jump, climb, hover and fly, and even ride a motorbike if you can…

Before release, the promotional material for Sea of Thieves focused on all the dramatic stuff: digging up lost treasure, bludgeoning skeletons, firing fat pirates onto desert islands. It’s understandable they’d want their potential audience to expect breathless adventure. But the true joy of Rare’s eccentric eye patch-’em-up doesn’t come from the moments of swashbuckling bravado, but the daft bits in between. An example: while preparing for a mission with my online crew, I decide to cook some fish while one of my friends spends her real-life money on a cat companion. Trouble is, I haven’t played Sea of Thieves for ages and cooking was never a mechanic I understood. So I end up accidentally eating undercooked fish, which makes me ill, then vomiting into the frying pan as I try…

As a genre, ‘open world’ has come to mean far more than just a big, seamless map. It conjures images of vast, big budget games with a huge range of things to do, including combat, exploring, searching for collectibles, solving puzzles, traversal and more. But I always find it really interesting when games buck that template. I loved the way The Evil Within 2 flirted with the idea of open-world survival horror, with its creepy town full of nightmares to sneak past. Or The Pathless, which, despite its protagonist wielding a bow and arrow, eschewed violence in favor of finding joy in discovery. Sherlock Holmes: Chapter One uses its open world—the island city of Cordona—as a sandbox for mysteries. Where most crime-solving games are purely linear, or take place across…

Since first stepping onto the streets of A Plague Tale: Requiem’s interpretation of 14th century Provence, I’ve made a habit of spotting its surprisingly detailed woodwork, which has me wondering whether Asobo’s environment artists moonlight as carpenters. A credible medieval setting plays as much a role in the experience of this adventure as the performances behind its lead characters, siblings Amicia and Hugo. We’re asked to believe in their plight, even as the game’s fiction ventures into the supernatural. And providing ballast for the paranormal mischief are settings that feel rooted in the soil. We’re led by the hand through Provençal landscapes, beneath the eaves of timber-framed houses and, increasingly as the game proceeds, through vermin-infested passages. Standing proud through all these places is woodwork. Where other games settle for…

PROGRESS THE MAIN QUEST 1 While it’s tempting to run off into the wilds as soon as you arrive at Hogwarts in search of magical beasts and mystical puzzles, it’s better to progress the main quest a bit first. By the time you get to autumn, you’ll have unlocked most of the main mechanics and features. DUST OFF YOUR BROOM 2 Unless you want to walk across the Highlands to complete quests, you’re going to need a broomstick. Luckily, you won’t have to wait too long to take to the skies, as the Flying Class quest unlocks after you’ve completed the Jackdaw’s Rest main quest early on. DO YOUR HOMEWORK 3 Rather than poring over dusty tomes, Hogwarts Legacy’s education is a tad more… practical? Complete your extra assignments to…

BUTTERFLY SOUP 2 brianna-lei.itch.io → 2017’s best visual novel about teen girls, queerness and baseball got a sequel in 2022, covering parts of the story cut from the original for scope. Just like the first, it’s hilarious and as detailed and true about being a teenage outsider as it is about baseball. SOLASTA: CROWN OF THE MAGISTER solasta-game.com → A lower-budget adaptation of D&D5E than Baldur’s Gate 3, with more emphasis on tactical combat that accounts for multiple height levels, light and darkness, and other complications. Has the goofy energy of an eager Dungeon Master’s homebrew campaign. TO BE OR NOT TO BE gamebookadventures.com → Adapted from the pick-a-path book To Be or Not To Be: That is the Adventure, itself adapted from Hamlet, only you decide what happens and…

BEAT SABER Playing Beat Games’ musical VR odyssey exerts exactly as much energy as fighting off a horde of bees with your bare hands. STARCRAFT II Professional players register about 400 actions per minute. Think of the energy those flailing digits are spending. ASSETTO CORSA COMPETIZIONE Force feedback wheel plugged in. FF strength set to 100%. Drive a few laps and feel the pump in your arms. ALIEN ISOLATION Your heart’s going at about 300bpm as you open up Steam. An onslaught of calorie-burning fear hormones.…