Innholdsfortegnelse for December 2021 i PC Gamer

One of the things I love about historical games is how much you can learn. Assassin’s Creed showed me a new side of the ancient world; Crusader Kings taught me more about succession laws than I ever thought I’d need to know; and now, thanks to Age of Empires IV, I know that the Mongol Empire kicked even more ass than I realised. What’s so exciting about the game is how it’s exploring what made historical cultures unique – and using that as the basis for fascinating RTS innovation. Check out our feature, and maybe you’ll even learn something yourself. ROBIN VALENTINE Twitter @robinlvalentine This month Conquered a new desk in the office (by stacking a bunch of D&D books on top of it).…

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.…

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 ultra-competitive 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…

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 digitised consciousness in an artificial body called a Sleeper, owned by a corporation that desperately wants you back. 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 civilisation 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 space station almost entirely through text, your AI character vividly describing the sights, smells, and sounds of…

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. Timberborndoesn’t quite put enough of its personality up front, but even at this point in Early Access it’s a remarkably pleasant time. 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 while also making sure there’s plenty of housing and storage, while also making progress towards more…

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…

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 civilisation, Eastwardfollows 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 it seems… 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…

Having put the finishing touches on the fourth building in my little village-to-be, I realise I need to go out hunting to get more food for the few denizens that dwell within it. It’s my job to look after them, after all, and that means building shelter and services, but also going out to hunt some bison or deer for meat. I feel pretty confident as I head out… but end up dying to a boar taking a bite our of my ankle. This moment helped give me the respect I needed for the world of Medieval Dynasty, because while it looks tame and feels like an RPG a lot of the time, it still has the heart of a survival game. Progressing means learning to balance the gentler and…

The first boss in Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous is character creation. It’s as daunting as any multi-limbed demon. There are 25 classes, most subdivided into six archetypes. There are prestige classes you can’t choose until later, which show up here if you want to plan your build around one. You choose a race, heritage, background, religion, skills, feats, maybe an animal companion, which gets its own class, skills and feats. You’ll become the crusade’s commander and a mythic hero At the end of this process you may well end up with a character who is completely inappropriate for getting what you want out of Wrath of the Righteous and, several hours later, want to restart or respec. Maybe they’re too weak for the challenge of Core difficulty if you’re…

Every part of my bike tells a story. Stabilisers 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. You travel across the deserts doing odd-jobs and earning badges 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…

I didn’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…

I appreciate the purity of a game free of regular enemies. Do we really enjoy fighting the same monsters, using the same tactics, just to get back to the boss? Can we not just enjoy a peaceful walk to the massive creature that will immediately murder us? Hexblade is in the same sphere as games like Titan Souls and Furi, in that the only enemies you’ll be battling are bosses. But here they’re queued up in the same hallway, emerging one after another, even saving you the trouble of making your way to each boss arena. For a small jam game, Hexblade’s bosses are decently complex, and pretty challenging. If you stumbled across these fiends in a full-fledged Metroidvania, you wouldn’t think anything was out of place. While lacking multiple…

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 shits 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, Cupheadis hard as balls,…

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

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…

SQUAD UP RAINBOW SIX SIEGE bit.ly/3z06XFO Almost six years into its run, this is still the best competitive shooter around. Nothing quite matches Siege’s blend of shooting, destruction, and gadget meta. Ubisoft holds regular free weekends for Siege these days, but you’ll also find it on sale for less than $10. DEFEAT NATURE SNOWRUNNER bit.ly/394XNxj When I’m done shooting stuff in videogames, I like to unwind in the most satisfying driving sim around. Snowrunner is sorta like Death Stranding without the bullshit and with 1,000% more trucks. If Euro Truck Simulator puts you to sleep, you’ll find a proper adventure here. DON’T PANIC PREY bit.ly/3k1W5mG Arkane took the best of Dishonored and blasted it with a System Shock-inator – what’s not to love about Prey? The Talos 1 space station…

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.…

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 favour of the most OP button on our keyboard: F9. With Deathloop, quicksave is gone. Deathloopis 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…

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…

Mystwas my first PC co-op game. In 1993 my friend Steve and I sat side-by-side in front of my boxy CRT peering in wonder at a game that looked unlike anything else ever made. We walked our way back and forth across beautiful and mysterious islands, hunting for pixels to interact with, making notes with pencil and paper, and bashing our brains against a series of ridiculously obtuse puzzles. We never finished. It’s a little weird to be back in Myst in 2021, after all this time. Cyan Worlds has completely remade the game (again, following realMyst and realMyst: Masterpiece Edition). And this new 3D Myst works on both desktop and in VR, so I got to spend time actually (virtually) walking around in it. As a remake, Mystis a…

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…

Blood Spear is a student project that puts its own spin on the Souls-like formula. Gone are the souls, the bonfires, or any sense of character advancement. All that remains is an undead medieval world, and the titular spear: a sentient weapon that thirsts for blood, and that has an eyeball embedded in it. It’s not entirely clear if you play as the Blood Spear, or the poor dead knight it has possessed. Either way, the pair are soon up and running through a few attractive environments, killing undead and floating eyeballs on their way to the boss. Blood Spear took me about an hour, feeling like a slice of a bigger action game. However, there was enough space for the spear to be given a proper workout. It’s a…

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! Enemies are jittery enough that every headshot feels like a triumph 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…

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-flavoured 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.…

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…

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 Legendswas 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 explore multiple cities, a tower surrounding a beam of light, volcanic craters and a…

Ever since its release in 2016, Hello Games has been working hard to improve and add to its expansive space exploration game No Man’s Sky. But they’re not the only ones. Modders have been working on making the game better, too, and each time a new free update appears for No Man’s Sky, mods for that update appear shortly after. Like a lot of people who played No Man’s Sky on day one, I typically only come back to it when there’s a new free update. Sure, the game’s galaxy is essentially infinite, but I feel like I’ve seen a heck of a lot of it by now, so I only return when some new features have been added. The most recent update, Frontiers, added a new settlement system, allowing…

1 STORY TIME The Main Scenario Quests (MSQ) not only follow the main story but give you a helpful chunk of XP too. You want to prioritise these quests in order to unlock dungeons and get your first mount ASAP. They also lead you to level appropriate zones. 2 WORLD CLASS You can pick up a class quest every five levels, and they should be second priority after MSQs. They give you some XP and gear, and award you job-specific skills at later levels. Class quests are also the only way to convert a class into a job at level 30. 3 FREE RIDE You can cut travel costs to frequently visited areas by setting ‘Free’ and ‘Home’ destinations at Aetheryte Crystals. The Return feature will teleport you to your…

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.…

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. “THE GAME WASN’T JUST UNWINNABLE, BUT UNPLAYABLE” 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…

“LET’S MAKE A GAME ABOUT CIVILIANS TRYING TO SURVIVE WAR” For many game developers, becoming a quest designer on the Witcherseries 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…

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. 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 you need to get a’brewing. There’s a colourful garden filled with plants…

The Mongols were a fascinating civilisation, 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,…

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

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 Legacystarts. 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 colourful dice. After…

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. Holding down X prompts Francis to start shredding on his guitar 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…

Paz the alpaca might be the star of this 3D platformer, but it’s Streusel who makes it: the jealous squirrel who kicks it off by opening a gate and letting loose five adorable chicks. He’s the heart of a five-minute game that feels remarkably full, despite its brief length, and that has much to do with Streusel’s funny, redemptive journey. After the chick-loosing incident, Paz volunteers to find them, roaming the island and following clues to each of the birds. One of them likes a particular tree, for example, while another enjoys running in circles. It’s not very complicated, and anyway the island is so small you’re going to find them all eventually, whether it takes you five minutes or ten. Two things make Alpaca Stacka stand out. The first…

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.…

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.…

We are, as a society, addicted to many things. Tiktok, Call the Midwife, the easy and free dissemination of information and the purchase and fetishisation 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…

As an XCOMobsessive 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 XCOM spin-off Chimera Squad a proper 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, and was ready to sink some hours into Chimera Squad, 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…

1 JOB LOT You can learn all the crafting and gathering classes on one character, just like other jobs. You can also switch between them easily by saving their respective gear sets. 2 HIGH GEAR These jobs use different stats, and while it doesn’t matter much at earlier levels, you’ll want to pay attention to your gear to make high-level crafting easier. 3 UP MARKET You can make Gil by selling the stuff you craft on the Market Board. And if you have the time to farm gathering materials, you can sell this too.…