Home//PC Gamer/June 2024/In This Issue
PC Gamer|June 2024“FROSTPUNK WAS A GRIPPING SURVIVAL STRATEGY CLASSIC”The original Frostpunk was a gripping survival strategy classic. Its maker, 11 Bit Studios, delivered an engaging gaming experience where incredibly difficult choices were necessary to ensure New London, the last vestige of civilisation, didn’t fall to the frozen desolation of the Great Storm. Now 11 Bit is back with not just a far more expansive sequel, but one that has evolved to ask fundamentally different questions. Such as, with the Great Storm now survived and the fires of New London still burning, how would the society that is thawing into existence be managed? ROBERT JONES Twitter @rnicholasj This monthWent drinking with Cutter Slade on Adelpha. Talked about dad stuff, like raising unruly daughters, how Talan FC always try and walk it in, and why commuting via jetpack is crucial…1 min
PC Gamer|June 2024BEST BEHAVIOURSergii Greben’s path into game development is an interesting one. Having worked in a web development job for a few years, and finding that this failed to give him much satisfaction, he joined a group of passionate Mount & Blade modders; a group that soon blossomed into its own developer, Donkey Crew. In the early days of the company, when things leaned more towards a group of enthusiasts rather than a professional team, he could essentially choose whatever he wanted to work on – and chose AI for human NPCs. “I was just trying to make them behave a little bit more like actual humans,” says Greben. “It’s all about iteration. Just try playing it. See what doesn’t work, what feels off, try to fix it. Try again, and so…4 min
PC Gamer|June 2024MOUSEPLAYED IT NEED TO KNOW RELEASE2025 DEVELOPERFumi Games PUBLISHERPlaySide Publishing LINK fumigames.com I t’s becoming increasingly difficult to make a splash among a sea of game announcements. An estimated 14,000-plus games were released on Steam alone in 2023, with that number only expected to rise in the years to come. To combat this, one indie developer has already attracted the attention of millions by looking to the past for inspiration. Mouse, a new first-person shooter that utilises the ‘rubber hose’ animation style of the 1930s, has seen massive interest since early development footage surfaced online. Developed by Warsaw-based Fumi Games, players control a private detective who battles their way through a chaotic city full of criminal rodents, utilising an assortment of cartoon-like weapons to stamp out the corrupt politicians. Unsurprisingly,…6 min
PC Gamer|June 2024MELT DOWNA t 11 Bit studios’ office in Warsaw, game director Kuba Stokalski is trying to show me Frostpunk 2. But the citizens of New London, the game’s virtual metropolis, have other priorities. Food and fuel are both running low, meaning large portions of the city are hungry and cold. Stokalski’s recently built extraction district is finally producing coal, but he’s placed it too close to several residential areas, causing a sharp uptick in squalor. Now, the city’s representative Council is about to conduct its first vote – to decide whether to oust Stokalski as its newly appointed Steward. “I’m not doing so well, and they see it.” Stokalski says, sounding flustered. “This isn’t going to be an easy one.” Inside the Council’s circular hall, Stokalski has a small group of…15 min
PC Gamer|June 2024Future pastThe original Outcast, released in 1999, was grounbreaking. I can remember to this day how mindblowing its expansive voxel engine was on release, how jaw-dropping its now iconic portals looked, and how I bought the game largely based on the beauty of its shimmering pools of water alone. It felt like a game from the future, and one that transported PC gamers to a new world of PC gaming, one where cinematic storytelling and audio-visual wizardry ruled. Fast-foward to today in 2024 and Outcast – A New Beginning, while looking like a future version of the original Outcast, is very much a game from the past. It’s not bad by any means, but its slick looks and emotive audio sit over a largely unadventurous open world design you’ve experienced many…1 min
PC Gamer|June 2024JEDI REMASTERNEED TO KNOW WHAT IS IT?A remaster of the iconic 1995 LucasArts FPS, Star Wars: Dark Forces EXPECT TO PAYTBA DEVELOPERNightdive Studios, LucasArts PUBLISHERNightdive Studios REVIEWED ONAMD Ryzen 7 5700X, 32GB RAM, Nvidia GeForce RTX 3090 Ti MULTIPLAYERNo LINK nightdivestudios.com Along time ago, in a PC gaming age that now feels far, far away… there was the mid-1990s rush of Doom clones. And, truth be told, most of them were pretty poor imitations that brought nothing new to the genre. But, where these derivative FPSes failed, LucasArts’ 1995 Star Wars: Dark Forces succeeded, and not just in terms of its own quality, but also in terms of how it evolved the FPS genre in a large number of ways. Nightdive has even remastered the game’s cinematics So it’s been puzzling…4 min
PC Gamer|June 2024OLD WORLD BLUESNEED TO KNOW WHAT IS IT?The high-tech sequel to PlayStation’s premier open world robo-basher EXPECT TO PAY£50 DEVELOPERGuerilla Games, Nixxes PUBLISHERPlayStation REVIEWED ONAMD Ryzen 7800X3D, 32GB RAM, Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 Super MULTIPLAYERNo LINK store.steampowered. com/app/2420110/82_ Forbidden_West_ Complete_Edition/ Cor! Look at those swaying aquatic plants as you dive underwater, ready to hide from mechanical foes. Look at the neon lights that form the cyber-ghost of Las Vegas above the post-apocalyptic dunes! Horizon: Forbidden West is a technical tour de force for Guerrilla Games and its Decima Engine. But, while the tech has certainly evolved, little else has, making for a disappointing sequel in a series that was once packed with promise. It was great to see how well the game ran at 1440p with a 144hz refresh The gorgeous visuals…9 min
PC Gamer|June 2024POMPING IRONNEED TO KNOW EXPECT TO PAYFree DEVELOPERFading Club LINK bit.ly/Psychopomp There’s something oddly comforting about a world you explore on a fixed grid, methodically, as if you’re filling in a crossword. There’s no map to fill in, alas, in Psychopomp, but it’s still a fascinating place to roam around in, square by square. With its conspiracy-theory-spouting, potentially delusional protagonist, it’s fair to say this is not your typical dungeon crawler, as the dungeons you’re crawling around are nightmarish versions of real-life environments: a school, a factory and sewer network. Each is populated by peculiar NPCs, who chat cryptically and occasionally harbour vital switches or key items. However, this is not the sort of game where you can simply reason with them to hand the keycard over. Instead, you have…1 min
PC Gamer|June 2024MAZE RUNNERNEED TO KNOW EXPECT TO PAY£8 DEVELOPERMine Loader Software Co PUBLISHERBandai Namco Rounding up this month’s spectral collection is Pac-Man Championship Edition DX, if only because Phasmophobia has made me want to turn the tables on the undead for shaving actual years off my life. Does it hurt the ghosts when Pac-Man eats them? I hope so. If nothing else, all this makes me feel better. And Championship Edition DX really is all about feel. It’s easy to look at the luminous screenshots and assume this is nothing more than a neon upgrade of a beloved classic. But it’s fast and endless and exhilarating, taking the grim inevitability of the original game away and replacing it with a perfect, dizzying loop of amphetamine enjoyment. It’s even fun in the moments…1 min
PC Gamer|June 2024CLOCKING OFFFriends, the worst fate has befallen me: my GPU’s getting a bit old. Not so much that certain new releases are off limits, you understand. That used to be the case in a bygone era of PC gaming when advancements moved quicker. Minimum requirements were to be agonised over, parents pleaded with, witnessing the cool new game on even the lowest settings a triumph. No, what I mean is there are now some games I have to use the ‘performance’ DLSS mode with. I know. I’m really sad about it. THE BEST OF THE BUNCH IS STILL OLD RELIABLE MSI AFTERBURNER Because it only feels like five minutes ago that my RTX 2080 TI – Founders Edition, mind you – stood atop the GPU pile, metaphorical legs splayed wide in…4 min
PC Gamer|June 2024“The world is ending in a matter of days”NOW PLAYINGTHE GAMES WE LOVE RIGHT NOW ROBERT JONES THIS MONTHSaved the souls of humanity. You’re welcome, guys. ALSO PLAYEDOutcast – A New Beginning, RoboCop: Rogue City The world is ending in a matter of days. Doom is upon Nova Chrysalia, the corrupted, dying world created when the world of Gran Pulse and the limbo realm of Valhalla, a plane that exists between life and death, collapsed together. Chaos surrounds this last bastion of humanity against the endless nothingness of non-existence, and when the doomsday clock hits zero, the apocalypse shall arrive. On the edge of apocalypse, Lightning, a hero from the past, returns. Awoken by the god Bhunivelze to save as many of the remnants of humanity’s souls as she can to be reborn into a new world, Lightning…2 min
PC Gamer|June 2024ARMORED CORE VINEED TO KNOW RELEASEAugust 24, 2023 PUBLISHERBandai Namco DEVELOPERFromSoftware LINK bandainamcoent.eu I would like to apologise to the person I rage quit on in Armored Core VI. I don’t remember your name, I just remember your build: lightweight on Nachtreiher legs, like I used to run, with dual Sampu burst pistols (buffed in patch 1.06), an Earshot shoulder-mounted cannon, and a laser dagger you would use in a devastating combo with assault armour to eat my entire health bar in a single stagger punish. I’d quit one or two ranked 1v1s in the past – Alt+F4ing means ‘no contest’ for either player – but it’s a vile habit, especially when your opponent’s just about to win. The justification of ‘that guy’s build was bullsh*t’ rings hollow in the face…4 min
PC Gamer|June 2024GET RICH OR DIE TRYING IN STARFIELD PART 4DIARY PERSONAL ADVENTURES IN GAMES The eye of the storm. Not just any storm. An electromagnetic storm that shrouds an abandoned GalBank transport vessel and is home to millions of credits somewhere near the planet of Bannoc IV. The descent is dangerous, near suicidal. Cosmic lightning rages in the backdrop as the red mist clouds everything in sight. If the countless meteoroids don’t destroy the ship on impact, the jolts of electricity will no doubt render it lifeless. There’s only one person for the job, and his name is Jett Johnson. It’s been a tumultuous time for our leading star, having been coerced into undercover work against the Crimson Fleet for the UC SysDef. He didn’t want to do it, but a lifetime behind bars was never an…9 min
PC Gamer|June 2024GRIM FANDANGOREINSTALL OLD GAMES, NEW PERSPECTIVES NEED TO KNOW RELEASE1998/2015 PUBLISHERLucasArts DEVELOPERLucasArts LINK grimremastered.com Beyond death, in Tim Schafer’s world at least, there is only bureaucracy.Supernatural mythologies often reflect the human experience, and the afterlife – or at least, one of the afterlives – being a corporate hellscape filled with message tubes, secretaries and filing cabinets that you can never leave until your debt is paid off seems to be trying awfully hard to make a point about our existence. Office drudgery never ends, the ones at the top are the only ones to prosper, and yes I am writing this as my last job just before a trip to Disneyland. Why do you ask? However, this is hardly the only game to delight in the tedious. The…8 min
PC Gamer|June 2024THE PCG INVESTIGATORIT’S ALL OVER... She entered my office, as all PC gamers do, with a story to tell. “I need your help, Dick,” the damsel forced out between shaky drags on her Virginia Slims cigarette. “My dunderheaded ex-squeeze Sammy’s gone and done a hell of a stupid thing. It’s our rig, he’s only gone and…” I’d seen this before. “Let me guess,” I replied, as weak early morning rays of sun filtered in through my office blinds, cutting paths through the cigarette smoke and illuminating various piles of ancient SCSI cables, GPUs and CRT monitors. “He’s gone and OD’d it.” “I told him not to, Dick, I begged him. But he went overclock mad, just kept popping the clocks, raising them higher and higher. He said it was the only way…2 min
PC Gamer|June 2024The PC Gamer teamROBIN VALENTINE Twitter @robinlvalentine This monthPlayed Balatro, Slay the Spire and Cobalt Core so much that he started speaking in card hands. SARAH JAMES Twitter @vision_burn This monthCreated a murderous Elden Ring dream team with the smelliest of all companions, Dung Eater. SEAN MARTIN Twitter @RemainsToBeSean This monthDefended Super Earth from galactic terrors by diving harder than any Helldiver has ever dived. PHIL IWANIUK Twitter @PhilIwaniuk This monthFinally realised that bathing his GPU in cheetah blood doesn’t make it faster. Oh Phil. PC Gamer (ISSN 1351-3540, USPS 24170), June issue 396, is published monthly with an extra issue in April by Future Publishing, Quay House, The Ambury, Bath, BA1 1UA. UK Airfreight and mailing in the USA by agent named World Container INC 150-15, 183rd St, Jamaica, NY 11413, USA.…1 min
PC Gamer|June 2024The SpyThe Spy doesn’t believe in money. Sure, The Spy has seen the coins and notes you parade around, and heard tell of their ability to be exchanged for a Greggs Steak Bake. The Spy understands these coins and notes are then gathered up and given to the people who make and hand out the Steak Bakes – presumably so, they too, can go on to secure their own supply of Steak Bakes. It all seems very circuitous and unnecessary. To The Spy’s knowledge, seagulls have never mastered currency. And yet The Spy has observed that they are very good at acquiring Steak Bakes. And this is just your basic, ground level economics – the thing designed in a way that your average beef-craving Joe can understand. It says nothing of…3 min
PC Gamer|June 2024Incoming1 month HOMEWORLD 3 RELEASE May 13, 2024 | DEVELOPER Blackbird Interactive Finally, after multiple large delays, the third game in the beloved sci-fi RTS series blasts off in mid-May. Our preview of the game was very promising, so keep the faith. SENUA’S SAGA: HELLBLADE II RELEASE May 21, 2024 | DEVELOPER Ninja Theory The sequel to the award-winning original Hellblade, Senua’s Saga sees Senua return in a brutal journey of survival through Viking Iceland. Violent and crazy. CROWN WARS: THE BLACK PRINCE RELEASE May 23, 2024 | DEVELOPER Artefacts Studio Medieval tactics and strategy where you play the lord of your domain and fight to crush the malevolent plans of the evil Order in brutal turn-based combat. 3 months DESTINY 2: THE FINAL SHAPE RELEASE June 4, 2024 |…2 min
PC Gamer|June 2024Unreal Tournament 2004The release of Unreal Tournament 2004 represented a remarkable moment in PC gaming history. Not only was the game a joy to play, building on the multiplayer shooter mechanics that had originated in 1999’s Unreal Tournament, but it was also able to be modded, and some of those mods would become standalone games themselves, launching the careers of their devs. Released an astonishing 20 years ago, Unreal Tournament 2004 was one of the outstanding first-person shooters of its time. This third iteration in the franchise brought a bounty of fantastical levels and deliriously lethal contraptions to the shooter scene, returning Unreal Tournament to the podium to rival interlopers such as Halo. It provided a counterpoint to a flood of military shooters while bringing the franchise “up to date” in the…15 min
PC Gamer|June 2024This month’s dogmatic reviewers…FRASER BROWN Specialist inCuring Dragonsplague Currently playing Dragon’s Dogma 2 This monthThrew many, many companions off bridges. Oh, and in Dragon’s Dogma 2 he... ROBERT JONES Specialist inLooking too old for this Currently playing Outcast – A New Beginning This monthFlew around PC Gamer Towers using a jetpack. Much beer was spilled. OSCAR TAYLOR-KENT Specialist inRiding robodinos Currently playing Horizon Forbidden West This monthBuilt his own robodino in his garage. Rode it to Maccy D’s for nuggs. TOM SYKES Specialist inSelecting power drive Currently playing Lee Carvallo’s Putting Challenge 2 This monthChose a three wood then pushed seven, eight, seven to swing. MATT ELLIOTT Specialist inHiding from ghost girls Currently playing FEAR This monthBecame permanently scared of ladders for no reason whatsoever. He’s not crying, you are!…1 min
PC Gamer|June 2024CUTTER STAIDNEED TO KNOW WHAT IS IT?A sequel to the 1999 classic action adventure game, Outcast EXPECT TO PAY£50 DEVELOPERAppeal Studios PUBLISHERTHQ Nordic REVIEWED ONAMD Ryzen 7 5700X, 32GB RAM, Nvidia GeForce RTX 3090 Ti MULTIPLAYERNo LINK outcast.thqnordic.com There’s a fundamental contradiction between how Outcast – A New Beginning looks and sounds to how it actually plays. Visually, it’s often epic. The alien world of Adelpha has never looked better, with Pandora-lite environments seamlessly alternating between lush forests, coastal beachfronts, rocky mountainous expanses, snow-capped peaks and waterfall-laden ancient metropolises partially reclaimed by nature. The audio is also beautiful and atmospheric – it always speaks of wondrous cosmic adventures that await. What a shame, then, that hero of the hour Cutter Slade spends so much of his time in Outcast – A…8 min
PC Gamer|June 2024OFF PUTTINGFREE GAMES REVIEWS COOL TITLES FOR NO CASH NEED TO KNOW WHAT IS IT?A Game Boy sequel to a fictional Simpsons golf game EXPECT TO PAYFree DEVELOPERGumpy Function PUBLISHERGumpy Function REVIEWED ONIntel Core i7-10750H, 16GB RAM, Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 MULTIPLAYERNo LINK bit.ly/LeeCarvallo2 Putting Challenge 2 is (deep breath) a fan game based on the fake videogame featured in an episode of The Simpsons. Remember? Bart received it as a gift instead of the ultraviolent Bonestorm. While another developer has recreated the game featured in The Simpsons, here’s Gumpy Function with a Game Boy ‘sequel’ containing very little actual golf content, instead exploring Lee Carvallo’s life after the release of his licensed game. As you might expect, this game is packed with Simpsons deep cuts, with almost every…3 min
PC Gamer|June 2024ALMA MATERTHEY’RE BACK OLD GAMES REVISITED by Matthew Elliott NEED TO KNOW WHAT IS IT?If Ju-On: The Grudge was a Robert Rodriguez movie EXPECT TO PAY£7.80 DEVELOPERMonolith Productions, Inc, Timegate PUBLISHERWarner Bros Games REVIEWED ONIntel Core i7-7700, 16 GB RAM, Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070 MULTIPLAYERNo (it did have it, but the servers are gone) LINK gog.com/game/fear_platinum First Encounter Assault Recon is an example of one my favourite videogame tropes: the laughably functional acronym. Instead of sounding cool, FEAR makes you imagine a team of dull military minds sat around a secret table in the Pentagon, trying to think of the perfect name for soldiers who shoot ghosts. Special Operations Occult Kill Initiative was almost certainly an option. Forget everything and remember. It’s one of many conceits which, upon return,…2 min
PC Gamer|June 2024ERGONOMIC KEYBOARDSStandard keyboards just aren’t great for your body. The key layout makes your fingers constantly stretch and splay, and forces your wrists to rotate inward. Your hands sit close together, so your shoulders don’t get much chance to relax. A quality ergonomic keyboard counters all of this and the best ones are designed to relieve the stresses you get from typing and gaming all day long. Picking the right one is no easy task and there’s no such thing as a perfect choice, as everyone’s needs are different. What suits one person could well be an annoyance to someone else. There are some important things to watch out for, though, so avoid paying for a label and look for the right features. Here are six ergo keyboards to whet your…7 min
PC Gamer|June 2024BUYER’S GUIDEKEY Budget build PC gaming is for everyone. Pick these parts if you want to build a new, well-rounded PC for a good price. Mid-range build You want to run every new game at 1080p 60fps. This recommended build will see you through. Advanced build You’re looking for the best PC on the market and superior components. But you still want to spend smart. BUDGET BUILD Enjoy 1080p gaming without breaking the bank MOTHERBOARD B660M Pro RSASRock £112 This is as cheap as we want to go while still offering room for expansion and upgrades down the line. PROCESSOR Core i5 13400F Intel £190 Intel’s added four more cores to its entry-level Core i5 and it’s become even more fantastic value. GRAPHICS CARD Radeon RX 7600AMD £255 You could spend…5 min
PC Gamer|June 2024“If you’re going to carpet a salon, the walls are the best place for it”TYLER WILDE THIS MONTHWas not a good barber. ALSO PLAYEDHelldivers 2, Balatro Ever feel like you’d be really good at something, despite refusing to try it? I feel that way about dessert making. I see a great confection and think, ‘I could make that.’ In my heart I know I couldn’t, but there are lots of men who think they’d win a fight with a bear, so I could be more delusional. One thing I don’t feel that way about is hairdressing. I’m not even good at shaving my own head, and have been known to leave my apartment with a little patch of hair I missed behind one ear. I also don’t like touching other people’s hair. I can’t help but picture its future life as a slimy ball…3 min
PC Gamer|June 2024ELDEN RING REBORNMOD SPOTLIGHT MAJOR MODS, ANALYSED NEED TO KNOW RELEASEFeb 24, 2022 PUBLISHERFromSoftware DEVELOPERFromSoftware LINK en.bandainamcoent.eu Elden Ring Reborn, a total conversion mod that switches up item and enemy placements, overhauls progression while adding a slew of quality of life improvements, is like hearing a club mix of your favourite song at a nightclub: the lows are filtered, the pitch and tempo are kicked up a little bit, and it’s structured in such a way that the chorus comes in harder, faster and stronger. The most immediate change Reborn throws at you is the changed starting position. Beginning life anew on the Weeping Peninsula, your earliest hours will be fraught fending off ambushes and scrounging for smithing stones, readying yourself for a push into a heavily fortified Limgrave,…5 min
PC Gamer|June 2024FINDING A BUILD IN A ROGUELIKEWHY I LOVE WHAT MAKES GAMES SPECIAL NEED TO KNOW RELEASEFebruary 20, 2024 PUBLISHERPlaystack DEVELOPERLocalThunk LINK playbalatro.com I’m not too proud to admit I am obsessed with roguelike deckbuilders. Ever since Slay the Spire first blew the doors off the genre back in 2017, moving cards around has been my default mode of existence – in the absence of anything else to distract me I will boot up my latest favourite and lose another hour to the decks. There’s a lot of reasons they resonate so strongly with me – I’ve always liked card games, RPGs and difficult strategy, for example – but playing the excellent poker-inspired roguelike Balatro has helped me realise the main thing that keeps me coming back again and again: it’s the joy…4 min
PC Gamer|June 2024GABE’S FORTUNEBack in 2021, indie developer Wolfire filed an antitrust lawsuit against Valve that accused the gaming giant of anti-competitive business practices – including its habit of taking unfair cuts from developers on its store. Valve’s 30% fees have come under criticism before – and they are high when compared to some other online platforms. Valve offers cuts, but only if your company’s earning millions on millions – no alms for the little guy. The suit was dismissed without prejudice later that year. However, that dismissal gave Wolfire 30 days to bring the suit up-to-par, which it did, reigniting the legal battle in 2022. Now, details have emerged from the suit’s discovery phase – both sides’ legal teams were able to exchange documents to help build out their cases. One particular…2 min
PC Gamer|June 2024THE GOD FACTORYOver 160 copies of Factorio, a base building game from four years ago, ran simultaneously on servers around the world to make history. Factorio’s first ‘God Factory’ was born through the efforts of a Discord server full of people who refuse to stop building. The over 400 players behind Eternity Cluster, a project that had only existed for a month at the time, broke 1,000,000 science per minute (SPM) in February. Normal players of the factory-building automation game only need around 30 SPM to achieve the game’s ultimate goal: sending a rocket into space. But for the Factorio players who really get a thrill from efficient mass production – a drive that has kept the game relevant since its 2018 Steam early access launch – one rocket is not enough.…5 min
PC Gamer|June 2024VINDICTUS: DEFYING FATENEED TO KNOW RELEASETBA DEVELOPERNexon PUBLISHERNexon LINK s.team/c/2814860 W hat were you doing in 2010? Chances are you weren’t playing a Korean MMO called Vindictus, also known as Mabinogi Heroes, which won the grand prize at the 2010 Korea Game Awards. It’s still going today, has been praised for its combat, and Defying Fate is a spin-off story. A warrior enters a sunlit valley. She wears highly feminised armour that’s a little draughty around the thighs, and carries a sword and shield. A dual-blade wielding male character is also available at startup, but the extra protection will probably come in handy later, especially when I start looking at the alternate costumes. The game is full of artefacts from its MMO heritage. Defying Fate takes place in the same universe as…7 min
PC Gamer|June 2024LEVEL ZERO: EXTRACTIONNEED TO KNOW RELEASE2024 DEVELOPERDOGHOWL Games PUBLISHERtinyBuild LINK levelzerogame.com L evel Zero: Extraction is a simple concept, it’s what you would get if Escape From Tarkov took place in the Alien universe. This combines the gear fear of the former with the genuine terror of being stalked by an alien to create an incredibly tense experience. It may not sound particularly unique, effectively taking the idea of one of the most popular games in the world and throwing it into a world that holds more than a few similarities to one of the most loved film universes ever created, but there is one key feature that makes Level Zero: Extraction a little more interesting than that – light. When you spawn in as a human on the only map available…7 min
PC Gamer|June 2024The Elder Scrolls OnlineFew online RPGs have transformed as much in the past decade as The Elder Scrolls Online. First debuting in April of 2014 as a confused, awkward thing, loved by few. Today, it proudly stands alongside its singleplayer peers. Here’s how TESO escaped Oblivion’s grasp and reconnected with Elder Scrolls fans. In the past couple of weeks, I’ve made a return tour around TESO’s world, wrapped up the main story arc, and got to have a talk with two of the game’s production leads – game director Matt Firor (previously of classic PvP MMO Dark Age of Camelot) and creative director Rich Lambert. Both were eager to share their stories of the highs and lows of development, and how the game found a new identity through one of the most comprehensive…10 min
PC Gamer|June 2024PAWN co*ckTAILDragon’s Dogma 2 NEED TO KNOW WHAT IS IT?An open-world RPG sequel full of weird companions and gargantuan monsters EXPECT TO PAY£54 DEVELOPERCapcom PUBLISHERCapcom REVIEWED ONIntel Core i9-13900k, 32GB RAM, Nvidia GeGorce RTX 4090 MULTIPLAYERNo LINK dragonsdogma.com/2/ My journey through Dragon’s Dogma 2 has been a tumultuous one: glorious, thrilling, accidentally hilarious, frustrating, maddening – all the adjectives. It is one of my favourite RPGs, but also a huge pain in the arse. Whatever you feel about it by the end of your own adventure, I guarantee this is a game that will be talked about for a long time. You are the Arisen, a soldier killed by a dragon, returned to life despite the absence of a heart. Whenever the dragon appears, a new Arisen also appears, their fates…13 min
PC Gamer|June 2024VIVE LA RESISTANCE!NEED TO KNOW WHAT IS IT?An XCOM-like tactics game set in the days leading up to the D-Day landings in 1944 EXPECT TO PAY£35 DEVELOPERAbsolutely Games PUBLISHERTeam17, Fireshine Games REVIEWED ONAMD Ryzen 7 5800H, 16GB RAM, Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070 MULTIPLAYERNo LINK team17.com/games/classified-france-44 For me, the best battles in turn-based tactics games are the ones where the momentum can shift on one perfectly executed turn; those pivotal moments when you harness the abilities that you maybe forgot even existed when things were going smoothly, but suddenly justify their existence in one audacious sequence of manoeuvres that imbue the orderly grid-based combat with the cinematic splendour of backs-to-the-wall movies. The factions are a cool concept, but lack a bit of dynamism Here’s a case in point in Absolutely Games’ World War…8 min
PC Gamer|June 2024SHORT CIRCUITSNEED TO KNOW EXPECT TO PAYFree DEVELOPERFLEB LINK bit.ly/20Mazes This sure is a game made up of 20 small mazes, but of course there’s a little more to it than that. I’m not sure if there’s even one without a gimmick behind it, whether it’s VVVVVV-style gravity flipping, teleporters, or walls you can smash down while driving a digger. I spent a very enjoyable hour and a bit solving all the mazes, but it’s the way they all link together that’s truly impressive. The mazes are all laid atop one another, like windows on a horribly cluttered computer desktop, and to move between them you have to drag the others away from you. It’s satisfying on a tactile level, but the fact that the mazes are all in the same…1 min
PC Gamer|June 2024PHANTOM PAINNEED TO KNOW EXPECT TO PAY£11 DEVELOPERKinetic Games PUBLISHERKinetic Games TikTok would have us believe the idea of hunting ghosts and cryptids is wholesome fun. You gather your flask, checked shirt and antique camera, then sashay into abandoned spaces in search of the restless dead. Phasmophobia proves, as if it was even necessary, that listening to social media is usually a mistake. The practical nature of Phasmophobia is part of what makes it so unsettling. If you were just wandering around cursed houses, bracing yourself for jumpscares, you’d probably become numb to its terrors. But everything here is underpinned by busywork. It feels like someone in middle management will be assessing your performance if you don’t lay your quota of souls to rest. The slow-burn revelations help, too. It’s important…1 min
PC Gamer|June 2024DIE ANOTHER DAYTECH REPORT PC gaming isn’t governed by universal logic. We build a new PC to meet Ark: Survival Evolved’s demands, and then spend a hundred hours playing Vampire Survivors on it instead. We wear RGB headsets and then sit there, not seeing the RGB lighting. And we pressure ourselves to buy a new GPU every 17 minutes while other elements of our gaming setup like the monitor we took from work in 2012 soldier on. All of which is to say, there are no hard and fast rules when it comes to upgrading. Usually it takes a new game’s arrival and subsequent refusal to run faster than flipbook speed to prompt some new componentry. But such a haphazard approach doesn’t sit well with all of us. And when it comes…5 min
PC Gamer|June 2024“You have to look past the fact that he uses a spine as a sword”CONTINUED ADVENTURES IN GAMING SARAH JAMES THIS MONTHRushed to Leyndell in record time to free my “friend”. ALSO PLAYEDNightingale, Last Epoch I always seem to be actively trying to resist another Elden Ring playthrough. I only have to hear someone mention the game, even in passing, and I’m already eying it up in my Steam library where it sits, eternally installed and waiting for my resolve to crumble. Of course, that’s exactly what happened when I watched the recent Shadow of the Erdtree DLC trailer – so back to the Lands Between I went. Despite the number of hours I’ve racked up in the game over the last two years, I still haven’t done everything. It’s certainly impossible to get everything done in one playthrough and there are certain choices…3 min
PC Gamer|June 2024“The kind of game that would have received an affectionate score of 75”RICK LANE THIS MONTHBrought the future back to the past in Evil West. ALSO PLAYEDDeath Stranding, Untitled Goose Game You know that thing where your brain slightly alters any memory it recalls? Evil West is the videogame version of that. I picked it up because I’ve been pining for linear third-person action games lately, the kind that followed in the bloody wake of Gears of War. No open world, no fancy level design, no nuanced characterisation. Just me, a big gun and a long line of enemies desperate to throw themselves in front of it. On the face of it, Evil West is precisely that, an over-the-shoulder action adventure that asks two simple questions, “What if the Wild West had vampires in it?” and, “What if you could punch those…2 min
PC Gamer|June 2024GET STARTED IN HELLDIVERS 2NEED TO KNOW DIFFICULTYHard TIME20 hours VITAL LINKS Weapon tier list: pcgamer.com/helldivers-2-best-weapons Best loadouts: pcgamer.com/helldivers-2-bestloadouts BUGS OR BOTS 1 The galactic war sees Super Earth beset on both sides by Terminid insects and Automaton robots. These factions feature entirely different rosters; the Automatons, for example, have ranged weapons, while the Terminids rely more on swarming you. MAJOR ORDERS 2 While Helldivers 2 doesn’t have a story as such, it does have Major Orders. These objectives set the playerbase a challenge to overcome to progress Super Earth’s galactic war. This might be taking planets back from Terminids or defending against robots. GET IN THE WAR 3 Your first step in Helldivers 2 is choosing a weapon. The current frontrunner in the meta is the SG-225 Breaker shotgun, but the standard AR-23…3 min
PC Gamer|June 2024MUST PLAYKERRY BRUNSKILL People keep telling me I have a passion for retro games, but in truth I’m just not ready to accept 1998 happened over two decades ago. Sega still makes consoles, right? BALDUR’S GATE III baldursgate3.game As I’ve now poured over 700 hours of my life into Larian’s Astarion Dating Simulator I thought I’d use this space to apologise to my husband, who probably wishes I displayed half as much enthusiasm for our marriage as I do the pale elf’s “Can I kiss you?” dialogue prompt. SEGA BASS FISHING sega.com A lure bobs in crystal clear waters for a moment before being hungrily snatched up, a life now literally on the line. Who will win this intense battle of wits: me, or a fish with a tiny, tiny, brain?…2 min
