Home//PC Gamer/November 2021/In This Issue
PC Gamer|November 2021“IT COULD BE A HUGE STEP FORWARD… OR A VERY COSTLY STUMBLE”ROBIN VALENTINE Twitter @robinlvalentine This month Held all sorts of things in his hands without Valve’s assistance. Well now, it’s not often we get to put a console on the cover, is it? OK, technically it’s more of a handheld PC, but whatever it is, it feels like it could be a huge step forward for this hobby of ours… or a very costly stumble. Across our huge feature, we’ve broken down absolutely everything you need to know, informed by a hands-on at Valve’s offices, a chat with the device’s developers, a full run through the technical specs, and a dash of expert opinion. I just hope that in a world where you can play your entire Steam library on the bus, you’ll still find time to read a magazine……1 min
PC Gamer|November 2021FONT AND CENTREAfter long getting by with the ported mobile versions of the early Final Fantasy games, at last Square Enix announced it would treat PC players to proper remasters. When we finally got a look at the Final Fantasy Pixel Remasters though, the reactions quickly got chaotic. What fans focused on in the first trailer wasn’t the refreshed pixel art or newly arranged classic songs, but the tragically condensed sans-serif font that left awkward amounts of blank space in menus and text boxes. It was indeed difficult to ignore. A dozen font-replacement mods were online just days after launch. How does such a small (but clearly vital) decision go wrong? And who actually chooses the fonts that games use? “It really depends on the game and the team,” says John Ricciardi,…5 min
PC Gamer|November 2021BODY POLITICIT WOULDN’T BE TRUE TO SAY THAT DEUS EX WAS BORN FROM A UNIFIED CREATIVE VISION The life of a studio famed for big, difficult decisions began with a no-brainer. When John Romero approached Warren Spector with a blank cheque to make his dream game, Spector’s team was unemployed – showing up to the defunct Looking Glass Austin office to pitch ideas unpaid. In their sketches and documents was a concept for a spy game called Shooter, in which an agent could hack devices and control nanotechnology. The year was 1997, and the air was thick with Hollywood actors in mirrored sunglasses tapping away at chunky keyboards. Suddenly, with Romero’s backing, anything Spector and his studio could imagine was fair game. The fundamentals were clear for a team that had…5 min
PC Gamer|November 2021GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXYNEED TO KNOW RELEASE October 26, 2021 DEVELOPER Eidos Montreal PUBLISHER Square Enix LINK bit.ly/3fBUQbj While the official title for Square Enix’s latest superhero tie-in is Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy, it would be more appropriate to call it Eidos Montreal’s Guardians of the Galaxy because Eidos Montreal’s game will offer a new take on those characters and the galaxy in which they reside. “It’s not based on the MCU. It’s not based on the comics,” says Jean-François Dugas, senior creative director at Eidos Montreal. “It’s its own thing, its own reinvention, its own reinterpretation of those characters and the backgrounds.” Yes, the Guardians will have altered back-stories in Eidos Montreal’s game, and those stories will play a significant role in the game’s central plot. Taking place roughly a year…3 min
PC Gamer|November 2021MARTHA IS DEADNEED TO KNOW RELEASE 2021 DEVELOPER LKA PUBLISHER Wired Productions LINK bit.ly/2WmLB7N The woods at night. Never a good place for a walk, especially if you’re in a psychological thriller and have an unreliable light source. There’s something else out here too. It may be a vengeful spirit, or it may be a manifestation of your guilt for… for what, exactly? The game starts with the story of the White Lady, a young woman murdered on an island in the lake who takes lives to sate her pain. Years later, and Martha is Dead’s protagonist is prone to wandering in the woods, sometimes in her dreams, other times for real. A family tragedy has redefined her relationships with her home and those who live there, and the beautiful Tuscan farmhouse…2 min
PC Gamer|November 2021Steam Full AheadPictures of the Steam Deck couldn’t prepare me for seeing it in person. After working on the Steam Deck in secret for years, Valve invited us to its offices to be among the first to test out the handheld gaming PC, before game developers have even gotten their hands on it. And wow, is it big. This is the full tower PC case of videogame handhelds. Once I actually picked up the Steam Deck, though, the size didn’t seem to matter much. At 1.47 pounds it isn’t too heavy to hold comfortably. It’s wide, but the inputs are close enough to reach naturally. The button arrangement may look a little odd, but it fits how you grip the device. The Steam Deck is as big as it needed to be…7 min
PC Gamer|November 2021Tech specs1 D-Pad Valve says one of the Deck’s key designers is a diehard fighting game fan, so this d-pad got a lot of love. It’s clicky and, most importantly, rocks from the centre so you can pull off sweeps and quarter circles with ease. 2 Grips The Deck’s top-heavy button placement makes sense as soon as you hold it. The sculpted sides encourage you to cradle it near the top, and give you a lot more to grip onto than the Switch’s flat joycons. 3 Steam button The Steam button gives the Deck the console-like power to suspend games and jump back to your library or go into sleep mode. Think of it as a supercharged Steam overlay. 4 Display With a 1280 x 800 native resolution the Valve has…2 min
PC Gamer|November 2021Are we buying a Deck?DAVE JAMES Hardware Lead I’m not sure if it’s a symptom of the patented Gabe Newell Reality Distortion Field, but I’m a whole lot more positive about the Steam Deck now than I was when it was first announced. It’s normally the other way around, getting dragged on by the hype machine before the devil in the details convinces me otherwise. I’m actually loving the chonky look of it, the AMDbased hardware has a lot of potential with its LPDDR5 backup, and SteamOS 3.0 and Proton could genuinely bring Linux gaming to the masses. But there is one potential sticking point that’s going to have to be ironed out for the Deck to be the sort of broad appeal success Valve seems to think it will be. That issue is…4 min
PC Gamer|November 2021REVIEWHOW WE REVIEW We review each game on its own merits, and try to match it to a reviewer who’s a passionate expert in the field. The main aim of reviews is to help you make buying decisions. To this end, we’re selective about what we review, and try to focus on the notable, interesting, exciting or surprising. DOWNLOADABLE CONTENT DLC might be new missions for a game, or it might be a single new item. If we think you want to know about it, we’ll review it. EARLY ACCESS Any released alpha, beta, or otherwise unfinished game that you can currently pay for. For these games, we won’t assign a score, but we will tell you whether they’re worth your time. THEY’RE BACK Whenever there’s a bargain or re-release…2 min
PC Gamer|November 2021IT’S ONLY HUMANThere’s something weirdly mythical about the historical 4X and the dominance of one series, Civilization, for 30 years. Amplitude Studios has been working on a challenger for a decade, preparing to rewrite the myth. Humankindis the result: a behemoth that’s kept me on its hooks until sunrise a few times. But in trying to make its own Civ, Amplitude may have sacrificed too much of what made its games such compelling weirdos. It’s good to make enemies early on and know where you stand This is not to say that Humankind doesn’t have any bold ideas. It’s clear that isn’t the case as soon as you hop into a campaign. Normally you’d need to pick a civ, faction, or race of nerdy dragons first, and then plonk down a city,…8 min
PC Gamer|November 2021TIME WASTEDThere’s a puzzle in adventure game Gabriel Knight 3 infamous for being so illogical that ‘the cat hair moustache’ has become the bad puzzle that all others are compared against – the pinnacle of design that makes you ask yourself, “How the hell was I ever supposed to think of that?” I had that exact feeling while playing 12 Minutes, which uses a time loop to let you live out its frustrating and obtuse puzzles again and again and again. You start 12 Minutes as a nameless man coming home to your small apartment, where your wife greets you warmly with a candlelit dessert and a surprise: she’s pregnant. A few minutes later, a cop kicks down the door, accuses your wife of being a murderer, and strangles you to…4 min
PC Gamer|November 2021DOT HACK1 TARGET LOCKED The new hacking device isn’t a gun – it’s a field that will latch onto any enemies or switches in range. You’re given multiple options, for instance: to slow down enemies or disable weapons. 2 BAR NONE It’s probably not called MP, but some hacks cost more of the game’s new MP bar than others. You can extend it by spending skill points, which are hidden around the world. 3 WHY BOTHER Hacking is one option – but you could also whack the enemy a few times instead. It’s a sophisticated system, used occasionally during puzzles, but combat feels too brief to ever require it.…1 min
PC Gamer|November 2021HIGHWAY OUTTA HELLI’m stuffed into a motorcycle sidecar with a bag full of cash, and two bank robbers wearing balaclavas are on the main bike beside me. We’re travelling well past 200mph and the cops are hot on our tail, so I’m tasked with picking up wads of the stolen money and chucking them at the tailing police car. As the cash hits the cop’s windscreen like a burst of green confetti, I can’t help but reflect on how I got myself caught up in this ridiculous situation. Young people have started to flee the country, scared of the regime This exhilarating motorcycle chase is one of the many scenarios that Road 96’s procedural system has thrown me into. It’s a road trip adventure about hitchhiking across Petria, a country slowly being…4 min
PC Gamer|November 2021TRICKS OF THE MINDMENTAL CONNECTION Connects the dots between thought bubbles, which is the Psychonauts way of saying ‘it’s a grappling hook’. Using it in the brain of Psychonauts boss Hollis lets you link random ideas to implant new lines of thinking. TIME BUBBLE The ability to slow down enemies and deadly propeller blades may not sound very original, but it is taught to you by Jack Black, which earns it a bonus point. New enemies move at humminbird-like speeds until you hit them with it. PROJECTION Two heads are better than one? Yes and no. Creating a clone of Raz lets him slip through cracks the fleshier original can’t, but it does mean enduring the helium gibbering of your creation. You can buy a pin badge that modifies him into a mute.…1 min
PC Gamer|November 2021DEVIL’S IN THE DETAILSHell Let Loose is the sort of game that convinces me we’re in the golden age of the multiplayer FPS. No matter what kind of first-person shooting you’re into, there’s probably a good game out there designed to scratch your specific itch. For military sim fans, Hell Let Loose is one of those games. It answers the question, “What if there was a truly hardcore Battlefield?” The main game mode is basically one huge match of Rush with one team pushing and the other defending, but you can’t just respawn on a squadmate every time you die. You can only respawn on Outposts placed by a squad leader or at larger Garrisons that have to be built from scratch. Let the enemy overrun your Garrison and you’re forced to run…4 min
PC Gamer|November 2021HIGHFLEET’S DIEGETIC INTERFACE1 when Tug on a the message telephone can be intercepted and you’ll get a set of dials to turn to start breaking codes. 2 to Open send the out hatch your ships for combat, and land in cities. 3 interface Pulls up another for launching planes. 4 select Here’s your where ships you forsneak attacks. 5 why Missiles not, ? there Yes sure are also missiles! 6 button The SOS . 7 where The actual you move map, and enemy information is documented.…1 min
PC Gamer|November 2021POST NO BILLSThere’s perhaps 1/5th of a cult hit in Postbird in Provence, a game about delivering mail around a picturesque French village. Despite being a bird – creatures that notably have wings – you deliver packages by bicycle, pootling through the narrow streets, skidding round corners and hurtling up ramps like Evel Kn’eagle, and fingers crossed I get away with that terrible pun. I say ‘1/5th’ because, like so many free games, Postbirdis very short. Just as I was finishing what I thought was the tutorial – consisting of just a few deliveries to a clutch of villagers – the game unexpectedly wrapped up. Thankfully, you can load your save file and continue exploring, and you should, because it’s like being on holiday. There’s a journal that fills in with every…3 min
PC Gamer|November 2021SMOOTH OPERATORGoing back to an old game is like waking up on New Year’s Day. You erupt out of bed with fresh drive and purpose. Then you realise it’s March and you’ve spent three months watching the same video about cranial nerve examinations instead of Unity tutorials and the only book you’ve read is about vegetables that look like celebrities. It’s still possible to lose hours faffing about in its homicidal toybox This is the thought that occurs to me as I try, for the second or third time, to kill a man by flushing his head down the bog. You always go into Hitmanpredicting a degree of efficiency. You expect to sashay your objectives and escape while your target’s body is still warm. But Hitmanis a dark temptress, beckoning you…2 min
PC Gamer|November 2021COSTUME QUESTThere’s always one game in these lists that removes all doubt when it comes to the theme. This time: disguises. It’s also a month-appropriate game, because Halloween waddles toward us like an insulin-resistant child in a pirate outfit. Costume Quest is the warmest, most autumnal slice of American seasonality you can play on PC. And if it feels like a Pixar spin-off, there’s a good reason: director Tasha Sounart worked there for years before joining DoubleFine, then returned to become associate creative director of theme parks, a job title so nice it sounds like it was made as a reward at the end of a Muppets movie. And it’s likely why Costume Quest feels like a cosy ghost train.…1 min
PC Gamer|November 2021LIGHTING TIPS TO IMPROVE ANY WEBCAM SHOTThe first step to improving your video quality is fixing the lighting. Regardless of how spectacular the webcam, a badly lit studio could negate some of that technological advantage. Start off by dimming harsh back-lighting. Think of how environment artists draw your attention to quest items: a bright background will detract from the focal point. Then grab a desk lamp and either point it at a white surface behind your monitor for some soft bounce light, or strap some white paper to it to diffuse the light. Either will reduce shiny spots on your face, but the latter provides more control. Then just reduce your screen brightness, particularly if you wear glasses, and adjust the webcam’s white and colour balance until you look vaguely human.…1 min
PC Gamer|November 2021BUDGET BUILDMOTHERBOARD A320M-A Pro MSI £42 Everything you need and nothing else. This MSI motherboard is simple but it works. And that’s all we can ask for at this price. PROCESSOR Ryzen 5 3400G AMD £130 Capable budget CPU and GPU in one tiny package, and it also comes with its very own CPU cooler. GRAPHICS CARD None This build is tailored to today’s GPU shortage. But don’t fret, once cards are back in stock you could slot one in to this PC for an upgrade. COOLER Wraith Spire AMDFree with CPU The Wraith Spire is a great cooler made even better by the fact it comes free with our choice of chip. Budget heaven. MEMORY Vegeance LPX 8GB (2x 4GB) DDR4-3000 Corsair £39 For gaming we only really need 8GB…2 min
PC Gamer|November 2021“You’d best beware my energy sword should ye step anywhere near it”Just over a year ago, a friend messaged me with an idea. Halo 3 had just hit Steam via The Master Chief Collection, and he was planning on getting a bunch of pals together to play a few rounds of Slayer like it was 2007 all over again. Fifty-two weekends later (give or take) and we’re still going, testament to the fact that this wasn’t just an experiment in nostalgia. Every weekend we’ll gather for an evening of Halo 3shenanigans. Here’s how a night usually goes. It starts with a small free-for-all on Guardian to warm up, waiting for folks to finish up their dinner and jump in. We’ll move onto our staple of bigger maps as the gang arrives – The Pit, High Ground, Ghost Town – and maybe…3 min
PC Gamer|November 2021GET STARTED IN GENSHIN IMPACT 2.0TALL STORY 1 you When ’ll be you stuck first on arrive the in island Inazuma of , Ritou. To unlock the ability to explore the rest of the region, and gain access to the Adventurer’s Guild, continue with the Archon quest line until you’re sent to Inazuma City. MAPPED OUT 2 of Find the and Seven activate across the Inazuma three Statues to uncover the complete map of the entire region. You’ll find one statue on each of the three main islands, and locating each will make getting around the area that much easier. LENS FLARE 3 Sacrificial Make sure Offering you complete world the quest to pick up the Memento Lens. This is a new gadget in 2.0 that can reveal hidden objects at various locations across Inazuma…3 min
PC Gamer|November 2021WAR GAMESCOMPANY OF HEROES 2 Get the Ardennes Assault DLC, which includes a dynamic turn-based campaign, and this becomes one of the most explosive and deep WWII real-time strategy games. Our score: 80 HEARTS OF IRON 4 An enormously deep wargame that lets you rewrite history and play as practically any country involved in WWII, Hearts of Iron 4 is grand strategy at its best. Our score: 88 STEEL DIVISION: NORMANDY 44 Real-time battles with scope and a ton of options make this one heck of a hybrid between real-time strategy and traditional war games. Our score: 88…1 min
PC Gamer|November 2021The PC Gamer teamWES FENLON Twitter @wesleyfenlon This month Actually held the Deck in his grubby little hands. Er, sorry, his anti-bac washed little hands. DAVE JAMES Twitter @Not_the_GK This month Added his hardware know-how to the feature with a bunch of words I don’t understand. MORGAN PARK Twitter @MorganRPark This month Between CoD and Hell Let Loose, spent more time in WWII than is strictly healthy. RACHEL WATTS Twitter @rachel_wattts This month Kept telling us how much she loves dinosaurs. (That’s what she calls anyone over 30.)…1 min
PC Gamer|November 2021The SpyDespite what you might think given the whole espionage thing, The Spy is unflinchingly lawful. In the early 2000s, The Spy would sit nodding along to the Motion Picture Association’s anti-piracy videos, enjoying the thrill of climbing up on a high horse and galloping, hair down, through the rolling hills of moral superiority. Of course The Spy wouldn’t steal a car. Sure, yes, The Spy has occasionally requisitioned a car during a tense cat-and-mouse chase – what spy hasn’t? – but The Spy always ensures it’s returned to its rightful owner, at least after all the pieces have been recovered. Steal a handbag? The Spy? Never. OK, fine, there was that time in ’97 when The Spy misunderstood some dead drop instructions. Still, The Spy maintains that ‘accidentally acquiring a…3 min
PC Gamer|November 2021LETTER LINGOSERIFS A font’s fancy feet. Sans-serif fonts don’t have them (the French for ‘without’ is ‘sans’ don’t you know). TRACKING The standard space between all letters. Not to be confused with the kerning between just two letters. MONOWIDTH A font where every letter is designed to take up the same amount of space, even an ‘I’ and ‘m’. FILLED COUNTERS When isolated negative space within a letter such as ‘O’ or ‘P’ is filled solid. But not ‘A’ for some reason.…1 min
PC Gamer|November 2021SAINTS ROWNEED TO KNOW RELEASE February 25, 2022 DEVELOPER Volition PUBLISHER Deep Silver LINK saintsrow.com Saints Row is getting a complete reboot, and it’s just called… Saints Row. All those wacky antics from the four previous games, like diving into computers, killing zombies for Burt Reynolds, becoming president, and ruling the world with superpowers? None of that happened in Saints Row’s new American southwest-inspired world, Santo Ileso. This time around, the Saints crew is a close-knit group of four young friends, each with their own expertise: planner and business mind Eli, expert driver Neenah, DJ and smooth talker Kevin, and the slightly off-the-rails Boss (that’s you). As the Boss, you can still create a completely custom character that’s big or small, young or old, and anywhere in between. Interestingly, Saints Row…3 min
PC Gamer|November 2021IXIONNEED TO KNOW RELEASE First half of 2022 DEVELOPER Bulwark Studios PUBLISHER Kasedo Games LINK dolos.org You just test-fired the experimental engine on your orbiting space station and, well… it kinda blew up the moon. That’s not even the worst bit of news you’ll get today. In Ixion, you’re managing a space station and its crew as things quickly go from bad to worse to utterly unthinkable. The developer and publisher of Ixion, Bulwark Studios and Kasedo Games, walked me through the first half-hour of the city building and colony management sim, which serves as a tutorial and sets the stage for the calamity that will change everything. You’re the administrator of the space station orbiting Earth, charged with getting things up and running: managing the power supply, maintaining the…3 min
PC Gamer|November 2021TEST DRIVEDEATH STRANDING Kojima’s game pushed the Steam Deck to its limits, and it was pumping out some heat to maintain 30 fps. But it was surprisingly playable, making me believe Valve’s claim that the Deck can handle all they’ve thrown at it. GUILTY GEAR STRIVE After a couple crashes I got Guilty Gear to run on the Deck. It was slow to load from the SD card, but once it was running it looked great. Valve also had it running with a Bluetooth controller to highlight the Deck’s versatility. DEATH’S DOOR Continuing the death theme, I played this delightful indie adventure, which felt mighty smooth with the Deck’s analog stick. I expect to play a lot of indie games on the Steam Deck at 60 fps that can only run…1 min
PC Gamer|November 2021SPECS AT A GLANCECPU AMD Zen 2 Core count 4-core/8-thread CPU clock speed 2.4–3.5GHz GPU AMD RDNA 2 GPU Compute Units 8 GPU clock speed 1–1.6GHz RAM 16GB LPDDR5 @ 5,500MT/s Storage 64GB eMMC / 256GB NVMe SSD / 512GB NVMe SSD Display 7-inch LCD touchscreen Resolution 1280 x 800 Refresh rate 60Hz Audio Stereo speakers, 3.5mm jack, dual mics, USB Type-C/ Bluetooth 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) Weight Approximately 1.47 lbs (669 grams) Price £349 (64GB) / £459 (256GB) / £569 (512GB)…1 min
PC Gamer|November 2021Emulate everythingWhy stop your Steam Deck gaming with your Steam library? Dream bigger: Valve’s handheld PC will also be able to play retro and modern consoles games thanks to emulators, most of which run natively on Linux. It has the potential to be the greatest emulation device ever made. “Everyone I know has relatively high hopes for the Steam Deck,” said JMC4789, a contributor to GameCube/Wii emulator Dolphin. JMC4789 is optimistic about how well Dolphin could run on the Steam Deck, and so are the developers of Switch emulator Yuzu. “We believe that the hardware should likely be capable enough to run some games pretty well right out of the box, and potentially run Yuzu very well with optimisations to the emulator,” the developers said. EMULATORS MAY NEED UI OVERHAULS TO…3 min
PC Gamer|November 2021Getting loopyTime loops seem to particularly resonate with people at the moment – I feel like I’m seeing more than ever across film, TV, and games. We’ve got two in reviews this month alone (12 Minutes and The Forgotten City). As a magazine editor who’s been in lockdown for what feels like 500 years I’m certainly familiar with feeling like you’re doing the same thing over and over. And, actually, the more I think about it, the more time loops feel integral to modern gaming. What is Hitman if not a Groundhog Day videogame? Aren’t you just living the same (very short) life over and over in Spelunky? Isn’t Crusader Kings basically just a loop of a slice of medieval history that you keep experiencing over and over because bloody Gengis…1 min
PC Gamer|November 2021PERFECT WORLDDIFFICULTY Empire is the first difficulty level to provide a proper challenge, with aggressive leaders and cultures. MAP SIZE Each map size is recommended for a specific number of players, and is relatively balanced for that number, so choose wisely. SPEED Normal is fine, but I recommend picking slow, which lets you spend more time with each culture. AI I like playing against six opponents. The AI hasn’t made much of a difference in my games, so I just go with who has the most punchable face, as usual.…1 min
PC Gamer|November 2021TAKE A BREAKMINIT Playing 12 in-game days in far superior indie Minit. While not technically a time loop, it scratches the same itch. SPELUNKY 2 Making it to the jungle and immediately skewering myself on a spike trap in Spelunky 2. VIDEO CARD Updating my video card drivers. Boring, but with the promise of more frames per second in a game I’ll play sometime. SANDWICH Sitting on a bench eating a rubbish sandwich. (Even a rubbish sandwich is still better than most other things).…1 min
PC Gamer|November 2021ALIENTIDEAliens: Fireteam Elite is dumb explosive fun – a swarm-based action game that’s derivative of both Left 4 Dead and Gears of War, but with a few nice touches of its own. It has that competent mid-budget feel that’s becoming identifiable as publisher Focus Home’s house style, with sparse story and cheesy dialogue and NPCs who talk without opening their mouths. It’s also very co-op dependent, and how good a time you have will be dictated by whether you play alongside real people or the voiceless bots that stand in for them. Who knew that there was so much diversity among xeno species? Set across four chapters of three missions each, the Fireteamcampaign is a slideshow of distinctly ‘Alien’ environments. There’s the occasional pretty vista, but your traversal of these…3 min
PC Gamer|November 2021ROYAL PAINKing’s bounty is an odd series, always more strategy than RPG, more a game of tactics, cash upkeep, and combat manoeuvring than one of epic roleplaying and exploration. In theory, King’s Bounty II wants to change that, to make it a story that follows a main character whose choices affect the world. King’s Bounty II does just that, and it sucks the fun right out of it. Though it has the occasional joy, it simply wastes far too much of your time. In King’s Bounty II you pick one of three characters to take through the main story, each of which follows the same plot. Having been released from prison your character takes on a bog-standard fantasy magical apocalypse because a wizard told you you’re the chosen saviour. It’s nothing…4 min
PC Gamer|November 2021PINCREDIBLERAINBLOWS It’s punching, but prettier. Good for screenshots, which is good for PCG’s art editor, which is good for my future work prospects. BOBBY PIN Whispering Rock bully Bobby Zilch doesn’t make the cut, but his irritating body popping does. Newcomers can skip this one. BEASTMASTERY Can you pet the dog? I’ve not found one. But you can pet a rat, a goat, and a squirrel. Good luck launching a Twitter feed about those. PIXEL PAL Pixelate Raz’s new clone. Included in this boxout because it looks cool and I’d like someone to make a physical version of it. PLUCKY When there are no objects to throw, just tear a chunk out of the ground. Grim implications in levels made of flesh/other assorted meats. PSI CLONE Speeds up Raz’s new…1 min
PC Gamer|November 2021WAR NEVER CHANGESPROJECT REALITY (BF2) 2005 This subgenre of milsims kicked off in 2005 with an overhaul mod for Battlefield 2 called Project Reality. SQUAD 2015 Some of the Project Reality mod’s original devs banded together to make a modern, version of the game. POST SCRIPTUM 2018 Originally a mod for Squad, Periscope Games partnered with Offworld Industries to make a WWII spinoff of the FPS called Post Scriptum. BEYOND THE WIRE 2020 A more simplistic take on Squad made in partnership with Offworld Industries by new studio Redstone Interactive.…1 min
PC Gamer|November 2021PAINT IT BLACKWarhammer 40,000: Battlesector is the latest attempt at putting some of the scale of tabletop 40K onto our screens. Which is to say, it’s another turn-based tactics game about the Space Marines. But rather than generic armoured lummoxes it features one of the more interesting flavours: Blood Angels, the marines you get into if you watched too many horror movies when you were young. It’s a vivid portrayal of manly but doomed space vampires Blood Angels suffer from Red Thirst, making them literally and figuratively bloodthirsty. In Battlesectorthis means they get more momentum points, which are normally earned for kills, the closer they are to their enemies – the enemies in this game being the dinobug alien Tyranids. When a unit gets 100 momentum they ‘surge’, getting a movement bonus…3 min
PC Gamer|November 2021ALIENATIONColorfiction makes games that transport you to another time and place. For instance, Becalmis a boat ride, while Nightlineevokes a city subway. They’re walking simulators, I suppose – sometimes without any actual walking – instead allowing you to be, as the city passes around you, or the water laps reassuringly at your sailboat. Nodomusis going for an emotion other than serenity or quiet urban contentment. Awe, perhaps. And with a splodge of horror thrown in too. This time, rather than being somewhere from a first-person perspective, you’re viewing the camera feeds of several drones, which are fixated on some possibly dreadful event. You can’t move the drones, but you can zoom in and out, and turn the volume up and down. My best guess is we’re watching an alien entity…1 min
PC Gamer|November 2021DEAD RISING 2You have to feel sorry for Chuck Greene. It’s bad enough that he looks like the reflection of an Easter Island statue on the back of a spoon and his daughter is a probably-zombie. But then Case West comes along and retcons him from his own game. That’s like spending ages reviewing a game, only for some berk to shamble up years later and change your scor… oh. Yes. Lack of Frankness aside, Dead Rising 2 is an absolute riot. Working against the clock is still a thing, but there are fewer of the maddening frustrations that damaged the first game. Plus, among many other things, you can dress up in a hula dress and blend zombie heads with a murder bucket.…1 min
PC Gamer|November 2021STACKINGTwo DoubleFine games in one list feels like cheating, but Stacking puts such a dark twist on dressing up it’s impossible to resist. I like to imagine a world where little Charlie Blackmore isn’t a matryoshka doll, but a real boy who, in an attempt to save his family, dons the skins of his enemies. Does it hurt when Charlie wears you like a hazmat suit, you ask? Yes. It’s excruciating. Buffalo Bill analogies aside, Stackingis a piece of gently compelling Victoriana with some pleasantly distracting puzzles.…1 min
PC Gamer|November 2021THE TALES CRYPTO FROMWith the expert timing exhibited by all great comedians, we wrote in these pages earlier this year about cryptocurrency mining and encryption, only for the whole crypto landscape to suddenly change. At a time when Norton is launching crypto-mining antivirus software, Nvidia has taken steps to reduce the mining hashrates of its latest gaming GPUs, and yet crypto prices remain high, and low, and high again. It can sometimes feel that trying to keep up with this sector of the tech market is an impossible task. Not only does it move fast, but it can surprise you with every new twist and turn. Especially where its environmental viability is concerned. Enter the president of El Salvador, a tiny Central American country with an area ever so slightly greater than that…4 min
PC Gamer|November 2021MID-RANGE BUILDMOTHERBOARD B450 Tomahawk Max MSI £120 A reliable platform for your build, the Tomahawk Max also comes in black to complement any style. PROCESSOR Ryzen 5 3600X AMD £198 This CPU is one of the greats, and uses the Zen 2 architecture to dominate in gaming and productivity. GRAPHICS CARD GeForce RTX 3060 Ti Founders Ed. Nvidia £369 The RTX 3060 Ti is a little overkill but we’re willing to make sacrifices elsewhere to make it work. COOLER Wraith Spire AMDFree with the CPU We love a freebie, especially one as capable as the cooler includ ed with the 3600X. This’ll keep your machine running smoothly. MEMORY Ballistix 16GB DDR4 (2x8GB) Crucial £75 With plenty of capacity at 16GB, this unembellished memory has everything you need for gaming and more.…2 min
PC Gamer|November 2021“You’ve got to earn your scraps of story”With its surreal, creepy visuals, distinctive combat, and solid metroidvania level design, Grime was a lovely indie surprise for me this month. I just wish it wasn’t trying to be Dark Souls. I like the Soulsgames well enough, but for me their influence on the indie scene has been pretty tragic. It feels like these days any time I spot any kind of action game with a cool, attention-grabbing art-style, it turns out to be burying its best features under borrowed ideas. Grime’s world is so intriguing – a bizarre alien landscape inhabited by malformed rock people and worse. It somehow evokes an unsettling atmosphere of body horror in a setting where everyone’s made out of minerals, and you can’t help but want to know what it’s all about and…2 min
PC Gamer|November 2021MINECRAFTEven though Minecraft has gotten new monsters, new blocks, new biomes and even new planes of existence over the last ten years, some things have stayed consistent. And one of these golden rules I never thought would be broken is the fact that the world was 256 layers tall, from the depth of the deepest cavern to the highest point you could place a block. With the Caves and Cliffs update (part of which is already out and the rest is slated for later this year), that’s finally changing. A lot. With the new world generation code, the underground portion of Minecraft is doubling in size. If you like to dig too greedily and too deep, this is amazing news. Before the update, layer zero was where the game would…4 min
PC Gamer|November 2021ELECTRIC CITY1 SKY-HIGH Summoning an Electrogranum lets you use Thunder Spheres to travel quickly through the air and get to hard-to-reach places or collect impossibly high Electroculi. 2 BARRIER ISLAND You’ll find Thunder Barriers dotted around the region and you’ll need an Electrogranum to get past them. Upgrading the Sacred Sakura Tree lets you get through the higher-strength barriers. 3 THUNDER STRUCK There are various areas around Inazuma affected by Balethunder. Summoning an Electrogranum will temporarily nullify its damaging effects and let you get across small areas in relative safety.…1 min
PC Gamer|November 2021POSTCARDS FROM THE WORLD’S EDGE“Leaving Karaz-a-Karak. Is it too early to send a postcard? Also, I forgot my lunchbox, what am I going to eat now?” “Athel Loren. Hate it. Hard to breathe the fresh, leafy air and the trees keep giving my axe funny looks.” “My first trip in a Dreadnought! It’s like being inside an Ironbreaker who can float. Not as bad as it sounds.” “Sailed past Ulthuan, where even the mountains look weak and elfy. Don’t bother unless you’re invading.” “Finally arrived! It’s flatter, hotter, and greener than expected. Can I come back home now?”…1 min
PC Gamer|November 2021CLOSE COMBAT V: INVASION NORMANDYDuring the frigid Canadian winters, the forest behind my house became a battlefield. Every night I’d meet my friends there and distribute our collection of toy guns and then we’d reenact the scenes we had seen in war movies. I vividly remember sitting in the snow, back against a tree, pretending I was pinned down by my friend who was now a German sniper. I was ten years old and blessed with an absurdly active imagination. Immersion was everything, so crawling for an hour through freezing slush just to get to safety was not out of the question. This was just one of the ways my childlike fascination with war manifested itself. Between gory drawings of battlefields or watching what few WWII documentaries I was allowed to see, ten-year-old me…8 min
PC Gamer|November 2021MUST PLAYFRASER BROWN HEAVEN SENT PARADISE KILLER paradisekiller.com The mystery of a violent massacre sits at the heart of this endlessly stylish and utterly bizarre detective romp set in a failed virtual heaven. I’ve bitten off more than I can chew trying to describe it in just 50 words, but it’s brilliant and weird and you should play it. TRAINING DAY VOIDTRAIN bit.ly/3kk1q7C I’ve really only just started this train-based Early Access survival game, but I’m already fully on board. The infinite railway is suspended in the sky, where you’ll fight sharks, explore surreal ruins, and shoot Nazis with up to three pals. This is what all train journeys should be like. WELL BUILT CITIES: SKYLINES citiesskylines.com I’m on a city builder kick once again, and I still haven’t found anything…2 min
PC Gamer|November 2021NICE FRAMES BRODigital Extremes’ Warframeis a live service game which makes money largely through cosmetics, and the developer embraces community content. In 2015 it started a competition called TennoGen, where artists can submit cosmetic designs for inclusion in the game. If the work makes it, the artist gets a 30% cut. It can result in a life-changing amount of money. Lendel Fajardo (LED2012 online) is one such creator who has spent six years working on Warframecreations. Fajardo’s first submission was rejected, which only made him more determined. “I started reading and watching tutorials on the processes in making 3D assets,” Fajardo says. “I kept trying but I couldn’t seem to handle how to properly design helmets and full skins so I focused more on Syandanas [capes].” I WAS EARNING TEN TIMES, SOMETIMES…2 min
PC Gamer|November 2021This month in… 20111 To celebrate the death of the cover disc, this month’s PCG is a 196-page special. It’s headlined by Tom Francis’ hands-on impressions ofSkyrim: a massive, ten-page exploration of, well, exploration. Faced with the opening main quest, Tom instead turns in the other direction and decides to head to Riften. Much like many of our actual playthroughs, no doubt. 2 Dead Island is our lead review, receiving 82%. But it’s overshadowed by the biggest and best release of the month: OMSI, a 90%-scoring bus driving sim. 3 The added page count leads to an expanded Extra Life section. It’s mostly the same selection of regulars as today – Reinstall, Now Playing, and Update all appear – but a few features didn’t quite stand the test of time. Battle Report is…1 min
PC Gamer|November 2021WIKI WILD WESTTHERE’S A SWEET SPOT FOR STORYTELLING THAT STRADDLES THE PRESENT AND THE FUTURE Have you ever fallen down a ‘wiki-hole’? Or played Six Degrees of Wikipedia, finding the shortest hyperlink path from, say, Denzel Washington to the page for Boring, Oregon? The truth is, we’d gamified online encyclopaedias long before writer Joannes Truyens got to them. “There’s an immediate literacy there,” he says. “Wikipedia as a medium lends itself to non-linear storytelling.” The goal of Truyens’ game, Neurocracy, is to solve a murder by digging through a near-future version of the site – bouncing between pages, unpicking the revision history as events unfold and finding the human drama hidden between the lines of dry, matter-of-fact prose. The tagline of the fictional Omnipedia is ‘building your world’; Truyens’ own touchpoint for…3 min
PC Gamer|November 2021FAR CRY 6NEED TO KNOW RELEASE October 7, 2021 DEVELOPER Ubisoft Toronto PUBLISHER Ubisoft LINK bit.ly/3svJpHg Amegalomaniacal villain prone to lofty speeches rules the land with an iron fist. A lone hero sparks a rebellion, taking back outposts and defeating the villain’s lieutenants, one by one. Meanwhile, exotic animals routinely burst from the trees and attack anyone in sight. Stop me if this sounds familiar. Not that familiar is a bad thing. The last few entries in the Far Cry series have settled into something of a formula, and it’s a formula I’ve mostly had a lot of fun with. I haven’t played much of Far Cry 6, only a few hours of a preview build that mostly took place at the start of the game on a small section of the…7 min
PC Gamer|November 2021JURASSIC WORLD EVOLUTION 2NEED TO KNOW RELEASE November 9 DEVELOPER Frontier Developments PUBLISHER In-house LINK jurassicworldevolution2.com In Jurassic World Evolution 2, Earth has entered the so-called Neo-Jurassic Age, a brand new time period signalling the re-introduction of dinosaurs to the planet. Our large reptilian friends now coexist with us humans, frolicking around Earth’s green pastures, scorching deserts, and the backyards of suburban family homes. Even though they’ve only just escaped, Jurassic World Evolution 2 wants you to put the dinos back in their habitats and tasks you with building a sprawling dinosaur wildlife park. It’s interesting to see how Frontier has developed its dinosaur-centric management sim, especially considering the success of the studio’s other creature theme park sim, Planet Zoo. King penguins and meerkats are cute, but prehistoric reptiles from another age have…3 min
PC Gamer|November 2021CALL OF DUTY: VANGUARDAfter months of rumours about just what’s going on with Call of Duty this year, Call of Duty: Vanguard has been confirmed as the next mainline game in the series. This new entry takes the series back to WWII with a campaign that lead developer Sledgehammer Games hopes will feel new to the series. Sledgehammer, which hasn’t led development on a CoD game since Call of Duty: WWII, is shaking things up by setting most of the campaign after the official end of the war. Hitler is dead, the Nazis have lost, but the Allies learn of a troubling plan (called Project Phoenix) to somehow facilitate Hitler’s successor. What the heck does that even mean? Your guess is as good as mine. Vanguard’s main villain is the fictional Heinrich Freisinger…3 min
PC Gamer|November 2021STEAM POWEREDCOLOURFUL CASING It’s just black at launch, but colour was hotly debated among the development team. Greg Coomer says, “We might do a lot more with that in the future.” DELUXE DISPLAY The Deck uses an off-the-shelf display, which Coomer would like to improve, “The screen would be the centre of our focus in what we do different with a next version.” A LITTLE BIT MORE ZEN Coomer says Valve isn’t designing a Deck 2.0 yet, but they’ve “definitely talked with AMD about what [they’d] like to do next”. Going up to Zen 3 mightn’t be an issue. RE-ARCHITECTED Coomer says that “if the Steam Deck is really a hit, then I think that should drive the architecture of upcoming CPU/GPU/APU devices. And probably not just from … AMD”.…1 min
PC Gamer|November 2021Steam Deck vs Nintendo SwitchVALVE STEAM DECK The Steam Deck is a whole gaming PC that you can hold and control in two hands. That’s both its biggest strength and potentially its greatest weakness. It means there is a huge back catalogue of games available to the Deck, starting with Steam itself, but stretching out to every other PC gaming store front out there, all delivering games to your handheld machine. But there’s the potential issues with Linux game compatibility for its SteamOS, and the fact that it feels like a genuinely hefty system to hold for a long gaming sesh. IN SHORT Access to the biggest game catalogue around Impressive-looking AMD APU LPDDR5 could be a game-changer Some games not optimised for Deck or SteamOS Likely less accessible to use Bulky and heavy…1 min
PC Gamer|November 2021THE DUNGEON MASTERSIt explains a lot about Warren Spector, the driving force behind Deus Ex, that his first dungeon master was the author Bruce Sterling. Not only was Sterling destined to become one of the fathers of cyberpunk – the science fiction genre that spliced future tech with social commentary, just as Deus Exwould – but he was a generous and accommodating DM. “What was most powerful about that first night, and all the nights that followed for the next ten or so years, wasn’t the story Bruce was telling to us,” Spector says. “It was the story my friends and I were telling with him.” Spector’s head still swims with memories of the Rat Gang, the street crew he ran with as Botara Chitan, a samurai who never smiled. He remembers…11 min
PC Gamer|November 2021This month’s culturally relevant reviewers…FRASER BROWN Specialist in Games that take all night to play Currently playing Humankind This month Decided to conquer the world instead of getting any sleep. WES FENLON Specialist in Minute details Currently playing 12 Minutes This month Recounted 12 Minutes’ awful twist ending to anyone who would listen. ROBERT ZAK Specialist in Alienation Currently playing Aliens: Fireteam Elite This month Killed way more xenomorphs than Ellen Ripley ever did. Take that, Sigourney. RACHEL WATTS Specialist in Road works Currently playing Road 96 This month Got an awful lot of teenagers sent to prison in a fascist state. They’ll be fine. MATTHEW CASTLE Specialist in Dental danger Currently playing Psychonauts 2 This month Developed a phobia of teeth. Don’t smile at him, please. TOM SYKES Specialist in Avian jobs Currently…1 min
PC Gamer|November 2021CULTURE CLUBHARAPPANS Picking Harappans for your first culture will put you in a good position for early expansion. PERSIANS I recommend picking Persia for their increased city cap, letting you conquer or erect new cities. KHMER The industrious Khmer let you field Dhanvi-gaja, otherwise known as ballista elephants. JOSEON Picking Joseon as your next culture nets you +3 to every tile that generates science. FRENCH The French get a huge 10% bonus to science in every city. With all this tech, you’ll be well set. SOVIETS Conquer the world with the Soviets. The combat strength and reduced cost for units are great.…1 min
PC Gamer|November 2021AXIOM DISRUPTORI can remember the last time I felt excited about a Metroidvania. It was Axiom Verge, a game inspired more by the original Metroid than the other half of the equation, Symphony of the Night. Its standout feature was a device that let you ‘hack’ the world, by turning foes into friends or clearing glitched-out obstacles. In truth, the Axiom Disruptor was just a power-up like any other, but it gave the illusion of letting you mess rebelliously with the game code. I mention the Disruptor – such an iconic element of the original game – because it’s absent from this daring sequel, replaced by a similar hacking tool that’s perhaps more versatile, but less exciting to use. It’s emblematic of a game that has changed almost every aspect of…3 min
PC Gamer|November 2021GAME OVER, MAN5% ALIEN Distilled horror and avuncular androids gone bad? Nope, not really, but there is the occasional cheap scare. 60% ALIENS Squad-based action and a steady strum of radar plips, but lacks the solid action story. 0% ALIEN 3 No prison-break tones or Charles Dance in Fireteam – a shame for those of us who enjoyed this series outlier. 25% ALIEN: RESURRECTION Fireteam has some of the silly dialogue of this late ’90s mishap. 10% ALIEN: COVENANT No hom*oerotic androids, but brings in some interesting Engineer lore.…1 min
PC Gamer|November 2021GALAXY BRAINYou can tell a lot about a game’s soul by what it deems a ‘perk’. In Psychonauts 2, Double Fine will sell you a ‘beastmastery’ pin badge modifier that allows Raz’s psychic fist – usually used for thumping and tossing – to stroke woodland animals. You spend money to hurt fewer things. Another pin makes him groove when left unattended; dance like no is watching, when no one is playing. Honestly? It’s a tonic. Feels like The Incredibles and The Muppets chucked in a blender As headlines go ‘Tim Schafer game favours silliness over sadism’ is hardly a shocker. But it’s been 15 years since the original; time enough to forget how silly Psychonautscan be, and the startling places those jokes can take us. Of course, for the game’s inhabitants,…8 min
PC Gamer|November 2021SIN CITYThe Forgotten City is a time loop game, one that makes excellent use of its magical reset button. You begin the adventure in the present day, stumbling into some ancient Roman ruins filled with golden statues before being whisked back in time through a portal. You arrive in the same Roman city, but now it’s pristine and all those statues are living people. What happened to them? Why were they turned into gold? Began as a mod for Skyrim before being recreated in the Unreal Engine The answers to those questions require lots of conversations with the citizens, who are almost without fail well-crafted characters, many with troubling secrets and interesting stories to tell. And the time loop is your best weapon, transforming you from a confused newcomer to a…3 min
PC Gamer|November 2021SKYFALLHighFleet, is a far-future action-strategy game involving airships fighting a civil war during the death of an empire. It all feels like it’s the product of a singular vision, consistently styled and with systems that all seem to fit together and channel players into its mindset. Under most circ*mstances, this is the kind of game I’d happily recommend as unique and exciting. There’s just one small problem: I hate this game. Controlling the ships is a constant tug-of-war with gravity The narrative of what you do in HighFleetsounds mesmerising. You negotiate with local warlords for alliances! Crack codes! Design new ships! Fly them around in intense combat, dodging bullets and launching missiles! All presented as their own little minigame or mechanic. It’s also cleverly put together, with an interface that…3 min
PC Gamer|November 2021TOY SOLDIERSSERAPHIM The Sisters of Battle enjoy cosplaying as angels as much as space marines do. BAAL PREDATOR Even the Blood Angels’ battle tanks are equipped with close-range weapons. TERVIGON A walking incubator that gives birth to live young, who then eat you. GENESTEALER Relive all the fun of being murdered by these guys in Space Hulk one more time in Battlesector. DREADNOUGHT Heavily injured marines transferred into mechanical bodies to fight on.…1 min
PC Gamer|November 2021TV FOR VENDETTAI probably spend most of my time with retro-styled shooters being distracted by the pixel art: appreciating the cardboard-thin enemy sprites, and textures that (hopefully) warp when you get up close. The illusion is difficult to conjure, and all too easy to break, but Killspiracy TV feels pretty authentic to first-person shooters of the late ’90s, even as it ditches their typical level design for procedural mazes. In each, your goal is to rescue a bunch of cultists – cowl-wearing types with televisions for heads – before hoofing it back to the entrance portal, if you can find it. I like the outlandish enemy and weapon designs, and the stages themed around graveyards, pyramids and other atmospheric settings. There are some impressive visual effects, including a low-poly mist I could…1 min
PC Gamer|November 2021BUG HUNTA2011 study by psychologists Jonathan D Leavitt and Nicholas J S Christenfeld of the University of California showed that humans don’t actually like surprises. Each group read three mystery stories. Some had the twists ruined, others went in cold. Across all conditions, people enjoyed the spoiled stories the most. And that’s perhaps why Prey is such a nerve-shredding experience. There’s only so many times a bar stool can turn into a scurrying intergalactic meat-spider before you stop going ‘oooh, you got me!’ and start gobbling Xanax. There are few other reasons Prey’s constant state of unseen threat is troubling. Firstly and most damningly, the combat is slightly unsatisfying. If I want to effectively waft a wrench around I’ll stop writing and become a car mechanic. The speed and surprise of…1 min
PC Gamer|November 2021PC WEBCAMSSure, you could stick to making TikTok videos on your phone, but if you’re serious about making a professional impression on the web, a quality webcam could be your first step toward internet fame and fortune. In fact, a world without webcams doesn’t bear thinking about. Without them, the well-loved world of Vloggers and Twitch streamers would be all but diminished, along with your chance to make a name for yourself as an internet personality. If that thought has you excited, or if you just need to appear less pixelated, or prove you’re out of bed in online meetings, it’s time to have your face witnessed by a crystal-clear, high-definition webcam. The main considerations in choosing a camera are image quality, ease of use, software utility, and whether the built-in…6 min
PC Gamer|November 2021GENERATIONWUDONGDE HYDRO STATION CHINA Fully operational this year, this dam is expected to generate 39 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity a year. INGA III DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO A third dam (Inga I is pictured) tapping into the power of the powerful Inga falls would generate 4,500 MW of electricity. KEEYASK HYDRO STATION CANADA Opening this year, the generator on the Nelson River (pictured) will have a capacity of approx 630 megawatts. HORNSEA WIND FARM UK Phase Two of this English development should provide 1.2GW of energy via 165 turbines in the North Sea.…1 min
PC Gamer|November 2021ADVANCED BUILDMOTHERBOARD MPG Z490 Gaming Carbon WiFi MSI £260 A heady mix of enthusiast motherboard functionality and build quality that stops short of god-tier motherboard pricing. PROCESSOR Core i9 10900K Intel £529 If you want the fastest gaming CPU, look no further than Intel’s flagship Core i9. GRAPHICS CARD GeForce RTX 3080 Ti Founders Ed. Nvidia £1,199 The RTX 3080 Ti is the latest flagship graphics card from Nvidia, but savvy builders may prefer the RTX 3080. COOLER Kraken X63 NZXT £123 One of the most stunning AIO coolers rebuilt with an updated pump and, of course, RGB lighting for more pizzazz. MEMORY Vengeance RGB Pro 32GB DDR4 (2x16GB) @ 3,200 Corsair £176 If you truly want to show off, even your system memory should be aglow with RGB. POWER SUPPLY…2 min
PC Gamer|November 2021“The environments are cluttered, bustling, and convincingly lived-in”Man, Night City left me cold. As a fan of dark future cities, I was excited to explore the streets of Cyberpunk 2077’s setting. But the closer I looked the more I stopped believing in it as an actual place. Which is the opposite of the experience I had with The Ascent, a new action RPG made by a tiny 11-person indie team made up of veteran game designers. The Ascent is set in The Arcology, which is essentially an entire city squeezed into a monolithic skyscraper. It’s a vast, multi-tiered metropolis. It’s derivative, sure, but rendered with such fidelity and style that I found it hard to care. It’s honestly mind-blowing how good it looks, and the sheer depth of detail impressed me way more than Night City ever…2 min
PC Gamer|November 2021TIE FIGHTER: TOTAL CONVERSIONIt can be hard going back to play a game you loved years ago. Sometimes nostalgia is strong enough to overlook things like ageing graphics, tinny sound and fewer of the features we’ve become accustomed to with modern games. But sometimes no matter how much you enjoyed a game in the past, it’s just too difficult to get back into it again when so many years, or even decades, have gone by. And it can be especially hard convincing other people to play a game from a couple decades ago. I can tell people until I’m blue in the face that LucasArts’ 1994 dogfighting simulator TIE Fighter isn’t just the one of the best Star Wars games ever, but that it’s one of the best games ever, full stop. It’s…7 min
PC Gamer|November 2021EAST MOVES WEST IN TOTAL WAR: WARHAMMER IIThere is such a thing as a dwarf ranger, but they’re viewed with suspicion. In dwarf society, all that sun and fresh air is considered bad for your health. So the idea of taking an army from the cool, comforting holds of the World’s Edge Mountains all the way to the westernmost part of the Mortal Empires map in Total War: Warhammer II is a fool’s errand. Only a wazzock would contemplate such a thing. I’m proud to say I am that wazzock. First, I need to pick a goal. I choose the Fallen Gate, a savannah settlement on the western fringe of the map with a climate inexplicably suitable for dwarfs. This involves a bit of planning, which feels like cheating, but it’s a necessary concession. In my head,…9 min
PC Gamer|November 2021VOXELSRather than learning to make bread, my desperate quarantine hobby turned out to be learning voxel art. Using the fantastic MagicaVoxel software, I went from building abstract animals to building illuminated Dance Dance Revolution machines, quaint Japanese storefronts and even the subway tracks outside my apartment. Most importantly, voxel art has given me an appreciation for the amount of work that goes into a game’s visual design, especially when it’s consciously constrained, not necessarily sacrificing style or substance. From trendsetters like Minecraft, to physics experiments like Teardown, to narrative adventures like Cloudpunk, voxel art has changed the way I look at almost everything I play. If the last year has taught us anything, it’s that many game devs shoot for the moon, but also like Jeff Bezos, barely manage to…3 min
PC Gamer|November 2021WAR STORIESALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT ERICH MARIA REMARQUE A haunting fictional account of a German soldier fighting in WWI. It paints a picture of how war dehumanises people. THE LONGEST DAY CORNELIUS RYAN Based on thousands of interviews and featuring 383 different personal testimonies, covering everything soldiers, officers, and civilians. NORMANDY ‘44 JAMES HOLLAND Covering the 77-day battle for France, this novel draws on first-hand accounts and focuses on the intense human story at the centre of Operation Market Garden.…1 min
