Home//PC Gamer/Xmas 2023/In This Issue
PC Gamer|Xmas 2023WELCOMEFrom the moment I started reading this grand old magazine back in the mid-1990s, I had no idea that it would go on to be the cultural touchstone it has become, nor that I would ever get the immense privilege to be editor of it. After all, PC Gamer has been there through it all. From Doom to Half-Life 2 to this year’s seminal Baldur’s Gate III, this magazine has always been there reporting on PC gaming’s biggest events and culture with authority as well as plenty of humour, too. As such, it is a huge personal honour to present the landmark 30th anniversary issue of PC Gamer magazine. This is a truly great, game-stuffed issue that both celebrates where PC gaming has come from and, even more importantly, where…2 min
PC Gamer|Xmas 2023The SpyEditor's Note During production of PC Gamer’s first issue, the following letter was found taped to editor Matt Bielby’s desk in a plain brown envelope marked, “Do not open until issue 390”. While the letter was quickly filed away and forgotten about, the incident did inspire the team to create a regular rumour page, to be written by a local claiming to be a professional. Also this month, The Spy failed to file their column for the first time. As nobody wanted to write this page in The Spy’s place we have instead decided to reproduce the letter in full: The Spy can’t work under these conditions. Right now, in 2023, GTA fans have convinced themselves that a GTA VI reveal is imminent. Why? The Moon. Here’s the theory: an…3 min
PC Gamer|Xmas 2023Incoming1 month AVATAR: FRONTIERS OF PANDORA RELEASE December 7, 2023 | DEVELOPER Massive Entertainment With Far Cry-style first-person combat as well as third-person adventuring and beast-riding, this open-world action adventure is going big. SIGIL II RELEASE December 10, 2023 | DEVELOPER Romero Games John Romero returns with a follow-up to his 2019 original Doom expansion, SIGIL. Expect a new campaign with even more ingeniously designed levels. WARHAMMER 40,000: SPACE MARINE 2 RELEASE 2023 | DEVELOPER Saber Interactive It’s time to grab your chainsword and thunder hammer, and get rending and crushing orks, tyranids and more. Action-packed sequel incoming soon. 3 months PACIFIC DRIVE RELEASE Q1, 2024 | DEVELOPER Ironwood Studios Drive to survive in this run-based driving adventure. Scavenge resources from the anomaly-filled Olympic Exclusion Zone, upgrade your car and…2 min
PC Gamer|Xmas 2023CAPESNEED TO KNOW RELEASE 2024 DEVELOPER Spitfire Interactive PUBLISHER Daedalic Entertainment LINK spitfireinteractive.com.au W hat superhero movies often don’t show you are the back-street scuffles and brawls against androids in warehouses that take up so much of a crimefighter’s time. Capes, a turn-based tactics game, revels in these moments, giving a lower-stakes feel to things as you batter the bad guys. Capes follows a similar path to that of XCOM 2, in that it rises out of defeat. The story goes that, 20 years ago, superheroes lost their war against supervillains. Having and using superpowers is now a crime, a law enforced by a mysterious ‘Company’ whose operatives are uniformly bald. Capes casts you as an unseen overlord, controlling a team of new superheroes in their attempts to win back…3 min
PC Gamer|Xmas 2023THANK GOODNESS YOU’RE HERE!NEED TO KNOW RELEASE 2024 DEVELOPER Coal Supper PUBLISHER Panic LINK thankgoodness.game A mong the many new game trailers that premiered at Gamescom 2023, one indie developer instantly became the unlikely standout with the unveiling of Thank Goodness You’re Here!Set in the bizarre northern England town of Barnsworth, you play as a travelling salesman who is given a series of increasingly odd jobs. Brought to life by best friends James Carbutt and Will Todd, who both originate from Barnsley, I got the chance to go hands-on with the “comedy slapformer”, walking away with nothing but admiration for the peculiar humour that inhabits every street corner. Utilising only a walk, jump and punch command, the gameplay is a blend of exploring and interacting with the surroundings, all leading to some light…3 min
PC Gamer|Xmas 2023CELEBRATING THREE DECADES OF PC GAMINGs I am sure many other PC gamers have done, I’ve grown old with PC Gamer magazine. Reading this magazine as a teenager in the mid-1990s was a formative experience for me, opening my eyes in the pre-internet days to the large industry and community that had grown around PC gaming's earliest years and was now flourishing vibrantly all over the world. Reading PC Gamer was the highlight of the month, the time when I'd get to hear from the gaming journalists I'd come to know well about the latest PC games. And, what's more, I got to play new PC games each month, too, with PC Gamer magazine coming with disc covermounts. I got to experience the new each month, and it was fantastic. But PC Gamer magazine was…48 min
PC Gamer|Xmas 2023SILENT BUT DEADLYIt’s not often that a big-budget videogame feels like it was made according to my exact wishes, and yet Assassin’s Creed Mirage exists. What was once destined to be an expansion for Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla grew into a standalone throwback to the best of the series that valued stylish kills, freedom of movement, and stealth over quest logs and gear scores. Spiritually, it’s a straight bullseye. This is the purest stealth game Ubisoft has made in 15 years of AC, dense with rooftops, ziplines and fluffy carts of hay in one of the most beautiful cities ever realised in a videogame. When I’m perched on a ledge studying guard routes, mentally noting hiding places, or plotting a risky climb, Mirage feels like Ubi at the top of its game. It’s…9 min
PC Gamer|Xmas 2023BAD COMPANYThere are two types of people in this world, and you probably know which one you are. Real-time or turn-based – how do you like your tactics? Generations of gamers have placed themselves either side of this divide, as generations of games have served up one or the other. The Lamplighters League, though, hasn’t quite made up its mind, or hopes it can bring us all together with its fusion of styles. Thinning the herd of hostiles in advance is a worthwhile endeavour Out in the field in this alternate 1930s adventure, you switch rhythms between the sneaky real-time techniques of Commandos or Shadow Tactics, and the turn-based percentage play of XCOM. It’s a mashup we’ve seen previously in the work of developer The Bearded Ladies with Mutant Year Zero,…9 min
PC Gamer|Xmas 2023OLD HORIZONSI don’t dream of labour. My thoughts aren’t filled with get-rich-quick schemes, I have never developed a ‘grindset’ and my browser history is free from searches on “how to start an LLC”. I may have to work for the things in this world I love most, but I will never pray to my job as though it were a god. In Mineko’s Night Market, there’s an actual god of commerce, and it’s a giant cat who lives in your shed. As Meowza Games’ first outing, Mineko’s Night Market is a very cute and soft business management sim that kind of just papers over the fact that we’re making a young girl economically revitalise a whole town by selling crafts to neighbours. The writing is quirky, the setting is appropriately rural…4 min
PC Gamer|Xmas 2023DIGITAL MONSTERSCYBERPET GRAVEYARD To an obsessive tidier, Cyberpet Graveyard is kind of a hellish game, as it summons mischievous digital pets onto your desktop. Each critter is a separate program, and they do things like create files and move them around. For a certain kind of person (hello!) they’re about as welcome as a virus. That I find them cute anyway – that I’m smiling as I chase this critter around, in a moving window that’s spewing out miniature windows – says a lot about the extraordinary Cyberpet Graveyard. Is it a game? Mainly it’s a folder filled with images, and videos, and the digital pets themselves: little animated apps that bounce infectiously around your computer screen. The clown-like Hopson blows out kisses and looks terribly sad when you drag them…1 min
PC Gamer|Xmas 2023PHOBOS BABYTHEY’RE BACK OLD GAMES REVISITED It’s rare that the ‘lone hero against hordes of enemies’ trope lands. There are always moments where it feels like the game is helping you feel like a badass, and somehow, on some infinitesimal level, you know you’re being lied to. Doom is different. There’s a sense that the hordes of hell are protecting themselves from you, not the other way around. Games are often about feel. Doom might appear cardboardy and flat now, but two minutes into its violent, irresistible loop and you almost forget how it looks. The movement is slick and almost sickening, like that GIF of a cooked chicken sliding out of a can. There’s a sense of perpetual motion that feels as immediate and satisfying as many modern…2 min
PC Gamer|Xmas 2023THE GRAPHICS CARD GREATSPC Gamer’s first issue landed at a salient moment in PC gaming’s history. Its very existence as a magazine dedicated to gaming on a personal computer speaks volumes for the importance of those years for our hobby. Less than 70 issues in, it had covered the rise of 3D graphics, physics, LAN parties and online gaming. But the mag also arrived just in time to capture the rise of the hardware that made it all possible. Namely, the graphics card. In the same year PC Gamer published its first words, Nvidia was founded, intent on creating a 3D accelerator to beat the rest. It would have its work cut out for it trying to dispatch 3dfx, which rose to prominence with the creation of the Voodoo Graphics card in 1996.…7 min
PC Gamer|Xmas 2023BUYER’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 RS ASRock £115 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 £199 Intel’s added four more cores to its entry-level Core i5 and it’s become even more fantastic value. GRAPHICS CARD GeForce RTX 4060 Nvidia £288 One…5 min
PC Gamer|Xmas 2023“I just beat a satanic monk to death with a lavatory seat, and it felt good”I’ve already completed Cultic, a recently released retro-style FPS developed by Jasozz Games and published by 3D Realms. It’s a fulfilling spiritual successor to Monolith’s 1997 classic Blood, but now I need a new challenge, can I complete the first level unarmed? I’ll be throwing objects instead, and I’m cheating slightly by classing the axe as an object, but only because it’s chuck-able. Other throwable items include chairs, barrels and Tabasco sauce bottles, to name but a few. I awake in pit of corpses and dash to the first door I find. Inside the building are cell blocks, and within the cells are toilets. It transpires that smashing the porcelain to pieces transforms the toilet seat into a throwable object, so within the next 60 seconds I pick it up,…2 min
PC Gamer|Xmas 2023STARFIELDMOD SPOTLIGHT MAJOR MODS, ANALYSED It’s not that we weren’t expecting modders to immediately blast off into Starfield or anything… but golly! Just a few weeks after Bethesda’s space RPG launched, there aren’t just hundreds of mods for Starfield. There are thousands. Thousands! And if the Elder Scrolls and Fallout games are any indication, there will be thousands more by the end of the year and tens of thousands in the years ahead. That’s just fine, because Bethesda’s biggest RPG ever has plenty of room for improvement. There’s a ton of jank on display in Starfield, a few bugs here and there, some pesky UI issues, a few systems that could use improving, and overall just lots of little minor annoyances that can be solved by modders. Thankfully,…5 min
PC Gamer|Xmas 2023TRANQUILITY LANEWHY I LOVE WHAT MAKES GAMES SPECIAL People will tell you the best part of Bethesda RPGs is the sidequests, and sometimes that’s true. But one of the most Wild Wasteland moments in Fallout 3 is part of the main storyline, sitting right there on the critical path. Your quest in Fallout 3 is to find your dad, Liam Neeson. It’s a better hook for an open-world game than the search for your son in Fallout 4, because everyone knows Liam Neeson can take care of himself. Bouncing across the Capital Wasteland, you’re free to take your time safe in the knowledge you can return to Dad Quest later on. You finally track the deadbeat down to Vault 112, where you expect some kind of dungeon crawl, maybe…3 min
PC Gamer|Xmas 2023“HERE WE LOOK BACK AT 30 GLORIOUS YEARS OF PC GAMING ”PC gaming... it’s bloody brilliant isn’t it?! And PC Gamer magazine has been in lockstep with its rise and evolution at every point over the last 30 years. We’ve been there for the dizzying highs as well as the terrible lows, the radical industry shifts and the gradual cultural changes. As such, on PC Gamer magazine’s 30th birthday, we look back on 30 glorious years of PC gaming, from its biggest game releases and most impactful events, through its iconic game-changing hardware and software, and onto its most legendary characters. Enjoy! ROBERT JONES Twitter @rnicholasj This month Recalled the joy of PC gaming in the 1990s. Then realised things just kept getting better in every subsequent decade. These are truly great times to be a PC gamer.…1 min
PC Gamer|Xmas 2023QuakeDEVELOPER ID SOFTWARE PUBLISHER GT INTERACTIVE While there are many shooters like Doom, there’s nothing quite like Quake. With its peculiar mix of gothic fantasy and industrial horror, id Software’s 1996 shooter remains a singular entity in the annals of the FPS. Even its own developer has never revisited the series’ original design, choosing instead to go down a more sci-fi route for the sequel. Perhaps that’s because Quake was born from id Software’s tensions as much as its talent. With a lengthy (for the time) development cycle, Quake’s creation was plagued by multiple redesigns and personality conflicts, culminating in John Romero’s departure from the company. It’s one of the earliest insights into the mounting pressures upon blockbuster game developers, which would only increase as ambitions, budgets, and development cycles…1 min
PC Gamer|Xmas 2023Voodoo2MANUFACTURER 3DFX CLOCK SPEED 90MHZ The Voodoo Graphics card from 3dfx introduced hardware acceleration in 1997, but it was the Voodoo2 that really showed what GPUs could do. Not only did it boost resolutions from 640x480 to 800x600, but you could pair two of them together to crank that up to 1024x768. The Voodoo2 also supported dual texturing per pixel, which made games like Quake 2 and Unreal look phenomenal. The Voodoo2 represented the most dramatic advancement in computer graphics since the advent of 3D, and catalysed the advancement of computer graphics across the next decade. Sadly, 3dfx wouldn’t survive to see it.…1 min
PC Gamer|Xmas 2023Age of Empires II: The Age of KingsDEVELOPER ENSEMBLE STUDIOS PUBLISHER MICROSOFT Twenty years after its release, Age of Empires 2is still getting expansions. That’s a testament to how universally beloved the historical RTS is. Age of Kings brought the series from the slightly stuffy classical era into the more popular Middle Ages, adding new features like advanced AI, improved isometric visuals, and the ability to build big-ass castles. In more recent years, Age of Kings has received not one but two overhauls. The HD edition launched in 2013, while a Definitive Edition released in 2019, introducing new playable factions and new campaigns. Few games have stood the test of time this well.…1 min
PC Gamer|Xmas 2023Windows XPDEVELOPER MICROSOFT PUBLISHER IN-HOUSE Microsoft’s Windows OS was transformative for PC gaming, offering a level of stability, compatibility, and accessibility that simply didn’t exist in the days of DOS. Gone were the days of typing text commands to install and boot games, getting it wrong several times, then throwing your keyboard out the window. Although Windows 95 represents the key turning point from command lines to icons, Windows XP is Microsoft’s crowning achievement in OS design. Its UI replaced the unsightly grey boxes of old with a sleek, colourful, and above all intuitive design. It overhauled the Start menu introduced in Windows 95, adding the two-column layout. It also introduced a bunch of new features like taskbar window grouping and fast user switching. But what made XP such a triumph…1 min
PC Gamer|Xmas 2023Valve releases SteamPUBLISHER VALVE DEVELOPER IN-HOUSE Valve’s distribution service was never intended to be the gaming bazaar that it is today. It was made to solve a simple problem, how to patch Valve’s multiplayer games in the most efficient manne . The earliest version of Steam had no tore, no community features, and certainly no t ading cards. It was also roundly hated at a time when most homes still lacked internet connections, and was s en as a draconian anti-piracy measure, a hreat to the f edom of PC gaming. Even ually, Steam would completely change how PC games are purchased, owned, played, and even made. All largely because of a certain gam that arrived the next year.…1 min
PC Gamer|Xmas 2023World of WarcraftDEVELOPER BLIZZARD ENTERTAINMENT PUBLISHER IN-HOUSE World of Warcraft is a bizarre videogame phenomenon, in that it both started and ended the MMO craze of the noughties. Every publisher wanted a piece of World of Warcraft’s action, but hardly any would come close to Blizzard’s success. World of Warcraft opened the gates to the MMO party, then kicked the arse of anyone who tried to touch the cake. What’s especially remarkable about this is, before World of Warcraft launched, all eyes were on Everquest 2. At that time, SOE’s Everquest was the best MMO going, and the sequel looked set to provide a substantial upgrade, with improved visuals and less punishing progression. Admittedly, Everquest 2 did all those things. World of Warcraft merely did them better. Blizzard took the lessons it…2 min
PC Gamer|Xmas 2023The Orange BoxPUBLISHER VALVE COLOUR ORANGE Valve is a company that likes to solve problems, and in 2007 the problem was that none of its current projects – Team Fortress 2, Half-Life 2: Episode Two, and a weird experiment called Portal– really felt like a full game. But Valve realised each project filled in the gaps where the others fell short. So was born the greatest videogame anthology in history. Before launch, the headline act was Episode Two. Although Episode One hadn’t been quite up to the same standard as Half-Life 2, Episode Two promised terrifying new enemies, advanced vehicular mechanics, and some big story twists. Ultimately though, Episode Two proved the least exciting part of the box. Team Fortress 2 brought a radical new aesthetic to Valve’s Quake-mod-inspired shooter, one perfectly…1 min
PC Gamer|Xmas 2023MinecraftDEVELOPER MOJANG PUBLISHER IN-HOUSE While Minecraft officially released in late 2011, it had already been a sensation for over a year. Its highly public alpha development is one of many reasons why Mojang’s cubic omni-game was revolution ry, and there’s a direct line from it to today’s Early Access. It also changed the ypes of games being made. Minecraft’s groundbreaking survival mechanics paved the way f r ti les like DayZ, Subnautica, and Fortni , while its block-based building system directly in luenced the likes of Factorio and Satisfactory. It’s wild just how much of today’s gamin landscape was shaped by Minecraft. A truly monumental PC game.…1 min
PC Gamer|Xmas 2023Steam Early Access StartsDEVELOPERS MANY Although Minecraft first seeded the idea of paying for an incomplete game, it was Valve that formalised the concept. In March 2013, 12 games launched as part of Steam’s Early Access programme, letting developers sell unfinished titles, using player funds and feedback to complete the project. The list included ArmA 3, Kerbal Space Program, and Prison Architect. The idea of paying for unfinished games risked further fragmentation of games as a product, a process that had already begun with DLC and microtransactions. There was a fear developers might abuse the system to escape scrutiny, responding to criticism of flawed or poor design with “it’s not finished”, or simply taking the money and running. And Steam Early Access has been misused on occasion. But, on the whole, has been…1 min
PC Gamer|Xmas 2023Steam Link, Steam Controller, Steam MachinesMANUFACTURER VALVE Valve first crossed the line from software developer to hardware designer with these three devices. It was Valve’s first stab at building a console-like experience around PC gaming, without actually making a console. Unsurprisingly, this half-measured approach didn’t catch on, and Steam Machines had all but vanished from Steam by 2018. That said, the Steam Link was a genuinely neat piece of hardware, and Valve’s hardware aspirations would see much greater success in the years to come.…1 min
PC Gamer|Xmas 2023Disco ElysiumDEVELOPER ZA/UM PUBLISHER IN-HOUSE Role-playing games inherently involve experimenting with alternate personalities. But few are as fundamentally about personal identity as Disco Elysium. The detective RPG from Slovakian developer ZA/UM plunges so deeply into your sense of self that your inner thoughts have inner thoughts. Playing as an alcoholic cop who goes on a bender so extreme it wipes his entire memory, you must solve the murder of a man found hanging in a tree while also solving the mystery of who the heck you are. Many RPGs have your character start out as a blank slate, but in Disco Elysium you are a shattered slate, your mind a million shards. Every character skill relates to a fragment of your disassembled self, and each of those has its own voice.…2 min
PC Gamer|Xmas 2023Steam DeckMANUFACTURER VALVE Valve’s answer to the Nintendo Switch is a miniature marvel of engineering, a compact yet deceptively powerful handheld that combines the portability of a handheld with the flexibility of a PC. The success of the Steam Deck was undoubtedly assisted by launching at an opportune moment. High-end games were scarce in 2022, making it an ideal time to reunite with old favourites and catch up with the hottest indie games. The Steam Deck also happened to release alongside the perfect gaming companion, Poncle’s simple yet enormously compulsive Vampire Survivors. This year’s calendar of wall-to-wall blockbusters has been less well suited to the Steam Deck, but it’s still a fantastic bit of hardware, and a tinkerer’s delight.…1 min
PC Gamer|Xmas 2023STEAMED UPNEWS | OPINION | DEVELOPMENT The Steam accounts of multiple game developers were recently compromised and used to update their games with malware. Fewer than 100 Steam users had the games installed when the malware was added, and they’ve been directly notified of the risk by email, according to Valve. The company confirmed details of the intrusion to PC Gamer. The updates potentially containing malware were “reverted and purged” within hours, and Valve advised any player with the games in question installed to run a full system scan with some decent anti-virus software. Although this attempt to use Steam to distribute malware wasn’t particularly effective, Valve has taken a major step to prevent it from happening again. From October 24, game developers are required to pass a two-factor authentication check…2 min
PC Gamer|Xmas 2023ALL CHROMED UPWhen Gabe Amatangelo stepped into the director role for Cyberpunk 2077 in May 2021, morale among the team was low. The RPG had sold 13 million copies, yet was plagued with bugs and ran so poorly on older consoles it was pulled from sale on the PlayStation Store. CD Projekt’s stock price cratered. Cyberpunk’s former director had left CDPR after an investigation into workplace bullying. So when Amatangelo said yes to the job, that yes came with conditions. “Part of my conversation at the beginning with my boss and the board was: I believe in the team, I believe in this IP, but I want to do it right. And I’m going to need the support to do that,” says Amatangelo. “And they’re like, yes, you have the support.” From…5 min
PC Gamer|Xmas 2023CALL OF DUTY: MODERN WARFARE 3NEED TO KNOW RELEASE November 10 DEVELOPER Sledgehammer Games PUBLISHER Activision LINK callofduty.com I n 20 years of Call of Dutybaton-passing, Modern Warfare 3 presents a unique opportunity for persnickety fans like myself: Sledgehammer has been entrusted a direct sequel to Infinity Ward’s Modern Warfare 2 reboot just a year after its release, with the same engine and full backwards compatibility with MW2’s guns and attachments. I imagine this is a pretty big deal for Sledgehammer. The Bay Area studio has spent a decade playing third fiddle to its more senior Infinity Ward and Treyarch collaborators, serving as a support studio when necessary and garnering a reputation as the “offbeat” CoD studio with Advanced Warfare (2014), WW2 (2017), and Vanguard (2021) – all entries that tried to reach beyond where…7 min
PC Gamer|Xmas 2023DRAGON’S DOGMA 2NEED TO KNOW RELEASE TBA DEVELOPER Capcom PUBLISHER Capcom LINK shorturl.at/jtIX4 T here really is no RPG quite like Dragon’s Dogma. It’s a big, weird, wonderful, terrifying, enthralling mess of an adventure that demands you meet it on its own bizarre terms, or else get savaged by wolves in the middle of the night. What a delight, then, to find a sequel more in love with its own brilliantly strange identity than ever. The thing I loved most about the first game was its sense of truly journeying across a fantasy land, so I decided the best way to get a sense of the sequel in the limited time available was to just pick a road and start walking. I’m not alone, of course – I’m joined by the series’…3 min
PC Gamer|Xmas 2023JEDI REMASTERSCELEBRATING THREE DECADES OF PC GAMING In this landmark issue of PC Gamer magazine, we’ve naturally been reflecting on the history of PC gaming over the last 30 years, as well as where the industry is now. Three decades ago, when PC Gamer was in its early years, many landmark PC games were released, but two of the most impactful were System Shock, the groundbreaking immersive sim that proceeded to found an entire genre, as well as Star Wars: Dark Forces, a first-person shooter that set new benchmarks for narrative storytelling and technical wizardry in an FPS. Today in 2023 one studio, now known for its Jedi-level remasters of classic PC games, is reuniting this part of PC gaming’s past with its present like no other – Nightdive Studios, which…15 min
PC Gamer|Xmas 2023Bright futureOn PC Gamer magazine’s 30th anniversary I’m well and truly buoyed by the sheer variety of PC games available to play today. Just look at the disparate genres covered by the PCG reviews machine this month as evidence. We’ve got action, real-time and turn-based strategy, simulations, deck-building roguelikes, narrative-driven adventures, FPS games and more. For me, the open and varied landscape that PC gaming offers has always been a key part of its appeal, and while not all of the reviewed games this issue lodge super-high scores, it’s hard not to feel enthused about PC gaming’s future considering what they offer, and especially so in a year like 2023 that has also treated us to Baldur’s Gate III, Starfield and Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty among many other top games. LET…1 min
PC Gamer|Xmas 2023RIDERS ON THE WORMArrakis, Frank Herbert’s inhospitable planet and the setting for Dune: Spice Wars, is arguably the most famous celestial body in science fiction. It sprang tailor-made for strategy gaming with its murderous terrain, political intrigue, and markedly differentiated factions vying for control of a priceless natural resource: the spice. That the foundations of the modern RTS were laid in Westwood’s Dune 2 was hardly a surprise. Like Dune 2, Spice Wars is an RTS, but it’s also a 4X affair, and a remarkably traditional one at that. It lets you lead one of six rival groups locked in constant struggle over Arrakis’ sandy expanse. Single scenarios and multiplayer battles are available, but the main draw is doubtless the 25-30 hour Conquest mode which unfolds over several missions, seeing me gradually tighten…4 min
PC Gamer|Xmas 2023CONSERVATIVE STRATEGYForza Motorsport There’s one lap to go at Laguna Seca, an angry, bucking beast of a circuit in the California desert where I’ve so far been shepherding a Civic to a bang-average fourth place finish. But this is Forza multiplayer: it’s not over until the penalties are counted, the ‘mute all’ button is pressed and the chequered flag is taken. The leader has a problem: as they head into the infamous corkscrew chicane, they’re side-by-side with P2 in the braking zone. I can see on the minimap that this does not go well for either party. They’re both off track, and one of them clatters into P3 upon rejoining the track. I’m about to win the race. Except I don’t. I take those last corners so cautiously that one of…4 min
PC Gamer|Xmas 2023NO WHAMMIESAstrea: Six-Sided Oracles I’m no risk-taker (or so I like to tell myself ), and yet I have spent the past few days making extremely poor decisions with dice. Fortunately my errors in judgment haven’t bankrupted me, but they sure have led a long procession of adorable cartoon critter-folk to their cosmic doom. Astrea: Six-Sided Oracles, the debut game from Brazilian studio Little Leo Games, is an experimental take on the deckbuilding roguelike that might just make a gambler out of me. Aesthetically Astrea makes a strong first impression. Set in a dreamlike watercolour world of astral mages and eldritch corruption, there’s an assortment of cute animal-people to play as, including well-dressed sharks, bees and robot crocodiles clad in swish robes, battling against ‘corrupted’ versions of their kith and kin.…4 min
PC Gamer|Xmas 2023DRIZZLE KICKSFREE GAMES REVIEWS I often think about Raindrop, a tiny arcade-style game made by indie developer Shuhei Miyazawa. It’s such an innovative game – though, in an unpopular genre, it seems to have passed people by. I’m grateful for this opportunity to return to it, and bring this cat-in-the-rain saga to more people’s attentions. The gist is that you’re a cat, and you’re trying to cross the street in torrential rain. Dodge the raindrops as they fall and collect as many stars as you can, for a bonus. Every time you reach the exit your score is banked. Do you rush repeatedly to each exit until you’re finally hit by a raindrop? Or do you linger in each stage, dodging rain and catching stars to increase your combos? I can’t…1 min
PC Gamer|Xmas 2023STAUF THISTHEY’RE BACK It’s fascinating looking at comments from people who played The 7th Guest as children. It’s a mix of nostalgia and swallowed trauma, like visiting a vintage fair with someone whose grandpa choked on a Pog. It’s not that it’s scary, as such. The performances are flamboyantly camp. It’s stilted and strange. And the lead villain, Henry Stauf, looks more like a disgruntled gamekeeper than a grand supernatural menace. But there’s a pervasive eeriness to everything that’s still gripping. After years of acclimatisation, we have an idea what to expect from horror films and games, but The 7th Guest’s idiosyncrasies make it entirely unpredictable. It’s from a time before the rules were written. The presentation definitely helps. The voiceover is cosy, strange and soporific, like sliding into a suspiciously…1 min
PC Gamer|Xmas 2023ANTIQUE CODE SHOWTECH REPORT If you thought 1993 was a good year for PC junkies,” wrote the LA Times on Christmas eve 1993, “just wait until 1994. Prices will continue to plummet, just as they did in 1993”. Firstly, can we all agree to go back to calling ourselves PC junkies? And second, that quote captures a pivotal moment. Home computers were indeed becoming more affordable year on year, and a storm was gathering that would birth PC gaming as we know it. Id Software knew this when it launched Doom in December of ’93. Future Publishing knew it when some forward-thinking execs had launched the first issue of a magazine called PC Gamer a month previously. People had been using computers to play games since there had been people, computers and…5 min
PC Gamer|Xmas 2023“I took on the role of DPS while my friend lured Radahn around his arena”CONTINUED ADVENTURES IN GAMING NOW PLAYING THE GAMES WE LOVE RIGHT NOW Nothing has made me more desperate for a proper co-op mode in a Souls game than the Elden Ring Seamless Co-op mod. Brutal bosses and treacherous caves are a lot more fun with a friend by your side. But unlike FromSoftware’s own version of co-op where your ally can only stick around until you defeat a boss, the mod gives both players an all-day pass to the entirety of the Lands Between. The Seamless Co-op mod itself is a miracle. FromSoftware’s games are not particularly friendly to modders and, historically, adding any kind of multiplayer to a game seems to be difficult. Somehow, the mod’s developer, LukeYui, made it work well enough that you can…3 min
PC Gamer|Xmas 2023“The narrative should obscure these systems, but Bethesda drops this ball”My eight-year-old has ADHD so I hear “I’M BORED” a lot. I remind myself that’s a function of his operating system, a complex set of emotions and processes. Otherwise, I’d just point out the million things he could do and complain about his inability to enjoy them. I am playing Starfield, and I am BORED. A million things to do and I’m not enjoying any of it. Now, I’m not neurotypical either, but I don’t think I’m the issue. Videogames rely on the metagame. We hear someone talking about the barkeep with a problem, we hear “quest”. Progress. But the best games make us forget all this by weaving an illusion. They make it easy to choose to believe in a story to spark your imagination. Starfield fails spectacularly in…2 min
PC Gamer|Xmas 2023GET STARTED IN STARFIELDSTRONG START 1 Do you want an endless parade of bounty hunters chasing you? Origin Traits are an important narrative element of your playthrough, so be sure to pick wisely. It’s worth remembering that many Origin Traits can also be disabled if they get annoying. Take a hike, fan! PRACTICAL KNOW HOW 2 While it can be fun to choose your Background based on an imagined backstory, it’s more important to pick practically here, since it alters your skillset and what you’ll be able to do in space. Some skills are definitely more useful than others, such as Piloting. BOOST PACK 3 Speaking of useful skills; make sure to grab the Boost Pack Training ability as soon as you can. Starfield doesn’t explain this, but if you don’t have that…3 min
PC Gamer|Xmas 2023SYNDICATEREINSTALL OLD GAMES, NEW PERSPECTIVES Syndicate is a game that stirs strong feelings within me, and the realisation that it’s now 30 years old plunged me into a pit of nostalgia for my teenage years. I’ve owned Syndicate four times, and played it on three different platforms. Three were on PC, the game coming as a selection of floppies in a big black box with a bright green sheath around it, then a CD-ROM in a small green cardboard case, then as a download in its Syndicate Plus incarnation. Only the last one still works. I also played it on the Amiga 500, and later the PSP port of the Super Nintendo conversion as part of the dreadful EA Replay disc. It’s a game that’s most at home…9 min
PC Gamer|Xmas 2023DoomDEVELOPER ID SOFTWARE PUBLISHER IN-HOUSE Strictly speaking, PC gaming didn’t start with Doom. Spiritually though, it absolutely did. Doom embodies so much of what would define PC gaming across the next three decades. Its cutting-edge tech established the PC’s reputation as a premium gaming platform. Its immersive, satisfying gunplay made first-person shooters the PC’s mascot genre. Its emphasis on violence and horror expanded the medium’s reputation beyond a pastime for children. It even took the first steps toward online multiplayer. Doom’s influence on PC gaming cannot be overstated. Yet what’s most remarkable about id Software’s landmark shooter is its sheer sticking power. Far from being a fondly remembered relic, Doom is one of the most widely playable games in existence, having been ported not just to every gaming platform, but…2 min
PC Gamer|Xmas 2023Ultima OnlineDEVELOPER ORIGIN SYSTEMS/MYTHIC/BROADSWORD PUBLISHER ELECTRONIC ARTS Ultima Online was to MMOs what Doom was to first-person shooters. It may not be the original massively multiplayer game, but it was the first to demonstrate they could have global appeal. While Ultima takes place in a typical fantasy world, it’s closer in spirit – mechanically speaking – to EVE Online than World ofWarcraft, a player-driven sandbox with a dynamic economy and persistent housing for its players. The game was also the scene of gaming’s most famous instance of griefing, when Origin co-founder Richard Garriot’s “Lord British” avatar was assassinated during a beta test. The more things change……1 min
PC Gamer|Xmas 2023StarCraftDEVELOPER BLIZZARD ENTERTAINMENT PUBLISHER IN-HOUSE Today StarCraft is best known for two things, its national following in South Korea, and the resulting esports scene. But there’s a reason why StarCraft could capture the hearts of a nation: it’s the RTS honed to perfection. Blizzard took the fundamentals already refined in its WarCraft series, and transposed them into a vibrant sci-fi universe centred around three asymmetric factions. Mastering their particularities is what kept players coming back for the next decade, and what ultimately made StarCraft one of the keystones of the nascent esports scene. Even after the colossal success of StarCraft II, the original remains reasonably popular in its spiritual homeland.…1 min
PC Gamer|Xmas 2023GameMaker releasesDEVELOPER YOYO GAMES ORIGINAL PROGRAMMER MARK OVERMARS In the 1990s, there were two ways into game development. Either you learned to code, or you learned how to mod. Then, in 1999, a Dutch scientist named M rk Overmars released a simple graphics tool called Animo. The tool gathered some attenti n, and Overmars began adding new features like a part cle system and networking. He also changed its name to GameMaker, which in time would become emblematic of the democ atisa ion of game development. Sinc 2007, GameMaker has been d veloped by Dundee-b sed company YoYo Games, and has been used to make games like Hotline Miami, Gunpoint, and Und tale.…1 min
PC Gamer|Xmas 2023Battlefield 1942DEVELOPER DIGITAL ILLUSIONS CE PUBLISHER ELECTRONIC ARTS The turn of the millennium saw PC gaming ask itself two big questions. The first was “What if you could play multiplayer shooters in teams?” while the second was “What would it be like to fight in the Second World War?”. Battlefield 1942 answered both these questions simultaneously. In doing so, it spawned one of gaming’s biggest franchises. Battlefield took the renewed interest in WWII spawned by Saving Private Ryan (and in the PC gaming sphere, Medal of Honor: Allied Assault) combined it with the PC’s rapidly advancing multiplayer capabilities that facilitated games like Unreal Tournament, Counter-Strike, and Team Fortress, and then massively blew out the scale. Not only did it support whopping 64-player battles, but those players could traverse vast, open-ended maps…1 min
PC Gamer|Xmas 2023Call of DutyDEVELOPER INFINITY WARD PUBLISHER ACTIVISION Today Call of Duty is known for its world-conquering multiplayer. But in 2003 it was the cinematic campaign everyone was excited about. Hot off the heels of Medal of Honor: Allied Assault and its recreation of Saving Private Ryan’s Omaha Beach landing, designers Jason West and Vince Zampella created a new studio. Call of Duty cast Allied Assault’s filmic eye across three campaigns, fighting through the hedgerows of Normandy as the Americans, assaulting the bridges of Holland as the Brits, and enduring the carnage of Stalingrad as the Soviets. It was a thunderous airstrike of a game, and for better or worse, the FPS hasn’t been the same since.…1 min
PC Gamer|Xmas 2023Oblivion’s horse armourSTABLE BETHESDA SOFTWORKS PROTECTION LEVEL PURELY COSMETIC In 2006 Bethesda was the most exciting game studio around. Its new RPG Oblivion had blown players away with its vast, beautiful, and endlessly surprising fantasy world. But Bethesda’s popularity soon took a dent when it launched Oblivion’s first slice of additional content. This differed in two ways from previous expansions Bethesda had made, like Tribunaland Bloodmoonfor its earlier title Morrowind. First, it was delivered entirely digitally. Second, it wasn’t a new island to explore or adventure to tackle. No, it was a bit of armour for your horse. The stink this caused was unbelievable. While players weren’t against paying for additional game content, the idea of shelling out money specifically for one in-game item was ludicrous. One commenter on the website 1UP…2 min
PC Gamer|Xmas 2023Plants vs ZombiesDEVELOPER POPCAP GAMES PUBLISHER IN-HOUSE Like Peggle before it, Plants vs Zombies was instrumental in the normalising of ‘casual’ games on PC. Valve’s inclusion of a demo version of Peggle in The Orange Box had countless PC gamers paying attention to what PopCap would do next. Plants vs Zombies showed that games you’d normally find free on Newgrounds.com could compete with shooters and RPGs as premium mainstream titles. Then PopCap was acquired by EA, and Plants vs Zombies disappeared into mobile-land. But the original’s significance as a PC landmark remains. It’s also the second-best game after Portal to finish on a song.…1 min
PC Gamer|Xmas 2023The Elder Scrolls V: SkyrimPUBLISHER BETHESDA SOFTWORKS FUS RO DAH Bethesda’s finest hour. Skyrim combined the refinements of Oblivion with a less cod fantasy landscape inspired by Norse myth. The rugged mountains and misty valleys brought back some of the weirdness Bethesda had left behind in Morrowind. Also, it had dragons. The result was a perfectly balanced RPG brew. Skyrim had just enough sharpness in its combat and intuitiveness in its systems to give it mass-market appeal, but it also had sufficient flexibility and, let’s face it, inherent wonkiness to make it an internet sensation in the golden age of social media. Buckets on heads! Oaths to carry burdens! A certain projectile in a leg joint! It was the same weirdness that had been in Oblivion, but unlike in 2006, it was a lot…1 min
PC Gamer|Xmas 2023Oculus Rift DK1MANUFACTURER OCULUS VR You could play a crude VR version of Half-Life 2on the Oculus Developer’s Kit 1. It was grainy, it was disorienting, and it made some feel sick. But the Combine soldiers were actually human-sized, the vertical drops made stomachs lurch, and the headcrabs leaping at your face were terrifying. In 2013, it felt like virtual reality would take over the world. Physical and economic limitations have prevented a VR revolution, but the tech is nonetheless a well-established part of PC gaming today. If nothing else, VR brought us a whole new Half-Life game, Half-Life: Alyx, every bit as brilliant as the first two.…1 min
PC Gamer|Xmas 2023PUBG: BattlegroundsDEVELOPER PUBG STUDIOS PUBLISHER KRAFTON Perhaps the most recent game to cause a paradigm shift in how mainstream titles are designed, PlayerUnknown’s Battlegroundsemerged from the inhumane chaos of DayZ, Bohemia Interactive’s multiplayer zombie survival mod for ArmA 2. In DayZ’s world, survival was the only goal, and in achieving this you could be as cruel and treacherous to other players as you liked. PUBG basically took this idea and formalised it into a round-based scenario. The same large, post-military world, the same large number of players. But now players had to compete with one another in a gradually shrinking playspace until only one of them was left. And lo! The battle royale genre was born. PUBG’s impact was as enormous as it was rapid. In the battle royale formula, Epic…1 min
PC Gamer|Xmas 2023The Covid-19 pandemicDEVELOPER SARS-COV-2 PUBLISHER HUMANITY One positive that emerged from THE PANDEMIC is an increased awareness of the risk of exploitation on the part of game developers ovid-19 affected virtually every individual and organisation on the planet, and the games industry was no different. But the effect of the virus and the ensuing lockdowns to help protect people from it was unusual in the case of games. Covid-19 caused serious disruption to game development schedules as studios adjusted to working from home. But it also caused a massive spike in sales of games and hardware, due to the millions of additional people passing time during lockdown by playing games. The consequences of all this are still playing out today. The delays Covid caused meant fewer games being launched in the following…1 min
PC Gamer|Xmas 2023COMPOSE YOURSELFMusic captured Jason Graves at a young age, and never let him go. After becoming enamoured with John Williams’s ET soundtrack, music became “an emotional touchpoint” for him. Singing lessons, piano lessons, and musicals were just the beginning; he’s been performing music in one way or another since elementary school. Graves went on to learn a variety of instruments, and in college majored in music. “I thought I was going to be an educator or a performer of some sort,” he says, “but I decided that what I really wanted to do was attempt to write the kind of music that emotionally charged me as a kid, and even now”. Thus he switched from general music study to composition. Today, Graves is an experienced composer, with an enviable CV that…4 min
PC Gamer|Xmas 2023EVE VANGUARDNEED TO KNOW RELEASE December 2023 DEVELOPER CCP London PUBLISHER CCP Games LINK vanguard.eveonline.com E ver since FPS Dust 514’s 2013 debut and subsequent flaming out, a sizeable segment of EVE Onlinefans have wanted one thing: Dust 2. The idea is something of a white whale for developer CCP: a first-person shooter that inhabits the same universe as its space MMO. EVE Vanguard is not Dust 2, however, because this time things have to be different. CCP is being extra cautious about how it frames Vanguard. This is a “module” of EVE Online being developed by CCP’s London studio in Unreal Engine 5, which will open its doors for a beta test in December 2023, and be asynchronously connected to EVE Online via a mechanic called corruption. The difference with…3 min
PC Gamer|Xmas 2023LAST TRAIN HOMENEED TO KNOW RELEASE November 28, 2023 DEVELOPER Ashborne Games PUBLISHER THQ Nordic LINK lasttrainhome.thqnordic.com I n the year 1918, Czechoslovakia was born from the ashes of the First World War. That same year, Russia collapsed into a vicious civil war. It was a complex, messy and bloody time, and is the ambitiously chosen backdrop for Last Train Home, from Czech studio Ashborne Games. The demo for Last Train Home features the prologue and first leg of the full game’s exodus, around three to four hours of game. I dived in this week to get a feel for whether the studio could pull off such an ambitious concept. I’m very happy to report that, aside from micromanagement relying a bit too much on fiddly UI panels, this is shaping up…3 min
PC Gamer|Xmas 2023System ShockCELEBRATING THREE DECADES OF PC GAMINGNIGHTDIVE STUDIOS Warren Spector and Paul Neurath, who were key members of the original System Shock team, sit down with Larry Kuperman and Stephen Kick of Nightdive Studios, key parts of the System Shock remake, to discuss the groundbreaking sci-fi immersive sim series. What is your history in the gaming industry and System Shock as a series? Warren Spector: I started in tabletop games, and moved onto computer games, and then console videogames. [Regarding System Shock], I was working on a title I called Alien Commander, which I wanted to make as an internal project, and head up both creatively and in production. But Doug Church [System Shock lead programmer] was hanging out in my office one day, and we were both talking about how…11 min
PC Gamer|Xmas 2023This month’s 3DFX Voodoo2-powered reviewers…RICK LANE Specialist in Chatting with gods Currently playing Total War: Pharaoh This month Decided with Egyptian god of war Horus that PC Gamer was always better than PC Zone. PHIL IWANIUK Specialist in Kaz Yamauchi nods Currently playing Forza Motorsport This month Spent a worrying amount of time ogling virtual race track tarmac. Oh Phil. DOMINIC TARASON Specialist in Dancing with mouse-folk Currently playing Wargroove 2 This month Gorged on a massive all-you-can-eat popcorn strategy buffet. Om nom nom! JON BAILES Specialist in Jogging away from fights Currently playing The Lamplighters League This month Was hired to take down heretical console gamer ne’er-do-wells. MATT ELLIOTT Specialist in Wearing many helmets Currently playing Doom This month Had tea and crumpets with John Romero in Jekkad, the realm of demons. Got…1 min
PC Gamer|Xmas 2023GROOVYThe original Wargroove came at just the right time. The world had been starved of Advance Wars-style strategy for years, and Chucklefish’s cheery fantasy reimagining of War World’s tanks n’ choppers combat into knights and dragons hit the spot. More than four years later, Wargroove 2 arrives on the scene, and while this sequel is better than ever, it perhaps struggles to stand out against the Switch revival of Nintendo’s classic strategy series. For newcomers, Wargroove was a turn-based, kid-friendly fantasy strategy game that was heavily inspired by Intelligent Systems’ classic Advance Wars. It had real strategic depth, with enough hard and soft counters to support dramatic comebacks and heroic pushes against the odds. Wargroove 2 is a huge second serving of that. Set a couple of years after the…4 min
PC Gamer|Xmas 2023DEATH ON THE NILETotal War: Pharaoh isn’t the best Total War game, but it is possibly the one I’m most impressed by. Creative Assembly’s chosen setting sits right on the precipice of military history. The Battle of Kadesh, which took place about 100 years before Total War: Pharaoh begins, is the earliest pitched battle that we have records of tactics and formations for. The most technologically advanced weapon of the time was the chariot. Compared to the military engine that powered Rome, or the wild armies of Total War: Warhammer, Pharaoh has precious few tools to create an entertaining simulation of warfare. And yet, Pharaoh is a deeply compelling strategy game. Although its battles are almost Shogun-like in their simplicity, the campaign is anything but, offering a fiercely challenging scramble for power over…8 min
PC Gamer|Xmas 2023SLIDES RULEFREE GAMES REVIEWS LOOKING BACK AT THE BEST FREE GAMES I’VE REVIEWED FOR PC GAMER What defines an immersive sim? Is it the multiple approaches, the vent-crawling, the exploration? No, it’s even simpler than that – it’s the sliding. Like most immersive sims, Babbdi lets you slide into a crouched position. It’s a movement that’s fun to perform – and movement is at the heart of Babbdi. It’s never been such fun to move around such a dismal location. Imagine Crackdown in a UK tower block: a game of puzzling your way up, down and around a concrete playground on a foggy day. The combat and stealth of the classic immersive sims have been jettisoned entirely, and all that’s left is the exploration and a goal to achieve…2 min
PC Gamer|Xmas 2023SPECTACULARSpectacle is aptly named – it’s a visually resplendent throwback to a bygone age. Evoking games like Shadowgate and Uninvited, it’s a first-person adventure where half of the fun is stumbling into deadly encounters. Perhaps I shouldn’t linger by that giant snake, much as I’m curious. Cue hilarious game-over screen. Today, these sudden deaths are seen as outdated design – and rightly so, when we have to return to a previous save. But Spectacle just reverts things to before the encounter. You get all the fun of the custom death, then carry on with your puzzling business as if it never happened. That’s really the only modern concession in a game built on the shoulders of those old ‘Macventure’ games. However, with modern hardware comes the power to dream a…1 min
PC Gamer|Xmas 2023VOODOO CHILDYou often wonder, playing a game from 1993, which 2020s tropes will age like milk. The setting and story of Gabriel Knight feel quite current. I can imagine a TV show about a rugged occult bookstore owner investigating dark mysteries. But everything else would be different. He wouldn’t ride a motorbike and wear a long leather coat. He wouldn’t have a voice like Duplo being tipped onto a wooden floor. And he wouldn’t make jokes about violating human rights or ogling his secretary’s legs. But functionally, there’s loads here that feels rich and current. The dialogue options are deep and voluminous. There are multiple endings. And the presentation still feels crisp, perhaps because of recent point-and-click games, such as Unavowed, which reference the same systems. Best of all, though, is…1 min
PC Gamer|Xmas 2023SMASHING PINSIn 2023, we turn up our noses if we don’t like the RGB lighting strips running along our graphics card. In 1993, the select few enthusiasts who ever dared meddle with the inner workings of their home computer were delighted just to correctly identify their VGA card. Quite aside from the astronomical rise in computational power since issue 1 of this magazine hit the shelves, we’ve seen an equally dramatic transformation in the way desktop machines are put together. It’s basically nerd Lego now, a toybox of coloured parts that fit together in an outrageously proportioned, liquid-cooled display cabinet. But when PC Gamer launched, upgrading your computer was beyond daunting. MANUFACTURERS HAD TO RESPOND WITH MORE USER-FRIENDLY DESIGNS And yet people braved it nonetheless. Driven forwards into the gaping maw…4 min
PC Gamer|Xmas 2023“Suddenly I’m invested in politics”NOW PLAYING THE GAMES WE LOVE RIGHT NOW I think it’s the moment when I get blown off my feet by the crashing Space Force One presidential jet, its inferno-clad, exploding engines singeing my very ragged cropped hairdo as it almost scalps me, that I realise that I may have bitten off more than I can chew with this gig. This is especially true because I, as a person, am already rapidly fading away thanks to my consciousness being overwritten by a long-dead rockstar (don’t ask!). Oh, and did I mention that I’ve just accepted a certain-death mission to extract the president of the New United States of America from the most dangerous area of Night City, one controlled by an armed-to-the-teeth private military company? Yeah, I’m f*cked. EXTREME PREJUDICE…2 min
PC Gamer|Xmas 2023BALDUR’S GATE IIIA weird property of videogames is that, no matter how long they’ve been in development, as soon as they release about one million voices will shout in unison, “Hey, how come you didn’t include this feature we were obviously going to want?” For Starfield, it was city maps, because instead of proper street maps the RPG launched with sparse dot fields that look like abstract illustrations of loneliness. For Baldur’s Gate III, it was the ability to change your appearance mid-game, as well as the option to boot co-op characters from your party so that you aren’t stuck with your friend’s green-haired bard named Sherlock Gnome. Bethesda’s still working on the maps, but remarkably, Larian has already added both of those requested features in just over a month, and has…4 min
PC Gamer|Xmas 2023THE BIGGER THEY ARE, THE BARDER THEY FALL BALDUR’S GATE III PART 2When we last saw Pillius Flenk, he was allowing his bravado to write cheques his conflict-avoidant ass was unlikely to cash. By agreeing to help everyone he sashayed into after escaping the crashing nautiloid, he got himself into something of a pickle, especially since he had no genuine intention of acting heroically. Via a combination of over-promising, under-delivering and avoiding physical exertion, he reached a point where his only option was to creep into a goblin stronghold to rescue a druid; an unwelcome task for a man less courageous than Donald Trump on a polished staircase. Flenk, you’ll remember, is a mewling weakling with the fortitude of a sugar sculpture on a drizzly day; a prey animal, albeit one who wants you to believe that he’s a actually a snarling…10 min
PC Gamer|Xmas 2023MUST PLAYHARVEY RANDALL 2023’s already been flooded with must-play games – chances are we’ve nattered your ear off about them already. Instead, here are some games near and dear to my heart that I think you should try. FINAL FANTASY XIV finalfantasyxiv.com Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker has been a mixed bag, but it’s still one of the best RPG stories I’ve experienced, and you can now play two whole expansions for free. That’s like, three 30-40 hour stories for nothing. Well worth a play if you like this sort of thing. CYBERPUNK 2077 cyberpunk.net Cyberpunk’s rusty launch stopped me from ever trying it. But with Phantom Liberty, an RPG systems overhaul, and most performance and bug issues squashed, I gave it a spin. I’m having a blast in Night City throwing…2 min
PC Gamer|Xmas 2023E3 beginsLOCATION LA CONVENTION CENTER ORGANISER ENTERTAINMENT SOFTWARE ASSOCIATION To understand the significance of E3’s arrival, you need to know how games were treated before E3, at other technology trade shows like CES. “In 1991, they put us in a tent,” said Sega America’s then CEO Tom Kalinske, “You had to walk past all the p*rn vendors to find us. That particular year it was pouring rain, and the rain leaked right over our new Genesis system. I was just furious with the way CES treated the videogame industry, and I felt we were a more important industry than they were giving us credit for.” The first E3 was born as a response to this kind of treatment, a trade show designed to promote gaming’s growing commercial and cultural significance, rather…2 min
PC Gamer|Xmas 2023FalloutDEVELOPER INTERPLAY PRODUCTIONS PUBLISHER IN-HOUSE When Fallout arrived in late 1997, the CRPG was dead. PC gaming was all about action and attitude in the ’90s, and Fallout’s success came from channelling some of that attitude back into the RPG. Its satirical post-apocalypse and snappy branching narrative let players be a badass, a hardass, a dumbass, and every kind of ass in between. Fallout’s isometric perspective and adaptive quest design made it the template for the modern CRPG, and its legacy is still visible in games like Baldur’s Gate 3.…1 min
PC Gamer|Xmas 2023Thief: The Dark ProjectDEVELOPER LOOKING GLASS STUDIOS PUBLISHER EIDOS INTERACTIVE Looking Glass’ gothic fantasy was a dedicated sneaking simulation. Its lighting system let players disappear into the shadows, while its advanced audio propagation meant every step you took had to be carefully considered. It also features some of the best 3D level design around. Missions like Assassins and The Sword have become key reference points in the level design handbook. Thief’s framework would filter through to pretty much any game where the screen goes slightly darker when you crouch. Yet while countless games include stealth in their toolset, Thief remains the best dedicated stealth adventure in existence.…1 min
PC Gamer|Xmas 2023Deus ExDEVELOPER ION STORM PUBLISHER EIDOS INTERACTIVE Deus Ex represents the culmination of PC gaming’s innovations throughout the 1990s. Here was a game that gave you the shooting of Doom, the sneaking of Thief, the ability to talk your way around a problem a-la Fallout, all in one astonishing package. It was a long-awaited triumph for the immersive sim, an offshoot of the RPG that emphasised systems-driven worlds designed to facilitate player agency. Immersive sims had been pioneered by Looking Glass Studios throughout the 1990s in games like Ultima Underworld and System Shock. Yet while beloved by those in the know, their commercial success had been negligible. Deus Ex boasted greater ambition and flexibility than those games, but it also took place in a more relatable world. A near-future cyberpunk dystopia…1 min
PC Gamer|Xmas 2023Half-Life 2DEVELOPER VALVE PUBLISHER IN-HOUSE In history there are two game industries, the one that lived before Half-Life 2, and the one that woke up after it. Half-Life 2 was the sum of all the FPS’ aspirations. A realistic, contiguous 3D environment that saw players travelling through a vast and elaborate cityscape. A revolutionary physics engine that turned every object in the game world into a potential weapon. An endlessly inventive adventure in which every chapter brought new twists. A story told by characters who moved, talked, and acted like real people. Even at a time when shooters and first-person games were constantly breaking new ground, nobody had seen anything like Half-Life 2. It was so good that Valve, with all its collective brainpower, still hasn’t figured out how to make…1 min
PC Gamer|Xmas 2023Dwarf FortressDEVELOPER BAY 12 GAMES PUBLISHER IN-HOUSE Never has a game been so simultaneously behind and ahead of the times as Dwarf Fortress. Released in 2006, Dwarf Fortress was a preposterously complex management sim at a time when management sims were out of vogue. It was a game fronted by impenetrable ASCII graphics, at a time when the industry was moving toward increased visual fidelity and streamlined interfaces. By all rights, Dwarf Fortress should had vanished into internet obscurity. At the same time, it’s quite hard to ignore a game that generates an entire history of civilisation before you start to play. Notionally about building and managing a home for a colony of dwarves, Dwarf Fortress is really an impossibly complex story engine designed to factor in every possible eventuality. It’s…1 min
PC Gamer|Xmas 2023Recettear: An Item Shop’s TaleDEVELOPER EASYGAMESTATION PUBLISHER CARPE FULGUR You might not be familiar with Recettear, in which you play a young girl in a magical shop who explores randomised dungeons. But it’s notable for being the first Japanese game to release on Steam. Prior to this, the PC was rarely a focus for Japanese publishers. You’d occasionally see a port of a Capcom or Sega game, but that was it. Yet Steam revealed the PC market was too big to ignore. Recettear was the first crack in the dam, leading to everything from Dark Souls to Yakuza, Persona to Nier Automata arriving on the platform. You can even play Shenmue on PC now. What an age we live in.…1 min
PC Gamer|Xmas 2023XCOM: Enemy UnknownDEVELOPER FIRAXIS GAMES PUBLISHER 2K Firaxis’ reboot of Julian Gollop’s 1994 game (known variously as X-COM: UFO Defenseand UFO: Enemy Unknown) is another one of those great pivot moments of PC Gaming. Before XCOM, turn-based tactics was practically a forgotten genre. But Firaxis brought it screaming back, blending cinematic flair with ruthless tactical challenge to create a gripping, dynamic sci-fi drama. XCOM’s tactical scenarios could deliver the kinds of shocking twists you’d normally experience in a TV show like Game of Thrones, only the characters being mercilessly slaughtered were ones you’d created, in situations you’d got them into. XCOM also fit right into the 2010s’ renewed appetite for uncompromising experiences, a more cerebral companion to the high-wire athleticism of Dark Souls. Its alien menace wasn’t afraid to just beat you,…1 min
PC Gamer|Xmas 2023The Witcher 3: Wild HuntDEVELOPER CD PROJEKT RED PUBLISHER CD PROJEKT Open worlds on PC reached their zenith with CD Projekt’s dark fantasy. The scale of this RPG was extraordinary, but what truly defined The Witcher 3 was the texture of its world. Its landscapes weren’t just beautiful, they were wild and unkempt and hostile. Its story wasn’t just dramatic, it was tender, nuanced, heartwarming and heartbreaking. The quality wasn’t limited to the main plot, but virtually every side quest too. It may be a game about a mutant slaying monsters, but The Witcher 3 is one of the most human games ever produced by a big-budget studio.…1 min
PC Gamer|Xmas 2023Geforce RTX 2080MANUFACTURER NVIDIA CLOCK SPEED 1515MHZ PC gaming has long been at the cutting-edge of graphics technology, but the rate at which visual fidelity increases has been flattening over the last decade. Back in the ’90s, just four years took you from the 2.5D hellscape of Doom to the fully 3D, hardware-accelerated sci-fi nightmare of Quake 2. Then it all went quiet. Which is why the advent of ray tracing in 2018 felt like such a big deal. Here was a technology that seemed a genuine leap forward: true, path-traced real-time lighting that accurately simulates how light bounces off surfaces to create shadows, reflections, and refractions. Games had become very good at faking these things, but here was a technology that did it for real. In practice, the ray-tracing revolution has…1 min
PC Gamer|Xmas 2023ValheimDEVELOPER IRON GATE STUDIO PUBLISHER COFFEE STAIN PUBLISHING Any game that brings together the building and survival systems of Minecraft with the exploration and combat of Dark Soulsalways had a reasonable shot at being popular, but nobody expected Iron Gate’s procedural Viking simulator to become the phenomenon that it has. As well as being the perfect capstone to the design ideas that drove the 2010s, Valheim’s popularity derives from being such an excellent hangout space. Its atmospheric Viking world is highly rewarding to explore with other players, and while the game bills itself as a hardcore survival experience, for the most part the only pressure is that which you choose to take on.…1 min
PC Gamer|Xmas 2023Cyberpunk 2077 2.0DEVELOPER CD PROJEKT RED PUBLISHER CD PROJEKT CD Projekt has long held a reputation for improving its games post-release, but Cyberpunkseemed like an insurmountable task. Alongside a list of bugs and performance issues were more fundamental problems, like underwhelming progression and a gorgeous, but lifeless, city. Yet CD Projekt was true to its rep, and while it took three years and a countless number of eddies, the studio really did fix Cyberpunk. It’s now as entertaining mechanically as it is narratively, while the world feels more alive thanks to better crowds and a proper police system. The Phantom Liberty expansion provides further enhancements, alongside a new story that’s a superb complement to the original.…1 min
