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PC Gamer|August 2024“SHADOW OF THE ERDTREE IS THE BIGGEST NEW GAME OF THE YEAR”Expansions to pre-existing games rarely garner massive levels of anticipation. But in the case of Elden Ring’s new expansion, Shadow of the Erdtree, that rule definitely doesn’t apply. This is not just the most anticipated release of 2024 for many members of the PC Gamer team, but also in my opinion the biggest new game of the year, period. What luck, then, that PC Gamer delivers the ultimate Shadow of the Erdtree exclusive this issue, in a mega scoop involving travelling to Japan, interviewing Hidetaka Miyazaki, and playing the expansion in depth. Discover it all on page 38. Enjoy! ROBERT JONES Twitter @rnicholasj This month Wandered the Land of Shadow, a place obscured by the Erdtree, for one worthy to face in combat. Nobody came, though, so instead he kicked…1 min
PC Gamer|August 2024SOMETHING CLICKEDDave Gilbert runs Wadjet Eye Games, which has been making point-and-click adventures since 2006. His development story begins in 2001 as, laid off from a corporate job and looking for a way to get his mind off the horror of 9/11, he discovered the open-source Adventure Game Studio. Gilbert made a small game in a weekend, and was so excited by the positive response to it that he decided to make more. Another five years or so of making freeware games followed, as did a new job – which he wasn’t enjoying. He’d discovered that game development was his true passion. “Eventually I decided that I couldn’t envision doing anything else,” he says, “and so I took all my savings and decided to just go for it. And I did;…3 min
PC Gamer|August 2024SCREEN BOUND“It’s kind of a miracle that I’m still around,” Crescent Moon Games founder Josh Presseisen tells me. “I had done so many demos and pitched them to so many console publishers – and nothing was working. It was all kind of falling apart, and then Screenbound happened.” Screenbound is a new puzzle platformer that merges 2D and 3D gameplay in a dual-dimensional space to create what is being called a 5D experience. Described as The Witness meets Super Mario, the player moves in first person across a 3D space while controlling a Game Boy-like device – known as a Quantum Boy (Qboy) – with a 2D version of the same character within it. “It started with the idea of an endless runner, where you’re holding a Game Boy looking at…6 min
PC Gamer|August 2024TEST DRIVE UNLIMITED SOLAR CROWNThere’s a sense that developer KT Racing assembled this new instalment of the long-running Test Drive series by throwing a handful of darts at a mindmap of Steam store tags. It’s open-world and live-service. It’s for both simulation lovers and arcade racers. It is competitive, but also social. ‘Conventional’ is another apt descriptor of this racing game. Although don’t call it that in front of KT Racing. Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown, the developer is keen to insist, isn’t a ‘racing game’ but a ‘driving game’. The idea being that its faithful reproduction of Hong Kong Island isn’t merely a 600km box in which to take laps around city streets and practice your handbrake turns on off-road mountain bends, but a space for car enthusiasts to admire the lovingly recreated…2 min
PC Gamer|August 2024READ’EM AND WEEPObsidian’s day wasn’t going well. Barely escaping a Nautiloid after becoming infected with a Mind Flayer parasite was one thing. Being interrupted in her singular mission to build Faerûn’s greatest ever library in Baldur’s Gate? Devastating. She possesses power and wit, but this Dragonborn sorcerer didn’t sign up for a hero’s quest. I am a filthy hoarder, in and out of videogames. Encumbered is my middle name. If a game has collectable books, I’m doomed. So, I decided to channel this obsession for Obsidian’s journey. The goal? To amass a book collection that rivals Sorcerous Sundries and open a library in Baldur’s Gate. AKA dump a lot of books in a vacant, preferably free, plot. I would describe Obsidian as a blend of The Mummy’s Evelyn O’ Connell and Final…15 min
PC Gamer|August 2024This month’s cosmic reviewers…FRASER BROWN Specialist in Getting lost in space Currently playing Homeworld 3 This month Attempted to guide the PCG mothership back home. Ended up at Omicron Persei 8. PHIL IWANIUK Specialist in Getting his elbow down Currently playing MotoGP 24 This month Could be found circling Bath’s roundabouts on a Ducati Panigale V4S. Got dizzy and barfed. ROBIN VALENTINE Specialist in Getting crazier Currently playing Hellblade 2 This month Sought psychotic and blood-filled vengeance against his foes. Oh, and in Hellblade 2 he… SHAUN PRESCOTT Specialist in Getting nuns McNuggets Currently playing Indika This month Walked the halls of PC Gamer Towers making nun puns. We’ll have nun of that, Shaun. JAKE TUCKER Specialist in Getting soldiers killed Currently playing Men of War II This month Pondered what was more…1 min
PC Gamer|August 2024NECKS LEVELI first started playing V Rising almost two years ago, not long after it launched into Early Access back in May 2022, and immediately it became an obsession. My friends and I would jump online every week and stay up until the early morning to work on our cute little vampire castle together, like we were playing a macabre version of Animal Crossing. Eventually we all moved onto different games, but V Rising still frequently crossed my mind. I kept wondering what the full release of the game would look like, considering how feature rich and uncharacteristically bug-free the game already was for an Early Access title. Now 1.0 is here, and mostly it is just a more polished version of that initial launch, though with some very welcome additions…9 min
PC Gamer|August 2024WAR SOMETIMES CHANGESThe more things change, the more they stay the same. Men of War II layers in new deck-building elements and some shiny graphics alongside a wedge of singleplayer and multiplayer options but, beyond that, this sequel offers the same thing the franchise always has: brutal, shocking violence that can see scores of your forces wiped out in an instant. This is what Men of War II does best. No other strategy game in this recent real-time strategy resurgence can deliver moments quite like it: a single soldier on a mounted machine-gun holding off a hundred enemy infantry, a lucky artillery shell wiping out a terrifying enemy tank, or a brave paratrooper demolishing your opponent’s defences by crawling up to a defensive line with a satchel filled with explosives. These moments…8 min
PC Gamer|August 2024THE WRIT CROWDThe Royal Writ is a charming card game, with a hand-drawn art style that imbues its woodland critters with abundant personality. My infantry look so adorable that I almost don’t want to march them to their deaths. But it has to be done, and all to deliver the king’s crummy letters. The overworld map will be familiar to veteran slayers of spires, with every node granting either a new card or a battle that puts them into service. In The Royal Writ, you plonk your card-based soldiers onto horizontal lanes, then watch as they advance to the right of the screen. Every turn, they do damage – a combination of their attack values, and of any cards that might be sitting behind them – with the total deducted from the…1 min
PC Gamer|August 2024GHOST NOTESThere’s something extremely comforting about Blackwell games. Even if they often deal with big, challenging themes like death and displacement, the pace and presentation of them always feels like a pleasure. Even the audio design, with its soft, warm, fuzzy voices, is like being haunted by the ghost of Bob Ross. The second Blackwell game takes us back to 1970s New York, and acts as a prequel to the Blackwell Legacy. It has that gentle paranormal investigation feel that few people nail in the same way as Dave Gilbert. And even though the style of game and platform seems dated, there are always flourishes, such as the ability to switch between characters, that make it more than just another adventure game. It’s also a brilliant character study: there’s direct and…1 min
PC Gamer|August 2024SILICON DREAMSModern PC upgrades are a joy whose cost is far more financial than laborious: graphics cards cost as much as London houses now, but they’re much easier to slot into your PC and for Windows to recognise them than they once were. There’s a lot to love about slinging in a fresh GPU in 2024 and watching your framerates soar – but it can’t compare to how utterly transformative a new graphics card was in the early days of 3D. Let me set the scene: it’s the summer of 2000. Most people are busy listening to Eminem and watching Survivor, but I don’t have time for that because I’m about to build my first PC. I’ve been playing Quake III Arena for a year now with my Voodoo 2 and…4 min
PC Gamer|August 2024“He dies in a hail of gibbed body parts”NOW PLAYING THE GAMES WE LOVE RIGHT NOW After about a 35 seconds of cooking fools, I have my head taken clean off by a sniper shot from across the map. I respawn next to the Flak Cannon and, grabbing it, I spin 180-degrees to fire down into the circular room where the Bio Rifle spawns. Two other combatants, one a robot and the other a heavily armoured warrior, crash into the room from the left, firing at each other wildly. The first doesn’t see me coming, and I unleash the Flak’s secondary fire, sending a grenade into his back. He dies in a hail of gibbed body parts. The robot, on the other hand, does see me, and after switching to the Link Gun starts pummelling me…2 min
PC Gamer|August 2024HELLDIVERS 2Helldivers 2 is a miraculous thing – an instant monolith that was so immensely and immediately popular that its developers had to scramble to keep its servers afloat. Rarely have I seen a game so unplayable, yet so highly regarded in the early days of its launch. That’s for a few reasons, but chiefly it’s because Helldivers 2 is just a good time. In the initial gold rush, it presented simple and uncomplicated fun. It’s a little less simple, now, with Arrowhead Games racing to meet two core promises it set out to achieve: new Warbonds every month, and the Galactic War. There’s a reason this update log isn’t about a specific update – by the time it makes it to publication, any particulars I mention are likely to be…4 min
PC Gamer|August 2024BUILD YOUR FIRST TOWN IN MANOR LORDSNEED TO KNOW DIFFICULTY Easy TIME Ten hours VITAL LINKS Top Manor Lords tips: pcgamer.com/games/city-builder/manor- lords-beginner-tips Get more families: pcgamer.com/games/city-builder/manor-lords-families-population 1 MAKE HAY Since Manor Lords’ maps are procedurally generated, your first port of call should be examining what resources you have. Keep an eye out for the crown symbols indicating a deposit is plentiful. Also be sure use the fertility overlay to examine your crops. 2 FOOD AND FUEL Your food and fuel surplus is shown by the barrel symbol at the top of the page. Set up a Woodcutter’s Lodge to get firewood and a Forager’s Hut or a Hunting Camp to gather berries and meat respectively. You can turn berries into dye, and hunting animals provides hides. 3 OPEN MARKET As you assign families to chop wood…3 min
PC Gamer|August 2024CRYSIS 2REINSTALL OLD GAMES, NEW PERSPECTIVES Plummeting many floors in a hail of broken glass, the fight isn’t over The heavily armoured SWAT team member crashes through the apartment’s left-hand window, rappelling in on a cord and blindsiding me. My Nanosuit detects the impending assault just before the impact, though, injecting nano-bots into my bloodstream and speeding up my reaction times massively. As a result, just as the SWAT is about to open fire I pivot my armoured torso just enough to destabilise his incoming trajectory. As the muzzle flashes and the rounds miss me by inches, we collide together sending both myself and the SWAT team member flying out the apartment’s right-hand window. Grappled together and plummeting many floors in a hail of broken glass, the fight isn’t…7 min
PC Gamer|August 2024MUST PLAYJODY MACREGOR I like horror games that make me afraid to be alive, but sometimes I want something gentler. A bit spooky, but you can actually go to sleep after playing it. PACIFIC DRIVE pacificdrivegame.com Pacific Drive emulates the loneliest moments of STALKER, when it’s just you and a zone full of anomalies. Then it gives you a car to cross that zone in – a junker so full of quirks and personality it makes up for the fact the only NPCs are on the radio. RESIDENT EVIL REVELATIONS 2 game.capcom.com/residentevil/en/rev2.html The most self-aware Resident Evil – the one that’s in on the joke. It knows we know every helicopter will explode and Barry Burton will say something ridiculous. This is the Scream of the series, the call that’s coming…2 min
PC Gamer|August 2024The PC Gamer teamWES FENLON Twitter @wesleyfenlon This month Worked from the future to deliver this month’s cover story. There was tempura and hot aliens, apparently. CHRIS LIVINGSTON Twitter @_clivingston_ This month Secretly became the face of the US government’s real-world Vault-Tec programme. Thumbs up! MOLLIE TAYLOR Twitter @mollietayy This month Fell asleep watching a longplay while writing a piece on the joy of falling asleep to longplays. HARVEY RANDALL Twitter @HJRwithpen This month Wrote a screenplay for the Helldivers 2 movie. It’s called Dive Hard with a Vengeance. PC Gamer (ISSN 1351-3540, USPS 24170), August issue 398, is published monthly with an extra issue in April by Future Publishing, Quay House, The Ambury, Bath, BA1 1UA. UK Airfreight and mailing in the USA by agent named World Container INC 150-15, 183rd St,…1 min
PC Gamer|August 2024The SpyDragons, eh? The Spy has had plenty of run-ins with the gigantic wyrms in The Spy’s time and, let The Spy tell you, it’s definitely not all hordes of gold and heroic deeds. It’s more often singed breaches and a smell of sulphur in the hair that just won’t come out no matter how many times you take a dip in the Waking Sea. The other thing about dragons The Spy has learned is they’re like busses. No, not that two often come back-to-back, but that if they come at all, which in Britain they have a tendency not to do, then it takes an age for them to appear. Go toe-to-toe with a dragon one moment, and you might then find yourself significantly older before another emerges. Older, much…3 min
PC Gamer|August 2024Incoming1 month ELDEN RING: SHADOW OF THE ERDTREE RELEASE June 20, 2024 | DEVELOPER FromSoftware Inc What’s looking like the biggest release of the year, the Elden Ring expansion appears to be a must-buy for fans. New enemies, weapons, bosses and more incoming. FINAL FANTASY XIV: DAWNTRAIL RELEASE July 2, 2024 | DEVELOPER Square Enix The epic new expansion promises a whole new world of adventure, with fresh quests, characters, gear, enemies, loot, activities, jobs and more. FROSTPUNK 2 RELEASE July 25, 2024 | DEVELOPER 11 bit studios The hit dystopian society survival game Frostpunk returns with a bigger and more ambitious sequel. Grim, difficult decisions and deep strategy await the player. 3 months BLACK MYTH: WUKONG RELEASE August 20, 2024 | DEVELOPER Game Science An action RPG based in…2 min
PC Gamer|August 2024UNDERSPACEUnderspace PLAYED IT It takes a lot to get me immediately invested in a sci-fi universe’s backstory and lore, but Underspace got its hooks in the moment it recounted the story of The Speaker, a public orator of legend. When interdimensional conquerors threatened the galaxy, his unbroken 46-hour speech shamed the invaders so thoroughly that they turned around and went back home embarrassed. And that’s just the tip of an iceberg of weirdness. Underspace’s universe is one where the closest species to ‘human’ (and the one your initial character belongs to) has 120 sexes, each only compatible with one other. A universe where alcoholic, angry floating crystals are probably going to be your best friends in a fight. Where giant lobsters run the galactic economy because they can tap…5 min
PC Gamer|August 2024SONOKUNISonokuni knows that you’re going to die a lot, and it does its best to help you. It drops hints all the time, not only introducing various actions during an in-game tutorial, but whenever it’s restarting after a death too. “Here are the tools,” it says. “Why aren’t you using them properly?” The game is viewed from a top-down perspective in a similar vein to a bullet hell shooter, but instead of flying a spaceship you’re an assassin. Tasked with raiding a hostile nation’s biotech-enhanced forces, you smash through what appear to be ruby bars into some sort of towering pagoda with a glass floor through which you can see… bones? Piles of wires leading to giant decapitated deer heads lay around, and the walls look like they’re growing roots…2 min
PC Gamer|August 2024FAR REACHINGIn 2004, the first-person shooter reached the zenith of its popularity. PC gamers worldwide were buzzing with anticipated for two massive games. In the left corner was Doom 3, id Software’s first entry in the series for a decade that looked set to deliver a revolution in graphics technology. In the right was Half-Life 2, the preposterously inventive sequel to what was generally considered the best shooter ever made. Already titans of the genre, both sequels promised cutting-edge visuals, new advances in FPS storytelling, innovations in physics and interactivity, and of course, mind-melting action. But there was another shooter released that year, bearing no such pedigree, that you could argue was ultimately more influential than either of these games. Set across a lush archipelago of tropical islands, Far Cry blew…15 min
PC Gamer|August 2024GALAXY QUESTThe sight of Homeworld 3’s sleek, indomitable mothership preparing to jet off into the unknown, accompanied by radio chatter and a moody score, feels like a homecoming. For newcomers, it’s a striking scene; for veterans, it calls to mind the original mothership getting ready to leave Kharak – the beginning of one of the best strategy games ever created. It’s enough to make one all tingly. Homeworld 3 wants to remind you of its legacy a lot, especially in the campaign. After the events of Homeworld 2, Karan S’jet, the mothership’s navigator, was sent on a mission to deal with a looming crisis, but she never returned. Twenty years later her protégé, Imogen S’jet, is following in her footsteps, with a new mothership and a new fleet that must strike…9 min
PC Gamer|August 2024PLOD OF WARIn retrospect, the original Hellblade was never going to be an easy game to make a sequel to. Protagonist Senua’s personal journey to self-acceptance was introduced and fully resolved, and most of the events of the story were seemingly hallucinations. That doesn’t give you a lot to springboard off into a wider world, and indeed Hellblade 2: Senua’s Saga struggles throughout to rise to that challenge. Seeking to stop the Viking raids on her homeland at their source, Senua allows herself to be captured and brought to Iceland, with bloody vengeance on her mind. But she arrives to find a cursed land where the people live in fear of man-eating giants and, now trapped in Iceland herself, resolves to track down and slay them, recruiting the aid of local people…9 min
PC Gamer|August 2024SPELLBOUNDFREE GAMES REVIEWS COOL TITLES FOR NO CASH by Tom Sykes If, like me, you’ve been craving a new Zelda game – and you’re reluctant to prise open your wallet – then Globeba is the one you’re looking for. Yep, terrible name, but it conceals a sizeable game complete with three dungeons and an overworld – and some of its own ideas atop the familiar framework. It begins with your spellbook being stolen by the obligatory evil wizard. To recover it, you’ll have to re-learn four vital spells. The first is sitting nearby, summoning leaves you can use to slash at enemies and breakable things. The second lets you create a pushable puzzle block from thin air. Globeba is puzzle-focused, sprinkling enemies round varied puzzles that will have you…3 min
PC Gamer|August 2024MANIAC MANSIONTHEY’RE BACK OLD GAMES REVISITED by Matthew Elliott Few things match the excitement of going back to a classic game or movie. It’s heightened in the case of Alone in the Dark, thanks to the recent remake reminding us just how important its brand of genre-defining horror was. And while interactive media rarely age as well as cinematic ones, there’s still something magical about the first foray into Decerto. I’m not going to lie to you. The structure and controls of the game will immediately count some players out. At times it’s like trying to wrap a present with someone else’s feet. And however much it influenced every scary game that followed, the original Alone in the Dark is, at its heart, a game about people in tailored clothes…3 min
PC Gamer|August 2024OLED GAMING MONITORSOLED gaming monitors deliver the most spectacular image quality. It would be a cop-out to say ‘you have to see it to believe it’, but you sorta do. The snappy response, vibrant colours and astonishing contrast blend together to create the most engrossing screens on the market right now. Few non-OLED gaming monitors come close. A new wave of OLED gaming monitors has since arrived and are set on improving upon the first with thoroughly impressive panels. Most noteworthy has to be the arrival of 4K OLED gaming monitors, including the Alienware 32 AW3225QF, Gigabyte Aorus FO32U2, and Asus ROG Swift OLED PG32UCDM. Though you will have to spend a pretty penny to secure any of them. 1 32 AW3225QF ALIENWARE £989 The best 4K OLED It’s tough to fault…7 min
PC Gamer|August 2024BUYER’S GUIDEKEY Budget build PC gaming is for everyone. Pick these parts if you want to build a new, well-rounded PC for a good price. Mid-range build You want to run every new game at 1080p 60fps. This recommended build will see you through. Advanced build You’re looking for the best PC on the market and superior components. But you still want to spend smart. BUDGET BUILD Enjoy 1080p gaming without breaking the bank MOTHERBOARD B660M Pro RS ASRock £112 This is as cheap as we want to go while still offering room for expansion and upgrades down the line. PROCESSOR Core i5 13400F Intel £190 Intel’s added four more cores to its entry-level Core i5 and it’s become even more fantastic value. GRAPHICS CARD Radeon RX 7600 AMD £252 You…5 min
PC Gamer|August 2024“I want them to wake up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night”“Tutorials for Blue,” one angsty teammate types in the live chat. Bah! Tutorials for blue! How dare they! Don’t they know I scored a hat-trick last match? Don’t they know how many hours I’ve put into this game? And just like that, I’m spurred on to prove this faceless assassin of character that I’m better than them in every capacity. Three minutes pass. We lose 7-2. Rocket League is one of the few games I return to time and time again. Not because the gameplay is wonderfully addictive. Not because it’s essentially the Top Gear car football episode. Not because I’ve been playing since it was called Supersonic Acrobatic Rocket-Powered Battle-Cars – a name that’s much cooler but understandably harder to market – but because of the sh*thousery between players.…2 min
PC Gamer|August 2024HUNTING FOR GOLD IN WRESTLING EMPIRE PART 2DIARY PERSONAL ADVENTURES IN GAMES “He’s back! By gawd, The Detectorist is back!” Assuming, of course, anyone even noticed he was away. Probably not. Such is the mild indifference to the return of wrestling’s only archaeology-themed curtain jerker. It brings to mind the excruciating WWE comeback of Brian Christopher, son of Jerry ‘The King’ Lawler and the man previously known as Grandmaster Sexay. Such was the indifference of the crowd that the reboot of his career was over before he reached the ring. Hopefully, The Detectorist will fare better. There are challenges ahead. When we last saw him, The Tizer Ringpull Terroriser was locked into a contract with Super Lucha Libre wrestling, a Mexican promotion that specialises in exhilarating, high-flying spectacle. The first problem is that The Detectorist…9 min
PC Gamer|August 2024IMPERFECTLY BALANCEDNEWS | OPINION | DEVELOPMENT I don’t envy the folks at Arrowhead charged with balancing Helldivers 2 guns fans have grown attached to. The studio has rolled out some balance patches in the last few months, which I believe made the game better by buffing weak guns less often, and nerfing a weapon that’s too dominant. But there’s an argument to be made that balancing shouldn’t be taken so seriously in a PvE shooter like Helldivers 2, and that it’s OK if one gun is dealing more damage than the rest. Replying to a player who said recent patches have made the game “unplayable” Arrowhead CEO Johan Pilestedt conceded that he’s not satisfied with his studio’s current balancing approach. “I think we’ve gone too far in some areas. Will talk…2 min
PC Gamer|August 2024STACKED DECKNEWS | OPINION | DEVELOPMENTSpecial Report PCG INVESTIGATES Monster Train, a deckbuilding roguelike that firmly entrenched itself as the crown prince to the kingly Slay the Spire back in 2020, was the kind of smash success you might call Champagne Big. Four years later, its successor Inkbound’s launch from Early Access was looking more like Sandwich Big. I’m not just saying that because of the mountain of lamb and aubergines I ate while meeting with developer Shiny Shoe over lunch, to feel out what the aftermath of releasing a game looks like in 2024. I mean, have I thought about that sandwich every day since? Yes. But also, the indie team talked frankly about the struggle of luring Monster Train’s audience on board for its next game. “Had we…6 min
PC Gamer|August 2024KILLING FLOOR 3The Impaler, the first boss I get to see in Killing Floor 3, sets the scene perfectly. Described as equal parts M1 Abrams tank and gorilla, with a giant blade embedded in its face, the first time I see one it’s exploding through a door frame and barrelling straight at game director Bryan Wynia. The first thing I notice is the giant gorilla-tank hybrid charging towards Wynia, obviously. But after that I spot the winking red lights, armoured plates and biomechanical technology. It’s not sleek, things look bolted on, welded together. If this is truly the future – Killing Floor 3’s biggest twist is the jump to science fiction – then it’s more Aliens than Star Trek. Killing Floor has always been a franchise about mowing down genetic freaks with…7 min
PC Gamer|August 2024THE FOREVER WINTERThe Forever Winter is not your typical looter shooter power fantasy. You’re a nobody. A desperate scavenger looting corpses while titanic machines conduct a war that’s consumed the world. You’re not trying to fight them; you’re just trying to survive, and bring what you scavenge back to regular folk who are hiding from the devastation. First announced with a grim cinematic trailer in February this year, developer Fun Dog has now given us our first proper look at its post-apocalyptic nightmare, with its miserable scavengers scurrying between burning, monolithic structures and looting the detritus of a fallen civilisation – all under the shadow of huge mechs fighting their never-ending war. The gameplay trailer does not paint a pretty picture of the future. “[The Forever Winter] was largely inspired by the…7 min
PC Gamer|August 2024THY KINGDOM COMEEven when you reach the heart of FromSoftware in glittering western Tokyo, the studio behind Elden Ring holds tight to its secrets. Tantalisingly close, beyond a door my guest keycard won’t unlock, its developers are putting the final touches on expansion Shadow of the Erdtree after more than two years. After playing it for seven hours straight and felling three brutal bosses, I can’t believe how little it feels like I’ve seen of this new doomed realm. According to Elden Ring’s director, its one and only expansion was always destined to be a colossus. Hidetaka Miyazaki has a cold bottle of water in front of him. He wears long sleeves despite the looming summer heat outside. He does not have a watch. He keeps his phone politely ensconced in its…14 min
PC Gamer|August 2024Crunch timeThere’s no doubt about it, the game industry is having a very tough moment right now. The large number of developers losing their jobs and studios being shuttered is incredibly disheartening, especially so when some of those studios, such as Arkane Austin, have been responsible for creating some of my favourite ever games. As our diverse, well-scoring selection of games this issue shows, though, there’s still plenty of quality game-makers out there producing engaging and unique gaming experiences. Sure, not every single one of this issue’s games post landmark scores, but I’d argue it is now more than ever that studios, both large and small, producing good games like these, need supporting. Here’s hoping brighter days lie ahead. LET US KNOW WHAT YOU THINK Email us via letters@pcgamer.com with your…1 min
PC Gamer|August 2024LEAN OFFERINGBeaten all the bosses in Cuphead, have you? Finished a blindfolded Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice playthrough using a Donkey Konga bongo controller? That’s cute. Try doing a lap of MotoGP 24’s predecessor in the rain with all the assists off. In recent years, Milestone’s officially licensed racing sim has offered some of the sternest challenges in PC gaming – and this year, the stewards are watching. Fortunately, while the more enjoyable bits of that challenge remain in this year’s outing, these are slightly more forgiving 1,000cc beasts than 2023’s machinery. The dreaded ‘pick-up effect’, in which the bike stood itself up more as throttle was applied, narrowing lean angle and thus cornering trajectory, has been all but nerfed. Kerbs feel slightly less deadly to venture a wheel onto, and stopping…4 min
PC Gamer|August 2024NUNBELIEVABLEIndika is a misfit Russian Orthodox nun on a mission. She’s tasked with delivering a note to the Danilov monastery, which is a welcome reprieve, because the other nuns in her own monastery hate her guts. Little wonder, though: she’s not a very good nun. The trip is fated to go spectacularly wrong, and that’s no spoiler, because the tone of Indika immediately warns us that we’ve entered a redemption-free zone. Across the six hours it took me to complete, our doomed hero moves through a succession of bleak, dehumanising environments, solves a bunch of puzzles, survives some utterly miserable encounters, fails to achieve anything she set out to do, and then must go on living. It didn’t make me feel good, but I loved it all the same. Indika’s…4 min
PC Gamer|August 2024TRISTRAM SHANDYYou’d probably agree that Tristram was the best part of Diablo: the demon-ravaged town where you could stay a while and enjoy one banger of a guitar track. But what if you could stay a long while, and let other adventurers do all the dungeon crawling? That’s the premise of management game Tristram. Essentially, you play as Deckard Cain, who is trying to save the town by summoning warriors to it. This you achieve by blowing a summoning horn, then ringing a bell to gather your adventurers at the dungeon. As they chip away at it automatically, they’ll bring back gold to spend in the shops afterwards, improving their chances and boosting the economy. It’s odd to play an action RPG where you have so little input over combat or…1 min
PC Gamer|August 2024KUNAI, MONSTERIt’s nice to approach FromSoft games with a philosophical viewpoint. ‘I’m lucky’ might not be the first thought that comes to mind as you tumble into a murky pit full of headless ogres, but it’s true. Somehow, against all expectations, Miyazaki’s brand of grim belligerence has become a part of modern gaming. There might be times where other, less positive thoughts creep into your head when playing Sekiro. One I frequently experience is the tired refrain of ‘am I too old to actually play this?’ Because unlike its Soulslike brethren, Sekiro feels like it has an inescapable skill cap. Dark Souls, by comparison, had options for every playstyle. Parrying was a thing you could ignore until you fought Gwyn at the end of the game. I know this, because it’s…1 min
PC Gamer|August 2024QUEST FAILEDWe’re seldom compared to Warren Buffet at PCG. Two grand for a graphics card that’ll be obsolete before the next general election? Add to basket. Five games that will remain unplayed for eternity, bought in a Steam sale? Another sound investment. And yes, absolutely do tell us more about that RGB gaming chair – we can always pay in instalments. With all that said, even we found our faces pinching into a tight wince when Meta released its latest VR division financials and revealed $4.3bn going out and a whopping, er, $440m coming back in. Meta’s first quarter report disclosed that Reality Labs, the artist formerly known as Facebook’s VR department, showed a massive loss. Around 10% of its expenditure that quarter was recouped with profits, meaning the net loss…5 min
PC Gamer|August 2024“You have to restart two or three times before you know how to play it”CONTINUED ADVENTURES IN GAMING After Baldur’s Gate III set a new high-water mark in my favourite videogame genre, I had to work my way back through Larian’s catalogue and see what I was missing. I had already developed a new love for Divinity: Original Sin 2 on my first replay, so it was time to hunker down and sample the enhanced edition of Divinity: Original Sin. From the jump, this is a game that requires research – as much, if not more than its sequel. The game’s respec option comes with so many caveats as to effectively be unusable, and PC Gamer senior editor Wes Fenlon described Original Sin to me as a game you have to restart two or three times before you finally know how to play it.…3 min
PC Gamer|August 2024“When life gives you knuckledusters, it’s rude not to use them”NOW PLAYING THE GAMES WE LOVE RIGHT NOW “We’re only here to collect the drugs,” exclaimed my crime-fighting partner who was taking things far too seriously. They were right, we were here to grab the boxes of narcotics and take them back to our police wagon, and given we didn’t need to subdue anyone to complete the mission we’d come in with non-lethal weapons. But one of the drug harbourers we apprehended dropped some knuckledusters with massive spikes on them, and when life gives you knuckledusters, it’s rude not to use them. Smacking people in the face with solid metal gloves that have giant spikes on is a pretty effective way of making sure they don’t commit crimes, because they will be dead. It’s a controversial way of…2 min
PC Gamer|August 2024FALLOUT SHOW MODSMOD SPOTLIGHT MAJOR MODS, ANALYSED It’s official: not only is the Fallout TV show surprisingly good, it’s a certified hit. Millions of people watched Fallout’s first season when it arrived on Prime TV in April, and they enjoyed it so much it led to a resurgence in people playing the Fallout games. Fallout 4 rocketed up the Steam charts to become one of the most played games of the month, Fallout 76 broke its own record for most concurrent players on Steam, and even Fallout 3 saw a big increase in player count. Makes sense to me. Just seeing Lucy fiddle with her Pip-Boy in the first episode made me want to jump back into the game, and that feeling only grew stronger as I watched Max stomping…5 min
PC Gamer|August 2024ZONKING OUT TO LONGPLAYSWHY I LOVE WHAT MAKES GAMES SPECIAL They say it’s bad for you to have a television in your bedroom, and even worse to go to sleep while it’s on, but just who is ‘they’? Scientists? Pshaw. Silence is the enemy, and my brain must feast on soundwaves. I’ve been falling asleep with the TV on for as long as I can remember, and I’ve found the secret sauce to getting a good night’s sleep with the perfect cosy background noise: longplays. Now, I’m not talking about let’s plays, the type where YouTuber273957109 is playing some guns-ablazin’ spectacle, screaming down their battered toilet microphone. I’m talking about longplays – the 20-hour-long YouTube videos that come with zero commentary. Not only are they great for preservation, but they can…4 min
