SYSTEM SHOCK

It doesn’t happen very often now. Cyberpunk 2077 came the closest in recent years, with its knack for a hype-baiting E3 sizzle reel and complex lighting up the wazoo. Before that, Metro Exodus and Battlefield V got some of the old nerve endings tingling too. But truth be told, there hasn’t been a bona fide, upgrade-your-PC-at-all-costs-to-play-this-seismic-new-title moment in PC gaming for a long time now. So long, in fact, that you might even consider those days to be over.

And that’s quite a profound moment, when you think about it. On the other side of the divide,