May 2024

PC Gamer

The world’s number one PC games magazine

PC Gamer1 min read
“There’s Never Been A Better Time To Heed The Call Of Ffxiv”
Final Fantasy XIV is now ten years old and, joyously, it shows no signs of stopping any time soon. For Final Fantasy fans like myself (as well as a lot of the PC Gamer crew), we’re living our questing, raiding, and chocobo-riding dreams. And, with FF
PC Gamer2 min read
Blame Joel
Helldivers 2’s galactic war is much more than a mission selector. In a short time, players have become invested in the status of their favourite planets and reacted to gains and losses in a sector’s liberation. The simulated conflict has become an un
PC Gamer1 min read
Yuzu Won’t Believe This
Nintendo launched a massive lawsuit against popular Switch emulator Yuzu. The devs behind the emulator capitulated, agreeing to pay “monetary relief in the sum of $2.4 million,” cease development, hand over domains and even cancel development of 3DS
PC Gamer1 min read
Better In Beige
Noctua is ditching white fans. It’s instead choosing to focus all its efforts on its next-gen 140mm fans currently nine years in the making. The company says it doesn’t know if white will ever be back on the roadmap. No biggie, its beige and brown op
PC Gamer2 min read
The Spy
People overestimate the importance of getting into things. “Oh, we ended up in the VIP lounge,” you humblebrag to your colleague, as they silently regret asking what you did over the weekend. “Oh, we’ve bought a timeshare in the Maldives,” you enthus
PC Gamer1 min read
I Need To See Some ID
Jagex staff were briefly baffled when they woke up to find their Twitter (X) account straight-up banned. Turns out, Twitter’s automated systems thought the account (which has over 300,000 followers) was in fact made by an eight-year-old child back in
PC Gamer4 min read
Big Deck Energy
As a poker fan I’m always on the lookout for a new poker game. I’m especially keen to find games that use poker in interesting new ways, like RPG We Slay Monsters or roguelike Poker Quest, both of which use poker hands as their combat system. So, whe
PC Gamer1 min read
Highs & Lows
Larian won big at the DICE Awards, and used its speech to speak out against layoffs. Steam has launched a ‘Mark as Private’ function, letting you hide your more, ahem, delicate games. NASA has released a tabletop game that asks: what if a dragon stol
PC Gamer3 min readIntelligence (AI) & Semantics
Difficulty Curves
Before entering game development, John Dennis was “an art teacher who really didn’t enjoy teaching!” as he puts it. A friend who was working at Team 17 encouraged him to apply for a game designer job there, which, after some hesitation, he did. “I wa
PC Gamer2 min read
Incoming
RELEASE April 16, 2024 | DEVELOPER Novadust Entertainment A Studio Ghibli-inspired adventure-puzzler, PC gamers play as android Zee as he solves the mysteries of a fallen utopia. Looks promising. RELEASE April 23, 2024 | DEVELOPER Surgent Studios A B
PC Gamer5 min read
Manor Lords
RELEASE April 26 DEVELOPER Slavic Magic PUBLISHER Hooded Horse LINK manorlords.com A h, the life of a medieval central-European peasant. Untroubled by the taste of Doritos or the mental anguish over whether to buy a Steam Deck or not, their only ca
PC Gamer3 min read
Breachway
RELEASE March 22 DEVELOPER Edgeflow Studio PUBLISHER Hooded Horse LINK breachwaygame.com T he thing about roguelike card battlers is you wait around forever… no, that’s not it. The thing about roguelike card-battlers is that they are legion, just k
PC Gamer3 min read
Plane Accident
RELEASE Out now (Early Access) DEVELOPER White Pig Games PUBLISHER Duality Games LINK whitepiggames.com F irst-person games tend to hand you a shotgun then send you off in search of someone to unload it into, so it’s a refreshing change to play a g
PC Gamer6 min read
Dungeonborne
RELEASE TBC DEVELOPER Mithril Interactive PUBLISHER Mithril Interactive LINK dungeonborne.com D ungeonborne came out of nowhere to be the surprise hit of Steam Next Fest. A medieval fantasy extraction dungeon crawler that is effectively Escape Fr
PC Gamer3 min read
Age Of Mythology: Retold
RELEASE 2024 DEVELOPER Forgotten Empires PUBLISHER Xbox Game Studios LINK tinyurl.com/ynz2zv36 T he upcoming Age of Mythology: Retold has just shown off its signature mythological monsters in detail, including the terrible Medusas, the flying Pegas
PC Gamer3 min read
Kingmakers
RELEASE 2024 DEVELOPER Redemption Road Games PUBLISHER tinyBuild LINK tinybuild.com T he first 22 seconds of a game trailer can tell you a lot. They set the scene, perhaps flash some publisher or engine logos, and establish the setting of the game
PC Gamer3 min read
Spellrogue
RELEASE February 2024 (Early Access) DEVELOPER Guidelight Games PUBLISHER Ghost Ship Publishing LINK spellrogue.com S pellRogue is a roguelike that makes you feel like a genius. As you pick up spells you’ll start to create combinations that just
PC Gamer9 min read
A New Dawn
I t’s been a wonderful decade of adventuring for our Warriors of Light, but Final Fantasy XIV isn’t done with us just yet. While Endwalker wrapped up the Hydaelyn-Zodiark storyline, Square Enix has flung the door wide open on a whole new adventure in
PC Gamer6 min read
Branch Out
Y ou might well ask why Elden Ring needs an expansion. FromSoftware’s brilliant fantasy RPG is already colossal in its scope and depth – several orders of magnitude larger than any game that preceded it. Yet any longtime fan of FromSoft’s work would
PC Gamer6 min read
Guided By Grace
FromSoftware applies its world design to a realm of vast scale Exploration has always been a part of FromSoftware’s games, but Elden Ring puts pushing toward the horizon at the front and centre of its design. Like most of the studio’s games, Elden R
PC Gamer1 min read
Road Warrior
I don’t know about you, but I spend far too much time behind the wheel of a car. And not in a pleasurable way, but a ‘school runs and commuting’ type of way. And, worse, when I’m not driving I’m fixing up the car to keep it roadworthy for more drivin
PC Gamer1 min read
This Month’s Buccaneering Reviewers…
Specialist in Stroking camshafts Currently playing Pacific Drive This month Legally married a Buick Estate. We all went to the wedding. Specialist in Backflipping with guns Currently playing Tomb Raider This month Shot bats, lots of bats. Oh,
PC Gamer7 min read
FAST & CURIOUS
WHAT IS IT? A singleplayer first-person driving survival game with maybe the best car ever EXPECT TO PAY £25 DEVELOPER Ironwood Studios PUBLISHER Kepler Interactive REVIEWED ON Intel Core i7-9700K, , 16GB RAM, Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 Ti MULTIPLAYER N
PC Gamer3 min read
Lost Arc
WHAT IS IT? Three legendary action-adventure games given a loving makeover EXPECT TO PAY £25 DEVELOPER Aspyr, Crystal Dynamics PUBLISHER Aspyr REVIEWED ON Intel Core i9-13900HX, 16GB RAM, Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080 MULTIPLAYER No LINK t.ly/2ID3W Lara
PC Gamer7 min read
Arr-right
WHAT IS IT? A live service take on ship-on-ship combat, with origins in an old cherished Assassin’s Creed game EXPECT TO PAY £50 DEVELOPER Ubisoft Singapore PUBLISHER Ubisoft REVIEWED ON AMD Ryzen 5 5600H, 16GB RAM, Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 MULTIPLAYE
PC Gamer7 min read
Bug Hunt
WHAT IS IT? The sequel to 2015’s Helldivers, an online squad shooter inspired by Starship Troopers EXPECT TO PAY £35 DEVELOPER Arrowhead Game Studios PUBLISHER Sony Interactive Entertainment REVIEWED ON Intel Core i7-10750H, 16GB RAM, Nvidia GeForce
PC Gamer3 min read
Straight Flush
WHAT IS IT? A roguelike deckbuilder where you cheat outrageously at poker EXPECT TO PAY £12.80 DEVELOPER LocalThunk PUBLISHER PlayStack REVIEWED ON Asus ROG Ally MULTIPLAYER Yes LINK playbalatro.com Imagine the rush of winning at a high-stakes poke
PC Gamer7 min read
Eden Project
WHAT IS IT? A story-focused action RPG where you play as a ghost-hunter and his ghostly partner EXPECT TO PAY £45 DEVELOPER Don’t Nod PUBLISHER Focus Entertainment REVIEWED ON Intel Core i7-10750H, 16GB RAM, Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 MULTIPLAYER No LI
PC Gamer7 min read
Midnight Power
WHAT IS IT? A remake of the classic 2006 turn-based RPG EXPECT TO PAY £60 DEVELOPER Atlus PUBLISHER Sega REVIEWED ON Intel Core i9-10920X, 128GB RAM, Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 MULTIPLAYER No LINK persona.atlus.com/p3r Persona 3 Reload isn’t just a re
PC Gamer3 min read
Loot Time
WHAT IS IT? A Diablo-like action RPG with an emphasis on items EXPECT TO PAY £30 DEVELOPER Eleventh Hour Games PUBLISHER Eleventh Hour Games REVIEWED ON Intel Core i9, 32GB RAM, Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 MULTIPLAYER Yes LINK lastepoch.com The first t
PC Gamer1 min read
Shoe-in
EXPECT TO PAY Free DEVELOPER Jonathan Fasth LINK bit.ly/NeuralGame Before WASD and mouse-aiming became the norm, there were all sorts of crazy control schemes for first-person games, and in that light Neural Parasite’s isn’t too bizarre. You move w
PC Gamer2 min read
Peak Practice
WHAT IS IT? A 3D platformer that takes you back to Celeste’s snowy mountain EXPECT TO PAY Free DEVELOPER Maddy Makes Games PUBLISHER Maddy Makes Games REVIEWED ON Intel Core i7-10750H, 16GB RAM, Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 MULTIPLAYER No LINK bit.ly/Cel
PC Gamer1 min read
Sludge Life
EXPECT TO PAY Free DEVELOPER Locomalito LINK bit.ly/ToxicTomb No one puts as much effort into a game’s presentation as Locomalito, developer of sidescrolling shmup Super Hydorah, and other games with a distinctly arcade sensibility. These are new g
PC Gamer2 min read
Skyhold Please
WHAT IS IT? An MMO, but offline and the rest of your party are actually worth conversing with EXPECT TO PAY £35 DEVELOPER Bioware PUBLISHER Electronic Arts REVIEWED ON Intel Core i7-7700, 16 GB RAM, Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070 MULTIPLAYER Online co-op L
PC Gamer1 min read
Sigmar-a-lago
EXPECT TO PAY £18 DEVELOPER Rogue Factor PUBLISHER Nacon The Warhammer Fantasy world is a wretched place to live. Beastmen in the forests. Trolls in the rivers. Giant rats beneath you. And, if Mordheim is anything to go by, flaming comets in the ski
PC Gamer1 min read
Krull
EXPECT TO PAY £10 DEVELOPER The Behemoth PUBLISHER The Behemoth Last this month is Castle Crashers, a game that sounds like a mediaeval reality TV pitch, looks like a banned cartoon Network show, and plays like a night terror after watching Krull to
PC Gamer4 min read
Going Deeper
It’s been around for long enough now that we take it for granted. A new game comes out, dripping in graphics, and occasionally when we run it at 4K it dips to an unplayable 58fps. So we go into the video options, turn the ‘DLSS’ option on, and get ba
PC Gamer5 min read
RTX 40-SERIES SUPER GPUs
Three new graphics cards in the same month – what a super way to kick off spring. These three new ‘Super’ graphics cards are a chance for the green team to tinker with core counts, buses and budgets to appeal to our PC gaming sensibilities, and I’m p
PC Gamer4 min read
All Rise
We did a lot of things differently during lockdown. Our bins went out more than we did. Socialising meant pub quizzes on Zoom. Going for a 35-minute walk was an act of reckless abandon worthy of police intervention, flour was harder to come by than d
PC Gamer4 min read
Buyer’s Guide
PC gaming is for everyone. Pick these parts if you want to build a new, well-rounded PC for a good price. You want to run every new game at 1080p 60fps. This recommended build will see you through. You’re looking for the best PC on the market and sup
PC Gamer2 min read
“It Probably Sounds Like Madness Playing This In Bed On My Steam Deck”
THIS MONTHDying from the comfort of my bed. ALSO PLAYEDMarvel’s Spider-Man 2, dotAge S ince it launched on PC back in early 2021, I have made a few valiant attempts to get stuck into Nioh 2, each of them ending in the same way: exasperation and fail
PC Gamer2 min read
“I Plunge My Blade Into His Heart”
THIS MONTHFailed a Dishonored 2 pacifist run with gusto. ALSO PLAYEDHotline Miami, Pacific Drive I feel the rage rise within my body, my sensations heightened, my palms sweaty. These mangy curs are not going to take me down and, even if they do, I’m
PC Gamer2 min read
“Clearly Having The Best Superhero Studio On The Planet Wasn’t Enough”
THIS MONTHFalling in and out of love with Task Force X. ALSO PLAYEDFinal Final VII Remake Integrade, Parcel Corps After 15 hours with Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, I rolled credits. And in many ways, I regret those hours. By now there’s a
PC Gamer2 min read
“Not Content With Draining Earth’s Oceans, They’ve Nicked The Clouds Too”
THIS MONTHWrecked a perfectly good game by tinkering. ALSO PLAYEDPikuniku, Baldur’s Gate III While avoiding doing any actual work one day, I stumbled upon something magnificently fiddly and nerdy that can work to improve the way older games look – a
PC Gamer4 min read
Rainbow Six Siege
RELEASE December 1 2015 PUBLISHER Ubisoft DEVELOPER Ubisoft Montreal LINK ubisoft.com R ainbow, the crack team of military operators, has a long and storied history defending the world from evil in Tom Clancy’s universe, but now Rainbow Six Siege i
PC Gamer4 min read
Palworld
RELEASE Jan 18, 2024 PUBLISHER Pocketpair DEVELOPER Pocketpair LINK pocketpair.jp/palworld J ust in case you stepped away from your computer, and Twitch, and TikTok, and the entire internet for the past couple of months, here’s a news flash: Palwor
PC Gamer3 min read
Get Started In Palworld
DIFFICULTY Easy TIME 15 hours VITAL LINKS Best Pals to grab early: pcgamer.com/palworld-best-pals How to breed Pals: pcgamer.com/palworld-breeding-guide-combinations The first step in creating your perfect Palworld should be changing the Custom Setti
PC Gamer7 min read
Searching For Lost Pirate Treasure In Starfield Part 3
The Last Nova. A dark, dingy bar where lowlifes, mercenaries and those pledged to The Crimson Fleet come to drink away their miseries. Scarlet red engulfs the entire room, suggesting that the pirate faction doesn’t dare use any other colour for fear
PC Gamer3 min read
Cooking In Kynseed
RELEASE December 6, 2022 OUR REVIEW 89% EXPECT TO PAY £20 LINK kynseed.com T here’s a long-time understanding that Japanese anime has an intense love of food. Clips from Studio Ghibli movies make the rounds on social media, where fans gush over the
PC Gamer7 min read
Deus Ex: Mankind Divided
RELEASE August 23, 2016 PUBLISHER Square Enix DEVELOPER Eidos Montreal LINK eidosmontreal.com I never played Deus Ex: Mankind Divided at launch. I’d just gotten a PC that could handle this 2016 GPU punisher (I’ll always love you, GTX 1080) when it f
PC Gamer2 min read
Must Play
I’m the guy who has a TikTok algorithm featuring a DJ remixing Final Fantasy music with hip hop and teens drawing a cool S to the score of Oppenheimer. rb.gy/opjhii → Everyone has adopted a robot spider in Diablo IV’s latest season and, in addition
PC Gamer1 min read
PC Gamer
Future Publishing Ltd Quay House, The Ambury, Bath BA1 1UA | Tel: 01225 442244 | Email: letters@pcgamer.com | www.pcgamer.com Brand Director Tim Clark Global Editor-in-Chief Evan Lahti PC GAMER UK Editor-in-Chief, UK Phil SavagePrint Editor Robert J
PC Gamer1 min read
Meet The PC Gamer Captain
...UNTIL APRIL 25 ■
PC Gamer1 min read
The PC Gamer team
Twitter @tylercolp This month Visited a haunted moon with a couple of buds. Got torn apart by space bees. Plus ça change. Twitter @ComradeCupcake_ This month Watched video clips of Studio Ghibli food scenes on loop. Missed many, many deadlines.

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