PC Gamer (US Edition) August 2022

ROBIN VALENTINE Twitter @robinlvalentine This month Zipped himself up in a sleeping bag and declared himself God Emperor. There are some fictional locations that are just endlessly evocative. The shadowy streets of Gotham City, the rolling hills of the Shire… and, of course, the shifting sands of Arrakis, setting of Dune. Its fierce space politics, giant worms, and psychic drugs make it one of the most memorable places in all of sci-fi—and, incidentally, the perfect battleground for a strategy videogame. We first found that out 30 years ago with Dune II, and now Dune: Spice Wars is here to prove it once again. TALK TO PC GAMER Have your say! Email us atg 53:160 letters@pcgamer.com…

WES FENLON Twitter @wesleyfenlon This month Took Dune fandom to the next level by snorting cinnamon up his nose until he saw visions. MORGAN PARK Twitter @MorganRPark This month Investigated the difference between 6v6 and 5v5. Bless him, he struggles with numbers. IMOGEN MELLOR Twitter @ImoMellor This month Discovered that even time travellers have to deal with rich people messing everything up. CHRIS LIVINGSTON Twitter @screencuisine This month Ran errands for a bunch of frogs. And yet he “doesn’t have time” to wash up his used mugs?!…

It’s official: Starfield is not launching November 11 2022 as originally planned. It’s instead now aiming at “the first half of 2023”, according to an official Twitter update. Bethesda repeatedly claimed that the game wouldn’t be delayed, but the marketing has told a different story. With a focus on developer waffle over substantive reveals, the official videos have been light on concrete info. With only brief in-game clips shown, it’s been hard to believe that the game was only months way. Director Todd Howard has dubbed it “Skyrim in space”, but he’s keen to emphasize that it aims to do more with character customization than Skyrim did: “Some things we didn’t do [in older games]: The backgrounds, the traits, defining your character, all of those stats… a lot of the things that…

HIGHS Take-yo time Ghostwire: Tokyo’s director is interested in making a sequel. MM-No Final Fantasy XIV producer Yoshida recently asked that players in a new PvP mode stop saying “Nice job!” to opponents. Lego May Cry Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga arrived with an unexpected quality: Air-chains and infinite combos. LOWS That sucks Bethesda has also delayed Arkane’s vampire co-op shooter Redfall to the first half of 2023. You bet Streamer Félix Lengyel aka xQc, admitted spaffing about $2 million on gambling in April. Deus Next? Square Enix has sold Tomb Raider, Deus Ex, and three game studios for $300 million. A bargain?…

It’s not often that a multiplayer shooter decides to reinvent itself six years into its life. In the age of service games that never stop updating, Blizzard is taking a chance by revamping large parts of its competitive FPS and slapping a ‘2’ on the end of it. Overwatch 2 is not a sequel in the way we understand them. What I’ve seen of the multiplayer PvP beta so far feels more like an expansion. Overwatch 2 will have more heroes, more maps and an intriguing PvE story mode, but Blizzard is also taking this opportunity to completely upend the meta it’s spent six years building with one simple rule change—Overwatch 2 is no longer a 6v6 game. One tank slot is gone and it’s now 5v5. Hearing lead hero designer Geoff…

For Hjalte Tagmose and Gustaw Mackay, the frustration started with mislabeled food in The Witcher. “The pierogi is called a dumpling,” says Tagmose. “It’s like calling sushi a rice sandwich,” adds Mackay. Now, these two Polonophiles are determined to counter the Americanization of games by creating, in their words “the least American game possible”. The result is Szrot. “It’s a Polish word,” says Mackay. “You have to know how to do the rolling, trilling R. It can mean junkyard, or it can also just refer to an old, beat-up car.” That’s fitting, since Szrot is a driving game about steering jalopies around post-Soviet cities. It’s reflective of the Danish developers’ fondness for Eastern European cinema, which began with the cult Russian neo-noir Brat, before extending to more esoteric movies from Poland. The masterstroke…