PC Gamer (US Edition) June 2021

“how did genshin impact become such a phenomenon?”

ROBIN VALENTINE Specialist in Expecting the unexpected Twitter @robinlvalentine This month Got a little flustered at this picture of himself as an anime lady. OK, maybe this isn’t a typical PC Gamer cover—but that’s just the latest convention Chinese free-to-play RPG Genshin Impact has smashed. It’s one of the biggest mega hits in PC gaming right now. It’s got more players than Counter-Strike, more momentum than Fortnite, and some seriously ambitious plans for the future. How did Genshin Impact become such a phenomenon? That’s the question we’ve investigated, uncovering a story of zombies, waifus, and a group of nerds who want to save the world… robin.valentine@futurenet.com…

the pc gamer team

ANDY KELLY Specialist in Alien 3 This month Found a new excuse to go on about how much he loves those aliens whose heads look like rude bits. FRASER BROWN Specialist in Forgetting realms This month Finally figured out how to spell ‘Drizzt’ and ‘Catti-Brie’ properly. Just in time. STEVEN MESSNER Specialist in Gacha journalism This month Kept opening PC Gamer loot boxes until an epic Genshin Impact cover feature dropped. MOLLIE TAYLOR Specialist in Tree speech This month Learned how a videogame could plant a million real trees. Also assigned birds human personalities.…

a match made in skyrim

After getting the approval of the United States Securities and Exchange Commission and the European Union Commission in March, Microsoft has now officially announced that the acquisition of ZeniMax Media, owner of Bethesda, is complete. Xbox head Phil Spencer welcomed the eight studios under ZeniMax (id Software, Bethesda, ZeniMax Online Studios, Arkane, MachineGames, Tango Gameworks, Alpha Dog, and Roundhouse Studios) and said it was “an honour” to have them join the team. A selective list of just some of the game series Microsoft has acquired includes Doom, Dishonored, The Elder Scrolls, Fallout, Prey, Quake, Rage, Starfield, Wolfenstein, and The Evil Within. DOWN THE ROAD THEY WILL PRODUCE GAMES THAT ARE EXCLUSIVES The reaction of some Bethesda fans to this acquisition, which has been known about for some time, has been fearful: Mainly because…

branching out

Everybody understands trees,” says Maria Sayans, CEO of Ustwo games. It’s maybe not the kind of pitch we’re used to hearing from developers, but that sentiment does get to the roots of Ustwo’s mission. In just two months this indie developer has helped plant more than half a million trees with its 2020 release Alba: A Wildlife Adventure. The game follows a young girl visiting her grandparents on a Mediterranean island, lush with gorgeous nature and wildlife. The idea initially came from art director David Fernández Huerta’s love of bird watching. “You’re spotting the animals and you’re like, ‘Oh my God, it flew away,’” says lead designer Mishal Mistry.“‘OK, well, maybe I’ll just wait for it to fly back and take another picture’. And so [Huerta’s] like ‘This feels like a…

after earth

Sometimes a name simply drifts through space, awaiting the perfect project to dock with. Blade Runner was originally the title of a little known 1974 sci-fi novel about a black market medical equipment supplier—until Ridley Scott bought the rights, keeping the name and jettisoning everything else. Similarly, the name ‘Shipbreaker’ pre-exists the game it now so perfectly describes. Hardware: Shipbreakers was originally the working title of Deserts of Kharak, the Homeworld RTS that became Blackbird Interactive’s first release. It was years later that Blackbird would develop a game about shearing huge chunks of metal from the carcasses of starships—but even then, somehow, the team missed the title that was staring them in the face. “We ran a bunch of internal focus groups trying to figure out what the name of the game…

northern star

THE STUDIO’S FIRST INTERNATIONAL SUCCESS WASN’T GTA, BUT LEMMINGS The Houser brothers were born heirs to the world of gangster cinema. Their mother, Geraldine Moffat, was the glamorous actress who rescued Michael Caine in a convertible in Get Carter. “You didn’t know you had a fairy godmother, did you?” she yelled over the wind and engine noise, before speeding Caine off to a multi-story car park to be assigned his next mission: The killing of a crime boss. Sam Houser, the eldest brother, grew up on a diet of films like The Getaway and The French Connection, ’70s car chase movies that were cool, brutal, and lacking the clear moral center of the Hollywood thrillers that had come before. When he was five or six, Sam’s wealthy solicitor father took him to…