PC Gamer (US Edition) August 2021

Twitter @robinlvalentine This month Was reminded of a lot of gruelling, apocalyptic journeys to the supermarket this year. In January 2015, a five-man team released one of the most iconic indie hits ever. Darkest Dungeon was one of the first games to fully realize the potential of Early Access, turning a year of community feedback into a launch so successful that… well, it led to here. Six years on, now a team of 20, Red Hook is working on a sequel so exciting we couldn’t resist putting it on the cover. It’s a big departure—it’s a road trip, a roguelike, and it’s got a hopeful streak. We could all use one of those in 2021, eh? robin.valentine@futurenet.com TALK TO PC GAMER Have your say! Email us at letters@pcgamer.com…

WES FENLON Twitter @wesleyfenlon This month Covering games about the apocalypse and a time loop has Wes nostalgic for lockdown life. CHRIS LIVINGSTON Twitter @screencuisine This month Got to meet the stars of Mythic Quest! Of course, they just wanted to talk about Switch games. ANDY KELLY Twitter @ultrabrilliant This month Reviewed the tall vampire lady game and spent most of his time looking at labels. (See p114.) FRASER BROWN Twitter @FraserIBrown This month Tried to break his Crusader Kings habit by playing basically the same thing, but set in space.…

If I asked you which game developer you’d consider Oscar-worthy, how would you respond? Maybe one of Sony’s ‘prestige’ first-party studios? Perhaps a narrative-heavy developer like Telltale or Dontnod, or a triple-A powerhouse like EA or Ubisoft? Instead, the academy has chosen to award Respawn Entertainment with the prestigious award—and it wasn’t even for the wall-running FPS series it’s known for. Colette, a short documentary following a 90-year-old French Resistance fighter as she visits the German concentration camp where her brother was killed, won the Oscar for Best Documentary (Short Subject) at this year’s Academy Awards. It’s a fantastic short, exploring pained family dynamics, resistance, and the brutality of Nazi rule in a tight 20 minutes. But it’s also an unlockable videogame extra, originally released as one of many supplementary short…

HIGHS Moneycraft Minecraft modders have earned over $350M since Microsoft bought Mojang’s block-builder. Arena Legends Apex Legends’ new 3v3 Arena mode is already a fan favorite here. Long war After six years, massive Doom mod Wolfenstein: Blade of Agony is finally available as a standalone game. LOWS Crypto woes HDDs and SSDs may become as hard to buy as GPUs if a new ‘proof-of-space’ cryptocurrency takes off. Out of Steam This year’s GDC survey found only 6% of developers feel Steam’s 30% revenue cut is well-earned. Nuclear winter Call of Duty: Warzone’s nuke event was a huge letdown, because we’ve seen it do better.…

Mythic Quest is a workplace sitcom about the dev team behind the most popular (fictional) MMORPG in the world. We talked to some of the actors and creators behind the show (which is co-produced by Ubisoft Film & Television) about the serious game industry issues it tackles with humor, how gamers and developers have responded to the show, and if there are any similarities between making a game and making a show about a game. In Mythic Quest’s pilot episode, the team was scrambling to complete its first expansion, called Raven’s Banquet, and season two similarly begins with the gang hard at work on the next expansion: Titan’s Rift. And in some ways, it sounds like making the second season of a television show might not be all that different from…

DANNY PUDI (BRAD) BREATH OF THE WILD “My son is making fun of me at this point. You still haven’t finished this game?” CHARLOTTE NICDAO (POPPY) ANIMAL CROSSING “It was actually one of the ways that I would hang out with my mom, who was back in Australia.” JESSIE ENNIS (JO) TETRIS, TWO DOTS “I recently was caught by my screentime app, and found out how many hours I spend playing.” DAVID HORNSBY (DAVID) FIFA “I’ve gotten into FIFA 21. I’m playing weekend league now. I’ve got a club team with some high school friends.”…