PC Gamer (US Edition) January 2022

When I started watching Riot’s TV show Arcane, I was hopeful but skeptical. Videogame adaptations are always rubbish, right? Within an episode it’d become my new favorite show, a thrilling and gorgeous adventure I’m desperate to see the concluding act of. It’s emblematic of where Riot is at as a company—full of wild ambitions and, thanks to its passion and seemingly limitless resources, actually achieving them. Across our enormous feature, we’ve tried to capture that spirit—and get a taste of what’s coming next… robin.valentine@futurenet.com ROBIN VALENTINE Twitter @robinlvalentine This month Actually cheered at a fictional character putting on some metal gloves. TALK TO PC GAMER Have your say! Email us at letters@pcgamer.com…

STEVEN MESSNER Twitter @stevenmessner This month Fathered both our cover feature and an actual child. I think we both know which he’s more proud of. CHRISTOPHER LIVINGSTON Twitter @screencuisine This month Explored a sinking relic. No, not PC Gamer magazine—the Titanic. RACHEL WATTS Twitter @rachel_wattts This month Left the site team to join Play magazine. Now there’s no one left to keep PCG wholesome. LAUREN MORTON Twitter @ComradeCupcake_ This month Joined our US team! She didn’t actually write anything this issue, but here’s her photo anyway.…

On October 6, 2021 a 125GB torrent appeared online, accompanied by a screed about Twitch, claiming to include the site’s source code, unannounced projects, and streamer earnings. The next day Twitch confirmed the breach was real. “It will send a shudder down [the spine of] any hardened infosec professional,” said ThreatModeler CEO Archie Agarwal. “This is as bad as it could possibly be.” As Twitch grappled with the fallout, more information came to light: The company claimed user passwords and financial information outside of the streamer payouts were not exposed. It also confirmed that the incident was the result of a server configuration error “that allowed improper access by an unauthorized third party”. The issue is now fixed. Notably, Twitch’s statements continue to include wiggle-room, such as saying the above came from…

HIGHS War Thunder fans Classified documents were leaked in a War Thunder forum spat… again. Oculus without Facebook A 17-year-old was hacked-off about the Oculus Quest 2’s requirement for a Facebook account, so he coded a workaround called Oculess. Corporate kickoff EA and FIFA have had a falling out, with EA announcing that FIFA will probably be rebranded next year. Crypto origins The creator of crytocurrency Ethereum says he created it because he was upset by nerfs in WoW. Navy cyberdefence The US Navy announced it was ‘hacked’ after one of its ships began streaming Age of Empires sessions. Agent KIA Rockstar finally confirmed what we all knew anyway: The studio’s game Agent is not going to happen. LOWS…

In 1999, Japanese RPG developer Squaresoft was on top of the world. Final Fantasy VII and Final Fantasy VIII were blockbuster successes, and every other quirky RPG it released seemed destined to become a cult classic. But even at the peak of its popularity, Square was still releasing games it decided were too niche, too hard to translate, or too Japanese to release in the West. One of those was Racing Lagoon , an RPG that blended trendy street racing and bizarre, almost poetic writing into a game that nearly defies description. Imagine if E E Cummings wrote the script for a Fast & Furious movie and you’ll be on roughly the right track. Twenty-two years later, Racing Lagoon is finally playable in English—and we have a fan translator who goes…

Dinga Bakaba is the game director of Deathloop, Arkane’s brilliant, breakthrough FPS. He’s a veteran of the Dishonored series, going back 11 years. But most importantly for our purposes, he’s a martial arts teacher on the side. Specifically, Bakaba teaches capoeira. “People sometimes wonder, is it a dance, is it a fight,” he says. “But we say, ‘a game of capoeira,’ and the act is playing.” The boundaries of capoeira are intentionally blurred—it was invented by African slaves in Brazil, as a way to practice fight moves under the cover of dancing and music. You might know it by the distinctive moveset of Tekken’s Eddy Gordo, the human rotor whose unpredictable leg spins end with a foot to the face. It’s often less combative, though: In the courses Bakaba runs, capoeira partners…