PC Gamer (US Edition) February 2023

ROBIN VALENTINE Twitter @robinlvalentine This month Dragged a big box around the PC Gamer team and frantically right-clicked on the magazine until they got it finished. Nothing ever truly dies in PC gaming. Whether it’s point-and-click adventures, FMV games, MMOs, or survival horror, no genre is lost while someone out there remembers it fondly. So it’s no surprise that, in 2023, we welcome the latest triumphant resurrection: get ready for the year of the RTS. It’s a pleasure this issue to bring you not just one, but a whole slate of innovative, exciting and very much alive real-time strategy games you can look forward to playing in the months to come. Stormgate leads the charge, but it’s got plenty of backup in our huge feature. PRINT EDITOR robin.valentine@futurenet.com TALK TO PC GAMER Have your say! Email us at letters@pcgamer.com…

CHRIS LIVINGSTON Twitter @screencuisine This month Learned some magic in Valheim’s new update. That explains why his writing is so enchanting! FRASER BROWN Twitter @FraserIBrown This month Literally failed to organise a piss-up in a brewery in fantasy city builder Against the Storm. MOLLIE TAYLOR Twitter @mollietayy This month Kicked off our GOTY discussions in the traditional manner: with an obscene threat. LAUREN MORTON Twitter @ComradeCupcake_ This month Hung out with Scar in Disney Dreamlight Valley. Not a bad guy, lion murders aside.…

This has been a year of big tech stories, but none have had quite the twists and turns of Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter. The billionaire and sometime troll announced his intention to buy the company at the start of the year before backing off, at which point Twitter took him to court to force the deal through. Shortly before any hearings, on October 3, Musk said he’d go through with it at the eye-watering price of $44 billion. Elon Musk has, as this saga unfolded, become a target on Twitter, with critics concerned about moderation and what the Musk era will bring. The bigger question is whether Musk knows what he’s doing. Since Musk took over Twitter he’s fired half the staff, got rid of most contractors, had a mini-purge of…

HIGHS Wesker? Pablo Kuntz voiced Albert Wesker, then forgot it. Three decades later he discovered how big Resident Evil is. Ryu kidding 16-year-old player EndingWalker tore through an Ultimate Fighting Arena Street Fighter competition as Ed. Gabenphone An announcer pack for Dota 2 saw Gabe Newell calling in via potato phone from a yacht. Jerks Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II launched with a Jack Link’s Beef Jerky promotion. Emergency Stop EA has decided to halt development on the next Project Cars game. Kahlo NFT A new low for the NFT bros as one burned a Frida Kahlo sketch to try to sell NFTs of it. LOWS…

Peter and Tess work at Auroch Digital—Peter as production director, Tess as producer. The skills required are very similar, but their roads into the industry were very different. It’s interesting, therefore, that they both found transferable skills in their previous lives that help them in the day job now. Peter has a background in journalism and marketing, including editorial duties at Pocket Gamer. He met Auroch Digital’s studio director Tomas Rawlings while on the journalism side of the industry and developed a friendly relationship. “Then a job for a producer came up,” he says. “There was quite a lot of overlap between running editorial [and the role of producer], and so I became a producer for Auroch Digital just over seven years ago now.” But… what is a producer? “The concept of…

NEED TO K NOW RELEASE 2023 DEVELOPER Necrosoft Games PUBLISHER Ysbryd Games LINK bit.ly/3gltBFh My time in college was a mixture of wasted classes and too many nights out, but at least I can say I didn’t have to fight shrieking monsters or risk getting dragged into a demonic realm. Though perhaps that would’ve been preferable given how slickly entertaining Demonschool makes it. The game streamlines the combat of tactics RPGs and wraps it up in a story of students navigating the perils (supernatural or otherwise) of college life. Speaking with creative director Brandon Sheffield, it’s clear that it’s a game with a wealth of influences. “People compare it to Persona, Shin Megami Tensei, and stuff… there was like Devil Survivor which was an SMT game that was influential, a little bit, with the relationship system, but the influences were…