PC Gamer

As a PC gamer since the early 1990s I couldn’t be more thrilled to see the iconic System Shock on the cover of this issue. And, after reading our detailed feature on the new game, I’m sure you’ll be just as excited, too. As this is no simple remaster of the sci-fi horror classic. Nightdive Studios has spent eight years upgrading the systems, gameplay, visuals and audio to modern standards, while also fighting to maintain what made the original game so beloved. It looks like it has succeeded, too, with SHODAN reborn in all its terrible glory. ROBERT JONES Twitter @rnicholasj This month Hired a bunch of dwarves to fortify PC Gamer Towers against raids by console gamers. The PC Gamer team RICK LANE Twitter @Rick_Lane This month Crushed skulls with a Thunder Hammer as he sold stuff in WH40K: Rogue Trader. MOLLIE…

The war in Ukraine has made Russia an international pariah, and begun a period of isolation that to many looks like Cold War 2.0. It’s fair to speculate that this is not the outcome Russia was expecting and, with no end to the war in sight, it is looking to shore-up those domestic areas that have been badly affected, one of which is tech, videogames, and “digital sovereignty”. There have been various initiatives, most of which have suffered sudden encounters with the real world. Perhaps the most eyebrow-raising plan was for a state-funded Russian ‘national game engine’ to compete with the likes of Unreal Engine. This was announced with typical bravado, backing from major Russian tech companies like Rostelecom, and Pravda-like promises that domestic developers would receive grants for developing using…

HIGHS Vampire Thrivers Poncle released Vampire Survivors for free on mobile. Awesome Job Games Done Quick’s Mike Uyama is stepping down after raising over $41 million for charity. Duel purpose Counterplay Games has made Duelyst’s source code free to all to use as they see fit. LOWS Cyberfunk Cyberpunk 2077 won ‘Labour of Love’ in the Steam awards for 2022. Let it Die already The sequel to Let It Die launched in October and, with almost no players, is being mothballed after only three months. Captcha A (human) artist’s submissions to the r/art subreddit were banned because they looked too much like AI art.…

Advertising is just a fact of life in the 21st century. Is it weird that the Spy’s secret HQ is sponsored by Phones 4U™? Sure. Is it annoying that all of The Spy’s missions are named things like ‘Operation: Phantom Blood, in association with Starburst™ Joosters™’? Absolutely – it makes the paperwork a nightmare. But with budget cuts being what they are, sometimes you have to make sacrifices. Even so, after a long day spent in The Little Chef ™ Debriefing Zone, the last thing The Spy wants to see when looking to unwind with Best Espionage Fails 2022 (Try Not To Laugh) on YouTube is a ten-minute sponsored promo for Raid: Shadow Legends. It just starts to get a bit much, you know? Clearly the amount of advertising being blasted…

ISSUE 250, March 2013 ON THE COVER Total War: Rome II IN THE CINEMAS Wreck-It Ralph 1 “Attractive magazine pleased to announce continued existence,” declares the attractive magazine that, 130 issues later, continues to exist. To celebrate our 250th issue, Tom Francis runs through some of the landmark moments from the magazine’s past. Including our first 96% score, awarded to Civilization 2 in PCG 028, to the absurd Dwarf Fortress diary of PCG 228. 2 It’s not really a great month for new game releases when your lead review scores 30%. “A shameless knock-off,” writes Evan of The War Z. 3 Tom Senior shows his love for pen and paper RPGs in a beautiful feature about Roll20, the free program that helps D&D players run games online. These days, in the wake of 5E and the popularity of…

Acclaimed indie colony/existence sim Dwarf Fortress launched on Steam on December 6, 2022, and within hours the PC’s most famously complex game had 2,000 positive reviews. Someone on the Steam forums asked if all the people reviewing the game on Steam after launch had been “playing free DF for 25 years and just waiting for an opportunity to pay $30?”. A week later, nearly every post in the 253 page thread was someone answering, “Yes.” Other game developers gushed about Dwarf Fortress and its influence on launch day. Publisher Kitfox Games tweeted that Dwarf Fortress had blown past its predicted two-month sales figure in less than 24 hours. In less than a week Dwarf Fortress sold around 300,000 copies, developer Tarn Adams told PC Gamer. “Tanya [Short, of Kitfox Games] posted that…