PC Gaming
Late last year, I wrote about a bizarre moment when game developers suddenly became obsessed with eggs for some reason. Then everybody pointed out all the games about eggs that I didn’t mention in the article, as if the goal was to create an exhaustive list of egg-based games and not observe a general trend….
XCOM 3 may still be nothing more than a glint in Firaxis’ compound eye, but Steam’s digital walk-in freezer is bursting with alternative tactical lifeforms to dissect. These range from Julian Gollop’s own attempt to modernise XCOM in Phoenix Point, to The Long War creators’ absurdly complex Terra Invicta, which blows out X-COM’s alien invasion…
Before Valve reinvented cooperative gaming with Left 4 Dead, there was Zombie Panic! A mod for the original Half-Life, Zombie Panic! pitted groups of players against a single, player-controlled brain-muncher. Which doesn’t sound all that challenging, except that any survivors killed by the zombie would rise again as zombies themselves, slowly turning the tide against…
At a GDC talk today, Overwatch game director Aaron Keller said that Marvel Rivals has “definitely had an impact” on the Overwatch team. Keller recalls seeing the excitement around Rivals, which launched with over 30 heroes in 2025 (and is now at 47), and thinking, “Hey, what if we could just drop 30 new heroes…
There is a style of game design built around rigorous playtesting and polish, aiming to smoothly guide the player from one challenge to the next, ensuring they never get hung up for too long or become too frustrated by an obstacle they can’t overcome. And then there’s Baby Steps. One of the best games of…
In a theater set off to the side of this week’s Game Developers Conference, representatives from big tech companies and venture capital firms spoke about, among other things, their enthusiasm for generative AI. Many of the attendees over in the main convention halls don’t feel the same way: 52% of respondents to a recent GDC…
I recently watched the Netflix documentary Running with the Devil: The Wild World of John McAfee, and it’s one of the craziest things I’ve seen in a long time. I’ve written about McAfee (who died in 2021) a few times over the years, and knew a few things about his chaotic and at times outright…
PC Gamer’s Morgan Park had a rough night in Marathon a couple days ago. He initially attributed it to a run of bad luck—everyone has an off night now and then, after all—but noticed a lot of other people having similar struggles, many of whom pointed the finger at something else: noise. Silence is golden…
In his talk at this year’s GDC, Arc Raiders production director Caio Braga said Embark’s breakout extraction shooter hit emerged from a development cycle involving multiple massive directional pivots—points where many other game productions would have been cancelled. In a post-talk interview with PC Gamer, Braga said the high profile live service launch failures that…
In Act 1 of Slay the Spire 2, Vantom is the toughest of the three bosses you can encounter. It’s a bit of a roadblock in your journey, particularly if you’re a new player, but don’t be tempted to rage-quit and restart your run when you see his icon on the top of your map!…