Home//PC Gamer/May 2023/In This Issue
PC Gamer|May 2023PRODIGIOUS OFFSPRINGSurvival game The Forest has almost 400,000 ‘Overwhelmingly Positive’ reviews on Steam at the time of writing, so maybe it wasn’t actually very surprising that its follow-up, Sons of the Forest, was highly anticipated by the fans. However, when the new Endnight Games title surpassed even Bethesda’s Starfield to become the most-wishlisted game on Steam and then, upon release, had more people playing it even than Hogwarts Legacy, it was extremely clear that PC gaming had a massive hit on its hands. Sons of the Forest sold more than 2 million copies in its first 24 hours on sale, a number that, by the time you read this, will have increased even more. Endnight Games, a studio that initially was composed of just four people, has hit gold and, based…2 min
PC Gamer|May 2023This month in… 20131 RuneScape was our cover feature this month ten years ago and is one of only a few other fantasy MMOs that is still running today. The game launched in its first form all the way back in 2001, so in 2023 is now over two decades old. It’s free-to-play today in both RuneScape and RuneScape Old School forms. 2 This issue was a cracker for reviews, with BioShock Infinite, Tomb Raider, StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm, SimCity, The Banner Saga and more judged. 3 We were rightfully excited about the Thief reboot and said in our preview feature that it “looks an assured reinvention of a fiercely guarded series”. When the game finally came out in 2014, though, it proved to be merely competent with us bestowing upon…1 min
PC Gamer|May 2023Incoming3 months EVERSPACE 2 DEVELOPER April 6, 2023 | PUBLISHER Rockfish Games What promises to be a new gold standard for space shooters, Everspace 2 leaves Early Access after two years of development. Fire up the laser cannons. STAR TREK: RESURGENCE DEVELOPER May 2023 | PUBLISHER Dramatic Labs The delayed Star Trek narrative adventure game from former Telltale designers is finally set to finally arrive this April. Set phasers to stun! STAR WARS JEDI: SURVIVOR DEVELOPER April 28, 2023 | PUBLISHER Respawn Entertainment Cal Kestis returns after the events of Star Wars Jedi: Outcast equipped with new powers, Lightsabers and, excitingly, rideable mounts too. 6 months AGE OF WONDERS 4 DEVELOPER May 2, 2023 | PUBLISHER Triumph Studios The venerable Age of Wonders series returns for more epic 4X strategy…2 min
PC Gamer|May 2023PACIFIC DRIVEPLAYED IT One of the best things about being a fan of survival games is that they’re not all about chopping down trees and hunting rabbits with a bow and arrow. Survival games span all sorts of different genres – horror games, shooters, crafting sandboxes, city builders, colony sims. So… how about a driving game? If there’s a single upcoming survival game that’s really captured my interest by swerving into another genre, it’s Pacific Drive, the first-person ‘driving survival game’ from Ironwood Studios due out later this year. In Pacific Drive your car is your best friend and your only companion, and you steer it deep into a restricted area of the Pacific Northwest known as the exclusion zone, which has fallen into chaos due to bizarre government experiments. Since…7 min
PC Gamer|May 2023CAPTAIN’S LOGF or some, the post-TNG era of Star Trek feels overused. There were several excellent films (no questions, please) and new iterations of Star Trek set in the years following the end of Captain Picard’s story – including an eponymous show of his own. There are also at least a dozen games set in the TNG and post-TNG universe, including the massively successful Star Trek Online, but none of them really captured the true spirit of Starfleet. It seems fitting, then, that as the cinematic universe closes on the story of Picard and the rest of the Enterprise D’s crew, a new game carrying on the lore from my favourite era emerges. Launching in May, Star Trek: Resurgence is set in 2380, right after the events of Star Trek: Nemesis…13 min
PC Gamer|May 2023Mixed signalsThis month the PC Gamer reviews machine tackles two games that ask gamers to make plenty of choices, but the first of them, unfortunately, is whether or not they should even pick them up, regardless of their clear quality. Hogwarts Legacy and Atomic Heart are, as you can discover in this issue, both good if not truly great games, and from a detached perspective they are well worth playing. Both are games that have clearly been made with great doses of love and respect for the fictional worlds and genres they are influenced by, and the developers deserve a hat tip for delivering on two truly ambitious and fun to play gaming experiences. However, with the contentious issues surrounding both, only each gamer can individually ask themselves if they’re happy…1 min
PC Gamer|May 2023QI TO THE KINGDOMSWo Long, meaning ‘Hidden Dragon’, is an appropriate name for a game that feels like it’s basically come from nowhere to tear up the action RPG landscape. Which isn’t to say it doesn’t adhere to some of that framework – the legacy of Nioh and Dark Souls is still present – but by removing the traditional constraints of the sub-genre, Wo Long takes soaring flight. It’s a project born from Team Ninja’s partnership with Koei, a developer and publisher well known for its games based around the Three Kingdoms era of Chinese history – most notably Dynasty Warriors. Wo Long is set in that same era, blending historical fiction with the finely honed combat Team Ninja is known for, along with a dash of the fantastical and demonic. You are…8 min
PC Gamer|May 2023BULLET LIMBOIn 1996, Housemarque released Super Stardust, and for two decades it honed the top-down arcade shooter. In 2017, it declared “ARCADE IS DEAD” – there was no money left in it, and the developer would be “moving on to new genres”. Returnal is the result, a big budget roguelike that kicks off a new era for the studio. The twist? It’s… basically an arcade shooter. OK, that’s a little unfair. Strictly speaking, it’s a third-person roguelike shooter – the camera tight over your shoulder, not high above, with runs progressing you through a shifting alien world, rather than being an opportunity to chase high scores. But the more you play, the more it feels like a wolf in sheep’s clothing, using some of the trappings of a popular modern genre…4 min
PC Gamer|May 2023SLASH FICTIONThe Yakuza series (now Like A Dragon, matching its Japanese naming) has always had a flair for the dramatic, featuring digitised actors, expressive facial capture and stories befitting a good mid-budget TV thriller. With the release of Like A Dragon: Ishin!, the series doubles down on its inspirations with a period drama spinoff, recasting Kiryu and crew in a 1860s samurai story and delivering a fresh theme, but perhaps over-familiar fun. There’s been some buzz surrounding Ishin, most of it from fans who were sure it would never come to the West. Originally a 2014 PS3 Japaneseexclusive, the version arriving now on PC (and simultaneously worldwide) is a largely-faithful remake, making some mechanical tweaks, re-casting some roles and giving it a graphical touch-up but not making any sweeping changes. This…8 min
PC Gamer|May 2023EYE EYERemember Magic Eye puzzles? Those trippy plaques of static that – if you could only convince your eyes to see them – would reveal hidden 3D pictures within. Well they’re back, in game form, in Daniel Linssen’s Stereogram – one of those rare games that made me appreciatively mutter, “Bloody hell,” out loud. Because, bloody hell. How is this Magic Eye suddenly interactive, taking the form of a pretty good platform game? This is a properly 3D platformer, with the unfortunate drawback that you can only look at it in bursts, as it exhausts the eyes. I’m curious whether the Magic Eye-ness will be intact in these screenshots, because Stereogram is very specific in how it should be set up. The window has to be a certain size, and there…1 min
PC Gamer|May 2023PILL BEHAVIOURRounding up this month’s They’re Back is Fran Bow, a game that merits inclusion because of Itward: Fran’s dapper, skeletal associate and friend to mentally-ill children everywhere. You’ll likely have gleaned from that opening that Fran Bow is darker than Tim Burton’s coal shed. The Steam blurb describes it as ‘creepy’, which is something of an understatement: child beauty pageants are ‘creepy’; Fran Bow’s tale of dismembered parents, medical malpractice and psychological trauma is something sterner. The setup is horrible enough, but Fran’s ability to phase into a shadow world after taking her medication provides the opportunity to make things even bleaker. The game’s cast of damaged children would be heartbreaking enough without the occult knowledge that they’re being harassed by demons in another realm. Yet despite this, there’s something…1 min
PC Gamer|May 2023OUTSOURCED CODEAs a cutting-edge AI language model, ChatGPT has the potential to revolutionise game development by providing new tools and resources for developers. With the ability to generate natural language responses and learn from a vast array of data, ChatGPT can be used to create dynamic and responsive non-player characters (NPCs), generate narrative storylines and even provide personalised game recommendations to players. Moreover, by facilitating more streamlined communication and collaboration between developers, ChatGPT could help reduce development time and improve the quality of games. As the technology behind ChatGPT continues to improve and evolve, it could play a significant role in shaping the future of gaming, creating more immersive and engaging gameplay experiences for players. FIRST AGAINST THE WALL WITH OUR BLINDFOLDS ON ARE WRITERS Hopefully you thought there was something…4 min
PC Gamer|May 2023“I explode another SinTEK goon’s head”NOW PLAYING THE GAMES WE LOVE RIGHT NOW The year is 2037 – so not too many years from now! – and I’m Colonel John R ‘Rusty’ Blade, the elite commander of a private security company called HardCorps. The company is named thus, I presume, because I’m hard as nails. I am on the trail of the nefarious Elexis Sinclaire, the leader of biotechnology firm SinTEK, who’s planning on taking over the world by mutating humans. It’s the biggest case HardCorps has ever had, and the stakes literally couldn’t be higher, as the future of the entire world is at risk. Which is why I’m going take a moment in between shouting, “Who’s your daddy!” as I explode another SinTEK goon’s head with a shotgun blast to pick up this…2 min
PC Gamer|May 2023DISNEY DREAMLIGHT VALLEYAfter its first content update of the year in February, as I watched Scar lounge around a pond in which Ariel popped up for a bit of sun just behind where I was plucking pumpkins with newly moved-in Mirabel, I did begin to wonder when Disney Dreamlight Valley would begin to feel so packed full of animated characters that I’d feel as if I were crammed in at an actual Disney park. Not quite yet, it turns out, but this is only the first of several more content and character updates that Gameloft has planned for 2023. The Festival of Friendship update brought two new villagers and several quality of life updates based on early access player feedback. The Friendship update includes Mirabel of Encanto and Olaf of Frozen to…4 min
PC Gamer|May 2023PREY BY PROXY PART IILast time in my attempt to complete Prey without killing anything directly, I’d made as far as Psychotronics without firing a single bullet at the vicious alien hostiles overrunning the space station. Granted, I’ve fired plenty of bullets at objects around enemies, gas pipes, incendiary tanks, substance-crushing recycler charges, all of which may have led to the deaths of countless aliens. But there isn’t a spot of Typhon goop directly on my hands. I’m like a mafia don who sends henchmen to ‘take care’ of his enemies, only my henchmen are pressurised containers and automated gun turrets. From Psychotronics, my next objective is Deep Storage, where I must retrieve the plans for one of two arming keys I need to destroy Talos 1. To get there, first I need to…9 min
PC Gamer|May 2023PORT CONTROLSpecial Report PCG INVESTIGATES NEWS | OPINION | DEVELOPMENT The top-voted Steam review for monster battler Wild Hearts, the day after it was released in February, was a thumbs down: one of approximately 1,700 negative reviews posted in 24 hours, earning it a ‘mostly negative’ summary. “The price is higher than the fps you will be able to pull in this game,” the review reads. 571 people marked it helpful. Five people reacted with a slow clap emoji. This cratering of Wild Hearts’ reviews reminds me of what happened to Warhammer 40K: Darktide in December (currently mixed, with nearly 30,000 negative reviews). It reminds me of Final Fantasy VII Remake’s barebones port from late 2021. It reminds me of when Nier: Automata was review bombed because Square Enix left…5 min
PC Gamer|May 2023REDFALLArriving to play 90 minutes of Redfall, I’m surprised to find out I won’t be getting to try it out in co-op. Everything leading up to launch seems to have emphasised this as an experience to be shared, your team of four combining their vampire-hunting abilities and specialities to fight back against the forces of darkness. Before I start, however, creative director Harvey Smith assures me that it’s designed as much for solo as multiplayer – you can play it however you want. It’s just a different experience, he explains: alone or as a pair, it’s a little slower and more strategic, whereas with three or four it’s fast-paced and chaotic. But by the end of my session, I’m left worried that that doesn’t ring true. I think the unfortunate…7 min
PC Gamer|May 2023DUNGEONS 4PLAYED IT The last time you heroically rampaged through a dungeon, killing goblins and looting treasure chests of every last gold coin, did you even give a moment’s thought to the unfortunate, hard-working evil Overlord who spent ages building and managing that dungeon? I doubt it. Heroes rarely do. Well, this year you’ll gain a new perspective on those underground lairs filled with orcs, ogres and scrabbling imps. Try being the boss in Dungeons 4, with all the management decisions and hordes of creatures to direct and gold-hungry invaders, and you’re bound to start sympathising with the darker side. It’s been nearly six years since you last ruled the underworld with a floating fist in Dungeons 3, building and managing a labyrinthine lair and leading an assortment of monsters into…3 min
PC Gamer|May 2023SHINING BRIGHTHonkai: Star Rail Honkai: Star Rail arrived right on time. Everything anime has exploded in the last few quarantine-locked years, especially in the W est. People are recreating JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure poses on TikTok, posting edits of Chainsaw M an characters and streaming as anime girls on Twitch. Free-to-play anime gacha games have massively grown too. It only took six short months for Genshin Impact to make $1 billion in revenue after it launched in 2020, cementing its status as one of the most successful mobile games around. It blends the charm of a big open world with the detailed combat systems of action RPGs. It’s a Breath of the Wild that never ends. And with every new update, it expands its map and its roster of playable anime people.…7 min
PC Gamer|May 2023This month’s magical reviewers…MORGAN PARK Specialist in Broomstick livery Currently playing Hogwarts Legacy This month Spent too long decorating the Room of Requirement. RICH STANTON Specialist in Wearing ushankas Currently playing Atomic Heart This month Got grossed out by a disturbing Soviet vending machine. DOMINIC TARASON Specialist in Soba slurping Currently playing Like a Dragon: Ishin! This month Was a macho man in 19th century Japan. MOLLIE TAYLOR Specialist in B-game schlock Currently playing Wanted: Dead This month Enjoyed sickeningly cruel and unusual dismemberment. MATT ELLIOTT Specialist in Shivering timbers Currently playing Sea of Thieves This month Casted and directed Carry On Corsair: The Musical.…1 min
PC Gamer|May 2023DEEP THOUGHTSThe PlayStation Vita was an underrated treasure-trove of mid-budget RPGs, and one of the last big releases for it was Labyrinth of Galleria, a witchy dungeon crawl and sequel to 2016’s Labyrinth of Refrain from Disgaea devs Nippon Ichi. Galleria has gone unlocalised for some time, making me fear one of the Vita’s swansongs would never reach the West. Fortunately, it’s just fashionably late, and has become a personal obsession and a killer app for my Steam Deck. You play as a disembodied spirit, summoned by a witch Labyrinth of Refrain is a ‘Blobber’ dungeon crawl RPG. A sub-genre famed for putting systems over story. You navigate a 3D, first-person dungeon with a party of adventurers that behave more like a rolling blob of limbs, swords, spells and numbers. Those…4 min
PC Gamer|May 2023CLUB MEDWorld War II looms large at all times. Even when we’re looking for some videogame escapism, it’s there, deafening us with the cacophony of artillery and exploding tanks. For Company of Heroes 3, however, Relic has taken us further south, to Italy and the desert of North Africa. And a lot has changed since the previous games, with the studio’s ambition and desire for experimentation growing. This is something new, but it’s not the novelties that have impressed me the most. It’s a beast of a game, cramming in two campaigns and four factions. Its proportions are fitting for this massive conflict. The main course, ostensibly, is the Italian campaign – promising something akin to a World War II Total War. Serves up a slew of tactically interesting RTS battles…9 min
PC Gamer|May 2023CITY LIMITSFREE GAMES REVIEWS COOL TITLES FOR NO CASH I’m up for any game set in a brutalist cityscape, so it’s almost a shame that the goal of Babbdi is to escape one. Babbdi is a city of looming tower blocks, endless concrete, and not a lot of grass, and I thoroughly enjoyed scouring its oppressive nooks and crannies, as I searched for the train ticket that would take me out of there – loathe as I was to leave it. At its core, Babbdi is an exploration game, set in a surreal and downcast world that brings to mind Pathologic, Half-Life 2, and a neglected council block. You might call it a walking sim, but to see everything you’ll need to do more than walk – you’ll need to jump,…3 min
PC Gamer|May 2023NIGHTMARE GALLEYTHEY’RE BACK OLD GAMES REVISITED Before release, the promotional material for Sea of Thieves focused on all the dramatic stuff: digging up lost treasure, bludgeoning skeletons, firing fat pirates onto desert islands. It’s understandable they’d want their potential audience to expect breathless adventure. But the true joy of Rare’s eccentric eye patch-’em-up doesn’t come from the moments of swashbuckling bravado, but the daft bits in between. An example: while preparing for a mission with my online crew, I decide to cook some fish while one of my friends spends her real-life money on a cat companion. Trouble is, I haven’t played Sea of Thieves for ages and cooking was never a mechanic I understood. So I end up accidentally eating undercooked fish, which makes me ill, then vomiting into the…3 min
PC Gamer|May 2023RTX 40-SERIES GRAPHICS CARDSRTX 40-series graphics cards are impressive. They offer excellent performance, cutting edge features, and power efficiency. But their pricing has received some fair criticism. But considering their intergenerational performance uplifts, improved ray tracing, upscaling magic, mostly low noise levels and operating temperatures, these are still some desirable graphics cards. We’ve tested two of each of the RTX 40-series cards released to date, led by the flagship RTX 4090. It’s the fastest graphics card ever released but it comes at a steep cost that’s unpalatable to say the least. Next up is the high performing and power efficient RTX 4080. The RTX 4070 Ti is the latest out of team green. It isn’t quite the mainstream hero that we’ve been waiting for, but it’s a bit of a step towards it.…7 min
PC Gamer|May 2023BUYER’S GUIDEKEY Budget build PC gaming is for everyone. Pick these parts if you want to build a new, well-rounded PC for a good price. Mid-range build You want to run every new game at 1080p 60fps. This recommended build will see you through. Advanced build You’re looking for the best PC on the market and superior components. But you still want to spend smart. BUDGET BUILD Enjoy 1080p gaming without breaking the bank MOTHERBOARD B660M Pro RS ASRock £115 This is as cheap as we want to go while still offering room for expansion and upgrades down the line. PROCESSOR Core i5 13400F Intel £210 Intel’s added four more cores to its entry-level Core i5 and it’s become even more fantastic value. GRAPHICS CARD Radeon RX 6600 AMD £256 AMD’s…5 min
PC Gamer|May 2023“I grab the downed soldier’s weapon and start firing on his colleagues”If you’d asked me at the start of the year, I’d have told you I was pretty good at Hitman. I’ve earned Silent Assassin ratings on all main missions, and even have a couple of suit-only runs under my well-tailored belt. I once competed in an ad-hoc speedrunning rivalry with some friends – pushing us all to find the fastest routes while still achieving the perfect kill. I’m far from the best player, but I’ve mastered enough of the series’ systems to at least be competent. Then I played Freelancer, and discovered that, no, actually, I suck at this. Here’s the problem: Freelancer takes away everything that makes Hitman comfortable, and leaves you to fend for yourself. If you die during a Freelancer mission you lose any equipment or weapons…3 min
PC Gamer|May 2023HOGWARTS LEGACYMOD SPOTLIGHT MAJOR MODS, ANALYSED Park your broom and pocket your wand for a minute, because it looks like wizards and witches aren’t the only ones wielding magic. Barely a day had gone by since the release of open world RPG Hogwarts Legacy, and already modders were enchanting the game with their own fixes, improvements and additions, including new control schemes for the mouse, tweaks to the UI, mods that improve the game’s performance and appearance mods that include everything from custom wands to Thomas the Tank Engine. Not only are new mods piling up fast, but so far installing mods for Hogwarts Legacy doesn’t take all that much effort. For most of the mods listed here, you only have to unzip a file and drag it into…8 min
PC Gamer|May 2023CRPG CHARACTER PORTRAITSWHY I LOVE WHAT MAKES GAMES SPECIAL As RPGs have ‘grown up’, we’ve gotten spoiled – full voice acting, cinematic cutscenes, non-hellish early games – but we used to be spoiled in a different way: the richly-detailed character portraits of classic RPGs almost serve as a distinct second art style for such games, co-mingling with rich environment art, pixelated character models and your own imagination to produce rich worlds. It’s before the advent of high-resolution graphics and you want to make a big ol’ epic, Choice and Consequence RPG. Maybe throw some THAC0 in there for good measure. How do you communicate the excitement, romance and danger of your characters at a time when environment rendering was on point, but digital humans limited to sprite work and…4 min
PC Gamer|May 2023The SpyThe world The Spy operates in is as shadowy and dangerous as it is glamorous. Yes, sure, The Spy can often be found at his gentleman spy’s club in Mayfair, reading PC Gamer while wearing a pair of slippers and smoking a pipe, but The Spy’s bread-and-butter day job would leave lesser men quaking in their Sneak-o-matic 3000s. The biggest danger for The Spy is misinformation and disinformation, which thanks to the invention of the internet and something called ‘page views’, has now made The Spy’s job harder than trying to persuade Gabe Newell to stop buying knives and make Half-Life 3. Take The Spy’s recent foray into the murky underworld of Starfield rumours. After suiting up in The Spy’s patent-pending jet-pack equipped spacesuit and hovering outside Starfield director Todd…3 min
PC Gamer|May 2023ACCESS ANYTHINGAs well as being a producer, Harriet Frayling is also a freelance games accessibility consultant. In addition to helping developers make their games more accessible, she also worked with Scope to develop its 2021 Power Up and Play event, has spoken in an EGX Disability in Videogames panel, and much more. When I ask how she got into the industry, her immediate answer is “with great difficulty”. Her first job did not go well. “There’s a lot of stigma around being disabled, especially in the games industry.” Frayling is autistic, has been diagnosed with ADHD, and also has fibromyalgia and non-epileptic attack disorder. “I didn’t feel comfortable disclosing the needs that I had. I wasn’t very confident at the time either,” she continues. “I think it’s important that people know…3 min
PC Gamer|May 2023SONS OF THE FORESTPLAYED IT Stop me if you’ve heard this before: you’re stranded on a mysterious island… but you’re not alone. Usually that statement is meant to spark fear, but in Sons of the Forest it’s actually good news. The Early Access survival game has a killer feature: it comes packaged with a best friend. I never played much of 2014’s The Forest – I like survival games, but I’m not a big fan of horror, and The Forest’s creepy cannibals and their deep, dark caves felt like a nightmare. “No thanks,” I thought the first time one clubbed me unconscious and dragged me into the pitch-blackness of their subterranean lair. I’ll stick with survival games where bears and wolves and stomach parasites are trying to kill me, rather than ones where…3 min
PC Gamer|May 2023AGE OF WONDERS 4PLAYED IT Triumph Studios’ 4X can’t help but generate fun fantasy adventures. My 4X obsession has left me a little burned out when it comes to the genre’s four big pillars, but I keep coming back for more to feed a single, specific fantasy: crafting a society and watching it grow. So far, Age of Wonders 4 is doing a great job of feeding this hunger. Triumph Studio’s fantasy 4X has a little bit of Stellaris in it. The shared DNA is seen most clearly at the start, when you fashion your baby empire. Like Age of Wonders 3, you’ll create a heroic or villainous avatar to lead your forces, selecting their race, fiddling with aesthetics and picking their starting loadout, but you’ll also build the society they rule. First…7 min
PC Gamer|May 2023THE HISTORY OF GOD GAMESMany videogames furnish the player with godlike powers, but surprisingly few have tried to simulate the complete experience of being a god. A specific sub-genre of management sim that emerged in the late 1980s, god games lend players control not merely over a specific institution or social structure (like a theme park or a city). They give you power over reality itself, letting you shape worlds, create life and destroy both on a whim. God games are dizzyingly ambitious, and perhaps because of this, only a sparse pantheon has ever been made. Even then, the status of many of these as god games is debatable. Many canonical god games either neglect to acknowledge your role as a god, or outright reject it, expressing the emergence of life through natural processes,…11 min
PC Gamer|May 2023WANDS UPHogwarts Legacy I was over 20 hours into Hogwarts Legacy before it revealed that, on top of being an expansive RPG with skill trees, wizard combat, crafting, environmental puzzles and loads of sidequests, it’s also a quaint home decorating game with a splash of zoo management. This is a much larger game than I think anyone was anticipating and as I’ve completed the main quest and dozens of sidequests over 50 hours, I’m still surprised by how good each individual element is. It suffers from a meandering start and distracting technical issues, but once I was set free to explore the entirety of Hogwarts and miles of countryside surrounding it, I enjoyed Hogwarts Legacy in the same ways I did The Witcher 3 or Red Dead Redemption 2: moseying across…13 min
PC Gamer|May 2023EASTWORLDFour or five hours into Atomic Heart, it swings into one of many seamless first-person cutscenes. A man points a gun at you, babbles something about a giant plant, and your protagonist gruffly swears, complains and sets about fetching the thing to blow up the thing. You return with explosives, which are ignited by a cigarette while your character calls the plant a “f*ckbag”, and the scientist dies afterwards. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. A lot of Atomic Heart will leave you grasping for purchase, as it freewheelingly veers from enormous set pieces to endless fetch quests, as critiques of Russian exceptionalism rub up against a protagonist who calls robots “fat turds” and a script written with the help of a swearing thesaurus. You’ll gaze into the…8 min
PC Gamer|May 2023DEAD STRANGEWanted: Dead would have totally banged in the late 2000s. It’s a no-nonsense hack-and-slash with some sickeningly wicked dismemberment, B-tier voice acting, and heaps of jank. It’s exactly what developer Soleil was aiming for, backed by several ex-Ninja Gaiden and Dead or Alive workers. But in the year of our lord 2023, its unapologetic vision isn’t going to sit right with everybody. Unfortunately, I’m one of those people. I’m a huge Team Ninja lover and a regular Dead or Alive defender, so I was excited to dive into the Hong Kong Police Department’s Zombie Squad, a group of former criminals. You take on the role of Hannah Stone, and Wanted: Dead’s flimsy narrative is played out across a number of missions. They’re linear, which I dig. But the structure of…4 min
PC Gamer|May 2023NIGHTMARE FUELFREE GAMES REVIEWS You can go anywhere in a dream, making them rich settings for a game. Particularly a horror game, where their unreal, uncanny quality fits like a glove. Feet in the Snow has horror elements, but at its beating heart it’s an adventure game, containing simple puzzles in a bizarre, uneasy dreamscape. The overall atmosphere reminds me of Silent Hill, particularly Shattered Memories, which similarly featured frequent interruptions by a psychiatrist. Well, I’m guessing it’s a psychiatrist here, as their probing questions intrude on the screen, asking the player what they did next in the dream. Did they go this way or that? Most importantly, did they follow the mysterious footsteps? There is one big branching moment, where you decide to follow the tracks or veer off-course, and…1 min
PC Gamer|May 2023BONE IDOLTHEY’RE BACK This month’s theme might not be immediately obvious from the selection of games, so I’ll allow my character choice in Divinity: Original Sin 2 to remove any ambiguity. I’m playing as Fane and we’re all about skeletons. One of the greatest things about Original Sin 2 is how many bad decisions I can make. Picking an undead character isn’t necessarily one of them, but it does have some interesting effects: healing spells hurt you, for instance, and poison revives you. Elsewhere, the game is as close as you’ll likely get to having a smart, reactive DM, with the added bonus that all your RPing takes place in private, without the need for performance anxiety or other people. It’s possible, for example, to kill any NPC, although the thought…1 min
PC Gamer|May 2023CHARACTER BUFFSScour the mainstream media for images of ‘gamers’ and even today you’ll generally find 100 or so variants of Matthew Broderick in WarGames – unathletic, unkempt and occasionally bespectacled too for good measure. It’s a vastly outdated trope that belies the most visible figures in modern gaming. The infuriatingly gorgeous YouTubers who make a living shouting at FUT packs. The shredded influencers doing boxing matches to promote their upcoming trap song or energy drink. But somewhere in that broadly drawn stereotype of the gamer, there’s a grain of truth. PC gaming is a lot of things: mentally and emotionally stimulating and nourishing, stress-relieving and effective in combating loneliness. What it is not, however, is physically active. As someone who once raced for 24 straight hours in Gran Turismo as a…5 min
PC Gamer|May 2023“We should be asking for more variety in our open worlds”CONTINUED ADVENTURES IN GAMING As a genre, ‘open world’ has come to mean far more than just a big, seamless map. It conjures images of vast, big budget games with a huge range of things to do, including combat, exploring, searching for collectibles, solving puzzles, traversal and more. But I always find it really interesting when games buck that template. I loved the way The Evil Within 2 flirted with the idea of open-world survival horror, with its creepy town full of nightmares to sneak past. Or The Pathless, which, despite its protagonist wielding a bow and arrow, eschewed violence in favour of finding joy in discovery. Sherlock Holmes: Chapter One uses its open world – the island city of Cordona – as a sandbox for mysteries. Where most crime-solving…3 min
PC Gamer|May 2023“I couldn’t shake the impulse to inspect every nook and cranny”Since first stepping onto the streets of A Plague Tale: Requiem’s interpretation of 14th century Provence, I’ve made a habit of spotting its surprisingly detailed woodwork, which has me wondering whether Asobo’s environment artists moonlight as carpenters. A credible medieval setting plays as much a role in the experience of this adventure as the performances behind its lead characters, siblings Amicia and Hugo. We’re asked to believe in their plight, even as the game’s fiction ventures into the supernatural. And providing ballast for the paranormal mischief are settings that feel rooted in the soil. We’re led by the hand through Provençal landscapes, beneath the eaves of timber-framed houses and, increasingly as the game proceeds, through vermin-infested passages. Standing proud through all these places is woodwork. Where other games settle for…2 min
PC Gamer|May 2023GET STARTED IN HOGWARTS LEGACY1 PROGRESS THE MAIN QUEST While it’s tempting to run off into the wilds as soon as you arrive at Hogwarts in search of magical beasts and mystical puzzles, it’s better to progress the main quest a bit first. By the time you get to autumn, you’ll have unlocked most of the main mechanics and features. 2 DUST OFF YOUR BROOM Unless you want to hoof it across the Highlands to complete quests, you’re going to need a broomstick. Luckily, you won’t have to wait too long to take to the skies, as the Flying Class quest unlocks after you’ve completed the Jackdaw’s Rest main quest early on. 3 DO YOUR HOMEWORK Rather than poring over dusty tomes, Hogwarts Legacy’s education is a tad more… practical? Complete your extra assignments…3 min
PC Gamer|May 2023NEVERWINTER NIGHTSWith Aribeth’s true love hanged, she falls, and seeks a terrible vengence Why did I reinstall Neverwinter Nights? First and foremost it is so I could relive its classy, beautifully written and emotional main narrative once again. A brief synopsis. Awakening in the city of Neverwinter as a recruit summoned to help deal with its deadly crisis, the Wailing Death plague, which has ravaged the city and left piles of corpses in the streets, you the protagonist are soon introduced to Lady Aribeth de Tylmarande a half-elf paladin of Tyr, the Blind God of Justice. Lady Aribeth is protector of the city and its ruler Lord Nasher Alagondar. She is also in love with Fenthick Moss, a cleric of Tyr, who she holds very close to her heart. To help…7 min
PC Gamer|May 2023U.S.S. PC GAMERROBERT JONES MOLYNEUX APOLOGIST If a dev over-promises and then lets PC gamers down, Rob’s always ready to bore the rest of the crew into submission in defence of the game. EVAN LAHTI ADMIRAL OF POWERPOINT Plotting the course the U.S.S. PC Gamer follows into unknown gaming territories, Evan is the ship’s chief and resident zero-G hockey pro. ROBIN VALENTINE OWLBEAR WHISPERER Robin is a master of dealing with the countless strange and odd new games the U.S.S. PC Gamer’s crew encounter on their travels. JACOB RIDLEY CUDA CORE WRANGLER Jacob ensures the U.S.S. PC Gamer’s CUDA core-powered warpdrive engines are fed with a constant supply of dilithium crystals. LAUREN AITKEN CHIEF DEV TRANSLATOR When a new alien dev is encountered Lauren uses her enclyopedic knowledge of PC gaming culture…1 min
