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PC Gamer (US Edition)|June 2024“THERE’S NEVER BEEN A BETTER TIME TO HEED THE CALL OF FFXIV”Final Fantasy XIV is now ten years old and, joyously, it shows no signs of stopping any time soon. For Final Fantasy fans like myself (as well as a lot of the PC Gamer crew), we’re living our questing, raiding, and chocobo-riding dreams.And, with FFXIV’s epic new expansion, Dawntrail, dropping in summer 2024, PC gamers are about to be welcomed to explore an entire new world. With new lands, cities, jobs, dungeons, threats, gear, activities and more on offer, there’s never been a better time to heed the call of FFXIV.robert.jones@futurenet.comROBERT JONESTwitter@rnicholasjThis monthDecided that retiring to the French countryside with Final Fantasy XIII heroine Lightning sounds pretty darn good. Chardonnay, Camembert, chocobos… what’s not to like?TALK TO PC GAMERHave your say!Email us at letters@pcgamer.com…1 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|June 2024MANOR LORDSAh, the life of a medieval central-European peasant. Untroubled by the taste of Doritos or the mental anguish over whether to buy a Steam Deck or not, their only cares in life were where their pigs had got to and the constant threat of dying in a thousand imaginatively grisly ways.No wonder they’re such great fodder for videogames. Manor Lords contains many such peasants, doing wholesome things such as plowing with oxen and planing trees down into timber, but also features spearmen, disease and the leading cause of death among the common people of the time: lords of the manor.Despite its developer’s inspiration from actual historical events, Manor Lords isn’t set in any particular time period. And in contrast to a certain other game in this magazine’s preview section this…7 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|June 2024PLANE ACCIDENTFirst-person games tend to hand you a shotgun then send you off in search of someone to unload it into, so it’s a refreshing change to play a game in which the most dangerous thing you’ll be waving around is a cordless drill (and you’ll need some batteries for that too).Plane Accident is not a game about causing a jumbo jet to plummet from around 30,000ft, but instead casts you as an investigator, first on the scene following a crash and responsible for working out what happened using drones, email, and little flags that mark the location of debris.The tutorial mission is entirely set in a warehouse, with all the parts and items you’ll need in easy reach, but once you’ve sniffed out the reason this plane crashed (it looks…3 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|June 2024SPELLROGUESpellRogue is a roguelike that makes you feel like a genius. As you pick up spells you’ll start to create combinations that just feel too powerful and would surely have been nerfed if the developer had noticed. Then, after a while, you’ll realize this is exactly what they wanted you to do.Best described as Slay the Spire but with dice, SpellRogue is less about building a big deck of spells and more about making the most of your limited options. You’ll start out a run with three base spells and can add up to four more. You’ll have access to all seven spells every turn, but you will need to roll some dice and get some luck to use them. Some require specific numbers whereas others just require a numerical…3 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|June 2024NEW HORIZONSNEW DUNGEONSMystery Dungeon #1These don’t have names yet, and I won’t attempt to invent one. It’s very lush and tropical though, with caves and rivers ripe for exploration.Mystery Dungeon #2Much colder compared to #1, with giant purple crystals and a strange aura. It looks like there’s a fortress higher up, too. Mysterious.NEW AREASTuliyollalYok Tural’s seaside town with some gorgeous South American-inspired architecture.Solution NineA futuristic town lined with neon lights and towering glass skyscrapers, located in Xak Tural.Yak T’ElA plush zone, home of the Xbr’aal group of Hrothgar and the Mamool Ja.ShaaloaniAn arid zone, giving big old-school desert vibes complete with mine railroads.NEW JOBSPictomancerWhat if Banksy was a catboy? Pictomancer trades a sword for a giant paintbrush that can be used to draw pictures of elements and beasts to bring down…1 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|June 2024TRAILER ANALYSISHATCHING A PLAN1 The trailer opens with a shot of a withered arm dangling from a cracked, round egg. This is Miquella’s cocoon. Found in Mohgwyn palace deep beneath Caelid, it’s through this cocoon players will access the Land of Shadow.ON THE TRAIL2 This area with the graves was shown in the key art, with Miquella riding on horseback. The fact that the Tarnished rides through the same area demonstrates that players will quite literally be following Miquella’s trail.BOUGH TO YOUR MASTER3 The tree looming over the Land of Shadow does not appear to be the Erdtree. Interestingly, Miquella’s Haligtree has a similar split trunk, although one of the splits is broken when the player visits the Haligtree in Elden Ring. The veils above the tree, meanwhile, are similar to…2 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|June 2024Lore of the RingElden Ring unspools its story in a way much like other FromSoftware games, using item descriptions, visual references, and enigmatic dialog to communicate a fragmentary narrative to the player. But like the game’s giant, omnipresent Erdtree, Elden Ring’s story has a clear presence above the surface, while its roots are knotty, and hard to unpick.On the surface, Elden Ring presents as a typical fantasy quest to reforge the Elden Ring and restore the Lands Between to their former glory, as ordained by the Erdtree’s faithful Golden Order. But as you’d expect from a story coauthored by Hidetaka Miyazaki and George RR Martin, all is not necessarily as it seems. As you travel across the land, you encounter multiple different factions, each with their own aspirations for power and the fate…2 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|June 2024DEATH FROM ABOVEORBITAL STRIKEA brute-force earth scorcher from above, useful for taking out buildings as well as hostiles. Can also be used to coat an area in smoke or toxic gas.EAGLEA jet fighter is always ready to perform a deadly fly-by, hammering the ground with bullets or bombs as it goes. Steer well clear as it approaches.AUTOMATED TURRETA great choice when you’re defending a position, thinning out crowds. It will only fire at enemies, but tough luck if you get in the way.MINESA pod scatters these around an area, and each one is visibly marked with a red light. That doesn’t mean you’ll always notice in the heat of battle, though.HEAVY WEAPONSFrom machine-guns to laser cannons and beyond, you’ll need these to back up your standard kit. The largest models require assistance…1 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|June 2024MIDNIGHT POWERPersona 3 Reload isn’t just a re-release or hi-res tune-up of the 2006 turn-based classic Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3. It’s a true remake, with nearly every aspect of the game other than the story changing in subtle or major ways. What feels like thousands of voiceover lines, impressive new persona animations, sharp graphic design and some nifty quality of life features give Persona 3’s solid story a high 2024 shine.Sixteen years ago, Persona 3 was a landmark release for RPGs. The way it combined a sim-style RPG about high school life with a dungeon crawler including both Pokémon and roguelike elements gave it lots of depth.Which is also a way to say that Persona 3 Reload is long. Really, really long. Enormously long. You’re playing for a full year,…8 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|June 2024SLUDGE LIFENo one puts as much effort into a game’s presentation as Locomalito, developer of sidescrolling shmup Super Hydorah, and other games with a distinctly arcade sensibility. These are new games that look like retro rereleases, complete with hi-res screen borders, CRT filters and even box art to print out at home.That’s not to say the attention to detail is lacking in-game, as these feel like games that could have been unearthed from a ’90s time capsule. Toxic Tomb resembles a Master System game, with its looping, one-room stages and simple premise.You play as a demon trying to save a power plant, by killing the ghouls that have set up shop in its reactors—er, forget what I just said about that simple premise. But it’s just an excuse to fill stages…1 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|June 2024KRULLLast this month is Castle Crashers, a game that sounds like a medieval reality TV pitch, looks like a banned cartoon Network show, and plays like a night terror after watching Krull too many times. Which, as it happens, was the inspiration for this month’s They’re Back.You could take away all the game’s flourishes and it would still basically be brilliant: a fast, chaotic, multiplayer action game that feels lovely to play. Enemies are numerous and varied. Weapons have a satisfying ‘thwomp’. But everything here is layered with the kind of mad creativity that’s almost humiliating for other games. That cool idea you had for an industrialized medieval stronghold? That’s a throwaway design in level 19. Your boss is a weird giant river cat? Cool. Castle Crashers already did it.…1 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|June 2024“Clearly having the best superhero studio on the planet wasn’t enough”After 15 hours with Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, I rolled credits. And in many ways, I regret those hours. By now there’s a good chance you will have heard about the polarizing reception to the new third-person action-adventure shooter, where Harley Quinn, Deadshot, Captain Boomerang and King Shark go head-to-head with Superman, Batman and co.As someone who is increasingly trying to spend less time online, it’s been a little difficult to not get sucked into the ‘dead on arrival’ narrative that has plagued the game months before release, yet I went in hopeful.This is Rocksteady after all—the studio that brought superhero games into the 21st century. And the Batman Arkham games have stood the test of time. Seriously! Check out Arkham Knight. It’s gorgeous! There has to be…2 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|June 2024RAINBOW SIX SIEGERainbow, the crack team of military operators, has a long and storied history defending the world from evil in Tom Clancy’s universe, but now Rainbow Six Siege is shaking things up by throwing one of their nemeses to the playable roster with the release of Operation Deadly Omen.While not technically a member of Rainbow, Deimos is the latest playable operator added to Siege in the Year 9 Season 1 update, and for anyone who has followed Siege lore of the years he will be a familiar face. Having long been the nemesis of Rainbow, the group has finally captured Deimos and while he hasn’t been welcomed back into the team he left years ago, he is now playable operator nonetheless.Deimos is a two-speed, two-health attack operator who can track your…4 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|June 2024SEARCHING FOR LOST PIRATE TREASURE INSTARFIELDPART 3The Last Nova. A dark, dingy bar where lowlifes, mercenaries and those pledged to The Crimson Fleet come to drink away their miseries. Scarlet red engulfs the entire room, suggesting that the pirate faction doesn’t dare use any other color for fear of treachery, or some other psychotic reason that I’m sure a therapist could make thousands from. Some generic metal music plays in the background, shouting barely distinguishable words. In the middle of all of this is Jett Johnson who necks the remnants of his whiskey. That was his seventh glass, and probably won’t be his last. A lot has happened. There’s no turning back now.Rewinding to the moment we previously left off, our leading man had just successfully infiltrated the Crimson Fleet on behalf of the UC System…9 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|June 2024BUYER’S REMORSENEW GUNSJust a little bit exciting, but aren’t unique weapon variants something you could have just included in the game, maybe organically integrated with how you progress? I’d rather kill a boss for these than pay Square Enix six real-life bucks.PRAXIS KITSFree level ups, basically. You get a ton by just, you know, playing the game? It’s an RPG, man, you don’t have to spend more money just for your abilities. I didn’t even notice that I got five freebies on reserve with my GOTY edition and I’ve still had plenty.MONEYQuite possibly the most insulting of all: ten bucks of real world legal tender you could spend on sustenance or gifts for your loved ones nets you 15,000 credits in a game where I’ve had more resources than I’ve ever…1 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|June 2024RTX 40-SERIES SUPER GPUsThree new graphics cards in the same month—what a super way to kick off spring. These three new ‘Super’ graphics cards are a chance for the green team to tinker with core counts, buses and budgets to appeal to our PC gaming sensibilities, and I’m pleased to say this lot are a lot more appealing than the last.Each Super graphics card carries more cores than the non-Super variant of the same name, and that’s about the extent of the improvements for the RTX 4070 Super. However, the RTX 4070 Ti Super comes with an entirely different GPU to the RTX 4070 Ti.RTX 4080NVIDIA $1,200Much maligned1 The RTX 4080 was launched in November, 2022 and for most of the time since I, and many others, have been hoping for a price…7 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|June 2024STANDING ORDERFIFTEEN MINUTES OF SLOW WALKING 63 CALORIESIn the time if takes to stroll down to the bodega and back, you’ve burned as many calories than a full day of standing.SEVEN MINUTES OF RESISTANCE TRAINING 56 CALORIESMore plates, more dates. Suns out, guns out. All these rhymes will suddenly seem hilarious to you when you start lifting.TEN MINUTES’ ROWING 68 CALORIESNobody likes rowing, even the Olympic team probably have mornings when they don’t fancy it. But it involves a lot of muscles and it’s good for heart health.THREE MINUTES’ SKIPPING 68 CALORIESOr ‘jumping rope’ if the word ‘skipping’ feels a bit too friendly and comfortable for what’s actually one of the most efficient calorie-burning exercises possible.…1 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|June 2024BUDGET BUILDMOTHERBOARDB660M Pro RSASRock $100This is as cheap as we want to go while still offering room for expansion and upgrades down the line.PROCESSORCore i5 13400FIntel $208Intel’s added four more cores to its entry-level Core i5 and it’s become even more fantastic value.GRAPHICS CARDGeForce RTX 4060Nvidia $300The cheapest way to score Nvidia’s latest gaming architecture and DLSS 3 support.COOLERLaminar RM1 (included with CPU)Intel FreeThere’s room for an upgrade here, but on a budget the included CPU will work just fine.MEMORYT-Force Vulkan Z 16GBTeamgroup $33Goodbye 8GB, hello 16GB of speedy DDR4-3200.POWER SUPPLYPure Power 12 M 550WBe Quiet! $95We have to run a 550W PSU for the RTX 4060, as per Nvidia’s recommendations.SSDWD Black SN770 500GBWestern Digital $33It’s finally time to ditch SATA and go for an NVMe drive even in a budget…1 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|June 2024ADVANCED BUILDMOTHERBOARDMEG X670E AceMSI $699There are cheaper X670 boards than this, but we’re going extreme and this is one of the most fully featured around.PROCESSORRyzen 9 7950X3DAMD $682AMD’s 3D stacked chips are awesome for gaming, thanks to heaps of cache. This Ryzen 9 is the best of the bunchGRAPHICS CARDGeForce RTX 4090 Founders EdNvidia $1,660The RTX 4090 is immense, in every way. The performance it offers is unmatched by any GPU out there.COOLERKraken X63NZXT $170One of the most stunning AIO coolers rebuilt with an updated pump, LGA 1700 bracket, and RGB lighting for more pizzazz.MEMORYTrident Z5 RGB 32GBG.Skill $110This is a new memory standard for a new era of memory speed. DDR5 is blisteringly and fantastically quick.POWER SUPPLYPrime TX-1000Seasonic $310An ATX 3.0 PSU would also be good here, but we’ve tested…2 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|June 2024The PC Gamer teamTYLER COLPTwitter@tylercolpThis monthVisited a haunted moon with a couple of buds. Got torn apart by space bees. Plus ça change.LAUREN MORTONTwitter@ComradeCupcake_This monthWatched video clips of Studio Ghibli food scenes on loop. Missed many, many deadlines.SEAN MARTINTwitter@RemainsToBeSeanThis monthSet up an underground fight club for Palworld fans. The only rule of Palworld fight club is…TED LITCHFIELDTwitter@DORFpatrolThis monthMused on if he should augment himself with robot arms. Decided he’s too hench already.…1 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|June 2024BIG DECK ENERGYAs a poker fan I’m always on the lookout for a new poker game. I’m especially keen to find games that use poker in interesting new ways, like RPG We Slay Monsters or roguelike Poker Quest, both of which use poker hands as their combat system. So, when poker-inspired roguelike deckbuilder Balatro came along I was eager to talk to its developer—not just about the game, but also what I assumed would be our shared love of poker.“It’s funny, I don’t play poker at all,” says LocalThunk, solo developer of Balatro. That is pretty funny, actually, because Balatro has, well, quite a lot of poker in it. You begin with a standard deck of 52 playing cards, you make poker hands like straights, flushes and full houses to score chips,…5 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|June 2024BREACHWAYThe thing about roguelike card battlers is you wait around forever… no, that’s not it. The thing about roguelike card-battlers is that they are legion, just keep coming, and absolutely will not stop. Breachway takes the genre, which is often rooted in fantasy, into space for a science-fiction twist on the Slay the Spire formula.Sent out in a small ship to investigate some wreckage, armed with a laser cutter and a shield, you try to sneak through patrols by turning off your reactor and going dark. Of course this doesn’t work, so the power gets turned back on and you start slashing your beam at any pirates foolish enough to approach.In the wrecked spaceship is something valuable but forbidden, possession of which will bring the system authorities down on your…3 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|June 2024AGE OF MYTHOLOGY: RETOLDThe upcoming Age of Mythology: Retold has just shown off its signature mythological monsters in detail, including the terrible Medusas, the flying Pegasus scout, and the titan Cerberus, and I’ve got to say the monsters are dang good looking.These visually punchy new models are part of the overall effort to make Age of Mythology: Retold a real upgrade from the original 2002 game, including changes to the models as you upgrade through the ages—though they come complete with a stack of classic sounds and twists on the old animations. The Medusa death sound is just as I remember it.That’s just what Age of Mythology: Retold producer Earnest Yuen had to say when I spoke with him about the remake, which will release this year on PC and Xbox. Yuen has…3 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|June 2024A NEW DAWNIt’s been a wonderful decade of adventuring for our Warriors of Light, but Final Fantasy XIV isn’t done with us just yet. While Endwalker wrapped up the Hydaelyn-Zodiark storyline, Square Enix has flung the door wide open on a whole new adventure in upcoming expansion Dawntrail.It’s an exciting new arc that’s awaiting us, one which director and producer Naoki Yoshida described as “the very best summer vacation” during last year’s Las Vegas Fan Festival. I’m sure it’ll be a muchneeded pivot from the world-ending doom and gloom the Warrior of Light has dealt with for the last few years, and I’m dying to know more about just what Dawntrail will bring. Thankfully, I was able to have a chat with Yoshi-P—the nickname Yoshida is more widely known by—to see what’s…9 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|June 2024A FRESH UPDATEUNOBSTRUCTED EYEGLASSESNo more choosing between a hat or some nice specs. Dawntrail is giving equippable glasses their own slot so you can both see and look stylish.TIME TO STRATEGISEStrategy Boards are coming to Dawntrail, offering a much nicer way to demonstrate mechanics and positionals. The UI is still in the works, but what we’ve seen looks like it’s gonna be helpful.MORE DYE SLOTSTake a dye slot, double it, and bam, you got two. Dawntrail will have two dye channels for a ton of its gear, letting you experiment with more color schemes and create unique palettes.PIXEL FACELIFTDawntrail will start to trickle in a larger graphical upgrade. Things like shadows and lighting will be given a nice revamp too, giving the decade-old MMO a shiny new coat of paint.…1 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|June 2024Land of open gloryWhy we love FromSoftware’s colossal RPG ELDEN RINGExploration has always been a part of FromSoftware’s games, but Elden Ring puts pushing toward the horizon at the front and center of its design. Like most of the studio’s games, Elden Ring’s key areas are guarded by brutally tough bosses. But Elden Ring doesn’t expect you to beat them through pure skill or grinding attrition. Instead, the emphasis is on tracking down the tools that will help you overcome the challenge and gradually accrue power.To this end, FromSoft builds a world that seeps adventure from every crag and crevice. Crucially though, The Lands Between aren’t simply large and beautiful. Since the days of Demon’s Souls, FromSoftware has exhibited a knack for infusing the familiar with the strange, beauty with horror, grandeur with…1 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|June 2024Colossal encountersLike all FromSoftware games, Elden Ring has a fantastic array of boss fights. But its much broader scope also facilitates some battles of truly epic scale. Some of the key boss fights are properly massive affairs. Most notable is your duel with Starscourge Radahn on the dunes at the fringes of Caelid, although the confrontation with Rykard, Lord of Blasphemy is similarly spectacular, if less challenging. The battle against the Fire Giant high up in the mountains also falls into this category, although this is generally regarded as one of the weaker boss fights in Elden Ring.Nonetheless, many such encounters also happen while wandering around the world itself. The Lands Between are watched over by towering golems, whose ponderous movements and powerful attacks are clearly inspired by 2005’s Shadow of…1 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|June 2024LOST ARCLara Croft may need no introduction, but her first three artifact-swiping, wildlife-bothering, lever-pulling adventures were in real danger of becoming exactly the sort of forgotten relics she hunts for. Tomb Raider I-III Remastered hauls this trio of excellent action-adventure-puzzle hybrids and their original expansions—foundational examples of a style of game we’re still enjoying today—back into action. This is the definitive version of these games, feeling both 25+ years old and also brand new at the same time.Tomb Raider I-III Remastered runs fantastically: whether played on PC or Steam Deck, it scales to whatever my current display’s maximum resolution is without effort or fuss. No matter how long I played or how many times I jumped between games, saves, or hardware, it never did anything other than work exactly as intended.The…4 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|June 2024BUG HUNTPicture the scene: four soldiers make a desperate scramble for their dropship on an alien planet, pursued by enormous, dagger-clawed bugs. Machine-gun fire rattles, green goo erupts, the landing pad teems with beasts as the quartet piles through the boarding hatch and their ride blasts off at the last available second. It could be a Hollywood action sequence, but in Helldivers 2 it’s merely the end of another mission.Indeed, it’s amazing just how often a Helldivers 2 sortie climaxes in screaming, skin-of-the-teeth heroics. And it remains exciting time after time, because that Hollywood ending is never guaranteed. Maybe you get tagged yards from completing your great escape. Maybe by a spray of bullets from a wheeling teammate. Maybe the group’s impossibly overrun, yet one of you somehow dives home and…8 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|June 2024PEAK PRECISIONWhat a joy it is to be back in Celeste’s world, with its distinctive colour palette and chiptunes to warm your bones on its snow-covered mountain. Celeste 64 isn’t a sequel, but a small game made in celebration of its sixth anniversary. Collect strawberries in an intricate platforming level, while suffering a heroic number of deaths. Same as it ever was, but with one key difference: it’s now in 3D.It’s an alarming shift from the previous game, which is one of the most exquisite and precise 2D platformers yet made. When you failed to pass Celeste’s devious platforming challenges, you could only blame yourself. Likewise, when you succeeded, it was all down to you. It felt so good to jump and dash across its two-dimensional planes that the thought of…3 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|June 2024SKYHOLD PLEASEDiving back into the lore-heavy opening of Dragon Age: Inquisition should be overwhelming. In the first few minutes, the game makes reference to mages, Templars, the Chantry, the Divine Justinia and more. It’s easy to share the bewildered confusion of your character. And perhaps, more than this, it makes me realize that I was always fuzzy on the specifics of BioWare’s grand, high fantasy world.In this respect, the nine-year gap since release doesn’t really make much difference. I had, apparently, forgotten everything about Thedas anyway. This, in some ways, is a positive; there’s a sense that these byzantine, arcane institutions have existed for millennia, long before I ever started making informed beard selections in the Inquisition character creator. The fact that the specifics are lost on me is actually pretty…2 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|June 2024“It probably sounds like madness playing this in bed on my Steam Deck”Since it launched on PC back in early 2021, I have made a few valiant attempts to get stuck into Nioh 2, each of them ending in the same way: exasperation and failure. And here I am trying very hard to git gud.Endurance rather than skill is what gets me through soulslikes. My reflexes are sluggish at best, and anyone who’s ever fought me in Mortal Kombat knows that I quickly forget about the existence of a block button. That’s why I usually go for a build that can take a beating, or in the case of Elden Ring, a magic build that can demolish foes with meteors. But mostly I just smash my head against the wall until the credits roll.Nioh 2, though, as well as being a punishing…3 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|June 2024“Not content with draining Earth’s oceans, they’ve taken the clouds too”While avoiding doing any actual work one day, I stumbled upon something magnificently fiddly and nerdy that can work to improve the way older games look—as long as you have the right hardware. Nvidia has released a beta version of its RTX Remix tech, which uses the RT and Tensor cores in your GeForce RTX graphics cards (sorry, everyone else) to intercept the graphics pipeline of compatible games, upscale the textures and inject ray-traced lighting.At least, that’s the idea. You can find a list of working titles in places like Reddit and ModDB, and I was looking through it when one name caught my eye: Splinter Cell. Oh hell yeah. This game, released in 2002 when the GeForce 4 was all the rage, was notable for putting graphics cards through…2 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|June 2024PALWORLDJust in case you stepped away from your computer, and Twitch, and TikTok, and the entire internet for the past couple of months, here’s a news flash: Palworld is a bona-fide hit. The Early Access co-op survival game that combines Pokémon-ish creature-collecting with lots of guns and base-building is massive. Within a few days of its Early Access launch it drew millions of players and became the number one game on Steam. People just want to catch ’em all: Pals, that is.And as with any big game, along with the players come a ton of modders. Whether you’re playing solo or with friends on a server, you might be looking for some ways to tweak Palworld by changing your stats, modifying your critters, playing with the rules, or just plain…5 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|June 2024COOKING IN KYNSEEDThere’s a long-time understanding that Japanese anime has an intense love of food. Clips from Studio Ghibli movies make the rounds on social media, where fans gush over the care taken to animate sizzling shrimp, scrambling eggs, or slicing vegetables.Videogames, even those entirely about simulating cooking, don’t often incite the same fascination. Games like Venba make food beautiful while party games like Cooking Mama turn the kitchen into a series of minigames, but it’s the weird intergenerational RPG Kynseed that’s assembled the perfect spread of beautiful and interactive cooking that I can’t stop thinking about.Kynseed’s pixel-art style is a key piece of the recipe. The intricately detailed sprite designs are lovely in every area, but in my homestead kitchen specifically it comes out in the grain of a wood spoon,…4 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|June 2024SMART HACKSECURITY CAMERASOf course you’re going to want to knock these puppies out. Complicated by Smart Hack only working on them temporarily, it’s still plenty of time to make it to a terminal and disable them completely.AWNINGSYou can use awnings in Prague and these weird, futuristic windows in Golem City as platforms to reach secret paths or break into people’s apartments. Pairs well with the boost jump aug.SHUTTERSCrack open people’s windows so you can steal their armor piercing ammo and EMP grenades. When God locks a door with a level 5 hack-proof terminal, Adam Jensen will just open a window.…1 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|June 2024GOING DEEPERIt’s been around for long enough now that we take it for granted. A new game comes out, dripping in graphics, and occasionally when we run it at 4K it dips to an unplayable 58fps. So we go into the video options, turn the ‘DLSS’ option on, and get back on with walking through neon-lit streets in our game.But DLSS is worth paying closer attention to. This tech is indistinguishable from magic. It’s upscaling our games in real time, at the point that the frame is being rendered by the GPU. It’s able not just to take a 1080p image and produce a very convincing 4K version that doesn’t eat up resources, but also to interpolate between rendered frames for a smoother visual experience and a higher overall framerate. Without…5 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|June 2024MID-RANGE BUILDMOTHERBOARDB660M Mortar WiFiMSI $160This MSI board delivers everything we need in a compact package and allows us to use much cheaper DDR4 memory.PROCESSORCore i5 13400FIntel $208Yes, this is the same CPU as the budget build. It’s simply too good value to miss and perfect for high fps gaming.GRAPHICS CARDRX 7700 XTAMD $449If you can spare the extra cash, the RX 7800 XT is a tantalising upgrade. Nevertheless, we’ll opt for AMD’s cheaper card.COOLERLaminar RM1 (included with CPU)Intel FreeIntel bundles a redesigned CPU cooler with some 13th Gen processors. This little chip chiller will serve us well for a whileMEMORYVengeance LPX 16GB DDR4-3200Corsair $40With plenty of capacity at 16GB, this unembellished memory has everything you need for gaming and more.POWER SUPPLYPure Power 12 M 650WBe Quiet! $105This larger Be Quiet! PSU…2 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|June 2024BLAME JOELHelldivers 2’s galactic war is much more than a mission selector. In a short time, players have become invested in the status of their favorite planets and reacted to gains and losses in a sector’s liberation. The simulated conflict has become an unexpected focal point of the Helldivers 2 experience.Unexpected to players, that is. To developer Arrowhead Game Studios, the war is a product of planning and storytelling by a specific behind-the-scenes individual pulling the strings: what Arrowhead CEO Johan Pilestedt described to PC Gamer as Helldivers 2’s ‘dungeon master’.“We have an actual person with the job title of game master,” Pilestedt told PC Gamer in an exclusive interview. His name is Joel, and he takes his job very seriously. “We have a lot of systems built into the game…2 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|June 2024DIFFICULTY CURVESBefore entering game development, John Dennis was “an art teacher who really didn’t enjoy teaching!” as he puts it. A friend who was working at Team 17 encouraged him to apply for a game designer job there, which, after some hesitation, he did. “I was the first game designer they’d had.”Though at the beginning he wasn’t sure precisely what a game designer did, he was clearly a quick learner. He stayed at Team 17 for 15 years, and had advanced to the level of head of design, leading a team of 14, by the time he left. After a few years at Activision, he moved on to working with New Star Games and Five Aces, where he’s been for the past ten years.The game he worked on for Activision was…3 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|June 2024DUNGEONBORNEDungeonborne came out of nowhere to be the surprise hit of Steam Next Fest. A medieval fantasy extraction dungeon crawler that is effectively Escape From Tarkov but with swords and skeletons, it is difficult not to love. It also isn’t difficult to figure out where its inspiration came from.You’d easily be forgiven for thinking you’ve seen Dungeonborne in action before. Despite only breaking cover as Steam Next Fest kicked off, it will feel instantly familiar to anyone who is aware of Dark and Darker, the similar game that blew up last year only to be bogged down by legal battles. From the setting to visual style and of course, the main gameplay loop, almost everything in Dungeonborne feels like it has been taken straight out of Dark and Darker and…7 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|June 2024KINGMAKERSThe first 22 seconds of a game trailer can tell you a lot. They set the scene, perhaps flash some publisher or engine logos, and establish the setting of the game in an easily digestible way. In Kingmakers’ trailer, we see armored warriors clash on the field of battle.Aha, you think. I know what this game is all about. With Manor Lords also donning its armor and hefting its sword in this issue, it might be forgivable to think that PC Gamer has been taken over by fans of medieval warfare. And while that might actually be true, following the siege of PC Gamer Towers in 2020 that saw nasty trebuchet injuries all round, it’s the 23rd second of the trailer that shows Kingmakers isn’t plowing the same ridge and…3 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|June 2024FINAL, FINAL, FANTASY, FANTASYRETURN TO IVALICE: STORMBLOODThese Final Fantasy XII-themed alliance raids are fun. Sure, one of the bosses tortures you with maths, but the fights and visuals are still unrivaled.SIGMASCAPE 4.0: STORMBLOODFinal Fantasy VI’s Kefka remains the coolest series villain, so it’s no surprise he makes an appearance. He even gets a rearranged version of his theme, Dancing Mad.BARBARICCIA: ENDWALKEROne of the many FFIV references in Endwalker, Barbarricia has a fantastic modern design and a fun hair-filled and windy fight to go along with it.THE MANDERVILLE GOLD SAUCER: A REALM REBORNYou can’t do Final Fantasy references without FFVII, and what better way to honor the game than with its giant casino complete with minigames?…1 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|June 2024BRANCH OUTYou might well ask why Elden Ring needs an expansion. FromSoftware’s brilliant fantasy RPG is already colossal in its scope and depth—several orders of magnitude larger than any game that preceded it. Yet any longtime fan of FromSoft’s work would have a quick and definitive answer—expansions are where the studio typically does its best work. From Dark Souls’ Artorias of the Abyss to Bloodborne’s The Old Hunters, FromSoft’s expansions see its games at their most vivid, intense and strange. More than simple continuations of the base, FromSoft’s expansions are often surrealist side adventures that fold back into the main narrative in surprising, yet essential ways.Much like the base game, Shadow of the Erdtree aims to be exactly that, only more so. Following two years of silence, FromSoftware has finally broken…5 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|June 2024Jolly cooperationElden Ring is a largely solitary experience. But that makes its fleeting moments of connection all the more precious. Encountering fellow adventurers like Blaidd and Alexander, Warrior Jar offer welcome moments of companionship in a land that is generally hostile. FromSoftware has a knack for building relationships with such characters in a few lines of dialog, although it helps that Elden Ring lets you summon these friends into numerous boss encounters. Indeed, Elden Ring has one of the best cooperative fights in the whole FromSoft canon, with the festival of Radahn letting you bring all your pals for a collective slugfest against Elden Ring’s cosmic general.Of course, it isn’t only NPCs who can help you in a fight. Elden Ring includes FromSoft’s unique approach to multiplayer, which lets you summon…1 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|June 2024This time, it’s personalElden Ring is generally regarded as the most accessible of FromSoftware’s games, but it would be more precise to say that it is the most flexible. Its emphasis on rewarding exploration also gives it the widest scope for character building, and FromSoftware go to great lengths to ensure all pathways to victory are equally rewarding.In particular, Elden Ring is easily the most enjoyable FromSoftware game to play with a magic user build. The game’s voluminous spell book includes some truly astonishing sorceries, such as Comet Azur and Rennala’s Full Moon, both of which let you launch celestial objects at your foes. Putting points into the Faith stat likewise unlocks a massive library of incantations, letting you wield the powers of dragons, or embrace the Frenzied Flame to defeat enemies by…1 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|June 2024ARR-RIGHTThe appeal of Skull and Bones is laser focused. It’s about being on a boat. You have to want the fantasy of sailing big pirate boats and you need to not want much else for your time and money. You may come wanting to live the fantasy of being a ruthless waterborne pilferer, but to live that fantasy you first need to love sailing a boat in the direction of crafting materials.In Skull and Bones you’re allowed to get off your boat, but only to interact with vendors, mission-givers, perhaps a buried treasure chest. In the vast island-dotted expanse of the Indian Ocean there are two major pirate settlements where blacksmiths, carpenters, refiners, and most contracts (missions) are doled out, both for the main quest and its endgame component.There’s also…8 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|June 2024STRAIGHT FLUSHImagine the rush of winning at a high-stakes poker table. Now imagine you’re winning because you’re cheating so blatantly that you might as well be drawing your own numbers on the cards. You put down a 2, then another 2, then three more 2s, to make everyone’s favorite poker hand, 5 of a kind. This is a constant joy in Balatro, a roguelike deckbuilder that successfully scratches an itch to cheat in a casino that I never even knew I had.You start off with a deck of 52 traditional playing cards. Each round, you draw eight cards and can play four hands to try to score enough chips to beat the dealer’s score. Each playable hand has a set score and multiplier—eg a pair gives 10 points and a x2…4 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|June 2024SHOE-INBefore WASD and mouse-aiming became the norm, there were all sorts of crazy control schemes for first-person games, and in that light Neural Parasite’s isn’t too bizarre. You move with your feet—by which I mean you click on a pair of on-screen feet, alternately, to make your character walk.So that’s left click to step forwards, or right click to step backwards, clicking the left shoe then the right, well, you get the idea. To turn around, you click the arrows at the edges of the screen—it’s as if keyboards were never invented. I’m struggling to imagine a worse control scheme for a first-person shooter.Luckily, Neural Parasite isn’t an FPS. It’s a first-person survival horror, a genre where control awkwardness isn’t just expected, it’s almost celebrated. When Resident Evil ditched its…1 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|June 2024SIGMAR-A-LAGOThe Warhammer Fantasy world is a wretched place to live. Beastmen in the forests. Trolls in the rivers. Giant rats beneath you. And, if Mordheim is anything to go by, flaming comets in the skies above. Worse still, if you survive the impact event, roaming mercenaries or deranged cultists will probably finish you off.That’s the setup for this PC adaptation of Games Workshop’s cult tabletop game. In some ways, Mordheim is the raucous city break of the Warhammer world. But instead of cologne-drenched white orcs on a stag weekend in Budapest, this features devout Sigmarite warrior priestesses and skittering bands of skaven on the hunt for precious wyrdstone. You start off with a weakling bunch of pre-grizzled adventurers, who gradually become more capable as they brave the city’s cursed streets.…1 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|June 2024“I plunge my blade into his heart”I feel the rage rise within my body, my sensations heightened, my palms sweaty. These mangy curs are not going to take me down and, even if they do, I’m taking them into the darkness of the Void with me.I unleash a bolt from my crossbow into the belly of a guard trying to kill me, one who is milliseconds away from pulling the trigger of his pistol. The fleshy thud forces him to bend double, wincing in agony, but it’s not that which kills him, it’s my razor-sharp Folding Blade which, as I force the crumpling guard to his knees by crushing his right leg with my boot, takes his head clean off in a single stroke, his eyes blinking in disbelief.Blood sprays over the floor and wall as,…2 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|June 2024NEW RECRUITSSEASON 2The first operator rework of the year is to Recruit, who will hopefully become more than just the one you are forced to play as before you unlock the fun characters. Season 2 will also bring the launch of the Siege Marketplace where you can buy and sell skins.SEASON 3Another new Greek operator joins in Season 3 but we have no other details just yet. But We do know that the Siege Cup tournament, an in-game competition that offers big rewards to those who do well, will launch alongside a revamped versus AI mode.SEASON 4Rounding out the year is a rework to one of the American operators, as well as updates to cross-play. At the same time, a big anti-cheat update will launch that promises to instantly kick any…1 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|June 2024GET STARTED IN PALWORLDSETTING UP1 The first step in creating your perfect Palworld should be changing the Custom Settings as you start a new game. These can speed up leveling, help make combat easier, or reduce the absurd amount of time it takes to incubate Pal eggs.BASED SPOT2 Once you’ve arrived you’ll have to set up your first base to start building. You might not think much about this at first, but your base location is very important. Ideally, for long term viability, you want to be close to some of the shiny ore rocks, plus a fast travel point.CATCH ’EM ALL3 Now you’re ready to catch Pals. As in Pokémon, weakening Pals increases capture chance, so make sure to whack them a bit until their health is low. You can craft more…3 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|June 2024DEUS EX: MANKIND DIVIDEDI never played Deus Ex: Mankind Divided at launch. I’d just gotten a PC that could handle this 2016 GPU punisher (I’ll always love you, GTX 1080) when it first came out, but something stayed my hand. Some combination of Square Enix’s bombastic marketing, Eidos Montreal’s ham-fisted use of robot arms as an allegory for racism, and the creeping sense of doom at seeing a largely divergent, self-contained story presented as a ‘prequel’ start to butt against its fictional timeline constraints totally gave me the ick.In the years since, it’s become apparent that Eidos Montreal’s planned trilogy will likely never be concluded—we’re entering full reboot territory now, almost eight years later—and that’s only further discouraged me from diving back into the developer’s vision of the 2020s.After falling in love with…8 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|June 2024MUST PLAYDIABLO IVrb.gy/opjhiiEveryone has adopted a robot spider in Diablo IV’s latest season and, in addition to having it solo entire bosses, you can pet it. It’s like everyone is a Necromancer except this little minion is actually useful. Everyone knows that slaying demons with a pet rules.SUICIDE SQUAD: KILL THE JUSTICE LEAGUErb.gy/vpskxpThe Suicide Squad game isn’t as bad as its trailers made it look: barreling through Metropolis as each of the characters rules. The loot is forgettable, but swinging and catapulting with your buddies isn’t. Play this as a laid back co-op game.LETHAL COMPANYrb.gy/m8rgexMoon’s haunted, but you have a quota. This co-op horror game sends you and your friends planetside to find valuable items and horrible monsters. But hold on: this is a comedy game where you’re the punch line,…2 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|June 2024WHERE WERE YOU?CRYSISImagine pressing a button in the graphics options and watching your framerate double. We’d have been able to play it.BOILING POINTThe thing is, it wasn’t that bad. The pioneering shooter might actually have been playable, with AI’s help.GEOFF CRAMMOND’S GRAND PRIX 3Trying to gain the upper hand over drivers like Schumacher, Hakkinenn and Villeneuve at 10fps was not easy.METRO 20332010’s finest barely playable tech demo. The shooting was really meaty too, not that you could ever enjoy it at the time.…1 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|June 2024ALL RISEWe did a lot of things differently during the pandemic. Our trash went out more than we did. Socializing meant Zoom. Going for a 35-minute walk was an act of reckless abandon worthy of police intervention, bread flour was harder to come by than depleted uranium, and we all got very into our home working setups.Did you experiment with a standing desk in 2020? No, come on. There’s no shame in it. It was a different time. And anyway, I did. Terrified by the thought that my already sedentary lifestyle would be disrupted by a government-mandated period of remaining indoors and gleaning my only exercise through track running and walking, I panic-bought (among other crippling and regrettable expenses including a vast double freezer) a standing desk.This desk, I reasoned, would…4 min
