Year: 2024

This morning, several of the fine writers on PC Gamer (including myself) were staring at a store page description for Red Dead Redemption on the PlayStation website—trying to figure out just why we were looking at a proud, chest-puffed announcement of a PC port for Red Dead Redemption—a game that hasn’t seen a PC release since its debut back in 2010—because, well, it was on the store page for the PlayStation 4.

It’s been taken down now, but I luckily had the wherewithal to snap my own screenshot—mind, we were only looking at the dang thing because of quick-draw observers like the prolific, eagle-eyed industry tweeter Wario64. Still, unless we were experiencing a collective hallucination, I can absolutely confirm the store page read the following:

“Experience the epic western adventures that defined a generation—now on PC for the first time ever.” The not-announcement then goes on to describe the port as having both Red Dead Redemption’s baseline 2010 game, as well as the Undead Nightmare expansion.

“Featuring the complete single-player experiences of both games, including bonus content from the Game of the Year Edition, Red Dead Re…

Smooth out a rough Connections game with our help. There’s a clue for every colour on the September 25 (#106) board if you just need a little push, as well as all the answers you need to win today’s game in an instant. 

They’re always so obvious afterwards, aren’t they? I managed to home in on a pair of Connections today pretty quickly, but the other two felt like a real muddle while I was working through them. Thank goodness I could afford to make a few mistakes as I went.

NYT Connections hint today: Monday, September 25

Quickly cut down today’s board with these hints.

🟨🟨🟨🟨

Yellow: A blushing bride might be wearing or holding these items.

🟩🟩🟩🟩

Green: These are all words for substances, pleasant or otherwise, that completely smother an object.

🟦🟦🟦🟦

Blue: Every one of today’s blues is a famous Jack, real or otherwise. 

🟪🟪🟪🟪

Purple: Four popular social sharing sites have names ending in these words.

Don’t …

At Sony’s State of Play event on Wednesday, Sega debuted a trailer for Sonic X Shadow Generations, an updated version of 2011 platformer Sonic Generations. The original game starred Sonic, and also Sonic—the spikier 2000s hedgehog explored 3D levels, while the cuter and squatter ’90s mascot version of the character ran through 2.5D stages that were closer in style to the original trilogy of games. It seems to me this updated version should actually be called Sonic X Sonic X Shadow Generations, but unfortunately that’s not my call.

Here’s what Sega’s YouTube description has to say:

“Play as Shadow the Hedgehog in a brand-new story campaign featuring never-before-seen powers and abilities that prove why he’s known as the Ultimate Life Form!

“Sonic X Shadow Generations also includes a complete remaster of the classic hit Sonic Generations, featuring newly remastered versions of iconic 2D and 3D stages with upgraded visuals and new bonus content.”

The remaster is out this autumn. 

…

Low Tide City 2023 was a recent competitive event held over May 13-14 in Texas, and among the games being featured was Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. While Nintendo’s games have a certain cutesy reputation, which is not undeserved, it’s fair to say that the Smash Bros. competitive scene is where some bonkers stuff happens: People take Kirby’s fighting prowess incredibly seriously, and the scene is constantly arguing over one thing or another, with regular spats between players.

But one player took things too far, and woke a sleeping dragon. The young player Syrup was drawn against Enrique “Maister” Hernández in a match for Top 8. Maister won the match, on the way to a third place finish (and a gold in the doubles category), but after the win verbally disrespected his 15 year-old opponent. 

AITX esports player Jude “Jakal” Harris posted some DMs from another player describing the incident (thanks, Dexerto). It’s alleged that after the match Maister and Syrup fistbumped, after which Maister “told him ‘you fucking suck’ to his face.” Reaction within the Smash Bros. community to this was unanimously negative, with many pointing out Syrup’s age (“br…

Before he owned videogames growing up, FromSoftware president Hidetaka Miyazaki loved tabletop RPGs and their source books full of quests and monsters. It’s not hard to see that passion reflected in any of the games he’s designed at FromSoftware, but Elden Ring particularly so: Its sprawling map echoes the kinds I loved to pore over and draw myself (poorly) as a kid, from Lord of the Rings’ Middle-earth to Warcraft’s Azeroth. Elden Ring also seems to directly connect back to the RPGs of the ’80s with its skeleton-filled catacombs, like tabletop-style dungeons ripped straight from the pages of an AD&D campaign. 

“You might say that trying to capture the excitement of those old tabletop games and game books was one facet of making Elden Ring,” Miyazaki told me in a recent interview for expansion Shadow of the Erdtree. (You can read much more of it in our cover story, which is now live on the website).

I asked if he saw Elden Ring as an intentional extension of ’80s dungeon crawlers—the kinds of games that encouraged, if not demanded, players draw physical maps to chart their way. Despite being FromSoftware’s most approachable RPG, Elden Ring is still lig…

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World always seemed destined for an animated series, rather than the live-action adaptation we got—don’t get me wrong, I like Michael Cera’s awkward mien as much as the next guy, but the comic’s bombastic video-gamey style and expressive art always seemed like a natural fit for a cartoon. 

So imagine my delight when I heard it was getting the Netflix treatment in November last year. Now we’ve got more details—including a smashing little preview trailer that you can watch below—and I’m confident this series is going to fully realise the potential its 2010 movie adaptation missed. I’m only surprised it’s taken this long.

It’s got crunchy guitar solos, it’s got retro video game effects, it’s got some killer-looking action scenes—and I’m pretty much sold. It only took 19 years, but it seems like fans of the comic really are getting an animated series that does Scott Pilgrim justice.

What’s more, it’s going to be getting most of the movie’s main cast back together for a second run at their roles. This was revealed back in March, and re-affirmed by an official announcement by Netflix which accompanied the trailer yes…

SimCity 4 modders are making previously-unheard-of DLL plugins and mods due to recent advances, enabling changes of tweaks to how it runs that prior modders would have considered impossible. Over the past few months these types of deep, game-altering mods, previously restricted to just a couple famous examples, have proliferated into dozens of tweaks to quality of life and brand new game features.

These new mods are so revolutionary because they access SimCity 4’s DLL files, the library of binary files containing shared resources used across the entirety of SimCity 4. The biggest immediate impact is a mod enabling more building styles. That’s huge: SimCity 4 players have had four tilesets of buildings for 20 years. Now they can have a lot more. There are also a host of mundane fixes marching out. Stuff like improving game stability, enabling new resolutions, adding autosaves, or more directly access information from under the game’s hood about demand for building types.

The 21-year-old SimCity 4 Deluxe is considered by many to be the peak of city building games for simulating a rich, deep model of how cities operate. That preference for this specific game after all t…

The more time I’ve sat with my thoughts on Final Fantasy 14: Dawntrail’s story, the more it’s bothered me. Before I roll up some sleeves and tell you why, though, some housekeeping: I’m going to spoil the entire thing in this analysis, naturally.

In case you’ve never played Final Fantasy 14, though, and are just here to watch the fireworks of its current mixed reception from afar, you might be wondering why a middling story is such a problem in an MMORPG.

In a sense, you’re right to wonder. Despite my general dissatisfaction, I’m still having a blast in Dawntrail. I’ve been levelling my crafters and enjoying its new dungeons. The graphics update has allowed Square Enix’s Creative Studio 3 to go ham on some breathtaking environments making Tural a lovely place to spend time, and the new Arcadion raids have been an absolute riot.

My problems are angled purely towards the narrative, not the game I’ll be spending most of my time in. In that regard, Yoshi-P and his team have done some of their best work in years, and I think Dawntrail is going to be fondly remembered by many (myself included) if they keep up the pace.

FF14’s…

Two Point Studios has announced the release date of Two Point Museum, the next game in its Two Point series, as March 4, 2025. It’s now available for prepurchase as well, with a price of $30 for the standard edition and $40 for a deluxe explorer edition.

Following on the vein mined by Two Point Hospital and Two Point Campus, Two Point Museum will be a management game that puts you in charge of building specialized museums at locations around the fictional and very silly world of Two Point County. You’ll send out expeditions to find new two-point treasures that you’ll display in a museum you design, lay out, and run with guest tours, pricing, and staff assignments. You’ll also have to look out for thieves, and some of the museum exhibits are pretty dangerous to the guests—like carnivorous plants.

The explorer edition will include five days of advance access to the game, an exclusive map location, an exclusive pop-up challenge museum, a bonus rare exhibit when you start the game, extra exploration-themed cosmetics, and a bonus 5000 Kudosh, the in-game currency used to unlock customization options.

The extra popo-up musuem location is apparently an explora…

The big year-ender is here, as the 2023 Steam Winter Sale is now underway. And you know what that means: Deep discounts on thousands of games, free stickers, and the start of voting for the 2023 Steam Awards.

To get you off to a good start, be sure to dive into our roundup of recommended reductions, but first things first: Baldur’s Gate 3 is on sale for the first time ever, and I reckon that’s not a bad place to start. It’s not a huge discount, just 10% which drops the price to $54/£45/€54, but hey, it’s cheaper than it was. (And in case you somehow missed it, it’s a great game.)

A few others that I think are definitely worth your time:

• Jusant – $20/£18/€20 (20% off)
• System Shock – $26/£23/€26 (35% off)
• Shadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew – $32/£28/€32 (20% off)
• Chants of Sennaar – $16/£14/€16 (20% off)
• Atomic Heart – $30/£27.50/€30 (50% off)
• Prey – $3/£2.50/€3 (90% off, that’s a banger)

If browsing is your thing (and given the sheer …