PC Gamer (US Edition)

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One thing I love about PC gaming is the detail. Our beloved platform is the undisputed home of simulation—whether it’s modelling the complexities of an airplane cockpit, or the politics of a royal court. So how could I fail to be impressed by Sins of

One of Twitch’s most successful streamers has decided she’s just not that into it anymore. After a month-long break, Imane ‘Pokimane’ Anys announced she will stream less and will focus on posting non-gaming content on other social media platforms lik

Jason Allen entered a fine arts competition with a piece of art he’d used AI to create and took first prize. YouTuber DeanoBeano played Warzone using a recorder flute as a controller, and got headshots. Bethesda is helping Wolfenstein: Enemy Territor

In 2006, I got more headaches from The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion than I did from cramming for school exams. I played days upon days of Oblivion, but not on a PC—I was stuck on an Xbox 360, which was new and shiny but still barely capable of running

The gaming world was set abuzz on September 18 when, out of the blue, roughly an hour of footage from Grand Theft Auto VI was leaked onto the internet. There were 90 different clips in all, many only a few seconds long, showing early development foot

Broken Roads’ creative lead, Colin McComb, has a long history with CRPGs. He previously worked on Fallout 2, Planescape: Torment, and Wasteland 2. More recently he was creative lead on Planescape’s spiritual successor, Torment: Tides of Numenera. McC

Despite being enamored by what Souls games offer, I’ve never been one to dedicate the time and effort required to learn their intricacies. For Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn’s development team over at A44, they want to capture the fun and grit of a Sou

A senior environment artist currently helping to develop Rare’s Everwild, Kem Yaralioglu has also worked on other titles such as Kena: Bridge of Spirits and Rainbow Six Siege. The games are diverse, but the dedication and skill required always remain

The funny thing about Wildfrost is that, despite the unnatural ice and snow covering every inch of its fantasy world, it instantly feels warm and snug. Adorable, bouncy characters wrapped up in their fuzzy winter gear instantly make you feel at home—

Despite starring Basim, one of the major characters of Valhalla, the Assassin’s Creed game Mirage is most likely to remind you of is the very first one. That’s very much intentional—this scaled-down entry is here to take the series back to its roots.

I’m bouncing through a cyberspace portal, one of Sonic Frontiers ’ mini stages. Sonic’s erratic movement has caused me to slip off a rotating platform one time too many and I’m growing tired. Finally, the end. The only thing between me and the goal i

You know the bit before a big battle in Total War? Where you prep for the fight by repositioning your units, choosing your formations, and making everything nice and organized. The Great War: Western Front has this too. Only, the pre-battle phase rep

It’s almost a little too easy to become comfortable with Dredge. I’ve been sailing all night in my little fishing boat, Tetris-ing fish inside my inventory Resident Evil-style. I’m so engrossed I’ve failed to notice rocks snapping into existence and

When I first meet Mimi, she’s in her room at her grandmother’s house, inspecting her latest find—a cassette player fashioned into a tape recorder with the help of a microphone. With the press of a button, the point of view slips into first-person per

Even after seeing a 20-minute preview, I’m a little confused about what Hyenas is trying to be. It feels so far removed from Creative Assembly’s prior catalog, but here’s what I do know: it’s a PvPvE looter shooter that’s a little too desperate for y

For a lover of 4Xs who never quite got over the decline of real-time strategy, Sins of a Solar Empire was a panacea. It took most of what I adored about both strategy models and smooshed them together in an epic clash in space. It was a revelation th

RELEASED May 9, 2016 | DEVELOPER Paradox | PUBLISHER In-house After six years, several expansions, and dozens of patches, Paradox’s space 4X has aged like a fine alien wine. With a mind-boggling array of options to create anything from a profit-hungr

The infamously bewildering ending to 1991’s Monkey Island 2: LeChuck’s Revenge left players longing for resolution that subsequent Monkey Island games never delivered. Three decades later, and after effectively saying it would likely never happen, ke

Tattered wings carry the Unknown on infernal air currents through the Hells to ruin someone’s day. With no voice, the Unknown can’t scream. That’s why she’s forcibly remodelling the underworld in blood. A third eye helps the Unknown see through the R

The first time I ever listened to Swedish hardcore band Refused’s seminal 1998 album, The Shape of Punk to Come, my brain leaked out of my ears. It is a major reason why extreme music sounded like it did in the 2000s, the connective tissue between ge

The original Devil May Cry is one of the stranger developments in games. It started life as a Resident Evil title, but morphed into a pseudo-fighting-game complete with combos and flashy aerial attacks—and yet it kept the horror setting and fixed cam

Lute can project red or blue fields that make specific enemies vulnerable. But leave them active too long and she’ll vanish from the fight for a while. Fill this meter by executing combos without getting hit, to pull off Unity attacks or activate Rap

If last season in Formula One was all about the driving, this year it’s about the management. Gone are the days of Lewis and Max fighting bitterly for every inch of tarmac, sending each other off into runoff areas and exchanging the least sincere han

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Sunday Gold almost feels like a reshuffle of Final Fantasy VII. You’ve got the corporate overlord and his secret labs gutting an over-industrialized city, the rag-tag freedom fighters—complete with disaffected loner and bruiser lady with a heart of g

Recently, in this very publication, the call went out for the death of the Souls-like, and yes, maybe that particular seam is looking a bit mined out right now. Dreary Dark Souls has a spunky cousin, however, that was never released on PC (though rum

It should be impossible to like Moira Burton. At times, she feels she was brainstormed by a committee of 50-year-old men at Capcom. “She’s an ingénue. But she’s foul-mouthed! Also she wears hot pants.” However, by design or more likely by accident, s

Rounding off our list of torchlight-adjacent titles we have The Evil Within: a game that makes most other survival horror titles look like they were directed by François Truffaut. Shinji Mikami’s return to horror is so determined to shock and appall

The New Nightmare might have the most 2001 character descriptions in any game. Warlock-ass-looking private eye Edward Carnby’s distinguishing feature is that he “owns a double-barrelled gun”. It’s misleading, because The New Nightmare isn’t as stupid

THIS MONTH Progressed in a game by clicking on a boob. Sorry, mum. ALSO PLAYED MultiVersus, Legends of Runeterra The FMV footage in Immortality —the latest game from Her Story developer Sam Barlow—is mesmerizing. Covering three movies from distinct e

THIS MONTH Cruised Night City with my favourite chooms. ALSO PLAYED Foxhole, Hunt: Showdown The fall of 2020 was a bad time for me and open-world games. After being disappointed that Watch Dogs Legion wasn’t the game I wanted it to be, I hoped Cyberp

THIS MONTH Waiting patiently to get my gaming PC back. ALSO PLAYED IndestructoTank, N As problems go, not having access to a PC isn’t a huge one, but it’s certainly irritating. You see, I am currently in the process of moving house, and that means ha

THIS MONTH Blew the bloody doors off. ALSO PLAYED Destiny 2, Sniper Elite 5 Teardown’s opening mission pitches it as a relatively simple game about destruction. Sledgehammer in hand, you level a building—enjoying the simple thrill of voxel architectu

Reminiscent of the shareware FPSes of old, New Blood’s insanely fast retro revival shooter Ultrakill has been releasing episode by episode in Early Access. The game is an absurd, sci-fi, grimdark retelling of Dante’s Inferno, with bosses including th

You know your Half-Life 2 lore, right? The Combine invasion brought the Earth to its knees in a matter of hours, but then that pesky meddler G-Man took Gordon Freeman out of the dry cleaning bag in his interdimensional wardrobe and set him loose in C

1 Power level is all-important in Destiny 2. Equipping higher power gear will boost it, but before long you’ll stop seeing an increase in your drops. This means you’ve hit the cap, and only Powerful, then Pinnacle rewards will give gear of a higher l

Let’s start with a joke. A man visits a doctor acclaimed for his ability to treat melancholia. “I can’t eat, I can’t sleep, I can’t go to the toilet,” says the man. “Please help me.” The doctor thinks, then replies, “Laughter is the best medicine. Th

Are you looking for a thrilling INVESTMENT OPPORTUNITY? Look no further! This unconventional property, in need of significant updating throughout, is nestled in picturesque Willow Creek. The first floor provides a sizeable reception room along with a

Encountering a minigame typically inspires much groaning and huffing from yours truly. It doesn’t matter if it’s working out in the gym in Final Fantasy VII or hacking a vending machine in BioShock—I’m almost guaranteed to hate it. Mechanically simpl

The thing FC4’s editor had that made it special was the grappling hook. It brought my preposterous sky pirate missions to life, leaping between airships. The one that started it all. I loved using its RTS sandbox to create what were basically wonky i

I don’t care much for military simulators. Arma 3’s brutal pursuit of realism can forge tense missions and swift deaths but it’s typically bogged down in a dedication to military strategy more likely to please hobbyist dads with miniature tank collec

controlgame.com The developer behind Max Payne made a masterful game where you throw garbage at monsters in a non-euclidean government building as a woman who has seen enough. It’s a maze of moody hallways and meeting rooms from hell and yet nothing

A traditional, over-ear gaming headset is a fine thing when you’re sat at your desktop, chasing the peak aural quality that can only come from encircling your ear drums with the finest audio drivers. But when you’re sat in a cafe working on that scre

The hardware we amass and place upon snap-in thrones on our motherboards in the name of gaming framerates is absolutely incredible. Our graphics cards can turn over gazillions of teraFLOPS, our CPUs laugh in the face of 4K video codecs, and our mothe

This is a year to sit and think about how much things cost. Many of us are feeling the sharp end of the cost of living crisis this winter, trying to balance the books so that we can simultaneously sustain our passion for virtual worlds and fend off f

PC gaming is for everyone. Pick the parts you want to build a new, well-rounded PC for a good price. You want to run every new game at 1080p 60fps. This recommended build will see you through. You’re looking for the best PC on the market and superior

ASRock $120 This is as cheap as we want to go while still offering room for expansion and upgrades down the line. Intel $180 There’s no iGPU on this chip but it’s a little cheaper as a result, and will work great for this particular build. Nvidia $24

MSI $180 This MSI board delivers everything we need in a compact package and allows us to use much cheaper DDR4 memory. Intel $210 Intel’s 11th Gen was at its best on a budget, and that’s why this six-core/12-thread processor is a great fit for this

You don’t properly eject your USBs before you take them out? You know where you’re headed. Even in standby mode, it’s drawing power! How dare you leave it on all day. Just eat snacks with chopsticks. It’s the least you can do for your poor mouse and

MSI $400 This MSI motherboard offers a mix of high-end features, plentiful ports, and DDR5 support, without an extreme price tag. Intel $620 Intel’s Core i9 12900K represents Alder Lake’s finest chip, and it’s one hell of a processor for whatever you