Innholdsfortegnelse for April 2019 i PC Gamer

This month we’re celebrating two fantasy institutions. There’s the grimdark excess of Warhammer, courtesy of our exclusive reveal of Vermintide II’s first expansion, Winds of Magic. Vermintide II earned Best Co-op in our Game of the Year awards, and for good reason. Now developer Fatshark has some exciting ideas for its continued life. Elsewhere, Steven Messner visited Daybreak Studios to celebrate the 20th anniversary of a PC gaming legend. In our massive EverQuest feature, we discover how a group of inexperienced developers changed online gaming forever – mostly by hiding away and hoping Sony management wouldn’t find them! PHIL SAVAGE Specialist in Lore of Deadlines Twitter @Octaeder This month Managed to get in and out of a Scandinavian country without being forced to eat fermented herring. TALK TO PC GAMER…

The Spy hasn’t touched paper money since the late-’90s, when bands of street magicians roamed the street, thrusting decks of cards into the hands of unsuspecting commuters. The Spy went to hand over a £5 note in exchange for a new copy of Rollercoaster by B*Witched – the original having been destroyed during a tobogganing incident, as was the trend at the time – when it was intercepted by a figure wearing a leather jacket and aggressively sharp goatee. Not breaking eye contact, the wiry miscreant waved a hand, and, in a flash of smoke, The Spy’s money vanished. A quick search of his unconscious body revealed no sign of the note, and, with the sound of sirens growing closer, The Spy was forced to retreat sans the joy of…

As easy as it is to poke fun at licensed games like the infamous Aliens: Colonial Marines , looking at them from a different perspective raises a fascinating question. The process of making a licensed game involves a maze of stakeholders, scheduling concerns, and legal manoeuvring. Why do good creative opportunities and good developers release projects that are less than the sum of their parts? THE ARTISTS WERE DRIVEN MAD SENDING BOTH CONCEPT AND IN-GAME ART TO THE PUBLISHER Tom Forsyth is an industry veteran who spent years at Valve and Oculus, among other companies. Once upon a time, though, he was a programmer on Blade 2. “For arcane licensing reasons,” Forsyth recalls, “we only had permission to use Wesley Snipes’ likeness in one place – the…

We’ve got a whole host of fantastic new releases to tell you about this month – some you may have heard about because of various Early Access schemes (Slay the Spire and Sunless Skies are the big ’uns), and one which arrived fully-formed and ready to go without so much as a by-your-leave! The latter is, of course, Apex Legends; Respawn’s take on the battle royale genre. As well as being a great game, we hope other devs take note of its revolutionary ping system for easy communication with strangers. The one thing James forgot to cover was whether everyone’s settled on a nickname for Apex yet so allow me to fill in that gap: they have and it’s “ApeLegs”. You’re welcome.…

Most murder mysteries start with a death and leave you to discover the guilty party. The Sexy Brutale, by contrast, shows you precisely who’s to blame and lets you bend time to prevent the death in the first place. It’s a smart concept that feels more cerebral than the temporal hi-jinks we’re used to in games. And the cleverest thing here is you always feel you’re fighting against the clock despite having infinite time, making the ability to rewind things and try again seem valuable. It’s also more stylish than a whale in a Savile Row suit – a game where every room feels like the sort of place Poirot would gather posh people to explain a murder. 83…

MOTHERBOARD B360M-DS3H Gigabyte £70 It lacks overclocking options, but the new B360 chipset is far cheaper than the Z370 and is perfect for this budget build. PROCESSOR Core i3-8100 Intel £118 A great processor for out-of-the-box gaming performance. Opt for the AMD Ryzen 1300X if you’d like to overclock. GRAPHICS CARD GeForce GTX 1060 Windforce OC 3GB Gigabyte £188 Amidst fluctuating GPU prices, Gigabyte’s compact 1060 model offers the best value. COOLER Hyper 212 Evo CoolerMaster £25 Even a budget build can benefit from a good CPU cooler, letting you enjoy a quieter, cooler system. MEMORY Vengeance LPX 8GB (2x4GB) @2400MHz Corsair £50 DDR4 prices are still high, however this Corsair pair is a good value option. POWER SUPPLY CX-M Series CX550M Corsair £56 A UK price spike in our…

GET THE RIGHT GEAR 1 Good aim doesn’t require the latest hardware, but it helps to have at least a decent mouse and mousepad. Don’t break the bank, you can get a solid mouse for less than £50 (find the best ones at bit.ly/ pcgmouse), and a mousepad for £10. SIT COMFORTABLY 2 To aim properly you’ll need to be relaxed, and have space to move both your arm and wrist freely. Sit with a straight back and ensure your elbow is roughly level with your mouse and mousepad, or a little bit higher. IDENTIFY YOUR WEAKNESSES 3 You need to know where to focus your efforts. Record some gameplay (instructions at bit.ly/pcgrecorder) and watch it to identify what you’re doing wrong. Overshooting your targets? Panicking under pressure? It’s important…

BUG OUT HOLLOW KNIGHT www.hollowknight.com I’m bad at Hollow Knight.Actively terrible at it, in fact. But I still go back time and time again because its underground bugscape is so eerily beautiful. Hollow Knight 2 has now been announced, so perhaps that’s the impetus I need to finally get to the end. And if not, it’ll be more stunning locations and foes to enjoy as I die. POSTAL SERVICE YOKU’S ISLAND EXPRESS www.yokugame.com Dung beetles are amazing creatures. Not only can some of them roll 1,141 times their own body weight or find their way at night using the Milky Way for guidance, but one dung beetle is enjoying a successful career as a postal worker on a pinball-themed island. They truly are magnificent creatures. BRING A BUCKET VISCERA CLEANUP…

STEVEN MESSNER Specialist in Lore of Features Twitter @stevenmessner This month Wrote our EverQuest feature and is working on next issue’s Anthem review. #Pray4Steven ANDY KELLY Specialist in Lore of Twitter Twitter @ultrabrilliant This month Took a brief break from the internet in order to talk to the creator of a fake internet. PHILIPPA WARR Specialist in Lore of Confusion This month Drew on thousands of hours of Dota 2 experience to play a mod in which a multidimensional donkey moves the chesses. JAMES DAVENPORT Specialist in Lore of Guns Twitter @my_beards This month Our former Fortnite correspondent was lost to Apex Legends. Was last seen in Skull Town.…

1 This was quite the time for Battlefield projects but, looking back, the most interesting is Battlefield Heroes. At that time its free-to-play PvP plus microtransactions model felt like a terrifying risk rather than a standard offering and as we noted in the mag, “This is the first time PC Gamer has ever put a free game on its cover.” ISSUE 199, April 2009 ON THE COVER Battlefield IN THE CHARTS Number 1 – Tinchy Stryder ft. N-Dubz 2 A brilliant fan-made Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device was so spectacular we had to ask creator Harrison Krix to share how it was made! 3 Before he got famous with Gunpoint, Tom Francis made Blunt Force Trauma for PCG’s in-house 24 hour gamejam. BFT featuresbreezeblocks falling on people’s heads. “His head…

BATMAN: ARKHAM ASYLUM/CITY/KNIGHT The Batman: Arkham series created a distinctly gritty version of the character and his rogue’s gallery, to the point that new media was able to be licensed from Rocksteady’s twist on the franchise. MIDDLE-EARTH: SHADOW OF WAR Taking liberties with the Lord of the Rings canon brought change to a familiar universe, for better (playable black badass Baranor) and worse (human Shelob). ALIEN: ISOLATION Treated like a valid addition to the Alien mythology and disconnected from the schedule of any other media, Alien: Isolation injects a gorgeous, sprawling, and terrifying interactive experience into the margins of the Aliens universe. THE DARKNESS An adaptation of comics published by Top Cow, games about The Darkness ditch much of the wider supernatural machinations of its world in favour of grounded,…

I’m 12 hours into fantasy RPG Outward when I travel to its second region, visit the city of Berg for the first time, and buy my first proper backpack. Strange to say that buying a backpack feels momentous, but damnit, it really is. I feel triumphant discarding my primitive satchel and shouldering a real pack on my back. Not only does it fit more loot, but I can hang a lantern from it, so I can have both hands free and still see in the dark. That’s the kind of game Outwardis,onewhere the things you take for granted in other games feel like a real accomplishment. I’ve also been humbled repeatedly in my 12 hours. I’ve been battered unconscious by large birds and angry deer, gouged…

HYSH, THE WHITE WIND Lore of Light Illumination, healing and exorcism. GHYRAN, THE JADE WIND Lore of Life Healing and rejuvenation. ULGI, THE GREY WIND Lore of Shadows Confuse, obfuscate and wield shadowy tendrils. GHUR, THE AMBER WIND Lore of Beasts Communicate with or summon animals. CHAMON, THE GOLD WIND Lore of Metal Alchemy and transmutation of metal. AZYR, THE BLUE WIND Lore of Heavens Curses, premonitions and lightning bolts. SHYISH, THE PURPLE WIND Lore of Death Drain life, spread fear and communicate with spirits. AQSHY, THE RED WIND Lore of Fire Just basically lots of fire. And maybe some brimstone.…

BRAD MCQUAID PRODUCER After leaving Sony Online Entertainment in 2002, Brad continued developing new MMOs. He is currently working on Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen, an MMO that aims to revitalise the genre by rekindling what made it special in the first place: social and complex systems. JOHN SMEDLEY PRESIDENT John became the president of Sony Online Entertainment (now Daybreak Games) until 2015 when he resigned. After a brief stint working on indie games, John is now working at Amazon Game Studios on an unannounced project. BILL TROST LEAD DESIGNER After EverQuest’s launch, Bill led development on several EverQuest expansions, EverQuest 2, and several other games before jumping ship to Trion Worlds to work on another MMO. He’s now at Amazon Game Studios working with John. ROSIE RAPPAPORT LEAD ARTIST…

We review each game on its own merits, and try to match it to a reviewer who’s a passionate expert in the field. The main aim of reviews is to help you make buying decisions. To this end, we’re selective about what we review, and try to focus on the notable, interesting, exciting or surprising. DOWNLOADABLE CONTENT DLC might be new missions for a game, or it might be a single new item. If we think you want to know about it, we’ll review it. EARLY ACCESS Any released alpha, beta, or otherwise unfinished game that you can currently pay for. For these games, we won’t assign a score, but we will tell you whether they’re worth your time. THEY’RE BACK Whenever there’s a bargain or re-release of a significant…

THE SETTLERS Barbarians start off as nomadic, so before you put down some roots, you can pack up and head off to somewhere better. BRANCHING OUT Since you only ever get one settlement, it’s worth taking a bit of time to find the perfect spot with space to expand. CLIMATE CHANGE Maps are randomly generated, but climates approximate the real world, which gives you an idea of what to expect. MEGALOMANIA Eventually you’ll be able to found a kingdom and say goodbye to nomadic life. You’re now one step closer to conquering Rome.…

OUT WITH THE OLD The warmonger system has gone and is replaced by grievances. The more you upset other leaders, the more grievances they’ll have with you. PEOPLE MATTER You should care about your enemy’s people. If you capture a city, it’s going to be difficult to hold onto it if everyone thinks you’re a monster. GOSSIP CAN BE FATAL The allies of the civ you’ve wronged might also turn against you, hearing from their mate that you’re not to be trusted. SHORT MEMORIES Anger another civ enough and you’ll piss off the whole world. Don’t worry, they’re a forgiving bunch, and all of their beefs are forgotten over time.…

MOTHERBOARD Z370 Tomahawk MSI £155 This is a nice-looking bit of kit at a good price. Couple that with two M.2 slots, and it’s the perfect place to house that Core i5. PROCESSOR Core i5-8600K Intel £257 Say goodbye to our reliable workhorse, the i5-8400. This month we’re upgrading to an unlocked K-model CPU. GRAPHICS CARD GeForce RTX 2060 Twin Fan Zotac £329 Zotac’s Twin Fan model replaces our Founder’s Edition RTX 2060, offering formidable cooling for the price. COOLER Hydro Series H55 Quiet Edition Corsair £55 Scarcity of our previous pick in the US sees a nice quiet Corsair cooler introduced this month. MEMORY Vengeance LPX 16GB (2x8GB) @2666 Corsair £94 16GB is the minimum amount of RAM we’d recommend for a system of this calibre. POWER SUPPLY RMx…

We’re off to the Clockwork Mansion today to put a spanner in the works of inventor and philosopher Kirin Jindosh, as well as rescuing Anton Sokolov, currently in Jindosh’s clutches. The good doctor Hypatia, who I spared in my visit to Addermire, describes Jindosh as having “the empathy of a Mantis”, so I’m already leaning toward a permanent solution to this particularly human enigma. I’m less certain about how to approach the dozens of other guards, gangsters and civilians I’ll encounter en-route. I left Addermire having killed a total of 36 people. Thanks to the Heart telling me their innermost secrets, I’m confident they thoroughly deserved it, but it’s also left me with a High Chaos rating. This basically points you towards the bad ending, although the game doesn’t explicitly…

The Nazis have taken a special interest in the Atlantis myth Few adventure games actually feature much adventure . It’s a curious name for this, the most languid and cerebral of genres. But Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis is a rare exception. Like the movies that inspired it – and the adventure serials that inspired them – it’s an exciting adventure in the truest sense. And it’s remarkable how they managed to squeeze this much energy out of a pretty standard point-and-click adventure game. The myth at the heart of this original Indiana Jones story is, as the title suggests, the fabled lost city of Atlantis. In 1939, on the eve of World War II, Indy finds…

In the summer of 1999 I bought a copy of SiN , a first-person shooter by Ritual Entertainment that featured a preposterous hero named John Blade and some brilliantly dynamic, interactive environments. It was released a month before Half-Life , and thus was completely overshadowed, but Ritual did a lot of stuff Valve did in its game – and better. I loved it, at least until I reached a level set in some kind of underwater facility. I remember a lot of swimming, some frustrating enemies, and a labyrinth of boring corridors. And, being a lot more impatient in my teenage years, I decided to bypass the entire level by activating noclip mode. Noclip, as PC gamers of a certain age will know, is…

OLD SCHOOL 1 “The old web aesthetic is fascinating to me because all kinds of everyday non-tech people were being drawn into the digital world for the first time. The internet was a blank canvas. There was no visual consistency.” IMAGE CONSCIOUS 2 “For the bad pre-rendered animated gifs I used old 3D software packages such as Wings3D and Bryce 5.5. I then converted them into my own ‘Hypnospace safe’ 64-colour palette using Floyd-Steinberg dithering.” INTERNET EXPLORER 3 “For the browser I drew up a design and sent it to Mike Lasch, our programmer, who made it real and functional. Over time we added new features such as bookmarks, virtual pets, and a functioning media player.” NEW BUILD 4 “All of the pages in the game were created using the…

Always being the goody two-shoes hero in Final Fantasy XIV is getting a little tiresome. The Warriors of Light have spent five years and two expansions defending Eorzea from the evil Garlean Empire. But with Shadowbringers , it’s time to fight fire with fire. The future of the world depends on it. At least, that’s what I think is happening. The story of Shadowbringers, Final Fantasy XIV’s third expansion that launches on July 2, 2019, is wrapped up in a maddening blanket of riddles that I can only speculate over. What happened in the interim between the current Stormblood expansionand Shadowbringers to bring about a calamity that threatens to destroy the world? Why does that calamity necessitate hanging up my good guy cloak…

One of the games I’m looking forward to in 2019 is inkle’s Heaven’s Vault . The studio, whose previous work includes the phenomenal 80 Days , is combining  detective work with archaeology and translation, and the game is shaping up to be quite special. The basic premise sees you, archaeologist Aliya Elasra, and a robot companion take on a request to find missing roboticist Janniqi Renba. Over the course of the new demo, Renba’s disappearance is revealed to be anything but straightforward, calling into question at least one of your key relationships and nudging you towards an investigation of a greater set of problems rooted in the region’s ancient history. The way you unravel any of this is by sailing around the area of…

During Everquest’s development, McQuaid had the surreal opportunity meet his hero and inspiration, Richard Garriott, and show him the game. McQuaid has a picture that he still keeps nearby. “That was just an amazing moment, sitting down with him,” McQuaid says. “He’s the nicest guy in the world too. He checked out EverQuest and played it for a while and was asking questions. It was a mind-blowing day. I can check that off my bucket list.” Today, years later, McQuaid and Garriott are good friends.…

00%-09% Broken or offensively bad; absolutely no value. Example Leisure Suit Larry: Magna Cum Laude 10%-19% We might be able to find one nice thing to say about it, but still not worth anyone’s time or money. Example Gettysburg: Armored Warfare 20%-29% Completely falls short of its goals. Very few redeeming qualities. Examples Family Guy: Back to the Multiverse 30%-39% An entirely clumsy or derivative effort. There’s little reason to play this game over a similar, better one. Examples Trials of the Blood Dragon 40%-49% Flawed and disappointing. Examples Aliens: Colonial Marines 50%-59% Mediocre. Other games probably do it better, or its unique qualities aren’t executed well. Examples Primordia, Homefront: The Revolution 60%-69% There’s something to like here, but it can only be recommended with major caveats. Examples No Man’s…

SUPER SPIRIT BOMB Goku creates a massive orb of death to throw at his enemy. DIABLE JAMBE! CONCASSE SPIN Shinji leaps into the air dropping his heel onto his opponent’s head. BATTLE GRIEF Kenshiro draws upon his internalised rage and mastery of Hokotu Shinken. TAKEMIKAZUCHI –NO-KAMI Takemikazuchi is a god of thunder AND swords in Japanese mythology. GODSPEED FLASH OF THE HEAVENLY FLYING DRAGON Creates a sword from pure energy. X.Y.Z. Ryo hits his enemy with a rocket launcher then drives into them in a classic Mini Cooper.…

GAS MASK If you encounter radiation, toxic fungus or other poison gas, equip your gas mask. But the filter won’t last forever. You’ll need to change it regularly, and if you run out… hold your breath. CHARGER Batteries are hard to come by, but this hand-pumped charger is the next best thing. If your flashlight flickers it’s probably low on juice, and a few pumps of this will sort it out. NOTEPAD Calling this a notepad undersells it because this tool incorporates a radio, compass, and map. There are no objective markers on the HUD so you’ll have to refer to it often. BINOCULARS If you find yourself somewhere high up, take out your binoculars. Anything interesting you spot, and zoom in on, will be marked as an X on…

HORATIO Tank/Boar Can knock over cars and self-revive. Snores when he sleeps. Is a boar. 100/100 NANA Sniper/Granny You wouldn’t expect a kind old granny to be good at sniping. That’s the joke. 70/100 THE JUDGE Hunter/ Enigma Uses a bow. Never speaks. Wears mask. Wait, is this your character from 5? 95/100 CARMINA Assaulter/ Buzzkill Dark past. Throws dynamite when she’s not talking about her dark past. 60/100 TIMBER Scout/Dog Cute dog who rides in your sidecar. Loses a few points for not being a boar. 90/100 JEROME Berserker/ Pastor Likes to set things on fire. But so do I. Don’t steal my thunder, dude. 50/100 GINA Heavy Gunner/ Badass Drives a car with a mounted gun. Endless ammo. Nuff said. 80/100 HURK RPG/Yokel Talks way too much. Blows…

If Crimes and Punishments is ‘cosy’, The ABC Murders is like sitting beside a wood burning stove wearing a merino wool cardigan, surrounded by pine-scented tea lights. Think hygge with bludgeoning. It’s simple but engaging. You’ll want to know exactly how each crime was committed, even if you’re never shocked by the revelations. And the character profiling doesn’t so much say ‘consulting detective’, as it does ‘functioning human being’. But there’s still something plump and satisfying about gradually uncovering the truth behind each crime. It’s also the uncoolest game I’ve ever played, which I absolutely mean as a compliment. 65…

There’s a good chance you didn’t consider the best PC fans during your last build. Everyone’s done it at one point or another. You start assembling a new PC build, you put all the parts in your cart, you look at the total, you cry a little bit, and then you start cutting corners. Case fans are usually the first victim. How different can they be, anyway? Do you really need the best PC fan? Well no, you don’t need it, but the premium fan is probably premium for a reason. You want to strike a balance between noise and airflow, and generally the higher-end fans are  better in that regard. They also tend to last longer thanks to tech like Noctua’s ‘Self-Stabilising Oil Pressure Bearings’, and that longevity is…

MOTHERBOARD Strix X470-F Gaming Asus £181 Get the most from the new AMD Ryzen 2700X with this matching X470 motherboard that’s packed with features. PROCESSOR Ryzen 7 2700X AMD £300 Easy to overclock and with huge performance out of the box, AMD’s new flagship CPU is the one to go for. GRAPHICS CARD GeForce RTX 2080Ti Black Edition EVGA £1,072 EVGA’s custom design is considerably cheaper than Nvidia’s reference card, and with great cooling. COOLER Kraken X62 NZXT £140 The Kraken is the culmination of three of our favourite things: an infinity mirror, a 280mm radiator and slick braided cooling. MEMORY Vengeance LED RGB 32GB @3200 Corsair £264 Ryzen is the one processor that does benefit hugely from higher-frequency memory. This kit is perfect for any would-be video expert. POWER…

INDIANA JONES & THE TEMPLE OF DOOM Based on the second film this sees Indy battling cultists, riding minecarts, and using his whip. INDIANA JONES AND THE LAST CRUSADE Indy’s first point-and-click outing. Not as good as Fate of Atlantis, but still a decent adventure game. INDIANA JONES & THE INFERNAL MACHINE The first 3D instalment in the series, inspired by the wildly successful Tomb Raider series. INDIANA JONES & THE EMPEROR’S TOMB An action game with puzzles and punchy melee combat that really makes you feel like Indy.…

GOD It’s called a ‘console command’ but let’s be honest, it’s a straight-up cheat, and I admit to using it many times in the past. IMPULSE 255 If god mode feels a little too cheaty, but you’re still stuck in the original Quake, this command will grant you quad damage. NOTARGET Another FPS classic. This makes you invisible to enemies, letting you saunter through a level totally unhindered. DNUNLOCK A console command from Duke Nukem 3D . Type this in and every locked door and the force field in the level will magically open.…