Every time the volunteer team behind Skyblivion, a fan-made remake of The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion, comes out with a new dev update, I make the same mistake. I figure, "I know what they're all about, I've played Oblivion for a million hours, nothing here can surprise me." Well color me surprised, the team's latest development diary really got me going. Skyblivion is going to do things with Cyrodiil's Ayleid ruins and Skyrim's UI that have me giddy as a longtime Oblivion sicko. The thing that consistently impresses me is how Skyblivion addresses one of the original game's greatest weaknesses ..read more

There was major beef in the PC Gamer Slack recently when we, along with everyone else, discovered that faction choices in the recently launched shooter Gray Zone Warfare were permanent: If you and your gaming buddies signed up for opposing sides, well, that was just too damn bad: There was no going back until an eventual server reset, which is months down the road. Believe me, it got ugly in here. (Image credit: Future) We weren't the only ones who found ourselves waging internecine war: Plenty of other players levelled complaints when they discovered they were unable to group up with their ..read more

Hit medieval town builder Manor Lords is frequently said to have been created by a single developer, Greg Styczeń, and its marketing has leaned into that notion: The official Manor Lords website says it was "hand crafted by a solo developer." Crate Entertainment CEO Arthur Bruno, whose town builder Farthest Frontier is also in early access, takes issue with that characterization. On a call with PC Gamer this week, Bruno expressed annoyance over receiving feedback that assumes Farthest Frontier is being made by a huge development team—it's actually a team of seven—especially when it's compared ..read more

With Senua's Saga: Hellblade 2 set to arrive very soon, developer Ninja Theory has now revealed the PC system requirements. The minimum spec is fairly undemanding, so any mid-range gaming PC should be able to handle it, but it doesn't sound like the studio thinks you should play it that way. First things first, the numbers: Minimum: (Low graphics preset, 1080p) CPU – Intel i5-8400 or AMD Ryzen 5 2600 GPU – Nvidia GTX 1070, AMD RX 5700, or Intel Arc A580 VRAM – 6GB System RAM – 16GB Storage – 70GB SSD Medium: (Medium graphics preset, 1080p) CPU – Intel i5-9600 or AMD Ryzen 5 3600X GPU – Nvid ..read more

It's an exaggeration to say that early access city builder Manor Lords was made by one person—developer Greg Styczeń has worked with a number of contractors—but it certainly isn't being developed by a big, 50-person team. Some players think it ought to be, though. In a recent interview with PC Gamer, Tim Bender, CEO of Manor Lords publisher Hooded Horse, recalled seeing a post in the Steam forums asking if the game had been "abandoned" because it hadn't had an update yet—just four days after its early access launch. A solution put forward by another commenter was that Styczeń should "immediate ..read more

After an incredible demo showing nearly two years ago, gravity defying raygun gothic shooter They Came From Dimension X is back with a road to release, and that road goes through Kickstarter. The devs behind the standout FPS are looking to raise $30k by the end of the month, and a $15 donation will net you a digital copy of the game for Steam or itch.io. I'm a boomer shooter guy⁠—I want to bunnyhop around at 60mph in colorful, weird levels while carrying nine guns strapped to my number row, but the genre's developed the opposite problem to its long drought from the 2000s through the '10s: ther ..read more

In response to multiple complaints of hardware failure following the rollout of its Vanguard anti-cheat software to League of Legends, Riot Games says it has "not confirmed any instance of Vanguard bricking anyone's hardware" but acknowledged that some BIOS settings could be causing headaches for a small number of players. The controversial Vanguard anti-cheat software has been live in Riot's shooter Valorant since the game launched in 2020, but it didn't come to League of Legends until earlier this week, as part of the 14.9 patch. Reports of serious trouble quickly followed: Players said thei ..read more

It's been a challenging day for Helldivers 2 as developer Arrowhead continues to wrestle with the fallout of an unexpected and unpopular announcement: Soon, all Helldivers 2 Steam players will be required to link a PlayStation account to continue playing. Videogames requiring outside account linking is nothing new, but many Helldivers 2 players are protesting this mandate coming months after the game's release, and with an insufficient warning that it was coming (Who really reads the fine print?). Fans are also calling foul on Sony's reasoning for requiring PSN integration, citing security and ..read more

In a recent RPG roundtable I hosted for the PC Gamer Chat Log podcast, something Larian founder Swen Vincke said caused my ears to perk up: the already impressive multiplayer roleplaying in Baldur's Gate 3 was once even more involved than what made it into the final game. During the roundtable, Ted Peterson, writer and designer of the original Elder Scrolls, pointed out that multiplayer games and MMOs have difficulty keeping their tone consistent—it's easy to tell the difference between the way a player behaves and the way a character would. That was something Vincke had in mind during the de ..read more

One of the most exciting parts of the Cataclysm expansion for World of Warcraft Classic is the re-introduction of the transmogrification system. This allows armor and weapons to be transformed visually into any other armor piece or weapon of the same type that the player has learned. WoW transmog is nothing less than a revolutionary change for how terrific (or edgy, or silly) your characters can look. It also offers a wonderful solution to the age-old problem of the new expansion fashion faux pas, where you trade in the last expansion's impressive tier and armor sets for the comically mismatch ..read more