PCGamesN News, Tips, Tricks, Ideas

Minecraft continues to impress us long-time players more than a decade after its initial release with regular updates and fun new content. The recent Minecraft Live event showcased this year’s mob vote winner, the armadillo, and more of what we can expect out of version 1.21 when it rolls around. One of the most exciting features coming with Mojang’s big update is a new kind of block, the Crafter. It’s a game-changing block that enables auto-crafting with the use of redstone, and we can try it now.

Dead Island 2 is making waves among its nostalgic community once more thanks to its upcoming lore-filled expansion, Haus. If you’re like me, then you grew up playing the original and immediately jumped into Dambuster Studios’ recent sequel. The zombie shooter does sport a hefty price, though, as new horror games generally do. If you’ve been waiting for a discount to grab it, the Epic Games Store’s annual Halloween sale is here with massive deals for games like Dead Island 2 and other banger sequels such as Gunfire Games’ own Remnant II.

Sker Ritual is the Aliens to Maid of Sker’s Alien. Following on from the evil ending to the excellent, atmospheric 2020 horror game, this is a more high-octane co-op FPS game that doesn’t let up on the terror. The Quiet Ones are back and joined by even more powerful foes, but you and your teammates will have access to some rather powerful gear to help you survive. This is Call of Duty Zombies reimagined as an intense, atmospheric thriller, and you can play it now via Steam Early Access with a full release date set for April 2024.

Playing your favorite FPS games should be a seamless process if you have the hardware to run them, but this unfortunately hasn’t been the case recently for those with AMD Radeon GPUs. Ongoing issues with AMD Anti-Lag+ have become so severe that they have now prompted team red to take drastic action via a new driver update.

Overwatch 2 is in the midst of its seventh season, with players enjoying the hero shooter’s Rise of Darkness content. From its special Halloween Terror event to its new map, Blizzard has packed its Overwatch sequel full of fresh features for fans to get through. The game’s future also looks quite bright with the developer now revealing an in-game and real-life collaboration event with Le Sserafim, a beloved K-pop girl group.

Baldur’s Gate 3 has already been seeping into the real world with the cast playing DnD in character, and now Karlach actress Samantha Béart has played through BG3 as Karlach, both basically in the game and out. It’s a total joy to watch, surprising no one I’m sure, and proves that Larian knew exactly who should play the colorful cast of characters.

When it comes to blasting the undead with your friends, Killing Floor 2 is my pick. Sure, the likes of Valve’s Left 4 Dead and Turtle Rock’s Back 4 Blood have a lot going for them, but there’s a slightly tighter, more frantic feel to Tripwire Interactive’s take on the co-op zombie game that pushes it ahead of the pack for me. Now, a big, free Killing Floor 2 update titled Last Hans Standing has launched to celebrate Halloween 2023.

Gaming handhelds are all the rage right now, and theRazer Edge is looking to stake its claim on this booming market. Relying on selling itself towards a mobile market rather than more traditional PC hardware like the Steam Deck and ROG Ally, the Edge finally arrived for pre-orders on Amazon, but didn’t hang around for long.

One of my favorite games of the year and a truly standout horror experience is about to join PC Game Pass, as 2023’s Dead Space Remake is headed to the Microsoft subscription service. There’s a lot more coming in the spooky month of October, but we’re also losing some truly great games, with Persona 5 Royal chief among them.

Halo Infinite has re-emerged during this year’s shooter season alongside games like Battlefield 2042, as the Xbox multiplayer game has seen its highest concurrent player count on Steam in quite some time, likely due to the barrage of content that’s dropped with the brand-new Season 5: Reckoning.

With the Cities Skylines 2 release date almost upon us, Paradox shares the full Cities Skylines 2 download size, explaining that the city building game will be “about 50 GB at release.” CS1 meanwhile, according to official system requirements, needs 4 GB of free space. Based on official announcements, this makes the Cities Skylines 2 download size 12.5 times larger than its predecessor, and all of the upcoming Cities Skylines 2 DLC will likely add to the game’s size on your hard drive.

Slender: The Arrival crept its way onto the indie horror scene a decade ago and has gone on to become a fixture in the world of PC horror games. Now, the upcoming Slender: The Arrival 10-year Anniversary Update has arrived, with the inclusion of Nvidia DLSS 3,just in time to scare a whole new generation of players this Halloween season.

The team behind the incredible roguelike deckbuilder Slay the Spire has released a new free game, after moving to the Godot game engine following Unity’s controversial fee policy that would see game developers paying more per game download. The free deckbuilding autobattler Dancing Duelists is available now, and it rules.

If you love Stardew Valley, there’s a good chance Coral Island is already on your radar – but if not, it absolutely should be, and now this fantasy-tinged life sim is ready for launch. Having already racked up an impressive 91% positive Steam rating during early access, developer Stairway Games has now set the Coral Island release date for November, with a whole raft of new features inbound for the full release.

The long-promised Street Fighter 6 collaboration has arrived in Exoprimal, bringing some of your favorite fighting game characters to Capcom’s multiplayer dinosaur shooter. Arriving with the start of Exoprimal Season 2, Ryu, Chun-Li, and Guile provide a good reason to return and check out the new map, rigs, ten-player mission, skins, and emotes. However, there’s a slight catch, as you’ll only get Street Fighter’s posterchild for free.

Mortal Kombat 1 crashes create a report file on your hard drive, which in some cases can occupy an enormous amount of space. Multiple reports from MK1 PC players (on both Steam and other platforms), as well as PCGamesN’s own investigation, confirm that every time Mortal Kombat 1 crashes on your PC, a new report folder is created. The more crashes your game experiences, the more folders are made, with some players reporting up to 70 GB of hard drive space being consumed by numerous crash files. A community manager for WB Games, which publishes NetherRealms’ Mortal Kombat 1, says the issue has been reported and that the MK1 team is “looking at it ASAP.”

I’m a Seraphine main in League of Legends. There, I said it. Alongside Senna she’s one of my most-played champions ever, effectively replacing my poor OTP, Sona, upon release. Having played her in a variety of different combinations with my lane partner, she remains one of the more powerful enchanter supports alongside mainstays like Soraka or Janna. Riot has seen her survive and thrive as a support, and has elected to rework her abilities to align with that role – a decision that has proven controversial.

If you’re struggling to find a keyboard to match your desk aesthetic, Drop has launched the new CTSM80, a revolution in customizable mechanical keyboards. Even if you’re unfamiliar with keyboard modding, the CTSM80 makes it as easy as possible with both barebones and fully-assembled models to choose from.

Lords of the Fallen patch notes 1.1.203 are here for the update on Wednesday, October 18, as developer Hexworks announces, “Our bug kill count has reached its highest to date.” The team also says it has “begun to implement more substantial performance issues,” which should improve performance for any graphics cards being pushed to their limits by the game’s current state.

The current F1 season has seen Max Verstappen once again crowned champion, and you can now share in one of the secrets to the success of  Red Bull Oracle team with theSecretlab x Red Bull Oracle racing edition gaming chairs.

If you’re done with Starfield and want to revisit Bethesda’s most longstanding RPG to date you’ll be glad to know that Skyrim is currently dirt cheap as part of a new sale. I know talk of Skyrim isn’t exactly new, but who can argue with such a good deal for a modern classic.

The Diablo 4 Steam reviews are already ‘mixed,’ as players take to Valve’s platform to share their responses to Blizzard’s RPG alongside the launch of Diablo 4 Season 2. Less than 24 hours since the Diablo IV Steam launch, hundreds of reviews express a combination of praise and criticism, lowering Diablo 4’s current score to less than 60%. While the game has been available on PC since June, its Steam release has attracted under 2,500 players. Meanwhile, Overwatch 2, another Activision Blizzard game recently relaunched on Steam, still has an ‘overwhelmingly negative’ rating based on user reviews.

Minecraft is the top-played game of all time more than a decade following its release. Many fans who grew up playing the charming voxel-like game with friends, exploring its grassy plains and eerie mines every weekend, now look forward to things like its annual mob vote, an interactive community event. Following the recent vote’s results, some players expressed worries regarding alleged tampering, prompting Mojang to officially respond.

Palia is well on its way to becoming one of my most-played games this year. It ticks many of my essential cozy game experience boxes, with its colorful world, crafting, and farming. The gameplay is especially unique among cozier genres since it’s enjoyable with friends. Amid the chaotic world of combat and grind-heavy MMORPGs, Palia feels like a breath of fresh, relaxing air. It’s about to get even more populated, too, with its newly revealed Epic Games Store release.

Skyrim finally contains the most hated food in America thanks to an incredible mod, as the Bethesda RPG sees the most quintessential British food spread added to the land of Tamriel in what I can only describe as the greatest Skyrim mod ever made.

2010’s Alan Wake is now in Fortnite, as a collaboration between both Remedy and Epic Games called Alan Wake: Flashback brings a free experience to the battle royale game alongside some premium skins of the troubled writer himself.

Half-Life and Doom. I struggle to think of two games that have influenced me more. Between the iconic, flickering corridors of Valve’s Black Mesa and the run-and-gun fury of id Software’s defining FPS, my own taste in videogames is irredeemably shaped by these giants of PC history. Without Half-Life, there would be no Counter-Strike 2, no Portal, no Left 4 Dead – maybe even no Steam. Take Doom out of the equation, and the shooter as we know it might never have existed. Now, Gordon Freeman and Doomguy are finally united, thanks to an imaginative new Doom mod that incorporates the instantly recognizable sounds and effects from Valve’s 1998 classic. It’s not exactly Half-Life 3, but it’s a heck of a substitute.

Diablo IV has been heavy on our noggins recently with news of its new season’s content. As a vampire stan myself, I look forward to employing the Season of Blood’s vampiric powers. While Blizzard set the second season to drop today, it has just announced that the studio has come across some issues that need resolving, resulting in a delay. We’ll have to hold out just a little bit longer before experiencing the blood-sucking features.

Vampire Survivors is still occupying my mind and my Steam library’s installed games years after its release. Poncle sucked me into its endless cycle of bullet-hell combat almost instantly, and I haven’t been able to escape it since. It looks like I’ll be hopping back into the game yet again soon, thanks to a major free update. With steady patches and DLC releases, the game expands regularly, leaving a variety of new content to traverse through and a slew of achievements to work towards.

2023 has been quite the year for gaming. We’ve seen highs like Starfield, Baldur’s Gate 3, and Diablo 4, and success stories for indie games like Sea of Stars and Dave the Diver. We’ve seen some absolute flops too, though: Redfall and Lord of the Rings: Gollum, I’m looking at you. As we delve deeper into spooky season and winter approaches, I didn’t think there was any room for more bottom-tier games, but Skull Island: Rise of Kong might just have snatched the last place crown.

Cyberpunk 2077, especially since the launch of Phantom Liberty, has one of the most vibrant and vivid visual styles in gaming. You take all that – the neon lights, the chunky guns, the endless miles of wires and cables – and strap it to the close-quarters, tactics-driven strategy of Firaxis’ iconic XCOM 2, and then add a dash of Payday 3, and its focus on robberies and heists, and this is the result. If you want a beautiful new Steam strategy sim, centered on stealth and cerebral planning, this is for you.

One of my favorite games of the year and a truly standout horror experience is about to join PC Game Pass, as 2023’s Dead Space remake is headed to the Microsoft subscription service. There’s a lot more coming in the spooky month of October, but we’re also losing some truly great games, with Persona 5 Royal chief among them.

League of Legends is undoubtedly a behemoth, standing tall as one of the biggest games on PC years after its release. The community is ever-expanding, and Riot Games isn’t slowing its flow of improvements and new content any time soon. While LoL continues to grow, its long list of changes does as well. From more instant, minor bug fixes to phasing out a system that replaces players’ Summoner Names, Riot makes regular adjustments to its work.

Halo Infinite Season 5 is set to include the return of the shooter series’ most iconic armor set ever: Master Chief’s shining green and orange mantle. That’s right, the Mjolnir Mark V armor from Halo: CE is coming to the free multiplayer shooter for the game’s 22nd anniversary, but, unfortunately, it’s going to cost you.

Europa Universalis 4 has some stiff competition these days. Between Civilization 6, Crusader Kings, Age of Empires, and the upcoming Cities Skylines 2, the strategy genre is bursting at the seams right now, and that’s not even counting Ara History Untold and Paradox’s new strat sim Millennia. Nevertheless, EU4 stands out for its depth and historical detail. If you like intricate diplomacy and politics, grand military machinations, and a focus on the defining ages of the distant past, Europa Universalis 4 is still the boss. And it’s about to get even bigger thanks to a new expansion, King of Kings.

As an Astra player, I love watching my enemies tentatively step into my sparkling purple nebula, guns at the ready, terrified that one misstep will lead to them losing their heads. That sense of power is fun if you’re the smoker, but not so much if you’re on the receiving end of it. With the latest round of Valorant patch notes, though, tracking smokes and their respective timers just got a lot easier.

Postal 3 is an unusual game. Lurid, vulgar, and deliciously dedicated to poor taste – just like the rest of the Postal series – it’s even been disowned by co-creator Running With Scissors. After vanishing from Steam, apparently owing to issues with Valve, surrounding download-rights management (DRM), Postal 3 is suddenly back. If you want to sample this interesting piece of gaming history, and the semi-official connecting tissue between Postal 2 and Postal 4, now’s the time.

Starfield. BioShock. Dishonored. Some of the greatest PC games of the last two decades owe their inspiration to the Thief series. Originally developed by Looking Glass Studios, of System Shock and Ultima fame, the third Thief, Deadly Shadows, would move to Ion Storm Austin, shortly after it shipped another stone-cold classic, the first Deus Ex. The team that helped build Thief 3 would eventually work on some of the most-beloved games of the modern era, including Skyrim, BioShock, and Starfield. Renowned for its superlative Shalebridge Cradle level, Thief Deadly Shadows is now all yours for less than $1.

Pinocchio souslike Lies of P has hit a major sales milestone in just under one month, despite being both a new IP and available on Xbox and PC Game Pass on day one. With more of the action RPG on the way, it’s safe to say that developer Round8 Studio has found itself a hit, and it looks like it will continue to grow.

When I was a young League of Legends player, I used to be so excited by Blue Essence, clutching at my mouse every time I levelled up, hoping I’d have enough BE to pick up Janna, who had been on free rotation the previous week. Now, however, Blue Essence just sits in my little loot backpack, gathering dust, waiting for the next Blue Essence Emporium to come around. Not anymore, though, Riot is looking to make even more changes to the BE system.

The Steam Next Fest just came to a close, but its diverse game demos live on in our hearts. Valve sprinkled a little bit of everything into its recent event, from open-world RPGs to fantasy crafting sims. While many of the showcased demos are still available to play now, others are no longer up as developers prepare for their games’ full release. To commemorate the Next Fest and talented devs, Steam just revealed its most-played game demos.

Age of Empires II Definitive Edition just gets bigger and better with each coming announcement from Forgotten Empires. The game already has various DLC to choose from, ranging from the Dynasties of India to the Return of Rome, but continues to impress with more. We’re now getting yet another expansion dubbed The Mountain Royals, which will bring us from the vast waters of Lake Van to the snowy peaks of the Caucasus Mountains.

Apex Legends fans have received their fair share of exciting news recently. With Resurrection, the hero shooter’s 18th season, slowly wrapping up, players are enjoying its various features before Season 19 drops. The upcoming season isn’t the only new content drop to look forward to, though, as we’ve just received word of a limited-time crossover event with one of today’s biggest musicians. Post Malone is coming to Apex Legends, baby.

Another Lords of the Fallen patch has dropped and while it makes a slew of improvements to the Hexworks soulslike game, I’m immediately pleased to tell you that those incredibly annoying ranged enemies that feel like they can snipe you at any distance using what feels like the latest installment in hitscan tech have been pared back, among other changes.

Usually, when you say you’ve got a bug in your system, you’re talking about a software glitch. Less often, you might mean a hardware bug, such as a defect affecting one of your components. However, in the case of YouTube repair channel, northwestrepair, it found an actual bug in an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090. As in, a real insect.

Since the Steam Deck launched, the high-powered PC gaming handheld has continuously been a part of the Top Selling products on Steam globally. Week in and week out, the Valve handheld has always managed to retain its place within the top 10 sellers, even amongst the most-popular PC games of any given month. However, the Steam Deck has finally begun to fall down the top sellers list.

League of Legends Heartsteel is the name of the now very real boy band consisting of six champions and a handful of real-world artists representing them, as Riot Games shows off the first artwork of the characters. The group’s first single is also on the way later this month.

After months of radio silence, Intel has finally revealed the Intel 14th gen CPU generation. The enthusiast-class Intel Core i9 14900K, i7 14700K, and i5 14600K arrive on October 17, and are already up for pre-order with a number of retailers.

It’s no secret that Cyberpunk 2077 has had a redemption arc with update 2.0 and the Phantom Liberty expansion. The launch of the CD Projekt Red RPG was rough in 2020, with players facing a largely broken game and developers receiving the brunt of their criticism. This situation has now been commented on by a CDPR veteran, who’s talked about the internal changes since release and how development processes have changed since then too, especially for the upcoming The Witcher game project Polaris.

Just over a month since the launch of Starfield, Pete Hines, Bethesda’s head of publishing, is retiring from the Skyrim, Fallout, and Elder Scrolls maker to begin a “new chapter.” Hines, whose credits include every major Bethesda release since Morrowind in 2002, says the decision to retire is not one that he came to “easily or quickly,” but that following the launch of Starfield, “the time is right.”

The highly-anticipated Counter Strike 2 finally launched last month for PC gaming platforms. This latest version of the game replaces CS:GO, and brings with it a series of graphical and gameplay upgrades to its competitive player base. However, going forward, macOS users won’t be able to play the brand-new iteration of the Valve FPS.

Cities Skylines 2 PC performance does not meet the targets and benchmarks that publisher Paradox expected, but the game will be released on schedule anyway, with improvements set to follow in the “coming months” after launch. Cities Skylines 2 mods will also have a “basic framework” on release, that, again, will be iterated on throughout CS2’s post-launch lifetime.

Doom is the gift that keeps on giving. Between Doom Eternal and the 2016 reboot, id Software’s epochal PC shooter feels just as alive as ever, but even the 1993 original is still thrilling and thriving in equal measure, as total conversion Doom mods provide a steady stream of nostalgic but modernized boomer shooters. Now it’s the turn of FEAR, the terrific, bullet-time horror FPS from Shadows of Mordor and Blood creator Monolith, to get the unofficial, spiritual successor treatment. Also incorporating the claustrophobic horror style of Aliens, it feels like we just got a brand-new FEAR game, courtesy of an enormous and stunning Doom total conversion.

Watchers of Minecraft Live 2023 might have spotted a little nod from developer Mojang about mob vote losers, and how there’s still potential for them to be added to the game in the future. Losers of the Minecraft Mob Vote have never been added to the game after the fact, but now we could see either the Penguin or Crab in the game in the future.

Gaming chairs are arguably one of the most integral pieces of any gaming setup, but they’re often overlooked. Yet, when it comes to playing the latest PC games for hours on end, having the upmost comfort is vital, and Cougar is out to make your PC gaming experience even cooler, with the NxSys Aero gaming chair.

Seamus Blackley, who spearheaded the development of the original Xbox and co-designed legendary PC games including System Shock, Flight Unlimited, and Jurassic Park Trespasser, says that the sale of Activision Blizzard to Microsoft will “torment” outgoing CEO Bobby Kotick. Explaining how he initially helped pitch Guitar Hero to Kotick, Blackley also describes how the Activision boss reportedly turned the idea down before purchasing the series years later, adding it to Activision’s substantial gaming catalog, which also includes Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 and Diablo 4.

Imagine being banned from your favorite online shooter thanks to tech included in your shiny new processor. Well, AMD Anti-Lag+ is causing this exact problem, so you need to be on high alert if you’re using a compatible AMD Ryzen CPU.

Lords of the Fallen publisher CI Games says that it is “well positioned” for two games in the pipeline, after the release of the soulslike reboot last week. We can also expect key data regarding sales for Lords of the Fallen soon too, but we already know it’s been more of a success than the 2014 original.

The Payday 3 Steam player count has fallen 90% in less than a month, while predecessor Payday 2 is currently experiencing a surge in popularity on Valve’s platform. After hitting an all-time high for concurrent players just after launch, during a recent period, Payday 3 has dropped to number 153 on the Steam most-played chart, well below Payday 2, as it seemingly struggles to retain around 10% of its peak playerbase.

It’s hard to know if there’s any information left for Intel to reveal in regard to its 14th gen CPU lineup as retail pricing is now out in the wild. The good news is that the Raptor Lake refresh isn’t going to increase the pricing from last year and will follow the example set by the 13th gen lineup.

The highly anticipated 2023 Minecraft Mob Vote result is in, revealing the next addition to the Minecraft world that will leave players both thrilled and intrigued. The three diverse candidates that made it to this year’s Mob Vote were the Crab, the Armadillo, and the Penguin.

A galaxy far, far away is about to collide with the iconic world of Minecraft. During the 2023 Minecraft Live on YouTube, Mojang unveiled the Star Wars Path of the Jedi DLC, set to land in the Minecraft Marketplace in November. This thrilling expansion brings the power of the Force, so many lightsabers, and the mesmerizing Star Wars universe right to your blocky worlds.

Minecraft is about to embark on a crafting revolution as Mojang unveils the new Crafter during the 2023 Minecraft live event on YouTube. For the very first time, players will have the power of automation at their fingertips with the introduction of the Crafter to the beloved sandbox game. This innovative feature promises to not only redefine crafting but also open the doors to an exciting world of automation within the game—-but how players will react to this new era of Minecraft is still a mystery.

In a momentous announcement, Minecraft, the iconic sandbox video game owned by Microsoft’s Mojang Studios, has reached a historic milestone of over 300 million copies sold. Announced during the 2023 Minecraft live on YouTube, the achievement is not only testament to the game’s enduring popularity but also a reflection of its significant impact on the gaming industry and culture.

I adore the user interface of Cyberpunk 2077. Developer CD Projekt Red manages to blend effective communication of player information like health, ammunition, and cyberware opportunities with an immersive and sleek style that’s Night City’s own. The same goes for most weapons; looking down scopes can tell you distances and ammo counts, and often plays with your perception to involve you in the world around you. The problem is, this can sometimes be way too distracting to take in during a hectic firefight, so one modder has solved the problem.

Baldur’s Gate 3 companions are so good that it’s agonizing to leave them behind. I’m constantly struggling to decide who should be in my party at every turn, with all of them having something to offer. Perhaps the most frustrating thing in the Dungeons and Dragons game is wondering if you’re missing some essential piece of dialogue from someone you’ve left in camp, so this new Baldur’s Gate 3 mod is an absolute lifesaver in ensuring you’ll never miss key interactions again.

Superhot. Super. Hot. Super. Hot. Words that will forever ring around your skull after playing this time-manipulating, ultra-slick Steam shooter. There’s no going back from playing Superhot; it’ll change your perception of the FPS genre, alter how you think about combat altogether, and probably ensure you never say the word “super” in a normal voice ever again. Superhot and Superhot VR are two of the coolest and most essential games on PC, and they’re both going cheap right now in a Steam sale.

Drawing inspiration from the likes of Chivalry, Mount and Blade, For Honor, and Mordhau, Half Sword is a ridiculous medieval combat sim filled with historically accurate weapons and armor. It’s gleefully silly, strikingly gory, and immediately, unquestionably a lot of fun. After blowing up online on social media platforms including TikTok, you can now play Half Sword yourself for free thanks to a new Steam demo.

Not only is The Dual-Wielding Dropkick Buckets an excellent name for a Ska punk band, it’s also the name I’ve just coined for a Lords of the Fallen character build that might be the soulslike’s answer to Dark Souls 2 ladle runs. I have no other way I can explain this than to tell you there’s a wooden bucket weapon in the new Hexworks game, and that you can do dropkicks with it.

You’ve probably played at least a few Jackbox games in your time. The compilation packs of various party games have branched out far beyond the traditional videogame audience to become something even your least tech-savvy relatives want to join in on. The fun returns once again with Jackbox Party Pack 10, which sees another five minigames to keep your friends and family entertained, and it brings back quite possibly the best Jackbox game ever.

Skyrim now has one of the smallest, but most welcome, quality-of-life changes from Starfield that makes exploring with a companion just a touch easier, as modders have once again proved that new life can be breathed into Tamriel with simple changes, especially ones that Bethesda itself implements in later RPGs.

Monster Train developer Shiny Shoe is removing all in-game monetization from its Steam Early Access roguelike co-op game Inkbound, citing a change in “industry and player sentiment” as the main reason for the removal. With many triple-A games focusing on in-game currency and battle passes as a way to both fund development and make extra money, Shiny Shoe’s decision stands out.

EA’s Battlefield 2042 was heavily ridiculed at launch in 2021 for server errors, changes to how the squad system worked, and countless bugs. The multiplayer FPS even has the lowest average rating of the whole Battlefield series, but the last couple of years have seen developer DICE turn it around. Now between changes, new content, a free Steam weekend, and a sale, Battlefield 2042 is the most popular it’s been since launch.

A Lords of the Fallen update lets you once again enable Nvidia DLSS, helping you optimize your performance and frame rate in the soulslike game. The tool had previously been disabled due to concerns it was responsible for crashes, and developer Hexworks emphasizes that the issue has not yet been fully resolved – but says you can now use it again should you prefer, at your own risk.

There’s no stopping Vampire Survivors. The breakout indie game, which saw its full release in October 2022 following a period in early access, helped to define a wave of auto-attacking roguelite survival games and became one of the most popular games of the year. Since then, developer Poncle has released two pieces of DLC and is now celebrating yet another landmark achievement, as the game breaks a rather spectacular Steam milestone.

Of all the successful battle royale games on Steam, Naraka Bladepoint is hands-down the most stylish. Fortnite may be the most broad-reaching and Apex Legends has a delightful cast, but Naraka’s fast-paced melee combat and platforming combined with its roster of gorgeous, fashionable characters make it one of the coolest games on PC period, and we’ve now been given a glimpse at what to expect from the imminent Naraka Bladepoint Season 10, including its next hero and a new melee weapon.

A rather bizarre Diablo 4 Season 2 video has been removed from Blizzard’s social channels after several mistakes were spotted throughout. The developer, which is now part of Microsoft following the close of its deal with Activision Blizzard King, shared a video on Twitter/X detailing the various Season 2 changes coming with the launch of the Diablo IV Season of Blood. However, numerous inaccuracies in the video have since seen it pulled down.

There’s one Starfield planet you don’t want to miss out on for its XP farm capabilities, and now that it’s making the rounds online thanks to a Reddit post there’s no telling how long it’ll be until Bethesda potentially nerfs the XP opportunities for you. So if you want to get in on the action and get some quick levels so you can unlock as many perks as possible, listen up.

Team Fortress 2 is celebrating Halloween season, and the beloved class-based FPS game’s own 16th anniversary, with the launch of a new official mode based on a popular custom game variant and an old Half-Life 2 mod. Just a few days after its introduction, alongside its work on the newly launched Counter-Strike 2, Valve is already busy with balance changes, releasing the first TF2 Zombie Infection patch notes with big buffs to almost every zombie class and nerfs to the human Engineer and Demoman.

It’s been nine years between the original and rebooted Lords of the Fallen, and the soulslike game space has completely changed in that time. Not only has FromSoftware continued to refine its design up to the masterful Elden Ring, but many imitators have tried to carve out a space, and countless other games have had soulslike elements baked into their design too. The change has been so drastic that the initial player numbers for both the 2014 and 2023 versions of Lords of the Fallen have massively differing player peaks, with the newer game seeing five times the players of the original at launch.