PC Gamer

Shelter footage reveals the harshness of nature, the badassery of badgers

Don’t let the lovely pastel art-style and adorable badger yelps at the start of this early Shelter footage fool you. Nature is cruel, uncaring, and full of jerk birds who’ll happily steal baby cubs like the diabolically hungry monsters that they are. I almost expected Werner Herzog to chime in halfway through this trailer, adding some appropriately bleak narration about the existential torment of survival.

Battlefield 4 release date announced, will arrive late October/early November

In light of Call of Duty: Ghosts game-changing dog announcement, I’ve been waiting to see what DICE would pull out of their secret bag of development tricks to gain the advantage with Battlefield 4. Maybe they’d reveal the introduction of Dog+, or “the wolf” as it’s more commonly known. Or perhaps they’d stop being such massive teases, and just admit that the game is 90% dinosaurs.

Whatever their plan, they’re staying quiet for now – instead settling for the announcement of Battlefield 4′s release date. Expect to see EA’s FPS sequel arrive October 29th in the US, and November 1st in the UK.

FIFA 14′s next-gen Ignite engine won’t be coming to PC

As part of last night’s Xbox One reveal, EA introduced Ignite, the shiny new engine that’ll power their next-gen sporting titles – including the upcoming FIFA 14. EA say Ignite will allow them to deliver better physics, AI and animation to the pitch. And after year upon year of minor iterations, a dramatic overhaul to the underlying EA Sports tech sounds rather exciting. Which makes it all the more annoying that the engine won’t be coming to PC.

TERA’s birthday month culminates in a “glutton” for a mount

Assuming you’ve utterly gorged yourself on icing-laden birthday goodness, TERA players are now qualified for a weirdo sort of treasure hunt that culminates in your coming into control of a gibbering, only vaguely terrifying new mount.

First Battlefield 4 DLC revealed as a pre-order incentive

Could Battlefield 4 get any more human, dramatic, or believable than it did by using “Total Eclipse of the Heart” in a gameplay trailer? I know, I didn’t think so either—but they’ve done it again! EA is getting in touch with our soft sides by appealing to our heartrending desire to own all of the DLC, and they’re doing it by offering the first for free. Provided you pre-order, that is.

DayZ Mod seeks community input before next patch release

Are you the hunter or the hunted? The DayZ Mod development team has released a new version of proposed changes and fixes to the zombie survival simulator and is seeking input from the community about anything that has been left out. The community changelog for the next update is a fascinating look at how the game has evolved since I first landed on Chernarus almost a year ago.

Guild Wars 2 is now cheaper by ten bucks

Because warring should be available for everyone. That’s according to ArenaNet, anyway, which has cited player accessibility as one of their primary reasons for the adjustment.

Diablo 3 one year anniversary infographic unleashes hellishly huge numbers

Diablo 3 has been out for just a little over a year, and Blizzard has burned the cooldown on its Infernal Horadric Ring of Visualizing Statistics to bring us the infographic inside this post. Among the notable figures: Players have spent over 930 years of play time in D3 collectively, the average number of daily players is over two million, and about 67 million characters have been created in total.

World of Warcraft’s 5.3 Escalation update introduces new scenarios, gameplay changes

It’s always fun to say that WoW is “rolling out” a new patch, as if Pandaria’s hardships are manufactured and deployed via a conveyor-belt production line. So the Horde and the Alliance are sniping at one another again, yes, but what does this mean for you, the player? There are many upsides to all the conflict, including but not limited to: new scenarios, reduced XP needed in leveling, changes to loot rolls, and while we’re at it, probably just more loot in general.

Xbox One: Three ways it could affect PC gaming

Microsoft’s Xbox One reveal this morning didn’t present any immediate or obvious implications for Our Dear Hobby. Conspicuously few games were shown during the debut of a new video game console, and no games were demonstrated live. Microsoft mostly spoke about the new utilities (Skype!), partnerships (NFL!), and living room takeover (Kinect!) we’ll expect from the Xbox One when it releases this year. From a technical perspective, 8 GB of RAM is the only concrete hardware spec Microsoft dropped.