Features archive

June 2026

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123 articles

June 24
- GTA 6's preorders mark the start of a long wait for it to come to PC, despite the fact we'll likely make up '50% of the sales'
- Tim Sweeney on the future of games, AI, and whether Valve will ever join forces with Epic: 'It's now clear that nobody's going to end up with an absolute monopoly'
- Nothing has killed my GTA 6 hype faster than locking a core part of its identity behind a $20 upgrade
- Knights of the Old Republic 2 was great because it peeled back Star Wars' black-and-white morality
June 23
- Blending my way through Hive Tertium's tunnels as a towering murderbot might make the Skitarii my favorite Darktide class yet
- For the first time, you can play a game generated by real quantum computers, and it's set in the Backrooms
- Sand: Raiders of Sophie is like Sea of Thieves on land, but even tougher for solo players
June 22
- An absurdly large patch filled with over 2K lines of changes is how the devs of early access co-op RPG Fellowship hope to hook players on running MMO-like dungeons without the MMO
- The arcade meets the hex grid in R-Type Tactics—an unlikely fusion that shines like a star on PC
- The Steam Machine is the biggest victim of the RAMpocalypse to date, and that's made me unreasonably annoyed
- Bungie's at a crossroads: Should Destiny 3 be a live service, just a campaign, or something else entirely?
- I had my doubts about Critical Role's new 13-player D&D campaign, but its latest episodes have me fully bought into its grand, ambitious promise
- Steam Week in Review: spammy, AI-generated capsule art is a pox, and it makes browsing Steam less fun
June 21
- 'I was like, am I gonna pass out on stage?': Final Fantasy 14's rock band on transcending from videogame music to on-stage at the UK's biggest rock and metal festival
- Bryce Clark, game director of Poppy Playtime, has played 23,000 hours of Steam games: 'I'm a bit obsessed with learning the market'
- This gorgeous and ambitious Grand Theft Auto 4 total conversion swaps Liberty City for a Fargo-style slice of rural Wisconsin, featuring backroads and a pizza delivery job gone wrong
June 20
- Crysis 2 had problems, but it got one thing right: destruction
- The best D&D videogame you've never played is one guy's outsider art, personal Baldur's Gate saga
- 5 promising games recently cancelled by Microsoft
- I spent an entire day with a fan-mod of North Korea's homegrown operating system, and I'm sorry to say it's not a Windows killer yet
- WoW's got the right to close private servers—but in this industry layoff hellscape, I also feel like I'm watching the MMO genre's future get snuffed out
- After losing over 30 pounds exercising in VR for six months, I can say it's worth the effort (and sweaty faceplates)
June 19
- Nobody needs to grind for 100 hours to see how Path of Exile 2 has redefined the action RPG loot hunt
- If you like puzzle platformers, multi-dimensional traversal, and ducks—I have the game for you
- The greatest FPS mode of all time is endangered
- Don't be put off by its name—Rizz Dungeon: Skeleton Key to My Heart is actually a very fun dungeon crawler with a unique spin
- This 1986 Japanese adventure game showing up on Steam in 2026 guarantees it makes my GOTY list—you've really got to play it
- The best cosy cleaning sim I've played has just gone into playtest—if you like PowerWash Simulator, then this is the next game for you
- Defenders of the Crown: The Legend Returns is a lavish remaster of a strategy RPG classic, and if you've ever poured 100 hours into a Crusader Kings game I think it's one for you
- Why the Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra might finally encourage your foray into mobile gaming
June 18
- Ready your gaming battlestation with the perfect loadout and save big with these Corsair Vengeance bundles
- My quick test of Lumen Lite shows that it's probably good news for ray-traced gaming on handheld PCs, but I suspect that it will be used everywhere because of the pressure developers are now under
- PC Gamer magazine's new issue is on sale now: Planet Zoo 2
June 17
- Stellaris' Nomads expansion finally lets me live out my Battlestar Galactica fantasies, though its Wayline system could definitely use some work
- There's no such thing as the Matt Mercer Effect
- I ran 45 idle game demos from Steam Next Fest all at once for a desktop companion battle royale
June 16
- I need you to play this unbelievably tense 2 hour horror about descending into hell with a grappling hook
- Thanks for the Soup is the most fun I've had in a horror game in a long time, and that's owing to the broccoli
- I've been waiting 20 years for a worthy sequel to my favourite life sim, but THQ Nordic has other ideas
- I already like the new survival horror Hellraiser game more than the movie
- Social media is awful but the UK under-16 ban won't solve anything: 'Instead of punishing children, the government needs to target the source'
June 15
- The new NBA game's street balling is strong, but it's way too sweaty for its own good
- Finding a great new Discord hangout game that's not a roguelike still feels like striking gold
- Meccha Chameleon lives up to the hype as the next great party game—so if you haven't played it yet take this as a sign to check it out
- BioWare's co-founder fought to make Baldur's Gate 3 for over a decade, then Larian did it instead: 'I don't really get jealous'
- Steam Week in Review: More than 300 games released on Steam last week, and 120 of them had AI disclosures
June 14
- I went to the UK's largest rock festival to see its one and only videogame band
- 'I try to play as a completionist and leave no stone unturned and no enemy unkilled': Returnal director Harry Krueger talks Deus Ex, Resident Evil, and the arcade classic that inspired Housemarque's best games
- Ultima Online and Star Wars Galaxies vet tells me the theme park 'assembly line' MMO just isn't viable anymore, especially as dev costs spike: 'We hit the wall'
- After gaming on pro-level panels I can tell you now that 360 Hz is the sweet spot for gaming monitors
June 13
- A little known rendering technique that can create low-cost, photo-real graphics may be about to have its big moment in game development
- Sim racing is flourishing, but what happened to the arcade racer?
- I wish Bungie would stop designing excellent multiplayer shooters and go back to making fantasy strategy games where you blow up zombies with dwarf bombs
- It's bittersweet that the best time to play Destiny 2 in years coincides with its end, but I'm happy for the new players who get to experience its most liberating iteration yet
June 12
- Tracing blueprints in Paralives is so easy it freed me from 25 years of The Sims' grid-based tyranny
- Final Fantasy 11 is one of the greatest MMOs of our time
- I'm sad, I'm angry, I'm interested: Destiny's final cutscenes are a painful end to a new saga cut short
- The 9 games we're most excited about after Summer Game Fest's showcase bonanza
- If I had known how incredibly useful a NAS would be, I would've set one up a lot sooner
June 11
- I watched the new Halo remake gameplay, then replayed the original to nitpick the differences
- Why do mech games rarely let you leave the cockpit? Brigador Killers devs joke that the feature 'added five years of development time'
- After playing the new remake of Tomb Raider, I'm convinced you can't actually remake Tomb Raider
- You can just bypass Fable's reputation system with enough gold, which seems like a waste of its 'complex, nuanced, take on morality'
- I was big into Clutch's mix of story and racing styles, but the driving's a lot simmier than I expected
- EVE Online's survival spinoff Frontier is a hardcore space sim you can play on a gamepad that's unlike anything else out there
- Extraction shooter peak is finally returning and all you Arc Raiders players should definitely take note
June 10
- Microsoft doesn't know what to do about the memory pricing crisis Microsoft is causing
- 'An evolved game of cat and mouse:' Alien: Isolation 2 leads on taking the alien outside, the good kind of AI, and why a sequel took so long
- 18 embargoes from Summer Game Fest just lifted, so let's rank everything I saw in LA
- 6 reasons why an Alienware 15 laptop is a great Father's Day gift for gamer dads
- ReVamp is like a reverse Castlevania where you play Dracula defending his castle, and every wannabe Belmont and Dungeon Keeper fan should pay rapt attention
June 9
- Secretlab's CEO is getting tough on copycat chairs and doesn't feel pressure to adopt AI: 'If we were owned by outside investors, you can bet that AI will be somehow jammed down our throats'
- I was roasted by a physician for sitting weird but they gave me some great tips for healthier gaming
- Stars Reach could be the second coming of the sandbox MMO, with player-built cities and 40+ Star Wars Galaxies-style professions to give me hope
- After 3,000 hours spent in Total War: Warhammer, 40k's gameplay reveal has me convinced this one might genuinely end me
- Destiny 2's final update – live coverage of the end of an era
June 8
- A Star Trek horror game is just wild enough to work, but not the one Bloober Team is making
- 5 cozy game demos I'm downloading right now after I counted a whole 37 dropping during Summer Game Fest weekend
- Fumito Ueda on why Gen Atlas has shooting but isn't a shooter, cool robots, and generative AI
- After seeing Thief Remastered, I'm calling it: That doomed Deux Ex remaster should get rebooted with Nightdive in charge
- What's the plan with Halo, Xbox?
- Summer Game Fest no-shows: The big games that were absent from 2026's showcases
- A new MMO announcement is more exciting than all the other SGF news combined
- Don't let Deadlock's MOBA tag scare you off—there's a quick play mode for dummies which is the perfect entry point
- I have played what I suspect will be a perfect videogame
June 7
- This is Why We Game
- Xbox's big pitch for the future sure involves a lot of going backwards
- Alex Goldman loves challenging games like The Binding of Isaac, but the former Reply All cohost may have been defeated by Hollow Knight: Silksong: 'I spend six hours on a boss and I'm like what is life?'
- Fill out a quick PC Gaming Show survey for a chance to win this sweet 'sleeper' gaming PC
- Mina the Hollower has the best sidequests of any game in 2026
- I'm convinced this artist has specifically made stickers and charms for my inner child
June 6
- Question time: How often do you actually talk to strangers in MMOs?
- PC Gamers, come rate my videogame vinyl collection and decide whether it was worth the $$$
- DLSS 5 isn't the first time the future of videogame graphics looked like total balls
- Gothic Remake's lockpicking system has broken me and I can no longer experience joy
- I thought text-only Grand Theft Auto roleplay sounded too intimidating—but GTA World is showing me why players are slowing things down
- 'Reinventing the PC' is the concept Nvidia wanted to get across this Computex, but I'm not sure the AI room is being read
June 5
- As someone with over 1,000 hours in Guild Wars 2, I hope ArenaNet has a better plan this time around
- Crossfire was the most surprising game reveal I've attended in years
- I was worried Control Resonant wouldn't be Control enough, but then I got lost in an infinite bedroom dimension
- 007 First Light's Land Rover ads cross the line from product placement to late-night infomercials
- I've spent over 25 hours in Gothic Remake—here are my top 20 quick tips to survive The Colony
- These are the 5 games you need to check out after watching A24's Backrooms film
- I expected Nvidia's keynote to leave out gaming entirely, but the RTX Spark's purported 5070-like performance is a pleasant surprise
- Poll: Do you like the new Steam store design, or is it 'hot garbage'?
June 4
- Remember when Star Wars and Command & Conquer ruled PC gaming? June in PC Gamer 10, 20, and 30 years ago
- Path of Exile 2 raises the bar for all other action RPGs, and it's not even finished yet
- Summer Game Fest 2026 preview: What to expect from this year's showcases
- Corsair's slightly-outrageous Warthog PC case is the thing I'd most like to take home from Computex 2026, and I'm not ashamed to say it
- This year's Computex has highlighted just how big an impact Apple can have on the wider computing industry
- The excess of Computex feels a little more tone deaf than usual this year, as the pricing elephant in the room becomes harder to ignore
- Ace Combat director says 'I've been doing this for 30 years, so I know exactly how hard we're going'—and after playing it, I can confirm Ace Combat 8 goes extremely hard
- How the Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra keeps graphics-intensive games smooth and lag-free
June 3
- 868-Back makes hacking as cool as '90s Hollywood thought it was
- Computex 2026 has really highlighted the fact that PC gaming tech isn't all about gaming anymore
- Marathon's new PvE experiment is Bungie's most genius decision yet, so make it a full mode already
- New games in June 2026: It's a big month for Bungie and showcase reveals, but we're missing a key part of the monthly formula
June 2
- I played 3 hours of the Rayman Legends 3D remake—and while I miss the 2D artstyle, boy is it still pretty
- The Baldur's Gate remakes should scrap the original combat system and fully embrace superior turn-based fights
June 1
- The cozy game launches of June are a really crafty bunch
- The Backrooms film left me with more questions than answers and that's why it's the perfect adaptation
- Silver Pines is a gorgeous 2D Resident Evil-inspired metroidvania, with a dash of Twin Peaks, where I spent most of my time methodically stabbing monsters' shins
- Steam Week in Review: 4 Backrooms games released on Steam last week, joining a list of over 500 cash-ins, parodies and legitimate contenders