Rick Lane
Rick has been fascinated by PC gaming since he was seven years old, when he used to sneak into his dad's home office for covert sessions of Doom. He grew up on a diet of similarly unsuitable games, with favourites including Quake, Thief, Half-Life and Deus Ex. Between 2013 and 2022, Rick was games editor of Custom PC magazine and associated website bit-tech.net. But he's always kept one foot in freelance games journalism, writing for publications like Edge, Eurogamer, the Guardian and, naturally, PC Gamer. While he'll play anything that can be controlled with a keyboard and mouse, he has a particular passion for first-person shooters and immersive sims.
Latest articles by Rick Lane

Bennett Foddy, designer of QWOP and Baby Steps, is obsessed with friendslop games and won't uninstall Baldur's Gate 3, even though he'll probably never finish it: 'It was too big and so I stopped'
By Rick Lane published
Loco motion The master of bizarre control schemes talks us through the games on his PC.

Two Point Museum's latest DLC features a buildable studio where artists can create 'millions' of unique artworks, and there's 'no generative AI involved' whatsoever
By Rick Lane published
News Two Point Museum: Arty Facts is available now.

Rust's latest update adds mortars but 'no visual guide to help you land shells,' so get ready for some chaos
By Rick Lane published
News "Firing a mortar requires mastery through trial & error."

How a trio of Canadian modders stumbled into making an official Die Hard game: 'I've had projects disappear that had 10 times the promise that this did'
By Rick Lane published
Hard lessons The strange origin of MechWarrior steward Piranha Games.

Europa Universalis 5's 'biggest update yet' expands the Balkans, overhauls the economy, and fixes more than 2,000 bugs
By Rick Lane published
News The Encinades update also reworks orthodoxy and improves military systems.

Abiotic Factor just got another massive update that adds better pets, a ludicrously involved chemistry system, and most importantly, a mop for cleaning up all your failed experiments
By Rick Lane published
News Cosmic Companions is live now.

This very normal Half-Life mod lets you play as 'queen of spacetime' Max Caulfield, and it's convinced me that the next Life is Strange should be a full-on boomer shooter
By Rick Lane published
News Half-Life is Strange adds rewind powers and teen angst into Valve's FPS.

Conan Exiles whips out a massive Unreal Engine 5 upgrade that includes an 'enhanced endowment slider' to further improve player penises
By Rick Lane published
News Biggus Clickus.

Arrowhead addresses the Helldivers 2 community as recent Steam reviews slump to Mostly Negative: 'We want to be clearer about what we're working on and what's coming next'
By Rick Lane published
Multi-week campaigns, new vehicles, and more red stratagems are all apparently in the works.

Erik Wolpaw, co-writer of Portal and Portal 2 adores Burnout Paradise and has 1,500 hours in Slay the Spire: 'This is the perfect level of strategy'
By Rick Lane published
Paradise killer "It's the exact, perfect level of decision making and cognitive load for my brain."

Last Flag, the multiplayer shooter from the Imagine Dragons guy, is free to play for every weekend until its first update comes out
By Rick Lane published
News "We wanted to give everyone who hasn't had a chance to check out Last Flag the opportunity to play for free!"

Shapez 2 leaves early access with a new game mode all about building massive factories: 'This isn't just a game is finished release'
By Rick Lane published
News Manufacture mode "addresses one of the biggest feedback points we got during early access".

Bloodlines 2's first DLC arrives next week, and it'll let you wield guns and melee weapons properly, unlike the base game
By Rick Lane published
News The DLC will offer a "new take" on the Brujah clan.

As Enter the Gungeon celebrates its 10th anniversary, its creators have some choice words for the modern roguelike: 'We’re seeing it mutate to the version of itself that popularity obfuscates'
By Rick Lane published
News "So few people are trying to make something that is truly evocative of this experience of playing Rogue".

Menace's first major early access update overhauls its least interesting faction and jettisons its reviled promotion tax system: 'We have done away with it'
By Rick Lane published
News Who doesn't love a rebate?

With Silent Hill 2's source code still MIA, a dedicated fan has decided to restore the game's CGI renders: 'Takayoshi' Sato's work was incredible for its time'
By Rick Lane published
Konami lost the game's original code prior to releasing the HD Collection.

Helldivers 2 is getting a mech-themed Warbond that adds two new exosuits—one of which carries a shield and a flak cannon
By Rick Lane published
News Exo Experts arrives on April 28.

Dave Oshry, CEO of New Blood Interactive, will never uninstall Doom from his PC, and has over 488 hours in Fallout 76: 'It's the best cryptid hunting game'
By Rick Lane published
Riding shotgun The publisher of DUSK, Ultrakill and Gloomwood gives us the lowdown on the games on his PC.

The sequel to flying city-builder Airborne Kingdom just hit 1.0 with a huge update and a 50% discount
By Rick Lane published
News Airborne Empire soars out of Steam early access.

A YouTuber has unearthed Dark Souls 2's enormous cut sewers map, and it's another fascinating insight into the design of FromSoftware's most divisive work
By Rick Lane published
News The area that became The Gutter was far more elaborate in its initial form.

This hugely impressive Minecraft mod lets you build all manner of functioning vehicles, including planes, combine harvesters, and even airships
By Rick Lane published
News Create Aeronautics lets you travel across Minecraft's world in style.

Marathon's most popular shotgun is getting nerfed a second time, as Bungie worries it is 'eclipsing a lot of the other short range options that exist in the game'
By Rick Lane published
News "We're gonna take a shot at bringing the WSTR more in line."

This wildly ambitious total conversion mod for Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas lets you explore the setting of 2003's Manhunt
By Rick Lane published
News GTA: Carcer City lets you do crimes in the Rust Belt.
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