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

I enjoyed this video of Oblivion Remastered actor Wes Johnson goofing around in a sound booth dressed as Sheogorath, but a patch for the PC version would be nice too, Bethesda
By Rick Lane Published
News Bethesda takes a different approach to marketing its Switch 2 launch.

The games industry's 'fear of risk is currently the largest risk it faces' according to Nuclear Throne's producer
By Rick Lane Published
News "Courage is a consistent factor of most hit titles."

Dragon Age's former producer had envisioned a 'Champions Edition' equivalent to Mass Effect's Legendary Edition, but he doesn't think it will happen anymore: 'There are basically no companies that could help you'
By Rick Lane Published
News "There's basically no one outside of BioWare anymore that understands the Aurora engine."

I was excited for this Quake port of Half-Life until I discovered the creator's wild AI conspiracy theories
By Rick Lane Published
News Don't like AI? Then you're a domestic terrorist, apparently.

Bulletstorm is the stupidest game ever made, and also one of the cleverest shooters ever
By Rick Lane Published
Reinstall Enjoying the high-kicks and low-brows of a timeless FPS.

'The last time I liked everything about a game was probably Baldur's Gate 3': Raphael Colantonio, co-founder of Arkane Studios, talks us through the games installed on his PC
By Rick Lane Published
Immersed Lovecraftian misadventures, cat-breeding tactics games and, of course, Thief.

Helldivers 2 is giving players a free car in October, except for those who already earned it in June
By Rick Lane Published
News The M-103 Supply FRV becomes available to all patriots later this year.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4's beta will have low-SBMM playlists, as Activision continues to 'learn a lot about multiplayer matchmaking'
By Rick Lane Published
News A "new matchmaking system" is also being introduced into Black Ops 7.

Conceived in a secure military facility, this Jedi Knight fansite has been running consistently for almost 30 years: 'It looks really close to what it did back in 1998'
By Rick Lane Published
Jedi Survivor The story of The Massassi Temple.

There's only one Jedi Operator in Star Wars Zero Company, and reckless players may end up with none at all: 'Be careful that nothing unfortunate happens to her!'
By Rick Lane Published
News Pad your wan.

Modding wizard creates Grand Theft Auto multiverse that lets players travel instantly between Rockstar's first three games: 'We got inter-GTA portals before GTA 6'
By Rick Lane Published
News "The other game is actually running behind it, it's not a video or a captured window," says mod creator.

MindsEye has multiplayer and a grenade football mode now, which the handful of people still playing it will no doubt be thrilled to hear
By Rick Lane Published
News Update 8 also further addresses the campaign's many problems.

The challenges of developing the colony sim, from Dungeon Keeper to Dwarf Fortress and beyond
By Rick Lane Published
CITY LIVIN' PC Gamer interviews the genre's founding fathers.

'The mid-2000s was the golden era of first-person shooters': David Szymanski, creator of Dusk and Iron Lung, discusses the games on his PC
By Rick Lane Published
Old blood The New Blood dev guides us through the games in his Steam library.

God of War Laufey star Deborah Ann Woll isn't fazed by the negative reactions to its announcement: 'I feel totally unbothered'
By Rick Lane Published
News "I just know it's great."

Gears of War's creator is considering returning to game development, but whatever he makes won't be PvP like his last efforts: 'Good luck to anyone in that space'
By Rick Lane Published
News "Players just want to hop online with friends and shoot some stuff."

007: First Light was originally going to be less about James Bond and more of 'an ensemble piece', with 'all the 00s working together, as they do in Slovakia'
By Rick Lane Published
"You had the different agents working together."

Valve reassures Team Fortress 2 players that it's still working on the Mann vs Machine update it announced last year: 'We promise we're making progress'
By Rick Lane Published
news "It's taking a lot longer to sort through the new content and changes than we'd originally anticipated."

Get 15 games for $15 in Humble's 2K Megahits bundle, including Bioshock Infinite, Risk of Rain 2, and one of my favourite shooters of all time
By Rick Lane Published
News Also includes XCOM: Enemy Unknown, Borderlands 3, and Bulletstorm: Full Clip Edition.

Valve says there's no end in sight to the memory crisis, and prices are only going to increase: 'Honestly, it's still getting worse'
By Rick Lane Published
News Retail availability is lagging bulk supply by "at least three to six months" according to a Valve engineer.

2026's best RPG might look like Disco Elysium, but it was heavily inspired by Deus Ex, and its creator wants 'to do a first-person game at some point'
By Rick Lane Published
Clerical error The designer of Esoteric Ebb guides us through the games on his PC.

Helldivers 2 dev cracks down on 'suspicious super credit activity', though it would help if earning premium currency wasn't so boring to begin with
By Rick Lane Published
News "We're starting to implement changes that will tackle issues like this."

Tempest Rising's elusive third faction will get its own singleplayer campaign as a paid expansion, and you can play the demo right now
By Rick Lane Published
News The Veti's Wrath releases "later this year".
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