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

Prince of Persia's creator reacts to Ubisoft's cancellation of The Sands of Time remake: 'Having a project killed is a brutal experience'
By Rick Lane published
News "It's an aspect of the game industry that the public doesn't often see, but developers are all too familiar with."

Get the complete editions of Civilization 4, 5 and 6 plus a bunch more games for $15 in Humble Bundle's The Sid Meier Collection
By Rick Lane published
News That's enough Civilization to last the remainder of civilisation.

Thirty years after launch, this classic space combat sim just got updated to work on modern systems and released for free
By Rick Lane published
News Grab Star Quest 1 in the 27th Century on Itch now.

Over a decade since launch, this cooperative dungeon crawler is getting a double-barrelled update that overhauls its magic system, dungeon generation, and much more
By Rick Lane published
News And it's 50% off for the next two weeks.

Cities: Skylines 2's new developer breaks cover on its plans for the sequel's future, revealing a patch that will include changes players 'have been requesting for a long time'
By Rick Lane published
News Better snow effects and a "streamlined" UI are coming to the sequel soon.

The best Elder Scrolls game that isn't an Elder Scrolls game is getting a big patch in February and free DLC in March
By Rick Lane published
News And there's a small patch out right now.

In a beautifully ironic twist, a YouTuber attempting a pacifist run of Bully discovered a secret weapon hidden for almost 20 years: 'I can see why they tried to lock it inside a building'
By Rick Lane published
News Norton's sledgehammer is finally yours to wield.

Old-school MMO Project: Gorgon launches into 1.0 with an update that adds 'by far the largest and most complex map we've ever made'
By Rick Lane published
News Embark upon 200 new quests in the capital city of Statehelm.

'Brutally honest' city builder Microlandia gets brutally honest crime simulation: 'It's a spectrum of consequences that can become a death spiral every single day'
By Rick Lane published
News "Cities are not clockwork, they are chaos machines with a mayor attached."

Lort devs reluctantly tweak the fantasy roguelike's difficulty after players complain the Risk of Rain 2 successor is too hard: 'You are meant to die and learn how to overcome the challenge'
By Rick Lane published
News "But we also don't want it to be too aggravating to jump into quickly and have fun."

Early access multiplayer shooter Out of Action is, ironically, full of action, with cyborg ninjas blasting each other in a mix of Titanfall and Max Payne
By Rick Lane published
News Come for the movement, stay for the "advanced multiplayer bullet time".

Dinner is served in Star Birds' latest early access update, adding bakeries and restaurants to the Dorfromantik devs' factory management sim: 'Ever fed an alien pizza?'
By Rick Lane published
News Star Birds' three new levels are "longer and more complex" than those included at launch.

This horror game built from the bones of an abandoned FPS server and an accidental ARPG might be one of the strangest puzzlers I've ever played
By Rick Lane published
Memory leak No Players Online is a truly esoteric adventure.

Inscryption-inspired card battler The Killing Stone gets a rad new trailer showing off voice talent from Critical Role and Baldur's Gate 3, and it's out next month
By Rick Lane published
News Talk shop with demons and beat the Devil in a battle of wits in this spooky new title from the creators of The Blackout Club.

After debuting in Nightdive's second remaster, one of the best mods for classic FPS Blood just released its concluding episode for everyone to play
By Rick Lane published
News Marrow: Chapter 2 is available for all now.

This side-scrolling metroidvania inspired by Bloodborne just got completely free DLC, and the base game is 50% off until February
By Rick Lane published
News The Last Faith's developers sure are devoted.

No More Room in Hell 2 will add new ways to play in its upcoming 1.0 launch, one of which 'plays like your favourite classic game modes from the late 2000s'
By Rick Lane published
News The multiplayer zombie splat-fest is also getting a "solo training mode".

FromSoftware-inspired RPG Lunacid is getting DLC, as its creator expresses bafflement at its success: 'This was supposed to be niche'
By Rick Lane published
News The expansion is "about 70% done," though Kira LLC feels like "it's been at 70% forever."

Super Battle Golf improves the world's least interesting sport by letting you blast your competitors with orbital lasers
By Rick Lane published
News Tees off in February.

You've got until Monday to get 80% off 2 of the best dungeon crawlers ever made
By Rick Lane published
News Legend of Grimrock and its sequel are going cheap.

Terraria's long-awaited 1.4.5 patch finally has a release date, and it's this month: 'start the countdown'
By Rick Lane published
News Sharpen your pickaxe for January 27.

This Thief fan mission has you play a blind character trying to steal back their sight, and honestly that's probably the least weird thing about it
By Rick Lane published
Eye for an eye Thief: Selection Day is a masterclass in strange.

To celebrate the imminent launch of a new Styx adventure, Epic is giving away Cyanide's last two goblin-flavoured stealth games for free
By Rick Lane published
News It's a steal.
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