Rick Lane

Contributor

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

Screenshot from Space Marine 2
After Space Marine 2 'literally changed everything', Saber Interactive has been inundated with offers from major licenses: 'We are in a very fortunate position to turn down more than we can accept'

By Rick Lane Published

News "It changed how people look at us."

7 Comments
News
Art from The Seance of Blake Manor and a picture of Sally Beaumont
Sally Beaumont, voice actor in Old Skies and The Séance of Blake Manor, extols the virtues of narrative singleplayer games 'You can have lots of them in your PC toolbelt'

By Rick Lane Published

Sally forth The voice of Old Skies' Fia Quinn guides us through the games on her PC.

Sally forth
Garret from Thief.
Nightdive says compatibility with fan missions was a big priority for Thief Remastered, and there's one massive mod in particular it knew it had to get working

By Rick Lane Published

News "Obviously the big one in the room is The Black Parade".

7 Comments
News
Total War: Medieval 3 trailer
Creative Assembly wants to know which factions you wish to play as in Total War: Medieval 3, but whatever you do, don't ask to play as the Pope

By Rick Lane Published

News Some factions are already "locked in".

20 Comments
News
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Spyro speedrunner says a PC port of the original game is in the works, and it's being made with 'no AI'

By Rick Lane Published

News The port runs at 60 FPS, supports true widescreen and has "no polygon wobble".

News
The Vault Dweller from Fallout 4 standing in front of mountains from The Elder Scrolls 6
Skyrim's lead designer reckons releasing Elder Scrolls and Fallout games faster risks 'disappointing fans'

By Rick Lane Published

News "The biggest risks of shortened schedules is quality, reduced features, polish, or bugs."

30 Comments
News
DeadOS
I tried to create the perfect zombie apocalypse in this intensely detailed outbreak simulator, and sorry slow zombie fans, fast zombies are just better

By Rick Lane Published

Infectious "It's the game I wanted to play but couldn't because it didn't exist, so I made it."

Infectious
Garrett, stood face-on wearing a hood and cowl, stares menacingly out of the picture.
Not content with a Nightdive remaster, Thief's also getting a graphic novel and an original soundtrack featuring Garrett's voice actor

By Rick Lane Published

News Thief: Pulse of Promise is set between the first two games.

News
helldivers 2 warbond
Helldivers 2's next warbond is delayed, as Arrowhead says it 'needs more time to cook' following the shooter's massive progression rework

By Rick Lane Published

News "We will provide more information as it nears completion."

News
The player, wielding a curved blade, stands in an icy campsite flecked with blood. Fellow tribesmen wearing metal masks wander around the camp centre.
The next game from the director of Blood West is a frozen survival shooter where you scratch a living off the decaying corpse of a god

By Rick Lane Published

News Bloodwoven gives eldritch horror an arctic spin.

News
A soldier aims down the sight of an assault rifle.
The game formerly known as Operation Flashpoint is getting a remaster, while developer Bohemia Interactive has released its engine source code

By Rick Lane Published

News Arma: Cold War Assault gets the GitHub treatment.

9 Comments
News
Fallout: New Vegas console commands
RPG studio Obsidian faces class action lawsuit alleging violations of state wage laws

By Rick Lane Published

News The studio behind Fallout: New Vegas and Avowed denies "each and every allegation."

12 Comments
News
Bryce Clark, game director of Poppy Playtime, has played 23,000 hours of Steam games: 'I'm a bit obsessed with learning the market'

By Rick Lane Published

The Bryce is Right "I'm always playing somewhere between three and six games at a time."

The Bryce is Right
Chris Spargo stands in front of an isometric view of a city in SimCity 4
You will never guess who turns up in this video about why you can't build British towns in SimCity 4

By Rick Lane Published

News Now that's some prime YouTube fodder.

News
A person on a phone in the future
CD Projekt Red boss believes some fans were forever burned by Cyberpunk 2077's disastrous launch: 'I'm convinced that we lost the faith of some people indefinitely'

By Rick Lane Published

News "I'm not 100 per cent convinced we went through the full redemption arc."

58 Comments
News
Marathon: The Compiler boss inside a small room bathed in a red glow.
Marathon players are amassing way too much loot in Season 2, and the primary cause is a mystery: 'We're still unravelling the source'

By Rick Lane Published

News "Progression and access to power moved much faster than the previous season."

8 Comments
News
A group of fantasy characters enthusiastically play a card game around a tavern table.
Guild Wars 3 isn't the only new Guild Wars on the way: ArenaNet just announced a Guild Wars card game

By Rick Lane Published

News Mistbound aims to give fans "a new way to play together."

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Crysis 2 had problems, but it got one thing right: destruction

By Rick Lane Published

News Fancy a second helping of Crysis 2's big apple crumble?

News
Claude Guillemot, wearing a suit and glasses, stands in front of a brightly coloured patterned background.
Claude Guillemot, co-founder of Ubisoft, dies in plane crash

By Rick Lane Published

News The chairman and CEO of Guillemot Corporation was 69.

9 Comments
News
Richard Garriott
The creator of Ultima is reportedly reclaiming the series' rights back from EA, and it could happen as soon as next year

By Rick Lane Published

News "Every decade or so, I tried to work with EA on a revival of Ultima."

20 Comments
News
Age of Empires 2
Microsoft researcher builds goat-powered neural network in Age of Empires 2 to show why we should 'stop assuming that LLMs behave like humans just because they were trained with natural language'

By Rick Lane Published

"I have this tendency to dial up things to 11 when I really think I need to make a point."

25 Comments
AI
Harry Krueger in front of a Deus Ex backdrop
'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

By Rick Lane Published

Cosmic encounter The Housemarque veteran guides us through the games on his PC.

Cosmic encounter
Mina the Hollower, a 2D, Zelda-inspired action RPG
Mina the Hollower has a secret ending, but good luck seeing it

By Rick Lane Published

News If you want to see Mina's alternate conclusion, prepare yourself for an ordeal.

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Frontier is making a Planet game that isn't about zoos or rollercoasters, and has just filed trademarks for Planet Resort and Planet Festival

By Rick Lane Published

News Planet crafters.

News
The protagonist of Scarlet Deer Inn, Elise, stands with her children and a goose in a forest. A ghost hovers to the right of the image.
This hand-embroidered medieval adventure game looks like a lovely, chill time—but I'm warning you, don't be fooled by its pleasant exterior

By Rick Lane Published

News Scarlet Deer Inn releases next month.

News
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