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

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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.

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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
Myth 2: Soulblighter
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

By Rick Lane Published

Mythic quest Extraction shooters are great and all, but I'd give my right leg for more Myth.

21 Comments
Mythic quest
Geralt and Shani chat in The Witcher 3: Hearts of Stone.
This massively ambitious The Witcher 3 mod aims to recreate its biggest cut questline, and you could be the voice of Geralt of Rivia

By Rick Lane Published

News The War Project will add 12 new quests across 10 more hours of monster hunting.

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Palworld early access
Palworld 1.0 won't wipe your data, 'but you should' says Pocketpair's publishing boss

By Rick Lane Published

News "We believe that starting a new character will give you the best experience of Palworld".

News
Viewed from third person, the player attacks a zombie with a scythe in the Dying Light 2 community map The Atomborne.
Dying Light 2 is a platform now, as the Breach update opens up Techland's zombie survival game 'even more to UGC content'

By Rick Lane Published

News "Patch 1.28 is something we wanted to do for a long time."

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Don't expect the Death Stranding movie to retell the story of the games, as its director says the film will be set in his 'own corner of the world'

By Rick Lane Published

News But you "might see some characters from the game pop up".

News
Alex Goldman in front of Silksong's judge
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?'

By Rick Lane Published

Tech rapport The creator of Hyperfixed guides us through the games on his PC.

Tech rapport
A group of Helldivers plan their next mission around a hologram of a planet in Helldivers 2.
Helldivers 2 will evolve major orders into galactic war campaigns later this month, with huge changes to mission distribution and Super Destroyers also in the works

By Rick Lane Published

News Better ship customisation is also coming to Arrowhead's sci-fi shooter.

8 Comments
News
Geralt and Yennefer
CD Projekt Red's mysterious Project Hadar will be an 'emotional, open-world experience' similar to The Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk

By Rick Lane Published

News A job posting reveals a few more details about CDPR's unannounced game.

7 Comments
News
A player wields the Grimhawk in Call of Duty: Black Ops 7
Call of Duty: Black Ops 7, Season 4 adds a mode that removes OmniMovement and a gun that aims for you

By Rick Lane Published

News Black Ops classic offers "streamlined" loadouts and a "throwback" map roster.

News
A Satisfactory player takes a selfie with the new portable toilet spawn-point. Yes, you read that correctly.
Satisfactory's first major update in a year brings back rain, adds fuel trucks and overhauls vehicle pathfinding, but Steam Deck players should approach with caution

By Rick Lane Published

News Rain check.

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Grace from Requiem (left) Ecstatica character (right)
DLSS 5 isn't the first time the future of videogame graphics looked like total balls

By Rick Lane Published

Triangles vs balls Tracing the brief history of ellipsoid graphics.

Triangles vs balls
Star Citizen
Star Citizen's latest alpha patch adds 385 asteroid defence missions, but players are reporting problems with broken hangar doors and exploding pilots

By Rick Lane Published

News Alpha 4.8.1 gives players the chance to earn 'unique blueprints for the first time', if they can actually complete the missions.

10 Comments
News
Randy Pitchford at the "Now You See Me: Now You Don't" world premiere held at The Lighthouse Pier 61 on November 10, 2025 in New York, New York. (Photo by Stephanie Augello/Variety via Getty Images)
2026's weirdest tech leak involves scuba diving, a Caribbean island, and Gearbox head honcho Randy Pitchford, and no, it's not what you expect

By Rick Lane Published

News Water reveal.

News
The Toreador vampire Ysabella taunts a ghoul wearing a mask in Bloodline 2
Bloodlines 2's final DLC introduces swordfighting, dual pistol wielding, and other stuff that should probably have been in the base game

By Rick Lane Published

News The Flower and The Flame tells the story of glamorous Toreador Ysabella.

9 Comments
News
TOPSHOT - Britain's Prime Minister Keir Starmer leaves 10 Downing Street in central London on December 10, 2025, to take part in the weekly session of Prime Minister's Questions (PMQs). (Photo by Ben STANSALL / AFP via Getty Images)
The UK government is considering banning children from speaking to strangers in games like Fortnite and Roblox

By Rick Lane Published

News The UK's online safety minister is concerned about 'stranger pairing' in games.

15 Comments
News
Nina Freeman in front of a backdrop from Devotion
There's one game Don't Nod narrative designer Nina Freeman won't ever uninstall from her PC, because it's banned on Steam: 'It's tragic, because everyone should play this game'

By Rick Lane Published

Follow Freeman The chief writer of Lost Records: Bloom & Rage talks us through her Steam library.

16 Comments
Follow Freeman
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Star Citizen's single-player component is in the 'closing stages' of development according to Chris Roberts, as rumours of another Squadron 42 delay circulate

By Rick Lane Published

News Cloud Imperium Games is getting "imminently closer to launch."

34 Comments
News
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