The biggest PC gaming stories of the week

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Half-Life: Alyx is out, and we spent the week putting traffic cones on our heads.

A new Half-Life game released this week, which still feels weird to say. We quite liked Half-Life's VR spin-off—Chris gave Alyx a 92% in his review—and have been goofing around in it all week, because the high Goofing Around Potential (GAP) is still one of the best aspects of VR games. For instance, James played some headcrab sports, as you can see in the video above (also on YouTube).

If that doesn't sell you on VR, I guess nothing will. Now, onto the rest of the week's big PC gaming news:

After declaring war on Steam, Epic is now challenging publishers

Surprise: Epic is a game publisher now, too. For starters, it's publishing games from Remedy (Max Payne, Alan Wake, Control, Sam Lake's uncannily charming face), Playdead (Limbo, Inside), and genDESIGN (The Last Guardian). For more context, I broke down the deal Epic is offering the developers it partners with. 

Gearbox Software co-founder Landon Montgomery has died

Gearbox announced the news of Montgomery's death on Wednesday. "Landon will live on in the memory of our earliest games from our work with Half-Life and Halo to the creation of our first, original game Brothers in Arms," wrote Gearbox President and CEO Randy Pitchford. "Aloha, Landon."

Valve explains why we still don't have Half-Life 3

In short, it's because it just hasn't made anything it's happy with calling Half-Life 3. That's a bit anti-climactic, but at least we have this:

If you miss the pistol in Doom Eternal, there's an unofficial way to access it

It makes sense why it didn't make the cut, but it is a pretty cool pistol, and you can try it out with the help of Cheat Engine.

Mount & Blade 2: Bannerlord is launching a day early

A new Half-Life game one week, and then Mount & Blade 2 releases the next? We're living in unusual times. (Specifically for those reasons and no others.)

More things we wrote

Around the office

Steven has been playing new Early Access survival-land-boat game Last Oasis, and while there are server issues, it's roped him back into the genre. 

Meanwhile, Wes got to play a preview version of Gears Tactics, and it's also looking really good. I wasn't expecting a Gears of War spin-off tactics game to sound so appealing given I don't care much for the shooters, but I'm down.

We did a lot more this week, but mostly we did stupid things in Half-Life: Alyx, as I mentioned. Have a good weekend, and wash those hands—or, if possible, take a bath while you catch up with your friends via video conference:

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Tyler Wilde
Tyler Wilde
Editor-in-Chief, US

Tyler grew up in Silicon Valley during the '80s and '90s, playing games like Zork and Arkanoid on early PCs. He was later captivated by Myst, SimCity, Civilization, Command & Conquer, all the shooters they call "boomer shooters" now, and PS1 classic Bushido Blade (that's right: he had Bleem!). Tyler joined PC Gamer in 2011, and today he's focused on the site's news coverage. His hobbies include amateur boxing and adding to his 1,200-plus hours in Rocket League.