Upon returning to our Sea of Thieves ship after an expedition this past Sunday, PC Gamer's pirate crew found it consumed by flames for no apparent reason. Had another player done a sail-by firebombing just to spite us? How rude!
For half an hour we fought the blaze, but every time we thought we had it under control, the whole lower deck would reignite and the fire would re-spread to the top deck and captain's quarters. So we doused the flames with even more vigor, and finally we thought we'd put out the last one... but a minute later the lower deck was burning again! We were close to giving up, and then, as I filled another bucket with water, Chris walked up to me carrying something: A blackened fish that he'd left on the stove.
This week's lesson: Cooking is the most common cause of house fires, so please be careful. And with that important PSA out of the way, let's catch up on the week's big PC gaming news:
Assassin's Creed Valhalla announced
When the first Assassin's Creed came out, I did not think I'd still be writing about the series over a decade later. But here we go: The next Assassin's Creed is a Viking romp in 9th century England. You'll be able to dual wield shields (I know you were wondering) and hang out in a village that will grow over the course of the game.
The AMD/Intel war is now so fierce a $120 CPU is all your gaming PC needs
AMD's Ryzen 3 3300X and Intel's Core i3 10100 may be some of our next favorite gaming CPUs, which would change the definition of a budget PC build.
Gangs of goofy aliens have invaded GTA Online
If you'd also like to be in a goofy alien gang, Rockstar is giving away GTA Online money this month... enough to buy yourself an alien onesie.
They strike again from r/gtaonline
Blizzard co-founder believes accessibility has made World of Warcraft less social
Former Blizzard president Mike Morhaime had some interesting thoughts on World of Warcraft—that he can now share from his position outside of the company.
How to enable RTX Voice on any Nvidia graphics card, and why you should
I recently switched from a headset mic to a condenser mic on my desk, which sounds great but picks up a lot of room noise and typing. I tried RTX Voice noise cancelling, and the difference is pretty amazing. My voice sounds a little flat, but my Valorant teammates no longer have to hear me click-clacking my way around the maps. Pretty neat!
Fallout 76's new robot loves communism a bit too much for some players
Apparently it's been handing out too many pamphlets. Ah well, what is to be done?
More news? We have that:
- The next Battlefield game will release next year
- Assassin's Creed Valhalla will let you play as a female Viking warrior
- Fallout 76 players have eaten 193,639 pepperoni rolls in two weeks
- The original Star Wars: Battlefront now has Steam multiplayer support
- Geoff Keighley's hosting his own E3 replacement that will run all summer
- Legends of Runeterra launches with more than 120 new cards
- Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 Remastered is now available on PC
- Dota 2's The International probably won't happen in 2020, Valve says
- The Witcher showrunner promises to 'dig deeper' into the bad guys in season 2
Valhalla and Valorant
Of course the next Assassin's Creed is a Viking game—it had to be that or Japan, right? But even if it's unsurprising, it's exciting. Here's Fraser on why 9th century England should make for a cool setting. Ubisoft should also get to play with the Norse gods, which Steven thinks will be fun. He does not, however, think that "Blood Eagling" will be fun, as described in his Valhalla wish list.
I spent a lot of the week playing and covering another 'V' game, Valorant, even though its anti-cheat software won't let me check the temperature of my CPU for some reason. Not being much of a CS:GO player, I'm having more fun than I expected. I even got my first ace this week, and I was so excited that my team had to yell at me to remind me to defuse the spike, which I was definitely going to forget to do while jumping around victoriously. I'm good at videogames:
Have a great weekend, and look out for Assassin's Creed Valhalla gameplay footage next week as Ubisoft's multi-stage reveal continues.
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