In a furious montage of PC Gamer staffers hammering at typewriters and kicking our increasingly outdated office PCs, another week has passed. But what happened? Find out more, as we step into this week's PC news zone.
• Chucklefish responds to allegations it exploited volunteer Starbound developers (opens in new tab)
Creative industries are adept at seeking out free labor from keen young people who want to 'break in' to competitive fields. The situation described at Chucklefish is a classic example of what this looks like in the games industry, but similar things happen in media, music, television, film, and more. Volunteering for a commercial project might seem like a good way to get a foot in the door, but as many have expressed this week, when someone's making money off of the work of others, those workers ought to be paid.
• You can watch UK parliament on Twitch
It has been quite a week in the UK, and now we can use Twitch emotes to express what a week it's been.
• Rumours whisper of a new Splinter Cell game (opens in new tab)
What's that, above your head? It's Sam Fisher, doing the splits in an alleyway! He's almost invisible—a master of stealth—except for the three big bright lights he has on his face. In seriousness a new Splinter Cell game would be ace.
• Someone is levelling their WoW Classic priest entirely through their phone (opens in new tab)
Always be levelling.
• Iconic scenes from The Shining, The Terminator and more redubbed with Half-Life sounds (opens in new tab)
Quality work from YouTuber TheMostUpset (opens in new tab).
• Warframe gets a chill musical minigame and its fastest Frame yet (opens in new tab)
I'm enjoying this current trend of updating games with genre-confounding features. Fortnite is the most visible example, but for years Warframe has been expanding in unpredictable ways. In the very beginning you could flip around and shoot stuff, now you can strum alien instruments, fish, capture animals, and collect stuffed toys.
• Magic: The Gathering Arena officially launches later this month (opens in new tab)
I've been dipping into the pre-release version of this, and it's the best digital realisation of Magic I've encountered.
More news
- Deadly Premonition 2 gets a surprise announcement (opens in new tab) (no PC version yet, though)
- Someone has built the What Remains Of Edith Finch house in The Sims 4 and it’s incredible (opens in new tab)
- Steam Labs offers new ways to search, teases a 'Deep Dive' recommender (opens in new tab)
- The next free DLC for Total War: Warhammer 2 adds a very big lizardman (opens in new tab)
- Valve's 'unfair' comment about Metro Exodus on the Epic Store wasn't meant to incite gamers (opens in new tab)
- Gears 5 welcomes all players with 19 LGBT Pride flags (opens in new tab)
- Yakuza 7 devs explain the new combat system, say it could be twice the length of previous games (opens in new tab)
- Alicia Vikander Tomb Raider sequel confirmed for 2021 (opens in new tab)
Tweet of the week
Loving those Observation Japanese UI screens? The latest patch has it in for all versions! Switch language in the main menu to Japanese and play in EXTREME DIFFICULTY mode where you cant read any of the text, but it looks smart af 💥 pic.twitter.com/CqTuvL7kw8September 5, 2019
Andy Kelly does love some good science fiction UI, and these shots hit the sweet spot.
Around the office
My desktop sucks so much that people in the comments are calling me a monster and one of them is my boss https://t.co/xRleFAlfwGSeptember 5, 2019
This week we exposed our desktop shame (opens in new tab). Robin and Andy sit at the opposite ends of the spectrum. Chaos vs. order.
A lot of PC Gamer are taking time off in September—a vital window between Gamescom, release season, and the holidays—but we still managed to throw a spotlight on some cool upcoming games, including Spacebase Startopia (opens in new tab), Going Under (opens in new tab), River Legends: A Fly Fishing Adventure (opens in new tab) and Empire of Sin (opens in new tab). Meanwhile Joanna visited a wholesome gathering of Halo fans (opens in new tab).
Have a great weekend folks. My recommendation: Boot up Control, unlock the telekinesis powers, then throw dudes at other dudes until satisfied.
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