Rick Lane
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

The design lead of Half-Life's biggest competitor says that its publisher was so 'pissed off' by the time the game launched that it didn't bother testing it properly: 'We got trashed in the press because of bugs'
By Rick Lane published
News "It really hurt it when it came to reviews."

A game developer compared Godot and Unity by making the same game in both engines, and he's found a clear winner
By Rick Lane published
News Godot is smaller, faster, and quicker to load than Unity, according to tests run by designer Thomas Grové.

Space Marine 2 gets a steep discount, a free trial and an update that adds a 'major revamp' of Siege Mode, as its multiplayer continues to outpace games like Marathon
By Rick Lane published
News The overhaul makes horde sessions "quicker and more intense".

I can't wait to get murdered by flowers in this rad-looking survival horror game
By Rick Lane published
News The Florist looks like Resident Evil meets Annihilation.

A Broken Sword movie is in the works, aiming to move the adventure game classics into 'the next medium it deserves'
By Rick Lane published
News Creator Charles Cecil says the emphasis is on 'what Broken sword is' rather than 'what it can be made to look like'.

You can help save the whales by buying this reef-building game written by the scribe of the Tomb Raider reboot
By Rick Lane published
News The developer of Life Below is launching a special supporter pack with all net revenue goes to supporting whale and dolphin conservation.

As it rapidly approaches $1 billion in player funding, Star Citizen goes free to play until May 27
By Rick Lane published
News No taxation, just representation.

The director of the best Splinter Cell game reckons that modern lighting engines are making stealth games 'so much harder to read'
By Rick Lane published
News "It gets very hard to tell what’s light, what’s shadow, what’s dark, what’s safe, what’s dangerous."

Scott Miller, founder of Apogee, has over 1,000 hours in World of Warcraft and always plays a warrior in any RPG: 'I like to get right in their face and pound away'
By Rick Lane published
Realm walker The shareware pioneer guides us through the games on his PC.

Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth's director weighs in on the real-time versus turn-based debate, saying that younger players 'increasingly favour more real-time experiences in games'
By Rick Lane published
News But Hamaguchi still reckons that turn-based games are "deeply universal."

Star Citizen's latest alpha update brings a 'full reset' to its universe, as Cloud Imperium Games promises to crack down on player exploits and duplication issues
By Rick Lane published
News Players keep their blueprints and ships bought with in-game currency, but that's it.

Civilization 7's imminent update will add one of history's most famous conquerors for free, in Firaxis' latest bid to coax you back to its controversial sequel
By Rick Lane published
News Tests of Time has one last surprise in store.

This indie action RPG looks like Minecraft but plays like Dark Messiah, letting you boot enemies off ledges and body slam them into walls of spikes
By Rick Lane published
News The Adventures of Sir Kicksalot is out now

This game about being a chaotic mage might be the best indie immersive sim you can play, as I learned after destroying a mime's house with magnetism
By Rick Lane published
Rhelly good Rhell: Warped Worlds & Troubled Times is a delight.

MercurySteam announces 'difficult and painful' job cuts as its God of War-inspired hack 'n' slash arrives on Steam
By Rick Lane published
News The developer of Blades of Fire has initiated a "workforce adjustment process."

6 million more people are using Firefox because of new EU rules, which is good news for Chrome haters like me
By Rick Lane published
News Other third-party browsers are seeing upticks too.

Sink your teeth into V Rising for free this weekend, and you can grab the full game for less than half price
By Rick Lane published
News All DLC is also 20% off.

Fallout's creator reveals you could have played as a snoring cow hater who believes in UFOs, had Black Isle stuck with its original licensed roleplaying system
By Rick Lane published
News Tim Cain spills the tea on "GURPS Fallout".

Bennett Foddy, designer of QWOP and Baby Steps, is obsessed with friendslop games and won't uninstall Baldur's Gate 3, even though he'll probably never finish it: 'It was too big and so I stopped'
By Rick Lane published
Loco motion The master of bizarre control schemes talks us through the games on his PC.

Two Point Museum's latest DLC features a buildable studio where artists can create 'millions' of unique artworks, and there's 'no generative AI involved' whatsoever
By Rick Lane published
News Two Point Museum: Arty Facts is available now.

Rust's latest update adds mortars but 'no visual guide to help you land shells,' so get ready for some chaos
By Rick Lane published
News "Firing a mortar requires mastery through trial & error."

How a trio of Canadian modders stumbled into making an official Die Hard game: 'I've had projects disappear that had 10 times the promise that this did'
By Rick Lane published
Hard lessons The strange origin of MechWarrior steward Piranha Games.

Europa Universalis 5's 'biggest update yet' expands the Balkans, overhauls the economy, and fixes more than 2,000 bugs
By Rick Lane published
News The Encinades update also reworks orthodoxy and improves military systems.
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