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

A marine addresses his squad inside a dropship in Quake 4: awakening
Cancelled Quake 4 expansion gets surprise GitHub release after former XCOM 2 developer discovers it on an old hard drive: 'This essentially saved my life'

By Rick Lane Published

News Quake 4: Awakening was in development at Ritual Entertainment before being scrapped.

7 Comments
News
A Roblox character with horse ears and anime-style face in the Umamusume Pretty Derby tribute, Uma Racing.
Roblox shares plummet by 70% after the company reports persistent decline in player numbers, and of course the solution involves AI

By Rick Lane Published

News The company's earnings outlook for the remaining year has "changed considerably."

23 Comments
News
A survivor hides behind a crate as he prepares to demolish a log cabin in Unturned.
Blocky zombie survival sim Unturned releases its source code so players can build a 'lasting legacy' for the game 'regardless of the changes we make'

By Rick Lane Published

News The source files are freely available for non-commercial use.

12 Comments
News
Kratos and Atreus in the Amazon God of War TV show.
God of War TV series sees further recasts as Amazon seeks older actors for Atreus and Thrud

By Rick Lane Published

News The series will have different actors in these roles for Season 2.

News
A Japanese woman with wet hair a scar on her left cheek looks to the sky in an image from the announcement trailer for Last Sentinel.
Tencent's cyberpunk rival to Grand Theft Auto is in trouble as its developer lays off 80 people

By Rick Lane Published

News Lightspeed LA says it will "shift the creative and development direction" of Last Sentinel.

News
The latest Expeditions game launches into early access today, and I can't think of a better setting for the series than feudal Japan

By Rick Lane Published

Sponsored by THQ Nordic

Expeditions: Samurai is out now in Early Access.

Felipe Falanghe in front of a Kerbal backdrop
One of Kerbal Space Program's biggest inspirations was a promotional Flash game for Top Gear: 'That was the most similar game to KSP that I could find back then'

By Rick Lane Published

Rocket science The creator of KSP talks us through what's on his PC, from Full Throttle to Old School Runescape.

Rocket science
A man fighting zombies in the rain
Perennial early access game Project Zomboid hit a new concurrent player record after a huge map update added reworked towns, a spooky orphanage and '400 procedural basements'

By Rick Lane Published

News The zombie survival sim has also gone up in price.

15 Comments
News
A Scarab Occult Terminator Sorcerer looks menacing in Space Marine 2.
Space Marine 2's latest updates add Terminator Sorcerers and Steam Workshop support, so you can now play co-op with 9 other players if you want

By Rick Lane Published

News Terminator too.

News
Wes Johnson, in the role of Sheogorath, threatens a sound technician with a magic staff.
I enjoyed this video of Oblivion Remastered actor Wes Johnson goofing around in a sound booth dressed as Sheogorath, but a patch for the PC version would be nice too, Bethesda

By Rick Lane Published

News Bethesda takes a different approach to marketing its Switch 2 launch.

News
Nuclear Throne
The games industry's 'fear of risk is currently the largest risk it faces' according to Nuclear Throne's producer

By Rick Lane Published

News "Courage is a consistent factor of most hit titles."

News
Qunari
Dragon Age's former producer had envisioned a 'Champions Edition' equivalent to Mass Effect's Legendary Edition, but he doesn't think it will happen anymore: 'There are basically no companies that could help you'

By Rick Lane Published

News "There's basically no one outside of BioWare anymore that understands the Aurora engine."

22 Comments
News
Gordon Freeman fights Quake's first boss, Chthon.
I was excited for this Quake port of Half-Life until I discovered the creator's wild AI conspiracy theories

By Rick Lane Published

News Don't like AI? Then you're a domestic terrorist, apparently.

18 Comments
News
Bulletstorm is the stupidest game ever made, and also one of the cleverest shooters ever

By Rick Lane Published

Reinstall Enjoying the high-kicks and low-brows of a timeless FPS.

9 Comments
Reinstall
Raphaël Colantonio in front of a Cyberpunk backdrop
'The last time I liked everything about a game was probably Baldur's Gate 3': Raphael Colantonio, co-founder of Arkane Studios, talks us through the games installed on his PC

By Rick Lane Published

Immersed Lovecraftian misadventures, cat-breeding tactics games and, of course, Thief.

9 Comments
Immersed
helldivers 2 urban legends
Helldivers 2 is giving players a free car in October, except for those who already earned it in June

By Rick Lane Published

News The M-103 Supply FRV becomes available to all patriots later this year.

News
DMZ 2.0 - Soldiers
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4's beta will have low-SBMM playlists, as Activision continues to 'learn a lot about multiplayer matchmaking'

By Rick Lane Published

News A "new matchmaking system" is also being introduced into Black Ops 7.

9 Comments
News
Jedi Knight
Conceived in a secure military facility, this Jedi Knight fansite has been running consistently for almost 30 years: 'It looks really close to what it did back in 1998'

By Rick Lane Published

Jedi Survivor The story of The Massassi Temple.

Jedi Survivor
Stars Wars Zero Company key art
There's only one Jedi Operator in Star Wars Zero Company, and reckless players may end up with none at all: 'Be careful that nothing unfortunate happens to her!'

By Rick Lane Published

News Pad your wan.

News
Mythbusters: San Andreas
Modding wizard creates Grand Theft Auto multiverse that lets players travel instantly between Rockstar's first three games: 'We got inter-GTA portals before GTA 6'

By Rick Lane Published

News "The other game is actually running behind it, it's not a video or a captured window," says mod creator.

News
Players clad in blue and red jumpsuits chase a football around a pitch while wielding grenade launchers
MindsEye has multiplayer and a grenade football mode now, which the handful of people still playing it will no doubt be thrilled to hear

By Rick Lane Published

News Update 8 also further addresses the campaign's many problems.

News
A trio of dwarves descend into the depths in the Dwarf Fortress key art.
The challenges of developing the colony sim, from Dungeon Keeper to Dwarf Fortress and beyond

By Rick Lane Published

CITY LIVIN' PC Gamer interviews the genre's founding fathers.

CITY LIVIN'
A picture of David Szymanski and a Doom backdrop
'The mid-2000s was the golden era of first-person shooters': David Szymanski, creator of Dusk and Iron Lung, discusses the games on his PC

By Rick Lane Published

Old blood The New Blood dev guides us through the games in his Steam library.

Old blood
God of War Laufey screenshot
God of War Laufey star Deborah Ann Woll isn't fazed by the negative reactions to its announcement: 'I feel totally unbothered'

By Rick Lane Published

News "I just know it's great."

24 Comments
News
Cliff Bleszinski.
Gears of War's creator is considering returning to game development, but whatever he makes won't be PvP like his last efforts: 'Good luck to anyone in that space'

By Rick Lane Published

News "Players just want to hop online with friends and shoot some stuff."

8 Comments
News
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