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

Dean Hall and some Kerbals.
DayZ creator Dean 'Rocket' Hall has over 2,000 hours in Kerbal Space Program and played the original XCOM at Mount Everest base camp: 'I think when I die, I will still be playing that game'

By Rick Lane Published

Rocket powered The founder of RocketWerkz talks us through the games on his PC.

Rocket powered
Samson screenshot
Open-world crime game Samson beats up a bunch of bugs in a new patch, as developer admits it 'released a game with flaws'

By Rick Lane Published

News "We are listening to everyone's feedback."

News
A Roman city blazes as an erupting volcano rains down ash and rock in the background.
Anno 117's first DLC will let you disregard history by building your Roman city next to a massive volcano

By Rick Lane Published

News Prophecies of Ash launches on April 23.

News
Looking across a tropical beach biome in The Planet Crafter
Terraforming survival game The Planet Crafter gets a beefy 2.0 update and a 50% discount: 'We wanted to take some time to improve multiple things'

By Rick Lane Published

News The latest patch adds a new biome, a graphics overhaul, and skyboxes that evolve in real-time.

News
Soulmask: Shifting Sands' in-game visuals
Tribal survival game Soulmask leaves early access with a new Egypt-themed DLC that's free for the next month

By Rick Lane Published

News 1.0 launch represents "a complete reinvention of the game".

News
Redfall wallpaper detail - image of a vampire
Revisiting Redfall after its final update reveals the ghost of the game it wanted to be

By Rick Lane Published

Community Patch Arkane Austin's final game is still disappointing, but I'm now convinced that it could have been great.

11 Comments
Community Patch
An image of Duke Nukem: Zero Hour Overclocked
This wildly ambitious modpack transforms the third-person, N64 exclusive Duke Nukem: Zero Hour into a 'jank '90s FPS' for your PC

By Rick Lane Published

News Duke Nukem: Zero Hour Overclocked reinvigorates the console shooter with first-person perspective and mouse and keyboard controls.

News
Alleged in-game images from the cancelled game Agent.
A character model datamined from Grand Theft Auto 5's source code 'could actually be Agent's protagonist', according to online sleuth

By Rick Lane Published

GTAForums user provides compelling evidence that the model is the lead character of Rockstar's cancelled spy game.

Action
Skyscrapers glitter in the light of a setting sun.
This 'highly realistic' city-builder could be the first real competition Cities: Skylines has seen in over a decade

By Rick Lane Published

News Could City Masterplan do to Skylines what Skylines did to SimCity?

18 Comments
News
Half-Life scientists crawl thorugh a vent in Half-Life: Lemmings
You can finally rescue Half-Life's guards and scientists thanks to this mod inspired by Lemmings

By Rick Lane Published

News Half-Life: Lemmings lets you save the trapped employees of the Black Mesa: Facility.

News
Players assault a yellow-painted building from a street in Gray Zone Warfare
Gray Zone Warfare's player count jumps by over 1000% following its most recent update: 'Players are coming back'

By Rick Lane Published

News The extraction shooter had over 126,000 daily active players after its Spearhead patch.

News
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A Japanese indie developer is seeking legal action over alleged missing funds from a crowdfunding campaign, says the funding platform claims the money was 'mistakenly wired to a different client'

By Rick Lane Published

News The successor to 428: Shibuya Scramble suffers a bizarre financial setback.

News
Marathon Cryo Archive Compiler
Marathon's most powerful gun gets a major nerf, as Bungie seeks to 'curb a little bit of its dominion in the game'

By Rick Lane Published

News Biotoxic Disinjector gets a big damage reduction.

News
Tarn Adams sitting in front of a laptop, edited with a screen from Factorio
Tarn Adams, co-creator of Dwarf Fortress, has over 1,400 hours in Factorio and is currently obsessed with terraforming games: 'Dwarf Fortress just doesn't accommodate a full-on sci-fi thing'

By Rick Lane Published

Deep dive Bay 12 Games' co-founder talks playing The Planet Crafter, Beast, and more than 40 years of saved desktops.

9 Comments
Deep dive
PO'ed remaster
This Nightdive-remastered 3DO shooter shows why it took Halo to break PC gaming's FPS hegemony

By Rick Lane Published

Kitchen nightmares Playing PO'ed will make you feel exactly like that.

11 Comments
Kitchen nightmares
A player reclines on a deckchair while another players runs in a giant hamster wheel in Rust.
Rust is getting hydro power through water wheels that can also be powered by humans: 'Before you ask, yes, you can force handcuffed players into them'

By Rick Lane Published

News Facepunch's latest update also adds armoured ladder hatches, coloured buttons, and Easter-themed bunny costumes

News
Raven Software lobby
After 36 years at the legendary FPS studio, Raven Software co-founder Brian Raffel is retiring

By Rick Lane Published

News Raffel has led the Heretic and Call of Duty developer since its foundation.

10 Comments
News
Marathon Cutthroat Competition: A side-on view of two Runners aiming as they walk through a garage.
Bungie provides details on Marathon's imminent Recon buff 'by popular demand', revealing an improved Echo Pulse and a 'more aggressive' tracker drone

By Rick Lane Published

Recon's area scanning ability will soon distinguish between AI and human enemies.

FPS
An image of the Take-Two Interactive logo on an abstract blue-glass background.
Take-Two has seemingly laid off an unspecified portion of its AI team, including its head of AI

By Rick Lane Published

News Luke Dicken, who previously spent a decade with Zynga, says his time with the company "has come to an end".

10 Comments
News
Tales of Kenzara: Zau screenshot - Zau with magical symbols over his shoulders
The director of Tales of Kenzera: Zau learned his most important game development lesson while working with Ridley Scott: 'That's why we're able to make games faster'

By Rick Lane Published

Resurgent "You have to do the work in order to find that voice, or find that thing that makes you kind of stick out and stand out."

15 Comments
Resurgent
Xalavier Nelson Jr in front of a Warframe backdrop
Xalavier Nelson Jr, director of Space Warlord Baby Trading Simulator, will never uninstall Warframe and would love to see an Outriders 2: 'I think that game would have been really special'

By Rick Lane Published

Full nelson The founder of Strange Scaffold gives us the lowdown on his PC gaming habits.

Full nelson
A penguin aiming down the reflex sight on his helmet to shoot a man, as another penguin does the same to one side. Yes this is a weird screenshot.
Altera is a hardcore, realistic, unforgiving military survival sandbox, so of course it features penguin soldiers with reflex sights on their heads

By Rick Lane Published

News Finally, someone invented the Humboldt-action rifle.

News
A red-skinned lizard person looks across a purple alien landscape in Vaunted.
XCOM meets Rashomon in Vaunted, a tactical RPG where your characters can rewrite history from their perspective

By Rick Lane Published

News The debut title from Lost Lake Games also lets you switch between turn-based combat and real-time action.

News
An android detective attacks a large blue robot with a massive drill.
I'm unsure how much of a detective game Artificial Detective will be, but I enjoyed the bit in the trailer when your character attacks a robot with a massive drill

By Rick Lane Published

News Former Dead Space and Control developers are involved in the project.

News
A sneaky spec-ops dude crouch-walks past a guard wearing high-vis gear in what looks like a sewer.
If you're sick of waiting for Ubisoft to make a new Splinter Cell, this newly announced indie stealth game might fill the Sam Fisher-shaped hole in your life

By Rick Lane Published

News Lizard State is inspired by "classic PS2-era games".

News
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