Author: [email protected] (Tyler Wilde)
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Avowed’s companions won’t ditch you for making the ‘wrong’ choices: ‘It’s not about maintaining their approval, it’s about getting to know them’
Avowed, the upcoming first-person RPG from Obsidian, mixes and matches a few RPG standards in its approach to companion characters and their stories. Before we get into details, some basics—in an interview with game director Carrie Patel and gameplay director Gabe Paramo this week, we learned the following about Avowed’s companions and party management: We’ll…
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Palworld accused of copying Pokémon models, developer pushes back, says artists are being slandered
Ludicrously successful Pokémon parody survival game Palworld, which has sold four million copies in just days, has come under the microscopes of internet detectives who think its 100 Pokémon-like monsters go beyond parody into straight-up rip-off territory. The head of Palworld developer Pocketpair, Takuro Mizobe, said on X today that “slanderous” comments are being made…
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Does anyone else really miss cleaning the gunk out of old mice?
Today’s mice have little eyeballs that stare unblinkingly at the textures of our grubby mousepads—a tragic life—but the first computer mice were delightfully simple mechanical contraptions. A little ball stuck out from a cage on the underside, and when you rolled it around, it spun two wheels, one to register forward and backward movement and…
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Of course Steam said ‘yes’ to generative AI in games: it’s already everywhere
Valve has been pretty consistent about its attitude toward curating the games on Steam: It doesn’t wanna. Even Alex Jones, a guy banned by YouTube and Facebook, has a game on Steam, so it’s no surprise that Valve’s new generative AI policy avoids ethical judgments, sticking to the company’s 2018 declaration that it “shouldn’t be…
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11 upcoming RPGs that might finally pull me away from Baldur’s Gate 3
The enormity of Baldur’s Gate 3’s briefly stirred up anxieties over raised expectations for future games: Are we going to feel let down by every subsequent RPG that can’t match BG3’s scope and complexity? Even if we did start insisting that every RPG must include several dozen hours of voiced dialogue, I doubt we’d go…
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2024 video game events: PC gaming showcases, conventions, and more tournaments
E3 is gone—may it rest in peace—but although the games industry no longer crams itself into the LA Convention Center every June, we’re not at all short on events. The year ahead is packed with showcases, esports tournaments, conventions, and fan gatherings, some new, some that have been going for decades. Dates haven’t been announced…
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The PC game releases we’re most excited about in January
Happy new year, PC gamers. I hope you’ve finished that second or third playthrough of Baldur’s Gate 3 or Alan Wake 2 or one of our other 2023 GOTY Awards honorees, because it’s 2024 now and there are new games to play—no living in the past! Yeah, just kidding, everyone I know is still playing…
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Mickey Mouse has been in the public domain for under 48 hours and there’s already a horror game and 2 horror movies on the way
After multiple changes to US law that kept it copyrighted for nearly 100 years, 1928 Disney cartoon Steamboat Willie—which contains the first appearances of Mickey and Minnie Mouse—is now in the public domain. And what do we do when a beloved children’s character becomes available to use in new creative works? We make them into…
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We expected Baldur’s Gate 3 to be good, but who knew it’d be such a huge hit?
When Baldur’s Gate 3 bumped up its PC release date to avoid Starfield, it didn’t occur to me that Starfield was the game that should be worried. Wes was the most prescient among us at PC Gamer, wondering at the time if Baldur’s Gate 3 would be so good that Starfield would suffer from the…
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Steam keeps on winning | PC Gamer
Epic Games remains steadfast in its quest to drive down game store fees and build its “metaverse” vision, but the might of its Fortnite, Unreal Engine, and Epic Games Store operation wavered this year. Epic laid off over 800 employees in September, and pawned off beloved music marketplace Bandcamp after acquiring it only a year…