Innehållsförteckning för PC Gamer Annual (2024) - Vol.7 från PC Gamer

Welcome to the latest edition of the PC Gamer Annual. In this special compilation, we’ve brought together the best games, features and Extra Life goodness from the magazine’s last 12 months. We celebrate the diversity of PC gaming as a platform and showcase the games you should be playing right now in the latest version of our annual Top 100 list. On page 52, we chart the galaxy of adventures Star Wars has brought to the PC. On page 84, we discover the complete story of Half-Life 3, the greatest game never made. And on page 102, Blizzard’s writers and loremasters take us on a guided tour of Diablo’s history, from the original release to Diablo IV. So, what are you waiting for? ROBERT JONES Twitter @rnicholasj This year Continued…

Best 4X Games STELLARIS RELEASED May 9, 2016 | DEVELOPER Paradox | PUBLISHER In-house After seven years, several expansions, and dozens of patches, Paradox’s space 4X has aged like a fine alien wine. With a mind-boggling array of options to create anything from a profit-hungry megachurch of zealous interstellar geckos to a Terminator-style rogue AI, almost any sci fi trope you can imagine is at your fingertips. And various systems reworks and improvements mean there’s never been a better time to spin up your drives. What really sets Stellaris apart from other space 4X games is the depth of its society simulation, a staple of Paradox games. There is more abstraction going on here than some of the studio’s other projects, but the fact that I can see what is…

COVER FEATURE Ten years of Warframe Warframe is big. Both in its success and in its scale, a vast action game that is as much about space combat, apartment decorating, pet training, fishing, hover surfing, mech fighting and open world exploration, as it is the central ninja combat that defined its debut. It’s now ten years old, a feat few of its service game and MMO peers can boast. Like its Tenno, Warframe is an underdog that prevailed against the odds. Digital Extremes itself is almost 30 years old and spent the 2000s doing work-for-hire, creating licensed games for a variety of clients. The Darkness, Star Trek, Dungeons & Dragons… the studio survived by taking whatever work it could. But there was always one dream project, a little sci-fi…

Batman: Arkham Knight RELEASED June 23, 2015 | DEVELOPER Rocksteady Studios | PUBLISHER Warner Bros How broken does a port have to be to get pulled off sale entirely? In June 2015 we found out, with the average PC player experiencing the shadowy streets of Gotham at about 10fps – if they could run the game at all. At the time, PCG advised readers to “treat Arkham Knight as a game still in development”. Just a day after launch, sales were suspended, retail stock was recalled, and refunds were offered to anyone who wanted one. It didn’t return to sale until several patches later in October 2015, though it still had plenty of issues, and in the end Warner Bros was so keen to apologise to PC players that they…

Some people grow up watching wrestling and dream of one day being WWE champion. Of winning the ultimate prize at Wrestlemania, the grandest stage of them all, while tens of thousands scream their name and millions more watch at home. Of carrying out feats of athleticism so grandiose they echo through eternity, then, now, forever… The wrestler in this month’s diary is not one of those people. Yes, he’s on the hunt for championship gold. But he has no intention of entertaining you along the way. Your enjoyment is poison to him, your hatred ambrosia. He intends to clamber up the rankings ladder and win a championship belt – probably one of the ones you forgot existed – without ever winning a match fairly. Say hello to the most unworthy…

For the 12 years that I’ve been playing Minecraft, I’ve only ever been really interested in the ‘mine’ part. Every new world would go about the same: explore around a bit, carve a simple one-bedroom apartment into a mountain, mine a bunch of ore, make the best stuff, then get bored. I like to build things that serve a real purpose, so once I’ve fiddled with pistons a bit, enchanted my sword, and brewed some potions, my Minecraft is basically over. This is why I wasn’t jazzed when my friends started talking about firing up another multiplayer server. I’d gone through the motions as recently as last year, but this one would supposedly be different. This one would have mods – 129 to be exact. There is so much more…

Some horror games are set in spooky castles, abandoned mental asylums, derelict spaceships, or circuses with an unwise hiring policy regarding murderclowns. Others are set in suburban streets, shopping malls, hospitals, schools, or homes. I find the second kind have the most impact, haunting my thoughts long after they’re over like a picture I shouldn’t have looked at on the internet. The Silent Hill games are especially good at this, and have made me feel even more ambivalent about hospitals than I already did. Hospitals are already stressful places, but Silent Hill 2takes in apartment buildings, a nightclub, a historical society and even a bowling alley, all of which it imbues with terror. A brief scene in a cemetery turns out to be a rare moment of safety. Though eventually…

Welcome In recognition of PC Gamer’s 30th anniversary, we asked ourselves a question: What is the point of the Top 100? Is it a list of games the team loves? A way to recognise the most important games on the platform? A celebration of the most exciting and vibrant communities? Or is it simply a helpful guide to what’s still worth playing today? The answer, we decided, was all of the above. And so, this year, we’ve created a new voting system that takes all of those factors into account. And then we had a big argument about the results. That’s the other thing about the Top 100: You have to have a big argument. Enjoy. PHIL SAVAGEUK EDITOR-IN-CHIEFphil.savage@futurenet.com OUR NEW VOTING SYSTEM EXPLAINED Over the years, the Top 100…

DIABLO RELEASED 1997 | DEVELOPER Blizzard North | PUBLISHER Blizzard Entertainment Where it all began When you think of what’s important in a Diablo game, story might not be the first thing that springs to mind. Yet like all Blizzard’s games, Diablo’s mix of monster bashing and looting is built upon a vast lore foundation. It’s a complex web of shadowy creation myths, biblical conflicts between angels and demons, and nations and religions that rise and fall over the millennia. It’s also highly relevant to the upcoming Diablo IV, the story of which ties into some of the most primordial events in the game’s deep past. So we took a guided tour of Diablo’s history with Blizzard’s writers and loremasters, to better understand the backdrop to Diablo IV’s own dark…

EXTRA LIFE OLD GAMES, NEW PERSPECTIVES To say it holds up visually is an understatement By the late 2000s, the Prince of Persia series was already on its way out. 2008’s entry, simply titled Prince of Persia, wasn’t quite the last gasp, but it was the last attempt at forging a real future for the series – a reboot that took big swings in an attempt to update the formula. Though well received critically at launch, it doesn’t hold much of a place in the heart of your average Prince of Persiafan – but I’ve always had a soft spot for it. That fondness has only grown as modern videogaming has gradually dumbed down traversal. Sure, Assassin’s Creedstill lets you climb any building you like, but all you’re doing…

Many videogames furnish the player with godlike powers, but surprisingly few have tried to simulate the complete experience of being a god. A specific sub-genre of management sim that emerged in the late 1980s, god games lend players control not merely over a specific institution or social structure (like a theme park or a city). They give you power over reality itself, letting you shape worlds, create life and destroy both on a whim. God games are dizzyingly ambitious, and perhaps because of this, only a sparse pantheon has ever been made. Even then, the status of many of these as god games is debatable. Many canonical god games either neglect to acknowledge your role as a god, or outright reject it, expressing the emergence of life through natural processes,…

A Short Hike RELEASED July 30, 2019 | DEVELOPER adamgryu | PUBLISHER In-house With freedom to explore and extremely low stakes, this game about a young bird searching for mobile signal atop a mountain is the purest definition of cosy. The Peak Provincial Park where Claire and her aunt May retreat to to escape the city is a gorgeous playground of peaks to climb, winds to ride and secrets to find as you wander to and fro. To reach the top you’ll need to make friends with your fellow holidaymakers so they can give you the tools you need to ascend Hawk Peak. While your aim is to reach the top, there’s no pressure to get there so you can set your own pace. It’s nice to meander down the…

After 11 years, League of Legends is anything but stale. Strategies shift and evolve with new characters, new features, and a community full of madhat theory-crafters. But after 11 years, most players have found a groove, sticking to a handful of comfort zone champions in a way that makes it harder to keep things feeling fresh. Recently, however, the game’s developers have cooked up a means to try to break players out of their ruts. Challenges are League of Legends’ achievements, rewarding players for anything from scoring kills to buying skins. Hidden within them are the ‘Globetrotter’ challenges, and our aim is to complete all 13 of them. The rules are mostly predetermined by the challenges themselves. First, we have to play as a group of five. That shouldn’t be…

EXTRA LIFE OLD GAMES, NEW PERSPECTIVES With Aribeth’s true love hanged, she falls, and seeks a terrible vengence Why did I reinstall Neverwinter Nights? First and foremost it is so I could relive its classy, beautifully written and emotional main narrative once again. A brief synopsis. Awakening in the city of Neverwinter as a recruit summoned to help deal with its deadly crisis, the Wailing Death plague, which has ravaged the city and left piles of corpses in the streets, you the protagonist are soon introduced to Lady Aribeth de Tylmarande a half-elf paladin of Tyr, the Blind God of Justice. Lady Aribeth is protector of the city and its ruler Lord Nasher Alagondar. She is also in love with Fenthick Moss, a cleric of Tyr, who she…

Encountering a minigame typically inspires much groaning and huffing from your’s truly. It doesn’t matter if it’s working out in the gym in Final Fantasy VII or hacking a vending machine in BioShock – I’m almost guaranteed to hate it. Mechanically simple but often frustrating, they feel like filler that’s getting in the way of the good shit. Yakuza is a peculiar exception to this rule because the series is full of them, most of them are rubbish, yet I still love them. The epic dramas of Kazuma Kiryu and Ichiban Kasuga are serious business, full of betrayal, redemption and plenty of beat downs. At any given moment there are lives on the line and the fates of various yakuza clans and even entire cities hanging in the balance. With…