Paradox has released a video detailing everything that Stellaris players can expect from next week’s Megacorp expansion, including a new world type and a set of “interstellar door-to-door” salesmen called Caravaneers. In the expansion, due on December 6 (Thursday), you’ll be able to control a megacorporation, and get access to new civics. The new Caravaneers are what most appeal to me: they’re three new fleets of traders that will roam around the world wheeling and dealing. Megacorp also adds a

The next Dota 2 major in Chonqing, China might be cancelled by the city’s government if Carlo “Kuku” Palad—one of the pro players that Valve condemned last month for using racist insults against Chinese teams—tries to attend, according to Kuku’s team TNC Predator. According to TNC Predator, that is not true—in a series of tweets today, the team said Kuku was not banned, but that they had been told the city’s government might cancel the tournament if Kuku attends. As you can see in the tweets bel

In either case, you’ll want to think about replacing your computer’s thermal paste. Also referred to as thermal gel or thermal grease, thermal paste is a type of Thermal Interface Material (TIM), which are compounds that transfer heat from sources (like CPUs and GPUs) to heat sinks. The big question is, does the type of thermal paste you use matter? Arctic Silver 5 is the longstanding metal paste favorite, though it takes significantly longer to set (up to 200 hours and several thermal cycles).

Star Citizen’s free week has come to a close, and clearly enough players enjoyed themselves that they decide to splash some cash on the space sim. The game received around $7 million in backing over the week, bringing its total raised to more than $208 million. During the free fly week, players could try 80 ships and explore the game’s first planet, Hurston, and its first city, Lorville, both of which were added last month in an update. If you enjoyed the free week but still haven’t bought it, t

Tale of Two Wastelands, the mod that lets you play Fallout 3 and its DLC in Fallout: New Vegas, and travel between the two worlds with the same character, has received its long-awaited 3.2 update—a “total rebuild” that has been in the works for more than three years. The mod will let you play through Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas with the same character, and you can switch between DC and the Mojave Wasteland by visiting train stations. It’s a total conversion mod that sees all of Fallout 3’s

If you act fast, you can buy four games with “very positive” user reviews on Steam—Bastion, Rime, The Sexy Brutale and Dex—for just $3.50 on Fanatical. The Very Positive Bundle went live during the week, but I still think it’s worth flagging up now: you still have more than to claim the deal as of writing. The Sexy Brutale is another must-play: Chris called it “a stylish and creative adventure with a clever time-rewinding hook” in his review. Given that it’s in this bundle you know that it has v

Nvidia has begun teasing the next card in its Titan series, the Titan RTX, suggesting that it will launch sooner rather than later. The Titan RTX box also appeared twice in a recent video from Linus Tech Tips: you can see it at 30:33 and 34:06. The Titan RTX will likely use a fully enabled version of the TU102 chip, which is also present in the Quadro RTX 6000 and Quadro RTX 8000. That means 4,608 CUDA cores, 72 RT cores, and 576 Turing cores. Given pricing on the current RTX 2080 Ti cards, it’s

This week ask the team: What multiplayer games do you prefer to play solo? Phil Savage: Literally every RTSI guess if I need to be specific, Red Alert 2 and Tiberian Sun, but I don’t enjoy playing any RTS in multiplayer. Even if there was an end point, I don’t want to ruin other people’s games with rookie errors, so I’ve largely played games against bots. Playing solo eliminates the intricacies of team play, but I can still enjoy the hero design. I’ll probably never play Dota 2 online, but there

Overkill’s The Walking Dead was a bit of a mess—and that has translated into “lower than expected sales”, publisher Starbreeze said last week. If you buy the $30/£24.78 Starter Edition then you have to purchase story episodes from season 2 and beyond, including the newly-released No Sanctuary, for extra. It costs $8, but prices of future episodes will vary, Overkill said in a Steam post. So if you were planning to buy it to play with a friend that already owns the full version, the Starter Editi

Stardew Valley’s creator Eric Barone, aka ConcernedApe, will begin self-publishing the game later this month following a partial split with publishing partner Chucklefish. In a statement, Chucklefish—who will continue to publish mobile and Switch verisons of the game—said it was “proud to be a part of the Stardew Valley story”. Released in early 2016, Stardew Valley remains one of the best games you can play on PC right now. It’s endlessly relaxing, has an active mod scene, and its glorious food

Darksiders 3’s first patch following its release this week has introduced multiple performance fixes and made its easiest difficulty mode, called Story, even “more forgiving”. Difficulty on Story mode wasn’t something that bothered me when I played it for my review, but it’s not the relaxing, no-danger stroll that some players would’ve hoped for. If the patch makes it more obvious where off-screen enemies are, particularly any that are about to strike from behind, it’d be a positive step. The pe

Valve has changed the way it shares revenue with developers on Steam—and it’s good news for games that make a lot of money. Currently, revenue for Steam games is split 70/30 between the developer and Valve. In a Steam post, Valve said the change will help “developers of big games”, which will in turn benefit the entirety of Steam because of the “positive network effects” those developers generate. But some indie developers don’t see it that way, and have branded the move a “slap in the face” to

The developer of zombie plague RTS They Are Billions has released an official level editor that will let you build your own survival scenarios—and play through other custom creations via the Steam Workshop. After you subscribe to a level in the Steam Workshop, you’ll be able to play by hitting ‘custom levels’ when you launch a new game. The level editor has been in testing for a while and when it launched on Thursday more that 80 player-made scenarios were ready to go. In a Steam post announcing

Throw in some good Druid cards, Cubes and/or Faceless Manipulators, and you can get a lot of work done. “Draw three specific cards” for three mana (or for zero mana, in conjunction with Preparation) makes me very excited. Raiding Party provides a way for Kingsbane decks to find their weapon and their buff cards more consistently. Those cards are both already being run in Baku decks, which tend to be aggressive, so Taskmaster seems a natural fit. I see it being similar in power level and applicat

The sequel didn’t do much for me, though—most of what it added, I wasn’t interested in—and X: Rebirth, which arrived in 2013, was a straight-up disaster—enough to earn it a spot in our “Worst Launches in PC Gaming History” list. But Egosoft didn’t give up, and today it’s trying again with the release of X4: Foundations, its “most sophisticated universe simulation ever.” Focus on exploration, make money with illegal trading and theft, command large battle fleets or become the greatest entrepreneu

THE HIGHSJames Davenport: A new hopeObsidian is announcing a new RPG at The Game Awards next week. It’s not going to be a new Fallout game, but it sure gives me Fallout vibes. The near-confirmation that Tim Cain and Leonard Boyarski, vets from the first two Fallout games, are working on this new thing has me particularly hopeful that the retrofuturist RPG-shaped hole in my heart will soon be filled. Pip: The 100 ClubBecause of the way publishing works, November was the last month of the PC Gamer

Unfortunately for those players, the update won’t make any direct changes to either, but EA said it’s planning to begin experimenting with it soon. “We are also expanding the scope of our investigation and improvements to other components that are directly related to the player experience when it comes to getting shot, receiving damage, etc.” Experiments with TTK adjustments will begin soon, he said, although it sounds like EA is still nailing down exactly how it will be handled. “We will be rel

Valve’s Dota-themed collectible card game Artifact has received both praise and criticism during its first days, and is currently sitting on ‘mixed’ review status on Steam. If you compare these deck prices to competitive Magic decks, you can see where the card game players are coming from. A full set of Artifact—one of each Hero and three copies of all other cards—currently costs $275 on the Steam market. I come from a card game background, though, so maybe I’m just used to being robbed. I like

Steven didn’t mince words about CCP’s in-the-works FPS Project Nova, calling it “boring and unambitious” after he got some hands-on time with it last month. Remaining true to our vision of Project Nova’s future in connection with EVE is essential. Project Nova was announced in 2016, and it sounds technically competent. But that’s apparently all it is: “Project Nova is going to need a lot more interesting enemy types if it hopes to achieve that goal. But it added that it “is in no rush to release

Electronic Arts is offering a seven-day free trial of Origin Access Basic, the subscription-based service that offers free access to 160 existing games and ten-hour trials of new ones. All you have to do is send a direct message to the EA Help Twitter account with the #TRYBFV hashtag, and you’re (eventually) in. When you do receive a reply, you’ll be given a PC-only code to enter into the Origin app. Click the Origin drop-down, then “redeem product code,” and copy/paste it in. In return, you’ll