If you’re one of them, then modder maxolina has you covered: they released a difficulty mod at the weekend that adjusts enemy level scaling to give you a harder time. The Deadly Deadfire mod increases that maximum to nine levels, so you’d face a level 19 enemy instead. That all sounds brutal, but you can take it even further with a ‘hardcore’ version of the mod that has a higher level scaling range, even less XP and more sturdy enemies. “I recommend starting with the normal mod, which already ma

One of Battlefield 5 ‘s design directors has said the inclusion of playable female characters in the WW2 shooter will put him on the “right side of history”. “I fundamentally feel to my core this is the right way, and I will find myself on the right side of history.” When asked why EA Dice had chosen this game in particular to introduce playable female soldiers, Kertz said it felt like “an inevitability”, and that “the excuses were running out”. On fan criticism that the way Battlefield 5 depict

Star Citizen backers looking to build their own fleet can now buy a new ship pack containing 117 craft—nearly every ship in the game—along with 163 extra items, including upgrades, skins and in-game posters. I’d tell you to click on the link for the Legatus Pack, but you’ll only be able to view the page if you’ve already spent $1,000 on the open-world space sim. I suppose if any game will tempt fans to spend the kind of money that’s normally reserved for buying a real-life car on in-game items,

If Deus Ex is one of those series that you’ve always said you’ll play some day but you’ve never actually got round to buying the games, then today is as good a chance as any. The original and the follow-up, Invisible War, are both on sale for less than $1, while 2011’s Deus Ex: Human Revolution is $3/2. I wouldn’t buy it at that price, though, because it’s on sale for less than half of that fairly regularly. Of course, the original Deus Ex is a good bet if you can get past the dated visuals. And

Indie studio National insecurities was well on its way to completing its latest first-person murder mystery parody, 2000:1: A Space Felony. However, as soon as the player entered the centrifuge, everything else in the game world would begin to rotate to ensure consistency of movement. “This means that all of the animations and graphics in the game had to be programmed line-by-line into the game’s source code,” Burns says. However, the more you learn about these tricks, the more apparent their im

At first glance, in its attempt to get you to connect with the city of San Francisco, Watch Dogs 2 shares many of the methods (and potential weaknesses) of its predecessor. As you travel across San Francisco, the phone of protagonist Marcus Holloway will vibrate. And once you begin to look at San Francisco through a lens of seeking the weird and photogenic, something magical happens. Another in a string of landmarks you come to recognize across the virtual San Francisco. Welcome to San Francisco

Symptoms of a failing computer power supplyThere are a few telltale signs of a computer power supply that may be failing. How to test your PSU to see if it is dead or aliveTesting for a faulty power supply is a process of elimination. Further computer power supply testingIf you have performed the basic tests above and are not sure whether your power supply is working correctly or not, you now have a couple of options. Another option, if you have another computer, spare power supply or buddy who

Kingdom Come: Deliverance will get three pieces of story DLC, a free hardcore mode and tournaments before the end of the year, developer Warhorse Studios has revealed. The DLC roadmap, which you can see at the bottom of this post, doesn’t give release dates for individual pieces of DLC, but tells you roughly when they’re due out. That will be shown off at E3, and it’s due this summer alongside a free Hardcore Mode. The fourth story DLC, A Woman’s Lot, will arrive early next year, as will modding

Everyone knows Dark Souls is hard, but that doesn’t mean that experienced players aren’t up for making it even trickier. Jack wrote a guide to doing just that last year, and a new mod called The Scorched Contract would slot in nicely. Every time you beat a boss you gain a debilitating debuff, making the next battle even more of a slog. After every boss battle, you’ll get an item that describes the debuff—although some of them are “cryptic”, which makes it even more difficult. HotPocketRemix says

Ambitious Fallout 4 overhaul mod Fallout: Cascadia does more than just bring back the skill and dialogue systems from previous games in the series. It’s a standalone story that lets you explore a huge map—roughly 80 square kilometres—set in and around the ruins of Seattle, Washington. Judging by the new teaser trailer, above, that landscape is going to be varied, detailed, and very pretty indeed. It’s set decades later, which means natural life has started to flourish again. “We wanted to create

Beware’s fresh take on the survival horror genre is that the entire game takes place with you sat behind the wheel of a banged-up car. You can download it here—it’s still an early version of the game, so expect bugs, although the visuals are very polished. The demo has one mission, in which you have to follow a mysterious figure on the edge of some woods. That thread makes it sound intense, and properly scary. And in case you were wondering, the game was recently renamed Beware—it was previously

It’s no secret that PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds has performance problems—it’s something that has rightly irked players since its release. In a Steam post yesterday, PUBG Corp admitted it has “fallen short” in this regard, and that it has failed to properly address player complaints about the game’s performance issues. Its three priorities going forward will be “performance, server-side optimization, and cheating”, it said. To improve performance, it will first address the way lighting effects

Cult classic assassination game Killer7, which came to PS2 and GameCube in 2005, is getting a PC version later this year, developer Grasshopper Manufacture announced at MomoCon yesterday. Neither Grasshoper Manufacture nor publisher NIS America have given away much about what features the PC version will have. All we know is that it’ll be available on Steam in autumn, and that it will be “optimized for PC”. I’m sure more details will come soon, and I’m looking forward to seeing how this weird an

If you want to whet your appetite for Koji Igarashi’s Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night, a spiritual successor to the Castlevania series, then you might want to check out an 8-bit spin-off that arrived on Steam this week. Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon looks and sounds far more old-school than Ritual of the Night, and it’s inspired by the early Castlevania games. That means you control multiple characters that you unlock as you progress, and each one will be able to cut a different path through

We haven’t heard a peep out of World War Z, the four-player co-op zombie shooter inspired by the novel and film of the same name, since it was announced in December. Until yesterday, that is, when Paramount Pictures released a new trailer showcasing some gameplay in Moscow, one of many locations you’ll travel to in the game. The first thing that strikes me is just how many zombies, or ‘zekes’, are on screen at any one time. Given how many enemies you’re facing, I’m not sure how sustainable melee

And I’m confident that one day my tavern will be known far and wide, and so will the adventurers crowding my tables and barking orders at me. Epic Tavern is a management sim about running a medieval tavern and quietly saving the world. As the master of the tavern, it falls to you to raise the next generation of heroes one swig of mead at a time. Your party members always visit your tavern, but you’ll also find regular patrons outside your party, which can lead to some cool stories. (In the prolo

Surviving Mars’ domes, in which your colonists live, are one of my favourite things about the game. You can say the same for the micro dome, another cheap dome that’s triangular in shape. You’ll have two larger triangular domes to play with: the Trigon dome and the Mega Trigon dome. Alongside the new domes, the Curiosity update will add a “huge five-part monster of a tutorial”, which a lot of new players have been asking for. If you’re a fan of city builders and haven’t yet checked out Surviving

Great moments in PC gaming are short, bite-sized celebrations of some of our favorite gaming memories. The good kind challenges you to use all the skills you’ve learned up to that point, pumping up the challenge and drama for a kind of final exam. Mr Freeze is arguably the pinnacle of the ‘good’ kind. It’s a moment of pure Being Batman that transcends everything else in the already wonderful Arkham series, all while sticking within its own rules. This version of Mr Freeze is a powerhouse, and hi

Dark Souls has a well-deserved reputation for being punishingly difficult, but also for rewarding you with a sense of accomplishment. Dark Souls Remastered fixes the resolution support and keyboard/mouse input, and kicks the frame rate to 60fps—still locked, but at least it’s not 30fps by default. Overview of settingsThere are four, count them four, settings you can adjust in Dark Souls Remastered. Basically, Dark Souls Remastered removes the final hurdles to a steady 60fps for the vast majority

The first is Guns of Icarus Alliance, the expanded version of steampunk airship combat game Guns of Icarus Online. The original was purely PvP, but Alliance adds PvE elements, six factions to choose from, and an ever-changing world “that is constantly being shaped and reshaped by the players”. Your second free game is Galactic Civilizations 2: Ultimate Edition, which is the regular version of the 4X space strategy game plus the Dark Avatar and Twilight of the Arnor expansions. If you’ve enjoyed