The makers of a Twitch “viewbot” that enabled users to fraudulently rack up large viewer counts and thereby get into its lucrative Partner program have been ordered to pay nearly $1.4 million to the company for trademark violation, unfair competition, cybersquatting, and breach of contract. “Encounters with bots damage Twitch users’ experiences on Twitch. “As a result, Twitch may lose its carefully developed reputation as the premier service for quality social videogame content, the ability to a

Hollywood has been depicting holographic technology for a long time now, perhaps most famously in Star Wars when R2-D2 delivers a message to Princess Leia. What you saw in that moment, however, is not something that a hologram can achieve—it more closely resembles a 3D volumetric image, and researchers at Brigham Young University are hoping to advance that kind of technology. There is an important distinction between a hologram and a 3D volumetric image. Daniel Smalley, a newly minted assistant

Nighthawk Pro Gaming XR500 RouterNetgear was our overall choice for the Best Gaming Router back in 2015 with their excellent Nighthawk X4S router. Netgear changes all that with their introduction at CES 2018 of their Nighthawk Pro Gaming division to directly cater to the high end gaming market. The Nighthawk Pro Gaming XR500 Router (XR500) is Netgear’s return to gaming routers. The 2.4 GHz speeds are seriously solid at 285.43 Mbps (close) and 224.28 mbps (far), which are the fastest 2.4 GHz spee

Yume Nikki: Dream Diary is a direct successor to cult-classic indie horror game Yume Nikki, and it’s coming to Steam on February 23, publisher Active Gaming Media Playism announced today. Earlier this month, AGM posted a now-expired countdown site and two trailers teasing “the next Yume Nikki project,” leading fans to believe an official sequel was in the works. Japanese publication Game Maniax (translated by Siliconera) published an image gallery earlier today, offering a more detailed look at

With its barfing pirates, animancy cats , ancient curses and angry titans , Pillars of Eternity 2 looks to build upon its endearing 2015 forerunner in a number of neat-looking ways. Lots and lots of lovely boats. When it docks, PoE 2’s digital and physical retail variations will set you back $50/your regional equivalent. “Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire is our first sequel here at Obsidian and we’ve created something incredible,” says Obsidian CEO Feargus Urquhart in a statement. “We’re confide

After our four-player escapades in the Sea of Thieves closed beta yesterday, Chris Livingston and I returned to the open ocean for a longer journey on a smaller, two-person vessel. We hunted treasure, harassed bigger ships, and had an all around good time—never sank once. We got a few good stories out of the session, and some new criticism of the beta which we’ll keep exploring ahead of Sea of Thieves’ March release, but the best was definitely when we decided to see what happens when you sail o

Its latest Kickstarter backer update comes courtesy of the game’s art team, and offers some interesting behind-the-scenes insights into new-age System Shock’s art direction. “The original system shock was full of normative game ideas, but it terms of its graphics it was very much limited by the computing power of the time,” says Simon. “For this to still feel like System Shock, we took a similar approach. This means that, crucially, the System Shock world must be “functional to be believable.” N

Slaughtering weird-looking naked giant people is a tiring pursuit, which is why it’s nice to unwind with some detailed character customisation, combat training and regiment administration from time to time. As luck would have it, that’s exactly what Attack on Titan 2’s latest trailer is all about—showcasing how you’ll busy yourself between battles in Omega Force’s incoming hack-and-slash ’em up. Named ‘Town Life’, the following short teases some of the game’s world design, wherein the player is

Oxeye Games’ Cobalt was a bunch of great ideas in a gorgeous little package, and the team is back with a more refined and developed idea—Cobalt WASD. Daniel Brynolf and Pontus Hammarberg will take to the stage during the PC Gamer Weekender next month to discuss Cobalt WASD, explaining how bringing mouse support to Cobalt turned it into an entirely new game, and what this process has taught the studio about making the perfect PC-centric platformer. They’ll be on the Developer Stage at 13.00 on Su

Warning: this post contains gifs of, and makes reference to, digital genital customisation as it features in Funcom’s Conan Exiles. Conan Exiles is fast approaching its first Early Access anniversary, having entered Steam’s pre-release initiative on January 31, 2017. Chris’ explicit gif-filled report on Exiles’ endowment slider was PCGamer.com’s most read news story last year. It then became a big thing for us. Big dong, little dong, big dong, little dong pic.twitter.com/MNgGsmlv32January 30, 20

We’re delighted to welcome veteran strategy developer Firaxis to the PC Gamer Weekender at the London Olympia this February. Under the creative direction of developer legend Sid Meier, the studio is responsible for classics like Civilization, XCOM and XCOM 2, and they’ll be talking to visitors directly from one of our stages on the show floor at our live event. For more on Civilization VI: Rise and Fall, you can follow the developers on Twiiter, Facebook, and the official Civilization website. I

Prior to its rebranding last year, digital deals distributor Fanatical was once known as Bundle Stars. Fanatical’s Nemesis Bundle 5 is exactly that, and is live now through February 8. Within, you’ll find the likes of co-op action brawler Warhammer: End Times—Vermintide, fabled ARPG Lords of the Fallen, and the sci-fi roguelike Chris Schilling billed as “enormously rewarding” Galak-Z. In familiar stacked format, level one of Nemesis 5 costs just $1/£0.89 and includes Galak-Z, Still Not Dead, Inf

But for veterans, Monster Hunter: World is so much more. This isn’t just a reiteration of the same formula of hunting that I played on the excruciatingly low-res 3DS, but a complete reimagining that takes Monster Hunter to bold new frontiers while retaining the heart of what makes Monster Hunter so beloved. Monster Hunter: World still feels and plays exactly like Monster Hunter should. It’s moments like these that make Monster Hunter: World feel more alive than any other game in the series. Mons

DICE is working on a revamped progression system, it confirmed today in a blogpost. The post explains that details about these changes will be published in March, but whether the update will follow shortly after it unclear. Elsewhere, a new competitive Season will launch “soon” (ie, there’s no launch window at present), and DICE writes that it has “learned a lot from the first season of content for [Battlefront 2].” While we don’t know anything about the forthcoming progression changes, it’ll be

Not only are loot boxes likely to become more ubiquitous, but so will the debates surrounding them. With analysts in Australia and ministers in Belgium recently concerned with whether they constitute gambling or not, now it’s the turn of Washington state. The person responsible is senator Kevin Ranker, who has this month introduced a bill to determine whether loot boxes can be defined as gambling and, if so, how they can be regulated. “What the bill says is, ‘Industry, state: sit down to figure

While at times Portia can be a bit of a grind, it’s quickly proving to be a colorful and absorbing world to spend time in. They’re all things I wish I’d known before I started playing. Keep an eye on the clockIn Portia, the clock is always ticking, and ticking very quickly. Not so in the world of Portia: when it reaches 3:00 am, you will quite literally fall asleep wherever you are and whatever you’re doing. Turns out, there’s a holiday in Portia where airships fly over the town and drop present

Windows to hellTyler: I’m most impressed by how dense Sea of Thieves is with stories. Tyler: I’m sorry, I’m sorry. At least in this beta form, Sea of Thieves feels like a beautifully detailed diorama of the pirating life. Wes: At least in this beta form, Sea of Thieves feels like a beautifully detailed diorama of the pirating life. It nails the aesthetic, but it also feels really still and empty.

As Intel continues to work on a fix for the reboot issue plaguing its botched Spectre microcode patch, several OEMs, including Dell, Acer, and AsRock, have recalled their BIOS patches. The Spectre and Meltdown issues are composed of three vulnerabilities, each with its own designation in the Critical Exposure and Vulnerability (CVE) list. “Dell is advising that all customers should not deploy the BIOS update for the Spectre (Variant 2) vulnerability at this time. The BIOS rollback will only reve

Welcome back to The PC Gamer Show , our weekly livestreamed podcast. You can catch the show live on Wednesdays at 1 pm PDT on our Twitch channel , or after the fact at any of the links below. This week we’ll be talking about our time with the new indie action-explorer Iconoclasts, how the PCGers work as a team of pirates as demonstrated (poorly) in the Sea of Thieves closed beta, and what the best SSDs are these days. We close with listener questions as always. Listen:Download the MP3 directlySu

Back in 2000, Human Head Studios released Rune, an action game with great cover art about the battle between Loki, who seeks to unleash Ragnarok, and Odin, who aims to stop him. 17 years later, the studio announced a sequel, and based on the title—and the pre-alpha trailer released today—it looks like Loki has got the upper hand. Rune: Ragnarok is an end-of-days, all-the-marbles affair in which gods, beasts, and humans decide to settle their differences once and for all. Rune: Ragnarok doesn’t h