After each encounter with a monster on my way up the spire, I’m offered three cards to pick from, adding one to my deck. Deck composition and card-drawing are the heart of a card game: Slay the Spire highlights that heart, making it the center of what your character is and what you can do. Slay the Spire rests most of its randomness on the positive goodie-bag randomness of loot drops, and on the ‘natural’ randomness of the card deck. And gripes aside, I’m not done with Slay the Spire at all, eve

Pawarumi is a “retro futuristic sci-fi pre-Columbian” arcade shooter that launched on Steam Early Access last October. At the time, small French indie developer Manufacture 43 said it expected to remain in Early Access for two to three months. It sounds like they were right: Pawarumi will officially release on January 30, the studio announced today. “Through their technology and their wisdom, they managed to make contact with three ethereal and much more powerful beings,” Pawarumi’s site explain

There are many ways to apply thermal paste, which is why it can be a touchy subject among some enthusiasts. Apply a thin line of thermal paste directly down the center of the IHS (Integrated Heat Spreader) and then allow the pressure of the CPU cooler to spread the paste as you secure it. While this does provide nice looking initial results, and makes it much easier to control the amount of thermal paste applied, it has one major flaw that can greatly impact performance: spreading the thermal pa

Ubisoft’s rumble-in-the-jungle shooter Ghost Recon Wildlands is getting a free update tomorrow called Extended Ops that will add a new PvP mode called Extraction, new maps, and new “Icon Costumes” based on characters from Rainbow Six Siege and the Wildlands campaign. The update will also introduce Battle Crates, which Ubi described as “an additional and accessible way to complete your cosmetic customization experience.” As for those Battle Crates, Ubisoft said in an FAQ that they will have “zero

The Humble Store is holding a huge Double Fine sale today. The sale runs through 10 a.m. Pacific (1 p.m. Eastern) tomorrow, Thursday, January 25, and includes games that the studio both developed and published. You can find all the games in question by searching for Double Fine in the store, or by following this link. Here are some of the best games and discounts available:Some online stores give us a small cut if you buy something through one of our links. Read our affiliate policy for more inf

7 Billion Humans is a people-powered programming puzzle game set in a world ruled by machines. It was announced by developer Tomorrow Corporation today as a direct follow-up to 2015’s Human Resource Machine. Essentially, you order office workers to complete tasks by treating them as variables in a unique programming language. Tomorrow Corporation says 7 Billion Humans improves on the language used in Human Resource Machine with the addition of multi-worker execution—again, bleak. 7 Billion Human

It’s not really news that BioWare is working on a new Dragon Age game. For one thing, of course it is, and for another, Failbetter Games founder Alexis Kennedy told us so last August. But just in case you hadn’t heard, Dragon Age executive producer Mark Darrah hit up Twitter today to re-confirm that, yes, something is happening. Anthem, BioWare’s multiplayer Destiny-alike that’s “up next,” isn’t expected to be out until the end of this year at the soonest—and more likely, it was revealed today,

Battlefleet Gothic: Armada, the game about gigantic, gunned-up medieval cathedrals in space (and also some orks) is getting a sequel. Battlefleet Gothic: Armada 2 will be “bigger, richer, more impressive, and more ambitious” than the first game, publisher Focus Home Interactive announced today, and will include all 12 factions from the tabletop game. The reveal trailer is suitably epic—the Warhammer setting is nothing if not big—and we quite liked the first Battlefleet Gothic: Armada, although w

BioWare said last summer that Anthem, the online multiplayer shooter that bears a more-than-passing resemblance to Destiny, was expected to be out in the fall of 2018. But an in-depth Kotaku report on the state of the game’s development cites a source saying that window was “never realistic,” and that it will in fact not arrive until early 2019. One of the reasons the game is likely to take longer than originally anticipated is the amount that’s riding on its success. The report says that both o

Over at BuyDig, you can snag a Samsung 28-inch monitor (UH750) with a 4K resolution and FreeSync support for $330 with free shipping. Samsung’s 28-inch monitor uses a TN panel, which typically doesn’t offer the same level of color reproduction as an IPS panel. That said, this model also uses Samsung’s quantum dot technology, offering 125 percent coverage of the sRGB color space, and generally has favorable reviews. The advantage of a TN panel is a faster response time—in this case, just 1ms. It

Image Source: Burger King. Even Burger King—yes, the fast food joint—is miffed at the FCC voting to remove net neutrality rules, so it decided to do something about it. Burger King isn’t an internet service provider, of course, so it applied the same principles to fast food. That’s why the Burger King brand created Whopper Neutrality, a social experiment that explains the effects of the repeal of net neutrality by putting it in terms anyone can understand: A Whopper sandwich,” Burger King explai

Off the back of its Poundmaker-led Cree and Tamar-fronted Georgia, Civilization 6 now welcomes Scotland the Brave. Led to battle by Robert the Bruce, the tartan army will debut in the game’s incoming Rise and Fall expansion. The civ’s Unique Ability is ‘Scottish Enlightenment’—whereby happy cities are granted surplus Science and Production. They also generate a Great Scientist point per campus, and a Great Engineer point per Industrial Zone. More information on Rise and Fall’s Scottish contingen

When AMD’s former graphics boss Raja Koduri left the company to ultimately land at Intel, he left some pretty big shoes to fill. Rayfield will serve as senior vice president and general manager of AMD’s Radeon Technologies Group, the company’s dedicated graphics division from which Koduri departed, and Wang will hold the role of senior vice president of engineering for the same department. His most recent position before returning to AMD was at Synaptics, where he served as senior vice president

The Banner Saga wiki describes its bearded Varl race as “warlike” with a “fondness for mead and brawling”. If not, you might be interested in a video short that highlights one of The Banner Saga 3’s most influential characters. It stars Fasolt, The Loyalist:As you may already know, The Banner Saga 3 marks the closing chapter of Stoic’s painterly tactical role-playing series. Even if you’ll feel in dire need of a stiff drink once this second act draws to its devastating close. Alongside the above

The backlash against loot boxes was strong in 2017, but the results of a Game Developers Conference survey of more than 4500 developers who have attended a GDC event in the past three years strongly suggests that they’re not going away anytime soon. Loot boxes are also an integral part of videogame markets outside of North America and Europe, another noted, particularly in China and Japan—which also have laws aimed at protecting consumers from abuse. That reflects the real issue, one developer s

NOW PLaying In Now Playing articles PC Gamer writers talk about the game currently dominating their spare time. Today, Phil takes time out of editing magazines to make pals in Shadow of War. I’m not sure what to expect from Shadow of War. I’m good at Shadow of War’s combat—at least this opening version of it—because I’ve played three Arkham games and it’s basically the same. Shadow of War is less interesting without a nemesis.

Two Point Hospital is a new management sim from the creators of Theme Hospital , that aims to bring the tongue-in-cheek ethos of Bullfrog’s late ’90s classic to the modern age. As we’ve seen already, Light Headedness echoes the likes of Bloaty Head and Slack Tongue —and now the game’s latest behind-the-scenes short demonstrates who you’ll fix it. Who says the taxpayer’s money is wasted on the health service. “They’re not very scientific,” says Two Point Studios co-founder—and ex Lionhead and Bul

Bungie upset fans with its shoddy implementation of microtransactions, hidden XP throttling, and poorly communicated Faction Rally token tweaks. The developer has since apologised for each misstep in turn, however a quick glance at the game’s subreddit suggests players’ patience is wearing thin. Now, a Wall Street market analyst has declared Destiny 2 as “not in a good place”, with player interest in the space opera shooter in decline. As reported by CNBC, Doug Creutz, of financial services firm

With realistic swordplay and a premise that casts you as a lowly serf in a brutal medieval world, Kingdom Come: Deliverance has become one of our most anticipated RPGs. We’re excited to announce that the developers will be taking to the stage to show off the game, and you’ll be able to play it yourself at the PC Gamer Weekender in London. Community and PR manager Tobias Stolz-Zwilling will appear on the PC Gamer Stage on Saturday February 17 to discuss the ambitious scope and gritty world of Kin

Always mute lobby sound) by introducing multiple spawn areas, designed to prevent players from gathering in the same place at the same time. In turn, this aims to boost server performance. Previously, all the players would spawn together at the same location awaiting the start of the match.” The post adds: “Lots of interaction among multiple players in such a small area had a high impact on the servers. As a result, the performance, both server and client-side, has improved.”