Party Hard was a tongue-in-cheek murder sim in which you killed night club revelers for disturbing your sleep, and now the dancing shoe is on the other foot. Party Hard Tycoon, set in the same universe, lets you own and manage a nightclub, design the best raves, and rake it in from drunk punters. The game is in Early Access, and the developers reckon it will be for the next three months as they listen to feedback. It’s £6.29/$8.99 on Steam and the Humble Store, and the price will increase after

In the Indie GIF Showcase, we dig up the best-looking new and upcoming indie games and explore what makes them special. Thankfully games like Double Kick Heroes, a rhythm shooter from appropriately named developer Headbang Club, blur the line. There’s a raunchy, unmistakably roadie vibe to Double Kick Heroes. Different notes power up different weapons, which is especially interesting considering you can import music into Double Kick heroes and design tracks for your favorite songs from scratch.

Here’s a neat trick for anyone that’s completed (or currently playing) third-person survival horror game The Evil Within 2: you can turn it into a first-person survival horror game with a simple console command. It looks relatively polished, right down to head bobbing when you run, and I imagine it’s scarier playing in first-person too. To use the command, you’ll first have to activate the console. The command to activate first-person is ‘pl_FPS 1’ (again, without quotes), and that should do it.

Duelyst is a damned good card game. In fact, there’s an argument for it being better than Hearthstone, the behemoth that helped inspire it. It’s adding 100+ cards, but perhaps more importantly there’s a new crop of Generals, cards that are at the core of every deck. The six Generals will be the first to arrive in the game since launch. As for the 100+ new cards, Counterplay isn’t giving much away yet.

The dynamic combat and beautiful sprites of Flynn: Son of Crimson convinced us to feature it in our Indie GIF Showcase, and judging from Flynn’s now-successful Kickstarter campaign, have caught the attention of a few others as well. So it’s fortunate that players can now sample Flynn for themselves by way of the free demo available via Itch.io. Crucially, you get to try Flynn’s main four weapons: a versatile sword, a heavy axe, fast claws and a bow. It seems there are also some 2D running sectio

It was the middle of a Monday afternoon when Marco Cuesta, co-founder of the blockchain esports platform FirstBlood , gave me a call. But whether or not blockchain technology and cryptocurrency will really help usher in this new era is not so clear. They risk tokens (FirstBlood cryptocurrency) on themselves, play the match, and the winner walks away with the tokens. If successful, it could be a very big step for the integration of blockchain technology into the esports industry. The burden on bl

Unruly Heroes is irresponsibly beautiful. It’s a 2D action game from French developer Magic Design Studios, which is largely staffed by former Ubisoft veterans. Loosely based on the Chinese novel Journey to the West, the same legend which inspired Enslaved: Odyssey to the West, Unruly Heroes features four playable heroes. Its vibrant, hand-drawn art is reminiscent of Rayman Legends, but Unruly Heroes’ Prince of Persia-esque combat is arguably more distinctive. Unruly Heroes will come to PC in ea

Life is Feudal: MMO, the online medieval survival game, is charging out of closed beta next month, letting down the drawbridge for all comers on November 17. It’s also launching on Early Access at the same time, having previously only been available via the game’s website. In case you’ve missed it, the MMO is essentially an expanded version of Life is Feudal: Your Own, a 64-player realism-focused sandbox game that Leif thought was too much like hard work. Let’s hope the MMO’s larger, persistent

I played it a bit when it came out, but not long enough to build up a proper farm. I’ve accepted that I’m a bad PUBG player, in part because I’m too focused on getting stuff and not enough on not dying, so it’s an appropriate break—all I’m doing in Stardew is getting stuff. It’s basically the same game: just like in PUBG, I need to find a new backpack as soon as possible. What are you playing this weekend, or whenever you have an evening to play? I’ve been tempted to play Shadow of War, as well,

It’s flashier, sci-fi and considerably more expansive, but Cogmind echoes Rogue’s minimalist retro design. It recently came to Steam Early Access and is currently on sale for $17.99. Developer Grid Sage Games, which really only consists of solo developer Josh Ge, says there are nearly 1,000 unique parts to find and salvage. Although Cogmind hasn’t technically officially released, Ge says the Early Access version is “a very complete experience.” It will remain in Early Access for “at least six mo

The wait for Star Control: Origins, the revival of the 25-year old space strategy series, is a good chance to go back and play through the originals. Star Control 1 & 2 have been on GOG for a while and this week they also landed on Steam, bundled as Star Control: The Ur-Quan Masters. That HD version is Ur-Quan Masters HD, which you can grab for free here. Star Control: The Ur-Quan Masters is $3.99/£2.89 on Steam, compared to $5.99 on GOG. As a reminder, Star Control: Origins is a prequel to the

Developer Shiro Games has pushed out regular updates, the latest of which adds a new faction to the game called the Kobolds, as well as fresh resource tiles and a mystical hawk that will scout the map for you. The update also adds new tiles for the map, namely geysers, lakes and Thor’s Wrath. Claiming Thor’s Wrath will please the hammer-wielding god of thunder, granting you an attack boost. It’s hurt, but if you nurse it to full health it will scout the map for you, revealing new areas. Shiro Ga

The creator of the daunting (and excellent) puzzlers SpaceChem and Infinifactory is back with a new game: Opus Magnum, in which you play an alchemist brewing potions and poisons. It hit Early Access this week with a story-driven campaign, a puzzle editor and Steam Workshop support. The premise is that you’re an alchemist recently hired by a wealthy household in a dangerous, ancient city. You can easily export gifs of your finished creations at the end of each puzzle, which is a nice touch. And i

A Half-Life 2 mod released this week adds locations, characters and story beats that Valve cut from the original game. Dark Interval takes all the tidbits of information we know about drafts of the genre-defining FPS and stitches them together into a standalone game. The development team have filled in some of the gaps too, adding their own original work. “Dark Interval doesn’t include original levels found in the ‘leaked’ version of Half-Life 2, and instead features brand new maps which were bu

The Extreme Warfare games felt purpose-made for the more discerning fan, and the fact they were free allowed them to spread far and wide. One series has, over the last 20 years and over half-a-dozen iterations, become the de-facto wrestling management sim: Total Extreme Wrestling. Created by Adam Ryland, it’s a wrestling game that places players in control of their own federation. Entirely menu-based, Total Extreme Wrestling involves managing every aspect of a wrestling company, from writing and

Every week, we ask our panel of PC Gamer writers a question about PC gaming. This week: which old PC game do you revisit regularly? James Davenport: Portal/Portal 2I can’t count the times I’ve played through Portal and Portal 2. I never played Rogue and only played NetHack for the first time a couple years ago. Shadows of the Empire is obviously a pretty bad third-person shooter that made slightly more sense on the N64, and yet I’ve played the PC version so many times.

We’re gearing up for Destiny 2’s PC release on next week. Seasons enable clans to unlock shared perks for completing weekly objectives, such as completing the raid or going flawless in Trials of the Nine, alongside their clanmates. Bungie also showed off some armor ‘ornaments’, essentially fancy new looks, which players will be able to earn in season two. Paradis showed new ghosts, shaders and an exotic-tier ship that will only be available during The Dawning event. I’m also not clear how many w

Larian Studios, the maker of the outstanding fantasy RPG Divinity: Original Sin 2, took a moment today to tease something on Twitter. Something “wicked.” We’ve heard a rumor that something wicked is coming… pic.twitter.com/3r0rAlGHhEOctober 20, 2017And that’s it—no follow-ups, and no response to replies. It’s possible that Larian is working on a Halloween event of some sort, those are quite popular at this time of year. In the meantime, enjoy some of our best Divinity: Original Sin 2 stories,

Tom Senior: Raid readyHey, Destiny 2 is out on PC next week! Bungie have some of the finest artists in the business, and their universe deserves to be showcased on a PC monitor at silly resolutions. Bungie has announced the precise launch times in multiple timezones, and laid out plans to switch on the raid one week later. Philippa Warr: Worlds deliveringThe cress seeds of League of Legends have sprouted all over the moist paper towel of October. No matter how many vomiting wax people from the h

(It’s Friday, so no, I could not think of a better way to word a sentence about stream stats for streamers.) In November, Twitch will add ‘Achievements’ which offer a set of milestones for streamers to hit as they grow their channel. After a minute, she’ll have the choice to signal to the rest of the community that she’s new to the channel. Twitch will break the ice for her in Chat, and maybe she’ll make some new friends.” The much requested ability to give subscriptions as gifts is “coming very