Middle-earth: Shadow of War’s fortresses might have strong defences, but the game doesn’t. Monolith’s Orc-slaying open-world game uses Denuvo anti-tamper software, and once again it’s been cracked in a single day, letting pirates get access to it almost straight away. Since it appeared a few years ago, however, the time between a game’s launch and it being cracked has shrunk considerably. Several high profile releases, including Total War: Warhammer 2, have been cracked in a day as well, so the

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. The audio version of this week’s show features music from Cuphead. Read our review, buy it, and listen to the excellent big band soundtrack for yourself. Listen:Download the MP3 directlySubscribe on iTunesGrab the podcast RSS feedWatch it on YouTubeLast week’s episodeYour flapping heads for this episode:Jam

JENS MATTHIES Jens is the creative director of Wolfenstein 2: The New Colossus, as well as its predecessor The New Order. PC Gamer: You might not have the figures on hand, but a lot of Nazis die in this game. What’s your personal response to Wolfenstein suddenly being a cathartic and timely game, given the current political environment? More than anything else, I think that’s an inspiration to me personally because seeing that as a kid was a formative experience. That doesn’t mean we don’t want

RPG Maker 95, 2000, and 2003The RPG Maker series was created by Enterbrain, a division of Japanese company ASCII Corporation that initially had no interest in translating its product for a Western audience. RPG Maker XPIn 2004 a new version of RPG Maker was released in Japan—and promptly cracked, translated, and released to the Western market by Don Miguel’s successor, ‘RPG Advocate.’ RPG Maker VX and VX AceTwo years later, Protexis localized the newest version of the engine, RPG Maker VX. Japan

Last week, Epic announced that Fortnite, it’s multiformat game of building and defending bases, had amassed more than seven million players. Today it claimed an even meatier figure, saying that the standalone Fortnite Battle Royale mode has pushed past ten million players, all by itself, since its debut two weeks ago. “Ten million players” isn’t the most precise measure, and Fortnite isn’t on Steam so it’s impossible to verify the figure, although I can’t imagine that Epic would throw it around

“For better or worse,” we said last week, “Assassin’s Creed: Origins is an RPG now.” That shifting aspect of the game is reflected in a number of different ways, not least of them the addition of a difficulty setting, a first for the series. The idea, game director Ashraf Ismail told GamesRadar, is to ensure that while Origins’ gameplay is “deeper” than previous games in the series, it still remains accessible to everyone. “If you’re the opposite, if you really want that very difficult challenge

Horror sequel The Evil Within 2 comes out on October 13, which is just a couple of days away, and by now you probably have a pretty good idea of what grim delights it has in store. For those of you who don’t, the launch trailer is here to help. “Sebastian must rescue Lily before everything falls apart and they are both lost in STEM.” and “Keep shooting until they’re dead or we run out of ammo” are all highlights in my book. In case you missed it, Nvidia released new Game Ready drivers for The Ev

Carried Away, now in Early Access, is a sim about constructing chair lifts and gondolas to shepherd skiers up to the tops of the slopes. Using anchor points, build lift towers with planks, logs, ropes, and supports, and connect the base to the exit point with a lift cable. As with other physics-based building sims, half the fun of Carried Away is in failure. Below, you can see I haven’t quite figured out how to best build jumps, nor guide my skiers across them. What I’ve played so far of Carried

Facebook and Oculus VR have partnered with Titanfall developer Respawn Entertainment to put out an Oculus Rift virtual reality game in 2019. “We really want to depict being a soldier in combat in a more fully fleshed-out and realistic way.” “The combat experience in VR really gives you the chance to experience life closer to what a soldier would experience in real combat,” he continues. But really, I’d never accuse Zampella’s previous games—which include Medal of Honor: Allied Assault, several C

In the Indie GIF Showcase, we dig up the best-looking new and upcoming indie games and explore what makes them special. Unworthy is an exploration-driven 2D action game with a twist: you can’t jump. This sets the tone for Unworthy’s ostensibly hardcore combat, which features a tried-and-true focus on dodging and stamina management. Some blend into the game’s layered background, which uses variable scrolling speeds to atmospheric effect, while others are outright invisible until you shine your la

Be that as it may, there is no ignoring the mad rush by hardware makers to push RGB lighting at every turn. These were first spotted by Videocardz, which found Corsair’s LL120 (120mm) and LL140 (140mm) RGB fans hanging out at an unnamed retailer’s website. Each fan kit comes with Corsair’s Lighting Node Pro, which you’ll need if you want to control the fans through Corsair’s Link utility. A single LL120 RGB sells for $35 and a single LL140 RGB goes for $40. Both are also offered in multiple fan

If you’ve never got round to WW2 multiplayer shooter Day of Infamy, or just fancy trying a new game without shelling out a penny, then you’re in luck. It’s having a free long weekend that starts tomorrow and lasts until Monday. It’s double XP throughout the weekend, so new players should unlock new classes quickly. The free trial also coincides with the release of a new map, Brittany, and a new tutorial mission. It’s currently £14.99/$19.99 on Steam, which is where you’ll want to go for the free

It’s been pretty well established by now that Mass Effect: Andromeda did not live up to the legacy of the original trilogy, nor did it sell especially well. Less than seven months after it was released, Electronic Arts is putting it on Origin Access. Origin Access is a subscription-based service that, for $5/£4/€4 per month, provides unlimited access to a wide range of EA games. Mass Effect: Andromeda isn’t the only new addition headed for Origin Access. The Star Wars Battlefront 2 Play First Tr

Valve’s next TF2 update is going to be a biggie, overhauling some of the multiplayer shooter’s most iconic weapons and fixing items that have been unbalanced for years. When Valve announced the changes in June it didn’t say when the update was due. “We’re putting the finishing touches on a mammoth new update, and it’ll be shipping in the very near future, we promise. I really hope so, because it’s the first TF2 update for a while that I’m actually excited about. You can read more about the chang

A Robot Named Fight seeks to blend exploration-driven action with permadeath-powered randomness, and it does a surprisingly good job of marrying the two. But A Robot Named Fight has found a happy medium by theming its randomly generated labyrinths and grounding them in interesting abilities. Just as each run feels subtly different, each level of the labyrinth comes with its own unique enemies and visual style, but everything shares A Robot Named Fight’s gross, gory aesthetic. It’s on a much smal

But it also made us wonder, if Shelob can just get sexy out of nowhere, then what about the other creatures of Middle-earth? So here we present a list of equally unnecessary but also oddly sexy adaptations to be made to Tolkien’s bestiary. Sexy Smaug is just Brad Pitt from Fight Club (with horns)If Shelob can take human form, why can’t Smaug? Like any good weredragon, Smaug in human form would spend all his time in human form shirtless, to show off his impeccable abs. Only then will they be sexy

“We think of it as a similar principle to collectible card games: Sometimes you’ll open a pack and get a brand new holographic card you’ve had your eye on for a while. It’s an important distinction, because as the ESRB ratings guide page explains, one of the criteria for the AO (Adults Only) rating is “gambling with real currency.” Categorizing loot boxes as gambling would open up every game that offers them, including very mainstream stuff like Overwatch, Hearthstone, Destiny 2, and Assassin’s

Codnamed Santa Cruz, Oculus shared a few more details about its next-generation headset at its Oculus Connect event today. In its current form, Santa Cruz appears far less bulky and a lot more comfortable, resembling a finished product rather than a pre-release product. That’s why we were so excited to share our early work with Santa Cruz at Oculus Connect last year. To be clear, Santa Cruz is a different beast than Oculus Go, the standalone headset announced today that is basically a Gear VR, m

There is lots of news coming out of Oculus Connect today, including various bits aimed at bringing more people into the world of VR. In addition to announcing a price cut to its Rift headset and Touch controller bundle, which now costs $399, Oculus introduced its first standalone headset. The Oculus Go is a wireless solution that doesn’t require PC like the Rift does, nor does it need a smartphone like Samsung’s Oculus-power Gear VR. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg says it’s designed to be the “mos

A troublesome Windows update that was rolled out to PCs running the Windows 10 Creators Update yesterday is causing some systems to spit out a blue screen of death (BSOD) error. ALL of the systems running 1703 blue screen upon reboot AFTER applying this patch (KB4041676). Microsoft’s workaround for the time being is to go into the system BIOS and disable UCSI prior to applying the update. “Microsoft is working on a resolution and will provide an update in an upcoming release,” Microsoft adds. On