It might seem silly to ask in our post-Red Dead horse testicles world, but how much exacting detail is too much? How much is not enough? Gamedev can go on forever if you don't prioritize the things that players actually notice, but if you're making an immersive fantasy RPG, it's critical that the intended illusions—bustling towns, lively taverns, festering dungeons, and so on—not shatter. This tightrope walk is something CDPR...

When I first played Half-Life at the tender age of 11, I found it a terrifying experience. Admittedly, I was scared of pretty much everything at 11. Wasps, heights, loud noises, football (or more specifically, everyone finding out how bad I was at football). I was an anxious child all around. Hence, playing an interactive disaster movie filled with weird aliens was an intense experience and lashings of violence was...

I don't know if Stars Wars: The Old Republic is the best MMO around—or even the best Star Wars MMO around—but there's something to be said for keeping the party alive for nearly 15 years at this point, even as developer Broadsword took the reins from BioWare in 2023. If you miss those halcyon days when the game had just dropped, well, you might want to give the imminent 8.0...

Dungeon Master(Image credit: Future)Welcome to Dungeon Master, PC Gamer's regular RPG column. This week, Harvey Randall is once more stepping onto this site to argue that you should make your RPG companions obstructive, flawed little nightmares, or you're passing up storytelling gold.In my Honour Mode playthrough of Baldur's Gate 3, I romanced Gale—you can see my full thoughts on our under-appreciated wizard boy here. What solidified him as one of...

As I sit here, watching Saber Interactive's CEO have a normal one about how generative AI dialogue can totally improve videogames, I can't help but grit my teeth in the same, enamel-grinding fashion I have ever since companies like Ubisoft started promising a future with AI-powered "neo-NPCs."If you'd believe the hype, these things are potentially good on paper, right? We live in a development environment where the ambitions of big-budget...

In an investor-focused article on the Walt Disney Company website, the entertainment giant revealed an achievement that caught me off-guard: Kingdom Hearts, the mesmerizingly strange Final Fantasy x Disney crossover series, numbers among the company's "billion-dollar franchises."The article, "How Games Are Helping Shape Disney's Next Chapter," looks to be a combination victory lap/game plan meant to be read by the market-minded individual. It's shareholder chic, touting the company's numerous sales-related...

Few things in gaming are more routine than a Call of Duty multiplayer beta, but this year's is actually a bit different. The Modern Warfare 4 beta kicking off on August 21 (for pre-orders only) will include the usual smattering of multiplayer modes, and in a series first, it'll also include a chunk of the campaign."Entrenched" is the campaign mission that'll be playable early, and Infinity Ward has published a...

Disconnects are an unpleasant fact of life in an MMO, and if you play WoW long enough you'll start to recognize the telltale signs indicating one of your adventurer colleagues has fallen afoul of a network hiccup: They might simply halt in place mid-combat. If they were moving when the connection dropped, their character might proceed to run directly into a wall, or get caught in a brief loop of...

It looks like another bad day for Roblox: The US Senate Judiciary Committee Subcommittee on Crime and Counterterrorism has launched an investigation into child safety on the platform, saying the company "appears to prioritize revenue and engagement metrics over the safety and well-being of our children."A letter (via Kotaku) sent to Roblox CEO David Baszucki by subcommittee chairman Josh Hawley and ranking member Dick Durbin says that while Roblox has...

The Lord of the Rings: War in the North, a WB Games-published 2011 action RPG about a different fellowship that went the other way, recently reappeared on Steam in a polished-up Legacy Edition package. While the modernizations are getting a favorable reception—it's currently enjoying a Very Positive rating on Steam—its original launch 15 didn't earn much attention for something with "The Lord of the Rings" in the title.War in the...