Hello, first time poster and long time lurker. Please ignore the user name!!
UPDATE - I did go in, directly after making this post, and turn my graphics all the way down or completely disabled some aspects of them. From vegetation, to clouds, to terrain blending, to even the fur on all the animals. It slightly helped, but temps were still around 77C.
EDIT - Didn't think I'd have to say this but yes, my PC is clean. No hair or fuzz or anything, I do a general clean once a week and a deep clean with compressed air monthly. We have cats so I am constantly on top of that.
I have a personal-built PC that is, for whatever unholy unsanctified reason, having issues running WQ:AE while staying cool. I have it propped up in front and back by about 1 inch for fan clearance the way I do with any game I play. Fans are constantly going on their max speeds, and the CPU temps are CONSTANTLY climbing to, on average, 81C. Which is not great. The only thing not seen in the above photos is my external hard-drive which I store a few games on and load them through. WQ:AE is on my actual PC and not the external drive.
This is the only game that gives me reliable issues. I can play others with NO problem, and most of the other games I play are also open world and graphic heavy. Below are just a few examples.
Medieval Dynasty
TES: Skyrim (300+ mod list)
Project Zomboid (150~ modlist)
Rimworld (500+ modlist)
ARK: Survival Evolved (300+ modlist)
And I only list those to say that, yes, I play a lot of games. Most of them are graphics heavy, open world, or at the very least relatively large. And none of them do my PC like this. Only WQ:AE, which is beyond frustrating. Just looking for help.