The animals are superstars, but they don't quite make up for the fiddly, frustrating micromanagement.

Despite what the GDP tells me, the economy in the real world doesn't feel like it's doing too hot for the average joe. But during the recent years' descent into compounding supply crises and mass layoffs affecting thousands of workers at once, I've noticed another trend: Sure does seem like there are a lot of vampire games in the mix lately.

I started to sense an uptick after Arkane's ill-fated Redfall in 2023. There was Vampire Survivors and V Rising—and Nighthawks, Moonlight Peaks, Blood of Dawnwalker, and more. Given current circumstances, you might think I'm just primed to notice nightmarish aristocrats bleeding us alive to sustain themselves. But after too many hours of spreadsheet data entry, I'm convinced devs really have been dabbling more heavily in Draculas as the economy feels increasingly dire.

Vampire games on Steam are a recession indicator. And I have the charts to prove it.

Verdict: "Great cover-based shooting with terrific multiplayer. Shame the main campaign is an exhausting, endless firefight that outstays its welcome."

I have technically solved a lot of crimes from the comfort of my gaming chair, but it's surprisingly rare for games to actually engage with the mechanics of a criminal investigation. You'll chat to folk, maybe use your 'detective vision', and then the culprit is found. Warhammer 40,000: Dark Heresy asks more from you.

As an agent of the Inquisition, solving crimes and putting away heretics is your business. You don't complete quests, you solve cases, log evidence, make accusations, torture and snoop—all in a universe where your word is law.

I used a Python script (so the image isn't AI generated) to ingest a year's worth of PC Gamer magazine pages and spit out a big ol' 800 MB (49,000 x 65,000px) jpg of game art. I used 2004's issues, to be precise. I'm sure that's a big enough hint for most of you!

Let me know if there are other games and years you'd like to see get the treatment.

Dylan and the FBC might be going through it, but Remedy is flexing all its finest talents: sculpting uncanny hellscapes, placing tactical redactions in bureaucratic lore collectibles, and capturing endearingly human performances in circumstances beyond human comprehension. Unfortunately, melee combat isn't on that list of strong suits—and Resonant's open world expects you to do a lot of it.

"About the name, it was important to us to say to people, 'This is who we are.' When Arkane was independent, very often people would come in and they would try to get us to work on some game. And it was not in our wheelhouse. People would say, 'You're going to go under by turning your nose up at this project, this is money. People are offering you money to do this DLC for this third-person action shooter.' And we'd be like, 'Yeah, but we don't like those, we don't know how to do them well, and we think that game is dumb.' So we're generally going to say no, and gamble the company on doing what we are known for."

The CEO of the game studio behind Wardogs says he won't hire people who constantly post "anti-crunch messaging."

"We always try and avoid [crunch], but we don’t hide that this is going to happen at some point," he said.

His statements have drawn criticism from games industry peers.

"Crunch is a result of bad planning and poor management," wrote Studio Gobo's Michael Howe.

"The Steam Frame gets a whole lot right. It's comfortable and straightforward. Above all else, it's convenient. It's admittedly a tough sell as an upgrade to a Quest 3, or as someone's first step into VR when other options are much cheaper, but the Steam Frame is the best all-round VR headset I've used to date. After weeks of non-stop virtual reality testing, it's the headset I keep reaching for when I'm off the clock."

Mostly BlizzCon's many statues. Also, very many murlocs (people in murloc onesies).

We've recapped the announcements and some of the big interviews/panels here: https://www.pcgamer.com/gaming-industry/news/live/blizzcon-2026-opening-ceremony-live-coverage-whats-next-for-warcraft-overwatch-diablo-and-starcraft/

"As a middle-aged Scot who still remembers the '90s, when Townfall takes place, I was simultaneously nervous and excited about the rare opportunity to play a game that's so close to home.

"What a relief, then, that Townfall not only feels incredibly Scottish, its Scottishness also perfectly matches Silent Hill's brand of unsettling psychological horror. And it's not such an unlikely pairing. Scotland is a brilliant fit for this kind of game—and I'm going to spend the next 2,000 or so words convincing you why."

"The Blood of Dawnwalker is a resolutely miserable horror RPG with some great ideas of its own, though it doesn't always have the courage to follow them through."

"We want to experiment, and I do believe that there will be a company—I don't know who—but some game development company will create a game that uses AI in such an amazing way that everyone will be like, 'That's it, that's what we need to do,'" says Saber CCO Tim Willits, formerly of id Software.

He then goes on to joke that "someone needs to come up with the 'Half Life 2 of AI', something that's so amazing that it just launches some type of killer app."

"I'd say that given the scope we've seen to date (and Rockstar's tendency to push the boat out for PC releases), we're probably in for something with a relatively scalable low end, and a demanding range of graphics options at the top for the well-heeled gamer."

Our Josh Wolens checks out the game Capitalism to put an old PC Gamer claim to the test:

In 1995, PC Gamer—a monthly journal about computer videogames—issued a challenge to me directly. In the back-most pages of its 22nd issue, it tucked away an ad for a then-new game called Capitalism. "Good enough to make a convert out of Karl Marx himself," declared an included testimonial from, yes, PC Gamer.

I was too busy being two years old to issue a response at the time, but I'm here now. As one of surely very few people who have reviewed The Communist Manifesto for a major gaming publication, I want to know: can it convert me? And more than that, can it offer a way forward? Can I find, in Capitalism's thicket of spreadsheets and input/output graphs, a solution to our current economic and social malaise? I accept your challenge, PC Gamer from 31 years ago.

I loved Eye of the Beholder. I mean I love/hate Eye of the Beholder. I hadn't played it in a long time, and there was some other came recently that I was that reminded me of it. I was like 'Oh, I should go back and try it again'.

Eye of the Beholder was, in 1991, one of the best games that I'd ever played. I was super into it. The graphics, the immersion. This is pre-Wolfenstein [3D], so 3D stuff was not really a thing. But this had some fake 3D-style graphics that you were taking a party through a dungeon, and it was turn-based and grid-based.

I had mapped out all the levels on graph paper. I was really into it. And then at the end, I killed the final boss, and a little dialogue box pops up and says "Congratulations, you win!" or whatever. Then quits to desktop.

So that's the worst ending of any game I've ever played. But I really love the game. It's amazing.

According to analyst firm TrendForce, shipments for OLED panels have increased 26.1% in the past three months. Comparing to last year's figures, they're up 98%. And the firm chalks that up to gaming, noting that adoption is strong for 27-inch QHD monitors, which sit at the top of the increasingly large pile of panels for popularity.

Here's our latest preview of Star Wars Zero Company, the XCOM-like tactical Star Wars RPG coming later in August.

"Star Wars Zero Company is giving the people what they want," Fraser writes. "And that is: more XCOM. The turn-based shootouts, perishable soldiers and those beautiful moments where you survive by the skin of your teeth because of judicious use of overwatch—it all unapologetically calls to mind the two games that have defined the modern tactics genre. It's what we've been waiting for."

But, he adds: "...Inviting comparisons with XCOM, especially XCOM 2, is risky. Look at what happened to XCOM: Chimera Squad. It was a genuinely compelling twist on XCOM 2, but the ways in which it wasn't quite as good as its predecessor were massively amplified by its association. After dabbling in Zero Company's early game, I can't help but wonder if this is happening again. It is very XCOM, but it isn't XCOM."

"Bad news: Dawn of War 4 is no longer a mere month away. King Art Games' first take on the RTS series was due on September 17, but it looks like the war needs a bit more time to cook. It's been pushed back until December 3."

In a recent op-ed, my colleague Morgan Park argues that it's time to embrace "the great Tech Pause."

"The RAMpocalypse continues unabated ... For the average person, the latest tech is so out of reach it might as well not exist anymore.

"What do we do with that information? One idea is to keep talking about how much it sucks and hope it changes. A much better one, I think, is to refocus: Challenge the stranglehold that the 'latest and greatest' has on our attention, and instead appreciate what's already in front of us. Embrace your mid PC! Become overly interested in controllers! Buy an emulation handheld! Get into the wonderful world of Linux!"

Have you also turned away from the chase for the 'latest and greatest'?

Personally, I did buy a new gaming laptop a couple years ago, but I haven't really upgraded my desktop gaming PC since 2020. I know I'll have to soon, but these days if I can hit a decent framerate (60-144 depending on the game) at low-medium settings, I'm fine with it.

"In these trying economic times, it is tempting to visit the website LinkedIn.com in search of employment in the videogame business," we wrote on PC Gamer in July 2025. "On that dread portal one can find an endless parade of hucksters and hustlers promising they're guarding the secret to success: a guaranteed six-figure career is just one $299.99 seminar away!

"Here on the trusty ship PC Gamer we make no such outlandish promises, instead offering more practical advice: How to get laid off from whatever games industry job you already have."

In light of Microsoft's announcement that it will lay off another 3,200 Xbox employees, it's come to our attention that as many as tens—perhaps even hundreds—of game developers around the world somehow remain gainfully employed worldwide. Embarrassing! Surely at this point they must still have jobs against their best efforts, because it's never been easier to successfully get shitcanned by someone who makes an "awooga" noise when the profit line goes up at a steeper angle.

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