The biggest PC gaming stories this week
A letdown of a 'gameplay trailer,' customizable genitals, and giant hogs—a normal week in PC gaming.
It is officially allergy season in the part of North America I'm sitting in, and though you might think that itchy, swollen eyes would make you a better Valorant player, they do not. That's why I mostly ducked out of competitive games this week and went back to playing Control in the hopes that squinting through pollen tears makes ray tracing look even better.
I'm not so sure that it does, but Control looks fantastic either way. Everything is so shiny! And yet it's also one of the few games that I don't mind pausing every time I find a new note to read. The notes are so good. Hopefully some of the PC gaming news below is also good enough to warrant pausing the world to read, despite how nice the ray tracing is out here.
Nvidia Ampere rumor suggests it will kill the cost of ray tracing
Apparently, Ampere-based GeForce cards may crush existing cards when it comes to ray tracing. It's just a rumor, but it doesn't make my recently purchased RTX 2070 Super feel very good about itself. Sorry, bud.
Cyberpunk 2077 features customizable genitals
The more I hear about this game, the more I feel like there's not going to be a middle-ground: It'll either be dumb as hell, or fantastic. Time will tell!
Assassin's Creed Valhalla 'gameplay trailer' reveals an incredible 2-3 seconds of gameplay
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Usually you want to put some gameplay in your gameplay trailers. At least Ubisoft admitted that the trailer was a letdown.
Someone stealth released a full Mario 64 PC port that looks and runs great
As expected, though, Nintendo isn't going to let it slide.
Id details 'complicated relationship' with Doom Eternal composer, won't work with him on DLC
Some accused Doom's audio lead of poorly mixing composer Mick Gordon's tracks for the Doom Eternal OST. Id Software now says that the mixes couldn't be helped, because Gordon missed deadlines and it had to work with the only audio it had. It doesn't look like the two parties will be working together again.
Rumor: Mass Effect trilogy remaster will be out before next April
You had to figure this would happen eventually, but it's nice to hear rumblings of it happening soon.
More things we wrote
- GTA Online's alien outfits are now free, so get out there and kill each other
- Try turning off Windows 10's Game Mode if your games are stuttering or freezing
- Warzone will connect the different Call of Duty series
- Terraria's Journey Mode will let you play with item duplication, God mode and more
- Why am I strangely drawn to this 'OMG!' PC case?
- Jonathan Frakes is here to tell you how sad PUBG's Dinoland is
- What's the next Crysis? The games that give the RTX 2080 Ti nightmares
- YouTube secures Pewdiepie with an exclusive livestreaming deal
- A new Call of Duty and World of Warcraft: Shadowlands are still on track for this year
- H.R. Giger inspired horror game Scorn is back with an extremely moist trailer
- Creator of one of the worst viruses ever finally fesses up 20 years later
- The controversy over Riot's Vanguard anti-cheat software, explained
A large hog
Look at him, he's so large:
That's all for this week, because what more could you need than that large hog? May all of your CPU cores run cool as a cucumber this weekend.
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Tyler grew up in Silicon Valley during the '80s and '90s, playing games like Zork and Arkanoid on early PCs. He was later captivated by Myst, SimCity, Civilization, Command & Conquer, all the shooters they call "boomer shooters" now, and PS1 classic Bushido Blade (that's right: he had Bleem!). Tyler joined PC Gamer in 2011, and today he's focused on the site's news coverage. His hobbies include amateur boxing and adding to his 1,200-plus hours in Rocket League.