The best PC games: 2014

Saturday, March 22, 2014

Lords of the Fallen

Developer: Deck 13, CI Games
Publisher: City Interactive
Release date: TBA 2014

As an action RPG with a methodical take on combat, Lords of the Fallen risks immediate comparison to Dark Souls. Its developers say that they’re not trying to capture the punishing survivalist nature of From Software’s modern classic, instead they want players to dictate the challenge for themselves. You can use deadly magic to make fights easier, for example, but that’ll reduce the amount of loot they drop when they die. You play as Harkyn, a huge warrior with an even bigger hammer on a quest to punish the fallen gods of his world for failing mankind.

Friday, March 21, 2014

Magicka: Wizard Wars

Developer: Paradox North
Publisher: Paradox Interactive
Release date: Early 2014

Link:Magicka: Wizard Wars

Wizard Wars is a competitive multiplayer rethink of the manic, joyous co-op of Magicka. It will retain a streamlined version of the same combat system, in which player summon elemental orbs and combine them in to spells. Magicka’s hilarity stems not just from the tongue-in-cheek presentation, but in the huge capacity for self harm allowed for by the elements system. Cast a lightning spell while soaking wet and you’ll electrocute yourself silly. Fire a laser beam inside a reflective dome shield and you’ll likely kill yourself and anyone else in there with you. It’ll be hard to take the competition seriously, but when Wizard Wars eventually arrives, hilarity will ensue.

Nuclear Throne

Developer: Vlambeer
Publisher: In-house
Release date: TBA 2014

Link:Nuclear Throne

Vlambeer’s new roguelike shooter is only available in early access form, but the instantly satisfying, impactful feedback so characteristic of their games is already present. As a mutant in a procedurally generated wasteland, you’ll be running into enemies with guns almost as big as yours. Fortunately, you’ll be able to improve your equipment and your abilities the more of them you kill. If you’d rather wait for the full release, which shouldn’t be too far off (Vlambeer work extremely fast), check out their Twitch channel

Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number

Developer: Dennaton Games
Publisher: Devolver Digital
Release: TBC 2014

Link:Hotline Miami site

Originally designed as an expansion pack, Hotline Miami 2 soon spiralled into a full sequel that takes the original's already strange story into even weirder territory. It involves a film inspired by the events of Hotline Miami, a bunch of masked vigilantes who view the original game's Jacket as a hero, and very probably lots of levels where you go around killing gangsters with a variety of handheld weapons and firearms.

EVE: Valkyrie

Developer: CCP
Publisher: In-house
Release: 2014

Link:EVE: Valkyrie site

An Oculus Rift-enabled space dogfighting game is obviously something that needs to exist, and who better to make it than EVE: Online developers CCP? Little of Valkyrie has been shown off yet, but if it can live up to even half of its immense potential this is sure to be a Rift must-have.

Dying Light

Developer: Techland
Publisher: Warner Bros
Release: 2014

Link:Dying Light site

Techland's next zombie game might invite comparisons to their shambolic Dead Island series, but on first glance it has more in common with Mirror's Edge, asking you to run away from the undead horde – and climb up buildings, and parkour over rooftops – rather than slowly battering their heads in with a wooden paddle. You'll have to be more careful at night, as zombies become more aggressive when the sun is down.

A Hat In Time

Developer: Gears for Breakfast
Publisher: Joystiq
Release date: Mid 2014

Link:A Hat in Time

A vivid 'collectathon' platformer in the vein of Banjo Kazooie with an art style appropriated from The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker, A Hat in Time saw astonishing success on Kickstarter last year, raising $236,000 and massively overshooting their $30,000 target. An alpha build is due in February, and the developers will be adding Steam Workshop support to allow players to grow the game themselves.

Kingdoms Rise

Developer: Flyleap Studios
Publisher: In-house
Release Date: TBA

Link:Kingdoms Rise site

A multiplayer fantasy combat game featuring '360 degree swordfighting', something previously only achievable by militaristic owls. Based on available evidence, the game's duelling is actually pretty cool, letting you waggle your blade in any number of directions to block, parry, stab and slash your enemy into teeny tiny bits. There are also bows, magic spells and Blink-style teleporting – if you like War of the Roses but wish you could hurl fireballs, you might want to keep your eyes on Kingdoms Rise.

Dungeon Dashers

Developer: Jiqxor
Publisher: Jiqxor
Release Date: Early 2014

Link:Dungeon Dashers site

Turn-based dungeon crawlers tend to involve a lot of planning and trepidation, but – as the name may have clued you in – Dungeon Dashers wants to speed things up a bit. This top-down adventure whittles away the nested menus and fiddly interfaces, leaving a fast-paced, team-based dungeon crawler with a frankly adorable board game/miniatures aesthetic. As with so many games on this list, Dashers is currently on Steam Early Access – the final product aims to add online co-op and a Hardcore mode.

Speedrunners

Developer: DoubleDutch Games
Publisher: tinyBuild
Release Date: TBC 2014

Link:Speedrunners site

It was only a matter of time before someone made a game about speedrunning, and here we are with the aptly named Speedrunners. It's a four-player, competitive platformer featuring grappling hooks, and let's just take a minute to appreciate that glorious sentence. DoubleDutch and tinyBuild plan to release a single-player, offline version of the game for free – if you want the full, proper multiplayer version, you'll have to stump up some cash. Which is fair enough.

Mercenary Kings

Developer: Tribute Games
Publisher: In-house
Release Date: Early 2014

Link:Mercenary Kings site

Not enough games follow in the explosive footsteps of Contra and Metal Slug, so it's good news that Mercenary Kings half-exists (and will fully exist early this year). In development now, the sidescrolling shoot-'em-up adds crafting and online co-op into the mix. It doesn't hurt that Tribute Games made that Scott Pilgrim tie-in, and can endow this snappy action game with the same sort of exquisite pixel art.

Transistor

Developer: Supergiant Games
Publisher: In-house
Release: TBC 2014

Link:Supergiant site

Supergiant's next game after the sumptuous Bastion mixes real-time with turn-based battles, telling the story of a singer named Red who comes into possession of a sentient greatsword. We don't know much more than that yet, but we do know that composer Darren Korb is back on board, as is Logan 'Rucks' Cunningham. That's pretty much all we need to know, for now. It looks gorgeous.

Deus Ex Universe

Developer: Eidos Montreal
Publisher: Square Enix
Release date: TBA

Link:Deus Ex Universe

“Most of the team behind Deus Ex: Human Revolution is already working hard on this new game,” said Eidos Montreal head David Anfossi back in October, confirming that Deus Ex Universe’s series of interlocking Facebook/iOS games will include a proper big-budget game that we can play on our PCs. It will be part of a larger network of spin-off titles that’ll all play their part in an “ongoing, expanding and connected game world built across a generation of core games” which will include “additional Deus Ex games and experiences available in other media such as tablets, smartphones, books, graphic novels.” etc. A smattering of suspicious snorts accompanied that last particular snippet at PC Gamer towers, for who wants to hunt down a story through a disparate collection of formats? We’ll comfort ourselves with the knowledge that the team behind the excellent Deus Ex: Human Revolution is returning, and with the intriguing suggestion that “trans-humanism segregation” will be an important element of the new game.

Star Citizen

Developer: Cloud Imperium Games Corporation
Publisher: In-house
Release: November 2014

Link:Roberts Space Industries

The hype behind Chris Roberts' new project was phenomenal, to the tune of $35 million and rising. A spiritual successor to the likes of Wing Commander, Privateer, Freespace and their ilk, Star Citizen is one of the grandest experiments in a genre many considered to be dead. Trumping even Elite: Dangerous in the give-us-all-your-money stakes, the project has thus far sucked in cash like a supermassive black hole; if Roberts and co. use the resources wisely, Star Citizen could well turn out to be the biggest and most ambitious space sim ever made. So no pressure then.

Elite: Dangerous

Developer: Frontier Developments
Publisher: In-house
Release: 2014

Link:Frontier’s Elite site

David Braben is finally to make the Elite sequel everyone has been patiently waiting for since Frontier: First Encounters came along in 1995 and didn't work properly. With crowdfunded millions and possibly more from investors, this could be the starbound successor people have longed for. In the months since its rather sparse announcement, Braben and co. have released some promising videos and screenshots that indicate they’re on the right track. Between this and Star Citizen, it seems we may be heading for a new golden age of space sims.

Mad Max

Developer: Avalanche
Publisher: Warner Bros
Release: TBC 2014

Link:Mad Max site

An open world Mad Max game from the developers of Just Cause? You don't need to be Bolo Santosi to see the value in that. We've barely seen any of it so far, but Mad Max seems to fuse the the go anywhere, grapple-hook anything attitude of the Just Cause series with brutal weaponry, ammo scarcity, added car customisation and a significantly browner colour palette.

Mirror’s Edge 2

Developer: DICE
Publisher: EA
Release Date: TBA

Link:Mirror's Edge site

Mirror’s Edge 2 will be an open-world action adventure according to EA Labels president Frank Gibeau, who apparently used the term in the publisher’s E3 analyst call last June. It’ll be a prequel, too, telling the origin story of tattooed heroine Faith, pre-tattoo. The extent of the sandbox is currently unknown - all we’ve seen of the game a short trailer featuring a pair of gloved hands and lots of punching. But the change of direction has the chance to make a cult classic look like a practice run. Not least because Mirror’s Edge 2 runs on Frostbite 2, Battlefield 4’s engine. It particularly excels at physics, so you’ll get your money’s worth in shattering glass and billowing fabric.
"[Producer Sara Jansson] pitched an idea that frankly could only be built on gen four. It’s a stunning concept, and when she came to us we knew we had it. And yes, we've been testing ideas and we've been prototyping stuff, and I'm glad that we waited to get the right idea,” says Patrick Söderlund, executive vice president of the EA Games Label. “I was frankly blown away,” he says.

Grand Theft Auto 5

Developer: Rockstar
Publisher: In-house
Release: TBC

Link:GTA 5 site

There’s been no confirmation of Rockstar’s next blockbuster for PC, but it would be a world gone topsy-turvy if Grand Theft Auto 5 was marooned on consoles for ever. This isn’t Red Dead Redemption, a game developed by a studio with around three PC credits to its name – this is GTA, a series whose every main instalment has appeared on PC. And it’s developed by Rockstar North, a team that (even including its legacy as DMA Design) has brought all bar seven of its games to PC. And where are the internet petitions to port Walker over from the Amiga, I might ask?
One of the biggest releases of 2013, GTA 5 sees the player take on the role of three different characters trying to make a crust amid the tinseltown glamour and sunbaked squalor of Los Santos. And it’s an ill-gotten crust at that, given the series’ heritage of exuberant criminality: heists, hits and high-speed chases are the order of the day, interspersed with all the leisure activities a high-rolling hoodlum might desire. The game’s online component, GTA Online, lets you do all that but...online, expanding Red Dead Redemption’s brilliant multiplayer to envelop the entirety of Los Santos.

Watch Dogs

Developer Ubisoft
Publisher: In-house
Release date: Spring 2014

Link:Watch Dogs site

Though in recent years, Ubisoft has been happy to milk the Assassin’s Creed licence until its ruddy teats squeaked, let us not forget that the space-wizards-thru-history mega-franchise was born of huge creative risk: a new IP that cost so much develop that, rumour has it, sales didn’t cover the cost of development until its sequels were on shelves. Now, the same gigantic studio, Ubisoft Montreal, has unveiled Watch Dogs - a game with no smaller a scope than Assassin’s Creed, combining the complex sedition of information warfare with brutish third-person action and, it is suspected, with some sort of clever multiplayer/singleplayer crossover. It’s not only a showcase for the kind of polygon-crunching power the cutting edge PC can generate (finally loosed from the shackles of last-gen cross platform releases) but it also establishes a fiction that Ubisoft hopes will see it through the next decade.

Tom Clancy’s The Division

Developer: Ubisoft
Publisher: In-house
Release Date: TBA

Link:The Division site

A disease spread on Black Friday decimates the US in five days. As part of the Division, you are tasked with saving what remains. Go up against both AI and other players in Ubisoft’s hugely ambitious third-person shooter MMO. Expect meticulously designed environments courtesy of the promising new Snowdrop engine; expect ludicrous attention to detail (car windshields finally shatter like they should); just don’t expect it to come out any time soon. The Division will be done when it’s done, as Ubisoft’s recently delayed Rainbow Six: Patriots demonstrates.

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